acier
itself is quite invisible from the road (and I had no mind for
extra work or scrambling), except just at the bottom, where the ice
appears in one or two places, being exactly of the colour of the
heaps of waste coal at the Newcastle pits, and admirably adapted
therefore to realize one's brightest anticipations of the character
and style of the Allee _Blanche_.

"The heap of its moraine conceals, for the two miles of its extent,
the entire range of Mont Blanc from the eye. At last you weather
the mighty promontory, cross the torrent which issues from its
base, and find yourself suddenly at the very foot of the vast slope
of torn granite, which from a point not 200 feet lower than the
summit of Mont Blanc, sweeps down into the valley of Cormayeur.

"I am quite unable to speak with justice--or think with
clearness--of this marvellous view. One is so unused to see a mass
like that of Mont Blanc without any snow that all my ideas and
modes of estimating size were at fault. I only felt overpowered by
it, and that--as with the porch of Rouen Cathedral--look as I
would, I could not _see_ it. I had not mind enough to grasp it or
meet it. I tried in vain to fix some of its main features on my
memory; then set the mules to graze again, and took my sketch-book,
and marked the outlines--but where is the use of marking contours
of a mass of endless--countless--fantastic rock--12,000 feet sheer
above the valley? Besides, one cannot have sharp sore-throat for
twelve hours without its bringing on some slight feverishness; and
the scorching Alpine sun to which we had been exposed without an
instant's cessation from the height of the col till now--i.e., from
half-past ten to three--had not mended the matter; my pulse was now
beginning slightly to quicken and my head slightly to ache--and my
impression of the scene is feverish and somewhat painful; I should
think like yours of the valley of Sixt."

So he finished his drawing, tramped down the valley after his mule, in
dutiful fear of increasing his cold, and found Cormayeur crowded, only
an attic _au quatrieme_ to be had. After trying to doctor himself with
gray pill, kali, and senna, Coutet cured his throat with an alum gargle,
and they went over the Col Ferret.

The courier Pfister had been sent to meet him at Martigny, and bring