alt in the hope of witnessing the fall of the
avalanche, but in vain. As the day was advancing, and it was not
prudent to tarry in these icy solitudes, we decided to continue
on our way, and about five o'clock we reached the hut of the
Grands-Mulets.

After a bad night, attended by fever caused by the sunstrokes
encountered in our expedition, we made ready to return to
Chamonix; but, before setting out, we inscribed the names of our
guides and the principal events of our journey, according to the
custom, on the register kept for this purpose at the Grands-Mulets.

About eight o'clock we started for Chamonix. The passage of the
Bossons was difficult, but we accomplished it without accident.

[Illustration: Grands-Mulets.--Party Descending From The Hut.]

Half an hour before reaching Chamonix, we met, at the chalet of
the Dard falls, some English tourists, who seemed to be watching
our progress. When they perceived us, they hurried up eagerly to
congratulate us on our success. One of them presented us to his
wife, a charming person, with a well-bred air. After we had given
them a sketch of our perilous peregrinations, she said to us, in
earnest accents,--

"How much you are envied here by everybody! Let me touch your
alpenstocks!"

These words seemed to interpret the general feeling.

The ascent of Mont Blanc is a very painful one. It is asserted
that the celebrated naturalist of Geneva, De Saussure, acquired
there the seeds of the disease of which he died in a few months
after his return from the summit. I cannot better close this
narrative than by quoting the words of M. Markham Sherwell:--

"However it may be," he says, in describing his ascent of Mont
Blanc, "I would not advise any one to undertake this ascent, the
rewards of which can never have an importance proportionate to
the dangers encountered by the tourist, and by those who
accompany him."

THE END.

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