had appeared at a distance. No difficulty indeed presented itself; and climbing upwards rapidly, in two hours from the Hörnli we were at the hut which in those days was generally made use of for passing the night previous to an ascent. This hut is built beneath the shelter of an overhanging cliff, on a narrow rock platform, and its position does not give one an idea of security. It is cramped, and when I saw it, was very dirty, and indeed looked altogether so uninviting, that I congratulated myself on having avoided a night in it. We found the stove useful, though, for cooking our breakfast. This hut has now been superseded by a larger building, erected lower down the mountain. We finished our breakfast, and set out once more. Hitherto, the work had been quite easy; but now came something stiffer, our first experience being on an ice-slope at an angle of perhaps forty-five degrees, overhanging the route by which we had ascended, and by which, had any false step been made, we should have returned somewhat hastily. A party that had gone up the day before spared us any step-cutting, for they had done their work so satisfactorily that quite a staircase remained for our use. We reached the top of the slope in safety; a knife-edge of snow led us to the right, and almost immediately we found ourselves upon the most difficult bit of the mountain, the northern face. Rounding the edge of the mountain, you look down, and below you, the face of the cliff falls away steeply, till it terminates in a drop of three thousand feet or more. Above, rises perpendicularly almost a succession of knobs of rock, overlapping one another, and more or less coated with snow and ice. The position may be rendered exciting enough to please any one by the addition of one or two incompetent individuals to the party. Our progress was slow but steady. Imboden would scan the face of the cliff, climb up a few feet, and when firmly fixed, call to me to follow, the operation then being repeated with the second guide. We sighted the summit at fifteen minutes past eight; and in less than two hours after leaving the hut we were on the highest point. The summit varies much, differing in shape with each successive season; and when we were there, it was a ridge of snow, narrow in places, broader in others, though nowhere was it possible to walk three abreast. We had a glorious view; but in this respect the Matterhorn is perhaps inferior to some of its neighbours, notably to Monte Rosa and the Dom.