Soon after the snow had set in, we heard, from below, yells and screams, and immediately guessed that the caravan from Sous had brought news to our guides at the Saint’s tomb of our escapade towards the summit of the pass. The guess was correct; and though we pushed on rather faster than before, the foremost guide soon overtook us, and addressing himself especially to Maw, who led the way during the ascent, with vehement gestures and emphatic phrases, that seemed to combine threats and injunctions with supplication, urged an immediate return. Maw judiciously had recourse to an argument of universal efficacy, and, presenting the man with a piece of silver, pointed upwards and strove to explain, by signs, that we meant to go to the top and then return. Shortly afterwards, the second man appeared, panting from the pace at which he had run up the steep ascent. He addressed himself to Ball, who came next to Maw, but was answered by the same reasoning that had prevailed with his companion. The upper part of the ravine was wider than it had been below, and the slope rather less steep. Here, as throughout the upper valley, porphyries and porphyritic tuffs of a prevailing red colour, form the mass of the ridge; but we observed at several points intrusive masses of diorite, sometimes much resembling granite in appearance. Higher up, near the summit of the ridge, Maw noticed white crystalline limestone, of no great extent, which appeared to be intercalated with the porphyrites. To collect plants was now scarcely possible, for the snow covered the surface, and it was necessary to kick it away from the tufts of grass or dwarf bushes, in order to ascertain what might be growing beneath. The wind, which had hitherto spared us, now joined itself to the opposing forces, driving the snow with blinding force, and making the cold, already severe, well nigh intolerable. The poor fellows who had for some way followed us without further remonstrance, now renewed with redoubled energy their appeal that we should return. Kissing the hem of our coats at one moment, brandishing their arms with passionate gestures, or actually pulling us back at another, they really impressed us more by their pitiable appearance, exposed with the slightest covering to the bitter blast, their feet and bare legs cut and bleeding from the rocks and thorny bushes of the way.