and short spade whiskers of a night-black--the fifth, this Spaniard, did not relapse into silence, for he had never uttered a word since we started. What weariness to the flesh is this tedious climb to regions hyperborean! I catch myself yawning. What if our waggon were to break down! At last one of the Frenchmen bursts out, "_Dieu de Dieu, j'en ai assez_." He would stand or rather sit it no longer, opened the door, and alighted. We all followed his example, even to the taciturn Spaniard, and took to the road. A walk in advance might send the blood circulating, and on we plodded in the middle of the path, regardless of the snow which soaked into our boots and saturated our trousers to the knees. Not a living being was visible but two crows who bore us company, and hopped on our flanks like a covering-party. The road was tantalizing in its tortuousness; after walking a furlong we found ourselves a couple of yards directly above the point we had quitted a quarter of an hour before. One of the Frenchmen, seeing this, had an inspiration; he determined to go up the mountain perpendicularly, and before we could dissuade him he had sunk to his armpits in a treacherous crevasse. We dragged him out by making a cable of our pocket-handkerchiefs and throwing it to him. He took his wetting in good part. "Ah!" he cried, "shan't I have something to tell them when I get back to the Boulevard des Italiens." And then, as if reflecting, he added, "But no, 'twill never do; they'd call me _farceur_."