Once over, Franz told us how his father was accustomed to descend the ice shoot; planting his heels firmly in the snow and placing his pole under his right arm and leaning the entire weight of his body upon it he came down with the swiftness of an arrow, his body almost in a sitting posture, his heels and the spiked end of his pole alone touching the ice and deeply indenting it. "It happened," said Franz, "that my father was showing a small company of travellers to the summit, when a sudden fancy seized one of them to make the descent in that way. My father expostulated, and told him that it required practice and skill, that but few of the guides would undertake it. He would not be deterred, feeling, as he said, sure that he could do anything performed by another. Seeing that he was determined, my father helped him to adjust his pole, and then shut his eyes." "And what then?" I asked, as Franz stopped and looked in the direction of the Mer de Glace. "There was no help for him," said Franz; "he was buried at the foot of the mountain." Having reached the summit, the scene that burst upon us was sublime in the highest degree; immediately beneath was the Mer de Glace, a broad river of ice running nearly forty miles up into the Alps; to the north the green valley of Chamouni, to the south the gigantic barriers that separate Savoy from Piedmont, and around us inaccessible peaks and mountains of eternal snow, finely contrasting with the deep blue of the heavens; while the roar of cataracts and the thunder of avalanches were the only sounds that broke upon the profound stillness of the terrible solitude. On the summit of the mountain we found an inn or hospice. We entered and warmed ourselves, neither did we refuse the black bread and glass of sour wine that were presently brought to us. As we sat by the fire a small table was brought near us, and on it lay the album in which we were expected to enter our names. Many notable autographs we found here, and despite the gladness we felt in adding ours to the number, there was still a sad, desolate thought: those most distinguished had all passed away. The mountains remained, their glory undiminished; but the human beings climbing their heights, and exulting in the grandeur of heaven and earth, had vanished like the mist wreath. Years would pass and other feet would cross the slippery fields, other eyes look out upon the work of God's hands, other names be traced, and we, like the throng before us, be gone--no longer to look upon the created, but the Creator.