It would be almost an easier task to say what he has not done than to catalogue his achievements. Invariable success attends his arms; he leads his followers to victory, but not to death. I believe that no serious accident has ever befallen travellers in his charge. Like his friend Almer, he can be called a _safe_ man. It is the highest praise that can be given to a first-rate guide. [Illustration: MELCHIOR ANDEREGG IN 1864.] Early in the afternoon we found ourselves in the little inn at La Grave, on the great Lautaret road, a rickety, tumble-down sort of place, with nothing stable about it, as Moore wittily remarked, except the smell.(99) Melchior had gone, and had left behind a note which said, “I think the passage of the Brèche is possible, but that it will be very difficult.” His opinion coincided with ours, and we went to sleep, expecting to be afoot about eighteen or twenty hours on the morrow. At 2.40 the next morning we left La Grave, in a few minutes crossed the Romanche, and at 4 A.M. got to the moraine of the eastern branch of the glacier that descends from the Brèche.(100) The rocks by which we intended to ascend were placed between the two branches of this glacier, and still looked smooth and unbroken. By 5 o’clock we were upon them, and saw that we had been deluded by them. No carpenter could have planned a more convenient staircase. They were _not moutonnée_, their smooth look from a distance was only owing to their singular firmness. [It was really quite a pleasure to scale such delightful rocks. We felt the stone held the boot so well, that, without making a positive effort to do so, it would be almost impossible to slip.] In an hour we had risen above the most crevassed portion of the glacier, and began to look for a way on to it. Just at the right place there was a patch of old snow at the side, and, instead of gaining the ice by desperate acrobatic feats, we passed from the rocks on to it as easily as one walks across a gangway. At half-past 6 we were on the centre of the glacier, and the inhabitants of La Grave turned out _en masse_ into the road, and watched us with amazement as they witnessed the falsification of their confident predictions. Well might they stare, for our little caravan, looking to them like a train of flies on a wall, crept up and up, without hesitation and without a halt—lost to their sight one minute as it dived into a crevasse, then seen again clambering up the other side. The higher we rose the easier became the work, the angles lessened, and our pace increased. The snow remained shadowed, and we walked as easily as on a high road; and when (at 7.45) the summit of the Brèche was seen, we rushed at it as furiously as if it had been a breach in the wall of a fortress, carried the moat by a dash, with a push behind and a pull before, stormed the steep slope above, and at 8.50 stood in the little gap, 11,054 feet above the level of the sea. The Brèche was won.