What can one conclude, then, but that sun, frost, and water, have had infinitely more to do than glaciers with the fashioning of mountain-forms and valley-slopes? Who can refuse to believe that powers which are at work everywhere, which have been at work always, which are so incomparably active, capable, and enduring, must have produced greater effects than a solitary power which is always local in its influence, which has worked, _comparatively_, but for a short time, which is always slow and feeble in its operations, and which constantly diminishes in intensity? Yet there are some who refuse to believe that sun, frost, and water have played an important part in modelling the Alps, and hold it as an article of their faith that the Alpine region “owes its present conformation mainly to the action of its ancient glaciers”!(164) My reverie was interrupted by Croz observing that it was time to be off. Less than two hours sufficed to take us to the glacier plateau below (where we had left our baggage); three quarters of an hour more placed us upon the depression between the Grand Cornier and the Dent Blanche (Col du Grand Cornier(165)), and at 6 P.M. we arrived at Abricolla. Croz and Biener hankered after milk, and descended to a village lower down the valley; but Almer and I stayed where we were, and passed a chilly night on some planks in a half-burnt chalet.(166) CHAPTER XIII. THE ASCENT OF THE DENT BLANCHE. “God help thee, Trav’ller, on thy journey far; The wind is bitter keen,—the snow o’erlays The hidden pits, and dang’rous hollow-ways, And darkness will involve thee.—No kind star To-night will guide thee.”... H. KIRKE WHITE. Croz and Biener did not return until past 5 A.M. on June 17, and we then set out at once for Zermatt, intending to cross the Col d’Hérens. But we did not proceed far before the attractions of the Dent Blanche were felt to be irresistible, and we turned aside up the steep lateral glacier which descends along its south-western face. The Dent Blanche is a mountain that is little known except to the climbing fraternity. It was, and is, reputed to be one of the most difficult mountains in the Alps. Many attempts were made to scale it before its ascent was accomplished. Even Leslie Stephen himself, fleetest of foot of the whole Alpine brotherhood, once upon a time returned discomfited from it. [Illustration: LESLIE STEPHEN.] It was not climbed until 1862; but in that year Mr. T. S. Kennedy, with Mr. Wigram, and the guides Jean B. Croz(167) and Kronig, managed to conquer it. They had a hard fight though before they gained the victory; a furious wind and driving snow, added to the natural difficulties, nearly turned the scale against them.(168)