had not met with more incidents of a similar description.(186) [Illustration: THE GRANDES JORASSES AND THE DOIRE TORRENT, FROM THE ITALIAN VAL FERRET.] CHAPTER XV. THE FIRST PASSAGE OF THE COL DOLENT. “Men willingly believe what they wish.”—CÆSAR. Freethinking mountaineers have been latterly in the habit of going up one side of an Alp and coming down the other, and calling the route a pass. In this confusion of ideas may be recognised the result of the looseness of thought which arises from the absence of technical education. The true believer abhors such heresies, and observes with satisfaction that Providence oftentimes punishes the offenders for their greediness by causing them to be benighted. The faithful know that passes must be made _between_ mountains, and not over their tops. Their creed declares that between any two mountains there _must_ be a pass, and they believe that the end for which big peaks were created—the office they are especially designed to fulfil—is to point out the way one should go. This is the true faith, and there is no other. We set out upon the 26th of June to endeavour to add one more to the passes which are strictly orthodox. We hoped, rather than expected, to discover a quicker route from Courmayeur to Chamounix than the Col du Géant, which was the easiest, quickest, and most direct pass known at the time across the main chain of Mont Blanc.(187) The misgivings which I had as to the result caused us to start at the unusual hour of 12.40 A.M. At 4.30 we passed the chalets of Prè du Bar, and thence, for some distance, followed the track which we had made upon the ascent of Mont Dolent, over the glacier of the same name (p. 182). At a quarter past 8 we arrived at the head of the glacier, and at the foot of the only steep gradient upon the whole of the ascent. It was the beau-ideal of a pass. There was a gap in the mountains, with a big peak on each side (Mount Dolent and the Aig. de Triolet). A narrow thread of snow led up to the lowest point between those mountains, and the blue sky beyond said, Directly you arrive here you will begin to go down. We addressed ourselves to our task, and at 10.15 A.M. arrived at the top of the pass.