my questioners’ amazement, my answer has always been a decided “No.” As a matter of fact, Mont Blanc, as seen from the Brévant or the Flégère, excels in every way any view I have ever enjoyed of Mount Everest. It is true that I have seen the latter only from a tableland which is itself from 14,000 to 16,000 feet above sea-level, and that I know nothing of the wonderful sight that Mount Everest probably presents to the observer from the Southern (Nepalese) side. The grandeur of a mountain depends very largely upon the extent to which it is glaciated. Mont Blanc is nearly 16,000 feet high, and its glaciers descend to within 4,000 feet of sea-level—a vertical zone of 12,000 feet of perpetual ice and snow. Those glaciers of Mount Everest which flow North, and thus the only ones with which we are concerned, descend to a point about 16,500 feet above sea-level—a vertical zone of 12,500 feet of perpetual ice and snow. Thus it is evident that, from the point of view of vertical extent of glaciation, there is little difference between the monarch of the Alps and the Northern side of the highest summit in the world. From the point of view of beauty there can be no comparison. Seen from one quarter, Mont Blanc rises in a series of snowy domes piled one against the other in ever-increasing altitude to a massive yet beautifully proportioned and well-balanced whole. From another side we see great converging granite columns, breathing the essence of noble purpose, proudly supporting and lifting aloft to the sun the gleaming, snowy-capped splendour of the summit dome. Another view-point, though revealing perhaps a less beautiful Mont Blanc, lacking much of the graceful symmetry and strong, purposeful design of the other views, is redeemed by the fact that the observer is forced in so close to the mountain that the rattling din of stonefalls and the loud crash of the ice-avalanche are always in his ears. Mont Blanc asserts her authority with no uncertain voice. In the Mount Everest as we of this Expedition know it, revealed in the full glare of the tropical sun, all this is lacking. Symmetry and beauty cannot truthfully be read out of the ponderous, ungainly, ill-proportioned lump which carries, as if by chance, on its Western extremity a little carelessly truncated cone to serve as a summit. Avalanches are neither seen nor heard. Falling stones there are without doubt, but one is too far off to hear them. Yet Everest had her moments. Diffused with the borrowed glory of sunrise or sunset, and clad in a mantle of fresh snow, the harsh clumsiness of her form would be somewhat softened and concealed; bathed in the yellow-blue light of dawn, as yet unkissed by the sun, but whipped into wakefulness by a driving westerly wind that tore from head and shoulders the snowy veil which she had donned during the night, rending it into long, spun-out living streamers, no beholder could gainsay her beauty. [Illustration: MOUNT EVEREST FROM BASE CAMP. ]