one hand and held me with the other, and as fast as he took his foot out of one of these holes, our feet occupied it. After a quarter-of-an-hour’s climb in the snow desert, we arrived at the “Mer de Glace” and were filled with speechless admiration at the splendid panorama which spread before our eyes. We found ourselves in snow fairy-land. Oh, how high in the air I felt! The large continent of gleaming snow was a spectacle of silent majesty and infinite grandeur. Around us lay vast plains of untouched snow, a wonderful white world! The desert of ice that stretched far and wide about was like a sea whose deep waves had frozen solid. I have never before seen anything so impressive. Though very weary I climbed conscientiously, dragged up by the guide. The waves of ice were slippery and difficult to climb. We took our way across yawning and terrific crevices, up to our waist in snow, running the risk of being precipitated into the abyss. This mode of ascent must surely cool the ardour of the most enthusiastic Alpine climbers. All of a sudden we heard, not far off, the cracking of the ice, and suddenly an avalanche fell a few steps from us with a noise of rolling thunder. We had a near escape, thank God! Rapid torrents produced by the melting of the snows tossed all around us in cascades. I suffered from the so-called mountain sickness, and becoming exhausted with thirst, I stopped kneeling to drink greedily at a crevice from an icy stream; the water was deliciously cold and refreshing, but it was enough to make me catch my death of cold. Overcoming almost unsurmountable difficulties we arrived at the “Mauvais Pas,” the most dangerous part of the ascent, a break-neck path around the face of a precipice of fifty feet. We here had to plant our feet on a piece of rock as large as a cricket ball, on the very edge of a deep precipice and to creep insect-like. This infernal passage well deserves its name, it is really a veritable _Dante’s Hell_. The road is a mere shelf projecting along bottomless precipices. How to proceed became a puzzle. There was hardly room to stand upon our feet and nothing to hang on by but a thin iron rod to keep one’s equilibrium. I felt a nervous shudder come over me and the guide did not soothe my fears by the cool observation that a false step would send us headlong. I recommend that passage to persons searching for strong emotions. We reached the end of the dangerous passage safely; one last effort and the “Mauvais Pas” was got over. It took more than five hours to overcome all these difficulties. One minute more and I shouldn’t have been able to make another step. At last we reached the “Chapeau,” a sort of inn with a bar, serving as a shelter to Alpine climbers in case of bad weather. We found there a company of old fogies, wearing hideous hats with green veils and blue goggles. They appeared to be awful screws; finding that the milk offered to them was too expensive for their purses, they went themselves