Milking was over when we returned to the chalet, which now contained four men exclusive of myself and my guide. A fire of pine logs was made upon a platform of stone, elevated three feet above the floor; there was no chimney, as the smoke found ample vent through the holes and fissures in the sides and roof. The men were all intensely sunburnt, the legitimate brown deepening into black with beard and dirt. The chief senner prepared supper, breaking eggs into a dish, and using his black fingers to empty the shell when the albumen was refractory. A fine erect figure he was as he stood in the glowing light of the fire. All the men were smoking, and now and then a brand was taken from the fire to light a renewed pipe, and a ruddy glare flung thereby over the wild countenance of the smoker. In one corner of the chalet, and raised high above the ground, was a large bed, covered with clothes of the most dubious black-brown hue; at one end was a little water-wheel turned by a brook, which communicated motion to a churndash which made the butter. The beams and rafters were covered with cheeses, drying in the warm smoke. The senner, at my request, showed me his storeroom, and explained to me the process of making cheese, its interest to me consisting in its bearing upon the question of slaty cleavage. Three gigantic masses of butter were in the room, and I amused my host by calling them butter-glaciers. Soon afterwards a bit of cotton was stuck in a lump of grease, which was placed in a lantern, and the wick ignited; the chamois-hunter took it, and led the way to our resting-place, I having previously declined a good-natured invitation to sleep in the big black bed already referred to. [Sidenote: AN ALPINE CHALET. 1856.]