ascades,
and glaciers: it was literally alps on alps. The top of the great
waterfall was still far above us; and it gave me a very good idea of
its altitude, when, after more than an hour's ascent, I found that we
were still beneath the level of the glacier from whence it is
supplied. About two hours were occupied in ascending the first series
of precipices, above which patches of snow are met with. Our course
now lay through a kind of vertical gully nearly filled with snow. Up
this we scrambled, taking advantage of the hardness of the snow to
make it our path. Above us rose tremendous precipices, terminating in
jagged peaks, on which my guide with his practised eye discerned a
herd of izzards. I saw them remarkably well through my telescope,
balanced, like aerial creatures, on the giddy heights, one amongst
them evidently acting as sentinel. It was beautiful to witness their
wild attitudes, ready, at a moment's warning from their watchful
leader, to bound from crag to crag, or descend the awful precipices,
where man's foot has never been.

My guide, whose heart was evidently more in the hunting than in his
present business, became half wild with excitement at the sight of
these izzards. It was the largest herd he had seen that year, and,
with many a _sacre_, he bemoaned his fate that he should be without
his rifle; though I endeavoured to convince him that there was nothing
to regret, as he could not at the same time hunt izzards and conduct
me to the Breche.

We now fairly lost sight of the Cirque, and were in the midst of snow
and glaciers which covered a steep, inclined about forty-five degrees.
The surmounting of this slope was a most fatiguing affair for me, as
the snow was very slippery, and it happened that I retrograded nearly
as often as I advanced. This part of the ascent occupied about an
hour. My guide now turned to the left, for the purpose of crossing a
glacier, the inclination of which is so great that it is the next
thing to impossible to ascend it. The passage over this glacier,
beyond which lies the Breche, is by far the most dangerous part of the
undertaking. At the place where we encountered it, its breadth may be
about four hundred yards; but throughout, its inclination is such that
the slightest false step would prove fatal, for beneath are precipices
of fearful depth. Here crampons are used. I was fairly exhausted when
I came to the edge of this glacier, and despite the protestations of
my gui