th-westerly course, we found ourselves
in a perfect paradise of flowers. One orchis I shall always regret.
There seemed to be only a single head, closely packed with flowerets,
and strongly scented; it was a pure white, not the green and
straw-coloured white of other scented orchises. There were large patches
of the delicate _faux-lis (Paradisia liliastrum)_; and though there
might not be anything very rare, and the lovely glacier-flowers were of
course wanting, the whole was a rich feast for anyone who cares more for
delicacy and colour than for botany.

The maire told us that he had found the glaciere, for which we were now
in search, two years before, when he accompanied the government surveyor
to show him the forests and mountains which formed his property. As he
had on that occasion approached the spot from the other side, we walked
a long way to place him exactly where the surveyor and he had crossed
the ridge of the mountain, and then started him down from the Col in the
direction they had taken. He was certain of two things: first, that
they had passed by the Col between the Mont Parmelan and the Montagne de
l'Eau; and, secondly, that the glaciere was within five minutes of the
highest point of the Col. For three-quarters of an hour we all broke our
shins, and the officials the Third Commandment. They invoked more saints
than I had ever heard of, and, in default, did not scruple to appeal
with shocking volubility to darker aid. It was all of no use,--and well
it might be; for when we had given it up in despair, after long patience
and a considerable period of the contrary, and had descended for half an
hour in the direction of a third glaciere, I chanced to look back, and
saw that the Col in the neighbourhood of which we had been searching lay
between two points of the Montagne de l'Eau; while the true Col between
that mountain and the Mont Parmelan lay considerably to the west. When
it appears that a guide has probably made a mistake, the only plan is to
assume quietly that it is so, as if it were a matter of no consequence,
and then he may sometimes be decoyed into allowing the fact: I therefore
pointed out to the maire the true Col, and told him that was the one by
which he had passed southwards, when he found the glaciere; to which,
with unnecessary strength of language, he at once assented. But all my
efforts to take him back were unavailing. Nothing in the world should
carry him up the mountain again, now t