The northern slope of Mont Blanc is hollowed into a vast cavernous
channel, half filled with glaciers, and edged on the east by the Mont
Maudit, the Aiguille de Saussure, and the Aiguille du Midi, and on the
west by the Dome and Aiguille du Gouter and the Gros Bechat. Down this
tremendous gutter crowd the eternal snows of Mont Blanc, compressed
toward the bottom into the Glacier des Bossons and the Glacier de
Taconnaz. These immense ice streams are separated by the projecting nose
of the Montagne de la Cote, which rises from the valley of Chamonix and
lies in a long, dark ridge on the foot of Mont Blanc. Above the Montagne
de la Cote several gigantic rock masses, shooting into pinnacles, push
up through the ice from the bottom and near the centre of the channel.
These are called the Grands Mulets, from the resemblance which they
present, when seen from Chamonix, to a row of huge black mules tramping
up the white mountain side.

[Illustration: THE GLACIER DES BOSSONS, MONT BLANC.]

I mention these features because the best route to the summit of Mont
Blanc lies over the glaciers and snow fields and between the walls of
the great trough I have described, and the first station is at the
Grands Mulets, where a cabin for the accommodation of climbers has
existed for many years. From the foot of the Aiguille du Midi, at the
Pierre a l'Echelle, across the Glacier des Bossons to the rocks of the
Grands Mulets the distance is about a mile and a quarter, and the
perpendicular increase of elevation nearly two thousand feet. The
passage seldom presents any difficulty, except to inexperienced persons,
although at times many crevasses must be crossed, particularly at what
is called the Junction, just above the point where the Glacier des
Bossons and the Glacier de Taconnaz are divided by the Montagne de la
Cote. Here some underlying irregularity of the rocks, deep beneath the
surface of the mighty river of ice, causes the formation of a labyrinth
of fissures and crevasses, overhung with towering seracs, or ice
turrets; and the ice descends between the Grands Mulets and the rock
wall in front of the Gros Bechat in a sort of motionless
cascade--motionless, that is to say, except when cracks break apart into
yawning chasms, and massive blocks tumble into the depths.

Even a practised climber is occasionally compelled to look to his steps
in passing the Junction. On my return I witnessed an accident in this
place which proved at the s