ternoon (July_ 29, 1849).

"MY DEAREST FATHER,

"(Put the three sheets in order first, 1, 2, 3, then read this,
front and _back_, and then 2, and then 3, front and back.) You and
my mother were doubtless very happy when you saw the day clear up
as you left St. Martin's. Truly it was impossible that any day
could be more perfect towards its close. We reached Nant Bourant at
twelve o'clock, or a little before, and Coutet having given his
sanction to my wish to get on, we started again soon after one--and
reached the top of the Col de Bonhomme about five. You would have
been delighted with that view--it is one upon those lovely seas of
blue mountain, one behind the other, of which one never
tires--this, fortunately, westward--so that all the blue ridges and
ranges above Conflans and Beaufort were dark against the afternoon
sky, though misty with its light; while eastward a range of snowy
crests, of which the most important was the Mont Iseran, caught the
sunlight full upon them. The sun was as warm, and the air as mild,
on the place where the English travellers sank and perished, as in
our garden at Denmark Hill on the summer evenings. There is,
however, no small excuse for a man's losing courage on that pass,
if the weather were foul. I never saw one so literally pathless--so
void of all guide and help from the lie of the ground--so
embarrassing from the distance which one has to wind round mere
brows of craggy precipice without knowing the direction in which
one is moving, while the path is perpetually lost in heaps of
shale or among clusters of crags, even when it is free of snow.
All, however, when I passed was serene, and even beautiful--owing
to the glow which the red rocks had in the sun. We got down to
Chapiu about seven--itself one of the most desolately-placed
villages I ever saw in the Alps. Scotland is in no place that I
have seen, so barren or so lonely. Ever since I passed Shapfells,
when a child, I have had an excessive love for this kind of
desolation, and I enjoyed my little square chalet window and my
chalet supper exceedingly (mutton with garlic)."

He then confesses that he woke in the night with a sore throat, but
struggled on next day down the Allee Blanche to Cormayeur.

"I never saw such a mighty heap of stones and dust. The gl