he
Grands-Mulets, and await your return there."

"Bravo!" I replied. "I have just one guide too many, and I will
attach him to your person."

We bought the various articles indispensable to a journey across
the glaciers. Iron-spiked alpenstocks, coarse cloth leggings,
green spectacles fitting tightly to the eyes, furred gloves,
green veils,--nothing was forgotten. We each had excellent
triple-soled shoes, which our guides roughed for the ice. This
last is an important detail, for there are moments in such an
expedition when the least slip is fatal, not only to yourself,
but to the whole party with you.

Our preparations and those of the guides occupied nearly two
hours. About eight o'clock our mules were brought; and we set out
at last for the chalet of the Pierre-Pointue, situated at a
height of six thousand five hundred feet, or three thousand above
the valley of Chamonix, not far from eight thousand five hundred
feet below the summit of Mont Blanc.

On reaching the Pierre-Pointue, about ten o'clock, we found there
a Spanish tourist, M. N----, accompanied by two guides and a
porter. His principal guide, Paccard, a relative of the Doctor
Paccard who made, with Jacques Balmat, the first ascent of Mont
Blanc, had already been to the summit eighteen times. M. N----
was also getting himself ready for the ascent. He had travelled
much in America, and had crossed the Cordilleras to Quito,
passing through snow at the highest points. He therefore thought
that he could, without great difficulty, carry through his new
enterprise; but in this he was mistaken. He had reckoned without
the steepness of the inclinations which he had to cross, and the
rarefaction of the air. I hasten to add, to his honour, that,
since he succeeded in reaching the summit of Mont Blanc, it was
due to a rare moral energy, for his physical energies had long
before deserted him.

We breakfasted as heartily as possible at the Pierre-Pointue;
this being a prudent precaution, as the appetite usually fails
higher up among the ice.

[Illustration: View Of Bossons Glacier, Near The Grands-Mulets.]

M. N---- set out at eleven, with his guides, for the Grands-Mulets.
We did not start until noon. The mule-road ceases at the
Pierre-Pointue. We had then to go up a very narrow zigzag path,
which follows the edge of the Bossons glacier, and along the base
of the Aiguille-du-Midi. After an hour of difficult climbing in
an intense heat, we reached a point cal