est, is impotent in such matters; even paint fails to give
an adequate idea. We can do no more than run over a list of names.
From this commanding point of view Mont Blanc is visible in all his
majesty--vast, boundless, solemn, incomprehensible--with his Aiguilles
de Tour, d'Argentiere, Verte, du Dru, de Charmoz, du Midi, etcetera,
around him; his white head in the clouds, his glacial drapery rolling
into the vale of Chamouni, his rocks and his pine-clad slopes toned down
by distance into fine shadows. On the other side of the vale rise the
steeps of the Aiguilles Rouges and the Brevent. To the north towers the
Croix de Fer, and to the north-east is seen the entire chain of the
Bernese Alps, rising like a mighty white leviathan, with a bristling
back of pinnacles.

Splendid though the view was, however, Lewis did not for a moment forget
his mission. Allowing himself only a few minutes to drink it in, he
hastened back to the Tete-Noire path, and soon found himself traversing
a widely different scene. On the Col he had, as it were, stood aloof,
and looked abroad on a vast and glorious region; now, he was involved in
its rocky, ridgy, woody details. Here and there long vistas opened up
to view, but, for the most part, his vision was circumscribed by
towering cliffs and deep ravines. Sometimes he was down in the bottom
of mountain valleys, at other times walking on ledges so high on the
precipice-faces, that cottages in the vales below seemed little bigger
than sheep. Now the country was wooded and soft; anon it was barren and
rocky, but never tame or uninteresting.

At one place, where the narrow gorge was strewn with huge boulders,
Antoine pointed out a spot where two Swiss youths had been overwhelmed
by an avalanche. It had come down from the red gorges of the Aiguilles
Rouges, at a spot where the vale, or pass, was comparatively wide.
Perhaps its width had induced the hapless lads to believe themselves
quite safe from anything descending on the other side of the valley. If
so, they were mistaken; the dreadful rush of rock and wrack swept the
entire plain, and buried them in the ruin.

Towards evening the travellers reached Martigny in good time for the
train, which speedily conveyed them to Saxon.

This town is the only one in Switzerland--the only one, indeed, in
Europe with the exception of Monaco--which possesses that great blight
on civilisation, a public gambling-table. That the blight is an
unusuall