with snow, the surface of which is smooth and slippery, so that if once thrown off our feet, by a false step, we should probably have glided down an inclined plane of more than 900 feet, and then have plunged into a deep chasm at the foot. It was, therefore, very needful to be cautious, but the acclivity was by no means steep enough to produce any thing like giddiness. While we were ascending La Côte, the sun beat incessantly upon our heads, and our feet and ancles were constantly buried in snow. This, with the increasing rarefaction of the air, produced an intense head-ache, and that sort of universal uncomfortableness which generally ushers in an attack of intermittent fever. Long before reaching the top, our shoes, gaiters, &c. were frozen into one solid mass, so that the iron pike, at the end of the ice pole, would scarcely bend the leather. This incasement of our feet in icy boxes was very annoying, rendering it extremely difficult to move the ancles at all, and giving some slight sense of painful contraction at every footstep. Perhaps double upper leathers would be useful both to prevent the penetration of the snow, and to lessen the painful effect of striking the upper part of the foot against the thin exterior crust of ice in walking. In the most dangerous passes the guide judged it indispensable to cut wide footsteps with the axe. It is difficult to imagine how fatiguing this labour proved. I asked Simeon about how many steps he thought we had made? He fancied more than 400 steps, or rather holes broken with the axe. Julien's strength and invincible perseverance were here quite invaluable, but it was almost too laborious even for him. After cutting a path across an icy couloir, Julien, utterly exhausted, gave up the axe to Simeon Tournier, also a very willing, active, able guide. Tournier cut about twenty steps, and then was wholly out of breath. He called out to Julien, "Je ne peux plus," and returned the hatchet to him. The tediousness of the passage may be conceived. Simeon was generally before me, having my cord in his hand, but not fastened round him. This was judged better than tying ourselves together, from the belief that, if an avalanche came upon us, we should be more at liberty.* Whenever we came to a dead halt for four or five minutes, which was very often the case, 1 begged Simeon to make a round hole n the snow; in this little cold lair I sat down and was asleep in an instant. I had too much head-ache to attend to any appearance of danger; my ideas seemed confined to these two objects, to place my foot rather cautiously, and to keep steadily onward without thinking about any surrounding danger. Young Michel Devouassou, one of the four who had never been to the summit, was behind ine. He suffered more than the rest from inflammation of the eyes, but was nevertheless extremely kind and obliging, and often gave me a moment's rest by placing his baton under my foot. Every now and then Simeon gave me one raisin or one prune, and a handful of snow, which liberal allowance I received most gratefully. In truth, before gaining the summit of this slope I felt quite worn out and exhausted. At this moment I can hardly help laughing to think, that the difference between a raisin and a prune appeared something important. The mere trouble of chewing off the pulp and rejecting the stone of the prune was rather formidable. Raisins are preferable. No man that has walked up La Côte will smile at this distinction. Beginning to draw near the Rocher Rouge, we observed, with no small surprise, that we were not the only travellers in these lofty regions. Two large birds appeared flying before us; they were black, and the quick eye of the guides made out that their feet and beaks were red. They were most probably * I have some doubts, however, whether it would not be better to be lashed together even here. But instead of a thick rope, such as we had, it should rather be a very light strong cord than a rope. Had the whole party been tied together in the accident of 1820, would more lives have been lost, or fewer? I should rather incline to think that all would have been saved. The guides, however, thought other wise. a large variety of what we call the Cornish chough, the Corvus graculus of Linnæus. They seemed to fly heavily in the thin air, but were soon out of sight and hid by a portion of the mountain. Dr. Paccard told me he had seen one in his first ascent; but Coutet, who had been up six times, said he had very rarely seen any bird so high. As we were very laboriously making a path to ward the Rocher Rouge, and beginning seriously to doubt the possibility of reaching the summit time enough to re-descend before night, Julien observed a passage which seemed to lead more directly upward than the common track. So far as we knew, no human footstep had ever passed across this part of the mountain, but, as every moment was most precious, it was resolved to try it at all hazards. We then avoided the Rocher Rouge altogether, leaving it about five hundred feet on our left hand, which I believe had never before been attempted, although it abbreviates the ascent considerably; a little severe climbing, and we found ourselves almost unexpectedly close to the Petit Mulet, the loftiest uncovered rock in the direct passage from Chamouni to the summit. It seems to be the summit of a colossal needle, of which the apex protrudes only a few feet above the snow. And now our long labour began to feel its reward. Here the plains of lovely Italy suddenly burst upon us. Already the eye roamed over a landscape extensive and varied beyond thought. Fatigued, faint, exhausted, and in pain as we were, I think no one regretted his toil one instant. We could now see before us the whole remaining interval to the summit; but on looking up to it, I did not yet feel quite sure of success; we had still many a weary footstep before reaching it. Hitherto we had felt scarcely a breath of air; perfect calm reigned below; but the wind now came upon us most bitterly cold, and drove a quantity of fine snow from the summit full in our faces. For a moment or two we were glad to crouch under the rocks of the Petit Mulet to escape the piercing blast: but there was no time for rest, and we hurried forward. When Dr. Paccard arrived at this spot, his hat was blown off by a sudden gust of wind, and he had the pleasure to see it wafted down several thousand feet on the Italian side toward Courmayeur, and it is probably still safe and snug in some deep crevice. Lest our hats should go to join company with his, they were additionally secured with string. Our fingers were half frozen, notwithstanding the protection of gloves, mittens, &c. but we had no leisure to think of these trifling annoyances. Honest Pierre Tairraz kept up his cheerful smile, though he evidently suffered not a little. Pierre, Julien, and I advanced arm in arm, to keep one another steady. The snow was now no longer soft; the external crust bore our weight, and it was necessary to strike the foot very firmly into the hardened snow. stem the wind, and make a few feet progress at every start. In a few minutes With the greatest exertion we could hardly we changed the arrangement. Worthy Simeon came to take place of honest Pierre Tairraz, and again we set forward. Every two or three minutes we all sunk down on the snow, quite breathless, and scarcely able to utter a word. My excellent friend, with his guide, was close to us, but in this rarefied atmosphere, at a small distance, we could not hear one another speak without great exertion. The voice sounded thin and distant. We all know the sound of a bell, in a half-exhausted receiver, upon the air-pump. I should no more have thought of calling to a guide fifty yards from me, than a man on Ben Lomond would do to a friend on the opposite summit of the Cobler. One of the guides had some hæmorrhage from an accidental blow, not from simple rarefaction of the air. The blood appeared to me decidedly of a darker colour than natural; our lips were quite blue; our faces extremely contracted and pale, and the eyes very much sunk, with a deep dark zone beneath the lower eyelids; but no one had the least spontaneous hæmorrhage See Systema Naturæ, tom. i. p. 377. Corvus violaceo nigricans rostro pedibusque rubris. Habitat in Alpibus Helveticis et Noricis, Anglia, Scotia, &c. from the gums, or eyes. Every start we cast a longing look at the summit, and then holding our heads low, pressed onward, till the feeling of exhaustion became irresistible, and we sunk again quite flat and still upon the snow. I had a slight tendency to nausea, most overwhelming head-ache, some pain of the breast, and rather feared the rupture of a blood-vessel, having been subject to hæmoptysis when a boy, but this pain and the rapid beating of the heart went off when we stopped to rest. When we were within a hundred yards of the summit, I felt, in addition to other unpleasant sensations, a strong tendency to faint, greater than I ever remember to have had, except once from bleeding. Even then I was uncertain whether my strength would hold out to the last. Simeon said, that about this spot, Mr. Jackson, who ascended in 1823, was quite exhausted, and cried out Laissez moi ici. Je ne peux plus.' Yet he was, perhaps, one of the most robust men who ever attempted the excursion. Good Simeon was still vigorous and cheerful. Courage, Monsieur ! Presque arrivé! Presque en haut! Allons! Again we set forward; again we all three sunk breathless with our faces on the snow. Combien de fois, Simeon? Deux seulement.' We rested an extra minute;-then one desperate struggle, in which every fibre was strained to bursting;—and then at last the exulting shout: "Nous avons vaincu le Mont Blanc !" My amiable friend, Captain Sherwill, arrived at the instant, and we all sunk down together upon the summit in perfect silence. "C'etoit la plus forte sensation de ma vie." In a few moments we were able to attend to the strange scenes around and beneath us. Simeon sat by my side; and we crowded close, so as to form a snug little circle; while Coutet proceeded to deliver a short lecture on geography, to a very small audience, perched on the utmost pinnacle of Europe.* We are reluctantly compelled to postpone the conclusion of this narrative till our next number. PICCADILLY SONNETS. No. 1. TIME, Five o'clock,-Morning. SILENT is Piccadilly! Save the roll Of some retiring carriage from some rout, Away from dull Saint Stephen's frequent shout Now through the cold grey tint of sky the sun Warns me that London's waking hour is near. The mountain has been here some thousand years, I take it. During that period there have been recorded just a dozen excursions to the summit of it. By an odd enough coincidence this happens to complete the half-dozen English visits. It is clearly hazardous for persons predisposed to pulmonary disease to take this ramble. Though I had no hæmoptysis at the time, yet the uncasy feeling in the chest continued many days, and when standing on the Lake of Geneva, taking a last long farewell of the Mountain, a small blood-vessel suddenly burst, and for some time I expected to pay rather dearly for the whim. It was currently mentioned at Chamouni that, some years ago, one or two persons had died of consumption soon after an ascent, but such an occurrence demonstrates nothing. No. 2. Twelve o'clock,-Noon. Ladies and tea-pots, Sevres china, toast, Tell us 'tis morning-Some folks call it noon; Franks, letters, newspapers-through the saloon Then all burst forth-" Well, who d'ye think is dead? No. 3. Two o'clock,-Afternoon. "What shall we do?"—" I'm off to Tattersall's." Pray, John, has Mr. Owen brought the shawls?" "Whose cab is that?'-"It used to be Hughes Ball's." "He's gone-to sleep in Brookes's window."-"Pooh !" "Tell me what woman that is."-" Lady Stone." · I don't go to her parties."-"No!"-" Do you?" Her sister always stays at home alone, Making a horrid sonnet or a shoe." No. 4. Four o'clock. The day drags on to Howell's some repair, June-VOL. XVI. NO. LXVI. 2 R No. 5. Eight o'clock. Dinner-a party-what! arrived at eight! "Will you allow me?"-"You must taste this dish." No. 6. Twelve o'clock,-Night. Six crowded lines of carriages proclaim Who tired of waiting through the crowd without, "Through straight, rough, dense, swims, wades, or creeps" about: Echoes the lighted stair with many a name Miscall'd-you enter-through the deafening hum SKETCHES OF PARISIAN SOCIETY, POLITICS, & LITERATURE. Paris, May 20th. I MET the other day an English gentleman, an old friend just arrived from London. He tells me that no idea is entertained in Englaud of such a thing as the existence of the monastic order of the Jesuits in France. If this be the case, some of my recent letters must have appeared very absurd to you. While Louis XVIII. reigned, there was still a bare possibility of describing to a foreigner the state of our literature, without touching on politics. But with Charles X. we got the three per cents with a threat of extinguishing the fives, the indemnity for the emigrants, and, finally, not merely the existence, but, if we except their not being in the Ministry, the omnipotence of the Jesuits. The talent of the nation seems now to have no other employment than to deride the Jesuits, and to give in every possible way a hint to the royal family, that they may soon expect to be sent on a journey like that taken by your James II. In looking over the weekly catalogue of books printed in France, I do not find one worth mentioning which has not some relation to the Jesuits or to politics. It is therefore no fault of mine, if, contrary to my wish, these letters, which ought to be confined to This Catalogue, which forms a journal, affords a striking example of the accuracy of M. Bouchet. |