SCRAMBLES AMONGST THE ALPS.

237

This aspect of Mont Blanc is not new, but from this pointits pose is unrivalled, and it has all the superiority of apicture grouped by the hand of a master. . . . The viewis as extensive, and far more lovely than that from Mont Blanc itself.]*

We went down to Courmayeur , and on the afternoonof July 10 started from that place to camp on Mont Sue,for the ascent of the Aiguille de Tr^latete; hopeful thatthe mists which were hanging about would clear away.They did not, so we deposited ourselves, and a great loadof straw, on the moraine of the Miage Glacier, just abovethe Lac de Combal, in a charming little hole which somesolitary shepherd had excavated beneath a great slab ofrock. We spent the night there, and the whole of thenext day, unwilling to run away, and equally so to geinto difficulties by venturing into the mist. It was a dulltime, and I grew restless. Reilly read to me a lecture onthe excellence of patience, and composed himself in an easyattitude, to pore over the pages of a yellow-covered book“Patience,” I said to him viciously, “comes readily tofellows who have shilling novels; but I have not got one.I have picked all the mud out of the nails of my boots, andhave skinned my face ; what shall I do ? ” “ Go and study

the moraine of the Miage,” said he. I went, and cameback after an hour. “ What news ? ” cried Reilly, raisinghimself on his elbow. “Very little: it’s a big moraine,bigger than I thought, with ridge outside ridge, like afortified camp; and there are walls upon it which havebeen built and loopholed as if for defence.” “Try again,”he said, as he threw himself on his back. But I wentto Croz, who was asleep, and tickled his nose with a strawuntil he awoke; and then, as that amusement was

* The bracketed paragraphs in this chapter are extracted from thenotes of Mr. Reilly.