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TWENTY-SEVEN years ago—when children's | books were rare presents, and so were prized, and read, and read again, until the very position of the paragraphs was known by heart-I had a little volume given to me at the Soho bazaar, called The Peasants of Chamouni, which told, in a very truthful manner, the sad story of Dr. Hamel's fatal attempt to reach the summit of Mont Blanc in 1820. I dare say that it has long been out of print; but I have still my own old copy by me, and I find it was published by Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, in 1823.

My notions of the Alps at that time were very limited. We had a rise near our village called St. Anne's Hill, from which it was fabled that the dome of St. Paul's had once been seen with a telescope, at a distance of some sixteen or seventeen miles, as the crow flew; and its summit was the only high ground I had ever stood upon. Knowing no more than this, the little book, which I have said had a great air of truth about it, made a deep impression on me; I do not think that The Pilgrim's Progress stood in higher favor. And this impression lasted from year to year. Always devouring the details of any work that touched upon the subject, I at length got a very fair idea, topographical and general, of the Alps. A kind friend gave me an old four-volume edition of de

Saussure; and my earliest efforts in French were endeavors to translate this work. I read the adventures of Captain Sherwill and Dr. Clarke in the magazines of our local institution; and finally I got up a small moving panorama of the horrors pertaining to Mont Blanc from Mr. Auldjo's narrative— the best of all that I have read; and this I so painted up and exaggerated in my enthusiasm, that my little sister-who was my only audience, but a most admirable one, for she cared not how often I exhibited-would become quite pale with fright.

Time went on, and in 1838 I was entered as a pupil to the Hôtel Dieu, at Paris. My first love of the Alps had not faded; and when the vacancies came in September, with twelve pounds in my pocket, and an old soldier's knapsack on my back, (bought in a dirty street of the Quartier Latin for two or three francs,) I started from Paris for Chamouni, with another equally humblyappointed fellow student, now assistant-surgeon in theth Hussars.

It was very late one evening when I arrived at the little village of Sallenches, in Savoythen a cluster of the humblest chalets, and not as now, since the conflagration, a promising town-very footsore and dusty. At the door of the inn I met old Victor Tairraz, who then kept the Hôtel de Londres at

Chamouni, and was the father of the three brothers who now conduct it-one as maitre, the second as cook, and the third as head waiter. He hoped when I arrived at Chamouni that I would come to his house; and he gave me a printed card of his prices, with a view of the establishment at the top of it, in which every possible peak of the Mont Blanc chain that could be selected from all points of the compass was collected into one aspect, supposed to be the view from all the bed-room windows of the establishment, in front, at the back, and on either side. I was annoyed at this card; for I could not reconcile, at that golden time, my early dreams of the valley of Chamouni, with the ordinary business of a Star-and-Garter-like hotel.

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I well remember what a night of expectation I passed, reflecting that on the early morrow I should see Mont Blanc with my own practical eyes. When I got out of my bed the next morning-I cannot say "awoke,' for I do not think I slept more than I should have done in the third class of a long night train-I went to the window, and the first view I had of the Mont Blanc range burst on me suddenly, through the mist-that wondrous breath-checking coup d'ail, which we all must rave about when we have seen it for the first time-which we so sneer at others for doing when it has become familiar to us. Every step I took that day on the road was as on a journey to fairy-land. Places which I afterwards looked upon as mere common halts for travellers-Servoz, with its little inn, and Cabinet d'Histoire Naturelle, where I bought my baton; the montets above Pont Pelissier; the huts at Des Ouches, where I got some milk--were all enchanted localities. And when, passing the last steep, as the valley of Chamouni opens far away to the left, the glittering rocky advanced post of the Glacier des Bossons came sparkling from the curve, I scarcely dared to look at it. Conscious that it was before me, some strange impulse turned my eyes towards any other objects unimportant rocks and trees or cattle on the high pasturages--as though I feared to look at it. I never could understand this coquetting with excitement until years afterwards, when a young author told me a variety of the same feeling had seized him as he first saw a notice of his first book in a newspaper. He read the paragraphs above and below and about it; but only glanced at the important one, as though striving constantly to renew the vivid pleasure he had felt upon first seeing it. The whole of that week at Chamouni

passed like a dream. I started off every morning at daybreak with my alpenstock, and found my own way to the different "lions" of the valley--to Montanvert, the Flegère, the Pelerins, and the other points of resort; for the guide's six francs a day would have made a great void in my student's purse. With the first light I used to watch the summit of Mont Blanc from my room; and at sunset I always went into the fields behind the church, to see the rosy light creep up it, higher and higher, until it stood once morecold, clear, mocking the darkening peaks below it-against the sky. From long study of plans, and models, and narratives, I could trace every step of the route: and I do believe, if any stalwart companion had proposed it, with the recollection of what Jacques Balmat and Dr. Paccard had done alone, I should have been mad enough to have started on their traces. I was in hopes, from the settled weather, that some one would attempt the ascent whilst I was at Chamouni; when I should immediately have offered myself as a volunteer or porter to accompany him. But no one came forward until the day after my departure; and then a lady, Mademoiselle Henriette d'Angeville, succeeded in reaching the top, together with the landlord of the Hôtel Royal, and a Polish gentleman, who was stopping in the house.

When I came home to England I had many other things to think about. With the very hard work which the medical practice attached to a large country union required, I had little time for other employment. One dull evening, however, I routed out my old panorama, and as our little village was entirely occupied at the time with the formation of a literary and scientific institution, I thought I could make a grand lecture about the Alps. Availing myself of every half-hour I could spare, I copied all my pictures on a comparatively large scaleabout three feet high-with such daring lights, and shadows, and streaks of sunset, that I have since trembled at my temerity as I looked at them; and then contriving some simple mechanism with a carpenter, to make them roll on, I selected the most interesting parts of Mr. Auldjo's narrative, and with a few interpolations of my own produced a lecture which, in the village, was considered quite a "hit," for the people had seen incandescent charcoal burnt in bottles of oxygen, and heard the physiology of the eye explained by diagrams, until any novelty was sure to succeed. For two or three years, with my Alps in a box, I went round to

various literary institutions. The inhabitants of Richmond, Brentford, Guildford, Staines, Hammersmith, Southwark, and other places, were respectively enlightened upon the theory of glaciers, and the dangers of the Grand Plateau. I recall these first efforts of a showman-for such they really were-with great pleasure. I recollect how my brother and I used to drive our four-wheeled chaise across the country, with Mont Blanc on the back seat, and how we were received, usually with the mistrust attached to wandering professors generally, by the man who swept out the Town Hall, or the Athenæum, or wherever the institution might be located. As a rule, the Athenæums did not remind one of the Acropolis: they were situated up dirty lanes, and sometimes attached to public-houses, and were used in the intervals of oxygen and the physiology of the eye, for tea festivals and infant schools. I remember well the "committeeroom," and a sort of condemned cell in which the final ten minutes before appearing on the platform were spent, with its melancholy decanter of water and tumbler before the lecture, and plate of mixed biscuits and bottle of Marsala afterwards. I recollect, too, how the heat of my lamps would unsolder those above them, producing twilight and oil-avalanches at the wrong time; and how my brother held a piece of wax-candle end behind the moon on the Grands Mulets, (which always got applauded;) and how the diligence, which went across a bridge, would sometimes tumble over. There are souvenirs of far greater import that I would throw over before those old Alpine memories.

No matter why, in the following years I changed my lancet into a steel pen, and took up the trade of authorship. My love of the Alps still remained the same; and from association alone, I translated the French drama La Grace de Dieu, under the name of The Pearl of Chamouni, for one of the London minor theatres. I brought forward all my old views, and made the directors get up the scenery as true to nature as could be expected in an English playhouse, where a belief in the unreal is the great creed; and then I was in the habit of sitting in a dark corner of the boxes, night after night, and wondering what the audience thought of "The valley and village of Chamouni, as seen from the Col de Balme pass, with Mont Blanc in the distance:" so ran the bill. I believe, as far as they were concerned, I might have called it Snowdon or

Ben Nevis with equal force; but I knew it was correct, and was satisfied.

In the ensuing seven or eight years, I always went over to Chamouni whenever I had three weeks to spare in the autumn. Gradually the guides came to look upon me as an habitué of the village; and in our rambles I always found them clear-headed, intelligent, and even well-read companions. But whatever subject was started, we always got back to Mont Blanc in our conversation; and when I left Chamouni last year, Jean Tairraz made me half promise that I would come back again the following August, and try the ascent with him. All the winter through the intention haunted me. I knew, from my engagements in periodical literature, that the effort must be a mere scamper-a spasm almost when it was made; but at length a free fortnight presented itself. I found my old knapsack in a store-room, and I beat out the moths and spiders, and filled it as of old; and on the first of August last I left London Bridge in the mail-train of the South-Eastern Railway, with my Lord Mayor and other distinguished members of the corporation who were going to the fêtes at Paris, in honor of the Exhibition, and who, not having a knapsack under their seat, lost all their luggage, as is no doubt chronicled in the city archives.

I had not undergone the least training for my work. I came from my desk to the railway, from the railway to the diligence, and from that to the char-a-barc; and on the night of my arrival at Chamouni I sent for Tairraz, and we sat upon a bit of timber on the edge of the Arve, consulting upon the practicability of the ascent. He feared the weather was going to change, and that I was scarcely in condition to attempt it; but he would call a meeting of the chief guides at his little curiosity shop next morning, and let me know the result. I made up my mind, at the same time, to walk as much as I could; and, on the second day of my arrival, I went twice to the Mer de Glace, and, indeed, crossed to the other side by myself. In the court-yard of the Hôtel de Londres, on the Friday afternoon, I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of three young gentlemen, who had come from Ouchy on the Lake of Geneva, with the intention also of trying the ascent. It was immediately settled that we should unite our caravans; and that same evening, Jean Tairraz, Jean Tairraz the elder, Jean Carrier, and Gedeon Balmat, met us to settle our plans. The

weather had unfortunately changed. It rained constantly the wind came up the valley-always a bad sign-and the clouds were so low that we could not even see the Aiguilles, nor the top of the Brevent. But so determined were we to go, that, at all risks, we should have ventured. Every arrangement of food, covering, &c., was left to M. Edouard Tairraz, the landlord of the excellent Hôtel de Londres; and it was understood that we were all to keep in readiness to start at half an hour's notice. My young friends, who had been in regular training for some time, continued to perform prodigies of pedestrianism. I did as much as I could; but, unfortunately, was taken so poorly on my return from Montanvert on the Monday-I suspect from sudden overwork, and sitting about in the wet-that I was obliged to lie down on my bed for four or five hours on my return to the hotel, and, in very low spirits, I began to despair of

success.

All this time the weather never improved: it rained unceasingly. We almost rattled the barometer to pieces in our anxiety to detect a change; and Jean made an excursion with me to the cottage of one of the Balmats the very same house spoken of in my old book, The Peasants of Chamouniwho was reported to have a wonderful and valuable weather-guide, the like of which had never been seen before in the valley, called Le Menteur by the neighbors, because it always foretold the reverse of what would happen. This turned out to be one of the little Dutch houses, with the meteorological lady and gentleman occupiers. The lady, in her summer costume, was most provokingly abroad, and the worst fears were entertained. Whilst, however, we were at dinner that day, all the fog rolled away clean out of the valley, as if by magic. The mists rose up the aiguilles like the flocks of steam from a valley railway; the sun broke out, and M. Tairraz cried out from the top of the table-"Voilà le beau temps qui vient; vous ferez une belle ascension, Messieurs et demain."

We thought no more of dinner that day; all was now hurry and preparation. At every stove in the kitchen, fowls, and legs and shoulders of mutton were turning. The guides were beating up the porters, who were to carry up the heavier baggage as far as the edge of the glacier; the peasants were soliciting us to be allowed to join the

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party as volunteers; and the inhabitants of the village, generally, had collected in the small open space between the church and the Hôtel de l'Union, and were talking over the chances of the excursion-for the mere report of an attempt puts them all in a bustle. We walked about Chamouni that night with heads erect, and an imposing step. People pointed at us, and came from the hotels to see what we were like. For that evening, at least, we were evidently great persons.

The sun went down magnificently, and everything promised a glorious day on the morrow. I collected all my requisites. Our host lent me a pair of high gaiters, and Madame Tairraz gave me a fine pair of scarlet garters to tie them up with. I also bought a green veil, and Jean brought me a pair of blue spectacles. In my knapsack I put other shoes, socks, and trousers, and an extra shirt; and I got a new spike driven into my baton, for the glacier. I was still far from well, but the excitement pulled me through all discomfort. I did not sleep at all that night, from anxiety as to the success of the undertaking: I knew all the danger; and when I made a little parcel of my money, and the few things I had in my "kit,” and told the friend who had come with me from London to take them home if I did not return, I am afraid my attempt to be careless about the matter was a failure. I had set a small infernal machine, that made a hideous noise at appointed hours, to go off at six; but I believe I heard every click it gave all through the night; and I forestalled its office in the morning by getting out of bed myself at sunrise and stopping it. We met at seven o'clock on the morning of Tuesday, the 12th, to breakfast. All our guides and porters had a feast in the garden, and were in high spirits-for the glass had gone up half an inch, and not a cloud was to be seen in the sky. Nothing could exceed the bustle of the inn-yard; everybody had collected to see the start: the men were dividing and portioning the fowls, and bottles of wine, and rugs, and wrappers; something was constantly being forgotten, and nobody could find whatever was of most importance to them; and the good-tempered cookanother Tairraz-kept coming forth from the kitchen with so many additional viands that I began to wonder when our stores would be completed. The list of articles of food which we took up with us was as follows:—

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About half-past seven we started; and as we left the inn, and traversed the narrow ill-paved streets of Chamouni towards the ill-paved streets of Chamouni towards the bridge, I believe we formed the largest caravan that had ever gone off together. Each of us had four guides, making twenty in all; and the porters and volunteers I may reckon at another score; besides which, there was a rabble rout of friends, and relations, and sweethearts, and boys, some of whom

came

a considerable distance with us. I

had a mule waiting for me at the bridle-road that runs through the fields towards the dirty little village of Les Pelerins-for I wished to keep myself as fresh as I could for the real work. I do not think I gained anything by this, for the brute was exceed ingly troublesome to manage up the rude steep path and amongst the trees. I expect my active young companions had the best of it on their own good legs. Dressed, at present, in light boating attire, they were

* The following were the names of our guides, copied from my certificate of the ascent-Jean Tairraz, Jean Tairraz, Jean Carrier, Gedeon Balmat, Michel Couttet, Frederic Tairraz, Pierre Cachat, Michel Couttet, François Cachat, Joseph Tairraz, Joseph Tissay, Edouard Carrier, Michel Devouassoud, Auguste Devouassoud, François Favret. One guide-I forget his name was poorly, and could not sign, the next morning.

types of fellows in first-rate fibrous muscular condition; and their sunny good-temper, never once clouded during the journey, made everything bright and cheering.

The first two hours of the ascent presented no remarkable features, either of difficulty or prospect. The path was very steep and rugged, through a stunted copse of pines and shrubs, between which we saw on our right the glistening ice-towers of the lower part of the Glacier des Bossons. On our left was the ravine, along which the torrent courses to form the Cascade des Pelerins. The two nice girls who keep the little refreshment chalet at the waterfall came across the wood to wish us God speed. Julie Favret, the prettier of the two, was said to be engaged to our guide Jean Carrier—a splendid young fellow-so they lingered behind our caravan some little time; and when Jean rejoined us, an unmerciful shower of badinage awaited him. We kept on in single file, winding backwards and forwards amongst the trees, until we came to the last habitation up the mountain, which is called the Chalet de la Para; and here I was glad to quit my mule, and proceed with the rest on foot. From this point the vegetation gradually became more scanty; and, at last, even The the fir-trees no longer grew about us. hill-side was bare and arid, covered with the debris of the spring avalanches-amongst blowing-and some goats were trying very which tufts of alpine rhododendron were hard to pick up a living. Our caravan was now spread about far and wide; but at halfpast nine we came to an enormous block of granite called the Pierre Pointue, and here we reunited our forces and rested awhile.

During our halt the porters readjusted their packs; and some who had carried or dragged up billets of wood with them, which they and tied them on to their knapsacks. The found on the way, chopped them into lengths weight some of these men marched under the ridge of one of the mighty buttresses of was surprising. Hitherto we had been on Mont Blanc, which hem in the glaciers between them we had now to cling along its requires a strong head: here, and towards side to gain the ice. This part of the journey

the termination of the ascent, dizziness would

be fatal. Along the side of the mountain, which is all but perpendicular, the goats have worn a rude track, scarcely a foot broad. On your left your shoulder rubs the rock; and on your right there is a frightful precipice, at the bottom of which, hundreds of feet below you, is that confusion of ice, granite

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