which both these parties contrived to cross without the aid of the ladder, which remained all the time as the main rafter of our tent above. Nothing remarkable occurred during our rapid descent to the chalêt, excepting that we found a young chamois in the glacier, which appeared to have made a fruitless endeavour to cross it, and lost its life by a fall. Our thirst continued as violent as ever, and we drank every five minutes at the delicious drippings of the glacier. Ever since breakfast we had been in a high state of fever, which our mental agitation had no doubt much increased. Dr. Hamel's pulse was at 128 in the minute, and H-'s and mine were probably at nearly the same height. We reached the chalêt about seven, where we refreshed ourselves with some milk and wild strawberries. Our new companions, having ascended from this spot in the morning, were now quite exhausted, and remained here for the night. We preferred continuing the descent, though in the dark, by a track which reminded me strongly of a night-march in the Pyrenees, and about nine o'clock arrived at the hotel. Mathieu Balmat had got the start of us about ten minutes, and we found a large party of women loudly bewailing the fate of the unhappy sufferers. We shut ourselves up immediately, not being in a situation to bear company. We found at the hotel some Oxford friends, who arrived on the evening of the day of our ascent, in the midst of the thunder-storm, and were much alarmed at seeing our names in the travellers' book. During the day before they had observed us on the Grand Mulet, and that very morning had seen us on our way to the Grand Plateau. They ascertained our number to be eleven, and a few hours afterwards saw us return with only eight in the party. They even took notice that the two or three last were perpetually stopping and looking behind them. From these signs, the landlord of the hotel anticipated the melancholy tidings first brought by poor Balmat. The next morning we sent for the relatives of the deceased. Fortunately neither of them was married, but Carrier had left an aged father, who had been wholly dependent on him for support. We left with him what we could spare; and at Geneva a subscription was soon opened for them, under the auspices of the amiable Professor Pictet, who generously exerted himself in their behalf. Our meeting with old Balmat was the most affecting of all. He had been one of Saussure's guides, and was brother to the hero surnamed Mont Blanc. On my commending the bravery of his poor son Pierre, the tears started into his eyes, which kindled for a moment at the compliment, and he grasped my hand with ardour as he replied "Oui Monsieur, vous avez raison, il étoit même trop brave, comme son père." The officer soon attended to conduct the procès verbal. He was the brother of our host, and noways inclined to abate any thing of the respect due to his office. He dictated from his seat, while his amanuensis wrote. He was a great stickler for grammatical accuracy, and there was a long discussion about the respective claims of an indicative and subjunctive mood, during which he laid down the law with the most ludicrous gravity and self-importance. Dr. Hamel and three of the guides were examined upon oath as to the cause of the misfortune. They all agreed in referring it solely to accident. About two o'clock we set off on our return for Chamounix in two sharabands, and we were glad to recognize in one of the drivers our late captain, Joseph Marie Couttet, who had thrown off his chasseur's pelisse, and now appeared in the costume of postilion. Our parting with the inhabitants of the village was truly affecting. The sympathy which we could not help displaying in the grief of the surviving relatives had won all their honest hearts, and many pressed round our sharabands for the pleasure of wishing us a safe and happy return to England. We slept, as before, at St. Martin, and the following day arrived at Geneva. I will add a few words in explanation of the immediate cause of the accident. We were taken so completely unawares, and so speedily buried in the snow, that it is no great wonder that our accounts do not in all points agree. Dr. Hamel, according to his own account, besides the impediment of his veil and spectacles, was wholly engrossed in counting his own steps. He was last in the line, and at some distance from the rest; and the suddenness of the accident made him suppose it produced by an avalanche from the sunmit of the mountain. H- had the same idea, and accordingly made some abortive attempts to get out of the way, by following the descent of the slope. This probably, united with his subsequent self-abandonment to the force of the snow, caused his being carried down so much nearer the crevasse than myself, who, from the very short distance between us, should have emerged about the same spot. The following, I believe, is the most correct statement of the process of the misfortune. During two or three days a pretty strong southerly wind had prevailed, which, drifting gradually a mass of snow from the summit, had caused it to form a sort of wreath on the northern side, where the angle of its inclination to the horizon was small enough to allow it to settle. In the course of the preceding night, that had frozen, but not so hard as to bear our weight. Accordingly, in crossing the slope obliquely, as above described, with the summit on our right, we broke through the outer crust, and sank in nearly up to the knees. At the moment of the accident a crack had been formed quite across the wreath; this caused the lower part to slide down under our weight on the smooth slope of snow beneath it, and the upper part of the wreath, thus bereft of its support, followed it in a few seconds, and was the grand contributor to the calamity. The angle of the slope, a few minutes before the accident, was only 28°. Here, perhaps, it was somewhat greater, and in the extreme front probably greatest of all, since the snow fell there with greater velocity, and to a greater distance. Should any one be induced to make another attempt to reach the summit by the same route, he should either cross the slope below the crevasse, and then having passed it by a ladder, mount in zig-zag towards the Mont Maudit; or the party should proceed in parallel lines, and not trust all their weight to a surface, which, whenever a southerly wind prevails, must be exposed to a similar danger. All such plans as that of fastening themselves together with a rope would be utterly useless, besides the insupportable fatigue which this method of proceeding would occasion, as will at once be acknowledged by all who have made the experiment. This plan answers well enough in the descent, and when two or three only are united by the rope; but in other circumstances it would utterly fail. At the moment of the accident, Pierre Carrier, on every circumstance connected with whom I still feel a melancholy pleasure in dwelling, was at the head of the line, and Pierre Balmat, who, as well as his immediate follower and partner in the misfortune, Auguste Tairray, was making his first ascent, was second. Couttet had been on the summit five or six times, and was then, as well as his brother David, in the rear of the party. The behaviour of all the guides on occasion of the accident was such, perhaps, as might be expected from men thrown on a sudden completely out of their reckoning :-their presence of mind, for some minutes, seemed utterly to abandon them, and they walked to and fro uttering cries of despair. The conduct of poor Mathieu Balmat was most heart-rending to witness :-after some frantic gestures of despair, he threw himself on the snow, where he sat for a time in sullen silence, rejecting all our kind offices with a sort of irritation which made it painful to approach him. But this did not last long; he suffered me to lead him a few paces at the commencement of the descent, and then suddenly shaking himself, as if from a load, he adjusted the straps of his knapsack, and resumed his wonted firmness. At times he even chimed in with the conversation of the rest with apparent unconcern; but I observed a sort of convulsion occasionally pass across him, from which he relieved himself by the same gesture of shaking his head and throwing it backwards. It is remarkable, that, from the commencement of the descent until our arrival at the Grand Mulet, he attached himself to my friend H—, and adjusted his steps with the same assiduity as if he had been unengrossed by personal suffering. Joseph Marie Couttet, who from his former military habits had acquired probably a familiarity with death, betrayed, as we thought, something approaching to insensibility on the occa sion.* He was, as has been observed, very near sharing the fate of the poor sufferers, and perhaps this very circumstance made him jealous of displaying too much feeling on the occasion. Yet, on his taking leave of me the following day, he exhibited so much warmth of regret, that I was affected almost to tears. His brother, David Couttet, another of the guides, was equally intrepid, and I believe was the means of preserving my life during the descent, in the passage of the glacier. My feet had slipped from under me, and I had rolled to the edge of a crevasse, when I felt myself suddenly arrested on its very brink by the cord around my waist, which allowed me time to recover myself. The minute details respecting the guides, with which I have interspersed this narrative, will not, I feel persuaded, be deemed impertinent by those who have ever been acquainted with this highly interesting race of men. There is about them all an honest frankness of character, united with a simple though courteous behaviour, and an almost tender solicitude about the safety and comfort of those committed to their guidance, which cannot fail to make a lasting impression on those who have once known them. The delight which they testify at finding the traveller surmount difficulties, and the looks of congratulation and encouragement which they every now and then direct towards him, contribute highly to keep up his spirit, which else might perhaps desert him at some important crisis. The principal of them are well known and appreciated at Geneva; and the reader will not therefore feel much wonder at the strong feeling which prevailed against us on our return thither. Our former companion had found it necessary to his own credit, to exaggerate exceedingly the apparent danger of proceeding higher; and it must be allowed that his account, supported as it was by the subsequent disaster, possessed strong claims upon the faith of his audience. I am happy, however, to add, that in a very few days this erroneous impression was completely done away with, and ample justice was rendered by all to the conduct of Dr. Hamel, who had been the most obnoxious to their censure, both from his being considered the leader of the party, and from his wellknown ardour in similar undertakings. We suffered very little in our persons from the sharp air of the mountain, in consequence of the precautions we had taken, though violent inflammation of the face and eyes, and even temporary blindness, have sometimes been the result. We felt a slight relaxation of strength for a day or two, and our lips con * He had formerly served in the Chasseurs à cheval in the French service, an honour which he duly appreciated. I cannot omit his laconic answer to a question proposed to him by one of the party, on the state of his mind during his rapid descent under the snow:-“ Ma foi, j'ai dit à moi-même C'est fini-je suis perdu-voilà tout.” tinued very sore for some weeks. We referred this to our neg lect of a prohibition of the guides against eating snow during the ascent of the third day. Our thirst, proceeding as it did from fever, was not allayed for above a minute by the grateful coolness of the application; yet we could not be prevented from repeating it perpetually. I have reason to think, that had we abstained from the snow of the mountain, and the champaigne of St. Martin on the following evening, we should have been spared even the annoyance of sore lips. To those who make a similar attempt this may prove a useful hint-to abstain from any inflammatory diet for a few days afterwards.* WALKS IN THE GARDEN.-NO. I. Heureux qui dans le sein de ses Dieux domestiques, DELILLE. A GENTLE fertilizing shower has just fallen-the light clouds are breaking away-a rainbow is exhibiting itself half athwart the horizon, as the sun shoots forth its rays with renewed splendour, and the reader is invited to choose the auspicious moment, and accompany the writer into his garden. He will not exclaim with Dr. Darwin, "Stay your rude steps! whose throbbing breasts enfold but he would warn from his humble premises all those who have magnificent notions upon the subject; who despise the paltry pretensions of a bare acre of ground scarcely out of the smoke of London, and require grandeur of extent and expense before they will condescend to be interested. To such he would recommend the perusal of Spence's translation from the Jesuits' Letters, giving an account of the Chinese emperor's pleasure-ground, which contained 200 palaces, besides as many contiguous for the eunuchs, all gilt, painted, and varnished; in whose enclosure were raised hills from twenty to sixty feet high; streams and lakes, one of the latter five miles round; serpentine bridges, with triumphal arches at each end; undulating colonnades; and in the centre of the fantastic paradise a square town, each side a mile long. Or they may recreate their fancies with the stupendous hanging gardens of Babylon-a subject which no living imagina The scientific reader, who will probably rise disappointed from the perusal of this article, may be referred to a pamphlet composed immediately after the ascent by Dr. Hamel, which has already been translated in one or two magazines, and to Saussure's own account of his ascent in 1787. I would likewise point out to the general reader a highly interesting review of the former of these articles, which appeared in the British Critic for November 1820. |