CHAPTER IX.
THE SCHAFLOCH, OR TROU-AUX-MOUTONS, NEAR THE LAKE OF THUN.
The next morning, my sisters went one way and I another; they to a valley in the south-west of Vaud, where our head-quarters were to be established for some weeks, and I to Soleure, where a Swiss _savant_ had vaguely told us he believed there was a glaciere to be seen.

That town, however, denied the existence of any approach to such a thing, with a unanimity which in itself was suspicious, and with a want of imagination which I had not expected to find.

One man I really thought might be persuaded to know of some cave where there was or might be ice, but after a quarter of an hour's discussion he finally became immovable on the negative side.

A Frenchman would certainly have been polite enough to accommodate facts to my desires.

It was all the more annoying, because the Weissenstein stood overhead so engagingly, and I should have been only too glad to spend the night in the hotel there, if anyone had given me the slightest encouragement.