When I arrived at Bonneville, the whole mass of mountains in which these caves lie was enveloped in thick dark clouds, and the faint roar of thunder reached our ears now and then, so that it seemed useless to attempt to penetrate into the high valleys.

Moreover, I was due for an attempt upon Mont Blanc in the beginning of the next week, and an incipient bilious fever, with a painful lameness of one leg, warned me that my powers were coming to an end, and that another day such as the last had been would put a total stop upon the proposed ascent; and so I determined to take the fever and the leg to Geneva, and submit them to medical skill.

This determination was strengthened by the exhortations of a Belgian, who called himself a _grand amateurdes montagnes_, on the strength of an ascent of the Mole and the Voiron, and in this character administered Alpine advice of that delightful description which one meets with in the coffee-rooms at Chamouni.

This Belgian was the only other guest of the Hotel des Balances; and his amiability was proof even against the inroads of some nameless species of _vin mousseux_, recommended to me by the waiter, which supplied _mal-a-propos_ wine-sauce to the various dishes from which the Belgian was making his dinner, and did not leave his face and waistcoat free from stain.

He had but one remark to make, however wild might be the assertions advanced from the English side of the table, '_Vous avez raison, monsieur, vous avez parfait-e-ment raison_!' It is not quite satisfactory to hold the same sentiments, in every small particular, with a man who clips his hair down to a quarter of an inch, and eats haricots with his fingers; but it was impossible to find any subject on which he could be roused to dissentience.