To anyone who has only known the rope up the pure white side of some snow mountain, the idea of being roped for the purpose of grappling with underground banks of adhesive mud and clay must be horrible in the extreme.

Another interesting natural phenomenon is presented by the source of the Reuse, that river gushing out from the rock in considerable volume, probably formed by the drainage of the Lake of Etallieres, in the distant valley of La Brevine; while the Longe-aigue, on the contrary, is lost in a gulf of such horror that the people call the mill which stands on its edge the _Moulin d'enfer_.
As usual, we were assured that many of these remarkable sights were far better worth a visit than the glaciere, of which no one seemed to know anything.

A guide was at length secured for the next morning, who had made his way to the cave once in the winter-time and had been unable to enter it, and we settled down quietly to an evening of perfect rest.

The windows of the bedrooms being guiltless of blinds and curtains, the effect of waking, in the early morning, to find them blocked up, as it were, by the green slopes of pasture and the dark bands of fir-woods which clothed the limiting hills, seemed almost magical, the foreground being occupied solely by the graceful curve of the dome of the church-tower, glittering with intercepted rays, and forming a bright omen for the day thus ushered in.
In due time the promised guide appeared, a sickly boy of unprepossessing appearance, and of _patois_ to correspond.

I was at first tempted to propose that we should attack him stereoscopically, A.administering French and I simultaneous German, in the hope that the combination might convey some meaning to him; but, after a time, we succeeded with French alone.