The boy retorted, that it was all very well for her to run the glaciere down, as she lived near it, but for the world from a distance it was a most wonderful sight; and, as for the ladder, he happened to know that it was at this time in excellent preservation.

The event proved that in saying this he drew entirely upon his imagination.
It is, perhaps, only fair to suppose that they don't mean anything by it, and it may be mere ignorance on their part; but the simple fact is, that some of those Swiss rustics tell the most barefaced lies conceivable,--_unblushing_ is an epithet that cannot be safely applied without previous soap and water,--and tell them in a plodding systematic manner which takes in all but the experienced and wary traveller.

I have myself learned to suspend my judgment regarding the most simple thing in nature, until I have other grounds for forming an opinion than the solemn asseverations of the most stolid and respectable Swiss, if it so be that money depends upon his report.[51] As in the case of two of the glacieres already described, the entrance is by a deep pit, which has the appearance of having been at one time two pits, one less deep than the other; and the barrier between the two having been removed by some natural process, a passage is found down the steep side of the shallower pit, which lands the adventurer on a small sloping shelf, 21 feet sheer above the surface of the snow in the deeper pit, the sides of the latter rising up perpendicularly all round.

It is for this last 21 feet that some sort of ladder is absolutely necessary.
Our guide flung himself down in the sun at the outer edge of the pit, and informed us that as it was cold and dangerous down below, he intended to go no farther: he had engaged, he said, to guide us to the glaciere, and he felt in no way bound to go into it.

He was not good for much, so I was not sorry to hear of his determination; and when my sisters saw the sort of place they had to try to scramble down, they appeared to be very glad that only I was to be with them.
Leaving them to make such arrangements with regard to dress as might seem necessary to them, I proceeded to pioneer the way down the first part of the descent.