This visit to the glaciere was on Saturday, and on the following Monday I determined to go up alone, to take a registering thermometer, and leave it in the cave for the night; which, of course, would entail a third visit on the next day.  Monday brought a steady penetrating rain, of that peculiar character which six Scotch springs had taught me to describe as ‘just a bit must;’ while in the higher regions the fog was so hopeless, that a sudden lift of the mist revealed the unpleasant fact that considerable progress had been made in a westerly direction, the true line being north-west.  Instead of the rocks of La Genolliere, the foreground presented was the base of the Dole, and the chasm which affords a passage from the well-known fortress of Les Rousses into Vaud.  There was nothing for it but to turn in the right direction, or attempt to do so, and force a way through the wet woods till something should turn up.  This something took the form of a chalet; but no amount of hammering and shouting produced any response, and it was only after a forcible entrance, and a prolonged course of interior shouting, that a man was at length drawn.  He said that he had been asleep—­and why he put it in a past tense is still a mystery—­and could give no idea of the direction of the chalet on La Genolliere, beyond a vague suggestion that it was somewhere in the mist; a suggestion by no means improbable, seeing that the mist was ubiquitous.  One piece of information he was able to give, and it was consoling:  I was now, it seemed, on the Fruitiere de Nyon, and therefore the desired chalet could not be far off, if only a guide could be found.  On the whole, he thought that a guide could not be found; but there were men in the chalet, and I might go up the ladder with him and see what could be done.  He led to a chamber with a window of one small pane, dating apparently from the first invention of glass, and never cleaned since.  An invisible corner of the room was appealed to; but the voice which resided there, and seemed like everything else to be asleep, pleaded dreamily a total ignorance of the whereabouts of the chalet in question.  Just as, by dint of steady staring through the darkness, an indistinct form of a mattress, with a human being reclining thereon, began to be visible, another dark corner announced that this new speaker had heard of a p’tit sentier leading to the chalet, but knew neither direction nor distance.  Here the space between the two corners put in a word; and, as the darkness was now becoming natural, seven or eight mattresses appeared, ranged round the room, some holding one, some two men, most of whom were sitting up on end with old caps on, displaying every variety of squalor.  The voice which had spoken last declared that the distance was three-quarters of an hour, and that if the day were clear there would be no difficulty in reaching the chalet; as it was, the man would be very glad to try.