the result was the reverse of progression.  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.  Perhaps Latin would have made a more likely melange than German, and to give it him in three dimensions would not have been a bad plan.  The route for the glaciere runs straight up the face of the hill along which the railway has been constructed; and as we passed through woods of beech and fir, with fresh green glades rolling down below our feet, or emerged from the woods to cross large undulating expanses of meadow-land, we were almost inclined to believe that we had never done so lovely a walk.  The scenery through which we passed was thoroughly that of the lower districts of the Alps, with nothing Jurane in its character, and the elevation finally achieved was not very great:  indeed, at a short distance from the glaciere, we passed a collection of very neat chalets, with gardens and garden-flowers, one of the chalets rejoicing in countless beehives, with three or four ‘ekes’ apiece.  Up to the time of reaching this little village, which seemed to be called Sagnette, our path had been that which leads to La Brevine, the highest valley in the canton; but now we turned off abruptly up the steeper face on the left hand, and in a very few minutes came upon a dry wilderness of rock and grass, which we at once recognised as ’glaciere country;’ and when I told our guide that we must be near the place, he replied by pointing to the trees round the mouth of the pit.