consequence, and then he may sometimes be decoyed into allowing the fact:  I therefore pointed out to the maire the true Col, and told him that was the one by which he had passed southwards, when he found the glaciere; to which, with unnecessary strength of language, he at once assented.  But all my efforts to take him back were unavailing.  Nothing in the world should carry him up the mountain again, now that he had happily got so far down.  I worked his best and his worst feelings with equal want of success; even national jealousy failed, and he was content to know that a French maire had not pluck to face three-quarters of an hour of climbing, when an English priest was ready to lead the way.  The schoolmaster declined to go alone with me, on the ground that neither of us knew the mountain, and threatening clouds were gathering all around.  When, at last, I proposed to go by myself, they became menacingly obstructive, and declared that I should certainly not be allowed to face the intricacy of the mountain in a fog.  Besides, as the maire put it, he was sure of the way to the third glaciere; and if I were to go up alone to look for the second, I should lose a certainty for a chance, as there was not time to visit both.  So with an ill grace I continued the descent with them, being restored to good humour before long by the beauty of the Lake of Annecy, as seen from our elevated position.

It is so impossible to accept in full the accounts one picks up of natural curiosities, that I give the maire’s description of the stray glaciere only for what it is worth.  It was not extracted without much laborious cross-examination—­sais paw vous le dire being the average answer to my questions.  The entrance to the cave is about twice as high as a man, and is in a small shallow basin of rock and grass.  The floor is level with the entrance, and the roof rises inside to a good height.  In shape it is like a Continental bread-oven; and at the time of the maire’s visit, the floor was a confused mass of ice and stones, the former commencing at the very entrance.  There was no ice except on the floor, the area of which might be as large as that of the surface of the ice in the Glaciere of Grand Anu.  No pit was to be seen, and not a drop of water.  Snow could have drifted in easily, but they saw no signs of any remaining.  If this account be true, especially with respect to the position of the entrance and the horizontal direction of the floor, I have seen no glaciere like it.

We descended for a time through fir-woods, and then again down steep and barren rocks, till we reached the sharp slope of grass which so frequently connects the base of a mountain with the more civilised forests and the pasturages below.  The maire led us for some distance along the top of this grass slope, towards the west, skirting the rocks till they became precipitous and lofty, when he said we must be near our point.  Still we went on and on without seeing any signs of