to the glaciere.  I succeeded in getting down the ladder, by help of the supplement, and looked down into the dark hole to see that it was practicable, and then returned to report progress in the upper regions.  We had brought no alpenstocks to Couvet, so we sent the guide off into the woods, where we had heard the sound of an axe, to get three stout sticks from the woodmen; but he returned with such wretched, crooked little things, that A. went off herself to forage, and, having found an impromptu cattle-fence, came back with weapons resembling bulbous hedge-stakes, which she skinned and generally modified with a powerful clasp-knife, her constant companion.  She then cut up the crooked sticks into batons for a contemplated repair of the ladder, while M. and I investigated the country near the pit.  We found two other pits, which afterwards proved to communicate with the glaciere.  We could approach sufficiently near to one of these to see down to the bottom, where there was a considerable collection of snow:  this pit was completely sheltered from the sun by trees, and was 66 feet deep and 4 or 5 feet in diameter.  The other was of larger size, but its edge was so treacherous that we did not venture so near as to see what it contained:  its depth was about 70 feet, and the stone and a foot or two of the string came up wet.  The sides of the main pit, by which we were to enter the glaciere, were, as has been said, very sheer, and on one side we could approach sufficiently near the edge to drop a plummet down to the snow:  the height of this face of rock was 59 feet, measuring down to the snow, and the level of the ice was eventually found to be about 4 feet lower.  Although it was now not very far from noon, the sun had not yet reached the snow, owing partly to the depth of the pit as compared with its diameter, and partly to the trees which grew on several sides close to the edge.  One or two trees of considerable size grew out of the face of rock.

We were now cool enough to attempt the glaciere, and I commenced the descent with A. The precautions already taken made the way tolerably possible down to the buttress of earth and the shelving ledge, and so far the warm sun had accompanied us; but beyond the ledge there was nothing but the broken ladder, and deep shade, and a cold damp atmosphere, which made the idea, and still more the feel, of snow very much the reverse of pleasant.  A. was not a coward on such occasions, and she had sufficient confidence in her guide; but it is rather trying for a lady to make the first step off a slippery slope of mud, on to an apology for a ladder which only stands up a few inches above the lower edge of the slope, and so affords no support for the hand:  nor, after all, can bravery and trust quite make up for the want of steps.  We were a very long time in accomplishing the descent, for her feet were always out of her sight, owing to the shape which female dress assumes when its wearer goes down a ladder with her face to the front, especially