THE WISCONSIN FARMER.



  At the village of Le Ronehes, and for some
distance on either side, I fell in with multi-
tudes of people making their way to the ehureh,
the echo of whose compelling bell filled the
valley and mounting with its religious chimes.
Old men in sober black, young men in parti-
colored garments and women and maidens in
plain but neat gowns-without hoops!-and
with white, ruffled caps, old and young, swarm-
ed forth from every dwelling by the road-side
and from every cleft in the mountains, until it
seemed that all Fancigny had turned out for
some grand centennial observance. If Amer-
ican Protestants were as faithful to their con-
victions of religious duty as these mountain
Catholics they would certainly be a much
more christian people than now.
  A few miles further I came suddenly upon
Bossons-the first glacier my eyes had ever
seen. Its appearance was as if the ice on the
summits of two contiguous mountains, made
half fluid, had slid down into the gorge be-
tween, and while in the act of plunging into
the plain below had been fixed there as for-
ever by a sudden congelation. And there it
was, an incalculable body of ice, with deep
chasms and irregularities, reminding one of a
colossal ruffled shirt-bosom, stiffly starched,
melting and melting at the base all the sum-
mer months, and yet ever undiminished in its
sublime proportions. From it flowed a brook
of ashy-grey water, cold as its own frozen bo-
som-so cold that when from its shady brink
I dipped my bare feet into it, I as involuntari-
ly jumped and cried ouch as though they had
been dropped into a cauldron of molten iron.
  At noon I reached the lovely vale of Cha-
mouny, where, filled with ecstacy and awe, I
stood, at last, under the very shadow of the
Great Mountain.
  The valley itself is more than three thousand
feet above the level of the sea, and yet so rich
is the verdure of the fields, so perfect and pro-
fae the flowers which usually grow in warmer
aitudes thalsene finds it not difficult to fancy
himself in the very bosom of sunniest France.
=It was well I had breakfasted heartily at
Servoz, for the enthusiasm that seized me at



thought of actually standing upon that very
Mer de Glace (sea of ice), in the midst of those
icy peaks, the sight of which I had all my life
coveted more than the seeing of any other nat-
ural object in the wide world, would not for a
moment entertain the sordid question of prov-
ender. "Would I not dine?" No, I would
not until my feet had first touched the ever-
lasting ice of Mt. Blanc! My excellent host
of the Hotel de Saussure saw I was in earnest,
and so placing before me a flask of wine pro-
posed to find me a guide and mules. "I
want neither a guide, nor yet mules, air; I'm
obliged to you." This he would not believe,
but before the mules were at the door or alpin-
stocks*were forced upon me, I had myself found
the upward winding path and was climbing
the rocky ribs of the mountain, empty handed,
on foot, and alone.  Up, up I went as it had
been on eagle's wings; now following the nar-
row, stony path, now dashing across the angles
made by the zigzag course of the beaten way,
and several times startling returning trains of
more aristocratic-or, perhaps, only less en-
thusiastic-travelers on slow-footed mules with
as many guides. There were places where the
only possible path was along the narrow brink
of the most fearful precipice, down which to
have fallen would have been as sure destruction
as to have fallen clean off the earth into the
moon. It was not surprising, therefore, that
the ladies in the several parties I met should
now and then scream But in such a manner as
to almost stop the beating of the heart, lest
some one had actually gone over and been ir-
retrievably lost.
  The time required to reach Montanvert, a
traveler's rest at the extreme end of the winding
mule path, and from which one may for the first
time look out upon the Mer de GIlace, down
down upon the distant, shadowy vale of Cham-
ouny, and off upon the snow-covered moun-
tains beyond-is two hours and a half. I found
myself standing upon its threshhold within one
hour and forty minutes after beginning he a-
coal.



rolbe Aipla-etoek is smply a muff fiveeorsi*lAI
tength, shod with a eed point, and tWmMied with sa km
hook on the top--uaal In culmbing rocky ad ftyssspL



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