CHAPTER IX.
THE ASCENT OF THE POINTE DES ECRINS.
"Filled with high mountains, rearing their heads as if to reach to heaven, crowned with glaciers, and fissured with immense chasms, where lie the eternal snows guarded by bare and rugged cliffs; offering the most varied sights, and enjoying all temperatures; and containing everything that is most curious and interesting, the most simple and the most sublime, the most smiling and the most severe, the most beautiful and the most awful; such is the department of the High Alps."
Ladoucette.
Before 5 o'clock on the afternoon of June 23, we were trotting down the steep path that leads into La Bérarde. We put up, of course, with the chasseur-guide Rodier (who, as usual, was smooth and smiling), and, after congratulations were over, we returned to the exterior to watch for the arrival of one Alexander Pic, who had been sent overnight with our baggage viâ Freney and Venos. But when the night fell, and no Pic appeared, we saw that our plans must be modified; for he was necessary to our very existence—he carried our food, our tobacco, our all. So, after some discussion, it was agreed that a portion of our programme should be abandoned, that the night of the 24th should be passed at the head of the Glacier de la Bonne Pierre, and that, on the 25th, a push should be made for the summit of the Ecrins. We then went to straw.
Our porter Pic strolled in next morning with his usual jaunty air, and we seized upon our tooth-brushes; but, upon looking for the cigars, we found starvation staring us in the face. "Hullo! Monsieur Pic, where are our cigars?" "Gentlemen," he began, "I am desolated!" and then, quite pat, he told a long rigmarole about a fit on the road, of brigands, thieves, of their ransacking the knap-
