"
"Up there?" say I, looking up apprehensively, and querying in my mind
how my estimable friend the mule is ever to get up there with me on
his back.
"O yes," says my guide, cheerily, "and the road is up through that
ravine."
The ravine is a charming specimen of a road to be sure, but no
matter--on we go.
"There," says a guide, "those black rocks in the middle of that
glacier on Mont Blanc are the Grands Mulets, where travellers sleep
going up Mont Blanc."
We wind now among the pine tree still we come almost under the Mer de
Glace. A most fairy-like cascade falls down from under its pillars of
ice over the dark rocks,--a cloud of feathery foam,--and then streams
into the valley below.
"_Voila, L'Arveiron!_" says the guide.
"O, is that the Arveiron?" say I; "happy to make the acquaintance."
But now we cross the Arve into a grove of pines, and direct our way to
the ascent. We begin to thread a zigzag path on the sides of the
mountain.
As mules are most determined followers of precedent, every one keeps
his nose close by the heels of his predecessor. The delicate point,
therefore, of the whole operation is keeping the first mule straight.
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