upon our left. No one spoke, for at this height even talking is fatiguing, and the air conveys sound but faintly. I was still the last, and after taking a dozen steps, supported by my stick, I stopped to make 15 inspirations. I found that in this manner I could advance without exhaustion. Prepared with green spectacles, and with crape before my face, my eyes were fixed upon my steps, which I counted. Suddenly I felt the snow give way under my feet. Thinking that I merely slipped, I thrust my stick to the left, but in vain. The snow, which accumulated on my right, overturned and covered me; and I felt myself forced downwards with irresistible power. I thought at first that I was the only one who suffered this accident, but feeling the snow accumulate upon me so as almost to prevent my breathing, I imagined that a great avalanche was descending from Mont Blanc, and forcing the snow before it. Every moment I expected to be crushed by this mass: while descending I turned over repeatedly, and I strove with my strength to divide the snow with my arms, in which I was buried and struggling. I succeeded at last in getting my head out, and I saw that a great part of the acclivity was moving; but as I found myself near the edge of this slippery part, I made every effort to get upon the hard snow, where I might at last find footing. It was not until then that I knew the extent of the danger; for I saw myself near a crevice which terminated the acclivity, and separated it from the platform. At the same moment I saw Mr. Henderson's head still nearer this abyss. I discovered still further Mr. Dornford and three guides, but the five others did not appear. I hoped still to see them come out of the snow, which had stopped, but Mathieu Balmat cried out that there were still persons in the crevice. I will not attempt to paint what then passed in my mind. I saw Mr. Dornford throw himself upon the snow in despair, and Mr. Henderson was in a condition which made me fear for the consequences. But our consolation may be judged of when, some minutes afterwards, we saw one of the guides come out of the crevice; our hurras redoubled at the appearance of the second; and we yet hoped that the three others would also reappear, but, alas! they were seen no more. The guides, fearing a second slipping of the snow, directed us to remove to a distance, but that was impossible. Mr. Dornford declared that he was ready to sacrifice his life to go and search for the unfortunate guides: I offered him my hand, and partly sunk in the snow, still moveable, we advanced in spite of the guides, towards the crevice of unknown depth filled with snow, and to the place in which they must have fallen. There we descended into this gulph, and I sounded the snow every where with a stick without feeling any resistance. Supposing it possible that the men might have fallen into some cavity, or upon some projection in the crevice; and as the air, on account of its rarity, does not convey sound well, I thrust the longest stick quite to the end in the snow; and lying down upon it, I applied my teeth to the stick, and calling the men by their names, I listened with great attention to hear any noise; but all was in vain. The guides came upon us, and forced us, so to express it, to come out of the crevice. They declared our search useless; they even refused the money that we offered them if they would wait; they laid hold of Dornford and Henderson; and while I was still sounding the snow (which had passed the crevice for a great space), they proceeded immediately with them to some distance; so that I was under the necessity of descending with only Coutet, who had not even a stick; but absorbed in the horror of the event, I was become insensible to danger, and I crossed all the crevices without thinking of them. I did not rejoin my two companions till I arrived at the Grand Mulet, from whence we set off for the Glacier des Bossons, and at half past eight in the evening, we returned to the Hotel de l'Union at Chamouny, without experiencing any great degree of fatigue. I was the more astonished at this, because, for an hour after the accident, I made great efforts in an elevated situation where the least exertion exhausts the strength. "I shall here add a few words explanatory of our unfortunate accident. It appeared that the upper stratum of the snow on the acclivity lay upon another stratum, which was very slippery on the surface; and as our track cut the first stratum across, the part which was above us began to slip upon the other, forming what is called in the l'Oberland de Berne, suoggischnee, or rutschlavine. In that part where the first of our file walked, the acclivity was much steeper than near me where I had measured it a little before the accident; there it inclined at an angle of 28°. Further on, the mass of snow was also thicker, especially high up; for the wind usually drifts there the loose snow blown from the summit. For these reasons, the slipping necessarily began at this place, and the snow descended directly towards the crevice; while about me it took an oblique direction forward. It was on this account that the three first of the file fell so deep into the crevice, and were covered with snow, so that we were unable to discover them, while the fifth and sixth,† who had also fallen in, were able to disengage themselves. Coutet came up with his face of a blue appearance, and with symptoms of suffocation. Mathieu Balmat, who was a very strong man, and one of our principal guides, walked They were Pierre Balmat, brother of Mathieu, and eldest son of P. Balmat, one of the ancient guides of M. de Saussure; Pierre Carrier, a smith by trade, who had been 11 times upon Mont Blanc; and Auguste Terraz. This last, and P. Balmet, had never been on Mont Blanc, and were the two guides who refused to remain at the Grand Mulet. These three carried the provisions, the instruments, the pigeon, and a live fowl. No one of them was married. +Joseph Marie Coutet, one of our principal guides (his father was also with M. de Saussure), and Julien Devvausson, who escaped being poisoned by oil of vitriol. fourth, was the only one who the danger, near the summit, of being swallowed up by the yielding of the snow which at first appears to be firm, but suddenly gives way-a species of danger against which it is difficult to find a preservative." On this narrative Capt. Undrell makes the following remark : "I cannot gather at what part of the ascent Dr. Hamel and his companions met with the deplorable calamity which ended so fatally to poor Carrier, and two other guides, as the account published in the Annals of Philosophy does not mention at what time the accident occurred. I should fancy it to have taken place shortly after quitting the Grand Plateau, and advancing towards the Rocher Rouge, as there are, or were (for the appearance of the snow is eternally varying), some deep chasms to the left in that direction, with many precipitous masses on the other hand which continue for a considerable space upwards. Portions of these heaps are frequently detached, and bear every thing before them, when set in motion from the slippery acclivity on which they rest. If my conjecture as to the place of the misfortune be well founded, Dr. Du Hamel must then have been more than three hours and a half from the summit of the mountain, which then seemed so near to him, so difficult is it to judge of distances at these elevations, Joseph Marie, our principal guide, and and with such obstructions to David Foligue. encounter." "Whether we ascend one side or the other, even after having escaped as I did, the formidable rocks of the Aiguilles du Gouté, and passed the gulphs of the Glacier des Bossons, we incur David Coutet, the brother of FATE of the LAST REMNANT of the VARDARELLI BAND of ROBBERS, [From KEPPEL CRAVEN'S Tour in the Southern Provinces of Naples.] "The road from Lucera to Foggia is almost a repetition of that from Troja to Lucera; but it crosses no stream; and one solitary undeviating path over ten miles of perfect level ground, without tree, bush, or house in sight, brought me to the capital of Capitanata, which has gates, but no walls, the houses being so irregularly scattered about it, that it is difficult to fix precisely where the town begins. I could find no lodging at the numerous inns which displayed their signs on each side of me, but were already filled by the arrivals for the ensuing fair; so that I had penetrated some way into the city before there appeared any chance of my being accommodated at all; when, just as I had turned out of a street, or rather square, in which I had observed some troops drawn out as for a parade, a sudden volley of musketry, which I took for the crash of a building falling, followed by a general flight of the inhabitants, uttering cries of terror and dismay, arrested my attention: soon after, a gentleman hurrying by, desired me to alight, which I did, though utterly unable to guess the motive of this advice; while a second as strenuously recommended my remounting my horse and galloping away. The first idea that darted across my mind was that of an earthquake, and a number of persons rushing at once out of an adjoining house tended to confirm it. I walked on, in vain addressing the fugitives who passed me in every direction, till a boy took my horse's bridle, and led him through some obscure by-streets to an inn at the skirts of the town, where we took refuge in a room on the ground-floor, into which my servants and the guide, together with all the horses and myself, entered, as if by one common instinct, but still is total ignorance of the cause of alarm. The cries of several women, tearing their hair, and the incoherent exclamations they uttered, among which I could only distinguish the word brigands, at last led me to conjecture that a party of banditti had forced their way into the town, and were engaged with regular troops. The door had been carefully barricadoed at the moment of our entry; but through the small windows several soldiers were observable lurking about in parties, with their muskets ready, and at times a dragoon passed in full gallop, apparently engaged in pursuit. These circumstances, and occasional musket shots, confirmed my suspicions: but that a gang of robbers, however daring and desperate, should have made an attack at mid-day on a large city, respectably garrisoned, seemed so improbable, that I continued in a state of doubt, till the son of my hostess made his appearance; and after being repeatedly kissed and wept upon, by his mother and her dishevelled companions, he gave me a clearer insight into the affair, by relating, in an imperfect manner, the details, which were sub sequently made known to me from a source more authentic, and which are as follows: "The remains of the Vardarelli band had presented themselves that morning before the general commanding at Foggia: they formed, in fact, part of the troops I had seen, and were, at the moment I passed, engaged in a war of words, which soon was waged with more deadly weapons. It seems that the general, who had received the intimation of their arrival, gave orders for them to be inspected the instant that it took place. After they had dismounted and given a satisfactory account of their late proceedings, they received directions to repair to Lucera, and there await further commands. This mandate they positively refused to obey; and a long altercation took place between them and an officer sent from the commander's house, before which they were ranged, to remonstrate on the imprudence, not to say temerity, of their behaviour. The general finally commanded the two lead ers to repair to his own apart ment to speak to them: this they objected to do without their arms, which they declared they would never part from; and it is supposed that the language they made use of in the course of their argument so exasperated the officer, that he roughly pushed one of them back, who was using threatening gestures, on which the other fired his musket at him, but having missed his mark, was shot dead on the spot by the sentry at the gate. This was the signal for an attack from his companions, that was immediately answered by a round of musketry from the troops who were drawn VOL. LXIII. 4 out close to them, which killed several, and spread consternation among the crowds of town's-people who had assembled on the spot. Four of the band, who had presence of mind to spring upon their horses, escaped in different directions out of the town, though followed by cavalry, and fired at as they fled. Another portion were made prisoners; but a third division sought security in a cel lar, the first place of refuge which offered itself, and which having only one very low entrance, afforded them a defensible asylum for some time. The depth and darkness of this receptacle made it difficult to attack them with success, for they killed a soldier, and wounded several others, who had ventured too near the aperture. Of this last desperate set, four, however, gave themselves up, and made known the number that remained. In order to bring as speedy a termination as possible to the dismay and agitation which this event had spread throughout the city, two of those who had been last taken were sent in to their companions, with their hands tied, to persuade them to surrender, and to inform them, that if they persevered in a resistance, which from the local nature of their retreat must be unavailing, a straw fire would be lighted at the orifice, as the only means of hastening their complíance or destruction. The unfortunate men never returned; and no answer being given, this threat was put into actual execution, and the aperture blocked up with stones. Imagination pictures their situation as most horrible; but its terrors were eluded by the last resource of despair. Two hours afterwards, the cellar was 2 X |