An adventure, which any-where else might have appeared ridiculous, I was afraid would have proved fatal to one of our chairmen, as I will call them. I had flapt down my hat to screen my eyes from the fury of that deluge of sharp-pointed frozen snow; and it was blown off my head, by a sudden gust, down the precipices: I gave it up for lost, and was about to bind a handkerchief over the woollen cap, which those people provide to tie under the chin; when one of the assistant carriers (for they are always six in number to every chair, in order to relieve one another) undertook to recover it. 1 thought it impossible to be done; the passage being, as I imagined, only practicable for birds: however, I promised him a crown reward, if he did. Never could the leaps of the most dexterous of rope-dancers be compared to those of this daring fellow: I saw him sometimes jumping from rock to rock, sometimes rolling down a declivity of snow like a ninepin, sometimes running, sometimes hopping, skipping; in short he descended like lightning to the verge of a torrent, where he found the hat. He came up with surprising agility, and appeared as little fa-tigued, as if he had never left us.

We arrived at the top in two hours, from Lane-bourg; and the sun was pretty high above the hori — zon. Out of a hut, half-buried in snow, came some mountaineers, with two poor sledges, drawn by mules, to carry us through the Plain of Mount Cents as it is called, which is about four Italian miles in length, to the descent of the Italian side of the mountain. These sledges are not much different from the chairs, or sedans, or horse, we then quit-ted; only the two under-poles are flat, and not so long as the others, and turning up a little at the end, to hinder them from sticking fast in the snow. To the fore-ends of the poles are fixed two round sticks, about two feet and a half long, which serve for a support and help to the man who guides the mule, who running on the snow between the mule and the sledge holds the sticks with each hand.

It was diverting to see the two sledgemen striving to outrun each other.

Encouraged by Sir Charles’s generosity, we very soon arrived at the other end of the plain. The man who walked, or rather ran, between the sledge and the mule, made a continual noise; hallooing and beating the stubborn beast with his fists, which otherwise would be very slow in its motion.

At the end of this plain we found such another hut as that on the Lanebourg side; here they took off the smoking mules from the sledges, to give them rest.