But,
as they say in New England, he did it "_as nat'ral as a pictur!_"
By the by, the girls with strawberries, milk, and knitting work were
on hand on the way down, and met us just where a cool spring gushed
out at the roots of a pine tree; and of course I bought some more milk
and strawberries.
How dreadfully hot it was when we got down to the bottom! for there we
had the long, shadeless ride home, with the burning lenses of the
glaciers concentrated upon our defenceless heads. I was past admiring
any thing, and glad enough for the shelter of a roof, and a place to
lie down.
After dinner, although the Glacier de Boisson had been spoken of as
the appointed work for the afternoon, yet we discovered, as the psalm
book says, that
"The force of nature could no farther go"
[Illustration: _of an ice climbing party scaling a large serac._]
What is Glacier de Boisson, or glacier any thing else, to a person
used up entirely, with no sense or capability left for any thing but a
general aching? No; the Glacier de Boisson was given up, and I am
sorry for it now, because it is the commencement of the road up Mont
Blanc; and, though I could not go to the top thereof, I should like to
have gone as far as I could.
