Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/300

Rh the pleasure of sun and air and sky—had not a consuming thirst laid hold upon us. Driven unwillingly forward by this fiend, we grappled in succession with the few obstructions still remaining. At no point did they become at all serious, though once or twice neat little problems in rock-climbing presented themselves for solution. At length the upper snows of the Glacier des Courtes rose to our level, and we tramped across their sun-softened surface till we reached the Col Triolet (10.30 a.m.).

We discovered a pool of delicious water, formed in a tiny hollow between the névé and the rocky ridge of the pass, and forthwith knapsacks and all encumbrances were discarded, and we drank our fill with the keen enjoyment of thirsty men. Hastings, as usual, extracted unimagined luxuries from his knapsack, and we proceeded to enjoy an aldermanic banquet with far more than aldermanic appetites and digestion. At the conclusion of this feast, which of necessity took place on the margin of our pool, we repaired to the Italian side of the col, where we were sheltered from the wind, and warmed by the full blaze of the sun.

Sleep soon nestled among the party, and it was not till 11.40 a.m. that a stern sense of duty drove us down the rocks. The first Schrund or two did not give us very much trouble, but the final chasm, which cuts off this bay of the glacier from the main snow field, proved to be of a most