Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/271

Rh Mr. B. Kidd tells us is the dominant note of our civilisation, we wished to confer on our fellow-creatures the inestimable boon of a better and easier way from L'Ognan to the unparalleled delights of Mons. Bertolini's Hotel. It must not be supposed that this was merely a momentary burst of the altruistic feeling; on the contrary, it had, as attentive readers of "Social Evolution" would infer, been surging and working in our minds for years. We had, indeed, in 1893, made a journey to the Col Triolet for the sole and express purpose of studying whether the pass could be made, and had come to the conclusion, so dear to Uncle Remus, that, "it mout, but then again it moutn't."

As the maps are all incorrect in this district, it will, perhaps, be as well to explain that the Aiguille de Triolet does not, as therein represented, rise at the point at which the Courtes ridge joins the watershed. At this particular point is a small nameless peak, between which and the Triolet is a col, probably lower than the Col Triolet. On one side of this col is a steep gully leading down to the Glacier de Triolet, and on the other are scarped ice slopes that fall away to the Glacier d'Argentière. Whilst this col, if feasible, would offer many advantages, an alternative and easier way was evidently to be found by ascending the great snow and ice wall to the north-east of Les Courtes, and