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FROM VAL LOUISE TO LA BÉRARDE BY THE COL DE PILATTE.

Ailefroide to Claux, but for the path, travel would be scarcely more easy than over the Pré de Madame Carle. The valley is strewn with immense masses of gneiss, from the size of a large house downwards, and it is only occasionally that rock in situ is seen, so covered up is it up by the débris, which seems to have been derived almost entirely from the neighbouring cliffs.

It was Sunday, a "day most calm and bright." Golden sunlight had dispersed the clouds, and was glorifying the heights, and we forgot hunger through the brilliancy of the morning and beauty of the mountains.

We meant the 26th to be a day of rest, but it was little that we found in the cabaret of Claude Giraud, and we fled before the babel of sound which rose in intensity as men descended to a depth which is unattainable by the beasts of the field, and found at the chalets of Entraigues the peace that had been denied to us at Val Louise.