Mr. Vansittart has now, in the Daily News, described his
"ascension" of Mont Blanc. .
" In your paper you speak of the great caravan, which amounted to up- wards of thirty persons, and of the sum of 1501. which it cost them. I have at least the satisfaction of knowing that mine cost but little. I agreed with three guides for 50 francs each, and took a porter part of the way ; but in con- sequence of their good behaviour, and the great danger these men were ex- posed to, through my own folly of not being tied to the rope, I paid them more than my original agreement." When he reached the Grande Mulets, Mr. Albert Smith's party were enjoying the warmth of a fire. "My only covering was a blanket, whilst the fuel was scanty ; it consisted of three small pieces of wood, which we picked up on the way. I left the Grande Mulets about a quarter of an hour after the great caravan. It was mid- night. We were all three tied together. We had calculated that the moon would be up within half-an-hour ; and after we had been, I suppose, ft couple of hours en route, our lanterns went out, and for some time there was no other light than the stars of the firmament. It was a bitter moment. We were then indebted to the grand caravan for our direction, which was some little distance in advance. The effect by star-light of that compact dark body with lanterns was not of this world—they were moving silently along—not a voice was heard—it was the march more of spirits than of mortals The last part of the ascent was truly fatiguing. Holes in the snow worked by the others considerably increased it. I fell from utter exhaustion several times, and at each fall was smothered with a ground hail or sleet which the wind drove from the mountain. My thirst was insatiable—more intense than anything I have felt—more so even than in riding to the Dead Sea in the month of June. I also felt a great inclination to sleep. Two of my guides were perfectly black in their faces, and the other as white as Hamlet's ghost. We reached the summit a few minutes after the others. The view would have been magnificent, but it was too high ; so much so that the Lake of Geneva looked more like a marsh than a sea.
" Having walked under the sea in a diving-apparatus more than 100 feet deep, and having descended the bowels of the earth both in the iron-mines of Dannemora in Sweden and the salt-mines in Poland, and having ascended both by a balloon and many high mountains, I can safely assert that there is a certain pleasure in all these enterprises, unknown to those who have not experienced them. If the guides choose to risk their lives, it is their own look-out. I especially asked for unmarried men, but Payot, one of the three, was married."
Dr. Jenner, one of the Professors of University College, chronicles in the last number of the Medical Times, the discovery of a new, and, from the cases he relates, apparently a very efficacious remedy, in some of the most trouble- some forms of indigestion. The drug used by the Professor is the sulphite .of soda, not the sulphate.
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