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All those luminous battlements and turrets and pyramids the Mole, the Grandes Jorasses, the Aiguilles du Midi, the Dent du Geant, the Aiguilles d'Argentiere were now suffused with a glow so magically delicate that the softest tint of the blush rose would have seemed harsh and crude in comparison. "You have to come away from Mont Blanc to see it," said Flemming, lowering the glass.
Leaving its cradle on the top of Mont Blanc, the great river sweeps round the Aiguille du Geant; and, after receiving its first name of Glacier du Geant from that mighty obelisk of rock, which rises 13,156 feet above the sea, it passes onward to welcome two grand tributaries, the Glacier de Lechaud, from the rugged heights of the Grandes Jorasses, and the Glacier du Talefre from the breast of the Aiguille du Talefre and the surrounding heights.
Chayne leaned back in his chair fairly startled by this confirmation. It was to the Brenva route that Garratt Skinner had continually harked back. The Aiguille Verte, the Grandes Jorasses, the Charmoz, the Blaitière yes, he had talked of them all, but ever he had come back, with an eager voice and a fire in his eyes, to the ice-arête of the Brenva route. Chayne searched on through the pages.
The day was all that could be desired. There were a few clouds, but these were light and feathery; clear blue predominated all over the sky. Over the masses of the Jorasses and the peaks of the Geant, the Aiguille du Dru, the slopes of Mont Mallet, the pinnacles of Charmoz, and the rounded white summit of Mont Blanc everywhere the heavens were serene and beautiful.
It was to the old climbs that Garratt Skinner's conversation perpetually recurred the Aiguille Verte, the Grand and the Petit Dru and the traverse between them, the Col Dolent, the Grandes Jorasses and the Brenva route yes, above all, the Brenva route up Mont Blanc.
Rose and purple, with fading gold and amethystine gleams played softly upon the far-away giant peak, with its noble bodyguard, the Aiguilles du Midi, Grandes Jorasses, the Dent du Geant, the sturdy pyramid of the Mole, and the long far sweep of the Voirons. But he noted not these splendors of the dying sun god, as he stood there moodily defying adverse fate, a modern Manfred.
The chamois is becoming rare, and the ibex or steinbock, once common in all the high Alps, is now believed to be confined to the Cogne mountains in Piedmont, between the valleys of the Dora Baltea and the Orco, though it is said that a few still linger about the Grandes Jorasses near Cormayeur.
It is a splendid, as well as interesting amphitheatre, for it is bounded, as you see, on one side by the Grandes Jorasses, on the other by Mont Mallet, while elsewhere you have the vast plateau whence the Glacier du Geant is fed; the Aiguille du Geant, the Aiguille Noire, the Montagnes Mandites, and Mont Blanc. Another wing, if you please ah, finished? No matter, pass the loaf.
Then the two set out for the rocks overlooking the glacier. The cliff rises precipitously two hundred and fifty feet above the frozen sea, whose windings can be followed, for a distance of five miles, to the walls of the Grandes and Petites Jorasses. Surveyed from this height, the Mer de Glace presents the appearance of an immense ploughed field covered by a fall of snow that has become dingy.
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