At 3.55 a.m. on the 21st we set out up the Vallon, passed for a time over pasture-land, and then over a stony waste, deeply channelled by watercourses. At 5.30 the two principal Aiguilles were well seen, and as, by this time, it was evident that the authors of
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the Sardinian official map had romanced as extensively in this neighbourhood as elsewhere, it was necessary to hold a council.
Three questions were submitted to it:—Firstly, Which is the highest of these Aiguilles? Secondly, Which shall we go up? Thirdly, How is it to be done?
The French engineers, it was said, had determined that the two highest of them were respectively 11,513 and 11,529 feet in height; but we were without information as to which two they had measured[1] Joanne indeed said (but without specifying whether he meant all three) that the Aiguilles had been several times ascended, and particularly mentioned that the one of 11,513 feet was "relatively easy."
We therefore said, "We will go up the peak of 11,529 feet." But that determination did not settle the second question. Joanne's "relatively easy" peak, according to his description, was evidently the most northern of the three. Our peak then was to be one of the
- ↑ It should be observed that these mountains were included in the territory recently ceded to France. The Sardinian map above referred to was the old official map. The French survey alluded to afterwards is the survey in continuation of the great French official map. The sheet (No. 179) which will include the Aiguilles d'Arve is not yet published.
