We made the descent of the glacier in a mist, and of the moraine at its base, and of the slopes below, in total darkness, and regained the chalets of Abricolla at 11.45 p.m. We had been absent eighteen and a half hours, and out of that time had been going not less than seventeen. That night we slept the sleep of those who are thoroughly tired.[1]
Two days afterwards, when walking into Zermatt, whom should we meet but Mr. Kennedy. "Hullo!" we said, "we have just seen 
T. S. KENNEDY.your cairn on the top of the Dent Blanche." "No, you haven't," he answered, very positively. "What
do you mean?" "Why, that you cannot have seen my cairn, because I didn't make one!" "Well, but we saw a cairn." "No doubt;
it was made by a man who went up the mountain last year with Lauener and Zurfluh." " O-o-h," we said, rather disgusted at hearing news when we expected to communicate some, "O-o-h! good morning, Kennedy." Before this happened, we managed to lose our way upon the Col d'Hérens; but an account of that must be reserved for the next chapter.
- ↑ The ascent of the Dent Blanche is the hardest that I have made. There was nothing upon it so difficult as the last 500 feet of the Pointe des Ecrins; but, on the other hand, there was hardly a step upon it which was positively easy. The whole of the face required actual climbing. There was, probably, very little difference in difficulty between the route we took in 1865, and that followed by Mr. Kennedy in 1862.
