gave way from beneath his feet. "Plant your stick firmly in the snow, monsieur," roared the man behind me, as I prepared to go on. As soon as I raised my head over the top, I was nearly choked, as well as blinded, by the grains of snow blown against my face by one of the fiercest winds I ever met. I thought it would have been impossible to have held on, but the guides told me that the worst was over, and immediately afterwards we were standing on a much better footing. It was all plain sailing from this point. A few steps were cut to enable us to retain our footing where the snow was frozen hard in a few places, otherwise we had only to walk up steadily to the summit of the mountain-about 14,130 feet above the sea-which we reached at a quarter-past ten, the entire ascent from the châlet having occupied us six hours and a half. The day was one of the finest and clearest I ever remember having seen in Switzerland, but the cold was excessive, owing to the wind. I was very much annoyed that I was unable to mark the degree of cold, the mercury of my thermometer having become deranged.

The summit of the Grand Combin is the culminating point of a ridge of some length covered with snow, which surges over the southern side of the mountain, where perpendicular precipices of bare rock fall probably for many thousand feet without a break. As on the Titlis and the Buet, approach to the immediate edge of these snow-fringed precipices would be extremely dangerous. The view from this mountain is, I consider, decidedly inferior to that of Monte Rosa, more particularly in extent, although its position, between the latter and Mont Blanc, affords a distinct panorama of the most colossal peaks in Switzerland, together with their glaciers, for the Bernese Alps and the Aletsch glacier, across the Valais, in addition to the Pennine and Valasian chains, are seen at no great distance. We were particularly surprised at the lofty appearance from here of the Aiguilles of the Mont Blanc range; the Grandes Jorasses and the Aiguille Verte seemed to rival in height even the Monarch of the Alps, although both are, in fact, lower than the Combin. The Aiguille du Tour is like a pyramid with its top sawn off. The Velan seemed to be almost within a stone's throw of us. The line along the north of Piedmont presents a number of probably never-trodden glaciers, surmounted by snowy tops, among the nearest of which are the Grand Ruktor, the Paradis, and others. There is a grand ocean of ice between us and the sublime peaks of the Matterhorn and the Dent Blanche; beyond the former, an arm extends to the group of Monte Rosa and the Mischabelhörner, and the latter throws out a branch terminating in the Weisshorn and Bruneckhorn.

Looking straight down into the Valais, the dark-brown top of Mont Catogne fills up a space, beyond which rise the silvered rocks of the Dent du Midi, encircling a glacier. A little farther eastward, the Dent de Morcles, Diablerets, Wildstrubel, Gemmi-horn, Altels, and Blumlis Alp, form a chain facing us, which, gradually increasing in height and extent of glacier, is at length lost in the mass of the Bernese group. As the highest point of this mountain is not immediately above the lower ridge, which I have before described, but nearer Valsorey and the Velan, we had, in descending, to bear away to our right, walking for some distance nearly parallel to the col below us, until we arrived at the top of the passage leading to the lower ridge. Here the guides asked for a modicum

of brandy, for the descent before us was calculated to be a little trying to any nerves. After tying ourselves together as before, the elder guide went cautiously over the edge of the declivity, following the track of our ascent; at each downward step he carefully pounded the snow five or six times, in order to give it the proper consistency for my safe descent, and it is, perhaps, not easy for those who are unacquainted with the work of mountain guides to appreciate the amount of fatigue produced by this continual stamping down the snow in such a position, as well as by the cutting of steps. When he had reached the full extent of his tether, he stood with his stick firmly planted in the snow above him. It was now my turn to go on, while both guides remained stationary. We had to descend sideways; so, sticking my alpenstock deeply into the snow, I did not attempt to move it until I felt my foot fast in the step below.

"Maintenant faites bien attention, 'Manuel!" exclaimed Gaspard to his brother, as the snow gave a little from under one of my feet.

The startling tone in which those words were uttered made Emmanuel look up over his shoulder, while he grasped his stick more tightly with both hands. When I had got close to him, I anchored my stick deep into the snow, and waited for Gaspard. I must confess I did not feel this a very pleasant position; the mountain rose like a wall over my right shoulder, while on the other side the snow sloped away from my feet at a very steep angle, then bulging out like a globe poised upon the edge of a precipice, carried my eye at once over it, to a depth of perhaps more than two thousand feet, without being able to see what intervened. I felt persuaded that a decided slip on the part of any one of us—no very difficult matter in the fast-softening state of the snow-must have carried us all three, by a very rapid but most unpleasant route, over the ice cliffs we had passed under in the morning, down to the Col de la Maison Rouge. I was, therefore, resolved not to make a false step, and redoubled my exertions accordingly. My alpenstock had an iron crook at the end of it, which made it very laborious to pull it out of the snow, into which I plunged it about two feet at every stroke. Gaspard, observing this, insisted upon my taking his, which, being made of bad pine-wood instead of ash, snapped almost immediately with me, nearly throwing me off my balance. I took my own again, leaving him less than two feet of stick to get down with; but these fellows are as active as cats on their own mountains, and in the event of a slip would probably arrest their fall by digging their fingers and toes with great force into the snow, without the aid of any stick. When we were at the bottom of this passage, I asked the guides if I would have pulled them down, supposing I had lost my footing while descending.

"No, no, monsieur," they replied; "by moving one at a time only, we should have been quite able to hold you up had you slipped."

And it is really quite possible for a good and resolute guide to save a heavier man than himself by arresting him at the first instant of falling, as in the case of Jacob Leuthold, of Meyringen, who, with the rope merely twisted round his arm, retained the weight of the savant Dêsor and two other gentlemen, who had made a false step, and dragged one another several feet down a snow-slope, in crossing the Strahleck Pass. We found the crevasses more troublesome now than in the morning, as the effect of the sun had already had great influence upon the snow. I

got my entire leg into one of them, and we were constantly sinking up to our knees; we had, notwithstanding, to hasten our steps until we got clear of the overhanging glacier, which, at this time of day, becomes a very unsafe neighbour. However, I could not restrain myself from stopping more than once to look down the transparent sides of some of the larger chasms, wide as many a stone quarry, and perhaps between one and two hundred feet in depth. The guides told me that they had seen those crevasses of greater dimensions and more numerous on former occasions so much so, indeed, as to offer a considerable obstacle to the farther ascent of the mountain. When we descended upon the col the glare was so strong that I put on my blue spectacles for the first time. The temperature here was warm, and the wind, which had troubled us so much above, was no more felt. We got back to the rocks, where we had left the knapsack, about half-past one o'clock, having spent not less than six hours and a quarter upon the snow, not treading one inch of rock during that period. There are, perhaps, few mountains so densely covered with snow as the Grand Combin, and this fact, coupled with its great height and large dimensions, gives it a gigantic and commanding appearance when seen from a distance. The form of this mountain, when examined from the top of the Torrenthorn, as well as from the Sassenoir, between the Val d'Anniviers and the Val d'Erin, is decidedly that termed the "saddle-back." From the peak of the Dent du Midi, its appearance, in the panorama of mountains, is only second to Mont Blanc.

After a very satisfactory dinner at the top of the granite rocks, which probably have contributed many boulders to the blocs erratiques scattered over the lower valleys, we made our descent down the side of the glacier with more difficulty than we ascended. However, we reached the châlet in safety about four o'clock, having been absent from it more than twelve hours. Our acquaintance of the previous evening was at the door to welcome us, and to express his surprise at our return so early. After a bowl each of smoking chocolate, most refreshing after the cold, heat, and fatigue we had undergone, we all walked down to St. Pierre, where I slept, starting early next morning on foot for Martigny. I had every reason to be satisfied with my guides; they insisted upon taking even more than the necessary precautions; and when I felt the cold in my hands very severely on the upper part of the mountain, and discovered that I had brought no gloves, one of them insisted upon my taking his, while he nearly had one of his fingers frostbitten in consequence.

W. E. U.

398

HISTORY OF THE FIRST BATTALION OF ROYAL
MARINES IN CHINA,

FROM 1857 To 1859.

WHEN the danger that threatened our possessions in India was causing the government so much anxiety, and the necessary despatch of so many regiments seemed to be the only chance of quelling that awful rebellion, and the transports filled with troops that were on their way to protect our interests in China had necessarily been directed and sent off to Calcutta, it was evident that if we wished to protect the colony of HongKong, and to re-establish our mercantile communications with that country, other troops must be sent to replace those that had been intended for duty there. But it was impossible to send more regiments from England to that country, as in all probability their presence would be required in India. It was then that the government determined on sending a brigade of Royal Marines to replace the troops that had been ordered to Hong-Kong, and on the 18th of July, 1857, orders were received to this effect by the commandants of the four respective divisions of Royal Marines. Each division was required to furnish four companies, and each company to consist of one captain, two subalterns, and seventyfive rank and file; the battalions were each to have one lieutenantcolonel, adjutant, and quartermaster.

It is my intention only to relate the doings of the first battalion, and therefore I shall confine myself entirely to them, except in instances where it will be necessary to mention the 2nd battalion. Two vessels had been chartered to convey the battalion to Hong-Kong, the Impe ratriz and Adelaide, and it was between the 10th and 13th August that the battalion embarked on board these ships. Nothing could exceed the liberality of the messing on board these magnificent transports, but the accommodation of the one far surpassed that of the other. And thus have we started the battalion on its long and monotonous voyage.

It may be interesting to some of those who remember the voyage out in the Imperatriz and Adelaide to know something of those places where they touched, and to have recalled to them scenes they well remember, and where they spent many a happy hour. Madeira was the first of these places, situated in the temperate zone about ten degrees north of the tropics, and surrounded by the ocean. This beautiful island enjoys a climate of singular mildness. Funchal, the capital, stands on the shore of the shallow bay on the south coast, and is backed by an amphitheatre of mountains. Numerous country-houses, with their gardens on the neighbouring slopes, give an air of great cheerfulness to a rugged landscape. The ride to the Curral many will remember with pleasure. The deep ravines or gorges that everywhere intersect the mountains, cutting through them almost to the very base, give a grandeur hardly to be described; and well must be remembered that scene that suddenly opens to the view, where the eye descends to a depth of two thousand feet into the immense chasm below, and wanders over the rugged and broken outline of the many peaks that rise from its very bottom, or upwards, following the grey precipitous rocks till their summits are lost in the clouds.

Add to all this, the traces of vast and obscure antiquity that are impressed on the cliffs, caves, and gulfy torrents of the island, and the solemn and touching reflection perpetually recurring of the weakness and insignificance of perishable man, whose generations thus pass away into oblivion with all their toils and ambition, while Nature holds on her unvarying course, and pours out her streams and renews her forests with undecaying activity, regardless of the fate of her proud and perishable sovereign. Throughout this beautiful scenery the eye wanders amongst groves of chesnut, and where pine-trees stretch along higher declivities of the hills, and the banana-leaves wave in the lower plains; and then overtopping the roofs is seen the beautiful leaves of the palm-tree.

It was evening when we left Madeira, and from this place, until we arrived at Ascension, we were favoured with the most lovely weather. The solitary island of Ascension, situated in the Atlantic, about eight degrees south, is one, I should imagine, of the most wretched-looking places upon the face of the earth. The green mountain, the highest in the island, is about three thousand feet above the sea-level; and from this mountain the garrison of Georgetown is supplied with water.

The Cape was the next place the battalion touched at, and many will remember the pleasant days they spent in this beautiful colony. Among the best sights in Cape Town are the museum and the botanical gardens; in the former there is an excellent collection of geological and mineralogical specimens, as well as a collection of South African animals, some of which are brought from those plains of the far interior that Pringle describes so well in the following lines:

Away, away, from the dwellings of men,

By the antelope's haunt and the buffalo's den,
By valleys remote, where the ourebi plays;
Where the gnu, the sesseybe, and hartebeest graze,
And the eland and gemsbok unhunted recline,

By the skirts of grey forests o'erhung with wild vine;
Where the elephant browses at peace in his wood,
And the riverhorse gambols, unscared, in the flood,
And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will

In the pool where the wild ass is drinking his fill;
O'er the brown karroo, where the bleating cry
Of the springbok's fawn sounds plaintively,
Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane

As he scours with his troop o'er the desolate plain;
And the stately koodoo exultingly bounds,
Undisturbed, by the bay of the hunters' hounds.

Twenty-six days after leaving the Cape, Java Head was sighted, and the Imperatriz dropped anchor for the night, and at daylight, the next morning, steamed up these lovely straits.

In no part of the world, I should imagine, is vegetation more richly and luxuriantly developed, or the natural advantages of situation and soil more varied and abundant, than it is in this island of Java, truly called the Queen of the Eastern Isles-a climate, where the intense heat of the torrid zone must be moderated by the surrounding seas; a diversified surface, where the hills are clothed with forests of the most valuable trees, and the plains yield the richest plants and spices in spontaneous abundance. But I cannot help quoting Dr. Bleeker's spirited description of this island. He says: "It is more especially on the low coast lands that