Of course the orthodox way nowadays is to take the train to the village of Troistorrents and then to walk or drive to Morgins. Personally I prefer to walk from Monthey, as in days past, keeping to the old cobbled road as much as possible;[17] or, better still, mounting the woods and forest which rise immediately from the Pierre des Marmettes, and then crossing the high pastures leading eventually down upon Morgins. This latter route, although unusual, is preferable by far for those lovers of Nature who are eager to reap all they can from the delightful scenery. And then, all the time to the left, for nearly five miles, towers the glorious Dent du Midi with its seven peaks. I imagine that there is no more individual, graceful, and arresting mountain in the Alps of the whole wide world. Like the Matterhorn, it stands out, a living personality amid its neighbour mountains. As among the many and striking peaks at Zermatt the eye rests at once and all but always upon the Matterhorn, so among the many and striking peaks in this district of the Rhone valley does the eye immediately rest upon the Dent du Midi. One never tires of it. It is the first and the last upon which one gazes; it is the first and the last that one remembers afterwards throughout one’s days. Neither chocolate boxes nor picture postcards can dim its great appealing beauty. No telephote contortion of its exquisite proportions, in conjunction with an over-small Castle of Chillon, can destroy its repute and fascination. Whether it be seen in all its breadth from Montreux, ChampÉry, or Lac Champex, or as a single peak from Bex or St. Maurice, it is unique, inimitable. No wonder that it was Javelle’s first absorbing love; no wonder that Juste Olivier and EugÈne Rambert were moved to voice its mastering charms; no wonder that, before these other wielders of poetic pens, Senancour made his home at its feet and wrote rhapsodically of it in his famous Obermann.

We have arrived at Morgins; or, at least, we have it now before us, lying below the slopes we are descending—sheltered, secluded, rustic little Morgins, with its encircling hills, its dark pine forests and ruddy stream, its hotels and chÂlets embedded in green, and its quiet deep-green lake lying beside the Col de Morgins, whence a road winds over into Savoy, down the Valley of Abondance to Evian and Thonon on the shores of Lac LÉman.[18] The red iron waters of Morgins have been long famous in fighting anÆmia, and the quietude of the place itself is sought in summer by those suffering from overwork. But of late it has acquired a new fame, almost, if not quite, eclipsing the old: a fame that Mr Arnold Lunn, one of the best known and most intrepid of ski-ers in the Alps, has consented to explain: the fame of