It was a little upland chalet, which the people had deserted for the autumn and winter; and meantime a mud avalanche had taken possession, and covered the floor to a depth of several inches.

No plank was to be found for lying on; but he discovered a broken one-legged stool, and on this he sat and slept, propped as well as might be in a corner.

It is difficult to say which would be worse--a fall from the stool by daylight into the embers of a wood fire, or the shuddering slimy waking about midnight, after a nod more vigorous than the rest, to find oneself plunged in eight cold inches of soft mud.
About half an hour beyond the chalet, we found the mouth of the glaciere, on a large plateau almost bare of vegetation, and showing the live rock at the surface.

They told me that in a strong winter there would be an average of 12 feet of snow on the ground here.[70] The glaciere itself is approached by descending one side of a deep pit, whose circumference is larger than that of any other of the pit-glacieres I have seen.

A few yards off there is a smaller shaft in the rock, which we afterwards found to communicate with the glaciere.
The NW.