Scrambles Amongst the Alps
In the years 1860-69

By Edward Whymper

London
J. Murray
1871

Toil and pleasure, in their natures opposite, are yet linked together in a kind of necessary connection.—LIVY.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Full Page Illustrations

In the Text

PREFACE.

In the year 1860, shortly before leaving England for a long Continental tour, a certain eminent London publisher requested me to make for him some sketches of the great Alpine peaks. At this time I had only a literary acquaintance with mountaineering, and had even not seen—much less set foot upon—a mountain. Amongst the peaks which were upon my list was Mont Pelvoux, in Dauphine. The sketches that were required of it were to celebrate the triumph of some Englishmen who intended to make its ascent. They came—they saw—but they did not conquer. By a mere chance I fell in with a very agreeable Frenchman who accompanied this party, and was pressed by him to return to the assault. In 1861 we did so, with my friend Macdonald, and we conquered. This was the origin of my scrambles amongst the Alps.

The ascent of Mont Pelvoux (including the disagreeables) was a very delightful scramble. The mountain air did not act as an emetic; the sky did not look black instead of blue; nor did I feel tempted to throw myself over precipices. I hastened to enlarge my experience, and went to the Matterhorn. I was urged toward Mont Pelvoux by those mysterious impulses which cause men to peer into the unknown. Not only was this mountain reputed to be the highest in France, and on that account was worthy of attention, but it was the dominating point of a most picturesque district of the highest interest, which, to this day, remains almost unexplored. The Matterhorn attracted me simply by its grandeur. It was considered to be the most thoroughly inaccessible of all mountains, even by those who ought to have known better. Stimulated to make fresh exertions by one repulse after another, I returned, year after year, as I had opportunity, more and more determined to find a way up it, or to prove it to be really inaccessible.

A considerable portion of this volume is occupied by the history of these attacks on the Matterhorn, and the other excursions that are described have all some connection, more or less remote, with that mountain or with Mont Pelvoux. All are new excursions (that is, excursions made for the first time), unless the contrary is pointed out. Some have been passed over very briefly, and entire ascents or descents have been disposed of in a single line. If they had been worked out at full length, three volumes instead of one would have been required. Generally speaking, the salient points alone have been dwelt upon, and the rest has been left to the imagination. This treatment has saved the reader from much useless repetition.

In endeavoring to make the book of some use to those who may wish to go mountain-scrambling, whether in the Alps or elsewhere, undue prominence, perhaps, has been given to our mistakes and failures; and it will doubtless be pointed out that our practice must have been bad if the principles which are laid down are sound, or that the principles must be unsound if the practice was good. It is maintained in an early chapter that the positive, or unavoidable, dangers of mountaineering are very small, yet from subsequent pages it can be shown that very considerable risks were run. The reason is obvious—we were not immaculate. Our blunders are not held up to be admired or to be imitated, but to be avoided.

These scrambles amongst the Alps were holiday excursions, and as such they should be judged. They are spoken of as sport, and nothing more. The pleasure that they gave me cannot, I fear, be transferred to others. The ablest pens have failed, and must always fail, to give a true idea of the grandeur of the Alps. The most minute descriptions of the greatest writers do nothing more than convey impressions that are entirely erroneous—the reader conjures up visions, it may be magnificent ones, but they are infinitely inferior to the reality. I have dealt sparingly in descriptions, and have employed illustrations freely, in the hope that the pencil may perhaps succeed where the pen must inevitably have failed.

The preparation of the illustrations has occupied a large part of my time during the last six years. With the exception of the views upon pp. 21, 23 and 33, the whole of the illustrations have been engraved expressly for the book, and, unless it is otherwise specified, all are from my own sketches. About fifty have been drawn on the wood by Mr. James Mahoney, and I am much indebted to that artist for the care and fidelity with which he has followed my slight memoranda, and for the spirit that he has put into his admirable designs. Most of his drawings will be identified by his monogram. Twenty of the remainder are the work of Mr. Cyrus Johnston, and out of these I would draw especial attention to the view of the Matterhorn facing p. 36, the striated rock upon p. 63, and the bits from the Mer de Glace upon pp. 138, 139. The illustrations have been introduced as illustrations, and very rarely for ornamental purposes. We have subordinated everything in them to accuracy, and it is only fair to the artists who have honored me by their assistance to say that many of their designs would have ranked higher as works of art if they had been subjected to fewer restrictions.

BEACHY HEAD

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.

On the 23d of July, 1860, I started for my first tour in the Alps. As we steamed out into the Channel, Beachy Head came into view, and recalled a scramble of many years ago. With the impudence of ignorance, my brother and I, schoolboys both, had tried to scale that great chalk cliff. Not the head itself—where sea-birds circle, and where the flints are ranged so orderly in parallel lines—but at a place more to the east, where the pinnacle called the Devil’s Chimney had fallen down. Since that time we have been often in dangers of different kinds, but never have we more nearly broken our necks than upon that occasion.

In Paris I made two ascents. The first to the seventh floor of a house in the Quartier Latin—to an artist friend, who was engaged, at the moment of my entry, in combat with a little Jew. He hurled him with great good-will and with considerable force into some of his crockery, and then recommended me to go up the towers of Notre Dame. Half an hour later I stood on the parapet of the great west front, by the side of the leering fiend which for centuries has looked down upon the great city. It looked over the Hôtel Dieu to a small and commonplace building, around which there was always a moving crowd. To that building I descended. It was filled with chattering women and eager children, who were struggling to get a good sight of three corpses which were exposed to view. It was the Morgue. I quitted the place disgusted, and overheard two women discussing the spectacle. One of them concluded with, “But that it is droll;” the other answered approvingly, “But that it is droll;” and the Devil of Notre Dame, looking down upon them, seemed to say, “Yes, your climax, the cancan—your end, not uncommonly, that building: it is droll, but that it is droll.”

I passed on to Switzerland; saw the sunlight lingering on the giants of the Oberland; heard the echoes from the cow horns in the Lauterbrunnen valley and the avalanches rattling off the Jungfrau; and then crossed the Gemmi into the Valais, resting for a time by the beautiful Oeschinen See, and getting a forcible illustration of glacier-motion in a neighboring valley—the Gasteren Thal. The upper end of this valley is crowned by the Tschingel glacier, which, as it descends, passes over an abrupt cliff that is in the centre of its course. On each side the continuity of the glacier is maintained, but in the centre it is cleft in twain by the cliff. Lower down it is consolidated again. I scrambled on to this lower portion, advanced toward the cliff, and then stopped to admire the contrast of the brilliant pinnacles of ice with the blue sky. Without a warning, a huge slice of the glacier broke away and fell over the cliff on to the lower portion with a thundering crash. Fragments rolled beyond me, although, fortunately, not in my direction. I fled, and did not stop until off the glacier, but before it was quitted learned another lesson in glacial matters: the terminal moraine, which seemed to be a solid mound, broke away underneath me, and showed that it was only a superficial covering resting on a slope of glassy ice.

On the steep path over the Gemmi there were opportunities for observing the manners and customs of the Swiss mule. It is not perhaps in revenge for generations of ill-treatment that the mule grinds one’s legs against fences and stone walls, and pretends to stumble in awkward places, particularly when coming round corners and on the brinks of precipices; but their evil habit of walking on the outside edges of paths (even in the most unguarded positions) is one that is distinctly the result of association with man. The transport of wood from the mountains into the valleys occupies most of the mules during a considerable portion of the year: the fagots into which the wood is made up project some distance on each side, and it is said that they walk intuitively to the outside of paths having rocks on the other side to avoid the collisions which would otherwise occur. When they carry tourists they behave in a similar manner; and no doubt when the good time for mules arrives, and they no longer carry burdens, they will still continue, by natural selection, to do the same. This habit frequently gives rise to scenes: two mules meet—each wishes to pass on the outside, and neither will give way. It requires considerable persuasion, through the medium of the tail, before such difficulties are arranged.

I visited the baths of Leuk, and saw the queer assemblage of men, women and children, attired in bathing-gowns, chatting, drinking and playing at chess in the water. The company did not seem to be perfectly sure whether it was decorous in such a situation and in such attire for elderly men to chase young females from one corner to another, but it was unanimous in howling at the advent of a stranger who remained covered, and literally yelled when I departed without exhibiting my sketch.

I trudged up the Rhone valley, and turned aside at Visp to go up the Visp Thal, where one would expect to see greater traces of glacial action, if a glacier formerly filled it, as one is said to have done.

I was bound for the valley of Saas, and my work took me high up the Alps on either side, far beyond the limit of trees and the tracks of tourists. The view from the slopes of the Wiessmies, on the eastern side of the valley, five or six thousand feet above the village of Saas, is perhaps the finest of its kind in the Alps. The full height of the three-peaked Mischabel (the highest mountain in Switzerland) is seen at one glance—eleven thousand feet of dense forests, green alps, pinnacles of rock and glittering glaciers. The peaks seemed to me then to be hopelessly inaccessible from this direction.

I descended the valley to the village of Stalden, and then went up the Visp Thal to Zermatt, and stopped there several days. Numerous traces of the formidable earthquake-shocks of five years before still remained, particularly at St. Nicholas, where the inhabitants had been terrified beyond measure at the destruction of their churches and houses. At this place, as well as at Visp, a large part of the population was obliged to live under canvas for several months. It is remarkable that there was hardly a life lost on this occasion, although there were about fifty shocks, some of which were very severe.

At Zermatt I wandered in many directions, but the weather was bad and my work was much retarded. One day, after spending a long time in attempts to sketch near the Hörnli, and in futile endeavors to seize the forms of the peaks as they for a few seconds peered out from above the dense banks of woolly clouds, I determined not to return to Zermatt by the usual path, but to cross the Görner glacier to the Riffel hotel. After a rapid scramble over the polished rocks and snow-beds which skirt the base of the Théodule glacier, and wading through some of the streams which flow from it, at that time much swollen by the late rains, the first difficulty was arrived at, in the shape of a precipice about three hundred feet high. It seemed that there would be no difficulty in crossing the glacier if the cliff could be descended, but higher up and lower down the ice appeared, to my inexperienced eyes, to be impassable for a single person. The general contour of the cliff was nearly perpendicular, but it was a good deal broken up, and there was little difficulty in descending by zigzagging from one mass to another. At length there was a long slab, nearly smooth, fixed at an angle of about forty degrees between two wall-sided pieces of rock: nothing, except the glacier, could be seen below. It was a very awkward place, but being doubtful if return were possible, as I had been dropping from one ledge to another, I passed at length by lying across the slab, putting the shoulder stiffly against one side and the feet against the other, and gradually wriggling down, by first moving the legs and then the back. When the bottom of the slab was gained a friendly crack was seen, into which the point of the bâton could be stuck, and I dropped down to the next piece. It took a long time coming down that little bit of cliff, and for a few seconds it was satisfactory to see the ice close at hand. In another moment a second difficulty presented itself. The glacier swept round an angle of the cliff, and as the ice was not of the nature of treacle or thin putty, it kept away from the little bay on the edge of which I stood. We were not widely separated, but the edge of the ice was higher than the opposite edge of rock, and worse, the rock was covered with loose earth and stones which had fallen from above. All along the side of the cliff, as far as could be seen in both directions, the ice did not touch it, but there was this marginal crevasse, seven feet wide and of unknown depth.

All this was seen at a glance, and almost at once I concluded that I could not jump the crevasse, and began to try along the cliff lower down, but without success, for the ice rose higher and higher, until at last farther progress was stopped by the cliffs becoming perfectly smooth. With an axe it would have been possible to cut up the side of the ice—without one, I saw there was no alternative but to return and face the jump.

It was getting toward evening, and the solemn stillness of the High Alps was broken only by the sound of rushing water or of falling rocks. If the jump should be successful, well: if not, I fell into that horrible chasm, to be frozen in, or drowned in that gurgling, rushing water. Everything depended on that jump. Again I asked myself, “Can it be done?” It must be. So, finding my stick was useless, I threw it and the sketch-book to the ice, and first retreating as far as possible, ran forward with all my might, took the leap, barely reached the other side, and fell awkwardly on my knees. Almost at the same moment a shower of stones fell on the spot from which I had jumped.

The glacier was crossed without further trouble, but the Riffel, which was then a very small building, was crammed with tourists, and could not take me in. As the way down was unknown to me, some of the people obligingly suggested getting a man at the châlets, otherwise the path would be certainly lost in the forest. On arriving at the châlets no man could be found, and the lights of Zermatt, shining through the trees, seemed to say, “Never mind a guide, but come along down: we’ll show you the way;” so off I went through the forest, going straight toward them. The path was lost in a moment, and was never recovered: I was tripped up by pine roots, I tumbled over rhododendron bushes, I fell over rocks. The night was pitch-dark, and after a time the lights of Zermatt became obscure or went out altogether. By a series of slides or falls, or evolutions more or less disagreeable, the descent through the forest was at length accomplished, but torrents of a formidable character had still to be passed before one could arrive at Zermatt. I felt my way about for hours, almost hopelessly, by an exhaustive process at last discovering a bridge, and about midnight, covered with dirt and scratches, re-entered the inn which I had quitted in the morning.

Others besides tourists got into difficulties. A day or two afterward, when on the way to my old station near the Hörnli, I met a stout curé who had essayed to cross the Théodule pass. His strength or his wind had failed, and he was being carried down, a helpless bundle and a ridiculous spectacle, on the back of a lanky guide, while the peasants stood by with folded hands, their reverence for the Church almost overcome by their sense of the ludicrous.

I descended the valley, diverging from the path at Randa to mount the slopes of the Dom (the highest of the Mischabelhorner), in order to see the Weisshorn face to face. The latter mountain is the noblest in Switzerland, and from this direction it looks especially magnificent. On its north there is a large snowy plateau that feeds the glacier of which a portion is seen from Randa, and which on more than one occasion has destroyed that village. From the direction of the Dom—that is, immediately opposite—this Bies glacier seems to descend nearly vertically: it does not do so, although it is very steep. Its size is much less than formerly, and the lower portion, now divided into three tails, clings in a strange, weird-like manner to the cliffs, to which it seems scarcely possible that it can remain attached.

Unwillingly I parted from the sight of this glorious mountain, and went down to Visp. A party of English tourists had passed up the valley a short time before with a mule. The party numbered nine—eight women and a governess. The mule carried their luggage, and was ridden by each in turn. The peasants—themselves not unaccustomed to overload their beasts—were struck with astonishment at the unwonted sight, and made comments, more free than welcome to English ears, on the nonchalance with which young miss sat, calm and collected, on the miserable beast, while it was struggling under her weight combined with that of the luggage. The story was often repeated; and it tends to sustain some of the hard things which have been said of late about young ladies from the ages of twelve or fourteen to eighteen.

Arriving once more in the Rhone valley, I proceeded to Viesch, and from thence ascended the Æggischhorn, on which unpleasant eminence I lost my way in a fog, and my temper shortly afterward. Then, after crossing the Grimsel in a severe thunderstorm, I passed on to Brienz, Interlachen and Berne, and thence to Fribourg and Morat, Neuchâtel, Martigny and the St. Bernard. The massive walls of the convent were a welcome sight as I waded through the snow-beds near the summit of the pass, and pleasant also was the courteous salutation of the brother who bade me enter. He wondered at the weight of my knapsack, and I at the hardness of their bread. The saying that the monks make the toast in the winter that they give to tourists in the following season is not founded on truth: the winter is their most busy time of the year. But it is true they have exercised so much hospitality that at times they have not possessed the means to furnish the fuel for heating their chapel in the winter.

Instead of descending to Aosta, I turned aside into the Val Pelline, in order to obtain views of the Dent d’Erin. The night had come on before Biona was gained, and I had to knock long and loud upon the door of the curé’s house before it was opened. An old woman with querulous voice and with a large goître answered the summons, and demanded rather sharply what was wanted, but became pacific, almost good-natured, when a five-franc piece was held in her face and she heard that lodging and supper were requested in exchange.

My directions asserted that a passage existed from Prerayen, at the head of this valley, to Breuil, in the Val Tournanche, and the old woman, now convinced of my respectability, busied herself to find a guide. Presently she introduced a native picturesquely attired in high-peaked hat, braided jacket, scarlet waistcoat and indigo pantaloons, who agreed to take me to the village of Val Tournanche. We set off early on the next morning, and got to the summit of the pass without difficulty. It gave me my first experience of considerable slopes of hard, steep snow, and, like all beginners, I endeavored to prop myself up with my stick, and kept it outside, instead of holding it between myself and the slope, and leaning upon it, as should have been done. The man enlightened me, but he had, properly, a very small opinion of his employer, and it is probably on that account that, a few minutes after we had passed the summit, he said he would not go any farther and would return to Biona. All argument was useless: he stood still, and to everything that was said answered nothing but that he would go back. Being rather nervous about descending some long snow-slopes which still intervened between us and the head of the valley, I offered more pay, and he went on a little way. Presently there were some cliffs, down which we had to scramble. He called to me to stop, then shouted that he would go back, and beckoned to me to come up. On the contrary, I waited for him to come down, but instead of doing so, in a second or two he turned round, clambered deliberately up the cliff and vanished. I supposed it was only a ruse to extort offers of more money, and waited for half an hour, but he did not appear again. This was rather embarrassing, for he carried off my knapsack. The choice of action lay between chasing him and going on to Breuil, risking the loss of my knapsack. I chose the latter course, and got to Breuil the same evening. The landlord of the inn, suspicious of a person entirely innocent of luggage, was doubtful if he could admit me, and eventually thrust me into a kind of loft, which was already occupied by guides and by hay. In later years we became good friends, and he did not hesitate to give credit and even to advance considerable sums.

My sketches from Breuil were made under difficulties: my materials had been carried off, nothing better than fine sugar-paper could be obtained, and the pencils seemed to contain more silica than plumbago. However, they were made, and the pass was again crossed, this time alone. By the following evening the old woman of Biona again produced the faithless guide. The knapsack was recovered after the lapse of several hours, and then I poured forth all the terms of abuse and reproach of which I was master. The man smiled when called a liar, and shrugged his shoulders when referred to as a thief, but drew his knife when spoken of as a pig.

The following night was spent at Cormayeur, and the day after I crossed the Col Ferrex to Orsières, and on the next the Tête Noir to Chamounix. The Emperor Napoleon arrived the same day, and access to the Mer de Glace was refused to tourists; but, by scrambling along the Plan des Aiguilles, I managed to outwit the guards, and to arrive at the Montanvert as the imperial party was leaving, failing to get to the Jardin the same afternoon, but very nearly succeeding in breaking a leg by dislodging great rocks on the moraine of the glacier.

From Chamounix I went to Geneva, and thence by the Mont Cenis to Turin and to the Vaudois valleys. A long and weary day had ended when Paesana was reached. The inn was full, and I was tired and about to go to bed when some village stragglers entered and began to sing. They sang to Garibaldi! The tenor, a ragged fellow, whose clothes were not worth a shilling, took the lead with wonderful expression and feeling. The others kept their places and sang in admirable time. For hours I sat enchanted, and long after I retired the sound of their melody could be heard, relieved at times by the treble of the girl who belonged to the inn.

GARIBALDI!

The next morning I passed the little lakes which are the sources of the Po, on my way into France. The weather was stormy, and misinterpreting the patois of some natives—who in reality pointed out the right way—I missed the track, and found myself under the cliffs of Monte Viso. A gap that was occasionally seen in the ridge connecting it with the mountains to the east tempted me up, and after a battle with a snow-slope of excessive steepness, I reached the summit. The scene was extraordinary, and, in my experience, unique. To the north there was not a particle of mist, and the violent wind coming from that direction blew one back staggering. But on the side of Italy the valleys were completely filled with dense masses of cloud to a certain level; and there—where they felt the influence of the wind—they were cut off as level as the top of a table, the ridges appearing above them.

I raced down to Abries, and went on through the gorge of the Guil to Mont Dauphin. The next day found me at La Bessée, at the junction of the Val Louise with the valley of the Durance, in full view of Mont Pelvoux; and by chance I walked into a cabaret where a Frenchman was breakfasting who a few days before had made an unsuccessful attempt to ascend that mountain with three Englishmen and the guide Michel Croz of Chamounix—a right good fellow, by name Jean Reynaud.

The same night I slept at Briançon, intending to take the courier on the following day to Grenoble, but all places had been secured several days beforehand, so I set out at two P.M. on the next, day for a seventy-mile walk. The weather was again bad, and on the summit of the Col de Lautaret I was forced to seek shelter in the wretched little hospice. It was filled with workmen who were employed on the road, and with noxious vapors which proceeded from them. The inclemency of the weather was preferable to the inhospitality of the interior. Outside, it was disagreeable, but grand—inside, it was disagreeable and mean. The walk was continued under a deluge of rain, and I felt the way down, so intense was the darkness, to the village of La Grave, where the people of the inn detained me forcibly. It was perhaps fortunate that they did so, for during that night blocks of rock fell at several places from the cliffs on to the road with such force that they made large holes in the macadam, which looked as if there had been explosions of gunpowder. I resumed the walk at half-past five next morning, and proceeded, under steady rain, through Bourg d’Oysans to Grenoble, arriving at the latter place soon after seven P. M., having accomplished the entire distance from Briançon in about eighteen hours of actual walking. This was the end of the Alpine portion of my tour of 1860, on which I was introduced to the great peaks, and acquired the passion for mountain-scrambling the development of which is described in the following chapters.

BRIANÇON

CHAPTER II.
THE ASCENT OF MONT PELVOUX.

The district of which Mont Pelvoux and the neighboring summits are the culminating points is, both historically and topographically, one of the most interesting in the Alps. As the nursery and the home of the Vaudois, it has claims to permanent attention: the names of Waldo and of Neff will be remembered when men more famous in their time are forgotten, and the memory of the heroic courage and the simple piety of their disciples will endure as long as history lasts.

This district contains the highest summits in France, and some of its finest scenery. It has not perhaps the beauties of Switzerland, but has charms of its own: its cliffs, its torrents and its gorges are unsurpassed, its deep and savage valleys present pictures of grandeur, and even sublimity, and it is second to none in the boldness of its mountain forms.

The district includes a mass of valleys which vie with each other in singularity of character and dissimilarity of climate. Some the rays of the sun can never reach, they are so deep and narrow. In others the very antipodes may be found, the temperature more like that of the plains of Italy than of alpine France. This great range of climate has a marked effect on the flora of these valleys: sterility reigns in some, stones take the place of trees, débris and mud replace plants and flowers: in others, in the space of a few miles, one passes vines, apple, pear and cherry trees, the birch, alder, walnut, ash, larch and pine alternating with fields of rye, barley, oats, beans and potatoes.

The valleys are for the most part short and erratic. They are not, apparently, arranged on any definite plan: they are not disposed, as is frequently the case elsewhere, either at right angles to, or parallel with, the highest summits, but they wander hither and thither, taking one direction for a few miles, then doubling back, and then perhaps resuming their original course. Thus long perspectives are rarely to be seen, and it is difficult to form a general idea of the disposition of the peaks.

The highest summits are arranged almost in a horse-shoe form. The highest of all, which occupies a central position, is the Pointe des Écrins; the second in height, the Meije, is on the north; and the Mont Pelvoux, which gives its name to the entire block, stands almost detached by itself on the outside.

At the beginning of July, 1861, I despatched to Reynaud from Havre blankets (which were taxed as “prohibited fabrics”), rope, and other things desirable for the excursion, and set out on the tour of France, but four weeks later, at Nimes, found myself completely collapsed by the heat, then 94° Fahr. in the shade, so I took a night train at once to Grenoble.

I lost my way in the streets of this picturesque but noisome town, and having but a half hour left in which to get a dinner and take a place in the diligence, was not well pleased to hear that an Englishman wished to see me. It turned out to be my friend Macdonald, who confided to me that he was going to try to ascend a mountain called Pelvoux in the course of ten days, but on hearing of my intentions agreed to join us at La Bessée on the 3d of August. In a few moments more I was perched in the banquette en route for Bourg d’Oysans, in a miserable vehicle which took nearly eight hours to accomplish less than thirty miles.

At five on a lovely morning I shouldered my knapsack and started for Briançon. Gauzy mists clung to the mountains, but melted away when touched by the sun, and disappeared by jerks (in the manner of views when focused in a magic lantern), revealing the wonderfully bent and folded strata in the limestone cliffs behind the town. Then I entered the Combe de Malval, and heard the Romanche eating its way through that wonderful gorge, and passed on to Le Dauphin, where the first glacier came into view, tailing over the mountain-side on the right. From this place until the summit of the Col de Lautaret was passed, every gap in the mountains showed a glittering glacier or a soaring peak: the finest view was at La Grave, where the Meije rises by a series of tremendous precipices eight thousand feet above the road. The finest distant view of the pass is seen after crossing the col, near Monetier. A mountain, commonly supposed to be Monte Viso, appears at the end of the vista, shooting into the sky: in the middle distance, but still ten miles off, is Briançon with its interminable forts, and in the foreground, leading down to the Guisane and rising high up the neighboring slopes, are fertile fields, studded with villages and church-spires. The next day I walked over from Briançon to La Bessée, to my worthy friend Jean Reynaud, the surveyor of roads of his district.

MONT PELVOUX FROM ABOVE BESSÉE

All the peaks of Mont Pelvoux are well seen from La Bessée—the highest point as well as that upon which the French engineers erected their cairn in 1828. Neither Reynaud nor any one else knew this. The natives knew only that the engineers had ascended one peak, and had seen from that a still higher point, which they called the Pointe des Arcines or des Écrins. They could not say whether this latter could be seen from La Bessée, nor could they tell the peak upon which the cairn had been erected. We were under the impression that the highest point was concealed by the peaks we saw, and would be gained by passing over them. They knew nothing of the ascent of Monsieur Puiseux, and they confidently asserted that the highest point of Mont Pelvoux had not been attained by any one: it was this point we wished to reach.

Nothing prevented our starting at once but the absence of Macdonald and the want of a bâton. Reynaud suggested a visit to the postmaster, who possessed a bâton of local celebrity. Down we went to the bureau, but it was closed: we hallooed through the slits, but no answer. At last the postmaster was discovered endeavoring (with very fair success) to make himself intoxicated. He was just able to ejaculate, “France! ’tis the first nation in the world!”—a phrase used by a Frenchman when in the state in which a Briton begins to shout, “We won’t go home till morning,” national glory being uppermost in the thoughts of one, and home in those of the other. The bâton was produced: it was a branch of a young oak, about five feet long, gnarled and twisted in several directions. “Sir,” said the postmaster, as he presented it, “France! ’tis the first—the first nation in the world, by its—” He stuck. “Bâtons,” I suggested. “Yes, yes, sir: by its bâtons, by its—its—” and here he could not get on at all. As I looked at this young limb, I thought of my own; but Reynaud, who knew everything about everybody in the village, said there was not a better one; so off we went with it, leaving the official staggering in the road, and muttering, “France! ’tis the first nation in the world!”

The 3d of August came, but Macdonald did not appear, so we started for the Val Louise, our party consisting of Reynaud, myself and a porter, Jean Casimir Giraud, nicknamed “Little Nails,” the shoemaker of the place. An hour and a half’s smart walking took us to La Ville de Val Louise, our hearts gladdened by the glorious peaks of Pelvoux shining out without a cloud around them. I renewed acquaintance with the mayor of La Ville. His aspect was original and his manners were gracious, but the odor which proceeded from him was dreadful. The same may be said of most of the inhabitants of these valleys.

Reynaud kindly undertook to look after the commissariat, and I found to my annoyance, when we were about to leave, that I had given tacit consent to a small wine-cask being carried with us, which was a great nuisance from the commencement. It was excessively awkward to handle: one man tried to carry it, and then another, and at last it was slung from one of our bâtons, and was carried by two, which gave our party the appearance of a mechanical diagram to illustrate the uses of levers.

At La Ville the Val Louise splits into two branches—the Val d’Entraigues on the left, and the Vallon d’Alefred (or Ailefroide) the right: our route was the latter, and we moved steadily forward to the village of La Pisse, where Pierre Sémiond lived, who was reputed to know more about the Pelvoux than any other man. He looked an honest fellow, but unfortunately he was ill and could not come. He recommended his brother, an aged creature, whose furrowed and wrinkled face hardly seemed to announce the man we wanted; but, having no choice, we engaged him and again set forth.

IN THE VAL D’ALEFRED

Walnut and a great variety of other trees gave shadow to our path and fresh vigor to our limbs, while below, in a sublime gorge, thundered the torrent, whose waters took their rise from the snows we hoped to tread on the morrow.

The mountain could not be seen at La Ville, owing to a high intervening ridge: we were now moving along the foot of this to get to the châlets of Alefred—or, as they are sometimes called, Aléfroide—where the mountain actually commences. From this direction the subordinate but more proximate peaks appear considerably higher than the loftier ones behind, and sometimes conceal them. But the whole height of the peak, which in these valleys goes under the name of the “Grand Pelvoux,” is seen at one place from its summit to its base—six or seven thousand feet of nearly perpendicular cliffs.

The châlets of Alefred are a cluster of miserable wooden huts at the foot of the Grand Pelvoux, and are close to the junction of the streams which descend from the glacier de Sapenière (or du Selé) on the left, and the glaciers Blanc and Noir on the right. We rested a minute to purchase some butter and milk, and Sémiond picked up a disreputable-looking lad to assist in carrying, pushing and otherwise moving the wine-cask.

THE GRAND PELVOUX DE VAL LOUISE

Our route now turned sharply to the left, and all were glad that the day was drawing to a close, so that we had the shadows from the mountains. A more frightful and desolate valley it is scarcely possible to imagine: it contains miles of boulders, débris, stones, sand and mud—few trees, and they placed so high as to be almost out of sight. Not a soul inhabits it: no birds are in the air, no fish in the waters: the mountain is too steep for the chamois, its slopes too inhospitable for the marmot, the whole too repulsive for the eagle. Not a living thing did we see in this sterile and savage valley during four days, except some few poor goats which had been driven there against their will.

We rested a little at a small spring, and then hastened onward till we nearly arrived at the foot of the Sapenière glacier, when Sémiond said we must turn to the right, up the slopes. This we did, and clambered for half an hour through scattered pines and fallen boulders. Then evening began to close in rapidly, and it was time to look for a resting-place. There was no difficulty in getting one, for all around it was a chaotic assemblage of rocks. We selected the under side of one, which was more than fifty feet long by twenty high, cleared it of rubbish, and then collected wood for a fire.

That camp-fire is a pleasant reminiscence. The wine-cask had got through all its troubles: it was tapped, and the Frenchmen seemed to derive some consolation from its execrable contents. Reynaud chanted scraps of French songs, and each contributed his share of joke, story or verse. The weather was perfect, and our prospects for the morrow were good. My companions’ joy culminated when a packet of red fire was thrown into the flames. It hissed and bubbled for a moment or two, and then broke out into a grand flare. The effect of the momentary light was magnificent: all around the mountains were illuminated for a second, and then relapsed into their solemn gloom. One by one our party dropped off to sleep, and at last I got into my blanket-bag. It was hardly necessary, for although we were at a height of at least seven thousand feet, the minimum temperature was above 40° Fahrenheit.

We roused at three, but did not start till half-past four. Giraud had been engaged as far as this rock only, but as he wished to go on, we allowed him to accompany us. We mounted the slopes, and quickly got above the trees, then had a couple of hours’ clambering over bits of precipitous rock and banks of débris, and at a quarter to seven got to a narrow glacier—Clos de l’Homme—which streamed out of the plateau on the summit, and nearly reached the glacier de Sapenière. We worked as much as possible to the right, in hope that we should not have to cross it, but were continually driven back, and at last we found that it was necessary to do so. Old Sémiond had a strong objection to the ice, and made explorations on his own account to endeavor to avoid it; but Reynaud and I preferred to cross it, and Giraud stuck to us. It was narrow—in fact, one could throw a stone across it—and was easily mounted on the side, but in the centre swelled into a steep dome, up which we were obliged to cut. Giraud stepped forward and said he should like to try his hand, and having got hold of the axe, would not give it up; and here, as well as afterward when it was necessary to cross the gullies filled with hard snow which abound on the higher part of the mountain, he did all the work, and did it admirably.

Old Sémiond of course came after us when we got across. We then zigzagged up some snow-slopes, and shortly afterward commenced to ascend the interminable array of buttresses which are the great peculiarity of the Pelvoux. They were very steep in many places, but on the whole afforded a good hold, and no climbing should be called difficult which does that. Gullies abounded among them, sometimes of great length and depth. They were frequently rotten, and would have been difficult for a single man to pass. The uppermost men were continually abused for dislodging rocks and for harpooning those below with their bâtons. However, without these incidents the climbing would have been dull: they helped to break the monotony.

BUTTRESSES OF MONT PELVOUX

We went up chimneys and gullies by the hour together, and always seemed to be coming to something, although we never got to it. The outline sketch will help to explain the situation. We stood at the foot of a great buttress—perhaps about two hundred feet high—and looked up. It did not go to a point as in the diagram, because we could not see the top, although we felt convinced that behind the fringe of pinnacles we did see there was a top, and that it was the edge of the plateau we so much desired to attain. Up we mounted, and reached the pinnacles; but, lo! another set was seen, and another, and yet more, till we reached the top, and found it was only a buttress, and that we had to descend forty or fifty feet before we could commence to mount again. When this operation had been performed a few dozen times it began to be wearisome, especially as we were in the dark as to our whereabouts. Sémiond, however, encouraged us, and said he knew we were on the right route; so away we went once more.

It was now nearly mid-day, and we seemed no nearer the summit of the Pelvoux than when we started. At last we all joined together and held a council. “Sémiond, old friend, do you know where we are now?” “Oh yes, perfectly, to a yard and a half.” “Well, then, how much are we below this plateau?” He affirmed we were not half an hour from the edge of the snow. “Very good: let us proceed.” Half an hour passed, and then another, but we were still in the same state: pinnacles, buttresses and gullies were in profusion, but the plateau was not in sight. So we called him again—for he had been staring about latterly as if in doubt—and repeated the question, “How far below are we now?” Well, he thought it might be half an hour more. “But you said that just now: are you sure we are going right?” Yes, he believe, we were. Believed!—that would not do. “Are you sure we are going right for the Pic des Arcines?” “Pic dei Arcines!” he ejaculated in astonishment, as if he had heard the words for the first time—“Pic des Arcines! No, but for the pyramid, the celebrated pyramid he had helped the great Capitaine Durand,” etc.

Here was a fix. We had been talking about it to him for a whole day, and now he confessed he knew nothing about it. I turned to Reynaud, who seemed thunderstruck: “What do you suggest?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Well,” we said, after explaining our minds pretty freely to Sémiond, “the sooner we turn back the better, for we have no wish to see your pyramid.”

We halted for an hour, and then commenced the descent. It took us nearly seven hours to come down to our rock, but I paid no heed to the distance, and do not remember anything about it. When we got down we made a discovery which affected us as much as the footprint in the sand did Robinson Crusoe: a blue silk veil lay by our fireside. There was but one solution—Macdonald had arrived, but where was he? We soon packed our baggage, and tramped in the dusk, through the stony desert, to Alefred, where we arrived about half-past nine. “Where is the Englishman?” was the first question. He was gone to sleep at La Ville. We passed that night in a hay-loft, and in the morning, after settling with Sémiond, we posted down to catch Macdonald. We had already determined on the plan of operation, which was to get him to join us, return, and be independent of all guides, simply taking the best man we could get as a porter. I set my heart on Giraud—a good fellow, with no pretence, although in every respect up to the work. But we were disappointed: he was obliged to go to Briançon.

The walk soon became exciting. The natives inquired the result of our expedition, and common civility obliged us to stop. But I was afraid of losing my man, for it was said he would wait only till ten o’clock, and that time was near at hand. At last I dashed over the bridge—time from Alefred an hour and a quarter—but a cantonnier stopped me, saying that the Englishman had just started for La Bessée. I rushed after him, turned angle after angle of the road, but could not see him: at last, as I came round a corner, he was also just turning another, going very fast. I shouted, and luckily he heard me. We returned, reprovisioned ourselves at La Ville, and the same evening saw us passing our first rock, en route for another. I have said we determined to take no guide, but on passing La Pisse old Sémiond turned out and offered his services. He went well, in spite of his years and disregard of truth. “Why not take him?” said my friend. So we offered him a fifth of his previous pay, and in a few seconds he closed with the offer, but this time came in an inferior position—we were to lead, he to follow. Our second follower was a youth of twenty-seven years, who was not all that could be desired. He drank Reynaud’s wine, smoked our cigars, and quietly secreted the provisions when we were nearly starving. Discovery of his proceedings did not at all disconcert him, and he finished up by getting several items added to our bill at La Ville, which, not a little to his disgust, we disallowed.

This night we fixed our camp high above the tree-line, and indulged ourselves in the healthy employment of carrying our fuel up to it. The present rock was not so comfortable as the first, and before we could settle down we were obliged to turn out a large mass which was in the way. It was very obstinate, but moved at length—slowly and gently at first, then faster and faster, at last taking great jumps in the air, striking a stream of fire at every touch, which shone out brightly as it entered the gloomy valley below; and long after it was out of sight we heard it bounding downward, and then settle with a subdued crash on the glacier beneath. As we turned back from this curious sight, Reynaud asked if we had ever seen a torrent on fire, and told us that in the spring the Durance, swollen by the melting of the snow, sometimes brings down so many rocks that where it passes through a narrow gorge at La Bessée no water whatever is seen, but only boulders rolling over and over, grinding each other into powder, and striking so many sparks that the stream looks as if it were on fire.

We had another merry evening, with nothing to mar it: the weather was perfect, and we lay backward in luxurious repose, looking at the sky spangled with its ten thousand brilliant lights.

The ranges stood
Transfigured in the silver flood.
Their snows were flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black,
Against the whiteness at their back.[^[1]]

[1] J.G. Whittier, “Snow-Bound.”

R. J. S. MACDONALD

Macdonald related his experiences over the café noir. He had traveled day and night for several days in order to join us, but had failed to find our first bivouac, and had encamped a few hundred yards from us under another rock, higher up the mountain. The next morning he discerned us going along a ridge at a great height above him, and as it was useless to endeavor to overtake us, he lay down and watched with a heavy heart until we had turned the corner of a buttress and vanished out of sight.

Nothing but the heavy breathing of our already sound—asleep comrades broke the solemn stillness of the night. It was a silence to be felt. Nothing! Hark! what is that dull booming sound above us? Is that nothing? There it is again, plainer: on it comes, nearer, clearer: ’tis a crag escaped from the heights above. What a fearful crash! We jump to our feet. Down it comes with awful fury: what power can withstand its violence? Dancing leaping, flying, dashing against others, roaring as it descends. Ah, it has passed! No: there it is again, and we hold our breath as, with resistless force and explosions like artillery, it darts past, with an avalanche of shattered fragments trailing in its rear. ’Tis gone, and we breathe more freely as we hear the finale on the glacier below.

We retired at last, but I was too excited to sleep. At a quarter-past four every man once more shouldered his pack and started. This time we agreed to keep more to the right, to see if it were not possible to get to the plateau without losing any time by crossing the glacier. To describe our route would be to repeat what has been said before. We mounted steadily for an hour and a half, sometimes walking, but more frequently climbing, and then found, after all, that it was necessary to cross the glacier. The part on which we struck came down a very steep slope, and was much crevassed. The word crevassed hardly expresses its appearance: it was a mass of formidable séracs. We found, however, more difficulty in getting on than across it, but, thanks to the rope, it was passed somehow: then the interminable buttresses began again. Hour after hour we proceeded upward, frequently at fault and obliged to descend. The ridge behind us had sunk long ago, and we looked over it and all others till our eyes rested on the majestic Viso. Hour after hour passed, and monotony was the order of the day: when twelve o’clock came we lunched, and contemplated the scene with satisfaction: all the summits in sight, with the single exception of the Viso, had given in, and we looked over an immense expanse—a perfect sea of peaks and snow-fields. Still the pinnacles rose above us, and opinions were freely uttered that we should see no summit of Pelvoux that day. Old Sémiond had become a perfect bore to all: whenever one rested for a moment to look about, he would say, with a complacent chuckle, “Don’t be afraid—follow me.” We came at last to a very bad piece, rotten and steep, and no hold. Here Reynaud and Macdonald confessed to being tired, and talked of going to sleep. A way was discovered out of the difficulty: then some one called out, “Look at the Viso!” and we saw that we almost looked over it. We worked away with redoubled energy, and at length caught sight of the head of the glacier as it streamed out of the plateau. This gave us fresh hopes: we were not deceived, and with a simultaneous shout we greeted the appearance of our long wished-for snows. A large crevasse separated us from them, but a bridge was found: we tied ourselves in line and moved safely over it. Directly we got across there arose before us a fine snow-capped peak. Old Sémiond cried, “The pyramid! I see the pyramid!” “Where, Sémiond, where?” “There, on the top of that peak.”

MONT PELVOUX

There, sure enough, was the cairn he had helped to erect more than thirty years before. But where was the Pic des Arcines which we were to see? It was nowhere visible, but only a great expanse of snow, bordered by three lower peaks. Somewhat sadly we moved toward the pyramid, sighing that there was no other to conquer, but hardly had we gone two hundred paces before there rose a superb white cone on the left, which had been hidden before by a slope of snow. We shouted, “The Pic des Arcines!” and inquired of Sémiond if he knew whether that peak had been ascended. As for him, he knew nothing except that the peak before us was called the Pyramid, from the cairn he had, etc., etc., and that it had been ascended since. “All right, then: face about;” and we immediately turned at right angles for the cone, the porter making faint struggles for his beloved pyramid. Our progress was stopped in the sixth of a mile by the edge of the ridge connecting the two peaks, and we perceived that it curled over in a lovely volute. We involuntarily retreated. Sémiond, who was last in the line, took the opportunity to untie himself, and refused to come on, said we were running dangerous risks, and talked vaguely of crevasses. We tied him up again and proceeded. The snow was very soft: we were always knee-deep, and sometimes floundered in up to the waist, but a simultaneous jerk before and behind always released one. By this time we had arrived at the foot of the final peak. The left-hand ridge seemed easier than that upon which we stood, so we curved round to get to it. Some rocks peeped out one hundred and fifty feet below the summit, and up these we crawled, leaving our porter behind, as he said he was afraid. I could not resist the temptation, as we went off, to turn round and beckon him onward, saying, “Don’t be afraid—follow me,” but he did not answer to the appeal, and never went to the top. The rocks led to a short ridge of ice—our plateau on one side, and a nearly vertical precipice on the other. Macdonald cut up it, and at a quarter to two we stood shaking hands on the loftiest summit of the conquered Pelvoux!

MONT PELVOUX AND THE ALÉFROIDE, FROM NEAR MONT DAUPHIN, IN THE VALLEY OF THE DURANCE.

The day still continued everything that could be desired, and far and near countless peaks burst into sight, without a cloud to hide them. The mighty Mont Blanc, full seventy miles away, first caught our eyes, and then, still farther off, the Monte Rosa group; while, rolling away to the east, one unknown range after another succeeded in unveiled splendor, fainter and fainter in tone, but still perfectly defined, till at last the eye was unable to distinguish sky from mountain, and they died away in the far-off horizon. Monte Viso rose up grandly, but it was less than forty miles away, and we looked over it to a hazy mass we knew must be the plains of Piedmont. Southward, a blue mist seemed to indicate the existence of the distant Mediterranean: to the west we looked over to the mountains of Auvergne. Such was the panorama, a view extending in nearly every direction for more than a hundred miles. It was with some difficulty we wrenched our eyes from the more distant objects to contemplate the nearer ones. Mont Dauphin was very conspicuous, but La Bessée was not readily perceived. Besides these, not a human habitation could be seen: all was rock, snow or ice; and large as we knew were the snow-fields of Dauphine, we were surprised to find that they very far surpassed our most ardent imagination. Nearly in a line between us and the Viso, immediately to the south of Chateau Queyras, was a splendid group of mountains of great height. More to the south an unknown peak seemed still higher, while close to us we were astonished to discover that there was a mountain which appeared even higher than that on which we stood. At least this was my opinion: Macdonald thought it not so high, and Reynaud insisted that its height was much about the same as our own.

This mountain was distant a couple of miles or so, and was separated from us by a tremendous abyss, the bottom of which we could not see. On the other side rose this mighty wall-sided peak, too steep for snow, black as night, with sharp ridges and pointed summit. We were in complete ignorance of its whereabouts, for none of us had been on the other side: we imagined that La Bérarde was in the abyss at our feet, but it was in reality beyond the other mountain.

We left the summit at last, and descended to the rocks and to our porter, where I boiled some water, obtained by melting snow. After we had fed and smoked our cigars (lighted without difficulty from a common match), we found it was ten minutes past three, and high time to be off. We dashed, waded and tumbled for twenty-five minutes through the snow, and then began the long descent of the rocks. It was nearly four o’clock, and as it would be dark at eight, it was evident that there was no time to be lost, and we pushed on to the utmost. Nothing remarkable occurred going down. We kept rather closer to the glacier, and crossed at the same point as in the morning. Getting off it was like getting on it—rather awkward. Old Sémiond had got over, so had Reynaud: Macdonald came next, but as he made a long stretch to get on to a higher mass, he slipped, and would have been in the bowels of a crevasse in a moment had he not been tied.

It was nearly dark by the time we had crossed, but still I hoped that we should be able to pass the night at our rock. Macdonald was not so sanguine, and he was right; for at last we found ourselves quite at fault, and wandered helplessly up and down for an hour, while Reynaud and the porter indulged in a little mutual abuse. The dreary fact that, as we could not get down, we must stay where we were, was now quite apparent.

We were at least ten thousand five hundred feet high, and if it commenced to rain or snow, as the gathering clouds and rising wind seemed to threaten, we might be in a sore plight. We were hungry, having eaten little since three A. M., and a torrent we heard close at hand, but could not discover, aggravated our thirst. Sémiond endeavored to get some water from it, but although he succeeded in doing so, he was wholly unable to return, and we had to solace him by shouting at intervals through the night.

A more detestable locality for a night out of doors it is difficult to imagine. There was no shelter of any kind, it was perfectly exposed to the chilly wind which began to rise, and it was too steep to promenade. Loose, rubbly stones covered the ground, and had to be removed before we could sit with any comfort. This was an advantage, although we hardly thought so at the time, as it gave us some employment, and after an hour’s active exercise of that interesting kind I obtained a small strip, about nine feet long, on which it was possible to walk. Reynaud was furious at first, and soundly abused the porter, whose opinion as to the route down had been followed, rather than that of our friend, and at last settled down to a deep dramatic despair, and wrung his hands with frantic gesture, as he exclaimed, “Oh, malheur, malheur! Oh misérables!”

Thunder commenced to growl and lightning to play among the peaks above, and the wind, which had brought the temperature down to nearly freezing-point, began to chill us to the bones. We examined our resources. They were six and half cigars, two boxes of vesuvians, one-third of a pint of brandy-and-water, and half a pint of spirits of wine—rather scant fare for three fellows who had to get through seven hours before daylight. The spirit-lamp was lighted, and the remaining spirits of wine, the brandy and some snow were heated by it. It made a strong liquor, but we only wished for more of it. When that was over, Macdonald endeavored to dry his socks by the lamp, and then the three lay down under my plaid to pretend to sleep. Reynaud’s woes were aggravated by toothache: Macdonald somehow managed to close his eyes.

The longest night must end, and ours did at last. We got down to our rock in an hour and a quarter, and found the lad not a little surprised at our absence. He said he had made a gigantic fire to light us down, and shouted with all his might: we neither saw the fire nor heard his shouts. He said we looked a ghastly crew, and no wonder: it was our fourth night out.

We feasted at our cave, and performed some very necessary ablutions. The persons of the natives are infested by certain agile creatures, whose rapidity of motion is only equaled by their numbers and voracity. It is dangerous to approach too near them, and one has to study the wind, so as to get on their weather side: in spite of all such precautions my unfortunate companion and myself were now being rapidly devoured alive. We only expected a temporary lull of our tortures, for the interiors of the inns are like the exteriors of the natives, swarming with this species of animated creation.

It is said that once, when these tormentors were filled with an unanimous desire, an unsuspecting traveler was dragged bodily from his bed! This needs confirmation. One word more, and I have done with this vile subject. We returned from our ablutions, and found the Frenchmen engaged in conversation. “Ah!” said old Sémiond, “as to fleas, I don’t pretend to be different to any one else—I have them.” This time he certainly spoke the truth.

We got down to La Ville in good time, and luxuriated there for several days: we played many games of bowls with the natives, and were invariably beaten by them. At last it was necessary to part: I walked southward to the Viso, and Macdonald went to Briançon.

After parting from my agreeable companions, I walked by the gorge of the Guil to Abries, and made the acquaintance at that place of an ex-harbormaster of Marseilles—a genial man, who spoke English well. Besides the ex-harbormaster and some fine trout in the neighboring streams, there was little to invite a stay at Abries. The inn—L’Éitoile, chez Richard—is a place to be avoided. Richard, it may be observed, possessed the instincts of a robber. At a later date, when forced to seek shelter in his house, he desired to see my passport, and catching sight of the words John Russell, he entered that name instead of my own in a report to the gendarmerie, uttering an exclamation of joyful surprise at the same time. I foolishly allowed the mistake to pass, and had to pay dearly for it, for he made out a lordly bill, against which all protest was unavailing.

I quitted the abominations of Abries to seek a quiet bundle of hay at Le Chalp, a village some miles nearer to the Viso. On approaching the place the odor of sanctity became distinctly perceptible; and on turning a corner the cause was manifested: there was the priest of the place, surrounded by some of his flock. I advanced humbly, hat in hand, but almost before a word could be said, he broke out with, “Who are you? What are you? What do you want?” I endeavored to explain.

“You are a deserter—I know you are a deserter: go away, you can’t stay here: go to Le Monta, down there—I won’t have you here;” and he literally drove me away. The explanation of his strange behavior was that Piedmontese soldiers who were tired of the service had not unfrequently crossed the Col de la Traversette into the valley, and trouble had arisen from harboring them. However, I did not know this at the time, and was not a little indignant that I, who was marching to the attack, should be taken for a deserter.

So I walked away, and shortly afterward, as it was getting dark, encamped in a lovely hole—a cavity or kind of basin in the earth, with a stream on one side, a rock to windward and some broken pine branches close at hand. Nothing could be more perfect—rock, hole, wood and water. After making a roaring fire, I nestled in my blanket-bag (an ordinary blanket sewn up, double round the legs, with a piece of elastic ribbon round the open end) and slept, but not for long. I was troubled with dreams of the Inquisition: the tortures were being applied, priests were forcing fleas down my nostrils and into my eyes, and with red-hot pincers were taking out bits of flesh, and then cutting off my ears and tickling the soles of my feet. This was too much: I yelled a great yell, and awoke to find myself covered with innumerable crawling bodies: they were ants. I had camped by an ant-hill, and, after making its inhabitants mad with the fire, had coolly lain down in their midst.

The night was fine, and as I settled down in more comfortable quarters, a brilliant meteor sailed across full 60° of the cloudless sky, leaving a trail of light behind which lasted for several seconds. It was the herald of a splendid spectacle. Stars fell by hundreds, and, not dimmed by intervening vapors, they sparkled with greater brightness than Sirius in our damp climate.

THE BLANKET BAG

The next morning, after walking up the valley to examine the Viso, I returned to Abries, and engaged a man from a neighboring hamlet for whom the ex-harbormaster had sent—an inveterate smoker, and thirsty in proportion, whose pipe never left his mouth except to allow him to drink. We returned up the valley together, and slept in the hut of a shepherd whose yearly wage was almost as small as that of the herdsman spoken of in Hyperion by Longfellow; and the next morning, in his company, proceeded to the summit of the pass which I had crossed in 1860; but we were baffled in our attempt to get near the mountain. A deep notch with precipitous cliffs cut us off from it: the snow-slope, too, which existed in the preceding year on the Piedmontese side of the pass, was now wanting, and we were unable to descend the rocks which lay beneath. A fortnight afterward the mountain was ascended for the first time by Messrs. Mathews and Jacomb, with the two Crozes of Chamounix. Their attempt was made from the southern side, and the ascent, which was formerly considered a thing totally impossible, has become one of the most common and favorite excursions of the district.

We returned crest-fallen to Abries. The shepherd, whose boots were very much out of repair, slipped upon the steep snow-slopes and performed wonderful but alarming gyrations, which took him to the bottom of the valley more quickly than he could otherwise have descended. He was not much hurt, and was made happy by a few needles and a little thread to repair his abraded garments: the other man, however, considered it willful waste to give him brandy to rub in his cuts, when it could be disposed of in a more ordinary and pleasant manner.

The night of the 14th of August found me at St. Veran, a village made famous by Neff, but in no other respect remarkable, saving that it is supposed to be the highest in Europe. The Protestants now form only a miserable minority: in 1861 there were said to be one hundred and twenty of them to seven hundred and eighty Roman Catholics. The poor inn was kept by one of the former, and it gave the impression of great poverty. There was no meat, no bread, no butter, no cheese: almost the only things that could be obtained were eggs. The manners of the natives were primitive: the woman of the inn, without the least sense of impropriety, stayed in the room until I was fairly in bed, and her bill for supper, bed and breakfast amounted to one-and-sevenpence.

In this neighborhood, and indeed all round about the Viso, the chamois still remain in considerable numbers. They said at St. Veran that six had been seen from the village on the day I was there, and the innkeeper declared that he had seen fifty together in the previous week! I myself saw in this and in the previous season several small companies round about the Viso. It is perhaps as favorable a district as any in the Alps for a sportsman who wishes to hunt the chamois, as the ground over which they wander is by no means of excessive difficulty.

NATURAL PILLAR NEAR MOLINES (WEATHER ACTION)

The next day I descended the valley to Ville Vieille, and passed, near the village of Molines, but on the opposite side of the valley, a remarkable natural pillar, in form not unlike a champagne bottle, about seventy feet high, which had been produced by the action of the weather, and in all probability chiefly by rain. In this case a “block of euphotide or diallage rock protects a friable limestone:” the contrast of this dark cap with the white base, and the singularity of the form, made it a striking object. These natural pillars are among the most remarkable examples of the potent effects produced by the long-continued action of quiet-working forces. They are found in several other places in the Alps, as well as elsewhere.

The village of Ville Vieille boasts of an inn with the sign of the Elephant, which, in the opinion of local amateurs, is a proof that Hannibal passed through the gorge of the Guil. I remember the place because its bread, being only a month old, was unusually soft, and for the first time during ten days it was possible to eat some without first of all chopping it into small pieces and soaking it in hot water, which produced a slimy paste on the outside, but left a hard, untouched kernel.

The same day I crossed the Col Isoard to Briançon. It was the 15th of August, and all the world was en fête; sounds of revelry proceeded from the houses of Servières as I passed over the bridge upon which the pyrrhic dance is annually performed, and natives in all degrees of inebriation staggered about the paths. It was late before the lights of the great fortress came into sight, but unchallenged I passed through the gates, and once more sought shelter under the roof of the Hôtel de l’Ours.

CROSSING MONT CENIS (1861)

CHAPTER III.
THE MONT CENIS—THE FELL RAILWAY

Guide-books say that the pass of the Mont Cenis is dull. It is long, certainly, but it has a fair proportion of picturesque points, and it is not easy to see how it can be dull to those who have eyes. In the days when it was a rude mountain track, crossed by trains of mules, and when it was better known to smugglers than to tourists, it may have been dull; but when Napoleon’s road changed the rough path into one of the finest highways in Europe, mounting in grand curves and by uniform grades, and rendered the trot possible throughout its entire distance, the Mont Cenis became one of the most interesting passes in the Alps. The diligence service which was established was excellent, and there was little or nothing to be gained by traveling in a more expensive manner. The horses were changed as rapidly as on the best lines in the best period of coaching in England, and the diligences themselves were as comfortable as a “milord” could desire. The most exciting portion of the route was undoubtedly that between Lanslebourg and Susa. When the zigzags began teams of mules were hooked on, and the driver and his helpers marched by their side with long whips, which they handled skillfully. Passengers dismounted and stretched their legs by cutting the curves. The pace was slow but steady, and scarcely a halt was made during the rise of two thousand feet. Crack! crack! went the whips as the corners of the zigzags were turned. Great commotion among the mules! They scrambled and went round with a rush, tossing their heads and making music with their bells. The summit was gained, the mules were detached and trotted back merrily, while we, with fresh horses, were dragged at the gallop over the plain to the other side. The little postilion seated on the leader smacked his whip lustily as he swept round the corners cut through the rock, and threw his head back as the echoes returned, expectant of smiles and of future centimes.

The air was keen and often chilly, but the summit was soon passed, and one quickly descended to warmth again. Once more there was a change. The horses, reduced in number to three, or perhaps two, were the sturdiest and most sure of foot, and they raced down with the precision of old stagers. Woe to the diligence if they stumbled! So thought the conductor, who screwed down the brakes as the corners were approached. The horses, held well in hand, leant inward as the top-heavy vehicle, so suddenly checked, heeled almost over; but in another moment the brake was released, and again they swept down, urged onward by the whip, “hoi” and “ha” of the driver.

All this is changed. The Victor Emmanuel railway superseded a considerable portion of Napoleon’s road, and the “Fell” railway the rest, while the great tunnel of the Alps will soon bring about another change.

The Fell railway, which has been open about eighteen months, is a line that well deserves attention. Thirty-eight years ago, Mr. Charles Vignolles, the eminent engineer, and Mr. Ericsson, patented the idea which is now an accomplished fact on the Mont Cenis. Nothing was done with it until Mr. Fell, the projector of the railway which bears his name, took it up, and to him much credit is due for bringing an admirable principle into operation.

The Fell railway follows the great Cenis road very closely, and diverges from it only to avoid villages or houses, or, as at the summit of the pass on the Italian side, to ease the gradients. The line runs from St. Michel to Susa. The distance between these two places is, as the crow flies, almost exactly equivalent to the distance from London to Chatham (30 miles), but by reason of the numerous curves and detours the length of the line is nearly brought up to the distance of London from Brighton (47 miles). From St. Michel to the summit of the pass it rises 4460 feet, or 900 feet more than the highest point of Snowdon is above the level of the sea; and from the summit of the pass to Susa, a distance less than that from London to Kew, it descends no less than 5211 feet!

The railway itself is a marvel. For fifteen miles and three-quarters it has steeper gradients than one in fifteen. In some places it is one in twelve and a half! A straight piece of railway constructed on such a gradient seems to go up a steep hill. One in eighty, or even one in a hundred, produces a very sensible diminution in the pace of a light train drawn by an ordinary locomotive: how, then, is a train to be taken up an incline that is six times as steep? It is accomplished by means of a third rail placed midway between the two ordinary ones, and elevated above them.[^[2]] The engines are provided with two pairs of horizontal driving-wheels, as well as with the ordinary coupled vertical ones, and the power of the machine is thus enormously increased, the horizontal wheels gripping the centre rail with great tenacity by being brought together, and being almost incapable of slipping like the ordinary wheels when on even a moderate gradient.

[2] This third rail, or, as it is termed, “the centre rail,” is laid on all the steep portions of the line, and round all except the mildest curves. Thirty miles, in all, of the road have the centre rail.

THE CENTRE RAIL ON A CURVE

The third rail is the ordinary double-headed rail, and is laid horizontally: it is bolted down to wrought-iron chairs three feet apart, which are fixed by common coach-screws to a longitudinal sleeper laid upon the usual transverse ones: the sleepers are attached to each other by fang-bolts. The dimensions of the different parts will be seen by reference to the annexed cross section:

Let us now take a run on the railway, starting from St. Michel. For some distance from that place the gradients are not of an extraordinary character, and a good pace is maintained. The first severe piece is about two miles up, where there is an incline of one in eighteen for more than half a mile; that is to say, the line rises at one step one hundred and sixty-four feet. From thence to Modane the gradients are again moderate (for the Fell railway), and the distance—about ten miles and a half from St. Michel—is accomplished without difficulty in an hour. Modane station is 1128 feet above St. Michel, so that on this easy portion of the line there is an average rise of 110 feet per mile, which is equal to a gradient of one in forty-eight—an inclination sufficiently steep to bring an ordinary locomotive very nearly to a halt.

Just after passing Modane station there is one of the steepest inclines on the line, and it seems preposterous to suppose that any train could ascend it. A stoppage of ten minutes is made at Modane, and on leaving that station the train goes off at the hill with a rush. In a few yards its pace is reduced, and it comes down and down to about four miles an hour, which speed is usually maintained until the incline is passed, without a diminution of the steam-pressure. I say usually, because, if it should happen that there is not sufficient steam, or should the driver happen to make a slip, the train would most likely come back to Modane; for, although the brake-power on the train is much more than sufficient to prevent it running back, the driver could hardly start with the brakes on, and the train would inevitably run back if they were off.

After this incline is passed, the line mounts by comparatively easy gradients toward Fort Lesseillon: it is then at a great height above the Arc, and as one winds round the faces of the cliff out of which the Napoleon road was cut, looking down upon the foaming stream below, without a suspicion of a parapet between the railway and the edge of the precipice, one naturally thinks about what would happen if the engine should leave the rails. The speed, however, that is kept up at this part is very gentle, and there is probably much less risk of an accident than there was in the days of diligences.

The next remarkable point on this line is at Termignon. The valley turns somewhat abruptly to the east, and the course of the railway is not at first perceived. It makes a great bend to the left, then doubles back, and rises in a little more than a mile no less than three hundred and thirty-four feet. This is, perhaps, the most striking piece of the whole line.

Lanslebourg station, 25½ miles from, and 2220 feet above, St. Michel, is arrived at in two hours and a quarter from the latter place. The engines are now changed. Thus far we have been traversing the easy portion of the route, but here the heavy section begins. From Lanslebourg the line rises continuously to the summit of the Mont Cenis pass, and accomplishes an ascent of 2240 feet in six miles and a third of distance.

It is curious and interesting to watch the ascent of the trains from Lanslebourg. The puffs of steam are seen rising above the trees, sometimes going in one direction, and sometimes directly the contrary, occasionally concealed by the covered ways—for over two miles out of the six the line is enclosed by planked sides and a corrugated iron roof, to keep out the snow—and then coming out again into daylight. A halt for water has to be made about halfway up; but the engines are able to start again, and to resume their rate of seven miles an hour, although the gradient is no less than one in fourteen and a half.

The zigzags of the old Cenis road are well known as one of the most remarkable pieces of road-engineering in the Alps. The railway follows them, and runs parallel to the road on the outside throughout its entire distance, with the exception of the turns at the corners, where it is carried a little farther out, to render the curves less sharp. Nevertheless, they are sufficiently sharp (135 feet radius), and would be impracticable without the centre rail.

The run across the top of the pass, from the Summit station to the Grande Croix station—a distance of about five miles—is soon accomplished, and then the tremendous descent to Susa is commenced. This, as seen from the engine, is little less than terrific. A large part of this section is covered in, and the curves succeed one another in a manner unknown on any other line. From the outside the line looks more like a monstrous serpent than a railway. Inside, one can see but a few yards ahead, the curves are so sharp, and the rails are nearly invisible. The engine vibrates, oscillates and bounds: it is a matter of difficulty to hold on. Then, on emerging into the open air, one looks down some three or four thousand feet of precipice and steep mountain-side. The next moment the engine turns suddenly to the left, and driver and stoker have to grip firmly to avoid being left behind; the next, it turns as suddenly to the right; the next, there is an accession or diminution of speed from a change in the gradient. An ordinary engine, moving at fifty miles an hour, with a train behind it, is not usually very steady, but its motion is a trifle compared with that of a Fell engine when running down hill.

THE COVERED WAYS ON THE “FELL” RAILWAY (ITALIAN SIDE OF THE MONT CENIS)

It may be supposed from this that traveling over the Fell railway is disagreeable rather than pleasant. It is not so: the train is steady enough, and the carriages have remarkably little motion. Outside, they resemble the cars on the Swiss and American lines: they are entered at the end, and the seats are arranged omnibus-fashion, down the length of the carriage. Each carriage has a guard and two brakes—an ordinary one and a centre-rail brake: the handles of these come close together at the platform on one end, and are easily worked by one man. The steadiness of the train is chiefly due to these centre-rail brakes. The flat face A and the corresppnding one on the opposite side are brought together against the two sides of the centre rail by the shaft B being turned, and they hold it as in a vice. This greatly diminishes the up-and-down motion, and renders oscillation almost impossible. The steadiness of the train is still further maintained by pairs of flanged guide-wheels under each of the carriages, which, on a straight piece of line, barely touch the centre rail, but press upon it directly there is the least deviation toward either side.[^[3]] There is no occasion to use the other brakes when the centre-rail brakes are on: the wheels of the carriages are not stopped, but revolve freely, and consequently do not suffer the deterioration which would otherwise result.

[3] The carriages are not coupled in the ordinary way, and although there are no buffers, properly speaking, and in spite the speed of the train being changed incessantly, there is a freedom from the jarring which is so common on other lines. The reason is simply that the carriages are coupled up tightly.

THE MONT CENIS ROAD AND THE FELL RAILWAY NEAR THE SUMMIT OF THE PASS, ON THE ITALIAN SIDE.

The steam is shut off and the brakes are applied a very few minutes after beginning the descent to Susa. The train might then run down for the entire distance by its own weight. In practice, it is difficult to apply the proper amount of retardation: the brakes have frequently to be whistled off, and sometimes it is necessary to steam down against them. Theoretically, this ought not of course to occur: it only happens occasionally, and ordinarily the train goes down with the steam shut off, and with the centre-rail brakes screwed up moderately. When an average train—that is, two or three carriages and a luggage-van—is running down at the maximum speed allowed (fifteen miles an hour), the brakes can pull it up dead within seventy yards. The pace is properly kept down to a low point in descending, and doing so, combined with the knowledge that the brake-power can easily lessen it, will tend to make the public look favorably on what might otherwise be considered a dangerous innovation. The engines also are provided with the centre-rail brake, on a pattern somewhat different from those on the carriages, and the flat sides which press against the rails are renewed every journey. It is highly desirable that they should be, for a single run from Lanslebourg to Susa grinds a groove into them about three-eighths of an inch in depth.

CENTRE RAIL BRAKE

Driving the trains over the summit section requires the most constant attention and no small amount of nerve, and the drivers, who are all English, have well earned their money at the end of their run. Their opinion of the line was concisely and forcibly expressed to me by one of them in last August: “Yes, mister, they told us as how the line was very steep, but they didn’t say that the engine would be on one curve, when the fourgon was on another, and the carriages was on a third. Them gradients, too, mister, they says they are one in twelve, but I think they are one in ten, at the least, and they didn’t say as how we was to come down them in that snakewise fashion. It’s worse than the G. I. P.[^[4]], mister: there a fellow could jump off, but here, in them covered ways, there ain’t no place to jump to.”

[4] The Great Indian Peninsula Railway, the line with the celebrated Bhore Ghaut incline, sixteen miles long, on an average gradient of one in forty-eight, which is said to have cost £800,000, or about double the entire cost of the Mount Cenis Railway, and six times its cost mile for mile. The Fell Railway cost £8000 per mile.

THE MATTERHORN FROM NEAR THE SUMMIT OF THE THEODULE PASS.

CHAPTER IV.
MY FIRST SCRAMBLE ON THE MATTERHORN.

What power must have been required to shatter and to sweep away the missing parts of this pyramid; for we do not see it surrounded by heaps of fragments: one only sees other peaks—themselves rooted to the ground—whose sides, equally rent, indicate an immense mass of débris, of which we do not see any trace in the neighborhood. Doubtless this is that débris which, in the form of pebbles, boulders and sand, fills our valleys and our plains,—de Saussure.

Two summits amongst those in the Alps which yet remained virgin had excited my admiration. One of these had been attacked numberless times by the best mountaineers without success: the ether, surrounded by traditional inaccessibility, was almost untouched. These mountains were the Weisshorn and the Matterhorn.

After visiting the great tunnel of the Alps in 1861, I wandered for ten days in the neighboring valleys, intending presently to attempt the ascent of these two peaks. Rumors were floating about that the former had been conquered, and that the latter was shortly to be attacked, and they were confirmed on my arrival at Chatillon, at the entrance of the Val Tournanche. My interest in the Weisshorn abated, but it was raised to the highest pitch on hearing that Professor Tyndall was at Breuil, and intending to try to crown his first victory by another and a still greater one.

Up to this time my experience with guides had not been fortunate, and I was inclined, improperly, to rate them at a low value. They represented to me pointers-out of paths and great consumers of meat and drink, but little more; and, with the recollection of Mont Pelvoux, I should have greatly preferred the company of a couple of my countrymen to any number of guides. In answer to inquiries at Chatillon, a series of men came forward whose faces expressed malice, pride, envy, hatred and roguery of every description, but who seemed to be destitute of all good qualities. The arrival of two gentlemen with a guide, who they represented was the embodiment of every virtue and exactly the man for the Matterhorn, rendered it unnecessary to engage any of the others. My new guide in physique was a combination of Chang and Anak; and although in acquiring him I did not obtain exactly what was wanted, his late employers did exactly what they wanted, for I obtained the responsibility, without knowledge, of paying his back fare, which must have been a relief at once to their minds and to their purses.

When walking up toward Breuil, we inquired for another man of all the knowing ones, and they, with one voice, proclaimed that Jean-Antoine Carrel, of the village of Val Tournanche, was the cock of his valley. We sought, of course, for Carrel, and found him a well-made, resolute-looking fellow, with a certain defiant air which was rather taking. Yes, he would go. Twenty francs a day, whatever was the result, was his price. I assented. But I must take his comrade. “Why so?” Oh, it was absolutely impossible to get along without another man. As he said this an evil countenance came forth out of the darkness and proclaimed itself the comrade. I demurred, the negotiations broke off, and we went up to Breuil. This place will be frequently mentioned in subsequent chapters, and was in full view of the extraordinary peak the ascent of which we were about to attempt.

It is unnecessary to enter into a minute description of the Matterhorn after all that has been written about that famous mountain. My readers will know that that peak is nearly fifteen thousand feet high, and that it rises abruptly, by a series of cliffs which may properly be termed precipices, a clear five thousand feet above the glaciers which surround its base. They will know, too, that it was the last great Alpine peak which remained unsealed—less on account of the difficulty of doing so than from the terror inspired by its invincible appearance. There seemed to be a cordon drawn around it, up to which one might go, but no farther. Within that invisible line jins and affreets were supposed to exist—the Wandering Jew and the spirits of the damned. The superstitious natives in the surrounding valleys (many of whom still firmly believe it to be not only the highest mountain in the Alps, but in the world) spoke of a ruined city on its summit wherein the spirits dwelt; and if you laughed they gravely shook their heads, told you to look yourself to see the castles and the walls, and warned one against a rash approach, lest the infuriate demons from their impregnable heights might hurl down vengeance for one’s derision. Such were the traditions of the natives. Stronger minds felt the influence of the wonderful form, and men who ordinarily spoke or wrote like rational beings, when they came under its power seemed to quit their senses and ranted and rhapsodized, losing for a time all common forms of speech. Even the sober De Saussure was moved to enthusiasm when he saw the mountain, and, inspired by the spectacle, he anticipated the speculations of modern geologists in the striking sentences which are placed at the head of this chapter.

The Matterhorn looks equally imposing from whatever side it is seen: it never seems commonplace, and in this respect, and in regard to the impression it makes upon spectators, it stands almost alone amongst mountains. It has no rivals in the Alps, and but few in the world.

The seven or eight thousand feet which compose the actual peak have several well-marked ridges and numerous others. The most continuous is that which leads toward the north-east: the summit is at its higher, and the little peak called the Hörnli is at its lower, end. Another one that is well pronounced descends from the summit to the ridge called the Furgen Grat. The slope of the mountain that is between these two ridges will be referred to as the eastern face. A third, somewhat less continuous than the others, descends in a south-westerly direction, and the portion of the mountain that is seen from Breuil is confined to that which is comprised between this and the second ridge. This section is not composed, like that between the first and second ridge, of one grand face, but it is broken up into a series of huge precipices, spotted with snow-slopes and streaked with snow-gullies. The other half of the mountain, facing the Z’Mutt glacier, is not capable of equally simple definition. There are precipices apparent but not actual; there are precipices absolutely perpendicular; there are precipices overhanging; there are glaciers and there are hanging glaciers; there are glaciers which tumble great séracs over greater cliffs, whose débris, subsequently consolidated, becomes glacier again; there are ridges split by the frost, and washed by the rain and melted snow into towers and spires; while everywhere there are ceaseless sounds of action, telling that the causes are still in operation which have been at work since the world began, reducing the mighty mass to atoms and effecting its degradation.

THE MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH-EAST

Most tourists obtain their first view of the mountain either from the valley of Zermatt or from that of Tournanche. From the former direction the base of the mountain is seen at its narrowest, and its ridges and faces seem to be of prodigious steepness. The tourist toils up the valley, looking frequently for the great sight which is to reward his pains, without seeing it (for the mountain is first perceived in that direction about a mile to the north of Zermatt), when all at once, as he turns a rocky corner of the path, it comes into view, not, however, where it is expected: the face has to be raised up to look at it—it seems overhead. Although this is the impression, the fact is that the summit of the Matterhorn from this point makes an angle with the eye of less than 16°, while the Dom, from the same place, makes a larger angle, but is passed by unobserved. So little can dependence be placed on unaided vision. The view of the mountain from Breuil, in the Val Tournanche, is not less striking than that on the other side, but usually it makes less impression, because the spectator grows accustomed to the sight while coming up or down the valley. From this direction the mountain is seen to be broken up into a series of pyramidal, wedge-shaped masses: on the other side it is remarkable for the large, unbroken extent of cliffs that it presents, and for the simplicity of its outline. It was natural to suppose that a way would more readily be found to the summit on a side thus broken up than in any other direction. The eastern face, fronting Zermatt, seemed one smooth, impossible cliff from summit to base: the ghastly precipices which face the Z’Mutt glacier forbade any attempt in that direction. There remained only the side of Val Tournanche, and it will be found that nearly all the earliest attempts to ascend the mountain were made on that side.

The first efforts to ascend the Matterhorn of which I have heard were made by the guides—or rather by the chasseurs—of Val Tournanche. These attempts were made in the years 1858-’59, from the direction of Breuil, and the highest point that was attained was about as far as the place which is now called the “Chimney” (cheminée), a height of about twelve thousand six hundred and fifty feet. Those who were concerned in these expeditions were Jean-Antoine Carrel, Jean Jacques Carrel, Victor Carrel, the Abbe Gorret and Gabrielle Maquignaz. I have been unable to obtain any further details about them.

The next attempt was a remarkable one; and of it, too, there is no published account. It was made by Messrs. Alfred, Charles and Sandbach Parker, of Liverpool, in July, 1860. These gentlemen, without guides, endeavoured to storm the citadel by attacking the eastern face, that to which reference was just now made as a smooth, impracticable cliff. Mr. Sandbach Parker informs me that he and his brothers went along the ridge between the Hörnli and the peak until they came to the point where the ascending angle is considerably increased. This place is marked on Dufour’s map of Switzerland 3298 metres (10,820 feet). They were then obliged to bear a little to the left to get on to the face of the mountain, and afterward they turned to the right and ascended about seven hundred feet farther, keeping as nearly as was practicable to the crest of the ridge, but occasionally bearing a little to the left; that is, more on to the face of the mountain. The brothers started from Zermatt, and did not sleep out. Clouds, a high wind and want of time were the causes which prevented these daring gentlemen from going farther. Thus their highest point was under twelve thousand feet.

The third attempt upon the mountain was made toward the end of August, 1860, by Mr. Vaughan Hawkins, from the side of the Val Tournanche. A vivid account of his expedition has been published by him in Vacation Tourists; and it has been referred to several times by Professor Tyndall in the numerous papers he has contributed to Alpine literature. I will dismiss it, therefore, as briefly as possible.

Mr. Hawkins had inspected the mountain in 1859 with the guide J. J. Bennen, and he had formed the opinion that the south-west ridge would lead to the summit. He engaged J. Jacques Carrel, who was concerned in the first attempts, and, accompanied by Bennen (and by Professor Tyndall, whom he had invited to take part in the expedition), he started for the gap between the little and the great peak.

Bennen was a guide who was beginning to be talked about. During the chief part of his brief career he was in the service of Wellig, the landlord of the inn on the Æggischhorn, and was hired out by him to tourists. Although his experience was limited, he had acquired a good reputation; and his book of certificates, which is lying before me, shows that he was highly esteemed by his employers. A good-looking man, with courteous, gentlemanly manners, skillful and bold, he might by this time have taken a front place amongst guides if he had only been endowed with more prudence. He perished miserably in the spring of 1864 not far from his home, on a mountain called the Haut de Cry, in the Valais.

J. J. BENNEN (1862)

Mr. Hawkins’ party, led by Bennen, climbed the rocks abutting against the Couloir du Lion on its south side, and attained the Col du Lion, although not without difficulty. They then followed the south-west ridge, passed the place at which the earliest explorers had turned back (the Chimney), and ascended about three hundred feet more. Mr. Hawkins and J. J. Carrel then stopped, but Bennen and Professor Tyndall mounted a few feet higher. They retreated, however, in less than half an hour, finding that there was too little time, and, descending to the col by the same route as they had followed on the ascent, proceeded thence to Breuil—down the couloir instead of by the rocks. The point at which Mr. Hawkins stopped is easily identified from his description. Its height is 12,992 feet above the sea. I think that Bennen and Tyndall could not have ascended more than fifty or sixty feet beyond this in the few minutes they were absent from the others, as they were upon one of the most difficult parts of the mountain. This party therefore accomplished an advance of about three hundred and fifty or four hundred feet.

Mr. Hawkins did not, as far as I know, make another attempt; and the next was made by the Messrs. Parker in July, 1861. They again started from Zermatt, followed the route they had struck out on the previous year, and got a little higher than before; but they were defeated by want of time, left Zermatt shortly afterward on account of bad weather, and did not again renew their attempts. Mr. Parker says: “In neither case did we go as high as we could. At the point where we turned we saw our way for a few hundred feet farther, but beyond that the difficulties seemed to increase.” I am informed that both attempts should be considered as excursions undertaken with the view of ascertaining whether there was any encouragement to make a more deliberate attack on the north-east side.

My guide and I arrived at Breuil on he 28th of August, 1861, and we found that Professor Tyndall had been there a day or two before, but had done nothng. I had seen the mountain from nearly every direction, and it seemed, even to a novice like myself, far too much for a single day. I intended to sleep out upon it as high as possible, and to attempt to reach the summit on the following day. We endeavored to induce another man to accompany us, but without success. Matthias zum Taugwald and other well-known guides were there at the time, but they declined to go on any account. A sturdy old fellow—Peter Taugwalder by name—said he would go. His price? “Two hundred francs.” “What! whether we ascend or not?” “Yes—nothing less.” The end of the matter was, that all the men who were more or less capable showed a strong disinclination or positively refused to go (their disinclination being very much in proportion to their capacity), or else asked a prohibitive price. This, it may be said once for all, was the reason why so many futile attempts were made upon the Matterhorn. One first-rate guide after another was brought up to the mountain and patted on the back, but all declined the business. The men who went had no heart in the matter, and took the first opportunity to turn back,[^[5]] for they were, with the exception of one man—to whom reference will be made presently—universally impressed with the belief that the summit was entirely inaccessible.

[5] The guide Bennen must be excepted.

We resolved to go alone, but, anticipating a cold bivouac, begged the loan of a couple of blankets from the innkeeper. He refused them, giving the curious reason that we had bought a bottle of brandy at Val Tournanche, and had not bought any from him! No brandy, no blankets, appeared to be his rule. We did not require them that night, as it was passed in the highest cow-shed in the valley, which is about an hour nearer to the mountain than is the hotel. The cowherds, worthy fellows seldom troubled by tourists, hailed our company with delight, and did their best to make us comfortable, brought out their little stores of simple food, and, as we sat with them round the great copper pot which hung over the fire, bade us in husky voice, but with honest intent, to beware of the perils of the haunted cliffs. When night was coming on we saw stealing up the hillside the forms of Jean-Antoine Carrel and the comrade. “Oh ho!” I said, “you have repented?” “Not at all: you deceive yourself.” “Why, then, have you come here?” “Because we ourselves are going on the mountain tornorrow.” “Oh, then it is not necessary to have more than three?” “Not for us.” I admired their pluck, and had a strong inclination to engage the pair, but final ly decided against it. The comrade turned out to be the J. J. Carrel who had been with Mr. Hawkins, and was nearly related to the other man.

JEAN-ANTOINE CARREL (1869)

Both were bold mountaineers, but Jean-Antoine was incomparably the better man of the two, and he is the finest rock-climber I have ever seen. He was the only man who persistently refused to accept defeat, and who continued to believe, in spite of all discouragements, that the great mountain was not inaccessible, and that it could be ascended from the side of his native valley.

The night wore away without any excitement, except from the fleas, a party of whom executed a spirited fandango on my cheek to the sound of music produced on the drum of my ear by one of their fellows beating with a wisp of hay. The two Carrels crept noiselessly out before daybreak, and went off. We did not leave until nearly seven o’clock, and followed them leisurely, leaving all our properties in the cow-shed, sauntered over the gentian-studded slopes which intervene between the shed and the Glacier du Lion, left cows and their pastures behind, traversed the stony wastes and arrived at the ice. Old, hard beds of snow lay on its right bank (our left hand), and we mounted over them on to the lower portion of the glacier with ease. But as we ascended crevasses became numerous, and we were at last brought to a halt by some which were of very large dimensions; and as our cutting powers were limited, we sought an easier route, and turned naturally to the lower rocks of the Tête du Lion, which overlook the glacier on its west. Some good scrambling took us in a short time on to the crest of the ridge which descends toward the south; and thence up to the level of the Col du Lion there was a long natural staircase, on which it was seldom necessary to use the hands. We dubbed the place “The Great Staircase.” Then the cliffs of the Tête du Lion, which rise above the couloir, had to be skirted. This part varies considerably in different seasons, and in 1861 we found it difficult, for the fine steady weather of that year had reduced the snow-beds abutting against it to a lower level than usual, and the rocks which were left exposed at the junction of the snow with the cliffs had few ledges or cracks to which we could hold. But by half-past ten o’clock we stood on the col, and looked down upon the magnificent basin out of which the Z’Mutt glacier flows. We decided to pass the night upon the col, for we were charmed with the capabilities of the place, although it was one where liberties could not be taken. On one side a sheer-wall overhung the Tiefenmatten glacier—on the other, steep, glassy slopes of hard snow descended to the Glacier du Lion, furrowed by water and by falling stones: on the north there was the great peak of the Matterhorn,[^[6]] and on the south the cliffs of the Tête du Lion. Throw a bottle down to the Tiefenmatten—no sound returns for more than a dozen seconds.

[6] The engraving is made after a sketch taken from the rocks of the Matterhorn, just above the Col.

How fearful
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!

THE COL DU LION, LOOKING TOWARD THE TÊTE DU LION

But no harm could come from that side—neither could it from the other. Nor was it likely that it would from the Tête du Lion, for some jutting ledges conveniently overhung our proposed resting-place. We waited for a while, basked in the sunshine, and watched or listened to the Carrels, who were sometimes seen or heard high above us upon the ridge leading toward the summit; and, leaving at mid-day, we descended to the cow-shed, packed up the tent and other properties, and returned to the col, although heavily laden, before six o’clock. This tent was constructed on a pattern suggested by Mr. Francis Galton, and it was not a success. It looked very pretty when set up in London, but it proved thoroughly useless in the Alps. It was made of light canvas, and opened like a book: one end was closed permanently and the other with flaps: it was supported by two alpenstocks, and had the canvas sides prolonged so as to turn in underneath. Numerous cords were sewn to the lower edges, to which stones were to be attached, but the main fastenings were by a cord which passed underneath the ridge and through iron rings screwed into the tops of the alpenstocks, and were secured by pegs. The wind, which playfully careered about the surrounding cliffs, was driven through our gap with the force of a blow-pipe: the flaps of the tent would not keep down, the pegs would not stay in, and it exhibited so marked a desire to go to the top of the Dent Blanche that we thought it prudent to take it down and to sit upon it. When night came on we wrapped ourselves in it, and made our camp as comfortable as the circumstances would allow. The silence was impressive. No living thing was near our solitary bivouac; the Carrels had turned back and were out of hearing; the stones had ceased to fall and the trickling water to murmur—

“The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And in our lonely life had grown
To have an almost human tone.”[^[7]]

[7] J. G. Whittier.

It was bitterly cold. Water froze hard in a bottle under my head. Not surprising, as we were actually on snow, and in a position where the slightest wind was at once felt. For a time we dozed, but about midnight there came from high aloft a tremendous explosion, followed by a second of dead quiet. A great mass of rock had split off and was descending toward us. My guide started up, wrung his hands and exclaimed, “O my God, we are lost!” We heard it coming, mass after mass pouring over the precipices, bounding and rebounding from cliff to cliff, and the great rocks in advance smiting one another. They seemed to be close, although they were probably distant, but some small fragments, which dropped upon us at the same time from the ledges just above, added to the alarm, and my demoralized companion passed the remainder of the night in a state of shudder, ejaculating “Terrible!” and other adjectives.

We put ourselves in motion at daybreak, and commenced the ascent of the south-west ridge. There was no more sauntering with hands in the pockets—each step had to be earned by downright climbing. But it was the most pleasant kind of climbing. The rocks were fast and unencumbered with débris, the cracks were good, although not numerous, and there was nothing to fear except from one’s self. So we thought, at least, and shouted to awake echoes from the cliffs. Ah! there is no response. Not yet: wait a while—everything here is upon a superlative scale: count a dozen and then the echoes will return from the walls of the Dent d’Hérens, miles away, in waves of pure and undefiled sound, soft, musical and sweet. Halt a moment to regard the view! We overlook the Tête du Lion, and nothing except the Dent d’Hérens, whose summit is still a thousand feet above us, stands in the way: the ranges of the Graian Alps, an ocean of mountains, are seen at a glance, governed by their three great peaks, the Grivola, Grand Paradis and Tour de St. Pierre. How soft, and yet how sharp, they look in the early morning! The mid-day mists have not begun to rise—nothing is obscured: even the pointed Viso, all but a hundred miles away, is perfectly defined.

Turn to the east and watch the sun’s slanting rays coming across the Monte Rosa snow-fields. Look at the shadowed parts and see how even they, radiant with reflected light, are more brilliant than man knows how to depict. See how, even there, the gentle undulations give shadows within shadows, and how, yet again, where falling stones or ice have left a track, there are shadows upon shadows, each with a light and a dark side, with infinite gradations of matchless tenderness. Then note the sunlight as it steals noiselessly along and reveals countless unsuspected forms—the delicate ripple-lines which mark the concealed crevasse, and the waves of drifted snow, producing each minute more lights and fresh shadows, sparkling on the edges and glittering on the ends of the icicles, shining on the heights and illuminating the depths, until all is aglow and the dazzled eye returns for relief to the sombre crags.

Hardly an hour had passed since we left the col before we arrived at the “Chimney.” It proved to be the counterpart of the place to which reference has been before made: a smooth, straight slab of rock was fixed at a considerable angle between two others equally smooth. My companion essayed to go up, and after crumpling his long body into many ridiculous positions, he said that he would not, for he could not do it. With some little trouble I got up it unassisted, and then my guide tied himself on to the end of our rope, and I endeavored to pull him up. But he was so awkward that he did little for himself, and so heavy that he proved too much for me, and after several attempts he untied himself and quietly observed that he should go down. I told him he was a coward, and he mentioned his opinion of me. I requested him to go to Breuil, and to say that he had left his “monsieur” on the mountain, and he turned to go, whereupon I had to eat humble pie and ask him to come back; for although it was not very difficult to go up, and not at all dangerous with a man standing below, it was quite another thing to come down, as the lower edge overhung in a provoking manner. The day was perfect, the sun was pouring down grateful warmth, the wind had fallen, the way seemed clear, no insuperable obstacle was in sight; but what could one do alone? I stood on the top, chafing under this unexpected contretemps, and remained for some time irresolute; but as it became apparent that the Chimney was swept more frequently than was necessary (it was a natural channel for falling stones), I turned at last, descended with the assistance of my companion, and returned with him to Breuil, where we arrived about mid-day.

The Carrels did not show themselves, but we were told that they had not got to any great height,[^[8]] and that the “comrade,” who for convenience had taken off his shoes and tied them round his waist, had managed to let one of them slip, and had come down with a piece of cord fastened round his naked foot. Notwithstanding this, they had boldly glissaded down the Couloir du Lion, J. J. Carrel having his shoeless foot tied up in a pocket handkerchief.

[8] I learned afterwards from Jean-Antoine Carrel that they got considerably higher than upon their previous attempts, and about 250 or 300 feet higher than Professore Tyndall in 1860. In 1862 I saw the initials of J. A. Carrel cut on the rocks at the place where he and his comrade had turned back.

The Matterhorn was not assailed again in 1861. I left Breuil with the conviction that it was little use for a single tourist to organize an attack upon it, so great was its influence on the morals of the guides, and persuaded that it was desirable at least two should go, to back each other when required; and departed with my guide over the Col Théodule, longing more than before to make the ascent, and determined to return—if possible with a companion—to lay siege to the mountain until one or the other was vanquished.

CHAPTER V.
RENEWED ATTEMPTS TO ASCEND THE MATTERHORN.

The year 1862 was still young, and the Matterhorn, clad in its wintry garb, bore but little resemblance to the Matterhorn of the summer, when a new force came to do battle with the mountain from another direction. Mr. T. S. Kennedy of Leeds conceived the extraordinary idea that the peak might prove less impracticable in January than in June, and arrived at Zermatt in the former month to put his conception to the test. With stout Peter Perm and sturdy Peter Taugwalder he slept in the little chapel at the Schwarzensee, and on the next morning, like the Messrs. Parker, followed the ridge between the peak called Hörnli and the great mountain. But they found that snow in winter obeyed the ordinary laws, and that the wind and frost were not less unkind than in summer. “The wind whirled up the snow and spiculæ of ice into our faces like needles, and flat pieces of ice a foot in diameter, carried up from the glacier below, went flying past. Still no one seemed to like to be the first to give in, till a gust fiercer than usual forced us to shelter for a time behind a rock. Immediately it was tacitly understood that our expedition must now end. but we determined to leave some memento of our visit, and, after descending a considerable distance, we found a suitable place with loose stones of which to build a cairn. In half an hour a tower six feet high was erected, a bottle, with the date, was placed inside, and we retreated as rapidly as possible.” This cairn was placed at the spot marked upon Dufour’s Map of Switzerland 10,820 feet (3298 metres), and the highest point attained by Mr. Kennedy was not, I imagine, more than two or three hundred feet above it.

Shortly after this, Professor Tyndall gave, in his little tract—Mountaineering in 1861—an account of the reason why he had left Breuil in August, 1861, without doing anything. It seems that he sent his guide Bennen to reconnoitre, and that the latter made the following report to his employer: “Herr, I have examined the mountain carefully, and find it more difficult and dangerous than I had imagined. There is no place upon it where we could well pass the night. We might do so on yonder col upon the snow, but there we should be almost frozen to death, and totally unfit for the work of the next day. On the rocks there is no ledge or cranny which could give us proper harborage; and starting from Breuil, it is certainly impossible to reach the summit in a single day.” “I was entirely taken aback,” says Tyndall, “by this report. I felt like a man whose grip had given way, and who was dropping through the air…” Bennen was evidently dead against any attempt upon the mountain. “We can, at all events, reach the lower of the two summits,” I remarked. “Even that is difficult,” he replied; “but when you have reached it, what then? The peak has neither name nor fame.”[^[9]]

[9] Mountaineering in 1861, pp. 86-7. Tyndall and Bennen were mistaken in supposing that the mountain has two summits; it has only one. They seem to have been deceived by the appearance of that part of the south-west ridge which is called “the shoulder” (l’épaule), as seen from Breil. Viewed from that place, its southern end has certainly, through foreshortening, the semblance of a peak; but when one regards it from the Col Theodule, or from any place in the same direction, the delusion is at once apparent.

I was more surprised than discouraged by this report by Bennen. One-half of his assertions I knew to be wrong. The col to which he referred was the Col du Lion, upon which he had passed a night less than a week after he had spoken so authoritatively; and I had seen a place not far below the “Chimney”—a place about five hundred feet above the col—where it seemed possible to construct a sleeping-place. Bennen’s opinions seem to have undergone a complete change. In 1860 he is described as having been enthusiastic to make an attempt—in 1861 he was dead against one. Nothing dismayed by this, my friend Mr. Reginald Macdonald, our companion on the Pelvoux—to whom so much of our success had been due—agreed to join me in a renewed assault from the south; and although we failed to secure Melchior Anderegg and some other notable guides, we obtained two men of repute—namely, Johann zum Taugwald and Johann Kronig of Zermatt. We met at that place early in July, but stormy weather prevented us even from crossing to the other side of the chain for some time. We crossed the Col Théodule on the 5th, but the weather was thoroughly unsettled: it was raining in the valleys and snowing upon the mountains. Shortly before we gained the summit we were made extremely uncomfortable by hearing mysterious rushing sounds, which sometimes seemed as if a sudden gust of wind was sweeping along the snow, and at others almost like the swishing of a long whip; yet the snow exhibited no signs of motion and the air was perfectly calm. The dense, black storm-clouds made us momentarily expect that our bodies might be used as lightning-conductors, and we were well satisfied to get under shelter of the inn at Breuil without having submitted to any such experience.

We had need of a porter, and by the advice of our landlord descended to the châlets of Breuil in search of one Luc Meynet. We found his house, a mean abode, encumbered with cheese-making apparatus, and tenanted only by some bright-eyed children; but as they said that Uncle Luc would soon be home, we waited at the door of the little châlet and watched for him. At last a speck was seen coming round the corner of the patch of pines below Breuil, and then the children clapped their hands, dropped their toys and ran eagerly forward to meet him. We saw an ungainly, wobbling figure stoop down and catch up the little ones, kiss them on each cheek, and put them into the empty panniers on each side of the mule, and then heard it come on caroling, as if this was not a world of woe; and yet the face of little Luc Meynet, the hunchback of Breuil, bore traces of trouble and sorrow, and there was more than a touch of sadness in his voice when he said that he must look after his brother’s children. All his difficulties were, however, at length overcome, and he agreed to join us to carry the tent.

ALPINE TENT

In the past winter I had turned my attention to tents, and that which we had brought with us was the result of experiments to devise one which should be sufficiently portable to be taken over the most difficult ground, and which should combine lightness with stability. Its base was just under six feet square, and a section perpendicular to its length was an equilateral triangle, the sides of which were six feet long. It was intended to accommodate four persons. It was supported by four ash poles six feet and a half long and one inch and a quarter thick, tapering to the top to an inch and an eighth: these were shod with iron points. The order of proceeding in the construction of the tent was as follows: Holes were drilled through the poles about five inches from their tops for the insertion of two wrought-iron bolts, three inches long and one-quarter of an inch thick. The bolts were then inserted, and the two pairs of poles were set out (and fixed up by a cord) to the proper dimensions. The roof was then put on. This was made of the rough, unbleached calico called forfar, which can be obtained in six-feet widths, and it was continued round for about two feet on each side, on to the floor. The width of the material was the length of the tent, and seams were thus avoided in the roof. The forfar was sewn round each pole, particular care being taken to avoid wrinkles and to get the whole perfectly taut. The flooring was next put in and sewn down to the forfar. This was of the ordinary plaid mackintosh, about nine feet square, the surplus three feet being continued up the sides to prevent draughts. It is as well to have two feet of this surplus on one side, and only one foot on the other, the latter amount being sufficient for the side occupied by the feet. One end was then permanently closed by a triangular piece of forfar, which was sewn down to that which was already fixed. The other end was left open, and had two triangular flaps that overlapped each other, and which were fastened up when we were inside by pieces of tape. Lastly, the forfar was nailed down to the poles to prevent the tent getting out of shape. The cord which was used for climbing served for the tent: it was passed over the crossed poles and underneath the ridge of the roof, and the two ends—one fore and the other aft—were easily secured to pieces of rock. Such a tent costs about four guineas, and its weight is about twenty-three pounds; or, if the lightest kind of forfar is used, it need not exceed twenty pounds.

Sunday, the 6th of July, was showery, and snow fell on the Matterhorn, but we started on the following morning with our three men, and pursued my route of the previous year. I was requested to direct the way, as none save myself had been on the mountain before, but I did not distinguish myself on this occasion, and led my companions nearly to the top of the small peak before the mistake was discovered. The party becoming rebellious, a little exploration was made toward our right, and we found that we were upon the top of the cliff overlooking the Col du Lion. The upper part of the small peak is of a very different character to the lower part: the rocks are not so firm, and they are usually covered or intermixed with snow and glazed with ice: the angle too is more severe. While descending a small snow-slope to get on to the right track, Kronig slipped on a streak of ice and went down at a fearful pace. Fortunately, he kept on his legs, and by a great effort succeeded in stopping just before he arrived at some rocks that jutted through the snow, which would infallibly have knocked him over. When we rejoined him a few minutes later we found that he was incapable of standing, much less of moving, with a face corpse-like in hue, and trembling violently. He remained in this condition for more than an hour, and the day was consequently far advanced before we arrived at our camping-place on the col. Profiting by the experience of last year, we did not pitch the tent actually on the snow, but collected a quantity of débris from the neighboring ledges, and after constructing a rough platform of the larger pieces, leveled the whole with the dirt and mud.

Meynet had proved invaluable as a tent-bearer, for, although his legs were more picturesque than symmetrical, and although he seemed to be built, on principle, with no two parts alike, his very deformities proved of service; and we quickly found he had a spirit of no common order, and that few peasants are more agreeable companions or better climbers than little Luc Meynet, the hunchback of Breuil. He now showed himself not less serviceable as a scavenger, and humbly asked for gristly pieces of meat rejected by the others, or for suspicious eggs, and seemed to consider it a peculiar favor, if not a treat, to be permitted to drink the coffee-grounds. With the greatest contentment he took the worst place at the door of the tent, and did all the dirty work which was put upon him by the guides, as gratefully as a dog who has been well beaten will receive a stroke.

A strong wind sprang up from the east during the night, and in the morning it was blowing almost a hurricane. The tent behaved nobly, and we remained under its shelter for several hours after the sun had risen, uncertain what it was best to do. A lull tempted us to move, but we had scarcely ascended a hundred feet before the storm burst upon us with increased fury. Advance or return was alike impossible: the ridge was denuded of its débris, and we clutched our hardest when we saw stones as big as a man’s fist blown away horizontally into space. We dared not attempt to stand upright, and remained stationary on all fours, glued, as it were, to the rocks. It was intensely cold, for the blast had swept along the main chain of the Pennine Alps and across the great snow-fields around Monte Rosa. Our warmth and courage rapidly evaporated, and at the next lull we retreated to the tent, having to halt several times in that short distance. Taugwald and Kronig then declared that they had had enough, and refused to have anything more to do with the mountain. Meynet also informed us that he would be required down below for important cheese-making operations on the following day. It was therefore needful to return to Breuil, and we arrived there at 2.30 P.M., extremely chagrined at our complete defeat.

Jean-Antoine Carrel, attracted by rumors, had come up to the inn during our absence, and after some negotiations agreed to accompany us, with one of his friends named Pession, on the first fine day. We thought ourselves fortunate, for Carrel clearly considered the mountain a kind of preserve, and regarded our late attempt as an act of poaching. The wind blew itself out during the night, and we started again, with these two men and a porter, at 8 A. M. on the 9th, with unexceptionable weather. Carrel pleased us by suggesting that we should camp even higher than before; and we accordingly proceeded, without resting at the col, until we overtopped the Tête du Lion. Near the foot of the “Chimney,” a little below the crest of the ridge and on its eastern side, we found a protected place; and by building up from ledge to ledge (under the direction of our leader, who was a mason by profession) we at length constructed a platform of sufficient size and of considerable solidity. Its height was about twelve thousand five hundred and fifty feet above the sea; and it exists, I believe, at the present time. We then pushed on, as the day was very fine, and after a short hour’s scramble got to the foot of the Great Tower upon the ridge (that is to say, to Mr. Hawkins’ farthest point), and afterward returned to our bivouac. We turned out again at 4 A. M., and at 5.15 started upward once more, with fine weather and the thermometer at 28°. Carrel scrambled up the Chimney, and Macdonald and I after him. Pession’s turn came, but when he arrived at the top he looked very ill, declared himself to be thoroughly incapable, and said that he must go back. We waited some time, but he did not get better, neither could we learn the nature of his illness. Carrel flatly refused to go on with us alone. We were helpless. Macdonald, ever the coolest of the cool, suggested that we should try what we could do without them, but our better judgment prevailed, and finally we returned together to Breuil. On the next day my friend started for London.

Three times I had essayed the ascent of this mountain, and on each occasion had failed ignominiously. I had not advanced a yard beyond my predecessors. Up to the height of nearly thirteen thousand feet there were no extraordinary difficulties: the way so far might even become “a matter of amusement.” Only eighteen hundred feet remained, but they were as yet untrodden, and might present the most formidable obstacles. No man could expect to climb them by himself. A morsel of rock only seven feet high might at any time defeat him if it were perpendicular. Such a place might be possible to two, or a bagatelle to three men. It was evident that a party should consist of three men at least. But where could the other two men be obtained? Carrel was the only man who exhibited any enthusiasm in the matter, and he in 1861 had absolutely refused to go unless the party consisted of at least four persons. Want of men made the difficulty, not the mountain.

The weather became bad again, so I went to Zermatt on the chance of picking up a man, and remained there during a week of storms. Not one of the good men, however, could be induced to come, and I returned to Breuil on the 17th, hoping to combine the skill of Carrel with the willingness of Meynet on a new attempt by the same route as before; for the Hönli ridge, which I had examined in the mean time, seemed to be entirely impracticable. Both men were inclined to go, but their ordinary occupations prevented them from starting at once.

My tent had been left rolled up at the second platform, and whilst waiting for the men it occurred to me that it might have been blown away during the late stormy weather; so I started off on the 18th to see if this were so or not. The way was by this time familiar, and I mounted rapidly, astonishing the friendly herdsmen—who nodded recognition as I flitted past them and the cows—for I was alone, because no man was available. But more deliberation was necessary when the pastures were passed and climbing began, for it was needful to mark each step in case of mist or surprise by night. It is one of the few things which can be said in favor of mountaineering alone (a practice which has little besides to commend it) that it awakens a man’s faculties and makes him observe. When one has no arms to help and no head to guide him except his own, he must needs take note even of small things, for he cannot afford to throw away a chance; and so it came to pass upon my solitary scramble, when above the snow-line and beyond the ordinary limits of flowering plants, when peering about noting angles and landmarks, that my eyes fell upon the tiny straggling plants—oftentimes a single flower on a single stalk—pioneers of vegetation, atoms of life in a world of desolation, which had found their way up—who can tell how?—from far below, and were obtaining bare sustenance from the scanty soil in protected nooks; and it gave a new interest to the well-known rocks to see what a gallant fight the survivors made (for many must have perished in the attempt) to ascend the great mountain. The gentian, as one might have expected, was there, but it was run close by saxifrages and by Linaria alpina, and was beaten by Thlaspi rotundifolium; which latter plant was the highest I was able to secure, although it too was overtopped by a little white flower which I knew not and was unable to reach.

The tent was safe, although snowed up, and I turned to contemplate the view, which, when seen alone and undisturbed, had all the strength and charm of complete novelty. The highest peaks of the Pennine chain were in front—the Breithorn (13,685 feet), the Lyskamm (14,889), and Monte Rosa (15,217); then turning to the right, the entire block of mountains which separated the Val Tournanche from the Val d’Ayas was seen at a glance, with its dominating summit, the Grand Tournalin (11,155). Behind were the ranges dividing the Val d’Ayas from the valley of Gressoney, backed by higher summits. More still to the right the eye wandered down the entire length of the Val Tournanche, and then rested upon the Graian Alps with their innumerable peaks, and upon the isolated pyramid of Monte Viso (12,643) in the extreme distance. Next, still turning to the right, came the mountains intervening between the Val Tournanche and the Val Barthelemy: Mont Rouss (a round-topped, snowy summit, which seems so important from Breuil, but which is in reality only a buttress of the higher mountain, the Château des Dames) had long ago sunk, and the eye passed over it, scarcely heeding its existence, to the Becca Salle (or, as it is printed on the map, Bee de Sale), a miniature Matterhorn, and to other and more important heights. Then the grand mass of the Dent d’Hérens (13,714) stopped the way—a noble mountain, encrusted on its northern slopes with enormous hanging glaciers, which broke away at mid-day in immense slices, and thundered down on to the Tiefenmatten glacier; and lastly, most splendid of all, came the Dent Blanche (14,318), soaring above the basin of the great Z’Muttgletscher. Such a view is hardly to be matched in the Alps, and this view is very rarely seen, as I saw it, perfectly unclouded.

Time sped away unregarded, and the little birds which had built their nests on the neighboring cliffs had begun to chirp their evening hymn before I thought of returning. Half mechanically, I turned to the tent, unrolled it and set it up: it contained food enough for several days, and I resolved to stay over the night. I had started from Breuil without provisions or telling Favre, the innkeeper, who was accustomed to my erratic ways, where I was going. I returned to the view. The sun was setting, and its rosy rays, blending with the snowy blue, had thrown a pale, pure violet far as the eye could see; the valleys were drowned in a purple gloom, while the summits shone with unnatural brightness; and as I sat in the door of the tent and watched the twilight change to darkness, the earth seemed to become less earthly and almost sublime: the world seemed dead, and I its sole inhabitant. By and by the moon, as it rose, brought the hills again into sight, and by a judicious repression of detail rendered the view yet more magnificent. Something in the south hung like a great glow-worm in the air: it was too large for a star, and too steady for a meteor, and it was long before I could realize the incredible fact that it was the moonlight glittering on the great snow-slope on the north side of Monte Viso, at a distance, as the crow flies, of ninety-eight miles. Shivering, at last I entered the tent and made my coffee. The night was passed comfortably, and the next morning, tempted by the brilliancy of the weather, I proceeded yet higher in search of another place for a platform.

Solitary scrambling over a pretty wide area had shown me that a single individual is subjected to very many difficulties which do not trouble a party of two or three men, and that the disadvantages of being alone are more felt while descending than during the ascent. In order to neutralize these inconveniences, I had devised two little appliances, which were now brought into use for the first time. One was a claw, a kind of grapnel, about five inches long, made of shear steel one-fifth of an inch thick. This was of use in difficult places where there was no hold within arm’s length, but where there were cracks or ledges some distance higher. It could be stuck on the end of the alpenstock and dropped into such places, or, on extreme occasions, flung up until it attached itself to something. The edges that laid hold of the rocks were serrated, which tended to make them catch more readily: the other end had a ring to which a rope was fastened. It must not be understood that this was employed for hauling one’s self up by for any great distance, but that it was used in ascending, at the most, for only a few yards at a time. In descending, however, it could be prudently used for a greater distance at a time, as the claws could be planted firmly; but it was necessary to keep the rope taut and the pull constantly in the direction of the length of the implement, otherwise it had a tendency to slip away. The second device was merely a modification of a dodge practiced by all climbers. It is frequently necessary for a single man (or for the last man of a party) during a descent to make a loop in the end of his rope, which he passes over some rocks, and to come down holding the free end. The loop is then jerked off, and the process may be repeated. But as it sometimes happens that there are no rocks at hand which will allow a loose loop to be used, a slipknot has to be resorted to, and the rope is drawn in tightly. Consequently, it will occur that it is not possible to jerk the loop off, and the rope has to be cut and left behind. To prevent this, I had a wrought-iron ring (two and a quarter inches in diameter and three-eighths of an inch thick) attached to one end of my rope, and a loop could be made in a moment by passing the other end of the rope through the ring, which of course slipped up and held tightly as I descended holding the free end. A strong piece of cord was also attached to the ring, and on arriving at the bottom this was pulled: the ring slid back again, and the loop was whipped off readily. By means of these two simple appliances I was able to ascend and descend rocks which otherwise would have been completely impassable. The combined weight of these two things amounted to less than half a pound.

The rocks of the south-west ridge are by no means difficult for some distance above the Col du Lion. This is true of the rocks up to the level of the Chimney, but they steepen when that is passed, and remaining smooth and with but few fractures, and still continuing to dip outward, present some steps of a very uncertain kind, particularly when they are glazed with ice. At this point (just above the Chimney) the climber is obliged to follow the southern (or Breuil) side of the ridge, but in a few feet more one must turn over to the northern (or Z’Mutt) side, where in most years Nature kindly provides a snow-slope. When this is surmounted, one can again return to the crest of the ridge, and follow it by easy rocks to the foot of the Great Tower. This was the highest point attained by Mr. Hawkins in 1860, and it was also our highest on the 9th of July.

This Great Tower is one of the most striking features of the ridge. It stands out like a turret at the angle of a castle. Behind it a battlemented wall leads upward to the citadel. Seen from the Théodule pass, it looks only an insignificant pinnacle, but as one approaches it (on the ridge), so it seems to rise, and when one is at its base it completely conceals the upper parts of the mountain. I found here a suitable place for the tent, which, although not so well protected as the second platform, possessed the advantage of being three hundred feet higher up; and fascinated by the wildness of the cliffs, and enticed by the perfection of the weather, I went on to see what was behind.

The first step was a difficult one: the ridge became diminished to the least possible width, it was hard to keep one’s balance, and just where it was narrowest a more than perpendicular mass barred the way. Nothing fairly within arm’s reach could be laid hold of: it was necessary to spring up, and then to haul one’s self over the sharp edge by sheer strength. Progression directly upward was then impossible. Enormous and appalling precipices plunged down to the Tiefenmatten glacier on the left, but round the right-hand side it was just possible to go. One hindrance then succeeded another, and much time was consumed in seeking the way. I have a vivid recollection of a gully of more than usual perplexity at the side of the Great Tower, with minute ledges and steep walls; of the ledges dwindling down, and at last ceasing; of finding myself, with arms and legs divergent, fixed as if crucified, pressing against the rock, and feeling each rise and fall of my chest as I breathed; of screwing my head round to look for a hold, and not seeing any, and of jumping sideways on to the other side.

Places such as this gully have their charm so long as a man feels that the difficulties are within his power, but their enchantment vanishes directly they are too much for him, and when he feels this they are dangerous to him. The line which separates the difficult from the dangerous is sometimes a very shadowy, but it is not an imaginary one. It is a true line, without breadth. It is often easy to pass and very hard to see. It is sometimes passed unconsciously, and the consciousness that it has been passed is felt too late; but so long as a man undertakes that which is well within his power, he is not likely to pass this line, or consequently to get into any great danger, although he may meet with considerable difficulty. That which is within a man’s power varies, of course, according to time, place and circumstance, but as a rule he can tell pretty well when he is arriving at the end of his tether; and it seems to me, although it is difficult to determine for another, even approximately, the limits to which it is prudent for him to go, that it is tolerably easy to do so for one’s self. But (according to my opinion) if the doubtful line is crossed consciously, deliberately, one passes from doing that which is justifiable to doing that which is unjustifiable, because it is imprudent.

I expect that any intelligent critic will inquire, “But do you really mean to assert that dangers in mountaineering arise only from superlative difficulty, and that the perfect mountaineer does not run any risks?” I am not prepared to go quite so far as this, although there is only one risk to which the scrambler on the Higher Alps is unavoidably subject which does not occur to pedestrians in London’s streets. This arises from falling rocks, and I shall endeavor in the course of this work to make the reader understand that it is a positive danger, and one against which skill, strength and courage are equally unavailing. It occurs at unexpected times, and may occur in almost any place. The critic may retort, “Your admission of this one danger destroys all the rest of the argument.” I agree with him that it would do so if it were a grave risk to life. But although it is a real danger, it is not a very serious risk. Not many cases can be quoted of accidents which have happened through falling stones, and I do not know an instance of life having been lost in this way in the High Alps.[^[10]] I suppose, however, few persons will maintain that it is unjustifiable to do anything, for sport or otherwise, so long as any risk is incurred, else it would be unjustifiable to cross Fleet street at mid-day. If it were one’s bounden duty to avoid every risk, we should have to pass our lives indoors. I conceive that the pleasures of mountaineering outweigh the risks arising from this particular cause, and that the practice will not be vetoed on its account. Still, I wish to stamp it as a positive danger, and as one which may imperil the life of the most perfect mountaineer.

[10] The contrary is the case in regard to the Lower Alps. Amongst others, the case may be mentioned of a lady who (not very long ago) had her skull fractured while sitting at the base of the Mer de Glace.

This digression has been caused by an innocent gully which I feared the reader might think was dangerous. It was an untrodden vestibule, which led to a scene so wild that even the most sober description of it must seem an exaggeration. There was a change in the quality of the rock, and there was a change in the appearance of the ridge. The rocks (talcose gneiss) below this spot were singularly firm—it was rarely necessary to test one’s hold: the way led over the living rock, and not up rent-off fragments. But here all was decay and ruin. The crest of the ridge was shattered and cleft, and the feet sank in the chips which had drifted down; while above, huge blocks, hacked and carved by the hand of time, nodded to the sky, looking like the gravestones of giants. Out of curiosity I wandered to a notch in the ridge, between two tottering piles of immense masses which seemed to need but a few pounds on one or the other side to make them fall, so nicely poised that they would literally have rocked in the wind, for they were put in motion by a touch, and based on support so frail that I wondered they did not collapse before my eyes. In the whole range of my Alpine experience I have seen nothing more striking than this desolate, ruined and shattered ridge at the back of the Great Tower. I have seen stranger shapes—rocks which mimic the human form, with monstrous leering faces, and isolated pinnacles sharper and greater than any here—but I have never seen exhibited so impressively the tremendous effects which may be produced by frost, and by the long-continued action of forces whose individual effects are imperceptible.

It is needless to say that it is impossible to climb by the crest of the ridge at this part: still, one is compelled to keep near to it, for there is no other way. Generally speaking, the angles on the Matterhorn are too steep to allow the formation of considerable beds of snow, but here there is a corner which permits it to accumulate, and it is turned to gratefully, for by its assistance one can ascend four times as rapidly as upon the rocks.

The Tower was now almost out of sight, and I looked over the central Pennine Alps to the Grand Combin and to the chain of Mont Blanc. My neighbor, the Dent d’Hérens, still rose above me, although but slightly, and the height which had been attained could be measured by its help. So far, I had no doubts about my capacity to descend that which had been ascended; but in a short time, on looking ahead, I saw that the cliffs steepened, and I turned back (without pushing on to them and getting into inextricable difficulties), exulting in the thought that they would be passed when we returned together, and that I had without assistance got nearly to the height of the Dent d’Hérens, and considerably higher than any one had been before.[^[11]] My exultation was a little premature.

[11] A remarkable streak of snow (marked “cravate” in the outline of the Matterhorn, as seen from the Theodule) runs across the cliff at this part of the mountain. My highest point was somewhat higher than the lowest part of this snow, and was consequently nearly 13,500 feet above the sea.

THE CHIMNEY. ON THE SOUTH-WEST RIDGE OF THE MATTERHORN.

About five P. M. I left the tent again, and thought myself as good as at Breuil. The friendly rope and claw had done good service, and had smoothed all the difficulties. I lowered myself through the Chimney, however, by making a fixture of the rope, which I then cut off and left behind, as there was enough and to spare. My axe had proved a great nuisance in coming down, and I left it in the tent. It was not attached to the bâton, but was a separate affair—an old navy boarding-axe. While cutting up the different snow-beds on the ascent, the bâton trailed behind fastened to the rope; and when climbing the axe was carried behind, run through the rope tied round my waist, and was sufficiently out of the way; but in descending, when coming down face outward (as is always best where it is possible), the head or the handle of the weapon caught frequently against the rocks, and several times nearly upset me. So, out of laziness if you will, it was left in the tent. I paid dearly for the imprudence.

The Col du Lion was passed, and fifty yards more would have placed me on the “Great Staircase,” down which one can run. But on arriving at an angle of the cliffs of the Tête du Lion, while skirting the upper edge of the snow which abuts against them, I found that the heat of the two past days had nearly obliterated the steps which had been cut when coming up. The rocks happened to be impracticable just at this corner, so nothing could be done except make the steps afresh. The snow was too hard to beat or tread down, and at the angle it was all but ice: half a dozen steps only were required, and then the ledges could be followed again. So I held to the rock with my right hand, and prodded at the snow with the point of my stick until a good step was made, and then, leaning round the angle, did the same for the other side. So far well, but in attempting to pass the corner (to the present moment I cannot tell how it happened) I slipped and fell.

IN ATTEMPTING TO PASS THE CORNER I SLIPPED AND FELL.

The slope was steep on which this took place, and descended to the top of a gully that led down through two subordinate buttresses toward the Glacier du Lion, which was just seen, a thousand feet below. The gully narrowed and narrowed until there was a mere thread of snow lying between two walls of rock, which came to an abrupt termination at the top of a precipice that intervened between it and the glacier. Imagine a funnel cut in half through its length, placed at an angle of forty-five degrees, with its point below and its concave side uppermost, and you will have a fair idea of the place.

The knapsack brought my head down first, and I pitched into some rocks about a dozen feet below: they caught something and tumbled me off the edge, head over heels, into the gully. The bâton was dashed from my hands, and I whirled downward in a series of bounds, each longer than the last—now over ice, now into rocks—striking my head four or five times, each time with increased force. The last bound sent me spinning through the air, in a leap of fifty or sixty feet, from one side of the gully to the other, and I struck the rocks, luckily, with the whole of my left side. They caught my clothes for a moment, and I fell back on to the snow with motion arrested: my head fortunately came the right side up, and a few frantic catches brought me to a halt in the neck of the gully and on the verge of the precipice. Bâton, hat and veil skimmed by and disappeared, and the crash of the rocks which I had started, as they fell on to the glacier, told how narrow had been the escape from utter destruction. As it was, I fell nearly two hundred feet in seven or eight bounds. Ten feet more would have taken me in one gigantic leap of eight hundred feet on to the glacier below.

The situation was still sufficiently serious. The rocks could not be left go for a moment, and the blood was spurting out of more than twenty cuts. The most serious ones were in the head, and I vainly tried to close them with one hand while holding on with the other. It was useless: the blood jerked out in blinding jets at each pulsation. At last, in a moment of inspiration, I kicked out a big lump of snow and stuck it as a plaster on my head. The idea was a happy one, and the flow of blood diminished: then, scrambling up, I got, not a moment too soon, to a place of safety and fainted away. The sun was setting when consciousness returned, and it was pitch dark before the Great Staircase was descended; but by a combination of luck and care the whole forty-eight hundred feet of descent to Breuil was accomplished without a slip or once missing the way. I slunk past the cabin of the cowherds, who were talking and laughing inside, utterly ashamed of the state to which I had been brought by my imbecility, and entered the inn stealthily, wishing to escape to my room unnoticed. But Favre met me in the passage, demanded, “Who is it?” screamed with fright when he got a light, and aroused the household. Two dozen heads then held solemn council over mine, with more talk than action. The natives were unanimous in recommending that hot wine (syn. vinegar), mixed with salt, should be rubbed into the cuts. I protested, but they insisted. It was all the doctoring they received. Whether their rapid healing was to be attributed to that simple remedy or to a good state of health, is a question: they closed up remarkably soon, and in a few days I was able to move again.

It was sufficiently dull during this time. I was chiefly occupied in meditating on the vanity of human wishes, and in watching my clothes being washed in the tub which was turned by the stream in the front of the house; and I vowed that if an Englishman should at any time fall sick in the Val Tournanche, he should not feel so solitary as I did at this dreary time.[^[12]]

[12] As it seldom happens that one survives such a fall, it may be interesting to record what my sensations were during its occurrence. I was perfectly conscious of what was happening, and felt each blow; but, like a patient under chloroform, experienced no pain. Each blow was, naturally, more severe than that which preceded it, and I distinctly remember thinking “Well, if the next is harder still, that will be the end!” Like persons who have been rescued from drowning, I remember that the recollection of a multitude of things rushed through my head, many of them trivialities or absurdities, which had been forgotten long before; and, more remarkable, this bounding through space did not feel disagreeable. But I think that in no very great distance more, consciousness as well as sensation would have been lost, and upon that I base my belief, improbable as it seems, that death by a fall from a great height is as painless an end as can be experienced.
The battering was very rough, yet no bones were broken. The most severe cuts were one of four inches long on the top of the bead, and another of three inches on the right temple: this latter bled frightfully. There was a formidable-looking cut, of about the same size as the last, on the palm of the left hand, and every limb was grazed, or cut, more or less seriously. The tips of the ears were taken off, and a sharp rock cut a circular bit out of the side of the left boot, sock, and ankle, at one stroke. The loss of blood, although so great, did not seem to be permanently injurious. The only serious effect has been the reduction of a naturally retentive memory to a very common-place one; and although my recollections of more distant occurrences remain unshaken, the events of that particular day would be clean gone but for the few notes which were written down before the accident.

AT BREUIL (GIOMEIN)

The news of the accident brought Jean-Antoine Carrel up to Breuil, and along with the haughty chasseur came one of his relatives, a strong and able young fellow named Cæsar. With these two men and Meynet I made another start on the 23d of July. We got to the tent without any trouble, and on the following day had ascended beyond the Tower, and were picking our way cautiously over the loose rocks behind (where my traces of the week before were well apparent) in lovely weather, when one of those abominable and almost instantaneous changes occurred to which the Matterhorn is so liable on its southern side. Mists were created out of invisible vapors, and in a few minutes snow fell heavily. We stopped, as this part was of excessive difficulty, and, unwilling to retreat, remained on the spot several hours, in hopes that another change would occur; but as it did not, we at length went down to the base of the Tower, and commenced to make a third platform, at the height of 12,992 feet above the sea. It still continued to snow, and we took refuge in the tent. Carrel argued that the weather had broken up, and that the mountain would become so glazed with ice as to render any attempt futile; and I, that the change was only temporary, and that the rocks were too hot to allow ice to form upon them. I wished to stay until the weather improved, but my leader would not endure contradiction, grew more positive and insisted that we must go down. We went down, and when we got below the col his opinion was found to be wrong: the cloud was confined to the upper three thousand feet, and outside it there was brilliant weather.

Carrel was not an easy man to manage. He was perfectly aware that he was the cock of the Val Tournanche, and he commanded the other men as by right. He was equally conscious that he was indispensable to me, and took no pains to conceal his knowledge of the fact. If he had been commanded or if he had been entreated to stop, it would have been all the same. But, let me repeat, he was the only first-rate climber I could find who believed that the mountain was not inaccessible. With him I had hopes, but without him none; so he was allowed to do as he would. His will on this occasion was almost incomprehensible. He certainly could not be charged with cowardice, for a bolder man could hardly be found; nor was he turning away on account of difficulty, for nothing to which we had yet come seemed to be difficult to him; and his strong personal desire to make the ascent was evident. There was no occasion to come down on account of food, for we had taken, to guard against this very casualty, enough to last for a week; and there was no danger and little or no discomfort in stopping in the tent. It seemed to me that he was spinning out the ascent for his own purposes, and that although he wished very much to be the first man on the top, and did not object to be accompanied by any one else who had the same wish, he had no intention of letting one succeed too soon—perhaps to give a greater appearance of éclat when the thing was accomplished. As he feared no rival, he may have supposed that the more difficulties he made the more valuable he would be estimated, though, to do him justice, he never showed any great hunger for money. His demands were fair, not excessive; but he always stipulated for so much per day, and so, under any circumstances, he did not do badly.

Vexed at having my time thus frittered away, I was still well pleased when he volunteered to start again on the morrow if it was fine. We were to advance the tent to the foot of the Tower, to fix ropes in the most difficult parts beyond, and to make a push for the summit on the following day.

The next morning (Friday, the 25th), when I arose, good little Meynet was ready and waiting, and he said that the two Carrels had gone off some time before, and had left word that they intended marmot-hunting, as the day was favorable for that sport. My holiday had nearly expired, and these men clearly could not be relied upon; so, as a last resort, I proposed to the hunchback to accompany me alone, to see if we could not get higher than before, though of reaching the summit there was little or no hope. He did not hesitate, and in a few hours we stood—for the third time together—upon the Col du Lion, but it was the first time Meynet had seen the view unclouded. The poor little deformed peasant gazed upon it silently and reverently for a time, and then unconsciously fell on one knee in an attitude of adoration, and clasped his hands, exclaiming in ecstasy, “O beautiful mountains!” His actions were as appropriate as his words were natural, and tears bore witness to the reality of his emotion.

Our power was too limited to advance the tent, so we slept at the old station, and, starting very early the next morning, passed the place where we had turned back on the 24th, and subsequently my highest point on the 19th. We found the crest of the ridge so treacherous that we took to the cliffs on the right, although most unwillingly. Little by little we fought our way up, but at length we were both spread-eagled on the all-but perpendicular face, unable to advance and barely able to descend. We returned to the ridge. It was almost equally difficult, and infinitely more unstable; and at length, after having pushed our attempts as far as was prudent, I determined to return to Breuil, and to have a light ladder made to assist us to overcome some of the steepest parts. I expected, too, that by this time Carrel would have had enough marmot-hunting, and would deign to accompany us again.

We came down at a great pace, for we were now so familiar with the mountain and with each other’s wants that we knew immediately when to give a helping hand and when to let alone. The rocks also were in a better state than I have ever seen them, being almost entirely free from glaze of ice. Meynet was always merriest on the difficult parts, and on the most difficult kept on enunciating the sentiment, “We can only die once,” which thought seemed to afford him infinite satisfaction. We arrived at the inn early in the evening, and I found my projects summarily and unexpectedly knocked on the head.

Professor Tyndall had arrived while we were absent, and he had engaged both Cæsar and Jean-Antoine Carrel. Bennen was also with him, together with a powerful and active friend, a Valaisan guide named Anton Walter. They had a ladder already prepared, provisions were being collected, and they intended to start on the following morning (Sunday). This new arrival took me by surprise. Bennen, it will be remembered, refused point-blank to take Professor Tyndall on the Matterhorn in 1861. “He was dead against any attempt on the mountain,” says Tyndall. He was now eager to set out. Professor Tyndall has not explained in what way this revolution came about in his guide. I was equally astonished at the faithlessness of Carrel, and attributed it to pique at our having presumed to do without him. It was useless to compete with the professor and his four men, who were ready to start in a few hours, so I waited to see what would come of their attempt.

A CANNONADE ON THE MATTERHORN (1862)