ADVENTURES ON THE ROOF OF
THE WORLD

SOME
BOOKS ON MOUNTAINEERING

———

The Annals of Mont Blanc: A Monograph. By C. E. Mathews, sometime President of the Alpine Club. With Map, 6 Swan-types and other Illustrations, and Facsimiles. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 21s. net.

The Life of Man on the High Alps: Studies made on Monte Rosa. By Angelo Mosso. Translated from the Second Edition of the Italian by E. Lough Kiesow, in collaboration with F. Kiesow. With numerous Illustrations and Diagrams. Royal 8vo, cloth, 21s.

The Early Mountaineers: The Stories of their Lives. By Francis Gribble. Fully Illustrated. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 21s.

The Climbs of Norman-Neruda. Edited, with an Account of his last Climb, by May Norman-Neruda. Demy 8vo, cloth, 21s.

In the Ice World of Himalaya. By Fanny Bullock Workman and William Hunter Workman. With four large Maps and nearly 100 Illustrations. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, 16s. Also a 6s. Edition.

From the Alps to the Andes. By Mathias Zurbriggen. Demy 8vo, cloth, 10s. 6d. net.

Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada. By Clarence King. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. net.

True Tales of Mountain Adventure (for Non-Climbers, Young and Old). By Mrs Aubrey Le Blond (Mrs Main). Demy 8vo, cloth, 10s. 6d. net.

———

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.

ADVENTURES ON THE
ROOF OF THE WORLD

BY
MRS AUBREY LE BLOND
(Mrs MAIN)
AUTHOR OF
“MY HOME IN THE ALPS,” “TRUE TALES OF MOUNTAIN ADVENTURE,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED

LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1904
(All rights reserved.)

TO
J O S E P H I M B O D E N
MY GUIDE AND FRIEND FOR TWENTY YEARS,
I dedicate
THESE RECORDS OF A PASTIME IN WHICH I OWE
MY SHARE TO HIS SKILL, COURAGE, AND
HELPFUL COMPANIONSHIP.

PREFACE

“DEAR HEART,” said Tommy, when Mr Barlow had finished his narrative, “what a number of accidents people are subject to in this world!”

“It is very true,” answered Mr Barlow, “but as that is the case, it is necessary to improve ourselves in every possible manner, so that we may be able to struggle against them.”

Thus quoted, from Sandford and Merton, a president of the Alpine Club. The following True Tales from the Hills, if they serve to emphasise not only the perils of mountaineering but the means by which they can be lessened, will have accomplished the aim of their editor.

This book is not intended for the climber. To him most of the tales will be familiar in the volumes on the shelves of his library or on the lips of his companions during restful hours in the Alps. But the non-climber rarely sees The Alpine Journal and the less popular books on mountaineering, nor would he probably care to search in their pages for narratives likely to interest him.

To seek out tales of adventure easily intelligible to the non-climber, to edit them in popular form, to point out the lessons which most adventures can teach to those who may climb themselves one day, has occupied many pleasant hours, rendered doubly so by the feeling that I shall again come into touch with the readers who gave so kindly a greeting to my True Tales of Mountain Adventure. In that work I tried to explain the principles of mountaineering and something of the nature of glaciers and avalanches. Those chapters will, I think, be found helpful by non-climbers who read the present volume.

For much kindly advice and help in compiling this work I am indebted to Mr Henry Mayhew, of the British Museum, and to Mr Clinton Dent. Mrs Maund has enabled me to quote from a striking article by her late husband. Sir W. Martin Conway, Sir H. Seymour King, Messrs Tuckett, G. E. Foster, Cecil Slingsby, Harold Spender, and Edward Fitzgerald have been good enough to allow me to make long extracts from their writings. Messrs Newnes have generously permitted me to quote from articles which appeared in their publications, and the editor of The Cornhill has sanctioned my reprinting portions of a paper from his magazine. I am also indebted to the editor of M‘Clure’s Magazine for a similar courtesy.

Mons. A. Campagne, Inspector of Water and Forests (France), allows me to make use of two very interesting photographs from his work on the Valley of Barège. Several friends have lent me photographs for reproduction in this work, and their names appear under each of the illustrations I owe to them. Messrs Spooner have kindly allowed me to use several by the late Mr W. F. Donkin. When not otherwise stated, the photographs are from my own negatives.

I take this opportunity of heartily thanking those climbers, some of them personally unknown to me, whose assistance has rendered this work possible.

E. LE BLOND.

67 The Drive,
BRIGHTON, December 1903.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ADVENTURES ON THE ROOF
OF THE WORLD

CHAPTER I
SOME TALES OF ALPINE GUIDES

IN a former work, I have given some details of the training of an Alpine guide, so I will not repeat them here.

The mountain guides of Switzerland form a class unlike any other, yet in the high standard of honour and devotion they display towards those in their charge, one is reminded of two bodies of men especially deserving of respect and confidence, namely, the Civil Guards of Spain and the Royal Irish Constabulary. Like these, the Alpine guide oftentimes risks his health, strength—even his life—for persons who are sometimes in themselves the cause of the peril encountered. Like these, mere bodily strength and the best will in the world need to be associated with intelligence and foresight. Like these, also, keen, fully-developed powers of observation are essential. A certain climber of early days has wittily related in The Alpine Journal a little anecdote which bears on this point. “Some years ago,” writes the late Mr F. Craufurd Grove, “a member of this Club was ascending a small and easy peak in company with a famous Oberland guide. Part of their course lay over a snow-field sinking gradually on one side, sharply ended by a precipice on the other. The two were walking along, not far from the edge of this precipice, when the Englishman, thinking that an easier path might be made by going still nearer the edge, diverged a little from his companion’s track. To his considerable surprise, the guide immediately caught hold of him, and pulled him back with a great deal more vigour than ceremony, well-nigh throwing him down in the operation. Wrathful, and not disinclined to return the compliment, the Englishman remonstrated. The guide’s only answer was to point to a small crack, apparently like scores of other cracks in the névé, which ran for some distance parallel to the edge of the precipice, and about 15 feet from it.

“The traveller was not satisfied, but he was too wise a man to spend time in arguing and disputing, while a desired summit was still some distance above him. They went on their way, gained the top, and the traveller’s equanimity was restored by a splendid view. When, on the descent, the scene of the morning’s incident was reached, the guide pointed to the little crack in the névé, which had grown perceptibly wider. ‘This marks,’ he said, ‘the place where the true snow-field ends. I feel certain that the ice from here to the edge is nothing but an unsupported cornice hanging over the tremendous precipice beneath. It might possibly have borne your weight in the early morning, though I don’t think it would. As to what it will bear now that a powerful sun has been on it for some time—why, let us see.’ Therewith he struck the névé on the further side of the ice sharply with his axe. A huge mass, some 20 or 30 feet long, immediately broke away, and went roaring down the cliff in angry avalanche. Whereat the traveller was full of amazement and admiration, and thought how there, on an easy mountain and in smiling weather, he had not been very far from making himself into an avalanche, to his own great discomfort and to the infinite tribulation of the Alpine Club.”

A fatal accident was only narrowly averted by the skill of the famous guide Zurbriggen when making an ascent in the New Zealand Alps with Mr Edward Fitzgerald. I am indebted to this gentleman for permission to quote the account from his article in The Alpine Journal.

The party were making the ascent of Mount Sefton, and were much troubled by the looseness of the rock on the almost vertical face which they had to climb. However, at last they reached a ridge, “along which,” writes Mr Fitzgerald, “we proceeded between two precipices, descending to the Copland and to the Mueller valleys—some 6000 feet sheer drop on either hand.

“We had next to climb about 300 feet of almost perpendicular cliff. The rocks were peculiarly insecure, and we were obliged to move by turns, wherever possible throwing down such rocks as seemed most dangerous. At times even this resource was denied us, so dangerous was the violent concussion with which these falling masses would shake the ridge to which we clung. I carried both the ice axes, so as to leave Zurbriggen both hands free to test each rock as he slowly worked his way upwards, while I did my utmost to avoid being in a position vertically beneath him.

“Suddenly, as I was coming up a steep bit, while Zurbriggen waited for me a few steps above, a large boulder, which I touched with my right hand, gave way with a crash and fell, striking my chest. I had been just on the point of passing up the two ice axes to Zurbriggen, that he might place them in a cleft of rock a little higher up, and thus leave me both hands free for my climb. He was in the act of stooping and stretching out his arms to take them from my uplifted left hand, and the slack rope between us lay coiled at his feet. The falling boulder hurled me down head foremost, and I fell about 8 feet, turning a complete somersault in the air. Suddenly I felt the rope jerk, and I struck against the side of the mountain with great force. I feared I should be stunned and drop the two ice axes, and I knew that on these our lives depended. Without them we should never have succeeded in getting down the glacier, through all the intricate ice-fall.

“After the rope had jerked me up I felt it again slip and give way, and I came down slowly for a couple of yards. I took this to mean that Zurbriggen was being wrenched from his foot-hold, and I was just contemplating how I should feel dashing down the 6000 feet below, and wondering vaguely how many times I should strike the rocks on the way. I saw the block that I had dislodged going down in huge bounds; it struck the side three or four times, and then, taking an enormous plunge of about 2000 feet, embedded itself in the glacier now called the Tuckett Glacier.

“I felt the rope stop and pull me up short. I called to Zurbriggen and asked him if he were solidly placed. I was now swinging in the air like a pendulum, with my back to the mountain, scarcely touching the rock face. It would have required a great effort to turn round and grasp the rock, and I was afraid the strain which would thus necessarily be placed on the rope might dislodge Zurbriggen.

“His first fear was that I had been half killed, for he saw the rock fall almost on top of me; but, as a matter of fact, after striking my chest it had glanced off to the right and passed under my right arm; it had started from a point so very near to me that it had not time to gain sufficient impetus to strike me with great force. Zurbriggen’s first words were, ‘Are you very much hurt?’ I answered, ‘No,’ and again I asked him whether he were firmly placed. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘I am very badly situated here. Turn round as soon as you can; I cannot hold you much longer.’ I gave a kick at the rocks with one foot, and with a great effort managed to swing myself round.

“Luckily there was a ledge near me, and so, getting some hand-hold, I was soon able to ease the strain on the rope. A few moments later I struggled a little way up, and at last handed to Zurbriggen the ice axes, which I had managed to keep hold of throughout my fall. In fact, my thoughts had been centred on them during the whole of the time. We were in too bad a place to stop to speak to one another; but Zurbriggen, climbing up a bit further, got himself into a firm position, and I scrambled up after him, so that in about ten minutes we had passed this steep bit.

“We now sat for a moment to recover ourselves, for our nerves had been badly shaken by what had so nearly proved a fatal accident. At the time everything happened so rapidly that we had not thought much of it, more especially as we knew that we needed to keep our nerve and take immediate action; but once it was all over we both felt the effects, and sat for about half an hour before we could even move again. I learned that Zurbriggen, the moment I fell, had snatched up the coil of rope which lay at his feet, and had luckily succeeded in getting hold of the right end first, so that he was soon able to bring me nearly to rest; but the pull upon him was so great, and he was so badly placed, that he had to let the rope slip through his fingers, removing all the skin, in order to ease the strain while he braced himself in a better position, from which he was able finally to stop me. He told me that had I not been able to turn and grasp the rocks he must inevitably have been dragged from his foot-hold, as the ledge upon which he stood was literally crumbling away beneath his feet. We discovered that two strands of the rope had been cut through by the falling rock, so that I had been suspended in mid-air by a single strand.”

The remainder of the way was far from easy, but without further mishap the party eventually gained the summit.

That there are many grades of Alpine guides was amusingly exemplified once upon a time at the Montanvert, where in front of the hotel stood the famous Courmazeur guide, Emil Rey (afterwards killed on the Dent du Géant), talking to the Duke of Abruzzi and other first-rate climbers, while a little way off lounged some extremely indifferent specimens of the Chamonix Societé des Guides. Presently a tourist, got up with much elegance, and leaning on a tall stick surmounted by a chamois horn, appeared upon the scene, and addressed himself to Emil Rey. “Combien pour traverser la Mer de Glace?” he enquired.

“Monsieur,” replied Rey, removing his hat with one hand and with the other indicating the group hard by, “voila les guides pour la Mer de Glace! Moi, je suis pour la grande montagne!”

One of the most wonderful escapes in the whole annals of mountaineering was that of a young Englishman, Mr Sloggett, and the well-known guide, Auguste Gentinetta, the second guide, Alphons Fürrer, being killed on the spot. They had made a successful ascent of the Matterhorn on 27th July 1900, and were the first of three parties on the descent. When nearly down the mountain, not far from the Hörnli ridge, an avalanche of stones and rocks swept them off their feet. Fürrer’s skull was smashed, and he was killed immediately, and the three, roped together, were precipitated down a wall of ice. Their axes were wrenched from their grasp, and they could do nothing to check themselves. Gentinetta retained full consciousness during the whole of that awful descent, and while without the slightest hope that they could escape with their lives, he in no way lost his presence of mind. About 800 feet below the spot where their fall commenced was a small Bergschrund, or crack across the ice. This was full of stones and sand, and into it the helpless climbers were flung; had they shot over it nothing in this world could have saved them. Gentinetta, though much bruised and knocked about, had no bones broken, and he at once took means to prevent an even worse disaster than that which had already happened, for Mr Sloggett had fallen head downwards, with his face buried in sand, and was on the point of suffocation. Well was it for him that his guide was a man of promptness and courage. Without losing an instant Gentinetta pulled up his traveller and got his face free, clearing the sand out of his mouth, and doing all that mortal could for him. Mr Sloggett’s jaw and two of his teeth were broken, but his other injuries were far less than might have been expected. Nevertheless, the position of the two survivors was still a most perilous one. They were exactly at the spot on to which almost every stone which detached itself from that side of the mountain was sure to fall, and their ice axes were lost, rendering it almost impossible for them to work their way to a place of safety. Still, to his infinite credit, the guide did not lose heart. By some means, which he now declares he is unable to understand, he contrived to climb, and to assist his gentleman, up that glassy, blood-stained wall, which even for a party uninjured, and properly equipped, it would have been no light task to surmount. This desperate achievement was rendered doubly trying by Gentinetta’s being perfectly aware that if any more stones fell the two mountaineers must inevitably be swept away for the second time. At last they gained their tracks and sought a sheltered spot, where they could safely rest a little. Here they were joined by the other parties, who rendered invaluable help during the rest of the descent. The two sufferers finally arrived at the Schwarzsee Hotel, whence they were carried down the same evening to Zermatt.

The next day a strong party started for the scene of the accident to recover the body of the dead guide, Fürrer. It was a difficult and a dangerous task, and those who examined the wall down which the fall took place expressed their amazement that two wounded men, without axes, should have performed what seemed the incredible feat of getting up it.

Both Mr Sloggett and Gentinetta made an excellent recovery, though they were laid up for many weeks after their memorable descent of the Matterhorn.

The qualities found in a first-class guide include not only skill in climbing, but the ability to form a sound conclusion when overtaken by storm and mist. The following experience which took place in 1874, and which I am permitted by Mrs Maund to quote from her late husband’s article in The Alpine Journal, proves, by its happy termination, that Maurer’s judgment in a critical position was thoroughly to be relied on. Mr Maund had just arrived at La Bérarde, in Dauphiné, and he writes:—

“The morning of the 29th broke wet and stormy, and Rodier strongly advised me not to start; this, however, was out of the question, as I was due at La Grave on that day to keep my appointment with Mr Middlemore. After waiting an hour, to give the weather a chance, we started in drizzling rain at 5 A.M. Desolate as the Val des Étançons must always look, it appeared doubly gloomy that morning, with its never-ending monotony of rock and moraine unrelieved by a single patch of green. As we neared the glacier, the weather fortunately cleared, and the clouds, which till then had enveloped everything, began to mount with that marvellous rapidity only noticeable in mountain districts, leaving half revealed the mighty cliffs of the Meije towering 5000 feet almost sheer above us. As the wind caught and carried into the air the frozen sheets of snow on his summit, the old mountain looked like some giant bill distributer throwing his advertisements about. Entirely protected from the wind, we whiled away an hour and a half, searching with our telescope for any feasible line of attack. Having satisfied ourselves that on this side the mountain presented enormous, if not insurmountable, difficulties, we shouldered our packs and made tracks for the Brèche, which we reached at 11.45.

“Meanwhile the weather had become worse again, and during the last part of the ascent it was snowing heavily; the wind too, from which we had been protected on the south side of the col, was so strong that we were absolutely obliged to crawl over to the north side. Our position was by no means a pleasant one; neither Martin nor I knew anything of the pass, and Rodier, who had told us overnight that he had crossed it more than once, seemed to know no more, and although sure of the exact bearing of La Grave, we could not, owing to the fast falling snow, see further than 300 or 400 yards in advance; added to this, it was intensely cold. Having paid Rodier 20 francs (a perfect waste of money, as it is impossible to mistake the way to the Brèche from the Val des Étançons, and, as I have said, he could not give us the least clue to the descent on the La Grave side), we dismissed him, hoping devoutly that he might break his—well, his ice axe, we’ll say—on the way down. By keeping away to the right of the Brèche and down a steep slope, we crossed the crevasses which lay at its base without difficulty. We then bore to the left across a plateau, on which the snow lay very deep; floundering through this sometimes waist deep, we reached the upper ice-fall of the glacier, and after crossing several crevasses became involved in a perfect net-work of them. After a consultation, we determined to try to the right, but met with no better success, as again we were checked by an absolute labyrinth. At last, about five o’clock, we took to some rocks which divide the glacier into two branches. Meanwhile the snow was falling thicker and thicker, and, driven by the strong N.W. wind which caught up and eddied about what had already fallen, it appeared to come from every quarter at once. It was impossible to see more than a few yards in advance, and the rocks which under ordinary circumstances would have been easy, were, with their coating of at least 4 inches of snow, much the reverse, as it was quite impossible to see where to put hand or foot. Our only trust was in our compass, which assured us that while keeping to the backbone of this ridge we were descending in an almost direct line towards La Grave.

“We had at most two hours of daylight before us, but there was still a hope that by following our present line we should get off the glacier before dark. How I regretted now the time lost in the morning. A little before seven we were brought to a standstill; our further direct descent was cut off by a precipice, while the rocks on either side fell almost sheer to the glaciers beneath. It was too late to think of looking for another road, so nothing now remained but to find the best shelter we could and bivouac for the night. We re-ascended to a small platform we had passed a short time before, and selecting the biggest and most sheltered bit of rock on it, we piled up the few movable stones there were about, to form the outside wall to our shelter, and having cleared away as much of the snow as we could from the inside, laid our ice axes across the top as rafters, with a sodden mackintosh—ironically called a waterproof by Mr Carter—over all for a roof. Despite this garment, I was wet to the skin. Luckily, we had each of us a spare flannel shirt and stockings in our knapsacks, but as the meagre dimensions of our shelter would not admit of the struggles attendant on a change, we were obliged to go through the operation outside. I tried to be cheerful, and Martin tried to be facetious as we wrung out our wet shirts while the snow beat on our bare backs, but both attempts were lamentable failures. If up to the present time my readers have not stripped in a snow-storm, let me strongly advise them never to attempt it. Having got through the performance as quickly as possible, we crawled into our shelter, but here again my ill luck followed me, for in entering I managed to tread on the tin wine-flask which Martin had thrown aside, and, my weight forcing out the cork, every drop of wine escaped. After packing myself away as well as I could in the shape of a pot-hook, Martin followed, and pot-hooked himself alongside me. We were obliged to assume this elementary shape, as the size of our shelter would not admit of our lying straight. All the provisions that remained were then produced. They consisted of a bit of bread about the size of a breakfast-roll, one-third of a small pot of preserved meat, about two ounces of raw bacon with the hide on, and half a small flask of a filthy compound called Genèpie, a sort of liqueur; besides this, we mustered between us barely a pipe-full of tobacco, and eight matches in a metal-box. The provisions I divided into three equal parts—one-third for that night’s supper, and the remaining two-thirds for the next day. I need not enlarge on the miseries of that night. The wind blew through the chinks between the stones, bringing the snow with it, until the place seemed all chinks; then the mackintosh with its weight of snow would come in upon us, and we had with infinite difficulty to prop it up again, only to go through the same operation an hour later; at last, in sheer despair, we let it lie where it fell, and found to our relief it kept us warmer in that position. The snow never ceased one moment although the wind had fallen, and when morning broke there must have been nearly a foot of it around and over us. A more desolate picture than that dawn I have never seen. Snow everywhere. The rocks buried in it, and not a point peeping out to relieve the unbroken monotony. The sky full of it, without a break to relieve its leaden sameness, and the heavy flakes falling with that persistent silence which adds so much to the desolation of such a scene.

“I was all for starting; for making some attempt either to get down, or to recross the col. Martin was dead against it—and I think now he was right. First of all, we could not have seen more than a few yards ahead; the rocks would have been considerably worse than they were the evening before, and if we had once got involved amongst the crevasses it was on the cards that we shouldn’t get clear of them again; added to this, even if we could hit off the col, what with want of sleep and food, and the fatigue consequent on several hours’ floundering in deep snow, we might not have strength to reach it. At any rate, we decided not to start until it cleared sufficiently to let us see where we were going. Our meagre stock of provisions was redivided into three parts, one of which we ate for breakfast. I then produced the pipe, but to our horror we found the matches were still damp. Martin, who is a man of resource, immediately opened his shirt and put the box containing them under his arm to dry. Meanwhile the snow never ceased, and the day wore on without a sign of the weather breaking. If it had not been for the excitement of those matches, I do not know how we should have got through that day; at last, however, after about six hours of Martin’s fond embrace, one consented to burn, and I succeeded in lighting the pipe. We took turns at twelve whiffs each, and no smoke, I can conscientiously say, have I ever enjoyed like that one. During this never-ending day we got a few snatches of sleep, but the cold consequent on our wet clothes was so great, our position so cramped, and the rocks on which we lay so abominably sharp, that these naps were of the shortest duration.

“A little before six the snow ceased, and for a moment the sun tried to wink at us through a chink in his snow-charged blanket, before he went to bed—long enough, however, for us to see La Grave far below, with every alp almost down to the village itself covered with its white mantle.

“And then, as our second night closes in, the snow recommences, and we draw closer together even than before; for we feel that during the long hours to come we must economise to the fullest the little animal heat left in us.

“That night I learnt to shiver, not the ordinary shivers, but fits lasting a quarter of an hour, during which no amount of moral persuasion could keep your limbs under control; and it was so catching! If either of us began a solo, the other was sure to join in, and we shivered a duet until quite exhausted. As we had nothing to drink, I had swallowed a considerable quantity of snow to quench my thirst, and this, acting on an almost empty stomach, produced burning heat within, while the cold, which was now intense, acting externally, induced fever and light-headedness, and once or twice I caught myself rambling. Martin, too, was affected in the same way. The long hours wore on, and still there was no sign of better weather. Towards midnight things looked very serious. Martin, who had behaved like a brick, thought ‘it was very hard to perish like this in the flower of his age,’ and I, too, thought of writing a line as well as I was able in my pocket-book, bequeathing its contents to my finder, then of sleeping if I could and waking up with the Houris; but I had the laugh of him afterwards, because he thought aloud and I to myself. However, this mood did not last long, and after shaking hands, I do not quite know why, because we had not quarrelled, we cuddled up again, and determined, whatever the weather, to start at daybreak. In half an hour the snow ceased, the wind backed to the S., and the temperature rose as if by magic; while the snow melting above trickled down in little streams upon us. We cleared the snow off the mackintosh, and putting it over us again, slept like logs in comparative warmth. When I awoke the sun was well up, and on looking round I could hardly realise the scene. Not a cloud in the sky! Not a breath of wind! The rocks around us, which yesterday were absolutely buried, were showing their black heads everywhere, and only a few inches of snow remained, so rapid had been the thaw; while far away to the N. the snow-capped summits of the Pennine Alps stood out in bold relief against the cloudless sky.

“I woke Martin, and at a quarter to six, after thirty-five hours’ burial, we crawled out of our shelter. At first neither of us could stand, so chilled were we by long exposure, and so cramped by our enforced position, but after a good thaw in the hot sun we managed to hobble about, and pack the knapsacks. After eating the few scraps that remained, we started at seven o’clock up the ridge that we had descended two days before.

“We were very shaky on our legs at first, but at each step the stiffness seemed to wear off, and after half an hour we quite recovered their use; but there remained an all-pervading sense of emptiness inside that was not exhilarating. After ascending a short distance, and with my telescope carefully examining the rocks, we determined to descend to the glacier below us (the western branch), and crossing this get on to some more rocks beneath the lower ice-fall. If we could get down these our way seemed clear.

“I won’t trouble you with the details of the descent: suffice it to say that, without encountering any difficulty, we stepped on to grass about twelve o’clock, and descending green slopes, still patched here and there with snow (which would have provided sufficient Edelweiss for all the hats of the S.A.C.), we arrived safely at La Grave, after a pleasant little outing of fifty-six hours. Mr Middlemore, despairing of my coming, had started for England the night before, and had left Jaun to await my arrival.

“After a hot bath, and some bread-crumbs soaked in warm wine, I went to bed, and the next morning I awoke as well as I am now, with the exception of stiffness in the knees, and a slight frost-bite on one hand. Martin, however, who, I suspect, had eaten a good deal on his arrival, was seized with severe cramp, and for some hours was very ill.

“Two days’ rest put us all to rights again.”

Though rivalry may be keen between first-class guides, and bitter things be said now and then in the heat of the struggle for first place, yet when a great guide has passed away, it is seldom that one hears anything but good of him. A pretty story is told—and I believe it is true—of the son of old Maquignaz of Valtournanche, which exemplifies this chivalrous trait. Maquignaz and Jean Antoine Carrel were often in competition in the early days of systematic climbing, and if not enemies, they were at any rate hardly bosom friends. Carrel’s tragic and noble death on the Matterhorn will be recalled by readers of my True Tales of Mountain Adventure. Not very long ago a French climber was making an ascent of the Italian side of the Matterhorn, with “young” Maquignaz as guide. “Where did Carrel fall?” he innocently enquired, as they ascended the precipitous cliffs on the Breuil side of the mountain. Young Maquignaz turned sharply to him and exclaimed: “Carrel n’est pas tombé! Il est mort!”

CHAPTER II
TWO DAYS ON AN ICE-SLOPE

THERE are few instances so striking of the capacity of a party of thoroughly experienced mountaineers to get out of a really tight place, as was the outcome of the two days spent by Messrs Mummery, Slingsby, and Ellis Carr, on an ice slope in the Mont Blanc district. The party intended trying to ascend the Aiguille du Plan direct from the Chamonix valley. Mr Ellis Carr has generously given me permission to make use of his account, which I quote from The Alpine Journal. He relates the adventures of himself and his two friends, whose names are household words to climbers, as follows:—

“Mummery, Slingsby, and I started at 4 P.M., with a porter carrying the material for our camp. This comprised a silk tent of Mummery’s pattern, only weighing 1½ to 2 lbs.; three eider-down sleeping-bags, 9 lbs.; cooking apparatus of thin tin, 1½ lbs.; or, with ropes, rucksacks, and sundries, about 25 lbs., in addition to the weight of the provisions. Though not unduly burdened, the porter found the valley of boulders exceedingly troublesome, and in spite of three distinct varieties of advice as to the easiest route across them, made such miserably slow progress, often totally disappearing amongst the rocks like a water-logged ship in a trough of the sea, that we were forced to pitch our tents on the right moraine of the Nantillons Glacier, instead of near the base of our peak, as intended. The gîte, built up with stones on the slope of the moraine, with earth raked into the interstices, was sufficiently comfortable to afford Mummery and myself some sleep. A stone, however, far surpassing the traditional gîte lump in aggressive activity, seemed, most undeservedly, to have singled out Slingsby as its innocent victim, and, judging by the convulsions of his sleeping-bag, and the sighs and thumps which were in full swing every time I woke up, it must have kept him pretty busy all night dodging its attacks from side to side. His account of his sufferings next morning, when Mummery and I were admittedly awake, fully confirmed and explained these phenomena, but on going for the enemy by daylight, he had the satisfaction of finding that he had suffered quite needlessly, the stone being loose and easily removed. We used Mummery’s silk tent for the first time, and found that it afforded ample room for three men to lie at full length without crowding. The night, however, was too fine and still to test the weather-resisting power of the material, and as this was thin enough to admit sufficient moonlight to illuminate the interior of the tent, and make candle or lamp superfluous, we inferred that it might possibly prove to be equally accommodating in the case of rain and wind. It was necessary, moreover, on entering or leaving the tent, to adopt that form of locomotion to which the serpent was condemned to avoid the risk of unconsciously carrying away the whole structure on one’s back. We started next morning about three o’clock, leaving the camp kit ready packed for the porter, whom we had instructed to fetch it during the day, and pushed on to the glacier at the foot of our mountain at a steady pace, maintained in my case with much greater ease than would have otherwise been possible by virtue of some long, single-pointed screw spikes inserted overnight in my boot soles; and I may here venture to remark that a few of these spikes, screwed into the boots before starting on an expedition where much ice-work is expected, appear to offer a welcome compromise between ponderous crampons and ordinary nails. They do not, I think, if not too numerous, interfere with rock-climbing, and can be repeatedly renewed when worn down. A slight modification in the shape would further facilitate their being screwed in with a box key made to fit.[1]

“Leaving the rock buttress, the scene of our reconnaissance on the 11th, on the right, we struck straight up the glacier basin between it and the Aiguille de Blaitiére, which glacier appeared to me to be largely composed of broken fragments of ice mixed with avalanche snow from the hanging glaciers and slopes above. Keeping somewhat to the left, we reached the bergschrund, which proved to be of considerable size, extending along the whole base of the couloir, and crossed it at a point immediately adjoining the rocks on the left. The axe at once came into requisition, and we cut steadily in hard ice up and across the couloir towards the small rib or island of rock before-mentioned as dividing it higher up into two portions. The rocks at the base of this rib, though steep, gritty, and loose, offered more rapid going than the ice, and we climbed then to a gap on the ridge above, commanding a near view of the perpendicular country in front of us. Far above us, and immediately over the top of the right-hand section of the couloir, towered the ice cliffs of the hanging glacier we had tried to reach on the 11th, and beyond these again, in the grey morning light, we caught the glimpse of a second and even a third rank of séracs in lofty vista higher up the mountain. As before observed, this section of the couloir seemed admirably placed for receiving ice-falls, and we now saw that it formed part of the natural channel for snow and débris from each and all of these glaciers. We therefore directed our attention to our friend on the left, and after a halt for breakfast, traversed the still remaining portion of the dividing ridge, turning a small rock pinnacle on its right, and recommenced cutting steps in the hard ice which faced us. As has been before remarked, it is difficult to avoid over-estimating the steepness of ice-slopes, but, allowing for any tendency towards exaggeration, I do not think I am wrong in fixing the angle of the couloir from this point as not less than 50°. We kept the axe steadily going, and with an occasional change of leader, after some hours’ unceasing work, found ourselves approaching the base of the upper portion of the couloir, which from below had appeared perpendicular. We paused to consider the situation. For at least 80 to 100 feet the ice rose at an angle of 60° to 70°, cutting off all view of the face above, with no flanking wall of rock on the right, but bounded on the left by an overhanging cliff, which dripped slightly with water from melting snow above. The morning was well advanced, and we kept a sharp look-out aloft for any stray stones which might fancy a descent in our direction. None came, and we felt gratified at this confirmation of our judgment as to the safety of this part of the couloir. However, the time for chuckling had not yet come. As I stated, we had halted to inspect the problem before us. Look as we might we could discover no possibility of turning the ice wall either to the right or left, and though, as we fondly believed and hoped, it formed the only barrier to easier going above, the terrible straightness and narrowness of the way was sufficient to make the very boldest pause to consider the strength of his resources.

“How long I should have paused before beating a retreat, if asked to lead the way up such a place, I will not stop to enquire, but I clearly remember that my efforts to form some estimate of the probable demand on my powers such a feat would involve were cut short by Mummery’s quiet announcement that he was ready to make the attempt. Let me here state that amongst Mummery’s other mountaineering qualifications not the least remarkable is his power of inspiring confidence in those who are climbing with him, and that both Slingsby and I experienced this is proved by the fact that we at once proceeded, without misgiving or hesitation, to follow his lead. We had hitherto used an 80-feet rope, but now, by attaching a spare 100-feet length of thin rope, used double, we afforded the leader an additional 50 feet. Mummery commenced cutting, and we soon approached the lower portion of the actual ice wall, where the angle of the slope cannot have been less than 60°.

“I am not aware that any authority has fixed the exact degree of steepness at which it becomes impossible to use the ice axe with both hands, but, whatever portion of a right angle the limit may be, Mummery very soon reached it, and commenced excavating with his right hand caves in the ice, each with an internal lateral recess by which to support his weight with his left. Slingsby and I, meanwhile possessing our souls in patience, stood in our respective steps, as on a ladder, and watched his steady progress with admiration, so far as permitted us by the falling ice dislodged by the axe.

“Above our heads the top of the wall was crowned by a single projecting stone towards which the leader cut, and which, when reached, just afforded sufficient standing-room for both feet. The ice immediately below this stone, for a height of 12 or 14 feet, was practically perpendicular, and Slingsby’s definition of it as a ‘frozen waterfall’ is the most appropriate I can find. Here and there Mummery found it necessary to cut through its entire thickness, exposing the face of the rock behind.

“On reaching the projecting stone the leader was again able to use the axe with both hands, and slowly disappeared from view; thus completing, without pause or hitch of any kind, the most extraordinary feat of mountaineering skill and nerve it has ever been my privilege to witness.

“The top of the wall surmounted, Slingsby and I expected every moment to hear the welcome summons to follow to easier realms above. None came. Time passed, the only sounds besides the occasional drip of water from the rocks on our left, or the growl of a distant avalanche, being that of the axe and the falling chips of ice, as they whizzed by or struck our heads or arms with increasing force. The sounds of the axe strokes gradually became inaudible, but the shower continued to pound us without mercy for more than an hour of inaction, perhaps more trying to the nerves, in such a position, than the task of leading. The monotony was to some extent varied by efforts to ward off from our heads the blows of the falling ice, and by the excitement, at intervals, of seeing the slack rope hauled up a foot or so at a time. It had almost become taut, and we were preparing to follow, when a shout from above, which sounded from where we stood muffled and far away, for more rope, kept us in our places. It was all very well to demand more rope, but not so easy to comply. The only possible way to give extra length was to employ the 100 feet of thin rope single, instead of double, at which we hesitated at first, but, as Mummery shouted that it was absolutely necessary, we managed to make the change, though it involved Slingsby’s getting out of the rope entirely during the operation. To any one who has not tried it I should hardly venture to recommend, as an enjoyable diversion, the process, which must necessarily occupy both hands, of removing and re-adjusting 180 feet of rope on an ice slope exceeding 60° at the top of a steep couloir some 1000 feet high. The task accomplished, we had not much longer to wait before the shout to come on announced the termination of our martyrdom. We went on, but, on passing in turn the projecting stone, and catching sight of the slope above, we saw at a glance that our hopes of easy going must, for the present, be postponed. Mummery, who had halted at the full extent of his tether of about 120 feet of rope, was standing in his steps on an ice slope quite as steep as that below the foot of the wall we had just surmounted. He had been cutting without intermission for two hours, and suggested a change. Being last on the rope, I therefore went ahead, cutting steps to pass, and took up the work with the axe. The ice here was occasionally in double layer, the outer one some 3 or 4 inches in thickness, which, when cut through, revealed a space of about equal depth behind, an arrangement at times very convenient, as affording good hand-holes without extra labour. I went on for some time cutting pigeon-holes on the right side of the couloir, and, at the risk of being unorthodox, I would venture to point out what appears to me the advantages of this kind of step on very steep ice. Cut in two perpendicular rows, alternately for each foot, the time lost in zigzags is saved, and no turning steps are necessary; they do not require the ice to be cut away so much for the leg as in the case of lateral steps, and are therefore less easily filled up by falling chips and snow. Being on account of their shape more protected from the sun’s heat, they are less liable to be spoiled by melting, and have the further advantage of keeping the members of the party in the same perpendicular line, and consequently in a safer position. They also may serve as hand-holds. To cut such steps satisfactorily it is necessary that the axe be provided with a point long enough to penetrate to the full depth required for the accommodation of the foot up to the instep, without risk of injury to the shaft by repeated contact with the ice.

“As we had now been going for several hours without food, and since leaving the rock rib, where we had breakfasted, had come across no ledge or irregularity of any kind affording a resting-place, it was with no little satisfaction that I descried, on the opposite side of the couloir, at a spot about 30 or 40 feet above, where the cliff on our left somewhat receded, several broken fragments of rock cropping out of the ice, of size and shape to provide seats for the whole party. We cut up and across to them, and sat down, or rather hooked ourselves on, for a second breakfast. We were here approximately on a level with the summit of our rock buttress of the 11th, and saw that it was only connected with the mountain by a broken and dangerous-looking ridge of ice and névé running up to an ice-slope at the foot of the glacier cliffs. The gap in the latter was not visible from our position. The tower we had tried to turn appeared far below, and the intervening rocks of the buttress, though not jagged, were steep and smooth like a roof. The first gleams of sunshine now arrived to cheer us, and, getting under way once more, we pushed on hopefully, as the couloir was rapidly widening and the face of the mountain almost in full view. We had also surmounted the rock wall which had so long shut out the prospect on our left, and it was at this point that, happening to glance across the slabs, we caught sight of a large flat rock rapidly descending. It did not bound nor roll, but slid quietly down with a kind of stealthy haste, as if it thought, though rather late, it might still catch us, and was anxious not to alarm us prematurely. It fell harmlessly into the couloir, striking the ice near the rock rib within a few feet of our tracks, and we saw no other falling stones while we were on the mountain.

“Leaving the welcome resting-place, Mummery again took the lead, and cut up and across the couloir, now becoming less steep, to a rib or patch of rocks higher up on the right, which we climbed to its upper extremity, a distance of some 70 or 80 feet.

“Here, taking to the ice once more, we soon approached the foot of the first great snow-slope on the face, and rejoiced in the near prospect of easier going. At the top of this slope, several hundred feet straight before us, was a low cliff or band of rocks, for which we decided to aim, there being throughout the entire length of the intervening slope no suspicious grey patches to indicate ice. The angle was, moreover, much less severe, and it being once more my turn to lead, I went at it with the zealous intention of making up time. My ardour was, however, considerably checked at finding, when but a short distance up the slope, that the coating of névé was so exceedingly thin as to be insufficient for good footing without cutting through the hard ice below. Instead, therefore, of continuing in a straight line for the rocks, we took an oblique course to the right, towards one of the hanging glaciers before referred to, and crossing a longitudinal crevasse, climbed without much difficulty up its sloping bank of névé. Hurrah! here was good snow at last, only requiring at most a couple of slashes with the adze end of the axe for each step. If this continued we had a comparatively easy task before us, as the rocks above, though smooth and steep, were broken up here and there by bands and streaks of snow. Taking full advantage of this our first opportunity for making speed, we cut as fast as possible and made height rapidly. We still aimed to strike the band of rocks before described, though at a point much more to the right, and nearer to where its extremity was bounded by the ice-cliffs of another hanging glacier; but, alas! as we approached nearer and nearer to the base of the cliffs, looming apparently higher and higher over our heads, the favouring névé, over which we had been making such rapid progress, again began to fail, and before we could reach the top of the once more steepening slope the necessity of again resorting to the pick end of the axe brought home the unwelcome conviction that our temporary respite had come to an end, and that, instead of snow above, and apart from what help the smooth rocks might afford, nothing was to be expected but hard, unmitigated ice.

“We immediately felt that, as it was already past noon, the establishment of this fact would put a totally different complexion on our prospects of success, and, instead of reaching the summit, we might have to content ourselves with merely crossing the ridge. We continued cutting, however, and reached the rocks, the last part of the slope having once more become exceedingly steep. To turn the cliff, here unclimbable, we first spent over half an hour in prospecting to the right, where a steep ice-gully appeared between the rocks and the hanging glacier; but, abandoning this, we struck off to the left, cutting a long traverse, during which we were able to hitch the rope to rocks cropping out through the ice. The traverse landed us in a kind of gully, where, taking to the rocks whenever practicable, though climbing chiefly by the ice, we reached a broken stony ledge, large and flat enough to serve as a luncheon place, the only spot we had come across since leaving the rock rib, where it was possible really to rest sitting. Luncheon over, we proceeded as before, choosing the rocks as far as possible by way of change, though continually obliged to take to the ice-streaks by which they were everywhere intersected. This went on all the rest of the afternoon, till, when daylight began to wane, we had attained an elevation considerably above the gap between our mountain and the Aiguille de Blaitiére, or more than 10,900 feet above the sea.

“The persistent steepness and difficulty of the mountain had already put our reaching the ridge before dark entirely out of the question, though we decided to keep going as long as daylight lasted, so as to leave as little work as possible for the morrow.

“The day had been gloriously fine, practically cloudless throughout, and I shall never forget the weird look of the ice-slopes beneath, turning yellow in the evening light, and plunging down and disappearing far below in the mists which were gathering at the base of the mountain; also, far, far away, we caught a glimpse of the Lake of Geneva, somewhere near Lausanne. I had turned away from the retrospect, when an exclamation from Slingsby called me to look once more. A gap had appeared in the mists, and there, some 2700 feet below us, as it were on an inferior stage of the world, we caught a glimpse of the snow-field at the very foot of the mountain, dusky yellow in the last rays of the sun. Mummery was in the meantime continuing the everlasting chopping, in the intervals of crawling up disobliging slabs of rock, till twilight began to deepen into darkness, and we had to look about for a perch on which to roost for the night. The only spot we could find, sufficiently large for all three of us to sit, was a small patch of lumps of rocks, more or less loose, some 20 or 30 feet below where we stood, and we succeeded, just as the light failed, or about 8.30 P.M., and after some engineering, in seating ourselves side by side upon it. Our boots were wet through by long standing in ice-steps, and we took them off and wrung the water out of our stockings. The others put theirs on again, but, as a precaution against frost-bite, having pocketed my stockings, I put my feet, wrapped in a woollen cap, inside the rucksack, with the result that they remained warm through the night. The half hour which it took me next morning to pull on the frozen boots proved, however, an adequate price for the privilege of having warm feet. As a precaution against falling off our shelf we hitched the rope over a rock above and passed it round us, and to make sure of not losing my boots (awful thought!), I tied them to it by the laces.

“After dinner we settled down to spend the evening. The weather fortunately remained perfect, and the moon had risen, though hidden from us by our mountain. Immediately below lay Chamonix, like a cheap illumination, gradually growing more patchy as the night advanced and the candles went out one by one, while above the stars looked down as if silently wondering why in the world we were sitting there. The first two hours were passed without very much discomfort, but having left behind our extra wraps to save weight, as time wore on the cold began to make itself felt, and though fortunately never severe enough to be dangerous, made us sufficiently miserable. Packed as we were, we were unable to indulge in those exercises generally adopted to induce warmth, and we shivered so vigorously at intervals that, when all vibrating in unison, we wondered how it might affect the stability of our perch. Sudden cramp in a leg, too, could only be relieved by concerted action, it being necessary for the whole party to rise solemnly together like a bench of judges, while the limb was stretched out over the valley of Chamonix till the pain abated, and it could be folded up and packed away once more. We sang songs, told anecdotes, and watched the ghostly effect of the moonlight on a subsidiary pinnacle of the mountain, the illuminated point of which, in reality but a short distance away, looked like a phantom Matterhorn seen afar off over an inky black arête formed by the shadow thrown across its base by the adjoining ridge. We had all solemnly vowed not to drop asleep, and for me this was essential, as my centre of gravity was only just within the base of support; but while endeavouring to give effect to another chorus, in spite of the very troublesome vibrato before referred to, I was grieved and startled at the sudden superfluous interpolation of two sustained melancholy bass notes, each in a different key and ominously suggestive of snoring. The pensive attitude of my companions’ heads being in keeping with their song, in accordance with a previous understanding, I imparted to Mummery, who sat next to me, a judicious shock, but, as in the case of a row of billiard balls in contact, the effect was most noticeable at the far end, and Slingsby awoke, heartily agreeing with me how weak it was of Mummery to give way thus. The frequent necessity for repeating this operation, with strengthening variations as the effect wore off, soon stopped the chorus which, like Sullivan’s ‘Lost Chord,’ trembled away into silence.

“The lights of Chamonix had by this time shrunk to a mere moth-eaten skeleton of their earlier glory, and I became weakly conscious of a sort of resentment at the callous selfishness of those who could thus sneak into their undeserved beds, without a thought of the three devoted explorers gazing down at them from their eyrie on the icy rocks.

“From 2 to 4 o’clock the cold became more intense, aggravated by a slight ‘breeze of morning,’ and while waiting for dawn we noticed that it was light enough to see.

“Daylight, however, did not help Mummery to find his hat, and we concluded it had retired into the bergschrund under cover of darkness.

“We helped each other into a standing position, and decided to start for the next patch of rocks above, from there to determine what chance of success there might be in making a dash for the summit, or, failing this, of simply crossing the ridge and descending to the Col du Géant. There was very little food left, and, as we had brought no wine, breakfast was reduced to a slight sketch, executed with little taste and in a few very dry touches. Owing to the time required to disentangle virulently kinked and frozen ropes, etc., the sun was well above the horizon when we once more started upwards, though unfortunately, just at this time, when his life-giving rays would have been most acceptable, they were entirely intercepted by the ridge of the Blaitiére. We started on the line of steps cut the night before, but soon after Mummery had recommenced cutting, the cold, or rather the impossibility, owing to the enforced inaction, to get warm, produced such an overpowering feeling of drowsiness that Slingsby and I, at Mummery’s suggestion, returned to the perch, and jamming ourselves into the space which had before accommodated our six legs, endeavoured to have it out in forty winks. Mummery meanwhile continued step-cutting, and at the end of about half an hour, during which Slingsby and I were somewhat restored by a fitful dose, returned, and we tied on again for another attempt.

“Surmounting the patches of rock immediately above our dormitory, we arrived at the foot of another slope of terribly steep, hard ice, some 200 feet in height. At the top of this again was a vertical crag 14 or 15 feet high, forming the outworks of the next superior band of rocks, which was interspersed with ice-streaks as before. A few feet from the base of this crag was a narrow ledge about 1 foot in width, where we were able to sit after scraping it clear of snow. Slingsby gave Mummery a leg up round a very nasty corner, and he climbed to a point above the crag, whence he was able to assist us with the rope up a still higher and narrower ledge. Beyond was another steep slope of hard ice, topped by a belt of rocks, as before.

“Before reaching this point the cold had again begun to tell upon me, and I bitterly regretted the mistaken policy of leaving behind our extra wraps, especially as the coat I was wearing was not lined. As there was no probability of a change for the better in the nature of the going before the ridge was reached, I began to doubt the wisdom of proceeding, affected as I was, where a false step might send the whole party into the bergschrund 3000 feet below; but it was very hard, with the summit in view and the most laborious part of the ascent already accomplished, to be the first to cry ‘Hold!’ I hesitated for some time before doing so, and the others meanwhile had proceeded up the slope. The rope was almost taut when I shouted to them the state of the case, and called a council of war. They returned to me, and we discussed what was practically something of the nature of a dilemma. To go on at the same slow rate of progress and without the sun’s warmth meant, on the one hand, the possible collapse of at least one of the party from cold, while, on the other hand, to turn back involved the descent of nearly 3000 feet of ice, and the passage, if we could not turn it, of the couloir and its ghastly ice-wall. Partly, I think, to delay for a time the adoption of the latter formidable alternative, partly to set at rest any doubt which might still remain as to the nature of the going above, Mummery volunteered to ascend alone to the rocks at the summit of the ice-slope, though the chance of their offering any improved conditions was generally felt to be a forlorn hope. He untied the rope, threw the end down to us, and retraced his steps up the slope, in due time reaching the rocks some 100 or 130 feet above, but, after prospecting in more than one direction, returned to us with the report that they offered no improvement, and that the intersecting streaks were nothing but hard ice. He, however, was prepared to continue the attempt if we felt equal to the task. If we could at that moment have commanded a cup of hot soup or tea, or the woollen jackets which in our confidence in being able to reach the ridge we had left behind, I am convinced I should have been quite able to proceed, and that the day and the mountain would have been ours; but in the absence of these reviving influences and that of the sun, I was conscious that in my own case, at any rate, it would be folly to persist, so gave my vote for descending. As the food was practically exhausted, the others agreed that it would be wiser to face the terrible ordeal which retracing our steps involved (we did not then know that it meant recutting them), rather than continue the ascent with weakened resources and without absolute certainty of the accessibility of the summit ridge.

“As Slingsby on the previous day had insisted on being regarded merely as a passenger, and had therefore not shared in the step-cutting, it was now arranged that he should lead, while Mummery, as a tower of strength, brought up the rear. Though it was past five o’clock, and of course broad daylight, a bright star could be seen just over the ridge of our mountain, not far from the summit—alas! the only one anywhere near it on that day. We started downwards at a steady pace, and soon were rejoicing in the returning warmth induced by the more continuous movement. Before we had gone far, however, we found that most of the steps were partially filled up with ice, water having flowed into them during the previous afternoon, and the work of trimming or practically recutting these was at times exceedingly trying, owing to their distance apart, and the consequent necessity of working in a stooping and cramped position.

“But if the work was tough the worker, fortunately, was tougher still, and Mummery and I congratulated ourselves on being able to send such powerful reserves to the front.

“The morning was well advanced before the sun surmounted the cold screen of the Blaitiére, but having once got to work he certainly made up by intensity for his tardy appearance.

“The provisions, with the exception of a scrap or two of cheese and a morsel of chocolate, being exhausted, and having, as before stated, nothing with us in the form of drink, nothing was to be gained by a halt, though, as we descended with as much speed as possible, we kept a sharp look-out for any signs of trickling water with which to quench the thirst, which was becoming distressing.

“Since finally deciding to return, we had cherished the hope that it might still be possible to turn the ice-wall by way of the great rock buttress, and made up our minds at any rate to inspect it from above. With this in view, when the point was reached where we had on the previous day struck the flank of the hanging glacier instead of continuing in the tracks which trended to the right across the long ice-slope, we cut straight down by the side of the glacier to its foot, and over the slope below, in the direction of the séracs immediately crowning the summit of the buttress.

“On nearer approach, however, it was manifest that even if by hours of step-cutting a passage from the ice to the rocky crest below could be successfully forced, descent by the latter was more than doubtful, while the consequences of failure were not to be thought of.

“Driven, therefore, finally to descend by the couloir, we cut a horizontal traverse which brought us back into the old tracks, a short way above the point where the ice began to steepen for the final plunge, where we braced ourselves for the last and steepest 1000 feet of ice. Slingsby still led, and, on arriving at the spot below our second breakfast-place, where I had last cut pigeon-holes, joyfully announced that one of them contained water. He left his drinking cup in an adjoining step for our use as we passed the spot in turn, and the fact that it was only visible when on a level with our faces may give some idea of the steepness of the descent. The delight of that drink was something to remember, though only obtainable in thimblefuls, and I continued dipping so long that Mummery became alarmed, being under the impression that the cup was filled each time.

“Mummery had previously volunteered, in case we were driven to return by the couloir, to descend first, and recut the steps and hand-holes in the ice-wall, and as we approached the brink we looked about for some projecting stone or knob of rock which might serve as a hitch for the rope during the operation. The only available projection was a pointed stone of doubtful security, somewhat removed from the line of descent, standing out of the ice at the foot of a smooth vertical slab of rock on the left. Round this we hitched the rope, Slingsby untying to give the necessary length. With our feet firmly planted, each in its own ice-step, we paid out the rope as Mummery descended and disappeared over the edge. It was an hour before he re-appeared, and this period of enforced inaction was to me, and I think to Slingsby, the most trying of the whole expedition. The want of food was beginning to tell on our strength, the overpowering drowsiness returned, and though it was absolutely essential for the safety of the party to stand firmly in the ice-steps, it required a strong effort to avoid dropping off to sleep in that position. We were fortunately able to steady ourselves by grasping the upper edge of the ice where it adjoined the rocky slab under which we stood. This weariness, however, must have been quite as much mental as physical from the long-continued monotony of the work, for when Mummery at last reappeared we felt perfectly equal to the task of descending. The rope was passed behind a boss of névé ingeniously worked by Mummery as a hitch to keep it perpendicular, and I descended first, but had no occasion to rely upon it for more than its moral support, as the steps and hand-holds had been so carefully cut. I climbed cautiously down the icy cataract till I reached a point where hand-holds were not essential to maintain the balance, and waited with my face almost against the ice till Slingsby joined me. Mummery soon followed, and rather than leave the spare rope behind detached it from the stone and descended without its aid, his nerve being to all appearance unimpaired by the fatigues he had gone through. I had before had evidence of his indifference while on the mountains to all forms of food or drink, with the single exception, by the way, of strawberry jam, on the production of which he generally capitulates.

“Rejoicing at having successfully passed the steepest portion of the ice-wall without the smallest hitch of the wrong sort, we steadily descended the face of the couloir.

“Here and there, where a few of the steps had been hewn unusually far apart, I was fain to cut a notch or two for the fingers before lowering myself into the next one below. At last the rock rib was reached, and we indulged in a rest for the first time since turning to descend.

“Time, however, was precious, and we were soon under way again, retracing our steps over the steep loose rocks at the base of the rib till forced again on to the ice.

“Oh, that everlasting hard ice-slope, so trustworthy yet so relentlessly exacting!

“Before we could clear the rocks, and as if by way of hint that the mountain had had enough of us, and of me in particular (I could have assured it the feeling was mutual), a flick of the rope sent my hat and goggles flying down to keep company with Mummery’s in the bergschrund, and a sharp rolling stone, which I foolishly extended my hand to check, gashed me so severely as to put climbing out of the question for more than a week. As small pieces of ice had been whizzing down for some time from above, though we saw no stones, it was satisfactory to find our steps across the lower part of the couloir in sufficiently good order to allow of our putting on a good pace, and we soon reached the sheltering rock on the opposite side and the slopes below the bergschrund wherein our hats, after losing their heads, had found a grave. The intense feeling of relief on regaining, at 5.55 P.M., safe and easy ground, where the lives of the party were not staked on every step, is difficult to describe, and was such as I had never before experienced. I think the others felt something like the same sensation. Fatigue, kept at bay so long as the stern necessity for caution lasted, seemed to come upon us with a rush, though tempered with the sense of freedom from care aforesaid, and I fancy our progress down the glacier snow was for a time rather staggery. Though tired, we were by no means exhausted, and after a short rest on a flat rock and a drink from a glacier runnel, found ourselves sufficiently vigorous to make good use of the remaining daylight to cross the intervening glaciers, moraines, and valley of boulders, before commencing to skirt the tedious and, in the dark, exasperating stony wastes of the Charmoz ridge. Sternly disregarding the allurements of numerous stonemen, which here seem to grow wild, to the confusion of those weak enough to trust them, we stumbled along amongst the stones to the brow of the hill overlooking the hotel, where shouts from friends greeted the appearance of our lantern, and, descending by the footpath, we arrived among them at 10.30 P.M., more than fifty-four hours after our departure on the 12th.”

CHAPTER III
SOME AVALANCHE ADVENTURES

WE should never have got into such a position, but when definite orders are not carried out the General must not be blamed. The adventure might easily have cost all three of us our lives.

This is how we came to be imperilling our necks on an incoherent snow-ridge 13,000 feet above the sea. It was the end of September, and my two guides and I were waiting at Zermatt to try the Dent Blanche, a proceeding which, later on, was amply justified by success. Much fresh snow had recently fallen, and the slopes of the mountains were running down towards the valleys faster than the most active chamois could have galloped up them. Idleness is an abomination to the keen climber, and doubly so if he be an enthusiastic photographer, and the sun shone each day from a cloudless sky. Something had to be done, but what could we choose? All the safe second-class ascents up which one might wade through fresh snow without risk, we had accomplished over and over again. Something new to us was what we wanted, and what eventually we found in the stately Hohberghorn. Now this peak is seldom ascended. It is overtopped by two big neighbours, and until these have been done, no one is likely to climb the less imposing peak. Furthermore, the Hohberghorn is a grind, and though we got enough excitement and to spare out of it, yet in our case the circumstances were peculiar. The view was certain to be grand, and, faute de mieux, we decided to start for it.

On this occasion, in addition to my guide of many years’ standing, the famous Joseph Imboden of St Nicholas, I had a second man, who had a great local reputation in his native valley at the other end of Switzerland (and deservedly so, as far as his actual climbing ability was concerned), but who had never been on a rope with Imboden before. This was the cause of the appalling risk we ran during our expedition. We arrived in good time at the hut, and found another party, who proposed going up the Dom, the highest mountain entirely in Switzerland (14,900 feet) next day. Our way lay together for a couple of hours over the great glacier, and we proceeded the following morning in magnificent weather towards our respective peaks.

It was heavy work ploughing our way through the soft new snow, and we could not advance except very slowly. As a result, it was already mid-day when we gained the ridge of the Hohberghorn, not far below the summit. The sun streamed pitilessly down, the snow cracked and slipped at every step. To understand what followed, our position must now be made clear. Imboden, who led, was on the very crest of the ridge. Next to him on the rope, at a distance of about 20 feet, was my place, also on the ridge. At an equal distance behind me was the second guide. He was a trifle below the ridge, on the side to our left. We stood still for a moment, and then Imboden distinctly but very quietly remarked to the other man, “Be on your guard. At any moment now we may expect an avalanche.” I never to this day can understand how he failed to grasp what this meant. It should have been obvious that it was a warning to look out, and at the first sign of approaching danger to step down on to the other side of the ridge. Had not this been a perfectly simple thing to do, we should not have continued the ascent, but the second guide failed us hopelessly when the critical moment came. Imboden, to avoid a small cornice or overhanging eave of snow to our right, now took a few steps along and below the ridge to the left, while the man behind me came in the tracks to the crest, and I followed the leader. From this position the last man could in an instant have been down the slope to his right, and have held us with the greatest ease.

We advanced a yard or two further, and then the entire surface upon which we stood commenced to move! A moment more and we were struggling for our lives, dashing our axes through the rushing snow, and endeavouring to arrest our wild career, which, unless checked at once, would cause us to be precipitated down the entire face of the mountain, to the glacier below. Then it was that the firm bed of snow beneath the newer layer stood us in good stead. Our axes held, and, breathless, bruised and startled, we found ourselves clinging to the slope, while the avalanche, momentarily increasing in volume, thundered down towards the snow-fields below, where at length, heaped high against the mountain-side, it came to rest.

We now took stock of the position. We were practically unhurt, but so confused and rapid had been the slip that the rope was entangled round us in a manner wonderful to behold. There was nothing to prevent us reaching the summit, for every atom of fresh snow had been swept away from the slope, so we continued our climb, and soon were able to rest on the top. To this day, Imboden and I always look back to our adventure on the Hohberghorn as the greatest peril either of us has ever faced.

More than one instance has been recorded where, owing to the prompt action of the last man on the rope, fatal accidents on snow-ridges have been avoided. The two most famous occasions in Alpine annals[2] were when Hans Grass saved his party on Piz Palü, and when Ulrich Almer performed his marvellous feat on the Gabelhorn. It is true that in both these cases the risk was due to the breaking away of a snow-cornice, but the remedy was exactly the same as it ought to have been when our avalanche was started.

I have only to add that we found the other party at the hut, much exhausted by their unsuccessful attempt on the Dom, and very anxious on our account, as they both heard and saw the avalanche which had so nearly ended our mountaineering career.

The famous climber, Mr Tuckett, has very kindly allowed me to quote from Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers, the following description of a narrow escape from an avalanche while descending the Aletschhorn:

“We had accomplished in safety a distance of scarcely more than 150 yards when, as I was looking at the Jungfrau, my attention was attracted by a sudden exclamation from Victor, who appeared to stagger and all but lose his balance. At first, the idea of some sort of seizure or an attack of giddiness presented itself, but, without stopping to enquire, I at once turned round, drove my good 8-foot ash-pole as deeply as possible through the surface layer of fresh snow into the firmer stratum beneath, tightened the rope to give Victor support, and shouted to Peter to do the same. All this was the work of an instant, and a glance at once showed me what had happened. Victor was safe for the moment, but a layer or couche of snow, 10 inches to a foot in thickness, had given way exactly beneath his feet, and first gently, and then fleet as an arrow, went gliding down, with that unpleasant sound somewhat resembling the escape of steam, which is so trying to the nerves of the bravest man, when he knows its full and true significance. At first a mass 80 to 100 yards in breadth and 10 or 15 in length alone gave way, but the contagion spread, and ere another minute had elapsed the slopes right and left of us for an extent of at least half a mile, were in movement, and, like a frozen Niagara, went crashing down the ice-precipices and séracs that still lay between us and the Aletsch glacier, 1800 to 2000 feet below. The spectacle was indescribably sublime, and the suspense for a moment rather awful, as we were clinging to an incline at least as steep as that on the Grindelwald side of the Strahleck—to name a familiar example—and it was questionable whether escape would be possible, if the layer of snow on the portion of the slope we had just been traversing should give way before we could retrace our steps.

“Not a moment was to be lost; no word was spoken after the first exclamation, and hastily uttered, ‘Au col! et vite!’ and then in dead silence, with bâtons held aloft like harpoons, ready to be plunged into the lower and older layers of snow, we stole quietly but rapidly up towards the now friendly-looking corniche, and in a few minutes stood once more in safety on the ridge, with feelings of gratitude for our great deliverance, which, though they did not find utterance in words, were, I believe, none the less sincerely felt by all of us. ‘Il n’a manqué que peu à un grand malheur,’ quietly remarked Victor, who looked exhausted, as well he might be after what he had gone through; but a goutte of cognac all round soon set us right again, and shouting to Bennen, who was still in sight, though dwindled in size to a mere point, we were soon beside him, running down the névé of our old friend, the Aren Glacier. The snow was now soft and the heat tremendous, and both Bennen and Bohren showed signs of fatigue; but a rapid pace was still maintained in spite of the frequent crevasses. Some were cleared in a series of flying leaps, whilst into others which the snow concealed, one and another would occasionally sink, amid shouts of laughter from his companions, who, in their turn, underwent a similar fate. To the carefully secured rope, which, with the alpenstock and ice axe, are the mountaineer’s best friends, we owed it that these sudden immersions were a mere matter of joke; but even the sense of security which it confers does not altogether prevent a ‘creepy’ sensation from being experienced, as the legs dangle in vacancy, and the sharp metallic ring of the icy fragments is heard as they clatter down into the dark blue depths below.”

The higher and more snow-laden the mountain chain, the more risk is there from avalanches. It seems practically certain that Mr Mummery met his death in the Himalayas from an avalanche, and that Messrs Donkin and Fox and their two Swiss guides perished in the Caucasus from a like cause. Sir W. Martin Conway, in his book on the Himalayas, makes several allusions to avalanches, and on at least one occasion, some members of his party had a narrow escape. He relates the adventure as follows:

“Zurbriggen and I had no more than set foot upon the grass, when we beheld a huge avalanche-cloud descending over the whole width of the ice-fall, utterly enveloping both it and a small rock-rib and couloir beside it. Bruce and the Gurkhas were below the rib, and could only see up the couloir. They thought the avalanche was a small one confined to it, and so they turned back and ran towards the foot of the ice-fall. This was no improvement in position, and there was nothing for them to do then but to run straight away from it, and get as far out to the flat glacier as they could. The fall started from the very top of the Lower Burchi peak, and tumbled on to the plateau above the ice-fall; it flowed over this, and came down the ice-fall itself. We saw the cloud before we heard the noise, and then it only reached us as a distant rumble. We had no means of guessing the amount of solid snow and ice that there might be in the heart of the cloud. The rumble increased in loudness, and was soon a thunder that swallowed up our puny shouts, so that Bruce could not hear our warning. Had he heard he could easily have reached the sheltered position we gained before the cloud came on him. Zurbriggen and I cast ourselves upon our faces, but only the edge of the cloud and an ordinary strong wind reached us. Our companions were entirely enveloped in it. They afterwards described to us how they raced away like wild men, jumping crevasses which they could not have cleared in cold blood. When the snow just enveloped them, the wind raised by it cast them headlong on the ice. This, however, was the worst that happened. The snow peppered them all over, and soaked them to the skin, but the solid part of the avalanche was happily arrested in the midst of the ice-fall, and never came in sight. When the fog cleared they were all so out of breath that for some minutes they could only stand and regard one another in panting silence. They presently rejoined us, and we halted for a time on the pleasant grass.”

In the olden days, before the great Alpine lines had tunnelled beneath the mountains and made a journey from one side of the range to the other in midwinter as safe and as comfortable as a run from London to Brighton, passengers obliged to cross the Alps in winter or spring were exposed to very real peril from avalanches. Messrs Newnes have courteously allowed me to make a short extract from an article which appeared in one of their publications, and in which is described the adventures of two English ladies who were obliged to return home suddenly from Innsbruck on account of the illness of a near relative. Their shortest route was by diligence to Constance, over the Arlberg Pass, and although it was considered extremely dangerous at that time of year—the beginning of May 1880—they resolved to make the attempt. Much anxiety with regard to avalanches was felt in neighbouring villages, as the sun had lately been very hot, and the snow had become rotten and undermined. Owing to heavy falls during the previous winter, the accumulation of snow was enormous, and thus the two travellers set out under the worst possible auspices. The conductor of the diligence warned them of the danger, and told them on no account to open a window or to make any movement which could shake the coach. He got in with them and sat opposite, looking very worried and anxious. They reached the critical part of their journey, and, to quote Mrs Brewer’s words:

“Suddenly a low, booming sound, like that of a cannon on a battlefield or a tremendous peal of thunder, broke on our ears, swelling into a deafening crash; and in a moment we were buried in a vast mass of snow. One of the immense piles from the mountain above had crashed down upon us, carrying everything with it. At the same moment we felt a violent jerk of the coach, and heard a kind of sound which expressed terror; but, happily, our vehicle did not turn over, as it seemed likely to do for a minute or so. There we sat—for how long I know not—scarcely able to breathe, the snow pressing heavily against the windows, and utterly blocking out light and air, so that breathing was a painful effort. And now came a curious sensation. It was an utter suspension of thought, and of every mental and physical faculty.

“True, in a sort of unconscious way I became aware that the guard was sobbing out a prayer for his wife and children; but it had not the slightest effect on me.

“We might have been buried days and nights for all I knew, for I kept no count of time. In reality, I believe it was but a couple of hours between the fall of the avalanche and the first moment of hope, which came in the form of men striking with pickaxes. The sound seemed to come from a long distance—almost, as it were, from another world.

“The guard, roused by the noise, said earnestly: ‘Ach Gott! I thank Thee.’ And then, speaking to us, he said: ‘Ladies, help is near!’

“Gradually the sound of the digging and the voices of the men grew nearer, till at length one window was open—the one overlooking the valley; and the life-giving air stole softly in upon us. Even now, however, we were told not to move; not that we had any inclination to do so, for we were in a dazed, half-conscious condition. When at length we used our eyes, it was to note that the valley did not seem so deep, and that the villages with their church spires had disappeared; the meaning of it was not far to seek.

“We were both good German scholars, and knew several of the dialects, so that we were able to learn a good deal of what had happened by listening to the men’s talk. The school inspector in his terror had lost all self-control, and forgetful of the warnings given him, threw himself off the seat and leaped into space, thereby endangering the safety of all. He mercifully fell into one of the clumps of trees some distance down the slope, and so escaped without very much damage to himself, except shock to the system and bruises. The poor horses, however, fared infinitely worse. The weight of the snow lifted the rings from the hooks on the carriage, and at the same time carried the poor brutes down with it into the valley—never again to do a day’s work.

“The difficulties still before us were very serious. We could neither go backward nor forward, and there was danger of more avalanches falling. The next posting village was still far ahead, and there was no chance of our advancing a step until the brave body of men could cut a way through or make a clearance, and even then time would be required to bring back horses.”

The ladies were at last extricated from their still dangerous position, and amid a scene of the greatest excitement, arrived at a little Tyrolese village. The people could not do enough to welcome them, and every kindness was shown to them. Thus ended a wonderfully narrow escape for all who were concerned in the adventure.

CHAPTER IV
A MONTH BENEATH AN AVALANCHE

ONE of the treasures of collectors of Alpine books is a small volume in Italian by Ignazio Somis. The British Museum has not only a copy of the original, but also a couple of translations, from one of which, published in 1768, I take the following account. I have left the quaint old spelling and punctuation just as they were; they accentuate the vividness and evident truth of this “True and Particular Account of the most Surprising preservation and happy deliverance of three women,” who were buried for a month under an avalanche. The occurrence was fully investigated by Ignazio Somis, who visited the village of Bergemoletto, and obtained his narrative from the lips of one of the survivors.

“In the month of February and March of the year 1755, we had in Turin, a great fall of rain, the sky having been almost constantly overcast from the ninth of February till the twenty-fourth of March. During this interval, it rained almost every day, but snowed only on the morning of the twenty-first of February, when the liquor of Reaumur’s thermometer stood but one degree above the freezing point. Now, as it often snows in the mountains, when it only rains in the plain; it cannot appear surprising that during this interval, there fell vast quantities of snow in the mountains that surround us, and in course, several valancas[3] were formed. In fact, there happened so many in different places on the side of Aosta, Lanzo, Susa, Savoy, and the county of Nice, that by the end of March, no less than two hundred persons had the misfortune of losing their lives by them. Of these overwhelmed by these valancas, three persons, however, Mary Anne Roccia Bruno, Anne Roccia, and Margaret Roccia, had reason to think themselves in other respects, extremely happy, having been dug alive on the twenty-fifth of April, out of a stable, under the ruins of which, they had been buried, the nineteenth of March, about nine in the morning, by a valanca of snow, forty-two feet higher than the roof, to the incredible surprise of all those who saw them, and afterwards heard them relate how they lived all this while, with death, as we may say, continually staring them in the face.

“The road from Demonte to the higher valley of Stura, runs amidst many mountains, which, joining one another, and sometimes rising to a great height, form a part of those Alps, by historians and geographers, called maritime Alps, separating the valley of Stura and Piedmont, from Dauphiny and the county of Nice. Towards the middle of the road leading to the top of these mountains, and on the left of the river Stura, we meet with a village called Bergemolo, passing through which village, and still keeping the road through the said valley, we, at about a mile distance, arrive at a little hamlet called Bergemoletto, containing about one hundred and fifty souls. From this place there run two narrow lanes, both to the right and left, one less steep and fatiguing than the other, and in some measure along two valleys, to the mountains. The summit of the mountain makes the horizon an angle much greater than 45°, and so much greater in some places, as to be in a manner perpendicular, so that it is a very difficult matter to climb it, even by a winding path. Now it was from the summit of the aforesaid mountains that fell the valancas of snow, which did so much mischief, and almost entirely destroyed the hamlet of Bergemoletto.

“The bad weather which prevailed in so many other places, prevailed likewise in the Foresta of Bergemoletto. By this word Foresta, the Alpineers understand the villages dispersed over the vallies covered with small trees and bushes, and surrounded with high mountains; for it began to snow early in March, and the fall increased so much on the 16, 17, 18 and 19, that many of the inhabitants began to apprehend, and not without reason, that the weight of that which was already fallen, and still continued to fall, might crush their houses, built with stones peculiar to the country, cemented by nothing but mud, and a very small portion of lime, and covered with thatch laid on a roof of shingles and large thin stones, supported by thick beams. They, therefore, got upon their roofs to lighten them of the snow. At a little distance from the church, stood the house of Joseph Roccia, a man of about fifty, husband of Mary Anne, born in Demonte, of the family of Bruno; who, with his son James, a lad of fifteen, had, like his neighbours, got upon the roof of his house on the 19th in the morning in order to lessen the weight on it, and thereby prevent its destruction. In the meantime the clergyman who lived in the neighbourhood, and was about leaving home, in order to repair to the church, and gather his people together to hear mass; perceiving a noise towards the top of the mountains, and turning his trembling eyes towards the quarter from whence he thought it came, discovered two valancas driving headlong towards the village. Wherefore raising his voice he gave Joseph notice, instantly to come down from the roof, to avoid the impending danger, and then immediately retreated himself into his own house.

“These two valancas met and united, so as to form but one valanca which continued to descend towards the valley, where, on account of the increase of its bulk, the diminution of its velocity and the insensible declivity of the plane it stopped and arrested by the neighbouring mountain, though it covered a large tract of land, did no damage either to the houses or the inhabitants. Joseph Roccia, who had formerly observed that the fall of one valanca was often attended with that of others, immediately came off the roof at the priest’s notice, and with his son fled as hard as he could towards the church, without well knowing, however, which way he went; as is usually the case with the Alpineers, when they guess by the report in the air, that some valanca is falling or seeing it fall with their own eyes. The poor man had scarce advanced forty steps, when hearing his son fall just at his heels, he turned about to assist him, and taking him up, saw the spot on which his house, his stable, and those of some of his neighbours stood, converted into a huge heap of snow, without the least sign of either walls or roofs. Such was his agony at this sight, and at the thoughts of having lost in an instant, his wife, his sister, his family, and all the little he had saved, with many years increasing labour and economy, that hale and hearty, as he was, he immediately, as if heaven and earth were come together, lost his senses, swooned away, and tumbled upon the snow. His son now helped him, and he came to himself little by little; till at last, by leaning upon him, he found himself in a condition to get on the valanca, and, in order to re-establish his health there, set out for the house of his friend, Spirito Roccia, about one hundred feet distant from the spot, where he fell. Mary Anne, his wife, who was standing with her sister-in-law Anne, her daughter Margaret, and her son Anthony, a little boy two years old, at the door of the stable, looking at the people throwing the snow from off the houses, and waiting for the ringing of the bell that was to call them to prayers, was about taking a turn to the house, in order to light a fire, and air a shirt for her husband, who could not but want that refreshment after his hard labour. But before she could set out, she heard the priest cry out to them to come down quickly, and raising her trembling eyes, saw the foresaid valancas set off, and roll down the side of the mountain, and at the same instant heard a horrible report from another quarter, which made her retreat back quickly with her family, and shut the door of the stable. Happy it was for her, that she had time to do so; this noise being occasioned by another immense valanca, the whole cause of all the misery and distress, she had to suffer for so long a time. And it was this very valanca, over which Joseph, her husband was obliged to pass after his fit, in his way to the house of Spirito Roccia.

“Some minutes after the fall of the valanca another huge one broke off driving along the valley and beat down the houses which it met in its course. This valanca increased greatly, by the snow over which it passed, in its headlong course, and soon reached with so much impetuosity, the first fallen valanca, it carried away great part of it; then returning back with this reinforcement, it demolished the houses, stopping in the valley which it had already overwhelmed in its first progress. So that the height of the snow, Paris measure, amounted to more than seventy-seven feet; the length of it to more than four hundred and twenty-seven and the breadth above ninety-four. Some people affirm that the concussion of the air occasioned by this valanca, was so great, that it was heard at Bergemolo, and even burst open some doors and windows at that place. This I know that nothing escaped it in Bergemoletto, but a few houses, the church, and the house of John Arnaud.

“Being therefore gathered together, in order to sum up their misfortunes, the inhabitants first counted thirty houses overwhelmed; and then every one calling over those he knew, twenty-two souls were missing, of which number, was D. Giulio Caesare Emanuel, their parish priest, who had lived among them forty years. The news of this terrible disaster, soon spread itself over the neighbourhood, striking all those who heard it, with grief and compassion. All the friends and relations of the sufferers, and many others, flocked of their own accord, from Bergemolo and Demonte; and many were dispatched by the magistrates of these places, to try if they could give any relief to so many poor creatures, who, perhaps, were already suffocated by the vast heap of snow that lay upon them; so that by the day following, the number assembled on this melancholy occasion amounted to three hundred. Joseph Roccia, notwithstanding his great love for his wife and family, and his desire to recover part of what he had lost, was in no condition to assist them for five days, owing to the great fright and grief, occasioned by so shocking an event, and the swoon which overtook him at the first sight of it. In the meantime, the rest were trying, if, by driving iron-rods through the hardened snow, they could discover any roofs; but they tried in vain. The great solidity and compactness of the valanca, the vast extent of it in length, breadth and heighth, together with the snow, that still continued to fall in great quantities, eluded all their efforts; so that after some days’ labour, they thought proper to desist from their trials, finding that it was throwing away their time and trouble to no purpose. The husband of poor Mary Anne, no sooner recovered his strength, than in company with his son, and Anthony and Joseph Bruno, his brothers-in-law who had come to his assistance from Demonte, where they lived, did all that lay in his power to discover the spot, under which his house, and the stable belonging to it, were situated. But neither himself, nor his relations, could make any discovery capable of affording them the smallest ray of comfort; though they worked hard for many days, now in one place, and now in another, unable to give up the thoughts of knowing for certain, whether any of their family was still alive, or if they had under the snow and the ruins of the stable, found, at once, both death and a grave. But it was all labour lost, so that, at length, he thought proper to return to the house of Spirito Roccia, and there wait, till, the weather growing milder, the melting of the snow should give him an opportunity of paying the last duty to his family, and recovering what little of his substance might have escaped this terrible calamity.

“Towards the end of March, the weather, through the lengthening of the days, and the setting in of the warm winds, which continued to blow till about the twentieth of April, began to grow mild and warm; and, of course, the great valanca to fall away by the melting of the snow and ice that composed it; so that little by little, the valley began to assume its pristine form. This change was very sensible, especially by the eighteenth of April, so that the time seemed to be at hand for the surviving inhabitants of Bergemoletto to resume their interrupted labours, with some certainty of recovering a good part of what they had lost on the unfortunately memorable morning of the nineteenth of March. Accordingly, they dispersed themselves over the valanca, some trying in one place, and some in another, now with long spades, and another time with thick rods of iron, and other instruments proper to break the indurated snow. One of the first houses they discovered by this means, was that of Louisa Roccia, in which they found her dead body, and that of one of her sons. Next day, in the house called the confreria, that had two rooms on the ground floor, and one above them, they found the body of D. Giulio Caesare Emanuel, with his beads in his hand. Joseph Roccia, animated by these discoveries, set himself with new spirits about discovering the situation of his house, and the stable belonging to it; and with spades and iron crows, made several and deep holes in the snow, throwing great quantities of earth into them; earth mixed with water, being very powerful in destroying the strong cohesion of snow and ice. On the twenty-fourth, having made himself an opening two feet deep into the valanca, he began to find the snow softer and less difficult to penetrate; wherefore, driving down a long stick, he had the good fortune of touching the ground with it.

“It was no small addition to Joseph’s strength and spirit, to be thus able to reach the bottom; so that he would have joyfully continued his labour, and might perhaps on that very day, had it not been too far advanced, have recovered some part of what he was looking for, and found that which, assuredly, he by no means expected to meet with. When, therefore, he desisted for that time, it was with much greater reluctance than he had done any of the preceding days. The anxiety of Joseph, during the following night, may well be compared to that of the weather-beaten mariner, who finding himself, after a long voyage, at the mouth of his desired port, is yet, by the coming on of night obliged to remain on the inconstant waves till next morning. Wherefore, at the first gleam of light, he, with his son, hastened back to the spot, where the preceding day he had reached the ground with the stick, and began to work upon it again; but he had not worked long, when lo, to his great surprise, who should he see coming to his assistance but his two brothers-in-law Joseph and Anthony Bruno.

“Anthony, it seems, the night between the preceding Thursday and Friday, being then in Delmonte, dreamed that there appeared to him, with a pale and troubled countenance, his sister Mary Anne Roccia, who, with an earnestness intermixed with grief and hope, called upon him for assistance in the following words:

“‘Anthony, though you all look upon me as dead in the stable where the valanca of snow overwhelmed me on the nineteenth of March, God has kept me alive. Hasten therefore to my assistance, and to relieve me from my present wretched condition; in you, my brother, have I placed all my hopes, dont abandon me; help, help I beseech you.’ Anthony’s imagination, was so affected by the thoughts of thus seeing his sister, and hearing her utter these piteous words, that he immediately started up, and calling out to his brother Joseph, he acquainted him with what he had seen and heard. They both, therefore, as soon as it was day, set out for Bergemoletto, where they arrived a little before eight, tired and out of breath, for they seemed to have their sister continually before their eyes, pressing them for help and assistance. Having therefore taken a little rest and refreshment, they set out again for the place, where Joseph Roccia, and many others, were hard at work in looking for the wrecks of their houses. Joseph had left the spot, where, the day before he thought he had reached the ground, and was trying to reach it in other places. His brothers-in-law immediately fell to work with him, and making many new holes in the snow, the interior parts of which were not so very hard, with the same iron rods, with earth and with long poles, they at last, about ten, discovered the so long sought for house, but found no dead bodies in it. Knowing that the stable did not lie one hundred feet from the house, they immediately directed their search towards it, and proceeding in the same manner, about noon, they got a long pole through a hole, from whence issued a hoarse and languid voice, which seemed to say: ‘help, my dear husband, help, my dear brother, help.’ The husband and brother thunderstruck, and at the same time encouraged by these words, fell to their work with redoubled ardour, in order to clear away the snow, and open a sufficient way for themselves, to the place from whence the voice came, and which grew more and more distinct as the work advanced. It was not long, therefore, before they had made a pretty large opening, through which (none minding the danger he exposed himself to) Anthony descended, as into a dark pit, asking who it was, that could be alive in such a place. Mary Anne knew him by his voice, and answered with a trembling and broken accent, intermixed with tears of joy. ‘Tis I, my dear brother, who am still alive in company with my daughter and my sister-in-law, who are at my elbow. God, in whom I have always trusted, still hoping that he would inspire you with the thought of coming to our assistance, has been graciously pleased to keep us alive.’ God, who had preserved them to this moment, and was willing they should live, inspired Anthony with such strength and spirits, that, notwithstanding the surprise and tenderness with which so joyful and at the same time so sad a sight must have affected him, had presence of mind enough to acquaint his fellow-labourers, all anxiously waiting for the report of his success, that Mary Anne, Margaret, and Anne Roccia were still alive. Whereupon Joseph Roccia, and Joseph Bruno, enlarging the passage as well as they could, immediately followed him into the ruins; whilst the other Alpineers, scattered over the valanca in quest of their lost substance, and the dead bodies of their relations, on the son’s calling out to them, flocked round the mouth of the pit, to behold so extraordinary a sight; not a little heightened by that of two live goats scampering out of the opening. In the meantime, those who had descended into the hole, were contriving how to take out of it the poor and more than half dead prisoners, and convey them to some place, where they might recover themselves. The first thing they did was to raise them up, and take them out of the manger in which they had been so long stowed. They then placed them one by one on their shoulders, and lifted them up to those who stood round the mouth of the pit, who with very great difficulty took hold of them by the arms, and drew them out of their dark habitation. Mary Anne, on being exposed to the open air, and seeing the light, was attacked by a very acute pain in the eyes, which greatly weakened her sight, and was attended with so violent a fainting fit, that she had almost like to have lost, in the first moment of her deliverance, that life, which she had so long and with such difficulty preserved. But this was a consequence that might be easily foreseen. She had been thirty-seven days, secluded, in a manner entirely, from the open air; nor had the least ray of light, in all that time, penetrated her pupils.

“Her son found means to bring her to herself with a little melted snow, there being nothing else at hand fit for the purpose, and the accident that happened her was improved into a rule for treating the companions of her misfortune. They, therefore, covered all their faces, and wrapped them up so well, as to leave them but just room to breathe, and in this condition took them to the house of John Arnaud, where Mary Anne was entirely recovered from her fit, by a little generous wine. They then directly placed them in some little beds put up in the stable, which was moderately warm, and almost entirely without light, and prepared for them a mess of rye meal gruel, mixed with a little butter; but they could swallow but very little of it.”

CHAPTER V
A MONTH BENEATH AN AVALANCHE—(continued)

“IT is now proper I should say something of the most marvellous circumstance, attending this very singular and surprising accident, I mean their manner of supporting life, during so long and close a confinement. I shall relate what I have heard of it from their own mouths, being the same, in substance, with what Count Nicholas de Brandizzo, intendant of the city and province of Cuneo, heard from them on the sixteenth of May, when, by order of our most benevolent sovereign, he repaired to Bergemoletto, effectually to relieve these poor women, and the rest of the inhabitants, who had suffered by the valanca.

“To begin then; on the morning of the twenty-ninth of March, our three poor women, expecting every minute to hear the bell toll for prayers, had in the mean time, taken shelter from the rigour of the weather, in a stable built with stones, such as are usually found in these quarters, with a roof composed of large thin stones, not unlike slate, laid on a beam ten inches square, and covered with a small quantity of straw, and with a pitch sufficient to carry off the rain, hail or snow, that might fall upon it. In the same stable were six goats, (four of which I heard nothing of) an ass and some hens. Adjoining to this stable, was a little room, in which they had fixed a bed, and used to lay up some provisions, in order to sleep in it in bad weather without being obliged to go for anything to the dwelling-house, which lay about one hundred feet from it. I have already taken notice, that Mary Anne was looking from the door of the stable at her husband and son, who were clearing the roof of its snow, when warned by a horrible noise, the signal by which the Alpineer knows the tumbling of the valancas, she immediately took herself in with her sister-in-law, her daughter, and her little boy of two years old, and shut the door, telling them the reason for doing it in such a hurry. Soon after they heard a great part of the roof give way, and some stones fall on the ground, and found themselves involved on all sides with a pitchy darkness; all which they attributed, and with good reason, to the fall of some valanca. Upon this, they for some time thought proper to keep a profound silence, to try if they could hear any noise, and by that means have the comfort of knowing that help was at hand, but they could hear nothing. They therefore set themselves to grope about the stable, but without being able to meet with anything but solid snow. Anne light upon the door, and opened it, hoping she had found out the way to escape the imminent danger they thought they were in of the buildings tumbling about their ears; but she could not distinguish the least ray of light, nor feel any thing but a hard and impenetrable wall of snow, with which she acquainted her fellow prisoners. They, therefore, immediately began to bawl out with all their might; ‘help, help, we are still alive’; repeating it several times; but not hearing any answer, Anne put the door to again. They continued to grope about the stable, and Mary Anne having light upon the manger, it occurred to her, that, as it was full of hay, they might take up their quarters there, and enjoy some repose, till it should please the Almighty to send them assistance. The manger was about twenty inches broad, and lay along a wall, which, by being on one side supported by an arch, was enabled to withstand the shock, and upheld the chief beam of the roof, in such a manner, as to prevent the poor women from being crushed to pieces by the ruins. Mary Anne placed herself in the manger, putting her son by her, and then advised her daughter and her sister-in-law to do so too. Upon this, the ass which was tied to the manger, frightened by the noise, began to bray and prance at a great rate; so that, fearing lest he should bring the parapet of the manger, or even the wall itself about their ears; they immediately untied the halter, and turned him adrift. In going from the manger, he stumbled upon a kettle that happened to lie in the middle of the stable, which put Mary Anne upon picking it up, and laying it by her, as it might serve to melt the snow in for their drink, in case they should happen to be confined long enough to want that resource. Anne, approving this thought, got down, and groping on the floor till she had found it, came back to the manger.

“In this situation the good women continued many hours, every moment expecting to be relieved from it; but, at last, being too well convinced, that they had no immediate relief to expect, they began to consider how they might support life, and what provisions they had with them for that purpose. Anne recollected that the day before she had put some chestnuts into her pocket, but, on counting them, found they amounted only to fifteen. Their chief hopes, therefore, and with great reason now rested on thirty or forty cakes, which two days before had been laid up in the adjoining room. The reader may well imagine, though Anne had never told me a word of it, with what speed and alertness she must, on recollecting these cakes, have got out of the manger, to see and find out the door of the room where they lay; but it was to no purpose; she roved and roved about the stable to find out what she wanted, so that she was obliged to come as she went, and take up her seat again amongst her fellow-sufferers, who still comforted themselves with the hopes of being speedily delivered from that dark and narrow prison. In the mean while, finding their appetite return, they had recourse to their chestnuts. The rest of the chestnuts they reserved for a future occasion. They then addressed themselves to God, humbly beseeching him to take compassion on them, and vouchsafe in his great mercy to rescue them from their dark grave, and from the great miseries they must unavoidably suffer, in case it did not please him to send them immediate assistance. They spent many hours in ejaculations of this kind, and then thinking it must be night, they endeavoured to compose themselves. Margaret and the little boy, whose tender years prevented their having any idea of what they had to suffer in their wretched situation, or any thought of death, and of what they must suffer, before they could be relieved, fell asleep. But it was otherwise with Mary Anne and Anne, who could not get the least rest, and spent the whole night in prayer, or in speaking of their wretched condition, and comforting one another with the hopes of being speedily delivered from it. As it seemed to them, after many hours, that it was day again, they endeavoured to keep up their spirits with the thoughts, that Joseph with the rest of their friends and relations not getting any intelligence of their situation, would not fail of doing all that lay in their power to come at them. The sensation of hunger was earliest felt by the two youngest; and the little boy crying out for something to eat, and there being nothing for him but the chestnuts, Anne gave him three.

“I said, that these women seemed to have some notion of the approach of day and night, but I should never have dreamed in what manner this idea could be excited in them, shut up as they were in a body of ice, impervious to the least ray of light, had not they themselves related it to me. The hens shut up in the same prison, were it seems the clocks, which by their clucking all together, made them think the first day that it was night, and then again after some interval that it was day again. This is all the notion they had of day and night for two weeks together; after which, not hearing the hens make any more noise, they no longer knew when it was day or night.

“This day the poor women and the boy supported themselves with their chestnuts; and at the return of the usual signal of night, the boy and Margaret went to sleep; while the mother and aunt spent it in conversation and prayer. On the next day the ass by his braying, gave now and then, for the last time, some signs of life. On the other hand, the poor prisoners had something to comfort themselves with; for they discovered two goats making up to the manger. This, therefore, was a joyful event, and they gave the goats some of the hay they sat upon in the manger, shrunk up with their knees to their noses. It then came into Anne’s head to try if she could not get some milk from the milch goat; and recollecting that they used to keep a porringer under the manger for that purpose, she immediately got down to look for it, and happily found it. The goat suffered herself to be milked, and yielded almost enough to fill the cup which contained above a pint. On this they lived the third day. The night following the boy and the girl slept as usual, while neither of the two others closed their eyes. Who can imagine how long the time must have appeared to them, and how impatient they must have been to see an end to their sufferings? This, after offering their prayers to the Almighty, was the constant subject of their conversation. ‘O, my husband,’ Mary Anne used to cry out, ‘if you two are not buried under some of the valancas and dead; why do not you make haste to give me, your sister, and children, that assistance which we so much stand in need of? We are thank God, still alive, but cannot hold out much longer, so it will soon be too late to think of us.’ ‘Ah, my dear brother,’ added Anne, ‘in you next to God, have we placed all our trust. We are alive, indeed, and it depends upon you to preserve our lives, by digging us out of the snow and the ruins, in which we lie buried.’ ‘But let us still hope,’ both of them added, ‘that as God has been pleased to spare our lives, and provide us with the means of prolonging it, he will still in his great mercy put it into the hearts of our friends and relations to use all their endeavours to save us.’ To this discourse succeeded new prayers, after which they composed themselves as well as they could, in order to get, if possible, a little sleep.

“The hens having given the usual signal of the return of day, they began again to think on the means of spinning out their lives. Mary Anne bethought herself anew of the cakes put up in the adjacent room; and upon which, could they but get at them, they might subsist a great while without any other nourishment. On the first day of their confinement, they had found in the manger a pitch fork, which they knew used to be employed in cleaning out the stable, and drawing down hay through a large hole in the hay-loft, which lay over the vault. Anne observed, that such an instrument might be of service in breaking the snow, and getting at the cakes, could they but recover the door leading into the little room. She, therefore, immediately got out of the manger, from which she had not stirred since the first day, and groping about, sometimes meeting with nothing but snow, sometimes with the wall, and sometimes loose stones, she, at length, light upon a door, which she took for the stable door, and endeavoured to open it as she had done the first day, but without success; an evident sign that the superincumbent snow had acquired a greater degree of density, and pressed more forcibly against it. She, therefore, made step by step, the best of her way back to the manger, all the time conversing with her fellow-sufferers; and taking the fork with her, continued to rove and grope about, till at last she light upon a smooth and broad piece of wood, which to the touch had so much the appearance of the little door, as to make her hope she had at last found what she had been so earnestly looking for. She then endeavoured to open it with her hand, but finding it impossible, told the rest that she had a mind to employ the pitch fork; but Mary Anne dissuaded her from doing so. ‘Let us,’ said she, ‘leave the cakes where they are a little longer, and not endanger our lives any further, by endeavouring to preserve them. Who knows but with the fork, you might make such destruction, as to bring down upon our heads, that part of the stable that still continues together, and which, in its fall, could not fail of crushing us to pieces. No, God keep us from that misfortune. Lay down your fork Anne, and come back to us, submitting yourself to the holy will of the Almighty, and patiently accept at his hands whatever he may please to send us.’ Anne, moved by such sound and affecting arguments and reasons, immediately let the fork fall out of her hands, and returned to the manger. ‘Let us,’ continued Mary Anne, ‘let us make as much as we can of our nursing goats, and endeavour to keep them alive by supplying them with hay. Here is a good deal in the manger, and it occurs to me, that when that is gone, we may supply them from another quarter, for by putting up my hand, trying what was above me, I have discovered that there is hay in the loft, and that the hole to it is open, and just over our heads; so that we have nothing to do, but to pull it down for the goats, whose milk we may subsist upon, till it shall please God to dispose otherwise of us.”

This reasoning was not only sound in itself, but supported by facts; for ever since their confinement, they had heard stones fall from time to time upon the ground, and these stones could be no others than those of the building, which the shock of the valanca had first loosened, and which the weight it every day acquired by encreasing in density, afterwards enabled it to displace. Wherefore, had she happened to disturb with the pitch-fork, as there was the greatest reason to fear she might, any of those parts, which, united together, served to keep up the beam that supported the great body of snow, under which they lay buried, the fall of the stable, and their own destruction, must have infallibly been the consequence of it.

“This day the sensation of hunger was more and more lively and troublesome, without their having anything to allay it with but snow, and the milk yielded them by one of the goats their fellow prisoners. I say one of the goats for as yet they had milked but one of them, thinking it would be useless, or rather hurtful, even if they could, to take any milk from that in kid. Anne had recourse to the other, and in the whole day, got from her about two pints of milk, on which, with the addition of a little snow, they subsisted.”

The little boy, unable to struggle against the terrible conditions, grew rapidly weaker and weaker, and the time had now come when he passed painlessly away.

“The death of this poor child proved the severest trial that the three women, the two eldest especially, had to suffer during their long confinement; and from this unfortunate day, the fear of death, which they considered as at no great distance, began to haunt them more and more. The little nourishment, which the goat yielded the poor women, had made them suffer greatly on the preceding days; they were, besides, benumbed, or rather frozen with the intense cold. Add to this the necessary, but inconvenient and tormenting posture of their feet, knees, and every other part of their bodies; the snow, which melting over their heads, perpetually trickled down their backs, so that their clothes, and their whole bodies were perfectly drenched with it: they were often on the point of swooning away, and obliged to keep themselves from fainting, by handling the snow, and putting some of it into their mouths; the thirst with which their mouths were constantly burnt up; the thoughts, that in all this time no one had been at the pains to look for and relieve them; the consideration, that all they had hitherto suffered, was nothing in comparison of what they had still to suffer before they could recover their liberty, or sink under the weight of all the evils which encompassed them; all these, certainly, were circumstances sufficient to render them to the last degree, wretched and miserable. Add to this, that the milk of their fond and loving nurse, fell away little by little, till at length, instead of about two pints, which she, in the beginning used to yield, they could not now get so much as a pint from her. The hay that lay in the manger was all out, and it was but little the poor women could draw out of the hole which lay above them; so that as the goats had but little fodder, little sustenance could be expected from that which they thought proper to milk. These animals were become so tame and familiar, in consequence of the fondness shewn them, that they always came on the first call to the person that was to milk them, affectionately licking her face and hands. Anne, encouraged by this tameness of theirs, bethought herself of accustoming them to leap upon the manger, and from thence upon her shoulders, so as to reach the hole of the hay-loft, and feed themselves; so apt is hard necessity to inspire strength and ingenuity. She began by the goat that yielded them milk, helping her up into the manger, and then putting her upon her shoulders. This had the desired effect, the animal being thereby enabled to reach much further with its head, than they could with their hands. They did then the same by the other goat, from whom, as soon as she should drop her kid, they expected new relief. She, too, in the same manner, found means to get at the hay, which afforded the poor women some relief in the midst of their pressing necessity. After this day, the goats required no further assistance, they so soon learned to leap of themselves on the manger, and from thence on the women’s shoulders. But we must not conclude that hunger was the chief of the poor women’s sufferings; far from it. After the first days, during which it proved a sore torment to them, they through necessity, grew so accustomed to very little and very light nourishment, that they no longer felt any sensation of that kind, but lived contentedly on the small quantity of milk they could get from their goat, mixed with a little snow. Their breath was what gave them most uneasiness; for it began to be very difficult on the fifth or sixth day, every inspiration being attended with the sensation of a very heavy and almost insupportable load upon them.

“They now had lost all means of guessing at the returns of night and day, and their only employment was to recommend themselves fervently to God, beseeching him to take compassion of them, and at length, put an end to their miseries, which increased from day to day. At last, their nurse growing dry, they found themselves without any milk, and obliged to live upon snow alone for two or three days, Mary Anne not approving an expedient proposed by her sister. This was to endeavour to find the carcasses of the hens; for as they had not heard them for some days past, they had sufficient reason to think they were dead; and then eat them, as the only thing with which they could prolong life. But Mary Anne, rightly judging that it would be almost impossible to strip them clean of their feathers, and that besides, the flesh might be so far putrified, as to do them more harm than good, thought proper to dissuade her sister from having recourse to this expedient. But the unspeakable providence of God, whose will it was that they should live, provided them with new means of subsistence, when least they expected it, by the kidding of the other goat. By this event, they judged themselves to be about the middle of April; wherefore, after offering God their most humble thanks, for having preserved them so long, in the midst of so many, and such great difficulties they again beseeched him to assist them effectually, till they could find an opportunity of escaping their doleful prison, and see an end to their great sufferings. Their hopes of this their humble supplication being heard, were raised on the appearance of this new supply, and on their reflecting that the snow begins to thaw in April, in consequence of which that about the stable would soon dissolve enough to let some ray of light break in upon them. Mary Anne told me, that, though she was thoroughly sensible of the badness of her condition, in which it was impossible for her to hold out much longer, and saw it every day grow worse and worse; she never, however, despaired of her living to be delivered. For my part, I cannot sufficiently admire the courage and intrepidity of Anne, who told me, that in all this time she never let a tear escape her but once. This was on its occurring to her, that, as they must at length perish for want, it might fall to her lot to die last. For the thought of finding herself amidst the dead bodies of her sister and her niece, herself too in a dying condition, terrified and afflicted her to such a degree, that she could no longer command her tears, but wept bitterly.

“I observed, that the goat had kidded. This event afforded the poor women a new supply of milk, Anne for a while getting two porringers at a time from her, with which they recruited themselves a little. But as the goats began to fall short of hay, the milk of the only one that gave them any, began to lessen in proportion, so that at length they saw themselves reduced to a single, and even half a porringer. It was, therefore, happy for them, that the time drew nigh, in which God had purposed to rescue them from their horrible prison and confinement, and put an end to their sufferings. One time they thought they could hear a noise of some continuance at no great distance from them. This was probably the 20th, when the parish priest’s body was found. And, upon it, they all together raised their weak and hoarse voices, crying out, ‘Help, help!’ but the noise ceased, and they this time neither saw nor heard anything else that might serve as a token of their deliverance being at hand. However, this noise alone was sufficient to make them address God with greater fervour than ever, beseeching him to have compassion on them, and to confirm them still more and more in their warm hopes, that the end of their long misery was not far off. In fact, they again heard another noise, and that nearer them, as though something had fallen to the ground. On this they again raised their voices, and again cried out, ‘Help, help’: but no one answered, and soon after the noise itself entirely ceased. Their opinion concerning this noise, and in this they certainly were not mistaken, was that it came from the people, who were at work to find them, and who left off at the approach of night, and went home with a design to return to their labour the next morning. After the noise of the body fallen to the ground in their neighbourhood, they seemed for the first time to perceive some glimpse of light. The appearance of it scared Anne and Margaret to the last degree, as they took it for a sure fore-runner of death, and thought it was occasioned by the dead bodies; for it is a common opinion with the peasants that those wandering wild-fires, which one frequently sees in the open country, are a sure presage of death to the persons constantly attended by them, which ever way they turn themselves; and they accordingly call them death fires. But Mary Anne, was very far from giving in to so silly a notion. On the contrary the light inspired her with new courage, and she did all that lay in her power to dissipate the fears of her sister and daughter, revive their hopes in God, and persuade them that their deliverance and the end of all their sufferings was at hand; insisting that this light could be no other than the light of heaven, which had, at last, reached the stable, in consequence of the valanca’s melting, and still more in consequence of the constant boring and digging into it by their relations, in order to come at their dead bodies. Mary Anne guessed right for it was the next day that Anthony descended into the ruins of the stable, and to his unspeakable surprise found the poor women alive, blessing and exalting the most high, and restored them from darkness to light, from danger to security, from death to life, by drawing them out of the manger, and removing them to the house of Joseph Arnaud, where they continued to the end of July.

“Thirty-seven entire days did these poor women live in the most horrible sufferings occasioned no less by filth and the disagreeable posture they were confined to, than by cold and hunger; but the Lord was with them. He kept them alive, and they are still living, in a new cottage built the same year in the Foresta of Bergemoletto, at no great distance from their former habitation.”

CHAPTER VI
AN EXCITING CAUCASIAN ASCENT

THE following account of the ascent of Gestola, in the Central Caucasus, is taken from The Alpine Journal, and the author, Mr C. T. Dent, has most kindly revised it for this work, and has added a note as follows:

“At the time (1886) when this expedition was made, the topography of the district was very imperfectly understood. The mountain climbed was originally described as Tetnuld Tau—Tau = Mountain. Since the publication of the original paper a new survey of the whole district has been carried out by the Russian Government and the nomenclature much altered. The peak of Tetnuld is really to the south of Gestola. The nomenclature has in the following extract been altered so as to correspond with that at present in use and officially sanctioned.”

The party consisted of Mr Dent, the late Mr W. F. Donkin, and two Swiss guides. They had safely accomplished the first part of their ascent of a hitherto unclimbed peak, and were on the ridge and face to face with the problem of how to reach the highest point. After describing the glorious scenery which lay around them, Mr Dent writes:

“Woven in between all these peaks lay a wilderness of crevassed slopes, jagged rock ridges, and stretching glaciers, bewildering in their beauty and complexity. To see the wondrous sights that were crowded into those few minutes while we remained on the ridge, we would willingly have gone five times further and fared ten times worse. In high spirits we turned to the left (S.S.E.), and began our journey along the ridge which was to lead us to Gestola, ever keeping an eye on the snowy form of Tetnuld, and marvelling whether it would overtop our peak or not. For a few steps, and for a few only, all went well. The snow was in good order on the ridge, but we had to leave this almost immediately and make S.W. in order to skirt the heights which still intervened between us and our peak. The ice began to change its character. Two or three steps were cut with a few strokes of the axe, and then all went well again for a time. Then more steps, and a more ringing sound as the axe fell. We seemed, too, however we might press on, to make no impression on this first slope. Our doubt returned; the leader paused, drew up the rope, and bit at a fragment of ice as he gazed anxiously upwards over the face. No! we were on the right track, and must stick to it if we would succeed. For an hour and a quarter we kept at it in silence, save for the constant ringing blows of the axe. Our courage gradually oozed out, for when we had worked back to the ridge again, we seemed to have made no progress at all. The top of the mountain far above was already swathed in cloud, and a distant storm on the south side was only too obvious. Another little peak was won before we looked about again, but the summit seemed no nearer. The exertion had begun to tell and the pace became slower. Some one remarked that he felt hungry, and we all thereupon realised our empty state, so we fortified ourselves for further efforts on a dainty repast of steinbock, black bread a week old, and water—invigorating victuals and exhilarating drink, rather appropriate to the treadmill kind of exercise demanded. It is under conditions such as these that strange diet tells on the climber; but even more trying and more weakening than the poor quality of the food was the want of sleep from which we had suffered for a good many nights. In the language of science, our vital force and nervous energy were becoming rather rapidly exhausted, or, to put it more colloquially and briefly, we were awfully done. Three hours more at least was the estimate, and meanwhile the weather was growing worse and worse. Reflecting that all points fall to him who knows how to wait and stick to it, we pressed on harder to escape from the dispiriting thoughts that suggested themselves, and almost of a sudden recognised that the last of the deceptive little tops had been left behind us, and that we were fighting our way up the final peak. Better still, Tetnuld, which for so long had seemed to tower above us, was fast sinking in importance, and there really seemed now, as we measured the peak with the clinometer between the intervals of step-cutting, to be little difference between the two points. The air was so warm and oppressive that we were able to dispense with gloves. One of the guides suffered from intense headache, but the rest of us, I fancy, felt only in much the same condition as a man does at the finish of a hard-run mile race. The clouds parted above us for a while, mysteriously, as it seemed, for there was no wind to move them; but we could only see the slope stretching upwards, and still upwards. Yet we could not be far off now. Again we halted for a few seconds, and as we glanced above, we mentally took stock of our strength, for there was no question the pleasure had been laborious. Some one moved, and we were all ready on the instant. To it once more, and to the very last victory was doubtful. True, the summit had seemed close enough when the last break in the swirling clouds had enabled us to catch a glimpse of what still towered above; but our experience of Swiss snow mountains was long enough to make us sceptical as to apparent tops, and possibly the Caucasian giants were as prone to deceive as the human pigmies that crawled and burrowed at their bases.

“Still anxious, still questioning success, we stepped on, and the pace increased as the doubt persisted. It is often said to be impossible, by those who don’t try, to explain why the second ascent of a mountain always appears so much easier than the first; some explanation may be found in the fact that on a virgin peak the uncertainty is really increasing during the whole time, and the climax comes in the last few seconds. Every step upwards make success more probable, and at the same time, would make failure more disappointing. In fact, the only periods when we are morally certain of success on a new expedition are before the start and when victory is actually won. Still, we could hardly believe that any insuperable obstacle would now turn us back; yet all was new and uncertain, and the conditions of weather intensified the anxiety. The heavy stillness of the air seemed unnatural, and made the mind work quicker. The sensibility became so acute that if we ceased working and moving for a moment the silence around was unendurable, and seemed to seize hold of us. A distant roll of thunder came almost as a relief. A step or two had to be cut, and the delay appeared interminable. Suddenly, a glimpse of a dark patch of rocks appeared above looming through the mist. The slope of the ridge became more gentle for a few yards. Our attention was all fixed above, and we ascended some distance without noticing the change. Another short rise, and we were walking quickly along the ridge. We stopped suddenly; the rocks we had seen so recently, had sunk below us on our left, while in front the arête could be followed with the eye, sloping away gradually for a few yards, and then plunging sharply down to a great depth. It was all over; through fair weather and through foul we had succeeded; and there was yet another peak to the credit of the Alpine Club.

“It was not a time for words. Burgener turned to us and touched the snow with his hand, and we sat down in silence. Almost on the instant as we took our places a great burst of thunder rolled and echoed around—a grim salvo of Nature’s artillery. The sudden sense of rest heightened the effect of the oppressive stillness that followed. Never have I felt the sense of isolation so complete. Gazing in front into the thin mists, the very presence of my companions seemed an unreality. The veil of wreathing vapour screened the huge panorama of the ice-world from our sight. The black thunderclouds drifting sullenly shut out the world below. No man knew where we were; we had reached our furthest point in a strange land. We were alone with Nature, far from home, and far from all that we were familiar with. Strange emotions thrilled the frame and quickened the pulse. Weird thoughts crowded through the mind—it was not a time for words. Believe me, under such conditions a man will see further across the threshold of the unknown than all the book-reading or psychological speculation in the world will ever reveal to him.

“Coming back to considerations more prosaic and practical, we found that it was 1.15 P.M. We realised, too, that the ascent had been very laborious and exhausting, while there was no doubt that evil times were in store for us. There were no rocks at hand to build a cairn, but we reflected that the snow was soft, and that our footsteps would easily be seen on the morrow. The aneroid marked the height we had attained as 16,550 feet.[4] A momentary break in the mist gave us a view of Dych Tau, and we had just time to get a compass observation. After a stay of fifteen minutes we rose and girded ourselves for the descent. I think we all felt that the chief difficulty was yet to come, but we had little idea of what was actually to follow. Directly after we had left the summit a few puffs of wind began to play around and some light snow fell. Still, it was not very cold, and if the storm would only keep its distance all might be well. Down the first slope we made our way rapidly enough, and could have gone faster had we not deemed it wise to husband our strength as much as possible. In an hour and twenty minutes we reached the place where we had left the provisions and the camera. The feast was spread, but did not find favour. Never did food look so revolting. The bread seemed to have turned absolutely black, while the steinbock meat looked unfit to keep company with garbage in a gutter; so we packed it up again at once, more from a desire to hide it from our eyes than from any idea that it might look more appetising later on. Andenmatten’s headache had become much worse, and he could scarcely at starting stand steady in his steps. Possibly his suffering was due to an hour or two of intensely hot sun, which had struck straight down on us during the ascent. I could not at the moment awaken much professional interest in his case, but the symptoms, so far as I could judge, were more like those experienced by people in diving-bells—were pressure effects in short—for the pain was chiefly in the skull cavities. I may not here enter into technical details, and can only remark now that though Andenmatten suffered the most it by no means followed on that account that his head was emptier than anybody else’s. In due course we came to the ice-slope up and across which we had cut our way so laboriously in the morning; here, at least, we thought we should make good progress with little trouble; but the sun had struck full on this part of the mountain, and all the steps were flattened out and useless. Every single step ought to have been worked at with as much labour as in the morning, but it was impossible to do more than just scratch out a slight foothold, as we made our way round again to the ridge. Below, on the west side, the slope plunged down into the Ewigkeit, and our very best attention had to be given in order to avoid doing the same. It was one of the worst snow faces I ever found myself on, perhaps, under the conditions, the worst. The direction in which we were travelling and the angle of the slope made the rope utterly useless. Close attention is very exhausting: much more exertion is required to walk ten steps, bestowing the utmost possible care on each movement, than to walk a hundred up or down a much steeper incline when the angle demands a more accustomed balance. Not for an instant might we relax our vigilance till, at 5.30 P.M., we reached once more the ridge close to the place where we had forced our way through the cornice in the morning.

“We had little time to spare, and hurrying up to the point, looked anxiously down the snow wall. A glance was sufficient to show that the whole aspect of the snow had entirely altered since the morning. Burgener’s expression changed suddenly, and a startled exclamation, which I trust was allowed to pass unrecorded, escaped from him. Andenmatten brought up some stones and rolled them down over the edge; each missile carried down a broad hissing band of the encrusting snow which had given us foot-hold in the morning, and swept the ice-slope beneath as black and bare as a frozen pond; here and there near rocks the stones stopped and sank deeply and gently into the soft, treacherous compound. The light had begun to fail, and snow was falling more heavily as we pressed on to try for some other line of descent. A hundred yards further along the ridge we looked over again; the condition of the snow was almost the same, but the wall was steeper, and looked at its very worst as seen through the mist. Some one now suggested that we might work to the north-west end of the ridge and make our way down to the pass by the ice-fall. We tramped on as hard as possible, only to find at the end of our journey that the whole mass seemed abruptly cut away far above the Adine Col, and no line of descent whatever was visible. We doubled back on our tracks till we came within a few yards of the summit of a small peak on the ridge, the height of which was probably not less than 15,000 feet. Already the cold was numbing and our wet clothes began to stiffen; again we peered over the wall, but the rocks were glazed, snow-covered, and impossible. The leader stopped, looked right and left along the ridge, and said, ‘I don’t know what to do!’ For the moment we seemed hopelessly entrapped; the only conceivable place of shelter for the night was a patch of rocks close to the summit of the peak near at hand, and for these we made. It was an utter waste of time. Apart from sleeping, we could not have remained there an hour, for we met the full force of the wind, which by this time had risen considerably, and was whirling the driving snow into every crack and cranny. What might have begun as a temporary rest would infallibly have ended in a permanent occupation. Indeed, the cold would have been far too intense that night for us to have lived on any part of the bleak ridge. The situation was becoming desperate. ‘We must get down off the ridge and out of the wind.’ ‘Ay,’ said Burgener, ‘we must, I know; but where?’ The circumstances did not call for reasonable answers, and so we said, ‘Anywhere! To stay up here now means that we shall never get down at all.’ Burgener looked up quickly as if to say no, but hesitated, and then muttered, ‘That is true. Then what will you do? There is no way down anywhere along the wall with the snow as it is now. There are great ice-slopes a little way down.’ As he spoke he leant over and looked along the wall for confirmation of his opinions. A little way off a rib of rock, blacker than the rest, showed through the mist. We both saw it at the same time; Burgener hesitated, looked at it again, and then facing round glanced at the prospect above. The wind was stronger and colder and the snow was driving more heavily. There was no room for doubt. We must put it to the touch and take the risk. We turned again, and in a few minutes had squeezed ourselves through the cornice, and were fairly launched on the descent.

“We were now at a much higher level on the ridge than at the point we had struck in ascending. It was only possible to see a few yards down; the rocks looked appallingly steep, glazed, and grizzly, and we knew not what we were coming to. But at any rate we were moving, and in a stiller atmosphere soon forgot the cold. We went fast, but only by means of doing all we knew, for the climbing was really difficult. It was a case of every man for himself, and every man for the rest of the party. Now was the time to utilise all that we had ever learned of mountain craft. Never before, speaking for myself only, have I felt so keenly the pleasure of being united to thoroughly trustworthy and good mountaineers; it was like the rush of an eight-oar, where the sense of motion and the swish through the water alone are sufficient to make every member of the crew put all his strength into each stroke. The mind was too active to appreciate the pain of fatigue, and so we seemed strong again. Now on the rocks, which were loose and crumbly in parts, elsewhere big and glazed, now in deep snow, now on hard crusts, we fought our way down. So rapid was the descent that, when the opportunity offered, we looked anxiously through the mist in the hope of seeing the glacier beneath. Surely we had hit on a possible line of descent to the very bottom. But there was not a moment for the grateful repose so often engendered by enquiring minds on the mountains. We were racing against time, or at least against the malevolent powers of darkness. Down a narrow flat couloir of rock of no slight difficulty we seemed to go with perfect ease, but the rocks suddenly ceased and gave way to an ill-favoured snow-slope. The leader stopped abruptly and turned sharp to the right. A smooth ice-gully some 30 feet wide separated us from the next ridge of rock. The reason for the change of direction was evident enough when Burgener pointed it out. As long as the line of descent kept to the side that was more sheltered during the day from the sun, so long was the snow fairly good. Our leader judged quickly, and with the soundest reasoning, as it proved directly afterwards, that the line we had been following would infallibly lead, if pursued further, to snow as treacherous as that with which we were now so familiar. Across the ice-slope then we must cut, perhaps a dozen or fifteen steps.

“The first two or three Burgener made vigorously enough, but when within 10 or 15 feet of the rocks the extra effort told. He faltered suddenly; his blow fell listlessly, and he leant against the slope, resting hands and head on his axe. ‘I am almost exhausted,’ he said faintly, as he turned round to us, while his quivering hands and white lips bore evidence to the severity of the exertion. So for a minute or two we stood in our tracks. A word of encouragement called up what seemed almost a last effort, some little notches were cut, and we gained the rocks again. A trickling stream of water was coursing down a slab of rock, and at this we gulped as eagerly as a fevered patient. Standing on the projecting buttress, we looked anxiously down, and caught sight at last of the glacier. It seemed close to us; the first few steps showed that Burgener’s judgment was right; he had changed the line of descent at exactly the right moment, and at the best possible place. Down the last few hundred feet we were able to go as fast as before. The level glacier beneath seemed in the darkness to rise up suddenly and meet us. We tumbled over the bergschrund, ran down a short slope on the farther side of it, and stood in safety on the glacier, saved by as fine a piece of guiding as I have ever seen in the mountains. We looked up at the slope. To our astonishment all was clear, and I daresay had been so for long. Above, in a blue-black frosty sky, the stars were winking merrily; the mists had all vanished as by magic. No doubt the cold, which would have settled us had we stayed on the ridge, assisted us materially in the descent by improving the snow.

“There seemed still just light enough to search for our tracks of the morning across the glacier, and we bore well to the right in the hope of crossing them. I fancy that the marks would have been really of little use, but, anyhow, we could not find them, and so made a wide sweep across the upper part of the snow basin. As a result we were soon in difficulty with the crevasses, and often enough it seemed probable that we should spend the rest of the night in wandering up and down searching for snow bridges. But we reached at last a patch of shale and rock, which we took to be the right bank of the little glacier we had crossed in the morning. Our clothes were wet, and the cold was becoming so sharp that it was wisely decided, against my advice, to push on if possible to the tent at once. For some three or four hours did we blunder and stumble over the moraine, experiencing not a few tolerably severe falls as we did so. Andenmatten selected his own line of descent, and in a few minutes we had entirely lost sight of him. It was too dark to find our way across the glacier, and we could only hope by following the loose stone ridge to make our way to the right place. So we stuck to the rocks, occasionally falling and nearly sticking on their detestably sharp points. Even a Caucasian moraine leads somewhere if you keep to it long enough, and as we turned a corner, the huge glimmering mass of Dych Tau, towering up in front, showed that the end of our journey was not far off. Presently the little white outline of the tent appeared, but we regarded it with apathy, and made no effort to quicken our movements, although the goal was in sight; it seemed to require, in our semi-comatose condition, almost an effort to stop. As we threw open the door of the tent the welcome sight of divers packets, neatly arranged in a corner, met our gaze. The head policeman had proved himself an honour to his sex, an exception to his compatriots, and a credit to the force. There were bread, sugar, rice, meat, and firewood—yet we neither spoke nor were moved. Andenmatten spurned the parcels with his foot and revealed the lowermost. A scream of delight went up, for they had found a packet of tobacco. The spell was broken, and once more all were radiant. Such is man. A strange compound—I refer to the tobacco—it proved to be, that would neither light nor smoke, and possessed as its sole property the power of violently disagreeing with the men. It was past midnight before the expedition was over. There were few preliminaries observed before going to bed. I don’t think that even Donkin took more than a quarter of an hour in arranging a couch to his satisfaction, and placing a very diminutive air-cushion on anatomical principles in exactly the right place, while Andenmatten was fast asleep in two minutes, his head pillowed gently on some cold mutton, and his boots reposing under the small of his back. Something weighed on our minds as we too lay down and tried to sleep. The towering cone of Tetnuld, the distant view of Uschba, Elbruz, and the giant Dych Tau, the rock and snow-slopes, pictured themselves one after another as dissolving views on the white walls of the tent. The expedition was over, but the pleasure and the impressions it had evoked were not. Faster and faster followed the visions as in delirium. I sat up, and in the excitement of the moment dealt a great blow at the nearest object, which, as it chanced, was Andenmatten’s ribs. I shouted out to my companion. A muffled ‘hulloa’ was the response, and he too rose up. ‘What is it?’ ‘By Heavens! it is the finest climb we have ever made.’ And so it was.”

CHAPTER VII
A MELANCHOLY QUEST

THE accident in the Caucasus in 1888, by which Messrs Donkin and Fox and their two Swiss guides lost their lives, was one of the saddest that has ever happened in the annals of mountaineering. I will not dwell on it, but will rather pass on to the search expedition, a short account of whose operations will serve to illustrate how a thorough knowledge of mountaineering may be utilised in finding a conjectured spot in an unmapped region in the snow world.

The year after the accident—for the season when it occurred was too advanced for a thorough search to be then undertaken—a party of four Englishmen, Messrs Douglas Freshfield, Clinton Dent, Hermann Woolley, and Captain Powell, with Maurer of the Bernese Oberland as leading guide, set out from England to try and ascertain how the accident happened, and, if possible, recover the remains. They succeeded, in the course of a profoundly interesting journey, in finding the last camp of their friends, and from Mr Clinton Dent’s fine description in The Alpine Journal I make, with his kind consent, the following extracts. They show how well the old school of climbers learnt all the routine of their art, and how superior is the trained mountaineer of any nationality to the inexperienced dweller amongst mountains, who is utterly unable to advance a single step upon them.

Having journeyed to the district and got over all the easier ground at first met with, the party was now fairly embarked in the region of ice and snow.

“The day was well advanced,” writes Mr Dent, “and it is only on rare occasions in the Central Caucasus that the valleys and sky are free from cloud at such an hour. But not a vestige of mist was to be seen. The conditions were not merely of good omen, but were also in the hightest degree fortunate, for the object of our search seemed very minute in the presence of such gigantic surroundings. The air was clear and soft, and the snow in perfect order for walking. We worked our way due west, and gradually, as we turned the buttress of rock, a steep and broad ice-gully came into view, leading up to the pass. This consisted of a broad snow-topped depression, from 1500 to 1800 feet above the snow-field. On the right or east of the pass the ridge ran sharply up to the pinnacle already mentioned, while on the left the ridge, broken up on its crest by great towers of rock, stretched away to the summit of Dych Tau, the peak of which from our point of view was not visible. A careful inspection of the rocks with the telescope revealed nothing. A possible place for a bivouac might have been found at any point on the rocks below the pass, but no particularly likely spot was evident. It was conceivable too, of course, that the travellers had discovered a more suitable place on the Ullu Auz side, close to the summit of the pass. In any case our plan of action was clear, and we set forth without delay to ascend the wall. Two long ribs of rock lying on the right of the ice-gully offered the best means of access. Both looked feasible, but it was only after a moment’s hesitation that the left-hand one was selected, as it seemed more broken, was broader, and ran up higher. If the right-hand rib had been chosen, we might conceivably have missed the object of our search altogether. We made our way up the rocks without any great difficulty. Half-melted masses of snow constantly hissed down the ice-gully as we ascended, and the great chasm that extends along the base of the cliff was choked for the most part with avalanche snow. The rocks were steep, but so broken as to offer good hand-and foot-hold. Still, the mind was sufficiently occupied in attending to the details of climbing to prevent the thoughts from wandering. Insensibly, we began to think little save of the view that would be revealed from the top of the pass. From time to time an opportunity would be found of gazing to the right or left, but progress was tolerably continuous. Maurer, who was leading, looked upwards now and again, as he worked out the best line of ascent, but the rocks were so steep that he could only see a very few feet. Just about mid-day, as he stopped for a moment to look upwards, I saw his expression suddenly change. ‘Herr Gott!’ he gasped out, ‘der Schlafplatz!’[5] I think I shall never forget the thrill the words sent through me. We sprang up, scrambling over the few feet that still intervened, and in a moment were grouped on a little ledge just outside the bivouac. There was little enough to be seen at the first glance save a low horse-shoe shaped wall of stones, measuring some 6 feet by 8, and carefully built against an overhanging rock. The enclosure was full of drifted snow, raised up into a hump at the back, where it covered a large rücksack. On a ledge formed by one of the stones, a little tin snow spectacle-box caught the eye as it reflected the rays of the sun. For a few moments all was excitement as the presence of one object after another was revealed. ‘See here,’ cried Maurer, as he scooped away the snow with his hands, ‘the sleeping-bags!’ ‘And here a rücksack,’ said another. ‘Look, they made a fire there,’ called out a third, ‘and here is the cooking kettle and the revolver.’ Then came somewhat of a reaction, and for a few minutes we could but gaze silently at the place that told so clear a tale, and endeavour to realise to the full the evidence that had come upon us with such overwhelming suddenness.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“It is most probable that the accident occurred on the south side of the cliffs forming the eastern ridge of Dych Tau. The party must have been roped at the moment, and it is very reasonable to suppose that they were engaged in traversing one of the many ice and snow covered slopes that exist on this side. What the exact nature of the accident was matters little; but it may be remembered that the snow on such slopes and ledges often binds very lightly, and that there are no mountains, perhaps, where these places are more numerous or more treacherous than in the Caucasus. It was possibly one of those rare instances in which the rope was a source of danger and not of security to the party as a whole. Yet the rule is clear, and it amounts to this: if a place is too dangerous to cross with a party roped, lest the slip of one drag down all, then it is too dangerous to cross at all. So steep are the cliffs that a fall must have meant instantaneous death. As an example, a torn sleeping-bag which was thrown over the bivouac wall fell to the very bottom of the slope, and we saw it just above the bergschrund as we descended. It was necessary to take down some of the articles discovered, for we might otherwise have found difficulty in convincing the natives of the success of the expedition, and this was an important point. The height of the pass is 14,350 feet, and of the bivouac about 14,000 feet. We left the bivouac at 3.30 P.M., the day being still perfectly cloudless. The ice-fall offered some little difficulty, one or two of the bridges by which we had crossed in the morning having broken down. Still we were able to keep to almost the same line as that adopted in ascending.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“No one familiar with the Caucasus would be willing to believe that any native could have reached the bivouac. The people are still very timorous on ice, and are wholly incapable of facing an ice-fall, much less of making any way through one. No native could have been got to the place even if in the train of competent mountaineers; alone, he would not have set foot on the glacier at all.

“A day or two later we made our way down to the collection of villages known as Balkar, a good three and a half hours’ walk from Karaoul. The place is not well spoken of, but we were hospitably received and entertained. In this, as in many other villages subsequently, the story of our search excited much interest. On every occasion the proceedings were almost exactly identical. As usual in the Caucasus, the natives all crowded into our apartment soon after arrival. Powell would then select some Russian-speaking man in authority, and announce through him that the results of our expedition would be made known to all who cared to hear them. The whole story was then told, and admirably Powell used to narrate it, winding up by pointing out how the people of the district were now exonerated from any suspicion that may have lain on them. Such suspicion, he used to add, had never been entertained by any English people. The account was always listened to in breathless silence. At the conclusion it was repeated by the chief to the natives in their own language. Then the rücksack was brought in and the articles found shown. These were always instantly accepted as absolute proof; the rusty revolver especially excited attention. Expressions of sorrow and brief interjections were always heard on all sides. Then the chief spoke to some such effect as follows: ‘We are indeed rejoiced that you have found these traces. It relieves our people from an irksome and unjust suspicion. It is well that Englishmen came to our country for this search, for we believe that no others could have accomplished what you have done. We are all very grateful to you. Englishmen are always most welcome in our country. We are glad to receive them. Our houses are theirs, and the best we can do shall always be done for your countrymen.’ In several places—at Chegem, for instance—words were added to this effect: ‘We remember well Donkin and Fox; they were brave and good men, and we loved them. It is very sad to us to think that they are lost.’”

A more detailed account of this melancholy quest will be found in Messrs Douglas Freshfield’s and Vittorio Sella’s work, The Exploration of the Caucasus. It is from this, the most beautifully illustrated of any book on mountaineering, that, with Mr Freshfield’s kind permission and that of Mr Willink, I take the picture of the sleeping-place. The finished drawing was made by Mr Willink from a sketch by Captain Powell.

CHAPTER VIII
SOME NARROW ESCAPES AND FATAL ACCIDENTS

PROBABLY not half the narrow escapes experienced by climbers are ever described, even in the pages of the various publications of English and foreign Alpine Clubs, though when an accident by the breaking of a snow-cornice is just avoided, the incident is so terribly impressive that several accounts have found their way into print. Scarcely anything more startling than a certain occurrence on a ridge of the Mönch, which happened to the late Mr Moore and his two guides, Melchior and Jacob Anderegg, has ever been related. The party had succeeded in making the ascent of the Mönch from the Wengern Alp, it being only the third occasion when this long and difficult climb was accomplished, each of their predecessors spending three days and three nights on the expedition.

Having gained the summit, the party proceeded to go down by the usual route towards the Trugberg. This follows a very narrow arête. “On the left hand,” says Mr Moore in The Alpine Journal, “is an absolute precipice; on the right a slope, which might be called precipitous, falls to the Aletsch Glacier. The quantity of snow on the ridge was enormous, and the sun had begun to tell upon it. We knew too much to attempt to approach the upper edge, and kept at a distance of some 12 feet below it on the Aletsch side; lower down we dared not go, owing to the steepness of the slope and the danger of starting an avalanche. With Melchior in front it is unnecessary to say that we moved with the greatest caution. No man is more alive than he to the danger arising from a snow-cornice. He sounded with his axe at every step, and we went steadily along, anxious, but with every reason to believe that we were giving the cornice a wide berth. Suddenly came a startling cry from Melchior. At the same instant I felt myself stagger, and, instinctively swinging ever so slightly to the right, found myself the next moment sitting astride on the ridge. With a thundering roar the cornice on our left for a distance of some 200 yards went crashing down to the depths below, sending up clouds of snow-dust which completely concealed my companions from me. It was only by the absence of all strain on the rope that I knew—though at the moment I scarcely realised the fact—that they were, like myself, safe. As the dust cleared off, Melchior, also sitting astride of the ridge, turned towards me, his face white as the snow which covered us. That it was no personal fear which had blanched our leader’s sunburnt cheeks his first words, when he could find utterance, showed. ‘God be thanked!’ said he; ‘I never thought to see either of you there.’ We had, in fact, escaped destruction by a hand’s-breadth. As I believe, our right feet had been on the ridge, our left on the cornice; we had thus just sufficient firm standing-ground to enable us to make that instinctive movement to the right which had landed us á cheval, for Jacob had fallen in the same position as Melchior and myself. Few words were said; but words poorly express the emotions at such a moment. Melchior’s axe had been carried down with the cornice as it fell, but had fortunately lodged on the face of the precipice 50 feet below. It was too precious to leave behind, so we let him down by the rope, and descending in a cat-like way peculiar to first-class guides when not hampered by Herrshaft, he regained it without difficulty.

“Our further descent was uneventful.”

One of the greatest dangers of mountaineering is from falling stones, yet the number of fatal accidents from this cause is as few as the narrow escapes are many. As exciting an experience as can well be imagined took place on the Aiguille du Midi at Chamonix in 1871. The party consisted of Messrs Horace Walker and G. E. Foster. The latter wrote a graphic account in The Alpine Journal, and kindly allows me to make the following extracts. The guides were Jacob Anderegg and Hans Baumann, and the climbers wished to ascend from the Montanvert and be the first to go down the steep face of the mountain on the Chamonix side.

After some difficulty in finding the route, for both the guides were unacquainted with the district, and Mr Walker alone knew in a vague sort of way that the peak was somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Géant ice-fall, they eventually stood on the top. It had taken them ten hours, and they sat for some time on the more sheltered Chamonix side, debating by what route they should descend. The slopes below were very steep, so they decided to retrace their steps to the foot of the rocks, and then, turning over on to the Chamonix side of the mountain, make their way as best they could down ice-filled gullies and precipitous rocks. All at first went well, and soon they commenced to cross the face of the cliff to gain a rocky buttress that offered a likely route some hundred feet below the top of the wall. “Jacob was leading,” writes Mr Foster, “Walker next, I followed, and Baumann brought up the rear. Only one was moving at a time, and every one had the rope as taut as possible between himself and his neighbour. Jacob was crossing a narrow gully, when suddenly, without any warning, as though he had trod on the keystone of the wall, the whole face for some 30 or 40 feet above him peeled off, and with a crash like thunder, hundreds of tons of rocks precipitated themselves on him. In an instant he was torn from his hold, and hurled down the precipice with them. Fortunately, Walker was able to hold on, though the strain on him was something awful. As the uproar ceased, and silence even more impressive succeeded, we looked in one another’s faces with blank dismay. From our position it was impossible to see what had become of Jacob, and only the tight rope told us that his body at least, living or dead, was still fastened to us. In a voice singularly unlike his own, Walker at length cried out, ‘Jacob,’ and our hearts sank within us as it passed without response. ‘Jacob! Ach Jacob!’ Walker repeated; and I trust none of my readers may ever know the relief we felt when the reply came back, ‘Ich lebe noch.’[6]

“From where I was I could not see him, but Walker craned over a rock, and then turned round. ‘I see him. He is awfully hurt, and bleeding frightfully.’ I then contrived to shift my position, and saw that he was indeed hurt. His face was black with blood and dirt, the skin torn from his bleeding hands, while his clothes in ribands threatened worse injuries still unseen. After a moment, he managed to recover his footing, and then untied the rope with trembling fingers, and crawled along the face of the cliff to the other side of the gully, where some snow offered means to stanch his wounds.

“As soon as he was safe, Baumann called on us to stand still, and clambered carefully over the spot where the rocks had given way, our only road lying there. I followed, and then Walker, knotting up the rope to which Jacob had hung, crossed last. With Jacob below us, care was necessary in climbing so as to send no more loose fragments on his head, but we at last reached the spot where he was standing. Thanks to the snow, the bleeding had already stopped to a great extent, and with the aid of some sticking-plaster Walker had with him, and some torn strips from a pocket-handkerchief, we bound up his wounds as well as we could. He had had a marvellous escape; no fragment had struck him fully, the rock that had grazed his face having missed knocking out his brains from his presence of mind in throwing back his head. Fortunately, no bones were broken, though he was badly bruised all over, and after a quarter of an hour’s rest and a good pull at the brandy-flask, he said he was ready to start again.

“On taking hold of the rope to tie him on again, we were awestruck to find all its strands but one had been severed, so that his whole weight had hung literally on a thread. Strange as it may appear, the rock that had done this had probably saved his life by jerking him out of the line of fire. Still, all honour to Messrs Buckingham for their good workmanship, to which, and Walker’s holding powers, we owe our escape from a miserable ending of our day’s work. As it was, poor Walker’s ribs had suffered sadly, and with two wounded men we recommenced our descent.

“Naturally, our trust in the rocks was gone, and we took as soon as possible to the steep snow of the couloir. This, however, lay so thin on the ice, that we found we had only exchanged one danger for another. Baumann led and we followed, driving in our axe-heads at every step, but were soon forced to descend into a narrow gully, cut by avalanches, where the snow was deep enough to give better footing. The sides of this were above our heads, and the bottom not more than a foot wide, so that the danger from avalanches was very great, but for a time we descended safely. Then a startled shout from Walker warned me that something was wrong, and driving my axe desperately into the side, I found myself up to the neck in a snow avalanche. For a moment I thought all was up, but held on to the best of my powers. Then finding the stream did not stop, I looked back, and found Walker and Jacob had contrived to get out of the gully. With a shout to Baumann, I gave a desperate struggle, and followed their example, and instantly saw the snow I had held up surge over Baumann’s head. For a moment he held on, then climbed out on my side. We waited till the avalanche had passed, two of us on one side of the gully and two on the other, and then Walker and Jacob jumped into it with a groan, as it shook their bruised bones, and climbed up to our side, and with an occasional look for Baumann’s hat, which the avalanche had carried off with it, pursued our way.

“So long and steep was the couloir, so thin and treacherous the snow layer on the ice, that a good hour elapsed before we reached the bottom, where a formidable bergschrund cut off access to the glacier. Only at one point could we find a bridge, and that was where our old enemy, the avalanche gully, terminated, choking the crevasse with its snows, and spreading in a fan-like mass below. With some hesitation, as our recollection of it was not pleasant, and it was here all hard ice, Baumann cut his way down into it. We were scarcely all fairly in it, when we heard a tremendous crash above. Clearly, another avalanche was descending, this time composed of rocks. As it was 2000 feet above us, and would take some time to clear the distance, a short race for life ensued. Baumann cut steps with amazing rapidity. Fortunately, some half dozen only were necessary. With one eye on him and one keeping a sharp look-out for the advent of the unwelcome stranger, we hastened down, crossed the bridge, scampered down a slope, and merely stooping down to pick up Baumann’s hat, which turned up here, got out of the way just in time, as an enormous mass of snow and rocks dashed over where we had stood not a minute before.”

This was the last adventure the party had that day from avalanches, but their troubles were as yet by no means over. Some formidable glacier work had to be accomplished before all was plain sailing. “Though we were now tolerably reckless, the difficulties in our way nearly beat us,” Mr Foster goes on to say. “Three times we tried, and thrice in vain, though knife edges of the most revolting description were passed, and crevasses of fabulous width and depth jumped or got over as seemed best. Again and again we were forced to return. At length, when we were almost in despair, a way was found, and at 6.30, drenched by the storm which by this time had burst upon us, we reached the little hotel at the Pierrepointue.”

There are no climbing dangers which skill and care can more surely avert than those which are ever present on a crevassed, but snow-covered glacier.