GOING UP THE MOUNTAIN.
I cannot see why any one should desire to ascend Mt. Blanc. It is a trip
of great danger, is very fatiguing, and, it is said, even when the
summit is reached the view is unsatisfactory, on account of the great
distance from all objects save the jagged peaks of the big mountain. Yet
there are quite a number of ascents made every year.
[Illustration: THE PRESUMED CHAMOIS HUNTER.]
[Sidenote: ALPINE ASCENTS.]
Why? Because the innocents who do it dearly love to start out, the males
with their knee breeches and horrible spiked shoes, and the females with
their hideous dresses, and after the ascent is either made, or not made,
it is a pleasant thing to be photographed in groups in these costumes.
Thousands of these photographs are taken, for home consumption.
Everybody likes to be photographed in the act of doing what they can't
do. The stupid man who never looks into a book always wants to be taken
with one elbow upon a pile of books, and his fore finger thoughtfully
upon his forehead, as though he were devising a plan for the payment of
the national debt; the young sprout who buys a double-barreled shot-gun,
which is destined never to take animal life, always rushes to be
photographed in complete sporting costume, shot-gun, game-bag, dog and
all; and where was there ever a militia officer who did not want to be
photographed in full uniform, as though he had served with credit
through the great rebellion?
So these Alpine climbers, these Mt. Blanc ascenders, would no more leave
Chamonix without being photographed in costume than they would leave
their letters of credit behind them.
Photography is an unconscious liar. It is as unreliable as history.
Mt. Blanc was first ascended in 1786; then in 1787; again in 1825. Since
then the trip has been made several times, two ladies, even, having gone
to the very summit.
The guides and souvenir dealers in Chamonix are full of stories of the
dangers incurred in making the trip. They say that some forty or fifty
years ago a couple of guides made a misstep, and were hurled down a
chasm. An attempt was made to recover the bodies but without success.
They were never found as a whole. Some thirty or forty years afterward,
portions of their clothing, with a few bones, were found in a glacier,
having been gradually worked from the place they were killed, by the
slow but continual motion of the ice. They didn't show us the shoes nor
the bones, so we did not feel obliged to believe the story.
Accidents! There have been enough of them to deter any sane man or woman
from attempting the perilous ascent. The scientists who ascend these
dizzy heights, which a goat hardly dares essay, may be excused, for the
real scientist is bound by his profession to risk his life any time to
establish or demolish
[Illustration: THE FATE OF TWO ENGLISHMEN.]
[Sidenote: THE MER DE GLACE.]
a theory, but there can be no excuse for the mere sight seer to attempt
it. Some years ago four English clergymen attempted the ascent. When
near the top, toiling up a precipice of ice, the rope to which they were
attached broke, and two of them slid down the smooth descent to a
precipice, and plunged into a chasm thousands upon thousands of feet
deep, and were never more seen. In these ascents every care must be
used, for every step is only one step from death. A fall of three
thousand feet may be an easy way to die, provided one wants to die, but
people are not, as a rule, anxious for so sudden a parting with things
sublunary. Imagine the feelings of a man in the instant after the rope
breaks and he feels himself nearing the chasm, with nothing on earth to
save him!
[Illustration: A FREQUENT ACCIDENT.]
It is now a well established fact that these immense glaciers, between
ten and twenty miles long, and from one to three miles wide, and
oftentimes five hundred feet thick, are continually moving, though of
course very slowly, averaging from one hundred to as high as five
hundred feet per annum. The Mer de Glace, near Chamonix, which is twelve
miles long and nearly a mile wide, is said to have moved a foot a day
during the past year.
This glacier, the Mer de Glace, is one of the most beautiful of the four
hundred that are to be found in the Alps near Mt. Blanc. De Saussure,
the Genevese naturalist, speaking of its surface, said that it
"resembles a sea suddenly frozen, not during a tempest, but when the
wind has subsided, and the waves, although still high, have become
blunted and rounded. These great waves are intersected by transverse
crevasses, the interior of which appears blue, while the ice is white on
the surface."
The journey from Chamonix to Montavert, where the best view on the "Sea
of Ice" can be had, is very tiresome, and not unattended with danger,
but the sight is well worth the time and trouble. Twelve miles of solid
ice in the most fantastic shapes, "a sea suddenly frozen," is a sight
never to be forgotten.
[Illustration: THE MER DE GLACE.]
A very little mountain climbing goes a great way. We tried it and know
whereof we speak. The courier was to blame for it.
[Sidenote: THE GORGE.]
Couriers make men do more foolish things than any other agency in the
world. We had been out to visit a gorge some six or seven miles from
Chamonix, and had been delighted with the ravine, with its foaming
stream tearing along way down the valley. We had walked for an hour or
more on a rickety old foot-bridge, hundreds of feet above the bottom of
the gorge, we had crept along wooden galleries fastened to the sides of
the precipices, the tops of which were well-nigh out of
[Illustration: A SLIP TOWARDS THE EDGE.]
sight, and the bottoms scarcely discernable. Galleries that creaked and
shook, and swayed under our weight, secured to the rocks with rusty
irons, renewed no one knew when, and suggesting at every step the
probability of giving way, and letting you down thousands of feet upon
jagged rocks, and bounding from one to another till your corpse finally
struck water, a torrent as wild and uncontrollable as Niagara. The
gallery did not go down and we had gone to the end and admired the
waterfall, and then on our way back to Chamonix that courier insisted
upon our going up the Glacier des Bossons.
In vain we demurred, and told him we could see the Glacier from the road
quite well enough. He insisted. It was an easy path clear up, and the
view was something marvelous. Our whole visit to Europe would be a
failure if we missed this view.
There was no help for it and we went. The ladies were provided with
mules, while the gentlemen, under the guidance of the courier, struck
out across lots.
[Illustration: CREVASSES.]
For the first quarter of an hour it was all right. There was a good
path, and the hill was not very steep. We crossed a number of little
brooks that had their source in the glaciers above, and emptied into the
Arve in the valley below. The woods through which we passed were huge
pine trees, among which the narrow path wound its tortuous course.
Occasionally there would be a little clearing and then we could get a
glimpse of the valley and the mountains towering high above us.
The higher we ascended the more precipitous became the path. We found
huge bowlders obstructing our way, and soon had to begin climbing in
real earnest, oftentimes using both hands and feet. At length we reached
a narrow ledge that led directly to the little house at the foot of the
glacier, whither we were going. This ledge was like a backbone, with
only a tiny path two or three feet wide. On the right, was a sharp
descent of several hundred feet to the woods through which we passed.
Beyond these woods could be seen bright spots of green and yellow, where
harvesting was in progress. Further down was the Chamonix valley, its
broad acres divided by the silvery Arve, that starts from the Mer de
Glace, and empties into the Rhone, just below Geneva.
[Sidenote: THE TRIALS OF THE FAT MAN.]
On the left there is a descent of some five or six hundred feet to the
ice crags of the glacier. It requires steady nerves and a sure foot to
walk along this dizzy path, for a stumble or fall would be attended with
fatal results.
And right here was where the infernal persistency of the courier got in
its worst work. One of the party was a gentleman of full habit, who
weighs, perhaps, two hundred and twenty-five pounds, one of that kind
whose head becomes dizzy when at any elevation, who hardly dares to look
out of a third-story window, one of those who have an almost
uncontrollable desire to spring off any elevation they may be so
unfortunate as to be placed upon. He came panting like a second Falstaff
to this narrow ledge, the edge of which was not more than three feet
wide, and the descent on either side was hundreds of feet. It was a
place that nothing but a goat or a born Alpine climber should ever think
of essaying, and here was a fleshy party, with a dizzy head, never
sure-footed in anything but his morals, with an impulse to jump down a
chasm, either to the right or to the left!
[Illustration: THE MORAINE.]
He did not desire to jump, he could not go forward, and to go backward
was just as impossible. He thought of his pleasant home across the
Atlantic, he thought of his wife and family, his creditors, and all who
had an interest in him, and shut his eyes and sat down, clinging
desperately to the few bushes that were within reach.
Another of the party, who had skipped very like a goat over the ridge,
and had gained the porch of the little tavern, saw his danger, and
called the courier. The party were all amused at the predicament of the
fleshy man except the fleshy man himself. To him it was no joke. He was
anchored in the fix described by the colored clergyman. "On de one
side, bredern, is perdition, and on de oder damnation."
[Illustration: THE DILEMMA--WHICH SIDE TO FALL.]
But the courier, good for something, acted promptly. He seized a loaf of
bread and a bottle of wine, and rushed down the path. He bade the victim
of an attempt to do something he couldn't do, to eat of the loaf and
drink all he could of wine (which he did, especially the latter), shut
his eyes, grab his hand, and run; adding cheerfully:--
"Geep your eysh shut dight--oof yoo opens dem at all yoo are gone--and
run mit me."
In this way the poor man was brought to the little tavern, where he sat
in gloomy silence while the rest of the party essayed the glacier.
I may add here that he made the descent safely. There is another path, a
mile or two longer, but entirely safe. He didn't mind the mile or two.
[Sidenote: SOMETHING ABOUT GLACIERS.]
The Glacier des Bossons, while not so imposing as the Mer de Glace, has
a great many wonderful points. Here at the beginning of this dangerous
ledge is one of the best places to study it. The surface, rough and
jagged, with sharp peaks and crags from three to twenty feet high, is
partially covered with slate, rocks and debris, while beneath this,
bright and sparkling, is the pure, solid ice, with its greenish-blue
tint. Just opposite us, resting on the ice, is an immense bowlder that
must weigh at least twenty tons, while all about are smaller stones,
varying in weight from one hundred pounds to four or five tons. These
immense stones became detached from the mountain, ages ago, by the
continued pressure of the solid ice, expanded by the heat and contracted
again by the cold, and have gradually been carried down the mountain on
the bosom of this imperceptibly moving field of ice.
[Illustration: ROCKS POLISHED BY OLD GLACIERS.]
The warm sun, which beats down upon us with terrible effect, gradually
melts exposed portions of the snow and ice, and tiny rivulets are seen
trickling along in the crevasses and depressions. They come together at
the foot of the glacier, and, after a fall of about sixty feet, they
wander off down the woods to join the Arve.
As we stand there enjoying the beautiful view down the Chamonix Valley,
the courier breaks in and says it is time to go on. Day dreaming is
over, and, with no kindly feelings toward him, we push on up the steep
and narrow ledge.
At the Pavilion, a little one-story house, we obtained a fine view of
the glacier. We also obtained some fine wine and bread. At this height
the air is so rarified that a little wine is all that one can drink. But
after the long, hard walk through the intense heat, it is very
refreshing, and revives one's drooping spirits wonderfully.
Leaving the Pavilion, a narrow foot-path, cut out of the side of the
mountain, leads to a long flight of steps, at the bottom of which we
reach the ice. There a long scramble over its slippery surface, to the
entrance of the cavern. Imagine a solid wall of clear, transparent ice.
Into this by means of picks and spades a cave eighty-five yards long,
eight feet wide and seven feet high has been dug. As you go in, the
little lights flickering along the side seem to say, "Who enters here
leaves hope behind." But we push on through the dripping water at the
entrance, and finally find ourselves walking on ice that is hard and
dry, while the atmosphere is cold enough to make an overcoat
comfortable.
From the end of the cavern the view is like a glimpse of fairyland. Away
down the dimly lighted tunnel, the tiny lights reflected against the
crystalline blue, can be seen the smooth surface of the ice, gradually
growing bluer and bluer until, at the very entrance, where the sunlight
pours down upon it, it becomes nearly transparent, forming a dazzling
frame to the bright picture of the glacier, the forest-covered mountain
and brilliant sky beyond.
[Sidenote: MARKING SHEETS AND THINGS.]
As we are about to emerge from the cavern the guide shows us a hole in
the side, where we can see, some distance off, a subterranean stream,
that has forced a channel through the ice. Here we can hear most
distinctly the glacier mills in full operation. There is one, very
large, near this spot, said to be sixteen hundred feet deep. It was
formed by the action of huge stones moved by the water against the ice,
making, during the ages the glacier has been in existence, a deep round
well in the ice. This low, rumbling noise we hear is the water rushing
into that well with terrific force, and working the stones against its
sides.
But we are aweary of mountain climbing and glacier exploring, and it is
with a sigh of relief that we retrace our steps, take another glass of
wine at the Pavilion, and, after a short rest, descend the mountain by
an easy path. A short drive, and we are in Chamonix, some of the party
telling marvelous stories of our hair-breadth escapes during our
perilous ascent of Mt. Blanc. Of course they didn't go up Mt. Blanc, but
the glacier gave them all the experience in mountain climbing they
wanted. It satisfied them just as well as though they had scaled the
great peak.
As a matter of course all these people purchased Alpenstocks, which they
had marked "Mt. Blanc, July 22, 1861," and were all photographed in
Alpine climbing costume, which the enterprising photographer leases you
for a consideration.
And these photographs went home with the Alpenstocks, and are to-day
being displayed upon center-tables and in albums, while the fraudulent
Alpenstock has the post of honor in libraries.
Also we didn't see any chamois, nor any chamois hunters, nor any sweet
Swiss maidens in picturesque costumes. Like the fever and ague in the
West, "there ain't none of it here, but there's any quantity of it over
in the next county."
That evening, in the hotel, Tibbitts became indignant. He noticed for
the first time that the sheets and pillow cases on his bed were marked
with the name of the hotel in indelible ink.
"What is this for?" he demanded.
"To keep guests of the house from carrying them off, I suppose."
"Then the prevailing impression is that everybody in the world is a
thief? The idea is that I, Tibbitts, am going to snake off these sheets
and cram them in my valise and tote them all over the continent, and
finally take them to Oshkosh for my mother's use!
"It is my opinion, and I say it deliberately, that the vices of one-half
of mankind keep the other half of mankind busy. It is the wickedness of
man that makes courts necessary, and sheriffs and policemen, and all
that sort of thing. But for vice we could dispense with nine-tenths of
the churches and ministry, and we could let up on standing armies. All
the locksmiths and the time wasted upon marking these sheets and pillow
cases could have been devoted to the multiplication of the wealth of the
world. Think of the number of hotels in the world, and the number of
sheets and pillow cases in them, and the quantity of indelible ink and
the time spent in using it, just to keep them from being stolen! The
grand aggregate is appalling. And then add to that all the rest of the
precautions, and mighty expensive they are, that have to be taken to
keep the property you have, and it amounts to the absorption of fully a
half of the industry of the world.
"I have made up my mind what I am going to do. I am going home, and
shall immediately organize societies for the promotion of common
honesty. I shall have to pay for the marking of these sheets and
pillow-cases in my bill to-morrow. In self-defense these societies must
be organized, and this sort of thing done away. Had the time employed in
marking these sheets been used in making cheese, we should not have to
pay such prices for it in America. Vice is an expensive luxury--it eats
two ways; it consumes the time of the vicer, and the time of another man
to watch him. It must be crushed out!"
And Tibbitts went to bed full of projects for the suppression of vice
and for the eventual universality of virtue.
We had at the hotel, of course, the everlasting talker--that man is
ubiquitous, and as frequent as sin. The class was represented with us by
a commission merchant from Milwaukee.
One evening the discussion happened to turn upon the tariff question,
and overflowing its banks, as conversation always does, meandered off
into a variety of channels.
One gentleman asked Jones, the Milwaukee man, why wheat could be
manufactured into flour at Minneapolis, and not at points further East.
[Sidenote: THE MILWAUKEE MAN.]
And this question set Jones running, and he answered:
"That question is easily answered. I'll illustrate it. You know Filkins
& Beaver, of Buffalo? No? I have always known 'em--ever since I have
been in the business. I have sold 'em many a thousand bushel of wheat
since I have been in Milwaukee, and many a thousand barrel of flour for
'em when I was in Toronto. Ef there is anything about wheat and flour
that they don't know, you just want to go and tell 'em, you do, and they
are the whitest men in the business. They have been longer in it than
any two men livin'. They have the immense Eagle mill in Buffalo, and the
Excelsior in Lockport, down on the second dock, the best water-power in
Lockport, and that's saying a good deal, for the fall there is
immense--it is the water-power that has made Lockport. Take that away
and there wouldn't be anything of that city at all, and the people there
are enterprising enough to use it, they are. Filkins & Beaver, take all
their mills together, must flour one hundred thousand bushels of wheat a
day, and that's no small business, and don't you forget it. It takes
good heads to run such a business, y' bet yer. They know me mighty well,
I tell ye, for I have done business with 'em for nigh onto thirty years,
and every time I go to Buffalo, and I have to go there once a month, I
have to stop with either one or the other of 'em. They wouldn't any more
let me go to a hotel than they'd let me sleep on the street.
"Both of 'em came from the same village in England and both went back
and married the girls they were engaged to afore they left, and then
brought 'em to Buffalo, and settled down to work. They worked
themselves, they did, y' bet yer. First they bought the little Eagle
mill, that hadn't only two run of stone, and they did the whole work
with their own hands, they made a great deal of money for they were
close operators, and kept the run of the markets, and they enlarged the
Eagle till it kivered all the ground they had, and then they built the
Continental, and that was too small for 'em, and then they went to
Lockport and bought a water-power there, and built the Excelsior, and
another one at Wellsville, and I don't know where all."
In glided the Young Man who Knows Everything, as chirpy as possible,
and he broke into Jones' narration without as much as saying "by your
leave."
"Jones, there's no use in trying it. You can't cover up bad actions with
loud professions. You can't smother the scent of a skunk by singing 'Old
Hundred.'"
"What in blazes has bad actions and skunks to do with--"
He might as well have talked to an Atlantic gale. The young man ambled
off serenely and attacked another party with the same cheerfulness with
which he assailed Jones, who resumed his narrative:
"As I was saying when that blasted--well, then they bought a propeller,
the old Ada, and they paid for it in cash. They always pay cash for
everything. There ain't none of their paper afloat, and they have the
prettiest bank balance of any concern in Buffalo.
"I always have a good time with 'em, no matter which I stay with.
Sometimes I go to Filkins' and sometimes to Beaver's. Filkins' wife is a
rather high-falutin sort of a woman, and when Filkins got rich she made
him go and buy a lot on Eagle street--no cheap lot, bet yer--one hundred
feet front, and the Lord knows how deep, and she made him build the best
house on it there is in Buffalo. She has conservatories, and a carriage,
and velvet carpets, pianos, and bath rooms, and silver, and everything
bang up, and when they dine the old man has to sit down in a dress coat,
with a nigger behind him. Oh, it's nifty, y' bet yer.
[Sidenote: END OF FILKINS & BEAVER.]
"But old Beaver he'd never do anything of the kind. He stuck to the
little frame cottage he built for himself down on Swan street, and he
sets down to his dinner in his shirt sleeves, and eats off'n stone ware,
and has no wines like Filkins, and swears he wouldn't trade his toby of
ale for all the wines that ever were imported. And his wife only keeps
one hired gal, and does the heft of the work about the house herself.
You kin see her any time with her sleeves rolled up and her apern on,
bustlin' about in jist the same old way, and they have their friends on
Sunday to take pot-luck with 'em, and I ain't sure after all but that
Beaver is right. He swears he will never build a new house till he has
thirty grand-children, and then only one jist large enough to
accommodate and hold 'em all at one table Christmas day. He laughs at
Filkins with his fine airs, though they are the best friends in the
world. You couldn't get a word of difference between 'em for any one of
their mills, or for all of 'em together.
"I remember in 1865 I was in Buffalo, and one of their propellers--it
was the Jeannette, I believe--no, it was the Ariel, had just--"
One by one the party had slipped out of the smoking-room at the
beginning of the new chapter of the experience of Filkins & Beaver, the
termination of which no man could foretell. I took advantage of his
raising his glass to his lips to get away myself. I presume he finished
the story to the waiter, for the next day when I casually remarked that
Jones was coming he looked frightened, and quietly slipped out of the
room.
But no one of the party ever learned why wheat could not be
advantageously floured east of Minneapolis.