A walk from St. Nicholas to Zermatt is a wonderful experience.

Nature is built on a stupendous plan in that region.

One marches continually between walls that are piled

into the skies, with their upper heights broken into

a confusion of sublime shapes that gleam white and cold

against the background of blue; and here and there one

sees a big glacier displaying its grandeurs on the top

of a precipice, or a graceful cascade leaping and flashing

down the green declivities. There is nothing tame,

or cheap, or trivial--it is all magnificent. That short

valley is a picture-gallery of a notable kind, for it

contains no mediocrities; from end to end the Creator

has hung it with His masterpieces.

We made Zermatt at three in the afternoon, nine hours out

from St. Nicholas. Distance, by guide-book, twelve miles;

by pedometer seventy-two. We were in the heart and home

of the mountain-climbers, now, as all visible things

testified. The snow-peaks did not hold themselves aloof,

in aristocratic reserve; they nestled close around,

in a friendly, sociable way; guides, with the ropes and

axes and other implements of their fearful calling slung

about their persons, roosted in a long line upon a stone

wall in front of the hotel, and waited for customers;

sun-burnt climbers, in mountaineering costume, and followed

by their guides and porters, arrived from time to time,

from breakneck expeditions among the peaks and glaciers

of the High Alps; male and female tourists, on mules,

filed by, in a continuous procession, hotelward-bound from

wild adventures which would grow in grandeur very time

they were described at the English or American fireside,

and at last outgrow the possible itself.

We were not dreaming; this was not a make-believe home

of the Alp-climber, created by our heated imaginations;

no, for here was Mr. Girdlestone himself, the famous

Englishman who hunts his way to the most formidable Alpine

summits without a guide. I was not equal to imagining

a Girdlestone; it was all I could do to even realize him,

while looking straight at him at short range. I would rather

face whole Hyde Parks of artillery than the ghastly forms

of death which he has faced among the peaks and precipices

of the mountains. There is probably no pleasure equal

to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is

a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can

find pleasure in it. I have not jumped to this conclusion;

I have traveled to it per gravel-train, so to speak.

I have thought the thing all out, and am quite sure I

am right. A born climber's appetite for climbing is hard

to satisfy; when it comes upon him he is like a starving

man with a feast before him; he may have other business

on hand, but it must wait. Mr. Girdlestone had had

his usual summer holiday in the Alps, and had spent it

in his usual way, hunting for unique chances to break

his neck; his vacation was over, and his luggage packed

for England, but all of a sudden a hunger had come upon

him to climb the tremendous Weisshorn once more, for he

had heard of a new and utterly impossible route up it.

His baggage was unpacked at once, and now he and a friend,

laden with knapsacks, ice-axes, coils of rope, and canteens

of milk, were just setting out. They would spend

the night high up among the snows, somewhere, and get

up at two in the morning and finish the enterprise.

I had a strong desire to go with them, but forced it down

--a feat which Mr. Girdlestone, with all his fortitude,

could not do.

Even ladies catch the climbing mania, and are unable to

throw it off. A famous climber, of that sex, had attempted

the Weisshorn a few days before our arrival, and she

and her guides had lost their way in a snow-storm high up

among the peaks and glaciers and been forced to wander

around a good while before they could find a way down.

When this lady reached the bottom, she had been on her

feet twenty-three hours!

Our guides, hired on the Gemmi, were already at Zermatt

when we reached there. So there was nothing to interfere

with our getting up an adventure whenever we should

choose the time and the object. I resolved to devote

my first evening in Zermatt to studying up the subject

of Alpine climbing, by way of preparation.

I read several books, and here are some of the things

I found out. One's shoes must be strong and heavy,

and have pointed hobnails in them. The alpenstock

must be of the best wood, for if it should break,

loss of life might be the result. One should carry an ax,

to cut steps in the ice with, on the great heights.

There must be a ladder, for there are steep bits of rock

which can be surmounted with this instrument--or this

utensil--but could not be surmounted without it;

such an obstruction has compelled the tourist to waste

hours hunting another route, when a ladder would have

saved him all trouble. One must have from one hundred

and fifty to five hundred feet of strong rope, to be used

in lowering the party down steep declivities which are

too steep and smooth to be traversed in any other way.

One must have a steel hook, on another rope--a very

useful thing; for when one is ascending and comes to a low

bluff which is yet too high for the ladder, he swings

this rope aloft like a lasso, the hook catches at the top

of the bluff, and then the tourist climbs the rope,

hand over hand--being always particular to try and forget

that if the hook gives way he will never stop falling

till he arrives in some part of Switzerland where they

are not expecting him. Another important thing--there

must be a rope to tie the whole party together with,

so that if one falls from a mountain or down a bottomless

chasm in a glacier, the others may brace back on the rope

and save him. One must have a silk veil, to protect

his face from snow, sleet, hail and gale, and colored

goggles to protect his eyes from that dangerous enemy,

snow-blindness. Finally, there must be some porters,

to carry provisions, wine and scientific instruments,

and also blanket bags for the party to sleep in.

I closed my readings with a fearful adventure which

Mr. Whymper once had on the Matterhorn when he was prowling

around alone, five thousand feet above the town of Breil.

He was edging his way gingerly around the corner of a

precipice where the upper edge of a sharp declivity

of ice-glazed snow joined it. This declivity swept

down a couple of hundred feet, into a gully which curved

around and ended at a precipice eight hundred feet high,

overlooking a glacier. His foot slipped, and he fell.

He says:

"My knapsack brought my head down first, and I pitched into

some rocks about a dozen feet below; they caught something,

and tumbled me off the edge, head over heels, into the gully;

the baton was dashed from my hands, and I whirled downward

in a series of bounds, each longer than the last; now over ice,

now into rocks, striking my head four or five times,

each time with increased force. The last bound sent me

spinning through the air in a leap of fifty or sixty feet,

from one side of the gully to the other, and I struck

the rocks, luckily, with the whole of my left side.

They caught my clothes for a moment, and I fell back on

to the snow with motion arrested. My head fortunately

came the right side up, and a few frantic catches brought

me to a halt, in the neck of the gully and on the verge

of the precipice. Baton, hat, and veil skimmed by

and disappeared, and the crash of the rocks--which I had

started--as they fell on to the glacier, told how narrow

had been the escape from utter destruction. As it was,

I fell nearly two hundred feet in seven or eight bounds.

Ten feet more would have taken me in one gigantic leaps

of eight hundred feet on to the glacier below.

"The situation was sufficiently serious. The rocks could

not be let go for a moment, and the blood was spurting

out of more than twenty cuts. The most serious ones were

in the head, and I vainly tried to close them with one hand,

while holding on with the other. It was useless;

the blood gushed out in blinding jets at each pulsation.

At last, in a moment of inspiration, I kicked out a big

lump of snow and struck it as plaster on my head.

The idea was a happy one, and the flow of blood diminished.

Then, scrambling up, I got, not a moment too soon, to a

place of safety, and fainted away. The sun was setting

when consciousness returned, and it was pitch-dark before

the Great Staircase was descended; but by a combination

of luck and care, the whole four thousand seven hundred

feet of descent to Breil was accomplished without a slip,

or once missing the way."

His wounds kept him abed some days. Then he got up

and climbed that mountain again. That is the way with

a true Alp-climber; the more fun he has, the more he wants.

CHAPTER XXXVII

[Our Imposing Column Starts Upward]

After I had finished my readings, I was no longer myself;

I was tranced, uplifted, intoxicated, by the almost

incredible perils and adventures I had been following

my authors through, and the triumphs I had been sharing

with them. I sat silent some time, then turned to Harris

and said:

"My mind is made up."

Something in my tone struck him: and when he glanced

at my eye and read what was written there, his face

paled perceptibly. He hesitated a moment, then said:

"Speak."

I answered, with perfect calmness:

"I will ascend the Riffelberg."

If I had shot my poor friend he could not have fallen from

his chair more suddenly. If I had been his father he could

not have pleaded harder to get me to give up my purpose.

But I turned a deaf ear to all he said. When he perceived

at last that nothing could alter my determination,

he ceased to urge, and for a while the deep silence was

broken only by his sobs. I sat in marble resolution,

with my eyes fixed upon vacancy, for in spirit I was already

wrestling with the perils of the mountains, and my friend

sat gazing at me in adoring admiration through his tears.

At last he threw himself upon me in a loving embrace and

exclaimed in broken tones:

"Your Harris will never desert you. We will die together."

I cheered the noble fellow with praises, and soon his

fears were forgotten and he was eager for the adventure.

He wanted to summon the guides at once and leave at

two in the morning, as he supposed the custom was;

but I explained that nobody was looking at that hour;

and that the start in the dark was not usually made from

the village but from the first night's resting-place

on the mountain side. I said we would leave the village

at 3 or 4 P.M. on the morrow; meantime he could notify

the guides, and also let the public know of the attempt

which we proposed to make.

I went to bed, but not to sleep. No man can sleep when he

is about to undertake one of these Alpine exploits.

I tossed feverishly all night long, and was glad enough

when I heard the clock strike half past eleven and knew it

was time to get up for dinner. I rose, jaded and rusty,

and went to the noon meal, where I found myself the center

of interest and curiosity; for the news was already abroad.

It is not easy to eat calmly when you are a lion; but it is

very pleasant, nevertheless.

As usual, at Zermatt, when a great ascent is about to

be undertaken, everybody, native and foreign, laid aside

his own projects and took up a good position to observe

the start. The expedition consisted of 198 persons,

including the mules; or 205, including the cows.

As follows:

CHIEFS OF SERVICE SUBORDINATES

Myself 1 Veterinary Surgeon Mr. Harris 1 Butler 17

Guides 12 Waiters 4 Surgeons 1 Footman 1 Geologist 1

Barber 1 Botanist 1 Head Cook 3 Chaplains 9 Assistants

15 Barkeepers 1 Confectionery Artist 1 Latinist

TRANSPORTATION, ETC.

27 Porters 3 Coarse Washers and Ironers 44 Mules 1 Fine

ditto 44 Muleteers 7 Cows 2 Milkers

Total, 154 men, 51 animals. Grand Total, 205.

RATIONS, ETC. APPARATUS

16 Cases Hams 25 Spring Mattresses 2 Barrels Flour 2

Hair ditto 22 Barrels Whiskey Bedding for same 1 Barrel

Sugar 2 Mosquito-nets 1 Keg Lemons 29 Tents 2,000 Cigars

Scientific Instruments 1 Barrel Pies 97 Ice-axes 1 Ton

of Pemmican 5 Cases Dynamite 143 Pair Crutches 7 Cans

Nitroglycerin 2 Barrels Arnica 22 40-foot Ladders 1 Bale

of Lint 2 Miles of Rope 27 Kegs Paregoric 154 Umbrellas

It was full four o'clock in the afternoon before my cavalcade

was entirely ready. At that hour it began to move.

In point of numbers and spectacular effect, it was the most

imposing expedition that had ever marched from Zermatt.

I commanded the chief guide to arrange the men and animals

in single file, twelve feet apart, and lash them all

together on a strong rope. He objected that the first

two miles was a dead level, with plenty of room, and that

the rope was never used except in very dangerous places.

But I would not listen to that. My reading had taught

me that many serious accidents had happened in the Alps

simply from not having the people tied up soon enough;

I was not going to add one to the list. The guide then

obeyed my order.

When the procession stood at ease, roped together,

and ready to move, I never saw a finer sight. It was 3,122

feet long--over half a mile; every man and me was on foot,

and had on his green veil and his blue goggles, and his

white rag around his hat, and his coil of rope over one

shoulder and under the other, and his ice-ax in his belt,

and carried his alpenstock in his left hand, his umbrella

(closed) in his right, and his crutches slung at his back.

The burdens of the pack-mules and the horns of the cows

were decked with the Edelweiss and the Alpine rose.

I and my agent were the only persons mounted. We were

in the post of danger in the extreme rear, and tied

securely to five guides apiece. Our armor-bearers carried

our ice-axes, alpenstocks, and other implements for us.

We were mounted upon very small donkeys, as a measure

of safety; in time of peril we could straighten our legs

and stand up, and let the donkey walk from under.

Still, I cannot recommend this sort of animal--at least

for excursions of mere pleasure--because his ears interrupt

the view. I and my agent possessed the regulation

mountaineering costumes, but concluded to leave them behind.

Out of respect for the great numbers of tourists of both

sexes who would be assembled in front of the hotels

to see us pass, and also out of respect for the many

tourists whom we expected to encounter on our expedition,

we decided to make the ascent in evening dress.

We watered the caravan at the cold stream which rushes

down a trough near the end of the village, and soon

afterward left the haunts of civilization behind us.

About half past five o'clock we arrived at a bridge which

spans the Visp, and after throwing over a detachment to see

if it was safe, the caravan crossed without accident.

The way now led, by a gentle ascent, carpeted with

fresh green grass, to the church at Winkelmatten.

Without stopping to examine this edifice, I executed

a flank movement to the right and crossed the bridge

over the Findelenbach, after first testing its strength.

Here I deployed to the right again, and presently entered

an inviting stretch of meadowland which was unoccupied save

by a couple of deserted huts toward the furthest extremity.

These meadows offered an excellent camping-place. We

pitched our tents, supped, established a proper grade,

recorded the events of the day, and then went to bed.

We rose at two in the morning and dressed by candle-light. It

was a dismal and chilly business. A few stars were shining,

but the general heavens were overcast, and the great shaft

of the Matterhorn was draped in a cable pall of clouds.

The chief guide advised a delay; he said he feared it

was going to rain. We waited until nine o'clock, and then

got away in tolerably clear weather.

Our course led up some terrific steeps, densely wooded with

larches and cedars, and traversed by paths which the rains

had guttered and which were obstructed by loose stones.

To add to the danger and inconvenience, we were constantly

meeting returning tourists on foot and horseback,

and as constantly being crowded and battered by ascending

tourists who were in a hurry and wanted to get by.

Our troubles thickened. About the middle of the afternoon

the seventeen guides called a halt and held a consultation.

After consulting an hour they said their first suspicion

remained intact--that is to say, they believed they

were lost. I asked if they did not KNOW it? No, they said,

they COULDN'T absolutely know whether they were lost or not,

because none of them had ever been in that part of the

country before. They had a strong instinct that they

were lost, but they had no proofs--except that they

did not know where they were. They had met no tourists

for some time, and they considered that a suspicious sign.

Plainly we were in an ugly fix. The guides were naturally

unwilling to go alone and seek a way out of the difficulty;

so we all went together. For better security we moved

slow and cautiously, for the forest was very dense.

We did not move up the mountain, but around it, hoping to

strike across the old trail. Toward nightfall, when we

were about tired out, we came up against a rock as big

as a cottage. This barrier took all the remaining spirit

out of the men, and a panic of fear and despair ensued.

They moaned and wept, and said they should never see

their homes and their dear ones again. Then they began

to upbraid me for bringing them upon this fatal expedition.

Some even muttered threats against me.

Clearly it was no time to show weakness. So I made

a speech in which I said that other Alp-climbers had been

in as perilous a position as this, and yet by courage

and perseverance had escaped. I promised to stand by them,

I promised to rescue them. I closed by saying we had plenty

of provisions to maintain us for quite a siege--and did they

suppose Zermatt would allow half a mile of men and mules

to mysteriously disappear during any considerable time,

right above their noses, and make no inquiries? No,

Zermatt would send out searching-expeditions and we should be

saved.

This speech had a great effect. The men pitched the tents

with some little show of cheerfulness, and we were snugly

under cover when the night shut down. I now reaped

the reward of my wisdom in providing one article which is

not mentioned in any book of Alpine adventure but this.

I refer to the paregoric. But for that beneficent drug,

would have not one of those men slept a moment during that

fearful night. But for that gentle persuader they must

have tossed, unsoothed, the night through; for the whiskey

was for me. Yes, they would have risen in the morning

unfitted for their heavy task. As it was, everybody slept

but my agent and me--only we and the barkeepers.

I would not permit myself to sleep at such a time.

I considered myself responsible for all those lives.

I meant to be on hand and ready, in case of avalanches

up there, but I did not know it then.

We watched the weather all through that awful night,

and kept an eye on the barometer, to be prepared for

the least change. There was not the slightest change

recorded by the instrument, during the whole time.

Words cannot describe the comfort that that friendly,

hopeful, steadfast thing was to me in that season

of trouble. It was a defective barometer, and had no hand

but the stationary brass pointer, but I did not know that

until afterward. If I should be in such a situation again,

I should not wish for any barometer but that one.

All hands rose at two in the morning and took breakfast,

and as soon as it was light we roped ourselves together

and went at that rock. For some time we tried the hook-rope

and other means of scaling it, but without success--that is,

without perfect success. The hook caught once, and Harris

started up it hand over hand, but the hold broke and if

there had not happened to be a chaplain sitting underneath

at the time, Harris would certainly have been crippled.

As it was, it was the chaplain. He took to his crutches,

and I ordered the hook-rope to be laid aside.

It was too dangerous an implement where so many people

are standing around.

We were puzzled for a while; then somebody thought of

the ladders. One of these was leaned against the rock,

and the men went up it tied together in couples.

Another ladder was sent up for use in descending.

At the end of half an hour everybody was over, and that rock

was conquered. We gave our first grand shout of triumph.

But the joy was short-lived, for somebody asked how we were

going to get the animals over.

This was a serious difficulty; in fact, it was an impossibility.

The courage of the men began to waver immediately; once more

we were threatened with a panic. But when the danger

was most imminent, we were saved in a mysterious way.

A mule which had attracted attention from the beginning

by its disposition to experiment, tried to eat a five-pound

can of nitroglycerin. This happened right alongside

the rock. The explosion threw us all to the ground,

and covered us with dirt and debris; it frightened

us extremely, too, for the crash it made was deafening,

and the violence of the shock made the ground tremble.

However, we were grateful, for the rock was gone.

Its place was occupied by a new cellar, about thirty

feet across, by fifteen feet deep. The explosion was

heard as far as Zermatt; and an hour and a half afterward,

many citizens of that town were knocked down and quite

seriously injured by descending portions of mule meat,

frozen solid. This shows, better than any estimate

in figures, how high the experimenter went.

We had nothing to do, now, but bridge the cellar and proceed

on our way. With a cheer the men went at their work.

I attended to the engineering, myself. I appointed a strong

detail to cut down trees with ice-axes and trim them for

piers to support the bridge. This was a slow business,

for ice-axes are not good to cut wood with. I caused

my piers to be firmly set up in ranks in the cellar,

and upon them I laid six of my forty-foot ladders,

side by side, and laid six more on top of them.

Upon this bridge I caused a bed of boughs to be spread,

and on top of the boughs a bed of earth six inches deep.

I stretched ropes upon either side to serve as railings,

and then my bridge was complete. A train of elephants

could have crossed it in safety and comfort. By nightfall

the caravan was on the other side and the ladders were

taken up.

Next morning we went on in good spirits for a while,

though our way was slow and difficult, by reason of the

steep and rocky nature of the ground and the thickness

of the forest; but at last a dull despondency crept into

the men's faces and it was apparent that not only they,

but even the guides, were now convinced that we were lost.

The fact that we still met no tourists was a circumstance

that was but too significant. Another thing seemed to

suggest that we were not only lost, but very badly lost;

for there must surely be searching-parties on the road

before this time, yet we had seen no sign of them.

Demoralization was spreading; something must be done,

and done quickly, too. Fortunately, I am not unfertile

in expedients. I contrived one now which commended itself

to all, for it promised well. I took three-quarters

of a mile of rope and fastened one end of it around

the waist of a guide, and told him to go find the road,

while the caravan waited. I instructed him to guide himself

back by the rope, in case of failure; in case of success,

he was to give the rope a series of violent jerks,

whereupon the Expedition would go to him at once.

He departed, and in two minutes had disappeared among

the trees. I payed out the rope myself, while everybody

watched the crawling thing with eager eyes. The rope

crept away quite slowly, at times, at other times with

some briskness. Twice or thrice we seemed to get the signal,

and a shout was just ready to break from the men's lips

when they perceived it was a false alarm. But at last,

when over half a mile of rope had slidden away, it stopped

gliding and stood absolutely still--one minute--two

minutes--three--while we held our breath and watched.

Was the guide resting? Was he scanning the country from

some high point? Was he inquiring of a chance mountaineer?

Stop,--had he fainted from excess of fatigue and anxiety?

This thought gave us a shock. I was in the very first act

of detailing an Expedition to succor him, when the cord

was assailed with a series of such frantic jerks that I

could hardly keep hold of it. The huzza that went up,

then, was good to hear. "Saved! saved!" was the word

that rang out, all down the long rank of the caravan.

We rose up and started at once. We found the route to be

good enough for a while, but it began to grow difficult,

by and by, and this feature steadily increased. When we

judged we had gone half a mile, we momently expected

to see the guide; but no, he was not visible anywhere;

neither was he waiting, for the rope was still moving,

consequently he was doing the same. This argued that he

had not found the road, yet, but was marching to it

with some peasant. There was nothing for us to do but

plod along--and this we did. At the end of three hours

we were still plodding. This was not only mysterious,

but exasperating. And very fatiguing, too; for we had

tried hard, along at first, to catch up with the guide,

but had only fagged ourselves, in vain; for although he

was traveling slowly he was yet able to go faster than the

hampered caravan over such ground.

At three in the afternoon we were nearly dead with

exhaustion--and still the rope was slowly gliding out.

The murmurs against the guide had been growing steadily,

and at last they were become loud and savage.

A mutiny ensued. The men refused to proceed. They declared

that we had been traveling over and over the same ground

all day, in a kind of circle. They demanded that our

end of the rope be made fast to a tree, so as to halt

the guide until we could overtake him and kill him.

This was not an unreasonable requirement, so I gave the order.

As soon as the rope was tied, the Expedition moved

forward with that alacrity which the thirst for

vengeance usually inspires. But after a tiresome march

of almost half a mile, we came to a hill covered thick

with a crumbly rubbish of stones, and so steep that no

man of us all was now in a condition to climb it.

Every attempt failed, and ended in crippling somebody.

Within twenty minutes I had five men on crutches.

Whenever a climber tried to assist himself by the rope,

it yielded and let him tumble backward. The frequency

of this result suggested an idea to me. I ordered

the caravan to 'bout face and form in marching order;

I then made the tow-rope fast to the rear mule, and gave

the command:

"Mark time--by the right flank--forward--march!"

The procession began to move, to the impressive strains

of a battle-chant, and I said to myself, "Now, if the rope

don't break I judge THIS will fetch that guide into the camp."

I watched the rope gliding down the hill, and presently

when I was all fixed for triumph I was confronted

by a bitter disappointment; there was no guide tied

to the rope, it was only a very indignant old black ram.

The fury of the baffled Expedition exceeded all bounds.

They even wanted to wreak their unreasoning vengeance on this

innocent dumb brute. But I stood between them and their prey,

menaced by a bristling wall of ice-axes and alpenstocks,

and proclaimed that there was but one road to this murder,

and it was directly over my corpse. Even as I spoke I

saw that my doom was sealed, except a miracle supervened

to divert these madmen from their fell purpose. I see

the sickening wall of weapons now; I see that advancing

host as I saw it then, I see the hate in those cruel eyes;

I remember how I drooped my head upon my breast,

I feel again the sudden earthquake shock in my rear,

administered by the very ram I was sacrificing myself to save;

I hear once more the typhoon of laughter that burst from

the assaulting column as I clove it from van to rear

like a Sepoy shot from a Rodman gun.

I was saved. Yes, I was saved, and by the merciful instinct

of ingratitude which nature had planted in the breast

of that treacherous beast. The grace which eloquence

had failed to work in those men's hearts, had been wrought

by a laugh. The ram was set free and my life was spared.

We lived to find out that that guide had deserted us as soon

as he had placed a half-mile between himself and us.

To avert suspicion, he had judged it best that the line

should continue to move; so he caught that ram, and at

the time that he was sitting on it making the rope fast

to it, we were imagining that he was lying in a swoon,

overcome by fatigue and distress. When he allowed the ram

to get up it fell to plunging around, trying to rid itself

of the rope, and this was the signal which we had risen

up with glad shouts to obey. We had followed this ram

round and round in a circle all day--a thing which was

proven by the discovery that we had watered the Expedition

seven times at one and same spring in seven hours.

As expert a woodman as I am, I had somehow failed to notice

this until my attention was called to it by a hog.

This hog was always wallowing there, and as he was the

only hog we saw, his frequent repetition, together with

his unvarying similarity to himself, finally caused me

to reflect that he must be the same hog, and this led

me to the deduction that this must be the same spring,

also--which indeed it was.

I made a note of this curious thing, as showing

in a striking manner the relative difference between

glacial action and the action of the hog. It is now

a well-established fact that glaciers move; I consider

that my observations go to show, with equal conclusiveness,

that a hog in a spring does not move. I shall be glad

to receive the opinions of other observers upon this point.

To return, for an explanatory moment, to that guide,

and then I shall be done with him. After leaving the ram

tied to the rope, he had wandered at large a while,

and then happened to run across a cow. Judging that

a cow would naturally know more than a guide, he took

her by the tail, and the result justified his judgment.

She nibbled her leisurely way downhill till it was near

milking-time, then she struck for home and towed him

into Zermatt.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

[I Conquer the Gorner Grat]

We went into camp on that wild spot to which that ram

had brought us. The men were greatly fatigued.

Their conviction that we were lost was forgotten in the cheer

of a good supper, and before the reaction had a chance

to set in, I loaded them up with paregoric and put them to bed.

Next morning I was considering in my mind our desperate

situation and trying to think of a remedy, when Harris

came to me with a Baedeker map which showed conclusively

that the mountain we were on was still in Switzerland--yes,

every part of it was in Switzerland. So we were not lost,

after all. This was an immense relief; it lifted the weight

of two such mountains from my breast. I immediately

had the news disseminated and the map was exhibited.

The effect was wonderful. As soon as the men saw with

their own eyes that they knew where they were, and that it

was only the summit that was lost and not themselves,

they cheered up instantly and said with one accord,

let the summit take care of itself.

Our distresses being at an end, I now determined to rest

the men in camp and give the scientific department of the

Expedition a chance. First, I made a barometric observation,

to get our altitude, but I could not perceive that there

was any result. I knew, by my scientific reading,

that either thermometers or barometers ought to be boiled,

to make them accurate; I did not know which it was,

so I boiled them both. There was still no result;

so I examined these instruments and discovered that they

possessed radical blemishes: the barometer had no hand

but the brass pointer and the ball of the thermometer was

stuffed with tin-foil. I might have boiled those things

to rags, and never found out anything.

I hunted up another barometer; it was new and perfect.

I boiled it half an hour in a pot of bean soup which

the cooks were making. The result was unexpected: the

instrument was not affecting at all, but there was such

a strong barometer taste to the soup that the head cook,

who was a most conscientious person, changed its name

in the bill of fare. The dish was so greatly liked by all,

that I ordered the cook to have barometer soup every day.

It was believed that the barometer might eventually

be injured, but I did not care for that. I had demonstrated

to my satisfaction that it could not tell how high

a mountain was, therefore I had no real use for it.

Changes in the weather I could take care of without it;

I did not wish to know when the weather was going to be good,

what I wanted to know was when it was going to be bad,

and this I could find out from Harris's corns. Harris had

had his corns tested and regulated at the government

observatory in Heidelberg, and one could depend upon them

with confidence. So I transferred the new barometer to

the cooking department, to be used for the official mess.

It was found that even a pretty fair article of soup could

be made from the defective barometer; so I allowed that one

to be transferred to the subordinate mess.

I next boiled the thermometer, and got a most excellent result;

the mercury went up to about 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the opinion of the other scientists of the Expedition,

this seemed to indicate that we had attained the extraordinary

altitude of two hundred thousand feet above sea-level.

Science places the line of eternal snow at about ten thousand

feet above sea-level. There was no snow where we were,

consequently it was proven that the eternal snow-line

ceases somewhere above the ten-thousand-foot level and

does not begin any more. This was an interesting fact,

and one which had not been observed by any observer before.

It was as valuable as interesting, too, since it would open

up the deserted summits of the highest Alps to population

and agriculture. It was a proud thing to be where we were,

yet it caused us a pang to reflect that but for that ram we

might just as well been two hundred thousand feet higher.

The success of my last experiment induced me to try an

experiment with my photographic apparatus. I got it out,

and boiled one of my cameras, but the thing was a failure;

it made the wood swell up and burst, and I could not see

that the lenses were any better than they were before.

I now concluded to boil a guide. It might improve him,

it could not impair his usefulness. But I was not

allowed to proceed. Guides have no feeling for science,

and this one would not consent to be made uncomfortable

in its interest.

In the midst of my scientific work, one of those

needless accidents happened which are always occurring

among the ignorant and thoughtless. A porter shot

at a chamois and missed it and crippled the Latinist.

This was not a serious matter to me, for a Latinist's

duties are as well performed on crutches as otherwise

--but the fact remained that if the Latinist had not

happened to be in the way a mule would have got

that load. That would have been quite another matter,

for when it comes down to a question of value there is

a palpable difference between a Latinist and a mule.

I could not depend on having a Latinist in the right

place every time; so, to make things safe, I ordered

that in the future the chamois must not be hunted within

limits of the camp with any other weapon than the forefinger.

My nerves had hardly grown quiet after this affair when

they got another shake-up--one which utterly unmanned

me for a moment: a rumor swept suddenly through the camp

that one of the barkeepers had fallen over a precipice!

However, it turned out that it was only a chaplain.

I had laid in an extra force of chaplains, purposely to

be prepared for emergencies like this, but by some

unaccountable oversight had come away rather short-handed

in the matter of barkeepers.

On the following morning we moved on, well refreshed and in

good spirits. I remember this day with peculiar pleasure,

because it saw our road restored to us. Yes, we found

our road again, and in quite an extraordinary way.

We had plodded along some two hours and a half, when we came

up against a solid mass of rock about twenty feet high.

I did not need to be instructed by a mule this time.

I was already beginning to know more than any mule in

the Expedition. I at once put in a blast of dynamite,

and lifted that rock out of the way. But to my surprise

and mortification, I found that there had been a chalet

on top of it.

I picked up such members of the family as fell in my vicinity,

and subordinates of my corps collected the rest.

None of these poor people were injured, happily, but they

were much annoyed. I explained to the head chaleteer

just how the thing happened, and that I was only searching

for the road, and would certainly have given him timely

notice if I had known he was up there. I said I had

meant no harm, and hoped I had not lowered myself in

his estimation by raising him a few rods in the air.

I said many other judicious things, and finally when I

offered to rebuild his chalet, and pay for the breakages,

and throw in the cellar, he was mollified and satisfied.

He hadn't any cellar at all, before; he would not have

as good a view, now, as formerly, but what he had lost

in view he had gained in cellar, by exact measurement.

He said there wasn't another hole like that in the mountains

--and he would have been right if the late mule had not tried

to eat up the nitroglycerin.

I put a hundred and sixteen men at work, and they rebuilt

the chalet from its own debris in fifteen minutes.

It was a good deal more picturesque than it was before,

too. The man said we were now on the Feil-Stutz, above

the Schwegmatt--information which I was glad to get,

since it gave us our position to a degree of particularity

which we had not been accustomed to for a day or so.

We also learned that we were standing at the foot

of the Riffelberg proper, and that the initial chapter

of our work was completed.

We had a fine view, from here, of the energetic Visp,

as it makes its first plunge into the world from under a huge

arch of solid ice, worn through the foot-wall of the great

Gorner Glacier; and we could also see the Furggenbach,

which is the outlet of the Furggen Glacier.

The mule-road to the summit of the Riffelberg passed right

in front of the chalet, a circumstance which we almost

immediately noticed, because a procession of tourists was

filing along it pretty much all the time. [1] The chaleteer's

business consisted in furnishing refreshments to tourists.

My blast had interrupted this trade for a few minutes,

by breaking all the bottles on the place; but I gave

the man a lot of whiskey to sell for Alpine champagne,

and a lot of vinegar which would answer for Rhine wine,

consequently trade was soon as brisk as ever.

1. "Pretty much" may not be elegant English, but it is

high time it was. There is no elegant word or phrase

which means just what it means.--M.T.

Leaving the Expedition outside to rest, I quartered myself

in the chalet, with Harris, proposing to correct my journals

and scientific observations before continuing the ascent.

I had hardly begun my work when a tall, slender, vigorous

American youth of about twenty-three, who was on his

way down the mountain, entered and came toward me with

that breeze self-complacency which is the adolescent's

idea of the well-bred ease of the man of the world.

His hair was short and parted accurately in the middle,

and he had all the look of an American person who would

be likely to begin his signature with an initial,

and spell his middle name out. He introduced himself,

smiling a smirky smile borrowed from the courtiers

of the stage, extended a fair-skinned talon, and while

he gripped my hand in it he bent his body forward

three times at the hips, as the stage courtier does,

and said in the airiest and most condescending

and patronizing way--I quite remember his exact language:

"Very glad to make your acquaintance, 'm sure; very glad indeed,

assure you. I've read all your little efforts and greatly

admired them, and when I heard you were here, I ..."

I indicated a chair, and he sat down. This grandee was

the grandson of an American of considerable note in his day,

and not wholly forgotten yet--a man who came so near

being a great man that he was quite generally accounted

one while he lived.

I slowly paced the floor, pondering scientific problems,

and heard this conversation:

GRANDSON. First visit to Europe?

HARRIS. Mine? Yes.

G.S. (With a soft reminiscent sigh suggestive of bygone

joys that may be tasted in their freshness but once.)

Ah, I know what it is to you. A first visit!--ah,

the romance of it! I wish I could feel it again.

H. Yes, I find it exceeds all my dreams. It is enchantment.

I go...

G.S. (With a dainty gesture of the hand signifying "Spare

me your callow enthusiasms, good friend.") Yes, _I_ know,

I know; you go to cathedrals, and exclaim; and you drag

through league-long picture-galleries and exclaim; and you

stand here, and there, and yonder, upon historic ground,

and continue to exclaim; and you are permeated with

your first crude conceptions of Art, and are proud

and happy. Ah, yes, proud and happy--that expresses it.

Yes-yes, enjoy it--it is right--it is an innocent revel.

H. And you? Don't you do these things now?

G.S. I! Oh, that is VERY good! My dear sir, when you

are as old a traveler as I am, you will not ask such

a question as that. _I_ visit the regulation gallery,

moon around the regulation cathedral, do the worn round

of the regulation sights, YET?--Excuse me!

H. Well, what DO you do, then?

G.S. Do? I flit--and flit--for I am ever on the wing--but I

avoid the herd. Today I am in Paris, tomorrow in Berlin,

anon in Rome; but you would look for me in vain in the

galleries of the Louvre or the common resorts of the

gazers in those other capitals. If you would find me,

you must look in the unvisited nooks and corners where

others never think of going. One day you will find me

making myself at home in some obscure peasant's cabin,

another day you will find me in some forgotten castle

worshiping some little gem or art which the careless eye

has overlooked and which the unexperienced would despise;

again you will find me as guest in the inner sanctuaries

of palaces while the herd is content to get a hurried

glimpse of the unused chambers by feeing a servant.

H. You are a GUEST in such places?

G.S. And a welcoming one.

H. It is surprising. How does it come?

G.S. My grandfather's name is a passport to all the courts

in Europe. I have only to utter that name and every

door is open to me. I flit from court to court at my

own free will and pleasure, and am always welcome.

I am as much at home in the palaces of Europe as you are

among your relatives. I know every titled person in Europe,

I think. I have my pockets full of invitations all the time.

I am under promise to go to Italy, where I am to be the

guest of a succession of the noblest houses in the land.

In Berlin my life is a continued round of gaiety in the

imperial palace. It is the same, wherever I go.

H. It must be very pleasant. But it must make Boston

seem a little slow when you are at home.

G.S. Yes, of course it does. But I don't go home much.

There's no life there--little to feed a man's higher nature.

Boston's very narrow, you know. She doesn't know it, and you

couldn't convince her of it--so I say nothing when I'm

there: where's the use? Yes, Boston is very narrow, but she

has such a good opinion of herself that she can't see it.

A man who has traveled as much as I have, and seen as much

of the world, sees it plain enough, but he can't cure it,

you know, so the best is to leave it and seek a sphere

which is more in harmony with his tastes and culture.

I run across there, one a year, perhaps, when I have

nothing important on hand, but I'm very soon back again.

I spend my time in Europe.

H. I see. You map out your plans and ...

G.S. No, excuse me. I don't map out any plans. I simply

follow the inclination of the day. I am limited by no ties,

no requirements, I am not bound in any way. I am too old

a traveler to hamper myself with deliberate purposes.

I am simply a traveler--an inveterate traveler--a man of

the world, in a word--I can call myself by no other name.

I do not say, "I am going here, or I am going there"--I

say nothing at all, I only act. For instance, next week

you may find me the guest of a grandee of Spain, or you

may find me off for Venice, or flitting toward Dresden.

I shall probably go to Egypt presently; friends will say

to friends, "He is at the Nile cataracts"--and at that

very moment they will be surprised to learn that I'm away

off yonder in India somewhere. I am a constant surprise

to people. They are always saying, "Yes, he was in Jerusalem

when we heard of him last, but goodness knows where he

is now."

Presently the Grandson rose to leave--discovered he

had an appointment with some Emperor, perhaps. He did

his graces over again: gripped me with one talon,

at arm's-length, pressed his hat against his stomach

with the other, bent his body in the middle three times,

murmuring:

"Pleasure, 'm sure; great pleasure, 'm sure. Wish you

much success."

Then he removed his gracious presence. It is a great

and solemn thing to have a grandfather.

I have not purposed to misrepresent this boy in any way,

for what little indignation he excited in me soon

passed and left nothing behind it but compassion.

One cannot keep up a grudge against a vacuum.

I have tried to repeat this lad's very words;

if I have failed anywhere I have at least not failed

to reproduce the marrow and meaning of what he said.

He and the innocent chatterbox whom I met on the Swiss

lake are the most unique and interesting specimens of

Young America I came across during my foreign tramping.

I have made honest portraits of them, not caricatures.

The Grandson of twenty-three referred to himself five

or six times as an "old traveler," and as many as three

times (with a serene complacency which was maddening)

as a "man of the world." There was something very delicious

about his leaving Boston to her "narrowness," unreproved

and uninstructed.

I formed the caravan in marching order, presently,

and after riding down the line to see that it was

properly roped together, gave the command to proceed.

In a little while the road carried us to open, grassy land.

We were above the troublesome forest, now, and had an

uninterrupted view, straight before us, of our summit

--the summit of the Riffelberg.

We followed the mule-road, a zigzag course, now to the right,

now to the left, but always up, and always crowded and

incommoded by going and coming files of reckless tourists

who were never, in a single instance, tied together.

I was obliged to exert the utmost care and caution,

for in many places the road was not two yards wide,

and often the lower side of it sloped away in slanting

precipices eight and even nine feet deep. I had to

encourage the men constantly, to keep them from giving

way to their unmanly fears.

We might have made the summit before night, but for a

delay caused by the loss of an umbrella. I was allowing

the umbrella to remain lost, but the men murmured,

and with reason, for in this exposed region we stood

in peculiar need of protection against avalanches;

so I went into camp and detached a strong party to go

after the missing article.

The difficulties of the next morning were severe,

but our courage was high, for our goal was near.

At noon we conquered the last impediment--we stood

at last upon the summit, and without the loss of a

single man except the mule that ate the glycerin.

Our great achievement was achieved--the possibility of

the impossible was demonstrated, and Harris and I walked

proudly into the great dining-room of the Riffelberg

Hotel and stood our alpenstocks up in the corner.

Yes, I had made the grand ascent; but it was a mistake

to do it in evening dress. The plug hats were battered,

the swallow-tails were fluttering rags, mud added no grace,

the general effect was unpleasant and even disreputable.

There were about seventy-five tourists at the hotel

--mainly ladies and little children--and they gave us

an admiring welcome which paid us for all our privations

and sufferings. The ascent had been made, and the names

and dates now stand recorded on a stone monument there

to prove it to all future tourists.

I boiled a thermometer and took an altitude, with a most

curious result: THE SUMMIT WAS NOT AS HIGH AS THE POINT ON

THE MOUNTAINSIDE WHERE I HAD TAKEN THE FIRST ALTITUDE.

Suspecting that I had made an important discovery,

I prepared to verify it. There happened to be a still

higher summit (called the Gorner Grat), above the hotel,

and notwithstanding the fact that it overlooks a glacier

from a dizzy height, and that the ascent is difficult

and dangerous, I resolved to venture up there and boil

a thermometer. So I sent a strong party, with some

borrowed hoes, in charge of two chiefs of service, to dig

a stairway in the soil all the way up, and this I ascended,

roped to the guides. This breezy height was the summit

proper--so I accomplished even more than I had originally

purposed to do. This foolhardy exploit is recorded on

another stone monument.

I boiled my thermometer, and sure enough, this spot,

which purported to be two thousand feet higher than the

locality of the hotel, turned out to be nine thousand

feet LOWER. Thus the fact was clearly demonstrated that,

ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT, THE HIGHER A POINT SEEMS TO BE,

THE LOWER IT ACTUALLY IS. Our ascent itself was a

great achievement, but this contribution to science was

an inconceivably greater matter.

Cavilers object that water boils at a lower and lower

temperature the higher and higher you go, and hence the

apparent anomaly. I answer that I do not base my theory

upon what the boiling water does, but upon what a boiled

thermometer says. You can't go behind the thermometer.

I had a magnificent view of Monte Rosa, and apparently

all the rest of the Alpine world, from that high place.

All the circling horizon was piled high with a mighty

tumult of snowy crests. One might have imagined he

saw before him the tented camps of a beleaguering host

of Brobdingnagians.

But lonely, conspicuous, and superb, rose that wonderful

upright wedge, the Matterhorn. Its precipitous sides were

powdered over with snow, and the upper half hidden in thick

clouds which now and then dissolved to cobweb films and gave

brief glimpses of the imposing tower as through a veil.

[2] A little later the Matterhorn took to himself the

semblance of a volcano; he was stripped naked to his apex

--around this circled vast wreaths of white cloud which strung

slowly out and streamed away slantwise toward the sun,

a twenty-mile stretch of rolling and tumbling vapor,

and looking just as if it were pouring out of a crater.

Later again, one of the mountain's sides was clean and clear,

and another side densely clothed from base to summit in

thick smokelike cloud which feathered off and flew around

the shaft's sharp edge like the smoke around the corners of

a burning building. The Matterhorn is always experimenting,

and always gets up fine effects, too. In the sunset,

when all the lower world is palled in gloom, it points

toward heaven out of the pervading blackness like a finger

of fire. In the sunrise--well, they say it is very fine

in the sunrise.

2. NOTE.--I had the very unusual luck to catch one little

momentary glimpse of the Matterhorn wholly unencumbered

by clouds. I leveled my photographic apparatus at it

without the loss of an instant, and should have got

an elegant picture if my donkey had not interfered.

It was my purpose to draw this photograph all by myself

for my book, but was obliged to put the mountain part

of it into the hands of the professional artist because

I found I could not do landscape well.

Authorities agree that there is no such tremendous "layout"

of snowy Alpine magnitude, grandeur, and sublimity to be

seen from any other accessible point as the tourist may see

from the summit of the Riffelberg. Therefore, let the

tourist rope himself up and go there; for I have shown

that with nerve, caution, and judgment, the thing can be done.

I wish to add one remark, here--in parentheses, so to speak

--suggested by the word "snowy," which I have just used.

We have all seen hills and mountains and levels with snow

on them, and so we think we know all the aspects and

effects produced by snow. But indeed we do not until

we have seen the Alps. Possibly mass and distance add

something--at any rate, something IS added. Among other

noticeable things, there is a dazzling, intense whiteness

about the distant Alpine snow, when the sun is on it,

which one recognizes as peculiar, and not familiar to

the eye. The snow which one is accustomed to has a tint

to it--painters usually give it a bluish cast--but there

is no perceptible tint to the distant Alpine snow when it

is trying to look its whitest. As to the unimaginable

splendor of it when the sun is blazing down on it--well,

it simply IS unimaginable.

CHAPTER XXXIX

[We Travel by Glacier]

A guide-book is a queer thing. The reader has just seen

what a man who undertakes the great ascent from Zermatt

to the Riffelberg Hotel must experience. Yet Baedeker

makes these strange statements concerning this matter:

1. Distance--3 hours.

2. The road cannot be mistaken.

3. Guide unnecessary.

4. Distance from Riffelberg Hotel to the Gorner Grat,

one hour and a half.

5. Ascent simple and easy. Guide unnecessary.

6. Elevation of Zermatt above sea-level, 5,315 feet.

7. Elevation of Riffelberg Hotel above sea-level,

8,429 feet.

8. Elevation of the Gorner Grat above sea-level, 10,289 feet.

I have pretty effectually throttled these errors by sending

him the following demonstrated facts:

1. Distance from Zermatt to Riffelberg Hotel, 7 days.

2. The road CAN be mistaken. If I am the first that did it,

I want the credit of it, too.

3. Guides ARE necessary, for none but a native can read

those finger-boards.

4. The estimate of the elevation of the several localities

above sea-level is pretty correct--for Baedeker.

He only misses it about a hundred and eighty or ninety

thousand feet.

I found my arnica invaluable. My men were suffering

excruciatingly, from the friction of sitting down so much.

During two or three days, not one of them was able to do

more than lie down or walk about; yet so effective was

the arnica, that on the fourth all were able to sit up.

I consider that, more than to anything else, I owe the

success of our great undertaking to arnica and paregoric.

My men are being restored to health and strength,

my main perplexity, now, was how to get them down

the mountain again. I was not willing to expose the

brave fellows to the perils, fatigues, and hardships

of that fearful route again if it could be helped.

First I thought of balloons; but, of course, I had to

give that idea up, for balloons were not procurable.

I thought of several other expedients, but upon

consideration discarded them, for cause. But at last

I hit it. I was aware that the movement of glaciers

is an established fact, for I had read it in Baedeker;

so I resolved to take passage for Zermatt on the great

Gorner Glacier.

Very good. The next thing was, how to get down the

glacier comfortably--for the mule-road to it was long,

and winding, and wearisome. I set my mind at work,

and soon thought out a plan. One looks straight down

upon the vast frozen river called the Gorner Glacier,

from the Gorner Grat, a sheer precipice twelve hundred

feet high. We had one hundred and fifty-four umbrellas

--and what is an umbrella but a parachute?

I mentioned this noble idea to Harris, with enthusiasm,

and was about to order the Expedition to form on the

Gorner Grat, with their umbrellas, and prepare for

flight by platoons, each platoon in command of a guide,

when Harris stopped me and urged me not to be too hasty.

He asked me if this method of descending the Alps had

ever been tried before. I said no, I had not heard

of an instance. Then, in his opinion, it was a matter

of considerable gravity; in his opinion it would not be

well to send the whole command over the cliff at once;

a better way would be to send down a single individual,

first, and see how he fared.

I saw the wisdom in this idea instantly. I said as much,

and thanked my agent cordially, and told him to take

his umbrella and try the thing right away, and wave

his hat when he got down, if he struck in a soft place,

and then I would ship the rest right along.

Harris was greatly touched with this mark of confidence,

and said so, in a voice that had a perceptible tremble in it;

but at the same time he said he did not feel himself worthy

of so conspicuous a favor; that it might cause jealousy

in the command, for there were plenty who would not hesitate

to say he had used underhanded means to get the appointment,

whereas his conscience would bear him witness that he

had not sought it at all, nor even, in his secret heart,

desired it.

I said these words did him extreme credit, but that he must not

throw away the imperishable distinction of being the first man

to descend an Alp per parachute, simply to save the feelings

of some envious underlings. No, I said, he MUST accept

the appointment--it was no longer an invitation, it was a

command.

He thanked me with effusion, and said that putting

the thing in this form removed every objection.

He retired, and soon returned with his umbrella, his eye

flaming with gratitude and his cheeks pallid with joy.

Just then the head guide passed along. Harris's expression

changed to one of infinite tenderness, and he said:

"That man did me a cruel injury four days ago, and I

said in my heart he should live to perceive and confess

that the only noble revenge a man can take upon his enemy

is to return good for evil. I resign in his favor.

Appoint him."

I threw my arms around the generous fellow and said:

"Harris, you are the noblest soul that lives. You shall

not regret this sublime act, neither shall the world

fail to know of it. You shall have opportunity far

transcending this one, too, if I live--remember that."

I called the head guide to me and appointed him on

the spot. But the thing aroused no enthusiasm in him.

He did not take to the idea at all.

He said:

"Tie myself to an umbrella and jump over the Gorner

Grat! Excuse me, there are a great many pleasanter roads

to the devil than that."

Upon a discussion of the subject with him, it appeared that he

considered the project distinctly and decidedly dangerous.

I was not convinced, yet I was not willing to try the

experiment in any risky way--that is, in a way that might

cripple the strength and efficiency of the Expedition.

I was about at my wits' end when it occurred to me to try

it on the Latinist.

He was called in. But he declined, on the plea

of inexperience, diffidence in public, lack of curiosity,

and I didn't know what all. Another man declined

on account of a cold in the head; thought he ought

to avoid exposure. Another could not jump well--never

COULD jump well--did not believe he could jump so far

without long and patient practice. Another was afraid it

was going to rain, and his umbrella had a hole in it.

Everybody had an excuse. The result was what the reader

has by this time guessed: the most magnificent idea

that was ever conceived had to be abandoned, from sheer

lack of a person with enterprise enough to carry it out.

Yes, I actually had to give that thing up--while doubtless

I should live to see somebody use it and take all the credit from

me.

Well, I had to go overland--there was no other way.

I marched the Expedition down the steep and tedious mule-path

and took up as good a position as I could upon the middle

of the glacier--because Baedeker said the middle part

travels the fastest. As a measure of economy, however,

I put some of the heavier baggage on the shoreward parts,

to go as slow freight.

I waited and waited, but the glacier did not move.

Night was coming on, the darkness began to gather--still we

did not budge. It occurred to me then, that there might

be a time-table in Baedeker; it would be well to find out

the hours of starting. I called for the book--it could not

be found. Bradshaw would certainly contain a time-table;

but no Bradshaw could be found.

Very well, I must make the best of the situation. So I

pitched the tents, picketed the animals, milked the cows,

had supper, paregoricked the men, established the watch,

and went to bed--with orders to call me as soon as we came

in sight of Zermatt.

I awoke about half past ten next morning, and looked around.

We hadn't budged a peg! At first I could not understand it;

then it occurred to me that the old thing must be aground.

So I cut down some trees and rigged a spar on the starboard

and another on the port side, and fooled away upward of

three hours trying to spar her off. But it was no use.

She was half a mile wide and fifteen or twenty miles long,

and there was no telling just whereabouts she WAS aground.

The men began to show uneasiness, too, and presently they

came flying to me with ashy faces, saying she had sprung

a leak.

Nothing but my cool behavior at this critical time saved us

from another panic. I order them to show me the place.

They led me to a spot where a huge boulder lay in a deep

pool of clear and brilliant water. It did look like

a pretty bad leak, but I kept that to myself. I made

a pump and set the men to work to pump out the glacier.

We made a success of it. I perceived, then, that it was not

a leak at all. This boulder had descended from a precipice

and stopped on the ice in the middle of the glacier,

and the sun had warmed it up, every day, and consequently

it had melted its way deeper and deeper into the ice,

until at last it reposed, as we had found it, in a deep

pool of the clearest and coldest water.

Presently Baedeker was found again, and I hunted eagerly

for the time-table. There was none. The book simply said

the glacier was moving all the time. This was satisfactory,

so I shut up the book and chose a good position to view

the scenery as we passed along. I stood there some time

enjoying the trip, but at last it occurred to me that we did

not seem to be gaining any on the scenery. I said to myself,

"This confounded old thing's aground again, sure,"--and

opened Baedeker to see if I could run across any remedy

for these annoying interruptions. I soon found a sentence

which threw a dazzling light upon the matter. It said,

"The Gorner Glacier travels at an average rate of a little

less than an inch a day." I have seldom felt so outraged.

I have seldom had my confidence so wantonly betrayed.

I made a small calculation: One inch a day, say thirty

feet a year; estimated distance to Zermatt, three and

one-eighteenth miles. Time required to go by glacier,

A LITTLE OVER FIVE HUNDRED YEARS! I said to myself, "I can

WALK it quicker--and before I will patronize such a fraud

as this, I will do it."

When I revealed to Harris the fact that the passenger part

of this glacier--the central part--the lightning-express part,

so to speak--was not due in Zermatt till the summer

of 2378, and that the baggage, coming along the slow edge,

would not arrive until some generations later, he burst

out with:

"That is European management, all over! An inch a day--think

of that! Five hundred years to go a trifle over three miles!

But I am not a bit surprised. It's a Catholic glacier.

You can tell by the look of it. And the management."

I said, no, I believed nothing but the extreme end of it

was in a Catholic canton.

"Well, then, it's a government glacier," said Harris.

"It's all the same. Over here the government runs

everything--so everything's slow; slow, and ill-managed. But

with us, everything's done by private enterprise--and then

there ain't much lolling around, you can depend on it.

I wish Tom Scott could get his hands on this torpid old

slab once--you'd see it take a different gait from this."

I said I was sure he would increase the speed, if there

was trade enough to justify it.

"He'd MAKE trade," said Harris. "That's the difference

between governments and individuals. Governments don't care,

individuals do. Tom Scott would take all the trade;

in two years Gorner stock would go to two hundred,

and inside of two more you would see all the other glaciers

under the hammer for taxes." After a reflective pause,

Harris added, "A little less than an inch a day; a little

less than an INCH, mind you. Well, I'm losing my reverence

for glaciers."

I was feeling much the same way myself. I have traveled

by canal-boat, ox-wagon, raft, and by the Ephesus and

Smyrna railway; but when it comes down to good solid

honest slow motion, I bet my money on the glacier.

As a means of passenger transportation, I consider

the glacier a failure; but as a vehicle of slow freight,

I think she fills the bill. In the matter of putting

the fine shades on that line of business, I judge she

could teach the Germans something.

I ordered the men to break camp and prepare for the land

journey to Zermatt. At this moment a most interesting

find was made; a dark object, bedded in the glacial ice,

was cut out with the ice-axes, and it proved to be a piece

of the undressed skin of some animal--a hair trunk, perhaps;

but a close inspection disabled the hair-trunk theory,

and further discussion and examination exploded it

entirely--that is, in the opinion of all the scientists

except the one who had advanced it. This one clung

to his theory with affectionate fidelity characteristic

of originators of scientific theories, and afterward won

many of the first scientists of the age to his view,

by a very able pamphlet which he wrote, entitled, "Evidences

going to show that the hair trunk, in a wild state,

belonged to the early glacial period, and roamed the wastes

of chaos in the company with the cave-bear, primeval man,

and the other Ooelitics of the Old Silurian family."

Each of our scientists had a theory of his own, and put

forward an animal of his own as a candidate for the skin.

I sided with the geologist of the Expedition in the

belief that this patch of skin had once helped to cover

a Siberian elephant, in some old forgotten age--but we

divided there, the geologist believing that this discovery

proved that Siberia had formerly been located where

Switzerland is now, whereas I held the opinion that it

merely proved that the primeval Swiss was not the dull

savage he is represented to have been, but was a being

of high intellectual development, who liked to go to the

menagerie.

We arrived that evening, after many hardships and adventures,

in some fields close to the great ice-arch where the mad

Visp boils and surges out from under the foot of the

great Gorner Glacier, and here we camped, our perils over

and our magnificent undertaking successfully completed.

We marched into Zermatt the next day, and were received

with the most lavish honors and applause. A document,

signed and sealed by the authorities, was given to me

which established and endorsed the fact that I had made

the ascent of the Riffelberg. This I wear around my neck,

and it will be buried with me when I am no more.

CHAPTER XL

[Piteous Relics at Chamonix]

I am not so ignorant about glacial movement, now, as I

was when I took passage on the Gorner Glacier.

I have "read up" since. I am aware that these vast

bodies of ice do not travel at the same rate of speed;

while the Gorner Glacier makes less than an inch a day,

the Unter-Aar Glacier makes as much as eight; and still

other glaciers are said to go twelve, sixteen, and even

twenty inches a day. One writer says that the slowest

glacier travels twenty-give feet a year, and the fastest

four hundred.

What is a glacier? It is easy to say it looks like a

frozen river which occupies the bed of a winding gorge

or gully between mountains. But that gives no notion

of its vastness. For it is sometimes six hundred

feet thick, and we are not accustomed to rivers six hundred

feet deep; no, our rivers are six feet, twenty feet,

and sometimes fifty feet deep; we are not quite able

to grasp so large a fact as an ice-river six hundred feet deep.

The glacier's surface is not smooth and level, but has

deep swales and swelling elevations, and sometimes has

the look of a tossing sea whose turbulent billows were

frozen hard in the instant of their most violent motion;

the glacier's surface is not a flawless mass, but is a river

with cracks or crevices, some narrow, some gaping wide.

Many a man, the victim of a slip or a misstep, has plunged

down on of these and met his death. Men have been

fished out of them alive; but it was when they did not

go to a great depth; the cold of the great depths would

quickly stupefy a man, whether he was hurt or unhurt.

These cracks do not go straight down; one can seldom see

more than twenty to forty feet down them; consequently men

who have disappeared in them have been sought for,

in the hope that they had stopped within helping distance,

whereas their case, in most instances, had really been

hopeless from the beginning.

In 1864 a party of tourists was descending Mont Blanc,

and while picking their way over one of the mighty glaciers

of that lofty region, roped together, as was proper,

a young porter disengaged himself from the line and

started across an ice-bridge which spanned a crevice.

It broke under him with a crash, and he disappeared.

The others could not see how deep he had gone, so it might

be worthwhile to try and rescue him. A brave young guide

named Michel Payot volunteered.

Two ropes were made fast to his leather belt and he bore

the end of a third one in his hand to tie to the victim

in case he found him. He was lowered into the crevice,

he descended deeper and deeper between the clear blue

walls of solid ice, he approached a bend in the crack

and disappeared under it. Down, and still down, he went,

into this profound grave; when he had reached a depth

of eighty feet he passed under another bend in the crack,

and thence descended eighty feet lower, as between

perpendicular precipices. Arrived at this stage of one

hundred and sixty feet below the surface of the glacier,

he peered through the twilight dimness and perceived

that the chasm took another turn and stretched away at

a steep slant to unknown deeps, for its course was lost

in darkness. What a place that was to be in--especially

if that leather belt should break! The compression

of the belt threatened to suffocate the intrepid fellow;

he called to his friends to draw him up, but could not make

them hear. They still lowered him, deeper and deeper.

Then he jerked his third cord as vigorously as he could;

his friends understood, and dragged him out of those icy jaws

of death.

Then they attached a bottle to a cord and sent it down

two hundred feet, but it found no bottom. It came up

covered with congelations--evidence enough that even if

the poor porter reached the bottom with unbroken bones,

a swift death from cold was sure, anyway.

A glacier is a stupendous, ever-progressing, resistless plow.

It pushes ahead of its masses of boulders which are

packed together, and they stretch across the gorge,

right in front of it, like a long grave or a long,

sharp roof. This is called a moraine. It also shoves

out a moraine along each side of its course.

Imposing as the modern glaciers are, they are not so

huge as were some that once existed. For instance,

Mr. Whymper says:

"At some very remote period the Valley of Aosta was occupied

by a vast glacier, which flowed down its entire length from

Mont Blanc to the plain of Piedmont, remained stationary,

or nearly so, at its mouth for many centuries, and deposited

there enormous masses of debris. The length of this

glacier exceeded EIGHTY MILES, and it drained a basin

twenty-five to thirty-five miles across, bounded by the

highest mountains in the Alps. The great peaks rose

several thousand feet above the glaciers, and then, as now,

shattered by sun and frost, poured down their showers of

rocks and stones, in witness of which there are the immense

piles of angular fragments that constitute the moraines of Ivrea.

"The moraines around Ivrea are of extraordinary dimensions.

That which was on the left bank of the glacier is

about THIRTEEN MILES long, and in some places rises

to a height of TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FEET

above the floor of the valley! The terminal moraines

(those which are pushed in front of the glaciers)

cover something like twenty square miles of country.

At the mouth of the Valley of Aosta, the thickness of

the glacier must have been at least TWO THOUSAND feet,

and its width, at that part, FIVE MILES AND A QUARTER."

It is not easy to get at a comprehension of a mass of ice

like that. If one could cleave off the butt end of such

a glacier--an oblong block two or three miles wide

by five and a quarter long and two thousand feet thick

--he could completely hide the city of New York under it,

and Trinity steeple would only stick up into it relatively

as far as a shingle-nail would stick up into the bottom

of a Saratoga trunk.

"The boulders from Mont Blanc, upon the plain below Ivrea,

assure us that the glacier which transported them existed

for a prodigious length of time. Their present distance from

the cliffs from which they were derived is about 420,000 feet,

and if we assume that they traveled at the rate of 400 feet

per annum, their journey must have occupied them no less

than 1,055 years! In all probability they did not travel so

fast."

Glaciers are sometimes hurried out of their characteristic

snail-pace. A marvelous spectacle is presented then.

Mr. Whymper refers to a case which occurred in Iceland

in 1721:

"It seems that in the neighborhood of the mountain Kotlugja,

large bodies of water formed underneath, or within

the glaciers (either on account of the interior heat of

the earth, or from other causes), and at length acquired

irresistible power, tore the glaciers from their mooring on

the land, and swept them over every obstacle into the sea.

Prodigious masses of ice were thus borne for a distance

of about ten miles over land in the space of a few hours;

and their bulk was so enormous that they covered the sea

for seven miles from the shore, and remained aground

in six hundred feet of water! The denudation of the land

was upon a grand scale. All superficial accumulations were

swept away, and the bedrock was exposed. It was described,

in graphic language, how all irregularities and depressions

were obliterated, and a smooth surface of several miles'

area laid bare, and that this area had the appearance

of having been PLANED BY A PLANE."

The account translated from the Icelandic says that the

mountainlike ruins of this majestic glacier so covered

the sea that as far as the eye could reach no open water

was discoverable, even from the highest peaks. A monster

wall or barrier of ice was built across a considerable

stretch of land, too, by this strange irruption:

"One can form some idea of the altitude of this barrier

of ice when it is mentioned that from Hofdabrekka farm,

which lies high up on a fjeld, one could not see

Hjorleifshofdi opposite, which is a fell six hundred and

forty feet in height; but in order to do so had to clamber

up a mountain slope east of Hofdabrekka twelve hundred feet

high."

These things will help the reader to understand why it is

that a man who keeps company with glaciers comes to feel

tolerably insignificant by and by. The Alps and the glaciers

together are able to take every bit of conceit out of a man

and reduce his self-importance to zero if he will only

remain within the influence of their sublime presence long

enough to give it a fair and reasonable chance to do its work.

The Alpine glaciers move--that is granted, now, by everybody.

But there was a time when people scoffed at the idea;

they said you might as well expect leagues of solid rock

to crawl along the ground as expect leagues of ice to do it.

But proof after proof as furnished, and the finally the

world had to believe.

The wise men not only said the glacier moved, but they

timed its movement. They ciphered out a glacier's gait,

and then said confidently that it would travel just

so far in so many years. There is record of a striking

and curious example of the accuracy which may be attained

in these reckonings.

In 1820 the ascent of Mont Blanc was attempted by a Russian

and two Englishmen, with seven guides. They had reached

a prodigious altitude, and were approaching the summit,

when an avalanche swept several of the party down a

sharp slope of two hundred feet and hurled five of them

(all guides) into one of the crevices of a glacier.

The life of one of the five was saved by a long barometer

which was strapped to his back--it bridged the crevice

and suspended him until help came. The alpenstock

or baton of another saved its owner in a similar way.

Three men were lost--Pierre Balmat, Pierre Carrier,

and Auguste Tairraz. They had been hurled down into the

fathomless great deeps of the crevice.

Dr. Forbes, the English geologist, had made frequent visits

to the Mont Blanc region, and had given much attention

to the disputed question of the movement of glaciers.

During one of these visits he completed his estimates

of the rate of movement of the glacier which had swallowed

up the three guides, and uttered the prediction that the

glacier would deliver up its dead at the foot of the

mountain thirty-five years from the time of the accident,

or possibly forty.

A dull, slow journey--a movement imperceptible to any eye

--but it was proceeding, nevertheless, and without cessation.

It was a journey which a rolling stone would make in a

few seconds--the lofty point of departure was visible

from the village below in the valley.

The prediction cut curiously close to the truth;

forty-one years after the catastrophe, the remains

were cast forth at the foot of the glacier.

I find an interesting account of the matter in the

HISTOIRE DU MONT BLANC, by Stephen d'Arve. I will

condense this account, as follows:

On the 12th of August, 1861, at the hour of the close of mass,

a guide arrived out of breath at the mairie of Chamonix,

and bearing on his shoulders a very lugubrious burden.

It was a sack filled with human remains which he had gathered

from the orifice of a crevice in the Glacier des Bossons.

He conjectured that these were remains of the victims

of the catastrophe of 1820, and a minute inquest,

immediately instituted by the local authorities,

soon demonstrated the correctness of his supposition.

The contents of the sack were spread upon a long table,

and officially inventoried, as follows:

Portions of three human skulls. Several tufts of black and

blonde hair. A human jaw, furnished with fine white teeth.

A forearm and hand, all the fingers of the latter intact.

The flesh was white and fresh, and both the arm and hand

preserved a degree of flexibility in the articulations.

The ring-finger had suffered a slight abrasion, and the

stain of the blood was still visible and unchanged after

forty-one years. A left foot, the flesh white and fresh.

Along with these fragments were portions of waistcoats, hats,

hobnailed shoes, and other clothing; a wing of a pigeon,

with black feathers; a fragment of an alpenstock;

a tin lantern; and lastly, a boiled leg of mutton,

the only flesh among all the remains that exhaled an

unpleasant odor. The guide said that the mutton had no

odor when he took it from the glacier; an hour's exposure

to the sun had already begun the work of decomposition upon it.

Persons were called for, to identify these poor pathetic relics,

and a touching scene ensured. Two men were still living

who had witnessed the grim catastrophe of nearly half

a century before--Marie Couttet (saved by his baton)

and Julien Davouassoux (saved by the barometer). These aged

men entered and approached the table. Davouassoux, more than

eighty years old, contemplated the mournful remains mutely

and with a vacant eye, for his intelligence and his memory

were torpid with age; but Couttet's faculties were still

perfect at seventy-two, and he exhibited strong emotion. He

said:

"Pierre Balmat was fair; he wore a straw hat. This bit of skull,

with the tuft of blond hair, was his; this is his hat.

Pierre Carrier was very dark; this skull was his, and this

felt hat. This is Balmat's hand, I remember it so well!"

and the old man bent down and kissed it reverently,

then closed his fingers upon it in an affectionate grasp,

crying out, "I could never have dared to believe that

before quitting this world it would be granted me to

press once more the hand of one of those brave comrades,

the hand of my good friend Balmat."

There is something weirdly pathetic about the picture

of that white-haired veteran greeting with his loving

handshake this friend who had been dead forty years.

When these hands had met last, they were alike in the

softness and freshness of youth; now, one was brown and

wrinkled and horny with age, while the other was still

as young and fair and blemishless as if those forty years

had come and gone in a single moment, leaving no mark

of their passage. Time had gone on, in the one case;

it had stood still in the other. A man who has not seen

a friend for a generation, keeps him in mind always as he

saw him last, and is somehow surprised, and is also shocked,

to see the aging change the years have wrought when he

sees him again. Marie Couttet's experience, in finding

his friend's hand unaltered from the image of it which he

had carried in his memory for forty years, is an experience

which stands alone in the history of man, perhaps.

Couttet identified other relics:

"This hat belonged to Auguste Tairraz. He carried

the cage of pigeons which we proposed to set free upon

the summit. Here is the wing of one of those pigeons.

And here is the fragment of my broken baton; it was by

grace of that baton that my life was saved. Who could

have told me that I should one day have the satisfaction

to look again upon this bit of wood that supported me above

the grave that swallowed up my unfortunate companions!"

No portions of the body of Tairraz, other than a piece

of the skull, had been found. A diligent search was made,

but without result. However, another search was

instituted a year later, and this had better success.

Many fragments of clothing which had belonged to the lost

guides were discovered; also, part of a lantern, and a

green veil with blood-stains on it. But the interesting

feature was this:

One of the searchers came suddenly upon a sleeved arm

projecting from a crevice in the ice-wall, with the hand

outstretched as if offering greeting! "The nails of this white

hand were still rosy, and the pose of the extended fingers

seemed to express an eloquent welcome to the long-lost light of

day."

The hand and arm were alone; there was no trunk.

After being removed from the ice the flesh-tints quickly

faded out and the rosy nails took on the alabaster

hue of death. This was the third RIGHT hand found;

therefore, all three of the lost men were accounted for,

beyond cavil or question.

Dr. Hamel was the Russian gentleman of the party which

made the ascent at the time of the famous disaster.

He left Chamonix as soon as he conveniently could after

the descent; and as he had shown a chilly indifference

about the calamity, and offered neither sympathy nor

assistance to the widows and orphans, he carried with

him the cordial execrations of the whole community.

Four months before the first remains were found,

a Chamonix guide named Balmat--a relative of one of

the lost men--was in London, and one day encountered

a hale old gentleman in the British Museum, who said:

"I overheard your name. Are you from Chamonix,

Monsieur Balmat?"

"Yes, sir."

"Haven't they found the bodies of my three guides,

yet? I am Dr. Hamel."

"Alas, no, monsieur."

"Well, you'll find them, sooner or later."

"Yes, it is the opinion of Dr. Forbes and Mr. Tyndall,

that the glacier will sooner or later restore to us the

remains of the unfortunate victims."

"Without a doubt, without a doubt. And it will be a great

thing for Chamonix, in the matter of attracting tourists.

You can get up a museum with those remains that will draw!"

This savage idea has not improved the odor of Dr. Hamel's

name in Chamonix by any means. But after all, the man

was sound on human nature. His idea was conveyed

to the public officials of Chamonix, and they gravely

discussed it around the official council-table. They

were only prevented from carrying it into execution by

the determined opposition of the friends and descendants

of the lost guides, who insisted on giving the remains

Christian burial, and succeeded in their purpose.

A close watch had to be kept upon all the poor remnants

and fragments, to prevent embezzlement. A few accessory

odds and ends were sold. Rags and scraps of the coarse

clothing were parted with at the rate equal to about

twenty dollars a yard; a piece of a lantern and one or

two other trifles brought nearly their weight in gold;

and an Englishman offered a pound sterling for a single

breeches-button.

CHAPTER XLI

[The Fearful Disaster of 1865]

One of the most memorable of all the Alpine catastrophes

was that of July, 1865, on the Matterhorn--already

sighted referred to, a few pages back. The details

of it are scarcely known in America. To the vast

majority of readers they are not known at all.

Mr. Whymper's account is the only authentic one.

I will import the chief portion of it into this book,

partly because of its intrinsic interest, and partly

because it gives such a vivid idea of what the perilous

pastime of Alp-climbing is. This was Mr. Whymper's

NINTH attempt during a series of years, to vanquish

that steep and stubborn pillar or rock; it succeeded,

the other eight were failures. No man had ever accomplished

the ascent before, though the attempts had been numerous.

MR. WHYMPER'S NARRATIVE

We started from Zermatt on the 13th of July, at half

past five, on a brilliant and perfectly cloudless morning.

We were eight in number--Croz (guide), old Peter

Taugwalder (guide) and his two sons; Lord F. Douglas,

Mr. Hadow, Rev. Mr. Hudson, and I. To insure steady

motion, one tourist and one native walked together.

The youngest Taugwalder fell to my share. The wine-bags

also fell to my lot to carry, and throughout the day,

after each drink, I replenished them secretly with water,

so that at the next halt they were found fuller than

before! This was considered a good omen, and little short

of miraculous.

On the first day we did not intend to ascend to any

great height, and we mounted, accordingly, very leisurely.

Before twelve o'clock we had found a good position

for the tent, at a height of eleven thousand feet.

We passed the remaining hours of daylight--some basking

in the sunshine, some sketching, some collecting;

Hudson made tea, I coffee, and at length we retired,

each one to his blanket bag.

We assembled together before dawn on the 14th

and started directly it was light enough to move.

One of the young Taugwalders returned to Zermatt.

In a few minutes we turned the rib which had intercepted

the view of the eastern face from our tent platform.

The whole of this great slope was now revealed, rising for

three thousand feet like a huge natural staircase.

Some parts were more, and others were less easy, but we

were not once brought to a halt by any serious impediment,

for when an obstruction was met in front it could always

be turned to the right or to the left. For the greater part

of the way there was no occasion, indeed, for the rope,

and sometimes Hudson led, sometimes myself. At six-twenty we

had attained a height of twelve thousand eight hundred feet,

and halted for half an hour; we then continued the ascent

without a break until nine-fifty-five, when we stopped

for fifty minutes, at a height of fourteen thousand feet.

We had now arrived at the foot of that part which, seen from

the Riffelberg, seems perpendicular or overhanging.

We could no longer continue on the eastern side. For a little

distance we ascended by snow upon the ARE^TE--that is,

the ridge--then turned over to the right, or northern side.

The work became difficult, and required caution. In some places

there was little to hold; the general slope of the mountain

was LESS than forty degrees, and snow had accumulated in,

and had filled up, the interstices of the rock-face, leaving

only occasional fragments projecting here and there.

These were at times covered with a thin film of ice.

It was a place which any fair mountaineer might pass

in safety. We bore away nearly horizontally for about four

hundred feet, then ascended directly toward the summit

for about sixty feet, then doubled back to the ridge

which descends toward Zermatt. A long stride round

a rather awkward corner brought us to snow once more.

That last doubt vanished! The Matterhorn was ours! Nothing

but two hundred feet of easy snow remained to be surmounted.

The higher we rose, the more intense became the excitement.

The slope eased off, at length we could be detached,

and Croz and I, dashed away, ran a neck-and-neck race,

which ended in a dead heat. At 1:40 P.M., the world was at

our feet, and the Matterhorn was conquered!

The others arrived. Croz now took the tent-pole, and

planted it in the highest snow. "Yes," we said, "there is

the flag-staff, but where is the flag?" "Here it is,"

he answered, pulling off his blouse and fixing it to the stick.

It made a poor flag, and there was no wind to float it out,

yet it was seen all around. They saw it at Zermatt--at

the Riffel--in the Val Tournanche... .

We remained on the summit for one hour--

One crowded hour of glorious life.

It passed away too quickly, and we began to prepare

for the descent.

Hudson and I consulted as to the best and safest arrangement

of the party. We agreed that it was best for Croz

to go first, and Hadow second; Hudson, who was almost

equal to a guide in sureness of foot, wished to be third;

Lord Douglas was placed next, and old Peter, the strongest

of the remainder, after him. I suggested to Hudson

that we should attach a rope to the rocks on our arrival

at the difficult bit, and hold it as we descended,

as an additional protection. He approved the idea,

but it was not definitely decided that it should be done.

The party was being arranged in the above order while I

was sketching the summit, and they had finished,

and were waiting for me to be tied in line, when some one

remembered that our names had not been left in a bottle.

They requested me to write them down, and moved off

while it was being done.

A few minutes afterward I tied myself to young Peter,

ran down after the others, and caught them just as they

were commencing the descent of the difficult part.

Great care was being taken. Only one man was moving at a time;

when he was firmly planted the next advanced, and so on.

They had not, however, attached the additional rope

to rocks, and nothing was said about it. The suggestion

was not made for my own sake, and I am not sure that it

ever occurred to me again. For some little distance we

two followed the others, detached from them, and should

have continued so had not Lord Douglas asked me, about 3

P.M., to tie on to old Peter, as he feared, he said,

that Taugwalder would not be able to hold his ground if a

slip occurred.

A few minutes later, a sharp-eyed lad ran into the Monte

Rosa Hotel, at Zermatt, saying that he had seen an avalanche

fall from the summit of the Matterhorn onto the Matterhorn

glacier. The boy was reproved for telling idle stories;

he was right, nevertheless, and this was what he saw.

Michel Croz had laid aside his ax, and in order to give

Mr. Hadow greater security, was absolutely taking

hold of his legs, and putting his feet, one by one,

into their proper positions. As far as I know, no one

was actually descending. I cannot speak with certainty,

because the two leading men were partially hidden

from my sight by an intervening mass of rock, but it

is my belief, from the movements of their shoulders,

that Croz, having done as I said, was in the act

of turning round to go down a step or two himself;

at this moment Mr. Hadow slipped, fell against him,

and knocked him over. I heard one startled exclamation

from Croz, then saw him and Mr. Hadow flying downward;

in another moment Hudson was dragged from his steps,

and Lord Douglas immediately after him. All this was the

work of a moment. Immediately we heard Croz's exclamation,

old Peter and I planted ourselves as firmly as the rocks

would permit; the rope was taut between us, and the jerk

came on us both as on one man. We held; but the rope

broke midway between Taugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas.

For a few seconds we saw our unfortunate companions sliding

downward on their backs, and spreading out their hands,

endeavoring to save themselves. They passed from our

sight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell from the

precipice to precipice onto the Matterhorn glacier below,

a distance of nearly four thousand feet in height.

From the moment the rope broke it was impossible to help them.

So perished our comrades!

For more than two hours afterward I thought almost every

moment that the next would be my last; for the Taugwalders,

utterly unnerved, were not only incapable of giving assistance,

but were in such a state that a slip might have been

expected from them at any moment. After a time we were able

to do that which should have been done at first, and fixed

rope to firm rocks, in addition to being tied together.

These ropes were cut from time to time, and were left behind.

Even with their assurance the men were afraid to proceed,

and several times old Peter turned, with ashy face

and faltering limbs, and said, with terrible emphasis,

"I CANNOT!"

About 6 P.M., we arrived at the snow upon the ridge

descending toward Zermatt, and all peril was over.

We frequently looked, but in vain, for traces of our

unfortunate companions; we bent over the ridge and cried

to them, but no sound returned. Convinced at last that

they were neither within sight nor hearing, we ceased

from our useless efforts; and, too cast down for speech,

silently gathered up our things, and the little effects

of those who were lost, and then completed the descent.

----------

Such is Mr. Whymper's graphic and thrilling narrative.

Zermatt gossip darkly hints that the elder Taugwalder

cut the rope, when the accident occurred, in order

to preserve himself from being dragged into the abyss;

but Mr. Whymper says that the ends of the rope showed

no evidence of cutting, but only of breaking. He adds

that if Taugwalder had had the disposition to cut the rope,

he would not have had time to do it, the accident was so

sudden and unexpected.

Lord Douglas' body has never been found. It probably

lodged upon some inaccessible shelf in the face of the

mighty precipice. Lord Douglas was a youth of nineteen.

The three other victims fell nearly four thousand feet,

and their bodies lay together upon the glacier when found

by Mr. Whymper and the other searchers the next morning.

Their graves are beside the little church in Zermatt.

CHAPTER XLII

[Chillon has a Nice, Roomy Dungeon]

Switzerland is simply a large, humpy, solid rock,

with a thin skin of grass stretched over it. Consequently,

they do not dig graves, they blast them out with power

and fuse. They cannot afford to have large graveyards,

the grass skin is too circumscribed and too valuable.

It is all required for the support of the living.

The graveyard in Zermatt occupies only about one-eighth

of an acre. The graves are sunk in the living rock, and are

very permanent; but occupation of them is only temporary;

the occupant can only stay till his grave is needed

by a later subject, he is removed, then, for they do not

bury one body on top of another. As I understand it,

a family owns a grave, just as it owns a house. A man dies

and leaves his house to his son--and at the same time,

this dead father succeeds to his own father's grave.

He moves out of the house and into the grave, and his

predecessor moves out of the grave and into the cellar

of the chapel. I saw a black box lying in the churchyard,

with skull and cross-bones painted on it, and was told that

this was used in transferring remains to the cellar.

In that cellar the bones and skulls of several hundred of

former citizens were compactly corded up. They made a pile

eighteen feet long, seven feet high, and eight feet wide.

I was told that in some of the receptacles of this kind

in the Swiss villages, the skulls were all marked,

and if a man wished to find the skulls of his ancestors

for several generations back, he could do it by these marks,

preserved in the family records.

An English gentleman who had lived some years in this region,

said it was the cradle of compulsory education.

But he said that the English idea that compulsory

education would reduce bastardy and intemperance was an

error--it has not that effect. He said there was more

seduction in the Protestant than in the Catholic cantons,

because the confessional protected the girls. I wonder

why it doesn't protect married women in France and Spain?

This gentleman said that among the poorer peasants in the Valais,

it was common for the brothers in a family to cast lots

to determine which of them should have the coveted privilege

of marrying, and his brethren--doomed bachelors--heroically

banded themselves together to help support the new family.

We left Zermatt in a wagon--and in a rain-storm, too

--for St. Nicholas about ten o'clock one morning.

Again we passed between those grass-clad prodigious cliffs,

specked with wee dwellings peeping over at us from

velvety green walls ten and twelve hundred feet high.

It did not seem possible that the imaginary chamois

even could climb those precipices. Lovers on opposite

cliffs probably kiss through a spy-glass, and correspond

with a rifle.

In Switzerland the farmer's plow is a wide shovel,

which scrapes up and turns over the thin earthy skin of his

native rock--and there the man of the plow is a hero.

Now here, by our St. Nicholas road, was a grave, and it

had a tragic story. A plowman was skinning his farm

one morning--not the steepest part of it, but still

a steep part--that is, he was not skinning the front

of his farm, but the roof of it, near the eaves--when he

absent-mindedly let go of the plow-handles to moisten

his hands, in the usual way; he lost his balance and fell

out of his farm backward; poor fellow, he never touched

anything till he struck bottom, fifteen hundred feet below.

[1] We throw a halo of heroism around the life of the

soldier and the sailor, because of the deadly dangers they

are facing all the time. But we are not used to looking

upon farming as a heroic occupation. This is because we

have not lived in Switzerland.

1. This was on a Sunday.--M.T.

From St. Nicholas we struck out for Visp--or Vispach--on foot.

The rain-storms had been at work during several days,

and had done a deal of damage in Switzerland and Savoy.

We came to one place where a stream had changed its

course and plunged down a mountain in a new place,

sweeping everything before it. Two poor but precious farms

by the roadside were ruined. One was washed clear away,

and the bed-rock exposed; the other was buried out of sight

under a tumbled chaos of rocks, gravel, mud, and rubbish.

The resistless might of water was well exemplified.

Some saplings which had stood in the way were bent to the ground,

stripped clean of their bark, and buried under rocky debris.

The road had been swept away, too.

In another place, where the road was high up on the mountain's

face, and its outside edge protected by flimsy masonry,

we frequently came across spots where this masonry had

carved off and left dangerous gaps for mules to get over;

and with still more frequency we found the masonry

slightly crumbled, and marked by mule-hoofs, thus showing

that there had been danger of an accident to somebody.

When at last we came to a badly ruptured bit of masonry,

with hoof-prints evidencing a desperate struggle

to regain the lost foothold, I looked quite hopefully

over the dizzy precipice. But there was nobody down there.

They take exceedingly good care of their rivers in Switzerland

and other portions of Europe. They wall up both banks

with slanting solid stone masonry--so that from end

to end of these rivers the banks look like the wharves

at St. Louis and other towns on the Mississippi River.

It was during this walk from St. Nicholas, in the shadow

of the majestic Alps, that we came across some little

children amusing themselves in what seemed, at first,

a most odd and original way--but it wasn't; it was in

simply a natural and characteristic way. They were roped

together with a string, they had mimic alpenstocks and

ice-axes, and were climbing a meek and lowly manure-pile

with a most blood-curdling amount of care and caution.

The "guide" at the head of the line cut imaginary steps,

in a laborious and painstaking way, and not a monkey

budged till the step above was vacated. If we had waited

we should have witnessed an imaginary accident, no doubt;

and we should have heard the intrepid band hurrah when they

made the summit and looked around upon the "magnificent view,"

and seen them throw themselves down in exhausted attitudes

for a rest in that commanding situation.

In Nevada I used to see the children play at silver-mining.

Of course, the great thing was an accident in a mine,

and there were two "star" parts; that of the man

who fell down the mimic shaft, and that of the daring

hero who was lowered into the depths to bring him up.

I knew one small chap who always insisted on playing

BOTH of these parts--and he carried his point.

He would tumble into the shaft and die, and then come

to the surface and go back after his own remains.

It is the smartest boy that gets the hero part everywhere;

he is head guide in Switzerland, head miner in Nevada,

head bull-fighter in Spain, etc.; but I knew a preacher's son,

seven years old, who once selected a part for himself compared

to which those just mentioned are tame and unimpressive.

Jimmy's father stopped him from driving imaginary

horse-cars one Sunday--stopped him from playing captain

of an imaginary steamboat next Sunday--stopped him

from leading an imaginary army to battle the following

Sunday--and so on. Finally the little fellow said:

"I've tried everything, and they won't any of them do.

What CAN I play?"

"I hardly know, Jimmy; but you MUST play only things

that are suitable to the Sabbath-day."

Next Sunday the preacher stepped softly to a back-room

door to see if the children were rightly employed.

He peeped in. A chair occupied the middle of the room,

and on the back of it hung Jimmy's cap; one of his little

sisters took the cap down, nibbled at it, then passed it

to another small sister and said, "Eat of this fruit,

for it is good." The Reverend took in the situation--alas,

they were playing the Expulsion from Eden! Yet he found

one little crumb of comfort. He said to himself, "For once

Jimmy has yielded the chief role--I have been wronging him,

I did not believe there was so much modesty in him;

I should have expected him to be either Adam or Eve."

This crumb of comfort lasted but a very little while;

he glanced around and discovered Jimmy standing in an

imposing attitude in a corner, with a dark and deadly frown

on his face. What that meant was very plain--HE WAS

IMPERSONATING THE DEITY! Think of the guileless sublimity of

that idea.

We reached Vispach at 8 P.M., only about seven hours

out from St. Nicholas. So we must have made fully

a mile and a half an hour, and it was all downhill,

too, and very muddy at that. We stayed all night at

the Ho^tel de Soleil; I remember it because the landlady,

the portier, the waitress, and the chambermaid were not

separate persons, but were all contained in one neat and

chipper suit of spotless muslin, and she was the prettiest

young creature I saw in all that region. She was the

landlord's daughter. And I remember that the only native

match to her I saw in all Europe was the young daughter

of the landlord of a village inn in the Black Forest.

Why don't more people in Europe marry and keep hotel?

Next morning we left with a family of English friends

and went by train to Brevet, and thence by boat across

the lake to Ouchy (Lausanne).

Ouchy is memorable to me, not on account of its beautiful

situation and lovely surroundings--although these would

make it stick long in one's memory--but as the place

where _I_ caught the London TIMES dropping into humor.

It was NOT aware of it, though. It did not do it on purpose.

An English friend called my attention to this lapse,

and cut out the reprehensible paragraph for me. Think of

encountering a grin like this on the face of that grim

journal:

ERRATUM.--We are requested by Reuter's Telegram Company

to correct an erroneous announcement made in their Brisbane

telegram of the 2d inst., published in our impression of the 5th

inst., stating that "Lady Kennedy had given birth to twins,

the eldest being a son." The Company explain that the message

they received contained the words "Governor of Queensland,

TWINS FIRST SON." Being, however, subsequently informed

that Sir Arthur Kennedy was unmarried and that there

must be some mistake, a telegraphic repetition was at

once demanded. It has been received today (11th inst.)

and shows that the words really telegraphed by Reuter's

agent were "Governor Queensland TURNS FIRST SOD,"

alluding to the Maryborough-Gympic Railway in course

of construction. The words in italics were mutilated by

the telegraph in transmission from Australia, and reaching

the company in the form mentioned above gave rise to the mistake.

I had always had a deep and reverent compassion

for the sufferings of the "prisoner of Chillon,"

whose story Byron had told in such moving verse; so I took

the steamer and made pilgrimage to the dungeons of the

Castle of Chillon, to see the place where poor Bonnivard

endured his dreary captivity three hundred years ago.

I am glad I did that, for it took away some of the pain

I was feeling on the prisoner's account. His dungeon

was a nice, cool, roomy place, and I cannot see why he

should have been dissatisfied with it. If he had been

imprisoned in a St. Nicholas private dwelling, where the

fertilizer prevails, and the goat sleeps with the guest,

and the chickens roost on him and the cow comes in and

bothers him when he wants to muse, it would have been

another matter altogether; but he surely could not have

had a very cheerless time of it in that pretty dungeon.

It has romantic window-slits that let in generous bars

of light, and it has tall, noble columns, carved apparently

from the living rock; and what is more, they are written

all over with thousands of names; some of them--like

Byron's and Victor Hugo's--of the first celebrity.

Why didn't he amuse himself reading these names? Then

there are the couriers and tourists--swarms of them every

day--what was to hinder him from having a good time

with them? I think Bonnivard's sufferings have been overrated.

Next, we took the train and went to Martigny, on the way

to Mont Blanc. Next morning we started, about eight

o'clock, on foot. We had plenty of company, in the way

of wagon-loads and mule-loads of tourists--and dust.

This scattering procession of travelers was perhaps a

mile long. The road was uphill--interminable uphill--and

tolerably steep. The weather was blisteringly hot,

and the man or woman who had to sit on a creeping mule,

or in a crawling wagon, and broil in the beating sun,

was an object to be pitied. We could dodge among the bushes,

and have the relief of shade, but those people could not.

They paid for a conveyance, and to get their money's worth

they rode.

We went by the way of the Te^te Noir, and after we

reached high ground there was no lack of fine scenery.

In one place the road was tunneled through a shoulder

of the mountain; from there one looked down into a gorge

with a rushing torrent in it, and on every hand was a

charming view of rocky buttresses and wooded heights.

There was a liberal allowance of pretty waterfalls, too,

on the Te^te Noir route.

About half an hour before we reached the village of

Argentie`re a vast dome of snow with the sun blazing on it

drifted into view and framed itself in a strong V-shaped

gateway of the mountains, and we recognized Mont Blanc,

the "monarch of the Alps." With every step, after that,

this stately dome rose higher and higher into the blue sky,

and at last seemed to occupy the zenith.

Some of Mont Blanc's neighbors--bare, light-brown, steeplelike

rocks--were very peculiarly shaped. Some were whittled

to a sharp point, and slightly bent at the upper end,

like a lady's finger; one monster sugar-loaf resembled

a bishop's hat; it was too steep to hold snow on its sides,

but had some in the division.

While we were still on very high ground, and before

the descent toward Argentie`re began, we looked up

toward a neighboring mountain-top, and saw exquisite

prismatic colors playing about some white clouds which

were so delicate as to almost resemble gossamer webs.

The faint pinks and greens were peculiarly beautiful;

none of the colors were deep, they were the lightest shades.

They were bewitching commingled. We sat down to study and

enjoy this singular spectacle. The tints remained during

several minutes--fitting, changing, melting into each other;

paling almost away for a moment, then reflushing--a shifting,

restless, unstable succession of soft opaline gleams,

shimmering over that air film of white cloud, and turning

it into a fabric dainty enough to clothe an angel with.

By and by we perceived what those super-delicate colors,

and their continuous play and movement, reminded us of;

it is what one sees in a soap-bubble that is drifting along,

catching changes of tint from the objects it passes.

A soap-bubble is the most beautiful thing, and the

most exquisite, in nature; that lovely phantom fabric

in the sky was suggestive of a soap-bubble split open,

and spread out in the sun. I wonder how much it would take

to buy a soap-bubble, if there was only one in the world?

One could buy a hatful of Koh-i-Noors with the same money,

no doubt.

We made the tramp from Martigny to Argentie`re in eight hours.

We beat all the mules and wagons; we didn't usually do that.

We hired a sort of open baggage-wagon for the trip down

the valley to Chamonix, and then devoted an hour to dining.

This gave the driver time to get drunk. He had a friend

with him, and this friend also had had time to get drunk.

When we drove off, the driver said all the tourists had

arrived and gone by while we were at dinner; "but," said he,

impressively, "be not disturbed by that--remain tranquil--give

yourselves no uneasiness--their dust rises far before us

--rest you tranquil, leave all to me--I am the king of drivers.

Behold!"

Down came his whip, and away we clattered. I never had such

a shaking up in my life. The recent flooding rains had

washed the road clear away in places, but we never stopped,

we never slowed down for anything. We tore right along,

over rocks, rubbish, gullies, open fields--sometimes with

one or two wheels on the ground, but generally with none.

Every now and then that calm, good-natured madman would

bend a majestic look over his shoulder at us and say,

"Ah, you perceive? It is as I have said --I am the

king of drivers." Every time we just missed going

to destruction, he would say, with tranquil happiness,

"Enjoy it, gentlemen, it is very rare, it is very unusual

--it is given to few to ride with the king of drivers

--and observe, it is as I have said, _I_ am he."

He spoke in French, and punctuated with hiccoughs.

His friend was French, too, but spoke in German--using

the same system of punctuation, however. The friend

called himself the "Captain of Mont Blanc," and wanted us

to make the ascent with him. He said he had made more

ascents than any other man--forty seven--and his brother

had made thirty-seven. His brother was the best guide

in the world, except himself--but he, yes, observe him

well--he was the "Captain of Mont Blanc"--that title

belonged to none other.

The "king" was as good as his word--he overtook that long

procession of tourists and went by it like a hurricane.

The result was that we got choicer rooms at the hotel

in Chamonix than we should have done if his majesty

had been a slower artist--or rather, if he hadn't most

providentially got drunk before he left Argentie`re.

CHAPTER XLIII

[My Poor Sick Friend Disappointed]

Everybody was out-of-doors; everybody was in the

principal street of the village--not on the sidewalks,

but all over the street; everybody was lounging, loafing,

chatting, waiting, alert, expectant, interested--for it

was train-time. That is to say, it was diligence-time

--the half-dozen big diligences would soon be arriving

from Geneva, and the village was interested, in many ways,

in knowing how many people were coming and what sort of

folk they might be. It was altogether the livest-looking

street we had seen in any village on the continent.

The hotel was by the side of a booming torrent, whose music

was loud and strong; we could not see this torrent, for it

was dark, now, but one could locate it without a light.

There was a large enclosed yard in front of the hotel,

and this was filled with groups of villagers waiting to see

the diligences arrive, or to hire themselves to excursionists

for the morrow. A telescope stood in the yard, with its

huge barrel canted up toward the lustrous evening star.

The long porch of the hotel was populous with tourists,

who sat in shawls and wraps under the vast overshadowing

bulk of Mont Blanc, and gossiped or meditated.