THE FIRST PASSAGE OF THE MOMING PASS—ZINAL TO ZERMATT.
“A daring leader is a dangerous thing.”
EURIPIDES.
On July 10, Croz and I went to Sierre, in the Valais, _viâ_ the Col de
Balme, the Col de la Forclaz, and Martigny. The Swiss side of the Forclaz
is not creditable to Switzerland. The path from Martigny to the summit has
undergone successive improvements in these latter years; but mendicants
permanently disfigure it.
We passed many tired pedestrians toiling up this oven, persecuted by
trains of parasitic children. These children swarm there like maggots in a
rotten cheese. They carry baskets of fruit with which to plague the weary
tourist. They flit around him like flies; they thrust the fruit in his
face; they pester him with their pertinacity. Beware of them!—taste, touch
not their fruit. In the eyes of these children, each peach, each grape, is
worth a prince’s ransom. It is to no purpose to be angry; it is like
flapping wasps—they only buzz the more. Whatever you do, or whatever you
say, the end will be the same. “Give me something,” is the alpha and omega
of all their addresses. They learn the phrase, it is said, before they are
taught the alphabet. It is in all their mouths. From the tiny toddler up
to the maiden of sixteen, there is nothing heard but one universal chorus
of—“Give me something; will you have the goodness to give me something?”
From Sierre we went up the Val d’Anniviers to Zinal, to join our former
companions, Moore and Almer. Moore was ambitious to discover a shorter way
from Zinal to Zermatt than the two passes which were known.(145) He had
shown to me, upon Dufour’s map, that a direct line, connecting the two
places, passed exactly over the depression between the Zinal-Rothhorn and
the Schallhorn. He was confident that a passage could be effected over
this depression, and was sanguine that it would (in consequence of its
directness) prove to be a quicker route than the circuitous ones over the
Triftjoch and the Col Durand.
He was awaiting us, and we immediately proceeded up the valley, and across
the foot of the Zinal glacier to the Arpitetta Alp, where a chalet was
supposed to exist in which we might pass the night. We found it at
length,(146) but it was not equal to our expectations. It was not one of
those fine timbered chalets, with huge overhanging eaves, covered with
pious sentences carved in unintelligible characters. It was a hovel,
growing, as it were, out of the hill-side; roofed with rough slabs of
slaty stone; without a door or window; surrounded by quagmires of ordure,
and dirt of every description.
A foul native invited us to enter. The interior was dark; and, when our
eyes became accustomed to the gloom, we saw that our palace was in plan
about 15 by 20 feet; on one side it was scarcely five feet high, and on
the other was nearly seven. On this side there was a raised platform,
about six feet wide, littered with dirty straw and still dirtier
sheepskins. This was the bedroom. The remainder of the width of the
apartment was the parlour. The rest was the factory. Cheese was the
article which was being fabricated, and the foul native was engaged in its
manufacture. He was garnished behind with a regular cowherd’s one-legged
stool, which gave him a queer, uncanny look when it was elevated in the
air as he bent over into his tub; for the making of his cheese required
him to blow into a tub for ten minutes at a time. He then squatted on his
stool to gain breath, and took a few whiffs at a short pipe; after which
he blew away more vigorously than before. We were told that this procedure
was necessary. It appeared to us to be nasty. It accounts, perhaps, for
the flavour possessed by certain Swiss cheeses.
Big, black, and leaden-coloured clouds rolled up from Zinal, and met in
combat on the Moming glacier with others which descended from the
Rothhorn. Down came the rain in torrents, and crash went the thunder. The
herd-boys hurried under shelter, for the frightened cattle needed no
driving, and tore spontaneously down the Alp as if running a
steeple-chase. Men, cows, pigs, sheep, and goats forgot their mutual
animosities, and rushed to the only refuge on the mountain. The spell was
broken which had bound the elements for some weeks past, and the _cirque_
from the Weisshorn to Lo Besso was the theatre in which they spent their
fury.
A sullen morning succeeded an angry night. We were undecided in our
council whether to advance or to return down the valley. Good seemed
likely to overpower bad; so, at 5.40, we left the chalet _en route_ for
our pass [amidst the most encouraging assurances from all the people on
the Alp that we need not distress ourselves about the weather, as it was
not possible to get to the point at which we were aiming].(147)
Our course led us at first over ordinary mountain slopes, and then over a
flat expanse of glacier. Before this was quitted, it was needful to
determine the exact line which was to be taken. We were divided betwixt
two opinions. I advocated that a course should be steered due south, and
that the upper plateau of the Moming glacier should be attained by making
a great detour to our right. This was negatived without a division. Almer
declared in favour of making for some rocks to the south-west of the
Schallhorn, and attaining the upper plateau of the glacier by mounting
them. Croz advised a middle course, up some very steep and broken glacier.
Croz’s route seemed likely to turn out to be impracticable, because much
step-cutting would be required upon it. Almer’s rocks did not look good;
they were, possibly, unassailable. I thought both routes were bad, and
declined to vote for either of them. Moore hesitated, Almer gave way, and
Croz’s route was adopted.
He did not go very far, however, before he found that he had undertaken
too much, and after [glancing occasionally round at us, to see what we
thought about it, suggested that it might, after all, be wiser to take to
the rocks of the Schallhorn]. That is to say, he suggested the abandonment
of his own and the adoption of Almer’s route. No one opposed the change of
plan, and, in the absence of instructions to the contrary, he proceeded to
cut steps across an ice-slope towards the rocks.
Let the reader now cast his eye upon the map of the Valley of Zermatt, and
he will see that when we quitted the slopes of the Arpitetta Alp, we took
a south-easterly course over the Moming glacier. We halted to settle the
plan of attack shortly after we got upon the ice. The rocks of the
Schallhorn, whose ascent Almer recommended, were then to our south-east.
Croz’s proposed route was to the south-west of the rocks, and led up the
southern side of a very steep and broken glacier.(148) The part he
intended to traverse was, in a sense, undoubtedly practicable. He gave it
up because it would have involved too much step-cutting. But the part of
this glacier which intervened between his route and Almer’s rocks was, in
the most complete sense of the word, impracticable. It passed over a
continuation of the rocks, and was broken in half by them. The upper
portion was separated from the lower portion by a long slope of ice that
had been built up from the débris of the glacier which had fallen from
above. The foot of this slope was surrounded by immense quantities of the
larger avalanche blocks. These we cautiously skirted, and when Croz halted
they had been left far below, and we were half-way up the side of the
great slope which led to the base of the ice-wall above.
Across this ice-slope Croz now proceeded to cut. It was executing a flank
movement in the face of an enemy by whom we might be attacked at any
moment. The peril was obvious. It was a monstrous folly. It was
foolhardiness. A retreat should have been sounded.(149)
“I am not ashamed to confess,” wrote Moore in his Journal, “that during
the whole time we were crossing this slope my heart was in my mouth, and I
never felt relieved from such a load of care as when, after, I suppose, a
passage of about twenty minutes, we got on to the rocks and were in
safety.... I have never heard a positive oath come from Almer’s mouth, but
the language in which he kept up a running commentary, more to himself
than to me, as we went along, was stronger than I should have given him
credit for using. His prominent feeling seemed to be one of _indignation_
that we should be in such a position, and self-reproach at being a party
to the proceeding; while the emphatic way in which, at intervals, he
exclaimed, ‘Quick; be quick,’ sufficiently betokened his alarm.”
It was not necessary to admonish Croz to be quick. He was fully as alive
to the risk as any of the others. He told me afterwards, that this place
was the most dangerous he had ever crossed, and that no consideration
whatever would tempt him to cross it again. Manfully did he exert himself
to escape from the impending destruction. His head, bent down to his work,
never turned to the right or to the left. One, two, three, went his axe,
and then he stepped on to the spot where he had been cutting. How
painfully insecure should we have considered those steps at any other
time! But now, we thought only of the rocks in front, and of the hideous
_séracs_, lurching over above us, apparently in the act of falling.
We got to the rocks in safety, and if they had been doubly as difficult as
they were, we should still have been well content. We sat down and
refreshed the inner man; keeping our eyes on the towering pinnacles of ice
under which we had passed; but which, now, were almost beneath us. Without
a preliminary warning sound, one of the largest—as high as the Monument at
London Bridge—fell upon the slope below. The stately mass heeled over as
if upon a hinge (holding together until it bent 30 degrees forwards), then
it crushed out its base, and, rent into a thousand fragments, plunged
vertically down upon the slope that we had crossed! Every atom of our
track, that was in its course, was obliterated; all the new snow was swept
away, and a broad sheet of smooth, glassy ice, showed the resistless force
with which it had fallen.
[Illustration: ICE-AVALANCHE ON THE MOMING PASS.]
It was inexcusable to follow such a perilous path, but it is easy to
understand why it was taken. To have retreated from the place where Croz
suggested a change of plan, to have descended below the reach of danger,
and to have mounted again by the route which Almer suggested, would have
been equivalent to abandoning the excursion; for no one would have passed
another night in the chalet on the Arpitetta Alp. “Many,” says Thucydides,
“though seeing well the perils ahead, are forced along by fear of
dishonour—as the world calls it—so that, vanquished by a mere word, they
fall into irremediable calamities.” Such was nearly the case here. No one
could say a word in justification of the course which was adopted; all
were alive to the danger that was being encountered; yet a grave risk was
deliberately—although unwillingly—incurred, in preference to admitting, by
withdrawal from an untenable position, that an error of judgment had been
committed.
After a laborious trudge over many species of snow, and through many
varieties of vapour—from the quality of a Scotch mist to that of a London
fog—we at length stood on the depression between the Rothhorn and the
Schallhorn.(150) A steep wall of snow was upon the Zinal side of the
summit; but what the descent was like on the other side we could not tell,
for a billow of snow tossed over its crest by the western winds, suspended
o’er Zermatt with motion arrested, resembling an ocean-wave frozen in the
act of breaking, cut off the view.(151)
Croz—held hard in by the others, who kept down the Zinal side—opened his
shoulders, flogged down the foam, and cut away the cornice to its junction
with the summit; then boldly leaped down, and called on us to follow him.
[Illustration: SUMMIT OF THE MOMING PASS IN 1864.]
It was well for us now that we had such a man as leader. An inferior or
less daring guide would have hesitated to enter upon the descent in a
dense mist; and Croz himself would have done right to pause had he been
less magnificent in _physique_. He acted, rather than said, “Where snow
lies fast, there man can go; where ice exists, a way may be cut; it is a
question of power; I have the power,—all you have to do is to follow me.”
Truly, he did not spare himself, and could he have performed the feats
upon the boards of a theatre that he did upon this occasion, he would have
brought down the house with thunders of applause. Here is what Moore wrote
in _his_ Journal.
[The descent bore a strong resemblance to the Col de Pilatte, but was very
much steeper and altogether more difficult, which is saying a good deal.
Croz was in his element, and selected his way with marvellous sagacity,
while Almer had an equally honourable and, perhaps, more responsible post
in the rear, which he kept with his usual steadiness.... One particular
passage has impressed itself on my mind as one of the most nervous I have
ever made. We had to pass along a crest of ice, a mere knife-edge,—on our
left a broad crevasse, whose bottom was lost in blue haze, and on our
right, at an angle of 70°, or more, a slope falling to a similar gulf
below. Croz, as he went along the edge, chipped small notches in the ice,
in which we placed our feet, with the toes well turned out, doing all we
knew to preserve our balance. While stepping from one of these precarious
footholds to another, I staggered for a moment. I had not really lost my
footing; but the agonised tone in which Almer, who was behind me, on
seeing me waver, exclaimed, “Slip not, sir!” gave us an even livelier
impression than we already had of the insecurity of the position.... One
huge chasm, whose upper edge was far above the lower one, could neither be
leaped nor turned, and threatened to prove an insuperable barrier. But
Croz showed himself equal to the emergency. Held up by the rest of the
party, he cut a series of holes for the hands and feet, down and along the
almost perpendicular wall of ice forming the upper side of the _schrund_.
Down this slippery staircase we crept, with our faces to the wall, until a
point was reached where the width of the chasm was not too great for us to
drop across. Before we had done, we got quite accustomed to taking flying
leaps over the _schrunds_.... To make a long story short; after a most
desperate and exciting struggle, and as bad a piece of ice-work as it is
possible to imagine, we emerged on to the upper plateau of the Hohlicht
glacier.]
The glimpses which had been caught of the lower part of the Hohlicht
glacier were discouraging, so it was now determined to cross over the
ridge between it and the Rothhorn glacier. This was not done without great
trouble. Again we rose to a height exceeding 12,000 feet. Eventually we
took to the track of the despised Triftjoch, and descended by the
well-known, but rough, path which leads to that pass; arriving at the
Monte Rosa hotel at Zermatt at 7.20 P.M. We occupied nearly twelve hours
of actual walking in coming from the chalet on the Arpitetta Alp (which
was 2½ hours above Zinal), and we consequently found that the Moming pass
was not the shortest route from Zinal to Zermatt, although it was the most
direct.
Two dozen guides—good, bad, and indifferent; French, Swiss, and
Italian—can commonly be seen sitting on the wall on the front of the Monte
Rosa hotel: waiting on their employers, and looking for employers;
watching new arrivals, and speculating on the number of francs which may
be extracted from their pockets. The _Messieurs_—sometimes strangely and
wonderfully dressed—stand about in groups, or lean back in chairs, or
lounge on the benches which are placed by the door. They wear
extraordinary boots, and still more remarkable head-dresses. Their peeled,
blistered, and swollen faces are worth studying. Some, by the exercise of
watchfulness and unremitting care, have been fortunate enough to acquire a
fine raw sienna complexion. But most of them have not been so happy. They
have been scorched on rocks, and roasted on glaciers. Their cheeks—first
puffed, then cracked—have exuded a turpentine-like matter, which has
coursed down their faces, and has dried in patches like the resin on the
trunks of pines. They have removed it, and at the same time have pulled
off large flakes of their skin. They have gone from bad to worse—their
case has become hopeless—knives and scissors have been called into play;
tenderly, and daintily, they have endeavoured to reduce their cheeks to
one, uniform hue. It is not to be done. But they have gone on, fascinated,
and at last have brought their unhappy countenances to a state of helpless
and complete ruin. Their lips are cracked; their cheeks are swollen; their
eyes are blood-shot; their noses are peeled and indescribable.
[Illustration: THE CLUB-ROOM OF ZERMATT, IN 1864.]
Such are the pleasures of the mountaineer! Scornfully and derisively the
last comer compares the sight with his own flaccid face and dainty hands;
unconscious that he too, perhaps, will be numbered with those whom he now
ridicules.
There is a frankness of manner about these strangely-apparelled and
queer-faced men, which does not remind one of drawing-room, or city life;
and it is good to see—in this club-room of Zermatt—those cold bodies, our
too-frigid countrymen, regale together when brought into contact; and it
is pleasant to witness the hearty welcome given to the new-comers by the
host and his excellent wife.(152)
I left this agreeable society to seek letters at the post. They yielded
disastrous intelligence. My holiday was brought to an abrupt termination,
and I awaited the arrival of Reilly (who was convoying the stores for the
attack on the Matterhorn) only to inform him that our arrangements were
upset; then travelled home, day and night, as fast as express trains would
carry me.