[4] Instead of attempting to write one myself, I requested the
permission of my friend Mr. Hawkins to republish his admirable account
of our first assault upon the Matterhorn. I have to thank both him and
Mr. Macmillan for the obliging promptness with which my request was
granted.
The summer and autumn of 1860 will long be remembered in Switzerland as
the most ungenial and disastrous season, perhaps, on record; certainly
without a parallel since 1834. The local papers were filled with
lamentations over ‘der ewige Südwind,’ which overspread the skies with
perpetual cloud, and from time to time brought up tremendous storms,
the fiercest of which, in the three first days of September, carried
away or blocked up for a time, I believe, every pass into Italy except
the Bernina. At Andermatt, on the St. Gothard, we were cut off for two
days from all communications whatever by water on every side. The whole
of the lower Rhone valley was under water. A few weeks later, I found
the Splügen, in the gorge above Chiavenna, altogether gone, remains
of the old road being just visible here and there, but no more. In the
Valteline, I found the Stelvio road in most imminent danger, gangs of
men being posted in the courses of the torrents to divert the boulders,
which every moment threatened to overwhelm the bridges on the route. A
more unlucky year for glacier expeditions, therefore, could hardly be
experienced; and the following pages present in consequence only the
narrative of an unfinished campaign, which it is the hope of Tyndall
and myself to be able to prosecute to a successful conclusion early
next August.
I had fallen in with Professor Tyndall on the Basle Railway, and a
joint plan of operations had been partly sketched out between us, to
combine to some extent the more especial objects of each--scientific
observations on his part; on mine, the exploration of new passes and
mountain topography; but the weather sadly interfered with these
designs. After some glacier measurements had been accomplished at
Grindelwald, a short spell of fair weather enabled us to effect a
passage I had long desired to try, from Lauterbrunnen direct to the
Æggischhorn by the Roththal, a small and unknown but most striking
glacier valley, known to Swiss mythology as the supposed resort of
condemned spirits. We scaled, by a seven hours’ perpendicular climb,
the vast amphitheatre of rock which bounds the Aletsch basin on this
side, and had the satisfaction of falsifying the predictions of Ulrich
Lauener, who bade us farewell at Grindelwald with the discouraging
assertion that he should see us back again, as it was quite impossible
to get over where we were going. As we descended the long reaches of
the Aletsch glacier, rain and mist again gathered over us, giving to
the scene the appearance of a vast Polar sea, over the surface of which
we were travelling, with no horizon visible anywhere except the distant
line of level ice. Arrived at the Æggischhorn, the weather became
worse than ever; a week elapsed before the measurement of the Aletsch
glacier could be completed; and we reluctantly determined to dismiss
Bennen, who was in waiting, considering the season too bad for high
ascents, and to push on with Christian Lauener to the glaciers about
Zinal. Bennen was in great distress. He and I had the previous summer
reconnoitred the Matterhorn from various quarters, and he had arrived
at the conclusion that we could in all probability (‘ich beinahe
behaupte’) reach the top. That year, being only just convalescent from
a fever, I had been unable to make the attempt, and thus an opportunity
had been lost which may not speedily recur, for the mountain was then
(September 1859) almost free from snow. Bennen had set his heart on our
making the attempt in 1860, and great was his disappointment at our
proposed departure for Zinal. At the last moment, however, a change of
plans occurred. Lauener was unwilling to proceed with us to Zinal: we
resolved to give Bennen his chance: the theodolite was packed up and
despatched to Geneva, and we set off for Breuil, to try the Matterhorn.
Accessible or not, however, the Mont Cervin is assuredly a different
sort of affair from Mont Blanc or Monte Rosa, or any other of the
thousand and one summits which nature has kindly opened to man, by
leaving one side of them a sloping plain of snow, easy of ascent, till
the brink of the precipice is reached which descends on the other side.
The square massive lines of terraced crags which fence the Matterhorn,
stand up on all sides nearly destitute of snow, and where the snow lies
thinly on the rocks it soon melts and is hardened again into smooth
glassy ice, which covers the granite slabs like a coat of varnish,
and bids defiance to the axe. Every step of the way lies between
two precipices, and under toppling crags, which may at any moment
bring down on the climber the most formidable of Alpine dangers--a
fire of falling stones. The mountain too has a sort of _prestige_ of
invincibility which is not without its influence on the mind, and
almost leads one to expect to encounter some new and unheard-of source
of peril upon it: hence I suppose it is that the dwellers at Zermatt
and in Val Tournanche have scarcely been willing to attempt to set foot
upon the mountain, and have left the honour of doing so to a native of
another district, who, as he has been the first mortal to plant foot on
the hitherto untrodden peak, so he will, I hope, have the honour, which
he deserves, of being the first to reach the top.
John Joseph Bennen, of Laax, in the Upper Rhine Valley, is a man so
remarkable that I cannot resist the desire (especially as he cannot
read English) to say a few words about his character. Born within
the limits of the German tongue, and living amidst the mountains and
glaciers of the Oberland, he belongs by race and character to a class
of men of whom the Laueners, Melchior Anderegg, Bortis, Christian
Almer, Peter Bohren, are also examples--a type of mountain race,
having many of the simple heroic qualities which we associate, whether
justly or unjustly, with Teutonic blood, and essentially different
from--to my mind, infinitely superior to--the French-speaking,
versatile, wily Chamouniard. The names I have mentioned are all
those of first-rate men; but Bennen, as (I believe) he surpasses all
the rest in the qualities which fit a man for a leader in hazardous
expeditions, combining boldness and prudence with an ease and power
peculiar to himself, so he has a faculty of conceiving and planning
his achievements, a way of concentrating his mind upon an idea, and
working out his idea with clearness and decision, which I never
observed in any man of the kind, and which makes him, in his way,
a sort of Garibaldi. Tyndall, on the day of our expedition, said
to him, ‘Sie sind der Garibaldi der Führer, Bennen;’ to which he
answered in his simple way, ‘Nicht wahr?’ (‘Am I not?’), an amusing
touch of simple vanity, a dash of pardonable bounce, being one of his
not least amiable characteristics. Thoroughly sincere and ‘einfach’
in thought and speech, devoted to his friends, without a trace of
underhand self-seeking in his relations to his employers, there is
an independence about him, a superiority to most of his own class,
which makes him, I always fancy, rather an isolated man; though no
one can make more friends wherever he goes, or be more pleasant and
thoroughly cheerful under all circumstances. But he left his native
place, Steinen, he told me, the people there not suiting him; and in
Laax, where he now dwells, I guess him to be not perhaps altogether
at home. Unmarried, he works quietly most of the year at his trade of
a carpenter, unless when he is out alone, or with his friend Bortis
(a man seemingly of reserved and uncommunicative disposition, but a
splendid mountaineer), in the chase after chamois, of which he is
passionately fond, and will tell stories, in his simple and emphatic
way, with the greatest enthusiasm. Pious he is, and observant of
religious duties, but without a particle of the ‘mountain gloom,’
respecting the prevalence of which among the dwellers in the High Alps
Mr. Ruskin discourses poetically, but I am myself rather incredulous.
A perfect nature’s gentleman, he is to me the most delightful of
companions; and though no ‘theory’ defines our reciprocal obligations
as guide and employer, I am sure that no precipice will ever engulf
me so long as Bennen is within reach, unless he goes into it also--an
event which seems impossible--and I think I can say I would, according
to the measure of my capacity, do the same by him. But any one who has
watched Bennen skimming along through the mazes of a crevassed glacier,
or running like a chamois along the side of slippery ice-covered crags,
axe and foot keeping time together, will think that--as Lauener said
of his brother Johann, who perished on the Jungfrau, _he_ could never
fall--nothing could bring him to grief but an avalanche.[5]
[5] As Bennen and Tyndall were going up the Finsteraarhorn once upon a
time, the work being severe, Bennen turned round and said to Tyndall,
‘Ich fühle mich jetzt ganz wie der Tyroler einmal,’ and went on to
relate a story of the conversation between a priest and an honest
Tyrolese, who complained to his father confessor that religion and an
extreme passion for the fair sex struggled within him, and neither
could expel the other. ‘Mein Sohn,’ said the priest, ‘Frauen zu lieben
und im Himmel zu kommen, das geht nicht.’ ‘Herr Pfarrer,’ sagte der
Tyroler, ‘_es muss gehen_.’ ‘Und so sag’ ich jetzt,’ cried Bennen. ‘Es
muss gehen’ is always his motto.
Delayed in our walk from the Æggischhorn by the usual severity of the
weather, Tyndall, Bennen, and myself reached Breuil on Saturday, August
18, to make our attempt on the Monday. As we approached the mountain,
Bennen’s countenance fell visibly, and he became somewhat gloomy; the
mountain was almost white with fresh-fallen snow. ‘Nur der Schnee
furcht mich,’ he replied to our enquiries. The change was indeed great
from my recollection of the year before; the well-marked, terrace-like
lines along the south face, which are so well given in Mr. George
Barnard’s picture, were now almost covered up; through the telescope
could be seen distinctly huge icicles depending from the crags, the
lines of melting snow, and the dark patches which we hoped might spread
a great deal faster than they were likely to, during the space of
twenty-four hours. There was nothing for it, although our prospects of
success were materially diminished by the snow, but to do the best we
could. As far as I was concerned, I felt that I should be perfectly
satisfied with getting part of the way up on a first trial, which would
make one acquainted with the nature of the rocks, dispel the prestige
which seemed to hang over the untrodden mountain, and probably suggest
ways of shortening the route on another occasion.
We wanted some one to carry the knapsack containing our provisions;
and on the recommendation of the landlord at Breuil, we sent for
a man, named Carrel, who, we were told, was the best mountaineer
in Val Tournanche, and the nephew of M. le Chanoine Carrel, whose
acquaintance I once had the honour of making at Aosta. From the latter
description I rather expected a young, and perhaps aristocratic-looking
personage, and was amused at the entrance of a rough, good-humoured,
shaggy-breasted man, between forty and fifty, an ordinary specimen of
the peasant class. However, he did his work well, and with great good
temper, and seemed ready to go on as long as we chose; though he told
me he expected we should end by passing the night somewhere on the
mountain, and I don’t think his ideas of our success were ever very
sanguine.
We were to start before 3 A.M. on Monday morning, August 20; and the
short period for sleep thus left us was somewhat abridged in my own
case, not so much by thoughts of the coming expedition, as by the
news which had just reached us in a vague, but, unfortunately, only
too credible form, of the terrible accident on the Col du Géant a few
days before. The account thus reaching us was naturally magnified,
and we were as yet ignorant of the names. I could not at night shake
off the (totally groundless) idea that a certain dear friend of mine
was among them, and that I ought at that moment to be hurrying off to
Courmayeur, to mourn and to bury him. In the morning, however, these
things are forgotten; we are off, and Carrel pilots us with a lantern
across the little stream which runs by Breuil, and up the hills to the
left, where in the darkness we seem from the sound to be in the midst
of innumerable rills of water, the effects of the late rains. The
dark outline of the Matterhorn is just visible against the sky, and
measuring with the eye the distance subtended by the height we have
to climb, it seems as if success _must_ be possible: so hard is it to
imagine all the ups and downs which lie in that short sky-line.
Day soon dawns, and the morning rose-light touches the first peak
westward of us; the air is wonderfully calm and still, and for to-day,
at all events, we have good weather, without that bitter enemy the
north wind; but a certain opaque look in the sky, long streaks of
cloud radiating from the south-west horizon up towards the zenith,
and the too dark purple of the hills south of Aosta, are signs that
the good weather will not be lasting. By five we are crossing the
first snow-beds, and now Carrel falls back, and the leader of the day
comes to the front: all the day he will be cutting steps, but those
compact and powerful limbs of his will show no signs of extra exertion,
and to-day he is in particularly good spirits. Carpentering, by the
way--not fine turning and planing, but rough out-of-doors work, like
Bennen’s--must be no bad practice to keep hand and eye in training
during the dead season. We ascend a narrow edge of snow, a cliff some
way to the right: the snow is frozen and hard as rock, and arms and
legs are worked vigorously. Tyndall calls out to me, to know whether I
recollect the ‘conditions:’ _i.e._ if your feet slip from the steps,
turn in a moment on your face, and dig in hard with alpenstock in both
hands under your body; by this means you will stop yourself if it is
possible. Once on your back, it is all over, unless others can save
you: you have lost all chance of helping yourself. In a few minutes
we stop, and rope all together, in which state we continued the whole
day. The prudence of this some may possibly doubt, as there were
certainly places where the chances were greater that if one fell, he
would drag down the rest, than that they could assist him; but we were
only four, all tolerably sure-footed, and in point of fact I do not
recollect a slip or stumble of consequence made by any one of us. Soon
the slope lessens for a while, but in front a wall of snow stretches
steeply upwards to a gap, which we have to reach, in a kind of recess,
flanked by crags of formidable appearance. We turn to the rocks on
the left hand. As, to one walking along miry ways, the opposite side
of the path seems ever the most inviting, and he continually shifting
his course from side to side lengthens his journey with small profit,
so in ascending a mountain one is always tempted to diverge from snow
to rocks, or _vice versâ_. Bennen had intended to mount straight up
towards the gap, and it is best not to interfere with him; he yields,
however, to our suggestions, and we assail the rocks. These, however,
are ice-bound, steep, and slippery: hands and knees are at work,
and progress is slow. At length we stop upon a ledge where all can
stand together, and Carrel proposes to us (for Bennen and he can only
communicate by signs, the one knowing only French, the other German)
to go on and see whether an easier way can be found still further to
the left. Bennen gives an approving nod: he looks with indulgent pity
on Carrel, but snubs all remarks of his as to the route. ‘Er weiss gar
nichts,’ he says. Carrel takes his axe, and mounts warily, but with
good courage; presently he returns, shaking his head. The event is
fortunate, for had we gone further to the left, we should have reached
the top of the ridge from which, as we afterwards found, there is no
passage to the gap, and our day’s work would probably have ended then
and there. Bennen now leads to the right, and moves swiftly up from
ledge to ledge. Time is getting on, but at length we emerge over the
rocks just in face of the gap, and separated from it by a sort of large
snow-crater, overhung on the left by the end of the ridge, from which
stones fall which have scarred the sides of the crater. The sides are
steep, but we curve quickly and silently round them: no stones fall
upon us; and now we have reached the narrow neck of snow which forms
the actual gap; it is half-past eight, and the first part of our work
is done.
By no means the hardest part, however. We stand upon a broad red
granite slab, the lowest step of the actual peak of the Matterhorn: no
one has stood there before us. The slab forms one end of the edge of
snow, surmounted at the other end by some fifty feet of overhanging
rock, the end of the ridge. On one side of us is the snow-crater, round
which we had been winding; on the other side a scarped and seamed
face of snow drops sheer on the north, to what we know is the Zmutt
glacier. Some hopes I had entertained of making a pass by this gap,
from Breuil to Zermatt, vanish immediately. Above us rise the towers
and pinnacles of the Matterhorn, certainly a tremendous array. Actual
contact immensely increases one’s impressions of this, the hardest and
strongest of all the mountain masses of the Alps; its form is more
remarkable than that of other mountains, not by chance, but because
it is built of more massive and durable materials, and more solidly
put together: nowhere have I seen such astonishing masonry. The broad
gneiss blocks are generally smooth and compact, with little appearance
of splintering or weathering. Tons of rock, in the shape of boulders,
must fall almost daily down its sides, but the amount of these, even
in the course of centuries, is as nothing compared with the mass of
the mountain; the ordinary processes of disintegration can have little
or no effect on it. If one were to follow Mr. Ruskin, in speculating
on the manner in which the Alpine peaks can have assumed their present
shape, it seems as if such a mass as this can have been blocked out
only while rising from the sea, under the action of waves such as beat
against the granite headlands of the Land’s End. Once on dry land, it
must stand as it does now, apparently for ever.
Two lines of ascent offer, between which we have to choose: one along
the middle or dividing ridge, the back-bone of the mountain, at the
end of which we stand; the other by an edge some little way to the
right: a couloir lies between them. We choose the former, or back-bone
ridge; but the other proves to be less serrated, and we shall probably
try it on another occasion. As we step from our halting-place, Bennen
turns round and addresses us in a few words of exhortation, like the
generals in Thucydides. He knows us well enough to be sure that we
shall not feel afraid, but every footstep must be planted with the
utmost precaution: no fear, ‘wohl immer Achtung.’ Soon our difficulties
begin; but I despair of relating the incidents of this part of our
route, so numerous and bewildering were the obstacles along it; and the
details of each have somewhat faded from the memory. We are immersed
in a wilderness of blocks, roofed and festooned with huge plates and
stalactites of ice, so large that one is half disposed to seize hold
and clamber up them. Round, over, and under them we go: often progress
seems impossible; but Bennen, ever in advance, and perched like a bird
on some projecting crag, contrives to find a way. Now we crawl singly
along a narrow ledge of rock, with a wall on one side, and nothing on
the other: there is no hold for hands or alpenstock, and the ledge
slopes a little, so that if the nails in our boots hold not, down
we shall go: in the middle of it a piece of rock juts out, which we
ingeniously duck under, and emerge just under a shower of water, which
there is no room to escape from. Presently comes a more extraordinary
place: a perfect chimney of rock, cased all over with hard black ice,
about an inch thick. The bottom leads out into space, and the top is
somewhere in the upper regions: there is absolutely nothing to grasp
at, and to this day I cannot understand how a human being could get up
or down it unassisted. Bennen, however, rolls up it somehow, like a
cat; he is at the top, and beckons Tyndall to advance; my turn comes
next; I endeavour to mount by squeezing myself against the sides, but
near the top friction suddenly gives way, and down comes my weight
upon the rope:--a stout haul from above, and now one knee is upon the
edge, and I am safe: Carrel is pulled up after me. After a time, we
get off the rocks, and mount a slope of ice, which curves rapidly over
for about three yards to our left, and then (apparently) drops at once
to the Zmutt glacier. We reach the top of this, and proceed along it,
till at last a sort of pinnacle is reached, from which we can survey
the line of towers and crags before us up to a point just below the
actual top, and we halt to rest a while. Bennen goes on to see whether
it be possible to cross over to the other ridge, which seems an easier
one. Left to himself, he treads lightly and almost carelessly along.
‘Geb’ Acht, Bennen!’ (Take care of yourself) we shout after him, but
needlessly; he stops and moves alternately, peering wistfully about,
exactly like a chamois; but soon he returns, and says there is no
passage, and we must keep to the ridge we are on.
Three hours had not yet elapsed since we left the gap, and from
our present station we could survey the route as far as a point
which concealed from us the actual summit, and could see that the
difficulties before us were not greater than we had already passed
through, and such as time and perseverance would surely conquer.
Nevertheless, there is a tide in the affairs of such expeditions, and
the impression had been for some time gaining ground with me that
the tide on the present occasion had turned against us, and that the
time we could prudently allow was not sufficient for us to reach the
top that day. Before trial, I had thought it not improbable that the
ascent might turn out either impossible or comparatively easy; it was
now tolerably clear that it was neither the one nor the other, but
an exceedingly long and hard piece of work, which the unparalleled
amount of ice made longer and harder than usual. I asked Bennen if he
thought there was time enough to reach the top of all: he was evidently
unwilling, however, to give up hopes; and Tyndall said he would give no
opinion either way; so we again moved on.
At length we came to the base of a mighty knob, huger and uglier than
its fellows, to which a little _arête_ of snow served as a sort of
drawbridge. I began to fear lest in the ardour of pursuit we might be
carried on too long, and Bennen might forget the paramount object of
securing our safe retreat. I called out to him that I thought I should
stop somewhere here, that if he could go faster alone he might do so,
but he must turn in good time. Bennen, however, was already climbing
with desperate energy up the sides of the kerb; Tyndall would not be
behind him; so I loosed the rope and let them go on. Carrel moved back
across the little _arête_, and sat down, and began to smoke: I remained
for a while standing with my back against the knob, and gazed by myself
upon the scene around.
As my blood cooled, and the sounds of human footsteps and voices grew
fainter, I began to realise the height and the wonderful isolation of
our position. The air was preternaturally still; an occasional gust
came eddying round the corner of the mountain, but all else seemed
strangely rigid and motionless, and out of keeping with the beating
heart and moving limbs, the life and activity of man. Those stones
and ice have no mercy in them, no sympathy with human adventure; they
submit passively to what man can do; but let him go a step too far,
let heart or hand fail, mist gather or sun go down, and they will
exact the penalty to the uttermost. The feeling of ‘the sublime’ in
such cases depends very much, I think, on a certain balance between
the forces of nature and man’s ability to cope with them: if they are
too weak, the scene fails to impress; if they are too strong for him,
what was sublime becomes only terrible. Looking at the Dôme du Goûté
or the Zumstein Spitze full in the evening sun, when they glow with an
absolutely unearthly loveliness, like a city in the heavens, I have
sometimes thought that, place but the spectator alone just now upon
those shining heights, with escape before night all but impossible, and
he will see no glory in the scene--only the angry eye of the setting
sun fixed on dark rocks and dead-white snow.
We had risen seemingly to an immense height above the gap, and the
ridge which stretches from the Matterhorn to the Dent d’Érin lay
flat below; but the peak still towered behind me, and, measuring our
position by the eye along the side of our neighbour of equal height,
the Weisshorn, I saw that we must be yet a long way beneath the top.
The gap itself, and all traces of the way by which we had ascended,
were invisible; I could see only the stone where Carrel sat, and the
tops of one or two crags rising from below. The view was, of course,
magnificent, and on three sides wholly unimpeded: with one hand I could
drop a stone which would descend to Zmutt, with the other to Breuil.
In front lay, as in a map, the as yet unexplored peaks to south and
west of the Dent d’Érin, the range which separates Val Tournanche from
the Valpelline, and the glacier region beyond, called in Ziegler’s
map Zardezan, over which a pass, perchance, exists to Zermatt. An
illimitable range of blue hills spread far away into Italy.
I walked along the little _arête_, and sat down; it was only broad
enough for the foot, and in perfectly cold blood even this perhaps
might have appeared uncomfortable. Turning to look at Tyndall and
Bennen, I could not help laughing at the picture of our progress under
difficulties. They seemed to have advanced only a few yards. ‘Have
you got no further than that yet?’ I called out, for we were all the
time within hearing. Their efforts appeared prodigious: scrambling and
sprawling among the huge blocks, one fancied they must be moving along
some unseen bale of heavy goods instead of only the weight of their own
bodies. As I looked, an ominous visitant appeared: down came a fragment
of rock, the size of a man’s body, and dashed past me on the couloir,
sending the snow flying. For a moment I thought they might have
dislodged it; but looking again I saw it had passed over their heads,
and come from the crags above. Neither of them, I believe, observed
the monster; but Tyndall told me afterwards that a stone, possibly a
splinter from it, had hit him in the neck, and nearly choked him. I
looked anxiously again, but no more followed. A single shot, as it
were, had been fired across our bows; but the ship’s course was already
on the point of being put about.
Expecting fully that they would not persevere beyond a few minutes
longer, I called out to Tyndall to know how soon they meant to be
back. ‘In an hour and a half,’ he replied, whether in jest or earnest,
and they disappeared round a projecting corner. A sudden qualm seized
me, and for a few minutes I felt extremely uncomfortable: what if the
ascent should suddenly become easier, and they should go on, and reach
the top without me? I thought of summoning Carrel, and pursuing them;
but the worthy man sat quietly, and seemed to have had enough of it.
My suspense, however, was not long: after two or three minutes the
clatter, which had never entirely ceased, became louder, and their
forms again appeared: they were evidently descending. In fact, Bennen
had at length turned, and said to Tyndall, ‘Ich denke die Zeit ist zu
kurz.’ I was glad that he had gone on as long as he chose, and not been
turned back on my responsibility. They had found one part of this last
ascent the worst of any, but the way was open thenceforward to the
farthest visible point, which can be no long way below the actual top.
It was now just about mid-day, and ample time for the descent, in all
probability, was before us; but we resolved not to halt for any length
of time till we should reach the gap. Descending, unlike ascending,
is generally not so bad as it seems; but in some places here only one
can advance at a time, the other carefully holding the rope. ‘Tenez
fortement, Carrel, tenez,’ is constantly impressed on the man who
brings up the rear. ‘Splendid practice for us, this,’ exclaims Tyndall
exultingly, as each successive difficulty is overcome. At length we
reach a place whence no egress is possible; we look in vain for traces
of the way we had come: it is our friend the ice-coated chimney.
Bennen gets down first, in the same mysterious fashion as he got up,
and assists us down; presently a shout is heard behind; Carrel is
attempting to get down by himself, and has stuck fast; Bennen has to
extricate him. We are now getting rapidly lower; soon the difficulties
diminish; our gap appears in sight, and once more we reach the broad
granite slab beside the narrow col, and breathe more freely.
Two hours have brought us down thus far; but if we are to return by
the way we came, three or four hours of hard work are still needed
before we arrive at anything like ordinary snow-walking. We hold a
consultation. Bennen thinks the rocks, now that the ice is melting in
the afternoon sun, will be difficult, and ‘withal somewhat dangerous’
(etwa gefährlich auch). The reader will remark that Bennen uses
the word ‘dangerous’ in its legitimate sense. A place is dangerous
where a good climber cannot be secure of his footing; a place is
_not_ dangerous where a good climber is in no danger of slipping,
although to slip may be fatal. We determine to see if it be possible
to descend the sides of the snow-crater, on the brink of which we
now stand. The crater is portentously steep, deeply lined with fresh
snow, which glistens and melts in the powerful sun. The experiment
is slightly hazardous, but we resolve to try. The crater appears to
narrow gradually to a sort of funnel far down below, through which we
expect to issue into the glacier beneath. At the sides of the funnel
are rocks, which some one suggests might serve to break our fall,
should the snow go down with us, but their tender mercies seem to me
doubtful. Cautiously, with steady, balanced tread, we commit ourselves
to the slope, distributing the weight of the body over as large a space
of snow as possible, by fixing in the pole high up, and the feet far
apart, for a slip or stumble now will probably dissolve the adhesion of
the fresh, not yet compacted mass, and we shall go down to the bottom
in an avalanche. Six paces to the right, then again to the left; we
are at the mercy of those overhanging rocks just now, and the recent
tracks of stones look rather suspicious; but all is silent, and soon we
gain confidence, and congratulate ourselves on an expedient which has
saved us hours of time and toil. Just to our right the snow is sliding
by, first slowly, then faster; keep well out of the track of it, for
underneath is a hard polished surface, and if your foot chance to
light there, off you will probably shoot. The snow travels much faster
than we do, or have any desire to do; we are like a coach travelling
alongside of an express train; in popular phrase, we are going side
by side with a small avalanche, though a real avalanche is a very
different matter. Soon we come somewhat under the lee of the rocks,
and now all risk is over, we are through the funnel, and floundering
waist-deep, heedless of crevasses in the comparatively level slopes
beyond. We plunge securely down now in the deep snow, where care and
caution had been requisite in crossing the frozen surface in the
morning; at length we cast off the rope, and are on terra firma.
We shall be at Breuil in unexpectedly good time, before five o’clock;
but it is well we are off the mountain early, for clouds and mist are
already gathering round the peak, and the weather is about to break.
Tyndall rushes rapidly down the slopes, and is lost to view; Bennen
and I walk slowly, discussing the results of the day. I am glad to see
that he is in high spirits, and confident of our future success. He
agrees with me to reach the top will be an exceedingly long day’s work,
and that we must allow ten hours at least for the actual peak, six
to ascend, four to descend; we must start next time, he says, ‘ganz,
ganz früh,’ and manage to reach the gap by seven o’clock. Presently we
deviate a little from our downward course; the same thought occupies
our minds; we perceive a long low line of roof on the mountain-side,
and are not mistaken in supposing that our favourite food will at this
hour be found there in abundance. The shepherds on the Italian hills
are more hospitable and courteous, I think, than their Swiss brethren:
twenty cows are moving their tails contentedly in line under the
shed, for Breuil is a rich pasture valley, and in an autumn evening I
have counted six herds of from ninety to a hundred each, in separate
clusters, like ants, along the stream in the distance. The friendly
man, in hoarse but hearty tones, urges us on as we drink; Bennen puts
into his hand forty centimes for us both (for we have disposed of no
small quantity): but he is with difficulty persuaded to accept so
large a sum, and calls after us, ‘C’est trop, c’est trop, messieurs.’
Long may civilisation and half-francs fail of reaching his simple
abode; for, alas! the great tourist-world is corrupting the primitive
chalet-life of the Alps, and the Alpine man returning to his old
haunts, finds a rise in the price even of ‘niedl’ and ‘mascarpa.’
The day after our expedition Bennen and myself recrossed the Théodule
in a heavy snow-storm. Tyndall started for Chamouni, for the weather
was too bad to justify an indefinite delay at Breuil in the hope of
making another attempt that year, and by waiting till another season
we were sure of obtaining less unfavourable conditions of snow and ice
upon the mountain.--We had enjoyed an exciting and adventurous day,
and I myself was not sorry to have something still left to do, while
we had the satisfaction of being the first to set foot on this, the
most imposing and mightiest giant of the Alps--the ‘inaccessible’ Mont
Cervin.--_Vacation Tourists, 1860._