_THE MATTERHORN--THIRD AND LAST ASSAULT._
The oil of life burnt rather low with me in 1868. Driven from London by
Dr. Bence Jones, I reached the Giessbach hotel on the Lake of Brientz
early in July. No pleasanter position could be found for an invalid.
My friend Hirst was with me, and we made various little excursions in
the neighbourhood. The most pleasant of these was to the Hinterburger
See, a small and lonely lake high up among the hills, fringed on one
side by pines, and overshadowed on the other by the massive limestone
buttresses of the Hinterburg. It is an exceedingly lovely spot,
but rarely visited. The Giessbach hotel is an admirably organised
establishment. The table is served by Swiss girls in Swiss costume,
fresh, handsome, and modest, well brought up, who come there, not as
servants, but to learn the mysteries of housekeeping. And among her
maidens moved like a little queen the daughter of the host--noiseless,
but effectual in her rule and governance. I went to the Giessbach
with a prejudice against the illumination of the fall. The crowd of
spectators may suggest the theatre, but the lighting up of the water
is fine. I liked the colourless light best; it merely intensified the
contrast revealed by ordinary daylight between the white foam of the
cascades and the black surrounding pines.
From the Giessbach we went to Thun, and thence up the Simmenthal
to Lenk. Over the sulphur spring a large hotel has been recently
erected, and here we found a number of Swiss and Germans, who thought
the waters did them good. In one large room the liquid gushes from
a tap into a basin, diffusing through the place the odour of rotten
eggs. The patients like this smell; indeed they regard its foulness
as a measure of their benefit. The director of the establishment is
intelligent and obliging, sparing no pains to meet the wishes and
promote the comfort of his guests. We wandered while at Lenk to the
summit of the Rawyl pass, visited the Siebenbrünnen, where the river
Simmen bursts full-grown from the rocks, and we should have clambered
up the Wildstrubel had the weather been tolerable. From Lenk we went
to Gsteig, a finely situated hamlet, but not celebrated for the peace
and comfort of its inn; and from Gsteig to the Diablerets hotel. While
there I clambered up the Diablerets mountain, and was amazed at the
extent of the snow-field upon its tabular top. The peaks, if they ever
existed, have been shorn away, and miles of flat _névé_, unseen from
below, overspread their section.
From the Diablerets we drove down to Aigle. The Traubenkur had not
commenced, and there was therefore ample space for us at the excellent
hotel. We were compelled to spend a night at Martigny. I heard the
trumpet of its famous mosquito, but did not feel its attacks. The
following night was more pleasantly spent on the cool col of the Great
St. Bernard. On Tuesday, July 21, we reached Aosta, and, in accordance
with previous telegraphic arrangement, met there the Chanoine Carrel.
Jean-Jacques Carrel, the old companion of Mr. Hawkins and myself,
and others at Breuil, were dissatisfied with the behaviour of the
_bersaglier_ last year, and this feeling the Chanoine shared. He had
written to me during the winter, stating that two new men had scaled
the Matterhorn, and that they were ready to accompany me anywhere. He
now drove, with Hirst and myself, to Chatillon, where at the noisy and
comfortless inn we spent the night. Here Hirst quitted me, and I turned
with the Chanoine up the valley to Breuil.
At Val Tournanche I saw a maiden niece of the Chanoine who had gone
high up the Matterhorn, and who, had the wind not assailed her
petticoats too roughly, might, it was said, have reached the top.
I can believe it. Her wrist was like a weaver’s beam, and her frame
seemed a mass of potential energy. The Chanoine had recommended to me
as guides the brothers Joseph and Pierre Maquignaz, of Val Tournanche,
his praises of Joseph as a man of unshaken coolness, courage, and
capacity as a climber being particularly strong. Previous to reaching
Breuil, I saw this Joseph, who seemed to divine by instinct my name and
aim.
Carrel was at Breuil, looking very dark, Bich petitioned for a porter’s
post, blaming Carrel bitterly for his greed in the previous year; but I
left the arrangement of these matters wholly in the hands of Maquignaz.
He joined me in the evening, and on the following day we ascended one
of the neighbouring summits, discussing as we went our chances on
the Matterhorn. In 1867 the chief precipitation took place in a low
atmospheric layer, the base of the mountain being heavily laden with
snow, while the summit and the higher rocks were bare. In 1868 the
distribution was inverted, the top being heavily laden and the lower
rocks clear. An additional element of uncertainty was thus introduced.
Maquignaz could not say what obstacles the snow might oppose to us
above, but he was resolute and hopeful. My desire was to finish for
ever my contest with the Matterhorn by making a pass over its summit
from Breuil to Zermatt. In this attempt my guide expressed his
willingness to join me, his interest in the project being apparently
equal to my own.
He, however, only knew the Zermatt side of the mountain through
inspection from below; and he acknowledged that a dread of it had
filled him the previous year. He now reasoned, however, that as Mr.
Whymper and the Taugwalds had managed to descend, we ought to be able
to do the same. On the Friday we climbed to the Col de la Furka,
examined from it the northern face of the pyramid, and discovered the
men who were engaged in building the cabin on that side. We worked
afterwards along the ridge which stretches from the Matterhorn to the
Theodule, crossing its gulleys and scaling all its heights. It was a
pleasant piece of discipline, on new ground, to both my guide and me.
On the Thursday evening a violent thunderstorm had burst over Breuil,
discharging new snow upon the heights, but also clearing the oppressive
air. Though the heavens seemed clear in the early part of Friday,
clouds showed a disposition to meet us from the south as we returned
from the col. I enquired of my companion whether, in the event of the
day being fine, he would be ready to start on Sunday. His answer was a
prompt negative. In Val Tournanche, he said, they always ‘sanctified
the Sunday.’ I mentioned Bennen, my pious Catholic guide, whom I
permitted and encouraged to attend his mass on all possible occasions,
but who, nevertheless, always yielded without a murmur to the demands
of the weather. The reasoning had its effect. On Saturday Maquignaz
saw his confessor, and arranged with him to have a mass at 2 A.M. on
Sunday; after which, unshaded by the sense of duties unperformed, he
would commence the ascent.
The claims of religion being thus met, the point of next importance,
that of money, was set at rest by my immediate acceptance of the tariff
published by the Chanoine Carrel. The problem being thus reduced to one
of muscular physics, we pondered the question of provisions, decided on
a bill of fare, and committed its execution to the industrious mistress
of the hotel.
A fog, impenetrable to vision, had filled the whole of the Val
Tournanche on Saturday night, and the mountains were half concealed
and half revealed by this fog when we rose on Sunday morning. The
east at sunrise was louring, and the light which streamed through the
cloud orifices was drawn in ominous red bars across the necks of the
mountains. It was one of those uncomfortable Laodicean days which
engender indecision--threatening, but not sufficiently so to warrant
postponement. Two guides and two porters were considered necessary
for the first day’s climb. A volunteer, moreover, attached himself to
our party, who carried a sheepskin as part of the furniture of the
cabin. To lighten their labour, the porters took a mule with them as
far as the quadruped could climb, and afterwards divided the load among
themselves. While they did so I observed the weather. The sun had risen
with considerable power, and had broken the cloud-plane to pieces. The
severed clouds gathered into masses more or less spherical, and were
rolled grandly over the ridges into Switzerland. Save for a swathe
of fog which now and then wrapped its flanks, the Matterhorn itself
remained clear, and strong hopes were raised that the progress of the
weather was in the right direction.
We halted at the base of the Tête du Lion, a bold precipice formed by
the sudden cutting down of the ridge which flanks the Val Tournanche
to the right. From its base to the Matterhorn stretches the Col du
Lion, crossed for the first time in 1860, by Mr. Hawkins, myself, and
our two guides. We were now beside a snow-gulley, which was cut by a
deep furrow along its centre, and otherwise scarred by the descent of
stones. Here each man arranged his bundle and himself so as to cross
the gulley in the minimum of time. The passage was safely made, a few
flying shingle only coming down upon us. But danger declared itself
where it was not expected. Joseph Maquignaz led the way up the rocks.
I was next, Pierre Maquignaz next, and last of all the porters.
Suddenly a yell issued from the leader: ‘_Cachez-vous!_’ I crouched
instinctively against the rock, which formed a by no means perfect
shelter, when a boulder buzzed past me through the air, smote the rocks
below me, and with a savage hum flew down to the lower glacier. Thus
warned, we swerved to an _arête_, and when stones fell afterwards they
plunged to the right or left of us.
In 1860 the great couloir which stretches from the Col du Lion
downwards was filled with a _névé_ of deep snow. But the atmospheric
conditions which have caused the glaciers of Switzerland to shrink so
remarkably during the last ten years[23] have swept away this _névé_.
We had descended it in 1860 hip-deep in snow, and I was now reminded of
its steepness by the inclination of its bed. Maquignaz was incredulous
when I pointed out to him the line of descent to which we had been
committed, in order to avoid the falling stones of the Tête du Lion.
Bennen’s warnings on the occasion were very emphatic, and I could
understand their wisdom now better than I did then.
[23] I should estimate the level of the Lower Grindelwald glacier, at
the point where it is usually entered upon to reach the Eismeer, to be
nearly one hundred feet vertically lower in 1867 than it was in 1856. I
am glad to find that the question of ‘Benchmarks’ to fix such changes
of level is now before the Council of the British Association.
When Mr. Hawkins and myself first tried the Matterhorn, a temporary
danger, sufficient to quell for a time the enthusiasm even of our
lion-hearted guide, was added to the permanent ones. Fresh snow had
fallen two days before; it had quite over-sprinkled the Matterhorn,
converting the brown of its crags into an iron-grey; this snow had
been melted and refrozen, forming upon the rocks an enamelling of
ice. Besides their physical front, moreover, in 1860, the rocks
presented a psychological one, derived from the rumour of their savage
inaccessibility. The crags, the ice, and the character of the mountain,
all conspired to stir the feelings. Much of the wild mystery has now
vanished, especially at those points which in 1860 were places of
virgin difficulty, but down which ropes now hang to assist the climber.
The intrinsic grandeur of the Matterhorn, however, cannot be effaced.
After some hours of steady climbing we halted upon a platform beside
the tattered remnant of one of the tents employed by me in 1862.
Here we sunned ourselves for an hour. We subsequently worked upward,
scaling the crags and rounding the bases of those wild and wonderful
rock-towers, into which the weather of ages has hewn the southern
ridge of the Matterhorn. The work required knowledge, but with a fair
amount of skill it is safe work. I can fancy nothing more fascinating
to a man given by nature and habit to such things than a climb alone
among these crags and precipices. He need not be _theological_, but,
if complete, the grandeur of the place would certainly fill him with
religious awe.
Looked at from Breuil, the Matterhorn presents two summits--the one,
the summit proper, a square rock-tower in appearance; the other, which
is really the end of a sharp ridge abutting against the rock-tower, an
apparently conical peak. On this peak Bennen and myself planted our
flagstaff in 1862. At some distance below it the mountain is crossed
by an almost horizontal ledge, always loaded with snow, which, from
its resemblance to a white necktie, has been called the _Cravate_.
On this ledge a cabin was put together in 1867. It stands above the
precipice where I quitted my rope in 1862. Up this precipice, by the
aid of a thicker--I will not say a stronger--rope, we now scrambled,
and, following the exact route pursued by Bennen and myself five years
previously, we came to the end of the Cravate. At some places the snow
upon the ledge fell steeply from its junction with the cliff; deep
step-cutting was also needed where the substance had been melted and
recongealed. The passage, however, was soon accomplished along the
Cravate to the cabin, which was almost filled with snow.
Our first need was water. We could, of course, always melt the snow,
but this would involve a wasteful expenditure of heat. The cliff at
the base of which the hut was built, overhung, and from its edge the
liquefied snow fell in showers beyond the cabin. Four ice-axes were
fixed on the ledge, and over them was spread the residue of a second
tent which I had left at Breuil in 1862. The water falling upon the
canvas flowed towards its centre. Here an orifice was made, through
which the liquid descended into vessels placed to receive it. Some
modification of this plan might probably be employed with profit for
the storing-up of water for droughty years in England.
I lay for some hours in the warm sunshine, in presence of the Italian
mountains, watching the mutations of the air. But when the sun sank
the air became chill, and we all retired to the cabin. We had no fire,
though warmth was much needed. A lover of the mountains, and of his
kind, had contributed an india-rubber mattrass, on which I lay down, a
light blanket being thrown over me, while the guides and porters were
rolled up in sheepskins. The mattrass was a poor defence against the
cold of the subjacent rock. I bore this for two hours, unwilling to
disturb the guides, but at length it became intolerable. On learning my
condition, however, the good fellows were soon alert, and, folding a
sheepskin round me, restored me gradually to a pleasant temperature. I
fell asleep, and found the guides preparing breakfast, and the morning
well advanced, when I opened my eyes.
It was past six o’clock when the two brothers and I quitted the cabin.
The porters deemed their work accomplished, but they halted for a
time to ascertain whether we were likely to be driven back or to push
forward. We skirted the Cravate, and reached the ridge at its western
extremity. This we ascended along the old route of Bennen and myself
to the conical peak already referred to, which, as seen from Breuil,
constitutes a kind of second summit of the Matterhorn. From this
point to the base of the final precipice of the mountain stretches an
_arête_, terribly hacked by the weather, but on the whole horizontal.
When I first made the acquaintance of this savage ridge--called by
Italians the Spalla--it was almost clear of snow. It was now loaded,
the snow being bevelled to an edge of exceeding sharpness. The slope
to the left, falling towards Zmutt, was exceedingly steep, while the
precipices on the right were abysmal. No other part of the Matterhorn
do I remember with greater interest than this. It was terrible, but
its difficulties were fairly within the grasp of human skill, and this
association is more ennobling than where the circumstances are such as
to make you conscious of your own helplessness. On one of the sharpest
teeth of the ridge Joseph Maquignaz halted, and, turning to me with a
smile, remarked, ‘There is no room for giddiness here, sir.’ In fact,
such possibilities, in such places, must be altogether excluded from
the chapter of accidents of the climber.
It was at the end of this ridge, where it abuts against the last
precipice of the Matterhorn, that my second flagstaff was left in 1862.
I think there must have been something in the light falling upon this
precipice that gave it an aspect of greater verticality when I first
saw it than it seemed to possess on the present occasion. We had,
however, been struggling for many hours previously, and may have been
dazed by our exertion. I cannot otherwise account for three of my party
declining flatly to make any attempt upon the precipice. It looks very
bad, but no real climber with his strength unimpaired would pronounce
it, without trial, insuperable. Fears of this rock-wall, however, had
been excited long before we reached it. It was probably the addition of
the psychological element to the physical--the reluctance to encounter
new dangers on a mountain which had hitherto inspired a superstitious
fear--that quelled further exertion.
Seven hundred feet, if the barometric measurement can be trusted, of
very difficult rock-work now lay above us. In 1862 this height had
been underestimated by both Bennen and myself. Of the 14,800 feet of
the Matterhorn, we then thought we had accomplished 14,600. If the
barometer speaks truly, we had only cleared 14,200.
Descending the end of the ridge, we crossed a narrow cleft, and
grappled with the rocks at the other side of it. Our ascent was
oblique, bearing to the right. The obliquity at one place fell to
horizontality, and we had to work on the level round a difficult
protuberance of rock. We cleared the difficulty without haste, and then
rose straight against the precipice. Above us a rope hung down the
cliff, left there by Maquignaz on the occasion of his first ascent. We
reached the end of this rope, and some time was lost by my guide in
assuring himself that it was not too much frayed by friction. Care in
testing it was doubly necessary, for the rocks, bad in themselves, were
here crusted with ice. The rope was in some places a mere hempen core
surrounded by a casing of ice, over which the hands slid helplessly.
Even with the aid of the rope in this condition it required an effort
to get to the top of the precipice, and we willingly halted there to
take a minute’s breath. The ascent was virtually accomplished, and a
few minutes more of rapid climbing placed us on the lightning-smitten
top. Thus ended the long contest between me and the Matterhorn.
The day thus far had swung through alternations of fog and sunshine.
While we were on the ridge below, the air at times was blank and chill
with mist; then with rapid solution the cloud would vanish, and open
up the abysses right and left of us. On our attaining the summit a fog
from Italy rolled over us, and for some minutes we were clasped by a
cold and clammy atmosphere. But this passed rapidly away, leaving above
us a blue heaven, and far below us the sunny meadows of Zermatt. The
mountains were almost wholly unclouded, and such clouds as lingered
amongst them only added to their magnificence. The Dent d’Érin, the
Dent Blanche, the Gabelhorn, the Mischabel, the range of heights
between it and Monte Rosa, the Lyskamm, and the Breithorn were all at
hand, and clear; while the Weisshorn, noblest and most beautiful of
all, shook out a banner towards the north, formed by the humid southern
air as it grazed the crest of the mountain.
The world of peaks and glaciers surrounding this immediate circlet
of giants was also open to us up to the horizon. Our glance over it
was brief, for it was eleven o’clock, and the work before us soon
claimed all our attention. I found the _débris_ of my former expedition
everywhere--below, the fragments of my tents, and on the top a piece
of my ladder fixed in the snow as a flagstaff. The summit of the
Matterhorn is a sharp horizontal _arête_, and along this we now moved
eastward. On our left was the roof-like slope of snow seen from the
Riffel and Zermatt; on our right were the savage precipices which fall
into Italy. Looking to the further end of the ridge, the snow there
seemed to be trodden down, and I drew my companions’ attention to the
apparent footmarks. As we approached the place it became evident that
human feet had been there two or three days previously. I think it
was Mr. Elliot of Brighton[24] who had made this ascent--the first
accomplished from Zermatt since 1865. On the eastern end of the ridge
we halted to take a little food--not that I seemed to need it: it was
the remonstrance of reason rather than the consciousness of physical
want that caused me to do so.
[24] Killed in 1869 upon the Schreckhorn.
We took our ounce of nutriment and gulp of wine (my only sustenance
during the entire day), and stood for a moment silently and earnestly
looking down towards Zermatt. There was a certain official formality
in the manner in which the guides turned to me and asked, ‘Êtes-vous
content d’essayer?’ A sharp responsive ‘Oui!’ set us immediately in
motion. It was nearly half-past eleven when we quitted the summit.
The descent of the roof-like slope already referred to offered no
difficulty; but the gradient very soon became more formidable.
One of the two faces of the Matterhorn pyramid, seen from Zermatt,
falls towards the Zmutt glacier, and has a well-known snow-plateau at
its base. The other face falls towards the Furgge glacier. We were
on the former. For some time, however, we kept close to the _arête_
formed by the intersection of the two faces of the pyramid, because
nodules of rock jutted from it which offered a kind of footing. These
rock protuberances helped us in another way: round them an extra rope
which we carried was frequently doubled, and we let ourselves down by
the rope as far as it could reach, liberating it afterwards (sometimes
with difficulty) by a succession of jerks. In the choice and use of
these protuberances the guides showed both judgment and skill. The
rocks became gradually larger and more precipitous, a good deal of
time being consumed in dropping down and doubling round them. Still we
preferred them to the snow-slope at our left as long as they continued
practicable.
This they at length ceased to be, and we had to commit ourselves to the
slope. It was in the worst possible condition. When snow first falls
at these great heights it is usually dry, and has no coherence. It
resembles, to some extent, flour, or sand, or sawdust. Shone upon by
a strong sun it partly melts, shrinks, and becomes more consolidated,
and when subsequently frozen it may be safely trusted. Even though
the melting of the snow and its subsequent freezing may be only very
partial, the cementing of the granules adds immensely to the safety of
the footing. Hence the advantage of descending such a slope before the
sun has had time to unlock the rigidity of the night’s frost. But we
were on the steepest Matterhorn slope during the two hottest hours of
the day, and the sun had done his work effectually. The layer of snow
was about fifteen inches thick. In treading it we came immediately
upon the rock, which in most cases was too smooth to furnish either
prop or purchase. It was on this slope that the Matterhorn catastrophe
occurred: it is on this slope that other catastrophes will occur, if
this mountain should ever become fashionable.
Joseph Maquignaz was the leader of our little party, and a brave, cool,
and competent leader he proved himself to be. He was silent, save when
he answered his brother’s anxious and oft-repeated question, ‘Es-tu
bien placé, Joseph?’ Along with being perfectly cool and brave, he
seemed to be perfectly truthful. He did not pretend to be ‘bien placé’
when he was not, nor avow a power of holding which he knew he did not
possess. Pierre Maquignaz is, I believe, under ordinary circumstances,
an excellent guide, and he enjoys the reputation of being never tired.
But in such circumstances as we encountered on the Matterhorn he is
not the equal of his brother. Joseph, if I may use the term, is a man
of high boiling point, his constitutional _sangfroid_ resisting the
ebullition of fear. Pierre, on the contrary, shows a strong tendency to
boil over in perilous places.
Our progress was exceedingly slow, but it was steady and continued. At
every step our leader trod the snow cautiously, seeking some rugosity
on the rock beneath it. This however was rarely found, and in most
cases he had to establish a mechanical attachment between the snow
and the slope which bore it. No semblance of a slip occurred in the
case of any one of us, and had it occurred I do not think the worst
consequences could have been avoided. I wish to stamp this slope of
the Matterhorn with the character that really belonged to it when I
descended it, and I do not hesitate to say that the giving way of any
one of our party would have carried the whole of us to ruin. Why, then,
it may be asked employ the rope? The rope, I reply, notwithstanding
all its possible drawbacks under such circumstances, is the safeguard
of the climber. Not to speak of the moral effect of its presence, an
amount of help upon a dangerous slope that might be measured by the
gravity of a few pounds is often of incalculable importance; and thus,
though the rope may be not only useless but disastrous if the footing
be clearly lost, and the glissade fairly begun, it lessens immensely
the chance of this occurrence.
With steady perseverance, difficulties upon a mountain, as elsewhere,
come to an end. We were finally able to pass from the face of the
pyramid to its rugged edge, where it was a great relief to feel that
honest strength and fair skill, which might have gone for little on the
slope, were masters of the situation.
Standing on the _arête_, at the foot of a remarkable cliff-gable seen
from Zermatt, and permitting the vision to range over the Matterhorn,
its appearance is exceedingly wild and impressive. Hardly two things
can be more different than the two aspects of the mountain from above
and below. Seen from the Riffel, or Zermatt, it presents itself as a
compact pyramid, smooth and steep, and defiant of the weathering air.
From above, it seems torn to pieces by the frosts of ages, while its
vast facettes are so foreshortened as to stretch out into the distance
like plains. But this underestimate of the steepness of the mountain is
checked by the deportment of its stones. Their discharge along the side
of the pyramid to-day was incessant, and at any moment, by detaching a
single boulder, we could let loose a cataract of them, which flew with
wild rapidity and with a thunderous clatter down the mountain. We once
wandered too far from the _arête_, and were warned back to it by a
train of these missiles sweeping past us.
As long as our planet yields less heat to space than she receives
from the bodies of space, so long will the forms upon her surface
undergo mutation, and as soon as equilibrium, in regard to heat,
has been established we shall have, as Thomson has pointed out, not
peace, but death. Life is the product and accompaniment of change,
and the self-same power that tears the flanks of the hills to pieces
is the mainspring of the animal and vegetable worlds. Still, there
is something chilling in the contemplation of the irresistible and
remorseless character of those infinitesimal forces, whose integration
through the ages pulls down even the Matterhorn. Hacked and hurt by
time, the aspect of the mountain from its higher crags saddened me.
Hitherto the impression that it made was that of savage strength, but
here we had inexorable decay.
This notion of decay, however, implied a reference to a period when
the Matterhorn was in the full strength of mountainhood. My thoughts
naturally ran back to its possible growth and origin. Nor did they
halt there, but wandered on through molten worlds to that nebulous
haze which philosophers have regarded, and with good reason, as the
proximate source of all material things. I tried to look at this
universal cloud, containing within itself the prediction of all that
has since occurred; I tried to imagine it as the seat of those forces
whose action was to issue in solar and stellar systems, and all that
they involve. Did that formless fog contain potentially the _sadness_
with which I regarded the Matterhorn? Did the _thought_ which now ran
back to it simply return to its primeval home? If so, had we not better
recast our definitions of matter and force? for if life and thought be
the very flower of both, any definition which omits life and thought
must be inadequate, if not untrue.
Questions like these, useless as they seem, may still have a practical
outcome. For if the final goal of man has not been yet attained, if his
development has not been yet arrested, who can say that such yearnings
and questionings are not necessary to the opening of a finer vision, to
the budding and the growth of diviner powers? Without this upward force
could man have risen to his present height? When I look at the heavens
and the earth, at my own body, at my strength and weakness of mind,
even at these ponderings, and ask myself, Is there no being or thing in
the universe that knows more about these matters than I do?--what is
my answer? Supposing our theologic schemes of creation, condemnation,
and redemption to be dissipated; and the warmth of denial which
they excite, and which, as a motive force, can match the warmth of
affirmation, dissipated at the same time; would the undeflected human
mind return to the meridian of absolute neutrality as regards these
ultra-physical questions? Is such a position one of stable equilibrium?
Such are the questions, without replies, which could run through
consciousness during a ten minutes’ halt upon the weathered spire of
the Matterhorn.
We shook the rope away from us, and went rapidly down the rocks. The
day was well advanced when we reached the cabin, and between it and the
base of the pyramid we missed our way. It was late when we regained
it, and by the time we reached the ridge of the Hörnli we were unable
to distinguish rock from ice. We should have fared better than we
did if we had kept along the ridge and felt our way to the Schwarz
See, whence there would have been no difficulty in reaching Zermatt,
but we left the Hörnli to our right, and found ourselves incessantly
checked in the darkness by ledges and precipices, possible and actual.
We were afterwards entangled in the woods of Zmutt, carving our way
wearily through bush and bramble, and creeping at times along dry and
precipitous stream-beds. But we finally struck the path and followed it
to Zermatt, which we reached between one and two o’clock in the morning.
Having work to do for the Norwich meeting of the British Association,
I remained several days at the Riffel, taking occasional breathings
with pleasant companions upon the Riffelhorn. I subsequently crossed
the Weissthor with Mr. Paris to Mattmark, and immediately afterwards
returned to England.
On the 4th of September, Signor Giordano, to whom we are indebted for
a very complete geological section of the Matterhorn, with Joseph
Maquignaz and Carrel as guides, followed my route over the mountain. In
a letter dated Florence, December 31, 1868, he writes to me thus:
‘Quant à moi, je dirai que vraiment, j’ai trouvé cette fois le pic
assez difficile.... J’ai surtout trouvé difficile la traversée de
l’arête qui suit le pic Tyndall du côté de l’Italie. Quant au versant
suisse, je l’ai trouvé moins difficile que je ne croyais, parce que la
neige y était un peu consolidée par la chaleur. En descendant le pic du
côté de Zermatt j’ai encouru un véritable danger par les avalanches de
pierres.... Un de mes deux guides a eu le havresac coupé en deux par un
bloc, et moi-même j’ai été un peu contusionné.’