FALLING STONES AND FALLING BODIES
I am indebted to the editor of _The Cornhill_ and the author of an
article entitled "The Cup and the Lip" for permission to reprint
portions of a paper containing much shrewd wisdom, several accounts of
narrow escapes, and withal of a wittiness and freshness that brings to
the reader a keen blast of Alpine air and the memory, if by chance he be
a climber, of his own early days upon the mountains.
[Illustration: A HOT DAY IN SUMMER ON A MOUNTAIN TOP.]
[Illustration: A SUMMIT NEAR SAAS.]
[Illustration: LUNCHEON ON THE WAY TO THE HUT IN WINTER.]
[Illustration: LUNCHEON IN SUMMER ON THE TOP OF A GLACIER PASS.
_To face p. 310._]
The writer, after remarking that even in these days when the traveller,
by the purchase of a few climbing requisites, is inclined to consider
himself a mountaineer before he has ever set foot on a peak, goes on to
say that, in reality, "for the most of us the craft is long to learn,
the conquering hard. And in the experience of many there are two
distinct phases. There is the time when, flushed with youth and victory,
you seem to go on from strength to strength, faster from year to year,
more confident in foot and hand, more scornful of the rope which you
have seen so often used, not as a means of safety, but as an
assistance to the progression of the weaker brethren, until one day your
foot unaccountably finds the step too small, or the bit of rock comes
away in your hand, or the outraged spirit of the mountains smites you
suddenly with a stone, and all is changed. Henceforth every well-worn
and half-despised precaution has a new meaning for you; it becomes a
point of honour to walk circumspectly, to turn the rope round every
helpful projection when the leader moves, and to mark and keep your
distance; and you begin to catch a little of the wisdom of your fathers.
It is not until the slip comes--as it comes to all--that you believe a
slip is possible; and were it not for slips the continual advance of cup
to lip might become in time monotonous and irksome, and mountaineering
nothing but a more laborious and elaborate form of walking up a damp
flight of stairs. But when it has come, and there has passed away the
result of the consequent shock to your self-esteem, and to other even
more sensitive portions of your person, there succeeds a new pride of
achievement, and you will have the advantages of the converted sinner
over the ninety-and-nine just persons whose knickerbockers are still
unriven. Furthermore, you will have commenced the graduate stage of your
mountaineering education. Unlucky, too, will you be if your experience
has not given you something more than a juster estimate of your own
moral and physical excellence; for your misfortune, if you have chosen
your companions aright, will suddenly turn your grumbling hireling into
a friend as gentle and as patient as a nurse, and disclose in those who
were your friends qualities of calm and steadfastness never revealed in
the fret of the valley; while, if you need wine and oil for your wounds,
when you reach home again, you will find in the inn some English doctor,
asking nothing better than to devote the best part of his holiday to the
gratuitous healing of the stranger.
[Illustration: A TEDIOUS SNOW SLOPE TO ASCEND.]
[Illustration: A SITTING GLISSADE AND A QUICK DESCENT.]
[Illustration: A GLACIER-CAPPED SUMMIT.]
[Illustration: ITALY TO THE LEFT, SWITZERLAND TO THE RIGHT.
_To face p. 312._]
"The form of my own awakening was not such as to require wine or oil or
consolation, and indeed, had I spoken of it at the time, would have
scarcely escaped ridicule. We had reached the summit of our pass, and
the guides and myself had decided that the steep wall of snow on the
further side was an admirable place for a glissade. Accordingly, we went
through the inevitable ritual of the summit, consumed as much sour bread
and wine as we could, with unerring inaccuracy applied the wrong names
to all the newly disclosed mountain-tops, adjusted the rope and prepared
for the descent. Unfortunately, we omitted to explain the particular
form of pleasure in which we were about to indulge to my companion, who
was ignorant alike of mountaineering and the German tongue. The result
was simple: the second guide, who was in front, set off with his feet
together and his axe behind him; I followed in as correct an imitation
of his attitude as I could induce my body to assume; but the novice
stood still on the crest of the pass to 'await in fitting silence the
event,' and the rope tightened. The jerk, after nearly cutting me in
two, laid me on my back in the snow, and was then transmitted to the
guide, who was also pulled off his feet and plunged head foremost down.
Our combined weights drew after us both my companion and the chief
guide, who was taken unawares, and both came crushing upon me. We rolled
over and over, mutually pounding one another as we rolled; hats and
spectacles and axes preceded us, and huge snowballs followed in our
wake, until, breathless and humiliated, we had cleared the _schrund_,
and came to an ignominious halt on the flat snow below.
"This was no very rude introduction to my climbing deficiencies, but
before the end of the season I had felt fear at the pit of my stomach.
We (that is A. T. and myself) had scrambled up an Austrian mountain,
and, on our way down, had come to where the little glacier intervenes
between the precipice and the little moraine heaps above the forest. The
glacier would hardly deserve the name in any other part of the Alps, so
small is it; but it makes up for what it lacks in size by its exceeding
steepness; the hardness of its ice, and the ferocity (if one may
attribute personal characteristics to Nature) of the rock walls which
keep in its stream on either hand, hem it in so closely that I think it
must be always in deep shadow, even in the middle of a June day.
"Here you must cross it very nearly on a level, and then skirt down its
further side between ice and rock for a few feet before you come to a
suitable place for the crossing of the big crevasse below you; and then
a short slide down old avalanche _débris_ shoots you deliciously into
the sun again. The crossing of the glacier in the steps cut by the
numerous parties who have passed on previous days is an extremely simple
affair. But you must not hurry, for a slip could not be checked, and
would probably finish in the before-mentioned crevasse. We started,
however, in some fear; for a party ascending the mountains favoured us
with continual showers of stones of all sizes, and the higher they
climbed the more viciously came their artillery. Hence I was nervous and
apt to go carelessly when we reached the middle of the ice, and here the
noise began. I heard a strange, whizzing, whirring noise which sounded
strangely familiar, accompanied by a physical shiver on my part and a
curious knocking together of the knees; again and again it came,
followed each time by a slight dull thud; and, looking at the rocks
below us on each side, I saw a little white puff of dust rising at
every concussion. Then I knew why the sound seemed familiar. I was
reminded how, as a panting schoolboy, I had toiled up a long dusty road
to a certain down with a rifle much too large for me, in the vain hope
of shooting my third-class, and how, as we bruised our shoulders at the
200 yards' range, another young gentleman firing at the 400 yards at the
parallel range on the left, had mistaken his mark and fired across our
heads at the target beyond us on the right. Everything was present: the
indescribable whirring of the bullet, its horrible invisibility while it
flew, and the grey little cloud as it flattened itself on the white
paint of the target. The sensation was horrible, the tendency to hurry
irresistible, and but for my companion I should have risked slip and
crevasse and everything to get out of the line of fire. But my companion
remained absolutely steady; while he poured forth curses in every
language and every _patois_ ever spoken in the Italian Tyrol, he still
moved his feet as deliberately, improved the steps with as much care and
minuteness as if he were a Chamonix guide conducting a Frenchman on the
Mer de Glace. I know he felt the position as acutely as I did, for when,
a week later, we had to cross the same place under a similar fire, and
the third member of the party was sent on in front with a large rope to
recut the steps, he turned to me with impressive simplicity, and said,
'_Adesso è quello in grande pericolo_. If he is hit, we cannot save
him.' How long we took to cross I do not know. But when at last we
reached the other bank we cast the rope off with one impulse, and,
bending under the shelter of the rocks, ran where I had found climbing
hard in the morning, jumped the _bergschrund_, fell and rolled down the
snow under a final volley from the mountain, and lay long by the stream
panting and safe.
"I suspect the danger here was far more apparent than real. My next
adventure with a falling stone was more real than I like to think of.
Four of us had been scrambling round the rocks beside the Ventina
Glacier, and were returning to our camp to lunch. By bad luck, as it
turned out, I reached level ground first, and, lying on my back amongst
great boulders, watched with amusement the struggles of my companions
who were about a hundred feet above me, apparently unable to get up or
down. They were screaming to me, but the torrent drowned their voices,
and I smoked my pipe in contentment. _Suave mari magno._ At last they
moved, and with them the huge rock which they had been endeavouring to
uphold and shouting to me to beware of. It crashed down towards me, but
I determined to stop where I was. The roughness of the ground would have
hindered my escape to any distance, and I calculated on stepping quickly
aside when my enemy had declared himself for any particular path of
attack. So I did, but the stone at that moment broke in pieces, and,
quick as I was with desperation, one fragment was quicker still. It
caught me, glancing as I turned between the shoulder and the elbow, only
just touching me, as I suppose, for the bone was quite unhurt. Up I went
into the air and down I came among the stones, with all the wind knocked
out of me, large bruises all over me, not hurt, but very much
frightened.
[Illustration: UNPLEASANT GOING OVER LOOSE STONES.]
[Illustration: ON THE CREST OF AN OLD MORAINE.
_To face p. 317._]
"Such experiences as this leave no very lasting impression, and might
just as easily happen were the party accompanied by the best of guides.
But I hardly think that any guide would have been crack-brained enough
to take part in two expeditions which taught me what it feels like to
slip on rock and ice respectively. The first slip took place during the
winter. With one companion I was climbing in a long and not very
difficult gully on a Welsh mountain. The frost had just broken, and
there was more water in the pitches than was quite pleasant. It was very
cold water, and my hands, which had been frost-bitten the week before,
were still swathed in bandages. Hence progress was very slow, and at
last my friend took the lead to spare me. He was climbing over a big
overhanging stone jammed between the walls of the gully and forming an
excellent spout for the water, which was thus poured conveniently down
his neck. I stood on the shelving floor of the gully in perfect safety,
and watched the shower-bath, which was gradually exhausting him. He
asked for his axe, and I, in a moment of madness, came near and handed
it up; his legs, which were all I could then see of him, were kicking in
the water about 5 feet above my head. What happened next I do not know,
but I shall always maintain that, seeing an eligible blade of grass
above him, he plunged the adze in and hauled with both hands. The blade
resented such treatment, and came out. Anyhow he fell on my head, and we
commenced a mad career down the way we had ascended, rather rolling than
falling, striking our heads and backs against the rocks, and apparently
destined for the stony valley upon which we had looked down between our
legs for hours. People who have escaped drowning say that, in what was
their struggle for life, their minds travelled back over their whole
history. I know that my brain at this moment suddenly acquired an
unusual strength. In a few seconds we were safe, but in those seconds
there was time for centuries of regret. There was no fear; that was to
come later. But I felt vividly that I was present as a spectator of my
own suicide, and thought myself a feeble kind of fool. Had it been on
the Dru or the Meije, I thought, it might have been worth it, but,
half-drowned, to plunge a poor 40 feet over the next pitch on a hill
not 3000 feet high, with a carriage road in sight, and a girl driving in
the cows for milking in Nant Francon! We did not roll far, and stuck
between the walls of the gully, where they narrowed. Then I arose and
shook myself, unhurt. My companion made me light his pipe, which cheered
me very much, and we each partook of an enormous mutton sandwich. Help
was near, for another party of three was climbing in the next gully, and
came to our shouts; one ran down to the farm for a hurdle, the rest
began the descent. For hours we seemed to toil, for my companion, though
with admirable fortitude he supported the pain of movement, had
temporarily no power over his legs and the lower part of his body. I
could do little, but the others worked like blacks, and just at dark we
reached the farm and the ministrations of a Welsh doctor, who told my
friend, quite erroneously, that there was nothing the matter with him,
pointed out a swelling on my face as big as a pigeon's egg, which, he
said, would probably lead to erysipelas, and then departed into the
darkness.
"A fall on ice has something in it more relentless, though, until the
last catastrophe, less violent. We had all been victims to the
flesh-pots of the valley, and were, perhaps, hardly fit for a long
ice-slope, when we began to cut up the last few feet to gain the _arête_
of our mountain. The incline seemed to me very steep, and, third on the
rope, I was watching the leader at his labours, half pitying him for his
exertions, half envying him his immunity from the ice fragments which he
was sending down to me. Below me the fourth man had barely left the
great flat rock on which we had breakfasted; there was no reason to
think of danger; when to my horror I saw the leader cut a step, put out
his foot slowly, and then very slowly and deliberately sway over and
fall forwards and downwards against the ice. We were in a diagonal line,
but almost immediately beneath one another, and he swung quietly round
like a pendulum, his axe holding him to the slope, until he was
immediately beneath the second man. Very slowly, as it seemed, the rope
grew taut; the weight began to tug at his waist; and then he, too,
slowly and reflectively in the most correct mountaineering attitude, as
though he were embarking upon a well-considered journey, began to slide.
Now was the time for me to put into practice years of patient training.
I dug my toes in and stiffened my back, anchored myself to the ice, and
waited for the strain. It was an unconscionable time coming, and, when
it came, I still had time to think that I could bear it. Then the weight
of 27 stone in a remorseless way quietly pulled me from my standpoint,
as though my resistance were an impudence. Still, like the others, I
held my axe against the ice and struggled like a cat on a polished
floor, always seeing the big flat rock, and thinking of the bump with
which we should bound from it, and begin our real career through the
air; when suddenly the bump came and we all fell together in a heap on
to the rock and the fourth man, who had stepped back upon it, my
crampons running into his leg, and my axe, released from the pressure,
going off through the air on the very journey which I had anticipated
for us all. The others were for a fresh attack on the malicious
mountain; but I was of milder mood, and very soon, torn and wiser, we
were off on a slower but more convenient path to the valley than had
seemed destined for us a few minutes before. But our cup was not yet
full. Having no axe with which to check a slip, I was placed at the head
of the line, and led slowly down, floundering a good deal for want of my
usual support. The great couloir was seamed across with a gigantic
crevasse, the angle of the slope being so sharp that the upper half
overhung, and we had only crossed in the morning by standing on the
lower lip, cutting hand-holes in the upper, and shoving up the leader
from the shoulder of the second man: hence, in descending, our position
was similar to that of a man on the mantel-shelf who should wish to
climb down into the fire itself. We chose the obvious alternative of a
jump to the curb, which was, I suppose, about 15 feet below us and made
of steep ice with a deep and deceptive covering of snow. I jumped and
slid away with this covering, to be arrested in my course by a rude
jerk. I turned round indignant; but my companions were beyond my
reproaches. One by one, full of snow, eloquent, and bruised, they issued
slowly from the crevasse into which I had hurled them, and, heedless of
the humour of the situation, gloomily urged me downwards.
"Some hours still passed before we reached our friendly Italian hut,
left some days before for a raid into Swiss territory; there on the
table were our provisions and shirts as we had left them, and a solemn
array of bottles full of milk carried up during our absence by our
shepherd friends; and there, on the pile, in stinging comment on our
late proceedings, lay a slip of paper, the tribute of some Italian
tourist, bearing the inscription 'Omaggio ai bravi Inglesi ignoti.' We
felt very much ashamed.
"When the soup has been eaten and the pipes are lighted, and you sit
down outside your hut for the last talk before bed, you will find your
guides' tongues suddenly acquire a new eloquence, and, if you are a
novice at the craft, will be almost overwhelmed by the catalogue of
misfortune which they will repeat to you. And so, too, upon us in the
winter months comes the temptation to dwell on things done long ago and
ill done, and, as we write of the sport for others, we give a false
impression of peril and hardihood in things that were little more than
matter for a moment's laughter. I too must plead guilty to a well-meant
desire to make your flesh creep.
[Illustration: AN AWKWARD BIT OF CLIMBING.]
[Illustration: GUIDES AT ZERMATT.]
[Illustration: A LARGE PARTY FOR A SMALL HUT.]
[Illustration: AU REVOIR.
_To face p. 322._]
"Mountaineering by skilled mountaineers is about as dangerous as hunting
in a fair country, and requires about as much pluck as to cross from the
Temple to the Law Courts at midday. Difficult mountaineering is for the
unskilled about as dangerous as riding a vicious horse in a steeplechase
for a man who has never learnt to ride. But the tendency in those who
speak or write of it for the outer world who are not mountaineers is to
conceal a deficiency of charm of style by an attempt to slog in the
melodramatic, and I plead guilty at once.
"So we think and write as though to us our passion for the hills were a
fancy of the summer, a mere flirtation. Yet no one has lost the first
bloom of his delight in Alpine adventure before the element of sternness
has come to mar his memory and bind more closely his affections. You
find the mildly Horatian presence of death somewhere near you, and that
at a moment when, whatever your age and strength, and whatever your
infirmities, you are at the full burst of youth; when Nature has been
kindest she has been most capricious, and has flaunted her relentless
savagery just when she has bent to kiss you. The weirdest rocks rise
from Italian gardens, and the forms of hill seem oldest when you are
most exultant--immortal age beside immortal youth. Yet is it not this,
'the sense of tears,' in things which are not mortal which must mark
your Alpine paths with memories as heavy and as definite as those
inscriptions which tell of obscure and sudden death on every hillside,
and invite your prayers for the woodcutter and the shepherd? You too
will have seen friends go out into the morning whom you have never
welcomed home. There is a danger, sometimes encountered recklessly,
sometimes ignorantly, but sometimes--hard as it may be to understand the
mood--not in the mere spirit of the idle youth, but met with and
overcome, or overcoming, in a resolution which knows no pleasure in
conquest save when the essay is fierce, and is calmly willing to pay the
penalty of failure. While for ourselves we enjoy the struggle none the
less because we have taken every care that we shall win, they freely
give all; and for such there is surely no law. While by every precept
and example we impress the old rules of the craft on our companions and
our successors, how can we find words of blame for those who have at
least paid the extreme forfeit, and found 'the sleep that is among the
lonely hills'?
"The penalty for failure is death; not always exacted at the first
slip, for Nature is merciful and ofttimes doth relent; but surely
waiting for those who scorn the experience of others and slight her
majesty in wilfulness, in ignorance, in the obstinate following of a
fancy, in the vain pursuit of notoriety. The rules are known, and those
who break them, and by precept and example tempt to break them those
whom they should teach, wrong the sport which they profess to love.
"In this game as in any other, it should be a point of honour for us not
to make the sport more difficult for others, and not to bring
unnecessary sorrow upon the peasants, who help us to play it, and upon
their families. It should be a point of honour to play the game, and, if
disaster comes in playing it, we have at least, done our best."
GLOSSARY
ALP A mountain pasture, usually with chalets
tenanted only in summer.
ARÊTE A ridge.
BERGSCHRUND A crevasse between the snow adhering to
the rocks and the lower portion of the
glacier.
COL A pass between two peaks.
COULOIR A gully, usually filled with snow or stones.
CREVASSE A crack in a glacier, caused by the movement
of the ice over an uneven bed or
round a corner.
FIRN The snow of the upper regions, which is
slowly changing into glacier ice.
GRAT A ridge.
JOCH A pass between two peaks.
KAMM A summit ridge.
MORAINE An accumulation of stones and sand which
has fallen from bordering slopes on to
a glacier. Medial moraines are formed
by the junction of glaciers, their lateral
moraines joining.
MOULIN A glacier mill, or shaft through the ice,
formed by a stream which has met a
crevasse in its course, and plunging
into its depths has bored a hole right
through the glacier and often into the
rock beneath.
NÉVÉ The French of _Firn_. (See Firn.)
RÜCKSACK The bag type of canvas knapsack now invariably
used by guides and climbers.
SCHRUND A crevasse. (See Crevasse.)
SÊRAC A cube of ice, formed by transverse crevasses,
and found where a glacier passes over
steep rocks. This part of a glacier is
called an ice-fall.
INDEX
A
Abruzzi, Duke of, 8
Adine Col, 108
Æggischhorn, 257
Ailefroide, 228, 245
Aitkins, Mr, 162
Aletsch Glacier, 125
Aletschhorn, avalanche on, 55
Almer, Christian, 223, 237
Almer, Ulrich, 55
Andenmatten, 108
Anderegg, Jacob, 126, 127
Anderegg, Melchior, 125, 212
Andermatten, Franz, 202
Arbuthnot, Mrs, 257
Arc, Valley of, 266
Aren Glacier, 57, 61
Arlberg Pass, 61
Arolla, 168
Arves, Aiguilles d', 248
Asti, 265
B
Baker, Mr, 134
Balloon (crossing Alps), 298
Balme, 300
Bans, Les, 228
Baumann, Hans, 127
Bean, Mr, 136
Bennen, 57
Bergemoletto, 65
Bergli Hut, 210
Bessanese, 299
Bettega, 183
Biner, Alois and P., 302
Biner, Joseph, 204, 302
Blaitiére, Aiguille de, 26, 37
Blanc, Mont, 136, 153
Blanche, Dent, 51, 152, 167
Boeufs Rouges, 228
Bohren, 58
Boniface, 265
Bonvoison, Pic de, 226
Botto, 298
Bregaglia group, 296
Brenner, 136
Brewer, Mrs, 61
Bricolla châlets, 168
Bristenstock, 164
Broadbent, Mr, 302
Bruce, Major, 59
Brulle, Mons. H., 260
Burckhardt, Mr, 208
Burchi peak, 59
Burgener, Alexander, 104, 202
C
Cà d'Asti, 265
Carr, Mr Ellis, 23
Carrel, J. A., 21
Caucasus, 58, 99, 116
Cenis, Mont, 264
Cerbillonas, the, 260
Chamonix, 8, 23, 126, 153
Charbonnet, Captain, 298
Charmoz ridge, 50
Claret, 258
Clayton, Captain, 261
Collie, Dr Norman, 134
Constance, 60
Conway, Sir W. M., 155, 275
Copland Valley, 4
Croz, Michel, 222, 238
D
Dauphiné, 11
Dent, Mr C. T., 99, 116, 142, 202
Devas, Mr J. F. C., 144
Dixon, Mr H. B., 133
Dolomites, 182
Dom, 52
Donkin, Mr W. F., 58, 99, 116
Dora Riparia, Valley of, 266
Düniberg, 282
Durand Glacier, 204
Durando, 298
Dych Tau, 105
E
Ecrins, 228, 235
Ecrins, Col des, 225
Eiger, 264
Elbruz, 115
Elm, landslip of, 275
Elmer, Huntsman, 280
Encula, Glacier de l', 246
Étançons, Val des, 11
F
Fellenberg, E. Von, 212
Ferard, Mr A. G., 144
Fitzgerald, Mr E., 3
Flender, Herr, 138
Foster, Mr G. E., 126
Fox, Mr, 116
Freshfield, Mr Douglas, 116
Fürrer, Alphons, 8
Furrer, Elias, 167
G
Gabelhorn, Ober, 55
Gastaldi, Rifugio, 299
Gavarnie, 261
Géant, Dent du, 257
Geneva, Lake of, 37
Gentinetta, A., 8
Gentinetta, E., 206
Gestola, 99
Glace, Mer de, 8
Glarus, Canton, 277
Gohna Lake, 277
Grass, Hans, 55
Greenwood, Mr Eric, 154
Grogan, Mr, 302
Grove, F. Craufurd, 2
Gurkhas, 59
H
Habl, Herr Emil, 292
Hardy, Mr, 164
Hartley, Mr E. T., 166
Hill, Mr, 167
Himalayas, 58, 275
Hochjoch Haus, 261
Hohberghorn, 52
Hörnli, 9
Horrocks, D. P., 204
I
Imboden, Joseph, 52, 165, 195
Imboden, Roman, 195
Imseng, Ferdinand, 202, 267
Innsbruck, 60
Interlaken, 221
J
Jones, Mr Glynne, 167
Julen, Edouard, 206
Julen, Felix, 302
Jungfrau, 55, 210
Jungfrau Hut, 209
K
Kaiserbrunn, 292
Kennedy, Dr, 164, 222
King, Sir H. S., 208
Koenig, Herr, 138
Kubli, Herr Oswald, 281
Kurzras, 261
L
La Bérarde, 11, 245
La Grave, 11
Langtauferer Glacier, 262
Lapland, 306
Lausanne, 37
Lucerne, 301
Lyons, 298
M
Maggiore, Lago, 301
Maithana Hill, fall of, 275
Maquignaz, 21
Maritime Alps, 305
Martino, St, 182
Matthews, Mr E. C., 211
Matterhorn, 8, 21, 248, 302
Maund, Mr, 11
Maund, Mrs, 11
Maurer, 11, 116
Meije, 12, 248
Meije, Brèche de la, 12, 228
Middlemore, Mr, 11
Midi, Aiguille du, 126
Mischabel group, 301
Monand, Mons. J., 306
Mönch, 124
Montanvert, 8
Moore, Mr A. W., 124, 222, 235
"Moseley's Platte," 302
Mouvoison, 142
Mueller Valley, 4
Mummery, Mr, 23, 58
Mürren, 208
Müsli, 280
Mussa, Cantina della, 300
N
Nant Francon, 319
Nantillons Glacier, 24
Neyssel, Mons. Antoine, 306
Noir, Glacier, 245
O
Oetzthal, 261
Offerer, J., 136
Ossoue, Valley of, 261
P
Palü, Piz, 55
Passingham, Mr, 202
Packe, Mr C., 259
Pelvoux, 245
Pelvoux, Crête du, 245
Perren, H., 138
Perren, P., 204
Pilatte, Col de la, 222
Plan, Aiguille du, 23
Plattenbergkopf, 277
Pourri, Mont, 267
Powell, Captain, 116, 123
Pyrenees, 259
R
Rax, the, 291
Renaud, Mons., 223
Rey, Emil, 8
Rhyner, Fridolin, 287
Rhyner, Meinrad, 280
Richardson, Miss, 165
Rocca Venoni, 300
Roccia, Family of, 68
Roche Melon, 264
Rocky Mountains, 133
Rodier, 11
Rosetta, 182
Rothhorn, Zinal, 195
S
Saas, Valley of, 301
Sahrbach, 134
Schäffer, Dr, 136
Schildthorn, 257
Schuster, Mr, 162
Schwarzsee Hotel, 10
Sefton, Mount, 4
Seiler, Herr, 145, 162
Seiler, D. H., 301
Sernf Valley, 277
Silberhorn, 208
Skagastöldstind, 140
Ski accident, 137
Slingsby, Mr Cecil, 23, 140, 152
Sloggett, Mr, 8
Smith, Mr Haskett-, 158
Solly, Mr, 156
Somis, Ignazio, 65
Sospello, 306
Spechtenhauser, 261
Spelterini, Captain, 301
Spender, Mr H., 167
Strahlplatten, 209
Stock, Mr E. E., 302
Stockje, 156
Supersax, Ambrose, 209
Susa, 265
T
Tavernaro, 183
Tetnuld Tau, 99
Tönsberg, 141
Trift Valley, 195
Tuckett, Mr F., 55, 264
Tuckett Glacier, 5
Turin, 298
U
Uschba, 115
V
Vallon, Glacier du, 245
Vallot Hut, 153
Valtournanche, 21
Ventina Glacier, 316
Vignemale, 260
Viso, Monte, 269
Vuignier, Jean, 168
W
Walker, Mr, 223, 235
Walker, Mr Horace, 126
Wandfluh, 166, 179
Watson, Mr and Mrs, 257
Weisshorn, 248
Weisskugel, 261
Weissmies, 301
Wengern Alp, 124, 210
Willink, Mr, 123
Wildlahner Glacier, 136
Wolfsthal, 292
Woolley, Mr H., 116
Whymper, Mr E., 222, 235
Wyss, Schoolmaster, 280
Z
Zentner, Kaspar, 287
Zermatt, 10, 51, 139, 181, 301
Zmutt Glacier, 166, 179
Zurbriggen, 3, 59
Zurbriggen, Clemens, 168
Zurbrücken, Louis, 209
Zurmatter, 302
PRINTED AT THE EDINBURGH PRESS,
9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET
FOOTNOTES:
[1] These are now known as Mummery nails, and are often used by climbers.
[2] _True Tales of Mountain Adventure_, pp. 42 and 43.
[3] Or, in modern phraseology, "avalanches."
[4] Mountain aneroids generally overstate the heights. The height of
Gestola is now computed at 15,932 feet, and that of Tetnuld at 15,918
feet.
[5] "Good God! The Sleeping-place!"
[6] "I am still living."
[7] _Above the Snow Line_, by Clinton Dent.
[8] _True Tales of Mountain Adventure_, p. 269.
[9] _True Tales of Mountain Adventure_, p. 134.
[10] At the moment of going to press, I must note a fatal accident on
the mountains due to lightning, namely, the death of the guide, Joseph
Simond, on the Dent du Géant. This I had overlooked.
[11] See _True Tales of Mountain Adventure_.
[12] "Ah! That is really wonderfully beautiful!"
[13] All details connected with this avalanche were collected on the
spot, and shortly afterwards published in a volume, _Der Bergsturz von
Elm_, by E. Buss and A. Heim. Zürich, 1881.
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
The baloon "Stella"=> The balloon "Stella" {pg xiv}
sufficient to carry of the=> sufficient to carry off the {pg 82}
Kaisserbrunn, 292=> Kaiserbrunn, 292 {index}