Chapter II: Preface (2)

Next day we were at Montanvert admiring the Mer de Glace, and during thunderstorms of many hours we made our arrangements to climb the Aiguille du Dru. Sleeping out under a rock, where we had passed a stormy night last year, we began in fine weather our steep ascent mostly of rocks, with plenty of opportunities for adventures on the way. There is one place in climbing the rocks where a rope is hung over a precipice, and by gently swinging on this rope a long step or giant stride is made across to a foothold beyond. It is only one of the many positions in mountaineering where imagination shows you what a slight distance there is between what you are and what you may become. In the descent a frightful avalanche of stones fell down just as we cleared the rocks, but it was not near enough to shake our nerves.

On the 28th of August I slept at the Couvercle to climb the Aiguille Verte. This sleeping place is a good one where an enormous rock overhangs the little platform on which the sleeper stretches, and it is grandly situated above the famous Jardin in the Glacier de Talèfre. Being roused before midnight in threatening weather, we hesitated before attacking such a mountain as the Aiguille Verte with a high wind and storm-clouds in prospect; meantime we had some hot chocolate, and only set off with some misgivings at one in the morning. The wind moderated as the day broke, we got over the bergschrund, and made a successful ascent in about nine hours. The summit of the Verte is of snow, commanding a fine view of Mont Blanc and the peaks around. We noted with feelings of annoyance that the majestic snow curve upon the head of the Monarch is broken by the erection of Vallot’s wooden building, which looks from here like a projection of dark rocks. Time may revenge himself, and play skittles with the timbers.

When I parted from my guides, whose conduct was worthy of all praise, and came down to Chamounix, I saw there a most piteous sight, that of a fine young fellow with both feet frost-bitten. All the toes of both feet were black, and large blisters appeared on the reddened skin of the foot above the blackened toes. He was a guide named Maquignaz, and forty-eight hours before my visit had been exposed during one night on the Italian side of Mont Blanc; he was with Mr. F. and another guide, a cousin of the same name. The others of the party put their feet into their knapsacks, and took such like precautions, and so escaped. On examining this poor fellow’s boots I discovered that, though sound enough in the soles, they had the tongues fastened only halfway up the upper leathers, and with no gaiters or other wrapping except his trousers, he must have got his feet wet. The latest accounts I heard were not hopeful as to saving the big toes. Without the great toes he cannot climb again and his occupation will be gone; the loss of the little toes is not so serious. The reflection after such a sad sight is forced upon one, that though over sixty deaths are said to have occurred on Mont Blanc, history takes small account of the travellers who have lost portions of their bodies upon the mountains and had their after lives wrecked by their maimed condition.

The delay caused by an endeavour to help this unfortunate man, decided me to journey to Geneva with my friend rather than travel alone over the Tête Noire. It was late next night before I reached Zermatt again and joined my wife, who had reached the Riffelberg from Paris ten days previously. We found most comfortable quarters at the Riffel Alp lower down, in an enormous hotel, where two hundred and seventy people dined every day, including an archbishop and forty-five clergymen.

The weather this year has been good for climbers, though there have been peculiar dangers associated with the sunshine; and as every season has its own peculiar dangers, so this year the weather was almost too good. The sun tamed the severity of giant peaks, and made the descents dangerous from avalanches.

The great rocks have been bared of ice and snow and tempted attacks, while earth-fast and frost-bound stones were loosened from the heights above and made the mountains dangerous. The steep couloirs of the Aiguille Verte were decidedly dangerous from falling stones, and though I do not pretend to have any hair-erecting story to tell, it will be understood that we made our way up and down on the rocks, as much as possible avoiding the tracks of the stones. The traverses across the couloirs were as rapid as caution could permit, and only made when absolutely necessary. Great stones occasionally hurtling down as if shot from a catapult, with enough force to dash the brains out or hurl to destruction the poor climber balanced in his ice step. Thus upon the Aiguille Noire a man was killed by a blow on the head, and many had narrow escapes. On all great mountains where ice, snow, and rock have all to be climbed over, it must be difficult to find weather which will suit so as to find everything in perfect order, but for the true enjoyment of a climb both the man and the mountain must be in fine condition. The weather of the day I have described on Mont Blanc, though it gave us some uneasiness, was just perfect for avoidance of fatigue and mountain sickness. Absence of sun and presence of wind enabled the climbers to feel fairly vigorous, though at such a height. In other conditions of hot, still weather, the strain might have been severe.

These days are now delightful memories for me, and if my remarks just written do not rise above what Scott called the “ordinary bow-wow,” at least they are “high notes” in one sense, and may find an echo in the hearts of those who love the mountains.

An Alpine Letter

1892

Saas Fée—Grimsel Pass—Mountain sickness—A tired lady on
the Matterhorn—Ascent of the Matterhorn—Ascent of the
Ober-Gabelhorn—The Trift Joch from Zermatt to Zinal—The
Concordia Hut—The Jungfrau—The Lötschen Lücke—Mr. Nettleship’s
death on Mont Blanc—Beaten by bad weather on the Dru—The
disaster at St. Gervais—Neuchâtel to Bâle.

“In all my wanderings round this world of care” I have found few places so free from the black canker as the mountain tops. Let the climber carry out a burden as big as was Christian’s in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, he leaves it all behind upon the high peaks. If Mr. Gladstone could only have managed to attain to the summit of Snowdon he might have seen more than the coast of Ireland.

Truly it may be said that the outside of a mountain is good for the inside of a man. So once again I take my holidays upon the Alps, and will hope that the following account may interest readers who travel, for these like to be reminded of beautiful places they have visited, and those who stay at home may be encouraged to try the mountains abroad.

In order to avoid the hot part of the Rhone Valley, and to reach Saas Fée, our first halting place, by an interesting route, my wife and I took the train for Lucerne—by way of Calais, Rheims, Laon, and Bâle. This journey takes less than a day. Starting from London at 11 A.M. we found ourselves the following morning in a boat on the blue Lake of Lucerne with the mountains around us. Travelling by rail over the Brünig Pass, which we had crossed on foot ten years before, we reminded each other of a long walk from Meiringen to Lauterbrunnen in one day, over the Greater and the Lesser Sheidecks when our porter over-ate himself at Grindelwald, about midway, and nearly collapsed at the end of the journey, turning very white and sick in the steep descent to Lauterbrunnen. We came to Meiringen, still chiefly in ruins from the recent fire. The hot, strong Föhn wind blowing from the south is the cause of these awful fires, it will both start and spread the flames. For miles round Meiringen there are notices forbidding smoking in the open road when this wind is blowing. From this sad spot by easy roads we came to Guttannen and here spent the night, rising early next morning for a walk over the Grimsel Pass, with a man to carry our light luggage.

The first early morning walk in Switzerland is always delicious, and wipes away the discomfort of the journey out. We stayed at Handeck to look at the finest waterfall in the country. Two converging torrents, “with a mighty uproar,” pour their waters into an unfathomable, mysterious abyss, hidden by clouds of spray, where a rainbow arches in the sun.

As we walk up the pass, which has been described as a “sepulchre unburied by the sun,” there are, on either hand, enormous, dark, smoothly rounded rocks, the evidence of glacier action in the ages gone. The Grimsel Hospice is situated in the most savage rock scenery, and is not improved by containing a piano, electric bells, and a smart waiter in dress clothes. However, I made use of their telegraph to order a mule from Saas Fée to meet us at Stalden for my wife to ride up there. All the crooked places are now being made plain by means of telegraphs and railways!

A great new road is in process of making over this pass, and as we reached the summit, the blasting operations were heard in many explosions; each was at first like the pop of a champagne cork, but after a pause came a tremendous thundering echo from all the mountains around. We left the Rhone glacier on our left hand, and descended to Obergestelen in the upper part of the Rhone valley, taking there a carriage to Brieg. The sensations are delightful on a sunny day, when, after some hours’ walking in bleak, bare, rock wilderness, you come down into a green and fertile valley; the effect of the keen fresh air is still with you as you drive along among the trees and flowers in the sun, and you are cheered with a sense of well-being in the present and the future. Here you “cannot see the smiling earth and think there’s hell hereafter.” A night was spent at Brieg and then a short journey by rail to Visp and up to Stalden, from whence I followed my wife’s mule to Fée. After spending a few days in comfortable quarters there I left to make some expeditions.

My climbing friend, A. B., was at the Eggishorn Hotel, and had just made the ascent of the Finsteraarhorn, the highest peak of the Oberland, whereupon he had been taken with mountain-sickness, and made his ascent with some difficulty, his guide helping him on and holding his head occasionally while he vomited. His trouble was, probably, caused by his going too fast up his first peak, for, though accustomed to the mountains, he had only been out from England a few days of this season. This interesting malady is well described in Whymper’s travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator; both himself and his men suffered from headache and fever, but the conditions were very different from what obtains on our mountains; the highest point is here only 15,700 feet (Mont Blanc), compared with over 20,000 on Chimborazo. All exertion seems more severe at great heights, and though in Europe mountain-sickness is rare, there are few climbers who have not felt at 14,000 feet a sense of breathlessness if going upwards at any great pace. It is often hard to distinguish it from mere fatigue, and I do not think that guides would acknowledge it in themselves; but for myself I have had the feeling, and “thought I could not breathe in that fine air.” Whymper’s observations prove that man may gradually accustom himself to these great alterations in barometric pressure, though the dangers of want of training and of sudden ascents are well known.

Paul Bert, by means of a metal cylinder, in which he shut himself, had the pressure of the air reduced to be equivalent with that on Mont Blanc, but was soon sick and dizzy; afterwards, in experiments, he was able so much to revive himself with bags of oxygen gas, that three balloonists were emboldened to ascend to a height of 28,000 feet, taking with them a supply of oxygen: with the result that when the balloon again reached earth two of the aeronauts were dead, and the third had a very narrow escape. Man has not yet gained the summit of Mount Everest.

Very extraordinary is the description given of the effects of altered atmospheric pressure by early climbers. Mr. Fellows (afterwards Sir Charles Fellows) in 1827, with Mr. Hawes and ten guides, writes that at the distance of 1000 feet below the summit of Mont Blanc, “the effect of the rarity of the air was still more striking, for the noses of several of our guides burst out with blood.... None of us were free from many effects of the peculiarities of the atmosphere: we all spat blood; the eyes of all were blood-shot, our faces were blistered, and in our respiration we all suffered intensely; for it was impossible to proceed many paces without stopping to recover our breath.” Near the summit “two of our guides fell from faintness, and copiously vomited blood, while all of us gave proof of its internal loss (we all experienced symptoms of haematuria).” Mr. Fellows and his companions suffered less than did the guides.

Those who are interested in this subject should read the account of the ascent of the German Emperor’s balloon Phœnix in 1895, in which Coxwell’s record was beaten. Oxygen cylinders were used.

My friend, A. B., joined me at Schwarz See to climb the Matterhorn. Our two guides were also ready; the leading man, Alois Kalbermatten, we usually called Hercules; his brother, a still stronger man, was named Quinbus Flestrin, or the man-mountain. Together we went up to the hut to spend the night, ready to begin our ascent in the morning. As we were thinking about supper there came down a wretched, worn-out, grey lady, who said she had been up the Matterhorn, was too exhausted to proceed, and must stay the night with us. The place was very unfit, dirty, and stuffy, so we made her rest awhile, restoring her with brandy and lemonade. I then made her guides rope her carefully the whole of the way down, and she reached the hotel safely.

On a fine day when the Matterhorn will “go,” the hut is always crowded, chiefly with foreigners, and we stretched ourselves on the bunkers alongside of a polyglot Pole, who talked half the night. Italian guides stole one of our lanterns, and my friend’s silk scarf.

We had a lovely day for our ascent, which occupied six hours, including halts and feedings. Upon the summit we spent about an hour of most glorious life in view of Italy on one side and Switzerland on the other, while we walked carefully on the delicate ridge of snow which forms the apex of the peak. The ascent of the Matterhorn from the Zermatt side is more interesting historically than as a climb. The hut occupied by Whymper in early attempts still remains, and as the guides pass the fatal spot they cheerfully point out where poor so and so broke his neck, where poor Dr. B. died. The shattered photographic apparatus remains on the precipice upon which, two years ago, an entire party was killed.

The difficult parts near the top are now so strongly roped that some are tempted to make this climb who are not fitted by previous training, and as a tired man is a dangerous man on a steep mountain which is 14,700 feet high, I fear we have not done with accidents on the Matterhorn. The descent ought to be carefully done, and almost as long a time given to it as the ascent. At present there is no railway up, but such a project is seriously in the air, or, like the mountain, _in nubibus_.

After a pleasant day at Schwarz See wandering above the beautiful Zmutt valley, we went to Zermatt and thence to the Trift Inn to try the Ober-Gabelhorn, but bad weather beat us back. Later on we were successful, and had a glorious day, starting at two in the morning in the starlight.

“So climbers by some Alpine mere,
Walk very softly thro’ the clear
Unlitten dawn of day:
The morning star before them shows
Beyond the rocks, beyond the snows,
Their never-travelled way.”

We were five and a half hours climbing up, and were back about half an hour after mid-day. The snow was in good order, but coming down we had a run to dodge falling stones, though none came upon us. Next day we crossed the Trift Joch, a famous pass from Zermatt to Zinal. From our inn we reached the Mountet hut under five hours, intending to return over the Rothhorn next day; but at the hut a great storm of hail and wind kept us in shelter for a time, and drove us down in the afternoon to Zinal, where it rained night and day continuously.

With such a downfall, which on the high peaks would be mostly snow, it was useless to think of any Zermatt mountains at present, so we decided to go to the Eggishorn Hotel, and then try the Jungfrau, one of the Oberland giants. The storm had rather scattered me, for I had some wraps at the Trift inn, a bag at Zermatt, unpaid bills at both places, besides a wife at Saas Fée. However, this was settled so far as luggage and payment concerned me, by sending our man to arrange it, and we went off to the Eggishorn. On a Sunday afternoon, after service in the little church, we walked to the Concordia hut, and found the Märjelen See drained almost dry; instead of a great blue sheet of water with icebergs floating in it, there is nothing but a muddy pond. This is partly the result of draining operations, and makes the valley below much safer as a dwelling place, but takes away from the beauty of this part of the great Aletsch glacier.

It is interesting to note the great stones which now and then are carried about on these icebergs, or left stranded when the water is low; thus illustrating, on a small scale, the theory which best explains the position of erratic boulders—namely, that they were carried by icebergs in the glacial age.

The Concordia hut is grandly situated near the beginning of the great glacier, close to the Oberland mountains, and is a starting-point for many expeditions. A member of the Swiss Alpine Club who shared the hut with us was a most excitable little man, and signalled his arrival by letting off with a frightful explosion a large maroon, and to my horror he carried another, quite as large as my fist, ready for his departure in the morning. He actually began to light the thing inside the hut just before our start, but we got outside and out of the way, while in the darkness before the dawn, under the quiet stars, he yelled, and waved his hands about, and burst his infernal machine. It is hard to forgive these queer foreign manners. He afterwards stopped his guide that he might exchange cards with us.

After this adventure we had a quiet time and a perfect day on the Jungfrau. We took five and a half hours to make the ascent, including breakfasts and halts. There is just room to stand or sit carefully on the highest point of snow. We had a glorious view. The beautiful green valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen spread at our feet, and all the peaks around us far and near were perfectly defined. The sun was all day very powerful, and the reflection off the recent snow was dazzling in brightness; my face and ears got touched slightly in spite of anointing with lanoline, and peeled, though not painfully, during the next few days. To prevent sunburn hazeline cream is a most excellent application, combining a vegetable astringent with lanoline.

Early on the morning following we crossed the Lötschen Lücke, a beautiful pass of snow and ice, with the finest crevasses full of strange ice architecture, and came to Ried in the Lötschen Thal, where is a comfortable inn at the foot of the Bietschhorn, the mountain we were anxious to climb. Here the weather broke, great clouds came with a south-west wind, and gathered all over Italy. The peaks could not be seen in the stormy sky, while a large eagle or lämmergeyer hovered over the hotel.

We had to give up our expedition, and after a quiet day in this peaceful inn we went down to the Rhone Valley, dined at Sierre, slept at Sion—lulled to sleep by pouring rain—and next night came to Chamounix by way of the Tête Noire. A shadow was over Chamounix because of the sad death on Mont Blanc of that well-known Oxford scholar, Mr. R. L. Nettleship. I saw the newly turned sods on his grave in the little churchyard, and heard again the story of his loss, so far as it ever will be known. After a stormy night spent in a snow shelter, his guides came down and left his body on the mountain, where it was found by a search party later on. Mr. Myer’s beautiful lines seem to have been made for such an event:

“Here let us leave him; for his shroud the snow,
For funeral lamps he has the planets seven,
For a great sign the icy stair shall go
Between the heights to heaven.”

The survivors must have been very strong fellows and able to carry very thick clothing. Certainly a storm on a great mountain is very awful to encounter, and the strongest man may die if he tries to face it and fight the elements.

At Montenvers, above Chamounix, there is the well-known inn, comfortable enough if the weather be fine, from which we took blankets and food, and crossing the _mer de glace_, bivouacked a few hours up the rocks on the other side, in order to climb the Aiguille du Dru.

“The Dru is a Dragon of mountains,
They _scaled_ him long ago.”

Pardon the parody. But we were not to be fortunate—an angry sunset, so gorgeous as to repay any day of laborious mountain climbing, was followed before midnight by a storm of wind, hail, thunder, and lightning. Crouched under a rock with the rain running into our ears, we got through the hours of darkness, and in the morning, though we could hardly stand up for the wind, our guides managed to light a fire in a deep hole, and cooked some chocolate for us, and, as soon as the weather and daylight allowed us, we climbed down to the inn.

My wife in my absence had arrived there, while I was on a rock all night in the storm, and we each had our adventures to relate. A few days of broken weather ended in snow all round the hotel. No more mountains were to be climbed by me this year, and regretful good-byes had to be said to my guides.

Our journey home was made by Geneva. On the way we passed the scene of the great catastrophe at St. Gervais in July last. Here miles of mud covered the green meadows, uprended trees stripped of their bark and branches, demolished houses, fragments of timber and rock, were strewn about wherever they had been hurled by the violence of the flood. An inhabitant of a near village told me that at one in the morning the avalanche and deluge came down on the ill-fated hotel, crushed down everything in its way; that he saw next day the people who were saved from the flood were dying in numbers, as he said, choked and poisoned (_empoisonné_) by the filthy stuff which had filled their mouths, lungs, and stomachs. One hundred and twenty-five bodies were found, but the number of the dead will never be known. Only a week ago an arm and part of the bust had been found five miles from St. Gervais; many such dreadful relics are yet to be discovered. A baby still in its cradle was carried miles away to a village below, but had not survived the perilous voyage.

The best account of the cause of this catastrophe appeared November 1892, in _Knowledge_, written by The Right Hon. Sir Edward Fry. An enormous amount of subglacial water was suddenly let loose from high up on the Tête Rousses glacier, where two great chasms were photographed next day. The moving mass of ice and water destroyed the village of Bionnay and hurled down everything in its irresistible course, including a rock of vast dimensions. “The villagers of Bionnay were intending to celebrate a fête on the 14th July, and, with a view to letting off feux de joie on that occasion, holes had been bored in a stone then in the village. That stone, with its holes, is now at St. Gervais, and was probably highly effective in the destruction of the baths. It is rather a rock than a stone. It is further stated that the iron safe in the office of the baths was carried five miles down the stream to Sallanches, where it was found.”

Geologists do not perhaps yet realize what such deluging catastrophe can effect. Slow action, as of evolution among the living, and the gradual change effected by ice and water in the inorganic world, chiefly impress us to-day. But such conditions of ice as are described by Sir Martin Conway in his valuable book on the Karakoram-Himalayan glacier, whereon large quantities of water would lie with no crevasses or chinks to carry it away, seem to afford opportunities for catastrophe on a gigantic scale, and help the imagination to realize such possibilities in the glacial age.

These great disasters, with the terrible boiler explosion on the Lake of Geneva, have made the fire at Grindelwald seem quite a small affair, and there have been very few climbing fatalities this season. My wife told me that a victim of the Grindelwald fire arrived at Fée in his only surviving suit of clothes. To the victim the rhyme fitted aptly:

“I’ve lost my portmanteau! I pity your grief!
My sermons were in it! I pity the thief!”

For all the poor parson’s garments were looted, but he discovered at the Fée post-office his two bags crammed one inside the other, containing only his twelve original sermons and two old shoes!

A romantic robbery took place at Arolla, where a gentleman walking alone on the glacier was set upon by a brigand, who covered him with his gun, and made him put his property on the snow—a selection was then made by this Italian rascal, who fled over the frontier into his own country, where such thieves abound.

The railway journey through Neuchâtel to Bâle is through fine country, and Bâle itself between the Black Forest and the Jura, with its old-world look and its bridges over the Rhine, is well worth a visit. You will find here memorials of Erasmus, of Holbein, of Paracelsus, with museums full of interesting mediaeval work—while at the Hospital you have evidence that modern methods are understood, and the appliances, especially on the surgical side, are the best obtainable in Europe. Three hundred beds are contained in the building, and, like our own noble institution of Addenbrooke’s, this is endowed and supported by liberal citizens, who wisely use their wealth and knowledge, not merely for profit and loss, but “for the glory of God and the relief of man’s estate.”

A Month upon the Mountains

1891

Contrast between fens and mountains—The south side of the Lake
of Geneva—The Great St. Bernard Pass—The St. Bernard dogs—A
walk in Italy—The St. Theodule Pass—Last year’s accident
on the Matterhorn—The Täsch Alp hut and a lady climber—The
Mischabeljoch and Alphubel mountain—Saas Fée and the walk by
the chapels—The old stone bridge at Fée—The Portjengrat—The
ascent of the Südlenzspitze and Nadelhorn—The Laquinhorn with
Mr. Eyre—The Rothhorn ascent from Zermatt—The Märjelen See.

What change can be imagined greater than from these “gray flats” to the glorious snow mountains? The sea, except where there may be a bold and broken coast line, is too much like our own surrounding surface, which God never meant to be seen, and which, according to our forefathers, we owe entirely to Drains, Dutchmen, and the Devil. My wife and I are both active persons, and, as we usually take our excursions in the Alps, it may interest other travellers to have this year a brief account of a fen man’s adventures in foreign parts. To start at 11 o’clock in the morning from London it was formerly necessary to sleep in town overnight: now the train serves, and we go direct from Cambridge and travel in twenty-four hours to Switzerland. Rather avoiding the more usual routes, after a nasty game of pitch and toss in the channel we arrive at Paris, cross that city in a cab, refusing to be dropped by the ingenious driver at the wrong station (Vincennes instead of P.L.M.), dine comfortably, and then sleep uncomfortably in the carriage until we reach the Lake of Geneva, the south side of which, by the way, is not so well known as is the other. This blue sheet of water is shaped like a crescent moon, the horns pointed downwards so that the concave edge is south, and along this we coasted fifty miles in a small steamboat, admiring the beauty of the lovely lake and the vine-covered slopes of the shore with the mountains beyond. It was too far away to the north for any view of the other coast—or of the famous castle of Chillon. On board we can wash, feed, and write letters, delight ourselves with the varied scenes around, the voyage made more refreshing from the contrast after the dusty shaking railway box in which we were packed so many hours.

Landing at Bouveret—our heavy luggage having been sent by post to Zermatt from Geneva—we are free of everything except satchel and stick, knapsack and ice-axe. A short journey by train to Martigny in the Rhone Valley brings us at about 4 P.M. on the second day of our travels, and here we took a one-horse carriage up as far as Liddes, on our way over the famous Great St. Bernard Pass. At 9 o’clock the new inn at Liddes was all dark and shut up, but we soon had out the landlord, who got us supper and good beds. Next morning we were up at 4 o’clock, and I walked after my wife’s mule as far as the Hospice, just halting to see the place, the monks, and dogs. All is very like the Hospice on the Simplon Pass, with like rules and regulations for the society of Austin Canons regular who live here a life of genuine charity. Alas! to give up the cherished delusion that the dogs search for lost travellers in the snow! Have we not seen the picture of the dog with a child on its back and brandy keg round its neck? “Travellers pass every day during the winter, notwithstanding the perils of such a journey at such times. These persons, when they arrive at a certain house not far from the summit, are desired to wait until the following morning, when a servant and a dog descend from the top to this kind of refuge and take up all the persons assembled, the servant being conducted by the dog, who, it appears, never misses his way, but, entirely hidden, except his tail, in the snow, directs the march of the whole cavalcade.” If any traveller lie dead or dying in the track, the dog will probably discover him, and in this way rescue has come for wanderers over the pass when lost between the stations.

There are five or six dogs at the Hospice; they are not so fine and large as the show of St. Bernard dogs in England. They are bred in the canton of Berne, and are supposed to be a cross between the Newfoundland and the Pyrenean.

The Great St. Bernard, though not so grand as other high passes, is full of historical interest—we are on the track of the great Napoleon, we lunch in the same room at Bourg St. Pierre—we realize what it must have cost him to drag his cannon over such a place. From the Hospice we both walk an hour down to St. Rémy, the Italian frontier—with our muleteer, who left his animal at the Hospice, to carry our things; he was anxious to know whether I had tobacco or cigars, and carefully hid his own modest packet before he led us to the Custom House. The soldiers dismissed us civilly after a complete inspection of our knapsacks.

At St. Rémy, after lunch we drove down to Aosta. In this valley live many cretins; everything else is perfectly beautiful under the blue Italian sky, strangely different from the desolate and dreary pass above.

From Aosta a short railway journey brought us to Châtillon at about 4 P.M., on our third day out. Hiring a likely looking man, named Luigi Bich, to carry our traps up to Valtournanche, we finished the day by a good four hours’ walk, all up hill, with a very fine view of the Matterhorn at the end of our climb. Here we sup and sleep, rising before day to follow a lantern and walk over the St. Theodule Pass to our hotel at Schwarz See, above Zermatt. We had breakfast at Breuil, best known to British travellers from its forming the base of operations in the ascent of the Matterhorn from the Italian side.

Our guide, who seemed rather out of condition, begged to be allowed to bring along a boy, his nephew, who was to be no further expense to monsieur. When we reached the top of the pass after a hot and fatiguing walk through fresh snow, a little mountain inn offered us rest and refreshment. The view is very fine, especially of the Matterhorn and the range on the other side beginning with the Breithorn; here the sunlight on the vast snow slopes was far too brilliant to be faced without dark glasses. After a short noon-day sleep this is indeed like waking in another world. The wily Italian at the proper moment now interviewed me, and represented that it was impossible he could properly care for madame unless he should bring his boy also; of course the boy went with us, and obtained a vast amount of pleasure at a small cost to his employer.

We roped as in duty bound over the névé, and came to Schwarz See; the hotel is built on one of the spurs of the Matterhorn, about three hours above Zermatt. As usual we found friends in residence, and after so long a journey were glad of the shelter of a comfortable inn. A daughter of the great Alexander Seiler is in charge, and is devoted to the care of her visitors, who find all they can possibly wish for, and more than would be expected at 8,000 feet above the sea.

One object of my visit here was to climb the Matterhorn, that grand rock which is more impressive than most higher peaks from its isolated position, standing “alone in its glory.” It is impossible to avoid thinking of the many mountaineers who have been killed there; one comes to regard it as a great gravestone in memory of these, and can fully realize the expression of Tyndall as to the “moral effect” of this mountain upon the climber. Unfortunately, the Matterhorn would not “go” this year—only three ascents were made so far as I know—whereas in a good year 75 have gone up.

Of these three ascents I witnessed the second, and could see with a telescope that it was a long and laborious business, with much snow to plough through, and many steps to be cut. The man with his two guides came down just before dark, so why the _Times_ should in the notice of this feat have left the poor fellow on the summit at 9 P.M. it is hard to say. In September a party of five got up, and came down with difficulty, much of the descent being by lantern, and only arrived at Schwarz See at 3 in the morning. They had found, near where ropes are stretched over a difficult bit of the mountain, a portion of the camera which belonged to the party of three who were killed last year, thus confirming one theory of the disaster, that in the descent the box on the back touched the steep slope, and throwing the bearer off his step, hurled the whole party to destruction.

A man who saw their bodies told me that they were battered beyond recognition, and described how the brother of one of the victims howled loudly at the sight, in that utter abandonment to grief so rarely seen in a strong man, so terrible to witness.

But these are the adventures of others—to continue my own. By a short excursion round to Staffel Alp I nearly completed a tour of the Matterhorn; it appears from this aspect like an enormous snow cathedral, just the tower remaining to show the dark rock of the peak, the rest is ice and snow.

The weather was too uncertain to attempt much of an expedition, and after a week, down came the snow—over boot tops—all round the hotel. But all is ready, guides are waiting, an active friend comes to the hotel, and as soon as the sun shines we go down to Zermatt, where I part with my wife, she to journey next morning to Rieder Furka, while I and my friend with guides sleep up at the Täsch Alp hut for an ascent in the early morning.

My first experience here occurred of a real lady climber in action; she had sent on her guide and secured a room to herself, rather hard upon the unfortunate male, as the dens of the wooden cabin contain each two or three beds. My friend and I had to toss up who should sleep on the floor—I won the only remaining bed. This lady was dressed in a Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers, and worsted stockings; she looked very business-like; one of my guides was much interested and said, “She is a gentleman-lady.” She was a Viennese, and kept possession of her more comfortable quarters, though my friend was not polite enough to say that he preferred sleeping on the floor. On this point I feel very strongly, that a lady should behave on such occasions exactly as if the cabin were a railway carriage.

At about half-past two we were up, intending to traverse the Mischabeljoch, and ascend the Alphubel Mountain, thence down to Saas Fée. We followed a lantern up to the snow and rock, on a very steep, frozen moraine, awkward to walk on in the dark; then roped, and had a good day, except that the snow was fresh and fatiguing. Also we were longer in the descent than we liked, my friend’s knee, which had been slightly hurt on a mountain some days before, was now rather severely taxed, and this was the only expedition we accomplished together. We stayed at Saas Fée, one of the best places in Switzerland, good for walkers or climbers; it is about three-quarters of an hour above Saas Grund—said to be the abode of Mrs. Grundy, who has not yet reached Saas Fée.

The most charming walk down to the valley is by the chapels, of which there are a dozen or more, each full of quaint, coloured wooden figures, about two feet high, representing scenes in the life of our Lord. The artistic merit of these figures is very unequal—some few are said to be the work of an Italian artist named Tabaketti, of the sixteenth century, who crossed the frontier and worked on the Swiss side. An odd effect is produced by the villainous-looking wretches who are torturing the Saviour, being represented with goitres and a cretinous aspect truly repulsive.

A few minutes’ walk from the hotel towards Mattmark is a wonderful old bridge over the mountain torrent. It is one of the most ancient structures in Switzerland; flat stones are laid, over-lapping more and more, to meet similarly placed flat stones on the other side of the stream, advantage being taken of big boulders of rock which approach to form natural buttresses. The whole is so overgrown with trees and moss that many pass over it without notice.

At Saas Fée, on a moraine in the midst of glaciers and ice falls, there is a tiny timber-built inn, presided over by Clara, who is well known for the good tea she always gives the tired traveller, and certainly her name ought to appear in the guide books. If only a hut could be built higher up the Lange Fluh, mountaineers could sleep above, and Clara could supply provisions from below; this would be a real gain to climbers.

To test my friend’s feeble knee, he was to try the Portjengrat, a most interesting climb, in which I was much tempted to join; but having done it in a former season, I took a lazy day—then finding that after his climb my friend limped a good deal, I set about a serious expedition, the ascent of the Südlenzspitze, without him. With two good guides, and a porter to carry up blankets, firewood, and provisions, I started one afternoon and reached a rock some hours above Fée, where we were to sleep; with our axes we cleared away several hundredweight of ice and snow, lighted a fire, cooked two tins of Moir’s turtle soup, mixing it in a big pot with pannikins of snow. Words can’t express how good it was, how it hit the right place! We ate in the dark, except for a feeble lantern; then spreading a rug over the little shelf we had cleared, we all lay down as tight as sardines in a tin, so that I could not even turn on my long axis. I was not very cold, having on three pairs of stockings, three waistcoats, a shawl, a rug, and the blanket in which we were all packed. There was no need for me to fear walking in my sleep over a precipice. I didn’t sleep. The wind nearly blew me out of my rug and howled like a savage beast, but at length the morning broke and “tipped the hills with gold.” Day-dawns such as these live in the memory for ever. After a cup of hot chocolate, the porter went down, and we began to climb the Südlenzspitze, a peak over 14,000 feet high, next to the Dom one of the highest points in Switzerland; several parties had failed this year, and we were anxious to do it with the Nadelhorn as well, to crown our success. The Südlenzspitze is not a “guide book mountain,” but it is a good climb, and there is an awkward _gendarme_, or pinnacle, standing up like an obstructing sentinel on a ridge along which it is necessary to travel. This _gendarme_ may be the size of a church or not larger than a lamp post, and give serious trouble to the climber. However, we struggled to the top, and found a tremendous wind on the peak, so that we had to wear our sleeping caps over our ears and feel now and then our frozen features. Byron must have imagined such an ascent when he wrote those fine lines:

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow.
He who surpasses or subdues mankind
Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though far above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,
And thus reward the toils which to these summits led.

We left a card in a bottle at the top, where none had been this year before us. Descending a steep snow edge to come to visiting terms with the Nadelhorn—a peak of steep but easy rocks with some gendarmerie—my leading guide loosened a big stone at the top, which narrowly missed me and dropped on the man below, hitting on the steel of his axe, but he held firm, and this was the only escape I was aware of. We came down into a snow storm and thick mist, but got safely home after fifteen hours’ climbing, then a light dinner with a glass of champagne, and so to bed.

From Fée I walked with a strong man who wanted to stretch his legs to climb the Laquinhorn. It is a long way there and back, but not a great climb; we returned by the chapels, after a roasting day in the sun. My companion had bargained with me over night that he was to be allowed to stop and feed every four hours. He did so, and ate up everything, even the cheese; the guides then hurried us home lest they themselves should be eaten too! Alas! there will be no more such pleasant walks. Eyre was killed on the Sparrenhorn, 1895. Later on, again I went to Zermatt, slept at the Trift Inn, and climbed the Rothhorn. I greatly wished to go down from the summit to Zinal and back by the Trift Pass next day, but my guides would not permit the descent to the Constantia Hut, and no doubt they were right. How do these men, Xaver Imseng and Alois Kalbermatten, win my regard? Xaver has an angel face, and Alois a form like Hercules. It is not only their courage, skill, and devotion to duty, but their sympathy with my delights or difficulties—this is the great charm.

One night only at Zermatt and then up at 4.30 to catch the six o’clock train from Zermatt to Visp in the Rhone Valley. This is the new line which many climbers believe will disturb the happy hunting-grounds. The journey was very pleasant; being allowed to stand outside, and the train moving slowly, I enjoyed the scenery and chatted with one of the few men who this year climbed the Matterhorn.

Four hours’ walk above Brieg in a blazing sun on one of the hottest days known, ended in a storm of rain which wet me through; it delayed me in a forest where I had the luck to see a fine fox at close quarters; we watched each other quietly for some minutes. I found my wife and friends at Rieder Furka and walked with them up and down a baby mountain called the Riederhorn; then later, with an active fellow made the ascent and back to the hotel in twenty-two minutes, just to dry my clothes.

The hotel is well placed above the Great Aletsch Glacier, upon which delightful expeditions are made, especially to the Märjelen See, a wonderful ice-bound lake with icebergs in it, which has before now threatened Brieg with a flood from the sudden bursting of its waters upon the valley far below.

Home again by Geneva, I visited the Cantonal Hospital there, which is well built and planned; but in the summer the building is empty and clean, the patients being in open-air barracks, timber-built with canvas sides. Would that our English climate would allow of the like. On the other side of the city, at the Rothschild’s Eye Hospital, there seemed every comfort, but few patients to be treated.

The sight of England again always cheers us, with homely peaceful scenes; well may we say in travelling through the Kentish hop fields:

“Let Frenchmen boast their straggling vine,
Which gives them draughts of meagre wine,
It cannot match this plant of mine
When autumn skies are blue.”

NOTE

The Birrenhorn by the south face. This good climb, which has
probably not before been done by travellers, is said to be a
hunter’s way.—_Alpine Journal_, Nov. 1895, p. 600.

To climb the Birrenhorn (2,511 metres) by the south face, go from Kandersteg up the nearest and steepest grass slopes which lie to the E.N.E. of the Victoria Hotel, to a couloir which is found by following the highest shingle. Here it is well to rope in order to ascend the couloir to a chimney. Climb through this to a shelf above, and turning slightly to the W. continue straight up until a narrow horizontal shelf is reached running to the W.S.W. as far as some little pine trees; thence ascend by going up the face more to the E., until after a stiff scramble up twelve feet of difficult rock (which may be avoided by a circuit) a cleft is found in which lies an enormous grass-covered fallen block. Beneath this you crawl through a “Fenster,” and soon reach a narrow grass saddle with views into the two valleys (Kander and Oeschinen). The final climb is then before you. Cross the grass saddle, ascend the rocks or grass slopes beneath which the shepherd’s path is seen. The rock arête above the highest grass has a cairn and pole on the summit, reached in four and a half hours from Kandersteg. In descending the path towards the Oeschinen See, the way down to the valley is difficult to find, especially if there be any mist. The three-fingered rock (Drei Eidgenossen) will be seen opposite the couloir, which is the last but one before reaching a great grass promontory. After a considerable descent a traverse is made to the right, where two iron stanchions guard an awkward place.

The Climbing Foot

It has often been noticed in mountaineering that a guide can go face forward and whole-footed up a slope, while the amateur following, and coming to the steep part, cannot plant his whole foot upon the slope, but has to go on his toes or else turn sideways.

The difficulty with the young climber seems to be to get his heel down, and he learns to look out for little humps or embedded stones on which he may place his heel.

Then if his calf muscles permit his foot to be correctly planted down, this interferes with his upward step, giving him discomfort at the back of the leg, experience very slowly enabling him to walk with the pelvic roll characteristic of the guide’s uphill gait.

It is worth noting here that rowing men in using sliding seats cannot always keep the heel down on to the stretcher at the beginning of their stroke.

It seems possible, and many climbers must have considered it so, that the angle made by the foot with the leg may be more acute in the guide who has climbed from childhood, and that in the case of the guide’s feet there may be some structural difference, both hereditary and acquired, actually permitting more freedom of movement at the ankle-joint, which neither muscular action nor power of balance could ever give to the amateur.

The guides wear their thick leather boots loosely laced at the top during an upward climb; so that it is difficult to judge of the play of the ankle: but last year I was fortunate in falling in with Captain Abney, who kindly photographed for me the naked feet of my guides in the act of climbing a rock, and in other positions for purposes of comparison.

So leaving out of the question all lateral movements at the ankle-joint as difficult and complicated to estimate, we will briefly consider the question of the ordinary angle that the foot makes with the leg so far as it is less than a right angle, and whether the trained guide has any advantage over the amateur in this respect.

The adaptation of the foot for progression on all fours. The baby is wrapped in a napkin and black velvet, and held by a nurse.]

To begin with the foot of an infant, we notice that the foot, like the hand, is all adapted for climbing. Dr. Louis Robinson has shown that the infant’s hand-grip is so strong, that the whole weight of its body can be borne by the prehensile power of the hand. The miner in Bret Harte’s _The Luck of Roaring Camp_ realized this strength of grip when he said after an experience with a cradled infant, “He wrastled with my finger, the d——d little cuss!”

The following photographs show how the child’s foot can be made by a touch of the forefinger to approximate the instep to the leg until there is actual contact. The toes curl round to take a great grip of the object pressing against the sole, and generally speaking there is the most wonderful adaptation both for climbing and for progression on all fours.