Chapter I: Observations on the Mer De Glace 339 (2)

Day soon dawns, and the morning rose-light touches the first peak westward of us; the air is wonderfully calm and still, and for to-day, at all events, we have good weather, without that bitter enemy the north wind; but a certain opaque look in the sky, long streaks of cloud radiating from the south-west horizon up towards the zenith, and the too dark purple of the hills south of Aosta, are signs that the good weather will not be lasting. By five we are crossing the first snow-beds, and now Carrel falls back, and the leader of the day comes to the front: all the day he will be cutting steps, but those compact and powerful limbs of his will show no signs of extra exertion, and to-day he is in particularly good spirits. Carpentering, by the way--not fine turning and planing, but rough out-of-doors work, like Bennen’s--must be no bad practice to keep hand and eye in training during the dead season. We ascend a narrow edge of snow, a cliff some way to the right: the snow is frozen and hard as rock, and arms and legs are worked vigorously. Tyndall calls out to me, to know whether I recollect the ‘conditions:’ _i.e._ if your feet slip from the steps, turn in a moment on your face, and dig in hard with alpenstock in both hands under your body; by this means you will stop yourself if it is possible. Once on your back, it is all over, unless others can save you: you have lost all chance of helping yourself. In a few minutes we stop, and rope all together, in which state we continued the whole day. The prudence of this some may possibly doubt, as there were certainly places where the chances were greater that if one fell, he would drag down the rest, than that they could assist him; but we were only four, all tolerably sure-footed, and in point of fact I do not recollect a slip or stumble of consequence made by any one of us. Soon the slope lessens for a while, but in front a wall of snow stretches steeply upwards to a gap, which we have to reach, in a kind of recess, flanked by crags of formidable appearance. We turn to the rocks on the left hand. As, to one walking along miry ways, the opposite side of the path seems ever the most inviting, and he continually shifting his course from side to side lengthens his journey with small profit, so in ascending a mountain one is always tempted to diverge from snow to rocks, or _vice versâ_. Bennen had intended to mount straight up towards the gap, and it is best not to interfere with him; he yields, however, to our suggestions, and we assail the rocks. These, however, are ice-bound, steep, and slippery: hands and knees are at work, and progress is slow. At length we stop upon a ledge where all can stand together, and Carrel proposes to us (for Bennen and he can only communicate by signs, the one knowing only French, the other German) to go on and see whether an easier way can be found still further to the left. Bennen gives an approving nod: he looks with indulgent pity on Carrel, but snubs all remarks of his as to the route. ‘Er weiss gar nichts,’ he says. Carrel takes his axe, and mounts warily, but with good courage; presently he returns, shaking his head. The event is fortunate, for had we gone further to the left, we should have reached the top of the ridge from which, as we afterwards found, there is no passage to the gap, and our day’s work would probably have ended then and there. Bennen now leads to the right, and moves swiftly up from ledge to ledge. Time is getting on, but at length we emerge over the rocks just in face of the gap, and separated from it by a sort of large snow-crater, overhung on the left by the end of the ridge, from which stones fall which have scarred the sides of the crater. The sides are steep, but we curve quickly and silently round them: no stones fall upon us; and now we have reached the narrow neck of snow which forms the actual gap; it is half-past eight, and the first part of our work is done.

By no means the hardest part, however. We stand upon a broad red granite slab, the lowest step of the actual peak of the Matterhorn: no one has stood there before us. The slab forms one end of the edge of snow, surmounted at the other end by some fifty feet of overhanging rock, the end of the ridge. On one side of us is the snow-crater, round which we had been winding; on the other side a scarped and seamed face of snow drops sheer on the north, to what we know is the Zmutt glacier. Some hopes I had entertained of making a pass by this gap, from Breuil to Zermatt, vanish immediately. Above us rise the towers and pinnacles of the Matterhorn, certainly a tremendous array. Actual contact immensely increases one’s impressions of this, the hardest and strongest of all the mountain masses of the Alps; its form is more remarkable than that of other mountains, not by chance, but because it is built of more massive and durable materials, and more solidly put together: nowhere have I seen such astonishing masonry. The broad gneiss blocks are generally smooth and compact, with little appearance of splintering or weathering. Tons of rock, in the shape of boulders, must fall almost daily down its sides, but the amount of these, even in the course of centuries, is as nothing compared with the mass of the mountain; the ordinary processes of disintegration can have little or no effect on it. If one were to follow Mr. Ruskin, in speculating on the manner in which the Alpine peaks can have assumed their present shape, it seems as if such a mass as this can have been blocked out only while rising from the sea, under the action of waves such as beat against the granite headlands of the Land’s End. Once on dry land, it must stand as it does now, apparently for ever.

Two lines of ascent offer, between which we have to choose: one along the middle or dividing ridge, the back-bone of the mountain, at the end of which we stand; the other by an edge some little way to the right: a couloir lies between them. We choose the former, or back-bone ridge; but the other proves to be less serrated, and we shall probably try it on another occasion. As we step from our halting-place, Bennen turns round and addresses us in a few words of exhortation, like the generals in Thucydides. He knows us well enough to be sure that we shall not feel afraid, but every footstep must be planted with the utmost precaution: no fear, ‘wohl immer Achtung.’ Soon our difficulties begin; but I despair of relating the incidents of this part of our route, so numerous and bewildering were the obstacles along it; and the details of each have somewhat faded from the memory. We are immersed in a wilderness of blocks, roofed and festooned with huge plates and stalactites of ice, so large that one is half disposed to seize hold and clamber up them. Round, over, and under them we go: often progress seems impossible; but Bennen, ever in advance, and perched like a bird on some projecting crag, contrives to find a way. Now we crawl singly along a narrow ledge of rock, with a wall on one side, and nothing on the other: there is no hold for hands or alpenstock, and the ledge slopes a little, so that if the nails in our boots hold not, down we shall go: in the middle of it a piece of rock juts out, which we ingeniously duck under, and emerge just under a shower of water, which there is no room to escape from. Presently comes a more extraordinary place: a perfect chimney of rock, cased all over with hard black ice, about an inch thick. The bottom leads out into space, and the top is somewhere in the upper regions: there is absolutely nothing to grasp at, and to this day I cannot understand how a human being could get up or down it unassisted. Bennen, however, rolls up it somehow, like a cat; he is at the top, and beckons Tyndall to advance; my turn comes next; I endeavour to mount by squeezing myself against the sides, but near the top friction suddenly gives way, and down comes my weight upon the rope:--a stout haul from above, and now one knee is upon the edge, and I am safe: Carrel is pulled up after me. After a time, we get off the rocks, and mount a slope of ice, which curves rapidly over for about three yards to our left, and then (apparently) drops at once to the Zmutt glacier. We reach the top of this, and proceed along it, till at last a sort of pinnacle is reached, from which we can survey the line of towers and crags before us up to a point just below the actual top, and we halt to rest a while. Bennen goes on to see whether it be possible to cross over to the other ridge, which seems an easier one. Left to himself, he treads lightly and almost carelessly along. ‘Geb’ Acht, Bennen!’ (Take care of yourself) we shout after him, but needlessly; he stops and moves alternately, peering wistfully about, exactly like a chamois; but soon he returns, and says there is no passage, and we must keep to the ridge we are on.

Three hours had not yet elapsed since we left the gap, and from our present station we could survey the route as far as a point which concealed from us the actual summit, and could see that the difficulties before us were not greater than we had already passed through, and such as time and perseverance would surely conquer. Nevertheless, there is a tide in the affairs of such expeditions, and the impression had been for some time gaining ground with me that the tide on the present occasion had turned against us, and that the time we could prudently allow was not sufficient for us to reach the top that day. Before trial, I had thought it not improbable that the ascent might turn out either impossible or comparatively easy; it was now tolerably clear that it was neither the one nor the other, but an exceedingly long and hard piece of work, which the unparalleled amount of ice made longer and harder than usual. I asked Bennen if he thought there was time enough to reach the top of all: he was evidently unwilling, however, to give up hopes; and Tyndall said he would give no opinion either way; so we again moved on.

At length we came to the base of a mighty knob, huger and uglier than its fellows, to which a little _arête_ of snow served as a sort of drawbridge. I began to fear lest in the ardour of pursuit we might be carried on too long, and Bennen might forget the paramount object of securing our safe retreat. I called out to him that I thought I should stop somewhere here, that if he could go faster alone he might do so, but he must turn in good time. Bennen, however, was already climbing with desperate energy up the sides of the kerb; Tyndall would not be behind him; so I loosed the rope and let them go on. Carrel moved back across the little _arête_, and sat down, and began to smoke: I remained for a while standing with my back against the knob, and gazed by myself upon the scene around.

As my blood cooled, and the sounds of human footsteps and voices grew fainter, I began to realise the height and the wonderful isolation of our position. The air was preternaturally still; an occasional gust came eddying round the corner of the mountain, but all else seemed strangely rigid and motionless, and out of keeping with the beating heart and moving limbs, the life and activity of man. Those stones and ice have no mercy in them, no sympathy with human adventure; they submit passively to what man can do; but let him go a step too far, let heart or hand fail, mist gather or sun go down, and they will exact the penalty to the uttermost. The feeling of ‘the sublime’ in such cases depends very much, I think, on a certain balance between the forces of nature and man’s ability to cope with them: if they are too weak, the scene fails to impress; if they are too strong for him, what was sublime becomes only terrible. Looking at the Dôme du Goûté or the Zumstein Spitze full in the evening sun, when they glow with an absolutely unearthly loveliness, like a city in the heavens, I have sometimes thought that, place but the spectator alone just now upon those shining heights, with escape before night all but impossible, and he will see no glory in the scene--only the angry eye of the setting sun fixed on dark rocks and dead-white snow.

We had risen seemingly to an immense height above the gap, and the ridge which stretches from the Matterhorn to the Dent d’Érin lay flat below; but the peak still towered behind me, and, measuring our position by the eye along the side of our neighbour of equal height, the Weisshorn, I saw that we must be yet a long way beneath the top. The gap itself, and all traces of the way by which we had ascended, were invisible; I could see only the stone where Carrel sat, and the tops of one or two crags rising from below. The view was, of course, magnificent, and on three sides wholly unimpeded: with one hand I could drop a stone which would descend to Zmutt, with the other to Breuil. In front lay, as in a map, the as yet unexplored peaks to south and west of the Dent d’Érin, the range which separates Val Tournanche from the Valpelline, and the glacier region beyond, called in Ziegler’s map Zardezan, over which a pass, perchance, exists to Zermatt. An illimitable range of blue hills spread far away into Italy.

I walked along the little _arête_, and sat down; it was only broad enough for the foot, and in perfectly cold blood even this perhaps might have appeared uncomfortable. Turning to look at Tyndall and Bennen, I could not help laughing at the picture of our progress under difficulties. They seemed to have advanced only a few yards. ‘Have you got no further than that yet?’ I called out, for we were all the time within hearing. Their efforts appeared prodigious: scrambling and sprawling among the huge blocks, one fancied they must be moving along some unseen bale of heavy goods instead of only the weight of their own bodies. As I looked, an ominous visitant appeared: down came a fragment of rock, the size of a man’s body, and dashed past me on the couloir, sending the snow flying. For a moment I thought they might have dislodged it; but looking again I saw it had passed over their heads, and come from the crags above. Neither of them, I believe, observed the monster; but Tyndall told me afterwards that a stone, possibly a splinter from it, had hit him in the neck, and nearly choked him. I looked anxiously again, but no more followed. A single shot, as it were, had been fired across our bows; but the ship’s course was already on the point of being put about.

Expecting fully that they would not persevere beyond a few minutes longer, I called out to Tyndall to know how soon they meant to be back. ‘In an hour and a half,’ he replied, whether in jest or earnest, and they disappeared round a projecting corner. A sudden qualm seized me, and for a few minutes I felt extremely uncomfortable: what if the ascent should suddenly become easier, and they should go on, and reach the top without me? I thought of summoning Carrel, and pursuing them; but the worthy man sat quietly, and seemed to have had enough of it. My suspense, however, was not long: after two or three minutes the clatter, which had never entirely ceased, became louder, and their forms again appeared: they were evidently descending. In fact, Bennen had at length turned, and said to Tyndall, ‘Ich denke die Zeit ist zu kurz.’ I was glad that he had gone on as long as he chose, and not been turned back on my responsibility. They had found one part of this last ascent the worst of any, but the way was open thenceforward to the farthest visible point, which can be no long way below the actual top.

It was now just about mid-day, and ample time for the descent, in all probability, was before us; but we resolved not to halt for any length of time till we should reach the gap. Descending, unlike ascending, is generally not so bad as it seems; but in some places here only one can advance at a time, the other carefully holding the rope. ‘Tenez fortement, Carrel, tenez,’ is constantly impressed on the man who brings up the rear. ‘Splendid practice for us, this,’ exclaims Tyndall exultingly, as each successive difficulty is overcome. At length we reach a place whence no egress is possible; we look in vain for traces of the way we had come: it is our friend the ice-coated chimney. Bennen gets down first, in the same mysterious fashion as he got up, and assists us down; presently a shout is heard behind; Carrel is attempting to get down by himself, and has stuck fast; Bennen has to extricate him. We are now getting rapidly lower; soon the difficulties diminish; our gap appears in sight, and once more we reach the broad granite slab beside the narrow col, and breathe more freely.

Two hours have brought us down thus far; but if we are to return by the way we came, three or four hours of hard work are still needed before we arrive at anything like ordinary snow-walking. We hold a consultation. Bennen thinks the rocks, now that the ice is melting in the afternoon sun, will be difficult, and ‘withal somewhat dangerous’ (etwa gefährlich auch). The reader will remark that Bennen uses the word ‘dangerous’ in its legitimate sense. A place is dangerous where a good climber cannot be secure of his footing; a place is _not_ dangerous where a good climber is in no danger of slipping, although to slip may be fatal. We determine to see if it be possible to descend the sides of the snow-crater, on the brink of which we now stand. The crater is portentously steep, deeply lined with fresh snow, which glistens and melts in the powerful sun. The experiment is slightly hazardous, but we resolve to try. The crater appears to narrow gradually to a sort of funnel far down below, through which we expect to issue into the glacier beneath. At the sides of the funnel are rocks, which some one suggests might serve to break our fall, should the snow go down with us, but their tender mercies seem to me doubtful. Cautiously, with steady, balanced tread, we commit ourselves to the slope, distributing the weight of the body over as large a space of snow as possible, by fixing in the pole high up, and the feet far apart, for a slip or stumble now will probably dissolve the adhesion of the fresh, not yet compacted mass, and we shall go down to the bottom in an avalanche. Six paces to the right, then again to the left; we are at the mercy of those overhanging rocks just now, and the recent tracks of stones look rather suspicious; but all is silent, and soon we gain confidence, and congratulate ourselves on an expedient which has saved us hours of time and toil. Just to our right the snow is sliding by, first slowly, then faster; keep well out of the track of it, for underneath is a hard polished surface, and if your foot chance to light there, off you will probably shoot. The snow travels much faster than we do, or have any desire to do; we are like a coach travelling alongside of an express train; in popular phrase, we are going side by side with a small avalanche, though a real avalanche is a very different matter. Soon we come somewhat under the lee of the rocks, and now all risk is over, we are through the funnel, and floundering waist-deep, heedless of crevasses in the comparatively level slopes beyond. We plunge securely down now in the deep snow, where care and caution had been requisite in crossing the frozen surface in the morning; at length we cast off the rope, and are on terra firma.

We shall be at Breuil in unexpectedly good time, before five o’clock; but it is well we are off the mountain early, for clouds and mist are already gathering round the peak, and the weather is about to break. Tyndall rushes rapidly down the slopes, and is lost to view; Bennen and I walk slowly, discussing the results of the day. I am glad to see that he is in high spirits, and confident of our future success. He agrees with me to reach the top will be an exceedingly long day’s work, and that we must allow ten hours at least for the actual peak, six to ascend, four to descend; we must start next time, he says, ‘ganz, ganz früh,’ and manage to reach the gap by seven o’clock. Presently we deviate a little from our downward course; the same thought occupies our minds; we perceive a long low line of roof on the mountain-side, and are not mistaken in supposing that our favourite food will at this hour be found there in abundance. The shepherds on the Italian hills are more hospitable and courteous, I think, than their Swiss brethren: twenty cows are moving their tails contentedly in line under the shed, for Breuil is a rich pasture valley, and in an autumn evening I have counted six herds of from ninety to a hundred each, in separate clusters, like ants, along the stream in the distance. The friendly man, in hoarse but hearty tones, urges us on as we drink; Bennen puts into his hand forty centimes for us both (for we have disposed of no small quantity): but he is with difficulty persuaded to accept so large a sum, and calls after us, ‘C’est trop, c’est trop, messieurs.’ Long may civilisation and half-francs fail of reaching his simple abode; for, alas! the great tourist-world is corrupting the primitive chalet-life of the Alps, and the Alpine man returning to his old haunts, finds a rise in the price even of ‘niedl’ and ‘mascarpa.’

The day after our expedition Bennen and myself recrossed the Théodule in a heavy snow-storm. Tyndall started for Chamouni, for the weather was too bad to justify an indefinite delay at Breuil in the hope of making another attempt that year, and by waiting till another season we were sure of obtaining less unfavourable conditions of snow and ice upon the mountain.--We had enjoyed an exciting and adventurous day, and I myself was not sorry to have something still left to do, while we had the satisfaction of being the first to set foot on this, the most imposing and mightiest giant of the Alps--the ‘inaccessible’ Mont Cervin.--_Vacation Tourists, 1860._

IV.

_THERMOMETRIC STATION ON MONT BLANC._

The thermometers referred to at p. 17 were placed on Mont Blanc in 1859. I had proposed to the Royal Society some time previously to establish a series of stations between the top and bottom of the mountain, and the council of the society was kind enough to give me its countenance and aid in the undertaking. At Chamouni I had a number of wooden piles shod with iron. The one intended for the summit was twelve feet long and three inches square; the others, each ten feet long, were intended for five stations between the top of the mountain and the bottom of the Glacier de Bossons. Each post was furnished with a small cross-piece, to which a horizontal minimum thermometer might be attached. Six-and-twenty porters were found necessary to carry all the apparatus to the Grands Mulets, whence fourteen of them were immediately sent back. The other twelve, with one exception, reached the summit, whence six of them were sent back. Six therefore remained. In addition to these we had three guides, Auguste Balmat being the principal one; these, with Dr. Frankland and myself, made up eleven persons in all. Though the main object of the expedition was to plant the posts and fix the thermometers, I was very anxious to make some observations on the transparency of the lower strata of the atmosphere to the solar heat-rays. I therefore arranged a series of observations with the Abbé Veuillet, of Chamouni; he was to operate in the valley, while I observed at the top. Our instruments were of the same kind; in this way I hoped to determine the influence of the stratum of air interposed between the top and bottom of the mountain upon the solar radiation.

Wishing to commence the observations at daybreak, I had a tent carried to the summit, where I proposed to spend the night. The tent was ten feet in diameter, and into it the whole eleven of us were packed. The north wind blew rather fiercely over the summit, but we dropped down a few yards to leeward, and thus found shelter. Throughout the night we did not suffer at all from cold, though we had no fire, and the adjacent snow was 15° Cent., or 27° Fahr., below the freezing point of water. We were all however indisposed. I was indeed very unwell when I quitted Chamouni; but had I faltered my party would have melted away. I had frequently cast off illness on previous occasions, and hoped to do so now. But in this I was unsuccessful; my illness was more deep-rooted than ordinary, and it augmented during the entire period of the ascent. Towards morning, however, I became stronger, while with some of my companions the reverse was the case. At daybreak the wind increased in force, and as the fine snow was perfectly dry, it was driven over us in clouds. Had no other obstacle existed, this alone would have been sufficient to render the observations on solar radiation impossible. We were therefore obliged to limit ourselves to the principal object of the expedition--the erection of the post for the thermometers. It was sunk six feet in the snow, while the remaining six feet were exposed to the air. A minimum thermometer was screwed firmly on to the cross-piece of the post; a maximum thermometer was screwed on beneath this, and under this again a wet and dry bulb thermometer. Two minimum thermometers were also placed in the snow--one at a depth of six, and the other at a depth of four feet below the surface--these being intended to give some information as to the depth to which the winter cold penetrates. At each of the other stations we placed a minimum thermometer in the ice or snow, and a maximum and a minimum in the air.

The stations were as follows:--The summit, the Corridor, the Grand Plateau, the glacier near the Grands Mulets, and two additional ones between the Grands Mulets and the end of the Glacier de Bossons. We took up some rockets, to see whether the ascensional power, or the combustion, was affected by the rarity of the air. During the night, however, we were enveloped in a dense mist, which defeated our purpose. One rocket was sent up which (though we did not know it) penetrated the mist, and was seen at Chamouni. Lecomte’s experiments on the alleged influence of light and rarefaction in retarding combustion caused me to resolve on making a series of experiments on Mont Blanc. Dr. Frankland was kind enough to undertake their execution. Six candles were chosen at Chamouni, and carefully weighed. All of them were permitted to burn for one hour at the top, and were again weighed when we returned to Chamouni. They were afterwards permitted to burn an hour below. Rejecting one candle, which gave a somewhat anomalous result, we found that the quantity consumed above was, within the limits of error, the same as that consumed at the bottom. This result surprised us all the more, inasmuch as the _light_ of the candles appeared to be much feebler at the top than at the bottom of the mountain.

The explosion of a pistol was sensibly weaker at the top than at a low level. The _shortness_ of the sound was remarkable; but it bore no resemblance to the sound of a cracker, to which in acoustic treatises it is usually compared. It resembled more the sound produced by the expulsion of a cork from a champagne-bottle, but it was much louder. The sunrise from the summit was singularly magnificent. The snow on the shaded flanks of the mountain was of a pure blue, being illuminated solely by the _reflected_ light of the sky; the summit of the mountain, on the contrary, was crimson, being illuminated by _transmitted_ light. The contrast of both was finer than I can describe.

About twenty hours were spent upon the top of Mont Blanc on this occasion. Had I been better satisfied with the conduct of the guides, it would have given me pleasure at the time to dwell upon this out-of-the-way episode in mountain life. But a temper, new to me, and which I thought looked very like mutiny, showed itself on the part of some of my men. Its manifestation was slight, I must say, in most cases, and conspicuous only in one. Regrets and apologies followed, and due allowance ought to be made for the perfectly novel position in which the men found themselves. The awe of entire strangeness is very powerful in some minds; and to my companions the notion of spending a night at the top of Mont Blanc was passing strange. The thing had never been attempted previously, nor has the experiment been repeated since.

As stated at p. 17, I made an attempt during the execrable weather of 1860 to reach the top, but was driven down after a delay of twenty hours at the Grands Mulets. The same weather destroyed the lower stations. In 1861, though the cross still remained at the top, the thermometers exhibited broken columns and were worthless for observation.

I may add, in conclusion, that the lowest temperature at the summit of the Jardin during the winter of 1858 was 21° Cent. below zero. In 1859 I vainly endeavoured to find a thermometer which had been placed in the snow upon the summit of Mont Blanc a year previously.

V.

From a little book called ‘Mountaineering in 1861,’ published nine years ago, but long since out of print, I will now make a few selections. The mountain work of that year embraced the ascent of the Weisshorn, and the passage of the barrier between the Cima di Jazzi and Monte Rosa by an untried and dangerous route. Both these expeditions are described. But, besides these narratives of outward action, I notice in the book a subjective element, consisting of the musings and reflections to which I often abandon myself when sauntering over easy ground, and without which even Switzerland would sometimes be monotonous to me. It is only from the reader accustomed to similar reflective moods that I expect acceptance, or even tolerance, of these musings: the man of action will pass them impatiently by. I begin with

_A LETTER FROM BÂLE._

‘I reached Bâle last night, and now sit on the balcony of the “Three Kings” with the Rhine flashing below me. It is silent here, but higher up, in passing the props of a bridge, it breaks into foam; its compressed air-bubbles burst like elastic springs, and shake the air into sonorous vibrations.[6] Thus the rude mechanical motion of the river is converted into music. The hammer of the boat-builder rings on his plank, the leaves of the poplars rustle in the breeze, the watchdog’s honest bark is heard in the distance; while from the windows of the houses along the banks gleam a series of reflected suns, each surrounded by a coloured glory.

[6] See note at the end of this chapter.

‘Yesterday I travelled from Paris, and the day previous from London, when the trail of a spent storm swept across the sea and kept its anger awake. The stern of our boat went up and down, the distant craft were equally pendulous, and the usual results followed. Men’s faces waxed green, roses faded from ladies’ cheeks; while puzzled children yelled intermittently in the grasp of the demon which had newly taken possession of them. One rare pale maiden sat right in the line of the spray, and bore the violence of the ocean with the resignation of an angel. A white arm could be seen shining through translucent muslin, but even against it the brine beat as if it were a mere seaweed. I sat at rest, hovering fearfully on the verge of that doleful region, whose bourne most of those on board had already passed, thinking how directly materialistic is the tendency of sea-sickness, through its remorseless demonstration of the helplessness of the human soul and will.

‘The morning of the 1st of August found me on my way from Paris to Bâle. The sun was strong, and, in addition to this source of temperature, eight human beings, each burning the slow fire which we call life, were cooped within the limits of our compartment. We slept, first singly, then by groups, and finally as a whole. Vainly we endeavoured to ward off the coming lethargy. Thought gradually slips away from its object, or the object glides out of the nerveless grasp of thought, and we are conquered by the heat. But what _is_ heat, that it should work such changes in moral and intellectual nature? Why are we unable to read “Mill’s Logic” or study the “Kritik der reinen Vernunft” with any profit in a Turkish bath? Heat, defined without reference to our sensations, is a kind of motion, as strictly mechanical as the waves of the sea, or as the aërial vibrations which produce sound. The communication of this motion to the molecules of the brain produces the moral and intellectual effects just referred to. Human action is only possible within a narrow zone of temperature. Transgress the limit on one side, and we are torpid by excess; transgress it on the other, and we are torpid by defect. The intellect is in some sense a function of temperature. Thus at noon we were drained of intellectual energy; eight hours later the mind was awake and active, and through her operations was shed that feeling of earnestness and awe which the mystery of the starry heavens ever inspires. Physically considered, however, the intellect of noon differed from that of 8 P.M. simply in the amount of motion possessed by the molecules of the brain.

‘It is not levity which prompts me to write thus. Matter, in relation to vital phenomena, has yet to be studied, and the command of Canute to the waves would be wisdom itself compared with any attempt to stop such enquiries. Let the tide rise, and let knowledge advance; the limits of the one are not more rigidly fixed than those of the other; and no worse infidelity could seize upon the mind than the belief that a man’s earnest search after truth should culminate in his perdition.’

The sun was high in heaven as we rolled away from Bâle on the morning of the 2nd. Sooner or later every intellectual canker disappears before earnest work, the influence of which, moreover, fills a wide margin beyond the time of its actual performance. Thus, to-day, I sang as I rolled along--not with boisterous glee, but with serene and deep-lying gladness of heart. This happiness, however, had its roots in the past, and had I not been a worker previous to my release from London, I could not now have been so glad an idler. In any other country than Switzerland the valley through which we sped would have called forth admiration and delight. Noble fells, proudly grouped, flanked us right and left. Cloud-like woods of pines overspread them in broad patches, with between them spaces of the tenderest green, while among the meadows at their feet gleamed the rushing Rhine.

The zenith was blue, but the thick stratum of horizontal air invested the snowy peaks with a veil of translucent haze, through which their vast and spectral outlines were clearly seen. As we rolled on towards Thun the haze thickened, while dense and rounded clouds burst upwards, as if let loose from a prison behind the mountains. Soon afterwards the black haze and blacker clouds resolved themselves into a thunderstorm. The air was cut repeatedly by zigzag bars of solid light. Then came the cannonade, and then the heavy rain-pellets rattling with fury against the carriages. It afterwards cleared, but not wholly. Stormy cumuli swept round the mountains, between which, however, the illuminated ridges seemed to swim in the opalescent air.

At Thun I found my faithful and favourite guide, Johann Bennen, of Laax, in the valley of the Rhone, the strongest limb and stoutest heart of my acquaintance in the Alps. We took the steamer to Interlaken, and while we were on the lake the heavens again darkened, and the deck was flooded by the gushing rain. The dusky cloud-curtain was rent at intervals, and through the apertures thus formed parallel bars of extraordinary radiance escaped across the lake. On reaching Interlaken I drove to the steamer on the lake of Brientz. We started at 6 P.M., with a purified atmosphere, and passed through scenes of serene beauty in the tranquil evening light. The bridge of Brientz had been carried away by the floods, the mail was intercepted, and I joined a young Oxford man in a vehicle to Meyringen. The west wind again filled the atmosphere with gloom, and after supper I spent an hour watching the lightning thrilling behind the clouds. The darkness was intense, and the intermittent glare correspondingly impressive. Sometimes the lightning seemed to burst, like a fireball, midway between the horizon and the zenith, spreading a vast glory behind the clouds and revealing all their outlines. In front of me was a craggy summit, which indulged in intermittent shots of thunder; sharp, dry, and sudden, with scarcely an echo to soften them off.

NOTE ON THE SOUND OF AGITATED WATER.

A liquid vein descending through a round hole in the bottom of a tin vessel exhibits two distinct portions, the one steady and limpid, the other unsteady and apparently turbid. The flash of an electric spark in a dark room instantly resolves the turbid portion into isolated drops. Experiments made in 1849 with such a jet directed my attention to the origin of the sound of agitated water. When the smoke is projected from the lips of a tobacco-smoker, a little explosion usually occurs, which is chiefly due to the sudden bursting of the film of saliva connecting both lips. An inflated bladder bursts with an explosion as loud as a pistol-shot. Sound to some extent always accompanies the sudden liberation of compressed air, and this fact is also exhibited in the deportment of a water-jet. If the surface of water into which the jet falls intersect its limpid portion, the jet enters _silently_, and no bubbles are produced. If the surface cut the turbid portion of the jet, bubbles make their appearance with an accompaniment of sound. The very nature of the sound pronounces its origin to be the bursting of the bubbles; and to the same cause the murmur of streams and the sound of breakers appear to be almost exclusively due. The impact of water against water is a comparatively subordinate cause of the sound, and could never of itself occasion the ‘babble’ of a brook or the musical roar of the ocean.--_Philosophical Magazine_, February 1857.

VI.

_THE URBACHTHAL AND GAULI GLACIER._

Our bivouac at Meyringen was _le Sauvage_, who discharged his duty as a host with credit to himself and with satisfaction to us. Forster (the statesman) arrived, and in the afternoon of the 3rd we walked up the valley, with the view of spending the night at Hof. Between Meyringen and Hof, the vale of Hasli is crossed by a transverse ridge called the Kirchet, and the barrier is at one place split through, forming a deep chasm with vertical sides through which plunges the river Aar. The chasm is called the Finsteraarschlucht, and by the ready hypothesis of an earthquake its formation has been explained. Man longs for causes, and the weaker minds, unable to restrain their longing, often barter, for the most sorry theoretic pottage, the truth which patient enquiry would make their own. This proneness of the human mind to jump to conclusions, and thus shirk the labour of real investigation, is a most mischievous tendency. We complain of the contempt with which practical men regard theory, and, to confound them, triumphantly exhibit the speculative achievements of master minds. But the practical man, though puzzled, remains unconvinced; and why? Simply because nine out of ten of the theories with which he is acquainted are deserving of nothing better than contempt. Our master minds built their theoretic edifices upon the rock of fact, the quantity of fact necessary to enable them to divine the _law_ being a measure of individual genius, and not a test of philosophic system.[7]

[7] This was written soon after Mr. Buckle’s Royal Institution lecture, which I thought a piece of astonishing rhetoric, but of very unsound science.

The level plain of Hof lies above the mound of the Kirchet; how was this flat formed? Is it not composed of the sediment of a lake? Did not the Kirchet form the dam of this lake, a stream issuing from the latter and falling over the dam? And as the sea-waves find a weak point in the cliffs against which they dash, and gradually eat their way so as to form caverns with high vertical sides, as at the Land’s End, a joint or fault or some other accidental weakness determining their line of action; so also a mountain torrent rushing for ages over the same dam would be sure to cut itself a channel. The lake after its drainage left the basis of green meadows as sediment behind; and through these meadows now flows the stream of the Aar. Imagination is essential to the natural philosopher, but its matter must be facts; and its function the discernment of their connection.

We were called at 4 A.M., an hour later than we intended, and the sight of the cloudless mountains was an inspiration to us all. At 5.30 A.M. we were off, crossing the valley of Hof, which was hugged round its margin by a light and silky mist. We ascended a spur which separated us from the Urbachthal, through which our route lay. The Aar for a time babbled in the distance, until, on turning a corner, its voice was suddenly quenched by the louder music of the Urbach, rendered mellow and voluminous by the resonance of the chasm into which the torrent leaped. The sun was already strong. His yellow light glimmered from the fresh green leaves; it smote with glory the boles and the plumes of the pines; soft shadows fell from shrub and rock upon the pastures; snow-peaks were in sight, cliffy summits also, without snow or verdure, but in many cases buttressed by slopes of soil which bore a shaggy growth of trees. To the right of us rose the bare cliffs of the Engelhörner, broken at the top into claw-shaped masses which were turned, as if in spite, against the serene heaven. Bennen walked on in front, a mass of organised force, silent, but emitting at times a whistle which sounded like the piping of a lost chamois. In a hollow of the Engelhörner a mass of snow had found a lodgment; melted by the warm rock, its foundation was sapped, and down it came in a thundering cascade. The thick pinewoods to our right were furrowed by the tracks of these destroyers, the very wind of which, it is affirmed, tears up distant trees by the roots.

For a time our route lay through a spacious valley, which at length turned to the left, and narrowed to a gorge. Along its bottom the hissing river rushed; this we crossed, climbed the wall of a _cul de sac_, and from its rim enjoyed a glorious view. The Urbachthal has been the scene of vast glacier action. Looking at these charactered cliffs, one’s thoughts involuntarily revert to the ancient days, and we restore in idea a state of things which had disappeared from the world before the development of man. Whence this wondrous power of reconstruction? Was it locked like latent heat in ancient inorganic nature, and developed as the ages rolled? Are other and grander powers still latent in nature, destined to blossom in another age? Let us question fearlessly, but, having done so, let us avow frankly that at bottom we know nothing; that we are imbedded in a mystery, towards the solution of which no whisper has been yet conceded to the listening intellect of man.

The world of life and beauty is now retreating, and the world of death and beauty is at hand. We were soon at the end of the Gauli glacier, from which the impetuous Urbach rushes, and turned into a chalet for a draught of milk. The Senner within proved an extortioner--‘_Ein unverschämter Hund_;’ but let him pass. We worked along the flank of the glacier to a point which commands a view of the cliffy barrier which it is the main object of our journey to pass. From a range of snow-peaks linked together by ridges of black rock, the Gauli glacier falls, at first steeply as snow, then more gently as ice. We scan the mountain barrier to ascertain where it ought to be attacked. No one of us has ever been here before, and the scanty scraps of information which we have received tell us that at one place only is the barrier passable. We may reach the summit at several points from this side, but all save one, we are informed, lead to the brink of intractable precipices, which fall sheer to the Lauteraar glacier. We observe, discuss, and finally decide. We enter upon the glacier; black chasms yawn here and there through the superincumbent snow, but there is no real difficulty. We cross the glacier and reach the opposite slopes; our way first lies up a moraine, and afterwards through the snow; a laborious ascent brings us close to the ridge, and here we pause once more in consultation. There is a gentle indentation to our left, and a cleft in the rocks to our right; our information points to the cleft, but we decide in favour of the saddle.

The winter snows were here thickly laid against the precipitous crags; the lower part of the buttress thus formed had broken away from the upper, which still clung to the rocks, the whole ridge being thus defended by a profound chasm, called in Switzerland a Bergschrund. At some places portions of snow had fallen away from the upper slope and partially choked the schrund, closing, however, its mouth only, and on this snow we were now to seek a footing. Bennen and myself were loose coming up; Forster and his guide were tied together; but now my friend declares that we must all be attached. We accordingly rope ourselves, and advance along the edge of the fissure to a place where it is partially stopped. A vertical wall of snow faces us. Our leader carefully treads down the covering of the chasm; and having thus rendered it sufficiently rigid to stand upon, he cuts a deep gap with his ice-axe in the opposing wall. Into the gap he tries to force himself, but the mass yields, and he falls back, sinking deeply in the snow of the schrund. He stands right over the fissure, which is merely bridged by the snow. I call out, ‘Take care!’ he responds, ‘All right!’ and returns to the charge. He hews a deeper and more ample gap; strikes his axe into the slope above him, and leaves it there; buries his hands in the yielding mass, and raises his body on his two arms, as on a pair of pillars. He thus clears the schrund and anchors his limbs in the snow above. I am speedily at his side, and we both tighten the rope as our friend Forster advances. With perfect courage and a faultless head, he has but one disadvantage, and that is an excess of weight of at least two stone. In his first attempt the snow-ledge breaks, and he falls back; but two men are now at the rope, the tension of which, aided by his own activity, prevents him from sinking far. By a second effort he clears the difficulty, is followed by his guide, and all four of us reach the slope above the chasm. Its steepness was greater than that of a cathedral roof, while below us, and within a few yards of us, was a chasm into which it would be certain death to fall. Education enables us to regard a position of this kind almost with indifference; still the work was by no means unexciting. In this early stage of our summer performances, it required perfect trust in our leader to keep our minds at ease. We reached the saddle, and a cheer at the summit announced that our escape was secured.

The indentation formed the top of a kind of chimney or funnel in the rocks, which led right down to the Lauteraar glacier. Elated with our success, I released myself from the rope and sprang down the chimney, preventing the descent from quickening to an absolute fall by seizing at intervals the projecting rocks. Once an effort of this kind shook the alpenstock from my hand: it slid along the rubbish, reached a snow-slope, shot down it, and was caught on some shingle at the bottom of the slope. Quickly skirting the snow, which, without a staff, cannot be trusted, I reached a ridge, from which a jump landed me on the _débris_: it yielded and carried me down; passing the alpenstock I seized it, and in an instant was master of all my motions. Another snow-slope was reached, down which I shot to the rocks at the bottom, and there awaited the arrival of my guide.

We diverged from the deep cut of the chimney, Bennen adhering to the rough rocks, while I, hoping to make an easier descent through the funnel itself, resorted to it. It was partially filled with indurated snow, but underneath was a stream, and my ignorance of the thickness of the roof rendered caution necessary. At one place the snow was broken quite across, and a dark tunnel, through which the stream rushed, opened immediately below me. My descent being thus cut off, I crossed the couloir to the opposite rocks, climbed them, and found myself upon the summit of a ledged precipice, below which Bennen stood, watching me as I descended. On one of the ledges my foot slipped; a most melancholy whine issued from my guide, as he suddenly moved towards me; but the slip in no way compromised me; I reached the next ledge, and in a moment was clear of the difficulty. We dropped down the mountain together, quitted the rocks, and reached the glacier, where we were soon joined by Forster and his companion. Turning round, we espied a herd of seven chamois on one of the distant slopes of snow. The telescope reduced them to five full-grown animals and two pretty little kids. The day was fading and the deeper glacier pools were shaded by their icy banks. Through the shadowed water needles of ice were darting: all day long the molecules had been kept asunder by the antagonistic heat; their enemy is now withdrawn, and they lock themselves together in a crystalline embrace. Through a reach of merciless shingle, which covers the lower part of the glacier, we worked our way; then over green pastures and rounded rocks, to the Grimsel Hotel, which, uncomfortable as it is, was reached with pleasure by us all.

VII.

_THE GRIMSEL AND THE ÆGGISCHHORN._