Chapter I: Observations on the Mer De Glace 339 (4)

In this admirable fashion did my guides behave on this occasion. The day previous to my arrival at Randa they had been up the mountain, and they then observed a solitary chamois moving along the base of this very precipice, and making ineffectual attempts to get up it. At one place the creature succeeded; this spot they fixed in their memories, and when they reached the top of the precipice they sought for the traces of the chamois, found them, and were guided by them to the only place where escape in any reasonable time was possible. Our way was now clear; over the glacier we cheerfully marched, escaping from the ice just as the moon and the eastern sky contributed about equally to the illumination. The moonlight was afterwards intercepted by clouds. In the gloom we were often at a loss, and wandered half-bewildered over the grassy slopes. At length the welcome tinkle of cow-bells was heard in the distance, and guided by them we reached the chalet a little after 9 P.M. The cows had been milked and the milk disposed of, but the men managed to get us a moderate draught. Thus refreshed we continued the descent. I was half famished, for my solid nutriment during the day consisted solely of part of a box of meat lozenges given to me by Mr. Hawkins. Bennen and myself descended the mountain deliberately, and after many windings emerged upon the valley, and reached the hotel a little before 11 P.M. I had a basin of broth, _not_ made according to Liebig, and a piece of mutton boiled probably for the fifth time. Fortified by these, and comforted by a warm footbath, I went to bed, where six hours’ sound sleep chased away all consciousness of fatigue. I was astonished on the morrow to find the loose atoms of my body knitted so firmly by so brief a rest. Up to my attempt upon the Weisshorn I had felt more or less dilapidated, but here all weakness ended, and during my subsequent stay in Switzerland I was unacquainted with infirmity.

X.

_INSPECTION OF THE MATTERHORN._

On the afternoon of the 20th we quitted Randa, with a threatening sky overhead. The considerate Philomène compelled us to take an umbrella, which we soon found useful. The flood-gates of heaven were unlocked, while, defended by our cotton canopy, Bennen and myself walked arm-in-arm to Zermatt. I instantly found myself in the midst of a circle of pleasant friends, some of whom had just returned from a successful attempt upon the Lyskamm. On the 22nd quite a crowd of travellers crossed the Theodule Pass; and, knowing that every corner of the hotel at Breuil would be taken up, I halted a day, so as to allow the people to disperse. Breuil commands a view of the southern side of the Matterhorn; and it was now an object with me to discover, if possible, upon the true peak of this formidable mountain, some ledge or cranny where three men might spend a night. The mountain may be accessible or inaccessible, but one thing seems certain, that starting from Breuil, or even from the chalets above Breuil, the work of reaching the summit is too much for a single day. But could a shelter be found amid the wild battlements of the peak itself, which would enable one to attack the obelisk at day-dawn, the possibility of conquest was so far an open question as to tempt a trial. I therefore sent Bennen on to reconnoitre, purposing myself to cross the Theodule alone on the following day.

On the afternoon of the 22nd I sauntered slowly up to the Riffel, leaning at times on the head of my axe, or sitting down upon the grassy knolls, as my mood prompted. The air which filled the valleys of the Oberland, and swathed in mitigated density the highest peaks, was slightly opalescent, though still transparent, the floating particles forming so many _points d’appui_, from which the light was scattered through surrounding space. The whole medium glowed as if shone upon by a distant furnace, and through it the outline of the mountains loomed. The glow augmented as the sun sank, reached its maximum, paused, and then ran speedily down to a cold and colourless twilight.

Next morning at nine o’clock, with some scraps of information from the guides to help me on my way, I quitted the Riffel to cross the Theodule. I was soon followed by the domestic of the hotel. Bennen had requested him to see me to the edge of the glacier, and he now joined me with this intention. He knew my designs upon the Matterhorn, and strongly deprecated them. ‘Only think, Herr,’ he urged, ‘what will avail your ascent of the Weisshorn if you are smashed upon the Mont Cervin? Mein Herr!’ he added with condensed emphasis, ‘thun Sie es nicht.’ The whole conversation was in fact a homily, the strong point of which was the utter uselessness of success on the one mountain if it were to be followed by annihilation on the other. We reached the ridge above the glacier, where, handing him a trinkgeld, which I had to force on his acceptance, I bade him good-bye, assuring him that I would submit in all things to Bennen’s opinion. He had the highest idea of Bennen’s wisdom, and hence the assurance sent him home comforted.

I was soon upon the ice, once more alone, as I delight to be at times. As a habit going alone is to be deprecated, but sparingly indulged in it is a great luxury. There are no doubt moods when the mother is glad to get rid of her offspring, the wife of her husband, the lover of his mistress, and when it is not well to keep them together. And so, at rare intervals, it is good for the soul to feel the full influence of that ‘society where none intrudes.’ When the work is clearly within your power, when long practice has enabled you to trust your own eye and judgment in unravelling crevasses, and your own axe and arm in subduing their more serious difficulties, it is an entirely new experience to be alone amid those sublime scenes. The peaks wear a more solemn aspect, the sun shines with a more effectual fire, the blue of heaven is more deep and awful, and the hard heart of man is often made as tender as a child’s. You contract a closer friendship for the universe in virtue of your more intimate contact with its parts. The glacier to-day filled the air with low murmurs, while the sound of the distant moulins rose to a kind of roar. The _débris_ rustled on the moraines, the smaller rivulets babbled in their channels, as they ran to join their trunk, and the surface of the glacier creaked audibly as it yielded to the sun. It seemed to breathe and whisper like a living thing. To my left was Monte Rosa and her royal court, to my right the mystic pinnacle of the Matterhorn, which from a certain point here upon the glacier attains its maximum sharpness. It drew my eyes towards it with irresistible fascination as it shimmered in the blue, too preoccupied with heaven to think even with contempt on the designs of a son of earth to reach its inviolate crest.

I crossed the Görner glacier quite as speedily as if I had been professionally led. Then up the undulating slope of the Theodule glacier, with a rocky ridge to the right, over which I was informed a rude track led to the pass of St. Theodule. I am not great at finding tracks, and I missed this one, ascending until it became evident that I had gone too far. Near its higher extremity the crest of the ridge is cut across by three curious chasms, and one of these I thought would be a likely gateway through the ridge. I climbed the steep buttress of the spur and was soon in the fissure. Huge masses of rock were jammed into it, the presence of which gave variety to the exertion, calling forth strength, but not exciting fear. From the summit the rocks sloped gently down to the snow, and in a few minutes the presence of broken bottles on the moraine showed me that I had hit upon the track. Upwards of twenty unhappy bees staggered against me on the way: tempted by the sun, or wafted by the wind, they had quitted the flowery Alps to meet torpor and death in the ice-world above. From the summit I went swiftly down to Breuil, where I was welcomed by the host, welcomed by the waiter; loud were the expressions of content at my arrival; and I was informed that Bennen had started early in the morning to ‘promenade himself’ around the Matterhorn.

I lay long upon the Alp, scanning crag and snow in search of my guide. From the admirable account of the first attempt on the Matterhorn, drawn up by Mr. Hawkins,[10] it may be inferred that the ascent is not likely to be a matter of mere amusement. The account narrates that after climbing for several hours in the face of novel difficulties, my companion thought it wise to halt so as to secure our retreat. I will here state in a few words what occurred after our separation from him. Bennen and I had first a hard scramble up some very steep rocks, our motions giving to those below us the impression that we were urging up bales of goods instead of the simple weight of our own bodies. Turning the corner of the ridge, we had to cross an unpleasant slope of smooth rock, covered by about eighteen inches of snow. In ascending, this place was passed in silence, but in coming down the fear arose that the superficial layer might slip away with us. Bennen seldom warns me, but he did so here emphatically, declaring his own powerlessness to render any help should the footing give way. Having crossed this slope in our ascent, we were fronted by a cliff, against which we rose mainly by aid of the felspar crystals protuberant from its face. Midway up the cliff Bennen asked me to hold on, as he did not feel sure that it was the best route. I accordingly ceased moving, and lay against the rock with legs and arms outstretched. Bennen climbed to the top of the cliff, but returned immediately with a flush of confidence in his eye. ‘I will lead you to the top,’ he said excitedly. Had I been free I should have cried ‘Bravo!’ but in my position I did not care to risk the muscular motion which a hearty bravo would demand.

[10] Chapter III. of this volume.

Aided by the rope, I was at his side in a minute, and we soon learned that his confidence was premature. Difficulties thickened round us; on no other mountain are they so thick, and each of them is attended by possibilities of the most blood-chilling kind. Our mode of motion was this: Bennen advanced while I held on to a rock, prepared for the jerk if he should slip. When he had secured himself, he called out, ‘Ich bin fest, kommen Sie.’ I then worked forward, sometimes halting where he had halted, sometimes passing him until a firm anchorage was gained, when it again became his turn to advance. Thus each of us waited until the other could seize upon something capable of bearing the shock of a falling man. At some places Bennen deemed a little extra assurance necessary; and here he emphasised his statement that he was ‘fest’ by a suitable hyperbole. ‘Ich bin fest wie ein Mauer,--fest wie ein Berg, ich halte Sie gewiss,’ or some such expression.

Looking from Breuil, a series of moderate-sized prominences are seen along the _arête_ of the Matterhorn; but when you are near them, these black eminences rise like tremendous castles in the air, so wild and high as almost to quell all hope of scaling or getting round them. At the base of one of these edifices Bennen paused and looked closely at the grand mass; he wiped his forehead, and turning to me said, ‘Was denken Sie, Herr?’--‘Shall we go on, or shall we return? I will do what you wish.’ ‘I am without a wish, Bennen,’ I replied: ‘where you go I follow, be it up or down.’ He disliked the idea of giving in, and would willingly have thrown the onus of stopping upon me. We attacked the castle, and by a hard effort reached one of its mid ledges, whence we had plenty of room to examine the remainder. We might certainly have continued the ascent beyond this place, but Bennen paused here. To a minute of talk succeeded a minute of silence, during which my guide earnestly scanned the heights. He then turned towards me, and the words seemed to fall from his lips through a resisting medium, as he said, ‘Ich denke die Zeit ist zu kurz’ (I think the time is too short).

By this time each of the neighbouring peaks had unfolded a cloud banner, remaining clear to windward, but having a streamer hooked on to its summit and drawn far out into space by the moist south wind. It was a grand and affecting sight, grand intrinsically, but doubly impressive to feelings already loosened by the awe inseparable from our position. Looked at from Breuil, the mountain shows two summits separated from each other by a possibly impassable cleft. Only the lower one of these could be seen from where we stood. I asked Bennen how high he supposed it to be above the point where we then stood; he estimated its height at 400 feet, I at 500 feet. Probably both of us were under the mark; however, I state the fact as it occurred. The object of my present visit to Breuil was to finish the piece of work thus abruptly broken off, and so I awaited Bennen’s return with anxious interest.

At dusk I saw him striding down the Alp, and went out to meet him. I sought to gather his opinion from his eye before he spoke, but could make nothing out. It was perfectly firm, but might mean either pro or con. ‘Herr,’ he said at length, in a tone of unusual emphasis, ‘I have examined the mountain carefully, and find it more difficult and dangerous than I had imagined. There is no place upon it where we could well pass the night. We might do so on yonder col upon the snow, but there we should be almost frozen to death, and totally unfit for the work of the next day. On the rocks there is no ledge or cranny which could give us proper harbourage; and starting from Breuil it is certainly impossible to reach the summit in a single day.’ I was entirely taken back by this report. Bennen was evidently dead against any attempt upon the mountain. ‘We can, at all events, reach the lower of the two summits,’ I remarked. ‘Even that is difficult,’ he replied; ‘but when you have reached it, what then? The peak has neither name nor fame.’ I was silent; slightly irascible, perhaps; but it was against my habit to utter a word of remonstrance or persuasion. Bennen made his report with his eyes open. He knew me well, and I think mutual trust has rarely been more strongly developed between guide and traveller than between him and me. I knew that I had but to give the word and he would face the mountain with me next day, but it would have been inexcusable in me to deal thus with him. So I stroked my beard, and, like Lelia in the ‘Princess,’ when

Upon the sward
She tapt her tiny silken-sandal’d foot,

I crushed the grass with my hobnails, seeking thus a safety-valve for my disappointment.

My sleep was unsatisfying that night, and on the following morning I felt a void within. The hope of finishing my work creditably had been suddenly dislodged, and, for a time, vacuity took its place. It was like the removal of a pleasant drug or the breaking down of a religious faith. I hardly knew what to do with myself. One thing was certain--the Italian valleys had no tonic strong enough to set me right; the mountains alone could restore what I had lost. Over the Joch then once more! We packed up and bade farewell to the host and waiter. Both men seemed smitten with a sudden languor, and could hardly respond to my adieus. They had expected us to be their guests for some time, and were evidently disgusted at our want of pluck. ‘Mais, monsieur, il faut faire la pénitence pour une nuit.’ Veils of the silkiest cloud began to draw themselves round the mountain, and to stretch in long gauzy filaments through the air, where they finally curdled up to common cloud, and lost the grace and beauty of their infancy. Had they condensed to thunder I should have been better satisfied; but it was some consolation to see them thicken so as to hide the mountain, and quench the longing with which I should have viewed its unclouded head. The thought of spending some days chamois-hunting occurred to me. Bennen seized the idea with delight, promising me an excellent gun. We crossed the summit, descended to Zermatt, paused there to refresh ourselves, and went forward to St. Nicholas, where we spent the night.

XI.

_OVER THE MORO._

I had only seen one half of Monte Rosa; and from the Italian side the aspect of the mountain was unknown to me. I had been upon the Monte Moro three years ago, but looked from it merely into an infinite sea of haze. To complete my knowledge of the mountain it was necessary to go to Macugnaga, and over the Moro I accordingly resolved to go. But resolution had as yet taken no deep root, and on reaching Saas I was beset by the desire to cross the Alphubel. Bennen called me at three; but over the pass grey clouds were hanging, and, determined not to mar this fine excursion by choosing an imperfect day, I then gave it up. At seven o’clock, however, all trace of cloud had disappeared; it had been merely a local gathering of no importance, which the first sunbeams resolved into transparency. It was now, however, too late to think of the Alphubel, so I reverted to my original design, and at 9 A.M. started up the valley towards Mattmark. A party of friends in advance contributed strongly to draw me on in this direction.

Onward then we went through the soft green meadows, with the river sounding to our right. The sun showered gold upon the pines, and brought richly out the colouring of the rocks. The blue wood-smoke ascended from the hamlets, and the companionable grasshopper sang and chirruped right and left. High up the sides of the mountains the rocks were planed down to tablets by the ancient glaciers. The valley narrowed, and we skirted a pile of moraine-like matter, which was roped compactly together by the roots of the pines. Huge blocks here choke the channel of the river, and raise its murmurs to a roar. We emerge from shade into sunshine, and observe the smoke of a distant cataract jetting from the side of the mountain. Crags and boulders are here heaped in confusion upon the hill-side, and among them the hardy trees find a lodgment, asking no nutriment from the stones--asking only a pedestal on which they may plant their trunks and lift their branches into the nourishing air. Then comes the cataract itself, plunging in rhythmic gushes down the shining rocks.

The valley again opens, and finds room for a little hamlet--dingy hovels, with a white little church in the midst of them; patches of green meadow and yellow rye, with the gleam of the river here and there. The moon hangs over the Mischabelhörner, turning a face which ever waxes paler towards the sun. The valley in the distance seems shut in by the Allalein glacier, which is approached amid the waterworn boulders strewn by the river in its hours of turbulence. The rounded rocks are now beautified with lichens, and scattered trees glimmer among the heaps. Nature heals herself. She feeds the glacier and planes the mountains down. She fuses the glacier and exposes the dead rocks. But instantly her energies are exerted to neutralise the desolation, clothing the crags with beauty, and sending the wandering wind in melody through the branches of the pines.

At the Mattmark hotel, which stands at the foot of the Monte Moro, I was joined by a gentleman who had just liberated himself from an unpleasant guide. Bennen halted on the way to adjust his knapsack, while my companion and myself went on. We lost sight of my guide, lost the track also, and clambered over crag and snow to the summit, where we waited till Bennen arrived. The mass of Monte Rosa here grandly revealed itself from top to bottom. Dark cliffs and white snows were finely contrasted, and the longer I looked at it, the more noble and impressive did the mountain appear. We were very soon clear of the snow, and went straight down the declivity towards Macugnaga.

We put up at the Monte Moro, where a party of friends greeted me with a vociferous welcome. This was my first visit to Macugnaga, and, save as a caldron for the generation of fogs, I knew scarcely anything about it. But there were no fogs there at the time to which I refer, and the place wore quite a charmed aspect. I walked out alone in the evening, up through the meadow towards the base of Monte Rosa, and on no other occasion have I seen peace, beauty, and grandeur so harmoniously blended. Earth and air were exquisite, and I returned to the hotel brimful of content.

Monte Rosa with her peaks and spurs builds here a noble amphitheatre. From the heart of the mountain creeps the Macugnaga glacier. To the right a precipitous barrier extends to the Cima di Jazzi, and between the latter and Monte Rosa this barrier is scarred by two couloirs, one of which, or the cliff beside it, has the reputation of forming the old pass of the Weissthor. It had long been uncertain whether this so-called ‘Alter Pass’ had ever been used as such, and many superior mountaineers deemed it from inspection to be impracticable. All doubt on this point was removed this year; for Mr. Tuckett, led by Bennen, had crossed the barrier by the couloir most distant from Monte Rosa, and consequently nearest to the Cima di Jazzi. As I stood in front of the hotel in the afternoon, I said to Bennen that I should like to try the pass on the following day; in ten minutes afterwards the plan of our expedition was arranged. We were to start before the dawn, and, to leave Bennen’s hands free, a muscular young fellow named Andermatten was engaged to carry our provisions. It was also proposed to vary the proceedings by assailing the ridge by the couloir nearest to Monte Rosa.

XII.

_THE OLD WEISSTHOR._

I was called by my host at a quarter before three. The firmament of Monte Rosa was almost as black as the rocks beneath it, while above in the darkness trembled the stars. At 4 A.M. we quitted the hotel. We wound along the meadows, by the slumbering houses, and the unslumbering river. The eastern heaven soon brightened, and we could look direct through the gloom of the valley at the opening of the dawn. We threaded our way amid the boulders which the torrent had scattered over the plain, and among which groups of stately pines now find anchorage. Some of the trees had exerted all their force in a vertical direction, and rose straight, tall, and mastlike, without lateral branches. We reached a great moraine, grey with years, and clothed with magnificent pines; our way lay up it, and from the top we dropped into a little dell of magical beauty. Deep hidden by the glacier-built ridges, guarded by noble trees, soft and green at the bottom, and tufted round with bilberry bushes, through which peeped here and there the lichen-covered crags, I have rarely seen a spot in which I should so like to dream away a day. Before I entered it, Monte Rosa was still in shadow, but on my emergence I noticed that her precipices were all aglow. The purple colouring of the mountains observed on looking down the valley was indescribable; out of Italy I have never seen anything like it. Oxygen and nitrogen could not produce the effect; some effluence from the earth, some foreign constituent of the atmosphere, developed in those deep valleys by the southern sun, must sift the solar beams, weaken the rays of medium refrangibility, and blend the red and violet of the spectrum to that incomparable hue. The air indeed is filled with floating matters which vary from day to day, and it is mainly to such extraneous substances that the chromatic splendours of our atmosphere are to be ascribed. The air south of the Alps is in this respect different from that on the north, but a modicum even of arsenic might be respired with satisfaction, if warmed by the bloom which suffused the air of Italy this glorious dawn.

The ancient moraines of the Macugnaga glacier rank among the finest that I have seen; long, high ridges tapering from base to edge, hoary with age, but beautified by the shrubs and blossoms of to-day. We crossed the ice and them. At the foot of the old Weissthor lay couched a small glacier, which had landed a multitude of boulders on the slope below it; and amid these we were soon threading our way. We crossed the little glacier, which at one place strove to be disagreeable, and here I learned from the deportment of his axe the kind of work to which our porter had been previously accustomed. Half a dozen strokes shook the head of the implement from its handle. We reached the rocks to the right of the couloir and climbed them for some distance. At the base the ice was cut by profound fissures, which extended quite across, and rendered a direct advance up the gulley impossible; but higher up we dropped down upon the snow.

Close to the rocks it was scarred by a furrow six or eight feet deep, and about twelve in width, evidently the track of avalanches, or of rocks let loose from the heights. Into this we descended. The bottom was firm, and roughened by stones which found a lodgment there. It seemed that we had here a very suitable roadway to the top. But a sudden crash was heard aloft. I looked upward, and right over the snow-brow which closed the view perceived a large brown boulder in the air, while a roar of unseen stones showed that the visible projectile was merely the first shot of a general cannonade. They appeared--pouring straight down upon us--the sides of the furrow preventing them from squandering their force in any other direction. ‘Schnell!’ shouted the man behind me, and there is a ring in the word, when sharply uttered in the Alps, that almost lifts a man off his feet. I sprang forward, but, urged by a sterner impulse, the man behind sprung right on to me. We cleared the furrow exactly as the first stone flew by, and once in safety we could calmly admire the energy with which the rattling boulders sped along.

Our way now lay up the couloir; the snow was steep, but knobbly, and hence but few steps were required to give the boots a hold. We crossed and recrossed obliquely, like a horse drawing a laden cart up hill. At times we paused and examined the heights. The view ended in the snow-fields above, but near the summit suddenly rose a high ice-wall. If we persisted in the couloir, this barrier would have to be surmounted, and the possibility of scaling it was very questionable. Our attention therefore was turned to the rocks at our right, and the thought of assailing them was several times mooted and discussed. They at length seduced us, and we resolved to abandon the snow. To reach the rocks, however, we had to recross the avalanche channel, which was here very deep. Bennen hewed a gap at the top of its flanking wall, and, stooping over, scooped steps out of its vertical face. He then made a deep hole, in which he anchored his left arm, let himself thus partly down, and with his right pushed the steps to the bottom. While this was going on small stones were continually flying down the gulley. Bennen reached the floor, and I followed. Our companion was still clinging to the snow-wall, when a horrible clatter was heard overhead. It was another stone avalanche, which there was hardly a hope of escaping. Happily a rock was here firmly stuck in the bed of the gulley, and I chanced to be beside it when the first huge missile appeared. This was the delinquent which had set the others loose. I was directly in the line of fire, but, ducking behind the boulder, I let the projectile shoot over my head. Behind it came a shoal of smaller fry, each of them, however, quite competent to crack a human life. ‘Schnell!’ with its metallic clang, rung from the throat of Bennen; and never before had I seen his axe so promptly and vigorously applied.

While this infernal cannonade was directed upon us we hung upon a slope of snow which had been pressed and polished to ice by the descending stones, and so steep that a single slip would have converted us into an avalanche also. Without steps of some kind we dared not set foot on the slope, and these had to be cut while the stone shower was falling on us. Mere scratches in the ice, however, were all the axe could accomplish, and on these we steadied ourselves with the energy of desperate men. Bennen was first, and I followed him, while the stones flew thick beside and between us. My excellent guide thought of me more than of himself, and once caught upon the handle of his axe, as a cricketer catches a ball upon his bat, a lump which might have finished my climbing. The labour of his axe was here for a time divided between the projectiles and the ice, while at every pause in the volley ‘he cut a step and sprang forward.’ Had the peril been less, it would have been amusing to see our duckings and contortions as we fenced with our swarming foes. A final jump landed us on an embankment out of the direct line of fire, and we thus escaped a danger extremely exciting to us all.

We had next to descend an ice-slope to a place at which the rocks could be invaded. Here Andermatten slipped, shot down the slope, knocked Bennen off his legs, but before the rope had jerked me off mine the guide had stopped his flight. The porter’s hat, however, followed the rushing stones. It was shaken off his head and lost. If discipline for eye, limb, head, and heart be of any value, we had it, and were still likely to have it, here. Our first experience of the rocks was by no means comforting: they were uniformly steep, and, as far as we could judge from a long look upwards, they were likely to continue so. A stiffer bit than ordinary intervened now and then, making us feel how possible it was to be entirely cut off.

We at length reached real difficulty number one. All three of us were huddled together on a narrow ledge, with a smooth and vertical cliff above us. Bennen tried it in various ways, but he was several times forced back to the ledge. At length he managed to hook the fingers of one hand over the top of the cliff, while to aid his grip he tried to fasten his shoes against its face. But the nails scraped freely over the granular surface, and he had for a time to lift himself almost by a single arm. As he did so he had as ugly a place beneath him as a human body could well be suspended over. We were tied to him of course; but the jerk, had his grip failed, would have been terrible. He raised at length his breast to a level with the top, and leaning over it he relieved the strain. Seizing upon something further on, he lifted himself quite to the top; then tightened the rope, while I slowly worked myself over the face of the cliff after him. We were soon side by side, and immediately afterwards Andermatten, with his long unkempt hair, and face white with excitement, hung midway between heaven and earth supported by the rope alone. We hauled him up bodily, and as he stood upon the ledge his limbs quivered beneath him.

We now strained slowly upwards amid the maze of crags, and scaled a second cliff, resembling, though in a modified form, that just described. There was no peace, no rest, no delivery from the anxiety ‘which weighed upon the heart.’ Bennen looked extremely blank, and often cast an eye downward to the couloir we had quitted, muttering aloud, ‘Had we only held on to the snow!’ He had soon reason to emphasise his ejaculation.

After climbing for some time, we reached a smooth vertical face of rock from which, right or left, there was no escape, and over which we must go. Bennen first tried it unaided, but was obliged to recoil. Without a lift of five or six feet the thing was impossible. When a boy I have often climbed a wall by placing a comrade in a stooping posture with his hands and head against the wall, getting on his back, and permitting him gradually to straighten himself till he became erect. This plan I now proposed to Bennen, offering to take him on my back. ‘Nein, Herr!’ he replied; ‘nicht Sie, ich will es mit Andermatten versuchen.’ I could not persuade him, so Andermatten got upon the ledge, and fixed his knee for Bennen to stand on. In this position my guide obtained a precarious grip, just sufficient to enable him to pass with safety from the knee to the shoulder. He paused here, and pulled away such splinters as might prove treacherous if he laid hold of them. He at length found a firm one, and had next to urge himself, not fairly upward, for right above us the top was entirely out of reach, but obliquely along the face of the cliff. He succeeded, anchored himself, and called upon me to advance.

The rope was tight, it is true, but it was not vertical, so that a slip would cause me to swing like a pendulum over the cliff’s face. With considerable effort I managed to hand Bennen his axe, and while doing so my own staff escaped me and was irrecoverably lost. I ascended Andermatten’s shoulders as Bennen did, but my body was not long enough to bridge the way to the guide’s arm; so I had to risk the possibility of becoming a pendulum. A little protrusion gave my left foot some support. I suddenly raised myself a yard, and here was met by the iron grip of my guide. In a second I was safely stowed away in a neighbouring fissure. Andermatten now remained. He first detached himself from the rope, tied it round his coat and knapsack, which were drawn up. The rope was again let down, and the porter tied it firmly round his waist. It was not made in England, and was perhaps lighter than it ought to be; so to help it hands and feet were scraped with spasmodic energy over the rock. He struggled too much, and Bennen cried sharply, ‘Langsam! langsam! Keine Furcht!’ The poor fellow looked very pale and bewildered as his bare head emerged above the ledge. His body soon followed. Bennen always used the imperfect for the present tense, ‘Er war ganz bleich,’ he remarked to me, by the ‘war’ meaning _ist_.

The young man seemed to regard Bennen with a kind of awe. ‘Sir,’ he exclaimed, ‘you would not find another guide in Switzerland to lead you up here.’ Nor, indeed, in Bennen’s behalf be it spoken, would he have done so if he could have avoided it; but we had fairly got into a net, the meshes of which must be resolutely cut. I had previously entertained the undoubting belief that where a chamois could climb a man could follow; but when I saw the marks of the animal on these all but inaccessible ledges, my belief, though not eradicated, became weaker than it had previously been.

Onward again, slowly winding through the craggy mazes, and closely scanning the cliffs as we ascended. Our easiest work was stiff, but the ‘stiff’ was an agreeable relaxation from the perilous. By a lateral deviation we reached a point whence we could look into the couloir by which Mr. Tuckett had ascended: here Bennen relieved himself by a sigh and ejaculation: ‘Would that we had chosen it! we might pass up yonder rocks blindfold!’ But repining was useless; our work was marked out for us and had to be accomplished. After another difficult tug Bennen reached a point whence he could see a large extent of the rocks above us. There was no serious difficulty within view, and the announcement of this cheered us mightily. Every vertical yard, however, was to be won only by strenuous effort. For a long time the snow cornice hung high above us; we now approached its level; the last cliff formed a sloping stair with geologic strata for steps. We sprang up it, and the magnificent snow-field of the Görner glacier immediately opened to our view. The anxiety of the last four hours disappeared like an unpleasant dream, and with that perfect happiness which perfect health can alone impart, we consumed our cold mutton and champagne on the summit of the old Weissthor.

XIII.

_RESCUE FROM A CREVASSE._

Mr. Huxley and myself had been staying for some days at Grindelwald, hoping for steady weather, and looking at times into the wild and noble region which the Schreckhorn, the Wetterhorn, the Viescherhörner, and the Eiger feed with eternal snows. We had scanned the buttresses of the Jungfrau with a view to forcing a passage between the Jungfrau and the Monk from the Wengern Alp to the Aletsch glacier. The weather for a time kept hopes and fears alternately afloat, but finally it declared against us; so we moved with the unelastic tread of beaten soldiers over the Great Sheideck, and up the Vale of Hasli to the Grimsel. We crossed the pass whose planed and polished rocks had long ago attracted the attention of Sir John Leslie, though the solution which he then offered ignored the ancient glacier which we now know to have been the planing tool employed. On rounding an angle of the Mayenwand, two travellers suddenly appeared in front of us; they were Mr. (now Sir John) Lubbock and his guide. He had been waiting at the new hotel erected by M. Seiler at the foot of the Mayenwand, expecting our arrival; and finally, despairing of this, he had resolved to abandon the mountains, and was now bound for Brientz. In fact, the lakes of Switzerland, and the ancient men who once bivouacked along their borders, were to him the principal objects of interest; and we caught him in the act of declaring a preference for the lowlands which we could not by any means share.

We reversed his course, carried him with us down the mountain, and soon made ourselves at home in M. Seiler’s hotel. Here we had three days’ training on the glacier and the adjacent heights, and on one of the days Lubbock and myself made an attempt upon the Galenstock. By the flank of the mountain, with the Rhone glacier on our right, we reached the heights over the ice cascade and crossed the glacier above the fall. The sky was clear and the air pleasant as we ascended; but in the earth’s atmosphere the sun works his swiftest necromancy, the lightness of air rendering it in a peculiar degree capable of change. Clouds suddenly generated came drifting up the valley of the Rhone, covering the glacier and swathing the mountain-tops, but leaving clear for a time the upper _névé_ of the Rhone. Grandeur is conceded while beauty is sometimes denied to the Alps. But the higher snow-fields of the great glaciers are altogether beautiful--not throned in repellent grandeur, but endowed with a grace so tender as to suggest the loveliness of woman.

The day was one long succession of surprises wrought by the cloud-filled and wind-rent air. We reached the top, and found there a gloom which might be felt. It was almost thick enough to cut each of us away from the vision of his fellows. But suddenly, in the air above us, the darkness would melt away, and the deep blue heaven would reveal itself spanning the dazzling snows. Beyond the glacier rose the black and craggy summit of the Finsteraarhorn, and other summits and other crags emerged in succession as the battle-clouds rolled away. But the smoke would again whirl in upon us, and we looked once more into infinite haze from the cornice which lists the mountain-ridge. Again the clouds are torn asunder, and again they close. And thus, in upper air, did the sun play a wild accompaniment to the mystic music of the world below.

From the Rhone glacier we proceeded down the Rhone valley to Viesch, whence, in the cool twilight, all three of us ascended to the Hotel Jungfrau, on the Æggischhorn. This we made our head-quarters for some days, and here Lubbock and I decided to ascend the Jungfrau. The proprietor of the hotel keeps guides for this excursion, but his charges are so high as to be almost prohibitory. I, however, needed no guide in addition to my faithful Bennen; but simply a porter of sufficient strength and skill to follow where he led. In the village of Laax Bennen found such a porter--a young man named Bielander, who had the reputation of being both courageous and strong. He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.

This young man and a second porter we sent on with our provisions to the Grotto of the Faulberg, where we were to spend the night. Between the Æggischhorn and this cave the glacier presents no difficulty which the most ordinary caution cannot overcome, and the thought of danger in connection with it never occurred to us. An hour and a half after the departure of our porters we slowly wended our way to the lake of Märjelin, which we skirted, and were soon upon the ice. The middle of the glacier was almost as smooth as a carriage-road, cut here and there by musical brooks produced by the superficial ablation. To Lubbock the scene opened out with the freshness of a new revelation, as, previously to this year, he had never been among the glaciers of the Alps. To me, though not new, the region had lost no trace of the interest with which I first viewed it. We moved briskly along the frozen incline, until, after a couple of hours’ march, we saw a solitary human being standing on the lateral moraine of the glacier, near the point where we were to quit it for the cave of the Faulberg.

At first this man excited no attention. He stood and watched us, but did not come towards us, until finally our curiosity was aroused by observing that he was one of our own two men. The glacier here is always cut by crevasses, which, while they present no real difficulty, require care. We approached our porter, but he never moved; and when we came up to him he looked stupid, and did not speak until he was spoken to. Bennen addressed him in the patois of the place, and he answered in the same patois. His answer must have been more than usually obscure, for Bennen misunderstood the most important part of it. ‘My God!’ he exclaimed, turning to us, ‘Walters is killed!’ Walters was the guide at the Æggischhorn, with whom, in the present instance, we had nothing to do. ‘No, not Walters,’ responded the man; ‘it is my comrade that is killed.’ Bennen looked at him with a wild bewildered stare. ‘How killed?’ he exclaimed. ‘Lost in a crevasse,’ was the reply. We were all so stunned that for some moments we did not quite seize the import of the terrible statement. Bennen at length tossed his arms in the air, exclaiming, ‘Jesu Maria! what am I to do?’ With the swiftness that some ascribe to dreams, I surrounded the fact with imaginary adjuncts, one of which was that the man had been drawn dead from the crevasse, and was now a corpse in the cave of the Faulberg, for I took it for granted that, had he been still entombed, his comrade would have run or called for our aid. Several times in succession the porter affirmed that the missing man was certainly dead. ‘How does he know that he is dead?’ Lubbock demanded. ‘A man is sometimes rendered insensible by a fall without being killed.’ This question was repeated in German, but met with the same dogmatic response. ‘Where is the man?’ I asked. ‘There,’ replied the porter, stretching his arm towards the glacier. ‘In the crevasse?’ A stolid ‘Ja!’ was the answer. It was with difficulty that I quelled an imprecation. ‘Lead the way to the place, you blockhead,’ and he led the way.

We were soon beside a wide and jagged cleft which resembled a kind of cave more than an ordinary crevasse. This cleft had been spanned by a snow bridge, now broken, and to the edge of which footsteps could be traced. The glacier at the place was considerably torn, but simple patience was the only thing needed to unravel its complexity. This quality our porter lacked, and, hoping to make shorter work of it, he attempted to cross the bridge. It gave way, and he went down, carrying an immense load of _débris_ along with him. We looked into the hole, at one end of which the vision was cut short by darkness, while immediately under the broken bridge it was crammed with snow and shattered icicles. We saw nothing more. We listened with strained attention, and from the depths of the glacier issued a low moan. Its repetition assured us that it was no delusion--the man was still alive. Bennen from the first had been extremely excited; and the fact of his having, as a Catholic, saints and angels to appeal to, augmented his emotion. When he heard the moaning he became almost frantic. He attempted to get into the crevasse, but was obliged to recoil. It was quite plain that a second life was in danger, for my guide seemed to have lost all self-control. I placed my hand heavily upon his shoulder, and admonished him that upon his coolness depended the life of his friend. ‘If you behave like a man, we shall save him; if like a woman, he is lost.’

A first-rate rope accompanied the party, but unhappily it was with the man in the crevasse. Coats, waistcoats, and braces were instantly taken off and knotted together. I watched Bennen while this work was going on; his hands trembled with excitement, and his knots were evidently insecure. The last junction complete, he exclaimed, ‘Now let me down!’ ‘Not until each of these knots has been tested; not an inch!’[11] Two of them gave way, and Lubbock’s waistcoat also proved too tender for the strain. The _débris_ was about forty feet from the surface of the glacier, but two intermediate prominences afforded a kind of footing. Bennen was dropped down upon one of these; I followed, being let down by Lubbock and the other porter. Bennen then descended the remaining distance, and was followed by me. More could not find room.

[11] ‘Ach, Herr,’ he replied to one of my remonstrances, ‘Sein Sie nicht so hart.’

The shape and size of the cavity were such as to produce a kind of resonance, which rendered it difficult to fix the precise spot from which the sound issued; but the moaning continued, becoming to all appearance gradually feebler. Fearing to wound the man, the ice-rubbish was cautiously rooted away; it rang curiously as it fell into the adjacent gloom. A layer two or three feet thick was thus removed; and finally, from the frozen mass, and so bloodless as to be almost as white as the surrounding snow, issued a single human hand. The fingers moved. Round it we rooted, cleared the arm, and reached the knapsack, which we cut away. We also regained our rope. The man’s head was then laid bare, and my brandy-flask was immediately at his lips. He tried to speak, but his words jumbled themselves to a dull moan. Bennen’s feelings got the better of him at intervals; he wrought like a hero, but at times he needed guidance and stern admonition. The arms once free, we passed the rope underneath them, and tried to draw the man out. But the ice-fragments round him had regelated so as to form a solid case. Thrice we essayed to draw him up, thrice we failed; he had literally to be hewn out of the ice, and not until his last foot was extricated were we able to lift him. By pulling him from above, and pushing him from below, the man was at length raised to the surface of the glacier.

For an hour we had been in the crevasse in shirt-sleeves--the porter had been in it for two hours--and the dripping ice had drenched us. Bennen, moreover, had worked with the energy of madness, and now the reaction came. He shook as if he would fall to pieces; but brandy and some dry covering revived him. The rescued man was helpless, unable to stand, unable to utter an articulate sentence. Bennen proposed to carry him down the glacier towards home. Had this been attempted, the man would certainly have died upon the ice. Bennen thought he could carry him for two hours; but the guide underrated his own exhaustion and overrated the vitality of the porter. ‘It cannot be thought of,’ I said: ‘to the cave of Faulberg, where we must tend him as well as we can.’ We got him to the side of the glacier, where Bennen took him on his back; in ten minutes he sank under his load. It was now my turn, so I took the man on my back and plodded on with him as far as I was able. Helping each other thus by turns, we reached the mountain grot.

The sun had set, and the crown of the Jungfrau was embedded in amber light. Thinking that the Märjelin See might be reached before darkness, I proposed starting in search of help. Bennen protested against my going alone, and I thought I noticed moisture in Lubbock’s eye. Such an occasion brings out a man’s feeling if he have any. I gave them both my blessing and made for the glacier. But my anxiety to get quickly clear of the crevasses defeated its own object. Thrice I found myself in difficulty, and the light was visibly departing. The conviction deepened that persistence would be folly, and the most impressive moment of my existence was that on which I stopped at the brink of a profound fissure and looked upon the mountains and the sky. The serenity was perfect--not a cloud, not a breeze, not a sound, while the last hues of sunset spread over the solemn west.

I returned; warm wine was given to our patient, and all our dry clothes were wrapped around him. Hot-water bottles were placed at his feet, and his back was briskly rubbed. He continued to groan a long time; but, finally, both this and the trembling ceased. Bennen watched him solemnly, and at length muttered in anguish, ‘Sir, he is dead!’ I leaned over the man and found him breathing gently; I felt his pulse--it was beating tranquilly. ‘Not dead, dear old Bennen; he will be able to crawl home with us in the morning.’ The prediction was justified by the event; and two days afterwards we saw him at Laax, minus a bit of his ear, with a bruise upon his cheek, and a few scars upon his hand, but without a broken bone or serious injury of any kind.

The self-denying conduct of the second porter made us forget his stupidity--it may have been stupefaction. As I lay there wet, through the long hours of that dismal night, I almost registered a vow never to tread upon a glacier again. But, like the forces in the physical world, human emotions vary with the distance from their origin, and a year afterwards I was again upon the ice.