CHAPTER XII. IN PRAISE OF AUTUMN.
I am one of those eccentric persons who consider autumn better than summer for climbing. “One of those,” did I say? Perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say that I have often been the sole representative of the scrambling fraternity haunting mountain centres from choice at that season. You suppose I have a reason for my partiality for that time of year? Yes; in fact, I have several. First, I am a coward, and to encounter a thunderstorm on a peak, and have my axe go ziz-ziz-ziz, while my hair stands straight up on my head, would terrify me into fits. Now, in autumn one seldom has thunderstorms. Then I have an aversion to tourists. In autumn there are few tourists; again, I hate to be roasted for thirteen or fourteen hours and to wade through deep snow. In autumn the days are short, the air is fresh, the snow is usually in first-rate order. Once more, I do not love sleeping in huts which, being built for eight persons, have to supply shelter—it is little more—for perhaps twenty-four. In autumn one has the huts to oneself.
Now, have I not made out a pretty strong case? Can you wonder that I have prowled round the Pennine Alps and the Oberland in September and October rather than in July and August?
To prove that one can climb as well in autumn as in summer, I will give a short account of some excursions made in past years at that season. They will be, alas! unexciting reading, like most things “written for a purpose.” Many climbers are fully aware of the truth of what I urge, but numerous beginners in mountain-craft lose heart when a heavy fall of snow occurs at the end of August or the beginning of September, and, packing up their traps, leave the Alps in disgust. In addition to the expeditions described below, I have been up the Dent Blanche, Zinal-Rothhorn, Ober-Gabelhorn, Trifthorn from Triftjoch, Mont Collon, Rimpfischhorn, Eiger, Wetterhorn, and other peaks, and (herein lies the gist of the whole matter) found most of them in first-class order at that season.
One evening in September, I found myself, with Ulrich Kaufmann and “Caucasus” Jossi, the sole occupants of that very comfortable hut, the Schwarzegg. For some time this hut has been in Jossi’s charge, and consequently neatness reigns supreme. We were a cheery party. The sky was cloudless, the moon would be full for our start, the great, solid crags of the Schreckhorn, ruddy in the glow of sunset, hung invitingly over us. We had slept out for the same peak a week earlier, but bad weather had driven us down to the valley without our having taken one step beyond the hut. Now all was changed, and we felt no doubt as to the success of our coming excursion.
At 2 A.M., in moonlight clear as the light of the sun, we were off. The Schreckhorn, it seems to me, has not received its due measure of praise. It has much to recommend it. There is no moraine. An easy path leads in ten minutes or so to the snow. Then a steady ascent, varied by rocks, brings the traveller by breakfast-time to the base of the upper glacier. It was at some distance below this place, in the snow couloir, that Mr. Munz was killed by falling ice.[6] I could not at all understand this accident, for on no part of our route was there danger from this source.[7] But the guides explained that that season, and for some years before, the top of the couloir had been filled up by a small hanging glacier. Peter Baumann, shrewd old man, had always urged the knocking down of this glacier, which would have been a simple piece of work. But the matter was allowed to slide, till one fine day the whole mass of ice broke away and dashed down the slope. The death of Herr Munz, who was struck by some of the falling fragments, was the result.
The upper couloirs, by which the mountain is seamed, were ice, but my guides, with their usual judgment, kept as clear as possible of them, and we mounted by a rib of rocks. Twice we crossed the couloir, but at that early hour there was no danger, and Kaufmann made great steps, like miniature arm-chairs, so that we could get over very rapidly coming back.
From the Saddle we saw, somewhat to our disgust, that there was a considerable amount of snow on the arête. This made our progress rather slow, so that it was not till 9.15 that we found ourselves on the summit, a dome of snow. The view was exquisite; but that day week, when, in equally beautiful weather, I found myself on the top of the Lauteraarhorn, I had to confess that the view from that peak is infinitely finer. In the first place, the Schreckhorn, seen from so near, and from a peak less than 150 feet lower, is a grand object, and its noble proportions and bare cliffs impressed me as few, if any, mountains have done before, while I almost trembled to think that but seven days earlier we had ventured up its precipitous sides, so deceptive and complete is the idea conveyed of its excessive steepness. Then, the Lauteraarhorn is much better placed with regard to that most graceful of Oberland peaks, the Finsteraarhorn—the “dark dove horn!” and from it, too, the beautiful curves of the Aar glacier, winding away towards the Grimsel, are seen to perfection. But here am I, describing the view from the Lauteraarhorn, while all the time I am on the Schreckhorn. One glimpse they both give—that of the Lake of Thun, with the white spire of the church of Spiez nestling among trees close to the blue water’s edge, while behind roll range upon range of purple hills, lost far away in a warm haze which mingles with the soft tints of the cloudless sky. These Oberland views can indeed boast of the ever-attractive charm of contrast; on the one side, ice, snow, precipices of naked rock, utter sternness and absence of vegetation; on the other, blue lakes, white villages, deep green meadows, abundant evidences of human life and industry.
But I become insufferably tedious. Let me hasten away from mountain-tops and descend to less romantic regions. We got down to the saddle very pleasantly, and from there to the hut more or less uncomfortably, exchanging nasty sharp, loose rocks for waist-deep snow, with anything but complimentary remarks on both. We were safely in the Schwarzegg by 2 P.M., and discussing an elaborate tea, the guides’ chief idea of that beverage being to put in as little of the chief ingredient, and as much sugar as supplies admitted of. Tea being concluded, and supper in course of preparation, we looked out for our porter, who had orders to bring up our stock of provisions for the ascent of the Finsteraarhorn the next day. Presently we noticed two figures crossing the ice, who, on approaching, turned out to be Herr Theophile Boss and the porter. The former had made an attempt on the Finsteraarhorn the previous week, and had been driven back by bad weather, so I had asked him to join us on our ascent.
During our evening meal, Kaufmann staggered us by remarking in his quiet way that we had better go to bed early, as he proposed calling us at 11 P.M. We protested loudly, but he only added in his calm tones, “Or perhaps half-past ten.” So, still grumbling, we hastily crept to our straw, and I, for one, can answer for it that I did not know much more till Jossi began to light the fire, when I turned over and had another sleep. No doubt our reluctance to shorten our night’s rest caused the preparations for departure to take longer than usual. Anyhow, it was 12.40 before I found myself, in a very bad temper, trying to keep awake at the door of the hut, while the final look round for articles possibly forgotten was being given by the guides.
We anticipated a lot of step-cutting, so the porter came with us in order to give the guides less to carry. As before, it was a cloudless, moonlight night, and so far windless. We made rapid progress to the Finsteraarjoch, reaching the foot of that vile place, the Agassiz-joch, while it was still dark. Here we paused for food, and just as the grey light of dawn was stealing over the sky, we began to go up, and up, and up, till we felt like the poor wretches who climb the tall chimneys of factories. At last we took to a rib of rock, very steep and planted in ice, to say nothing of various embellishments of the same substance at intervals along the surface. It was heart-breaking work. There was the pass close at hand, and yet we never seemed to get any nearer to it. But after what seemed ages, Jossi gave a sigh of satisfaction, and quitting the rocks, began to traverse the snow. Soon we reached a warm and sheltered spot, where we suggested a halt for luncheon in the genial rays of the sun. But no; it was not the usual luncheon-place; people always had lunch on the Saddle (five minutes farther), and therefore we must have lunch on the Saddle. Theophile ventured to protest, and was promptly sat upon; so to the Saddle we went. There we had our appetites interfered with by various things. First, we were disquieted by the aspect of the ridge, now first completely seen, which had put on an entire and apparently not too closely fitting suit of ice and powdery snow. Of rocks one hardly saw a trace. The guides munched very fast, nodded their heads, addressed warm expressions of disapprobation to the ridge, and seemed very jolly on the top of everything. The wind blew, our teeth chattered, the eatables nearly froze, and we, too, pretended we were having an awfully good time. But the happiest moments come to an end, and so did our luncheon, after which, blue of nose and hand, we struggled along in the face of a driving mist. Well, it was not so bad as it looked. The guides spared no trouble, and dug out the buried rocks like terriers after a field-mouse. Progress was necessarily slow, and we did not seem to make much way. At last the Hugi Saddle was reached, and the work became easier. The snow was now firmer, we could kick out good steps without difficulty. Finally the slope eased off, and in a few minutes we stood by the stone man on the summit. The view was fine, the mist having cleared off just as we reached the top. But it was already eleven o’clock, so we did not stay long, but began the descent after about ten minutes’ halt on the summit. The climb down to the Agassiz-joch was long; it took us nearly four hours, including half-an-hour for lunch, to get there. It was thus almost 4 P.M. when we embarked in that charming slope. Tedious as had been our ascent of it, our descent was much worse; and there are stones, and when stones make descents, they do it pretty quickly. But we won’t talk of the stones; none of us got our heads broken. Well, we came down that nice lively slope and the icy rocks, and got into the couloir, and came down that; and at last—being late in the year—it grew dusk. We were beginning to think that we must be somewhere near the first of the bergschrunds (I cannot conscientiously say that they were more than a couple of inches wide), when suddenly the porter exclaimed, “I can’t find the track!” We could not make this out. The steps had been easily felt a moment before. He fumbled about for a bit, but still without success; so Theophile, who was just behind, went down a few steps and put out his hand to feel for them. Instantly he drew it back, and said in rather an awed voice, “There has been an avalanche.” Jossi at once untied from the back, sprang down to the front, put himself in the porter’s place, and led away in the dark in such splendid style, that in fifteen minutes or less we were down on the plateau of the Finsteraarjoch. Here the lantern came into use, and we carefully threaded our way through the icefall of the glacier. Our tracks of the morning were of the utmost value, and thanks to them we encountered no difficulties whatever.
It was late when we reached the Schwarzegg hut, so we decided to sleep there once more, and the sun was high in the heavens next morning before we sat down to our coffee.
Here is another autumn experience, in which, as a nice, cheering introduction to our day’s climbing, we got asphyxiated. “Were we smothered, then? Were we suffocated?” asks the unthinking reader. No, we were not “asphyxiated dead,” as an Irishman would say; we were merely put to sleep at inconvenient periods during the day, after being put to sleep with greater soundness than usual during the preceding night.
But this fragmentary style and absence of all precise information points to something like present asphyxiation; so I must beg leave to say that though I date this from a health resort, I am not a “head-patient,” as I once heard those persons classified who were in a particular sanatorium for something or other that was not lungs. It was an enlivening place, that particular health resort. If a youth was ill-mannered, he could not be kicked, because “one can’t kick an invalid, you know;” or else the excuse was, “Poor fellow! he doesn’t mean it; he’s off his chump—head-patient, you know.” My impression is, that that health resort was as fine a school for self-restraint in the naturally self-restrained, and for downright uncompromising selfishness in those who already were accustomed to look after No. 1, as I know of.
Still I am a long way from our starting-point. Let me make an effort, cross the Lauteraarjoch from Grindelwald, walk down the level glacier beyond, and get to it—“it” being the sumptuous dwelling known as the Dollfus Pavilion.
Why the good gentleman who built this hut should have constructed it at a distance of three miles from water, was the problem which puzzled our heads while we lay in the sun near the young forests growing up on every side. It was lucky that some eyes, sharper than mine, saw these specimens of Alpine timber, as otherwise we might have stretched our weary limbs on the top of them. Later it transpired that an experiment had been tried in forestry on these slopes, and the poor little twigs had been carefully planted with the idea that, in time to come, they might grow.
As evening drew on, we retired to the hut and made up a glowing fire, destined a few hours later to reduce us to that comatose state I have hinted at above. Perhaps the sluggish condition of mind and body which we experienced next morning was also in part owing to three out of the four members of the party having consumed six basins of very thick soup apiece and twelve large potatoes. The soup, of course, could not be wasted, though personally I would have rather lived on it for three days than have had to swallow it all in one.
After waking with some trouble, and consuming the above-mentioned soup, we tumbled out of the hut, floundered all in a heap down to the glacier, and began to go along it in a dreamy stagger, varied by a rude awakening, as, from time to time, one or another walked into a crevasse, rubbed his eyes, got out again, and proceeded on his way. Those great-great-great-great-etc.-grandfathers of ours were wise people to keep off glaciers in their generation. Think what choice language the modern mountaineer finds all ready to his tongue after he has walked for three hours up or down (if there is an up or a down) the Aar glacier, and then discovers that he is no farther. Imagine for an instant what that glacier must have been when it came to the piled-up moraine across the Haslithal near Meiringen. Next time you find yourself pacing the Aar glacier (I have no doubt that you vowed on the last occasion you never would again, but you surely will), think of what it was in the olden time, even when it reached only to the Grimsel, and be thankful that you climb in the nineteenth century.
At last, as we began to think that the Strahlegg Pass really was rather nearer than it had been some hours earlier, we halted and attempted to rouse each other. A warm wind swept up in our faces; our limbs were like lead, our minds in a condition of placid imbecility. But when, after some trouble, we dug a little cold water out of the glacier, the effect was magical, and emboldened by the sense of our returning faculties, we promptly decided to have breakfast under a great tower of ice which had rolled down from a glacier clinging to the slope above.
We were now equal to all emergencies, and ready to cope with the largest and most varied collection of loose stones I ever saw in my life. The Saddle (which we struck just beyond the drop referred to on page 5, vol. ii. of the second series of “Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers”—at least I should imagine that this gap is the one therein described) and the fine arête beyond were a welcome change from the “shocking state of disrepair” of the face. The entire ridge gives as good a scramble as any one fond of rock-climbing can wish for. Nowhere excessively difficult, it is always sensational, and the rocks are big and firm. Most of the time the party is right on the crest, and can glance straight down to the Lauteraar glacier on the one hand or to the Strahlegg on the other. The Lauteraarhorn is seldom taken; probably on account of the trouble of getting at it. People also seem to think that if they have been up the Schreckhorn, they have seen everything of interest in that direction. In this idea they are, in my opinion, quite mistaken. I have already referred to the view of the Schreckhorn and Finsteraarhorn as well as to that of the Lake of Thun to be obtained from the Lauteraarhorn, and I think that it is very much finer than anything one sees from the Wetterhorn, Jungfrau, or any other of the Oberland peaks with which I am acquainted.
After an hour spent on the summit, we reluctantly began the descent, and at 4 P.M. were on the Strahlegg, while at 5.30, just as the peaks around began to glow with the rosy hues of sunset, we were nearly off the Zasenberg. From here one enters on the preserves of the Interlaken “tripper,” so I will abruptly close.
In the next chapter I will give the last of my experiences at my favourite time of year, and talk to you about two old friends—not, alas! with new faces.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] I am aware that the Alpine Journal (vol. xiii. p. 113) states that Herr Munz was killed by falling snow, not ice, which fell from the rocks. I talked to the brothers Boss, and also to several of the guides on the subject, and they all affirmed that it was ice from the little hanging glacier. Which explanation of the disaster is correct, I am, of course, unable to say. One of the guides, Meyer, succumbed to his injuries the day after the accident.
[7] In September 1891, Ulrich Kaufmann was struck on the knee, and bowled over, by a block of falling ice at this same spot.
CHAPTER XIII. THE “MAIDEN” AND THE “MONK.”
A REMINISCENCE.
Time, nine o’clock on a cloudless evening some years ago; place, the Bär Hotel at Grindelwald; season of the year, the middle of September, the most enjoyable month in the higher Alps, given fine weather, of all the twelve. Grindelwald lies in well-earned repose this lovely night. No more do tourists in their thousands infest village, hotel salons, and dining-rooms. No throng of touting guides and mule-drivers lingers in the courtyard; no crowd of aspiring travellers makes noisy preparation for the morrow’s excursions.
To me this tranquillity is very pleasant, as on the evening in question, before the age of railways in that district, I drive up the familiar valley, overshadowed by the huge walls of the Eiger, rising amid myriads of twinkling stars, and as I alight at the doors of the Bär, I congratulate myself upon many things.
“Now, Herr Fritz, hunt out my guide from the supper-room for me, please. What! he is not here? Is there no telegram from him? Well, this really is too bad! and the weather is magnificent! However, as he’s not here, I certainly won’t sit and wait for him; so get me a couple of guides, and to-morrow I will go for a walk amongst the mountains.”
Dinner over, enter the “couple of guides.” Here is sturdy old Peter Baumann, and there, at the door, stands old Peter Kaufmann. “Well, what shall we do to-morrow? where shall we go?” “All is good,” they say; “we will go where you like.” “Very well; then let the Jungfrau be our goal. I can start for it at 1 A.M., if you wish.” They smile pityingly and remark, “It is nine hours to the Bergli hut, so we shall have quite enough if we go there to-morrow, and up the mountain next day.” I don’t believe them, and consult Boss; he says eleven hours. That settles the question; so I retire to bed. I leave word with the guides to order provisions, and to have me called at as late an hour as is consistent with reaching the Bergli before nightfall. Result—they lay in a store of meal-soup, and other atrocities, and arouse me from slumber at 6 A.M. By eight o’clock we are well on our way to the Bäregg, and have overtaken another Jungfrau party—two Austrian gentlemen, with cheery “English” Baumann and old Christian Almer. They progress upward at a measured pace, but at the Bäregg restaurant we meet again, and spend an idle hour, while our respective guides tie up emaciated pieces of white wood into bundles of such extraordinary neatness, that they might be “property” faggots appertaining to an amateur theatrical company. Then on again, down rickety ladders, over swelling waves of ice, and up a narrow track, with the sun beating on our backs, and never a drop of water to be had. At last we all sink in a melting condition on a grassy knoll, and insist on the production of drinkables. The guides, in response, wriggle into sundry fissures of the earth, and extract therefrom cupfuls of icy water, which they dole out in niggardly quantities, exhorting their charges to be sparing in its use.
On again and up, till, with a desperate spurt, we assault the slippery slopes of the glacier, and deposit ourselves in a panting heap on some rocks facing the Bergli.
“How far to the hut, Baumann?” “Oh, two hours or so!” And it is now 11.30 A.M.! For this were we dragged from our downy couches and made to walk up burning slopes under the rays of the autumnal sun! For this were we hurried away from the seductive, though backless, benches of the Bäregg! For this were we denied our second breakfast in three and a half hours, on certain stony pathways where we would fain have halted!
11.30! Very well; here we shall remain and repose ourselves till 3 P.M.
We don’t, however. Two hours of gazing at the Eiger, the Mönch, and the Schreckhorn produce an unpleasant stiffening of the joints; so shortly after discovering this we collect our baggage—scattered over about an acre of ground—and proceed across the level glacier towards the steep snow slopes coming down from the Mönchjoch. After an hour or two of threading our way amongst huge chasms, varied by passages in tight-rope style over knife-edges of ice, we reach our hut. From here we witness an acrobatic performance without having to undergo the expense of an entry fee; indeed, the accommodation of the front row of stalls is too shamefully bad for any one to suggest that we should pay for it. Far down below us on the snow toil our fellow-travellers. From time to time one of them, who, at starting, had declared himself to be “no mountaineer,” casts himself on the white surface. The guides and his friend haul. He slithers along a little; then suddenly rights himself like a gutta-percha figure with a weight inside. On again—down again—up again, so does the party advance.
Of the supper the less said the better; and yet I have heard of Englishmen who like meal-soup!
Now to bed. Pleasant dreams, sweet repose. Repose! Yes! Audible repose for the Austrian after his gymnastic feats; for his friend, for me, even for the guides, none. Well, we count to a hundred, to two hundred, to two hundred backwards. We light lucifer-matches and examine our watches. We even contemplate cutting the cords of the ambulance arrangement, so that it may come down with a run on our slumbering companion. We are fairly worked up to a murderous state of mind, and almost of body, when—“Zwölf Uhr!” resounds in stentorian accents, and we spring from our hay, and viciously shake the source of all our discomfort. “What?” he says sleepily. “Twelve o’clock? No, thanks; no Jungfrau for me!” and thereupon turns over and loses himself once more in the land of dreams.
More meal-soup, followed by coffee, buttoning up of gaiters, packing up of all the things we ought to have left behind, uncoiling of ropes, jodeling of guides, and off we go.
What a joy to swing along over the frozen snow, from which countless ice-crystals gleam up to us with bright innocent eyes, nowise resentful that at every step they go crunch, crunch under our great clumsy boots. The glacier streams down in a silver flood to our right. The mountain-tops, bathed in brilliant moonbeams, seem to hang in the sky. The radiant beauty of the night, the still, keen air, the silence of the surroundings, all combine to make the seventeen minutes which it takes us to reach the Mönchjoch, pass like so many seconds. From here, dazzled by the startling loveliness of the view, and looking anywhere but at my feet, I carelessly slip into the bergschrund. I am pulled out, and in twenty-five minutes more we cross the Ober-Mönchjoch, and see in front of us the shining robes of our “Maiden.” A jodel from the guides, and we are running wildly down the snow slopes, across the plateau, and on to the very mountain itself. It is now very cold, with the chill of early dawn in the air. We have not gone far above the Roththal Saddle when the purple of the sky grows warmer and warmer, till at last the peak above us blushes in the rays of the rising sun. A short half-hour more, and we cluster on our goal, pitying our friend below in the hay of the Bergli.
It is early yet, and Baumann, good old sportsman that he is, says, “Now we will go up the Mönch.” “No,” I reply, “I am out of training, and to-morrow I must cross the Strahlegg. We will now go home.” But Baumann blinks his eyes, and when we reach the plateau, makes a dead halt. “The Bergli or the Mönch?” he inquires. The Mönch looks near, and I weakly give in. Our fellow-travellers here leave us. We get on to the ridge running up from the Ober-Mönchjoch. All goes swimmingly. We reach the final crest. Alas! it is shining ice from end to end. Old Kaufmann is awfully done; from time to time he crawls on to the cornice. Baumann, from behind, shouts warningly. We seem to make no progress. An hour passes. We are not half-way along the arête. “Now, then,” I say, “let me get right on to the ridge and see the view; then I am going home.” The guides protest, but I am obdurate; the cornice and the great fatigue of Kaufmann have decided me. Eventually we go down. Hurrying along the level snows, halting for as short a time as possible at the Bergli, sliding and running where we can, at last we reach the Grindelwald glacier. By now it is pitch-dark; our lantern won’t behave properly; our candle continually goes out, and we wander for an interminable time over ice and moraine. Finally, by a process akin to that of “the survival of the fittest” (having tried about every route on the glacier), we strike the Bäregg ladders, and thence hasten down to the valley.
Having described the pleasures of climbing in autumn, it is but fair that I should not ignore the single occasion on which I have experienced bad weather at that season. It was on October 2nd, a year later, that, with Ulrich Almer, Christian Jossi, and Herr Theophile Boss, I set out from the Roththal hut to cross the Jungfrau. The weather had been perfect for several days past, but on the previous evening the sunset gave signs of a change, while the lightning, which trembled along the western horizon, was another indication that a storm was imminent.
It being, therefore, doubly important to make an early start, the guides commenced by over-sleeping themselves, and it was nearly 5.30 A.M. before the hut was quitted. A lot of step-cutting retarded our progress, and it was 11.35 A.M. before we halted, three or four minutes below the summit, for our second breakfast since starting. Clouds were now drifting up on all sides; but the more serious part of the business was done, so the weather could not matter greatly to us. We remained but a moment on the top, and then amidst shrieks of “Schnell! Vorwärts!” from Jossi, we turned to descend in the teeth of a blinding snowstorm. Well, it was cool; certainly it was not cold, for we wore our gloves in our pockets. We had excellent steps, too, thanks to a party who had ascended from the Bergli a couple of days previously. The walk to the Mönchjoch was deadly dull, the only objects visible being our noble selves. Under the leadership of such guides as ours, however, we never deviated from the right direction for an instant, though the tracks were, of course, by this time entirely obliterated. A comfortable night at the Bergli was a good preparation for the descent, through waist-deep snow, to the valley.
During the evening the guides had discoursed at much length on a feature of the morrow’s route, which, with all the picturesqueness of inaccuracy, they described as an ice-wall. Now, an Eiswand conveyed to my imagination a green cliff, shiny of surface, slippery to the touch, and perpendicular in formation. All these features were, however, absent. The “wall,” which was about 170 feet in height, was certainly of ice, but the ice was coated with firm snow to a depth of several inches. I am not learned in angles, but I should say that seventy-five degrees was somewhere near the slope of the first five steps, after which the steepness steadily decreased. The last man, assisted by a bit of whipcord doubled round a piece of firewood driven in at the top, took seven minutes to come down, so the difficulties of the way were not unduly great. I am obliged to enter into these details because the character of this highly inoffensive slope was cruelly maligned by the party previously referred to, and on our return to the village, after a descent over the Zäsenberghorn, monotonous by reason of its entire simplicity, we were questioned by a curious crowd as to the horrors of the ice-wall. Our predecessors had already left the place, so we could but fight the united army of credulous persons whom they had left behind, and in whose imaginations the ice-wall of the Mönchjoch no doubt lives even to the present day as one of the terrors of mountaineering.
I have now told the worst of my experiences of autumn in the Alps. How easily hundreds of climbers could cap it with their accounts of summer in those regions!
APPENDIX.
APPENDIX.
As I put forward no claim whatever for originality in this little work, I shall perhaps escape blame from climbers, and earn some thanks from the general public, if I place in the way of the latter a poem, the greater part of which appeared in the Alpine Journal (volume xiv., page 64), and which consequently was not likely to have attracted the attention of the non-mountaineering traveller. Through the courtesy of the author, I am enabled to reprint it in full in these pages. We who spend much of our time amongst “Heaven’s nearest neighbours,” grow to love our surroundings more and more. It is often said that people ascend peaks in order to boast of their achievements. Of some, no doubt, this is true. But I cannot give better proof of how such persons are looked upon by the true mountain-climber than by quoting the lines I have referred to, with the spirit of which I, and thousands more, are entirely in sympathy. The poem, entitled, “Mountain Midgets; or, Thirty Years After,” is supposed to have been copied from a stranger’s book in a well-known mountain resort, and is headed:—
TO MY FELLOW-GUESTS.
(An Original Member of the Alpine Club speaks.)
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON.