If some one had struck me from behind on the bump of firmness with a sledge-hammer, or if we had been in the interior of a gigantic percussion shell which an external blow had suddenly exploded, I fancy the sensation might have resembled that which I for the first instant experienced. We were blinded, deafened, smothered, and struck, all in a breath. The place seemed filled with fire, our ears rang with the report, fragments of what looked like incandescent matter rained down upon us as though a meteorite had burst, and a suffocating sulphurous odour—probably due to the sudden production of ozone in large quantities—almost choked us. For an instant we reeled as though stunned, but each sprang to his feet and instinctively made for the door. What my companions’ ideas were I cannot tell; mine were few and simple—I had been struck, or was being struck, or both; the roof would be down upon us in another moment; inside was death, outside our only safety. The door opened inwards, and our simultaneous rush delayed our escape; but it was speedily thrown back, and, dashing out into the blinding hail, we plunged, dazed and almost stupefied, into the nearest shed. For the next few minutes the lightning continued to play about us in so awful a manner that we were in no mood calmly to investigate the nature or extent of our injuries. It was enough that we were still among the living, though I must own that, at first, I had a fearful suspicion that poor Imseng was seriously wounded. He held his head between his hands, and rolled it about in so daft a manner, and was so odd and unnatural in his movements generally, that it struck me his brain might have received some injury. I, for my part, was painfully conscious of a good deal of pain in the region of the right instep, and I saw that one of Christian’s hands was bleeding, and that he was holding both his thighs as if in suffering.
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Monte Rosa from the Furggen Grat.
Monte Rosa from the Furggen Grat.
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The Matterhorn from the Wellenkuppe. To face p. 272.
The Matterhorn from the Wellenkuppe.
To face p. 272.
“Gradually the storm drew off towards the Mont Cenis, and, with minds free from the tension of imminent peril, we had time to take stock of our condition. It was a relief to see Imseng let go his head and observe that it remained erect; to hear Christian say that his thighs were getting better; and to find, on examining my foot, that the mischief was nothing more than a flesh wound, which was bleeding but slightly. My hat, indeed, was knocked in, my pockets filled with stones and plaster, and my heart, it may be, somewhat nearer my mouth than usual, but otherwise we could congratulate ourselves, with deep thankfulness on a most marvellous escape from serious harm.
“On comparing our impressions, Imseng declared that the lightning had entered through the window, struck the altar, glanced off from it to the wall, and then vanished, whilst Christian and I agreed in the belief that the roof had been the part struck, and the flash had descended almost vertically upon us. Quitting our place of refuge and repairing to the chapel, we encountered a scene of ruin which at once confirmed the correctness of our views. The lightning had evidently first struck the iron cross outside and smashed in the roof, dashing fragments of stone and plaster upon us which, brilliantly illuminated, looked to our dazed and confused vision like flakes of fiery matter. It had then encountered the altar, overturning the iron cross and wooden candlesticks only 3 feet from the back of my head as I sat on the step, tearing the wreath of artificial flowers or worsted rosettes strung on copper wire which surrounded the figure of the Virgin, and scattering the fragments in all directions. Next it glanced against the wall, tore down, or otherwise damaged, some of the votive pictures (engravings), and splintered portions of their frames into ‘matchwood.’ The odour of ozone was still strong, the water from the melting hail was coming freely through the roof, and the walls were in two places cracked to within 5 feet of the ground. In fact, as a chapel, the building was ruined, though showing little traces, externally, of the damage done, so that it is possible—unless a stray shepherd happened to look in—that its condition would for the first time become known upon the arrival of the pilgrims on the eve of 5th August.
“We stood long watching our departing foe, and then three very sobered men dropped down silently and quickly that afternoon upon Susa, thinking of what might have been our fate.”
“SIR W. MARTIN CONWAY has been good enough to allow me to extract from The Alps from End to End the following account of the destruction of Elm. Mountain falls have a special interest for all who travel in Switzerland, where the remains of so many are visible.
“The Himalayas are, from a geological point of view, a young set of mountain ranges; they still tumble about on an embarrassingly large scale. The fall, which recently made such a stir, began on 6th September 1893. That day the Maithana Hill (11,000 feet), a spur of a large mountain mass, pitched bodily rather than slid, into the valley.
“‘Little could be seen of the terrible occurrence, for clouds of dust instantly arose, which darkened the neighbourhood and fell for miles around, whitening the ground and the trees until all seemed to be snow covered. The foot of the hill had been undermined by springs until there was no longer an adequate base, and in the twinkling of an eye a large part of the mountain slid down, pushed forward, and shot across the valley, presenting to the little river a lofty and impervious wall, against which its waters afterwards gathered. Masses of rocks were hurled a mile away, and knocked down trees on the slopes across the valley. Many blocks of dolomitic limestone, weighing from 30 to 50 tons, were sent like cannon-shots through the air. The noise was terrific, and the frightened natives heard the din repeated at intervals for several days, for the first catastrophe was succeeded by a number of smaller slides. Even five months after the mountain gave way, every rainy day was succeeded by falls of rocks. A careful computation gives the weight of the enormous pile of rubbish at 800,000,000 tons.’
“The Himalayas are indeed passing through their dramatic geological period, when they give rise to such landslips as this at relatively frequent intervals. Plenty of landslips quite as big have been recorded in the last half-century, and, amongst the remote and uninhabited regions of the great ranges, numbers more of which no record is made constantly happen. The catastrophic period has ended for the Alps. Landslips on a great scale seldom occur there now; when they do occur, the cause of them is oftener the activity of man than of natural forces. But of a great landslip in the Alps details are sure to be observed, and we are enabled to form a picture of the occurrence. When the Alps tremble the nations quake; the Himalayas may shudder in their solitudes, but the busy occidental world pays scant attention, unless gathering waters threaten to spread ruin afar. Of the Gohna Lake we have been told much, but little of the fall that caused it. Eye-witnesses appear not to have been articulate. We can, however, form some idea of what it was like from the minute and accurate account we possess of a great and famous Alpine landslip. I refer to that which buried part of the village of Elm, in Canton Glarus, on 11th September 1881.[13]
“Elm is the highest village in the Sernf Valley. Its position is fixed by the proximity of a meadow-flat of considerable extent. Above this three minor valleys radiate, two of which are separated from one another by a mountain mass, whose last buttress was the Plattenbergkopf, a hill with a precipitous side and a flat and wooded summit, which used to face the traveller coming up the main valley. It was this hill that fell.
“The cause of the fall was simple, and reflects little credit on Swiss communal government. About half-way up the hill there dips into it a bed of fine slate, excellent for school-slates. In the year 1868 concessions were given by the commune for working this slate for ten years without any stipulation as to the method to be employed. Immense masses of the rock were removed. A hole was made 180 mètres wide, and no supports were left for the roof. It was pushed into the mountain to a depth of 65 mètres! In 1878, when the concessions lapsed, the commune, by a small majority, decided to work the quarry itself. Every burgher considered that he had a right to work in the quarry when the weather was unsuitable for farm labour. The place was therefore overcrowded on wet days, and burdened with unskilful hands. The quarry, of course, did not pay, and became a charge on the rates, but between eighty and one hundred men drew wages from it intermittently.
“The roof by degrees became visibly rotten. Lumps of rock used to fall from it, and many fatal accidents occurred. The mass of the mountain above the quarry showed a tendency to grow unstable, yet blasting went forward merrily, and no precautions were taken. Cracks opened overhead in all directions; water and earth used to ooze down through them. Fifteen hundred feet higher up, above the top of the Plattenbergkopf, the ground began to be rifted. In 1876 a large crack split the rock across above the quarry roof, and four years later the mass thus outlined fell away. In 1879 serious signs were detected of coming ruin on a large scale. A great crack split the mountain across behind the top of the hill. The existence of this crack was well known to the villagers, who had a special name for it. It steadily lengthened and widened. By August 1881 it was over four mètres wide, and swallowed up all the surface drainage. Every one seems then to have agreed that the mountain would ultimately fall, but no one was anxious. The last part of August and the first days of September were very wet. On 7th September masses of rock began to fall from the hill; more fell on the 8th, and strange sounds were heard in the body of the rock; work was at last suspended in the quarry. On the 10th a commission of incompetent people investigated the hill, and pronounced that there was no immediate danger. They, however, ordered that work should cease in the quarry till the following spring, whereat the workmen murmured. All through the 10th and the morning of the 11th falls of rock occurred every quarter of an hour or so. Some were large. They kept coming from new places. The mountain groaned and rumbled incessantly, and there was no longer any doubt that it was rotten through and through.
“The 11th of September was a wet Sunday. Rocks and rock-masses kept falling from the Plattenberg. The boys of the village were all agog with excitement, and could hardly be prevented by their parents from going too near the hill. In the afternoon a number of men gathered at an inn in the upper village, just at the foot of the labouring rocks, to watch the falls. They called to Meinrad Rhyner, as he passed, carrying a cheese from an alp, to join them, but he refused, ‘not fearing for himself, but for the cheese.’ Another group of persons assembled in a relative’s house to celebrate a christening. A few houses immediately below the quarry were emptied, but the people from them did not move far. At four o’clock Schoolmaster Wyss was standing at his window, watch in hand, registering the falls and the time of their occurrence. Huntsman Elmer was on his doorstep looking at the quarry through a telescope. Every one was more or less on the qui vive, but none foresaw danger to himself.
“Many of the people in the lower village, called Müsli, which was the best part of a mile distant from the quarry, and separated from it by a large flat area, were quite uninterested. They were making coffee, milking cows, and doing the like small domestic business.
“Suddenly, at a quarter past five, a mass of the mountain broke away from the Plattenbergkopf. The ground bent and broke up, the trees upon it nodded, and folded together, and the rock engulfed them in its bosom as it crashed down over the quarry, shot across the streams, dashing their water in the air, and spread itself out upon the flat. A greyish-black cloud hovered for a while over the ruin, and slowly passed away. No one was killed by this fall, though the débris reached within a dozen yards of the inn where the sightseers were gathered. The inhabitants of the upper village now began to be a little frightened. They made preparations for moving the aged and sick persons, and some of their effects. People also came up from the lower villages to help, and to see the extent of the calamity. Others came together to talk, and the visitors who had quitted the inn returned to it. Some went into their houses to shut the windows and keep out the dust. No one was in any hurry.
“This first fall came from the east side of the Plattenbergkopf; seventeen minutes later a second and larger fall descended from the west side. The gashes made by the two united below the peak, and left its enormous mass isolated and without support. The second fall must have been of a startling character, for Schoolmaster Wyss forgot his watch after it. It overwhelmed the inn and four other houses, killed a score of persons, and drove terror into all beholders, so that they started running up the opposite hill. Oswald Kubli, one of the last to leave the inn, saw this fall from close at hand. He was standing outside the inn when he heard some one cry out: ‘My God, here comes the whole thing down!’ Every one fled, most making for the Düniberg. ‘I made four or five strides, and then a stone struck Geiger and he fell without a word. Pieces from the ruined inn flew over my head. My brother Jacob was knocked down by them.’ Again a dark cloud of dust enveloped the ruin. As it cleared off, Huntsman Elmer could see, through his glass, the people racing up the hill (the Düniberg) ‘like a herd of terrified chamois.’ When they had reached a certain height most of them stood still and looked back. Some halted to help their friends, others to take breath.
“‘Of those who were before me,’ relates Meinrad Rhyner, ‘some were for turning back to the valley to render help, but I called to them to fly. Heinrich Elmer was carrying boxes, and was only twenty paces behind me when he was killed. There were also an old man and woman, who were helping along their brother, eighty years old; they might have been saved if they had left him. I ran by them, and urged them to hasten.’
“Of all who took refuge on the Düniberg, only six escaped destruction by the third fall, and they held on their way, and went empty-handed. Ruin overtook the kind and the covetous together.
“At this time, before the third fall, fear came also upon the cattle. A cow, grazing far down the valley, bellowed aloud and started running for the hillside with tail out-straightened. She reached a place of safety before her meadow was overwhelmed. Cats and chickens likewise saved themselves, and two goats sought and found salvation on the steps of the parsonage.
“During the four minutes that followed the second fall every one seems to have been running about, with a tendency, as the moments passed, to conclude that the worst was over. Then those who were watching the mountain from a distance beheld the whole upper portion of the Plattenbergkopf, 10,000,000 cubic mètres of rock, suddenly shoot from the hillside. The forest upon it bent ‘like a field of corn in the wind,’ before being swallowed up. ‘The trees became mingled together like a flock of sheep.’ The hillside was all in movement, and ‘all its parts were playing together.’ The mass slid, or rather shot down, with extraordinary velocity, till its foot reached the quarry. Then the upper part pitched forward horizontally, straight across the valley and on to the Düniberg. People in suitable positions could at this moment clearly see through beneath it to the hillside beyond. They also saw the people in the upper village, and on the Düniberg, racing about wildly. No individual masses of rock could be seen in the avalanche, except from near at hand; it was a dense cloud of stone, sharply outlined below, rounded above. The falling mass looked so vast that Schoolmaster Wyss thought it was going to fill up the whole valley. A cloud of dust accompanied it, and a great wind was flung before it. This wind swept across the valley and overthrew the houses in its path ‘like haycocks.’ The roofs were lifted first, and carried far, then the wooden portions of the houses were borne bodily through the air, ‘just as an autumn storm first drives off the leaves and then the dead branches themselves from the trees.’ In many cases wooden ruins were dropped from the air on to the top of the stone débris when the fall was at an end. Eye-witnesses say that trees were blown about ‘like matches,’ that houses were ‘lifted through the air like feathers,’ and ‘thrown like cards against the hillside,’ ‘that they bent, trembled, and then broke up like little toys’ before the avalanche came to them. Hay, furniture, and the bodies of men were mixed with the house-ruins in the air. Some persons were cast down by the blast and raised again. Others were carried through the air and deposited in safe positions; others, again, were hurled upward to destruction and dropped in a shattered state as much as a hundred mètres away. Huntsman Elmer relates as follows:
“‘My son Peter was in Müsli (nearly a mile from the quarry) with his wife and child. He sought to escape with them by running. On coming to a wall, he took the child from his wife and leaped over. Turning round, he saw the woman reach out her hand to another child. At that moment the wind lifted him, and he was borne up the hillside. My married daughter, also in Müsli, fled with two children. She held the younger in her arms and led the other. This one was snatched away from her, but she found herself, not knowing how, some distance up the hillside, lying on the ground face downwards, with the baby beneath her, both uninjured.’
“The avalanche, as has been said, shot with incredible swiftness horizontally across the valley. It pitched on to the Düniberg, struck it obliquely, and was thus deflected down the level and fertile valley-floor, which it covered in a few seconds, to the distance of nearly a mile and over its whole width, with a mass of rock débris more than 30 feet thick. Most of the people on the hillside were instantly killed, the avalanche falling on to them and crushing them flat, ‘as an insect is crushed into a red streak under a man’s foot.’ Only six persons here escaped. Two of them were almost reached by the rocks, the others were whirled aloft through the air and deposited in different directions. One survivor describes how the dust-cloud overtook him, ‘and came between him and his breath!’ He sank face downwards on the ground, feeling powerless to go further. Looking back, he saw ‘stones flying above the dust-cloud. In a moment all seemed to be over. I stood up and climbed a few yards to a spring of water to wash out the dust, which filled my mouth and nose’ (all survivors on the Düniberg had the same experience). ‘All round was dark and buried in dust.’
“It was only when the avalanche had struck the Düniberg and began to turn aside from it—the work of a second or two—that the people in the lower village, far down along the level plain, had any suspicion that they were in danger. Twenty seconds later all was over. Some of them who were on a bridge had just time to run aside, not a hundred yards, and were saved, but most were killed where they stood. The avalanche swept away half the village. Its sharply defined edge cut one house in two. All within the edge were destroyed, all without were saved. Almost the only persons wounded were those in the bisected house. Huntsman Elmer with his telescope, and Schoolmaster Wyss with his watch, whose houses were just beyond the area of ruin, beheld the dust-cloud come rolling along, ‘like smoke from a cannon’s mouth, but black,’ filling the whole width of the flat valley to about twice the height of a house. The din seemed to them not very great, and the wind, which, in front of the cloud, carried the houses away like matchwood, did not reach them. Others describe the crash and thunder of the fall as terrific; it affected people differently. All agree that it swallowed up every other sound, so that shrieks of persons near at hand were inaudible. The mass seemed to slide or shoot along the ground rather than to roll. One or two men had a race for life and won it, but most failed to escape who were not already in a place of safety. Fridolin Rhyner, an eleven-year-old boy, kept his head better than any one else in the village, and succeeded in eluding the fall. He saw, too, ‘how Kaspar Zentner reached the bridge as the fall took place, and how he started running as fast as he could, but was caught by the flood of rocks near Rhyner’s house; he jumped aside, however, into a field, limped across it, got over the wall into the road, and so just escaped.’
“The last phase of the catastrophe is the hardest to imagine, and was the most difficult to foresee. The actual facts are these. Ten million cubic mètres of rock fell down a depth (on an average) of about 450 mètres, shot across the valley and up the opposite (Düniberg) slope to a height of 100 mètres, where they were bent 25° out of their first direction, and poured, almost like a liquid, over a horizontal plane, covering it, uniformly, throughout a distance of 1500 mètres and over an area of about 900,000 square mètres to a depth of from 10 to 20 mètres. The internal friction of the mass and the friction between it and the ground were insignificant forces compared with the tremendous momentum that was generated by the fall. The stuff flowed like a liquid. No wonder the parson, seeing the dust-cloud rolling down the valley, thought it was only dust that went so far. His horror, when the cloud cleared off and he beheld the solid grey carpet, beneath which one hundred and fifteen of his flock were buried with their houses and their fields, may be imagined. He turned his eyes to the hills, and lo! the familiar Plattenbergkopf had vanished and a hole was in its place.
“The roar of the fall ceased suddenly. Silence and stillness supervened. Survivors stood stunned where they were. Nothing moved. Then a great cry and wailing arose in the part of the village that was left. People began to run wildly about, some down the valley, some up. As the dust-cloud grew thinner the wall-like side of the ruin appeared. It was quite dry. All the grass and trees in the neighbourhood were white with dust. Those who beheld the catastrophe from a distance hurried down to look for their friends. Amongst them was Burkhard Rhyner, whose house was untouched at the edge of the débris. He ran to it and found, he said, ‘the doors open, a fire burning in the kitchen, the table laid, and coffee hot in the coffee-pot, but no living soul was left.’ All had run forth to help or see, and been overwhelmed—wife, daughter, son, son’s wife, and two grandchildren. ‘I am the sole survivor of my family.’ Few were the wounded requiring succour; few the dead whose bodies could be recovered. Here and there lay a limb or a trunk. On the top of one of the highest débris mounds was a head severed from its body, but otherwise uninjured. Every dead face that was not destroyed wore a look of utmost terror. The crushed remains of a youth still guarded with fragmentary arms the body of a little child. There were horrors enough for the survivors to endure. The memory of them is fresh in their minds to the present day.
“Such was the great catastrophe of Elm. The hollow in the hills, whence the avalanche fell, can still be seen, and the pile of ruin against and below the Düniberg; but almost all the rest of the débris-covered area has been reclaimed and now carries fields, which were ripening to harvest when I saw them. The fallen rocks, some big as houses, have been blasted level; soil has been carried from afar and spread over the ruin. A channel, 40 feet deep or more, has been cut through it for the river, so that the structure of the rock-blanket can still be seen. The roots of young trees now grasp stones that took part in that appalling flight from their old bed of thousands of years to their present place of repose. The valley has its harvests again, and the villagers go about their work as their forefathers did, but they remember the day of their visitation, and to the stranger coming amongst them they tell the tragic tale with tears in their eyes and white horror upon their faces.”
ALL must have noticed, summer after summer, in the daily papers, a recital from time to time under some such heading as, “Perils of the Alps,” of a variety of disasters to Germans or Austrians on mountains the names of which are unfamiliar to English people or even to English climbers. Many young men, of little leisure and of slight means, develop a passionate love for the peaks of their native land. The minor ranges of Austria and Germany offer few difficulties to really first-class, properly equipped parties, but nasty places can be found on most of them, and the very fact that they do not boast of glaciers removes the chief argument against solitary ascents.
The Rax, near Vienna, is a mountain which can be reached in a few hours from that city, and while a good path has been laid out to the summit, many other routes requiring climbing—by climbing I mean the use of the hands—are available for the hardier class of tourists. One route in particular, that from the Kaiserbrunn through the Wolfsthal, appears to be really difficult, and is unfit for a man to ascend alone unless he is a climber of great skill. A terrible experience fell to the lot of a young Viennese compositor, employed on the Neue Freie Presse, and by name Emil Habl. He set out by himself to make the expedition referred to, and, having fallen and broken his leg, he managed, thanks to his pluck and endurance, to escape with his life. “Despite injuries which made it impossible for him to stand,” says a writer in one of Messrs Newnes’ publications, from which I am courteously permitted to quote, “he yet succeeded in conveying himself from the scene of his accident into the valley in the neighbourhood of human dwellings. Three dreadful days and three awful nights lasted that memorable descent—a descent which can easily be made in two hours by any one able to walk. It may almost certainly be said that the case is without a parallel in the annals of Alpine accidents.”
Herr Habl had ascended the Rax on previous occasions, and twice before by the Wolfsthal. It is the custom on many of the easier Austrian mountains to mark the way by painted strips on the rocks. These are sometimes very useful, but occasionally they tempt the tourist into tracks which may be beyond his powers, or lure him on till, at last, losing sight of them, he is induced to strike out a route—and perhaps an impracticable one—for himself. The Wolfsthal route up the Rax is marked in green, but the paint had worn off in many places, and after a time Herr Habl could no longer trace it. At last the way was barred by a precipice, but while pausing in uncertainty beneath it, the climber noticed two iron clamps fixed far apart on the face of the cliff, and argued that they must at one time have supported ladders and formed, perhaps, part of a hunter’s path. He made an attempt to scramble up the rock, in spite of the absence of the ladder, but when more than 30 feet up saw that it was impossible to scale it. He therefore determined to return, but a loose stone, giving way beneath him, he was precipitated from his precarious hold, and fell with a crash straight to the bottom. This happened at about 7.30 A.M., and for a long time he lay unconscious. When he came to himself again he was suffering greatly.
“The first thing I noticed,” he says, “was a terrible pain in my right leg, my head, and left side; I was also bleeding profusely from several wounds. At the same time, considering the fearful fall I had had, I felt thankful I had not been killed outright. On trying to get up I discovered, to my utter horror, that I had broken my right shin-bone. It was quite impossible to rise. The break was about 6 inches below the knee, and at the first glance I knew it to be a very bad fracture. It was what the doctors call an ‘open’ fracture—that is, the bone projected through the skin.”
It was in vain that he shouted for help. Tourists seldom pass that way, and it was useless to expect any one to hear him. To make matters worse, the weather had changed, and rain now fell heavily. But Herr Habl did not lose courage. He writes: “Unless I wanted miserably to die a long-drawn-out, hideous death from hunger and thirst, I knew I must save myself. I decided not to lose another moment in fruitless brooding, and waiting, and shouting, but to act at once.
“I perceived that first of all I must set my broken leg and bandage it in some rough fashion. In spite of the agony it caused me, I rolled over and over the ground in different directions like a bale of goods—a few yards here and a few yards there—until I had collected a sufficient quantity of fallen branches, bits of fir and moss; this strange collecting process took me some hours. The next thing was to tear off the sleeves of my shirt and such other parts of my underwear as I could spare. On my mountain excursions I always took with me a box containing iodoform gauze and cambric; and now these things were more than welcome.
“At last, then, I was ready to begin the operation. But, good heavens, what agony! My deadliest enemy I would not wish such excruciating pains as I suffered when setting the poor splintered bone—which, be it remembered, was not broken straight across. The dreadful splinters, indeed, dug deep into my flesh. Not regarding the pain (although nearly fainting therewith) I exerted my whole force, and at last succeeded in getting the bone into what, as far as I could judge, was its right position. Then I wound the iodoform gauze round it, and over that I put the cambric, the bits of underclothing, and a layer of moss. Next in the queer operation came my alpenstock and some boughs in place of splints; and finally I tied the whole together with the string, my hat-line, and neck-tie.”
During the rest of the day the agonising descent continued, down rocks which were difficult even for a sound man to ascend. As evening approached Herr Habl bethought him of the need of food, but, alas! all was gone from his knapsack, doubtless left at the spot where the bandages had been put on. To regain this point was out of the question, so berries and leaves were resorted to, to appease the craving of hunger.
That night was passed in pain and weariness. The rain never ceased, the poor wounded man was soaked to the skin. The next day, from dawn to dark the fearful descent continued, and was followed by another night of indescribable misery. The morning after Herr Habl could hardly drag himself a yard, and the temptation to lie down and await the end was very great. Still, for the sake of his parents at home, he continued his efforts, though bleeding now from the contact of the sharp rocks over which he pushed himself in a half-lying, half-sitting posture. By four o’clock that afternoon it seemed as if human endurance could bear no more, and for two hours he lay in an awful apathy he could not shake off. Then, when all hope seemed over, help came, for he heard the sound of human voices, and this so stirred him that once more he began to crawl downward, though unable to obtain any reply to his cries for assistance. Another night passed, and during it, for the first time, he got some sleep. The next morning, he once more dragged his poor lacerated body downwards and at last came in sight of some houses. Calling feebly for help, he was delighted beyond measure to receive an answer, and soon he was carried to Hôtel Kaiserbrunn, and the same evening transported to the hospital at Vienna. He concludes his most interesting account by remarking: “I do not think that my accident, terrible as it is, has cured me of my love of mountaineering. But certainly the remembrance of those three terrible days and nights will deter me from again undertaking difficult climbs by myself.”
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A glacier lake. By Royston Le Blond.
A glacier lake. By Royston Le Blond.
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Taking off the rope at the end of the climb.
Taking off the rope at the end of the climb.
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Amongst the Sèracs.
Amongst the Sèracs.
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Water at last. To face p. 297.
Water at last.
To face p. 297.
An adventure, having a happier termination, befell some friends of mine in the Bregaglia group, owing to the marking of a route with paint. The district was but little known to them, so they were glad to follow where the marks led. One of the party, writing in The Alpine Journal, says:
“The descent began by a grass ledge. After a few yards this was suddenly closed by overhanging rocks. François, who was first, appeared to us to plunge down a precipice. He answered our criticism by pointing to the red triangles. They indicated the only means of advance. It was requisite to go down a dozen feet of nearly vertical rock by the help of two grass tufts, and then for several yards to walk across a horizontal crack which gave foot-hold varying from 2 inches to nothing. Nominal support—help in balance—could be gained at first by digging axes into grass overhead; further on hand-hold was obtainable. François walked across without a moment’s hesitation, but we did not despise the rope. This mauvais pas would not, perhaps, trouble younger cragsmen. It came upon us unprepared and when somewhat tired. But to indicate a route including such an obstacle to unsuspecting tourists as a Station Path is surely rash. A practical joke that may lead to fatal results should only be resorted to under exceptional circumstances—as, for example, in the case of an hotel bore. There can be little doubt that in this instance the Milanese section entrusted their paint-pot to a conscious, if unconscientious, humorist; for we found afterwards that he had continued his triangles through the village, along the high road, and finished up only on the ticket office.”
The following terrible experience did not, it is true, happen to a party of mountaineers, but as The Alpine Journal, from which I take my account, has considered a notice of it appropriate to its pages, I include it amongst my tales.
“A distinguished aeronaut, Captain Charbonnet, of Lyons, married a young girl from Turin. On the evening of their wedding, in October, 1893, they set out in Captain Charbonnet’s balloon ‘Stella,’ and covered about 10 miles on their way towards Lyons.
“Next morning, accompanied by two young Italians named Durando and Botto, one of whom had made many previous ascents with Captain Charbonnet, they started again. Stormy weather seemed to be brewing, and after rising to a height of 3000 mètres they were caught in a current. At Saluggia they nearly touched ground, then leapt up again to 4000, and presently to 6000 mètres. About 2.30 P.M. the balloon began to descend rapidly, and they had some difficulty in stopping it at 3000 mètres.
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The balloon “Stella” starting from Zermatt to make the first passage of the Alps by balloon.
The balloon “Stella” starting from Zermatt to make the
first passage of the Alps by balloon.
To face page 293.
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A moment after the balloon started. To face page 298.
A moment after the balloon started.
“Here they were in dense clouds, and bitterly cold; quite ignorant, moreover, of their position. Captain Charbonnet made his crew lie down in the car, himself leaning out in order to try if he could catch a glimpse of any point from which he could learn his bearings. The balloon was drifting at a great rate, and nothing could be done to check it. Presently there was a shock, and Captain Charbonnet was thrown to the bottom of the car, by a heavy blow over his left eye.
“The balloon rebounded, and dashing across a gully struck the other side of it, and it finally settled down on a steep rocky spur on the east side of the Bessanese (3632 mètres = 11,917 feet), just above the small glacier of Salau. It had struck the wall of the mountain which faces the Rifugio Gastaldi, at a height of about 3000 mètres (9843 feet).
“The aeronauts reached the ground a good deal shaken and bruised, but none of them, except the leader, suffering from any serious injuries.... Their sole provision was one bottle of wine; but they were fairly well off for covering, and they cut up the balloon to supply deficiencies. In the night a violent storm came on, to add to their misery. In spite of his injuries, Captain Charbonnet kept up the spirits of his companions as well as might be, but towards morning his powers failed, and when day dawned his young wife, a girl of eighteen, had some difficulty in bringing him round.
“They started to descend the snow-slope, Durando going first, and making steps to the best of his power with his feet ‘and with a long key which he happened to have in his pocket.’ Of course they had neither nails nor poles; and, by a fatal imprudence, they did not tie themselves together, though ropes must have been in plenty in the wreck of the balloon.
“Presently Charbonnet slipped. He was held up by his wife and Botto; but a few minutes later he disappeared into a hidden crevasse. The others could see him far below, but as he neither moved nor answered their call, they rightly assumed that he was beyond the reach of any human help, and proceeded downwards.
“With infinite difficulty, owing to their utter ignorance of the country, and after another night spent in the open air, they found a path which brought them to the hut under the Rocca Venoni. Thence a shepherd guided them to the Cantina della Mussa, where they were at first taken for deserters or spies; the lady, it should be said, had been obliged to put on a suit of her husband’s clothes, her own having been torn to pieces.
“The sight of her hair and bracelets convinced the inhabitants of the true state of the case; a telegram was sent to Turin, and a message to Balme, and a search party came up from the latter place in the afternoon. Captain Charbonnet’s body was recovered the next day. It was found at the bottom of a crevasse more than 60 feet deep, and completely doubled up; but medical examination showed that his death was primarily due to the injury received when the balloon first struck.”
The first passage of the Alps by balloon was made in September 1903, by Captain Spelterini, of Zürich, accompanied by Dr Hermann Seiler and another friend. They started from Zermatt, crossed the Mischabel group, passed over the valley of Saas, then rose above the Weissmies range, and approached the Lago Maggiore so closely that they were able to converse with the passengers of a steamer. They then rose again and spent the night above the mountains not far from the Gotthard. The next day it would have been possible to clear the Bernese Alps and descend somewhere near Lucerne, but though Dr Seiler, who is a climber and was fully equipped for a descent above the snow line, urged the attempt being made to cross the chain, Captain Spelterini and his friend, unused to the aspect of the higher peaks, considered it more prudent to descend, and so the expedition came to an end after twenty hours aloft, during which no discomfort from cold was experienced.
When an accident happens in the Alps involving loss of life, it is not difficult to learn whatever facts may be known with regard to it, but when climbers have a narrow escape from death the occurrence is often hushed up and nothing said or written about the matter. And yet it is just the narrow escapes that furnish the most interesting Alpine narratives. Amongst them are few more exciting than a mishap on the Matterhorn which happened in 1895, and is admirably described by an onlooker, Mr Ernest Elliot Stock, in the pages of one of Messrs Newnes’ periodicals, from which I am courteously permitted to quote a portion of the tale.
Mr Stock’s party consisted of himself, his sister, Mr Grogan (the well-known traveller who first crossed Africa from South to North), Mr Broadbent, and the guides, P. A. and Alois Biner, Peter Perrin, and Zurmatter. An American of no climbing experience, with Joseph Biner and Felix Julen, was on the mountain at the same time, and both parties having made the ascent by the ordinary route, were coming down the same way, and had descended in safety to just below “Moseley’s Platte” when the incident which so nearly cost them their lives took place. They were on a steep slope, and the American party was slightly in advance. Mr Stock writes:
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The Matterhorn from the Hörnli Ridge.
The Matterhorn from the Hörnli Ridge.
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The Matterhorn from the Furgg Glacier.
The Matterhorn from the Furgg Glacier.
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Joseph Biner.
Joseph Biner.
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The Matterhorn Hut. To face p. 302
The Matterhorn Hut.
To face p. 302
“We had been working slowly, and at a slight zig-zag, down this for some 150 feet, only one member of the party moving at a time, and keeping carefully within the steps cut by the leader, when suddenly a flat stone, some 6 inches across, became detached from a small pile either to the side of or directly behind me—possibly loosened by our passage or picked up by the rope as it tautened between myself and Peter Biner, who came next. Peter’s cry of warning was echoed by his brother at the tail of the party, and I half turned to see it slipping past on the right.
“Reaching out with my axe I endeavoured to stop it, but its impetus had become too great. Getting upon its edge it rolled and struck a small rock; then jumped some 20 feet down the ice-slope, narrowly missing Perrin and ‘America,’ and struck again upon a larger and flatter rock, when, amidst a flight of smaller stones, it bounded outwards and downwards, striking the leading guide, Joseph Biner, full and square on the head. He fell as though he had been shot, dragging ‘America’ after him amidst a perfect shower of snow and stones. Julen, who came third, with the greatest presence of mind drove his ice-axe hard and deep into the ice, took a turn round it with his left arm, and, though dragged violently from his steps, to our intense relief held on.
“But we were in an awkward plight. Poor Joseph half lay, half hung, without movement, at the end of some 30 feet of rope, bleeding copiously from a deep gash in the head and another across the forehead caused by his fall; ‘America’ clung to a small rock projecting from the snow, beating a tattoo with his boots on the ice and wailing dismally; Julen held the two by favour of his ice-axe and firmly planted feet only. For a space no one moved, excepting to get such anchorage as was possible upon the spur of the moment, each expecting a rope-jerk, the forerunner of a swift and battered end in the ice-fall of the Furgg Glacier thousands of feet below.
“The guides for a time seemed utterly stunned by the catastrophe, and to all suggestions could only reply with muttered prayers and exclamations. So exasperating did this become at last, with the thought of the man below bleeding to death, if not dead already, that Mr Grogan, who had vainly been endeavouring to bring the guides to a sense of the position, quietly slipped the rope, and, amid a storm of protest from them, traversed out some distance to avoid a patch of loose stones, and descended inwards again, cutting his steps as he went, till he reached a spot immediately below the wounded man. Poor Joseph hung with his head buried in a patch of snow, and in an extremely awkward position to reach from above. Mr Grogan, however, refused to be daunted by the difficulties, and we were treated to a fine piece of ice-craft during his descent.”
After a little time Mr Grogan managed to cut a seat in the slope of ice and placing the still breathing but insensible man in it, he bandaged the wounds on his head, and before long had the satisfaction of seeing him recover his senses. With great difficulty, as he was very weak and shaken, poor Joseph was helped down the mountain, and at last every one arrived safe and sound at the lower hut.
There is no doubt that Joseph owed his life to Mr Grogan’s skill, promptness, and courage. Had the travellers in the party following “America’s” been of the usual type of tourist, who is hauled up and let down the Matterhorn, one dare not think what would probably have been the result, for the description Mr Stock gives of the behaviour of his guides seems in no way exaggerated. I edit this account in sight of the very spot where the accident occurred, and I have made careful enquiries here as to the accuracy of the story, and am assured that it is true in every detail. It is a pleasure to feel that a fellow-countryman should show so brilliant an example to those who were not willing and probably would have hardly been able to rescue their comrade, although to attempt such a task was one of the prior obligations of their profession.
To be bombarded by falling stones in the Alps is bad enough. To be hurled from one’s foot-hold by a flock of eagles seems to me even more appalling. Though on one occasion, when on the slopes of a bleak and rocky peak in Lapland, in company with my husband, a pair of eagles came screaming so close to us that we drove them away by brandishing our ice-axes and throwing stones at them, I did not till recently believe that there could be positive danger to a climbing party from an onslaught by these birds. It was only a few weeks ago that taking up one of Messrs Newnes’ publications I came upon an account of a tragedy in the Maritime Alps caused by an attack from eagles. On applying to the editor of the magazine in question, he kindly allowed me to make some extracts from a striking article by Mons. Antoine Neyssel. This gentleman with a friend, Mons. Joseph Monand, was making a series of ascents in the Maritime Alps with Sospello as their headquarters. From here they took a couple of guides and got all ready for a climb on the following morning, 23rd July. During the evening the amazing news reached them that a postman, while crossing a high pass, had been attacked and nearly killed by eagles. They at once went into the cottage where the poor man lay unconscious on two chairs, a pool of blood beneath him and his clothes torn to ribbons. A few days later he died from the terrible injuries he had received.
Though much shocked at the sad event, the climbers believed that their party of four would be quite safe, for each man had an ice-axe and some carried rifles. So the next morning they set out, and, ascending higher and higher, reached the glacier and put on the rope. They had forgotten all about the ferocious birds when suddenly, as they traversed the upper edge of a crevasse near the summit of their peak, the leading guide stopped with an exclamation of horror. Close to them the ground was strewn with feathers and marked with blood, doubtless the spot where the postman was attacked. They passed on, however, and remembering that they were a party of four, felt reassured. But soon after weird cries came to their ears from below, followed by the whirr and beating of great wings. Looking cautiously over the abyss, they saw a fight of eagles in progress; feathers flew in the air and strange sounds came out of the seething mass. It seemed to rise towards them, and in their insecure position on the edge of a crevasse, they were badly placed to resist an attack. The foot-hold was of frozen and slippery snow. Suddenly the eagles burst up and around them. The guides immediately cut the rope and each person did what he could to save himself. “Wherever possible,” says Mons. Neyssel, “we simply raced over the frozen snow like maniacs. In another moment they dashed upon us like an avalanche. I heard a shot—I suppose Monand fired, but I did not: I do not know why. The attack was quite too dreadful for words. Speaking for myself, I remember that the eagles struck me with stunning force with their wings, their hooked beaks, and strong talons. Every part of my body seemed to be assailed simultaneously. It was a fierce struggle for life or death. Strangely enough, I remember nothing of what happened to my companions. I neither saw nor heard anything of them after the first great rush of the eagles. It is a miracle I was not hurled to death into the crevasse.
“Do not ask me how long this weird battle lasted. It may have been five or six minutes, or a quarter of an hour. I do not know. I grew feebler, and felt almost inclined to give up the struggle, when the blood began to trickle down my face and nearly blinded me. I knew that every moment might be my last, and that I might be hurled into the crevasse. Strangely enough, the prospect did not appal me. From this time onward I defended myself almost mechanically, inclined every moment to give up and lie down.
“I gave no thought to the guides and my poor friend Monand. If I am judged harshly for this, I regret it; but I could not help it. All at once I heard loud, excited voices, but thought that these were merely fantastic creations of my own brain. In a moment or two, however, I could distinguish a number of men laying about them fiercely with sticks, and beating off the eagles.”
The villagers, having watched the ascent through a telescope had come to the rescue and had saved the lives of the writer and his two guides. His poor friend, however, was dashed into the crevasse, at the bottom of which his body was found five days later.
I AM indebted to the editor of The Cornhill and the author of an article entitled “The Cup and the Lip” for permission to reprint portions of a paper containing much shrewd wisdom, several accounts of narrow escapes, and withal of a wittiness and freshness that brings to the reader a keen blast of Alpine air and the memory, if by chance he be a climber, of his own early days upon the mountains.
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A hot day in summer on a mountain top.
A hot day in summer on a mountain top.
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A summit near Saas.
A summit near Saas.
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Luncheon on the way to the hut in winter.
Luncheon on the way to the hut in winter.
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Luncheon in summer on the top of a glacier pass. To face p. 310.
Luncheon in summer on the top of a glacier pass.
To face p. 310.
The writer, after remarking that even in these days when the traveller, by the purchase of a few climbing requisites, is inclined to consider himself a mountaineer before he has ever set foot on a peak, goes on to say that, in reality, “for the most of us the craft is long to learn, the conquering hard. And in the experience of many there are two distinct phases. There is the time when, flushed with youth and victory, you seem to go on from strength to strength, faster from year to year, more confident in foot and hand, more scornful of the rope which you have seen so often used, not as a means of safety, but as an assistance to the progression of the weaker brethren, until one day your foot unaccountably finds the step too small, or the bit of rock comes away in your hand, or the outraged spirit of the mountains smites you suddenly with a stone, and all is changed. Henceforth every well-worn and half-despised precaution has a new meaning for you; it becomes a point of honour to walk circumspectly, to turn the rope round every helpful projection when the leader moves, and to mark and keep your distance; and you begin to catch a little of the wisdom of your fathers. It is not until the slip comes—as it comes to all—that you believe a slip is possible; and were it not for slips the continual advance of cup to lip might become in time monotonous and irksome, and mountaineering nothing but a more laborious and elaborate form of walking up a damp flight of stairs. But when it has come, and there has passed away the result of the consequent shock to your self-esteem, and to other even more sensitive portions of your person, there succeeds a new pride of achievement, and you will have the advantages of the converted sinner over the ninety-and-nine just persons whose knickerbockers are still unriven. Furthermore, you will have commenced the graduate stage of your mountaineering education. Unlucky, too, will you be if your experience has not given you something more than a juster estimate of your own moral and physical excellence; for your misfortune, if you have chosen your companions aright, will suddenly turn your grumbling hireling into a friend as gentle and as patient as a nurse, and disclose in those who were your friends qualities of calm and steadfastness never revealed in the fret of the valley; while, if you need wine and oil for your wounds, when you reach home again, you will find in the inn some English doctor, asking nothing better than to devote the best part of his holiday to the gratuitous healing of the stranger.
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A tedious snow slope to ascend.
A tedious snow slope to ascend.
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A sitting glissade and a quick descent.
A sitting glissade and a quick descent.
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A glacier-capped summit.
A glacier-capped summit.
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Italy to the left, Switzerland to the right. To face p. 312.
Italy to the left, Switzerland to the right.
To face p. 312.
“The form of my own awakening was not such as to require wine or oil or consolation, and indeed, had I spoken of it at the time, would have scarcely escaped ridicule. We had reached the summit of our pass, and the guides and myself had decided that the steep wall of snow on the further side was an admirable place for a glissade. Accordingly, we went through the inevitable ritual of the summit, consumed as much sour bread and wine as we could, with unerring inaccuracy applied the wrong names to all the newly disclosed mountain-tops, adjusted the rope and prepared for the descent. Unfortunately, we omitted to explain the particular form of pleasure in which we were about to indulge to my companion, who was ignorant alike of mountaineering and the German tongue. The result was simple: the second guide, who was in front, set off with his feet together and his axe behind him; I followed in as correct an imitation of his attitude as I could induce my body to assume; but the novice stood still on the crest of the pass to ‘await in fitting silence the event,’ and the rope tightened. The jerk, after nearly cutting me in two, laid me on my back in the snow, and was then transmitted to the guide, who was also pulled off his feet and plunged head foremost down. Our combined weights drew after us both my companion and the chief guide, who was taken unawares, and both came crushing upon me. We rolled over and over, mutually pounding one another as we rolled; hats and spectacles and axes preceded us, and huge snowballs followed in our wake, until, breathless and humiliated, we had cleared the schrund, and came to an ignominious halt on the flat snow below.
“This was no very rude introduction to my climbing deficiencies, but before the end of the season I had felt fear at the pit of my stomach. We (that is A. T. and myself) had scrambled up an Austrian mountain, and, on our way down, had come to where the little glacier intervenes between the precipice and the little moraine heaps above the forest. The glacier would hardly deserve the name in any other part of the Alps, so small is it; but it makes up for what it lacks in size by its exceeding steepness; the hardness of its ice, and the ferocity (if one may attribute personal characteristics to Nature) of the rock walls which keep in its stream on either hand, hem it in so closely that I think it must be always in deep shadow, even in the middle of a June day.
“Here you must cross it very nearly on a level, and then skirt down its further side between ice and rock for a few feet before you come to a suitable place for the crossing of the big crevasse below you; and then a short slide down old avalanche débris shoots you deliciously into the sun again. The crossing of the glacier in the steps cut by the numerous parties who have passed on previous days is an extremely simple affair. But you must not hurry, for a slip could not be checked, and would probably finish in the before-mentioned crevasse. We started, however, in some fear; for a party ascending the mountains favoured us with continual showers of stones of all sizes, and the higher they climbed the more viciously came their artillery. Hence I was nervous and apt to go carelessly when we reached the middle of the ice, and here the noise began. I heard a strange, whizzing, whirring noise which sounded strangely familiar, accompanied by a physical shiver on my part and a curious knocking together of the knees; again and again it came, followed each time by a slight dull thud; and, looking at the rocks below us on each side, I saw a little white puff of dust rising at every concussion. Then I knew why the sound seemed familiar. I was reminded how, as a panting schoolboy, I had toiled up a long dusty road to a certain down with a rifle much too large for me, in the vain hope of shooting my third-class, and how, as we bruised our shoulders at the 200 yards’ range, another young gentleman firing at the 400 yards at the parallel range on the left, had mistaken his mark and fired across our heads at the target beyond us on the right. Everything was present: the indescribable whirring of the bullet, its horrible invisibility while it flew, and the grey little cloud as it flattened itself on the white paint of the target. The sensation was horrible, the tendency to hurry irresistible, and but for my companion I should have risked slip and crevasse and everything to get out of the line of fire. But my companion remained absolutely steady; while he poured forth curses in every language and every patois ever spoken in the Italian Tyrol, he still moved his feet as deliberately, improved the steps with as much care and minuteness as if he were a Chamonix guide conducting a Frenchman on the Mer de Glace. I know he felt the position as acutely as I did, for when, a week later, we had to cross the same place under a similar fire, and the third member of the party was sent on in front with a large rope to recut the steps, he turned to me with impressive simplicity, and said, ‘Adesso è quello in grande pericolo. If he is hit, we cannot save him.’ How long we took to cross I do not know. But when at last we reached the other bank we cast the rope off with one impulse, and, bending under the shelter of the rocks, ran where I had found climbing hard in the morning, jumped the bergschrund, fell and rolled down the snow under a final volley from the mountain, and lay long by the stream panting and safe.
“I suspect the danger here was far more apparent than real. My next adventure with a falling stone was more real than I like to think of. Four of us had been scrambling round the rocks beside the Ventina Glacier, and were returning to our camp to lunch. By bad luck, as it turned out, I reached level ground first, and, lying on my back amongst great boulders, watched with amusement the struggles of my companions who were about a hundred feet above me, apparently unable to get up or down. They were screaming to me, but the torrent drowned their voices, and I smoked my pipe in contentment. Suave mari magno. At last they moved, and with them the huge rock which they had been endeavouring to uphold and shouting to me to beware of. It crashed down towards me, but I determined to stop where I was. The roughness of the ground would have hindered my escape to any distance, and I calculated on stepping quickly aside when my enemy had declared himself for any particular path of attack. So I did, but the stone at that moment broke in pieces, and, quick as I was with desperation, one fragment was quicker still. It caught me, glancing as I turned between the shoulder and the elbow, only just touching me, as I suppose, for the bone was quite unhurt. Up I went into the air and down I came among the stones, with all the wind knocked out of me, large bruises all over me, not hurt, but very much frightened.
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Unpleasant going over loose stones.
Unpleasant going over loose stones.
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On the crest of an old moraine. To face p. 317.
On the crest of an old moraine.
To face p. 317.
“Such experiences as this leave no very lasting impression, and might just as easily happen were the party accompanied by the best of guides. But I hardly think that any guide would have been crack-brained enough to take part in two expeditions which taught me what it feels like to slip on rock and ice respectively. The first slip took place during the winter. With one companion I was climbing in a long and not very difficult gully on a Welsh mountain. The frost had just broken, and there was more water in the pitches than was quite pleasant. It was very cold water, and my hands, which had been frost-bitten the week before, were still swathed in bandages. Hence progress was very slow, and at last my friend took the lead to spare me. He was climbing over a big overhanging stone jammed between the walls of the gully and forming an excellent spout for the water, which was thus poured conveniently down his neck. I stood on the shelving floor of the gully in perfect safety, and watched the shower-bath, which was gradually exhausting him. He asked for his axe, and I, in a moment of madness, came near and handed it up; his legs, which were all I could then see of him, were kicking in the water about 5 feet above my head. What happened next I do not know, but I shall always maintain that, seeing an eligible blade of grass above him, he plunged the adze in and hauled with both hands. The blade resented such treatment, and came out. Anyhow he fell on my head, and we commenced a mad career down the way we had ascended, rather rolling than falling, striking our heads and backs against the rocks, and apparently destined for the stony valley upon which we had looked down between our legs for hours. People who have escaped drowning say that, in what was their struggle for life, their minds travelled back over their whole history. I know that my brain at this moment suddenly acquired an unusual strength. In a few seconds we were safe, but in those seconds there was time for centuries of regret. There was no fear; that was to come later. But I felt vividly that I was present as a spectator of my own suicide, and thought myself a feeble kind of fool. Had it been on the Dru or the Meije, I thought, it might have been worth it, but, half-drowned, to plunge a poor 40 feet over the next pitch on a hill not 3000 feet high, with a carriage road in sight, and a girl driving in the cows for milking in Nant Francon! We did not roll far, and stuck between the walls of the gully, where they narrowed. Then I arose and shook myself, unhurt. My companion made me light his pipe, which cheered me very much, and we each partook of an enormous mutton sandwich. Help was near, for another party of three was climbing in the next gully, and came to our shouts; one ran down to the farm for a hurdle, the rest began the descent. For hours we seemed to toil, for my companion, though with admirable fortitude he supported the pain of movement, had temporarily no power over his legs and the lower part of his body. I could do little, but the others worked like blacks, and just at dark we reached the farm and the ministrations of a Welsh doctor, who told my friend, quite erroneously, that there was nothing the matter with him, pointed out a swelling on my face as big as a pigeon’s egg, which, he said, would probably lead to erysipelas, and then departed into the darkness.
“A fall on ice has something in it more relentless, though, until the last catastrophe, less violent. We had all been victims to the flesh-pots of the valley, and were, perhaps, hardly fit for a long ice-slope, when we began to cut up the last few feet to gain the arête of our mountain. The incline seemed to me very steep, and, third on the rope, I was watching the leader at his labours, half pitying him for his exertions, half envying him his immunity from the ice fragments which he was sending down to me. Below me the fourth man had barely left the great flat rock on which we had breakfasted; there was no reason to think of danger; when to my horror I saw the leader cut a step, put out his foot slowly, and then very slowly and deliberately sway over and fall forwards and downwards against the ice. We were in a diagonal line, but almost immediately beneath one another, and he swung quietly round like a pendulum, his axe holding him to the slope, until he was immediately beneath the second man. Very slowly, as it seemed, the rope grew taut; the weight began to tug at his waist; and then he, too, slowly and reflectively in the most correct mountaineering attitude, as though he were embarking upon a well-considered journey, began to slide. Now was the time for me to put into practice years of patient training. I dug my toes in and stiffened my back, anchored myself to the ice, and waited for the strain. It was an unconscionable time coming, and, when it came, I still had time to think that I could bear it. Then the weight of 27 stone in a remorseless way quietly pulled me from my standpoint, as though my resistance were an impudence. Still, like the others, I held my axe against the ice and struggled like a cat on a polished floor, always seeing the big flat rock, and thinking of the bump with which we should bound from it, and begin our real career through the air; when suddenly the bump came and we all fell together in a heap on to the rock and the fourth man, who had stepped back upon it, my crampons running into his leg, and my axe, released from the pressure, going off through the air on the very journey which I had anticipated for us all. The others were for a fresh attack on the malicious mountain; but I was of milder mood, and very soon, torn and wiser, we were off on a slower but more convenient path to the valley than had seemed destined for us a few minutes before. But our cup was not yet full. Having no axe with which to check a slip, I was placed at the head of the line, and led slowly down, floundering a good deal for want of my usual support. The great couloir was seamed across with a gigantic crevasse, the angle of the slope being so sharp that the upper half overhung, and we had only crossed in the morning by standing on the lower lip, cutting hand-holes in the upper, and shoving up the leader from the shoulder of the second man: hence, in descending, our position was similar to that of a man on the mantel-shelf who should wish to climb down into the fire itself. We chose the obvious alternative of a jump to the curb, which was, I suppose, about 15 feet below us and made of steep ice with a deep and deceptive covering of snow. I jumped and slid away with this covering, to be arrested in my course by a rude jerk. I turned round indignant; but my companions were beyond my reproaches. One by one, full of snow, eloquent, and bruised, they issued slowly from the crevasse into which I had hurled them, and, heedless of the humour of the situation, gloomily urged me downwards.
“Some hours still passed before we reached our friendly Italian hut, left some days before for a raid into Swiss territory; there on the table were our provisions and shirts as we had left them, and a solemn array of bottles full of milk carried up during our absence by our shepherd friends; and there, on the pile, in stinging comment on our late proceedings, lay a slip of paper, the tribute of some Italian tourist, bearing the inscription ‘Omaggio ai bravi Inglesi ignoti.’ We felt very much ashamed.
“When the soup has been eaten and the pipes are lighted, and you sit down outside your hut for the last talk before bed, you will find your guides’ tongues suddenly acquire a new eloquence, and, if you are a novice at the craft, will be almost overwhelmed by the catalogue of misfortune which they will repeat to you. And so, too, upon us in the winter months comes the temptation to dwell on things done long ago and ill done, and, as we write of the sport for others, we give a false impression of peril and hardihood in things that were little more than matter for a moment’s laughter. I too must plead guilty to a well-meant desire to make your flesh creep.