Mr. Huxley and myself had been staying for some days at Grindelwald, hoping for steady weather, and looking at times into the wild and noble region which the Schreckhorn, the Wetterhorn, the Viescherhörner, and the Eiger feed with eternal snows. We had scanned the buttresses of the Jungfrau with a view to forcing a passage between the Jungfrau and the Monk from the Wengern Alp to the Aletsch glacier. The weather for a time kept hopes and fears alternately afloat, but finally it declared against us; so we moved with the unelastic tread of beaten soldiers over the Great Sheideck, and up the Vale of Hasli to the Grimsel. We crossed the pass whose planed and polished rocks had long ago attracted the attention of Sir John Leslie, though the solution which he then offered ignored the ancient glacier which we now know to have been the planing tool employed. On rounding an angle of the Mayenwand, two travellers suddenly appeared in front of us; they were Mr. (now Sir John) Lubbock and his guide. He had been waiting at the new hotel erected by M. Seiler at the foot of the Mayenwand, expecting our arrival; and finally, despairing of this, he had resolved to abandon the mountains, and was now bound for Brientz. In fact, the lakes of Switzerland, and the ancient men who once bivouacked along their borders, were to him the principal objects of interest; and we caught him in the act of declaring a preference for the lowlands which we could not by any means share.
We reversed his course, carried him with us down the mountain, and soon made ourselves at home in M. Seiler’s hotel. Here we had three days’ training on the glacier and the adjacent heights, and on one of the days Lubbock and myself made an attempt upon the Galenstock. By the flank of the mountain, with the Rhone glacier on our right, we reached the heights over the ice cascade and crossed the glacier above the fall. The sky was clear and the air pleasant as we ascended; but in the earth’s atmosphere the sun works his swiftest necromancy, the lightness of air rendering it in a peculiar degree capable of change. Clouds suddenly generated came drifting up the valley of the Rhone, covering the glacier and swathing the mountain-tops, but leaving clear for a time the upper névé of the Rhone. Grandeur is conceded while beauty is sometimes denied to the Alps. But the higher snow-fields of the great glaciers are altogether beautiful—not throned in repellent grandeur, but endowed with a grace so tender as to suggest the loveliness of woman.
The day was one long succession of surprises wrought by the cloud-filled and wind-rent air. We reached the top, and found there a gloom which might be felt. It was almost thick enough to cut each of us away from the vision of his fellows. But suddenly, in the air above us, the darkness would melt away, and the deep blue heaven would reveal itself spanning the dazzling snows. Beyond the glacier rose the black and craggy summit of the Finsteraarhorn, and other summits and other crags emerged in succession as the battle-clouds rolled away. But the smoke would again whirl in upon us, and we looked once more into infinite haze from the cornice which lists the mountain-ridge. Again the clouds are torn asunder, and again they close. And thus, in upper air, did the sun play a wild accompaniment to the mystic music of the world below.
From the Rhone glacier we proceeded down the Rhone valley to Viesch, whence, in the cool twilight, all three of us ascended to the Hotel Jungfrau, on the Æggischhorn. This we made our head-quarters for some days, and here Lubbock and I decided to ascend the Jungfrau. The proprietor of the hotel keeps guides for this excursion, but his charges are so high as to be almost prohibitory. I, however, needed no guide in addition to my faithful Bennen; but simply a porter of sufficient strength and skill to follow where he led. In the village of Laax Bennen found such a porter—a young man named Bielander, who had the reputation of being both courageous and strong. He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.
This young man and a second porter we sent on with our provisions to the Grotto of the Faulberg, where we were to spend the night. Between the Æggischhorn and this cave the glacier presents no difficulty which the most ordinary caution cannot overcome, and the thought of danger in connection with it never occurred to us. An hour and a half after the departure of our porters we slowly wended our way to the lake of Märjelin, which we skirted, and were soon upon the ice. The middle of the glacier was almost as smooth as a carriage-road, cut here and there by musical brooks produced by the superficial ablation. To Lubbock the scene opened out with the freshness of a new revelation, as, previously to this year, he had never been among the glaciers of the Alps. To me, though not new, the region had lost no trace of the interest with which I first viewed it. We moved briskly along the frozen incline, until, after a couple of hours’ march, we saw a solitary human being standing on the lateral moraine of the glacier, near the point where we were to quit it for the cave of the Faulberg.
At first this man excited no attention. He stood and watched us, but did not come towards us, until finally our curiosity was aroused by observing that he was one of our own two men. The glacier here is always cut by crevasses, which, while they present no real difficulty, require care. We approached our porter, but he never moved; and when we came up to him he looked stupid, and did not speak until he was spoken to. Bennen addressed him in the patois of the place, and he answered in the same patois. His answer must have been more than usually obscure, for Bennen misunderstood the most important part of it. ‘My God!’ he exclaimed, turning to us, ‘Walters is killed!’ Walters was the guide at the Æggischhorn, with whom, in the present instance, we had nothing to do. ‘No, not Walters,’ responded the man; ‘it is my comrade that is killed.’ Bennen looked at him with a wild bewildered stare. ‘How killed?’ he exclaimed. ‘Lost in a crevasse,’ was the reply. We were all so stunned that for some moments we did not quite seize the import of the terrible statement. Bennen at length tossed his arms in the air, exclaiming, ‘Jesu Maria! what am I to do?’ With the swiftness that some ascribe to dreams, I surrounded the fact with imaginary adjuncts, one of which was that the man had been drawn dead from the crevasse, and was now a corpse in the cave of the Faulberg, for I took it for granted that, had he been still entombed, his comrade would have run or called for our aid. Several times in succession the porter affirmed that the missing man was certainly dead. ‘How does he know that he is dead?’ Lubbock demanded. ‘A man is sometimes rendered insensible by a fall without being killed.’ This question was repeated in German, but met with the same dogmatic response. ‘Where is the man?’ I asked. ‘There,’ replied the porter, stretching his arm towards the glacier. ‘In the crevasse?’ A stolid ‘Ja!’ was the answer. It was with difficulty that I quelled an imprecation. ‘Lead the way to the place, you blockhead,’ and he led the way.
We were soon beside a wide and jagged cleft which resembled a kind of cave more than an ordinary crevasse. This cleft had been spanned by a snow bridge, now broken, and to the edge of which footsteps could be traced. The glacier at the place was considerably torn, but simple patience was the only thing needed to unravel its complexity. This quality our porter lacked, and, hoping to make shorter work of it, he attempted to cross the bridge. It gave way, and he went down, carrying an immense load of débris along with him. We looked into the hole, at one end of which the vision was cut short by darkness, while immediately under the broken bridge it was crammed with snow and shattered icicles. We saw nothing more. We listened with strained attention, and from the depths of the glacier issued a low moan. Its repetition assured us that it was no delusion—the man was still alive. Bennen from the first had been extremely excited; and the fact of his having, as a Catholic, saints and angels to appeal to, augmented his emotion. When he heard the moaning he became almost frantic. He attempted to get into the crevasse, but was obliged to recoil. It was quite plain that a second life was in danger, for my guide seemed to have lost all self-control. I placed my hand heavily upon his shoulder, and admonished him that upon his coolness depended the life of his friend. ‘If you behave like a man, we shall save him; if like a woman, he is lost.’
A first-rate rope accompanied the party, but unhappily it was with the man in the crevasse. Coats, waistcoats, and braces were instantly taken off and knotted together. I watched Bennen while this work was going on; his hands trembled with excitement, and his knots were evidently insecure. The last junction complete, he exclaimed, ‘Now let me down!’ ‘Not until each of these knots has been tested; not an inch!’[11] Two of them gave way, and Lubbock’s waistcoat also proved too tender for the strain. The débris was about forty feet from the surface of the glacier, but two intermediate prominences afforded a kind of footing. Bennen was dropped down upon one of these; I followed, being let down by Lubbock and the other porter. Bennen then descended the remaining distance, and was followed by me. More could not find room.
The shape and size of the cavity were such as to produce a kind of resonance, which rendered it difficult to fix the precise spot from which the sound issued; but the moaning continued, becoming to all appearance gradually feebler. Fearing to wound the man, the ice-rubbish was cautiously rooted away; it rang curiously as it fell into the adjacent gloom. A layer two or three feet thick was thus removed; and finally, from the frozen mass, and so bloodless as to be almost as white as the surrounding snow, issued a single human hand. The fingers moved. Round it we rooted, cleared the arm, and reached the knapsack, which we cut away. We also regained our rope. The man’s head was then laid bare, and my brandy-flask was immediately at his lips. He tried to speak, but his words jumbled themselves to a dull moan. Bennen’s feelings got the better of him at intervals; he wrought like a hero, but at times he needed guidance and stern admonition. The arms once free, we passed the rope underneath them, and tried to draw the man out. But the ice-fragments round him had regelated so as to form a solid case. Thrice we essayed to draw him up, thrice we failed; he had literally to be hewn out of the ice, and not until his last foot was extricated were we able to lift him. By pulling him from above, and pushing him from below, the man was at length raised to the surface of the glacier.
For an hour we had been in the crevasse in shirt-sleeves—the porter had been in it for two hours—and the dripping ice had drenched us. Bennen, moreover, had worked with the energy of madness, and now the reaction came. He shook as if he would fall to pieces; but brandy and some dry covering revived him. The rescued man was helpless, unable to stand, unable to utter an articulate sentence. Bennen proposed to carry him down the glacier towards home. Had this been attempted, the man would certainly have died upon the ice. Bennen thought he could carry him for two hours; but the guide underrated his own exhaustion and overrated the vitality of the porter. ‘It cannot be thought of,’ I said: ‘to the cave of Faulberg, where we must tend him as well as we can.’ We got him to the side of the glacier, where Bennen took him on his back; in ten minutes he sank under his load. It was now my turn, so I took the man on my back and plodded on with him as far as I was able. Helping each other thus by turns, we reached the mountain grot.
The sun had set, and the crown of the Jungfrau was embedded in amber light. Thinking that the Märjelin See might be reached before darkness, I proposed starting in search of help. Bennen protested against my going alone, and I thought I noticed moisture in Lubbock’s eye. Such an occasion brings out a man’s feeling if he have any. I gave them both my blessing and made for the glacier. But my anxiety to get quickly clear of the crevasses defeated its own object. Thrice I found myself in difficulty, and the light was visibly departing. The conviction deepened that persistence would be folly, and the most impressive moment of my existence was that on which I stopped at the brink of a profound fissure and looked upon the mountains and the sky. The serenity was perfect—not a cloud, not a breeze, not a sound, while the last hues of sunset spread over the solemn west.
I returned; warm wine was given to our patient, and all our dry clothes were wrapped around him. Hot-water bottles were placed at his feet, and his back was briskly rubbed. He continued to groan a long time; but, finally, both this and the trembling ceased. Bennen watched him solemnly, and at length muttered in anguish, ‘Sir, he is dead!’ I leaned over the man and found him breathing gently; I felt his pulse—it was beating tranquilly. ‘Not dead, dear old Bennen; he will be able to crawl home with us in the morning.’ The prediction was justified by the event; and two days afterwards we saw him at Laax, minus a bit of his ear, with a bruise upon his cheek, and a few scars upon his hand, but without a broken bone or serious injury of any kind.
The self-denying conduct of the second porter made us forget his stupidity—it may have been stupefaction. As I lay there wet, through the long hours of that dismal night, I almost registered a vow never to tread upon a glacier again. But, like the forces in the physical world, human emotions vary with the distance from their origin, and a year afterwards I was again upon the ice.
Towards the close of 1862 Bennen and myself made ‘the tour of Monte Rosa,’ halting for a day or two at the excellent hostelry of Delapierre, in the magnificent Val du Lys. We scrambled up the Grauhaupt, a point exceedingly favourable to the study of the conformation of the Alps. We also halted at Alagna and Macugnaga. But, notwithstanding their admitted glory, the Italian valleys did not suit either Bennen or me. We longed for the more tonic air of the northern slopes, and were glad to change the valley of Ansasca for that of Saas. We subsequently, on a perfect day, crossed the Alphubel Joch—a very noble pass, and by no means difficult if the ordinary route be followed. But Bennen and I did not follow that route. We tried to cross the mountains obliquely from the chalets of Täsch, close under the Alphubel, and, as a consequence, encountered on a spur of the mountain a danger to which I will not further refer than to say that Bennen’s voice is still present to me as he said, ‘Ach, Herr! es thut mir Leid, Sie hier zu sehen.’[12]
Four years ago I had not entertained a wish or a thought regarding the climbing of the Matterhorn. Indeed, assailing mountains of any kind was then but an accidental interlude to less exciting occupations upon the glaciers of the Alps. But in 1859 Mr. Vaughan Hawkins had inspected the mountain from Breuil, and in 1860, on the strength of this inspection, he invited me to join him in an attack upon the untrodden peak. Guided by Johann Bennen, and accompanied by an old chamois-hunter named Carrel, we tried the mountain, but had to halt midway among its precipices. We returned to Breuil with the belief that, if sufficient time could be secured, the summit—at least, one summit—might be won. Had I felt that we had done our best on this occasion, I should have relinquished all further thought of the mountain; but, unhappily, I felt the reverse, and thus a little cloud of dissatisfaction hung round the memory of the attempt. In 1861 I once more looked at the Matterhorn, but, as shown in Chapter X., was forbidden to set foot upon it. Finally, in 1862, the desire to finish what I felt to be a piece of work only half completed beset me so strongly that I resolved to make a last attack upon the unconquered hill.
The resolution, as a whole, may have been a rash one, but there was no rashness displayed in the carrying out of its details. I did not ignore the law of gravity, but felt, on the contrary, that the strongest aspirations towards the summit of the Matterhorn would not prevent precipitation to its base through a false step or a failing grasp. The general plan proposed was this: Two first-rate guides were to be engaged, and, to leave their arms free, they were to be accompanied by two strong and expert porters. The party was thus to consist of five in all. During the ascent it was proposed that three of those men should always be, not only out of danger, but attached firmly to the rocks; and while they were thus secure, it was thought that the remaining two might take liberties, and commit themselves to ventures which would otherwise be inexcusable or impossible. With a view to this, I had a rope specially manufactured in London, and guaranteed by its maker to bear a far greater strain than was ever likely to be thrown upon it. A light ladder was also constructed, the two sides of which might be carried like huge alpenstocks, while its steps, which could be inserted at any moment, were strapped upon a porter’s back. Long iron nails and a hammer were also among our appliances. Actual experience considerably modified these arrangements, and compelled us in almost all cases to resort to methods as much open to a savage as to people acquainted with the mechanical arts.
Throughout the latter half of July rumours from the Matterhorn were rife in the Bernese Oberland, and I felt an extreme dislike to add to the gossip. Wishing, moreover, that others who desired it might have a fair trial, I lingered for nearly three weeks among the Bernese and Valasian Alps. This time, however, was not wasted. It was employed in burning up the effete matters which nine months’ work in London had lodged in my muscles—in rescuing the blood from that fatty degeneration which a sedentary life is calculated to induce. I chose instead of the air of a laboratory that of the Wetterhorn, the Galenstock, and the mountains which surround the Great Aletsch glacier. Each succeeding day added to my strength.
There is assuredly morality in the oxygen of the mountains, as there is immorality in the miasma of a marsh, and a higher power than mere brute force lies latent in Alpine mutton. We are recognising more and more the influence of physical elements in the conduct of life, for when the blood flows in a purer current the heart is capable of a higher glow. Spirit and matter are interfused; the Alps improve us totally, and we return from their precipices wiser as well as stronger men.
It is usual for the proprietor of the hotel on the Æggischhorn to retain a guide for excursions in the neighbourhood; and last year he happened to have in his employment one Walters, a man of superior strength and energy. He was the house companion of Bennen, who was loud in his praise. Thinking it would strengthen Bennen, hand and heart, to have so tried a man beside him, I engaged Walters, and we all three set off with cheerful spirits to Zermatt. Thence we proceeded over the Matterjoch; and as we descended to Breuil we looked long at the dangerous eminences to our right, among which we were to trust ourselves in a day or two. There was nothing jubilant in our thoughts or conversation; the character of the work before us quelled presumption. We felt nothing that could be called confidence as to the issue of the enterprise, but we also felt the inner compactness and determination of men who, though they know their work to be difficult, feel no disposition to shrink from it. The Matterhorn, in fact, was our temple, and we approached it with feelings not unworthy of so great a shrine. Arrived at Breuil, we found that a gentleman, whose long perseverance merited victory (and who has since gained it),[13] was then upon the mountain. The succeeding day was spent in scanning the crags and in making preparations. At night Mr. Whymper returned from the Matterhorn, having left his tent upon the rocks. In the frankest spirit, he placed it at my disposal, and thus relieved me from the necessity of carrying up my own. At Breuil I engaged two porters, both named Carrel, the youngest of whom was the son of the Carrel who accompanied Mr. Hawkins and me in 1860, while the other was old Carrel’s nephew. He had served as a bersaglier in three campaigns, and had fought at the battle of Solferino; his previous habits of life rendered him an extremely handy and useful companion, and his climbing powers proved also very superior.
About noon on an August day we disentangled ourselves from the hotel, first slowly sauntering along a small green valley, but soon meeting the bluffs, which indicated our approach to uplifted land. The bright grass was quickly left behind, and soon afterwards we were toiling laboriously upward among the rocks. The Val Tournanche is bounded on the right by a chain of mountains, the higher end of which abutted, in former ages, against Matterhorn. But now a gap is cut out between both, and a saddle stretches from the one to the other. From this saddle a kind of couloir runs downwards, widening out gradually and blending with the gentler slopes below. We held on to the rocks to the left of this couloir, until we reached the base of a precipice which fell sheer from the summits above. Water trickled from the upper ledges, and the descent of a stone at intervals admonished us that gravity had here more serious missiles at command than the drippings of the liquefied snow. So we moved with prudent speed along the base of the precipice, crossing at one place the ice-gulley where Mr. Whymper nearly lost his life. Immediately afterwards we found ourselves upon the saddle which stretches with the curvature of a chain to the base of the true Matterhorn. The opening out of the western mountains from this point of view is grand and impressive, and with our eyes and hearts full of the scene we moved along the saddle, and soon came to rest upon the first steep crags of the real Monarch of the Alps.
Here we paused, unlocked our scrip, and had some bread and wine. Again and again we looked to the cliffs above us, ignorant of the treatment that we were to receive at their hands. We had gathered up our traps, and bent to the work before us, when suddenly an explosion occurred overhead. We looked aloft and saw in mid-air a solid shot from the Matterhorn, describing its proper parabola, and finally splitting into fragments as it smote one of the rocky towers in front of us. Down the scattered fragments came like a kind of spray, slightly wide of us, but still near enough to compel a sharp look-out. Two or three such explosions occurred, but we chose the back-fin of the mountain for our track, and from this the falling stones were speedily deflected right or left. Before the set of sun we reached our place of bivouac. A roomy tent was already there, and we had brought with us an additional light one, intended to afford accommodation to me. It was pitched in the shadow of a great rock, which seemed to offer a safe barrier against the cannonade from the heights. Carrel, the soldier, built a platform, on which he placed the tent, for the mountain itself furnished no level space of sufficient area.
Meanwhile, fog, that enemy of the climber, came creeping up the valleys, while dense flounces of cloud gathered round the hills. As night drew near, the fog thickened through a series of intermittences which a mountain-land alone can show. Sudden uprushings of air would often carry the clouds aloft in vertical currents, while horizontal gusts swept them wildly to and fro. Different currents impinging upon each other sometimes formed whirling cyclones of cloud. The air was tortured in its search of equilibrium. Sometimes all sight of the lower world was cut away—then again the fog would melt and show us the sunny pastures of Breuil smiling far beneath. Sudden peals upon the heights, succeeded by the sound of tumbling rocks, announced, from time to time, the disintegration of the Matterhorn. We were quite swathed in fog when we retired to rest, and had scarcely a hope that the morrow’s sun would be able to dispel the gloom. Throughout the night the rocks roared intermittently, as they swept down the adjacent couloir. I opened my eyes at midnight, and, through a minute hole in the canvas of my tent, saw a star. I rose and found the heavens swept clear of clouds, while above me the solemn battlements of the Matterhorn were projected against the blackened sky.
At 2 A.M. we were astir. Carrel made the fire, boiled the water, and prepared our coffee. It was 4 A.M. before we had fairly started. We adhered as long as possible to the hacked and weather-worn spine of the mountain, until at length its disintegration became too vast. The alternations of sun and frost have made wondrous havoc on the southern face of the Matterhorn; but they have left brown-red masses of the most imposing magnitude behind—pillars, and towers, and splintered obelisks, grand in their hoariness—savage, but still softened by the colouring of age. The mountain is a gigantic ruin: but its firmer masonry will doubtless bear the shocks of another æon. We were compelled to quit the ridge, which now swept round and fronted us like a wall. The weather had cleft the rock clean away, leaving smooth sections, with here and there a ledge barely competent to give a man footing. It was manifest that for some time our fight must be severe. We examined the precipice, and exchanged opinions. Bennen swerved to the right and to the left to render his inspection complete. There was no choice; over this wall we must go, or give up the attempt. We reached its base, roped ourselves together, and were soon upon the face of the precipice. Walters was first, and Bennen second, both exchanging pushes and pulls. Walters, holding on to the narrow ledges above, scraped his ironshod boots against the cliff, thus lifting himself in part by friction. Bennen was close behind, aiding him with an arm, a knee, or a shoulder. Once upon a ledge, he was able to give Bennen a hand. Thus we advanced, straining, bending, and clinging to the rocks with a grasp like that of desperation, but with heads perfectly cool. We perched upon the ledges in succession—each in the first place making his leader secure, and accepting his help afterwards. A last strong effort threw the body of Walters across the top of the wall; and, he being safe, our success thus far was ensured.
This ascent landed us once more upon the ridge, with safe footing on the ledged strata of the disintegrated gneiss. Pushing upward, we approached the conical summit seen from Breuil—the peak, however, being the end of a nearly horizontal ridge foreshortened from below. But before us, and assuredly as we thought within our grasp, was the highest point of the renowned Matterhorn. ‘Well,’ I remarked to Bennen, ‘we shall at all events win the lower summit.’ ‘That will not satisfy us,’ was his reply. I knew he would answer thus, for a laugh of elation, which had something of scorn in it, had burst from the party when the true summit came in view. We felt perfectly certain of success; not one amongst us harboured a thought of failure. ‘In an hour,’ cried Bennen, ‘the people at Zermatt shall see our flag planted yonder.’ Up we went in this spirit, with a forestalled triumph making our ascent a jubilee. We reached the first summit, and planted a flag upon it. Walters, however, who was an exceedingly strong and competent guide, but without the genius which is fired by difficulty, had previously remarked, with reference to the last precipice of the mountain, ‘We may still find difficulty there.’ The same thought had probably brooded in other minds; still it angered me slightly to hear misgiving obtain an audible expression.
From the point on which we planted our first flagstaff a hacked and extremely acute ridge ran, and abutted against the final precipice. Along this we moved cautiously, while the face of the precipice came clearer and clearer into view. The ridge on which we stood ran right against it; it was the only means of approach, while ghastly abysses fell on either side. We sat down, and inspected the place; no glass was needed, it was so near. Three out of the four men muttered almost simultaneously, ‘It is impossible.’ Bennen was the only man of the four who did not utter the word. A jagged stretch of the ridge still separated us from the precipice. I pointed to a spot at some distance from the place where we sat, and asked the three doubters whether that point might not be reached without much danger. ‘We think so,’ was the reply. ‘Then let us go there.’ We reached the place, and sat down there. The men again muttered despairingly, and at length they said distinctly, ‘We must give it up.’ I by no means wished to put on pressure, but directing their attention to a point at the base of the precipice, I asked them whether they could not reach that point without much risk. The reply was, ‘Yes.’ ‘Then,’ I said, ‘let us go there.’ We moved cautiously along, and reached the point aimed at. The ridge was here split by a deep cleft which separated it from the final precipice. So savage a spot I had never seen, and I sat down upon it with the sickness of disappointed hope. The summit was within almost a stone’s throw of us, and the thought of retreat was bitter in the extreme. Bennen excitedly pointed out a track which he thought practicable. He spoke of danger, of difficulty, never of impossibility; but this was the ground taken by the other three men.
As on other occasions, my guide sought to fix on me the responsibility of return, but with the usual result. ‘Where you go I will follow, be it up or down.’ It took him half an hour to make up his mind. But he was finally forced to accept defeat. What could he do? The other men had yielded utterly, and our occupation was clearly gone. Hacking a length of six feet from one of the sides of our ladder, we planted it on the spot where we stopped. It was firmly fixed, and, protected as it is from lightning by the adjacent peak, it will probably stand there when those who planted it think no more of the Matterhorn.
How this wondrous mountain has been formed will be the subject of subsequent enquiry. It is not a spurt of molten matter ejected from the nucleus of the earth; from base to summit there is no truly igneous rock. It has no doubt been upraised by subterranean forces, but that it has been lifted as an isolated mass is not conceivable. It must have formed part of a mighty boss or swelling, from which the mountain was subsequently sculptured. These subjects, however, cannot be well discussed here. To get down the precipice we had scaled in the morning, we had to fix the remaining length of our ladder at the top, to tie our rope firmly on to it, and allow it to hang down the cliff. We slid down it in succession, and there it still dangles, for we could not detach it. A tempest of hail was here hurled against us; as if the Matterhorn, not content with shutting its door in our faces, meant to add an equivalent to the process of kicking us downstairs. The ice-pellets certainly hit us as bitterly as if they had been thrown in spite, and in the midst of this malicious cannonade we struck our tents and returned to Breuil.
[Three years subsequently, Carrel the bersaglier, and some other Val Tournanche men, reached my rope, found it bleached to whiteness, but still strong enough to bear the united weights of three men. By it they were enabled to scale the precipice, spend the night at a considerable elevation, and, through the scrutiny rendered possible by an early start, to find a way to the summit of the Matterhorn. They reached the top a day or two after the memorable first ascent from Zermatt.]
On the 19th of July 1863 Mr. Philip Lutley Sclater and I reached Reichenbach, and on the following day we sauntered up the valley of Hasli, and over the Kirchet to Imhof, where we turned to the left into Gadmenthal. Our destination was Stein, which we reached by a grass-grown road through fine scenery. The goatherds were milking when we arrived. At the heels of one quadruped, supported by the ordinary uni-legged stool of the Senner, bent a particularly wild and dirty-looking individual, who, our guide informed us, was the proprietor of the inn. ‘He is but a rough Bauer,’ said Jaun, ‘but he has engaged a pretty maiden to keep house for him.’ While he thus spoke a light-footed creature glided from the door towards us, and bade us welcome. She led us upstairs, provided us with baths, took our orders for dinner, helped us by her suggestions, and answered all our questions with the utmost propriety and grace. She had been two years in England, and spoke English with a particularly winning accent. How she came to be associated with the unkempt individual outside was a puzzle to both of us. It is Emerson, I think, who remarks on the benefit which a beautiful face, without trouble to itself, confers upon him who looks at it. And, though downright beauty could hardly be claimed for our young hostess, she was handsome enough and graceful enough to brighten a tired traveller’s thoughts, and to raise by her presence the modest comforts she dispensed to the level of luxuries.[14]
It rained all night, and at 3.30 A.M., when we were called, it still fell heavily. At 5, however, the clouds began to break, and half an hour afterwards the heavens were swept quite clear of them. At 6 we bade our pretty blossom of the Alps good-bye. She had previously brought her gentle influence to bear upon her master to moderate the extortion of some of his charges. We were soon upon the Stein glacier, and after some time reached a col from which we looked down upon the lower portion of the nobler and more instructive Trift glacier. Brown bands were drawn across the ice-stream, forming graceful loops with their convexities turned downwards. The higher portions of the glacier were not in view; still those bands rendered the inference secure that an ice-fall existed higher up, at the base of which the bands had originated. We shot down a shingly couloir to the Trift, and looking up the glacier the anticipated cascade came into view. At its bottom the ice, by pressure, underwent that notable change, analogous to slaty cleavage, which caused the glacier to weather and gather dirt in parallel grooves, thus marking upon its surface the direction of its interior lamination.
The ice-cascade being itself impracticable, we scaled the rocks to the left of it, and were soon in presence of the far-stretching snow-fields from which the lower glacier derives nutriment. With a view to hidden crevasses, we here roped ourselves together. The sun was strong, its direct and reflected blaze combining against us. The scorching warmth experienced at times by cheeks, lips, and neck indicated that in my case mischief was brewing; but the eyes being well protected by dark spectacles, I was comparatively indifferent to the prospective disfigurement of my face. Mr. Sclater was sheltered by a veil, a mode of defence which the habit of going into places requiring the unimpeded eyesight has caused me to neglect.
There would seem to be some specific quality in the sun’s rays which produces the irritation of the skin experienced in the Alps. The solar heat may be compared, in point of quantity, with that radiated from a furnace; and the heat encountered by the mountaineer on Alpine snows is certainly less intense than that endured by workmen in many of our technical operations. But the terrestrial heat appears to lack the quality which gives the solar rays their power. The sun is incomparably richer in what are called chemical rays than are our fires, and to such rays the irritation may be due. The keen air of the heights may also have much to do with it. As a remedy for sunburn I have tried glycerine, and found it a failure. The ordinary lip-salve of the druggists’ shops is also worse than useless; but pure cold-cream, for a supply of which I have often had occasion to thank a friend, is an excellent ameliorative.
After considerable labour we reached the ridge—a very glorious one as regards the view—which forms the common boundary of the Rhone and Trift glaciers.[15] Before us and behind us for many a mile fell the dazzling névés, down to the points where the grey ice emerging from its white coverlet declared the junction of snow-field and glacier. We had plodded on for hours soddened by the solar heat and parched with thirst. There was
for, when placed in the mouth, the liquefaction of the ice was so slow, and the loss of heat from the surrounding tissues so painful, that sucking it was worse than total abstinence. In the midst of this solid water you might die of thirst. At some distance below the col, on the Rhone side, the musical trickle of water made itself audible, and to the rocks from which it fell we repaired, and refreshed ourselves. The day was far spent, the region was wild and lonely, when, beset by that feeling which has often caused me to wander singly in the Alps, I broke away from my companions, and went rapidly down the glacier. Our guide had previously informed me that before reaching the cascade of the Rhone the ice was to be forsaken, and the Grimsel, our destination, reached by skirting the base of the peak called Nägelis Grätli. After descending the ice for some time I struck the bounding rocks, and, climbing the mountain obliquely, found myself among the crags which lie between the Grimsel pass and the Rhone glacier. It was an exceedingly desolate place, and I soon had reason to doubt the wisdom of being there alone. Still difficulty rouses powers of which we should otherwise remain unconscious. The heat of the day had rendered me weary, but among these rocks the weariness vanished, and I became clear in mind and fresh in body through the knowledge that after nightfall escape from this wilderness would be impossible.
I reached the watershed of the region, where I accepted the guidance of a tiny stream. It received in its course various lateral tributaries, and at one place expanded into a small blue lake bounded by banks of snow. I kept along its side afterwards until, arching over a brow of granite, it discharged itself down precipitous and glaciated rocks. Here I learned that the stream was the feeder of the Grimsel lake. I halted on the brow for some time. The hospice was in sight, but the precipices between it and me seemed desperately forbidding. Nothing is more trying to the climber than those cliffs which have been polished by the ancient glaciers. Even at moderate inclinations, as may be learned from an experiment on the Höllenplatte, or some other of the polished rocks in Haslithal, they are not easy. I need hardly say that the inclination of the rocks flanking the Grimsel is the reverse of moderate. It is dangerously steep.
How to get down these smooth and precipitous tablets was now a problem of the utmost interest to me; for the day was too far gone, and I was too ignorant of the locality, to permit of time being spent in the search of an easier place of descent. Right or left of me I saw none. The continuity of the cliffs below me was occasionally broken by cracks and narrow ledges, with scanty grass-tufts sprouting from them here and there. The problem was to get down from crack to crack and from ledge to ledge. A salutary anger warms the mind when thus challenged, and, aided by this warmth, close scrutiny will dissolve difficulties which timidity might render insuperable. Bit by bit I found myself getting lower, closely examining at every pause the rocks below me. The grass-tufts helped me for a time, but at length a slab was reached where no friendly grass could grow. This slab was succeeded by others equally forbidding. I looked upwards, thinking of retreat, but the failing day urged me on. From the middle of the smooth surface jutted a narrow ledge. Grasping the top of the rock, I let myself down as far as my stretched arms would permit, and then let go my hold. I came upon the ledge with an energy that alarmed me. A downward-pointing crack with a streak of grass in it was next attained; it terminated in a small, steep gulley, the portion of which within view was crossed by three transverse ledges, and I judged that by friction the motion down the groove could be so regulated as to enable me to come to rest at each successive ledge. But the rush was unexpectedly rapid, and I shot over the first ledge. Having some power in reserve, I tried to clamp myself against the rock, but the second ledge was crossed like the first. The wish to spare clothes or avoid abrasions of the skin here vanished, and for dear life I grappled with the rock. Braces gave way, clothes were rent, wrists and hands were skinned and bruised, while hips and knees suffered variously. The motion however ended. I was greatly heated, but immensely relieved otherwise. A little lower down I discovered a singular cave in the mountain-side, with water dripping from its roof into a well of crystal clearness. The ice-cold liquid soon restored me to a normal temperature. I felt quite fresh on entering the Grimsel inn, but a curious physiological effect manifested itself when I had occasion to speak. The power of the brain over the lips was so lowered that I could hardly make myself understood.
My guide Bennen reached the Grimsel the following morning. Uncertain of my own movements, I had permitted him this year to make a new engagement, which he was now on his way to fulfil. As a mountaineer, Bennen had no superior, and he added to his strength, courage, and skill, the qualities of a natural gentleman. He was now ready to bear us company over the Oberaarjoch to the Æggischhorn. On the morning of the 22nd we bade the cheerless Grimsel inn good-bye, reached the Unteraar glacier, crossed its load of uncomfortable moraine shingle, and clambered up the slopes at the other side. Nestled aloft in a higher valley was the Oberaar glacier, along the unruffled surface of which our route lay.
The morning threatened, and fitful gleams of sunlight wandered over the ice. The Joch was swathed in mist, which now and then gave way, permitting a wild radiance to shoot over the top. On the windy summit we took a mouthful of food and roped ourselves together. Here, as in a hundred other places, I sought in the fog for the vesicles of De Saussure, but failed to find them. Bennen, as long as we were on the Berne side of the col, permitted Jaun to take the lead; but now we looked into Wallis, or rather into the fog which filled it, and he, as Wallis guide, came to the front. I knew the Viesch glacier well, but how Bennen meant to unravel its difficulties without landmarks I knew not. I asked him whether, if the fog continued, he could make his way down the glacier. There was a pleasant timbre in Bennen’s voice, a light and depth in his smile, due to the blending together of conscious strength and warm affection. With this smile he turned round and said, ‘Herr, ich bin hier zu Hause. Der Viescher Gletscher ist meine Heimath.’
Downwards we went, striking the rocks of the Rothhorn so as to avoid the riven ice. Suddenly we passed from dense fog into clear air: we had crossed ‘the cloud-plane,’ and found a transparent atmosphere between it and the glacier. The dense covering above us was sometimes torn asunder by the wind, which whirled the detached cloud-tufts round the peaks. Contending air-currents were thus revealed, and thunder, which is the common associate, if not the product, of such contention, began to rattle among the crags. At first the snow upon the glacier was sufficiently heavy to bridge the crevasses, thus permitting of rapid motion; but by degrees the fissures opened, and at length drove us to the rocks. These in their turn became impracticable. Dropping down a waterfall well known to the climbers of this region, we came again upon the ice, which was here cut by complex chasms. These we unravelled as long as necessary, and finally escaped from them to the mountain-side. The first big drops of a thunder-shower were already falling when we reached an overhanging crag which gave us shelter. We quitted it too soon, beguiled by a treacherous gleam of blue, and were thoroughly drenched before we reached the Æggischhorn.
This was my last excursion with Bennen. In the month of February of the following year he was killed by an avalanche on the Haut de Cry, a mountain near Sion.[16]
Having work to execute, I remained at the Æggischhorn for nearly a month in 1863. My favourite place for rest and writing was a point on the mountain-side about an hour westwards from the hotel, where the mighty group of the Mischabel, the Matterhorn, and the Weisshorn were in full view. One day I remained in this position longer than usual, held by the fascination of the setting sun. The mountains had stood out nobly clear during the entire day, but towards evening, upon the Dom, a singular cloud settled, which was finally drawn into a long streamer by the wind. Nothing can be finer than the effect of the red light of sunset on those streamers of cloud. Incessantly dissipated, but ever renewed, they glow with the intensity of flames. By-and-by the banner broke, resembling in its action that of a liquid cylinder when unduly stretched, forming a series of crimson cloud-balls which were united by slender filaments of fire. I waited for this glory to fade into a deadly pallor before I thought of returning to the hotel.
On arriving there I found discussed with eager interest the fate of two ladies and a gentleman, who had quitted the hotel in the morning without a guide, and who were now, it was said, lost on the mountain. ‘I recommended them,’ said Herr Wellig, the landlord, ‘to take a guide, but they would not heed me.’ I asked him what force he had at hand. Three active young fellows came immediately forward. Two of them I sent across the mountain by the usual route to the Märjelin See, and the third I took with myself along the watercourse of the Æggischhorn. After some walking we dipped into a little dell, where the glucking of cowbells announced the existence of chalets. The party had been seen passing there in the morning, but not returning. The embankment of the watercourse fell at some places vertically for twenty or thirty feet. Here I thought an awkward slip might have occurred, and, to meet the possibility of having to carry a wounded man, I took an additional lithe young fellow from the chalet.
We shouted as we went along, but the echoes were our only response. Our pace was rapid, and in the dubious light false steps were frequent. We all at intervals mistook the grey water for the grey and narrow track beside it, and stepped into the stream. We proposed ascending to the chalets of Märjelin, but previous to quitting the watercourse we halted, and, directing our voices down hill, shouted a last shout. And faintly up the mountain came a sound which could not be an echo. We all heard it, though it could hardly be detached from the murmur of the adjacent stream. We went rapidly down the Alp, and after a little time shouted again. More audible than before, but still very faint, came the answer from below. We continued at a headlong pace, and soon assured ourselves that the sound was not only that of a human voice, but of an English voice. Thus stimulated, we swerved to the left, and, regardless of a wetting, dashed through the torrent which tumbles from the Märjelin See. Close to the Viesch glacier we found the objects of our search—the two ladies, tired out, seated upon the threshold of a forsaken chalet, and the gentleman seated on a rock beside them.
He was both an experienced climber and a brave man, but he had started with a sprained ankle, and every visitor knows how bewildering the spurs of the Æggischhorn are, even to those whose tendons are sound. Thus weakened, he was overtaken by the night, lost his way, and, in his efforts to extricate himself, had experienced one or two serious tumbles. Finally, giving up the attempt, he had resigned himself to spending the night where we found him. The ladies were quite tired out, and to reach the Æggischhorn that night was out of the question. I tried the chalet door and found it locked, but an ice-axe soon hewed the bolt away, and forced an entrance. There was some pinewood within, and some old hay, which, under the circumstances, formed a delicious couch for the ladies. In a few minutes a fire was blazing and crackling in the chimney corner. Having thus secured them, I returned to the chalets first passed, sent them bread, butter, cheese, and milk, and had the lively gratification of seeing them return safe and sound to the hotel next morning.
I had spent nearly a fortnight at the Æggischhorn in 1863, employing alternate days in wandering and musing over the green Alps, and in more vigorous action upon the Aletsch glacier. Day after day a blue sky spanned the earth, and night after night the stars glanced down from an unclouded heaven. There is no nobler mountain group in Switzerland than that seen on a fine day from the middle of the Aletsch glacier looking southwards; while to the north, and more close at hand, rise the Jungfrau and other summits familiar to every tourist who has crossed the Wengern Alp. The love of being alone amid those scenes caused me, on the 3rd of August, to withdraw from all society, and ascend the glacier, which for nearly two hours was almost as even as a highway, no local danger calling away the attention from the near and distant mountains. The ice yielded to the sun, rills were formed, which united to rivulets, and these again coalesced to rapid brooks, which ran with a pleasant music through deep channels cut in the ice. Sooner or later these brooks were crossed by cracks; into these cracks the water fell, scooping gradually out for itself a vertical shaft, the resonance of which raised the sound of the falling water to the dignity of thunder. These shafts constitute the so-called moulins of the glacier, examples of which are shown upon the Mer de Glace to every tourist who visits the Jardin from Chamouni. The moulins can only form where the glacier is not much riven, as here alone the rivulets can acquire the requisite volume to produce a moulin.
After two hours’ ascent, the ice began to wear a more hostile aspect, and long stripes of last year’s snow drawn over the sullied surface marked the lines of crevasses now partially filled and bridged over. For a time this snow was consolidated, and I crossed numbers of the chasms, sounding in each case before trusting myself to its tenacity. But as I ascended, the width and depth of the fissures increased, and the fragility of the snow-bridges became more conspicuous. The crevasses yawned here and there with threatening gloom, while along their fringes the crystallising power of water played the most fantastic freaks. Long lines of icicles dipped into the darkness, and at some places the liquefied snow had refrozen into clusters of plates, ribbed and serrated like the leaves of ferns. The cases in which the snow covering of the crevasses, when tested by the axe, yielded, became gradually more numerous, demanding commensurate caution. It is impossible to feel otherwise than earnest in such scenes as this, with the noblest and most beautiful objects in nature around one, with the sense of danger raising the feelings at times to the level of awe.
My way upwards became more and more difficult, and circuit after circuit had to be made to round the gaping fissures. There is a passive cruelty in the aspect of these chasms sufficient to make the blood run cold. Among them it is not good for man to be alone, so I halted in the midst of them and swerved back towards the Faulberg. But instead of it I struck the lateral tributary of the Aletsch, which runs up to the Grünhorn Lücke. In this passage I was more than once entangled in a mesh of fissures, but it is marvellous what steady, cool scrutiny can accomplish upon the ice, and how often difficulties of apparently the gravest kind may be reduced to a simple form by skilful examination. I tried to get along the rocks to the Faulberg, but after investing half an hour in the attempt I thought it prudent to retreat. I finally reached the Faulberg by the glacier, and with great comfort consumed my bread and cheese and emptied my goblet in the shadow of its caves. On this day it was my desire to get near the buttresses of the Jungfrau, and to see what prospect of success a lonely climber would have in an attempt upon the mountain. Such an attempt might doubtless be made, but at a risk which no sane man would willingly incur.
On August 6, however, I had the pleasure of joining Dr. Hornby and Mr. Philpotts, who, with Christian Almer and Christian Lauener for their guides, wished to ascend the Jungfrau. We quitted the Æggischhorn at 2.15 P.M., and in less than four hours reached the grottoes of the Faulberg. A pine fire was soon blazing, a pan of water soon bubbling sociably over the flame, and the evening meal was quickly prepared and disposed of. For a time the air behind the Jungfrau and Monk was exceedingly dark and threatening; rain was streaming down upon Lauterbrunnen, and the skirt of the storm wrapped the summits of the Jungfrau and the Monk. Southward, however, the sky was clear, and there were such general evidences of hope that we were not much disheartened by the local burst of ill-temper displayed by the atmosphere to the north of us. Like a gust of passion the clouds cleared away, and before we went to rest all was sensibly clear. Still the air was not transparent, and for a time the stars twinkled through it with a feeble ray. There was no visible turbidity, but a something which cut off half the stellar brilliancy. The starlight, however, became gradually stronger, not on account of the augmenting darkness, but because the air became clarified as the night advanced.
Two of our party occupied the upper cave, and the guides took possession of the kitchen, while a third lay in the little grot below. Hips and ribs felt throughout the night the pressure of the subjacent rock. A single blanket, moreover, though sufficient to keep out the pain of cold, was insufficient to induce the comfort of warmth; so I lay awake in a neutral condition, neither happy nor unhappy, watching the stars without emotion as they appeared in succession above the mountain-heads.
At half-past 12 a rumbling in the kitchen showed the guides to be alert, and soon afterwards Christian Almer announced that tea was prepared. We rose, consumed a crust and basin each, and at 1.15 A.M., being perfectly harnessed, we dropped down upon the glacier. The crescent moon was in the sky, but for a long time we had to walk in the shadow of the mountains, and therefore required illumination. The bottoms were knocked out of two empty bottles, and each of these, inverted, formed a kind of lantern which protected from the wind a candle stuck in the neck. Almer went first, holding his lantern in his left hand and his axe in the right, moving cautiously along the snow which, as the residue of the spring avalanches, fringed the glacier. At times, for no apparent reason, the leader paused and struck his ice-axe into the snow. Looking right or left, a chasm was always discovered in these cases, and the cautious guide sounded the snow, lest the fissure should have prolonged itself underneath so as to cross our track. A tributary glacier joined the Aletsch from our right—a long corridor filled with ice, and covered by the purest snow. Down this valley the moonlight streamed, silvering the surface upon which it fell.
Here we cast our lamps away, and roped ourselves together. To our left a second long ice-corridor stretched up to the Lötsch saddle, which hung like a chain between the opposing mountains. In fact, at this point four noble ice-streams form a junction, and flow afterwards in the common channel of the Great Aletsch glacier. Perfect stillness might have been expected to reign upon the ice, but even at that early hour the gurgle of subglacial water made itself heard, and we had to be cautious in some places lest a too thin crust might let us in. We went straight up the glacier, towards the col which links the Monk and Jungfrau together. The surface was hard, and we went rapidly and silently over the snow. There is an earnestness of feeling on such occasions which subdues the desire for conversation. The communion we held was with the solemn mountains and their background of dark blue sky.
‘Der Tag bricht!’ exclaimed one of the men. I looked towards the eastern heaven, but could discover no illumination which hinted at the approach of day. At length the dawn really appeared, brightening the blue of the eastern firmament; at first it was a mere augmentation of cold light, but by degrees it assumed a warmer tint. The long uniform incline of the glacier being passed, we reached the first eminences of snow which heave like waves around the base of the Jungfrau. This is the region of beauty in the higher Alps—beauty pure and tender, out of which emerges the savage scenery of the peaks. For the healthy and the pure in heart these higher snow-fields are consecrated ground.
The snow bosses were soon broken by chasms deep and dark, which required tortuous winding on our part to get round them. Having surmounted a steep slope, we passed to some red and rotten rocks, which required care on the part of those in front to prevent the loose and slippery shingle from falling upon those behind. We gained the ridge and wound along it. High snow eminences now flanked us to the left, and along the slope over which we passed the séracs had shaken their frozen boulders. We tramped amid the knolls of the fallen avalanches towards a white wall which, so far as we could see, barred further progress. To our right were noble chasms, blue and profound, torn into the heart of the névé by the slow but resistless drag of gravity on the descending snows. Meanwhile the dawn had brightened into perfect day, and over mountains and glaciers the gold and purple light of the eastern heaven was liberally poured. We had already caught sight of the peak of the Jungfrau, rising behind an eminence and piercing for fifty feet or so the rosy dawn. And many another peak of stately altitude caught the blush, while the shaded slopes were all of a beautiful azure, being illuminated by the firmament alone. A large segment of space enclosed between the Monk and Trugberg was filled like a reservoir with purple light. The world, in fact, seemed to worship, and the flush of adoration was on every mountain-head.
Over the distant Italian Alps rose clouds of the most fantastic forms, jutting forth into the heavens like enormous trees, thrusting out umbrageous branches which bloomed and glistened in the solar rays. Along the whole southern heaven these fantastic masses were ranged close together, but still perfectly isolated, until on reaching a certain altitude they seemed to meet a region of wind which blew their tops like streamers far away through the air. Warmed and tinted by the morning sun those unsubstantial masses rivalled in grandeur the mountains themselves.
The final peak of the Jungfrau is now before us, and apparently so near! But the mountaineer alone knows how delusive the impression of nearness often is in the Alps. To reach the slope which led up to the peak we must scale or round the barrier already spoken of. From the coping and the ledges of this beautiful wall hung long stalactites of ice, in some cases like inverted spears, with their sharp points free in air. In other cases, the icicles which descended from the overhanging top reached a projecting lower ledge, and stretched like a crystal railing from the one to the other. To the right of this barrier was a narrow gangway, from which the snow had not yet broken away so as to form a vertical or overhanging wall. It was one of those accidents which the mountains seldom fail to furnish, and on the existence of which the success of the climber entirely depends. Up this steep and narrow gangway we cut our steps, and a few minutes placed us safely at the bottom of the final pyramid of the Jungfrau.
From this point we could look down into the abyss of the Roththal, and certainly its wild environs seemed to justify the uses to which superstition has assigned the place. For here it is said the original demons of the mountains hold their orgies, and hither the spirits of the doubly-damned among men are sent to bear them company. The slope up which we had now to climb was turned towards the sun; its aspect was a southern one, and its snows had been melted and recongealed to hard ice. The axe of Almer rung against the obdurate solid, and its fragments whirred past us with a weird-like sound to the abysses below. They suggested the fate which a false step might bring along with it. It is a practical tribute to the strength and skill of the Oberland guides that no disaster has hitherto occurred upon the peak of the Jungfrau.
The work upon this final ice-slope was long and heavy, and during this time the summit appeared to maintain its distance above us. We at length cleared the ice, and gained a stretch of snow which enabled us to treble our upward speed. Thence to some loose and shingly rocks, again to the snow, whence a sharp edge led directly up to the top. The exhilaration of success was here added to that derived from physical nature. On the top fluttered a little black flag, planted by our most recent predecessors. We reached it at 7.15 A.M., having accomplished the ascent from the Faulberg in six hours. The snow was flattened on either side of the apex so as to enable us all to stand upon it, and here we stood for some time, with all the magnificence of the Alps unrolled before us.
We may look upon those mountains again and again from a dozen different points of view, a perennial glory surrounds them which associates with every new prospect fresh impressions. I thought I had scarcely ever seen the Alps to greater advantage. Hardly ever was their majesty more fully revealed or more overpowering. The colouring of the air contributed as much to the effect as the grandeur of the masses on which that colouring fell. A calm splendour overspread the mountains, softening the harshness of the outlines without detracting from their strength. But half the interest of such scenes is psychological; the soul takes the tint of surrounding nature, and in its turn becomes majestic.
And as I looked over this wondrous scene towards Mont Blanc, the Grand Combin, the Dent Blanche, the Weisshorn, the Dom, and the thousand lesser peaks which seemed to join in celebration of the risen day, I asked myself, as on previous occasions: How was this colossal work performed? Who chiselled these mighty and picturesque masses out of a mere protuberance of the earth? And the answer was at hand. Ever young, ever mighty—with the vigour of a thousand worlds still within him—the real sculptor was even then climbing up the eastern sky. It was he who raised aloft the waters which cut out these ravines; it was he who planted the glaciers on the mountain-slopes, thus giving gravity a plough to open out the valleys; and it is he who, acting through the ages, will finally lay low these mighty monuments, rolling them gradually seaward—