The failure through bad weather of a former attempt upon the Aletschhorn has been already recorded; but a succession of cloudless days at the Bel Alp in August 1869 stirred up the desire to try again. This was strengthened by the wish to make a series of observations from the greatest accessible elevation on the colour and polarisation of the sky. I had no guide of my own, but the Knecht at the hotel had been up the mountain, and I thought that we two might accomplish the ascent without any other assistance. It was the first time the mountain had been attempted by a single guide, and I was therefore careful to learn whether he was embarrassed by either doubt or fear. There was no doubt or fear in the matter: he really wished to go with me. His master (the proprietor of the hotel) had asked him whether he was not undertaking too much. ‘I am undertaking no more than my companion,’ was his reply.
At twenty minutes past two we quitted the Bel Alp. The moon, which seven hours previously had cleared the eastern mountain-tops with a visible motion, was now sloping to the west. The light was white and brilliant, and shadows of corresponding darkness were cast upon the earth. The larger stars were out, those near the horizon especially sparkling with many-coloured fires. The Pleiades were near the zenith, while Orion hung his sword a few degrees above the eastern horizon. Our path lay along the slope of the mountain, parallel to the Oberaletsch glacier, the lateral moraine of which was close to us on our right. After climbing sundry grass acclivities we mounted this moraine, and made it our pathway for a time. At a certain point the shingly ridge became depressed, opening a natural passage to the glacier. We found the ice ‘hummocky,’ and therefore crossed it to a medial moraine composed of granite débris and loaded here and there with clean granite blocks of enormous size. Beyond this moraine we found smoother ice and better light, for we had previously journeyed in the shadow of the mountains.
We marched upwards along the glacier chatting sociably at times, but at times stilled into silence by the stillness of the night. ‘Es tagt!’ at length exclaimed my companion. It dawns! Orion had moved upwards, leaving space between him and the horizon for the morning star. All the east was belted by that ‘daffodil sky’ which in some states of the atmosphere announces the approach of day in the Alps. We spun towards the east. It brightened and deepened, but deeper than the orange of the spectrum it did not fall. Amid this the mountains rose. Silently and solemnly their dark and dented outlines rested against the dawn.
The mass of light thus thrown over the shaded earth long before the sun appeared above the horizon came not from illuminated clouds, but from matter far more attenuated than clouds—matter which maintains comparative permanence in the atmosphere, while clouds are formed and dissipated. It is not light reflected from concentric shells of air of varying density, of which our atmosphere may be rightly assumed to be made up; for the light reflected from these convex layers is thrown, not upon the earth at all, but into space. The ‘rose of dawn’ is usually ascribed, and with sufficient correctness, to transmitted light, the blue of the sky to reflected light; but in each case there is both transmission and reflection. No doubt the daffodil and orange of the east this morning must have been transmitted through long reaches of atmospheric air, and no doubt it was during this passage of the rays that the selective winnowing of the light occurred which gave the sky its tint and splendour. But if the distance of the sun below the horizon when the dawn first appeared betaken into account, it will become evident that the solar rays must have been caused to swerve from their rectilineal course by reflection. The refraction of the atmosphere would be wholly incompetent to bend the rays round the convex earth to the extent now under contemplation.
Thus the light which is reflected must be first transmitted to the reflecting particles, while the transmitted light, except in the direct line of the sun, must be reflected to reach the eyes. What mainly holds the light in our atmosphere after the sun has retired behind the earth is, I imagine, the suspended matter which produces the blue of the sky and the morning and the evening red. Through the reverberation of the rays from particle to particle, there must be at the very noon of night a certain amount of illumination. Twilight must continue with varying degrees of intensity all night long, and the visibility of the nocturnal firmament itself may be due, not, as my excellent friend Dove seems to assume, to the light of the stars, but in great part to the light of the sun, scattered in all directions through the atmosphere by the almost infinitely attenuated matter held there in suspension.
We had every prospect of a glorious day. To our left was the almost full moon, now close to the ridge of the Sparrenhorn. The firmament was as blue as ever I have seen it—deep and dark, and to all appearance pure; that is to say, unmixed with any colour of a lower grade of refrangibility than the blue. The lunar shadows had already become weak, and were finally washed away by the light of the east. But while the shadows were at their greatest depth, and therefore least invaded by the dawn, I examined the firmament with a Nicol’s prism.[25] The moonlight, as I have said, came from the left, and right in front of me was a mountain of dark brown rock, behind which spread a heaven of the most impressive depth and purity. I looked over the mountain-crest through the prism. In one position of the instrument the blue was not sensibly affected; in the rectangular position it was so far quenched as to reduce the sky and the dark mountain beneath it to the same uniform hue. The outline of the mountain could hardly be detached from the sky above it. This was the direction in which the prism showed its maximum quenching power; in no other direction was the extinction of the light of the sky so perfect. And it was at right angles to the lunar rays: so that, as regards the polarisation of the sky, the beams of the moon behave exactly like those of the sun.
The glacier along which we first marched was a trunk of many tributaries, and consequently of many ‘medial moraines,’ such moraines being always one less in number than the tributaries.[26] But two principal branches absorbed all the others as constituents. One of these descended from the Great and Little Nesthorn and their spurs; the other from the Aletschhorn. Up this latter branch we steered from the junction. Hitherto the surface of the glacier, disintegrated by the previous day’s sun, and again hardened by the night’s frost, had crackled under our feet; but on the Aletschhorn branch the ice was coated by a kind of fur, resembling the nap of velvet: it was as soft as a carpet, but at the same time perfectly firm to the grip of the boot. The sun was hidden behind the mountain; and, thus steeped in shade, we could enjoy, with spirits unblunted by the heat, the loveliness and grandeur of the scene.
Right before us was the pyramid of the Aletschhorn, bearing its load of glaciers, and thrusting above them its pinnacle of rock; while right and left of us towered and fell to snowy cols such other peaks as usually hang about a mountain of nearly 14,000 feet elevation. And amid them all, with a calmness corresponding to the deep seclusion of the place, wound the beautiful system of glaciers along which we had been marching for nearly three hours. I know nothing which can compare in point of glory with these winter palaces of the mountaineer, under the opening illumination of the morning. And the best of it is, that no right of property in the scene could enhance its value. To Switzerland belongs the rock—to the early climber, competent to enjoy them, belong the sublimity and beauty of mass, form, colour, and grouping. And still the outward splendour is by no means all. ‘In the midst of a puddly moor,’ says Emerson, ‘I am afraid to say how glad I am:’ which is a strong way of affirming the influence of the inner man as regards the enjoyment of external nature. And surely the inner man is a high factor in the effect. The magnificence of the world outside suffices not. Like light falling upon the polished plate of the photographer, the glory of Nature, to be felt, must descend upon a soul prepared to receive its image and superscription.
Mind, like force, is known to us only through matter. Take, then, what hypothesis you will—consider matter as an instrument through which the insulated mind exercises its powers, or consider both as so inextricably mixed that they stand or fall together; from both points of view the care of the body is equally important.[27] The morality of clean blood ought to be one of the first lessons taught us by our pastors and masters. The physical is the substratum of the spiritual, and this fact ought to give the food we eat and to the air we breathe a transcendental significance. Boldly and truly writes Mr. Ruskin, ‘Whenever you throw your window wide open in the morning, you let in Athena, as wisdom and fresh air at the same instant; and whenever you draw a pure, long, full breath of right heaven, you take Athena into your heart, through your blood; and with the blood into thoughts of the brain.’ No higher value than this could be assigned to atmospheric oxygen.
Precisely three hours after we had quitted our hotel the uniform gradient of the Aletschhorn glacier came to an end. It now suddenly steepened to run up the mountain. At the base we halted to have some food, a huge slab of granite serving us for a table. It is not good to go altogether without food in these climbing expeditions; nor is it good to eat copiously. Here a little and there a little, as the need makes itself apparent, is the prudent course. For, left to itself, the stomach infallibly sickens, and the forces of the system ooze away. Should the sickness have set in so as to produce a recoil from nutriment, the stomach must be forced to yield. A small modicum of food usually suffices to set it right. The strongest guides and the sturdiest porters have sometimes to use this compulsion. ‘Sie müssen sich zwingen.’ The guides refer the capriciousness of the stomach at great elevations to the air. This may be a cause, but I am inclined to think that something is also due to the motion—the long-continued action of the same muscles upon the diaphragm. The condition of things antecedent to the journey must also be taken into account. There is little, if any, sleep; the starting meal is taken at an unusual hour; and if the start be made from a mountain cave or cabin, instead of from the bed of an hotel, the deviation from normal conditions is aggravated. It could not be the mere difference of height between Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa which formerly rendered their effects upon travellers so different. It is that, in the one case, you had the melted snow of the Grands Mulets for your coffee, and a bare plank for your bed; while in the other you had the comparative comforts of the auberge on the Riffel. On the present occasion I had a bottle of milk, which suits me better than anything else. That and a crust are all I need to keep my vigour up and to ward off le mal des montagnes.
After half an hour’s halt we made ready for the peak, meeting first a quantity of moraine matter mingled with patches of snow, and afterwards the rifted glacier. We threaded our way among the crevasses, and here I paid particular attention to the deportment of my guide. The want of confidence, or rather the absence of that experience of a guide’s powers, on which alone perfect reliance can be based, is a serious drawback to the climber. This source of weakness has often come home to me since the death of my brave friend Bennen. His loss to me was like that of an arm to a fighter. But I was glad to notice that my present guide was not likely to err on the score of rashness. He left a wider margin between us and accident than I should have deemed necessary; he sounded with his staff where I should have trod without hesitation; and, knowing my own caution, I had good reason to be satisfied with his. Still, notwithstanding all his vigilance, he once went into a concealed fissure—only waist-deep, however, and he could certainly have rescued himself without the tug of the rope which united us.
After some time we quitted the ice, striking a rocky shoulder of the mountain. The rock had been pulled to pieces by the weather, and its fragments heaped together to an incoherent ridge. Over the lichened stones we worked our way, our course, though rough, being entirely free from danger. On this ridge the sun first found us, striking us at intervals, and at intervals disappearing behind the sloping ridge of the Aletschhorn. We attained the summit of the rocks, and had now the upper reaches of the névé before us. To our left the glacier was greatly torn, exposing fine vertical sections, deep blue pits and chasms, which were bottomless to vision; and ledges, from whose copings hung vaster stalactites than those observed below. The beauty of the higher crevasses is mightily enhanced by the long transparent icicles which hang from their eaves, and which, loosened by the sun, fall into them with ringing sound. Above us was the customary Bergschrund; but the spring avalanches had swept over it, and closed it, and since the spring it had not been able to open its jaws. At this schrund we aimed, reached it, and crossed it, and immediately found ourselves at the base of the final cap of the mountain.
Looking at the Aletschhorn from the Sparrenhorn, or from any other point which commands a similar view of the pyramid, we see upon the ridge which falls from the summit to the right, and at a considerable distance from the top, a tooth or pinnacle of rock, which encloses with the ridge a deep indentation. At this gap we now aimed. We varied our ascent from steep snow to rock, and from steep rock to snow, avoiding the difficulties when possible, and facing them when necessary. We met some awkward places, but none whose subjugation was otherwise than pleasant, and at length surmounted the edge of the arête. Looking over this, the facette of the pyramid fell almost sheer to the Middle Aletsch glacier. This was a familiar sight to me, for years ago I had strolled over it alone. Below it was the Great Aletsch, into which the Middle Aletsch flows, and beyond both was the well-known ridge of the Æggischhorn. We halted, but only for a moment. Turning suddenly to the left, we ascended the rocky ridge to a sheltered nook which suggested a brief rest and a slight renewal of that nutriment which, as stated, is so necessary to the wellbeing of the climber.
From time to time during the ascent I examined the polarisation of the sky. I should not have halted had not the fear of haze or clouds upon the summit admonished me. Indeed, as we ascended, one thin, arrowy cloud shot like a comet’s tail through the air above us, spanning ninety degrees, or more, of the heavens. Never, however, have I observed the sky of a deeper, darker, and purer blue. It was to examine this colour that I ascended the Aletschhorn, and I wished to observe it where the hue was deepest and the polarisation most complete. You can look through very different atmospheric thicknesses at right angles to the solar beams. When, for example, the sun is in the eastern or western horizon, you can look across the sun’s rays towards the northern or southern horizon, or you can look across them to the zenith. In the latter direction the blue is deeper and purer than in either of the former, the proportion of the polarised light of the sky to its total light being also a maximum.
The sun, however, when I was on the Aletschhorn, was not in the horizon, but high above it. I placed my staff upright on a platform of snow. It cast a shadow. Inclining the staff from the sun, the shadow lengthened for a time, reached its major limit, and then shortened. The simplest geometrical consideration will show that the staff when its shadow was longest was perpendicular to the solar rays; the atmosphere in this direction was shallower and the sky bluer than in any other direction perpendicular to the same rays. Along this line I therefore looked through the Nicol. The light, I found, could be quenched so as to leave a residue as dark as the firmament upon a moonless night; but still there was a residue—the polarisation was not complete. Nor was the colour, however pure its appearance, by any means a monochromatic blue. A disc of selenite, gradually thickening from the centre to the circumference, when placed between the Nicol and the sky, yielded vivid iris colours. The blue was very marked; but there was vivid purple, which requires an admixture of red to produce it. There was also a bright green, and some yellow. In fact, however purely blue the sky might seem, it sent to the eye all the colours of the spectrum: it owed its colour to the predominance of blue, that is to say, to the enfeeblement, and not to the extinction, of the other colours of the spectrum. The green was particularly vivid in the portion of the sky nearest to the mountains, where the light was ‘daffodil.’
A pocket spectroscope confirmed these results. Permitting the light of an illuminated cloud to enter the slit of the instrument, a vivid spectrum was observed; but on passing beyond the rim of the cloud to the adjacent firmament, a sudden fall in the intensity of all the less refrangible rays of the spectrum was observed. There was an absolute shortening of the spectrum in the direction of the red, through the total extinction of the extreme red. The fall in luminousness was also very striking as far as the green; the blue also suffered, but not so much as the other colours.
The scene as we ascended grew more and more superb, both as regards grouping and expansion. Viewed from the Bel Alp the many-peaked Dom is a most imposing mountain; it has there no competitor. The mass of the Weisshorn is hidden, its summit alone appearing. The Matterhorn, also, besides being more distant, has a portion of its pyramid cut obliquely away by the slope of the same ridge that intercepts the Weisshorn, and which is seen to our right when we face the valley of the Rhone, falling steeply to the promontory called the Nessel. Viewed from this promontory, the Dom finds its match, and more than its match, in its mighty neighbour, whose hugeness is here displayed from top to bottom. On the lower reaches of the Aletschhorn also the Dom maintains its superiority, the Weisshorn being for a time wholly unseen, and the Matterhorn but imperfectly. As we rise, however, the Dom steadily loses its individuality, until from the ridge of the Aletschhorn it is jumbled to a single leviathan heap with the mass of Monte Rosa. The Weisshorn meanwhile as steadily gains in grandeur, rising like a mountain Saul amid the congregated hills, until from the arête it distances all competitors. In comparison with this kingly peak, the Matterhorn looks small and mean. It has neither the mass nor the form which would enable it to compete, from a distant point of view, with the Weisshorn.
The ridge of the Aletschhorn is of schistose gneiss; in many places smooth, in all places steep, and sometimes demanding skill and strength on the part of the climber. I thought we could scale it with greater ease if untied, so I flung the rope away from me. My guide was in front, and I carefully watched his action among the rocks. For some time there was nothing to cause anxiety for his safety. There was no likelihood of a slip, and if a slip occurred there was opportunity for recovery. But after a time this ceased to be the case. The rock had been scaled away by weathering parallel to the planes of foliation, the surfaces left behind being excessively smooth, and in many cases flanked by slopes and couloirs of perilous steepness. I saw that a slip might occur here, and that its consequences would be serious. The rope was therefore resumed.
A fair amount of skill and an absence of all precipitancy rendered our progress perfectly secure. In every place of danger one of us planted himself as securely as the rock on which he stood, and remained thus fixed until the danger was passed by the other. Both of us were never exposed to peril at the same moment. The bestowal of a little extra time renders this arrangement possible along the entire ridge of the Aletschhorn; in fact, the dangers of the Alps can be almost reduced to the level of the dangers of the street by the exercise of skill and caution. For rashness, ignorance, or carelessness the mountains leave no margin; and to rashness, ignorance, or carelessness three-fourths of the catastrophes which shock us are to be traced. Even those whose faculties are ever awake in danger are sometimes caught napping when danger seems remote; they receive accordingly the punishment of a tyro for a tyro’s neglect.[28]
While ascending the lower glacier we found the air in general crisp and cool; but we were visited at intervals by gusts of Föhn—warm breathings of the unexplained Alpine sirocco, which passed over our cheeks like puffs from a gently heated stove. On the arête we encountered no Föhn; but the rocks were so hot as to render contact with them painful. I left my coat among them, and went upward in my shirt-sleeves. At our last bivouac my guide had allowed two hours for the remaining ascent. We accomplished it in one, and I was surprised by the shout which announced the passage of the last difficulty, and the proximity of the top of the mountain. This we reached precisely eight hours after starting—an ascent of fair rapidity, and without a single mishap from beginning to end.
Rock, weathered to fragments, constitutes the crown of the Aletschhorn; but against this and above it is heaped a buttress of snow, which tapers, as seen from the Æggischhorn, to a pinnacle of surpassing beauty. This snow was firm, and we readily attained its highest point. Over this I leaned for ten minutes, looking along the face of the pyramid, which fell for thousands of feet to the névés at its base. We looked down upon the Jungfrau, and upon every other peak for miles around us, one only excepted. The exception was the Finsteraarhorn, the highest of the Oberland mountains, after which comes the Aletschhorn. I could clearly track the course pursued by Bennen and myself eleven years previously—the spurs of rock and slopes of snow, the steep and weathered crest of the mountain, and the line of our swift glissade as we returned.
Round about the dominant peak of the Oberland was grouped a crowd of other peaks, retreating eastward to Graubünden and the distant Engadin; retreating southward over Italy, and blending ultimately with the atmosphere. At hand were the Jungfrau, Mönch, and Eiger. A little further off the Blumlis Alp, the Weisse Frau, and the Great and Little Nesthorn. In the distance the grim precipices of Mont Blanc, rising darkly from the Allée Blanche, and lifting to the firmament the snow-crown of the mountain. The Combin and its neighbours were distinct; and then came that trinity of grandeur, with which the reader is so well acquainted—the Weisshorn, the Matterhorn, and the Dom—supported by the Alphubel, the Allaleinhorn, the Rympfischhorn, the Strahlhorn, and the mighty Monte Rosa. From no other point in the Alps have I had a greater command of their magnificence—perhaps from none so great; while the blessedness of perfect health, on this perfect day, rounded off within me the external splendour. The sun seemed to take a pleasure in bringing out the glory of the hills. The intermixture of light and shade was astonishing; while to the whole scene a mystic air was imparted by a belt of haze, in which the furthest outlines disappeared, as if infinite distance had rendered them impalpable.
Two concentric shells of atmosphere, perfectly distinct in character, clasped the earth this morning. That which hugged the surface was of a deep neutral tint, too shallow to reach more than midway up the loftier mountains. Upon this, as upon an ocean, rested the luminous higher atmospheric layer, both being separated along the horizon by a perfectly definite line. This higher region was without a cloud; the arrowy streamer that had shot across the firmament during our ascent, first reduced to feathery streaks, had long since melted utterly away. Blue was supreme above, while all round the horizon the intrinsic brilliance of the upper air was enhanced by contrast with the dusky ground on which it rested. But this gloomier portion of the atmosphere was also transparent. It was not a cloud-stratum cutting off the view of things below it, but an attenuated mist, through which were seen, as through a glass darkly, the lower mountains, and out of which the higher peaks and ridges sprung into sudden glory.
Our descent was conducted with the same care and success that attended our ascent. I have already stated it to be a new thing for one man to lead a traveller up the mountain, and my guide in ascending had informed me that his wife had been in a state of great anxiety about him. But until he had cleared all dangers he did not let me know the extent of her devotion, nor the means she had adopted to ensure his safety. When we were once more upon the lower glacier, having left all difficulties behind us, he remarked with a chuckle that she had been in a terrible state of fear, and had informed him of her intention to have a mass for his safety celebrated by the village priest. But if he profited by this mediation, I must have done so equally; for in all dangerous places we were tied together by a rope which was far too strong to break had I slipped. My safety was, in fact, bound up in his, and I therefore thought it right to pay my share of the expense. ‘How much did the mass cost?’ I asked. ‘Oh, not much, sir,’ he replied; ‘only ninety centimes.’ Not deeming the expense worth dividing, I let him pay for such advantage as I had derived from the priest’s intercession.
In 1868 I had been so much broken down on going to the Alps that even amongst them I found it difficult to recover energy. In 1869, however, after a severe discipline in bathing and climbing,[29] my weariness disappeared, and before I attacked the Aletschhorn I felt that my restoration was ensured. In my subsequent rambles it was a great delight and refreshment to me, whenever I felt heated, to choose a bubbling pool in some mountain stream, roll myself in it, and afterwards dance myself dry in the sunshine. Each morning I had a tub in a rivulet, a header in a lake, or a douche under a cascade. The best of these was half a mile or more from the hotel, but there was an inferior waterfall close at hand to which I resorted when time was short. On a bright morning towards the end of August 1869 I was returning from this cascade to my clothes, which were about twenty yards off. They might have been reached by walking on the grass, but I chose to walk on some slippery blocks of gneiss, and using no caution I staggered and fell. My shin was urged with great force against the sharp crystals, which inflicted three ugly wounds; but I sponged the blood away, wrapped a cold bandage round the injured place, and limped to the hotel. I was quite disabled, but felt sure of speedy recovery, my health was so strong.
For four or five days I remained quietly in bed. The wound had become entirely painless; there was hardly any inflammation and no pus. I felt so well that I thought a little exercise would do me less harm than good. I abandoned my cold bandage and went out. That night inflammation set in, pus appeared, and in trying to dislodge it I poisoned the wound. It became worse and worse; erysipelas set in, and at last it became evident that I might lose my foot or something more important. After remaining nearly a fortnight at the Bel Alp without medical advice I resolved to go to Geneva. I wrote accordingly to my friend Professor De la Rive, with the view of securing the services of an able surgeon. I was carried down to Brieg on a kind of bier, and midway on the mountain-slope had the good fortune to meet Mr. Ellis of Sloane Street. He examined my wound, and I have good reason to feel grateful to him for his extreme kindness and his excellent advice. My friend Soret met me at the railway station, and Dr. Gauthier was at my side a few seconds after I entered my hotel.
But, despite all the care, kindness, and real skill bestowed upon me, I was a month in bed at Geneva. A sinus about five inches long had worked its channel from the wound down to the instep, which was undermined by an abscess. This Dr. Gauthier discovered and by assiduous attention cured. In her beautiful residence at Lammermor, on the margin of Lake Leman, Lady Emily Peel had a bed erected for me as soon as I was able to go there, and it was under her roof that the last traces of the sinus disappeared. I was so emaciated, however, that it required several months to restore the flesh and the strength that this paltry accident cost me.
In 1870 I was again at the Bel Alp for several weeks, during which my interest was continually kept awake by telegrams from the seat of war; for the enterprising proprietors both at the Bel Alp and the Æggischhorn had run telegraphic wires from the valley of the Rhone up to their respective hotels. The most noteworthy occurrence among the mountains in 1870 was a terrific thunderstorm, which set two forests on fire by the same discharge. One fire near the Rieder Alp was speedily quenched; the other, under the Nessel, burned for several successive days and nights, and threatened to become a public calamity. A constant fiery glow was kept up by the combustion of the underwood, which formed the vehicle of transmission among the larger trees. Three or four of these would often burst simultaneously into pyramids of flame, which would last but a few minutes, leaving the trees with all their branches as red-hot embers behind. Heavy and persistent rain at length extinguished the conflagration.
Having fixed my head-quarters at the Montanvert, I was engaged for nearly six weeks during the summer of 1857 in making observations on the Mer de Glace and its tributaries. Throughout this time I had the advantage of the able and unremitting assistance of my friend Mr. Hirst, who kindly undertook, in most cases, the measurement of the motion of the glacier. My permanent guide, Édouard Simond, an intelligent and trustworthy man, was assistant on these occasions, and having arranged with Mr. Hirst the measurements required to be made, it was my custom to leave the execution of them to him, and to spend much of my time alone upon the glaciers. Days have thus been occupied amid the confusion of the Glacier du Géant, at the base of the great ice-fall of La Noire, in trying to connect the veined structure of the glacier with the stratification of its névé; and often, after wandering almost unconsciously from peak to peak and from hollow to hollow, I have found myself, as the day was waning, in places from which it required a sound axe and a vigorous stroke to set me free.
This practice gradually developed my powers of dealing with the difficulties of the glacier. On some occasions, however, I found the assistance of a companion necessary, and it was then my habit to take with me a hardy boy named Balmat, who was attached to the hotel at the Montanvert. He could climb like a cat, and one of our first expeditions together was an ascent to a point above Trélaporte, from which a magnificent view of the entire glacier is obtained. This point lies under the Aiguille de Charmoz, and to the left of a remarkable cleft, which is sure to attract the traveller’s attention on looking upwards from the Montanvert. We reached the place through a precipitous couloir on the Montanvert side of the mountain; and while two chamois watched us from the crags above, we made our observations, and ended our survey by pledging the health of Forbes and other explorers of the Alps.
We descended from the eminence by a different route; during both ascent and descent I had occasion to admire the courage and caution of my young companion, and the extraordinary cohesive force by which he clung to the rock. He, moreover, evidently felt himself responsible for my safety, and once when I asserted my independence so far as to attempt descending a kind of ‘chimney,’ which, though rather dangerous-looking, I considered to be practicable, he sprang to my side, and, with outstretched arm and ringing voice, exclaimed, ‘Monsieur, je vous défends de passer par là!’
Anxious to avoid the inconvenience of the rules of the Chamouni guides, my aim, from the first, was to render myself as far as possible independent of their assistance. Wishing to explore the slopes of the Col du Géant, not for the purpose of crossing into Piedmont, but to examine the fine ice-sections which it exhibits, and to trace amid its chasms the gradual conversion of the snow into ice, I at first thought of attempting the ascent of the col alone; but ‘le petit Balmat,’ as my host at the Montanvert always named him, acquitted himself so well on the occasion referred to that I thought he would make a suitable companion. On naming the project to him he eagerly embraced my proposal; in fact, he said he was willing to try Mont Blanc with me if I desired it.
On the morning of Friday, July 24, we accordingly set off for the Tacul, I making, as we ascended, such few observations as lay in our way. The sun shone gloriously upon the mountains, and gleamed by reflection from the surface of the glacier. Looked at through a pair of very dark spectacles, the scene was exceedingly striking and instructive. Terraces of snow clung to the mountains, exposing, here and there, high vertical sections, which cast dense shadows upon the adjacent plateaux. The glacier was thrown into heaps and ‘hummocks,’ their tops glistening with white, silvery light, and their sides intensely shaded. When the lateral light was quite shut out, and all that reached the eyes had to pass through the spectacles, the contrast between light and shade was much stronger than when the glacier was viewed by the broad light of day. In fact, the shadows were no longer grey merely, but black; to a similar augmentation of contrast towards the close of the day is to be referred the fact that the ‘Dirt Bands’ of the Mer de Glace are best seen by twilight.
A gentleman had started in the morning to cross the col, accompanied by two strong guides. We met a man returning from the Jardin, who told us that he had seen the party that preceded us; that they had been detained a long time amid the séracs, and that our ascending without ladders was quite out of the question. As we approached the Tacul, my lynx-eyed little companion ranged with the telescope over the snowy slopes of the col, and at length exclaimed, ‘Je les vois, tous les trois!’—the ‘Monsieur’ in the middle, and a guide before and behind. They seemed like three black specks upon the shoulders of the Giant; below them was the vast ice-cascade, resembling the foam of ten Niagaras placed end to end and stiffened into rest, while the travellers seemed to walk upon a floor as smooth as polished Carrara marble. Here and there, however, its uniformity was broken by vertical faults, exposing precipices of the stratified névé.
On an old moraine near the Tacul, piled up centuries ago by the Glacier de Léchaud, immense masses of granite are thrown confusedly together; and one enormous slab is so cast over a number of others as to form a kind of sheltered grotto, which we proposed to make our resting-place for the night. Having deposited our loads here, I proceeded to the icefall of the Talèfre, while my companion set out towards the Couvercle in search of firewood. I walked round the base of the frozen cascade, and climbed up among its riven pinnacles, examining the structure as I ascended. The hollow rumble of the rocks as they fell into the crevasses was incessant. From holes in the ice-cliffs clear cataracts gushed, coming I knew not whence, and going I knew not whither. Sometimes the deep gurgle of sub-glacial water was heard, far down in the ice. The resonance of the water as it fell into shafts struck me suddenly at intervals on turning corners, and seemed, in each case, as if a new torrent had bounded into life. Streams flowed through deep channels which they themselves had worn, revealing beautifully the ‘rib-boned structure.’ At the further end of the Glacier de Léchaud the Capucin Rock stood, like a preacher; and below him a fantastic group of granite pinnacles suggested the idea of a congregation. The outlines of some of the ice-cliffs were also very singular; and it needed but a slight effort of the imagination to people the place with natural sculpture.
At six o’clock the shrill whistle of my companion announced that our time of meeting was come. He had found some wood—dry twigs of rhododendrons, and a couple of heavy stumps of juniper. I shouldered the largest of the latter, while he strapped his twigs on his back, and led the way to the Tacul. The sun shot his oblique rays against us over the heights of Charmoz, and cast our shadows far up the glacier. We filled our saucepan, which Balmat named ‘a machine,’ with clear water, and bore it to our cavern, where the fire was soon crackling under the machine. I was assailed by the smoke, which set my eyes dripping tears; but this cleared away when the fire brightened, and we boiled our chocolate and made a comfortable evening meal.
I afterwards clambered up the moraine to watch the tints of the setting sun; clouds floated round the Aiguille de Charmoz, and were changed from grey to red, and from red to grey, as their positions varied. The shadows of the isolated peaks and pinnacles were drawn, at times, in black bands across the clouds; and the Aiguille du Moine smiled and frowned alternately. One high snow-peak alone enjoyed the unaltered radiance of the sinking day; the sunshine never forsook it, but glowed there, like the steady light of love, while a kind of coquetry was carried on between the atmosphere and the surrounding mountains. The notched summits of the Grande and Petite Jorasse leaned peacefully against the blue firmament. The highest mountain-crags were cleft, in some cases, into fantastic forms; single pillars stood out from all else, like lonely watchers, over the mountain scene; while little red clouds playfully embraced them at intervals, and converted them into pillars of fire.
The sun at length departed, and all became cold and grey upon the mountains; but a brief secondary glow came afterwards, and warmed up the brown cliffs once more. I descended the moraine, the smell of the smoke guiding me towards the rock under which I was to pass the night. A fire was burning at the mouth of the grotto, reddening with its glare the darkness of the interior. Beside the fire sat my little companion, with a tall, conical, red night-cap drawn completely over his ears; our saucepan was bubbling on the fire; he watched it meditatively, adding at times a twig, which sprung immediately into flame, and strengthened the glow upon his countenance. He looked, in fact, more like a demon of the ice-world than a being of ordinary flesh and blood. I had been recommended to take a bit of a tallow candle with me to rub my face with, as a protection against the sun; by the light of this we spread our rugs, lay down upon them, and wrapped them round us.
The countless noises heard upon the glacier during the day were now stilled, and dead silence ruled the ice-world; the roar of an occasional avalanche, however, shooting down the flanks of Mont Mallet broke upon us with startling energy. I did not sleep till towards four o’clock in the morning, when I dozed and dreamed, and mingled my actual condition with my dream. When I awoke, I found my head weary enough upon the clay of the old moraine, my ribs pressed closely against a block of granite, and my feet amid sundry fragments of the same material. It was nearly five o’clock on Saturday the 25th when I arose; my companion quickly followed my example. He also had slept but little, and once or twice during the night I fancied I could feel him shiver. We were, however, well protected from the cold. The high moraine of the Glacier du Léchaud was on one side, that of the Glacier du Géant on the other, while the cliffs of Mont Tacul formed the third side of a triangle, which sheltered us from the sharper action of the wind. At times the calm was perfect, and I felt almost too warm; then again a searching wind would enter the grotto, and cause the skin to shrink on all exposed parts of the body. It had frozen hard, and to obtain water for washing I had to break through a sheet of ice which coated one of the pools upon the glacier.
In a few minutes our juniper fire was crackling cheerily; we made our chocolate and breakfasted. My companion emptied the contents of a small brandy bottle into my flask, which, however, was too small to hold it all, and on the principle, I suppose, of avoiding waste, he drank what remained. It was not much, but sufficient to muddle his brain, and to make him sluggish and drowsy for a time. We put the necessary food in our knapsacks and faced our task, first ascending the Glacier du Tacul along its eastern side, until we came to the base of the séracs.
The vast mass of snow collected on the plateau of the Col du Géant, and compressed to ice by its own weight, reaches the throat of the valley, which stretches from the rocks called Le Rognon to the promontory of the Aiguille Noire. Through this defile it is forced, falling steeply, and forming one of the grandest ice-cascades in the Alps. At the summit it is broken into transverse chasms of enormous width and depth; the ridges between these break across again, and form those castellated masses to which the name of séracs has been applied. In descending the cascade the ice is crushed and riven; ruined towers, which have tumbled from the summit, cumber the slope, and smooth vertical precipices of ice rise in succession out of the ruins. At the base of the fall the fragments are again squeezed together, but the confusion is still great, the glacier being tossed into billowy shapes, scooped into caverns, and cut into gorges by torrents which expand here and there into deep green lakes.
Across this portion of the glacier we proceeded westward, purposing to attempt the ascent at the Rognon side.[30] Perils and difficulties soon began to thicken round us. The confusion of ice-pinnacles, crags, and chasms was very bewildering. Plates of ice jutted from the glacier like enormous fins, up the sides of which we had to rise by steps, and along the edges of which we had to walk. Often, while perched upon these eminences, we were flanked right and left by crevasses, the depth of which might be inferred from their impenetrable gloom. At some places forces of extreme complexity had acted on the mass; the ridges were broken into columns, and some of these were twisted half round; while the chasms were cut up into shafts which resembled gigantic honeycombs. Our work was very difficult, sometimes disheartening: nevertheless, our inspiration was, that what man has done man may do, and we accordingly persevered. My fellow-traveller was silent for a time: the brandy had its effect upon him, and he confessed it; but I thought that a contact with the cold ice would soon cause this to disappear, after which I resolved not to influence his judgment in the least.
Looking now to the right, I suddenly became aware that, high above us, a multitude of unstable crags and leaning columns of ice covered the precipitous incline. We had reached a position where protecting cliffs rose to our right, while in front of us was a space more open than any we had yet passed. The reason was that the ice avalanches had chosen it for their principal path. We had stepped upon this space when a peal above us brought us to a stand. Crash! crash! crash! nearer and nearer, the sound becoming more continuous and confused, as the descending masses broke into smaller blocks. Onward they came! boulders half a ton and more in weight, leaping down with a kind of maniacal fury, as if their sole mission was to crush the séracs to powder. Some of them on striking the ice rebounded like elastic balls, described parabolas through the air, again smote the ice, and scattered its dust like clouds in the atmosphere. Deflected by their collision with the glacier, some blocks were carried past us within a few yards of the spot where we stood. I had never before witnessed an exhibition of force at all comparable to this, and its proximity rendered that fearful which at a little distance would have been sublime.
My companion held his breath, and then exclaimed, ‘C’est terrible! il faut retourner.’ In fact, while the avalanche continued we could not at all calculate upon our safety. When we heard the first peal we had instinctively retreated to the shelter of the ice bastions; but what if one of these missiles struck the tower beside us! would it be able to withstand the shock? We knew not. In reply to the proposal of my companion, I simply said, ‘By all means, if you desire it; but let us wait a little.’ I felt that fear was just as bad a counsellor as rashness, and thought it but fair to wait until my companion’s terror had subsided. We waited accordingly, and he seemed to gather courage and assurance. I scanned the heights and saw that a little more effort in an upward direction would place us in a much less perilous position, as far as the avalanches were concerned. I pointed this out to my companion, and we went forward. Once indeed, for a minute or two, I felt anxious. We had to cross in the shadow of a tower of ice, of a loose and threatening character, which quite overhung our track. The freshly broken masses at its base, and at some distance below it, showed that it must have partially given way some hours before. ‘Don’t speak or make any noise,’ said my companion; and, although rather sceptical as to the influence of speech in such a case, I held my tongue and escaped from the dangerous vicinity as fast as my legs and alpenstock could carry me.
Unbroken spaces, covered with snow, now began to spread between the crevasses; these latter, however, became larger, and were generally placed end to end en échelon. When, therefore, we arrived at the edge of a chasm, by walking along it we usually soon reached a point where a second one joined on it. The extremities of the chasms ran parallel to each other for some distance, one being separated from the other, throughout this distance, by a wall of incipient ice, coped at the top by snow. At other places, however, the lower portion of the partition between the fissures had melted away, leaving the chasm spanned by a bridge of snow, the capacity of which to bear us was often a matter of delicate experiment. Over these bridges we stepped as lightly as possible: ‘Allez doucement ici,’ was the perpetual admonition of my companion, ‘et il faut toujours sonder.’
In many cases, indeed, we could not at all guess at the state of matters underneath the covering of snow. We had picked up a few hints upon this subject, but neither of us was at this time sufficiently experienced to make practical use of them. The ‘sounding’ too was rather weary work, as, to make it of any value, the bâton must be driven into the snow with considerable force. Further up in the névé the fissures became less frequent, but some of them were of great depth and width. On those silent heights there is something peculiarly solemn in the aspect of the crevasses, yawning gloomily day and night, as if with a never-satisfied hunger. We stumbled on the skeleton of a chamois, which had probably met its death by falling into a chasm, and been disgorged lower down. But a thousand chamois between these cavernous jaws would not make a mouthful. I scarcely knew which to choose—these pitfalls of the névé, or the avalanches. The latter are terrible, but they are grand, outspoken things; the ice crags proclaim from their heights, ‘Do not trust us; we are momentary and merciless.’ They wear the aspect of hostility undisguised; but these chasms of the névé are typified by the treachery of the moral world, hiding themselves under shining coverlets of snow, and compassing their ends by dissimulation.
After some time we alighted on the trace of those who had crossed the day before. The danger was over when we made the discovery, but it saved us some exploring amid the crevasses which still remained. We at length got quite clear of the fissures and mounted zigzag to the summit of the col. Clouds drove up against us from the valley of Courmayeur, but they made no way over the col. At the summit they encountered a stratum of drier air, mixing with which they were reduced, as fast as they came, to a state of invisible vapour. Upon the very top of the col I spread my plaid, and with the appetites of hungry eagles we attacked our chicken and mutton. I examined the snow and made some experiments on sound; but little Balmat’s feet were so cold that he feared being frostbitten, and at his entreaty we started on our descent again as soon as possible.
To the top of the séracs we retraced the course by which we had ascended, but here we lost the track, for there was no snow to retain it. A new lesson was before us. We kept nearer to the centre of the glacier than when we ascended, thereby avoiding the avalanches, but getting into ice more riven and dislocated. We were often utterly at a loss how to proceed. My companion made several attempts to regain the morning’s track, preferring to risk the avalanches rather than be blocked and ditched up in an ice-prison from which we saw no means of escape. Wherever we turned peril stared us in the face; but the recurrence of danger had rendered us callous to it, and this indifference gave a mechanical surety to the step in places where such surety was the only means of avoiding destruction. Once or twice, while standing on the summit of a peak of ice, and looking at the pits and chasms beneath me, at the distance through which we had hewn our way, and at the work still to be accomplished, I experienced an incipient flush of terror. But this was immediately drowned in action. Indeed the case was so bad, the necessity for exertion so paramount, that the will acquired an energy which crushed out terror. We proceeded, however, with the most steady watchfulness. When we arrived at a difficulty which seemed insuperable, we calmly inspected it, looking at it on all sides; and though we had often to retrace our steps amid cliffs and chasms, still formidable obstacles repeatedly disappeared before our cool and searching examination. We made no haste, we took no rest, but ever tended downwards. With all our instincts of self-preservation awake, we crossed places which, without the spur of necessity to drive us, we should have deemed impassable.
Once, having walked for some distance along the edge of a high wedge of ice, we had to descend its left face in order to cross a crevasse. The ice was of that loose granular character which causes it to resemble an aggregate of little polyhedrons jointed together more than a coherent solid. I was not aware that the substance was so utterly disintegrated as it proved to be. To aid me in planting my foot securely on the edge of the crevasse, I laid hold of a projecting corner of the ice. It crumbled to pieces in my hand; I tottered for a moment in the effort to regain my balance, my footing gave way, and I went into the chasm. I heard my companion scream, ‘O! mon Dieu, il est perdu!’ but a ledge about two feet wide jutted from the side of the crevasse; and this received me, my fall not amounting to more than three or four feet. A block of ice which partially jammed up the chasm concealed me from Balmat. I called to him, and he responded by another exclamation, ‘O! mon Dieu, comme j’ai peur!’ He helped me up, and, looking anxiously in my face, demanded ‘N’avez-vous pas peur?’ Afterwards the difficulties lessened by degrees, and we began to gladden ourselves by mutual expressions of ‘content’ with what we had accomplished. We at length reached the base of the séracs; ordinary crevasses were trivial in comparison with those from which we had escaped, so we hastened along the glacier, without halting, to the Tacul.
Here a paltry accident caused me more damage than all the dangers of the day. I was passing a rock, the snow beside it seemed firm, and I placed my bâton upon it, leaning trustfully upon the staff. Through the warmth of the rock, or some other cause, the snow had been rendered hollow underneath; it yielded, I fell forward, and although a cat-like capacity of helping myself in such cases saved me from serious hurt, it did not prevent my knee from being urged with all my weight against an edge of granite. I rested for half an hour in our grotto at the Tacul, and afterwards struggled lamely along the Mer de Glace home to the Montanvert. Bloodshot eyes, burnt cheeks, and blistered lips were the result of the journey, but these soon disappeared, and fresh strength was gained for further action.
The above account was written on the day following the ascent, and while all its incidents were fresh in my memory. Last September, guided by the tracks of previous travellers, I ascended nearly to the summit of the ice-fall, along its eastern side, and to those acquainted only with such dangers as I then experienced the account which I have just given must appear exaggerated. I can only say that the track which I pursued in 1858 bore no resemblance in point of difficulty to that which I followed in 1857. The reason probably is, that in my first expedition neither myself nor my companion knew anything of the route, and we were totally destitute of the adjuncts which guides commonly use in crossing the ‘Grand Col.’