Part 4 (1/2)

”The music of whose liquid lip Had been to us companions.h.i.+p, And, in our lonely life, had grown To have an almost human tone.”(44)

It was bitterly cold. Water froze hard in a bottle under my head. Not surprising, as we were actually on snow, and in a position where the slightest wind was at once felt. For a time we dozed, but about midnight there came from high aloft a tremendous explosion, followed by a second of dead quiet. A great ma.s.s of rock had split off, and was descending towards us. My guide started up, wrung his hands, and exclaimed, ”O my G.o.d, we are lost!” We heard it coming, ma.s.s after ma.s.s pouring over the precipices, bounding and rebounding from cliff to cliff, and the great rocks in advance smiting one another. They seemed to be close, although they were probably distant, but some small fragments, which dropped upon us at the same time from the ledges just above, added to the alarm, and my demoralised companion pa.s.sed the remainder of the night in a state of shudder, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. ”terrible,” and other adjectives.

We put ourselves in motion at daybreak, and commenced the ascent of the south-west ridge. There was no more sauntering with hands in the pockets; each step had to be earned by downright climbing. But it was the most pleasant kind of climbing. The rocks were fast and unenc.u.mbered with debris; the cracks were good, although not numerous, and there was nothing to fear except from one's-self. So we thought, at least, and shouted to awake echoes from the cliffs. Ah! there is no response. Not yet; wait a while, everything here is upon a superlative scale; count a dozen, and then the echoes will return from the walls of the Dent d'Herens, miles away, in waves of pure and undefiled sound; soft, musical, and sweet. Halt a moment to regard the view! We overlook the Tete du Lion, and nothing except the Dent d'Herens, whose summit is still a thousand feet above us, stands in the way. The ranges of the Graian Alps-an ocean of mountains-are seen, at a glance, governed by their three great peaks, the Grivola, Grand Paradis, and Tour de St. Pierre. How soft, and yet how sharp, they look in the early morning! The mid-day mists have not begun to rise; nothing is obscured; even the pointed Viso, all but a hundred miles away, is perfectly defined.

Turn to the east, and watch the sun's slanting rays coming across the Monte Rosa snow-fields. Look at the shadowed parts, and see how even they-radiant with reflected light-are more brilliant than man knows how to depict. See, how-even there-the gentle undulations give shadows within shadows; and how-yet again-where falling stones or ice have left a track, there are shadows upon shadows, each with a light and a dark side, with infinite gradations of matchless tenderness. Then, note the sunlight as it steals noiselessly along, and reveals countless unsuspected forms;-the delicate ripple-lines which mark the concealed creva.s.se, and the waves of drifted snow; producing each minute more lights and fresh shadows; sparkling on the edges and glittering on the ends of the icicles; s.h.i.+ning on the heights and illuminating the depths, until all is aglow, and the dazzled eye returns for relief to the sombre crags.

Hardly an hour had pa.s.sed since we left the Col before we arrived at the ”Chimney.” It proved to be the counterpart of the place to which reference has been made at p. 3; a smooth, straight slab of rock was fixed, at a considerable angle, between two others equally smooth.(45) My companion essayed to go up, and, after crumpling his long body into many ridiculous positions, he said that he would not, for he could not, do it. With some little trouble I got up it una.s.sisted, and then my guide tied himself on to the end of our rope, and I endeavoured to pull him up. But he was so awkward that he did little for himself, and so heavy that he proved too much for me, and after several attempts he untied himself, and quietly observed that he should go down. I told him he was a coward, and _he_ mentioned his opinion of me. I requested him to go to Breil, and to say that he had left his ”monsieur” on the mountain, and he turned to go; whereupon I had to eat humble pie and ask him to come back; for, although it was not very difficult to go up, and not at all dangerous with a man standing below, it was quite another thing to come down, as the lower edge overhung in a provoking manner.

The day was perfect; the sun was pouring down grateful warmth; the wind had fallen; the way seemed clear, no insuperable obstacle was in sight; yet what could one do alone? I stood on the top, chafing under this unexpected contretemps, and remained for some time irresolute; but as it became apparent that the Chimney was swept more frequently than was necessary (it was a natural channel for falling stones), I turned at last, descended with the a.s.sistance of my companion, and returned with him to Breil, where we arrived about mid-day.

The Carrels did not show themselves, but we were told that they had not got to any great height,(46) and that the ”comrade,” who for convenience had taken off his shoes and tied them round his waist, had managed to let one of them slip, and had come down with a piece of cord fastened round his naked foot. Notwithstanding this, they had boldly glissaded down the Couloir du Lion, J. J. Carrel having his shoeless foot tied up in a pocket handkerchief.

The Matterhorn was not a.s.sailed again in 1861. I left Breil with the conviction that it was little use for a single tourist to organise an attack upon it, so great was its influence on the morals of the guides, and persuaded that it was desirable at least two should go, to back each other when required: and departed with my guide(47) over the Col Theodule, longing, more than before, to make the ascent, and determined to return, if possible with a companion, to lay siege to the mountain until one or the other was vanquished.

CHAPTER IV.

RENEWED ATTEMPTS TO ASCEND THE MATTERHORN.

”'Tis a lesson you should heed, Try, try, try again.

If at first you don't succeed, Try, try, try again.

Then your courage should appear, For if you will persevere You will conquer, never fear.

Try, try, try again.”

HICKSON.

The year 1862 was still young, and the Matterhorn, clad in its wintry garb, bore but little resemblance to the Matterhorn of the summer, when a new force came to do battle with the mountain, from another direction. Mr.

T. S. Kennedy of Leeds conceived the extraordinary idea that the peak might prove less impracticable in January than in June, and arrived at Zermatt in the former month to put his conception to the test. With stout Peter Perrn and st.u.r.dy Peter Taugwalder he slept in the little chapel at the Schwarzensee, and on the next morning, like the Messrs. Parker, followed the ridge between the peak called Hornli and the great mountain.

But they found that snow in winter obeyed the ordinary laws, and that the wind and frost were not less unkind than in summer. ”The wind whirled up the snow and spiculae of ice into our faces like needles, and flat pieces of ice a foot in diameter, carried up from the glacier below, went flying past. Still no one seemed to like to be the first to give in, till a gust fiercer than usual forced us to shelter for a time behind a rock.

Immediately it was tacitly understood that our expedition must now end; but we determined to leave some memento of our visit, and, after descending a considerable distance, we found a suitable place with loose stones of which to build a cairn. In half-an-hour a tower six feet high was erected; a bottle, with the date, was placed inside, and we retreated as rapidly as possible.”(48) This cairn was placed at the spot marked upon Dufour's Map of Switzerland 10,820 feet (3298 metres), and the highest point attained by Mr. Kennedy was not, I imagine, more than two or three hundred feet above it.

Shortly after this Professor Tyndall gave, in his little tract _Mountaineering in 1861_, an account of the reason why he had left Breil, in August 1861, without doing anything.(49) It seems that he sent his guide Bennen to reconnoitre, and that the latter made the following report to his employer:-”Herr, I have examined the mountain carefully, and find it more difficult and dangerous than I had imagined. There is no place upon it where we could well pa.s.s the night. We might do so on yonder Col upon the snow, but there we should be almost frozen to death, and totally unfit for the work of the next day. On the rocks there is no ledge or cranny which could give us proper harbourage; and starting from Breuil it is certainly impossible to reach the summit in a single day.” ”I was entirely taken aback,” says Tyndall, ”by this report. I felt like a man whose grip had given way, and who was dropping through the air.... Bennen was evidently dead against any attempt upon the mountain. 'We can, at all events, reach the lower of the two summits,' I remarked. 'Even that is difficult,' he replied; 'but when you have reached it, what then? The peak has neither name nor fame.'”(50)

I was more surprised than discouraged by this report by Bennen. One half of his a.s.sertions I knew to be wrong. The Col to which he referred was the Col du Lion, upon which we had pa.s.sed a night less than a week after he had spoken so authoritatively; and I had seen a place not far below the ”Chimney,”-a place about 500 feet above the Col-where it seemed possible to construct a sleeping-place. Bennen's opinions seem to have undergone a complete change. In 1860 he is described as having been enthusiastic to make an attempt, and in 1861 he was dead against one. Nothing dismayed by this, my friend Mr. Reginald Macdonald, our companion on the Pelvoux-to whom so much of our success had been due, agreed to join me in a renewed a.s.sault from the south; and, although we failed to secure Melchior Anderegg and some other notable guides, we obtained two men of repute, namely, Johann zum Taugwald and Johann Kronig, of Zermatt. We met at that place early in July, but stormy weather prevented us even from pa.s.sing to the other side of the chain for some time. We crossed the Col Theodule on the 5th, in thoroughly unsettled weather-rain was falling in the valleys, and snow upon the mountains. Shortly before we gained the summit we were made extremely uncomfortable by hearing mysterious, rus.h.i.+ng sounds, which sometimes seemed as if a sudden gust of wind was sweeping along the snow, and, at others, almost like the swis.h.i.+ng of a long whip: yet the snow exhibited no signs of motion, and the air was perfectly calm. The dense, black storm-clouds made us momentarily expect that our bodies might be used as lightning-conductors, and we were well satisfied to get under shelter of the inn at Breil, without having submitted to any such experience.(51)

We had need of a porter, and, by the advice of our landlord, descended to the chalets of Breil in search of one Luc Meynet. We found his house a mean abode, enc.u.mbered with cheese-making apparatus, and tenanted only by some bright-eyed children; but as they said that uncle Luc would soon be home, we waited at the door of the little chalet and watched for him. At last a speck was seen coming round the corner of the patch of firs below Breil, and then the children clapped their hands, dropped their toys, and ran eagerly forward to meet him. We saw an ungainly, wobbling figure stoop down and catch up the little ones, kiss them on each cheek, and put them into the empty panniers on each side of the mule, and then heard it come on carolling, as if this was not a world of woe: and yet the face of little Luc Meynet, the hunchback of Breil, bore traces of trouble and sorrow, and there was more than a touch of sadness in his voice when he said that he must look after his brother's children. All his difficulties were, however, at length overcome, and he agreed to join us to carry the tent.

In the past winter I had turned my attention to tents, and that which we had brought with us was the result of experiments to devise one which should be sufficiently portable to be taken over the most difficult ground, and which should combine lightness with stability. Its base was just under six feet square, and a cross-section perpendicular to its length was an equilateral triangle, the sides of which were six feet long.

It was intended to accommodate four persons. It was supported by four ash-poles, six feet and a half long, and one inch and a quarter thick, tapering to the top to an inch and an eighth; these were shod with iron points. The order of proceeding in the construction of the tent was as follows:-Holes were drilled through the poles about five inches from their tops, for the insertion of two wrought-iron bolts, three inches long and one quarter of an inch thick. The bolts were then inserted, and the two pairs of poles were set out (and fixed up by cords), to the proper dimensions. The roof was then put on. This was made of the rough, unbleached calico called forfar, which can be obtained in six-feet widths, and it was continued round for about two feet, on each side, on to the floor. The width of the material was the length of the tent, and seams were thus avoided in the roof. The forfar was sewn round each pole; particular care being taken to avoid wrinkles, and to get the whole perfectly taut. The flooring was next put in and sewn down to the forfar.

This was of the ordinary plaid mackintosh, about nine feet square; the surplus three feet being continued up the sides to prevent draughts. It is as well to have two feet of this surplus on one side, and only one foot on the other; the latter amount being sufficient for the side occupied by the feet. One end was then permanently closed by a triangular piece of forfar, which was sewn down to that which was already fixed. The other end was left open, and had two triangular flaps that overlapped each other, and which were fastened up when we were inside by pieces of tape. Lastly, the forfar was nailed down to the poles to prevent the tent getting out of shape. The cord which was used for climbing served for the tent; it was pa.s.sed over the crossed poles and underneath the ridge of the roof, and the two ends-one fore and the other aft-were easily secured to pieces of rock. Such a tent costs about four guineas, and its weight is about twenty-three pounds; or, if the lightest kind of forfar is used, it need not exceed twenty pounds. When it was fastened up for transport it presented the appearance shown in the portrait of Meynet at p. 234, and it could be unrolled and set up by two persons in three minutes; a point of no small importance during extreme weather.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram to show manner of fastening tent-poles]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE AUTHOR'S MOUNTAIN TENT.]

This tent is intended, and adapted, for camping out at high alt.i.tudes, or in cold climates. It is not pretended that it is perfectly waterproof, but it can be made so by the addition of mackintosh to the roof; and this increases the weight by only two and a half pounds. It is then fit for general use.(52) It may be observed that the pattern of this tent is identical in all essential points with that arrived at (after great experience) by Sir Leopold M'Clintock for Arctic work, and frequent use by many persons, under varied conditions, has shown that the pattern is both practical and substantial.