Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 148, Vol. III, October 30, 1886

No. 148.—Vol. III.
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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1886.
The Matterhorn, or Mont Cervin, a peak of the Pennine Alps, fourteen thousand seven hundred and eighty feet high, is unique amongst the mountains of the Alps, for elsewhere throughout their length and breadth there is no single peak that approaches to it in massive grandeur of shape. Standing alone, apart from the neighbouring peaks, holding itself proudly aloof, as it were, from the common herd, it is truly a monarch among mountains. To look upon it is to realise at once the feeling of awe and reverence with which, even to this day, the peasants of the valley regard it—a feeling which in former years had perhaps more to do with its reputed inaccessibility than anything else; whilst other peaks whose ascent is now thought to be more difficult, were falling one by one before the early pioneers of the Alpine Club. In that time—with very few exceptions—even the boldest hunters of Zermatt and the Val Tournanche shrank from attempting the ascent, for time-honoured legends said that the Matterhorn was haunted, that evil spirits made it their trysting-place; and when the storm raged high, and the lightning played about its crags, danced and shrieked around it in unholy glee. Then, too, the Matterhorn has a history of its own, such as no other mountain save Mont Blanc possesses.
Every one who has read Mr Whymper’s Scrambles amongst the Alps —a book which has probably done more to stimulate the love of climbing than any written before or since—knows how he alone—when other mountaineers tried and failed, coming back always with the same tale, that the summit was inaccessible—persisted that it could be reached; and how, though driven back many and many a time, he refused to accept defeat, till at length, after an expenditure of time and money which some would deem completely thrown away in such a cause, his indomitable perseverance met with its due reward. As Mr Whymper’s adventures in connection with the ascent of the Matterhorn have been already related in this Journal under the title ‘Ascent of the Matterhorn,’ January 10, 1880, we need only refer to them here in so far as is necessary for the sequence of the narrative.