An Alpine Letter
1892
Saas Fée—Grimsel Pass—Mountain sickness—A tired lady on the Matterhorn—Ascent of the Matterhorn—Ascent of the Ober-Gabelhorn—The Trift Joch from Zermatt to Zinal—The Concordia Hut—The Jungfrau—The Lötschen Lücke—Mr. Nettleship’s death on Mont Blanc—Beaten by bad weather on the Dru—The disaster at St. Gervais—Neuchâtel to Bâle.
“In all my wanderings round this world of care” I have found few places so free from the black canker as the mountain tops. Let the climber carry out a burden as big as was Christian’s in the Pilgrim’s Progress, he leaves it all behind upon the high peaks. If Mr. Gladstone could only have managed to attain to the summit of Snowdon he might have seen more than the coast of Ireland.
Truly it may be said that the outside of a mountain is good for the inside of a man. So once again I take my holidays upon the Alps, and will hope that the following account may interest readers who travel, for these like to be reminded of beautiful places they have visited, and those who stay at home may be encouraged to try the mountains abroad.
In order to avoid the hot part of the Rhone Valley, and to reach Saas Fée, our first halting place, by an interesting route, my wife and I took the train for Lucerne—by way of Calais, Rheims, Laon, and Bâle. This journey takes less than a day. Starting from London at 11 A.M. we found ourselves the following morning in a boat on the blue Lake of Lucerne with the mountains around us. Travelling by rail over the Brünig Pass, which we had crossed on foot ten years before, we reminded each other of a long walk from Meiringen to Lauterbrunnen in one day, over the Greater and the Lesser Sheidecks when our porter over-ate himself at Grindelwald, about midway, and nearly collapsed at the end of the journey, turning very white and sick in the steep descent to Lauterbrunnen. We came to Meiringen, still chiefly in ruins from the recent fire. The hot, strong Föhn wind blowing from the south is the cause of these awful fires, it will both start and spread the flames. For miles round Meiringen there are notices forbidding smoking in the open road when this wind is blowing. From this sad spot by easy roads we came to Guttannen and here spent the night, rising early next morning for a walk over the Grimsel Pass, with a man to carry our light luggage.
The first early morning walk in Switzerland is always delicious, and wipes away the discomfort of the journey out. We stayed at Handeck to look at the finest waterfall in the country. Two converging torrents, “with a mighty uproar,” pour their waters into an unfathomable, mysterious abyss, hidden by clouds of spray, where a rainbow arches in the sun.
As we walk up the pass, which has been described as a “sepulchre unburied by the sun,” there are, on either hand, enormous, dark, smoothly rounded rocks, the evidence of glacier action in the ages gone. The Grimsel Hospice is situated in the most savage rock scenery, and is not improved by containing a piano, electric bells, and a smart waiter in dress clothes. However, I made use of their telegraph to order a mule from Saas Fée to meet us at Stalden for my wife to ride up there. All the crooked places are now being made plain by means of telegraphs and railways!
A great new road is in process of making over this pass, and as we reached the summit, the blasting operations were heard in many explosions; each was at first like the pop of a champagne cork, but after a pause came a tremendous thundering echo from all the mountains around. We left the Rhone glacier on our left hand, and descended to Obergestelen in the upper part of the Rhone valley, taking there a carriage to Brieg. The sensations are delightful on a sunny day, when, after some hours’ walking in bleak, bare, rock wilderness, you come down into a green and fertile valley; the effect of the keen fresh air is still with you as you drive along among the trees and flowers in the sun, and you are cheered with a sense of well-being in the present and the future. Here you “cannot see the smiling earth and think there’s hell hereafter.” A night was spent at Brieg and then a short journey by rail to Visp and up to Stalden, from whence I followed my wife’s mule to Fée. After spending a few days in comfortable quarters there I left to make some expeditions.
My climbing friend, A. B., was at the Eggishorn Hotel, and had just made the ascent of the Finsteraarhorn, the highest peak of the Oberland, whereupon he had been taken with mountain-sickness, and made his ascent with some difficulty, his guide helping him on and holding his head occasionally while he vomited. His trouble was, probably, caused by his going too fast up his first peak, for, though accustomed to the mountains, he had only been out from England a few days of this season. This interesting malady is well described in Whymper’s travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator; both himself and his men suffered from headache and fever, but the conditions were very different from what obtains on our mountains; the highest point is here only 15,700 feet (Mont Blanc), compared with over 20,000 on Chimborazo. All exertion seems more severe at great heights, and though in Europe mountain-sickness is rare, there are few climbers who have not felt at 14,000 feet a sense of breathlessness if going upwards at any great pace. It is often hard to distinguish it from mere fatigue, and I do not think that guides would acknowledge it in themselves; but for myself I have had the feeling, and “thought I could not breathe in that fine air.” Whymper’s observations prove that man may gradually accustom himself to these great alterations in barometric pressure, though the dangers of want of training and of sudden ascents are well known.
Paul Bert, by means of a metal cylinder, in which he shut himself, had the pressure of the air reduced to be equivalent with that on Mont Blanc, but was soon sick and dizzy; afterwards, in experiments, he was able so much to revive himself with bags of oxygen gas, that three balloonists were emboldened to ascend to a height of 28,000 feet, taking with them a supply of oxygen: with the result that when the balloon again reached earth two of the aeronauts were dead, and the third had a very narrow escape. Man has not yet gained the summit of Mount Everest.
Very extraordinary is the description given of the effects of altered atmospheric pressure by early climbers. Mr. Fellows (afterwards Sir Charles Fellows) in 1827, with Mr. Hawes and ten guides, writes that at the distance of 1000 feet below the summit of Mont Blanc, “the effect of the rarity of the air was still more striking, for the noses of several of our guides burst out with blood.... None of us were free from many effects of the peculiarities of the atmosphere: we all spat blood; the eyes of all were blood-shot, our faces were blistered, and in our respiration we all suffered intensely; for it was impossible to proceed many paces without stopping to recover our breath.” Near the summit “two of our guides fell from faintness, and copiously vomited blood, while all of us gave proof of its internal loss (we all experienced symptoms of haematuria).” Mr. Fellows and his companions suffered less than did the guides.
Those who are interested in this subject should read the account of the ascent of the German Emperor’s balloon Phœnix in 1895, in which Coxwell’s record was beaten. Oxygen cylinders were used.
My friend, A. B., joined me at Schwarz See to climb the Matterhorn. Our two guides were also ready; the leading man, Alois Kalbermatten, we usually called Hercules; his brother, a still stronger man, was named Quinbus Flestrin, or the man-mountain. Together we went up to the hut to spend the night, ready to begin our ascent in the morning. As we were thinking about supper there came down a wretched, worn-out, grey lady, who said she had been up the Matterhorn, was too exhausted to proceed, and must stay the night with us. The place was very unfit, dirty, and stuffy, so we made her rest awhile, restoring her with brandy and lemonade. I then made her guides rope her carefully the whole of the way down, and she reached the hotel safely.
On a fine day when the Matterhorn will “go,” the hut is always crowded, chiefly with foreigners, and we stretched ourselves on the bunkers alongside of a polyglot Pole, who talked half the night. Italian guides stole one of our lanterns, and my friend’s silk scarf.
We had a lovely day for our ascent, which occupied six hours, including halts and feedings. Upon the summit we spent about an hour of most glorious life in view of Italy on one side and Switzerland on the other, while we walked carefully on the delicate ridge of snow which forms the apex of the peak. The ascent of the Matterhorn from the Zermatt side is more interesting historically than as a climb. The hut occupied by Whymper in early attempts still remains, and as the guides pass the fatal spot they cheerfully point out where poor so and so broke his neck, where poor Dr. B. died. The shattered photographic apparatus remains on the precipice upon which, two years ago, an entire party was killed.
The difficult parts near the top are now so strongly roped that some are tempted to make this climb who are not fitted by previous training, and as a tired man is a dangerous man on a steep mountain which is 14,700 feet high, I fear we have not done with accidents on the Matterhorn. The descent ought to be carefully done, and almost as long a time given to it as the ascent. At present there is no railway up, but such a project is seriously in the air, or, like the mountain, in nubibus.
After a pleasant day at Schwarz See wandering above the beautiful Zmutt valley, we went to Zermatt and thence to the Trift Inn to try the Ober-Gabelhorn, but bad weather beat us back. Later on we were successful, and had a glorious day, starting at two in the morning in the starlight.
“So climbers by some Alpine mere,
Walk very softly thro’ the clear
Unlitten dawn of day:
The morning star before them shows
Beyond the rocks, beyond the snows,
Their never-travelled way.”
We were five and a half hours climbing up, and were back about half an hour after mid-day. The snow was in good order, but coming down we had a run to dodge falling stones, though none came upon us. Next day we crossed the Trift Joch, a famous pass from Zermatt to Zinal. From our inn we reached the Mountet hut under five hours, intending to return over the Rothhorn next day; but at the hut a great storm of hail and wind kept us in shelter for a time, and drove us down in the afternoon to Zinal, where it rained night and day continuously.
ICEBERGS STRANDED ON THE BED OF THE MÄRJELEN SEE AFTER THE DEPARTURE OF THE WATER.
With such a downfall, which on the high peaks would be mostly snow, it was useless to think of any Zermatt mountains at present, so we decided to go to the Eggishorn Hotel, and then try the Jungfrau, one of the Oberland giants. The storm had rather scattered me, for I had some wraps at the Trift inn, a bag at Zermatt, unpaid bills at both places, besides a wife at Saas Fée. However, this was settled so far as luggage and payment concerned me, by sending our man to arrange it, and we went off to the Eggishorn. On a Sunday afternoon, after service in the little church, we walked to the Concordia hut, and found the Märjelen See drained almost dry; instead of a great blue sheet of water with icebergs floating in it, there is nothing but a muddy pond. This is partly the result of draining operations, and makes the valley below much safer as a dwelling place, but takes away from the beauty of this part of the great Aletsch glacier.
It is interesting to note the great stones which now and then are carried about on these icebergs, or left stranded when the water is low; thus illustrating, on a small scale, the theory which best explains the position of erratic boulders—namely, that they were carried by icebergs in the glacial age.
The Concordia hut is grandly situated near the beginning of the great glacier, close to the Oberland mountains, and is a starting-point for many expeditions. A member of the Swiss Alpine Club who shared the hut with us was a most excitable little man, and signalled his arrival by letting off with a frightful explosion a large maroon, and to my horror he carried another, quite as large as my fist, ready for his departure in the morning. He actually began to light the thing inside the hut just before our start, but we got outside and out of the way, while in the darkness before the dawn, under the quiet stars, he yelled, and waved his hands about, and burst his infernal machine. It is hard to forgive these queer foreign manners. He afterwards stopped his guide that he might exchange cards with us.
After this adventure we had a quiet time and a perfect day on the Jungfrau. We took five and a half hours to make the ascent, including breakfasts and halts. There is just room to stand or sit carefully on the highest point of snow. We had a glorious view. The beautiful green valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen spread at our feet, and all the peaks around us far and near were perfectly defined. The sun was all day very powerful, and the reflection off the recent snow was dazzling in brightness; my face and ears got touched slightly in spite of anointing with lanoline, and peeled, though not painfully, during the next few days. To prevent sunburn hazeline cream is a most excellent application, combining a vegetable astringent with lanoline.
Early on the morning following we crossed the Lötschen Lücke, a beautiful pass of snow and ice, with the finest crevasses full of strange ice architecture, and came to Ried in the Lötschen Thal, where is a comfortable inn at the foot of the Bietschhorn, the mountain we were anxious to climb. Here the weather broke, great clouds came with a south-west wind, and gathered all over Italy. The peaks could not be seen in the stormy sky, while a large eagle or lämmergeyer hovered over the hotel.
We had to give up our expedition, and after a quiet day in this peaceful inn we went down to the Rhone Valley, dined at Sierre, slept at Sion—lulled to sleep by pouring rain—and next night came to Chamounix by way of the Tête Noire. A shadow was over Chamounix because of the sad death on Mont Blanc of that well-known Oxford scholar, Mr. R. L. Nettleship. I saw the newly turned sods on his grave in the little churchyard, and heard again the story of his loss, so far as it ever will be known. After a stormy night spent in a snow shelter, his guides came down and left his body on the mountain, where it was found by a search party later on. Mr. Myer’s beautiful lines seem to have been made for such an event:
“Here let us leave him; for his shroud the snow,
For funeral lamps he has the planets seven,
For a great sign the icy stair shall go
Between the heights to heaven.”
The survivors must have been very strong fellows and able to carry very thick clothing. Certainly a storm on a great mountain is very awful to encounter, and the strongest man may die if he tries to face it and fight the elements.
At Montenvers, above Chamounix, there is the well-known inn, comfortable enough if the weather be fine, from which we took blankets and food, and crossing the mer de glace, bivouacked a few hours up the rocks on the other side, in order to climb the Aiguille du Dru.
“The Dru is a Dragon of mountains,
They scaled him long ago.”
Pardon the parody. But we were not to be fortunate—an angry sunset, so gorgeous as to repay any day of laborious mountain climbing, was followed before midnight by a storm of wind, hail, thunder, and lightning. Crouched under a rock with the rain running into our ears, we got through the hours of darkness, and in the morning, though we could hardly stand up for the wind, our guides managed to light a fire in a deep hole, and cooked some chocolate for us, and, as soon as the weather and daylight allowed us, we climbed down to the inn.
My wife in my absence had arrived there, while I was on a rock all night in the storm, and we each had our adventures to relate. A few days of broken weather ended in snow all round the hotel. No more mountains were to be climbed by me this year, and regretful good-byes had to be said to my guides.
Our journey home was made by Geneva. On the way we passed the scene of the great catastrophe at St. Gervais in July last. Here miles of mud covered the green meadows, uprended trees stripped of their bark and branches, demolished houses, fragments of timber and rock, were strewn about wherever they had been hurled by the violence of the flood. An inhabitant of a near village told me that at one in the morning the avalanche and deluge came down on the ill-fated hotel, crushed down everything in its way; that he saw next day the people who were saved from the flood were dying in numbers, as he said, choked and poisoned (empoisonné) by the filthy stuff which had filled their mouths, lungs, and stomachs. One hundred and twenty-five bodies were found, but the number of the dead will never be known. Only a week ago an arm and part of the bust had been found five miles from St. Gervais; many such dreadful relics are yet to be discovered. A baby still in its cradle was carried miles away to a village below, but had not survived the perilous voyage.
The best account of the cause of this catastrophe appeared November 1892, in Knowledge, written by The Right Hon. Sir Edward Fry. An enormous amount of subglacial water was suddenly let loose from high up on the Tête Rousses glacier, where two great chasms were photographed next day. The moving mass of ice and water destroyed the village of Bionnay and hurled down everything in its irresistible course, including a rock of vast dimensions. “The villagers of Bionnay were intending to celebrate a fête on the 14th July, and, with a view to letting off feux de joie on that occasion, holes had been bored in a stone then in the village. That stone, with its holes, is now at St. Gervais, and was probably highly effective in the destruction of the baths. It is rather a rock than a stone. It is further stated that the iron safe in the office of the baths was carried five miles down the stream to Sallanches, where it was found.”
Geologists do not perhaps yet realize what such deluging catastrophe can effect. Slow action, as of evolution among the living, and the gradual change effected by ice and water in the inorganic world, chiefly impress us to-day. But such conditions of ice as are described by Sir Martin Conway in his valuable book on the Karakoram-Himalayan glacier, whereon large quantities of water would lie with no crevasses or chinks to carry it away, seem to afford opportunities for catastrophe on a gigantic scale, and help the imagination to realize such possibilities in the glacial age.
These great disasters, with the terrible boiler explosion on the Lake of Geneva, have made the fire at Grindelwald seem quite a small affair, and there have been very few climbing fatalities this season. My wife told me that a victim of the Grindelwald fire arrived at Fée in his only surviving suit of clothes. To the victim the rhyme fitted aptly:
“I’ve lost my portmanteau! I pity your grief!
My sermons were in it! I pity the thief!”
For all the poor parson’s garments were looted, but he discovered at the Fée post-office his two bags crammed one inside the other, containing only his twelve original sermons and two old shoes!
A romantic robbery took place at Arolla, where a gentleman walking alone on the glacier was set upon by a brigand, who covered him with his gun, and made him put his property on the snow—a selection was then made by this Italian rascal, who fled over the frontier into his own country, where such thieves abound.
The railway journey through Neuchâtel to Bâle is through fine country, and Bâle itself between the Black Forest and the Jura, with its old-world look and its bridges over the Rhine, is well worth a visit. You will find here memorials of Erasmus, of Holbein, of Paracelsus, with museums full of interesting mediaeval work—while at the Hospital you have evidence that modern methods are understood, and the appliances, especially on the surgical side, are the best obtainable in Europe. Three hundred beds are contained in the building, and, like our own noble institution of Addenbrooke’s, this is endowed and supported by liberal citizens, who wisely use their wealth and knowledge, not merely for profit and loss, but “for the glory of God and the relief of man’s estate.”