CHAPTER VII
THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH
Mountaineering, as a sport, is so often treated as an invention of Englishmen, that the real facts of its origin are unconsciously disguised. A commonplace error of the textbooks is to date sporting mountaineering from Mr. Justice Wills’s famous ascent of the Wetterhorn in 1854. The Wetterhorn has three peaks, and Mr. Justice Wills made the ascent of the summit which is usually climbed from Grindelwald. This peak, the Hasle Jungfrau, is the most difficult of the group but it is not the highest. In those early days, first ascents were not recorded with the punctuality and thoroughness that prevails to-day; and a large circle of mountaineers gave Mr. Justice Wills the credit of making the first ascent of the Hasle Jungfrau, or at least the first ascent from Grindelwald. Curiously enough, the climb, which is supposed to herald sporting mountaineering, was only the second ascent of the Grindelwald route to the summit of a peak which had already been climbed four times. The facts are as follows: Desor’s guides climbed the Hasle Jungfrau in 1844, and Desor himself followed a few days after. Three months before Wills’s ascent, the peak was twice climbed by an early English pioneer, Mr. Blackwell. Blackwell’s first ascent was by the Rosenlaui route, which Desor had followed, and his second, by the Grindelwald route, chosen by Mr. Wills. On the last occasion, he was beaten by a storm within about ten feet of the top, ten feet which he had climbed on the previous occasion. He planted a flag just under the final cornice; and we must give him the credit of the pioneer ascent from Grindelwald. Mr. Wills never heard of these four ascents, and believed that the peak was still virgin when he ascended it.
It would appear, then, that the so-called first sporting climb has little claim to that distinction. What, precisely, is meant by “sporting” in this connection? The distinction seems to be drawn between those who climb a mountain for the sheer joy of adventure, and those who were primarily concerned with the increase of scientific knowledge. The distinction is important; but it is often forgotten that scientists, like De Saussure, Forbes, Agassiz and Desor, were none the less mountaineers because they had an intelligent interest in the geological history of mountains. All these men were inspired by a very genuine mountaineering enthusiasm. Moreover, before Mr. Wills’s climb there had been a number of quite genuine sporting climbs. A few Englishmen had been up Mont Blanc; and, though most of them had been content with Mont Blanc, they could scarcely be accused of scientific inspiration. They, however, belonged to the “One man, one mountain, school,” and as such can scarcely claim to be considered as anything but mountaineers by accident. Yet Englishmen like Hill, Blackwell, and Forbes, had climbed mountains with some regularity long before Mr. Wills made his great ascent; and foreign mountaineers had already achieved a series of genuine sporting ascents. Bourrit was utterly indifferent to science; and Bourrit was, perhaps, the first man who made a regular practice of climbing a snow mountain every year. The fact that he was not often successful must not be allowed to discount his sincere enthusiasm. Before 1840, no Englishman had entered the ranks of regular mountaineers; and by that date many of the great Alpine monarchs had fallen. Mont Blanc, the outer fortresses of Monte Rosa, the Finsteraarhorn, King of the Oberland, the Ortler, and the Glockner, the great rivals of the Eastern Alps, had all been conquered. The reigning oligarchies of the Alps had bowed their heads to man.
Let us concede what must be conceded; even so, we need not fear that our share in Alpine history will be unduly diminished. Mr. Wills’s ascent was none the less epoch-making because it was the fourth ascent of a second-class peak. The real value of that climb is this: It was one of the first climbs that were directly responsible for the systematic and brilliant campaign which was in the main conducted by Englishmen. Isolated foreign mountaineers had already done brilliant work, but their example did not give the same direct impetus. It was not till the English arrived that mountaineering became a fashionable sport; and the wide group of English pioneers that carried off almost all the great prizes of the Alps between 1854 and the conquest of the Matterhorn in 1865 may fairly date their invasion from Mr. Justice Wills’s ascent, a climb which, though not even a virgin ascent and by no means the first great climb by an Englishman, was none the less a landmark. Mr. Justice Wills’s vigorous example caught on as no achievement had caught on. His book, which is full of spirited writing, made many converts to the new sport.
There had, of course, been many enthusiasts who had preached the sport before Mr. Justice Wills climbed the Wetterhorn. The earliest of all Alpine Journals is the Alpina, which first expressed the impetus of the great Alpine campaign. It appeared in 1806, and survived for four years, though the name was later attached to a magazine which has still a large circulation in Switzerland. It was edited by Ulysses von Salis; and it contained articles on chamois-hunting, the ascent of the Ortler, etc., besides reviews of the mountain literature of the period, such books, for instance, as those of Bourrit and Ebel. “The Glockner and the Ortler,” writes the editor, “may serve as striking instances of our ignorance, until a few years ago, of the highest peaks in the Alpine ranges. Excluding the Gotthard and Mont Blanc, and their surrounding eminences, there still remain more than a few marvellous and colossal peaks which are no less worthy of becoming better known.”
From 1840, the number of Englishmen taking part in high ascents increases rapidly; and between 1854 and 1865 the great bulk of virgin ascents stand to their credit, though it must always be remembered that these ascents were led by Swiss, French and Italian guides, who did not, however, do them till the English arrived. Before 1840 a few Englishmen climbed Mont Blanc; Mrs. and Miss Campbell crossed the Col de Géant, which had previously been reopened by Mr. Hill; and Mr. Malkin crossed a few glacier passes. But J. D. Forbes was really the first English mountaineer to carry out a series of systematic attacks on the upper snows. Incidentally, his book, Travels through the Alps of Savoy, published in 1843, was the first book in the English language dealing with the High Alps. A few pamphlets had been published by the adventurers of Mont Blanc, but no really serious work. Forbes is, therefore, the true pioneer not only of British mountaineering, but of the Alpine literature in our tongue. He was a worthy successor to De Saussure, and his interest in the mountains was very largely scientific. He investigated the theories of glacier motion, and visited Agassiz at the “Hôtel des Neuchâtelois.” On that occasion, if Agassiz is to be believed, the canny Scotsman managed to extract more than he gave from the genial and expansive Switzer. When Forbes published his theories, Agassiz accused him of stealing his ideas. Desor, whose genius for a row was only excelled by the joy he took in getting up his case, did not improve matters; and a bitter quarrel was the result. Whatever may have been the rights of the matter, Forbes certainly mastered the theory of glacier motion, and proved his thorough grasp of the matter in a rather remarkable way. In 1820, a large party of guides and amateurs were overwhelmed by an avalanche on the Grand Plateau, and three of the guides disappeared into a crevasse. Their bodies were not recovered. Dr. Hamel, who had organised the party, survived. He knew something of glacier motion, and ventured a guess that the bodies of the guides would reappear at the bottom of the glacier in about a thousand years. He was just nine hundred and thirty-nine years wrong in his calculation. Forbes, having ascertained by experiment the rate at which the glacier moved, predicted that the bodies would reappear in forty years. This forecast proved amazingly accurate. Various remains reappeared near the lower end of the Glacier des Bossons in 1861, a fragment of a human body, and a few relics came to light two years later, and a skull, ropes, hat, etc., in 1865. Strangely enough, this accident was repeated in almost all its details in the famous Arkwright disaster of 1866.
Forbes carried through a number of fine expeditions. He climbed the Jungfrau with Agassiz and Desor—before the little trouble referred to above. He made the first passage by an amateur of the Col d’Hérens, and the first ascents of the Stockhorn (11,796 feet) and the Wasenhorn (10,661 feet). Besides his Alpine wanderings, he explored some of the glaciers of Savoy. His most famous book, The Tour of Mont Blanc, is well worth reading, and contains one fine passage, a simile between the motion of a glacier and the life of man.
Forbes was the first British mountaineer; but John Ball played an even more important part in directing the activity of the English climbers. He was a Colonial Under-Secretary in Lord Palmerston’s administration; but he gave up politics for the more exciting field of Alpine adventure. His main interest in the Alps was, perhaps, botanical; and his list of first ascents is not very striking, considering the host of virgin peaks that awaited an enterprising pioneer. His great achievement was the conquest of the first great dolomite peak that yielded its secrets to man, the Pelmo. He also climbed the virgin Cima Tosa in the Brenta dolomites, and made the first traverse of the Schwartztor. He was the first to edit guidebooks for the use of mountaineers, and his knowledge of the Alps was surprisingly thorough. He played a great part in the formation of the Alpine Club, and in the direction of their literary activity. He edited the classical series of Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers, and a series of excellent Alpine guides.
But the event which above all others attracted the attention of Englishmen to the Alps was Albert Smith’s ascent of Mont Blanc. Albert Smith is the most picturesque of the British mountaineers. He was something of a blagueur, but behind all his vulgarity lay a very deep feeling for the Alps. His little book on Mont Blanc makes good reading. The pictures are delightfully inaccurate in their presentation of the terrors of Alpine climbing; and the thoroughly sincere fashion in which the whole business of climbing is written up proves that the great white mountain had not yet lost its prestige. But we can forgive Albert Smith a great deal, for he felt the glamour of the Alps long before he had seen a hill higher than St. Anne’s, near Chertsey. As a child, he had been given The Peasants of Chamouni, a book which rivalled Pilgrim’s Progress in his affections. This mountain book fired him to anticipate his subsequent success as a showman. “Finally, I got up a small moving panorama of the horrors pertaining to Mont Blanc ... and this I so painted up and exaggerated in my enthusiasm, that my little sister—who was my only audience, but an admirable one, for she cared not how often I exhibited—would become quite pale with fright.” Time passed, and Albert Smith became a student in Paris. He discovered that his enthusiasm for Mont Blanc was shared by a medical student; and together they determined to visit the Mecca of their dreams. They collected twelve pounds apiece, and vowed that it should last them for five weeks. They carried it about with them entirely in five-franc pieces, chiefly stuffed into a leathern belt round their waists. Buying “two old soldiers’ knapsacks at three francs each, and two pairs of hobnailed shoes at five francs and a half,” they started off on their great adventure. Smith wisely adds that, “if there is anything more delightful than travelling with plenty of money, it is certainly making a journey of pleasure with very little.”
They made the journey to Geneva in seventy-eight hours by diligence. At Melun they bought a brick of bread more than two feet long. “The passengers paid three francs each for their déjeuner, ours did not cost ten sous.” At night, they slept in the empty diligence. They meant to make that twelve pounds apiece carry them some distance. From Geneva they walked to Chamounix, helped by an occasional friendly lift. Smith was delighted with the realisation of childish dreams. “Every step was like a journey in fairyland.” In fact, the only disillusion was the contrast between the Swiss peasant of romance and the reality. “The Alpine maidens we encountered put us more in mind of poor law unions than ballads; indeed, the Swiss villagers may be classed with troubadours, minstrel pages, shepherdesses, and other fabulous pets of small poets and vocalists.” After leaving Chamounix, Smith crossed the St. Bernard, visited Milan, and returned with a small margin still left out of the magic twelve pounds.