There we may leave Taugwalder, and the minor issues of this great tragedy. The broader lessons are summed up by Mr. Whymper in a memorable passage: “So the traditional inaccessibility of the Matterhorn was vanquished, and was replaced by legends of a more real character. Others will essay to scale its proud cliffs, but to none will it be the mountain that it was to the early explorers. Others may tread its summit snows, but none will ever know the feelings of those who first gazed upon its marvellous panorama; and none, I trust, will ever be compelled to tell of joy turned into grief, and of laughter into mourning. It proved to be a stubborn foe; it resisted long and gave many a hard blow; it was defeated at last with an ease that none could have anticipated, but like a relentless enemy—conquered, but not crushed—it took a terrible vengeance.”
The last sentence has a peculiar significance. A strange fatality seems to dog the steps of those who seek untrodden paths to the crest of the Matterhorn. Disaster does not always follow with the dramatic swiftness of that which marked the conquest of the eastern face, yet, slowly but surely, the avenging spirit of the Matterhorn fulfils itself.
On July 16, two days after the catastrophe, J. A. Carrel set out to crown Whymper’s victory by proving that the Italian ridge was not unconquerable. He was accompanied by Abbé Gorret, a plucky priest who had shared with him that first careless attack on the mountain. Bich and Meynet completed the party. The Abbé and Meynet remained behind not very far from the top, in order to help Carrel and Bich on the return at a place where a short descent onto a ledge was liable to cause difficulty on the descent. This ledge, known as Carrel’s corridor, is about forty minutes from the summit. It needed a man of Carrel’s determined courage to follow its winding course. It is now avoided.
The rest of the climb presented no difficulty. Carrel had conquered the Italian ridge. The ambition of years was half fulfilled, only half, for the Matterhorn itself had been climbed. One cannot but regret that he had turned back on the 14th. Whymper’s cries of triumph had spelt for him the disappointment of a lifetime. Yet a fine rôle was open to him. Had he gone forward and crowned Whymper’s victory by a triumph unmarred by disaster; had the Matterhorn defied all assaults for years, and then yielded on the same day to a party from the Swiss side and Carrel’s men from Italy, the most dramatic page in Alpine history would have been complete. Thirty-five years later, the Matterhorn settled the long outstanding debt, and the man who had first attacked the citadel died in a snowstorm on the Italian ridge of the mountain which he had been the first to assail, and the first to conquer.
Carrel was in his sixty-second year when he started out for his last climb. Bad weather detained the party in the Italian hut, and Signor Sinigaglia noticed that Carrel was far from well. After two nights in the hut, the provisions began to run out; and it was decided to attempt the descent. The rocks were in a terrible condition, and the storm added to the difficulty. Carrel insisted on leading, though he was far from well. He knew every yard of his own beloved ridge. If a man could pilot them through the storm that man was Carrel. Quietly and methodically, he fought his way downward, yard by yard, undaunted by the hurricane, husbanding the last ounces of his strength. He would not allow the other guides to relieve him till the danger was past, and his responsibilities were over. Then suddenly he collapsed, and in a few minutes the gallant old warrior fell backwards and died. A cross now marks the spot where the old soldier died in action.
In life the leading guides of Breuil had often resented Carrel’s unchallenged supremacy. But death had obliterated the old jealousies. Years afterwards, a casual climber stopped before Carrel’s cross, and remarked to the son of Carrel’s great rival, “So that is where Carrel fell.” “Carrel did not fall,” came the indignant answer, “Carrel died.”
Let us turn from Carrel to the conquerors of another great ridge of the Matterhorn.
Of others concerned with attacks on the Italian ridge, Tyndall, Bennen, and J. J. Macquignaz, all came to premature ends. Bennen was killed in an historic accident on the Haut de Cry, and Macquignaz disappeared on Mont Blanc. In 1879, two independent parties on the same day made the first ascent of the great northern ridge of the Matterhorn known as the Zmutt arête. Mummery and Penhall were the amateurs responsible for these two independent assaults. “The memory,” writes Mummery, “of two rollicking parties, comprised of seven men, who on one day in 1879 were climbing on the west face of the Matterhorn passes with ghost-like admonition before my mind, and bids me remember that, of these seven, Mr. Penhall was killed on the Wetterhorn, Ferdinand Imseng on the Macugnaga side of Monte Rosa, and Johan Petrus on the Frersnay Mont Blanc.” Of the remaining four, Mummery disappeared in the Himalayas in 1895, Louis Zurbrucken was killed, Alexander Burgener perished in an avalanche near the Bergli hut in 1911. Mr. Baumann and Emil Rey, who with Petrus followed in Mummery’s footsteps three days later, both came to untimely ends: Baumann disappeared in South Africa, and Emil Rey was killed on the Dent de Géant. The sole survivor of these two parties is the well-known Augustin Gentinetta, one of the ablest of the Zermat guides. Burgener and Gentinetta guided Mummery on the above-mentioned climb, while Penhall was accompanied by Louis Zurbrucken. In recent times, three great mountaineers who climbed this ridge together died violent deaths within the year. The superstitious should leave the Zmutt arête alone.