Within the next fortnight we made two further attempts by much the same route and with the same guides, but only succeeded in going far enough to prove that the opinion of the guides was perfectly correct with regard to the state of the snow. Already matters seemed to justify some gloomy doubt as to whether we could carry out even the exploratory part of our programme, for Jaun was compelled to leave us in order to fulfil another engagement, and we scarcely knew where to turn to find another man capable of guiding us in the way we desired to go. Still our determination was unshaken by our run of ill-luck. We would not give it up. With no more definite object than that of justifying an impending table d’hôte dinner, I was walking up the Montanvert path one rainy afternoon, when a ray of sunlight suddenly burst upon me in the person of Alexander Burgener. He had come over the Col du Géant with a party of travellers, and to our delight was not only disengaged, but exceedingly anxious to attack once more, or, in fact, as often as we liked, the obstinate Aiguille. From the moment that he assumed the chief command matters began to wear a different [pg 182]complexion, for we learnt that he had taken every opportunity to consider and study the mountain. By his advice a complete change of tactics was adopted. We decided to abandon all idea of attacking the lower peak, and made up our minds to try the higher summit by the route we had first followed four years previously. We had often discussed together our chances of success on this peak, and had often come to the conclusion that its ascent was more than doubtful. But now Burgener was so positive of ultimate triumph, and so confident in his own powers, not only of getting up himself, but of getting us also to our goal, that the whole matter seemed placed before us in a different light. We might have to wait, we might have to try many times, but still we could not but believe the impression that now gradually formed that we must ultimately succeed. To the spirit which Burgener displayed that year, and which he imbued in us (at a time when it must be confessed that such a spirit was much wanted, for we were as downcast as water-cure patients during the process), and to his sagacity and great guiding qualities, the whole of our ultimate success was due. I knew that, as a guide, he was immeasurably superior to an amateur in his trained knack of finding the way, and that in quickness on rocks the two could hardly be compared. But previously it had always seemed to me that the amateur excelled in one great [pg 183]requisite, viz., pluck. Let this record show that in one instance at least this estimate was erroneous, for had it not been for Burgener’s indomitable pluck we should never have succeeded in climbing the Aiguille du Dru.
Our sixteenth attempt
Burgener was of opinion that from the summit of the actual ridge lying east of the higher peak, and between it and the Aiguille Verte, it was not feasible to ascend on to the face of the mountain, and he proposed accordingly that we should commence by making a study of the rocks lying to the left of the main gully running up to this same ridge, endeavouring if possible to discover some point where we could bear off to the left on to the real mass of the mountain. In addition he pointed out that the upper rocks might be very difficult and require much time (as we had already agreed together in previous years that they were altogether impossible, this remark seemed probable enough), and it was important therefore to discover the easiest and quickest way up the lower part of the rock slopes. Accordingly we departed—and this was our sixteenth attempt—from the Montanvert one morning at 1 A.M. We had long since cultivated a manner of going about our business in such a way as to avoid the gaze of the curious, and set forth on this occasion in much the same spirit that burglars adopt when on evil errands intent. The day was entirely spent as agreed in studying the lower rocks and [pg 184]working out accurately the most feasible line of assault. But though we ascended on this occasion to no very great height we were perpetually engaged in climbing, and the quantity of snow which still lay on the rocks rendered progress difficult and care necessary. Still it was no haphazard exploration that we were engaged in, and the spirit of deliberation in which we began begat a spirit of hopefulness as we went on. A fancied insufficiency of guiding strength, coupled with a decidedly insufficient supply of rope and an inherent idea that the new line of assault contemplated was not to be worked out to an end at the first attempt, all combined to drive us back to Chamouni late the same evening.
Sports and pastimes
Après cela le déluge, and for a long time high mountaineering of any description was out of the question. Desperate were the attempts we made to amuse ourselves, and to while away the time. Sports and pastimes within the limited area of the hotel premises were the fashion for a time. The courtyard in front of Couttet’s hotel was made into a lawn-tennis ground. The village stores being ransacked yielded a limited supply of parti-coloured india-rubber balls; the village carpenter constructed bats out of flat pieces of wood, and we sought to forget the unpropitious elements by playing morning, noon, and night. As a result several windows and a lamp were reduced to ruin. Then we went a-crayfishing. A basket carriage, which was con[pg 185]structed apparently of iron sheeting, but painted over with a wicker-work pattern in order to deceive a flea-bitten grey steed of great age with the impression that it was very light, conveyed us to Châtelard, which by a twofold inaccuracy was termed the fishing-ground, our object being to catch animals which were not fish and lived in water. There the sport began, and was conducted on this wise. Sticks with a cleft at the end, into which nondescript pieces of ill-smelling meat were wedged, were submerged in a little brook to tempt the prey, but the only bites we got were from the horse-flies and inflicted on our own persons; howbeit, one or two of the party when at a distance from their fellow-sportsmen averred that they had been on a point of catching monsters of the deep the size of lobsters. We did not discover till subsequently that, led astray by a plausible peasant possessed of riparian rights and untruthful propensities, we had been fishing (or “crustaceaning,” to speak correctly) all day in a stream untenanted by any crayfish whatever, the result being that we caught a chill and nothing else. The ancient steed, moreover, though he bowled along merrily enough down the hill to Châtelard and required no more stimulus than an occasional chirrup from the driver afforded, was yet very loth to draw the party back up the hill at the same pace, and required such constant stimulation of a more active kind on the way back that it was found necessary [pg 186]before we reached the village to stop and smooth out the creases on his sides. The next day the report came that the spotted grey was “très malade,” and the next day too my right arm was excessively stiff.
A subsequent sporting expedition yielded happier results. One of the party, gifted with diplomatic talents and a power of detecting the vulnerable points in the character of the natives, purchased, for the sum of one franc, information from a shockheaded juvenile suffering from a skin eruption as to the best stocked streams. Then did the deep yield up its carnivorous denizens. Artfully and in silence did the anglers wait for their prey to claw the reeking bait. Deftly and warily did they withdraw the rod, sometimes with two or three victims clinging in a bunch, and land the spoil on the bank. Then would the crayfish loosen their hold, roll over on their backs, flap their tails very briskly, and start off with amazing rapidity for short country walks, speedily to be captured and consigned to the recesses of a receptacle, bearing a suspicious resemblance to Madame Couttet’s work-basket. Ultimately they formed the basis of a “bisque” not unworthy of Brébant.
Apparel oft proclaims the man
What time the india-rubber balls were all burst and the fishing-ground had lost its attraction, seated on a tilted chair beneath the verandah we fell a-musing and studied human nature, and the various types that presented day after day round and about the hotel. [pg 187]Much was there to marvel at in many of the costumes, to many of which the late Mr. Planché himself would have been unable to assign a date. It has been noticed of course, times out of mind, as a characteristic of the Briton, that a costume in which he would not go coal-heaving at home is considered good enough for Sunday in the Alps. One gentleman indeed, whose own apparel would have been considered untidy even if he had been a member of a shipwrecked crew, had been enlarging on this topic with much fervour, to a select audience, dwelling especially on the discourtesy thus shown to the natives of the country. I looked, when Sunday came, that he should be clad in raiment of more than ordinary fitness and splendour, but the only changes that I could perceive from the week-day vesture consisted in a tall hat, which somebody had mistaken for an opera hat on some occasion, and a long strip of rag wound round a cut finger, while his wife, who had recently been on the glaciers, appeared in a low cut dress, so that she presented a curious piebald appearance. The lateness of the season may have accounted for the fact that many of the garments seemed rapidly to be resolving into their pristine condition of warp and woof, especially about the region where it is usual in the Alps to light the poison-darting lucifer matches of the country. There were flannel shirts with collars on some, and flannel shirts without them on others, while yet a third set wore white [pg 188]chokers round their necks made of vulcanite, so that they looked like favourite pug-dogs, or fashioned of a shiny paper, which obviously had no more to do with the garment with which they were temporarily associated than the label of an expensive wine at a second-rate restaurant has to do with the contents of the bottle. Then we fell to anatomical study, and marvelled at the various imperfections of development the muscle known to the learned as the gastrocnemius[4] could exhibit in the legs of our countrymen, and wondered why they took such pains in their costume to display its usually unsymmetrical proportions, and wondered too if they really believed that a double folding back of the upper part of the stocking below the knickerbocker deceived anyone with an appearance of mighty thews. Then we went off and tapped the barometer, which was as devoid of principle as a bone setter, and kept on persistently rising. We made friends with a little stray waif of a dog of obsequious demeanour and cringing disposition, prone to roll over on its back when spoken to, thereby displaying a curiously speckled stomach, but which was withal inclined to be amiable, and wagged its tail so vigorously on being noticed that I quite feared it might sustain a sprain at the root of that appendage. But our friendship was short-lived. Before long our little friend found [pg 189]an acquaintance in the shape of a small semi-shaved mongrel with a tail like a stalk of asparagus run to seed. After a little preliminary walking about on tiptoe, friendly overtures were made. The game commenced by the playmates licking each others’ noses; next they ran round with surprising rapidity in very small circles, and then fell to wrestling in the middle of the courtyard. These canine acquaintanceships always end in the same way. Before long a sudden, sharp squeak was heard, and the last I saw of my little friend was a vanishing form darting round the nearest corner, with his tail as much between his legs as the excessive shortness of that excrescence would permit. His playmate, somewhat disturbed for a moment by this abrupt termination of the acquaintanceship, gazed pensively, with ears erect, for a while in the direction in which his friend had vanished: then investigated two or three unimportant objects by the sense of smell, consumed a few blades of grass, yawned twice, stretched himself once, rolled on something which had puzzled him, and retired to repose at a little distance to await the expected medicinal effects of the herb of which he had partaken.
A canine acquaintance
This is a true saying, that “There’s small choice in rotten apples,” and a description of boredom in one place is much like the same in another. Gradually, weariness of the flesh below in the valley became [pg 190]almost intolerable, while we were longing for an opportunity to weary the flesh, in another way, on the mountain. Ultimately, to my infinite regret, Maund found himself obliged to depart to fulfil an engagement elsewhere, but I still held on, though the conviction was daily becoming stronger that the rain would go on till the winter snows came.