Sunday, the 6th of July, was showery, and snow fell on the Matterhorn, but we started on the following morning with our three men, and pursued my route of the previous year. I was requested to direct the way, as none save myself had been on the mountain before, but I did not distinguish myself on this occasion, and led my companions nearly to the top of the small peak before the mistake was discovered. The party becoming rebellious, a little exploration was made toward our right, and we found that we were upon the top of the cliff overlooking the Col du Lion. The upper part of the small peak is of a very different character to the lower part: the rocks are not so firm, and they are usually covered or intermixed with snow and glazed with ice: the angle too is more severe. While descending a small snow-slope to get on to the right track, Kronig slipped on a streak of ice and went down at a fearful pace. Fortunately, he kept on his legs, and by a great effort succeeded in stopping just before he arrived at some rocks that jutted through the snow, which would infallibly have knocked him over. When we rejoined him a few minutes later we found that he was incapable of standing, much less of moving, with a face corpse-like in hue, and trembling violently. He remained in this condition for more than an hour, and the day was consequently far advanced before we arrived at our camping-place on the col. Profiting by the experience of last year, we did not pitch the tent actually on the snow, but collected a quantity of débris from the neighboring ledges, and after constructing a rough platform of the larger pieces, leveled the whole with the dirt and mud.
Meynet had proved invaluable as a tent-bearer, for, although his legs were more picturesque than symmetrical, and although he seemed to be built, on principle, with no two parts alike, his very deformities proved of service; and we quickly found he had a spirit of no common order, and that few peasants are more agreeable companions or better climbers than little Luc Meynet, the hunchback of Breuil. He now showed himself not less serviceable as a scavenger, and humbly asked for gristly pieces of meat rejected by the others, or for suspicious eggs, and seemed to consider it a peculiar favor, if not a treat, to be permitted to drink the coffee-grounds. With the greatest contentment he took the worst place at the door of the tent, and did all the dirty work which was put upon him by the guides, as gratefully as a dog who has been well beaten will receive a stroke.
A strong wind sprang up from the east during the night, and in the morning it was blowing almost a hurricane. The tent behaved nobly, and we remained under its shelter for several hours after the sun had risen, uncertain what it was best to do. A lull tempted us to move, but we had scarcely ascended a hundred feet before the storm burst upon us with increased fury. Advance or return was alike impossible: the ridge was denuded of its débris, and we clutched our hardest when we saw stones as big as a man’s fist blown away horizontally into space. We dared not attempt to stand upright, and remained stationary on all fours, glued, as it were, to the rocks. It was intensely cold, for the blast had swept along the main chain of the Pennine Alps and across the great snow-fields around Monte Rosa. Our warmth and courage rapidly evaporated, and at the next lull we retreated to the tent, having to halt several times in that short distance. Taugwald and Kronig then declared that they had had enough, and refused to have anything more to do with the mountain. Meynet also informed us that he would be required down below for important cheese-making operations on the following day. It was therefore needful to return to Breuil, and we arrived there at 2.30 P.M., extremely chagrined at our complete defeat.
Jean-Antoine Carrel, attracted by rumors, had come up to the inn during our absence, and after some negotiations agreed to accompany us, with one of his friends named Pession, on the first fine day. We thought ourselves fortunate, for Carrel clearly considered the mountain a kind of preserve, and regarded our late attempt as an act of poaching. The wind blew itself out during the night, and we started again, with these two men and a porter, at 8 A. M. on the 9th, with unexceptionable weather. Carrel pleased us by suggesting that we should camp even higher than before; and we accordingly proceeded, without resting at the col, until we overtopped the Tête du Lion. Near the foot of the “Chimney,” a little below the crest of the ridge and on its eastern side, we found a protected place; and by building up from ledge to ledge (under the direction of our leader, who was a mason by profession) we at length constructed a platform of sufficient size and of considerable solidity. Its height was about twelve thousand five hundred and fifty feet above the sea; and it exists, I believe, at the present time. We then pushed on, as the day was very fine, and after a short hour’s scramble got to the foot of the Great Tower upon the ridge (that is to say, to Mr. Hawkins’ farthest point), and afterward returned to our bivouac. We turned out again at 4 A. M., and at 5.15 started upward once more, with fine weather and the thermometer at 28°. Carrel scrambled up the Chimney, and Macdonald and I after him. Pession’s turn came, but when he arrived at the top he looked very ill, declared himself to be thoroughly incapable, and said that he must go back. We waited some time, but he did not get better, neither could we learn the nature of his illness. Carrel flatly refused to go on with us alone. We were helpless. Macdonald, ever the coolest of the cool, suggested that we should try what we could do without them, but our better judgment prevailed, and finally we returned together to Breuil. On the next day my friend started for London.
Three times I had essayed the ascent of this mountain, and on each occasion had failed ignominiously. I had not advanced a yard beyond my predecessors. Up to the height of nearly thirteen thousand feet there were no extraordinary difficulties: the way so far might even become “a matter of amusement.” Only eighteen hundred feet remained, but they were as yet untrodden, and might present the most formidable obstacles. No man could expect to climb them by himself. A morsel of rock only seven feet high might at any time defeat him if it were perpendicular. Such a place might be possible to two, or a bagatelle to three men. It was evident that a party should consist of three men at least. But where could the other two men be obtained? Carrel was the only man who exhibited any enthusiasm in the matter, and he in 1861 had absolutely refused to go unless the party consisted of at least four persons. Want of men made the difficulty, not the mountain.
The weather became bad again, so I went to Zermatt on the chance of picking up a man, and remained there during a week of storms. Not one of the good men, however, could be induced to come, and I returned to Breuil on the 17th, hoping to combine the skill of Carrel with the willingness of Meynet on a new attempt by the same route as before; for the Hönli ridge, which I had examined in the mean time, seemed to be entirely impracticable. Both men were inclined to go, but their ordinary occupations prevented them from starting at once.
My tent had been left rolled up at the second platform, and whilst waiting for the men it occurred to me that it might have been blown away during the late stormy weather; so I started off on the 18th to see if this were so or not. The way was by this time familiar, and I mounted rapidly, astonishing the friendly herdsmen—who nodded recognition as I flitted past them and the cows—for I was alone, because no man was available. But more deliberation was necessary when the pastures were passed and climbing began, for it was needful to mark each step in case of mist or surprise by night. It is one of the few things which can be said in favor of mountaineering alone (a practice which has little besides to commend it) that it awakens a man’s faculties and makes him observe. When one has no arms to help and no head to guide him except his own, he must needs take note even of small things, for he cannot afford to throw away a chance; and so it came to pass upon my solitary scramble, when above the snow-line and beyond the ordinary limits of flowering plants, when peering about noting angles and landmarks, that my eyes fell upon the tiny straggling plants—oftentimes a single flower on a single stalk—pioneers of vegetation, atoms of life in a world of desolation, which had found their way up—who can tell how?—from far below, and were obtaining bare sustenance from the scanty soil in protected nooks; and it gave a new interest to the well-known rocks to see what a gallant fight the survivors made (for many must have perished in the attempt) to ascend the great mountain. The gentian, as one might have expected, was there, but it was run close by saxifrages and by Linaria alpina, and was beaten by Thlaspi rotundifolium; which latter plant was the highest I was able to secure, although it too was overtopped by a little white flower which I knew not and was unable to reach.
The tent was safe, although snowed up, and I turned to contemplate the view, which, when seen alone and undisturbed, had all the strength and charm of complete novelty. The highest peaks of the Pennine chain were in front—the Breithorn (13,685 feet), the Lyskamm (14,889), and Monte Rosa (15,217); then turning to the right, the entire block of mountains which separated the Val Tournanche from the Val d’Ayas was seen at a glance, with its dominating summit, the Grand Tournalin (11,155). Behind were the ranges dividing the Val d’Ayas from the valley of Gressoney, backed by higher summits. More still to the right the eye wandered down the entire length of the Val Tournanche, and then rested upon the Graian Alps with their innumerable peaks, and upon the isolated pyramid of Monte Viso (12,643) in the extreme distance. Next, still turning to the right, came the mountains intervening between the Val Tournanche and the Val Barthelemy: Mont Rouss (a round-topped, snowy summit, which seems so important from Breuil, but which is in reality only a buttress of the higher mountain, the Château des Dames) had long ago sunk, and the eye passed over it, scarcely heeding its existence, to the Becca Salle (or, as it is printed on the map, Bee de Sale), a miniature Matterhorn, and to other and more important heights. Then the grand mass of the Dent d’Hérens (13,714) stopped the way—a noble mountain, encrusted on its northern slopes with enormous hanging glaciers, which broke away at mid-day in immense slices, and thundered down on to the Tiefenmatten glacier; and lastly, most splendid of all, came the Dent Blanche (14,318), soaring above the basin of the great Z’Muttgletscher. Such a view is hardly to be matched in the Alps, and this view is very rarely seen, as I saw it, perfectly unclouded.
Time sped away unregarded, and the little birds which had built their nests on the neighboring cliffs had begun to chirp their evening hymn before I thought of returning. Half mechanically, I turned to the tent, unrolled it and set it up: it contained food enough for several days, and I resolved to stay over the night. I had started from Breuil without provisions or telling Favre, the innkeeper, who was accustomed to my erratic ways, where I was going. I returned to the view. The sun was setting, and its rosy rays, blending with the snowy blue, had thrown a pale, pure violet far as the eye could see; the valleys were drowned in a purple gloom, while the summits shone with unnatural brightness; and as I sat in the door of the tent and watched the twilight change to darkness, the earth seemed to become less earthly and almost sublime: the world seemed dead, and I its sole inhabitant. By and by the moon, as it rose, brought the hills again into sight, and by a judicious repression of detail rendered the view yet more magnificent. Something in the south hung like a great glow-worm in the air: it was too large for a star, and too steady for a meteor, and it was long before I could realize the incredible fact that it was the moonlight glittering on the great snow-slope on the north side of Monte Viso, at a distance, as the crow flies, of ninety-eight miles. Shivering, at last I entered the tent and made my coffee. The night was passed comfortably, and the next morning, tempted by the brilliancy of the weather, I proceeded yet higher in search of another place for a platform.