In the blandest manner my comrade inquired if to persevere would not be to do that which is called “tempting Providence.” My reply being in the affirmative, he further observed, “Suppose we go down?” “Very willingly.” “Ask the guides.” They had not the least objection; so we went down, and slept that night at the Montanvert.
Off the ridge we were out of the wind. In fact, a hundred feet down to windward, on the slope fronting the Glacier du Chardonnet, we were broiling hot: there was not a suspicion of a breeze. Upon that side there was nothing to tell that a hurricane was raging a hundred feet higher; the cloudless sky looked tranquillity itself; whilst to leeward the only sign of a disturbed atmosphere was the friskiness of the snow upon the crests of the ridges.
We set out on the 14th, with Croz, Payot and Charlet, to finish off the work which had been cut short so abruptly, and slept, as before, at the Chalets de Lognan. On the 15th, about midday, we arrived upon the summit of the aiguille, and found that we had actually been within one hundred feet of it when we turned back upon the first attempt.
It was a triumph to Reilly. In this neighborhood he had performed the feat (in 1863) of joining together “two mountains, each about thirteen thousand feet high, standing on the map about a mile and a half apart.” Long before we made the ascent he had procured evidence which could not be impugned that the Pointe des Plines, a fictitious summit which had figured on other maps as a distinct mountain, could be no other than the Aiguille d’Argentiere, and he had accordingly obliterated it from the preliminary draft of his map. We saw that it was right to do so. The Pointe des Plines did not exist. We had ocular demonstration of the accuracy of his previous observations.
I do not know which to admire most, the fidelity of Mr. Reilly’s map or the indefatigable industry by which the materials were accumulated from which it, was constructed. To men who are sound in limb it may be amusing to arrive on a summit (as we did upon the top of Mont Dolent), sitting astride a ridge too narrow to stand upon, or to do battle with a ferocious wind (as we did on the top of the Aiguille de Trélatête), or to feel half frozen in midsummer (as we did on the Aiguille d’Argentiere). But there is extremely little amusement in making sketches and notes under such conditions. Yet upon all these expeditions, under the most adverse circumstances and in the most trying situations, Mr. Reilly’s brain and fingers were always at work. Throughout all he was ever alike—the same genial, equable-tempered companion, whether victorious or whether defeated; always ready to sacrifice his own desires to suit our comfort and convenience. By a most happy union of audacity and prudence, combined with untiring perseverance, he eventually completed his self-imposed task—a work which would have been intolerable except as a labor of love, and which, for a single individual, may wellnigh be termed herculean.
We separated upon the level part of the Glacier d’Argentiere, Reilly going with Payot and Charlet viâ the châlets of Lognan and de la Pendant, whilst I, with Croz, followed the right bank of the glacier to the village of Argentiere. At 7 P. M. we entered the humble inn, and ten minutes afterward heard the echoes of the cannon which were fired upon the arrival of our comrades at Chamounix.
CHAPTER XII.
THE MOMING PASS—ZERMATT.
On July 10, Croz and I went to Sierre, in the Valais, viâ the Col de Balme, the Col de la Forclaz and Martigny. The Swiss side of the Forclaz is not creditable to Switzerland. The path from Martigny to the summit has undergone successive improvements in these latter years, but mendicants permanently disfigure it.
We passed many tired pedestrians toiling up this oven, persecuted by trains of parasitic children. These children swarm there like maggots in a rotten cheese. They carry baskets of fruit with which to plague the weary tourist. They flit around him like flies; they thrust the fruit in his face; they pester him with their pertinacity. Beware of them!—taste, touch not their fruit. In the eyes of these children each peach, each grape, is worth a prince’s r ansom. It is of no use to be angry: it is like flapping wasps—they only buzz the more. Whatever you do or whatever you say, the end will be the same. “Give me something” is the alpha and omega of all their addresses. They learn the phrase, it is said, before they are taught the alphabet. It is in all their mouths. From the tiny toddler up to the maiden of sixteen, there is nothing heard but one universal chorus of “Give me something: will you have the goodness to give me something?”
From Sierre we went up the Val d’Anniviers to Zinal, to join our former companions, Moore and Almer. Moore was ambitious to discover a shorter way from Zinal to Zermatt than the two passes which were known.[[33]] He had shown to me, upon Dufour’s map, that a direct line connecting the two places passed exactly over the depression between the Zinal-Rothhorn and the Schallhorn. He was confident that a passage could be effected over this depression, and was sanguine that it would (in consequence of its directness) prove to be a quicker route than the circuitous ones over the Triftjoch and the Col Durand.