The long, long views of poor, designing man.”
Homer.
Carrel had carte blanche in the matter of guides, and his choice fell upon his relative Cæsar, Luc Meynet, and two others whose names I do not know. These men were now brought together, and our preparations were completed, as the weather was clearing up.
We rested on Sunday, August 9, eagerly watching the lessening of the mists around the great peak, and started just before dawn upon the 10th, on a still and cloudless morning, which seemed to promise a happy termination to our enterprise.
By going always, though gently, we arrived upon the Col du Lion before nine o’clock. Changes were apparent. Familiar ledges had vanished; the platform, whereupon my tent had stood, looked very forlorn, its stones had been scattered by wind and frost, and had half disappeared: and the summit of the Col itself, which in 1862 had always been respectably broad, and covered by snow, was now sharper than the ridge of any church roof, and was hard ice. Already we had found that the bad weather of the past week had done its work. The rocks for several hundred feet below the Col were varnished with ice. Loose, incoherent snow covered the older and harder beds below, and we nearly lost our leader through its treacherousness. He stepped on some snow which seemed firm, and raised his axe to deliver a swinging blow, but, just as it was [pg 115]highest, the crust of the slope upon which he stood broke away, and poured down in serpentine streams, leaving long, bare strips, which glittered in the sun, for they were glassy ice. Carrel, with admirable readiness, flung himself back on to the rock off which he had stepped, and was at once secured. He simply remarked, “It is time we were tied up,” and, after we had been tied up, he went to work again as if nothing had happened.[82]
We had abundant illustrations during the next two hours of the value of a rope to climbers. We were tied up rather widely apart, and advanced, generally, in pairs. Carrel, who led, was followed closely by another man, who lent him a shoulder or placed an axe-head under his feet, when there was need; and when this couple were well placed the second pair advanced, in similar fashion,—the rope being drawn in by those above, and paid out gradually by those below. The leading men again advanced, or the third pair, and so on. This manner of progression was slow, but sure. One man only moved at a time, and if he slipped (and we frequently did slip) he could slide scarcely a foot without being checked by the others. The certainty and safety of the method gave confidence to the one who was moving, and not only nerved him to put out his powers to the utmost, but sustained nerve in really difficult situations. For these rocks (which, it has been already said, were easy enough under ordinary circumstances) were now difficult in a high degree. The snow-water which had trickled down for many days past in little streams, had taken, naturally, the very route by which we wished to ascend; and, refrozen in the night, had glazed the slabs over which we had to pass,—sometimes with a fine film of ice as thin as a sheet of paper, and sometimes so thickly that we [pg 116]could almost cut footsteps in it. The weather was superb, the men made light of the toil, and shouted to rouse the echoes from the Dent d’Hérens.
We went on gaily, passed the second tent platform, the Chimney, and the other well-remembered points, and reckoned, confidently, on sleeping that night upon the top of “the shoulder;” but, before we had well arrived at the foot of the Great Tower, a sudden rush of cold air warned us to look out.
It was difficult to say where this air came from; it did not blow as a wind, but descended rather as the water in a shower-bath! All was tranquil again; the atmosphere showed no signs of disturbance; there was a dead calm, and not a speck of cloud to be seen anywhere. But we did not remain very long in this state. The cold air came again, and this time it was difficult to say where it did not come from. We jammed down our hats as it beat against the ridge, and screamed amongst the crags. Before we had got to the foot of the Tower, mists had been formed above and below. They appeared at first in small, isolated patches (in several places at the same time), which danced and jerked and were torn into shreds by the wind, but grew larger under the process. They were united together, and rent again,—showing us the blue sky for a moment, and blotting it out the next; and augmented incessantly, until the whole heavens were filled with whirling, boiling clouds. Before we could take off our packs, and get under any kind of shelter, a hurricane of snow burst upon us from the east. It fell very heavily, and in a few minutes the ridge was covered by it. “What shall we do?” I shouted to Carrel. “Monsieur,” said he, “the wind is bad; the weather has changed; we are heavily laden. Here is a fine gîte; let us stop! If we go on we shall be half-frozen. That is my opinion.” No one differed from him; so we fell to work to make a place for the tent, and in a couple of hours completed the platform which we had commenced in 1862. The clouds had blackened during that time, and we had hardly finished our task before a thunderstorm broke upon us with appalling fury. Forked [pg 117]lightning shot out at the turrets above, and at the crags below. It was so close that we quailed at its darts. It seemed to scorch us,—we were in the very focus of the storm. The thunder was simultaneous with the flashes; short and sharp, and more like the noise of a door that is violently slammed, multiplied a thousandfold, than any noise to which I can compare it.
When I say that the thunder was simultaneous with the lightning, I speak as an inexact person. My meaning is that the time which elapsed between seeing the flash and hearing the report was inappreciable to me. I wish to speak with all possible precision, and there are two points with regard to this storm upon which I can speak with some accuracy. The first is in regard to the distance of the lightning from our party. We might have been 1100 feet from it if a second of time had elapsed between seeing the flashes and hearing the reports; and a second of time is not appreciated by inexact persons. It was certain that we were sometimes less than that distance from the lightning, because I saw it pass in front of well-known points on the ridge, both above and below us, which were less (sometimes considerably less) than a thousand feet distant.
Secondly, in regard to the difficulty of distinguishing sounds which are merely echoes from true thunder, or the noise which occurs simultaneously with lightning. Arago entered into this subject at some length in his Meteorological Essays, and seemed to doubt if it would ever be possible to determine whether echoes are always the cause of the rolling sounds commonly called thunder.[83] I shall not attempt to show whether the rolling sounds should ever, or never, be regarded as true thunder, but only that during this storm upon the Matterhorn it was possible to distinguish the sound of the thunder itself from the sounds (rolling and otherwise) which were merely the echoes of the first, original sound.