A great new road is in process of making over this pass, and as we reached the summit, the blasting operations were heard in many explosions; each was at first like the pop of a champagne cork, but after a pause came a tremendous thundering echo from all the mountains around. We left the Rhone glacier on our left hand, and descended to Obergestelen in the upper part of the Rhone valley, taking there a carriage to Brieg. The sensations are delightful on a sunny day, when, after some hours’ walking in bleak, bare, rock wilderness, you come down into a green and fertile valley; the effect of the keen fresh air is still with you as you drive along among the trees and flowers in the sun, and you are cheered with a sense of well-being in the present and the future. Here you “cannot see the smiling earth and think there’s hell hereafter.” A night was spent at Brieg and then a short journey by rail to Visp and up to Stalden, from whence I followed my wife’s mule to Fée. After spending a few days in comfortable quarters there I left to make some expeditions.
My climbing friend, A. B., was at the Eggishorn Hotel, and had just made the ascent of the Finsteraarhorn, the highest peak of the Oberland, whereupon he had been taken with mountain-sickness, and made his ascent with some difficulty, his guide helping him on and holding his head occasionally while he vomited. His trouble was, probably, caused by his going too fast up his first peak, for, though accustomed to the mountains, he had only been out from England a few days of this season. This interesting malady is well described in Whymper’s travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator; both himself and his men suffered from headache and fever, but the conditions were very different from what obtains on our mountains; the highest point is here only 15,700 feet (Mont Blanc), compared with over 20,000 on Chimborazo. All exertion seems more severe at great heights, and though in Europe mountain-sickness is rare, there are few climbers who have not felt at 14,000 feet a sense of breathlessness if going upwards at any great pace. It is often hard to distinguish it from mere fatigue, and I do not think that guides would acknowledge it in themselves; but for myself I have had the feeling, and “thought I could not breathe in that fine air.” Whymper’s observations prove that man may gradually accustom himself to these great alterations in barometric pressure, though the dangers of want of training and of sudden ascents are well known.
Paul Bert, by means of a metal cylinder, in which he shut himself, had the pressure of the air reduced to be equivalent with that on Mont Blanc, but was soon sick and dizzy; afterwards, in experiments, he was able so much to revive himself with bags of oxygen gas, that three balloonists were emboldened to ascend to a height of 28,000 feet, taking with them a supply of oxygen: with the result that when the balloon again reached earth two of the aeronauts were dead, and the third had a very narrow escape. Man has not yet gained the summit of Mount Everest.
Very extraordinary is the description given of the effects of altered atmospheric pressure by early climbers. Mr. Fellows (afterwards Sir Charles Fellows) in 1827, with Mr. Hawes and ten guides, writes that at the distance of 1000 feet below the summit of Mont Blanc, “the effect of the rarity of the air was still more striking, for the noses of several of our guides burst out with blood.... None of us were free from many effects of the peculiarities of the atmosphere: we all spat blood; the eyes of all were blood-shot, our faces were blistered, and in our respiration we all suffered intensely; for it was impossible to proceed many paces without stopping to recover our breath.” Near the summit “two of our guides fell from faintness, and copiously vomited blood, while all of us gave proof of its internal loss (we all experienced symptoms of haematuria).” Mr. Fellows and his companions suffered less than did the guides.
Those who are interested in this subject should read the account of the ascent of the German Emperor’s balloon Phœnix in 1895, in which Coxwell’s record was beaten. Oxygen cylinders were used.
My friend, A. B., joined me at Schwarz See to climb the Matterhorn. Our two guides were also ready; the leading man, Alois Kalbermatten, we usually called Hercules; his brother, a still stronger man, was named Quinbus Flestrin, or the man-mountain. Together we went up to the hut to spend the night, ready to begin our ascent in the morning. As we were thinking about supper there came down a wretched, worn-out, grey lady, who said she had been up the Matterhorn, was too exhausted to proceed, and must stay the night with us. The place was very unfit, dirty, and stuffy, so we made her rest awhile, restoring her with brandy and lemonade. I then made her guides rope her carefully the whole of the way down, and she reached the hotel safely.
On a fine day when the Matterhorn will “go,” the hut is always crowded, chiefly with foreigners, and we stretched ourselves on the bunkers alongside of a polyglot Pole, who talked half the night. Italian guides stole one of our lanterns, and my friend’s silk scarf.
We had a lovely day for our ascent, which occupied six hours, including halts and feedings. Upon the summit we spent about an hour of most glorious life in view of Italy on one side and Switzerland on the other, while we walked carefully on the delicate ridge of snow which forms the apex of the peak. The ascent of the Matterhorn from the Zermatt side is more interesting historically than as a climb. The hut occupied by Whymper in early attempts still remains, and as the guides pass the fatal spot they cheerfully point out where poor so and so broke his neck, where poor Dr. B. died. The shattered photographic apparatus remains on the precipice upon which, two years ago, an entire party was killed.
The difficult parts near the top are now so strongly roped that some are tempted to make this climb who are not fitted by previous training, and as a tired man is a dangerous man on a steep mountain which is 14,700 feet high, I fear we have not done with accidents on the Matterhorn. The descent ought to be carefully done, and almost as long a time given to it as the ascent. At present there is no railway up, but such a project is seriously in the air, or, like the mountain, in nubibus.