The long-pent feelings of my two companions found vent in a wild and reiterated cheer. Bennen shook his arms in the air and shouted as a Valaisian, while Wenger raised the shriller yell of the Oberland. We looked downwards along the ridge, and far below, perched on one of its crags, could discern the two Randa men. Again and again the roar of triumph was sent down to them. They had accomplished but a small portion of the ridge, and soon after our success they wended their way homewards. They came, willing enough, no doubt, to publish our failure had we failed; but we found out afterwards that they had been equally strenuous in announcing our success; they had seen us, they affirmed, like three flies upon the summit of the mountain. Both men had to endure a little persecution for the truth’s sake, for nobody in Randa would believe that the Weisshorn could be scaled, and least of all by a man who for two days previously had been the object of Philomène the waitress’s constant pity, on account of the incompetence of his stomach to accept all that she offered for its acceptance. The energy of conviction with which the men gave their evidence had, however, proved conclusive to the most sceptical before we arrived.
Bennen wished to leave some outward and visible sign of our success on the summit. He deplored having no suitable flag; but as a substitute for such it was proposed that he should use the handle of one of our axes as a flagstaff, and surmount it by a red pocket-handkerchief. This was done, and for some time subsequently the extempore banner was seen flapping in the wind. To his extreme delight, it was shown to Bennen himself three days afterwards by my friend Mr. Francis Galton, from the Riffelberg hotel.
Every Swiss climber is acquainted with the Weisshorn. I have long regarded it as the noblest of all the Alps, and most other travellers share this opinion. The impression it produces is in some measure due to the comparative isolation with which it juts into the heavens. It is not masked by other mountains, and all around the Alps its final pyramid is in view. Conversely, the Weisshorn commands a vast range of prospect. Neither Bennen nor myself had ever seen anything at all equal to it. The day, moreover, was perfect; not a cloud was to be seen; and the gauzy haze of the distant air, though sufficient to soften the outlines and enhance the colouring of the mountains, was far too thin to obscure them. Over the peaks and through the valleys the sunbeams poured, unimpeded save by the mountains themselves, which sent their shadows in bars of darkness through the illuminated air. I had never before witnessed a scene which affected me like this one. I opened my note-book to make a few observations, but soon relinquished the attempt. There was something incongruous, if not profane, in allowing the scientific faculty to interfere where silent worship seemed the ‘reasonable service.’
We had been ten hours climbing from our bivouac to the summit, and it was now necessary that we should clear the mountain before the close of day. Our muscles were loose and numbed, and, unless extremely urged, declined all energetic tension: the thought of our success, however, ran like a kind of wine through our fibres and helped us down. We once fancied the descent would be rapid, but it was far from it. As in ascending, Bennen took the lead; he slowly cleared each crag, paused till I joined him, I pausing till Wenger joined me, and thus one or other of us was always in motion. Our leader showed a preference for the snow, while I held on to the rocks, where my hands could assist my feet. Our muscles were sorely tried by the twisting round the splintered turrets of the arête, but a long, long stretch of the ridge must be passed before we can venture to swerve from it. We were roused from our stupefaction at times by the roar of the stones which we loosed from the ridge and sent leaping down the mountain. Soon after recrossing the snow catenary already mentioned we quitted the ridge to get obliquely along the slope of the pyramid. The face of it was scarred by couloirs, of which the deeper and narrower ones were filled with ice, while the others acted as highways for the rocks quarried by the weathering above. Steps must be cut in the ice, but the swing of the axe is very different now from what it was in the morning. Bennen’s blows descended with the deliberateness of a man whose fire is half-quenched; still they fell with sufficient power, and the needful cavities were formed. We retraced our morning steps over some of the ice-slopes. No word of warning was uttered here as we ascended, but now Bennen’s admonitions were frequent and emphatic—‘Take care not to slip.’ I imagined, however, that even if a man slipped he would be able to arrest his descent; but Bennen’s response when I stated this opinion was very prompt—‘No! it would be utterly impossible. If it were snow you might do it, but it is pure ice, and if you fall you will lose your senses before you can use your axe.’ I suppose he was right. At length we turned directly downwards, and worked along one of the ridges which lie in the line of steepest fall. We first dropped cautiously from ledge to ledge. At one place Bennen clung for a considerable time to a face of rock, casting out feelers of leg and arm, and desiring me to stand still. I did not understand the difficulty, for the rock, though steep, was by no means vertical. I fastened myself on to it, Bennen being on a ledge below, waiting to receive me. The spot on which he stood was a little rounded protuberance sufficient to afford him footing, but over which the slightest momentum would have carried him. He knew this, and hence his caution. Soon after this we quitted our ridge and dropped into a couloir to the left of it. It was dark, and damp with trickling water. Here we disencumbered ourselves of the rope, and found our speed greatly augmented. In some places the rocks were worn to a powder, along which we shot by glissades. We swerved again to the left, crossed a ridge, and got into another and dryer couloir. The last one was dangerous, as the water exerted a constant sapping action upon the rocks. From our new position we could hear the clatter of stones descending the gulley we had just forsaken. Wenger, who had brought up the rear during the day, is now sent to the front; he has not Bennen’s power, but his legs are long and his descent rapid. He scents out the way, which becomes more and more difficult. He pauses, observes, dodges, but finally comes to a dead stop on the summit of a precipice, which sweeps like a rampart round the mountain. We moved to the left, and after a long détour succeeded in rounding the precipice.
Another half-hour brings us to the brow of a second precipice, which is scooped out along its centre so as to cause the brow to overhang. Chagrin was in Bennen’s face: he turned his eyes upwards, and I feared mortally that he was about to propose a reascent to the arête. It was very questionable whether our muscles could have responded to such a demand. While we stood pondering here, a deep and confused roar attracted our attention. From a point near the summit of the Weisshorn, a rock had been discharged down a dry couloir, raising a cloud of dust at each bump against the mountain. A hundred similar ones were immediately in motion, while the spaces between the larger masses were filled by an innumerable flight of smaller stones. Each of them shook its quantum of dust in the air, until finally the avalanche was enveloped in a cloud. The clatter was stunning, for the collisions were incessant. Black masses of rock emerged here and there from the cloud, and sped through the air like flying fiends. Their motion was not one of translation merely, but they whizzed and vibrated in their flight as if urged by wings. The echoes resounded from side to side, from the Schallenberg to the Weisshorn and back, until finally, after many a deep-sounding thud in the snow, the whole troop came to rest at the bottom of the mountain. This stone avalanche was one of the most extraordinary things I had ever witnessed, and in connection with it I would draw the attention of future climbers of the Weisshorn to the danger which would infallibly beset any attempt to ascend it from this side, except by one of its arêtes. At any moment the mountain-side may be raked by a fire as deadly as that of cannon.
After due deliberation we moved along the precipice westward, I fearing that each step forward but plunged us into deeper difficulty. At one place, however, the precipice bevelled off to a steep incline of smooth rock, along which ran a crack, wide enough to admit the fingers, and sloping obliquely down to the lower glacier. Each in succession gripped the rock and shifted his body sideways along the crack until he came near enough to the glacier to reach it by a rough glissade. We passed swiftly along the glacier, sometimes running, and, on steeper slopes, sliding, until we were pulled up for the third time by a precipice which seemed even worse than either of the others. It was quite sheer, and as far as I could see right or left altogether hopeless. To my surprise, both the men turned without hesitation to the right. I felt desperately blank, but I could notice no expression of dismay in the countenance of either of my companions. They inspected the moraine matter over which we walked, and at length one of them exclaimed, ‘Da sind die Spuren,’ lengthening his strides at the same moment. We looked over the brink at intervals, and at length discovered what appeared to be a mere streak of clay on the face of the precipice. On this streak we found footing. It was by no means easy, but to hard-pushed men it was a deliverance. The streak vanished, and we must get down the rock. This fortunately was rough, so that by pressing the hands against its rounded protuberances, and sticking the boot-nails against its projecting crystals, we let ourselves gradually down. A deep cleft separated the glacier from the precipice; this was crossed, and we were free, being clearly placed beyond the last bastion of the mountain.
In this admirable fashion did my guides behave on this occasion. The day previous to my arrival at Randa they had been up the mountain, and they then observed a solitary chamois moving along the base of this very precipice, and making ineffectual attempts to get up it. At one place the creature succeeded; this spot they fixed in their memories, and when they reached the top of the precipice they sought for the traces of the chamois, found them, and were guided by them to the only place where escape in any reasonable time was possible. Our way was now clear; over the glacier we cheerfully marched, escaping from the ice just as the moon and the eastern sky contributed about equally to the illumination. The moonlight was afterwards intercepted by clouds. In the gloom we were often at a loss, and wandered half-bewildered over the grassy slopes. At length the welcome tinkle of cow-bells was heard in the distance, and guided by them we reached the chalet a little after 9 P.M. The cows had been milked and the milk disposed of, but the men managed to get us a moderate draught. Thus refreshed we continued the descent. I was half famished, for my solid nutriment during the day consisted solely of part of a box of meat lozenges given to me by Mr. Hawkins. Bennen and myself descended the mountain deliberately, and after many windings emerged upon the valley, and reached the hotel a little before 11 P.M. I had a basin of broth, not made according to Liebig, and a piece of mutton boiled probably for the fifth time. Fortified by these, and comforted by a warm footbath, I went to bed, where six hours’ sound sleep chased away all consciousness of fatigue. I was astonished on the morrow to find the loose atoms of my body knitted so firmly by so brief a rest. Up to my attempt upon the Weisshorn I had felt more or less dilapidated, but here all weakness ended, and during my subsequent stay in Switzerland I was unacquainted with infirmity.