At Val Tournanche I saw a maiden niece of the Chanoine who had gone high up the Matterhorn, and who, had the wind not assailed her petticoats too roughly, might, it was said, have reached the top. I can believe it. Her wrist was like a weaver’s beam, and her frame seemed a mass of potential energy. The Chanoine had recommended to me as guides the brothers Joseph and Pierre Maquignaz, of Val Tournanche, his praises of Joseph as a man of unshaken coolness, courage, and capacity as a climber being particularly strong. Previous to reaching Breuil, I saw this Joseph, who seemed to divine by instinct my name and aim.
Carrel was at Breuil, looking very dark, Bich petitioned for a porter’s post, blaming Carrel bitterly for his greed in the previous year; but I left the arrangement of these matters wholly in the hands of Maquignaz. He joined me in the evening, and on the following day we ascended one of the neighbouring summits, discussing as we went our chances on the Matterhorn. In 1867 the chief precipitation took place in a low atmospheric layer, the base of the mountain being heavily laden with snow, while the summit and the higher rocks were bare. In 1868 the distribution was inverted, the top being heavily laden and the lower rocks clear. An additional element of uncertainty was thus introduced. Maquignaz could not say what obstacles the snow might oppose to us above, but he was resolute and hopeful. My desire was to finish for ever my contest with the Matterhorn by making a pass over its summit from Breuil to Zermatt. In this attempt my guide expressed his willingness to join me, his interest in the project being apparently equal to my own.
He, however, only knew the Zermatt side of the mountain through inspection from below; and he acknowledged that a dread of it had filled him the previous year. He now reasoned, however, that as Mr. Whymper and the Taugwalds had managed to descend, we ought to be able to do the same. On the Friday we climbed to the Col de la Furka, examined from it the northern face of the pyramid, and discovered the men who were engaged in building the cabin on that side. We worked afterwards along the ridge which stretches from the Matterhorn to the Theodule, crossing its gulleys and scaling all its heights. It was a pleasant piece of discipline, on new ground, to both my guide and me.
On the Thursday evening a violent thunderstorm had burst over Breuil, discharging new snow upon the heights, but also clearing the oppressive air. Though the heavens seemed clear in the early part of Friday, clouds showed a disposition to meet us from the south as we returned from the col. I enquired of my companion whether, in the event of the day being fine, he would be ready to start on Sunday. His answer was a prompt negative. In Val Tournanche, he said, they always ‘sanctified the Sunday.’ I mentioned Bennen, my pious Catholic guide, whom I permitted and encouraged to attend his mass on all possible occasions, but who, nevertheless, always yielded without a murmur to the demands of the weather. The reasoning had its effect. On Saturday Maquignaz saw his confessor, and arranged with him to have a mass at 2 A.M. on Sunday; after which, unshaded by the sense of duties unperformed, he would commence the ascent.
The claims of religion being thus met, the point of next importance, that of money, was set at rest by my immediate acceptance of the tariff published by the Chanoine Carrel. The problem being thus reduced to one of muscular physics, we pondered the question of provisions, decided on a bill of fare, and committed its execution to the industrious mistress of the hotel.
A fog, impenetrable to vision, had filled the whole of the Val Tournanche on Saturday night, and the mountains were half concealed and half revealed by this fog when we rose on Sunday morning. The east at sunrise was louring, and the light which streamed through the cloud orifices was drawn in ominous red bars across the necks of the mountains. It was one of those uncomfortable Laodicean days which engender indecision—threatening, but not sufficiently so to warrant postponement. Two guides and two porters were considered necessary for the first day’s climb. A volunteer, moreover, attached himself to our party, who carried a sheepskin as part of the furniture of the cabin. To lighten their labour, the porters took a mule with them as far as the quadruped could climb, and afterwards divided the load among themselves. While they did so I observed the weather. The sun had risen with considerable power, and had broken the cloud-plane to pieces. The severed clouds gathered into masses more or less spherical, and were rolled grandly over the ridges into Switzerland. Save for a swathe of fog which now and then wrapped its flanks, the Matterhorn itself remained clear, and strong hopes were raised that the progress of the weather was in the right direction.
We halted at the base of the Tête du Lion, a bold precipice formed by the sudden cutting down of the ridge which flanks the Val Tournanche to the right. From its base to the Matterhorn stretches the Col du Lion, crossed for the first time in 1860, by Mr. Hawkins, myself, and our two guides. We were now beside a snow-gulley, which was cut by a deep furrow along its centre, and otherwise scarred by the descent of stones. Here each man arranged his bundle and himself so as to cross the gulley in the minimum of time. The passage was safely made, a few flying shingle only coming down upon us. But danger declared itself where it was not expected. Joseph Maquignaz led the way up the rocks. I was next, Pierre Maquignaz next, and last of all the porters. Suddenly a yell issued from the leader: ‘Cachez-vous!’ I crouched instinctively against the rock, which formed a by no means perfect shelter, when a boulder buzzed past me through the air, smote the rocks below me, and with a savage hum flew down to the lower glacier. Thus warned, we swerved to an arête, and when stones fell afterwards they plunged to the right or left of us.
In 1860 the great couloir which stretches from the Col du Lion downwards was filled with a névé of deep snow. But the atmospheric conditions which have caused the glaciers of Switzerland to shrink so remarkably during the last ten years[23] have swept away this névé. We had descended it in 1860 hip-deep in snow, and I was now reminded of its steepness by the inclination of its bed. Maquignaz was incredulous when I pointed out to him the line of descent to which we had been committed, in order to avoid the falling stones of the Tête du Lion. Bennen’s warnings on the occasion were very emphatic, and I could understand their wisdom now better than I did then.
When Mr. Hawkins and myself first tried the Matterhorn, a temporary danger, sufficient to quell for a time the enthusiasm even of our lion-hearted guide, was added to the permanent ones. Fresh snow had fallen two days before; it had quite over-sprinkled the Matterhorn, converting the brown of its crags into an iron-grey; this snow had been melted and refrozen, forming upon the rocks an enamelling of ice. Besides their physical front, moreover, in 1860, the rocks presented a psychological one, derived from the rumour of their savage inaccessibility. The crags, the ice, and the character of the mountain, all conspired to stir the feelings. Much of the wild mystery has now vanished, especially at those points which in 1860 were places of virgin difficulty, but down which ropes now hang to assist the climber. The intrinsic grandeur of the Matterhorn, however, cannot be effaced.
After some hours of steady climbing we halted upon a platform beside the tattered remnant of one of the tents employed by me in 1862. Here we sunned ourselves for an hour. We subsequently worked upward, scaling the crags and rounding the bases of those wild and wonderful rock-towers, into which the weather of ages has hewn the southern ridge of the Matterhorn. The work required knowledge, but with a fair amount of skill it is safe work. I can fancy nothing more fascinating to a man given by nature and habit to such things than a climb alone among these crags and precipices. He need not be theological, but, if complete, the grandeur of the place would certainly fill him with religious awe.