Adventures on the Roof of the World

by Mrs. Aubrey Le Blond

“The death of this poor child proved the severest trial that the three women, the two eldest especially, had to suffer during their long confinement; and from this unfortunate day, the fear of death, which they considered as at no great distance, began to haunt them more and more. The little nourishment, which the goat yielded the poor women, had made them suffer greatly on the preceding days; they were, besides, benumbed, or rather frozen with the intense cold. Add to this the necessary, but inconvenient and tormenting posture of their feet, knees, and every other part of their bodies; the snow, which melting over their heads, perpetually trickled down their backs, so that their clothes, and their whole bodies were perfectly drenched with it: they were often on the point of swooning away, and obliged to keep themselves from fainting, by handling the snow, and putting some of it into their mouths; the thirst with which their mouths were constantly burnt up; the thoughts, that in all this time no one had been at the pains to look for and relieve them; the consideration, that all they had hitherto suffered, was nothing in comparison of what they had still to suffer before they could recover their liberty, or sink under the weight of all the evils which encompassed them; all these, certainly, were circumstances sufficient to render them to the last degree, wretched and miserable. Add to this, that the milk of their fond and loving nurse, fell away little by little, till at length, instead of about two pints, which she, in the beginning used to yield, they could not now get so much as a pint from her. The hay that lay in the manger was all out, and it was but little the poor women could draw out of the hole which lay above them; so that as the goats had but little fodder, little sustenance could be expected from that which they thought proper to milk. These animals were become so tame and familiar, in consequence of the fondness shewn them, that they always came on the first call to the person that was to milk them, affectionately licking her face and hands. Anne, encouraged by this tameness of theirs, bethought herself of accustoming them to leap upon the manger, and from thence upon her shoulders, so as to reach the hole of the hay-loft, and feed themselves; so apt is hard necessity to inspire strength and ingenuity. She began by the goat that yielded them milk, helping her up into the manger, and then putting her upon her shoulders. This had the desired effect, the animal being thereby enabled to reach much further with its head, than they could with their hands. They did then the same by the other goat, from whom, as soon as she should drop her kid, they expected new relief. She, too, in the same manner, found means to get at the hay, which afforded the poor women some relief in the midst of their pressing necessity. After this day, the goats required no further assistance, they so soon learned to leap of themselves on the manger, and from thence on the women’s shoulders. But we must not conclude that hunger was the chief of the poor women’s sufferings; far from it. After the first days, during which it proved a sore torment to them, they through necessity, grew so accustomed to very little and very light nourishment, that they no longer felt any sensation of that kind, but lived contentedly on the small quantity of milk they could get from their goat, mixed with a little snow. Their breath was what gave them most uneasiness; for it began to be very difficult on the fifth or sixth day, every inspiration being attended with the sensation of a very heavy and almost insupportable load upon them.

“They now had lost all means of guessing at the returns of night and day, and their only employment was to recommend themselves fervently to God, beseeching him to take compassion of them, and at length, put an end to their miseries, which increased from day to day. At last, their nurse growing dry, they found themselves without any milk, and obliged to live upon snow alone for two or three days, Mary Anne not approving an expedient proposed by her sister. This was to endeavour to find the carcasses of the hens; for as they had not heard them for some days past, they had sufficient reason to think they were dead; and then eat them, as the only thing with which they could prolong life. But Mary Anne, rightly judging that it would be almost impossible to strip them clean of their feathers, and that besides, the flesh might be so far putrified, as to do them more harm than good, thought proper to dissuade her sister from having recourse to this expedient. But the unspeakable providence of God, whose will it was that they should live, provided them with new means of subsistence, when least they expected it, by the kidding of the other goat. By this event, they judged themselves to be about the middle of April; wherefore, after offering God their most humble thanks, for having preserved them so long, in the midst of so many, and such great difficulties they again beseeched him to assist them effectually, till they could find an opportunity of escaping their doleful prison, and see an end to their great sufferings. Their hopes of this their humble supplication being heard, were raised on the appearance of this new supply, and on their reflecting that the snow begins to thaw in April, in consequence of which that about the stable would soon dissolve enough to let some ray of light break in upon them. Mary Anne told me, that, though she was thoroughly sensible of the badness of her condition, in which it was impossible for her to hold out much longer, and saw it every day grow worse and worse; she never, however, despaired of her living to be delivered. For my part, I cannot sufficiently admire the courage and intrepidity of Anne, who told me, that in all this time she never let a tear escape her but once. This was on its occurring to her, that, as they must at length perish for want, it might fall to her lot to die last. For the thought of finding herself amidst the dead bodies of her sister and her niece, herself too in a dying condition, terrified and afflicted her to such a degree, that she could no longer command her tears, but wept bitterly.

“I observed, that the goat had kidded. This event afforded the poor women a new supply of milk, Anne for a while getting two porringers at a time from her, with which they recruited themselves a little. But as the goats began to fall short of hay, the milk of the only one that gave them any, began to lessen in proportion, so that at length they saw themselves reduced to a single, and even half a porringer. It was, therefore, happy for them, that the time drew nigh, in which God had purposed to rescue them from their horrible prison and confinement, and put an end to their sufferings. One time they thought they could hear a noise of some continuance at no great distance from them. This was probably the 20th, when the parish priest’s body was found. And, upon it, they all together raised their weak and hoarse voices, crying out, ‘Help, help!’ but the noise ceased, and they this time neither saw nor heard anything else that might serve as a token of their deliverance being at hand. However, this noise alone was sufficient to make them address God with greater fervour than ever, beseeching him to have compassion on them, and to confirm them still more and more in their warm hopes, that the end of their long misery was not far off. In fact, they again heard another noise, and that nearer them, as though something had fallen to the ground. On this they again raised their voices, and again cried out, ‘Help, help’: but no one answered, and soon after the noise itself entirely ceased. Their opinion concerning this noise, and in this they certainly were not mistaken, was that it came from the people, who were at work to find them, and who left off at the approach of night, and went home with a design to return to their labour the next morning. After the noise of the body fallen to the ground in their neighbourhood, they seemed for the first time to perceive some glimpse of light. The appearance of it scared Anne and Margaret to the last degree, as they took it for a sure fore-runner of death, and thought it was occasioned by the dead bodies; for it is a common opinion with the peasants that those wandering wild-fires, which one frequently sees in the open country, are a sure presage of death to the persons constantly attended by them, which ever way they turn themselves; and they accordingly call them death fires. But Mary Anne, was very far from giving in to so silly a notion. On the contrary the light inspired her with new courage, and she did all that lay in her power to dissipate the fears of her sister and daughter, revive their hopes in God, and persuade them that their deliverance and the end of all their sufferings was at hand; insisting that this light could be no other than the light of heaven, which had, at last, reached the stable, in consequence of the valanca’s melting, and still more in consequence of the constant boring and digging into it by their relations, in order to come at their dead bodies. Mary Anne guessed right for it was the next day that Anthony descended into the ruins of the stable, and to his unspeakable surprise found the poor women alive, blessing and exalting the most high, and restored them from darkness to light, from danger to security, from death to life, by drawing them out of the manger, and removing them to the house of Joseph Arnaud, where they continued to the end of July.

“Thirty-seven entire days did these poor women live in the most horrible sufferings occasioned no less by filth and the disagreeable posture they were confined to, than by cold and hunger; but the Lord was with them. He kept them alive, and they are still living, in a new cottage built the same year in the Foresta of Bergemoletto, at no great distance from their former habitation.”

CHAPTER VI
AN EXCITING CAUCASIAN ASCENT

THE following account of the ascent of Gestola, in the Central Caucasus, is taken from The Alpine Journal, and the author, Mr C. T. Dent, has most kindly revised it for this work, and has added a note as follows:

“At the time (1886) when this expedition was made, the topography of the district was very imperfectly understood. The mountain climbed was originally described as Tetnuld Tau—Tau = Mountain. Since the publication of the original paper a new survey of the whole district has been carried out by the Russian Government and the nomenclature much altered. The peak of Tetnuld is really to the south of Gestola. The nomenclature has in the following extract been altered so as to correspond with that at present in use and officially sanctioned.”

The party consisted of Mr Dent, the late Mr W. F. Donkin, and two Swiss guides. They had safely accomplished the first part of their ascent of a hitherto unclimbed peak, and were on the ridge and face to face with the problem of how to reach the highest point. After describing the glorious scenery which lay around them, Mr Dent writes:

“Woven in between all these peaks lay a wilderness of crevassed slopes, jagged rock ridges, and stretching glaciers, bewildering in their beauty and complexity. To see the wondrous sights that were crowded into those few minutes while we remained on the ridge, we would willingly have gone five times further and fared ten times worse. In high spirits we turned to the left (S.S.E.), and began our journey along the ridge which was to lead us to Gestola, ever keeping an eye on the snowy form of Tetnuld, and marvelling whether it would overtop our peak or not. For a few steps, and for a few only, all went well. The snow was in good order on the ridge, but we had to leave this almost immediately and make S.W. in order to skirt the heights which still intervened between us and our peak. The ice began to change its character. Two or three steps were cut with a few strokes of the axe, and then all went well again for a time. Then more steps, and a more ringing sound as the axe fell. We seemed, too, however we might press on, to make no impression on this first slope. Our doubt returned; the leader paused, drew up the rope, and bit at a fragment of ice as he gazed anxiously upwards over the face. No! we were on the right track, and must stick to it if we would succeed. For an hour and a quarter we kept at it in silence, save for the constant ringing blows of the axe. Our courage gradually oozed out, for when we had worked back to the ridge again, we seemed to have made no progress at all. The top of the mountain far above was already swathed in cloud, and a distant storm on the south side was only too obvious. Another little peak was won before we looked about again, but the summit seemed no nearer. The exertion had begun to tell and the pace became slower. Some one remarked that he felt hungry, and we all thereupon realised our empty state, so we fortified ourselves for further efforts on a dainty repast of steinbock, black bread a week old, and water—invigorating victuals and exhilarating drink, rather appropriate to the treadmill kind of exercise demanded. It is under conditions such as these that strange diet tells on the climber; but even more trying and more weakening than the poor quality of the food was the want of sleep from which we had suffered for a good many nights. In the language of science, our vital force and nervous energy were becoming rather rapidly exhausted, or, to put it more colloquially and briefly, we were awfully done. Three hours more at least was the estimate, and meanwhile the weather was growing worse and worse. Reflecting that all points fall to him who knows how to wait and stick to it, we pressed on harder to escape from the dispiriting thoughts that suggested themselves, and almost of a sudden recognised that the last of the deceptive little tops had been left behind us, and that we were fighting our way up the final peak. Better still, Tetnuld, which for so long had seemed to tower above us, was fast sinking in importance, and there really seemed now, as we measured the peak with the clinometer between the intervals of step-cutting, to be little difference between the two points. The air was so warm and oppressive that we were able to dispense with gloves. One of the guides suffered from intense headache, but the rest of us, I fancy, felt only in much the same condition as a man does at the finish of a hard-run mile race. The clouds parted above us for a while, mysteriously, as it seemed, for there was no wind to move them; but we could only see the slope stretching upwards, and still upwards. Yet we could not be far off now. Again we halted for a few seconds, and as we glanced above, we mentally took stock of our strength, for there was no question the pleasure had been laborious. Some one moved, and we were all ready on the instant. To it once more, and to the very last victory was doubtful. True, the summit had seemed close enough when the last break in the swirling clouds had enabled us to catch a glimpse of what still towered above; but our experience of Swiss snow mountains was long enough to make us sceptical as to apparent tops, and possibly the Caucasian giants were as prone to deceive as the human pigmies that crawled and burrowed at their bases.

“Still anxious, still questioning success, we stepped on, and the pace increased as the doubt persisted. It is often said to be impossible, by those who don’t try, to explain why the second ascent of a mountain always appears so much easier than the first; some explanation may be found in the fact that on a virgin peak the uncertainty is really increasing during the whole time, and the climax comes in the last few seconds. Every step upwards make success more probable, and at the same time, would make failure more disappointing. In fact, the only periods when we are morally certain of success on a new expedition are before the start and when victory is actually won. Still, we could hardly believe that any insuperable obstacle would now turn us back; yet all was new and uncertain, and the conditions of weather intensified the anxiety. The heavy stillness of the air seemed unnatural, and made the mind work quicker. The sensibility became so acute that if we ceased working and moving for a moment the silence around was unendurable, and seemed to seize hold of us. A distant roll of thunder came almost as a relief. A step or two had to be cut, and the delay appeared interminable. Suddenly, a glimpse of a dark patch of rocks appeared above looming through the mist. The slope of the ridge became more gentle for a few yards. Our attention was all fixed above, and we ascended some distance without noticing the change. Another short rise, and we were walking quickly along the ridge. We stopped suddenly; the rocks we had seen so recently, had sunk below us on our left, while in front the arête could be followed with the eye, sloping away gradually for a few yards, and then plunging sharply down to a great depth. It was all over; through fair weather and through foul we had succeeded; and there was yet another peak to the credit of the Alpine Club.