—William Caldwell Roscoe.
Time, nine o’clock on a cloudless evening some years ago; place, the Bär Hotel at Grindelwald; season of the year, the middle of September, the most enjoyable month in the higher Alps, given fine weather, of all the twelve. Grindelwald lies in well-earned repose this lovely night. No more do tourists in their thousands infest village, hotel salons, and dining-rooms. No throng of touting guides and mule-drivers lingers in the courtyard; no crowd of aspiring travellers makes noisy preparation for the morrow’s excursions.
To me this tranquillity is very pleasant, as on the evening in question, before the age of railways in that district, I drive up the familiar valley, overshadowed by the huge walls of the Eiger, rising amid myriads of twinkling stars, and as I alight at the doors of the Bär, I congratulate myself upon many things.
“Now, Herr Fritz, hunt out my guide from the supper-room for me, please. What! he is not here? Is there no telegram from him? Well, this really is too bad! and the weather is magnificent! However, as he’s not here, I certainly won’t sit and wait for him; so get me a couple of guides, and to-morrow I will go for a walk amongst the mountains.”
Dinner over, enter the “couple of guides.” Here is sturdy old Peter Baumann, and there, at the door, stands old Peter Kaufmann. “Well, what shall we do to-morrow? where shall we go?” “All is good,” they say; “we will go where you like.” “Very well; then let the Jungfrau be our goal. I can start for it at 1 A.M., if you wish.” They smile pityingly and remark, “It is nine hours to the Bergli hut, so we shall have quite enough if we go there to-morrow, and up the mountain next day.” I don’t believe them, and consult Boss; he says eleven hours. That settles the question; so I retire to bed. I leave word with the guides to order provisions, and to have me called at as late an hour as is consistent with reaching the Bergli before nightfall. Result—they lay in a store of meal-soup, and other atrocities, and arouse me from slumber at 6 A.M. By eight o’clock we are well on our way to the Bäregg, and have overtaken another Jungfrau party—two Austrian gentlemen, with cheery “English” Baumann and old Christian Almer. They progress upward at a measured pace, but at the Bäregg restaurant we meet again, and spend an idle hour, while our respective guides tie up emaciated pieces of white wood into bundles of such extraordinary neatness, that they might be “property” faggots appertaining to an amateur theatrical company. Then on again, down rickety ladders, over swelling waves of ice, and up a narrow track, with the sun beating on our backs, and never a drop of water to be had. At last we all sink in a melting condition on a grassy knoll, and insist on the production of drinkables. The guides, in response, wriggle into sundry fissures of the earth, and extract therefrom cupfuls of icy water, which they dole out in niggardly quantities, exhorting their charges to be sparing in its use.
On again and up, till, with a desperate spurt, we assault the slippery slopes of the glacier, and deposit ourselves in a panting heap on some rocks facing the Bergli.
“How far to the hut, Baumann?” “Oh, two hours or so!” And it is now 11.30 A.M.! For this were we dragged from our downy couches and made to walk up burning slopes under the rays of the autumnal sun! For this were we hurried away from the seductive, though backless, benches of the Bäregg! For this were we denied our second breakfast in three and a half hours, on certain stony pathways where we would fain have halted!
11.30! Very well; here we shall remain and repose ourselves till 3 P.M.
We don’t, however. Two hours of gazing at the Eiger, the Mönch, and the Schreckhorn produce an unpleasant stiffening of the joints; so shortly after discovering this we collect our baggage—scattered over about an acre of ground—and proceed across the level glacier towards the steep snow slopes coming down from the Mönchjoch. After an hour or two of threading our way amongst huge chasms, varied by passages in tight-rope style over knife-edges of ice, we reach our hut. From here we witness an acrobatic performance without having to undergo the expense of an entry fee; indeed, the accommodation of the front row of stalls is too shamefully bad for any one to suggest that we should pay for it. Far down below us on the snow toil our fellow-travellers. From time to time one of them, who, at starting, had declared himself to be “no mountaineer,” casts himself on the white surface. The guides and his friend haul. He slithers along a little; then suddenly rights himself like a gutta-percha figure with a weight inside. On again—down again—up again, so does the party advance.