All seemed to be going excellently. Everyone plodded along, and rejoiced to be so near the culminating point of the expedition. No thought of danger disturbed them.
Suddenly there was a dull, harsh sound. Immediately the entire surface of the snow began to move. "My God! The avalanche! We are lost!" shrieked the guides. The slope at Dr Hamel's end of the party was not steep,—barely more than 30°—but up above it was more rapid. The leading guides were carried straightway off their feet. Hamel was also swept away by the gathering mass of snow. Using his arms as if swimming, he managed to bring his head to the surface, and as he did so the moving snow slowed down and stopped. In those few moments, some 1200 feet had been descended. At first Dr Hamel thought that he alone had been carried away, but presently he saw his English friends and their guides—no more.
"Where are the others?" cried Dr Hamel. Balmat, who a moment before had let his brother pass on to the head of the party, wrung his hands and answered, "The others are in the crevasse!"
The crevasse! Strange that all had forgotten it! The avalanche had poured into it, filling it to the brim.
"A terrible panic set in. The guides lost all self-control. Some walked about aimlessly, uttering loud cries. Matthieu Balmat sat in sullen silence, rejecting all kind offices with an irritation which made it painful to approach him. Dornford threw himself on the snow in despair, and Henderson, says Hamel, 'was in a condition which made one fear for the consequences.' A few minutes later two other guides extricated themselves, but the remaining three were seen no more. Hamel and Henderson descended into the crevasse, and made every possible attempt to find the lost guides, but without avail; the surviving guides forced them to come out, and sore at heart they returned to Chamonix.
"The three guides who were lost were Pierre Carrier, Pierre Balmat, and Auguste Tairraz. They were the three foremost in the line and felt the first effects of the avalanche. Matthieu Balmat, who was fourth in the line, saved himself by his great personal strength and by presence of mind. Julien Dévouassoud was hurled across the crevasse, and Joseph Marie Couttet was dragged out senseless by his companions, 'nearly black from the weight of snow which had fallen upon him.'"[3]
Scientific men had already begun to give attention to the movement of glaciers. In addition to this, cases had occurred where the remains of persons lost on glaciers had been recovered years afterwards. A travelling seller of hats, crossing the Tschingel Glacier on his way from the Bernese Oberland to Valais, had fallen into a crevasse. Eventually his body and his stock of merchandise was found at the end of the glacier. Near the Grimsel, the remains of a child were discovered in the ice. An old man remembered that many years before a little boy had disappeared in that locality and must doubtless have been lost in a crevasse. These facts were probably known to Dr Hamel, and he made the remark that perhaps in a thousand years, the bodies of his guides might be found. Forbes, who knew more of the subject, believed that, travelling in the ice, they would reach the end of the glacier in forty years.
He was right, for on 15th August 1861, his "bold prediction was verified, and the ice give up its dead." On that day, the guide, Ambrose Simond, who happened to be with some tourists on the lower part of the Glacier des Bossons, discovered some pieces of clothing and human bones. From that time until 1864 the glacier did not cease to render up, piece by piece, the remains and the belongings of the three victims.
An accident, very similar to that which befell Dr Hamel's party, took place in 1866. This has for me a very special interest, as I have met the brother of the Englishman who perished, and have examined all the documents, letters, newspaper cuttings, and photographs relating to the catastrophe. The guide, Sylvain Couttet, an old friend of mine, since dead, has given a moving account of the sad event. Sylvain knew Mont Blanc better than any other native of Chamonix, and though when I knew him he had given up guiding, he desired to add one more ascent of the great white peak to his record, for at that time he had been up ninety-nine times. I accordingly invited him to come with my party when we climbed it from the Italian side. He did so—he had never been up that way before—and I well remember how he slipped himself free of the rope after the last rocks, saying, "Ah, you young people, you go on. The old man will follow." Alone he arrived on the top, strode about over its snowy dome as if to say good-bye, and was just as ready for his work as any of us when, in a stiff gale, we descended the ridge of the Bosses.
But to return to what is known as the Arkwright accident.