"When we perceived the abrupt termination of the actual Col, we all ascended, with the aid of step-cutting, along the slope of the Parrot-Spitze, until we came to a place where a descent seemed feasible. Martin searched for a better passage, but, after all, we took to the ice-slope, at first, for a little way, keeping on the rocks. Finding the slope so very rapid, we doubted whether we could be right in descending it; for we remembered that the descent of the Lys-Joch is described by Mr Ball as easy. We therefore retraced our steps up the slope to our former halting-place, thus losing considerable time, for it was now twelve o'clock. Then it was that Martin explored the Parrot-Spitze still further, and returned in three-quarters of an hour fully persuaded that there was no other way. We re-descended the ice-slope, and lower down crossed a couloir, and then more snow-slopes and rocks brought us to a lower series of rocks, where our passage seemed stopped at five o'clock. Here the mists, which had risen since the morning, much impeded our progress, and we halted, hoping they would disperse. Martin again went off on an exploring expedition, whilst the porter was sent in another direction. As both returned from a fruitless search, and sunset was approaching, the uncomfortable suggestion was made that the next search would be for the best sleeping quarters. However, Martin himself investigated the rocks pronounced impracticable by the porter, and by these we descended to the Sesia Glacier without unusual difficulty. When once fairly on the glacier, we crossed it at a running pace, for it was getting dark, and we feared to be benighted on the glacier. It was dark as we scrambled along the moraine on the other side, and over rocks and grassy knolls till the shepherd's light at Vigne gave us a happy indication that a shelter was not far off. The shouts of our guide brought the shepherd with his oil-lamp to meet us, and it was a quarter to nine o'clock P.M. when we entered his hut. After partaking of a frugal meal of bread and milk, we were glad to accept his offer of a hay bed, together with the unexpected luxury of sheets. When relating the story of our arrival to the Abbé Farinetti on the following Sunday at Alagna, the shepherd said that so great was his astonishment at the sudden apparition of travellers from that direction, that he thought it must be a visit of angels.
"We consider the Italian account incorrect as to the time we occupied in the descent. We could not have left our halting-place near the summit for the second time before a quarter to one o'clock, and in eight hours we were in this shepherd's hut.
"The Italian account exaggerates the difficulty we experienced. The rope was never used 'to hold up the travellers and let them down one by one.' On the contrary, one lady went last, preferring to see the awkward porter in front of her rather than behind. At one spot we came to an abrupt wall of rock and there we gladly availed ourselves of our guide's hand. The sensational sentence about 'rolling as shapeless corpses into the crevasses' is absurd, as we were at that juncture rejoicing in the prospect of a happy termination of our dilemma, and of crossing the glacier in full enjoyment of our senses."
The editor of The Alpine Journal concludes with the following comments:
"It is impossible to pass over without some further remark the behaviour of the guide and porter who shared this adventure. Jean Martin, if he led his party into a scrape, certainly showed no small skill and perseverance in carrying them safely out of it. Porters have as a class, and with some honourable exceptions, long afforded a proof that Swiss peasants are not necessarily born climbers. Their difficulties and blunders have, indeed, served as one of the standing jokes of Alpine literature. But we doubt if any porter has ever exhibited himself in so ignoble a position as the man who, having begun by obtaining an engagement under false pretences, ended by allowing one of his employers, a lady, to descend the Italian side of the Sesia-Joch last on the rope."
A PERILOUS CLIMB
In the year 1865 but few different routes were known up Mont Blanc. It has now been ascended from every direction and by every conceivable combination of routes, yet I doubt if any at all rivalling the one I intend quoting the account of has ever been accomplished. The route in question is by the Brenva Glacier on the Italian side of the great mountain, and the travellers who undertook to attempt what the guides hardly thought a possible piece of work, consisted of Mr Walker, his son Horace, Mr Mathews, and Mr Moore, the account which I take from The Alpine Journal having been written by the latter. For guides they had two very first-rate men, Melchior Anderegg and his cousin, Jacob Anderegg.
I shall omit the first part of the narrative, interesting though it is, and go at once to the point where, not long after sunrise, the mountaineers found themselves.
"We had risen very rapidly, and must have been at an elevation of more than 12,000 feet. Our position, therefore, commanded an extensive view in all directions. The guides were in a hurry, so cutting our halt shorter than would have been agreeable, we resumed our way at 7.55, and after a few steps up a slope at an angle of 50°, found ourselves on the crest of the buttress, and looking down upon, and across, the lower part of a glacier tributary to the Brenva, beyond which towered the grand wall of the Mont Maudit. We turned sharp to the left along the ridge, Jacob leading, followed by Mr Walker, Horace, Mathews, Melchior, and myself last. We had anticipated that, assuming the possibility of gaining the ridge on which we were, there would be no serious difficulty in traversing it, and so much as we could see ahead led us to hope that our anticipations would turn out correct. Before us lay a narrow but not steep arête of rock and snow combined, which appeared to terminate some distance in front in a sharp peak. We advanced cautiously, keeping rather below the top of the ridge, speculating with some curiosity on what lay beyond this peak. On reaching it, the apparent peak proved not to be a peak at all, but the extremity of the narrowest and most formidable ice arête I ever saw, which extended almost on a level for an uncomfortably long distance. Looking back by the light of our subsequent success, I have always considered it a providential circumstance that, at this moment, Jacob, and not Melchior was leading the party. In saying this, I shall not for an instant be suspected of any imputation upon Melchior's courage. But in him that virtue is combined to perfection with the equally necessary one of prudence, while he shares the objection which nearly all guides have to taking upon themselves, without discussion, responsibility in positions of doubt. Had he been in front, I believe that, on seeing the nature of the work before us, we should have halted and discussed the propriety of proceeding; and I believe further that, as the result of that discussion, our expedition would have then and there come to an end. Now in Jacob, with courage as faultless as Melchior's, and physical powers even superior, the virtue of prudence is conspicuous chiefly from its absence; and, on coming to this ugly place, it never for an instant occurred to him that we might object to go on, or consider the object in view not worth the risk which must be inevitably run. He therefore went calmly on without so much as turning to see what we thought of it, while I do not suppose that it entered into the head of any one of us spontaneously to suggest a retreat.
"On most arêtes, however narrow the actual crest may be, it is generally possible to get a certain amount of support by driving the pole into the slope on either side. But this was not the case here. We were on the top of a wall, the ice on the right falling vertically (I use the word advisedly), and on the left nearly so. On neither side was it possible to obtain the slightest hold with the alpenstock. I believe also that an arête of pure ice is more often encountered in description than in reality, that term being generally applied to hard snow. But here, for once, we had the genuine article, blue ice without a speck of snow on it. The space for walking was, at first, about the breadth of an ordinary wall, in which Jacob cut holes for the feet. Being last in the line I could see little of what was coming until I was close upon it, and was therefore considerably startled on seeing the men in front suddenly abandon the upright position, which in spite of the insecurity of the steps and difficulty of preserving the balance, had been hitherto maintained, and sit down à cheval. The ridge had narrowed to a knife edge, and for a few yards it was utterly impossible to advance in any other way. The foremost men soon stood up again, but when I was about to follow their example Melchior insisted emphatically upon my not doing so, but remaining seated. Regular steps could no longer be cut, but Jacob, as he went along, simply sliced off the top of the ridge, making thus a slippery pathway, along which those behind crept, moving one foot carefully after the other. As for me, I worked myself along with my hands in an attitude safer, perhaps, but considerably more uncomfortable, and, as I went, could not keep occasionally speculating, with an odd feeling of amusement, as to what would be the result if any of the party should chance to slip over on either side—what the rest would do—whether throw themselves over on the other side or not—and if so, what would happen then. Fortunately the occasion for the solution of this curious problem did not arise, and at 9.30 we reached the end of the arête, where it emerged in the long slopes of broken névé, over which our way was next to lie. As we looked back along our perilous path, it was hard to repress a shudder, and I think the dominant feeling of every man was one of wonder how the passage had been effected without accident. One good result, however, was to banish from Melchior's mind the last traces of doubt as to our ultimate success, his reply to our anxious enquiry whether he thought we should get up, being, 'We must, for we cannot go back.' In thus speaking, he probably said rather more than he meant, but the fact will serve to show that I have not exaggerated the difficulty we had overcome."