"Croz Michel-Auguste."
By an extraordinary series of chances, however, when Mr Whymper reached Zermatt, whom should he see sitting on the guides' wall but Croz! His employer had been taken ill, and had returned home, and the great guide was immediately engaged by the Rev. Charles Hudson for an attempt on the Matterhorn! Mr Whymper had been joined by Lord Francis Douglas and the Taugwalders, father and son, and thus two parties were about to start for the Matterhorn at the same hour next day. This was thought inadvisable, and eventually they joined forces and decided to set out the following morning together. Mr Hudson had a young man travelling with him, by name Mr Hadow, and when Mr Whymper enquired if he were sufficiently experienced to take part in the expedition, Mr Hudson replied in the affirmative, though the fact that Mr Hadow had recently made a very rapid ascent of Mont Blanc really proved nothing. Here was the weakest spot in the whole business, the presence of a youth, untried on difficult peaks, on a climb which might involve work of a most unusual kind. Further, we should now-a-days consider the party both far too large and wrongly constituted, consisting as it did of four amateurs, two good guides, and a porter.
On 13th July, 1865, at 5.30 A.M., they started from Zermatt in cloudless weather. They took things leisurely that day, for they only intended going a short distance above the base of the peak, and by 12 o'clock they had found a good position for the tent at about 11,000 feet above sea. The guides went on some way to explore, and on their return about 3 P.M. declared that they had not found a single difficulty, and that success was assured.
The Zermatt side of the Matterhorn.
The route now usually followed has been kindly marked by Sir W. Martin Conway. The first party, on reaching the snow patch near the top, bore somewhat to their right to avoid a nearly vertical wall of rock, where now hangs a chain.
From a Photograph by the late W. F. Donkin.
Rising Mists.