The year before, Javelle, with only one guide, Nicolas Kubel, reached the top by remarkable good fortune, for no other ascent was made that whole year. At the edge of the Gorner glacier they found a bunch of Alpine roses, the highest arborescent vegetation they encountered. Like many other persons, Javelle supposed that Mont Cervin was “a simple giant pyramid unique in the boldness of its form, the hugeness of its bulk, the pride of its isolation.” It is really, as Mr. Coolidge says, “the butt end of a long ridge,” and not an isolated mass rising above a glacial plateau. When they reached the arête connecting the Hörnli with the base of the Cervin they rested for an hour.
When they reached the first wall of the pyramid a fierce north wind began to blow, but they scaled the rocks and then had to walk along an icy arête. When they got about half-way “the sound of a dull rumbling” reached them from above. It was the jealous Spirit of the Mountain who was trying to bombard them with stones. They had just time to flatten themselves against the crag, which, fortunately, hung over them. Great rocks and boulders bounded within a meter of their heads; for half an hour the baffled Spirit kept up his attack and then gave it up.
Visitors like ourselves, looking up to the Cervin, see a long couloir which looks smooth and easy. Javelle says that it is cut up by veritable ravines plowed by avalanches or worn in the strata of the rock, so that the whole surface is far more rugged than it appears. The adamantine gneiss with strata of serpentine schist wears but slowly; but sometime the proud apex will be undermined and fall with a world-shaking crash.
After they had climbed with much difficulty and fatigue for about an hour they discovered the hut which some enterprising guides had constructed of planks, walled up with stones. For a hundred feet the precipice is perpendicular and to reach it they had to cling with their fingers to the roughness of the rock. It is at a height of more than thirty-eight hundred meters.
They reached it, and, while the guide was preparing supper, Javelle went out to a hump in the crag to enjoy the spectacle:—
“My eyes turned first of all toward the summit of Le Cervin. The tawny head of the colossus rose just above us. Through the crystalline air of those upper regions it seemed scarcely five hundred feet away and the rock stood out in startling ruggedness. The mighty flank of the pyramid, tremendously seamed and naked, lay before me: Below lay the lonely white plains of the Furgg and the Théodule glaciers; in front beyond them Monte Rosa tossed up its magnificent cluster of peaks....
MONTE ROSA.
“From the hut on Le Cervin no disrespect to Monte Rosa is possible. The true sovereign is restored to rank and position. The mountain is seen to be vast, mighty, magnificent as it is not from any other point of view; its rivals are humbled, and its summit, gracious and noble rather than haughty, shines unquestionably the highest of all in the sky.”
Then came the sunset:—