We were now among rocks; we climbed cliffs and descended them, and advanced sometimes with our feet on narrow ledges, holding tightly on to other ledges by our fingers; sometimes, cautiously balanced, we moved along edges of rock with precipices on both sides. Once, in getting round a crag, Lauener shook a book from his pocket; it was arrested by a rock about sixty or eighty feet below us. He wished to regain it, but I offered to supply its place, if he thought the descent too dangerous. He said he would make the trial, and parted from me. I thought it useless to remain idle. A cleft was before me, through which I must pass; so pressing my knees and back against its opposite sides, I gradually worked myself to the top. I descended the other face of the rock, and then, through a second ragged fissure, to the summit of another pinnacle. The highest point of the mountain was now at hand, separated from me merely by a short saddle, carved by weathering out the crest of the mountain. I could hear Lauener clattering after me, through the rocks behind. I dropt down upon the saddle, crossed it, climbed the opposite cliff, and "die höchste Spitze" of Monte Rosa was won.
Lauener joined me immediately, and we mutually congratulated each other on the success of the ascent. The residue of the bread and meat was produced, and a bottle of tea was also appealed to. Mixed with a little cognac, Lauener declared that he had never tasted anything like it. Snow fell thickly at intervals, and the obscurity was very great; occasionally this would lighten and permit the sun to shed a ghastly dilute light upon us through the gleaming vapor. I put my boiling-water apparatus in order, and fixt it in a corner behind a ledge; the shelter was, however, insufficient, so I placed my hat above the vessel. The boiling-point was 184.92 deg. Fahr., the ledge on which the instrument stood being five feet below the highest point of the mountain.
The ascent from the Riffel Hotel occupied us about seven hours, nearly two of which were spent upon the kämm and crest. Neither of us felt in the least degree fatigued; I, indeed, felt so fresh, that had another Monte Rosa been planted on the first, I should have continued the climb without hesitation, and with strong hopes of reaching the top. I experienced no trace of mountain sickness, lassitude, shortness of breath, heart-beat, or headache; nevertheless the summit of Monte Rosa is 15,284 feet high, being less than 500 feet lower than Mont Blanc. It is, I think, perfectly certain, that the rarefaction of the air at this height is not sufficient of itself to produce the symptoms referred to; physical exertion must be superadded.
MONT BLANC ASCENDED, HUXLEY GOING PART WAY[54]
BY JOHN TYNDALL
The way for a time was excessively rough,[55] our route being overspread with the fragments of peaks which had once reared themselves to our left, but which frost and lightning had shaken to pieces, and poured in granite avalanches down the mountain. We were sometimes among huge, angular boulders, and sometimes amid lighter shingle, which gave way at every step, thus forcing us to shift our footing incessantly. Escaping from these we crossed the succession of secondary glaciers which lie at the feet of the Aiguilles, and, having secured firewood, found ourselves, after some hours of hard work, at the Pierre l'Echelle. Here we were furnished with leggings of coarse woolen cloth to keep out the snow; they were tied under the knees and quite tightly again over the insteps, so that the legs were effectually protected. We had some refreshment, possest ourselves of the ladder, and entered upon the glacier.
The ice was excessively fissured; we crossed crevasses and crept round slippery ridges, cutting steps in the ice wherever climbing was necessary. This rendered our progress very slow. Once, with the intention of lending a helping hand, I stept forward upon a block of granite which happened to be poised like a rocking stone upon the ice, tho' I did not know it; it treacherously turned under me; I fell, but my hands were in instant requisition, and I escaped with a bruise, from which, however, the blood oozed angrily. We found the ladder necessary in crossing some of the chasms, the iron spikes at its end being firmly driven into the ice at one side, while the other end rested on the opposite side of the fissure. The middle portion of the glacier was not difficult. Mounds of ice rose beside us right and left, which were sometimes split into high towers and gaunt-looking pyramids, while the space between was unbroken.
Twenty minutes' walking brought us again to a fissured portion of the glacier, and here our porter left the ladder on the ice behind him. For some time I was not aware of this, but we were soon fronted by a chasm to pass which we were in consequence compelled to make a long and dangerous circuit amid crests of crumbling ice. This accomplished, we hoped that no repetition of the process would occur, but we speedily came to a second fissure, where it was necessary to step from a projecting end of ice to a mass of soft snow which overhung the opposite side. Simond could reach this snow with his long-handled ax; he beat it down to give it rigidity, but it was exceedingly tender, and as he worked at it he continued to express his fears that it would not bear us. I was the lightest of the party, and therefore tested the passage first; being partially lifted by Simond on the end of his ax, I crossed the fissure, obtained some anchorage at the other side, and helped the others over. We afterward ascended until another chasm, deeper and wider than any we had hitherto encountered, arrested us. We walked alongside of it in search of a snow-bridge, which we at length found, but the keystone of the arch had, unfortunately, given way, leaving projecting eaves of snow at both sides, between which we could look into the gulf, till the gloom of its deeper portions cut the vision short.
Both sides of the crevasse were sounded, but no sure footing was obtained; the snow was beaten and carefully trodden down as near to the edge as possible, but it finally broke away from the foot and fell into the chasm. One of our porters was short-legged and a bad iceman; the other was a daring fellow, and he now threw the knapsack from his shoulders, came to the edge of the crevasse, looked into it, but drew back again. After a pause he repeated the act, testing the snow with his feet and staff. I looked at the man as he stood beside the chasm manifestly undecided as to whether he should take the step upon which his life would hang, and thought it advisable to put a stop to such perilous play. I accordingly interposed, the man withdrew from the crevasse, and he and Simond descended to fetch the ladder.
While they were away Huxley sat down upon the ice, with an expression of fatigue stamped upon his countenance; the spirit and the muscles were evidently at war, and the resolute will mixed itself strangely with the sense of peril and feeling of exhaustion. He had been only two days with us, and, tho' his strength is great, he had had no opportunity of hardening himself by previous exercise upon the ice for the task which he had undertaken. The ladder now arrived, and we crossed the crevasse. I was intentionally the last of the party, Huxley being immediately in front of me. The determination of the man disguised his real condition from everybody but himself, but I saw that the exhausting journey over the boulders and débris had been too much for his London limbs.