A few days later we resolved on a closer acquaintance with the mountain which had attracted our admiration from so many points of view in the neighborhood. The Matterhorn seems to dominate the whole district of Zermatt like a pervading spirit. It is difficult to lose sight of it. Through rifts in the pine-wood, over grassy bluffs, from the depths of dark ravines, from one’s chamber window, the giant peak is seen piercing the blue air above. The play of light and shadow upon it as the hours roll by is in itself a study. Facing the earliest beams, as the sun rises out of a tossing ocean of Alpine peaks, it stands proudly up, a pinnacle of burnished gold with scarce a speck of shade to dim its lustre. As noon approaches, the gloom gathers on the precipitous northern face until the mid-day shadow falls with a cool blue-black on the white upper snows of the Matterhorn glacier. By and by, when the sun has passed to the west, the great shadowy mass rises in gloomy grandeur against the evening sky, and still later the northwest ridges are fringed with the lustre of sunset, ere they wrap themselves in the dusky robe of night.
[ ALPINE MOUNTAIN CLIMBING.]
EDWARD WHYMPER.
[The Matterhorn, one of the most difficult of the Alps to ascend, defied the efforts of mountaineers until 1865, when Whymper, with three companions and three guides, reached its summit. The victory, however, was a tragic one, as the three companions and one of the guides fell down a precipice and met their death. Whymper had made various earlier efforts to ascend. We give his story of one such effort, made at an earlier date.]
Three times I had essayed the ascent of this mountain, and on each occasion had failed ignominiously. I had not advanced a yard beyond my predecessors. Up to the height of nearly thirteen thousand feet there were no extraordinary difficulties: the way so far might even become “a matter of amusement.” Only eighteen hundred feet remained, but they were as yet untrodden, and might present the most formidable obstacles. No man could expect to climb them by himself. A morsel of rock only seven feet high might at any time defeat him if it were perpendicular. Such a place might be possible to two, or a bagatelle to three men. It was evident that a party should consist of three men at least. But where could the other two men be obtained? Carrel was the only man who exhibited any enthusiasm in the matter, and he in 1861 had absolutely refused to go unless the party consisted of at least four persons. Want of men made the difficulty, not the mountain.
The weather became bad again, so I went to Zermatt on the chance of picking up a man, and remained there during a week of storms. Not one of the good men, however, could be induced to come, and I returned to Breuil on the 17th, hoping to combine the skill of Carrel with the willingness of Meynet on a new attempt by the same route as before; for the Hörnli ridge, which I had examined in the mean time, seemed to be entirely impracticable. Both men were inclined to go, but their ordinary occupations prevented them from starting at once.
My tent had been left rolled up at the second platform, and whilst waiting for the men it occurred to me that it might have been blown away during the late stormy weather; so I started off on the 18th to see if this were so or not. The way was by this time familiar, and I mounted rapidly, astonishing the friendly herdsmen,—who nodded recognition as I flitted past them and the cows,—for I was alone, because no man was available. But more deliberation was necessary when the pastures were passed and climbing began, for it was needful to mark each step in case of mist or surprise by night. It is one of the few things which can be said in favor of mountaineering alone (a practice which has little besides to commend it) that it awakens a man’s faculties and makes him observe. When one has no arms to help and no head to guide him except his own, he must needs take note even of small things, for he cannot afford to throw away a chance; and so it came to pass upon my solitary scramble, when above the snow-line and beyond the ordinary limits of flowering plants, when peering about noting angles and landmarks, that my eyes fell upon the tiny straggling plants,—oftentimes a single flower on a single stalk,—pioneers of vegetation, atoms of life in a world of desolation, which had found their way up—who can tell how?—from far below, and were obtaining bare sustenance from the scanty soil in protected nooks; and it gave a new interest to the well-known rocks to see what a gallant fight the survivors made (for many must have perished in the attempt) to ascend the great mountain. The gentian, as one might have expected, was there, but it was run close by saxifrages and by Linaria alpina, and was beaten by Thlaspi rotundifolium; which latter plant was the highest I was able to secure, although it too was overtopped by a little white flower which I knew not and was unable to reach....
Time sped away unregarded, and the little birds which had built their nests on the neighboring cliffs had begun to chirp their evening hymn before I thought of returning. Half mechanically, I turned to the tent, unrolled it and set it up: it contained food enough for several days, and I resolved to stay over the night. I had started from Breuil without provisions or telling Favre, the innkeeper, who was accustomed to my erratic ways, where I was going. I returned to the view. The sun was setting, and its rosy rays, blending with the snowy blue, had thrown a pale, pure violet far as the eye could see; the valleys were drowned in a purple gloom, while the summits shone with unnatural brightness; and as I sat in the door of the tent and watched the twilight change to darkness, the earth seemed to become less earthly and almost sublime: the world seemed dead, and I its sole inhabitant. By and by the moon, as it rose, brought the hills again into sight, and by a judicious repression of detail rendered the view yet more magnificent. Something in the south hung like a great glow-worm in the air: it was too large for a star, and too steady for a meteor, and it was long before I could realize the incredible fact that it was the moonlight glittering on the great snow-slope on the north side of Monte Viso, at a distance, as the crow flies, of ninety-eight miles. Shivering, at last I entered the tent and made my coffee. The night was passed comfortably, and the next morning, tempted by the brilliancy of the weather, I proceeded yet higher in search of another place for a platform....
The rocks of the southwest ridge are by no means difficult for some distance above the Col du Lion. This is true of the rocks up to the level of the Chimney, but they steepen when that is passed, and remaining smooth and with but few fractures, and still continuing to dip outward, present some steps of a very uncertain kind, particularly when they are glazed with ice. At this point (just above the Chimney) the climber is obliged to follow the southern (or Breuil) side of the ridge, but in a few feet more one must turn over to the northern (or Z’Mutt) side, where in most years Nature kindly provides a snow-slope. When this is surmounted, one can again return to the crest of the ridge, and follow it by easy rocks to the foot of the Great Tower. This was the highest point attained by Mr. Hawkins in 1860, and it was also our highest on the 9th of July.