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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Alps, by Arnold Henry Moore Lunn

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

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-

-

-Title: The Alps

-

-Author: Arnold Henry Moore Lunn

-

-Release Date: January 11, 2018 [EBook #56358]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: UTF-8

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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ALPS ***

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-Produced by Anita Hammond, Wayne Hammond and the Online

-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This

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-[Illustration:

-

-  HOME

-  UNIVERSITY

-  LIBRARY

-  OF

-  MODERN KNOWLEDGE

-

-  _Editors_:

-

-  HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A., LL.D.

-

-  PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, D.LITT.,

-  LL.D., F.B.A.

-

-  PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.,

-  LL.D.

-

-  PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.

-  (Columbia University, U.S.A.)

-

-  NEW YORK

-

-  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY]

-

-

-

-

-[Illustration:

-

-  THE ALPS

-

-  BY

-  ARNOLD LUNN

-

-  LONDON

-  WILLIAMS AND NORGATE]

-

-_First printed July 1914_

-

-

-

-

-PREFACE

-

-

-For the early chapters of this book I have consulted, amongst other

-authorities, the books mentioned in the bibliography on pp. 251-254.

-It would, however, be ungracious if I failed to acknowledge my

-indebtedness to that most readable of historians, Mr. Gribble, and to

-his books, _The Early Mountaineers_ (Fisher Unwin) and _The Story of

-Alpine Climbing_ (Nelson). Mr. Gribble and his publisher, Mr. Unwin,

-have kindly allowed me to quote passages translated from the works

-of the pioneers. Two friends, experts in the practice and history

-of mountaineering, have read the proofs and helped me with numerous

-suggestions.

-

-

-

-

-CONTENTS

-

-

-  CHAP.                                                           PAGE

-

-  I THE MEDIÆVAL ATTITUDE                                            9

-

-  II THE PIONEERS                                                   22

-

-  III THE OPENING UP OF THE ALPS                                    44

-

-  IV THE STORY OF MONT BLANC                                        60

-

-  V MONTE ROSA AND THE BÜNDNER OBERLAND                             82

-

-  VI TIROL AND THE OBERLAND                                         92

-

-  VII THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH                                    111

-

-  VIII THE STORY OF THE MATTERHORN                                 147

-

-  IX MODERN MOUNTAINEERING                                         185

-

-  X THE ALPS IN LITERATURE                                         208

-

-  BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     251

-

-  INDEX                                                            254

-

-_Volumes bearing upon the subject, already published in the library,

-are_--

-

-    7. Modern Geography. By Dr. Marion Newbigin. (_Illustrated._)

-

-    36. Climate and Weather. By Prof. H. N. Dickson. (_Illustrated._)

-

-    88. The Growth of Europe. By Prof. Grenville Cole. (_Illustrated._)

-

-

-

-

-THE ALPS

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER I

-

-THE MEDIÆVAL ATTITUDE

-

-

-Rousseau is usually credited with the discovery that mountains are not

-intrinsically hideous. Long before his day, isolated men had loved

-the mountains, but these men were eccentrics. They founded no school;

-and Rousseau was certainly the first to popularise mountains and to

-transform the cult of hill worship into a fashionable creed. None the

-less, we must guard against the error of supposing that mountain love

-was confined to the few men who have left behind them literary evidence

-of their good taste. Mountains have changed very little since man

-became articulate, and the retina of the human eye has changed even

-less. The beauty of outline that stirs us to-day was implicit in the

-hills “that shed their burial sheets about the march of Hannibal.” It

-seems reasonable to suppose that a few men in every age have derived a

-certain pleasure, if not from Alpine travel at least from the distant

-view of the snows.

-

-The literature of the Ancient World contains little that bears upon our

-subject. The literature of the Jews is exceptional in this respect.

-This is the more to their credit, as the mountains of Judæa, south

-of the beautiful Lebanon range, are shapeless and uninteresting.

-Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Job, and Isaiah contain mountain passages of

-great beauty. The Old Testament is, however, far richer in mountain

-praise than the New Testament. Christ retired more than once to the

-mountains; but the authors of the four Gospels content themselves with

-recording the bare fact that certain spiritual crises took place on

-mountain-tops. There is not a single indication in all the gospels

-that Nazareth is set on a hill overlooking one of the fairest mountain

-prospects in all Judæa, not a single tribute to the beauty of Galilee

-girdled by the outlying hills of Hermon.

-

-The Greeks lived in a land of mountains far lovelier than Palestine’s

-characterless heights. But the Jews showed genuine if spasmodic

-appreciation for their native ranges, whereas the Greeks, if their

-literature does them justice, cared little or nothing for their

-mountains. The note of fear and dread, pleasantly rare in Jewish

-literature, is never long absent from Greek references to the

-mountains. Of course, the Greeks gave Olympus to their gods, but as Mr.

-Norman Young remarks in a very able essay on _The Mountains in Greek

-Poetry_, it was necessary that the gods should look down on mankind;

-and, as they could not be strung up in mid-air, the obvious thing was

-to put them on a mountain-top. Perhaps we may concede that the Greeks

-paid a delicate compliment to Parnassus, the Home of the Muses; and

-certainly they chose for their temples the high ground of their cities.

-As one wanders through the olives and asphodels, one feels that the

-Greeks chose for their dwellings and temples those rising grounds which

-afforded the noblest prospect of the neighbouring hills. Only the cynic

-would contend that they did this in order to escape the atmosphere of

-the marshes.

-

-The Romans were disgustingly practical. They regarded the Alps as

-an inconvenient barrier to conquest and commerce. Virgil shows an

-occasional trace of a deeper feeling, and Horace paused between

-draughts of Falernian wine to admire the snows on Soracte, which lent

-contrast to the comfort of a well-ordered life.

-

-Mr. Freshfield has shown that the Chinese had a more genuine feeling

-for mountains; and Mr. Weston has explained the ancient cult of high

-places among the Japanese, perhaps the most consistent mountain

-worshippers in the world. The Japanese pilgrims, clad in white, make

-the ascent to the shrines which are built on the summits of their

-sacred mountains, and then withdraw to a secluded spot for further

-worship. For centuries, they have paid official tribute to the

-inspiration of high places.

-

-But what of the Alps? Did the men who lived within sight of the Swiss

-mountains regard them with indifference and contempt? This was,

-perhaps, the general attitude, but there is some evidence that a love

-for mountains was not quite so uncommon in the Middle Ages as is

-usually supposed.

-

-Before attempting to summarise this evidence, let us try to realise

-the Alps as they presented themselves to the first explorers. The

-difficulties of Alpine exploration, as that term is now understood,

-would have proved quite as formidable as those which now confront the

-Himalayan explorer. In spite of this, glacier passes were crossed in

-the earliest times, and even the Romans seemed to have ventured across

-the Théodule, judging by the coins which have been found on the top of

-that great glacier highway. In addition to the physical difficulties of

-Alpine travel, we must recognise the mental handicap of our ancestors.

-Danger no longer haunts the highways and road-passes of the Alps. Wild

-beasts and robber bands no longer threaten the visitor to Grindelwald.

-Of the numerous “inconveniences of travel” cited by an early visitor to

-the Alps, we need now only fear “the wonderful cunning of Innkeepers.”

-Stilled are the voices that were once supposed to speak in the thunder

-and the avalanche. The dragons that used to wing their way across

-the ravines of the central chain have joined the Dodo and “the men

-that eat the flesh of serpents and hiss as serpents do.” Danger, a

-luxury to the modern, formed part of the routine of mediæval life. Our

-ancestors had no need to play at peril; and, lest we lightly assume

-that the modern mountaineer is a braver man than those who shuddered

-on the St. Bernard, let us remember that our ancestors accepted with

-grave composure a daily portion of inevitable risks. Modern life is so

-secure that we are forced to the Alps in search of contrast. When our

-ancestors needed contrast, they joined a monastery.

-

-Must we assume that danger blinded them to the beauty of the Alps? The

-mountains themselves have not changed. The modern mountaineer sees,

-from the windows of the Berne express, a picture whose colours have not

-faded in the march of Time. The bar of silver that thrusts itself above

-the distant foothills, as the train swings out of the wooded fortress

-of the Jura, casts the same challenge across the long shadows of the

-uplands. The peaks are a little older, but the vision that lights the

-world for us shone with the same steadfast radiance across the plains

-of long ago. Must we believe that our adventurous forefathers could

-find nothing but fear in the snows of the great divide? Dangers which

-have not yet vanished menaced their journey, but the white gleam of

-the distant snows was no less beautiful in the days when it shone as a

-beacon light to guide the adventurous through the great barrier down

-the warmth of Italian lowlands. An age which could face the great

-adventure of the Crusades for an idea, or more often for the sheer

-lust of romantic wandering, was not an age easily daunted by peril and

-discomfort. May we not hope that many a mute, inglorious mountain-lover

-lifted his eyes across the fields and rivers near Basle or Constance,

-and found some hint of elusive beauty in the vision that still remains

-a mystery, even for those who have explored the once trackless snows?

-

-Those who have tried to discover the mediæval attitude have too often

-merely generalised from detached expressions of horror. Passages of

-praise have been treated as exceptional. The Monk Bremble and the

-Bishop Berkeley have had their say, unchallenged by equally good

-evidence for the defence. Let us remember that plenty of modern

-travellers might show an equally pronounced distaste for mountains.

-For the defence, we might quote the words of an old traveller borrowed

-in Coryat’s _Crudities_, a book which appeared in 1611: “What, I pray

-you, is more pleasant, more delectable, and more acceptable unto a man

-than to behold the height of hilles, as it were the very Atlantes of

-heauen? to admire Hercules his pillers? to see the mountaines Taurus

-and Caucasus? to view the hill Olympus, the seat of Jupiter? to pass

-over the Alpes that were broken by Annibals Vinegar? to climb up the

-Apennine promontory of Italy? from the hill Ida to behold the rising of

-the Sunne before the Sunne appears? to visit Parnassus and Helicon, the

-most celebrated seates of the Muses? Neither indeed is there any hill

-or hillocke, which doth not containe in it the most sweete memory of

-worthy matters.”

-

-There is the genuine ring about this. It is the modern spirit without

-the modern affectations. Nor is this case exceptional. In the following

-chapter we shall sketch the story of the early Alpine explorers, and we

-shall quote many passages instinct with the real love for the hills.

-

-Are we not entitled to believe that Gesner, Marti, and Petrarch are

-characteristic of one phase of mediæval sentiment, just as Bremble is

-characteristic of another? There is abundant evidence to show that the

-habit of visiting and admiring mountain scenery had become fashionable

-before the close of the sixteenth century. Simler tells us that

-foreigners came from all lands to marvel at the mountains, and excuses

-a certain lack of interest among his compatriots on the ground that

-they are surfeited with a too close knowledge of the Alps. Marti, of

-whom we shall speak at greater length, tells us that he found on the

-summit of the Stockhorn the Greek inscription cut in a stone which may

-be rendered: “The love of mountains is best.” And then there is the

-evidence of art. Conventional criticism of mountain art often revolves

-in a circle: “The mediæval man detested mountains, and when he painted

-a mountain he did so by way of contrast to set off the beauty of the

-plains.” Or again: “Mediæval man only painted mountains as types

-of all that is terrible in Nature. Therefore, mediæval man detested

-mountains.”

-

-Let us try to approach the work of these early craftsmen with no

-preconceived notions as to their sentiments. The canvases still remain

-as they were painted. What do they teach us? It is not difficult to

-discriminate between those who used mountains to point a contrast, and

-those who lingered with devotion on the beauty of the hills. When we

-find a man painting mountains loosely and carelessly, we may assume

-that he was not over fond of his subject. Jan von Scorel’s grotesque

-rocks show nothing but equally grotesque fear. Hans Altdorfer’s

-elaborate and careful work proves that he was at least interested in

-mountains, and had cleared his mind of conventional terror. Roughly,

-we may say that, where the foreground shows good and the mountain

-background shows bad workmanship, the artist cared nothing for hills,

-and only threw them in by way of gloomy contrast. But such pictures are

-not the general rule.

-

-Let us take a very early mountain painting that dates from 1444. It

-is something of a shock to find the Salève and Mont Blanc as the

-background to a New Testament scene. How is the background used? Konrad

-Witz, the painter, has chosen for his theme the miraculous draught of

-fishes. If he had borrowed a mountain background for the Temptation,

-the Betrayal, the Agony, or the Crucifixion, we might contend that

-the mountains were introduced to accentuate the gloom. But there is

-no suggestion of fear or sorrow in the peaceful calm that followed

-the storm of Calvary. The mountains in the distance are the hills as

-we know them. There is no reason to think that they are intended as a

-contrast to the restful foreground. Rather, they seem to complete and

-round off the happy serenity of the picture.

-

-Let us consider the mountain work of a greater man than Witz. We may be

-thankful that Providence created this barrier of hills between the deep

-earnestness of the North and the tolerance of Italy, for to this we owe

-some of the best mountain-scapes of the Middle Ages. There is romance

-in the thought of Albrecht Dürer crossing the Brenner on his way to the

-Venetian lagoons that he loved so well. Did Dürer regard this journey

-with loathing? Were the great Alps no more than an obstacle on the

-road to the coast where the Adriatic breaks “in a warm bay ’mid green

-Illyrian hills.” Did he echo the pious cry of that old Monk who could

-only pray to be delivered from “this place of torment,” or did he

-rather linger with loving memory on the wealth of inspiring suggestion

-gathered in those adventurous journeys? Contrast is the essence of Art,

-and Dürer was too great a man to miss the rugged appeal of untamed

-cliffs, because he could fathom so easily the gentler charm of German

-fields and Italian waters. You will find in these mountain woodcuts

-the whole essence of the lovable German romance, that peculiar note of

-“snugness” due to the contrast of frowning rock and some “gemütlich”

-Black Forest châlet. Hans Andersen, though a Dane, caught this note;

-and in Dürer’s work there is the same appealing romance that makes

-the “Ice Maiden” the most lovable of Alpine stories. One can almost

-see Rudy marching gallantly up the long road in Dürer’s “Das Grosse

-Glück,” or returning with the eaglets stolen from their perilous nest

-in the cliffs that shadow the “Heimsuch.” Those who pretend that

-Dürer introduced mountains as a background of gloom have no sense for

-atmosphere nor for anything else. For Dürer, the mountains were the

-home of old romance.

-

-Turn from Dürer to Da Vinci, and you will find another note. Da Vinci

-was, as we shall see, a climber, and this gives the dominant note to

-his great study of storm and thunder among the peaks, to be seen at

-Windsor Castle. His mountain rambles have given him that feeling

-of worship, tempered by awe, which even the Climbers’ Guides have

-not banished. But this book is not a treatise on mountain Art--a

-fascinating subject; and we must content ourselves with the statement

-that painters of all ages have found in the mountains the love which is

-more powerful than fear. Those who doubt this may examine at leisure

-the mountain work of Brueghel, Titian, or Mantegna. There are many

-other witnesses. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Hans Leu

-had looked upon the hills and found them good, and Altdorfer had shown

-not only a passionate enthusiasm for mountains, but a knowledge of

-their anatomy far ahead of his age. Wolf Huber, ten years his junior,

-carried on the torch, and passed it to Lautensack, who recaptured the

-peculiar note of German romance of which Dürer is the first and the

-greatest apostle. It would be easy to trace the apostolic succession

-to Segantini, and to prove that he is the heir to a tradition nearly

-six hundred years old. But enough has been said. We have adduced a few

-instances which bear upon the contention that, just as the mountains of

-the Middle Ages were much the same as the mountains of to-day, so also

-among the men of those times, as among the men of to-day, there were

-those who hated and those who loved the heights. No doubt the lovers of

-mountain scenery were in the minority; but they existed in far larger

-numbers than is sometimes supposed.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER II

-

-THE PIONEERS

-

-

-Within the compass of this book, we cannot narrate the history of

-Alpine passes, though the subject is intensely interesting, but we must

-not omit all mention of the great classic traverse of the Alps. We

-should read of Hannibal’s memorable journey not in Livy, nor even in

-Bohn, but in that vigorous sixteenth-century translation which owes its

-charm and force even more to Philemon Holland the translator than to

-Livy.

-

-Livy, or rather Holland, begins with Hannibal’s sentiments on “seeing

-near at hand the height of those hills ... the horses singed with cold

-... the people with long shagd haire.” Hannibal and his army were much

-depressed, but, none the less, they advanced under a fierce guerilla

-attack from the natives, who “slipt away at night, every one to his

-owne harbour.” Then follows a fine description of the difficulties of

-the pass. The poor elephants “were ever readie and anone to run upon

-their noses”--a phrase which evokes a tremendous picture--“and the

-snow being once with the gate of so many people and beasts upon it

-fretted and thawed, they were fain to go upon the bare yce underneeth

-and in the slabberie snow-broth as it relented and melted about their

-heeles.” A great rock hindered the descent; Hannibal set it on fire

-and “powred thereon strong vinegar for to calcine and dissolve it,”

-a device unknown to modern mountaineers. The passage ends with a

-delightful picture of the army’s relief on reaching “the dales and

-lower grounds which have some little banks lying to the sunne, and

-rivers withall neere unto the woods, yea and places more meet and

-beseeming for men to inhabit.” Experts are divided as to what pass was

-actually crossed by Hannibal. Even the Col de Géant has been suggested

-by a romantic critic; it is certainly stimulating to picture Hannibal’s

-elephants in the Géant ice-fall. Probably the Little St. Bernard, or

-the Mont Genèvre, is the most plausible solution. So much for the great

-traverse.

-

-Some twenty-five glacier passes had been actually crossed before the

-close of the sixteenth century, a fact which bears out our contention

-that in the Middle Ages a good deal more was known about the craft of

-mountaineering than is generally supposed. There is, however, this

-distinctive difference between passes and peaks. A man may cross a pass

-because it is the most convenient route from one valley to another.

-He may cross it though he is thoroughly unhappy until he reaches his

-destination, and it would be just as plausible to argue from his

-journey a love of mountains as to deduce a passion for the sea in every

-sea-sick traveller across the Channel. But a man will not climb a

-mountain unless he derives some interest from the actual ascent. Passes

-may be crossed in the way of business. Mountains will only be climbed

-for the joy of the climb.

-

-The Roche Melon, near Susa, was the first Alpine peak of any

-consequence to be climbed. This mountain rises to a height of 11,600

-feet. It was long believed to be the highest mountain in Savoy. On one

-side there is a small glacier; but the climb can be effected without

-crossing snow. It was climbed during the Dark Ages by a knight, Rotario

-of Asti, who deposited a bronze tryptych on the summit where a chapel

-still remains. Once a year the tryptych is carried to the summit, and

-Mass is heard in the chapel. There is a description of an attempt on

-this peak in the Chronicle of Novalessa, which dates back to the first

-half of the eleventh century. King Romulus is said to have deposited

-treasure on the mountain. The whole Alpine history of this peak is

-vague, but it is certain that the peak was climbed at a very early

-period, and that a chapel was erected on the summit before Villamont’s

-ascent in 1588. The climb presents no difficulties, but it was found

-discreet to remove the statue of the Virgin, as pilgrims seem to have

-lost their lives in attempting to reach it. The pilgrimages did not

-cease even after the statue had been placed in Susa.

-

-[Illustration:

-

-  Bartholomew, Edin

-]

-

-Another early ascent must be recorded, though the climb was a very

-modest achievement. Mont Ventoux, in Provence, is only some 6430 feet

-above the sea, and to-day there is an hôtel on the summit. None the

-less, it deserves a niche in Alpine history, for its ascent is coupled

-with the great name of the poet Petrarch. Mr. Gribble calls Petrarch

-the first of the sentimental mountaineers. Certainly, he was one of the

-first mountaineers whose recorded sentiments are very much ahead of his

-age. The ascent took place on April 26, 1335, and Petrarch described it

-in a letter written to his confessor. He confesses that he cherished

-for years the ambition to ascend Mont Ventoux, and seized the first

-chance of a companion to carry through this undertaking. He makes the

-customary statement as to the extreme difficulty of the ascent, and

-introduces a shepherd who warns him from the undertaking. There are

-some very human touches in the story of the climb. While his brother

-was seeking short cuts, Petrarch tried to advance on more level ground,

-an excuse for his laziness which cost him dear, for the others had made

-considerable progress while he was still wandering in the gullies of

-the mountain. He began to find, like many modern mountaineers, that

-“human ingenuity was not a match for the nature of things, and that it

-was impossible to gain heights by moving downwards.” He successfully

-completed the ascent, and the climb filled him with enthusiasm. The

-reader should study the fine translation of his letter by Mr. Reeve,

-quoted in _The Early Mountaineers_. Petrarch caught the romance of

-heights. The spirit that breathes through every line of his letter is

-worthy of the poet.

-

-Petrarch is not the only great name that links the Renaissance to the

-birth of mountaineering. That versatile genius, Leonardo da Vinci,

-carried his scientific explorations into the mountains. We have already

-mentioned his great picture of storm and thunder among the hills, one

-of the few mementos that have survived from his Alpine journeys. His

-journey took place towards the end of the fifteenth century. Little is

-known of it, though the following passage from his works has provoked

-much comment. The translation is due to Mrs. Bell: “And this may be

-seen, as I saw it, by any one going up Monboso, a peak of the Alps

-which divide France from Italy. The base of this mountain gives birth

-to the four rivers which flow in four different directions through the

-whole of Europe. And no mountain has its base at so great a height as

-this, which lifts itself above almost all the clouds; and snow seldom

-falls there, but only hail in the summer when the clouds are highest.

-And this hail lies (unmelted) there, so that, if it were not for the

-absorption of the rising and falling clouds, which does not happen

-more than twice in an age, an enormous mass of ice would be piled up

-there by the layers of hail; and in the middle of July I found it very

-considerable, and I saw the sky above me quite dark; and the sun as it

-fell on the mountain was far brighter here than in the plains below,

-because a smaller extent of atmosphere lay between the summit of the

-mountain and the sun.”

-

-We need not summarise the arguments that identify Monboso either with

-Monte Rosa or Monte Viso. The weight of evidence inclines to the former

-alternative, though, of course, nobody supposes that Da Vinci actually

-reached the summit of Monte Rosa. There is good ground, however, for

-believing that he explored the lower slopes; and it is just possible

-that he may have got as far as the rocks above the Col d’Ollen, where,

-according to Mr. Freshfield, the inscription “A.T.M., 1615” has been

-found cut into the crags at a height of 10,000 feet. In this connection

-it is interesting to note that the name “Monboso” has been found in

-place of Monte Rosa in maps, as late as 1740.[1]

-

-We now come to the first undisputed ascent of a mountain, still

-considered a difficult rock climb. The year that saw the discovery of

-America is a great date in the history of mountaineering. In 1492,

-Charles VII of France passed through Dauphiny, and was much impressed

-by the appearance of Mont Aiguille, a rocky peak near Grenoble that

-was then called Mont Inaccessible. This mountain is only some seven

-thousand feet in height; but it is a genuine rock climb, and is still

-considered difficult, so much so that the French Alpine Club have paid

-it the doubtful compliment of iron cables in the more sensational

-passages. Charles VII was struck by the appearance of the mountain,

-and ordered his Chamberlain de Beaupré to make the ascent. Beaupré, by

-the aid of “subtle means and engines,” scaled the peak, had Mass said

-on the top, and caused three crosses to be erected on the summit. It

-was a remarkable ascent, and was not repeated till 1834.

-

-We are not concerned with exploration beyond the Alps, and we have

-therefore omitted Peter III’s attempt on Pic Canigou in the Pyrenees,

-and the attempt on the Pic du Midi in 1588; but we cannot on the ground

-of irrelevance pass over a remarkable ascent in 1521. Cortez is our

-authority. Under his order, a band of Spaniards ascended Popocatapetl,

-a Mexican volcano which reaches the respectable height of 17,850 feet.

-These daring climbers brought back quantities of sulphur which the army

-needed for its gunpowder.

-

-The Stockhorn is a modest peak some seven thousand feet in height.

-Simler tells us that its ascent was a commonplace achievement.

-Marti, as we have seen in the previous chapter, found numberless

-inscriptions cut into the summit stones by visitors, enthusiastic in

-their appreciation of mountain scenery, and its ascent by Müller, a

-Berne professor, in 1536, is only remarkable for the joyous poem in

-hexameters which records his delight in all the accompaniments of

-a mountain expedition. Müller has the true feelings for the simpler

-pleasures of picnicing on the heights. Everything delights him, from

-the humble fare washed down with a draught from a mountain stream,

-to the primitive joy of hurling big rocks down a mountain side. The

-last confession endears him to all who have practised this simple, if

-dangerous, amusement.

-

-The early history of Pilatus, another low-lying mountain, is much more

-eventful than the annals of the Stockhorn. It is closely bound up with

-the Pilate legend, which was firmly believed till a Lucerne pastor gave

-it the final quietus in 1585. Pontius Pilate, according to this story,

-was condemned by the Emperor Tiberius, who decreed that he should be

-put to death in the most shameful possible manner. Hearing this, Pilate

-very sensibly committed suicide. Tiberius concealed his chagrin, and

-philosophically remarked that a man whose own hand had not spared him

-had most certainly died the most shameful of deaths. Pilate’s body

-was attached to a stone and flung into the Tiber, where it caused a

-succession of terrible storms. The Romans decided to remove it, and the

-body was conveyed to Vienne as a mark of contempt for the people of

-that place. It was flung into the Rhone, and did its best to maintain

-its reputation. We need not follow this troublesome corpse through

-its subsequent wanderings. It was finally hurled into a little marshy

-lake, near the summit of Pilatus. Here Pilate’s behaviour was tolerable

-enough, though he resented indiscriminate stone-throwing into the lake

-by evoking terrible storms, and once a year he escaped from the waters,

-and sat clothed in a scarlet robe on a rock near by. Anybody luckless

-enough to see him on these occasions died within the twelve-month.

-

-So much for the story, which was firmly believed by the good citizens

-of Lucerne. Access to the lake was forbidden, unless the visitor was

-accompanied by a respectable burgher, pledged to veto any practices

-that Pilate might construe as a slight. In 1307, six clergymen were

-imprisoned for having attempted an ascent without observing the local

-regulations. It is even said that climbers were occasionally put to

-death for breaking these stringent by-laws. None the less, ascents

-occasionally took place. Duke Ulrich of Württemberg climbed the

-mountain in 1518, and a professor of Vienna, by name Joachim von Watt,

-ascended the mountain in order to investigate the legend, which he

-seems to have believed after a show of doubt. Finally, in 1585, Pastor

-John Müller of Lucerne, accompanied by a few courageous sceptics,

-visited the lake. In their presence, he threw stones into the haunted

-lake, and shouted “Pilate wirf aus dein Kath.” As his taunts produced

-no effect, judgment was given by default, and the legend, which had

-sent earlier sceptics into gaol, was laughed out of existence.

-

-Thirty years before this defiant demonstration, the mountain had been

-ascended by the most remarkable of the early mountaineers. Conrad

-Gesner was a professor at the ancient University of Zürich. Though not

-the first to make climbing a regular practice, he was the pioneer of

-mountain literature. He never encountered serious difficulties. His

-mountaineering was confined to those lower heights which provide the

-modern with a training walk. But he had the authentic outlook of the

-mountaineer. His love for mountains was more genuine than that of many

-a modern wielder of the ice-axe and rope. A letter has been preserved,

-in which he records his resolution “to climb mountains, or at all

-events to climb one mountain every year.”

-

-We have no detailed record of his climbs, but luckily his account of an

-ascent of Pilatus still survives, a most sincere tribute to the simple

-pleasures of the heights. It is a relief to turn to it after wading

-through more recent Alpine literature. Gesner’s writing is subjective.

-It records the impress of simple emotions on an unsophisticated

-mind. He finds a naïve joy in all the elemental things that make up

-a mountain walk, the cool breezes plying on heated limbs, the sun’s

-genial warmth, the contrasts of outline, colour, and height, the

-unending variety, so that “in one day you wander through the four

-seasons of the year, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.” He explains

-that every sense is delighted, the sense of hearing is gratified by the

-witty conversation of friends, “by the songs of the birds, and even

-by the stillness of the waste.” He adds, in a very modern note, that

-the mountaineer is freed from the noisy tumult of the city, and that

-in the “profound abiding silence one catches echoes of the harmony of

-celestial spheres.” There is more in the same key. He anticipates the

-most enduring reward of the mountaineer, and his words might serve

-as the motto for a mountain book of to-day: “Jucundum erit postea

-meminisse laborum atque periculorum, juvabit hæc animo revolvere et

-narrare amicis.” Toil and danger are sweet to recall, every mountaineer

-loves “to revolve these in his mind and to tell them to his friends.”

-Moreover, contrast is the essence of our enjoyment and “the very

-delight of rest is intensified when it follows hard labour.” And then

-Gesner turns with a burst of scorn to his imaginary opponent. “But, say

-you, we lack feather beds and mattresses and pillows. Oh, frail and

-effeminate man! Hay shall take the place of these luxuries. It is soft,

-it is fragrant. It is blended from healthy grass and flower, and as you

-sleep respiration will be sweeter and healthier than ever. Your pillow

-shall be of hay. Your mattress shall be of hay. A blanket of hay shall

-be thrown across your body.” That is the kind of thing an enthusiastic

-mountaineer might have written about the club-huts in the old days

-before the hay gave place to mattresses. Nor does Gesner spoil his

-rhapsody by the inevitable joke about certain denizens of the hay.

-

-There follows an eloquent description of the ascent and an analysis

-of the Pilate legend. Thirty years were to pass before Pastor Müller

-finally disposed of the myth, but Gesner is clearly sceptical, and

-concludes with the robust assertion that, even if evil spirits

-exist, they are “impotent to harm the faithful who worship the one

-heavenly light, and Christ the Sun of Justice.” A bold challenge to

-the superstitions of the age, a challenge worthy of the man. Conrad

-Gesner was born out of due season; and, though he does not seem to

-have crossed the snow line, he was a mountaineer in the best sense of

-the term. As we read his work, we seem to hear the voice of a friend.

-Across the years we catch the accents of a true member of our great

-fraternity. We leave him with regret, with a wish that we could meet

-him on some mountain path, and gossip for a while on mountains and

-mountaineers.

-

-But Gesner was not, as is sometimes assumed, alone in this sentiment

-for the hills. In the first chapter we have spoken of Marti, a

-professor at Berne, and a close friend of Gesner. The credit for

-discovering him belongs, I think, to Mr. Freshfield, who quotes some

-fine passages from Marti’s writings. Marti looks out from the terrace

-at Berne on that prospect which no true mountain lover can behold

-without emotion, and exclaims: “These are the mountains which form our

-pleasure and delight when we gaze at them from the highest parts of

-our city, and admire their mighty peaks and broken crags that threaten

-to fall at any moment. Who, then, would not admire, love, willingly

-visit, explore, and climb places of this sort? I should assuredly call

-those who are not attracted by them dolts, stupid dull fishes, and slow

-tortoises.... I am never happier than on the mountain crests, and

-there are no wanderings dearer to one than those on the mountains.”

-

-This passage tends to prove that mountain appreciation had already

-become a commonplace with cultured men. Had Marti’s views been

-exceptional, he would have assumed a certain air of defence. He would

-explain precisely why he found pleasure in such unexpected places. He

-would attempt to justify his paradoxical position. Instead, he boldly

-assumes that every right-minded man loves mountains; and he confounds

-his opponents by a vigorous choice of unpleasant alternatives.

-

-Josias Simler was a mountaineer of a very different type. To him

-belongs the credit of compiling the first treatise on the art of Alpine

-travel. Though he introduces no personal reminiscences, his work is so

-free from current superstition that he must have been something of a

-climber; but, though a climber, he did not share Gesner’s enthusiasm

-for the hills. For, though he seems to have crossed glacier passes,

-whereas Gesner confined himself to the lower mountains, yet the note

-of enthusiasm is lacking. His horror of narrow paths, bordering on

-precipices, is typical of the age; and if he ventured across a pass he

-must have done so in the way of business. There is, as we have already

-pointed out, a marked difference between passes and mountains. A

-merchant with a holy horror of mountains may be forced to cross a pass

-in the way of business, but a man will only climb a mountain for the

-fun of the thing. It is clear that Simler could only see in mountains

-a sense of inconvenient barriers to commerce, but as a practical man

-he set out to codify the existing knowledge. Gesner’s mountain work

-is subjective; it is the literature of emotion; he is less concerned

-with the mountain in itself, than with the mountain as it strikes the

-individual observer. Simler, on the other hand, is the forerunner of

-the objective school. He must delight those who postulate that all

-Alpine literature should be the record of positive facts. The personal

-note is utterly lacking. Like Gesner, he was a professor at Zürich.

-Unlike Gesner, he was an embodiment of the academic tradition that is

-more concerned with fact than with emotion. None the less, his work

-was a very valuable contribution, as it summarised existing knowledge

-on the art of mountain travel. His information is singularly free from

-error. He seems to have understood the use of the rope, alpenstocks,

-crampons, dark spectacles, and the use of paper as a protection

-against cold. It is strange that crampons, which were used in Simler’s

-days, were only reintroduced into general practice within the last

-decades, whilst the uncanny warmth of paper is still unknown to many

-mountaineers. His description of glacier perils, due to concealed

-crevasses, is accurate, and his analysis of avalanches contains much

-that is true. We are left with the conviction that snow- and ice-craft

-is an old science, though originally applied by merchants rather than

-pure explorers.

-

-We quoted Simler, in the first chapter, in support of our contention

-that foreigners came in great numbers to see and rejoice in the beauty

-of the Alps. But, though Simler proves that passes were often crossed

-in the way of business, and that mountains were often visited in search

-of beauty, he himself was no mountain lover.

-

-It is a relief to turn to Scheuchzer, who is a living personality. Like

-Gesner and Simler, he was a professor at Zürich, and, like them, he

-was interested in mountains. There the resemblance ceases. He had none

-of Gesner’s fine sentiment for the hills. He did not share Simler’s

-passion for scientific knowledge. He was a very poor mountaineer, and,

-though he trudged up a few hills, he heartily disliked the toil of

-the ascent: “Anhelosæ quidem sunt scansiones montium”--an honest, but

-scarcely inspiring, comment on mountain travel. Honesty, bordering on

-the naïve, is, indeed, the keynote of our good professor’s confessions.

-Since his time, many ascents have failed for the same causes that

-prevented Scheuchzer reaching the summit of Pilatus, but few

-mountaineers are candid enough to attribute their failure to “bodily

-weariness and the distance still to be accomplished.” Scheuchzer must

-be given credit for being, in many ways, ahead of his age. He protested

-vigorously against the cruel punishments in force against witches. He

-was the first to formulate a theory of glacier motion which, though

-erroneous, was by no means absurd. As a scientist, he did good work

-in popularising Newton’s theories. He published the first map of

-Switzerland with any claims to accuracy. His greatest scientific work

-on dragons is dedicated to the English Royal Society, and though

-Scheuchzer’s dragons provoke a smile, we should remember that several

-members of that learned society subscribed to publish his researches on

-those fabulous creatures.

-

-With his odd mixture of credulity and common sense, Scheuchzer often

-recalls another genial historian of vulgar errors. Like Sir Thomas

-Browne, he could never dismiss a picturesque legend without a pang. He

-gives the more blatant absurdities their quietus with the same gentle

-and reluctant touch: “That the sea is the sweat of the earth, that the

-serpent before the fall went erect like man ... being neither consonant

-unto reason nor corresponding unto experiment, are unto us no axioms.”

-Thus Browne, and it is with the same tearful and chastened scepticism

-that Scheuchzer parts with the more outrageous “axioms” in his

-wonderful collection. But he retained enough to make his work amusing.

-Like Browne, he made it a rule to believe half that he was told. But on

-the subject of dragons he has no mental reservations. Their existence

-is proved by the number of caves that are admirably suited to the needs

-of the domestic dragon, and by the fact that the Museum, at Lucerne,

-contains an undoubted dragon stone. Such stones are rare, which is

-not surprising owing to the extreme difficulty of obtaining a genuine

-unimpaired specimen. You must first catch your dragon asleep, and then

-cut the stone out of his head. Should the dragon awake the value of the

-stone will disappear. Scheuchzer refrains from discouraging collectors

-by hinting at even more unpleasant possibilities. But then there is no

-need to awaken the dragon. Scatter soporific herbs around him, and help

-them out by recognised incantations, and the stone should be removed

-without arousing the dragon. In spite of these anæsthetics, Scheuchzer

-admits that the process demands a courageous and skilled operator, and

-perhaps it is lucky that this particular stone was casually dropped

-by a passing dragon. It is obviously genuine, for, if the peasant

-who had picked it up had been dishonest, he would never have hit on

-so obvious and unimaginative a tale. He would have told some really

-striking story, such as that the stone had come from the far Indies.

-Besides, the stone not only cures hæmorrhages (quite commonplace stones

-will cure hæmorrhages), but also dysentery and plague. As to dragons,

-Scheuchzer is even more convincing. He has examined (on oath) scores of

-witnesses who had observed dragons at first hand. We need not linger

-to cross-examine these honest folk. Their dragons are highly coloured,

-and lack nothing but uniformity. Each new dragon that flies into

-Scheuchzer’s net is gravely classified. Some dragons have feet, others

-have wings. Some have scales. Scheuchzer is a little puzzled whether

-dragons with a crest constitute a class of their own, or whether the

-crest distinguished the male from the female. Each dragon is thus

-neatly ticketed into place and referred to the sworn deposition of some

-_vir quidam probus_.

-

-But the dragons had had their day. Scheuchzer ushers in the eighteenth

-century. Let us take leave of him with a friendly smile. He is no

-abstraction, but a very human soul. We forget the scientist, though

-his more serious discoveries were not without value. We remember only

-the worthy professor, panting up his laborious hills in search of

-quaint knowledge, discovering with simple joy that Gemmi is derived

-from “gemitus” a groan, _quod non nisi crebris gemitibus superetur_.

-No doubt the needy fraternity soon discovered his amiable weakness.

-An unending procession must have found their way to his door, only

-too anxious to supply him with dragons of wonderful and fearful

-construction. Hence, the infinite variety of these creatures. When

-we think of Scheuchzer, we somehow picture the poor old gentleman,

-laboriously rearranging his data, on the sworn deposition of some

-_clarissimus homo_, what time the latter was bartering in the nearest

-tavern the price of a dragon for that good cheer in which most of

-Scheuchzer’s fauna first saw the light of day.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER III

-

-THE OPENING UP OF THE ALPS

-

-

-The climbs, so far chronicled, have been modest achievements and do not

-include a genuine snow-peak, for the Roche Melon has permanent snow

-on one side only. We have seen that many snow passes were in regular

-use from the earliest times; but genuine Alpine climbing may be said

-to begin with the ascent of the Titlis. According to Mr. Gribble, this

-was climbed by a monk of Engleberg, in 1739. Mr. Coolidge, on the other

-hand, states that it was ascended by four peasants, in 1744. In any

-case, the ascent was an isolated feat which gave no direct stimulus to

-Alpine climbing, and Mr. Gribble is correct in dating the continuous

-history of Alpine climbing from the discovery of Chamounix, in 1741.

-This famous valley had, of course, a history of its own before that

-date; but its existence was only made known, to a wider world, by

-the visit of a group of young Englishmen, towards the middle of the

-eighteenth century.

-

-In 1741, Geneva was enlivened by a vigorous colony of young Britons.

-Of these, William Windham was a famous athlete, known on his return

-to London as “Boxing Windham.” While at Geneva, he seems, despite the

-presence of his “respectable perceptor,” Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet,

-the grandson of the theologian, to have amused himself pretty

-thoroughly. The archives record that he was fined for assault and

-kindred offences. When these simple joys began to pall he decided to go

-to Chamounix in search of adventure.

-

-His party consisted of himself, Lord Haddington, Dr. Pococke, the

-Oriental traveller, and others. They visited Chamounix, and climbed

-the Montanvert with a large brigade of guides. The ascent to the

-Montanvert was not quite so simple as it is to-day, a fact which

-accounts for Windham’s highly coloured description. Windham published

-his account of the journey and his reflections on glaciers, in the

-_Journal Helvetique_ of Neuchâtel, and later in London. It attracted

-considerable attention and focussed the eyes of the curious on the

-unknown valley of Chamounix. Among others, Peter Martel, an engineer

-of Geneva, was inspired to repeat the visit. Like Windham, he climbed

-the Montanvert and descended on to the Mer de Glace; and, like Windham,

-he published an account of the journey and certain reflections on

-glaciers and glacier motion. His story is well worth reading, and the

-curious in such matters should turn either to Mr. Gribble’s _Early

-Mountaineers_, or to Mr. Matthews’ _The Annals of Mont Blanc_, where

-they will find Windham’s and Martel’s letters set forth in full.

-

-Martel’s letter and his map of Chamounix were printed together with

-Windham’s narrative, and were largely responsible for popularising

-Chamounix. Those who wished to earn a reputation for enterprise could

-hardly do so without a visit to the glaciers of Chamounix. Dr. John

-Moore, father of Sir John Moore, who accompanied the Duke of Hamilton

-on the grand tour, tells us that “one could hardly mention anything

-curious or singular without being told by some of those travellers,

-with an air of cool contempt: ‘Dear Sir, that is pretty well, but take

-my word for it, it is nothing to the glaciers of Savoy.’” The Duc de la

-Rochefoucauld considered that the honour of his nation demanded that he

-should visit the glaciers, to prove that the English were not alone in

-the possession of courage.

-

-More important, in this connection, than Dr. Moore or the duke is the

-great name of De Saussure. De Saussure belonged to an old French family

-that had been driven out of France during the Huguenot persecutions.

-They emigrated to Geneva, where De Saussure was born. His mother had

-Spartan views on education; and from his earlier years the child was

-taught to suffer the privations due to physical ills and the inclemency

-of the season. As a result of this adventurous training, De Saussure

-was irresistibly drawn to the mountains. He visited Chamounix in

-1760, and was immediately struck by the possibility of ascending Mont

-Blanc. He does not seem to have cherished any ambition to make the

-first ascent in person. He was content to follow when once the way

-had been found; and he offered a reward to the pioneer, and promised

-to recompense any peasant who should lose a day’s work in trying to

-find the way to the summit of Mont Blanc. The reward was not claimed

-for many years, but, meanwhile, De Saussure never missed a chance of

-climbing a mountain. He climbed Ætna, and made a series of excursions

-in various parts of the Alps. When his wife complained, he indited a

-robust letter which every married mountaineer should keep up his sleeve

-for ready quotation.

-

-“In this valley, which I had not previously visited,” he writes,

-“I have made observations of the greatest importance, surpassing

-my highest hopes; but that is not what you care about. You would

-sooner--God forgive me for saying so--see me growing fat like a friar,

-and snoring every day in the chimney corner, after a big dinner, than

-that I should achieve immortal fame by the most sublime discoveries

-at the cost of reducing my weight by a few ounces and spending a few

-weeks away from you. If, then, I continue to take these journeys, in

-spite of the annoyance they cause you, the reason is that I feel myself

-pledged in honour to go on with them, and that I think it necessary

-to extend my knowledge on this subject and make my works as nearly

-perfect as possible. I say to myself: ‘Just as an officer goes out to

-assault a fortress when the order is given, and just as a merchant goes

-to market on market-day, so must I go to the mountains when there are

-observations to be made.’”

-

-De Saussure was partly responsible for the great renaissance of

-mountain travel that began at Geneva in 1760. A group of enthusiastic

-mountaineers instituted a series of determined assaults on the

-unconquered snows. Of these, one of the most remarkable was Jean-Andre

-de Luc.

-

-De Luc was born at Geneva, in 1727. His father was a watchmaker, but De

-Luc’s life was cast on more ambitious lines. He began as a diplomatist,

-but gravitated insensibly to science. He invented the hygrometer, and

-was elected a member of the Royal Societies of London, Dublin, and

-Göttingen. Charlotte, the wife of George III, appointed him her reader;

-and he died at Windsor, having attained the ripe age of ninety. He was

-a scientific, rather than a sentimental, mountaineer; his principal

-occupation was to discover the temperature at which water would boil at

-various altitudes. His chief claim to notice is that he made the first

-ascent of the Buet.

-

-The Buet is familiar to all who know Chamounix. It rises to the height

-of 10,291 feet. Its summit is a broad plateau, glacier-capped. Those

-who have travelled to Italy by the Simplon may, perhaps, recall the

-broad-topped mountain that seems to block up the western end of the

-Rhone valley, for the Buet is a conspicuous feature on the line,

-between Sion and Brigue. It is not a difficult mountain, in the modern

-sense of the term; but, to climbers who knew little of the nature of

-snow and glacier, it must have presented quite a formidable appearance.

-De Luc made several attempts before he was finally successful on

-September 22, 1770. His description of the view from the summit is a

-fine piece of writing. Familiarity had not staled the glory of such

-moments; and men might still write, as they felt, without fear that

-their readers would be bored by emotions that had lost their novelty.

-

-Before leaving, De Luc observed that the party were standing on

-a cornice. A cornice is a crest of windblown snow overhanging a

-precipice. As the crest often appears perfectly continuous with the

-snow on solid foundation, cornices have been responsible for many

-fatal accidents. De Luc’s party naturally beat a hurried retreat; but

-“having gathered, by reflection, that the addition of our own weight

-to this prodigious mass which had supported itself for ages counted

-for absolutely nothing, and could not possibly break it loose, we

-laid aside our fears and went back to the terrible terrace.” A little

-science is a dangerous thing; and it was a mere chance that the first

-ascent of the Buet is not notorious for a terrible accident. It makes

-one’s blood run cold to read of the calm contempt with which De Luc

-treated the cornice. Each member of the party took it in turn to

-advance to the edge and look over on to the cliff below supported as to

-his coattails by the rest of the party.

-

-De Luc made a second ascent of the Buet, two years later; but it was

-not until 1779 that a snow peak was again conquered. In that year

-Murith, the Prior of the St. Bernard Hospice, climbed the Velan,

-the broad-topped peak which is so conspicuous a feature from the St.

-Bernard. It is a very respectable mountain rising to a height of

-12,353 feet. Murith, besides being an ecclesiastic, was something of

-a scientist, and his botanical handbook to the Valais is not without

-merit. It is to Bourrit, of whom we shall speak later, that we owe the

-written account of the climb, based on information which Bourrit had at

-first hand from M. Murith.

-

-Murith started on August 30, 1779, with “two hardy hunters,” two

-thermometers, a barometer, and a spirit-level. They slept a night on

-the way, and proceeded to attack the mountain from the Glacier du

-Proz. The hardy hunters lost their nerve, and tried to dissuade M.

-Murith from the attempt; but the gallant Prior replied: “Fear nothing;

-wherever there is danger I will go in front.” They encountered numerous

-difficulties, amongst others a wall of ice which Murith climbed by

-hacking steps and hand-holds with a pointed hammer. One of the hardy

-huntsmen then followed; his companion had long since disappeared.

-

-They reached the summit without further difficulty, and their

-impressions of the view are recorded by Bourrit in an eloquent passage

-which recalls De Luc on the Buet, and once more proves that the early

-mountaineers were fully alive to the glory of mountain tops--

-

-    “A spectacle, no less amazing than magnificent, offered itself to

-    their gaze. The sky seemed to be a black cloth enveloping the earth

-    at a distance from it. The sun shining in it made its darkness all

-    the more conspicuous. Down below their outlook extended over an

-    enormous area, bristling with rocky peaks and cut by dark valleys.

-    Mont Blanc rose like a sloping pyramid and its lofty head appeared

-    to dominate all the Alps as one saw it towering above them. An

-    imposing stillness, a majestic silence, produced an indescribable

-    impression upon the mind. The noise of the avalanches, reiterated

-    by the echoes, seemed to be the only thing that marked the march

-    of time. Raised, so to say, above the head of Nature, they saw the

-    mountains split asunder, and send the fragments rolling to their

-    feet, and the rivers rising below them in places where inactive

-    Nature seemed upon the point of death--though in truth it is there

-    that she gathers strength to carry life and fertility throughout

-    the world.”

-

-It is curious in this connection to notice the part played by the

-Church in the early history of mountaineering. This is not surprising.

-The local curé lived in the shadow of the great peaks that dominated

-his valley. He was more cultured than the peasants of his parish; he

-was more alive to the spiritual appeal of the high places, and he

-naturally took a leading part in the assaults on his native mountains.

-The Titlis and Monte Leone were first climbed by local monks. The

-prior of the St. Bernard made, as we have seen, a remarkable conquest

-of a great local peak; and five years later M. Clément, the curé of

-Champery, reached the summit of the Dent du Midi, that great battlement

-of rock which forms a background to the eastern end of Lake Geneva.

-Bourrit, as we shall see, was an ecclesiastic with a great love for the

-snows. Father Placidus à Spescha was the pioneer of the Tödi; and local

-priests played their part in the early attempts on the Matterhorn from

-Italy. “One man, one mountain” was the rule of many an early pioneer;

-but Murith’s love of the snows was not exhausted by this ascent of the

-Velan. He had already explored the Valsorey glacier with Saussure, and

-the Otemma glacier with Bourrit. A few years after his conquest of the

-Velan he turned his attention to the fine wall of cliffs that binds in

-the Orny glacier on the south.

-

-Bourrit, who wrote up Murith’s notes on the Velan, was one of the

-most remarkable of this group of pioneers. He was a whole-hearted

-enthusiast, and the first man who devoted the most active years of

-his life to mountaineering. He wins our affection by the readiness

-with which he gave others due credit for their achievements, a

-generous characteristic which did not, however, survive the supreme

-test--Paccard’s triumph on Mont Blanc. Mountaineers at the end of the

-eighteenth century formed a close freemasonry less concerned with

-individual achievement than with the furthering of common knowledge.

-We have seen, for instance, that De Saussure cared little who made the

-first ascent of Mont Blanc provided that the way was opened up for

-future explorers. Bourrit’s actual record of achievement was small. His

-exploration was attended with little success. His best performance was

-the discovery, or rediscovery of the Col de Géant. His great ambition,

-the ascent of Mont Blanc, failed. Fatigue, or mountain sickness, or

-bad weather, spoiled his more ambitious climbs. But this matters

-little. He found his niche in Alpine history rather as a writer than

-as a mountaineer. He popularised the Alps. He was the first systematic

-writer of Alpine books, a fact which earned him the title, “Historian

-of the Alps,” a title of which he was inordinately proud. Best of all,

-in an age when mountain appreciation was somewhat rare, he marked

-himself out by an unbounded enthusiasm for the hills.

-

-He was born in 1735, and in one of his memoirs he describes the moment

-when he first heard the call of the Alps: “It was from the summit of

-the Voirons that the view of the Alps kindled my desire to become

-acquainted with them. No one could give me any information about

-them except that they were the accursed mountains, frightful to look

-upon and uninhabited.” Bourrit began life as a miniature painter.

-A good many of his Alpine water colours have survived. Though they

-cannot challenge serious comparison with the mountain masterpieces

-of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they are not without a

-certain merit. But Bourrit would not have become famous had he not

-deserted the brush for the pen. When the Alps claimed him, he gave

-up miniatures, and accepted an appointment as Precentor of Geneva

-Cathedral, a position which allowed him great leisure for climbing.

-He used to climb in the summer, and write up his journeys in the

-winter. He soon compiled a formidable list of books, and was hailed

-throughout Europe as the Historian of the Alps. There was no absurd

-modesty about Bourrit. He accepted the position with serene dignity.

-His house, he tells us, is “embellished with beautiful acacias, planned

-for the comfort and convenience of strangers who do not wish to leave

-Geneva without visiting the Historian of the Alps.” He tells us that

-Prince Henry of Prussia, acting on the advice of Frederick the Great,

-honoured him with a visit. Bourrit, in fact, received recognition in

-many distinguished quarters. The Princess Louise of Prussia sent him

-an engraving to recall “a woman whom you have to some extent taught

-to share your lofty sentiments.” Bourrit was always popular with the

-ladies, and no climber has shown a more generous appreciation for the

-sex. “The sex is very beautiful here,” became, as Mr. Gribble tells us,

-“a formula with him as soon as he began writing and continued a formula

-after he had passed his threescore years and ten.”

-

-We have said that Bourrit’s actual record as a climber is rather

-disappointing. We may forget this, and remember only his whole-hearted

-devotion to the mountains. Even Gesner, Petrarch, and Marti seem

-balanced and cold when they set their tributes besides Bourrit’s large

-enthusiasm. Bourrit did not carry a barometer with him on his travels.

-He did not feel the need to justify his wanderings by collecting a

-mass of scientific data. Nor did he assume that a mountain tour should

-be written up as a mere guide-book record of times and route. He is

-supremely concerned with the ennobling effect of mountain scenery on

-the human mind.

-

-“At Chamounix,” he writes, “I have seen persons of every party in the

-state, who imagined that they loathed each other, nevertheless treating

-one another with courtesy, and even walking together. Returning to

-Geneva, and encountering the reproaches of their various friends,

-they merely answered in their defence, ‘Go, as we have gone, to the

-Montanvert, and take our share of the pure air that is to be breathed

-there; look thence at the unfamiliar beauties of Nature; contemplate

-from that terrace the greatness of natural objects and the littleness

-of man; and you will no longer be astonished that Nature has enabled us

-to subdue our passions.’ It is, in fact, the mountains that many men

-have to thank for their reconciliation with their fellows, and with

-the human race; and it is there that the rulers of the world and the

-heads of the nations ought to hold their meetings. Raised thus above

-the arena of passions and petty interests, and placed more immediately

-under the influence of Divine inspiration, one would see them descend

-from these mountains, each like a new Moses bringing with them codes

-of law based upon equity and justice.”

-

-This is fine writing with a vengeance, just as Ruskin’s greatest

-passages are fine writing. Before we take our leave of Bourrit, let

-us see the precentor of the cathedral exhorting a company of guides

-with sacerdotal dignity. One is irresistibly reminded of Japan, where

-mountaineering and sacrificial rites go hand in hand--

-

-    “The Historian of the Alps, in rendering them this justice in the

-    presence of a great throng of people, seized the opportunity of

-    exhorting the new guides to observe the virtues proper to their

-    state in life. ‘Put yourselves,’ he said to them, ‘in the place

-    of the strangers, who come from the most distant lands to admire

-    the marvels of Nature under these wild and savage aspects; and

-    justify the confidence which they repose in you. You have learnt

-    the great part which these magnificent objects of our contemplation

-    play in the organisation of the world; and, in pointing out their

-    various phenomena to their astonished eyes, you will rejoice to see

-    people raise their thoughts to the omnipotence of the Great Being

-    who created them.’ The speaker was profoundly moved by the ideas

-    with which the subject inspired him, and it was impossible for his

-    listeners not to share in his emotion.”

-

-Let us remember that Bourrit put his doctrine into practice. He has

-told us that he found men of diverse creeds reconciled beneath the

-shadow of Mont Blanc. Bourrit himself was a mountaineer first, and an

-ecclesiastic second. Perhaps he was no worse as a Protestant precentor

-because the mountains had taught him their eternal lessons of tolerance

-and serene indifference to the petty issues which loom so large beneath

-the shadow of the cathedral. Catholic or Protestant it was all the same

-to our good precentor, provided the man loved the hills. Prior Murith

-was his friend; and every Catholic mountaineer should be grateful to

-his memory, for he persuaded one of their archbishops to dispense

-climbers from the obligation of fasting in Lent.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER IV

-

-THE STORY OF MONT BLANC

-

-

-The history of Mont Blanc has been made the subject of an excellent

-monograph, and the reader who wishes to supplement the brief sketch

-which is all that we can attempt should buy _The Annals of Mont Blanc_,

-by Mr. C. E. Mathews. We have already seen that De Saussure offered a

-reward in 1760 to any peasant who could find a way to the summit of

-Mont Blanc. In the quarter-of-a-century that followed, several attempts

-were made. Amongst others, Bourrit tried on two occasions to prove the

-accessibility of Mont Blanc. Bourrit himself never reached a greater

-height than 10,000 feet; but some of his companions attained the very

-respectable altitude of 14,300 feet. De Saussure attacked the mountain

-without success in 1785, leaving the stage ready for the entrance of

-the most theatrical of mountaineers.

-

-Jacques Balmat, the hero of Mont Blanc, impresses himself upon the

-imagination as no other climber of the day. He owes his fame mainly,

-of course, to his great triumph, but also, not a little, to the fact

-that he was interviewed by Alexandre Dumas the Elder, who immortalised

-him in _Impressions de Voyage_. For the moment, we shall not bother

-to criticise its accuracy. We know that Balmat reached the summit

-of Mont Blanc; and that outstanding fact is about the only positive

-contribution to the story which has not been riddled with destructive

-criticism. The story should be read in the original, though Dumas’

-vigorous French loses little in Mr. Gribble’s spirited translation from

-which I shall borrow.

-

-[Illustration:

-

-  A Summit of Mont Blanc

-  B    ”    ” Dôme du Gouter

-  C    ”    ” Aiguille du Gouter

-  D    ”    ” Aiguille de Bianossay

-  E    ”    ” Mont Maudit

-  E′    ”    ” Mont Blanc du Tacul

-  F    ”    ” Aiguille du Midi

-  G Grand Mulets

-  H Grand Plateau

-  L Les Bosses du Dromadaire

-  M Glacier des Bossons

-  N Glacier de Taconnaz

-]

-

-Dumas visited Chamounix in 1883. Balmat was then a veteran, and, of

-course, the great person of the valley. Dumas lost no time in making

-his acquaintance. We see them sitting together over a bottle of wine,

-and we can picture for ourselves the subtle art with which the great

-interviewer drew out the old guide. But Balmat shall tell his own

-story--

-

-    “H’m. Let me see. It was in 1786. I was five-and-twenty; that makes

-    me seventy-two to-day. What a fellow I was! With the devil’s own

-    calves and hell’s own stomach. I could have gone three days without

-    bite or sup. I had to do so once when I got lost on the Buet. I

-    just munched a little snow, and that was all. And from time to

-    time I looked across at Mont Blanc saying, ‘Say what you like, my

-    beauty, and do what you like. Some day I shall climb you.’”

-

-Balmat then tells us how he persuaded his wife that he was on his way

-to collect crystals. He climbed steadily throughout the day, and night

-found him on a great snowfield somewhere near the Grand Plateau. The

-situation was sufficiently serious. To be benighted on Mont Blanc is

-a fate which would terrify a modern climber, even if he were one of a

-large party. Balmat was alone, and the mental strain of a night alone

-on a glacier can only be understood by those who have felt the uncanny

-terror that often attacks the solitary wanderer even in the daytime.

-Fortunately, Balmat does not seem to have been bothered with nerves.

-His fears expressed themselves in tangible shape.

-

-    “Presently the moon rose pale and encircled by clouds, which hid

-    it altogether at about eleven o’clock. At the same time a rascally

-    mist came on from the Aiguille du Gouter, which had no sooner

-    reached me than it began to spit snow in my face. Then I wrapped my

-    head in my handkerchief, and said: ‘Fire away. You’re not hurting

-    me.’ At every instant I heard the falling avalanches making a

-    noise like thunder. The glaciers split, and at every split I felt

-    the mountain move. I was neither hungry nor thirsty; and I had an

-    extraordinary headache which took me at the crown of the skull, and

-    worked its way down to the eyelids. All this time, the mist never

-    lifted. My breath had frozen on my handkerchief; the snow had made

-    my clothes wet; I felt as if I were naked. Then I redoubled the

-    rapidity of my movements, and began to sing, in order to drive away

-    the foolish thoughts that came into my head. My voice was lost in

-    the snow; no echo answered me. I held my tongue, and was afraid. At

-    two o’clock the sky paled towards the east. With the first beams of

-    day, I felt my courage coming back to me. The sun rose, battling

-    with the clouds which covered the mountain top; my hope was that

-    it would scatter them; but at about four o’clock the clouds got

-    denser, and I recognised that it would be impossible for me just

-    then to go any further.”

-

-He spent a second night on the mountain, which was, on the whole,

-more comfortable than the first, as he passed it on the rocks of the

-Montagne de la Côte. Before he returned home, Balmat planned a way

-to the summit. And now comes the most amazing part of the story. He

-had no sooner returned home than he met three men starting off for

-the mountain. A modern mountaineer, who had spent two nights, alone,

-high up on Mont Blanc, would consider himself lucky to reach Chamounix

-alive; once there, he would go straight to bed for some twenty-four

-hours. But Balmat was built of iron. He calmly proposed to accompany

-his friends; and, having changed his stockings, he started out again

-for the great mountain, on which he had spent the previous two nights.

-The party consisted of François Paccard, Joseph Carrier, and Jean

-Michel Tournier. They slept on the mountain; and next morning they

-were joined by two other guides, Pierre Balmat and Marie Couttet. They

-did not get very far, and soon turned back--all save Balmat. Balmat,

-who seems to have positively enjoyed his nights on the glacier, stayed

-behind.

-

-    “I laid my knapsack on the snow, drew my handkerchief over my face

-    like a curtain, and made the best preparations that I could for

-    passing a night like the previous one. However, as I was about two

-    thousand feet higher, the cold was more intense; a fine powdery

-    snow froze me; I felt a heaviness and an irresistible desire to

-    sleep; thoughts, sad as death, came into my mind, and I knew well

-    that these sad thoughts and this desire to sleep were a bad sign,

-    and that if I had the misfortune to close my eyes I should never

-    open them again. From the place where I was, I saw, ten thousand

-    feet below me, the lights of Chamounix, where my comrades were warm

-    and tranquil by their firesides or in their beds. I said to myself:

-    ‘Perhaps there is not a man among them who gives a thought to me.

-    Or, if there is one of them who thinks of Balmat, no doubt he pokes

-    his fire into a blaze, or draws his blanket over his ears, saying,

-    ‘That ass of a Jacques is wearing out his shoe leather. Courage,

-    Balmat!’”

-

-Balmat may have been a braggart, but it is sometimes forgotten by his

-critics that he had something to brag about. Even if he had never

-climbed Mont Blanc, this achievement would have gone down to history

-as perhaps the boldest of all Alpine adventures. To sleep one night,

-alone, above the snow line is a misfortune that has befallen many

-climbers. Some have died, and others have returned, thankful. One may

-safely say that no man has started out for the same peak, and willingly

-spent a third night under even worse conditions than the first. Three

-nights out of four in all. We are charitably assuming that this

-part of Balmat’s story is true. There is at least no evidence to the

-contrary.

-

-Naturally enough, Balmat did not prosecute the attempt at once. He

-returned to Chamounix, and sought out the local doctor, Michel Paccard.

-Paccard agreed to accompany him. They left Chamounix at five in the

-evening, and slept on the top of the Montagne de la Côte. They started

-next morning at two o’clock. According to Balmat’s account, the doctor

-played a sorry part in the day’s climb. It was only by some violent

-encouragement that he was induced to proceed at all.

-

-    “After I had exhausted all my eloquence, and saw that I was only

-    losing my time, I told him to keep moving about as best he could.

-    He heard without understanding, and kept answering ‘Yes, yes,’ in

-    order to get rid of me. I perceived that he must be suffering from

-    cold. So I left him the bottle, and set off alone, telling him

-    that I would come back and look for him. ‘Yes, yes,’ he answered.

-    I advised him not to sit still, and started off. I had not gone

-    thirty steps before I turned round and saw that, instead of running

-    about and stamping his feet, he had sat down, with his back to the

-    wind--a precaution of a sort. From that minute onwards, the track

-    presented no great difficulty; but, as I rose higher and higher,

-    the air became more and more unfit to breathe. Every few steps,

-    I had to stop like a man in a consumption. It seemed to me that

-    I had no lungs left, and that my chest was hollow. Then I folded

-    my handkerchief like a scarf, tied it over my mouth and breathed

-    through it; and that gave me a little relief. However, the cold

-    gripped me more and more; it took me an hour to go a quarter of a

-    league. I looked down as I walked; but, finding myself in a spot

-    which I did not recognise, I raised my eyes, and saw that I had at

-    last reached the summit of Mont Blanc.

-

-    “Then I looked around me, fearing to find that I was mistaken,

-    and to catch sight of some aiguille or some fresh point above me;

-    if there had been, I should not have had the strength to climb

-    it. For it seems to me that the joints of my legs were only held

-    in their proper place by my breeches. But no--it was not so. I

-    had reached the end of my journey. I had come to a place where no

-    one--where not the eagle or the chamois--had ever been before me.

-    I had got there, alone, without any other help than that of my own

-    strength and my own will. Everything that surrounded me seemed to

-    be my property. I was the King of Mont Blanc--the statue of this

-    tremendous pedestal.

-

-    “Then I turned towards Chamounix, waving my hat at the end of my

-    stick, and saw, by the help of my glass, that my signals were being

-    answered.”

-

-Balmat returned, found the doctor in a dazed condition, and piloted him

-to the summit, which they reached shortly after six o’clock.

-

-    “It was seven o’clock in the evening; we had only two-and-a-half

-    hours of daylight left; we had to go. I took Paccard by the arm,

-    and once more waved my hat as a last signal to our friends in the

-    valley; and the descent began. There was no track to guide us; the

-    wind was so cold that even the snow on the surface had not thawed;

-    all that we could see on the ice was the little holes made by the

-    iron points of our stick. Paccard was no better than a child,

-    devoid of energy and will-power, whom I had to guide in the easy

-    places and carry in the hard ones. Night was already beginning

-    to fall when we crossed the crevasse; it finally overtook us at

-    the foot of the Grand Plateau. At every instant, Paccard stopped,

-    declaring that he could go no further; at every halt, I obliged him

-    to resume his march, not by persuasion, for he understood nothing

-    but force. At eleven, we at last escaped from the regions of ice,

-    and set foot upon _terra firma_; the last afterglow of the sunset

-    had disappeared an hour before. Then I allowed Paccard to stop, and

-    prepared to wrap him up again in the blanket, when I perceived that

-    he was making no use whatever of his hands. I drew his attention

-    to the fact. He answered that that was likely enough, as he no

-    longer had any sensation in them. I drew off his gloves, and found

-    that his hands were white and, as it were, dead; for my own part,

-    I felt a numbness in the hand on which I wore his little glove in

-    place of my own thick one. I told him we had three frost-bitten

-    hands between us; but he seemed not to mind in the least, and only

-    wanted to lie down and go to sleep. As for myself, however, he told

-    me to rub the affected part with snow, and the remedy was not far

-    to seek. I commenced operations upon him and concluded them upon

-    myself. Soon the blood resumed its course, and with the blood,

-    the heat returned, but accompanied by acute pain, as though every

-    vein were being pricked with needles. I wrapped my baby up in his

-    blanket, and put him to bed under the shelter of a rock. We ate a

-    little, drank a glass of something, squeezed ourselves as close to

-    each other as we could, and went to sleep.

-

-    “At six the next morning Paccard awoke me. ‘It’s strange, Balmat,’

-    he said, ‘I hear the birds singing, and don’t see the daylight.

-    I suppose I can’t open my eyes.’ Observe that his eyes were as

-    wide open as the Grand Duke’s. I told him he must be mistaken, and

-    could see quite well. Then he asked me to give him a little snow,

-    melted it in the hollow of his hand, and rubbed his eyelids with

-    it. When this was done, he could see no better than before; only

-    his eyes hurt him a great deal more. ‘Come now, it seems that I am

-    blind, Balmat. How am I to get down?’ he continued. ‘Take hold of

-    the strap of my knapsack and walk behind me; that’s what you must

-    do.’ And in this style we came down, and reached the village of La

-    Côte. There, as I feared that my wife would be uneasy about me, I

-    left the doctor, who found his way home by fumbling with his stick,

-    and returned to my own house. Then, for the first time, I saw what

-    I looked like. I was unrecognisable. My eyes were red; my face was

-    black; my lips were blue. Whenever I laughed or yawned, the blood

-    spurted from my lips and cheeks; and I could only see in a dark

-    room.”

-

-    “‘And did Dr. Paccard continue blind?’ ‘Blind, indeed! He died

-    eleven months ago, at the age of seventy-nine, and could still read

-    without spectacles. Only his eyes were diabolically red.’ ‘As

-    the consequence of his ascent?’ ‘Not a bit of it.’ ‘Why, then?’

-    ‘The old boy was a bit of a tippler.’ And so saying Jacques Balmat

-    emptied his third bottle.”

-

-The last touch is worthy of Dumas; and the whole story is told in the

-Ercles vein. As literature it is none the worse for that. It was a

-magnificent achievement; and we can pardon the vanity of the old guide

-looking back on the greatest moment of his life. But as history the

-interview is of little value. The combination of Dumas and Balmat was a

-trifle too strong for what Clough calls “the mere it was.” The dramatic

-unities tempt one to leave Balmat, emptying his third bottle, and to

-allow the merry epic to stand unchallenged. But the importance of this

-first ascent forces one to sacrifice romance for the sober facts.

-

-The truth about that first ascent had to wait more than a hundred

-years. The final solution is due, in the main, to three men, Dr. Dübi

-(the famous Swiss mountaineer), Mr. Freshfield, and Mr. Montagnier.

-Dr. Dübi’s book, _Paccard wider Balmat, oder Die Entwicklung einer

-Legende_, gives the last word on this famous case. For a convenient

-summary of Dr. Dübi’s arguments, the reader should consult Mr.

-Freshfield’s excellent review of his book that appeared in the

-_Alpine Journal_ for May 1913. The essential facts are as follows.

-Dr. Dübi has been enabled to produce a diary of an eye-witness of the

-great ascent. A distinguished German traveller, Baron von Gersdorf,

-watched Balmat and Paccard through a telescope, made careful notes,

-illustrated by diagrams of the route, and, at the request of Paccard’s

-father, a notary of Chamounix, signed, with his friend Von Meyer, a

-certificate of what he had seen. This certificate is still preserved at

-Chamounix, and Von Gersdorf’s diary and correspondence have recently

-been discovered at Görlitz. Here is the vital sentence in his diary,

-as translated by Mr. Freshfield: “They started again [from the Petits

-Rochers Rouges], at 5.45 p.m., halted for a moment about every hundred

-yards, _changed occasionally the leadership_ [the italics are mine], at

-6.12 p.m. gained two rocks protruding from the snow, and at 6.23 p.m.

-were on the actual summit.” The words italicised prove that Balmat did

-not lead throughout. The remainder of the sentence shows that Balmat

-was not the first to arrive on the summit, and that the whole fabric of

-the Dumas legend is entirely false.

-

-But Dumas was not alone responsible for the Balmat myth. This famous

-fiction was, in the main, due to a well-known Alpine character, whom

-we have dealt with at length in our third chapter. The reader may

-remember that Bourrit’s enthusiasm for mountaineering was only equalled

-by his lack of success. We have seen that Bourrit had set his heart on

-the conquest of Mont Blanc, and that Bourrit failed in this ambition,

-both before, and after Balmat’s ascent. In many ways, Bourrit was a

-great man. He was fired with an undaunted enthusiasm for the Alps at

-a time when such enthusiasm was the hall-mark of a select circle. He

-justly earned his title, the Historian of the Alps; and in his earlier

-years he was by no means ungenerous to more fortunate climbers. But

-this great failing, an inordinate vanity, grew with years. He could

-just manage to forgive Balmat, for Balmat was a guide; but Paccard, the

-amateur, had committed the unforgivable offence.

-

-It was no use pretending that Paccard had not climbed Mont Blanc, for

-Paccard had been seen on the summit. Bourrit took the only available

-course. He was determined to injure Paccard’s prospects of finding

-subscribers for a work which the doctor proposed to publish, dealing

-with his famous climb. With this in view, Bourrit wrote the notorious

-letter of September 20, 1786, which first appeared as a pamphlet, and

-was later published in several papers. We need not reproduce the

-letter. The main points which Bourrit endeavoured to make were that

-the doctor failed at the critical stage of the ascent, that Balmat

-left him, reached the top, and returned to insist on Paccard dragging

-himself somehow to the summit; that Paccard wished to exploit Balmat’s

-achievements, and was posing as the conqueror of Mont Blanc; that,

-with this in view, he was appealing for subscribers for a book, in

-which, presumably, Balmat would be ignored, while poor Balmat, a simple

-peasant, who knew nothing of Press advertisement, would lose the glory

-that was his just meed. It was a touching picture; and we, who know the

-real Balmat as a genial _blageur_, may smile gently when we hear him

-described as _le pauvre Balmat à qui l’on doit cette découverte reste

-presque ignoré, et ignore qu’il y ait des journalistes, des journaux,

-et que l’on puisse par le moyen de ces trompettes littéraires obtenir

-du Public une sorte d’admiration_. De Saussure, who from the first gave

-Paccard due credit for his share in the climb, seems to have warned

-Bourrit that he was making a fool of himself. Bourrit appears to have

-been impressed, for he added a postscript in which he toned down some

-of his remarks, and conceded grudgingly that Paccard’s share in the

-ascent was, perhaps, larger than he had at first imagined. But this

-relapse into decent behaviour did not survive an anonymous reply to

-his original pamphlet which appeared in the _Journal de Lausanne_, on

-February 24, 1787. This reply gave Paccard’s story, and stung Bourrit

-into a reply which was nothing better than a malicious falsehood.

-“Balmat’s story,” he wrote, “seems very natural ... and is further

-confirmed by an eye-witness, M. le Baron de Gersdorf, who watched the

-climbers through his glasses; and this stranger was so shocked by the

-indifference (to use no stronger word) shown by M. Paccard to his

-companion that he reprinted my letter in his own country, in order to

-start a subscription in favour of poor Balmat.”

-

-Fortunately, we now know what Gersdorf saw through his glasses,

-and we also know that Gersdorf wrote immediately to Paccard,

-“disclaiming altogether the motive assigned for his action in

-raising a subscription.” Paccard was fortunately able to publish two

-very effective replies to this spiteful attack. In the _Journal de

-Lausanne_ for May 18 he reproduced two affidavits by Balmat, both

-properly attested. These ascribe to Paccard the honour of planning the

-expedition, and his full share of the work, and also state that Balmat

-had been paid for acting as guide. The first of these documents has

-disappeared. The second, which is entirely in Balmat’s handwriting,

-is still in existence. Balmat, later in life, made some ridiculous

-attempt to suggest that he had signed a blank piece of paper; but

-the fact that even Bourrit seems to have considered this statement a

-trifle too absurd to quote is in itself enough to render such a protest

-negligible. Besides, Balmat was shrewd enough not to swear before

-witnesses to a document which he had never seen. It is almost pleasant

-to record that a dispute between the doctor and Balmat, in the high

-street of Chamounix, resulted in Balmat receiving a well-merited blow

-on his nose from the doctor’s umbrella, which laid him in the dust. It

-is in some ways a pity that Dumas did not meet Paccard. The incident

-of the umbrella might then have been worked up to the proper epic

-proportions.

-

-This much we may now regard as proved. Paccard took at least an equal

-share in the great expedition. Balmat was engaged as a guide, and was

-paid as such. The credit for the climb must be divided between these

-two men; and the discredit of causing strained relations between them

-must be assigned to Bourrit. Meanwhile, it is worth adding that the

-traditions of the De Saussure family are all in favour of Balmat. De

-Saussure’s grandson stated that Balmat’s sole object in climbing Mont

-Blanc was the hope of pecuniary gain. He even added that the main

-reason for his final attempt with Paccard was that Paccard, being an

-amateur, would not claim half the reward promised by De Saussure. As

-to Paccard, “everything we know of him,” writes Mr. Freshfield, “is to

-his credit.” His scientific attainments were undoubtedly insignificant

-compared to a Bonnet or a De Saussure. Yet he was a member of the

-Academy of Turin, he contributed articles to a scientific periodical

-published in Paris, he corresponded with De Saussure about his

-barometrical observations. He is described by a visitor to Chamounix,

-in 1788, in the following terms: “We also visited Dr. Paccard, who

-gave us a very plain and modest account of his ascent of Mont Blanc,

-for which bold undertaking he does not seem to assume to himself any

-particular merit, but asserts that any one with like physical powers

-could have performed the task equally well.” De Saussure’s grandson,

-who has been quoted against Balmat, is equally emphatic in his approval

-of Paccard. Finally, both Dr. Dübi and Mr. Freshfield agree that, as

-regards the discovery of the route: “Paccard came first into the field,

-and was the more enterprising of the two.”

-

-Bourrit, by the way, had not even the decency to be consistent.

-He spoiled, as we have seen, poor Paccard’s chances of obtaining

-subscribers for his book, and, later in life, he quarrelled with

-Balmat. Von Gersdorf had started a collection for Balmat, and part

-of the money had to pass through Bourrit’s hands. A great deal of it

-remained there. Bourrit seems to have been temporarily inconvenienced.

-We need not believe that he had any intention of retaining the money

-permanently, but Balmat was certainly justified in complaining to Von

-Gersdorf. Bourrit received a sharp letter from Von Gersdorf, and never

-forgave Balmat. In one of his later books, he reversed his earlier

-judgment and pronounced in favour of Paccard.

-

-Bourrit discredited himself by the Mont Blanc episode with the more

-discerning of his contemporaries. De Saussure seems to have written

-him down, judging by the traditions that have survived in his family.

-Wyttenbach, a famous Bernese savant, is even more emphatic. “All who

-know him realise Bourrit to be a conceited toad, a flighty fool, a

-bombastic swaggerer.” Mr. Freshfield, however, quotes a kinder and

-more discriminating criticism by the celebrated Bonnet, ending with

-the words: _Il faut, néanmoins, lui tenir compte de son ardeur et de

-son courage._ “With these words,” says Mr. Freshfield, “let us leave

-‘notre Bourrit’; for by his passion for the mountains he remains one of

-us.”

-

-Poor Bourrit! It is with real regret that one chronicles the old

-precentor’s lapses. Unfortunately, every age has its Bourrit, but it

-is only fair to remember that Bourrit often showed a very generous

-appreciation of other climbers. He could not quite forgive Paccard. Let

-us remember his passion for the snows. Let us forget the rest.

-

-It is pleasant to record that De Saussure’s old ambition was gratified,

-and that he succeeded in reaching the summit of Mont Blanc in July

-1787. Nor is this his only great expedition. He camped out for a

-fortnight on the Col de Géant, a remarkable performance. He visited

-Zermatt, then in a very uncivilised condition, and made the first

-ascent of the Petit Mont Cervin. He died in 1799.

-

-As for Balmat, he became a guide, and in this capacity earned a very

-fair income. Having accumulated some capital, he cast about for a

-profitable investment. Two perfect strangers, whom he met on the high

-road, solved his difficulty in a manner highly satisfactory as far as

-they were concerned. They assured him that they were bankers, and that

-they would pay him five per cent. on his capital. The first of these

-statements may have been true, the second was false. He did not see

-the bankers or his capital again. Shortly after this initiation into

-high finance, he left Chamounix to search for a mythical gold-mine

-among the glaciers of the valley of Sixt. He disappeared and was never

-seen again. He left a family of four sons, two of whom were killed in

-the Napoleonic wars. His great-nephew became the favourite guide of Mr.

-Justice Wills, with whom he climbed the Wetterhorn.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER V

-

-MONTE ROSA AND THE BÜNDNER OBERLAND

-

-

-The conquest of Mont Blanc was the most important mountaineering

-achievement of the period; but good work was also being done in other

-parts of the Alps. Monte Rosa, as we soon shall see, had already

-attracted the adventurous, and the Bündner Oberland gave one great name

-to the story of Alpine adventure. We have already noted the important

-part played by priests in the conquest of the Alps; and Catholic

-mountaineers may well honour the memory of Placidus à Spescha as one of

-the greatest of the climbing priesthood.

-

-Father Placidus was born in 1782 at Truns. As a boy he joined the

-Friars of Disentis, and after completing his education at Einsiedeln,

-where he made good use of an excellent library, returned again to

-Disentis. As a small boy, he had tended his father’s flocks and

-acquired a passionate love for the mountains of his native valley. As a

-monk, he resumed the hill wanderings, which he continued almost to the

-close of a long life.

-

-He was an unfortunate man. The French Revolution made itself felt in

-Graubünden; and with the destruction of the monastery all his notes

-and manuscripts were burned. When the Austrians ousted the French, he

-was even more luckless; as a result of a sermon on the text “Put not

-your trust in princes” he was imprisoned in Innsbruck for eighteen

-months. He came back only to be persecuted afresh. Throughout his

-life, his wide learning and tolerant outlook invited the suspicion of

-the envious and narrow-minded; and on his return to Graubünden he was

-accused of heresy. His books and his manuscripts were confiscated,

-and he was forbidden to climb. After a succession of troubled years,

-he returned to Truns; and though he had passed his seventieth year he

-still continued to climb. As late as 1824, he made two attempts on the

-Tödi. On his last attempt, he reached a gap, now known as the Porta

-da Spescha, less than a thousand feet below the summit; and from this

-point he watched, with mixed feelings, the two chamois hunters he had

-sent forward reach the summit. He died at the age of eighty-two. One

-wishes that he had attained in person his great ambition, the conquest

-of the Tödi; but, even though he failed on this outstanding peak,

-he had several good performances to his credit, amongst others the

-first ascent of the Stockgron (11,411 feet) in 1788, the Rheinwaldhorn

-(11,148 feet) in 1789, the Piz Urlaun (11,063 feet) in 1793, and

-numerous other important climbs.

-

-His list of ascents is long, and proves a constant devotion to the

-hills amongst which he passed the happiest hours of an unhappy life.

-“Placidus à Spescha”--there was little placid in his life save the

-cheerful resignation with which he faced the buffetings of fortune.

-He was a learned and broad-minded man; and the mountains, with their

-quiet sanity, seem to have helped him to bear constant vexation caused

-by small-minded persons. These suspicions of heresy must have proved

-very wearisome to “the mountaineer who missed his way and strayed into

-the Priesthood.” He must have felt that his opponents were, perhaps,

-justified, that the mountains had given him an interpretation of his

-beliefs that was, perhaps, wider than the creed of Rome, and that he

-himself had found a saner outlook in those temples of a larger faith

-to which he lifted up his eyes for help. As a relief from a hostile

-and unsympathetic atmosphere, let us hope that he discovered some

-restful anodyne among the tranquil broadness of the upper snows. The

-fatigue and difficulties of long mountain tramps exhaust the mind,

-to the exclusion of those little cares which seem so great in the

-artificial life of the valley. Certainly, the serene indifference of

-the hills found a response in the quiet philosophy of his life. Very

-little remains of all that he must have written, very little--only

-a few words, in which he summed up the convictions which life had

-given him. “When I carefully consider the fortune and ill-fortune

-that have befallen me, I have difficulty in determining which of the

-two has been the more profitable since a man without trials is a man

-without experience, and such a one is without insight--_vexatio dat

-intellectum_.” A brave confession of a good faith, and in his case no

-vain utterance, but the sincere summary of a philosophy which coloured

-his whole outlook on life.

-

-The early history of Monte Rosa has an appeal even stronger than the

-story of Mont Blanc. It begins with the Renaissance. From the hills

-around Milan, Leonardo da Vinci had seen the faint flush of dawn on

-Monte Rosa beyond--

-

-    A thousand shadowy pencilled valleys

-    And snowy dells in a golden air.

-

-The elusive vision had provoked his restless, untiring spirit to search

-out the secrets of Monte Rosa. The results of that expedition have

-already been noticed.

-

-After Da Vinci there is a long gap. Scheuchzer had heard of Monte

-Rosa, but contents himself with the illuminating remark that “a stiff

-accumulation of perpetual ice is attached to it.” De Saussure visited

-Macunagna in 1789, but disliked the inhabitants and complained of their

-inhospitality. He passed on, after climbing an unimportant snow peak,

-the Pizzo Bianco (10,552 feet). His story is chiefly interesting for

-an allusion to one of the finest of the early Alpine expeditions. In

-recent years, a manuscript containing a detailed account of this climb

-has come to light, and supplements the vague story which De Saussure

-had heard.

-

-Long ago, in the Italian valleys of Monte Rosa, there was a legend of

-a happy valley, hidden away between the glaciers of the great chain.

-In this secret and magic vale, the flowers bloomed even in winter, and

-the chamois found grazing when less happy pastures were buried by the

-snow. So ran the tale, which the mothers of Alagna and Gressoney told

-to their children. The discovery of the happy valley was due to Jean

-Joseph Beck. Beck was a domestic servant with the soul of a pioneer,

-and the organising talent that makes for success. He had heard a rumour

-that a few men from Alagna had determined to find the valley. Beck was

-a Gressoney man; and he determined that Gressoney should have the

-honour of the discovery. Again and again, in Alpine history, we find

-this rivalry between adjoining valleys acting as an incentive of great

-ascents. Beck collected a large party, including “a man of learning,”

-by name Finzens (Vincent). With due secrecy, they set out on a Sunday

-of August 1788.

-

-They started from their sleeping places at midnight, and roped

-carefully. They had furnished themselves with climbing irons and

-alpenstocks. They suffered from mountain sickness and loss of appetite,

-but pluckily determined to proceed. At the head of the glacier, they

-“encountered a slope of rock devoid of snow,” which they climbed. “It

-was twelve o’clock. Hardly had we got to the summit of the rock than we

-saw a grand--an amazing--spectacle. We sat down to contemplate at our

-leisure the lost valley, which seemed to us to be entirely covered with

-glaciers. We examined it carefully, but could not satisfy ourselves

-that it was the unknown valley, seeing that none of us had ever been in

-the Vallais.” The valley, in fact, was none other than the valley of

-Zermatt, and the pass, which these early explorers had reached, was the

-Lysjoch, where, to this day, the rock on which they rested bears the

-appropriate name that they gave it, “The Rock of Discovery.” Beck’s

-party thus reached a height of 14,000 feet, a record till Balmat beat

-them on Mont Blanc.

-

-The whole story is alive with the undying romance that still haunts the

-skyline whose secrets we know too well. The Siegfried map has driven

-the happy valley further afield. In other ranges, still uncharted,

-we must search for the reward of those that cross the great divides

-between the known and the unknown, and gaze down from the portals of

-a virgin pass on to glaciers no man has trodden, and valleys that no

-stranger has seen. And yet, for the true mountaineer every pass is a

-discovery, and the happy valley beyond the hills still lives as the

-embodiment of the child’s dream. All exploration, it is said, is due to

-the two primitive instincts of childhood, the desire to look over the

-edge, and the desire to look round the corner. And so we can share the

-thrill that drove that little band up to the Rock of Discovery. We know

-that, through the long upward toiling, their eyes must ever have been

-fixed on the curve of the pass, slung between the guarding hills, the

-skyline which held the great secret they hoped to solve. We can realise

-the last moments of breathless suspense as their shoulders were thrust

-above the dividing wall, and the ground fell away from their feet to

-the valley of desire. In a sense, we all have known moments such as

-this; we have felt the “intense desire to see if the Happy Valley may

-not lie just round the corner.”

-

-Twenty-three years after this memorable expedition, Monte Rosa was the

-scene of one of the most daring first ascents in Alpine history. Dr.

-Pietro Giordani of Alagna made a solitary ascent of the virgin summit

-which still bears his name. The Punta Giordani is one of the minor

-summits of the Monte Rosa chain, and rises to the respectable height of

-13,304 feet. Giordani’s ascent is another proof, if proof were needed,

-that the early climbers were, in many ways, as adventurous as the

-modern mountaineer. We find Balmat making a series of solitary attempts

-on Mont Blanc, and cheerfully sleeping out, alone, on the higher

-snowfields. Giordani climbs, without companions, a virgin peak; and

-another early hero of Monte Rosa, of whom we shall speak in due course,

-spent a night in a cleft of ice, at a height of 14,000 feet. Giordani,

-by the way, indited a letter to a friend from the summit of his peak.

-He begins by remarking that a sloping piece of granite serves him for

-a table, a block of blue ice for a seat. After an eloquent description

-of the view, he expresses his annoyance at the lack of scientific

-instruments, and the lateness of the hour which alone prevented him--as

-he believed--from ascending Monte Rosa itself.

-

-Giordani’s ascent closes the early history of Monte Rosa; but we cannot

-leave Monte Rosa without mention of some of the men who played an

-important part in its conquest. Monte Rosa, it should be explained, is

-not a single peak, but a cluster of ten summits of which the Dufour

-Spitze is the highest point (15,217 feet). Of these, the Punta Giordani

-was the first, and the Dufour Spitze the last, to be climbed. In 1817,

-Dr. Parrott made the first ascent of the Parrott Spitze (12,643 feet);

-and two years later the Vincent Pyramid (13,829) was climbed by a son

-of that Vincent who had been taken on Beck’s expedition because he was

-“a man of learning.” Dr. Parrott, it might be remarked in passing, was

-the first man to reach the summit of Ararat, as Noah cannot be credited

-with having reached a higher point than the gap between the greater and

-the lesser Ararat.

-

-But of all the names associated with pioneer work on Monte Rosa that

-of Zumstein is the greatest. He made five attempts to reach the

-highest point of the group, and succeeded in climbing the Zumstein

-Spitze (15,004 feet) which still bears his name. He had numerous

-adventures on Monte Rosa, and as we have already seen, spent one night

-in a crevasse, at a height of 14,000 feet. He became quite a local

-celebrity, and is mentioned as such by Prof. Forbes and Mr. King in

-their respective books. His great ascent of the Zumstein Spitze was

-made in 1820, thirty-five years before the conquest of the highest

-point of Monte Rosa.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER VI

-

-TIROL AND THE OBERLAND

-

-

-The story of Monte Rosa has forced us to anticipate the chronological

-order of events. We must now turn back, and follow the fortunes of the

-men whose names are linked with the great peaks of Tirol[2] and of the

-Oberland. Let us recapitulate the most important dates in the history

-of mountaineering before the opening of the nineteenth century. Such

-dates are 1760, which saw the beginning of serious mountaineering, with

-the ascent of the Titlis; 1778, which witnessed Beck’s fine expedition

-to the Lysjoch; 1779, the year in which the Velan, and 1786, the year

-in which Mont Blanc, were climbed. The last year of the century saw the

-conquest of the Gross Glockner, one of the giants of Tirol.

-

-The Glockner has the distinction of being the only great mountain

-first climbed by a Bishop. Its conquest was the work of a jovial

-ecclesiastic, by name and style Franz Altgraf von Salm-Reifferscheid

-Krantheim, Bishop of Gurk, hereinafter termed--quite simply--Salm.

-Bishop Salm had no motive but the fun of a climb. He was not a

-scientist, and he was not interested in the temperature at which water

-boiled above the snow line, provided only that it boiled sufficiently

-quickly to provide him with hot drinks and shaving water. He was a

-most luxurious climber, and before starting for the Glockner he had a

-magnificent hut built to accommodate the party, and a _chef_ conveyed

-from the episcopal palace to feed them. They were weather-bound for

-three days in these very comfortable quarters; but the _chef_ proved

-equal to the demands on his talent. An enthusiastic climber compared

-the dinners to those which he had enjoyed when staying with the Bishop

-at Gurk. There were eleven amateurs and nineteen guides and porters in

-the party. Their first attempt was foiled by bad weather. On August

-25, 1799, they reached the summit, erected a cross, and disposed of

-several bottles of wine. They then discovered that their triumph was a

-trifle premature. The Glockner consists of two summits separated by a

-narrow ridge. They had climbed the lower; the real summit was still 112

-feet above them. Next year the mistake was rectified; but, though the

-Bishop was one of the party, he did not himself reach the highest point

-till a few years later.

-

-Four years after the Glockner had been climbed, the giant of Tirol and

-the Eastern Alps was overcome. The conquest of the Ortler was due to a

-romantic fancy of Archduke John. Just as Charles VII of France deputed

-his Chamberlain to climb Mont Aiguille, so the Archduke (who, by the

-way, was the son of the Emperor Leopold II, and brother of Francis

-II, last of the Holy Roman emperors) deputed Gebhard, a member of his

-suite, to climb the Ortler. Gebhard made several attempts without

-success. Finally, a chamois hunter of the Passeierthal, by name Joseph

-Pichler, introduced himself to Gebhard, and made the ascent from Trafoi

-on September 28, 1804. Next year Gebhard himself reached the summit,

-and took a reading of the height by a barometer. The result showed

-that the Ortler was higher than the Glockner--a discovery which caused

-great joy. Its actual height is, as a matter of fact, 12,802 feet. But

-the ascent of the Ortler was long in achieving the popularity that it

-deserved. Whereas the Glockner was climbed about seventy times before

-1860, the Ortler was only climbed twice between Gebhard’s ascent and

-the ascent by the Brothers Buxton and Mr. Tuckett, in 1864. Archduke

-John, who inspired the first ascent, made an unsuccessful attempt (this

-time in person) on the Gross Venediger, another great Tyrolese peak. He

-was defeated, and the mountain was not finally vanquished till 1841.

-

-The scene now changes to the Oberland. Nothing much had been

-accomplished in the Oberland before the opening years of the nineteenth

-century. A few passes, the Petersgrat, Oberaarjoch, Tschingel, and

-Gauli, had been crossed; but the only snow peaks whose ascent was

-undoubtedly accomplished were the Handgendgletscherhorn (10,806 feet)

-and a peak whose identification is difficult. These were climbed in

-1788 by a man called Müller, who was engaged in surveying for Weiss.

-His map was a very brilliant achievement, considering the date at

-which it appeared. The expenses had been defrayed by a rich merchant

-of Aarau, Johann Rudolph Meyer, whose sons were destined to play

-an important part in Alpine exploration. J. R. Meyer had climbed

-the Titlis, and one of his sons made one of the first glacier pass

-expeditions in the Oberland, crossing the Tschingel in 1790.

-

-J. R. Meyer’s two sons, Johann Rudolph the second and Hieronymus,

-were responsible for some of the finest pioneer work in the story of

-mountaineering. In 1811 they made the first crossing of the Beich

-pass, the Lötschenlücke, and the first ascent of the Jungfrau. As was

-inevitable, their story was disbelieved. To dispel all doubt, another

-expedition was undertaken in the following year. On this expedition

-the leaders were Rudolph and Gottlieb Meyer, sons of J. R. Meyer the

-second (the conqueror of the Jungfrau), and grandsons of J. R. Meyer

-the first. The two Meyers separated after crossing the Oberaarjoch.

-Gottlieb crossed the Grünhornlücke, and bivouacked near the site of

-the present Concordia Inn. Rudolph made his classical attempt on the

-Finsteraarhorn, and rejoined Gottlieb. Next day Gottlieb made the

-second ascent of the Jungfrau and Rudolph forced the first indisputable

-crossing of the Strahlegg pass from the Unteraar glacier to Grindelwald.

-

-To return to Rudolph’s famous attempt on the Finsteraarhorn. Rudolph,

-as we have seen, separated from his brother Gottlieb near the

-Oberaarjoch. Rudolph, who was only twenty-one at the time, took with

-him two Valaisian hunters, by name Alois Volker and Joseph Bortis, a

-Melchthal “porter,” Arnold Abbühl, and a Hasle man. Abbühl was not

-a porter as we understand the word, but a _knecht_, or servant, of

-a small inn. He played the leading part in this climb. The party

-bivouacked on the depression known as the Rothhornsattel, and left

-it next morning when the sun had already struck the higher summits,

-probably about 5 a.m. They descended to the Studerfirn, and shortly

-before reaching the Ober Studerjoch started to climb the great eastern

-face of the Finsteraarhorn. After six hours, they reached the crest of

-the ridge. Meyer could go no further, and remained where he was; while

-the guides proceeded and, according to the accounts which have come

-down to us, reached the summit.

-

-Captain Farrar has summed up all the available evidence in _The Alpine

-Journal_ for August 1913. The first climber who attempted to repeat

-the ascent was the well-known scientist Hugi. He was led by the same

-Arnold Abbühl, who, as already stated, took a prominent part in Meyer’s

-expedition. Abbühl, however, not only failed to identify the highest

-peak from the Rothhornsattel, but, on being pressed, admitted that he

-had never reached the summit at all. In 1830, Hugi published these

-facts and Meyer, indignant at the implied challenge to his veracity,

-promised to produce further testimony. But there the matter dropped.

-Captain Farrar summarises the situation with convincing thoroughness.

-

-“What was the situation in 1812? We have an enthusiastic ingenuous

-youth attempting an ascent the like of which in point of difficulty

-had at that time never been, nor was for nearly fifty years after,

-attempted. He reaches a point on the arête without any great

-difficulty; and there he remains, too tired to proceed. About this

-portion of the ascent, there is, save as to the precise point gained,

-no question; and it is of this portion alone Meyer is a first-hand

-witness. Three of his guides go on, and return to him after many hours

-with the statement that they had reached the summit, or that is what he

-understands. I shall examine later this point. But is it not perfectly

-natural that Meyer should accept their statement, that he should

-swallow with avidity their claim to have reached the goal of all his

-labours? He had, as I shall show later, no reason to doubt them; and,

-doubtless, he remained firm in his belief until Hugi’s book appeared

-many years after. At once, he is up in arms at Hugi’s questioning,

-as he thinks, his own statements and his guides’ claims. He pens his

-reply quoted above, promises to publish his MS. and hopes to produce

-testimony in support. Then comes Hugi’s reply, and Meyer realises that

-his own personal share in the expedition is not questioned; but he sees

-that he may after all have been misled by, or have misunderstood,

-his guides, and he is faced with the reported emphatic denial of his

-leading guide, who was at that time still living, and could have

-been referred to. It may be said that he wrote to Abbühl for the

-‘testimony,’ and failed to elicit a satisfactory reply. Thrown into

-hopeless doubt, all the stronger because his belief in his guide’s

-statement had been firmly implanted in his mind all these nineteen

-years, is it to be wondered at that he lets the matter drop? He finds

-himself unable to get any testimony, and realises that the publication

-of his MS. will not supply any more reliable evidence. One can easily

-picture the disenchanted man putting the whole matter aside in sheer

-despair of ever arriving at the truth.”

-

-We have no space to follow Captain Farrar’s arguments. They do not

-seem to leave a shadow of doubt. At the same time, Captain Farrar

-acquits the party of any deliberate intention to deceive, and admits

-that their ascent of the secondary summit of the Finsteraarhorn was a

-very fine performance. It is noteworthy that many of the great peaks

-have been attempted, and some actually climbed for the first time,

-by an unnecessarily difficult route. The Matterhorn was assailed for

-years by the difficult Italian arête, before the easy Swiss route was

-discovered. The south-east route, which Meyer’s party attempted, still

-remains under certain conditions, a difficult rock climb, which may not

-unfitly be compared in part with the Italian ridge of the Matterhorn.

-The ordinary west ridge presents no real difficulties.

-

-The first complete ascent of the Finsteraarhorn was made on August

-10, 1829, by Hugi’s two guides, Jakob Leuthold and Joh. Wahren. Hugi

-remained behind, 200 feet below the summit. The Hugisattel still

-commemorates a pioneer of this great peak.

-

-So much for the Meyers. They deserve a high place in the history of

-exploration. “It has often seemed to me,” writes Captain Farrar, “that

-the craft of mountaineering, and even more the art of mountaineering

-description, distinctly retrograded for over fifty years after these

-great expeditions of the Meyers. It is not until the early ’sixties

-that rocks of equal difficulty are again attacked. Even then--witness

-Almer’s opinion as to the inaccessibility of the Matterhorn--men had

-not yet learned the axiom, which Alexander Burgener was the first,

-certainly by practice rather than by explicit enunciation, to lay

-down, viz. that the practicability of rocks is only decided by actual

-contact. Meyer’s guides had a glimmering of this. It is again not until

-the ’sixties that Meyer’s calm yet vivid descriptions of actualities

-are surpassed by those brilliant articles of Stephen, of Moore, of

-Tuckett, and by Whymper’s great ‘Scrambles’ that are the glory of

-English mountaineering.”

-

-But perhaps the greatest name associated with this period is that

-of the great scientist, Agassiz. Agassiz is a striking example of

-the possibilities of courage and a lively faith. He never had any

-money; and yet he invariably lived as if he possessed a comfortable

-competence. “I have no time for making money,” is one of his sayings

-that have become famous. He was a native of Orbe, a beautiful town in

-the Jura. His father was a pastor, and the young Agassiz was intended

-for the medical profession. He took the medical degree, but remained

-steadfast in his determination to become, as he told his father, “the

-first naturalist of his time.” Humboldt and Cuvier soon discovered his

-powers; in due time he became a professor at Neuchâtel. He married

-on eighty louis a year; but money difficulties never depressed him.

-As a boy of twenty, earning the princely sum of fifty pounds a year,

-he maintained a secretary in his employment, a luxury which he never

-denied himself. Usually he maintained two or three. At Neuchâtel,

-his income eventually increased to £125 a year. On this, he kept up

-an academy of natural history, a museum, a staff of secretaries and

-assistants, a lithographic and printing plant, and a wife. His wife,

-by the way, was a German lady; and it is not surprising that her

-chief quarrel with life was a lack of money for household expenses.

-The naturalist, who had no time for making money, spent what little

-he had on the necessities of his existence, such as printing presses

-and secretaries, and left the luxuries of the larder to take care of

-themselves. His family helped him with loans, “at first,” we are told,

-“with pleasure, but afterwards with some reluctance.” Humboldt also

-advanced small sums. “I was pleased to remain a debtor to Humboldt,”

-writes Agassiz, a sentiment which probably awakens more sympathy in the

-heart of the average undergraduate than it did in the bosom of Humboldt.

-

-A holiday which Agassiz spent with another great naturalist,

-Charpentier, was indirectly responsible for the beginnings of the

-glacial theory. Throughout Switzerland, you may find huge boulders

-known as erratic blocks. These blocks have a different geological

-ancestry from the rocks in the immediate neighbourhood. They did not

-grow like mushrooms, and they must therefore have been carried to their

-present position by some outside agency. In the eighteenth century,

-naturalists solved all these questions by _a priori_ theories, proved

-by quotations from the book of Genesis. The Flood was a favourite

-solution, and the Flood was, therefore, invoked to solve the riddle of

-erratic blocks. By the time that Agassiz had begun his great work, the

-Flood was, however, becoming discredited, and its reputed operations

-were being driven further afield.

-

-The discovery of the true solution was due, not to a scientist, but

-to a simple chamois hunter, named Perrandier. He knew no geology, but

-he could draw obvious conclusions from straightforward data without

-invoking the Flood. He had seen these blocks on glaciers, and he had

-seen them many miles away from glaciers. He made the only possible

-deduction--that glaciers must, at some time, have covered the whole

-of Switzerland. Perrandier expounded his views to a civil engineer,

-by name Venetz. Venetz passed it on to Charpentier, and Charpentier

-converted Agassiz. Agassiz made prompt use of the information, so

-prompt that Charpentier accused him of stealing his ideas. He read a

-paper before the Helvetic Society, in which he announced his conviction

-that the earth had once been covered with a sheet of ice that extended

-from the North Pole to Central Asia. The scepticism with which this

-was met incited Agassiz to search for more evidence in support of his

-theory. His best work was done in “The Hôtel des Neuchâtelois.” This

-hôtel at first consisted of an overhanging boulder, the entrance of

-which was screened by a blanket. The hôtel was built near the Grimsel

-on the medial moraine of the lower Aar glacier. To satisfy Mrs.

-Agassiz, her husband eventually moved into even more palatial quarters

-to wit, a rough cabin covered with canvas. “The outer apartment,”

-complains Mrs. Agassiz, a lady hard to please, “boasted a table and one

-or two benches; even a couple of chairs were kept as seats of honour

-for occasional guests. A shelf against the wall accommodated books,

-instruments, coats, etc.; and a plank floor on which to spread their

-blankets at night was a good exchange for the frozen surface of the

-glacier.” But the picture of this strange _ménage_ would be incomplete

-without mention of Agassiz’s companions. “Agassiz and his companions”

-is a phrase that meets us at every turn of his history. He needed

-companions, partly because he was of a friendly and companionable

-nature, partly, no doubt, to vary the monotony of Mrs. Agassiz’s

-constant complaints, but mainly because his ambitious schemes were

-impossible without assistance. His work involved great expenditure,

-which he could only recoup in part from the scanty grants allowed

-him by scientific societies, and the patronage of occasional wealthy

-amateurs. The first qualification necessary in a “companion” was a

-certain indifference as to salary, and the usual arrangement was that

-Agassiz should provide board and lodging in the hôtel, and that, if

-his assistant were in need of money, Agassiz should provide some if he

-had any lying loose at the time. This at least was the substance of

-the contract between Agassiz, on the one hand, and Edouard Desor of

-Heidelberg University, on the other hand.

-

-Desor is perhaps the most famous of the little band. He was a political

-refugee, “without visible means of subsistence.” He was a talented

-young gentleman with a keen interest in scientific disputes, and an

-eye for what is vulgarly known as personal advertisement. In other

-words he shared the very human weakness of enjoying the sight of his

-name in honoured print. Another companion was Karl Vogt. Mrs. Agassiz

-had two great quarrels with life. The first was a shortage of funds,

-and the second was the impropriety of the stories exchanged between

-Vogt and Desors. Another companion was a certain Gressly, a gentleman

-whose main charm for Agassiz consisted in the fact that, “though he

-never had any money, he never wanted any.” He lived with Agassiz in

-the winter as secretary. In summer he tramped the Jura in search of

-geological data. He never bothered about money, but was always prepared

-to exchange some good anecdotes for a night’s lodging. Eventually, he

-went mad and ended his days in an asylum. Yet another famous name,

-associated with Agassiz, is that of Dollfus-Ausset, an Alsatian of

-Mülhausen, who was born in 1797. His great works were two books, the

-first entitled _Materials for the Study of Glaciers_, and the second

-_Materials for the Dyeing of Stuffs_. On the whole, he seems to have

-been more interested in glaciers than in velvet. He made, with Desor,

-the first ascent of the Galenstock, and also of the most southern peak

-of the Wetterhorn, namely the Rosenhorn (12,110 feet). He built many

-observatories on the Aar glacier and the Theodule, and he was usually

-known as “Papa Gletscher Dollfus.”

-

-Such, then, were Agassiz’s companions. Humour and romance are blended

-in the picture of the strange little company that gathered every

-evening beneath the rough shelter of the hôtel. We see Mrs. Agassiz

-bearing with admirable resignation those inconveniences that must have

-proved a very real sorrow to her orderly German mind. We see Desor and

-Vogt exchanging broad anecdotes to the indignation of the good lady;

-and we can figure the abstracted naturalist, utterly indifferent to

-his environment, and only occupied with the deductions that may be

-drawn from the movement of stakes driven into a glacier. Let me quote

-in conclusion a few words from a sympathetic appreciation by the late

-William James (_Memories and Studies_)--

-

-    “Agassiz was a splendid example of the temperament that looks

-    forward and not backwards, and never wastes a moment in regrets for

-    the irrevocable. I had the privilege of admission to his society

-    during the Thayer expedition to Brazil. I well remember, at night,

-    as we all swung in our hammocks, in the fairy like moonlight, on

-    the deck of the steamer that throbbed its way up the Amazon between

-    the forests guarding the stream on either side, how he turned and

-    whispered, ‘James, are you awake?’ and continued, ‘I cannot sleep;

-    I am too happy; I keep thinking of these glorious plans.’...

-

-    “Agassiz’s influence on methods of teaching in our community was

-    prompt and decisive--all the more so that it struck people’s

-    imagination by its very excess. The good old way of committing

-    printed abstractions to memory seems never to have received such a

-    shock as it encountered at his hands. There is probably no public

-    school teacher who will not tell you how Agassiz used to lock a

-    student up in a room full of turtle shells or lobster shells or

-    oyster shells, without a book or word to help him, and not let

-    him out till he had discovered all the truths which the objects

-    contained. Some found the truths after weeks and months of lonely

-    sorrow; others never found them. Those who found them were already

-    made into naturalists thereby; the failures were blotted from the

-    book of honour and of life. ‘Go to Nature; take the facts into your

-    own hands; look and see for yourself’--these were the maxims which

-    Agassiz preached wherever he went, and their effect on pedagogy was

-    electric....

-

-    “The only man he really loved and had use for was the man who could

-    bring him facts. To see facts, not to argue or _raisonniren_ was

-    what life meant for him; and I think he often positively loathed

-    the ratiocinating type of mind. ‘Mr. Blank, you are totally

-    uneducated,’ I heard him say once to a student, who had propounded

-    to him some glittering theoretic generality. And on a similar

-    occasion, he gave an admonition that must have sunk deep into the

-    heart of him to whom it was addressed. ‘Mr. X, some people perhaps

-    now consider you are a bright young man; but when you are fifty

-    years old, if they ever speak of you then, what they will say will

-    be this: “That Mr. X--oh yes, I know him; he used to be a very

-    bright young man.”’ Happy is the conceited youth who at the proper

-    moment receives such salutary cold-water therapeutics as this, from

-    one who in other respects is a kind friend.”

-

-So much for Agassiz. It only remains to add that his companions were

-responsible for some fine mountaineering. During these years the three

-peaks of the Wetterhorn were climbed, and Desor was concerned in two

-of these successful expeditions. A far finer expedition was his ascent

-of the Lauteraarhorn, by Desor in 1842. This peak is connected with

-the Schreckhorn by a difficult ridge, and is a worthy rival to that

-well-known summit. There were a few other virgin climbs in this period,

-but the great age of Alpine conquest had scarcely begun.

-

-The connecting link between Agassiz and modern mountaineering is

-supplied by Gottlieb Studer, who was born in 1804, and died in 1890.

-His serious climbing began in 1823, and continued for sixty years. He

-made a number of new ascents, and reopened scores of passes, only

-known to natives. Most mountaineers know the careful and beautiful

-panoramas which are the work of his pencil. He drew no less than seven

-hundred of these. His great work, _Ueber Eis und Schnee_, a history

-of Swiss climbing, is an invaluable authority to which most of his

-successors in this field are indebted.

-

-The careful reader will notice the comparative absence of the English

-in the climbs which we have so far described. The coming of the English

-deserves a chapter to itself.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER VII

-

-THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH

-

-

-Mountaineering, as a sport, is so often treated as an invention of

-Englishmen, that the real facts of its origin are unconsciously

-disguised. A commonplace error of the textbooks is to date sporting

-mountaineering from Mr. Justice Wills’s famous ascent of the Wetterhorn

-in 1854. The Wetterhorn has three peaks, and Mr. Justice Wills made the

-ascent of the summit which is usually climbed from Grindelwald. This

-peak, the Hasle Jungfrau, is the most difficult of the group but it is

-not the highest. In those early days, first ascents were not recorded

-with the punctuality and thoroughness that prevails to-day; and a large

-circle of mountaineers gave Mr. Justice Wills the credit of making the

-first ascent of the Hasle Jungfrau, or at least the first ascent from

-Grindelwald. Curiously enough, the climb, which is supposed to herald

-sporting mountaineering, was only the second ascent of the Grindelwald

-route to the summit of a peak which had already been climbed four

-times. The facts are as follows: Desor’s guides climbed the Hasle

-Jungfrau in 1844, and Desor himself followed a few days after. Three

-months before Wills’s ascent, the peak was twice climbed by an early

-English pioneer, Mr. Blackwell. Blackwell’s first ascent was by the

-Rosenlaui route, which Desor had followed, and his second, by the

-Grindelwald route, chosen by Mr. Wills. On the last occasion, he was

-beaten by a storm within about ten feet of the top, ten feet which he

-had climbed on the previous occasion. He planted a flag just under the

-final cornice; and we must give him the credit of the pioneer ascent

-from Grindelwald. Mr. Wills never heard of these four ascents, and

-believed that the peak was still virgin when he ascended it.

-

-It would appear, then, that the so-called first sporting climb has

-little claim to that distinction. What, precisely, is meant by

-“sporting” in this connection? The distinction seems to be drawn

-between those who climb a mountain for the sheer joy of adventure, and

-those who were primarily concerned with the increase of scientific

-knowledge. The distinction is important; but it is often forgotten

-that scientists, like De Saussure, Forbes, Agassiz and Desor, were

-none the less mountaineers because they had an intelligent interest in

-the geological history of mountains. All these men were inspired by a

-very genuine mountaineering enthusiasm. Moreover, before Mr. Wills’s

-climb there had been a number of quite genuine sporting climbs. A few

-Englishmen had been up Mont Blanc; and, though most of them had been

-content with Mont Blanc, they could scarcely be accused of scientific

-inspiration. They, however, belonged to the “One man, one mountain,

-school,” and as such can scarcely claim to be considered as anything

-but mountaineers by accident. Yet Englishmen like Hill, Blackwell,

-and Forbes, had climbed mountains with some regularity long before

-Mr. Wills made his great ascent; and foreign mountaineers had already

-achieved a series of genuine sporting ascents. Bourrit was utterly

-indifferent to science; and Bourrit was, perhaps, the first man who

-made a regular practice of climbing a snow mountain every year. The

-fact that he was not often successful must not be allowed to discount

-his sincere enthusiasm. Before 1840, no Englishman had entered the

-ranks of regular mountaineers; and by that date many of the great

-Alpine monarchs had fallen. Mont Blanc, the outer fortresses of Monte

-Rosa, the Finsteraarhorn, King of the Oberland, the Ortler, and the

-Glockner, the great rivals of the Eastern Alps, had all been conquered.

-The reigning oligarchies of the Alps had bowed their heads to man.

-

-Let us concede what must be conceded; even so, we need not fear that

-our share in Alpine history will be unduly diminished. Mr. Wills’s

-ascent was none the less epoch-making because it was the fourth ascent

-of a second-class peak. The real value of that climb is this: It

-was one of the first climbs that were directly responsible for the

-systematic and brilliant campaign which was in the main conducted by

-Englishmen. Isolated foreign mountaineers had already done brilliant

-work, but their example did not give the same direct impetus. It was

-not till the English arrived that mountaineering became a fashionable

-sport; and the wide group of English pioneers that carried off almost

-all the great prizes of the Alps between 1854 and the conquest of the

-Matterhorn in 1865 may fairly date their invasion from Mr. Justice

-Wills’s ascent, a climb which, though not even a virgin ascent and

-by no means the first great climb by an Englishman, was none the

-less a landmark. Mr. Justice Wills’s vigorous example caught on as

-no achievement had caught on. His book, which is full of spirited

-writing, made many converts to the new sport.

-

-There had, of course, been many enthusiasts who had preached the sport

-before Mr. Justice Wills climbed the Wetterhorn. The earliest of all

-Alpine Journals is the _Alpina_, which first expressed the impetus of

-the great Alpine campaign. It appeared in 1806, and survived for four

-years, though the name was later attached to a magazine which has still

-a large circulation in Switzerland. It was edited by Ulysses von Salis;

-and it contained articles on chamois-hunting, the ascent of the Ortler,

-etc., besides reviews of the mountain literature of the period, such

-books, for instance, as those of Bourrit and Ebel. “The Glockner and

-the Ortler,” writes the editor, “may serve as striking instances of our

-ignorance, until a few years ago, of the highest peaks in the Alpine

-ranges. Excluding the Gotthard and Mont Blanc, and their surrounding

-eminences, there still remain more than a few marvellous and colossal

-peaks which are no less worthy of becoming better known.”

-

-From 1840, the number of Englishmen taking part in high ascents

-increases rapidly; and between 1854 and 1865 the great bulk of virgin

-ascents stand to their credit, though it must always be remembered

-that these ascents were led by Swiss, French and Italian guides, who

-did not, however, do them till the English arrived. Before 1840 a few

-Englishmen climbed Mont Blanc; Mrs. and Miss Campbell crossed the Col

-de Géant, which had previously been reopened by Mr. Hill; and Mr.

-Malkin crossed a few glacier passes. But J. D. Forbes was really the

-first English mountaineer to carry out a series of systematic attacks

-on the upper snows. Incidentally, his book, _Travels through the

-Alps of Savoy_, published in 1843, was the first book in the English

-language dealing with the High Alps. A few pamphlets had been published

-by the adventurers of Mont Blanc, but no really serious work. Forbes

-is, therefore, the true pioneer not only of British mountaineering,

-but of the Alpine literature in our tongue. He was a worthy successor

-to De Saussure, and his interest in the mountains was very largely

-scientific. He investigated the theories of glacier motion, and visited

-Agassiz at the “Hôtel des Neuchâtelois.” On that occasion, if Agassiz

-is to be believed, the canny Scotsman managed to extract more than

-he gave from the genial and expansive Switzer. When Forbes published

-his theories, Agassiz accused him of stealing his ideas. Desor, whose

-genius for a row was only excelled by the joy he took in getting up

-his case, did not improve matters; and a bitter quarrel was the result.

-Whatever may have been the rights of the matter, Forbes certainly

-mastered the theory of glacier motion, and proved his thorough grasp of

-the matter in a rather remarkable way. In 1820, a large party of guides

-and amateurs were overwhelmed by an avalanche on the Grand Plateau,

-and three of the guides disappeared into a crevasse. Their bodies were

-not recovered. Dr. Hamel, who had organised the party, survived. He

-knew something of glacier motion, and ventured a guess that the bodies

-of the guides would reappear at the bottom of the glacier in about a

-thousand years. He was just nine hundred and thirty-nine years wrong in

-his calculation. Forbes, having ascertained by experiment the rate at

-which the glacier moved, predicted that the bodies would reappear in

-forty years. This forecast proved amazingly accurate. Various remains

-reappeared near the lower end of the Glacier des Bossons in 1861, a

-fragment of a human body, and a few relics came to light two years

-later, and a skull, ropes, hat, etc., in 1865. Strangely enough, this

-accident was repeated in almost all its details in the famous Arkwright

-disaster of 1866.

-

-Forbes carried through a number of fine expeditions. He climbed the

-Jungfrau with Agassiz and Desor--before the little trouble referred to

-above. He made the first passage by an amateur of the Col d’Hérens,

-and the first ascents of the Stockhorn (11,796 feet) and the Wasenhorn

-(10,661 feet). Besides his Alpine wanderings, he explored some of the

-glaciers of Savoy. His most famous book, _The Tour of Mont Blanc_, is

-well worth reading, and contains one fine passage, a simile between the

-motion of a glacier and the life of man.

-

-Forbes was the first British mountaineer; but John Ball played an even

-more important part in directing the activity of the English climbers.

-He was a Colonial Under-Secretary in Lord Palmerston’s administration;

-but he gave up politics for the more exciting field of Alpine

-adventure. His main interest in the Alps was, perhaps, botanical;

-and his list of first ascents is not very striking, considering the

-host of virgin peaks that awaited an enterprising pioneer. His great

-achievement was the conquest of the first great dolomite peak that

-yielded its secrets to man, the Pelmo. He also climbed the virgin

-Cima Tosa in the Brenta dolomites, and made the first traverse of

-the Schwartztor. He was the first to edit guidebooks for the use of

-mountaineers, and his knowledge of the Alps was surprisingly thorough.

-He played a great part in the formation of the Alpine Club, and in the

-direction of their literary activity. He edited the classical series of

-_Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_, and a series of excellent Alpine guides.

-

-But the event which above all others attracted the attention of

-Englishmen to the Alps was Albert Smith’s ascent of Mont Blanc. Albert

-Smith is the most picturesque of the British mountaineers. He was

-something of a _blagueur_, but behind all his vulgarity lay a very deep

-feeling for the Alps. His little book on Mont Blanc makes good reading.

-The pictures are delightfully inaccurate in their presentation of the

-terrors of Alpine climbing; and the thoroughly sincere fashion in which

-the whole business of climbing is written up proves that the great

-white mountain had not yet lost its prestige. But we can forgive Albert

-Smith a great deal, for he felt the glamour of the Alps long before

-he had seen a hill higher than St. Anne’s, near Chertsey. As a child,

-he had been given _The Peasants of Chamouni_, a book which rivalled

-_Pilgrim’s Progress_ in his affections. This mountain book fired him

-to anticipate his subsequent success as a showman. “Finally, I got up

-a small moving panorama of the horrors pertaining to Mont Blanc ...

-and this I so painted up and exaggerated in my enthusiasm, that my

-little sister--who was my only audience, but an admirable one, for she

-cared not how often I exhibited--would become quite pale with fright.”

-Time passed, and Albert Smith became a student in Paris. He discovered

-that his enthusiasm for Mont Blanc was shared by a medical student;

-and together they determined to visit the Mecca of their dreams. They

-collected twelve pounds apiece, and vowed that it should last them for

-five weeks. They carried it about with them entirely in five-franc

-pieces, chiefly stuffed into a leathern belt round their waists. Buying

-“two old soldiers’ knapsacks at three francs each, and two pairs of

-hobnailed shoes at five francs and a half,” they started off on their

-great adventure. Smith wisely adds that, “if there is anything more

-delightful than travelling with plenty of money, it is certainly making

-a journey of pleasure with very little.”

-

-They made the journey to Geneva in seventy-eight hours by _diligence_.

-At Melun they bought a brick of bread more than two feet long. “The

-passengers paid three francs each for their _déjeuner_, ours did not

-cost ten sous.” At night, they slept in the empty _diligence_. They

-meant to make that twelve pounds apiece carry them some distance. From

-Geneva they walked to Chamounix, helped by an occasional friendly lift.

-Smith was delighted with the realisation of childish dreams. “Every

-step was like a journey in fairyland.” In fact, the only disillusion

-was the contrast between the Swiss peasant of romance and the reality.

-“The Alpine maidens we encountered put us more in mind of poor law

-unions than ballads; indeed, the Swiss villagers may be classed with

-troubadours, minstrel pages, shepherdesses, and other fabulous pets of

-small poets and vocalists.” After leaving Chamounix, Smith crossed the

-St. Bernard, visited Milan, and returned with a small margin still left

-out of the magic twelve pounds.

-

-Albert Smith returned to London, took up practice as a surgeon, wrote

-for _Punch_, and acquired a big reputation as an entertainer in _The

-Overland Mail_, written by himself and founded on a journey to Egypt

-and Constantinople. The songs and sketches made the piece popular, and

-insured a long run. At the close of the season he went to Chamounix

-again, fully determined to climb Mont Blanc. He was accompanied by

-William Beverley, the artist, and was lucky to fall in with some

-Oxford undergraduates with the same ambition as himself. They joined

-forces, and a party of twenty, including guides, prepared for the

-great expedition. Amongst other provisions, they took ninety-four

-bottles of wine, four legs of mutton, four shoulders of mutton, and

-forty-six fowls. Smith was out of training, and suffered terribly from

-mountain sickness. He was horrified by the Mur de la Côte, which he

-describes as “an all but perpendicular iceberg,” and adds that “every

-step was gained from the chance of a horrible death.” As a matter of

-fact, the Mur de la Côte is a very simple, if steep, snow slope. A

-good ski-runner could, under normal conditions, descend it on ski. If

-Smith had fallen, he would have rolled comfortably to the bottom, and

-stopped in soft snow. “Should the foot or the baton slip,” he assures

-us, “there is no chance for life. You would glide like lightning from

-one frozen crag to another, and finally be dashed to pieces hundreds of

-feet below.” It is pleasant to record that Smith reached the summit,

-though not without considerable difficulty, and that his party drank

-all the wine and devoured the forty-six fowls, etc., before their

-successful return to Chamounix.

-

-Smith wrote an account of the ascent which provoked a bitter attack in

-_The Daily News_. Albert Smith was contrasted with De Saussure, greatly

-to Smith’s disadvantage. The sober, practical Englishman of the period

-could only forgive a mountain ascent if the climber brought back

-with him from the heights, something more substantial than a vision

-of remembered beauty. A few inaccurate readings of an untrustworthy

-barometer could, perhaps, excuse a pointless exploit. “Saussure’s

-observations,” said a writer in _The Daily News_, “live in his poetical

-philosophy, those of Mr. Albert Smith will be most appropriately

-recorded in a tissue of indifferent puns, and stale, fast witticisms

-with an incessant straining after smartness. The aimless scramble of

-the four pedestrians to the top of Mont Blanc will not go far to redeem

-the somewhat equivocal reputation of the herd of English to risks in

-Switzerland for a mindless, and rather vulgar, redundance of animal

-spirits.” Albert Smith did not allow the subject to drop. He turned

-Mont Blanc into an entertainment at the Egyptian Hall, an entertainment

-which became very popular, and was patronised by the Queen.

-

-Narrow-minded critics affect to believe that Albert Smith was nothing

-more than a showman, and that Mont Blanc was for him nothing more than

-a peg on which to hang a popular entertainment. This is not true. Mr.

-Mathews does him full justice when he says: “He was emphatically a

-showman from his birth, but it is not true he ascended the mountain

-for the purpose of making a show of it. His well-known entertainment

-resulted from a lifelong interest which he had taken in the great

-summit, of which he never failed to speak or write with reverence

-and affection.” Mr. Mathews was by no means naturally prejudiced in

-favour of anybody who tended to popularise the Alps, and his tribute is

-all the more striking in consequence. Albert Smith fell in love with

-Mont Blanc long before he had seen a mountain. Nobody can read the

-story of his first journey with twelve pounds in his pocket, without

-realising that Albert Smith, the showman, loved the mountains with

-much the same passion as his more cultured successors. Mr. Mathews

-adds: “It is but just to his memory to record that he, too, was a

-pioneer. Mountaineering was not then a recognised sport for Englishmen.

-Hitherto, any information about Mont Blanc had to be sought for in

-isolated publications. Smith brought a more or less accurate knowledge

-of it, as it were, to the hearths and homes of educated Englishmen....

-Smith’s entertainment gave an undoubted impetus to mountaineering.”

-

-While Smith was lecturing, a group of Englishmen were quietly carrying

-through a series of attacks on the unconquered citadels of the Alps.

-In 1854 Mr. Justice Wills made that ascent of the Wetterhorn which has

-already been referred to. It is fully described in Mr. Justice Wills’s

-interesting book, _Wanderings among the High Alps_, and, amongst other

-things, it is famous as the first appearance in Alpine history of the

-great guide, Christian Almer. Mr. Wills left Grindelwald with Ulrich

-Lauener, a guide who was to play a great part in Alpine adventure,

-Balmat and Simond. “The landlord wrung Balmat’s hand. ‘Try,’ said

-he, ‘to return all of you alive.’” Lauener burdened himself with a

-“flagge” to plant on the summit. This “flagge” resolved itself on

-inspection into a very solid iron construction in the shape of a

-banner, which Lauener carried to the summit on the following day. They

-bivouacked on the Enge, and climbed next day without great difficulty,

-to the gap between the two summits of the Wetterhorn, now known as

-the Wettersattel. They made a short halt here; and, while they were

-resting, they noticed with surprise two men working up the rocks they

-had just climbed. Lauener at first supposed they were chamois hunters;

-but a moment’s reflection convinced the party that no hunter would seek

-his prey on such unlikely ground. Moreover, chamois hunters do not

-usually carry on their backs “a young fir-tree, branches, leaves, and

-all.” They lost sight of the party and continued their meal. They next

-saw the two strangers on the snow slopes ahead, making all haste to be

-the first on the summit. This provoked great wrath on the part of Mr.

-Wills’s guides, who believed that the Wetterhorn was a virgin peak, a

-view also shared by the two usurpers, who had heard of the intended

-ascent and resolved to plant their fir-tree side by side with the iron

-“flagge.” They had started very early that same morning, and hunted

-their quarry down. A vigorous exchange of shouts and threats resulted

-in a compromise. “Balmat’s anger was soon appeased when he found they

-owned the reasonableness of his desire that they should not steal

-from us the distinction of being the first to scale that awful peak;

-and, instead of administering the fisticuffs he had talked about, he

-declared they were _bons enfants_ after all, and presented them with a

-cake of chocolate. Thus the pipe of peace was smoked, and tranquillity

-reigned between the rival forces.”

-

-From their resting-place they could see the final summit. From this

-point a steep snow slope, about three to four hundred feet in height,

-rises to the final crest, which is usually crowned by a cornice. The

-little party made their way up the steep slope, till Lauener reached

-the final cornice. It should, perhaps, be explained, that a cornice is

-a projecting cave of wind-blown snow which is usually transformed by

-sun and frost into ice. Lauener “stood close, not facing the parapet,

-but turned half round, and struck out as far away from himself as

-he could.... Suddenly, a startling cry of surprise and triumph rang

-through the air. A great block of ice bounded from the top of the

-parapet, and before it had well lighted on the glacier, Lauener

-exclaimed ‘Ich schaue den Blauen Himmel’ (‘I see blue sky’). A thrill

-of astonishment and delight ran through our frames. Our enterprise had

-succeeded. We were almost upon the actual summit. That wave above us,

-frozen, as it seemed, in the act of falling over, into a strange and

-motionless magnificence, was the very peak itself. Lauener’s blows

-flew with redoubled energy. In a few minutes a practicable breach was

-made, through which he disappeared; and in a moment more the sound of

-his axe was heard behind the battlement under whose cover we stood.

-In his excitement he had forgotten us, and very soon the whole mass

-would have come crashing down upon our heads. A loud shout of warning

-from Sampson, who now occupied the gap, was echoed by five other

-eager voices, and he turned his energies in a safer direction. It was

-not long before Lauener and Sampson together had widened the opening;

-and then at length we crept slowly on. As I took the last step Balmat

-disappeared from my sight; my left shoulder grazed against the angle of

-the icy embrasure, while on the right the glacier fell abruptly away

-beneath me towards an unknown and awful abyss; a hand from an invisible

-person grasped mine; I stepped across, and had passed the ridge of the

-Wetterhorn.

-

-“The instant before I had been face to face with a blank wall of ice.

-One step, and the eye took in a boundless expanse of crag and glacier,

-peak and precipice, mountain and valley, lake and plain. The whole

-world seemed to lie at my feet. The next moment, I was almost appalled

-by the awfulness of our position. The side we had come up was steep;

-but it was a gentle slope compared with that which now fell away from

-where I stood. A few yards of glittering ice at our feet, and then

-nothing between us and the green slopes of Grindelwald nine thousand

-feet beneath.”

-

-The “iron flagge” and fir-tree were planted side by side, and attracted

-great attention in Grindelwald. The “flagge” they could understand,

-but the fir-tree greatly puzzled them.

-

-Christian Almer, the hero of the fir-tree, was destined to be one of

-the great Alpine guides. His first ascents form a formidable list, and

-include the Eiger, Mönch, Fiescherhorn in the Oberland (besides the

-first ascent of the Jungfrau direct from the Wengern Alp), the Ecrins,

-monarch of the Dauphiny, the Grand Jorasses, Col Dolent, Aiguille

-Verte in the Mont Blanc range, the Ruinette, and Morning Pass in the

-Pennines. But Almer’s most affectionate recollections always centred

-round the Wetterhorn. The present writer remembers meeting him on

-his way to celebrate his golden wedding, on the summit of his first

-love. Almer also deserves to be remembered as a pioneer of winter

-mountaineering. He made with Mr. Coolidge the first winter ascents of

-the Jungfrau and Wetterhorn. It was on a winter ascent of the former

-peak that he incurred frostbite, that resulted in the amputation of his

-toes, and the sudden termination of his active career. Some years later

-he died peaceably in his bed.

-

-A year after Mr. Wills’s famous climb, a party of Englishmen, headed

-by the brothers Smyth, conquered the highest point of Monte Rosa. The

-Alpine campaign was fairly opened. Hudson made a new route up Mont

-Blanc without guides, the first great guideless climb by Englishmen.

-Hinchcliffe, the Mathews, E. S. Kennedy, and others, had already done

-valuable work.

-

-The Alpine Club was the natural result of the desire on the part of

-these climbers to meet together in London and compare notes. The idea

-was first mooted in a letter from Mr. William Mathews to the Rev. J. A.

-Hort.[3] The first meeting was held on December 22, 1857. The office

-of President was left open till it was deservedly filled by John Ball;

-E. S. Kennedy became Vice-President, and Mr. Hinchcliffe, Honorary

-Secretary. It is pleasant to record that Albert Smith, the showman, was

-an original member. The English pioneers prided themselves, not without

-some show of justification, on the fact that their sport attracted men

-of great intellectual powers. Forbes, Tyndall, and Leslie Stephen, are

-great names in the record of Science and Literature. The present Master

-of Trinity was one of the early members, his qualification being an

-ascent of Monte Rosa, Sinai, and Parnassus.

-

-There were some remarkable men in this early group of English

-mountaineers. Of John Ball and Albert Smith, we have already spoken.

-Perhaps the most distinguished mountaineer from the standpoint of the

-outside world was John Tyndall. Tyndall was not only a great scientist,

-and one of the foremost investigators of the theory of glacier motion,

-he was also a fine mountaineer. His finest achievement was the first

-ascent of the Weishorn; and he also played a great part in the long

-struggle for the blue ribbon of the Alps--the Matterhorn. His book,

-_Hours of Exercise in the Alps_, makes good reading when once one has

-resigned oneself to the use of somewhat pedantic terms for quite simple

-operations. Somewhere or other--I quote from memory--a guide’s legs are

-referred to as monstrous levers that projected his body through space

-with enormous velocity! Tyndall, by the way, chose to take offence at

-some light-hearted banter which Leslie Stephen aimed at the scientific

-mountaineers. The passage occurs in Stephen’s chapter on the Rothhorn.

-“‘And what philosophic observations did you make?’ will be the inquiry

-of one of those fanatics who by a process of reasoning to me utterly

-inscrutable have somehow irrevocably associated Alpine travelling with

-science. To them, I answer, that the temperature was approximately (I

-had no thermometer) 212 degrees Fahrenheit below freezing point. As for

-ozone, if any existed in the atmosphere, it was a greater fool than I

-take it for.” This flippancy caused a temporary breach between Stephen

-and Tyndall which was, however, eventually healed.

-

-Leslie Stephen is, perhaps, best known as a writer on ethics, though

-his numerous works of literary criticism contain much that is brilliant

-and little that is unsound. It has been said that the popularity of the

-word “Agnostic” is due less to Huxley, who invented it, than to Leslie

-Stephen who popularised it in his well known _Agnostic’s Apology_, an

-important landmark in the history of English Rationalism. The present

-writer has read almost every line that Stephen wrote, and yet feels

-that it is only in _The Playground of Europe_ that he really let

-himself go. Though Stephen had a brilliant record as a mountaineer,

-it is this book that is his best claim to the gratitude and honour of

-climbers. Stephen was a fine mountaineer, as well as a distinguished

-writer. He was the first to climb the Shreckhorn, Zinal Rothhorn,

-Bietschhorn, Blüemlisalp, Rimphischorn, Disgrazia, and Mont Malet.

-He had the true mountaineering instinct, which is always stirred by

-the sight of an uncrossed pass; and that great wall of rock and ice

-that shadows the Wengern Alp always suggests Stephen, for it falls

-in two places to depressions which he was the first to cross, passes

-immortalised in the chapters dealing with “The Jungfraujoch” and “The

-Eigerjoch.”

-

-It is not easy to stop if one begins to catalogue the distinguished

-men who helped to build up the triumphs of this period. Professor

-Bonney, an early president, was a widely travelled mountaineer, and a

-scientist of world-wide reputation. His recent work on the geology of

-the Alps, is perhaps the best book of the kind in existence. The Rev.

-Fenton Hort had, as we have seen, a great deal to do with the formation

-of the Alpine Club. His life has been written by his son, Sir Arthur

-Hort. Of John Ball and Mr. Justice Wills, we have already spoken. Of

-Whymper we shall have enough to say when we summarise the great romance

-of the Matterhorn. He was a remarkable man, with iron determination and

-great intellectual gifts. His classic _Scrambles in the Alps_ did more

-than any other book to make new mountaineers. He was one of the first

-draughtsmen who combined a mountaineer’s knowledge of rock and ice

-with the necessary technical ability to reproduce the grandeur of the

-Alps in black and white. One should compare the delightful woodcuts

-from his sketches with the crude, shapeless engravings that decorate

-_Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_. His great book deserved its success.

-Whymper himself was a strong personality. He had many good qualities

-and some that laid him open to criticism. He made enemies without much

-difficulty. But he did a great work, and no man has a finer monument to

-keep alive the memory of his most enduring triumphs.

-

-Another name which must be mentioned is that of Mr. C. E. Mathews, a

-distinguished pioneer whose book on Mont Blanc has been quoted in an

-earlier chapter. He was a most devoted lover of the great mountain,

-and climbed it no less than sixteen times. He was a rigid conservative

-in matters Alpine; and there is something rather engaging in his

-contempt for the humbler visitors to the Alps. “It is a scandal to the

-Republic,” he writes, “that a line should have been permitted between

-Grindelwald and Interlaken. Alas for those who hailed with delight

-the extension of the Rhone Valley line from Sion to Visp!” It would

-have been interesting to hear his comments on the Jungfrau railway.

-The modern mountaineer would not easily forego the convenience of the

-trains to Zermatt that save him many hours of tiresome, if romantic,

-driving.

-

-Then there is Thomas Hinchcliffe, whose _Summer Months in the Alps_

-gave a decided impetus to the new movement. He belongs to a slightly

-earlier period than A. W. Moore, one of the most distinguished of the

-early group. Moore attained a high and honourable position in the Home

-Office. His book _The Alps in 1864_, which has recently been reprinted,

-is one of the sincerest tributes to the romance of mountaineering in

-the English language. Moore took part in a long list of first ascents.

-He was a member of the party that achieved the first ascent of the

-Ecrins which Whymper has immortalised, and he had numerous other virgin

-ascents to his credit. His most remarkable feat was the first ascent

-of Mont Blanc by the Brenva ridge, the finest ice expedition of the

-period. Mr. Mason has immortalised the Brenva in his popular novel,

-_Running Water_.

-

-And so the list might be indefinitely extended, if only space

-permitted. There was Sir George Young, who took part in the first

-ascent of the Jungfrau from the Wengern Alp and who was one of the

-first to attempt guideless climbing. There was Hardy, who made the

-first English ascent of the Finsteraarhorn, and Davies who climbed

-the two loftiest Swiss peaks, Dom and Täschhorn.[4] “What I don’t

-understand,” he said to a friend of the present writer, “is why you

-modern mountaineers always climb on a rope. Surely your pace must be

-that of the slowest member of the party?” One has a picture of Davies

-striding impatiently ahead, devouring the ground in great hungry

-strides, while the weaker members dwindled into small black spots on

-the face of the glacier. And then there is Tuckett, who died in 1913.

-Of Tuckett, Leslie Stephen wrote: “In the heroic cycle of Alpine

-adventure the irrepressible Tuckett will occupy a place similar to

-Ulysses. In one valley the peasant will point to some vast breach in

-the everlasting rocks hewn, as his fancy will declare, by the sweep of

-the mighty ice-axe of the hero.... The broken masses of a descending

-glacier will fairly represent the staircase which he built in order to

-scale a previously inaccessible height.... Critics will be disposed

-to trace in him one more example of the universal solar myth....

-Tuckett, it will be announced, is no other than the sun which appears

-at earliest dawn above the tops of the loftiest mountains, gilds the

-summits of the most inaccessible peaks, penetrates remote valleys, and

-passes in an incredibly short time from one extremity of the Alpine

-chain to another.”

-

-The period which closes with the ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865 has

-been called the Golden Age of Mountaineering; and the mountaineers whom

-we have mentioned were responsible for the greater portion of this

-glorious harvest. By 1865 the Matterhorn was the only remaining Zermat

-giant that still defied the invaders; and beyond Zermat only one great

-group of mountains, the Dolomites, still remained almost unconquered.

-It was the age of the guided climber. The pioneers did excellent work

-in giving the chamois hunter the opportunity to become a guide. And

-many of these amateurs were really the moral leaders of their parties.

-It was sometimes, though not often, the amateur who planned the line

-of ascent, and decided when the attack should be pressed and when it

-should be abandoned. It was only when the guide had made repeated

-ascents of fashionable peaks that the part played by the amateur became

-less and less important. Mountaineering in the ’fifties and ’sixties

-was in many ways far more arduous than it is to-day. Club-huts are now

-scattered through the Alps. It is no longer necessary to carry firewood

-and sleeping-bags to some lonely bivouac beside the banks of great

-glaciers. A sudden gust of bad weather at night no longer means that

-the climber starts at dawn with drenched clothes. The excellent series

-of _Climbers’ Guides_ give minute instructions describing every step

-in the ascent. The maps are reliable. In those days, guide-books had

-still to be written, the maps were romantic and misleading, and the

-discoverer of a new pass had not only to get to the top, he had also

-to get down the other side. What precisely lay beyond the pass, he did

-not know. It might be an impassable glacier, or a rock face that could

-not be descended. Almost every new pass involved the possibility of a

-forced bivouac.

-

-None the less, it must be admitted that the art of mountaineering has

-advanced more since 1865 than it did in the preceding half century.

-There is a greater difference between the ascent of the Grepon by the

-Mer de Glace Face, or the Brouillard Ridge of Mont Blanc, than between

-the Matterhorn and the Gross Glockner, or between the Weishorn and Mont

-Blanc.

-

-The art of mountaineering is half physical and half mental. He who can

-justly claim the name of mountaineer must possess the power to _lead_

-up rocks and snow, and to cut steps in ice. This is the physical side

-of the business. It is important; but the charm of mountaineering is

-largely intellectual. The mental equipment of the mountaineer involves

-an exhaustive knowledge of one of the most ruthless aspects of Nature.

-The mountaineer must know the hills in all their changing moods and

-tenses. He must possess the power to make instant use of trivial clues,

-a power which the uninitiated mistake for an instinctive sense of

-direction. Such a sense is undoubtedly possessed by a small minority,

-but path-finding is often usually only the subconscious analysis of

-small clues. The mountaineer must understand the secrets of snow, rock,

-and ice. He must be able to tell at a glance whether a snow slope is

-dangerous, or a snow-bridge likely to collapse. He must be able to move

-with certainty and safety on a rock face, whether it is composed of

-reliable, or brittle and dangerous rock. All this involves knowledge

-which is born of experience and the power to apply experience. Every

-new peak is a problem for the intellect. Mountaineering, however,

-differs radically in one respect from many other sports. Most men can

-get up a mountain somehow, and thereby share at least one experience of

-the expert. Of every hundred boys that are dragooned into compulsory

-cricket at school, only ten could ever by any possible chance qualify

-to play in first-class cricket. Almost all of them could reach the

-summit of a first class peak if properly guided.

-

-But this is not mountaineering. You cannot pay a professional to take

-your place at Lords’ and then claim the benefit of the century he

-knocks up. But some men with great Alpine reputations owe everything to

-the professional they have hired. They have good wind and strong legs.

-With a stout rope above, they could follow a good leader up any peak in

-the Alps. The guide was not only paid to lead up the rocks and assist

-them from above. He was paid to do all the thinking that was necessary.

-He was the brain as well as the muscle of the expedition. He solved all

-the problems that Nature sets the climber, and mountaineering for his

-client was only a very safe form of exercise in agreeable surroundings.

-

-Leslie Stephen admitted this, and he had less cause to admit it than

-most. “I utterly repudiate the doctrine that Alpine travellers are, or

-ought to be, the heroes of Alpine adventure. The true way, at least, to

-describe all my Alpine adventures is to say that Michael Anderegg, or

-Lauener, succeeded in performing a feat requiring skill, strength, and

-courage, the difficulty of which was much increased by the difficulty

-of taking with him his knapsack and his employer.” Now, this does less

-than justice to Leslie Stephen, and to many of the early mountaineers.

-Often they supplied the brain of the party, and the directing energy.

-They were pioneers. Yet mountaineering as a fine art owes almost as

-much to the men who first dispensed with professional assistance. A

-man who climbs habitually with guides may be, and often is, a fine

-mountaineer. He _need_ be nothing more than a good walker, with a

-steady head, to achieve a desperate reputation among laymen.

-

-Many of the early pioneers were by no means great athletes, though

-their mountaineering achievements deceived the public into crediting

-them with superhuman nerve and strength. Many of them were middle-aged

-gentlemen, who could have taken no part in active sports which demand

-a swift alliance of nerve and muscle; but who were quite capable of

-plugging up the average mixture of easy rock and snow that one meets on

-the average first-class Alpine peak. They had average endurance, and

-more than average pluck, for the prestige of the unvanquished peaks

-still daunted all but the courageous.

-

-They were lucky in that the great bulk of Alpine peaks were

-unconquered, and were only too ready to be conquered by the first

-climber who could hire two trusty Swiss guides to cut the steps, carry

-the knapsack, and lead up the rocks. It is usually said of these men:

-“They could not, perhaps, have tackled the pretty rock problems in

-which the modern cragsman delights. They were something better than

-gymnasts. They were all-round mountaineers.” This seems rather special

-pleading. Some one said that mountaineering seemed to be walking up

-easy snow mountains between guides, and mere cragsmanship consisted

-in leading up difficult rock-peaks without guides. It does not follow

-that a man who can lead up the Chamounix aiguilles knows less of the

-broader principles of mountaineering than the gentleman who is piloted

-up Mont Blanc by sturdy Swiss peasants. The issue is not between those

-who confine their energies to gymnastic feats on Welsh crags and the

-wider school who understand snow and ice as well as rock. The issue

-is between those who can take their proper share in a rock-climb like

-the Grepon, or a difficult ice expedition like the Brenva Mont Blanc,

-and those who would be completely at a loss if their guides broke

-down on an easy peak like the Wetterhorn. The pioneers did not owe

-everything to their guides. A few did, but most of them were good

-mountaineers whose opinion was often asked by the professionals, and

-sometimes taken. Yet the guided climber, then and now, missed the real

-inwardness of the sport. Mountaineering, in the modern sense, is a

-sport unrivalled in its appeal to mind and body. The man who can lead

-on a series of really first-class climbs must possess great nerve, and

-a specialised knowledge of mountains that is almost a sixth sense.

-Mountaineering between guides need not involve anything more than a

-good wind and a steady head. Anybody can get up a first-class peak.

-Only one amateur in ten can complete ascent and descent with safety if

-called on to lead.

-

-In trying to form a just estimate of our debt to the early English

-pioneers, we have to avoid two extremes. We must remember the parable

-of the dwarf standing on the giant’s shoulders. It ill becomes those

-who owe Climbers’ Guides, and to some extent good maps, to the labours

-of the pioneers to discount their achievements. But the other extreme

-is also a danger. We need not pretend that every man who climbed a

-virgin peak in the days when nearly every big peak was virgin was

-necessarily a fine mountaineer. All praise is due to the earliest

-explorers, men like Balmat, Joseph Beck, Bourrit, De Saussure, and the

-Meyers, for in those days the country above the snow-line was not only

-unknown, it was full of imagined terrors. These men did a magnificent

-work in robbing the High Alps of their chief defence--superstition. But

-in the late ’fifties and early ’sixties this atmosphere had largely

-vanished. Mr. X came to the A valley, and discovered that the B, C, or

-D horn had not been climbed. The B, C, and D horn were average peaks

-with a certain amount of straightforward snow and ice work, and a

-certain amount of straightforward rock work. Mr. X enjoys a fortnight

-of good weather, and the services of two good guides. He does what any

-man with like opportunities would accomplish, what an undergraduate

-fresh to the Alps could accomplish to-day if these peaks had been

-obligingly left virgin for his disposal. Many of the pioneers with a

-long list of virgin peaks to their credit would have made a poor show

-if they had been asked to lead one of the easy buttresses of Tryfan.

-

-Rock-climbing as a fine art was really undreamt of till long after the

-Matterhorn had been conquered. The layman is apt to conceive all Alpine

-climbs as a succession of dizzy precipices. To a man brought up on

-Alpine classics, there are few things more disappointing than the ease

-of his first big peak. The rock work on the average Oberland or Zermat

-peaks by the ordinary route is simple, straightforward scrambling up

-slopes whose average inclination is nearer thirty than sixty degrees.

-It is the sort of thing that the ordinary man can do by the light of

-Nature. Rock-climbing, in the sense in which the Dolomite or lake

-climber uses the term, is an art which calls for high qualities of

-nerve and physique. Such rock climbing was almost unknown till some

-time after the close of this period. No modern cragsman would consider

-the Matterhorn, even if robbed of its fixed ropes, as anything but a

-straightforward piece of interesting rock work, unless he was unlucky

-enough to find it in bad condition. All this we may frankly admit.

-Mountaineering as an art was only in its infancy when the Matterhorn

-was climbed. And yet the Englishmen whom we have mentioned in this

-chapter did more for mountaineering than any of their successors or

-predecessors. Bourrit, De Saussure, Beck, Placidus à Spescha, and the

-other pioneers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century,

-deserve the greatest credit. But their spirited example gave no general

-impetus to the sport. They were single-handed mountaineers; and somehow

-they never managed to fire the world with their own enthusiasm. The

-Englishmen arrived late on the scene. The great giants of more than

-one district had been climbed. And yet mountaineering was still the

-pursuit of a few isolated men who knew little or nothing of their

-brother climbers, who came and struggled and passed away uncheered by

-the inspiring freemasonry of a band of workers aiming at the same end.

-It was left to the English to transform mountaineering into a popular

-sport. Judged even by modern standards some of these men were fine

-mountaineers, none the less independent because the fashion of the day

-decreed that guides should be taken on difficult expeditions. But even

-those who owed the greater part of their success to their guides were

-inspired by the same enthusiasm which, unlike the lonely watchfires of

-the earlier pioneers, kindled a general conflagration.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER VIII

-

-THE STORY OF THE MATTERHORN

-

-

-The history of mountaineering contains nothing more dramatic than the

-epic of the Matterhorn. There is no mountain which appeals so readily

-to the imagination. Its unique form has drawn poetic rhapsodies from

-the most prosaic. “Men,” says Mr. Whymper, “who ordinarily spoke or

-wrote like rational beings when they came under its power seemed to

-quit their senses, and ranted, and rhapsodied, losing for a time

-all common forms of speech. Even the sober De Saussure was moved to

-enthusiasm.”

-

-If the Matterhorn could thus inspire men before the most famous siege

-in Alpine history had clothed its cliffs in romance, how much more

-must it move those for whom the final tragedy has become historical?

-The first view of the Matterhorn, and the moment when the last step

-is taken on to the final crest, are two moments which the mountaineer

-never forgets. Those who knew the old Zermat are unpleasantly fond of

-reminding us that the railway train and the monster hôtels have robbed

-Zermat of its charm; while the fixed ropes and sardine tins--[Those

-dear old sardine tins! Our Alpine writers would run short of satire

-if they could not invoke their aid]--have finally humiliated the

-unvanquished Titan. It may be so; but it is easy enough to recover

-the old atmosphere. You have only to visit Zermat in winter when the

-train is not running. A long trudge up twenty miles of shadowed, frosty

-valley, a little bluff near Randa, and the Matterhorn soars once more

-into a stainless sky. There are no clouds, and probably not another

-stranger in the valley. The hôtels are closed, the sardine tins are

-buried, and the Matterhorn renews like the immortals an undying youth.

-

-The great mountain remained unconquered mainly because it inspired

-in the hearts of the bravest guides a despairing belief in its

-inaccessibility. “There seemed,” writes Mr. Whymper, “to be a cordon

-drawn round it up to which one might go, but no further. Within that

-line gins and efreets were supposed to exist--the wandering Jew and the

-spirits of the damned. The superstitious natives in the surrounding

-valleys (many of whom firmly believed it to be not only the highest

-mountain in the Alps, but in the world) spoke of a ruined city on the

-summit wherein the spirits dwelt; and if you laughed they gravely

-shook their heads, told you to look yourself to see the castle and

-walls, and warned one against a rash approach, lest the infuriated

-demons from their impregnable heights might hurl down vengeance for

-one’s derision.”

-

-[Illustration: I.--THE MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH-EAST (ZERMAT).

-

-The left-hand ridge in the Furgg Grat and the shoulder (F.S.) is the

-Furgg shoulder from which Mummery traversed across to the Swiss face on

-his attempt on the Furgg Grat.

-

-The central ridge is the North-east ridge. N.E. is the point where

-the climb begins. S is the Swiss shoulder, A the Swiss summit, B the

-Italian summit. The route of the first ascent is marked. Nowadays it is

-usual to keep closer to the ridge in the early part of the climb and to

-climb from the shoulder S to the summit A. Fixed ropes hang throughout

-this section. T is the group of rocky teeth on the Zmutt ridge.]

-

-Those who have a sense for the dramatic unities will feel that, for

-once in a way, Life lived up to the conventions of Art, and that even

-a great dramatist could scarcely have bettered the materials afforded

-by the history of the Matterhorn. As the story unfolds itself one can

-scarcely help attributing some fatal personality to the inanimate

-cliffs. In the Italian valley of Breuil, the Becca, as the Matterhorn

-used to be called, was for centuries the embodiment of supernatural

-terror. Mothers would frighten their children by threats that the wild

-man of the Becca would carry them away. And if the children asked how

-the Matterhorn was born, they would reply that in bygone years there

-dwelt a giant in Aosta named Gargantua, who was once seized with a

-longing for the country beyond the range of peaks that divide Italy

-from Switzerland. Now, in those far off times, the mountains of the

-great barrier formed one uniform ridge instead of (as now) a series of

-peaks. The giant strode over this range with one step. As he stood with

-one foot in Switzerland and the other in Italy, the surrounding rocks

-fell away, and the pyramid of cliffs caught between his legs alone

-remained. And thus was the Matterhorn formed. There were many such

-legends; the reader may find them in Whymper and Guido Rey. They were

-enough to daunt all but the boldest.

-

-[Illustration: II.--MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH.

-

-The left-hand ridge is the North-east ridge. The points N.E., S, A, B,

-and T are the same as the corresponding points in I. The North-east

-ridge, which appears extremely steep, in I., is here seen in profile.]

-

-The drama of the Matterhorn opens appropriately enough with the three

-men who first showed a contempt for the superstitions that surrounded

-the Becca. The story of that first attempt is told in Guido Rey’s

-excellent monograph on the Matterhorn, a monograph which has been

-translated by Mr. Eaton into English as spirited as the original

-Italian. This opening bout with the Becca took place in 1858. Three

-natives of Breuil, the little Italian valley at the foot of the

-Matterhorn, met before dawn at the châlet of Avouil. Of these, Jean

-Jacques Carrel was in command. He was a mighty hunter, and a fine

-mountaineer. The second, Jean Antoine Carrel, “il Bersaglier,” was

-destined to play a leading part in the conflict that was to close seven

-years later. Jean Antoine was something more than a great guide. He

-was a ragged, independent mountaineer, difficult to control, a great

-leader, but a poor follower. He was an old soldier, and had fought at

-Novara. The third of these young climbers was Aimé Gorret, a young boy

-of twenty destined for the Church. His solitary rambles among the hills

-had filled him with a passionate worship of the Matterhorn.

-

-Without proper provisions or gear, these three light-hearted knights

-set forth gaily on their quest. They mistook the way; and, reaching

-a spot that pleased them, they wasted hours in hurling rocks down a

-cliff--a fascinating pursuit. When they reached the point now known as

-the Tête du Lion (12,215 feet) they contemplated the Matterhorn which

-rose definitely beyond an intervening gap. They looked at their great

-foe with quiet assurance. The Becca would not run away. Nobody else was

-likely to try a throw with the local giant. One day they would come

-back and settle the issue. There was no immediate hurry.

-

-In 1860 a daring attempt was made by Messrs. Alfred, Charles, and

-Sanbach Parker of Liverpool. These bold climbers dispensed with guides,

-and had the wisdom to attack the east face that rises above Zermat. All

-the other early explorers attacked the Italian ridge; and, as will be

-seen, the first serious assault on the eastern face succeeded. Lack of

-time prevented the Parkers from reaching a greater height than 12,000

-feet; nor were they more successful in the following year, but they had

-made a gallant attempt, for which they deserve credit. In 1860 another

-party had assailed the mountain from Italy, and reached a height of

-about 13,000 feet. The party consisted of Vaughan Hawkins and Prof.

-Tyndall, whom he had invited to join the party, with the guides J. J.

-Carrel and Bennen.

-

-In 1861 Edward Whymper, who had opened his Alpine career in the

-previous year, returned to the Alps determined to conquer two virgin

-summits of the Alps, the Matterhorn and the Weishorn. On arriving at

-Chatillon, he learned that the Weishorn had been climbed by Tyndall,

-and that Tyndall was at Breuil intending to add the Matterhorn to his

-conquests. Whymper determined to anticipate him. He arrived at Breuil

-on August 28, with an Oberland guide, and inquired for the best man

-in the valley. The knowing ones with a voice recommended Jean Antoine

-Carrel, a member of the first party to set foot on the Matterhorn. “We

-sought, of course, for Carrel, and found him a well-made, resolute

-looking fellow, with a certain defiant air which was rather taking.

-Yes, he would go. Twenty francs a day, whatever the result, was his

-price. I assented. But I must take his comrade. As he said this, an

-evil countenance came forth out of the darkness, and proclaimed itself

-the comrade. I demurred, and negotiations were broken off.”

-

-At Breuil, they tried to get another man to accompany them but without

-success. The men they approached either would not go or asked a

-prohibitive price. “This, it may be said once and for all, was the

-reason why so many futile attempts were made on the Matterhorn. One

-guide after another was brought up to the mountain and patted on the

-back, but all declined the business. The men who went had no heart

-in the matter, and took the first opportunity to turn back. For they

-were, with the exception of the man to whom reference will be made [J.

-A. Carrel] universally impressed with the belief that the summit was

-entirely inaccessible.”

-

-Whymper and his guide bivouacked in a cowshed; and as night approached

-they saw J. A. Carrel and his companion stealing up the hillside.

-Whymper asked them if they had repented, and would join his party.

-They replied that they had contemplated an independent assault. “Oh,

-then, it is not necessary to have more than three.” “Not for us.” “I

-admired their pluck and had a strong inclination to engage the pair,

-but finally decided against it. The companion turned out to be J. J.

-Carrel. Both were bold mountaineers; but Jean Antoine was incomparably

-the better of the two, and was the finest rock climber I have ever

-seen. He was the only man who persistently refused to accept defeat,

-and who continued to believe, in spite of all discouragements, that the

-great mountain was not inaccessible, and that it could be ascended

-from the side of his native valley.”

-

-Carrel was something more than a great guide. He remained a soldier

-long after he had laid down his sword. He was, above all, an Italian,

-determined to climb the Matterhorn by the great Italian ridge, to climb

-it for the honour of Italy, and for the honour of his native valley.

-The two great moments of his life were those in which he heard the

-shouts of victory at Colle di Santiarno, and the cries of triumph on

-the summit of the Italian ridge. Whymper, and later Tyndall, found him

-an awkward man to deal with. He had the rough, undisciplined nature

-of the mountain he loved. He looked on the Matterhorn as a kind of

-preserve, and was determined that he and no other should lead on the

-final and successful ascent. Whymper’s first attempt failed owing

-to the poor qualities of his guide; and the Carrels were not more

-successful.

-

-During the three years that followed, Whymper made no less than six

-attempts to climb the Matterhorn. On one occasion he climbed alone

-and unaided higher than any of his predecessors. Without guides or

-companions, he reached a height of 13,500 feet. There is little to be

-said for solitary climbing, but this feat stands out as one of the

-boldest achievements of the period. The critics of solitary scrambling

-need, however, look no further than its sequel for their moral. In

-attempting to negotiate a corner on the Tête du Lion, Whymper slipped

-and fell. He shot down an ice slope, slid and bounded through a

-vertical height of about 200 feet, and was eventually thrown against

-the side of a gully where it narrowed. Another ten feet would have

-taken him in one terrific bound of 800 feet on to the glacier below.

-The blood was pulsing out of numerous cuts. He plastered up the wounds

-in his head with a lump of snow before scrambling up into a place of

-safety, where he promptly fainted away. He managed, however, to reach

-Breuil without further adventure. Within a week he had returned to the

-attack.

-

-He made two further attempts that year which failed for various

-reasons; but he had the satisfaction of seeing Tyndall fail when

-success seemed assured. Tyndall had brought with him the great Swiss

-guide Bennen, and a Valaisian guide named Walter Anton. He engaged

-Jean Antoine and Cæsar Carrel. They proposed to attack the mountain

-by the Italian ridge. Next morning, somebody ran in to tell Whymper

-that a flag had been seen on the summit. This proved a false alarm.

-Whymper waited through the long day to greet the party on their return.

-“I could not bring myself to leave, but lingered about as a foolish

-lover hovers round the object of his affections even after he has been

-rejected. The sun had set before the men were discerned coming over the

-pastures. There was no spring in their steps--they, too, were defeated.”

-

-Prof. Tyndall told Whymper that he had arrived “within a stone’s-throw

-of the summit”--the mountain is 14,800 feet high, 14,600 feet had been

-climbed. “He greatly deceived himself,” said Whymper, “for the point

-which he reached is no less than 800 feet below the summit. The failure

-was due to the fact that the Carrels had been engaged in a subordinate

-capacity.” When they were appealed to for their opinion, they replied:

-“We are porters, ask your guides.” Carrel always determined that the

-Matterhorn should be climbed from Italy, and that the leader of the

-climb should be an Italian. Bennen was a Swiss and Carrel had been

-engaged as a second guide. Tyndall and Whymper found it necessary to

-champion their respective guides, Carrel and Bennen; and a more or less

-heated controversy was carried on in the pages of _The Alpine Journal_.

-

-The Matterhorn was left in peace till the next year, but, meanwhile,

-a conspiracy for its downfall was hatched in Italy. The story is told

-in Guido Rey’s classic book on the Matterhorn, a book which should be

-read side by side with Whymper’s _Scrambles_, as it gives the Italian

-version of the final stages in which Italy and England fought for

-the great prize. In 1863, some leading Italian mountaineers gathered

-together at Turin to found an Italian Alpine Club. Amongst these were

-two well-known scientists, Felice Giordano and Quintino Sella. They

-vowed that, as English climbers had robbed them of Monte Viso, prince

-of Piedmontese peaks, Italy should have the honour of conquering the

-Matterhorn, and that Italians should climb it from Italy by the Italian

-ridge. The task was offered to Giordano, who accepted it.

-

-In 1863 Whymper and Carrel made another attempt on the Matterhorn,

-which was foiled by bad weather. In the next year, the mountain was

-left alone; but the plot for its downfall began to mature. Giordano and

-Sella had met Carrel, and had extracted from him promises of support.

-Carrel was, above all, an Italian, and, other things being equal, he

-would naturally prefer to lead an Italian, rather than an English,

-party to the summit.

-

-And now we come to the closing scenes. In 1865 Whymper returned to the

-attack, heartily tired of the Italian ridge. With the great guides

-Michel Croz and Christian Almer, Whymper attempted to reach the summit

-by a rock couloir that starts from near the Breuiljoch, and terminates

-high up on the Furggen arête. This was a mad scheme; and the route they

-chose was the most impracticable of all the routes that had ever been

-attempted on the Matterhorn. Even to-day, the great couloir has not

-been climbed, and the top half of the Furggen ridge has only been once

-ascended (or rather outflanked on the Italian side), an expedition of

-great danger and difficulty. Foiled in this attempt, Whymper turned

-his attention to the Swiss face. The eastern face is a fraud. From

-the Riffel and from Zermat, it appears almost perpendicular; but when

-seen in profile from the Zmutt glacier it presents a very different

-appearance. The average angle of the slope as far as “the shoulder,”

-about 13,925 feet, is about thirty degrees. From here to the summit the

-angle steepens considerably but is never more than fifty degrees. The

-wonder is that Whymper, who had studied the mountain more than once

-from the Zmutt glacier, still continued his attempts on the difficult

-Italian ridge.

-

-On the 8th of June 1865, Whymper arrived in Breuil, and explained to

-Carrel his change of plan. He engaged Carrel, and made plans for his

-attack on the Swiss face, promising Carrel that, if that failed, they

-should return to the Italian ridge. Jean Antoine told Whymper that he

-would not be able to serve him after the 11th, as he was engaged to

-travel “with a family of distinction in the valley of Aosta.” Whymper

-asked him why he had not told him this before; and he replied that the

-engagement had been a long-standing one, but that the actual day had

-not been fixed. Whymper was annoyed; but he could find no fault with

-the answer, and parted on friendly terms with Carrel. But the family of

-distinction was no other than Giordano. “You are going to leave me,”

-Whymper had said to Carrel, “to travel with a party of ladies. The work

-is not fit for you.” Carrel had smiled; and Whymper had taken the smile

-as a recognition of the implied compliment. Carrel smiled because he

-knew that the work he had in hand was more fitted for him than for any

-other man.

-

-On the 7th, Giordano had written to Sella:

-

-    “Let us, then, set out to attack this Devil’s mountain; and let

-    us see that we succeed, if only Whymper has not been beforehand

-    with us.” On the 11th, he wrote again: “Dear Quintino, It is high

-    time for me to send you news from here. I reached Valtournanche

-    on Saturday at midday. There I found Carrel, who had just returned

-    from a reconnoitring expedition on the Matterhorn, which had

-    proved a failure owing to bad weather. Whymper had arrived two or

-    three days before; as usual, he wished to make the ascent, and had

-    engaged Carrel, who, not having had my letters, had agreed, but

-    for a few days only. Fortunately, the weather turned bad, Whymper

-    was unable to make his fresh attempt; and Carrel left him, and

-    came with me together with five other picked men who are the best

-    guides in the valley. We immediately sent off our advance guard

-    with Carrel at its head. In order not to excite remark, we took the

-    rope and other materials to Avouil, a hamlet which is very remote

-    and close to the Matterhorn; and this is to be our lower base.... I

-    have tried to keep everything secret; but that fellow, whose life

-    seems to depend on the Matterhorn, is here suspiciously prying into

-    everything. I have taken all the competent men away from him; and

-    yet he is so enamoured of the mountain that he may go with others

-    and make a scene. He is here in this hôtel, and I try to avoid

-    speaking to him.”

-

-Whymper discovered on the 10th the identity of the “family of

-distinction.” He was furious. He considered, with some show of

-justification, that he had been “bamboozled and humbugged.”

-

-The Italian party had already started for the Matterhorn, with a large

-store of provisions. They were an advance party designed to find and

-facilitate the way. They would take their time. Whymper took courage.

-On the 11th, a party arrived from Zermat across the Théodule. One of

-these proved to be Lord Francis Douglas, who, a few days previously,

-had made the second ascent of the Gabelhorn, and the first from Zinal.

-Lord Francis was a young and ambitious climber; and he was only too

-glad to join Whymper in an attack on the Swiss face of the Matterhorn.

-They crossed to Zermat together on the 12th, and there discovered Mr.

-Hudson, a great mountaineer, accompanied by the famous guide Michel

-Croz, who had arrived at Zermat with the Matterhorn in view. They

-agreed to join forces; and Hudson’s friend Hadow was admitted to the

-party. Hadow was a young man of nineteen who had just left Harrow.

-Whymper seemed doubtful of his ability; but Hudson reassured him by

-remarking that Mr. Hadow had done Mont Blanc in less time than most

-men. Peter Taugwalder, Lord Francis’s guide, and Peter’s two sons

-completed the party. On the 13th of July they left Zermat.

-

-On the 14th of July Giordano wrote a short letter every line of which

-is alive with grave triumph. “At 2 p.m. to-day I saw Carrel & Co., on

-the top of the Matterhorn.” Poor Giordano! The morrow was to bring a

-sad disappointment; and his letter dated the 15th of July contains

-a pregnant sentence: “Although every man did his duty, it is a lost

-battle, and I am in great grief.”

-

-This is what had happened. Whymper and his companions had left Zermat

-on the 13th at half-past five. The day was cloudless. They mounted

-leisurely, and arrived at the base of the actual peak about half-past

-eleven. Once fairly on the great eastern face, they were astonished to

-find that places which looked entirely impracticable from the Riffel

-“were so easy that they could run about.” By mid-day they had found

-a suitable place for the tent at a height of about 11,000 feet. Croz

-and young Peter Taugwalder went on to explore. They returned at about

-3 p.m. in a great state of excitement. There was no difficulty. They

-could have gone to the top that day and returned.... “Long after dusk,

-the cliffs above echoed with our laughter, and with the songs of the

-guides, for we were happy that night in camp, and feared no evil.”

-

-Whymper’s story is told with simplicity and restraint. He was too good

-a craftsman to spoil a great subject by unnecessary strokes. They

-started next day before dawn. They had left Zermat on the 13th, and

-they left their camp on a Friday (the superstitious noted these facts

-when the whole disastrous story was known). The whole of the great

-eastern slope “was now revealed, rising for 3000 feet like a huge

-natural staircase. Some parts were more and others were less easy;

-but we were not once brought to a halt by any serious impediment....

-For the greater part of the way there was no need for the rope, and

-sometimes Hudson led, and sometimes myself.” When they arrived at the

-snow ridge now known as “The Shoulder,” which is some 500 feet below

-the summit, they turned over on to the northern face. This proved

-more difficult; but the general angle of the slope was nowhere more

-than forty degrees. Hadow’s want of experience began to tell, and

-he required a certain amount of assistance. “The solitary difficult

-part was of no great extent.... A long stride round a rather awkward

-corner brought us to snow once more. The last doubt had vanished. The

-Matterhorn was ours. Nothing but 200 feet of easy snow remained to be

-surmounted.”

-

-But they were not yet certain that they had not been beaten. The

-Italians had left Breuil four days before. All through the climb,

-false alarms had been raised of men on the top. The excitement became

-intense. “The slope eased off; at length we could be detached; and Croz

-and I, dashing away, ran a neck-and-neck race which ended in a dead

-heat. At 1.40 p.m. the world was at our feet, and the Matterhorn was

-conquered.”

-

-No footsteps could be seen; but the summit of the Matterhorn consists

-of a rudely level ridge about 350 feet in length, and the Italians

-might have been at the further end. Whymper hastened to the Italian

-summit, and again found the snow untrodden. They peered over the ridge,

-and far below on the right caught sight of the Italian party. “Up went

-my arms and hat. ‘Croz, Croz, come here!’ ‘Where are they, monsieur?’

-‘There, don’t you see them, down there.’ ‘Ah, the coquins, they are low

-down.’ ‘Croz, we must make those fellows hear us.’ They yelled until

-they were hoarse. ‘Croz, we must make them hear us, they shall hear

-us.’” Whymper seized a block of rock and hurled it down, and called on

-his companion to do the same. They drove their sticks in, and soon a

-whole torrent was pouring down. “There was no mistake about it this

-time. The Italians turned and fled.”

-

-[Illustration: III.--THE MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH-WEST.

-

-T and B are the points marked T and B in I. and II. Z Z Z Z is the

-Zmutt ridge. B C D E F is the great Italian South-west ridge. B is

-the Italian summit. C the point where Tyndall turned back on his last

-attempt. D the Italian shoulder now known as “Pic Tyndall.” E the

-“cravette.” F the Col du Lion, and G the Tête du Lion. The Italian

-route ascends to the Col du Lion on the further side, and then follows

-the Italian ridge.]

-

-Croz planted a tent-pole which they had taken with them, though Whymper

-protested that it was tempting Providence, and fixed his blouse to

-it. A poor flag--but it was seen everywhere. At Breuil--as we have

-seen--they cheered the Italian victory. But on the morrow the explorers

-returned down-hearted. “The old legends are true--there are spirits on

-the top of the Matterhorn. We saw them ourselves--they hurled stones at

-us.”

-

-We may allow this dramatic touch to pass unchallenged, though, whatever

-Carrel may have said to his friends, he made it quite clear to Giordano

-that he had identified the turbulent spirits, for, in the letter from

-which we have quoted, Giordano tells his friends that Carrel had seen

-Whymper on the summit. It might, perhaps, be worth while to add that

-the stones Whymper hurled down the ridge could by no possible chance

-have hit Carrel’s party. “Still, I would,” writes Whymper, “that the

-leader of that party could have stood with us at that moment, for our

-victorious shouts conveyed to him the disappointment of a lifetime. He

-was _the_ man of all those who attempted the ascent of the Matterhorn

-who most deserved to be first upon its summit. He was the first to

-doubt its inaccessibility; and he was the only man who persisted in

-believing that its ascent would be accomplished. It was the aim of his

-life to make the ascent from the side of Italy, for the honour of his

-native valley. For a time, he had the game in his hands; he played it

-as he thought best; but he made a false move, and he lost it.”

-

-After an hour on the summit, they prepared to descend. The order of

-descent was curious. Croz, as the best man in the party, should have

-been placed last. As a matter of history, he led, followed, in this

-order, by Hadow, Hudson, Douglas, and Peter Taugwalder. Whymper was

-sketching while the party was being arranged. They were waiting for him

-to tie on when somebody suggested that the names had not been left in a

-bottle. While Whymper put this right, the rest of the party moved on. A

-few minutes later Whymper tied on to young Peter, and followed detached

-from the others. Later, Douglas asked Whymper to attach himself to old

-Taugwalder, as he feared that Taugwalder would not be able to hold his

-ground in the event of a slip. About three o’clock in the afternoon,

-Michel Croz, who had laid aside his axe, faced the rock, and, in order

-to give Hadow greater security, was putting his feet one by one into

-their proper position. Croz then turned round to advance another step

-when Hadow slipped, fell against Croz, and knocked him over. “I heard

-one startled exclamation from Croz, and then saw him and Mr. Hadow

-flying downwards; in another moment Hudson was dragged from his steps,

-and Lord Francis Douglas immediately after him. All this was the work

-of a moment. Immediately we heard Croz’s exclamation, old Peter and

-I planted ourselves as firmly as the rocks would permit: the rope

-was taut between us, and the jerk came on us both as on one man. We

-held: but the rope broke midway between Taugwalder and Lord Francis

-Douglas. For a few seconds, we saw our unfortunate companions sliding

-downwards on their backs, and spreading out their hands endeavouring

-to save themselves. They passed from our sight uninjured, disappeared

-one by one, and then fell from precipice to precipice on to the

-Matterhorngletscher below, a distance of nearly 4000 feet in height.

-From the moment the rope broke, it was impossible to help them.”

-

-For half-an-hour, Whymper and the two Taugwalders remained on the spot

-without moving. The two guides cried like children. Whymper was fixed

-between the older and younger Taugwalder, and must have heartily

-regretted that he left young Peter the responsibility of last man down,

-for the young man was paralysed with terror, and refused to move. At

-last, he descended, and they stood together. Whymper asked immediately

-for the end of the rope that had given way, and noticed with horror

-that it was the weakest of the three ropes. It had never been intended

-to use it save as a reserve in case much rope had to be left behind to

-attach to the rocks.

-

-For more than two hours after the fall, Whymper expected that the

-Taugwalders would fall. They were utterly unnerved. At 6 p.m. they

-arrived again on the snow shoulder. “We frequently looked, but in vain,

-for traces of our unfortunate companions; we bent over the ridge and

-cried to them, but no sound returned. Convinced at last that they were

-neither within sight nor hearing, we ceased from our useless efforts;

-and, too cast down for speech, silently gathered up our things, and the

-little effects of those who were lost, preparatory to continuing the

-descent.”

-

-As they started down, the Taugwalders raised the problem as to their

-payment, Lord Francis being dead. “They filled,” remarks Whymper, “the

-cup of bitterness to overflowing, and I tore down the cliff madly and

-recklessly in a way that caused them more than once to inquire if I

-wished to kill them.” The whole party spent the night on a miserable

-ledge. Next day, they descended in safety to Zermat. Seiler met them

-at the door of his hôtel. “What is the matter?” “The Taugwalders and I

-have returned.” He did not need more, and burst into tears, but lost no

-time in needless lamentations, and set to work to rouse the village.

-

-On Sunday morning, Whymper set out with the Rev. Canon M’Cormick to

-recover the bodies of his friends. The local curé threatened with

-excommunication any guide who neglected Mass in order to attend the

-search party. “To several, at least, this was a severe trial. Peter

-Perrn declared, with tears in his eyes, that nothing else would have

-prevented him joining in the search.” Guides from other valleys joined

-the party. At 8.30 they got to the plateau at the top of the glacier.

-They found Hudson, Croz and Hadow, but “of Lord Francis Douglas nothing

-was seen.”

-

-This accident sent a thrill of horror through the civilised world.

-The old file of _The Times_, which is well worth consulting, bears

-tribute to the profound sensation which the news of this great tragedy

-aroused. Idle rumours of every kind were afloat--with these we shall

-deal later. For more than five weeks, not a day passed without some

-letter or comment in the columns of the leading English paper. These

-letters, for the most part, embodied the profound distrust with which

-the new sport was regarded by the bulk of Englishmen. If Lord Francis

-Douglas had been killed while galloping after a fox, he would have

-been considered to have fallen in action. That he should have fallen

-on the day that the Matterhorn fell, that he should have paid the

-supreme forfeit for a triumphant hour in Alpine history--such a death

-was obviously wholly without its redeeming features. “It was the

-blue ribbon of the Alps,” wrote _The Times_, “that poor Lord Francis

-Douglas was trying for the other day. If it must be so, at all events

-the Alpine Club that has proclaimed this crusade must manage the thing

-rather better, or it will soon be voted a nuisance. If the work is to

-be done, it must be done well. They must advise youngsters to practise,

-and make sure of their strength and endurance.”

-

-For three weeks, Whymper gave no sign. At last, in response to a

-dignified appeal from Mr. Justice Wills, then President of the Alpine

-Club, he broke silence, and gave to the public a restrained account of

-the tragedy. As we have said, malicious rumour had been busy, and in

-ignorant quarters there had been rumours of foul play. The Matterhorn

-accident first popularised the theory that Alpine ropes existed to

-be cut. Till then, the public had supposed that the rope was used

-to prevent cowardly climbers deserting their party in an emergency.

-But from 1865 onwards, popular authors discovered a new use for the

-rope. They divided all Alpine travellers into two classes, those who

-cut the rope from below (“Greater love hath no man--a romance of the

-mountains”) and those who cut the rope from above (“The Coward--a tale

-of the snows”). A casual reader might be pardoned for supposing that

-the Swiss did a brisk business in sheath knives. We should be the last

-to discourage this enterprising school--their works have afforded much

-joy to the climbing fraternity; but we offer them in all humility a few

-remarks on the art of rope-cutting by a member of Class II (those who

-cut the rope from above).

-

-A knife could only be used with advantage when a snowbridge gives way.

-It is easy enough to hold a man who has fallen into a crevasse; but it

-is often impossible to pull him out. The whole situation is altered

-on a rock face. If a man falls, a sudden jerk may pull the rest of

-the party off the face of the mountain. This will almost certainly

-happen if the leader or, on a descent, the last man down, falls, unless

-the rope is anchored round a knob of rock, in which case--provided

-the rope does not break--the leader may escape with a severe shaking,

-though a clear fall of more than fifteen feet will usually break the

-rope if anchored; and, if not anchored, the party will be dragged off

-their holds one by one. Therefore, the leader must not fall. If any

-other member of the party falls, he should be held by the man above.

-On difficult ground, only one man moves at a time. No man moves until

-the man above has secured himself in a position where he can draw in

-the rope as the man below advances. If he keeps it reasonably taut,

-and is well placed, he should be able to check any slip. A climber who

-slips and is held by the rope can immediately get new foothold and

-handhold. He is not in a crevasse from which exit is impossible save

-at the rope’s end. His slip is checked, and he is swung up against

-a rock face. There is no need to drag him up. The rest of the party

-have passed over this face, and therefore handholds and footholds can

-be found. The man who has slipped will find fresh purchase, and begin

-again. In the case of the Matterhorn accident, the angle of the slope

-was about forty degrees. There was an abundance of hold, and if the

-rope had not parted Croz and Hadow would have been abruptly checked,

-and would have immediately secured themselves. Now, if Taugwalder had

-cut the rope, as suggested, he must have been little short of an expert

-acrobat, and have cut it in about the space of a second and a half

-_before the jerk_. If he had waited for the jerk, either he would have

-been dragged off, in which case his knife would have come in handy, or

-he would have held, in which case it would have been unnecessary.

-

-To mountaineers, all this, of course, is a truism; and we should not

-have laboured the point if we wrote exclusively for mountaineers. Even

-so, Peter’s comrades at Zermat (who should have known better) persisted

-in believing that he cut the rope. “In regard to this infamous charge,”

-writes Whymper, “I say that he could not do so at the moment of the

-slip, and that the end of the rope in my possession shows that he

-did not do so before.” Whymper, however, adds: “There remains the

-suspicious fact that the rope which broke was the thinnest and weakest

-one we had. It is suspicious because it is unlikely that the men in

-front would have selected an old and weak rope when there was an

-abundance of new, and much stronger, rope to spare; and, on the other

-hand, because if Taugwalder thought that an accident was likely to

-happen, it was to his interest to have the weaker rope placed where it

-was.”

-

-One cannot help regretting that Whymper lent weight to an unworthy

-suspicion. Taugwalder was examined by a secret Court of Inquiry; and

-Whymper prepared a set of questions with a view to helping him to clear

-himself. The answers, though promised, were never sent; and Taugwalder

-ultimately left the valley for America, returning only to die. Whymper,

-in his classic book, suggested the possibility of criminal dealings by

-publishing photographs of the three ropes showing that the rope broken

-was far the weakest.

-

-Let us review the whole story as Whymper himself tells it. We know

-that Whymper crossed the Théodule on the eleventh in a state of anger

-and despair. The prize for which he had striven so long seemed to be

-sliding from his grasp. Carrel had deserted him just as the true line

-of attack had been discovered. Like all mountaineers, he was human.

-He gets together the best party he can, and sets out with all haste

-determined to win by a head. Hadow, a young man with very little

-experience, is taken, and Hadow, the weak link, is destined to turn

-triumph into disaster. Let the mountaineer who has never invited a man

-unfit for a big climb throw the first stone. And, before he has thrown

-it, let him remember the peculiar provocation in Whymper’s case.

-

-All goes well. The Matterhorn is conquered with surprising ease. These

-six men achieve the greatest triumph in Alpine history without serious

-check. To Whymper, this hour on the summit must have marked the supreme

-climax of life, an hour that set its seal on the dogged labours of

-past years. Do men in such moments anticipate disaster? Taugwalder

-might possibly have failed in a sudden crisis; but is it likely that

-he should deliberately prepare for an accident by carefully planned

-treachery?

-

-Now read the story as Whymper tells it. The party are just about to

-commence the descent. The first five hundred feet would still be

-considered as demanding the greatest care. The top five hundred feet of

-the Matterhorn, but for the ropes with which the whole mountain is now

-festooned, would always be a difficult, if not a dangerous, section.

-Croz was the best guide in the party. He should have remained behind

-as sheet anchor. Instead of this, he goes first. Whymper falls out of

-line, to inscribe the names of the party, ties himself casually on

-to young Peter, and then “runs down after the others.” In the final

-arrangements, young Peter, who was a young and inexperienced guide,

-was given the vital position of last man down. Flushed with triumph,

-their minds could find no room for a doubt. Everything had gone through

-with miraculous ease. Such luck simply could not turn. It is in

-precisely such moments as these that the mountains settle their score.

-Mountaineering is a ruthless sport that demands unremitting attention.

-In games, a moment’s carelessness may lose a match, or a championship;

-but in climbing a mistake may mean death.

-

-As for Taugwalder, one is tempted to acquit him without hesitation; but

-there is one curious story about Taugwalder which gives one pause. The

-story was told to the present writer by an old member of the Alpine

-Club, and the following is an extract from a letter: “I had rather you

-said ‘a friend of yours’ without mentioning my name. I had a good many

-expeditions with old Peter Taugwalder, including Mont Blanc and Monte

-Rosa; and I had rather a tender spot for the somewhat coarse, dirty

-old beggar. I should not like my name to appear to help the balance to

-incline in the direction of his guilt in that Matterhorn affair. It

-was not on the Dent Blanche that he took the rope off; it was coming

-down a long steep slope of bare rock from the top of the Tête Blanche

-towards Prayagé. I had a couple of men with me who were inexperienced;

-and I fancy he must have thought that, if one of them let go, which was

-not unlikely, he would be able to choose whether to hold on or let go.

-I happened to look up and see what was going on, and I made him tie up

-at once. I don’t quite remember whether Whymper tells us how far from

-Peter’s fingers the break in the rope occurred. That seems to me one of

-the most critical points.”

-

-There we may leave Taugwalder, and the minor issues of this great

-tragedy. The broader lessons are summed up by Mr. Whymper in a

-memorable passage: “So the traditional inaccessibility of the

-Matterhorn was vanquished, and was replaced by legends of a more real

-character. Others will essay to scale its proud cliffs, but to none

-will it be the mountain that it was to the early explorers. Others may

-tread its summit snows, but none will ever know the feelings of those

-who first gazed upon its marvellous panorama; and none, I trust, will

-ever be compelled to tell of joy turned into grief, and of laughter

-into mourning. It proved to be a stubborn foe; it resisted long and

-gave many a hard blow; it was defeated at last with an ease that none

-could have anticipated, but like a relentless enemy--conquered, but

-not crushed--it took a terrible vengeance.”

-

-The last sentence has a peculiar significance. A strange fatality seems

-to dog the steps of those who seek untrodden paths to the crest of the

-Matterhorn. Disaster does not always follow with the dramatic swiftness

-of that which marked the conquest of the eastern face, yet, slowly but

-surely, the avenging spirit of the Matterhorn fulfils itself.

-

-On July 16, two days after the catastrophe, J. A. Carrel set out to

-crown Whymper’s victory by proving that the Italian ridge was not

-unconquerable. He was accompanied by Abbé Gorret, a plucky priest who

-had shared with him that first careless attack on the mountain. Bich

-and Meynet completed the party. The Abbé and Meynet remained behind not

-very far from the top, in order to help Carrel and Bich on the return

-at a place where a short descent onto a ledge was liable to cause

-difficulty on the descent. This ledge, known as Carrel’s corridor,

-is about forty minutes from the summit. It needed a man of Carrel’s

-determined courage to follow its winding course. It is now avoided.

-

-The rest of the climb presented no difficulty. Carrel had conquered the

-Italian ridge. The ambition of years was half fulfilled, only half, for

-the Matterhorn itself had been climbed. One cannot but regret that he

-had turned back on the 14th. Whymper’s cries of triumph had spelt for

-him the disappointment of a lifetime. Yet a fine rôle was open to him.

-Had he gone forward and crowned Whymper’s victory by a triumph unmarred

-by disaster; had the Matterhorn defied all assaults for years, and then

-yielded on the same day to a party from the Swiss side and Carrel’s

-men from Italy, the most dramatic page in Alpine history would have

-been complete. Thirty-five years later, the Matterhorn settled the long

-outstanding debt, and the man who had first attacked the citadel died

-in a snowstorm on the Italian ridge of the mountain which he had been

-the first to assail, and the first to conquer.

-

-Carrel was in his sixty-second year when he started out for his last

-climb. Bad weather detained the party in the Italian hut, and Signor

-Sinigaglia noticed that Carrel was far from well. After two nights

-in the hut, the provisions began to run out; and it was decided to

-attempt the descent. The rocks were in a terrible condition, and the

-storm added to the difficulty. Carrel insisted on leading, though he

-was far from well. He knew every yard of his own beloved ridge. If a

-man could pilot them through the storm that man was Carrel. Quietly and

-methodically, he fought his way downward, yard by yard, undaunted by

-the hurricane, husbanding the last ounces of his strength. He would not

-allow the other guides to relieve him till the danger was past, and his

-responsibilities were over. Then suddenly he collapsed, and in a few

-minutes the gallant old warrior fell backwards and died. A cross now

-marks the spot where the old soldier died in action.

-

-In life the leading guides of Breuil had often resented Carrel’s

-unchallenged supremacy. But death had obliterated the old jealousies.

-Years afterwards, a casual climber stopped before Carrel’s cross, and

-remarked to the son of Carrel’s great rival, “So that is where Carrel

-fell.” “Carrel did not fall,” came the indignant answer, “Carrel died.”

-

-Let us turn from Carrel to the conquerors of another great ridge of the

-Matterhorn.

-

-Of others concerned with attacks on the Italian ridge, Tyndall, Bennen,

-and J. J. Macquignaz, all came to premature ends. Bennen was killed in

-an historic accident on the Haut de Cry, and Macquignaz disappeared

-on Mont Blanc. In 1879, two independent parties on the same day made

-the first ascent of the great northern ridge of the Matterhorn known

-as the Zmutt arête. Mummery and Penhall were the amateurs responsible

-for these two independent assaults. “The memory,” writes Mummery, “of

-two rollicking parties, comprised of seven men, who on one day in 1879

-were climbing on the west face of the Matterhorn passes with ghost-like

-admonition before my mind, and bids me remember that, of these seven,

-Mr. Penhall was killed on the Wetterhorn, Ferdinand Imseng on the

-Macugnaga side of Monte Rosa, and Johan Petrus on the Frersnay Mont

-Blanc.” Of the remaining four, Mummery disappeared in the Himalayas in

-1895, Louis Zurbrucken was killed, Alexander Burgener perished in an

-avalanche near the Bergli hut in 1911. Mr. Baumann and Emil Rey, who

-with Petrus followed in Mummery’s footsteps three days later, both came

-to untimely ends: Baumann disappeared in South Africa, and Emil Rey was

-killed on the Dent de Géant. The sole survivor of these two parties is

-the well-known Augustin Gentinetta, one of the ablest of the Zermat

-guides. Burgener and Gentinetta guided Mummery on the above-mentioned

-climb, while Penhall was accompanied by Louis Zurbrucken. In recent

-times, three great mountaineers who climbed this ridge together died

-violent deaths within the year. The superstitious should leave the

-Zmutt arête alone.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER IX

-

-MODERN MOUNTAINEERING

-

-

-Alpine History is not easy to divide into arbitrary periods; and yet

-the conquest of the Matterhorn does in a certain sense define a period.

-It closes what has been called “the golden age of mountaineering.”

-Only a few great peaks still remained unconquered. In this chapter we

-shall try to sketch some of the tendencies which differentiate modern

-mountaineering from mountaineering in the so-called “golden age.”

-

-The most radical change has been the growth of guideless climbing,

-which was, of course, to be expected as men grew familiar with the

-infinite variety of conditions that are the essence of mountaineering.

-In a previous chapter we have discussed the main differences between

-guided and guideless climbing. It does not follow that a man of

-considerable mountaineering experience, who habitually climbs with

-guides need entirely relinquish the control of the expedition. Such a

-man--there are not many--may, indeed, take a guide as a reserve of

-strength, or as a weight carrier. He may enjoy training up a young and

-inexperienced guide, who has a native talent for rock and ice, while

-lacking experience and mountain craft. One occasionally finds a guide

-who is a first-class cragsman, but whose general knowledge of mountain

-strategy is inferior to that of a great amateur. In such a combination,

-the latter will be the real general of the expedition, even if the

-guide habitually leads on difficult rock and does the step-cutting.

-On the other hand a member of a guideless party may be as dependent

-on the rest of the party as another man on his guides. Moreover,

-tracks, climbers, guides and modern maps render the mental work of the

-leader, whether amateur or professional, much less arduous than in more

-primitive days.

-

-But when we have made all possible allowance for the above

-considerations, there still remains a real and radical distinction

-between those who rely on their own efforts and those who follow a

-guide. The man who leads even on one easy expedition obtains a greater

-insight into the secrets of his craft than many a guided climber with a

-long list of first-class expeditions.

-

-One of the earliest of the great guideless climbs was the ascent of

-Mont Blanc by E. S. Kennedy, Charles Hudson (afterwards killed on the

-first ascent of the Matterhorn), Grenville and Christopher Smyth, E.

-J. Stevenson and Charles Ainslie. Their climb was made in 1855, and

-was the first complete ascent of Mont Blanc from St. Gervais, though

-the route was not new except in combination, as every portion of it

-had been previously done on different occasions. One of the first

-systematic guideless climbers to attract attention was the Rev. A. G.

-Girdlestone, whose book, _The High Alps without Guides_, appeared in

-1870. This book was the subject of a discussion at a meeting of the

-Alpine Club. Mr. Grove, a well-known mountaineer, read a paper on the

-comparative skill of travellers and guides, and used Girdlestone’s book

-as a text. Mr. Grove said: “The net result of mountaineering without

-guides appears to be this, that, in twenty-one expeditions selected

-out of seventy for the purposes of description, the traveller failed

-absolutely four times; was in great danger three times; was aided in

-finding the way back by the tracks of other men’s guides four times;

-succeeded absolutely without aid of any kind ten times on expeditions,

-four of which were very easy, three of moderate difficulty, and one

-very difficult.” The “very difficult” expedition is the Wetterhorn,

-which is nowadays considered a very modest achievement.

-

-Mr. Girdlestone was a pioneer, with the limitations of a pioneer.

-His achievements judged by modern standards are modest enough, but

-he was the first to insist that mountaineering without guides is an

-art, and that mountaineering with guides is often only another form of

-conducted travel. The discussion that followed, as might be expected,

-at that time was not favourable either to Girdlestone or to guideless

-climbing. Probably each succeeding year will see his contribution to

-modern mountaineering more properly appreciated. The “settled opinion

-of the Alpine Club” was declared without a single dissentient to be

-that “the neglect to take guides on difficult expeditions is totally

-unjustifiable.”

-

-But guideless climbing had come to stay. A year after this memorable

-meeting of the Alpine Club, two of its members carried out without

-guides some expeditions more severe than anything Girdlestone had

-attempted. In 1871 Mr. John Stogdon, a well-known Harrow master, and

-the Rev. Arthur Fairbanks ascended the Nesthorn and Aletschhorn, and in

-the following year climbed the Jungfrau and Aletschhorn unguided. No

-record of these expeditions found its way into print. In 1876, a party

-of amateurs, Messrs. Cust, Cawood, and Colgrove climbed the Matterhorn

-without guides. This expedition attracted great attention, and was

-severely commented on in the columns of the _Press_. Mr. Cust, in an

-eloquent paper read before the Alpine Club, went to the root of the

-whole matter when he remarked: “Cricket is a sport which is admitted by

-all to need acquired skill. A man can buy his mountaineering as he can

-buy his yachting. None the less, there are yachtsmen and yachtsmen.”

-

-Systematic climbing on a modern scale without guides was perhaps first

-practised by Purtscheller and Zsigmondys in 1880. Among our own people,

-it found brilliant exponents in Morse, Mummery, Wicks, and Wilson some

-twenty years ago; and it has since been adopted by many of our own

-leading mountaineers. Abroad, guideless climbing finds more adherents

-than with us. Naturally enough, the man who lives near the mountains

-will find it easier to make up a guideless party among his friends;

-and, if he is in the habit of spending all his holidays and most of his

-week-ends among the mountains that can be reached in a few hours from

-his home, he will soon acquire the necessary skill to dispense with

-guides.

-

-So much for guideless climbing. Let us now consider some of the other

-important developments in the practice of mountaineering. In the Alps

-the tendency has been towards specialisation. Before 1865 the ambitious

-mountaineer had scores of unconquered peaks to attack. After the defeat

-of the Matterhorn, the number of the unclimbed greater mountains

-gradually thinned out. The Meije, which fell in 1877, was one of the

-last great Alpine peaks to remain unclimbed. With the development

-of rock-climbing, even the last and apparently most hopelessly

-inaccessible rock pinnacles of the Dolomites and Chamounix were

-defeated. There is no rock-climbing as understood in Wales or Lakeland

-or Skye on giants of the Oberland or Valais, such as the Schreckhorn

-or Matterhorn. These tax the leader’s power of choosing a route, his

-endurance and his knowledge of snow and ice, and weather; but their

-demands on the pure cragsman are less. The difficulty of a big mountain

-often depends very much on its condition and length. Up to 1865 hardly

-any expeditions had been carried through--with a few exceptions,

-such as the Brenva route up Mont Blanc--that a modern expert would

-consider exceptionally severe. Modern rock-climbing begins in the late

-’seventies. The expeditions in the Dolomites by men like Zsigmondy,

-Schmitt, and Winkler, among foreign mountaineers, belong to much the

-same period as Burgener and Mummery classic climbs in the Chamounix

-district.

-

-Mummery is, perhaps, best known in connection with the first ascent

-of the Grepon by the sensational “Mummery crack,” when his leader was

-the famous Alexander Burgener aided by a young cragsman, B. Venetz.

-Venetz, as a matter of fact, led up the “Mummery” crack. Mummery’s

-vigorous book, which has become a classic, contains accounts of many

-new expeditions, such as the Grepon, the Requin, the Matterhorn

-by the Zmutt arête, and the Caucasian giant Dych Tau, to name the

-more important. His book, _My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus_, is

-thoroughly typical of the modern view of mountaineering. It contains

-some doctrines that are still considered heretical, such as the safety

-of a party of two on a snow-covered glacier, and many doctrines that

-are now accepted, such as the justification of guideless climbing and

-of difficult variation routes. Shortly after the book appeared, Mummery

-was killed on Nanga Parbat, as was Emil Zsigmondy on the Meije soon

-after the issue of his book on the dangers of the Alps.

-

-But even Dolomites and Chamounix aiguilles are not inexhaustible, and

-the number of unconquered summits gradually diminished. The rapid

-opening up of the Alps has naturally turned the attention of men with

-the exploring instinct and ample means to the exploration of the great

-mountain ranges beyond Europe. This does not fall within the scope of

-the present volume, and we need only remark in passing that British

-climbers have played an important part in the campaigns against the

-fortresses of the Himalaya, Caucasus, Andes, and Rockies.

-

-Meanwhile the ambitious mountaineer was forced to look for new routes

-on old peaks. Now, a man in search of the easiest way up a difficult

-peak could usually discover a route which was climbable without severe

-technical difficulty. On a big mountain, it is often possible to evade

-any small and very difficult section. But most mountains, even our

-British hills, have at least one route which borders on the impossible,

-and a diligent search will soon reveal it. Consider the two extremes of

-rock-climbing. Let us take the Matterhorn as a good example of a big

-mountain which consists almost entirely of rock. It is impossible to

-find a route up the Matterhorn which one could climb with one’s hands

-in one’s pockets, but the ordinary Swiss route is an easy scramble as

-far as the shoulder, and, with the fixed ropes, a straightforward climb

-thence to the top. Its Furggen Ridge has been once climbed under fair

-conditions and then only with a partial deviation. It is extremely

-severe and dangerous. The task of the mountaineers who first assailed

-the Matterhorn was to pick out the easiest line of approach. The Zmutt,

-and in a greater degree the Furggen routes, were obviously ruled out of

-consideration. The Italian route was tried many times without success

-before the Swiss route was discovered. Of course, the Matterhorn, like

-all big mountains, varies in difficulty from day to day. It is a very

-long climb; and, if the conditions are unfavourable, it may prove a

-very difficult and a very dangerous peak.

-

-Turning to the nursery of Welsh climbers, Lliwedd can be climbed on a

-mule, and Lliwedd can also be climbed by about thirty or more distinct

-routes up its southern rock face. If a man begins to look for new

-routes up a wall of a cliff a thousand feet in height and a mile or

-so in breath, he will sooner or later reach the line which divided

-reasonable from unreasonable risk. Modern pioneer work in the Alps is

-nearer the old ideal. It is not simply the search for the hardest of

-all climbable routes up a given rock face. In England, the danger of

-a rock fall is practically absent, and a rock face is not considered

-climbed out as long as one can work up from base to summit by a

-series of ledges not touched on a previous climb. Two such routes will

-sometimes be separated by a few feet. In the Alps, the pioneer is

-compelled by objective difficulties to look for distinct ridges and

-faces unswept by stones and avalanches. There is a natural challenge in

-the sweep of a great ridge falling through some thousand unconquered

-feet to the pastures below. There is only an artificial challenge in a

-“new” route some thousand feet in height separated only by a few yards

-of cliff from an “old” route. We do not wish to depreciate British

-climbing, which has its own fascination and its own value; but, if it

-calls for greater cragsmanship, it demands infinitely less mountain

-craft than the conquest of a difficult Alpine route.

-

-And what is true of British rock-climbing is even more true of Tirol.

-Ranges, such as the Kaisergebirge, have been explored with the same

-thoroughness that has characterised British rock-climbing. Almost

-every conceivable variation of the “just possible” has been explored.

-Unfortunately, the death-roll in these districts is painfully high, as

-the keenness of the young Austrian and Bavarian has not infrequently

-exceeded their experience and powers.

-

-Abroad, mountaineering has developed very rapidly since the ’sixties.

-We have seen that English climbers, first in the field, secured a large

-share of unconquered peaks; but once continental climbers had taken up

-the new sport, our earlier start was seriously challenged. The Swiss,

-Austrian, and German have one great advantage. They are much nearer

-the Alps; and mountaineering in these countries is, as a result, a

-thoroughly democratic sport. The foreign Alpine Clubs number thousands

-of members. The German-Austrian Alpine Club has alone nearly ninety

-thousand members. There is no qualification, social or mountaineering.

-These great national clubs have a small subscription; and with the

-large funds at their disposal they are able to build club-huts in

-the mountains, and excellent meeting places in the great towns,

-where members can find an Alpine library, maps, and other sources of

-information. They secure many useful concessions, such as reduced fares

-for their members on Alpine railways. Mountaineering naturally becomes

-a democratic sport in mountainous countries, because the mountains are

-accessible. The very fact that a return ticket to the Alps is a serious

-item must prevent Alpine climbing from becoming the sport of more

-than a few of our countrymen. At the same time, we have an excellent

-native playground in Wales and Cumberland, which has made it possible

-for young men to learn the craft before they could afford a regular

-climbing holiday in the Alps. Beside the great national clubs of the

-Continent, there are a number of vigorous university clubs scattered

-through these countries. Of these, the Akademischer Alpine clubs at

-Zürich and Munich are, perhaps, the most famous. These clubs consist of

-young men reading at the Polytechnic or University. They have as high a

-mountaineering qualification as any existing Alpine clubs. They attach

-importance to the capacity to lead a guideless party rather than to

-the bare fact that a man has climbed so many peaks. Each candidate is

-taken on a series of climbs by members of the club, who report to the

-committee on his general knowledge of snow and rock conditions, and his

-fitness, whether in respect of courage or endurance for arduous work.

-

-It is young men of this stamp that play such a great part in raising

-the standard of continental mountaineering. Their cragsmanship often

-verges on the impossible. A book published in Munich, entitled _Empor_,

-affords stimulating reading. This book was produced in honour and

-in memory of Georg Winkler by some of his friends. Winkler was a

-young Munich climber who carried through some of the most daring

-rock climbs ever recorded. _Empor_ contains his diary, and several

-articles contributed by various members of one of the most remarkable

-climbing groups in Alpine history. Winkler’s amazing performances

-give to the book a note which is lacking in most Alpine literature.

-Winkler was born in 1869. As a boy of eighteen he made, quite alone,

-the first ascent of the Winklerturm, one of the most sensational--both

-in appearance and reality--of all Dolomite pinnacles. On the 14th of

-August 1888 he traversed alone the Zinal Rothhorn, and on the 18th

-he lost his life in a solitary attempt on the great Zinal face of

-the Weisshorn. No definite traces of him have ever been found. His

-brother, born in the year of his death, has also carried through some

-sensational solitary climbs.

-

-We may, perhaps, be excused a certain satisfaction in the thought that

-the British crags can occasionally produce climbers whose achievements

-are quite as sensational as those of the Winklers. Without native

-mountains, we could not hope to produce cragsmen equal to those of

-Tirol and the Alps. One must begin young. It is, as a rule, only a

-comparatively small minority that can afford a regular summer holiday

-in the Alps; but Scawfell and Lliwedd are accessible enough, and the

-comparatively high standard of the British rock-climber owes more to

-British than to Alpine mountains. It was only in the last two decades

-that the possibilities of these crags were systematically worked

-out, though isolated climbs have been recorded for many years. The

-patient and often brilliant explorations of a group of distinguished

-mountaineers have helped to popularise a fine field for native talent,

-and an arena for those who cannot afford a regular Alpine campaign.

-Guides are unknown in Great Britain, and the man who learns to climb

-there is often more independent and more self-reliant than the

-mountaineer who is piloted about by guides. There is, of course, much

-that can be learned only in the Alps. The home climber can learn to use

-an axe in the wintry gullies round Scawfell. He learns something of

-snow; but both snow and ice can only be properly studied in the regions

-of perpetual snow. The home-trained cragsman, as a rule, learns to

-lead up rocks far more difficult than anything met with on the average

-Swiss peaks, but the wider lessons of route-finding over a long and

-complicated expedition are naturally not acquired on a face of cliff

-a thousand feet in height. Nor, for that matter, is the art of rapid

-descent over easy rocks; for the British climber usually ascends by

-rocks, and runs home over grass and scree. None the less, these cliffs

-have produced some wonderfully fine mountaineers. We have our Winklers,

-and we have also young rock-climbers who confine their energies to the

-permissible limit of the justifiable climbing and who, within those

-limits, carry their craft to its most refined possibilities. Hugh Pope,

-one of the most brilliant of the younger school of rock-climbers,

-learned his craft on the British hills, and showed in his first Alpine

-season the value of that training. To the great loss of British

-mountaineering he was killed in 1912 on the Pic du Midi d’Ossau.

-

-Another comparatively recent development is the growth of winter

-mountaineering. The first winter expedition of any importance after

-the beginnings of serious mountaineering was Mr. T. S. Kennedy’s

-attempt on the Matterhorn in 1863. He conceived the curious idea that

-the Matterhorn might prove easier in winter than in summer. Here, he

-was very much mistaken. He was attacked by a storm, and retreated

-after reaching a point where the real climb begins. It was a plucky

-expedition. But the real pioneer of winter mountaineering was W. A.

-Moore. In 1866, with Mr. Horace Walker, Melchior Anderegg, Christian

-Almer, and “Peterli” Bohren, he left Grindelwald at midnight; they

-crossed the Finsteraarjoch, and returned within the twenty-four hours

-to Grindelwald over the Strahlegg. Even in summer this would prove a

-strenuous day. In winter, it is almost incredible that this double

-traverse should have been carried through without sleeping out.

-

-Most of the great peaks have now been ascended in winter; and amongst

-others Mr. Coolidge must be mentioned as a prominent pioneer. His

-ascents of the Jungfrau, Wetterhorn, and Schreckhorn--the first in

-winter--with Christian Almer, did much to set the fashion. Mrs. Le

-Blond, the famous lady climber, has an even longer list of winter first

-ascents to her credit. But the real revolution in winter mountaineering

-has been caused by the introduction of ski-ing. In winter, the main

-difficulty is getting to the high mountain huts. Above the huts,

-the temperature is often mild and equable for weeks together. A low

-temperature on the ground co-exists with a high temperature in the air.

-Rock-ridges facing south or south-west are often denuded of snow, and

-as easy to climb as in summer. Signor Sella also made some brilliant

-winter ascents, such as the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa.

-

-The real obstacle to winter mountaineering is the appalling weariness

-of wading up to the club-huts on foot. The snow in the sheltered lower

-valleys is often deep and powdery; and the climber on foot will have

-to force his way through pine forests where the snow lies in great

-drifts between the trees, and over moraines where treacherous drifts

-conceal pitfalls between the loose stones. All this is changed by the

-introduction of ski. The ski distributes the weight of the climber

-over a long, even surface; and in the softest snow he will not sink in

-more than a few inches. Better still, they revolutionise the descent,

-converting a weary plug through snow-drifts into a succession of swift

-and glorious runs. The ski-runner takes his ski to the foot of the

-last rock ridges, and then proceeds on foot, rejoining his ski, and

-covering on the descent five thousand feet in far less time than the

-foot-climber would take over five hundred. Skis, as everybody knows,

-were invented as a means of crossing snowy country inaccessible on

-foot. They are sometimes alluded to as snowshoes, but differ radically

-from snowshoes in one important respect. Both ski and the Canadian

-snowshoe distribute their wearer’s weight, and enable him to cross

-drifts where he would sink in hopelessly if he were on foot, but there

-the resemblance ends. For, whereas snowshoes cannot slide on snow, and

-whereas a man on snowshoes cannot descend a hill as fast as a man on

-foot could run down hill, skis glide rapidly and easily on snow, and

-a ski-runner can descend at a rate which may be anything up to sixty

-miles an hour.

-

-Ski-ing is of Scandinavian origin, and the greatest exponents of the

-art are the Norwegians. Norwegians have used ski from time immemorial

-in certain districts, such as Telemarken, as a means of communication

-between snow-bound villages. It should, perhaps, be added that

-ski-jumping does not consist, as some people imagine, in casual leaps

-across chasms or over intervening hillocks. The ski-runner does not

-glide along the level at the speed of an express train, lightly

-skimming any obstacles in his path. On the level, the best performer

-does not go more than six or seven miles an hour, and the great jumps

-one hears of are made downhill. The ski-runner swoops down on to a

-specially prepared platform, leaps into the air, and alights on a very

-steep slope below. The longest jump on record is some hundred and fifty

-feet, measured from the edge of the take-off to the alighting point.

-In this case, the ski-runner must have fallen through nearly seventy

-vertical feet.

-

-To the mountaineer, the real appeal of ski-ing is due to the fact

-that it halves the labour of his ascent to the upper snowfields, and

-converts a tedious descent into a succession of swift and fascinating

-runs. The ski-runner climbs on ski to the foot of the final rock and

-ice ridges, and then finishes the climb in the ordinary way. After

-rejoining his ski, his work is over, and his reward is all before

-him. If he were on foot, he would have to wade laboriously down to

-the valley. On ski, he can swoop down with ten times the speed, and a

-thousand times the enjoyment.

-

-Ski were introduced into Central Europe in the early ’nineties. Dr.

-Paulcke’s classic traverse of the Oberland in 1895, which included the

-ascent of the Jungfrau, proved to mountaineers the possibilities of

-the new craft. Abroad, the lesson was soon learned. To-day, there are

-hundreds of ski-runners who make a regular practice of mountaineering

-in winter. The Alps have taken out a new lease of life. In summer, the

-huts are crowded, the fashionable peaks are festooned with parties

-of incompetent novices who are dragged and pushed upwards by their

-guides, but in winter the true mountain lover has the upper world to

-himself. The mere summit hunter naturally chooses the line of least

-resistance, and accumulates his list of first class expeditions in

-the summer months, when such a programme is easiest to compile. The

-winter mountaineer must be more or less independent of the professional

-element, for, though he will probably employ a guide to find the way

-and to act as a reserve of strength, he himself must at least be able

-to ski steadily, and at a fair speed.

-

-Moreover, mountain craft as the winter mountaineer understands the

-term is a more subtle and more embracing science as far, at least, as

-snow conditions are concerned. It begins at the hôtel door. In summer,

-there is a mule path leading to the glacier line, a mule path which a

-man can climb with his mind asleep. But in winter the snow with its

-manifold problems sweeps down to the village. A man has been killed

-by an avalanche within a few yards of a great hôtel. From the moment

-a man buckles on his ski, he must exercise his knowledge of snow

-conditions. There are no paths save a few woodcutter’s tracks. From

-the valley upwards, he must learn to pick a good line, and to avoid

-the innocent-looking slopes that may at any moment resolve themselves

-into an irresistible avalanche. Many a man is piloted up a succession

-of great peaks without acquiring anything like the same intimate

-knowledge of snow that is possessed even by a ski-runner who has never

-crossed the summer snow-line. Even the humblest ski-runner must learn

-to diagnose the snow. He may follow his leader unthinkingly on the

-ascent; but once he starts down he must judge for himself. If he makes

-a mistake, he will be thrown violently on to his face when the snow

-suddenly sticks, and on to his back when it quickens. Even the most

-unobservant man will learn something of the effects of sun and wind

-on his running surface when the result of a faulty deduction may mean

-violent contact with Mother Earth.

-

-Those who worship the Alps in their loveliest and loneliest moods,

-those who dislike the weary anti-climax of the descent through burning

-snowfields, and down dusty mule paths, will climb in the winter months,

-when to the joy of renewing old memories of the mountains in an

-unspoiled setting is added the rapture of the finest motion known to

-man.

-

-In England mountaineering on ski has yet to find many adherents. We

-have little opportunity for learning to ski in these isles, and the

-ten thousand Englishmen that visit the Alps in winter prefer to ski

-on the lower hills. For every Englishman with a respectable list of

-glacier tours on ski to his credit, there are at least a hundred

-continental runners with a record many times more brilliant. The

-Alpine Ski Club, now in its sixth year, has done much to encourage

-this “new mountaineering,” and its journal contains a record of the

-finest expeditions by English and continental runners. But even in

-the pages of the Alpine Ski Club Annual, the proportion of foreign

-articles describing really fine tours is depressingly large. Of course,

-the continental runner lives nearer the Alps. So did the continental

-mountaineer of the early ’sixties; but that did not prevent us taking

-our fair share of virgin peaks.

-

-The few Englishmen who are making a more or less regular habit of

-serious mountaineering on ski are not among the veterans of summer

-mountaineering, and the leaders of summer mountaineering have not yet

-learned to ski. Abroad, the leaders of summer mountaineering have

-welcomed ski-ing as a key to their mountains in winter; but the many

-leaders of English mountaineering still argue that skis should not be

-used in the High Alps, on the ground that they afford facility for

-venturing on slopes and into places where the risk of avalanches is

-extreme. On the Continent thousands of runners demonstrate in the most

-effective manner that mountaineering on ski has come to stay. It is

-consoling to reflect that English ski-runners are prepared to work

-out the peculiar problems of their craft with or without the help of

-summer mountaineers. Of course, both ski-ing and summer mountaineering

-would be strengthened by an alliance, and ski-runners can best learn

-the rules of the glacier world in winter from those mountaineers who

-combine a knowledge of the summer Alps with some experience of winter

-conditions and a mastery of ski-ing. For the moment, such teachers must

-be looked for in the ranks of continental mountaineers.

-

-

-

-

-CHAPTER X

-

-THE ALPS IN LITERATURE

-

-

-The last chapter has brought the story of mountaineering up to

-modern times, but, before we close, there is another side of Alpine

-exploration on which we must touch. For Alpine exploration means

-something more than the discovery of new passes and the conquest of

-virgin peaks. That is the physical aspect of the sport, perhaps the

-side which the average climber best understands. But Alpine exploration

-is mental as well as physical, and concerns itself with the adventures

-of the mind in touch with the mountains as well as with the adventures

-of the body in contact with an unclimbed cliff. The story of the

-gradual discovery of high places as sources of inspiration has its

-place in the history of Alpine exploration, as well as the record of

-variation routes too often expressed in language of unvarying monotony.

-

-The present writer once undertook to compile an anthology whose

-scope was defined by the title--_The Englishman in the Alps_. The

-limitations imposed by the series of which this anthology formed a

-part prevented him from including the Alpine literature of foreign

-authors, a fact which tended to obscure the real development of the

-Alpine literature. In the introduction he expressed the orthodox views

-which all good mountaineers accept without demur, explaining that

-mountaineers were the first to write fitly of the mountains, that

-English mountaineers had a peculiar talent in this direction, and that

-all the best mountain literature was written in the last half of the

-nineteenth century. These pious conclusions were shattered by some very

-radical criticism which appeared in leading articles of _The Times_

-and _The Field_. The former paper, in the course of some criticisms

-of Mr. Spender’s Alpine Anthology, remarked: “In the matter of prose,

-on the other hand, he has a striking predilection for the modern

-‘Alpine books’ of commerce, though hardly a book among them except

-Whymper’s _Scrambles in the Alps_ has any real literary vitality, or

-any interest apart from the story of adventure which it tells. Mummery,

-perhaps, has individuality enough to be made welcome in any gallery,

-and, of course, one is glad to meet Leslie Stephen. But what is C. E.

-Mathews doing there? Or Norman Neruda? Or Mr. Frederic Harrison? In

-an anthology which professed to be nothing more than a collection of

-stories of adventure, accidents, and narrow escapes, they would have

-their place along with Owen Glynne Jones, and Mr. Douglas Freshfield,

-and innumerable contributors to _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_ and _The

-Alpine Journal_.”

-

-We rubbed our eyes when we read these heterodox sentiments in such

-a quarter. Mr. Mathews was, perhaps, an Alpine historian rather

-than a writer of descriptive prose, and he does not lend himself to

-the elegant extract, though he is the author of some very quotable

-Alpine sketches. To Mr. Freshfield we owe, amongst other good things,

-one short passage as dramatic as anything in Alpine literature, the

-passage in which he describes the discovery of Donkin’s last bivouac on

-Koshtantau. _The Field_ was even more emphatic:

-

-    “What is not true is that the pioneer sportsmen who founded the

-    Alpine Club had exceptional insight into the moods of the snow.

-    One or two of them, no doubt, struck out a little literature as

-    the result of the impact of novel experiences upon naïve minds....

-    On the whole, in spite of their defects, their machine-made

-    perorations and their ponderous jests, they brought an acceptable

-    addition to the existing stock of the literature of adventure....

-    But they had their limitations, and these were rather narrow. They

-    dealt almost exclusively with the externals of mountaineering

-    experience; and when they ventured further their writing was

-    apt to be of the quality of fustian. Their spiritual adventures

-    among the mountains were apt to be melodramatic or insignificant.

-    Perhaps their Anglo-Saxon reticence prevented themselves from

-    ‘letting themselves go.’... At all events there does remain this

-    notable distinction--that, while the most eloquent writings of

-    the most eloquent Alpine Club-man are as a rule deliberately

-    and ostentatiously objective, the subjective literature of

-    mountains--the literature in which we see the writer yielding to

-    the influence of scenery, instead of lecturing about its beauties,

-    existed long before that famous dinner party at the house of

-    William Mathews, senior, at which the Alpine Club was founded.

-    England, as we have said, contributed practically nothing to that

-    literature.”

-

-We have quoted this passage at some length because it expresses a novel

-attitude in direct contradiction to the accepted views sanctified by

-tradition. We do not entirely endorse it. The article contains proof

-that its writer has an intimate knowledge of early Alpine literature,

-but one is tempted to fancy that his research did not survive the

-heavy period of the ’eighties, and that he is unacquainted with those

-modern writers whose work is distinctly subjective. None the less, his

-contention suggests an interesting line of study; and in this chapter

-we shall try briefly to sketch the main tendencies, though we cannot

-review in detail the whole history, of Alpine literature, a subject

-which requires a book in itself.

-

-The mediæval attitude towards mountains has already been discussed,

-and though we ventured to protest that love of the mountains was not

-quite so uncommon as is usually supposed, it must be freely admitted

-that the literature of the Middle Ages is comparatively barren in

-appreciation of mountain scenery. There were Protestants before Luther,

-and there were men such as Gesner and Petrarch before Rousseau; but the

-Middle Ages can scarcely rob Rousseau of the credit for transforming

-mountain worship from the cult of a minority into a comparatively

-fashionable creed. Rousseau’s own feeling for the mountains was none

-the less genuine because it was sometimes coloured by the desire to

-make the mountains echo his own philosophy of life. Rousseau, in this

-respect, set a fashion which his disciples were not slow to follow.

-The mountains as the home of the rugged Switzer could be made to

-preach edifying lay sermons on the value of liberty. Such sentiments

-were in tune with the spirit of revolt that culminated in the French

-Revolution. A certain Haller had sounded this note long before Rousseau

-began to write, in a poem on the Alps which, appearing in 1728,

-enjoyed considerable popularity. The author is not without a genuine

-appreciation for Alpine scenery, but he is far more occupied with his

-moral, the contrast between the unsophisticated life of the mountain

-peasant and the hyper-civilisation of the town. Throughout the writings

-of this school which Haller anticipated and Rousseau founded, we can

-trace an obvious connection between a love for the untutored freedom of

-the mountains and a hatred of existing social conditions.

-

-It is, therefore, not surprising to find that this new school of

-mountain worship involved certain views which found most complete

-expression in the French Revolution. “Man is born free, but is

-everywhere in chains.” This, the famous opening to _The Social

-Contract_, might have heralded with equal fitness any mountain passage

-in the works of Rousseau or his disciples. Perhaps these two sentiments

-are nowhere fused with such completeness as in the life of Ramond de

-Carbonnière, the great Pyrenean climber. We have not mentioned him

-before as he took no part in purely Alpine explorations. But as a

-mountaineer he ranks with De Saussure and Paccard. His ascent of Mont

-Perdu, after many attempts, in 1802, was one of the most remarkable

-climbing exploits of the age. He invented a new kind of crampon. He

-rejoiced in fatigue, cold, and the thousand trials that confronted

-the mountaineer in the days before club-huts. His own personality

-was singularly arresting; and the reader should consult _The Early

-Mountaineers_ for a more complete sketch of the man than we have space

-to attempt. Ramond had every instinct of the modern mountaineer. He

-delighted in hardship. He could appreciate the grandeur of a mountain

-storm while sitting on an exposed ledge. He lingers with a delight that

-recalls Gesner on the joy of simple fare and rough quarters. He is the

-boon companion of hunters and smugglers; and through all his mountain

-journeys his mind is alert in reacting to chance impressions.

-

-But his narrative is remarkable for something else besides love for

-the mountains. It is full of those sentiments which came to a head in

-the French Revolution. Mountain description and fierce denunciations

-of tyranny are mingled in the oddest fashion. It is not surprising

-that Ramond, who finds room in a book devoted to mountaineering for a

-prophecy of the Revolution, should have played an active part in the

-Revolution when it came. Ramond entered the Revolutionary Parliament

-as a moderate reformer, and when the leaders of the Revolution had no

-further use for moderate reformers he found himself in the gaol at

-Tarbres. Here he was fortunately forgotten, and survived to become

-Maître des Requêtes under Louis XVIII. Ramond is, perhaps, the most

-striking example of the mountaineer whose love for mountains was only

-equalled by his passion for freedom. In some ways, he is worthier of

-our admiration than Rousseau, for he not only admired mountains, he

-climbed them. He not only praised the simple life of hardship, he

-endured it.

-

-Turning to English literature, we find much the same processes at work.

-The two great poets whose revolt against existing society was most

-marked yielded the Alps a generous measure of praise. It is interesting

-to compare the mountain songs of Byron and Shelley. Byron’s verse is

-often marred by his obvious sense of the theatre. His misanthropy had,

-no doubt, its genuine as well as its purely theatrical element, but it

-becomes tiresome as the _motif_ of the mountain message. No doubt he

-was sincere when he wrote--

-

-    “I live not in myself, but I become

-     Portion of that around me, and to me

-     High mountains are a feeling, but the sum

-     Of human cities torture.”

-

-But as a matter of actual practice no man lived more in himself, and

-instead of becoming a portion of his surroundings, too often he makes

-his surroundings take colouring from his mood. His mountains sometimes

-seem to have degenerated into an echo of Byron. They are too anxious

-to advertise the whole gospel of misanthropy. The avalanche roars a

-little too lustily. The Alpine glow is laid on with a heavy brush,

-and his mountains cannot wholly escape the suspicion of bluster that

-tends to degenerate into bombast. This is undeniable, yet Byron at his

-best is difficult to approach. Freed from his affectations, his verse

-often rises to the highest levels of simple, unaffected eloquence.

-There are lines in _The Prisoner of Chillon_ with an authentic appeal

-to the mountain lover. The prisoner has been freed from the chain that

-has bound him for years to a pillar, and he is graciously allowed the

-freedom of his dungeon--a concession that may not have appeared unduly

-liberal to his gaolers, but which at least enabled the prisoner to

-reach a window looking out on to the hills--

-

-    “I made a footing in the wall,

-     It was not therefrom to escape.

-     But I was curious to ascend

-     To my barr’d windows, and to bend

-     Once more upon the mountain high

-     The quiet of a loving eye.

-

-     I saw them and they were the same

-     They were not changed like me in frame;

-     I saw their thousand years of snow

-     On high--their wide long lake below.

-     And the blue Rhone in fullest flow; ...

-     I saw the white walled distant town;

-     And whiter sails go skimming down;

-     And then there was a little isle

-       Which in my very face did smile,

-           The only one in view.”

-

-As the train swings round the elbow above the lake, the mountaineer

-released from the chain of city life can echo this wish to bend the

-quiet of a loving eye on unchanging mountains.

-

-Coleridge has some good lines on Mont Blanc, but one feels that they

-would have applied equally well to any other mountain. Their sincerity

-is somewhat discounted by the fact that Coleridge manufactured an

-enthusiasm for Mont Blanc at a distance from which it is invisible.

-

-With Shelley, we move in a different atmosphere. Like Byron, he

-rebelled against society, and some comfortable admirers of the poetry

-which time has made respectable are apt to ignore those poems which,

-for passionate protest against social conditions, remained unique

-till William Morris transformed Socialism into song. Shelley was more

-sincere in his revolt than Byron. He did not always keep an eye on

-the gallery while declaiming his rebellion, and his mountains have no

-politics; they sing their own spontaneous melodies. Shelley combined

-the mystic’s vision with the accuracy of a trained observer. His

-descriptions of an Alpine dawn, or a storm among the mountains, might

-have been written by a man who had studied these phenomena with a

-note-book in his hand. Nobody has ever observed with such sympathy “the

-dim enchanted shapes of wandering mist,” or brought more beauty to

-their praise. Shelley’s cloud poems have the same fugitive magic that

-haunts the fickle countries of the sky when June is stirring in those

-windy hills where--

-

-        “Dense fleecy clouds

-    Are wandering in thick flocks among the mountains

-    Shepherded by the slow unwilling wind.”

-

-Shelley did not start with the poem, but with the mountain. His

-mountains are something more than a convenient instrument for the

-manufacture of rhyme. He did not write a poem about mountains as a

-pleasant variation on more conventional themes. With Shelley, you know

-that poetry was the handmaid of the hills, the one medium in which

-he could fitly express his own passionate worship of every accent

-in the mountain melody. And for these reasons Shelley seems to us a

-truer mountain poet than Byron, truer than Coleridge, truer even than

-Wordsworth, for Wordsworth, though some of his Alpine poetry is very

-good indeed, seems more at home in the Cumberland fells, whose quiet

-music no other poet has ever rendered so surely.

-

-The early literature of the mountains has an atmosphere which has

-largely disappeared in modern Alpine writing. For, to the pioneers of

-Alpine travel, a mountain was not primarily a thing to climb. Even

-men like Bourrit and Ramond de Carbonnière, genuine mountaineers in

-every sense of the term, regarded the great heights as something more

-than fields for exploration, as the shrines of an unseen power that

-compelled spontaneous worship. These men saw a mountain, and not a

-problem in gymnastics. They wrote of mountains with a certain naïve

-eloquence, often highly coloured, sometimes a trifle bombastic.

-But, because the best of them had French blood in their veins, their

-outpourings were at least free from Saxon self-consciousness. They were

-not writing for an academic audience lenient to dullness, but convulsed

-with agonies of shame at any suspicion of fine writing. One shudders

-to think of Bourrit delivering his sonorous address on the guides of

-Chamounix as the high priests of humanity before the average audience

-that assembles to hear an Alpine paper. We have seen two old gentlemen

-incapacitated for the evening by a paper pitched on a far more subdued

-note. Yet, somehow, the older writings have the genuine ring. They

-have something lacking in the genial rhapsodies of their successors.

-“We can never over-estimate what we owe to the Alps”: thus opens a

-characteristic peroration to an Alpine book of the ’eighties. “We are

-indebted to them and all their charming associations for the greatest

-of all blessings, friendship and health. It has been conclusively

-proved that, of all sports, it is the one which can be protracted to

-the greatest age. It is in the mountains that our youth is renewed.

-Young, middle-aged, or old, we go out, too often jaded and worn in mind

-and body; and we return invigorated, renewed, restored, fitted for the

-fresh labours and duties of life. To know the great mountains wholly is

-impossible for any of us; but reverently to learn the lessons they can

-teach, and heartily to enjoy the happiness they can bring is possible

-to us all.”

-

-If a man who has climbed for thirty years cannot pump up something more

-lively as his final summary of Alpine joys, what reply can we make

-to Ruskin’s contention that “the real beauties of the Alps are to be

-seen and to be seen only where all may see it, the cripple, the child,

-and the man of grey hairs”? There are a few Alpine writers who have

-produced an apology worthy of the craft, and have shown that they had

-found above the snow-line an outlet for romance unknown to Ruskin’s

-cripple, and reserves of beauty which Ruskin himself had never drawn,

-and there are, on the other hand, quite enough to explain, if not

-to justify, the unlovely conception of Alpine climbers embodied in

-Ruskin’s amiable remarks: “The Alps themselves, which your own poets

-used to love so reverently, you look upon as soaped poles in a beer

-garden which you set yourselves to climb and slide down again with

-shrieks of delight. When you are past shrieking, having no articulate

-voice to say you are glad with, you rush home red with cutaneous

-eruptions of conceit, and voluble with convulsive hiccoughs of

-self-satisfaction.”

-

-With a few great exceptions, the literature of mountaineers is not

-as fine as the literature of mountain lovers. Let us see what the

-men who have not climbed have given to the praise of the snows. What

-mountaineer has written as Ruskin wrote? Certainly Ruskin at his best

-reaches heights which no mountaineer has ever scaled. When Ruskin read

-his Inaugural Address in the early ’fifties to an audience in the

-main composed of Cambridge undergraduates, he paused for a moment and

-glanced up at his audience. When he saw that the fleeting attention of

-the undergraduates had been arrested by this sudden pause, he declaimed

-a passage which he did not intend any of them to miss, a passage

-describing the Alps from the southern plains: “Out from between the

-cloudy pillars as they pass, emerge for ever the great battlements of

-the memorable and perpetual hills.”... When he paused again, after

-the sonorous fall of a majestic peroration, even the most prosaic of

-undergraduates joined in the turbulent applause.

-

-“Language which to a severe taste is perhaps a trifle too fine,” is

-Leslie Stephen’s characteristic comment. “It is not every one,” he

-adds, with trenchant common sense, “who can with impunity compare

-Alps to archangels.” Perhaps not, and let us therefore be thankful to

-the occasional writer, who, like Ruskin and Leslie Stephen himself

-at his best, is not shamed into dullness by the fear of soaring too

-high. But Ruskin was something more than a fine writer. No man, and

-no mountaineer, ever loved the Alps with a more absorbing passion;

-and, in the whole realm of Alpine literature, there is no passage more

-pregnant with the unreasoning love for the hills than that which opens:

-“For to myself mountains are the beginning and the end of all Alpine

-scenery,” and ends: “There is not a wave of the Seine but is associated

-in my mind with the first rise of the sandstones and forest pines of

-Fontainebleau; and with the hope of the Alps, as one leaves Paris with

-the horses’ heads to the south-west, the morning sun flashing on the

-bright waves at Charenton. If there be no hope or association of this

-kind, and if I cannot deceive myself into fancying that, perhaps at

-the next rise of the road, there may be seen the film of a blue hill

-in the gleam of sky at the horizon, the landscape, however beautiful,

-produces in me even a kind of sickness and pain; and the whole view

-from Richmond Hill or Windsor Terrace--nay, the gardens of Alcinous,

-with their perpetual summer--or of the Hesperides (if they were flat,

-and not close to Atlas), golden apples and all--I would give away in an

-instant, for one mossy granite stone a foot broad, and two leaves of

-lady-fern.”

-

-George Meredith was no mountaineer; but his mountain passages will not

-easily be beaten. His description of the Alps seen from the Adriatic

-contains, perhaps, the subtlest phrase in literature for the colouring

-of distant ranges: “Colour was steadfast on the massive front ranks; it

-wavered in its remoteness and was quick and dim _as though it fell on

-beating wings_.” And no climber has analysed the climber’s conflicting

-emotions with such sympathetic acuteness. “Would you know what it is to

-hope again, and have all your hopes at hand? Hang upon the crags at a

-gradient that makes your next step a debate between the thing you are

-and the thing you may become. There the merry little hopes grow for the

-climber like flowers and food, immediate, prompt to prove their uses,

-sufficient if just within grasp, as mortal hopes should be.”

-

-We have quoted Ruskin’s great tribute to the romance which still haunts

-the journey to the Alps even for those who are brought up on steam.

-Addington Symonds was no mountaineer; but he writes of this journey

-with an enthusiasm which rings truer than much in Alpine adventure:

-“Of all the joys in life, none is greater than the joy of arriving on

-the outskirts of Switzerland at the end of a long dusty day’s journey

-from Paris. The true epicure in refined pleasures will never travel

-to Basle by night. He courts the heat of the sun and the monotony

-of French plains--their sluggish streams, and never-ending poplar

-trees--for the sake of the evening coolness and the gradual approach to

-the great Alps, which await him at the close of the day. It is about

-Mulhausen that he begins to feel a change in the landscape. The fields

-broaden into rolling downs, watered by clear and running streams;

-the great Swiss thistle grows by riverside and cowshed; pines begin

-to tuft the slopes of gently rising hills; and now the sun has set,

-the stars come out, first Hesper, then the troop of lesser lights;

-and he feels--yes, indeed, there is now no mistake--the well-known,

-well-loved, magical fresh air, that never fails to blow from snowy

-mountains, and meadows watered by perennial streams. The last hour

-is one of exquisite enjoyment, and when he reaches Basle he scarcely

-sleeps all night for hearing the swift Rhine beneath the balconies,

-and knowing that the moon is shining on its waters, through the town,

-beneath the bridges, between pasture-lands and copses, up the still

-mountain-girdled valleys to the ice-caves where the water springs.

-There is nothing in all experience of travelling like this. We may

-greet the Mediterranean at Marseilles with enthusiasm; on entering

-Rome by the Porta del Popolo we may reflect with pride that we have

-reached the goal of our pilgrimage, and are at last among world-shaking

-memories. But neither Rome nor the Riviera wins our hearts like

-Switzerland. We do not lie awake in London thinking of them; we do

-not long so intensely, as the year comes round, to revisit them. Our

-affection is less a passion than that which we cherish for Switzerland.”

-

-Among modern writers there is Mr. Belloc, who stands self-confessed as

-a man who refuses to climb for fear of “slipping down.” Mr. Belloc has

-French blood in his veins, and he is not cursed with British reserve.

-In his memorable journey along the path to Rome, he had, perforce, to

-cross the Jura, and this is how he first saw the Alps--

-

-    “I saw, between the branches of the trees in front of me, a sight

-    in the sky that made me stop breathing, just as a great danger at

-    sea, or great surprise in love, or a great deliverance will make

-    a man stop breathing. I saw something I had known in the West as

-    a boy, something I had never seen so grandly discovered as was

-    this. In between the branches of the trees was a great promise of

-    unexpected lights beyond....

-

-    “Here were these magnificent creatures of God, I mean the Alps,

-    which now for the first time I saw from the height of the Jura;

-    and, because they were fifty or sixty miles away, and because they

-    were a mile or two high, they were become something different

-    from us others, and could strike one motionless with the awe of

-    supernatural things. Up there in the sky, to which only clouds

-    belong, and birds, and the last trembling colours of pure light,

-    they stood fast and hard; not moving as do the things of the sky....

-

-    “These, the great Alps, seen thus, link one in some way to one’s

-    immortality. Nor is it possible to convey, or even to suggest,

-    those few fifty miles, and those few thousand feet; there is

-    something more. Let me put it thus: that from the height of

-    Weissenstein I saw, as it were, my religion. I mean humility, the

-    fear of death, the terror of height and of distance, the glory of

-    God, the infinite potentiality of reception whence springs that

-    divine thirst of the soul; my aspiration also towards completion,

-    and my confidence in the dual destiny. For I know that we laughers

-    have a gross cousinship with the most high, and it is this contrast

-    and perpetual quarrel which feeds a spring of merriment in the

-    soul of a sane man.... That it is also which leads some men to

-    climb mountain tops, but not me, for I am afraid of slipping down.”

-

-That is subjective enough, with a vengeance; for those few lines one

-would gladly sacrifice a whole shelf full of climbing literature

-dealing with the objective facts that do not vary with the individual

-observer.

-

-Mr. Kipling again, though no mountaineer, has struck out one message

-which most mountaineers would sacrifice a season’s climbing to have

-written. A brief quotation gives only a faint impression of its beauty--

-

-    “At last, they entered a world within a world--a valley of leagues

-    where the high hills were fashioned of the mere rubble and refuse

-    from off the knees of the mountains. Here, one day’s march carried

-    them no farther, it seemed, than a dreamer’s clogged pace bears him

-    in a nightmare. They skirted a shoulder painfully for hours, and

-    behold, it was but an outlying boss in an outlying buttress of the

-    main pile! A rounded meadow revealed itself, when they had reached

-    it, for a vast table-land running far into the valley. Three days

-    later, it was a dim fold in the earth to southward.

-

-    “‘Surely the Gods live here,’ said Kim, beaten down by the silence

-    and the appalling sweep and dispersal of the cloud-shadows after

-    rain. ‘This is no place for men!’

-

-    “Above them, still enormously above them, earth towered away

-    towards the snow-line, where from east to west across hundreds of

-    miles, ruled as with a ruler, the last of the bold birches stopped.

-    Above that, in scarps and blocks upheaved, the rocks strove to

-    fight their heads above the white smother. Above these again,

-    changeless since the world’s beginning, but changing to every mood

-    of sun and cloud, lay out the eternal snow. They could see blots

-    and blurs on its face where storm and wandering wullie-wa got up to

-    dance. Below them, as they stood, the forest slid away in a sheet

-    of blue-green for mile upon mile; below the forest was a village in

-    its sprinkle of terraced fields and steep grazing-grounds; below

-    the village they knew, though a thunderstorm worried and growled

-    there for the moment, a pitch of twelve or fifteen hundred feet

-    gave to the moist valley where the streams gather that are the

-    mothers of young Sutluj.”

-

-Then there is Mr. Algernon Blackwood, who is, I think, rather a

-ski-runner than a mountaineer. Certainly he has unravelled the

-psychology of hill-wandering, and discovered something of that strange

-personality behind the mountains. No writer has so successfully caught

-the uncanny atmosphere that sometimes haunts the hills.

-

-The contrast is even more marked in poetry than in prose. In prose,

-we have half-a-dozen Alpine books that would satisfy a severe critic.

-In poetry, only one mountaineer has achieved outstanding success. Mr.

-G. Winthrop Young, alone, has transferred the essential romance of

-mountaineering into poetry which not mountaineers alone, but every

-lover of finished craftsmanship, will read with something deeper

-than pleasure. But, while Mr. Young has no rival in the poetry of

-mountaineering, there is a considerable quantity of excellent verse of

-which mountains are the theme. We have spoken of Shelley and Byron.

-Among more modern poets there is Tennyson. He wrote little mountain

-poetry, and yet in four lines he has crystallised the whole essence of

-the Alpine vision from some distant sentinel of the plains--

-

-    “How faintly flushed, how phantom fair

-     Was Monte Rosa, hanging there

-       A thousand shadowy pencilled valleys

-     And snowy dells in a golden air.”

-

-Sydney Dobell has some good mountain verse; and if we had not already

-burdened this chapter with quotations we should have borrowed from

-those descriptions in which Morris clearly recalls the savage volcanic

-scenery of Iceland. Swinburne, in the lines beginning--

-

-          “Me the snows

-    That face the first of the morning”--

-

-has touched some of the less obvious spells of hill region with his own

-unerring instinct for beauty.

-

-F. W. H. Myers in eight lines has said all that need be said when the

-hills have claimed the ultimate penalty--

-

-    “Here let us leave him: for his shroud the snow,

-       For funeral lamps he has the planets seven,

-     For a great sign the icy stair shall go

-       Between the stars to heaven.

-

-     One moment stood he as the angels stand,

-       High in the stainless eminence of air.

-     The next he was not, to his fatherland

-       Translated unaware.”

-

-Mrs. Holland has written, as a dedication for a book of Alpine travel,

-lines which have the authentic note; and Mr. Masefield in a few

-verses has caught the savage aloofness of the peaks better than most

-mountaineers in pages of redundant description.

-

-The contrast is rather too marked between the work of those who loved

-mountains without climbing them and the literature of the professional

-mountaineers. Even writers like Mr. Kipling, who have only touched

-mountains in a few casual lines, seem to have captured the mountain

-atmosphere more successfully than many a climber who has devoted

-articles galore to his craft. Of course, Mr. Kipling is a genius and

-the average Alpine writer is not; but surely one might not unreasonably

-expect a unique literature from those who know the mountains in all

-their changing tenses, and who by service of toil and danger have wrung

-from them intimate secrets unguessed at by those who linger outside the

-shrine.

-

-Mountaineering has, of course, produced some great literature. There is

-Leslie Stephen, though even Stephen at his best is immeasurably below

-Ruskin’s finest mountain passages. But Leslie Stephens are rare in the

-history of Alpine literature, whereas the inarticulate are always with

-us.

-

-In some ways, the man who can worship a mountain without wishing to

-climb it has a certain advantage. He sees a vision, where the climber

-too often sees nothing but a variation route. The popular historian

-has often a more vivid picture of a period than the expert, whose

-comprehensive knowledge of obscure charters sometimes blinds him to the

-broad issues of history. Technical knowledge does not always make for

-understanding. The first great revelation of the mountains has a power

-that is all its own. To the man who has yet to climb, every mountain

-is virgin, every snow-field a mystery, undefiled by traffic with man.

-The first vision passes, and the love that is based on understanding

-supplants it. The vision of unattainable snows translates itself into

-terms of memory--that white gleam that once belonged to dreamland into

-an ice-wall with which you have wrestled through the scorching hours

-of a July afternoon. You have learned to spell the writing on the

-wall of the mountains. The magic of first love, with its worship of

-the unattainable, is too often transformed into the soberer affection

-founded, like domestic love, on knowledge and sympathy; and the danger

-would be greater if the fickle hills had not to be wooed afresh every

-season. Beyond the mountain that we climb and seem to know, lurks ever

-the visionary peak that we shall never conquer; and this unattainable

-ideal gives an eternal youth to the hills, and a never-failing

-vitality to our Alpine adventure. Yet when we begin to set down

-our memories of the mountains, it seems far easier to recall those

-objective facts, which are the same for all comers, the meticulous

-details of route, the conditions of snow and ice, and to omit from our

-epic that subjective vision of the mountain, that individual impression

-which alone lends something more than a technical interest to the story

-of our days among the snow. And so it is not altogether surprising that

-the man who has never climbed can write more freely and more fully of

-the mountains, since he has no expert knowledge to confuse the issue,

-no technical details to obscure the first fine careless rapture.

-

-The early mountaineers entered into a literary field that was almost

-unexplored. They could write of their hill journeys with the assurance

-of men branching out into unknown byways. They could linger on the

-commonplaces of hill travel, and praise the freedom of the hills with

-the air of men enunciating a paradox. To glorify rough fare, simple

-quarters, a bed of hay, a drink quaffed from the mountain stream, must

-have afforded Gesner the same intellectual pleasure that Mr. Chesterton

-derives from the praise of Battersea and Beer. And this joy in

-emotions which had yet to be considered trite lingers on even into the

-more sedate pages of _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_. The contributors

-to those classic volumes were rather frightened of letting themselves

-go; but here and there one lights on some spontaneous expression of

-delight in the things that are the very flesh and blood of our Alpine

-experience--the bivouac beneath the stars, the silent approach of dawn,

-the freemasonry of the rope, the triumph of the virgin summit. “Times

-have changed since then,” wrote Donald Robertson in a recent issue of

-_The Alpine Journal_--

-

-    “Times have changed since then, and with them Alpine literature.

-    Mountaineering has become a science, and, as in other sciences,

-    the professor has grown impatient of the average intelligence,

-    and evolved his own tongue. To write for the outside public is

-    to incur the odium of ‘popular science,’ a form of literature

-    fascinating to me, but anathema to all right-minded men. Those best

-    qualified to speak will only address themselves to those qualified

-    to listen, and therefore only in the jargon of their craft. But

-    the hall-mark of technical writing is the assumption of common

-    knowledge. What all readers know for themselves, it is needless and

-    even impertinent to state. Hence, in the climbing stories written

-    for the elect, the features common to all climbs must either be

-    dismissed with a brief reference, or lightly treated as things only

-    interesting in so far as they find novel expression.”

-

-Those who worship Clio the muse will try to preserve the marriage of

-history and literature, but those whose only claim to scholarship is

-their power to collate facts by diligent research, those who have not

-the necessary ability to weave these facts into a vital pattern, will

-always protest their devotion to what is humorously dubbed scientific

-history. So in the Alpine world, which has its own academic traditions

-and its own mandarins, you will find that those who cannot translate

-emotions (which it is to be hoped they share) into language which

-anybody could understand are rather apt to explain their discreet

-silence, by the possession of a delicate reserve that forbids them to

-emulate the fine writing of a Ruskin or the purple patches of Meredith.

-

-Now, it should be possible to discriminate between those who endeavour

-to clothe a fine emotion in worthy language, and those who start with

-the intention of writing finely, and look round for a fine emotion

-to serve as the necessary peg. Sincerity is the touchstone that

-discriminates the fine writing that is good, and the fine writing

-that is damnable. The emotions that are the essence of mountaineering

-deserve something better than the genteel peroration of the average

-climbing book. Alpine literature is a trifle deficient in fine frenzy.

-The Mid-Victorian pose of the bluff, downright Briton, whose surging

-flood of emotions is concealed beneath an affectation of cynicism, is

-apt to be tedious, and one wonders whether emotions so consistently and

-so successfully suppressed really existed within those stolid bosoms.

-

-A great deal of Alpine literature appeals, and rightly appeals, only

-to the expert. Such contributions are not intended as descriptive

-literature. They may, as the record of research into the early records

-of mountaineering and mountains, supply a much-needed link in the

-history of the craft. As the record of new exploration, they are sure

-to interest the expert, while their exact description of routes and

-times will serve as the material for future climbers’ guides. But

-this is not the whole of Alpine literature, and the danger is that

-those who dare not attempt the subjective aspects of mountaineering

-should frighten off those who have the necessary ability by a tedious

-repetition of the phrase “fine writing,” that facile refuge of the

-Philistine. The conventional Alpine article is a dreary affair. Its

-humour is antique, and consists for the most part in jokes about fleas

-and porters, and in the substitution of long phrases for simple ones.

-Its satire is even thinner. The root assumption that the Alpine climber

-is a superior person, and that social status varies with the height

-above sea level, recurs with monotonous regularity. The joke about

-the tripper is as old as the Flood, and the instinct that resents his

-disturbing presence is not quite the hall-mark of the æsthetic soul

-that some folk seem to think. It is as old as the primitive man who

-espied a desirable glade, and lay in wait for the first tourist with

-a club. “My friends tell me,” writes a well-known veteran, “that I am

-singular in this strange desire to avoid meeting the never-ceasing

-stream of tourists, and I am beginning to believe that they are right,

-and that I am differently constituted from other people.” The author of

-this trite confession has only to study travel literature in general

-and Alpine literature in particular to discover that quite commonplace

-folk can misquote the remark about the madding crowd, and that even

-members of the lower middle class have been known to put the sentiment

-into practice. A sense of humour and a sense for solitude are two

-things which their true possessors are chary of mentioning.

-

-It might be fairly argued that the average mountaineer does not pretend

-to be a writer, fine or otherwise, that he describes his climbs in a

-club journal intended for a friendly and uncritical audience, and that

-he leaves the defence of his sport to the few men who can obtain the

-hearing of a wider audience. That is fair comment; and, fortunately,

-mountaineering is not without the books that are classics not only of

-Alpine but also of English literature.

-

-First to claim mention is _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_, a volume

-“so fascinating,” writes Donald Robertson, “so inspiring a gospel of

-adventure and full, free life, that the call summoned to the hills an

-army of seekers after the promised gold.” That is true enough. But the

-charm of these pages, which is undoubted, is much more due to the fact

-that the contributors had a good story to tell than to any grace of

-style with which they told it. The contributors were drawn from all

-walks of life--barristers, Manchester merchants, schoolmasters, dons,

-clergymen, and scientists; and unless we must affect to believe that

-Alpine climbing inspires its devotees with the gift of tongues, we need

-not appear guilty of irreverence for the pioneers if we discriminate

-between the literary and intrinsic merit of their work. They were

-educated men. They did not split their infinitives, and they could

-express their thoughts in the King’s English, a precedent not always

-followed by their successors. We must, however, differentiate between

-the Alpine writing which gives pleasure because of its associations,

-and the literature which delights not only for its associations and

-story, but also for its beauty of expression. Let us, as an example,

-consider two passages describing an Alpine dawn--

-

-    “We set out from the bivouac at three in the morning. The night was

-    cloudless, and the stars shone with a truly majestic beauty. Ahead

-    of us, we could just see the outline of the great peak we proposed

-    to attack. Gradually, the east lightened. The mountains became

-    more distinct. The eastern sky paled, and a few minutes later the

-    glorious sun caught the topmost peaks, and painted their snows with

-    the fiery hues of dawn. It was a most awe-compelling spectacle.”

-

-This passage may please us, not because the language is fine or

-the thoughts subtly expressed, but simply because the scenes so

-inadequately described recall those which we ourselves have witnessed.

-The passage would convey little to a man who had never climbed. Now

-consider the following--

-

-    “On the glacier, the light of a day still to be born put out our

-    candles.... We halted to watch the procession of the sun. He came

-    out of the uttermost parts of the earth, very slowly, lighting peak

-    after peak in the long southward array, dwelling for a moment,

-    and then passing on. Opposite, and first to catch the glow, were

-    the great mountains of the Saasgrat and the Weisshorn. _But more

-    beautiful, like the loom of some white-sailed ship far out at sea,

-    each unnamed and unnumbered peak of the east took and reflected the

-    radiance of the morning._ The light mists which came before the sun

-    faded.”...

-

-Like the other passage this brief description starts a train of

-memories; but, whereas the first passage would convey little to a

-non-climber, Sir Claud Schuster has really thought out the sequence

-of the dawn, and has caught one of its finer and subtler effects by

-the use of a very happy analogy. The phrase which we have ventured to

-italicise defines in a few words a brief scene in the drama of the

-dawn, an impression that could not be conveyed by piling adjective on

-adjective.

-

-There are many writers who have captured the romance of mountaineering,

-far fewer who have the gift for that happy choice of words that gives

-the essence of a particular Alpine view. Pick up any Alpine classic at

-a venture, and you will find that not one writer in fifty can hold your

-attention through a long passage of descriptive writing. The average

-writer piles on his adjectives. From the Alpine summit you can see a

-long way. The horizon seems infinitely far off. The valleys sink below

-into profound shadows. The eye is carried from the dark firs upward to

-the glittering snowfields. “The majestic mass of the ... rises to the

-north, and blots out the lesser ranges of the.... The awful heights of

-the ... soar upwards from the valley of.... In the east, we could just

-catch a glimpse of the ... and our guides assured us that in the west

-we could veritably see the distant snows of our old friend the....” And

-so on, and so forth. Fill in the gaps, and this skeleton description

-can be made to fit the required panorama. It roughly represents nine

-out of ten word pictures of Alpine views. Examine Whymper’s famous

-description of the view from the Matterhorn. It is little more than

-a catalogue of mountains. There is hardly a phrase in it that would

-convey the essential atmosphere of such a view to a man who had not

-seen it.

-

-Genius has been defined as the power of seeing analogies, and we have

-sometimes fancied that the secret of all good Alpine description lies

-in the happy choice of the right analogy. It is no use accumulating

-the adjective at random. Peaks are high and majestic, the snow is

-white. Certainly this does not help us. What we need is some happily

-chosen phrase which goes deeper than the obvious epithets that

-apply to every peak and every snowfield. We want the magical phrase

-that differentiates one particular Alpine setting from another. And

-this phrase will often be some apparently casual analogy drawn from

-something which has no apparent connection with the Alps. “Beautiful

-like the loom of some white-sailed ship,” is an example which we have

-already quoted. Leslie Stephen’s work is full of such analogies. He

-does not waste adjectives. His adjectives are chosen for a particular

-reason. His epithets all do work. Read his description of the view from

-Mont Blanc, the Peaks of Primiero, the Alps in winter, and you feel

-that these descriptions could not be made to apply to other Alpine

-settings by altering the names and suppressing an occasional phrase.

-They are charged with the individual atmosphere of the place which

-gave them birth. In the most accurate sense of the word, they are

-autocthonous. A short quotation will illustrate these facts. Here is

-Stephen’s description of the view from the Schreckhorn. Notice that

-he achieves his effect without the usual largess of jewellery. Topaz

-and opal are dispensed with, and their place is taken by casual and

-apparently careless analogies from such diversified things as an opium

-dream, music, an idle giant.

-

-    “You are in the centre of a whole district of desolation,

-    suggesting a landscape from Greenland, or an imaginary picture

-    of England in the glacial epoch, with shores yet unvisited by

-    the irrepressible Gulf Stream. The charm of such views--little

-    as they are generally appreciated by professed admirers of the

-    picturesque--is to my taste unique, though not easily explained

-    to unbelievers. They have a certain soothing influence like slow

-    and stately music, or one of the strange opium dreams described

-    by De Quincey. If his journey in the mail-coach could have led

-    him through an Alpine pass instead of the quiet Cumberland hills,

-    he would have seen visions still more poetical than that of the

-    minister in the ‘dream fugue.’ Unable as I am to bend his bow, I

-    can only say that there is something almost unearthly in the sight

-    of enormous spaces of hill and plain, apparently unsubstantial as a

-    mountain mist, glimmering away to the indistinct horizon, and as it

-    were spell-bound by an absolute and eternal silence. The sentiment

-    may be very different when a storm is raging and nothing is visible

-    but the black ribs of the mountains glaring at you through rents in

-    the clouds; but on that perfect day on the top of the Schreckhorn,

-    where not a wreath of vapour was to be seen under the Whole vast

-    canopy of the sky, a delicious lazy sense of calm repose was the

-    appropriate frame of mind. One felt as if some immortal being, with

-    no particular duties upon his hands, might be calmly sitting upon

-    those desolate rocks and watching the little shadowy wrinkles of

-    the plain, that were really mountain ranges, rise and fall through

-    slow geological epochs.”

-

-Whymper never touches this note even in the best of many good mountain

-passages. His forte was rather the romance of Alpine adventure than the

-subtler art of reproducing Alpine scenery. But in his own line he is

-without a master. His style, of course, was not so uniformly good as

-Stephen’s. He had terrible lapses. He spoils his greatest chapter by a

-most uncalled-for anti-climax. He had a weakness for banal quotations

-from third-rate translations of the classics. But, though these lapses

-are irritating, there is no book like the famous _Scrambles_, and there

-is certainly no book which has sent more new climbers to the Alps.

-Whymper was fortunate, for he had as his material the finest story

-in Alpine history. Certainly, he did not waste his chances. The book

-has the genuine ring of Alpine romance. Its pages are full of those

-contrasts that are the stuff of our mountain quest, the tragic irony

-that a Greek mind would have appreciated. The closing scenes in the

-great drama of the Matterhorn move to their appointed climax with the

-dignity of some of the most majestic chapters in the Old Testament. Of

-their kind, they are unique in the literature of exploration.

-

-Tyndall, Whymper’s great rival, had literary talent as well as

-scientific genius, but his Alpine books, though they contain fine

-passages, have not the personality that made _Scrambles in the Alps_ a

-classic, nor the genius for descriptive writing that we admire in _The

-Playground of Europe_. Of A. W. Moore’s work and of Mummery’s great

-classic we have already spoken. Mummery, like Whymper, could translate

-into words the rollicking adventure of mountaineering, and though he

-never touches Leslie Stephen’s level, some of his descriptions of

-mountain scenery have a distinct fascination.

-

-A few other great Alpine books have appeared between _Peaks, Pastures,

-and Glaciers_ and the recent work _Peaks and Pleasant Pastures_. Mr.

-Douglas Freshfield and Sir Martin Conway are both famous explorers

-of the greater ranges beyond Europe, and their talent for mountain

-description must have inspired many a climber to leave the well-trodden

-Alpine routes for the unknown snows of the Himalayas. Mr. Freshfield’s

-Caucasian classic opens with a short poem that we should like to

-have quoted, and includes one of the great stories on mountain

-literature--the search for Donkin and Fox. Sir Martin Conway brings to

-his work the eye of a trained Art critic, and the gift for analysing

-beauty, not only in pictures, but in Alpine scenery. He is an artist in

-colour and in words.

-

-Contrary to accepted views, we are inclined to believe that Alpine

-literature shows signs of a Renaissance. Those who hold that the

-subject-matter is exhausted, seem to base their belief on the fact that

-every virgin peak in the Alps has been climbed, and that the literature

-of exploration should, therefore, die a natural death. This belief

-argues a lack of proportion. Because a certain number of climbers have

-marched up and down the peaks of a certain range, it does not follow

-that those mountains no longer afford emotions capable of literary

-expression. The very reverse is the case. It is perilously easy to

-attach supreme importance to the sporting side of our craft. Mountain

-literature is too often tedious, because it concentrates on objective

-facts. When all the great mountains were unclimbed, those who wrote of

-them could not burden their pages with tiresome details of routes and

-times. When every mountain has been climbed by every conceivable route,

-the material at the disposal of the objective writer is fortunately

-exhausted. There are few great Alpine routes that remain unexplored.

-There are a thousand byways in the psychology of mountaineering that

-have never been touched, and an excellent book might have been written

-on this subject alone. Every mountaineer brings to the mountains the

-tribute of a new worshipper with his own different emotions. “Obtain an

-account of the same expedition from three points on the same rope, and

-you will see how different. Therefore, there is room in our generation

-for a new _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_ by the best pens in the Club

-telling freely, and without false shame, the simple story of a day

-among the mountains.”

-

-The pioneers had every advantage, a new subject for literary

-expression, a new field of almost untouched exploration, phrases that

-had yet to become trite, emotions which never become trite though

-their expression is apt to fall into a rut. And yet it seems doubtful

-whether they wrote more freely and more truly than some of those who

-are writing to-day. In some directions, mountain descriptions have

-advanced as well as mountain craft. We have no Leslie Stephen and no

-Whymper, but the best pens at work in _The Alpine Journal_ have created

-a nobler literature than that which we find in the early numbers. “_The

-Alpine Journal_,” remarked a worthy president, is “the champagne of

-Alpine literature.” Like the best champagne, it is often very dry.

-The early numbers contained little of literary value beyond Gosset’s

-great account of the avalanche which killed Bennen, and some articles

-by Stephen and Whymper. Neither Stephen nor Whymper wrote their best

-for the club journal. _The Cornhill_ contains Stephen’s best work, and

-Whymper gave the pick of his writing to the Press. One may safely say

-that the first forty years of the club journal produced nothing better

-than recent contributions such as “The Alps” by A. D. Godley, “Two

-Ridges of the Grand Jorasses” by G. W. Young, “The Middle Age of the

-Mountaineer” by Claud Schuster, “Another Way of Alpine Love” by F. W.

-Bourdillon, “The Ligurian Alps” by R. L. A. Irving, and “Alpine Humour”

-by C. D. Robertson. Nor has good work been confined to _The Alpine

-Journal_. The patient seeker may find hidden treasures in the pages

-of some score of journals devoted to some aspect of the mountains.

-The new century has opened well, for it has given us Prof. Collie’s

-_Exploration in the Himalaya and other Mountain Ranges_, a book of

-unusual charm. It has given us Mr. Young’s mountain poems, for which

-we would gladly jettison a whole library of Alpine literature. It has

-given us _Peaks and Pleasant Pastures_, and a fine translation of Guido

-Rey’s classic work on the Matterhorn. With these books in mind we can

-safely assert that the writer quoted at the beginning of this chapter

-was unduly pessimistic, and that England has contributed her fair share

-to the subjective literature of the Alps.

-

-Let us hope that this renaissance of wonder will suffer no eclipse;

-let us hope that the Alps may still offer to generations yet unborn

-avenues of discovery beside those marked “No Information” in the pages

-of _The Climber’s Guides_. The saga of the Alps will not die from lack

-of material so long as men find in the hills an inspiration other than

-the challenge of unclimbed ridges and byways of mountain joy uncharted

-in the ordnance survey.

-

-

-

-

-BIBLIOGRAPHY

-

-

-The Alpine Club collects every book dealing with the mountains and

-also most of the articles that appear in the Press and Magazines. The

-Catalogue of the Alpine Club Library should, therefore, be the most

-complete bibliography in existence. The additions to the Club Library

-are published from time to time in _The Alpine Journal_.

-

-The most useful bibliographies of Alpine book that are accessible to

-the general reader are contained in _Ueber Eis and Schnee_, by Gottlieb

-Studer (1869-1871), and _Swiss Travel and Swiss Guide Books_, by the

-Rev. W. A. B. Coolidge (1889).

-

-Perhaps the most thorough book on every phase of the Alps, sporting,

-social, political and historical is _The Alps in Nature and History_,

-by the Rev. W. A. B. Coolidge (1908).

-

-For the Geology of the Alps and the theory of Glacier Motion there are

-no better books than _The Glaciers of the Alps_, by John Tyndall (1860;

-reprinted in the Everyman Library), and _The Building of the Alps_, by

-T. G. Bonney (1912).

-

-For the practical side of mountaineering, _Mountaineering_, by C. T.

-Dent (Badminton Library), is good but somewhat out of date.

-

-The best modern book on the theory and practice of mountaineering is

-_Modern Mountain Craft_, edited by G. W. Young (1914). This book is

-in the Press. It contains chapters on the theory of mountain craft

-in summer and winter, and in addition a very able summary of the

-characteristic of mountaineering in the great ranges beyond Europe as

-described by the various experts for the particular districts.

-

-Winter mountaineering and ski-ing are dealt with in _The Ski-Runner_,

-by E. C. Richardson (1909); _Ski-ing for Beginners and Mountaineers_,

-by W. R. Rickmers (1910); _How to Ski_, by Vivian Caulfield (1910);

-_Ski-ing_, by Arnold Lunn (1912).

-

-For the general literature of mountaineering the reader has a wide

-choice. We cannot attempt a comprehensive bibliography, but the

-following books are the most interesting of the many hundred volumes on

-the subject.

-

-The early history of mountaineering is dealt with in Mr. Coolidge’s

-books referred to above. There is a good historical sketch in the first

-chapter of the Badminton volume. The most readable book on the early

-pioneers is _The Early Mountaineers_, by Francis Gribble (1899). _The

-Story of Alpine Climbing_, by Francis Gribble (1904), is smaller than

-_The Early Mountaineers_; it can be obtained for a shilling.

-

-We shall, where possible, confine our list to books written in English.

-This is not possible for the earlier works, as English books do not

-cover the ground.

-

-    _Descriptio Montis Fracti juxta Lucernam._ By Conrad Gesner. 1555.

-

-    _De Alpibus Commentarius._ By Josias Simler. 1574.

-

-    _Coryate’s Crudities._ By T. Coryate. 1611. This book contains the

-    passage quoted on p. 15. It has recently been reprinted.

-

-    _Diary (Simplon, etc.)._ By John Evelyn. 1646. (Reprinted in the

-    Everyman Library.)

-

-    _Remarks on Several Parts of Switzerland._ By J. Addison. 1705.

-

-    _Itinera per Helvetiæ Alpinas Regiones Facta._ By Johann Jacob

-    Scheuchzer. 1723.

-

-    _Die Alpen._ By A. von Haller. 1732.

-

-    _An Account of the Glaciers or Ice Alps in Savoy._ By William

-    Windham and Peter Martel. 1744.

-

-    _Travels in the Alps of Savoy._ By J. D. Forbes. 1843.

-

-    _Mont Blanc._ By Albert Smith. 1852.

-

-    _The Tour of Mont Blanc._ By J. D. Forbes. 1855.

-

-    _Wanderings among the High Alps._ By Alfred Wills. 1856.

-

-    _Summer Months among the Alps._ By T. W. Hinchcliff. 1857. (Very

-    scarce.)

-

-    _The Italian Valleys of the Pennine Alps._ By S. W. King. 1858.

-

-    _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers._ (First Series.) 1859. (Scarce and

-    expensive.)

-

-    _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers._ (Second Series.) (Two volumes.)

-    (Scarce.) 1862.

-

-    _The Eagles’ Nest._ By A. Wills. 1860. (Scarce.)

-

-    _The Glaciers of the Alps._ By John Tyndall. 1860.

-

-    _Across Country from Thonon to Trent._ By D. W. Freshfield. 1865.

-

-    _The Alps in 1864._ By A. W. Moore. (Privately reprinted.) (Very

-    scarce, reprinted 1902.)

-

-    _The High Alps without Guides._ By A. B. Girdlestone. (Scarce.)

-    1870.

-

-    _Scrambles among the Alps._ By Edward Whymper. 1871. This famous

-    book went into several editions. It has been reprinted in Nelson’s

-    Shilling Library. The original editions with their delightful

-    wood-cuts cannot be bought for less than a pound, but are well

-    worth the money.

-

-    _The Playground of Europe._ By Leslie Stephen. 1871. This classic

-    can be bought for 3_s._ 6_d._ in the Silver Library. The original

-    edition is scarce and does not contain the best work.

-

-    _Hours of Exercise in the Alps._ By J. Tyndall. 1871.

-

-    _Italian Alps._ By D. W. Freshfield. 1876.

-

-    _The High Alps in Winter._ By Mrs. Fred Burnaby (Mrs. Le Blond.)

-    1883.

-

-    _Above the Snow Line._ By C. T. Dent. 1885.

-

-    _The Pioneers of the Alps._ By C. D. Cunningham and W. de W. Abney.

-    (An account of the great guides.) 1888.

-

-    _My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus._ By A. F. Mummery. 1895.

-    (Reprinted in Nelson’s Shilling Library.)

-

-    _The Alps from End to End._ By Sir Martin Conway. 1895. This has

-    been reprinted in Nelson’s Shilling Library.

-

-    _The Annals of Mont Blanc._ By C. E. Mathews. 1898.

-

-    _Climbing in the Himalaya and other Mountain Ranges._ By Norman J.

-    Collie, 1902. Includes some excellent chapters on the Alps.

-

-    _The Alps._ Described by Sir Martin Conway. Illustrated by A.

-    O. M’Cormick. 1904. A cheap edition without Mr. M’Cormick’s

-    illustrations has been issued in 1910.

-

-    _My Alpine Jubilee._ By Frederic Harrison. 1908.

-

-    _Recollections of an Old Mountaineer._ By Walter Larden. 1910.

-

-    _Peaks and Pleasant Pastures._ By Claud Schuster. 1911.

-

-The poetry of Mountaineering as distinct from the poetry of mountains

-is found in--

-

-    _Wind and Hill._ By G. W. Young. 1909.

-

-This book is out of print. The mountain poems have been reprinted in--

-

-    _The Englishman in the Alps._ An Anthology edited by Arnold Lunn.

-    1913. This Anthology includes long extracts from one to five

-    thousand words chosen from the best of Alpine prose and poetry.

-

-Other Alpine Anthologies are--

-

-    _The Voice of the Mountains._ By E. Baker and F. E. Ross. 1905.

-

-    _In Praise of Switzerland._ By Harold Spender. 1912.

-

-The reader will find good photographs very useful. The earliest

-Alpine photographer to achieve distinct success was Mr. Donkin, whose

-excellent photographs can be bought cheaply. Signor Sellâs--the supreme

-artist in mountain photography--also sells his work. Messrs. Abraham

-of Keswick have photographed with thoroughness the Alps and the rock

-climbs of Cumberland and Wales. Their best work is reproduced in _The

-Complete Mountaineer_. (1908.)

-

-

-

-

-INDEX

-

-

-  Abbühl, Arnold, 96

-

-  Aggasiz, 104-10

-

-  Aiguille, Mont, 29-30

-

-  Almer, Christian, 125, 129

-

-  Alpine Club, the, 130

-

-  _Alpine Journal, The_, 73, 249

-

-  _Alps in 1864, The_, 135

-

-  _Annals of Mont Blanc, The_, 60, 134

-

-  Arkwright, Captain, 117

-

-

-  Ball, John, 118-19, 130

-

-  Balmat, Jacques, 60-81

-

-  Balmat (in Wills’s guide), 125-9

-

-  Beaupré, 30

-

-  Beck, Jean Joseph, 86-89

-

-  Belloc, Hilaire, 226

-

-  Bennen, 154, 157-8

-

-  Berkeley, 15

-

-  Blackwell, 112

-

-  Blackwood, Algernon, 229-30

-

-  Blanc, Mont, 47, 60-81, 121-4, 187

-

-  Blond, Mrs. Le, 200

-

-  Bonney, Prof., 133

-

-  Bourrit, 54-9, 60, 74-80, 220

-

-  Bremble, 15

-

-  Buet, the, 49-50

-

-  Byron, 215-17

-

-

-  Canigou, Pic, 30

-

-  Carbonnière, Ramond de, 214-15

-

-  Carrel, J. A., 152-83

-

-  Carrel, J. J., 152-3, 154

-

-  Cawood, 189

-

-  Charles VII, 29

-

-  Charpentier, 103

-

-  Clement, 53

-

-  Coleridge, 217

-

-  Colgrove, 187

-

-  Collie, Prof., 250

-

-  Conway, Sir Martin, 247

-

-  Coolidge, Mr., 44, 129

-

-  Coryat’s _Crudities_, 15

-

-  Croz, 163-80

-

-  Cust, 189

-

-

-  Davies, 136

-

-  Dent du Midi, 53

-

-  Desor, 105

-

-  Dobell, Sydney, 231

-

-  Dollfus-Ausset, 106

-

-  Douglas, Lord Francis, 163-80

-

-  Dragons in the Alps, 40-42

-

-  Dübi, Dr., 72-3

-

-  Dumas, Alexandre, 62-72

-

-  Dürer, 18-19

-

-

-  _Early Mountaineers, The_, 27, 214

-

-

-  Fairbanks, Rev. Arthur, 188

-

-  Farrar, Captain, 97-101

-

-  Finsteraarhorn, 96-101

-

-  Forbes, J. D., 116-18

-

-  Freshfield, Mr. Douglas, 12, 29, 72, 247

-

-

-  Gersdorf, Baron von, 73-9

-

-  Gesner, Conrad, 33-9

-

-  Giordani, Pietro, 89

-

-  Giordano, 159, 161-3, 168

-

-  Girdlestone, the Rev. A. B., 187-8

-

-  Glockner, The Gross, 92-4

-

-  Godley, A. D., 249

-

-  Gorret, Aimé, 152-3, 181.

-

-  Gribble, Mr. Francis, 26, 44, 46

-

-  Grove, Francis, 187

-

-  Guideless climbing, 138-43, 185-9

-

-  Gurk, Bishop of, 93-4

-

-

-  Haddington, Lord, 45

-

-  Hadow, 163-80

-

-  Haller, 213

-

-  Hamel, Dr., 117

-

-  Hannibal, 22-3

-

-  Hardy, 135-6

-

-  Hawkins, Vaughan, 153-4

-

-  _High Alps without Guides, The_, 187-8

-

-  Hinchcliffe, 130, 135

-

-  Holland, Mrs., 231

-

-  Holland, Philemon, 23

-

-  Hôtel des Neuchâtelois, 104

-

-  _Hours of Exercise in the Alps_, 131, 153-4

-

-  Hudson, 163-80, 187

-

-  Hugi, 97-100

-

-  Hugisattel, 100

-

-

-  Irving, Mr. R. L. A., 249

-

-

-  James, William, 107-9

-

-  John of Austria, Archduke, 94-5

-

-  Jungfrau, 96

-

-

-  Kaisergebirge, 199

-

-  Kennedy, E. S., 187

-

-  Kipling, 228-9, 232

-

-

-  Lauener, Ulrich, 125-9

-

-  Lauteraarhorn, 109

-

-  Luc, De, 48-50

-

-

-  Martel, Peter, 45-6

-

-  Marti, 16, 36-7

-

-  Masefield, John, 232

-

-  Mathews, C. E., 46-8, 134-5

-

-  Mathews, William, 130

-

-  Matterhorn, the, 147-84, 189

-

-  Meredith, George, 224

-

-  Meyers, the, 85-101

-

-  Monboso, 28

-

-  Moore, Dr. John, 46

-

-  Moore, W. A., 135, 199

-

-  Morris, William, 231

-

-  Morse, Mr. 189, 191

-

-  Mountaineering in Great Britain, 193-4, 197-9

-

-  Mountaineering, modern, 185-207

-

-  Mountaineering in winter, 199-207

-

-  Mountaineering without guides, 138-43, 185-9

-

-  Mountains in Art, 17-20

-

-  Mountains in Literature, 208-50

-

-  Mountains, Mediæval attitude to, 1-21

-

-  Müller, 30-31

-

-  Müller, John, 33

-

-  Mummery, 183-4, 191, 246

-

-  Murith, Prior, 50, 52, 53

-

-  _My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus_, 191

-

-  Myers, F. W. H., 231

-

-

-  Ortler, the, 94-5

-

-

-  Paccard, Dr., 67-80

-

-  Parker, Messrs., 153

-

-  Parrot, Dr., 90

-

-  Paulcke, 208

-

-  _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_, 235, 239-40

-

-  _Peaks and Pleasant Pastures_, 250

-

-  _Penhall_, 184

-

-  Perrandier, 103

-

-  Peter III, 30

-

-  Petrarch, 26-7

-

-  Pic du Midi, 30

-

-  Pichler, Joseph, 94

-

-  Pilate, Pontius, 31-2

-

-  Pilatus, 31-4

-

-  Placidus à Spescha, 82-4

-

-  _Playground of Europe, The_, 131, 132-3

-

-  Pococke, Dr., 45

-

-  Pope, Hugh, 199

-

-  Popocatapetl, 30

-

-  Punta Giordani, 89

-

-  Purtscheller, 189

-

-

-  Rey, Guido, 152-9

-

-  Robertson, Donald, 235-6, 249

-

-  Rochefoucauld, Duc de, 46

-

-  Rosa, Monte, 28-9, 85-91, 129

-

-  Rotario of Asti, 24

-

-  Rousseau, 9, 212-3, 214

-

-  Ruskin, 221-4

-

-

-  Salis, Ulysses von 151

-

-  Saussure, De, 46-8, 60

-

-  Scheuchzer, 39-43

-

-  Schuster, Sir Claud, 241, 249, 250

-

-  _Scrambles in the Alps_, 133-4

-

-  Sella, Quintino, 159, 161-3, 168

-

-  Shelley, 218-19

-

-  Simler, 37-9

-

-  Ski-ing, 200-7

-

-  Smith, Albert, 119-24

-

-  Stephen, Sir Leslie, 131-3, 136-7, 140-1, 243, 245

-

-  Stockhorn, 30-1

-

-  Stogdon, Mr. John, 188

-

-  Studer, Gottlieb, 109-10

-

-  Swinburne, 231

-

-  Symonds, Addington, 224-6

-

-

-  Taugwalders, the, 163-80

-

-  Tennyson, Lord, 230-1

-

-  Theodule, 12

-

-  Titlis, 44

-

-  Tödi, the, 83

-

-  _Tour of Mont Blanc, The_, 110

-

-  Tuckett, 136-7

-

-  Tyndall, John, 131, 157-8

-

-

-  Ulrich of Württemberg, 32

-

-

-  Velan, the, 50-2

-

-  Venetz, 103

-

-  Ventoux, Mont, 26

-

-  Vinci, Leonardo da, 19-20, 27-8

-

-  Vogt, 105

-

-

-  Walker, Mr. Horace, 199

-

-  Watt, Joachim von, 32

-

-  Weston, Mr., 12

-

-  Wetterhorn, the, 109, 111-12, 125-9

-

-  Whymper, Edward, 133, 147-84

-

-  Wicks, Mr., 189

-

-  Wills, Mr. Justice, 111-14, 125-9

-

-  Wilson, Mr., 189

-

-  Windham, 45

-

-

-  Young, Sir George, 135

-

-  Young, G. Winthrop, 230, 249, 250

-

-  Young, Norman, 11

-

-

-  Zumstein, 90-1

-

-  Zumstein Spitze, 91

-

-  Zsigmondy, 189

-

-_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay._

-

-

-

-

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-

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-

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-

-    By HILAIRE BELLOC, M.A. (With Maps.) “It is coloured with

-    all the militancy of the author’s temperament.”--_Daily News._

-

-4. _A SHORT HISTORY OF WAR AND PEACE_

-

-    By G. H. PERRIS. The Rt. Hon. JAMES BRYCE writes:

-    “I have read it with much interest and pleasure, admiring the skill

-    with which you have managed to compress so many facts and views

-    into so small a volume.”

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-

-    By Dr W. S. BRUCE, F.R.S.E., Leader of the “Scotia”

-    Expedition. (With Maps.) “A very freshly written and interesting

-    narrative.”--_The Times._

-

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-

-    By Sir H. H. JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., F.Z.S. (With Maps.)

-    “The Home University Library is much enriched by this excellent

-    work.”--_Daily Mail._

-

-13. _MEDIÆVAL EUROPE_

-

-    By H. W. C. DAVIS, M.A. (With Maps.) “One more

-    illustration of the fact that it takes a complete master of the

-    subject to write briefly upon it.”--_Manchester Guardian._

-

-14. _THE PAPACY & MODERN TIMES_ (1303-1870)

-

-    By WILLIAM BARRY, D.D. “Dr Barry has a wide range of

-    knowledge and an artist’s power of selection.”--_Manchester

-    Guardian._

-

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-

-    By G. P. GOOCH, M.A. “Mr Gooch contrives to breathe

-    vitality into his story, and to give us the flesh as well as the

-    bones of recent happenings.”--_Observer._

-

-25. _THE CIVILISATION OF CHINA_

-

-    By H. A. GILES, LL.D., Professor of Chinese at Cambridge.

-    “In all the mass of facts, Professor Giles never becomes dull. He

-    is always ready with a ghost story or a street adventure for the

-    reader’s recreation.”--_Spectator._

-

-29. _THE DAWN OF HISTORY_

-

-    By J. L. MYRES, M.A., F.S.A., Wykeham Professor of

-    Ancient History, Oxford. “There is not a page in it that is not

-    suggestive.”--_Manchester Guardian._

-

-33. _THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND_

-

-_A Study in Political Evolution_

-

-    By Prof. A. F. POLLARD, M.A. With a Chronological Table.

-    “It takes its place at once among the authoritative works on

-    English history.”--_Observer._

-

-34. _CANADA_

-

-    By A. G. BRADLEY. “The volume makes an immediate appeal

-    to the man who wants to know something vivid and true about

-    Canada.”--_Canadian Gazette._

-

-37. _PEOPLES & PROBLEMS OF INDIA_

-

-    By Sir T. W. HOLDERNESS, K.C.S.I., Permanent

-    Under-Secretary of State of the India Office. “Just the book

-    which newspaper readers require to-day, and a marvel of

-    comprehensiveness.”--_Pall Mall Gazette._

-

-42. _ROME_

-

-    By W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A. “A masterly sketch of Roman

-    character and of what it did for the world.”--_The Spectator._

-

-48. _THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR_

-

-    By F. L. PAXSON, Professor of American History, Wisconsin

-    University. (With Maps.) “A stirring study.”--_The Guardian._

-

-51. _WARFARE IN BRITAIN_

-

-    By HILAIRE BELLOC, M.A. “Rich in suggestion for the

-    historical student.”--_Edinburgh Evening News._

-

-55. _MASTER MARINERS_

-

-    By J. R. SPEARS. “A continuous story of shipping progress

-    and adventure.... It reads like a romance.”--_Glasgow Herald._

-

-61. _NAPOLEON_

-

-    By HERBERT FISHER, LL.D., F.B.A., Vice-Chancellor

-    of Sheffield University. (With Maps.) The story of the great

-    Bonaparte’s youth, his career, and his downfall, with some sayings

-    of Napoleon, a genealogy, and a bibliography.

-

-66. _THE NAVY AND SEA POWER_

-

-    By DAVID HANNAY. The author traces the growth of naval

-    power from early times, and discusses its principles and effects

-    upon the history of the Western world.

-

-71. _GERMANY OF TO-DAY_

-

-    By CHARLES TOWER. “It would be difficult to name any

-    better summary.”--_Daily News._

-

-82. _PREHISTORIC BRITAIN_

-

-    By ROBERT MUNRO, M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E. (Illustrated.)

-

-91. _THE ALPS_

-

-    By ARNOLD LUNN, M.A. (Illustrated.)

-

-92. _CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA_

-

-    By Professor W. R. SHEPHERD. (Maps.)

-

-

-_Literature and Art_

-

-2. _SHAKESPEARE_

-

-    By JOHN MASEFIELD. “We have had more learned

-    books on Shakespeare in the last few years, but not one so

-    wise.”--_Manchester Guardian._

-

-27. _ENGLISH LITERATURE: MODERN_

-

-    By G. H. MAIR, M.A. “Altogether a fresh and individual

-    book.”--_Observer._

-

-35. _LANDMARKS IN FRENCH LITERATURE_

-

-    By G. L. STRACHEY. “It is difficult to imagine how a

-    better account of French Literature could be given in 250 small

-    pages.”--_The Times._

-

-39. _ARCHITECTURE_

-

-    By Prof. W. R. LETHABY. (Over forty Illustrations.)

-    “Delightfully bright reading.”--_Christian World._

-

-43. _ENGLISH LITERATURE: MEDIÆVAL_

-

-    By Prof. W. P. KER, M.A. “Prof. Ker’s knowledge and taste

-    are unimpeachable, and his style is effective, simple, yet never

-    dry.”--_The Athenæum._

-

-45. _THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE_

-

-    By L. PEARSALL SMITH, M.A. “A wholly fascinating study

-    of the different streams that make the great river of the English

-    speech.”--_Daily News._

-

-52. _GREAT WRITERS OF AMERICA_

-

-    By Prof. J. ERSKINE and Prof. W. P. TRENT. “An

-    admirable summary, from Franklin to Mark Twain, enlivened by a dry

-    humour.”--_Athenæum._

-

-63. _PAINTERS AND PAINTING_

-

-    By Sir FREDERICK WEDMORE. (With 16 half-tone

-    illustrations.) From the Primitives to the Impressionists.

-

-64. _DR JOHNSON AND HIS CIRCLE_

-

-    By JOHN BAILEY, M.A. “A most delightful

-    essay.”--_Christian World._

-

-65. _THE LITERATURE OF GERMANY_

-

-    By Professor J. G. ROBERTSON, M.A., Ph.D. “Under

-    the author’s skilful treatment the subject shows life and

-    continuity.”--_Athenæum._

-

-70. _THE VICTORIAN AGE IN LITERATURE_

-

-    By G. K. CHESTERTON. “No one will put it down without a

-    sense of having taken a tonic or received a series of electric

-    shocks.”--_The Times._

-

-73. _THE WRITING OF ENGLISH._

-

-    By W. T. BREWSTER, A.M., Professor of English

-    in Columbia University. “Sensible, and not over-rigidly

-    conventional.”--_Manchester Guardian._

-

-75. _ANCIENT ART AND RITUAL._

-

-    By JANE E. HARRISON, LL.D., D.Litt. “Charming in style and

-    learned in manner.”--_Daily News._

-

-76. _EURIPIDES AND HIS AGE_

-

-    By GILBERT MURRAY, D.Litt., LL.D., F.B.A., Regius

-    Professor of Greek at Oxford. “A beautiful piece of work....

-    Just in the fulness of time, and exactly in the right place....

-    Euripides has come into his own.”--_The Nation._

-

-87. _CHAUCER AND HIS TIMES_

-

-    By GRACE E. HADOW.

-

-89. _WILLIAM MORRIS: HIS WORK AND INFLUENCE_

-

-    By A. CLUTTON BROCK.

-

-93. _THE RENAISSANCE_

-

-    By EDITH SICHEL.

-

-95. _ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE_

-

-    By J. M. ROBERTSON, M.P.

-

-

-_Science_

-

-7. _MODERN GEOGRAPHY_

-

-    By Dr MARION NEWBIGIN. (Illustrated.) “Geography, again:

-    what a dull, tedious study that was wont to be!... But Miss Marion

-    Newbigin invests its dry bones with the flesh and blood of romantic

-    interest.”--_Daily Telegraph._

-

-9. _THE EVOLUTION OF PLANTS_

-

-    By Dr D. H. SCOTT, M.A., F.R.S., late Hon. Keeper of the

-    Jodrell Laboratory, Kew. (Fully illustrated.) “Dr Scott’s candid

-    and familiar style makes the difficult subject both fascinating and

-    easy.”--_Gardeners’ Chronicle._

-

-17. _HEALTH AND DISEASE_

-

-    By W. LESLIE MACKENZIE, M.D., Local Government Board,

-    Edinburgh.

-

-18. _INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICS_

-

-    By A. N. WHITEHEAD, Sc.D., F.R.S. (With Diagrams.) “Mr

-    Whitehead has discharged with conspicuous success the task he is so

-    exceptionally qualified to undertake. For he is one of our great

-    authorities upon the foundations of the science.”--_Westminster

-    Gazette._

-

-19. _THE ANIMAL WORLD_

-

-    By Professor F. W. GAMBLE, F.R.S. With Introduction by Sir

-    Oliver Lodge. (Many Illustrations.) “A fascinating and suggestive

-    survey.”--_Morning Post._

-

-20. _EVOLUTION_

-

-    By Professor J. ARTHUR THOMSON and Professor

-    PATRICK GEDDES. “A many-coloured and romantic panorama,

-    opening up, like no other book we know, a rational vision of

-    world-development.”--_Belfast News-Letter._

-

-22. _CRIME AND INSANITY_

-

-    By Dr C. A. MERCIER. “Furnishes much valuable information

-    from one occupying the highest position among medico-legal

-    psychologists.”--_Asylum News._

-

-28. _PSYCHICAL RESEARCH_

-

-    By Sir W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S., Professor of Physics,

-    Royal College of Science, Dublin, 1873-1910. “What he has to

-    say on thought-reading, hypnotism, telepathy, crystal-vision,

-    spiritualism, divinings, and so on, will be read with

-    avidity.”--_Dundee Courier._

-

-31. _ASTRONOMY_

-

-    By A. R. HINKS, M.A., Chief Assistant, Cambridge

-    Observatory. “Original in thought, eclectic in substance,

-    and critical in treatment.... No better little book is

-    available.”--_School World._

-

-32. _INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE_

-

-    By J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A., Regius Professor of Natural

-    History, Aberdeen University. “Professor Thomson’s delightful

-    literary style is well known; and here he discourses freshly and

-    easily on the methods Of science and its relations with philosophy,

-    art, religion, and practical life.”--_Aberdeen Journal._

-

-36. _CLIMATE AND WEATHER_

-

-    By Prof. H. N. DICKSON, D.Sc.Oxon., M.A., F.R.S.E.,

-    President of the Royal Meteorological Society. (With Diagrams.)

-    “The author has succeeded in presenting in a very lucid and

-    agreeable manner the causes of the movements of the atmosphere and

-    of the more stable winds.”--_Manchester Guardian._

-

-41. _ANTHROPOLOGY_

-

-    By R. R. MARETT, M.A., Reader in Social Anthropology in

-    Oxford University. “An absolutely perfect handbook, so clear that a

-    child could understand it, so fascinating and human that it beats

-    fiction ‘to a frazzle.’”--_Morning Leader._

-

-44. _THE PRINCIPLES OF PHYSIOLOGY_

-

-    By Prof. J. G. MCKENDRICK, M.D. “Upon every page of it is

-    stamped the impress of a creative imagination.”--_Glasgow Herald._

-

-46. _MATTER AND ENERGY_

-

-    By F. SODDY, M.A., F.R.S. “Prof. Soddy has successfully

-    accomplished the very difficult task of making physics of absorbing

-    interest on popular lines.”--_Nature._

-

-49. _PSYCHOLOGY, THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR_

-

-    By Prof. W. MCDOUGALL, F.R.S., M.B. “A happy example of

-    the non-technical handling of an unwieldy science, suggesting

-    rather than dogmatising. It should whet appetites for deeper

-    study.”--_Christian World._

-

-53. _THE MAKING OF THE EARTH_

-

-    By Prof. J. W. GREGORY, F.R.S. (With 38 Maps and Figures.)

-    “A fascinating little volume.... Among the many good things

-    contained in the series this takes a high place.”--_The Athenæum._

-

-57. _THE HUMAN BODY_

-

-    By A. KEITH, M.D., LL.D., Conservator of Museum and

-    Hunterian Professor, Royal College of Surgeons. (Illustrated.) “It

-    literally makes the ‘dry bones’ to live. It will certainly take a

-    high place among the classics of popular science.”--_Manchester

-    Guardian._

-

-58. _ELECTRICITY_

-

-    By GISBERT KAPP, D.Eng., Professor of Electrical

-    Engineering in the University of Birmingham. (Illustrated.) “It

-    will be appreciated greatly by learners and by the great number of

-    amateurs who are interested in what is one of the most fascinating

-    of scientific studies.”--_Glasgow Herald._

-

-62. _THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE_

-

-    By Dr BENJAMIN MOORE, Professor of Bio-Chemistry,

-    University College, Liverpool. “Stimulating, learned,

-    lucid.”--_Liverpool Courier._

-

-67. _CHEMISTRY_

-

-    By RAPHAEL MELDOLA, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in

-    Finsbury Technical College, London. Presents clearly, without the

-    detail demanded by the expert, the way in which chemical science

-    has developed, and the stage it has reached.

-

-72. _PLANT LIFE_

-

-    By Prof. J. B. FARMER, D.Sc., F.R.S. (Illustrated.)

-    “Professor Farmer has contrived to convey all the most vital facts

-    of plant physiology, and also to present a good many of the chief

-    problems which confront investigators to-day in the realms of

-    morphology and of heredity.”--_Morning Post._

-

-78. _THE OCEAN_

-

-    A General Account of the Science of the Sea. By Sir JOHN

-    MURRAY, K.C.B., F.R.S. (Colour plates and other illustrations.)

-

-79. _NERVES_

-

-    By Prof. D. FRASER HARRIS, M.D., D.Sc. (Illustrated.) A

-    description, in non-technical language, of the nervous system,

-    its intricate mechanism and the strange phenomena of energy and

-    fatigue, with some practical reflections.

-

-86. _SEX_

-

-    By Prof. PATRICK GEDDES and Prof. J. ARTHUR

-    THOMSON, LL.D. (Illus.)

-

-88. _THE GROWTH OF EUROPE_

-

-    By Prof. GRENVILLE COLE. (Illus.)

-

-

-_Philosophy and Religion_

-

-15. _MOHAMMEDANISM_

-

-    By Prof. D. S. MARGOLIOUTH, M.A., D.Litt. “This generous

-    shilling’s worth of wisdom.... A delicate, humorous, and most

-    responsible tractate by an illuminative professor.”--_Daily Mail._

-

-40. _THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY_

-

-    By the Hon. BERTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S. “A book that the ‘man

-    in the street’ will recognise at once to be a boon.... Consistently

-    lucid and non-technical throughout.”--_Christian World._

-

-47. _BUDDHISM_

-

-    By Mrs RHYS DAVIDS, M.A. “The author presents very

-    attractively as well as very learnedly the philosophy of

-    Buddhism.”--_Daily News._

-

-50. _NONCONFORMITY: Its ORIGIN and PROGRESS_

-

-    By Principal W. B. SELBIE, M.A. “The historical part is

-    brilliant in its insight, clarity, and proportion.”--_Christian

-    World._

-

-54. _ETHICS_

-

-    By G. E. MOORE, M.A., Lecturer in Moral Science in

-    Cambridge University. “A very lucid though closely reasoned outline

-    of the logic Of good conduct.”--_Christian World._

-

-56. _THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT_

-

-    By Prof. B. W. BACON, LL.D., D.D. “Professor Bacon

-    has boldly, and wisely, taken his own line, and has produced,

-    as a result, an extraordinarily vivid, stimulating, and lucid

-    book.”--_Manchester Guardian._

-

-60. _MISSIONS: THEIR RISE and DEVELOPMENT_

-

-    By Mrs CREIGHTON. “Very interestingly done.... Its style

-    is simple, direct, unhackneyed, and should find appreciation where

-    a more fervently pious style of writing repels.”--_Methodist

-    Recorder._

-

-68. _COMPARATIVE RELIGION_

-

-    By Prof. J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, D. Litt., Principal of

-    Manchester College, Oxford. “Puts into the reader’s hand a wealth

-    of learning and independent thought.”--_Christian World._

-

-74. _A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT_

-

-    By J. B. BURY, Litt.D., LL.D., Regius Professor of Modern

-    History at Cambridge. “A little masterpiece, which every thinking

-    man will enjoy.”--_The Observer._

-

-84. _LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT_

-

-    By Prof. GEORGE MOORE, D.D., LL.D., of Harvard. A detailed

-    examination of the books of the Old Testament in the light of the

-    most recent research.

-

-90. _THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND_

-

-    By Canon E. W. WATSON, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical

-    History at Oxford.

-

-94. _RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS_

-

-    By Canon R. H. CHARLES, D.D., D.Litt.

-

-

-_Social Science_

-

-1. _PARLIAMENT_

-

-    Its History, Constitution, and Practice. By Sir COURTENAY P.

-    ILBERT, G.C.B., K.C.S.I., Clerk of the House of Commons. “The

-    best book on the history and practice of the House of Commons since

-    Bagehot’s ‘Constitution.’”--_Yorkshire Post._

-

-5. _THE STOCK EXCHANGE_

-

-    By F. W. HIRST, Editor of “The Economist.” “To an

-    unfinancial mind must be a revelation.... The book is as clear,

-    vigorous, and sane as Bagehot’s ‘Lombard Street,’ than which there

-    is no higher compliment.”--_Morning Leader._

-

-6. _IRISH NATIONALITY_

-

-    By Mrs J. R. GREEN. “As glowing as it is learned. No book

-    could be more timely.”--_Daily News._

-

-10. _THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT_

-

-    By J. RAMSAY MACDONALD, M.P. “Admirably adapted for the

-    purpose of exposition.”--_The Times._

-

-11. _CONSERVATISM_

-

-    By LORD HUGH CECIL, M.A., M.P. “One of those

-    great little books which seldom appear more than once in a

-    generation.”--_Morning Post._

-

-16. _THE SCIENCE OF WEALTH_

-

-    By J. A. HOBSON, M.A. “Mr J. A. Hobson holds an unique

-    position among living economists.... Original, reasonable, and

-    illuminating.”--_The Nation._

-

-21. _LIBERALISM_

-

-    By L. T. HOBHOUSE, M.A., Professor of Sociology in

-    the University of London. “A book of rare quality.... We have

-    nothing but praise for the rapid and masterly summaries of the

-    arguments from first principles which form a large part of this

-    book.”--_Westminster Gazette._

-

-24. _THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRY_

-

-    By D. H. MACGREGOR, M.A., Professor of Political Economy

-    in the University of Leeds. “A volume so dispassionate in terms

-    may be read with profit by all interested in the present state of

-    unrest.”--_Aberdeen Journal._

-

-26. _AGRICULTURE_

-

-    By Prof. W. SOMERVILLE, F.L.S. “It makes the results of

-    laboratory work at the University accessible to the practical

-    farmer.”--_Athenæum._

-

-30. _ELEMENTS OF ENGLISH LAW_

-

-    By W. M. GELDART, M.A., B.C.L., Vinerian Professor of

-    English Law at Oxford. “Contains a very clear account of the

-    elementary principles underlying the rules of English Law.”--_Scots

-    Law Times._

-

-38. _THE SCHOOL: An Introduction to the Study of Education._

-

-    By J. J. FINDLAY, M.A., Ph.D., Professor of Education

-    in Manchester University. “An amazingly comprehensive

-    volume.... It is a remarkable performance, distinguished in its

-    crisp, striking phraseology as well as its inclusiveness of

-    subject-matter.”--_Morning Post._

-

-59. _ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY_

-

-    By S. J. CHAPMAN, M.A., Professor of Political Economy

-    in Manchester University. “Its importance is not to be measured

-    by its price. Probably the best recent critical exposition of the

-    analytical method in economic science.”--_Glasgow Herald._

-

-69. _THE NEWSPAPER_

-

-    By G. BINNEY DIBBLEE, M.A. (Illustrated.) The best account

-    extant of the organisation of the newspaper press, at home and

-    abroad.

-

-77. _SHELLEY, GODWIN, AND THEIR CIRCLE_

-

-    By H. N. BRAILSFORD, M.A. “Mr Brailsford sketches vividly

-    the influence of the French Revolution on Shelley’s and Godwin’s

-    England; and the charm and strength of his style make his book an

-    authentic contribution to literature.”--_The Bookman._

-

-80. _CO-PARTNERSHIP AND PROFIT-SHARING_

-

-    By ANEURIN WILLIAMS, M.A.--“A judicious but enthusiastic

-    history, with much interesting speculation on the future of

-    Co-partnership.”--_Christian World._

-

-81. _PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE_

-

-    By E. N. BENNETT, M.A. Discusses the leading aspects of

-    the British land problem, including housing, small holdings, rural

-    credit, and the minimum wage.

-

-83. _COMMON-SENSE IN LAW_

-

-    By Prof. P. VINOGRADOFF, D.C.L.

-

-85. _UNEMPLOYMENT_

-

-    By Prof. A. C. PIGOU, M.A.

-

-

-IN PREPARATION

-

-    _ANCIENT EGYPT._ By F. LL. GRIFFITH, M.A.

-

-    _THE ANCIENT EAST._ By D. G. HOGARTH, M.A., F.B.A.

-

-    _A SHORT HISTORY OF EUROPE._ By HERBERT FISHER, LL.D.

-

-    _THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE._ By NORMAN H. BAYNES.

-

-    _THE REFORMATION._ By President LINDSAY, LL.D.

-

-    _A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA._ By Prof. MILYOUKOV.

-

-    _MODERN TURKEY._ By D. G. HOGARTH, M.A.

-

-    _FRANCE OF TO-DAY._ By ALBERT THOMAS.

-

-    _HISTORY OF SCOTLAND._ By Prof. R. S. RAIT, M.A.

-

-    _HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SPAIN._ By J.

-    FITZMAURICE-KELLY, F.B.A., Litt.D.

-

-    _LATIN LITERATURE._ By Prof. J. S. PHILLIMORE.

-

-    _ITALIAN ART OF THE RENAISSANCE._ By ROGER E. FRY.

-

-    _LITERARY TASTE._ By THOMAS SECCOMBE.

-

-    _SCANDINAVIAN HISTORY & LITERATURE._ By T. C. SNOW.

-

-    _THE MINERAL WORLD._ By Sir T. H. HOLLAND, K.C.I.E., D.Sc.

-

-    _A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY._ By CLEMENT WEBB, M.A.

-

-    _POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Bacon to Locke._ By G. P.

-    GOOCH, M.A.

-

-    _POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Bentham to J. S. Mill._ By

-    Prof. W. L. DAVIDSON.

-

-    _POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Herbert Spencer to To-day._ By

-    ERNEST BARKER, M.A.

-

-    _THE CRIMINAL AND THE COMMUNITY._ By Viscount ST. CYRES.

-

-    _THE CIVIL SERVICE._ By GRAHAM WALLAS, M.A.

-

-    _THE SOCIAL SETTLEMENT._ By JANE ADDAMS and R. A.

-    WOODS.

-

-    _GREAT INVENTIONS._ By Prof. J. L. MYRES, M.A., F.S.A.

-

-    _TOWN PLANNING._ By RAYMOND UNWIN.

-

-London: WILLIAMS AND NORGATE

-

-_And of all Bookshops and Bookstalls._

-

-

-

-

-FOOTNOTES:

-

-[1] See Mr. Gribble’s _Early Mountaineers_, Chap. V., where the

-arguments on each side are skilfully summarised.

-

-[2] Not “The Tirol,” still less “The Austrian Tirol,” but “Tirol.” We

-do not speak of “The Scotland” or “The British Scotland.”

-

-[3] The origin of the Alpine Club is, to some extent, a matter of

-dispute, the above is the view usually entertained.

-

-[4] Mount Blanc is divided between France and Italy; and the Italian

-frontier crosses Monte Rosa.

-

-

-[Transcriber’s Note:

-

-Page 255, Index entry “Gedley, A. D., 249”, changed to read “Godley, A.

-D., 249” and moved to appropriate spot in index.

-

-Obvious printer errors corrected silently.

-

-Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]

-

-

-

-

-

-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Alps, by Arnold Henry Moore Lunn

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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Alps, by Arnold Henry Moore Lunn
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: The Alps
+
+Author: Arnold Henry Moore Lunn
+
+Release Date: January 11, 2018 [EBook #56358]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ALPS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Anita Hammond, Wayne Hammond and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  HOME
+  UNIVERSITY
+  LIBRARY
+  OF
+  MODERN KNOWLEDGE
+
+  _Editors_:
+
+  HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A., LL.D.
+
+  PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, D.LITT.,
+  LL.D., F.B.A.
+
+  PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.,
+  LL.D.
+
+  PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.
+  (Columbia University, U.S.A.)
+
+  NEW YORK
+
+  HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  THE ALPS
+
+  BY
+  ARNOLD LUNN
+
+  LONDON
+  WILLIAMS AND NORGATE]
+
+_First printed July 1914_
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+For the early chapters of this book I have consulted, amongst other
+authorities, the books mentioned in the bibliography on pp. 251-254.
+It would, however, be ungracious if I failed to acknowledge my
+indebtedness to that most readable of historians, Mr. Gribble, and to
+his books, _The Early Mountaineers_ (Fisher Unwin) and _The Story of
+Alpine Climbing_ (Nelson). Mr. Gribble and his publisher, Mr. Unwin,
+have kindly allowed me to quote passages translated from the works
+of the pioneers. Two friends, experts in the practice and history
+of mountaineering, have read the proofs and helped me with numerous
+suggestions.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAP.                                                           PAGE
+
+  I THE MEDIÆVAL ATTITUDE                                            9
+
+  II THE PIONEERS                                                   22
+
+  III THE OPENING UP OF THE ALPS                                    44
+
+  IV THE STORY OF MONT BLANC                                        60
+
+  V MONTE ROSA AND THE BÜNDNER OBERLAND                             82
+
+  VI TIROL AND THE OBERLAND                                         92
+
+  VII THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH                                    111
+
+  VIII THE STORY OF THE MATTERHORN                                 147
+
+  IX MODERN MOUNTAINEERING                                         185
+
+  X THE ALPS IN LITERATURE                                         208
+
+  BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                     251
+
+  INDEX                                                            254
+
+_Volumes bearing upon the subject, already published in the library,
+are_--
+
+    7. Modern Geography. By Dr. Marion Newbigin. (_Illustrated._)
+
+    36. Climate and Weather. By Prof. H. N. Dickson. (_Illustrated._)
+
+    88. The Growth of Europe. By Prof. Grenville Cole. (_Illustrated._)
+
+
+
+
+THE ALPS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE MEDIÆVAL ATTITUDE
+
+
+Rousseau is usually credited with the discovery that mountains are not
+intrinsically hideous. Long before his day, isolated men had loved
+the mountains, but these men were eccentrics. They founded no school;
+and Rousseau was certainly the first to popularise mountains and to
+transform the cult of hill worship into a fashionable creed. None the
+less, we must guard against the error of supposing that mountain love
+was confined to the few men who have left behind them literary evidence
+of their good taste. Mountains have changed very little since man
+became articulate, and the retina of the human eye has changed even
+less. The beauty of outline that stirs us to-day was implicit in the
+hills “that shed their burial sheets about the march of Hannibal.” It
+seems reasonable to suppose that a few men in every age have derived a
+certain pleasure, if not from Alpine travel at least from the distant
+view of the snows.
+
+The literature of the Ancient World contains little that bears upon our
+subject. The literature of the Jews is exceptional in this respect.
+This is the more to their credit, as the mountains of Judæa, south
+of the beautiful Lebanon range, are shapeless and uninteresting.
+Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Job, and Isaiah contain mountain passages of
+great beauty. The Old Testament is, however, far richer in mountain
+praise than the New Testament. Christ retired more than once to the
+mountains; but the authors of the four Gospels content themselves with
+recording the bare fact that certain spiritual crises took place on
+mountain-tops. There is not a single indication in all the gospels
+that Nazareth is set on a hill overlooking one of the fairest mountain
+prospects in all Judæa, not a single tribute to the beauty of Galilee
+girdled by the outlying hills of Hermon.
+
+The Greeks lived in a land of mountains far lovelier than Palestine’s
+characterless heights. But the Jews showed genuine if spasmodic
+appreciation for their native ranges, whereas the Greeks, if their
+literature does them justice, cared little or nothing for their
+mountains. The note of fear and dread, pleasantly rare in Jewish
+literature, is never long absent from Greek references to the
+mountains. Of course, the Greeks gave Olympus to their gods, but as Mr.
+Norman Young remarks in a very able essay on _The Mountains in Greek
+Poetry_, it was necessary that the gods should look down on mankind;
+and, as they could not be strung up in mid-air, the obvious thing was
+to put them on a mountain-top. Perhaps we may concede that the Greeks
+paid a delicate compliment to Parnassus, the Home of the Muses; and
+certainly they chose for their temples the high ground of their cities.
+As one wanders through the olives and asphodels, one feels that the
+Greeks chose for their dwellings and temples those rising grounds which
+afforded the noblest prospect of the neighbouring hills. Only the cynic
+would contend that they did this in order to escape the atmosphere of
+the marshes.
+
+The Romans were disgustingly practical. They regarded the Alps as
+an inconvenient barrier to conquest and commerce. Virgil shows an
+occasional trace of a deeper feeling, and Horace paused between
+draughts of Falernian wine to admire the snows on Soracte, which lent
+contrast to the comfort of a well-ordered life.
+
+Mr. Freshfield has shown that the Chinese had a more genuine feeling
+for mountains; and Mr. Weston has explained the ancient cult of high
+places among the Japanese, perhaps the most consistent mountain
+worshippers in the world. The Japanese pilgrims, clad in white, make
+the ascent to the shrines which are built on the summits of their
+sacred mountains, and then withdraw to a secluded spot for further
+worship. For centuries, they have paid official tribute to the
+inspiration of high places.
+
+But what of the Alps? Did the men who lived within sight of the Swiss
+mountains regard them with indifference and contempt? This was,
+perhaps, the general attitude, but there is some evidence that a love
+for mountains was not quite so uncommon in the Middle Ages as is
+usually supposed.
+
+Before attempting to summarise this evidence, let us try to realise
+the Alps as they presented themselves to the first explorers. The
+difficulties of Alpine exploration, as that term is now understood,
+would have proved quite as formidable as those which now confront the
+Himalayan explorer. In spite of this, glacier passes were crossed in
+the earliest times, and even the Romans seemed to have ventured across
+the Théodule, judging by the coins which have been found on the top of
+that great glacier highway. In addition to the physical difficulties of
+Alpine travel, we must recognise the mental handicap of our ancestors.
+Danger no longer haunts the highways and road-passes of the Alps. Wild
+beasts and robber bands no longer threaten the visitor to Grindelwald.
+Of the numerous “inconveniences of travel” cited by an early visitor to
+the Alps, we need now only fear “the wonderful cunning of Innkeepers.”
+Stilled are the voices that were once supposed to speak in the thunder
+and the avalanche. The dragons that used to wing their way across
+the ravines of the central chain have joined the Dodo and “the men
+that eat the flesh of serpents and hiss as serpents do.” Danger, a
+luxury to the modern, formed part of the routine of mediæval life. Our
+ancestors had no need to play at peril; and, lest we lightly assume
+that the modern mountaineer is a braver man than those who shuddered
+on the St. Bernard, let us remember that our ancestors accepted with
+grave composure a daily portion of inevitable risks. Modern life is so
+secure that we are forced to the Alps in search of contrast. When our
+ancestors needed contrast, they joined a monastery.
+
+Must we assume that danger blinded them to the beauty of the Alps? The
+mountains themselves have not changed. The modern mountaineer sees,
+from the windows of the Berne express, a picture whose colours have not
+faded in the march of Time. The bar of silver that thrusts itself above
+the distant foothills, as the train swings out of the wooded fortress
+of the Jura, casts the same challenge across the long shadows of the
+uplands. The peaks are a little older, but the vision that lights the
+world for us shone with the same steadfast radiance across the plains
+of long ago. Must we believe that our adventurous forefathers could
+find nothing but fear in the snows of the great divide? Dangers which
+have not yet vanished menaced their journey, but the white gleam of
+the distant snows was no less beautiful in the days when it shone as a
+beacon light to guide the adventurous through the great barrier down
+the warmth of Italian lowlands. An age which could face the great
+adventure of the Crusades for an idea, or more often for the sheer
+lust of romantic wandering, was not an age easily daunted by peril and
+discomfort. May we not hope that many a mute, inglorious mountain-lover
+lifted his eyes across the fields and rivers near Basle or Constance,
+and found some hint of elusive beauty in the vision that still remains
+a mystery, even for those who have explored the once trackless snows?
+
+Those who have tried to discover the mediæval attitude have too often
+merely generalised from detached expressions of horror. Passages of
+praise have been treated as exceptional. The Monk Bremble and the
+Bishop Berkeley have had their say, unchallenged by equally good
+evidence for the defence. Let us remember that plenty of modern
+travellers might show an equally pronounced distaste for mountains.
+For the defence, we might quote the words of an old traveller borrowed
+in Coryat’s _Crudities_, a book which appeared in 1611: “What, I pray
+you, is more pleasant, more delectable, and more acceptable unto a man
+than to behold the height of hilles, as it were the very Atlantes of
+heauen? to admire Hercules his pillers? to see the mountaines Taurus
+and Caucasus? to view the hill Olympus, the seat of Jupiter? to pass
+over the Alpes that were broken by Annibals Vinegar? to climb up the
+Apennine promontory of Italy? from the hill Ida to behold the rising of
+the Sunne before the Sunne appears? to visit Parnassus and Helicon, the
+most celebrated seates of the Muses? Neither indeed is there any hill
+or hillocke, which doth not containe in it the most sweete memory of
+worthy matters.”
+
+There is the genuine ring about this. It is the modern spirit without
+the modern affectations. Nor is this case exceptional. In the following
+chapter we shall sketch the story of the early Alpine explorers, and we
+shall quote many passages instinct with the real love for the hills.
+
+Are we not entitled to believe that Gesner, Marti, and Petrarch are
+characteristic of one phase of mediæval sentiment, just as Bremble is
+characteristic of another? There is abundant evidence to show that the
+habit of visiting and admiring mountain scenery had become fashionable
+before the close of the sixteenth century. Simler tells us that
+foreigners came from all lands to marvel at the mountains, and excuses
+a certain lack of interest among his compatriots on the ground that
+they are surfeited with a too close knowledge of the Alps. Marti, of
+whom we shall speak at greater length, tells us that he found on the
+summit of the Stockhorn the Greek inscription cut in a stone which may
+be rendered: “The love of mountains is best.” And then there is the
+evidence of art. Conventional criticism of mountain art often revolves
+in a circle: “The mediæval man detested mountains, and when he painted
+a mountain he did so by way of contrast to set off the beauty of the
+plains.” Or again: “Mediæval man only painted mountains as types
+of all that is terrible in Nature. Therefore, mediæval man detested
+mountains.”
+
+Let us try to approach the work of these early craftsmen with no
+preconceived notions as to their sentiments. The canvases still remain
+as they were painted. What do they teach us? It is not difficult to
+discriminate between those who used mountains to point a contrast, and
+those who lingered with devotion on the beauty of the hills. When we
+find a man painting mountains loosely and carelessly, we may assume
+that he was not over fond of his subject. Jan von Scorel’s grotesque
+rocks show nothing but equally grotesque fear. Hans Altdorfer’s
+elaborate and careful work proves that he was at least interested in
+mountains, and had cleared his mind of conventional terror. Roughly,
+we may say that, where the foreground shows good and the mountain
+background shows bad workmanship, the artist cared nothing for hills,
+and only threw them in by way of gloomy contrast. But such pictures are
+not the general rule.
+
+Let us take a very early mountain painting that dates from 1444. It
+is something of a shock to find the Salève and Mont Blanc as the
+background to a New Testament scene. How is the background used? Konrad
+Witz, the painter, has chosen for his theme the miraculous draught of
+fishes. If he had borrowed a mountain background for the Temptation,
+the Betrayal, the Agony, or the Crucifixion, we might contend that
+the mountains were introduced to accentuate the gloom. But there is
+no suggestion of fear or sorrow in the peaceful calm that followed
+the storm of Calvary. The mountains in the distance are the hills as
+we know them. There is no reason to think that they are intended as a
+contrast to the restful foreground. Rather, they seem to complete and
+round off the happy serenity of the picture.
+
+Let us consider the mountain work of a greater man than Witz. We may be
+thankful that Providence created this barrier of hills between the deep
+earnestness of the North and the tolerance of Italy, for to this we owe
+some of the best mountain-scapes of the Middle Ages. There is romance
+in the thought of Albrecht Dürer crossing the Brenner on his way to the
+Venetian lagoons that he loved so well. Did Dürer regard this journey
+with loathing? Were the great Alps no more than an obstacle on the
+road to the coast where the Adriatic breaks “in a warm bay ’mid green
+Illyrian hills.” Did he echo the pious cry of that old Monk who could
+only pray to be delivered from “this place of torment,” or did he
+rather linger with loving memory on the wealth of inspiring suggestion
+gathered in those adventurous journeys? Contrast is the essence of Art,
+and Dürer was too great a man to miss the rugged appeal of untamed
+cliffs, because he could fathom so easily the gentler charm of German
+fields and Italian waters. You will find in these mountain woodcuts
+the whole essence of the lovable German romance, that peculiar note of
+“snugness” due to the contrast of frowning rock and some “gemütlich”
+Black Forest châlet. Hans Andersen, though a Dane, caught this note;
+and in Dürer’s work there is the same appealing romance that makes
+the “Ice Maiden” the most lovable of Alpine stories. One can almost
+see Rudy marching gallantly up the long road in Dürer’s “Das Grosse
+Glück,” or returning with the eaglets stolen from their perilous nest
+in the cliffs that shadow the “Heimsuch.” Those who pretend that
+Dürer introduced mountains as a background of gloom have no sense for
+atmosphere nor for anything else. For Dürer, the mountains were the
+home of old romance.
+
+Turn from Dürer to Da Vinci, and you will find another note. Da Vinci
+was, as we shall see, a climber, and this gives the dominant note to
+his great study of storm and thunder among the peaks, to be seen at
+Windsor Castle. His mountain rambles have given him that feeling
+of worship, tempered by awe, which even the Climbers’ Guides have
+not banished. But this book is not a treatise on mountain Art--a
+fascinating subject; and we must content ourselves with the statement
+that painters of all ages have found in the mountains the love which is
+more powerful than fear. Those who doubt this may examine at leisure
+the mountain work of Brueghel, Titian, or Mantegna. There are many
+other witnesses. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Hans Leu
+had looked upon the hills and found them good, and Altdorfer had shown
+not only a passionate enthusiasm for mountains, but a knowledge of
+their anatomy far ahead of his age. Wolf Huber, ten years his junior,
+carried on the torch, and passed it to Lautensack, who recaptured the
+peculiar note of German romance of which Dürer is the first and the
+greatest apostle. It would be easy to trace the apostolic succession
+to Segantini, and to prove that he is the heir to a tradition nearly
+six hundred years old. But enough has been said. We have adduced a few
+instances which bear upon the contention that, just as the mountains of
+the Middle Ages were much the same as the mountains of to-day, so also
+among the men of those times, as among the men of to-day, there were
+those who hated and those who loved the heights. No doubt the lovers of
+mountain scenery were in the minority; but they existed in far larger
+numbers than is sometimes supposed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE PIONEERS
+
+
+Within the compass of this book, we cannot narrate the history of
+Alpine passes, though the subject is intensely interesting, but we must
+not omit all mention of the great classic traverse of the Alps. We
+should read of Hannibal’s memorable journey not in Livy, nor even in
+Bohn, but in that vigorous sixteenth-century translation which owes its
+charm and force even more to Philemon Holland the translator than to
+Livy.
+
+Livy, or rather Holland, begins with Hannibal’s sentiments on “seeing
+near at hand the height of those hills ... the horses singed with cold
+... the people with long shagd haire.” Hannibal and his army were much
+depressed, but, none the less, they advanced under a fierce guerilla
+attack from the natives, who “slipt away at night, every one to his
+owne harbour.” Then follows a fine description of the difficulties of
+the pass. The poor elephants “were ever readie and anone to run upon
+their noses”--a phrase which evokes a tremendous picture--“and the
+snow being once with the gate of so many people and beasts upon it
+fretted and thawed, they were fain to go upon the bare yce underneeth
+and in the slabberie snow-broth as it relented and melted about their
+heeles.” A great rock hindered the descent; Hannibal set it on fire
+and “powred thereon strong vinegar for to calcine and dissolve it,”
+a device unknown to modern mountaineers. The passage ends with a
+delightful picture of the army’s relief on reaching “the dales and
+lower grounds which have some little banks lying to the sunne, and
+rivers withall neere unto the woods, yea and places more meet and
+beseeming for men to inhabit.” Experts are divided as to what pass was
+actually crossed by Hannibal. Even the Col de Géant has been suggested
+by a romantic critic; it is certainly stimulating to picture Hannibal’s
+elephants in the Géant ice-fall. Probably the Little St. Bernard, or
+the Mont Genèvre, is the most plausible solution. So much for the great
+traverse.
+
+Some twenty-five glacier passes had been actually crossed before the
+close of the sixteenth century, a fact which bears out our contention
+that in the Middle Ages a good deal more was known about the craft of
+mountaineering than is generally supposed. There is, however, this
+distinctive difference between passes and peaks. A man may cross a pass
+because it is the most convenient route from one valley to another.
+He may cross it though he is thoroughly unhappy until he reaches his
+destination, and it would be just as plausible to argue from his
+journey a love of mountains as to deduce a passion for the sea in every
+sea-sick traveller across the Channel. But a man will not climb a
+mountain unless he derives some interest from the actual ascent. Passes
+may be crossed in the way of business. Mountains will only be climbed
+for the joy of the climb.
+
+The Roche Melon, near Susa, was the first Alpine peak of any
+consequence to be climbed. This mountain rises to a height of 11,600
+feet. It was long believed to be the highest mountain in Savoy. On one
+side there is a small glacier; but the climb can be effected without
+crossing snow. It was climbed during the Dark Ages by a knight, Rotario
+of Asti, who deposited a bronze tryptych on the summit where a chapel
+still remains. Once a year the tryptych is carried to the summit, and
+Mass is heard in the chapel. There is a description of an attempt on
+this peak in the Chronicle of Novalessa, which dates back to the first
+half of the eleventh century. King Romulus is said to have deposited
+treasure on the mountain. The whole Alpine history of this peak is
+vague, but it is certain that the peak was climbed at a very early
+period, and that a chapel was erected on the summit before Villamont’s
+ascent in 1588. The climb presents no difficulties, but it was found
+discreet to remove the statue of the Virgin, as pilgrims seem to have
+lost their lives in attempting to reach it. The pilgrimages did not
+cease even after the statue had been placed in Susa.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  Bartholomew, Edin
+]
+
+Another early ascent must be recorded, though the climb was a very
+modest achievement. Mont Ventoux, in Provence, is only some 6430 feet
+above the sea, and to-day there is an hôtel on the summit. None the
+less, it deserves a niche in Alpine history, for its ascent is coupled
+with the great name of the poet Petrarch. Mr. Gribble calls Petrarch
+the first of the sentimental mountaineers. Certainly, he was one of the
+first mountaineers whose recorded sentiments are very much ahead of his
+age. The ascent took place on April 26, 1335, and Petrarch described it
+in a letter written to his confessor. He confesses that he cherished
+for years the ambition to ascend Mont Ventoux, and seized the first
+chance of a companion to carry through this undertaking. He makes the
+customary statement as to the extreme difficulty of the ascent, and
+introduces a shepherd who warns him from the undertaking. There are
+some very human touches in the story of the climb. While his brother
+was seeking short cuts, Petrarch tried to advance on more level ground,
+an excuse for his laziness which cost him dear, for the others had made
+considerable progress while he was still wandering in the gullies of
+the mountain. He began to find, like many modern mountaineers, that
+“human ingenuity was not a match for the nature of things, and that it
+was impossible to gain heights by moving downwards.” He successfully
+completed the ascent, and the climb filled him with enthusiasm. The
+reader should study the fine translation of his letter by Mr. Reeve,
+quoted in _The Early Mountaineers_. Petrarch caught the romance of
+heights. The spirit that breathes through every line of his letter is
+worthy of the poet.
+
+Petrarch is not the only great name that links the Renaissance to the
+birth of mountaineering. That versatile genius, Leonardo da Vinci,
+carried his scientific explorations into the mountains. We have already
+mentioned his great picture of storm and thunder among the hills, one
+of the few mementos that have survived from his Alpine journeys. His
+journey took place towards the end of the fifteenth century. Little is
+known of it, though the following passage from his works has provoked
+much comment. The translation is due to Mrs. Bell: “And this may be
+seen, as I saw it, by any one going up Monboso, a peak of the Alps
+which divide France from Italy. The base of this mountain gives birth
+to the four rivers which flow in four different directions through the
+whole of Europe. And no mountain has its base at so great a height as
+this, which lifts itself above almost all the clouds; and snow seldom
+falls there, but only hail in the summer when the clouds are highest.
+And this hail lies (unmelted) there, so that, if it were not for the
+absorption of the rising and falling clouds, which does not happen
+more than twice in an age, an enormous mass of ice would be piled up
+there by the layers of hail; and in the middle of July I found it very
+considerable, and I saw the sky above me quite dark; and the sun as it
+fell on the mountain was far brighter here than in the plains below,
+because a smaller extent of atmosphere lay between the summit of the
+mountain and the sun.”
+
+We need not summarise the arguments that identify Monboso either with
+Monte Rosa or Monte Viso. The weight of evidence inclines to the former
+alternative, though, of course, nobody supposes that Da Vinci actually
+reached the summit of Monte Rosa. There is good ground, however, for
+believing that he explored the lower slopes; and it is just possible
+that he may have got as far as the rocks above the Col d’Ollen, where,
+according to Mr. Freshfield, the inscription “A.T.M., 1615” has been
+found cut into the crags at a height of 10,000 feet. In this connection
+it is interesting to note that the name “Monboso” has been found in
+place of Monte Rosa in maps, as late as 1740.[1]
+
+We now come to the first undisputed ascent of a mountain, still
+considered a difficult rock climb. The year that saw the discovery of
+America is a great date in the history of mountaineering. In 1492,
+Charles VII of France passed through Dauphiny, and was much impressed
+by the appearance of Mont Aiguille, a rocky peak near Grenoble that
+was then called Mont Inaccessible. This mountain is only some seven
+thousand feet in height; but it is a genuine rock climb, and is still
+considered difficult, so much so that the French Alpine Club have paid
+it the doubtful compliment of iron cables in the more sensational
+passages. Charles VII was struck by the appearance of the mountain,
+and ordered his Chamberlain de Beaupré to make the ascent. Beaupré, by
+the aid of “subtle means and engines,” scaled the peak, had Mass said
+on the top, and caused three crosses to be erected on the summit. It
+was a remarkable ascent, and was not repeated till 1834.
+
+We are not concerned with exploration beyond the Alps, and we have
+therefore omitted Peter III’s attempt on Pic Canigou in the Pyrenees,
+and the attempt on the Pic du Midi in 1588; but we cannot on the ground
+of irrelevance pass over a remarkable ascent in 1521. Cortez is our
+authority. Under his order, a band of Spaniards ascended Popocatapetl,
+a Mexican volcano which reaches the respectable height of 17,850 feet.
+These daring climbers brought back quantities of sulphur which the army
+needed for its gunpowder.
+
+The Stockhorn is a modest peak some seven thousand feet in height.
+Simler tells us that its ascent was a commonplace achievement.
+Marti, as we have seen in the previous chapter, found numberless
+inscriptions cut into the summit stones by visitors, enthusiastic in
+their appreciation of mountain scenery, and its ascent by Müller, a
+Berne professor, in 1536, is only remarkable for the joyous poem in
+hexameters which records his delight in all the accompaniments of
+a mountain expedition. Müller has the true feelings for the simpler
+pleasures of picnicing on the heights. Everything delights him, from
+the humble fare washed down with a draught from a mountain stream,
+to the primitive joy of hurling big rocks down a mountain side. The
+last confession endears him to all who have practised this simple, if
+dangerous, amusement.
+
+The early history of Pilatus, another low-lying mountain, is much more
+eventful than the annals of the Stockhorn. It is closely bound up with
+the Pilate legend, which was firmly believed till a Lucerne pastor gave
+it the final quietus in 1585. Pontius Pilate, according to this story,
+was condemned by the Emperor Tiberius, who decreed that he should be
+put to death in the most shameful possible manner. Hearing this, Pilate
+very sensibly committed suicide. Tiberius concealed his chagrin, and
+philosophically remarked that a man whose own hand had not spared him
+had most certainly died the most shameful of deaths. Pilate’s body
+was attached to a stone and flung into the Tiber, where it caused a
+succession of terrible storms. The Romans decided to remove it, and the
+body was conveyed to Vienne as a mark of contempt for the people of
+that place. It was flung into the Rhone, and did its best to maintain
+its reputation. We need not follow this troublesome corpse through
+its subsequent wanderings. It was finally hurled into a little marshy
+lake, near the summit of Pilatus. Here Pilate’s behaviour was tolerable
+enough, though he resented indiscriminate stone-throwing into the lake
+by evoking terrible storms, and once a year he escaped from the waters,
+and sat clothed in a scarlet robe on a rock near by. Anybody luckless
+enough to see him on these occasions died within the twelve-month.
+
+So much for the story, which was firmly believed by the good citizens
+of Lucerne. Access to the lake was forbidden, unless the visitor was
+accompanied by a respectable burgher, pledged to veto any practices
+that Pilate might construe as a slight. In 1307, six clergymen were
+imprisoned for having attempted an ascent without observing the local
+regulations. It is even said that climbers were occasionally put to
+death for breaking these stringent by-laws. None the less, ascents
+occasionally took place. Duke Ulrich of Württemberg climbed the
+mountain in 1518, and a professor of Vienna, by name Joachim von Watt,
+ascended the mountain in order to investigate the legend, which he
+seems to have believed after a show of doubt. Finally, in 1585, Pastor
+John Müller of Lucerne, accompanied by a few courageous sceptics,
+visited the lake. In their presence, he threw stones into the haunted
+lake, and shouted “Pilate wirf aus dein Kath.” As his taunts produced
+no effect, judgment was given by default, and the legend, which had
+sent earlier sceptics into gaol, was laughed out of existence.
+
+Thirty years before this defiant demonstration, the mountain had been
+ascended by the most remarkable of the early mountaineers. Conrad
+Gesner was a professor at the ancient University of Zürich. Though not
+the first to make climbing a regular practice, he was the pioneer of
+mountain literature. He never encountered serious difficulties. His
+mountaineering was confined to those lower heights which provide the
+modern with a training walk. But he had the authentic outlook of the
+mountaineer. His love for mountains was more genuine than that of many
+a modern wielder of the ice-axe and rope. A letter has been preserved,
+in which he records his resolution “to climb mountains, or at all
+events to climb one mountain every year.”
+
+We have no detailed record of his climbs, but luckily his account of an
+ascent of Pilatus still survives, a most sincere tribute to the simple
+pleasures of the heights. It is a relief to turn to it after wading
+through more recent Alpine literature. Gesner’s writing is subjective.
+It records the impress of simple emotions on an unsophisticated
+mind. He finds a naïve joy in all the elemental things that make up
+a mountain walk, the cool breezes plying on heated limbs, the sun’s
+genial warmth, the contrasts of outline, colour, and height, the
+unending variety, so that “in one day you wander through the four
+seasons of the year, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.” He explains
+that every sense is delighted, the sense of hearing is gratified by the
+witty conversation of friends, “by the songs of the birds, and even
+by the stillness of the waste.” He adds, in a very modern note, that
+the mountaineer is freed from the noisy tumult of the city, and that
+in the “profound abiding silence one catches echoes of the harmony of
+celestial spheres.” There is more in the same key. He anticipates the
+most enduring reward of the mountaineer, and his words might serve
+as the motto for a mountain book of to-day: “Jucundum erit postea
+meminisse laborum atque periculorum, juvabit hæc animo revolvere et
+narrare amicis.” Toil and danger are sweet to recall, every mountaineer
+loves “to revolve these in his mind and to tell them to his friends.”
+Moreover, contrast is the essence of our enjoyment and “the very
+delight of rest is intensified when it follows hard labour.” And then
+Gesner turns with a burst of scorn to his imaginary opponent. “But, say
+you, we lack feather beds and mattresses and pillows. Oh, frail and
+effeminate man! Hay shall take the place of these luxuries. It is soft,
+it is fragrant. It is blended from healthy grass and flower, and as you
+sleep respiration will be sweeter and healthier than ever. Your pillow
+shall be of hay. Your mattress shall be of hay. A blanket of hay shall
+be thrown across your body.” That is the kind of thing an enthusiastic
+mountaineer might have written about the club-huts in the old days
+before the hay gave place to mattresses. Nor does Gesner spoil his
+rhapsody by the inevitable joke about certain denizens of the hay.
+
+There follows an eloquent description of the ascent and an analysis
+of the Pilate legend. Thirty years were to pass before Pastor Müller
+finally disposed of the myth, but Gesner is clearly sceptical, and
+concludes with the robust assertion that, even if evil spirits
+exist, they are “impotent to harm the faithful who worship the one
+heavenly light, and Christ the Sun of Justice.” A bold challenge to
+the superstitions of the age, a challenge worthy of the man. Conrad
+Gesner was born out of due season; and, though he does not seem to
+have crossed the snow line, he was a mountaineer in the best sense of
+the term. As we read his work, we seem to hear the voice of a friend.
+Across the years we catch the accents of a true member of our great
+fraternity. We leave him with regret, with a wish that we could meet
+him on some mountain path, and gossip for a while on mountains and
+mountaineers.
+
+But Gesner was not, as is sometimes assumed, alone in this sentiment
+for the hills. In the first chapter we have spoken of Marti, a
+professor at Berne, and a close friend of Gesner. The credit for
+discovering him belongs, I think, to Mr. Freshfield, who quotes some
+fine passages from Marti’s writings. Marti looks out from the terrace
+at Berne on that prospect which no true mountain lover can behold
+without emotion, and exclaims: “These are the mountains which form our
+pleasure and delight when we gaze at them from the highest parts of
+our city, and admire their mighty peaks and broken crags that threaten
+to fall at any moment. Who, then, would not admire, love, willingly
+visit, explore, and climb places of this sort? I should assuredly call
+those who are not attracted by them dolts, stupid dull fishes, and slow
+tortoises.... I am never happier than on the mountain crests, and
+there are no wanderings dearer to one than those on the mountains.”
+
+This passage tends to prove that mountain appreciation had already
+become a commonplace with cultured men. Had Marti’s views been
+exceptional, he would have assumed a certain air of defence. He would
+explain precisely why he found pleasure in such unexpected places. He
+would attempt to justify his paradoxical position. Instead, he boldly
+assumes that every right-minded man loves mountains; and he confounds
+his opponents by a vigorous choice of unpleasant alternatives.
+
+Josias Simler was a mountaineer of a very different type. To him
+belongs the credit of compiling the first treatise on the art of Alpine
+travel. Though he introduces no personal reminiscences, his work is so
+free from current superstition that he must have been something of a
+climber; but, though a climber, he did not share Gesner’s enthusiasm
+for the hills. For, though he seems to have crossed glacier passes,
+whereas Gesner confined himself to the lower mountains, yet the note
+of enthusiasm is lacking. His horror of narrow paths, bordering on
+precipices, is typical of the age; and if he ventured across a pass he
+must have done so in the way of business. There is, as we have already
+pointed out, a marked difference between passes and mountains. A
+merchant with a holy horror of mountains may be forced to cross a pass
+in the way of business, but a man will only climb a mountain for the
+fun of the thing. It is clear that Simler could only see in mountains
+a sense of inconvenient barriers to commerce, but as a practical man
+he set out to codify the existing knowledge. Gesner’s mountain work
+is subjective; it is the literature of emotion; he is less concerned
+with the mountain in itself, than with the mountain as it strikes the
+individual observer. Simler, on the other hand, is the forerunner of
+the objective school. He must delight those who postulate that all
+Alpine literature should be the record of positive facts. The personal
+note is utterly lacking. Like Gesner, he was a professor at Zürich.
+Unlike Gesner, he was an embodiment of the academic tradition that is
+more concerned with fact than with emotion. None the less, his work
+was a very valuable contribution, as it summarised existing knowledge
+on the art of mountain travel. His information is singularly free from
+error. He seems to have understood the use of the rope, alpenstocks,
+crampons, dark spectacles, and the use of paper as a protection
+against cold. It is strange that crampons, which were used in Simler’s
+days, were only reintroduced into general practice within the last
+decades, whilst the uncanny warmth of paper is still unknown to many
+mountaineers. His description of glacier perils, due to concealed
+crevasses, is accurate, and his analysis of avalanches contains much
+that is true. We are left with the conviction that snow- and ice-craft
+is an old science, though originally applied by merchants rather than
+pure explorers.
+
+We quoted Simler, in the first chapter, in support of our contention
+that foreigners came in great numbers to see and rejoice in the beauty
+of the Alps. But, though Simler proves that passes were often crossed
+in the way of business, and that mountains were often visited in search
+of beauty, he himself was no mountain lover.
+
+It is a relief to turn to Scheuchzer, who is a living personality. Like
+Gesner and Simler, he was a professor at Zürich, and, like them, he
+was interested in mountains. There the resemblance ceases. He had none
+of Gesner’s fine sentiment for the hills. He did not share Simler’s
+passion for scientific knowledge. He was a very poor mountaineer, and,
+though he trudged up a few hills, he heartily disliked the toil of
+the ascent: “Anhelosæ quidem sunt scansiones montium”--an honest, but
+scarcely inspiring, comment on mountain travel. Honesty, bordering on
+the naïve, is, indeed, the keynote of our good professor’s confessions.
+Since his time, many ascents have failed for the same causes that
+prevented Scheuchzer reaching the summit of Pilatus, but few
+mountaineers are candid enough to attribute their failure to “bodily
+weariness and the distance still to be accomplished.” Scheuchzer must
+be given credit for being, in many ways, ahead of his age. He protested
+vigorously against the cruel punishments in force against witches. He
+was the first to formulate a theory of glacier motion which, though
+erroneous, was by no means absurd. As a scientist, he did good work
+in popularising Newton’s theories. He published the first map of
+Switzerland with any claims to accuracy. His greatest scientific work
+on dragons is dedicated to the English Royal Society, and though
+Scheuchzer’s dragons provoke a smile, we should remember that several
+members of that learned society subscribed to publish his researches on
+those fabulous creatures.
+
+With his odd mixture of credulity and common sense, Scheuchzer often
+recalls another genial historian of vulgar errors. Like Sir Thomas
+Browne, he could never dismiss a picturesque legend without a pang. He
+gives the more blatant absurdities their quietus with the same gentle
+and reluctant touch: “That the sea is the sweat of the earth, that the
+serpent before the fall went erect like man ... being neither consonant
+unto reason nor corresponding unto experiment, are unto us no axioms.”
+Thus Browne, and it is with the same tearful and chastened scepticism
+that Scheuchzer parts with the more outrageous “axioms” in his
+wonderful collection. But he retained enough to make his work amusing.
+Like Browne, he made it a rule to believe half that he was told. But on
+the subject of dragons he has no mental reservations. Their existence
+is proved by the number of caves that are admirably suited to the needs
+of the domestic dragon, and by the fact that the Museum, at Lucerne,
+contains an undoubted dragon stone. Such stones are rare, which is
+not surprising owing to the extreme difficulty of obtaining a genuine
+unimpaired specimen. You must first catch your dragon asleep, and then
+cut the stone out of his head. Should the dragon awake the value of the
+stone will disappear. Scheuchzer refrains from discouraging collectors
+by hinting at even more unpleasant possibilities. But then there is no
+need to awaken the dragon. Scatter soporific herbs around him, and help
+them out by recognised incantations, and the stone should be removed
+without arousing the dragon. In spite of these anæsthetics, Scheuchzer
+admits that the process demands a courageous and skilled operator, and
+perhaps it is lucky that this particular stone was casually dropped
+by a passing dragon. It is obviously genuine, for, if the peasant
+who had picked it up had been dishonest, he would never have hit on
+so obvious and unimaginative a tale. He would have told some really
+striking story, such as that the stone had come from the far Indies.
+Besides, the stone not only cures hæmorrhages (quite commonplace stones
+will cure hæmorrhages), but also dysentery and plague. As to dragons,
+Scheuchzer is even more convincing. He has examined (on oath) scores of
+witnesses who had observed dragons at first hand. We need not linger
+to cross-examine these honest folk. Their dragons are highly coloured,
+and lack nothing but uniformity. Each new dragon that flies into
+Scheuchzer’s net is gravely classified. Some dragons have feet, others
+have wings. Some have scales. Scheuchzer is a little puzzled whether
+dragons with a crest constitute a class of their own, or whether the
+crest distinguished the male from the female. Each dragon is thus
+neatly ticketed into place and referred to the sworn deposition of some
+_vir quidam probus_.
+
+But the dragons had had their day. Scheuchzer ushers in the eighteenth
+century. Let us take leave of him with a friendly smile. He is no
+abstraction, but a very human soul. We forget the scientist, though
+his more serious discoveries were not without value. We remember only
+the worthy professor, panting up his laborious hills in search of
+quaint knowledge, discovering with simple joy that Gemmi is derived
+from “gemitus” a groan, _quod non nisi crebris gemitibus superetur_.
+No doubt the needy fraternity soon discovered his amiable weakness.
+An unending procession must have found their way to his door, only
+too anxious to supply him with dragons of wonderful and fearful
+construction. Hence, the infinite variety of these creatures. When
+we think of Scheuchzer, we somehow picture the poor old gentleman,
+laboriously rearranging his data, on the sworn deposition of some
+_clarissimus homo_, what time the latter was bartering in the nearest
+tavern the price of a dragon for that good cheer in which most of
+Scheuchzer’s fauna first saw the light of day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE OPENING UP OF THE ALPS
+
+
+The climbs, so far chronicled, have been modest achievements and do not
+include a genuine snow-peak, for the Roche Melon has permanent snow
+on one side only. We have seen that many snow passes were in regular
+use from the earliest times; but genuine Alpine climbing may be said
+to begin with the ascent of the Titlis. According to Mr. Gribble, this
+was climbed by a monk of Engleberg, in 1739. Mr. Coolidge, on the other
+hand, states that it was ascended by four peasants, in 1744. In any
+case, the ascent was an isolated feat which gave no direct stimulus to
+Alpine climbing, and Mr. Gribble is correct in dating the continuous
+history of Alpine climbing from the discovery of Chamounix, in 1741.
+This famous valley had, of course, a history of its own before that
+date; but its existence was only made known, to a wider world, by
+the visit of a group of young Englishmen, towards the middle of the
+eighteenth century.
+
+In 1741, Geneva was enlivened by a vigorous colony of young Britons.
+Of these, William Windham was a famous athlete, known on his return
+to London as “Boxing Windham.” While at Geneva, he seems, despite the
+presence of his “respectable perceptor,” Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet,
+the grandson of the theologian, to have amused himself pretty
+thoroughly. The archives record that he was fined for assault and
+kindred offences. When these simple joys began to pall he decided to go
+to Chamounix in search of adventure.
+
+His party consisted of himself, Lord Haddington, Dr. Pococke, the
+Oriental traveller, and others. They visited Chamounix, and climbed
+the Montanvert with a large brigade of guides. The ascent to the
+Montanvert was not quite so simple as it is to-day, a fact which
+accounts for Windham’s highly coloured description. Windham published
+his account of the journey and his reflections on glaciers, in the
+_Journal Helvetique_ of Neuchâtel, and later in London. It attracted
+considerable attention and focussed the eyes of the curious on the
+unknown valley of Chamounix. Among others, Peter Martel, an engineer
+of Geneva, was inspired to repeat the visit. Like Windham, he climbed
+the Montanvert and descended on to the Mer de Glace; and, like Windham,
+he published an account of the journey and certain reflections on
+glaciers and glacier motion. His story is well worth reading, and the
+curious in such matters should turn either to Mr. Gribble’s _Early
+Mountaineers_, or to Mr. Matthews’ _The Annals of Mont Blanc_, where
+they will find Windham’s and Martel’s letters set forth in full.
+
+Martel’s letter and his map of Chamounix were printed together with
+Windham’s narrative, and were largely responsible for popularising
+Chamounix. Those who wished to earn a reputation for enterprise could
+hardly do so without a visit to the glaciers of Chamounix. Dr. John
+Moore, father of Sir John Moore, who accompanied the Duke of Hamilton
+on the grand tour, tells us that “one could hardly mention anything
+curious or singular without being told by some of those travellers,
+with an air of cool contempt: ‘Dear Sir, that is pretty well, but take
+my word for it, it is nothing to the glaciers of Savoy.’” The Duc de la
+Rochefoucauld considered that the honour of his nation demanded that he
+should visit the glaciers, to prove that the English were not alone in
+the possession of courage.
+
+More important, in this connection, than Dr. Moore or the duke is the
+great name of De Saussure. De Saussure belonged to an old French family
+that had been driven out of France during the Huguenot persecutions.
+They emigrated to Geneva, where De Saussure was born. His mother had
+Spartan views on education; and from his earlier years the child was
+taught to suffer the privations due to physical ills and the inclemency
+of the season. As a result of this adventurous training, De Saussure
+was irresistibly drawn to the mountains. He visited Chamounix in
+1760, and was immediately struck by the possibility of ascending Mont
+Blanc. He does not seem to have cherished any ambition to make the
+first ascent in person. He was content to follow when once the way
+had been found; and he offered a reward to the pioneer, and promised
+to recompense any peasant who should lose a day’s work in trying to
+find the way to the summit of Mont Blanc. The reward was not claimed
+for many years, but, meanwhile, De Saussure never missed a chance of
+climbing a mountain. He climbed Ætna, and made a series of excursions
+in various parts of the Alps. When his wife complained, he indited a
+robust letter which every married mountaineer should keep up his sleeve
+for ready quotation.
+
+“In this valley, which I had not previously visited,” he writes,
+“I have made observations of the greatest importance, surpassing
+my highest hopes; but that is not what you care about. You would
+sooner--God forgive me for saying so--see me growing fat like a friar,
+and snoring every day in the chimney corner, after a big dinner, than
+that I should achieve immortal fame by the most sublime discoveries
+at the cost of reducing my weight by a few ounces and spending a few
+weeks away from you. If, then, I continue to take these journeys, in
+spite of the annoyance they cause you, the reason is that I feel myself
+pledged in honour to go on with them, and that I think it necessary
+to extend my knowledge on this subject and make my works as nearly
+perfect as possible. I say to myself: ‘Just as an officer goes out to
+assault a fortress when the order is given, and just as a merchant goes
+to market on market-day, so must I go to the mountains when there are
+observations to be made.’”
+
+De Saussure was partly responsible for the great renaissance of
+mountain travel that began at Geneva in 1760. A group of enthusiastic
+mountaineers instituted a series of determined assaults on the
+unconquered snows. Of these, one of the most remarkable was Jean-Andre
+de Luc.
+
+De Luc was born at Geneva, in 1727. His father was a watchmaker, but De
+Luc’s life was cast on more ambitious lines. He began as a diplomatist,
+but gravitated insensibly to science. He invented the hygrometer, and
+was elected a member of the Royal Societies of London, Dublin, and
+Göttingen. Charlotte, the wife of George III, appointed him her reader;
+and he died at Windsor, having attained the ripe age of ninety. He was
+a scientific, rather than a sentimental, mountaineer; his principal
+occupation was to discover the temperature at which water would boil at
+various altitudes. His chief claim to notice is that he made the first
+ascent of the Buet.
+
+The Buet is familiar to all who know Chamounix. It rises to the height
+of 10,291 feet. Its summit is a broad plateau, glacier-capped. Those
+who have travelled to Italy by the Simplon may, perhaps, recall the
+broad-topped mountain that seems to block up the western end of the
+Rhone valley, for the Buet is a conspicuous feature on the line,
+between Sion and Brigue. It is not a difficult mountain, in the modern
+sense of the term; but, to climbers who knew little of the nature of
+snow and glacier, it must have presented quite a formidable appearance.
+De Luc made several attempts before he was finally successful on
+September 22, 1770. His description of the view from the summit is a
+fine piece of writing. Familiarity had not staled the glory of such
+moments; and men might still write, as they felt, without fear that
+their readers would be bored by emotions that had lost their novelty.
+
+Before leaving, De Luc observed that the party were standing on
+a cornice. A cornice is a crest of windblown snow overhanging a
+precipice. As the crest often appears perfectly continuous with the
+snow on solid foundation, cornices have been responsible for many
+fatal accidents. De Luc’s party naturally beat a hurried retreat; but
+“having gathered, by reflection, that the addition of our own weight
+to this prodigious mass which had supported itself for ages counted
+for absolutely nothing, and could not possibly break it loose, we
+laid aside our fears and went back to the terrible terrace.” A little
+science is a dangerous thing; and it was a mere chance that the first
+ascent of the Buet is not notorious for a terrible accident. It makes
+one’s blood run cold to read of the calm contempt with which De Luc
+treated the cornice. Each member of the party took it in turn to
+advance to the edge and look over on to the cliff below supported as to
+his coattails by the rest of the party.
+
+De Luc made a second ascent of the Buet, two years later; but it was
+not until 1779 that a snow peak was again conquered. In that year
+Murith, the Prior of the St. Bernard Hospice, climbed the Velan,
+the broad-topped peak which is so conspicuous a feature from the St.
+Bernard. It is a very respectable mountain rising to a height of
+12,353 feet. Murith, besides being an ecclesiastic, was something of
+a scientist, and his botanical handbook to the Valais is not without
+merit. It is to Bourrit, of whom we shall speak later, that we owe the
+written account of the climb, based on information which Bourrit had at
+first hand from M. Murith.
+
+Murith started on August 30, 1779, with “two hardy hunters,” two
+thermometers, a barometer, and a spirit-level. They slept a night on
+the way, and proceeded to attack the mountain from the Glacier du
+Proz. The hardy hunters lost their nerve, and tried to dissuade M.
+Murith from the attempt; but the gallant Prior replied: “Fear nothing;
+wherever there is danger I will go in front.” They encountered numerous
+difficulties, amongst others a wall of ice which Murith climbed by
+hacking steps and hand-holds with a pointed hammer. One of the hardy
+huntsmen then followed; his companion had long since disappeared.
+
+They reached the summit without further difficulty, and their
+impressions of the view are recorded by Bourrit in an eloquent passage
+which recalls De Luc on the Buet, and once more proves that the early
+mountaineers were fully alive to the glory of mountain tops--
+
+    “A spectacle, no less amazing than magnificent, offered itself to
+    their gaze. The sky seemed to be a black cloth enveloping the earth
+    at a distance from it. The sun shining in it made its darkness all
+    the more conspicuous. Down below their outlook extended over an
+    enormous area, bristling with rocky peaks and cut by dark valleys.
+    Mont Blanc rose like a sloping pyramid and its lofty head appeared
+    to dominate all the Alps as one saw it towering above them. An
+    imposing stillness, a majestic silence, produced an indescribable
+    impression upon the mind. The noise of the avalanches, reiterated
+    by the echoes, seemed to be the only thing that marked the march
+    of time. Raised, so to say, above the head of Nature, they saw the
+    mountains split asunder, and send the fragments rolling to their
+    feet, and the rivers rising below them in places where inactive
+    Nature seemed upon the point of death--though in truth it is there
+    that she gathers strength to carry life and fertility throughout
+    the world.”
+
+It is curious in this connection to notice the part played by the
+Church in the early history of mountaineering. This is not surprising.
+The local curé lived in the shadow of the great peaks that dominated
+his valley. He was more cultured than the peasants of his parish; he
+was more alive to the spiritual appeal of the high places, and he
+naturally took a leading part in the assaults on his native mountains.
+The Titlis and Monte Leone were first climbed by local monks. The
+prior of the St. Bernard made, as we have seen, a remarkable conquest
+of a great local peak; and five years later M. Clément, the curé of
+Champery, reached the summit of the Dent du Midi, that great battlement
+of rock which forms a background to the eastern end of Lake Geneva.
+Bourrit, as we shall see, was an ecclesiastic with a great love for the
+snows. Father Placidus à Spescha was the pioneer of the Tödi; and local
+priests played their part in the early attempts on the Matterhorn from
+Italy. “One man, one mountain” was the rule of many an early pioneer;
+but Murith’s love of the snows was not exhausted by this ascent of the
+Velan. He had already explored the Valsorey glacier with Saussure, and
+the Otemma glacier with Bourrit. A few years after his conquest of the
+Velan he turned his attention to the fine wall of cliffs that binds in
+the Orny glacier on the south.
+
+Bourrit, who wrote up Murith’s notes on the Velan, was one of the
+most remarkable of this group of pioneers. He was a whole-hearted
+enthusiast, and the first man who devoted the most active years of
+his life to mountaineering. He wins our affection by the readiness
+with which he gave others due credit for their achievements, a
+generous characteristic which did not, however, survive the supreme
+test--Paccard’s triumph on Mont Blanc. Mountaineers at the end of the
+eighteenth century formed a close freemasonry less concerned with
+individual achievement than with the furthering of common knowledge.
+We have seen, for instance, that De Saussure cared little who made the
+first ascent of Mont Blanc provided that the way was opened up for
+future explorers. Bourrit’s actual record of achievement was small. His
+exploration was attended with little success. His best performance was
+the discovery, or rediscovery of the Col de Géant. His great ambition,
+the ascent of Mont Blanc, failed. Fatigue, or mountain sickness, or
+bad weather, spoiled his more ambitious climbs. But this matters
+little. He found his niche in Alpine history rather as a writer than
+as a mountaineer. He popularised the Alps. He was the first systematic
+writer of Alpine books, a fact which earned him the title, “Historian
+of the Alps,” a title of which he was inordinately proud. Best of all,
+in an age when mountain appreciation was somewhat rare, he marked
+himself out by an unbounded enthusiasm for the hills.
+
+He was born in 1735, and in one of his memoirs he describes the moment
+when he first heard the call of the Alps: “It was from the summit of
+the Voirons that the view of the Alps kindled my desire to become
+acquainted with them. No one could give me any information about
+them except that they were the accursed mountains, frightful to look
+upon and uninhabited.” Bourrit began life as a miniature painter.
+A good many of his Alpine water colours have survived. Though they
+cannot challenge serious comparison with the mountain masterpieces
+of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they are not without a
+certain merit. But Bourrit would not have become famous had he not
+deserted the brush for the pen. When the Alps claimed him, he gave
+up miniatures, and accepted an appointment as Precentor of Geneva
+Cathedral, a position which allowed him great leisure for climbing.
+He used to climb in the summer, and write up his journeys in the
+winter. He soon compiled a formidable list of books, and was hailed
+throughout Europe as the Historian of the Alps. There was no absurd
+modesty about Bourrit. He accepted the position with serene dignity.
+His house, he tells us, is “embellished with beautiful acacias, planned
+for the comfort and convenience of strangers who do not wish to leave
+Geneva without visiting the Historian of the Alps.” He tells us that
+Prince Henry of Prussia, acting on the advice of Frederick the Great,
+honoured him with a visit. Bourrit, in fact, received recognition in
+many distinguished quarters. The Princess Louise of Prussia sent him
+an engraving to recall “a woman whom you have to some extent taught
+to share your lofty sentiments.” Bourrit was always popular with the
+ladies, and no climber has shown a more generous appreciation for the
+sex. “The sex is very beautiful here,” became, as Mr. Gribble tells us,
+“a formula with him as soon as he began writing and continued a formula
+after he had passed his threescore years and ten.”
+
+We have said that Bourrit’s actual record as a climber is rather
+disappointing. We may forget this, and remember only his whole-hearted
+devotion to the mountains. Even Gesner, Petrarch, and Marti seem
+balanced and cold when they set their tributes besides Bourrit’s large
+enthusiasm. Bourrit did not carry a barometer with him on his travels.
+He did not feel the need to justify his wanderings by collecting a
+mass of scientific data. Nor did he assume that a mountain tour should
+be written up as a mere guide-book record of times and route. He is
+supremely concerned with the ennobling effect of mountain scenery on
+the human mind.
+
+“At Chamounix,” he writes, “I have seen persons of every party in the
+state, who imagined that they loathed each other, nevertheless treating
+one another with courtesy, and even walking together. Returning to
+Geneva, and encountering the reproaches of their various friends,
+they merely answered in their defence, ‘Go, as we have gone, to the
+Montanvert, and take our share of the pure air that is to be breathed
+there; look thence at the unfamiliar beauties of Nature; contemplate
+from that terrace the greatness of natural objects and the littleness
+of man; and you will no longer be astonished that Nature has enabled us
+to subdue our passions.’ It is, in fact, the mountains that many men
+have to thank for their reconciliation with their fellows, and with
+the human race; and it is there that the rulers of the world and the
+heads of the nations ought to hold their meetings. Raised thus above
+the arena of passions and petty interests, and placed more immediately
+under the influence of Divine inspiration, one would see them descend
+from these mountains, each like a new Moses bringing with them codes
+of law based upon equity and justice.”
+
+This is fine writing with a vengeance, just as Ruskin’s greatest
+passages are fine writing. Before we take our leave of Bourrit, let
+us see the precentor of the cathedral exhorting a company of guides
+with sacerdotal dignity. One is irresistibly reminded of Japan, where
+mountaineering and sacrificial rites go hand in hand--
+
+    “The Historian of the Alps, in rendering them this justice in the
+    presence of a great throng of people, seized the opportunity of
+    exhorting the new guides to observe the virtues proper to their
+    state in life. ‘Put yourselves,’ he said to them, ‘in the place
+    of the strangers, who come from the most distant lands to admire
+    the marvels of Nature under these wild and savage aspects; and
+    justify the confidence which they repose in you. You have learnt
+    the great part which these magnificent objects of our contemplation
+    play in the organisation of the world; and, in pointing out their
+    various phenomena to their astonished eyes, you will rejoice to see
+    people raise their thoughts to the omnipotence of the Great Being
+    who created them.’ The speaker was profoundly moved by the ideas
+    with which the subject inspired him, and it was impossible for his
+    listeners not to share in his emotion.”
+
+Let us remember that Bourrit put his doctrine into practice. He has
+told us that he found men of diverse creeds reconciled beneath the
+shadow of Mont Blanc. Bourrit himself was a mountaineer first, and an
+ecclesiastic second. Perhaps he was no worse as a Protestant precentor
+because the mountains had taught him their eternal lessons of tolerance
+and serene indifference to the petty issues which loom so large beneath
+the shadow of the cathedral. Catholic or Protestant it was all the same
+to our good precentor, provided the man loved the hills. Prior Murith
+was his friend; and every Catholic mountaineer should be grateful to
+his memory, for he persuaded one of their archbishops to dispense
+climbers from the obligation of fasting in Lent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE STORY OF MONT BLANC
+
+
+The history of Mont Blanc has been made the subject of an excellent
+monograph, and the reader who wishes to supplement the brief sketch
+which is all that we can attempt should buy _The Annals of Mont Blanc_,
+by Mr. C. E. Mathews. We have already seen that De Saussure offered a
+reward in 1760 to any peasant who could find a way to the summit of
+Mont Blanc. In the quarter-of-a-century that followed, several attempts
+were made. Amongst others, Bourrit tried on two occasions to prove the
+accessibility of Mont Blanc. Bourrit himself never reached a greater
+height than 10,000 feet; but some of his companions attained the very
+respectable altitude of 14,300 feet. De Saussure attacked the mountain
+without success in 1785, leaving the stage ready for the entrance of
+the most theatrical of mountaineers.
+
+Jacques Balmat, the hero of Mont Blanc, impresses himself upon the
+imagination as no other climber of the day. He owes his fame mainly,
+of course, to his great triumph, but also, not a little, to the fact
+that he was interviewed by Alexandre Dumas the Elder, who immortalised
+him in _Impressions de Voyage_. For the moment, we shall not bother
+to criticise its accuracy. We know that Balmat reached the summit
+of Mont Blanc; and that outstanding fact is about the only positive
+contribution to the story which has not been riddled with destructive
+criticism. The story should be read in the original, though Dumas’
+vigorous French loses little in Mr. Gribble’s spirited translation from
+which I shall borrow.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  A Summit of Mont Blanc
+  B    ”    ” Dôme du Gouter
+  C    ”    ” Aiguille du Gouter
+  D    ”    ” Aiguille de Bianossay
+  E    ”    ” Mont Maudit
+  E′    ”    ” Mont Blanc du Tacul
+  F    ”    ” Aiguille du Midi
+  G Grand Mulets
+  H Grand Plateau
+  L Les Bosses du Dromadaire
+  M Glacier des Bossons
+  N Glacier de Taconnaz
+]
+
+Dumas visited Chamounix in 1883. Balmat was then a veteran, and, of
+course, the great person of the valley. Dumas lost no time in making
+his acquaintance. We see them sitting together over a bottle of wine,
+and we can picture for ourselves the subtle art with which the great
+interviewer drew out the old guide. But Balmat shall tell his own
+story--
+
+    “H’m. Let me see. It was in 1786. I was five-and-twenty; that makes
+    me seventy-two to-day. What a fellow I was! With the devil’s own
+    calves and hell’s own stomach. I could have gone three days without
+    bite or sup. I had to do so once when I got lost on the Buet. I
+    just munched a little snow, and that was all. And from time to
+    time I looked across at Mont Blanc saying, ‘Say what you like, my
+    beauty, and do what you like. Some day I shall climb you.’”
+
+Balmat then tells us how he persuaded his wife that he was on his way
+to collect crystals. He climbed steadily throughout the day, and night
+found him on a great snowfield somewhere near the Grand Plateau. The
+situation was sufficiently serious. To be benighted on Mont Blanc is
+a fate which would terrify a modern climber, even if he were one of a
+large party. Balmat was alone, and the mental strain of a night alone
+on a glacier can only be understood by those who have felt the uncanny
+terror that often attacks the solitary wanderer even in the daytime.
+Fortunately, Balmat does not seem to have been bothered with nerves.
+His fears expressed themselves in tangible shape.
+
+    “Presently the moon rose pale and encircled by clouds, which hid
+    it altogether at about eleven o’clock. At the same time a rascally
+    mist came on from the Aiguille du Gouter, which had no sooner
+    reached me than it began to spit snow in my face. Then I wrapped my
+    head in my handkerchief, and said: ‘Fire away. You’re not hurting
+    me.’ At every instant I heard the falling avalanches making a
+    noise like thunder. The glaciers split, and at every split I felt
+    the mountain move. I was neither hungry nor thirsty; and I had an
+    extraordinary headache which took me at the crown of the skull, and
+    worked its way down to the eyelids. All this time, the mist never
+    lifted. My breath had frozen on my handkerchief; the snow had made
+    my clothes wet; I felt as if I were naked. Then I redoubled the
+    rapidity of my movements, and began to sing, in order to drive away
+    the foolish thoughts that came into my head. My voice was lost in
+    the snow; no echo answered me. I held my tongue, and was afraid. At
+    two o’clock the sky paled towards the east. With the first beams of
+    day, I felt my courage coming back to me. The sun rose, battling
+    with the clouds which covered the mountain top; my hope was that
+    it would scatter them; but at about four o’clock the clouds got
+    denser, and I recognised that it would be impossible for me just
+    then to go any further.”
+
+He spent a second night on the mountain, which was, on the whole,
+more comfortable than the first, as he passed it on the rocks of the
+Montagne de la Côte. Before he returned home, Balmat planned a way
+to the summit. And now comes the most amazing part of the story. He
+had no sooner returned home than he met three men starting off for
+the mountain. A modern mountaineer, who had spent two nights, alone,
+high up on Mont Blanc, would consider himself lucky to reach Chamounix
+alive; once there, he would go straight to bed for some twenty-four
+hours. But Balmat was built of iron. He calmly proposed to accompany
+his friends; and, having changed his stockings, he started out again
+for the great mountain, on which he had spent the previous two nights.
+The party consisted of François Paccard, Joseph Carrier, and Jean
+Michel Tournier. They slept on the mountain; and next morning they
+were joined by two other guides, Pierre Balmat and Marie Couttet. They
+did not get very far, and soon turned back--all save Balmat. Balmat,
+who seems to have positively enjoyed his nights on the glacier, stayed
+behind.
+
+    “I laid my knapsack on the snow, drew my handkerchief over my face
+    like a curtain, and made the best preparations that I could for
+    passing a night like the previous one. However, as I was about two
+    thousand feet higher, the cold was more intense; a fine powdery
+    snow froze me; I felt a heaviness and an irresistible desire to
+    sleep; thoughts, sad as death, came into my mind, and I knew well
+    that these sad thoughts and this desire to sleep were a bad sign,
+    and that if I had the misfortune to close my eyes I should never
+    open them again. From the place where I was, I saw, ten thousand
+    feet below me, the lights of Chamounix, where my comrades were warm
+    and tranquil by their firesides or in their beds. I said to myself:
+    ‘Perhaps there is not a man among them who gives a thought to me.
+    Or, if there is one of them who thinks of Balmat, no doubt he pokes
+    his fire into a blaze, or draws his blanket over his ears, saying,
+    ‘That ass of a Jacques is wearing out his shoe leather. Courage,
+    Balmat!’”
+
+Balmat may have been a braggart, but it is sometimes forgotten by his
+critics that he had something to brag about. Even if he had never
+climbed Mont Blanc, this achievement would have gone down to history
+as perhaps the boldest of all Alpine adventures. To sleep one night,
+alone, above the snow line is a misfortune that has befallen many
+climbers. Some have died, and others have returned, thankful. One may
+safely say that no man has started out for the same peak, and willingly
+spent a third night under even worse conditions than the first. Three
+nights out of four in all. We are charitably assuming that this
+part of Balmat’s story is true. There is at least no evidence to the
+contrary.
+
+Naturally enough, Balmat did not prosecute the attempt at once. He
+returned to Chamounix, and sought out the local doctor, Michel Paccard.
+Paccard agreed to accompany him. They left Chamounix at five in the
+evening, and slept on the top of the Montagne de la Côte. They started
+next morning at two o’clock. According to Balmat’s account, the doctor
+played a sorry part in the day’s climb. It was only by some violent
+encouragement that he was induced to proceed at all.
+
+    “After I had exhausted all my eloquence, and saw that I was only
+    losing my time, I told him to keep moving about as best he could.
+    He heard without understanding, and kept answering ‘Yes, yes,’ in
+    order to get rid of me. I perceived that he must be suffering from
+    cold. So I left him the bottle, and set off alone, telling him
+    that I would come back and look for him. ‘Yes, yes,’ he answered.
+    I advised him not to sit still, and started off. I had not gone
+    thirty steps before I turned round and saw that, instead of running
+    about and stamping his feet, he had sat down, with his back to the
+    wind--a precaution of a sort. From that minute onwards, the track
+    presented no great difficulty; but, as I rose higher and higher,
+    the air became more and more unfit to breathe. Every few steps,
+    I had to stop like a man in a consumption. It seemed to me that
+    I had no lungs left, and that my chest was hollow. Then I folded
+    my handkerchief like a scarf, tied it over my mouth and breathed
+    through it; and that gave me a little relief. However, the cold
+    gripped me more and more; it took me an hour to go a quarter of a
+    league. I looked down as I walked; but, finding myself in a spot
+    which I did not recognise, I raised my eyes, and saw that I had at
+    last reached the summit of Mont Blanc.
+
+    “Then I looked around me, fearing to find that I was mistaken,
+    and to catch sight of some aiguille or some fresh point above me;
+    if there had been, I should not have had the strength to climb
+    it. For it seems to me that the joints of my legs were only held
+    in their proper place by my breeches. But no--it was not so. I
+    had reached the end of my journey. I had come to a place where no
+    one--where not the eagle or the chamois--had ever been before me.
+    I had got there, alone, without any other help than that of my own
+    strength and my own will. Everything that surrounded me seemed to
+    be my property. I was the King of Mont Blanc--the statue of this
+    tremendous pedestal.
+
+    “Then I turned towards Chamounix, waving my hat at the end of my
+    stick, and saw, by the help of my glass, that my signals were being
+    answered.”
+
+Balmat returned, found the doctor in a dazed condition, and piloted him
+to the summit, which they reached shortly after six o’clock.
+
+    “It was seven o’clock in the evening; we had only two-and-a-half
+    hours of daylight left; we had to go. I took Paccard by the arm,
+    and once more waved my hat as a last signal to our friends in the
+    valley; and the descent began. There was no track to guide us; the
+    wind was so cold that even the snow on the surface had not thawed;
+    all that we could see on the ice was the little holes made by the
+    iron points of our stick. Paccard was no better than a child,
+    devoid of energy and will-power, whom I had to guide in the easy
+    places and carry in the hard ones. Night was already beginning
+    to fall when we crossed the crevasse; it finally overtook us at
+    the foot of the Grand Plateau. At every instant, Paccard stopped,
+    declaring that he could go no further; at every halt, I obliged him
+    to resume his march, not by persuasion, for he understood nothing
+    but force. At eleven, we at last escaped from the regions of ice,
+    and set foot upon _terra firma_; the last afterglow of the sunset
+    had disappeared an hour before. Then I allowed Paccard to stop, and
+    prepared to wrap him up again in the blanket, when I perceived that
+    he was making no use whatever of his hands. I drew his attention
+    to the fact. He answered that that was likely enough, as he no
+    longer had any sensation in them. I drew off his gloves, and found
+    that his hands were white and, as it were, dead; for my own part,
+    I felt a numbness in the hand on which I wore his little glove in
+    place of my own thick one. I told him we had three frost-bitten
+    hands between us; but he seemed not to mind in the least, and only
+    wanted to lie down and go to sleep. As for myself, however, he told
+    me to rub the affected part with snow, and the remedy was not far
+    to seek. I commenced operations upon him and concluded them upon
+    myself. Soon the blood resumed its course, and with the blood,
+    the heat returned, but accompanied by acute pain, as though every
+    vein were being pricked with needles. I wrapped my baby up in his
+    blanket, and put him to bed under the shelter of a rock. We ate a
+    little, drank a glass of something, squeezed ourselves as close to
+    each other as we could, and went to sleep.
+
+    “At six the next morning Paccard awoke me. ‘It’s strange, Balmat,’
+    he said, ‘I hear the birds singing, and don’t see the daylight.
+    I suppose I can’t open my eyes.’ Observe that his eyes were as
+    wide open as the Grand Duke’s. I told him he must be mistaken, and
+    could see quite well. Then he asked me to give him a little snow,
+    melted it in the hollow of his hand, and rubbed his eyelids with
+    it. When this was done, he could see no better than before; only
+    his eyes hurt him a great deal more. ‘Come now, it seems that I am
+    blind, Balmat. How am I to get down?’ he continued. ‘Take hold of
+    the strap of my knapsack and walk behind me; that’s what you must
+    do.’ And in this style we came down, and reached the village of La
+    Côte. There, as I feared that my wife would be uneasy about me, I
+    left the doctor, who found his way home by fumbling with his stick,
+    and returned to my own house. Then, for the first time, I saw what
+    I looked like. I was unrecognisable. My eyes were red; my face was
+    black; my lips were blue. Whenever I laughed or yawned, the blood
+    spurted from my lips and cheeks; and I could only see in a dark
+    room.”
+
+    “‘And did Dr. Paccard continue blind?’ ‘Blind, indeed! He died
+    eleven months ago, at the age of seventy-nine, and could still read
+    without spectacles. Only his eyes were diabolically red.’ ‘As
+    the consequence of his ascent?’ ‘Not a bit of it.’ ‘Why, then?’
+    ‘The old boy was a bit of a tippler.’ And so saying Jacques Balmat
+    emptied his third bottle.”
+
+The last touch is worthy of Dumas; and the whole story is told in the
+Ercles vein. As literature it is none the worse for that. It was a
+magnificent achievement; and we can pardon the vanity of the old guide
+looking back on the greatest moment of his life. But as history the
+interview is of little value. The combination of Dumas and Balmat was a
+trifle too strong for what Clough calls “the mere it was.” The dramatic
+unities tempt one to leave Balmat, emptying his third bottle, and to
+allow the merry epic to stand unchallenged. But the importance of this
+first ascent forces one to sacrifice romance for the sober facts.
+
+The truth about that first ascent had to wait more than a hundred
+years. The final solution is due, in the main, to three men, Dr. Dübi
+(the famous Swiss mountaineer), Mr. Freshfield, and Mr. Montagnier.
+Dr. Dübi’s book, _Paccard wider Balmat, oder Die Entwicklung einer
+Legende_, gives the last word on this famous case. For a convenient
+summary of Dr. Dübi’s arguments, the reader should consult Mr.
+Freshfield’s excellent review of his book that appeared in the
+_Alpine Journal_ for May 1913. The essential facts are as follows.
+Dr. Dübi has been enabled to produce a diary of an eye-witness of the
+great ascent. A distinguished German traveller, Baron von Gersdorf,
+watched Balmat and Paccard through a telescope, made careful notes,
+illustrated by diagrams of the route, and, at the request of Paccard’s
+father, a notary of Chamounix, signed, with his friend Von Meyer, a
+certificate of what he had seen. This certificate is still preserved at
+Chamounix, and Von Gersdorf’s diary and correspondence have recently
+been discovered at Görlitz. Here is the vital sentence in his diary,
+as translated by Mr. Freshfield: “They started again [from the Petits
+Rochers Rouges], at 5.45 p.m., halted for a moment about every hundred
+yards, _changed occasionally the leadership_ [the italics are mine], at
+6.12 p.m. gained two rocks protruding from the snow, and at 6.23 p.m.
+were on the actual summit.” The words italicised prove that Balmat did
+not lead throughout. The remainder of the sentence shows that Balmat
+was not the first to arrive on the summit, and that the whole fabric of
+the Dumas legend is entirely false.
+
+But Dumas was not alone responsible for the Balmat myth. This famous
+fiction was, in the main, due to a well-known Alpine character, whom
+we have dealt with at length in our third chapter. The reader may
+remember that Bourrit’s enthusiasm for mountaineering was only equalled
+by his lack of success. We have seen that Bourrit had set his heart on
+the conquest of Mont Blanc, and that Bourrit failed in this ambition,
+both before, and after Balmat’s ascent. In many ways, Bourrit was a
+great man. He was fired with an undaunted enthusiasm for the Alps at
+a time when such enthusiasm was the hall-mark of a select circle. He
+justly earned his title, the Historian of the Alps; and in his earlier
+years he was by no means ungenerous to more fortunate climbers. But
+this great failing, an inordinate vanity, grew with years. He could
+just manage to forgive Balmat, for Balmat was a guide; but Paccard, the
+amateur, had committed the unforgivable offence.
+
+It was no use pretending that Paccard had not climbed Mont Blanc, for
+Paccard had been seen on the summit. Bourrit took the only available
+course. He was determined to injure Paccard’s prospects of finding
+subscribers for a work which the doctor proposed to publish, dealing
+with his famous climb. With this in view, Bourrit wrote the notorious
+letter of September 20, 1786, which first appeared as a pamphlet, and
+was later published in several papers. We need not reproduce the
+letter. The main points which Bourrit endeavoured to make were that
+the doctor failed at the critical stage of the ascent, that Balmat
+left him, reached the top, and returned to insist on Paccard dragging
+himself somehow to the summit; that Paccard wished to exploit Balmat’s
+achievements, and was posing as the conqueror of Mont Blanc; that,
+with this in view, he was appealing for subscribers for a book, in
+which, presumably, Balmat would be ignored, while poor Balmat, a simple
+peasant, who knew nothing of Press advertisement, would lose the glory
+that was his just meed. It was a touching picture; and we, who know the
+real Balmat as a genial _blageur_, may smile gently when we hear him
+described as _le pauvre Balmat à qui l’on doit cette découverte reste
+presque ignoré, et ignore qu’il y ait des journalistes, des journaux,
+et que l’on puisse par le moyen de ces trompettes littéraires obtenir
+du Public une sorte d’admiration_. De Saussure, who from the first gave
+Paccard due credit for his share in the climb, seems to have warned
+Bourrit that he was making a fool of himself. Bourrit appears to have
+been impressed, for he added a postscript in which he toned down some
+of his remarks, and conceded grudgingly that Paccard’s share in the
+ascent was, perhaps, larger than he had at first imagined. But this
+relapse into decent behaviour did not survive an anonymous reply to
+his original pamphlet which appeared in the _Journal de Lausanne_, on
+February 24, 1787. This reply gave Paccard’s story, and stung Bourrit
+into a reply which was nothing better than a malicious falsehood.
+“Balmat’s story,” he wrote, “seems very natural ... and is further
+confirmed by an eye-witness, M. le Baron de Gersdorf, who watched the
+climbers through his glasses; and this stranger was so shocked by the
+indifference (to use no stronger word) shown by M. Paccard to his
+companion that he reprinted my letter in his own country, in order to
+start a subscription in favour of poor Balmat.”
+
+Fortunately, we now know what Gersdorf saw through his glasses,
+and we also know that Gersdorf wrote immediately to Paccard,
+“disclaiming altogether the motive assigned for his action in
+raising a subscription.” Paccard was fortunately able to publish two
+very effective replies to this spiteful attack. In the _Journal de
+Lausanne_ for May 18 he reproduced two affidavits by Balmat, both
+properly attested. These ascribe to Paccard the honour of planning the
+expedition, and his full share of the work, and also state that Balmat
+had been paid for acting as guide. The first of these documents has
+disappeared. The second, which is entirely in Balmat’s handwriting,
+is still in existence. Balmat, later in life, made some ridiculous
+attempt to suggest that he had signed a blank piece of paper; but
+the fact that even Bourrit seems to have considered this statement a
+trifle too absurd to quote is in itself enough to render such a protest
+negligible. Besides, Balmat was shrewd enough not to swear before
+witnesses to a document which he had never seen. It is almost pleasant
+to record that a dispute between the doctor and Balmat, in the high
+street of Chamounix, resulted in Balmat receiving a well-merited blow
+on his nose from the doctor’s umbrella, which laid him in the dust. It
+is in some ways a pity that Dumas did not meet Paccard. The incident
+of the umbrella might then have been worked up to the proper epic
+proportions.
+
+This much we may now regard as proved. Paccard took at least an equal
+share in the great expedition. Balmat was engaged as a guide, and was
+paid as such. The credit for the climb must be divided between these
+two men; and the discredit of causing strained relations between them
+must be assigned to Bourrit. Meanwhile, it is worth adding that the
+traditions of the De Saussure family are all in favour of Balmat. De
+Saussure’s grandson stated that Balmat’s sole object in climbing Mont
+Blanc was the hope of pecuniary gain. He even added that the main
+reason for his final attempt with Paccard was that Paccard, being an
+amateur, would not claim half the reward promised by De Saussure. As
+to Paccard, “everything we know of him,” writes Mr. Freshfield, “is to
+his credit.” His scientific attainments were undoubtedly insignificant
+compared to a Bonnet or a De Saussure. Yet he was a member of the
+Academy of Turin, he contributed articles to a scientific periodical
+published in Paris, he corresponded with De Saussure about his
+barometrical observations. He is described by a visitor to Chamounix,
+in 1788, in the following terms: “We also visited Dr. Paccard, who
+gave us a very plain and modest account of his ascent of Mont Blanc,
+for which bold undertaking he does not seem to assume to himself any
+particular merit, but asserts that any one with like physical powers
+could have performed the task equally well.” De Saussure’s grandson,
+who has been quoted against Balmat, is equally emphatic in his approval
+of Paccard. Finally, both Dr. Dübi and Mr. Freshfield agree that, as
+regards the discovery of the route: “Paccard came first into the field,
+and was the more enterprising of the two.”
+
+Bourrit, by the way, had not even the decency to be consistent.
+He spoiled, as we have seen, poor Paccard’s chances of obtaining
+subscribers for his book, and, later in life, he quarrelled with
+Balmat. Von Gersdorf had started a collection for Balmat, and part
+of the money had to pass through Bourrit’s hands. A great deal of it
+remained there. Bourrit seems to have been temporarily inconvenienced.
+We need not believe that he had any intention of retaining the money
+permanently, but Balmat was certainly justified in complaining to Von
+Gersdorf. Bourrit received a sharp letter from Von Gersdorf, and never
+forgave Balmat. In one of his later books, he reversed his earlier
+judgment and pronounced in favour of Paccard.
+
+Bourrit discredited himself by the Mont Blanc episode with the more
+discerning of his contemporaries. De Saussure seems to have written
+him down, judging by the traditions that have survived in his family.
+Wyttenbach, a famous Bernese savant, is even more emphatic. “All who
+know him realise Bourrit to be a conceited toad, a flighty fool, a
+bombastic swaggerer.” Mr. Freshfield, however, quotes a kinder and
+more discriminating criticism by the celebrated Bonnet, ending with
+the words: _Il faut, néanmoins, lui tenir compte de son ardeur et de
+son courage._ “With these words,” says Mr. Freshfield, “let us leave
+‘notre Bourrit’; for by his passion for the mountains he remains one of
+us.”
+
+Poor Bourrit! It is with real regret that one chronicles the old
+precentor’s lapses. Unfortunately, every age has its Bourrit, but it
+is only fair to remember that Bourrit often showed a very generous
+appreciation of other climbers. He could not quite forgive Paccard. Let
+us remember his passion for the snows. Let us forget the rest.
+
+It is pleasant to record that De Saussure’s old ambition was gratified,
+and that he succeeded in reaching the summit of Mont Blanc in July
+1787. Nor is this his only great expedition. He camped out for a
+fortnight on the Col de Géant, a remarkable performance. He visited
+Zermatt, then in a very uncivilised condition, and made the first
+ascent of the Petit Mont Cervin. He died in 1799.
+
+As for Balmat, he became a guide, and in this capacity earned a very
+fair income. Having accumulated some capital, he cast about for a
+profitable investment. Two perfect strangers, whom he met on the high
+road, solved his difficulty in a manner highly satisfactory as far as
+they were concerned. They assured him that they were bankers, and that
+they would pay him five per cent. on his capital. The first of these
+statements may have been true, the second was false. He did not see
+the bankers or his capital again. Shortly after this initiation into
+high finance, he left Chamounix to search for a mythical gold-mine
+among the glaciers of the valley of Sixt. He disappeared and was never
+seen again. He left a family of four sons, two of whom were killed in
+the Napoleonic wars. His great-nephew became the favourite guide of Mr.
+Justice Wills, with whom he climbed the Wetterhorn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MONTE ROSA AND THE BÜNDNER OBERLAND
+
+
+The conquest of Mont Blanc was the most important mountaineering
+achievement of the period; but good work was also being done in other
+parts of the Alps. Monte Rosa, as we soon shall see, had already
+attracted the adventurous, and the Bündner Oberland gave one great name
+to the story of Alpine adventure. We have already noted the important
+part played by priests in the conquest of the Alps; and Catholic
+mountaineers may well honour the memory of Placidus à Spescha as one of
+the greatest of the climbing priesthood.
+
+Father Placidus was born in 1782 at Truns. As a boy he joined the
+Friars of Disentis, and after completing his education at Einsiedeln,
+where he made good use of an excellent library, returned again to
+Disentis. As a small boy, he had tended his father’s flocks and
+acquired a passionate love for the mountains of his native valley. As a
+monk, he resumed the hill wanderings, which he continued almost to the
+close of a long life.
+
+He was an unfortunate man. The French Revolution made itself felt in
+Graubünden; and with the destruction of the monastery all his notes
+and manuscripts were burned. When the Austrians ousted the French, he
+was even more luckless; as a result of a sermon on the text “Put not
+your trust in princes” he was imprisoned in Innsbruck for eighteen
+months. He came back only to be persecuted afresh. Throughout his
+life, his wide learning and tolerant outlook invited the suspicion of
+the envious and narrow-minded; and on his return to Graubünden he was
+accused of heresy. His books and his manuscripts were confiscated,
+and he was forbidden to climb. After a succession of troubled years,
+he returned to Truns; and though he had passed his seventieth year he
+still continued to climb. As late as 1824, he made two attempts on the
+Tödi. On his last attempt, he reached a gap, now known as the Porta
+da Spescha, less than a thousand feet below the summit; and from this
+point he watched, with mixed feelings, the two chamois hunters he had
+sent forward reach the summit. He died at the age of eighty-two. One
+wishes that he had attained in person his great ambition, the conquest
+of the Tödi; but, even though he failed on this outstanding peak,
+he had several good performances to his credit, amongst others the
+first ascent of the Stockgron (11,411 feet) in 1788, the Rheinwaldhorn
+(11,148 feet) in 1789, the Piz Urlaun (11,063 feet) in 1793, and
+numerous other important climbs.
+
+His list of ascents is long, and proves a constant devotion to the
+hills amongst which he passed the happiest hours of an unhappy life.
+“Placidus à Spescha”--there was little placid in his life save the
+cheerful resignation with which he faced the buffetings of fortune.
+He was a learned and broad-minded man; and the mountains, with their
+quiet sanity, seem to have helped him to bear constant vexation caused
+by small-minded persons. These suspicions of heresy must have proved
+very wearisome to “the mountaineer who missed his way and strayed into
+the Priesthood.” He must have felt that his opponents were, perhaps,
+justified, that the mountains had given him an interpretation of his
+beliefs that was, perhaps, wider than the creed of Rome, and that he
+himself had found a saner outlook in those temples of a larger faith
+to which he lifted up his eyes for help. As a relief from a hostile
+and unsympathetic atmosphere, let us hope that he discovered some
+restful anodyne among the tranquil broadness of the upper snows. The
+fatigue and difficulties of long mountain tramps exhaust the mind,
+to the exclusion of those little cares which seem so great in the
+artificial life of the valley. Certainly, the serene indifference of
+the hills found a response in the quiet philosophy of his life. Very
+little remains of all that he must have written, very little--only
+a few words, in which he summed up the convictions which life had
+given him. “When I carefully consider the fortune and ill-fortune
+that have befallen me, I have difficulty in determining which of the
+two has been the more profitable since a man without trials is a man
+without experience, and such a one is without insight--_vexatio dat
+intellectum_.” A brave confession of a good faith, and in his case no
+vain utterance, but the sincere summary of a philosophy which coloured
+his whole outlook on life.
+
+The early history of Monte Rosa has an appeal even stronger than the
+story of Mont Blanc. It begins with the Renaissance. From the hills
+around Milan, Leonardo da Vinci had seen the faint flush of dawn on
+Monte Rosa beyond--
+
+    A thousand shadowy pencilled valleys
+    And snowy dells in a golden air.
+
+The elusive vision had provoked his restless, untiring spirit to search
+out the secrets of Monte Rosa. The results of that expedition have
+already been noticed.
+
+After Da Vinci there is a long gap. Scheuchzer had heard of Monte
+Rosa, but contents himself with the illuminating remark that “a stiff
+accumulation of perpetual ice is attached to it.” De Saussure visited
+Macunagna in 1789, but disliked the inhabitants and complained of their
+inhospitality. He passed on, after climbing an unimportant snow peak,
+the Pizzo Bianco (10,552 feet). His story is chiefly interesting for
+an allusion to one of the finest of the early Alpine expeditions. In
+recent years, a manuscript containing a detailed account of this climb
+has come to light, and supplements the vague story which De Saussure
+had heard.
+
+Long ago, in the Italian valleys of Monte Rosa, there was a legend of
+a happy valley, hidden away between the glaciers of the great chain.
+In this secret and magic vale, the flowers bloomed even in winter, and
+the chamois found grazing when less happy pastures were buried by the
+snow. So ran the tale, which the mothers of Alagna and Gressoney told
+to their children. The discovery of the happy valley was due to Jean
+Joseph Beck. Beck was a domestic servant with the soul of a pioneer,
+and the organising talent that makes for success. He had heard a rumour
+that a few men from Alagna had determined to find the valley. Beck was
+a Gressoney man; and he determined that Gressoney should have the
+honour of the discovery. Again and again, in Alpine history, we find
+this rivalry between adjoining valleys acting as an incentive of great
+ascents. Beck collected a large party, including “a man of learning,”
+by name Finzens (Vincent). With due secrecy, they set out on a Sunday
+of August 1788.
+
+They started from their sleeping places at midnight, and roped
+carefully. They had furnished themselves with climbing irons and
+alpenstocks. They suffered from mountain sickness and loss of appetite,
+but pluckily determined to proceed. At the head of the glacier, they
+“encountered a slope of rock devoid of snow,” which they climbed. “It
+was twelve o’clock. Hardly had we got to the summit of the rock than we
+saw a grand--an amazing--spectacle. We sat down to contemplate at our
+leisure the lost valley, which seemed to us to be entirely covered with
+glaciers. We examined it carefully, but could not satisfy ourselves
+that it was the unknown valley, seeing that none of us had ever been in
+the Vallais.” The valley, in fact, was none other than the valley of
+Zermatt, and the pass, which these early explorers had reached, was the
+Lysjoch, where, to this day, the rock on which they rested bears the
+appropriate name that they gave it, “The Rock of Discovery.” Beck’s
+party thus reached a height of 14,000 feet, a record till Balmat beat
+them on Mont Blanc.
+
+The whole story is alive with the undying romance that still haunts the
+skyline whose secrets we know too well. The Siegfried map has driven
+the happy valley further afield. In other ranges, still uncharted,
+we must search for the reward of those that cross the great divides
+between the known and the unknown, and gaze down from the portals of
+a virgin pass on to glaciers no man has trodden, and valleys that no
+stranger has seen. And yet, for the true mountaineer every pass is a
+discovery, and the happy valley beyond the hills still lives as the
+embodiment of the child’s dream. All exploration, it is said, is due to
+the two primitive instincts of childhood, the desire to look over the
+edge, and the desire to look round the corner. And so we can share the
+thrill that drove that little band up to the Rock of Discovery. We know
+that, through the long upward toiling, their eyes must ever have been
+fixed on the curve of the pass, slung between the guarding hills, the
+skyline which held the great secret they hoped to solve. We can realise
+the last moments of breathless suspense as their shoulders were thrust
+above the dividing wall, and the ground fell away from their feet to
+the valley of desire. In a sense, we all have known moments such as
+this; we have felt the “intense desire to see if the Happy Valley may
+not lie just round the corner.”
+
+Twenty-three years after this memorable expedition, Monte Rosa was the
+scene of one of the most daring first ascents in Alpine history. Dr.
+Pietro Giordani of Alagna made a solitary ascent of the virgin summit
+which still bears his name. The Punta Giordani is one of the minor
+summits of the Monte Rosa chain, and rises to the respectable height of
+13,304 feet. Giordani’s ascent is another proof, if proof were needed,
+that the early climbers were, in many ways, as adventurous as the
+modern mountaineer. We find Balmat making a series of solitary attempts
+on Mont Blanc, and cheerfully sleeping out, alone, on the higher
+snowfields. Giordani climbs, without companions, a virgin peak; and
+another early hero of Monte Rosa, of whom we shall speak in due course,
+spent a night in a cleft of ice, at a height of 14,000 feet. Giordani,
+by the way, indited a letter to a friend from the summit of his peak.
+He begins by remarking that a sloping piece of granite serves him for
+a table, a block of blue ice for a seat. After an eloquent description
+of the view, he expresses his annoyance at the lack of scientific
+instruments, and the lateness of the hour which alone prevented him--as
+he believed--from ascending Monte Rosa itself.
+
+Giordani’s ascent closes the early history of Monte Rosa; but we cannot
+leave Monte Rosa without mention of some of the men who played an
+important part in its conquest. Monte Rosa, it should be explained, is
+not a single peak, but a cluster of ten summits of which the Dufour
+Spitze is the highest point (15,217 feet). Of these, the Punta Giordani
+was the first, and the Dufour Spitze the last, to be climbed. In 1817,
+Dr. Parrott made the first ascent of the Parrott Spitze (12,643 feet);
+and two years later the Vincent Pyramid (13,829) was climbed by a son
+of that Vincent who had been taken on Beck’s expedition because he was
+“a man of learning.” Dr. Parrott, it might be remarked in passing, was
+the first man to reach the summit of Ararat, as Noah cannot be credited
+with having reached a higher point than the gap between the greater and
+the lesser Ararat.
+
+But of all the names associated with pioneer work on Monte Rosa that
+of Zumstein is the greatest. He made five attempts to reach the
+highest point of the group, and succeeded in climbing the Zumstein
+Spitze (15,004 feet) which still bears his name. He had numerous
+adventures on Monte Rosa, and as we have already seen, spent one night
+in a crevasse, at a height of 14,000 feet. He became quite a local
+celebrity, and is mentioned as such by Prof. Forbes and Mr. King in
+their respective books. His great ascent of the Zumstein Spitze was
+made in 1820, thirty-five years before the conquest of the highest
+point of Monte Rosa.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+TIROL AND THE OBERLAND
+
+
+The story of Monte Rosa has forced us to anticipate the chronological
+order of events. We must now turn back, and follow the fortunes of the
+men whose names are linked with the great peaks of Tirol[2] and of the
+Oberland. Let us recapitulate the most important dates in the history
+of mountaineering before the opening of the nineteenth century. Such
+dates are 1760, which saw the beginning of serious mountaineering, with
+the ascent of the Titlis; 1778, which witnessed Beck’s fine expedition
+to the Lysjoch; 1779, the year in which the Velan, and 1786, the year
+in which Mont Blanc, were climbed. The last year of the century saw the
+conquest of the Gross Glockner, one of the giants of Tirol.
+
+The Glockner has the distinction of being the only great mountain
+first climbed by a Bishop. Its conquest was the work of a jovial
+ecclesiastic, by name and style Franz Altgraf von Salm-Reifferscheid
+Krantheim, Bishop of Gurk, hereinafter termed--quite simply--Salm.
+Bishop Salm had no motive but the fun of a climb. He was not a
+scientist, and he was not interested in the temperature at which water
+boiled above the snow line, provided only that it boiled sufficiently
+quickly to provide him with hot drinks and shaving water. He was a
+most luxurious climber, and before starting for the Glockner he had a
+magnificent hut built to accommodate the party, and a _chef_ conveyed
+from the episcopal palace to feed them. They were weather-bound for
+three days in these very comfortable quarters; but the _chef_ proved
+equal to the demands on his talent. An enthusiastic climber compared
+the dinners to those which he had enjoyed when staying with the Bishop
+at Gurk. There were eleven amateurs and nineteen guides and porters in
+the party. Their first attempt was foiled by bad weather. On August
+25, 1799, they reached the summit, erected a cross, and disposed of
+several bottles of wine. They then discovered that their triumph was a
+trifle premature. The Glockner consists of two summits separated by a
+narrow ridge. They had climbed the lower; the real summit was still 112
+feet above them. Next year the mistake was rectified; but, though the
+Bishop was one of the party, he did not himself reach the highest point
+till a few years later.
+
+Four years after the Glockner had been climbed, the giant of Tirol and
+the Eastern Alps was overcome. The conquest of the Ortler was due to a
+romantic fancy of Archduke John. Just as Charles VII of France deputed
+his Chamberlain to climb Mont Aiguille, so the Archduke (who, by the
+way, was the son of the Emperor Leopold II, and brother of Francis
+II, last of the Holy Roman emperors) deputed Gebhard, a member of his
+suite, to climb the Ortler. Gebhard made several attempts without
+success. Finally, a chamois hunter of the Passeierthal, by name Joseph
+Pichler, introduced himself to Gebhard, and made the ascent from Trafoi
+on September 28, 1804. Next year Gebhard himself reached the summit,
+and took a reading of the height by a barometer. The result showed
+that the Ortler was higher than the Glockner--a discovery which caused
+great joy. Its actual height is, as a matter of fact, 12,802 feet. But
+the ascent of the Ortler was long in achieving the popularity that it
+deserved. Whereas the Glockner was climbed about seventy times before
+1860, the Ortler was only climbed twice between Gebhard’s ascent and
+the ascent by the Brothers Buxton and Mr. Tuckett, in 1864. Archduke
+John, who inspired the first ascent, made an unsuccessful attempt (this
+time in person) on the Gross Venediger, another great Tyrolese peak. He
+was defeated, and the mountain was not finally vanquished till 1841.
+
+The scene now changes to the Oberland. Nothing much had been
+accomplished in the Oberland before the opening years of the nineteenth
+century. A few passes, the Petersgrat, Oberaarjoch, Tschingel, and
+Gauli, had been crossed; but the only snow peaks whose ascent was
+undoubtedly accomplished were the Handgendgletscherhorn (10,806 feet)
+and a peak whose identification is difficult. These were climbed in
+1788 by a man called Müller, who was engaged in surveying for Weiss.
+His map was a very brilliant achievement, considering the date at
+which it appeared. The expenses had been defrayed by a rich merchant
+of Aarau, Johann Rudolph Meyer, whose sons were destined to play
+an important part in Alpine exploration. J. R. Meyer had climbed
+the Titlis, and one of his sons made one of the first glacier pass
+expeditions in the Oberland, crossing the Tschingel in 1790.
+
+J. R. Meyer’s two sons, Johann Rudolph the second and Hieronymus,
+were responsible for some of the finest pioneer work in the story of
+mountaineering. In 1811 they made the first crossing of the Beich
+pass, the Lötschenlücke, and the first ascent of the Jungfrau. As was
+inevitable, their story was disbelieved. To dispel all doubt, another
+expedition was undertaken in the following year. On this expedition
+the leaders were Rudolph and Gottlieb Meyer, sons of J. R. Meyer the
+second (the conqueror of the Jungfrau), and grandsons of J. R. Meyer
+the first. The two Meyers separated after crossing the Oberaarjoch.
+Gottlieb crossed the Grünhornlücke, and bivouacked near the site of
+the present Concordia Inn. Rudolph made his classical attempt on the
+Finsteraarhorn, and rejoined Gottlieb. Next day Gottlieb made the
+second ascent of the Jungfrau and Rudolph forced the first indisputable
+crossing of the Strahlegg pass from the Unteraar glacier to Grindelwald.
+
+To return to Rudolph’s famous attempt on the Finsteraarhorn. Rudolph,
+as we have seen, separated from his brother Gottlieb near the
+Oberaarjoch. Rudolph, who was only twenty-one at the time, took with
+him two Valaisian hunters, by name Alois Volker and Joseph Bortis, a
+Melchthal “porter,” Arnold Abbühl, and a Hasle man. Abbühl was not
+a porter as we understand the word, but a _knecht_, or servant, of
+a small inn. He played the leading part in this climb. The party
+bivouacked on the depression known as the Rothhornsattel, and left
+it next morning when the sun had already struck the higher summits,
+probably about 5 a.m. They descended to the Studerfirn, and shortly
+before reaching the Ober Studerjoch started to climb the great eastern
+face of the Finsteraarhorn. After six hours, they reached the crest of
+the ridge. Meyer could go no further, and remained where he was; while
+the guides proceeded and, according to the accounts which have come
+down to us, reached the summit.
+
+Captain Farrar has summed up all the available evidence in _The Alpine
+Journal_ for August 1913. The first climber who attempted to repeat
+the ascent was the well-known scientist Hugi. He was led by the same
+Arnold Abbühl, who, as already stated, took a prominent part in Meyer’s
+expedition. Abbühl, however, not only failed to identify the highest
+peak from the Rothhornsattel, but, on being pressed, admitted that he
+had never reached the summit at all. In 1830, Hugi published these
+facts and Meyer, indignant at the implied challenge to his veracity,
+promised to produce further testimony. But there the matter dropped.
+Captain Farrar summarises the situation with convincing thoroughness.
+
+“What was the situation in 1812? We have an enthusiastic ingenuous
+youth attempting an ascent the like of which in point of difficulty
+had at that time never been, nor was for nearly fifty years after,
+attempted. He reaches a point on the arête without any great
+difficulty; and there he remains, too tired to proceed. About this
+portion of the ascent, there is, save as to the precise point gained,
+no question; and it is of this portion alone Meyer is a first-hand
+witness. Three of his guides go on, and return to him after many hours
+with the statement that they had reached the summit, or that is what he
+understands. I shall examine later this point. But is it not perfectly
+natural that Meyer should accept their statement, that he should
+swallow with avidity their claim to have reached the goal of all his
+labours? He had, as I shall show later, no reason to doubt them; and,
+doubtless, he remained firm in his belief until Hugi’s book appeared
+many years after. At once, he is up in arms at Hugi’s questioning,
+as he thinks, his own statements and his guides’ claims. He pens his
+reply quoted above, promises to publish his MS. and hopes to produce
+testimony in support. Then comes Hugi’s reply, and Meyer realises that
+his own personal share in the expedition is not questioned; but he sees
+that he may after all have been misled by, or have misunderstood,
+his guides, and he is faced with the reported emphatic denial of his
+leading guide, who was at that time still living, and could have
+been referred to. It may be said that he wrote to Abbühl for the
+‘testimony,’ and failed to elicit a satisfactory reply. Thrown into
+hopeless doubt, all the stronger because his belief in his guide’s
+statement had been firmly implanted in his mind all these nineteen
+years, is it to be wondered at that he lets the matter drop? He finds
+himself unable to get any testimony, and realises that the publication
+of his MS. will not supply any more reliable evidence. One can easily
+picture the disenchanted man putting the whole matter aside in sheer
+despair of ever arriving at the truth.”
+
+We have no space to follow Captain Farrar’s arguments. They do not
+seem to leave a shadow of doubt. At the same time, Captain Farrar
+acquits the party of any deliberate intention to deceive, and admits
+that their ascent of the secondary summit of the Finsteraarhorn was a
+very fine performance. It is noteworthy that many of the great peaks
+have been attempted, and some actually climbed for the first time,
+by an unnecessarily difficult route. The Matterhorn was assailed for
+years by the difficult Italian arête, before the easy Swiss route was
+discovered. The south-east route, which Meyer’s party attempted, still
+remains under certain conditions, a difficult rock climb, which may not
+unfitly be compared in part with the Italian ridge of the Matterhorn.
+The ordinary west ridge presents no real difficulties.
+
+The first complete ascent of the Finsteraarhorn was made on August
+10, 1829, by Hugi’s two guides, Jakob Leuthold and Joh. Wahren. Hugi
+remained behind, 200 feet below the summit. The Hugisattel still
+commemorates a pioneer of this great peak.
+
+So much for the Meyers. They deserve a high place in the history of
+exploration. “It has often seemed to me,” writes Captain Farrar, “that
+the craft of mountaineering, and even more the art of mountaineering
+description, distinctly retrograded for over fifty years after these
+great expeditions of the Meyers. It is not until the early ’sixties
+that rocks of equal difficulty are again attacked. Even then--witness
+Almer’s opinion as to the inaccessibility of the Matterhorn--men had
+not yet learned the axiom, which Alexander Burgener was the first,
+certainly by practice rather than by explicit enunciation, to lay
+down, viz. that the practicability of rocks is only decided by actual
+contact. Meyer’s guides had a glimmering of this. It is again not until
+the ’sixties that Meyer’s calm yet vivid descriptions of actualities
+are surpassed by those brilliant articles of Stephen, of Moore, of
+Tuckett, and by Whymper’s great ‘Scrambles’ that are the glory of
+English mountaineering.”
+
+But perhaps the greatest name associated with this period is that
+of the great scientist, Agassiz. Agassiz is a striking example of
+the possibilities of courage and a lively faith. He never had any
+money; and yet he invariably lived as if he possessed a comfortable
+competence. “I have no time for making money,” is one of his sayings
+that have become famous. He was a native of Orbe, a beautiful town in
+the Jura. His father was a pastor, and the young Agassiz was intended
+for the medical profession. He took the medical degree, but remained
+steadfast in his determination to become, as he told his father, “the
+first naturalist of his time.” Humboldt and Cuvier soon discovered his
+powers; in due time he became a professor at Neuchâtel. He married
+on eighty louis a year; but money difficulties never depressed him.
+As a boy of twenty, earning the princely sum of fifty pounds a year,
+he maintained a secretary in his employment, a luxury which he never
+denied himself. Usually he maintained two or three. At Neuchâtel,
+his income eventually increased to £125 a year. On this, he kept up
+an academy of natural history, a museum, a staff of secretaries and
+assistants, a lithographic and printing plant, and a wife. His wife,
+by the way, was a German lady; and it is not surprising that her
+chief quarrel with life was a lack of money for household expenses.
+The naturalist, who had no time for making money, spent what little
+he had on the necessities of his existence, such as printing presses
+and secretaries, and left the luxuries of the larder to take care of
+themselves. His family helped him with loans, “at first,” we are told,
+“with pleasure, but afterwards with some reluctance.” Humboldt also
+advanced small sums. “I was pleased to remain a debtor to Humboldt,”
+writes Agassiz, a sentiment which probably awakens more sympathy in the
+heart of the average undergraduate than it did in the bosom of Humboldt.
+
+A holiday which Agassiz spent with another great naturalist,
+Charpentier, was indirectly responsible for the beginnings of the
+glacial theory. Throughout Switzerland, you may find huge boulders
+known as erratic blocks. These blocks have a different geological
+ancestry from the rocks in the immediate neighbourhood. They did not
+grow like mushrooms, and they must therefore have been carried to their
+present position by some outside agency. In the eighteenth century,
+naturalists solved all these questions by _a priori_ theories, proved
+by quotations from the book of Genesis. The Flood was a favourite
+solution, and the Flood was, therefore, invoked to solve the riddle of
+erratic blocks. By the time that Agassiz had begun his great work, the
+Flood was, however, becoming discredited, and its reputed operations
+were being driven further afield.
+
+The discovery of the true solution was due, not to a scientist, but
+to a simple chamois hunter, named Perrandier. He knew no geology, but
+he could draw obvious conclusions from straightforward data without
+invoking the Flood. He had seen these blocks on glaciers, and he had
+seen them many miles away from glaciers. He made the only possible
+deduction--that glaciers must, at some time, have covered the whole
+of Switzerland. Perrandier expounded his views to a civil engineer,
+by name Venetz. Venetz passed it on to Charpentier, and Charpentier
+converted Agassiz. Agassiz made prompt use of the information, so
+prompt that Charpentier accused him of stealing his ideas. He read a
+paper before the Helvetic Society, in which he announced his conviction
+that the earth had once been covered with a sheet of ice that extended
+from the North Pole to Central Asia. The scepticism with which this
+was met incited Agassiz to search for more evidence in support of his
+theory. His best work was done in “The Hôtel des Neuchâtelois.” This
+hôtel at first consisted of an overhanging boulder, the entrance of
+which was screened by a blanket. The hôtel was built near the Grimsel
+on the medial moraine of the lower Aar glacier. To satisfy Mrs.
+Agassiz, her husband eventually moved into even more palatial quarters
+to wit, a rough cabin covered with canvas. “The outer apartment,”
+complains Mrs. Agassiz, a lady hard to please, “boasted a table and one
+or two benches; even a couple of chairs were kept as seats of honour
+for occasional guests. A shelf against the wall accommodated books,
+instruments, coats, etc.; and a plank floor on which to spread their
+blankets at night was a good exchange for the frozen surface of the
+glacier.” But the picture of this strange _ménage_ would be incomplete
+without mention of Agassiz’s companions. “Agassiz and his companions”
+is a phrase that meets us at every turn of his history. He needed
+companions, partly because he was of a friendly and companionable
+nature, partly, no doubt, to vary the monotony of Mrs. Agassiz’s
+constant complaints, but mainly because his ambitious schemes were
+impossible without assistance. His work involved great expenditure,
+which he could only recoup in part from the scanty grants allowed
+him by scientific societies, and the patronage of occasional wealthy
+amateurs. The first qualification necessary in a “companion” was a
+certain indifference as to salary, and the usual arrangement was that
+Agassiz should provide board and lodging in the hôtel, and that, if
+his assistant were in need of money, Agassiz should provide some if he
+had any lying loose at the time. This at least was the substance of
+the contract between Agassiz, on the one hand, and Edouard Desor of
+Heidelberg University, on the other hand.
+
+Desor is perhaps the most famous of the little band. He was a political
+refugee, “without visible means of subsistence.” He was a talented
+young gentleman with a keen interest in scientific disputes, and an
+eye for what is vulgarly known as personal advertisement. In other
+words he shared the very human weakness of enjoying the sight of his
+name in honoured print. Another companion was Karl Vogt. Mrs. Agassiz
+had two great quarrels with life. The first was a shortage of funds,
+and the second was the impropriety of the stories exchanged between
+Vogt and Desors. Another companion was a certain Gressly, a gentleman
+whose main charm for Agassiz consisted in the fact that, “though he
+never had any money, he never wanted any.” He lived with Agassiz in
+the winter as secretary. In summer he tramped the Jura in search of
+geological data. He never bothered about money, but was always prepared
+to exchange some good anecdotes for a night’s lodging. Eventually, he
+went mad and ended his days in an asylum. Yet another famous name,
+associated with Agassiz, is that of Dollfus-Ausset, an Alsatian of
+Mülhausen, who was born in 1797. His great works were two books, the
+first entitled _Materials for the Study of Glaciers_, and the second
+_Materials for the Dyeing of Stuffs_. On the whole, he seems to have
+been more interested in glaciers than in velvet. He made, with Desor,
+the first ascent of the Galenstock, and also of the most southern peak
+of the Wetterhorn, namely the Rosenhorn (12,110 feet). He built many
+observatories on the Aar glacier and the Theodule, and he was usually
+known as “Papa Gletscher Dollfus.”
+
+Such, then, were Agassiz’s companions. Humour and romance are blended
+in the picture of the strange little company that gathered every
+evening beneath the rough shelter of the hôtel. We see Mrs. Agassiz
+bearing with admirable resignation those inconveniences that must have
+proved a very real sorrow to her orderly German mind. We see Desor and
+Vogt exchanging broad anecdotes to the indignation of the good lady;
+and we can figure the abstracted naturalist, utterly indifferent to
+his environment, and only occupied with the deductions that may be
+drawn from the movement of stakes driven into a glacier. Let me quote
+in conclusion a few words from a sympathetic appreciation by the late
+William James (_Memories and Studies_)--
+
+    “Agassiz was a splendid example of the temperament that looks
+    forward and not backwards, and never wastes a moment in regrets for
+    the irrevocable. I had the privilege of admission to his society
+    during the Thayer expedition to Brazil. I well remember, at night,
+    as we all swung in our hammocks, in the fairy like moonlight, on
+    the deck of the steamer that throbbed its way up the Amazon between
+    the forests guarding the stream on either side, how he turned and
+    whispered, ‘James, are you awake?’ and continued, ‘I cannot sleep;
+    I am too happy; I keep thinking of these glorious plans.’...
+
+    “Agassiz’s influence on methods of teaching in our community was
+    prompt and decisive--all the more so that it struck people’s
+    imagination by its very excess. The good old way of committing
+    printed abstractions to memory seems never to have received such a
+    shock as it encountered at his hands. There is probably no public
+    school teacher who will not tell you how Agassiz used to lock a
+    student up in a room full of turtle shells or lobster shells or
+    oyster shells, without a book or word to help him, and not let
+    him out till he had discovered all the truths which the objects
+    contained. Some found the truths after weeks and months of lonely
+    sorrow; others never found them. Those who found them were already
+    made into naturalists thereby; the failures were blotted from the
+    book of honour and of life. ‘Go to Nature; take the facts into your
+    own hands; look and see for yourself’--these were the maxims which
+    Agassiz preached wherever he went, and their effect on pedagogy was
+    electric....
+
+    “The only man he really loved and had use for was the man who could
+    bring him facts. To see facts, not to argue or _raisonniren_ was
+    what life meant for him; and I think he often positively loathed
+    the ratiocinating type of mind. ‘Mr. Blank, you are totally
+    uneducated,’ I heard him say once to a student, who had propounded
+    to him some glittering theoretic generality. And on a similar
+    occasion, he gave an admonition that must have sunk deep into the
+    heart of him to whom it was addressed. ‘Mr. X, some people perhaps
+    now consider you are a bright young man; but when you are fifty
+    years old, if they ever speak of you then, what they will say will
+    be this: “That Mr. X--oh yes, I know him; he used to be a very
+    bright young man.”’ Happy is the conceited youth who at the proper
+    moment receives such salutary cold-water therapeutics as this, from
+    one who in other respects is a kind friend.”
+
+So much for Agassiz. It only remains to add that his companions were
+responsible for some fine mountaineering. During these years the three
+peaks of the Wetterhorn were climbed, and Desor was concerned in two
+of these successful expeditions. A far finer expedition was his ascent
+of the Lauteraarhorn, by Desor in 1842. This peak is connected with
+the Schreckhorn by a difficult ridge, and is a worthy rival to that
+well-known summit. There were a few other virgin climbs in this period,
+but the great age of Alpine conquest had scarcely begun.
+
+The connecting link between Agassiz and modern mountaineering is
+supplied by Gottlieb Studer, who was born in 1804, and died in 1890.
+His serious climbing began in 1823, and continued for sixty years. He
+made a number of new ascents, and reopened scores of passes, only
+known to natives. Most mountaineers know the careful and beautiful
+panoramas which are the work of his pencil. He drew no less than seven
+hundred of these. His great work, _Ueber Eis und Schnee_, a history
+of Swiss climbing, is an invaluable authority to which most of his
+successors in this field are indebted.
+
+The careful reader will notice the comparative absence of the English
+in the climbs which we have so far described. The coming of the English
+deserves a chapter to itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH
+
+
+Mountaineering, as a sport, is so often treated as an invention of
+Englishmen, that the real facts of its origin are unconsciously
+disguised. A commonplace error of the textbooks is to date sporting
+mountaineering from Mr. Justice Wills’s famous ascent of the Wetterhorn
+in 1854. The Wetterhorn has three peaks, and Mr. Justice Wills made the
+ascent of the summit which is usually climbed from Grindelwald. This
+peak, the Hasle Jungfrau, is the most difficult of the group but it is
+not the highest. In those early days, first ascents were not recorded
+with the punctuality and thoroughness that prevails to-day; and a large
+circle of mountaineers gave Mr. Justice Wills the credit of making the
+first ascent of the Hasle Jungfrau, or at least the first ascent from
+Grindelwald. Curiously enough, the climb, which is supposed to herald
+sporting mountaineering, was only the second ascent of the Grindelwald
+route to the summit of a peak which had already been climbed four
+times. The facts are as follows: Desor’s guides climbed the Hasle
+Jungfrau in 1844, and Desor himself followed a few days after. Three
+months before Wills’s ascent, the peak was twice climbed by an early
+English pioneer, Mr. Blackwell. Blackwell’s first ascent was by the
+Rosenlaui route, which Desor had followed, and his second, by the
+Grindelwald route, chosen by Mr. Wills. On the last occasion, he was
+beaten by a storm within about ten feet of the top, ten feet which he
+had climbed on the previous occasion. He planted a flag just under the
+final cornice; and we must give him the credit of the pioneer ascent
+from Grindelwald. Mr. Wills never heard of these four ascents, and
+believed that the peak was still virgin when he ascended it.
+
+It would appear, then, that the so-called first sporting climb has
+little claim to that distinction. What, precisely, is meant by
+“sporting” in this connection? The distinction seems to be drawn
+between those who climb a mountain for the sheer joy of adventure, and
+those who were primarily concerned with the increase of scientific
+knowledge. The distinction is important; but it is often forgotten
+that scientists, like De Saussure, Forbes, Agassiz and Desor, were
+none the less mountaineers because they had an intelligent interest in
+the geological history of mountains. All these men were inspired by a
+very genuine mountaineering enthusiasm. Moreover, before Mr. Wills’s
+climb there had been a number of quite genuine sporting climbs. A few
+Englishmen had been up Mont Blanc; and, though most of them had been
+content with Mont Blanc, they could scarcely be accused of scientific
+inspiration. They, however, belonged to the “One man, one mountain,
+school,” and as such can scarcely claim to be considered as anything
+but mountaineers by accident. Yet Englishmen like Hill, Blackwell,
+and Forbes, had climbed mountains with some regularity long before
+Mr. Wills made his great ascent; and foreign mountaineers had already
+achieved a series of genuine sporting ascents. Bourrit was utterly
+indifferent to science; and Bourrit was, perhaps, the first man who
+made a regular practice of climbing a snow mountain every year. The
+fact that he was not often successful must not be allowed to discount
+his sincere enthusiasm. Before 1840, no Englishman had entered the
+ranks of regular mountaineers; and by that date many of the great
+Alpine monarchs had fallen. Mont Blanc, the outer fortresses of Monte
+Rosa, the Finsteraarhorn, King of the Oberland, the Ortler, and the
+Glockner, the great rivals of the Eastern Alps, had all been conquered.
+The reigning oligarchies of the Alps had bowed their heads to man.
+
+Let us concede what must be conceded; even so, we need not fear that
+our share in Alpine history will be unduly diminished. Mr. Wills’s
+ascent was none the less epoch-making because it was the fourth ascent
+of a second-class peak. The real value of that climb is this: It
+was one of the first climbs that were directly responsible for the
+systematic and brilliant campaign which was in the main conducted by
+Englishmen. Isolated foreign mountaineers had already done brilliant
+work, but their example did not give the same direct impetus. It was
+not till the English arrived that mountaineering became a fashionable
+sport; and the wide group of English pioneers that carried off almost
+all the great prizes of the Alps between 1854 and the conquest of the
+Matterhorn in 1865 may fairly date their invasion from Mr. Justice
+Wills’s ascent, a climb which, though not even a virgin ascent and
+by no means the first great climb by an Englishman, was none the
+less a landmark. Mr. Justice Wills’s vigorous example caught on as
+no achievement had caught on. His book, which is full of spirited
+writing, made many converts to the new sport.
+
+There had, of course, been many enthusiasts who had preached the sport
+before Mr. Justice Wills climbed the Wetterhorn. The earliest of all
+Alpine Journals is the _Alpina_, which first expressed the impetus of
+the great Alpine campaign. It appeared in 1806, and survived for four
+years, though the name was later attached to a magazine which has still
+a large circulation in Switzerland. It was edited by Ulysses von Salis;
+and it contained articles on chamois-hunting, the ascent of the Ortler,
+etc., besides reviews of the mountain literature of the period, such
+books, for instance, as those of Bourrit and Ebel. “The Glockner and
+the Ortler,” writes the editor, “may serve as striking instances of our
+ignorance, until a few years ago, of the highest peaks in the Alpine
+ranges. Excluding the Gotthard and Mont Blanc, and their surrounding
+eminences, there still remain more than a few marvellous and colossal
+peaks which are no less worthy of becoming better known.”
+
+From 1840, the number of Englishmen taking part in high ascents
+increases rapidly; and between 1854 and 1865 the great bulk of virgin
+ascents stand to their credit, though it must always be remembered
+that these ascents were led by Swiss, French and Italian guides, who
+did not, however, do them till the English arrived. Before 1840 a few
+Englishmen climbed Mont Blanc; Mrs. and Miss Campbell crossed the Col
+de Géant, which had previously been reopened by Mr. Hill; and Mr.
+Malkin crossed a few glacier passes. But J. D. Forbes was really the
+first English mountaineer to carry out a series of systematic attacks
+on the upper snows. Incidentally, his book, _Travels through the
+Alps of Savoy_, published in 1843, was the first book in the English
+language dealing with the High Alps. A few pamphlets had been published
+by the adventurers of Mont Blanc, but no really serious work. Forbes
+is, therefore, the true pioneer not only of British mountaineering,
+but of the Alpine literature in our tongue. He was a worthy successor
+to De Saussure, and his interest in the mountains was very largely
+scientific. He investigated the theories of glacier motion, and visited
+Agassiz at the “Hôtel des Neuchâtelois.” On that occasion, if Agassiz
+is to be believed, the canny Scotsman managed to extract more than
+he gave from the genial and expansive Switzer. When Forbes published
+his theories, Agassiz accused him of stealing his ideas. Desor, whose
+genius for a row was only excelled by the joy he took in getting up
+his case, did not improve matters; and a bitter quarrel was the result.
+Whatever may have been the rights of the matter, Forbes certainly
+mastered the theory of glacier motion, and proved his thorough grasp of
+the matter in a rather remarkable way. In 1820, a large party of guides
+and amateurs were overwhelmed by an avalanche on the Grand Plateau,
+and three of the guides disappeared into a crevasse. Their bodies were
+not recovered. Dr. Hamel, who had organised the party, survived. He
+knew something of glacier motion, and ventured a guess that the bodies
+of the guides would reappear at the bottom of the glacier in about a
+thousand years. He was just nine hundred and thirty-nine years wrong in
+his calculation. Forbes, having ascertained by experiment the rate at
+which the glacier moved, predicted that the bodies would reappear in
+forty years. This forecast proved amazingly accurate. Various remains
+reappeared near the lower end of the Glacier des Bossons in 1861, a
+fragment of a human body, and a few relics came to light two years
+later, and a skull, ropes, hat, etc., in 1865. Strangely enough, this
+accident was repeated in almost all its details in the famous Arkwright
+disaster of 1866.
+
+Forbes carried through a number of fine expeditions. He climbed the
+Jungfrau with Agassiz and Desor--before the little trouble referred to
+above. He made the first passage by an amateur of the Col d’Hérens,
+and the first ascents of the Stockhorn (11,796 feet) and the Wasenhorn
+(10,661 feet). Besides his Alpine wanderings, he explored some of the
+glaciers of Savoy. His most famous book, _The Tour of Mont Blanc_, is
+well worth reading, and contains one fine passage, a simile between the
+motion of a glacier and the life of man.
+
+Forbes was the first British mountaineer; but John Ball played an even
+more important part in directing the activity of the English climbers.
+He was a Colonial Under-Secretary in Lord Palmerston’s administration;
+but he gave up politics for the more exciting field of Alpine
+adventure. His main interest in the Alps was, perhaps, botanical;
+and his list of first ascents is not very striking, considering the
+host of virgin peaks that awaited an enterprising pioneer. His great
+achievement was the conquest of the first great dolomite peak that
+yielded its secrets to man, the Pelmo. He also climbed the virgin
+Cima Tosa in the Brenta dolomites, and made the first traverse of
+the Schwartztor. He was the first to edit guidebooks for the use of
+mountaineers, and his knowledge of the Alps was surprisingly thorough.
+He played a great part in the formation of the Alpine Club, and in the
+direction of their literary activity. He edited the classical series of
+_Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_, and a series of excellent Alpine guides.
+
+But the event which above all others attracted the attention of
+Englishmen to the Alps was Albert Smith’s ascent of Mont Blanc. Albert
+Smith is the most picturesque of the British mountaineers. He was
+something of a _blagueur_, but behind all his vulgarity lay a very deep
+feeling for the Alps. His little book on Mont Blanc makes good reading.
+The pictures are delightfully inaccurate in their presentation of the
+terrors of Alpine climbing; and the thoroughly sincere fashion in which
+the whole business of climbing is written up proves that the great
+white mountain had not yet lost its prestige. But we can forgive Albert
+Smith a great deal, for he felt the glamour of the Alps long before
+he had seen a hill higher than St. Anne’s, near Chertsey. As a child,
+he had been given _The Peasants of Chamouni_, a book which rivalled
+_Pilgrim’s Progress_ in his affections. This mountain book fired him
+to anticipate his subsequent success as a showman. “Finally, I got up
+a small moving panorama of the horrors pertaining to Mont Blanc ...
+and this I so painted up and exaggerated in my enthusiasm, that my
+little sister--who was my only audience, but an admirable one, for she
+cared not how often I exhibited--would become quite pale with fright.”
+Time passed, and Albert Smith became a student in Paris. He discovered
+that his enthusiasm for Mont Blanc was shared by a medical student;
+and together they determined to visit the Mecca of their dreams. They
+collected twelve pounds apiece, and vowed that it should last them for
+five weeks. They carried it about with them entirely in five-franc
+pieces, chiefly stuffed into a leathern belt round their waists. Buying
+“two old soldiers’ knapsacks at three francs each, and two pairs of
+hobnailed shoes at five francs and a half,” they started off on their
+great adventure. Smith wisely adds that, “if there is anything more
+delightful than travelling with plenty of money, it is certainly making
+a journey of pleasure with very little.”
+
+They made the journey to Geneva in seventy-eight hours by _diligence_.
+At Melun they bought a brick of bread more than two feet long. “The
+passengers paid three francs each for their _déjeuner_, ours did not
+cost ten sous.” At night, they slept in the empty _diligence_. They
+meant to make that twelve pounds apiece carry them some distance. From
+Geneva they walked to Chamounix, helped by an occasional friendly lift.
+Smith was delighted with the realisation of childish dreams. “Every
+step was like a journey in fairyland.” In fact, the only disillusion
+was the contrast between the Swiss peasant of romance and the reality.
+“The Alpine maidens we encountered put us more in mind of poor law
+unions than ballads; indeed, the Swiss villagers may be classed with
+troubadours, minstrel pages, shepherdesses, and other fabulous pets of
+small poets and vocalists.” After leaving Chamounix, Smith crossed the
+St. Bernard, visited Milan, and returned with a small margin still left
+out of the magic twelve pounds.
+
+Albert Smith returned to London, took up practice as a surgeon, wrote
+for _Punch_, and acquired a big reputation as an entertainer in _The
+Overland Mail_, written by himself and founded on a journey to Egypt
+and Constantinople. The songs and sketches made the piece popular, and
+insured a long run. At the close of the season he went to Chamounix
+again, fully determined to climb Mont Blanc. He was accompanied by
+William Beverley, the artist, and was lucky to fall in with some
+Oxford undergraduates with the same ambition as himself. They joined
+forces, and a party of twenty, including guides, prepared for the
+great expedition. Amongst other provisions, they took ninety-four
+bottles of wine, four legs of mutton, four shoulders of mutton, and
+forty-six fowls. Smith was out of training, and suffered terribly from
+mountain sickness. He was horrified by the Mur de la Côte, which he
+describes as “an all but perpendicular iceberg,” and adds that “every
+step was gained from the chance of a horrible death.” As a matter of
+fact, the Mur de la Côte is a very simple, if steep, snow slope. A
+good ski-runner could, under normal conditions, descend it on ski. If
+Smith had fallen, he would have rolled comfortably to the bottom, and
+stopped in soft snow. “Should the foot or the baton slip,” he assures
+us, “there is no chance for life. You would glide like lightning from
+one frozen crag to another, and finally be dashed to pieces hundreds of
+feet below.” It is pleasant to record that Smith reached the summit,
+though not without considerable difficulty, and that his party drank
+all the wine and devoured the forty-six fowls, etc., before their
+successful return to Chamounix.
+
+Smith wrote an account of the ascent which provoked a bitter attack in
+_The Daily News_. Albert Smith was contrasted with De Saussure, greatly
+to Smith’s disadvantage. The sober, practical Englishman of the period
+could only forgive a mountain ascent if the climber brought back
+with him from the heights, something more substantial than a vision
+of remembered beauty. A few inaccurate readings of an untrustworthy
+barometer could, perhaps, excuse a pointless exploit. “Saussure’s
+observations,” said a writer in _The Daily News_, “live in his poetical
+philosophy, those of Mr. Albert Smith will be most appropriately
+recorded in a tissue of indifferent puns, and stale, fast witticisms
+with an incessant straining after smartness. The aimless scramble of
+the four pedestrians to the top of Mont Blanc will not go far to redeem
+the somewhat equivocal reputation of the herd of English to risks in
+Switzerland for a mindless, and rather vulgar, redundance of animal
+spirits.” Albert Smith did not allow the subject to drop. He turned
+Mont Blanc into an entertainment at the Egyptian Hall, an entertainment
+which became very popular, and was patronised by the Queen.
+
+Narrow-minded critics affect to believe that Albert Smith was nothing
+more than a showman, and that Mont Blanc was for him nothing more than
+a peg on which to hang a popular entertainment. This is not true. Mr.
+Mathews does him full justice when he says: “He was emphatically a
+showman from his birth, but it is not true he ascended the mountain
+for the purpose of making a show of it. His well-known entertainment
+resulted from a lifelong interest which he had taken in the great
+summit, of which he never failed to speak or write with reverence
+and affection.” Mr. Mathews was by no means naturally prejudiced in
+favour of anybody who tended to popularise the Alps, and his tribute is
+all the more striking in consequence. Albert Smith fell in love with
+Mont Blanc long before he had seen a mountain. Nobody can read the
+story of his first journey with twelve pounds in his pocket, without
+realising that Albert Smith, the showman, loved the mountains with
+much the same passion as his more cultured successors. Mr. Mathews
+adds: “It is but just to his memory to record that he, too, was a
+pioneer. Mountaineering was not then a recognised sport for Englishmen.
+Hitherto, any information about Mont Blanc had to be sought for in
+isolated publications. Smith brought a more or less accurate knowledge
+of it, as it were, to the hearths and homes of educated Englishmen....
+Smith’s entertainment gave an undoubted impetus to mountaineering.”
+
+While Smith was lecturing, a group of Englishmen were quietly carrying
+through a series of attacks on the unconquered citadels of the Alps.
+In 1854 Mr. Justice Wills made that ascent of the Wetterhorn which has
+already been referred to. It is fully described in Mr. Justice Wills’s
+interesting book, _Wanderings among the High Alps_, and, amongst other
+things, it is famous as the first appearance in Alpine history of the
+great guide, Christian Almer. Mr. Wills left Grindelwald with Ulrich
+Lauener, a guide who was to play a great part in Alpine adventure,
+Balmat and Simond. “The landlord wrung Balmat’s hand. ‘Try,’ said
+he, ‘to return all of you alive.’” Lauener burdened himself with a
+“flagge” to plant on the summit. This “flagge” resolved itself on
+inspection into a very solid iron construction in the shape of a
+banner, which Lauener carried to the summit on the following day. They
+bivouacked on the Enge, and climbed next day without great difficulty,
+to the gap between the two summits of the Wetterhorn, now known as
+the Wettersattel. They made a short halt here; and, while they were
+resting, they noticed with surprise two men working up the rocks they
+had just climbed. Lauener at first supposed they were chamois hunters;
+but a moment’s reflection convinced the party that no hunter would seek
+his prey on such unlikely ground. Moreover, chamois hunters do not
+usually carry on their backs “a young fir-tree, branches, leaves, and
+all.” They lost sight of the party and continued their meal. They next
+saw the two strangers on the snow slopes ahead, making all haste to be
+the first on the summit. This provoked great wrath on the part of Mr.
+Wills’s guides, who believed that the Wetterhorn was a virgin peak, a
+view also shared by the two usurpers, who had heard of the intended
+ascent and resolved to plant their fir-tree side by side with the iron
+“flagge.” They had started very early that same morning, and hunted
+their quarry down. A vigorous exchange of shouts and threats resulted
+in a compromise. “Balmat’s anger was soon appeased when he found they
+owned the reasonableness of his desire that they should not steal
+from us the distinction of being the first to scale that awful peak;
+and, instead of administering the fisticuffs he had talked about, he
+declared they were _bons enfants_ after all, and presented them with a
+cake of chocolate. Thus the pipe of peace was smoked, and tranquillity
+reigned between the rival forces.”
+
+From their resting-place they could see the final summit. From this
+point a steep snow slope, about three to four hundred feet in height,
+rises to the final crest, which is usually crowned by a cornice. The
+little party made their way up the steep slope, till Lauener reached
+the final cornice. It should, perhaps, be explained, that a cornice is
+a projecting cave of wind-blown snow which is usually transformed by
+sun and frost into ice. Lauener “stood close, not facing the parapet,
+but turned half round, and struck out as far away from himself as
+he could.... Suddenly, a startling cry of surprise and triumph rang
+through the air. A great block of ice bounded from the top of the
+parapet, and before it had well lighted on the glacier, Lauener
+exclaimed ‘Ich schaue den Blauen Himmel’ (‘I see blue sky’). A thrill
+of astonishment and delight ran through our frames. Our enterprise had
+succeeded. We were almost upon the actual summit. That wave above us,
+frozen, as it seemed, in the act of falling over, into a strange and
+motionless magnificence, was the very peak itself. Lauener’s blows
+flew with redoubled energy. In a few minutes a practicable breach was
+made, through which he disappeared; and in a moment more the sound of
+his axe was heard behind the battlement under whose cover we stood.
+In his excitement he had forgotten us, and very soon the whole mass
+would have come crashing down upon our heads. A loud shout of warning
+from Sampson, who now occupied the gap, was echoed by five other
+eager voices, and he turned his energies in a safer direction. It was
+not long before Lauener and Sampson together had widened the opening;
+and then at length we crept slowly on. As I took the last step Balmat
+disappeared from my sight; my left shoulder grazed against the angle of
+the icy embrasure, while on the right the glacier fell abruptly away
+beneath me towards an unknown and awful abyss; a hand from an invisible
+person grasped mine; I stepped across, and had passed the ridge of the
+Wetterhorn.
+
+“The instant before I had been face to face with a blank wall of ice.
+One step, and the eye took in a boundless expanse of crag and glacier,
+peak and precipice, mountain and valley, lake and plain. The whole
+world seemed to lie at my feet. The next moment, I was almost appalled
+by the awfulness of our position. The side we had come up was steep;
+but it was a gentle slope compared with that which now fell away from
+where I stood. A few yards of glittering ice at our feet, and then
+nothing between us and the green slopes of Grindelwald nine thousand
+feet beneath.”
+
+The “iron flagge” and fir-tree were planted side by side, and attracted
+great attention in Grindelwald. The “flagge” they could understand,
+but the fir-tree greatly puzzled them.
+
+Christian Almer, the hero of the fir-tree, was destined to be one of
+the great Alpine guides. His first ascents form a formidable list, and
+include the Eiger, Mönch, Fiescherhorn in the Oberland (besides the
+first ascent of the Jungfrau direct from the Wengern Alp), the Ecrins,
+monarch of the Dauphiny, the Grand Jorasses, Col Dolent, Aiguille
+Verte in the Mont Blanc range, the Ruinette, and Morning Pass in the
+Pennines. But Almer’s most affectionate recollections always centred
+round the Wetterhorn. The present writer remembers meeting him on
+his way to celebrate his golden wedding, on the summit of his first
+love. Almer also deserves to be remembered as a pioneer of winter
+mountaineering. He made with Mr. Coolidge the first winter ascents of
+the Jungfrau and Wetterhorn. It was on a winter ascent of the former
+peak that he incurred frostbite, that resulted in the amputation of his
+toes, and the sudden termination of his active career. Some years later
+he died peaceably in his bed.
+
+A year after Mr. Wills’s famous climb, a party of Englishmen, headed
+by the brothers Smyth, conquered the highest point of Monte Rosa. The
+Alpine campaign was fairly opened. Hudson made a new route up Mont
+Blanc without guides, the first great guideless climb by Englishmen.
+Hinchcliffe, the Mathews, E. S. Kennedy, and others, had already done
+valuable work.
+
+The Alpine Club was the natural result of the desire on the part of
+these climbers to meet together in London and compare notes. The idea
+was first mooted in a letter from Mr. William Mathews to the Rev. J. A.
+Hort.[3] The first meeting was held on December 22, 1857. The office
+of President was left open till it was deservedly filled by John Ball;
+E. S. Kennedy became Vice-President, and Mr. Hinchcliffe, Honorary
+Secretary. It is pleasant to record that Albert Smith, the showman, was
+an original member. The English pioneers prided themselves, not without
+some show of justification, on the fact that their sport attracted men
+of great intellectual powers. Forbes, Tyndall, and Leslie Stephen, are
+great names in the record of Science and Literature. The present Master
+of Trinity was one of the early members, his qualification being an
+ascent of Monte Rosa, Sinai, and Parnassus.
+
+There were some remarkable men in this early group of English
+mountaineers. Of John Ball and Albert Smith, we have already spoken.
+Perhaps the most distinguished mountaineer from the standpoint of the
+outside world was John Tyndall. Tyndall was not only a great scientist,
+and one of the foremost investigators of the theory of glacier motion,
+he was also a fine mountaineer. His finest achievement was the first
+ascent of the Weishorn; and he also played a great part in the long
+struggle for the blue ribbon of the Alps--the Matterhorn. His book,
+_Hours of Exercise in the Alps_, makes good reading when once one has
+resigned oneself to the use of somewhat pedantic terms for quite simple
+operations. Somewhere or other--I quote from memory--a guide’s legs are
+referred to as monstrous levers that projected his body through space
+with enormous velocity! Tyndall, by the way, chose to take offence at
+some light-hearted banter which Leslie Stephen aimed at the scientific
+mountaineers. The passage occurs in Stephen’s chapter on the Rothhorn.
+“‘And what philosophic observations did you make?’ will be the inquiry
+of one of those fanatics who by a process of reasoning to me utterly
+inscrutable have somehow irrevocably associated Alpine travelling with
+science. To them, I answer, that the temperature was approximately (I
+had no thermometer) 212 degrees Fahrenheit below freezing point. As for
+ozone, if any existed in the atmosphere, it was a greater fool than I
+take it for.” This flippancy caused a temporary breach between Stephen
+and Tyndall which was, however, eventually healed.
+
+Leslie Stephen is, perhaps, best known as a writer on ethics, though
+his numerous works of literary criticism contain much that is brilliant
+and little that is unsound. It has been said that the popularity of the
+word “Agnostic” is due less to Huxley, who invented it, than to Leslie
+Stephen who popularised it in his well known _Agnostic’s Apology_, an
+important landmark in the history of English Rationalism. The present
+writer has read almost every line that Stephen wrote, and yet feels
+that it is only in _The Playground of Europe_ that he really let
+himself go. Though Stephen had a brilliant record as a mountaineer,
+it is this book that is his best claim to the gratitude and honour of
+climbers. Stephen was a fine mountaineer, as well as a distinguished
+writer. He was the first to climb the Shreckhorn, Zinal Rothhorn,
+Bietschhorn, Blüemlisalp, Rimphischorn, Disgrazia, and Mont Malet.
+He had the true mountaineering instinct, which is always stirred by
+the sight of an uncrossed pass; and that great wall of rock and ice
+that shadows the Wengern Alp always suggests Stephen, for it falls
+in two places to depressions which he was the first to cross, passes
+immortalised in the chapters dealing with “The Jungfraujoch” and “The
+Eigerjoch.”
+
+It is not easy to stop if one begins to catalogue the distinguished
+men who helped to build up the triumphs of this period. Professor
+Bonney, an early president, was a widely travelled mountaineer, and a
+scientist of world-wide reputation. His recent work on the geology of
+the Alps, is perhaps the best book of the kind in existence. The Rev.
+Fenton Hort had, as we have seen, a great deal to do with the formation
+of the Alpine Club. His life has been written by his son, Sir Arthur
+Hort. Of John Ball and Mr. Justice Wills, we have already spoken. Of
+Whymper we shall have enough to say when we summarise the great romance
+of the Matterhorn. He was a remarkable man, with iron determination and
+great intellectual gifts. His classic _Scrambles in the Alps_ did more
+than any other book to make new mountaineers. He was one of the first
+draughtsmen who combined a mountaineer’s knowledge of rock and ice
+with the necessary technical ability to reproduce the grandeur of the
+Alps in black and white. One should compare the delightful woodcuts
+from his sketches with the crude, shapeless engravings that decorate
+_Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_. His great book deserved its success.
+Whymper himself was a strong personality. He had many good qualities
+and some that laid him open to criticism. He made enemies without much
+difficulty. But he did a great work, and no man has a finer monument to
+keep alive the memory of his most enduring triumphs.
+
+Another name which must be mentioned is that of Mr. C. E. Mathews, a
+distinguished pioneer whose book on Mont Blanc has been quoted in an
+earlier chapter. He was a most devoted lover of the great mountain,
+and climbed it no less than sixteen times. He was a rigid conservative
+in matters Alpine; and there is something rather engaging in his
+contempt for the humbler visitors to the Alps. “It is a scandal to the
+Republic,” he writes, “that a line should have been permitted between
+Grindelwald and Interlaken. Alas for those who hailed with delight
+the extension of the Rhone Valley line from Sion to Visp!” It would
+have been interesting to hear his comments on the Jungfrau railway.
+The modern mountaineer would not easily forego the convenience of the
+trains to Zermatt that save him many hours of tiresome, if romantic,
+driving.
+
+Then there is Thomas Hinchcliffe, whose _Summer Months in the Alps_
+gave a decided impetus to the new movement. He belongs to a slightly
+earlier period than A. W. Moore, one of the most distinguished of the
+early group. Moore attained a high and honourable position in the Home
+Office. His book _The Alps in 1864_, which has recently been reprinted,
+is one of the sincerest tributes to the romance of mountaineering in
+the English language. Moore took part in a long list of first ascents.
+He was a member of the party that achieved the first ascent of the
+Ecrins which Whymper has immortalised, and he had numerous other virgin
+ascents to his credit. His most remarkable feat was the first ascent
+of Mont Blanc by the Brenva ridge, the finest ice expedition of the
+period. Mr. Mason has immortalised the Brenva in his popular novel,
+_Running Water_.
+
+And so the list might be indefinitely extended, if only space
+permitted. There was Sir George Young, who took part in the first
+ascent of the Jungfrau from the Wengern Alp and who was one of the
+first to attempt guideless climbing. There was Hardy, who made the
+first English ascent of the Finsteraarhorn, and Davies who climbed
+the two loftiest Swiss peaks, Dom and Täschhorn.[4] “What I don’t
+understand,” he said to a friend of the present writer, “is why you
+modern mountaineers always climb on a rope. Surely your pace must be
+that of the slowest member of the party?” One has a picture of Davies
+striding impatiently ahead, devouring the ground in great hungry
+strides, while the weaker members dwindled into small black spots on
+the face of the glacier. And then there is Tuckett, who died in 1913.
+Of Tuckett, Leslie Stephen wrote: “In the heroic cycle of Alpine
+adventure the irrepressible Tuckett will occupy a place similar to
+Ulysses. In one valley the peasant will point to some vast breach in
+the everlasting rocks hewn, as his fancy will declare, by the sweep of
+the mighty ice-axe of the hero.... The broken masses of a descending
+glacier will fairly represent the staircase which he built in order to
+scale a previously inaccessible height.... Critics will be disposed
+to trace in him one more example of the universal solar myth....
+Tuckett, it will be announced, is no other than the sun which appears
+at earliest dawn above the tops of the loftiest mountains, gilds the
+summits of the most inaccessible peaks, penetrates remote valleys, and
+passes in an incredibly short time from one extremity of the Alpine
+chain to another.”
+
+The period which closes with the ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865 has
+been called the Golden Age of Mountaineering; and the mountaineers whom
+we have mentioned were responsible for the greater portion of this
+glorious harvest. By 1865 the Matterhorn was the only remaining Zermat
+giant that still defied the invaders; and beyond Zermat only one great
+group of mountains, the Dolomites, still remained almost unconquered.
+It was the age of the guided climber. The pioneers did excellent work
+in giving the chamois hunter the opportunity to become a guide. And
+many of these amateurs were really the moral leaders of their parties.
+It was sometimes, though not often, the amateur who planned the line
+of ascent, and decided when the attack should be pressed and when it
+should be abandoned. It was only when the guide had made repeated
+ascents of fashionable peaks that the part played by the amateur became
+less and less important. Mountaineering in the ’fifties and ’sixties
+was in many ways far more arduous than it is to-day. Club-huts are now
+scattered through the Alps. It is no longer necessary to carry firewood
+and sleeping-bags to some lonely bivouac beside the banks of great
+glaciers. A sudden gust of bad weather at night no longer means that
+the climber starts at dawn with drenched clothes. The excellent series
+of _Climbers’ Guides_ give minute instructions describing every step
+in the ascent. The maps are reliable. In those days, guide-books had
+still to be written, the maps were romantic and misleading, and the
+discoverer of a new pass had not only to get to the top, he had also
+to get down the other side. What precisely lay beyond the pass, he did
+not know. It might be an impassable glacier, or a rock face that could
+not be descended. Almost every new pass involved the possibility of a
+forced bivouac.
+
+None the less, it must be admitted that the art of mountaineering has
+advanced more since 1865 than it did in the preceding half century.
+There is a greater difference between the ascent of the Grepon by the
+Mer de Glace Face, or the Brouillard Ridge of Mont Blanc, than between
+the Matterhorn and the Gross Glockner, or between the Weishorn and Mont
+Blanc.
+
+The art of mountaineering is half physical and half mental. He who can
+justly claim the name of mountaineer must possess the power to _lead_
+up rocks and snow, and to cut steps in ice. This is the physical side
+of the business. It is important; but the charm of mountaineering is
+largely intellectual. The mental equipment of the mountaineer involves
+an exhaustive knowledge of one of the most ruthless aspects of Nature.
+The mountaineer must know the hills in all their changing moods and
+tenses. He must possess the power to make instant use of trivial clues,
+a power which the uninitiated mistake for an instinctive sense of
+direction. Such a sense is undoubtedly possessed by a small minority,
+but path-finding is often usually only the subconscious analysis of
+small clues. The mountaineer must understand the secrets of snow, rock,
+and ice. He must be able to tell at a glance whether a snow slope is
+dangerous, or a snow-bridge likely to collapse. He must be able to move
+with certainty and safety on a rock face, whether it is composed of
+reliable, or brittle and dangerous rock. All this involves knowledge
+which is born of experience and the power to apply experience. Every
+new peak is a problem for the intellect. Mountaineering, however,
+differs radically in one respect from many other sports. Most men can
+get up a mountain somehow, and thereby share at least one experience of
+the expert. Of every hundred boys that are dragooned into compulsory
+cricket at school, only ten could ever by any possible chance qualify
+to play in first-class cricket. Almost all of them could reach the
+summit of a first class peak if properly guided.
+
+But this is not mountaineering. You cannot pay a professional to take
+your place at Lords’ and then claim the benefit of the century he
+knocks up. But some men with great Alpine reputations owe everything to
+the professional they have hired. They have good wind and strong legs.
+With a stout rope above, they could follow a good leader up any peak in
+the Alps. The guide was not only paid to lead up the rocks and assist
+them from above. He was paid to do all the thinking that was necessary.
+He was the brain as well as the muscle of the expedition. He solved all
+the problems that Nature sets the climber, and mountaineering for his
+client was only a very safe form of exercise in agreeable surroundings.
+
+Leslie Stephen admitted this, and he had less cause to admit it than
+most. “I utterly repudiate the doctrine that Alpine travellers are, or
+ought to be, the heroes of Alpine adventure. The true way, at least, to
+describe all my Alpine adventures is to say that Michael Anderegg, or
+Lauener, succeeded in performing a feat requiring skill, strength, and
+courage, the difficulty of which was much increased by the difficulty
+of taking with him his knapsack and his employer.” Now, this does less
+than justice to Leslie Stephen, and to many of the early mountaineers.
+Often they supplied the brain of the party, and the directing energy.
+They were pioneers. Yet mountaineering as a fine art owes almost as
+much to the men who first dispensed with professional assistance. A
+man who climbs habitually with guides may be, and often is, a fine
+mountaineer. He _need_ be nothing more than a good walker, with a
+steady head, to achieve a desperate reputation among laymen.
+
+Many of the early pioneers were by no means great athletes, though
+their mountaineering achievements deceived the public into crediting
+them with superhuman nerve and strength. Many of them were middle-aged
+gentlemen, who could have taken no part in active sports which demand
+a swift alliance of nerve and muscle; but who were quite capable of
+plugging up the average mixture of easy rock and snow that one meets on
+the average first-class Alpine peak. They had average endurance, and
+more than average pluck, for the prestige of the unvanquished peaks
+still daunted all but the courageous.
+
+They were lucky in that the great bulk of Alpine peaks were
+unconquered, and were only too ready to be conquered by the first
+climber who could hire two trusty Swiss guides to cut the steps, carry
+the knapsack, and lead up the rocks. It is usually said of these men:
+“They could not, perhaps, have tackled the pretty rock problems in
+which the modern cragsman delights. They were something better than
+gymnasts. They were all-round mountaineers.” This seems rather special
+pleading. Some one said that mountaineering seemed to be walking up
+easy snow mountains between guides, and mere cragsmanship consisted
+in leading up difficult rock-peaks without guides. It does not follow
+that a man who can lead up the Chamounix aiguilles knows less of the
+broader principles of mountaineering than the gentleman who is piloted
+up Mont Blanc by sturdy Swiss peasants. The issue is not between those
+who confine their energies to gymnastic feats on Welsh crags and the
+wider school who understand snow and ice as well as rock. The issue
+is between those who can take their proper share in a rock-climb like
+the Grepon, or a difficult ice expedition like the Brenva Mont Blanc,
+and those who would be completely at a loss if their guides broke
+down on an easy peak like the Wetterhorn. The pioneers did not owe
+everything to their guides. A few did, but most of them were good
+mountaineers whose opinion was often asked by the professionals, and
+sometimes taken. Yet the guided climber, then and now, missed the real
+inwardness of the sport. Mountaineering, in the modern sense, is a
+sport unrivalled in its appeal to mind and body. The man who can lead
+on a series of really first-class climbs must possess great nerve, and
+a specialised knowledge of mountains that is almost a sixth sense.
+Mountaineering between guides need not involve anything more than a
+good wind and a steady head. Anybody can get up a first-class peak.
+Only one amateur in ten can complete ascent and descent with safety if
+called on to lead.
+
+In trying to form a just estimate of our debt to the early English
+pioneers, we have to avoid two extremes. We must remember the parable
+of the dwarf standing on the giant’s shoulders. It ill becomes those
+who owe Climbers’ Guides, and to some extent good maps, to the labours
+of the pioneers to discount their achievements. But the other extreme
+is also a danger. We need not pretend that every man who climbed a
+virgin peak in the days when nearly every big peak was virgin was
+necessarily a fine mountaineer. All praise is due to the earliest
+explorers, men like Balmat, Joseph Beck, Bourrit, De Saussure, and the
+Meyers, for in those days the country above the snow-line was not only
+unknown, it was full of imagined terrors. These men did a magnificent
+work in robbing the High Alps of their chief defence--superstition. But
+in the late ’fifties and early ’sixties this atmosphere had largely
+vanished. Mr. X came to the A valley, and discovered that the B, C, or
+D horn had not been climbed. The B, C, and D horn were average peaks
+with a certain amount of straightforward snow and ice work, and a
+certain amount of straightforward rock work. Mr. X enjoys a fortnight
+of good weather, and the services of two good guides. He does what any
+man with like opportunities would accomplish, what an undergraduate
+fresh to the Alps could accomplish to-day if these peaks had been
+obligingly left virgin for his disposal. Many of the pioneers with a
+long list of virgin peaks to their credit would have made a poor show
+if they had been asked to lead one of the easy buttresses of Tryfan.
+
+Rock-climbing as a fine art was really undreamt of till long after the
+Matterhorn had been conquered. The layman is apt to conceive all Alpine
+climbs as a succession of dizzy precipices. To a man brought up on
+Alpine classics, there are few things more disappointing than the ease
+of his first big peak. The rock work on the average Oberland or Zermat
+peaks by the ordinary route is simple, straightforward scrambling up
+slopes whose average inclination is nearer thirty than sixty degrees.
+It is the sort of thing that the ordinary man can do by the light of
+Nature. Rock-climbing, in the sense in which the Dolomite or lake
+climber uses the term, is an art which calls for high qualities of
+nerve and physique. Such rock climbing was almost unknown till some
+time after the close of this period. No modern cragsman would consider
+the Matterhorn, even if robbed of its fixed ropes, as anything but a
+straightforward piece of interesting rock work, unless he was unlucky
+enough to find it in bad condition. All this we may frankly admit.
+Mountaineering as an art was only in its infancy when the Matterhorn
+was climbed. And yet the Englishmen whom we have mentioned in this
+chapter did more for mountaineering than any of their successors or
+predecessors. Bourrit, De Saussure, Beck, Placidus à Spescha, and the
+other pioneers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century,
+deserve the greatest credit. But their spirited example gave no general
+impetus to the sport. They were single-handed mountaineers; and somehow
+they never managed to fire the world with their own enthusiasm. The
+Englishmen arrived late on the scene. The great giants of more than
+one district had been climbed. And yet mountaineering was still the
+pursuit of a few isolated men who knew little or nothing of their
+brother climbers, who came and struggled and passed away uncheered by
+the inspiring freemasonry of a band of workers aiming at the same end.
+It was left to the English to transform mountaineering into a popular
+sport. Judged even by modern standards some of these men were fine
+mountaineers, none the less independent because the fashion of the day
+decreed that guides should be taken on difficult expeditions. But even
+those who owed the greater part of their success to their guides were
+inspired by the same enthusiasm which, unlike the lonely watchfires of
+the earlier pioneers, kindled a general conflagration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE STORY OF THE MATTERHORN
+
+
+The history of mountaineering contains nothing more dramatic than the
+epic of the Matterhorn. There is no mountain which appeals so readily
+to the imagination. Its unique form has drawn poetic rhapsodies from
+the most prosaic. “Men,” says Mr. Whymper, “who ordinarily spoke or
+wrote like rational beings when they came under its power seemed to
+quit their senses, and ranted, and rhapsodied, losing for a time
+all common forms of speech. Even the sober De Saussure was moved to
+enthusiasm.”
+
+If the Matterhorn could thus inspire men before the most famous siege
+in Alpine history had clothed its cliffs in romance, how much more
+must it move those for whom the final tragedy has become historical?
+The first view of the Matterhorn, and the moment when the last step
+is taken on to the final crest, are two moments which the mountaineer
+never forgets. Those who knew the old Zermat are unpleasantly fond of
+reminding us that the railway train and the monster hôtels have robbed
+Zermat of its charm; while the fixed ropes and sardine tins--[Those
+dear old sardine tins! Our Alpine writers would run short of satire
+if they could not invoke their aid]--have finally humiliated the
+unvanquished Titan. It may be so; but it is easy enough to recover
+the old atmosphere. You have only to visit Zermat in winter when the
+train is not running. A long trudge up twenty miles of shadowed, frosty
+valley, a little bluff near Randa, and the Matterhorn soars once more
+into a stainless sky. There are no clouds, and probably not another
+stranger in the valley. The hôtels are closed, the sardine tins are
+buried, and the Matterhorn renews like the immortals an undying youth.
+
+The great mountain remained unconquered mainly because it inspired
+in the hearts of the bravest guides a despairing belief in its
+inaccessibility. “There seemed,” writes Mr. Whymper, “to be a cordon
+drawn round it up to which one might go, but no further. Within that
+line gins and efreets were supposed to exist--the wandering Jew and the
+spirits of the damned. The superstitious natives in the surrounding
+valleys (many of whom firmly believed it to be not only the highest
+mountain in the Alps, but in the world) spoke of a ruined city on the
+summit wherein the spirits dwelt; and if you laughed they gravely
+shook their heads, told you to look yourself to see the castle and
+walls, and warned one against a rash approach, lest the infuriated
+demons from their impregnable heights might hurl down vengeance for
+one’s derision.”
+
+[Illustration: I.--THE MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH-EAST (ZERMAT).
+
+The left-hand ridge in the Furgg Grat and the shoulder (F.S.) is the
+Furgg shoulder from which Mummery traversed across to the Swiss face on
+his attempt on the Furgg Grat.
+
+The central ridge is the North-east ridge. N.E. is the point where
+the climb begins. S is the Swiss shoulder, A the Swiss summit, B the
+Italian summit. The route of the first ascent is marked. Nowadays it is
+usual to keep closer to the ridge in the early part of the climb and to
+climb from the shoulder S to the summit A. Fixed ropes hang throughout
+this section. T is the group of rocky teeth on the Zmutt ridge.]
+
+Those who have a sense for the dramatic unities will feel that, for
+once in a way, Life lived up to the conventions of Art, and that even
+a great dramatist could scarcely have bettered the materials afforded
+by the history of the Matterhorn. As the story unfolds itself one can
+scarcely help attributing some fatal personality to the inanimate
+cliffs. In the Italian valley of Breuil, the Becca, as the Matterhorn
+used to be called, was for centuries the embodiment of supernatural
+terror. Mothers would frighten their children by threats that the wild
+man of the Becca would carry them away. And if the children asked how
+the Matterhorn was born, they would reply that in bygone years there
+dwelt a giant in Aosta named Gargantua, who was once seized with a
+longing for the country beyond the range of peaks that divide Italy
+from Switzerland. Now, in those far off times, the mountains of the
+great barrier formed one uniform ridge instead of (as now) a series of
+peaks. The giant strode over this range with one step. As he stood with
+one foot in Switzerland and the other in Italy, the surrounding rocks
+fell away, and the pyramid of cliffs caught between his legs alone
+remained. And thus was the Matterhorn formed. There were many such
+legends; the reader may find them in Whymper and Guido Rey. They were
+enough to daunt all but the boldest.
+
+[Illustration: II.--MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH.
+
+The left-hand ridge is the North-east ridge. The points N.E., S, A, B,
+and T are the same as the corresponding points in I. The North-east
+ridge, which appears extremely steep, in I., is here seen in profile.]
+
+The drama of the Matterhorn opens appropriately enough with the three
+men who first showed a contempt for the superstitions that surrounded
+the Becca. The story of that first attempt is told in Guido Rey’s
+excellent monograph on the Matterhorn, a monograph which has been
+translated by Mr. Eaton into English as spirited as the original
+Italian. This opening bout with the Becca took place in 1858. Three
+natives of Breuil, the little Italian valley at the foot of the
+Matterhorn, met before dawn at the châlet of Avouil. Of these, Jean
+Jacques Carrel was in command. He was a mighty hunter, and a fine
+mountaineer. The second, Jean Antoine Carrel, “il Bersaglier,” was
+destined to play a leading part in the conflict that was to close seven
+years later. Jean Antoine was something more than a great guide. He
+was a ragged, independent mountaineer, difficult to control, a great
+leader, but a poor follower. He was an old soldier, and had fought at
+Novara. The third of these young climbers was Aimé Gorret, a young boy
+of twenty destined for the Church. His solitary rambles among the hills
+had filled him with a passionate worship of the Matterhorn.
+
+Without proper provisions or gear, these three light-hearted knights
+set forth gaily on their quest. They mistook the way; and, reaching
+a spot that pleased them, they wasted hours in hurling rocks down a
+cliff--a fascinating pursuit. When they reached the point now known as
+the Tête du Lion (12,215 feet) they contemplated the Matterhorn which
+rose definitely beyond an intervening gap. They looked at their great
+foe with quiet assurance. The Becca would not run away. Nobody else was
+likely to try a throw with the local giant. One day they would come
+back and settle the issue. There was no immediate hurry.
+
+In 1860 a daring attempt was made by Messrs. Alfred, Charles, and
+Sanbach Parker of Liverpool. These bold climbers dispensed with guides,
+and had the wisdom to attack the east face that rises above Zermat. All
+the other early explorers attacked the Italian ridge; and, as will be
+seen, the first serious assault on the eastern face succeeded. Lack of
+time prevented the Parkers from reaching a greater height than 12,000
+feet; nor were they more successful in the following year, but they had
+made a gallant attempt, for which they deserve credit. In 1860 another
+party had assailed the mountain from Italy, and reached a height of
+about 13,000 feet. The party consisted of Vaughan Hawkins and Prof.
+Tyndall, whom he had invited to join the party, with the guides J. J.
+Carrel and Bennen.
+
+In 1861 Edward Whymper, who had opened his Alpine career in the
+previous year, returned to the Alps determined to conquer two virgin
+summits of the Alps, the Matterhorn and the Weishorn. On arriving at
+Chatillon, he learned that the Weishorn had been climbed by Tyndall,
+and that Tyndall was at Breuil intending to add the Matterhorn to his
+conquests. Whymper determined to anticipate him. He arrived at Breuil
+on August 28, with an Oberland guide, and inquired for the best man
+in the valley. The knowing ones with a voice recommended Jean Antoine
+Carrel, a member of the first party to set foot on the Matterhorn. “We
+sought, of course, for Carrel, and found him a well-made, resolute
+looking fellow, with a certain defiant air which was rather taking.
+Yes, he would go. Twenty francs a day, whatever the result, was his
+price. I assented. But I must take his comrade. As he said this, an
+evil countenance came forth out of the darkness, and proclaimed itself
+the comrade. I demurred, and negotiations were broken off.”
+
+At Breuil, they tried to get another man to accompany them but without
+success. The men they approached either would not go or asked a
+prohibitive price. “This, it may be said once and for all, was the
+reason why so many futile attempts were made on the Matterhorn. One
+guide after another was brought up to the mountain and patted on the
+back, but all declined the business. The men who went had no heart
+in the matter, and took the first opportunity to turn back. For they
+were, with the exception of the man to whom reference will be made [J.
+A. Carrel] universally impressed with the belief that the summit was
+entirely inaccessible.”
+
+Whymper and his guide bivouacked in a cowshed; and as night approached
+they saw J. A. Carrel and his companion stealing up the hillside.
+Whymper asked them if they had repented, and would join his party.
+They replied that they had contemplated an independent assault. “Oh,
+then, it is not necessary to have more than three.” “Not for us.” “I
+admired their pluck and had a strong inclination to engage the pair,
+but finally decided against it. The companion turned out to be J. J.
+Carrel. Both were bold mountaineers; but Jean Antoine was incomparably
+the better of the two, and was the finest rock climber I have ever
+seen. He was the only man who persistently refused to accept defeat,
+and who continued to believe, in spite of all discouragements, that the
+great mountain was not inaccessible, and that it could be ascended
+from the side of his native valley.”
+
+Carrel was something more than a great guide. He remained a soldier
+long after he had laid down his sword. He was, above all, an Italian,
+determined to climb the Matterhorn by the great Italian ridge, to climb
+it for the honour of Italy, and for the honour of his native valley.
+The two great moments of his life were those in which he heard the
+shouts of victory at Colle di Santiarno, and the cries of triumph on
+the summit of the Italian ridge. Whymper, and later Tyndall, found him
+an awkward man to deal with. He had the rough, undisciplined nature
+of the mountain he loved. He looked on the Matterhorn as a kind of
+preserve, and was determined that he and no other should lead on the
+final and successful ascent. Whymper’s first attempt failed owing
+to the poor qualities of his guide; and the Carrels were not more
+successful.
+
+During the three years that followed, Whymper made no less than six
+attempts to climb the Matterhorn. On one occasion he climbed alone
+and unaided higher than any of his predecessors. Without guides or
+companions, he reached a height of 13,500 feet. There is little to be
+said for solitary climbing, but this feat stands out as one of the
+boldest achievements of the period. The critics of solitary scrambling
+need, however, look no further than its sequel for their moral. In
+attempting to negotiate a corner on the Tête du Lion, Whymper slipped
+and fell. He shot down an ice slope, slid and bounded through a
+vertical height of about 200 feet, and was eventually thrown against
+the side of a gully where it narrowed. Another ten feet would have
+taken him in one terrific bound of 800 feet on to the glacier below.
+The blood was pulsing out of numerous cuts. He plastered up the wounds
+in his head with a lump of snow before scrambling up into a place of
+safety, where he promptly fainted away. He managed, however, to reach
+Breuil without further adventure. Within a week he had returned to the
+attack.
+
+He made two further attempts that year which failed for various
+reasons; but he had the satisfaction of seeing Tyndall fail when
+success seemed assured. Tyndall had brought with him the great Swiss
+guide Bennen, and a Valaisian guide named Walter Anton. He engaged
+Jean Antoine and Cæsar Carrel. They proposed to attack the mountain
+by the Italian ridge. Next morning, somebody ran in to tell Whymper
+that a flag had been seen on the summit. This proved a false alarm.
+Whymper waited through the long day to greet the party on their return.
+“I could not bring myself to leave, but lingered about as a foolish
+lover hovers round the object of his affections even after he has been
+rejected. The sun had set before the men were discerned coming over the
+pastures. There was no spring in their steps--they, too, were defeated.”
+
+Prof. Tyndall told Whymper that he had arrived “within a stone’s-throw
+of the summit”--the mountain is 14,800 feet high, 14,600 feet had been
+climbed. “He greatly deceived himself,” said Whymper, “for the point
+which he reached is no less than 800 feet below the summit. The failure
+was due to the fact that the Carrels had been engaged in a subordinate
+capacity.” When they were appealed to for their opinion, they replied:
+“We are porters, ask your guides.” Carrel always determined that the
+Matterhorn should be climbed from Italy, and that the leader of the
+climb should be an Italian. Bennen was a Swiss and Carrel had been
+engaged as a second guide. Tyndall and Whymper found it necessary to
+champion their respective guides, Carrel and Bennen; and a more or less
+heated controversy was carried on in the pages of _The Alpine Journal_.
+
+The Matterhorn was left in peace till the next year, but, meanwhile,
+a conspiracy for its downfall was hatched in Italy. The story is told
+in Guido Rey’s classic book on the Matterhorn, a book which should be
+read side by side with Whymper’s _Scrambles_, as it gives the Italian
+version of the final stages in which Italy and England fought for
+the great prize. In 1863, some leading Italian mountaineers gathered
+together at Turin to found an Italian Alpine Club. Amongst these were
+two well-known scientists, Felice Giordano and Quintino Sella. They
+vowed that, as English climbers had robbed them of Monte Viso, prince
+of Piedmontese peaks, Italy should have the honour of conquering the
+Matterhorn, and that Italians should climb it from Italy by the Italian
+ridge. The task was offered to Giordano, who accepted it.
+
+In 1863 Whymper and Carrel made another attempt on the Matterhorn,
+which was foiled by bad weather. In the next year, the mountain was
+left alone; but the plot for its downfall began to mature. Giordano and
+Sella had met Carrel, and had extracted from him promises of support.
+Carrel was, above all, an Italian, and, other things being equal, he
+would naturally prefer to lead an Italian, rather than an English,
+party to the summit.
+
+And now we come to the closing scenes. In 1865 Whymper returned to the
+attack, heartily tired of the Italian ridge. With the great guides
+Michel Croz and Christian Almer, Whymper attempted to reach the summit
+by a rock couloir that starts from near the Breuiljoch, and terminates
+high up on the Furggen arête. This was a mad scheme; and the route they
+chose was the most impracticable of all the routes that had ever been
+attempted on the Matterhorn. Even to-day, the great couloir has not
+been climbed, and the top half of the Furggen ridge has only been once
+ascended (or rather outflanked on the Italian side), an expedition of
+great danger and difficulty. Foiled in this attempt, Whymper turned
+his attention to the Swiss face. The eastern face is a fraud. From
+the Riffel and from Zermat, it appears almost perpendicular; but when
+seen in profile from the Zmutt glacier it presents a very different
+appearance. The average angle of the slope as far as “the shoulder,”
+about 13,925 feet, is about thirty degrees. From here to the summit the
+angle steepens considerably but is never more than fifty degrees. The
+wonder is that Whymper, who had studied the mountain more than once
+from the Zmutt glacier, still continued his attempts on the difficult
+Italian ridge.
+
+On the 8th of June 1865, Whymper arrived in Breuil, and explained to
+Carrel his change of plan. He engaged Carrel, and made plans for his
+attack on the Swiss face, promising Carrel that, if that failed, they
+should return to the Italian ridge. Jean Antoine told Whymper that he
+would not be able to serve him after the 11th, as he was engaged to
+travel “with a family of distinction in the valley of Aosta.” Whymper
+asked him why he had not told him this before; and he replied that the
+engagement had been a long-standing one, but that the actual day had
+not been fixed. Whymper was annoyed; but he could find no fault with
+the answer, and parted on friendly terms with Carrel. But the family of
+distinction was no other than Giordano. “You are going to leave me,”
+Whymper had said to Carrel, “to travel with a party of ladies. The work
+is not fit for you.” Carrel had smiled; and Whymper had taken the smile
+as a recognition of the implied compliment. Carrel smiled because he
+knew that the work he had in hand was more fitted for him than for any
+other man.
+
+On the 7th, Giordano had written to Sella:
+
+    “Let us, then, set out to attack this Devil’s mountain; and let
+    us see that we succeed, if only Whymper has not been beforehand
+    with us.” On the 11th, he wrote again: “Dear Quintino, It is high
+    time for me to send you news from here. I reached Valtournanche
+    on Saturday at midday. There I found Carrel, who had just returned
+    from a reconnoitring expedition on the Matterhorn, which had
+    proved a failure owing to bad weather. Whymper had arrived two or
+    three days before; as usual, he wished to make the ascent, and had
+    engaged Carrel, who, not having had my letters, had agreed, but
+    for a few days only. Fortunately, the weather turned bad, Whymper
+    was unable to make his fresh attempt; and Carrel left him, and
+    came with me together with five other picked men who are the best
+    guides in the valley. We immediately sent off our advance guard
+    with Carrel at its head. In order not to excite remark, we took the
+    rope and other materials to Avouil, a hamlet which is very remote
+    and close to the Matterhorn; and this is to be our lower base.... I
+    have tried to keep everything secret; but that fellow, whose life
+    seems to depend on the Matterhorn, is here suspiciously prying into
+    everything. I have taken all the competent men away from him; and
+    yet he is so enamoured of the mountain that he may go with others
+    and make a scene. He is here in this hôtel, and I try to avoid
+    speaking to him.”
+
+Whymper discovered on the 10th the identity of the “family of
+distinction.” He was furious. He considered, with some show of
+justification, that he had been “bamboozled and humbugged.”
+
+The Italian party had already started for the Matterhorn, with a large
+store of provisions. They were an advance party designed to find and
+facilitate the way. They would take their time. Whymper took courage.
+On the 11th, a party arrived from Zermat across the Théodule. One of
+these proved to be Lord Francis Douglas, who, a few days previously,
+had made the second ascent of the Gabelhorn, and the first from Zinal.
+Lord Francis was a young and ambitious climber; and he was only too
+glad to join Whymper in an attack on the Swiss face of the Matterhorn.
+They crossed to Zermat together on the 12th, and there discovered Mr.
+Hudson, a great mountaineer, accompanied by the famous guide Michel
+Croz, who had arrived at Zermat with the Matterhorn in view. They
+agreed to join forces; and Hudson’s friend Hadow was admitted to the
+party. Hadow was a young man of nineteen who had just left Harrow.
+Whymper seemed doubtful of his ability; but Hudson reassured him by
+remarking that Mr. Hadow had done Mont Blanc in less time than most
+men. Peter Taugwalder, Lord Francis’s guide, and Peter’s two sons
+completed the party. On the 13th of July they left Zermat.
+
+On the 14th of July Giordano wrote a short letter every line of which
+is alive with grave triumph. “At 2 p.m. to-day I saw Carrel & Co., on
+the top of the Matterhorn.” Poor Giordano! The morrow was to bring a
+sad disappointment; and his letter dated the 15th of July contains
+a pregnant sentence: “Although every man did his duty, it is a lost
+battle, and I am in great grief.”
+
+This is what had happened. Whymper and his companions had left Zermat
+on the 13th at half-past five. The day was cloudless. They mounted
+leisurely, and arrived at the base of the actual peak about half-past
+eleven. Once fairly on the great eastern face, they were astonished to
+find that places which looked entirely impracticable from the Riffel
+“were so easy that they could run about.” By mid-day they had found
+a suitable place for the tent at a height of about 11,000 feet. Croz
+and young Peter Taugwalder went on to explore. They returned at about
+3 p.m. in a great state of excitement. There was no difficulty. They
+could have gone to the top that day and returned.... “Long after dusk,
+the cliffs above echoed with our laughter, and with the songs of the
+guides, for we were happy that night in camp, and feared no evil.”
+
+Whymper’s story is told with simplicity and restraint. He was too good
+a craftsman to spoil a great subject by unnecessary strokes. They
+started next day before dawn. They had left Zermat on the 13th, and
+they left their camp on a Friday (the superstitious noted these facts
+when the whole disastrous story was known). The whole of the great
+eastern slope “was now revealed, rising for 3000 feet like a huge
+natural staircase. Some parts were more and others were less easy;
+but we were not once brought to a halt by any serious impediment....
+For the greater part of the way there was no need for the rope, and
+sometimes Hudson led, and sometimes myself.” When they arrived at the
+snow ridge now known as “The Shoulder,” which is some 500 feet below
+the summit, they turned over on to the northern face. This proved
+more difficult; but the general angle of the slope was nowhere more
+than forty degrees. Hadow’s want of experience began to tell, and
+he required a certain amount of assistance. “The solitary difficult
+part was of no great extent.... A long stride round a rather awkward
+corner brought us to snow once more. The last doubt had vanished. The
+Matterhorn was ours. Nothing but 200 feet of easy snow remained to be
+surmounted.”
+
+But they were not yet certain that they had not been beaten. The
+Italians had left Breuil four days before. All through the climb,
+false alarms had been raised of men on the top. The excitement became
+intense. “The slope eased off; at length we could be detached; and Croz
+and I, dashing away, ran a neck-and-neck race which ended in a dead
+heat. At 1.40 p.m. the world was at our feet, and the Matterhorn was
+conquered.”
+
+No footsteps could be seen; but the summit of the Matterhorn consists
+of a rudely level ridge about 350 feet in length, and the Italians
+might have been at the further end. Whymper hastened to the Italian
+summit, and again found the snow untrodden. They peered over the ridge,
+and far below on the right caught sight of the Italian party. “Up went
+my arms and hat. ‘Croz, Croz, come here!’ ‘Where are they, monsieur?’
+‘There, don’t you see them, down there.’ ‘Ah, the coquins, they are low
+down.’ ‘Croz, we must make those fellows hear us.’ They yelled until
+they were hoarse. ‘Croz, we must make them hear us, they shall hear
+us.’” Whymper seized a block of rock and hurled it down, and called on
+his companion to do the same. They drove their sticks in, and soon a
+whole torrent was pouring down. “There was no mistake about it this
+time. The Italians turned and fled.”
+
+[Illustration: III.--THE MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH-WEST.
+
+T and B are the points marked T and B in I. and II. Z Z Z Z is the
+Zmutt ridge. B C D E F is the great Italian South-west ridge. B is
+the Italian summit. C the point where Tyndall turned back on his last
+attempt. D the Italian shoulder now known as “Pic Tyndall.” E the
+“cravette.” F the Col du Lion, and G the Tête du Lion. The Italian
+route ascends to the Col du Lion on the further side, and then follows
+the Italian ridge.]
+
+Croz planted a tent-pole which they had taken with them, though Whymper
+protested that it was tempting Providence, and fixed his blouse to
+it. A poor flag--but it was seen everywhere. At Breuil--as we have
+seen--they cheered the Italian victory. But on the morrow the explorers
+returned down-hearted. “The old legends are true--there are spirits on
+the top of the Matterhorn. We saw them ourselves--they hurled stones at
+us.”
+
+We may allow this dramatic touch to pass unchallenged, though, whatever
+Carrel may have said to his friends, he made it quite clear to Giordano
+that he had identified the turbulent spirits, for, in the letter from
+which we have quoted, Giordano tells his friends that Carrel had seen
+Whymper on the summit. It might, perhaps, be worth while to add that
+the stones Whymper hurled down the ridge could by no possible chance
+have hit Carrel’s party. “Still, I would,” writes Whymper, “that the
+leader of that party could have stood with us at that moment, for our
+victorious shouts conveyed to him the disappointment of a lifetime. He
+was _the_ man of all those who attempted the ascent of the Matterhorn
+who most deserved to be first upon its summit. He was the first to
+doubt its inaccessibility; and he was the only man who persisted in
+believing that its ascent would be accomplished. It was the aim of his
+life to make the ascent from the side of Italy, for the honour of his
+native valley. For a time, he had the game in his hands; he played it
+as he thought best; but he made a false move, and he lost it.”
+
+After an hour on the summit, they prepared to descend. The order of
+descent was curious. Croz, as the best man in the party, should have
+been placed last. As a matter of history, he led, followed, in this
+order, by Hadow, Hudson, Douglas, and Peter Taugwalder. Whymper was
+sketching while the party was being arranged. They were waiting for him
+to tie on when somebody suggested that the names had not been left in a
+bottle. While Whymper put this right, the rest of the party moved on. A
+few minutes later Whymper tied on to young Peter, and followed detached
+from the others. Later, Douglas asked Whymper to attach himself to old
+Taugwalder, as he feared that Taugwalder would not be able to hold his
+ground in the event of a slip. About three o’clock in the afternoon,
+Michel Croz, who had laid aside his axe, faced the rock, and, in order
+to give Hadow greater security, was putting his feet one by one into
+their proper position. Croz then turned round to advance another step
+when Hadow slipped, fell against Croz, and knocked him over. “I heard
+one startled exclamation from Croz, and then saw him and Mr. Hadow
+flying downwards; in another moment Hudson was dragged from his steps,
+and Lord Francis Douglas immediately after him. All this was the work
+of a moment. Immediately we heard Croz’s exclamation, old Peter and
+I planted ourselves as firmly as the rocks would permit: the rope
+was taut between us, and the jerk came on us both as on one man. We
+held: but the rope broke midway between Taugwalder and Lord Francis
+Douglas. For a few seconds, we saw our unfortunate companions sliding
+downwards on their backs, and spreading out their hands endeavouring
+to save themselves. They passed from our sight uninjured, disappeared
+one by one, and then fell from precipice to precipice on to the
+Matterhorngletscher below, a distance of nearly 4000 feet in height.
+From the moment the rope broke, it was impossible to help them.”
+
+For half-an-hour, Whymper and the two Taugwalders remained on the spot
+without moving. The two guides cried like children. Whymper was fixed
+between the older and younger Taugwalder, and must have heartily
+regretted that he left young Peter the responsibility of last man down,
+for the young man was paralysed with terror, and refused to move. At
+last, he descended, and they stood together. Whymper asked immediately
+for the end of the rope that had given way, and noticed with horror
+that it was the weakest of the three ropes. It had never been intended
+to use it save as a reserve in case much rope had to be left behind to
+attach to the rocks.
+
+For more than two hours after the fall, Whymper expected that the
+Taugwalders would fall. They were utterly unnerved. At 6 p.m. they
+arrived again on the snow shoulder. “We frequently looked, but in vain,
+for traces of our unfortunate companions; we bent over the ridge and
+cried to them, but no sound returned. Convinced at last that they were
+neither within sight nor hearing, we ceased from our useless efforts;
+and, too cast down for speech, silently gathered up our things, and the
+little effects of those who were lost, preparatory to continuing the
+descent.”
+
+As they started down, the Taugwalders raised the problem as to their
+payment, Lord Francis being dead. “They filled,” remarks Whymper, “the
+cup of bitterness to overflowing, and I tore down the cliff madly and
+recklessly in a way that caused them more than once to inquire if I
+wished to kill them.” The whole party spent the night on a miserable
+ledge. Next day, they descended in safety to Zermat. Seiler met them
+at the door of his hôtel. “What is the matter?” “The Taugwalders and I
+have returned.” He did not need more, and burst into tears, but lost no
+time in needless lamentations, and set to work to rouse the village.
+
+On Sunday morning, Whymper set out with the Rev. Canon M’Cormick to
+recover the bodies of his friends. The local curé threatened with
+excommunication any guide who neglected Mass in order to attend the
+search party. “To several, at least, this was a severe trial. Peter
+Perrn declared, with tears in his eyes, that nothing else would have
+prevented him joining in the search.” Guides from other valleys joined
+the party. At 8.30 they got to the plateau at the top of the glacier.
+They found Hudson, Croz and Hadow, but “of Lord Francis Douglas nothing
+was seen.”
+
+This accident sent a thrill of horror through the civilised world.
+The old file of _The Times_, which is well worth consulting, bears
+tribute to the profound sensation which the news of this great tragedy
+aroused. Idle rumours of every kind were afloat--with these we shall
+deal later. For more than five weeks, not a day passed without some
+letter or comment in the columns of the leading English paper. These
+letters, for the most part, embodied the profound distrust with which
+the new sport was regarded by the bulk of Englishmen. If Lord Francis
+Douglas had been killed while galloping after a fox, he would have
+been considered to have fallen in action. That he should have fallen
+on the day that the Matterhorn fell, that he should have paid the
+supreme forfeit for a triumphant hour in Alpine history--such a death
+was obviously wholly without its redeeming features. “It was the
+blue ribbon of the Alps,” wrote _The Times_, “that poor Lord Francis
+Douglas was trying for the other day. If it must be so, at all events
+the Alpine Club that has proclaimed this crusade must manage the thing
+rather better, or it will soon be voted a nuisance. If the work is to
+be done, it must be done well. They must advise youngsters to practise,
+and make sure of their strength and endurance.”
+
+For three weeks, Whymper gave no sign. At last, in response to a
+dignified appeal from Mr. Justice Wills, then President of the Alpine
+Club, he broke silence, and gave to the public a restrained account of
+the tragedy. As we have said, malicious rumour had been busy, and in
+ignorant quarters there had been rumours of foul play. The Matterhorn
+accident first popularised the theory that Alpine ropes existed to
+be cut. Till then, the public had supposed that the rope was used
+to prevent cowardly climbers deserting their party in an emergency.
+But from 1865 onwards, popular authors discovered a new use for the
+rope. They divided all Alpine travellers into two classes, those who
+cut the rope from below (“Greater love hath no man--a romance of the
+mountains”) and those who cut the rope from above (“The Coward--a tale
+of the snows”). A casual reader might be pardoned for supposing that
+the Swiss did a brisk business in sheath knives. We should be the last
+to discourage this enterprising school--their works have afforded much
+joy to the climbing fraternity; but we offer them in all humility a few
+remarks on the art of rope-cutting by a member of Class II (those who
+cut the rope from above).
+
+A knife could only be used with advantage when a snowbridge gives way.
+It is easy enough to hold a man who has fallen into a crevasse; but it
+is often impossible to pull him out. The whole situation is altered
+on a rock face. If a man falls, a sudden jerk may pull the rest of
+the party off the face of the mountain. This will almost certainly
+happen if the leader or, on a descent, the last man down, falls, unless
+the rope is anchored round a knob of rock, in which case--provided
+the rope does not break--the leader may escape with a severe shaking,
+though a clear fall of more than fifteen feet will usually break the
+rope if anchored; and, if not anchored, the party will be dragged off
+their holds one by one. Therefore, the leader must not fall. If any
+other member of the party falls, he should be held by the man above.
+On difficult ground, only one man moves at a time. No man moves until
+the man above has secured himself in a position where he can draw in
+the rope as the man below advances. If he keeps it reasonably taut,
+and is well placed, he should be able to check any slip. A climber who
+slips and is held by the rope can immediately get new foothold and
+handhold. He is not in a crevasse from which exit is impossible save
+at the rope’s end. His slip is checked, and he is swung up against
+a rock face. There is no need to drag him up. The rest of the party
+have passed over this face, and therefore handholds and footholds can
+be found. The man who has slipped will find fresh purchase, and begin
+again. In the case of the Matterhorn accident, the angle of the slope
+was about forty degrees. There was an abundance of hold, and if the
+rope had not parted Croz and Hadow would have been abruptly checked,
+and would have immediately secured themselves. Now, if Taugwalder had
+cut the rope, as suggested, he must have been little short of an expert
+acrobat, and have cut it in about the space of a second and a half
+_before the jerk_. If he had waited for the jerk, either he would have
+been dragged off, in which case his knife would have come in handy, or
+he would have held, in which case it would have been unnecessary.
+
+To mountaineers, all this, of course, is a truism; and we should not
+have laboured the point if we wrote exclusively for mountaineers. Even
+so, Peter’s comrades at Zermat (who should have known better) persisted
+in believing that he cut the rope. “In regard to this infamous charge,”
+writes Whymper, “I say that he could not do so at the moment of the
+slip, and that the end of the rope in my possession shows that he
+did not do so before.” Whymper, however, adds: “There remains the
+suspicious fact that the rope which broke was the thinnest and weakest
+one we had. It is suspicious because it is unlikely that the men in
+front would have selected an old and weak rope when there was an
+abundance of new, and much stronger, rope to spare; and, on the other
+hand, because if Taugwalder thought that an accident was likely to
+happen, it was to his interest to have the weaker rope placed where it
+was.”
+
+One cannot help regretting that Whymper lent weight to an unworthy
+suspicion. Taugwalder was examined by a secret Court of Inquiry; and
+Whymper prepared a set of questions with a view to helping him to clear
+himself. The answers, though promised, were never sent; and Taugwalder
+ultimately left the valley for America, returning only to die. Whymper,
+in his classic book, suggested the possibility of criminal dealings by
+publishing photographs of the three ropes showing that the rope broken
+was far the weakest.
+
+Let us review the whole story as Whymper himself tells it. We know
+that Whymper crossed the Théodule on the eleventh in a state of anger
+and despair. The prize for which he had striven so long seemed to be
+sliding from his grasp. Carrel had deserted him just as the true line
+of attack had been discovered. Like all mountaineers, he was human.
+He gets together the best party he can, and sets out with all haste
+determined to win by a head. Hadow, a young man with very little
+experience, is taken, and Hadow, the weak link, is destined to turn
+triumph into disaster. Let the mountaineer who has never invited a man
+unfit for a big climb throw the first stone. And, before he has thrown
+it, let him remember the peculiar provocation in Whymper’s case.
+
+All goes well. The Matterhorn is conquered with surprising ease. These
+six men achieve the greatest triumph in Alpine history without serious
+check. To Whymper, this hour on the summit must have marked the supreme
+climax of life, an hour that set its seal on the dogged labours of
+past years. Do men in such moments anticipate disaster? Taugwalder
+might possibly have failed in a sudden crisis; but is it likely that
+he should deliberately prepare for an accident by carefully planned
+treachery?
+
+Now read the story as Whymper tells it. The party are just about to
+commence the descent. The first five hundred feet would still be
+considered as demanding the greatest care. The top five hundred feet of
+the Matterhorn, but for the ropes with which the whole mountain is now
+festooned, would always be a difficult, if not a dangerous, section.
+Croz was the best guide in the party. He should have remained behind
+as sheet anchor. Instead of this, he goes first. Whymper falls out of
+line, to inscribe the names of the party, ties himself casually on
+to young Peter, and then “runs down after the others.” In the final
+arrangements, young Peter, who was a young and inexperienced guide,
+was given the vital position of last man down. Flushed with triumph,
+their minds could find no room for a doubt. Everything had gone through
+with miraculous ease. Such luck simply could not turn. It is in
+precisely such moments as these that the mountains settle their score.
+Mountaineering is a ruthless sport that demands unremitting attention.
+In games, a moment’s carelessness may lose a match, or a championship;
+but in climbing a mistake may mean death.
+
+As for Taugwalder, one is tempted to acquit him without hesitation; but
+there is one curious story about Taugwalder which gives one pause. The
+story was told to the present writer by an old member of the Alpine
+Club, and the following is an extract from a letter: “I had rather you
+said ‘a friend of yours’ without mentioning my name. I had a good many
+expeditions with old Peter Taugwalder, including Mont Blanc and Monte
+Rosa; and I had rather a tender spot for the somewhat coarse, dirty
+old beggar. I should not like my name to appear to help the balance to
+incline in the direction of his guilt in that Matterhorn affair. It
+was not on the Dent Blanche that he took the rope off; it was coming
+down a long steep slope of bare rock from the top of the Tête Blanche
+towards Prayagé. I had a couple of men with me who were inexperienced;
+and I fancy he must have thought that, if one of them let go, which was
+not unlikely, he would be able to choose whether to hold on or let go.
+I happened to look up and see what was going on, and I made him tie up
+at once. I don’t quite remember whether Whymper tells us how far from
+Peter’s fingers the break in the rope occurred. That seems to me one of
+the most critical points.”
+
+There we may leave Taugwalder, and the minor issues of this great
+tragedy. The broader lessons are summed up by Mr. Whymper in a
+memorable passage: “So the traditional inaccessibility of the
+Matterhorn was vanquished, and was replaced by legends of a more real
+character. Others will essay to scale its proud cliffs, but to none
+will it be the mountain that it was to the early explorers. Others may
+tread its summit snows, but none will ever know the feelings of those
+who first gazed upon its marvellous panorama; and none, I trust, will
+ever be compelled to tell of joy turned into grief, and of laughter
+into mourning. It proved to be a stubborn foe; it resisted long and
+gave many a hard blow; it was defeated at last with an ease that none
+could have anticipated, but like a relentless enemy--conquered, but
+not crushed--it took a terrible vengeance.”
+
+The last sentence has a peculiar significance. A strange fatality seems
+to dog the steps of those who seek untrodden paths to the crest of the
+Matterhorn. Disaster does not always follow with the dramatic swiftness
+of that which marked the conquest of the eastern face, yet, slowly but
+surely, the avenging spirit of the Matterhorn fulfils itself.
+
+On July 16, two days after the catastrophe, J. A. Carrel set out to
+crown Whymper’s victory by proving that the Italian ridge was not
+unconquerable. He was accompanied by Abbé Gorret, a plucky priest who
+had shared with him that first careless attack on the mountain. Bich
+and Meynet completed the party. The Abbé and Meynet remained behind not
+very far from the top, in order to help Carrel and Bich on the return
+at a place where a short descent onto a ledge was liable to cause
+difficulty on the descent. This ledge, known as Carrel’s corridor,
+is about forty minutes from the summit. It needed a man of Carrel’s
+determined courage to follow its winding course. It is now avoided.
+
+The rest of the climb presented no difficulty. Carrel had conquered the
+Italian ridge. The ambition of years was half fulfilled, only half, for
+the Matterhorn itself had been climbed. One cannot but regret that he
+had turned back on the 14th. Whymper’s cries of triumph had spelt for
+him the disappointment of a lifetime. Yet a fine rôle was open to him.
+Had he gone forward and crowned Whymper’s victory by a triumph unmarred
+by disaster; had the Matterhorn defied all assaults for years, and then
+yielded on the same day to a party from the Swiss side and Carrel’s
+men from Italy, the most dramatic page in Alpine history would have
+been complete. Thirty-five years later, the Matterhorn settled the long
+outstanding debt, and the man who had first attacked the citadel died
+in a snowstorm on the Italian ridge of the mountain which he had been
+the first to assail, and the first to conquer.
+
+Carrel was in his sixty-second year when he started out for his last
+climb. Bad weather detained the party in the Italian hut, and Signor
+Sinigaglia noticed that Carrel was far from well. After two nights
+in the hut, the provisions began to run out; and it was decided to
+attempt the descent. The rocks were in a terrible condition, and the
+storm added to the difficulty. Carrel insisted on leading, though he
+was far from well. He knew every yard of his own beloved ridge. If a
+man could pilot them through the storm that man was Carrel. Quietly and
+methodically, he fought his way downward, yard by yard, undaunted by
+the hurricane, husbanding the last ounces of his strength. He would not
+allow the other guides to relieve him till the danger was past, and his
+responsibilities were over. Then suddenly he collapsed, and in a few
+minutes the gallant old warrior fell backwards and died. A cross now
+marks the spot where the old soldier died in action.
+
+In life the leading guides of Breuil had often resented Carrel’s
+unchallenged supremacy. But death had obliterated the old jealousies.
+Years afterwards, a casual climber stopped before Carrel’s cross, and
+remarked to the son of Carrel’s great rival, “So that is where Carrel
+fell.” “Carrel did not fall,” came the indignant answer, “Carrel died.”
+
+Let us turn from Carrel to the conquerors of another great ridge of the
+Matterhorn.
+
+Of others concerned with attacks on the Italian ridge, Tyndall, Bennen,
+and J. J. Macquignaz, all came to premature ends. Bennen was killed in
+an historic accident on the Haut de Cry, and Macquignaz disappeared
+on Mont Blanc. In 1879, two independent parties on the same day made
+the first ascent of the great northern ridge of the Matterhorn known
+as the Zmutt arête. Mummery and Penhall were the amateurs responsible
+for these two independent assaults. “The memory,” writes Mummery, “of
+two rollicking parties, comprised of seven men, who on one day in 1879
+were climbing on the west face of the Matterhorn passes with ghost-like
+admonition before my mind, and bids me remember that, of these seven,
+Mr. Penhall was killed on the Wetterhorn, Ferdinand Imseng on the
+Macugnaga side of Monte Rosa, and Johan Petrus on the Frersnay Mont
+Blanc.” Of the remaining four, Mummery disappeared in the Himalayas in
+1895, Louis Zurbrucken was killed, Alexander Burgener perished in an
+avalanche near the Bergli hut in 1911. Mr. Baumann and Emil Rey, who
+with Petrus followed in Mummery’s footsteps three days later, both came
+to untimely ends: Baumann disappeared in South Africa, and Emil Rey was
+killed on the Dent de Géant. The sole survivor of these two parties is
+the well-known Augustin Gentinetta, one of the ablest of the Zermat
+guides. Burgener and Gentinetta guided Mummery on the above-mentioned
+climb, while Penhall was accompanied by Louis Zurbrucken. In recent
+times, three great mountaineers who climbed this ridge together died
+violent deaths within the year. The superstitious should leave the
+Zmutt arête alone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+MODERN MOUNTAINEERING
+
+
+Alpine History is not easy to divide into arbitrary periods; and yet
+the conquest of the Matterhorn does in a certain sense define a period.
+It closes what has been called “the golden age of mountaineering.”
+Only a few great peaks still remained unconquered. In this chapter we
+shall try to sketch some of the tendencies which differentiate modern
+mountaineering from mountaineering in the so-called “golden age.”
+
+The most radical change has been the growth of guideless climbing,
+which was, of course, to be expected as men grew familiar with the
+infinite variety of conditions that are the essence of mountaineering.
+In a previous chapter we have discussed the main differences between
+guided and guideless climbing. It does not follow that a man of
+considerable mountaineering experience, who habitually climbs with
+guides need entirely relinquish the control of the expedition. Such a
+man--there are not many--may, indeed, take a guide as a reserve of
+strength, or as a weight carrier. He may enjoy training up a young and
+inexperienced guide, who has a native talent for rock and ice, while
+lacking experience and mountain craft. One occasionally finds a guide
+who is a first-class cragsman, but whose general knowledge of mountain
+strategy is inferior to that of a great amateur. In such a combination,
+the latter will be the real general of the expedition, even if the
+guide habitually leads on difficult rock and does the step-cutting.
+On the other hand a member of a guideless party may be as dependent
+on the rest of the party as another man on his guides. Moreover,
+tracks, climbers, guides and modern maps render the mental work of the
+leader, whether amateur or professional, much less arduous than in more
+primitive days.
+
+But when we have made all possible allowance for the above
+considerations, there still remains a real and radical distinction
+between those who rely on their own efforts and those who follow a
+guide. The man who leads even on one easy expedition obtains a greater
+insight into the secrets of his craft than many a guided climber with a
+long list of first-class expeditions.
+
+One of the earliest of the great guideless climbs was the ascent of
+Mont Blanc by E. S. Kennedy, Charles Hudson (afterwards killed on the
+first ascent of the Matterhorn), Grenville and Christopher Smyth, E.
+J. Stevenson and Charles Ainslie. Their climb was made in 1855, and
+was the first complete ascent of Mont Blanc from St. Gervais, though
+the route was not new except in combination, as every portion of it
+had been previously done on different occasions. One of the first
+systematic guideless climbers to attract attention was the Rev. A. G.
+Girdlestone, whose book, _The High Alps without Guides_, appeared in
+1870. This book was the subject of a discussion at a meeting of the
+Alpine Club. Mr. Grove, a well-known mountaineer, read a paper on the
+comparative skill of travellers and guides, and used Girdlestone’s book
+as a text. Mr. Grove said: “The net result of mountaineering without
+guides appears to be this, that, in twenty-one expeditions selected
+out of seventy for the purposes of description, the traveller failed
+absolutely four times; was in great danger three times; was aided in
+finding the way back by the tracks of other men’s guides four times;
+succeeded absolutely without aid of any kind ten times on expeditions,
+four of which were very easy, three of moderate difficulty, and one
+very difficult.” The “very difficult” expedition is the Wetterhorn,
+which is nowadays considered a very modest achievement.
+
+Mr. Girdlestone was a pioneer, with the limitations of a pioneer.
+His achievements judged by modern standards are modest enough, but
+he was the first to insist that mountaineering without guides is an
+art, and that mountaineering with guides is often only another form of
+conducted travel. The discussion that followed, as might be expected,
+at that time was not favourable either to Girdlestone or to guideless
+climbing. Probably each succeeding year will see his contribution to
+modern mountaineering more properly appreciated. The “settled opinion
+of the Alpine Club” was declared without a single dissentient to be
+that “the neglect to take guides on difficult expeditions is totally
+unjustifiable.”
+
+But guideless climbing had come to stay. A year after this memorable
+meeting of the Alpine Club, two of its members carried out without
+guides some expeditions more severe than anything Girdlestone had
+attempted. In 1871 Mr. John Stogdon, a well-known Harrow master, and
+the Rev. Arthur Fairbanks ascended the Nesthorn and Aletschhorn, and in
+the following year climbed the Jungfrau and Aletschhorn unguided. No
+record of these expeditions found its way into print. In 1876, a party
+of amateurs, Messrs. Cust, Cawood, and Colgrove climbed the Matterhorn
+without guides. This expedition attracted great attention, and was
+severely commented on in the columns of the _Press_. Mr. Cust, in an
+eloquent paper read before the Alpine Club, went to the root of the
+whole matter when he remarked: “Cricket is a sport which is admitted by
+all to need acquired skill. A man can buy his mountaineering as he can
+buy his yachting. None the less, there are yachtsmen and yachtsmen.”
+
+Systematic climbing on a modern scale without guides was perhaps first
+practised by Purtscheller and Zsigmondys in 1880. Among our own people,
+it found brilliant exponents in Morse, Mummery, Wicks, and Wilson some
+twenty years ago; and it has since been adopted by many of our own
+leading mountaineers. Abroad, guideless climbing finds more adherents
+than with us. Naturally enough, the man who lives near the mountains
+will find it easier to make up a guideless party among his friends;
+and, if he is in the habit of spending all his holidays and most of his
+week-ends among the mountains that can be reached in a few hours from
+his home, he will soon acquire the necessary skill to dispense with
+guides.
+
+So much for guideless climbing. Let us now consider some of the other
+important developments in the practice of mountaineering. In the Alps
+the tendency has been towards specialisation. Before 1865 the ambitious
+mountaineer had scores of unconquered peaks to attack. After the defeat
+of the Matterhorn, the number of the unclimbed greater mountains
+gradually thinned out. The Meije, which fell in 1877, was one of the
+last great Alpine peaks to remain unclimbed. With the development
+of rock-climbing, even the last and apparently most hopelessly
+inaccessible rock pinnacles of the Dolomites and Chamounix were
+defeated. There is no rock-climbing as understood in Wales or Lakeland
+or Skye on giants of the Oberland or Valais, such as the Schreckhorn
+or Matterhorn. These tax the leader’s power of choosing a route, his
+endurance and his knowledge of snow and ice, and weather; but their
+demands on the pure cragsman are less. The difficulty of a big mountain
+often depends very much on its condition and length. Up to 1865 hardly
+any expeditions had been carried through--with a few exceptions,
+such as the Brenva route up Mont Blanc--that a modern expert would
+consider exceptionally severe. Modern rock-climbing begins in the late
+’seventies. The expeditions in the Dolomites by men like Zsigmondy,
+Schmitt, and Winkler, among foreign mountaineers, belong to much the
+same period as Burgener and Mummery classic climbs in the Chamounix
+district.
+
+Mummery is, perhaps, best known in connection with the first ascent
+of the Grepon by the sensational “Mummery crack,” when his leader was
+the famous Alexander Burgener aided by a young cragsman, B. Venetz.
+Venetz, as a matter of fact, led up the “Mummery” crack. Mummery’s
+vigorous book, which has become a classic, contains accounts of many
+new expeditions, such as the Grepon, the Requin, the Matterhorn
+by the Zmutt arête, and the Caucasian giant Dych Tau, to name the
+more important. His book, _My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus_, is
+thoroughly typical of the modern view of mountaineering. It contains
+some doctrines that are still considered heretical, such as the safety
+of a party of two on a snow-covered glacier, and many doctrines that
+are now accepted, such as the justification of guideless climbing and
+of difficult variation routes. Shortly after the book appeared, Mummery
+was killed on Nanga Parbat, as was Emil Zsigmondy on the Meije soon
+after the issue of his book on the dangers of the Alps.
+
+But even Dolomites and Chamounix aiguilles are not inexhaustible, and
+the number of unconquered summits gradually diminished. The rapid
+opening up of the Alps has naturally turned the attention of men with
+the exploring instinct and ample means to the exploration of the great
+mountain ranges beyond Europe. This does not fall within the scope of
+the present volume, and we need only remark in passing that British
+climbers have played an important part in the campaigns against the
+fortresses of the Himalaya, Caucasus, Andes, and Rockies.
+
+Meanwhile the ambitious mountaineer was forced to look for new routes
+on old peaks. Now, a man in search of the easiest way up a difficult
+peak could usually discover a route which was climbable without severe
+technical difficulty. On a big mountain, it is often possible to evade
+any small and very difficult section. But most mountains, even our
+British hills, have at least one route which borders on the impossible,
+and a diligent search will soon reveal it. Consider the two extremes of
+rock-climbing. Let us take the Matterhorn as a good example of a big
+mountain which consists almost entirely of rock. It is impossible to
+find a route up the Matterhorn which one could climb with one’s hands
+in one’s pockets, but the ordinary Swiss route is an easy scramble as
+far as the shoulder, and, with the fixed ropes, a straightforward climb
+thence to the top. Its Furggen Ridge has been once climbed under fair
+conditions and then only with a partial deviation. It is extremely
+severe and dangerous. The task of the mountaineers who first assailed
+the Matterhorn was to pick out the easiest line of approach. The Zmutt,
+and in a greater degree the Furggen routes, were obviously ruled out of
+consideration. The Italian route was tried many times without success
+before the Swiss route was discovered. Of course, the Matterhorn, like
+all big mountains, varies in difficulty from day to day. It is a very
+long climb; and, if the conditions are unfavourable, it may prove a
+very difficult and a very dangerous peak.
+
+Turning to the nursery of Welsh climbers, Lliwedd can be climbed on a
+mule, and Lliwedd can also be climbed by about thirty or more distinct
+routes up its southern rock face. If a man begins to look for new
+routes up a wall of a cliff a thousand feet in height and a mile or
+so in breath, he will sooner or later reach the line which divided
+reasonable from unreasonable risk. Modern pioneer work in the Alps is
+nearer the old ideal. It is not simply the search for the hardest of
+all climbable routes up a given rock face. In England, the danger of
+a rock fall is practically absent, and a rock face is not considered
+climbed out as long as one can work up from base to summit by a
+series of ledges not touched on a previous climb. Two such routes will
+sometimes be separated by a few feet. In the Alps, the pioneer is
+compelled by objective difficulties to look for distinct ridges and
+faces unswept by stones and avalanches. There is a natural challenge in
+the sweep of a great ridge falling through some thousand unconquered
+feet to the pastures below. There is only an artificial challenge in a
+“new” route some thousand feet in height separated only by a few yards
+of cliff from an “old” route. We do not wish to depreciate British
+climbing, which has its own fascination and its own value; but, if it
+calls for greater cragsmanship, it demands infinitely less mountain
+craft than the conquest of a difficult Alpine route.
+
+And what is true of British rock-climbing is even more true of Tirol.
+Ranges, such as the Kaisergebirge, have been explored with the same
+thoroughness that has characterised British rock-climbing. Almost
+every conceivable variation of the “just possible” has been explored.
+Unfortunately, the death-roll in these districts is painfully high, as
+the keenness of the young Austrian and Bavarian has not infrequently
+exceeded their experience and powers.
+
+Abroad, mountaineering has developed very rapidly since the ’sixties.
+We have seen that English climbers, first in the field, secured a large
+share of unconquered peaks; but once continental climbers had taken up
+the new sport, our earlier start was seriously challenged. The Swiss,
+Austrian, and German have one great advantage. They are much nearer
+the Alps; and mountaineering in these countries is, as a result, a
+thoroughly democratic sport. The foreign Alpine Clubs number thousands
+of members. The German-Austrian Alpine Club has alone nearly ninety
+thousand members. There is no qualification, social or mountaineering.
+These great national clubs have a small subscription; and with the
+large funds at their disposal they are able to build club-huts in
+the mountains, and excellent meeting places in the great towns,
+where members can find an Alpine library, maps, and other sources of
+information. They secure many useful concessions, such as reduced fares
+for their members on Alpine railways. Mountaineering naturally becomes
+a democratic sport in mountainous countries, because the mountains are
+accessible. The very fact that a return ticket to the Alps is a serious
+item must prevent Alpine climbing from becoming the sport of more
+than a few of our countrymen. At the same time, we have an excellent
+native playground in Wales and Cumberland, which has made it possible
+for young men to learn the craft before they could afford a regular
+climbing holiday in the Alps. Beside the great national clubs of the
+Continent, there are a number of vigorous university clubs scattered
+through these countries. Of these, the Akademischer Alpine clubs at
+Zürich and Munich are, perhaps, the most famous. These clubs consist of
+young men reading at the Polytechnic or University. They have as high a
+mountaineering qualification as any existing Alpine clubs. They attach
+importance to the capacity to lead a guideless party rather than to
+the bare fact that a man has climbed so many peaks. Each candidate is
+taken on a series of climbs by members of the club, who report to the
+committee on his general knowledge of snow and rock conditions, and his
+fitness, whether in respect of courage or endurance for arduous work.
+
+It is young men of this stamp that play such a great part in raising
+the standard of continental mountaineering. Their cragsmanship often
+verges on the impossible. A book published in Munich, entitled _Empor_,
+affords stimulating reading. This book was produced in honour and
+in memory of Georg Winkler by some of his friends. Winkler was a
+young Munich climber who carried through some of the most daring
+rock climbs ever recorded. _Empor_ contains his diary, and several
+articles contributed by various members of one of the most remarkable
+climbing groups in Alpine history. Winkler’s amazing performances
+give to the book a note which is lacking in most Alpine literature.
+Winkler was born in 1869. As a boy of eighteen he made, quite alone,
+the first ascent of the Winklerturm, one of the most sensational--both
+in appearance and reality--of all Dolomite pinnacles. On the 14th of
+August 1888 he traversed alone the Zinal Rothhorn, and on the 18th
+he lost his life in a solitary attempt on the great Zinal face of
+the Weisshorn. No definite traces of him have ever been found. His
+brother, born in the year of his death, has also carried through some
+sensational solitary climbs.
+
+We may, perhaps, be excused a certain satisfaction in the thought that
+the British crags can occasionally produce climbers whose achievements
+are quite as sensational as those of the Winklers. Without native
+mountains, we could not hope to produce cragsmen equal to those of
+Tirol and the Alps. One must begin young. It is, as a rule, only a
+comparatively small minority that can afford a regular summer holiday
+in the Alps; but Scawfell and Lliwedd are accessible enough, and the
+comparatively high standard of the British rock-climber owes more to
+British than to Alpine mountains. It was only in the last two decades
+that the possibilities of these crags were systematically worked
+out, though isolated climbs have been recorded for many years. The
+patient and often brilliant explorations of a group of distinguished
+mountaineers have helped to popularise a fine field for native talent,
+and an arena for those who cannot afford a regular Alpine campaign.
+Guides are unknown in Great Britain, and the man who learns to climb
+there is often more independent and more self-reliant than the
+mountaineer who is piloted about by guides. There is, of course, much
+that can be learned only in the Alps. The home climber can learn to use
+an axe in the wintry gullies round Scawfell. He learns something of
+snow; but both snow and ice can only be properly studied in the regions
+of perpetual snow. The home-trained cragsman, as a rule, learns to
+lead up rocks far more difficult than anything met with on the average
+Swiss peaks, but the wider lessons of route-finding over a long and
+complicated expedition are naturally not acquired on a face of cliff
+a thousand feet in height. Nor, for that matter, is the art of rapid
+descent over easy rocks; for the British climber usually ascends by
+rocks, and runs home over grass and scree. None the less, these cliffs
+have produced some wonderfully fine mountaineers. We have our Winklers,
+and we have also young rock-climbers who confine their energies to the
+permissible limit of the justifiable climbing and who, within those
+limits, carry their craft to its most refined possibilities. Hugh Pope,
+one of the most brilliant of the younger school of rock-climbers,
+learned his craft on the British hills, and showed in his first Alpine
+season the value of that training. To the great loss of British
+mountaineering he was killed in 1912 on the Pic du Midi d’Ossau.
+
+Another comparatively recent development is the growth of winter
+mountaineering. The first winter expedition of any importance after
+the beginnings of serious mountaineering was Mr. T. S. Kennedy’s
+attempt on the Matterhorn in 1863. He conceived the curious idea that
+the Matterhorn might prove easier in winter than in summer. Here, he
+was very much mistaken. He was attacked by a storm, and retreated
+after reaching a point where the real climb begins. It was a plucky
+expedition. But the real pioneer of winter mountaineering was W. A.
+Moore. In 1866, with Mr. Horace Walker, Melchior Anderegg, Christian
+Almer, and “Peterli” Bohren, he left Grindelwald at midnight; they
+crossed the Finsteraarjoch, and returned within the twenty-four hours
+to Grindelwald over the Strahlegg. Even in summer this would prove a
+strenuous day. In winter, it is almost incredible that this double
+traverse should have been carried through without sleeping out.
+
+Most of the great peaks have now been ascended in winter; and amongst
+others Mr. Coolidge must be mentioned as a prominent pioneer. His
+ascents of the Jungfrau, Wetterhorn, and Schreckhorn--the first in
+winter--with Christian Almer, did much to set the fashion. Mrs. Le
+Blond, the famous lady climber, has an even longer list of winter first
+ascents to her credit. But the real revolution in winter mountaineering
+has been caused by the introduction of ski-ing. In winter, the main
+difficulty is getting to the high mountain huts. Above the huts,
+the temperature is often mild and equable for weeks together. A low
+temperature on the ground co-exists with a high temperature in the air.
+Rock-ridges facing south or south-west are often denuded of snow, and
+as easy to climb as in summer. Signor Sella also made some brilliant
+winter ascents, such as the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa.
+
+The real obstacle to winter mountaineering is the appalling weariness
+of wading up to the club-huts on foot. The snow in the sheltered lower
+valleys is often deep and powdery; and the climber on foot will have
+to force his way through pine forests where the snow lies in great
+drifts between the trees, and over moraines where treacherous drifts
+conceal pitfalls between the loose stones. All this is changed by the
+introduction of ski. The ski distributes the weight of the climber
+over a long, even surface; and in the softest snow he will not sink in
+more than a few inches. Better still, they revolutionise the descent,
+converting a weary plug through snow-drifts into a succession of swift
+and glorious runs. The ski-runner takes his ski to the foot of the
+last rock ridges, and then proceeds on foot, rejoining his ski, and
+covering on the descent five thousand feet in far less time than the
+foot-climber would take over five hundred. Skis, as everybody knows,
+were invented as a means of crossing snowy country inaccessible on
+foot. They are sometimes alluded to as snowshoes, but differ radically
+from snowshoes in one important respect. Both ski and the Canadian
+snowshoe distribute their wearer’s weight, and enable him to cross
+drifts where he would sink in hopelessly if he were on foot, but there
+the resemblance ends. For, whereas snowshoes cannot slide on snow, and
+whereas a man on snowshoes cannot descend a hill as fast as a man on
+foot could run down hill, skis glide rapidly and easily on snow, and
+a ski-runner can descend at a rate which may be anything up to sixty
+miles an hour.
+
+Ski-ing is of Scandinavian origin, and the greatest exponents of the
+art are the Norwegians. Norwegians have used ski from time immemorial
+in certain districts, such as Telemarken, as a means of communication
+between snow-bound villages. It should, perhaps, be added that
+ski-jumping does not consist, as some people imagine, in casual leaps
+across chasms or over intervening hillocks. The ski-runner does not
+glide along the level at the speed of an express train, lightly
+skimming any obstacles in his path. On the level, the best performer
+does not go more than six or seven miles an hour, and the great jumps
+one hears of are made downhill. The ski-runner swoops down on to a
+specially prepared platform, leaps into the air, and alights on a very
+steep slope below. The longest jump on record is some hundred and fifty
+feet, measured from the edge of the take-off to the alighting point.
+In this case, the ski-runner must have fallen through nearly seventy
+vertical feet.
+
+To the mountaineer, the real appeal of ski-ing is due to the fact
+that it halves the labour of his ascent to the upper snowfields, and
+converts a tedious descent into a succession of swift and fascinating
+runs. The ski-runner climbs on ski to the foot of the final rock and
+ice ridges, and then finishes the climb in the ordinary way. After
+rejoining his ski, his work is over, and his reward is all before
+him. If he were on foot, he would have to wade laboriously down to
+the valley. On ski, he can swoop down with ten times the speed, and a
+thousand times the enjoyment.
+
+Ski were introduced into Central Europe in the early ’nineties. Dr.
+Paulcke’s classic traverse of the Oberland in 1895, which included the
+ascent of the Jungfrau, proved to mountaineers the possibilities of
+the new craft. Abroad, the lesson was soon learned. To-day, there are
+hundreds of ski-runners who make a regular practice of mountaineering
+in winter. The Alps have taken out a new lease of life. In summer, the
+huts are crowded, the fashionable peaks are festooned with parties
+of incompetent novices who are dragged and pushed upwards by their
+guides, but in winter the true mountain lover has the upper world to
+himself. The mere summit hunter naturally chooses the line of least
+resistance, and accumulates his list of first class expeditions in
+the summer months, when such a programme is easiest to compile. The
+winter mountaineer must be more or less independent of the professional
+element, for, though he will probably employ a guide to find the way
+and to act as a reserve of strength, he himself must at least be able
+to ski steadily, and at a fair speed.
+
+Moreover, mountain craft as the winter mountaineer understands the
+term is a more subtle and more embracing science as far, at least, as
+snow conditions are concerned. It begins at the hôtel door. In summer,
+there is a mule path leading to the glacier line, a mule path which a
+man can climb with his mind asleep. But in winter the snow with its
+manifold problems sweeps down to the village. A man has been killed
+by an avalanche within a few yards of a great hôtel. From the moment
+a man buckles on his ski, he must exercise his knowledge of snow
+conditions. There are no paths save a few woodcutter’s tracks. From
+the valley upwards, he must learn to pick a good line, and to avoid
+the innocent-looking slopes that may at any moment resolve themselves
+into an irresistible avalanche. Many a man is piloted up a succession
+of great peaks without acquiring anything like the same intimate
+knowledge of snow that is possessed even by a ski-runner who has never
+crossed the summer snow-line. Even the humblest ski-runner must learn
+to diagnose the snow. He may follow his leader unthinkingly on the
+ascent; but once he starts down he must judge for himself. If he makes
+a mistake, he will be thrown violently on to his face when the snow
+suddenly sticks, and on to his back when it quickens. Even the most
+unobservant man will learn something of the effects of sun and wind
+on his running surface when the result of a faulty deduction may mean
+violent contact with Mother Earth.
+
+Those who worship the Alps in their loveliest and loneliest moods,
+those who dislike the weary anti-climax of the descent through burning
+snowfields, and down dusty mule paths, will climb in the winter months,
+when to the joy of renewing old memories of the mountains in an
+unspoiled setting is added the rapture of the finest motion known to
+man.
+
+In England mountaineering on ski has yet to find many adherents. We
+have little opportunity for learning to ski in these isles, and the
+ten thousand Englishmen that visit the Alps in winter prefer to ski
+on the lower hills. For every Englishman with a respectable list of
+glacier tours on ski to his credit, there are at least a hundred
+continental runners with a record many times more brilliant. The
+Alpine Ski Club, now in its sixth year, has done much to encourage
+this “new mountaineering,” and its journal contains a record of the
+finest expeditions by English and continental runners. But even in
+the pages of the Alpine Ski Club Annual, the proportion of foreign
+articles describing really fine tours is depressingly large. Of course,
+the continental runner lives nearer the Alps. So did the continental
+mountaineer of the early ’sixties; but that did not prevent us taking
+our fair share of virgin peaks.
+
+The few Englishmen who are making a more or less regular habit of
+serious mountaineering on ski are not among the veterans of summer
+mountaineering, and the leaders of summer mountaineering have not yet
+learned to ski. Abroad, the leaders of summer mountaineering have
+welcomed ski-ing as a key to their mountains in winter; but the many
+leaders of English mountaineering still argue that skis should not be
+used in the High Alps, on the ground that they afford facility for
+venturing on slopes and into places where the risk of avalanches is
+extreme. On the Continent thousands of runners demonstrate in the most
+effective manner that mountaineering on ski has come to stay. It is
+consoling to reflect that English ski-runners are prepared to work
+out the peculiar problems of their craft with or without the help of
+summer mountaineers. Of course, both ski-ing and summer mountaineering
+would be strengthened by an alliance, and ski-runners can best learn
+the rules of the glacier world in winter from those mountaineers who
+combine a knowledge of the summer Alps with some experience of winter
+conditions and a mastery of ski-ing. For the moment, such teachers must
+be looked for in the ranks of continental mountaineers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE ALPS IN LITERATURE
+
+
+The last chapter has brought the story of mountaineering up to
+modern times, but, before we close, there is another side of Alpine
+exploration on which we must touch. For Alpine exploration means
+something more than the discovery of new passes and the conquest of
+virgin peaks. That is the physical aspect of the sport, perhaps the
+side which the average climber best understands. But Alpine exploration
+is mental as well as physical, and concerns itself with the adventures
+of the mind in touch with the mountains as well as with the adventures
+of the body in contact with an unclimbed cliff. The story of the
+gradual discovery of high places as sources of inspiration has its
+place in the history of Alpine exploration, as well as the record of
+variation routes too often expressed in language of unvarying monotony.
+
+The present writer once undertook to compile an anthology whose
+scope was defined by the title--_The Englishman in the Alps_. The
+limitations imposed by the series of which this anthology formed a
+part prevented him from including the Alpine literature of foreign
+authors, a fact which tended to obscure the real development of the
+Alpine literature. In the introduction he expressed the orthodox views
+which all good mountaineers accept without demur, explaining that
+mountaineers were the first to write fitly of the mountains, that
+English mountaineers had a peculiar talent in this direction, and that
+all the best mountain literature was written in the last half of the
+nineteenth century. These pious conclusions were shattered by some very
+radical criticism which appeared in leading articles of _The Times_
+and _The Field_. The former paper, in the course of some criticisms
+of Mr. Spender’s Alpine Anthology, remarked: “In the matter of prose,
+on the other hand, he has a striking predilection for the modern
+‘Alpine books’ of commerce, though hardly a book among them except
+Whymper’s _Scrambles in the Alps_ has any real literary vitality, or
+any interest apart from the story of adventure which it tells. Mummery,
+perhaps, has individuality enough to be made welcome in any gallery,
+and, of course, one is glad to meet Leslie Stephen. But what is C. E.
+Mathews doing there? Or Norman Neruda? Or Mr. Frederic Harrison? In
+an anthology which professed to be nothing more than a collection of
+stories of adventure, accidents, and narrow escapes, they would have
+their place along with Owen Glynne Jones, and Mr. Douglas Freshfield,
+and innumerable contributors to _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_ and _The
+Alpine Journal_.”
+
+We rubbed our eyes when we read these heterodox sentiments in such
+a quarter. Mr. Mathews was, perhaps, an Alpine historian rather
+than a writer of descriptive prose, and he does not lend himself to
+the elegant extract, though he is the author of some very quotable
+Alpine sketches. To Mr. Freshfield we owe, amongst other good things,
+one short passage as dramatic as anything in Alpine literature, the
+passage in which he describes the discovery of Donkin’s last bivouac on
+Koshtantau. _The Field_ was even more emphatic:
+
+    “What is not true is that the pioneer sportsmen who founded the
+    Alpine Club had exceptional insight into the moods of the snow.
+    One or two of them, no doubt, struck out a little literature as
+    the result of the impact of novel experiences upon naïve minds....
+    On the whole, in spite of their defects, their machine-made
+    perorations and their ponderous jests, they brought an acceptable
+    addition to the existing stock of the literature of adventure....
+    But they had their limitations, and these were rather narrow. They
+    dealt almost exclusively with the externals of mountaineering
+    experience; and when they ventured further their writing was
+    apt to be of the quality of fustian. Their spiritual adventures
+    among the mountains were apt to be melodramatic or insignificant.
+    Perhaps their Anglo-Saxon reticence prevented themselves from
+    ‘letting themselves go.’... At all events there does remain this
+    notable distinction--that, while the most eloquent writings of
+    the most eloquent Alpine Club-man are as a rule deliberately
+    and ostentatiously objective, the subjective literature of
+    mountains--the literature in which we see the writer yielding to
+    the influence of scenery, instead of lecturing about its beauties,
+    existed long before that famous dinner party at the house of
+    William Mathews, senior, at which the Alpine Club was founded.
+    England, as we have said, contributed practically nothing to that
+    literature.”
+
+We have quoted this passage at some length because it expresses a novel
+attitude in direct contradiction to the accepted views sanctified by
+tradition. We do not entirely endorse it. The article contains proof
+that its writer has an intimate knowledge of early Alpine literature,
+but one is tempted to fancy that his research did not survive the
+heavy period of the ’eighties, and that he is unacquainted with those
+modern writers whose work is distinctly subjective. None the less, his
+contention suggests an interesting line of study; and in this chapter
+we shall try briefly to sketch the main tendencies, though we cannot
+review in detail the whole history, of Alpine literature, a subject
+which requires a book in itself.
+
+The mediæval attitude towards mountains has already been discussed,
+and though we ventured to protest that love of the mountains was not
+quite so uncommon as is usually supposed, it must be freely admitted
+that the literature of the Middle Ages is comparatively barren in
+appreciation of mountain scenery. There were Protestants before Luther,
+and there were men such as Gesner and Petrarch before Rousseau; but the
+Middle Ages can scarcely rob Rousseau of the credit for transforming
+mountain worship from the cult of a minority into a comparatively
+fashionable creed. Rousseau’s own feeling for the mountains was none
+the less genuine because it was sometimes coloured by the desire to
+make the mountains echo his own philosophy of life. Rousseau, in this
+respect, set a fashion which his disciples were not slow to follow.
+The mountains as the home of the rugged Switzer could be made to
+preach edifying lay sermons on the value of liberty. Such sentiments
+were in tune with the spirit of revolt that culminated in the French
+Revolution. A certain Haller had sounded this note long before Rousseau
+began to write, in a poem on the Alps which, appearing in 1728,
+enjoyed considerable popularity. The author is not without a genuine
+appreciation for Alpine scenery, but he is far more occupied with his
+moral, the contrast between the unsophisticated life of the mountain
+peasant and the hyper-civilisation of the town. Throughout the writings
+of this school which Haller anticipated and Rousseau founded, we can
+trace an obvious connection between a love for the untutored freedom of
+the mountains and a hatred of existing social conditions.
+
+It is, therefore, not surprising to find that this new school of
+mountain worship involved certain views which found most complete
+expression in the French Revolution. “Man is born free, but is
+everywhere in chains.” This, the famous opening to _The Social
+Contract_, might have heralded with equal fitness any mountain passage
+in the works of Rousseau or his disciples. Perhaps these two sentiments
+are nowhere fused with such completeness as in the life of Ramond de
+Carbonnière, the great Pyrenean climber. We have not mentioned him
+before as he took no part in purely Alpine explorations. But as a
+mountaineer he ranks with De Saussure and Paccard. His ascent of Mont
+Perdu, after many attempts, in 1802, was one of the most remarkable
+climbing exploits of the age. He invented a new kind of crampon. He
+rejoiced in fatigue, cold, and the thousand trials that confronted
+the mountaineer in the days before club-huts. His own personality
+was singularly arresting; and the reader should consult _The Early
+Mountaineers_ for a more complete sketch of the man than we have space
+to attempt. Ramond had every instinct of the modern mountaineer. He
+delighted in hardship. He could appreciate the grandeur of a mountain
+storm while sitting on an exposed ledge. He lingers with a delight that
+recalls Gesner on the joy of simple fare and rough quarters. He is the
+boon companion of hunters and smugglers; and through all his mountain
+journeys his mind is alert in reacting to chance impressions.
+
+But his narrative is remarkable for something else besides love for
+the mountains. It is full of those sentiments which came to a head in
+the French Revolution. Mountain description and fierce denunciations
+of tyranny are mingled in the oddest fashion. It is not surprising
+that Ramond, who finds room in a book devoted to mountaineering for a
+prophecy of the Revolution, should have played an active part in the
+Revolution when it came. Ramond entered the Revolutionary Parliament
+as a moderate reformer, and when the leaders of the Revolution had no
+further use for moderate reformers he found himself in the gaol at
+Tarbres. Here he was fortunately forgotten, and survived to become
+Maître des Requêtes under Louis XVIII. Ramond is, perhaps, the most
+striking example of the mountaineer whose love for mountains was only
+equalled by his passion for freedom. In some ways, he is worthier of
+our admiration than Rousseau, for he not only admired mountains, he
+climbed them. He not only praised the simple life of hardship, he
+endured it.
+
+Turning to English literature, we find much the same processes at work.
+The two great poets whose revolt against existing society was most
+marked yielded the Alps a generous measure of praise. It is interesting
+to compare the mountain songs of Byron and Shelley. Byron’s verse is
+often marred by his obvious sense of the theatre. His misanthropy had,
+no doubt, its genuine as well as its purely theatrical element, but it
+becomes tiresome as the _motif_ of the mountain message. No doubt he
+was sincere when he wrote--
+
+    “I live not in myself, but I become
+     Portion of that around me, and to me
+     High mountains are a feeling, but the sum
+     Of human cities torture.”
+
+But as a matter of actual practice no man lived more in himself, and
+instead of becoming a portion of his surroundings, too often he makes
+his surroundings take colouring from his mood. His mountains sometimes
+seem to have degenerated into an echo of Byron. They are too anxious
+to advertise the whole gospel of misanthropy. The avalanche roars a
+little too lustily. The Alpine glow is laid on with a heavy brush,
+and his mountains cannot wholly escape the suspicion of bluster that
+tends to degenerate into bombast. This is undeniable, yet Byron at his
+best is difficult to approach. Freed from his affectations, his verse
+often rises to the highest levels of simple, unaffected eloquence.
+There are lines in _The Prisoner of Chillon_ with an authentic appeal
+to the mountain lover. The prisoner has been freed from the chain that
+has bound him for years to a pillar, and he is graciously allowed the
+freedom of his dungeon--a concession that may not have appeared unduly
+liberal to his gaolers, but which at least enabled the prisoner to
+reach a window looking out on to the hills--
+
+    “I made a footing in the wall,
+     It was not therefrom to escape.
+     But I was curious to ascend
+     To my barr’d windows, and to bend
+     Once more upon the mountain high
+     The quiet of a loving eye.
+
+     I saw them and they were the same
+     They were not changed like me in frame;
+     I saw their thousand years of snow
+     On high--their wide long lake below.
+     And the blue Rhone in fullest flow; ...
+     I saw the white walled distant town;
+     And whiter sails go skimming down;
+     And then there was a little isle
+       Which in my very face did smile,
+           The only one in view.”
+
+As the train swings round the elbow above the lake, the mountaineer
+released from the chain of city life can echo this wish to bend the
+quiet of a loving eye on unchanging mountains.
+
+Coleridge has some good lines on Mont Blanc, but one feels that they
+would have applied equally well to any other mountain. Their sincerity
+is somewhat discounted by the fact that Coleridge manufactured an
+enthusiasm for Mont Blanc at a distance from which it is invisible.
+
+With Shelley, we move in a different atmosphere. Like Byron, he
+rebelled against society, and some comfortable admirers of the poetry
+which time has made respectable are apt to ignore those poems which,
+for passionate protest against social conditions, remained unique
+till William Morris transformed Socialism into song. Shelley was more
+sincere in his revolt than Byron. He did not always keep an eye on
+the gallery while declaiming his rebellion, and his mountains have no
+politics; they sing their own spontaneous melodies. Shelley combined
+the mystic’s vision with the accuracy of a trained observer. His
+descriptions of an Alpine dawn, or a storm among the mountains, might
+have been written by a man who had studied these phenomena with a
+note-book in his hand. Nobody has ever observed with such sympathy “the
+dim enchanted shapes of wandering mist,” or brought more beauty to
+their praise. Shelley’s cloud poems have the same fugitive magic that
+haunts the fickle countries of the sky when June is stirring in those
+windy hills where--
+
+        “Dense fleecy clouds
+    Are wandering in thick flocks among the mountains
+    Shepherded by the slow unwilling wind.”
+
+Shelley did not start with the poem, but with the mountain. His
+mountains are something more than a convenient instrument for the
+manufacture of rhyme. He did not write a poem about mountains as a
+pleasant variation on more conventional themes. With Shelley, you know
+that poetry was the handmaid of the hills, the one medium in which
+he could fitly express his own passionate worship of every accent
+in the mountain melody. And for these reasons Shelley seems to us a
+truer mountain poet than Byron, truer than Coleridge, truer even than
+Wordsworth, for Wordsworth, though some of his Alpine poetry is very
+good indeed, seems more at home in the Cumberland fells, whose quiet
+music no other poet has ever rendered so surely.
+
+The early literature of the mountains has an atmosphere which has
+largely disappeared in modern Alpine writing. For, to the pioneers of
+Alpine travel, a mountain was not primarily a thing to climb. Even
+men like Bourrit and Ramond de Carbonnière, genuine mountaineers in
+every sense of the term, regarded the great heights as something more
+than fields for exploration, as the shrines of an unseen power that
+compelled spontaneous worship. These men saw a mountain, and not a
+problem in gymnastics. They wrote of mountains with a certain naïve
+eloquence, often highly coloured, sometimes a trifle bombastic.
+But, because the best of them had French blood in their veins, their
+outpourings were at least free from Saxon self-consciousness. They were
+not writing for an academic audience lenient to dullness, but convulsed
+with agonies of shame at any suspicion of fine writing. One shudders
+to think of Bourrit delivering his sonorous address on the guides of
+Chamounix as the high priests of humanity before the average audience
+that assembles to hear an Alpine paper. We have seen two old gentlemen
+incapacitated for the evening by a paper pitched on a far more subdued
+note. Yet, somehow, the older writings have the genuine ring. They
+have something lacking in the genial rhapsodies of their successors.
+“We can never over-estimate what we owe to the Alps”: thus opens a
+characteristic peroration to an Alpine book of the ’eighties. “We are
+indebted to them and all their charming associations for the greatest
+of all blessings, friendship and health. It has been conclusively
+proved that, of all sports, it is the one which can be protracted to
+the greatest age. It is in the mountains that our youth is renewed.
+Young, middle-aged, or old, we go out, too often jaded and worn in mind
+and body; and we return invigorated, renewed, restored, fitted for the
+fresh labours and duties of life. To know the great mountains wholly is
+impossible for any of us; but reverently to learn the lessons they can
+teach, and heartily to enjoy the happiness they can bring is possible
+to us all.”
+
+If a man who has climbed for thirty years cannot pump up something more
+lively as his final summary of Alpine joys, what reply can we make
+to Ruskin’s contention that “the real beauties of the Alps are to be
+seen and to be seen only where all may see it, the cripple, the child,
+and the man of grey hairs”? There are a few Alpine writers who have
+produced an apology worthy of the craft, and have shown that they had
+found above the snow-line an outlet for romance unknown to Ruskin’s
+cripple, and reserves of beauty which Ruskin himself had never drawn,
+and there are, on the other hand, quite enough to explain, if not
+to justify, the unlovely conception of Alpine climbers embodied in
+Ruskin’s amiable remarks: “The Alps themselves, which your own poets
+used to love so reverently, you look upon as soaped poles in a beer
+garden which you set yourselves to climb and slide down again with
+shrieks of delight. When you are past shrieking, having no articulate
+voice to say you are glad with, you rush home red with cutaneous
+eruptions of conceit, and voluble with convulsive hiccoughs of
+self-satisfaction.”
+
+With a few great exceptions, the literature of mountaineers is not
+as fine as the literature of mountain lovers. Let us see what the
+men who have not climbed have given to the praise of the snows. What
+mountaineer has written as Ruskin wrote? Certainly Ruskin at his best
+reaches heights which no mountaineer has ever scaled. When Ruskin read
+his Inaugural Address in the early ’fifties to an audience in the
+main composed of Cambridge undergraduates, he paused for a moment and
+glanced up at his audience. When he saw that the fleeting attention of
+the undergraduates had been arrested by this sudden pause, he declaimed
+a passage which he did not intend any of them to miss, a passage
+describing the Alps from the southern plains: “Out from between the
+cloudy pillars as they pass, emerge for ever the great battlements of
+the memorable and perpetual hills.”... When he paused again, after
+the sonorous fall of a majestic peroration, even the most prosaic of
+undergraduates joined in the turbulent applause.
+
+“Language which to a severe taste is perhaps a trifle too fine,” is
+Leslie Stephen’s characteristic comment. “It is not every one,” he
+adds, with trenchant common sense, “who can with impunity compare
+Alps to archangels.” Perhaps not, and let us therefore be thankful to
+the occasional writer, who, like Ruskin and Leslie Stephen himself
+at his best, is not shamed into dullness by the fear of soaring too
+high. But Ruskin was something more than a fine writer. No man, and
+no mountaineer, ever loved the Alps with a more absorbing passion;
+and, in the whole realm of Alpine literature, there is no passage more
+pregnant with the unreasoning love for the hills than that which opens:
+“For to myself mountains are the beginning and the end of all Alpine
+scenery,” and ends: “There is not a wave of the Seine but is associated
+in my mind with the first rise of the sandstones and forest pines of
+Fontainebleau; and with the hope of the Alps, as one leaves Paris with
+the horses’ heads to the south-west, the morning sun flashing on the
+bright waves at Charenton. If there be no hope or association of this
+kind, and if I cannot deceive myself into fancying that, perhaps at
+the next rise of the road, there may be seen the film of a blue hill
+in the gleam of sky at the horizon, the landscape, however beautiful,
+produces in me even a kind of sickness and pain; and the whole view
+from Richmond Hill or Windsor Terrace--nay, the gardens of Alcinous,
+with their perpetual summer--or of the Hesperides (if they were flat,
+and not close to Atlas), golden apples and all--I would give away in an
+instant, for one mossy granite stone a foot broad, and two leaves of
+lady-fern.”
+
+George Meredith was no mountaineer; but his mountain passages will not
+easily be beaten. His description of the Alps seen from the Adriatic
+contains, perhaps, the subtlest phrase in literature for the colouring
+of distant ranges: “Colour was steadfast on the massive front ranks; it
+wavered in its remoteness and was quick and dim _as though it fell on
+beating wings_.” And no climber has analysed the climber’s conflicting
+emotions with such sympathetic acuteness. “Would you know what it is to
+hope again, and have all your hopes at hand? Hang upon the crags at a
+gradient that makes your next step a debate between the thing you are
+and the thing you may become. There the merry little hopes grow for the
+climber like flowers and food, immediate, prompt to prove their uses,
+sufficient if just within grasp, as mortal hopes should be.”
+
+We have quoted Ruskin’s great tribute to the romance which still haunts
+the journey to the Alps even for those who are brought up on steam.
+Addington Symonds was no mountaineer; but he writes of this journey
+with an enthusiasm which rings truer than much in Alpine adventure:
+“Of all the joys in life, none is greater than the joy of arriving on
+the outskirts of Switzerland at the end of a long dusty day’s journey
+from Paris. The true epicure in refined pleasures will never travel
+to Basle by night. He courts the heat of the sun and the monotony
+of French plains--their sluggish streams, and never-ending poplar
+trees--for the sake of the evening coolness and the gradual approach to
+the great Alps, which await him at the close of the day. It is about
+Mulhausen that he begins to feel a change in the landscape. The fields
+broaden into rolling downs, watered by clear and running streams;
+the great Swiss thistle grows by riverside and cowshed; pines begin
+to tuft the slopes of gently rising hills; and now the sun has set,
+the stars come out, first Hesper, then the troop of lesser lights;
+and he feels--yes, indeed, there is now no mistake--the well-known,
+well-loved, magical fresh air, that never fails to blow from snowy
+mountains, and meadows watered by perennial streams. The last hour
+is one of exquisite enjoyment, and when he reaches Basle he scarcely
+sleeps all night for hearing the swift Rhine beneath the balconies,
+and knowing that the moon is shining on its waters, through the town,
+beneath the bridges, between pasture-lands and copses, up the still
+mountain-girdled valleys to the ice-caves where the water springs.
+There is nothing in all experience of travelling like this. We may
+greet the Mediterranean at Marseilles with enthusiasm; on entering
+Rome by the Porta del Popolo we may reflect with pride that we have
+reached the goal of our pilgrimage, and are at last among world-shaking
+memories. But neither Rome nor the Riviera wins our hearts like
+Switzerland. We do not lie awake in London thinking of them; we do
+not long so intensely, as the year comes round, to revisit them. Our
+affection is less a passion than that which we cherish for Switzerland.”
+
+Among modern writers there is Mr. Belloc, who stands self-confessed as
+a man who refuses to climb for fear of “slipping down.” Mr. Belloc has
+French blood in his veins, and he is not cursed with British reserve.
+In his memorable journey along the path to Rome, he had, perforce, to
+cross the Jura, and this is how he first saw the Alps--
+
+    “I saw, between the branches of the trees in front of me, a sight
+    in the sky that made me stop breathing, just as a great danger at
+    sea, or great surprise in love, or a great deliverance will make
+    a man stop breathing. I saw something I had known in the West as
+    a boy, something I had never seen so grandly discovered as was
+    this. In between the branches of the trees was a great promise of
+    unexpected lights beyond....
+
+    “Here were these magnificent creatures of God, I mean the Alps,
+    which now for the first time I saw from the height of the Jura;
+    and, because they were fifty or sixty miles away, and because they
+    were a mile or two high, they were become something different
+    from us others, and could strike one motionless with the awe of
+    supernatural things. Up there in the sky, to which only clouds
+    belong, and birds, and the last trembling colours of pure light,
+    they stood fast and hard; not moving as do the things of the sky....
+
+    “These, the great Alps, seen thus, link one in some way to one’s
+    immortality. Nor is it possible to convey, or even to suggest,
+    those few fifty miles, and those few thousand feet; there is
+    something more. Let me put it thus: that from the height of
+    Weissenstein I saw, as it were, my religion. I mean humility, the
+    fear of death, the terror of height and of distance, the glory of
+    God, the infinite potentiality of reception whence springs that
+    divine thirst of the soul; my aspiration also towards completion,
+    and my confidence in the dual destiny. For I know that we laughers
+    have a gross cousinship with the most high, and it is this contrast
+    and perpetual quarrel which feeds a spring of merriment in the
+    soul of a sane man.... That it is also which leads some men to
+    climb mountain tops, but not me, for I am afraid of slipping down.”
+
+That is subjective enough, with a vengeance; for those few lines one
+would gladly sacrifice a whole shelf full of climbing literature
+dealing with the objective facts that do not vary with the individual
+observer.
+
+Mr. Kipling again, though no mountaineer, has struck out one message
+which most mountaineers would sacrifice a season’s climbing to have
+written. A brief quotation gives only a faint impression of its beauty--
+
+    “At last, they entered a world within a world--a valley of leagues
+    where the high hills were fashioned of the mere rubble and refuse
+    from off the knees of the mountains. Here, one day’s march carried
+    them no farther, it seemed, than a dreamer’s clogged pace bears him
+    in a nightmare. They skirted a shoulder painfully for hours, and
+    behold, it was but an outlying boss in an outlying buttress of the
+    main pile! A rounded meadow revealed itself, when they had reached
+    it, for a vast table-land running far into the valley. Three days
+    later, it was a dim fold in the earth to southward.
+
+    “‘Surely the Gods live here,’ said Kim, beaten down by the silence
+    and the appalling sweep and dispersal of the cloud-shadows after
+    rain. ‘This is no place for men!’
+
+    “Above them, still enormously above them, earth towered away
+    towards the snow-line, where from east to west across hundreds of
+    miles, ruled as with a ruler, the last of the bold birches stopped.
+    Above that, in scarps and blocks upheaved, the rocks strove to
+    fight their heads above the white smother. Above these again,
+    changeless since the world’s beginning, but changing to every mood
+    of sun and cloud, lay out the eternal snow. They could see blots
+    and blurs on its face where storm and wandering wullie-wa got up to
+    dance. Below them, as they stood, the forest slid away in a sheet
+    of blue-green for mile upon mile; below the forest was a village in
+    its sprinkle of terraced fields and steep grazing-grounds; below
+    the village they knew, though a thunderstorm worried and growled
+    there for the moment, a pitch of twelve or fifteen hundred feet
+    gave to the moist valley where the streams gather that are the
+    mothers of young Sutluj.”
+
+Then there is Mr. Algernon Blackwood, who is, I think, rather a
+ski-runner than a mountaineer. Certainly he has unravelled the
+psychology of hill-wandering, and discovered something of that strange
+personality behind the mountains. No writer has so successfully caught
+the uncanny atmosphere that sometimes haunts the hills.
+
+The contrast is even more marked in poetry than in prose. In prose,
+we have half-a-dozen Alpine books that would satisfy a severe critic.
+In poetry, only one mountaineer has achieved outstanding success. Mr.
+G. Winthrop Young, alone, has transferred the essential romance of
+mountaineering into poetry which not mountaineers alone, but every
+lover of finished craftsmanship, will read with something deeper
+than pleasure. But, while Mr. Young has no rival in the poetry of
+mountaineering, there is a considerable quantity of excellent verse of
+which mountains are the theme. We have spoken of Shelley and Byron.
+Among more modern poets there is Tennyson. He wrote little mountain
+poetry, and yet in four lines he has crystallised the whole essence of
+the Alpine vision from some distant sentinel of the plains--
+
+    “How faintly flushed, how phantom fair
+     Was Monte Rosa, hanging there
+       A thousand shadowy pencilled valleys
+     And snowy dells in a golden air.”
+
+Sydney Dobell has some good mountain verse; and if we had not already
+burdened this chapter with quotations we should have borrowed from
+those descriptions in which Morris clearly recalls the savage volcanic
+scenery of Iceland. Swinburne, in the lines beginning--
+
+          “Me the snows
+    That face the first of the morning”--
+
+has touched some of the less obvious spells of hill region with his own
+unerring instinct for beauty.
+
+F. W. H. Myers in eight lines has said all that need be said when the
+hills have claimed the ultimate penalty--
+
+    “Here let us leave him: for his shroud the snow,
+       For funeral lamps he has the planets seven,
+     For a great sign the icy stair shall go
+       Between the stars to heaven.
+
+     One moment stood he as the angels stand,
+       High in the stainless eminence of air.
+     The next he was not, to his fatherland
+       Translated unaware.”
+
+Mrs. Holland has written, as a dedication for a book of Alpine travel,
+lines which have the authentic note; and Mr. Masefield in a few
+verses has caught the savage aloofness of the peaks better than most
+mountaineers in pages of redundant description.
+
+The contrast is rather too marked between the work of those who loved
+mountains without climbing them and the literature of the professional
+mountaineers. Even writers like Mr. Kipling, who have only touched
+mountains in a few casual lines, seem to have captured the mountain
+atmosphere more successfully than many a climber who has devoted
+articles galore to his craft. Of course, Mr. Kipling is a genius and
+the average Alpine writer is not; but surely one might not unreasonably
+expect a unique literature from those who know the mountains in all
+their changing tenses, and who by service of toil and danger have wrung
+from them intimate secrets unguessed at by those who linger outside the
+shrine.
+
+Mountaineering has, of course, produced some great literature. There is
+Leslie Stephen, though even Stephen at his best is immeasurably below
+Ruskin’s finest mountain passages. But Leslie Stephens are rare in the
+history of Alpine literature, whereas the inarticulate are always with
+us.
+
+In some ways, the man who can worship a mountain without wishing to
+climb it has a certain advantage. He sees a vision, where the climber
+too often sees nothing but a variation route. The popular historian
+has often a more vivid picture of a period than the expert, whose
+comprehensive knowledge of obscure charters sometimes blinds him to the
+broad issues of history. Technical knowledge does not always make for
+understanding. The first great revelation of the mountains has a power
+that is all its own. To the man who has yet to climb, every mountain
+is virgin, every snow-field a mystery, undefiled by traffic with man.
+The first vision passes, and the love that is based on understanding
+supplants it. The vision of unattainable snows translates itself into
+terms of memory--that white gleam that once belonged to dreamland into
+an ice-wall with which you have wrestled through the scorching hours
+of a July afternoon. You have learned to spell the writing on the
+wall of the mountains. The magic of first love, with its worship of
+the unattainable, is too often transformed into the soberer affection
+founded, like domestic love, on knowledge and sympathy; and the danger
+would be greater if the fickle hills had not to be wooed afresh every
+season. Beyond the mountain that we climb and seem to know, lurks ever
+the visionary peak that we shall never conquer; and this unattainable
+ideal gives an eternal youth to the hills, and a never-failing
+vitality to our Alpine adventure. Yet when we begin to set down
+our memories of the mountains, it seems far easier to recall those
+objective facts, which are the same for all comers, the meticulous
+details of route, the conditions of snow and ice, and to omit from our
+epic that subjective vision of the mountain, that individual impression
+which alone lends something more than a technical interest to the story
+of our days among the snow. And so it is not altogether surprising that
+the man who has never climbed can write more freely and more fully of
+the mountains, since he has no expert knowledge to confuse the issue,
+no technical details to obscure the first fine careless rapture.
+
+The early mountaineers entered into a literary field that was almost
+unexplored. They could write of their hill journeys with the assurance
+of men branching out into unknown byways. They could linger on the
+commonplaces of hill travel, and praise the freedom of the hills with
+the air of men enunciating a paradox. To glorify rough fare, simple
+quarters, a bed of hay, a drink quaffed from the mountain stream, must
+have afforded Gesner the same intellectual pleasure that Mr. Chesterton
+derives from the praise of Battersea and Beer. And this joy in
+emotions which had yet to be considered trite lingers on even into the
+more sedate pages of _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_. The contributors
+to those classic volumes were rather frightened of letting themselves
+go; but here and there one lights on some spontaneous expression of
+delight in the things that are the very flesh and blood of our Alpine
+experience--the bivouac beneath the stars, the silent approach of dawn,
+the freemasonry of the rope, the triumph of the virgin summit. “Times
+have changed since then,” wrote Donald Robertson in a recent issue of
+_The Alpine Journal_--
+
+    “Times have changed since then, and with them Alpine literature.
+    Mountaineering has become a science, and, as in other sciences,
+    the professor has grown impatient of the average intelligence,
+    and evolved his own tongue. To write for the outside public is
+    to incur the odium of ‘popular science,’ a form of literature
+    fascinating to me, but anathema to all right-minded men. Those best
+    qualified to speak will only address themselves to those qualified
+    to listen, and therefore only in the jargon of their craft. But
+    the hall-mark of technical writing is the assumption of common
+    knowledge. What all readers know for themselves, it is needless and
+    even impertinent to state. Hence, in the climbing stories written
+    for the elect, the features common to all climbs must either be
+    dismissed with a brief reference, or lightly treated as things only
+    interesting in so far as they find novel expression.”
+
+Those who worship Clio the muse will try to preserve the marriage of
+history and literature, but those whose only claim to scholarship is
+their power to collate facts by diligent research, those who have not
+the necessary ability to weave these facts into a vital pattern, will
+always protest their devotion to what is humorously dubbed scientific
+history. So in the Alpine world, which has its own academic traditions
+and its own mandarins, you will find that those who cannot translate
+emotions (which it is to be hoped they share) into language which
+anybody could understand are rather apt to explain their discreet
+silence, by the possession of a delicate reserve that forbids them to
+emulate the fine writing of a Ruskin or the purple patches of Meredith.
+
+Now, it should be possible to discriminate between those who endeavour
+to clothe a fine emotion in worthy language, and those who start with
+the intention of writing finely, and look round for a fine emotion
+to serve as the necessary peg. Sincerity is the touchstone that
+discriminates the fine writing that is good, and the fine writing
+that is damnable. The emotions that are the essence of mountaineering
+deserve something better than the genteel peroration of the average
+climbing book. Alpine literature is a trifle deficient in fine frenzy.
+The Mid-Victorian pose of the bluff, downright Briton, whose surging
+flood of emotions is concealed beneath an affectation of cynicism, is
+apt to be tedious, and one wonders whether emotions so consistently and
+so successfully suppressed really existed within those stolid bosoms.
+
+A great deal of Alpine literature appeals, and rightly appeals, only
+to the expert. Such contributions are not intended as descriptive
+literature. They may, as the record of research into the early records
+of mountaineering and mountains, supply a much-needed link in the
+history of the craft. As the record of new exploration, they are sure
+to interest the expert, while their exact description of routes and
+times will serve as the material for future climbers’ guides. But
+this is not the whole of Alpine literature, and the danger is that
+those who dare not attempt the subjective aspects of mountaineering
+should frighten off those who have the necessary ability by a tedious
+repetition of the phrase “fine writing,” that facile refuge of the
+Philistine. The conventional Alpine article is a dreary affair. Its
+humour is antique, and consists for the most part in jokes about fleas
+and porters, and in the substitution of long phrases for simple ones.
+Its satire is even thinner. The root assumption that the Alpine climber
+is a superior person, and that social status varies with the height
+above sea level, recurs with monotonous regularity. The joke about
+the tripper is as old as the Flood, and the instinct that resents his
+disturbing presence is not quite the hall-mark of the æsthetic soul
+that some folk seem to think. It is as old as the primitive man who
+espied a desirable glade, and lay in wait for the first tourist with
+a club. “My friends tell me,” writes a well-known veteran, “that I am
+singular in this strange desire to avoid meeting the never-ceasing
+stream of tourists, and I am beginning to believe that they are right,
+and that I am differently constituted from other people.” The author of
+this trite confession has only to study travel literature in general
+and Alpine literature in particular to discover that quite commonplace
+folk can misquote the remark about the madding crowd, and that even
+members of the lower middle class have been known to put the sentiment
+into practice. A sense of humour and a sense for solitude are two
+things which their true possessors are chary of mentioning.
+
+It might be fairly argued that the average mountaineer does not pretend
+to be a writer, fine or otherwise, that he describes his climbs in a
+club journal intended for a friendly and uncritical audience, and that
+he leaves the defence of his sport to the few men who can obtain the
+hearing of a wider audience. That is fair comment; and, fortunately,
+mountaineering is not without the books that are classics not only of
+Alpine but also of English literature.
+
+First to claim mention is _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_, a volume
+“so fascinating,” writes Donald Robertson, “so inspiring a gospel of
+adventure and full, free life, that the call summoned to the hills an
+army of seekers after the promised gold.” That is true enough. But the
+charm of these pages, which is undoubted, is much more due to the fact
+that the contributors had a good story to tell than to any grace of
+style with which they told it. The contributors were drawn from all
+walks of life--barristers, Manchester merchants, schoolmasters, dons,
+clergymen, and scientists; and unless we must affect to believe that
+Alpine climbing inspires its devotees with the gift of tongues, we need
+not appear guilty of irreverence for the pioneers if we discriminate
+between the literary and intrinsic merit of their work. They were
+educated men. They did not split their infinitives, and they could
+express their thoughts in the King’s English, a precedent not always
+followed by their successors. We must, however, differentiate between
+the Alpine writing which gives pleasure because of its associations,
+and the literature which delights not only for its associations and
+story, but also for its beauty of expression. Let us, as an example,
+consider two passages describing an Alpine dawn--
+
+    “We set out from the bivouac at three in the morning. The night was
+    cloudless, and the stars shone with a truly majestic beauty. Ahead
+    of us, we could just see the outline of the great peak we proposed
+    to attack. Gradually, the east lightened. The mountains became
+    more distinct. The eastern sky paled, and a few minutes later the
+    glorious sun caught the topmost peaks, and painted their snows with
+    the fiery hues of dawn. It was a most awe-compelling spectacle.”
+
+This passage may please us, not because the language is fine or
+the thoughts subtly expressed, but simply because the scenes so
+inadequately described recall those which we ourselves have witnessed.
+The passage would convey little to a man who had never climbed. Now
+consider the following--
+
+    “On the glacier, the light of a day still to be born put out our
+    candles.... We halted to watch the procession of the sun. He came
+    out of the uttermost parts of the earth, very slowly, lighting peak
+    after peak in the long southward array, dwelling for a moment,
+    and then passing on. Opposite, and first to catch the glow, were
+    the great mountains of the Saasgrat and the Weisshorn. _But more
+    beautiful, like the loom of some white-sailed ship far out at sea,
+    each unnamed and unnumbered peak of the east took and reflected the
+    radiance of the morning._ The light mists which came before the sun
+    faded.”...
+
+Like the other passage this brief description starts a train of
+memories; but, whereas the first passage would convey little to a
+non-climber, Sir Claud Schuster has really thought out the sequence
+of the dawn, and has caught one of its finer and subtler effects by
+the use of a very happy analogy. The phrase which we have ventured to
+italicise defines in a few words a brief scene in the drama of the
+dawn, an impression that could not be conveyed by piling adjective on
+adjective.
+
+There are many writers who have captured the romance of mountaineering,
+far fewer who have the gift for that happy choice of words that gives
+the essence of a particular Alpine view. Pick up any Alpine classic at
+a venture, and you will find that not one writer in fifty can hold your
+attention through a long passage of descriptive writing. The average
+writer piles on his adjectives. From the Alpine summit you can see a
+long way. The horizon seems infinitely far off. The valleys sink below
+into profound shadows. The eye is carried from the dark firs upward to
+the glittering snowfields. “The majestic mass of the ... rises to the
+north, and blots out the lesser ranges of the.... The awful heights of
+the ... soar upwards from the valley of.... In the east, we could just
+catch a glimpse of the ... and our guides assured us that in the west
+we could veritably see the distant snows of our old friend the....” And
+so on, and so forth. Fill in the gaps, and this skeleton description
+can be made to fit the required panorama. It roughly represents nine
+out of ten word pictures of Alpine views. Examine Whymper’s famous
+description of the view from the Matterhorn. It is little more than
+a catalogue of mountains. There is hardly a phrase in it that would
+convey the essential atmosphere of such a view to a man who had not
+seen it.
+
+Genius has been defined as the power of seeing analogies, and we have
+sometimes fancied that the secret of all good Alpine description lies
+in the happy choice of the right analogy. It is no use accumulating
+the adjective at random. Peaks are high and majestic, the snow is
+white. Certainly this does not help us. What we need is some happily
+chosen phrase which goes deeper than the obvious epithets that
+apply to every peak and every snowfield. We want the magical phrase
+that differentiates one particular Alpine setting from another. And
+this phrase will often be some apparently casual analogy drawn from
+something which has no apparent connection with the Alps. “Beautiful
+like the loom of some white-sailed ship,” is an example which we have
+already quoted. Leslie Stephen’s work is full of such analogies. He
+does not waste adjectives. His adjectives are chosen for a particular
+reason. His epithets all do work. Read his description of the view from
+Mont Blanc, the Peaks of Primiero, the Alps in winter, and you feel
+that these descriptions could not be made to apply to other Alpine
+settings by altering the names and suppressing an occasional phrase.
+They are charged with the individual atmosphere of the place which
+gave them birth. In the most accurate sense of the word, they are
+autocthonous. A short quotation will illustrate these facts. Here is
+Stephen’s description of the view from the Schreckhorn. Notice that
+he achieves his effect without the usual largess of jewellery. Topaz
+and opal are dispensed with, and their place is taken by casual and
+apparently careless analogies from such diversified things as an opium
+dream, music, an idle giant.
+
+    “You are in the centre of a whole district of desolation,
+    suggesting a landscape from Greenland, or an imaginary picture
+    of England in the glacial epoch, with shores yet unvisited by
+    the irrepressible Gulf Stream. The charm of such views--little
+    as they are generally appreciated by professed admirers of the
+    picturesque--is to my taste unique, though not easily explained
+    to unbelievers. They have a certain soothing influence like slow
+    and stately music, or one of the strange opium dreams described
+    by De Quincey. If his journey in the mail-coach could have led
+    him through an Alpine pass instead of the quiet Cumberland hills,
+    he would have seen visions still more poetical than that of the
+    minister in the ‘dream fugue.’ Unable as I am to bend his bow, I
+    can only say that there is something almost unearthly in the sight
+    of enormous spaces of hill and plain, apparently unsubstantial as a
+    mountain mist, glimmering away to the indistinct horizon, and as it
+    were spell-bound by an absolute and eternal silence. The sentiment
+    may be very different when a storm is raging and nothing is visible
+    but the black ribs of the mountains glaring at you through rents in
+    the clouds; but on that perfect day on the top of the Schreckhorn,
+    where not a wreath of vapour was to be seen under the Whole vast
+    canopy of the sky, a delicious lazy sense of calm repose was the
+    appropriate frame of mind. One felt as if some immortal being, with
+    no particular duties upon his hands, might be calmly sitting upon
+    those desolate rocks and watching the little shadowy wrinkles of
+    the plain, that were really mountain ranges, rise and fall through
+    slow geological epochs.”
+
+Whymper never touches this note even in the best of many good mountain
+passages. His forte was rather the romance of Alpine adventure than the
+subtler art of reproducing Alpine scenery. But in his own line he is
+without a master. His style, of course, was not so uniformly good as
+Stephen’s. He had terrible lapses. He spoils his greatest chapter by a
+most uncalled-for anti-climax. He had a weakness for banal quotations
+from third-rate translations of the classics. But, though these lapses
+are irritating, there is no book like the famous _Scrambles_, and there
+is certainly no book which has sent more new climbers to the Alps.
+Whymper was fortunate, for he had as his material the finest story
+in Alpine history. Certainly, he did not waste his chances. The book
+has the genuine ring of Alpine romance. Its pages are full of those
+contrasts that are the stuff of our mountain quest, the tragic irony
+that a Greek mind would have appreciated. The closing scenes in the
+great drama of the Matterhorn move to their appointed climax with the
+dignity of some of the most majestic chapters in the Old Testament. Of
+their kind, they are unique in the literature of exploration.
+
+Tyndall, Whymper’s great rival, had literary talent as well as
+scientific genius, but his Alpine books, though they contain fine
+passages, have not the personality that made _Scrambles in the Alps_ a
+classic, nor the genius for descriptive writing that we admire in _The
+Playground of Europe_. Of A. W. Moore’s work and of Mummery’s great
+classic we have already spoken. Mummery, like Whymper, could translate
+into words the rollicking adventure of mountaineering, and though he
+never touches Leslie Stephen’s level, some of his descriptions of
+mountain scenery have a distinct fascination.
+
+A few other great Alpine books have appeared between _Peaks, Pastures,
+and Glaciers_ and the recent work _Peaks and Pleasant Pastures_. Mr.
+Douglas Freshfield and Sir Martin Conway are both famous explorers
+of the greater ranges beyond Europe, and their talent for mountain
+description must have inspired many a climber to leave the well-trodden
+Alpine routes for the unknown snows of the Himalayas. Mr. Freshfield’s
+Caucasian classic opens with a short poem that we should like to
+have quoted, and includes one of the great stories on mountain
+literature--the search for Donkin and Fox. Sir Martin Conway brings to
+his work the eye of a trained Art critic, and the gift for analysing
+beauty, not only in pictures, but in Alpine scenery. He is an artist in
+colour and in words.
+
+Contrary to accepted views, we are inclined to believe that Alpine
+literature shows signs of a Renaissance. Those who hold that the
+subject-matter is exhausted, seem to base their belief on the fact that
+every virgin peak in the Alps has been climbed, and that the literature
+of exploration should, therefore, die a natural death. This belief
+argues a lack of proportion. Because a certain number of climbers have
+marched up and down the peaks of a certain range, it does not follow
+that those mountains no longer afford emotions capable of literary
+expression. The very reverse is the case. It is perilously easy to
+attach supreme importance to the sporting side of our craft. Mountain
+literature is too often tedious, because it concentrates on objective
+facts. When all the great mountains were unclimbed, those who wrote of
+them could not burden their pages with tiresome details of routes and
+times. When every mountain has been climbed by every conceivable route,
+the material at the disposal of the objective writer is fortunately
+exhausted. There are few great Alpine routes that remain unexplored.
+There are a thousand byways in the psychology of mountaineering that
+have never been touched, and an excellent book might have been written
+on this subject alone. Every mountaineer brings to the mountains the
+tribute of a new worshipper with his own different emotions. “Obtain an
+account of the same expedition from three points on the same rope, and
+you will see how different. Therefore, there is room in our generation
+for a new _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_ by the best pens in the Club
+telling freely, and without false shame, the simple story of a day
+among the mountains.”
+
+The pioneers had every advantage, a new subject for literary
+expression, a new field of almost untouched exploration, phrases that
+had yet to become trite, emotions which never become trite though
+their expression is apt to fall into a rut. And yet it seems doubtful
+whether they wrote more freely and more truly than some of those who
+are writing to-day. In some directions, mountain descriptions have
+advanced as well as mountain craft. We have no Leslie Stephen and no
+Whymper, but the best pens at work in _The Alpine Journal_ have created
+a nobler literature than that which we find in the early numbers. “_The
+Alpine Journal_,” remarked a worthy president, is “the champagne of
+Alpine literature.” Like the best champagne, it is often very dry.
+The early numbers contained little of literary value beyond Gosset’s
+great account of the avalanche which killed Bennen, and some articles
+by Stephen and Whymper. Neither Stephen nor Whymper wrote their best
+for the club journal. _The Cornhill_ contains Stephen’s best work, and
+Whymper gave the pick of his writing to the Press. One may safely say
+that the first forty years of the club journal produced nothing better
+than recent contributions such as “The Alps” by A. D. Godley, “Two
+Ridges of the Grand Jorasses” by G. W. Young, “The Middle Age of the
+Mountaineer” by Claud Schuster, “Another Way of Alpine Love” by F. W.
+Bourdillon, “The Ligurian Alps” by R. L. A. Irving, and “Alpine Humour”
+by C. D. Robertson. Nor has good work been confined to _The Alpine
+Journal_. The patient seeker may find hidden treasures in the pages
+of some score of journals devoted to some aspect of the mountains.
+The new century has opened well, for it has given us Prof. Collie’s
+_Exploration in the Himalaya and other Mountain Ranges_, a book of
+unusual charm. It has given us Mr. Young’s mountain poems, for which
+we would gladly jettison a whole library of Alpine literature. It has
+given us _Peaks and Pleasant Pastures_, and a fine translation of Guido
+Rey’s classic work on the Matterhorn. With these books in mind we can
+safely assert that the writer quoted at the beginning of this chapter
+was unduly pessimistic, and that England has contributed her fair share
+to the subjective literature of the Alps.
+
+Let us hope that this renaissance of wonder will suffer no eclipse;
+let us hope that the Alps may still offer to generations yet unborn
+avenues of discovery beside those marked “No Information” in the pages
+of _The Climber’s Guides_. The saga of the Alps will not die from lack
+of material so long as men find in the hills an inspiration other than
+the challenge of unclimbed ridges and byways of mountain joy uncharted
+in the ordnance survey.
+
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+
+The Alpine Club collects every book dealing with the mountains and
+also most of the articles that appear in the Press and Magazines. The
+Catalogue of the Alpine Club Library should, therefore, be the most
+complete bibliography in existence. The additions to the Club Library
+are published from time to time in _The Alpine Journal_.
+
+The most useful bibliographies of Alpine book that are accessible to
+the general reader are contained in _Ueber Eis and Schnee_, by Gottlieb
+Studer (1869-1871), and _Swiss Travel and Swiss Guide Books_, by the
+Rev. W. A. B. Coolidge (1889).
+
+Perhaps the most thorough book on every phase of the Alps, sporting,
+social, political and historical is _The Alps in Nature and History_,
+by the Rev. W. A. B. Coolidge (1908).
+
+For the Geology of the Alps and the theory of Glacier Motion there are
+no better books than _The Glaciers of the Alps_, by John Tyndall (1860;
+reprinted in the Everyman Library), and _The Building of the Alps_, by
+T. G. Bonney (1912).
+
+For the practical side of mountaineering, _Mountaineering_, by C. T.
+Dent (Badminton Library), is good but somewhat out of date.
+
+The best modern book on the theory and practice of mountaineering is
+_Modern Mountain Craft_, edited by G. W. Young (1914). This book is
+in the Press. It contains chapters on the theory of mountain craft
+in summer and winter, and in addition a very able summary of the
+characteristic of mountaineering in the great ranges beyond Europe as
+described by the various experts for the particular districts.
+
+Winter mountaineering and ski-ing are dealt with in _The Ski-Runner_,
+by E. C. Richardson (1909); _Ski-ing for Beginners and Mountaineers_,
+by W. R. Rickmers (1910); _How to Ski_, by Vivian Caulfield (1910);
+_Ski-ing_, by Arnold Lunn (1912).
+
+For the general literature of mountaineering the reader has a wide
+choice. We cannot attempt a comprehensive bibliography, but the
+following books are the most interesting of the many hundred volumes on
+the subject.
+
+The early history of mountaineering is dealt with in Mr. Coolidge’s
+books referred to above. There is a good historical sketch in the first
+chapter of the Badminton volume. The most readable book on the early
+pioneers is _The Early Mountaineers_, by Francis Gribble (1899). _The
+Story of Alpine Climbing_, by Francis Gribble (1904), is smaller than
+_The Early Mountaineers_; it can be obtained for a shilling.
+
+We shall, where possible, confine our list to books written in English.
+This is not possible for the earlier works, as English books do not
+cover the ground.
+
+    _Descriptio Montis Fracti juxta Lucernam._ By Conrad Gesner. 1555.
+
+    _De Alpibus Commentarius._ By Josias Simler. 1574.
+
+    _Coryate’s Crudities._ By T. Coryate. 1611. This book contains the
+    passage quoted on p. 15. It has recently been reprinted.
+
+    _Diary (Simplon, etc.)._ By John Evelyn. 1646. (Reprinted in the
+    Everyman Library.)
+
+    _Remarks on Several Parts of Switzerland._ By J. Addison. 1705.
+
+    _Itinera per Helvetiæ Alpinas Regiones Facta._ By Johann Jacob
+    Scheuchzer. 1723.
+
+    _Die Alpen._ By A. von Haller. 1732.
+
+    _An Account of the Glaciers or Ice Alps in Savoy._ By William
+    Windham and Peter Martel. 1744.
+
+    _Travels in the Alps of Savoy._ By J. D. Forbes. 1843.
+
+    _Mont Blanc._ By Albert Smith. 1852.
+
+    _The Tour of Mont Blanc._ By J. D. Forbes. 1855.
+
+    _Wanderings among the High Alps._ By Alfred Wills. 1856.
+
+    _Summer Months among the Alps._ By T. W. Hinchcliff. 1857. (Very
+    scarce.)
+
+    _The Italian Valleys of the Pennine Alps._ By S. W. King. 1858.
+
+    _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers._ (First Series.) 1859. (Scarce and
+    expensive.)
+
+    _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers._ (Second Series.) (Two volumes.)
+    (Scarce.) 1862.
+
+    _The Eagles’ Nest._ By A. Wills. 1860. (Scarce.)
+
+    _The Glaciers of the Alps._ By John Tyndall. 1860.
+
+    _Across Country from Thonon to Trent._ By D. W. Freshfield. 1865.
+
+    _The Alps in 1864._ By A. W. Moore. (Privately reprinted.) (Very
+    scarce, reprinted 1902.)
+
+    _The High Alps without Guides._ By A. B. Girdlestone. (Scarce.)
+    1870.
+
+    _Scrambles among the Alps._ By Edward Whymper. 1871. This famous
+    book went into several editions. It has been reprinted in Nelson’s
+    Shilling Library. The original editions with their delightful
+    wood-cuts cannot be bought for less than a pound, but are well
+    worth the money.
+
+    _The Playground of Europe._ By Leslie Stephen. 1871. This classic
+    can be bought for 3_s._ 6_d._ in the Silver Library. The original
+    edition is scarce and does not contain the best work.
+
+    _Hours of Exercise in the Alps._ By J. Tyndall. 1871.
+
+    _Italian Alps._ By D. W. Freshfield. 1876.
+
+    _The High Alps in Winter._ By Mrs. Fred Burnaby (Mrs. Le Blond.)
+    1883.
+
+    _Above the Snow Line._ By C. T. Dent. 1885.
+
+    _The Pioneers of the Alps._ By C. D. Cunningham and W. de W. Abney.
+    (An account of the great guides.) 1888.
+
+    _My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus._ By A. F. Mummery. 1895.
+    (Reprinted in Nelson’s Shilling Library.)
+
+    _The Alps from End to End._ By Sir Martin Conway. 1895. This has
+    been reprinted in Nelson’s Shilling Library.
+
+    _The Annals of Mont Blanc._ By C. E. Mathews. 1898.
+
+    _Climbing in the Himalaya and other Mountain Ranges._ By Norman J.
+    Collie, 1902. Includes some excellent chapters on the Alps.
+
+    _The Alps._ Described by Sir Martin Conway. Illustrated by A.
+    O. M’Cormick. 1904. A cheap edition without Mr. M’Cormick’s
+    illustrations has been issued in 1910.
+
+    _My Alpine Jubilee._ By Frederic Harrison. 1908.
+
+    _Recollections of an Old Mountaineer._ By Walter Larden. 1910.
+
+    _Peaks and Pleasant Pastures._ By Claud Schuster. 1911.
+
+The poetry of Mountaineering as distinct from the poetry of mountains
+is found in--
+
+    _Wind and Hill._ By G. W. Young. 1909.
+
+This book is out of print. The mountain poems have been reprinted in--
+
+    _The Englishman in the Alps._ An Anthology edited by Arnold Lunn.
+    1913. This Anthology includes long extracts from one to five
+    thousand words chosen from the best of Alpine prose and poetry.
+
+Other Alpine Anthologies are--
+
+    _The Voice of the Mountains._ By E. Baker and F. E. Ross. 1905.
+
+    _In Praise of Switzerland._ By Harold Spender. 1912.
+
+The reader will find good photographs very useful. The earliest
+Alpine photographer to achieve distinct success was Mr. Donkin, whose
+excellent photographs can be bought cheaply. Signor Sellâs--the supreme
+artist in mountain photography--also sells his work. Messrs. Abraham
+of Keswick have photographed with thoroughness the Alps and the rock
+climbs of Cumberland and Wales. Their best work is reproduced in _The
+Complete Mountaineer_. (1908.)
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  Abbühl, Arnold, 96
+
+  Aggasiz, 104-10
+
+  Aiguille, Mont, 29-30
+
+  Almer, Christian, 125, 129
+
+  Alpine Club, the, 130
+
+  _Alpine Journal, The_, 73, 249
+
+  _Alps in 1864, The_, 135
+
+  _Annals of Mont Blanc, The_, 60, 134
+
+  Arkwright, Captain, 117
+
+
+  Ball, John, 118-19, 130
+
+  Balmat, Jacques, 60-81
+
+  Balmat (in Wills’s guide), 125-9
+
+  Beaupré, 30
+
+  Beck, Jean Joseph, 86-89
+
+  Belloc, Hilaire, 226
+
+  Bennen, 154, 157-8
+
+  Berkeley, 15
+
+  Blackwell, 112
+
+  Blackwood, Algernon, 229-30
+
+  Blanc, Mont, 47, 60-81, 121-4, 187
+
+  Blond, Mrs. Le, 200
+
+  Bonney, Prof., 133
+
+  Bourrit, 54-9, 60, 74-80, 220
+
+  Bremble, 15
+
+  Buet, the, 49-50
+
+  Byron, 215-17
+
+
+  Canigou, Pic, 30
+
+  Carbonnière, Ramond de, 214-15
+
+  Carrel, J. A., 152-83
+
+  Carrel, J. J., 152-3, 154
+
+  Cawood, 189
+
+  Charles VII, 29
+
+  Charpentier, 103
+
+  Clement, 53
+
+  Coleridge, 217
+
+  Colgrove, 187
+
+  Collie, Prof., 250
+
+  Conway, Sir Martin, 247
+
+  Coolidge, Mr., 44, 129
+
+  Coryat’s _Crudities_, 15
+
+  Croz, 163-80
+
+  Cust, 189
+
+
+  Davies, 136
+
+  Dent du Midi, 53
+
+  Desor, 105
+
+  Dobell, Sydney, 231
+
+  Dollfus-Ausset, 106
+
+  Douglas, Lord Francis, 163-80
+
+  Dragons in the Alps, 40-42
+
+  Dübi, Dr., 72-3
+
+  Dumas, Alexandre, 62-72
+
+  Dürer, 18-19
+
+
+  _Early Mountaineers, The_, 27, 214
+
+
+  Fairbanks, Rev. Arthur, 188
+
+  Farrar, Captain, 97-101
+
+  Finsteraarhorn, 96-101
+
+  Forbes, J. D., 116-18
+
+  Freshfield, Mr. Douglas, 12, 29, 72, 247
+
+
+  Gersdorf, Baron von, 73-9
+
+  Gesner, Conrad, 33-9
+
+  Giordani, Pietro, 89
+
+  Giordano, 159, 161-3, 168
+
+  Girdlestone, the Rev. A. B., 187-8
+
+  Glockner, The Gross, 92-4
+
+  Godley, A. D., 249
+
+  Gorret, Aimé, 152-3, 181.
+
+  Gribble, Mr. Francis, 26, 44, 46
+
+  Grove, Francis, 187
+
+  Guideless climbing, 138-43, 185-9
+
+  Gurk, Bishop of, 93-4
+
+
+  Haddington, Lord, 45
+
+  Hadow, 163-80
+
+  Haller, 213
+
+  Hamel, Dr., 117
+
+  Hannibal, 22-3
+
+  Hardy, 135-6
+
+  Hawkins, Vaughan, 153-4
+
+  _High Alps without Guides, The_, 187-8
+
+  Hinchcliffe, 130, 135
+
+  Holland, Mrs., 231
+
+  Holland, Philemon, 23
+
+  Hôtel des Neuchâtelois, 104
+
+  _Hours of Exercise in the Alps_, 131, 153-4
+
+  Hudson, 163-80, 187
+
+  Hugi, 97-100
+
+  Hugisattel, 100
+
+
+  Irving, Mr. R. L. A., 249
+
+
+  James, William, 107-9
+
+  John of Austria, Archduke, 94-5
+
+  Jungfrau, 96
+
+
+  Kaisergebirge, 199
+
+  Kennedy, E. S., 187
+
+  Kipling, 228-9, 232
+
+
+  Lauener, Ulrich, 125-9
+
+  Lauteraarhorn, 109
+
+  Luc, De, 48-50
+
+
+  Martel, Peter, 45-6
+
+  Marti, 16, 36-7
+
+  Masefield, John, 232
+
+  Mathews, C. E., 46-8, 134-5
+
+  Mathews, William, 130
+
+  Matterhorn, the, 147-84, 189
+
+  Meredith, George, 224
+
+  Meyers, the, 85-101
+
+  Monboso, 28
+
+  Moore, Dr. John, 46
+
+  Moore, W. A., 135, 199
+
+  Morris, William, 231
+
+  Morse, Mr. 189, 191
+
+  Mountaineering in Great Britain, 193-4, 197-9
+
+  Mountaineering, modern, 185-207
+
+  Mountaineering in winter, 199-207
+
+  Mountaineering without guides, 138-43, 185-9
+
+  Mountains in Art, 17-20
+
+  Mountains in Literature, 208-50
+
+  Mountains, Mediæval attitude to, 1-21
+
+  Müller, 30-31
+
+  Müller, John, 33
+
+  Mummery, 183-4, 191, 246
+
+  Murith, Prior, 50, 52, 53
+
+  _My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus_, 191
+
+  Myers, F. W. H., 231
+
+
+  Ortler, the, 94-5
+
+
+  Paccard, Dr., 67-80
+
+  Parker, Messrs., 153
+
+  Parrot, Dr., 90
+
+  Paulcke, 208
+
+  _Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers_, 235, 239-40
+
+  _Peaks and Pleasant Pastures_, 250
+
+  _Penhall_, 184
+
+  Perrandier, 103
+
+  Peter III, 30
+
+  Petrarch, 26-7
+
+  Pic du Midi, 30
+
+  Pichler, Joseph, 94
+
+  Pilate, Pontius, 31-2
+
+  Pilatus, 31-4
+
+  Placidus à Spescha, 82-4
+
+  _Playground of Europe, The_, 131, 132-3
+
+  Pococke, Dr., 45
+
+  Pope, Hugh, 199
+
+  Popocatapetl, 30
+
+  Punta Giordani, 89
+
+  Purtscheller, 189
+
+
+  Rey, Guido, 152-9
+
+  Robertson, Donald, 235-6, 249
+
+  Rochefoucauld, Duc de, 46
+
+  Rosa, Monte, 28-9, 85-91, 129
+
+  Rotario of Asti, 24
+
+  Rousseau, 9, 212-3, 214
+
+  Ruskin, 221-4
+
+
+  Salis, Ulysses von 151
+
+  Saussure, De, 46-8, 60
+
+  Scheuchzer, 39-43
+
+  Schuster, Sir Claud, 241, 249, 250
+
+  _Scrambles in the Alps_, 133-4
+
+  Sella, Quintino, 159, 161-3, 168
+
+  Shelley, 218-19
+
+  Simler, 37-9
+
+  Ski-ing, 200-7
+
+  Smith, Albert, 119-24
+
+  Stephen, Sir Leslie, 131-3, 136-7, 140-1, 243, 245
+
+  Stockhorn, 30-1
+
+  Stogdon, Mr. John, 188
+
+  Studer, Gottlieb, 109-10
+
+  Swinburne, 231
+
+  Symonds, Addington, 224-6
+
+
+  Taugwalders, the, 163-80
+
+  Tennyson, Lord, 230-1
+
+  Theodule, 12
+
+  Titlis, 44
+
+  Tödi, the, 83
+
+  _Tour of Mont Blanc, The_, 110
+
+  Tuckett, 136-7
+
+  Tyndall, John, 131, 157-8
+
+
+  Ulrich of Württemberg, 32
+
+
+  Velan, the, 50-2
+
+  Venetz, 103
+
+  Ventoux, Mont, 26
+
+  Vinci, Leonardo da, 19-20, 27-8
+
+  Vogt, 105
+
+
+  Walker, Mr. Horace, 199
+
+  Watt, Joachim von, 32
+
+  Weston, Mr., 12
+
+  Wetterhorn, the, 109, 111-12, 125-9
+
+  Whymper, Edward, 133, 147-84
+
+  Wicks, Mr., 189
+
+  Wills, Mr. Justice, 111-14, 125-9
+
+  Wilson, Mr., 189
+
+  Windham, 45
+
+
+  Young, Sir George, 135
+
+  Young, G. Winthrop, 230, 249, 250
+
+  Young, Norman, 11
+
+
+  Zumstein, 90-1
+
+  Zumstein Spitze, 91
+
+  Zsigmondy, 189
+
+_Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London and Bungay._
+
+
+
+
+  The
+  Home University
+  Library of Modern Knowledge
+
+_A Comprehensive Series of New and Specially Written Books_
+
+EDITORS:
+
+  PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, D. Litt., LL.D., F.B.A.
+  HERBERT FISHER, LL.D., F.B.A.
+  PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.
+  PROF. WM. T. BREWSTER, M.A.
+
+  1/- net      256 Pages      2/6 net
+  in cloth                   in leather
+
+
+_History and Geography_
+
+3. _THE FRENCH REVOLUTION_
+
+    By HILAIRE BELLOC, M.A. (With Maps.) “It is coloured with
+    all the militancy of the author’s temperament.”--_Daily News._
+
+4. _A SHORT HISTORY OF WAR AND PEACE_
+
+    By G. H. PERRIS. The Rt. Hon. JAMES BRYCE writes:
+    “I have read it with much interest and pleasure, admiring the skill
+    with which you have managed to compress so many facts and views
+    into so small a volume.”
+
+8. _POLAR EXPLORATION_
+
+    By Dr W. S. BRUCE, F.R.S.E., Leader of the “Scotia”
+    Expedition. (With Maps.) “A very freshly written and interesting
+    narrative.”--_The Times._
+
+12. _THE OPENING-UP OF AFRICA_
+
+    By Sir H. H. JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., F.Z.S. (With Maps.)
+    “The Home University Library is much enriched by this excellent
+    work.”--_Daily Mail._
+
+13. _MEDIÆVAL EUROPE_
+
+    By H. W. C. DAVIS, M.A. (With Maps.) “One more
+    illustration of the fact that it takes a complete master of the
+    subject to write briefly upon it.”--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+14. _THE PAPACY & MODERN TIMES_ (1303-1870)
+
+    By WILLIAM BARRY, D.D. “Dr Barry has a wide range of
+    knowledge and an artist’s power of selection.”--_Manchester
+    Guardian._
+
+23. _HISTORY OF OUR TIME_ (1885-1911)
+
+    By G. P. GOOCH, M.A. “Mr Gooch contrives to breathe
+    vitality into his story, and to give us the flesh as well as the
+    bones of recent happenings.”--_Observer._
+
+25. _THE CIVILISATION OF CHINA_
+
+    By H. A. GILES, LL.D., Professor of Chinese at Cambridge.
+    “In all the mass of facts, Professor Giles never becomes dull. He
+    is always ready with a ghost story or a street adventure for the
+    reader’s recreation.”--_Spectator._
+
+29. _THE DAWN OF HISTORY_
+
+    By J. L. MYRES, M.A., F.S.A., Wykeham Professor of
+    Ancient History, Oxford. “There is not a page in it that is not
+    suggestive.”--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+33. _THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND_
+
+_A Study in Political Evolution_
+
+    By Prof. A. F. POLLARD, M.A. With a Chronological Table.
+    “It takes its place at once among the authoritative works on
+    English history.”--_Observer._
+
+34. _CANADA_
+
+    By A. G. BRADLEY. “The volume makes an immediate appeal
+    to the man who wants to know something vivid and true about
+    Canada.”--_Canadian Gazette._
+
+37. _PEOPLES & PROBLEMS OF INDIA_
+
+    By Sir T. W. HOLDERNESS, K.C.S.I., Permanent
+    Under-Secretary of State of the India Office. “Just the book
+    which newspaper readers require to-day, and a marvel of
+    comprehensiveness.”--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+
+42. _ROME_
+
+    By W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A. “A masterly sketch of Roman
+    character and of what it did for the world.”--_The Spectator._
+
+48. _THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR_
+
+    By F. L. PAXSON, Professor of American History, Wisconsin
+    University. (With Maps.) “A stirring study.”--_The Guardian._
+
+51. _WARFARE IN BRITAIN_
+
+    By HILAIRE BELLOC, M.A. “Rich in suggestion for the
+    historical student.”--_Edinburgh Evening News._
+
+55. _MASTER MARINERS_
+
+    By J. R. SPEARS. “A continuous story of shipping progress
+    and adventure.... It reads like a romance.”--_Glasgow Herald._
+
+61. _NAPOLEON_
+
+    By HERBERT FISHER, LL.D., F.B.A., Vice-Chancellor
+    of Sheffield University. (With Maps.) The story of the great
+    Bonaparte’s youth, his career, and his downfall, with some sayings
+    of Napoleon, a genealogy, and a bibliography.
+
+66. _THE NAVY AND SEA POWER_
+
+    By DAVID HANNAY. The author traces the growth of naval
+    power from early times, and discusses its principles and effects
+    upon the history of the Western world.
+
+71. _GERMANY OF TO-DAY_
+
+    By CHARLES TOWER. “It would be difficult to name any
+    better summary.”--_Daily News._
+
+82. _PREHISTORIC BRITAIN_
+
+    By ROBERT MUNRO, M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E. (Illustrated.)
+
+91. _THE ALPS_
+
+    By ARNOLD LUNN, M.A. (Illustrated.)
+
+92. _CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA_
+
+    By Professor W. R. SHEPHERD. (Maps.)
+
+
+_Literature and Art_
+
+2. _SHAKESPEARE_
+
+    By JOHN MASEFIELD. “We have had more learned
+    books on Shakespeare in the last few years, but not one so
+    wise.”--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+27. _ENGLISH LITERATURE: MODERN_
+
+    By G. H. MAIR, M.A. “Altogether a fresh and individual
+    book.”--_Observer._
+
+35. _LANDMARKS IN FRENCH LITERATURE_
+
+    By G. L. STRACHEY. “It is difficult to imagine how a
+    better account of French Literature could be given in 250 small
+    pages.”--_The Times._
+
+39. _ARCHITECTURE_
+
+    By Prof. W. R. LETHABY. (Over forty Illustrations.)
+    “Delightfully bright reading.”--_Christian World._
+
+43. _ENGLISH LITERATURE: MEDIÆVAL_
+
+    By Prof. W. P. KER, M.A. “Prof. Ker’s knowledge and taste
+    are unimpeachable, and his style is effective, simple, yet never
+    dry.”--_The Athenæum._
+
+45. _THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE_
+
+    By L. PEARSALL SMITH, M.A. “A wholly fascinating study
+    of the different streams that make the great river of the English
+    speech.”--_Daily News._
+
+52. _GREAT WRITERS OF AMERICA_
+
+    By Prof. J. ERSKINE and Prof. W. P. TRENT. “An
+    admirable summary, from Franklin to Mark Twain, enlivened by a dry
+    humour.”--_Athenæum._
+
+63. _PAINTERS AND PAINTING_
+
+    By Sir FREDERICK WEDMORE. (With 16 half-tone
+    illustrations.) From the Primitives to the Impressionists.
+
+64. _DR JOHNSON AND HIS CIRCLE_
+
+    By JOHN BAILEY, M.A. “A most delightful
+    essay.”--_Christian World._
+
+65. _THE LITERATURE OF GERMANY_
+
+    By Professor J. G. ROBERTSON, M.A., Ph.D. “Under
+    the author’s skilful treatment the subject shows life and
+    continuity.”--_Athenæum._
+
+70. _THE VICTORIAN AGE IN LITERATURE_
+
+    By G. K. CHESTERTON. “No one will put it down without a
+    sense of having taken a tonic or received a series of electric
+    shocks.”--_The Times._
+
+73. _THE WRITING OF ENGLISH._
+
+    By W. T. BREWSTER, A.M., Professor of English
+    in Columbia University. “Sensible, and not over-rigidly
+    conventional.”--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+75. _ANCIENT ART AND RITUAL._
+
+    By JANE E. HARRISON, LL.D., D.Litt. “Charming in style and
+    learned in manner.”--_Daily News._
+
+76. _EURIPIDES AND HIS AGE_
+
+    By GILBERT MURRAY, D.Litt., LL.D., F.B.A., Regius
+    Professor of Greek at Oxford. “A beautiful piece of work....
+    Just in the fulness of time, and exactly in the right place....
+    Euripides has come into his own.”--_The Nation._
+
+87. _CHAUCER AND HIS TIMES_
+
+    By GRACE E. HADOW.
+
+89. _WILLIAM MORRIS: HIS WORK AND INFLUENCE_
+
+    By A. CLUTTON BROCK.
+
+93. _THE RENAISSANCE_
+
+    By EDITH SICHEL.
+
+95. _ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE_
+
+    By J. M. ROBERTSON, M.P.
+
+
+_Science_
+
+7. _MODERN GEOGRAPHY_
+
+    By Dr MARION NEWBIGIN. (Illustrated.) “Geography, again:
+    what a dull, tedious study that was wont to be!... But Miss Marion
+    Newbigin invests its dry bones with the flesh and blood of romantic
+    interest.”--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+9. _THE EVOLUTION OF PLANTS_
+
+    By Dr D. H. SCOTT, M.A., F.R.S., late Hon. Keeper of the
+    Jodrell Laboratory, Kew. (Fully illustrated.) “Dr Scott’s candid
+    and familiar style makes the difficult subject both fascinating and
+    easy.”--_Gardeners’ Chronicle._
+
+17. _HEALTH AND DISEASE_
+
+    By W. LESLIE MACKENZIE, M.D., Local Government Board,
+    Edinburgh.
+
+18. _INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICS_
+
+    By A. N. WHITEHEAD, Sc.D., F.R.S. (With Diagrams.) “Mr
+    Whitehead has discharged with conspicuous success the task he is so
+    exceptionally qualified to undertake. For he is one of our great
+    authorities upon the foundations of the science.”--_Westminster
+    Gazette._
+
+19. _THE ANIMAL WORLD_
+
+    By Professor F. W. GAMBLE, F.R.S. With Introduction by Sir
+    Oliver Lodge. (Many Illustrations.) “A fascinating and suggestive
+    survey.”--_Morning Post._
+
+20. _EVOLUTION_
+
+    By Professor J. ARTHUR THOMSON and Professor
+    PATRICK GEDDES. “A many-coloured and romantic panorama,
+    opening up, like no other book we know, a rational vision of
+    world-development.”--_Belfast News-Letter._
+
+22. _CRIME AND INSANITY_
+
+    By Dr C. A. MERCIER. “Furnishes much valuable information
+    from one occupying the highest position among medico-legal
+    psychologists.”--_Asylum News._
+
+28. _PSYCHICAL RESEARCH_
+
+    By Sir W. F. BARRETT, F.R.S., Professor of Physics,
+    Royal College of Science, Dublin, 1873-1910. “What he has to
+    say on thought-reading, hypnotism, telepathy, crystal-vision,
+    spiritualism, divinings, and so on, will be read with
+    avidity.”--_Dundee Courier._
+
+31. _ASTRONOMY_
+
+    By A. R. HINKS, M.A., Chief Assistant, Cambridge
+    Observatory. “Original in thought, eclectic in substance,
+    and critical in treatment.... No better little book is
+    available.”--_School World._
+
+32. _INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE_
+
+    By J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A., Regius Professor of Natural
+    History, Aberdeen University. “Professor Thomson’s delightful
+    literary style is well known; and here he discourses freshly and
+    easily on the methods Of science and its relations with philosophy,
+    art, religion, and practical life.”--_Aberdeen Journal._
+
+36. _CLIMATE AND WEATHER_
+
+    By Prof. H. N. DICKSON, D.Sc.Oxon., M.A., F.R.S.E.,
+    President of the Royal Meteorological Society. (With Diagrams.)
+    “The author has succeeded in presenting in a very lucid and
+    agreeable manner the causes of the movements of the atmosphere and
+    of the more stable winds.”--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+41. _ANTHROPOLOGY_
+
+    By R. R. MARETT, M.A., Reader in Social Anthropology in
+    Oxford University. “An absolutely perfect handbook, so clear that a
+    child could understand it, so fascinating and human that it beats
+    fiction ‘to a frazzle.’”--_Morning Leader._
+
+44. _THE PRINCIPLES OF PHYSIOLOGY_
+
+    By Prof. J. G. MCKENDRICK, M.D. “Upon every page of it is
+    stamped the impress of a creative imagination.”--_Glasgow Herald._
+
+46. _MATTER AND ENERGY_
+
+    By F. SODDY, M.A., F.R.S. “Prof. Soddy has successfully
+    accomplished the very difficult task of making physics of absorbing
+    interest on popular lines.”--_Nature._
+
+49. _PSYCHOLOGY, THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR_
+
+    By Prof. W. MCDOUGALL, F.R.S., M.B. “A happy example of
+    the non-technical handling of an unwieldy science, suggesting
+    rather than dogmatising. It should whet appetites for deeper
+    study.”--_Christian World._
+
+53. _THE MAKING OF THE EARTH_
+
+    By Prof. J. W. GREGORY, F.R.S. (With 38 Maps and Figures.)
+    “A fascinating little volume.... Among the many good things
+    contained in the series this takes a high place.”--_The Athenæum._
+
+57. _THE HUMAN BODY_
+
+    By A. KEITH, M.D., LL.D., Conservator of Museum and
+    Hunterian Professor, Royal College of Surgeons. (Illustrated.) “It
+    literally makes the ‘dry bones’ to live. It will certainly take a
+    high place among the classics of popular science.”--_Manchester
+    Guardian._
+
+58. _ELECTRICITY_
+
+    By GISBERT KAPP, D.Eng., Professor of Electrical
+    Engineering in the University of Birmingham. (Illustrated.) “It
+    will be appreciated greatly by learners and by the great number of
+    amateurs who are interested in what is one of the most fascinating
+    of scientific studies.”--_Glasgow Herald._
+
+62. _THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE_
+
+    By Dr BENJAMIN MOORE, Professor of Bio-Chemistry,
+    University College, Liverpool. “Stimulating, learned,
+    lucid.”--_Liverpool Courier._
+
+67. _CHEMISTRY_
+
+    By RAPHAEL MELDOLA, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in
+    Finsbury Technical College, London. Presents clearly, without the
+    detail demanded by the expert, the way in which chemical science
+    has developed, and the stage it has reached.
+
+72. _PLANT LIFE_
+
+    By Prof. J. B. FARMER, D.Sc., F.R.S. (Illustrated.)
+    “Professor Farmer has contrived to convey all the most vital facts
+    of plant physiology, and also to present a good many of the chief
+    problems which confront investigators to-day in the realms of
+    morphology and of heredity.”--_Morning Post._
+
+78. _THE OCEAN_
+
+    A General Account of the Science of the Sea. By Sir JOHN
+    MURRAY, K.C.B., F.R.S. (Colour plates and other illustrations.)
+
+79. _NERVES_
+
+    By Prof. D. FRASER HARRIS, M.D., D.Sc. (Illustrated.) A
+    description, in non-technical language, of the nervous system,
+    its intricate mechanism and the strange phenomena of energy and
+    fatigue, with some practical reflections.
+
+86. _SEX_
+
+    By Prof. PATRICK GEDDES and Prof. J. ARTHUR
+    THOMSON, LL.D. (Illus.)
+
+88. _THE GROWTH OF EUROPE_
+
+    By Prof. GRENVILLE COLE. (Illus.)
+
+
+_Philosophy and Religion_
+
+15. _MOHAMMEDANISM_
+
+    By Prof. D. S. MARGOLIOUTH, M.A., D.Litt. “This generous
+    shilling’s worth of wisdom.... A delicate, humorous, and most
+    responsible tractate by an illuminative professor.”--_Daily Mail._
+
+40. _THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY_
+
+    By the Hon. BERTRAND RUSSELL, F.R.S. “A book that the ‘man
+    in the street’ will recognise at once to be a boon.... Consistently
+    lucid and non-technical throughout.”--_Christian World._
+
+47. _BUDDHISM_
+
+    By Mrs RHYS DAVIDS, M.A. “The author presents very
+    attractively as well as very learnedly the philosophy of
+    Buddhism.”--_Daily News._
+
+50. _NONCONFORMITY: Its ORIGIN and PROGRESS_
+
+    By Principal W. B. SELBIE, M.A. “The historical part is
+    brilliant in its insight, clarity, and proportion.”--_Christian
+    World._
+
+54. _ETHICS_
+
+    By G. E. MOORE, M.A., Lecturer in Moral Science in
+    Cambridge University. “A very lucid though closely reasoned outline
+    of the logic Of good conduct.”--_Christian World._
+
+56. _THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT_
+
+    By Prof. B. W. BACON, LL.D., D.D. “Professor Bacon
+    has boldly, and wisely, taken his own line, and has produced,
+    as a result, an extraordinarily vivid, stimulating, and lucid
+    book.”--_Manchester Guardian._
+
+60. _MISSIONS: THEIR RISE and DEVELOPMENT_
+
+    By Mrs CREIGHTON. “Very interestingly done.... Its style
+    is simple, direct, unhackneyed, and should find appreciation where
+    a more fervently pious style of writing repels.”--_Methodist
+    Recorder._
+
+68. _COMPARATIVE RELIGION_
+
+    By Prof. J. ESTLIN CARPENTER, D. Litt., Principal of
+    Manchester College, Oxford. “Puts into the reader’s hand a wealth
+    of learning and independent thought.”--_Christian World._
+
+74. _A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT_
+
+    By J. B. BURY, Litt.D., LL.D., Regius Professor of Modern
+    History at Cambridge. “A little masterpiece, which every thinking
+    man will enjoy.”--_The Observer._
+
+84. _LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT_
+
+    By Prof. GEORGE MOORE, D.D., LL.D., of Harvard. A detailed
+    examination of the books of the Old Testament in the light of the
+    most recent research.
+
+90. _THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND_
+
+    By Canon E. W. WATSON, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical
+    History at Oxford.
+
+94. _RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS_
+
+    By Canon R. H. CHARLES, D.D., D.Litt.
+
+
+_Social Science_
+
+1. _PARLIAMENT_
+
+    Its History, Constitution, and Practice. By Sir COURTENAY P.
+    ILBERT, G.C.B., K.C.S.I., Clerk of the House of Commons. “The
+    best book on the history and practice of the House of Commons since
+    Bagehot’s ‘Constitution.’”--_Yorkshire Post._
+
+5. _THE STOCK EXCHANGE_
+
+    By F. W. HIRST, Editor of “The Economist.” “To an
+    unfinancial mind must be a revelation.... The book is as clear,
+    vigorous, and sane as Bagehot’s ‘Lombard Street,’ than which there
+    is no higher compliment.”--_Morning Leader._
+
+6. _IRISH NATIONALITY_
+
+    By Mrs J. R. GREEN. “As glowing as it is learned. No book
+    could be more timely.”--_Daily News._
+
+10. _THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT_
+
+    By J. RAMSAY MACDONALD, M.P. “Admirably adapted for the
+    purpose of exposition.”--_The Times._
+
+11. _CONSERVATISM_
+
+    By LORD HUGH CECIL, M.A., M.P. “One of those
+    great little books which seldom appear more than once in a
+    generation.”--_Morning Post._
+
+16. _THE SCIENCE OF WEALTH_
+
+    By J. A. HOBSON, M.A. “Mr J. A. Hobson holds an unique
+    position among living economists.... Original, reasonable, and
+    illuminating.”--_The Nation._
+
+21. _LIBERALISM_
+
+    By L. T. HOBHOUSE, M.A., Professor of Sociology in
+    the University of London. “A book of rare quality.... We have
+    nothing but praise for the rapid and masterly summaries of the
+    arguments from first principles which form a large part of this
+    book.”--_Westminster Gazette._
+
+24. _THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRY_
+
+    By D. H. MACGREGOR, M.A., Professor of Political Economy
+    in the University of Leeds. “A volume so dispassionate in terms
+    may be read with profit by all interested in the present state of
+    unrest.”--_Aberdeen Journal._
+
+26. _AGRICULTURE_
+
+    By Prof. W. SOMERVILLE, F.L.S. “It makes the results of
+    laboratory work at the University accessible to the practical
+    farmer.”--_Athenæum._
+
+30. _ELEMENTS OF ENGLISH LAW_
+
+    By W. M. GELDART, M.A., B.C.L., Vinerian Professor of
+    English Law at Oxford. “Contains a very clear account of the
+    elementary principles underlying the rules of English Law.”--_Scots
+    Law Times._
+
+38. _THE SCHOOL: An Introduction to the Study of Education._
+
+    By J. J. FINDLAY, M.A., Ph.D., Professor of Education
+    in Manchester University. “An amazingly comprehensive
+    volume.... It is a remarkable performance, distinguished in its
+    crisp, striking phraseology as well as its inclusiveness of
+    subject-matter.”--_Morning Post._
+
+59. _ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY_
+
+    By S. J. CHAPMAN, M.A., Professor of Political Economy
+    in Manchester University. “Its importance is not to be measured
+    by its price. Probably the best recent critical exposition of the
+    analytical method in economic science.”--_Glasgow Herald._
+
+69. _THE NEWSPAPER_
+
+    By G. BINNEY DIBBLEE, M.A. (Illustrated.) The best account
+    extant of the organisation of the newspaper press, at home and
+    abroad.
+
+77. _SHELLEY, GODWIN, AND THEIR CIRCLE_
+
+    By H. N. BRAILSFORD, M.A. “Mr Brailsford sketches vividly
+    the influence of the French Revolution on Shelley’s and Godwin’s
+    England; and the charm and strength of his style make his book an
+    authentic contribution to literature.”--_The Bookman._
+
+80. _CO-PARTNERSHIP AND PROFIT-SHARING_
+
+    By ANEURIN WILLIAMS, M.A.--“A judicious but enthusiastic
+    history, with much interesting speculation on the future of
+    Co-partnership.”--_Christian World._
+
+81. _PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE_
+
+    By E. N. BENNETT, M.A. Discusses the leading aspects of
+    the British land problem, including housing, small holdings, rural
+    credit, and the minimum wage.
+
+83. _COMMON-SENSE IN LAW_
+
+    By Prof. P. VINOGRADOFF, D.C.L.
+
+85. _UNEMPLOYMENT_
+
+    By Prof. A. C. PIGOU, M.A.
+
+
+IN PREPARATION
+
+    _ANCIENT EGYPT._ By F. LL. GRIFFITH, M.A.
+
+    _THE ANCIENT EAST._ By D. G. HOGARTH, M.A., F.B.A.
+
+    _A SHORT HISTORY OF EUROPE._ By HERBERT FISHER, LL.D.
+
+    _THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE._ By NORMAN H. BAYNES.
+
+    _THE REFORMATION._ By President LINDSAY, LL.D.
+
+    _A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA._ By Prof. MILYOUKOV.
+
+    _MODERN TURKEY._ By D. G. HOGARTH, M.A.
+
+    _FRANCE OF TO-DAY._ By ALBERT THOMAS.
+
+    _HISTORY OF SCOTLAND._ By Prof. R. S. RAIT, M.A.
+
+    _HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SPAIN._ By J.
+    FITZMAURICE-KELLY, F.B.A., Litt.D.
+
+    _LATIN LITERATURE._ By Prof. J. S. PHILLIMORE.
+
+    _ITALIAN ART OF THE RENAISSANCE._ By ROGER E. FRY.
+
+    _LITERARY TASTE._ By THOMAS SECCOMBE.
+
+    _SCANDINAVIAN HISTORY & LITERATURE._ By T. C. SNOW.
+
+    _THE MINERAL WORLD._ By Sir T. H. HOLLAND, K.C.I.E., D.Sc.
+
+    _A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY._ By CLEMENT WEBB, M.A.
+
+    _POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Bacon to Locke._ By G. P.
+    GOOCH, M.A.
+
+    _POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Bentham to J. S. Mill._ By
+    Prof. W. L. DAVIDSON.
+
+    _POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Herbert Spencer to To-day._ By
+    ERNEST BARKER, M.A.
+
+    _THE CRIMINAL AND THE COMMUNITY._ By Viscount ST. CYRES.
+
+    _THE CIVIL SERVICE._ By GRAHAM WALLAS, M.A.
+
+    _THE SOCIAL SETTLEMENT._ By JANE ADDAMS and R. A.
+    WOODS.
+
+    _GREAT INVENTIONS._ By Prof. J. L. MYRES, M.A., F.S.A.
+
+    _TOWN PLANNING._ By RAYMOND UNWIN.
+
+London: WILLIAMS AND NORGATE
+
+_And of all Bookshops and Bookstalls._
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See Mr. Gribble’s _Early Mountaineers_, Chap. V., where the
+arguments on each side are skilfully summarised.
+
+[2] Not “The Tirol,” still less “The Austrian Tirol,” but “Tirol.” We
+do not speak of “The Scotland” or “The British Scotland.”
+
+[3] The origin of the Alpine Club is, to some extent, a matter of
+dispute, the above is the view usually entertained.
+
+[4] Mount Blanc is divided between France and Italy; and the Italian
+frontier crosses Monte Rosa.
+
+
+[Transcriber’s Note:
+
+Page 255, Index entry “Gedley, A. D., 249”, changed to read “Godley, A.
+D., 249” and moved to appropriate spot in index.
+
+Obvious printer errors corrected silently.
+
+Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Alps, by Arnold Henry Moore Lunn
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-

-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Alps, by Arnold Henry Moore Lunn

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-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most

-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

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-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.

-

-

-

-Title: The Alps

-

-Author: Arnold Henry Moore Lunn

-

-Release Date: January 11, 2018 [EBook #56358]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: UTF-8

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ALPS ***

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-</pre>

-

-

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">1</span>

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">2</span></p>

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_facing_title.jpg" alt="" /><br />

-<p class="xx-large">

-HOME<br />

-UNIVERSITY<br />

-LIBRARY<br />

-<small>OF</small><br />

-<span class="x-large">MODERN KNOWLEDGE</span><br />

-<br />

-<br />

-<span class="small center"><i>Editors</i>:</span><br />

-<span class="table medium">

-HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A., LL.D.<br />

-<br />

-<span class="smcap">Prof.</span> GILBERT MURRAY, <span class="smcap">D.Litt.</span>,<br />

-LL.D., F.B.A.<br />

-<br />

-<span class="smcap">Prof.</span> J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.,<br />

-LL.D.<br />

-<br />

-<span class="smcap">Prof.</span> WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.<br />

-(Columbia University, U.S.A.)</span><br />

-<br />

-<span class="center"><span class="large">LONDON</span><br />

-<span class="x-large">WILLIAMS AND NORGATE</span></span><br />

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span></p></div>

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /><br />

-</div>

-

-<h1>

-THE ALPS<br />

-<br />

-<small>BY</small><br />

-<span class="x-large">ARNOLD LUNN</span><br />

-<br />

-<span class="center"><span class="large">LONDON</span><br />

-<span class="x-large">WILLIAMS AND NORGATE</span></span><br />

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span></h1>

-

-<p class="copy"><i>First printed July 1914</i>

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2>

-

-<p>For the early chapters of this book I have

-consulted, amongst other authorities, the books

-mentioned in the bibliography on pp. 251-254.

-It would, however, be ungracious if I

-failed to acknowledge my indebtedness to

-that most readable of historians, Mr. Gribble,

-and to his books, <i>The Early Mountaineers</i>

-(Fisher Unwin) and <i>The Story of Alpine

-Climbing</i> (Nelson). Mr. Gribble and his publisher,

-Mr. Unwin, have kindly allowed me to

-quote passages translated from the works of

-the pioneers. Two friends, experts in the

-practice and history of mountaineering, have

-read the proofs and helped me with numerous

-suggestions.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span>

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>

-

-<table id="toc">

-  <tr class="small">

-    <td>CHAP.</td>

-    <td />

-    <td>PAGE</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>I</td>

-    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">THE MEDIÆVAL ATTITUDE</a></td>

-    <td class="tdr">9</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>II</td>

-    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">THE PIONEERS</a></td>

-    <td class="tdr">22</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>III</td>

-    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">THE OPENING UP OF THE ALPS</a></td>

-    <td class="tdr">44</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>IV</td>

-    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">THE STORY OF MONT BLANC</a></td>

-    <td class="tdr">60</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>V</td>

-    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">MONTE ROSA AND THE BÜNDNER OBERLAND</a></td>

-    <td class="tdr">82</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>VI</td>

-    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">TIROL AND THE OBERLAND</a></td>

-    <td class="tdr">92</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>VII</td>

-    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH</a></td>

-    <td class="tdr">111</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>VIII</td>

-    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">THE STORY OF THE MATTERHORN</a></td>

-    <td class="tdr">147</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>IX</td>

-    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">MODERN MOUNTAINEERING</a></td>

-    <td class="tdr">185</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>X</td>

-    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">THE ALPS IN LITERATURE</a></td>

-    <td class="tdr">208</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td />

-    <td><a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHY">BIBLIOGRAPHY</a></td>

-    <td class="tdr">251</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td />

-    <td><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a></td>

-    <td class="tdr">254

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">viii</span></td>

-  </tr>

-</table>

-

-<div class="table">

-<p class="copy"><i>Volumes bearing upon the subject, already published<br />

-in the library, are</i>&mdash;</p>

-

-<p class="hang">7. Modern Geography. By Dr. Marion Newbigin.<br />

-(<i>Illustrated.</i>)</p>

-

-<p class="hang">36. Climate and Weather. By Prof. H. N. Dickson.<br />

-(<i>Illustrated.</i>)</p>

-

-<p class="hang">88. The Growth of Europe. By Prof. Grenville Cole.<br />

-(<i>Illustrated.</i>)

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span></p></div>

-

-<h2 class="xx-large">THE ALPS</h2>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br />

-

-<span class="large">THE MEDIÆVAL ATTITUDE</span></h2>

-

-<p>Rousseau is usually credited with the discovery

-that mountains are not intrinsically

-hideous. Long before his day, isolated men

-had loved the mountains, but these men were

-eccentrics. They founded no school; and

-Rousseau was certainly the first to popularise

-mountains and to transform the cult of hill

-worship into a fashionable creed. None the

-less, we must guard against the error of supposing

-that mountain love was confined to

-the few men who have left behind them

-literary evidence of their good taste. Mountains

-have changed very little since man

-became articulate, and the retina of the

-human eye has changed even less. The

-beauty of outline that stirs us to-day was

-implicit in the hills “that shed their burial

-sheets about the march of Hannibal.” It

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>

-seems reasonable to suppose that a few men

-in every age have derived a certain pleasure,

-if not from Alpine travel at least from the

-distant view of the snows.</p>

-

-<p>The literature of the Ancient World contains

-little that bears upon our subject. The

-literature of the Jews is exceptional in this

-respect. This is the more to their credit, as

-the mountains of Judæa, south of the beautiful

-Lebanon range, are shapeless and uninteresting.

-Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Job, and

-Isaiah contain mountain passages of great

-beauty. The Old Testament is, however, far

-richer in mountain praise than the New

-Testament. Christ retired more than once

-to the mountains; but the authors of the

-four Gospels content themselves with recording

-the bare fact that certain spiritual

-crises took place on mountain-tops. There is

-not a single indication in all the gospels that

-Nazareth is set on a hill overlooking one of

-the fairest mountain prospects in all Judæa,

-not a single tribute to the beauty of Galilee

-girdled by the outlying hills of Hermon.</p>

-

-<p>The Greeks lived in a land of mountains

-far lovelier than Palestine’s characterless

-heights. But the Jews showed genuine if

-spasmodic appreciation for their native

-ranges, whereas the Greeks, if their literature

-does them justice, cared little or nothing for

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>

-their mountains. The note of fear and

-dread, pleasantly rare in Jewish literature, is

-never long absent from Greek references to

-the mountains. Of course, the Greeks gave

-Olympus to their gods, but as Mr. Norman

-Young remarks in a very able essay on <i>The

-Mountains in Greek Poetry</i>, it was necessary

-that the gods should look down on mankind;

-and, as they could not be strung up

-in mid-air, the obvious thing was to put them

-on a mountain-top. Perhaps we may concede

-that the Greeks paid a delicate compliment

-to Parnassus, the Home of the Muses;

-and certainly they chose for their temples

-the high ground of their cities. As one

-wanders through the olives and asphodels,

-one feels that the Greeks chose for their

-dwellings and temples those rising grounds

-which afforded the noblest prospect of the

-neighbouring hills. Only the cynic would

-contend that they did this in order to escape

-the atmosphere of the marshes.</p>

-

-<p>The Romans were disgustingly practical.

-They regarded the Alps as an inconvenient

-barrier to conquest and commerce. Virgil

-shows an occasional trace of a deeper feeling,

-and Horace paused between draughts of

-Falernian wine to admire the snows on

-Soracte, which lent contrast to the comfort

-of a well-ordered life.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span></p>

-

-<p>Mr. Freshfield has shown that the Chinese

-had a more genuine feeling for mountains;

-and Mr. Weston has explained the ancient

-cult of high places among the Japanese,

-perhaps the most consistent mountain worshippers

-in the world. The Japanese pilgrims,

-clad in white, make the ascent to the shrines

-which are built on the summits of their sacred

-mountains, and then withdraw to a secluded

-spot for further worship. For centuries, they

-have paid official tribute to the inspiration of

-high places.</p>

-

-<p>But what of the Alps? Did the men who

-lived within sight of the Swiss mountains

-regard them with indifference and contempt?

-This was, perhaps, the general attitude, but

-there is some evidence that a love for mountains

-was not quite so uncommon in the

-Middle Ages as is usually supposed.</p>

-

-<p>Before attempting to summarise this evidence,

-let us try to realise the Alps as they

-presented themselves to the first explorers.

-The difficulties of Alpine exploration, as that

-term is now understood, would have proved

-quite as formidable as those which now confront

-the Himalayan explorer. In spite of

-this, glacier passes were crossed in the earliest

-times, and even the Romans seemed to have

-ventured across the Théodule, judging by

-the coins which have been found on the top

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span>

-of that great glacier highway. In addition

-to the physical difficulties of Alpine travel,

-we must recognise the mental handicap of

-our ancestors. Danger no longer haunts the

-highways and road-passes of the Alps. Wild

-beasts and robber bands no longer threaten

-the visitor to Grindelwald. Of the numerous

-“inconveniences of travel” cited by an early

-visitor to the Alps, we need now only fear

-“the wonderful cunning of Innkeepers.”

-Stilled are the voices that were once supposed

-to speak in the thunder and the avalanche.

-The dragons that used to wing their way

-across the ravines of the central chain have

-joined the Dodo and “the men that eat the

-flesh of serpents and hiss as serpents do.”

-Danger, a luxury to the modern, formed part

-of the routine of mediæval life. Our ancestors

-had no need to play at peril; and, lest we

-lightly assume that the modern mountaineer

-is a braver man than those who shuddered

-on the St. Bernard, let us remember that our

-ancestors accepted with grave composure a

-daily portion of inevitable risks. Modern life

-is so secure that we are forced to the Alps

-in search of contrast. When our ancestors

-needed contrast, they joined a monastery.</p>

-

-<p>Must we assume that danger blinded them

-to the beauty of the Alps? The mountains

-themselves have not changed. The modern

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span>

-mountaineer sees, from the windows of the

-Berne express, a picture whose colours have

-not faded in the march of Time. The bar of

-silver that thrusts itself above the distant

-foothills, as the train swings out of the

-wooded fortress of the Jura, casts the same

-challenge across the long shadows of the uplands.

-The peaks are a little older, but the

-vision that lights the world for us shone with

-the same steadfast radiance across the plains

-of long ago. Must we believe that our

-adventurous forefathers could find nothing

-but fear in the snows of the great divide?

-Dangers which have not yet vanished menaced

-their journey, but the white gleam of the

-distant snows was no less beautiful in the

-days when it shone as a beacon light to

-guide the adventurous through the great

-barrier down the warmth of Italian lowlands.

-An age which could face the great adventure

-of the Crusades for an idea, or more often for

-the sheer lust of romantic wandering, was not

-an age easily daunted by peril and discomfort.

-May we not hope that many a mute, inglorious

-mountain-lover lifted his eyes across

-the fields and rivers near Basle or Constance,

-and found some hint of elusive beauty in the

-vision that still remains a mystery, even for

-those who have explored the once trackless

-snows?

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span></p>

-

-<p>Those who have tried to discover the

-mediæval attitude have too often merely

-generalised from detached expressions of

-horror. Passages of praise have been treated

-as exceptional. The Monk Bremble and the

-Bishop Berkeley have had their say, unchallenged

-by equally good evidence for the

-defence. Let us remember that plenty of

-modern travellers might show an equally

-pronounced distaste for mountains. For the

-defence, we might quote the words of an old

-traveller borrowed in Coryat’s <i>Crudities</i>, a

-book which appeared in 1611: “What, I

-pray you, is more pleasant, more delectable,

-and more acceptable unto a man than to

-behold the height of hilles, as it were the very

-Atlantes of heauen? to admire Hercules his

-pillers? to see the mountaines Taurus and

-Caucasus? to view the hill Olympus, the seat

-of Jupiter? to pass over the Alpes that were

-broken by Annibals Vinegar? to climb up

-the Apennine promontory of Italy? from

-the hill Ida to behold the rising of the

-Sunne before the Sunne appears? to visit

-Parnassus and Helicon, the most celebrated

-seates of the Muses? Neither indeed is there

-any hill or hillocke, which doth not containe

-in it the most sweete memory of worthy

-matters.”</p>

-

-<p>There is the genuine ring about this. It is

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span>

-the modern spirit without the modern affectations.

-Nor is this case exceptional. In the

-following chapter we shall sketch the story

-of the early Alpine explorers, and we shall

-quote many passages instinct with the real

-love for the hills.</p>

-

-<p>Are we not entitled to believe that Gesner,

-Marti, and Petrarch are characteristic of

-one phase of mediæval sentiment, just as

-Bremble is characteristic of another? There

-is abundant evidence to show that the habit

-of visiting and admiring mountain scenery

-had become fashionable before the close of

-the sixteenth century. Simler tells us that

-foreigners came from all lands to marvel at

-the mountains, and excuses a certain lack of

-interest among his compatriots on the ground

-that they are surfeited with a too close knowledge

-of the Alps. Marti, of whom we shall

-speak at greater length, tells us that he found

-on the summit of the Stockhorn the Greek

-inscription cut in a stone which may be

-rendered: “The love of mountains is best.”

-And then there is the evidence of art. Conventional

-criticism of mountain art often

-revolves in a circle: “The mediæval man

-detested mountains, and when he painted a

-mountain he did so by way of contrast to set

-off the beauty of the plains.” Or again:

-“Mediæval man only painted mountains as

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span>

-types of all that is terrible in Nature. Therefore,

-mediæval man detested mountains.”</p>

-

-<p>Let us try to approach the work of these

-early craftsmen with no preconceived notions

-as to their sentiments. The canvases still

-remain as they were painted. What do they

-teach us? It is not difficult to discriminate

-between those who used mountains to point

-a contrast, and those who lingered with

-devotion on the beauty of the hills. When we

-find a man painting mountains loosely and

-carelessly, we may assume that he was not

-over fond of his subject. Jan von Scorel’s

-grotesque rocks show nothing but equally

-grotesque fear. Hans Altdorfer’s elaborate

-and careful work proves that he was at least

-interested in mountains, and had cleared his

-mind of conventional terror. Roughly, we

-may say that, where the foreground shows

-good and the mountain background shows

-bad workmanship, the artist cared nothing for

-hills, and only threw them in by way of

-gloomy contrast. But such pictures are not

-the general rule.</p>

-

-<p>Let us take a very early mountain painting

-that dates from 1444. It is something of a

-shock to find the Salève and Mont Blanc as

-the background to a New Testament scene.

-How is the background used? Konrad Witz,

-the painter, has chosen for his theme the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span>

-miraculous draught of fishes. If he had

-borrowed a mountain background for the

-Temptation, the Betrayal, the Agony, or the

-Crucifixion, we might contend that the mountains

-were introduced to accentuate the

-gloom. But there is no suggestion of fear

-or sorrow in the peaceful calm that followed

-the storm of Calvary. The mountains in

-the distance are the hills as we know them.

-There is no reason to think that they are

-intended as a contrast to the restful foreground.

-Rather, they seem to complete and

-round off the happy serenity of the picture.</p>

-

-<p>Let us consider the mountain work of a

-greater man than Witz. We may be thankful

-that Providence created this barrier of hills

-between the deep earnestness of the North

-and the tolerance of Italy, for to this we

-owe some of the best mountain-scapes of

-the Middle Ages. There is romance in the

-thought of Albrecht Dürer crossing the

-Brenner on his way to the Venetian lagoons

-that he loved so well. Did Dürer regard

-this journey with loathing? Were the great

-Alps no more than an obstacle on the road

-to the coast where the Adriatic breaks “in

-a warm bay ’mid green Illyrian hills.” Did

-he echo the pious cry of that old Monk who

-could only pray to be delivered from “this

-place of torment,” or did he rather linger

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span>

-with loving memory on the wealth of inspiring

-suggestion gathered in those adventurous

-journeys? Contrast is the essence

-of Art, and Dürer was too great a man to

-miss the rugged appeal of untamed cliffs,

-because he could fathom so easily the gentler

-charm of German fields and Italian waters.

-You will find in these mountain woodcuts the

-whole essence of the lovable German romance,

-that peculiar note of “snugness” due to the

-contrast of frowning rock and some “gemütlich”

-Black Forest châlet. Hans Andersen,

-though a Dane, caught this note; and in

-Dürer’s work there is the same appealing

-romance that makes the “Ice Maiden” the

-most lovable of Alpine stories. One can

-almost see Rudy marching gallantly up the

-long road in Dürer’s “Das Grosse Glück,” or

-returning with the eaglets stolen from their

-perilous nest in the cliffs that shadow the

-“Heimsuch.” Those who pretend that Dürer

-introduced mountains as a background of

-gloom have no sense for atmosphere nor for

-anything else. For Dürer, the mountains

-were the home of old romance.</p>

-

-<p>Turn from Dürer to Da Vinci, and you will

-find another note. Da Vinci was, as we shall

-see, a climber, and this gives the dominant

-note to his great study of storm and thunder

-among the peaks, to be seen at Windsor

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span>

-Castle. His mountain rambles have given

-him that feeling of worship, tempered by awe,

-which even the Climbers’ Guides have not

-banished. But this book is not a treatise on

-mountain Art&mdash;a fascinating subject; and we

-must content ourselves with the statement

-that painters of all ages have found in the

-mountains the love which is more powerful

-than fear. Those who doubt this may examine

-at leisure the mountain work of Brueghel,

-Titian, or Mantegna. There are many other

-witnesses. At the beginning of the sixteenth

-century, Hans Leu had looked upon the hills

-and found them good, and Altdorfer had

-shown not only a passionate enthusiasm for

-mountains, but a knowledge of their anatomy

-far ahead of his age. Wolf Huber, ten years

-his junior, carried on the torch, and passed

-it to Lautensack, who recaptured the peculiar

-note of German romance of which Dürer is

-the first and the greatest apostle. It would

-be easy to trace the apostolic succession to

-Segantini, and to prove that he is the heir

-to a tradition nearly six hundred years old.

-But enough has been said. We have adduced

-a few instances which bear upon the contention

-that, just as the mountains of the

-Middle Ages were much the same as the

-mountains of to-day, so also among the men

-of those times, as among the men of to-day,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span>

-there were those who hated and those who

-loved the heights. No doubt the lovers of

-mountain scenery were in the minority; but

-they existed in far larger numbers than is

-sometimes supposed.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br />

-

-<span class="large">THE PIONEERS</span></h2>

-

-<p>Within the compass of this book, we

-cannot narrate the history of Alpine passes,

-though the subject is intensely interesting,

-but we must not omit all mention of the

-great classic traverse of the Alps. We should

-read of Hannibal’s memorable journey not

-in Livy, nor even in Bohn, but in that vigorous

-sixteenth-century translation which owes its

-charm and force even more to Philemon

-Holland the translator than to Livy.</p>

-

-<p>Livy, or rather Holland, begins with

-Hannibal’s sentiments on “seeing near at

-hand the height of those hills ... the horses

-singed with cold ... the people with long

-shagd haire.” Hannibal and his army were

-much depressed, but, none the less, they

-advanced under a fierce guerilla attack from

-the natives, who “slipt away at night, every

-one to his owne harbour.” Then follows a

-fine description of the difficulties of the pass.

-The poor elephants “were ever readie and

-anone to run upon their noses”&mdash;a phrase

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>

-which evokes a tremendous picture&mdash;“and

-the snow being once with the gate of so many

-people and beasts upon it fretted and thawed,

-they were fain to go upon the bare yce underneeth

-and in the slabberie snow-broth as it

-relented and melted about their heeles.” A

-great rock hindered the descent; Hannibal

-set it on fire and “powred thereon strong

-vinegar for to calcine and dissolve it,” a

-device unknown to modern mountaineers.

-The passage ends with a delightful picture

-of the army’s relief on reaching “the dales

-and lower grounds which have some little

-banks lying to the sunne, and rivers withall

-neere unto the woods, yea and places more

-meet and beseeming for men to inhabit.”

-Experts are divided as to what pass was

-actually crossed by Hannibal. Even the Col

-de Géant has been suggested by a romantic

-critic; it is certainly stimulating to picture

-Hannibal’s elephants in the Géant ice-fall.

-Probably the Little St. Bernard, or the Mont

-Genèvre, is the most plausible solution. So

-much for the great traverse.</p>

-

-<p>Some twenty-five glacier passes had been

-actually crossed before the close of the

-sixteenth century, a fact which bears out

-our contention that in the Middle Ages a

-good deal more was known about the craft

-of mountaineering than is generally supposed.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>

-There is, however, this distinctive difference

-between passes and peaks. A man may

-cross a pass because it is the most convenient

-route from one valley to another. He may

-cross it though he is thoroughly unhappy

-until he reaches his destination, and it would

-be just as plausible to argue from his journey

-a love of mountains as to deduce a passion

-for the sea in every sea-sick traveller across

-the Channel. But a man will not climb a

-mountain unless he derives some interest

-from the actual ascent. Passes may be

-crossed in the way of business. Mountains

-will only be climbed for the joy of the climb.</p>

-

-<p>The Roche Melon, near Susa, was the first

-Alpine peak of any consequence to be climbed.

-This mountain rises to a height of 11,600 feet.

-It was long believed to be the highest mountain

-in Savoy. On one side there is a small

-glacier; but the climb can be effected without

-crossing snow. It was climbed during the

-Dark Ages by a knight, Rotario of Asti, who

-deposited a bronze tryptych on the summit

-where a chapel still remains. Once a year

-the tryptych is carried to the summit, and

-Mass is heard in the chapel. There is a

-description of an attempt on this peak in the

-Chronicle of Novalessa, which dates back to

-the first half of the eleventh century. King

-Romulus is said to have deposited treasure on

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span>

-the mountain. The whole Alpine history of

-this peak is vague, but it is certain that the

-peak was climbed at a very early period, and

-that a chapel was erected on the summit before

-Villamont’s ascent in 1588. The climb

-presents no difficulties, but it was found discreet

-to remove the statue of the Virgin, as

-pilgrims seem to have lost their lives in

-attempting to reach it. The pilgrimages did

-not cease even after the statue had been

-placed in Susa.</p>

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_025.jpg" alt="" />

-<p class="small author">Bartholomew, Edin</p>

-</div>

-

-<p>Another early ascent must be recorded,

-though the climb was a very modest achievement.

-Mont Ventoux, in Provence, is only

-some 6430 feet above the sea, and to-day

-there is an hôtel on the summit. None the

-less, it deserves a niche in Alpine history, for

-its ascent is coupled with the great name of

-the poet Petrarch. Mr. Gribble calls Petrarch

-the first of the sentimental mountaineers.

-Certainly, he was one of the first mountaineers

-whose recorded sentiments are very much

-ahead of his age. The ascent took place on

-April 26, 1335, and Petrarch described it

-in a letter written to his confessor. He

-confesses that he cherished for years the

-ambition to ascend Mont Ventoux, and

-seized the first chance of a companion to

-carry through this undertaking. He makes

-the customary statement as to the extreme

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span>

-difficulty of the ascent, and introduces a

-shepherd who warns him from the undertaking.

-There are some very human touches

-in the story of the climb. While his brother

-was seeking short cuts, Petrarch tried to

-advance on more level ground, an excuse for

-his laziness which cost him dear, for the

-others had made considerable progress while

-he was still wandering in the gullies of the

-mountain. He began to find, like many

-modern mountaineers, that “human ingenuity

-was not a match for the nature of

-things, and that it was impossible to gain

-heights by moving downwards.” He successfully

-completed the ascent, and the climb

-filled him with enthusiasm. The reader

-should study the fine translation of his letter

-by Mr. Reeve, quoted in <i>The Early Mountaineers</i>.

-Petrarch caught the romance of

-heights. The spirit that breathes through

-every line of his letter is worthy of the poet.</p>

-

-<p>Petrarch is not the only great name that

-links the Renaissance to the birth of mountaineering.

-That versatile genius, Leonardo

-da Vinci, carried his scientific explorations

-into the mountains. We have already mentioned

-his great picture of storm and thunder

-among the hills, one of the few mementos

-that have survived from his Alpine journeys.

-His journey took place towards the end of

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span>

-the fifteenth century. Little is known of

-it, though the following passage from his

-works has provoked much comment. The

-translation is due to Mrs. Bell: “And this

-may be seen, as I saw it, by any one going up

-Monboso, a peak of the Alps which divide

-France from Italy. The base of this mountain

-gives birth to the four rivers which flow

-in four different directions through the whole

-of Europe. And no mountain has its base

-at so great a height as this, which lifts itself

-above almost all the clouds; and snow

-seldom falls there, but only hail in the summer

-when the clouds are highest. And this hail

-lies (unmelted) there, so that, if it were not

-for the absorption of the rising and falling

-clouds, which does not happen more than

-twice in an age, an enormous mass of ice

-would be piled up there by the layers of hail;

-and in the middle of July I found it very

-considerable, and I saw the sky above me

-quite dark; and the sun as it fell on the

-mountain was far brighter here than in the

-plains below, because a smaller extent of

-atmosphere lay between the summit of the

-mountain and the sun.”</p>

-

-<p>We need not summarise the arguments

-that identify Monboso either with Monte

-Rosa or Monte Viso. The weight of evidence

-inclines to the former alternative, though, of

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>

-course, nobody supposes that Da Vinci

-actually reached the summit of Monte Rosa.

-There is good ground, however, for believing

-that he explored the lower slopes; and it is

-just possible that he may have got as far as

-the rocks above the Col d’Ollen, where, according

-to Mr. Freshfield, the inscription “A.T.M.,

-1615” has been found cut into the crags at

-a height of 10,000 feet. In this connection

-it is interesting to note that the name “Monboso”

-has been found in place of Monte Rosa

-in maps, as late as 1740.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">1</a></p>

-

-<p>We now come to the first undisputed ascent

-of a mountain, still considered a difficult

-rock climb. The year that saw the discovery

-of America is a great date in the history

-of mountaineering. In 1492, Charles VII of

-France passed through Dauphiny, and was

-much impressed by the appearance of Mont

-Aiguille, a rocky peak near Grenoble that

-was then called Mont Inaccessible. This

-mountain is only some seven thousand feet

-in height; but it is a genuine rock climb, and

-is still considered difficult, so much so that

-the French Alpine Club have paid it the

-doubtful compliment of iron cables in the

-more sensational passages. Charles VII was

-struck by the appearance of the mountain,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>

-and ordered his Chamberlain de Beaupré to

-make the ascent. Beaupré, by the aid of

-“subtle means and engines,” scaled the peak,

-had Mass said on the top, and caused three

-crosses to be erected on the summit. It was

-a remarkable ascent, and was not repeated

-till 1834.</p>

-

-<p>We are not concerned with exploration

-beyond the Alps, and we have therefore

-omitted Peter III’s attempt on Pic Canigou

-in the Pyrenees, and the attempt on the

-Pic du Midi in 1588; but we cannot on the

-ground of irrelevance pass over a remarkable

-ascent in 1521. Cortez is our authority.

-Under his order, a band of Spaniards ascended

-Popocatapetl, a Mexican volcano which

-reaches the respectable height of 17,850 feet.

-These daring climbers brought back quantities

-of sulphur which the army needed for its

-gunpowder.</p>

-

-<p>The Stockhorn is a modest peak some

-seven thousand feet in height. Simler tells us

-that its ascent was a commonplace achievement.

-Marti, as we have seen in the previous

-chapter, found numberless inscriptions cut

-into the summit stones by visitors, enthusiastic

-in their appreciation of mountain

-scenery, and its ascent by Müller, a Berne

-professor, in 1536, is only remarkable for the

-joyous poem in hexameters which records his

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>

-delight in all the accompaniments of a mountain

-expedition. Müller has the true feelings

-for the simpler pleasures of picnicing on the

-heights. Everything delights him, from the

-humble fare washed down with a draught

-from a mountain stream, to the primitive joy

-of hurling big rocks down a mountain side.

-The last confession endears him to all who

-have practised this simple, if dangerous,

-amusement.</p>

-

-<p>The early history of Pilatus, another low-lying

-mountain, is much more eventful than

-the annals of the Stockhorn. It is closely

-bound up with the Pilate legend, which was

-firmly believed till a Lucerne pastor gave it

-the final quietus in 1585. Pontius Pilate,

-according to this story, was condemned by

-the Emperor Tiberius, who decreed that he

-should be put to death in the most shameful

-possible manner. Hearing this, Pilate very

-sensibly committed suicide. Tiberius concealed

-his chagrin, and philosophically remarked

-that a man whose own hand had not

-spared him had most certainly died the most

-shameful of deaths. Pilate’s body was attached

-to a stone and flung into the Tiber,

-where it caused a succession of terrible

-storms. The Romans decided to remove it,

-and the body was conveyed to Vienne as a

-mark of contempt for the people of that

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>

-place. It was flung into the Rhone, and did

-its best to maintain its reputation. We need

-not follow this troublesome corpse through

-its subsequent wanderings. It was finally

-hurled into a little marshy lake, near the

-summit of Pilatus. Here Pilate’s behaviour

-was tolerable enough, though he resented

-indiscriminate stone-throwing into the lake

-by evoking terrible storms, and once a year

-he escaped from the waters, and sat clothed

-in a scarlet robe on a rock near by. Anybody

-luckless enough to see him on these occasions

-died within the twelve-month.</p>

-

-<p>So much for the story, which was firmly

-believed by the good citizens of Lucerne.

-Access to the lake was forbidden, unless the

-visitor was accompanied by a respectable

-burgher, pledged to veto any practices that

-Pilate might construe as a slight. In 1307,

-six clergymen were imprisoned for having

-attempted an ascent without observing the

-local regulations. It is even said that climbers

-were occasionally put to death for breaking

-these stringent by-laws. None the less,

-ascents occasionally took place. Duke Ulrich

-of Württemberg climbed the mountain in 1518,

-and a professor of Vienna, by name Joachim

-von Watt, ascended the mountain in order

-to investigate the legend, which he seems to

-have believed after a show of doubt. Finally,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span>

-in 1585, Pastor John Müller of Lucerne,

-accompanied by a few courageous sceptics,

-visited the lake. In their presence, he threw

-stones into the haunted lake, and shouted

-“Pilate wirf aus dein Kath.” As his taunts

-produced no effect, judgment was given by

-default, and the legend, which had sent

-earlier sceptics into gaol, was laughed out of

-existence.</p>

-

-<p>Thirty years before this defiant demonstration,

-the mountain had been ascended by the

-most remarkable of the early mountaineers.

-Conrad Gesner was a professor at the ancient

-University of Zürich. Though not the first

-to make climbing a regular practice, he was

-the pioneer of mountain literature. He never

-encountered serious difficulties. His mountaineering

-was confined to those lower heights

-which provide the modern with a training

-walk. But he had the authentic outlook of

-the mountaineer. His love for mountains was

-more genuine than that of many a modern

-wielder of the ice-axe and rope. A letter

-has been preserved, in which he records his

-resolution “to climb mountains, or at all

-events to climb one mountain every year.”</p>

-

-<p>We have no detailed record of his climbs,

-but luckily his account of an ascent of Pilatus

-still survives, a most sincere tribute to the

-simple pleasures of the heights. It is a

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span>

-relief to turn to it after wading through more

-recent Alpine literature. Gesner’s writing is

-subjective. It records the impress of simple

-emotions on an unsophisticated mind. He

-finds a naïve joy in all the elemental things

-that make up a mountain walk, the cool

-breezes plying on heated limbs, the sun’s

-genial warmth, the contrasts of outline, colour,

-and height, the unending variety, so that

-“in one day you wander through the four

-seasons of the year, Spring, Summer, Autumn

-and Winter.” He explains that every sense

-is delighted, the sense of hearing is gratified

-by the witty conversation of friends, “by the

-songs of the birds, and even by the stillness

-of the waste.” He adds, in a very modern

-note, that the mountaineer is freed from the

-noisy tumult of the city, and that in the

-“profound abiding silence one catches echoes

-of the harmony of celestial spheres.” There

-is more in the same key. He anticipates the

-most enduring reward of the mountaineer,

-and his words might serve as the motto for

-a mountain book of to-day: “Jucundum erit

-postea meminisse laborum atque periculorum,

-juvabit hæc animo revolvere et narrare

-amicis.” Toil and danger are sweet to recall,

-every mountaineer loves “to revolve these

-in his mind and to tell them to his friends.”

-Moreover, contrast is the essence of our enjoyment

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span>

-and “the very delight of rest is intensified

-when it follows hard labour.” And

-then Gesner turns with a burst of scorn to his

-imaginary opponent. “But, say you, we

-lack feather beds and mattresses and pillows.

-Oh, frail and effeminate man! Hay shall

-take the place of these luxuries. It is soft,

-it is fragrant. It is blended from healthy

-grass and flower, and as you sleep respiration

-will be sweeter and healthier than ever. Your

-pillow shall be of hay. Your mattress shall

-be of hay. A blanket of hay shall be thrown

-across your body.” That is the kind of thing

-an enthusiastic mountaineer might have

-written about the club-huts in the old days

-before the hay gave place to mattresses. Nor

-does Gesner spoil his rhapsody by the inevitable

-joke about certain denizens of the

-hay.</p>

-

-<p>There follows an eloquent description of

-the ascent and an analysis of the Pilate

-legend. Thirty years were to pass before

-Pastor Müller finally disposed of the myth,

-but Gesner is clearly sceptical, and concludes

-with the robust assertion that, even if evil

-spirits exist, they are “impotent to harm the

-faithful who worship the one heavenly light,

-and Christ the Sun of Justice.” A bold

-challenge to the superstitions of the age, a

-challenge worthy of the man. Conrad Gesner

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>

-was born out of due season; and, though he

-does not seem to have crossed the snow line,

-he was a mountaineer in the best sense of the

-term. As we read his work, we seem to hear

-the voice of a friend. Across the years we

-catch the accents of a true member of our

-great fraternity. We leave him with regret,

-with a wish that we could meet him on some

-mountain path, and gossip for a while on

-mountains and mountaineers.</p>

-

-<p>But Gesner was not, as is sometimes

-assumed, alone in this sentiment for the hills.

-In the first chapter we have spoken of Marti,

-a professor at Berne, and a close friend of

-Gesner. The credit for discovering him belongs,

-I think, to Mr. Freshfield, who quotes

-some fine passages from Marti’s writings.

-Marti looks out from the terrace at Berne on

-that prospect which no true mountain lover

-can behold without emotion, and exclaims:

-“These are the mountains which form our

-pleasure and delight when we gaze at them

-from the highest parts of our city, and admire

-their mighty peaks and broken crags that

-threaten to fall at any moment. Who, then,

-would not admire, love, willingly visit, explore,

-and climb places of this sort? I should

-assuredly call those who are not attracted by

-them dolts, stupid dull fishes, and slow

-tortoises.... I am never happier than on

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span>

-the mountain crests, and there are no wanderings

-dearer to one than those on the

-mountains.”</p>

-

-<p>This passage tends to prove that mountain

-appreciation had already become a commonplace

-with cultured men. Had Marti’s views

-been exceptional, he would have assumed a

-certain air of defence. He would explain

-precisely why he found pleasure in such unexpected

-places. He would attempt to justify

-his paradoxical position. Instead, he boldly

-assumes that every right-minded man loves

-mountains; and he confounds his opponents

-by a vigorous choice of unpleasant alternatives.</p>

-

-<p>Josias Simler was a mountaineer of a very

-different type. To him belongs the credit of

-compiling the first treatise on the art of

-Alpine travel. Though he introduces no

-personal reminiscences, his work is so free

-from current superstition that he must have

-been something of a climber; but, though a

-climber, he did not share Gesner’s enthusiasm

-for the hills. For, though he seems to have

-crossed glacier passes, whereas Gesner confined

-himself to the lower mountains, yet the note

-of enthusiasm is lacking. His horror of

-narrow paths, bordering on precipices, is

-typical of the age; and if he ventured across

-a pass he must have done so in the way of

-business. There is, as we have already

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span>

-pointed out, a marked difference between

-passes and mountains. A merchant with a

-holy horror of mountains may be forced to

-cross a pass in the way of business, but a man

-will only climb a mountain for the fun of the

-thing. It is clear that Simler could only see

-in mountains a sense of inconvenient barriers

-to commerce, but as a practical man he set

-out to codify the existing knowledge. Gesner’s

-mountain work is subjective; it is the literature

-of emotion; he is less concerned with the

-mountain in itself, than with the mountain

-as it strikes the individual observer. Simler,

-on the other hand, is the forerunner of the

-objective school. He must delight those

-who postulate that all Alpine literature should

-be the record of positive facts. The personal

-note is utterly lacking. Like Gesner, he was

-a professor at Zürich. Unlike Gesner, he was

-an embodiment of the academic tradition

-that is more concerned with fact than with

-emotion. None the less, his work was a very

-valuable contribution, as it summarised existing

-knowledge on the art of mountain travel.

-His information is singularly free from error.

-He seems to have understood the use of the

-rope, alpenstocks, crampons, dark spectacles,

-and the use of paper as a protection against

-cold. It is strange that crampons, which

-were used in Simler’s days, were only reintroduced

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span>

-into general practice within the last

-decades, whilst the uncanny warmth of paper

-is still unknown to many mountaineers. His

-description of glacier perils, due to concealed

-crevasses, is accurate, and his analysis of

-avalanches contains much that is true. We

-are left with the conviction that snow- and

-ice-craft is an old science, though originally

-applied by merchants rather than pure

-explorers.</p>

-

-<p>We quoted Simler, in the first chapter, in

-support of our contention that foreigners

-came in great numbers to see and rejoice in

-the beauty of the Alps. But, though Simler

-proves that passes were often crossed in the

-way of business, and that mountains were

-often visited in search of beauty, he himself

-was no mountain lover.</p>

-

-<p>It is a relief to turn to Scheuchzer, who is a

-living personality. Like Gesner and Simler,

-he was a professor at Zürich, and, like them,

-he was interested in mountains. There the

-resemblance ceases. He had none of Gesner’s

-fine sentiment for the hills. He did not share

-Simler’s passion for scientific knowledge. He

-was a very poor mountaineer, and, though he

-trudged up a few hills, he heartily disliked

-the toil of the ascent: “Anhelosæ quidem

-sunt scansiones montium”&mdash;an honest, but

-scarcely inspiring, comment on mountain

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>

-travel. Honesty, bordering on the naïve, is,

-indeed, the keynote of our good professor’s

-confessions. Since his time, many ascents

-have failed for the same causes that prevented

-Scheuchzer reaching the summit of

-Pilatus, but few mountaineers are candid

-enough to attribute their failure to “bodily

-weariness and the distance still to be accomplished.”

-Scheuchzer must be given credit

-for being, in many ways, ahead of his age.

-He protested vigorously against the cruel

-punishments in force against witches. He

-was the first to formulate a theory of glacier

-motion which, though erroneous, was by no

-means absurd. As a scientist, he did good

-work in popularising Newton’s theories. He

-published the first map of Switzerland with

-any claims to accuracy. His greatest scientific

-work on dragons is dedicated to the English

-Royal Society, and though Scheuchzer’s

-dragons provoke a smile, we should remember

-that several members of that learned society

-subscribed to publish his researches on those

-fabulous creatures.</p>

-

-<p>With his odd mixture of credulity and

-common sense, Scheuchzer often recalls

-another genial historian of vulgar errors.

-Like Sir Thomas Browne, he could never

-dismiss a picturesque legend without a pang.

-He gives the more blatant absurdities their

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>

-quietus with the same gentle and reluctant

-touch: “That the sea is the sweat of the

-earth, that the serpent before the fall went

-erect like man ... being neither consonant

-unto reason nor corresponding unto experiment,

-are unto us no axioms.” Thus Browne,

-and it is with the same tearful and chastened

-scepticism that Scheuchzer parts with the more

-outrageous “axioms” in his wonderful collection.

-But he retained enough to make his

-work amusing. Like Browne, he made it a

-rule to believe half that he was told. But on

-the subject of dragons he has no mental

-reservations. Their existence is proved by

-the number of caves that are admirably suited

-to the needs of the domestic dragon, and by

-the fact that the Museum, at Lucerne, contains

-an undoubted dragon stone. Such

-stones are rare, which is not surprising owing

-to the extreme difficulty of obtaining a genuine

-unimpaired specimen. You must first catch

-your dragon asleep, and then cut the stone

-out of his head. Should the dragon awake the

-value of the stone will disappear. Scheuchzer

-refrains from discouraging collectors by hinting

-at even more unpleasant possibilities. But

-then there is no need to awaken the dragon.

-Scatter soporific herbs around him, and help

-them out by recognised incantations, and the

-stone should be removed without arousing

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>

-the dragon. In spite of these anæsthetics,

-Scheuchzer admits that the process demands

-a courageous and skilled operator, and perhaps

-it is lucky that this particular stone was

-casually dropped by a passing dragon. It is

-obviously genuine, for, if the peasant who had

-picked it up had been dishonest, he would

-never have hit on so obvious and unimaginative

-a tale. He would have told some really

-striking story, such as that the stone had

-come from the far Indies. Besides, the stone

-not only cures hæmorrhages (quite commonplace

-stones will cure hæmorrhages), but

-also dysentery and plague. As to dragons,

-Scheuchzer is even more convincing. He has

-examined (on oath) scores of witnesses who

-had observed dragons at first hand. We need

-not linger to cross-examine these honest folk.

-Their dragons are highly coloured, and lack

-nothing but uniformity. Each new dragon

-that flies into Scheuchzer’s net is gravely

-classified. Some dragons have feet, others

-have wings. Some have scales. Scheuchzer

-is a little puzzled whether dragons with a

-crest constitute a class of their own, or

-whether the crest distinguished the male from

-the female. Each dragon is thus neatly

-ticketed into place and referred to the sworn

-deposition of some <i>vir quidam probus</i>.</p>

-

-<p>But the dragons had had their day.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>

-Scheuchzer ushers in the eighteenth century.

-Let us take leave of him with a friendly smile.

-He is no abstraction, but a very human soul.

-We forget the scientist, though his more

-serious discoveries were not without value.

-We remember only the worthy professor,

-panting up his laborious hills in search of

-quaint knowledge, discovering with simple

-joy that Gemmi is derived from “gemitus”

-a groan, <i>quod non nisi crebris gemitibus

-superetur</i>. No doubt the needy fraternity

-soon discovered his amiable weakness. An

-unending procession must have found their

-way to his door, only too anxious to supply

-him with dragons of wonderful and fearful

-construction. Hence, the infinite variety

-of these creatures. When we think of

-Scheuchzer, we somehow picture the poor old

-gentleman, laboriously rearranging his data,

-on the sworn deposition of some <i>clarissimus

-homo</i>, what time the latter was bartering in

-the nearest tavern the price of a dragon for

-that good cheer in which most of Scheuchzer’s

-fauna first saw the light of day.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br />

-

-<span class="large">THE OPENING UP OF THE ALPS</span></h2>

-

-<p>The climbs, so far chronicled, have been

-modest achievements and do not include a

-genuine snow-peak, for the Roche Melon has

-permanent snow on one side only. We have

-seen that many snow passes were in regular

-use from the earliest times; but genuine Alpine

-climbing may be said to begin with the ascent

-of the Titlis. According to Mr. Gribble, this

-was climbed by a monk of Engleberg, in 1739.

-Mr. Coolidge, on the other hand, states that

-it was ascended by four peasants, in 1744.

-In any case, the ascent was an isolated feat

-which gave no direct stimulus to Alpine

-climbing, and Mr. Gribble is correct in dating

-the continuous history of Alpine climbing

-from the discovery of Chamounix, in 1741.

-This famous valley had, of course, a history

-of its own before that date; but its existence

-was only made known, to a wider world, by

-the visit of a group of young Englishmen,

-towards the middle of the eighteenth century.</p>

-

-<p>In 1741, Geneva was enlivened by a vigorous

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>

-colony of young Britons. Of these, William

-Windham was a famous athlete, known on

-his return to London as “Boxing Windham.”

-While at Geneva, he seems, despite the presence

-of his “respectable perceptor,” Mr.

-Benjamin Stillingfleet, the grandson of the

-theologian, to have amused himself pretty

-thoroughly. The archives record that he

-was fined for assault and kindred offences.

-When these simple joys began to pall he

-decided to go to Chamounix in search of

-adventure.</p>

-

-<p>His party consisted of himself, Lord Haddington,

-Dr. Pococke, the Oriental traveller,

-and others. They visited Chamounix, and

-climbed the Montanvert with a large brigade

-of guides. The ascent to the Montanvert

-was not quite so simple as it is to-day, a fact

-which accounts for Windham’s highly coloured

-description. Windham published his account

-of the journey and his reflections on glaciers,

-in the <i>Journal Helvetique</i> of Neuchâtel, and

-later in London. It attracted considerable

-attention and focussed the eyes of the curious

-on the unknown valley of Chamounix. Among

-others, Peter Martel, an engineer of Geneva,

-was inspired to repeat the visit. Like Windham,

-he climbed the Montanvert and descended

-on to the Mer de Glace; and, like

-Windham, he published an account of the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span>

-journey and certain reflections on glaciers and

-glacier motion. His story is well worth reading,

-and the curious in such matters should

-turn either to Mr. Gribble’s <i>Early Mountaineers</i>,

-or to Mr. Matthews’ <i>The Annals of Mont

-Blanc</i>, where they will find Windham’s and

-Martel’s letters set forth in full.</p>

-

-<p>Martel’s letter and his map of Chamounix

-were printed together with Windham’s narrative,

-and were largely responsible for popularising

-Chamounix. Those who wished to earn

-a reputation for enterprise could hardly do

-so without a visit to the glaciers of Chamounix.

-Dr. John Moore, father of Sir John Moore,

-who accompanied the Duke of Hamilton on

-the grand tour, tells us that “one could

-hardly mention anything curious or singular

-without being told by some of those travellers,

-with an air of cool contempt: ‘Dear Sir, that

-is pretty well, but take my word for it, it is

-nothing to the glaciers of Savoy.’” The

-Duc de la Rochefoucauld considered that

-the honour of his nation demanded that he

-should visit the glaciers, to prove that the

-English were not alone in the possession of

-courage.</p>

-

-<p>More important, in this connection, than

-Dr. Moore or the duke is the great name of

-De Saussure. De Saussure belonged to an

-old French family that had been driven out

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span>

-of France during the Huguenot persecutions.

-They emigrated to Geneva, where De Saussure

-was born. His mother had Spartan views on

-education; and from his earlier years the child

-was taught to suffer the privations due to

-physical ills and the inclemency of the season.

-As a result of this adventurous training, De

-Saussure was irresistibly drawn to the mountains.

-He visited Chamounix in 1760, and

-was immediately struck by the possibility

-of ascending Mont Blanc. He does not seem

-to have cherished any ambition to make the

-first ascent in person. He was content to

-follow when once the way had been found;

-and he offered a reward to the pioneer, and

-promised to recompense any peasant who

-should lose a day’s work in trying to find the

-way to the summit of Mont Blanc. The

-reward was not claimed for many years, but,

-meanwhile, De Saussure never missed a chance

-of climbing a mountain. He climbed Ætna,

-and made a series of excursions in various

-parts of the Alps. When his wife complained,

-he indited a robust letter which every married

-mountaineer should keep up his sleeve for

-ready quotation.</p>

-

-<p>“In this valley, which I had not previously

-visited,” he writes, “I have made observations

-of the greatest importance, surpassing

-my highest hopes; but that is not what you

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span>

-care about. You would sooner&mdash;God forgive

-me for saying so&mdash;see me growing fat like a

-friar, and snoring every day in the chimney

-corner, after a big dinner, than that I should

-achieve immortal fame by the most sublime

-discoveries at the cost of reducing my weight

-by a few ounces and spending a few weeks

-away from you. If, then, I continue to take

-these journeys, in spite of the annoyance they

-cause you, the reason is that I feel myself

-pledged in honour to go on with them, and

-that I think it necessary to extend my knowledge

-on this subject and make my works as

-nearly perfect as possible. I say to myself:

-‘Just as an officer goes out to assault a fortress

-when the order is given, and just as a

-merchant goes to market on market-day, so

-must I go to the mountains when there are

-observations to be made.’”</p>

-

-<p>De Saussure was partly responsible for the

-great renaissance of mountain travel that

-began at Geneva in 1760. A group of enthusiastic

-mountaineers instituted a series of

-determined assaults on the unconquered snows.

-Of these, one of the most remarkable was

-Jean-Andre de Luc.</p>

-

-<p>De Luc was born at Geneva, in 1727. His

-father was a watchmaker, but De Luc’s life

-was cast on more ambitious lines. He began

-as a diplomatist, but gravitated insensibly to

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>

-science. He invented the hygrometer, and

-was elected a member of the Royal Societies

-of London, Dublin, and Göttingen. Charlotte,

-the wife of George III, appointed him her

-reader; and he died at Windsor, having

-attained the ripe age of ninety. He was a

-scientific, rather than a sentimental, mountaineer;

-his principal occupation was to

-discover the temperature at which water

-would boil at various altitudes. His chief

-claim to notice is that he made the first

-ascent of the Buet.</p>

-

-<p>The Buet is familiar to all who know

-Chamounix. It rises to the height of 10,291

-feet. Its summit is a broad plateau, glacier-capped.

-Those who have travelled to Italy

-by the Simplon may, perhaps, recall the

-broad-topped mountain that seems to block

-up the western end of the Rhone valley, for

-the Buet is a conspicuous feature on the line,

-between Sion and Brigue. It is not a difficult

-mountain, in the modern sense of the term;

-but, to climbers who knew little of the nature

-of snow and glacier, it must have presented

-quite a formidable appearance. De Luc made

-several attempts before he was finally successful

-on September 22, 1770. His description

-of the view from the summit is a fine piece

-of writing. Familiarity had not staled the

-glory of such moments; and men might still

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span>

-write, as they felt, without fear that their

-readers would be bored by emotions that had

-lost their novelty.</p>

-

-<p>Before leaving, De Luc observed that the

-party were standing on a cornice. A cornice

-is a crest of windblown snow overhanging a

-precipice. As the crest often appears perfectly

-continuous with the snow on solid

-foundation, cornices have been responsible

-for many fatal accidents. De Luc’s party

-naturally beat a hurried retreat; but “having

-gathered, by reflection, that the addition of

-our own weight to this prodigious mass which

-had supported itself for ages counted for

-absolutely nothing, and could not possibly

-break it loose, we laid aside our fears and

-went back to the terrible terrace.” A little

-science is a dangerous thing; and it was a

-mere chance that the first ascent of the Buet

-is not notorious for a terrible accident. It

-makes one’s blood run cold to read of the

-calm contempt with which De Luc treated the

-cornice. Each member of the party took it

-in turn to advance to the edge and look over

-on to the cliff below supported as to his coattails

-by the rest of the party.</p>

-

-<p>De Luc made a second ascent of the Buet,

-two years later; but it was not until 1779

-that a snow peak was again conquered. In

-that year Murith, the Prior of the St. Bernard

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>

-Hospice, climbed the Velan, the broad-topped

-peak which is so conspicuous a feature from

-the St. Bernard. It is a very respectable

-mountain rising to a height of 12,353 feet.

-Murith, besides being an ecclesiastic, was

-something of a scientist, and his botanical

-handbook to the Valais is not without merit.

-It is to Bourrit, of whom we shall speak

-later, that we owe the written account of the

-climb, based on information which Bourrit

-had at first hand from M. Murith.</p>

-

-<p>Murith started on August 30, 1779, with

-“two hardy hunters,” two thermometers, a

-barometer, and a spirit-level. They slept a

-night on the way, and proceeded to attack

-the mountain from the Glacier du Proz. The

-hardy hunters lost their nerve, and tried to

-dissuade M. Murith from the attempt; but

-the gallant Prior replied: “Fear nothing;

-wherever there is danger I will go in front.”

-They encountered numerous difficulties,

-amongst others a wall of ice which Murith

-climbed by hacking steps and hand-holds

-with a pointed hammer. One of the hardy

-huntsmen then followed; his companion had

-long since disappeared.</p>

-

-<p>They reached the summit without further

-difficulty, and their impressions of the view

-are recorded by Bourrit in an eloquent passage

-which recalls De Luc on the Buet, and once

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>

-more proves that the early mountaineers were

-fully alive to the glory of mountain tops&mdash;</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“A spectacle, no less amazing than magnificent,

-offered itself to their gaze. The sky

-seemed to be a black cloth enveloping the

-earth at a distance from it. The sun shining

-in it made its darkness all the more conspicuous.

-Down below their outlook extended

-over an enormous area, bristling with rocky

-peaks and cut by dark valleys. Mont Blanc

-rose like a sloping pyramid and its lofty head

-appeared to dominate all the Alps as one

-saw it towering above them. An imposing

-stillness, a majestic silence, produced an

-indescribable impression upon the mind. The

-noise of the avalanches, reiterated by the

-echoes, seemed to be the only thing that

-marked the march of time. Raised, so to

-say, above the head of Nature, they saw the

-mountains split asunder, and send the fragments

-rolling to their feet, and the rivers

-rising below them in places where inactive

-Nature seemed upon the point of death&mdash;though

-in truth it is there that she gathers

-strength to carry life and fertility throughout

-the world.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>It is curious in this connection to notice

-the part played by the Church in the early

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span>

-history of mountaineering. This is not surprising.

-The local curé lived in the shadow

-of the great peaks that dominated his valley.

-He was more cultured than the peasants of

-his parish; he was more alive to the spiritual

-appeal of the high places, and he naturally

-took a leading part in the assaults on his

-native mountains. The Titlis and Monte

-Leone were first climbed by local monks.

-The prior of the St. Bernard made, as we have

-seen, a remarkable conquest of a great local

-peak; and five years later M. Clément, the

-curé of Champery, reached the summit of

-the Dent du Midi, that great battlement of

-rock which forms a background to the eastern

-end of Lake Geneva. Bourrit, as we shall

-see, was an ecclesiastic with a great love for

-the snows. Father Placidus à Spescha was

-the pioneer of the Tödi; and local priests played

-their part in the early attempts on the Matterhorn

-from Italy. “One man, one mountain”

-was the rule of many an early pioneer; but

-Murith’s love of the snows was not exhausted

-by this ascent of the Velan. He had already

-explored the Valsorey glacier with Saussure,

-and the Otemma glacier with Bourrit. A few

-years after his conquest of the Velan he

-turned his attention to the fine wall of

-cliffs that binds in the Orny glacier on the

-south.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span></p>

-

-<p>Bourrit, who wrote up Murith’s notes on

-the Velan, was one of the most remarkable

-of this group of pioneers. He was a whole-hearted

-enthusiast, and the first man who

-devoted the most active years of his life to

-mountaineering. He wins our affection by

-the readiness with which he gave others due

-credit for their achievements, a generous

-characteristic which did not, however, survive

-the supreme test&mdash;Paccard’s triumph on

-Mont Blanc. Mountaineers at the end of the

-eighteenth century formed a close freemasonry

-less concerned with individual achievement

-than with the furthering of common

-knowledge. We have seen, for instance, that

-De Saussure cared little who made the first

-ascent of Mont Blanc provided that the way

-was opened up for future explorers. Bourrit’s

-actual record of achievement was small. His

-exploration was attended with little success.

-His best performance was the discovery, or

-rediscovery of the Col de Géant. His great

-ambition, the ascent of Mont Blanc, failed.

-Fatigue, or mountain sickness, or bad weather,

-spoiled his more ambitious climbs. But this

-matters little. He found his niche in Alpine

-history rather as a writer than as a mountaineer.

-He popularised the Alps. He was

-the first systematic writer of Alpine books, a

-fact which earned him the title, “Historian

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>

-of the Alps,” a title of which he was inordinately

-proud. Best of all, in an age when

-mountain appreciation was somewhat rare, he

-marked himself out by an unbounded enthusiasm

-for the hills.</p>

-

-<p>He was born in 1735, and in one of his

-memoirs he describes the moment when he

-first heard the call of the Alps: “It was from

-the summit of the Voirons that the view of

-the Alps kindled my desire to become acquainted

-with them. No one could give me

-any information about them except that they

-were the accursed mountains, frightful to look

-upon and uninhabited.” Bourrit began life

-as a miniature painter. A good many of his

-Alpine water colours have survived. Though

-they cannot challenge serious comparison

-with the mountain masterpieces of the sixteenth

-and seventeenth centuries, they are

-not without a certain merit. But Bourrit

-would not have become famous had he not

-deserted the brush for the pen. When the

-Alps claimed him, he gave up miniatures, and

-accepted an appointment as Precentor of

-Geneva Cathedral, a position which allowed

-him great leisure for climbing. He used to

-climb in the summer, and write up his journeys

-in the winter. He soon compiled a formidable

-list of books, and was hailed throughout

-Europe as the Historian of the Alps. There

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>

-was no absurd modesty about Bourrit. He

-accepted the position with serene dignity.

-His house, he tells us, is “embellished with

-beautiful acacias, planned for the comfort

-and convenience of strangers who do not

-wish to leave Geneva without visiting the

-Historian of the Alps.” He tells us that

-Prince Henry of Prussia, acting on the advice

-of Frederick the Great, honoured him with a

-visit. Bourrit, in fact, received recognition

-in many distinguished quarters. The Princess

-Louise of Prussia sent him an engraving to

-recall “a woman whom you have to some

-extent taught to share your lofty sentiments.”

-Bourrit was always popular with the ladies,

-and no climber has shown a more generous

-appreciation for the sex. “The sex is very

-beautiful here,” became, as Mr. Gribble tells

-us, “a formula with him as soon as he began

-writing and continued a formula after he had

-passed his threescore years and ten.”</p>

-

-<p>We have said that Bourrit’s actual record

-as a climber is rather disappointing. We

-may forget this, and remember only his

-whole-hearted devotion to the mountains.

-Even Gesner, Petrarch, and Marti seem

-balanced and cold when they set their tributes

-besides Bourrit’s large enthusiasm. Bourrit

-did not carry a barometer with him on his

-travels. He did not feel the need to justify

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>

-his wanderings by collecting a mass of scientific

-data. Nor did he assume that a mountain

-tour should be written up as a mere guide-book

-record of times and route. He is

-supremely concerned with the ennobling effect

-of mountain scenery on the human mind.</p>

-

-<p>“At Chamounix,” he writes, “I have seen

-persons of every party in the state, who

-imagined that they loathed each other, nevertheless

-treating one another with courtesy,

-and even walking together. Returning to

-Geneva, and encountering the reproaches of

-their various friends, they merely answered

-in their defence, ‘Go, as we have gone, to

-the Montanvert, and take our share of the

-pure air that is to be breathed there; look

-thence at the unfamiliar beauties of Nature;

-contemplate from that terrace the greatness

-of natural objects and the littleness of man;

-and you will no longer be astonished that

-Nature has enabled us to subdue our passions.’

-It is, in fact, the mountains that many men

-have to thank for their reconciliation with

-their fellows, and with the human race; and

-it is there that the rulers of the world and the

-heads of the nations ought to hold their

-meetings. Raised thus above the arena of

-passions and petty interests, and placed more

-immediately under the influence of Divine

-inspiration, one would see them descend from

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span>

-these mountains, each like a new Moses

-bringing with them codes of law based upon

-equity and justice.”</p>

-

-<p>This is fine writing with a vengeance, just

-as Ruskin’s greatest passages are fine writing.

-Before we take our leave of Bourrit, let us see

-the precentor of the cathedral exhorting a

-company of guides with sacerdotal dignity.

-One is irresistibly reminded of Japan, where

-mountaineering and sacrificial rites go hand

-in hand&mdash;</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“The Historian of the Alps, in rendering

-them this justice in the presence of a great

-throng of people, seized the opportunity

-of exhorting the new guides to observe the

-virtues proper to their state in life. ‘Put

-yourselves,’ he said to them, ‘in the place of

-the strangers, who come from the most distant

-lands to admire the marvels of Nature under

-these wild and savage aspects; and justify the

-confidence which they repose in you. You

-have learnt the great part which these magnificent

-objects of our contemplation play in

-the organisation of the world; and, in pointing

-out their various phenomena to their astonished

-eyes, you will rejoice to see people raise

-their thoughts to the omnipotence of the

-Great Being who created them.’ The speaker

-was profoundly moved by the ideas with

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>

-which the subject inspired him, and it was

-impossible for his listeners not to share in his

-emotion.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>Let us remember that Bourrit put his

-doctrine into practice. He has told us that

-he found men of diverse creeds reconciled

-beneath the shadow of Mont Blanc. Bourrit

-himself was a mountaineer first, and an

-ecclesiastic second. Perhaps he was no

-worse as a Protestant precentor because the

-mountains had taught him their eternal

-lessons of tolerance and serene indifference

-to the petty issues which loom so large beneath

-the shadow of the cathedral. Catholic

-or Protestant it was all the same to our good

-precentor, provided the man loved the hills.

-Prior Murith was his friend; and every

-Catholic mountaineer should be grateful to

-his memory, for he persuaded one of their

-archbishops to dispense climbers from the

-obligation of fasting in Lent.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br />

-

-<span class="large">THE STORY OF MONT BLANC</span></h2>

-

-<p>The history of Mont Blanc has been made

-the subject of an excellent monograph, and

-the reader who wishes to supplement the

-brief sketch which is all that we can attempt

-should buy <i>The Annals of Mont Blanc</i>, by

-Mr. C. E. Mathews. We have already seen

-that De Saussure offered a reward in 1760 to

-any peasant who could find a way to the

-summit of Mont Blanc. In the quarter-of-a-century

-that followed, several attempts were

-made. Amongst others, Bourrit tried on two

-occasions to prove the accessibility of Mont

-Blanc. Bourrit himself never reached a

-greater height than 10,000 feet; but some

-of his companions attained the very respectable

-altitude of 14,300 feet. De Saussure

-attacked the mountain without success in

-1785, leaving the stage ready for the entrance

-of the most theatrical of mountaineers.</p>

-

-<p>Jacques Balmat, the hero of Mont Blanc,

-impresses himself upon the imagination as

-no other climber of the day. He owes his

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span>

-fame mainly, of course, to his great triumph,

-but also, not a little, to the fact that he was

-interviewed by Alexandre Dumas the Elder,

-who immortalised him in <i>Impressions de

-Voyage</i>. For the moment, we shall not

-bother to criticise its accuracy. We know

-that Balmat reached the summit of Mont

-Blanc; and that outstanding fact is about

-the only positive contribution to the story

-which has not been riddled with destructive

-criticism. The story should be read in the

-original, though Dumas’ vigorous French loses

-little in Mr. Gribble’s spirited translation

-from which I shall borrow.</p>

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_061.jpg" alt="" />

-<table>

-  <tr>

-    <td>A</td>

-    <td>Summit</td>

-    <td>of</td>

-    <td>Mont Blanc</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>B</td>

-    <td class="tdc">”</td>

-    <td class="tdc">”</td>

-    <td>Dôme du Gouter</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>C</td>

-    <td class="tdc">”</td>

-    <td class="tdc">”</td>

-    <td>Aiguille du Gouter</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>D</td>

-    <td class="tdc">”</td>

-    <td class="tdc">”</td>

-    <td>Aiguille de Bianossay</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>E</td>

-    <td class="tdc">”</td>

-    <td class="tdc">”</td>

-    <td>Mont Maudit</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>E′</td>

-    <td class="tdc">”</td>

-    <td class="tdc">”</td>

-    <td>Mont Blanc du Tacul</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>F</td>

-    <td class="tdc">”</td>

-    <td class="tdc">”</td>

-    <td>Aiguille du Midi</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>G</td>

-    <td colspan="3">Grand Mulets</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>H</td>

-    <td colspan="3">Grand Plateau</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>L</td>

-    <td colspan="3">Les Bosses du Dromadaire</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>M</td>

-    <td colspan="3">Glacier des Bossons</td>

-  </tr>

-  <tr>

-    <td>N</td>

-    <td colspan="3">Glacier de Taconnaz</td>

-  </tr>

-</table>

-</div>

-

-<p>Dumas visited Chamounix in 1883. Balmat

-was then a veteran, and, of course, the great

-person of the valley. Dumas lost no time in

-making his acquaintance. We see them sitting

-together over a bottle of wine, and we

-can picture for ourselves the subtle art with

-which the great interviewer drew out the old

-guide. But Balmat shall tell his own story&mdash;</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“H’m. Let me see. It was in 1786. I

-was five-and-twenty; that makes me seventy-two

-to-day. What a fellow I was! With the

-devil’s own calves and hell’s own stomach.

-I could have gone three days without bite or

-sup. I had to do so once when I got lost on

-the Buet. I just munched a little snow, and

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span>

-that was all. And from time to time I looked

-across at Mont Blanc saying, ‘Say what you

-like, my beauty, and do what you like. Some

-day I shall climb you.’”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>Balmat then tells us how he persuaded his

-wife that he was on his way to collect crystals.

-He climbed steadily throughout the day, and

-night found him on a great snowfield somewhere

-near the Grand Plateau. The situation

-was sufficiently serious. To be benighted on

-Mont Blanc is a fate which would terrify a

-modern climber, even if he were one of a large

-party. Balmat was alone, and the mental

-strain of a night alone on a glacier can only

-be understood by those who have felt the

-uncanny terror that often attacks the solitary

-wanderer even in the daytime. Fortunately,

-Balmat does not seem to have been bothered

-with nerves. His fears expressed themselves

-in tangible shape.</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“Presently the moon rose pale and encircled

-by clouds, which hid it altogether at about

-eleven o’clock. At the same time a rascally

-mist came on from the Aiguille du Gouter,

-which had no sooner reached me than it began

-to spit snow in my face. Then I wrapped my

-head in my handkerchief, and said: ‘Fire

-away. You’re not hurting me.’ At every

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span>

-instant I heard the falling avalanches making

-a noise like thunder. The glaciers split, and

-at every split I felt the mountain move. I

-was neither hungry nor thirsty; and I had an

-extraordinary headache which took me at

-the crown of the skull, and worked its way

-down to the eyelids. All this time, the mist

-never lifted. My breath had frozen on my

-handkerchief; the snow had made my clothes

-wet; I felt as if I were naked. Then I redoubled

-the rapidity of my movements, and

-began to sing, in order to drive away the

-foolish thoughts that came into my head. My

-voice was lost in the snow; no echo answered

-me. I held my tongue, and was afraid. At

-two o’clock the sky paled towards the east.

-With the first beams of day, I felt my courage

-coming back to me. The sun rose, battling

-with the clouds which covered the mountain

-top; my hope was that it would scatter them;

-but at about four o’clock the clouds got

-denser, and I recognised that it would be

-impossible for me just then to go any further.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>He spent a second night on the mountain,

-which was, on the whole, more comfortable

-than the first, as he passed it on the rocks of

-the Montagne de la Côte. Before he returned

-home, Balmat planned a way to the summit.

-And now comes the most amazing part of the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>

-story. He had no sooner returned home than

-he met three men starting off for the mountain.

-A modern mountaineer, who had spent two

-nights, alone, high up on Mont Blanc, would

-consider himself lucky to reach Chamounix

-alive; once there, he would go straight to bed

-for some twenty-four hours. But Balmat was

-built of iron. He calmly proposed to accompany

-his friends; and, having changed his

-stockings, he started out again for the great

-mountain, on which he had spent the previous

-two nights. The party consisted of François

-Paccard, Joseph Carrier, and Jean Michel

-Tournier. They slept on the mountain; and

-next morning they were joined by two other

-guides, Pierre Balmat and Marie Couttet.

-They did not get very far, and soon turned

-back&mdash;all save Balmat. Balmat, who seems

-to have positively enjoyed his nights on the

-glacier, stayed behind.</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“I laid my knapsack on the snow, drew

-my handkerchief over my face like a curtain,

-and made the best preparations that I could

-for passing a night like the previous one.

-However, as I was about two thousand feet

-higher, the cold was more intense; a fine

-powdery snow froze me; I felt a heaviness

-and an irresistible desire to sleep; thoughts,

-sad as death, came into my mind, and I knew

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span>

-well that these sad thoughts and this desire

-to sleep were a bad sign, and that if I had

-the misfortune to close my eyes I should

-never open them again. From the place

-where I was, I saw, ten thousand feet below

-me, the lights of Chamounix, where my comrades

-were warm and tranquil by their firesides

-or in their beds. I said to myself:

-‘Perhaps there is not a man among them

-who gives a thought to me. Or, if there

-is one of them who thinks of Balmat, no

-doubt he pokes his fire into a blaze, or draws

-his blanket over his ears, saying, ‘That ass of

-a Jacques is wearing out his shoe leather.

-Courage, Balmat!’”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>Balmat may have been a braggart, but it

-is sometimes forgotten by his critics that he

-had something to brag about. Even if he

-had never climbed Mont Blanc, this achievement

-would have gone down to history as

-perhaps the boldest of all Alpine adventures.

-To sleep one night, alone, above the snow line

-is a misfortune that has befallen many

-climbers. Some have died, and others have

-returned, thankful. One may safely say that

-no man has started out for the same peak,

-and willingly spent a third night under even

-worse conditions than the first. Three nights

-out of four in all. We are charitably assuming

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>

-that this part of Balmat’s story is true.

-There is at least no evidence to the contrary.</p>

-

-<p>Naturally enough, Balmat did not prosecute

-the attempt at once. He returned to

-Chamounix, and sought out the local doctor,

-Michel Paccard. Paccard agreed to accompany

-him. They left Chamounix at five in

-the evening, and slept on the top of the

-Montagne de la Côte. They started next

-morning at two o’clock. According to Balmat’s

-account, the doctor played a sorry

-part in the day’s climb. It was only by some

-violent encouragement that he was induced

-to proceed at all.</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“After I had exhausted all my eloquence,

-and saw that I was only losing my time, I

-told him to keep moving about as best he

-could. He heard without understanding, and

-kept answering ‘Yes, yes,’ in order to get rid

-of me. I perceived that he must be suffering

-from cold. So I left him the bottle, and set

-off alone, telling him that I would come back

-and look for him. ‘Yes, yes,’ he answered.

-I advised him not to sit still, and started off.

-I had not gone thirty steps before I turned

-round and saw that, instead of running about

-and stamping his feet, he had sat down, with

-his back to the wind&mdash;a precaution of a sort.

-From that minute onwards, the track presented

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>

-no great difficulty; but, as I rose higher and

-higher, the air became more and more unfit

-to breathe. Every few steps, I had to stop

-like a man in a consumption. It seemed to

-me that I had no lungs left, and that my chest

-was hollow. Then I folded my handkerchief

-like a scarf, tied it over my mouth and breathed

-through it; and that gave me a little relief.

-However, the cold gripped me more and more;

-it took me an hour to go a quarter of a league.

-I looked down as I walked; but, finding myself

-in a spot which I did not recognise, I raised

-my eyes, and saw that I had at last reached

-the summit of Mont Blanc.</p>

-

-<p>“Then I looked around me, fearing to find

-that I was mistaken, and to catch sight of

-some aiguille or some fresh point above me;

-if there had been, I should not have had the

-strength to climb it. For it seems to me that

-the joints of my legs were only held in their

-proper place by my breeches. But no&mdash;it was

-not so. I had reached the end of my journey.

-I had come to a place where no one&mdash;where

-not the eagle or the chamois&mdash;had ever been

-before me. I had got there, alone, without

-any other help than that of my own strength

-and my own will. Everything that surrounded

-me seemed to be my property. I was the

-King of Mont Blanc&mdash;the statue of this

-tremendous pedestal.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span></p>

-

-<p>“Then I turned towards Chamounix, waving

-my hat at the end of my stick, and saw,

-by the help of my glass, that my signals were

-being answered.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>Balmat returned, found the doctor in a

-dazed condition, and piloted him to the summit,

-which they reached shortly after six

-o’clock.</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“It was seven o’clock in the evening; we

-had only two-and-a-half hours of daylight

-left; we had to go. I took Paccard by the

-arm, and once more waved my hat as a last

-signal to our friends in the valley; and the

-descent began. There was no track to guide

-us; the wind was so cold that even the snow

-on the surface had not thawed; all that we

-could see on the ice was the little holes made

-by the iron points of our stick. Paccard was

-no better than a child, devoid of energy and

-will-power, whom I had to guide in the easy

-places and carry in the hard ones. Night was

-already beginning to fall when we crossed the

-crevasse; it finally overtook us at the foot

-of the Grand Plateau. At every instant,

-Paccard stopped, declaring that he could go

-no further; at every halt, I obliged him to

-resume his march, not by persuasion, for he

-understood nothing but force. At eleven, we

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>

-at last escaped from the regions of ice, and

-set foot upon <i>terra firma</i>; the last afterglow

-of the sunset had disappeared an hour before.

-Then I allowed Paccard to stop, and prepared

-to wrap him up again in the blanket, when I

-perceived that he was making no use whatever

-of his hands. I drew his attention to the

-fact. He answered that that was likely

-enough, as he no longer had any sensation in

-them. I drew off his gloves, and found that

-his hands were white and, as it were, dead;

-for my own part, I felt a numbness in the hand

-on which I wore his little glove in place of

-my own thick one. I told him we had three

-frost-bitten hands between us; but he seemed

-not to mind in the least, and only wanted to

-lie down and go to sleep. As for myself,

-however, he told me to rub the affected part

-with snow, and the remedy was not far to

-seek. I commenced operations upon him and

-concluded them upon myself. Soon the blood

-resumed its course, and with the blood, the

-heat returned, but accompanied by acute

-pain, as though every vein were being pricked

-with needles. I wrapped my baby up in his

-blanket, and put him to bed under the shelter

-of a rock. We ate a little, drank a glass of

-something, squeezed ourselves as close to

-each other as we could, and went to sleep.</p>

-

-<p>“At six the next morning Paccard awoke

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>

-me. ‘It’s strange, Balmat,’ he said, ‘I hear

-the birds singing, and don’t see the daylight.

-I suppose I can’t open my eyes.’ Observe

-that his eyes were as wide open as the Grand

-Duke’s. I told him he must be mistaken, and

-could see quite well. Then he asked me to

-give him a little snow, melted it in the hollow

-of his hand, and rubbed his eyelids with it.

-When this was done, he could see no better

-than before; only his eyes hurt him a great

-deal more. ‘Come now, it seems that I am

-blind, Balmat. How am I to get down?’ he

-continued. ‘Take hold of the strap of my

-knapsack and walk behind me; that’s what

-you must do.’ And in this style we came

-down, and reached the village of La Côte.

-There, as I feared that my wife would be

-uneasy about me, I left the doctor, who

-found his way home by fumbling with his

-stick, and returned to my own house. Then,

-for the first time, I saw what I looked like.

-I was unrecognisable. My eyes were red; my

-face was black; my lips were blue. Whenever

-I laughed or yawned, the blood spurted from

-my lips and cheeks; and I could only see in

-a dark room.”</p>

-

-<p>“‘And did Dr. Paccard continue blind?’

-‘Blind, indeed! He died eleven months ago,

-at the age of seventy-nine, and could still

-read without spectacles. Only his eyes were

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span>

-diabolically red.’ ‘As the consequence of his

-ascent?’ ‘Not a bit of it.’ ‘Why, then?’

-‘The old boy was a bit of a tippler.’ And

-so saying Jacques Balmat emptied his third

-bottle.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>The last touch is worthy of Dumas; and the

-whole story is told in the Ercles vein. As

-literature it is none the worse for that. It

-was a magnificent achievement; and we can

-pardon the vanity of the old guide looking

-back on the greatest moment of his life. But

-as history the interview is of little value.

-The combination of Dumas and Balmat was

-a trifle too strong for what Clough calls “the

-mere it was.” The dramatic unities tempt one

-to leave Balmat, emptying his third bottle,

-and to allow the merry epic to stand unchallenged.

-But the importance of this first

-ascent forces one to sacrifice romance for the

-sober facts.</p>

-

-<p>The truth about that first ascent had to

-wait more than a hundred years. The final

-solution is due, in the main, to three men,

-Dr. Dübi (the famous Swiss mountaineer),

-Mr. Freshfield, and Mr. Montagnier. Dr.

-Dübi’s book, <i>Paccard wider Balmat, oder Die

-Entwicklung einer Legende</i>, gives the last word

-on this famous case. For a convenient summary

-of Dr. Dübi’s arguments, the reader

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span>

-should consult Mr. Freshfield’s excellent review

-of his book that appeared in the <i>Alpine

-Journal</i> for May 1913. The essential facts are

-as follows. Dr. Dübi has been enabled to

-produce a diary of an eye-witness of the great

-ascent. A distinguished German traveller,

-Baron von Gersdorf, watched Balmat and

-Paccard through a telescope, made careful

-notes, illustrated by diagrams of the route,

-and, at the request of Paccard’s father, a

-notary of Chamounix, signed, with his friend

-Von Meyer, a certificate of what he had seen.

-This certificate is still preserved at Chamounix,

-and Von Gersdorf’s diary and correspondence

-have recently been discovered at Görlitz.

-Here is the vital sentence in his diary, as

-translated by Mr. Freshfield: “They started

-again [from the Petits Rochers Rouges], at

-5.45 p.m., halted for a moment about every

-hundred yards, <i>changed occasionally the leadership</i>

-[the italics are mine], at 6.12 p.m. gained

-two rocks protruding from the snow, and at

-6.23 p.m. were on the actual summit.” The

-words italicised prove that Balmat did not

-lead throughout. The remainder of the

-sentence shows that Balmat was not the first

-to arrive on the summit, and that the whole

-fabric of the Dumas legend is entirely false.</p>

-

-<p>But Dumas was not alone responsible for

-the Balmat myth. This famous fiction was,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>

-in the main, due to a well-known Alpine character,

-whom we have dealt with at length in

-our third chapter. The reader may remember

-that Bourrit’s enthusiasm for mountaineering

-was only equalled by his lack of success. We

-have seen that Bourrit had set his heart on

-the conquest of Mont Blanc, and that Bourrit

-failed in this ambition, both before, and after

-Balmat’s ascent. In many ways, Bourrit was

-a great man. He was fired with an undaunted

-enthusiasm for the Alps at a time when such

-enthusiasm was the hall-mark of a select

-circle. He justly earned his title, the Historian

-of the Alps; and in his earlier years he was

-by no means ungenerous to more fortunate

-climbers. But this great failing, an inordinate

-vanity, grew with years. He could just

-manage to forgive Balmat, for Balmat was a

-guide; but Paccard, the amateur, had committed

-the unforgivable offence.</p>

-

-<p>It was no use pretending that Paccard had

-not climbed Mont Blanc, for Paccard had been

-seen on the summit. Bourrit took the only

-available course. He was determined to

-injure Paccard’s prospects of finding subscribers

-for a work which the doctor proposed

-to publish, dealing with his famous climb.

-With this in view, Bourrit wrote the notorious

-letter of September 20, 1786, which first

-appeared as a pamphlet, and was later published

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>

-in several papers. We need not reproduce

-the letter. The main points which

-Bourrit endeavoured to make were that the

-doctor failed at the critical stage of the

-ascent, that Balmat left him, reached the top,

-and returned to insist on Paccard dragging

-himself somehow to the summit; that Paccard

-wished to exploit Balmat’s achievements, and

-was posing as the conqueror of Mont Blanc;

-that, with this in view, he was appealing for

-subscribers for a book, in which, presumably,

-Balmat would be ignored, while poor Balmat,

-a simple peasant, who knew nothing of Press

-advertisement, would lose the glory that was

-his just meed. It was a touching picture;

-and we, who know the real Balmat as a genial

-<i>blageur</i>, may smile gently when we hear him

-described as <i>le pauvre Balmat à qui l’on

-doit cette découverte reste presque ignoré, et

-ignore qu’il y ait des journalistes, des journaux,

-et que l’on puisse par le moyen de ces trompettes

-littéraires obtenir du Public une sorte d’admiration</i>.

-De Saussure, who from the first gave

-Paccard due credit for his share in the climb,

-seems to have warned Bourrit that he was

-making a fool of himself. Bourrit appears to

-have been impressed, for he added a postscript

-in which he toned down some of his remarks,

-and conceded grudgingly that Paccard’s share

-in the ascent was, perhaps, larger than he had

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>

-at first imagined. But this relapse into decent

-behaviour did not survive an anonymous reply

-to his original pamphlet which appeared in

-the <i>Journal de Lausanne</i>, on February 24,

-1787. This reply gave Paccard’s story, and

-stung Bourrit into a reply which was nothing

-better than a malicious falsehood. “Balmat’s

-story,” he wrote, “seems very natural ...

-and is further confirmed by an eye-witness,

-M. le Baron de Gersdorf, who watched the

-climbers through his glasses; and this stranger

-was so shocked by the indifference (to use

-no stronger word) shown by M. Paccard to

-his companion that he reprinted my letter in

-his own country, in order to start a subscription

-in favour of poor Balmat.”</p>

-

-<p>Fortunately, we now know what Gersdorf

-saw through his glasses, and we also know

-that Gersdorf wrote immediately to Paccard,

-“disclaiming altogether the motive assigned

-for his action in raising a subscription.”

-Paccard was fortunately able to publish two

-very effective replies to this spiteful attack.

-In the <i>Journal de Lausanne</i> for May 18 he

-reproduced two affidavits by Balmat, both

-properly attested. These ascribe to Paccard

-the honour of planning the expedition, and

-his full share of the work, and also state that

-Balmat had been paid for acting as guide.

-The first of these documents has disappeared.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span>

-The second, which is entirely in Balmat’s handwriting,

-is still in existence. Balmat, later in

-life, made some ridiculous attempt to suggest

-that he had signed a blank piece of paper;

-but the fact that even Bourrit seems to have

-considered this statement a trifle too absurd

-to quote is in itself enough to render such

-a protest negligible. Besides, Balmat was

-shrewd enough not to swear before witnesses

-to a document which he had never seen. It

-is almost pleasant to record that a dispute

-between the doctor and Balmat, in the high

-street of Chamounix, resulted in Balmat

-receiving a well-merited blow on his nose

-from the doctor’s umbrella, which laid him

-in the dust. It is in some ways a pity that

-Dumas did not meet Paccard. The incident

-of the umbrella might then have been worked

-up to the proper epic proportions.</p>

-

-<p>This much we may now regard as proved.

-Paccard took at least an equal share in the

-great expedition. Balmat was engaged as a

-guide, and was paid as such. The credit for

-the climb must be divided between these two

-men; and the discredit of causing strained

-relations between them must be assigned to

-Bourrit. Meanwhile, it is worth adding that

-the traditions of the De Saussure family are

-all in favour of Balmat. De Saussure’s

-grandson stated that Balmat’s sole object in

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span>

-climbing Mont Blanc was the hope of pecuniary

-gain. He even added that the main reason

-for his final attempt with Paccard was that

-Paccard, being an amateur, would not claim

-half the reward promised by De Saussure.

-As to Paccard, “everything we know of him,”

-writes Mr. Freshfield, “is to his credit.” His

-scientific attainments were undoubtedly insignificant

-compared to a Bonnet or a De

-Saussure. Yet he was a member of the

-Academy of Turin, he contributed articles

-to a scientific periodical published in Paris,

-he corresponded with De Saussure about his

-barometrical observations. He is described by

-a visitor to Chamounix, in 1788, in the following

-terms: “We also visited Dr. Paccard,

-who gave us a very plain and modest account

-of his ascent of Mont Blanc, for which bold

-undertaking he does not seem to assume to

-himself any particular merit, but asserts that

-any one with like physical powers could have

-performed the task equally well.” De Saussure’s

-grandson, who has been quoted against

-Balmat, is equally emphatic in his approval

-of Paccard. Finally, both Dr. Dübi and

-Mr. Freshfield agree that, as regards the

-discovery of the route: “Paccard came first

-into the field, and was the more enterprising

-of the two.”</p>

-

-<p>Bourrit, by the way, had not even the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>

-decency to be consistent. He spoiled, as we

-have seen, poor Paccard’s chances of obtaining

-subscribers for his book, and, later in life, he

-quarrelled with Balmat. Von Gersdorf had

-started a collection for Balmat, and part of

-the money had to pass through Bourrit’s

-hands. A great deal of it remained there.

-Bourrit seems to have been temporarily inconvenienced.

-We need not believe that he had

-any intention of retaining the money permanently,

-but Balmat was certainly justified in

-complaining to Von Gersdorf. Bourrit received

-a sharp letter from Von Gersdorf, and

-never forgave Balmat. In one of his later

-books, he reversed his earlier judgment and

-pronounced in favour of Paccard.</p>

-

-<p>Bourrit discredited himself by the Mont

-Blanc episode with the more discerning of his

-contemporaries. De Saussure seems to have

-written him down, judging by the traditions

-that have survived in his family. Wyttenbach,

-a famous Bernese savant, is even more

-emphatic. “All who know him realise Bourrit

-to be a conceited toad, a flighty fool, a

-bombastic swaggerer.” Mr. Freshfield, however,

-quotes a kinder and more discriminating

-criticism by the celebrated Bonnet, ending

-with the words: <i>Il faut, néanmoins, lui tenir

-compte de son ardeur et de son courage.</i>

-“With these words,” says Mr. Freshfield,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>

-“let us leave ‘notre Bourrit’; for by his

-passion for the mountains he remains one

-of us.”</p>

-

-<p>Poor Bourrit! It is with real regret that

-one chronicles the old precentor’s lapses.

-Unfortunately, every age has its Bourrit, but

-it is only fair to remember that Bourrit often

-showed a very generous appreciation of other

-climbers. He could not quite forgive Paccard.

-Let us remember his passion for the snows.

-Let us forget the rest.</p>

-

-<p>It is pleasant to record that De Saussure’s

-old ambition was gratified, and that he

-succeeded in reaching the summit of Mont

-Blanc in July 1787. Nor is this his only great

-expedition. He camped out for a fortnight

-on the Col de Géant, a remarkable performance.

-He visited Zermatt, then in a very uncivilised

-condition, and made the first ascent of the

-Petit Mont Cervin. He died in 1799.</p>

-

-<p>As for Balmat, he became a guide, and in

-this capacity earned a very fair income.

-Having accumulated some capital, he cast

-about for a profitable investment. Two perfect

-strangers, whom he met on the high road,

-solved his difficulty in a manner highly satisfactory

-as far as they were concerned. They

-assured him that they were bankers, and

-that they would pay him five per cent. on his

-capital. The first of these statements may

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>

-have been true, the second was false. He

-did not see the bankers or his capital again.

-Shortly after this initiation into high finance,

-he left Chamounix to search for a mythical

-gold-mine among the glaciers of the valley

-of Sixt. He disappeared and was never seen

-again. He left a family of four sons, two of

-whom were killed in the Napoleonic wars.

-His great-nephew became the favourite guide

-of Mr. Justice Wills, with whom he climbed

-the Wetterhorn.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br />

-

-<span class="large">MONTE ROSA AND THE BÜNDNER OBERLAND</span></h2>

-

-<p>The conquest of Mont Blanc was the most

-important mountaineering achievement of the

-period; but good work was also being done

-in other parts of the Alps. Monte Rosa, as

-we soon shall see, had already attracted the

-adventurous, and the Bündner Oberland gave

-one great name to the story of Alpine adventure.

-We have already noted the important

-part played by priests in the conquest of the

-Alps; and Catholic mountaineers may well

-honour the memory of Placidus à Spescha as

-one of the greatest of the climbing priesthood.</p>

-

-<p>Father Placidus was born in 1782 at Truns.

-As a boy he joined the Friars of Disentis, and

-after completing his education at Einsiedeln,

-where he made good use of an excellent

-library, returned again to Disentis. As a

-small boy, he had tended his father’s flocks

-and acquired a passionate love for the

-mountains of his native valley. As a monk,

-he resumed the hill wanderings, which he

-continued almost to the close of a long life.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span></p>

-

-<p>He was an unfortunate man. The French

-Revolution made itself felt in Graubünden;

-and with the destruction of the monastery

-all his notes and manuscripts were burned.

-When the Austrians ousted the French, he was

-even more luckless; as a result of a sermon

-on the text “Put not your trust in princes”

-he was imprisoned in Innsbruck for eighteen

-months. He came back only to be persecuted

-afresh. Throughout his life, his wide learning

-and tolerant outlook invited the suspicion of

-the envious and narrow-minded; and on his

-return to Graubünden he was accused of

-heresy. His books and his manuscripts were

-confiscated, and he was forbidden to climb.

-After a succession of troubled years, he returned

-to Truns; and though he had passed his

-seventieth year he still continued to climb.

-As late as 1824, he made two attempts on the

-Tödi. On his last attempt, he reached a gap,

-now known as the Porta da Spescha, less than

-a thousand feet below the summit; and from

-this point he watched, with mixed feelings,

-the two chamois hunters he had sent forward

-reach the summit. He died at the age of

-eighty-two. One wishes that he had attained

-in person his great ambition, the conquest of

-the Tödi; but, even though he failed on this

-outstanding peak, he had several good performances

-to his credit, amongst others the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span>

-first ascent of the Stockgron (11,411 feet) in

-1788, the Rheinwaldhorn (11,148 feet) in

-1789, the Piz Urlaun (11,063 feet) in 1793, and

-numerous other important climbs.</p>

-

-<p>His list of ascents is long, and proves a

-constant devotion to the hills amongst which

-he passed the happiest hours of an unhappy

-life. “Placidus à Spescha”&mdash;there was little

-placid in his life save the cheerful resignation

-with which he faced the buffetings of fortune.

-He was a learned and broad-minded man; and

-the mountains, with their quiet sanity, seem

-to have helped him to bear constant vexation

-caused by small-minded persons. These suspicions

-of heresy must have proved very

-wearisome to “the mountaineer who missed

-his way and strayed into the Priesthood.” He

-must have felt that his opponents were,

-perhaps, justified, that the mountains had

-given him an interpretation of his beliefs that

-was, perhaps, wider than the creed of Rome,

-and that he himself had found a saner outlook

-in those temples of a larger faith to which he

-lifted up his eyes for help. As a relief from

-a hostile and unsympathetic atmosphere, let

-us hope that he discovered some restful

-anodyne among the tranquil broadness of the

-upper snows. The fatigue and difficulties of

-long mountain tramps exhaust the mind, to

-the exclusion of those little cares which seem

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span>

-so great in the artificial life of the valley.

-Certainly, the serene indifference of the hills

-found a response in the quiet philosophy of his

-life. Very little remains of all that he must

-have written, very little&mdash;only a few words,

-in which he summed up the convictions which

-life had given him. “When I carefully consider

-the fortune and ill-fortune that have

-befallen me, I have difficulty in determining

-which of the two has been the more profitable

-since a man without trials is a man without

-experience, and such a one is without insight&mdash;<i>vexatio

-dat intellectum</i>.” A brave confession

-of a good faith, and in his case no vain

-utterance, but the sincere summary of a

-philosophy which coloured his whole outlook

-on life.</p>

-

-<p>The early history of Monte Rosa has an

-appeal even stronger than the story of Mont

-Blanc. It begins with the Renaissance. From

-the hills around Milan, Leonardo da Vinci had

-seen the faint flush of dawn on Monte Rosa

-beyond&mdash;</p>

-

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">A thousand shadowy pencilled valleys<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">And snowy dells in a golden air.<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-

-<p>The elusive vision had provoked his restless,

-untiring spirit to search out the secrets of

-Monte Rosa. The results of that expedition

-have already been noticed.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span></p>

-

-<p>After Da Vinci there is a long gap.

-Scheuchzer had heard of Monte Rosa, but

-contents himself with the illuminating remark

-that “a stiff accumulation of perpetual ice is

-attached to it.” De Saussure visited Macunagna

-in 1789, but disliked the inhabitants

-and complained of their inhospitality. He

-passed on, after climbing an unimportant

-snow peak, the Pizzo Bianco (10,552 feet).

-His story is chiefly interesting for an allusion

-to one of the finest of the early Alpine expeditions.

-In recent years, a manuscript containing

-a detailed account of this climb has

-come to light, and supplements the vague

-story which De Saussure had heard.</p>

-

-<p>Long ago, in the Italian valleys of Monte

-Rosa, there was a legend of a happy valley,

-hidden away between the glaciers of the great

-chain. In this secret and magic vale, the

-flowers bloomed even in winter, and the

-chamois found grazing when less happy

-pastures were buried by the snow. So ran

-the tale, which the mothers of Alagna and

-Gressoney told to their children. The discovery

-of the happy valley was due to Jean

-Joseph Beck. Beck was a domestic servant

-with the soul of a pioneer, and the organising

-talent that makes for success. He had heard

-a rumour that a few men from Alagna had

-determined to find the valley. Beck was a

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>

-Gressoney man; and he determined that

-Gressoney should have the honour of the

-discovery. Again and again, in Alpine history,

-we find this rivalry between adjoining

-valleys acting as an incentive of great ascents.

-Beck collected a large party, including “a

-man of learning,” by name Finzens (Vincent).

-With due secrecy, they set out on a Sunday

-of August 1788.</p>

-

-<p>They started from their sleeping places at

-midnight, and roped carefully. They had

-furnished themselves with climbing irons and

-alpenstocks. They suffered from mountain

-sickness and loss of appetite, but pluckily

-determined to proceed. At the head of the

-glacier, they “encountered a slope of rock

-devoid of snow,” which they climbed. “It

-was twelve o’clock. Hardly had we got to

-the summit of the rock than we saw a grand&mdash;an

-amazing&mdash;spectacle. We sat down to contemplate

-at our leisure the lost valley, which

-seemed to us to be entirely covered with

-glaciers. We examined it carefully, but could

-not satisfy ourselves that it was the unknown

-valley, seeing that none of us had ever been

-in the Vallais.” The valley, in fact, was none

-other than the valley of Zermatt, and the pass,

-which these early explorers had reached, was

-the Lysjoch, where, to this day, the rock on

-which they rested bears the appropriate name

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>

-that they gave it, “The Rock of Discovery.”

-Beck’s party thus reached a height of 14,000

-feet, a record till Balmat beat them on Mont

-Blanc.</p>

-

-<p>The whole story is alive with the undying

-romance that still haunts the skyline whose

-secrets we know too well. The Siegfried

-map has driven the happy valley further

-afield. In other ranges, still uncharted, we

-must search for the reward of those that cross

-the great divides between the known and the

-unknown, and gaze down from the portals

-of a virgin pass on to glaciers no man has

-trodden, and valleys that no stranger has

-seen. And yet, for the true mountaineer

-every pass is a discovery, and the happy

-valley beyond the hills still lives as the embodiment

-of the child’s dream. All exploration,

-it is said, is due to the two primitive instincts

-of childhood, the desire to look over the edge,

-and the desire to look round the corner. And

-so we can share the thrill that drove that

-little band up to the Rock of Discovery. We

-know that, through the long upward toiling,

-their eyes must ever have been fixed on the

-curve of the pass, slung between the guarding

-hills, the skyline which held the great secret

-they hoped to solve. We can realise the last

-moments of breathless suspense as their

-shoulders were thrust above the dividing wall,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>

-and the ground fell away from their feet to

-the valley of desire. In a sense, we all have

-known moments such as this; we have felt

-the “intense desire to see if the Happy Valley

-may not lie just round the corner.”</p>

-

-<p>Twenty-three years after this memorable

-expedition, Monte Rosa was the scene of one

-of the most daring first ascents in Alpine

-history. Dr. Pietro Giordani of Alagna made

-a solitary ascent of the virgin summit which

-still bears his name. The Punta Giordani

-is one of the minor summits of the Monte Rosa

-chain, and rises to the respectable height of

-13,304 feet. Giordani’s ascent is another

-proof, if proof were needed, that the early

-climbers were, in many ways, as adventurous

-as the modern mountaineer. We find Balmat

-making a series of solitary attempts on Mont

-Blanc, and cheerfully sleeping out, alone, on

-the higher snowfields. Giordani climbs, without

-companions, a virgin peak; and another

-early hero of Monte Rosa, of whom we shall

-speak in due course, spent a night in a cleft of

-ice, at a height of 14,000 feet. Giordani, by

-the way, indited a letter to a friend from the

-summit of his peak. He begins by remarking

-that a sloping piece of granite serves him for

-a table, a block of blue ice for a seat. After

-an eloquent description of the view, he expresses

-his annoyance at the lack of scientific

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>

-instruments, and the lateness of the hour

-which alone prevented him&mdash;as he believed&mdash;from

-ascending Monte Rosa itself.</p>

-

-<p>Giordani’s ascent closes the early history

-of Monte Rosa; but we cannot leave Monte

-Rosa without mention of some of the men who

-played an important part in its conquest.

-Monte Rosa, it should be explained, is not a

-single peak, but a cluster of ten summits of

-which the Dufour Spitze is the highest point

-(15,217 feet). Of these, the Punta Giordani

-was the first, and the Dufour Spitze the last,

-to be climbed. In 1817, Dr. Parrott made the

-first ascent of the Parrott Spitze (12,643 feet);

-and two years later the Vincent Pyramid

-(13,829) was climbed by a son of that Vincent

-who had been taken on Beck’s expedition

-because he was “a man of learning.” Dr.

-Parrott, it might be remarked in passing, was

-the first man to reach the summit of Ararat,

-as Noah cannot be credited with having

-reached a higher point than the gap between

-the greater and the lesser Ararat.</p>

-

-<p>But of all the names associated with pioneer

-work on Monte Rosa that of Zumstein is the

-greatest. He made five attempts to reach

-the highest point of the group, and succeeded

-in climbing the Zumstein Spitze (15,004 feet)

-which still bears his name. He had numerous

-adventures on Monte Rosa, and as we have

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>

-already seen, spent one night in a crevasse, at

-a height of 14,000 feet. He became quite a

-local celebrity, and is mentioned as such by

-Prof. Forbes and Mr. King in their respective

-books. His great ascent of the Zumstein

-Spitze was made in 1820, thirty-five years

-before the conquest of the highest point of

-Monte Rosa.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br />

-

-<span class="large">TIROL AND THE OBERLAND</span></h2>

-

-<p>The story of Monte Rosa has forced us to

-anticipate the chronological order of events.

-We must now turn back, and follow the

-fortunes of the men whose names are linked

-with the great peaks of Tirol<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">2</a> and of the

-Oberland. Let us recapitulate the most important

-dates in the history of mountaineering

-before the opening of the nineteenth

-century. Such dates are 1760, which saw the

-beginning of serious mountaineering, with the

-ascent of the Titlis; 1778, which witnessed

-Beck’s fine expedition to the Lysjoch; 1779,

-the year in which the Velan, and 1786, the

-year in which Mont Blanc, were climbed. The

-last year of the century saw the conquest of

-the Gross Glockner, one of the giants of Tirol.</p>

-

-<p>The Glockner has the distinction of being

-the only great mountain first climbed by a

-Bishop. Its conquest was the work of a jovial

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>

-ecclesiastic, by name and style Franz Altgraf

-von Salm-Reifferscheid Krantheim, Bishop of

-Gurk, hereinafter termed&mdash;quite simply&mdash;Salm.

-Bishop Salm had no motive but the

-fun of a climb. He was not a scientist, and

-he was not interested in the temperature at

-which water boiled above the snow line,

-provided only that it boiled sufficiently

-quickly to provide him with hot drinks and

-shaving water. He was a most luxurious

-climber, and before starting for the Glockner

-he had a magnificent hut built to accommodate

-the party, and a <i>chef</i> conveyed from

-the episcopal palace to feed them. They

-were weather-bound for three days in these

-very comfortable quarters; but the <i>chef</i>

-proved equal to the demands on his talent.

-An enthusiastic climber compared the dinners

-to those which he had enjoyed when staying

-with the Bishop at Gurk. There were eleven

-amateurs and nineteen guides and porters in

-the party. Their first attempt was foiled

-by bad weather. On August 25, 1799, they

-reached the summit, erected a cross, and disposed

-of several bottles of wine. They then

-discovered that their triumph was a trifle

-premature. The Glockner consists of two

-summits separated by a narrow ridge. They

-had climbed the lower; the real summit was

-still 112 feet above them. Next year the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span>

-mistake was rectified; but, though the Bishop

-was one of the party, he did not himself reach

-the highest point till a few years later.</p>

-

-<p>Four years after the Glockner had been

-climbed, the giant of Tirol and the Eastern

-Alps was overcome. The conquest of the

-Ortler was due to a romantic fancy of Archduke

-John. Just as Charles VII of France

-deputed his Chamberlain to climb Mont

-Aiguille, so the Archduke (who, by the way,

-was the son of the Emperor Leopold II, and

-brother of Francis II, last of the Holy Roman

-emperors) deputed Gebhard, a member of

-his suite, to climb the Ortler. Gebhard made

-several attempts without success. Finally,

-a chamois hunter of the Passeierthal, by

-name Joseph Pichler, introduced himself to

-Gebhard, and made the ascent from Trafoi

-on September 28, 1804. Next year Gebhard

-himself reached the summit, and took a

-reading of the height by a barometer. The

-result showed that the Ortler was higher than

-the Glockner&mdash;a discovery which caused great

-joy. Its actual height is, as a matter of fact,

-12,802 feet. But the ascent of the Ortler

-was long in achieving the popularity that it

-deserved. Whereas the Glockner was climbed

-about seventy times before 1860, the Ortler

-was only climbed twice between Gebhard’s

-ascent and the ascent by the Brothers Buxton

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span>

-and Mr. Tuckett, in 1864. Archduke John,

-who inspired the first ascent, made an unsuccessful

-attempt (this time in person) on the

-Gross Venediger, another great Tyrolese peak.

-He was defeated, and the mountain was not

-finally vanquished till 1841.</p>

-

-<p>The scene now changes to the Oberland.

-Nothing much had been accomplished in the

-Oberland before the opening years of the

-nineteenth century. A few passes, the Petersgrat,

-Oberaarjoch, Tschingel, and Gauli, had

-been crossed; but the only snow peaks whose

-ascent was undoubtedly accomplished were

-the Handgendgletscherhorn (10,806 feet) and

-a peak whose identification is difficult. These

-were climbed in 1788 by a man called Müller,

-who was engaged in surveying for Weiss. His

-map was a very brilliant achievement, considering

-the date at which it appeared. The

-expenses had been defrayed by a rich merchant

-of Aarau, Johann Rudolph Meyer, whose sons

-were destined to play an important part in

-Alpine exploration. J. R. Meyer had climbed

-the Titlis, and one of his sons made one of the

-first glacier pass expeditions in the Oberland,

-crossing the Tschingel in 1790.</p>

-

-<p>J. R. Meyer’s two sons, Johann Rudolph

-the second and Hieronymus, were responsible

-for some of the finest pioneer work in the

-story of mountaineering. In 1811 they made

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span>

-the first crossing of the Beich pass, the Lötschenlücke,

-and the first ascent of the

-Jungfrau. As was inevitable, their story

-was disbelieved. To dispel all doubt, another

-expedition was undertaken in the following

-year. On this expedition the leaders were

-Rudolph and Gottlieb Meyer, sons of J. R.

-Meyer the second (the conqueror of the

-Jungfrau), and grandsons of J. R. Meyer the

-first. The two Meyers separated after crossing

-the Oberaarjoch. Gottlieb crossed the Grünhornlücke,

-and bivouacked near the site of

-the present Concordia Inn. Rudolph made

-his classical attempt on the Finsteraarhorn,

-and rejoined Gottlieb. Next day Gottlieb

-made the second ascent of the Jungfrau and

-Rudolph forced the first indisputable crossing

-of the Strahlegg pass from the Unteraar

-glacier to Grindelwald.</p>

-

-<p>To return to Rudolph’s famous attempt on

-the Finsteraarhorn. Rudolph, as we have

-seen, separated from his brother Gottlieb

-near the Oberaarjoch. Rudolph, who was

-only twenty-one at the time, took with him

-two Valaisian hunters, by name Alois Volker

-and Joseph Bortis, a Melchthal “porter,”

-Arnold Abbühl, and a Hasle man. Abbühl

-was not a porter as we understand the word,

-but a <i>knecht</i>, or servant, of a small inn. He

-played the leading part in this climb. The

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span>

-party bivouacked on the depression known as

-the Rothhornsattel, and left it next morning

-when the sun had already struck the higher

-summits, probably about 5 a.m. They descended

-to the Studerfirn, and shortly before

-reaching the Ober Studerjoch started to climb

-the great eastern face of the Finsteraarhorn.

-After six hours, they reached the crest of the

-ridge. Meyer could go no further, and remained

-where he was; while the guides

-proceeded and, according to the accounts

-which have come down to us, reached the

-summit.</p>

-

-<p>Captain Farrar has summed up all the

-available evidence in <i>The Alpine Journal</i> for

-August 1913. The first climber who attempted

-to repeat the ascent was the well-known

-scientist Hugi. He was led by the same

-Arnold Abbühl, who, as already stated, took a

-prominent part in Meyer’s expedition. Abbühl,

-however, not only failed to identify the highest

-peak from the Rothhornsattel, but, on being

-pressed, admitted that he had never reached

-the summit at all. In 1830, Hugi published

-these facts and Meyer, indignant at the implied

-challenge to his veracity, promised to produce

-further testimony. But there the matter

-dropped. Captain Farrar summarises the

-situation with convincing thoroughness.</p>

-

-<p>“What was the situation in 1812? We

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>

-have an enthusiastic ingenuous youth attempting

-an ascent the like of which in point of

-difficulty had at that time never been, nor

-was for nearly fifty years after, attempted.

-He reaches a point on the arête without any

-great difficulty; and there he remains, too

-tired to proceed. About this portion of the

-ascent, there is, save as to the precise point

-gained, no question; and it is of this portion

-alone Meyer is a first-hand witness. Three

-of his guides go on, and return to him after

-many hours with the statement that they had

-reached the summit, or that is what he understands.

-I shall examine later this point.

-But is it not perfectly natural that Meyer

-should accept their statement, that he should

-swallow with avidity their claim to have

-reached the goal of all his labours? He had,

-as I shall show later, no reason to doubt them;

-and, doubtless, he remained firm in his belief

-until Hugi’s book appeared many years after.

-At once, he is up in arms at Hugi’s questioning,

-as he thinks, his own statements and his

-guides’ claims. He pens his reply quoted

-above, promises to publish his MS. and hopes

-to produce testimony in support. Then comes

-Hugi’s reply, and Meyer realises that his own

-personal share in the expedition is not

-questioned; but he sees that he may after all

-have been misled by, or have misunderstood,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span>

-his guides, and he is faced with the reported

-emphatic denial of his leading guide, who was

-at that time still living, and could have been

-referred to. It may be said that he wrote to

-Abbühl for the ‘testimony,’ and failed to

-elicit a satisfactory reply. Thrown into

-hopeless doubt, all the stronger because his

-belief in his guide’s statement had been firmly

-implanted in his mind all these nineteen years,

-is it to be wondered at that he lets the matter

-drop? He finds himself unable to get any

-testimony, and realises that the publication

-of his MS. will not supply any more reliable

-evidence. One can easily picture the disenchanted

-man putting the whole matter

-aside in sheer despair of ever arriving at the

-truth.”</p>

-

-<p>We have no space to follow Captain Farrar’s

-arguments. They do not seem to leave a

-shadow of doubt. At the same time, Captain

-Farrar acquits the party of any deliberate

-intention to deceive, and admits that their

-ascent of the secondary summit of the Finsteraarhorn

-was a very fine performance. It

-is noteworthy that many of the great peaks

-have been attempted, and some actually

-climbed for the first time, by an unnecessarily

-difficult route. The Matterhorn was assailed

-for years by the difficult Italian arête, before

-the easy Swiss route was discovered. The

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>

-south-east route, which Meyer’s party attempted,

-still remains under certain conditions,

-a difficult rock climb, which may not unfitly

-be compared in part with the Italian ridge of

-the Matterhorn. The ordinary west ridge

-presents no real difficulties.</p>

-

-<p>The first complete ascent of the Finsteraarhorn

-was made on August 10, 1829, by Hugi’s

-two guides, Jakob Leuthold and Joh. Wahren.

-Hugi remained behind, 200 feet below the

-summit. The Hugisattel still commemorates

-a pioneer of this great peak.</p>

-

-<p>So much for the Meyers. They deserve

-a high place in the history of exploration.

-“It has often seemed to me,” writes Captain

-Farrar, “that the craft of mountaineering,

-and even more the art of mountaineering

-description, distinctly retrograded for over

-fifty years after these great expeditions of the

-Meyers. It is not until the early ’sixties that

-rocks of equal difficulty are again attacked.

-Even then&mdash;witness Almer’s opinion as to

-the inaccessibility of the Matterhorn&mdash;men

-had not yet learned the axiom, which Alexander

-Burgener was the first, certainly by

-practice rather than by explicit enunciation,

-to lay down, viz. that the practicability of

-rocks is only decided by actual contact.

-Meyer’s guides had a glimmering of this. It

-is again not until the ’sixties that Meyer’s calm

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span>

-yet vivid descriptions of actualities are surpassed

-by those brilliant articles of Stephen,

-of Moore, of Tuckett, and by Whymper’s

-great ‘Scrambles’ that are the glory of

-English mountaineering.”</p>

-

-<p>But perhaps the greatest name associated

-with this period is that of the great scientist,

-Agassiz. Agassiz is a striking example of the

-possibilities of courage and a lively faith. He

-never had any money; and yet he invariably

-lived as if he possessed a comfortable competence.

-“I have no time for making

-money,” is one of his sayings that have

-become famous. He was a native of Orbe,

-a beautiful town in the Jura. His father was

-a pastor, and the young Agassiz was intended

-for the medical profession. He took the

-medical degree, but remained steadfast in his

-determination to become, as he told his father,

-“the first naturalist of his time.” Humboldt

-and Cuvier soon discovered his powers; in

-due time he became a professor at Neuchâtel.

-He married on eighty louis a year; but money

-difficulties never depressed him. As a boy

-of twenty, earning the princely sum of fifty

-pounds a year, he maintained a secretary in

-his employment, a luxury which he never

-denied himself. Usually he maintained two

-or three. At Neuchâtel, his income eventually

-increased to £125 a year. On this, he kept

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>

-up an academy of natural history, a museum,

-a staff of secretaries and assistants, a lithographic

-and printing plant, and a wife. His

-wife, by the way, was a German lady; and

-it is not surprising that her chief quarrel with

-life was a lack of money for household expenses.

-The naturalist, who had no time for making

-money, spent what little he had on the

-necessities of his existence, such as printing

-presses and secretaries, and left the luxuries

-of the larder to take care of themselves. His

-family helped him with loans, “at first,” we

-are told, “with pleasure, but afterwards with

-some reluctance.” Humboldt also advanced

-small sums. “I was pleased to remain a

-debtor to Humboldt,” writes Agassiz, a sentiment

-which probably awakens more sympathy

-in the heart of the average undergraduate

-than it did in the bosom of Humboldt.</p>

-

-<p>A holiday which Agassiz spent with another

-great naturalist, Charpentier, was indirectly

-responsible for the beginnings of the glacial

-theory. Throughout Switzerland, you may

-find huge boulders known as erratic blocks.

-These blocks have a different geological

-ancestry from the rocks in the immediate

-neighbourhood. They did not grow like

-mushrooms, and they must therefore have

-been carried to their present position by some

-outside agency. In the eighteenth century,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>

-naturalists solved all these questions by <i>a

-priori</i> theories, proved by quotations from

-the book of Genesis. The Flood was a

-favourite solution, and the Flood was, therefore,

-invoked to solve the riddle of erratic

-blocks. By the time that Agassiz had begun

-his great work, the Flood was, however,

-becoming discredited, and its reputed operations

-were being driven further afield.</p>

-

-<p>The discovery of the true solution was due,

-not to a scientist, but to a simple chamois

-hunter, named Perrandier. He knew no

-geology, but he could draw obvious conclusions

-from straightforward data without

-invoking the Flood. He had seen these

-blocks on glaciers, and he had seen them many

-miles away from glaciers. He made the only

-possible deduction&mdash;that glaciers must, at

-some time, have covered the whole of Switzerland.

-Perrandier expounded his views to a

-civil engineer, by name Venetz. Venetz

-passed it on to Charpentier, and Charpentier

-converted Agassiz. Agassiz made prompt

-use of the information, so prompt that Charpentier

-accused him of stealing his ideas. He

-read a paper before the Helvetic Society, in

-which he announced his conviction that the

-earth had once been covered with a sheet of

-ice that extended from the North Pole to

-Central Asia. The scepticism with which

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span>

-this was met incited Agassiz to search for

-more evidence in support of his theory. His

-best work was done in “The Hôtel des

-Neuchâtelois.” This hôtel at first consisted

-of an overhanging boulder, the entrance of

-which was screened by a blanket. The

-hôtel was built near the Grimsel on the

-medial moraine of the lower Aar glacier.

-To satisfy Mrs. Agassiz, her husband eventually

-moved into even more palatial quarters

-to wit, a rough cabin covered with canvas.

-“The outer apartment,” complains Mrs.

-Agassiz, a lady hard to please, “boasted a

-table and one or two benches; even a couple

-of chairs were kept as seats of honour for

-occasional guests. A shelf against the wall

-accommodated books, instruments, coats, etc.;

-and a plank floor on which to spread their

-blankets at night was a good exchange for the

-frozen surface of the glacier.” But the picture

-of this strange <i>ménage</i> would be incomplete

-without mention of Agassiz’s companions.

-“Agassiz and his companions” is a phrase

-that meets us at every turn of his history.

-He needed companions, partly because he

-was of a friendly and companionable nature,

-partly, no doubt, to vary the monotony of

-Mrs. Agassiz’s constant complaints, but

-mainly because his ambitious schemes were

-impossible without assistance. His work involved

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span>

-great expenditure, which he could only

-recoup in part from the scanty grants allowed

-him by scientific societies, and the patronage

-of occasional wealthy amateurs. The first

-qualification necessary in a “companion”

-was a certain indifference as to salary, and

-the usual arrangement was that Agassiz

-should provide board and lodging in the hôtel,

-and that, if his assistant were in need of

-money, Agassiz should provide some if he

-had any lying loose at the time. This at

-least was the substance of the contract

-between Agassiz, on the one hand, and

-Edouard Desor of Heidelberg University, on

-the other hand.</p>

-

-<p>Desor is perhaps the most famous of the

-little band. He was a political refugee,

-“without visible means of subsistence.” He

-was a talented young gentleman with a keen

-interest in scientific disputes, and an eye for

-what is vulgarly known as personal advertisement.

-In other words he shared the very

-human weakness of enjoying the sight of his

-name in honoured print. Another companion

-was Karl Vogt. Mrs. Agassiz had two great

-quarrels with life. The first was a shortage

-of funds, and the second was the impropriety

-of the stories exchanged between Vogt and

-Desors. Another companion was a certain

-Gressly, a gentleman whose main charm for

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>

-Agassiz consisted in the fact that, “though

-he never had any money, he never wanted

-any.” He lived with Agassiz in the winter

-as secretary. In summer he tramped the

-Jura in search of geological data. He never

-bothered about money, but was always prepared

-to exchange some good anecdotes for

-a night’s lodging. Eventually, he went mad

-and ended his days in an asylum. Yet

-another famous name, associated with Agassiz,

-is that of Dollfus-Ausset, an Alsatian of

-Mülhausen, who was born in 1797. His great

-works were two books, the first entitled

-<i>Materials for the Study of Glaciers</i>, and the

-second <i>Materials for the Dyeing of Stuffs</i>. On

-the whole, he seems to have been more

-interested in glaciers than in velvet. He

-made, with Desor, the first ascent of the

-Galenstock, and also of the most southern

-peak of the Wetterhorn, namely the Rosenhorn

-(12,110 feet). He built many observatories

-on the Aar glacier and the Theodule,

-and he was usually known as “Papa Gletscher

-Dollfus.”</p>

-

-<p>Such, then, were Agassiz’s companions.

-Humour and romance are blended in the

-picture of the strange little company that

-gathered every evening beneath the rough

-shelter of the hôtel. We see Mrs. Agassiz

-bearing with admirable resignation those inconveniences

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>

-that must have proved a very

-real sorrow to her orderly German mind.

-We see Desor and Vogt exchanging broad

-anecdotes to the indignation of the good lady;

-and we can figure the abstracted naturalist,

-utterly indifferent to his environment, and

-only occupied with the deductions that may

-be drawn from the movement of stakes driven

-into a glacier. Let me quote in conclusion

-a few words from a sympathetic appreciation

-by the late William James (<i>Memories and

-Studies</i>)&mdash;</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“Agassiz was a splendid example of the

-temperament that looks forward and not

-backwards, and never wastes a moment in

-regrets for the irrevocable. I had the privilege

-of admission to his society during the

-Thayer expedition to Brazil. I well remember,

-at night, as we all swung in our hammocks,

-in the fairy like moonlight, on the deck of the

-steamer that throbbed its way up the Amazon

-between the forests guarding the stream on

-either side, how he turned and whispered,

-‘James, are you awake?’ and continued, ‘I

-cannot sleep; I am too happy; I keep thinking

-of these glorious plans.’...</p>

-

-<p>“Agassiz’s influence on methods of teaching

-in our community was prompt and decisive&mdash;all

-the more so that it struck people’s imagination

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span>

-by its very excess. The good old way of

-committing printed abstractions to memory

-seems never to have received such a shock

-as it encountered at his hands. There is

-probably no public school teacher who will

-not tell you how Agassiz used to lock a

-student up in a room full of turtle shells or

-lobster shells or oyster shells, without a book

-or word to help him, and not let him out till he

-had discovered all the truths which the objects

-contained. Some found the truths after

-weeks and months of lonely sorrow; others

-never found them. Those who found them

-were already made into naturalists thereby;

-the failures were blotted from the book of

-honour and of life. ‘Go to Nature; take the

-facts into your own hands; look and see for

-yourself’&mdash;these were the maxims which

-Agassiz preached wherever he went, and their

-effect on pedagogy was electric....</p>

-

-<p>“The only man he really loved and had use

-for was the man who could bring him facts.

-To see facts, not to argue or <i>raisonniren</i> was

-what life meant for him; and I think he often

-positively loathed the ratiocinating type of

-mind. ‘Mr. Blank, you are totally uneducated,’

-I heard him say once to a student,

-who had propounded to him some glittering

-theoretic generality. And on a similar occasion,

-he gave an admonition that must have

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span>

-sunk deep into the heart of him to whom it

-was addressed. ‘Mr. X, some people perhaps

-now consider you are a bright young man;

-but when you are fifty years old, if they ever

-speak of you then, what they will say will be

-this: “That Mr. X&mdash;oh yes, I know him;

-he used to be a very bright young man.”’

-Happy is the conceited youth who at the

-proper moment receives such salutary cold-water

-therapeutics as this, from one who in

-other respects is a kind friend.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>So much for Agassiz. It only remains to

-add that his companions were responsible

-for some fine mountaineering. During these

-years the three peaks of the Wetterhorn were

-climbed, and Desor was concerned in two of

-these successful expeditions. A far finer

-expedition was his ascent of the Lauteraarhorn,

-by Desor in 1842. This peak is connected

-with the Schreckhorn by a difficult

-ridge, and is a worthy rival to that well-known

-summit. There were a few other virgin

-climbs in this period, but the great age of

-Alpine conquest had scarcely begun.</p>

-

-<p>The connecting link between Agassiz and

-modern mountaineering is supplied by Gottlieb

-Studer, who was born in 1804, and died in

-1890. His serious climbing began in 1823,

-and continued for sixty years. He made a

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>

-number of new ascents, and reopened scores

-of passes, only known to natives. Most

-mountaineers know the careful and beautiful

-panoramas which are the work of his pencil.

-He drew no less than seven hundred of these.

-His great work, <i>Ueber Eis und Schnee</i>, a

-history of Swiss climbing, is an invaluable

-authority to which most of his successors in

-this field are indebted.</p>

-

-<p>The careful reader will notice the comparative

-absence of the English in the climbs

-which we have so far described. The coming

-of the English deserves a chapter to itself.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br />

-

-<span class="large">THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH</span></h2>

-

-<p>Mountaineering, as a sport, is so often

-treated as an invention of Englishmen, that

-the real facts of its origin are unconsciously

-disguised. A commonplace error of the textbooks

-is to date sporting mountaineering

-from Mr. Justice Wills’s famous ascent of the

-Wetterhorn in 1854. The Wetterhorn has

-three peaks, and Mr. Justice Wills made

-the ascent of the summit which is usually

-climbed from Grindelwald. This peak, the

-Hasle Jungfrau, is the most difficult of the

-group but it is not the highest. In those

-early days, first ascents were not recorded

-with the punctuality and thoroughness that

-prevails to-day; and a large circle of

-mountaineers gave Mr. Justice Wills the

-credit of making the first ascent of the Hasle

-Jungfrau, or at least the first ascent from

-Grindelwald. Curiously enough, the climb,

-which is supposed to herald sporting mountaineering,

-was only the second ascent of the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span>

-Grindelwald route to the summit of a peak

-which had already been climbed four times.

-The facts are as follows: Desor’s guides

-climbed the Hasle Jungfrau in 1844, and

-Desor himself followed a few days after.

-Three months before Wills’s ascent, the peak

-was twice climbed by an early English

-pioneer, Mr. Blackwell. Blackwell’s first

-ascent was by the Rosenlaui route, which

-Desor had followed, and his second, by the

-Grindelwald route, chosen by Mr. Wills. On

-the last occasion, he was beaten by a storm

-within about ten feet of the top, ten feet

-which he had climbed on the previous occasion.

-He planted a flag just under the final cornice;

-and we must give him the credit of the

-pioneer ascent from Grindelwald. Mr. Wills

-never heard of these four ascents, and believed

-that the peak was still virgin when he

-ascended it.</p>

-

-<p>It would appear, then, that the so-called

-first sporting climb has little claim to that

-distinction. What, precisely, is meant by

-“sporting” in this connection? The distinction

-seems to be drawn between those

-who climb a mountain for the sheer joy of

-adventure, and those who were primarily

-concerned with the increase of scientific

-knowledge. The distinction is important;

-but it is often forgotten that scientists, like

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>

-De Saussure, Forbes, Agassiz and Desor,

-were none the less mountaineers because they

-had an intelligent interest in the geological

-history of mountains. All these men were

-inspired by a very genuine mountaineering

-enthusiasm. Moreover, before Mr. Wills’s

-climb there had been a number of quite

-genuine sporting climbs. A few Englishmen

-had been up Mont Blanc; and, though most

-of them had been content with Mont Blanc,

-they could scarcely be accused of scientific

-inspiration. They, however, belonged to the

-“One man, one mountain, school,” and as

-such can scarcely claim to be considered as

-anything but mountaineers by accident. Yet

-Englishmen like Hill, Blackwell, and Forbes,

-had climbed mountains with some regularity

-long before Mr. Wills made his great ascent;

-and foreign mountaineers had already achieved

-a series of genuine sporting ascents. Bourrit

-was utterly indifferent to science; and

-Bourrit was, perhaps, the first man who made

-a regular practice of climbing a snow mountain

-every year. The fact that he was not often

-successful must not be allowed to discount

-his sincere enthusiasm. Before 1840, no

-Englishman had entered the ranks of regular

-mountaineers; and by that date many of

-the great Alpine monarchs had fallen. Mont

-Blanc, the outer fortresses of Monte Rosa,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>

-the Finsteraarhorn, King of the Oberland,

-the Ortler, and the Glockner, the great rivals

-of the Eastern Alps, had all been conquered.

-The reigning oligarchies of the Alps had

-bowed their heads to man.</p>

-

-<p>Let us concede what must be conceded;

-even so, we need not fear that our share in

-Alpine history will be unduly diminished.

-Mr. Wills’s ascent was none the less epoch-making

-because it was the fourth ascent of a

-second-class peak. The real value of that

-climb is this: It was one of the first climbs

-that were directly responsible for the systematic

-and brilliant campaign which was in

-the main conducted by Englishmen. Isolated

-foreign mountaineers had already done

-brilliant work, but their example did not

-give the same direct impetus. It was not

-till the English arrived that mountaineering

-became a fashionable sport; and the wide

-group of English pioneers that carried off

-almost all the great prizes of the Alps between

-1854 and the conquest of the Matterhorn in

-1865 may fairly date their invasion from

-Mr. Justice Wills’s ascent, a climb which,

-though not even a virgin ascent and by no

-means the first great climb by an Englishman,

-was none the less a landmark. Mr. Justice

-Wills’s vigorous example caught on as no

-achievement had caught on. His book, which

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span>

-is full of spirited writing, made many converts

-to the new sport.</p>

-

-<p>There had, of course, been many enthusiasts

-who had preached the sport before Mr.

-Justice Wills climbed the Wetterhorn. The

-earliest of all Alpine Journals is the <i>Alpina</i>,

-which first expressed the impetus of the

-great Alpine campaign. It appeared in 1806,

-and survived for four years, though the name

-was later attached to a magazine which has

-still a large circulation in Switzerland. It

-was edited by Ulysses von Salis; and it

-contained articles on chamois-hunting, the

-ascent of the Ortler, etc., besides reviews of

-the mountain literature of the period, such

-books, for instance, as those of Bourrit and

-Ebel. “The Glockner and the Ortler,”

-writes the editor, “may serve as striking

-instances of our ignorance, until a few years

-ago, of the highest peaks in the Alpine ranges.

-Excluding the Gotthard and Mont Blanc, and

-their surrounding eminences, there still remain

-more than a few marvellous and colossal

-peaks which are no less worthy of becoming

-better known.”</p>

-

-<p>From 1840, the number of Englishmen

-taking part in high ascents increases rapidly;

-and between 1854 and 1865 the great bulk

-of virgin ascents stand to their credit, though

-it must always be remembered that these

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>

-ascents were led by Swiss, French and Italian

-guides, who did not, however, do them till

-the English arrived. Before 1840 a few

-Englishmen climbed Mont Blanc; Mrs. and

-Miss Campbell crossed the Col de Géant,

-which had previously been reopened by

-Mr. Hill; and Mr. Malkin crossed a few

-glacier passes. But J. D. Forbes was really

-the first English mountaineer to carry out

-a series of systematic attacks on the upper

-snows. Incidentally, his book, <i>Travels through

-the Alps of Savoy</i>, published in 1843, was the

-first book in the English language dealing

-with the High Alps. A few pamphlets had

-been published by the adventurers of Mont

-Blanc, but no really serious work. Forbes

-is, therefore, the true pioneer not only of

-British mountaineering, but of the Alpine

-literature in our tongue. He was a worthy

-successor to De Saussure, and his interest in

-the mountains was very largely scientific.

-He investigated the theories of glacier motion,

-and visited Agassiz at the “Hôtel des

-Neuchâtelois.” On that occasion, if Agassiz

-is to be believed, the canny Scotsman managed

-to extract more than he gave from the genial

-and expansive Switzer. When Forbes published

-his theories, Agassiz accused him of

-stealing his ideas. Desor, whose genius for

-a row was only excelled by the joy he took

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>

-in getting up his case, did not improve matters;

-and a bitter quarrel was the result. Whatever

-may have been the rights of the matter,

-Forbes certainly mastered the theory of

-glacier motion, and proved his thorough

-grasp of the matter in a rather remarkable

-way. In 1820, a large party of guides and

-amateurs were overwhelmed by an avalanche

-on the Grand Plateau, and three of the guides

-disappeared into a crevasse. Their bodies

-were not recovered. Dr. Hamel, who had

-organised the party, survived. He knew

-something of glacier motion, and ventured

-a guess that the bodies of the guides would

-reappear at the bottom of the glacier in

-about a thousand years. He was just nine

-hundred and thirty-nine years wrong in his

-calculation. Forbes, having ascertained by

-experiment the rate at which the glacier

-moved, predicted that the bodies would

-reappear in forty years. This forecast proved

-amazingly accurate. Various remains reappeared

-near the lower end of the Glacier

-des Bossons in 1861, a fragment of a human

-body, and a few relics came to light two years

-later, and a skull, ropes, hat, etc., in 1865.

-Strangely enough, this accident was repeated

-in almost all its details in the famous Arkwright

-disaster of 1866.</p>

-

-<p>Forbes carried through a number of fine

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>

-expeditions. He climbed the Jungfrau with

-Agassiz and Desor&mdash;before the little trouble

-referred to above. He made the first passage

-by an amateur of the Col d’Hérens, and the

-first ascents of the Stockhorn (11,796 feet)

-and the Wasenhorn (10,661 feet). Besides

-his Alpine wanderings, he explored some of

-the glaciers of Savoy. His most famous book,

-<i>The Tour of Mont Blanc</i>, is well worth reading,

-and contains one fine passage, a simile

-between the motion of a glacier and the

-life of man.</p>

-

-<p>Forbes was the first British mountaineer;

-but John Ball played an even more important

-part in directing the activity of the English

-climbers. He was a Colonial Under-Secretary

-in Lord Palmerston’s administration; but he

-gave up politics for the more exciting field

-of Alpine adventure. His main interest in

-the Alps was, perhaps, botanical; and his

-list of first ascents is not very striking,

-considering the host of virgin peaks that

-awaited an enterprising pioneer. His great

-achievement was the conquest of the first

-great dolomite peak that yielded its secrets

-to man, the Pelmo. He also climbed the

-virgin Cima Tosa in the Brenta dolomites,

-and made the first traverse of the Schwartztor.

-He was the first to edit guidebooks for the

-use of mountaineers, and his knowledge of

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>

-the Alps was surprisingly thorough. He

-played a great part in the formation of the

-Alpine Club, and in the direction of their

-literary activity. He edited the classical

-series of <i>Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers</i>, and a

-series of excellent Alpine guides.</p>

-

-<p>But the event which above all others

-attracted the attention of Englishmen to the

-Alps was Albert Smith’s ascent of Mont

-Blanc. Albert Smith is the most picturesque

-of the British mountaineers. He was something

-of a <i>blagueur</i>, but behind all his vulgarity

-lay a very deep feeling for the Alps. His

-little book on Mont Blanc makes good reading.

-The pictures are delightfully inaccurate

-in their presentation of the terrors of Alpine

-climbing; and the thoroughly sincere fashion

-in which the whole business of climbing is

-written up proves that the great white

-mountain had not yet lost its prestige. But

-we can forgive Albert Smith a great deal, for

-he felt the glamour of the Alps long before

-he had seen a hill higher than St. Anne’s, near

-Chertsey. As a child, he had been given

-<i>The Peasants of Chamouni</i>, a book which

-rivalled <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i> in his affections.

-This mountain book fired him to anticipate

-his subsequent success as a showman.

-“Finally, I got up a small moving panorama

-of the horrors pertaining to Mont Blanc ...

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span>

-and this I so painted up and exaggerated in

-my enthusiasm, that my little sister&mdash;who

-was my only audience, but an admirable one,

-for she cared not how often I exhibited&mdash;would

-become quite pale with fright.” Time passed,

-and Albert Smith became a student in Paris.

-He discovered that his enthusiasm for Mont

-Blanc was shared by a medical student; and

-together they determined to visit the Mecca

-of their dreams. They collected twelve

-pounds apiece, and vowed that it should last

-them for five weeks. They carried it about

-with them entirely in five-franc pieces, chiefly

-stuffed into a leathern belt round their

-waists. Buying “two old soldiers’ knapsacks

-at three francs each, and two pairs of

-hobnailed shoes at five francs and a half,”

-they started off on their great adventure.

-Smith wisely adds that, “if there is anything

-more delightful than travelling with plenty

-of money, it is certainly making a journey of

-pleasure with very little.”</p>

-

-<p>They made the journey to Geneva in

-seventy-eight hours by <i>diligence</i>. At Melun

-they bought a brick of bread more than two

-feet long. “The passengers paid three francs

-each for their <i>déjeuner</i>, ours did not cost

-ten sous.” At night, they slept in the empty

-<i>diligence</i>. They meant to make that twelve

-pounds apiece carry them some distance.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>

-From Geneva they walked to Chamounix,

-helped by an occasional friendly lift. Smith

-was delighted with the realisation of childish

-dreams. “Every step was like a journey

-in fairyland.” In fact, the only disillusion

-was the contrast between the Swiss peasant

-of romance and the reality. “The Alpine

-maidens we encountered put us more in

-mind of poor law unions than ballads;

-indeed, the Swiss villagers may be classed

-with troubadours, minstrel pages, shepherdesses,

-and other fabulous pets of small poets

-and vocalists.” After leaving Chamounix,

-Smith crossed the St. Bernard, visited Milan,

-and returned with a small margin still left

-out of the magic twelve pounds.</p>

-

-<p>Albert Smith returned to London, took up

-practice as a surgeon, wrote for <i>Punch</i>, and

-acquired a big reputation as an entertainer

-in <i>The Overland Mail</i>, written by himself and

-founded on a journey to Egypt and Constantinople.

-The songs and sketches made

-the piece popular, and insured a long run.

-At the close of the season he went to

-Chamounix again, fully determined to climb

-Mont Blanc. He was accompanied by William

-Beverley, the artist, and was lucky to fall in

-with some Oxford undergraduates with the

-same ambition as himself. They joined

-forces, and a party of twenty, including

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>

-guides, prepared for the great expedition.

-Amongst other provisions, they took ninety-four

-bottles of wine, four legs of mutton, four

-shoulders of mutton, and forty-six fowls.

-Smith was out of training, and suffered

-terribly from mountain sickness. He was

-horrified by the Mur de la Côte, which he

-describes as “an all but perpendicular iceberg,”

-and adds that “every step was gained

-from the chance of a horrible death.” As

-a matter of fact, the Mur de la Côte is a very

-simple, if steep, snow slope. A good ski-runner

-could, under normal conditions, descend

-it on ski. If Smith had fallen, he

-would have rolled comfortably to the bottom,

-and stopped in soft snow. “Should the foot

-or the baton slip,” he assures us, “there is

-no chance for life. You would glide like

-lightning from one frozen crag to another,

-and finally be dashed to pieces hundreds of

-feet below.” It is pleasant to record that

-Smith reached the summit, though not without

-considerable difficulty, and that his party

-drank all the wine and devoured the forty-six

-fowls, etc., before their successful return to

-Chamounix.</p>

-

-<p>Smith wrote an account of the ascent which

-provoked a bitter attack in <i>The Daily News</i>.

-Albert Smith was contrasted with De Saussure,

-greatly to Smith’s disadvantage. The sober,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>

-practical Englishman of the period could only

-forgive a mountain ascent if the climber

-brought back with him from the heights,

-something more substantial than a vision

-of remembered beauty. A few inaccurate

-readings of an untrustworthy barometer

-could, perhaps, excuse a pointless exploit.

-“Saussure’s observations,” said a writer in

-<i>The Daily News</i>, “live in his poetical philosophy,

-those of Mr. Albert Smith will be most

-appropriately recorded in a tissue of indifferent

-puns, and stale, fast witticisms with an incessant

-straining after smartness. The aimless

-scramble of the four pedestrians to the

-top of Mont Blanc will not go far to redeem

-the somewhat equivocal reputation of the

-herd of English to risks in Switzerland for

-a mindless, and rather vulgar, redundance of

-animal spirits.” Albert Smith did not allow

-the subject to drop. He turned Mont Blanc

-into an entertainment at the Egyptian Hall,

-an entertainment which became very popular,

-and was patronised by the Queen.</p>

-

-<p>Narrow-minded critics affect to believe

-that Albert Smith was nothing more than a

-showman, and that Mont Blanc was for him

-nothing more than a peg on which to hang

-a popular entertainment. This is not true.

-Mr. Mathews does him full justice when he

-says: “He was emphatically a showman

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>

-from his birth, but it is not true he ascended

-the mountain for the purpose of making

-a show of it. His well-known entertainment

-resulted from a lifelong interest which he

-had taken in the great summit, of which he

-never failed to speak or write with reverence

-and affection.” Mr. Mathews was by no

-means naturally prejudiced in favour of anybody

-who tended to popularise the Alps, and

-his tribute is all the more striking in consequence.

-Albert Smith fell in love with Mont

-Blanc long before he had seen a mountain.

-Nobody can read the story of his first journey

-with twelve pounds in his pocket, without

-realising that Albert Smith, the showman,

-loved the mountains with much the same

-passion as his more cultured successors.

-Mr. Mathews adds: “It is but just to his

-memory to record that he, too, was a pioneer.

-Mountaineering was not then a recognised

-sport for Englishmen. Hitherto, any information

-about Mont Blanc had to be sought

-for in isolated publications. Smith brought

-a more or less accurate knowledge of it, as it

-were, to the hearths and homes of educated

-Englishmen.... Smith’s entertainment gave

-an undoubted impetus to mountaineering.”</p>

-

-<p>While Smith was lecturing, a group of

-Englishmen were quietly carrying through a

-series of attacks on the unconquered citadels

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span>

-of the Alps. In 1854 Mr. Justice Wills made

-that ascent of the Wetterhorn which has

-already been referred to. It is fully described

-in Mr. Justice Wills’s interesting book,

-<i>Wanderings among the High Alps</i>, and,

-amongst other things, it is famous as the first

-appearance in Alpine history of the great

-guide, Christian Almer. Mr. Wills left

-Grindelwald with Ulrich Lauener, a guide

-who was to play a great part in Alpine adventure,

-Balmat and Simond. “The landlord

-wrung Balmat’s hand. ‘Try,’ said he,

-‘to return all of you alive.’” Lauener

-burdened himself with a “flagge” to plant

-on the summit. This “flagge” resolved itself

-on inspection into a very solid iron construction

-in the shape of a banner, which Lauener

-carried to the summit on the following day.

-They bivouacked on the Enge, and climbed

-next day without great difficulty, to the gap

-between the two summits of the Wetterhorn,

-now known as the Wettersattel. They made

-a short halt here; and, while they were

-resting, they noticed with surprise two men

-working up the rocks they had just climbed.

-Lauener at first supposed they were chamois

-hunters; but a moment’s reflection convinced

-the party that no hunter would seek

-his prey on such unlikely ground. Moreover,

-chamois hunters do not usually carry on their

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>

-backs “a young fir-tree, branches, leaves,

-and all.” They lost sight of the party and

-continued their meal. They next saw the

-two strangers on the snow slopes ahead,

-making all haste to be the first on the summit.

-This provoked great wrath on the part of

-Mr. Wills’s guides, who believed that the

-Wetterhorn was a virgin peak, a view also

-shared by the two usurpers, who had heard

-of the intended ascent and resolved to plant

-their fir-tree side by side with the iron

-“flagge.” They had started very early that

-same morning, and hunted their quarry

-down. A vigorous exchange of shouts and

-threats resulted in a compromise. “Balmat’s

-anger was soon appeased when he found they

-owned the reasonableness of his desire that

-they should not steal from us the distinction

-of being the first to scale that awful peak;

-and, instead of administering the fisticuffs

-he had talked about, he declared they were

-<i>bons enfants</i> after all, and presented them

-with a cake of chocolate. Thus the pipe of

-peace was smoked, and tranquillity reigned

-between the rival forces.”</p>

-

-<p>From their resting-place they could see the

-final summit. From this point a steep snow

-slope, about three to four hundred feet in

-height, rises to the final crest, which is usually

-crowned by a cornice. The little party made

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>

-their way up the steep slope, till Lauener

-reached the final cornice. It should, perhaps,

-be explained, that a cornice is a projecting

-cave of wind-blown snow which is usually

-transformed by sun and frost into ice.

-Lauener “stood close, not facing the parapet,

-but turned half round, and struck out as

-far away from himself as he could....

-Suddenly, a startling cry of surprise and

-triumph rang through the air. A great

-block of ice bounded from the top of the

-parapet, and before it had well lighted on

-the glacier, Lauener exclaimed ‘Ich schaue

-den Blauen Himmel’ (‘I see blue sky’). A

-thrill of astonishment and delight ran through

-our frames. Our enterprise had succeeded.

-We were almost upon the actual summit.

-That wave above us, frozen, as it seemed, in

-the act of falling over, into a strange and

-motionless magnificence, was the very peak

-itself. Lauener’s blows flew with redoubled

-energy. In a few minutes a practicable

-breach was made, through which he disappeared;

-and in a moment more the sound

-of his axe was heard behind the battlement

-under whose cover we stood. In his excitement

-he had forgotten us, and very soon the

-whole mass would have come crashing down

-upon our heads. A loud shout of warning

-from Sampson, who now occupied the gap,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span>

-was echoed by five other eager voices, and

-he turned his energies in a safer direction.

-It was not long before Lauener and Sampson

-together had widened the opening; and then

-at length we crept slowly on. As I took the

-last step Balmat disappeared from my sight;

-my left shoulder grazed against the angle of

-the icy embrasure, while on the right the

-glacier fell abruptly away beneath me towards

-an unknown and awful abyss; a hand from

-an invisible person grasped mine; I stepped

-across, and had passed the ridge of the

-Wetterhorn.</p>

-

-<p>“The instant before I had been face to

-face with a blank wall of ice. One step,

-and the eye took in a boundless expanse of

-crag and glacier, peak and precipice, mountain

-and valley, lake and plain. The whole world

-seemed to lie at my feet. The next moment,

-I was almost appalled by the awfulness of

-our position. The side we had come up was

-steep; but it was a gentle slope compared

-with that which now fell away from where I

-stood. A few yards of glittering ice at our

-feet, and then nothing between us and the

-green slopes of Grindelwald nine thousand

-feet beneath.”</p>

-

-<p>The “iron flagge” and fir-tree were

-planted side by side, and attracted great

-attention in Grindelwald. The “flagge”

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>

-they could understand, but the fir-tree greatly

-puzzled them.</p>

-

-<p>Christian Almer, the hero of the fir-tree,

-was destined to be one of the great Alpine

-guides. His first ascents form a formidable

-list, and include the Eiger, Mönch, Fiescherhorn

-in the Oberland (besides the first ascent

-of the Jungfrau direct from the Wengern

-Alp), the Ecrins, monarch of the Dauphiny,

-the Grand Jorasses, Col Dolent, Aiguille

-Verte in the Mont Blanc range, the Ruinette,

-and Morning Pass in the Pennines. But

-Almer’s most affectionate recollections always

-centred round the Wetterhorn. The present

-writer remembers meeting him on his way to

-celebrate his golden wedding, on the summit

-of his first love. Almer also deserves to be

-remembered as a pioneer of winter mountaineering.

-He made with Mr. Coolidge the

-first winter ascents of the Jungfrau and

-Wetterhorn. It was on a winter ascent of

-the former peak that he incurred frostbite,

-that resulted in the amputation of his toes,

-and the sudden termination of his active

-career. Some years later he died peaceably

-in his bed.</p>

-

-<p>A year after Mr. Wills’s famous climb,

-a party of Englishmen, headed by the brothers

-Smyth, conquered the highest point of Monte

-Rosa. The Alpine campaign was fairly

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span>

-opened. Hudson made a new route up

-Mont Blanc without guides, the first great

-guideless climb by Englishmen. Hinchcliffe,

-the Mathews, E. S. Kennedy, and others,

-had already done valuable work.</p>

-

-<p>The Alpine Club was the natural result of

-the desire on the part of these climbers to

-meet together in London and compare notes.

-The idea was first mooted in a letter from

-Mr. William Mathews to the Rev. J. A. Hort.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">3</a>

-The first meeting was held on December 22,

-1857. The office of President was left open

-till it was deservedly filled by John Ball;

-E. S. Kennedy became Vice-President, and

-Mr. Hinchcliffe, Honorary Secretary. It is

-pleasant to record that Albert Smith, the

-showman, was an original member. The

-English pioneers prided themselves, not without

-some show of justification, on the fact

-that their sport attracted men of great

-intellectual powers. Forbes, Tyndall, and

-Leslie Stephen, are great names in the record

-of Science and Literature. The present

-Master of Trinity was one of the early members,

-his qualification being an ascent of

-Monte Rosa, Sinai, and Parnassus.</p>

-

-<p>There were some remarkable men in this

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span>

-early group of English mountaineers. Of

-John Ball and Albert Smith, we have already

-spoken. Perhaps the most distinguished

-mountaineer from the standpoint of the

-outside world was John Tyndall. Tyndall

-was not only a great scientist, and one of the

-foremost investigators of the theory of glacier

-motion, he was also a fine mountaineer.

-His finest achievement was the first ascent

-of the Weishorn; and he also played a great

-part in the long struggle for the blue ribbon

-of the Alps&mdash;the Matterhorn. His book,

-<i>Hours of Exercise in the Alps</i>, makes good

-reading when once one has resigned oneself

-to the use of somewhat pedantic terms for

-quite simple operations. Somewhere or other&mdash;I

-quote from memory&mdash;a guide’s legs are

-referred to as monstrous levers that projected

-his body through space with enormous

-velocity! Tyndall, by the way, chose to

-take offence at some light-hearted banter

-which Leslie Stephen aimed at the scientific

-mountaineers. The passage occurs in

-Stephen’s chapter on the Rothhorn. “‘And

-what philosophic observations did you make?’

-will be the inquiry of one of those fanatics

-who by a process of reasoning to me utterly

-inscrutable have somehow irrevocably associated

-Alpine travelling with science. To them,

-I answer, that the temperature was approximately

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span>

-(I had no thermometer) 212 degrees

-Fahrenheit below freezing point. As for

-ozone, if any existed in the atmosphere, it

-was a greater fool than I take it for.” This

-flippancy caused a temporary breach between

-Stephen and Tyndall which was, however,

-eventually healed.</p>

-

-<p>Leslie Stephen is, perhaps, best known as

-a writer on ethics, though his numerous

-works of literary criticism contain much that

-is brilliant and little that is unsound. It

-has been said that the popularity of the

-word “Agnostic” is due less to Huxley, who

-invented it, than to Leslie Stephen who

-popularised it in his well known <i>Agnostic’s

-Apology</i>, an important landmark in the history

-of English Rationalism. The present writer

-has read almost every line that Stephen

-wrote, and yet feels that it is only in <i>The

-Playground of Europe</i> that he really let himself

-go. Though Stephen had a brilliant

-record as a mountaineer, it is this book that

-is his best claim to the gratitude and honour

-of climbers. Stephen was a fine mountaineer,

-as well as a distinguished writer. He was

-the first to climb the Shreckhorn, Zinal

-Rothhorn, Bietschhorn, Blüemlisalp, Rimphischorn,

-Disgrazia, and Mont Malet. He had

-the true mountaineering instinct, which is

-always stirred by the sight of an uncrossed

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>

-pass; and that great wall of rock and ice

-that shadows the Wengern Alp always suggests

-Stephen, for it falls in two places to

-depressions which he was the first to cross,

-passes immortalised in the chapters dealing

-with “The Jungfraujoch” and “The

-Eigerjoch.”</p>

-

-<p>It is not easy to stop if one begins to

-catalogue the distinguished men who helped

-to build up the triumphs of this period.

-Professor Bonney, an early president, was a

-widely travelled mountaineer, and a scientist

-of world-wide reputation. His recent work

-on the geology of the Alps, is perhaps the best

-book of the kind in existence. The Rev.

-Fenton Hort had, as we have seen, a great deal

-to do with the formation of the Alpine Club.

-His life has been written by his son, Sir

-Arthur Hort. Of John Ball and Mr. Justice

-Wills, we have already spoken. Of Whymper

-we shall have enough to say when we summarise

-the great romance of the Matterhorn.

-He was a remarkable man, with iron determination

-and great intellectual gifts. His

-classic <i>Scrambles in the Alps</i> did more than

-any other book to make new mountaineers.

-He was one of the first draughtsmen who

-combined a mountaineer’s knowledge of rock

-and ice with the necessary technical ability

-to reproduce the grandeur of the Alps in

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>

-black and white. One should compare the

-delightful woodcuts from his sketches with

-the crude, shapeless engravings that decorate

-<i>Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers</i>. His great book

-deserved its success. Whymper himself was

-a strong personality. He had many good

-qualities and some that laid him open to

-criticism. He made enemies without much

-difficulty. But he did a great work, and no

-man has a finer monument to keep alive the

-memory of his most enduring triumphs.</p>

-

-<p>Another name which must be mentioned

-is that of Mr. C. E. Mathews, a distinguished

-pioneer whose book on Mont Blanc has been

-quoted in an earlier chapter. He was a

-most devoted lover of the great mountain,

-and climbed it no less than sixteen times.

-He was a rigid conservative in matters

-Alpine; and there is something rather engaging

-in his contempt for the humbler

-visitors to the Alps. “It is a scandal to the

-Republic,” he writes, “that a line should

-have been permitted between Grindelwald

-and Interlaken. Alas for those who hailed

-with delight the extension of the Rhone

-Valley line from Sion to Visp!” It would

-have been interesting to hear his comments

-on the Jungfrau railway. The modern

-mountaineer would not easily forego the

-convenience of the trains to Zermatt that

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span>

-save him many hours of tiresome, if romantic,

-driving.</p>

-

-<p>Then there is Thomas Hinchcliffe, whose

-<i>Summer Months in the Alps</i> gave a decided

-impetus to the new movement. He belongs

-to a slightly earlier period than A. W. Moore,

-one of the most distinguished of the early

-group. Moore attained a high and honourable

-position in the Home Office. His book

-<i>The Alps in 1864</i>, which has recently been

-reprinted, is one of the sincerest tributes to

-the romance of mountaineering in the English

-language. Moore took part in a long list

-of first ascents. He was a member of the

-party that achieved the first ascent of the

-Ecrins which Whymper has immortalised,

-and he had numerous other virgin ascents

-to his credit. His most remarkable feat was

-the first ascent of Mont Blanc by the Brenva

-ridge, the finest ice expedition of the period.

-Mr. Mason has immortalised the Brenva in

-his popular novel, <i>Running Water</i>.</p>

-

-<p>And so the list might be indefinitely extended,

-if only space permitted. There was

-Sir George Young, who took part in the first

-ascent of the Jungfrau from the Wengern

-Alp and who was one of the first to attempt

-guideless climbing. There was Hardy, who

-made the first English ascent of the Finsteraarhorn,

-and Davies who climbed the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>

-two loftiest Swiss peaks, Dom and Täschhorn.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">4</a>

-“What I don’t understand,” he said

-to a friend of the present writer, “is why

-you modern mountaineers always climb on

-a rope. Surely your pace must be that of the

-slowest member of the party?” One has a

-picture of Davies striding impatiently ahead,

-devouring the ground in great hungry strides,

-while the weaker members dwindled into

-small black spots on the face of the glacier.

-And then there is Tuckett, who died in 1913.

-Of Tuckett, Leslie Stephen wrote: “In the

-heroic cycle of Alpine adventure the irrepressible

-Tuckett will occupy a place similar

-to Ulysses. In one valley the peasant will

-point to some vast breach in the everlasting

-rocks hewn, as his fancy will declare, by the

-sweep of the mighty ice-axe of the hero....

-The broken masses of a descending glacier

-will fairly represent the staircase which he

-built in order to scale a previously inaccessible

-height.... Critics will be disposed to trace

-in him one more example of the universal

-solar myth.... Tuckett, it will be announced,

-is no other than the sun which

-appears at earliest dawn above the tops of

-the loftiest mountains, gilds the summits of

-the most inaccessible peaks, penetrates remote

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span>

-valleys, and passes in an incredibly short time

-from one extremity of the Alpine chain to

-another.”</p>

-

-<p>The period which closes with the ascent

-of the Matterhorn in 1865 has been called

-the Golden Age of Mountaineering; and the

-mountaineers whom we have mentioned were

-responsible for the greater portion of this

-glorious harvest. By 1865 the Matterhorn

-was the only remaining Zermat giant that

-still defied the invaders; and beyond Zermat

-only one great group of mountains, the

-Dolomites, still remained almost unconquered.

-It was the age of the guided climber. The

-pioneers did excellent work in giving the

-chamois hunter the opportunity to become

-a guide. And many of these amateurs were

-really the moral leaders of their parties.

-It was sometimes, though not often, the

-amateur who planned the line of ascent, and

-decided when the attack should be pressed

-and when it should be abandoned. It was

-only when the guide had made repeated

-ascents of fashionable peaks that the part

-played by the amateur became less and less

-important. Mountaineering in the ’fifties

-and ’sixties was in many ways far more

-arduous than it is to-day. Club-huts are

-now scattered through the Alps. It is no

-longer necessary to carry firewood and sleeping-bags

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>

-to some lonely bivouac beside the

-banks of great glaciers. A sudden gust of

-bad weather at night no longer means that

-the climber starts at dawn with drenched

-clothes. The excellent series of <i>Climbers’

-Guides</i> give minute instructions describing

-every step in the ascent. The maps are

-reliable. In those days, guide-books had

-still to be written, the maps were romantic

-and misleading, and the discoverer of a new

-pass had not only to get to the top, he had also

-to get down the other side. What precisely

-lay beyond the pass, he did not know. It

-might be an impassable glacier, or a rock

-face that could not be descended. Almost

-every new pass involved the possibility of

-a forced bivouac.</p>

-

-<p>None the less, it must be admitted that the

-art of mountaineering has advanced more

-since 1865 than it did in the preceding half

-century. There is a greater difference between

-the ascent of the Grepon by the Mer de

-Glace Face, or the Brouillard Ridge of Mont

-Blanc, than between the Matterhorn and the

-Gross Glockner, or between the Weishorn and

-Mont Blanc.</p>

-

-<p>The art of mountaineering is half physical

-and half mental. He who can justly claim the

-name of mountaineer must possess the power to

-<i>lead</i> up rocks and snow, and to cut steps in ice.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span>

-This is the physical side of the business. It

-is important; but the charm of mountaineering

-is largely intellectual. The mental equipment

-of the mountaineer involves an exhaustive

-knowledge of one of the most ruthless

-aspects of Nature. The mountaineer must

-know the hills in all their changing moods

-and tenses. He must possess the power to

-make instant use of trivial clues, a power

-which the uninitiated mistake for an instinctive

-sense of direction. Such a sense is

-undoubtedly possessed by a small minority,

-but path-finding is often usually only the

-subconscious analysis of small clues. The

-mountaineer must understand the secrets of

-snow, rock, and ice. He must be able to tell

-at a glance whether a snow slope is dangerous,

-or a snow-bridge likely to collapse. He must

-be able to move with certainty and safety on

-a rock face, whether it is composed of reliable,

-or brittle and dangerous rock. All this

-involves knowledge which is born of experience

-and the power to apply experience.

-Every new peak is a problem for the intellect.

-Mountaineering, however, differs radically in

-one respect from many other sports. Most

-men can get up a mountain somehow, and

-thereby share at least one experience of the

-expert. Of every hundred boys that are

-dragooned into compulsory cricket at school,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span>

-only ten could ever by any possible chance

-qualify to play in first-class cricket. Almost

-all of them could reach the summit of a first

-class peak if properly guided.</p>

-

-<p>But this is not mountaineering. You cannot

-pay a professional to take your place at

-Lords’ and then claim the benefit of the

-century he knocks up. But some men with

-great Alpine reputations owe everything to

-the professional they have hired. They have

-good wind and strong legs. With a stout

-rope above, they could follow a good leader

-up any peak in the Alps. The guide was

-not only paid to lead up the rocks and assist

-them from above. He was paid to do all

-the thinking that was necessary. He was

-the brain as well as the muscle of the expedition.

-He solved all the problems that Nature

-sets the climber, and mountaineering for his

-client was only a very safe form of exercise

-in agreeable surroundings.</p>

-

-<p>Leslie Stephen admitted this, and he had

-less cause to admit it than most. “I utterly

-repudiate the doctrine that Alpine travellers

-are, or ought to be, the heroes of Alpine

-adventure. The true way, at least, to describe

-all my Alpine adventures is to say that

-Michael Anderegg, or Lauener, succeeded in

-performing a feat requiring skill, strength,

-and courage, the difficulty of which was much

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>

-increased by the difficulty of taking with him

-his knapsack and his employer.” Now, this

-does less than justice to Leslie Stephen, and

-to many of the early mountaineers. Often

-they supplied the brain of the party, and the

-directing energy. They were pioneers. Yet

-mountaineering as a fine art owes almost as

-much to the men who first dispensed with

-professional assistance. A man who climbs

-habitually with guides may be, and often

-is, a fine mountaineer. He <i>need</i> be nothing

-more than a good walker, with a steady head,

-to achieve a desperate reputation among

-laymen.</p>

-

-<p>Many of the early pioneers were by no

-means great athletes, though their mountaineering

-achievements deceived the public into

-crediting them with superhuman nerve and

-strength. Many of them were middle-aged

-gentlemen, who could have taken no part in

-active sports which demand a swift alliance

-of nerve and muscle; but who were quite

-capable of plugging up the average mixture

-of easy rock and snow that one meets on the

-average first-class Alpine peak. They had

-average endurance, and more than average

-pluck, for the prestige of the unvanquished

-peaks still daunted all but the courageous.</p>

-

-<p>They were lucky in that the great bulk of

-Alpine peaks were unconquered, and were

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>

-only too ready to be conquered by the first

-climber who could hire two trusty Swiss

-guides to cut the steps, carry the knapsack,

-and lead up the rocks. It is usually said of

-these men: “They could not, perhaps, have

-tackled the pretty rock problems in which the

-modern cragsman delights. They were something

-better than gymnasts. They were all-round

-mountaineers.” This seems rather

-special pleading. Some one said that mountaineering

-seemed to be walking up easy

-snow mountains between guides, and mere

-cragsmanship consisted in leading up difficult

-rock-peaks without guides. It does not

-follow that a man who can lead up the

-Chamounix aiguilles knows less of the broader

-principles of mountaineering than the gentleman

-who is piloted up Mont Blanc by sturdy

-Swiss peasants. The issue is not between

-those who confine their energies to gymnastic

-feats on Welsh crags and the wider school

-who understand snow and ice as well as rock.

-The issue is between those who can take their

-proper share in a rock-climb like the Grepon,

-or a difficult ice expedition like the Brenva

-Mont Blanc, and those who would be completely

-at a loss if their guides broke down

-on an easy peak like the Wetterhorn. The

-pioneers did not owe everything to their

-guides. A few did, but most of them were

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>

-good mountaineers whose opinion was often

-asked by the professionals, and sometimes

-taken. Yet the guided climber, then and

-now, missed the real inwardness of the sport.

-Mountaineering, in the modern sense, is a

-sport unrivalled in its appeal to mind and

-body. The man who can lead on a series of

-really first-class climbs must possess great

-nerve, and a specialised knowledge of

-mountains that is almost a sixth sense.

-Mountaineering between guides need not

-involve anything more than a good wind and

-a steady head. Anybody can get up a

-first-class peak. Only one amateur in ten

-can complete ascent and descent with safety

-if called on to lead.</p>

-

-<p>In trying to form a just estimate of our

-debt to the early English pioneers, we have

-to avoid two extremes. We must remember

-the parable of the dwarf standing on the

-giant’s shoulders. It ill becomes those who

-owe Climbers’ Guides, and to some extent

-good maps, to the labours of the pioneers to

-discount their achievements. But the other

-extreme is also a danger. We need not

-pretend that every man who climbed a

-virgin peak in the days when nearly every

-big peak was virgin was necessarily a fine

-mountaineer. All praise is due to the earliest

-explorers, men like Balmat, Joseph Beck,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>

-Bourrit, De Saussure, and the Meyers, for in

-those days the country above the snow-line

-was not only unknown, it was full of imagined

-terrors. These men did a magnificent work

-in robbing the High Alps of their chief

-defence&mdash;superstition. But in the late ’fifties

-and early ’sixties this atmosphere had largely

-vanished. Mr. X came to the A valley, and

-discovered that the B, C, or D horn had not

-been climbed. The B, C, and D horn were

-average peaks with a certain amount of

-straightforward snow and ice work, and a

-certain amount of straightforward rock work.

-Mr. X enjoys a fortnight of good weather,

-and the services of two good guides. He does

-what any man with like opportunities would

-accomplish, what an undergraduate fresh to

-the Alps could accomplish to-day if these peaks

-had been obligingly left virgin for his disposal.

-Many of the pioneers with a long list of virgin

-peaks to their credit would have made a poor

-show if they had been asked to lead one of

-the easy buttresses of Tryfan.</p>

-

-<p>Rock-climbing as a fine art was really

-undreamt of till long after the Matterhorn

-had been conquered. The layman is apt to

-conceive all Alpine climbs as a succession

-of dizzy precipices. To a man brought up

-on Alpine classics, there are few things more

-disappointing than the ease of his first big

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>

-peak. The rock work on the average Oberland

-or Zermat peaks by the ordinary route

-is simple, straightforward scrambling up

-slopes whose average inclination is nearer

-thirty than sixty degrees. It is the sort of

-thing that the ordinary man can do by the

-light of Nature. Rock-climbing, in the sense

-in which the Dolomite or lake climber uses the

-term, is an art which calls for high qualities of

-nerve and physique. Such rock climbing was

-almost unknown till some time after the close

-of this period. No modern cragsman would

-consider the Matterhorn, even if robbed of its

-fixed ropes, as anything but a straightforward

-piece of interesting rock work, unless he was

-unlucky enough to find it in bad condition.

-All this we may frankly admit. Mountaineering

-as an art was only in its infancy when

-the Matterhorn was climbed. And yet the

-Englishmen whom we have mentioned in

-this chapter did more for mountaineering

-than any of their successors or predecessors.

-Bourrit, De Saussure, Beck, Placidus à

-Spescha, and the other pioneers of the late

-eighteenth and early nineteenth century,

-deserve the greatest credit. But their spirited

-example gave no general impetus to the

-sport. They were single-handed mountaineers;

-and somehow they never managed to

-fire the world with their own enthusiasm.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>

-The Englishmen arrived late on the scene.

-The great giants of more than one district

-had been climbed. And yet mountaineering

-was still the pursuit of a few isolated men

-who knew little or nothing of their brother

-climbers, who came and struggled and passed

-away uncheered by the inspiring freemasonry

-of a band of workers aiming at the same end.

-It was left to the English to transform

-mountaineering into a popular sport. Judged

-even by modern standards some of these men

-were fine mountaineers, none the less independent

-because the fashion of the day

-decreed that guides should be taken on difficult

-expeditions. But even those who owed the

-greater part of their success to their guides

-were inspired by the same enthusiasm which,

-unlike the lonely watchfires of the earlier

-pioneers, kindled a general conflagration.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br />

-

-<span class="large">THE STORY OF THE MATTERHORN</span></h2>

-

-<p>The history of mountaineering contains

-nothing more dramatic than the epic of the

-Matterhorn. There is no mountain which

-appeals so readily to the imagination. Its

-unique form has drawn poetic rhapsodies from

-the most prosaic. “Men,” says Mr. Whymper,

-“who ordinarily spoke or wrote like rational

-beings when they came under its power seemed

-to quit their senses, and ranted, and rhapsodied,

-losing for a time all common forms of

-speech. Even the sober De Saussure was

-moved to enthusiasm.”</p>

-

-<p>If the Matterhorn could thus inspire men

-before the most famous siege in Alpine

-history had clothed its cliffs in romance,

-how much more must it move those for whom

-the final tragedy has become historical?

-The first view of the Matterhorn, and the

-moment when the last step is taken on to

-the final crest, are two moments which the

-mountaineer never forgets. Those who knew

-the old Zermat are unpleasantly fond of

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span>

-reminding us that the railway train and the

-monster hôtels have robbed Zermat of its

-charm; while the fixed ropes and sardine tins&mdash;[Those

-dear old sardine tins! Our Alpine

-writers would run short of satire if they could

-not invoke their aid]&mdash;have finally humiliated

-the unvanquished Titan. It may be so; but

-it is easy enough to recover the old atmosphere.

-You have only to visit Zermat in winter

-when the train is not running. A long trudge

-up twenty miles of shadowed, frosty valley,

-a little bluff near Randa, and the Matterhorn

-soars once more into a stainless sky. There

-are no clouds, and probably not another

-stranger in the valley. The hôtels are closed,

-the sardine tins are buried, and the Matterhorn

-renews like the immortals an undying youth.</p>

-

-<p>The great mountain remained unconquered

-mainly because it inspired in the hearts of

-the bravest guides a despairing belief in its

-inaccessibility. “There seemed,” writes Mr.

-Whymper, “to be a cordon drawn round it

-up to which one might go, but no further.

-Within that line gins and efreets were supposed

-to exist&mdash;the wandering Jew and the

-spirits of the damned. The superstitious

-natives in the surrounding valleys (many of

-whom firmly believed it to be not only the

-highest mountain in the Alps, but in the world)

-spoke of a ruined city on the summit wherein

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>

-the spirits dwelt; and if you laughed they

-gravely shook their heads, told you to look

-yourself to see the castle and walls, and

-warned one against a rash approach, lest

-the infuriated demons from their impregnable

-heights might hurl down vengeance for one’s

-derision.”</p>

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_149.jpg" alt="" />

-<p class="caption">I.&mdash;THE MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH-EAST (ZERMAT).</p>

-

-<p>The left-hand ridge in the Furgg Grat and the shoulder (F.S.) is the

-Furgg shoulder from which Mummery traversed across to the Swiss face

-on his attempt on the Furgg Grat.</p>

-

-<p>The central ridge is the North-east ridge. N.E. is the point where

-the climb begins. S is the Swiss shoulder, A the Swiss summit,

-B the Italian summit. The route of the first ascent is marked. Nowadays

-it is usual to keep closer to the ridge in the early part of the

-climb and to climb from the shoulder S to the summit A. Fixed

-ropes hang throughout this section. T is the group of rocky teeth on

-the Zmutt ridge.</p></div>

-

-<p>Those who have a sense for the dramatic

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>

-unities will feel that, for once in a way, Life

-lived up to the conventions of Art, and

-that even a great dramatist could scarcely

-have bettered the materials afforded by the

-history of the Matterhorn. As the story

-unfolds itself one can scarcely help attributing

-some fatal personality to the inanimate cliffs.

-In the Italian valley of Breuil, the Becca, as

-the Matterhorn used to be called, was for

-centuries the embodiment of supernatural

-terror. Mothers would frighten their children

-by threats that the wild man of the Becca

-would carry them away. And if the children

-asked how the Matterhorn was born, they

-would reply that in bygone years there dwelt

-a giant in Aosta named Gargantua, who was

-once seized with a longing for the country

-beyond the range of peaks that divide Italy

-from Switzerland. Now, in those far off

-times, the mountains of the great barrier

-formed one uniform ridge instead of (as now) a

-series of peaks. The giant strode over this

-range with one step. As he stood with one

-foot in Switzerland and the other in Italy, the

-surrounding rocks fell away, and the pyramid

-of cliffs caught between his legs alone remained.

-And thus was the Matterhorn formed. There

-were many such legends; the reader may find

-them in Whymper and Guido Rey. They

-were enough to daunt all but the boldest.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span></p>

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_151.jpg" alt="" />

-<p class="caption">II.&mdash;MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH.</p>

-

-<p>The left-hand ridge is the North-east ridge. The points N.E., S, A, B, and T are the same as the corresponding

-points in I. The North-east ridge, which appears extremely steep, in I., is here seen in profile.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span></p></div>

-

-<p>The drama of the Matterhorn opens appropriately

-enough with the three men who first

-showed a contempt for the superstitions

-that surrounded the Becca. The story of

-that first attempt is told in Guido Rey’s

-excellent monograph on the Matterhorn, a

-monograph which has been translated by

-Mr. Eaton into English as spirited as the

-original Italian. This opening bout with the

-Becca took place in 1858. Three natives

-of Breuil, the little Italian valley at the foot

-of the Matterhorn, met before dawn at the

-châlet of Avouil. Of these, Jean Jacques

-Carrel was in command. He was a mighty

-hunter, and a fine mountaineer. The second,

-Jean Antoine Carrel, “il Bersaglier,” was

-destined to play a leading part in the conflict

-that was to close seven years later. Jean

-Antoine was something more than a great

-guide. He was a ragged, independent mountaineer,

-difficult to control, a great leader, but

-a poor follower. He was an old soldier, and

-had fought at Novara. The third of these

-young climbers was Aimé Gorret, a young boy

-of twenty destined for the Church. His

-solitary rambles among the hills had filled

-him with a passionate worship of the

-Matterhorn.</p>

-

-<p>Without proper provisions or gear, these

-three light-hearted knights set forth gaily

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>

-on their quest. They mistook the way; and,

-reaching a spot that pleased them, they

-wasted hours in hurling rocks down a cliff&mdash;a

-fascinating pursuit. When they reached

-the point now known as the Tête du Lion

-(12,215 feet) they contemplated the Matterhorn

-which rose definitely beyond an intervening

-gap. They looked at their great foe with

-quiet assurance. The Becca would not run

-away. Nobody else was likely to try a throw

-with the local giant. One day they would

-come back and settle the issue. There was

-no immediate hurry.</p>

-

-<p>In 1860 a daring attempt was made by

-Messrs. Alfred, Charles, and Sanbach Parker

-of Liverpool. These bold climbers dispensed

-with guides, and had the wisdom to attack

-the east face that rises above Zermat. All

-the other early explorers attacked the Italian

-ridge; and, as will be seen, the first serious

-assault on the eastern face succeeded. Lack

-of time prevented the Parkers from reaching

-a greater height than 12,000 feet; nor were

-they more successful in the following year,

-but they had made a gallant attempt, for

-which they deserve credit. In 1860 another

-party had assailed the mountain from Italy,

-and reached a height of about 13,000 feet.

-The party consisted of Vaughan Hawkins

-and Prof. Tyndall, whom he had invited to

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span>

-join the party, with the guides J. J. Carrel

-and Bennen.</p>

-

-<p>In 1861 Edward Whymper, who had opened

-his Alpine career in the previous year, returned

-to the Alps determined to conquer two virgin

-summits of the Alps, the Matterhorn and the

-Weishorn. On arriving at Chatillon, he

-learned that the Weishorn had been climbed

-by Tyndall, and that Tyndall was at Breuil

-intending to add the Matterhorn to his conquests.

-Whymper determined to anticipate

-him. He arrived at Breuil on August 28, with

-an Oberland guide, and inquired for the

-best man in the valley. The knowing ones

-with a voice recommended Jean Antoine

-Carrel, a member of the first party to set

-foot on the Matterhorn. “We sought, of

-course, for Carrel, and found him a well-made,

-resolute looking fellow, with a certain defiant

-air which was rather taking. Yes, he would

-go. Twenty francs a day, whatever the

-result, was his price. I assented. But I

-must take his comrade. As he said this,

-an evil countenance came forth out of the

-darkness, and proclaimed itself the comrade.

-I demurred, and negotiations were broken

-off.”</p>

-

-<p>At Breuil, they tried to get another man

-to accompany them but without success.

-The men they approached either would not

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span>

-go or asked a prohibitive price. “This, it

-may be said once and for all, was the reason

-why so many futile attempts were made on

-the Matterhorn. One guide after another

-was brought up to the mountain and patted

-on the back, but all declined the business.

-The men who went had no heart in the matter,

-and took the first opportunity to turn back.

-For they were, with the exception of the man

-to whom reference will be made [J. A. Carrel]

-universally impressed with the belief that

-the summit was entirely inaccessible.”</p>

-

-<p>Whymper and his guide bivouacked in a

-cowshed; and as night approached they saw

-J. A. Carrel and his companion stealing up

-the hillside. Whymper asked them if they

-had repented, and would join his party.

-They replied that they had contemplated

-an independent assault. “Oh, then, it is

-not necessary to have more than three.”

-“Not for us.” “I admired their pluck and

-had a strong inclination to engage the pair,

-but finally decided against it. The companion

-turned out to be J. J. Carrel. Both were

-bold mountaineers; but Jean Antoine was

-incomparably the better of the two, and was

-the finest rock climber I have ever seen.

-He was the only man who persistently refused

-to accept defeat, and who continued to believe,

-in spite of all discouragements, that the great

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span>

-mountain was not inaccessible, and that it

-could be ascended from the side of his native

-valley.”</p>

-

-<p>Carrel was something more than a great

-guide. He remained a soldier long after he

-had laid down his sword. He was, above all,

-an Italian, determined to climb the Matterhorn

-by the great Italian ridge, to climb it for the

-honour of Italy, and for the honour of his

-native valley. The two great moments of

-his life were those in which he heard the shouts

-of victory at Colle di Santiarno, and the cries

-of triumph on the summit of the Italian ridge.

-Whymper, and later Tyndall, found him an

-awkward man to deal with. He had the

-rough, undisciplined nature of the mountain

-he loved. He looked on the Matterhorn as

-a kind of preserve, and was determined that

-he and no other should lead on the final

-and successful ascent. Whymper’s first

-attempt failed owing to the poor qualities

-of his guide; and the Carrels were not more

-successful.</p>

-

-<p>During the three years that followed,

-Whymper made no less than six attempts

-to climb the Matterhorn. On one occasion

-he climbed alone and unaided higher than

-any of his predecessors. Without guides

-or companions, he reached a height of 13,500

-feet. There is little to be said for solitary

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span>

-climbing, but this feat stands out as one

-of the boldest achievements of the period.

-The critics of solitary scrambling need, however,

-look no further than its sequel for their

-moral. In attempting to negotiate a corner

-on the Tête du Lion, Whymper slipped and

-fell. He shot down an ice slope, slid and

-bounded through a vertical height of about

-200 feet, and was eventually thrown against

-the side of a gully where it narrowed. Another

-ten feet would have taken him in one terrific

-bound of 800 feet on to the glacier below.

-The blood was pulsing out of numerous cuts.

-He plastered up the wounds in his head with

-a lump of snow before scrambling up into

-a place of safety, where he promptly fainted

-away. He managed, however, to reach Breuil

-without further adventure. Within a week

-he had returned to the attack.</p>

-

-<p>He made two further attempts that year

-which failed for various reasons; but he had

-the satisfaction of seeing Tyndall fail when

-success seemed assured. Tyndall had brought

-with him the great Swiss guide Bennen, and a

-Valaisian guide named Walter Anton. He

-engaged Jean Antoine and Cæsar Carrel.

-They proposed to attack the mountain by

-the Italian ridge. Next morning, somebody

-ran in to tell Whymper that a flag had been

-seen on the summit. This proved a false

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>

-alarm. Whymper waited through the long

-day to greet the party on their return. “I

-could not bring myself to leave, but lingered

-about as a foolish lover hovers round the

-object of his affections even after he has been

-rejected. The sun had set before the men

-were discerned coming over the pastures.

-There was no spring in their steps&mdash;they, too,

-were defeated.”</p>

-

-<p>Prof. Tyndall told Whymper that he had

-arrived “within a stone’s-throw of the summit”&mdash;the

-mountain is 14,800 feet high,

-14,600 feet had been climbed. “He greatly

-deceived himself,” said Whymper, “for the

-point which he reached is no less than 800 feet

-below the summit. The failure was due to

-the fact that the Carrels had been engaged

-in a subordinate capacity.” When they were

-appealed to for their opinion, they replied:

-“We are porters, ask your guides.” Carrel

-always determined that the Matterhorn should

-be climbed from Italy, and that the leader

-of the climb should be an Italian. Bennen

-was a Swiss and Carrel had been engaged as a

-second guide. Tyndall and Whymper found

-it necessary to champion their respective

-guides, Carrel and Bennen; and a more or

-less heated controversy was carried on in the

-pages of <i>The Alpine Journal</i>.</p>

-

-<p>The Matterhorn was left in peace till the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>

-next year, but, meanwhile, a conspiracy for

-its downfall was hatched in Italy. The story

-is told in Guido Rey’s classic book on the

-Matterhorn, a book which should be read side

-by side with Whymper’s <i>Scrambles</i>, as it gives

-the Italian version of the final stages in which

-Italy and England fought for the great prize.

-In 1863, some leading Italian mountaineers

-gathered together at Turin to found an Italian

-Alpine Club. Amongst these were two well-known

-scientists, Felice Giordano and Quintino

-Sella. They vowed that, as English climbers

-had robbed them of Monte Viso, prince of

-Piedmontese peaks, Italy should have the

-honour of conquering the Matterhorn, and

-that Italians should climb it from Italy by

-the Italian ridge. The task was offered to

-Giordano, who accepted it.</p>

-

-<p>In 1863 Whymper and Carrel made another

-attempt on the Matterhorn, which was foiled

-by bad weather. In the next year, the

-mountain was left alone; but the plot for its

-downfall began to mature. Giordano and

-Sella had met Carrel, and had extracted from

-him promises of support. Carrel was, above

-all, an Italian, and, other things being equal,

-he would naturally prefer to lead an Italian,

-rather than an English, party to the summit.</p>

-

-<p>And now we come to the closing scenes.

-In 1865 Whymper returned to the attack,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>

-heartily tired of the Italian ridge. With

-the great guides Michel Croz and Christian

-Almer, Whymper attempted to reach the

-summit by a rock couloir that starts from near

-the Breuiljoch, and terminates high up on

-the Furggen arête. This was a mad scheme;

-and the route they chose was the most impracticable

-of all the routes that had ever been

-attempted on the Matterhorn. Even to-day,

-the great couloir has not been climbed, and

-the top half of the Furggen ridge has only

-been once ascended (or rather outflanked on

-the Italian side), an expedition of great danger

-and difficulty. Foiled in this attempt,

-Whymper turned his attention to the Swiss

-face. The eastern face is a fraud. From

-the Riffel and from Zermat, it appears almost

-perpendicular; but when seen in profile from

-the Zmutt glacier it presents a very different

-appearance. The average angle of the slope

-as far as “the shoulder,” about 13,925 feet,

-is about thirty degrees. From here to the

-summit the angle steepens considerably but

-is never more than fifty degrees. The wonder

-is that Whymper, who had studied the mountain

-more than once from the Zmutt glacier,

-still continued his attempts on the difficult

-Italian ridge.</p>

-

-<p>On the 8th of June 1865, Whymper arrived

-in Breuil, and explained to Carrel his change

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span>

-of plan. He engaged Carrel, and made plans

-for his attack on the Swiss face, promising

-Carrel that, if that failed, they should return

-to the Italian ridge. Jean Antoine told

-Whymper that he would not be able to serve

-him after the 11th, as he was engaged to

-travel “with a family of distinction in the

-valley of Aosta.” Whymper asked him why

-he had not told him this before; and he

-replied that the engagement had been a long-standing

-one, but that the actual day had not

-been fixed. Whymper was annoyed; but

-he could find no fault with the answer, and

-parted on friendly terms with Carrel. But

-the family of distinction was no other than

-Giordano. “You are going to leave me,”

-Whymper had said to Carrel, “to travel

-with a party of ladies. The work is not fit

-for you.” Carrel had smiled; and Whymper

-had taken the smile as a recognition of the

-implied compliment. Carrel smiled because

-he knew that the work he had in hand was

-more fitted for him than for any other man.</p>

-

-<p>On the 7th, Giordano had written to Sella:</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“Let us, then, set out to attack this Devil’s

-mountain; and let us see that we succeed,

-if only Whymper has not been beforehand

-with us.” On the 11th, he wrote again: “Dear

-Quintino, It is high time for me to send you

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span>

-news from here. I reached Valtournanche

-on Saturday at midday. There I found

-Carrel, who had just returned from a reconnoitring

-expedition on the Matterhorn, which

-had proved a failure owing to bad weather.

-Whymper had arrived two or three days

-before; as usual, he wished to make the

-ascent, and had engaged Carrel, who, not

-having had my letters, had agreed, but for

-a few days only. Fortunately, the weather

-turned bad, Whymper was unable to make his

-fresh attempt; and Carrel left him, and came

-with me together with five other picked men

-who are the best guides in the valley. We

-immediately sent off our advance guard with

-Carrel at its head. In order not to excite

-remark, we took the rope and other materials

-to Avouil, a hamlet which is very remote and

-close to the Matterhorn; and this is to be

-our lower base.... I have tried to keep

-everything secret; but that fellow, whose

-life seems to depend on the Matterhorn, is

-here suspiciously prying into everything. I

-have taken all the competent men away from

-him; and yet he is so enamoured of the

-mountain that he may go with others and

-make a scene. He is here in this hôtel, and

-I try to avoid speaking to him.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>Whymper discovered on the 10th the identity

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span>

-of the “family of distinction.” He was

-furious. He considered, with some show of

-justification, that he had been “bamboozled

-and humbugged.”</p>

-

-<p>The Italian party had already started for

-the Matterhorn, with a large store of provisions.

-They were an advance party designed

-to find and facilitate the way. They

-would take their time. Whymper took

-courage. On the 11th, a party arrived from

-Zermat across the Théodule. One of these

-proved to be Lord Francis Douglas, who,

-a few days previously, had made the second

-ascent of the Gabelhorn, and the first from

-Zinal. Lord Francis was a young and ambitious

-climber; and he was only too glad

-to join Whymper in an attack on the Swiss

-face of the Matterhorn. They crossed to

-Zermat together on the 12th, and there discovered

-Mr. Hudson, a great mountaineer,

-accompanied by the famous guide Michel

-Croz, who had arrived at Zermat with the

-Matterhorn in view. They agreed to join

-forces; and Hudson’s friend Hadow was

-admitted to the party. Hadow was a young

-man of nineteen who had just left Harrow.

-Whymper seemed doubtful of his ability;

-but Hudson reassured him by remarking

-that Mr. Hadow had done Mont Blanc in

-less time than most men. Peter Taugwalder,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span>

-Lord Francis’s guide, and Peter’s two sons

-completed the party. On the 13th of July

-they left Zermat.</p>

-

-<p>On the 14th of July Giordano wrote a short

-letter every line of which is alive with grave

-triumph. “At 2 p.m. to-day I saw Carrel

-&amp; Co., on the top of the Matterhorn.” Poor

-Giordano! The morrow was to bring a sad

-disappointment; and his letter dated the

-15th of July contains a pregnant sentence:

-“Although every man did his duty, it is a

-lost battle, and I am in great grief.”</p>

-

-<p>This is what had happened. Whymper

-and his companions had left Zermat on the

-13th at half-past five. The day was cloudless.

-They mounted leisurely, and arrived

-at the base of the actual peak about half-past

-eleven. Once fairly on the great eastern face,

-they were astonished to find that places which

-looked entirely impracticable from the Riffel

-“were so easy that they could run about.”

-By mid-day they had found a suitable place

-for the tent at a height of about 11,000

-feet. Croz and young Peter Taugwalder

-went on to explore. They returned at about

-3 p.m. in a great state of excitement. There

-was no difficulty. They could have gone to

-the top that day and returned.... “Long

-after dusk, the cliffs above echoed with our

-laughter, and with the songs of the guides,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span>

-for we were happy that night in camp, and

-feared no evil.”</p>

-

-<p>Whymper’s story is told with simplicity

-and restraint. He was too good a craftsman

-to spoil a great subject by unnecessary strokes.

-They started next day before dawn. They

-had left Zermat on the 13th, and they left

-their camp on a Friday (the superstitious

-noted these facts when the whole disastrous

-story was known). The whole of the great

-eastern slope “was now revealed, rising for

-3000 feet like a huge natural staircase. Some

-parts were more and others were less easy;

-but we were not once brought to a halt by

-any serious impediment.... For the greater

-part of the way there was no need for the

-rope, and sometimes Hudson led, and sometimes

-myself.” When they arrived at the

-snow ridge now known as “The Shoulder,”

-which is some 500 feet below the summit,

-they turned over on to the northern

-face. This proved more difficult; but the

-general angle of the slope was nowhere more

-than forty degrees. Hadow’s want of experience

-began to tell, and he required a certain

-amount of assistance. “The solitary difficult

-part was of no great extent.... A

-long stride round a rather awkward corner

-brought us to snow once more. The last

-doubt had vanished. The Matterhorn was

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span>

-ours. Nothing but 200 feet of easy snow

-remained to be surmounted.”</p>

-

-<p>But they were not yet certain that they

-had not been beaten. The Italians had left

-Breuil four days before. All through the

-climb, false alarms had been raised of men

-on the top. The excitement became intense.

-“The slope eased off; at length we could be

-detached; and Croz and I, dashing away,

-ran a neck-and-neck race which ended in a

-dead heat. At 1.40 p.m. the world was at

-our feet, and the Matterhorn was conquered.”</p>

-

-<p>No footsteps could be seen; but the summit

-of the Matterhorn consists of a rudely level

-ridge about 350 feet in length, and the Italians

-might have been at the further end. Whymper

-hastened to the Italian summit, and again

-found the snow untrodden. They peered over

-the ridge, and far below on the right caught

-sight of the Italian party. “Up went my

-arms and hat. ‘Croz, Croz, come here!’

-‘Where are they, monsieur?’ ‘There, don’t

-you see them, down there.’ ‘Ah, the coquins,

-they are low down.’ ‘Croz, we must make

-those fellows hear us.’ They yelled until

-they were hoarse. ‘Croz, we must make

-them hear us, they shall hear us.’” Whymper

-seized a block of rock and hurled it down,

-and called on his companion to do the same.

-They drove their sticks in, and soon a

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span>

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span>

-whole torrent was pouring down. “There

-was no mistake about it this time. The

-Italians turned and fled.”</p>

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-<img src="images/i_167.jpg" alt="" />

-<p class="caption">III.&mdash;THE MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH-WEST.</p>

-

-<p>T and B are the points marked T and B in I. and II. Z Z Z Z is the Zmutt ridge. B C D E F

-is the great Italian South-west ridge. B is the Italian summit. C the point where Tyndall turned

-back on his last attempt. D the Italian shoulder now known as “Pic Tyndall.” E the “cravette.”

-F the Col du Lion, and G the Tête du Lion. The Italian route ascends to the Col du Lion on the

-further side, and then follows the Italian ridge.</p></div>

-

-<p>Croz planted a tent-pole which they had

-taken with them, though Whymper protested

-that it was tempting Providence, and fixed

-his blouse to it. A poor flag&mdash;but it was

-seen everywhere. At Breuil&mdash;as we have

-seen&mdash;they cheered the Italian victory. But

-on the morrow the explorers returned down-hearted.

-“The old legends are true&mdash;there

-are spirits on the top of the Matterhorn. We

-saw them ourselves&mdash;they hurled stones at

-us.”</p>

-

-<p>We may allow this dramatic touch to pass

-unchallenged, though, whatever Carrel may

-have said to his friends, he made it quite

-clear to Giordano that he had identified the

-turbulent spirits, for, in the letter from which

-we have quoted, Giordano tells his friends

-that Carrel had seen Whymper on the summit.

-It might, perhaps, be worth while to add that

-the stones Whymper hurled down the ridge

-could by no possible chance have hit Carrel’s

-party. “Still, I would,” writes Whymper,

-“that the leader of that party could have

-stood with us at that moment, for our victorious

-shouts conveyed to him the disappointment

-of a lifetime. He was <i>the</i> man of all

-those who attempted the ascent of the Matterhorn

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span>

-who most deserved to be first upon its

-summit. He was the first to doubt its inaccessibility;

-and he was the only man who

-persisted in believing that its ascent would be

-accomplished. It was the aim of his life

-to make the ascent from the side of Italy,

-for the honour of his native valley. For a

-time, he had the game in his hands; he played

-it as he thought best; but he made a false

-move, and he lost it.”</p>

-

-<p>After an hour on the summit, they prepared

-to descend. The order of descent was curious.

-Croz, as the best man in the party, should have

-been placed last. As a matter of history, he

-led, followed, in this order, by Hadow, Hudson,

-Douglas, and Peter Taugwalder. Whymper

-was sketching while the party was being

-arranged. They were waiting for him to

-tie on when somebody suggested that the

-names had not been left in a bottle. While

-Whymper put this right, the rest of the party

-moved on. A few minutes later Whymper

-tied on to young Peter, and followed detached

-from the others. Later, Douglas asked

-Whymper to attach himself to old Taugwalder,

-as he feared that Taugwalder would not be

-able to hold his ground in the event of a slip.

-About three o’clock in the afternoon, Michel

-Croz, who had laid aside his axe, faced the rock,

-and, in order to give Hadow greater security,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span>

-was putting his feet one by one into their

-proper position. Croz then turned round to

-advance another step when Hadow slipped,

-fell against Croz, and knocked him over. “I

-heard one startled exclamation from Croz,

-and then saw him and Mr. Hadow flying downwards;

-in another moment Hudson was

-dragged from his steps, and Lord Francis

-Douglas immediately after him. All this

-was the work of a moment. Immediately

-we heard Croz’s exclamation, old Peter and I

-planted ourselves as firmly as the rocks would

-permit: the rope was taut between us, and

-the jerk came on us both as on one man.

-We held: but the rope broke midway between

-Taugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For

-a few seconds, we saw our unfortunate companions

-sliding downwards on their backs,

-and spreading out their hands endeavouring

-to save themselves. They passed from our

-sight uninjured, disappeared one by one,

-and then fell from precipice to precipice on

-to the Matterhorngletscher below, a distance

-of nearly 4000 feet in height. From the

-moment the rope broke, it was impossible

-to help them.”</p>

-

-<p>For half-an-hour, Whymper and the two

-Taugwalders remained on the spot without

-moving. The two guides cried like children.

-Whymper was fixed between the older and

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span>

-younger Taugwalder, and must have heartily

-regretted that he left young Peter the responsibility

-of last man down, for the young man was

-paralysed with terror, and refused to move.

-At last, he descended, and they stood together.

-Whymper asked immediately for the end of

-the rope that had given way, and noticed

-with horror that it was the weakest of the

-three ropes. It had never been intended to

-use it save as a reserve in case much rope had

-to be left behind to attach to the rocks.</p>

-

-<p>For more than two hours after the fall,

-Whymper expected that the Taugwalders

-would fall. They were utterly unnerved. At

-6 p.m. they arrived again on the snow

-shoulder. “We frequently looked, but in

-vain, for traces of our unfortunate companions;

-we bent over the ridge and cried to them,

-but no sound returned. Convinced at last

-that they were neither within sight nor hearing,

-we ceased from our useless efforts; and,

-too cast down for speech, silently gathered

-up our things, and the little effects of those

-who were lost, preparatory to continuing the

-descent.”</p>

-

-<p>As they started down, the Taugwalders

-raised the problem as to their payment,

-Lord Francis being dead. “They filled,”

-remarks Whymper, “the cup of bitterness

-to overflowing, and I tore down the cliff

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span>

-madly and recklessly in a way that caused

-them more than once to inquire if I wished

-to kill them.” The whole party spent the

-night on a miserable ledge. Next day, they

-descended in safety to Zermat. Seiler met

-them at the door of his hôtel. “What is the

-matter?” “The Taugwalders and I have

-returned.” He did not need more, and burst

-into tears, but lost no time in needless lamentations,

-and set to work to rouse the village.</p>

-

-<p>On Sunday morning, Whymper set out with

-the Rev. Canon M’Cormick to recover the

-bodies of his friends. The local curé threatened

-with excommunication any guide who

-neglected Mass in order to attend the search

-party. “To several, at least, this was a

-severe trial. Peter Perrn declared, with

-tears in his eyes, that nothing else would

-have prevented him joining in the search.”

-Guides from other valleys joined the party.

-At 8.30 they got to the plateau at the top of

-the glacier. They found Hudson, Croz and

-Hadow, but “of Lord Francis Douglas nothing

-was seen.”</p>

-

-<p>This accident sent a thrill of horror through

-the civilised world. The old file of <i>The Times</i>,

-which is well worth consulting, bears tribute

-to the profound sensation which the news of

-this great tragedy aroused. Idle rumours of

-every kind were afloat&mdash;with these we shall

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span>

-deal later. For more than five weeks, not

-a day passed without some letter or comment

-in the columns of the leading English paper.

-These letters, for the most part, embodied

-the profound distrust with which the new sport

-was regarded by the bulk of Englishmen.

-If Lord Francis Douglas had been killed while

-galloping after a fox, he would have been

-considered to have fallen in action. That he

-should have fallen on the day that the Matterhorn

-fell, that he should have paid the supreme

-forfeit for a triumphant hour in Alpine history&mdash;such

-a death was obviously wholly without its

-redeeming features. “It was the blue ribbon

-of the Alps,” wrote <i>The Times</i>, “that poor

-Lord Francis Douglas was trying for the other

-day. If it must be so, at all events the Alpine

-Club that has proclaimed this crusade must

-manage the thing rather better, or it will

-soon be voted a nuisance. If the work is

-to be done, it must be done well. They must

-advise youngsters to practise, and make sure

-of their strength and endurance.”</p>

-

-<p>For three weeks, Whymper gave no sign.

-At last, in response to a dignified appeal from

-Mr. Justice Wills, then President of the

-Alpine Club, he broke silence, and gave to the

-public a restrained account of the tragedy.

-As we have said, malicious rumour had been

-busy, and in ignorant quarters there had been

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span>

-rumours of foul play. The Matterhorn accident

-first popularised the theory that Alpine

-ropes existed to be cut. Till then, the public

-had supposed that the rope was used to

-prevent cowardly climbers deserting their

-party in an emergency. But from 1865

-onwards, popular authors discovered a new

-use for the rope. They divided all Alpine

-travellers into two classes, those who cut the

-rope from below (“Greater love hath no

-man&mdash;a romance of the mountains”) and

-those who cut the rope from above (“The

-Coward&mdash;a tale of the snows”). A casual

-reader might be pardoned for supposing that

-the Swiss did a brisk business in sheath knives.

-We should be the last to discourage this enterprising

-school&mdash;their works have afforded

-much joy to the climbing fraternity; but

-we offer them in all humility a few remarks

-on the art of rope-cutting by a member

-of Class II (those who cut the rope from

-above).</p>

-

-<p>A knife could only be used with advantage

-when a snowbridge gives way. It is easy

-enough to hold a man who has fallen into a

-crevasse; but it is often impossible to pull

-him out. The whole situation is altered

-on a rock face. If a man falls, a sudden

-jerk may pull the rest of the party off the

-face of the mountain. This will almost

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span>

-certainly happen if the leader or, on a descent,

-the last man down, falls, unless the rope is

-anchored round a knob of rock, in which

-case&mdash;provided the rope does not break&mdash;the

-leader may escape with a severe shaking,

-though a clear fall of more than fifteen feet

-will usually break the rope if anchored; and,

-if not anchored, the party will be dragged

-off their holds one by one. Therefore, the

-leader must not fall. If any other member

-of the party falls, he should be held by the

-man above. On difficult ground, only one

-man moves at a time. No man moves until

-the man above has secured himself in a

-position where he can draw in the rope as the

-man below advances. If he keeps it reasonably

-taut, and is well placed, he should be

-able to check any slip. A climber who slips

-and is held by the rope can immediately get

-new foothold and handhold. He is not in a

-crevasse from which exit is impossible save

-at the rope’s end. His slip is checked, and

-he is swung up against a rock face. There is

-no need to drag him up. The rest of the

-party have passed over this face, and therefore

-handholds and footholds can be found. The

-man who has slipped will find fresh purchase,

-and begin again. In the case of the Matterhorn

-accident, the angle of the slope was about

-forty degrees. There was an abundance of

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span>

-hold, and if the rope had not parted Croz

-and Hadow would have been abruptly checked,

-and would have immediately secured themselves.

-Now, if Taugwalder had cut the

-rope, as suggested, he must have been little

-short of an expert acrobat, and have cut it in

-about the space of a second and a half <i>before

-the jerk</i>. If he had waited for the jerk, either

-he would have been dragged off, in which case

-his knife would have come in handy, or he

-would have held, in which case it would have

-been unnecessary.</p>

-

-<p>To mountaineers, all this, of course, is a

-truism; and we should not have laboured

-the point if we wrote exclusively for mountaineers.

-Even so, Peter’s comrades at Zermat

-(who should have known better) persisted

-in believing that he cut the rope. “In regard

-to this infamous charge,” writes Whymper,

-“I say that he could not do so at the moment

-of the slip, and that the end of the rope in

-my possession shows that he did not do so

-before.” Whymper, however, adds: “There

-remains the suspicious fact that the rope

-which broke was the thinnest and weakest one

-we had. It is suspicious because it is unlikely

-that the men in front would have selected

-an old and weak rope when there was an

-abundance of new, and much stronger, rope

-to spare; and, on the other hand, because

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span>

-if Taugwalder thought that an accident was

-likely to happen, it was to his interest to have

-the weaker rope placed where it was.”</p>

-

-<p>One cannot help regretting that Whymper

-lent weight to an unworthy suspicion. Taugwalder

-was examined by a secret Court of

-Inquiry; and Whymper prepared a set of

-questions with a view to helping him to clear

-himself. The answers, though promised, were

-never sent; and Taugwalder ultimately left

-the valley for America, returning only to die.

-Whymper, in his classic book, suggested the

-possibility of criminal dealings by publishing

-photographs of the three ropes showing that

-the rope broken was far the weakest.</p>

-

-<p>Let us review the whole story as Whymper

-himself tells it. We know that Whymper

-crossed the Théodule on the eleventh in a

-state of anger and despair. The prize for

-which he had striven so long seemed to be

-sliding from his grasp. Carrel had deserted

-him just as the true line of attack had been

-discovered. Like all mountaineers, he was

-human. He gets together the best party he

-can, and sets out with all haste determined to

-win by a head. Hadow, a young man with

-very little experience, is taken, and Hadow,

-the weak link, is destined to turn triumph

-into disaster. Let the mountaineer who has

-never invited a man unfit for a big climb throw

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span>

-the first stone. And, before he has thrown

-it, let him remember the peculiar provocation

-in Whymper’s case.</p>

-

-<p>All goes well. The Matterhorn is conquered

-with surprising ease. These six men

-achieve the greatest triumph in Alpine history

-without serious check. To Whymper, this

-hour on the summit must have marked the

-supreme climax of life, an hour that set its

-seal on the dogged labours of past years.

-Do men in such moments anticipate disaster?

-Taugwalder might possibly have failed in a

-sudden crisis; but is it likely that he should

-deliberately prepare for an accident by carefully

-planned treachery?</p>

-

-<p>Now read the story as Whymper tells it.

-The party are just about to commence the

-descent. The first five hundred feet would

-still be considered as demanding the greatest

-care. The top five hundred feet of the Matterhorn,

-but for the ropes with which the whole

-mountain is now festooned, would always be a

-difficult, if not a dangerous, section. Croz

-was the best guide in the party. He should

-have remained behind as sheet anchor.

-Instead of this, he goes first. Whymper falls

-out of line, to inscribe the names of the party,

-ties himself casually on to young Peter, and

-then “runs down after the others.” In the

-final arrangements, young Peter, who was

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span>

-a young and inexperienced guide, was given

-the vital position of last man down. Flushed

-with triumph, their minds could find no room

-for a doubt. Everything had gone through

-with miraculous ease. Such luck simply

-could not turn. It is in precisely such moments

-as these that the mountains settle their score.

-Mountaineering is a ruthless sport that demands

-unremitting attention. In games, a moment’s

-carelessness may lose a match, or a championship;

-but in climbing a mistake may mean

-death.</p>

-

-<p>As for Taugwalder, one is tempted to

-acquit him without hesitation; but there is

-one curious story about Taugwalder which

-gives one pause. The story was told to the

-present writer by an old member of the

-Alpine Club, and the following is an extract

-from a letter: “I had rather you said ‘a

-friend of yours’ without mentioning my

-name. I had a good many expeditions with

-old Peter Taugwalder, including Mont Blanc

-and Monte Rosa; and I had rather a tender

-spot for the somewhat coarse, dirty old beggar.

-I should not like my name to appear to help

-the balance to incline in the direction of his

-guilt in that Matterhorn affair. It was not

-on the Dent Blanche that he took the rope

-off; it was coming down a long steep slope

-of bare rock from the top of the Tête Blanche

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span>

-towards Prayagé. I had a couple of men

-with me who were inexperienced; and I fancy

-he must have thought that, if one of them let

-go, which was not unlikely, he would be able

-to choose whether to hold on or let go. I

-happened to look up and see what was going

-on, and I made him tie up at once. I don’t

-quite remember whether Whymper tells us

-how far from Peter’s fingers the break in

-the rope occurred. That seems to me one of

-the most critical points.”</p>

-

-<p>There we may leave Taugwalder, and the

-minor issues of this great tragedy. The

-broader lessons are summed up by Mr.

-Whymper in a memorable passage: “So

-the traditional inaccessibility of the Matterhorn

-was vanquished, and was replaced by

-legends of a more real character. Others

-will essay to scale its proud cliffs, but to

-none will it be the mountain that it was to the

-early explorers. Others may tread its summit

-snows, but none will ever know the

-feelings of those who first gazed upon its

-marvellous panorama; and none, I trust,

-will ever be compelled to tell of joy turned

-into grief, and of laughter into mourning.

-It proved to be a stubborn foe; it resisted

-long and gave many a hard blow; it was

-defeated at last with an ease that none could

-have anticipated, but like a relentless enemy&mdash;conquered,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span>

-but not crushed&mdash;it took a terrible

-vengeance.”</p>

-

-<p>The last sentence has a peculiar significance.

-A strange fatality seems to dog the steps of

-those who seek untrodden paths to the crest

-of the Matterhorn. Disaster does not always

-follow with the dramatic swiftness of that

-which marked the conquest of the eastern

-face, yet, slowly but surely, the avenging

-spirit of the Matterhorn fulfils itself.</p>

-

-<p>On July 16, two days after the catastrophe,

-J. A. Carrel set out to crown Whymper’s

-victory by proving that the Italian ridge was

-not unconquerable. He was accompanied by

-Abbé Gorret, a plucky priest who had shared

-with him that first careless attack on the

-mountain. Bich and Meynet completed the

-party. The Abbé and Meynet remained

-behind not very far from the top, in order to

-help Carrel and Bich on the return at a place

-where a short descent onto a ledge was liable

-to cause difficulty on the descent. This

-ledge, known as Carrel’s corridor, is about

-forty minutes from the summit. It needed

-a man of Carrel’s determined courage to follow

-its winding course. It is now avoided.</p>

-

-<p>The rest of the climb presented no difficulty.

-Carrel had conquered the Italian ridge. The

-ambition of years was half fulfilled, only half,

-for the Matterhorn itself had been climbed.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span>

-One cannot but regret that he had turned back

-on the 14th. Whymper’s cries of triumph

-had spelt for him the disappointment of a

-lifetime. Yet a fine rôle was open to him.

-Had he gone forward and crowned Whymper’s

-victory by a triumph unmarred by disaster;

-had the Matterhorn defied all assaults for

-years, and then yielded on the same day to a

-party from the Swiss side and Carrel’s men

-from Italy, the most dramatic page in Alpine

-history would have been complete. Thirty-five

-years later, the Matterhorn settled the

-long outstanding debt, and the man who had

-first attacked the citadel died in a snowstorm

-on the Italian ridge of the mountain which he

-had been the first to assail, and the first to

-conquer.</p>

-

-<p>Carrel was in his sixty-second year when he

-started out for his last climb. Bad weather

-detained the party in the Italian hut, and

-Signor Sinigaglia noticed that Carrel was far

-from well. After two nights in the hut,

-the provisions began to run out; and it was

-decided to attempt the descent. The rocks

-were in a terrible condition, and the storm

-added to the difficulty. Carrel insisted on

-leading, though he was far from well. He

-knew every yard of his own beloved ridge.

-If a man could pilot them through the storm

-that man was Carrel. Quietly and methodically,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span>

-he fought his way downward, yard by

-yard, undaunted by the hurricane, husbanding

-the last ounces of his strength. He would

-not allow the other guides to relieve him till

-the danger was past, and his responsibilities

-were over. Then suddenly he collapsed, and

-in a few minutes the gallant old warrior

-fell backwards and died. A cross now marks

-the spot where the old soldier died in action.</p>

-

-<p>In life the leading guides of Breuil had often

-resented Carrel’s unchallenged supremacy.

-But death had obliterated the old jealousies.

-Years afterwards, a casual climber stopped

-before Carrel’s cross, and remarked to the

-son of Carrel’s great rival, “So that is where

-Carrel fell.” “Carrel did not fall,” came the

-indignant answer, “Carrel died.”</p>

-

-<p>Let us turn from Carrel to the conquerors of

-another great ridge of the Matterhorn.</p>

-

-<p>Of others concerned with attacks on the

-Italian ridge, Tyndall, Bennen, and J. J.

-Macquignaz, all came to premature ends.

-Bennen was killed in an historic accident on

-the Haut de Cry, and Macquignaz disappeared

-on Mont Blanc. In 1879, two independent

-parties on the same day made the first ascent

-of the great northern ridge of the Matterhorn

-known as the Zmutt arête. Mummery and

-Penhall were the amateurs responsible for

-these two independent assaults. “The

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span>

-memory,” writes Mummery, “of two rollicking

-parties, comprised of seven men, who on one

-day in 1879 were climbing on the west face

-of the Matterhorn passes with ghost-like

-admonition before my mind, and bids me

-remember that, of these seven, Mr. Penhall

-was killed on the Wetterhorn, Ferdinand

-Imseng on the Macugnaga side of Monte

-Rosa, and Johan Petrus on the Frersnay Mont

-Blanc.” Of the remaining four, Mummery

-disappeared in the Himalayas in 1895, Louis

-Zurbrucken was killed, Alexander Burgener

-perished in an avalanche near the Bergli hut

-in 1911. Mr. Baumann and Emil Rey, who

-with Petrus followed in Mummery’s footsteps

-three days later, both came to untimely ends:

-Baumann disappeared in South Africa, and

-Emil Rey was killed on the Dent de Géant.

-The sole survivor of these two parties is the

-well-known Augustin Gentinetta, one of the

-ablest of the Zermat guides. Burgener and

-Gentinetta guided Mummery on the above-mentioned

-climb, while Penhall was accompanied

-by Louis Zurbrucken. In recent

-times, three great mountaineers who climbed

-this ridge together died violent deaths within

-the year. The superstitious should leave the

-Zmutt arête alone.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br />

-

-<span class="large">MODERN MOUNTAINEERING</span></h2>

-

-<p>Alpine History is not easy to divide into

-arbitrary periods; and yet the conquest of

-the Matterhorn does in a certain sense define

-a period. It closes what has been called

-“the golden age of mountaineering.” Only

-a few great peaks still remained unconquered.

-In this chapter we shall try to sketch some

-of the tendencies which differentiate modern

-mountaineering from mountaineering in the

-so-called “golden age.”</p>

-

-<p>The most radical change has been the

-growth of guideless climbing, which was, of

-course, to be expected as men grew familiar

-with the infinite variety of conditions that

-are the essence of mountaineering. In a

-previous chapter we have discussed the main

-differences between guided and guideless

-climbing. It does not follow that a man of

-considerable mountaineering experience, who

-habitually climbs with guides need entirely

-relinquish the control of the expedition. Such

-a man&mdash;there are not many&mdash;may, indeed,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span>

-take a guide as a reserve of strength, or as

-a weight carrier. He may enjoy training up

-a young and inexperienced guide, who has a

-native talent for rock and ice, while lacking

-experience and mountain craft. One occasionally

-finds a guide who is a first-class

-cragsman, but whose general knowledge of

-mountain strategy is inferior to that of a

-great amateur. In such a combination, the

-latter will be the real general of the expedition,

-even if the guide habitually leads on

-difficult rock and does the step-cutting. On

-the other hand a member of a guideless party

-may be as dependent on the rest of the party

-as another man on his guides. Moreover,

-tracks, climbers, guides and modern maps

-render the mental work of the leader, whether

-amateur or professional, much less arduous

-than in more primitive days.</p>

-

-<p>But when we have made all possible allowance

-for the above considerations, there still

-remains a real and radical distinction between

-those who rely on their own efforts and

-those who follow a guide. The man who

-leads even on one easy expedition obtains a

-greater insight into the secrets of his craft

-than many a guided climber with a long

-list of first-class expeditions.</p>

-

-<p>One of the earliest of the great guideless

-climbs was the ascent of Mont Blanc by

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span>

-E. S. Kennedy, Charles Hudson (afterwards

-killed on the first ascent of the Matterhorn),

-Grenville and Christopher Smyth, E. J.

-Stevenson and Charles Ainslie. Their climb

-was made in 1855, and was the first complete

-ascent of Mont Blanc from St. Gervais,

-though the route was not new except in

-combination, as every portion of it had been

-previously done on different occasions. One

-of the first systematic guideless climbers to

-attract attention was the Rev. A. G. Girdlestone,

-whose book, <i>The High Alps without

-Guides</i>, appeared in 1870. This book was

-the subject of a discussion at a meeting of

-the Alpine Club. Mr. Grove, a well-known

-mountaineer, read a paper on the comparative

-skill of travellers and guides, and used

-Girdlestone’s book as a text. Mr. Grove said:

-“The net result of mountaineering without

-guides appears to be this, that, in twenty-one

-expeditions selected out of seventy for the

-purposes of description, the traveller failed

-absolutely four times; was in great danger

-three times; was aided in finding the way

-back by the tracks of other men’s guides four

-times; succeeded absolutely without aid of

-any kind ten times on expeditions, four of

-which were very easy, three of moderate

-difficulty, and one very difficult.” The “very

-difficult” expedition is the Wetterhorn, which

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span>

-is nowadays considered a very modest

-achievement.</p>

-

-<p>Mr. Girdlestone was a pioneer, with the

-limitations of a pioneer. His achievements

-judged by modern standards are modest

-enough, but he was the first to insist that

-mountaineering without guides is an art, and

-that mountaineering with guides is often only

-another form of conducted travel. The discussion

-that followed, as might be expected,

-at that time was not favourable either to

-Girdlestone or to guideless climbing. Probably

-each succeeding year will see his contribution

-to modern mountaineering more

-properly appreciated. The “settled opinion

-of the Alpine Club” was declared without

-a single dissentient to be that “the neglect

-to take guides on difficult expeditions is

-totally unjustifiable.”</p>

-

-<p>But guideless climbing had come to stay.

-A year after this memorable meeting of the

-Alpine Club, two of its members carried out

-without guides some expeditions more severe

-than anything Girdlestone had attempted.

-In 1871 Mr. John Stogdon, a well-known

-Harrow master, and the Rev. Arthur Fairbanks

-ascended the Nesthorn and Aletschhorn,

-and in the following year climbed the Jungfrau

-and Aletschhorn unguided. No record of these

-expeditions found its way into print. In

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span>

-1876, a party of amateurs, Messrs. Cust,

-Cawood, and Colgrove climbed the Matterhorn

-without guides. This expedition attracted

-great attention, and was severely commented

-on in the columns of the <i>Press</i>. Mr. Cust, in

-an eloquent paper read before the Alpine

-Club, went to the root of the whole matter

-when he remarked: “Cricket is a sport which

-is admitted by all to need acquired skill. A

-man can buy his mountaineering as he can

-buy his yachting. None the less, there are

-yachtsmen and yachtsmen.”</p>

-

-<p>Systematic climbing on a modern scale

-without guides was perhaps first practised

-by Purtscheller and Zsigmondys in 1880.

-Among our own people, it found brilliant

-exponents in Morse, Mummery, Wicks, and

-Wilson some twenty years ago; and it has

-since been adopted by many of our own

-leading mountaineers. Abroad, guideless

-climbing finds more adherents than with us.

-Naturally enough, the man who lives near the

-mountains will find it easier to make up a

-guideless party among his friends; and, if he

-is in the habit of spending all his holidays

-and most of his week-ends among the mountains

-that can be reached in a few hours from

-his home, he will soon acquire the necessary

-skill to dispense with guides.</p>

-

-<p>So much for guideless climbing. Let us

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span>

-now consider some of the other important

-developments in the practice of mountaineering.

-In the Alps the tendency has been

-towards specialisation. Before 1865 the ambitious

-mountaineer had scores of unconquered

-peaks to attack. After the defeat of the

-Matterhorn, the number of the unclimbed

-greater mountains gradually thinned out. The

-Meije, which fell in 1877, was one of the last

-great Alpine peaks to remain unclimbed.

-With the development of rock-climbing, even

-the last and apparently most hopelessly

-inaccessible rock pinnacles of the Dolomites

-and Chamounix were defeated. There is no

-rock-climbing as understood in Wales or

-Lakeland or Skye on giants of the Oberland

-or Valais, such as the Schreckhorn or Matterhorn.

-These tax the leader’s power of choosing

-a route, his endurance and his knowledge of

-snow and ice, and weather; but their demands

-on the pure cragsman are less. The difficulty

-of a big mountain often depends very much

-on its condition and length. Up to 1865

-hardly any expeditions had been carried

-through&mdash;with a few exceptions, such as the

-Brenva route up Mont Blanc&mdash;that a modern

-expert would consider exceptionally severe.

-Modern rock-climbing begins in the late

-’seventies. The expeditions in the Dolomites

-by men like Zsigmondy, Schmitt, and Winkler,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span>

-among foreign mountaineers, belong to much

-the same period as Burgener and Mummery

-classic climbs in the Chamounix district.</p>

-

-<p>Mummery is, perhaps, best known in connection

-with the first ascent of the Grepon

-by the sensational “Mummery crack,” when

-his leader was the famous Alexander Burgener

-aided by a young cragsman, B. Venetz.

-Venetz, as a matter of fact, led up the “Mummery”

-crack. Mummery’s vigorous book,

-which has become a classic, contains accounts

-of many new expeditions, such as the Grepon,

-the Requin, the Matterhorn by the Zmutt

-arête, and the Caucasian giant Dych Tau,

-to name the more important. His book,

-<i>My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus</i>, is

-thoroughly typical of the modern view of

-mountaineering. It contains some doctrines

-that are still considered heretical, such as the

-safety of a party of two on a snow-covered

-glacier, and many doctrines that are now

-accepted, such as the justification of guideless

-climbing and of difficult variation routes.

-Shortly after the book appeared, Mummery

-was killed on Nanga Parbat, as was Emil

-Zsigmondy on the Meije soon after the issue

-of his book on the dangers of the Alps.</p>

-

-<p>But even Dolomites and Chamounix aiguilles

-are not inexhaustible, and the number of

-unconquered summits gradually diminished.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span>

-The rapid opening up of the Alps has naturally

-turned the attention of men with the exploring

-instinct and ample means to the exploration

-of the great mountain ranges beyond Europe.

-This does not fall within the scope of the

-present volume, and we need only remark in

-passing that British climbers have played an

-important part in the campaigns against the

-fortresses of the Himalaya, Caucasus, Andes,

-and Rockies.</p>

-

-<p>Meanwhile the ambitious mountaineer was

-forced to look for new routes on old peaks.

-Now, a man in search of the easiest way

-up a difficult peak could usually discover

-a route which was climbable without severe

-technical difficulty. On a big mountain,

-it is often possible to evade any small and

-very difficult section. But most mountains,

-even our British hills, have at least one

-route which borders on the impossible, and

-a diligent search will soon reveal it. Consider

-the two extremes of rock-climbing. Let us

-take the Matterhorn as a good example of a

-big mountain which consists almost entirely

-of rock. It is impossible to find a route up

-the Matterhorn which one could climb with

-one’s hands in one’s pockets, but the ordinary

-Swiss route is an easy scramble as far as the

-shoulder, and, with the fixed ropes, a straightforward

-climb thence to the top. Its Furggen

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span>

-Ridge has been once climbed under fair

-conditions and then only with a partial

-deviation. It is extremely severe and dangerous.

-The task of the mountaineers who

-first assailed the Matterhorn was to pick out

-the easiest line of approach. The Zmutt,

-and in a greater degree the Furggen routes,

-were obviously ruled out of consideration.

-The Italian route was tried many times

-without success before the Swiss route was

-discovered. Of course, the Matterhorn, like

-all big mountains, varies in difficulty from

-day to day. It is a very long climb; and, if

-the conditions are unfavourable, it may prove

-a very difficult and a very dangerous peak.</p>

-

-<p>Turning to the nursery of Welsh climbers,

-Lliwedd can be climbed on a mule, and

-Lliwedd can also be climbed by about thirty

-or more distinct routes up its southern rock

-face. If a man begins to look for new routes

-up a wall of a cliff a thousand feet in height

-and a mile or so in breath, he will sooner or

-later reach the line which divided reasonable

-from unreasonable risk. Modern pioneer work

-in the Alps is nearer the old ideal. It is not

-simply the search for the hardest of all

-climbable routes up a given rock face. In

-England, the danger of a rock fall is practically

-absent, and a rock face is not considered

-climbed out as long as one can work up from

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span>

-base to summit by a series of ledges not

-touched on a previous climb. Two such

-routes will sometimes be separated by a few

-feet. In the Alps, the pioneer is compelled

-by objective difficulties to look for distinct

-ridges and faces unswept by stones and

-avalanches. There is a natural challenge in

-the sweep of a great ridge falling through

-some thousand unconquered feet to the

-pastures below. There is only an artificial

-challenge in a “new” route some thousand

-feet in height separated only by a few yards

-of cliff from an “old” route. We do not

-wish to depreciate British climbing, which

-has its own fascination and its own value;

-but, if it calls for greater cragsmanship, it

-demands infinitely less mountain craft than

-the conquest of a difficult Alpine route.</p>

-

-<p>And what is true of British rock-climbing

-is even more true of Tirol. Ranges, such as

-the Kaisergebirge, have been explored with

-the same thoroughness that has characterised

-British rock-climbing. Almost every conceivable

-variation of the “just possible” has

-been explored. Unfortunately, the death-roll

-in these districts is painfully high, as the keenness

-of the young Austrian and Bavarian has

-not infrequently exceeded their experience

-and powers.</p>

-

-<p>Abroad, mountaineering has developed very

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span>

-rapidly since the ’sixties. We have seen that

-English climbers, first in the field, secured

-a large share of unconquered peaks; but

-once continental climbers had taken up the

-new sport, our earlier start was seriously

-challenged. The Swiss, Austrian, and German

-have one great advantage. They are much

-nearer the Alps; and mountaineering in these

-countries is, as a result, a thoroughly democratic

-sport. The foreign Alpine Clubs number

-thousands of members. The German-Austrian

-Alpine Club has alone nearly ninety

-thousand members. There is no qualification,

-social or mountaineering. These great national

-clubs have a small subscription; and

-with the large funds at their disposal they

-are able to build club-huts in the mountains,

-and excellent meeting places in the great

-towns, where members can find an Alpine

-library, maps, and other sources of information.

-They secure many useful concessions,

-such as reduced fares for their members on

-Alpine railways. Mountaineering naturally

-becomes a democratic sport in mountainous

-countries, because the mountains are accessible.

-The very fact that a return ticket to

-the Alps is a serious item must prevent

-Alpine climbing from becoming the sport of

-more than a few of our countrymen. At the

-same time, we have an excellent native playground

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span>

-in Wales and Cumberland, which has

-made it possible for young men to learn the

-craft before they could afford a regular climbing

-holiday in the Alps. Beside the great

-national clubs of the Continent, there are a

-number of vigorous university clubs scattered

-through these countries. Of these, the Akademischer

-Alpine clubs at Zürich and Munich

-are, perhaps, the most famous. These clubs

-consist of young men reading at the Polytechnic

-or University. They have as high a

-mountaineering qualification as any existing

-Alpine clubs. They attach importance to

-the capacity to lead a guideless party rather

-than to the bare fact that a man has climbed

-so many peaks. Each candidate is taken on

-a series of climbs by members of the club,

-who report to the committee on his general

-knowledge of snow and rock conditions, and

-his fitness, whether in respect of courage or

-endurance for arduous work.</p>

-

-<p>It is young men of this stamp that play

-such a great part in raising the standard of

-continental mountaineering. Their cragsmanship

-often verges on the impossible. A

-book published in Munich, entitled <i>Empor</i>,

-affords stimulating reading. This book was

-produced in honour and in memory of Georg

-Winkler by some of his friends. Winkler was

-a young Munich climber who carried through

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span>

-some of the most daring rock climbs ever

-recorded. <i>Empor</i> contains his diary, and

-several articles contributed by various members

-of one of the most remarkable climbing

-groups in Alpine history. Winkler’s amazing

-performances give to the book a note which

-is lacking in most Alpine literature. Winkler

-was born in 1869. As a boy of eighteen he

-made, quite alone, the first ascent of the

-Winklerturm, one of the most sensational&mdash;both

-in appearance and reality&mdash;of all Dolomite

-pinnacles. On the 14th of August

-1888 he traversed alone the Zinal Rothhorn,

-and on the 18th he lost his life in a

-solitary attempt on the great Zinal face of

-the Weisshorn. No definite traces of him

-have ever been found. His brother, born in

-the year of his death, has also carried through

-some sensational solitary climbs.</p>

-

-<p>We may, perhaps, be excused a certain

-satisfaction in the thought that the British

-crags can occasionally produce climbers whose

-achievements are quite as sensational as

-those of the Winklers. Without native mountains,

-we could not hope to produce cragsmen

-equal to those of Tirol and the Alps. One

-must begin young. It is, as a rule, only a

-comparatively small minority that can afford

-a regular summer holiday in the Alps; but

-Scawfell and Lliwedd are accessible enough,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>

-and the comparatively high standard of the

-British rock-climber owes more to British

-than to Alpine mountains. It was only in

-the last two decades that the possibilities of

-these crags were systematically worked out,

-though isolated climbs have been recorded

-for many years. The patient and often brilliant

-explorations of a group of distinguished

-mountaineers have helped to popularise a fine

-field for native talent, and an arena for those

-who cannot afford a regular Alpine campaign.

-Guides are unknown in Great Britain, and the

-man who learns to climb there is often more

-independent and more self-reliant than the

-mountaineer who is piloted about by guides.

-There is, of course, much that can be learned

-only in the Alps. The home climber can

-learn to use an axe in the wintry gullies round

-Scawfell. He learns something of snow; but

-both snow and ice can only be properly studied

-in the regions of perpetual snow. The home-trained

-cragsman, as a rule, learns to lead up

-rocks far more difficult than anything met

-with on the average Swiss peaks, but the

-wider lessons of route-finding over a long and

-complicated expedition are naturally not

-acquired on a face of cliff a thousand feet in

-height. Nor, for that matter, is the art of

-rapid descent over easy rocks; for the British

-climber usually ascends by rocks, and runs

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span>

-home over grass and scree. None the less,

-these cliffs have produced some wonderfully

-fine mountaineers. We have our Winklers,

-and we have also young rock-climbers who

-confine their energies to the permissible limit

-of the justifiable climbing and who, within

-those limits, carry their craft to its most

-refined possibilities. Hugh Pope, one of the

-most brilliant of the younger school of rock-climbers,

-learned his craft on the British hills,

-and showed in his first Alpine season the value

-of that training. To the great loss of British

-mountaineering he was killed in 1912 on the

-Pic du Midi d’Ossau.</p>

-

-<p>Another comparatively recent development

-is the growth of winter mountaineering. The

-first winter expedition of any importance

-after the beginnings of serious mountaineering

-was Mr. T. S. Kennedy’s attempt on the

-Matterhorn in 1863. He conceived the curious

-idea that the Matterhorn might prove easier

-in winter than in summer. Here, he was very

-much mistaken. He was attacked by a storm,

-and retreated after reaching a point where

-the real climb begins. It was a plucky expedition.

-But the real pioneer of winter

-mountaineering was W. A. Moore. In 1866,

-with Mr. Horace Walker, Melchior Anderegg,

-Christian Almer, and “Peterli” Bohren, he left

-Grindelwald at midnight; they crossed the Finsteraarjoch,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span>

-and returned within the twenty-four

-hours to Grindelwald over the Strahlegg.

-Even in summer this would prove a strenuous

-day. In winter, it is almost incredible that

-this double traverse should have been carried

-through without sleeping out.</p>

-

-<p>Most of the great peaks have now been

-ascended in winter; and amongst others Mr.

-Coolidge must be mentioned as a prominent

-pioneer. His ascents of the Jungfrau, Wetterhorn,

-and Schreckhorn&mdash;the first in winter&mdash;with

-Christian Almer, did much to set the

-fashion. Mrs. Le Blond, the famous lady

-climber, has an even longer list of winter

-first ascents to her credit. But the real

-revolution in winter mountaineering has been

-caused by the introduction of ski-ing. In

-winter, the main difficulty is getting to the

-high mountain huts. Above the huts, the

-temperature is often mild and equable for

-weeks together. A low temperature on the

-ground co-exists with a high temperature in

-the air. Rock-ridges facing south or south-west

-are often denuded of snow, and as easy

-to climb as in summer. Signor Sella also

-made some brilliant winter ascents, such as

-the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa.</p>

-

-<p>The real obstacle to winter mountaineering

-is the appalling weariness of wading up to

-the club-huts on foot. The snow in the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span>

-sheltered lower valleys is often deep and

-powdery; and the climber on foot will have

-to force his way through pine forests where

-the snow lies in great drifts between the trees,

-and over moraines where treacherous drifts

-conceal pitfalls between the loose stones. All

-this is changed by the introduction of ski.

-The ski distributes the weight of the climber

-over a long, even surface; and in the softest

-snow he will not sink in more than a few

-inches. Better still, they revolutionise the

-descent, converting a weary plug through

-snow-drifts into a succession of swift and

-glorious runs. The ski-runner takes his ski

-to the foot of the last rock ridges, and then

-proceeds on foot, rejoining his ski, and covering

-on the descent five thousand feet in far less

-time than the foot-climber would take over

-five hundred. Skis, as everybody knows,

-were invented as a means of crossing snowy

-country inaccessible on foot. They are sometimes

-alluded to as snowshoes, but differ

-radically from snowshoes in one important

-respect. Both ski and the Canadian snowshoe

-distribute their wearer’s weight, and

-enable him to cross drifts where he would

-sink in hopelessly if he were on foot, but there

-the resemblance ends. For, whereas snowshoes

-cannot slide on snow, and whereas a

-man on snowshoes cannot descend a hill as

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span>

-fast as a man on foot could run down hill,

-skis glide rapidly and easily on snow, and a

-ski-runner can descend at a rate which may

-be anything up to sixty miles an hour.</p>

-

-<p>Ski-ing is of Scandinavian origin, and the

-greatest exponents of the art are the Norwegians.

-Norwegians have used ski from

-time immemorial in certain districts, such as

-Telemarken, as a means of communication

-between snow-bound villages. It should, perhaps,

-be added that ski-jumping does not

-consist, as some people imagine, in casual

-leaps across chasms or over intervening

-hillocks. The ski-runner does not glide along

-the level at the speed of an express train,

-lightly skimming any obstacles in his path.

-On the level, the best performer does not go

-more than six or seven miles an hour, and the

-great jumps one hears of are made downhill.

-The ski-runner swoops down on to a specially

-prepared platform, leaps into the air, and

-alights on a very steep slope below. The

-longest jump on record is some hundred and

-fifty feet, measured from the edge of the

-take-off to the alighting point. In this case,

-the ski-runner must have fallen through

-nearly seventy vertical feet.</p>

-

-<p>To the mountaineer, the real appeal of

-ski-ing is due to the fact that it halves the

-labour of his ascent to the upper snowfields,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span>

-and converts a tedious descent into a succession

-of swift and fascinating runs. The

-ski-runner climbs on ski to the foot of the

-final rock and ice ridges, and then finishes

-the climb in the ordinary way. After rejoining

-his ski, his work is over, and his

-reward is all before him. If he were on foot,

-he would have to wade laboriously down to

-the valley. On ski, he can swoop down with

-ten times the speed, and a thousand times

-the enjoyment.</p>

-

-<p>Ski were introduced into Central Europe

-in the early ’nineties. Dr. Paulcke’s classic

-traverse of the Oberland in 1895, which

-included the ascent of the Jungfrau, proved

-to mountaineers the possibilities of the new

-craft. Abroad, the lesson was soon learned.

-To-day, there are hundreds of ski-runners

-who make a regular practice of mountaineering

-in winter. The Alps have taken out a new

-lease of life. In summer, the huts are

-crowded, the fashionable peaks are festooned

-with parties of incompetent novices who are

-dragged and pushed upwards by their guides,

-but in winter the true mountain lover has

-the upper world to himself. The mere

-summit hunter naturally chooses the line of

-least resistance, and accumulates his list of

-first class expeditions in the summer months,

-when such a programme is easiest to compile.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span>

-The winter mountaineer must be more or

-less independent of the professional element,

-for, though he will probably employ a guide

-to find the way and to act as a reserve of

-strength, he himself must at least be able to

-ski steadily, and at a fair speed.</p>

-

-<p>Moreover, mountain craft as the winter

-mountaineer understands the term is a more

-subtle and more embracing science as far, at

-least, as snow conditions are concerned. It

-begins at the hôtel door. In summer, there

-is a mule path leading to the glacier line, a

-mule path which a man can climb with his

-mind asleep. But in winter the snow with

-its manifold problems sweeps down to the

-village. A man has been killed by an

-avalanche within a few yards of a great

-hôtel. From the moment a man buckles on

-his ski, he must exercise his knowledge of

-snow conditions. There are no paths save a

-few woodcutter’s tracks. From the valley

-upwards, he must learn to pick a good line,

-and to avoid the innocent-looking slopes

-that may at any moment resolve themselves

-into an irresistible avalanche. Many a man is

-piloted up a succession of great peaks without

-acquiring anything like the same intimate

-knowledge of snow that is possessed even

-by a ski-runner who has never crossed the

-summer snow-line. Even the humblest ski-runner

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span>

-must learn to diagnose the snow. He

-may follow his leader unthinkingly on the

-ascent; but once he starts down he must

-judge for himself. If he makes a mistake,

-he will be thrown violently on to his face

-when the snow suddenly sticks, and on to

-his back when it quickens. Even the most

-unobservant man will learn something of the

-effects of sun and wind on his running surface

-when the result of a faulty deduction may

-mean violent contact with Mother Earth.</p>

-

-<p>Those who worship the Alps in their loveliest

-and loneliest moods, those who dislike the

-weary anti-climax of the descent through

-burning snowfields, and down dusty mule

-paths, will climb in the winter months,

-when to the joy of renewing old memories of

-the mountains in an unspoiled setting is added

-the rapture of the finest motion known to

-man.</p>

-

-<p>In England mountaineering on ski has yet

-to find many adherents. We have little

-opportunity for learning to ski in these isles,

-and the ten thousand Englishmen that visit

-the Alps in winter prefer to ski on the lower

-hills. For every Englishman with a respectable

-list of glacier tours on ski to his credit,

-there are at least a hundred continental runners

-with a record many times more brilliant.

-The Alpine Ski Club, now in its sixth year,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span>

-has done much to encourage this “new mountaineering,”

-and its journal contains a record

-of the finest expeditions by English and

-continental runners. But even in the pages

-of the Alpine Ski Club Annual, the proportion

-of foreign articles describing really fine tours

-is depressingly large. Of course, the continental

-runner lives nearer the Alps. So did

-the continental mountaineer of the early

-’sixties; but that did not prevent us taking

-our fair share of virgin peaks.</p>

-

-<p>The few Englishmen who are making a

-more or less regular habit of serious mountaineering

-on ski are not among the veterans

-of summer mountaineering, and the leaders

-of summer mountaineering have not yet

-learned to ski. Abroad, the leaders of summer

-mountaineering have welcomed ski-ing as a

-key to their mountains in winter; but the

-many leaders of English mountaineering still

-argue that skis should not be used in the

-High Alps, on the ground that they afford

-facility for venturing on slopes and into

-places where the risk of avalanches is extreme.

-On the Continent thousands of

-runners demonstrate in the most effective

-manner that mountaineering on ski has come

-to stay. It is consoling to reflect that

-English ski-runners are prepared to work out

-the peculiar problems of their craft with or

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>

-without the help of summer mountaineers.

-Of course, both ski-ing and summer mountaineering

-would be strengthened by an

-alliance, and ski-runners can best learn the

-rules of the glacier world in winter from those

-mountaineers who combine a knowledge of

-the summer Alps with some experience of

-winter conditions and a mastery of ski-ing.

-For the moment, such teachers must be looked

-for in the ranks of continental mountaineers.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br />

-

-<span class="large">THE ALPS IN LITERATURE</span></h2>

-

-<p>The last chapter has brought the story of

-mountaineering up to modern times, but,

-before we close, there is another side of Alpine

-exploration on which we must touch. For

-Alpine exploration means something more

-than the discovery of new passes and the

-conquest of virgin peaks. That is the physical

-aspect of the sport, perhaps the side which the

-average climber best understands. But Alpine

-exploration is mental as well as physical, and

-concerns itself with the adventures of the

-mind in touch with the mountains as well as

-with the adventures of the body in contact

-with an unclimbed cliff. The story of the

-gradual discovery of high places as sources of

-inspiration has its place in the history of

-Alpine exploration, as well as the record of

-variation routes too often expressed in language

-of unvarying monotony.</p>

-

-<p>The present writer once undertook to compile

-an anthology whose scope was defined

-by the title&mdash;<i>The Englishman in the Alps</i>.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span>

-The limitations imposed by the series of which

-this anthology formed a part prevented him

-from including the Alpine literature of foreign

-authors, a fact which tended to obscure the

-real development of the Alpine literature. In

-the introduction he expressed the orthodox

-views which all good mountaineers accept

-without demur, explaining that mountaineers

-were the first to write fitly of the mountains,

-that English mountaineers had a peculiar

-talent in this direction, and that all the best

-mountain literature was written in the last

-half of the nineteenth century. These pious

-conclusions were shattered by some very

-radical criticism which appeared in leading

-articles of <i>The Times</i> and <i>The Field</i>. The

-former paper, in the course of some criticisms

-of Mr. Spender’s Alpine Anthology, remarked:

-“In the matter of prose, on the other hand,

-he has a striking predilection for the modern

-‘Alpine books’ of commerce, though hardly

-a book among them except Whymper’s

-<i>Scrambles in the Alps</i> has any real literary

-vitality, or any interest apart from the story

-of adventure which it tells. Mummery, perhaps,

-has individuality enough to be made

-welcome in any gallery, and, of course, one

-is glad to meet Leslie Stephen. But what is

-C. E. Mathews doing there? Or Norman

-Neruda? Or Mr. Frederic Harrison? In an

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span>

-anthology which professed to be nothing more

-than a collection of stories of adventure,

-accidents, and narrow escapes, they would

-have their place along with Owen Glynne

-Jones, and Mr. Douglas Freshfield, and

-innumerable contributors to <i>Peaks, Passes,

-and Glaciers</i> and <i>The Alpine Journal</i>.”</p>

-

-<p>We rubbed our eyes when we read these

-heterodox sentiments in such a quarter.

-Mr. Mathews was, perhaps, an Alpine historian

-rather than a writer of descriptive prose, and

-he does not lend himself to the elegant extract,

-though he is the author of some very quotable

-Alpine sketches. To Mr. Freshfield we owe,

-amongst other good things, one short passage

-as dramatic as anything in Alpine literature,

-the passage in which he describes the discovery

-of Donkin’s last bivouac on Koshtantau.

-<i>The Field</i> was even more emphatic:</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“What is not true is that the pioneer sportsmen

-who founded the Alpine Club had

-exceptional insight into the moods of the

-snow. One or two of them, no doubt, struck

-out a little literature as the result of the

-impact of novel experiences upon naïve

-minds.... On the whole, in spite of their

-defects, their machine-made perorations and

-their ponderous jests, they brought an acceptable

-addition to the existing stock of the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span>

-literature of adventure.... But they had

-their limitations, and these were rather

-narrow. They dealt almost exclusively with

-the externals of mountaineering experience;

-and when they ventured further their writing

-was apt to be of the quality of fustian. Their

-spiritual adventures among the mountains

-were apt to be melodramatic or insignificant.

-Perhaps their Anglo-Saxon reticence prevented

-themselves from ‘letting themselves go.’...

-At all events there does remain this notable

-distinction&mdash;that, while the most eloquent

-writings of the most eloquent Alpine Club-man

-are as a rule deliberately and ostentatiously

-objective, the subjective literature of

-mountains&mdash;the literature in which we see

-the writer yielding to the influence of scenery,

-instead of lecturing about its beauties, existed

-long before that famous dinner party at the

-house of William Mathews, senior, at which

-the Alpine Club was founded. England, as

-we have said, contributed practically nothing

-to that literature.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>We have quoted this passage at some length

-because it expresses a novel attitude in direct

-contradiction to the accepted views sanctified

-by tradition. We do not entirely endorse it.

-The article contains proof that its writer has

-an intimate knowledge of early Alpine literature,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span>

-but one is tempted to fancy that his

-research did not survive the heavy period

-of the ’eighties, and that he is unacquainted

-with those modern writers whose work is

-distinctly subjective. None the less, his contention

-suggests an interesting line of study;

-and in this chapter we shall try briefly to

-sketch the main tendencies, though we cannot

-review in detail the whole history, of Alpine

-literature, a subject which requires a book

-in itself.</p>

-

-<p>The mediæval attitude towards mountains

-has already been discussed, and though we

-ventured to protest that love of the mountains

-was not quite so uncommon as is usually supposed,

-it must be freely admitted that the

-literature of the Middle Ages is comparatively

-barren in appreciation of mountain scenery.

-There were Protestants before Luther, and

-there were men such as Gesner and Petrarch

-before Rousseau; but the Middle Ages can

-scarcely rob Rousseau of the credit for transforming

-mountain worship from the cult of a

-minority into a comparatively fashionable

-creed. Rousseau’s own feeling for the mountains

-was none the less genuine because it

-was sometimes coloured by the desire to make

-the mountains echo his own philosophy of life.

-Rousseau, in this respect, set a fashion which

-his disciples were not slow to follow. The

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span>

-mountains as the home of the rugged Switzer

-could be made to preach edifying lay sermons

-on the value of liberty. Such sentiments were

-in tune with the spirit of revolt that culminated

-in the French Revolution. A certain Haller

-had sounded this note long before Rousseau

-began to write, in a poem on the Alps which,

-appearing in 1728, enjoyed considerable popularity.

-The author is not without a genuine

-appreciation for Alpine scenery, but he is

-far more occupied with his moral, the contrast

-between the unsophisticated life of the mountain

-peasant and the hyper-civilisation of the

-town. Throughout the writings of this school

-which Haller anticipated and Rousseau

-founded, we can trace an obvious connection

-between a love for the untutored freedom of

-the mountains and a hatred of existing social

-conditions.</p>

-

-<p>It is, therefore, not surprising to find that

-this new school of mountain worship involved

-certain views which found most complete

-expression in the French Revolution. “Man

-is born free, but is everywhere in chains.”

-This, the famous opening to <i>The Social

-Contract</i>, might have heralded with equal

-fitness any mountain passage in the works

-of Rousseau or his disciples. Perhaps these

-two sentiments are nowhere fused with such

-completeness as in the life of Ramond de

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span>

-Carbonnière, the great Pyrenean climber.

-We have not mentioned him before as he took

-no part in purely Alpine explorations. But as

-a mountaineer he ranks with De Saussure and

-Paccard. His ascent of Mont Perdu, after

-many attempts, in 1802, was one of the most

-remarkable climbing exploits of the age. He

-invented a new kind of crampon. He rejoiced

-in fatigue, cold, and the thousand trials that

-confronted the mountaineer in the days before

-club-huts. His own personality was singularly

-arresting; and the reader should consult <i>The

-Early Mountaineers</i> for a more complete

-sketch of the man than we have space to

-attempt. Ramond had every instinct of the

-modern mountaineer. He delighted in hardship.

-He could appreciate the grandeur of a mountain

-storm while sitting on an exposed ledge.

-He lingers with a delight that recalls Gesner

-on the joy of simple fare and rough quarters.

-He is the boon companion of hunters and

-smugglers; and through all his mountain

-journeys his mind is alert in reacting to chance

-impressions.</p>

-

-<p>But his narrative is remarkable for something

-else besides love for the mountains. It

-is full of those sentiments which came to a

-head in the French Revolution. Mountain

-description and fierce denunciations of tyranny

-are mingled in the oddest fashion. It is not

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span>

-surprising that Ramond, who finds room in a

-book devoted to mountaineering for a prophecy

-of the Revolution, should have played an

-active part in the Revolution when it came.

-Ramond entered the Revolutionary Parliament

-as a moderate reformer, and when the

-leaders of the Revolution had no further use

-for moderate reformers he found himself in

-the gaol at Tarbres. Here he was fortunately

-forgotten, and survived to become Maître des

-Requêtes under Louis XVIII. Ramond is,

-perhaps, the most striking example of the

-mountaineer whose love for mountains was

-only equalled by his passion for freedom. In

-some ways, he is worthier of our admiration

-than Rousseau, for he not only admired

-mountains, he climbed them. He not only

-praised the simple life of hardship, he endured it.</p>

-

-<p>Turning to English literature, we find much

-the same processes at work. The two great

-poets whose revolt against existing society

-was most marked yielded the Alps a generous

-measure of praise. It is interesting to compare

-the mountain songs of Byron and Shelley.

-Byron’s verse is often marred by his obvious

-sense of the theatre. His misanthropy had,

-no doubt, its genuine as well as its purely

-theatrical element, but it becomes tiresome

-as the <i>motif</i> of the mountain message. No

-doubt he was sincere when he wrote&mdash;

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span></p>

-

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“I live not in myself, but I become<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">Portion of that around me, and to me<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">High mountains are a feeling, but the sum<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">Of human cities torture.”<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-

-<p>But as a matter of actual practice no man

-lived more in himself, and instead of becoming

-a portion of his surroundings, too often he

-makes his surroundings take colouring from

-his mood. His mountains sometimes seem

-to have degenerated into an echo of Byron.

-They are too anxious to advertise the whole

-gospel of misanthropy. The avalanche roars

-a little too lustily. The Alpine glow is laid

-on with a heavy brush, and his mountains

-cannot wholly escape the suspicion of bluster

-that tends to degenerate into bombast. This

-is undeniable, yet Byron at his best is difficult

-to approach. Freed from his affectations, his

-verse often rises to the highest levels of simple,

-unaffected eloquence. There are lines in <i>The

-Prisoner of Chillon</i> with an authentic appeal

-to the mountain lover. The prisoner has been

-freed from the chain that has bound him for

-years to a pillar, and he is graciously allowed

-the freedom of his dungeon&mdash;a concession that

-may not have appeared unduly liberal to his

-gaolers, but which at least enabled the

-prisoner to reach a window looking out on

-to the hills&mdash;

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span></p>

-

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“I made a footing in the wall,<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">It was not therefrom to escape.<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">But I was curious to ascend<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">To my barr’d windows, and to bend<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">Once more upon the mountain high<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">The quiet of a loving eye.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i1">I saw them and they were the same<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">They were not changed like me in frame;<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">I saw their thousand years of snow<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">On high&mdash;their wide long lake below.<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">And the blue Rhone in fullest flow; ...<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">I saw the white walled distant town;<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">And whiter sails go skimming down;<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">And then there was a little isle<br /></span>

-<span class="i3">Which in my very face did smile,<br /></span>

-<span class="i7">The only one in view.”<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-

-<p>As the train swings round the elbow above

-the lake, the mountaineer released from the

-chain of city life can echo this wish to bend

-the quiet of a loving eye on unchanging

-mountains.</p>

-

-<p>Coleridge has some good lines on Mont

-Blanc, but one feels that they would have

-applied equally well to any other mountain.

-Their sincerity is somewhat discounted by

-the fact that Coleridge manufactured an

-enthusiasm for Mont Blanc at a distance

-from which it is invisible.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span></p>

-

-<p>With Shelley, we move in a different atmosphere.

-Like Byron, he rebelled against

-society, and some comfortable admirers of

-the poetry which time has made respectable

-are apt to ignore those poems which, for

-passionate protest against social conditions,

-remained unique till William Morris transformed

-Socialism into song. Shelley was

-more sincere in his revolt than Byron. He

-did not always keep an eye on the gallery

-while declaiming his rebellion, and his mountains

-have no politics; they sing their own

-spontaneous melodies. Shelley combined the

-mystic’s vision with the accuracy of a trained

-observer. His descriptions of an Alpine

-dawn, or a storm among the mountains,

-might have been written by a man who had

-studied these phenomena with a note-book

-in his hand. Nobody has ever observed with

-such sympathy “the dim enchanted shapes

-of wandering mist,” or brought more beauty

-to their praise. Shelley’s cloud poems have

-the same fugitive magic that haunts the

-fickle countries of the sky when June is stirring

-in those windy hills where&mdash;</p>

-

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i4">“Dense fleecy clouds<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Are wandering in thick flocks among the mountains<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">Shepherded by the slow unwilling wind.”<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span></p>

-

-<p>Shelley did not start with the poem, but with

-the mountain. His mountains are something

-more than a convenient instrument for the

-manufacture of rhyme. He did not write a

-poem about mountains as a pleasant variation

-on more conventional themes. With Shelley,

-you know that poetry was the handmaid of

-the hills, the one medium in which he could

-fitly express his own passionate worship of

-every accent in the mountain melody. And

-for these reasons Shelley seems to us a truer

-mountain poet than Byron, truer than Coleridge,

-truer even than Wordsworth, for Wordsworth,

-though some of his Alpine poetry is

-very good indeed, seems more at home in the

-Cumberland fells, whose quiet music no other

-poet has ever rendered so surely.</p>

-

-<p>The early literature of the mountains has

-an atmosphere which has largely disappeared

-in modern Alpine writing. For, to the pioneers

-of Alpine travel, a mountain was not primarily

-a thing to climb. Even men like Bourrit

-and Ramond de Carbonnière, genuine mountaineers

-in every sense of the term, regarded

-the great heights as something more than

-fields for exploration, as the shrines of an

-unseen power that compelled spontaneous

-worship. These men saw a mountain, and

-not a problem in gymnastics. They wrote

-of mountains with a certain naïve eloquence,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span>

-often highly coloured, sometimes a trifle

-bombastic. But, because the best of them

-had French blood in their veins, their outpourings

-were at least free from Saxon self-consciousness.

-They were not writing for an

-academic audience lenient to dullness, but

-convulsed with agonies of shame at any

-suspicion of fine writing. One shudders to

-think of Bourrit delivering his sonorous

-address on the guides of Chamounix as the

-high priests of humanity before the average

-audience that assembles to hear an Alpine

-paper. We have seen two old gentlemen

-incapacitated for the evening by a paper

-pitched on a far more subdued note. Yet,

-somehow, the older writings have the genuine

-ring. They have something lacking in the

-genial rhapsodies of their successors. “We

-can never over-estimate what we owe to the

-Alps”: thus opens a characteristic peroration

-to an Alpine book of the ’eighties. “We are

-indebted to them and all their charming

-associations for the greatest of all blessings,

-friendship and health. It has been conclusively

-proved that, of all sports, it is the

-one which can be protracted to the greatest

-age. It is in the mountains that our youth is

-renewed. Young, middle-aged, or old, we go

-out, too often jaded and worn in mind and

-body; and we return invigorated, renewed,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span>

-restored, fitted for the fresh labours and duties

-of life. To know the great mountains wholly

-is impossible for any of us; but reverently to

-learn the lessons they can teach, and heartily

-to enjoy the happiness they can bring is possible

-to us all.”</p>

-

-<p>If a man who has climbed for thirty years

-cannot pump up something more lively as

-his final summary of Alpine joys, what reply

-can we make to Ruskin’s contention that “the

-real beauties of the Alps are to be seen and to

-be seen only where all may see it, the cripple,

-the child, and the man of grey hairs”?

-There are a few Alpine writers who have produced

-an apology worthy of the craft, and

-have shown that they had found above the

-snow-line an outlet for romance unknown to

-Ruskin’s cripple, and reserves of beauty which

-Ruskin himself had never drawn, and there are,

-on the other hand, quite enough to explain,

-if not to justify, the unlovely conception of

-Alpine climbers embodied in Ruskin’s amiable

-remarks: “The Alps themselves, which your

-own poets used to love so reverently, you look

-upon as soaped poles in a beer garden which

-you set yourselves to climb and slide down

-again with shrieks of delight. When you are

-past shrieking, having no articulate voice to

-say you are glad with, you rush home red

-with cutaneous eruptions of conceit, and

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span>

-voluble with convulsive hiccoughs of self-satisfaction.”</p>

-

-<p>With a few great exceptions, the literature

-of mountaineers is not as fine as the literature

-of mountain lovers. Let us see what the men

-who have not climbed have given to the

-praise of the snows. What mountaineer has

-written as Ruskin wrote? Certainly Ruskin

-at his best reaches heights which no mountaineer

-has ever scaled. When Ruskin read

-his Inaugural Address in the early ’fifties

-to an audience in the main composed of

-Cambridge undergraduates, he paused for a

-moment and glanced up at his audience.

-When he saw that the fleeting attention of

-the undergraduates had been arrested by this

-sudden pause, he declaimed a passage which

-he did not intend any of them to miss, a

-passage describing the Alps from the southern

-plains: “Out from between the cloudy pillars

-as they pass, emerge for ever the great battlements

-of the memorable and perpetual

-hills.”... When he paused again, after

-the sonorous fall of a majestic peroration,

-even the most prosaic of undergraduates

-joined in the turbulent applause.</p>

-

-<p>“Language which to a severe taste is perhaps

-a trifle too fine,” is Leslie Stephen’s

-characteristic comment. “It is not every

-one,” he adds, with trenchant common sense,

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>

-“who can with impunity compare Alps to

-archangels.” Perhaps not, and let us therefore

-be thankful to the occasional writer, who,

-like Ruskin and Leslie Stephen himself at his

-best, is not shamed into dullness by the fear

-of soaring too high. But Ruskin was something

-more than a fine writer. No man, and

-no mountaineer, ever loved the Alps with a

-more absorbing passion; and, in the whole

-realm of Alpine literature, there is no passage

-more pregnant with the unreasoning love for

-the hills than that which opens: “For to

-myself mountains are the beginning and the

-end of all Alpine scenery,” and ends: “There

-is not a wave of the Seine but is associated in

-my mind with the first rise of the sandstones

-and forest pines of Fontainebleau; and with

-the hope of the Alps, as one leaves Paris with

-the horses’ heads to the south-west, the

-morning sun flashing on the bright waves at

-Charenton. If there be no hope or association

-of this kind, and if I cannot deceive myself

-into fancying that, perhaps at the next rise

-of the road, there may be seen the film of a

-blue hill in the gleam of sky at the horizon,

-the landscape, however beautiful, produces in

-me even a kind of sickness and pain; and the

-whole view from Richmond Hill or Windsor

-Terrace&mdash;nay, the gardens of Alcinous, with

-their perpetual summer&mdash;or of the Hesperides

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span>

-(if they were flat, and not close to Atlas),

-golden apples and all&mdash;I would give away in

-an instant, for one mossy granite stone a foot

-broad, and two leaves of lady-fern.”</p>

-

-<p>George Meredith was no mountaineer; but

-his mountain passages will not easily be beaten.

-His description of the Alps seen from the

-Adriatic contains, perhaps, the subtlest phrase

-in literature for the colouring of distant

-ranges: “Colour was steadfast on the massive

-front ranks; it wavered in its remoteness and

-was quick and dim <i>as though it fell on beating

-wings</i>.” And no climber has analysed the

-climber’s conflicting emotions with such

-sympathetic acuteness. “Would you know

-what it is to hope again, and have all your

-hopes at hand? Hang upon the crags at a

-gradient that makes your next step a debate

-between the thing you are and the thing you

-may become. There the merry little hopes

-grow for the climber like flowers and food,

-immediate, prompt to prove their uses,

-sufficient if just within grasp, as mortal hopes

-should be.”</p>

-

-<p>We have quoted Ruskin’s great tribute to

-the romance which still haunts the journey

-to the Alps even for those who are brought

-up on steam. Addington Symonds was no

-mountaineer; but he writes of this journey

-with an enthusiasm which rings truer than

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>

-much in Alpine adventure: “Of all the joys

-in life, none is greater than the joy of arriving

-on the outskirts of Switzerland at the end of a

-long dusty day’s journey from Paris. The

-true epicure in refined pleasures will never

-travel to Basle by night. He courts the heat

-of the sun and the monotony of French

-plains&mdash;their sluggish streams, and never-ending

-poplar trees&mdash;for the sake of the

-evening coolness and the gradual approach

-to the great Alps, which await him at the

-close of the day. It is about Mulhausen that

-he begins to feel a change in the landscape.

-The fields broaden into rolling downs, watered

-by clear and running streams; the great Swiss

-thistle grows by riverside and cowshed; pines

-begin to tuft the slopes of gently rising hills;

-and now the sun has set, the stars come out,

-first Hesper, then the troop of lesser lights;

-and he feels&mdash;yes, indeed, there is now no

-mistake&mdash;the well-known, well-loved, magical

-fresh air, that never fails to blow from snowy

-mountains, and meadows watered by perennial

-streams. The last hour is one of exquisite

-enjoyment, and when he reaches Basle he

-scarcely sleeps all night for hearing the swift

-Rhine beneath the balconies, and knowing

-that the moon is shining on its waters, through

-the town, beneath the bridges, between

-pasture-lands and copses, up the still mountain-girdled

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>

-valleys to the ice-caves where the

-water springs. There is nothing in all experience

-of travelling like this. We may

-greet the Mediterranean at Marseilles with

-enthusiasm; on entering Rome by the Porta

-del Popolo we may reflect with pride that

-we have reached the goal of our pilgrimage,

-and are at last among world-shaking memories.

-But neither Rome nor the Riviera wins our

-hearts like Switzerland. We do not lie awake

-in London thinking of them; we do not long

-so intensely, as the year comes round, to

-revisit them. Our affection is less a passion

-than that which we cherish for Switzerland.”</p>

-

-<p>Among modern writers there is Mr. Belloc,

-who stands self-confessed as a man who

-refuses to climb for fear of “slipping down.”

-Mr. Belloc has French blood in his veins, and

-he is not cursed with British reserve. In his

-memorable journey along the path to Rome,

-he had, perforce, to cross the Jura, and this

-is how he first saw the Alps&mdash;</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“I saw, between the branches of the trees

-in front of me, a sight in the sky that made

-me stop breathing, just as a great danger at

-sea, or great surprise in love, or a great

-deliverance will make a man stop breathing.

-I saw something I had known in the West as

-a boy, something I had never seen so grandly

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span>

-discovered as was this. In between the

-branches of the trees was a great promise

-of unexpected lights beyond....</p>

-

-<p>“Here were these magnificent creatures of

-God, I mean the Alps, which now for the first

-time I saw from the height of the Jura; and,

-because they were fifty or sixty miles away,

-and because they were a mile or two high,

-they were become something different from

-us others, and could strike one motionless

-with the awe of supernatural things. Up

-there in the sky, to which only clouds belong,

-and birds, and the last trembling colours of

-pure light, they stood fast and hard; not

-moving as do the things of the sky....</p>

-

-<p>“These, the great Alps, seen thus, link one

-in some way to one’s immortality. Nor is it

-possible to convey, or even to suggest, those

-few fifty miles, and those few thousand feet;

-there is something more. Let me put it thus:

-that from the height of Weissenstein I saw, as

-it were, my religion. I mean humility, the

-fear of death, the terror of height and of distance,

-the glory of God, the infinite potentiality

-of reception whence springs that divine

-thirst of the soul; my aspiration also towards

-completion, and my confidence in the dual

-destiny. For I know that we laughers have

-a gross cousinship with the most high, and

-it is this contrast and perpetual quarrel which

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span>

-feeds a spring of merriment in the soul of a

-sane man.... That it is also which leads

-some men to climb mountain tops, but not

-me, for I am afraid of slipping down.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>That is subjective enough, with a vengeance;

-for those few lines one would gladly sacrifice

-a whole shelf full of climbing literature dealing

-with the objective facts that do not vary

-with the individual observer.</p>

-

-<p>Mr. Kipling again, though no mountaineer,

-has struck out one message which most

-mountaineers would sacrifice a season’s climbing

-to have written. A brief quotation gives

-only a faint impression of its beauty&mdash;</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“At last, they entered a world within a

-world&mdash;a valley of leagues where the high

-hills were fashioned of the mere rubble and

-refuse from off the knees of the mountains.

-Here, one day’s march carried them no farther,

-it seemed, than a dreamer’s clogged pace

-bears him in a nightmare. They skirted a

-shoulder painfully for hours, and behold, it

-was but an outlying boss in an outlying

-buttress of the main pile! A rounded meadow

-revealed itself, when they had reached it,

-for a vast table-land running far into the

-valley. Three days later, it was a dim fold

-in the earth to southward.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span></p>

-

-<p>“‘Surely the Gods live here,’ said Kim,

-beaten down by the silence and the appalling

-sweep and dispersal of the cloud-shadows

-after rain. ‘This is no place for men!’</p>

-

-<p>“Above them, still enormously above them,

-earth towered away towards the snow-line,

-where from east to west across hundreds of

-miles, ruled as with a ruler, the last of the

-bold birches stopped. Above that, in scarps

-and blocks upheaved, the rocks strove to

-fight their heads above the white smother.

-Above these again, changeless since the

-world’s beginning, but changing to every

-mood of sun and cloud, lay out the eternal

-snow. They could see blots and blurs on

-its face where storm and wandering wullie-wa

-got up to dance. Below them, as they stood,

-the forest slid away in a sheet of blue-green

-for mile upon mile; below the forest was a

-village in its sprinkle of terraced fields and

-steep grazing-grounds; below the village they

-knew, though a thunderstorm worried and

-growled there for the moment, a pitch of

-twelve or fifteen hundred feet gave to the

-moist valley where the streams gather that

-are the mothers of young Sutluj.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>Then there is Mr. Algernon Blackwood, who

-is, I think, rather a ski-runner than a mountaineer.

-Certainly he has unravelled the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>

-psychology of hill-wandering, and discovered

-something of that strange personality behind

-the mountains. No writer has so successfully

-caught the uncanny atmosphere that sometimes

-haunts the hills.</p>

-

-<p>The contrast is even more marked in poetry

-than in prose. In prose, we have half-a-dozen

-Alpine books that would satisfy a severe

-critic. In poetry, only one mountaineer has

-achieved outstanding success. Mr. G. Winthrop

-Young, alone, has transferred the

-essential romance of mountaineering into

-poetry which not mountaineers alone, but

-every lover of finished craftsmanship, will

-read with something deeper than pleasure.

-But, while Mr. Young has no rival in the

-poetry of mountaineering, there is a considerable

-quantity of excellent verse of which

-mountains are the theme. We have spoken

-of Shelley and Byron. Among more modern

-poets there is Tennyson. He wrote little

-mountain poetry, and yet in four lines he has

-crystallised the whole essence of the Alpine

-vision from some distant sentinel of the

-plains&mdash;</p>

-

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“How faintly flushed, how phantom fair<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">Was Monte Rosa, hanging there<br /></span>

-<span class="i3">A thousand shadowy pencilled valleys<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">And snowy dells in a golden air.”<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span></p>

-

-<p>Sydney Dobell has some good mountain

-verse; and if we had not already burdened

-this chapter with quotations we should have

-borrowed from those descriptions in which

-Morris clearly recalls the savage volcanic

-scenery of Iceland. Swinburne, in the lines

-beginning&mdash;</p>

-

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i6">“Me the snows<br /></span>

-<span class="i0">That face the first of the morning”&mdash;<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-

-<p>has touched some of the less obvious spells

-of hill region with his own unerring instinct

-for beauty.</p>

-

-<p>F. W. H. Myers in eight lines has said all

-that need be said when the hills have claimed

-the ultimate penalty&mdash;</p>

-

-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i0">“Here let us leave him: for his shroud the snow,<br /></span>

-<span class="i3">For funeral lamps he has the planets seven,<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">For a great sign the icy stair shall go<br /></span>

-<span class="i3">Between the stars to heaven.<br /></span>

-</div><div class="stanza">

-<span class="i1">One moment stood he as the angels stand,<br /></span>

-<span class="i3">High in the stainless eminence of air.<br /></span>

-<span class="i1">The next he was not, to his fatherland<br /></span>

-<span class="i3">Translated unaware.”<br /></span>

-</div></div>

-

-<p>Mrs. Holland has written, as a dedication

-for a book of Alpine travel, lines which have

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span>

-the authentic note; and Mr. Masefield in a

-few verses has caught the savage aloofness

-of the peaks better than most mountaineers

-in pages of redundant description.</p>

-

-<p>The contrast is rather too marked between

-the work of those who loved mountains without

-climbing them and the literature of the

-professional mountaineers. Even writers like

-Mr. Kipling, who have only touched mountains

-in a few casual lines, seem to have captured

-the mountain atmosphere more successfully

-than many a climber who has devoted articles

-galore to his craft. Of course, Mr. Kipling

-is a genius and the average Alpine writer is

-not; but surely one might not unreasonably

-expect a unique literature from those who

-know the mountains in all their changing

-tenses, and who by service of toil and danger

-have wrung from them intimate secrets

-unguessed at by those who linger outside the

-shrine.</p>

-

-<p>Mountaineering has, of course, produced

-some great literature. There is Leslie

-Stephen, though even Stephen at his best is

-immeasurably below Ruskin’s finest mountain

-passages. But Leslie Stephens are rare in

-the history of Alpine literature, whereas the

-inarticulate are always with us.</p>

-

-<p>In some ways, the man who can worship

-a mountain without wishing to climb it has

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span>

-a certain advantage. He sees a vision, where

-the climber too often sees nothing but a

-variation route. The popular historian has

-often a more vivid picture of a period than

-the expert, whose comprehensive knowledge

-of obscure charters sometimes blinds him

-to the broad issues of history. Technical

-knowledge does not always make for understanding.

-The first great revelation of the

-mountains has a power that is all its own. To

-the man who has yet to climb, every mountain

-is virgin, every snow-field a mystery, undefiled

-by traffic with man. The first vision passes,

-and the love that is based on understanding

-supplants it. The vision of unattainable

-snows translates itself into terms of memory&mdash;that

-white gleam that once belonged to

-dreamland into an ice-wall with which you

-have wrestled through the scorching hours

-of a July afternoon. You have learned to

-spell the writing on the wall of the mountains.

-The magic of first love, with its worship of the

-unattainable, is too often transformed into

-the soberer affection founded, like domestic

-love, on knowledge and sympathy; and the

-danger would be greater if the fickle hills had

-not to be wooed afresh every season. Beyond

-the mountain that we climb and seem to know,

-lurks ever the visionary peak that we shall

-never conquer; and this unattainable ideal

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span>

-gives an eternal youth to the hills, and a never-failing

-vitality to our Alpine adventure. Yet

-when we begin to set down our memories of

-the mountains, it seems far easier to recall

-those objective facts, which are the same for

-all comers, the meticulous details of route,

-the conditions of snow and ice, and to omit

-from our epic that subjective vision of the

-mountain, that individual impression which

-alone lends something more than a technical

-interest to the story of our days among the

-snow. And so it is not altogether surprising

-that the man who has never climbed can

-write more freely and more fully of the

-mountains, since he has no expert knowledge

-to confuse the issue, no technical details to

-obscure the first fine careless rapture.</p>

-

-<p>The early mountaineers entered into a

-literary field that was almost unexplored.

-They could write of their hill journeys with

-the assurance of men branching out into

-unknown byways. They could linger on

-the commonplaces of hill travel, and praise

-the freedom of the hills with the air of men

-enunciating a paradox. To glorify rough fare,

-simple quarters, a bed of hay, a drink quaffed

-from the mountain stream, must have

-afforded Gesner the same intellectual pleasure

-that Mr. Chesterton derives from the praise of

-Battersea and Beer. And this joy in emotions

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span>

-which had yet to be considered trite lingers

-on even into the more sedate pages of <i>Peaks,

-Passes, and Glaciers</i>. The contributors to

-those classic volumes were rather frightened

-of letting themselves go; but here and there

-one lights on some spontaneous expression of

-delight in the things that are the very flesh

-and blood of our Alpine experience&mdash;the

-bivouac beneath the stars, the silent approach

-of dawn, the freemasonry of the rope, the

-triumph of the virgin summit. “Times have

-changed since then,” wrote Donald Robertson

-in a recent issue of <i>The Alpine Journal</i>&mdash;</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“Times have changed since then, and with

-them Alpine literature. Mountaineering has

-become a science, and, as in other sciences, the

-professor has grown impatient of the average

-intelligence, and evolved his own tongue.

-To write for the outside public is to incur the

-odium of ‘popular science,’ a form of literature

-fascinating to me, but anathema to all right-minded

-men. Those best qualified to speak

-will only address themselves to those qualified

-to listen, and therefore only in the jargon of

-their craft. But the hall-mark of technical

-writing is the assumption of common knowledge.

-What all readers know for themselves,

-it is needless and even impertinent to state.

-Hence, in the climbing stories written for the

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span>

-elect, the features common to all climbs must

-either be dismissed with a brief reference, or

-lightly treated as things only interesting in

-so far as they find novel expression.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>Those who worship Clio the muse will try

-to preserve the marriage of history and

-literature, but those whose only claim to

-scholarship is their power to collate facts by

-diligent research, those who have not the

-necessary ability to weave these facts into a

-vital pattern, will always protest their devotion

-to what is humorously dubbed scientific

-history. So in the Alpine world, which has

-its own academic traditions and its own

-mandarins, you will find that those who

-cannot translate emotions (which it is to be

-hoped they share) into language which anybody

-could understand are rather apt to

-explain their discreet silence, by the possession

-of a delicate reserve that forbids them to

-emulate the fine writing of a Ruskin or the

-purple patches of Meredith.</p>

-

-<p>Now, it should be possible to discriminate

-between those who endeavour to clothe a fine

-emotion in worthy language, and those who

-start with the intention of writing finely, and

-look round for a fine emotion to serve as the

-necessary peg. Sincerity is the touchstone

-that discriminates the fine writing that is

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span>

-good, and the fine writing that is damnable.

-The emotions that are the essence of mountaineering

-deserve something better than the

-genteel peroration of the average climbing

-book. Alpine literature is a trifle deficient

-in fine frenzy. The Mid-Victorian pose of the

-bluff, downright Briton, whose surging flood

-of emotions is concealed beneath an affectation

-of cynicism, is apt to be tedious, and one

-wonders whether emotions so consistently

-and so successfully suppressed really existed

-within those stolid bosoms.</p>

-

-<p>A great deal of Alpine literature appeals,

-and rightly appeals, only to the expert. Such

-contributions are not intended as descriptive

-literature. They may, as the record of

-research into the early records of mountaineering

-and mountains, supply a much-needed

-link in the history of the craft. As the record

-of new exploration, they are sure to interest

-the expert, while their exact description of

-routes and times will serve as the material for

-future climbers’ guides. But this is not the

-whole of Alpine literature, and the danger is

-that those who dare not attempt the subjective

-aspects of mountaineering should

-frighten off those who have the necessary

-ability by a tedious repetition of the phrase

-“fine writing,” that facile refuge of the

-Philistine. The conventional Alpine article

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span>

-is a dreary affair. Its humour is antique, and

-consists for the most part in jokes about fleas

-and porters, and in the substitution of long

-phrases for simple ones. Its satire is even

-thinner. The root assumption that the Alpine

-climber is a superior person, and that social

-status varies with the height above sea level,

-recurs with monotonous regularity. The joke

-about the tripper is as old as the Flood, and

-the instinct that resents his disturbing presence

-is not quite the hall-mark of the æsthetic soul

-that some folk seem to think. It is as old as

-the primitive man who espied a desirable glade,

-and lay in wait for the first tourist with a

-club. “My friends tell me,” writes a well-known

-veteran, “that I am singular in this

-strange desire to avoid meeting the never-ceasing

-stream of tourists, and I am beginning

-to believe that they are right, and that I am

-differently constituted from other people.”

-The author of this trite confession has only

-to study travel literature in general and Alpine

-literature in particular to discover that quite

-commonplace folk can misquote the remark

-about the madding crowd, and that even

-members of the lower middle class have been

-known to put the sentiment into practice.

-A sense of humour and a sense for solitude

-are two things which their true possessors are

-chary of mentioning.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span></p>

-

-<p>It might be fairly argued that the average

-mountaineer does not pretend to be a writer,

-fine or otherwise, that he describes his climbs

-in a club journal intended for a friendly and

-uncritical audience, and that he leaves the

-defence of his sport to the few men who can

-obtain the hearing of a wider audience. That

-is fair comment; and, fortunately, mountaineering

-is not without the books that are

-classics not only of Alpine but also of English

-literature.</p>

-

-<p>First to claim mention is <i>Peaks, Passes,

-and Glaciers</i>, a volume “so fascinating,” writes

-Donald Robertson, “so inspiring a gospel of

-adventure and full, free life, that the call

-summoned to the hills an army of seekers

-after the promised gold.” That is true

-enough. But the charm of these pages, which

-is undoubted, is much more due to the fact

-that the contributors had a good story to tell

-than to any grace of style with which they

-told it. The contributors were drawn from

-all walks of life&mdash;barristers, Manchester merchants,

-schoolmasters, dons, clergymen, and

-scientists; and unless we must affect to believe

-that Alpine climbing inspires its devotees

-with the gift of tongues, we need not appear

-guilty of irreverence for the pioneers if we

-discriminate between the literary and intrinsic

-merit of their work. They were

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span>

-educated men. They did not split their

-infinitives, and they could express their

-thoughts in the King’s English, a precedent

-not always followed by their successors. We

-must, however, differentiate between the

-Alpine writing which gives pleasure because

-of its associations, and the literature which

-delights not only for its associations and story,

-but also for its beauty of expression. Let us,

-as an example, consider two passages describing

-an Alpine dawn&mdash;</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“We set out from the bivouac at three in

-the morning. The night was cloudless, and

-the stars shone with a truly majestic beauty.

-Ahead of us, we could just see the outline of

-the great peak we proposed to attack. Gradually,

-the east lightened. The mountains became

-more distinct. The eastern sky paled,

-and a few minutes later the glorious sun

-caught the topmost peaks, and painted their

-snows with the fiery hues of dawn. It was a

-most awe-compelling spectacle.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>This passage may please us, not because

-the language is fine or the thoughts subtly

-expressed, but simply because the scenes so

-inadequately described recall those which

-we ourselves have witnessed. The passage

-would convey little to a man who had never

-climbed. Now consider the following&mdash;

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span></p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“On the glacier, the light of a day still to

-be born put out our candles.... We halted

-to watch the procession of the sun. He came

-out of the uttermost parts of the earth, very

-slowly, lighting peak after peak in the long

-southward array, dwelling for a moment, and

-then passing on. Opposite, and first to catch

-the glow, were the great mountains of the

-Saasgrat and the Weisshorn. <i>But more

-beautiful, like the loom of some white-sailed

-ship far out at sea, each unnamed and unnumbered

-peak of the east took and reflected the

-radiance of the morning.</i> The light mists

-which came before the sun faded.”...</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>Like the other passage this brief description

-starts a train of memories; but, whereas the

-first passage would convey little to a non-climber,

-Sir Claud Schuster has really thought

-out the sequence of the dawn, and has caught

-one of its finer and subtler effects by the use

-of a very happy analogy. The phrase which

-we have ventured to italicise defines in a few

-words a brief scene in the drama of the dawn,

-an impression that could not be conveyed by

-piling adjective on adjective.</p>

-

-<p>There are many writers who have captured

-the romance of mountaineering, far fewer who

-have the gift for that happy choice of words

-that gives the essence of a particular Alpine

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span>

-view. Pick up any Alpine classic at a venture,

-and you will find that not one writer in fifty

-can hold your attention through a long passage

-of descriptive writing. The average writer

-piles on his adjectives. From the Alpine

-summit you can see a long way. The horizon

-seems infinitely far off. The valleys sink

-below into profound shadows. The eye is

-carried from the dark firs upward to the

-glittering snowfields. “The majestic mass of

-the ... rises to the north, and blots out the

-lesser ranges of the.... The awful heights

-of the ... soar upwards from the valley

-of.... In the east, we could just catch a

-glimpse of the ... and our guides assured

-us that in the west we could veritably see the

-distant snows of our old friend the....” And

-so on, and so forth. Fill in the gaps, and this

-skeleton description can be made to fit the

-required panorama. It roughly represents

-nine out of ten word pictures of Alpine views.

-Examine Whymper’s famous description of

-the view from the Matterhorn. It is little

-more than a catalogue of mountains. There

-is hardly a phrase in it that would convey the

-essential atmosphere of such a view to a man

-who had not seen it.</p>

-

-<p>Genius has been defined as the power of

-seeing analogies, and we have sometimes

-fancied that the secret of all good Alpine

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span>

-description lies in the happy choice of the

-right analogy. It is no use accumulating the

-adjective at random. Peaks are high and

-majestic, the snow is white. Certainly this

-does not help us. What we need is some

-happily chosen phrase which goes deeper than

-the obvious epithets that apply to every

-peak and every snowfield. We want the

-magical phrase that differentiates one particular

-Alpine setting from another. And this

-phrase will often be some apparently casual

-analogy drawn from something which has no

-apparent connection with the Alps. “Beautiful

-like the loom of some white-sailed ship,”

-is an example which we have already quoted.

-Leslie Stephen’s work is full of such analogies.

-He does not waste adjectives. His adjectives

-are chosen for a particular reason. His

-epithets all do work. Read his description

-of the view from Mont Blanc, the Peaks of

-Primiero, the Alps in winter, and you feel

-that these descriptions could not be made to

-apply to other Alpine settings by altering the

-names and suppressing an occasional phrase.

-They are charged with the individual atmosphere

-of the place which gave them birth.

-In the most accurate sense of the word, they

-are autocthonous. A short quotation will

-illustrate these facts. Here is Stephen’s

-description of the view from the Schreckhorn.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span>

-Notice that he achieves his effect without the

-usual largess of jewellery. Topaz and opal

-are dispensed with, and their place is taken

-by casual and apparently careless analogies

-from such diversified things as an opium

-dream, music, an idle giant.</p>

-

-<blockquote>

-

-<p>“You are in the centre of a whole district

-of desolation, suggesting a landscape from

-Greenland, or an imaginary picture of England

-in the glacial epoch, with shores yet unvisited

-by the irrepressible Gulf Stream. The charm

-of such views&mdash;little as they are generally

-appreciated by professed admirers of the

-picturesque&mdash;is to my taste unique, though

-not easily explained to unbelievers. They

-have a certain soothing influence like slow

-and stately music, or one of the strange opium

-dreams described by De Quincey. If his

-journey in the mail-coach could have led him

-through an Alpine pass instead of the quiet

-Cumberland hills, he would have seen visions

-still more poetical than that of the minister

-in the ‘dream fugue.’ Unable as I am to bend

-his bow, I can only say that there is something

-almost unearthly in the sight of enormous

-spaces of hill and plain, apparently unsubstantial

-as a mountain mist, glimmering

-away to the indistinct horizon, and as it were

-spell-bound by an absolute and eternal silence.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span>

-The sentiment may be very different when a

-storm is raging and nothing is visible but the

-black ribs of the mountains glaring at you

-through rents in the clouds; but on that

-perfect day on the top of the Schreckhorn,

-where not a wreath of vapour was to be seen

-under the Whole vast canopy of the sky, a

-delicious lazy sense of calm repose was the

-appropriate frame of mind. One felt as if

-some immortal being, with no particular

-duties upon his hands, might be calmly

-sitting upon those desolate rocks and watching

-the little shadowy wrinkles of the plain, that

-were really mountain ranges, rise and fall

-through slow geological epochs.”</p></blockquote>

-

-<p>Whymper never touches this note even in

-the best of many good mountain passages.

-His forte was rather the romance of Alpine

-adventure than the subtler art of reproducing

-Alpine scenery. But in his own line he is

-without a master. His style, of course, was

-not so uniformly good as Stephen’s. He had

-terrible lapses. He spoils his greatest chapter

-by a most uncalled-for anti-climax. He had

-a weakness for banal quotations from third-rate

-translations of the classics. But, though

-these lapses are irritating, there is no book

-like the famous <i>Scrambles</i>, and there is

-certainly no book which has sent more new

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span>

-climbers to the Alps. Whymper was fortunate,

-for he had as his material the finest

-story in Alpine history. Certainly, he did not

-waste his chances. The book has the genuine

-ring of Alpine romance. Its pages are full of

-those contrasts that are the stuff of our

-mountain quest, the tragic irony that a Greek

-mind would have appreciated. The closing

-scenes in the great drama of the Matterhorn

-move to their appointed climax with the

-dignity of some of the most majestic chapters

-in the Old Testament. Of their kind, they

-are unique in the literature of exploration.</p>

-

-<p>Tyndall, Whymper’s great rival, had literary

-talent as well as scientific genius, but his

-Alpine books, though they contain fine passages,

-have not the personality that made

-<i>Scrambles in the Alps</i> a classic, nor the genius

-for descriptive writing that we admire in <i>The

-Playground of Europe</i>. Of A. W. Moore’s

-work and of Mummery’s great classic we have

-already spoken. Mummery, like Whymper,

-could translate into words the rollicking adventure

-of mountaineering, and though he

-never touches Leslie Stephen’s level, some of

-his descriptions of mountain scenery have a

-distinct fascination.</p>

-

-<p>A few other great Alpine books have

-appeared between <i>Peaks, Pastures, and

-Glaciers</i> and the recent work <i>Peaks and</i>

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span>

-<i>Pleasant Pastures</i>. Mr. Douglas Freshfield

-and Sir Martin Conway are both famous

-explorers of the greater ranges beyond Europe,

-and their talent for mountain description

-must have inspired many a climber to leave

-the well-trodden Alpine routes for the unknown

-snows of the Himalayas. Mr. Freshfield’s

-Caucasian classic opens with a short

-poem that we should like to have quoted, and

-includes one of the great stories on mountain

-literature&mdash;the search for Donkin and Fox.

-Sir Martin Conway brings to his work the

-eye of a trained Art critic, and the gift for

-analysing beauty, not only in pictures, but

-in Alpine scenery. He is an artist in colour

-and in words.</p>

-

-<p>Contrary to accepted views, we are inclined

-to believe that Alpine literature shows signs

-of a Renaissance. Those who hold that the

-subject-matter is exhausted, seem to base

-their belief on the fact that every virgin peak

-in the Alps has been climbed, and that the

-literature of exploration should, therefore,

-die a natural death. This belief argues a

-lack of proportion. Because a certain number

-of climbers have marched up and down the

-peaks of a certain range, it does not follow

-that those mountains no longer afford emotions

-capable of literary expression. The very

-reverse is the case. It is perilously easy to

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span>

-attach supreme importance to the sporting

-side of our craft. Mountain literature is too

-often tedious, because it concentrates on

-objective facts. When all the great mountains

-were unclimbed, those who wrote of them could

-not burden their pages with tiresome details

-of routes and times. When every mountain

-has been climbed by every conceivable route,

-the material at the disposal of the objective

-writer is fortunately exhausted. There are

-few great Alpine routes that remain unexplored.

-There are a thousand byways in

-the psychology of mountaineering that have

-never been touched, and an excellent book

-might have been written on this subject alone.

-Every mountaineer brings to the mountains

-the tribute of a new worshipper with his own

-different emotions. “Obtain an account of

-the same expedition from three points on the

-same rope, and you will see how different.

-Therefore, there is room in our generation for

-a new <i>Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers</i> by the best

-pens in the Club telling freely, and without

-false shame, the simple story of a day among

-the mountains.”</p>

-

-<p>The pioneers had every advantage, a new

-subject for literary expression, a new field of

-almost untouched exploration, phrases that

-had yet to become trite, emotions which

-never become trite though their expression

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span>

-is apt to fall into a rut. And yet it seems

-doubtful whether they wrote more freely and

-more truly than some of those who are writing

-to-day. In some directions, mountain descriptions

-have advanced as well as mountain

-craft. We have no Leslie Stephen and no

-Whymper, but the best pens at work in <i>The

-Alpine Journal</i> have created a nobler literature

-than that which we find in the early numbers.

-“<i>The Alpine Journal</i>,” remarked a worthy

-president, is “the champagne of Alpine

-literature.” Like the best champagne, it is

-often very dry. The early numbers contained

-little of literary value beyond Gosset’s great

-account of the avalanche which killed Bennen,

-and some articles by Stephen and Whymper.

-Neither Stephen nor Whymper wrote their

-best for the club journal. <i>The Cornhill</i>

-contains Stephen’s best work, and Whymper

-gave the pick of his writing to the Press.

-One may safely say that the first forty years

-of the club journal produced nothing better

-than recent contributions such as “The Alps”

-by A. D. Godley, “Two Ridges of the Grand

-Jorasses” by G. W. Young, “The Middle Age

-of the Mountaineer” by Claud Schuster,

-“Another Way of Alpine Love” by F. W.

-Bourdillon, “The Ligurian Alps” by R. L. A.

-Irving, and “Alpine Humour” by C. D.

-Robertson. Nor has good work been confined

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span>

-to <i>The Alpine Journal</i>. The patient

-seeker may find hidden treasures in the pages

-of some score of journals devoted to some

-aspect of the mountains. The new century

-has opened well, for it has given us Prof.

-Collie’s <i>Exploration in the Himalaya and other

-Mountain Ranges</i>, a book of unusual charm.

-It has given us Mr. Young’s mountain poems,

-for which we would gladly jettison a whole

-library of Alpine literature. It has given us

-<i>Peaks and Pleasant Pastures</i>, and a fine

-translation of Guido Rey’s classic work on the

-Matterhorn. With these books in mind we

-can safely assert that the writer quoted at the

-beginning of this chapter was unduly pessimistic,

-and that England has contributed her

-fair share to the subjective literature of the

-Alps.</p>

-

-<p>Let us hope that this renaissance of wonder

-will suffer no eclipse; let us hope that the

-Alps may still offer to generations yet unborn

-avenues of discovery beside those marked

-“No Information” in the pages of <i>The

-Climber’s Guides</i>. The saga of the Alps will

-not die from lack of material so long as men

-find in the hills an inspiration other than the

-challenge of unclimbed ridges and byways of

-mountain joy uncharted in the ordnance

-survey.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="BIBLIOGRAPHY">BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2>

-

-<p>The Alpine Club collects every book dealing with the

-mountains and also most of the articles that appear in the

-Press and Magazines. The Catalogue of the Alpine Club

-Library should, therefore, be the most complete bibliography

-in existence. The additions to the Club Library are published

-from time to time in <i>The Alpine Journal</i>.</p>

-

-<p>The most useful bibliographies of Alpine book that are

-accessible to the general reader are contained in <i>Ueber Eis

-and Schnee</i>, by Gottlieb Studer (1869-1871), and <i>Swiss Travel

-and Swiss Guide Books</i>, by the Rev. W. A. B. Coolidge (1889).</p>

-

-<p>Perhaps the most thorough book on every phase of the

-Alps, sporting, social, political and historical is <i>The Alps in

-Nature and History</i>, by the Rev. W. A. B. Coolidge (1908).</p>

-

-<p>For the Geology of the Alps and the theory of Glacier

-Motion there are no better books than <i>The Glaciers of the

-Alps</i>, by John Tyndall (1860; reprinted in the Everyman

-Library), and <i>The Building of the Alps</i>, by T. G. Bonney

-(1912).</p>

-

-<p>For the practical side of mountaineering, <i>Mountaineering</i>,

-by C. T. Dent (Badminton Library), is good but somewhat

-out of date.</p>

-

-<p>The best modern book on the theory and practice of mountaineering

-is <i>Modern Mountain Craft</i>, edited by G. W. Young

-(1914). This book is in the Press. It contains chapters on

-the theory of mountain craft in summer and winter, and in

-addition a very able summary of the characteristic of mountaineering

-in the great ranges beyond Europe as described

-by the various experts for the particular districts.</p>

-

-<p>Winter mountaineering and ski-ing are dealt with in <i>The</i>

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span>

-<i>Ski-Runner</i>, by E. C. Richardson (1909); <i>Ski-ing for Beginners

-and Mountaineers</i>, by W. R. Rickmers (1910); <i>How to Ski</i>,

-by Vivian Caulfield (1910); <i>Ski-ing</i>, by Arnold Lunn (1912).</p>

-

-<p>For the general literature of mountaineering the reader

-has a wide choice. We cannot attempt a comprehensive

-bibliography, but the following books are the most interesting

-of the many hundred volumes on the subject.</p>

-

-<p>The early history of mountaineering is dealt with in Mr.

-Coolidge’s books referred to above. There is a good historical

-sketch in the first chapter of the Badminton volume. The

-most readable book on the early pioneers is <i>The Early Mountaineers</i>,

-by Francis Gribble (1899). <i>The Story of Alpine

-Climbing</i>, by Francis Gribble (1904), is smaller than <i>The

-Early Mountaineers</i>; it can be obtained for a shilling.</p>

-

-<p>We shall, where possible, confine our list to books written

-in English. This is not possible for the earlier works, as

-English books do not cover the ground.</p>

-

-<div class="hang">

-

-<p><i>Descriptio Montis Fracti juxta Lucernam.</i> By Conrad Gesner.

-1555.</p>

-

-<p><i>De Alpibus Commentarius.</i> By Josias Simler. 1574.</p>

-

-<p><i>Coryate’s Crudities.</i> By T. Coryate. 1611. This book

-contains the passage quoted on p. 15. It has recently

-been reprinted.</p>

-

-<p><i>Diary (Simplon, etc.).</i> By John Evelyn. 1646. (Reprinted

-in the Everyman Library.)</p>

-

-<p><i>Remarks on Several Parts of Switzerland.</i> By J. Addison.

-1705.</p>

-

-<p><i>Itinera per Helvetiæ Alpinas Regiones Facta.</i> By Johann

-Jacob Scheuchzer. 1723.</p>

-

-<p><i>Die Alpen.</i> By A. von Haller. 1732.</p>

-

-<p><i>An Account of the Glaciers or Ice Alps in Savoy.</i> By William

-Windham and Peter Martel. 1744.</p>

-

-<p><i>Travels in the Alps of Savoy.</i> By J. D. Forbes. 1843.</p>

-

-<p><i>Mont Blanc.</i> By Albert Smith. 1852.</p>

-

-<p><i>The Tour of Mont Blanc.</i> By J. D. Forbes. 1855.</p>

-

-<p><i>Wanderings among the High Alps.</i> By Alfred Wills. 1856.</p>

-

-<p><i>Summer Months among the Alps.</i> By T. W. Hinchcliff. 1857.

-(Very scarce.)

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span></p>

-

-<p><i>The Italian Valleys of the Pennine Alps.</i> By S. W. King.

-1858.</p>

-

-<p><i>Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers.</i> (First Series.) 1859. (Scarce

-and expensive.)</p>

-

-<p><i>Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers.</i> (Second Series.) (Two volumes.)

-(Scarce.) 1862.</p>

-

-<p><i>The Eagles’ Nest.</i> By A. Wills. 1860. (Scarce.)</p>

-

-<p><i>The Glaciers of the Alps.</i> By John Tyndall. 1860.</p>

-

-<p><i>Across Country from Thonon to Trent.</i> By D. W. Freshfield.

-1865.</p>

-

-<p><i>The Alps in 1864.</i> By A. W. Moore. (Privately reprinted.)

-(Very scarce, reprinted 1902.)</p>

-

-<p><i>The High Alps without Guides.</i> By A. B. Girdlestone.

-(Scarce.) 1870.</p>

-

-<p><i>Scrambles among the Alps.</i> By Edward Whymper. 1871.

-This famous book went into several editions. It has

-been reprinted in Nelson’s Shilling Library. The original

-editions with their delightful wood-cuts cannot be bought

-for less than a pound, but are well worth the money.</p>

-

-<p><i>The Playground of Europe.</i> By Leslie Stephen. 1871.

-This classic can be bought for 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> in the Silver Library.

-The original edition is scarce and does not contain the

-best work.</p>

-

-<p><i>Hours of Exercise in the Alps.</i> By J. Tyndall. 1871.</p>

-

-<p><i>Italian Alps.</i> By D. W. Freshfield. 1876.</p>

-

-<p><i>The High Alps in Winter.</i> By Mrs. Fred Burnaby (Mrs.

-Le Blond.) 1883.</p>

-

-<p><i>Above the Snow Line.</i> By C. T. Dent. 1885.</p>

-

-<p><i>The Pioneers of the Alps.</i> By C. D. Cunningham and W. de

-W. Abney. (An account of the great guides.) 1888.</p>

-

-<p><i>My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.</i> By A. F. Mummery.

-1895. (Reprinted in Nelson’s Shilling Library.)</p>

-

-<p><i>The Alps from End to End.</i> By Sir Martin Conway. 1895.

-This has been reprinted in Nelson’s Shilling Library.</p>

-

-<p><i>The Annals of Mont Blanc.</i> By C. E. Mathews. 1898.</p>

-

-<p><i>Climbing in the Himalaya and other Mountain Ranges.</i> By

-Norman J. Collie, 1902. Includes some excellent chapters

-on the Alps.

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span></p>

-

-<p><i>The Alps.</i> Described by Sir Martin Conway. Illustrated by

-A. O. M’Cormick. 1904. A cheap edition without

-Mr. M’Cormick’s illustrations has been issued in 1910.</p>

-

-<p><i>My Alpine Jubilee.</i> By Frederic Harrison. 1908.</p>

-

-<p><i>Recollections of an Old Mountaineer.</i> By Walter Larden. 1910.</p>

-

-<p><i>Peaks and Pleasant Pastures.</i> By Claud Schuster. 1911.</p></div>

-

-<p>The poetry of Mountaineering as distinct from the poetry

-of mountains is found in&mdash;</p>

-

-<div class="hang">

-

-<p><i>Wind and Hill.</i> By G. W. Young. 1909.</p></div>

-

-<p>This book is out of print. The mountain poems have been

-reprinted in&mdash;</p>

-

-<div class="hang">

-

-<p><i>The Englishman in the Alps.</i> An Anthology edited by Arnold

-Lunn. 1913. This Anthology includes long extracts

-from one to five thousand words chosen from the best

-of Alpine prose and poetry.</p></div>

-

-<p>Other Alpine Anthologies are&mdash;</p>

-

-<div class="hang">

-

-<p><i>The Voice of the Mountains.</i> By E. Baker and F. E. Ross.

-1905.</p>

-

-<p><i>In Praise of Switzerland.</i> By Harold Spender. 1912.</p></div>

-

-<p>The reader will find good photographs very useful. The

-earliest Alpine photographer to achieve distinct success was

-Mr. Donkin, whose excellent photographs can be bought

-cheaply. Signor Sellâs&mdash;the supreme artist in mountain

-photography&mdash;also sells his work. Messrs. Abraham of

-Keswick have photographed with thoroughness the Alps

-and the rock climbs of Cumberland and Wales. Their best

-work is reproduced in <i>The Complete Mountaineer</i>. (1908.)

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span></p>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<h2 id="INDEX">INDEX</h2>

-

-<ul class="index">

-<li class="ifrst">Abbühl, Arnold, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Aggasiz, <a href="#Page_104">104-10</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Aiguille, Mont, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Almer, Christian, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Alpine Club, the, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><i>Alpine Journal, The</i>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><i>Alps in 1864, The</i>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><i>Annals of Mont Blanc, The</i>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Arkwright, Captain, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Ball, John, <a href="#Page_118">118-19</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Balmat, Jacques, <a href="#Page_60">60-81</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Balmat (in Wills’s guide), <a href="#Page_125">125-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Beaupré, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Beck, Jean Joseph, <a href="#Page_86">86-89</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Belloc, Hilaire, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Bennen, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157-8</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Berkeley, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Blackwell, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Blackwood, Algernon, <a href="#Page_229">229-30</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Blanc, Mont, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60-81</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121-4</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Blond, Mrs. Le, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Bonney, Prof., <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Bourrit, <a href="#Page_54">54-9</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74-80</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Bremble, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Buet, the, <a href="#Page_49">49-50</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Byron, <a href="#Page_215">215-17</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Canigou, Pic, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Carbonnière, Ramond de, <a href="#Page_214">214-15</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Carrel, J. A., <a href="#Page_152">152-83</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Carrel, J. J., <a href="#Page_152">152-3</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Cawood, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Charles VII, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Charpentier, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Clement, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Coleridge, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Colgrove, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Collie, Prof., <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Conway, Sir Martin, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Coolidge, Mr., <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Coryat’s <i>Crudities</i>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Croz, <a href="#Page_163">163-80</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Cust, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Davies, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Dent du Midi, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Desor, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Dobell, Sydney, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Dollfus-Ausset, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Douglas, Lord Francis, <a href="#Page_163">163-80</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Dragons in the Alps, <a href="#Page_40">40-42</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Dübi, Dr., <a href="#Page_72">72-3</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Dumas, Alexandre, <a href="#Page_62">62-72</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Dürer, <a href="#Page_18">18-19</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst"><i>Early Mountaineers, The</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Fairbanks, Rev. Arthur, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Farrar, Captain, <a href="#Page_97">97-101</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Finsteraarhorn, <a href="#Page_96">96-101</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Forbes, J. D., <a href="#Page_116">116-18</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Freshfield, Mr. Douglas, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Gersdorf, Baron von, <a href="#Page_73">73-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Gesner, Conrad, <a href="#Page_33">33-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Giordani, Pietro, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Giordano, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161-3</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Girdlestone, the Rev. A. B., <a href="#Page_187">187-8</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Glockner, The Gross, <a href="#Page_92">92-4</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Godley, A. D., <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Gorret, Aimé, <a href="#Page_152">152-3</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li>

-

-<li class="indx">Gribble, Mr. Francis, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Grove, Francis, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Guideless climbing, <a href="#Page_138">138-43</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Gurk, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_93">93-4</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Haddington, Lord, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hadow, <a href="#Page_163">163-80</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Haller, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hamel, Dr., <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hannibal, <a href="#Page_22">22-3</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hardy, <a href="#Page_135">135-6</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hawkins, Vaughan, <a href="#Page_153">153-4</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><i>High Alps without Guides, The</i>, <a href="#Page_187">187-8</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hinchcliffe, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Holland, Mrs., <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Holland, Philemon, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hôtel des Neuchâtelois, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><i>Hours of Exercise in the Alps</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153-4</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hudson, <a href="#Page_163">163-80</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hugi, <a href="#Page_97">97-100</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Hugisattel, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Irving, Mr. R. L. A., <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">James, William, <a href="#Page_107">107-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">John of Austria, Archduke, <a href="#Page_94">94-5</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Jungfrau, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Kaisergebirge, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Kennedy, E. S., <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Kipling, <a href="#Page_228">228-9</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Lauener, Ulrich, <a href="#Page_125">125-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Lauteraarhorn, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Luc, De, <a href="#Page_48">48-50</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Martel, Peter, <a href="#Page_45">45-6</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Marti, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36-7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Masefield, John, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mathews, C. E., <a href="#Page_46">46-8</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134-5</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mathews, William, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Matterhorn, the, <a href="#Page_147">147-84</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Meredith, George, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Meyers, the, <a href="#Page_85">85-101</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Monboso, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Moore, Dr. John, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Moore, W. A., <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Morris, William, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Morse, Mr. <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mountaineering in Great Britain, <a href="#Page_193">193-4</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mountaineering, modern, <a href="#Page_185">185-207</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mountaineering in winter, <a href="#Page_199">199-207</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mountaineering without guides, <a href="#Page_138">138-43</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mountains in Art, <a href="#Page_17">17-20</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mountains in Literature, <a href="#Page_208">208-50</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mountains, Mediæval attitude to, <a href="#Page_1">1-21</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Müller, <a href="#Page_30">30-31</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Müller, John, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>

-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Mummery, <a href="#Page_183">183-4</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Murith, Prior, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><i>My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus</i>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Myers, F. W. H., <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Ortler, the, <a href="#Page_94">94-5</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Paccard, Dr., <a href="#Page_67">67-80</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Parker, Messrs., <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Parrot, Dr., <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Paulcke, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><i>Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers</i>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239-40</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><i>Peaks and Pleasant Pastures</i>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><i>Penhall</i>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Perrandier, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Peter III, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Petrarch, <a href="#Page_26">26-7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Pic du Midi, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Pichler, Joseph, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Pilate, Pontius, <a href="#Page_31">31-2</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Pilatus, <a href="#Page_31">31-4</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Placidus à Spescha, <a href="#Page_82">82-4</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><i>Playground of Europe, The</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132-3</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Pococke, Dr., <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Pope, Hugh, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Popocatapetl, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Punta Giordani, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Purtscheller, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Rey, Guido, <a href="#Page_152">152-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Robertson, Donald, <a href="#Page_235">235-6</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Rochefoucauld, Duc de, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Rosa, Monte, <a href="#Page_28">28-9</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85-91</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Rotario of Asti, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Rousseau, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212-3</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Ruskin, <a href="#Page_221">221-4</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Salis, Ulysses von <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Saussure, De, <a href="#Page_46">46-8</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Scheuchzer, <a href="#Page_39">39-43</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Schuster, Sir Claud, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><i>Scrambles in the Alps</i>, <a href="#Page_133">133-4</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Sella, Quintino, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161-3</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Shelley, <a href="#Page_218">218-19</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Simler, <a href="#Page_37">37-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Ski-ing, <a href="#Page_200">200-7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Smith, Albert, <a href="#Page_119">119-24</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Stephen, Sir Leslie, <a href="#Page_131">131-3</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136-7</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Stockhorn, <a href="#Page_30">30-1</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Stogdon, Mr. John, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Studer, Gottlieb, <a href="#Page_109">109-10</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Swinburne, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Symonds, Addington, <a href="#Page_224">224-6</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Taugwalders, the, <a href="#Page_163">163-80</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Tennyson, Lord, <a href="#Page_230">230-1</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Theodule, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Titlis, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Tödi, the, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx"><i>Tour of Mont Blanc, The</i>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Tuckett, <a href="#Page_136">136-7</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Tyndall, John, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157-8</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Ulrich of Württemberg, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Velan, the, <a href="#Page_50">50-2</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Venetz, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Ventoux, Mont, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Vinci, Leonardo da, <a href="#Page_19">19-20</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27-8</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Vogt, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Walker, Mr. Horace, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Watt, Joachim von, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Weston, Mr., <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Wetterhorn, the, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111-12</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Whymper, Edward, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147-84</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Wicks, Mr., <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Wills, Mr. Justice, <a href="#Page_111">111-14</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125-9</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Wilson, Mr., <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Windham, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Young, Sir George, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Young, G. Winthrop, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Young, Norman, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li>

-

-<li class="ifrst">Zumstein, <a href="#Page_90">90-1</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Zumstein Spitze, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li>

-

-<li class="indx">Zsigmondy, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li></ul>

-

-<p class="copy"><i>Richard Clay &amp; Sons, Limited, London and Bungay.</i>

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-<h3><i>History and Geography</i></h3>

-

-<dl>

-<dt>3. <i>THE FRENCH REVOLUTION</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Hilaire Belloc</span>, M.A. (With Maps.) “It is coloured with all

-the militancy of the author’s temperament.”&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>4. <i>A SHORT HISTORY OF WAR AND PEACE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. H. Perris</span>. The Rt. Hon. <span class="smcap">James Bryce</span> writes: “I have read it

-with much interest and pleasure, admiring the skill with which you have

-managed to compress so many facts and views into so small a volume.”</dd>

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-<dt>8. <i>POLAR EXPLORATION</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Dr <span class="smcap">W. S. Bruce</span>, F.R.S.E., Leader of the “Scotia” Expedition. (With

-Maps.) “A very freshly written and interesting narrative.”&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>12. <i>THE OPENING-UP OF AFRICA</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Sir <span class="smcap">H. H. Johnston</span>, G.C.M.G., F.Z.S. (With Maps.) “The Home

-University Library is much enriched by this excellent work.”&mdash;<i>Daily Mail.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>13. <i>MEDIÆVAL EUROPE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">H. W. C. Davis</span>, M.A. (With Maps.) “One more illustration of the

-fact that it takes a complete master of the subject to write briefly upon

-it.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>14. <i>THE PAPACY &amp; MODERN TIMES</i> (1303-1870)</dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">William Barry</span>, D.D. “Dr Barry has a wide range of knowledge

-and an artist’s power of selection.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>23. <i>HISTORY OF OUR TIME</i> (1885-1911)</dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. P. Gooch</span>, M.A. “Mr Gooch contrives to breathe vitality into his story,

-and to give us the flesh as well as the bones of recent happenings.”&mdash;<i>Observer.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>25. <i>THE CIVILISATION OF CHINA</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">H. A. Giles</span>, LL.D., Professor of Chinese at Cambridge. “In all the

-mass of facts, Professor Giles never becomes dull. He is always ready with a

-ghost story or a street adventure for the reader’s recreation.”&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>29. <i>THE DAWN OF HISTORY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. L. Myres</span>, M.A., F.S.A., Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, Oxford.

-“There is not a page in it that is not suggestive.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>33. <i>THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND</i></dt>

-

-<dd><i>A Study in Political Evolution</i></dd>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">A. F. Pollard</span>, M.A. With a Chronological Table. “It takes its

-place at once among the authoritative works on English history.”&mdash;<i>Observer.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>34. <i>CANADA</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">A. G. Bradley</span>. “The volume makes an immediate appeal to the man who

-wants to know something vivid and true about Canada.”&mdash;<i>Canadian Gazette.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>37. <i>PEOPLES &amp; PROBLEMS OF INDIA</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Sir <span class="smcap">T. W. Holderness</span>, K.C.S.I., Permanent Under-Secretary of State

-of the India Office. “Just the book which newspaper readers require to-day,

-and a marvel of comprehensiveness.”&mdash;<i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>42. <i>ROME</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">W. Warde Fowler</span>, M.A. “A masterly sketch of Roman character and

-of what it did for the world.”&mdash;<i>The Spectator.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>48. <i>THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">F. L. Paxson</span>, Professor of American History, Wisconsin University.

-(With Maps.) “A stirring study.”&mdash;<i>The Guardian.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>51. <i>WARFARE IN BRITAIN</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Hilaire Belloc</span>, M.A. “Rich in suggestion for the historical student.”&mdash;<i>Edinburgh

-Evening News.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>55. <i>MASTER MARINERS</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. R. Spears</span>. “A continuous story of shipping progress and adventure....

-It reads like a romance.”&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>61. <i>NAPOLEON</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Herbert Fisher</span>, LL.D., F.B.A., Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University.

-(With Maps.) The story of the great Bonaparte’s youth, his career, and his

-downfall, with some sayings of Napoleon, a genealogy, and a bibliography.</dd>

-

-<dt>66. <i>THE NAVY AND SEA POWER</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">David Hannay</span>. The author traces the growth of naval power from early

-times, and discusses its principles and effects upon the history of the Western world.</dd>

-

-<dt>71. <i>GERMANY OF TO-DAY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Charles Tower</span>. “It would be difficult to name any better summary.”&mdash;<i>Daily

-News.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>82. <i>PREHISTORIC BRITAIN</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Robert Munro</span>, M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E. (Illustrated.)</dd>

-

-<dt>91. <i>THE ALPS</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Arnold Lunn</span>, M.A. (Illustrated.)</dd>

-

-<dt>92. <i>CENTRAL &amp; SOUTH AMERICA</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Professor <span class="smcap">W. R. Shepherd</span>. (Maps.)</dd>

-</dl>

-

-<h3><i>Literature and Art</i></h3>

-

-<dl>

-<dt>2. <i>SHAKESPEARE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">John Masefield</span>. “We have had more learned books on Shakespeare

-in the last few years, but not one so wise.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>27. <i>ENGLISH LITERATURE: MODERN</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. H. Mair</span>, M.A. “Altogether a fresh and individual book.”&mdash;<i>Observer.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>35. <i>LANDMARKS IN FRENCH LITERATURE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. L. Strachey</span>. “It is difficult to imagine how a better account of

-French Literature could be given in 250 small pages.”&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>39. <i>ARCHITECTURE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. R. Lethaby</span>. (Over forty Illustrations.) “Delightfully bright

-reading.”&mdash;<i>Christian World.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>43. <i>ENGLISH LITERATURE: MEDIÆVAL</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. P. Ker</span>, M.A. “Prof. Ker’s knowledge and taste are unimpeachable,

-and his style is effective, simple, yet never dry.”&mdash;<i>The Athenæum.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>45. <i>THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">L. Pearsall Smith</span>, M.A. “A wholly fascinating study of the different

-streams that make the great river of the English speech.”&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>52. <i>GREAT WRITERS OF AMERICA</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. Erskine</span> and Prof. <span class="smcap">W. P. Trent</span>. “An admirable summary, from

-Franklin to Mark Twain, enlivened by a dry humour.”&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>63. <i>PAINTERS AND PAINTING</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Sir <span class="smcap">Frederick Wedmore</span>. (With 16 half-tone illustrations.) From the

-Primitives to the Impressionists.</dd>

-

-<dt>64. <i>DR JOHNSON AND HIS CIRCLE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">John Bailey</span>, M.A. “A most delightful essay.”&mdash;<i>Christian World.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>65. <i>THE LITERATURE OF GERMANY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Professor <span class="smcap">J. G. Robertson</span>, M.A., Ph.D. “Under the author’s skilful

-treatment the subject shows life and continuity.”&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>70. <i>THE VICTORIAN AGE IN LITERATURE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. K. Chesterton</span>. “No one will put it down without a sense of having

-taken a tonic or received a series of electric shocks.”&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>73. <i>THE WRITING OF ENGLISH.</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">W. T. Brewster</span>, A.M., Professor of English in Columbia University.

-“Sensible, and not over-rigidly conventional.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>75. <i>ANCIENT ART AND RITUAL.</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Jane E. Harrison</span>, LL.D., D.Litt. “Charming in style and learned in

-manner.”&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>76. <i>EURIPIDES AND HIS AGE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Gilbert Murray</span>, D.Litt., LL.D., F.B.A., Regius Professor of Greek at

-Oxford. “A beautiful piece of work.... Just in the fulness of time, and

-exactly in the right place.... Euripides has come into his own.”&mdash;<i>The Nation.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>87. <i>CHAUCER AND HIS TIMES</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Grace E. Hadow</span>.</dd>

-

-<dt>89. <i>WILLIAM MORRIS: HIS WORK AND

-INFLUENCE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">A. Clutton Brock</span>.</dd>

-

-<dt>93. <i>THE RENAISSANCE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Edith Sichel</span>.</dd>

-

-<dt>95. <i>ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. M. Robertson</span>, M.P.</dd>

-</dl>

-

-<h3><i>Science</i></h3>

-

-<dl>

-<dt>7. <i>MODERN GEOGRAPHY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Dr <span class="smcap">Marion Newbigin</span>. (Illustrated.) “Geography, again: what a dull,

-tedious study that was wont to be!... But Miss Marion Newbigin invests its

-dry bones with the flesh and blood of romantic interest.”&mdash;<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>9. <i>THE EVOLUTION OF PLANTS</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Dr <span class="smcap">D. H. Scott</span>, M.A., F.R.S., late Hon. Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory,

-Kew. (Fully illustrated.) “Dr Scott’s candid and familiar style makes the

-difficult subject both fascinating and easy.”&mdash;<i>Gardeners’ Chronicle.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>17. <i>HEALTH AND DISEASE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">W. Leslie Mackenzie</span>, M.D., Local Government Board, Edinburgh.</dd>

-

-<dt>18. <i>INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICS</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">A. N. Whitehead</span>, Sc.D., F.R.S. (With Diagrams.) “Mr Whitehead

-has discharged with conspicuous success the task he is so exceptionally qualified

-to undertake. For he is one of our great authorities upon the foundations of

-the science.”&mdash;<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>19. <i>THE ANIMAL WORLD</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Professor <span class="smcap">F. W. Gamble</span>, F.R.S. With Introduction by Sir Oliver Lodge.

-(Many Illustrations.) “A fascinating and suggestive survey.”&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>20. <i>EVOLUTION</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Professor <span class="smcap">J. Arthur Thomson</span> and Professor <span class="smcap">Patrick Geddes</span>. “A

-many-coloured and romantic panorama, opening up, like no other book we

-know, a rational vision of world-development.”&mdash;<i>Belfast News-Letter.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>22. <i>CRIME AND INSANITY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Dr <span class="smcap">C. A. Mercier</span>. “Furnishes much valuable information from one occupying

-the highest position among medico-legal psychologists.”&mdash;<i>Asylum News.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>28. <i>PSYCHICAL RESEARCH</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Sir <span class="smcap">W. F. Barrett</span>, F.R.S., Professor of Physics, Royal College of

-Science, Dublin, 1873-1910. “What he has to say on thought-reading,

-hypnotism, telepathy, crystal-vision, spiritualism, divinings, and so on, will be

-read with avidity.”&mdash;<i>Dundee Courier.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>31. <i>ASTRONOMY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">A. R. Hinks</span>, M.A., Chief Assistant, Cambridge Observatory. “Original

-in thought, eclectic in substance, and critical in treatment.... No better

-little book is available.”&mdash;<i>School World.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>32. <i>INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. Arthur Thomson</span>, M.A., Regius Professor of Natural History, Aberdeen

-University. “Professor Thomson’s delightful literary style is well known; and

-here he discourses freshly and easily on the methods Of science and its relations

-with philosophy, art, religion, and practical life.”&mdash;<i>Aberdeen Journal.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>36. <i>CLIMATE AND WEATHER</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">H. N. Dickson</span>, D.Sc.Oxon., M.A., F.R.S.E., President of the

-Royal Meteorological Society. (With Diagrams.) “The author has succeeded

-in presenting in a very lucid and agreeable manner the causes of the movements

-of the atmosphere and of the more stable winds.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>41. <i>ANTHROPOLOGY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">R. R. Marett</span>, M.A., Reader in Social Anthropology in Oxford University.

-“An absolutely perfect handbook, so clear that a child could understand it, so

-fascinating and human that it beats fiction ‘to a frazzle.’”&mdash;<i>Morning Leader.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>44. <i>THE PRINCIPLES OF PHYSIOLOGY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. G. McKendrick</span>, M.D. “Upon every page of it is stamped

-the impress of a creative imagination.”&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>46. <i>MATTER AND ENERGY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">F. Soddy</span>, M.A., F.R.S. “Prof. Soddy has successfully accomplished

-the very difficult task of making physics of absorbing interest on popular

-lines.”&mdash;<i>Nature.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>49. <i>PSYCHOLOGY, THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. McDougall</span>, F.R.S., M.B. “A happy example of the non-technical

-handling of an unwieldy science, suggesting rather than dogmatising.

-It should whet appetites for deeper study.”&mdash;<i>Christian World.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>53. <i>THE MAKING OF THE EARTH</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. W. Gregory</span>, F.R.S. (With 38 Maps and Figures.) “A

-fascinating little volume.... Among the many good things contained in the

-series this takes a high place.”&mdash;<i>The Athenæum.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>57. <i>THE HUMAN BODY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">A. Keith</span>, M.D., LL.D., Conservator of Museum and Hunterian Professor,

-Royal College of Surgeons. (Illustrated.) “It literally makes the ‘dry bones’

-to live. It will certainly take a high place among the classics of popular

-science.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>58. <i>ELECTRICITY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Gisbert Kapp</span>, D.Eng., Professor of Electrical Engineering in the University

-of Birmingham. (Illustrated.) “It will be appreciated greatly by learners

-and by the great number of amateurs who are interested in what is one of the

-most fascinating of scientific studies.”&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>62. <i>THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Dr <span class="smcap">Benjamin Moore</span>, Professor of Bio-Chemistry, University College,

-Liverpool. “Stimulating, learned, lucid.”&mdash;<i>Liverpool Courier.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>67. <i>CHEMISTRY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Raphael Meldola</span>, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in Finsbury Technical

-College, London. Presents clearly, without the detail demanded by the expert,

-the way in which chemical science has developed, and the stage it has reached.</dd>

-

-<dt>72. <i>PLANT LIFE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. B. Farmer</span>, D.Sc., F.R.S. (Illustrated.) “Professor Farmer has

-contrived to convey all the most vital facts of plant physiology, and also to

-present a good many of the chief problems which confront investigators to-day

-in the realms of morphology and of heredity.”&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>78. <i>THE OCEAN</i></dt>

-

-<dd>A General Account of the Science of the Sea. By Sir <span class="smcap">John Murray</span>, K.C.B.,

-F.R.S. (Colour plates and other illustrations.)</dd>

-

-<dt>79. <i>NERVES</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">D. Fraser Harris</span>, M.D., D.Sc. (Illustrated.) A description, in

-non-technical language, of the nervous system, its intricate mechanism and the

-strange phenomena of energy and fatigue, with some practical reflections.</dd>

-

-<dt>86. <i>SEX</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">Patrick Geddes</span> and Prof. <span class="smcap">J. Arthur Thomson</span>, LL.D. (Illus.)</dd>

-

-<dt>88. <i>THE GROWTH OF EUROPE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">Grenville Cole</span>. (Illus.)</dd>

-</dl>

-

-<h3><i>Philosophy and Religion</i></h3>

-

-<dl>

-<dt>15. <i>MOHAMMEDANISM</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">D. S. Margoliouth</span>, M.A., D.Litt. “This generous shilling’s

-worth of wisdom.... A delicate, humorous, and most responsible tractate

-by an illuminative professor.”&mdash;<i>Daily Mail.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>40. <i>THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By the Hon. <span class="smcap">Bertrand Russell</span>, F.R.S. “A book that the ‘man in the

-street’ will recognise at once to be a boon.... Consistently lucid and non-technical

-throughout.”&mdash;<i>Christian World.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>47. <i>BUDDHISM</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Mrs <span class="smcap">Rhys Davids</span>, M.A. “The author presents very attractively as well

-as very learnedly the philosophy of Buddhism.”&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>50. <i>NONCONFORMITY: Its ORIGIN and PROGRESS</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Principal <span class="smcap">W. B. Selbie</span>, M.A. “The historical part is brilliant in its

-insight, clarity, and proportion.”&mdash;<i>Christian World.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>54. <i>ETHICS</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. E. Moore</span>, M.A., Lecturer in Moral Science in Cambridge University.

-“A very lucid though closely reasoned outline of the logic Of good conduct.”&mdash;<i>Christian

-World.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>56. <i>THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">B. W. Bacon</span>, LL.D., D.D. “Professor Bacon has boldly, and

-wisely, taken his own line, and has produced, as a result, an extraordinarily

-vivid, stimulating, and lucid book.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>60. <i>MISSIONS: THEIR RISE and DEVELOPMENT</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Mrs <span class="smcap">Creighton</span>. “Very interestingly done.... Its style is simple,

-direct, unhackneyed, and should find appreciation where a more fervently

-pious style of writing repels.”&mdash;<i>Methodist Recorder.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>68. <i>COMPARATIVE RELIGION</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. Estlin Carpenter</span>, D. Litt., Principal of Manchester College, Oxford.

-“Puts into the reader’s hand a wealth of learning and independent thought.”&mdash;<i>Christian

-World.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>74. <i>A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. B. Bury</span>, Litt.D., LL.D., Regius Professor of Modern History at

-Cambridge. “A little masterpiece, which every thinking man will enjoy.”&mdash;<i>The

-Observer.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>84. <i>LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">George Moore</span>, D.D., LL.D., of Harvard. A detailed examination

-of the books of the Old Testament in the light of the most recent research.</dd>

-

-<dt>90. <i>THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Canon <span class="smcap">E. W. Watson</span>, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at

-Oxford.</dd>

-

-<dt>94. <i>RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN THE

-OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Canon <span class="smcap">R. H. Charles</span>, D.D., D.Litt.</dd>

-</dl>

-

-<h3><i>Social Science</i></h3>

-

-<dl>

-<dt>1. <i>PARLIAMENT</i></dt>

-

-<dd>Its History, Constitution, and Practice. By Sir <span class="smcap">Courtenay P. Ilbert</span>,

-G.C.B., K.C.S.I., Clerk of the House of Commons. “The best book on the

-history and practice of the House of Commons since Bagehot’s ‘Constitution.’”&mdash;<i>Yorkshire

-Post.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>5. <i>THE STOCK EXCHANGE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">F. W. Hirst</span>, Editor of “The Economist.” “To an unfinancial mind must

-be a revelation.... The book is as clear, vigorous, and sane as Bagehot’s ‘Lombard

-Street,’ than which there is no higher compliment.”&mdash;<i>Morning Leader.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>6. <i>IRISH NATIONALITY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Mrs <span class="smcap">J. R. Green</span>. “As glowing as it is learned. No book could be more

-timely.”&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>10. <i>THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. Ramsay MacDonald</span>, M.P. “Admirably adapted for the purpose of

-exposition.”&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>11. <i>CONSERVATISM</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Lord Hugh Cecil</span>, M.A., M.P. “One of those great little books which

-seldom appear more than once in a generation.”&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>16. <i>THE SCIENCE OF WEALTH</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. A. Hobson</span>, M.A. “Mr J. A. Hobson holds an unique position among

-living economists.... Original, reasonable, and illuminating.”&mdash;<i>The Nation.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>21. <i>LIBERALISM</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">L. T. Hobhouse</span>, M.A., Professor of Sociology in the University of London.

-“A book of rare quality.... We have nothing but praise for the rapid and

-masterly summaries of the arguments from first principles which form a large

-part of this book.”&mdash;<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>24. <i>THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">D. H. Macgregor</span>, M.A., Professor of Political Economy in the University

-of Leeds. “A volume so dispassionate in terms may be read with profit by all

-interested in the present state of unrest.”&mdash;<i>Aberdeen Journal.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>26. <i>AGRICULTURE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. Somerville</span>, F.L.S. “It makes the results of laboratory work

-at the University accessible to the practical farmer.”&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>30. <i>ELEMENTS OF ENGLISH LAW</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">W. M. Geldart</span>, M.A., B.C.L., Vinerian Professor of English Law at

-Oxford. “Contains a very clear account of the elementary principles underlying

-the rules of English Law.”&mdash;<i>Scots Law Times.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>38. <i>THE SCHOOL: An Introduction to the Study of Education.</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. J. Findlay</span>, M.A., Ph.D., Professor of Education in Manchester

-University. “An amazingly comprehensive volume.... It is a remarkable

-performance, distinguished in its crisp, striking phraseology as well as its

-inclusiveness of subject-matter.”&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>59. <i>ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">S. J. Chapman</span>, M.A., Professor of Political Economy in Manchester

-University. “Its importance is not to be measured by its price. Probably

-the best recent critical exposition of the analytical method in economic

-science.”&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>69. <i>THE NEWSPAPER</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. Binney Dibblee</span>, M.A. (Illustrated.)

-The best account extant of the

-organisation of the newspaper press, at home and abroad.</dd>

-

-<dt>77. <i>SHELLEY, GODWIN, AND THEIR CIRCLE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">H. N. Brailsford</span>, M.A. “Mr Brailsford sketches vividly the influence of

-the French Revolution on Shelley’s and Godwin’s England; and the charm and

-strength of his style make his book an authentic contribution to literature.”&mdash;<i>The

-Bookman.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>80. <i>CO-PARTNERSHIP AND PROFIT-SHARING</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">Aneurin Williams</span>, M.A.&mdash;“A judicious but enthusiastic history, with much

-interesting speculation on the future of Co-partnership.”&mdash;<i>Christian World.</i></dd>

-

-<dt>81. <i>PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By <span class="smcap">E. N. Bennett</span>, M.A. Discusses the leading aspects of the British land

-problem, including housing, small holdings, rural credit, and the minimum wage.</dd>

-

-<dt>83. <i>COMMON-SENSE IN LAW</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">P. Vinogradoff</span>,

-D.C.L.</dd>

-

-<dt>85. <i>UNEMPLOYMENT</i></dt>

-

-<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">A. C. Pigou</span>, M.A.</dd>

-</dl>

-

-<h4><span class="smcap">In Preparation</span></h4>

-

-<div class="hang">

-

-<p><i>ANCIENT EGYPT.</i> By <span class="smcap">F. Ll. Griffith</span>, M.A.</p>

-

-<p><i>THE ANCIENT EAST.</i> By <span class="smcap">D. G. Hogarth</span>, M.A., F.B.A.</p>

-

-<p><i>A SHORT HISTORY OF EUROPE.</i> By <span class="smcap">Herbert Fisher</span>, LL.D.</p>

-

-<p><i>THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE.</i> By <span class="smcap">Norman H. Baynes</span>.</p>

-

-<p><i>THE REFORMATION.</i> By President <span class="smcap">Lindsay</span>, LL.D.</p>

-

-<p><i>A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA.</i> By Prof. <span class="smcap">Milyoukov</span>.</p>

-

-<p><i>MODERN TURKEY.</i> By <span class="smcap">D. G. Hogarth</span>, M.A.</p>

-

-<p><i>FRANCE OF TO-DAY.</i> By <span class="smcap">Albert Thomas</span>.</p>

-

-<p><i>HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.</i> By Prof. <span class="smcap">R. S. Rait</span>, M.A.</p>

-

-<p><i>HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SPAIN.</i> By <span class="smcap">J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly</span>,

-F.B.A., Litt.D.</p>

-

-<p><i>LATIN LITERATURE.</i> By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. S. Phillimore</span>.</p>

-

-<p><i>ITALIAN ART OF THE RENAISSANCE.</i> By <span class="smcap">Roger E. Fry</span>.</p>

-

-<p><i>LITERARY TASTE.</i> By <span class="smcap">Thomas Seccombe</span>.</p>

-

-<p><i>SCANDINAVIAN HISTORY &amp; LITERATURE.</i> By <span class="smcap">T. C. Snow</span>.</p>

-

-<p><i>THE MINERAL WORLD.</i> By Sir <span class="smcap">T. H. Holland</span>, K.C.I.E., D.Sc.</p>

-

-<p><i>A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.</i> By <span class="smcap">Clement Webb</span>, M.A.</p>

-

-<p><i>POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Bacon to Locke.</i> By

-<span class="smcap">G. P. Gooch</span>, M.A.</p>

-

-<p><i>POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Bentham to J. S. Mill.</i>

-By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. L. Davidson</span>.</p>

-

-<p><i>POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Herbert Spencer to

-To-day.</i> By <span class="smcap">Ernest Barker</span>, M.A.</p>

-

-<p><i>THE CRIMINAL AND THE COMMUNITY.</i> By Viscount <span class="smcap">St. Cyres</span>.</p>

-

-<p><i>THE CIVIL SERVICE.</i> By <span class="smcap">Graham Wallas</span>, M.A.</p>

-

-<p><i>THE SOCIAL SETTLEMENT.</i> By <span class="smcap">Jane Addams</span> and <span class="smcap">R. A. Woods</span>.</p>

-

-<p><i>GREAT INVENTIONS.</i> By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. L. Myres</span>, M.A., F.S.A.</p>

-

-<p><i>TOWN PLANNING.</i> By <span class="smcap">Raymond Unwin</span>.</p></div>

-</div>

-

-<p class="caption">London: <span class="large">WILLIAMS AND NORGATE</span><br />

-<small><i>And of all Bookshops and Bookstalls.</i></small></p>

-

-<div class="footnotes">

-

-<h2 id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES:</h2>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">1</a>

-See Mr. Gribble’s <i>Early Mountaineers</i>, Chap. V., where

-the arguments on each side are skilfully summarised.</p></div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">2</a>

-Not “The Tirol,” still less “The Austrian Tirol,”

-but “Tirol.” We do not speak of “The Scotland” or

-“The British Scotland.”</p></div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">3</a>

-The origin of the Alpine Club is, to some extent,

-a matter of dispute, the above is the view usually

-entertained.</p></div>

-

-<div class="footnote">

-

-<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">4</a>

-Mount Blanc is divided between France and Italy;

-and the Italian frontier crosses Monte Rosa.</p></div>

-</div>

-

-<div class="transnote">

-<h3>Transcriber’s Note:</h3>

-

-<p>Page 255, Index entry “Gedley, A. D., 249”, changed to read “Godley, A. D., 249” and moved to appropriate spot in list.</p>

-

-<p>Obvious printer errors corrected silently.</p>

-

-<p>Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.</p>

-

-</div>

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-<pre>

-

-

-

-

-

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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Alps, by Arnold Henry Moore Lunn
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: The Alps
+
+Author: Arnold Henry Moore Lunn
+
+Release Date: January 11, 2018 [EBook #56358]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ALPS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Anita Hammond, Wayne Hammond and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">1</span>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">2</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_facing_title.jpg" alt="" /><br />
+<p class="xx-large">
+HOME<br />
+UNIVERSITY<br />
+LIBRARY<br />
+<small>OF</small><br />
+<span class="x-large">MODERN KNOWLEDGE</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="small center"><i>Editors</i>:</span><br />
+<span class="table medium">
+HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A., LL.D.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Prof.</span> GILBERT MURRAY, <span class="smcap">D.Litt.</span>,<br />
+LL.D., F.B.A.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Prof.</span> J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.,<br />
+LL.D.<br />
+<br />
+<span class="smcap">Prof.</span> WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.<br />
+(Columbia University, U.S.A.)</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="center"><span class="large">LONDON</span><br />
+<span class="x-large">WILLIAMS AND NORGATE</span></span><br />
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /><br />
+</div>
+
+<h1>
+THE ALPS<br />
+<br />
+<small>BY</small><br />
+<span class="x-large">ARNOLD LUNN</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="center"><span class="large">LONDON</span><br />
+<span class="x-large">WILLIAMS AND NORGATE</span></span><br />
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span></h1>
+
+<p class="copy"><i>First printed July 1914</i>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2>
+
+<p>For the early chapters of this book I have
+consulted, amongst other authorities, the books
+mentioned in the bibliography on pp. 251-254.
+It would, however, be ungracious if I
+failed to acknowledge my indebtedness to
+that most readable of historians, Mr. Gribble,
+and to his books, <i>The Early Mountaineers</i>
+(Fisher Unwin) and <i>The Story of Alpine
+Climbing</i> (Nelson). Mr. Gribble and his publisher,
+Mr. Unwin, have kindly allowed me to
+quote passages translated from the works of
+the pioneers. Two friends, experts in the
+practice and history of mountaineering, have
+read the proofs and helped me with numerous
+suggestions.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table id="toc">
+  <tr class="small">
+    <td>CHAP.</td>
+    <td />
+    <td>PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>I</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">THE MEDIÆVAL ATTITUDE</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">9</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>II</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">THE PIONEERS</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">22</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>III</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">THE OPENING UP OF THE ALPS</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">44</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>IV</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">THE STORY OF MONT BLANC</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">60</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>V</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">MONTE ROSA AND THE BÜNDNER OBERLAND</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">82</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>VI</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">TIROL AND THE OBERLAND</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">92</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>VII</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">111</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>VIII</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">THE STORY OF THE MATTERHORN</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">147</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>IX</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">MODERN MOUNTAINEERING</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">185</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>X</td>
+    <td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">THE ALPS IN LITERATURE</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">208</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td />
+    <td><a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHY">BIBLIOGRAPHY</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">251</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td />
+    <td><a href="#INDEX">INDEX</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">254
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">viii</span></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="table">
+<p class="copy"><i>Volumes bearing upon the subject, already published<br />
+in the library, are</i>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="hang">7. Modern Geography. By Dr. Marion Newbigin.<br />
+(<i>Illustrated.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="hang">36. Climate and Weather. By Prof. H. N. Dickson.<br />
+(<i>Illustrated.</i>)</p>
+
+<p class="hang">88. The Growth of Europe. By Prof. Grenville Cole.<br />
+(<i>Illustrated.</i>)
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span></p></div>
+
+<h2 class="xx-large">THE ALPS</h2>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br />
+
+<span class="large">THE MEDIÆVAL ATTITUDE</span></h2>
+
+<p>Rousseau is usually credited with the discovery
+that mountains are not intrinsically
+hideous. Long before his day, isolated men
+had loved the mountains, but these men were
+eccentrics. They founded no school; and
+Rousseau was certainly the first to popularise
+mountains and to transform the cult of hill
+worship into a fashionable creed. None the
+less, we must guard against the error of supposing
+that mountain love was confined to
+the few men who have left behind them
+literary evidence of their good taste. Mountains
+have changed very little since man
+became articulate, and the retina of the
+human eye has changed even less. The
+beauty of outline that stirs us to-day was
+implicit in the hills “that shed their burial
+sheets about the march of Hannibal.” It
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>
+seems reasonable to suppose that a few men
+in every age have derived a certain pleasure,
+if not from Alpine travel at least from the
+distant view of the snows.</p>
+
+<p>The literature of the Ancient World contains
+little that bears upon our subject. The
+literature of the Jews is exceptional in this
+respect. This is the more to their credit, as
+the mountains of Judæa, south of the beautiful
+Lebanon range, are shapeless and uninteresting.
+Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Job, and
+Isaiah contain mountain passages of great
+beauty. The Old Testament is, however, far
+richer in mountain praise than the New
+Testament. Christ retired more than once
+to the mountains; but the authors of the
+four Gospels content themselves with recording
+the bare fact that certain spiritual
+crises took place on mountain-tops. There is
+not a single indication in all the gospels that
+Nazareth is set on a hill overlooking one of
+the fairest mountain prospects in all Judæa,
+not a single tribute to the beauty of Galilee
+girdled by the outlying hills of Hermon.</p>
+
+<p>The Greeks lived in a land of mountains
+far lovelier than Palestine’s characterless
+heights. But the Jews showed genuine if
+spasmodic appreciation for their native
+ranges, whereas the Greeks, if their literature
+does them justice, cared little or nothing for
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>
+their mountains. The note of fear and
+dread, pleasantly rare in Jewish literature, is
+never long absent from Greek references to
+the mountains. Of course, the Greeks gave
+Olympus to their gods, but as Mr. Norman
+Young remarks in a very able essay on <i>The
+Mountains in Greek Poetry</i>, it was necessary
+that the gods should look down on mankind;
+and, as they could not be strung up
+in mid-air, the obvious thing was to put them
+on a mountain-top. Perhaps we may concede
+that the Greeks paid a delicate compliment
+to Parnassus, the Home of the Muses;
+and certainly they chose for their temples
+the high ground of their cities. As one
+wanders through the olives and asphodels,
+one feels that the Greeks chose for their
+dwellings and temples those rising grounds
+which afforded the noblest prospect of the
+neighbouring hills. Only the cynic would
+contend that they did this in order to escape
+the atmosphere of the marshes.</p>
+
+<p>The Romans were disgustingly practical.
+They regarded the Alps as an inconvenient
+barrier to conquest and commerce. Virgil
+shows an occasional trace of a deeper feeling,
+and Horace paused between draughts of
+Falernian wine to admire the snows on
+Soracte, which lent contrast to the comfort
+of a well-ordered life.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Freshfield has shown that the Chinese
+had a more genuine feeling for mountains;
+and Mr. Weston has explained the ancient
+cult of high places among the Japanese,
+perhaps the most consistent mountain worshippers
+in the world. The Japanese pilgrims,
+clad in white, make the ascent to the shrines
+which are built on the summits of their sacred
+mountains, and then withdraw to a secluded
+spot for further worship. For centuries, they
+have paid official tribute to the inspiration of
+high places.</p>
+
+<p>But what of the Alps? Did the men who
+lived within sight of the Swiss mountains
+regard them with indifference and contempt?
+This was, perhaps, the general attitude, but
+there is some evidence that a love for mountains
+was not quite so uncommon in the
+Middle Ages as is usually supposed.</p>
+
+<p>Before attempting to summarise this evidence,
+let us try to realise the Alps as they
+presented themselves to the first explorers.
+The difficulties of Alpine exploration, as that
+term is now understood, would have proved
+quite as formidable as those which now confront
+the Himalayan explorer. In spite of
+this, glacier passes were crossed in the earliest
+times, and even the Romans seemed to have
+ventured across the Théodule, judging by
+the coins which have been found on the top
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span>
+of that great glacier highway. In addition
+to the physical difficulties of Alpine travel,
+we must recognise the mental handicap of
+our ancestors. Danger no longer haunts the
+highways and road-passes of the Alps. Wild
+beasts and robber bands no longer threaten
+the visitor to Grindelwald. Of the numerous
+“inconveniences of travel” cited by an early
+visitor to the Alps, we need now only fear
+“the wonderful cunning of Innkeepers.”
+Stilled are the voices that were once supposed
+to speak in the thunder and the avalanche.
+The dragons that used to wing their way
+across the ravines of the central chain have
+joined the Dodo and “the men that eat the
+flesh of serpents and hiss as serpents do.”
+Danger, a luxury to the modern, formed part
+of the routine of mediæval life. Our ancestors
+had no need to play at peril; and, lest we
+lightly assume that the modern mountaineer
+is a braver man than those who shuddered
+on the St. Bernard, let us remember that our
+ancestors accepted with grave composure a
+daily portion of inevitable risks. Modern life
+is so secure that we are forced to the Alps
+in search of contrast. When our ancestors
+needed contrast, they joined a monastery.</p>
+
+<p>Must we assume that danger blinded them
+to the beauty of the Alps? The mountains
+themselves have not changed. The modern
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span>
+mountaineer sees, from the windows of the
+Berne express, a picture whose colours have
+not faded in the march of Time. The bar of
+silver that thrusts itself above the distant
+foothills, as the train swings out of the
+wooded fortress of the Jura, casts the same
+challenge across the long shadows of the uplands.
+The peaks are a little older, but the
+vision that lights the world for us shone with
+the same steadfast radiance across the plains
+of long ago. Must we believe that our
+adventurous forefathers could find nothing
+but fear in the snows of the great divide?
+Dangers which have not yet vanished menaced
+their journey, but the white gleam of the
+distant snows was no less beautiful in the
+days when it shone as a beacon light to
+guide the adventurous through the great
+barrier down the warmth of Italian lowlands.
+An age which could face the great adventure
+of the Crusades for an idea, or more often for
+the sheer lust of romantic wandering, was not
+an age easily daunted by peril and discomfort.
+May we not hope that many a mute, inglorious
+mountain-lover lifted his eyes across
+the fields and rivers near Basle or Constance,
+and found some hint of elusive beauty in the
+vision that still remains a mystery, even for
+those who have explored the once trackless
+snows?
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span></p>
+
+<p>Those who have tried to discover the
+mediæval attitude have too often merely
+generalised from detached expressions of
+horror. Passages of praise have been treated
+as exceptional. The Monk Bremble and the
+Bishop Berkeley have had their say, unchallenged
+by equally good evidence for the
+defence. Let us remember that plenty of
+modern travellers might show an equally
+pronounced distaste for mountains. For the
+defence, we might quote the words of an old
+traveller borrowed in Coryat’s <i>Crudities</i>, a
+book which appeared in 1611: “What, I
+pray you, is more pleasant, more delectable,
+and more acceptable unto a man than to
+behold the height of hilles, as it were the very
+Atlantes of heauen? to admire Hercules his
+pillers? to see the mountaines Taurus and
+Caucasus? to view the hill Olympus, the seat
+of Jupiter? to pass over the Alpes that were
+broken by Annibals Vinegar? to climb up
+the Apennine promontory of Italy? from
+the hill Ida to behold the rising of the
+Sunne before the Sunne appears? to visit
+Parnassus and Helicon, the most celebrated
+seates of the Muses? Neither indeed is there
+any hill or hillocke, which doth not containe
+in it the most sweete memory of worthy
+matters.”</p>
+
+<p>There is the genuine ring about this. It is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span>
+the modern spirit without the modern affectations.
+Nor is this case exceptional. In the
+following chapter we shall sketch the story
+of the early Alpine explorers, and we shall
+quote many passages instinct with the real
+love for the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Are we not entitled to believe that Gesner,
+Marti, and Petrarch are characteristic of
+one phase of mediæval sentiment, just as
+Bremble is characteristic of another? There
+is abundant evidence to show that the habit
+of visiting and admiring mountain scenery
+had become fashionable before the close of
+the sixteenth century. Simler tells us that
+foreigners came from all lands to marvel at
+the mountains, and excuses a certain lack of
+interest among his compatriots on the ground
+that they are surfeited with a too close knowledge
+of the Alps. Marti, of whom we shall
+speak at greater length, tells us that he found
+on the summit of the Stockhorn the Greek
+inscription cut in a stone which may be
+rendered: “The love of mountains is best.”
+And then there is the evidence of art. Conventional
+criticism of mountain art often
+revolves in a circle: “The mediæval man
+detested mountains, and when he painted a
+mountain he did so by way of contrast to set
+off the beauty of the plains.” Or again:
+“Mediæval man only painted mountains as
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span>
+types of all that is terrible in Nature. Therefore,
+mediæval man detested mountains.”</p>
+
+<p>Let us try to approach the work of these
+early craftsmen with no preconceived notions
+as to their sentiments. The canvases still
+remain as they were painted. What do they
+teach us? It is not difficult to discriminate
+between those who used mountains to point
+a contrast, and those who lingered with
+devotion on the beauty of the hills. When we
+find a man painting mountains loosely and
+carelessly, we may assume that he was not
+over fond of his subject. Jan von Scorel’s
+grotesque rocks show nothing but equally
+grotesque fear. Hans Altdorfer’s elaborate
+and careful work proves that he was at least
+interested in mountains, and had cleared his
+mind of conventional terror. Roughly, we
+may say that, where the foreground shows
+good and the mountain background shows
+bad workmanship, the artist cared nothing for
+hills, and only threw them in by way of
+gloomy contrast. But such pictures are not
+the general rule.</p>
+
+<p>Let us take a very early mountain painting
+that dates from 1444. It is something of a
+shock to find the Salève and Mont Blanc as
+the background to a New Testament scene.
+How is the background used? Konrad Witz,
+the painter, has chosen for his theme the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span>
+miraculous draught of fishes. If he had
+borrowed a mountain background for the
+Temptation, the Betrayal, the Agony, or the
+Crucifixion, we might contend that the mountains
+were introduced to accentuate the
+gloom. But there is no suggestion of fear
+or sorrow in the peaceful calm that followed
+the storm of Calvary. The mountains in
+the distance are the hills as we know them.
+There is no reason to think that they are
+intended as a contrast to the restful foreground.
+Rather, they seem to complete and
+round off the happy serenity of the picture.</p>
+
+<p>Let us consider the mountain work of a
+greater man than Witz. We may be thankful
+that Providence created this barrier of hills
+between the deep earnestness of the North
+and the tolerance of Italy, for to this we
+owe some of the best mountain-scapes of
+the Middle Ages. There is romance in the
+thought of Albrecht Dürer crossing the
+Brenner on his way to the Venetian lagoons
+that he loved so well. Did Dürer regard
+this journey with loathing? Were the great
+Alps no more than an obstacle on the road
+to the coast where the Adriatic breaks “in
+a warm bay ’mid green Illyrian hills.” Did
+he echo the pious cry of that old Monk who
+could only pray to be delivered from “this
+place of torment,” or did he rather linger
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span>
+with loving memory on the wealth of inspiring
+suggestion gathered in those adventurous
+journeys? Contrast is the essence
+of Art, and Dürer was too great a man to
+miss the rugged appeal of untamed cliffs,
+because he could fathom so easily the gentler
+charm of German fields and Italian waters.
+You will find in these mountain woodcuts the
+whole essence of the lovable German romance,
+that peculiar note of “snugness” due to the
+contrast of frowning rock and some “gemütlich”
+Black Forest châlet. Hans Andersen,
+though a Dane, caught this note; and in
+Dürer’s work there is the same appealing
+romance that makes the “Ice Maiden” the
+most lovable of Alpine stories. One can
+almost see Rudy marching gallantly up the
+long road in Dürer’s “Das Grosse Glück,” or
+returning with the eaglets stolen from their
+perilous nest in the cliffs that shadow the
+“Heimsuch.” Those who pretend that Dürer
+introduced mountains as a background of
+gloom have no sense for atmosphere nor for
+anything else. For Dürer, the mountains
+were the home of old romance.</p>
+
+<p>Turn from Dürer to Da Vinci, and you will
+find another note. Da Vinci was, as we shall
+see, a climber, and this gives the dominant
+note to his great study of storm and thunder
+among the peaks, to be seen at Windsor
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span>
+Castle. His mountain rambles have given
+him that feeling of worship, tempered by awe,
+which even the Climbers’ Guides have not
+banished. But this book is not a treatise on
+mountain Art&mdash;a fascinating subject; and we
+must content ourselves with the statement
+that painters of all ages have found in the
+mountains the love which is more powerful
+than fear. Those who doubt this may examine
+at leisure the mountain work of Brueghel,
+Titian, or Mantegna. There are many other
+witnesses. At the beginning of the sixteenth
+century, Hans Leu had looked upon the hills
+and found them good, and Altdorfer had
+shown not only a passionate enthusiasm for
+mountains, but a knowledge of their anatomy
+far ahead of his age. Wolf Huber, ten years
+his junior, carried on the torch, and passed
+it to Lautensack, who recaptured the peculiar
+note of German romance of which Dürer is
+the first and the greatest apostle. It would
+be easy to trace the apostolic succession to
+Segantini, and to prove that he is the heir
+to a tradition nearly six hundred years old.
+But enough has been said. We have adduced
+a few instances which bear upon the contention
+that, just as the mountains of the
+Middle Ages were much the same as the
+mountains of to-day, so also among the men
+of those times, as among the men of to-day,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span>
+there were those who hated and those who
+loved the heights. No doubt the lovers of
+mountain scenery were in the minority; but
+they existed in far larger numbers than is
+sometimes supposed.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br />
+
+<span class="large">THE PIONEERS</span></h2>
+
+<p>Within the compass of this book, we
+cannot narrate the history of Alpine passes,
+though the subject is intensely interesting,
+but we must not omit all mention of the
+great classic traverse of the Alps. We should
+read of Hannibal’s memorable journey not
+in Livy, nor even in Bohn, but in that vigorous
+sixteenth-century translation which owes its
+charm and force even more to Philemon
+Holland the translator than to Livy.</p>
+
+<p>Livy, or rather Holland, begins with
+Hannibal’s sentiments on “seeing near at
+hand the height of those hills ... the horses
+singed with cold ... the people with long
+shagd haire.” Hannibal and his army were
+much depressed, but, none the less, they
+advanced under a fierce guerilla attack from
+the natives, who “slipt away at night, every
+one to his owne harbour.” Then follows a
+fine description of the difficulties of the pass.
+The poor elephants “were ever readie and
+anone to run upon their noses”&mdash;a phrase
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>
+which evokes a tremendous picture&mdash;“and
+the snow being once with the gate of so many
+people and beasts upon it fretted and thawed,
+they were fain to go upon the bare yce underneeth
+and in the slabberie snow-broth as it
+relented and melted about their heeles.” A
+great rock hindered the descent; Hannibal
+set it on fire and “powred thereon strong
+vinegar for to calcine and dissolve it,” a
+device unknown to modern mountaineers.
+The passage ends with a delightful picture
+of the army’s relief on reaching “the dales
+and lower grounds which have some little
+banks lying to the sunne, and rivers withall
+neere unto the woods, yea and places more
+meet and beseeming for men to inhabit.”
+Experts are divided as to what pass was
+actually crossed by Hannibal. Even the Col
+de Géant has been suggested by a romantic
+critic; it is certainly stimulating to picture
+Hannibal’s elephants in the Géant ice-fall.
+Probably the Little St. Bernard, or the Mont
+Genèvre, is the most plausible solution. So
+much for the great traverse.</p>
+
+<p>Some twenty-five glacier passes had been
+actually crossed before the close of the
+sixteenth century, a fact which bears out
+our contention that in the Middle Ages a
+good deal more was known about the craft
+of mountaineering than is generally supposed.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>
+There is, however, this distinctive difference
+between passes and peaks. A man may
+cross a pass because it is the most convenient
+route from one valley to another. He may
+cross it though he is thoroughly unhappy
+until he reaches his destination, and it would
+be just as plausible to argue from his journey
+a love of mountains as to deduce a passion
+for the sea in every sea-sick traveller across
+the Channel. But a man will not climb a
+mountain unless he derives some interest
+from the actual ascent. Passes may be
+crossed in the way of business. Mountains
+will only be climbed for the joy of the climb.</p>
+
+<p>The Roche Melon, near Susa, was the first
+Alpine peak of any consequence to be climbed.
+This mountain rises to a height of 11,600 feet.
+It was long believed to be the highest mountain
+in Savoy. On one side there is a small
+glacier; but the climb can be effected without
+crossing snow. It was climbed during the
+Dark Ages by a knight, Rotario of Asti, who
+deposited a bronze tryptych on the summit
+where a chapel still remains. Once a year
+the tryptych is carried to the summit, and
+Mass is heard in the chapel. There is a
+description of an attempt on this peak in the
+Chronicle of Novalessa, which dates back to
+the first half of the eleventh century. King
+Romulus is said to have deposited treasure on
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span>
+the mountain. The whole Alpine history of
+this peak is vague, but it is certain that the
+peak was climbed at a very early period, and
+that a chapel was erected on the summit before
+Villamont’s ascent in 1588. The climb
+presents no difficulties, but it was found discreet
+to remove the statue of the Virgin, as
+pilgrims seem to have lost their lives in
+attempting to reach it. The pilgrimages did
+not cease even after the statue had been
+placed in Susa.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_025.jpg" alt="" />
+<p class="small author">Bartholomew, Edin</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Another early ascent must be recorded,
+though the climb was a very modest achievement.
+Mont Ventoux, in Provence, is only
+some 6430 feet above the sea, and to-day
+there is an hôtel on the summit. None the
+less, it deserves a niche in Alpine history, for
+its ascent is coupled with the great name of
+the poet Petrarch. Mr. Gribble calls Petrarch
+the first of the sentimental mountaineers.
+Certainly, he was one of the first mountaineers
+whose recorded sentiments are very much
+ahead of his age. The ascent took place on
+April 26, 1335, and Petrarch described it
+in a letter written to his confessor. He
+confesses that he cherished for years the
+ambition to ascend Mont Ventoux, and
+seized the first chance of a companion to
+carry through this undertaking. He makes
+the customary statement as to the extreme
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span>
+difficulty of the ascent, and introduces a
+shepherd who warns him from the undertaking.
+There are some very human touches
+in the story of the climb. While his brother
+was seeking short cuts, Petrarch tried to
+advance on more level ground, an excuse for
+his laziness which cost him dear, for the
+others had made considerable progress while
+he was still wandering in the gullies of the
+mountain. He began to find, like many
+modern mountaineers, that “human ingenuity
+was not a match for the nature of
+things, and that it was impossible to gain
+heights by moving downwards.” He successfully
+completed the ascent, and the climb
+filled him with enthusiasm. The reader
+should study the fine translation of his letter
+by Mr. Reeve, quoted in <i>The Early Mountaineers</i>.
+Petrarch caught the romance of
+heights. The spirit that breathes through
+every line of his letter is worthy of the poet.</p>
+
+<p>Petrarch is not the only great name that
+links the Renaissance to the birth of mountaineering.
+That versatile genius, Leonardo
+da Vinci, carried his scientific explorations
+into the mountains. We have already mentioned
+his great picture of storm and thunder
+among the hills, one of the few mementos
+that have survived from his Alpine journeys.
+His journey took place towards the end of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span>
+the fifteenth century. Little is known of
+it, though the following passage from his
+works has provoked much comment. The
+translation is due to Mrs. Bell: “And this
+may be seen, as I saw it, by any one going up
+Monboso, a peak of the Alps which divide
+France from Italy. The base of this mountain
+gives birth to the four rivers which flow
+in four different directions through the whole
+of Europe. And no mountain has its base
+at so great a height as this, which lifts itself
+above almost all the clouds; and snow
+seldom falls there, but only hail in the summer
+when the clouds are highest. And this hail
+lies (unmelted) there, so that, if it were not
+for the absorption of the rising and falling
+clouds, which does not happen more than
+twice in an age, an enormous mass of ice
+would be piled up there by the layers of hail;
+and in the middle of July I found it very
+considerable, and I saw the sky above me
+quite dark; and the sun as it fell on the
+mountain was far brighter here than in the
+plains below, because a smaller extent of
+atmosphere lay between the summit of the
+mountain and the sun.”</p>
+
+<p>We need not summarise the arguments
+that identify Monboso either with Monte
+Rosa or Monte Viso. The weight of evidence
+inclines to the former alternative, though, of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>
+course, nobody supposes that Da Vinci
+actually reached the summit of Monte Rosa.
+There is good ground, however, for believing
+that he explored the lower slopes; and it is
+just possible that he may have got as far as
+the rocks above the Col d’Ollen, where, according
+to Mr. Freshfield, the inscription “A.T.M.,
+1615” has been found cut into the crags at
+a height of 10,000 feet. In this connection
+it is interesting to note that the name “Monboso”
+has been found in place of Monte Rosa
+in maps, as late as 1740.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">1</a></p>
+
+<p>We now come to the first undisputed ascent
+of a mountain, still considered a difficult
+rock climb. The year that saw the discovery
+of America is a great date in the history
+of mountaineering. In 1492, Charles VII of
+France passed through Dauphiny, and was
+much impressed by the appearance of Mont
+Aiguille, a rocky peak near Grenoble that
+was then called Mont Inaccessible. This
+mountain is only some seven thousand feet
+in height; but it is a genuine rock climb, and
+is still considered difficult, so much so that
+the French Alpine Club have paid it the
+doubtful compliment of iron cables in the
+more sensational passages. Charles VII was
+struck by the appearance of the mountain,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>
+and ordered his Chamberlain de Beaupré to
+make the ascent. Beaupré, by the aid of
+“subtle means and engines,” scaled the peak,
+had Mass said on the top, and caused three
+crosses to be erected on the summit. It was
+a remarkable ascent, and was not repeated
+till 1834.</p>
+
+<p>We are not concerned with exploration
+beyond the Alps, and we have therefore
+omitted Peter III’s attempt on Pic Canigou
+in the Pyrenees, and the attempt on the
+Pic du Midi in 1588; but we cannot on the
+ground of irrelevance pass over a remarkable
+ascent in 1521. Cortez is our authority.
+Under his order, a band of Spaniards ascended
+Popocatapetl, a Mexican volcano which
+reaches the respectable height of 17,850 feet.
+These daring climbers brought back quantities
+of sulphur which the army needed for its
+gunpowder.</p>
+
+<p>The Stockhorn is a modest peak some
+seven thousand feet in height. Simler tells us
+that its ascent was a commonplace achievement.
+Marti, as we have seen in the previous
+chapter, found numberless inscriptions cut
+into the summit stones by visitors, enthusiastic
+in their appreciation of mountain
+scenery, and its ascent by Müller, a Berne
+professor, in 1536, is only remarkable for the
+joyous poem in hexameters which records his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>
+delight in all the accompaniments of a mountain
+expedition. Müller has the true feelings
+for the simpler pleasures of picnicing on the
+heights. Everything delights him, from the
+humble fare washed down with a draught
+from a mountain stream, to the primitive joy
+of hurling big rocks down a mountain side.
+The last confession endears him to all who
+have practised this simple, if dangerous,
+amusement.</p>
+
+<p>The early history of Pilatus, another low-lying
+mountain, is much more eventful than
+the annals of the Stockhorn. It is closely
+bound up with the Pilate legend, which was
+firmly believed till a Lucerne pastor gave it
+the final quietus in 1585. Pontius Pilate,
+according to this story, was condemned by
+the Emperor Tiberius, who decreed that he
+should be put to death in the most shameful
+possible manner. Hearing this, Pilate very
+sensibly committed suicide. Tiberius concealed
+his chagrin, and philosophically remarked
+that a man whose own hand had not
+spared him had most certainly died the most
+shameful of deaths. Pilate’s body was attached
+to a stone and flung into the Tiber,
+where it caused a succession of terrible
+storms. The Romans decided to remove it,
+and the body was conveyed to Vienne as a
+mark of contempt for the people of that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>
+place. It was flung into the Rhone, and did
+its best to maintain its reputation. We need
+not follow this troublesome corpse through
+its subsequent wanderings. It was finally
+hurled into a little marshy lake, near the
+summit of Pilatus. Here Pilate’s behaviour
+was tolerable enough, though he resented
+indiscriminate stone-throwing into the lake
+by evoking terrible storms, and once a year
+he escaped from the waters, and sat clothed
+in a scarlet robe on a rock near by. Anybody
+luckless enough to see him on these occasions
+died within the twelve-month.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the story, which was firmly
+believed by the good citizens of Lucerne.
+Access to the lake was forbidden, unless the
+visitor was accompanied by a respectable
+burgher, pledged to veto any practices that
+Pilate might construe as a slight. In 1307,
+six clergymen were imprisoned for having
+attempted an ascent without observing the
+local regulations. It is even said that climbers
+were occasionally put to death for breaking
+these stringent by-laws. None the less,
+ascents occasionally took place. Duke Ulrich
+of Württemberg climbed the mountain in 1518,
+and a professor of Vienna, by name Joachim
+von Watt, ascended the mountain in order
+to investigate the legend, which he seems to
+have believed after a show of doubt. Finally,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span>
+in 1585, Pastor John Müller of Lucerne,
+accompanied by a few courageous sceptics,
+visited the lake. In their presence, he threw
+stones into the haunted lake, and shouted
+“Pilate wirf aus dein Kath.” As his taunts
+produced no effect, judgment was given by
+default, and the legend, which had sent
+earlier sceptics into gaol, was laughed out of
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>Thirty years before this defiant demonstration,
+the mountain had been ascended by the
+most remarkable of the early mountaineers.
+Conrad Gesner was a professor at the ancient
+University of Zürich. Though not the first
+to make climbing a regular practice, he was
+the pioneer of mountain literature. He never
+encountered serious difficulties. His mountaineering
+was confined to those lower heights
+which provide the modern with a training
+walk. But he had the authentic outlook of
+the mountaineer. His love for mountains was
+more genuine than that of many a modern
+wielder of the ice-axe and rope. A letter
+has been preserved, in which he records his
+resolution “to climb mountains, or at all
+events to climb one mountain every year.”</p>
+
+<p>We have no detailed record of his climbs,
+but luckily his account of an ascent of Pilatus
+still survives, a most sincere tribute to the
+simple pleasures of the heights. It is a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span>
+relief to turn to it after wading through more
+recent Alpine literature. Gesner’s writing is
+subjective. It records the impress of simple
+emotions on an unsophisticated mind. He
+finds a naïve joy in all the elemental things
+that make up a mountain walk, the cool
+breezes plying on heated limbs, the sun’s
+genial warmth, the contrasts of outline, colour,
+and height, the unending variety, so that
+“in one day you wander through the four
+seasons of the year, Spring, Summer, Autumn
+and Winter.” He explains that every sense
+is delighted, the sense of hearing is gratified
+by the witty conversation of friends, “by the
+songs of the birds, and even by the stillness
+of the waste.” He adds, in a very modern
+note, that the mountaineer is freed from the
+noisy tumult of the city, and that in the
+“profound abiding silence one catches echoes
+of the harmony of celestial spheres.” There
+is more in the same key. He anticipates the
+most enduring reward of the mountaineer,
+and his words might serve as the motto for
+a mountain book of to-day: “Jucundum erit
+postea meminisse laborum atque periculorum,
+juvabit hæc animo revolvere et narrare
+amicis.” Toil and danger are sweet to recall,
+every mountaineer loves “to revolve these
+in his mind and to tell them to his friends.”
+Moreover, contrast is the essence of our enjoyment
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span>
+and “the very delight of rest is intensified
+when it follows hard labour.” And
+then Gesner turns with a burst of scorn to his
+imaginary opponent. “But, say you, we
+lack feather beds and mattresses and pillows.
+Oh, frail and effeminate man! Hay shall
+take the place of these luxuries. It is soft,
+it is fragrant. It is blended from healthy
+grass and flower, and as you sleep respiration
+will be sweeter and healthier than ever. Your
+pillow shall be of hay. Your mattress shall
+be of hay. A blanket of hay shall be thrown
+across your body.” That is the kind of thing
+an enthusiastic mountaineer might have
+written about the club-huts in the old days
+before the hay gave place to mattresses. Nor
+does Gesner spoil his rhapsody by the inevitable
+joke about certain denizens of the
+hay.</p>
+
+<p>There follows an eloquent description of
+the ascent and an analysis of the Pilate
+legend. Thirty years were to pass before
+Pastor Müller finally disposed of the myth,
+but Gesner is clearly sceptical, and concludes
+with the robust assertion that, even if evil
+spirits exist, they are “impotent to harm the
+faithful who worship the one heavenly light,
+and Christ the Sun of Justice.” A bold
+challenge to the superstitions of the age, a
+challenge worthy of the man. Conrad Gesner
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>
+was born out of due season; and, though he
+does not seem to have crossed the snow line,
+he was a mountaineer in the best sense of the
+term. As we read his work, we seem to hear
+the voice of a friend. Across the years we
+catch the accents of a true member of our
+great fraternity. We leave him with regret,
+with a wish that we could meet him on some
+mountain path, and gossip for a while on
+mountains and mountaineers.</p>
+
+<p>But Gesner was not, as is sometimes
+assumed, alone in this sentiment for the hills.
+In the first chapter we have spoken of Marti,
+a professor at Berne, and a close friend of
+Gesner. The credit for discovering him belongs,
+I think, to Mr. Freshfield, who quotes
+some fine passages from Marti’s writings.
+Marti looks out from the terrace at Berne on
+that prospect which no true mountain lover
+can behold without emotion, and exclaims:
+“These are the mountains which form our
+pleasure and delight when we gaze at them
+from the highest parts of our city, and admire
+their mighty peaks and broken crags that
+threaten to fall at any moment. Who, then,
+would not admire, love, willingly visit, explore,
+and climb places of this sort? I should
+assuredly call those who are not attracted by
+them dolts, stupid dull fishes, and slow
+tortoises.... I am never happier than on
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span>
+the mountain crests, and there are no wanderings
+dearer to one than those on the
+mountains.”</p>
+
+<p>This passage tends to prove that mountain
+appreciation had already become a commonplace
+with cultured men. Had Marti’s views
+been exceptional, he would have assumed a
+certain air of defence. He would explain
+precisely why he found pleasure in such unexpected
+places. He would attempt to justify
+his paradoxical position. Instead, he boldly
+assumes that every right-minded man loves
+mountains; and he confounds his opponents
+by a vigorous choice of unpleasant alternatives.</p>
+
+<p>Josias Simler was a mountaineer of a very
+different type. To him belongs the credit of
+compiling the first treatise on the art of
+Alpine travel. Though he introduces no
+personal reminiscences, his work is so free
+from current superstition that he must have
+been something of a climber; but, though a
+climber, he did not share Gesner’s enthusiasm
+for the hills. For, though he seems to have
+crossed glacier passes, whereas Gesner confined
+himself to the lower mountains, yet the note
+of enthusiasm is lacking. His horror of
+narrow paths, bordering on precipices, is
+typical of the age; and if he ventured across
+a pass he must have done so in the way of
+business. There is, as we have already
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span>
+pointed out, a marked difference between
+passes and mountains. A merchant with a
+holy horror of mountains may be forced to
+cross a pass in the way of business, but a man
+will only climb a mountain for the fun of the
+thing. It is clear that Simler could only see
+in mountains a sense of inconvenient barriers
+to commerce, but as a practical man he set
+out to codify the existing knowledge. Gesner’s
+mountain work is subjective; it is the literature
+of emotion; he is less concerned with the
+mountain in itself, than with the mountain
+as it strikes the individual observer. Simler,
+on the other hand, is the forerunner of the
+objective school. He must delight those
+who postulate that all Alpine literature should
+be the record of positive facts. The personal
+note is utterly lacking. Like Gesner, he was
+a professor at Zürich. Unlike Gesner, he was
+an embodiment of the academic tradition
+that is more concerned with fact than with
+emotion. None the less, his work was a very
+valuable contribution, as it summarised existing
+knowledge on the art of mountain travel.
+His information is singularly free from error.
+He seems to have understood the use of the
+rope, alpenstocks, crampons, dark spectacles,
+and the use of paper as a protection against
+cold. It is strange that crampons, which
+were used in Simler’s days, were only reintroduced
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span>
+into general practice within the last
+decades, whilst the uncanny warmth of paper
+is still unknown to many mountaineers. His
+description of glacier perils, due to concealed
+crevasses, is accurate, and his analysis of
+avalanches contains much that is true. We
+are left with the conviction that snow- and
+ice-craft is an old science, though originally
+applied by merchants rather than pure
+explorers.</p>
+
+<p>We quoted Simler, in the first chapter, in
+support of our contention that foreigners
+came in great numbers to see and rejoice in
+the beauty of the Alps. But, though Simler
+proves that passes were often crossed in the
+way of business, and that mountains were
+often visited in search of beauty, he himself
+was no mountain lover.</p>
+
+<p>It is a relief to turn to Scheuchzer, who is a
+living personality. Like Gesner and Simler,
+he was a professor at Zürich, and, like them,
+he was interested in mountains. There the
+resemblance ceases. He had none of Gesner’s
+fine sentiment for the hills. He did not share
+Simler’s passion for scientific knowledge. He
+was a very poor mountaineer, and, though he
+trudged up a few hills, he heartily disliked
+the toil of the ascent: “Anhelosæ quidem
+sunt scansiones montium”&mdash;an honest, but
+scarcely inspiring, comment on mountain
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>
+travel. Honesty, bordering on the naïve, is,
+indeed, the keynote of our good professor’s
+confessions. Since his time, many ascents
+have failed for the same causes that prevented
+Scheuchzer reaching the summit of
+Pilatus, but few mountaineers are candid
+enough to attribute their failure to “bodily
+weariness and the distance still to be accomplished.”
+Scheuchzer must be given credit
+for being, in many ways, ahead of his age.
+He protested vigorously against the cruel
+punishments in force against witches. He
+was the first to formulate a theory of glacier
+motion which, though erroneous, was by no
+means absurd. As a scientist, he did good
+work in popularising Newton’s theories. He
+published the first map of Switzerland with
+any claims to accuracy. His greatest scientific
+work on dragons is dedicated to the English
+Royal Society, and though Scheuchzer’s
+dragons provoke a smile, we should remember
+that several members of that learned society
+subscribed to publish his researches on those
+fabulous creatures.</p>
+
+<p>With his odd mixture of credulity and
+common sense, Scheuchzer often recalls
+another genial historian of vulgar errors.
+Like Sir Thomas Browne, he could never
+dismiss a picturesque legend without a pang.
+He gives the more blatant absurdities their
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>
+quietus with the same gentle and reluctant
+touch: “That the sea is the sweat of the
+earth, that the serpent before the fall went
+erect like man ... being neither consonant
+unto reason nor corresponding unto experiment,
+are unto us no axioms.” Thus Browne,
+and it is with the same tearful and chastened
+scepticism that Scheuchzer parts with the more
+outrageous “axioms” in his wonderful collection.
+But he retained enough to make his
+work amusing. Like Browne, he made it a
+rule to believe half that he was told. But on
+the subject of dragons he has no mental
+reservations. Their existence is proved by
+the number of caves that are admirably suited
+to the needs of the domestic dragon, and by
+the fact that the Museum, at Lucerne, contains
+an undoubted dragon stone. Such
+stones are rare, which is not surprising owing
+to the extreme difficulty of obtaining a genuine
+unimpaired specimen. You must first catch
+your dragon asleep, and then cut the stone
+out of his head. Should the dragon awake the
+value of the stone will disappear. Scheuchzer
+refrains from discouraging collectors by hinting
+at even more unpleasant possibilities. But
+then there is no need to awaken the dragon.
+Scatter soporific herbs around him, and help
+them out by recognised incantations, and the
+stone should be removed without arousing
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>
+the dragon. In spite of these anæsthetics,
+Scheuchzer admits that the process demands
+a courageous and skilled operator, and perhaps
+it is lucky that this particular stone was
+casually dropped by a passing dragon. It is
+obviously genuine, for, if the peasant who had
+picked it up had been dishonest, he would
+never have hit on so obvious and unimaginative
+a tale. He would have told some really
+striking story, such as that the stone had
+come from the far Indies. Besides, the stone
+not only cures hæmorrhages (quite commonplace
+stones will cure hæmorrhages), but
+also dysentery and plague. As to dragons,
+Scheuchzer is even more convincing. He has
+examined (on oath) scores of witnesses who
+had observed dragons at first hand. We need
+not linger to cross-examine these honest folk.
+Their dragons are highly coloured, and lack
+nothing but uniformity. Each new dragon
+that flies into Scheuchzer’s net is gravely
+classified. Some dragons have feet, others
+have wings. Some have scales. Scheuchzer
+is a little puzzled whether dragons with a
+crest constitute a class of their own, or
+whether the crest distinguished the male from
+the female. Each dragon is thus neatly
+ticketed into place and referred to the sworn
+deposition of some <i>vir quidam probus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But the dragons had had their day.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>
+Scheuchzer ushers in the eighteenth century.
+Let us take leave of him with a friendly smile.
+He is no abstraction, but a very human soul.
+We forget the scientist, though his more
+serious discoveries were not without value.
+We remember only the worthy professor,
+panting up his laborious hills in search of
+quaint knowledge, discovering with simple
+joy that Gemmi is derived from “gemitus”
+a groan, <i>quod non nisi crebris gemitibus
+superetur</i>. No doubt the needy fraternity
+soon discovered his amiable weakness. An
+unending procession must have found their
+way to his door, only too anxious to supply
+him with dragons of wonderful and fearful
+construction. Hence, the infinite variety
+of these creatures. When we think of
+Scheuchzer, we somehow picture the poor old
+gentleman, laboriously rearranging his data,
+on the sworn deposition of some <i>clarissimus
+homo</i>, what time the latter was bartering in
+the nearest tavern the price of a dragon for
+that good cheer in which most of Scheuchzer’s
+fauna first saw the light of day.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br />
+
+<span class="large">THE OPENING UP OF THE ALPS</span></h2>
+
+<p>The climbs, so far chronicled, have been
+modest achievements and do not include a
+genuine snow-peak, for the Roche Melon has
+permanent snow on one side only. We have
+seen that many snow passes were in regular
+use from the earliest times; but genuine Alpine
+climbing may be said to begin with the ascent
+of the Titlis. According to Mr. Gribble, this
+was climbed by a monk of Engleberg, in 1739.
+Mr. Coolidge, on the other hand, states that
+it was ascended by four peasants, in 1744.
+In any case, the ascent was an isolated feat
+which gave no direct stimulus to Alpine
+climbing, and Mr. Gribble is correct in dating
+the continuous history of Alpine climbing
+from the discovery of Chamounix, in 1741.
+This famous valley had, of course, a history
+of its own before that date; but its existence
+was only made known, to a wider world, by
+the visit of a group of young Englishmen,
+towards the middle of the eighteenth century.</p>
+
+<p>In 1741, Geneva was enlivened by a vigorous
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>
+colony of young Britons. Of these, William
+Windham was a famous athlete, known on
+his return to London as “Boxing Windham.”
+While at Geneva, he seems, despite the presence
+of his “respectable perceptor,” Mr.
+Benjamin Stillingfleet, the grandson of the
+theologian, to have amused himself pretty
+thoroughly. The archives record that he
+was fined for assault and kindred offences.
+When these simple joys began to pall he
+decided to go to Chamounix in search of
+adventure.</p>
+
+<p>His party consisted of himself, Lord Haddington,
+Dr. Pococke, the Oriental traveller,
+and others. They visited Chamounix, and
+climbed the Montanvert with a large brigade
+of guides. The ascent to the Montanvert
+was not quite so simple as it is to-day, a fact
+which accounts for Windham’s highly coloured
+description. Windham published his account
+of the journey and his reflections on glaciers,
+in the <i>Journal Helvetique</i> of Neuchâtel, and
+later in London. It attracted considerable
+attention and focussed the eyes of the curious
+on the unknown valley of Chamounix. Among
+others, Peter Martel, an engineer of Geneva,
+was inspired to repeat the visit. Like Windham,
+he climbed the Montanvert and descended
+on to the Mer de Glace; and, like
+Windham, he published an account of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span>
+journey and certain reflections on glaciers and
+glacier motion. His story is well worth reading,
+and the curious in such matters should
+turn either to Mr. Gribble’s <i>Early Mountaineers</i>,
+or to Mr. Matthews’ <i>The Annals of Mont
+Blanc</i>, where they will find Windham’s and
+Martel’s letters set forth in full.</p>
+
+<p>Martel’s letter and his map of Chamounix
+were printed together with Windham’s narrative,
+and were largely responsible for popularising
+Chamounix. Those who wished to earn
+a reputation for enterprise could hardly do
+so without a visit to the glaciers of Chamounix.
+Dr. John Moore, father of Sir John Moore,
+who accompanied the Duke of Hamilton on
+the grand tour, tells us that “one could
+hardly mention anything curious or singular
+without being told by some of those travellers,
+with an air of cool contempt: ‘Dear Sir, that
+is pretty well, but take my word for it, it is
+nothing to the glaciers of Savoy.’” The
+Duc de la Rochefoucauld considered that
+the honour of his nation demanded that he
+should visit the glaciers, to prove that the
+English were not alone in the possession of
+courage.</p>
+
+<p>More important, in this connection, than
+Dr. Moore or the duke is the great name of
+De Saussure. De Saussure belonged to an
+old French family that had been driven out
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span>
+of France during the Huguenot persecutions.
+They emigrated to Geneva, where De Saussure
+was born. His mother had Spartan views on
+education; and from his earlier years the child
+was taught to suffer the privations due to
+physical ills and the inclemency of the season.
+As a result of this adventurous training, De
+Saussure was irresistibly drawn to the mountains.
+He visited Chamounix in 1760, and
+was immediately struck by the possibility
+of ascending Mont Blanc. He does not seem
+to have cherished any ambition to make the
+first ascent in person. He was content to
+follow when once the way had been found;
+and he offered a reward to the pioneer, and
+promised to recompense any peasant who
+should lose a day’s work in trying to find the
+way to the summit of Mont Blanc. The
+reward was not claimed for many years, but,
+meanwhile, De Saussure never missed a chance
+of climbing a mountain. He climbed Ætna,
+and made a series of excursions in various
+parts of the Alps. When his wife complained,
+he indited a robust letter which every married
+mountaineer should keep up his sleeve for
+ready quotation.</p>
+
+<p>“In this valley, which I had not previously
+visited,” he writes, “I have made observations
+of the greatest importance, surpassing
+my highest hopes; but that is not what you
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span>
+care about. You would sooner&mdash;God forgive
+me for saying so&mdash;see me growing fat like a
+friar, and snoring every day in the chimney
+corner, after a big dinner, than that I should
+achieve immortal fame by the most sublime
+discoveries at the cost of reducing my weight
+by a few ounces and spending a few weeks
+away from you. If, then, I continue to take
+these journeys, in spite of the annoyance they
+cause you, the reason is that I feel myself
+pledged in honour to go on with them, and
+that I think it necessary to extend my knowledge
+on this subject and make my works as
+nearly perfect as possible. I say to myself:
+‘Just as an officer goes out to assault a fortress
+when the order is given, and just as a
+merchant goes to market on market-day, so
+must I go to the mountains when there are
+observations to be made.’”</p>
+
+<p>De Saussure was partly responsible for the
+great renaissance of mountain travel that
+began at Geneva in 1760. A group of enthusiastic
+mountaineers instituted a series of
+determined assaults on the unconquered snows.
+Of these, one of the most remarkable was
+Jean-Andre de Luc.</p>
+
+<p>De Luc was born at Geneva, in 1727. His
+father was a watchmaker, but De Luc’s life
+was cast on more ambitious lines. He began
+as a diplomatist, but gravitated insensibly to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>
+science. He invented the hygrometer, and
+was elected a member of the Royal Societies
+of London, Dublin, and Göttingen. Charlotte,
+the wife of George III, appointed him her
+reader; and he died at Windsor, having
+attained the ripe age of ninety. He was a
+scientific, rather than a sentimental, mountaineer;
+his principal occupation was to
+discover the temperature at which water
+would boil at various altitudes. His chief
+claim to notice is that he made the first
+ascent of the Buet.</p>
+
+<p>The Buet is familiar to all who know
+Chamounix. It rises to the height of 10,291
+feet. Its summit is a broad plateau, glacier-capped.
+Those who have travelled to Italy
+by the Simplon may, perhaps, recall the
+broad-topped mountain that seems to block
+up the western end of the Rhone valley, for
+the Buet is a conspicuous feature on the line,
+between Sion and Brigue. It is not a difficult
+mountain, in the modern sense of the term;
+but, to climbers who knew little of the nature
+of snow and glacier, it must have presented
+quite a formidable appearance. De Luc made
+several attempts before he was finally successful
+on September 22, 1770. His description
+of the view from the summit is a fine piece
+of writing. Familiarity had not staled the
+glory of such moments; and men might still
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span>
+write, as they felt, without fear that their
+readers would be bored by emotions that had
+lost their novelty.</p>
+
+<p>Before leaving, De Luc observed that the
+party were standing on a cornice. A cornice
+is a crest of windblown snow overhanging a
+precipice. As the crest often appears perfectly
+continuous with the snow on solid
+foundation, cornices have been responsible
+for many fatal accidents. De Luc’s party
+naturally beat a hurried retreat; but “having
+gathered, by reflection, that the addition of
+our own weight to this prodigious mass which
+had supported itself for ages counted for
+absolutely nothing, and could not possibly
+break it loose, we laid aside our fears and
+went back to the terrible terrace.” A little
+science is a dangerous thing; and it was a
+mere chance that the first ascent of the Buet
+is not notorious for a terrible accident. It
+makes one’s blood run cold to read of the
+calm contempt with which De Luc treated the
+cornice. Each member of the party took it
+in turn to advance to the edge and look over
+on to the cliff below supported as to his coattails
+by the rest of the party.</p>
+
+<p>De Luc made a second ascent of the Buet,
+two years later; but it was not until 1779
+that a snow peak was again conquered. In
+that year Murith, the Prior of the St. Bernard
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>
+Hospice, climbed the Velan, the broad-topped
+peak which is so conspicuous a feature from
+the St. Bernard. It is a very respectable
+mountain rising to a height of 12,353 feet.
+Murith, besides being an ecclesiastic, was
+something of a scientist, and his botanical
+handbook to the Valais is not without merit.
+It is to Bourrit, of whom we shall speak
+later, that we owe the written account of the
+climb, based on information which Bourrit
+had at first hand from M. Murith.</p>
+
+<p>Murith started on August 30, 1779, with
+“two hardy hunters,” two thermometers, a
+barometer, and a spirit-level. They slept a
+night on the way, and proceeded to attack
+the mountain from the Glacier du Proz. The
+hardy hunters lost their nerve, and tried to
+dissuade M. Murith from the attempt; but
+the gallant Prior replied: “Fear nothing;
+wherever there is danger I will go in front.”
+They encountered numerous difficulties,
+amongst others a wall of ice which Murith
+climbed by hacking steps and hand-holds
+with a pointed hammer. One of the hardy
+huntsmen then followed; his companion had
+long since disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>They reached the summit without further
+difficulty, and their impressions of the view
+are recorded by Bourrit in an eloquent passage
+which recalls De Luc on the Buet, and once
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>
+more proves that the early mountaineers were
+fully alive to the glory of mountain tops&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“A spectacle, no less amazing than magnificent,
+offered itself to their gaze. The sky
+seemed to be a black cloth enveloping the
+earth at a distance from it. The sun shining
+in it made its darkness all the more conspicuous.
+Down below their outlook extended
+over an enormous area, bristling with rocky
+peaks and cut by dark valleys. Mont Blanc
+rose like a sloping pyramid and its lofty head
+appeared to dominate all the Alps as one
+saw it towering above them. An imposing
+stillness, a majestic silence, produced an
+indescribable impression upon the mind. The
+noise of the avalanches, reiterated by the
+echoes, seemed to be the only thing that
+marked the march of time. Raised, so to
+say, above the head of Nature, they saw the
+mountains split asunder, and send the fragments
+rolling to their feet, and the rivers
+rising below them in places where inactive
+Nature seemed upon the point of death&mdash;though
+in truth it is there that she gathers
+strength to carry life and fertility throughout
+the world.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>It is curious in this connection to notice
+the part played by the Church in the early
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span>
+history of mountaineering. This is not surprising.
+The local curé lived in the shadow
+of the great peaks that dominated his valley.
+He was more cultured than the peasants of
+his parish; he was more alive to the spiritual
+appeal of the high places, and he naturally
+took a leading part in the assaults on his
+native mountains. The Titlis and Monte
+Leone were first climbed by local monks.
+The prior of the St. Bernard made, as we have
+seen, a remarkable conquest of a great local
+peak; and five years later M. Clément, the
+curé of Champery, reached the summit of
+the Dent du Midi, that great battlement of
+rock which forms a background to the eastern
+end of Lake Geneva. Bourrit, as we shall
+see, was an ecclesiastic with a great love for
+the snows. Father Placidus à Spescha was
+the pioneer of the Tödi; and local priests played
+their part in the early attempts on the Matterhorn
+from Italy. “One man, one mountain”
+was the rule of many an early pioneer; but
+Murith’s love of the snows was not exhausted
+by this ascent of the Velan. He had already
+explored the Valsorey glacier with Saussure,
+and the Otemma glacier with Bourrit. A few
+years after his conquest of the Velan he
+turned his attention to the fine wall of
+cliffs that binds in the Orny glacier on the
+south.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span></p>
+
+<p>Bourrit, who wrote up Murith’s notes on
+the Velan, was one of the most remarkable
+of this group of pioneers. He was a whole-hearted
+enthusiast, and the first man who
+devoted the most active years of his life to
+mountaineering. He wins our affection by
+the readiness with which he gave others due
+credit for their achievements, a generous
+characteristic which did not, however, survive
+the supreme test&mdash;Paccard’s triumph on
+Mont Blanc. Mountaineers at the end of the
+eighteenth century formed a close freemasonry
+less concerned with individual achievement
+than with the furthering of common
+knowledge. We have seen, for instance, that
+De Saussure cared little who made the first
+ascent of Mont Blanc provided that the way
+was opened up for future explorers. Bourrit’s
+actual record of achievement was small. His
+exploration was attended with little success.
+His best performance was the discovery, or
+rediscovery of the Col de Géant. His great
+ambition, the ascent of Mont Blanc, failed.
+Fatigue, or mountain sickness, or bad weather,
+spoiled his more ambitious climbs. But this
+matters little. He found his niche in Alpine
+history rather as a writer than as a mountaineer.
+He popularised the Alps. He was
+the first systematic writer of Alpine books, a
+fact which earned him the title, “Historian
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>
+of the Alps,” a title of which he was inordinately
+proud. Best of all, in an age when
+mountain appreciation was somewhat rare, he
+marked himself out by an unbounded enthusiasm
+for the hills.</p>
+
+<p>He was born in 1735, and in one of his
+memoirs he describes the moment when he
+first heard the call of the Alps: “It was from
+the summit of the Voirons that the view of
+the Alps kindled my desire to become acquainted
+with them. No one could give me
+any information about them except that they
+were the accursed mountains, frightful to look
+upon and uninhabited.” Bourrit began life
+as a miniature painter. A good many of his
+Alpine water colours have survived. Though
+they cannot challenge serious comparison
+with the mountain masterpieces of the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries, they are
+not without a certain merit. But Bourrit
+would not have become famous had he not
+deserted the brush for the pen. When the
+Alps claimed him, he gave up miniatures, and
+accepted an appointment as Precentor of
+Geneva Cathedral, a position which allowed
+him great leisure for climbing. He used to
+climb in the summer, and write up his journeys
+in the winter. He soon compiled a formidable
+list of books, and was hailed throughout
+Europe as the Historian of the Alps. There
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>
+was no absurd modesty about Bourrit. He
+accepted the position with serene dignity.
+His house, he tells us, is “embellished with
+beautiful acacias, planned for the comfort
+and convenience of strangers who do not
+wish to leave Geneva without visiting the
+Historian of the Alps.” He tells us that
+Prince Henry of Prussia, acting on the advice
+of Frederick the Great, honoured him with a
+visit. Bourrit, in fact, received recognition
+in many distinguished quarters. The Princess
+Louise of Prussia sent him an engraving to
+recall “a woman whom you have to some
+extent taught to share your lofty sentiments.”
+Bourrit was always popular with the ladies,
+and no climber has shown a more generous
+appreciation for the sex. “The sex is very
+beautiful here,” became, as Mr. Gribble tells
+us, “a formula with him as soon as he began
+writing and continued a formula after he had
+passed his threescore years and ten.”</p>
+
+<p>We have said that Bourrit’s actual record
+as a climber is rather disappointing. We
+may forget this, and remember only his
+whole-hearted devotion to the mountains.
+Even Gesner, Petrarch, and Marti seem
+balanced and cold when they set their tributes
+besides Bourrit’s large enthusiasm. Bourrit
+did not carry a barometer with him on his
+travels. He did not feel the need to justify
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>
+his wanderings by collecting a mass of scientific
+data. Nor did he assume that a mountain
+tour should be written up as a mere guide-book
+record of times and route. He is
+supremely concerned with the ennobling effect
+of mountain scenery on the human mind.</p>
+
+<p>“At Chamounix,” he writes, “I have seen
+persons of every party in the state, who
+imagined that they loathed each other, nevertheless
+treating one another with courtesy,
+and even walking together. Returning to
+Geneva, and encountering the reproaches of
+their various friends, they merely answered
+in their defence, ‘Go, as we have gone, to
+the Montanvert, and take our share of the
+pure air that is to be breathed there; look
+thence at the unfamiliar beauties of Nature;
+contemplate from that terrace the greatness
+of natural objects and the littleness of man;
+and you will no longer be astonished that
+Nature has enabled us to subdue our passions.’
+It is, in fact, the mountains that many men
+have to thank for their reconciliation with
+their fellows, and with the human race; and
+it is there that the rulers of the world and the
+heads of the nations ought to hold their
+meetings. Raised thus above the arena of
+passions and petty interests, and placed more
+immediately under the influence of Divine
+inspiration, one would see them descend from
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span>
+these mountains, each like a new Moses
+bringing with them codes of law based upon
+equity and justice.”</p>
+
+<p>This is fine writing with a vengeance, just
+as Ruskin’s greatest passages are fine writing.
+Before we take our leave of Bourrit, let us see
+the precentor of the cathedral exhorting a
+company of guides with sacerdotal dignity.
+One is irresistibly reminded of Japan, where
+mountaineering and sacrificial rites go hand
+in hand&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“The Historian of the Alps, in rendering
+them this justice in the presence of a great
+throng of people, seized the opportunity
+of exhorting the new guides to observe the
+virtues proper to their state in life. ‘Put
+yourselves,’ he said to them, ‘in the place of
+the strangers, who come from the most distant
+lands to admire the marvels of Nature under
+these wild and savage aspects; and justify the
+confidence which they repose in you. You
+have learnt the great part which these magnificent
+objects of our contemplation play in
+the organisation of the world; and, in pointing
+out their various phenomena to their astonished
+eyes, you will rejoice to see people raise
+their thoughts to the omnipotence of the
+Great Being who created them.’ The speaker
+was profoundly moved by the ideas with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>
+which the subject inspired him, and it was
+impossible for his listeners not to share in his
+emotion.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Let us remember that Bourrit put his
+doctrine into practice. He has told us that
+he found men of diverse creeds reconciled
+beneath the shadow of Mont Blanc. Bourrit
+himself was a mountaineer first, and an
+ecclesiastic second. Perhaps he was no
+worse as a Protestant precentor because the
+mountains had taught him their eternal
+lessons of tolerance and serene indifference
+to the petty issues which loom so large beneath
+the shadow of the cathedral. Catholic
+or Protestant it was all the same to our good
+precentor, provided the man loved the hills.
+Prior Murith was his friend; and every
+Catholic mountaineer should be grateful to
+his memory, for he persuaded one of their
+archbishops to dispense climbers from the
+obligation of fasting in Lent.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br />
+
+<span class="large">THE STORY OF MONT BLANC</span></h2>
+
+<p>The history of Mont Blanc has been made
+the subject of an excellent monograph, and
+the reader who wishes to supplement the
+brief sketch which is all that we can attempt
+should buy <i>The Annals of Mont Blanc</i>, by
+Mr. C. E. Mathews. We have already seen
+that De Saussure offered a reward in 1760 to
+any peasant who could find a way to the
+summit of Mont Blanc. In the quarter-of-a-century
+that followed, several attempts were
+made. Amongst others, Bourrit tried on two
+occasions to prove the accessibility of Mont
+Blanc. Bourrit himself never reached a
+greater height than 10,000 feet; but some
+of his companions attained the very respectable
+altitude of 14,300 feet. De Saussure
+attacked the mountain without success in
+1785, leaving the stage ready for the entrance
+of the most theatrical of mountaineers.</p>
+
+<p>Jacques Balmat, the hero of Mont Blanc,
+impresses himself upon the imagination as
+no other climber of the day. He owes his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span>
+fame mainly, of course, to his great triumph,
+but also, not a little, to the fact that he was
+interviewed by Alexandre Dumas the Elder,
+who immortalised him in <i>Impressions de
+Voyage</i>. For the moment, we shall not
+bother to criticise its accuracy. We know
+that Balmat reached the summit of Mont
+Blanc; and that outstanding fact is about
+the only positive contribution to the story
+which has not been riddled with destructive
+criticism. The story should be read in the
+original, though Dumas’ vigorous French loses
+little in Mr. Gribble’s spirited translation
+from which I shall borrow.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_061.jpg" alt="" />
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td>A</td>
+    <td>Summit</td>
+    <td>of</td>
+    <td>Mont Blanc</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>B</td>
+    <td class="tdc">”</td>
+    <td class="tdc">”</td>
+    <td>Dôme du Gouter</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>C</td>
+    <td class="tdc">”</td>
+    <td class="tdc">”</td>
+    <td>Aiguille du Gouter</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>D</td>
+    <td class="tdc">”</td>
+    <td class="tdc">”</td>
+    <td>Aiguille de Bianossay</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>E</td>
+    <td class="tdc">”</td>
+    <td class="tdc">”</td>
+    <td>Mont Maudit</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>E′</td>
+    <td class="tdc">”</td>
+    <td class="tdc">”</td>
+    <td>Mont Blanc du Tacul</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>F</td>
+    <td class="tdc">”</td>
+    <td class="tdc">”</td>
+    <td>Aiguille du Midi</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>G</td>
+    <td colspan="3">Grand Mulets</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>H</td>
+    <td colspan="3">Grand Plateau</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>L</td>
+    <td colspan="3">Les Bosses du Dromadaire</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>M</td>
+    <td colspan="3">Glacier des Bossons</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>N</td>
+    <td colspan="3">Glacier de Taconnaz</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Dumas visited Chamounix in 1883. Balmat
+was then a veteran, and, of course, the great
+person of the valley. Dumas lost no time in
+making his acquaintance. We see them sitting
+together over a bottle of wine, and we
+can picture for ourselves the subtle art with
+which the great interviewer drew out the old
+guide. But Balmat shall tell his own story&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“H’m. Let me see. It was in 1786. I
+was five-and-twenty; that makes me seventy-two
+to-day. What a fellow I was! With the
+devil’s own calves and hell’s own stomach.
+I could have gone three days without bite or
+sup. I had to do so once when I got lost on
+the Buet. I just munched a little snow, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span>
+that was all. And from time to time I looked
+across at Mont Blanc saying, ‘Say what you
+like, my beauty, and do what you like. Some
+day I shall climb you.’”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Balmat then tells us how he persuaded his
+wife that he was on his way to collect crystals.
+He climbed steadily throughout the day, and
+night found him on a great snowfield somewhere
+near the Grand Plateau. The situation
+was sufficiently serious. To be benighted on
+Mont Blanc is a fate which would terrify a
+modern climber, even if he were one of a large
+party. Balmat was alone, and the mental
+strain of a night alone on a glacier can only
+be understood by those who have felt the
+uncanny terror that often attacks the solitary
+wanderer even in the daytime. Fortunately,
+Balmat does not seem to have been bothered
+with nerves. His fears expressed themselves
+in tangible shape.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“Presently the moon rose pale and encircled
+by clouds, which hid it altogether at about
+eleven o’clock. At the same time a rascally
+mist came on from the Aiguille du Gouter,
+which had no sooner reached me than it began
+to spit snow in my face. Then I wrapped my
+head in my handkerchief, and said: ‘Fire
+away. You’re not hurting me.’ At every
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span>
+instant I heard the falling avalanches making
+a noise like thunder. The glaciers split, and
+at every split I felt the mountain move. I
+was neither hungry nor thirsty; and I had an
+extraordinary headache which took me at
+the crown of the skull, and worked its way
+down to the eyelids. All this time, the mist
+never lifted. My breath had frozen on my
+handkerchief; the snow had made my clothes
+wet; I felt as if I were naked. Then I redoubled
+the rapidity of my movements, and
+began to sing, in order to drive away the
+foolish thoughts that came into my head. My
+voice was lost in the snow; no echo answered
+me. I held my tongue, and was afraid. At
+two o’clock the sky paled towards the east.
+With the first beams of day, I felt my courage
+coming back to me. The sun rose, battling
+with the clouds which covered the mountain
+top; my hope was that it would scatter them;
+but at about four o’clock the clouds got
+denser, and I recognised that it would be
+impossible for me just then to go any further.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>He spent a second night on the mountain,
+which was, on the whole, more comfortable
+than the first, as he passed it on the rocks of
+the Montagne de la Côte. Before he returned
+home, Balmat planned a way to the summit.
+And now comes the most amazing part of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>
+story. He had no sooner returned home than
+he met three men starting off for the mountain.
+A modern mountaineer, who had spent two
+nights, alone, high up on Mont Blanc, would
+consider himself lucky to reach Chamounix
+alive; once there, he would go straight to bed
+for some twenty-four hours. But Balmat was
+built of iron. He calmly proposed to accompany
+his friends; and, having changed his
+stockings, he started out again for the great
+mountain, on which he had spent the previous
+two nights. The party consisted of François
+Paccard, Joseph Carrier, and Jean Michel
+Tournier. They slept on the mountain; and
+next morning they were joined by two other
+guides, Pierre Balmat and Marie Couttet.
+They did not get very far, and soon turned
+back&mdash;all save Balmat. Balmat, who seems
+to have positively enjoyed his nights on the
+glacier, stayed behind.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“I laid my knapsack on the snow, drew
+my handkerchief over my face like a curtain,
+and made the best preparations that I could
+for passing a night like the previous one.
+However, as I was about two thousand feet
+higher, the cold was more intense; a fine
+powdery snow froze me; I felt a heaviness
+and an irresistible desire to sleep; thoughts,
+sad as death, came into my mind, and I knew
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span>
+well that these sad thoughts and this desire
+to sleep were a bad sign, and that if I had
+the misfortune to close my eyes I should
+never open them again. From the place
+where I was, I saw, ten thousand feet below
+me, the lights of Chamounix, where my comrades
+were warm and tranquil by their firesides
+or in their beds. I said to myself:
+‘Perhaps there is not a man among them
+who gives a thought to me. Or, if there
+is one of them who thinks of Balmat, no
+doubt he pokes his fire into a blaze, or draws
+his blanket over his ears, saying, ‘That ass of
+a Jacques is wearing out his shoe leather.
+Courage, Balmat!’”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Balmat may have been a braggart, but it
+is sometimes forgotten by his critics that he
+had something to brag about. Even if he
+had never climbed Mont Blanc, this achievement
+would have gone down to history as
+perhaps the boldest of all Alpine adventures.
+To sleep one night, alone, above the snow line
+is a misfortune that has befallen many
+climbers. Some have died, and others have
+returned, thankful. One may safely say that
+no man has started out for the same peak,
+and willingly spent a third night under even
+worse conditions than the first. Three nights
+out of four in all. We are charitably assuming
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>
+that this part of Balmat’s story is true.
+There is at least no evidence to the contrary.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally enough, Balmat did not prosecute
+the attempt at once. He returned to
+Chamounix, and sought out the local doctor,
+Michel Paccard. Paccard agreed to accompany
+him. They left Chamounix at five in
+the evening, and slept on the top of the
+Montagne de la Côte. They started next
+morning at two o’clock. According to Balmat’s
+account, the doctor played a sorry
+part in the day’s climb. It was only by some
+violent encouragement that he was induced
+to proceed at all.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“After I had exhausted all my eloquence,
+and saw that I was only losing my time, I
+told him to keep moving about as best he
+could. He heard without understanding, and
+kept answering ‘Yes, yes,’ in order to get rid
+of me. I perceived that he must be suffering
+from cold. So I left him the bottle, and set
+off alone, telling him that I would come back
+and look for him. ‘Yes, yes,’ he answered.
+I advised him not to sit still, and started off.
+I had not gone thirty steps before I turned
+round and saw that, instead of running about
+and stamping his feet, he had sat down, with
+his back to the wind&mdash;a precaution of a sort.
+From that minute onwards, the track presented
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>
+no great difficulty; but, as I rose higher and
+higher, the air became more and more unfit
+to breathe. Every few steps, I had to stop
+like a man in a consumption. It seemed to
+me that I had no lungs left, and that my chest
+was hollow. Then I folded my handkerchief
+like a scarf, tied it over my mouth and breathed
+through it; and that gave me a little relief.
+However, the cold gripped me more and more;
+it took me an hour to go a quarter of a league.
+I looked down as I walked; but, finding myself
+in a spot which I did not recognise, I raised
+my eyes, and saw that I had at last reached
+the summit of Mont Blanc.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I looked around me, fearing to find
+that I was mistaken, and to catch sight of
+some aiguille or some fresh point above me;
+if there had been, I should not have had the
+strength to climb it. For it seems to me that
+the joints of my legs were only held in their
+proper place by my breeches. But no&mdash;it was
+not so. I had reached the end of my journey.
+I had come to a place where no one&mdash;where
+not the eagle or the chamois&mdash;had ever been
+before me. I had got there, alone, without
+any other help than that of my own strength
+and my own will. Everything that surrounded
+me seemed to be my property. I was the
+King of Mont Blanc&mdash;the statue of this
+tremendous pedestal.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span></p>
+
+<p>“Then I turned towards Chamounix, waving
+my hat at the end of my stick, and saw,
+by the help of my glass, that my signals were
+being answered.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Balmat returned, found the doctor in a
+dazed condition, and piloted him to the summit,
+which they reached shortly after six
+o’clock.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“It was seven o’clock in the evening; we
+had only two-and-a-half hours of daylight
+left; we had to go. I took Paccard by the
+arm, and once more waved my hat as a last
+signal to our friends in the valley; and the
+descent began. There was no track to guide
+us; the wind was so cold that even the snow
+on the surface had not thawed; all that we
+could see on the ice was the little holes made
+by the iron points of our stick. Paccard was
+no better than a child, devoid of energy and
+will-power, whom I had to guide in the easy
+places and carry in the hard ones. Night was
+already beginning to fall when we crossed the
+crevasse; it finally overtook us at the foot
+of the Grand Plateau. At every instant,
+Paccard stopped, declaring that he could go
+no further; at every halt, I obliged him to
+resume his march, not by persuasion, for he
+understood nothing but force. At eleven, we
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>
+at last escaped from the regions of ice, and
+set foot upon <i>terra firma</i>; the last afterglow
+of the sunset had disappeared an hour before.
+Then I allowed Paccard to stop, and prepared
+to wrap him up again in the blanket, when I
+perceived that he was making no use whatever
+of his hands. I drew his attention to the
+fact. He answered that that was likely
+enough, as he no longer had any sensation in
+them. I drew off his gloves, and found that
+his hands were white and, as it were, dead;
+for my own part, I felt a numbness in the hand
+on which I wore his little glove in place of
+my own thick one. I told him we had three
+frost-bitten hands between us; but he seemed
+not to mind in the least, and only wanted to
+lie down and go to sleep. As for myself,
+however, he told me to rub the affected part
+with snow, and the remedy was not far to
+seek. I commenced operations upon him and
+concluded them upon myself. Soon the blood
+resumed its course, and with the blood, the
+heat returned, but accompanied by acute
+pain, as though every vein were being pricked
+with needles. I wrapped my baby up in his
+blanket, and put him to bed under the shelter
+of a rock. We ate a little, drank a glass of
+something, squeezed ourselves as close to
+each other as we could, and went to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>“At six the next morning Paccard awoke
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>
+me. ‘It’s strange, Balmat,’ he said, ‘I hear
+the birds singing, and don’t see the daylight.
+I suppose I can’t open my eyes.’ Observe
+that his eyes were as wide open as the Grand
+Duke’s. I told him he must be mistaken, and
+could see quite well. Then he asked me to
+give him a little snow, melted it in the hollow
+of his hand, and rubbed his eyelids with it.
+When this was done, he could see no better
+than before; only his eyes hurt him a great
+deal more. ‘Come now, it seems that I am
+blind, Balmat. How am I to get down?’ he
+continued. ‘Take hold of the strap of my
+knapsack and walk behind me; that’s what
+you must do.’ And in this style we came
+down, and reached the village of La Côte.
+There, as I feared that my wife would be
+uneasy about me, I left the doctor, who
+found his way home by fumbling with his
+stick, and returned to my own house. Then,
+for the first time, I saw what I looked like.
+I was unrecognisable. My eyes were red; my
+face was black; my lips were blue. Whenever
+I laughed or yawned, the blood spurted from
+my lips and cheeks; and I could only see in
+a dark room.”</p>
+
+<p>“‘And did Dr. Paccard continue blind?’
+‘Blind, indeed! He died eleven months ago,
+at the age of seventy-nine, and could still
+read without spectacles. Only his eyes were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span>
+diabolically red.’ ‘As the consequence of his
+ascent?’ ‘Not a bit of it.’ ‘Why, then?’
+‘The old boy was a bit of a tippler.’ And
+so saying Jacques Balmat emptied his third
+bottle.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The last touch is worthy of Dumas; and the
+whole story is told in the Ercles vein. As
+literature it is none the worse for that. It
+was a magnificent achievement; and we can
+pardon the vanity of the old guide looking
+back on the greatest moment of his life. But
+as history the interview is of little value.
+The combination of Dumas and Balmat was
+a trifle too strong for what Clough calls “the
+mere it was.” The dramatic unities tempt one
+to leave Balmat, emptying his third bottle,
+and to allow the merry epic to stand unchallenged.
+But the importance of this first
+ascent forces one to sacrifice romance for the
+sober facts.</p>
+
+<p>The truth about that first ascent had to
+wait more than a hundred years. The final
+solution is due, in the main, to three men,
+Dr. Dübi (the famous Swiss mountaineer),
+Mr. Freshfield, and Mr. Montagnier. Dr.
+Dübi’s book, <i>Paccard wider Balmat, oder Die
+Entwicklung einer Legende</i>, gives the last word
+on this famous case. For a convenient summary
+of Dr. Dübi’s arguments, the reader
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span>
+should consult Mr. Freshfield’s excellent review
+of his book that appeared in the <i>Alpine
+Journal</i> for May 1913. The essential facts are
+as follows. Dr. Dübi has been enabled to
+produce a diary of an eye-witness of the great
+ascent. A distinguished German traveller,
+Baron von Gersdorf, watched Balmat and
+Paccard through a telescope, made careful
+notes, illustrated by diagrams of the route,
+and, at the request of Paccard’s father, a
+notary of Chamounix, signed, with his friend
+Von Meyer, a certificate of what he had seen.
+This certificate is still preserved at Chamounix,
+and Von Gersdorf’s diary and correspondence
+have recently been discovered at Görlitz.
+Here is the vital sentence in his diary, as
+translated by Mr. Freshfield: “They started
+again [from the Petits Rochers Rouges], at
+5.45 p.m., halted for a moment about every
+hundred yards, <i>changed occasionally the leadership</i>
+[the italics are mine], at 6.12 p.m. gained
+two rocks protruding from the snow, and at
+6.23 p.m. were on the actual summit.” The
+words italicised prove that Balmat did not
+lead throughout. The remainder of the
+sentence shows that Balmat was not the first
+to arrive on the summit, and that the whole
+fabric of the Dumas legend is entirely false.</p>
+
+<p>But Dumas was not alone responsible for
+the Balmat myth. This famous fiction was,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>
+in the main, due to a well-known Alpine character,
+whom we have dealt with at length in
+our third chapter. The reader may remember
+that Bourrit’s enthusiasm for mountaineering
+was only equalled by his lack of success. We
+have seen that Bourrit had set his heart on
+the conquest of Mont Blanc, and that Bourrit
+failed in this ambition, both before, and after
+Balmat’s ascent. In many ways, Bourrit was
+a great man. He was fired with an undaunted
+enthusiasm for the Alps at a time when such
+enthusiasm was the hall-mark of a select
+circle. He justly earned his title, the Historian
+of the Alps; and in his earlier years he was
+by no means ungenerous to more fortunate
+climbers. But this great failing, an inordinate
+vanity, grew with years. He could just
+manage to forgive Balmat, for Balmat was a
+guide; but Paccard, the amateur, had committed
+the unforgivable offence.</p>
+
+<p>It was no use pretending that Paccard had
+not climbed Mont Blanc, for Paccard had been
+seen on the summit. Bourrit took the only
+available course. He was determined to
+injure Paccard’s prospects of finding subscribers
+for a work which the doctor proposed
+to publish, dealing with his famous climb.
+With this in view, Bourrit wrote the notorious
+letter of September 20, 1786, which first
+appeared as a pamphlet, and was later published
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>
+in several papers. We need not reproduce
+the letter. The main points which
+Bourrit endeavoured to make were that the
+doctor failed at the critical stage of the
+ascent, that Balmat left him, reached the top,
+and returned to insist on Paccard dragging
+himself somehow to the summit; that Paccard
+wished to exploit Balmat’s achievements, and
+was posing as the conqueror of Mont Blanc;
+that, with this in view, he was appealing for
+subscribers for a book, in which, presumably,
+Balmat would be ignored, while poor Balmat,
+a simple peasant, who knew nothing of Press
+advertisement, would lose the glory that was
+his just meed. It was a touching picture;
+and we, who know the real Balmat as a genial
+<i>blageur</i>, may smile gently when we hear him
+described as <i>le pauvre Balmat à qui l’on
+doit cette découverte reste presque ignoré, et
+ignore qu’il y ait des journalistes, des journaux,
+et que l’on puisse par le moyen de ces trompettes
+littéraires obtenir du Public une sorte d’admiration</i>.
+De Saussure, who from the first gave
+Paccard due credit for his share in the climb,
+seems to have warned Bourrit that he was
+making a fool of himself. Bourrit appears to
+have been impressed, for he added a postscript
+in which he toned down some of his remarks,
+and conceded grudgingly that Paccard’s share
+in the ascent was, perhaps, larger than he had
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>
+at first imagined. But this relapse into decent
+behaviour did not survive an anonymous reply
+to his original pamphlet which appeared in
+the <i>Journal de Lausanne</i>, on February 24,
+1787. This reply gave Paccard’s story, and
+stung Bourrit into a reply which was nothing
+better than a malicious falsehood. “Balmat’s
+story,” he wrote, “seems very natural ...
+and is further confirmed by an eye-witness,
+M. le Baron de Gersdorf, who watched the
+climbers through his glasses; and this stranger
+was so shocked by the indifference (to use
+no stronger word) shown by M. Paccard to
+his companion that he reprinted my letter in
+his own country, in order to start a subscription
+in favour of poor Balmat.”</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, we now know what Gersdorf
+saw through his glasses, and we also know
+that Gersdorf wrote immediately to Paccard,
+“disclaiming altogether the motive assigned
+for his action in raising a subscription.”
+Paccard was fortunately able to publish two
+very effective replies to this spiteful attack.
+In the <i>Journal de Lausanne</i> for May 18 he
+reproduced two affidavits by Balmat, both
+properly attested. These ascribe to Paccard
+the honour of planning the expedition, and
+his full share of the work, and also state that
+Balmat had been paid for acting as guide.
+The first of these documents has disappeared.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span>
+The second, which is entirely in Balmat’s handwriting,
+is still in existence. Balmat, later in
+life, made some ridiculous attempt to suggest
+that he had signed a blank piece of paper;
+but the fact that even Bourrit seems to have
+considered this statement a trifle too absurd
+to quote is in itself enough to render such
+a protest negligible. Besides, Balmat was
+shrewd enough not to swear before witnesses
+to a document which he had never seen. It
+is almost pleasant to record that a dispute
+between the doctor and Balmat, in the high
+street of Chamounix, resulted in Balmat
+receiving a well-merited blow on his nose
+from the doctor’s umbrella, which laid him
+in the dust. It is in some ways a pity that
+Dumas did not meet Paccard. The incident
+of the umbrella might then have been worked
+up to the proper epic proportions.</p>
+
+<p>This much we may now regard as proved.
+Paccard took at least an equal share in the
+great expedition. Balmat was engaged as a
+guide, and was paid as such. The credit for
+the climb must be divided between these two
+men; and the discredit of causing strained
+relations between them must be assigned to
+Bourrit. Meanwhile, it is worth adding that
+the traditions of the De Saussure family are
+all in favour of Balmat. De Saussure’s
+grandson stated that Balmat’s sole object in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span>
+climbing Mont Blanc was the hope of pecuniary
+gain. He even added that the main reason
+for his final attempt with Paccard was that
+Paccard, being an amateur, would not claim
+half the reward promised by De Saussure.
+As to Paccard, “everything we know of him,”
+writes Mr. Freshfield, “is to his credit.” His
+scientific attainments were undoubtedly insignificant
+compared to a Bonnet or a De
+Saussure. Yet he was a member of the
+Academy of Turin, he contributed articles
+to a scientific periodical published in Paris,
+he corresponded with De Saussure about his
+barometrical observations. He is described by
+a visitor to Chamounix, in 1788, in the following
+terms: “We also visited Dr. Paccard,
+who gave us a very plain and modest account
+of his ascent of Mont Blanc, for which bold
+undertaking he does not seem to assume to
+himself any particular merit, but asserts that
+any one with like physical powers could have
+performed the task equally well.” De Saussure’s
+grandson, who has been quoted against
+Balmat, is equally emphatic in his approval
+of Paccard. Finally, both Dr. Dübi and
+Mr. Freshfield agree that, as regards the
+discovery of the route: “Paccard came first
+into the field, and was the more enterprising
+of the two.”</p>
+
+<p>Bourrit, by the way, had not even the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>
+decency to be consistent. He spoiled, as we
+have seen, poor Paccard’s chances of obtaining
+subscribers for his book, and, later in life, he
+quarrelled with Balmat. Von Gersdorf had
+started a collection for Balmat, and part of
+the money had to pass through Bourrit’s
+hands. A great deal of it remained there.
+Bourrit seems to have been temporarily inconvenienced.
+We need not believe that he had
+any intention of retaining the money permanently,
+but Balmat was certainly justified in
+complaining to Von Gersdorf. Bourrit received
+a sharp letter from Von Gersdorf, and
+never forgave Balmat. In one of his later
+books, he reversed his earlier judgment and
+pronounced in favour of Paccard.</p>
+
+<p>Bourrit discredited himself by the Mont
+Blanc episode with the more discerning of his
+contemporaries. De Saussure seems to have
+written him down, judging by the traditions
+that have survived in his family. Wyttenbach,
+a famous Bernese savant, is even more
+emphatic. “All who know him realise Bourrit
+to be a conceited toad, a flighty fool, a
+bombastic swaggerer.” Mr. Freshfield, however,
+quotes a kinder and more discriminating
+criticism by the celebrated Bonnet, ending
+with the words: <i>Il faut, néanmoins, lui tenir
+compte de son ardeur et de son courage.</i>
+“With these words,” says Mr. Freshfield,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>
+“let us leave ‘notre Bourrit’; for by his
+passion for the mountains he remains one
+of us.”</p>
+
+<p>Poor Bourrit! It is with real regret that
+one chronicles the old precentor’s lapses.
+Unfortunately, every age has its Bourrit, but
+it is only fair to remember that Bourrit often
+showed a very generous appreciation of other
+climbers. He could not quite forgive Paccard.
+Let us remember his passion for the snows.
+Let us forget the rest.</p>
+
+<p>It is pleasant to record that De Saussure’s
+old ambition was gratified, and that he
+succeeded in reaching the summit of Mont
+Blanc in July 1787. Nor is this his only great
+expedition. He camped out for a fortnight
+on the Col de Géant, a remarkable performance.
+He visited Zermatt, then in a very uncivilised
+condition, and made the first ascent of the
+Petit Mont Cervin. He died in 1799.</p>
+
+<p>As for Balmat, he became a guide, and in
+this capacity earned a very fair income.
+Having accumulated some capital, he cast
+about for a profitable investment. Two perfect
+strangers, whom he met on the high road,
+solved his difficulty in a manner highly satisfactory
+as far as they were concerned. They
+assured him that they were bankers, and
+that they would pay him five per cent. on his
+capital. The first of these statements may
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>
+have been true, the second was false. He
+did not see the bankers or his capital again.
+Shortly after this initiation into high finance,
+he left Chamounix to search for a mythical
+gold-mine among the glaciers of the valley
+of Sixt. He disappeared and was never seen
+again. He left a family of four sons, two of
+whom were killed in the Napoleonic wars.
+His great-nephew became the favourite guide
+of Mr. Justice Wills, with whom he climbed
+the Wetterhorn.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br />
+
+<span class="large">MONTE ROSA AND THE BÜNDNER OBERLAND</span></h2>
+
+<p>The conquest of Mont Blanc was the most
+important mountaineering achievement of the
+period; but good work was also being done
+in other parts of the Alps. Monte Rosa, as
+we soon shall see, had already attracted the
+adventurous, and the Bündner Oberland gave
+one great name to the story of Alpine adventure.
+We have already noted the important
+part played by priests in the conquest of the
+Alps; and Catholic mountaineers may well
+honour the memory of Placidus à Spescha as
+one of the greatest of the climbing priesthood.</p>
+
+<p>Father Placidus was born in 1782 at Truns.
+As a boy he joined the Friars of Disentis, and
+after completing his education at Einsiedeln,
+where he made good use of an excellent
+library, returned again to Disentis. As a
+small boy, he had tended his father’s flocks
+and acquired a passionate love for the
+mountains of his native valley. As a monk,
+he resumed the hill wanderings, which he
+continued almost to the close of a long life.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span></p>
+
+<p>He was an unfortunate man. The French
+Revolution made itself felt in Graubünden;
+and with the destruction of the monastery
+all his notes and manuscripts were burned.
+When the Austrians ousted the French, he was
+even more luckless; as a result of a sermon
+on the text “Put not your trust in princes”
+he was imprisoned in Innsbruck for eighteen
+months. He came back only to be persecuted
+afresh. Throughout his life, his wide learning
+and tolerant outlook invited the suspicion of
+the envious and narrow-minded; and on his
+return to Graubünden he was accused of
+heresy. His books and his manuscripts were
+confiscated, and he was forbidden to climb.
+After a succession of troubled years, he returned
+to Truns; and though he had passed his
+seventieth year he still continued to climb.
+As late as 1824, he made two attempts on the
+Tödi. On his last attempt, he reached a gap,
+now known as the Porta da Spescha, less than
+a thousand feet below the summit; and from
+this point he watched, with mixed feelings,
+the two chamois hunters he had sent forward
+reach the summit. He died at the age of
+eighty-two. One wishes that he had attained
+in person his great ambition, the conquest of
+the Tödi; but, even though he failed on this
+outstanding peak, he had several good performances
+to his credit, amongst others the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span>
+first ascent of the Stockgron (11,411 feet) in
+1788, the Rheinwaldhorn (11,148 feet) in
+1789, the Piz Urlaun (11,063 feet) in 1793, and
+numerous other important climbs.</p>
+
+<p>His list of ascents is long, and proves a
+constant devotion to the hills amongst which
+he passed the happiest hours of an unhappy
+life. “Placidus à Spescha”&mdash;there was little
+placid in his life save the cheerful resignation
+with which he faced the buffetings of fortune.
+He was a learned and broad-minded man; and
+the mountains, with their quiet sanity, seem
+to have helped him to bear constant vexation
+caused by small-minded persons. These suspicions
+of heresy must have proved very
+wearisome to “the mountaineer who missed
+his way and strayed into the Priesthood.” He
+must have felt that his opponents were,
+perhaps, justified, that the mountains had
+given him an interpretation of his beliefs that
+was, perhaps, wider than the creed of Rome,
+and that he himself had found a saner outlook
+in those temples of a larger faith to which he
+lifted up his eyes for help. As a relief from
+a hostile and unsympathetic atmosphere, let
+us hope that he discovered some restful
+anodyne among the tranquil broadness of the
+upper snows. The fatigue and difficulties of
+long mountain tramps exhaust the mind, to
+the exclusion of those little cares which seem
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span>
+so great in the artificial life of the valley.
+Certainly, the serene indifference of the hills
+found a response in the quiet philosophy of his
+life. Very little remains of all that he must
+have written, very little&mdash;only a few words,
+in which he summed up the convictions which
+life had given him. “When I carefully consider
+the fortune and ill-fortune that have
+befallen me, I have difficulty in determining
+which of the two has been the more profitable
+since a man without trials is a man without
+experience, and such a one is without insight&mdash;<i>vexatio
+dat intellectum</i>.” A brave confession
+of a good faith, and in his case no vain
+utterance, but the sincere summary of a
+philosophy which coloured his whole outlook
+on life.</p>
+
+<p>The early history of Monte Rosa has an
+appeal even stronger than the story of Mont
+Blanc. It begins with the Renaissance. From
+the hills around Milan, Leonardo da Vinci had
+seen the faint flush of dawn on Monte Rosa
+beyond&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">A thousand shadowy pencilled valleys<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And snowy dells in a golden air.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The elusive vision had provoked his restless,
+untiring spirit to search out the secrets of
+Monte Rosa. The results of that expedition
+have already been noticed.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span></p>
+
+<p>After Da Vinci there is a long gap.
+Scheuchzer had heard of Monte Rosa, but
+contents himself with the illuminating remark
+that “a stiff accumulation of perpetual ice is
+attached to it.” De Saussure visited Macunagna
+in 1789, but disliked the inhabitants
+and complained of their inhospitality. He
+passed on, after climbing an unimportant
+snow peak, the Pizzo Bianco (10,552 feet).
+His story is chiefly interesting for an allusion
+to one of the finest of the early Alpine expeditions.
+In recent years, a manuscript containing
+a detailed account of this climb has
+come to light, and supplements the vague
+story which De Saussure had heard.</p>
+
+<p>Long ago, in the Italian valleys of Monte
+Rosa, there was a legend of a happy valley,
+hidden away between the glaciers of the great
+chain. In this secret and magic vale, the
+flowers bloomed even in winter, and the
+chamois found grazing when less happy
+pastures were buried by the snow. So ran
+the tale, which the mothers of Alagna and
+Gressoney told to their children. The discovery
+of the happy valley was due to Jean
+Joseph Beck. Beck was a domestic servant
+with the soul of a pioneer, and the organising
+talent that makes for success. He had heard
+a rumour that a few men from Alagna had
+determined to find the valley. Beck was a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>
+Gressoney man; and he determined that
+Gressoney should have the honour of the
+discovery. Again and again, in Alpine history,
+we find this rivalry between adjoining
+valleys acting as an incentive of great ascents.
+Beck collected a large party, including “a
+man of learning,” by name Finzens (Vincent).
+With due secrecy, they set out on a Sunday
+of August 1788.</p>
+
+<p>They started from their sleeping places at
+midnight, and roped carefully. They had
+furnished themselves with climbing irons and
+alpenstocks. They suffered from mountain
+sickness and loss of appetite, but pluckily
+determined to proceed. At the head of the
+glacier, they “encountered a slope of rock
+devoid of snow,” which they climbed. “It
+was twelve o’clock. Hardly had we got to
+the summit of the rock than we saw a grand&mdash;an
+amazing&mdash;spectacle. We sat down to contemplate
+at our leisure the lost valley, which
+seemed to us to be entirely covered with
+glaciers. We examined it carefully, but could
+not satisfy ourselves that it was the unknown
+valley, seeing that none of us had ever been
+in the Vallais.” The valley, in fact, was none
+other than the valley of Zermatt, and the pass,
+which these early explorers had reached, was
+the Lysjoch, where, to this day, the rock on
+which they rested bears the appropriate name
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>
+that they gave it, “The Rock of Discovery.”
+Beck’s party thus reached a height of 14,000
+feet, a record till Balmat beat them on Mont
+Blanc.</p>
+
+<p>The whole story is alive with the undying
+romance that still haunts the skyline whose
+secrets we know too well. The Siegfried
+map has driven the happy valley further
+afield. In other ranges, still uncharted, we
+must search for the reward of those that cross
+the great divides between the known and the
+unknown, and gaze down from the portals
+of a virgin pass on to glaciers no man has
+trodden, and valleys that no stranger has
+seen. And yet, for the true mountaineer
+every pass is a discovery, and the happy
+valley beyond the hills still lives as the embodiment
+of the child’s dream. All exploration,
+it is said, is due to the two primitive instincts
+of childhood, the desire to look over the edge,
+and the desire to look round the corner. And
+so we can share the thrill that drove that
+little band up to the Rock of Discovery. We
+know that, through the long upward toiling,
+their eyes must ever have been fixed on the
+curve of the pass, slung between the guarding
+hills, the skyline which held the great secret
+they hoped to solve. We can realise the last
+moments of breathless suspense as their
+shoulders were thrust above the dividing wall,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>
+and the ground fell away from their feet to
+the valley of desire. In a sense, we all have
+known moments such as this; we have felt
+the “intense desire to see if the Happy Valley
+may not lie just round the corner.”</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-three years after this memorable
+expedition, Monte Rosa was the scene of one
+of the most daring first ascents in Alpine
+history. Dr. Pietro Giordani of Alagna made
+a solitary ascent of the virgin summit which
+still bears his name. The Punta Giordani
+is one of the minor summits of the Monte Rosa
+chain, and rises to the respectable height of
+13,304 feet. Giordani’s ascent is another
+proof, if proof were needed, that the early
+climbers were, in many ways, as adventurous
+as the modern mountaineer. We find Balmat
+making a series of solitary attempts on Mont
+Blanc, and cheerfully sleeping out, alone, on
+the higher snowfields. Giordani climbs, without
+companions, a virgin peak; and another
+early hero of Monte Rosa, of whom we shall
+speak in due course, spent a night in a cleft of
+ice, at a height of 14,000 feet. Giordani, by
+the way, indited a letter to a friend from the
+summit of his peak. He begins by remarking
+that a sloping piece of granite serves him for
+a table, a block of blue ice for a seat. After
+an eloquent description of the view, he expresses
+his annoyance at the lack of scientific
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>
+instruments, and the lateness of the hour
+which alone prevented him&mdash;as he believed&mdash;from
+ascending Monte Rosa itself.</p>
+
+<p>Giordani’s ascent closes the early history
+of Monte Rosa; but we cannot leave Monte
+Rosa without mention of some of the men who
+played an important part in its conquest.
+Monte Rosa, it should be explained, is not a
+single peak, but a cluster of ten summits of
+which the Dufour Spitze is the highest point
+(15,217 feet). Of these, the Punta Giordani
+was the first, and the Dufour Spitze the last,
+to be climbed. In 1817, Dr. Parrott made the
+first ascent of the Parrott Spitze (12,643 feet);
+and two years later the Vincent Pyramid
+(13,829) was climbed by a son of that Vincent
+who had been taken on Beck’s expedition
+because he was “a man of learning.” Dr.
+Parrott, it might be remarked in passing, was
+the first man to reach the summit of Ararat,
+as Noah cannot be credited with having
+reached a higher point than the gap between
+the greater and the lesser Ararat.</p>
+
+<p>But of all the names associated with pioneer
+work on Monte Rosa that of Zumstein is the
+greatest. He made five attempts to reach
+the highest point of the group, and succeeded
+in climbing the Zumstein Spitze (15,004 feet)
+which still bears his name. He had numerous
+adventures on Monte Rosa, and as we have
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>
+already seen, spent one night in a crevasse, at
+a height of 14,000 feet. He became quite a
+local celebrity, and is mentioned as such by
+Prof. Forbes and Mr. King in their respective
+books. His great ascent of the Zumstein
+Spitze was made in 1820, thirty-five years
+before the conquest of the highest point of
+Monte Rosa.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br />
+
+<span class="large">TIROL AND THE OBERLAND</span></h2>
+
+<p>The story of Monte Rosa has forced us to
+anticipate the chronological order of events.
+We must now turn back, and follow the
+fortunes of the men whose names are linked
+with the great peaks of Tirol<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">2</a> and of the
+Oberland. Let us recapitulate the most important
+dates in the history of mountaineering
+before the opening of the nineteenth
+century. Such dates are 1760, which saw the
+beginning of serious mountaineering, with the
+ascent of the Titlis; 1778, which witnessed
+Beck’s fine expedition to the Lysjoch; 1779,
+the year in which the Velan, and 1786, the
+year in which Mont Blanc, were climbed. The
+last year of the century saw the conquest of
+the Gross Glockner, one of the giants of Tirol.</p>
+
+<p>The Glockner has the distinction of being
+the only great mountain first climbed by a
+Bishop. Its conquest was the work of a jovial
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>
+ecclesiastic, by name and style Franz Altgraf
+von Salm-Reifferscheid Krantheim, Bishop of
+Gurk, hereinafter termed&mdash;quite simply&mdash;Salm.
+Bishop Salm had no motive but the
+fun of a climb. He was not a scientist, and
+he was not interested in the temperature at
+which water boiled above the snow line,
+provided only that it boiled sufficiently
+quickly to provide him with hot drinks and
+shaving water. He was a most luxurious
+climber, and before starting for the Glockner
+he had a magnificent hut built to accommodate
+the party, and a <i>chef</i> conveyed from
+the episcopal palace to feed them. They
+were weather-bound for three days in these
+very comfortable quarters; but the <i>chef</i>
+proved equal to the demands on his talent.
+An enthusiastic climber compared the dinners
+to those which he had enjoyed when staying
+with the Bishop at Gurk. There were eleven
+amateurs and nineteen guides and porters in
+the party. Their first attempt was foiled
+by bad weather. On August 25, 1799, they
+reached the summit, erected a cross, and disposed
+of several bottles of wine. They then
+discovered that their triumph was a trifle
+premature. The Glockner consists of two
+summits separated by a narrow ridge. They
+had climbed the lower; the real summit was
+still 112 feet above them. Next year the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span>
+mistake was rectified; but, though the Bishop
+was one of the party, he did not himself reach
+the highest point till a few years later.</p>
+
+<p>Four years after the Glockner had been
+climbed, the giant of Tirol and the Eastern
+Alps was overcome. The conquest of the
+Ortler was due to a romantic fancy of Archduke
+John. Just as Charles VII of France
+deputed his Chamberlain to climb Mont
+Aiguille, so the Archduke (who, by the way,
+was the son of the Emperor Leopold II, and
+brother of Francis II, last of the Holy Roman
+emperors) deputed Gebhard, a member of
+his suite, to climb the Ortler. Gebhard made
+several attempts without success. Finally,
+a chamois hunter of the Passeierthal, by
+name Joseph Pichler, introduced himself to
+Gebhard, and made the ascent from Trafoi
+on September 28, 1804. Next year Gebhard
+himself reached the summit, and took a
+reading of the height by a barometer. The
+result showed that the Ortler was higher than
+the Glockner&mdash;a discovery which caused great
+joy. Its actual height is, as a matter of fact,
+12,802 feet. But the ascent of the Ortler
+was long in achieving the popularity that it
+deserved. Whereas the Glockner was climbed
+about seventy times before 1860, the Ortler
+was only climbed twice between Gebhard’s
+ascent and the ascent by the Brothers Buxton
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span>
+and Mr. Tuckett, in 1864. Archduke John,
+who inspired the first ascent, made an unsuccessful
+attempt (this time in person) on the
+Gross Venediger, another great Tyrolese peak.
+He was defeated, and the mountain was not
+finally vanquished till 1841.</p>
+
+<p>The scene now changes to the Oberland.
+Nothing much had been accomplished in the
+Oberland before the opening years of the
+nineteenth century. A few passes, the Petersgrat,
+Oberaarjoch, Tschingel, and Gauli, had
+been crossed; but the only snow peaks whose
+ascent was undoubtedly accomplished were
+the Handgendgletscherhorn (10,806 feet) and
+a peak whose identification is difficult. These
+were climbed in 1788 by a man called Müller,
+who was engaged in surveying for Weiss. His
+map was a very brilliant achievement, considering
+the date at which it appeared. The
+expenses had been defrayed by a rich merchant
+of Aarau, Johann Rudolph Meyer, whose sons
+were destined to play an important part in
+Alpine exploration. J. R. Meyer had climbed
+the Titlis, and one of his sons made one of the
+first glacier pass expeditions in the Oberland,
+crossing the Tschingel in 1790.</p>
+
+<p>J. R. Meyer’s two sons, Johann Rudolph
+the second and Hieronymus, were responsible
+for some of the finest pioneer work in the
+story of mountaineering. In 1811 they made
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span>
+the first crossing of the Beich pass, the Lötschenlücke,
+and the first ascent of the
+Jungfrau. As was inevitable, their story
+was disbelieved. To dispel all doubt, another
+expedition was undertaken in the following
+year. On this expedition the leaders were
+Rudolph and Gottlieb Meyer, sons of J. R.
+Meyer the second (the conqueror of the
+Jungfrau), and grandsons of J. R. Meyer the
+first. The two Meyers separated after crossing
+the Oberaarjoch. Gottlieb crossed the Grünhornlücke,
+and bivouacked near the site of
+the present Concordia Inn. Rudolph made
+his classical attempt on the Finsteraarhorn,
+and rejoined Gottlieb. Next day Gottlieb
+made the second ascent of the Jungfrau and
+Rudolph forced the first indisputable crossing
+of the Strahlegg pass from the Unteraar
+glacier to Grindelwald.</p>
+
+<p>To return to Rudolph’s famous attempt on
+the Finsteraarhorn. Rudolph, as we have
+seen, separated from his brother Gottlieb
+near the Oberaarjoch. Rudolph, who was
+only twenty-one at the time, took with him
+two Valaisian hunters, by name Alois Volker
+and Joseph Bortis, a Melchthal “porter,”
+Arnold Abbühl, and a Hasle man. Abbühl
+was not a porter as we understand the word,
+but a <i>knecht</i>, or servant, of a small inn. He
+played the leading part in this climb. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span>
+party bivouacked on the depression known as
+the Rothhornsattel, and left it next morning
+when the sun had already struck the higher
+summits, probably about 5 a.m. They descended
+to the Studerfirn, and shortly before
+reaching the Ober Studerjoch started to climb
+the great eastern face of the Finsteraarhorn.
+After six hours, they reached the crest of the
+ridge. Meyer could go no further, and remained
+where he was; while the guides
+proceeded and, according to the accounts
+which have come down to us, reached the
+summit.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Farrar has summed up all the
+available evidence in <i>The Alpine Journal</i> for
+August 1913. The first climber who attempted
+to repeat the ascent was the well-known
+scientist Hugi. He was led by the same
+Arnold Abbühl, who, as already stated, took a
+prominent part in Meyer’s expedition. Abbühl,
+however, not only failed to identify the highest
+peak from the Rothhornsattel, but, on being
+pressed, admitted that he had never reached
+the summit at all. In 1830, Hugi published
+these facts and Meyer, indignant at the implied
+challenge to his veracity, promised to produce
+further testimony. But there the matter
+dropped. Captain Farrar summarises the
+situation with convincing thoroughness.</p>
+
+<p>“What was the situation in 1812? We
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>
+have an enthusiastic ingenuous youth attempting
+an ascent the like of which in point of
+difficulty had at that time never been, nor
+was for nearly fifty years after, attempted.
+He reaches a point on the arête without any
+great difficulty; and there he remains, too
+tired to proceed. About this portion of the
+ascent, there is, save as to the precise point
+gained, no question; and it is of this portion
+alone Meyer is a first-hand witness. Three
+of his guides go on, and return to him after
+many hours with the statement that they had
+reached the summit, or that is what he understands.
+I shall examine later this point.
+But is it not perfectly natural that Meyer
+should accept their statement, that he should
+swallow with avidity their claim to have
+reached the goal of all his labours? He had,
+as I shall show later, no reason to doubt them;
+and, doubtless, he remained firm in his belief
+until Hugi’s book appeared many years after.
+At once, he is up in arms at Hugi’s questioning,
+as he thinks, his own statements and his
+guides’ claims. He pens his reply quoted
+above, promises to publish his MS. and hopes
+to produce testimony in support. Then comes
+Hugi’s reply, and Meyer realises that his own
+personal share in the expedition is not
+questioned; but he sees that he may after all
+have been misled by, or have misunderstood,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span>
+his guides, and he is faced with the reported
+emphatic denial of his leading guide, who was
+at that time still living, and could have been
+referred to. It may be said that he wrote to
+Abbühl for the ‘testimony,’ and failed to
+elicit a satisfactory reply. Thrown into
+hopeless doubt, all the stronger because his
+belief in his guide’s statement had been firmly
+implanted in his mind all these nineteen years,
+is it to be wondered at that he lets the matter
+drop? He finds himself unable to get any
+testimony, and realises that the publication
+of his MS. will not supply any more reliable
+evidence. One can easily picture the disenchanted
+man putting the whole matter
+aside in sheer despair of ever arriving at the
+truth.”</p>
+
+<p>We have no space to follow Captain Farrar’s
+arguments. They do not seem to leave a
+shadow of doubt. At the same time, Captain
+Farrar acquits the party of any deliberate
+intention to deceive, and admits that their
+ascent of the secondary summit of the Finsteraarhorn
+was a very fine performance. It
+is noteworthy that many of the great peaks
+have been attempted, and some actually
+climbed for the first time, by an unnecessarily
+difficult route. The Matterhorn was assailed
+for years by the difficult Italian arête, before
+the easy Swiss route was discovered. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>
+south-east route, which Meyer’s party attempted,
+still remains under certain conditions,
+a difficult rock climb, which may not unfitly
+be compared in part with the Italian ridge of
+the Matterhorn. The ordinary west ridge
+presents no real difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>The first complete ascent of the Finsteraarhorn
+was made on August 10, 1829, by Hugi’s
+two guides, Jakob Leuthold and Joh. Wahren.
+Hugi remained behind, 200 feet below the
+summit. The Hugisattel still commemorates
+a pioneer of this great peak.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the Meyers. They deserve
+a high place in the history of exploration.
+“It has often seemed to me,” writes Captain
+Farrar, “that the craft of mountaineering,
+and even more the art of mountaineering
+description, distinctly retrograded for over
+fifty years after these great expeditions of the
+Meyers. It is not until the early ’sixties that
+rocks of equal difficulty are again attacked.
+Even then&mdash;witness Almer’s opinion as to
+the inaccessibility of the Matterhorn&mdash;men
+had not yet learned the axiom, which Alexander
+Burgener was the first, certainly by
+practice rather than by explicit enunciation,
+to lay down, viz. that the practicability of
+rocks is only decided by actual contact.
+Meyer’s guides had a glimmering of this. It
+is again not until the ’sixties that Meyer’s calm
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span>
+yet vivid descriptions of actualities are surpassed
+by those brilliant articles of Stephen,
+of Moore, of Tuckett, and by Whymper’s
+great ‘Scrambles’ that are the glory of
+English mountaineering.”</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps the greatest name associated
+with this period is that of the great scientist,
+Agassiz. Agassiz is a striking example of the
+possibilities of courage and a lively faith. He
+never had any money; and yet he invariably
+lived as if he possessed a comfortable competence.
+“I have no time for making
+money,” is one of his sayings that have
+become famous. He was a native of Orbe,
+a beautiful town in the Jura. His father was
+a pastor, and the young Agassiz was intended
+for the medical profession. He took the
+medical degree, but remained steadfast in his
+determination to become, as he told his father,
+“the first naturalist of his time.” Humboldt
+and Cuvier soon discovered his powers; in
+due time he became a professor at Neuchâtel.
+He married on eighty louis a year; but money
+difficulties never depressed him. As a boy
+of twenty, earning the princely sum of fifty
+pounds a year, he maintained a secretary in
+his employment, a luxury which he never
+denied himself. Usually he maintained two
+or three. At Neuchâtel, his income eventually
+increased to £125 a year. On this, he kept
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>
+up an academy of natural history, a museum,
+a staff of secretaries and assistants, a lithographic
+and printing plant, and a wife. His
+wife, by the way, was a German lady; and
+it is not surprising that her chief quarrel with
+life was a lack of money for household expenses.
+The naturalist, who had no time for making
+money, spent what little he had on the
+necessities of his existence, such as printing
+presses and secretaries, and left the luxuries
+of the larder to take care of themselves. His
+family helped him with loans, “at first,” we
+are told, “with pleasure, but afterwards with
+some reluctance.” Humboldt also advanced
+small sums. “I was pleased to remain a
+debtor to Humboldt,” writes Agassiz, a sentiment
+which probably awakens more sympathy
+in the heart of the average undergraduate
+than it did in the bosom of Humboldt.</p>
+
+<p>A holiday which Agassiz spent with another
+great naturalist, Charpentier, was indirectly
+responsible for the beginnings of the glacial
+theory. Throughout Switzerland, you may
+find huge boulders known as erratic blocks.
+These blocks have a different geological
+ancestry from the rocks in the immediate
+neighbourhood. They did not grow like
+mushrooms, and they must therefore have
+been carried to their present position by some
+outside agency. In the eighteenth century,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>
+naturalists solved all these questions by <i>a
+priori</i> theories, proved by quotations from
+the book of Genesis. The Flood was a
+favourite solution, and the Flood was, therefore,
+invoked to solve the riddle of erratic
+blocks. By the time that Agassiz had begun
+his great work, the Flood was, however,
+becoming discredited, and its reputed operations
+were being driven further afield.</p>
+
+<p>The discovery of the true solution was due,
+not to a scientist, but to a simple chamois
+hunter, named Perrandier. He knew no
+geology, but he could draw obvious conclusions
+from straightforward data without
+invoking the Flood. He had seen these
+blocks on glaciers, and he had seen them many
+miles away from glaciers. He made the only
+possible deduction&mdash;that glaciers must, at
+some time, have covered the whole of Switzerland.
+Perrandier expounded his views to a
+civil engineer, by name Venetz. Venetz
+passed it on to Charpentier, and Charpentier
+converted Agassiz. Agassiz made prompt
+use of the information, so prompt that Charpentier
+accused him of stealing his ideas. He
+read a paper before the Helvetic Society, in
+which he announced his conviction that the
+earth had once been covered with a sheet of
+ice that extended from the North Pole to
+Central Asia. The scepticism with which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span>
+this was met incited Agassiz to search for
+more evidence in support of his theory. His
+best work was done in “The Hôtel des
+Neuchâtelois.” This hôtel at first consisted
+of an overhanging boulder, the entrance of
+which was screened by a blanket. The
+hôtel was built near the Grimsel on the
+medial moraine of the lower Aar glacier.
+To satisfy Mrs. Agassiz, her husband eventually
+moved into even more palatial quarters
+to wit, a rough cabin covered with canvas.
+“The outer apartment,” complains Mrs.
+Agassiz, a lady hard to please, “boasted a
+table and one or two benches; even a couple
+of chairs were kept as seats of honour for
+occasional guests. A shelf against the wall
+accommodated books, instruments, coats, etc.;
+and a plank floor on which to spread their
+blankets at night was a good exchange for the
+frozen surface of the glacier.” But the picture
+of this strange <i>ménage</i> would be incomplete
+without mention of Agassiz’s companions.
+“Agassiz and his companions” is a phrase
+that meets us at every turn of his history.
+He needed companions, partly because he
+was of a friendly and companionable nature,
+partly, no doubt, to vary the monotony of
+Mrs. Agassiz’s constant complaints, but
+mainly because his ambitious schemes were
+impossible without assistance. His work involved
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span>
+great expenditure, which he could only
+recoup in part from the scanty grants allowed
+him by scientific societies, and the patronage
+of occasional wealthy amateurs. The first
+qualification necessary in a “companion”
+was a certain indifference as to salary, and
+the usual arrangement was that Agassiz
+should provide board and lodging in the hôtel,
+and that, if his assistant were in need of
+money, Agassiz should provide some if he
+had any lying loose at the time. This at
+least was the substance of the contract
+between Agassiz, on the one hand, and
+Edouard Desor of Heidelberg University, on
+the other hand.</p>
+
+<p>Desor is perhaps the most famous of the
+little band. He was a political refugee,
+“without visible means of subsistence.” He
+was a talented young gentleman with a keen
+interest in scientific disputes, and an eye for
+what is vulgarly known as personal advertisement.
+In other words he shared the very
+human weakness of enjoying the sight of his
+name in honoured print. Another companion
+was Karl Vogt. Mrs. Agassiz had two great
+quarrels with life. The first was a shortage
+of funds, and the second was the impropriety
+of the stories exchanged between Vogt and
+Desors. Another companion was a certain
+Gressly, a gentleman whose main charm for
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>
+Agassiz consisted in the fact that, “though
+he never had any money, he never wanted
+any.” He lived with Agassiz in the winter
+as secretary. In summer he tramped the
+Jura in search of geological data. He never
+bothered about money, but was always prepared
+to exchange some good anecdotes for
+a night’s lodging. Eventually, he went mad
+and ended his days in an asylum. Yet
+another famous name, associated with Agassiz,
+is that of Dollfus-Ausset, an Alsatian of
+Mülhausen, who was born in 1797. His great
+works were two books, the first entitled
+<i>Materials for the Study of Glaciers</i>, and the
+second <i>Materials for the Dyeing of Stuffs</i>. On
+the whole, he seems to have been more
+interested in glaciers than in velvet. He
+made, with Desor, the first ascent of the
+Galenstock, and also of the most southern
+peak of the Wetterhorn, namely the Rosenhorn
+(12,110 feet). He built many observatories
+on the Aar glacier and the Theodule,
+and he was usually known as “Papa Gletscher
+Dollfus.”</p>
+
+<p>Such, then, were Agassiz’s companions.
+Humour and romance are blended in the
+picture of the strange little company that
+gathered every evening beneath the rough
+shelter of the hôtel. We see Mrs. Agassiz
+bearing with admirable resignation those inconveniences
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>
+that must have proved a very
+real sorrow to her orderly German mind.
+We see Desor and Vogt exchanging broad
+anecdotes to the indignation of the good lady;
+and we can figure the abstracted naturalist,
+utterly indifferent to his environment, and
+only occupied with the deductions that may
+be drawn from the movement of stakes driven
+into a glacier. Let me quote in conclusion
+a few words from a sympathetic appreciation
+by the late William James (<i>Memories and
+Studies</i>)&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“Agassiz was a splendid example of the
+temperament that looks forward and not
+backwards, and never wastes a moment in
+regrets for the irrevocable. I had the privilege
+of admission to his society during the
+Thayer expedition to Brazil. I well remember,
+at night, as we all swung in our hammocks,
+in the fairy like moonlight, on the deck of the
+steamer that throbbed its way up the Amazon
+between the forests guarding the stream on
+either side, how he turned and whispered,
+‘James, are you awake?’ and continued, ‘I
+cannot sleep; I am too happy; I keep thinking
+of these glorious plans.’...</p>
+
+<p>“Agassiz’s influence on methods of teaching
+in our community was prompt and decisive&mdash;all
+the more so that it struck people’s imagination
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span>
+by its very excess. The good old way of
+committing printed abstractions to memory
+seems never to have received such a shock
+as it encountered at his hands. There is
+probably no public school teacher who will
+not tell you how Agassiz used to lock a
+student up in a room full of turtle shells or
+lobster shells or oyster shells, without a book
+or word to help him, and not let him out till he
+had discovered all the truths which the objects
+contained. Some found the truths after
+weeks and months of lonely sorrow; others
+never found them. Those who found them
+were already made into naturalists thereby;
+the failures were blotted from the book of
+honour and of life. ‘Go to Nature; take the
+facts into your own hands; look and see for
+yourself’&mdash;these were the maxims which
+Agassiz preached wherever he went, and their
+effect on pedagogy was electric....</p>
+
+<p>“The only man he really loved and had use
+for was the man who could bring him facts.
+To see facts, not to argue or <i>raisonniren</i> was
+what life meant for him; and I think he often
+positively loathed the ratiocinating type of
+mind. ‘Mr. Blank, you are totally uneducated,’
+I heard him say once to a student,
+who had propounded to him some glittering
+theoretic generality. And on a similar occasion,
+he gave an admonition that must have
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span>
+sunk deep into the heart of him to whom it
+was addressed. ‘Mr. X, some people perhaps
+now consider you are a bright young man;
+but when you are fifty years old, if they ever
+speak of you then, what they will say will be
+this: “That Mr. X&mdash;oh yes, I know him;
+he used to be a very bright young man.”’
+Happy is the conceited youth who at the
+proper moment receives such salutary cold-water
+therapeutics as this, from one who in
+other respects is a kind friend.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>So much for Agassiz. It only remains to
+add that his companions were responsible
+for some fine mountaineering. During these
+years the three peaks of the Wetterhorn were
+climbed, and Desor was concerned in two of
+these successful expeditions. A far finer
+expedition was his ascent of the Lauteraarhorn,
+by Desor in 1842. This peak is connected
+with the Schreckhorn by a difficult
+ridge, and is a worthy rival to that well-known
+summit. There were a few other virgin
+climbs in this period, but the great age of
+Alpine conquest had scarcely begun.</p>
+
+<p>The connecting link between Agassiz and
+modern mountaineering is supplied by Gottlieb
+Studer, who was born in 1804, and died in
+1890. His serious climbing began in 1823,
+and continued for sixty years. He made a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>
+number of new ascents, and reopened scores
+of passes, only known to natives. Most
+mountaineers know the careful and beautiful
+panoramas which are the work of his pencil.
+He drew no less than seven hundred of these.
+His great work, <i>Ueber Eis und Schnee</i>, a
+history of Swiss climbing, is an invaluable
+authority to which most of his successors in
+this field are indebted.</p>
+
+<p>The careful reader will notice the comparative
+absence of the English in the climbs
+which we have so far described. The coming
+of the English deserves a chapter to itself.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br />
+
+<span class="large">THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH</span></h2>
+
+<p>Mountaineering, as a sport, is so often
+treated as an invention of Englishmen, that
+the real facts of its origin are unconsciously
+disguised. A commonplace error of the textbooks
+is to date sporting mountaineering
+from Mr. Justice Wills’s famous ascent of the
+Wetterhorn in 1854. The Wetterhorn has
+three peaks, and Mr. Justice Wills made
+the ascent of the summit which is usually
+climbed from Grindelwald. This peak, the
+Hasle Jungfrau, is the most difficult of the
+group but it is not the highest. In those
+early days, first ascents were not recorded
+with the punctuality and thoroughness that
+prevails to-day; and a large circle of
+mountaineers gave Mr. Justice Wills the
+credit of making the first ascent of the Hasle
+Jungfrau, or at least the first ascent from
+Grindelwald. Curiously enough, the climb,
+which is supposed to herald sporting mountaineering,
+was only the second ascent of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span>
+Grindelwald route to the summit of a peak
+which had already been climbed four times.
+The facts are as follows: Desor’s guides
+climbed the Hasle Jungfrau in 1844, and
+Desor himself followed a few days after.
+Three months before Wills’s ascent, the peak
+was twice climbed by an early English
+pioneer, Mr. Blackwell. Blackwell’s first
+ascent was by the Rosenlaui route, which
+Desor had followed, and his second, by the
+Grindelwald route, chosen by Mr. Wills. On
+the last occasion, he was beaten by a storm
+within about ten feet of the top, ten feet
+which he had climbed on the previous occasion.
+He planted a flag just under the final cornice;
+and we must give him the credit of the
+pioneer ascent from Grindelwald. Mr. Wills
+never heard of these four ascents, and believed
+that the peak was still virgin when he
+ascended it.</p>
+
+<p>It would appear, then, that the so-called
+first sporting climb has little claim to that
+distinction. What, precisely, is meant by
+“sporting” in this connection? The distinction
+seems to be drawn between those
+who climb a mountain for the sheer joy of
+adventure, and those who were primarily
+concerned with the increase of scientific
+knowledge. The distinction is important;
+but it is often forgotten that scientists, like
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>
+De Saussure, Forbes, Agassiz and Desor,
+were none the less mountaineers because they
+had an intelligent interest in the geological
+history of mountains. All these men were
+inspired by a very genuine mountaineering
+enthusiasm. Moreover, before Mr. Wills’s
+climb there had been a number of quite
+genuine sporting climbs. A few Englishmen
+had been up Mont Blanc; and, though most
+of them had been content with Mont Blanc,
+they could scarcely be accused of scientific
+inspiration. They, however, belonged to the
+“One man, one mountain, school,” and as
+such can scarcely claim to be considered as
+anything but mountaineers by accident. Yet
+Englishmen like Hill, Blackwell, and Forbes,
+had climbed mountains with some regularity
+long before Mr. Wills made his great ascent;
+and foreign mountaineers had already achieved
+a series of genuine sporting ascents. Bourrit
+was utterly indifferent to science; and
+Bourrit was, perhaps, the first man who made
+a regular practice of climbing a snow mountain
+every year. The fact that he was not often
+successful must not be allowed to discount
+his sincere enthusiasm. Before 1840, no
+Englishman had entered the ranks of regular
+mountaineers; and by that date many of
+the great Alpine monarchs had fallen. Mont
+Blanc, the outer fortresses of Monte Rosa,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>
+the Finsteraarhorn, King of the Oberland,
+the Ortler, and the Glockner, the great rivals
+of the Eastern Alps, had all been conquered.
+The reigning oligarchies of the Alps had
+bowed their heads to man.</p>
+
+<p>Let us concede what must be conceded;
+even so, we need not fear that our share in
+Alpine history will be unduly diminished.
+Mr. Wills’s ascent was none the less epoch-making
+because it was the fourth ascent of a
+second-class peak. The real value of that
+climb is this: It was one of the first climbs
+that were directly responsible for the systematic
+and brilliant campaign which was in
+the main conducted by Englishmen. Isolated
+foreign mountaineers had already done
+brilliant work, but their example did not
+give the same direct impetus. It was not
+till the English arrived that mountaineering
+became a fashionable sport; and the wide
+group of English pioneers that carried off
+almost all the great prizes of the Alps between
+1854 and the conquest of the Matterhorn in
+1865 may fairly date their invasion from
+Mr. Justice Wills’s ascent, a climb which,
+though not even a virgin ascent and by no
+means the first great climb by an Englishman,
+was none the less a landmark. Mr. Justice
+Wills’s vigorous example caught on as no
+achievement had caught on. His book, which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span>
+is full of spirited writing, made many converts
+to the new sport.</p>
+
+<p>There had, of course, been many enthusiasts
+who had preached the sport before Mr.
+Justice Wills climbed the Wetterhorn. The
+earliest of all Alpine Journals is the <i>Alpina</i>,
+which first expressed the impetus of the
+great Alpine campaign. It appeared in 1806,
+and survived for four years, though the name
+was later attached to a magazine which has
+still a large circulation in Switzerland. It
+was edited by Ulysses von Salis; and it
+contained articles on chamois-hunting, the
+ascent of the Ortler, etc., besides reviews of
+the mountain literature of the period, such
+books, for instance, as those of Bourrit and
+Ebel. “The Glockner and the Ortler,”
+writes the editor, “may serve as striking
+instances of our ignorance, until a few years
+ago, of the highest peaks in the Alpine ranges.
+Excluding the Gotthard and Mont Blanc, and
+their surrounding eminences, there still remain
+more than a few marvellous and colossal
+peaks which are no less worthy of becoming
+better known.”</p>
+
+<p>From 1840, the number of Englishmen
+taking part in high ascents increases rapidly;
+and between 1854 and 1865 the great bulk
+of virgin ascents stand to their credit, though
+it must always be remembered that these
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>
+ascents were led by Swiss, French and Italian
+guides, who did not, however, do them till
+the English arrived. Before 1840 a few
+Englishmen climbed Mont Blanc; Mrs. and
+Miss Campbell crossed the Col de Géant,
+which had previously been reopened by
+Mr. Hill; and Mr. Malkin crossed a few
+glacier passes. But J. D. Forbes was really
+the first English mountaineer to carry out
+a series of systematic attacks on the upper
+snows. Incidentally, his book, <i>Travels through
+the Alps of Savoy</i>, published in 1843, was the
+first book in the English language dealing
+with the High Alps. A few pamphlets had
+been published by the adventurers of Mont
+Blanc, but no really serious work. Forbes
+is, therefore, the true pioneer not only of
+British mountaineering, but of the Alpine
+literature in our tongue. He was a worthy
+successor to De Saussure, and his interest in
+the mountains was very largely scientific.
+He investigated the theories of glacier motion,
+and visited Agassiz at the “Hôtel des
+Neuchâtelois.” On that occasion, if Agassiz
+is to be believed, the canny Scotsman managed
+to extract more than he gave from the genial
+and expansive Switzer. When Forbes published
+his theories, Agassiz accused him of
+stealing his ideas. Desor, whose genius for
+a row was only excelled by the joy he took
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>
+in getting up his case, did not improve matters;
+and a bitter quarrel was the result. Whatever
+may have been the rights of the matter,
+Forbes certainly mastered the theory of
+glacier motion, and proved his thorough
+grasp of the matter in a rather remarkable
+way. In 1820, a large party of guides and
+amateurs were overwhelmed by an avalanche
+on the Grand Plateau, and three of the guides
+disappeared into a crevasse. Their bodies
+were not recovered. Dr. Hamel, who had
+organised the party, survived. He knew
+something of glacier motion, and ventured
+a guess that the bodies of the guides would
+reappear at the bottom of the glacier in
+about a thousand years. He was just nine
+hundred and thirty-nine years wrong in his
+calculation. Forbes, having ascertained by
+experiment the rate at which the glacier
+moved, predicted that the bodies would
+reappear in forty years. This forecast proved
+amazingly accurate. Various remains reappeared
+near the lower end of the Glacier
+des Bossons in 1861, a fragment of a human
+body, and a few relics came to light two years
+later, and a skull, ropes, hat, etc., in 1865.
+Strangely enough, this accident was repeated
+in almost all its details in the famous Arkwright
+disaster of 1866.</p>
+
+<p>Forbes carried through a number of fine
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>
+expeditions. He climbed the Jungfrau with
+Agassiz and Desor&mdash;before the little trouble
+referred to above. He made the first passage
+by an amateur of the Col d’Hérens, and the
+first ascents of the Stockhorn (11,796 feet)
+and the Wasenhorn (10,661 feet). Besides
+his Alpine wanderings, he explored some of
+the glaciers of Savoy. His most famous book,
+<i>The Tour of Mont Blanc</i>, is well worth reading,
+and contains one fine passage, a simile
+between the motion of a glacier and the
+life of man.</p>
+
+<p>Forbes was the first British mountaineer;
+but John Ball played an even more important
+part in directing the activity of the English
+climbers. He was a Colonial Under-Secretary
+in Lord Palmerston’s administration; but he
+gave up politics for the more exciting field
+of Alpine adventure. His main interest in
+the Alps was, perhaps, botanical; and his
+list of first ascents is not very striking,
+considering the host of virgin peaks that
+awaited an enterprising pioneer. His great
+achievement was the conquest of the first
+great dolomite peak that yielded its secrets
+to man, the Pelmo. He also climbed the
+virgin Cima Tosa in the Brenta dolomites,
+and made the first traverse of the Schwartztor.
+He was the first to edit guidebooks for the
+use of mountaineers, and his knowledge of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>
+the Alps was surprisingly thorough. He
+played a great part in the formation of the
+Alpine Club, and in the direction of their
+literary activity. He edited the classical
+series of <i>Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers</i>, and a
+series of excellent Alpine guides.</p>
+
+<p>But the event which above all others
+attracted the attention of Englishmen to the
+Alps was Albert Smith’s ascent of Mont
+Blanc. Albert Smith is the most picturesque
+of the British mountaineers. He was something
+of a <i>blagueur</i>, but behind all his vulgarity
+lay a very deep feeling for the Alps. His
+little book on Mont Blanc makes good reading.
+The pictures are delightfully inaccurate
+in their presentation of the terrors of Alpine
+climbing; and the thoroughly sincere fashion
+in which the whole business of climbing is
+written up proves that the great white
+mountain had not yet lost its prestige. But
+we can forgive Albert Smith a great deal, for
+he felt the glamour of the Alps long before
+he had seen a hill higher than St. Anne’s, near
+Chertsey. As a child, he had been given
+<i>The Peasants of Chamouni</i>, a book which
+rivalled <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i> in his affections.
+This mountain book fired him to anticipate
+his subsequent success as a showman.
+“Finally, I got up a small moving panorama
+of the horrors pertaining to Mont Blanc ...
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span>
+and this I so painted up and exaggerated in
+my enthusiasm, that my little sister&mdash;who
+was my only audience, but an admirable one,
+for she cared not how often I exhibited&mdash;would
+become quite pale with fright.” Time passed,
+and Albert Smith became a student in Paris.
+He discovered that his enthusiasm for Mont
+Blanc was shared by a medical student; and
+together they determined to visit the Mecca
+of their dreams. They collected twelve
+pounds apiece, and vowed that it should last
+them for five weeks. They carried it about
+with them entirely in five-franc pieces, chiefly
+stuffed into a leathern belt round their
+waists. Buying “two old soldiers’ knapsacks
+at three francs each, and two pairs of
+hobnailed shoes at five francs and a half,”
+they started off on their great adventure.
+Smith wisely adds that, “if there is anything
+more delightful than travelling with plenty
+of money, it is certainly making a journey of
+pleasure with very little.”</p>
+
+<p>They made the journey to Geneva in
+seventy-eight hours by <i>diligence</i>. At Melun
+they bought a brick of bread more than two
+feet long. “The passengers paid three francs
+each for their <i>déjeuner</i>, ours did not cost
+ten sous.” At night, they slept in the empty
+<i>diligence</i>. They meant to make that twelve
+pounds apiece carry them some distance.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>
+From Geneva they walked to Chamounix,
+helped by an occasional friendly lift. Smith
+was delighted with the realisation of childish
+dreams. “Every step was like a journey
+in fairyland.” In fact, the only disillusion
+was the contrast between the Swiss peasant
+of romance and the reality. “The Alpine
+maidens we encountered put us more in
+mind of poor law unions than ballads;
+indeed, the Swiss villagers may be classed
+with troubadours, minstrel pages, shepherdesses,
+and other fabulous pets of small poets
+and vocalists.” After leaving Chamounix,
+Smith crossed the St. Bernard, visited Milan,
+and returned with a small margin still left
+out of the magic twelve pounds.</p>
+
+<p>Albert Smith returned to London, took up
+practice as a surgeon, wrote for <i>Punch</i>, and
+acquired a big reputation as an entertainer
+in <i>The Overland Mail</i>, written by himself and
+founded on a journey to Egypt and Constantinople.
+The songs and sketches made
+the piece popular, and insured a long run.
+At the close of the season he went to
+Chamounix again, fully determined to climb
+Mont Blanc. He was accompanied by William
+Beverley, the artist, and was lucky to fall in
+with some Oxford undergraduates with the
+same ambition as himself. They joined
+forces, and a party of twenty, including
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>
+guides, prepared for the great expedition.
+Amongst other provisions, they took ninety-four
+bottles of wine, four legs of mutton, four
+shoulders of mutton, and forty-six fowls.
+Smith was out of training, and suffered
+terribly from mountain sickness. He was
+horrified by the Mur de la Côte, which he
+describes as “an all but perpendicular iceberg,”
+and adds that “every step was gained
+from the chance of a horrible death.” As
+a matter of fact, the Mur de la Côte is a very
+simple, if steep, snow slope. A good ski-runner
+could, under normal conditions, descend
+it on ski. If Smith had fallen, he
+would have rolled comfortably to the bottom,
+and stopped in soft snow. “Should the foot
+or the baton slip,” he assures us, “there is
+no chance for life. You would glide like
+lightning from one frozen crag to another,
+and finally be dashed to pieces hundreds of
+feet below.” It is pleasant to record that
+Smith reached the summit, though not without
+considerable difficulty, and that his party
+drank all the wine and devoured the forty-six
+fowls, etc., before their successful return to
+Chamounix.</p>
+
+<p>Smith wrote an account of the ascent which
+provoked a bitter attack in <i>The Daily News</i>.
+Albert Smith was contrasted with De Saussure,
+greatly to Smith’s disadvantage. The sober,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>
+practical Englishman of the period could only
+forgive a mountain ascent if the climber
+brought back with him from the heights,
+something more substantial than a vision
+of remembered beauty. A few inaccurate
+readings of an untrustworthy barometer
+could, perhaps, excuse a pointless exploit.
+“Saussure’s observations,” said a writer in
+<i>The Daily News</i>, “live in his poetical philosophy,
+those of Mr. Albert Smith will be most
+appropriately recorded in a tissue of indifferent
+puns, and stale, fast witticisms with an incessant
+straining after smartness. The aimless
+scramble of the four pedestrians to the
+top of Mont Blanc will not go far to redeem
+the somewhat equivocal reputation of the
+herd of English to risks in Switzerland for
+a mindless, and rather vulgar, redundance of
+animal spirits.” Albert Smith did not allow
+the subject to drop. He turned Mont Blanc
+into an entertainment at the Egyptian Hall,
+an entertainment which became very popular,
+and was patronised by the Queen.</p>
+
+<p>Narrow-minded critics affect to believe
+that Albert Smith was nothing more than a
+showman, and that Mont Blanc was for him
+nothing more than a peg on which to hang
+a popular entertainment. This is not true.
+Mr. Mathews does him full justice when he
+says: “He was emphatically a showman
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>
+from his birth, but it is not true he ascended
+the mountain for the purpose of making
+a show of it. His well-known entertainment
+resulted from a lifelong interest which he
+had taken in the great summit, of which he
+never failed to speak or write with reverence
+and affection.” Mr. Mathews was by no
+means naturally prejudiced in favour of anybody
+who tended to popularise the Alps, and
+his tribute is all the more striking in consequence.
+Albert Smith fell in love with Mont
+Blanc long before he had seen a mountain.
+Nobody can read the story of his first journey
+with twelve pounds in his pocket, without
+realising that Albert Smith, the showman,
+loved the mountains with much the same
+passion as his more cultured successors.
+Mr. Mathews adds: “It is but just to his
+memory to record that he, too, was a pioneer.
+Mountaineering was not then a recognised
+sport for Englishmen. Hitherto, any information
+about Mont Blanc had to be sought
+for in isolated publications. Smith brought
+a more or less accurate knowledge of it, as it
+were, to the hearths and homes of educated
+Englishmen.... Smith’s entertainment gave
+an undoubted impetus to mountaineering.”</p>
+
+<p>While Smith was lecturing, a group of
+Englishmen were quietly carrying through a
+series of attacks on the unconquered citadels
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span>
+of the Alps. In 1854 Mr. Justice Wills made
+that ascent of the Wetterhorn which has
+already been referred to. It is fully described
+in Mr. Justice Wills’s interesting book,
+<i>Wanderings among the High Alps</i>, and,
+amongst other things, it is famous as the first
+appearance in Alpine history of the great
+guide, Christian Almer. Mr. Wills left
+Grindelwald with Ulrich Lauener, a guide
+who was to play a great part in Alpine adventure,
+Balmat and Simond. “The landlord
+wrung Balmat’s hand. ‘Try,’ said he,
+‘to return all of you alive.’” Lauener
+burdened himself with a “flagge” to plant
+on the summit. This “flagge” resolved itself
+on inspection into a very solid iron construction
+in the shape of a banner, which Lauener
+carried to the summit on the following day.
+They bivouacked on the Enge, and climbed
+next day without great difficulty, to the gap
+between the two summits of the Wetterhorn,
+now known as the Wettersattel. They made
+a short halt here; and, while they were
+resting, they noticed with surprise two men
+working up the rocks they had just climbed.
+Lauener at first supposed they were chamois
+hunters; but a moment’s reflection convinced
+the party that no hunter would seek
+his prey on such unlikely ground. Moreover,
+chamois hunters do not usually carry on their
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>
+backs “a young fir-tree, branches, leaves,
+and all.” They lost sight of the party and
+continued their meal. They next saw the
+two strangers on the snow slopes ahead,
+making all haste to be the first on the summit.
+This provoked great wrath on the part of
+Mr. Wills’s guides, who believed that the
+Wetterhorn was a virgin peak, a view also
+shared by the two usurpers, who had heard
+of the intended ascent and resolved to plant
+their fir-tree side by side with the iron
+“flagge.” They had started very early that
+same morning, and hunted their quarry
+down. A vigorous exchange of shouts and
+threats resulted in a compromise. “Balmat’s
+anger was soon appeased when he found they
+owned the reasonableness of his desire that
+they should not steal from us the distinction
+of being the first to scale that awful peak;
+and, instead of administering the fisticuffs
+he had talked about, he declared they were
+<i>bons enfants</i> after all, and presented them
+with a cake of chocolate. Thus the pipe of
+peace was smoked, and tranquillity reigned
+between the rival forces.”</p>
+
+<p>From their resting-place they could see the
+final summit. From this point a steep snow
+slope, about three to four hundred feet in
+height, rises to the final crest, which is usually
+crowned by a cornice. The little party made
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>
+their way up the steep slope, till Lauener
+reached the final cornice. It should, perhaps,
+be explained, that a cornice is a projecting
+cave of wind-blown snow which is usually
+transformed by sun and frost into ice.
+Lauener “stood close, not facing the parapet,
+but turned half round, and struck out as
+far away from himself as he could....
+Suddenly, a startling cry of surprise and
+triumph rang through the air. A great
+block of ice bounded from the top of the
+parapet, and before it had well lighted on
+the glacier, Lauener exclaimed ‘Ich schaue
+den Blauen Himmel’ (‘I see blue sky’). A
+thrill of astonishment and delight ran through
+our frames. Our enterprise had succeeded.
+We were almost upon the actual summit.
+That wave above us, frozen, as it seemed, in
+the act of falling over, into a strange and
+motionless magnificence, was the very peak
+itself. Lauener’s blows flew with redoubled
+energy. In a few minutes a practicable
+breach was made, through which he disappeared;
+and in a moment more the sound
+of his axe was heard behind the battlement
+under whose cover we stood. In his excitement
+he had forgotten us, and very soon the
+whole mass would have come crashing down
+upon our heads. A loud shout of warning
+from Sampson, who now occupied the gap,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span>
+was echoed by five other eager voices, and
+he turned his energies in a safer direction.
+It was not long before Lauener and Sampson
+together had widened the opening; and then
+at length we crept slowly on. As I took the
+last step Balmat disappeared from my sight;
+my left shoulder grazed against the angle of
+the icy embrasure, while on the right the
+glacier fell abruptly away beneath me towards
+an unknown and awful abyss; a hand from
+an invisible person grasped mine; I stepped
+across, and had passed the ridge of the
+Wetterhorn.</p>
+
+<p>“The instant before I had been face to
+face with a blank wall of ice. One step,
+and the eye took in a boundless expanse of
+crag and glacier, peak and precipice, mountain
+and valley, lake and plain. The whole world
+seemed to lie at my feet. The next moment,
+I was almost appalled by the awfulness of
+our position. The side we had come up was
+steep; but it was a gentle slope compared
+with that which now fell away from where I
+stood. A few yards of glittering ice at our
+feet, and then nothing between us and the
+green slopes of Grindelwald nine thousand
+feet beneath.”</p>
+
+<p>The “iron flagge” and fir-tree were
+planted side by side, and attracted great
+attention in Grindelwald. The “flagge”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>
+they could understand, but the fir-tree greatly
+puzzled them.</p>
+
+<p>Christian Almer, the hero of the fir-tree,
+was destined to be one of the great Alpine
+guides. His first ascents form a formidable
+list, and include the Eiger, Mönch, Fiescherhorn
+in the Oberland (besides the first ascent
+of the Jungfrau direct from the Wengern
+Alp), the Ecrins, monarch of the Dauphiny,
+the Grand Jorasses, Col Dolent, Aiguille
+Verte in the Mont Blanc range, the Ruinette,
+and Morning Pass in the Pennines. But
+Almer’s most affectionate recollections always
+centred round the Wetterhorn. The present
+writer remembers meeting him on his way to
+celebrate his golden wedding, on the summit
+of his first love. Almer also deserves to be
+remembered as a pioneer of winter mountaineering.
+He made with Mr. Coolidge the
+first winter ascents of the Jungfrau and
+Wetterhorn. It was on a winter ascent of
+the former peak that he incurred frostbite,
+that resulted in the amputation of his toes,
+and the sudden termination of his active
+career. Some years later he died peaceably
+in his bed.</p>
+
+<p>A year after Mr. Wills’s famous climb,
+a party of Englishmen, headed by the brothers
+Smyth, conquered the highest point of Monte
+Rosa. The Alpine campaign was fairly
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span>
+opened. Hudson made a new route up
+Mont Blanc without guides, the first great
+guideless climb by Englishmen. Hinchcliffe,
+the Mathews, E. S. Kennedy, and others,
+had already done valuable work.</p>
+
+<p>The Alpine Club was the natural result of
+the desire on the part of these climbers to
+meet together in London and compare notes.
+The idea was first mooted in a letter from
+Mr. William Mathews to the Rev. J. A. Hort.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">3</a>
+The first meeting was held on December 22,
+1857. The office of President was left open
+till it was deservedly filled by John Ball;
+E. S. Kennedy became Vice-President, and
+Mr. Hinchcliffe, Honorary Secretary. It is
+pleasant to record that Albert Smith, the
+showman, was an original member. The
+English pioneers prided themselves, not without
+some show of justification, on the fact
+that their sport attracted men of great
+intellectual powers. Forbes, Tyndall, and
+Leslie Stephen, are great names in the record
+of Science and Literature. The present
+Master of Trinity was one of the early members,
+his qualification being an ascent of
+Monte Rosa, Sinai, and Parnassus.</p>
+
+<p>There were some remarkable men in this
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span>
+early group of English mountaineers. Of
+John Ball and Albert Smith, we have already
+spoken. Perhaps the most distinguished
+mountaineer from the standpoint of the
+outside world was John Tyndall. Tyndall
+was not only a great scientist, and one of the
+foremost investigators of the theory of glacier
+motion, he was also a fine mountaineer.
+His finest achievement was the first ascent
+of the Weishorn; and he also played a great
+part in the long struggle for the blue ribbon
+of the Alps&mdash;the Matterhorn. His book,
+<i>Hours of Exercise in the Alps</i>, makes good
+reading when once one has resigned oneself
+to the use of somewhat pedantic terms for
+quite simple operations. Somewhere or other&mdash;I
+quote from memory&mdash;a guide’s legs are
+referred to as monstrous levers that projected
+his body through space with enormous
+velocity! Tyndall, by the way, chose to
+take offence at some light-hearted banter
+which Leslie Stephen aimed at the scientific
+mountaineers. The passage occurs in
+Stephen’s chapter on the Rothhorn. “‘And
+what philosophic observations did you make?’
+will be the inquiry of one of those fanatics
+who by a process of reasoning to me utterly
+inscrutable have somehow irrevocably associated
+Alpine travelling with science. To them,
+I answer, that the temperature was approximately
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span>
+(I had no thermometer) 212 degrees
+Fahrenheit below freezing point. As for
+ozone, if any existed in the atmosphere, it
+was a greater fool than I take it for.” This
+flippancy caused a temporary breach between
+Stephen and Tyndall which was, however,
+eventually healed.</p>
+
+<p>Leslie Stephen is, perhaps, best known as
+a writer on ethics, though his numerous
+works of literary criticism contain much that
+is brilliant and little that is unsound. It
+has been said that the popularity of the
+word “Agnostic” is due less to Huxley, who
+invented it, than to Leslie Stephen who
+popularised it in his well known <i>Agnostic’s
+Apology</i>, an important landmark in the history
+of English Rationalism. The present writer
+has read almost every line that Stephen
+wrote, and yet feels that it is only in <i>The
+Playground of Europe</i> that he really let himself
+go. Though Stephen had a brilliant
+record as a mountaineer, it is this book that
+is his best claim to the gratitude and honour
+of climbers. Stephen was a fine mountaineer,
+as well as a distinguished writer. He was
+the first to climb the Shreckhorn, Zinal
+Rothhorn, Bietschhorn, Blüemlisalp, Rimphischorn,
+Disgrazia, and Mont Malet. He had
+the true mountaineering instinct, which is
+always stirred by the sight of an uncrossed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>
+pass; and that great wall of rock and ice
+that shadows the Wengern Alp always suggests
+Stephen, for it falls in two places to
+depressions which he was the first to cross,
+passes immortalised in the chapters dealing
+with “The Jungfraujoch” and “The
+Eigerjoch.”</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy to stop if one begins to
+catalogue the distinguished men who helped
+to build up the triumphs of this period.
+Professor Bonney, an early president, was a
+widely travelled mountaineer, and a scientist
+of world-wide reputation. His recent work
+on the geology of the Alps, is perhaps the best
+book of the kind in existence. The Rev.
+Fenton Hort had, as we have seen, a great deal
+to do with the formation of the Alpine Club.
+His life has been written by his son, Sir
+Arthur Hort. Of John Ball and Mr. Justice
+Wills, we have already spoken. Of Whymper
+we shall have enough to say when we summarise
+the great romance of the Matterhorn.
+He was a remarkable man, with iron determination
+and great intellectual gifts. His
+classic <i>Scrambles in the Alps</i> did more than
+any other book to make new mountaineers.
+He was one of the first draughtsmen who
+combined a mountaineer’s knowledge of rock
+and ice with the necessary technical ability
+to reproduce the grandeur of the Alps in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>
+black and white. One should compare the
+delightful woodcuts from his sketches with
+the crude, shapeless engravings that decorate
+<i>Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers</i>. His great book
+deserved its success. Whymper himself was
+a strong personality. He had many good
+qualities and some that laid him open to
+criticism. He made enemies without much
+difficulty. But he did a great work, and no
+man has a finer monument to keep alive the
+memory of his most enduring triumphs.</p>
+
+<p>Another name which must be mentioned
+is that of Mr. C. E. Mathews, a distinguished
+pioneer whose book on Mont Blanc has been
+quoted in an earlier chapter. He was a
+most devoted lover of the great mountain,
+and climbed it no less than sixteen times.
+He was a rigid conservative in matters
+Alpine; and there is something rather engaging
+in his contempt for the humbler
+visitors to the Alps. “It is a scandal to the
+Republic,” he writes, “that a line should
+have been permitted between Grindelwald
+and Interlaken. Alas for those who hailed
+with delight the extension of the Rhone
+Valley line from Sion to Visp!” It would
+have been interesting to hear his comments
+on the Jungfrau railway. The modern
+mountaineer would not easily forego the
+convenience of the trains to Zermatt that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span>
+save him many hours of tiresome, if romantic,
+driving.</p>
+
+<p>Then there is Thomas Hinchcliffe, whose
+<i>Summer Months in the Alps</i> gave a decided
+impetus to the new movement. He belongs
+to a slightly earlier period than A. W. Moore,
+one of the most distinguished of the early
+group. Moore attained a high and honourable
+position in the Home Office. His book
+<i>The Alps in 1864</i>, which has recently been
+reprinted, is one of the sincerest tributes to
+the romance of mountaineering in the English
+language. Moore took part in a long list
+of first ascents. He was a member of the
+party that achieved the first ascent of the
+Ecrins which Whymper has immortalised,
+and he had numerous other virgin ascents
+to his credit. His most remarkable feat was
+the first ascent of Mont Blanc by the Brenva
+ridge, the finest ice expedition of the period.
+Mr. Mason has immortalised the Brenva in
+his popular novel, <i>Running Water</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And so the list might be indefinitely extended,
+if only space permitted. There was
+Sir George Young, who took part in the first
+ascent of the Jungfrau from the Wengern
+Alp and who was one of the first to attempt
+guideless climbing. There was Hardy, who
+made the first English ascent of the Finsteraarhorn,
+and Davies who climbed the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>
+two loftiest Swiss peaks, Dom and Täschhorn.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">4</a>
+“What I don’t understand,” he said
+to a friend of the present writer, “is why
+you modern mountaineers always climb on
+a rope. Surely your pace must be that of the
+slowest member of the party?” One has a
+picture of Davies striding impatiently ahead,
+devouring the ground in great hungry strides,
+while the weaker members dwindled into
+small black spots on the face of the glacier.
+And then there is Tuckett, who died in 1913.
+Of Tuckett, Leslie Stephen wrote: “In the
+heroic cycle of Alpine adventure the irrepressible
+Tuckett will occupy a place similar
+to Ulysses. In one valley the peasant will
+point to some vast breach in the everlasting
+rocks hewn, as his fancy will declare, by the
+sweep of the mighty ice-axe of the hero....
+The broken masses of a descending glacier
+will fairly represent the staircase which he
+built in order to scale a previously inaccessible
+height.... Critics will be disposed to trace
+in him one more example of the universal
+solar myth.... Tuckett, it will be announced,
+is no other than the sun which
+appears at earliest dawn above the tops of
+the loftiest mountains, gilds the summits of
+the most inaccessible peaks, penetrates remote
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span>
+valleys, and passes in an incredibly short time
+from one extremity of the Alpine chain to
+another.”</p>
+
+<p>The period which closes with the ascent
+of the Matterhorn in 1865 has been called
+the Golden Age of Mountaineering; and the
+mountaineers whom we have mentioned were
+responsible for the greater portion of this
+glorious harvest. By 1865 the Matterhorn
+was the only remaining Zermat giant that
+still defied the invaders; and beyond Zermat
+only one great group of mountains, the
+Dolomites, still remained almost unconquered.
+It was the age of the guided climber. The
+pioneers did excellent work in giving the
+chamois hunter the opportunity to become
+a guide. And many of these amateurs were
+really the moral leaders of their parties.
+It was sometimes, though not often, the
+amateur who planned the line of ascent, and
+decided when the attack should be pressed
+and when it should be abandoned. It was
+only when the guide had made repeated
+ascents of fashionable peaks that the part
+played by the amateur became less and less
+important. Mountaineering in the ’fifties
+and ’sixties was in many ways far more
+arduous than it is to-day. Club-huts are
+now scattered through the Alps. It is no
+longer necessary to carry firewood and sleeping-bags
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>
+to some lonely bivouac beside the
+banks of great glaciers. A sudden gust of
+bad weather at night no longer means that
+the climber starts at dawn with drenched
+clothes. The excellent series of <i>Climbers’
+Guides</i> give minute instructions describing
+every step in the ascent. The maps are
+reliable. In those days, guide-books had
+still to be written, the maps were romantic
+and misleading, and the discoverer of a new
+pass had not only to get to the top, he had also
+to get down the other side. What precisely
+lay beyond the pass, he did not know. It
+might be an impassable glacier, or a rock
+face that could not be descended. Almost
+every new pass involved the possibility of
+a forced bivouac.</p>
+
+<p>None the less, it must be admitted that the
+art of mountaineering has advanced more
+since 1865 than it did in the preceding half
+century. There is a greater difference between
+the ascent of the Grepon by the Mer de
+Glace Face, or the Brouillard Ridge of Mont
+Blanc, than between the Matterhorn and the
+Gross Glockner, or between the Weishorn and
+Mont Blanc.</p>
+
+<p>The art of mountaineering is half physical
+and half mental. He who can justly claim the
+name of mountaineer must possess the power to
+<i>lead</i> up rocks and snow, and to cut steps in ice.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span>
+This is the physical side of the business. It
+is important; but the charm of mountaineering
+is largely intellectual. The mental equipment
+of the mountaineer involves an exhaustive
+knowledge of one of the most ruthless
+aspects of Nature. The mountaineer must
+know the hills in all their changing moods
+and tenses. He must possess the power to
+make instant use of trivial clues, a power
+which the uninitiated mistake for an instinctive
+sense of direction. Such a sense is
+undoubtedly possessed by a small minority,
+but path-finding is often usually only the
+subconscious analysis of small clues. The
+mountaineer must understand the secrets of
+snow, rock, and ice. He must be able to tell
+at a glance whether a snow slope is dangerous,
+or a snow-bridge likely to collapse. He must
+be able to move with certainty and safety on
+a rock face, whether it is composed of reliable,
+or brittle and dangerous rock. All this
+involves knowledge which is born of experience
+and the power to apply experience.
+Every new peak is a problem for the intellect.
+Mountaineering, however, differs radically in
+one respect from many other sports. Most
+men can get up a mountain somehow, and
+thereby share at least one experience of the
+expert. Of every hundred boys that are
+dragooned into compulsory cricket at school,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span>
+only ten could ever by any possible chance
+qualify to play in first-class cricket. Almost
+all of them could reach the summit of a first
+class peak if properly guided.</p>
+
+<p>But this is not mountaineering. You cannot
+pay a professional to take your place at
+Lords’ and then claim the benefit of the
+century he knocks up. But some men with
+great Alpine reputations owe everything to
+the professional they have hired. They have
+good wind and strong legs. With a stout
+rope above, they could follow a good leader
+up any peak in the Alps. The guide was
+not only paid to lead up the rocks and assist
+them from above. He was paid to do all
+the thinking that was necessary. He was
+the brain as well as the muscle of the expedition.
+He solved all the problems that Nature
+sets the climber, and mountaineering for his
+client was only a very safe form of exercise
+in agreeable surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>Leslie Stephen admitted this, and he had
+less cause to admit it than most. “I utterly
+repudiate the doctrine that Alpine travellers
+are, or ought to be, the heroes of Alpine
+adventure. The true way, at least, to describe
+all my Alpine adventures is to say that
+Michael Anderegg, or Lauener, succeeded in
+performing a feat requiring skill, strength,
+and courage, the difficulty of which was much
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>
+increased by the difficulty of taking with him
+his knapsack and his employer.” Now, this
+does less than justice to Leslie Stephen, and
+to many of the early mountaineers. Often
+they supplied the brain of the party, and the
+directing energy. They were pioneers. Yet
+mountaineering as a fine art owes almost as
+much to the men who first dispensed with
+professional assistance. A man who climbs
+habitually with guides may be, and often
+is, a fine mountaineer. He <i>need</i> be nothing
+more than a good walker, with a steady head,
+to achieve a desperate reputation among
+laymen.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the early pioneers were by no
+means great athletes, though their mountaineering
+achievements deceived the public into
+crediting them with superhuman nerve and
+strength. Many of them were middle-aged
+gentlemen, who could have taken no part in
+active sports which demand a swift alliance
+of nerve and muscle; but who were quite
+capable of plugging up the average mixture
+of easy rock and snow that one meets on the
+average first-class Alpine peak. They had
+average endurance, and more than average
+pluck, for the prestige of the unvanquished
+peaks still daunted all but the courageous.</p>
+
+<p>They were lucky in that the great bulk of
+Alpine peaks were unconquered, and were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>
+only too ready to be conquered by the first
+climber who could hire two trusty Swiss
+guides to cut the steps, carry the knapsack,
+and lead up the rocks. It is usually said of
+these men: “They could not, perhaps, have
+tackled the pretty rock problems in which the
+modern cragsman delights. They were something
+better than gymnasts. They were all-round
+mountaineers.” This seems rather
+special pleading. Some one said that mountaineering
+seemed to be walking up easy
+snow mountains between guides, and mere
+cragsmanship consisted in leading up difficult
+rock-peaks without guides. It does not
+follow that a man who can lead up the
+Chamounix aiguilles knows less of the broader
+principles of mountaineering than the gentleman
+who is piloted up Mont Blanc by sturdy
+Swiss peasants. The issue is not between
+those who confine their energies to gymnastic
+feats on Welsh crags and the wider school
+who understand snow and ice as well as rock.
+The issue is between those who can take their
+proper share in a rock-climb like the Grepon,
+or a difficult ice expedition like the Brenva
+Mont Blanc, and those who would be completely
+at a loss if their guides broke down
+on an easy peak like the Wetterhorn. The
+pioneers did not owe everything to their
+guides. A few did, but most of them were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>
+good mountaineers whose opinion was often
+asked by the professionals, and sometimes
+taken. Yet the guided climber, then and
+now, missed the real inwardness of the sport.
+Mountaineering, in the modern sense, is a
+sport unrivalled in its appeal to mind and
+body. The man who can lead on a series of
+really first-class climbs must possess great
+nerve, and a specialised knowledge of
+mountains that is almost a sixth sense.
+Mountaineering between guides need not
+involve anything more than a good wind and
+a steady head. Anybody can get up a
+first-class peak. Only one amateur in ten
+can complete ascent and descent with safety
+if called on to lead.</p>
+
+<p>In trying to form a just estimate of our
+debt to the early English pioneers, we have
+to avoid two extremes. We must remember
+the parable of the dwarf standing on the
+giant’s shoulders. It ill becomes those who
+owe Climbers’ Guides, and to some extent
+good maps, to the labours of the pioneers to
+discount their achievements. But the other
+extreme is also a danger. We need not
+pretend that every man who climbed a
+virgin peak in the days when nearly every
+big peak was virgin was necessarily a fine
+mountaineer. All praise is due to the earliest
+explorers, men like Balmat, Joseph Beck,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>
+Bourrit, De Saussure, and the Meyers, for in
+those days the country above the snow-line
+was not only unknown, it was full of imagined
+terrors. These men did a magnificent work
+in robbing the High Alps of their chief
+defence&mdash;superstition. But in the late ’fifties
+and early ’sixties this atmosphere had largely
+vanished. Mr. X came to the A valley, and
+discovered that the B, C, or D horn had not
+been climbed. The B, C, and D horn were
+average peaks with a certain amount of
+straightforward snow and ice work, and a
+certain amount of straightforward rock work.
+Mr. X enjoys a fortnight of good weather,
+and the services of two good guides. He does
+what any man with like opportunities would
+accomplish, what an undergraduate fresh to
+the Alps could accomplish to-day if these peaks
+had been obligingly left virgin for his disposal.
+Many of the pioneers with a long list of virgin
+peaks to their credit would have made a poor
+show if they had been asked to lead one of
+the easy buttresses of Tryfan.</p>
+
+<p>Rock-climbing as a fine art was really
+undreamt of till long after the Matterhorn
+had been conquered. The layman is apt to
+conceive all Alpine climbs as a succession
+of dizzy precipices. To a man brought up
+on Alpine classics, there are few things more
+disappointing than the ease of his first big
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>
+peak. The rock work on the average Oberland
+or Zermat peaks by the ordinary route
+is simple, straightforward scrambling up
+slopes whose average inclination is nearer
+thirty than sixty degrees. It is the sort of
+thing that the ordinary man can do by the
+light of Nature. Rock-climbing, in the sense
+in which the Dolomite or lake climber uses the
+term, is an art which calls for high qualities of
+nerve and physique. Such rock climbing was
+almost unknown till some time after the close
+of this period. No modern cragsman would
+consider the Matterhorn, even if robbed of its
+fixed ropes, as anything but a straightforward
+piece of interesting rock work, unless he was
+unlucky enough to find it in bad condition.
+All this we may frankly admit. Mountaineering
+as an art was only in its infancy when
+the Matterhorn was climbed. And yet the
+Englishmen whom we have mentioned in
+this chapter did more for mountaineering
+than any of their successors or predecessors.
+Bourrit, De Saussure, Beck, Placidus à
+Spescha, and the other pioneers of the late
+eighteenth and early nineteenth century,
+deserve the greatest credit. But their spirited
+example gave no general impetus to the
+sport. They were single-handed mountaineers;
+and somehow they never managed to
+fire the world with their own enthusiasm.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>
+The Englishmen arrived late on the scene.
+The great giants of more than one district
+had been climbed. And yet mountaineering
+was still the pursuit of a few isolated men
+who knew little or nothing of their brother
+climbers, who came and struggled and passed
+away uncheered by the inspiring freemasonry
+of a band of workers aiming at the same end.
+It was left to the English to transform
+mountaineering into a popular sport. Judged
+even by modern standards some of these men
+were fine mountaineers, none the less independent
+because the fashion of the day
+decreed that guides should be taken on difficult
+expeditions. But even those who owed the
+greater part of their success to their guides
+were inspired by the same enthusiasm which,
+unlike the lonely watchfires of the earlier
+pioneers, kindled a general conflagration.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br />
+
+<span class="large">THE STORY OF THE MATTERHORN</span></h2>
+
+<p>The history of mountaineering contains
+nothing more dramatic than the epic of the
+Matterhorn. There is no mountain which
+appeals so readily to the imagination. Its
+unique form has drawn poetic rhapsodies from
+the most prosaic. “Men,” says Mr. Whymper,
+“who ordinarily spoke or wrote like rational
+beings when they came under its power seemed
+to quit their senses, and ranted, and rhapsodied,
+losing for a time all common forms of
+speech. Even the sober De Saussure was
+moved to enthusiasm.”</p>
+
+<p>If the Matterhorn could thus inspire men
+before the most famous siege in Alpine
+history had clothed its cliffs in romance,
+how much more must it move those for whom
+the final tragedy has become historical?
+The first view of the Matterhorn, and the
+moment when the last step is taken on to
+the final crest, are two moments which the
+mountaineer never forgets. Those who knew
+the old Zermat are unpleasantly fond of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span>
+reminding us that the railway train and the
+monster hôtels have robbed Zermat of its
+charm; while the fixed ropes and sardine tins&mdash;[Those
+dear old sardine tins! Our Alpine
+writers would run short of satire if they could
+not invoke their aid]&mdash;have finally humiliated
+the unvanquished Titan. It may be so; but
+it is easy enough to recover the old atmosphere.
+You have only to visit Zermat in winter
+when the train is not running. A long trudge
+up twenty miles of shadowed, frosty valley,
+a little bluff near Randa, and the Matterhorn
+soars once more into a stainless sky. There
+are no clouds, and probably not another
+stranger in the valley. The hôtels are closed,
+the sardine tins are buried, and the Matterhorn
+renews like the immortals an undying youth.</p>
+
+<p>The great mountain remained unconquered
+mainly because it inspired in the hearts of
+the bravest guides a despairing belief in its
+inaccessibility. “There seemed,” writes Mr.
+Whymper, “to be a cordon drawn round it
+up to which one might go, but no further.
+Within that line gins and efreets were supposed
+to exist&mdash;the wandering Jew and the
+spirits of the damned. The superstitious
+natives in the surrounding valleys (many of
+whom firmly believed it to be not only the
+highest mountain in the Alps, but in the world)
+spoke of a ruined city on the summit wherein
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>
+the spirits dwelt; and if you laughed they
+gravely shook their heads, told you to look
+yourself to see the castle and walls, and
+warned one against a rash approach, lest
+the infuriated demons from their impregnable
+heights might hurl down vengeance for one’s
+derision.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_149.jpg" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">I.&mdash;THE MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH-EAST (ZERMAT).</p>
+
+<p>The left-hand ridge in the Furgg Grat and the shoulder (F.S.) is the
+Furgg shoulder from which Mummery traversed across to the Swiss face
+on his attempt on the Furgg Grat.</p>
+
+<p>The central ridge is the North-east ridge. N.E. is the point where
+the climb begins. S is the Swiss shoulder, A the Swiss summit,
+B the Italian summit. The route of the first ascent is marked. Nowadays
+it is usual to keep closer to the ridge in the early part of the
+climb and to climb from the shoulder S to the summit A. Fixed
+ropes hang throughout this section. T is the group of rocky teeth on
+the Zmutt ridge.</p></div>
+
+<p>Those who have a sense for the dramatic
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>
+unities will feel that, for once in a way, Life
+lived up to the conventions of Art, and
+that even a great dramatist could scarcely
+have bettered the materials afforded by the
+history of the Matterhorn. As the story
+unfolds itself one can scarcely help attributing
+some fatal personality to the inanimate cliffs.
+In the Italian valley of Breuil, the Becca, as
+the Matterhorn used to be called, was for
+centuries the embodiment of supernatural
+terror. Mothers would frighten their children
+by threats that the wild man of the Becca
+would carry them away. And if the children
+asked how the Matterhorn was born, they
+would reply that in bygone years there dwelt
+a giant in Aosta named Gargantua, who was
+once seized with a longing for the country
+beyond the range of peaks that divide Italy
+from Switzerland. Now, in those far off
+times, the mountains of the great barrier
+formed one uniform ridge instead of (as now) a
+series of peaks. The giant strode over this
+range with one step. As he stood with one
+foot in Switzerland and the other in Italy, the
+surrounding rocks fell away, and the pyramid
+of cliffs caught between his legs alone remained.
+And thus was the Matterhorn formed. There
+were many such legends; the reader may find
+them in Whymper and Guido Rey. They
+were enough to daunt all but the boldest.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_151.jpg" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">II.&mdash;MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH.</p>
+
+<p>The left-hand ridge is the North-east ridge. The points N.E., S, A, B, and T are the same as the corresponding
+points in I. The North-east ridge, which appears extremely steep, in I., is here seen in profile.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span></p></div>
+
+<p>The drama of the Matterhorn opens appropriately
+enough with the three men who first
+showed a contempt for the superstitions
+that surrounded the Becca. The story of
+that first attempt is told in Guido Rey’s
+excellent monograph on the Matterhorn, a
+monograph which has been translated by
+Mr. Eaton into English as spirited as the
+original Italian. This opening bout with the
+Becca took place in 1858. Three natives
+of Breuil, the little Italian valley at the foot
+of the Matterhorn, met before dawn at the
+châlet of Avouil. Of these, Jean Jacques
+Carrel was in command. He was a mighty
+hunter, and a fine mountaineer. The second,
+Jean Antoine Carrel, “il Bersaglier,” was
+destined to play a leading part in the conflict
+that was to close seven years later. Jean
+Antoine was something more than a great
+guide. He was a ragged, independent mountaineer,
+difficult to control, a great leader, but
+a poor follower. He was an old soldier, and
+had fought at Novara. The third of these
+young climbers was Aimé Gorret, a young boy
+of twenty destined for the Church. His
+solitary rambles among the hills had filled
+him with a passionate worship of the
+Matterhorn.</p>
+
+<p>Without proper provisions or gear, these
+three light-hearted knights set forth gaily
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>
+on their quest. They mistook the way; and,
+reaching a spot that pleased them, they
+wasted hours in hurling rocks down a cliff&mdash;a
+fascinating pursuit. When they reached
+the point now known as the Tête du Lion
+(12,215 feet) they contemplated the Matterhorn
+which rose definitely beyond an intervening
+gap. They looked at their great foe with
+quiet assurance. The Becca would not run
+away. Nobody else was likely to try a throw
+with the local giant. One day they would
+come back and settle the issue. There was
+no immediate hurry.</p>
+
+<p>In 1860 a daring attempt was made by
+Messrs. Alfred, Charles, and Sanbach Parker
+of Liverpool. These bold climbers dispensed
+with guides, and had the wisdom to attack
+the east face that rises above Zermat. All
+the other early explorers attacked the Italian
+ridge; and, as will be seen, the first serious
+assault on the eastern face succeeded. Lack
+of time prevented the Parkers from reaching
+a greater height than 12,000 feet; nor were
+they more successful in the following year,
+but they had made a gallant attempt, for
+which they deserve credit. In 1860 another
+party had assailed the mountain from Italy,
+and reached a height of about 13,000 feet.
+The party consisted of Vaughan Hawkins
+and Prof. Tyndall, whom he had invited to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span>
+join the party, with the guides J. J. Carrel
+and Bennen.</p>
+
+<p>In 1861 Edward Whymper, who had opened
+his Alpine career in the previous year, returned
+to the Alps determined to conquer two virgin
+summits of the Alps, the Matterhorn and the
+Weishorn. On arriving at Chatillon, he
+learned that the Weishorn had been climbed
+by Tyndall, and that Tyndall was at Breuil
+intending to add the Matterhorn to his conquests.
+Whymper determined to anticipate
+him. He arrived at Breuil on August 28, with
+an Oberland guide, and inquired for the
+best man in the valley. The knowing ones
+with a voice recommended Jean Antoine
+Carrel, a member of the first party to set
+foot on the Matterhorn. “We sought, of
+course, for Carrel, and found him a well-made,
+resolute looking fellow, with a certain defiant
+air which was rather taking. Yes, he would
+go. Twenty francs a day, whatever the
+result, was his price. I assented. But I
+must take his comrade. As he said this,
+an evil countenance came forth out of the
+darkness, and proclaimed itself the comrade.
+I demurred, and negotiations were broken
+off.”</p>
+
+<p>At Breuil, they tried to get another man
+to accompany them but without success.
+The men they approached either would not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span>
+go or asked a prohibitive price. “This, it
+may be said once and for all, was the reason
+why so many futile attempts were made on
+the Matterhorn. One guide after another
+was brought up to the mountain and patted
+on the back, but all declined the business.
+The men who went had no heart in the matter,
+and took the first opportunity to turn back.
+For they were, with the exception of the man
+to whom reference will be made [J. A. Carrel]
+universally impressed with the belief that
+the summit was entirely inaccessible.”</p>
+
+<p>Whymper and his guide bivouacked in a
+cowshed; and as night approached they saw
+J. A. Carrel and his companion stealing up
+the hillside. Whymper asked them if they
+had repented, and would join his party.
+They replied that they had contemplated
+an independent assault. “Oh, then, it is
+not necessary to have more than three.”
+“Not for us.” “I admired their pluck and
+had a strong inclination to engage the pair,
+but finally decided against it. The companion
+turned out to be J. J. Carrel. Both were
+bold mountaineers; but Jean Antoine was
+incomparably the better of the two, and was
+the finest rock climber I have ever seen.
+He was the only man who persistently refused
+to accept defeat, and who continued to believe,
+in spite of all discouragements, that the great
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span>
+mountain was not inaccessible, and that it
+could be ascended from the side of his native
+valley.”</p>
+
+<p>Carrel was something more than a great
+guide. He remained a soldier long after he
+had laid down his sword. He was, above all,
+an Italian, determined to climb the Matterhorn
+by the great Italian ridge, to climb it for the
+honour of Italy, and for the honour of his
+native valley. The two great moments of
+his life were those in which he heard the shouts
+of victory at Colle di Santiarno, and the cries
+of triumph on the summit of the Italian ridge.
+Whymper, and later Tyndall, found him an
+awkward man to deal with. He had the
+rough, undisciplined nature of the mountain
+he loved. He looked on the Matterhorn as
+a kind of preserve, and was determined that
+he and no other should lead on the final
+and successful ascent. Whymper’s first
+attempt failed owing to the poor qualities
+of his guide; and the Carrels were not more
+successful.</p>
+
+<p>During the three years that followed,
+Whymper made no less than six attempts
+to climb the Matterhorn. On one occasion
+he climbed alone and unaided higher than
+any of his predecessors. Without guides
+or companions, he reached a height of 13,500
+feet. There is little to be said for solitary
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span>
+climbing, but this feat stands out as one
+of the boldest achievements of the period.
+The critics of solitary scrambling need, however,
+look no further than its sequel for their
+moral. In attempting to negotiate a corner
+on the Tête du Lion, Whymper slipped and
+fell. He shot down an ice slope, slid and
+bounded through a vertical height of about
+200 feet, and was eventually thrown against
+the side of a gully where it narrowed. Another
+ten feet would have taken him in one terrific
+bound of 800 feet on to the glacier below.
+The blood was pulsing out of numerous cuts.
+He plastered up the wounds in his head with
+a lump of snow before scrambling up into
+a place of safety, where he promptly fainted
+away. He managed, however, to reach Breuil
+without further adventure. Within a week
+he had returned to the attack.</p>
+
+<p>He made two further attempts that year
+which failed for various reasons; but he had
+the satisfaction of seeing Tyndall fail when
+success seemed assured. Tyndall had brought
+with him the great Swiss guide Bennen, and a
+Valaisian guide named Walter Anton. He
+engaged Jean Antoine and Cæsar Carrel.
+They proposed to attack the mountain by
+the Italian ridge. Next morning, somebody
+ran in to tell Whymper that a flag had been
+seen on the summit. This proved a false
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>
+alarm. Whymper waited through the long
+day to greet the party on their return. “I
+could not bring myself to leave, but lingered
+about as a foolish lover hovers round the
+object of his affections even after he has been
+rejected. The sun had set before the men
+were discerned coming over the pastures.
+There was no spring in their steps&mdash;they, too,
+were defeated.”</p>
+
+<p>Prof. Tyndall told Whymper that he had
+arrived “within a stone’s-throw of the summit”&mdash;the
+mountain is 14,800 feet high,
+14,600 feet had been climbed. “He greatly
+deceived himself,” said Whymper, “for the
+point which he reached is no less than 800 feet
+below the summit. The failure was due to
+the fact that the Carrels had been engaged
+in a subordinate capacity.” When they were
+appealed to for their opinion, they replied:
+“We are porters, ask your guides.” Carrel
+always determined that the Matterhorn should
+be climbed from Italy, and that the leader
+of the climb should be an Italian. Bennen
+was a Swiss and Carrel had been engaged as a
+second guide. Tyndall and Whymper found
+it necessary to champion their respective
+guides, Carrel and Bennen; and a more or
+less heated controversy was carried on in the
+pages of <i>The Alpine Journal</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The Matterhorn was left in peace till the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>
+next year, but, meanwhile, a conspiracy for
+its downfall was hatched in Italy. The story
+is told in Guido Rey’s classic book on the
+Matterhorn, a book which should be read side
+by side with Whymper’s <i>Scrambles</i>, as it gives
+the Italian version of the final stages in which
+Italy and England fought for the great prize.
+In 1863, some leading Italian mountaineers
+gathered together at Turin to found an Italian
+Alpine Club. Amongst these were two well-known
+scientists, Felice Giordano and Quintino
+Sella. They vowed that, as English climbers
+had robbed them of Monte Viso, prince of
+Piedmontese peaks, Italy should have the
+honour of conquering the Matterhorn, and
+that Italians should climb it from Italy by
+the Italian ridge. The task was offered to
+Giordano, who accepted it.</p>
+
+<p>In 1863 Whymper and Carrel made another
+attempt on the Matterhorn, which was foiled
+by bad weather. In the next year, the
+mountain was left alone; but the plot for its
+downfall began to mature. Giordano and
+Sella had met Carrel, and had extracted from
+him promises of support. Carrel was, above
+all, an Italian, and, other things being equal,
+he would naturally prefer to lead an Italian,
+rather than an English, party to the summit.</p>
+
+<p>And now we come to the closing scenes.
+In 1865 Whymper returned to the attack,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>
+heartily tired of the Italian ridge. With
+the great guides Michel Croz and Christian
+Almer, Whymper attempted to reach the
+summit by a rock couloir that starts from near
+the Breuiljoch, and terminates high up on
+the Furggen arête. This was a mad scheme;
+and the route they chose was the most impracticable
+of all the routes that had ever been
+attempted on the Matterhorn. Even to-day,
+the great couloir has not been climbed, and
+the top half of the Furggen ridge has only
+been once ascended (or rather outflanked on
+the Italian side), an expedition of great danger
+and difficulty. Foiled in this attempt,
+Whymper turned his attention to the Swiss
+face. The eastern face is a fraud. From
+the Riffel and from Zermat, it appears almost
+perpendicular; but when seen in profile from
+the Zmutt glacier it presents a very different
+appearance. The average angle of the slope
+as far as “the shoulder,” about 13,925 feet,
+is about thirty degrees. From here to the
+summit the angle steepens considerably but
+is never more than fifty degrees. The wonder
+is that Whymper, who had studied the mountain
+more than once from the Zmutt glacier,
+still continued his attempts on the difficult
+Italian ridge.</p>
+
+<p>On the 8th of June 1865, Whymper arrived
+in Breuil, and explained to Carrel his change
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span>
+of plan. He engaged Carrel, and made plans
+for his attack on the Swiss face, promising
+Carrel that, if that failed, they should return
+to the Italian ridge. Jean Antoine told
+Whymper that he would not be able to serve
+him after the 11th, as he was engaged to
+travel “with a family of distinction in the
+valley of Aosta.” Whymper asked him why
+he had not told him this before; and he
+replied that the engagement had been a long-standing
+one, but that the actual day had not
+been fixed. Whymper was annoyed; but
+he could find no fault with the answer, and
+parted on friendly terms with Carrel. But
+the family of distinction was no other than
+Giordano. “You are going to leave me,”
+Whymper had said to Carrel, “to travel
+with a party of ladies. The work is not fit
+for you.” Carrel had smiled; and Whymper
+had taken the smile as a recognition of the
+implied compliment. Carrel smiled because
+he knew that the work he had in hand was
+more fitted for him than for any other man.</p>
+
+<p>On the 7th, Giordano had written to Sella:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“Let us, then, set out to attack this Devil’s
+mountain; and let us see that we succeed,
+if only Whymper has not been beforehand
+with us.” On the 11th, he wrote again: “Dear
+Quintino, It is high time for me to send you
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span>
+news from here. I reached Valtournanche
+on Saturday at midday. There I found
+Carrel, who had just returned from a reconnoitring
+expedition on the Matterhorn, which
+had proved a failure owing to bad weather.
+Whymper had arrived two or three days
+before; as usual, he wished to make the
+ascent, and had engaged Carrel, who, not
+having had my letters, had agreed, but for
+a few days only. Fortunately, the weather
+turned bad, Whymper was unable to make his
+fresh attempt; and Carrel left him, and came
+with me together with five other picked men
+who are the best guides in the valley. We
+immediately sent off our advance guard with
+Carrel at its head. In order not to excite
+remark, we took the rope and other materials
+to Avouil, a hamlet which is very remote and
+close to the Matterhorn; and this is to be
+our lower base.... I have tried to keep
+everything secret; but that fellow, whose
+life seems to depend on the Matterhorn, is
+here suspiciously prying into everything. I
+have taken all the competent men away from
+him; and yet he is so enamoured of the
+mountain that he may go with others and
+make a scene. He is here in this hôtel, and
+I try to avoid speaking to him.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Whymper discovered on the 10th the identity
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span>
+of the “family of distinction.” He was
+furious. He considered, with some show of
+justification, that he had been “bamboozled
+and humbugged.”</p>
+
+<p>The Italian party had already started for
+the Matterhorn, with a large store of provisions.
+They were an advance party designed
+to find and facilitate the way. They
+would take their time. Whymper took
+courage. On the 11th, a party arrived from
+Zermat across the Théodule. One of these
+proved to be Lord Francis Douglas, who,
+a few days previously, had made the second
+ascent of the Gabelhorn, and the first from
+Zinal. Lord Francis was a young and ambitious
+climber; and he was only too glad
+to join Whymper in an attack on the Swiss
+face of the Matterhorn. They crossed to
+Zermat together on the 12th, and there discovered
+Mr. Hudson, a great mountaineer,
+accompanied by the famous guide Michel
+Croz, who had arrived at Zermat with the
+Matterhorn in view. They agreed to join
+forces; and Hudson’s friend Hadow was
+admitted to the party. Hadow was a young
+man of nineteen who had just left Harrow.
+Whymper seemed doubtful of his ability;
+but Hudson reassured him by remarking
+that Mr. Hadow had done Mont Blanc in
+less time than most men. Peter Taugwalder,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span>
+Lord Francis’s guide, and Peter’s two sons
+completed the party. On the 13th of July
+they left Zermat.</p>
+
+<p>On the 14th of July Giordano wrote a short
+letter every line of which is alive with grave
+triumph. “At 2 p.m. to-day I saw Carrel
+&amp; Co., on the top of the Matterhorn.” Poor
+Giordano! The morrow was to bring a sad
+disappointment; and his letter dated the
+15th of July contains a pregnant sentence:
+“Although every man did his duty, it is a
+lost battle, and I am in great grief.”</p>
+
+<p>This is what had happened. Whymper
+and his companions had left Zermat on the
+13th at half-past five. The day was cloudless.
+They mounted leisurely, and arrived
+at the base of the actual peak about half-past
+eleven. Once fairly on the great eastern face,
+they were astonished to find that places which
+looked entirely impracticable from the Riffel
+“were so easy that they could run about.”
+By mid-day they had found a suitable place
+for the tent at a height of about 11,000
+feet. Croz and young Peter Taugwalder
+went on to explore. They returned at about
+3 p.m. in a great state of excitement. There
+was no difficulty. They could have gone to
+the top that day and returned.... “Long
+after dusk, the cliffs above echoed with our
+laughter, and with the songs of the guides,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span>
+for we were happy that night in camp, and
+feared no evil.”</p>
+
+<p>Whymper’s story is told with simplicity
+and restraint. He was too good a craftsman
+to spoil a great subject by unnecessary strokes.
+They started next day before dawn. They
+had left Zermat on the 13th, and they left
+their camp on a Friday (the superstitious
+noted these facts when the whole disastrous
+story was known). The whole of the great
+eastern slope “was now revealed, rising for
+3000 feet like a huge natural staircase. Some
+parts were more and others were less easy;
+but we were not once brought to a halt by
+any serious impediment.... For the greater
+part of the way there was no need for the
+rope, and sometimes Hudson led, and sometimes
+myself.” When they arrived at the
+snow ridge now known as “The Shoulder,”
+which is some 500 feet below the summit,
+they turned over on to the northern
+face. This proved more difficult; but the
+general angle of the slope was nowhere more
+than forty degrees. Hadow’s want of experience
+began to tell, and he required a certain
+amount of assistance. “The solitary difficult
+part was of no great extent.... A
+long stride round a rather awkward corner
+brought us to snow once more. The last
+doubt had vanished. The Matterhorn was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span>
+ours. Nothing but 200 feet of easy snow
+remained to be surmounted.”</p>
+
+<p>But they were not yet certain that they
+had not been beaten. The Italians had left
+Breuil four days before. All through the
+climb, false alarms had been raised of men
+on the top. The excitement became intense.
+“The slope eased off; at length we could be
+detached; and Croz and I, dashing away,
+ran a neck-and-neck race which ended in a
+dead heat. At 1.40 p.m. the world was at
+our feet, and the Matterhorn was conquered.”</p>
+
+<p>No footsteps could be seen; but the summit
+of the Matterhorn consists of a rudely level
+ridge about 350 feet in length, and the Italians
+might have been at the further end. Whymper
+hastened to the Italian summit, and again
+found the snow untrodden. They peered over
+the ridge, and far below on the right caught
+sight of the Italian party. “Up went my
+arms and hat. ‘Croz, Croz, come here!’
+‘Where are they, monsieur?’ ‘There, don’t
+you see them, down there.’ ‘Ah, the coquins,
+they are low down.’ ‘Croz, we must make
+those fellows hear us.’ They yelled until
+they were hoarse. ‘Croz, we must make
+them hear us, they shall hear us.’” Whymper
+seized a block of rock and hurled it down,
+and called on his companion to do the same.
+They drove their sticks in, and soon a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span>
+whole torrent was pouring down. “There
+was no mistake about it this time. The
+Italians turned and fled.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/i_167.jpg" alt="" />
+<p class="caption">III.&mdash;THE MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH-WEST.</p>
+
+<p>T and B are the points marked T and B in I. and II. Z Z Z Z is the Zmutt ridge. B C D E F
+is the great Italian South-west ridge. B is the Italian summit. C the point where Tyndall turned
+back on his last attempt. D the Italian shoulder now known as “Pic Tyndall.” E the “cravette.”
+F the Col du Lion, and G the Tête du Lion. The Italian route ascends to the Col du Lion on the
+further side, and then follows the Italian ridge.</p></div>
+
+<p>Croz planted a tent-pole which they had
+taken with them, though Whymper protested
+that it was tempting Providence, and fixed
+his blouse to it. A poor flag&mdash;but it was
+seen everywhere. At Breuil&mdash;as we have
+seen&mdash;they cheered the Italian victory. But
+on the morrow the explorers returned down-hearted.
+“The old legends are true&mdash;there
+are spirits on the top of the Matterhorn. We
+saw them ourselves&mdash;they hurled stones at
+us.”</p>
+
+<p>We may allow this dramatic touch to pass
+unchallenged, though, whatever Carrel may
+have said to his friends, he made it quite
+clear to Giordano that he had identified the
+turbulent spirits, for, in the letter from which
+we have quoted, Giordano tells his friends
+that Carrel had seen Whymper on the summit.
+It might, perhaps, be worth while to add that
+the stones Whymper hurled down the ridge
+could by no possible chance have hit Carrel’s
+party. “Still, I would,” writes Whymper,
+“that the leader of that party could have
+stood with us at that moment, for our victorious
+shouts conveyed to him the disappointment
+of a lifetime. He was <i>the</i> man of all
+those who attempted the ascent of the Matterhorn
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span>
+who most deserved to be first upon its
+summit. He was the first to doubt its inaccessibility;
+and he was the only man who
+persisted in believing that its ascent would be
+accomplished. It was the aim of his life
+to make the ascent from the side of Italy,
+for the honour of his native valley. For a
+time, he had the game in his hands; he played
+it as he thought best; but he made a false
+move, and he lost it.”</p>
+
+<p>After an hour on the summit, they prepared
+to descend. The order of descent was curious.
+Croz, as the best man in the party, should have
+been placed last. As a matter of history, he
+led, followed, in this order, by Hadow, Hudson,
+Douglas, and Peter Taugwalder. Whymper
+was sketching while the party was being
+arranged. They were waiting for him to
+tie on when somebody suggested that the
+names had not been left in a bottle. While
+Whymper put this right, the rest of the party
+moved on. A few minutes later Whymper
+tied on to young Peter, and followed detached
+from the others. Later, Douglas asked
+Whymper to attach himself to old Taugwalder,
+as he feared that Taugwalder would not be
+able to hold his ground in the event of a slip.
+About three o’clock in the afternoon, Michel
+Croz, who had laid aside his axe, faced the rock,
+and, in order to give Hadow greater security,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span>
+was putting his feet one by one into their
+proper position. Croz then turned round to
+advance another step when Hadow slipped,
+fell against Croz, and knocked him over. “I
+heard one startled exclamation from Croz,
+and then saw him and Mr. Hadow flying downwards;
+in another moment Hudson was
+dragged from his steps, and Lord Francis
+Douglas immediately after him. All this
+was the work of a moment. Immediately
+we heard Croz’s exclamation, old Peter and I
+planted ourselves as firmly as the rocks would
+permit: the rope was taut between us, and
+the jerk came on us both as on one man.
+We held: but the rope broke midway between
+Taugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For
+a few seconds, we saw our unfortunate companions
+sliding downwards on their backs,
+and spreading out their hands endeavouring
+to save themselves. They passed from our
+sight uninjured, disappeared one by one,
+and then fell from precipice to precipice on
+to the Matterhorngletscher below, a distance
+of nearly 4000 feet in height. From the
+moment the rope broke, it was impossible
+to help them.”</p>
+
+<p>For half-an-hour, Whymper and the two
+Taugwalders remained on the spot without
+moving. The two guides cried like children.
+Whymper was fixed between the older and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span>
+younger Taugwalder, and must have heartily
+regretted that he left young Peter the responsibility
+of last man down, for the young man was
+paralysed with terror, and refused to move.
+At last, he descended, and they stood together.
+Whymper asked immediately for the end of
+the rope that had given way, and noticed
+with horror that it was the weakest of the
+three ropes. It had never been intended to
+use it save as a reserve in case much rope had
+to be left behind to attach to the rocks.</p>
+
+<p>For more than two hours after the fall,
+Whymper expected that the Taugwalders
+would fall. They were utterly unnerved. At
+6 p.m. they arrived again on the snow
+shoulder. “We frequently looked, but in
+vain, for traces of our unfortunate companions;
+we bent over the ridge and cried to them,
+but no sound returned. Convinced at last
+that they were neither within sight nor hearing,
+we ceased from our useless efforts; and,
+too cast down for speech, silently gathered
+up our things, and the little effects of those
+who were lost, preparatory to continuing the
+descent.”</p>
+
+<p>As they started down, the Taugwalders
+raised the problem as to their payment,
+Lord Francis being dead. “They filled,”
+remarks Whymper, “the cup of bitterness
+to overflowing, and I tore down the cliff
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span>
+madly and recklessly in a way that caused
+them more than once to inquire if I wished
+to kill them.” The whole party spent the
+night on a miserable ledge. Next day, they
+descended in safety to Zermat. Seiler met
+them at the door of his hôtel. “What is the
+matter?” “The Taugwalders and I have
+returned.” He did not need more, and burst
+into tears, but lost no time in needless lamentations,
+and set to work to rouse the village.</p>
+
+<p>On Sunday morning, Whymper set out with
+the Rev. Canon M’Cormick to recover the
+bodies of his friends. The local curé threatened
+with excommunication any guide who
+neglected Mass in order to attend the search
+party. “To several, at least, this was a
+severe trial. Peter Perrn declared, with
+tears in his eyes, that nothing else would
+have prevented him joining in the search.”
+Guides from other valleys joined the party.
+At 8.30 they got to the plateau at the top of
+the glacier. They found Hudson, Croz and
+Hadow, but “of Lord Francis Douglas nothing
+was seen.”</p>
+
+<p>This accident sent a thrill of horror through
+the civilised world. The old file of <i>The Times</i>,
+which is well worth consulting, bears tribute
+to the profound sensation which the news of
+this great tragedy aroused. Idle rumours of
+every kind were afloat&mdash;with these we shall
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span>
+deal later. For more than five weeks, not
+a day passed without some letter or comment
+in the columns of the leading English paper.
+These letters, for the most part, embodied
+the profound distrust with which the new sport
+was regarded by the bulk of Englishmen.
+If Lord Francis Douglas had been killed while
+galloping after a fox, he would have been
+considered to have fallen in action. That he
+should have fallen on the day that the Matterhorn
+fell, that he should have paid the supreme
+forfeit for a triumphant hour in Alpine history&mdash;such
+a death was obviously wholly without its
+redeeming features. “It was the blue ribbon
+of the Alps,” wrote <i>The Times</i>, “that poor
+Lord Francis Douglas was trying for the other
+day. If it must be so, at all events the Alpine
+Club that has proclaimed this crusade must
+manage the thing rather better, or it will
+soon be voted a nuisance. If the work is
+to be done, it must be done well. They must
+advise youngsters to practise, and make sure
+of their strength and endurance.”</p>
+
+<p>For three weeks, Whymper gave no sign.
+At last, in response to a dignified appeal from
+Mr. Justice Wills, then President of the
+Alpine Club, he broke silence, and gave to the
+public a restrained account of the tragedy.
+As we have said, malicious rumour had been
+busy, and in ignorant quarters there had been
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span>
+rumours of foul play. The Matterhorn accident
+first popularised the theory that Alpine
+ropes existed to be cut. Till then, the public
+had supposed that the rope was used to
+prevent cowardly climbers deserting their
+party in an emergency. But from 1865
+onwards, popular authors discovered a new
+use for the rope. They divided all Alpine
+travellers into two classes, those who cut the
+rope from below (“Greater love hath no
+man&mdash;a romance of the mountains”) and
+those who cut the rope from above (“The
+Coward&mdash;a tale of the snows”). A casual
+reader might be pardoned for supposing that
+the Swiss did a brisk business in sheath knives.
+We should be the last to discourage this enterprising
+school&mdash;their works have afforded
+much joy to the climbing fraternity; but
+we offer them in all humility a few remarks
+on the art of rope-cutting by a member
+of Class II (those who cut the rope from
+above).</p>
+
+<p>A knife could only be used with advantage
+when a snowbridge gives way. It is easy
+enough to hold a man who has fallen into a
+crevasse; but it is often impossible to pull
+him out. The whole situation is altered
+on a rock face. If a man falls, a sudden
+jerk may pull the rest of the party off the
+face of the mountain. This will almost
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span>
+certainly happen if the leader or, on a descent,
+the last man down, falls, unless the rope is
+anchored round a knob of rock, in which
+case&mdash;provided the rope does not break&mdash;the
+leader may escape with a severe shaking,
+though a clear fall of more than fifteen feet
+will usually break the rope if anchored; and,
+if not anchored, the party will be dragged
+off their holds one by one. Therefore, the
+leader must not fall. If any other member
+of the party falls, he should be held by the
+man above. On difficult ground, only one
+man moves at a time. No man moves until
+the man above has secured himself in a
+position where he can draw in the rope as the
+man below advances. If he keeps it reasonably
+taut, and is well placed, he should be
+able to check any slip. A climber who slips
+and is held by the rope can immediately get
+new foothold and handhold. He is not in a
+crevasse from which exit is impossible save
+at the rope’s end. His slip is checked, and
+he is swung up against a rock face. There is
+no need to drag him up. The rest of the
+party have passed over this face, and therefore
+handholds and footholds can be found. The
+man who has slipped will find fresh purchase,
+and begin again. In the case of the Matterhorn
+accident, the angle of the slope was about
+forty degrees. There was an abundance of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span>
+hold, and if the rope had not parted Croz
+and Hadow would have been abruptly checked,
+and would have immediately secured themselves.
+Now, if Taugwalder had cut the
+rope, as suggested, he must have been little
+short of an expert acrobat, and have cut it in
+about the space of a second and a half <i>before
+the jerk</i>. If he had waited for the jerk, either
+he would have been dragged off, in which case
+his knife would have come in handy, or he
+would have held, in which case it would have
+been unnecessary.</p>
+
+<p>To mountaineers, all this, of course, is a
+truism; and we should not have laboured
+the point if we wrote exclusively for mountaineers.
+Even so, Peter’s comrades at Zermat
+(who should have known better) persisted
+in believing that he cut the rope. “In regard
+to this infamous charge,” writes Whymper,
+“I say that he could not do so at the moment
+of the slip, and that the end of the rope in
+my possession shows that he did not do so
+before.” Whymper, however, adds: “There
+remains the suspicious fact that the rope
+which broke was the thinnest and weakest one
+we had. It is suspicious because it is unlikely
+that the men in front would have selected
+an old and weak rope when there was an
+abundance of new, and much stronger, rope
+to spare; and, on the other hand, because
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span>
+if Taugwalder thought that an accident was
+likely to happen, it was to his interest to have
+the weaker rope placed where it was.”</p>
+
+<p>One cannot help regretting that Whymper
+lent weight to an unworthy suspicion. Taugwalder
+was examined by a secret Court of
+Inquiry; and Whymper prepared a set of
+questions with a view to helping him to clear
+himself. The answers, though promised, were
+never sent; and Taugwalder ultimately left
+the valley for America, returning only to die.
+Whymper, in his classic book, suggested the
+possibility of criminal dealings by publishing
+photographs of the three ropes showing that
+the rope broken was far the weakest.</p>
+
+<p>Let us review the whole story as Whymper
+himself tells it. We know that Whymper
+crossed the Théodule on the eleventh in a
+state of anger and despair. The prize for
+which he had striven so long seemed to be
+sliding from his grasp. Carrel had deserted
+him just as the true line of attack had been
+discovered. Like all mountaineers, he was
+human. He gets together the best party he
+can, and sets out with all haste determined to
+win by a head. Hadow, a young man with
+very little experience, is taken, and Hadow,
+the weak link, is destined to turn triumph
+into disaster. Let the mountaineer who has
+never invited a man unfit for a big climb throw
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span>
+the first stone. And, before he has thrown
+it, let him remember the peculiar provocation
+in Whymper’s case.</p>
+
+<p>All goes well. The Matterhorn is conquered
+with surprising ease. These six men
+achieve the greatest triumph in Alpine history
+without serious check. To Whymper, this
+hour on the summit must have marked the
+supreme climax of life, an hour that set its
+seal on the dogged labours of past years.
+Do men in such moments anticipate disaster?
+Taugwalder might possibly have failed in a
+sudden crisis; but is it likely that he should
+deliberately prepare for an accident by carefully
+planned treachery?</p>
+
+<p>Now read the story as Whymper tells it.
+The party are just about to commence the
+descent. The first five hundred feet would
+still be considered as demanding the greatest
+care. The top five hundred feet of the Matterhorn,
+but for the ropes with which the whole
+mountain is now festooned, would always be a
+difficult, if not a dangerous, section. Croz
+was the best guide in the party. He should
+have remained behind as sheet anchor.
+Instead of this, he goes first. Whymper falls
+out of line, to inscribe the names of the party,
+ties himself casually on to young Peter, and
+then “runs down after the others.” In the
+final arrangements, young Peter, who was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span>
+a young and inexperienced guide, was given
+the vital position of last man down. Flushed
+with triumph, their minds could find no room
+for a doubt. Everything had gone through
+with miraculous ease. Such luck simply
+could not turn. It is in precisely such moments
+as these that the mountains settle their score.
+Mountaineering is a ruthless sport that demands
+unremitting attention. In games, a moment’s
+carelessness may lose a match, or a championship;
+but in climbing a mistake may mean
+death.</p>
+
+<p>As for Taugwalder, one is tempted to
+acquit him without hesitation; but there is
+one curious story about Taugwalder which
+gives one pause. The story was told to the
+present writer by an old member of the
+Alpine Club, and the following is an extract
+from a letter: “I had rather you said ‘a
+friend of yours’ without mentioning my
+name. I had a good many expeditions with
+old Peter Taugwalder, including Mont Blanc
+and Monte Rosa; and I had rather a tender
+spot for the somewhat coarse, dirty old beggar.
+I should not like my name to appear to help
+the balance to incline in the direction of his
+guilt in that Matterhorn affair. It was not
+on the Dent Blanche that he took the rope
+off; it was coming down a long steep slope
+of bare rock from the top of the Tête Blanche
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span>
+towards Prayagé. I had a couple of men
+with me who were inexperienced; and I fancy
+he must have thought that, if one of them let
+go, which was not unlikely, he would be able
+to choose whether to hold on or let go. I
+happened to look up and see what was going
+on, and I made him tie up at once. I don’t
+quite remember whether Whymper tells us
+how far from Peter’s fingers the break in
+the rope occurred. That seems to me one of
+the most critical points.”</p>
+
+<p>There we may leave Taugwalder, and the
+minor issues of this great tragedy. The
+broader lessons are summed up by Mr.
+Whymper in a memorable passage: “So
+the traditional inaccessibility of the Matterhorn
+was vanquished, and was replaced by
+legends of a more real character. Others
+will essay to scale its proud cliffs, but to
+none will it be the mountain that it was to the
+early explorers. Others may tread its summit
+snows, but none will ever know the
+feelings of those who first gazed upon its
+marvellous panorama; and none, I trust,
+will ever be compelled to tell of joy turned
+into grief, and of laughter into mourning.
+It proved to be a stubborn foe; it resisted
+long and gave many a hard blow; it was
+defeated at last with an ease that none could
+have anticipated, but like a relentless enemy&mdash;conquered,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span>
+but not crushed&mdash;it took a terrible
+vengeance.”</p>
+
+<p>The last sentence has a peculiar significance.
+A strange fatality seems to dog the steps of
+those who seek untrodden paths to the crest
+of the Matterhorn. Disaster does not always
+follow with the dramatic swiftness of that
+which marked the conquest of the eastern
+face, yet, slowly but surely, the avenging
+spirit of the Matterhorn fulfils itself.</p>
+
+<p>On July 16, two days after the catastrophe,
+J. A. Carrel set out to crown Whymper’s
+victory by proving that the Italian ridge was
+not unconquerable. He was accompanied by
+Abbé Gorret, a plucky priest who had shared
+with him that first careless attack on the
+mountain. Bich and Meynet completed the
+party. The Abbé and Meynet remained
+behind not very far from the top, in order to
+help Carrel and Bich on the return at a place
+where a short descent onto a ledge was liable
+to cause difficulty on the descent. This
+ledge, known as Carrel’s corridor, is about
+forty minutes from the summit. It needed
+a man of Carrel’s determined courage to follow
+its winding course. It is now avoided.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the climb presented no difficulty.
+Carrel had conquered the Italian ridge. The
+ambition of years was half fulfilled, only half,
+for the Matterhorn itself had been climbed.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span>
+One cannot but regret that he had turned back
+on the 14th. Whymper’s cries of triumph
+had spelt for him the disappointment of a
+lifetime. Yet a fine rôle was open to him.
+Had he gone forward and crowned Whymper’s
+victory by a triumph unmarred by disaster;
+had the Matterhorn defied all assaults for
+years, and then yielded on the same day to a
+party from the Swiss side and Carrel’s men
+from Italy, the most dramatic page in Alpine
+history would have been complete. Thirty-five
+years later, the Matterhorn settled the
+long outstanding debt, and the man who had
+first attacked the citadel died in a snowstorm
+on the Italian ridge of the mountain which he
+had been the first to assail, and the first to
+conquer.</p>
+
+<p>Carrel was in his sixty-second year when he
+started out for his last climb. Bad weather
+detained the party in the Italian hut, and
+Signor Sinigaglia noticed that Carrel was far
+from well. After two nights in the hut,
+the provisions began to run out; and it was
+decided to attempt the descent. The rocks
+were in a terrible condition, and the storm
+added to the difficulty. Carrel insisted on
+leading, though he was far from well. He
+knew every yard of his own beloved ridge.
+If a man could pilot them through the storm
+that man was Carrel. Quietly and methodically,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span>
+he fought his way downward, yard by
+yard, undaunted by the hurricane, husbanding
+the last ounces of his strength. He would
+not allow the other guides to relieve him till
+the danger was past, and his responsibilities
+were over. Then suddenly he collapsed, and
+in a few minutes the gallant old warrior
+fell backwards and died. A cross now marks
+the spot where the old soldier died in action.</p>
+
+<p>In life the leading guides of Breuil had often
+resented Carrel’s unchallenged supremacy.
+But death had obliterated the old jealousies.
+Years afterwards, a casual climber stopped
+before Carrel’s cross, and remarked to the
+son of Carrel’s great rival, “So that is where
+Carrel fell.” “Carrel did not fall,” came the
+indignant answer, “Carrel died.”</p>
+
+<p>Let us turn from Carrel to the conquerors of
+another great ridge of the Matterhorn.</p>
+
+<p>Of others concerned with attacks on the
+Italian ridge, Tyndall, Bennen, and J. J.
+Macquignaz, all came to premature ends.
+Bennen was killed in an historic accident on
+the Haut de Cry, and Macquignaz disappeared
+on Mont Blanc. In 1879, two independent
+parties on the same day made the first ascent
+of the great northern ridge of the Matterhorn
+known as the Zmutt arête. Mummery and
+Penhall were the amateurs responsible for
+these two independent assaults. “The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span>
+memory,” writes Mummery, “of two rollicking
+parties, comprised of seven men, who on one
+day in 1879 were climbing on the west face
+of the Matterhorn passes with ghost-like
+admonition before my mind, and bids me
+remember that, of these seven, Mr. Penhall
+was killed on the Wetterhorn, Ferdinand
+Imseng on the Macugnaga side of Monte
+Rosa, and Johan Petrus on the Frersnay Mont
+Blanc.” Of the remaining four, Mummery
+disappeared in the Himalayas in 1895, Louis
+Zurbrucken was killed, Alexander Burgener
+perished in an avalanche near the Bergli hut
+in 1911. Mr. Baumann and Emil Rey, who
+with Petrus followed in Mummery’s footsteps
+three days later, both came to untimely ends:
+Baumann disappeared in South Africa, and
+Emil Rey was killed on the Dent de Géant.
+The sole survivor of these two parties is the
+well-known Augustin Gentinetta, one of the
+ablest of the Zermat guides. Burgener and
+Gentinetta guided Mummery on the above-mentioned
+climb, while Penhall was accompanied
+by Louis Zurbrucken. In recent
+times, three great mountaineers who climbed
+this ridge together died violent deaths within
+the year. The superstitious should leave the
+Zmutt arête alone.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br />
+
+<span class="large">MODERN MOUNTAINEERING</span></h2>
+
+<p>Alpine History is not easy to divide into
+arbitrary periods; and yet the conquest of
+the Matterhorn does in a certain sense define
+a period. It closes what has been called
+“the golden age of mountaineering.” Only
+a few great peaks still remained unconquered.
+In this chapter we shall try to sketch some
+of the tendencies which differentiate modern
+mountaineering from mountaineering in the
+so-called “golden age.”</p>
+
+<p>The most radical change has been the
+growth of guideless climbing, which was, of
+course, to be expected as men grew familiar
+with the infinite variety of conditions that
+are the essence of mountaineering. In a
+previous chapter we have discussed the main
+differences between guided and guideless
+climbing. It does not follow that a man of
+considerable mountaineering experience, who
+habitually climbs with guides need entirely
+relinquish the control of the expedition. Such
+a man&mdash;there are not many&mdash;may, indeed,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span>
+take a guide as a reserve of strength, or as
+a weight carrier. He may enjoy training up
+a young and inexperienced guide, who has a
+native talent for rock and ice, while lacking
+experience and mountain craft. One occasionally
+finds a guide who is a first-class
+cragsman, but whose general knowledge of
+mountain strategy is inferior to that of a
+great amateur. In such a combination, the
+latter will be the real general of the expedition,
+even if the guide habitually leads on
+difficult rock and does the step-cutting. On
+the other hand a member of a guideless party
+may be as dependent on the rest of the party
+as another man on his guides. Moreover,
+tracks, climbers, guides and modern maps
+render the mental work of the leader, whether
+amateur or professional, much less arduous
+than in more primitive days.</p>
+
+<p>But when we have made all possible allowance
+for the above considerations, there still
+remains a real and radical distinction between
+those who rely on their own efforts and
+those who follow a guide. The man who
+leads even on one easy expedition obtains a
+greater insight into the secrets of his craft
+than many a guided climber with a long
+list of first-class expeditions.</p>
+
+<p>One of the earliest of the great guideless
+climbs was the ascent of Mont Blanc by
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span>
+E. S. Kennedy, Charles Hudson (afterwards
+killed on the first ascent of the Matterhorn),
+Grenville and Christopher Smyth, E. J.
+Stevenson and Charles Ainslie. Their climb
+was made in 1855, and was the first complete
+ascent of Mont Blanc from St. Gervais,
+though the route was not new except in
+combination, as every portion of it had been
+previously done on different occasions. One
+of the first systematic guideless climbers to
+attract attention was the Rev. A. G. Girdlestone,
+whose book, <i>The High Alps without
+Guides</i>, appeared in 1870. This book was
+the subject of a discussion at a meeting of
+the Alpine Club. Mr. Grove, a well-known
+mountaineer, read a paper on the comparative
+skill of travellers and guides, and used
+Girdlestone’s book as a text. Mr. Grove said:
+“The net result of mountaineering without
+guides appears to be this, that, in twenty-one
+expeditions selected out of seventy for the
+purposes of description, the traveller failed
+absolutely four times; was in great danger
+three times; was aided in finding the way
+back by the tracks of other men’s guides four
+times; succeeded absolutely without aid of
+any kind ten times on expeditions, four of
+which were very easy, three of moderate
+difficulty, and one very difficult.” The “very
+difficult” expedition is the Wetterhorn, which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span>
+is nowadays considered a very modest
+achievement.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Girdlestone was a pioneer, with the
+limitations of a pioneer. His achievements
+judged by modern standards are modest
+enough, but he was the first to insist that
+mountaineering without guides is an art, and
+that mountaineering with guides is often only
+another form of conducted travel. The discussion
+that followed, as might be expected,
+at that time was not favourable either to
+Girdlestone or to guideless climbing. Probably
+each succeeding year will see his contribution
+to modern mountaineering more
+properly appreciated. The “settled opinion
+of the Alpine Club” was declared without
+a single dissentient to be that “the neglect
+to take guides on difficult expeditions is
+totally unjustifiable.”</p>
+
+<p>But guideless climbing had come to stay.
+A year after this memorable meeting of the
+Alpine Club, two of its members carried out
+without guides some expeditions more severe
+than anything Girdlestone had attempted.
+In 1871 Mr. John Stogdon, a well-known
+Harrow master, and the Rev. Arthur Fairbanks
+ascended the Nesthorn and Aletschhorn,
+and in the following year climbed the Jungfrau
+and Aletschhorn unguided. No record of these
+expeditions found its way into print. In
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span>
+1876, a party of amateurs, Messrs. Cust,
+Cawood, and Colgrove climbed the Matterhorn
+without guides. This expedition attracted
+great attention, and was severely commented
+on in the columns of the <i>Press</i>. Mr. Cust, in
+an eloquent paper read before the Alpine
+Club, went to the root of the whole matter
+when he remarked: “Cricket is a sport which
+is admitted by all to need acquired skill. A
+man can buy his mountaineering as he can
+buy his yachting. None the less, there are
+yachtsmen and yachtsmen.”</p>
+
+<p>Systematic climbing on a modern scale
+without guides was perhaps first practised
+by Purtscheller and Zsigmondys in 1880.
+Among our own people, it found brilliant
+exponents in Morse, Mummery, Wicks, and
+Wilson some twenty years ago; and it has
+since been adopted by many of our own
+leading mountaineers. Abroad, guideless
+climbing finds more adherents than with us.
+Naturally enough, the man who lives near the
+mountains will find it easier to make up a
+guideless party among his friends; and, if he
+is in the habit of spending all his holidays
+and most of his week-ends among the mountains
+that can be reached in a few hours from
+his home, he will soon acquire the necessary
+skill to dispense with guides.</p>
+
+<p>So much for guideless climbing. Let us
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span>
+now consider some of the other important
+developments in the practice of mountaineering.
+In the Alps the tendency has been
+towards specialisation. Before 1865 the ambitious
+mountaineer had scores of unconquered
+peaks to attack. After the defeat of the
+Matterhorn, the number of the unclimbed
+greater mountains gradually thinned out. The
+Meije, which fell in 1877, was one of the last
+great Alpine peaks to remain unclimbed.
+With the development of rock-climbing, even
+the last and apparently most hopelessly
+inaccessible rock pinnacles of the Dolomites
+and Chamounix were defeated. There is no
+rock-climbing as understood in Wales or
+Lakeland or Skye on giants of the Oberland
+or Valais, such as the Schreckhorn or Matterhorn.
+These tax the leader’s power of choosing
+a route, his endurance and his knowledge of
+snow and ice, and weather; but their demands
+on the pure cragsman are less. The difficulty
+of a big mountain often depends very much
+on its condition and length. Up to 1865
+hardly any expeditions had been carried
+through&mdash;with a few exceptions, such as the
+Brenva route up Mont Blanc&mdash;that a modern
+expert would consider exceptionally severe.
+Modern rock-climbing begins in the late
+’seventies. The expeditions in the Dolomites
+by men like Zsigmondy, Schmitt, and Winkler,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span>
+among foreign mountaineers, belong to much
+the same period as Burgener and Mummery
+classic climbs in the Chamounix district.</p>
+
+<p>Mummery is, perhaps, best known in connection
+with the first ascent of the Grepon
+by the sensational “Mummery crack,” when
+his leader was the famous Alexander Burgener
+aided by a young cragsman, B. Venetz.
+Venetz, as a matter of fact, led up the “Mummery”
+crack. Mummery’s vigorous book,
+which has become a classic, contains accounts
+of many new expeditions, such as the Grepon,
+the Requin, the Matterhorn by the Zmutt
+arête, and the Caucasian giant Dych Tau,
+to name the more important. His book,
+<i>My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus</i>, is
+thoroughly typical of the modern view of
+mountaineering. It contains some doctrines
+that are still considered heretical, such as the
+safety of a party of two on a snow-covered
+glacier, and many doctrines that are now
+accepted, such as the justification of guideless
+climbing and of difficult variation routes.
+Shortly after the book appeared, Mummery
+was killed on Nanga Parbat, as was Emil
+Zsigmondy on the Meije soon after the issue
+of his book on the dangers of the Alps.</p>
+
+<p>But even Dolomites and Chamounix aiguilles
+are not inexhaustible, and the number of
+unconquered summits gradually diminished.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span>
+The rapid opening up of the Alps has naturally
+turned the attention of men with the exploring
+instinct and ample means to the exploration
+of the great mountain ranges beyond Europe.
+This does not fall within the scope of the
+present volume, and we need only remark in
+passing that British climbers have played an
+important part in the campaigns against the
+fortresses of the Himalaya, Caucasus, Andes,
+and Rockies.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the ambitious mountaineer was
+forced to look for new routes on old peaks.
+Now, a man in search of the easiest way
+up a difficult peak could usually discover
+a route which was climbable without severe
+technical difficulty. On a big mountain,
+it is often possible to evade any small and
+very difficult section. But most mountains,
+even our British hills, have at least one
+route which borders on the impossible, and
+a diligent search will soon reveal it. Consider
+the two extremes of rock-climbing. Let us
+take the Matterhorn as a good example of a
+big mountain which consists almost entirely
+of rock. It is impossible to find a route up
+the Matterhorn which one could climb with
+one’s hands in one’s pockets, but the ordinary
+Swiss route is an easy scramble as far as the
+shoulder, and, with the fixed ropes, a straightforward
+climb thence to the top. Its Furggen
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span>
+Ridge has been once climbed under fair
+conditions and then only with a partial
+deviation. It is extremely severe and dangerous.
+The task of the mountaineers who
+first assailed the Matterhorn was to pick out
+the easiest line of approach. The Zmutt,
+and in a greater degree the Furggen routes,
+were obviously ruled out of consideration.
+The Italian route was tried many times
+without success before the Swiss route was
+discovered. Of course, the Matterhorn, like
+all big mountains, varies in difficulty from
+day to day. It is a very long climb; and, if
+the conditions are unfavourable, it may prove
+a very difficult and a very dangerous peak.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the nursery of Welsh climbers,
+Lliwedd can be climbed on a mule, and
+Lliwedd can also be climbed by about thirty
+or more distinct routes up its southern rock
+face. If a man begins to look for new routes
+up a wall of a cliff a thousand feet in height
+and a mile or so in breath, he will sooner or
+later reach the line which divided reasonable
+from unreasonable risk. Modern pioneer work
+in the Alps is nearer the old ideal. It is not
+simply the search for the hardest of all
+climbable routes up a given rock face. In
+England, the danger of a rock fall is practically
+absent, and a rock face is not considered
+climbed out as long as one can work up from
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span>
+base to summit by a series of ledges not
+touched on a previous climb. Two such
+routes will sometimes be separated by a few
+feet. In the Alps, the pioneer is compelled
+by objective difficulties to look for distinct
+ridges and faces unswept by stones and
+avalanches. There is a natural challenge in
+the sweep of a great ridge falling through
+some thousand unconquered feet to the
+pastures below. There is only an artificial
+challenge in a “new” route some thousand
+feet in height separated only by a few yards
+of cliff from an “old” route. We do not
+wish to depreciate British climbing, which
+has its own fascination and its own value;
+but, if it calls for greater cragsmanship, it
+demands infinitely less mountain craft than
+the conquest of a difficult Alpine route.</p>
+
+<p>And what is true of British rock-climbing
+is even more true of Tirol. Ranges, such as
+the Kaisergebirge, have been explored with
+the same thoroughness that has characterised
+British rock-climbing. Almost every conceivable
+variation of the “just possible” has
+been explored. Unfortunately, the death-roll
+in these districts is painfully high, as the keenness
+of the young Austrian and Bavarian has
+not infrequently exceeded their experience
+and powers.</p>
+
+<p>Abroad, mountaineering has developed very
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span>
+rapidly since the ’sixties. We have seen that
+English climbers, first in the field, secured
+a large share of unconquered peaks; but
+once continental climbers had taken up the
+new sport, our earlier start was seriously
+challenged. The Swiss, Austrian, and German
+have one great advantage. They are much
+nearer the Alps; and mountaineering in these
+countries is, as a result, a thoroughly democratic
+sport. The foreign Alpine Clubs number
+thousands of members. The German-Austrian
+Alpine Club has alone nearly ninety
+thousand members. There is no qualification,
+social or mountaineering. These great national
+clubs have a small subscription; and
+with the large funds at their disposal they
+are able to build club-huts in the mountains,
+and excellent meeting places in the great
+towns, where members can find an Alpine
+library, maps, and other sources of information.
+They secure many useful concessions,
+such as reduced fares for their members on
+Alpine railways. Mountaineering naturally
+becomes a democratic sport in mountainous
+countries, because the mountains are accessible.
+The very fact that a return ticket to
+the Alps is a serious item must prevent
+Alpine climbing from becoming the sport of
+more than a few of our countrymen. At the
+same time, we have an excellent native playground
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span>
+in Wales and Cumberland, which has
+made it possible for young men to learn the
+craft before they could afford a regular climbing
+holiday in the Alps. Beside the great
+national clubs of the Continent, there are a
+number of vigorous university clubs scattered
+through these countries. Of these, the Akademischer
+Alpine clubs at Zürich and Munich
+are, perhaps, the most famous. These clubs
+consist of young men reading at the Polytechnic
+or University. They have as high a
+mountaineering qualification as any existing
+Alpine clubs. They attach importance to
+the capacity to lead a guideless party rather
+than to the bare fact that a man has climbed
+so many peaks. Each candidate is taken on
+a series of climbs by members of the club,
+who report to the committee on his general
+knowledge of snow and rock conditions, and
+his fitness, whether in respect of courage or
+endurance for arduous work.</p>
+
+<p>It is young men of this stamp that play
+such a great part in raising the standard of
+continental mountaineering. Their cragsmanship
+often verges on the impossible. A
+book published in Munich, entitled <i>Empor</i>,
+affords stimulating reading. This book was
+produced in honour and in memory of Georg
+Winkler by some of his friends. Winkler was
+a young Munich climber who carried through
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span>
+some of the most daring rock climbs ever
+recorded. <i>Empor</i> contains his diary, and
+several articles contributed by various members
+of one of the most remarkable climbing
+groups in Alpine history. Winkler’s amazing
+performances give to the book a note which
+is lacking in most Alpine literature. Winkler
+was born in 1869. As a boy of eighteen he
+made, quite alone, the first ascent of the
+Winklerturm, one of the most sensational&mdash;both
+in appearance and reality&mdash;of all Dolomite
+pinnacles. On the 14th of August
+1888 he traversed alone the Zinal Rothhorn,
+and on the 18th he lost his life in a
+solitary attempt on the great Zinal face of
+the Weisshorn. No definite traces of him
+have ever been found. His brother, born in
+the year of his death, has also carried through
+some sensational solitary climbs.</p>
+
+<p>We may, perhaps, be excused a certain
+satisfaction in the thought that the British
+crags can occasionally produce climbers whose
+achievements are quite as sensational as
+those of the Winklers. Without native mountains,
+we could not hope to produce cragsmen
+equal to those of Tirol and the Alps. One
+must begin young. It is, as a rule, only a
+comparatively small minority that can afford
+a regular summer holiday in the Alps; but
+Scawfell and Lliwedd are accessible enough,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>
+and the comparatively high standard of the
+British rock-climber owes more to British
+than to Alpine mountains. It was only in
+the last two decades that the possibilities of
+these crags were systematically worked out,
+though isolated climbs have been recorded
+for many years. The patient and often brilliant
+explorations of a group of distinguished
+mountaineers have helped to popularise a fine
+field for native talent, and an arena for those
+who cannot afford a regular Alpine campaign.
+Guides are unknown in Great Britain, and the
+man who learns to climb there is often more
+independent and more self-reliant than the
+mountaineer who is piloted about by guides.
+There is, of course, much that can be learned
+only in the Alps. The home climber can
+learn to use an axe in the wintry gullies round
+Scawfell. He learns something of snow; but
+both snow and ice can only be properly studied
+in the regions of perpetual snow. The home-trained
+cragsman, as a rule, learns to lead up
+rocks far more difficult than anything met
+with on the average Swiss peaks, but the
+wider lessons of route-finding over a long and
+complicated expedition are naturally not
+acquired on a face of cliff a thousand feet in
+height. Nor, for that matter, is the art of
+rapid descent over easy rocks; for the British
+climber usually ascends by rocks, and runs
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span>
+home over grass and scree. None the less,
+these cliffs have produced some wonderfully
+fine mountaineers. We have our Winklers,
+and we have also young rock-climbers who
+confine their energies to the permissible limit
+of the justifiable climbing and who, within
+those limits, carry their craft to its most
+refined possibilities. Hugh Pope, one of the
+most brilliant of the younger school of rock-climbers,
+learned his craft on the British hills,
+and showed in his first Alpine season the value
+of that training. To the great loss of British
+mountaineering he was killed in 1912 on the
+Pic du Midi d’Ossau.</p>
+
+<p>Another comparatively recent development
+is the growth of winter mountaineering. The
+first winter expedition of any importance
+after the beginnings of serious mountaineering
+was Mr. T. S. Kennedy’s attempt on the
+Matterhorn in 1863. He conceived the curious
+idea that the Matterhorn might prove easier
+in winter than in summer. Here, he was very
+much mistaken. He was attacked by a storm,
+and retreated after reaching a point where
+the real climb begins. It was a plucky expedition.
+But the real pioneer of winter
+mountaineering was W. A. Moore. In 1866,
+with Mr. Horace Walker, Melchior Anderegg,
+Christian Almer, and “Peterli” Bohren, he left
+Grindelwald at midnight; they crossed the Finsteraarjoch,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span>
+and returned within the twenty-four
+hours to Grindelwald over the Strahlegg.
+Even in summer this would prove a strenuous
+day. In winter, it is almost incredible that
+this double traverse should have been carried
+through without sleeping out.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the great peaks have now been
+ascended in winter; and amongst others Mr.
+Coolidge must be mentioned as a prominent
+pioneer. His ascents of the Jungfrau, Wetterhorn,
+and Schreckhorn&mdash;the first in winter&mdash;with
+Christian Almer, did much to set the
+fashion. Mrs. Le Blond, the famous lady
+climber, has an even longer list of winter
+first ascents to her credit. But the real
+revolution in winter mountaineering has been
+caused by the introduction of ski-ing. In
+winter, the main difficulty is getting to the
+high mountain huts. Above the huts, the
+temperature is often mild and equable for
+weeks together. A low temperature on the
+ground co-exists with a high temperature in
+the air. Rock-ridges facing south or south-west
+are often denuded of snow, and as easy
+to climb as in summer. Signor Sella also
+made some brilliant winter ascents, such as
+the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa.</p>
+
+<p>The real obstacle to winter mountaineering
+is the appalling weariness of wading up to
+the club-huts on foot. The snow in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span>
+sheltered lower valleys is often deep and
+powdery; and the climber on foot will have
+to force his way through pine forests where
+the snow lies in great drifts between the trees,
+and over moraines where treacherous drifts
+conceal pitfalls between the loose stones. All
+this is changed by the introduction of ski.
+The ski distributes the weight of the climber
+over a long, even surface; and in the softest
+snow he will not sink in more than a few
+inches. Better still, they revolutionise the
+descent, converting a weary plug through
+snow-drifts into a succession of swift and
+glorious runs. The ski-runner takes his ski
+to the foot of the last rock ridges, and then
+proceeds on foot, rejoining his ski, and covering
+on the descent five thousand feet in far less
+time than the foot-climber would take over
+five hundred. Skis, as everybody knows,
+were invented as a means of crossing snowy
+country inaccessible on foot. They are sometimes
+alluded to as snowshoes, but differ
+radically from snowshoes in one important
+respect. Both ski and the Canadian snowshoe
+distribute their wearer’s weight, and
+enable him to cross drifts where he would
+sink in hopelessly if he were on foot, but there
+the resemblance ends. For, whereas snowshoes
+cannot slide on snow, and whereas a
+man on snowshoes cannot descend a hill as
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span>
+fast as a man on foot could run down hill,
+skis glide rapidly and easily on snow, and a
+ski-runner can descend at a rate which may
+be anything up to sixty miles an hour.</p>
+
+<p>Ski-ing is of Scandinavian origin, and the
+greatest exponents of the art are the Norwegians.
+Norwegians have used ski from
+time immemorial in certain districts, such as
+Telemarken, as a means of communication
+between snow-bound villages. It should, perhaps,
+be added that ski-jumping does not
+consist, as some people imagine, in casual
+leaps across chasms or over intervening
+hillocks. The ski-runner does not glide along
+the level at the speed of an express train,
+lightly skimming any obstacles in his path.
+On the level, the best performer does not go
+more than six or seven miles an hour, and the
+great jumps one hears of are made downhill.
+The ski-runner swoops down on to a specially
+prepared platform, leaps into the air, and
+alights on a very steep slope below. The
+longest jump on record is some hundred and
+fifty feet, measured from the edge of the
+take-off to the alighting point. In this case,
+the ski-runner must have fallen through
+nearly seventy vertical feet.</p>
+
+<p>To the mountaineer, the real appeal of
+ski-ing is due to the fact that it halves the
+labour of his ascent to the upper snowfields,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span>
+and converts a tedious descent into a succession
+of swift and fascinating runs. The
+ski-runner climbs on ski to the foot of the
+final rock and ice ridges, and then finishes
+the climb in the ordinary way. After rejoining
+his ski, his work is over, and his
+reward is all before him. If he were on foot,
+he would have to wade laboriously down to
+the valley. On ski, he can swoop down with
+ten times the speed, and a thousand times
+the enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>Ski were introduced into Central Europe
+in the early ’nineties. Dr. Paulcke’s classic
+traverse of the Oberland in 1895, which
+included the ascent of the Jungfrau, proved
+to mountaineers the possibilities of the new
+craft. Abroad, the lesson was soon learned.
+To-day, there are hundreds of ski-runners
+who make a regular practice of mountaineering
+in winter. The Alps have taken out a new
+lease of life. In summer, the huts are
+crowded, the fashionable peaks are festooned
+with parties of incompetent novices who are
+dragged and pushed upwards by their guides,
+but in winter the true mountain lover has
+the upper world to himself. The mere
+summit hunter naturally chooses the line of
+least resistance, and accumulates his list of
+first class expeditions in the summer months,
+when such a programme is easiest to compile.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span>
+The winter mountaineer must be more or
+less independent of the professional element,
+for, though he will probably employ a guide
+to find the way and to act as a reserve of
+strength, he himself must at least be able to
+ski steadily, and at a fair speed.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, mountain craft as the winter
+mountaineer understands the term is a more
+subtle and more embracing science as far, at
+least, as snow conditions are concerned. It
+begins at the hôtel door. In summer, there
+is a mule path leading to the glacier line, a
+mule path which a man can climb with his
+mind asleep. But in winter the snow with
+its manifold problems sweeps down to the
+village. A man has been killed by an
+avalanche within a few yards of a great
+hôtel. From the moment a man buckles on
+his ski, he must exercise his knowledge of
+snow conditions. There are no paths save a
+few woodcutter’s tracks. From the valley
+upwards, he must learn to pick a good line,
+and to avoid the innocent-looking slopes
+that may at any moment resolve themselves
+into an irresistible avalanche. Many a man is
+piloted up a succession of great peaks without
+acquiring anything like the same intimate
+knowledge of snow that is possessed even
+by a ski-runner who has never crossed the
+summer snow-line. Even the humblest ski-runner
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span>
+must learn to diagnose the snow. He
+may follow his leader unthinkingly on the
+ascent; but once he starts down he must
+judge for himself. If he makes a mistake,
+he will be thrown violently on to his face
+when the snow suddenly sticks, and on to
+his back when it quickens. Even the most
+unobservant man will learn something of the
+effects of sun and wind on his running surface
+when the result of a faulty deduction may
+mean violent contact with Mother Earth.</p>
+
+<p>Those who worship the Alps in their loveliest
+and loneliest moods, those who dislike the
+weary anti-climax of the descent through
+burning snowfields, and down dusty mule
+paths, will climb in the winter months,
+when to the joy of renewing old memories of
+the mountains in an unspoiled setting is added
+the rapture of the finest motion known to
+man.</p>
+
+<p>In England mountaineering on ski has yet
+to find many adherents. We have little
+opportunity for learning to ski in these isles,
+and the ten thousand Englishmen that visit
+the Alps in winter prefer to ski on the lower
+hills. For every Englishman with a respectable
+list of glacier tours on ski to his credit,
+there are at least a hundred continental runners
+with a record many times more brilliant.
+The Alpine Ski Club, now in its sixth year,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span>
+has done much to encourage this “new mountaineering,”
+and its journal contains a record
+of the finest expeditions by English and
+continental runners. But even in the pages
+of the Alpine Ski Club Annual, the proportion
+of foreign articles describing really fine tours
+is depressingly large. Of course, the continental
+runner lives nearer the Alps. So did
+the continental mountaineer of the early
+’sixties; but that did not prevent us taking
+our fair share of virgin peaks.</p>
+
+<p>The few Englishmen who are making a
+more or less regular habit of serious mountaineering
+on ski are not among the veterans
+of summer mountaineering, and the leaders
+of summer mountaineering have not yet
+learned to ski. Abroad, the leaders of summer
+mountaineering have welcomed ski-ing as a
+key to their mountains in winter; but the
+many leaders of English mountaineering still
+argue that skis should not be used in the
+High Alps, on the ground that they afford
+facility for venturing on slopes and into
+places where the risk of avalanches is extreme.
+On the Continent thousands of
+runners demonstrate in the most effective
+manner that mountaineering on ski has come
+to stay. It is consoling to reflect that
+English ski-runners are prepared to work out
+the peculiar problems of their craft with or
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>
+without the help of summer mountaineers.
+Of course, both ski-ing and summer mountaineering
+would be strengthened by an
+alliance, and ski-runners can best learn the
+rules of the glacier world in winter from those
+mountaineers who combine a knowledge of
+the summer Alps with some experience of
+winter conditions and a mastery of ski-ing.
+For the moment, such teachers must be looked
+for in the ranks of continental mountaineers.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br />
+
+<span class="large">THE ALPS IN LITERATURE</span></h2>
+
+<p>The last chapter has brought the story of
+mountaineering up to modern times, but,
+before we close, there is another side of Alpine
+exploration on which we must touch. For
+Alpine exploration means something more
+than the discovery of new passes and the
+conquest of virgin peaks. That is the physical
+aspect of the sport, perhaps the side which the
+average climber best understands. But Alpine
+exploration is mental as well as physical, and
+concerns itself with the adventures of the
+mind in touch with the mountains as well as
+with the adventures of the body in contact
+with an unclimbed cliff. The story of the
+gradual discovery of high places as sources of
+inspiration has its place in the history of
+Alpine exploration, as well as the record of
+variation routes too often expressed in language
+of unvarying monotony.</p>
+
+<p>The present writer once undertook to compile
+an anthology whose scope was defined
+by the title&mdash;<i>The Englishman in the Alps</i>.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span>
+The limitations imposed by the series of which
+this anthology formed a part prevented him
+from including the Alpine literature of foreign
+authors, a fact which tended to obscure the
+real development of the Alpine literature. In
+the introduction he expressed the orthodox
+views which all good mountaineers accept
+without demur, explaining that mountaineers
+were the first to write fitly of the mountains,
+that English mountaineers had a peculiar
+talent in this direction, and that all the best
+mountain literature was written in the last
+half of the nineteenth century. These pious
+conclusions were shattered by some very
+radical criticism which appeared in leading
+articles of <i>The Times</i> and <i>The Field</i>. The
+former paper, in the course of some criticisms
+of Mr. Spender’s Alpine Anthology, remarked:
+“In the matter of prose, on the other hand,
+he has a striking predilection for the modern
+‘Alpine books’ of commerce, though hardly
+a book among them except Whymper’s
+<i>Scrambles in the Alps</i> has any real literary
+vitality, or any interest apart from the story
+of adventure which it tells. Mummery, perhaps,
+has individuality enough to be made
+welcome in any gallery, and, of course, one
+is glad to meet Leslie Stephen. But what is
+C. E. Mathews doing there? Or Norman
+Neruda? Or Mr. Frederic Harrison? In an
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span>
+anthology which professed to be nothing more
+than a collection of stories of adventure,
+accidents, and narrow escapes, they would
+have their place along with Owen Glynne
+Jones, and Mr. Douglas Freshfield, and
+innumerable contributors to <i>Peaks, Passes,
+and Glaciers</i> and <i>The Alpine Journal</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>We rubbed our eyes when we read these
+heterodox sentiments in such a quarter.
+Mr. Mathews was, perhaps, an Alpine historian
+rather than a writer of descriptive prose, and
+he does not lend himself to the elegant extract,
+though he is the author of some very quotable
+Alpine sketches. To Mr. Freshfield we owe,
+amongst other good things, one short passage
+as dramatic as anything in Alpine literature,
+the passage in which he describes the discovery
+of Donkin’s last bivouac on Koshtantau.
+<i>The Field</i> was even more emphatic:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“What is not true is that the pioneer sportsmen
+who founded the Alpine Club had
+exceptional insight into the moods of the
+snow. One or two of them, no doubt, struck
+out a little literature as the result of the
+impact of novel experiences upon naïve
+minds.... On the whole, in spite of their
+defects, their machine-made perorations and
+their ponderous jests, they brought an acceptable
+addition to the existing stock of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span>
+literature of adventure.... But they had
+their limitations, and these were rather
+narrow. They dealt almost exclusively with
+the externals of mountaineering experience;
+and when they ventured further their writing
+was apt to be of the quality of fustian. Their
+spiritual adventures among the mountains
+were apt to be melodramatic or insignificant.
+Perhaps their Anglo-Saxon reticence prevented
+themselves from ‘letting themselves go.’...
+At all events there does remain this notable
+distinction&mdash;that, while the most eloquent
+writings of the most eloquent Alpine Club-man
+are as a rule deliberately and ostentatiously
+objective, the subjective literature of
+mountains&mdash;the literature in which we see
+the writer yielding to the influence of scenery,
+instead of lecturing about its beauties, existed
+long before that famous dinner party at the
+house of William Mathews, senior, at which
+the Alpine Club was founded. England, as
+we have said, contributed practically nothing
+to that literature.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We have quoted this passage at some length
+because it expresses a novel attitude in direct
+contradiction to the accepted views sanctified
+by tradition. We do not entirely endorse it.
+The article contains proof that its writer has
+an intimate knowledge of early Alpine literature,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span>
+but one is tempted to fancy that his
+research did not survive the heavy period
+of the ’eighties, and that he is unacquainted
+with those modern writers whose work is
+distinctly subjective. None the less, his contention
+suggests an interesting line of study;
+and in this chapter we shall try briefly to
+sketch the main tendencies, though we cannot
+review in detail the whole history, of Alpine
+literature, a subject which requires a book
+in itself.</p>
+
+<p>The mediæval attitude towards mountains
+has already been discussed, and though we
+ventured to protest that love of the mountains
+was not quite so uncommon as is usually supposed,
+it must be freely admitted that the
+literature of the Middle Ages is comparatively
+barren in appreciation of mountain scenery.
+There were Protestants before Luther, and
+there were men such as Gesner and Petrarch
+before Rousseau; but the Middle Ages can
+scarcely rob Rousseau of the credit for transforming
+mountain worship from the cult of a
+minority into a comparatively fashionable
+creed. Rousseau’s own feeling for the mountains
+was none the less genuine because it
+was sometimes coloured by the desire to make
+the mountains echo his own philosophy of life.
+Rousseau, in this respect, set a fashion which
+his disciples were not slow to follow. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span>
+mountains as the home of the rugged Switzer
+could be made to preach edifying lay sermons
+on the value of liberty. Such sentiments were
+in tune with the spirit of revolt that culminated
+in the French Revolution. A certain Haller
+had sounded this note long before Rousseau
+began to write, in a poem on the Alps which,
+appearing in 1728, enjoyed considerable popularity.
+The author is not without a genuine
+appreciation for Alpine scenery, but he is
+far more occupied with his moral, the contrast
+between the unsophisticated life of the mountain
+peasant and the hyper-civilisation of the
+town. Throughout the writings of this school
+which Haller anticipated and Rousseau
+founded, we can trace an obvious connection
+between a love for the untutored freedom of
+the mountains and a hatred of existing social
+conditions.</p>
+
+<p>It is, therefore, not surprising to find that
+this new school of mountain worship involved
+certain views which found most complete
+expression in the French Revolution. “Man
+is born free, but is everywhere in chains.”
+This, the famous opening to <i>The Social
+Contract</i>, might have heralded with equal
+fitness any mountain passage in the works
+of Rousseau or his disciples. Perhaps these
+two sentiments are nowhere fused with such
+completeness as in the life of Ramond de
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span>
+Carbonnière, the great Pyrenean climber.
+We have not mentioned him before as he took
+no part in purely Alpine explorations. But as
+a mountaineer he ranks with De Saussure and
+Paccard. His ascent of Mont Perdu, after
+many attempts, in 1802, was one of the most
+remarkable climbing exploits of the age. He
+invented a new kind of crampon. He rejoiced
+in fatigue, cold, and the thousand trials that
+confronted the mountaineer in the days before
+club-huts. His own personality was singularly
+arresting; and the reader should consult <i>The
+Early Mountaineers</i> for a more complete
+sketch of the man than we have space to
+attempt. Ramond had every instinct of the
+modern mountaineer. He delighted in hardship.
+He could appreciate the grandeur of a mountain
+storm while sitting on an exposed ledge.
+He lingers with a delight that recalls Gesner
+on the joy of simple fare and rough quarters.
+He is the boon companion of hunters and
+smugglers; and through all his mountain
+journeys his mind is alert in reacting to chance
+impressions.</p>
+
+<p>But his narrative is remarkable for something
+else besides love for the mountains. It
+is full of those sentiments which came to a
+head in the French Revolution. Mountain
+description and fierce denunciations of tyranny
+are mingled in the oddest fashion. It is not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span>
+surprising that Ramond, who finds room in a
+book devoted to mountaineering for a prophecy
+of the Revolution, should have played an
+active part in the Revolution when it came.
+Ramond entered the Revolutionary Parliament
+as a moderate reformer, and when the
+leaders of the Revolution had no further use
+for moderate reformers he found himself in
+the gaol at Tarbres. Here he was fortunately
+forgotten, and survived to become Maître des
+Requêtes under Louis XVIII. Ramond is,
+perhaps, the most striking example of the
+mountaineer whose love for mountains was
+only equalled by his passion for freedom. In
+some ways, he is worthier of our admiration
+than Rousseau, for he not only admired
+mountains, he climbed them. He not only
+praised the simple life of hardship, he endured it.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to English literature, we find much
+the same processes at work. The two great
+poets whose revolt against existing society
+was most marked yielded the Alps a generous
+measure of praise. It is interesting to compare
+the mountain songs of Byron and Shelley.
+Byron’s verse is often marred by his obvious
+sense of the theatre. His misanthropy had,
+no doubt, its genuine as well as its purely
+theatrical element, but it becomes tiresome
+as the <i>motif</i> of the mountain message. No
+doubt he was sincere when he wrote&mdash;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“I live not in myself, but I become<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Portion of that around me, and to me<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">High mountains are a feeling, but the sum<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of human cities torture.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But as a matter of actual practice no man
+lived more in himself, and instead of becoming
+a portion of his surroundings, too often he
+makes his surroundings take colouring from
+his mood. His mountains sometimes seem
+to have degenerated into an echo of Byron.
+They are too anxious to advertise the whole
+gospel of misanthropy. The avalanche roars
+a little too lustily. The Alpine glow is laid
+on with a heavy brush, and his mountains
+cannot wholly escape the suspicion of bluster
+that tends to degenerate into bombast. This
+is undeniable, yet Byron at his best is difficult
+to approach. Freed from his affectations, his
+verse often rises to the highest levels of simple,
+unaffected eloquence. There are lines in <i>The
+Prisoner of Chillon</i> with an authentic appeal
+to the mountain lover. The prisoner has been
+freed from the chain that has bound him for
+years to a pillar, and he is graciously allowed
+the freedom of his dungeon&mdash;a concession that
+may not have appeared unduly liberal to his
+gaolers, but which at least enabled the
+prisoner to reach a window looking out on
+to the hills&mdash;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“I made a footing in the wall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">It was not therefrom to escape.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">But I was curious to ascend<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To my barr’d windows, and to bend<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Once more upon the mountain high<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The quiet of a loving eye.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">I saw them and they were the same<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They were not changed like me in frame;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I saw their thousand years of snow<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">On high&mdash;their wide long lake below.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And the blue Rhone in fullest flow; ...<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I saw the white walled distant town;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And whiter sails go skimming down;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And then there was a little isle<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Which in my very face did smile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">The only one in view.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>As the train swings round the elbow above
+the lake, the mountaineer released from the
+chain of city life can echo this wish to bend
+the quiet of a loving eye on unchanging
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Coleridge has some good lines on Mont
+Blanc, but one feels that they would have
+applied equally well to any other mountain.
+Their sincerity is somewhat discounted by
+the fact that Coleridge manufactured an
+enthusiasm for Mont Blanc at a distance
+from which it is invisible.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span></p>
+
+<p>With Shelley, we move in a different atmosphere.
+Like Byron, he rebelled against
+society, and some comfortable admirers of
+the poetry which time has made respectable
+are apt to ignore those poems which, for
+passionate protest against social conditions,
+remained unique till William Morris transformed
+Socialism into song. Shelley was
+more sincere in his revolt than Byron. He
+did not always keep an eye on the gallery
+while declaiming his rebellion, and his mountains
+have no politics; they sing their own
+spontaneous melodies. Shelley combined the
+mystic’s vision with the accuracy of a trained
+observer. His descriptions of an Alpine
+dawn, or a storm among the mountains,
+might have been written by a man who had
+studied these phenomena with a note-book
+in his hand. Nobody has ever observed with
+such sympathy “the dim enchanted shapes
+of wandering mist,” or brought more beauty
+to their praise. Shelley’s cloud poems have
+the same fugitive magic that haunts the
+fickle countries of the sky when June is stirring
+in those windy hills where&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">“Dense fleecy clouds<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Are wandering in thick flocks among the mountains<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shepherded by the slow unwilling wind.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span></p>
+
+<p>Shelley did not start with the poem, but with
+the mountain. His mountains are something
+more than a convenient instrument for the
+manufacture of rhyme. He did not write a
+poem about mountains as a pleasant variation
+on more conventional themes. With Shelley,
+you know that poetry was the handmaid of
+the hills, the one medium in which he could
+fitly express his own passionate worship of
+every accent in the mountain melody. And
+for these reasons Shelley seems to us a truer
+mountain poet than Byron, truer than Coleridge,
+truer even than Wordsworth, for Wordsworth,
+though some of his Alpine poetry is
+very good indeed, seems more at home in the
+Cumberland fells, whose quiet music no other
+poet has ever rendered so surely.</p>
+
+<p>The early literature of the mountains has
+an atmosphere which has largely disappeared
+in modern Alpine writing. For, to the pioneers
+of Alpine travel, a mountain was not primarily
+a thing to climb. Even men like Bourrit
+and Ramond de Carbonnière, genuine mountaineers
+in every sense of the term, regarded
+the great heights as something more than
+fields for exploration, as the shrines of an
+unseen power that compelled spontaneous
+worship. These men saw a mountain, and
+not a problem in gymnastics. They wrote
+of mountains with a certain naïve eloquence,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span>
+often highly coloured, sometimes a trifle
+bombastic. But, because the best of them
+had French blood in their veins, their outpourings
+were at least free from Saxon self-consciousness.
+They were not writing for an
+academic audience lenient to dullness, but
+convulsed with agonies of shame at any
+suspicion of fine writing. One shudders to
+think of Bourrit delivering his sonorous
+address on the guides of Chamounix as the
+high priests of humanity before the average
+audience that assembles to hear an Alpine
+paper. We have seen two old gentlemen
+incapacitated for the evening by a paper
+pitched on a far more subdued note. Yet,
+somehow, the older writings have the genuine
+ring. They have something lacking in the
+genial rhapsodies of their successors. “We
+can never over-estimate what we owe to the
+Alps”: thus opens a characteristic peroration
+to an Alpine book of the ’eighties. “We are
+indebted to them and all their charming
+associations for the greatest of all blessings,
+friendship and health. It has been conclusively
+proved that, of all sports, it is the
+one which can be protracted to the greatest
+age. It is in the mountains that our youth is
+renewed. Young, middle-aged, or old, we go
+out, too often jaded and worn in mind and
+body; and we return invigorated, renewed,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span>
+restored, fitted for the fresh labours and duties
+of life. To know the great mountains wholly
+is impossible for any of us; but reverently to
+learn the lessons they can teach, and heartily
+to enjoy the happiness they can bring is possible
+to us all.”</p>
+
+<p>If a man who has climbed for thirty years
+cannot pump up something more lively as
+his final summary of Alpine joys, what reply
+can we make to Ruskin’s contention that “the
+real beauties of the Alps are to be seen and to
+be seen only where all may see it, the cripple,
+the child, and the man of grey hairs”?
+There are a few Alpine writers who have produced
+an apology worthy of the craft, and
+have shown that they had found above the
+snow-line an outlet for romance unknown to
+Ruskin’s cripple, and reserves of beauty which
+Ruskin himself had never drawn, and there are,
+on the other hand, quite enough to explain,
+if not to justify, the unlovely conception of
+Alpine climbers embodied in Ruskin’s amiable
+remarks: “The Alps themselves, which your
+own poets used to love so reverently, you look
+upon as soaped poles in a beer garden which
+you set yourselves to climb and slide down
+again with shrieks of delight. When you are
+past shrieking, having no articulate voice to
+say you are glad with, you rush home red
+with cutaneous eruptions of conceit, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span>
+voluble with convulsive hiccoughs of self-satisfaction.”</p>
+
+<p>With a few great exceptions, the literature
+of mountaineers is not as fine as the literature
+of mountain lovers. Let us see what the men
+who have not climbed have given to the
+praise of the snows. What mountaineer has
+written as Ruskin wrote? Certainly Ruskin
+at his best reaches heights which no mountaineer
+has ever scaled. When Ruskin read
+his Inaugural Address in the early ’fifties
+to an audience in the main composed of
+Cambridge undergraduates, he paused for a
+moment and glanced up at his audience.
+When he saw that the fleeting attention of
+the undergraduates had been arrested by this
+sudden pause, he declaimed a passage which
+he did not intend any of them to miss, a
+passage describing the Alps from the southern
+plains: “Out from between the cloudy pillars
+as they pass, emerge for ever the great battlements
+of the memorable and perpetual
+hills.”... When he paused again, after
+the sonorous fall of a majestic peroration,
+even the most prosaic of undergraduates
+joined in the turbulent applause.</p>
+
+<p>“Language which to a severe taste is perhaps
+a trifle too fine,” is Leslie Stephen’s
+characteristic comment. “It is not every
+one,” he adds, with trenchant common sense,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>
+“who can with impunity compare Alps to
+archangels.” Perhaps not, and let us therefore
+be thankful to the occasional writer, who,
+like Ruskin and Leslie Stephen himself at his
+best, is not shamed into dullness by the fear
+of soaring too high. But Ruskin was something
+more than a fine writer. No man, and
+no mountaineer, ever loved the Alps with a
+more absorbing passion; and, in the whole
+realm of Alpine literature, there is no passage
+more pregnant with the unreasoning love for
+the hills than that which opens: “For to
+myself mountains are the beginning and the
+end of all Alpine scenery,” and ends: “There
+is not a wave of the Seine but is associated in
+my mind with the first rise of the sandstones
+and forest pines of Fontainebleau; and with
+the hope of the Alps, as one leaves Paris with
+the horses’ heads to the south-west, the
+morning sun flashing on the bright waves at
+Charenton. If there be no hope or association
+of this kind, and if I cannot deceive myself
+into fancying that, perhaps at the next rise
+of the road, there may be seen the film of a
+blue hill in the gleam of sky at the horizon,
+the landscape, however beautiful, produces in
+me even a kind of sickness and pain; and the
+whole view from Richmond Hill or Windsor
+Terrace&mdash;nay, the gardens of Alcinous, with
+their perpetual summer&mdash;or of the Hesperides
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span>
+(if they were flat, and not close to Atlas),
+golden apples and all&mdash;I would give away in
+an instant, for one mossy granite stone a foot
+broad, and two leaves of lady-fern.”</p>
+
+<p>George Meredith was no mountaineer; but
+his mountain passages will not easily be beaten.
+His description of the Alps seen from the
+Adriatic contains, perhaps, the subtlest phrase
+in literature for the colouring of distant
+ranges: “Colour was steadfast on the massive
+front ranks; it wavered in its remoteness and
+was quick and dim <i>as though it fell on beating
+wings</i>.” And no climber has analysed the
+climber’s conflicting emotions with such
+sympathetic acuteness. “Would you know
+what it is to hope again, and have all your
+hopes at hand? Hang upon the crags at a
+gradient that makes your next step a debate
+between the thing you are and the thing you
+may become. There the merry little hopes
+grow for the climber like flowers and food,
+immediate, prompt to prove their uses,
+sufficient if just within grasp, as mortal hopes
+should be.”</p>
+
+<p>We have quoted Ruskin’s great tribute to
+the romance which still haunts the journey
+to the Alps even for those who are brought
+up on steam. Addington Symonds was no
+mountaineer; but he writes of this journey
+with an enthusiasm which rings truer than
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>
+much in Alpine adventure: “Of all the joys
+in life, none is greater than the joy of arriving
+on the outskirts of Switzerland at the end of a
+long dusty day’s journey from Paris. The
+true epicure in refined pleasures will never
+travel to Basle by night. He courts the heat
+of the sun and the monotony of French
+plains&mdash;their sluggish streams, and never-ending
+poplar trees&mdash;for the sake of the
+evening coolness and the gradual approach
+to the great Alps, which await him at the
+close of the day. It is about Mulhausen that
+he begins to feel a change in the landscape.
+The fields broaden into rolling downs, watered
+by clear and running streams; the great Swiss
+thistle grows by riverside and cowshed; pines
+begin to tuft the slopes of gently rising hills;
+and now the sun has set, the stars come out,
+first Hesper, then the troop of lesser lights;
+and he feels&mdash;yes, indeed, there is now no
+mistake&mdash;the well-known, well-loved, magical
+fresh air, that never fails to blow from snowy
+mountains, and meadows watered by perennial
+streams. The last hour is one of exquisite
+enjoyment, and when he reaches Basle he
+scarcely sleeps all night for hearing the swift
+Rhine beneath the balconies, and knowing
+that the moon is shining on its waters, through
+the town, beneath the bridges, between
+pasture-lands and copses, up the still mountain-girdled
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>
+valleys to the ice-caves where the
+water springs. There is nothing in all experience
+of travelling like this. We may
+greet the Mediterranean at Marseilles with
+enthusiasm; on entering Rome by the Porta
+del Popolo we may reflect with pride that
+we have reached the goal of our pilgrimage,
+and are at last among world-shaking memories.
+But neither Rome nor the Riviera wins our
+hearts like Switzerland. We do not lie awake
+in London thinking of them; we do not long
+so intensely, as the year comes round, to
+revisit them. Our affection is less a passion
+than that which we cherish for Switzerland.”</p>
+
+<p>Among modern writers there is Mr. Belloc,
+who stands self-confessed as a man who
+refuses to climb for fear of “slipping down.”
+Mr. Belloc has French blood in his veins, and
+he is not cursed with British reserve. In his
+memorable journey along the path to Rome,
+he had, perforce, to cross the Jura, and this
+is how he first saw the Alps&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“I saw, between the branches of the trees
+in front of me, a sight in the sky that made
+me stop breathing, just as a great danger at
+sea, or great surprise in love, or a great
+deliverance will make a man stop breathing.
+I saw something I had known in the West as
+a boy, something I had never seen so grandly
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span>
+discovered as was this. In between the
+branches of the trees was a great promise
+of unexpected lights beyond....</p>
+
+<p>“Here were these magnificent creatures of
+God, I mean the Alps, which now for the first
+time I saw from the height of the Jura; and,
+because they were fifty or sixty miles away,
+and because they were a mile or two high,
+they were become something different from
+us others, and could strike one motionless
+with the awe of supernatural things. Up
+there in the sky, to which only clouds belong,
+and birds, and the last trembling colours of
+pure light, they stood fast and hard; not
+moving as do the things of the sky....</p>
+
+<p>“These, the great Alps, seen thus, link one
+in some way to one’s immortality. Nor is it
+possible to convey, or even to suggest, those
+few fifty miles, and those few thousand feet;
+there is something more. Let me put it thus:
+that from the height of Weissenstein I saw, as
+it were, my religion. I mean humility, the
+fear of death, the terror of height and of distance,
+the glory of God, the infinite potentiality
+of reception whence springs that divine
+thirst of the soul; my aspiration also towards
+completion, and my confidence in the dual
+destiny. For I know that we laughers have
+a gross cousinship with the most high, and
+it is this contrast and perpetual quarrel which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span>
+feeds a spring of merriment in the soul of a
+sane man.... That it is also which leads
+some men to climb mountain tops, but not
+me, for I am afraid of slipping down.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>That is subjective enough, with a vengeance;
+for those few lines one would gladly sacrifice
+a whole shelf full of climbing literature dealing
+with the objective facts that do not vary
+with the individual observer.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Kipling again, though no mountaineer,
+has struck out one message which most
+mountaineers would sacrifice a season’s climbing
+to have written. A brief quotation gives
+only a faint impression of its beauty&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“At last, they entered a world within a
+world&mdash;a valley of leagues where the high
+hills were fashioned of the mere rubble and
+refuse from off the knees of the mountains.
+Here, one day’s march carried them no farther,
+it seemed, than a dreamer’s clogged pace
+bears him in a nightmare. They skirted a
+shoulder painfully for hours, and behold, it
+was but an outlying boss in an outlying
+buttress of the main pile! A rounded meadow
+revealed itself, when they had reached it,
+for a vast table-land running far into the
+valley. Three days later, it was a dim fold
+in the earth to southward.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span></p>
+
+<p>“‘Surely the Gods live here,’ said Kim,
+beaten down by the silence and the appalling
+sweep and dispersal of the cloud-shadows
+after rain. ‘This is no place for men!’</p>
+
+<p>“Above them, still enormously above them,
+earth towered away towards the snow-line,
+where from east to west across hundreds of
+miles, ruled as with a ruler, the last of the
+bold birches stopped. Above that, in scarps
+and blocks upheaved, the rocks strove to
+fight their heads above the white smother.
+Above these again, changeless since the
+world’s beginning, but changing to every
+mood of sun and cloud, lay out the eternal
+snow. They could see blots and blurs on
+its face where storm and wandering wullie-wa
+got up to dance. Below them, as they stood,
+the forest slid away in a sheet of blue-green
+for mile upon mile; below the forest was a
+village in its sprinkle of terraced fields and
+steep grazing-grounds; below the village they
+knew, though a thunderstorm worried and
+growled there for the moment, a pitch of
+twelve or fifteen hundred feet gave to the
+moist valley where the streams gather that
+are the mothers of young Sutluj.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Then there is Mr. Algernon Blackwood, who
+is, I think, rather a ski-runner than a mountaineer.
+Certainly he has unravelled the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>
+psychology of hill-wandering, and discovered
+something of that strange personality behind
+the mountains. No writer has so successfully
+caught the uncanny atmosphere that sometimes
+haunts the hills.</p>
+
+<p>The contrast is even more marked in poetry
+than in prose. In prose, we have half-a-dozen
+Alpine books that would satisfy a severe
+critic. In poetry, only one mountaineer has
+achieved outstanding success. Mr. G. Winthrop
+Young, alone, has transferred the
+essential romance of mountaineering into
+poetry which not mountaineers alone, but
+every lover of finished craftsmanship, will
+read with something deeper than pleasure.
+But, while Mr. Young has no rival in the
+poetry of mountaineering, there is a considerable
+quantity of excellent verse of which
+mountains are the theme. We have spoken
+of Shelley and Byron. Among more modern
+poets there is Tennyson. He wrote little
+mountain poetry, and yet in four lines he has
+crystallised the whole essence of the Alpine
+vision from some distant sentinel of the
+plains&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“How faintly flushed, how phantom fair<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Was Monte Rosa, hanging there<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">A thousand shadowy pencilled valleys<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And snowy dells in a golden air.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span></p>
+
+<p>Sydney Dobell has some good mountain
+verse; and if we had not already burdened
+this chapter with quotations we should have
+borrowed from those descriptions in which
+Morris clearly recalls the savage volcanic
+scenery of Iceland. Swinburne, in the lines
+beginning&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">“Me the snows<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That face the first of the morning”&mdash;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>has touched some of the less obvious spells
+of hill region with his own unerring instinct
+for beauty.</p>
+
+<p>F. W. H. Myers in eight lines has said all
+that need be said when the hills have claimed
+the ultimate penalty&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">“Here let us leave him: for his shroud the snow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">For funeral lamps he has the planets seven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">For a great sign the icy stair shall go<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Between the stars to heaven.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">One moment stood he as the angels stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">High in the stainless eminence of air.<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The next he was not, to his fatherland<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Translated unaware.”<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Holland has written, as a dedication
+for a book of Alpine travel, lines which have
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span>
+the authentic note; and Mr. Masefield in a
+few verses has caught the savage aloofness
+of the peaks better than most mountaineers
+in pages of redundant description.</p>
+
+<p>The contrast is rather too marked between
+the work of those who loved mountains without
+climbing them and the literature of the
+professional mountaineers. Even writers like
+Mr. Kipling, who have only touched mountains
+in a few casual lines, seem to have captured
+the mountain atmosphere more successfully
+than many a climber who has devoted articles
+galore to his craft. Of course, Mr. Kipling
+is a genius and the average Alpine writer is
+not; but surely one might not unreasonably
+expect a unique literature from those who
+know the mountains in all their changing
+tenses, and who by service of toil and danger
+have wrung from them intimate secrets
+unguessed at by those who linger outside the
+shrine.</p>
+
+<p>Mountaineering has, of course, produced
+some great literature. There is Leslie
+Stephen, though even Stephen at his best is
+immeasurably below Ruskin’s finest mountain
+passages. But Leslie Stephens are rare in
+the history of Alpine literature, whereas the
+inarticulate are always with us.</p>
+
+<p>In some ways, the man who can worship
+a mountain without wishing to climb it has
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span>
+a certain advantage. He sees a vision, where
+the climber too often sees nothing but a
+variation route. The popular historian has
+often a more vivid picture of a period than
+the expert, whose comprehensive knowledge
+of obscure charters sometimes blinds him
+to the broad issues of history. Technical
+knowledge does not always make for understanding.
+The first great revelation of the
+mountains has a power that is all its own. To
+the man who has yet to climb, every mountain
+is virgin, every snow-field a mystery, undefiled
+by traffic with man. The first vision passes,
+and the love that is based on understanding
+supplants it. The vision of unattainable
+snows translates itself into terms of memory&mdash;that
+white gleam that once belonged to
+dreamland into an ice-wall with which you
+have wrestled through the scorching hours
+of a July afternoon. You have learned to
+spell the writing on the wall of the mountains.
+The magic of first love, with its worship of the
+unattainable, is too often transformed into
+the soberer affection founded, like domestic
+love, on knowledge and sympathy; and the
+danger would be greater if the fickle hills had
+not to be wooed afresh every season. Beyond
+the mountain that we climb and seem to know,
+lurks ever the visionary peak that we shall
+never conquer; and this unattainable ideal
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span>
+gives an eternal youth to the hills, and a never-failing
+vitality to our Alpine adventure. Yet
+when we begin to set down our memories of
+the mountains, it seems far easier to recall
+those objective facts, which are the same for
+all comers, the meticulous details of route,
+the conditions of snow and ice, and to omit
+from our epic that subjective vision of the
+mountain, that individual impression which
+alone lends something more than a technical
+interest to the story of our days among the
+snow. And so it is not altogether surprising
+that the man who has never climbed can
+write more freely and more fully of the
+mountains, since he has no expert knowledge
+to confuse the issue, no technical details to
+obscure the first fine careless rapture.</p>
+
+<p>The early mountaineers entered into a
+literary field that was almost unexplored.
+They could write of their hill journeys with
+the assurance of men branching out into
+unknown byways. They could linger on
+the commonplaces of hill travel, and praise
+the freedom of the hills with the air of men
+enunciating a paradox. To glorify rough fare,
+simple quarters, a bed of hay, a drink quaffed
+from the mountain stream, must have
+afforded Gesner the same intellectual pleasure
+that Mr. Chesterton derives from the praise of
+Battersea and Beer. And this joy in emotions
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span>
+which had yet to be considered trite lingers
+on even into the more sedate pages of <i>Peaks,
+Passes, and Glaciers</i>. The contributors to
+those classic volumes were rather frightened
+of letting themselves go; but here and there
+one lights on some spontaneous expression of
+delight in the things that are the very flesh
+and blood of our Alpine experience&mdash;the
+bivouac beneath the stars, the silent approach
+of dawn, the freemasonry of the rope, the
+triumph of the virgin summit. “Times have
+changed since then,” wrote Donald Robertson
+in a recent issue of <i>The Alpine Journal</i>&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“Times have changed since then, and with
+them Alpine literature. Mountaineering has
+become a science, and, as in other sciences, the
+professor has grown impatient of the average
+intelligence, and evolved his own tongue.
+To write for the outside public is to incur the
+odium of ‘popular science,’ a form of literature
+fascinating to me, but anathema to all right-minded
+men. Those best qualified to speak
+will only address themselves to those qualified
+to listen, and therefore only in the jargon of
+their craft. But the hall-mark of technical
+writing is the assumption of common knowledge.
+What all readers know for themselves,
+it is needless and even impertinent to state.
+Hence, in the climbing stories written for the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span>
+elect, the features common to all climbs must
+either be dismissed with a brief reference, or
+lightly treated as things only interesting in
+so far as they find novel expression.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Those who worship Clio the muse will try
+to preserve the marriage of history and
+literature, but those whose only claim to
+scholarship is their power to collate facts by
+diligent research, those who have not the
+necessary ability to weave these facts into a
+vital pattern, will always protest their devotion
+to what is humorously dubbed scientific
+history. So in the Alpine world, which has
+its own academic traditions and its own
+mandarins, you will find that those who
+cannot translate emotions (which it is to be
+hoped they share) into language which anybody
+could understand are rather apt to
+explain their discreet silence, by the possession
+of a delicate reserve that forbids them to
+emulate the fine writing of a Ruskin or the
+purple patches of Meredith.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it should be possible to discriminate
+between those who endeavour to clothe a fine
+emotion in worthy language, and those who
+start with the intention of writing finely, and
+look round for a fine emotion to serve as the
+necessary peg. Sincerity is the touchstone
+that discriminates the fine writing that is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span>
+good, and the fine writing that is damnable.
+The emotions that are the essence of mountaineering
+deserve something better than the
+genteel peroration of the average climbing
+book. Alpine literature is a trifle deficient
+in fine frenzy. The Mid-Victorian pose of the
+bluff, downright Briton, whose surging flood
+of emotions is concealed beneath an affectation
+of cynicism, is apt to be tedious, and one
+wonders whether emotions so consistently
+and so successfully suppressed really existed
+within those stolid bosoms.</p>
+
+<p>A great deal of Alpine literature appeals,
+and rightly appeals, only to the expert. Such
+contributions are not intended as descriptive
+literature. They may, as the record of
+research into the early records of mountaineering
+and mountains, supply a much-needed
+link in the history of the craft. As the record
+of new exploration, they are sure to interest
+the expert, while their exact description of
+routes and times will serve as the material for
+future climbers’ guides. But this is not the
+whole of Alpine literature, and the danger is
+that those who dare not attempt the subjective
+aspects of mountaineering should
+frighten off those who have the necessary
+ability by a tedious repetition of the phrase
+“fine writing,” that facile refuge of the
+Philistine. The conventional Alpine article
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span>
+is a dreary affair. Its humour is antique, and
+consists for the most part in jokes about fleas
+and porters, and in the substitution of long
+phrases for simple ones. Its satire is even
+thinner. The root assumption that the Alpine
+climber is a superior person, and that social
+status varies with the height above sea level,
+recurs with monotonous regularity. The joke
+about the tripper is as old as the Flood, and
+the instinct that resents his disturbing presence
+is not quite the hall-mark of the æsthetic soul
+that some folk seem to think. It is as old as
+the primitive man who espied a desirable glade,
+and lay in wait for the first tourist with a
+club. “My friends tell me,” writes a well-known
+veteran, “that I am singular in this
+strange desire to avoid meeting the never-ceasing
+stream of tourists, and I am beginning
+to believe that they are right, and that I am
+differently constituted from other people.”
+The author of this trite confession has only
+to study travel literature in general and Alpine
+literature in particular to discover that quite
+commonplace folk can misquote the remark
+about the madding crowd, and that even
+members of the lower middle class have been
+known to put the sentiment into practice.
+A sense of humour and a sense for solitude
+are two things which their true possessors are
+chary of mentioning.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span></p>
+
+<p>It might be fairly argued that the average
+mountaineer does not pretend to be a writer,
+fine or otherwise, that he describes his climbs
+in a club journal intended for a friendly and
+uncritical audience, and that he leaves the
+defence of his sport to the few men who can
+obtain the hearing of a wider audience. That
+is fair comment; and, fortunately, mountaineering
+is not without the books that are
+classics not only of Alpine but also of English
+literature.</p>
+
+<p>First to claim mention is <i>Peaks, Passes,
+and Glaciers</i>, a volume “so fascinating,” writes
+Donald Robertson, “so inspiring a gospel of
+adventure and full, free life, that the call
+summoned to the hills an army of seekers
+after the promised gold.” That is true
+enough. But the charm of these pages, which
+is undoubted, is much more due to the fact
+that the contributors had a good story to tell
+than to any grace of style with which they
+told it. The contributors were drawn from
+all walks of life&mdash;barristers, Manchester merchants,
+schoolmasters, dons, clergymen, and
+scientists; and unless we must affect to believe
+that Alpine climbing inspires its devotees
+with the gift of tongues, we need not appear
+guilty of irreverence for the pioneers if we
+discriminate between the literary and intrinsic
+merit of their work. They were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span>
+educated men. They did not split their
+infinitives, and they could express their
+thoughts in the King’s English, a precedent
+not always followed by their successors. We
+must, however, differentiate between the
+Alpine writing which gives pleasure because
+of its associations, and the literature which
+delights not only for its associations and story,
+but also for its beauty of expression. Let us,
+as an example, consider two passages describing
+an Alpine dawn&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“We set out from the bivouac at three in
+the morning. The night was cloudless, and
+the stars shone with a truly majestic beauty.
+Ahead of us, we could just see the outline of
+the great peak we proposed to attack. Gradually,
+the east lightened. The mountains became
+more distinct. The eastern sky paled,
+and a few minutes later the glorious sun
+caught the topmost peaks, and painted their
+snows with the fiery hues of dawn. It was a
+most awe-compelling spectacle.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This passage may please us, not because
+the language is fine or the thoughts subtly
+expressed, but simply because the scenes so
+inadequately described recall those which
+we ourselves have witnessed. The passage
+would convey little to a man who had never
+climbed. Now consider the following&mdash;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“On the glacier, the light of a day still to
+be born put out our candles.... We halted
+to watch the procession of the sun. He came
+out of the uttermost parts of the earth, very
+slowly, lighting peak after peak in the long
+southward array, dwelling for a moment, and
+then passing on. Opposite, and first to catch
+the glow, were the great mountains of the
+Saasgrat and the Weisshorn. <i>But more
+beautiful, like the loom of some white-sailed
+ship far out at sea, each unnamed and unnumbered
+peak of the east took and reflected the
+radiance of the morning.</i> The light mists
+which came before the sun faded.”...</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Like the other passage this brief description
+starts a train of memories; but, whereas the
+first passage would convey little to a non-climber,
+Sir Claud Schuster has really thought
+out the sequence of the dawn, and has caught
+one of its finer and subtler effects by the use
+of a very happy analogy. The phrase which
+we have ventured to italicise defines in a few
+words a brief scene in the drama of the dawn,
+an impression that could not be conveyed by
+piling adjective on adjective.</p>
+
+<p>There are many writers who have captured
+the romance of mountaineering, far fewer who
+have the gift for that happy choice of words
+that gives the essence of a particular Alpine
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span>
+view. Pick up any Alpine classic at a venture,
+and you will find that not one writer in fifty
+can hold your attention through a long passage
+of descriptive writing. The average writer
+piles on his adjectives. From the Alpine
+summit you can see a long way. The horizon
+seems infinitely far off. The valleys sink
+below into profound shadows. The eye is
+carried from the dark firs upward to the
+glittering snowfields. “The majestic mass of
+the ... rises to the north, and blots out the
+lesser ranges of the.... The awful heights
+of the ... soar upwards from the valley
+of.... In the east, we could just catch a
+glimpse of the ... and our guides assured
+us that in the west we could veritably see the
+distant snows of our old friend the....” And
+so on, and so forth. Fill in the gaps, and this
+skeleton description can be made to fit the
+required panorama. It roughly represents
+nine out of ten word pictures of Alpine views.
+Examine Whymper’s famous description of
+the view from the Matterhorn. It is little
+more than a catalogue of mountains. There
+is hardly a phrase in it that would convey the
+essential atmosphere of such a view to a man
+who had not seen it.</p>
+
+<p>Genius has been defined as the power of
+seeing analogies, and we have sometimes
+fancied that the secret of all good Alpine
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span>
+description lies in the happy choice of the
+right analogy. It is no use accumulating the
+adjective at random. Peaks are high and
+majestic, the snow is white. Certainly this
+does not help us. What we need is some
+happily chosen phrase which goes deeper than
+the obvious epithets that apply to every
+peak and every snowfield. We want the
+magical phrase that differentiates one particular
+Alpine setting from another. And this
+phrase will often be some apparently casual
+analogy drawn from something which has no
+apparent connection with the Alps. “Beautiful
+like the loom of some white-sailed ship,”
+is an example which we have already quoted.
+Leslie Stephen’s work is full of such analogies.
+He does not waste adjectives. His adjectives
+are chosen for a particular reason. His
+epithets all do work. Read his description
+of the view from Mont Blanc, the Peaks of
+Primiero, the Alps in winter, and you feel
+that these descriptions could not be made to
+apply to other Alpine settings by altering the
+names and suppressing an occasional phrase.
+They are charged with the individual atmosphere
+of the place which gave them birth.
+In the most accurate sense of the word, they
+are autocthonous. A short quotation will
+illustrate these facts. Here is Stephen’s
+description of the view from the Schreckhorn.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span>
+Notice that he achieves his effect without the
+usual largess of jewellery. Topaz and opal
+are dispensed with, and their place is taken
+by casual and apparently careless analogies
+from such diversified things as an opium
+dream, music, an idle giant.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“You are in the centre of a whole district
+of desolation, suggesting a landscape from
+Greenland, or an imaginary picture of England
+in the glacial epoch, with shores yet unvisited
+by the irrepressible Gulf Stream. The charm
+of such views&mdash;little as they are generally
+appreciated by professed admirers of the
+picturesque&mdash;is to my taste unique, though
+not easily explained to unbelievers. They
+have a certain soothing influence like slow
+and stately music, or one of the strange opium
+dreams described by De Quincey. If his
+journey in the mail-coach could have led him
+through an Alpine pass instead of the quiet
+Cumberland hills, he would have seen visions
+still more poetical than that of the minister
+in the ‘dream fugue.’ Unable as I am to bend
+his bow, I can only say that there is something
+almost unearthly in the sight of enormous
+spaces of hill and plain, apparently unsubstantial
+as a mountain mist, glimmering
+away to the indistinct horizon, and as it were
+spell-bound by an absolute and eternal silence.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span>
+The sentiment may be very different when a
+storm is raging and nothing is visible but the
+black ribs of the mountains glaring at you
+through rents in the clouds; but on that
+perfect day on the top of the Schreckhorn,
+where not a wreath of vapour was to be seen
+under the Whole vast canopy of the sky, a
+delicious lazy sense of calm repose was the
+appropriate frame of mind. One felt as if
+some immortal being, with no particular
+duties upon his hands, might be calmly
+sitting upon those desolate rocks and watching
+the little shadowy wrinkles of the plain, that
+were really mountain ranges, rise and fall
+through slow geological epochs.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Whymper never touches this note even in
+the best of many good mountain passages.
+His forte was rather the romance of Alpine
+adventure than the subtler art of reproducing
+Alpine scenery. But in his own line he is
+without a master. His style, of course, was
+not so uniformly good as Stephen’s. He had
+terrible lapses. He spoils his greatest chapter
+by a most uncalled-for anti-climax. He had
+a weakness for banal quotations from third-rate
+translations of the classics. But, though
+these lapses are irritating, there is no book
+like the famous <i>Scrambles</i>, and there is
+certainly no book which has sent more new
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span>
+climbers to the Alps. Whymper was fortunate,
+for he had as his material the finest
+story in Alpine history. Certainly, he did not
+waste his chances. The book has the genuine
+ring of Alpine romance. Its pages are full of
+those contrasts that are the stuff of our
+mountain quest, the tragic irony that a Greek
+mind would have appreciated. The closing
+scenes in the great drama of the Matterhorn
+move to their appointed climax with the
+dignity of some of the most majestic chapters
+in the Old Testament. Of their kind, they
+are unique in the literature of exploration.</p>
+
+<p>Tyndall, Whymper’s great rival, had literary
+talent as well as scientific genius, but his
+Alpine books, though they contain fine passages,
+have not the personality that made
+<i>Scrambles in the Alps</i> a classic, nor the genius
+for descriptive writing that we admire in <i>The
+Playground of Europe</i>. Of A. W. Moore’s
+work and of Mummery’s great classic we have
+already spoken. Mummery, like Whymper,
+could translate into words the rollicking adventure
+of mountaineering, and though he
+never touches Leslie Stephen’s level, some of
+his descriptions of mountain scenery have a
+distinct fascination.</p>
+
+<p>A few other great Alpine books have
+appeared between <i>Peaks, Pastures, and
+Glaciers</i> and the recent work <i>Peaks and</i>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span>
+<i>Pleasant Pastures</i>. Mr. Douglas Freshfield
+and Sir Martin Conway are both famous
+explorers of the greater ranges beyond Europe,
+and their talent for mountain description
+must have inspired many a climber to leave
+the well-trodden Alpine routes for the unknown
+snows of the Himalayas. Mr. Freshfield’s
+Caucasian classic opens with a short
+poem that we should like to have quoted, and
+includes one of the great stories on mountain
+literature&mdash;the search for Donkin and Fox.
+Sir Martin Conway brings to his work the
+eye of a trained Art critic, and the gift for
+analysing beauty, not only in pictures, but
+in Alpine scenery. He is an artist in colour
+and in words.</p>
+
+<p>Contrary to accepted views, we are inclined
+to believe that Alpine literature shows signs
+of a Renaissance. Those who hold that the
+subject-matter is exhausted, seem to base
+their belief on the fact that every virgin peak
+in the Alps has been climbed, and that the
+literature of exploration should, therefore,
+die a natural death. This belief argues a
+lack of proportion. Because a certain number
+of climbers have marched up and down the
+peaks of a certain range, it does not follow
+that those mountains no longer afford emotions
+capable of literary expression. The very
+reverse is the case. It is perilously easy to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span>
+attach supreme importance to the sporting
+side of our craft. Mountain literature is too
+often tedious, because it concentrates on
+objective facts. When all the great mountains
+were unclimbed, those who wrote of them could
+not burden their pages with tiresome details
+of routes and times. When every mountain
+has been climbed by every conceivable route,
+the material at the disposal of the objective
+writer is fortunately exhausted. There are
+few great Alpine routes that remain unexplored.
+There are a thousand byways in
+the psychology of mountaineering that have
+never been touched, and an excellent book
+might have been written on this subject alone.
+Every mountaineer brings to the mountains
+the tribute of a new worshipper with his own
+different emotions. “Obtain an account of
+the same expedition from three points on the
+same rope, and you will see how different.
+Therefore, there is room in our generation for
+a new <i>Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers</i> by the best
+pens in the Club telling freely, and without
+false shame, the simple story of a day among
+the mountains.”</p>
+
+<p>The pioneers had every advantage, a new
+subject for literary expression, a new field of
+almost untouched exploration, phrases that
+had yet to become trite, emotions which
+never become trite though their expression
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span>
+is apt to fall into a rut. And yet it seems
+doubtful whether they wrote more freely and
+more truly than some of those who are writing
+to-day. In some directions, mountain descriptions
+have advanced as well as mountain
+craft. We have no Leslie Stephen and no
+Whymper, but the best pens at work in <i>The
+Alpine Journal</i> have created a nobler literature
+than that which we find in the early numbers.
+“<i>The Alpine Journal</i>,” remarked a worthy
+president, is “the champagne of Alpine
+literature.” Like the best champagne, it is
+often very dry. The early numbers contained
+little of literary value beyond Gosset’s great
+account of the avalanche which killed Bennen,
+and some articles by Stephen and Whymper.
+Neither Stephen nor Whymper wrote their
+best for the club journal. <i>The Cornhill</i>
+contains Stephen’s best work, and Whymper
+gave the pick of his writing to the Press.
+One may safely say that the first forty years
+of the club journal produced nothing better
+than recent contributions such as “The Alps”
+by A. D. Godley, “Two Ridges of the Grand
+Jorasses” by G. W. Young, “The Middle Age
+of the Mountaineer” by Claud Schuster,
+“Another Way of Alpine Love” by F. W.
+Bourdillon, “The Ligurian Alps” by R. L. A.
+Irving, and “Alpine Humour” by C. D.
+Robertson. Nor has good work been confined
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span>
+to <i>The Alpine Journal</i>. The patient
+seeker may find hidden treasures in the pages
+of some score of journals devoted to some
+aspect of the mountains. The new century
+has opened well, for it has given us Prof.
+Collie’s <i>Exploration in the Himalaya and other
+Mountain Ranges</i>, a book of unusual charm.
+It has given us Mr. Young’s mountain poems,
+for which we would gladly jettison a whole
+library of Alpine literature. It has given us
+<i>Peaks and Pleasant Pastures</i>, and a fine
+translation of Guido Rey’s classic work on the
+Matterhorn. With these books in mind we
+can safely assert that the writer quoted at the
+beginning of this chapter was unduly pessimistic,
+and that England has contributed her
+fair share to the subjective literature of the
+Alps.</p>
+
+<p>Let us hope that this renaissance of wonder
+will suffer no eclipse; let us hope that the
+Alps may still offer to generations yet unborn
+avenues of discovery beside those marked
+“No Information” in the pages of <i>The
+Climber’s Guides</i>. The saga of the Alps will
+not die from lack of material so long as men
+find in the hills an inspiration other than the
+challenge of unclimbed ridges and byways of
+mountain joy uncharted in the ordnance
+survey.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="BIBLIOGRAPHY">BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2>
+
+<p>The Alpine Club collects every book dealing with the
+mountains and also most of the articles that appear in the
+Press and Magazines. The Catalogue of the Alpine Club
+Library should, therefore, be the most complete bibliography
+in existence. The additions to the Club Library are published
+from time to time in <i>The Alpine Journal</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The most useful bibliographies of Alpine book that are
+accessible to the general reader are contained in <i>Ueber Eis
+and Schnee</i>, by Gottlieb Studer (1869-1871), and <i>Swiss Travel
+and Swiss Guide Books</i>, by the Rev. W. A. B. Coolidge (1889).</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most thorough book on every phase of the
+Alps, sporting, social, political and historical is <i>The Alps in
+Nature and History</i>, by the Rev. W. A. B. Coolidge (1908).</p>
+
+<p>For the Geology of the Alps and the theory of Glacier
+Motion there are no better books than <i>The Glaciers of the
+Alps</i>, by John Tyndall (1860; reprinted in the Everyman
+Library), and <i>The Building of the Alps</i>, by T. G. Bonney
+(1912).</p>
+
+<p>For the practical side of mountaineering, <i>Mountaineering</i>,
+by C. T. Dent (Badminton Library), is good but somewhat
+out of date.</p>
+
+<p>The best modern book on the theory and practice of mountaineering
+is <i>Modern Mountain Craft</i>, edited by G. W. Young
+(1914). This book is in the Press. It contains chapters on
+the theory of mountain craft in summer and winter, and in
+addition a very able summary of the characteristic of mountaineering
+in the great ranges beyond Europe as described
+by the various experts for the particular districts.</p>
+
+<p>Winter mountaineering and ski-ing are dealt with in <i>The</i>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span>
+<i>Ski-Runner</i>, by E. C. Richardson (1909); <i>Ski-ing for Beginners
+and Mountaineers</i>, by W. R. Rickmers (1910); <i>How to Ski</i>,
+by Vivian Caulfield (1910); <i>Ski-ing</i>, by Arnold Lunn (1912).</p>
+
+<p>For the general literature of mountaineering the reader
+has a wide choice. We cannot attempt a comprehensive
+bibliography, but the following books are the most interesting
+of the many hundred volumes on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>The early history of mountaineering is dealt with in Mr.
+Coolidge’s books referred to above. There is a good historical
+sketch in the first chapter of the Badminton volume. The
+most readable book on the early pioneers is <i>The Early Mountaineers</i>,
+by Francis Gribble (1899). <i>The Story of Alpine
+Climbing</i>, by Francis Gribble (1904), is smaller than <i>The
+Early Mountaineers</i>; it can be obtained for a shilling.</p>
+
+<p>We shall, where possible, confine our list to books written
+in English. This is not possible for the earlier works, as
+English books do not cover the ground.</p>
+
+<div class="hang">
+
+<p><i>Descriptio Montis Fracti juxta Lucernam.</i> By Conrad Gesner.
+1555.</p>
+
+<p><i>De Alpibus Commentarius.</i> By Josias Simler. 1574.</p>
+
+<p><i>Coryate’s Crudities.</i> By T. Coryate. 1611. This book
+contains the passage quoted on p. 15. It has recently
+been reprinted.</p>
+
+<p><i>Diary (Simplon, etc.).</i> By John Evelyn. 1646. (Reprinted
+in the Everyman Library.)</p>
+
+<p><i>Remarks on Several Parts of Switzerland.</i> By J. Addison.
+1705.</p>
+
+<p><i>Itinera per Helvetiæ Alpinas Regiones Facta.</i> By Johann
+Jacob Scheuchzer. 1723.</p>
+
+<p><i>Die Alpen.</i> By A. von Haller. 1732.</p>
+
+<p><i>An Account of the Glaciers or Ice Alps in Savoy.</i> By William
+Windham and Peter Martel. 1744.</p>
+
+<p><i>Travels in the Alps of Savoy.</i> By J. D. Forbes. 1843.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mont Blanc.</i> By Albert Smith. 1852.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Tour of Mont Blanc.</i> By J. D. Forbes. 1855.</p>
+
+<p><i>Wanderings among the High Alps.</i> By Alfred Wills. 1856.</p>
+
+<p><i>Summer Months among the Alps.</i> By T. W. Hinchcliff. 1857.
+(Very scarce.)
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span></p>
+
+<p><i>The Italian Valleys of the Pennine Alps.</i> By S. W. King.
+1858.</p>
+
+<p><i>Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers.</i> (First Series.) 1859. (Scarce
+and expensive.)</p>
+
+<p><i>Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers.</i> (Second Series.) (Two volumes.)
+(Scarce.) 1862.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Eagles’ Nest.</i> By A. Wills. 1860. (Scarce.)</p>
+
+<p><i>The Glaciers of the Alps.</i> By John Tyndall. 1860.</p>
+
+<p><i>Across Country from Thonon to Trent.</i> By D. W. Freshfield.
+1865.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Alps in 1864.</i> By A. W. Moore. (Privately reprinted.)
+(Very scarce, reprinted 1902.)</p>
+
+<p><i>The High Alps without Guides.</i> By A. B. Girdlestone.
+(Scarce.) 1870.</p>
+
+<p><i>Scrambles among the Alps.</i> By Edward Whymper. 1871.
+This famous book went into several editions. It has
+been reprinted in Nelson’s Shilling Library. The original
+editions with their delightful wood-cuts cannot be bought
+for less than a pound, but are well worth the money.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Playground of Europe.</i> By Leslie Stephen. 1871.
+This classic can be bought for 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> in the Silver Library.
+The original edition is scarce and does not contain the
+best work.</p>
+
+<p><i>Hours of Exercise in the Alps.</i> By J. Tyndall. 1871.</p>
+
+<p><i>Italian Alps.</i> By D. W. Freshfield. 1876.</p>
+
+<p><i>The High Alps in Winter.</i> By Mrs. Fred Burnaby (Mrs.
+Le Blond.) 1883.</p>
+
+<p><i>Above the Snow Line.</i> By C. T. Dent. 1885.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Pioneers of the Alps.</i> By C. D. Cunningham and W. de
+W. Abney. (An account of the great guides.) 1888.</p>
+
+<p><i>My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.</i> By A. F. Mummery.
+1895. (Reprinted in Nelson’s Shilling Library.)</p>
+
+<p><i>The Alps from End to End.</i> By Sir Martin Conway. 1895.
+This has been reprinted in Nelson’s Shilling Library.</p>
+
+<p><i>The Annals of Mont Blanc.</i> By C. E. Mathews. 1898.</p>
+
+<p><i>Climbing in the Himalaya and other Mountain Ranges.</i> By
+Norman J. Collie, 1902. Includes some excellent chapters
+on the Alps.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span></p>
+
+<p><i>The Alps.</i> Described by Sir Martin Conway. Illustrated by
+A. O. M’Cormick. 1904. A cheap edition without
+Mr. M’Cormick’s illustrations has been issued in 1910.</p>
+
+<p><i>My Alpine Jubilee.</i> By Frederic Harrison. 1908.</p>
+
+<p><i>Recollections of an Old Mountaineer.</i> By Walter Larden. 1910.</p>
+
+<p><i>Peaks and Pleasant Pastures.</i> By Claud Schuster. 1911.</p></div>
+
+<p>The poetry of Mountaineering as distinct from the poetry
+of mountains is found in&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="hang">
+
+<p><i>Wind and Hill.</i> By G. W. Young. 1909.</p></div>
+
+<p>This book is out of print. The mountain poems have been
+reprinted in&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="hang">
+
+<p><i>The Englishman in the Alps.</i> An Anthology edited by Arnold
+Lunn. 1913. This Anthology includes long extracts
+from one to five thousand words chosen from the best
+of Alpine prose and poetry.</p></div>
+
+<p>Other Alpine Anthologies are&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="hang">
+
+<p><i>The Voice of the Mountains.</i> By E. Baker and F. E. Ross.
+1905.</p>
+
+<p><i>In Praise of Switzerland.</i> By Harold Spender. 1912.</p></div>
+
+<p>The reader will find good photographs very useful. The
+earliest Alpine photographer to achieve distinct success was
+Mr. Donkin, whose excellent photographs can be bought
+cheaply. Signor Sellâs&mdash;the supreme artist in mountain
+photography&mdash;also sells his work. Messrs. Abraham of
+Keswick have photographed with thoroughness the Alps
+and the rock climbs of Cumberland and Wales. Their best
+work is reproduced in <i>The Complete Mountaineer</i>. (1908.)
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<h2 id="INDEX">INDEX</h2>
+
+<ul class="index">
+<li class="ifrst">Abbühl, Arnold, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aggasiz, <a href="#Page_104">104-10</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Aiguille, Mont, <a href="#Page_29">29-30</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Almer, Christian, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Alpine Club, the, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Alpine Journal, The</i>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Alps in 1864, The</i>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Annals of Mont Blanc, The</i>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Arkwright, Captain, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Ball, John, <a href="#Page_118">118-19</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Balmat, Jacques, <a href="#Page_60">60-81</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Balmat (in Wills’s guide), <a href="#Page_125">125-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Beaupré, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Beck, Jean Joseph, <a href="#Page_86">86-89</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Belloc, Hilaire, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bennen, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Berkeley, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blackwell, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blackwood, Algernon, <a href="#Page_229">229-30</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blanc, Mont, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60-81</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121-4</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Blond, Mrs. Le, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bonney, Prof., <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bourrit, <a href="#Page_54">54-9</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74-80</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Bremble, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Buet, the, <a href="#Page_49">49-50</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Byron, <a href="#Page_215">215-17</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Canigou, Pic, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Carbonnière, Ramond de, <a href="#Page_214">214-15</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Carrel, J. A., <a href="#Page_152">152-83</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Carrel, J. J., <a href="#Page_152">152-3</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cawood, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Charles VII, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Charpentier, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Clement, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coleridge, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Colgrove, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Collie, Prof., <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Conway, Sir Martin, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coolidge, Mr., <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Coryat’s <i>Crudities</i>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Croz, <a href="#Page_163">163-80</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Cust, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Davies, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dent du Midi, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Desor, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dobell, Sydney, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dollfus-Ausset, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Douglas, Lord Francis, <a href="#Page_163">163-80</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dragons in the Alps, <a href="#Page_40">40-42</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dübi, Dr., <a href="#Page_72">72-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dumas, Alexandre, <a href="#Page_62">62-72</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Dürer, <a href="#Page_18">18-19</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst"><i>Early Mountaineers, The</i>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Fairbanks, Rev. Arthur, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Farrar, Captain, <a href="#Page_97">97-101</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Finsteraarhorn, <a href="#Page_96">96-101</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Forbes, J. D., <a href="#Page_116">116-18</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Freshfield, Mr. Douglas, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Gersdorf, Baron von, <a href="#Page_73">73-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gesner, Conrad, <a href="#Page_33">33-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Giordani, Pietro, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Giordano, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161-3</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Girdlestone, the Rev. A. B., <a href="#Page_187">187-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Glockner, The Gross, <a href="#Page_92">92-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Godley, A. D., <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gorret, Aimé, <a href="#Page_152">152-3</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gribble, Mr. Francis, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Grove, Francis, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Guideless climbing, <a href="#Page_138">138-43</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Gurk, Bishop of, <a href="#Page_93">93-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Haddington, Lord, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hadow, <a href="#Page_163">163-80</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Haller, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hamel, Dr., <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hannibal, <a href="#Page_22">22-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hardy, <a href="#Page_135">135-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hawkins, Vaughan, <a href="#Page_153">153-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>High Alps without Guides, The</i>, <a href="#Page_187">187-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hinchcliffe, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Holland, Mrs., <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Holland, Philemon, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hôtel des Neuchâtelois, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Hours of Exercise in the Alps</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hudson, <a href="#Page_163">163-80</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hugi, <a href="#Page_97">97-100</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Hugisattel, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Irving, Mr. R. L. A., <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">James, William, <a href="#Page_107">107-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">John of Austria, Archduke, <a href="#Page_94">94-5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Jungfrau, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Kaisergebirge, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Kennedy, E. S., <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Kipling, <a href="#Page_228">228-9</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Lauener, Ulrich, <a href="#Page_125">125-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Lauteraarhorn, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Luc, De, <a href="#Page_48">48-50</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Martel, Peter, <a href="#Page_45">45-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Marti, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Masefield, John, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mathews, C. E., <a href="#Page_46">46-8</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134-5</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mathews, William, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Matterhorn, the, <a href="#Page_147">147-84</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Meredith, George, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Meyers, the, <a href="#Page_85">85-101</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Monboso, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Moore, Dr. John, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Moore, W. A., <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Morris, William, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Morse, Mr. <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mountaineering in Great Britain, <a href="#Page_193">193-4</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mountaineering, modern, <a href="#Page_185">185-207</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mountaineering in winter, <a href="#Page_199">199-207</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mountaineering without guides, <a href="#Page_138">138-43</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mountains in Art, <a href="#Page_17">17-20</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mountains in Literature, <a href="#Page_208">208-50</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mountains, Mediæval attitude to, <a href="#Page_1">1-21</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Müller, <a href="#Page_30">30-31</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Müller, John, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Mummery, <a href="#Page_183">183-4</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Murith, Prior, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus</i>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Myers, F. W. H., <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Ortler, the, <a href="#Page_94">94-5</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Paccard, Dr., <a href="#Page_67">67-80</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Parker, Messrs., <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Parrot, Dr., <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Paulcke, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers</i>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239-40</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Peaks and Pleasant Pastures</i>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Penhall</i>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Perrandier, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Peter III, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Petrarch, <a href="#Page_26">26-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pic du Midi, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pichler, Joseph, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pilate, Pontius, <a href="#Page_31">31-2</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pilatus, <a href="#Page_31">31-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Placidus à Spescha, <a href="#Page_82">82-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Playground of Europe, The</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132-3</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pococke, Dr., <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Pope, Hugh, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Popocatapetl, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Punta Giordani, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Purtscheller, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Rey, Guido, <a href="#Page_152">152-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Robertson, Donald, <a href="#Page_235">235-6</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rochefoucauld, Duc de, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rosa, Monte, <a href="#Page_28">28-9</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85-91</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rotario of Asti, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Rousseau, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212-3</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ruskin, <a href="#Page_221">221-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Salis, Ulysses von <a href="#Page_151">151</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Saussure, De, <a href="#Page_46">46-8</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Scheuchzer, <a href="#Page_39">39-43</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Schuster, Sir Claud, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Scrambles in the Alps</i>, <a href="#Page_133">133-4</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Sella, Quintino, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161-3</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Shelley, <a href="#Page_218">218-19</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Simler, <a href="#Page_37">37-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ski-ing, <a href="#Page_200">200-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Smith, Albert, <a href="#Page_119">119-24</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Stephen, Sir Leslie, <a href="#Page_131">131-3</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136-7</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140-1</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Stockhorn, <a href="#Page_30">30-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Stogdon, Mr. John, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Studer, Gottlieb, <a href="#Page_109">109-10</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Swinburne, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Symonds, Addington, <a href="#Page_224">224-6</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Taugwalders, the, <a href="#Page_163">163-80</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tennyson, Lord, <a href="#Page_230">230-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Theodule, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Titlis, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tödi, the, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx"><i>Tour of Mont Blanc, The</i>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tuckett, <a href="#Page_136">136-7</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Tyndall, John, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Ulrich of Württemberg, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Velan, the, <a href="#Page_50">50-2</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Venetz, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Ventoux, Mont, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Vinci, Leonardo da, <a href="#Page_19">19-20</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27-8</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Vogt, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Walker, Mr. Horace, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Watt, Joachim von, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Weston, Mr., <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wetterhorn, the, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111-12</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Whymper, Edward, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147-84</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wicks, Mr., <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wills, Mr. Justice, <a href="#Page_111">111-14</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125-9</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Wilson, Mr., <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Windham, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Young, Sir George, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Young, G. Winthrop, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Young, Norman, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li>
+
+<li class="ifrst">Zumstein, <a href="#Page_90">90-1</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Zumstein Spitze, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li>
+
+<li class="indx">Zsigmondy, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li></ul>
+
+<p class="copy"><i>Richard Clay &amp; Sons, Limited, London and Bungay.</i>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span></p>
+
+<div id="ads">
+
+<h2 class="table xx-large">
+
+<span class="medium">The</span><br />
+Home University<br />
+Library <span class="medium">of Modern Knowledge</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="medium script"><i>A Comprehensive Series of New<br />
+and Specially Written Books</i></span>
+<br />
+<br />
+<span class="small">EDITORS:</span><br />
+</h2>
+<p class="table">
+<span class="smcap">Prof. GILBERT MURRAY</span>, D. Litt., LL.D., F.B.A.<br />
+HERBERT FISHER, LL.D., F.B.A.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Prof. J. ARTHUR THOMSON</span>, M.A.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Prof. WM. T. BREWSTER</span>, M.A.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p class="table">
+<span class="tcell">
+1/- net<br />
+in cloth</span>
+<span class="tcell tdc large">256 Pages</span>
+<span class="tcell tdr">
+2/6 net<br />
+in leather<br /></span>
+</p>
+
+<h3><i>History and Geography</i></h3>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>3. <i>THE FRENCH REVOLUTION</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Hilaire Belloc</span>, M.A. (With Maps.) “It is coloured with all
+the militancy of the author’s temperament.”&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>4. <i>A SHORT HISTORY OF WAR AND PEACE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. H. Perris</span>. The Rt. Hon. <span class="smcap">James Bryce</span> writes: “I have read it
+with much interest and pleasure, admiring the skill with which you have
+managed to compress so many facts and views into so small a volume.”</dd>
+
+<dt>8. <i>POLAR EXPLORATION</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Dr <span class="smcap">W. S. Bruce</span>, F.R.S.E., Leader of the “Scotia” Expedition. (With
+Maps.) “A very freshly written and interesting narrative.”&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>12. <i>THE OPENING-UP OF AFRICA</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Sir <span class="smcap">H. H. Johnston</span>, G.C.M.G., F.Z.S. (With Maps.) “The Home
+University Library is much enriched by this excellent work.”&mdash;<i>Daily Mail.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>13. <i>MEDIÆVAL EUROPE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">H. W. C. Davis</span>, M.A. (With Maps.) “One more illustration of the
+fact that it takes a complete master of the subject to write briefly upon
+it.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>14. <i>THE PAPACY &amp; MODERN TIMES</i> (1303-1870)</dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">William Barry</span>, D.D. “Dr Barry has a wide range of knowledge
+and an artist’s power of selection.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>23. <i>HISTORY OF OUR TIME</i> (1885-1911)</dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. P. Gooch</span>, M.A. “Mr Gooch contrives to breathe vitality into his story,
+and to give us the flesh as well as the bones of recent happenings.”&mdash;<i>Observer.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>25. <i>THE CIVILISATION OF CHINA</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">H. A. Giles</span>, LL.D., Professor of Chinese at Cambridge. “In all the
+mass of facts, Professor Giles never becomes dull. He is always ready with a
+ghost story or a street adventure for the reader’s recreation.”&mdash;<i>Spectator.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>29. <i>THE DAWN OF HISTORY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. L. Myres</span>, M.A., F.S.A., Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, Oxford.
+“There is not a page in it that is not suggestive.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>33. <i>THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND</i></dt>
+
+<dd><i>A Study in Political Evolution</i></dd>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">A. F. Pollard</span>, M.A. With a Chronological Table. “It takes its
+place at once among the authoritative works on English history.”&mdash;<i>Observer.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>34. <i>CANADA</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">A. G. Bradley</span>. “The volume makes an immediate appeal to the man who
+wants to know something vivid and true about Canada.”&mdash;<i>Canadian Gazette.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>37. <i>PEOPLES &amp; PROBLEMS OF INDIA</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Sir <span class="smcap">T. W. Holderness</span>, K.C.S.I., Permanent Under-Secretary of State
+of the India Office. “Just the book which newspaper readers require to-day,
+and a marvel of comprehensiveness.”&mdash;<i>Pall Mall Gazette.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>42. <i>ROME</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">W. Warde Fowler</span>, M.A. “A masterly sketch of Roman character and
+of what it did for the world.”&mdash;<i>The Spectator.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>48. <i>THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">F. L. Paxson</span>, Professor of American History, Wisconsin University.
+(With Maps.) “A stirring study.”&mdash;<i>The Guardian.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>51. <i>WARFARE IN BRITAIN</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Hilaire Belloc</span>, M.A. “Rich in suggestion for the historical student.”&mdash;<i>Edinburgh
+Evening News.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>55. <i>MASTER MARINERS</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. R. Spears</span>. “A continuous story of shipping progress and adventure....
+It reads like a romance.”&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>61. <i>NAPOLEON</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Herbert Fisher</span>, LL.D., F.B.A., Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University.
+(With Maps.) The story of the great Bonaparte’s youth, his career, and his
+downfall, with some sayings of Napoleon, a genealogy, and a bibliography.</dd>
+
+<dt>66. <i>THE NAVY AND SEA POWER</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">David Hannay</span>. The author traces the growth of naval power from early
+times, and discusses its principles and effects upon the history of the Western world.</dd>
+
+<dt>71. <i>GERMANY OF TO-DAY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Charles Tower</span>. “It would be difficult to name any better summary.”&mdash;<i>Daily
+News.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>82. <i>PREHISTORIC BRITAIN</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Robert Munro</span>, M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E. (Illustrated.)</dd>
+
+<dt>91. <i>THE ALPS</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Arnold Lunn</span>, M.A. (Illustrated.)</dd>
+
+<dt>92. <i>CENTRAL &amp; SOUTH AMERICA</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Professor <span class="smcap">W. R. Shepherd</span>. (Maps.)</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<h3><i>Literature and Art</i></h3>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>2. <i>SHAKESPEARE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">John Masefield</span>. “We have had more learned books on Shakespeare
+in the last few years, but not one so wise.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>27. <i>ENGLISH LITERATURE: MODERN</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. H. Mair</span>, M.A. “Altogether a fresh and individual book.”&mdash;<i>Observer.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>35. <i>LANDMARKS IN FRENCH LITERATURE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. L. Strachey</span>. “It is difficult to imagine how a better account of
+French Literature could be given in 250 small pages.”&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>39. <i>ARCHITECTURE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. R. Lethaby</span>. (Over forty Illustrations.) “Delightfully bright
+reading.”&mdash;<i>Christian World.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>43. <i>ENGLISH LITERATURE: MEDIÆVAL</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. P. Ker</span>, M.A. “Prof. Ker’s knowledge and taste are unimpeachable,
+and his style is effective, simple, yet never dry.”&mdash;<i>The Athenæum.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>45. <i>THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">L. Pearsall Smith</span>, M.A. “A wholly fascinating study of the different
+streams that make the great river of the English speech.”&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>52. <i>GREAT WRITERS OF AMERICA</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. Erskine</span> and Prof. <span class="smcap">W. P. Trent</span>. “An admirable summary, from
+Franklin to Mark Twain, enlivened by a dry humour.”&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>63. <i>PAINTERS AND PAINTING</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Sir <span class="smcap">Frederick Wedmore</span>. (With 16 half-tone illustrations.) From the
+Primitives to the Impressionists.</dd>
+
+<dt>64. <i>DR JOHNSON AND HIS CIRCLE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">John Bailey</span>, M.A. “A most delightful essay.”&mdash;<i>Christian World.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>65. <i>THE LITERATURE OF GERMANY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Professor <span class="smcap">J. G. Robertson</span>, M.A., Ph.D. “Under the author’s skilful
+treatment the subject shows life and continuity.”&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>70. <i>THE VICTORIAN AGE IN LITERATURE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. K. Chesterton</span>. “No one will put it down without a sense of having
+taken a tonic or received a series of electric shocks.”&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>73. <i>THE WRITING OF ENGLISH.</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">W. T. Brewster</span>, A.M., Professor of English in Columbia University.
+“Sensible, and not over-rigidly conventional.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>75. <i>ANCIENT ART AND RITUAL.</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Jane E. Harrison</span>, LL.D., D.Litt. “Charming in style and learned in
+manner.”&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>76. <i>EURIPIDES AND HIS AGE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Gilbert Murray</span>, D.Litt., LL.D., F.B.A., Regius Professor of Greek at
+Oxford. “A beautiful piece of work.... Just in the fulness of time, and
+exactly in the right place.... Euripides has come into his own.”&mdash;<i>The Nation.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>87. <i>CHAUCER AND HIS TIMES</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Grace E. Hadow</span>.</dd>
+
+<dt>89. <i>WILLIAM MORRIS: HIS WORK AND
+INFLUENCE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">A. Clutton Brock</span>.</dd>
+
+<dt>93. <i>THE RENAISSANCE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Edith Sichel</span>.</dd>
+
+<dt>95. <i>ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. M. Robertson</span>, M.P.</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<h3><i>Science</i></h3>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>7. <i>MODERN GEOGRAPHY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Dr <span class="smcap">Marion Newbigin</span>. (Illustrated.) “Geography, again: what a dull,
+tedious study that was wont to be!... But Miss Marion Newbigin invests its
+dry bones with the flesh and blood of romantic interest.”&mdash;<i>Daily Telegraph.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>9. <i>THE EVOLUTION OF PLANTS</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Dr <span class="smcap">D. H. Scott</span>, M.A., F.R.S., late Hon. Keeper of the Jodrell Laboratory,
+Kew. (Fully illustrated.) “Dr Scott’s candid and familiar style makes the
+difficult subject both fascinating and easy.”&mdash;<i>Gardeners’ Chronicle.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>17. <i>HEALTH AND DISEASE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">W. Leslie Mackenzie</span>, M.D., Local Government Board, Edinburgh.</dd>
+
+<dt>18. <i>INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICS</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">A. N. Whitehead</span>, Sc.D., F.R.S. (With Diagrams.) “Mr Whitehead
+has discharged with conspicuous success the task he is so exceptionally qualified
+to undertake. For he is one of our great authorities upon the foundations of
+the science.”&mdash;<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>19. <i>THE ANIMAL WORLD</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Professor <span class="smcap">F. W. Gamble</span>, F.R.S. With Introduction by Sir Oliver Lodge.
+(Many Illustrations.) “A fascinating and suggestive survey.”&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>20. <i>EVOLUTION</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Professor <span class="smcap">J. Arthur Thomson</span> and Professor <span class="smcap">Patrick Geddes</span>. “A
+many-coloured and romantic panorama, opening up, like no other book we
+know, a rational vision of world-development.”&mdash;<i>Belfast News-Letter.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>22. <i>CRIME AND INSANITY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Dr <span class="smcap">C. A. Mercier</span>. “Furnishes much valuable information from one occupying
+the highest position among medico-legal psychologists.”&mdash;<i>Asylum News.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>28. <i>PSYCHICAL RESEARCH</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Sir <span class="smcap">W. F. Barrett</span>, F.R.S., Professor of Physics, Royal College of
+Science, Dublin, 1873-1910. “What he has to say on thought-reading,
+hypnotism, telepathy, crystal-vision, spiritualism, divinings, and so on, will be
+read with avidity.”&mdash;<i>Dundee Courier.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>31. <i>ASTRONOMY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">A. R. Hinks</span>, M.A., Chief Assistant, Cambridge Observatory. “Original
+in thought, eclectic in substance, and critical in treatment.... No better
+little book is available.”&mdash;<i>School World.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>32. <i>INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. Arthur Thomson</span>, M.A., Regius Professor of Natural History, Aberdeen
+University. “Professor Thomson’s delightful literary style is well known; and
+here he discourses freshly and easily on the methods Of science and its relations
+with philosophy, art, religion, and practical life.”&mdash;<i>Aberdeen Journal.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>36. <i>CLIMATE AND WEATHER</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">H. N. Dickson</span>, D.Sc.Oxon., M.A., F.R.S.E., President of the
+Royal Meteorological Society. (With Diagrams.) “The author has succeeded
+in presenting in a very lucid and agreeable manner the causes of the movements
+of the atmosphere and of the more stable winds.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>41. <i>ANTHROPOLOGY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">R. R. Marett</span>, M.A., Reader in Social Anthropology in Oxford University.
+“An absolutely perfect handbook, so clear that a child could understand it, so
+fascinating and human that it beats fiction ‘to a frazzle.’”&mdash;<i>Morning Leader.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>44. <i>THE PRINCIPLES OF PHYSIOLOGY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. G. McKendrick</span>, M.D. “Upon every page of it is stamped
+the impress of a creative imagination.”&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>46. <i>MATTER AND ENERGY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">F. Soddy</span>, M.A., F.R.S. “Prof. Soddy has successfully accomplished
+the very difficult task of making physics of absorbing interest on popular
+lines.”&mdash;<i>Nature.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>49. <i>PSYCHOLOGY, THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. McDougall</span>, F.R.S., M.B. “A happy example of the non-technical
+handling of an unwieldy science, suggesting rather than dogmatising.
+It should whet appetites for deeper study.”&mdash;<i>Christian World.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>53. <i>THE MAKING OF THE EARTH</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. W. Gregory</span>, F.R.S. (With 38 Maps and Figures.) “A
+fascinating little volume.... Among the many good things contained in the
+series this takes a high place.”&mdash;<i>The Athenæum.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>57. <i>THE HUMAN BODY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">A. Keith</span>, M.D., LL.D., Conservator of Museum and Hunterian Professor,
+Royal College of Surgeons. (Illustrated.) “It literally makes the ‘dry bones’
+to live. It will certainly take a high place among the classics of popular
+science.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>58. <i>ELECTRICITY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Gisbert Kapp</span>, D.Eng., Professor of Electrical Engineering in the University
+of Birmingham. (Illustrated.) “It will be appreciated greatly by learners
+and by the great number of amateurs who are interested in what is one of the
+most fascinating of scientific studies.”&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>62. <i>THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Dr <span class="smcap">Benjamin Moore</span>, Professor of Bio-Chemistry, University College,
+Liverpool. “Stimulating, learned, lucid.”&mdash;<i>Liverpool Courier.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>67. <i>CHEMISTRY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Raphael Meldola</span>, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in Finsbury Technical
+College, London. Presents clearly, without the detail demanded by the expert,
+the way in which chemical science has developed, and the stage it has reached.</dd>
+
+<dt>72. <i>PLANT LIFE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. B. Farmer</span>, D.Sc., F.R.S. (Illustrated.) “Professor Farmer has
+contrived to convey all the most vital facts of plant physiology, and also to
+present a good many of the chief problems which confront investigators to-day
+in the realms of morphology and of heredity.”&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>78. <i>THE OCEAN</i></dt>
+
+<dd>A General Account of the Science of the Sea. By Sir <span class="smcap">John Murray</span>, K.C.B.,
+F.R.S. (Colour plates and other illustrations.)</dd>
+
+<dt>79. <i>NERVES</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">D. Fraser Harris</span>, M.D., D.Sc. (Illustrated.) A description, in
+non-technical language, of the nervous system, its intricate mechanism and the
+strange phenomena of energy and fatigue, with some practical reflections.</dd>
+
+<dt>86. <i>SEX</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">Patrick Geddes</span> and Prof. <span class="smcap">J. Arthur Thomson</span>, LL.D. (Illus.)</dd>
+
+<dt>88. <i>THE GROWTH OF EUROPE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">Grenville Cole</span>. (Illus.)</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<h3><i>Philosophy and Religion</i></h3>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>15. <i>MOHAMMEDANISM</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">D. S. Margoliouth</span>, M.A., D.Litt. “This generous shilling’s
+worth of wisdom.... A delicate, humorous, and most responsible tractate
+by an illuminative professor.”&mdash;<i>Daily Mail.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>40. <i>THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By the Hon. <span class="smcap">Bertrand Russell</span>, F.R.S. “A book that the ‘man in the
+street’ will recognise at once to be a boon.... Consistently lucid and non-technical
+throughout.”&mdash;<i>Christian World.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>47. <i>BUDDHISM</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Mrs <span class="smcap">Rhys Davids</span>, M.A. “The author presents very attractively as well
+as very learnedly the philosophy of Buddhism.”&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>50. <i>NONCONFORMITY: Its ORIGIN and PROGRESS</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Principal <span class="smcap">W. B. Selbie</span>, M.A. “The historical part is brilliant in its
+insight, clarity, and proportion.”&mdash;<i>Christian World.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>54. <i>ETHICS</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. E. Moore</span>, M.A., Lecturer in Moral Science in Cambridge University.
+“A very lucid though closely reasoned outline of the logic Of good conduct.”&mdash;<i>Christian
+World.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>56. <i>THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">B. W. Bacon</span>, LL.D., D.D. “Professor Bacon has boldly, and
+wisely, taken his own line, and has produced, as a result, an extraordinarily
+vivid, stimulating, and lucid book.”&mdash;<i>Manchester Guardian.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>60. <i>MISSIONS: THEIR RISE and DEVELOPMENT</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Mrs <span class="smcap">Creighton</span>. “Very interestingly done.... Its style is simple,
+direct, unhackneyed, and should find appreciation where a more fervently
+pious style of writing repels.”&mdash;<i>Methodist Recorder.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>68. <i>COMPARATIVE RELIGION</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. Estlin Carpenter</span>, D. Litt., Principal of Manchester College, Oxford.
+“Puts into the reader’s hand a wealth of learning and independent thought.”&mdash;<i>Christian
+World.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>74. <i>A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. B. Bury</span>, Litt.D., LL.D., Regius Professor of Modern History at
+Cambridge. “A little masterpiece, which every thinking man will enjoy.”&mdash;<i>The
+Observer.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>84. <i>LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">George Moore</span>, D.D., LL.D., of Harvard. A detailed examination
+of the books of the Old Testament in the light of the most recent research.</dd>
+
+<dt>90. <i>THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Canon <span class="smcap">E. W. Watson</span>, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at
+Oxford.</dd>
+
+<dt>94. <i>RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN THE
+OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Canon <span class="smcap">R. H. Charles</span>, D.D., D.Litt.</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<h3><i>Social Science</i></h3>
+
+<dl>
+<dt>1. <i>PARLIAMENT</i></dt>
+
+<dd>Its History, Constitution, and Practice. By Sir <span class="smcap">Courtenay P. Ilbert</span>,
+G.C.B., K.C.S.I., Clerk of the House of Commons. “The best book on the
+history and practice of the House of Commons since Bagehot’s ‘Constitution.’”&mdash;<i>Yorkshire
+Post.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>5. <i>THE STOCK EXCHANGE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">F. W. Hirst</span>, Editor of “The Economist.” “To an unfinancial mind must
+be a revelation.... The book is as clear, vigorous, and sane as Bagehot’s ‘Lombard
+Street,’ than which there is no higher compliment.”&mdash;<i>Morning Leader.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>6. <i>IRISH NATIONALITY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Mrs <span class="smcap">J. R. Green</span>. “As glowing as it is learned. No book could be more
+timely.”&mdash;<i>Daily News.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>10. <i>THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. Ramsay MacDonald</span>, M.P. “Admirably adapted for the purpose of
+exposition.”&mdash;<i>The Times.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>11. <i>CONSERVATISM</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Lord Hugh Cecil</span>, M.A., M.P. “One of those great little books which
+seldom appear more than once in a generation.”&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>16. <i>THE SCIENCE OF WEALTH</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. A. Hobson</span>, M.A. “Mr J. A. Hobson holds an unique position among
+living economists.... Original, reasonable, and illuminating.”&mdash;<i>The Nation.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>21. <i>LIBERALISM</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">L. T. Hobhouse</span>, M.A., Professor of Sociology in the University of London.
+“A book of rare quality.... We have nothing but praise for the rapid and
+masterly summaries of the arguments from first principles which form a large
+part of this book.”&mdash;<i>Westminster Gazette.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>24. <i>THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">D. H. Macgregor</span>, M.A., Professor of Political Economy in the University
+of Leeds. “A volume so dispassionate in terms may be read with profit by all
+interested in the present state of unrest.”&mdash;<i>Aberdeen Journal.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>26. <i>AGRICULTURE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. Somerville</span>, F.L.S. “It makes the results of laboratory work
+at the University accessible to the practical farmer.”&mdash;<i>Athenæum.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>30. <i>ELEMENTS OF ENGLISH LAW</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">W. M. Geldart</span>, M.A., B.C.L., Vinerian Professor of English Law at
+Oxford. “Contains a very clear account of the elementary principles underlying
+the rules of English Law.”&mdash;<i>Scots Law Times.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>38. <i>THE SCHOOL: An Introduction to the Study of Education.</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">J. J. Findlay</span>, M.A., Ph.D., Professor of Education in Manchester
+University. “An amazingly comprehensive volume.... It is a remarkable
+performance, distinguished in its crisp, striking phraseology as well as its
+inclusiveness of subject-matter.”&mdash;<i>Morning Post.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>59. <i>ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">S. J. Chapman</span>, M.A., Professor of Political Economy in Manchester
+University. “Its importance is not to be measured by its price. Probably
+the best recent critical exposition of the analytical method in economic
+science.”&mdash;<i>Glasgow Herald.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>69. <i>THE NEWSPAPER</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">G. Binney Dibblee</span>, M.A. (Illustrated.)
+The best account extant of the
+organisation of the newspaper press, at home and abroad.</dd>
+
+<dt>77. <i>SHELLEY, GODWIN, AND THEIR CIRCLE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">H. N. Brailsford</span>, M.A. “Mr Brailsford sketches vividly the influence of
+the French Revolution on Shelley’s and Godwin’s England; and the charm and
+strength of his style make his book an authentic contribution to literature.”&mdash;<i>The
+Bookman.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>80. <i>CO-PARTNERSHIP AND PROFIT-SHARING</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">Aneurin Williams</span>, M.A.&mdash;“A judicious but enthusiastic history, with much
+interesting speculation on the future of Co-partnership.”&mdash;<i>Christian World.</i></dd>
+
+<dt>81. <i>PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By <span class="smcap">E. N. Bennett</span>, M.A. Discusses the leading aspects of the British land
+problem, including housing, small holdings, rural credit, and the minimum wage.</dd>
+
+<dt>83. <i>COMMON-SENSE IN LAW</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">P. Vinogradoff</span>,
+D.C.L.</dd>
+
+<dt>85. <i>UNEMPLOYMENT</i></dt>
+
+<dd>By Prof. <span class="smcap">A. C. Pigou</span>, M.A.</dd>
+</dl>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">In Preparation</span></h4>
+
+<div class="hang">
+
+<p><i>ANCIENT EGYPT.</i> By <span class="smcap">F. Ll. Griffith</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p><i>THE ANCIENT EAST.</i> By <span class="smcap">D. G. Hogarth</span>, M.A., F.B.A.</p>
+
+<p><i>A SHORT HISTORY OF EUROPE.</i> By <span class="smcap">Herbert Fisher</span>, LL.D.</p>
+
+<p><i>THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE.</i> By <span class="smcap">Norman H. Baynes</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>THE REFORMATION.</i> By President <span class="smcap">Lindsay</span>, LL.D.</p>
+
+<p><i>A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA.</i> By Prof. <span class="smcap">Milyoukov</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>MODERN TURKEY.</i> By <span class="smcap">D. G. Hogarth</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p><i>FRANCE OF TO-DAY.</i> By <span class="smcap">Albert Thomas</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.</i> By Prof. <span class="smcap">R. S. Rait</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p><i>HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SPAIN.</i> By <span class="smcap">J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly</span>,
+F.B.A., Litt.D.</p>
+
+<p><i>LATIN LITERATURE.</i> By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. S. Phillimore</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>ITALIAN ART OF THE RENAISSANCE.</i> By <span class="smcap">Roger E. Fry</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>LITERARY TASTE.</i> By <span class="smcap">Thomas Seccombe</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>SCANDINAVIAN HISTORY &amp; LITERATURE.</i> By <span class="smcap">T. C. Snow</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>THE MINERAL WORLD.</i> By Sir <span class="smcap">T. H. Holland</span>, K.C.I.E., D.Sc.</p>
+
+<p><i>A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.</i> By <span class="smcap">Clement Webb</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p><i>POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Bacon to Locke.</i> By
+<span class="smcap">G. P. Gooch</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p><i>POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Bentham to J. S. Mill.</i>
+By Prof. <span class="smcap">W. L. Davidson</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>POLITICAL THOUGHT IN ENGLAND: From Herbert Spencer to
+To-day.</i> By <span class="smcap">Ernest Barker</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p><i>THE CRIMINAL AND THE COMMUNITY.</i> By Viscount <span class="smcap">St. Cyres</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>THE CIVIL SERVICE.</i> By <span class="smcap">Graham Wallas</span>, M.A.</p>
+
+<p><i>THE SOCIAL SETTLEMENT.</i> By <span class="smcap">Jane Addams</span> and <span class="smcap">R. A. Woods</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>GREAT INVENTIONS.</i> By Prof. <span class="smcap">J. L. Myres</span>, M.A., F.S.A.</p>
+
+<p><i>TOWN PLANNING.</i> By <span class="smcap">Raymond Unwin</span>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="caption">London: <span class="large">WILLIAMS AND NORGATE</span><br />
+<small><i>And of all Bookshops and Bookstalls.</i></small></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<h2 id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">1</a>
+See Mr. Gribble’s <i>Early Mountaineers</i>, Chap. V., where
+the arguments on each side are skilfully summarised.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">2</a>
+Not “The Tirol,” still less “The Austrian Tirol,”
+but “Tirol.” We do not speak of “The Scotland” or
+“The British Scotland.”</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">3</a>
+The origin of the Alpine Club is, to some extent,
+a matter of dispute, the above is the view usually
+entertained.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">4</a>
+Mount Blanc is divided between France and Italy;
+and the Italian frontier crosses Monte Rosa.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<h3>Transcriber’s Note:</h3>
+
+<p>Page 255, Index entry “Gedley, A. D., 249”, changed to read “Godley, A. D., 249” and moved to appropriate spot in list.</p>
+
+<p>Obvious printer errors corrected silently.</p>
+
+<p>Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Alps, by Arnold Henry Moore Lunn
+
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+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>