The Ascent Of The Matterhorn Part 5

About 5 P.M. I left the tent again, and thought myself as good as at Breil. The friendly rope and claw had done good service, and had smoothened all the difficulties. I lowered myself through the Chimney, however, by making a fixture of the rope, which I then cut off, and left behind, as there was enough and to spare. My axe had proved a great nuisance in coming down, and I left it in the tent. It was not attached to the baton, but was a separate affair,-an old navy boarding-axe. While cutting up the different snow-beds on the ascent, the baton trailed behind fastened to the rope; and, when climbing, the axe was carried behind, run through the rope tied round my waist, and was sufficiently out of the way.

But in descending, when coming down face outwards (as is always best where it is possible), the head or the handle of the weapon caught frequently against the rocks, and several times nearly upset me. So, out of laziness if you will, it was left in the tent. I paid dearly for the imprudence.

The Col du Lion was pa.s.sed, and fifty yards more would have placed me on the "Great Staircase," down which one can run. But on arriving at an angle of the cliffs of the Tete du Lion, while skirting the upper edge of the snow which abuts against them, I found that the heat of the two past days had nearly obliterated the steps which had been cut when coming up. The rocks happened to be impracticable just at this corner, so nothing could be done except make the steps afresh. The snow was too hard to beat or tread down, and at the angle it was all but ice. Half-a-dozen steps only were required, and then the ledges could be followed again. So I held to the rock with my right hand, and prodded at the snow with the point of my stick until a good step was made, and then, leaning round the angle, did the same for the other side. So far well, but in attempting to pa.s.s the corner (to the present moment I cannot tell how it happened) I slipped and fell.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE CHIMNEY."

(ON THE SOUTH-WEST RIDGE OF THE MATTERHORN).]

The slope was steep on which this took place, and was at the top of a gully that led down through two subordinate b.u.t.tresses towards the Glacier du Lion-which was just seen, a thousand feet below. The gully narrowed and narrowed, until there was a mere thread of snow lying between two walls of rock, which came to an abrupt termination at the top of a precipice that intervened between it and the glacier. Imagine a funnel cut in half through its length, placed at an angle of 45 degrees, with its point below and its concave side uppermost, and you will have a fair idea of the place.

The knapsack brought my head down first, and I pitched into some rocks about a dozen feet below; they caught something and tumbled me off the edge, head over heels, into the gully; the baton was dashed from my hands, and I whirled downwards in a series of bounds, each longer than the last; now over ice, now into rocks; striking my head four or five times, each time with increased force. The last bound sent me spinning through the air, in a leap of fifty or sixty feet, from one side of the gully to the other, and I struck the rocks, luckily, with the whole of my left side.

They caught my clothes for a moment, and I fell back on to the snow with motion arrested. My head fortunately came the right side up, and a few frantic catches brought me to a halt, in the neck of the gully, and on the verge of the precipice. Baton, hat, and veil skimmed by and disappeared, and the crash of the rocks-which I had started-as they fell on to the glacier, told how narrow had been the escape from utter destruction. As it was, I fell nearly 200 feet in seven or eight bounds. Ten feet more would have taken me in one gigantic leap of 800 feet on to the glacier below.

The situation was sufficiently serious. The rocks could not be left go for a moment, and the blood was spirting out of more than twenty cuts. The most serious ones were in the head, and I vainly tried to close them with one hand, whilst holding on with the other. It was useless; the blood jerked out in blinding jets at each pulsation. At last, in a moment of inspiration, I kicked out a big lump of snow, and stuck it as a plaster on my head. The idea was a happy one, and the flow of blood diminished. Then, scrambling up, I got, not a moment too soon, to a place of safety, and fainted away. The sun was setting when consciousness returned, and it was pitch dark before the Great Staircase was descended; but, by a combination of luck and care, the whole 4800 feet of descent to Breil was accomplished without a slip, or once missing the way. I slunk past the cabin of the cowherds, who were talking and laughing inside, utterly ashamed of the state to which I had been brought by my imbecility, and entered the inn stealthily, wis.h.i.+ng to escape to my room unnoticed. But Favre met me in the pa.s.sage, demanded "Who is it?" screamed with fright when he got a light, and aroused the household. Two dozen heads then held solemn council over mine, with more talk than action. The natives were unanimous in recommending that hot wine (syn. vinegar), mixed with salt, should be rubbed into the cuts. I protested, but they insisted. It was all the doctoring they received. Whether their rapid healing was to be attributed to that simple remedy, or to a good state of health, is a question; they closed up remarkably quickly, and in a few days I was able to move again.(60)

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IN ATTEMPTING TO Pa.s.s THE CORNER I SLIPPED AND FELL."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: AT BREIL (GIOMEIN).]

It was sufficiently dull during this time. I was chiefly occupied in meditating on the vanity of human wishes, and in watching my clothes being washed in the tub which was turned by the stream in the front of the house; and I vowed that if an Englishman should at any time fall sick in the Val Tournanche, he should not feel so solitary as I did at this dreary time.(61)

The news of the accident brought Jean-Antoine Carrel up to Breil, and, along with the haughty cha.s.seur, came one of his relatives, a strong and able young fellow named Caesar. With these two men and Meynet I made another start on the 23rd of July. We got to the tent without any trouble, and on the following day had ascended beyond the Tower, and were picking our way cautiously over the loose rocks behind (where my traces of the week before were well apparent) in lovely weather, when one of those abominable and almost instantaneous changes occurred, to which the Matterhorn is so liable on its southern side. Mists were created out of invisible vapours, and in a few minutes snow fell heavily. We stopped, as this part was of excessive difficulty, and, unwilling to retreat, remained on the spot several hours, in hopes that another change would occur; but, as it did not, we at length went down to the base of the Tower, and commenced to make a third platform, at the height of 12,992 feet above the sea. It still continued to snow, and we took refuge in the tent. Carrel argued that the weather had broken up, and that the mountain would become so glazed with ice as to render any attempt futile; and I, that the change was only temporary, and that the rocks were too hot to allow ice to form upon them. I wished to stay until the weather improved, but my leader would not endure contradiction, grew more positive, and insisted that we must go down. We went down, and when we got below the Col his opinion was found to be wrong; the cloud was confined to the upper 3000 feet, and outside it there was brilliant weather.

Carrel was not an easy man to manage. He was perfectly aware that he was the c.o.c.k of the Val Tournanche, and he commanded the other men as by right. He was equally conscious that he was indispensable to me, and took no pains to conceal his knowledge of the fact. If he had been commanded, or if he had been entreated to stop, it would have been all the same. But, let me repeat, he was the only first-rate climber I could find who believed that the mountain was not inaccessible. With him I had hopes, but without him none; so he was allowed to do as he would. His will on this occasion was almost incomprehensible. He certainly could not be charged with cowardice, for a bolder man could hardly be found; nor was he turning away on account of difficulty, for nothing to which we had yet come seemed to be difficult to _him_; and his strong personal desire to make the ascent was evident. There was no occasion to come down on account of food, for we had taken, to guard against this very casualty, enough to last for a week; and there was no danger, and little or no discomfort, in stopping in the tent. It seemed to me that he was spinning out the ascent for his own purposes, and that although he wished very much to be the first man on the top, and did not object to be accompanied by any one else who had the same wish, he had no intention of letting one succeed too soon,-perhaps to give a greater appearance of _eclat_ when the thing was accomplished. As he feared no rival, he may have supposed that the more difficulties he made the more valuable he would be estimated; though, to do him justice, he never showed any great hunger for money. His demands were fair, not excessive; but he always stipulated for so much per day, and so, under any circ.u.mstances, he did not do badly.

Vexed at having my time thus frittered away, I was still well pleased when he volunteered to start again on the morrow, if it should be fine. We were to advance the tent to the foot of the Tower, to fix ropes in the most difficult parts beyond, and to make a push for the summit on the following day.

The next morning (Friday the 25th) when I arose, good little Meynet was ready and waiting, and he said that the two Carrels had gone off some time before, and had left word that they intended marmot-hunting, as the day was favourable for that sport.(62) My holiday had nearly expired, and these men clearly could not be relied upon; so, as a last resort, I proposed to the hunchback to accompany me alone, to see if we could not get higher than before, though of reaching the summit there was little or no hope. He did not hesitate, and in a few hours we stood-for the third time together-upon the Col du Lion. It was the first time Meynet had seen the view unclouded. The poor little deformed peasant gazed upon it silently and reverently for a time, and then, unconsciously, fell on one knee in an att.i.tude of adoration, and clasped his hands, exclaiming in ecstasy, "Oh, beautiful mountains!" His actions were as appropriate as his words were natural, and tears bore witness to the reality of his emotion.

Our power was too limited to advance the tent, so we slept at the old station, and starting very early the next morning, pa.s.sed the place where we had turned back on the 24th, and, subsequently, my highest point on the 19th. We found the crest of the ridge so treacherous that we took to the cliffs on the right, although most unwillingly. Little by little we fought our way up, but at length we were both spread-eagled on the all but perpendicular face, unable to advance, and barely able to descend. We returned to the ridge. It was almost equally difficult, and infinitely more unstable; and at length, after having pushed our attempts as far as was prudent, I determined to return to Breil, and to have a light ladder made to a.s.sist us to overcome some of the steepest parts.(63) I expected, too, that by this time Carrel would have had enough marmot-hunting, and would deign to accompany us again.

We came down at a great pace, for we were now so familiar with the mountain, and with each other's wants, that we knew immediately when to give a helping hand, and when to let alone. The rocks also were in a better state than I have ever seen them, being almost entirely free from glaze of ice. Meynet was always merriest on the difficult parts, and, on the most difficult, kept on enunciating the sentiment, "We can only die once," which thought seemed to afford him infinite satisfaction. We arrived at the inn early in the evening, and I found my projects summarily and unexpectedly knocked on the head.

Professor Tyndall had arrived while we were absent, and he had engaged both Caesar and Jean-Antoine Carrel. Bennen was also with him, together with a powerful and active friend, a Valaisan guide, named Anton Walter.

They had a ladder already prepared, provisions were being collected, and they intended to start on the following morning (Sunday). This new arrival took me by surprise. Bennen, it will be remembered, refused point-blank to take Professor Tyndall on the Matterhorn in 1861. "He was dead against any attempt on the mountain," says Tyndall. He was now eager to set out.

Professor Tyndall has not explained in what way this revolution came about in his guide. I was equally astonished at the faithlessness of Carrel, and attributed it to pique at our having presumed to do without him. It was useless to compete with the Professor and his four men, who were ready to start in a few hours, so I waited to see what would come of their attempt.(64)

Everything seemed to favour it, and they set out on a fine morning in high spirits, leaving me tormented with envy and all uncharitableness. If they succeeded, they carried off the prize for which I had been so long struggling; and if they failed, there was no time to make another attempt, for I was due in a few days more in London. When this came home clearly to me, I resolved to leave Breil at once; but, when packing up, found that some necessaries had been left behind in the tent. So I went off about midday to recover them; caught the army of the Professor before it reached the Col, as they were going very slowly; left them there (stopping to take food), and went on to the tent. I was near to it when all at once I heard a noise aloft, and, on looking up, perceived a stone of at least a foot cube flying straight at my head. I ducked, and scrambled under the lee side of a friendly rock, while the stone went by with a loud buzz. It was the advanced guard of a perfect storm of stones, which descended with infernal clatter down the very edge of the ridge, leaving a trail of dust behind, with a strong smell of sulphur, that told who had sent them. The men below were on the look-out, but the stones did not come near them, and breaking away on one side went down to the Glacier du Lion.(65)

I waited at the tent to welcome the Professor, and when he arrived went down to Breil. Early next morning some one ran to me saying that a flag was seen on the summit of the Matterhorn. It was not so, however, although I saw that they had pa.s.sed the place where we had turned back on the 26th.

I had now no doubt of their final success, for they had got beyond the point which Carrel, not less than myself, had always considered to be the most questionable place on the whole mountain. Up to it there was no choice of route,-I suppose that at no one point between it and the Col was it possible to diverge a dozen paces to the right or left, but beyond it it was otherwise, and we had always agreed, in our debates, that if it could be pa.s.sed success was certain. The accompanying outline from a sketch taken from the door of the inn at Breil will help to explain. The letter *A* indicates the position of the Great Tower; *C* the "cravate"

(the strongly-marked streak of snow referred to on p. 76, and which we just failed to arrive at on the 26th); *B* the place where we now saw something that looked like a flag. Behind the point B a nearly level ridge leads up to the foot of the final peak, which will be understood by a reference to the outline facing p. 44, on which the same letters indicate the same places. It was just now said, we considered that if the point *C*

could be pa.s.sed, success was certain. Tyndall was at *B* very early in the morning, and I did not doubt that he would reach the summit, although it yet remained problematical whether he would be able to stand on the very highest point. The summit was evidently formed of a long ridge, on which there were two points nearly equally elevated-so equally that one could not say which was the highest-and between the two there seemed to be a deep notch, marked *D* on the outlines, which might defeat one at the very last moment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CANNONADE ON THE MATTERHORN (1862).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Matterhorn from Breil]

My knapsack was packed, and I had taken a parting gla.s.s of wine with Favre, who was jubilant at the success which was to make the fortune of his inn; but I could not bring myself to leave until the result was heard, and lingered about, as a foolish lover hovers round the object of his affections, even after he has been contemptuously rejected. The sun had set before the men were descried coming over the pastures. There was no spring in their steps-they, too, were defeated. The Carrels hid their heads, and the others said, as men will do when they have been beaten, that the mountain was horrible, impossible, and so forth. Professor Tyndall told me they had arrived _within a stone's throw of the summit_, and admonished me to have nothing more to do with the mountain. I understood him to say that he should not try again, and ran down to the village of Val Tournanche, almost inclined to believe that the mountain was inaccessible; leaving the tent, ropes, and other matters in the hands of Favre, to be placed at the disposal of any person who wished to ascend it, more, I am afraid, out of irony than from generosity. There may have been those who believed that the Matterhorn could be ascended, but, anyhow, their faith did not bring forth works. No one tried again in 1862.

Business took me into Dauphine before returning to London, and a week after Tyndall's defeat I lay one night, after a sultry day, half-asleep, tossing about in one of the abominations which serve for beds in the inn kept by the Deputy-Mayor of La Ville de Val Louise; looking at a strange ruddiness on the ceiling, which I thought might be some effect of electricity produced by the irritation of the myriads of fleas; when the great bell of the church, close at hand, pealed out with loud and hurried clangour. I jumped up, for the voices and movements of the people in the house made me think of fire. It _was_ fire; and I saw from my window, on the other side of the river, great forked flames shooting high into the sky, black dots with long shadows hurrying towards the place, and the crests of the ridges catching the light and standing out like spectres.

All the world was in motion, for the neighbouring villages-now aroused-rang out the alarm. I pulled on my s.h.i.+rt, and tore over the bridge. Three large chalets were on fire, and were surrounded by a ma.s.s of people, who were bringing all their pots and pans, and anything that would hold water. They formed themselves into several chains, each two deep, leading towards the nearest stream, and pa.s.sed the water up one side, and the empty utensils down the other. My old friend the mayor was there, in full force, striking the ground with his stick, and vociferating, "Work!

work!" but the men, with much presence of mind, chiefly ranged themselves on the sides of the empty buckets, and left the real work to their better halves. Their efforts were useless, and the chalets burnt themselves out.

The next morning I visited the still smouldering ruins, and saw the homeless families sitting in a dismal row in front of their charred property. The people said that one of the houses had been well insured, and that its owner had endeavoured to forestall luck. He had arranged the place for a bonfire, set the lower rooms on fire in several places, and had then gone out of the way, leaving his wife and children in the upper rooms, to be roasted or not as the case might be. His plans only partially succeeded, and it was satisfactory to see the scoundrel brought back in the custody of two stalwart gensdarmes. Three days afterwards I was in London.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "BUT WHAT IS THIS?"]

CHAPTER V.

THE VAL TOURNANCHE-DIRECT Pa.s.s FROM BREIL TO ZERMATT (BREUILJOCH)-ZERMATT-FIRST ASCENT OF THE GRAND TOURNALIN.

"How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of a fleeting year!"

W. SHAKESPEARE.

I crossed the Channel on the 29th of July 1863, embarra.s.sed by the possession of two ladders, each twelve feet long, which joined together like those used by firemen, and shut up like parallel rulers. My luggage was highly suggestive of housebreaking, for, besides these, there were several coils of rope, and numerous tools of suspicious appearance, and it was reluctantly admitted into France, but it pa.s.sed through the custom-house with less trouble than I antic.i.p.ated, after a timely expenditure of a few francs.

I am not in love with the douane. It is the purgatory of travellers, where uncongenial spirits mingle together for a time, before they are separated into rich and poor. The douaniers look upon tourists as their natural enemies; see how eagerly they pounce upon the portmanteaux! One of them has discovered something! He has never seen its like before, and he holds it aloft in the face of its owner, with inquisitorial insolence. "But _what is_ this?" The explanation is only half-satisfactory. "But what is _this_?" says he, laying hold of a little box. "Powder." "But that it is forbidden to carry of powder on the railway." "Bah!" says another and older hand, "pa.s.s the effects of Monsieur;" and our countryman-whose cheeks had begun to redden under the stares of his fellow-travellers-is allowed to depart with his half-worn tooth-brush, while the discomfited douanier gives a mighty shrug at the strange habits of those "whose insular position excludes them from the march of continental ideas."

My real troubles commenced at Susa. The officials there, more honest and more obtuse than the Frenchmen, declined at one and the same time to be bribed, or to pa.s.s my baggage until a satisfactory account of it was rendered; and, as they refused to believe the true explanation, I was puzzled what to say, but was presently relieved from the dilemma by one of the men, who was cleverer than his fellows, suggesting that I was going to Turin to exhibit in the streets; that I mounted the ladder and balanced myself on the end of it, then lighted my pipe and put the point of the baton in its bowl, and caused the baton to gyrate around my head. The rope was to keep back the spectators, and an Englishman in my company was the agent. "Monsieur is acrobat then?" "Yes, certainly." "Pa.s.s the effects of Monsieur the acrobat!"

These ladders were the source of endless trouble. Let us pa.s.s over the doubts of the guardians of the Hotel d'Europe (Trombetta), whether a person in the possession of such questionable articles should be admitted to their very respectable house, and get to Chatillon, at the entrance of the Val Tournanche. A mule was chartered to carry them, and, as they were too long to sling across its back, they were arranged lengthways, and one end projected over the animal's head, while the other extended beyond its tail. A mule when going up or down hill always moves with a jerky action, and in consequence of this the ladders. .h.i.t my mule severe blows between its ears and in its flanks. The beast, not knowing what strange creature it had on its back, naturally tossed its head and threw out its legs, and this, of course, only made the blows that it received more severe. At last it ran away, and would have perished by rolling down a precipice, if the men had not caught hold of its tail. The end of the matter was that a man had to follow the mule, holding the end of the ladders, which obliged him to move his arms up and down incessantly, and to bow to the hind quarters of the animal in a way that afforded more amus.e.m.e.nt to his comrades than it did to him.

I was once more _en route_ for the Matterhorn, for I had heard in the spring of 1863 the cause of the failure of Professor Tyndall, and learnt that the case was not so hopeless as it appeared to be at one time. I found that he arrived as far only as the northern end of "the shoulder."

The point at which he says,(66) they "sat down with broken hopes, the summit within a stone's throw of us, but still defying us," was not the notch or cleft at D (which is literally within a stone's throw of the summit), but another and more formidable cleft that intervenes between the northern end of "the shoulder" and the commencement of the final peak. It is marked E on the outline which faces p. 44. Carrel and all the men who had been with me knew of the existence of this cleft, and of the pinnacle which rose between it and the final peak;(67) and we had frequently talked about the best manner of pa.s.sing the place. On this we disagreed, but we were both of opinion that when we got to "the shoulder," it would be necessary to bear down gradually to the right or to the left, to avoid coming to the top of the notch. Tyndall's party, after arriving at "the shoulder," was led by his guides along the crest of the ridge, and, consequently, when they got to its northern end, they came to the top of the notch, instead of the bottom-to the dismay of all but the Carrels. Dr.

Tyndall's words are, "The ridge was here split by a deep cleft which separated it from the final precipice, and the case became more hopeless as we came more near." The Professor adds, "The mountain is 14,800 feet high, and 14,600 feet had been accomplished." He greatly deceived himself; by the barometric measurements of Signor Giordano the notch is no less than 800 feet below the summit. The guide Walter (Dr. Tyndall says) said it was impossible to proceed, and the Carrels, appealed to for their opinion (this is their own account), gave as an answer, "We are porters; ask your guides." Bennen, thus left to himself, "was finally forced to accept defeat." Tyndall had nevertheless accomplished an advance of about 400 feet over one of the most difficult parts of the mountain.

There are material discrepancies between the published narratives of Professor Tyndall(68) and the verbal accounts of the Carrels. The former says the men had to be "urged on," that "they p.r.o.nounced flatly against the final precipice," "they yielded so utterly," and that Bennen said, in answer to a final appeal made to him, "'What could I do, sir? not one of them would accompany me.' It was the accurate truth." Jean-Antoine Carrel says that when Professor Tyndall gave the order to turn _he_ would have advanced to examine the route, as he did not think that farther progress was impossible, but he was stopped by the Professor, and was naturally obliged to follow the others.(69) These disagreements may well be left to be settled by those who are concerned. Tyndall, Walter, and Bennen, now disappear from this history.(70)

[Ill.u.s.tration: An arch of the aqueduct in the Val Tournanche]

The Val Tournanche is one of the most charming valleys in the Italian Alps; it is a paradise to an artist, and if the s.p.a.ce at my command were greater, I would willingly linger over its groves of chestnuts, its bright trickling rills and its roaring torrents, its upland unsuspected valleys and its n.o.ble cliffs. The path rises steeply from Chatillon, but it is well shaded, and the heat of the summer sun is tempered by cool air and spray which comes off the ice-cold streams.(71) One sees from the path, at several places on the right bank of the valley, groups of arches which have been built high up against the faces of the cliffs. Guide-books repeat-on whose authority I know not-that they are the remains of a Roman aqueduct. They have the Roman boldness of conception, but the work has not the usual Roman solidity. The arches have always seemed to me to be the remains of an _unfinished_ work, and I learn from Jean-Antoine Carrel that there are other groups of arches, which are not seen from the path, all having the same appearance. It may be questioned whether those seen near the village of Antey are Roman. Some of them are semicircular, whilst others are distinctly pointed. Here is one of the latter, which might pa.s.s for fourteenth-century work, or later;-a two-centred arch, with mean voussoirs, and the masonry in rough courses. These arches are well worth the attention of an archaeologist, but some difficulty will be found in approaching them closely.

We sauntered up the valley, and got to Breil when all were asleep. A halo round the moon promised watery weather, and we were not disappointed, for, on the next day (August 1), rain fell heavily, and when the clouds lifted for a time, we saw that new snow lay thickly over everything higher than 9000 feet. J.-A. Carrel was ready and waiting (as I had determined to give the bold cragsman another chance); and he did not need to say that the Matterhorn would be impracticable for several days after all this new snow, even if the weather were to arrange itself at once. Our first day together was accordingly spent upon a neighbouring summit, the Cimes Blanches; a degraded mountain, well known for its fine panoramic view. It was little that we saw; for, in every direction except to the south, writhing ma.s.ses of heavy clouds obscured everything; and to the south our view was intercepted by a peak higher than the Cimes Blanches, named the Grand Tournalin.(72) But we got some innocent pleasure out of watching the gambolings of a number of goats, who became fast friends after we had given them some salt; in fact, too fast, and caused us no little annoyance when we were descending. "Carrel," I said, as a number of stones whizzed by which they had dislodged, "this must be put a stop to." "Diable!" he grunted, "it is very well to talk, but how will you do it?" I said that I would try; and, sitting down, poured a little brandy into the hollow of my hand, and allured the nearest goat with deceitful gestures. It was one who had gobbled up the paper in which the salt had been carried-an animal of enterprising character-and it advanced fearlessly and licked up the brandy. I shall not easily forget its surprise. It stopped short, and coughed, and looked at me as much as to say, "Oh, you cheat!" and spat and ran away; stopping now and then to cough and spit again. We were not troubled any more by those goats.

More snow fell during the night, and our attempt on the Matterhorn was postponed indefinitely. As there was nothing to be done at Breil, I determined to make the tour of the mountain, and commenced by inventing a pa.s.s from Breil to Zermatt,(73) in place of the hackneyed Theodule. Any one who looks at the map will see that the latter pa.s.s makes a considerable detour to the east, and, apparently, goes out of the way. I thought that it was possible to strike out a shorter route, both in distance and in time, and we set out on the 3rd of August, to carry out the idea. We followed the Theodule path for some time, but quitted it when it bore away to the east, and kept straight on until we struck the moraine of the Mont Cervin glacier. Our track still continued in a straight line up the centre of the glacier to the foot of a tooth of rock, which juts prominently out of the ridge (Furggengrat) connecting the Matterhorn with the Theodulehorn. The head of the glacier was connected with this little peak by a steep bank of snow; but we were able to go straight up, and struck the Col at its lowest point, a little to the right (that is to say, to the east) of the above-mentioned peak. On the north there was a snow-slope corresponding to that on the other side. Half-an-hour took us to its base. We then bore away over the nearly level plateau of the Furggengletscher, making a straight track to the Hornli, from whence we descended to Zermatt by one of the well-known paths. This pa.s.s has been dubbed the Breuiljoch by the Swiss surveyors. It is a few feet higher than the Theodule, and it may be recommended to those who are familiar with that pa.s.s, as it gives equally fine views, and is accessible at all times.

But it will never be frequented like the Theodule, as the snow-slope at its summit, at certain times, will require the use of the axe. It took us six hours and a quarter to go from one place to the other, which was an hour longer than we would have occupied by the Theodule, although the distance in miles is less.

It is stated in one of the MS. note-books of the late Princ.i.p.al J. D.

Forbes, that this depression, now called the Breuiljoch, was formerly _the_ pa.s.s between the Val Tournanche and Zermatt, and that it was abandoned for the Theodule in consequence of changes in the glaciers.(74) The authority for the statement was not given. I presume it was from local tradition, but I readily credit it; for, before the time that the glaciers had shrunk to so great an extent, the steep snow-slopes above mentioned, in all probability, did not exist; and, most likely, the glaciers led by very gentle gradients up to the summit; in which case the route would have formed the natural highway between the two places. It is far from impossible, if the glaciers continue to diminish at their present rapid rate,(75) that the Theodule itself, the easiest and the most frequented of all the higher Alpine pa.s.ses, may, in the course of a few years, become somewhat difficult; and if this should be the case, the prosperity of Zermatt will probably suffer.(76)