Edward Whymper

“ We saw a toe—it seemed to belong to Moore; we saw Reynaud, a flying body, coming down as if taking a header into water, with arms and legs all abroad, his leg of mutton flying in the air, his baton escaped from his grasp; and then we heard a thud as if a bundle of carpets had been pitched out of a window. When set upon his feet he was a sorry spectacle: his head was a great snowball, brandy was trickling out of one side of the knapsack, Chartreuse out of the other. ”

“ The man who is there is somewhat in the position of one who has attained all that he desires—he has nothing to aspire to: his position must needs be unsatisfactory. Upon the summit of the Verte there is not this objection. You see valleys, villages, fields; you see mountains interminable rolling away, lakes resting in their hollows; you hear the tinkling of the sheep-bells as it rises through the clear mountain air, and the roar of the avalanches as they descend to the valleys; but above all there is the great white dome, with its shining crest high above ”

“ Marvelous some of the panoramas seen from the greatest peaks undoubtedly are, but they are necessarily without those isolated and central points which are so valuable pictorially, The eye roams over a multitude of objects (each perhaps grand individually) , and, distracted by an embarrassment of riches, wanders from one to another, erasing by the contemplation of the next the effect that was produced by the last; and when those happy moments are over, which always fly with too great rapidity, the summit is left with an impression that is seldom durable because it is usually vague. ”

“ The mighty Mont Blanc, full seventy miles away, first caught our eyes, and then, still farther off, the Monte Rosa group; while, rolling away to the east, one unknown range after another succeeded in unveiled splendor, fainter and fainter in tone, but still perfectly defined, till at last the eye was unable to distinguish sky from mountain, and they died away in the far-off horizon. Monte Viso rose up grandly, but it was less than forty miles away, and we looked over it to a hazy mass we knew must be the plains of Piedmont. ”

“ In the whole range of my Alpine experience I have seen nothing more striking than this desolate, ruined and shattered ridge at the back of the Great Tower. I have seen stranger shapes—rocks which mimic the human form, with monstrous leering faces, and isolated pinnacles sharper and greater than any here—but I have never seen exhibited so impressively the tremendous effects which may be produced by frost, and by the long-continued action of forces whose individual effects are imperceptible. ”

“ The Val Tournanche is one of the most charming valleys in the Italian Alps: it is a paradise to an artist, and if the space 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 noble 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. ”

“ No brandy, no blankets, appeared to be his rule. We did not require them that night, as it was passed in the highest cow-shed in the valley, which is about an hour nearer to the mountain than is the hotel. The cowherds, worthy fellows seldom troubled by tourists, hailed our company with delight, and did their best to make us comfortable, brought out their little stores of simple food, and, as we sat with them round the great copper pot which hung over the fire, bade us in husky voice, but with honest intent, to beware of the perils of the haunted cliffs. ”

“ Our course led us over the old Mer de Glace, the glacier made famous by De Saussure and Forbes. The heat of the day was over, but the little rills and rivulets were still flowing along the surface of the ice; cutting deep troughs where the gradients were small, leaving ripple-marks where the water was with more difficulty confined to one channel, and falling over the precipitous walls of the great crevasses, sometimes in bounding cascades, and sometimes in diffused streams, which marked the perpendicular faces with graceful sinuosities. ”

“ At four A.M. we left his Monte Rosa hotel, and were soon pushing our way through the thickets of gray alder that skirt the path up the exquisite little valley which leads to the Z’muttgletscher.
Nothing can seem or be more inaccessible than the Matterhorn upon this side, and even in cold blood one holds his breath when looking at its stupendous cliffs. There are but few equal to them in size in the Alps, and there are none which can more truly be termed precipices. Greatest of them all is the immense north cliff, that which bends over toward the Z’muttgletscher. ”

“ Glissading is a very pleasant employment when it is accomplished successfully, and I have never seen a place where it can be more safely indulged in than the snowy valley on the right bank of the Glacier de Triolet. In my dreams I glissade delightfully, but in practice I find that somehow the snow will not behave properly, and that my alpenstock will get between my legs. Then my legs go where my head should be, and I see the sky revolving at a rapid pace: the snow rises up and smites me, and runs away, and when it is at last overtaken it suddenly stops, and we come into violent collision. ”

“ We were light, and could move quickly—the porter was laden inside and out. We went our hardest—he had to shuffle and trot. He streamed with perspiration; the mutton and cheese oozed out in big drops; he larded the glacier. We had our revenge, and dried our clothes at the same time, but when we arrived at the Montanvert the porter was as wet as we had been upon our arrival at the Couvercle. We halted at the inn to get a little food, and at a quarter-past eight re-entered Chamounix amidst firing of cannon and other demonstrations of satisfaction on the part of the hotel-keepers. ”

“ Turn to the east and watch the sun’s slanting rays coming across the Monte Rosa snow-fields. Look at the shadowed parts and see how even they, radiant with reflected light, are more brilliant than man knows how to depict. See how, even there, the gentle undulations give shadows within shadows, and how, yet again, where falling stones or ice have left a track, there are shadows upon shadows, each with a light and a dark side, with infinite gradations of matchless tenderness. ”

“ A more frightful and desolate valley it is scarcely possible to imagine: it contains miles of boulders, débris, stones, sand and mud—few trees, and they placed so high as to be almost out of sight. Not a soul inhabits it: no birds are in the air, no fish in the waters: the mountain is too steep for the chamois, its slopes too inhospitable for the marmot, the whole too repulsive for the eagle. ”

“ Round the whole of its northern side it does not terminate in the usual manner by gentle slopes, but comes to a sudden end at the top of the steep rocks which lie betwixt it and the Z’muttgletscher; and seldom does an hour pass without a huge slice breaking away and falling with dreadful uproar on to the slopes below, where it is re-compacted.
The desolate, outside pines of the Z’mutt forests, stripped of their bark and blanched by the weather, are a fit foreground to a scene that can hardly be surpassed in solemn grandeur. ”

“ As we turned back from this curious sight, Reynaud asked if we had ever seen a torrent on fire, and told us that in the spring the Durance, swollen by the melting of the snow, sometimes brings down so many rocks that where it passes through a narrow gorge at La Bessée no water whatever is seen, but only boulders rolling over and over, grinding each other into powder, and striking so many sparks that the stream looks as if it were on fire. ”

“ They are entirely unprotected, and are attacked by the strongest blasts and by the most intense cold. The most durable rocks are not proof against such assaults. These grand, apparently solid, eternal mountains, seeming so firm, so immutable, are yet ever changing and crumbling into dust. These shattered ridges are evidence of their sufferings. Let me repeat that every principal ridge of every great peak in the Alps amongst those I have seen has been shattered in this way, and that every summit amongst the rock-summits upon which I have stood has been nothing but a piled-up heap of fragments. ”

“ Whilst we were resting at this point a large party of vagrant chamois arrived on the summit of the mountain from the northern side, some of whom, by their statuesque position, seemed to appreciate the grand panorama by which they were surrounded, while others amused themselves, like two-legged tourists, in rolling stones over the cliffs. The clatter of these falling fragments made us look up. The chamois were so numerous that we could not count them, clustered around the summit, totally unaware of our presence ”

“ After a rapid scramble over the polished rocks and snow-beds which skirt the base of the Théodule glacier, and wading through some of the streams which flow from it, at that time much swollen by the late rains, the first difficulty was arrived at, in the shape of a precipice about three hundred feet high. It seemed that there would be no difficulty in crossing the glacier if the cliff could be descended, but higher up and lower down the ice appeared, to my inexperienced eyes, to be impassable for a single person. ”

“ I often meet, upon glacier-passes, elegantly got-up persons, who are clearly out of their element, with a guide stalking along in front, who pays no attention to the innocents in his charge. They are tied together as a matter of form, but they evidently have no idea why they are tied up, for they walk side by side or close together, with the rope trailing on the snow. If one tumbles into a crevasse, the rest stare and say, “La! what is the matter with Smith?” unless, as is more likely, they all tumble in together. This is the wrong way to use a rope. It is abuse of the rope. ”

“ Kennedy, close to the top of the mountain. The wind and cold were terrible there. Progress was oftentimes impossible, and we waited, crouching under the lee of rocks, listening to “the shrieking of the mindless wind,” while the blasts swept across, tearing off the upper snow and blowing it away in streamers over the Schönbühl glacier—“nothing seen except an indescribable writhing in the air, like the wind made visible.”
Our goal was concealed by the mist, though it was only a few yards away, and Croz’s prophecy that we should stay all night upon the summit seemed likely to come true. ”

“ We got to Breuil in the course of the afternoon: it was quite fine there, and the tenants of the inn received our statements with evident skepticism. They were astonished to learn that we had been exposed to a snow-storm of twenty-six hours’ duration. “Why,” said Favre, the innkeeper, “we have had no snow: it has been fine all the time you have been absent, and there has been only that small cloud upon the mountain.” Ah! that small cloud! None except those who have had experience of it can tell what a formidable obstacle it is. ”

“ Then note the sunlight as it steals noiselessly along and reveals countless unsuspected forms—the delicate ripple-lines which mark the concealed crevasse, and the waves of drifted snow, producing each minute more lights and fresh shadows, sparkling on the edges and glittering on the ends of the icicles, shining on the heights and illuminating the depths, until all is aglow and the dazzled eye returns for relief to the sombre crags. ”

“ It is long, certainly, but it has a fair proportion of picturesque points, and it is not easy to see how it can be dull to those who have eyes. In the days when it was a rude mountain track, crossed by trains of mules, and when it was better known to smugglers than to tourists, it may have been dull; but when Napoleon’s road changed the rough path into one of the finest highways in Europe, mounting in grand curves and by uniform grades, and rendered the trot possible throughout its entire distance, the Mont Cenis became one of the most interesting passes in the Alps. ”

“ Night fell, and for an hour the descent was continued in the darkness. At half-past nine a resting-place was found, and upon a wretched slab, barely large enough to hold the three, we passed six miserable hours. At daybreak the descent was resumed, and from the Hörnli ridge we ran down to the châlets of Buhl and on to Zermatt. Seiler met me at his door, and followed in silence to my room: “What is the matter?” “The Taugwalders and I have returned.” He did not need more, and burst into tears, but lost no time in useless lamentations, and set to work to arouse the village. ”

“ They saw it at Zermatt, at the Riffel, in the Val Tournanche. At Breuil the watchers cried, “Victory is ours!” They raised “bravos” for Carrel and “vivas” for Italy, and hastened to put themselves en fête. On the morrow they were undeceived. All was changed: the explorers returned sad—cast down—disheartened—confounded—gloomy. “It is true,” said the men. “We saw them ourselves—they hurled stones at us! The old traditions are true—there are spirits on the top of the Matterhorn!” ”

“ Before I pass on to these expeditions it will be convenient to devote a few paragraphs to the topography of the chain of Mont Blanc.
At the present time the chain is divided betwixt France, Switzerland and Italy. France has the lion’s share, Switzerland the most fertile portion, and Italy the steepest side. It has acquired a reputation which is not extraordinary, but which is not wholly merited. It has neither the beauty of the Oberland nor the sublimity of Dauphiné. But it attracts the vulgar by the possession of the highest summit in the Alps. ”