the spot. It is curious to note how often the instinct of guides, so much talked about, is at fault in this matter, and how systematically they are in the habit of carrying up on the mountains superfluous articles, hiding them with entirely unnecessary precautions, and subsequently forgetting the whole transaction.
Hotel trials
While they searched about for their cache we enjoyed the use of tobacco, if such an expression be allowable in the case of some curious stuff purchased in the valley. Still, as the packet in which it was contained was labelled “Tabak,” we considered it to be such. Being indulgently disposed, and not being profound botanists, poetic license alone enabled us to imagine that
“We soared above
Dull earth, in those ambrosial clouds like Jove,
And from our own empyrean height
Looked down upon Zermatt with calm delight.”
The gushers
It may have been so; it gave me a sore throat. Descending rapidly, we reached the Monte Rosa Hotel at 7 P.M., in an exultant frame of mind, a ragged condition of attire, and a preposterous state of hunger. The whole time occupied in the climb was sixteen hours. Of this an hour was wasted while we were waiting for the telescope, and three-quarters of an hour was spent in arranging the rope, by the aid of which we descended. Probably in actual climbing and walking we employed rather under thirteen hours; but the snow was in excellent order, and we descended on the whole very rapidly. Our trials were not over for the day, when we reached the hotel. Two arch young things had prepared an ambuscade and surprised us successfully at the door of the hotel. Sweetly did they gush. “Oh! where had we been?” We said we had been up in the mountains, indicating the general line of locality with retrospective thumb. “Oh! wasn’t it fearfully dangerous? Weren’t we all tied tightly together?” (as if, on the principle of union being strength, we had been fastened up and bound like a bundle of quill pens). “Oh! hadn’t we done something very wonderful?” The situation was becoming irritating. “Oh! didn’t we have to drag ourselves up precipices by the chamois horns on the tops of our sticks?” “No indeed – ” “Oh! really, now, that guide there” (a driver with imperfectly buttoned garments who was sitting on the wall with a vacuous look) “told us you were such wonderful climbers.” It was becoming exasperating. “And oh! we wanted to ask you so much, for you know all about it. Do you think we could walk over the Théodule? Papa” (great heavens! he must be a nonagenarian) “thinks we should be so foolish to try. Could you persuade him?” “Well, really – ” “Wouldn’t the precipices make us dreadfully giddy?” “No, no more than you are now.” “Oh! thank you so much. And you really won’t tell us what awful ascent you have been making?” It was maddening. “After dinner perhaps?” “Oh! thank you. Oh! Sustie” (this to each other; they both spoke together: probably the names were Susie and Tottie), “won’t that be delightful?” By dexterous manœuvring we escaped these gushing Circes during the evening. Happening to pass later on by the open door of the little salon, the following remark was overheard: “My dear, the conceit of these climbing objects is quite dreadful. They do nothing but flourish their nasty sticks and ropes about: they want the whole place to themselves” (we had been sitting on wooden chairs in the middle of the high street, near an unsavoury heap of refuse), “and they talk, talk, talk, my dear, all day and all night about what they have been doing in the mountains and of their nonsensical climbs. And what frights they look. I think they are perfectly horrid.” Can the voice have been that of the gusher?
CHAPTER III.
EARLY ATTEMPTS ON THE AIGUILLE DU DRU
The Alps and the early mountaineers – The last peaks to surrender – The Aiguille du Dru – Messrs. Kennedy and Pendlebury’s attempt on the peak – One-day expeditions in the Alps and thoughts on huts and sleeping out – The Chamouni guide system – A word on guides, past and present – The somnolent landlord and his peculiarities – Some of the party see a chamois – Doubts as to the peak and the way – The duplicity of the Aiguille deceives us – Telescopic observations – An ill-arranged glacier – Franz and his mighty axe – A start on the rocks in the wrong direction – Progress reported – An adjournment – The rocks of the lower peak of the Aiguille du Dru – Our first failure – The expedition resumed – A new line of ascent – We reach the sticking point – Beaten back – The results gained by the two days’ climbing.
The last peaks to surrender
Accounts of failures on the mountains in books of Alpine adventure are as much out of place, according to some critics, as a new hat in a crowded church. Humanly speaking, the possession of this head-gear under such circumstances renders it impossible to divert the thoughts wholly from worldly affairs. This, however, by the way. Now the pioneers of the Alps, the Stephenses, the Willses, the Moores, the Morsheads, and many others, had used up all new material with alarming rapidity, I might say voracity, before the climbing epoch to which the present sketches relate. There is an old story of a man who arrived running in a breathless condition on a railway platform just in time to see the train disappearing. “You didn’t run fast enough, sir,” remarked the porter to him. “You idiot!” was the answer, “I ran plenty fast enough, but I didn’t begin running soon enough.” Even so was it with the climbers of our generation. They climbed with all possible diligence, but they began their climbing too late. Novelty, that is the desire for achieving new expeditions, was still considered of paramount importance, but unfortunately there was very little new material left. It is difficult to realise adequately now the real veneration entertained for an untrodden peak. A certain amount of familiarity seemed indispensable before a new ascent was even seriously contemplated. It had occurred to certain bold minds that the aiguilles around Chamouni might not be quite as bad as they looked. In 1873 the chief of the still unconquered peaks of the Mont Blanc district were the Aiguille des Charmoz, the Aiguille Blaitière, the Aiguille du Géant, the Aiguille Peuteret, the Aiguille du Dru, and a few other minor points. All of these have since been captured, some of them bound in chains. Opinions differed considerably as to their accessibility. Some hopeful spirits thought that by constantly “pegging away” they might be scaled; others thought that the only feasible plan would be indeed to peg away, but were of opinion that the pegs should be of iron and driven into the rock. Such views naturally lead to discussions, sometimes rather heated, as to whether mountaineering morality might fitly tolerate such aids to the climber. Of all the peaks mentioned above, the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille du Géant were considered as the most hopeful by the leading guides, though the older members of that body held out little prospect of success. It is a rather curious fact that the majority of the leading guides who gave their opinions to us in the matter thought that the Aiguille du Géant was the more promising peak to attack. Subsequent experience has proved that they were greatly in error in this judgment. The Aiguille du Géant has indeed been ascended, but much more aid than is comprised in the ordinary mountaineer’s equipment was found necessary. In fact, the stronghold was not carried by direct assault, but by sapping and mining. There is a certain rock needle in Norway which, I am told, was once, and once only, ascended by a party on surveying operations bent. No other means could be found, so a wooden structure was built up around the peak, such as may be seen investing a dilapidated church steeple; and the mountain, like the Royal Martyr of history, yielded up its crowning point at the scaffold. We did not like the prospect of employing any such architectural means to gain our end and the summit, and, from no very clearly defined reasons, turned our attention chiefly to the Aiguille du Dru. Perhaps the prominent appearance of this Aiguille, and the fact that its outline was so familiar from the Montanvert, gradually imbued us with a certain sense of familiarity, which ultimately developed into a notion that if not actually accessible it might at least be worth trying. It seemed too prominent to be impossible; from its height – 12,517 feet only – the mountain would doubtless not attract much attention, were it not so advantageously placed. Thousands of tourists had gazed on its symmetrical form: it had been photographed, stared at through binoculars, portrayed in little distorted pictures on useless work-boxes, trays and other toy-shop gimcracks, more
