Hours of Exercise in the Alps. (Notes and Comments on Ice and Glaciers and other scraps.-Voyage to Algeria to observe the Eclipse.)

Preface

TO THE SECOND EDITION. In 1862, at the instance of three of his friends, the celebrated guide, Johann Joseph Bennen, came to England ; and during his visit Mr. F. F. Tuckett had him photographed. The portrait then taken is the basis of the capital sketch which faces page 201 of the present volume. The engraving was executed by Mr. Whymper for his beautifully illustrated Alpine book recently published,* and both Mr. W. Longman and myself are much indebted to the artist for his civility in per mitting the publishers of this work to make use of his sketch. But to the occasional blending of sweetness and earnestness in Bennen's countenance hardly any such portrait could do justice. It was the passing of a gleam which threw light and tenderness into the resolute features, but which could not be caught by the photographer's art. * A brief reference to Mr. Whymper's book occurs at pp. 166-67 of this volume.

PREFACE.

TO THE SECOND EDITION. VI As already stated in another place, the picture from which the engraving of the Weisshorn, facing page 91, is taken was lent to me in the most obliging manner by Mr. Wm. Mathews, jun. The ridge along which we ascended is to the right of a person looking at the sketch. For the drawing from which the engraving of the Matterhorn, facing page 117, is taken, I have to thank my friend Mr. E. W. Cooke, R.A. The immediate cause of the appearance of these ' Hours of Exercise ' as well as of the more serious ' Fragments ' contained in another volume recently published, was the announcement that if the work of selection, revision, and arrangement were not executed by me, it would be executed by others without my authority. The publication of Huxley's admirable ' Lay Sermons ' created a demand for my scat tered essays also, and, once committed to the task of collecting, I thought it better to finish the work by publishing these Alpine papers at the same time.

It is a satisfaction to me to know that, slight as they are, they have given pleasure to persons of gravity and good sense. The ' Fragments,' I may say, are now being translated into German under the supervision of Helmholtz, and the ' Hours of Exercise ' under that of Wiedemann. July 1871.

PREFACE.

ro THE FIRST EDITION A short time ago I published a book of ' Frag ments,' which might have been called ' Hours of Exercise in the Attic and the Laboratory ' ; while this one bears the title of ' Hours of Exercise in the Alps.' The two volumes supplement each other, and, taken together, illustrate the mode in which a lover of natural knowledge and of natural scenery chooses to spend his life. Much as I enjoy the work, I do not think that I could have filled my days and hours in the Alps with clambering alone. The climbing in many cases was the peg on which a thousand other ' exercises ' were hung. The present volume, however, is for the most part a record of bodily action, written partly to preserve to myself the memory of strong and joyous hours, and partly for the pleasure of those who find exhilaration in descriptions associated with mountain life. The papers, written during the last ten years, are

PREFACE.

TO THE FIRST EDITION. VIII printed in the order of the incidents to which they relate ; and, to render the history more complete, I have, with the permission of their authors, introduced nearly the whole of two articles by Mr. Vaughan Hawkins and Mr. Philip Gossett. The former describes the first assault ever made upon the Matterhorn, the latter an expedition which ended in the death of a renowned and beloved guide. The ' Glaciers of the Alps ' being out of print, I can no longer refer to it. Towards the end of the volume, therefore, I have thrown together a few ' Notes and Comments ' which may be useful to those who desire to possess some knowledge of the phenomena of the ice-world, and of the properties of ice itself. To these are added one or two minor articles, which relate more or less to our British hills and lakes: the volume is closed by an account of a recent voyage to Oran.

I refrain from giving advice, further than to say that the perils of wandering in the High Alps are terribly real, and are only to be met by knowledge, caution, skill, and strength. ' For rashness, ignorance, or carelessness the mountains leave no margin ; and to rashness, ignorance, or carelessness three fourths of the catastrophes which shock us are to be traced.' Those who wish to know something of the precautions to be taken upon the peaks and glaciers cannot do better than consult the

PREFACE.

TO THE FIRST EDITION. IX excellent little volume lately published by Leslie Stephen, where, under the head of ' Dangers of Mountaineering,' this question is discussed. I would willingly have published this volume without illustrations, and should the reader like those here introduced — two of which were published ten years ago, and the remainder recently executed under the able superintendence of Mr. Whymper — he will have to ascribe his gratification to the initiative of Mr. William Longman, not to me. I have sometimes tried to trace the genesis of the interest which I take in fine scenery. It cannot be wholly due to my own early associations ; for as a boy I loved nature, and hence, to account for that love, I must fall back upon something earlier than my own birth. The forgotten associations of a far-gone ancestry are probably the most potent elements in the feeling.

With characteristic pene tration, Mr. Herbert Spencer has written of the growth of our appreciation of natural scenery with growing years. But to the associations of the indi vidual himself he adds ' certain deeper, but now vague, combinations of states, that were organised in the race during barbarous times, when its pleasurable activities were among the mountains, woods, and waters. Out of these excitations,' he adds, ' some of them actual, but most of them nascent, is composed the emotion which a fine

PREFACE.

TO THE FIRST EDITION. X landscape produces in us.' I think this an exceed ingly likely proximate hypothesis, and hence infer that those ' vague and deep combinations organised iu barbarous times,' not to go further back, have come down with considerable force to me. Adding to these inherited feelings the pleasurable present exercise of Mr. Bain's 'muscular sense,' I obtain a somewhat intelligible, though, doubtless, still secondary theory of my delight in the mountains. The name of a friend whom I taught in his boy hood to handle a theodolite and lay a chain, and who afterwards turned his knowledge to account on the glaciers of the Alps, occurs frequently in the following pages. Of the firmness of a friendship, uninterrupted for an hour, and only strengthened by the weathering of six-and-twenty years, he needs no assurance.

Still, for the pleasure it gives myself, I connect this volume with the name of Thomas Archer Hirst. J. Tyndall. May 1871. CONTENTS. CUAPTER PAGK I. The Lauwinen-Thor .... 1 II. Disaster on the Col du Geant . . .8 III. The Matterhorn — First Assault, with J. J. Bennen as Guide . . . .27 IV. Thermometric Stations on Mont Blanc . . 53 V. A Letter from Bale . . . .59 Note on the Sound of Agitated Water . 65 VI. The Ubbachthal and Gaui.i Glacier . . 66 VII. The Grimsel and the Æggischhorn . . 75 Note on Clouds . . . . .82 VIIL The Bel Alp . . . . .86 IX. The Weisshorn . . . . .91 X. Inspection of the Matterhorn with Bennen . 114 XL Over the Moro . . . . .125 XII. The Old Weissthor . . . .130 XIII. Rescue from a Crevasse .... 141 XIV. The Matterhorn — Second Assault, in Company with Bennen . . . . .153 XV.

From Stein to the Grimsel . . . 166 XVI. The Oberaarjoch. — Adventure at the Æggischhorn . . . • • .174 CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAOE XVTLI. Ascent cf the Jungfrau . . ■ .182 XVIII. Death of Bennen on the Haut de Cry . . 1 94 XIX. Accident on the Piz Morteratsch . . 208 XX. Alpine Sculpture ..... 221 XXI. Search on the Matterhorn : a Project . 254 XXII. The Titlis, Finsteraarschlucht, Petersgrat, and Italian Lakes ..... 257 XXIII. Ascent op the Eiger and Passage of the Trift 267 XXIV. The Matterhorn — Third and Last Assault . 273 XXV. Ascent of the Aletschhorn . . . 297 XXVI. A Day among the Seracs op the Glacier du Geant Fourteen Years Ago . . . 320 NOTES ON ICE AND GLACIERS, ETC. I. Observations on the Mer de Glace . . 341 II. Structure and Properties of Ice . . 362 III. Structure of Glaciers .... 369 IV.

Helmholtz on Ice and Glaciers . . . 379 V. Clouds . . . . . .407 VI. Killarney . . . '. . .415 VII. Snowdon in Winter .... . 423 VHI. Voyage to Algeria to Observe the Eclipse . ILLUSTRATIONS. The Jungfrau from Interlaken . . Frontispiece Ascent of the Lauwinen-Thor . . to face page 11 The Weisshorn from the Riffel . . ,, 91 The Matterhorn (from a drawing by E. W. Cooke, R. A.) ,, 117 Recovery of our Porter . . . ,,149 Johann Joseph Bennen ... „ 203 The Gorge of Pfeffers (showing Erosivb Action) ..... ,, ' Nature, thou earliest gospel of the wise, Thou never-silent hymner unto God ; Thou angel-ladder lost amidst the skies, Though at the foot we dream upon the sod ; To thee the priesthood of the lyre belong — They hear religion and reply in song. ' If he hath held thy worship undefiled Through all the sins and sorrows of his youth, Let the man echo what be beard as child From the far hill-tops of melodious Truth, Leaving in troubled hearts some lingering tone Sweet with the solace thou hast given his own.' Lord Lytton's King Arthur. ' The brain, That forages all climes to hue its cells, Will not distil the juices it has sucked To the sweet substance of pellucid thought, Except for him who hath the secret learned To mix his blood with sunshine, and to take The winds into his pulses.' James Russell Lowell.

HOUES OF EXEECISE IN THE ALPS. i. THE LAUWINEN-THOR. In June 1860 I completed ' The Glaciers of the Alps,' which constituted but a fraction of the work executed during the previous autumn and spring. These labours and other matters had wearied and weakened me beyond measure, and to gain a little strength I went to Killarney. The trip was bene ficial, but not of permanent benefit. The air of those most lovely lakes was too moist and warm for my temperament, and I longed for that keener air which derives its tone from contact with the Alpine snows. In 1859 I had bidden the Alps farewell, purposing in future to steep my thoughts in the tranquillity of English valleys, and confine my mountain work to occasional excursions in the Scotch Highlands, or amid the Welsh and Cumbrian hills. But in my weariness the mere thought of u HOURS OF EXERCISE IN TnE ALPS. [1860 the snow-peaks and glaciers was an exhilaration ; and to the Alps, therefore, I resolved once more to go.

I wrote to my former guide, Christian Lauener, desiring him to meet me at Thun on Saturday the 4th of August ; and on my way thither I fortunately fell in with Mr. Vaughan Hawkins. He told me of his plans and wishes, which embraced an attack upon the Matterhorn. Infected by his ardour, I gladly closed with the proposition that we should climb together for a time. Lauener was not to be found at Thun, but in driving from Neuhaus to Interlaken a chaise met us, and swiftly passed ; within it I could discern the brown visage of my guide. We pulled up and shout ed, the other vehicle stopped, Lauener leaped from it, and came bounding towards me with admirable energy, through the deep and splashing mud. ' Gott ! wie der Kerl springs ! ' was the admiring exclamation of my coachman. Lauener is more than six feet high, and mainly a mass of bone ; his legs are out of proportion, longer than his trunk ; and he wears a short-tail coat, which augments the apparent dis crepancy.

Those massive levers were now plied with extraordinary vigour to project his body through space ; and it was gratifying to be thus assured that the man was in first-rate condition, and fully up to the hardest work. On Sunday the 5th of August, for the sake of a THE LAUWINEN-THOR. 3 little training, I ascended the Faulhorn alone. The morning was splendid, but as the day advanced heavy cloud-wreaths swathed the heights. They attained a maximum about two p.m., and afterwards the overladen air cleared itself by intermittent jerks — revealing at times the blue of heaven and the peaks of the mountains ; then closing up again, and hiding in their dismal folds the very posts which stood at a distance of ten paces from the hotel door. The. effects soon became exceedingly striking, the muta tions were so quick and so forcibly antithetical.

I lay down upon a seat, and watched the intermittent extinction and generation of the clouds, and the al ternate appearance and disappearance of the moun tains. More and more the sun swept off the swelter ing haze, and the blue sky bent over me in domes of ampler span. At four p.m. no trace of cloud was visible, and a panorama of the Oberland, such as I had no idea that the Faulhorn could command, unfolded itself. There was the grand barrier which separated us from the Valais ; there were the Jungfrau, Monk and Eiger, the Finsteraarhorn, the Schreckhorn, and the Wetterhorn, lifting their snowy and cloudless crests to heaven, and all so sharp and wildly precipitous that the bare thought of standing on any one of them made me shudder. London was still in my brain, and the vice of Primrose Hill in my muscles.

I disliked the ascent of the Faulhorn exceedingly, B HOURS OF EXERCISE IN THE ALPS. and the monotonous pony track which led to the top of it. Once, indeed, I deviated from the road out of pure disgust, and, taking a jumping torrent for my guide and colloquist, was led astray. I now resolved to return to Grindelwald by another route. My host at first threw cold water on the notion, but he afterwards relaxed and admitted that the village might be attained by a more direct way than the ordinary one. He pointed to some rocks, eminences, and trees, which were to serve as landmarks ; and stretching his arm in the direction of Grindelwald, I took the bearing of the place, and scampered over slopes of snow to the sunny Alp beyond them. To my left was a mountain stream making soft music by the explosion of its bubbles.

I was once tempted aside to climb a rounded eminence, where I lay for an hour watching the augmenting glory of the mountains. The scene at hand was perfectly pastoral ; green pastures, dotted with chalets, and covered with cows, which filled the air with the" incessant tinkle of their bells. Beyond was the majestic architecture of the Alps, with its capitals and western bastions flushed with the warm light of the lowering sun. I mightily enjoyed the hour. There was health in the air and hope in the mountains, and with the consciousness of augmenting vigour I quitted my station, and galloped down the Alp. I was soon THE LAUWINEN-TnOR. 5 amid the pinewoods which overhang the valley of Grindelwald, with no guidance save the slope of the mountain, which, at times, was quite precipitous ; but the roots of the pines grasping the rocks afforded hand and foot such hold as to render the steepest places the pleasantest of all.

I often emerged from the gloom of the trees upon lovely bits of pasture — bright emerald gems set in the bosom of the woods. It appeared to me surprising that nobody had con structed a resting-place on this fine slope. With a fraction of the time necessary to reach the top of the Faulhorn, a position might be secured from which the prospect would vie in point of grandeur with almost any in the Alps ; while the ascent from Grindelwald, amid the shade of the festooned trees, would itself be delightful. Hawkins, who had halted for a day at Thun, had arrived ; our guide had prepared a number of stakes, and on Monday morning we mounted our theodolite and proceeded to the Lower Glacier. With some difficulty we established the instrument upon a site whence the glacier could be seen from edge to edge ; and across it was fixed in a straight line a series of twelve stakes.

We afterwards ascended the glacier till we touched the avalanche-debris of the Heisse Platte. We wandered amid the moulins and cre vasses until evening approached, and thus gradually prepared our muscles for more arduous work. On nOURS OF EXERCISE IN THE ALPS. Tuesday a sleety rain filled the entire air, and the glacier was so laden with fog that there was no possibility of our being able to see across it. On Wednesday, happily, the weather brightened, and we executed our measurements ; finding, as in all other cases, that the glacier was retarded by its bounding walls, its motion varying from a minimum of thirteen and a half inches to a maximum of twenty-two inches a day. To Mr. Hawkins I am indebted both for the fixing of the stakes and the reduction of the measurements to their diurnal rate.

Previous to leaving England I had agreed to join a party of friends at the Æggischhorn, on Thursday the 9th of August. My plan was, first to measure the motion of the Grindelwald glacier, and after wards to cross the mountain-wall which separates the canton of Berne from that of Valais, so as to pass from Lauterbrunnen to the Æggischhorn in a single day. How this formidable barrier was to be crossed was a problem, but I did not doubt being able to get over it somehow. On mentioning my wish to Lauener, he agreed to try, and proposed attacking it through the Eoththal. In company with his brother Ulrich, he had already spent some time in the Roththal, seeking to scale the Jungfrau from that side. Hawkins had previously, I believe, entertained the thought of assailing the same barrier at the very same place.

Having completed our THE LAUWTNEN-THOR. 7 measurements on the Wednesday, we descended to Grindelwald and discharged our bill. We desired to obtain the services of Christian Kaufmann, a guide well acquainted with both the Wetterhorn and the Jungfrau ; but on learning our intentions he ex pressed fears regarding his lungs, and recommended to us his brother, a powerful young man, who had also undergone the discipline of the Wetterhorn. Him we accordingly engaged. We arranged with the landlord of the Bear to have the main mass of our luggage sent to the Æggischhorn by a more easy route. I was loth to part with the theodolite, but Lauener at first grumbled hard against taking it. It was proposed, however, to confine his load to the head of the instrument, while Kaufmann should carry the legs, and I should bear my own knapsack.

He yielded. Ulrich Lauener was at Grindelwald when we started for Lauterbrunnen, and on bidding us good-bye he remarked that we were going to attempt an impossibility. He had examined the place which we proposed to assail, and emphatically affirmed that it could not be surmounted. We were both a little chagrined by this gratuitous announce ment, and answered him somewhat warmly ; for we knew the moral, or rather immoral, effect of such an opinion upon the spirits of our men. The weather became more serene as we approached Lauterbrunnen. We had a brief evening stroll, but retired to bed before day had quite forsaken the HOURS OF EXERCISE IN THE ALPS. [1860 8 mountains. At two a.m. the candle of Lauener gleamed into our bedrooms, and he pronounced the weather fair. We got up at once, dressed, de spatched our hasty breakfast, strapped our things into the smallest possible volume, and between three and four a.m. were on our way.

The hidden sun crim soned faintly the eastern sky, but the valleys were all in peaceful shadow. To our right the Staub bach dangled its hazy veil, while other Backs of minor note also hung from the beetling rocks, but fell to earth too lightly to produce the faintest murmur. After an hour's march we deviated to the left, and wound upward through the woods which here cover the slope of the hill. The dawn cheerfully unlocked the recesses of the mountains, and we soon quitted the gloom of the woods for the bright green Alp. This we breasted, regardless of the path, until we reached the chalets of the Koththal. We did not yet see the par ticular staircase up which Lauener proposed to lead us, but we inspected minutely the battlements to our right, marking places for future attack in case our present attempt should not be successful.

The elastic grass disappeared, and we passed over rough crag and shingle alternately. We reached the base of a ridge of debris, and mounted it. At our right was the glacier of the Koththal, along the lateral moraine of which our route lay. THE LAUWINEN-THOR. 9 Just as we touched the snow a spring bubbled from the rocks at our left, spurting its water over stalagmites of ice. We turned towards it, and had each a refreshing draught. Lauener pointed out to us the remains of the hut erected by him and his brother when they attempted the Jungfrau, and from which they were driven by adverse weather. We entered an amphitheatre, grand and beautiful this splendid morning, but doubtless in times of tempest a fit residence for the devils whom popular belief has banished to its crags. The snow for a space was as level as a prairie, but in front of us rose the mighty bulwarks which separated us from the neighbouring canton.

To our right were the crags of the Breithorn, to our left the buttresses of the Jungfrau, while between both was an indentation in the mountain-wall, on which all eyes were fixed. From it downwards hung a thread of snow, which was to be our leading-string to the top. Though very steep, the aspect of the place was by no means terrible : comparing with it my memory of other gulleys in the Chamouni mountains, I imagined that three hours would place us at the top. We not only expected an easy conquest of the barrier, but it was proposed that on reaching the top we should turn to the left, and walk straight to the summit of the Jungfrau. Lauener was hope ful, but not sanguine. We were soon at the foot of HOURS OF EXERCISE IN THE ALPS. the barrier, clambering over mounds of snow. Huge consolidated lumps emerged from the general mass ; the snow was evidently that of avalanches which had been shot down the couloir, kneading themselves into vast balls, and piling themselves in heaps upon the plain.

The gradient steepened, the snow was hard, and the axe was invoked. Straight up the couloir seemed the most promising route, and we pursued it for an hour, the impression gradually gaining ground that the work would prove heavier than we had anticipated. We then turned our eyes on the rocks to our right, which seemed practicable, though very steep ; we swerved towards them, and worked laboriously upwards for three-quarters of an hour. Mr. Hawkins and the two guides then turned to the left, and regained the snow, leaving me among the crags. They had steps to cut, while I had none, and, consequently, I got rapidly above them. The work be comes ever harder, and rest is unattainable, for there is no resting-place. At every brow I pause ; legs and breast are laid against the rough rock, so as to lessen by their friction the strain upon the arms, which are stretched to grasp some protuberance above.

Thus I rest, and thus I learn that three days' training is not sufficient to dislodge London from one's lungs. Meanwhile my companions are mounting monotonously along the snow. Lauener ASCENT OF THE LAUWINEN THOR. THE LAUWINEN-THOR. 11 looks up at me at intervals, and I can clearly mark the expression of his countenance ; it is quite spiritless, while that of his companion bears the print of absolute dismay. Three hours have passed and the summit is not sensibly nearer. The men halt and converse together. Lauener at length calls out to me, ' I think it is impossible.' The effect of Ulrich's pre diction appears to be cropping out ; we expostulate, however, and they move on. After some time they halt again, and reiterate their opinion that the thing cannot be done. They direct our attention to the top of the barrier ; light clouds scud swiftly over it, and snow-dust is scattered in the air.

There is storm on the heights, which our guides affirm has turned the day against us. I cast about in my mind to meet the difficulty, and enquire whether we might not send one of them back with the theodolite, and thus so lighten our burdens as to be able to proceed. Kaufmann volunteers to take back the theodolite ; but this does not seem to please Lauener. There is a pause and hesitation. I remonstrate, while Hawkins calls out 'Forward!' Lauener once more doggedly strikes his axe into the snow, and resumes the ascent. I continued among the rocks, though with less and less confidence in the wisdom of my choice. My knapsack annoyed me excessively; the straps frayed my shoulders, and tied up my muscles. Once or twice I had to get round a protruding face of rock, and then found my bonds very grievous.

At length I came to a peculiar piece of cliff, near the base of which was a sharp ridge of snow, and at a height of about five feet above it the rock bulged out, so that a stone dropped from its pro tuberance would fall beyond the ridge. I had to work along the snow cautiously, squatting down so as to prevent the rock from pushing me too far out. Had I a fair ledge underneath I should have felt per fectly at ease, but on the stability of the snowwedge I dared not calculate. To retreat was dangerous, to advance useless ; for right in front of me was a sheer smooth precipice, which completely extinguished the thought of further rock-work. I ex amined the place below me, and saw that a slip would be attended with the very worst consequences. To loose myself from the crag and attach myself to the snow was so perilous an operation that I did not attempt it ; and at length I ignobly called to Lauener to lend me a hand.

A gleam of satisfaction crossed his features as he eyed me on my perch. He manifestly enjoyed being called to the rescue, and exhorted me to keep quite still. He worked up towards me, and in less than half an hour had hold of one of my legs. 'The place is not so bad after all,' he remarked, evidently glad to take me down, in more senses than one. I THE LAUWINEN-THOR. 13 descended in his steps, and rejoined Hawkins upon the snow. From that moment Lauener was a reo*e nerate man ; the despair of his visage vanished, and I firmly believe that the triumph he enjoyed, by augmenting his self-respect, was the proximate cause of our subsequent success. The couloir was a most singular one ; it was excessively steep, and along it were two great scars, resembling the deep-cut channels of a mountain stream.

They were, indeed, channels cut by the snow-torrents from the heights. We scanned those heights. The view was bounded by a massive cornice, from which the avalanches are periodically let loose.1 The cornice seemed firm ; still we cast about for some piece of rock which might shelter us from the destroyer should he leap from his lair. Apart from the labour of the ascent, which is great, the frequency of avalanches will always render this pass a dangerous one. At 2 p.m. the air became intensely cold. My companion had wisely pocketed a pair of socks, which he drew over his gloves, and found very comforting. My leather gloves, being saturated with wet, were very much the reverse. The wind was high, and as it passed the crest of the Breithorn its moisture was precipitated and 1 Hence the name ' Lauwinen-Thor,' which, with the consent of Mr. Hawkins, if not at his suggestion, I have given to the pass. [The name has since been adopted in all the maps.

March 1871.] afterwards carried away. The clouds thus generated shone for a time with the lustre of pearls ; but as they approached the sun they became suddenly flooded with the most splendid iridescences.1 At our right now was a vertical wall of brown rock, along the base of which we advanced. At times we were sheltered by it, but not always ; for the wind was as fitful as a maniac, and eddying round the corners sometimes shook us forcibly, chilled us to the mar row, and spit frozen dust in our faces. The snow, moreover, adjacent to the rock had been melted and refrozen to a steep slope of compact ice. The men were very weary, the hewing of the steps exhausting, and the footing, particularly on some glazed rocks over which we had to pass, exceedingly insecure. Once on trying to fix my alpenstock I found that it was coated with an enamel of ice, and slipped through my wet gloves.