The Glaciers of the Alps Part 6

The snow had been gradually getting deeper, and the ascent more wearisome, but superadded to this at the Pet.i.t Plateau was the uncertainty of the footing between the blocks of ice. In many places the s.p.a.ce was merely covered by a thin crust, which, when trod upon, instantly yielded, and we sank with a shock sometimes to the hips. Our way next lay up a steep incline to the Grand Plateau, the depth and tenderness of the snow augmenting as we ascended. We had not yet seen the sun, but, as we attained the brow which forms the entrance to the Grand Plateau, he hung his disk upon a spike of rock to our left, and, surrounded by a glory of interference spectra of the most gorgeous colours, blazed down upon us. On the Grand Plateau we halted and had our frugal refreshment. At some distance to our left was the creva.s.se into which Dr. Hamel's three guides were precipitated by an avalanche in 1820; they are still entombed in the ice, and some future explorer may perhaps see them disgorged lower down, fresh and undecayed. They can hardly reach the surface until they pa.s.s the snow-line of the glacier, for above this line the quant.i.ty of snow that annually falls being in excess of the quant.i.ty melted, the tendency would be to make the ice-covering above them thicker. But it is also possible that the waste of the ice underneath may have brought the bodies to the bed of the glacier, where their very bones may have been ground to mud by an agency which the hardest rocks cannot withstand.

[Sidenote: THE GUIDE TIRED. 1857.]

[Sidenote: A PERILOUS SLOPE. 1857.]

As the sun poured his light upon the Plateau the little snow-facets sparkled brilliantly, sometimes with a pure white light, and at others with prismatic colours. Contrasted with the white s.p.a.ces above and around us were the dark mountains on the opposite side of the valley of Chamouni, around which fantastic ma.s.ses of cloud were beginning to build themselves. Mont Buet, with its cone of snow, looked small, and the Brevent altogether mean; the limestone bastions of the Fys, however, still presented a front of gloom and grandeur. We traversed the Grand Plateau, and at length reached the base of an extremely steep incline which stretched upwards towards the Corridor. Here, as if produced by a fault, consequent upon the sinking of the ice in front, rose a vertical precipice, from the coping of which vast stalact.i.tes of ice depended.

Previous to reaching this place I had noticed a haggard expression upon the countenance of our guide, which was now intensified by the prospect of the ascent before him. Hitherto he had always been in front, which was certainly the most fatiguing position. I felt that I must now take the lead, so I spoke cheerily to the man and placed him behind me.

Marking a number of points upon the slope as resting places, I went swiftly from one to the other. The surface of the snow had been partially melted by the sun and then refrozen, thus forming a superficial crust, which bore the weight up to a certain point, and then suddenly gave way, permitting the leg to sink to above the knee. The shock consequent on this, and the subsequent effort necessary to extricate the leg, were extremely fatiguing. My motion was complained of as too quick, and my tracks as imperfect; I moderated the former, and, to render my footholes broad and sure, I stamped upon the frozen crust, and twisted my legs in the soft ma.s.s underneath,--a terribly exhausting process. I thus led the way to the base of the Rochers Rouges, up to which the fault already referred to had prolonged itself as a creva.s.se, which was roofed at one place by a most dangerous-looking snow-bridge.

Simond came to the front; I drew his attention to the state of the snow, and proposed climbing the Rochers Rouges; but, with a promptness unusual with him, he replied that this was impossible; the bridge was our only means of pa.s.sing, and we must try it. We grasped our ropes, and dug our feet firmly into the snow to check the man's descent if the _pont_ gave way, but to our astonishment it bore him, and bore us safely after him.

The slope which we had now to ascend had the snow swept from its surface, and was therefore firm ice. It was most dangerously steep, and, its termination being the fretted coping of the precipice to which I have referred, if we slid downwards we should shoot over this and be dashed to pieces upon the ice below.[A] Simond, who had come to the front to cross the creva.s.se, was now engaged in cutting steps, which he made deep and large, so that they might serve us on our return. But the listless strokes of his axe proclaimed his exhaustion; so I took the implement out of his hands, and changed places with him. Step after step was hewn, but the top of the Corridor appeared ever to recede from us.

Hirst was behind unoccupied, and could thus turn his thoughts to the peril of our position: he _felt_ the angle on which we hung, and saw the edge of the precipice, to which less than a quarter of a minute's slide would carry us, and for the first time during the journey he grew giddy.

A cigar which he lighted for the purpose tranquilized him.

[Sidenote: WILL AND MUSCLE. 1857.]

I hewed sixty steps upon this slope, and each step had cost a minute, by Hirst's watch. The Mur de la Cote was still before us, and on this the guide-books informed us two or three hundred steps were sometimes found necessary. If sixty steps cost an hour, what would be the cost of two hundred? The question was disheartening in the extreme, for the time at which we had calculated on reaching the summit was already pa.s.sed, while the chief difficulties remained unconquered. Having hewn our way along the harder ice we reached snow. I again resorted to stamping to secure a footing, and while thus engaged became, for the first time, aware of the drain of force to which I was subjecting myself. The thought of being absolutely exhausted had never occurred to me, and from first to last I had taken no care to husband my strength. I always calculated that the _will_ would serve me even should the muscles fail, but I now found that mechanical laws rule man in the long run; that no effort of will, no power of spirit, can draw beyond a certain limit upon muscular force.

The soul, it is true, can stir the body to action, but its function is to excite and apply force, and not to create it.

While stamping forward through the frozen crust I was compelled to pause at short intervals; then would set out again apparently fresh, to find, however, in a few minutes that my strength was gone, and that I required to rest once more. In this way I gained the summit of the Corridor, when Hirst came to the front, and I felt some relief in stepping slowly after him, making use of the holes into which his feet had sunk. He thus led the way to the base of the Mur de la Cote, the thought of which had so long cast a gloom upon us; here we left our rope behind us, and while pausing I asked Simond whether he did not feel a desire to go to the summit--"_Bien sur_," was his reply, "_mais!_" Our guide's mind was so const.i.tuted that the "_mais_" seemed essential to its peace. I stretched my hand towards him, and said, "Simond, we must do it." One thing alone I felt could defeat us: the usual time of the ascent had been more than doubled, the day was already far spent, and if the ascent would throw our subsequent descent into night it could not be contemplated.

[Sidenote: A DOZE ON THE CALOTTE. 1857.]

We now faced the Mur, which was by no means so bad as we had expected.

Driving the iron claws of our boots into the scars made by the axe, and the spikes of our batons into the slope above our feet, we ascended steadily until the summit was attained, and the top of the mountain rose clearly above us. We congratulated ourselves upon this; but Simond, probably fearing that our joy might become too full, remarked, "_Mais le sommet est encore bien loin!_" It was, alas! too true. The snow became soft again, and our weary limbs sank in it as before. Our guide went on in front, audibly muttering his doubts as to our ability to reach the top, and at length he threw himself upon the snow, and exclaimed, "_Il faut y renoncer!_" Hirst now undertook the task of rekindling the guide's enthusiasm, after which Simond rose, exclaiming, "_Ah! comme ca me fait mal aux genoux_," and went forward. Two rocks break through the snow between the summit of the Mur and the top of the mountain; the first is called the Pet.i.ts Mulets, and the highest the Derniers Rochers.

At the former of these we paused to rest, and finished our scanty store of wine and provisions. We had not a bit of bread nor a drop of wine left; our brandy flasks were also nearly exhausted, and thus we had to contemplate the journey to the summit, and the subsequent descent to the Grands Mulets, without the slightest prospect of physical refreshment.

The almost total loss of two nights' sleep, with two days' toil superadded, made me long for a few minutes' doze, so I stretched myself upon a composite couch of snow and granite, and immediately fell asleep.

My friend, however, soon aroused me. "You quite frighten me," he said; "I have listened for some minutes, and have not heard you breathe once."

I had, in reality, been taking deep draughts of the mountain air, but so silently as not to be heard.

I now filled our empty wine-bottle with snow and placed it in the sunshine, that we might have a little water on our return. We then rose; it was half-past two o'clock; we had been upwards of twelve hours climbing, and I calculated that, whether we reached the summit or not, we could at all events work _towards_ it for another hour. To the sense of fatigue previously experienced, a new phenomenon was now added--the beating of the heart. We were incessantly pulled up by this, which sometimes became so intense as to suggest danger. I counted the number of paces which we were able to accomplish without resting, and found that at the end of every twenty, sometimes at the end of fifteen, we were compelled to pause. At each pause my heart throbbed audibly, as I leaned upon my staff, and the subsidence of this action was always the signal for further advance. My breathing was quick, but light and unimpeded. I endeavoured to ascertain whether the hip-joint, on account of the diminished atmospheric pressure, became loosened, so as to throw the weight of the leg upon the surrounding ligaments, but could not be certain about it. I also sought a little aid and encouragement from philosophy, endeavouring to remember what great things had been done by the acc.u.mulation of small quant.i.ties, and I urged upon myself that the present was a case in point, and that the summation of distances twenty paces each must finally place us at the top. Still the question of time left the matter long in doubt, and until we had pa.s.sed the Derniers Rochers we worked on with the stern indifference of men who were doing their duty, and did not look to consequences. Here, however, a gleam of hope began to brighten our souls; the summit became visibly nearer, Simond showed more alacrity; at length success became certain, and at half-past three P.M. my friend and I clasped hands upon the top.

[Sidenote: THE SUMMIT ATTAINED. 1857.]

The summit of the mountain is an elongated ridge, which has been compared to the back of an a.s.s. It was perfectly manifest that we were dominant over all other mountains; as far as the eye could range Mont Blanc had no compet.i.tor. The summits which had looked down upon us in the morning were now far beneath us. The Dome du Gouter, which had held its threatening _seracs_ above us so long, was now at our feet. The Aiguille du Midi, Mont Blanc du Tacul, and the Monts Maudits, the Talefre with its surrounding peaks, the Grand Jora.s.se, Mont Mallet, and the Aiguille du Geant, with our own familiar glaciers, were all below us. And as our eye ranged over the broad shoulders of the mountain, over ice hills and valleys, plateaux and far-stretching slopes of snow, the conception of its magnitude grew upon us, and impressed us more and more.

[Sidenote: CLOUDS FROM THE SUMMIT. 1857.]

The clouds were very grand--grander indeed than anything I had ever before seen. Some of them seemed to hold thunder in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, they were so dense and dark; others, with their faces turned sunward, shone with the dazzling whiteness of the mountain snow; while others again built themselves into forms resembling gigantic elm trees, loaded with foliage. Towards the horizon the luxury of colour added itself to the magnificent alternations of light and shade. Clear s.p.a.ces of amber and ethereal green embraced the red and purple c.u.muli, and seemed to form the cradle in which they swung. Closer at hand squally mists, suddenly engendered, were driven hither and thither by local winds; while the clouds at a distance lay "like angels sleeping on the wing," with scarcely visible motion. Mingling with the clouds, and sometimes rising above them, were the highest mountain heads, and as our eyes wandered from peak to peak, onwards to the remote horizon, s.p.a.ce itself seemed more vast from the manner in which the objects which it held were distributed.

[Sidenote: INTENSITY OF SOUND. 1857.]

I wished to repeat the remarkable experiment of De Saussure upon sound, and for this purpose had requested Simond to bring a pistol from Chamouni; but in the mult.i.tude of his cares he forgot it, and in lieu of it my host at the Montanvert had placed in two tin tubes, of the same size and shape, the same amount of gunpowder, securely closing the tubes afterwards, and furnishing each of them with a small lateral aperture.

We now planted one of them upon the snow, and bringing a strip of amadou into communication with the touchhole, ignited its most distant end: it failed; we tried again, and were successful, the explosion tearing asunder the little case which contained the powder. The sound was certainly not so great as I should have expected from an equal quant.i.ty of powder at the sea level.[B]

The snow upon the summit was indurated, but of an exceedingly fine grain, and the beautiful effect already referred to as noticed upon the Stelvio was strikingly manifest. The hole made by driving the baton into the snow was filled with a delicate blue light; and, by management, its complementary pinky yellow could also be produced. Even the iron spike at the end of the baton made a hole sufficiently deep to exhibit the blue colour, which certainly depends on the size and arrangement of the snow crystals. The firmament above us was without a cloud, and of a darkness almost equal to that which surrounded the moon at 2 A.M. Still, though the sun was shining, a breeze, whose tooth had been sharpened by its pa.s.sage over the snow-fields, searched us through and through. The day was also waning, and, urged by the warnings of our ever prudent guide, we at length began the descent.

[Sidenote: AN UNEXPECTED GLISSADE. 1857.]

Gravity was now in our favour, but gravity could not entirely spare our wearied limbs, and where we sank in the snow we found our downward progress very trying. I suffered from thirst, but after we had divided the liquefied snow at the Pet.i.ts Mulets amongst us we had nothing to drink. I crammed the clean snow into my mouth, but the process of melting was slow and tantalizing to a parched throat, while the chill was painful to the teeth. We marched along the Corridor, and crossed cautiously the perilous slope on which we had cut steps in the morning, breathing more freely after we had cleared the ice-precipice before described. Along the base of this precipice we now wound, diverging from our morning's track, in order to get surer footing in the snow; it was like flour, and while descending to the Grand Plateau we sometimes sank in it nearly to the waist. When I endeavoured to squeeze it, so as to fill my flask, it at first refused to cling together, behaving like so much salt; the heat of the hand, however, soon rendered it a little moist, and capable of being pressed into compact ma.s.ses. The sun met us here with extraordinary power; the heat relaxed my muscles, but when fairly immersed in the shadow of the Dome du Gouter, the coolness restored my strength, which augmented as the evening advanced. Simond insisted on the necessity of haste, to save us from the perils of darkness. "_On peut perir_" was his repeated admonition, and he was quite right. We reached the region of _ponts_, more weary, but, in compensation, more callous, than we had been in the morning, and moved over the soft snow of the bridges as if we had been walking upon eggs.

The valley of Chamouni was filled with brown-red clouds, which crept towards us up the mountain; the air around and above us was, however, clear, and the chastened light told us that day was departing. Once as we hung upon a steep slope, where the snow was exceedingly soft, Hirst omitted to make his footing sure; the soft ma.s.s gave way, and he fell, uttering a startled shout as he went down the declivity. I was attached to him, and, fixing my feet suddenly in the snow, endeavoured to check his fall, but I seemed a mere feather in opposition to the force with which he descended.[C] I fell, and went down after him; and we carried quite an avalanche of snow along with us, in which we were almost completely hidden at the bottom of the slope. All further dangers, however, were soon past, and we went at a headlong speed to the base of the Grands Mulets; the sound of our batons against the rocks calling Huxley forth. A position more desolate than his had been can hardly be imagined. For seventeen hours he had been there. He had expected us at two o'clock in the afternoon; the hours came and pa.s.sed, and till seven in the evening he had looked for us. "To the end of my life," he said, "I shall never forget the sound of those batons." It was his turn now to nurse me, which he did, repaying my previous care of him with high interest. We were all soon stretched, and, in spite of cold and hard boards, I slept at intervals; but the night, on the whole, was a weary one, and we rose next morning with muscles more tired than when we lay down.

[Sidenote: BLIND AMID THE CREVa.s.sES. 1857.]

_Friday, 14th August._--Hirst was almost blind this morning; and our guide's eyes were also greatly inflamed. We gathered our things together, and bade the Grands Mulets farewell. It had frozen hard during the night, and this, on the steeper slopes, rendered the footing very insecure. Simond, moreover, appeared to be a little bewildered, and I sometimes preceded him in cutting the steps, while Hirst moved among the creva.s.ses like a blind man; one of us keeping near him, so that he might feel for the actual places where our feet had rested, and place his own in the same position. It cost us three hours to cross from the Grands Mulets to the Pierre a l'Ech.e.l.le, where we discarded our leggings, had a mouthful of food, and a brief rest. Once upon the safe earth Simond's powers seemed to be restored, and he led us swiftly downwards to the little auberge beside the Cascade du Tard, where we had some excellent lemonade, equally choice cognac, fresh strawberries and cream. How sweet they were, and how beautiful we thought the peasant girl who served them! Our guide kept a little hotel, at which we halted, and found it clean and comfortable. We were, in fact, totally unfit to go elsewhere.

My coat was torn, holes were kicked through my boots, and I was altogether ragged and shabby. A warm bath before dinner refreshed all mightily. Dense clouds now lowered upon Mont Blanc, and we had not been an hour at Chamouni when the breaking up of the weather was announced by a thunder-peal. We had accomplished our journey just in time.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Those acquainted with the mountain will at once recognise the grave error here committed. In fact on starting from the Grands Mulets we had crossed the glacier too far, and throughout were much too close to the Dome du Gouter.

[B] I fired the second case in a field in Hampshire, and, as far as my memory enabled me to make the comparison, found its sound considerably _denser_, if I may use the expression. In 1859 I had a pistol fired at the summit of Mont Blanc: its sound was sensibly feebler and _shorter_ than in the valley; it resembled somewhat the discharge of a cork from a champagne bottle, though much louder, but it could not be at all compared to the sound of a common cracker.

[C] I believe that I could stop him now (1860).

(12.)

[Sidenote: HAPPY EVENINGS. 1857.]

After our return we spent every available hour upon the ice, working at questions which shall be treated under their proper heads, each day's work being wound up by an evening of perfect enjoyment. Roast mutton and fried potatoes were our incessant fare, for which, after a little longing for a change at first, we contracted a final and permanent love.

As the year advanced, moreover, and the gra.s.s sprouted with augmented vigour on the slopes of the Montanvert, the mutton, as predicted by our host, became more tender and juicy. We had also some capital Sallenches beer, cold as the glacier water, but effervescent as champagne. Such were our food and drink. After dinner we gathered round the pine-fire, and I can hardly think it possible for three men to be more happy than we then were. It was not the goodness of the conversation, nor any high intellectual element, which gave the charm to our gatherings; the gladness grew naturally out of our own perfect health, and out of the circ.u.mstances of our position. Every fibre seemed a repository of latent joy, which the slightest stimulus sufficed to bring into conscious action.

[Sidenote: A GLACIER "BLOWER." 1857.]

On the 17th I penetrated with Simond through thick gloom to the Tacul; on the 18th we set stakes at the same place: on the same day, while crossing the medial moraine of the Talefre, a little below the cascade, a singular noise attracted my attention; it seemed at first as if a snake were hissing about my feet. On changing my position the sound suddenly ceased, but it soon recommenced. There was some snow upon the glacier, which I removed, and placed my ear close to the ice, but it was difficult to fix on the precise spot from which the sound issued. I cut away the disintegrated portion of the surface, and at length discovered a minute crack, from which a stream of air issued, which I could feel as a cold blast against my hand. While cutting away the surface further, I stopped the little "blower." A marmot screamed near me, and while I paused to look at the creature scampering up the crags, the sound commenced again, changing its note variously--hissing like a snake, singing like a kettle, and sometimes chirruping intermittently like a bird. On pa.s.sing my fingers to and fro over the crack, I obtained a succession of audible puffs; the current was sufficiently strong to blow away the corner of a gauze veil held over the fissure. Still the crack was not wide enough to permit of the entrance of my finger nail; and to issue with such force from so minute a rent the air must have been under considerable pressure. The origin of the blower was in all probability the following:--When the ice is recompacted after having descended a cascade, it is next to certain that chambers of air will be here and there enclosed, which, being powerfully squeezed afterwards, will issue in the manner described whenever a crack in the ice furnishes it with a means of escape. In my experiments on flowing mud, for example, the air entrapped in the ma.s.s while descending from the sluice into the trough, bursts in bubbles from the surface at a short distance downwards.

[Sidenote: A DIFFICULT LINE. 1857.]

I afterwards examined the Talefre cascade from summit to base, with reference to the structure, until at the close of the day thickening clouds warned me off. I went down the glacier at a trot, guided by the boulders capped with little cairns which marked the route. The track which I had pursued for the last five weeks amid the creva.s.ses near l'Angle was this day barely pa.s.sable. The glacier had changed, my work was drawing to a close, and, as I looked at the objects which had now become so familiar to me, I felt that, though not viscous, the ice did not lack the quality of "adhesiveness," and I felt a little sad at the thought of bidding it so soon farewell.

At some distance below the Montanvert the Mer de Glace is riven from side to side by transverse creva.s.ses: these fissures indicate that the glacier where they occur is in a state of longitudinal strain which produces transverse fracture. I wished to ascertain the amount of stretching which the glacier here demanded, and which the ice was not able to give; and for this purpose desired to compare the velocity of a line set out across the fissured portion with that of a second line staked out across the ice before it had become thus fissured. A previous inspection of the glacier through the telescope of our theodolite induced us to fix on a place which, though much riven, still did not exclude the hope of our being able to reach the other side. Each of us was, as usual, armed with his own axe; and carrying with us suitable stakes, my guide and myself entered upon this portion of the glacier on the morning of the 19th of August.

[Sidenote: "NOUS NOUS TROUVERONS PERDUS!" 1857.]

I was surprised on entering to find some veins of white ice, which from their position and aspect appeared to be derived from the Glacier du Geant; but to these I shall subsequently refer. Our work was extremely difficult; we penetrated to some distance along one line, but were finally forced back, and compelled to try another. Right and left of us were profound fissures, and once a cone of ice forty feet high leaned quite over our track. In front of us was a second leaning ma.s.s borne by a mere stalk, and so topheavy that one wondered why the slight pedestal on which it rested did not suddenly crack across. We worked slowly forwards, and soon found ourselves in the shadow of the topheavy ma.s.s above referred to; and from which I escaped with a wounded hand, caused by over-haste. Simond surmounted the next ridge and exclaimed, "_Nous nous trouverons perdus!_" I reached his side, and on looking round the place saw that there was no footing for man. The glacier here, as shown in the frontispiece, was cut up into thin wedges, separated from each other by profound chasms, and the wedges were so broken across as to render creeping along their edges quite impossible. Thus brought to a stand, I fixed a stake at the point where we were forced to halt, and retreated along edges of detestable granular ice, which fell in showers into the creva.s.ses when struck by the axe. At one place an exceedingly deep fissure was at our left, which was joined, at a sharp angle, by another at our right, and we were compelled to cross at the place of intersection: to do this we had to trust ourselves to a projecting k.n.o.b of that vile rotten ice which I had learned to fear since my experience of it on the Col du Geant. We finally escaped, and set out our line at another place, where the glacier, though badly cut, was not impa.s.sable.

[Sidenote: FAREWELL TO THE MONTANVERT. 1857.]

On the 20th we made a series of final measurements at the Tacul, and determined the motion of two lines which we had set out the previous day. On the 21st we quitted the Montanvert; I had been there from the 15th of July, and the longer I remained the better I liked the establishment and the people connected with it. It was then managed by Joseph Tairraz and Jules Charlet, both of whom showed us every attention. In 1858 and 1859 I had occasion to revisit the establishment, which was then managed by Jules and his brother, and found in it the same good qualities. During my winter expedition of 1859 I also found the same readiness to a.s.sist me in every possible way; honest Jules expressing his willingness to ascend through the snow to the auberge if I thought his presence would in any degree contribute to my comfort.

We crossed the glacier, and descended by the Chapeau to the Cascade des Bois, the inclination of which and of the lower portion of the glacier we then determined. The day was magnificent. Looking upwards, the Aiguilles de Charmoz and du Dru rose right and left like sentinels of the valley, while in front of us the ice descended the steep, a bewildering ma.s.s of crags and chasms. At the other side was the pine-clad slope of the Montanvert. Further on the Aiguille du Midi threw its granite pyramid between us and Mont Blanc; on the Dome du Gouter the _seracs_ of the mountain were to be seen, while issuing as if from a cleft in the mountain side the Glacier des Bossons thrust through the black pines its snowy tongue. Below us was the beautiful valley of Chamouni itself, through which the Arve and Arveiron rushed like enlivening spirits. We finally examined a grand old moraine produced by a Mer de Glace of other ages, when the ice quite crossed the valley of Chamouni and ab.u.t.ted against the opposite mountain-wall.

[Sidenote: EDOUARD SIMOND. 1857.]