A Tramp Abroad
aged men entered and approached the table. Davouassoux, more than eighty
years old, contemplated the mournful remains mutely and with a vacant
eye, for his intelligence and his memory were torpid with age; but
Couttet's faculties were still perfect at seventy-two, and he exhibited
strong emotion. He said:
“Pierre Balmat was fair; he wore a straw hat. This bit of skull, with
the tuft of blond hair, was his; this is his hat. Pierre Carrier was
very dark; this skull was his, and this felt hat. This is Balmat's
hand, I remember it so well!” and the old man bent down and kissed it
reverently, then closed his fingers upon it in an affectionate grasp,
crying out, “I could never have dared to believe that before quitting
this world it would be granted me to press once more the hand of one of
those brave comrades, the hand of my good friend Balmat.”
There is something weirdly pathetic about the picture of that
white-haired veteran greeting with his loving handshake this friend
who had been dead forty years. When these hands had met last, they were
alike in the softness and freshness of youth; now, one was brown and
wrinkled and horny with age, while the other was still as young and fair
and blemishless as if those forty years had come and gone in a single
moment, leaving no mark of their passage. Time had gone on, in the one
case; it had stood still in the other. A man who has not seen a friend
for a generation, keeps him in mind always as he saw him last, and is
somehow surprised, and is also shocked, to see the aging change the
years have wrought when he sees him again. Marie Couttet's experience,
in finding his friend's hand unaltered from the image of it which he
had carried in his memory for forty years, is an experience which stands
alone in the history of man, perhaps.
Couttet identified other relics:
“This hat belonged to Auguste Tairraz. He carried the cage of pigeons
which we proposed to set free upon the summit. Here is the wing of one
of those pigeons. And here is the fragment of my broken baton; it was by
grace of that baton that my life was saved. Who could have told me that
I should one day have the satisfaction to look again upon this bit of
wood that supported me above the grave that swallowed up my unfortunate
companions!”
No portions of the body of Tairraz, other than a piece of the skull,
had been found. A diligent search was made, but without result. However,
another search was instituted a year later, and this had better success.
Many fragments of clothing which had belonged to the lost guides were
discovered; also, part of a lantern, and a green veil with blood-stains
on it. But the interesting feature was this:
One of the searchers came suddenly upon a sleeved arm projecting from
a crevice in the ice-wall, with the hand outstretched as if offering
greeting! “The nails of this white hand were still rosy, and the pose
of the extended fingers seemed to express an eloquent welcome to the
long-lost light of day.”
The hand and arm were alone; there was no trunk. After being removed
from the ice the flesh-tints quickly faded out and the rosy nails took
on the alabaster hue of death. This was the third RIGHT hand found;
therefore, all three of the lost men were accounted for, beyond cavil or
question.
Dr. Hamel was the Russian gentleman of the party which made the ascent
at the time of the famous disaster. He left Chamonix as soon as he
conveniently could after the descent; and as he had shown a chilly
indifference about the calamity, and offered neither sympathy nor
assistance to the widows and orphans, he carried with him the cordial
execrations of the whole community. Four months before the first remains
were found, a Chamonix guide named Balmat--a relative of one of the lost
men--was in London, and one day encountered a hale old gentleman in the
British Museum, who said:
“I overheard your name. Are you from Chamonix, Monsieur Balmat?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Haven't they found the bodies of my three guides, yet? I am Dr. Hamel.”
“Alas, no, monsieur.”
“Well, you'll find them, sooner or later.”
“Yes, it is the opinion of Dr. Forbes and Mr. Tyndall, that the glacier
will sooner or later restore to us the remains of the unfortunate
victims.”
“Without a doubt, without a doubt. And it will be a great thing for
Chamonix, in the matter of attracting tourists. You can get up a museum
with those remains that will draw!”
This savage idea has not improved the odor of Dr. Hamel's name in
Chamonix by any means. But after all, the man was sound on human nature.
His idea was conveyed to the public officials of Chamonix, and they
gravely discussed it around the official council-table. They were only
prevented from carrying it into execution by the determined opposition
of the friends and descendants of the lost guides, who insisted on
giving the remains Christian burial, and succeeded in their purpose.
A close watch had to be kept upon all the poor remnants and fragments,
to prevent embezzlement. A few accessory odds and ends were sold. Rags
and scraps of the coarse clothing were parted with at the rate equal to
about twenty dollars a yard; a piece of a lantern and one or two other
trifles brought nearly their weight in gold; and an Englishman offered a
pound sterling for a single breeches-button.
CHAPTER XLI
[The Fearful Disaster of 1865]
One of the most memorable of all the Alpine catastrophes was that of
July, 1865, on the Matterhorn--already slightly referred to, a few
pages back. The details of it are scarcely known in America. To the vast
majority of readers they are not known at all. Mr. Whymper's account is
the only authentic one. I will import the chief portion of it into this
book, partly because of its intrinsic interest, and partly because it
gives such a vivid idea of what the perilous pastime of Alp-climbing
is. This was Mr. Whymper's NINTH attempt during a series of years, to
vanquish that steep and stubborn pillar or rock; it succeeded, the other
eight were failures. No man had ever accomplished the ascent before,
though the attempts had been numerous.
MR. WHYMPER'S NARRATIVE We started from Zermatt on the 13th of July, at
half past five, on a brilliant and perfectly cloudless morning. We were
eight in number--Croz (guide), old Peter Taugwalder (guide) and his
two sons; Lord F. Douglas, Mr. Hadow, Rev. Mr. Hudson, and I. To insure
steady motion, one tourist and one native walked together. The youngest
Taugwalder fell to my share. The wine-bags also fell to my lot to carry,
and throughout the day, after each drink, I replenished them secretly
with water, so that at the next halt they were found fuller than before!
This was considered a good omen, and little short of miraculous.
On the first day we did not intend to ascend to any great height, and we
mounted, accordingly, very leisurely. Before twelve o'clock we had found
a good position for the tent, at a height of eleven thousand feet. We
passed the remaining hours of daylight--some basking in the sunshine,
some sketching, some collecting; Hudson made tea, I coffee, and at
length we retired, each one to his blanket bag.
We assembled together before dawn on the 14th and started directly
it was light enough to move. One of the young Taugwalders returned to
Zermatt. In a few minutes we turned the rib which had intercepted the
view of the eastern face from our tent platform. The whole of this
great slope was now revealed, rising for three thousand feet like a huge
natural staircase. Some parts were more, and others were less easy, but
we were not once brought to a halt by any serious impediment, for when
an obstruction was met in front it could always be turned to the right
or to the left. For the greater part of the way there was no occasion,
indeed, for the rope, and sometimes Hudson led, sometimes myself. At
six-twenty we had attained a height of twelve thousand eight hundred
feet, and halted for half an hour; we then continued the ascent without
a break until nine-fifty-five, when we stopped for fifty minutes, at a
height of fourteen thousand feet.
We had now arrived at the foot of that part which, seen from the
Riffelberg, seems perpendicular or overhanging. We could no longer
continue on the eastern side. For a little distance we ascended by snow
upon the ARÊTE--that is, the ridge--then turned over to the right, or
northern side. The work became difficult, and required caution. In some
places there was little to hold; the general slope of the mountain was
LESS than forty degrees, and snow had accumulated in, and had filled
up, the interstices of the rock-face, leaving only occasional fragments
projecting here and there. These were at times covered with a thin film
of ice. It was a place which any fair mountaineer might pass in safety.
We bore away nearly horizontally for about four hundred feet, then
ascended directly toward the summit for about sixty feet, then doubled
back to the ridge which descends toward Zermatt. A long stride round
a rather awkward corner brought us to snow once more. That last doubt
vanished! The Matterhorn was ours! Nothing but two hundred feet of easy
snow remained to be surmounted.
The higher we rose, the more intense became the excitement. The slope
eased off, at length we could be detached, and Croz and I, dashed away,
ran a neck-and-neck race, which ended in a dead heat. At 1:40 P.M., the
world was at our feet, and the Matterhorn was conquered!
The others arrived. Croz now took the tent-pole, and planted it in the
highest snow. “Yes,” we said, “there is the flag-staff, but where is the
flag?” “Here it is,” he answered, pulling off his blouse and fixing it
to the stick. It made a poor flag, and there was no wind to float
it out, yet it was seen all around. They saw it at Zermatt--at the
Riffel--in the Val Tournanche... .
We remained on the summit for one hour--
One crowded hour of glorious life.
It passed away too quickly, and we began to prepare for the descent.
Hudson and I consulted as to the best and safest arrangement of the
party. We agreed that it was best for Croz to go first, and Hadow
second; Hudson, who was almost equal to a guide in sureness of foot,
wished to be third; Lord Douglas was placed next, and old Peter, the
strongest of the remainder, after him. I suggested to Hudson that we
should attach a rope to the rocks on our arrival at the difficult bit,
and hold it as we descended, as an additional protection. He approved
the idea, but it was not definitely decided that it should be done. The
party was being arranged in the above order while I was sketching the
summit, and they had finished, and were waiting for me to be tied in
line, when some one remembered that our names had not been left in a
bottle. They requested me to write them down, and moved off while it was
being done.
A few minutes afterward I tied myself to young Peter, ran down after the
others, and caught them just as they were commencing the descent of the
difficult part. Great care was being taken. Only one man was moving at a
time; when he was firmly planted the next advanced, and so on. They had
not, however, attached the additional rope to rocks, and nothing was
said about it. The suggestion was not made for my own sake, and I am not
sure that it ever occurred to me again. For some little distance we two
followed the others, detached from them, and should have continued so
had not Lord Douglas asked me, about 3 P.M., to tie on to old Peter, as
he feared, he said, that Taugwalder would not be able to hold his ground
if a slip occurred.
A few minutes later, a sharp-eyed lad ran into the Monte Rosa Hotel, at
Zermatt, saying that he had seen an avalanche fall from the summit of
the Matterhorn onto the Matterhorn glacier. The boy was reproved for