after breakfast, that next morning in chamonix, we went out in the yard and watched the gangs of excursioning tourists arriving and departing with their mules and guides and porters; then we took a look through the telescope at the snowy hump of mont blanc. it was brilliant with sunshine, and the vast smooth bulge seemed hardly five hundred yards away. with the naked eye we could dimly make out the house at the pierre pointue, which is located by the side of the great glacier, and is more than three thousand feet above the level of the valley; but with the telescope we could see all its details. while i looked, a woman rode by the house on a mule, and i saw her with sharp distinctness; i could have described her dress. i saw her nod to the people of the house, and rein up her mule, and put her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. i was not used to telescopes; in fact, i had never looked through a good one before; it seemed incredible to me that this woman could be so far away. i was satisfied that i could see all these details with my naked eye; but when i tried it, that mule and those vivid people had wholly vanished, and the house itself was become small and vague. i tried the telescope again, and again everything was vivid. the strong black shadows of the mule and the woman were flung against the side of the house, and i saw the mule’s silhouette wave its ears.
the telescopulist—or the telescopulariat—i do not know which is right—said a party were making a grand ascent, and would come in sight on the remote upper heights, presently; so we waited to observe this performance. presently i had a superb idea. i wanted to stand with a party on the summit of mont blanc, merely to be able to say i had done it, and i believed the telescope could set me within seven feet of the uppermost man. the telescoper assured me that it could. i then asked him how much i owed him for as far as i had got? he said, one franc. i asked him how much it would cost to make the entire ascent? three francs. i at once determined to make the entire ascent. but first i inquired if there was any danger? he said no—not by telescope; said he had taken a great many parties to the summit, and never lost a man. i asked what he would charge to let my agent go with me, together with such guides and porters as might be necessary. he said he would let harris go for two francs; and that unless we were unusually timid, he should consider guides and porters unnecessary; it was not customary to take them, when going by telescope, for they were rather an encumbrance than a help. he said that the party now on the mountain were approaching the most difficult part, and if we hurried we should overtake them within ten minutes, and could then join them and have the benefit of their guides and porters without their knowledge, and without expense to us.
i then said we would start immediately. i believe i said it calmly, though i was conscious of a shudder and of a paling cheek, in view of the nature of the exploit i was so unreflectingly engaged in. but the old daredevil spirit was upon me, and i said that as i had committed myself i would not back down; i would ascend mont blanc if it cost me my life. i told the man to slant his machine in the proper direction and let us be off.
harris was afraid and did not want to go, but i heartened him up and said i would hold his hand all the way; so he gave his consent, though he trembled a little at first. i took a last pathetic look upon the pleasant summer scene about me, then boldly put my eye to the glass and prepared to mount among the grim glaciers and the everlasting snows.
we took our way carefully and cautiously across the great glacier des bossons, over yawning and terrific crevices and among imposing crags and buttresses of ice which were fringed with icicles of gigantic proportions. the desert of ice that stretched far and wide about us was wild and desolate beyond description, and the perils which beset us were so great that at times i was minded to turn back. but i pulled my pluck together and pushed on.
we passed the glacier safely and began to mount the steeps beyond, with great alacrity. when we were seven minutes out from the starting-point, we reached an altitude where the scene took a new aspect; an apparently limitless continent of gleaming snow was tilted heavenward before our faces. as my eye followed that awful acclivity far away up into the remote skies, it seemed to me that all i had ever seen before of sublimity and magnitude was small and insignificant compared to this.
we rested a moment, and then began to mount with speed. within three minutes we caught sight of the party ahead of us, and stopped to observe them. they were toiling up a long, slanting ridge of snow—twelve persons, roped together some fifteen feet apart, marching in single file, and strongly marked against the clear blue sky. one was a woman. we could see them lift their feet and put them down; we saw them swing their alpenstocks forward in unison, like so many pendulums, and then bear their weight upon them; we saw the lady wave her handkerchief. they dragged themselves upward in a worn and weary way, for they had been climbing steadily from the grand mulets, on the glacier des bossons, since three in the morning, and it was eleven, now. we saw them sink down in the snow and rest, and drink something from a bottle. after a while they moved on, and as they approached the final short dash of the home-stretch we closed up on them and joined them.
presently we all stood together on the summit! what a view was spread out below! away off under the northwestern horizon rolled the silent billows of the farnese oberland, their snowy crests glinting softly in the subdued lights of distance; in the north rose the giant form of the wobblehorn, draped from peak to shoulder in sable thunder-clouds; beyond him, to the right, stretched the grand processional summits of the cisalpine cordillera, drowned in a sensuous haze; to the east loomed the colossal masses of the yodelhorn, the fuddelhorn, and the dinnerhorn, their cloudless summits flashing white and cold in the sun; beyond them shimmered the faint far line of the ghauts of jubbelpore and the aiguilles des alleghenies; in the south towered the smoking peak of popocatapetl and the unapproachable altitudes of the peerless scrabblehorn; in the west-south the stately range of the himalayas lay dreaming in a purple gloom; and thence all around the curving horizon the eye roved over a troubled sea of sun-kissed alps, and noted, here and there, the noble proportions and the soaring domes of the bottlehorn, and the saddlehorn, and the shovelhorn, and the powderhorn, all bathed in the glory of noon and mottled with softly gliding blots, the shadows flung from drifting clouds.
overcome by the scene, we all raised a triumphant, tremendous shout, in unison. a startled man at my elbow said:
“confound you, what do you yell like that for, right here in the street?"
that brought me down to chamonix, like a flirt. i gave that man some spiritual advice and disposed of him, and then paid the telescope man his full fee, and said that we were charmed with the trip and would remain down, and not reascend and require him to fetch us down by telescope. this pleased him very much, for of course we could have stepped back to the summit and put him to the trouble of bringing us home if we wanted to.
i judged we could get diplomas, now, anyhow; so we went after them, but the chief guide put us off, with one pretext or another, during all the time we stayed in chamonix, and we ended by never getting them at all. so much for his prejudice against people’s nationality. however, we worried him enough to make him remember us and our ascent for some time. he even said, once, that he wished there was a lunatic asylum in chamonix. this shows that he really had fears that we were going to drive him mad. it was what we intended to do, but lack of time defeated it.
i cannot venture to advise the reader one way or the other, as to ascending mont blanc. i say only this: if he is at all timid, the enjoyments of the trip will hardly make up for the hardships and sufferings he will have to endure. but, if he has good nerve, youth, health, and a bold, firm will, and could leave his family comfortably provided for in case the worst happened, he would find the ascent a wonderful experience, and the view from the top a vision to dream about, and tell about, and recall with exultation all the days of his life.
while i do not advise such a person to attempt the ascent, i do not advise him against it. but if he elects to attempt it, let him be warily careful of two things: chose a calm, clear day; and do not pay the telescope man in advance. there are dark stories of his getting advance payers on the summit and then leaving them there to rot.
a frightful tragedy was once witnessed through the chamonix telescopes. think of questions and answers like these, on an inquest:
coroner. you saw deceased lose his life?
witness. i did.
c. where was he, at the time?
w. close to the summit of mont blanc.
c. where were you?
w. in the main street of chamonix.
c. what was the distance between you?
w. a little over five miles, as the bird flies.
this accident occurred in 1866, a year and a month after the disaster on the matterhorn. three adventurous english gentlemen, [1] of great experience in mountain-climbing, made up their minds to ascend mont blanc without guides or porters. all endeavors to dissuade them from their project failed. powerful telescopes are numerous in chamonix. these huge brass tubes, mounted on their scaffoldings and pointed skyward from every choice vantage-ground, have the formidable look of artillery, and give the town the general aspect of getting ready to repel a charge of angels. the reader may easily believe that the telescopes had plenty of custom on that august morning in 1866, for everybody knew of the dangerous undertaking which was on foot, and all had fears that misfortune would result. all the morning the tubes remained directed toward the mountain heights, each with its anxious group around it; but the white deserts were vacant.
1. sir george young and his brothers james and albert.
at last, toward eleven o’clock, the people who were looking through the telescopes cried out “there they are!”—and sure enough, far up, on the loftiest terraces of the grand plateau, the three pygmies appeared, climbing with remarkable vigor and spirit. they disappeared in the “corridor,” and were lost to sight during an hour. then they reappeared, and were presently seen standing together upon the extreme summit of mont blanc. so, all was well. they remained a few minutes on that highest point of land in europe, a target for all the telescopes, and were then seen to begin descent. suddenly all three vanished. an instant after, they appeared again, two thousand feet below!
evidently, they had tripped and been shot down an almost perpendicular slope of ice to a point where it joined the border of the upper glacier. naturally, the distant witness supposed they were now looking upon three corpses; so they could hardly believe their eyes when they presently saw two of the men rise to their feet and bend over the third. during two hours and a half they watched the two busying themselves over the extended form of their brother, who seemed entirely inert. chamonix’s affairs stood still; everybody was in the street, all interest was centered upon what was going on upon that lofty and isolated stage five miles away. finally the two—one of them walking with great difficulty—were seen to begin descent, abandoning the third, who was no doubt lifeless. their movements were followed, step by step, until they reached the “corridor” and disappeared behind its ridge. before they had had time to traverse the “corridor” and reappear, twilight was come, and the power of the telescope was at an end.
the survivors had a most perilous journey before them in the gathering darkness, for they must get down to the grands mulets before they would find a safe stopping-place—a long and tedious descent, and perilous enough even in good daylight. the oldest guides expressed the opinion that they could not succeed; that all the chances were that they would lose their lives.
yet those brave men did succeed. they reached the grands mulets in safety. even the fearful shock which their nerves had sustained was not sufficient to overcome their coolness and courage. it would appear from the official account that they were threading their way down through those dangers from the closing in of twilight until two o’clock in the morning, or later, because the rescuing party from chamonix reached the grand mulets about three in the morning and moved thence toward the scene of the disaster under the leadership of sir george young, “who had only just arrived.”
after having been on his feet twenty-four hours, in the exhausting work of mountain-climbing, sir george began the reascent at the head of the relief party of six guides, to recover the corpse of his brother. this was considered a new imprudence, as the number was too few for the service required. another relief party presently arrived at the cabin on the grands mulets and quartered themselves there to await events. ten hours after sir george’s departure toward the summit, this new relief were still scanning the snowy altitudes above them from their own high perch among the ice deserts ten thousand feet above the level of the sea, but the whole forenoon had passed without a glimpse of any living thing appearing up there.
this was alarming. half a dozen of their number set out, then early in the afternoon, to seek and succor sir george and his guides. the persons remaining at the cabin saw these disappear, and then ensued another distressing wait. four hours passed, without tidings. then at five o’clock another relief, consisting of three guides, set forward from the cabin. they carried food and cordials for the refreshment of their predecessors; they took lanterns with them, too; night was coming on, and to make matters worse, a fine, cold rain had begun to fall.
at the same hour that these three began their dangerous ascent, the official guide-in-chief of the mont blanc region undertook the dangerous descent to chamonix, all alone, to get reinforcements. however, a couple of hours later, at 7 p.m., the anxious solicitude came to an end, and happily. a bugle note was heard, and a cluster of black specks was distinguishable against the snows of the upper heights. the watchers counted these specks eagerly—fourteen—nobody was missing. an hour and a half later they were all safe under the roof of the cabin. they had brought the corpse with them. sir george young tarried there but a few minutes, and then began the long and troublesome descent from the cabin to chamonix. he probably reached there about two or three o’clock in the morning, after having been afoot among the rocks and glaciers during two days and two nights. his endurance was equal to his daring.
the cause of the unaccountable delay of sir george and the relief parties among the heights where the disaster had happened was a thick fog—or, partly that and partly the slow and difficult work of conveying the dead body down the perilous steeps.
the corpse, upon being viewed at the inquest, showed no bruises, and it was some time before the surgeons discovered that the neck was broken. one of the surviving brothers had sustained some unimportant injuries, but the other had suffered no hurt at all. how these men could fall two thousand feet, almost perpendicularly, and live afterward, is a most strange and unaccountable thing.
a great many women have made the ascent of mont blanc. an english girl, miss stratton, conceived the daring idea, two or three years ago, of attempting the ascent in the middle of winter. she tried it—and she succeeded. moreover, she froze two of her fingers on the way up, she fell in love with her guide on the summit, and she married him when she got to the bottom again. there is nothing in romance, in the way of a striking “situation,” which can beat this love scene in midheaven on an isolated ice-crest with the thermometer at zero and an artic gale blowing.
the first woman who ascended mont blanc was a girl aged twenty-two—mlle. maria paradis—1809. nobody was with her but her sweetheart, and he was not a guide. the sex then took a rest for about thirty years, when a mlle. d’angeville made the ascent—1838. in chamonix i picked up a rude old lithograph of that day which pictured her “in the act.”
however, i value it less as a work of art than as a fashion-plate. miss d’angeville put on a pair of men’s pantaloons to climb it, which was wise; but she cramped their utility by adding her petticoat, which was idiotic.
one of the mournfulest calamities which men’s disposition to climb dangerous mountains has resulted in, happened on mont blanc in september 1870. m. d’arve tells the story briefly in his histoire du mont blanc. in the next chapter i will copy its chief features.