Part 6 (1/2)
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 suns.h.i.+ne, 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 furnis.h.i.+ng each of them with a small lateral aperture.