Part 6

"Looking in advance, I noticed that the slope, for a short distance, became less steep, and then fell as before. Now or never we must be brought to rest. The speed visibly slackened, and I thought we were saved. But the momentum had been too great; the avalanche crossed the brow and in part regained its motion. Here Hutchinson threw his arm round his friend, all hope being extinguished, while I grasped my belt and struggled to free myself. Finding this difficult, from the tossing, I sullenly resumed the strain upon the rope. Destiny had so related the downward impetus to Jenni's pull as to give the latter a slight advantage, and the whole question was whether the opposing force would have sufficient time to act. This was also arranged in our favor, for we came to rest so near the brow that two or three seconds of our average motion of descent must have carried us over. Had this occurred, we should have fallen into the chasms and been covered up by the tail of the avalanche. Hutchinson emerged from the snow with his forehead bleeding, but the wound was superficial; Jenni had a bit of flesh removed from his hand by collision against a stone; the pressure of the rope had left black welts on my arms, and we all experienced a tingling sensation over the hands, like that produced by incipient frost-bite, which continued for several days. This was all. I found a portion of my watch-chain hanging round my neck, another portion in my pocket; the watch was gone."

Very similar in many respects was the famous accident of the Haut de Cry, in which J. J. Bennen perished in February, 1864. So sure of foot was Bennen that it used to be said of him, as it was said of Johann Lauener, who died upon the Jungfrau, that nothing could bring him to grief but an avalanche. And the hour came when the snowfield which he was crossing with his _Herren_ split suddenly and the ground on which they stood began to move, and Bennen solemnly called out the words, "Wir sind alle verloren," and never spoke again.

The avalanche was deeper than the one which swept Professor Tyndall down the glacier of the Piz Morteratsch. "Before long," writes Mr. Gossett, one of the survivors of the accident, "I was covered up with snow and in utter darkness. I was suffocating, when, with a jerk, I suddenly came to the surface again. To prevent myself sinking again I made use of my arms much in the same way as when swimming in a standing position. At last I noticed that I was moving slower; then I saw the pieces of snow in front of me stop at some yards distance; then the snow straight before me stopped, and I heard on a large scale the same creaking sound that is produced when a heavy cart passes over hard, frozen snow in winter."

But the snow behind pressed on and buried Mr. Gossett. So intense was the pressure that he could not move, and he began to fear that it would be impossible to extricate himself. Then, while trying vainly to move his arms, he suddenly became aware that his hands, as far as the wrist, had the faculty of motion. The cheering conclusion was that they must be above the snow. So Mr. Gossett struggled on. At last he saw a faint glimmer of light. The crust above his head was getting thinner, and let a little air pass; but he could no longer reach it with his hands. The idea struck him that he might pierce it with his breath. He tried, and after several efforts he succeeded. Then he shouted for help, and one of his guides, who had escaped uninjured, came and extricated him. The snow had to be cut with the axe down to his feet before he could be pulled out. Then he found that his travelling companion, M. Boissonnet, was dead, and that no trace of Bennen could be seen. His body, however, was afterwards recovered. The story is told in a letter from Mr. Gossett to Professor Tyndall.

"Bennen's body," he writes, "was found with great difficulty the day after Boissonnet was found. The cord end had been covered up with snow. The Cure d'Ardon informed me that poor Bennen was found eight feet under the snow, in a horizontal position, the head facing the valley of the Luzerne. His watch had been wrenched from the chain, probably when the cord broke; the chain, however, remained attached to his waist-coat. This reminds me of your fall on the Morteratsch glacier."

It may be said that the principal danger of climbing rock-mountains is the danger of falling off them. For the art consists largely in traversing the faces of precipices by means of narrow and imperfect ledges, which afford more facilities for falling off than will readily be believed by any one who has not tried to stand on them. The climbers, of course, are always securely roped together in such places, and the theory is that two of them shall always be so firmly anchored that they can instantly check any slip that the third may make. But that is not always feasible. It is not feasible, for instance, at the difficult corner on the Dent Blanche, where Mr. Gabbett and the two Lochmatters came to grief.

As all three climbers were killed on that occasion, no details of the accident are known. But the elder Lochmatter was known to be an exceptionally heavy man, and the presumption is that it was he who fell, and dragged the rest of the party after him. How he came to fall may be understood from the following description of the "Mauvais Pas," given by a traveller who traversed it a little afterwards:

"Here," he writes, "we must get round past a perpendicular ledge by creeping out on an overhanging rock, and then turning sharp round, with head and arms on one side of the rock, while the legs are still on the other; then we must at once cling to a hardly visible fissure, and draw round the rest of the body, gently, cautiously, little by little, and hang there by the points of our fingers until our toes find their way to a second fissure lower down. I made this passage," he adds, "like a bale of goods at the end of a rope, without being conscious of the danger, and I really do not know how I escaped in safety."

The description gives some idea of what stiff rock-climbing is really like; and it should be remembered that in the Dolomites more awkward places even than the Lochmatters' corner have often to be passed, and that when, as often happens, the rocks are glazed with ice, the danger of climbing them is more than doubled.

It is always assumed that the Dent Blanche is inaccessible in such a case. Yet the story is told of an inexperienced climber who managed to get to the summit in spite of the ice.

He was on his first visit to Switzerland; and as soon as he got to Zermatt he engaged the best available guide.

"What are considered the hardest mountains here?" he asked.

The guide told him: "The Dent Blanche, the Weisshorn, and the Ober Gabelhorn."

"Very well," said the novice; "we'll begin with the Dent Blanche."

The guide protested. Did not his _Herr_ think it would be better to begin with something easier--with the Rothhorn, for instance, or the Strahlhorn, or the Unter Gabelhorn?

"No," was the reply; "you've got to take me up the Dent Blanche. I've climbed in Wales, and I'll undertake to climb any rock you show me."

So the guide yielded, and the two started, with a porter, and for a certain distance got on very well. But at last they came to a point where all the hand-holds within reach were frozen up; the nearest practicable hand-hold could only just be found by stretching out the ice-axe. The guide explained the situation, and insisted that they must turn back. But his employer had been roused to such a pitch of excitement that he would not hear of it.

"Look here," he said, "you're a bachelor; I'm a married man with a family. If I can afford to risk my life you can afford to risk yours. You've got to go on up this mountain. Otherwise I'll throw myself over the precipice, and as you're roped to me you'll have to come, too."

The man was absolutely mad. There was no question that, in his excitement, he would do what he threatened if he were not obeyed. So the guide sullenly struck his ice-axe into the fissure, and climbed up it hand over hand, and took his lunatic up and down the Dent Blanche at a time when its ascent ought by all the laws of ice-craft to have been impossible.

CROSSING GLACIERS.

To turn from rock to snow climbing. Accidents are constantly happening on glaciers; yet the observance of the most elementary precautions ought to make such accidents absolutely impossible.

An open glacier, of course, is safe enough under any circumstances. The one thing needful is to look where you are going and not try to make flying leaps across crevasses. But even when the crevasses are masked by snow all danger may still quite easily be obviated. The simple rule is that the party crossing the glacier should never consist of less than three, and that the three should be roped together in such a way that, if one falls into a crevasse, the other two can pull him out. And this, of course, involves the further rule that the rope must always be kept taut, so that a fall may be checked before it has gained an impetus which would make it difficult to resist.

By experience it is possible to recognize a crevasse, with tolerable accuracy, in spite of its snow covering; and by sounding with the ice-axe before treading on it, one ought to be able to tell whether the snow bridge will bear one's weight. But, now and again, it will happen that the most experienced man's judgment is at fault. Relying upon their instinctive perception of such things, the Swiss peasantry constantly traverse glaciers alone in mid-winter. But accidents are very frequent, and when guides, tourists, or porters have attempted the same thing, accidents have constantly befallen them as well. As an illustration may be quoted the case of a reporter, who foolishly ventured to return alone over the Loetschen pass. A snow bridge broke and he fell into a crevasse, where only his knapsack saved him from breaking his neck. He lay on his back, wedged into the ice in such a way that he could not move, and it was by the merest accident that he was discovered in time, and rescued by a party journeying in the same direction.

So much, as Herodotus would say, for crevasses. Another serious Alpine danger is the danger of bad weather; and bad weather, as Leslie Stephen has pointed out, may make the Righi at one time as dangerous as the Matterhorn at another.

To a certain extent, of course, bad weather can be foreseen; but meteorology is not yet an exact science, and even the acquired instinct of the guides is sometimes at fault, so that grave mistakes, often followed by fatal consequences, are made almost every year.

DANGERS OF BAD WEATHER.

Mont Blanc is probably the mountain in which bad weather makes the greatest difference. On a fine day, the ascent of it is scarcely more dangerous than the ascent of Primrose Hill; but in a storm you will lose your way, and wander round and round, until you sink down exhausted, and freeze to death.

In September, 1870, a party of eleven persons, eight of whom were guides or porters, were lost in this way. When their bodies were recovered, a memorandum was found in the pocket of one of them, J. Beane, of the United States of America, finished apparently just before his death, and giving a brief summary of the circumstances of the calamity. This is how it read:

"Tuesday, September 6.--I have made the ascent of Mont Blanc, with ten persons; eight guides, Mr. Corkendal and Mr. Randall. We arrived at the summit at 2.30 o'clock. Immediately after leaving it, I was enveloped in clouds of snow. We passed the night in a grotto excavated out of snow, affording very uncomfortable shelter, and I was ill all night.

"September 7 (morning).--Intense cold; much snow falls uninterruptedly: guides restless.

"September 7 (evening).--We have been on Mont Blanc for two days in a terrible snow-storm: we have lost our way and are in a hole scooped out of the snow, at a height of fifteen thousand feet. I have no hope of descending. Perhaps this book may be found and forwarded. (Here follow some instructions on his private affairs.) We have no food; my feet are already frozen and I am exhausted; I have only strength to write a few words. I die in the faith of Jesus Christ, with affectionate thoughts of my family. My remembrance to all. I trust we may meet in heaven."

Says Leslie Stephen, commenting on the incident in the "Alpine Journal:"

"The main facts are so simple that little explanation is needed. The one special danger of Mont Blanc is bad weather. The inexperienced travellers were probably ignorant of the fearful danger they were encountering, and had not the slightest conception of the risk to life and limb which accompanies even a successful ascent of the mountain under such circumstances. I once ascended Mont Blanc on a day so unusually fine that we could lie on the summit for an hour, light matches in the open air, and enjoy the temperature. Yet, in two or three hours before sunrise, the guide of another party which ascended the same day was so severely frost-bitten as to lose his toes. Such things may happen in the finest weather, when proper precautions are neglected; but in bad weather it is simple madness to proceed. Why, one cannot help asking, did not the guides oppose the wishes of their employers?"

FALLING ICE.

Among other dangers that the mountaineer has to reckon with are ice avalanches and cornices.

A cornice is a mass of snow projecting over the edge of a precipice, and resting upon empty space. Occasionally it will bear the weight of one, or even several, men; but more often it gives way when trodden on, carrying a whole party to destruction. This was the case in the famous accident on the Lyskamm--a mountain where the cornices are particularly treacherous--when Messrs. William Arnold Lewis and Noel H. Paterson, with the guides Niklaus, Johann, and Peter Joseph Knubel, met their deaths in the year 1877. "The cornice," writes Mr. Hartley, who visited the scene of the accident immediately afterwards, "had broken away in two places, leaving some ten feet in the middle still adhering to the mountain. The length of the parts which broke away was, perhaps, forty feet on each side of the remaining portion. The distance of the fall we estimated at from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred feet. The bodies, from the nature of the injuries they had received, had evidently fallen upon their heads on the rocks, and then, in one great bound, had reached almost the spot where they were found."

A typical instance of the ice-avalanche accident happened to, and has been recorded by, Mr. Whymper. Accompanied by A. W. Moore and the guides Croz and Almer, he was trying to discover a shorter route than those usually taken between Zinal and Zermatt. After spending the night in a _chalet_ on the Arpitetta Alp, they started, and struck directly up the centre of the Moming glacier. The route proved impracticable, and it became necessary to cut steps across an ice-slope immediately below the great pillars and buttresses of the ice-fall, which were liable to break away and descend upon them at any moment.

"I am not ashamed to confess," wrote Mr. Moore in his journal, "that during the whole time we were crossing the slope my heart was in my mouth, and I never felt so relieved from such a load of care as when, after, I suppose, a passage of about twenty minutes, we got on to the rocks and were in safety. I have never heard a positive oath come from Almer's mouth, but the language in which he kept up a running commentary, more to himself than to me, as we went along, was stronger than I should have given him credit for using. His prominent feeling seemed to be one of indignation that we should be in such a position, and self-reproach at being a party to the proceeding; while the emphatic way in which, at intervals, he exclaimed, 'Quick; be quick,' sufficiently betokened his alarm."

And now, let the rest of the story be told in Mr. Whymper's graphic words. Croz, it should be remembered, was leading, and had advised the perilous route.

"It was not necessary," Mr. Whymper says, "to admonish Croz to be quick. He was fully as alive to the risk as any of the others. He told me afterwards that the place was not only the most dangerous he had ever crossed, but that no consideration whatever would tempt him to cross it again. Manfully did he exert himself to escape from the impending destruction. His head, bent down to his work, never turned to the right or to the left. One, two, three, went his axe, and then he stepped on to the spot where he had been cutting. How painfully insecure should we have considered those steps at any other time! But now we thought of nothing but the rocks in front, and of the hideous '_seracs_' lurching over above us, apparently in the very act of falling."

At last they reached the rocks in safety, and, says Mr. Whymper, "If they had been doubly as difficult as they were, we should still have been well content. We sat down and refreshed the inner man; keeping our eyes on the towering pinnacles of ice which we had passed, but which now were almost beneath us. Without a preliminary warning sound, one of the largest--as high as the Monument, at London Bridge--fell upon the slope below. The stately mass heeled over as if upon a hinge (holding together until it bent thirty degrees forward), then it crushed out its base, and, rent into a thousand fragments, plunged vertically down upon the slope that we had crossed. Every atom of our track that was in its course was obliterated; all the new snow was swept away, and a broad sheet of smooth, glassy ice showed the resistless force with which it had fallen."

THE SMOKE.

FROM "PAUL FABER, SURGEON."

BY GEORGE MACDONALD.

Lord, I have laid my heart upon thy altar, But cannot get the wood to burn: It hardly flares ere it begins to falter, And to the dark return.

Old sap, or night-fallen dew, has damped the fuel; In vain my breath would flame provoke; Yet see--at every poor attempt's renewal, To thee ascends the smoke.

'Tis all I have--smoke, failure, foiled endeavor Coldness and doubt and palsied lack: Such as I have I send thee. Perfect Giver Send thou thy lightning back.

THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN.

BY C. KINLOCH COOKE.

Wyndham Thos. Wyndhamquin, fourth Earl of Dunraven and Mount Earl, was born fifty-two years ago. His father, who was a convert to Roman Catholicism, devoted much time to scientific pursuits, and wrote a book on Irish architecture, which is generally recognized as the standard work on the subject. His mother was a Protestant, and a daughter of Sergeant Goold, the eminent Dublin lawyer, who, although past forty when called to the bar, made both a name and a fortune for himself in his profession. His grandfather on the paternal side supported the Union, but Sergeant Goold, like so many of the leading men in Dublin at that time, more especially barristers, opposed it. Here, then, we have a very fair example of the fact that the prominent men in the counties desired to see the fusion of the two countries, while the chief representatives of the cities held the opposite opinion.

Viscount Adare, the title belonging to the eldest son in the Dunraven family, was educated privately, and although fond of athletics, had few opportunities of joining in cricket, football, rackets, and similar public-school games. At an early age he was sent abroad with a tutor, and while still in his teens had visited and explored many of the principal cities of Europe. In compliance with his father's wishes he stayed some time at Rome. But neither the influence of the priests nor the attractions of the Vatican were sufficient to induce him to become a Roman Catholic. Soon after he returned to England he went to Oxford and matriculated at Christ Church, where he spent the next three years of his life. At college, except holding a commission for a year in the 'Varsity volunteers, he did nothing to distinguish himself from the ordinary undergraduate, and, like many others of his set, came down without taking a degree. He then joined the First Life Guards, and spent much of his spare time steeplechasing. Pluck and nerve, combined with light weight, secured him many mounts from Captain Machell and others. He was christened "Fly" by his brother officers, a name by which he is still known among his most intimate friends.

So energetic a nature soon tired of the London soldier's life, and when war broke out with Abyssinia he applied to the proprietors of the "Daily Telegraph" to be allowed to act as their special correspondent. His offer being accepted, he resigned his commission and started for North Africa. Colonel Phayre, who was Quartermaster-General, attached him to his staff, and so he obtained the earliest and most authentic information. Mr. H. M. Stanley, who was doing similar duty for the "New York Herald," shared a tent with the amateur journalist, and was much struck with the workmanlike character of the despatches which he sent off on every available opportunity. At the close of the campaign he returned to England and fell in love with Lord Charles Lennox Kerr's daughter, whom he shortly afterwards married. In 1869 he started with his wife for a tour in the United States, where he remained for some time and made many friends.

In journalistic circles he was well received, and particularly so by the late Mr. Louis Jennings, then editor of the "New York Times," Mr. Hurlbert, who at that time had charge of the "New York World," and the late "Sam" Ward. At the outbreak of war between France and Germany he went to Berlin for the "Daily Telegraph," and followed the campaign right through. As a matter of course he carried his life in his hand, but though he had some narrow escapes he met with no accident, until just before the capitulation of Paris, when he broke his arm and was invalided home, with the result that he missed the days of the Commune.

For twelve years or more he crossed the Atlantic annually and travelled in the States, Canada, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland. He was the first private individual to investigate the Yellowstone region, and wrote a capital book on the expedition called "The Great Divide," which met with a good reception both in America and England. He hunted and shot with Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack long before they ever went east of the Mississippi, and his name was well known among the Indians, who allowed him to travel about their territory without interruption. His articles in the "Nineteenth Century Review" on moose and caribou hunting, and his stories of animal life, drafted on the spot, were much appreciated in sporting circles. In Colorado he purchased a tract of land called Estes Park, which is about to be transferred to an English company. When the branch railway is made and the proposed irrigation works inaugurated, the estate should be a valuable property.