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by Edward Whymper
A classic in early mountaineering literature, describing the first ascent of the Matterhorn and other climbs in the Alps.
Opening
A few passages to enter the atmosphere.
Introductory
On the , I started for my first tour in the Alps. As we steamed out into the Channel, Beachy Head came into view, and recalled a scramble of many years ago. With the impudence of ignorance, my brother1 and I, schoolboys both, had tried to scale that great chalk cliff. Not the head itself—where seabirds circle, and where the flints are ranged in orderly parallel lines—but at a place more to the east, where a pinnacle called the Devil’s Chimney had fallen down. Since then we have been often in dangers of different kinds, but never have we more nearly broken our necks than upon that occasion.
In Paris I made two ascents. The first to the seventh floor of a house in the Quartier Latin—to an artist friend, who was engaged, at the moment of my entry, in combat with a little Jew. He hurled him with great goodwill, and with considerable force, into some crockery, and then recommended me to go up the towers of Notre Dame. Half-an-hour later I stood on a parapet of the west front, by the side of the leering fiend which for centuries has looked down upon the great city, and then took rail to Switzerland; saw the sunlight lingering on the giants of the Oberland; heard the echoes from the cow-horns in the Lauterbrunnen Valley and the avalanches rattling off the Jungfrau; and crossed the Gemmi into the Valais, resting for a time by the beautiful Oeschinen See, and getting a forcible illustration of glacier-motion in a neighbouring valley—the Gasteren Thal. The upper end of this valley is crowned by the Tschingel Glacier, which, as it descends, passes over an abrupt cliff that is in the centre of its course. On each side the continuity of the glacier is maintained, but in the centre it is cleft in twain by the cliff. Lower down it is consolidated again. I scrambled on to this lower portion, advanced towards the cliff, and then stopped to admire the contrast of the brilliant pinnacles of ice with the blue sky. Without a warning, a huge slice of the glacier broke away, and fell over the cliff on to the lower portion with a thundering crash. Fragments rolled beyond me; although, fortunately, not in my direction. I fled, and did not stop until off the glacier; but before it was quitted learned another lesson in glacial matters. The terminal moraine, which seemed to be a solid mound, broke away underneath me, and showed that it was only a superficial covering resting on a slope of glassy ice.
Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860–69
Continue readingOn the steep path over the Gemmi there were opportunities for observing the manners and customs of the Swiss mule. Though it is not perhaps in revenge for generations of ill-treatment that the mule grinds one’s legs against fences and stonewalls, and pretends to stumble in awkward places (particularly when coming round corners and on the brinks of precipices), their evil habit of walking on the outside edges of paths (even in the most unguarded positions) is one that is distinctly the result of association with man. The transport of wood from the mountains into the valleys occupies most of the mules during a considerable portion of the year. The faggots into which the wood is made up project some distance on each side of the beast, and it is said that they walk intuitively to the outside of paths having rocks on the other side to avoid the collisions which would otherwise occur. When they carry tourists they behave in a similar manner; and, no doubt, when the good time for mules arrives, and they no longer carry burdens, they will still continue to do the same. This habit frequently gives rise to scenes. Two mules meet; each wishes to pass on the outside, and neither will give way. It requires considerable persuasion, through the medium of the tail, before such difficulties are arranged.
I visited the baths of Leuk, and saw the queer assemblage of men, women, and children, attired in bathing-gowns, chatting, drinking, and playing at chess in the water. The company did not seem to be perfectly sure whether it was decorous for elderly men to chase young females from one corner to another, but it was unanimous in howling at the advent of a stranger who remained covered, and literally yelled when I departed without exhibiting my sketch.