by Mark Twain
Fatigue compelled them to halt frequently, for a moment or two. At oneof these halts somebody called out, "Look at Mont Blanc!" and "we wereat once made aware of the very great height we had attained by actuallyseeing the monarch of the Alps and his attendant satellites right overthe top of the Breithorn, itself at least 14,000 feet high!"
These people moved in single file, and were all tied to a strong rope,at regular distances apart, so that if one of them slipped on thosegiddy heights, the others could brace themselves on their alpenstocksand save him from darting into the valley, thousands of feet below. Byand by they came to an ice-coated ridge which was tilted up at a sharpangle, and had a precipice on one side of it. They had to climb this, sothe guide in the lead cut steps in the ice with his hatchet, and as fastas he took his toes out of one of these slight holes, the toes of theman behind him occupied it.
"Slowly and steadily we kept on our way over this dangerous part of theascent, and I dare say it was fortunate for some of us that attentionwas distracted from the head by the paramount necessity of looking afterthe feet; FOR, WHILE ON THE LEFT THE INCLINE OF ICE WAS SO STEEP THATIT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR ANY MAN TO SAVE HIMSELF IN CASE OF A SLIP,UNLESS THE OTHERS COULD HOLD HIM UP, ON THE RIGHT WE MIGHT DROP A PEBBLEFROM THE HAND OVER PRECIPICES OF UNKNOWN EXTENT DOWN UPON THE TREMENDOUSGLACIER BELOW.
"Great caution, therefore, was absolutely necessary, and in this exposedsituation we were attacked by all the fury of that grand enemy ofaspirants to Monte Rosa--a severe and bitterly cold wind from the north.The fine powdery snow was driven past us in the clouds, penetrating theinterstices of our clothes, and the pieces of ice which flew from theblows of Peter's ax were whisked into the air, and then dashed over theprecipice. We had quite enough to do to prevent ourselves from beingserved in the same ruthless fashion, and now and then, in the moreviolent gusts of wind, were glad to stick our alpenstocks into the iceand hold on hard."
Having surmounted this perilous steep, they sat down and took a briefrest with their backs against a sheltering rock and their heels danglingover a bottomless abyss; then they climbed to the base of anotherridge--a more difficult and dangerous one still:
"The whole of the ridge was exceedingly narrow, and the fall on eachside desperately steep, but the ice in some of these intervals betweenthe masses of rock assumed the form of a mere sharp edge, almost like aknife; these places, though not more than three or four short pacesin length, looked uncommonly awkward; but, like the sword leading truebelievers to the gates of Paradise, they must needs be passed beforewe could attain to the summit of our ambition. These were in one or twoplaces so narrow, that in stepping over them with toes well turnedout for greater security, ONE END OF THE FOOT PROJECTED OVER THE AWFULPRECIPICE ON THE RIGHT, WHILE THE OTHER WAS ON THE BEGINNING OF THEICE SLOPE ON THE LEFT, WHICH WAS SCARCELY LESS STEEP THAN THE ROCKS. Onthese occasions Peter would take my hand, and each of us stretching asfar as we could, he was thus enabled to get a firm footing two pacesor rather more from me, whence a spring would probably bring him to therock on the other side; then, turning around, he called to me to come,and, taking a couple of steps carefully, I was met at the third by hisoutstretched hand ready to clasp mine, and in a moment stood by hisside. The others followed in much the same fashion. Once my right footslipped on the side toward the precipice, but I threw out my left arm ina moment so that it caught the icy edge under my armpit as I fell, andsupported me considerably; at the same instant I cast my eyes down theside on which I had slipped, and contrived to plant my right foot ona piece of rock as large as a cricket-ball, which chanced to protrudethrough the ice, on the very edge of the precipice. Being thus anchoredfore and aft, as it were, I believe I could easily have recoveredmyself, even if I had been alone, though it must be confessed thesituation would have been an awful one; as it was, however, a jerk fromPeter settled the matter very soon, and I was on my legs all right in aninstant. The rope is an immense help in places of this kind."
Now they arrived at the base of a great knob or dome veneered with iceand powdered with snow--the utmost, summit, the last bit of soliditybetween them and the hollow vault of heaven. They set to work with theirhatchets, and were soon creeping, insectlike, up its surface, with theirheels projecting over the thinnest kind of nothingness, thickened up alittle with a few wandering shreds and films of cloud moving in a lazyprocession far below. Presently, one man's toe-hold broke and he fell!There he dangled in mid-air at the end of the rope, like a spider, tillhis friends above hauled him into place again.
A little bit later, the party stood upon the wee pedestal of the verysummit, in a driving wind, and looked out upon the vast green expansesof Italy and a shoreless ocean of billowy Alps.
When I had read thus far, Harris broke into the room in a nobleexcitement and said the ropes and the guides were secured, and asked ifI was ready. I said I believed I wouldn't ascend the Altels this time. Isaid Alp-climbing was a different thing from what I had supposed it was,and so I judged we had better study its points a little more before wewent definitely into it. But I told him to retain the guides and orderthem to follow us to Zermatt, because I meant to use them there. I saidI could feel the spirit of adventure beginning to stir in me, and wassure that the fell fascination of Alp-climbing would soon be upon me. Isaid he could make up his mind to it that we would do a deed beforewe were a week older which would make the hair of the timid curl withfright.
This made Harris happy, and filled him with ambitious anticipations. Hewent at once to tell the guides to follow us to Zermatt and bring alltheir paraphernalia with them.
CHAPTER XXXV
[Swindling the Coroner]
A great and priceless thing is a new interest! How it takes possessionof a man! how it clings to him, how it rides him! I strode onward fromthe Schwarenbach hostelry a changed man, a reorganized personality. Iwalked into a new world, I saw with new eyes. I had been lookingaloft at the giant show-peaks only as things to be worshiped for theirgrandeur and magnitude, and their unspeakable grace of form; I lookedup at them now, as also things to be conquered and climbed. My sense oftheir grandeur and their noble beauty was neither lost nor impaired; Ihad gained a new interest in the mountains without losing the old ones.I followed the steep lines up, inch by inch, with my eye, and noted thepossibility or impossibility of following them with my feet. When I sawa shining helmet of ice projecting above the clouds, I tried to imagineI saw files of black specks toiling up it roped together with a gossamerthread.
We skirted the lonely little lake called the Daubensee, and presentlypassed close by a glacier on the right--a thing like a great riverfrozen solid in its flow and broken square off like a wall at its mouth.I had never been so near a glacier before.
Here we came upon a new board shanty, and found some men engaged inbuilding a stone house; so the Schwarenbach was soon to have a rival. Webought a bottle or so of beer here; at any rate they called it beer, butI knew by the price that it was dissolved jewelry, and I perceived bythe taste that dissolved jewelry is not good stuff to drink.
We were surrounded by a hideous desolation. We stepped forward to a sortof jumping-off place, and were confronted by a startling contrast: weseemed to look down into fairyland. Two or three thousand feet below uswas a bright green level, with a pretty town in its midst, and a silverystream winding among the meadows; the charming spot was walled in on allsides by gigantic precipices clothed with pines; and over the pines, outof the softened distances, rose the snowy domes and peaks of the MonteRosa region. How exquisitely green and beautiful that little valley downthere was! The distance was not great enough to obliterate details, itonly made them little, and mellow, and dainty, like landscapes and townsseen through the wrong end of a spy-glass.
Right under us a narrow ledge rose up out of the valley, with a green,slanting, bench-shaped top, and grouped about upon this green-baizebench were a lot of black and white sheep which looked merely likeoversized worms. The bench seemed lifted well up into our neighborhood,but that was a deception-
-it was a long way down to it.
We began our descent, now, by the most remarkable road I have ever seen.It wound its corkscrew curves down the face of the colossal precipice--anarrow way, with always the solid rock wall at one elbow, andperpendicular nothingness at the other. We met an everlasting processionof guides, porters, mules, litters, and tourists climbing up this steepand muddy path, and there was no room to spare when you had to pass atolerably fat mule. I always took the inside, when I heard or saw themule coming, and flattened myself against the wall. I preferred theinside, of course, but I should have had to take it anyhow, becausethe mule prefers the outside. A mule's preference--on a precipice--is athing to be respected. Well, his choice is always the outside. His lifeis mostly devoted to carrying bulky panniers and packages which restagainst his body--therefore he is habituated to taking the outside edgeof mountain paths, to keep his bundles from rubbing against rocks orbanks on the other. When he goes into the passenger business he absurdlyclings to his old habit, and keeps one leg of his passenger alwaysdangling over the great deeps of the lower world while that passenger'sheart is in the highlands, so to speak. More than once I saw a mule'shind foot cave over the outer edge and send earth and rubbish into thebottom abyss; and I noticed that upon these occasions the rider, whethermale or female, looked tolerably unwell.
There was one place where an eighteen-inch breadth of light masonry hadbeen added to the verge of the path, and as there was a very sharpturn here, a panel of fencing had been set up there at some time, asa protection. This panel was old and gray and feeble, and the lightmasonry had been loosened by recent rains. A young American girl camealong on a mule, and in making the turn the mule's hind foot caved allthe loose masonry and one of the fence-posts overboard; the mule gave aviolent lurch inboard to save himself, and succeeded in the effort, butthat girl turned as white as the snows of Mont Blanc for a moment.
The path was simply a groove cut into the face of the precipice; therewas a four-foot breadth of solid rock under the traveler, and four-footbreadth of solid rock just above his head, like the roof of a narrowporch; he could look out from this gallery and see a sheer summitlessand bottomless wall of rock before him, across a gorge or crack abiscuit's toss in width--but he could not see the bottom of his ownprecipice unless he lay down and projected his nose over the edge. I didnot do this, because I did not wish to soil my clothes.
Every few hundred yards, at particularly bad places, one came acrossa panel or so of plank fencing; but they were always old and weak,and they generally leaned out over the chasm and did not make any rashpromises to hold up people who might need support. There was one ofthese panels which had only its upper board left; a pedestrianizingEnglish youth came tearing down the path, was seized with an impulse tolook over the precipice, and without an instant's thought he threw hisweight upon that crazy board. It bent outward a foot! I never made agasp before that came so near suffocating me. The English youth's facesimply showed a lively surprise, but nothing more. He went swingingalong valleyward again, as if he did not know he had just swindled acoroner by the closest kind of a shave.
The Alpine litter is sometimes like a cushioned box made fast betweenthe middles of two long poles, and sometimes it is a chair with a backto it and a support for the feet. It is carried by relays of strongporters. The motion is easier than that of any other conveyance. We meta few men and a great many ladies in litters; it seemed to me that mostof the ladies looked pale and nauseated; their general aspect gave methe idea that they were patiently enduring a horrible suffering. As arule, they looked at their laps, and left the scenery to take care ofitself.
But the most frightened creature I saw, was a led horse that overtookus. Poor fellow, he had been born and reared in the grassy levels of theKandersteg valley and had never seen anything like this hideous placebefore. Every few steps he would stop short, glance wildly out fromthe dizzy height, and then spread his red nostrils wide and pant asviolently as if he had been running a race; and all the while he quakedfrom head to heel as with a palsy. He was a handsome fellow, and hemade a fine statuesque picture of terror, but it was pitiful to see himsuffer so.
This dreadful path has had its tragedy. Baedeker, with his customaryover terseness, begins and ends the tale thus:
"The descent on horseback should be avoided. In 1861 a Comtessed'Herlincourt fell from her saddle over the precipice and was killed onthe spot."
We looked over the precipice there, and saw the monument whichcommemorates the event. It stands in the bottom of the gorge, in a placewhich has been hollowed out of the rock to protect it from the torrentand the storms. Our old guide never spoke but when spoken to, and thenlimited himself to a syllable or two, but when we asked him about thistragedy he showed a strong interest in the matter. He said the Countesswas very pretty, and very young--hardly out of her girlhood, in fact.She was newly married, and was on her bridal tour. The young husband wasriding a little in advance; one guide was leading the husband's horse,another was leading the bride's.
The old man continued:
"The guide that was leading the husband's horse happened to glance back,and there was that poor young thing sitting up staring out over theprecipice; and her face began to bend downward a little, and she putup her two hands slowly and met it--so,--and put them flat against hereyes--so--and then she sank out of the saddle, with a sharp shriek, andone caught only the flash of a dress, and it was all over."
Then after a pause:
"Ah, yes, that guide saw these things--yes, he saw them all. He saw themall, just as I have told you."
After another pause:
"Ah, yes, he saw them all. My God, that was ME. I was that guide!"
This had been the one event of the old man's life; so one may be sure hehad forgotten no detail connected with it. We listened to all he had tosay about what was done and what happened and what was said after thesorrowful occurrence, and a painful story it was.
When we had wound down toward the valley until we were about on the lastspiral of the corkscrew, Harris's hat blew over the last remainingbit of precipice--a small cliff a hundred or hundred and fifty feethigh--and sailed down toward a steep slant composed of rough chips andfragments which the weather had flaked away from the precipices. We wentleisurely down there, expecting to find it without any trouble, but wehad made a mistake, as to that. We hunted during a couple of hours--notbecause the old straw hat was valuable, but out of curiosity to findout how such a thing could manage to conceal itself in open ground wherethere was nothing left for it to hide behind. When one is reading inbed, and lays his paper-knife down, he cannot find it again if it issmaller than a saber; that hat was as stubborn as any paper-knife couldhave been, and we finally had to give it up; but we found a fragmentthat had once belonged to an opera-glass, and by digging around andturning over the rocks we gradually collected all the lenses and thecylinders and the various odds and ends that go to making up a completeopera-glass. We afterward had the thing reconstructed, and the owner canhave his adventurous lost-property by submitting proofs and paying costsof rehabilitation. We had hopes of finding the owner there, distributedaround amongst the rocks, for it would have made an elegant paragraph;but we were disappointed. Still, we were far from being disheartened,for there was a considerable area which we had not thoroughly searched;we were satisfied he was there, somewhere, so we resolved to wait over aday at Leuk and come back and get him.
Then we sat down to polish off the perspiration and arrange about whatwe would do with him when we got him. Harris was for contributing him tothe British Museum; but I was for mailing him to his widow. That is thedifference between Harris and me: Harris is all for display, I am allfor the simple right, even though I lose money by it. Harris argued infavor of his proposition against mine, I argued in favor of mine andagainst his. The discussion warmed into a dispute; the dispute warmedinto a quarrel. I finally said, very decidedly:
"My mind is made up. He goes to the widow."
Harris answered sharply:
I said, calmly:
"The museum may whistle when it gets him."
Harris retorted:
"The widow may save herself the trouble of whistling, for I will seethat she never gets him."
After some angry bandying of epithets, I said:
"It seems to me that you are taking on a good many airs about theseremains. I don't quite see what YOU'VE got to say about them?"
"I? I've got ALL to say about them. They'd never have been thought of ifI hadn't found their opera-glass. The corpse belongs to me, and I'll doas I please with him."
I was leader of the Expedition, and all discoveries achieved by itnaturally belonged to me. I was entitled to these remains, and couldhave enforced my right; but rather than have bad blood about the matter,I said we would toss up for them. I threw heads and won, but it was abarren victory, for although we spent all the next day searching, wenever found a bone. I cannot imagine what could ever have become of thatfellow.
The town in the valley is called Leuk or Leukerbad. We pointed ourcourse toward it, down a verdant slope which was adorned with fringedgentians and other flowers, and presently entered the narrow alleys ofthe outskirts and waded toward the middle of the town through liquid"fertilizer." They ought to either pave that village or organize aferry.
