THE FIRST ASCENT OF THE WETTERHORN.

PART II.-THE FINAL ASSAULT.

IT was eight o'clock when we entered the cave. I lay uneasily for many hours, but at length I could endure it no longer; I spoke to Balmat, who was near me, and found he too was very uncomfortable, and we agreed to make our escape. We got across the sleepers, knocked away the stones, and scrambled out. Oh! how grateful was the cool fresh air! how refreshing that draught at the mountain torrent! The stars were shining as I never saw them shine before, like so many balls of fire in the black concave; the glaciers were sparkling in the soft light of the waning moon, now in her fourth quarter. It was just two o'clock, but not cold, and a bracing air blew briskly, yet pleasantly, from the north-west. I had been up before the sun, many a morning, on many a mountain height, and had seen, I thought, almost every phase of Alpine night-scenery; but so beautiful a nocturnal view as this I had never yet beheld; it spoke well for the promise of the day. Presently some of the men came out, a fire was kindled, and tea and coffee made. I stripped and had a bathe in the dashing torrent; it was icy cold, but did me more good than the weary night in the hole.

Balmat and I were urgent with Lauener to start as early as possible, for we all expected a long day, and we wished to reach the snow while it was yet crisp; but he refused to start before half-past four, saying that in an hour we should reach the glacier, and that the moon was not bright enough to light us across it. It was still dark when—at the hour appointed -we set off, and for some time we groped our way by the help of a lantern. During the first hour and a half, we mounted amidst a mass of débris, and amongst great boulders of rock, which lie below, or form part of the terminal moraine of the glacier. Long before we reached the glacier, day had begun to dawn, and a cold clear grey was stealing over the sky.

'Lo, on the eastern summit, clad in grey,

Morn, like a horseman girt for travel, comes:
And from his tower of mist

Night's watchman hurries down.'

We were nearly an hour upon the ice, and on leaving it we approached the abrupt wall of rock which I have spoken of before, as affording the only means of access to the upper plateau. It turned out to be not absolutely precipitous, but full of small ledges, and steep slopes covered with loose stones and schisty débris, which gave way at every step. It was extremely steep; very often the ledges which gave us foothold were but an inch or two wide, and throughout, it was a marvel to me that rocks which from a short distance off looked such absolute precipices could be climbed at all. At length we came to a very singular formation. Standing out from a nearly perpendicular wall of rock were a series of thin parallel wedges of rock-planted with the thin edge upwards, at right angles to the body of the mountain, and separated from one another by deep intervening clefts and hollows. Each of these was two or three hundred feet in height, seventy or eighty in width at the base, but narrowing off to the thickness of a few inches, and presenting, at the top, a rough and jagged ledge, forty or fifty feet long, by which we must pass to reach the plateau beyond. We first climbed to the top of one of these wedges, and then had to make our way along its crest.

This was certainly the worst bit of scrambling I ever did. The rock was much shattered by exposure to the frost and snow, and there was hardly a single immovable piece along the whole length. Every bit had to be tried before it was trusted to, and many were the fragments that came out when put to the test, and went crashing down till out of sight, making an avalanche of other stones as they fell. It was a long quarter of an hour before we were all safely landed on the snow beyond.

A few minutes later we came to the brink of a precipice on

the Grindelwald side, and had a view of the rich and verdant valley, which looked lovelier than ever by contrast with the desolation that surrounded us. It was from the brink of a dizzy height that we looked down; stones that we kicked over were out of sight in a moment, and were heard, at distant intervals, striking against the precipice as they fell, till the sound gradually died away in the silence of distance. A small quantity of black débris jutted out of the snow, and on this we sat down at nine o'clock to take our morning meal. When this was over, we fastened ourselves all together with ropes, and began the last ascent. It lay near the edge of a long and steep arch connecting the Mittelhorn with the Wetterhorn; at the place where we gained the plateau, the ridge was nearly level, but almost immediately began to rise sharply towards the peak. We were now at the back of the mountain as seen from the valley of Grindelwald, which was, of course, completely hidden from the view. We were not to

see the valley again till we stood upon the summit.

The ascent was rapid, and began in deep snow; but it was not long before the covering of snow became thinner, and the slope more rapid, and every minute a step or two had to be cut. In this way we zig-zagged onwards for nearly an hour, in the course of which we made, perhaps, a thousand feet of ascent, having the satisfaction every time we could look round, to see a wider expanse of prospect risen into view. About ten o'clock, we reached the last rocks; a set of black, sloping crags, left bare by the melting of the snow. Here we sat down and unharnessed ourselves. It was neither too hot nor too cold. A gentle breeze tempered the heat of the sun, which shone gloriously upon a sparkling sea of ice-clad peaks, contrasting finely with the deep blue of the cloudless heaven.

Once established on the rocks and released from the rope, we began to consider the next operations. A glance upwards showed that no easy task awaited us. In front rose a steep curtain of glacier, surmounted, about five or six hundred feet above us, by an overhanging cornice of ice and frozen snow,

edged with a fantastic fringe of pendants and enormous icicles. This formidable obstacle bounded our view and stretched from end to end of the ridge. What lay beyond it, we could only conjecture; but we all thought that it must be crowned by a swelling dome which would constitute the actual summit. We foresaw great difficulty in forcing this imposing barrier; but after a short consultation the plan of attack was agreed upon, and immediately carried into execution. Lauener and Sampson were sent forward to conduct our approaches, which consisted of a series of short zig-zags, ascending directly from where we were resting to the foot of the cornice. The steep surface of the glacier was covered with snow; but it soon became evident that it was not deep enough to afford any material assistance. It was loose and uncompacted, and lay to the thickness of two or three inches only, so that every step had to be hewn out of the solid ice. Lauener went first, and cut a hole just sufficient to afford him a foothold while he cut another. Sampson followed, and doubled the size of the step, so as to make a safe and firm resting-place. The line they took ascended, as I have said, directly above the rocks on which we were reclining, to the base of the overhanging fringe. Hence the blocks of ice as they were hewn out rolled down upon us, and shooting past, fell over the brink of the arête by which we had been ascending, and were hurled into a fathomless abyss beneath

For nearly an hour the men laboured intently at their difficult task, in which it was impossible to give them help; but, at length, they drew near to the cornice, and it was thought advisable that we should begin to follow them. Balmat led the way, I came next, and Bohren brought up the rear. We were all tied together. I could not help being struck with the marvellous beauty of the barrier, which lay like the crest of a wave, breaking at irregular intervals along the line into pendants and inverted pinnacles of ice, many of which hung down to the full length of a tall man's height. They cast a ragged shadow on the wall of ice beyond, which