kinds of weather, and to the fraying action | upon a glacier again. But like the forces in of the storms which assail the Matterhorn; the physical world, human emotions vary but it bore, on being tested, the united with the distance from their origin, and a weights of three men. By this rope the year afterwards I was again upon the ice. summit of the precipice which had given us Towards the close of 1862 Bennen and so much trouble in 1862 was easily and myself made "the tour of Monte Rosa," rapidly attained. A higher resting-place halting for a day or two at the excellent was thus secured, and more time was hostelry of Delapierre, in the magnificent gained for the examination of the mountain. Val du Lys. We scrambled up the GrauEvery climber knows the value of time in a haupt, a point exceedingly favourable to case of the kind. The result of the scru- the study of the conformation of the Alps. tiny was that a way was found up the Mat- We also halted at Alagna and Macugnaga. terhorn from the Italian side, that way be- But not withstanding their admitted glory, ing the ridge referred to in my conversation the Italian valleys of the Alps did not suit with Bennen three years before. either Bennen or me. We longed for the more tonic air of the northern slopes, and were glad to change the valley of Ansasca for that of Saas.

Committed thus and in other ways to the Matterhorn, the condition of my mind regarding it might be fitly compared to one of those uncheerful tenements often seen in the neighbourhood of London, where an adventurous contractor has laid the foundations, run up the walls, fixed the rafters, but stopped short through bankruptcy without completing the roof. As long as the Matterhorn remained unscaled, my Alpine life could hardly be said to be covered in, and the admonitions of my friends were premature. But now that the work is done, they will have more reason to blame me if I fail to profit by their advice.

II.

THE first days of my vacation of 1863 were spent in the company of Mr. Philip Lutley Sclater. On the 19th of July we reached Reichenbach, and on the following day sauntered up the valley of Hasli, turning to the left at Imhof into Gadmenthal. Our destination was Stein, which we reached by a grass-grown road through fine scenery. The goatherds were milking when we arrived. At the heels of one quadruped, supported by the ordinary one-legged stool of the Senner, bent a particularly wild and dirty-looking individual, who, our guide informed us, was the proprietor of the inn.

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Another defeat of a different character was also inflicted upon me in 1862. Wishing to give my friend Mr. (now Sir John) Lubbock a taste of mountain life, I went with him up the Galenstock. This pleased He is but a rough Bauer," said Jann, him so much that Bennen and I wished to "but he has engaged a pretty maiden to make his cup of pleasure fuller by taking keep house for him." While he thus spoke him up the Jungfrau. We sent two por- a light-footed creature glided from the door ters laden with coverlets and provisions towards us, and bade us welcome. She from the Eggischhorn to the Faulberg, but led us upstairs, provided us with baths, on our arrival there found one of the por- took our orders for dinner, helped us by ters in the body of the Aletsch glacier. her suggestions, and answered all our He had recklessly sought to cross a snow-questions with the utmost propriety and bridge which spanned a broad and profound grace. She had been two years in Engchasm. The bridge broke under him, he land, and spoke English with a particularly fell in, and was deeply covered by the frozen débris which followed him. He had been there for an hour when we arrived, and it required nearly another hour to dig him out. We carried him more dead than alive to the Faulberg cave, and by great care restored him. As I lay there wet through the long hours of that dismal night I almost registered a vow never to tread

winning accent. How she came to be associated with the unkempt brute outside was a puzzle to both of us. It is Emerson, I think, who remarks on the benefit which a beautiful face, without trouble to itself, confers upon him who looks at it. And, though the splendour of actual beauty could hardly be claimed for our young hostess, she was handsome enough and graceful

enough to brighten a tired traveller's thoughts, and to raise by her presence the modest comforts she dispensed to the level of luxuries.*

prospective disfigurement of my face. Mr. Sclater was sheltered by a veil, a mode of defence which the habit of going into places requiring the unimpeded eyesight has caused me to neglect. There seems to be some specific quality in the sun's rays which produces the irritation of the skin experienced in the Alps. The solar heat may be compared, in point of quantity, with that radiated from a furnace; and the heat which the mountaineer experiences on Alpine snows is certainly less intense than that encountered by workmen in many of our technical operations. But the terrestrial heat appears to lack the quality which gives the sun's rays their power. The sun is incomparably richer in what are called chemical rays than are our fires, and to these chemical rays the irritation may be due. The keen air of the heights may also have

It rained all night, and at 3.30 A.M. when we were called, it still fell heavily. At 5, however, the clouds began to break, and half an hour afterwards the heavens were swept quite clear of them. At 6 we bade our pretty blossom of the Alps goodbye. She had previously brought her gentle influence to bear upon her master to moderate the extortion of some of his charges. We were soon upon the Stein glacier, and after some time reached a col from which we looked down upon the lower portion of the nobler and more instructive Trift glacier. Brown bands were drawn across the ice-stream, forming graceful loops with their convexities turned downwards. The higher portions of the glacier something to do with it. As a remedy for were not in view, still those bands rendered the inference secure that an ice-fall existed higher up, at the base of which the bands originated. We shot down a shingly couloir to the Trift, and looking up the glacier the anticipated cascade came into view. At its bottom the ice, by pressure, underwent that notable change, analogous to slaty cleavage, which caused the glacier to weather in parallel grooves, and thus mark upon its surface the direction of its interior lamination.

The ice-cascade being itself impracticable, we scaled the rocks to the left of it, and were soon in presence of the farstretching snow-fields from which the lower glacier derived nutriment. With a view to hidden crevasses, we roped ourselves together. The sun was strong, its direct and reflected blaze combining against us. The scorching warmth experienced at times by cheeks, lips, and neck, indicated that in my case mischief was brewing; but the eyes being well protected by dark spectacles, I was comparatively indifferent to the

sunburn I have tried glycerine, and found it a failure. The ordinary lip-salve of the druggists' shops is also worse than useless, but pure cold cream, for a supply of which I have had on more than one occasion to thank a friend, is an excellent ameliorative.

After considerable labour we reached the ridge — a very glorious one as regards the view - which forms the common boundary of the Rhône and Trift glaciers.* Before us and behind us for many a mile fell the dazzling névés, down to the points where the grey ice emerging from its white coverlet declared the junction of snow-field and glacier. We had plodded on for hours soddened by the solar heat and parched with thirst. There was

"Water, water everywhere, But not a drop to drink." For, when placed in the mouth, the liquefaction of the ice was so slow and the loss

of heat from the surrounding tissues so total abstinence. In the midst of this solid painful, that sucking it was worse than water you might die of thirst. At some distance below the col, on the Rhône side, the musical trickle of the liquid made itself audible, and to the rocks from which it fell we repaired, and refreshed ourselves. The day was far spent, the region was wild and

* Seven years previously Mr. Huxley and myself had attempted to reach this col from the other side.

lonely, when, beset by that feeling which has often caused me to wander singly in the Alps, I broke away from my companions, and went rapidly down the glacier. Our guide had previously informed me that before reaching the cascade of the Rhône the ice was to be forsaken, and the Grimsel, our destination, reached by skirting the base of the peak called Nägelis Grätli. After descending the ice for some time I struck the bounding rocks, and climbing the mountain obliquely found my-day urged me on. From the middle of the self among the crags which lie between the Grimsel pass and the Rhone glacier. It was an exceedingly desolate place, and I soon had reason to doubt the wisdom of being there alone. Still difficulty rouses powers of which we should otherwise remain unconscious. The heat of the day had rendered me weary, but among these rocks the weariness vanished, and I became clear in mind and fresh in body through the necessity of escape before nightfall from this wilderness.

I reached the watershed of the region. Here a tiny stream offered me its company which I accepted. It received in its course various lateral tributaries, and at one place expanded into a blue lake bounded by banks of snow. The stream quitted this lake, augmented in volume, and I kept along its side until, arching over a brow of granite, it discharged itself down the glaciated rocks, which rise above the Grimsel. In fact, this stream was the feeder of the Grimsel lake. I halted on the brow for some time. The hospice was fairly in sight, but the precipices between me and it seemed desperately ugly. Nothing is more trying to the climber than those cliffs which have been polished by the ancient glacier. Even at moderate inclinations, as may be learned from an experiment on the Höllenplatte, or some other of the polished rocks in Haslithal, they are not easy. I need hardly say that the inclination of the rocks flanking the Grimsel is the reverse of moderate. It is dangerously steep.

How to get down these smooth and precipitous tablets was now a problem of the utmost interest to me; for the day was too far gone, and I was too ignorant of the locality, to permit of time being spent in the search of an easier place of descent. Right or left of me I saw none. The continuity of the cliffs below me was occasionally broken by cracks and narrow ledges, with scanty grass-tufts sprouting from them here and there. The problem was to get down from crack to crack and from ledge to ledge. A salutary anger warms the mind when thus

challenged, and, aided by this warmth, close scrutiny will dissolve difficulties which might otherwise seem insuperable. Bit by bit I found myself getting lower, closely examining at every pause the rocks below. The grass-tufts helped me for a time, but at length a rock was reached, on which no friendly grass could grow. This slab was succeeded by others equally forbidding. A slip was not admissible here. I looked upwards, thinking of retreat, but the failing smooth surface jutted a ledge about fifteen inches long and about four inches deep. Once upon this ledge, I saw that I could work obliquely to the left-hand limit of the face of the rock, and reach the grass-tufts once more. Grasping the top of the rock, I let myself down as far as my stretched arms would permit, and then let go my hold. The boot-nails had next to no power as a brake, the hands had still less, and I came upon the ledge with an energy that shocked me. A streak of grass beside the rock was next attained; it terminated in a small, steep couloir, the portion of which within view was crossed by three transverse ledges. There was no hold on either side of it, but I thought that by friction the motion down the groove could be so regulated as to enable me to come to rest at each successive ledge. Once started, however, my motion was exceedingly rapid. I shot over the first ledge, an uncomfortable jolt marking my passage. Here I tried to clamp myself against the rock, but the second ledge was crossed like the first. The outlook now became alarming, and I made a desperate effort to stop the motion. Braces gave way, clothes were torn, wrists and hands were skinned and bruised, while hips and knees suffered variously. I however stopped myself, and here all serious difficulty ended. I was greatly heated, but a little lower down discovered a singular cave in the mountain-side, with water dripping from its roof into a clear well. The icecold liquid soon restored me to a normal temperature. I felt quite fresh on entering the Grimsel inn, but a curious physiological effect manifested itself when I had occasion to speak. The power of the brain over the lips was so lowered that I could hardly make myself understood.

III.

My guide Bennen reached the Grimsel the following morning. Uncertain of my own movements, I had permitted him this year to make a new engagement, which he was now on his way to fulfil. There was a hint of reproach in his tone as he asked me

whether his Herr Professor had forsaken Dropping down a waterfall well-known to him. There was little fear of this. A the climbers of this region, we came again guide of proved competence, whose ways upon the ice, which was here cut by complex you know, and who knows you and trusts chasms. These we unravelled as long as you, is invaluable in the Alps, and Bennen necessary, and finally escaped from them to was all this, and more, to me. As a moun- the mountain-side. The first big drops of taineer, he had no superior, and he added to his strength, courage, and skill, the qualities of a natural gentleman. He was now ready to bear us company over the Oberaarjoch to the Eggischhorn. On the morning of the 22d we bade the cheerless Grimsel inn good-bye, reached the Unteraar glacier, crossed its load of uncomfortable débris, and clambered up the slopes at the other side. Nestled aloft in a higher valley was the Oberaar glacier, along the unruffled surface of which our route lay.

The morning threatened. Fitful gleams of sunlight wandered with the moving clouds above, over the adjacent ice. The joch was swathed in mist, which now and then gave way, and permitted a wild radiance to shoot over the col. On the windy summit we took a mouthful of food and roped ourselves together. Here, as in a hundred other places, I sought in the fog for the vesicles of De Saussure, but failed to find them. Bennen, as long as we were on the Berne side of the col, permitted Jann to take the lead; but now we looked into Wallis, or rather into the fog which filled it, and the Wallis guide came to the front. I knew the Viesch glacier well, but how Bennen meant to unravel its difficulties without landmarks I knew not. I asked him whether, if the fog continued, he could make his way down the glacier. There was a pleasant timbre in Bennen's voice, a light and depth in his smile due to the blending together of conscious power and affection. With this smile he turned round and said, Herr, Ich bin hier zu Hause. Der Viescher Gletscher ist meine Heimath."

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Downwards we went, striking the rocks of the Rothhorn so as to avoid the riven ice. Suddenly we passed from dense fog into clear air: we had crossed "the cloudplane," and found a transparent atmosphere between it and the glacier. The dense covering above us was sometimes torn asunder by the wind, which whirled the detached cloud-tufts round the peaks. Contending air-currents were thus revealed, and thunder, which is the common associate, if not the product, of such contention, began to rattle among the crags. At first the snow upon the glacier was sufficiently heavy to bridge the crevasses, thus permitting of rapid motion; but by degrees the fissures opened, and at length drove us to the rocks. These in their turn became impracticable.

the thunder-shower were already falling when we reached an overhanging crag which gave us shelter. We quitted it too soon, beguiled by a treacherous gleam of blue, and were thoroughly drenched before we reached the Æggischhorn.

This was my last excursion with Bennen. In the month of February of the following year he was killed by an avalanche, on the Haut de Cry, a mountain near Sion.*

Having work to execute, I remained at the Eggischhorn for nearly a month in 1863. My favourite place for rest and writing was a point on the mountain-side about an hour westwards from the hotel, where the mighty group of the Mischabel, the Matterhorn, and the Weisshorn were in full view. One day I remained in this position longer than usual, held there by the fascination of sunset. The mountains had stood out nobly clear during the entire day, but towards evening, upon the Dom, a cloud settled, which was finally drawn into a long streamer by the wind. Nothing can be finer than the effect of the red light of sunset on those streamers of cloud. Incessantly dissipated, but ever renewed, they glow with the intensity of flames. By and by the banner broke, as a liquid cylinder is known to do when unduly stretched, forming a series of cloud-balls united together by slender filaments. I watched the deepening rose, and waited for the deadly pallor which succeeded it, before I thought of returning to the hotel.

"I

On arriving there I found the waitress, a hysterical kind of woman, in tears. She conversed eagerly with the guests regarding the absence of two ladies and a gentleman, who had quitted the hotel in the morning without a guide, and who were now benighted on the mountain. Herr Wellig, the landlord, was also much concerned. recommended them," he said, "to take a guide, but they would not heed me, and now they are lost." "But they must be found," I rejoined; "at all events they must be sought. What force have you at hand? Three active young fellows came immediately forward. Two of them I sent across

* A sum of money was collected in England for Bennen's mother and sisters. Mr. Hawkins, Mr.

Tuckett, and myself had a small monument erected to his memory in Ernan church-yard. The supervi sion of the work was entrusted to a clerical friend of Bennen's, who, however well-intentioned, made a poor use of his trust.