How We Did Mont Blanc.

THE ascent of Mont Blanc is usually called a very cockney affair. Moreover, it has been talked about, and written about, and lectured about, till one might suppose that every part of the mountain, from the Hotel in Chamonix to the summit of the Calotte, was as well known to the British public as the hills which stand about London. But one member, at least, of the British public, had always found it impossible to make out, from any of the numerous histories of ascents, what there really was of difficulty, and what of danger, in reaching the highest point of Europe; and with the view of satisfying himself on this question he determined upon trying to accomplish the task. The training gone through in preparation for the struggle amounted to two days on a sofa in Geneva, with threatenings of bilious fever, and incessant attention to a leg which medical skill said might be patched up sufficiently for ordinary walking-these being the results of many hot, fatiguing days among the lower mountains, and corresponding nights of unsuccessful skirmishing with the population of Continental beds.

Call this ill-trained person, ignorant of glaciers, G., and his companion, a young fellow of seventeen, who had spent a fortnight in creditable ice excursions, H. The guide was a Zermatt man, whom they had taken with them to Chamonix, and when P. P. are given as his initials any connoisseur of high mountains will know that a better guide could not have been found. As a cheerful practical proof of the absence of danger in the ascent, there arrived simultaneously at Chamonix the complete leg and foot of one of the party lost in 1820, which had been found that afternoon on the Glacier des Boissons, and was exhibited to the new arrivals before burial.

It had been intended to take one porter from Chamonix to the sleeping place on the Grands Mulets, to carry the necessary provisions, and another to accompany the party to the summit as under-guide. But when they applied at the bureau for a porter, the chef-guide proved to G. with much politeness, from the printed regulations, that it was impossible to attempt the ascent without one guide and one porter for each monsieur. The règlement declares that this number is necessary for courses dangereuses. G. claimed exemption on the ground that, as no one could call the Mont Blanc a dangerous course, the rule must have been made for the Breven or the Mauvais Pas. But when politeness and reason have failed with a Frenchman, chaff is scarcely likely to succeed, and the chef merely bowed stiffly, and remarked that if monsieur would pardon him, the Mont Blanc was the most dangerous of the many courses

dangereuses of the règlement, and he could not possibly supply less than three men to assist P. P.

P. P. being a Swiss, and therefore impatient of interference with the liberty of mankind, agreed with the Herrs that under no circumstances would they submit, after he had vainly suggested that as one of the members of the Alpine Club had the same name as G., the difficulty might be evaded, for members of that Club can take what number of guides they choose. When he had listened to a homily on the immorality of his suggestion, he made off into the village, and by good fortune found a Courmayeur man, who was on the point of returning home. This man was of course not bound by the laws of the place respecting guides and porters for Mont Blanc, and he agreed to make a fourth to the summit, and to carry his share of food and night-clothing to the Grands Mulets; but the chef-guide heard of the arrangement in some roundabout way, and illegally captured and concealed the Courmayeur man, and so reduced the party to their elements again. Fortune did not therefore cease to smile upon their efforts, for P. P. discovered a master-shoemaker who was anxious to make the ascent, and would be only too glad to accompany the party pour son plaisir, and carry half the things. Of course he was to be paid something, privately, but for all public purposes he was a gentleman at large, and the chef-guide dared not meddle with him. And thus they were at length complete, one guide, two Herrs, and one mastershoemaker.

The amount of food to be carried may be imagined from the following copy of the bill:

Ferdinand Eisenkraemer, of the Hôtel Royal, possesses, for three months in the year, a secretary, who manages all these matters. The guide of the party meditating an ascent goes to the bureau of this gentleman, and orders provisions for Mont Blanc for so many persons, and the secretary puts up what he thinks proper. It is evident, also, that he charges what he thinks proper. The present secretary is a schoolmaster, whose pupils are handed over to his wife for the Chamonix season, and let us hope that she inculcates those lessons of moderation and honesty which her husband is meanwhile putting in practice. He is a man of friendly manner, and of much imagination, which last has developed itself in a new table of

capacities, àpropos to his arithmetical work with his pupils in the dull season. Two Swiss, he says in his heart, one Frank; four Franks, one Boule. He therefore loves the English much, as a people of stomach and of purse,―nay, he not only loves, he worships the golden image. He believes, or professes to believe, that they can cat any amount of food when they make a course, and pay any amount of money for it when they return. The fervour with which he squeezes an English hand is but a faint shadowing forth of the operation he performs upon the purse. And yet there are immense charms in the Hôtel Royal at Chamonix, in the excellence and négligée of its table-d'hôte, the comfort of its beds, the picturesque undulations of its billiard-table, and the sublime glories of its mountain views.

The shoemaker was not promising, as far as personal appearance went. He was sickly and small, and had a large white nose, through which he snuffled when he was in pluck, and whined when he wasn't. His name, he said, was Friedrich Zimmerman, of Thun; on which G. informed him that, as a testimony to his pluck in thus attempting the ascent, he should be called, not Zimmerman, but Immer-mann-which seemed to delight him much, and add something to his stature and his step. He began at once to explain what must be done, on their return, to obtain the certificate of the chef-guide, which that exalted personage gives-for five francs-to all who make the ascent; and when he was told that it would be time enough to talk about that when the ascent was made, he said proudly that he had already made a promenade to the Breven last year (5,000 feet above Chamonix,) without much fatigue, and had once reached St. Bernard in two days.

The seven bottles of vin ordinaire were in reality only six, and of these P. P. had decanted four into a waterproof bag, which in its turn was carried in a waterproof knapsack, and as the verres perdus of the bill represent the missing fabric of the remaining two, it would seem that empty bottles are a valuable property in France. Before they had gone far, P. P.'s back discovered that neither bag nor knapsack was wine-proof, and as Zimmerman began to find himself very hot, G. took charge of the coats of both. This slight relief was not of much use to the shoemaker when they reached the steep zigzags of the forest, and he walked last, and cried constantly, "Doucement! doucement!" causing P. P. to become vocal with a song of two lines, repeated ad libitum—

varied with prose

Langsam voran! langsam voran!

Damit der letzte Mann nachkommen kann!*

declarations that a good guide's motto should always be,

* It is to be hoped that the shoemaker did not know the Folk-song of which this is possibly a corruption, for the comparison with the Austrian Landsturm would not have pleased him,

"Nur immer langsam voran! langsam voran !

Dass der Oestreicher Landsturm nachkommen kann ;
Die Oestreicher haben eine Schanz' erbaut

Aus lauter Speck und Sauerkraut."

Langsam, aber immer. Still the shoemaker fell more and more behind. and it became evident that no amount of langsam would ensure the nachkommen: so a halt was called, and the bundle of rug and wraps transferred to G.'s back.

But all was of no avail, and within an hour and a quarter of Chamonix he came to a total stand. The knapsack of provisions was taken from him, and all that was his was eliminated from the bundle of wraps and thrown on to the zigzag way, and then he was ignominiously turned out of the party, and told that neither Zimmerman nor Immer-mann should henceforth be his name, but, instead, Nimmer-mann. P. P. said that a small auberge was being built higher up, and it might be possible to find a porter there, so he and G. made a division of the baggage, II. being by general consent too young for such work, and they once more started in hope.

At the Pierre Pointue a new and cheap and excellent little auberge was found, kept by Sylvain Couttet, and attended to by his pleasant wife. In future ascents, it will be a good plan to purchase all provisions here, and so avoid the extortions of Chamonix, and save the porters some of their toil. Sylvain was speedily persuaded to carry half the baggage to the Grands Mulets, and they went off across the rocks in high spirits, Nimmer-mann coming on still behind, with snuffling declarations that he would at least cross the glacier, and even bursting forth into a nasal song in proof of his restored pluck. But he was sternly bidden to cease-it was not for him, of all men, to dare to sing; and, as for the glacier, Le should not put one foot upon it, with all those horrible crevasses. And so he was half bullied, half frightened into returning with a party whom they found at the Pierre à l'Echelle, one of whom did his best to turn H. back because of the lightness of his clothing,* which had already stood the blustering cold of a storm on Monte Rosa; and another, a most agreeable Frenchman, showered evil omens on the expedition by persisting in calling P. P. Benin, and correcting himself each time with a shudder, and Ah! ce pauvre Benin, il est mort! When P. P. heard that this gentleman was a member of the Alpine club, he added the word Suisse with much scorn, but his scorn became intense respect when he was told how worthily he had been elected into the English club. Good guides are too much in the way of affecting to despise this Swiss club. Thus a famous guide refused to accompany one of its officers, because, as he said, he found the

*This gentleman was afterwards proved, on unmistakable internal evidence, to be the author of several interesting papers on glacier excursions. In one of these he has described his outfit for Mont Blanc, which he believes cannot be improved upon :"A merino waistcoat, then two light flannel shirts, chamois-leather waistcoat, and over these a double-breasted cloth waistcoat, a light kind of lounging-coat,' and light over-coat. For the nether garments, a pair of stout trowsers, and two pairs of drawers." The lightness of H.'s clothing might well surprise him. G., too, had only an old pair of trowsers, cut short at the knee, made of very thin flannel.

Lost in an avalanche on the Haut de Cry, in the spring of 1864.

English club climbed better and paid better.

Another guide tells that

when his Herrs were dining in a certain hotel, members of the Swiss club sent a message from another hotel in the town, proposing fraternization. He answered that his Herrs were at dinner, and must not be disturbed; he would see about it after dinner. Meanwhile he paid a visit of inspection, and found that the Swiss gentlemen had umbrellas with spikes, paper pantofles, and black coats and trowsers-so he burked the message entirely.

Apropos of this story, when the present party met two foreign gentlemen, utterly done, on the Tête Noire, with black hats and patent leather boots, it was thoughtlessly and unkindly suggested that they were members of the Swiss Alpine Club, but the difficulty was-only one had an umbrella. "Ah!" it was still more unkindly explained, "it's a swell taking his young friend over the Tête Noire pass, to qualify for the stock of the club."

Certain young malcontents of the canton Valais have conceived a disapproval of the principles of this club, and propose to form a rival society. They are to perform real feats, so they say, in the way of ascents, and, to show their contempt for the pretensions of other clubs, are to call themselves the Order of the Broomstick, meaning the alpenstock, and their president the Grand Ramoneur. It might be suggested to them that if they would carry brooms also, as a part of the paraphernalia of the order, they might do something towards cleaning their native Valais, and then the travelling world would heartily wish them the success which attended an ancient hero in a similar labour.

The most interesting part of the whole ascent now commenced, across the shattered ice-fall of the Glacier des Boissons, and up the ice and snow to the Grands Mulets-a collection of rocks in the midst of the higher glaciers. A few minutes of jumping across crevasses, and winding along ice-bridges and up "vertical precipices" of the same material, sufficed to show that the danger here was simply nothing, as far as the fall of a man was concerned, unless he was very determinedly bent upon falling; but from P. P.'s vite! when the party passed the base of any of the overhanging pyramids of ice, it seemed that there was more room for a mischance there. Indeed, a very competent authority has laid it down as a law of nature or, at least of the more adventurous members of the English Alpine Club-that the only danger in mountain climbing is from avalanches and falling stones and ice; for the guides have too strong an affection for their own necks-or, shall we say, for their wives and little children?-to put themselves in positions beyond their skill.

Perhaps the most striking part of a tyro's first extensive glacier lesson is the ease with which difficulties are circumvented, and the excellent foot-hold afforded by glacier ice. Nor is anything more instructive and assuring than the first fall. With a young horse at an early fence, and with young climbers on their first glacier, a fall is an excellent thing. VOL. XI.-No. 66.

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