My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1895)/Chapter 05
CHAPTER V.
THE AIGUILLE DES CHARMOZ.
After the passage of the Col du Lion, already described, we drove to Courmayeur, intent on mighty deeds. Bad weather, however, made us prisoners, and for four consecutive days a strong south-west wind poured a ceaseless deluge of rain into the valley, washing haystacks and even an occasional chalet into the great muddy torrent below the village.
I was the only guest at the Hotel Royal, and its skilful chef devoted his whole time and thought to the ruin of my condition and form. During the rare intervals when I was not actually enjoying the good things provided for my delectation, he occupied himself with careful inquiries as to my likes and dislikes.
On the fifth day symptoms of improvement in the weather became visible, and during the afternoon Burgener, Venetz, and I walked up to the Mont Frêty Inn, with some vague idea of trying to make a new pass to Chamonix. Before 
Charmoz
from the Charmoz Grépon Col.
At Chamonix I was once more in danger of falling an utter victim to the wiles of innkeepers and their cooks, but happily some friends recognised my perilous position and took me up to the Grands Mulets. No sooner had we got there than yet another storm assailed us, and kept us in the hut till it was too late to descend. When we awoke the next morning, we found ourselves halfway up to the Grand Plateau, Burgener and Venetz being evidently under the impression that we intended to spend the rest of the day in the tread-mill like occupation of ascending Mont Blanc. Revolutionary ideas quickly gained possession of the party, and culminated in the absolute refusal of its amateur members to go another step. Despite the indignation and scorn of the professionals, we tumbled and glissaded back to the Grands Mulets, picked up our few belongings and ran down to the Pierre Pointue and Chamonix.
The same afternoon we held a solemn council and decided that this sort of thing must go on no longer, and in desperation we determined to start for the Charmoz. It was true that the continuous bad weather was likely to have materially damaged our chances of success, but as the mountain has a south-western exposure, and is not very high, we hoped nothing really serious would be amiss. The next morning (or shall I say the same night?) we started, and, being provided by M. Couttet with an admirable lantern (this expedition took place in the pre-folding-lantern age), we made very fair progress for the first half-hour. We then began to ascend something which Burgener averred was a path, but which, insensible of, or possibly made bashful by, such gross flattery, hid itself coyly from view at every third step. After a long grind the grey light of morning began to overpower our lantern, so, finding a suitable stone, we carefully hid it and marked the spot with a sprig of pine. Sad to say, on our return, though we found many stones with many sprigs of pine on them, none had our lantern in the hole underneath, a circumstance much to be regretted, as, from an item which subsequently appeared in my bill, it seems to have been a lantern held in high esteem by Monsieur Couttet.
We soon got clear of the forest, and, reaching a stream under the lateral moraine of the Nantillon glacier, halted for breakfast. Here we discovered that three slices of meat, a tiny piece of cheese, ten inches of loaf, and a big bag of raisins were all the provisions the hotel porter had thought necessary. Luckily, Burgener had been left in charge of the commissariat, and, as I prefer raisins on the side of a mountain to any other food, I was able to look on the porter's conduct with philosophy, a state of mind by no means shared by my companions.
We very injudiciously turned the lower ice fall by keeping to the right and ascending a couloir between the cliffs of the Blaitiére and the precipitous rocks over which the glacier falls. The couloir proved very easy, but a rock buttress on our left being still easier we took to it and rattled to the top at a great pace. Immediately over our heads towered an endless succession of séracs, huge sky-cleaving monsters, threatening us with instant destruction. The spot was not a desirable one for a halt, so we turned to the left to see how we were to get on to the glacier. At one point, and one only, was it possible to do so. A sérac lurching over the cliff, and apparently much inclined to add to the pile of broken ice-blocks some hundreds of feet below, was the only available bridge. We scrambled along it, crossed a crevasse on avalanche débris, and dashed up a short ice slope to the open glacier. Ten minutes sufficed to take us into comparative safety, and we traversed to the island of rock, by which the ice fall is usually turned.
Here we made a halt and proceeded to search the knapsack for possibly hidden stores of food. While Venetz and I were engaged in this duty, Burgener screwed himself and his telescope into a variety of extraordinary attitudes, and at length succeeded in making a satisfactory examination of our peak. An hour later we started again and tramped up to the base of the long couloir which leads to the depression between the Grépon and the Charmoz.
We crossed the Bergschrund at a quarter to nine, and at once turning to the left, out of the couloir, worked our way up some good rocks for three-quarters of an hour, only one or two slabs offering any sort of resistance to our progress. By this time we had reached the top of a secondary ridge, which here abuts against the final cliffs of the mountain. We sat down on an ice-coated rock and, producing our limited supplies of food, once more solemnly reviled the Chamonix porter. We then deposited the wine tin in a safe comer, and unanimously discarded coats and boots, which, with two out of three hats and the same proportion of ice-axes, were packed away in a secure cleft. The baggage, consisting of a spare rope, two wooden wedges, the food, a bottle of Bouvier, a tin of cognac, and an ice-axe, was made over to me.
The two men began to worm their way up the cliff, Venetz usually being shoved by Burgener and then helping the latter with the rope. Progress, however, was painfully slow, and when at last good standing ground was reached, the rope declined to come anywhere near me. Ultimately, I had to make a difficult traverse to fetch it, as it was quite impossible to carry the ice-axe and knapsack without its aid. This sort of work continued for three-quarters of an hour, and then a longer delay suggested that there was something seriously wrong. An eager query brought back the reply that the next bit was quite impracticable, but, added Burgener, "Es muss gehen." Anxious to see the obstacle which, though impracticable, was yet to be ascended, I swarmed up the edge of a great slab to a narrow shelf, then, working round an awkward comer, I entered a dark cold gully.
A mighty block, some forty feet high, had parted from the main mass of the mountain, leaving a rounded perpendicular couloir, which was now everywhere veneered with ice. A tiny stream trickled down the back of the gully, and about mid-height had frozen on to the rocks, forming a thick column of ice flanked on either hand by a fantastic fretwork of the same material. A green bulge, about fifteen feet above, prevented our seeing the back of the gully beyond that point. Nothing could appear more hopeless, there was not even decent foothold where we stood, everywhere the black glazing of ice filled up and masked the irregularities of the rock below.
Some ten minutes later both men appeared to my inexperienced eye in extremely critical positions. Venetz, almost without hold of any sort, was gradually nearing the aforementioned green bulge; an axe, skilfully applied by Burgener to that portion of the guide costume most usually decorated by patches of brilliant and varied hue, supplying the motive power, whilst Burgener himself was cleverly poised on invisible notches cut in the thin ice which glazed the rock. Before, however, Venetz could surmount the green bulge, it became necessary to shift the axe to his feet, and for a moment he was left clinging like a cat to the slippery wrinkles of the huge icicle. How he succeeded in maintaining his position is a mystery known only to himself, and the law of gravity. With the axe beneath his feet, he once more moved upwards, and with a desperate effort raised his head and shoulders above the bulge. "Wie geht's?" yelled Burgener. "Weder vorwärts noch zurück," gasped Venetz, and to a further query whether he could help Burgener up came the reply, "gewiss nicht." However, so soon as he had recovered his wind he renewed his efforts. Little by little his legs, working in spasmodic jerks, disappeared from sight, and at last a burst of patois, a hauling in of the rope, and Burgener advanced and disappeared. The whizz of icicles and other small fragments, and the hard breathing of the men showed they were advancing. Then Burgener shouted to me to squeeze well under cover for fear of stones, but as the crack to which I was holding only sufficed to shelter my nose, fingers, and one foot, I thought it wise to work back out of the gully on to the warm rocks, being, moreover, much persuaded to this line of conduct by my toes, which, unprotected by boots and with stockings long since cut to ribbons, were by no means unwilling to exchange frozen rock and ice for warmth and sunshine.
Presently a startled shout and a great stone leapt into space, followed by a hoarse jodel to announce the conquest of the gully. As I scrambled back the rope came down with a swish, and I tied up as well as I could with one hand, while the other hung on to an ice-glazed comer. Having accomplished this important operation I began the ascent. Everything went well for the first few feet, then the hold seemed to get insufficient, and a desperate effort to remedy this ended in my swinging free, unable to attach myself to either rock or ice. A bearded face, with a broad grin, looks over the top of the gully, and cheerily asks, "Why don't you come on?"
Then a few vigorous hauls, and I am above the green bulge, and enter a narrow cleft. Its smooth and precipitous walls were everywhere glazed with ice, and their parallel surfaces offered no grip or hold of any sort. It was just possible to jam one's back against one wall and one's knees against the other, but progress under these conditions was not to be thought of. After a few minutes had been allowed to convince a possibly sceptical Herr that the knapsack and the ice-axe were not the only impedimenta in the party, the persuasive influence of the rope brought me to more broken ground, and a scramble landed me in the sunshine.
The men were ruefully gazing at their torn and bleeding elbows, for it appears they had only succeeded in attaching themselves to the gully by clasping their hands in front of them, and then drawing them in towards their chests, thus wedging their elbows against the opposing walls. They were both very thoroughly "blown," so we halted and circulated a certain flask. Then I lay down on the warm rocks and wondered how long my internal organs would take to get back into those more normal positions from which the pressure of the rope had dislodged them.
A quarter of an hour later we were once more en route. Above, a long series of broken cliffs, seamed by a fairly continuous line of vertical cracks, assured our progress as far as the ridge. How I crawled up great slabs hanging on to impossible corners—how at critical moments the knapsack hooked on to sharp splinters of rock, or the ice-axe jammed into cracks, whilst the holes in my toes got deeper and bigger, and the groove round my waist more closely approximated to the modern ideal of female beauty—is fixed, indelibly, on my mind; but these are things too painful for words, and I will therefore limit myself to saying that on some rocks, in due accordance with the latest mountaineering fashion, I expostulated with Burgener on the absurdity of using a rope, at the same time taking very good care to see that the knot was equal to all emergencies. On other rocks I just managed to ascend by adopting new and original attitudes, which, despite certain adverse criticisms, I still believe would have won renown for any artist who could have seized their grace and elegance, and would, moreover, have afforded a very distinct departure from all conventional models. On yet other rocks a method of progress was adopted which has since, I regret to say, given rise to fierce disputes between the amateur and professional members of the party; it being alleged on the one hand that there is no difficulty in ascending such rocks if the climber be not hampered by a knapsack and ice-axe; and on the other, that a waist measurement of eighteen inches ought, for some mysterious reason, to be taken into account, and detracts from the climbing merit of its possessor. Without, however, entering into controversial matter of so painful a character, I may briefly say that at a quarter-past eleven we scrambled on to the ridge and feasted our eyes with a near view of the summit.
The more sanguine members of the party at once concluded that a projection on the left, of easy access, was the highest point; but certain gloomy dissentients averred that an ugly tooth on the right, of a most uncompromising character, was the true peak. Laughter was the portion of these unbelievers, and the easy crag was scaled amid a wild burst of enthusiasm, only, however, to find that here, as elsewhere, the broad and easy path is not for the faithful.
Returning to the gap where we had attained the ridge, we made our way to the foot of the real summit. Venetz was promptly lifted up to Burgener's shoulders and propelled onwards by the axe; but the first attack failed, and he recoiled swiftly on to Burgener. The despised Herr was then used to extend the ladder, and by this means Venetz was able to reach indifferent hold, and ultimately to gain the summit. At 11.45 a.m. we all crowded on to the top, the men rejoicing greatly at the reckless waste of gunpowder with which Monsieur Couttet welcomed our arrival. Burgener, as a fitting recognition of this attention, planted our one ice-axe on the highest point, whilst the rank and file of the expedition diligently sought stones wherewith to build it into an upright and secure position. To this a handkerchief of brilliant pattern and inferior repair. the product into which the Zermatt wash had resolved two of more ordinary dimensions and colour, was securely lashed.
Whilst these details were being satisfactorily completed, the heavy luggage of the party was quietly sunning himself in a comfortable nook, and absorbing that mixture of sunlight, atmosphere, glittering lake, and jagged ridge, which make up a summit view. Long hours of exertion urged to the utmost limit of the muscles, and the wild excitement of half-won but yet doubtful victory, are changed in an instant to a feeling of ease and security, so perfect that only the climber who has stretched himself in some sun-warmed, wind-sheltered nook, can realise the utter oblivion which lulls every suspicion of pain or care, and he learns that, however happiness may shun pursuit, it may nevertheless be sometimes surprised basking on the weird granite crags. To puzzle one's brains at such moments by seeking to recognise distant peaks, or to correct one's topographical knowledge, or by scientific pursuits of any sort, appears to be sacrilege of the most vicious sort. To me it seems the truer worship to stretch with half-shut eyes in the sun, and let the scenery
"Like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet we know not we are listening to it"
But Burgener did not altogether share this view, and at 12.30 p.m. he insisted on our sliding down a doubled rope to the ridge below the summit. All went merrily till we reached the ice couloir. Here Burgener tried to fix one of our wooden wedges; but do what he would, it persisted in evading its duties, wobbling first to one side and then to another, so that the rope slipped over the top. We all had a try, driving it into cracks that struck our fancy, and even endeavouring to prop it up with ingenious arrangements of small stones. Some one then mooted the point whether wedges were not a sort of bending the knee to Baal, and might not be the first step on those paths of ruin where the art of mountaineering becomes lost in that of the steeple-jack. Whereupon we unanimously declared that the Charmoz should be desecrated by no fixed wedges, and finding an insecure knob of rock we doubled our rope round it, and Venetz slid down. I followed, and to prevent as far as possible the chance of the rope slipping off the knob, we twisted it round and round, and held the ends fast as Burgener descended.
By 2.20 we rejoined our boots, and ideas of table d'hôte began to replace those of a more poetic type. We rattled down the rocks, and raced across the glacier in a way that, we subsequently learnt, created much astonishment in the minds of sundry friends at the opposite end of M. Couttet's telescope. The further we got the faster we went, for the seracs that looked unpleasant in the morning now lurched over our heads in a way that made Burgener's "schnell, nur schnell," almost lift one off one's feet. After the usual habit of séracs they lurched and staggered, but did not fall, and we got down to the lower glacier much out of breath, but otherwise uninjured. Reaching the neighbourhood of our lantern we sought diligently but found it not, so we made for a châlet Burgener know of.
We found the fair proprietress feeding pigs. She brought us milk, and, though of unexceptionable quality, the more fastidious members of the party would have liked it better had not some of the numerous denizens of her abode and person previously sought euthanasia in the flowing bowl.
Happily the zigzags did not take long to unwind, and at 6.30 p.m. we were warmly welcomed by Monsieur and Madame Couttet and much excellent champagne.
THE AIGUILLE DES CHARMOZ—WITHOUT GUIDES.
The ascent was not repeated for several years, but at length Monsieur Dunod and F. Simond found their way to the southern summit, and the following year they recovered the axe we had left on its northern peak. The mountain soon after became the most popular climb in the Montenvers district, and the traverse of the five peaks (as it is now called) is recognised as the best and merriest introduction to the Chamonix rock scrambles.
In 1892 I once again started for the mountain. This time we were without guides, for we had learnt the great truth that those who wish to really enjoy the pleasures of mountaineering, must roam the upper snows trusting exclusively to their own skill and knowledge. The necessity for this arises from many causes, and is to no small extent due to the marked change that has come over the professional mountaineer. The guide of the "Peaks, Passes and Glaciers" age was a friend and adviser; he led the party and entered fully into all the fun and jollity of the expedition; on the return to the little mountain inn, he was still, more or less, one of the party, and the evening pipe could only be enjoyed in his company. Happy amongst his own mountains and skilled in ferreting out all the slender resources of the village, he was an invaluable and most pleasant companion. But the advantage was not wholly on one side, thrown constantly in contact with his employers he acquired from them those minor rules of conduct and politeness which are essential if guide and traveller are to develop mutual friendship and respect. Of these early pioneers Melchior, Anderegg and a few others still remain; but, amongst the younger men, there are none with whom one could associate on the old terms and with the old intimacy. The swarming of the tourist has brought with it the wretched distinctions of class, and the modern guide inhabits the guide's room and sees his Monsieur only when actually on an expedition. Cut off from the intercourse of the old days, the guide tends more and more to belong to the lackey tribe, and the ambitious tourist looks upon him much as his less aspiring brother regards his mule.
The constant repetition of the same ascent has, moreover, tended to make the guide into a sort of contractor. For so many tens or hundreds of francs he will take you anywhere you like to name. The skill of the traveller counts for absolutely naught; the practised guide looks on him merely as luggage. Of course, if he be of abnormal weight and bulk, he must pay an additional number of francs, precisely as a man who rides sixteen stone has to pay a high price for a hunter; but, apart from the accident of weight, the individuality of the Herr is not considered.
The guide, having undertaken a contract, naturally wishes to get it satisfactorily completed at the earliest possible time. To this end, the way up the mountain is mapped out with great minuteness. The contractor knows to a second the time at which he should arrive at each rock and every ledge. The slightest variation from these standard times hurts his feelings and ruffles the serenity of his temper. There is, of course, no fun or merriment during the ascent. The travellers, pushed to the very utmost limit of their speed, are in no state to enjoy themselves; you might, indeed, as well ask a man trying to break the one mile cycling record to look at the view, or the members of an Oxford racing crew to see the point of a joke. The party is simply driven onward, checked only when the wind or legs of its Herr absolutely refuse to proceed a step further. During the short halt thus involved—usually designated breakfast, though no one ever eats anything—the amateurs gasp and pant and feel all, or more than all, the pangs of incipient mal de mer, whilst the guides gloomily commiserate themselves on the slowness of the Herrschaft. It is needless to say that the conditions essential to the pleasures of talk and contemplation enjoyed by the founders of the craft are wholly lacking. Woe to the town-bred Englishman, hurried along by a couple of Swiss peasants in the very perfection of wind and muscle.
The guideless climber is free from all these baneful and blighting influences. So long as there is time in hand, and very often when there is not, he prefers to lie on sheltered rocks and watch the ever changing shadows on the distant hills, or to peer down enormous depths on to the restless mists floating above the glacier. Toiling up snow slopes or screes at his top pace never commends itself to him—at such times every flat stone suggests a halt and every tiny stream deep draughts of water.
I once met a man who told me, at 11 a.m., that he had just been up the Charmoz. He seemed mightily proud of his performance, and undoubtedly had gone with extraordinary speed. "But why," I asked myself, "has he done it?" Can any one with eyes in his head, and an immortal soul in his body, care to leave the rugged beauty of the Charmoz ridge in order to race back to the troops of personally-conducted tourists who pervade and make unendurable the mid-day and afternoon at the Montenvers? And this is not exceptional; at Zermatt one may frequently meet men, early in the day, who have wantonly left the most beautiful and inmost recesses of the Alps, the Gabelhorn, Eothorn, or other similar peak, to hurry back to the brass bands and nigger minstrels of that excursionist resort. The guideless climber does none of these things; rarely is he seen returning till the last lingering glow has died out of the western horizon. It is night, and night alone, that drives him back to the crowded haunts of the tourist. This love of living amongst the sunshine and upper snows is the true test of the enthusiast, and marks him off from the tribe of brag and bounce and from all the "doers of the Alps." It must not be assumed that the love of mountains is to be regarded as the first of human duties, or that a man's moral worth can be determined by the usual time of his arrival at a mountain inn; but merely that the mountaineer, the man who can sympathise with every change of light and shadow and who worships the true spirit of the upper world, is distinguished from unregenerate imitators and hypocrites by these characteristics.
My main objection to guide-led parties, however, is to be found in the absolute certainty with which the day's proceedings are carried out. Not merely can the guide "lie in bed and picture every step of the way up," but he can also, whilst so reposing, tell you to the fraction of a minute the exact time you will get to each point in the ascent, and the very moment at which he will return you, safe and sound, to the smiling landlord of your hotel. Now I agree with Landor, that "certainties are uninteresting and sating." When I start in the morning I do not want to know exactly what is going to be done, and exactly how it is all to be carried out. I like to feel that our best efforts may be needed, and that even then we may be baffled and beaten. There is, similarly, infinite delight in recalling all the varying chances of a long and hardly fought victory; but the memory of a weary certainty behind two untiring guides, is wholly colourless and soon fades into the indistinguishable past.
Few scrambles have yielded more pleasure to my companions and myself than the ascent of the Brenva Mont Blanc. Owing to a foolish mistake, in which, contrary to the advice of my friends, I persisted, we hurled ourselves at a huge wall of séracs and fought with a vigour and, "under the correction of bragging be it spoken," with a plucky determination, that afforded us then, and will, so long as memory lasts, ever afford us, unmixed delight and pleasure. Recoiling, baffled, we camped on an exposed ledge of rock, and, the next morning, for the third time traversing the far famed knife-edge of ice, we repeated our assault on the séracs, this time at a more vulnerable corner. Victory still hung in the balance, and it was only when Collie had constructed a rickety staircase, by jamming our three axes into the interstices of a perpendicular wall of frozen ice débris, that he scaled the obstacle and we strode in triumph on to the great rolling fields of snow below, but within certain reach of, the Calotte. Such moments are worth living for, but they are sought in vain, if a guide who can "lie in bed and picture every step of the way up "is of the party. Mountaineering, as Mr. Leslie Stephen has pointed out, is "a sport—as strictly as cricket, or rowing, or knurr and spell," and it necessarily follows that its enjoyment depends on the struggle for the victory. To start on an ordinary expedition with guides, is, from the sporting point of view, as interesting—or the reverse—as a "walk over" race.
There is, doubtless, another side to the question. The pious worshippers of the great god "Cook" regard the facilitation of the ascent as an unmixed good. The be-roped and be-cabined Matterhorn, the lie-in-bed-and-picture guide are welcomed by them as the earlier stages of that progress which will culminate in Funnicular railways and cog-wheels. To ascend the Matterhorn in a steam lift, and all the time remember that brave men have been killed by mere stress of difficulty on its gaunt, ice-bound cliffs, will be to the Cockney and his congeners unmixed delight. When they read of the early mountaineers, of their bivouacs, their nights spent in chalets, their frozen toes, and even of whole parties carried to destruction by a single slip, the halo of danger and suffering will seem to envelop them as they sit in their comfortable railway carriages, and they will feel themselves most doughty warriors.
Perchance even we of the older school should reconstruct our ideals. We are told that in a few centuries the English language will be a mixture of Cockney and bad American, why not also set about evolving a new creed of mountaineering? Abandon the old love of cold nights in the open, of curious meals with the hospitable cur6, of hare-brained scrambles on little known glaciers and traverses of huge unclimbed ridges; and, instead, let us frequent the hotels and churches of Grindelwald and Zermatt, and, in the short intervals between the various functions appropriate to these two classes of building, run up the Jungfrau in a steam lift, or climb the Matterhorn on cog-wheels.
But the thought is too horrible. Let the snowstorm blow the reek of the oil-can from our nostrils, and the thundering avalanche and the roaring tempest drown the puny tinkle of cast-iron bells and the blare of cheap German bands. Let us even cherish a hope that the higher Alps will resist the navvy and the engineer for our time, and that we may still be left to worship peacefully at the great shrines of our fathers. The delights of guideless climbing have, however, led me far from the crags and towers of the Charmoz; they have, I fear, even betrayed me into that greatest of indiscretions, a confession of faith. Prudence suggests, therefore, that I should quit this perilous ground and return to the solid granite of our peak. Till we reached the point where, on our first ascent, we had left our boots, it proved neither more nor less difficult than I had expected; from thence onward it was far easier. Possibly during that expedition the absence of our usual foot-gear impeded, rather than helped, our progress; possibly . the extraordinary diminution of ice in the gully, rendering easy what had previously been most terribly difficult, lowered the impression conveyed by the mountain as a whole; or possibly, and the thought brings balm to the more aged members of the party, the passing years had not been able, so far, to work havoc in either muscle, wind or nerve. But these speculations are absurd; I forget that inspiration was enshrined in our party. Doubtless the presence of two ladies, who had honoured us with their company, endued us with a strength and agility that no mere guides, or even youthful activity, could hope to rival. Our progress to the first summit was, in consequence, a mere series of easily-won victories.
From that point, we strode along the ridge, scaling on the way the curious pinnacle, most irreverently known as Wick's stick, and finally squeezing through a very narrow letter-box to the last summit. When we were ready to descend, we managed to find a more convenient way down the final tower, and reached the head of the great couloir that divides the Grépon from the Charmoz, without difficulty. We descended this with much trepidation, for the stones were loose, and we were a very large party. Happily no one was hit except Pasteur, and he, to all appearances, rather enjoyed it than otherwise.
Our descent of the ice slope to the breakfasting rocks was cheered by the sight of a great array of bottles, lemons, and a huge Dampfschiff, the whole being evidently manipulated with the most consummate skill, and awaiting the arrival of the first ladies who had braved the perils of the Charmoz traverse.
Far on in the evening, the lights of the Montenvers blessed our vision. Jodels and shouts were succeeded by rockets; and, as we descended the rhododendron-covered slopes, we saw the tallest member of the Alpine Club executing a brilliant pas seul on a rickety table, silhouetted against the dazzling glare of red lights and other pyrotechnic displays, A tumultuous welcome greeted our arrival, and protracted festivities concluded the evening.
A letter-box is the name given in the Montenvers district to split rocks. Such rocks are very frequently met with among the Chamonix Aiguilles, and are utilised either horizon-
tally as passages, or perpendicularly, by dint of much wriggling and wedging, as ladders.