LIFE IN THE ALPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1933, 7 December 1888, Page 31

LIFE IN THE ALPS.

Professor Tyndall contributes the following to Youth's Companion: — Leaving England in July, and returning in October, I spend three months of every year among the 'Swiss mountains, Jwhere I now write. Various and striking are the aspects of nature witnessed during these long visits. Sunshine from unclouded skies, dense fog, mountain mist, furious rain and hail, and snow so deep that, were not my wife and I such thorough children of the hills, and so well acquainted with their ways, we should sometimes fear imprisonment in our highland home. The region where we dwell was chosen by Mrs Tyndall and myself on account of its surpassing beauty and grandeur. I first made its acquaintance 20 years ago. The ancient name of the alp on which we have built our our nest is Lusgen Alp, and this is the name we have given to our cottage. I have called it a chalet, but it is by no means one of the wooden edifices to which this term is usually applied. It has to bear a ' at times the pressure of a mighty mass of snow. The walls are therefore built of stone, and are very thick.

THE KITCHEN CHIMNEY.

I could give you many illnstrations of the breakages produced by snow pressure, but one will suffice. Our kitchen chimney rises from the roof near the cave, and the pressure of the snow lying on the roof above it was once so great as to shear away the chimney and land it bodily upon the snowdrift underneath. When we arrive early, we usually find, here and there, heavy residues of snow. Once indeed, to obtain entrance to our kitchen, we had to cut a staircase of six steps in the drift at the back of the house. As I write, a rush, followed by a heavy thud outside, informs me that a mass of snow h«»s shot from the southern slope of our reof down upon our terrace. This reminds me to tell you something about the avalanches

which are such frequent destroyers.of life in the Alps. Whole villages, imprudently Bituated, are from time to time overwhelmed^ We had an eye to this danger when we ohose the terrace on which our cottage is built.

11 WE ARE ALL LOST ! " '

Climbers and their guides are not unfre* quently carried away by avalanches, and many a brave man lies ' at the present moment undiscovered in their debris. Some years ago a famous guide, and favourite companion of mine, was lost through his allowing himself to be persuaded to attempt a mountain which he considered unsafe. On the slope of this mountain, with the summit fully in view, a report resembling a pistol shot was heard by the party. It was the cracking of the snow. My friend observed the crack and saw it widen. Tossing his arms in the air he exclaimed : "We are all lost 1" The fatal ruish followed in a moment, and my noble guide, with a Russian gentleman to whom he was roped, were dug— dead — out of the snow some days afterwards. The other members of the party escaped. ONE THOUSAND FEET DOWN THE SLOPE OF

DEATH.

I will now describe to you an adventure of my own with one of these avalanohes. Five of us, tied together by a rope, weie descending a steep slope of ice covered by a layer of snow, which is always a position of danger. Through inadvertence the snow was detached — an avalanche was formed, — and on it all five of us were carried down at a furious pace. We were shot over crevasses and violently tossed about by the inequalities of the surface. The length of the slope down which we rushed in this fashion was about 1000 ft. It waa a very grave accident, and within a hair's breadth of being a very calamitous one. A small gold watch which I then carried was jerked out of my pocket and when we stopped I found a fragment of the watch chain hanging around my neck.

A SEARCH FOR THE WATCH.

I made an excursion into Italy, returned after an absence of nearly three weeks, and, half jestingly, organised a party to go in search of the watch. The proverbial needle in a bundle of straw seemed hardly more hopeless as an object of discovery ; still I thought it possible that the snow which covered my watch might, during my absence, have melted away, and the watch thereby brought to the surface. An absence of some hours brought us to the scene of our impetuous glissade, and soon afterwards, to our surprise and delight, the watch was found on the surface of the snow. Its case must have fitted water-tight, for on being wound up it began to tick immediately. It is now in the- possession of my godson. Falling stones constitute another serious and frequently fatal danger in the Alps. And here the goats which roam about the upper slopes and gullies play a mischievous part.

THE VALUE OP 'THE ROPE.

Slipping in perilous places is the most fruitful cause of alpine disaster. It is usual for climbers to rope themselves together, and the English Alpine Club has taken every pains to produce ropes of the soundest material and the best workmanship. The rope is tied around the waist, or is fastened to a belt clasping the waist of each climber. The rope is an indispensable accompaniment of alpine climbing, and no competent mountaineer will recommend its abandonment. Prudence, however, is necessary in the use of it. The men tied together ought to be few in number. A party of three or four, including the guide or guides, is in my opinion large enough. In a numerous party there is a temptation to distribute responsibility, each individual tending to rely too much upon the others ; while in a small party the mind of each man is more concentrated on the precautions necessary for safety.

SIX CLIMBERS MET THEIR DOOM.

Besides this we have the terrible enhancement of the calamity, when the slipping of a single individual carries a number of others to destruction. It was a slip— by whom we know not — that caused the disaster on the Matterhorn which so profoundly stirred the public mind some years ago.^ On that occasion one of the foremost guides of tha Alps and one of the best gentleman climbers lost their lives, in company with two younger colleagues. The fearful disaster on the Jungfrau last year was doubtless due to the same cause. Six strong climbers, all natives of Switzerland, succeeded, without guides, in scaling the mountain from the northern side. From the summit they attempted to descend the southern slope, the danger of which varies with the condition of the snow or ice. I had frequently wondered that no accident had ever occurred here, for, to an experienced eye, the possibility of fatal accident was plain enough. On this slope the climbers met their doom. They were roped together, and probably only one of them slipped; but his slip involved the destruction of them all. A few weeks after its occurrence I inspected the scene of the disaster, saw the rocks down which the men had fallen, and the snowfield on which their bodies were found. " THE SCENE IS INCOMPARABLY GRAND."

On the fine morning when these lines are written we find ourselves surrounded everywhere by glittering snow. The river glacier and its flanking mountains are dazzling in their whiteness. This morning I opened the glass door of our little sitting room, which faces' south, and stepped out upon our terrace. The scene was unspeakably grand. To the right rose the peak of the Weisshorn, the most perfect embodiment of alpine majesty, purity, and grace. Next came the noble Mischabelhorner, surmounted by " the Dom." Right opposite rose the Fletschorn, a rugged, honest-looking mass of true mountain mould; while to the left of Napoleon's road over the Simplon Pass stretched the snow ridge of the Monte Leone, which no doubt derives its name from the resemblance to a conchant lion. Soft, gleaming clouds wrapped themselves at times grandly round the mountains, revealing and concealing, as they shifted, melted, or were recreated, tha snow-capped peaks.

SIGNS OF THE WEATHER.

About 1600 ft below us the white covering came to an end, while, beyond this, sunny green pastures descended to the galley of the Rhone. From the chimney of onr cottage a light wind carried the smoke in a south-westerly direction ; the clouds just referred to being, therefore, to leeward, and not in " the wind's eye," did not portend bad weather. To the north the peaks grouped themselves round the massive Aletschhorn,

the second in height among these Oberland mountains. Over the Aletschhorn the' sky was clear, which is one of the surest signs of fine weather. On a morsing as fair >nd exhilarating as the present one, but earlier in the year, Mrs Tyndall and I, from the top of the Aletschhorn— a height of U.OOOft— once looked down upon the summit of the Jangfrau.