ALPINE PASS TRAGEDY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 425, 17 November 1930, Page 2

ALPINE PASS TRAGEDY

MOTHER AND CHILD STORY. The Theodul is not the only Alpine pass frequented b.v unauthorised Italian emigrants, says an English exchange. From time to time the Italian Customs ofiieers and frontier guards lighten up their precautions, ami thus drive the would-be, emigrants still higher up. Zermatt guides report a number of stories of the terrible exertions and hardships of these trespassers, the most recent of which is told in a Swiss newspaper. Four tourists coming down from the Castor observed a party of three on the Zwillingpass, between Castor and Pollux, at an altitude of 12,000 feet above sea level, a region where generally only the most daring ami experienced of mountaineers are met. On coining nearer the tourists were greatly astonished to discover that one of the three was a young Italian woman in a dross reaching right down to her feet, with light ami inadequate footwear, and with an eight-months-old baby in her arms. She was sheltering in a little hollow from the icy wind, waiting till her companions could how footholds in a. sheer icebank, dropping down nearly 29(1 feet. She intended to follow her husband, who is working in France. The tourists, seeing that the baby would die under the prolonged exposure to the cold, and that it would take hours to hew the footholds, bound their ropes together and let the whole party down the bank. ’There was then the wild labyrinth of the Zwillings Glacier to be passed, another difficult achievement even for well-cqutppcd mountaineers, but the woman bore all these hardships with bravery and calmness. The party reached Zermatt in safety. The casual advent of the four tourists very probably saved the parly from destruction. The Zermatt guides say they are eon-

vinccd that the glaciers betw-cen the AVallis ami Italy witness many tragedies in these days, some of which will probably never be heard of.