THE MATTERHORN.*
MOUNTAINEERS have long been familiar with the Italian original of Guido Rey's great monograph on the Matterhorn, and it was a happy thought to present it in an English version. For it is very nearly the best book on mountaineering ever written. It has only three rivals in our opinion,—Leslie Stephen's Playground of Europe, Whymper's Scrambles among the Alps, and Mummery's Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus. We should put it second to the first, which is a work of genius, but it is certainly on a level with the others. Signor Rey tells of the same great feats of climbing as Whymper and Mummery; but the Italian is the most imaginative writer of the three, as ho is by far the most literary, and his work has more of the poet. in it. Mr. Whymper impresses us deeply by his tenacity and courage in the face of all discouragements, Mr. Mummery by a certain god-like calm which makes his tale of the Grepon and the Col du Lion traverse read like the modest talk of one to • The lifatterhorn. Iiy Guido Roy. Translated from the Italian by J. E. O. Eaton. London : T. Fisher Unwin. [21a. net-1
whom dangers and difficulties meant very little. Signor Rey, on the other band, is primarily a poet. His book, as Edmondo de Amicis says in his preface, is "the spontaneous product of a great passion and of long experience." The great mountain fascinates him and dominates all his thoughts.
In an earlier age he would have bad a hermit's cell somewhere near the Jomein ; earlier still, and be might have been the high priest of a wild Nature-worship. The Matterhorn is transfigured in his eyes till it becomes the symbol of all clean and pure ambition, the type of Nature in her most austere and pitiless mood challenging the courage of man.
Hence his writing is in a high degree dithyrambic and impassioned. The national self-consciousness would perhaps have prevented any Northerner from writing the book ; but that is only the Northerner's loss. For Signor Rey never strikes a false note,—his passion is too serious for that. In words as eloquent as Mr. Ruskin's, he writes of dawn and sunset on the mountains ; but there is a charming simplicity and a constant humour in it all. To quote the preface again, " the voice that tells such mighty things is ever modest and gentle." But what especially attracts is that this is no ordinary man of letters making phrases about a hill. He is a climber of the first rank, and two of his own feats— the traverse of the Matterhorn from Zermatt to Breuil in a storm, and the first conquest of the Furggen Ridge—must be classed among the great deeds of mountaineering.
The first part of the book is occupied with the drama of the struggle for supremacy in which the protagonists are this vast and impassive mountain and a handful of English climbers and Italian guides. What a tale it is to tell Signor Rey begins by describing the old life of the Valtour- nanche, from which a way ran over the Theodul Pass to Zermatt. Many who passed that road wondered at the terrific pyramid of rock which rose to the west of the pass, but no one dreamed that it would be ascended by any mortal, even after some of the other great peaks of the Alps had fallen. Bit by bit we see the lines beginning to close round the old enemy. The first attempt seems to have been made from the Italian side by the two Carrels and a young theological student, but they got no further than the Col Tournanche. Then came Englishmen—Vaughan Hawkins, Professor Tyndall, and Whymper—and from the Italian side men like Quintino Sella and Giordano began to make plans of attack. At first it looked as if victory would fall to Tyndall ; but after reaching what is now called the Pic Tyndall, he gave it .up in despair and went elsewhere to climb. Presently it became a struggle between Whymper and Jean-Antoine Carrel, a guide who had fought in the Italian War of Liberation, and who still stands unique in the history of his class for his untiring and passionate devotion to a single enterprise. Every one knows the sequel,—how in July, 1865, Carrel set out on his final attempt on the Italian side, while Whymper with a large party went by the hitherto untried north-east ridge. Whymper won, but his victory cost him dear, for on the descent occurred the most tragic of all Alpine accidents. A few days later Carrel made the first ascent from Italy, an ascent which, so far as climbing goes, was the finer performance. Signor Rey, as a patriotic Italian, makes a hero of Carrel, who well deserved it; but he is also most just to the English climbers, and notably to Whymper. Indeed, there is a passage on that great mountaineer in which he is elevated to a height of romance which few men attain in the writings of their contemporaries.
For the rest, Signor Rey tells us all there is to know about the history of the mountain, and devotes to every one of its many aspects a wealth of charming word-painting and eloquent moralising. He is assisted by some of the most beautiful photographs and mountain-drawings which it has been our privilege to see. One of the wonders of the Matter- horn is the amazing way in which it changes its form. It is difficult at first to realise that the mass of precipices heaped on each other as seen from Breuil is the same mountain as the delicate pyramid seen over the snows of the Theodul, or the famous "rearing horse" with its knife arete which you
see from Zermatt, or the odd top-heavy obelisk of Zmutt. He describes with lingering affection his first view of the Matterhorn, and his gradual initiation into its mysteries. His earliest great adventure was the ascent from Zmutt, which was first achieved by Mummery. Through linger-
ing too long on the way they did not reach the top till Brother& vos. ed. net.] six in the evening. It was a day in late September, and a storm was coining on. They descended to the Italian cabane in three hours in black darkness,—a record in time and a record in risk, as any one who knows the last part of the Breuil ridge will admit. But Signor Rey's great achievement was the final conquest of the Furggen arete. From the pass
the mountain seems to leap up in three tremendous cliffs, and we do not wonder that it was long considered impossible.
Mr. Mummery tried it, as be tried all things, and found the last cliff unscaleable, as indeed it is. The incredibly dangerous traverse which he made to the Zermatt ridge in a shower of stones may be read in his famous book. A malicious imp put the idea of an attempt into Signor Rey's
head, and he got no peace till be had tried it. He took every precaution. Knowing the final cliff to be unclimbable by ordinary methods, be arranged for guides to go up by the
Swiss route and lower a rope over the worst part. He waited till the weather was perfect, and then made the attempt.
The ascent of that last cliff, even with the aid of a hanging rope, seems to be one of the most difficult things in the Alps, He reached the top only to find a sheer cliff of about thirty feet between him and the upper guides, and his arms being weak with the long climb, he could not manage it.
He had to return by the appalling road he had come, with victory almost within his grasp. A few days later he came back, and had himself lowered from the top over the cliff, thereby completing the ridge. No doubt it was scarcely an orthodox ascent, but we defy any one to read the tale without a quickening of the blood. All mountaineers will sympathise with Signor Rey's modest disclaimer of all merit. "I felt that I bad taken the ancient Matterhorn by surprise, and that such warfare as this was not honourable; that a Cato among mountaineers would approve the cause of the vanquished, not that of the victor." And they will appreciate, too, the beauty of the closing chapter, when the author, sitting among his guides at the inn and joining in their songs, catches the true poetry of the contrast between the hearth and the savage out- world of Nature.
Mr. Eaton's English well renders Signor Rey's graceful Italian. We would conclude with a quotation which is typical of the whole attitude of the author :— " I too shall return in my old age to the foot of the Matterhorn. I shall struggle up step by step, leaning on my now useless axe, to those dear haunts, seeking comfort in the contemplation of the familiar peaks. I shall enjoy the final pleasure of Alpine life, the cool spring that quenches thirst, the refreshing cup of warm milk, the colour of a little flower, a breath of the wholesome odour of pines wafted up by the wind from the neighbouring forest, the silvery sound of bells which rises in the evening from the peaceful pastures. On the way I shall find my old guides, once my com- panions in the happy days of strenuous effort, and I shall stop to talk with them, and to recall old memories. Seated on the hotel terrace in the pleasant mountain sunshine I shall look out down the valley, over the long basin of the Breuil, for the arrival of parties of climbers. Young men will appear, full of courage and hope. Perhaps Fasano, the faithful waiter at the Jomein, will point me out to them and say: That gentleman over there was a great climber in his day ; he has passed many a night up on the mountain here.' The young' men will look at me incredulously, while I shall straighten my bent back, at the promptings of the last shreds of vanity."
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