56o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



which took a traveler only to the foot of the lower valleys. Although 

 De Saussure, the Swiss pioneer, had done his work on Mont Blanc as 

 early as 1787, he had had so few successors that he seemed almost a 

 contemporary. Professional guides were few, not especially experi- 

 enced or adventurous when new territory was contemplated, so that we 

 must not be astonished to find that Whymper, Tyndall, Forbes, Ken- 

 nedy, Sir Alfred Wills, Sir Leslie Stephen sometimes dispensed with 

 guides or used them more as porters or servants than as advisers. 



It was the heroic age of Alpinism. The vast flood of development 

 and facilitation — vulgarization, let us say — did not come until the 

 seventies or eighties. Almost every ascent was a geographical achieve- 

 ment, accomplished by the bitterest toil. The early sixties were a 

 school in which were educated some of the great climbers and explorers 

 of the nineteenth century. 



Having learned his first lesson on the Pelvoux, Whymper dallied 

 for no further lessons, but attacked the Matterhorn at once, in his 

 vacation of 1861. The Matterhorn was then the last great Alpine 

 peak that remained unsealed; less on account of the difficulty of the 

 feat than by the doubt inspired by the invincible appearance of the 

 mountain. It was regarded with terror by the climbers and with 

 affrighted superstition by the natives. Even to-day it is dreadfully 

 impressive to the casual tourist ; it never seems commonplace and stands 

 almost alone among mountains. It still has no rivals in the Alps for 

 difficulty, and but few in the world. 



To-day it is curious to read of Whymper's fruitless searchings here 

 and there to find guides for the Matterhorn. There was apparently 

 only one man in the Swiss valleys who believed that the mountain 

 could be ascended, and that was Jean-Antoine Carrel, destined later to 

 become the most famous of guides. With him Whymper made his first 

 attack upon the peak, in August, 1861. One other guide, J.-J. Carrel, 

 accompanied them. They failed, but learned valuable lessons. Similar 

 attempts were made in 1862 and 1863 without success, but all the time 

 Whymper was making marvelous progress as a scientific mountaineer. 



Whymper's impatience with his guides led him in 1862 to make 

 another attempt on the mountain alone. Many of us read in our first 

 readers the story of his solitary scramble on the Col du Lion, termi- 

 nating in a terrific fall down an ice slope. Here he was saved only by 

 a hair from a fall on to the Glacier du Lion, a thousand feet below. 

 This early experience seems to have been a valuable one for him. 



In 1864 Whymper turned aside from the Matterhorn to make what 

 seems to the writer one of his chief feats — the ascent of the Pointe des 

 Ecrins. This is the highest of the French Alps, and in 1864 was still 

 unconquered. It is an exceedingly steep and smooth tooth of rock. 



