Mountain Journeys 115 



I shall end the review of the principal ascents of Mont Blanc 

 with that of M. Albert Tissandier; 1M it is particularly interesting 

 because its author, being an aeronaut, could compare his sensa- 

 tions with those he felt in a balloon; he had no uncomfortable 

 sensations: 



At the height of 4400 meters, respiration began to be somewhat 

 painful and panting, but I endured the effect of the rarefaction of the 

 air without very much trouble. My two guides looked at me at that 

 time, and told me that often, at that altitude, travellers have a 

 peculiar color; sometimes their vision grows dim and their strength 

 fails; then they have to be hoisted up with great difficulty or else 

 descend, depending upon the energy the traveller possesses. 



I should have been very sorry to be obliged to descend. In a 

 balloon I have reached altitudes almost equal to that of Mont Blanc 

 without being inconvenienced; but a mountain ascent, slow and 

 painful, is not at all like the ascent one makes so quickly and easily 

 in the basket of a balloon. 



The ascent of Mont Blanc, so much feared before the daring 

 attempt of Jacques Balmat, and which the sufferings of De Saussure 

 and then the accident of Dr. Hamel had invested with a terrifying 

 renown, has in our time become frequent, almost common. In 1873, 

 sixty travellers ascended to the summit of the giant of the Alps, 

 among them seven women and a lad of fourteen, the youngest 

 who has ever made the ascent, named Horace de Saussure. Since 

 the time of the illustrious ancestor of this brave lad, I have 

 counted on the list still incomplete given by M. Besangon, 1 "' 2 which 

 goes to the end of 1873, 828 ascents, 27 of which were made by 

 women. The last, made by an Englishwoman, Mrs. Straton, shows 

 remarkable courage; it took place January 31, 1876; on the summit 

 the lady found a temperature of —24 degrees. But the large majority 

 of these expeditions offer no scientific interest; they are mere 

 tourist excursions, often managed very imprudently. Mont Blanc, 

 of which the professional "mountaineers" speak with a certain 

 disdain, seems to avenge itself; there have been more serious acci- 

 dents upon it than in all the rest of the Alps. One of these disasters, 

 the most terrible of all, perhaps has some relation to our subject. 

 September 6, 1870, nine guides and three travellers reached the 

 summit of Mont Blanc; they could not get down, and died the next 

 day in the snow. In the pocket of one of them, M. Beau, 1 " 3 was 

 found a paper giving an account of their sufferings: 



We passed the night in a cavern dug in the snow, a very uncom- 

 fortable shelter; I was sick all night. 



