AN ASCENT OF THE MATTERHORN 205 



Europe does. Shut your eyes for a moment, you 

 who have been at Zermatt, and straight before you 

 and above you, its long hand clutching at the sky, 

 you will see the Matterhorn ! It is not the highest 

 mountain of the Alps. Its gigantic neighbors — 

 Monte Rosa, the Mischabelhorn, the Weisshorn, as 

 well as Mont Blanc — are all higher, — a little ; but 

 no other mountain in the world makes such use of 

 its height as the Matterhorn. Other high moun- 

 tains have great rounded heads, white with the 

 snows of eternity. Their harsher angles are worn 

 away by the long action of the glaciers. But the 

 Matterhorn is a creature of the sun and frost. 

 No glacier has worn its angles into curves. Its 

 slopes are too steep for snow to cling to, and all 

 the snow which winter or summer falls upon it 

 rolls down its sides and lies in three great ice- 

 heaps at the bottom. These are the Furggen 

 glacier, the Matterhorn glacier, and the glacier of 

 Tiefenmatten. 



We had wandered about Zermatt for a day or 

 two, seeing the sights in the usual way, and all the 

 while the Matterhorn hung above our heads and 

 dared us to come. At last we could stand it no 

 longer; and one evening when the ''stalwarts" 

 were gathered together on the stone-wall in front 

 of the Hotel Monte Rosa, Gilbert said unto Beach, 

 ♦* We must do something big before we leave this 

 place. Let us go up the Matterhorn ! " And 

 Beach said, '' We must indeed. I will go if Jordan 

 will." 



But Jordan felt doubtful. He knew that a moun- 

 tain which eclipsed the full moon would be a hard 



