AN ASCENT OF THE MA TTERHORN 20/ 



announced that breakfast was ready. We rose In a 

 hurry, ate everything on the table, — our invariable 

 custom in Switzerland, — and by half-past one our 

 alpenstocks were rattling loudly on the stone pave- 

 ments of the narrow streets of Zermatt Our five 

 guides were ready, each laden with ropes, ice-axe, 

 and provisions, and we were on the road up the 

 mountain. 



Let me say a word about the guides. Most of 

 the able-bodied men in the Swiss valleys are in the 

 summer guides or porters in the mountains. The 

 average guide is a rather heavy, slow-spoken fellow, 

 who buys a good deal of food for you and eats it 

 himself, who drinks great quantities of villanous 

 sour red wine at your expense, hauls you around 

 like a bundle of meal, and finally, as he leaves 

 you, waxes eloquent on the subject of Trmkgeld. 

 But there are guides and guides, and some of them 

 are men of force and intelligence, who have, and 

 who deserve to have, a wide reputation. Among 

 those, known all over Europe for strength and 

 courage, was Michel Croz of Chamouny, who fell 

 from the Matterhorn in 1865. Among those des- 

 tined to be thus known is the young man whom 

 we fortunately selected as our chief guide, — Jean 

 Baptiste Aymonod of Val Tournanche. 

 ^ ** John the Baptist," as we called him, is a very 

 robust and muscular young man of medium height, 

 with a smooth face, light hair, gentle, blue eyes, and 

 a firm, expressive mouth. He is soft-voiced and 

 slow-spoken, — as are most of the Swiss guides, — 

 and he is endowed with a graciousness of manner 

 and purity of speech hardly to be looked for in a 



