Ascent of the Jungfrau in 1841. 329 
too pretty to be delivered up to the fury of the tempests, asked 
permission of me to substitute his pocket handkerchief for it. 
We thus managed by means of a travelling pole of fir, and a 
purple-coloured rag, to manufacture a kind of flag, which 
Jacob went and fixed on the summit we had just left. He 
sunk the pole nearly two feet into the hard snow, so that it 
rose only two feet and a half above the surface. 
It was after four o’clock when we again commenced our 
journey. The difficult moment was about to commence ; the 
ascent had been sufficiently painful ; what must the descent 
be! Iam certain that, in measuring with the eye the im- 
mense declivity we had to pass, the greater part of us would 
have been well pleased to be already at the bottom, The in- 
clination was too great for us to walk in the usual manner ; 
we, therefore, descended backwards. I confess that the first 
few steps gave me some uneasiness; for as Agassiz and I had 
no guides before us to direct our feet, we were obliged to look 
constantly between our legs to find the steps, which made the 
steepness appear much more giddy. But a few moments were 
sufficient for us to recover ourselves ; and such was the regu- 
larity of the steps, that, after a.few hundred paces, we knew 
them by the touch of our legs, and had no need of looking at 
the place where we set our feet. The slope, however, was 
always nearly the same, varying between 40° and 45°, according 
to Mr Forbes’s repeated measurements, that is to say, nearly 
equal to that of the roofs of our Gothic cathedrals. There 
was even one place where it must have been near 47°. In spite 
of this excessive steepness, we did not take more than an 
hour to reach the Col de Rottthal, for it was about five o’clock 
when we arrived there. We crossed without the least incon- 
venience the crevice near which the sinking of the surface 
took place which I have mentioned above, as well as the great 
fissure. We had now surmounted near all the dangers, and 
had only some platforms of snow to descend, in order to re- 
join M. de Pury and the two guides who awaited us at the Re- 
pose. So much assurance had we gained in this descent, that 
we ran rather than walked, no longer paying any regard to 
fissures, although they were perhaps more treacherous than 
in the morning, for the sun had softened the snow during the 
