OLD ALPINE JOTTINGS. 485 



attempt upon the precipice* It looks very bad, but 

 no climber with his blood warm would pronounce it 

 without trial insuperable. Fears of this rock-wall, 

 however, had been excited long before we reached it. 

 At three several places upon the arete I had to signalise 

 points in advance, and to ask my companions in French 

 (which Bennen alone did not understand) whether they 

 thought these points could be reached without peril. 

 Thus bit by bit we moved along the ridge to its end, 

 where farther advance was declared to be impossible. 

 It was probably the addition of the psychical ele- 

 ment to the physical, the reluctance to encounter new 

 dangers on a mountain which had hitherto inspired a 

 superstitious fear, that quelled further exertion. 



To assure myself of the correctness of what is here 

 stated I have turned to my notes of 1862. The re- 

 perusal of them has interested me, and a portion of 

 them may possibly interest some of my readers. Here 

 then they are, rapidly thrown together. They em- 

 brace our passage from the crags adjacent to the Col 

 du Lion to the point where we were compelled to 

 retreat. 



< We had gathered up our things and bent to the 

 work before us, when suddenly an explosion occurred 

 overhead. Looking aloft, in mid-air was seen a solid 

 shot from the Matterhorn describing its proper parabola 

 through the air. It split to pieces as it hit one of the 

 rock-towers, and its fragments came down in a kind of 

 spray, which fell wide of us, but was still near enough 

 to compel a sharp look-out. Two or three such explo- 

 sions occurred afterwards, but we crept along the back 

 fin of the mountain from which the falling boulders 

 were speedily deflected right and left. Before the set 

 of sun we reached our place of bivouac. A tent was 

 already there. Its owner had finished a prolonged 



