490 OLD ALPINE JOTTINGS. 



ing placed us upon the crest of the mountain. Thus 

 ended an eight years' war between myself and the Mat- 

 terhorn. 



The day thus far had swung through alternations of 

 fog and sunshine. While we were on the ridge below 

 the air at times was blank and chill with mist; then 

 with rapid solution the cloud would vanish, and open up 

 the abysses right and left of us. On our attaining the 

 summit a fog from Italy rolled over us, and for some 

 minutes we were clasped by a cold and clammy atmo- 

 sphere. But this passed rapidly away, leaving above us 

 a blue heaven and far below us the sunny meadows 

 of Zermatt. The mountains were almost wholly un- 

 clouded, and such clouds as lingered amongst them only 

 added to their magnificence. The Dent d'Erin, the 

 Dent Blanche, the Gabelhorn, the Mischabel, the range 

 of heights between it and Monte Rosa, the Lyskamm, 

 and the Breithorn were all at hand, and clear; while 

 the Weisshorn, noblest and most beautiful of all, shook 

 out towards the north, a banner formed by the humid 

 southern air as it grazed the crest of the mountain. 



The world of peaks and glaciers surrounding this 

 immediate circle of giants was also open to us to the 

 horizon. Our glance over it was brief, and our enjoy- 

 ment of it intense. It was eleven o'clock, and the 

 work before us soon claimed all our attention. I found 

 the debris of my former expedition everywhere below, 

 the fragments of my tents, and on the top a piece of my 

 ladder fixed in the snow as a flagstaff. The summit of 

 the Matterhorn is a sharp horizontal arete, and along 

 this we now moved eastward. On our left was the roof- 

 like slope of snow seen from the Eiffel and Zermatt, on 

 our right were the savage precipices which fall into 

 Italy. Looking to the farther end of the ridge the snow 

 there seemed to have been trodden down, and I drew my 



