MONTE ROSA 275 



always at hand, and he showed no fear and no regret at having joined 

 our adventure. But when he found himself surrounded by the glaciers 

 of Mont Cervin, and saw the mules wallow to their girths in the snow, 

 in which he himself sank to his knees, and that on the brink of crevasses 

 which he believed ready to engulf him, he was seized with intense 

 terror ; he wept, he made vows to all the saints in Paradise, and 

 although he did us the justice to admit that it was he who had begged 

 to be allowed to accompany us, and that he had only his own folly to 

 blame, he poured out the most bitter regrets at having ever embarked 

 on such an enterprise. As the crossing of the glacier took us hours, 

 the time seemed long to him, but he got over safely, and when he 

 reached the tongue of rock on which we were going to camp, he became 

 so wild with joy that it took him some time before he recovered him- 

 self enough to be able to assist the guides to finish their hut and level 

 the ground for our tent.' [Voyages, 2239.] 1 



The first day on the St. Theodule (10,900 feet) was spent in 

 measuring a base on the snowfield on the Zermatt side with a chain 

 on the model of that brought by Sir George Shuckburgh from 

 England to measure Mont Blanc in 1775. De Saussure obtained 

 for the Matterhorn a height 2309-75 toises, or 14,766 feet . 2 This, 

 he believed, entitled it to rank third among Alpine summits. He 

 took no count of its neighbours, the Lyskamm, the Dom, and the 

 Weisshorn. He probably considered them all as part of Monte 

 Rosa. He observed from a distance the structure of the gigantic 

 pyramid and recognised the main features of its geological 

 formation. 



This task accomplished, the prospect of an easy climb led the 

 travellers to start for the Breithorn, but on the way their courage 

 or their powers failed them, and they turned aside from the long 

 and somewhat crevassed snow-slopes and contented themselves 

 with the Little Mont Cervin (the Cime Brune du Breithorn, de 

 Saussure calls it), an easy two and a half hours from the pass. 

 On the ascent they remarked the number of dead insects and 

 butterflies on the snow, and ingeniously calculated that in a 

 square of 2000 toises there would be 72 millions ! This summit 

 (12,750 feet) was, next to Mont Blanc, by far the highest in the 

 Alps reached by de Saussure. 



On the third day of their sojourn on the pass the crags of the 



1 This section is wrongly numbered. I give the correct one. 

 8 Federal Survey, 14,705 feet. 



