AN ASCENT OF THE MATTERHORN. 243 
the rope, my gloves would not cling to it. I felt 
myself slowly sliding downward. It was not a 
pleasant sensation. I thought that I should prob- 
ably stop on reaching the knot on the end of the 
rope; but I mzghzt go too fast, and, jerking John 
the Baptist from his narrow perch, we would form 
the nucleus of a small avalanche moving towards 
Zermatt. But I stopped, and taking off my gloves 
I tried it again, —this time with better success. 
At last, after a long and toilsome scramble we all 
reached the upper hut, where we lay down on the 
hay for a little rest and another round of tough 
bread, sour wine, and chocolate. This hut I shall 
have occasion to describe farther on. 
As we went on, clouds had begun to gather 
about us, and after a little the wind rose and it 
began to snow. We lost sight of the earth alto- 
gether, and everything below us became a bottom- 
less abyss. Soon we came to the narrow ridge 
on the shoulder of the Matterhorn where for a 
short distance the northeast angle of the mountain 
which we were ascending is no wider than the 
back of a very lean horse. It is too narrow for one 
to stand on or even to sit on with comfort. On 
either side as we crawled along we could look 
downward seemingly to the very bottom of things. 
Above this point the first climbers fell from the 
mountain. I asked John about it, but he would 
not talk. ‘1 was not here then,” he said. 
After this we came around to the eastern face 
again. Here we could see the summit, some five 
hundred feet above us,—a ragged wall of rock, 
steeper than any slope we had yet ascended and its 
