As
we were not pushed for time or money, and were on a scientific
expedition instead of what is called a pleasure trip, it was less our
object to scour large tracts of country than to stroll leisurely through
the district, making observations by the way. Travelling, therefore, both with the same object, and not obliged to
hurry onward, we had nothing to try our tempers, as ordinary tourists
have, who travel in company and usually fall out with each other by the
way because one with short wind can't keep up with his longer-winded
companion. Nothing, perhaps, is more trying to the temper than being obliged to
keep pace with a well-trained mountaineer if you yourself happen to be
out of training. To see him striding on ahead with the most perfect ease
and enjoyment, whilst you are toiling and sweating, and puffing and
gasping in the rear, parched with thirst and ready to drop with fatigue;
perhaps knee deep in snow, plunging about like a porpoise, in the
frantic attempt to keep up with your well-trained companion. Why, the treadmill is a joke to it! How you curse your folly for coming
to visit such barbarous places, and how you internally vow never to
leave home again. How inconsiderate of your companion to leave you so
far behind, as if you did not belong to his party. He seems to ignore
you, and you feel the slight. He ought to keep pace with you, not you
with him, you think. How you hate him for his rude health and long wind; and should he so far
forget himself as to add insult to injury by bawling after you to "come
on," and not "lag behind;" or call you by some such name as "slow
coach," "stick-in-the-mud," or other choice epithet, oh, then it is not
to be borne. Your ire is raised beyond due bounds. You could stab him
if you only had him near enough, and a weapon handy. If any of my friends who content themselves with taking their daily walk
of a mile or so on level ground fancy that this is an exaggeration of
the state of a man's feelings when the body is tired out and the nerves
on the stretch, I recommend him to try a trip in some mountainous
district when out of training, and to choose as companion some
well-trained son of the mountains. As I observed before, gentlemen, my friend and I were not wont to fall
out in this way with one another, and we took our journey very easily,
chipping out a fossil here and a crystal there, conversing the while on
secondary and tertiary formations, volcanic eruptions, alluvial
deposits, debris, quartz, and marl, mica, slate, talc, calc, etc., etc. Thus we journeyed on together day after day for weeks, until we found
that the face of the country changed suddenly. Two mountain ranges
branched off almost at right angles from one another. My friend and I resolved to separate, and each to explore in a different
direction, and to meet again in about a fortnight. We accordingly parted, and I commenced exploring a wild track of
mountainous country alone. Charmed with the wild beauty of the scene, as
well as interested in its geological structure, I suffered my footsteps
to lead me onward until hunger stole upon me. I had eaten nothing since
the morning, and it was now getting late. One day at home without food
is bad enough, but it is not to be compared with a day spent in the
mountains, walking and climbing all the time. I looked out for a châlet, but there was none visible. Meanwhile it grew
dark, and I found myself benighted. There was not even a shed to rest
under, so I was obliged to repose my weary limbs upon the cold, damp,
rock, with such shelter from the night air as the dark pine trees
afforded. It was a strange, wild, scene the spot where I encamped. The
spectre-like pines stretched forth their weird branches, drooping with
bearded moss, like phantom Druids invoking a curse over this scene of
desolation. The moon, peeping fitfully through the black clouds, lit up
the glaciers on the mountain opposite. Here and there was a great pine
torn up by the roots, or over-hanging the abyss below. Immense clumps of
rock, grown over with dank moss, were interspersed through the dark pine
forest. A small stream trickled over the large stones, pursuing its
zig-zag course till it reached the valley below. The howling of the wind and the occasional thunder of the avalanche from
some neighbouring mountain lent a kind of terror to the scene, which I
should have enjoyed, had I been in a more comfortable frame of mind. But, with the gnawing pains of hunger and the horrible feeling of doubt
as to whether I should ever meet with any traces of civilisation where I
might recruit my wasted energies, the beauty of the spot was shut from
me, and I found it only a cold, damp, disagreeable retreat. It was yet early in the night when I took up my quarters here, but it
was dark and cloudy, and I put up at this place, despairing of finding a
more hospitable lodging, on account of the darkness, besides which I was
tired out. I had reposed in my uncomfortable quarters for, it might be,
two or three hours, though without sleeping, when the clouds began to
disperse and the sky was calm and serene, the moon bright and clear, so
I thought I would leave my camping place and venture a little further,
in the vague hope of finding some hospitable châlet where I might obtain
fire and food. I was now considerably rested from my fatigue, but the pangs of hunger
grew ever more intense. I wandered on and on, till the pines grew less
thick, and a wide extended view opened before me, when I fancied that I
descried afar off in the valley a light. My heart began to revive. As I
strode onward I saw below me a small lake, over which frowned dark
toppling crags. The moon shone brightly over all. Still keeping the distant châlet in sight, I could think of little else
than the meal which would await me on my arrival; but while glancing
casually over the lake illumined by the moonbeams, and the cliff that
overhung it, my eye was suddenly arrested by an object, apparently a
human being, clambering up a height that I should have imagined
inaccessible to any mortal man. It literally overhung the lake. At first I thought my eyes deceived me, but as I looked I was more and
more convinced that it was a human being performing this feat. I had
heard much of the daring of the Swiss mountaineers, but this beat
anything I ever heard of, for the cliff, besides over-hanging, was
comparatively smooth, being of slate, and there appeared nothing to hold
on by. "Could it really be a human being?" I asked myself. If so, it was so
hideously misshapen as hardly to deserve the title. In spite of my
hunger, I panted awhile in breathless anxiety to observe the course of
this creature. "Surely some madman," thought I, "tired of his life." Every moment I expected to see his foot slip and to hear a splash in the
lake below; but no, the being, whatever it was, crawled steadily upwards
like a huge spider, till it gained the summit of the cliff. I then lost
sight of it.