no time to make another attempt, for I was due in a few days more in London. When this came home clearly to me, I resolved to leave Breil at once, but, when packing up, found that some necessaries had been left behind in the tent. So I went off about midday to recover them; caught the army of the Professor before it reached the Col, as they were going very slowly; left them there (stopping to take food), and went on to the tent. I was near to it when all at once I heard a noise aloft, and, on looking up, perceived a stone of at least a foot cube flying straight at my head. I ducked, and scrambled under the lee side of a friendly rock, while the stone went by with a loud buzz. It was the advanced guard of a perfect storm of stones, which descended with infernal clatter down the very edge of the ridge, leaving a trail of dust behind, with a strong smell of sulphur, that told who had sent them. The men below were on the look-out, but the stones did not come near them, and breaking away on one side went down to the glacier.[1]
I waited at the tent to welcome the Professor, and when he arrived went down to Breil. Early next morning some one ran to me saying that a flag was seen on the summit of the Matterhorn. It was not so, however, although I saw that they had passed the place where we had turned back on the 26th. I had now no doubt of their final success, for they had got beyond the point which Carrel, not less than myself, had always considered to be the most questionable place on the whole mountain. Up to it there was no choice of route,—I suppose that at no one point between it and the Col was it possible to diverge a dozen paces to the right or left,
- ↑ Professor Tyndall describes this incident in the following words:—"We had gathered up our traps, and bent to the work before us, when suddenly an explosion occurred overhead. We looked aloft and saw in mid-air a solid shot from the Matterhorn describing its proper parabola, and finally splitting into fragments as it smote one of the rocky towers in front. Down the shattered fragments came like a kind of spray, slightly wide of us, but still near enough to compel a sharp look-out. Two or three such explosions occurred, but we chose the back fin of the mountain for our track, and from this the falling stones were speedily deflected right or left."—Saturday Review, Aug. 8, 1863. "Reprinted in Macmillam's Magazine, April, 1869.
