CHAPTER XXI.
THE ASCENT OF THE MATTERHORN.
"Had we succeeded well,"
Euripides.
"It is a thoroughly unfair, "but an ordinary custom, to praise or blame designs (which in themselves may be good or bad) just as they turn out well or ill, Hence the same actions are at one time attributed to earnestness and at another to vanity."
Pliny Min.
We started from Zermatt on the 13th of July, at half-past 5, on a brilliant and perfectly cloudless morning. We were eight in number—Croz, old Peter and his two sons,[1] Lord F. Douglas, Hadow, Hudson,[2] and I. To ensure steady motion, one tourist and
- ↑ The two young Taugwalders were taken as porters, by desire of their father, and carried provisions amply sufficient for three days, in case the ascent should prove more troublesome than we anticipated.
- ↑ I remember speaking about pedestrianism to a well-known mountaineer some years ago, and venturing to remark that a man who averaged thirty miles a-day might be considered a good walker. "A fair walker," he said, "a, fair walker." "What then would you consider good walking?" "Well," he replied, "I will tell you. Some time back a friend and I agreed to go to Switzerland, but a short time afterwards he wrote to say he ought to let me know that a young and delicate lad was going with him who would not be equal to great things, in fact, he would not be able to do more than fifty miles a-day!" "What became of the young and delicate lad?" "He lives." "And who was your extraordinary friend?" "Charles Hudson." I have every reason to believe that the gentlemen referred to were equal to walking more than fifty miles a-day, but the)' were exceptional, not good pedestrians.
Charles Hudson, Vicar of Skillington in Lincolnshire, was considered by the mountaineering fraternity to be the best amateur of his time. He was the organiser and leader of the party of Englishmen who ascended Mont Blanc by the Aig. du Goûter, and descended by the Grands Mulets route, without guides, in 1855. His
