structed by the Italian Alpine Club on the 'cravate.' Starting from the hut at daylight, we reached at an early hour the summit of the 'shoulder,' and then traversed its arête to the final peak of the Matterhorn. The passage of this arête was perhaps the most enjoyable part of the whole expedition. The ridge, worn by slow irregular decay into monstrous and rugged battlements, and guarded on each side by tremendous precipices, is grand beyond all description, but does not, strange to say, present any remarkable difficulty to the climber, save that it is exceedingly trying to the head. Great care is of course necessary, but the scramble is by no means of so arduous a nature as entirely to absorb the attention; so that a fine climb, and rock scenery, of grandeur perhaps unparalleled in the Alps, can both be appreciated.
"It was near the end of this arête, close to the place where it abuts against the final peak, that Professor Tyndall's party turned in 1862,[1] arrested by a cleft in the ridge. From the point where they stopped the main tower of the Matterhorn rises in front of the climber, abrupt, magnificent, and apparently inaccessible. The summit is fully 750 feet in vertical height above this spot, and certainly, to my eye, appeared to be separated from me by a yet more considerable interval; for I remember, when at the end of the arête, looking upward at the crest of the mountain, and thinking that it must be a good 1000 feet above me.
"When the Italian guides made their splendid ascent, they traversed the arête of the shoulder to the main peak, passed the cleft which has been mentioned (p. 133), clambered on to the tremendous north-western face of the mountain (described by Mr. Whymper at pp. 388 and 393), and then endeavoured to cross this face so as to get on to the Z'Mutt arête.[2] The passage of this slope proved a work of great difficulty and danger. I saw it from very near the place which they traversed, and was unable to conceive how any human creatures managed to crawl over rocks so steep and so treacherous. After they had got about half-way across, they found the difficulties of the route and the danger from falling stones so great, that they struck straight up the mountain, in the hope of finding some safer way. They were to a certain extent successful, for they came presently to a small ledge, caused by a sort of fault in the rock, running horizontally across the north-western face of the mountain a little distance below the summit. Traversing this ledge, the Italians found themselves close to the Z'Mutt arête, but still separated from it by a barrier, to outflank which it was necessary to descend a perpendicular gully. Carrel and Bich were lowered down this, the other two men remaining at the top to haul up their companions on their return, as otherwise they could not have got up again. Passing on to the Z'Mutt arete without further difficulty, Carrel and Bich climbed by that ridge to the summit of the mountain. In returning, the Italians kept to the ledge for the whole distance across the north-western face, and descended to the place where the arête of the shoulder abuts against the main peak by a sort of rough ridge of rocks between the north-western and southern faces. When I ascended in 1867, we followed this route in the ascent and in the descent. I thought the ledge difficult, in some places decidedly dangerous, and should not care to set foot on it again; but
