Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/23

6 "taint of staleness" no matter how thoroughly they may know the substantial basis of rock and ice on which the sun and cloud, mist, air, and sky are ever weaving the glory of the view.

It was, then, with an interest in the great mountain only intensified by my first ascent, that I crossed the Tiefenmatten Joch in 1879. Whilst descending the glacier, I gazed long and earnestly at the great Zmutt ridge towering above the long slopes of rock and stone swept couloirs of the western face. I was by no means the first who had so gazed; amongst others, Mr. Whymper, with his guides Michel Croz and Christian Aimer, had studied it carefully from the crags of the Dent Blanche. The conclusions they came to may be gathered from the following paragraph: "My old enemy—the Matterhorn—seen across the basin of the Z'Muttgletscher, looked totally unassailable. 'Do you think,' the men asked, 'that you, or any one else, will ever get up that mountain?' And when, undismayed by their ridicule, I stoutly answered, 'Yes, but not upon that side,' they burst into derisive chuckles. I must confess that my hopes sank; for nothing can look, or be, more completely inaccessible than the Matterhorn on its northern and north-west sides." It did not appear, however, that this judgment was wholly warranted. The snow ridge and the jagged rocks by which it is continued for some distance further, offered an