Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/325

272 most painful part of the expedition. However, these preliminary difficulties were at length overcome and we were able to rejoice over hot tea and biscuits in the warm shelter of the tent.

Soon after half-past,two we began the ascent and tramped steadily up the crisp snow to the little glacier. We crossed it, and ascended the slopes to the col by the route I had previously taken when on the way to the south-western buttress. Beaching this we turned sharply to the right, and, scrambling round one or two crumbling towers, were fairly launched on the face. Working upwards but bearing ever well to the right, we reached a shallow couloir still plastered in places by half-melted masses of snow. One of these, smitten by Zurfluh's axe, broke away bodily, striking me very severely on head, knee, and hand. Luckily I was almost close to him, but even so, for a minute or two, I scarcely knew what had happened. Had there been three or four of us on the rope the results could scarcely have failed to be serious. I am aware that two men are usually regarded as constituting too small a party for serious mountain work. None the less, on rotten rocks, or where much frozen snow loosely adheres to the ledges and projecting crags, it has advantages which, so far as I am able to judge, make it almost an ideal number.

Happily, five minutes' rest restored my scattered senses, and we quitted this ill-behaved gully,