Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/70

Rh to go down to Zermatt, and make the necessary preparations for delivering an assault the next day.

On our arrival there, however, Burgener heard that one of two recent additions to his family had died, so our expedition had to be temporarily postponed. Meanwhile I gathered much unfavourable information concerning the couloir.

Mr. Whymper, looking at it from the Col above, describes it in these words:

"On one side a sheer wall overhung the Tiefenmatten glacier. . . . Throw a bottle down to the Tiefenmatten—no sound returns for more than a dozen seconds.

Whilst, in "Hours of Exercise," I came upon the following: "On the other side" of the Col du Lion "a scarped and seamed face drops sheer on the north, to what we know is the Zmutt glacier. Some hopes I had entertained of making a pass by this gap from Breuil to Zermatt vanish immediately." Happily my confidence in Burgener was equal to even these shocks, and I felt sure that if he were once fairly started on the expedition, he would bring it to a happy issue.

On Monday, the 6th of July, Burgener duly arrived, but he was tired with his hot walk, or possibly from the effects of the funeral festivities,