Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/105

Rh rapid progress till, at 4.45 a.m., we reached a convenient spot for breakfast. Just in front the cliff became much steeper and was intersected by more or less continuous bands of precipitous rock.

Burgener rejoiced in the approach of our first struggle, and could hardly restrain his exuberant spirits. He employed his time, when his mouth didn't happen to be more seriously occupied, by using his best English to try and shatter my nerves. He gave me various and most graphic pictures of the awful precipices which were to greet my inexperienced eyes, always ending each sentence with, "It is more beautifuls as the Matterhorn," that being the only peak we had previously ascended together.

Having exhausted the regulation time for feeding, the rope was got out and a business-like air settled on Burgener's countenance. He, of course, took the lead, I followed, then came Andenmatten, and my husband last. The rocks were fairly good for a while little, but as we got higher they became steeper and very rotten. Our leader took the greatest care not to upset any of the stones, and kept hurling frightful warnings at me to be equally careful. "You kill your man, you not like that!" I did not "kill my man," but, nevertheless, it was here that our first accident occurred.

We had reached a sort of platform cut off from the upper slopes by a precipitous wall of rock. At