Page:Whymper - Scrambles amongst the Alps.djvu/345

Rh exception of the powdered terraces, remained black—for the snow could not rest upon them.

The very outline of the mountain, too, confirmed the conjecture that its structure would assist an ascent on the eastern face, although it opposed one on all other sides. Look at any photograph of the peak from the north-east (or, failing one, the outline facing page 288, which is carefully traced from one), and you will see that upon the right-hand side (that facing the Z'Muttgletscher) there is an incessant repetition of overhanging cliffs, and of slopes all trending downwards; in short, that the character of the whole of that side is similar to Fig. 1, ; and that upon the left hand (or south-east) ridge, the forms, as far as they go, are suggestive of the structure of Fig. 2. There is no doubt that the contours of the mountain, seen from this direction, have been largely influenced by the direction of its beds.

It was not, therefore, from a freak, that I invited Mr. Reilly to join in an attack upon the eastern face, but from a gradually-acquired conviction that it would prove to give the easiest path to the summit; and, if we had not been obliged to part, the mountain would, doubtless, have been ascended in 1864.

My guides readily admitted that they had been greatly deceived as to the steepness of the eastern face, when they were halted to look at it in profile, as we came down the Z'Muttgletscher, on our way to Zermatt; but they were far from being satisfied that it would turn out to be easy to climb, and Almer and Biener expressed themselves decidedly averse to making an attempt upon it. I gave way temporarily before their evident reluctance, and we made the ascent of the Theodulhorn to examine an alternative route, which I expected would commend itself to them in preference to the other, as a great part of it led over snow.

There is an immense gully in the Matterhorn, which leads up from the Glacier du Mont Cervin to a point high up on the