Part 5

At about half-past two we were up, intending to traverse the Mischabeljoch, and ascend the Alphubel Mountain, thence down to Saas Fée. We followed a lantern up to the snow and rock, on a very steep, frozen moraine, awkward to walk on in the dark; then roped, and had a good day, except that the snow was fresh and fatiguing. Also we were longer in the descent than we liked, my friend’s knee, which had been slightly hurt on a mountain some days before, was now rather severely taxed, and this was the only expedition we accomplished together. We stayed at Saas Fée, one of the best places in Switzerland, good for walkers or climbers; it is about three-quarters of an hour above Saas Grund—said to be the abode of Mrs. Grundy, who has not yet reached Saas Fée.

The most charming walk down to the valley is by the chapels, of which there are a dozen or more, each full of quaint, coloured wooden figures, about two feet high, representing scenes in the life of our Lord. The artistic merit of these figures is very unequal—some few are said to be the work of an Italian artist named Tabaketti, of the sixteenth century, who crossed the frontier and worked on the Swiss side. An odd effect is produced by the villainous-looking wretches who are torturing the Saviour, being represented with goitres and a cretinous aspect truly repulsive.

A few minutes’ walk from the hotel towards Mattmark is a wonderful old bridge over the mountain torrent. It is one of the most ancient structures in Switzerland; flat stones are laid, over-lapping more and more, to meet similarly placed flat stones on the other side of the stream, advantage being taken of big boulders of rock which approach to form natural buttresses. The whole is so overgrown with trees and moss that many pass over it without notice.

At Saas Fée, on a moraine in the midst of glaciers and ice falls, there is a tiny timber-built inn, presided over by Clara, who is well known for the good tea she always gives the tired traveller, and certainly her name ought to appear in the guide books. If only a hut could be built higher up the Lange Fluh, mountaineers could sleep above, and Clara could supply provisions from below; this would be a real gain to climbers.

[Illustration: OLD STONE BRIDGE AT SAAS FÉE.]

To test my friend’s feeble knee, he was to try the Portjengrat, a most interesting climb, in which I was much tempted to join; but having done it in a former season, I took a lazy day—then finding that after his climb my friend limped a good deal, I set about a serious expedition, the ascent of the Südlenzspitze, without him. With two good guides, and a porter to carry up blankets, firewood, and provisions, I started one afternoon and reached a rock some hours above Fée, where we were to sleep; with our axes we cleared away several hundredweight of ice and snow, lighted a fire, cooked two tins of Moir’s turtle soup, mixing it in a big pot with pannikins of snow. Words can’t express how good it was, how it hit the right place! We ate in the dark, except for a feeble lantern; then spreading a rug over the little shelf we had cleared, we all lay down as tight as sardines in a tin, so that I could not even turn on my long axis. I was not very cold, having on three pairs of stockings, three waistcoats, a shawl, a rug, and the blanket in which we were all packed. There was no need for me to fear walking in my sleep over a precipice. I didn’t sleep. The wind nearly blew me out of my rug and howled like a savage beast, but at length the morning broke and “tipped the hills with gold.” Day-dawns such as these live in the memory for ever. After a cup of hot chocolate, the porter went down, and we began to climb the Südlenzspitze, a peak over 14,000 feet high, next to the Dom one of the highest points in Switzerland; several parties had failed this year, and we were anxious to do it with the Nadelhorn as well, to crown our success. The Südlenzspitze is not a “guide book mountain,” but it is a good climb, and there is an awkward _gendarme_, or pinnacle, standing up like an obstructing sentinel on a ridge along which it is necessary to travel. This _gendarme_ may be the size of a church or not larger than a lamp post, and give serious trouble to the climber. However, we struggled to the top, and found a tremendous wind on the peak, so that we had to wear our sleeping caps over our ears and feel now and then our frozen features. Byron must have imagined such an ascent when he wrote those fine lines:

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow. He who surpasses or subdues mankind Must look down on the hate of those below. Though far above the sun of glory glow, And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head, And thus reward the toils which to these summits led.

We left a card in a bottle at the top, where none had been this year before us. Descending a steep snow edge to come to visiting terms with the Nadelhorn—a peak of steep but easy rocks with some gendarmerie—my leading guide loosened a big stone at the top, which narrowly missed me and dropped on the man below, hitting on the steel of his axe, but he held firm, and this was the only escape I was aware of. We came down into a snow storm and thick mist, but got safely home after fifteen hours’ climbing, then a light dinner with a glass of champagne, and so to bed.

From Fée I walked with a strong man who wanted to stretch his legs to climb the Laquinhorn. It is a long way there and back, but not a great climb; we returned by the chapels, after a roasting day in the sun. My companion had bargained with me over night that he was to be allowed to stop and feed every four hours. He did so, and ate up everything, even the cheese; the guides then hurried us home lest they themselves should be eaten too! Alas! there will be no more such pleasant walks. Eyre was killed on the Sparrenhorn, 1895. Later on, again I went to Zermatt, slept at the Trift Inn, and climbed the Rothhorn. I greatly wished to go down from the summit to Zinal and back by the Trift Pass next day, but my guides would not permit the descent to the Constantia Hut, and no doubt they were right. How do these men, Xaver Imseng and Alois Kalbermatten, win my regard? Xaver has an angel face, and Alois a form like Hercules. It is not only their courage, skill, and devotion to duty, but their sympathy with my delights or difficulties—this is the great charm.

One night only at Zermatt and then up at 4.30 to catch the six o’clock train from Zermatt to Visp in the Rhone Valley. This is the new line which many climbers believe will disturb the happy hunting-grounds. The journey was very pleasant; being allowed to stand outside, and the train moving slowly, I enjoyed the scenery and chatted with one of the few men who this year climbed the Matterhorn.

Four hours’ walk above Brieg in a blazing sun on one of the hottest days known, ended in a storm of rain which wet me through; it delayed me in a forest where I had the luck to see a fine fox at close quarters; we watched each other quietly for some minutes. I found my wife and friends at Rieder Furka and walked with them up and down a baby mountain called the Riederhorn; then later, with an active fellow made the ascent and back to the hotel in twenty-two minutes, just to dry my clothes.

The hotel is well placed above the Great Aletsch Glacier, upon which delightful expeditions are made, especially to the Märjelen See, a wonderful ice-bound lake with icebergs in it, which has before now threatened Brieg with a flood from the sudden bursting of its waters upon the valley far below.

Home again by Geneva, I visited the Cantonal Hospital there, which is well built and planned; but in the summer the building is empty and clean, the patients being in open-air barracks, timber-built with canvas sides. Would that our English climate would allow of the like. On the other side of the city, at the Rothschild’s Eye Hospital, there seemed every comfort, but few patients to be treated.

The sight of England again always cheers us, with homely peaceful scenes; well may we say in travelling through the Kentish hop fields:

“Let Frenchmen boast their straggling vine, Which gives them draughts of meagre wine, It cannot match this plant of mine When autumn skies are blue.”

NOTE

The Birrenhorn by the south face. This good climb, which has probably not before been done by travellers, is said to be a hunter’s way.—_Alpine Journal_, Nov. 1895, p. 600.

To climb the Birrenhorn (2,511 metres) by the south face, go from Kandersteg up the nearest and steepest grass slopes which lie to the E.N.E. of the Victoria Hotel, to a couloir which is found by following the highest shingle. Here it is well to rope in order to ascend the couloir to a chimney. Climb through this to a shelf above, and turning slightly to the W. continue straight up until a narrow horizontal shelf is reached running to the W.S.W. as far as some little pine trees; thence ascend by going up the face more to the E., until after a stiff scramble up twelve feet of difficult rock (which may be avoided by a circuit) a cleft is found in which lies an enormous grass-covered fallen block. Beneath this you crawl through a “Fenster,” and soon reach a narrow grass saddle with views into the two valleys (Kander and Oeschinen). The final climb is then before you. Cross the grass saddle, ascend the rocks or grass slopes beneath which the shepherd’s path is seen. The rock arête above the highest grass has a cairn and pole on the summit, reached in four and a half hours from Kandersteg. In descending the path towards the Oeschinen See, the way down to the valley is difficult to find, especially if there be any mist. The three-fingered rock (Drei Eidgenossen) will be seen opposite the couloir, which is the last but one before reaching a great grass promontory. After a considerable descent a traverse is made to the right, where two iron stanchions guard an awkward place.

The Climbing Foot

It has often been noticed in mountaineering that a guide can go face forward and whole-footed up a slope, while the amateur following, and coming to the steep part, cannot plant his whole foot upon the slope, but has to go on his toes or else turn sideways.

The difficulty with the young climber seems to be to get his heel down, and he learns to look out for little humps or embedded stones on which he may place his heel.

Then if his calf muscles permit his foot to be correctly planted down, this interferes with his upward step, giving him discomfort at the back of the leg, experience very slowly enabling him to walk with the pelvic roll characteristic of the guide’s uphill gait.

It is worth noting here that rowing men in using sliding seats cannot always keep the heel down on to the stretcher at the beginning of their stroke.

It seems possible, and many climbers must have considered it so, that the angle made by the foot with the leg may be more acute in the guide who has climbed from childhood, and that in the case of the guide’s feet there may be some structural difference, both hereditary and acquired, actually permitting more freedom of movement at the ankle-joint, which neither muscular action nor power of balance could ever give to the amateur.

The guides wear their thick leather boots loosely laced at the top during an upward climb; so that it is difficult to judge of the play of the ankle: but last year I was fortunate in falling in with Captain Abney, who kindly photographed for me the naked feet of my guides in the act of climbing a rock, and in other positions for purposes of comparison.

So leaving out of the question all lateral movements at the ankle-joint as difficult and complicated to estimate, we will briefly consider the question of the ordinary angle that the foot makes with the leg so far as it is less than a right angle, and whether the trained guide has any advantage over the amateur in this respect.

[Illustration: FOOT OF AN INFANT FIVE WEEKS OLD, SHOWING THE INSTEP TOUCHING THE SHIN ON SLIGHT PRESSURE OF THE FINGER.

The adaptation of the foot for progression on all fours. The baby is wrapped in a napkin and black velvet, and held by a nurse.]

To begin with the foot of an infant, we notice that the foot, like the hand, is all adapted for climbing. Dr. Louis Robinson has shown that the infant’s hand-grip is so strong, that the whole weight of its body can be borne by the prehensile power of the hand. The miner in Bret Harte’s _The Luck of Roaring Camp_ realized this strength of grip when he said after an experience with a cradled infant, “He wrastled with my finger, the d——d little cuss!”

The following photographs show how the child’s foot can be made by a touch of the forefinger to approximate the instep to the leg until there is actual contact. The toes curl round to take a great grip of the object pressing against the sole, and generally speaking there is the most wonderful adaptation both for climbing and for progression on all fours.

The infant chosen for the first photograph was rather an unusually thin baby, but it had a fair amount of vitality, and illustrates better than a chubby child the points which it is necessary to bring out. If, with tracing paper placed over the picture, a pencil line be drawn along the bearing surface of the sole of the foot, and another along the leg to meet the former line below the heel, the angle made by these two lines will measure about twenty degrees.

[Illustration: FOOT OF AN INFANT FIVE WEEKS OLD TOUCHED WITH THE FINGER TO SHOW THE ANGLE OF THE FOOT WITH THE LEG AND THE PREHENSILE TOES.

The baby is wrapped up in a napkin and black velvet, and held by a nurse.]

Some may claim that this wonderful function in the infantile foot is a remnant of its former arboreal existence. “Hush-a-bye baby on the tree top” is evidence on this point also according to other most learned people. This remarkable function of the infantile ankle-joint is probably an evidence of our origin, and if we have really descended from apes we should rather be proud of our present position than ashamed of our ancestry. We may well suppose that in the pre-natal state, the child was continually occupied in climbing the walls of its narrow prison, like an infantile Sisyphus, and the flexibility of the ankle-joint was an advantage for the maternal structures.

[Illustration: FOOT OF AN INFANT FIVE WEEKS OLD. THE INSTEP IS MADE TO TOUCH THE SHIN BY SLIGHT PRESSURE OF THE FINGER.

The foot is adapted for climbing and progression on all fours. The baby is wrapped in a napkin and black velvet, and held by a nurse.]

In the very tiny infant then of a few weeks old, nothing stops the foot from making the most acute angle with the leg except contact. The child a year or so old has lost some of this freedom, and begins to be adapted for the upright position; later on will begin to “feel its feet,” as the nurses say, and soon to rear itself upon its hind-limbs. The infant’s foot is plantigrade, and gradually during growth becomes adapted for the erect posture, and loses freedom of movement as it gains in strength.

[Illustration: FOOT OF AN INFANT NEARLY A YEAR OLD.

On pressure with the finger the angle of the foot with the leg is less acute and more adapted for the erect posture.]

In the adult, in order to measure the angle required, it is necessary to get the long axis of the leg and the long axis of the foot, and then take the angle both when the foot is pressed upon and also when no pressure is permitted. To obtain this angle shadows may be tried; photographs are good, from which diagrams may be made with tracing paper and pencil; also mechanical plans, such as placing the back of the leg on a plane surface (as a table) allowing for the calf by a block behind the ankle, and then pressing a thin board against the sole of the foot, measuring with a suitable instrument the angle the board makes with the table at moments of extreme position, both with pressure and without. With the sole of the foot on the floor, and the heel well down when the leg is carried forward to the extreme position, the angle that the leg makes with the floor will indicate sufficiently, much as is shown in the picture of sitting down using only one limb. Whatever method is used the result is only approximate, but they will all agree, and are sufficient for our purpose. The measurements made when the feet are pressed gives alike in the Swiss guides and in the adult amateur an angle of about 60 degrees; without pressure the angle is nearer 70 degrees, and I measured two rowing men who could get no more acute angle than 70 degrees under any conditions. Always remembering that there is a fairly considerable “personal equation,” we may conclude that if there be any difference between guides and amateurs it will not be enough at any rate to explain more than a trifling part of the superiority of the guides in walking up a slope. The height of the boot heel may be taken to be the same in all mountain boots, but the guides tend to wear heels rather high.

[Illustration: FOOT OF AN INFANT NEARLY A YEAR OLD.

Already the angle of the foot with the leg is less acute and more adapted for the erect posture. The child is wrapped up by a nurse in a black velvet covering.]

At Zermatt, on a sunny afternoon, Alois Kalbermatten and Peter Perren were good enough to allow me to pose them with their bare feet on a well-known rock, appropriately named the Shoehorn, while Captain Abney made admirable photographs, from which the reproductions accompanying this chapter were selected.

The guides laughed like schoolboys over the business, or over my solemnity at a scientific experiment. The photographs show very well the climbing position of the foot, and, if a comparison be made of an amateur’s foot, it does not appear that the angle made by the foot with the leg is more acute in the case of the guide. Even with Röntgen’s rays I do not think that any structural difference in the bones of the foot would be discovered.

In the case of the infant, so much of the bones of the foot is in the cartilaginous stage that nothing of the configuration could be studied with these searching rays, because cartilage shows so little shadow.

The foot then of the infant can be flexed until it is almost parallel with the leg; during growth it loses flexibility as it gains in strength and becomes adapted for the erect position and for walking, which is the natural gait of man. The angle made by the foot with the leg in adults is fairly fixed, and a difference between guides and amateurs in this respect is not easy to discover.

Nevertheless, there may be more power on the part of the experienced to keep a straight knee under the conditions of a flexed foot, and as the straight position is the strong position of the knee, the guides may well have an advantage there.

Mr. Clinton Dent has so ably described the mechanism of the uphill walk in the Badminton book on mountaineering, that it is only necessary to remind sportsmen of the figure therein of “ein junger,” page 92, going on his toes, using so much his calf muscles, and so little his greater powers above.

[Illustration: GUIDE’S FOOT IN CLIMBING POSITION AGAINST THE SHOEHORN ROCK AT ZERMATT.

Alois Kalbermatten photographed by Captain Abney. The angle made by the foot with the leg is about 60 degrees.]

It is in balance that the guide has such strength. _He maintains his equipoise under all conditions with the minimum of muscular effort_, so that even under adverse conditions of sudden blasts of wind, pulls on the rope or other disturbances, he can keep his feet firmly planted, and his balance sure. At the end of a long day’s climb he is little wearied, and at the end of a long life he has a lot of climbing left in him. Let it not be supposed that great muscular strength is not there, because the guide does not put it out injudiciously. That great observer, Charles Darwin,[1] writing on balance in riding, makes the following interesting remarks on this very important subject:

[Illustration: GUIDE’S FOOT IN CLIMBING POSITION AGAINST THE SHOEHORN ROCK AT ZERMATT.

Peter Perren photographed by Captain Abney. The angle made by the foot with the leg is about 60 degrees.]

[Illustration: GUIDE’S FOOT, TO SHOW THE ANGLE MADE BY THE FOOT WITH THE LEG WITHOUT PRESSURE.]