Above the Snow Line: Mountaineering Sketches Between 1870 and 1880. C. T. Dent
We most of us, whatever principles we assert on the matter, keep stowed away, in some corner or another, the overflow of a fancied talent. The form varies: it may, perhaps, be a five act tragedy, possibly a psychological disquisition, or a sensational novel in three volumes of MS. It is a satisfaction to turn such treasures out from time to time when no eyes are upon us, even if it be only to thank Heaven devoutly that they have always lain unknown and uncriticised. “Il n’y a rien qui rafraichisse le sang comme d’avoir su éviter de faire une sottise.” Of work done, of which the author had no especial reason to be proud, a feeling of thankfulness in a lesser degree may arise from the consciousness that, if ever recognised at all, it is now, happily, forgotten. So have these early effusions sometimes amused, not infrequently astounded, and at the worst have nearly always brought the wished-for slumber; and yet in Alpine writings the same accounts were for the most part as faithful representations as the writer could set down on paper of impressions made at the time. It has often occurred to me to ask what manner of description a writer would give of an expedition made many years before. How would the lapse of time influence him? Would he make light [pg 4]of whatever danger there was? Would the picture require a very decided coat of varnish to make it at all recognisable? Would the crudities come out still more strongly, or would the colours all have faded and sunk harmoniously together in his picture? The speculation promised to be interesting enough to make it worth while to give practical effect to the idea. Now the expedition narrated in this chapter was made in 1870, and possibly, therefore, if a description were worth giving at all, it had better have been given fresh. We can always find some proverb tending more or less to justify any course of action that we may be desirous of pursuing, and by distorting the meaning of a quotation manage to serve our own ends. Of all the ill-used remarks of this nature, surely the most often employed is, “Better late than never;” the extreme elasticity of which saying, in the application thereof, is well evidenced by the doctor who employed it in justification of his late arrival when he came on a professional visit to the lady and found the baby learning its alphabet.
Sybaritic mountaineering
When an aquarium was a fashionable resort, amongst a good many queer and loose fish, we became familiar with a monstrously ill-favoured beast called a cuttle-fish: and may have had a chance of seeing how the animal, if attacked by his physical superior, resorted to the ingenious plan of effusing a quantity of ink, and, under cover of this, retreating [pg 5]hastily backwards out of harm’s way. There are some, less ingenuous than the Octopus, who retreat first into obscurity and then pour out their effusion of ink. But it is more common to use the flare of an epigram or of a proverb, as a conjurer does his wand, to distract attention for the moment and divert the thought current from matters we do not wish to be too evident. At any rate, I must in the present instance lay under tribute the author of Proverbs, and add another straw to the already portentous burden that they who wish to compound for literary sins have already piled on his back. Apologising is, however, a dangerous vice, as a well-known writer has remarked. The account, though a sort of literary congenital cripple, has still a prescriptive right to live. Besides this expedition was undertaken in the pre-Sybaritic age of mountaineering, and before the later refinements of that art and science had taken firm hold of its votaries. What would the stern explorers of former time have thought, or said, if they had perceived persons engaged on the glaciers sitting down on camp-stools to a light refection of truffle pie and cold punch? Such banquets are not uncommon now, though precisians with a tendency to dyspepsia still object strongly to them. In those days, too, mountaineers were not so much differentiated that climbers were talked of by their fellows like cricketers are described in the book of Lillywhite. “Jones,” for instance, “is a [pg 6]brilliant cragsman, but inclined to be careless on moraines.” “Noakes,” again, “remarkably sure and steady on snow, fairly good in a couloir, would do better if he did not possess such an astounding appetite and would pay more attention to the use of the rope.” “Stokes possesses remarkable knowledge of the Alps; on rocks climbs with his head; we wish we could say honestly that he can climb at all with his hands and feet.” “Thompson, first-rate step-cutter; walks on snow with the graceful gait and unlaboured action of a shrimp-catcher at his work: kicks down every loose stone he touches.” Thus different styles of climbing are recognised. “Form,” as it is called in climbing, was in the old days an unknown term, and yet it is probable that the “form” was by no means inferior to any that can be shown now-a-days. The reason is obvious enough and the explanation lies simply in the fact that the apprenticeship served in the mountains was then much longer than it is now. People did not so often try to ride a steeple-chase before they had learnt to sit in a saddle, or appreciated that the near side was the best by which to get up. When this particular expedition was made (towards which I feel that I am an unconscionable time in making a start) I had been five or six seasons in the Alps, during the first two of which I had never set foot on a snow-slope. There had always seemed to me from the first, to be so much absolutely to learn in mountaineering: there is no [pg 7]less now, indeed there is more, for the science has been developed, but it seems beyond doubt, that fewer people recognise the fact. Like most other arts, it can only be learnt in one way, by constant practice, by constant care and attention and by always doing everything in the mountains to the best of one’s ability. Too many may seem to think that there is a royal road, and fail to recognise that a plebeian does not alter his status by walking along this variety of highway.
The growth of the climbing craze
Time rolled on. The fascination of climbing spread abroad, and it followed with the increasing number of mountaineers that more and more difficulties were experienced in attempts to diversify the sport in the Alps alone, and in emerging from the common herd of climbers. Then a new danger arose. The sport grew fashionable—a serious symptom to its true lovers. Books of Alpine adventure readily found readers; novels, and other forms of nonsense, were written about the mountains; accounts of new expeditions were telegraphed at once to all parts of the world, and found as important a place in the newspapers as the Derby betting, or the latest reports as to the precise medical details of some eminent person’s internal complaint. Still further did the craving for novelty spread, and more strange did the means of satisfying it become. The mountains were ascended without guides: in winter; by people afflicted with mental aberration who wore tall hats and frock coats [pg 8]on the glaciers; by persons who were ignorant of the laws of optics as applied to large telescopes; in bad weather, by wrong routes and so forth. Then, too, set in what may be called the variation craze. This is very infectious. For those who can see no beauty in a scene that some one else has gazed on before it is still a passion. We may still at times, in the Alps, hear people say, “Oh yes, that is a very fine expedition, no doubt, but I don’t think I care much about undertaking it; you see so and so has done it; couldn’t we manage to strike out a different line?” The result is a “variation” expedition. The composer when hard driven, and not strongly under the influence of the Muse, will at times take some innocent, simple melody and submit it to exquisite torture by writing what he is pleased to call variations. Sometimes he will not rest till he has perpetrated as many as thirty-two on some innocent little tune of our childhood. The original air becomes entirely lost, like a sixpence buried in a flour bag, and we may marvel, for instance, as may the travelled American, at the immense amount of foreign matter that may be introduced into “Home, sweet home.” Even so does the climber sometimes practise his art. But for one who entertains a strict respect for the old order of things, and for the memory of an age of mountaineering now rapidly passing into oblivion, to write in any such strain would be intolerable. And so, even as a [pg 9]theatrical manager when his brilliant play, stolen, or, as it is generally described, “adapted,” from the French, does not run, I may be allowed to raise the curtain on a revival of the old drama, a comedy in one short act, and not provided with any very thrilling “situations.” The “scenarium” lay ready to hand in the leaves of an old journal, which may possibly share, with other old leaves, the property of being rather dry. But we are meandering, as it were, in the valleys, and run some risk of digressing too far from the path which should lead to the mountain in hand. There is a story of a clergyman who selected a rather long text as a preface to his discourse, and finding, when he had read it at length a second time, that his congregation were mostly disposed in attitudes which might be of attention, but which were, at the same time, suggestive of slumber, wisely concluded to defer enlarging upon it till a more fitting occasion, and dismissed