Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-03-10

the three human bodies swinging at the ropes end,
and above me heard the scue and rattle of stones
that knew meant the hauling of helpless human
being into dizzy space. l looked down the awful
never ending slopes and shelves that fell away to
earth, and four black things flying downward
without sound and with outstretched.
What was to do? No man alone could climb
down by the ridge we had come up. There was little
chance of rescue party; my task was to reach the
summit by circumventing the deadly glazed gully.
Shall l ever forget my lonely climb over the vast
crags of ice the painful cutting of steps in almost
sheer wall, with precpice thousands of feet deep
at my shivering back! But reached the summit
in binding storm, and there chung to the side
of abyss, watching the storm clouds surging up,
gray and cruel, from the west
1T lasted all Monday and Monday night and
Tuesday morning. think l slept most of the time,
and at midday Tuesday began the descent NY
of all, l could not remember which the right
gully Once my ice fell from my frozen fingers,
and knew if lost it rrecoverably lost with it my
life. AS it was riSked all things in hours quest
for it, and was successful.
"On Tuesday evening reached the high moraines
of the Zmutt Glacier. By the sun reckoned it six
path to the Staffel Alp Inn 1 saw the blood red
Alpengow smothering the streaming glaciers and
terrific TANKS of Monte Rosa. think l was
blind, having glasses. l stumbled on in kind of
waking trance through the rugged boulders of the
moraine, collapsed beneath rock which l fancied
chalet and there slept almost the sleep of the
dead for twelve hours"
About midday on Wednesday this remarkable
walked down the main street of Zermatt village,
met his wife, and told her the story
After all, the fatalities not appalling than
those of big game hunting. In any event, it seems
beyond question that the lure of the Alps lies largely
in that sense of exaltation which spirited men and
feel in wrestling with the forces of nature
and overcoming perils of all kinds.
Arkwrieht's Strange Case
CTRANGE, indeed, was the case of Henry Ark
~ wright, of twenty-nine, aide-de-camp to
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland who more than
forty years ago travelling in Switzerland with his
family. They went on to ChamoniX; and Arkwright,
though no climber, resolved to ascend Mont Blanc.
A sister went with him as far as the Grands Mulets
hut Another party of two also resolved upon the
ascent. On October IL they left Chamonix crossed
the crevassed Glacier DIES Bossons and reached their
night quarters While the climbers were absent
next day, Miss Fanny Arkwright busted herself
writing letters Meanwhile the two parties set out
early and hurried up the snow slopes.
Suddenly ominous cracks were heard to the right
amid the towering seracs or pinnaces of solid ice
Lie DOWN. screamed the guides, but the ire
sistible wind that goes before mighty avalanche
caught them all.
Sylvan Couttet, the porter. drove his alpenstock
into the hard snow, crouched on hands and knees,
and turned his bent head to the hurricane. After
eight or ten minutes, he united the rope about his
waist and began to descend. At one hundred and
fifty feet below he came FRANCOIS Tourner, the
guide He was dead, his face frightfully mutilated
and his skull crushed by mass of ice. The porter,
after herculean efforts got the body down to the
Grands Mulets.
Thirty-one years passed away. One morning in
1897 Colonel Arkwright, brother of this Alpine
victim, aStounded to receive this telegram from
the Mayor of Chamonix:
The remains of Henry Arkwright, who persisted
Mont Blanc in 1866, have just been found.
The glacier had given UP it's dead at last, after
having borne the body of its victim to spot nine
thousand feet below in the ice. Slowly, slowly,
the grinding river of ice gave up other relics First
came handkerchief, then shirt front next gold
pencil case, watch chain and gloves, with other odds
and ends.
Many memorable tragedies of the Alps have been
caused by the dreaded avalanche, whether of ice.