Chapter 39

CHAPTER XXXIX [We Travel by Glacier]

A guide-book is a queer thing. The reader has just seen what a man who
undertakes the great ascent from Zermatt to the Riffelberg Hotel must
experience. Yet Baedeker makes these strange statements concerning this
matter:

1. Distance--3 hours.
2. The road cannot be mistaken.
3. Guide unnecessary.
4. Distance from Riffelberg Hotel to the Gorner Grat,
one hour and a half.
5. Ascent simple and easy. Guide unnecessary.
6. Elevation of Zermatt above sea-level, 5,315 feet.
7. Elevation of Riffelberg Hotel above sea-level,
8,429 feet.
8. Elevation of the Gorner Grat above sea-level, 10,289 feet.

I have pretty effectually throttled these errors by sending him the
following demonstrated facts:

1. Distance from Zermatt to Riffelberg Hotel, 7 days.
2. The road CAN be mistaken. If I am the first that did it,
I want the credit of it, too.
3. Guides ARE necessary, for none but a native can read
those finger-boards.
4. The estimate of the elevation of the several localities
above sea-level is pretty correct--for Baedeker.
He only misses it about a hundred and eighty or ninety
thousand feet.

I found my arnica invaluable. My men were suffering excruciatingly, from
the friction of sitting down so much. During two or three days, not
one of them was able to do more than lie down or walk about; yet so
effective was the arnica, that on the fourth all were able to sit up.
I consider that, more than to anything else, I owe the success of our
great undertaking to arnica and paregoric.

My men are being restored to health and strength, my main perplexity,
now, was how to get them down the mountain again. I was not willing to
expose the brave fellows to the perils, fatigues, and hardships of that
fearful route again if it could be helped. First I thought of balloons;
but, of course, I had to give that idea up, for balloons were
not procurable. I thought of several other expedients, but upon
consideration discarded them, for cause. But at last I hit it. I was
aware that the movement of glaciers is an established fact, for I had
read it in Baedeker; so I resolved to take passage for Zermatt on the
great Gorner Glacier.

Very good. The next thing was, how to get down the glacier
comfortably--for the mule-road to it was long, and winding, and
wearisome. I set my mind at work, and soon thought out a plan. One looks
straight down upon the vast frozen river called the Gorner Glacier, from
the Gorner Grat, a sheer precipice twelve hundred feet high. We had
one hundred and fifty-four umbrellas--and what is an umbrella but a
parachute?

I mentioned this noble idea to Harris, with enthusiasm, and was about to
order