29th. July 1862
My dear Huxley,
I left you at Visp1 trying to kill time, not dreaming that the enemy2 would be so soon upon myself. Well here he is: and I write not through love of you but through hate of him. I joyfully reached Breuil3 and found on my arrival a note from Mr Whymper4 informing me that he had started on another expedition up the Matterhorn.5 Next evening he arrived, having satisfied himself that without ladders the rocks could not be scaled. On Sunday morning I started with my two guides and two porters from this place. That night I lay under my little tent upon the rocks, and heard the roaring of the stones as they thundered down an adjacent gully from the heights of the Matterhorn. We started at 4. The heavens all clear and the air fresh. Crept up chimneys, squeezed ourselves through slits, wound round ledges and cut our way across the scanty snow patches which are competent to retain their hold upon the rock. All heavy work. We came to the base of a succession of precipices which were topped by the serrated ridge of the mountain. Here with Bennen in front and Walter6 behind him we worked up a bit by bit; holding on almost by our eyelids. It was the best and hardest bit off rock climbing that I have ever known man to accomplish. It was these precipices that stopped Whymper. Well we scaled them and got upon the arête. Up it, and in a very short time both summits of the mountain were in sight. We scorned the lower, just paused upon it to look down at Breuil and advanced towards the final cap. We were as sure of it as you are of your dinner. “There shall our flag be planted”—Bennen laughed uproariously: “What will the people in Zermatt say when they see our flag floating yonder?” Now along a notched and narrow and ugly arête almost horizontal to the base of the rocks which constitute the true summit. Elation gradually subsided. The summit was within a stone’s throw of us; but how to get there! To the doubt of our being able to do so succeeded the dark certainty that we must give it up. Had the crags been planted on a plain we should no doubt have attempted them, though the chance of slipping approached almost to a certainty, but we looked around and saw the fate which awaited us should the footing of any one give way. A fall of at least 5000 feet, tumbling from precipice to precipice would be the consequence. The thing looked horrid. And though by a little management I caused the party to move up almost to contact with the peril I could not conscientiously push them further. Bennen and myself were certainly the two least daunted men of the party: but even Bennen at length exclaimed “Here we must be content.” We stuck a pole on the lower summit7 and unless splintered by lightening it will be visible for many a year. The defeat is a great one, for the efforts which we made for victory were great. It was impossible to descend the cliffs which we had ascended, so we attached a rope to a piece of our ladder which we fixed in the rocks, and by means of it let ourselves down the precipices. Any climber attacking the mountain this year will find one grand difficulty set aside, for he can ascend the rocks by the rope which we were compelled to leave behind. This defeat has fallen upon me like the chill of age, and I must “mix myself with action”8 to shake it off. On quitting the mountain it poured down hail like grapeshot upon us. Indeed soon after quitting the summit we were enveloped in fog, and the fog ended by this cannonade. The mountain is one of the most savage grandeur: no-where have I seen the effects of time and weather so grandly exhibited. He seems a suffering old Titan,9 unconquered still, but still wearing away. His rocks all red with the oxide of iron, and all spotted with lichens which give them an appearance of indescribable hoariness. Certainly on the whole—both near and far—the grimmest and grandest object in the Alps. Well goodbye to him and goodbye to you and goodbye to my climbing. for there is nothing else in the Alps that I should care to do. I cannot frank this.
IC HP 8.43
Typed Transcript Only
Visp: a town in the Rhône valley; the capital of the district of Visp in the Swiss canton of Valais.
the enemy: a reference to Edward Whymper , a rival climber, and ultimately the first to summit Matterhorn in July 1865 (see n. 4).
Breuil: see letter 1916, n. 1.
Mr. Whymper: Edward Whymper (1840–1911), a British mountaineer and wood-engraver. In 1860 the publisher William Longman commissioned Whymper to make illustrations of the Alps, for which he visited Saas Fee, Zermatt, Chamonix, and the Dauphiné. Whymper centered his climbing ambitions on the Matterhorn, and from 1861 to 1865 he made seven attempts from the Italian side, sometimes in partnership with his rivals. Tyndall viewed him as his main competitor in his alpine pursuits (ODNB).
Matterhorn: see letter 1913, n. 9.
Walter: see letter 1915, n. 10.
stuck a pole on the lower summit: this was the highest point yet reached and now called the Pic Tyndall. However, it is more than a ‘stone’s throw’ from the summit as it is some 800ft lower in elevation.
mix myself with action: here Tyndall is quoting from Alfred Tennyon’s poem ‘Locksley Hall’ (1830): ‘I myself must mix with action, lest I wither with despair’ (published in A. Tennyson, Poems (London: Edward Moxon, 1842).
suffering old Titan: possibly referring to the Titans, the pre-Olympian Gods of Greek mythology.
Please cite as “Tyndall1918,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on