off Lord Francis Douglas.  Four were loose and falling; only three left on the rocks.  Just then the rope somehow parted, and all four dropped that great fraction of a mile.  The mountain climber makes a sad pilgrimage to the graves of three of them in Zermatt; the fourth probably fell in a crevasse of the glacier at the foot, and may be brought to the sight of friends in perhaps two score years, when the river of ice shall have moved down into the valleys where the sun has power to melt away the ice.  This accident gave the mountain a reputation for danger to which an occasional death on it since has added.

Each of these later unfortunate occurrences is attributable to personal perversity or deficiency.  Peril depends more on the man than on circumstances.  One is in danger on a wall twenty feet high, another safe on a precipice of a thousand feet.  No man has a right to peril his life in mere mountain climbing; that great sacrifice must be reserved for saving others, or for establishing moral principle.

The morning after coming from Monte Rosa myself and son left Zermatt at half past seven for the top of the Matterhorn, twelve hours distant, under the guidance of Peter Knubel, his brother, and Peter Truffer, three of the best guides for this work in the country.  In an hour the dwellings of the mountain-loving people are left behind, the tree limit is passed soon after, the grass cheers us for three hours, when we enter on the wide desolation of the moraines.  Here is a little chapel.  I entered it as reverently and prayed as earnestly for God’s will, not mine, to be done as I ever did in my life, and I am confident that amid the unutterable grandeur that succeeded I felt his presence and help as fully as at any other time.

At ten minutes of two we were roped together and feeling our way carefully in the cut steps on a glacier so steep that, standing erect, one could put his hand upon it.  We were on this nearly an hour.  Just as we left it for the rocks a great noise above, and a little to the south, attracted attention.  A vast mass of stone had detached itself from the overhanging cliff at the top, and falling on the steep slope had broken into a hundred pieces.  These went bounding down the side in long leaps.  Wherever one struck a cloud of powdered stone leaped into the air, till the whole mountain side smoked and thundered with the grand cannonade.  The omen augured to me that the mountain was going to do its best for our reception and entertainment.  Fortunately these rock avalanches occur on the steep, unapproachable sides, and not at the angle where men climb.