CHAPTER XXII.

DESCENT OF THE MATTERHORN.*

H UDSON and I again consulted as to the best andsafest arrangement of the party. We agreed that itwould be best for Croz to go first,! and Hadow second;Hudson, who was almost equal to a born mountaineer insureness of foot, wished to be third ; Lord Francis Douglaswas placed next; and old Peter, the strongest of the re-mainder, after him. I suggested to Hudson that we shouldattach a rope to the rocks on our arrival at the difficult bit,and hold it as we descended, as an additional protection.He approved the idea, but it was not definitely settled thatit should be done. The party was being arranged in theabove order whilst I was sketching the summit, and theyhad finished, and were waiting for me to be tied in line,when some one remembered that our names had not beenleft in a bottle. They requested me to write them down,and moved off while it was being done.

A few minutes afterwards I tied myself to young Peter,ran down after the others, and caught them just as theywere commencing the descent of the difficult part.! Greatcare was being taken. Only one man was moving at a time;

* The substance of chapter xxii. appeared in a letter in the Times,August 8, 1865. A few paragraphs have now been added, and a fewcorrections have been made. The former will help to make clear thatwhich was obscure in the original account, and the latter are, mostly,unimportant.

t If the members of the party had been more equally efficient, CrozI' would have been placed last.

I Described upon pages 381-2.