All hands rose at two in the morning and took breakfast, and as soon as it was light we roped ourselves together and went at that rock.  For some time we tried the hook-rope and other means of scaling it, but without success—­that is, without perfect success.  The hook caught once, and Harris started up it hand over hand, but the hold broke and if there had not happened to be a chaplain sitting underneath at the time, Harris would certainly have been crippled.  As it was, it was the chaplain.  He took to his crutches, and I ordered the hook-rope to be laid aside.  It was too dangerous an implement where so many people are standing around.

We were puzzled for a while; then somebody thought of the ladders.  One of these was leaned against the rock, and the men went up it tied together in couples.  Another ladder was sent up for use in descending.  At the end of half an hour everybody was over, and that rock was conquered.  We gave our first grand shout of triumph.  But the joy was short-lived, for somebody asked how we were going to get the animals over.

This was a serious difficulty; in fact, it was an impossibility.  The courage of the men began to waver immediately; once more we were threatened with a panic.  But when the danger was most imminent, we were saved in a mysterious way.  A mule which had attracted attention from the beginning by its disposition to experiment, tried to eat a five-pound can of nitroglycerin.  This happened right alongside the rock.  The explosion threw us all to the ground, and covered us with dirt and debris; it frightened us extremely, too, for the crash it made was deafening, and the violence of the shock made the ground tremble.  However, we were grateful, for the rock was gone.  Its place was occupied by a new cellar, about thirty feet across, by fifteen feet deep.  The explosion was heard as far as Zermatt; and an hour and a half afterward, many citizens of that town were knocked down and quite seriously injured by descending portions of mule meat, frozen solid.  This shows, better than any estimate in figures, how high the experimenter went.

We had nothing to do, now, but bridge the cellar and proceed on our way.  With a cheer the men went at their work.  I attended to the engineering, myself.  I appointed a strong detail to cut down trees with ice-axes and trim them for piers to support the bridge.  This was a slow business, for ice-axes are not good to cut wood with.  I caused my piers to be firmly set up in ranks in the cellar, and upon them I laid six of my forty-foot ladders, side by side, and laid six more on top of them.  Upon this bridge I caused a bed of boughs to be spread, and on top of the boughs a bed of earth six inches deep.  I stretched ropes upon either side to serve as railings, and then my bridge was complete.  A train of elephants could have crossed it in safety and comfort.  By nightfall the caravan was on the other side and the ladders were taken up.