The next attempt was a remarkable one; and of it, too, there is no published account. It was made by Messrs. Alfred, Charles and Sandbach Parker, of Liverpool, in July, 1860. These gentlemen, _without guides_, endeavoured to storm the citadel by attacking the eastern face, that to which reference was just now made as a smooth, impracticable cliff. Mr. Sandbach Parker informs me that he and his brothers went along the ridge between the Hörnli and the peak until they came to the point where the ascending angle is considerably increased. This place is marked on Dufour’s map of Switzerland 3298 metres (10,820 feet). They were then obliged to bear a little to the left to get on to the face of the mountain, and afterward they turned to the right and ascended about seven hundred feet farther, keeping as nearly as was practicable to the crest of the ridge, but occasionally bearing a little to the left; that is, more on to the face of the mountain. The brothers started from Zermatt, and did not sleep out. Clouds, a high wind and want of time were the causes which prevented these daring gentlemen from going farther. Thus their highest point was under twelve thousand feet. The third attempt upon the mountain was made toward the end of August, 1860, by Mr. Vaughan Hawkins, from the side of the Val Tournanche. A vivid account of his expedition has been published by him in _Vacation Tourists;_ and it has been referred to several times by Professor Tyndall in the numerous papers he has contributed to Alpine literature. I will dismiss it, therefore, as briefly as possible. Mr. Hawkins had inspected the mountain in 1859 with the guide J. J. Bennen, and he had formed the opinion that the south-west ridge would lead to the summit. He engaged J. Jacques Carrel, who was concerned in the first attempts, and, accompanied by Bennen (and by Professor Tyndall, whom he had invited to take part in the expedition), he started for the gap between the little and the great peak. Bennen was a guide who was beginning to be talked about. During the chief part of his brief career he was in the service of Wellig, the landlord of the inn on the Æggischhorn, and was hired out by him to tourists. Although his experience was limited, he had acquired a good reputation; and his book of certificates, which is lying before me, shows that he was highly esteemed by his employers. A good-looking man, with courteous, gentlemanly manners, skillful and bold, he might by this time have taken a front place amongst guides if he had only been endowed with more prudence. He perished miserably in the spring of 1864 not far from his home, on a mountain called the Haut de Cry, in the Valais. [Illustration: J. J. BENNEN (1862)]