“Our route was identical with that which they followed in their descent when, as will be seen, they struck out on one part of the mountain a different line from that which they had taken in ascending. After gaining the Col du Lion, we climbed the south-western or Breil _arête_ by the route which has been described in these pages, passing the night at the then unfinished hut constructed by the Italian Alpine Club on the ‘cravate.’ Starting from the hut at daylight, we reached at an early hour the summit of the ‘shoulder,’ and then traversed its _arête_ to the final peak of the Matterhorn. The passage of this _arête_ was perhaps the most enjoyable part of the whole expedition. The ridge, worn by slow irregular decay into monstrous and rugged battlements, and guarded on each side by tremendous precipices, is grand beyond all description, but does not, strange to say, present any remarkable difficulty to the climber, save that it is exceedingly trying to the head. Great care is of course necessary, but the scramble is by no means of so arduous a nature as entirely to absorb the attention; so that a fine climb, and rock scenery, of grandeur perhaps unparalleled in the Alps, can both be appreciated. “It was near the end of this _arête_, close to the place where it abuts against the final peak, that Professor Tyndall’s party turned in 1862,(267) arrested by a cleft in the ridge. From the point where they stopped the main tower of the Matterhorn rises in front of the climber, abrupt, magnificent, and apparently inaccessible. The summit is fully 750 feet in vertical height above this spot, and certainly, to my eye, appeared to be separated from me by a yet more considerable interval; for I remember, when at the end of the _arête_, looking upward at the crest of the mountain, and thinking that it must be a good 1000 feet above me.