Maiden Voyages (13 page)
Authors: Mary Morris
It was not possible to remain long. One of the young men was seriously alarmed by bleeding from the lungs, and the intense dryness of the day and the rarefaction of the air, at a height of nearly 15,000 feet, made respiration very painful. There is always water on the Peak, but it was frozen as hard as a rock, and the sucking of ice and snow increases thirst. We all suffered severely from the want of water, and the gasping for breath made our mouths and tongues so dry that articulation was difficult, and the speech of all unnatural.
From the summit were seen in unrivalled combination all the views which had rejoiced our eyes during the ascent. It was something at last to stand upon the storm-rent crown of this lonely sentinel of the Rocky Range, on one of the mightiest of the vertebrae of the backbone of the North American continent, and to see the waters start for both oceans. Uplifted above love and hate and storms of passion, calm amidst the eternal silences, fanned by zephyrs and bathed in living blue, peace rested for that one bright day on the Peak, as if it were some region
Where falls not rain, or hail, or any snow,
Or ever wind blows loudly.
We placed our names, with the date of ascent, in a tin within a crevice, and descended to the Ledge, sitting on the smooth granite,
getting our feet into cracks and against projections, and letting ourselves down by our hands, “Jim” going before me, so that I might steady my feet against his powerful shoulders. I was no longer giddy, and faced the precipice of 3500 feet without a shiver. Repassing the Ledge and Lift, we accomplished the descent through 1500 feet of ice and snow, with many falls and bruises, but no worse mishap, and there separated, the young men taking the steepest but most direct way to the Notch, with the intention of getting ready for the march home, and “Jim” and I taking what he thought the safer route for me—a descent over boulders for 2000 feet, and then a tremendous ascent to the “Notch.” I had various falls, and once hung by my frock, which caught on a rock, and “Jim” severed it with his hunting-knife, upon which I fell into a crevice full of soft snow. We were driven lower down the mountains than he had intended by impassable tracts of ice, and the ascent was tremendous. For the last 200 feet the boulders were of enormous size, and the steepness fearful. Sometimes I drew myself up on hands and knees, sometimes crawled; sometimes “Jim” pulled me up by my arms or a lariat, and sometimes I stood on his shoulders, or he made steps for me of his feet and hands, but at six we stood on the Notch in the splendour of the sinking sun, all colour deepening, all peaks glorifying, all shadows purpling, all peril past.
“Jim” had parted with his
brusquerie
when we parted from the students, and was gentle and considerate beyond anything, though I knew that he must be grievously disappointed, both in my courage and strength. Water was an object of earnest desire. My tongue rattled in my mouth, and I could hardly articulate. It is good for one’s sympathies to have for once a severe experience of thirst. Truly, there was
Water, water, everywhere,
But not a drop to drink.
Three times its apparent gleam deceived even the mountaineer’s practised eye, but we found only a foot of “glare ice.” At last, in a deep hole, he succeeded in breaking the ice, and by putting one’s arm far
down one could scoop up a little water in one’s hand, but it was tormentingly insufficient. With great difficulty and much assistance I recrossed the “Lava Beds,” was carried to the horse and lifted upon him, and when we reached the camping ground I was lifted off him, and laid on the ground wrapped up in blankets, a humiliating termination of a great exploit. The horses were saddled, and the young men were all ready to start, but “Jim” quietly said, “Now, gentlemen, I want a good night’s rest, and we shan’t stir from here to-night.” I believe they were really glad to have it so, as one of them was quite “finished.” I retired to my arbour, wrapped myself in a roll of blankets, and was soon asleep. When I woke, the moon was high shining through the silvery branches, whitening the bald Peak above, and glittering on the great abyss of snow behind, and pine logs were blazing like a bonfire in the cold still air. My feet were so icy cold that I could not sleep again, and getting some blankets to sit in, and making a roll of them for my back, I sat for two hours by the camp fire. It was weird and gloriously beautiful. The students were asleep not far off in their blankets with their feet towards the fire. “Ring” lay on one side of me with his fine head on my arm, and his master sat smoking, with the fire lighting up the handsome side of his face, and except for the tones of our voices, and an occasional crackle and splutter as a pine knot blazed up, there was no sound on the mountain side. The beloved stars of my far-off home were overhead, the Plough and Pole Star, with their steady light; the glittering Pleiades, looking larger than I ever saw them, and “Orion’s studded belt” shining gloriously. Once only some wild animals prowled near the camp, when “Ring,” with one bound, disappeared from my side; and the horses, which were picketed by the stream, broke their lariats, stampeded, and came rushing wildly towards the fire, and it was fully half an hour before they were caught and quiet was restored. “Jim,” or Mr. Nugent, as I always scrupulously called him, told stories of his early youth, and of a great sorrow which had led him to embark on a lawless and desperate life. His voice trembled, and tears rolled down his cheek. Was it semi-conscious acting, I wondered, or was his dark soul really stirred to its depths by the silence, the beauty, and the memories of youth?
We reached Estes Park at noon of the following day. A more successful ascent of the Peak was never made, and I would not now exchange my memories of its perfect beauty and extraordinary sublimity for any other experience of mountaineering in any part of the world. Yesterday snow fell on the summit, and it will be inaccessible for eight months to come.
*
Let no practical mountaineer be allured by my description into the ascent of Long’s Peak. Truly terrible as it was to me, to a member of the Alpine Club it would not be a feat worth performing.
(1877–1904)
When Isabelle Eberhardt traveled through North Africa, as a Muslim convert and dressed as a man, she moved within an Arab world that was shifting from its colonial attachments to national consciousness and independence. But Eberhardt (who called herself Si Mahmoud) took no interest in these events. Written at the turn of the century, Eberhardt’s diary is a journey into the self, a meditation that explores the psyche rather than the countryside. A daughter of an aristocratic family from Geneva, Eberhardt made two trips to North Africa. In the first she became enchanted with the exotic life-styles, the freedom from the strictures of home and family obligations. Home again in Geneva, she spurned her responsibilities, even left to return to North Africa without waiting a few weeks for a substantial inheritance. A nervous, conflicted woman, she spent her meager resources on drugs and became a homeless addict who begged food. The diary is written during her final months alive and reflects her life as an outcast from two very different worlds: the expatriate European society in the Arab states which would not accept her after her conversion to Islam and the Arab society where posing as a man barred her from formal contact with women. Eberhardt died at 28 in a flash flood at Ain Sefra
.
fromTHE PASSIONATE NOMAD
Batna
, 26 April 11
P
.
M
.
I am feeling depressed tonight in a way I cannot define. I feel lonely without Ouïha, and cannot stand the boredom. Yesterday’s storm has left Batna inundated, dark and freezing, and it is full of mud and filthy
gutters. My poor Souf is very ill, so that I cannot even go for my strolls along the open road, or up to that desolate graveyard where damaged tombs, terrifying windows upon the spectacle of human dust, lie scattered among the fragrant tufts of grey chih near a green meadow full of purple flax, white anemones and scarlet poppies in full bloom.
The other day I wandered around among a crowd of Muslims brandishing the flags of ancient religious ceremonial occasions; to the accompaniment of tambours and flutes they prayed for rain, for an extension of their fleeting Algerian spring which already, in its haste to move on, is blending summer flowers with those of spring.
After six long days of only seeing Rouh for brief and furtive moments by the gate of the hated barracks where he is quartered, he came to see me yesterday.… I held him in my arms and after the first wild, almost savage embrace, tears ran down our cheeks, and each of us felt a very mysterious fear, even though neither of us had said a word or knew why.
I realised yesterday once again how honest and beautiful is my Slimène’s soul, because of his joy that Augustin was making up with me and was doing justice to us both. In spite of my past, present and future misfortunes I bless God and my destiny for having brought me to this desert and given me to this man, who is my
only solace
, my only reason for happiness in this whole world.
I have often been hard on him and unfair, I have been impatient for no good reason, so insane as to hit him, although secretly ashamed because he did not strike back but merely smiled at my blind rage. Afterwards I always feel truly miserable and disgusted with myself for the injustice I might have committed.
This afternoon I went to see the police official who is without a doubt an enemy spy in charge of keeping an eye on me.
He
was the first to come out with the theory that P was the one who had wanted me killed, and that the murderer was bound to go scotfree. If so, that means I am doomed to die anywhere I go in the South, which is the only place where we can live.
If the crime committed at Behima is only slightly punished or not at all, that will amount to a clear signal to the Tidjanyas: “Go ahead and kill Si Mahmoud, you have nothing to fear.”
Yet God did stay the assassin’s hand once, and Abdallah’s sabre was deflected. If God wants me to die a martyr, God’s will is bound to find me wherever I am. If not, the plots of all those who conspire against me will be their undoing.
I am not afraid of death, but would not want to die in some obscure or pointless way. Having seen death close up, and having felt the brush of its black and icy wings, I know that its proximity means instant renunciation of the things of this world. I also know that my nerves and willpower will hold out in times of great personal ordeals, and that I will never give my enemies the satisfaction of seeing me run in cowardice or fear.
Yet, as I think of the future, there is one thing that does frighten me: misfortunes that might befall Slimène or Augustin. Faced with those, I would have no strength whatsoever. It would be hard to imagine worse poverty than the kind I am up against right now: yet the only reason it worries me is that our debts stand to spell disaster for Slimène.
Fortunately, my enemies think I am rich. I was right to spend money the way I did two years ago, here and in Biskra, for a reputation of wealth is just as useful for our defence as actual wealth would have been. Oh, if those rascals were to know that I am utterly destitute and that the slightest humiliation could be my undoing, they would not hesitate for a moment!
It is obvious that they are afraid. Otherwise they would arrest me as a spy, or expel me.
I was right to account for the wretched way I live down here as mere eccentricity: that way, it is not too obvious that I am in fact destitute.
I have begun to make a point of going to people’s houses to
eat
, for the sole purpose of keeping fit, something that would have been
anathema
in the old days, like the other thing I have been doing lately, namely going to see marabouts, just to beg them for money.
I must have an iron constitution, for my health is holding up contrary to all expectation: those frightening last days in El Oued, the injury, the shock to the nervous system and the haemorrhage in Behima, the hospital, the journey, half of which I made on foot, my poverty here, the cold and the poor diet, which mostly consists of bread, none of that has got me down. How long will I be able to hold out?
How can one explain the fact that at home, where I had warm clothes, an outstandingly healthy diet, and Mummy’s idolatrous care, the slightest chill I caught would degenerate into bronchitis; whereas here, having suffered freezing temperatures at El Oued, and at the hospital as well, having travelled in all kinds of weather, while literally always getting wet feet, going around in thin clothes and torn shoes, I don’t even catch a cold?
The human body is nothing, the human soul is all.
Why do I adore Rouh’s eyes so? Not for their shape or colour, but for the sweet and guileless radiance in their expression, which is what makes them beautiful.
The way I see it, there is no greater spiritual beauty than fanaticism, of a sort so sincere it can only end in martyrdom.