Yellow Speck

Years pass when no man can conquer and bestride "The Old Hag of the Alps"--the Matterhorn. Humpbacked, she towers, and her hump is a jagged ridge from which many have slithered down to death. About her hungry lightning tongues lick often, winds howl, and evil legends cluster grim and hoar. Sometimes, when a climbing-hatchet slips and sickening pebbles roll, it seems that the Hag chuckles. . . .

Yellow specks dotted the Hag's snow-flesh, last week, crawled and hacked their way upward from Zermatt. Wise tourists, bedded at luxurious Gornergrat, rose early and viewed the dawn-pink Alpine panorama on which the Matterhorn looms as but one of many peaks. From Gornergrat the yellow specks could not be seen--yet one of them was Prince Chichibu of Japan, second son of the Mikado, indefatigable Alpinist (TIME, Sept. 6 et ante).

As he hacked and clambered upward His Imperial and Royal Highness was shown the sights. From yonder crag, it was pointed out, Lord Francis Douglas and three companions plunged to death while returning from the first ascent ever made to the "hump" (1865). Prince Chichibu, perhaps superstitious, resolved not to return as did Lord Francis Douglas. Daring, the Prince proceeded straight over the hump (the Italo-Swiss frontier) and prepared to descend by the far more dangerous Italian route, necessitating straight drops by means of Alpine ropes of several hundred feet.

By this route, His Highness was informed, seven Italian guides and a priest ascended the Matterhorn in honor of a Catholic "Holy Year" (1901), Pious, they planted a cross and celebrated Mass on the Hag's topmost excrescence (14,780 feet). Intrigued, Prince Chichibu snap-shotted the spot on which was performed this (to him) heathen act of faith.

Descending the grand terraced walls of the Italian slope, Prince Chichibu and his party escaped the addition of a death toll to the list of 21 brave Alpinists who have perished on the Matterhorn. Next day, indefatigable, he scrambled up the Rothorn (13,855 ft.) in seven hours. "My muscles," he said on again reaching Zermatt, "have become like whipcord."

Throughout Nippon the ensuing jubilation was not raucous. Is not Prince Chichibu of divine descent --the second son of "the Son of Heaven"? The gods take care of their own.