Aleister Crowley in America Page 12

  “It’s mountain climbing you’re after, is it?” said the chevalier when he had reached the presence of Mr. Bowdle.

  “That was my object in coming to Mexico at this time,” replied Mr. Bowdle. “Are you fond of climbing?”

  “Very. I have climbed everything from a four board fence to a grenzel pole, and was never curried below the knees,” gallantly responded the chevalier. “There are a great many things to be considered when contemplating a trip up a greased pole or a snowy mountain,” he continued, “the first and most important of which is, whether the return trip will ever be recorded. I am looking for a man who will consent to remain with me at the top of Popocatepetl providing we find the location a pleasant place to live.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Bowdle, “I understand there is a growing sentiment in the City of Mexico in favor of a number of people locating in the crater.”

  “Quite possible,” assented the chevalier. “I have been encouraged by a great many people in my ambition to prove that a person may as easily die from the effects of a sun stroke at the top of PoPo as yield up the ghost from mountain troubles when living on the level with the sea. The latter I have proved conclusively. I have demonstrated, to the delight and astonishment of a large number of friends, every symptom of mountain troubles while on the sea, and am prepared to test the sunstroke idea at the highest elevation within the reach of man.”

  “Is there any danger in climbing PoPo?” inquired Mr. Bowdle from his new acquaintance.

  “No more than stumbling over an empty tomato can in your back yard,” was the cheerful commonplace reply. “There is pre-eminently more danger in extracting the essence from a boisterous and irreligious heifer. I am a living example.”

  “If such is the case I agree with you, but do you wish to accompany our party?”

  “I go where glory waits me.”

  Glory awaited elsewhere. Eckenstein and Crowley undertook the 17,343-foot ascent of Ixtaccihuatl, where he and his friend, having completed the climb, exercised themselves by practicing sharpshooting with revolvers and rifles in the clear air, to great effect: something they repeated whenever near a strange settlement as a means of deterring the commonplace murderousness of Mexican marauders.

  On February 2, 1901, nine days after the death of Queen Victoria, news that brought the climbers joyous relief, the Herald ’s headline Bold Alpine Climber announced the pair’s achievement.

  Chevalier O’Rourke, the famous Alpine rover, returned to the city Thursday. With him he brings a fortnight’s growth of whiskers, his mountain climbing companion, O. Eckenstein, and a bunch of secret information about their flirtation with “The White Lady” (Ixtaccihuatl), which has already aroused the envy and jealousy of those who have gone before, but not so far, into the graces of the famous old woman.

  The chevalier is a clip [hit?], and with his aide-de-camp, Eckenstein, they have explored the snowy bosom of the hitherto unattainable lady to further orders. They discovered that the topmost point of her classic bust moved their aneroid [barometer] to announce the height at 17,343 feet. This enviable familiarity with the White Lady was reached by a perilous exertion on the north side of her sleeping apartment, and the chevalier describes it as being very difficult of approach owing to the steep powdery snow. This bit of information regarding the vanity of the Lady who until now had never been known to use such an article of artistic adornment as powder, is, according to the gallant chevalier, a delicate subject, which he unwillingly makes public, at the same time considering it of too much importance to withhold.

  The Lady entertained them in one of her choicest apartments in a camp at 13,800 feet, where the chevalier says they were attacked by nothing except dyspepsia and cold feet. The furnaces have not been in working order with the White Lady for a great many years, but otherwise her reception was of the most cordial nature. On the North peak they spent some time at an altitude of 16,882 feet which the Lady assured them had never before been trodden by mortal man. In this particular the chevalier and his distinguished friend were allowed privileges about the dominion which they highly esteem.

  At another time the Lady entertained Mr. Eckenstein, unaccompanied, in her favorite drawing room where the apartment, Mr. Eckenstein asserts, is furnished with a group of rock towers, the highest of which was exceedingly difficult of exploration.

  “Our visit was deucedly uneventful,” said the Chevalier last evening. “The White Lady received us royally. She abhors animal life which is entirely extinct in all her possessions. She eats very little, since she is a confirmed sleeper; and we were compelled to subsist upon canned goods which I think have come from what was left of the embalmed beef which was fed to the American soldiers. I and my fellowman have both a beastly attack of dyspepsia.”

  Mr. O’Rourke added that it was not definitely decided just where their next exploration would take them. He aspires to scale the Mount of Orizaba before he forsakes the country, and his friends all bid him Godspeed. He related a number of his experiences last evening in the American club, where he is a provisional member.

  Three weeks later Crowley and Eckenstein were at the Hotel Cosmopolita (still standing), Guadalajara, a handsome city in Jalisco State, some 280 miles northwest by train from Mexico City and about 62 miles north of the live volcano of Nevado Colima, their destination. It was there that Crowley “completed the work of L.I.L.,” an achievement he considered crowned the previous two-and-a-half years of magical efforts.

  On February 27 they took the train 50 miles south to Huescalapa, whence the next day they rode to a ranch, then on March 1 to camp at 12,550 feet. Crowley’s notebook contains a drawing of the smoking volcano “from the camp”: an awesome sight. On March 2, Crowley made a different kind of journey, much less tiring: an astral journey to Elaine Simpson Witkowski (by arrangement), who was living in Hong Kong with her husband, a German investment banker.

  The next day Crowley and Eckenstein made an “early start for Nevado,” Mexico’s only active volcano. The lower slopes were thick with enormous trees, then pine trees until about 13,000 feet, after which, no trees at all: lava scree, rocks, and what climbers of the period called “bread-crust bombs” blown out by the volcano in semifluid state before hardening in the sun. Crowley’s diary records the denouement, after the uncomfortable, deeply tiring journey: “Returned at 3PM.”6 The mountaineers had had to contend with the Colima volcano spewing forth burning ash, and the climb was called off when the red-hot ash burned into their shoes and penetrated their shirts. Colima would erupt with full force in 1903, changing the slopes again after the 1869 eruption, on whose lava flow Eckenstein and Crowley had tried to ascend. It might be noted that Crowley’s diary for these months only contains details of his image-concentration exercises; nothing is said of what filled the days, other than mentions of travel on horseback south of Guadalajara.

  On March 19 the Mexican Herald recorded the sense of disappointment felt by the climbers.

  A HARD PROPOSITION

  Mountain Climbers Unable to Ascend the Slopes of Colima

  Chevalier O’Rourke and his fellow mountain climber, Mr. Eckstein [sic], returned yesterday from Colima where they have been for the past weeks examining the active volcanoes of that Pacific state. The chevalier for the first time in his life found something which he could not climb. The volcano of Colima is a decidedly hard proposition. The chevalier and his companion nearly lost their lives in their attempts to ascend the active mount. “Large cinders and ashes were thrown into the air for several miles,” said the climbers last evening. “When we were ten miles from the crater we were pelted with bits of cinder all of which satisfied us that the earth’s internal fires have not subsided to any great extent.”

  On April 3, the Herald reported that Chevalier O’Rourke “and his aide Eckenstein” were leaving that day for Orizaba or Citlaltepetl (18,491 feet), accompanied by John Benjamin Marshall, manager of the International Stenographic Bureau, native of Kentucky, and a keen climber. According to a 1908 U.S. ar
ticle in Outing magazine by Edmund Otis Hovey, “The ascent of Orizaba, the highest mountain on the continent south of Alaska [in fact third highest], is rarely undertaken on account of the lack of accommodations for tourists.”7 Kindred difficulties would be encountered by the Chevalier and his fellows.*50

  Shortly before they left, the Herald announced on March 31 the arrival of vacationers who identified themselves as A. Roosevelt, son of New York and Paris banker Cornelius Roosevelt and cousin of “the hero of San Juan Hill,” now U.S. vice president, with companions Dr. Charles Thoan of Paris’s Hotel Dieu hospital, and millionaire “sugar king” of France, H. Say. They announced their imminent ascent of Popocatapetl as part of scientific studies led by Thoan to test blood pressure at altitudes. “Mexico is beautiful,” said the cadet Roosevelt, “but her grub is tough.” Crowley might have agreed; he was constantly suffering from sickness due to poor-quality canned food. Clearly the reporter asked if they knew of the Chevalier and his companion. The paper printed the visitors’ reaction.

  Dr. Thoan is a member of the celebrated Alpine Climbing society in France and discredits the claim of Chevalier O’Rourke, to being a member in good standing of this distinguished society. The chevalier and his aide Eckstein [sic] both have said they were Alpinere, but now come these gentlemen with the unmistakable accent and with no Bally Bay apostrophes chopped into their names, denying our friends their thunder with painful positiveness.

  Readers may note the somewhat unpleasant comparison of value made between golden rich kid Roosevelt and the Irish “Bally Bay” surname O’Rourke. This is a blue-blood Republican newspaper!

  Anyhow, cut to April 4 when young Roosevelt and pals return from Popocatapetl. The lad says he can’t recall what happened on the mountain as he passed out and that it was a mistake to climb a mountain without long acclimatization, on account of the air. “I’m glad to get away from Mexico. I believe I would die in this country,” cried the young varsity heman, celebrated for fitness and democratic directness by the Herald only four days earlier! Dr. Thoan indicated that he would not be returning. They left for Los Angeles by Mexican Central Railroad, just in time to miss the return of Crowley and company on April 6.

  ASCENT IMPOSSIBLE

  Holy Week Not Favorable to Mountain Climbing in Mexico

  The Chevalier O’Rourke, Mr. Eckenstein, and Mr. Marshall, returned yesterday from Oriziba where they had gone for the purpose of making the ascent of Mount Oriziba but for various reasons they were unable to accomplish their purpose. On account of holy week, guides were not obtainable and other obstacles arose which could not be overcome.

  Crowley does not refer to the trip in his diary at all, other than, on March 31, the intention to climb it. Between April 3 and 4 his diary merely records a journey to and from San Andrès Cholula, southeast of Mexico City, which was some 43 miles west of Citlaltepetl, though the latter mountain could be seen from there, as could Popacatapetl to the west.

  On April 7 an article in the Herald indicated that Crowley and Eckenstein had vented spleen over the paper’s reportage of Roosevelt and friends, and perhaps for failure to climb the highest mountain in Mexico, by threatening the paper with legal action. Meanwhile, Crowley did a tarot divination that day to help him decide where next to go. Indications for Japan were “awful” if he went at once. “Therefore I decide absolutely to postpone this journey, and am strongly inclined to go to Canada.”8 He was minded to go to Canada because he’d received a letter from friendly contact, great British mountaineer and former tutor in chemistry J. Norman Collie, with a map of the Rockies and the latter’s recommendations. The negative tarot divination would determine Crowley’s eventual decision to stagger his trip to Japan by staying longer than expected in Hawaii in May and June. Again, it must be stressed that Crowley’s movements were dictated by personal, practical, and spiritual considerations; this would have made any kind of strict intelligence itinerary, governed by human beings remote from himself, unlikely.

  In the meantime, Eckenstein decided to get even with the Herald journalist.

  OFFENDED CLIMBERS

  Think Their Achievements

  Have Not Been Properly Treated

  The Chevalier O’Rourke and his friend Mr. Eckenstein are said to be taking legal advice in this city with a view to prosecuting the Herald because of the alleged liberties which this paper has taken with the names of those persons. Mr. Roosevelt, of New York, who recently visited here, stated that the mountain climbers O’Rourke and Eckenstein were not members of any climbing society that he knew anything about, and the gentlemen are said to have taken exception to the remark. Mr. Eckenstein also asserts that he is no “aide” to O’Rourke, and O’Rourke thinks he never needed an aide. The chevalier has written a number of books, some of which are very good and others have never been reviewed. His name when he is an author is Aleister Crowley. He is a shadow of Swinburne.

  According to the Confessions Eckenstein met the offending journalist in his “low bar” and scared the bejesus out of him while Crowley jocularly encouraged the fellow to join him on a trip to Popocatapetl to confirm the journalist’s belief that mountaineering was really quite easy. The chap would be all right as they’d rope him to them, and all he’d have to do was to keep up: nothing too desperate!

  Crowley and Eckenstein then took a quick train trip 22 miles south-west of Mexico City to Calimaya, then went by horseback 9 miles to the volcano of Nevado de Toluca. Eckenstein fell ill after they climbed the lower peak; the higher peak Crowley climbed alone the next day on April 11.

  On April 16 the Herald reported the men’s plan to ascend Popocatapetl and descend into the crater without ropes. That same day Crowley astral traveled “in an egg of white light” to see Elaine Witkowski by prior appointment in Hong Kong. She was standing in a room of white and pale green, wearing a white dress with velvet lapels. He tried to lift a cloisonné vase from shelf to table with “questionable success.” He said, “Vale Soror!” (“Goodbye Sister,” of the Order), he thought, audibly. That was at 10:00 p.m., after spending the day traveling down to the fertile, crop-filled plain of Amecameca, which provides a spectacular view of godlike Popocatapetl. On March 17 the party spent the night at the ranch (hotel) at Tlamacaz and ascended Popocatapetl at great speed on April 18.

  As Crowley says in his Confessions, the journalist learned a hard and sharp lesson. Roped securely to an absurdly cheerful Crowley and Eckenstein, chivvying him on with gleeful encouragement, the utterly exhausted American cursed everything he could think of but had no choice but to stumble unwillingly on. Crowley remarked that the journalist wrote up an account of his experience of the climb in the Herald in the style of “Dooley,” an Irish character. It appeared in the Herald on April 21. This little extract gives an idea of it.

  “How are yez, Hinnessey, me b’y,” said Mr. Dooley as he came up the street walking by the assistance of a cane.

  “Foiner ’n silk,” replied Hinnessey, “but why the stick; is it lame yez are?”

  “Spake in whispers er not at all, an’ oi’ll be tellin’ ye, fer as me ould frind, oi belave ye’ll not bethray me. Oive ben away t’ th’ top iv Popeycapethel . . .”

  “But, Mr. Dooley . . .”

  “Hinnessey, be thrue to me. Me woife hez denied me bid an’ bard, an’ oim a por outchast in the worruld, charged with havin’ no sinse at all. Oi wint, Hinnessey, in the inthrusts iv Seance, wid me former counthrymon, the Shivvyleer O’Rourke, an’ his parthner-in-crime, Barron von Eckenstein. Kape away from him, Hinnessey, er ye’ll be inveigle into some desperate skame be th’ which ye’ll be robbed iv yure bodily comfort an’ fam’ly this. Th’re a bloomin’ pair iv human dayceivers who cahnt till th’ diff’rence betwane hate and co’ld, upon me soul th’ cahn’t.”

  By the time it was published, Crowley was heading for El Paso, leaving the Texas border town for San Francisco on April 24, the day this fascinating—and somewhat more respectful—story appeared in the Mexican Herald.

  CLIMBER TO LE
AVE

  Mr. Eckenstein May Explore the Wilds of Canada and Alaska

  O. Eckenstein, the British mountain-climber, who has been in this country for the past few months in company with the Chevalier O’Rourke, expects to leave tonight for Veracruz where he will sail on the Ward line tomorrow for New York City.

  Mr. Eckenstein will join a friend in New York [almost certainly J. Norman Collie 1859–1942] and they may decide to make a journey into the unexplored regions of Canada and Alaska. Mr. Eckenstein, when busy, is a civil engineer.

  Mr. Eckenstein is an Englishman by birth, but his parents are German. When a young man he attended the University of Bonn at Germany having as one of his college mates, the present emperor of Germany. Mr. Eckenstein said that in his younger days Emperor William was a very unpretentious fellow and one would not suppose from his actions and mode of living that he was to become ruler of a great country. He was of a strictly democratic temperament, said Mr. Eckenstein, and was a thorough student in school who was generally admired by all his fellow students. In speaking of the sensational reports printed concerning the Kaiser’s state of mind, Mr. Eckenstein is inclined to scoff. He said:

  “I find that people are unable any longer to appreciate an honest statesman. In almost every nation under the sun and particularly in America, the politicians are subject to the influence of the rich. Other parts of the world are similarly affected. In Germany they have a ruler who says just what he thinks under all circumstances and he is sincere in what he says; so the people of the world are pleased to call him crazy, or suffering from incipient insanity. On the contrary the emperor is intensely sane. He believes in honesty and uprightness and square and open dealing with his people under all conditions and he tells them his ideas and his intentions.”

  Mr. Eckenstein is at present spending a few months vacation after a long period of engineering service and he was attracted to Mexico by the Chevalier with whom he had wandered over a great deal of the earth’s surface.