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I THE MEDIAEVAL ATTITUDE 9

II THE PIONEERS 22

V MONTE ROSA AND THE B?NDNER OBERLAND 82

VI TIROL AND THE OBERLAND 92

X THE ALPS IN LITERATURE 208

BIBLIOGRAPHY 251

INDEX 254

THE ALPS

THE MEDIAEVAL ATTITUDE

Rousseau is usually credited with the discovery that mountains are not intrinsically hideous. Long before his day, isolated men had loved the mountains, but these men were eccentrics. They founded no school; and Rousseau was certainly the first to popularise mountains and to transform the cult of hill worship into a fashionable creed. None the less, we must guard against the error of supposing that mountain love was confined to the few men who have left behind them literary evidence of their good taste. Mountains have changed very little since man became articulate, and the retina of the human eye has changed even less. The beauty of outline that stirs us to-day was implicit in the hills "that shed their burial sheets about the march of Hannibal." It seems reasonable to suppose that a few men in every age have derived a certain pleasure, if not from Alpine travel at least from the distant view of the snows.

The literature of the Ancient World contains little that bears upon our subject. The literature of the Jews is exceptional in this respect. This is the more to their credit, as the mountains of Judaea, south of the beautiful Lebanon range, are shapeless and uninteresting. Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Job, and Isaiah contain mountain passages of great beauty. The Old Testament is, however, far richer in mountain praise than the New Testament. Christ retired more than once to the mountains; but the authors of the four Gospels content themselves with recording the bare fact that certain spiritual crises took place on mountain-tops. There is not a single indication in all the gospels that Nazareth is set on a hill overlooking one of the fairest mountain prospects in all Judaea, not a single tribute to the beauty of Galilee girdled by the outlying hills of Hermon.

The Romans were disgustingly practical. They regarded the Alps as an inconvenient barrier to conquest and commerce. Virgil shows an occasional trace of a deeper feeling, and Horace paused between draughts of Falernian wine to admire the snows on Soracte, which lent contrast to the comfort of a well-ordered life.

Mr. Freshfield has shown that the Chinese had a more genuine feeling for mountains; and Mr. Weston has explained the ancient cult of high places among the Japanese, perhaps the most consistent mountain worshippers in the world. The Japanese pilgrims, clad in white, make the ascent to the shrines which are built on the summits of their sacred mountains, and then withdraw to a secluded spot for further worship. For centuries, they have paid official tribute to the inspiration of high places.

But what of the Alps? Did the men who lived within sight of the Swiss mountains regard them with indifference and contempt? This was, perhaps, the general attitude, but there is some evidence that a love for mountains was not quite so uncommon in the Middle Ages as is usually supposed.

Before attempting to summarise this evidence, let us try to realise the Alps as they presented themselves to the first explorers. The difficulties of Alpine exploration, as that term is now understood, would have proved quite as formidable as those which now confront the Himalayan explorer. In spite of this, glacier passes were crossed in the earliest times, and even the Romans seemed to have ventured across the Th?odule, judging by the coins which have been found on the top of that great glacier highway. In addition to the physical difficulties of Alpine travel, we must recognise the mental handicap of our ancestors. Danger no longer haunts the highways and road-passes of the Alps. Wild beasts and robber bands no longer threaten the visitor to Grindelwald. Of the numerous "inconveniences of travel" cited by an early visitor to the Alps, we need now only fear "the wonderful cunning of Innkeepers." Stilled are the voices that were once supposed to speak in the thunder and the avalanche. The dragons that used to wing their way across the ravines of the central chain have joined the Dodo and "the men that eat the flesh of serpents and hiss as serpents do." Danger, a luxury to the modern, formed part of the routine of mediaeval life. Our ancestors had no need to play at peril; and, lest we lightly assume that the modern mountaineer is a braver man than those who shuddered on the St. Bernard, let us remember that our ancestors accepted with grave composure a daily portion of inevitable risks. Modern life is so secure that we are forced to the Alps in search of contrast. When our ancestors needed contrast, they joined a monastery.

Must we assume that danger blinded them to the beauty of the Alps? The mountains themselves have not changed. The modern mountaineer sees, from the windows of the Berne express, a picture whose colours have not faded in the march of Time. The bar of silver that thrusts itself above the distant foothills, as the train swings out of the wooded fortress of the Jura, casts the same challenge across the long shadows of the uplands. The peaks are a little older, but the vision that lights the world for us shone with the same steadfast radiance across the plains of long ago. Must we believe that our adventurous forefathers could find nothing but fear in the snows of the great divide? Dangers which have not yet vanished menaced their journey, but the white gleam of the distant snows was no less beautiful in the days when it shone as a beacon light to guide the adventurous through the great barrier down the warmth of Italian lowlands. An age which could face the great adventure of the Crusades for an idea, or more often for the sheer lust of romantic wandering, was not an age easily daunted by peril and discomfort. May we not hope that many a mute, inglorious mountain-lover lifted his eyes across the fields and rivers near Basle or Constance, and found some hint of elusive beauty in the vision that still remains a mystery, even for those who have explored the once trackless snows?

There is the genuine ring about this. It is the modern spirit without the modern affectations. Nor is this case exceptional. In the following chapter we shall sketch the story of the early Alpine explorers, and we shall quote many passages instinct with the real love for the hills.

Are we not entitled to believe that Gesner, Marti, and Petrarch are characteristic of one phase of mediaeval sentiment, just as Bremble is characteristic of another? There is abundant evidence to show that the habit of visiting and admiring mountain scenery had become fashionable before the close of the sixteenth century. Simler tells us that foreigners came from all lands to marvel at the mountains, and excuses a certain lack of interest among his compatriots on the ground that they are surfeited with a too close knowledge of the Alps. Marti, of whom we shall speak at greater length, tells us that he found on the summit of the Stockhorn the Greek inscription cut in a stone which may be rendered: "The love of mountains is best." And then there is the evidence of art. Conventional criticism of mountain art often revolves in a circle: "The mediaeval man detested mountains, and when he painted a mountain he did so by way of contrast to set off the beauty of the plains." Or again: "Mediaeval man only painted mountains as types of all that is terrible in Nature. Therefore, mediaeval man detested mountains."

Let us try to approach the work of these early craftsmen with no preconceived notions as to their sentiments. The canvases still remain as they were painted. What do they teach us? It is not difficult to discriminate between those who used mountains to point a contrast, and those who lingered with devotion on the beauty of the hills. When we find a man painting mountains loosely and carelessly, we may assume that he was not over fond of his subject. Jan von Scorel's grotesque rocks show nothing but equally grotesque fear. Hans Altdorfer's elaborate and careful work proves that he was at least interested in mountains, and had cleared his mind of conventional terror. Roughly, we may say that, where the foreground shows good and the mountain background shows bad workmanship, the artist cared nothing for hills, and only threw them in by way of gloomy contrast. But such pictures are not the general rule.

Let us take a very early mountain painting that dates from 1444. It is something of a shock to find the Sal?ve and Mont Blanc as the background to a New Testament scene. How is the background used? Konrad Witz, the painter, has chosen for his theme the miraculous draught of fishes. If he had borrowed a mountain background for the Temptation, the Betrayal, the Agony, or the Crucifixion, we might contend that the mountains were introduced to accentuate the gloom. But there is no suggestion of fear or sorrow in the peaceful calm that followed the storm of Calvary. The mountains in the distance are the hills as we know them. There is no reason to think that they are intended as a contrast to the restful foreground. Rather, they seem to complete and round off the happy serenity of the picture.

Let us consider the mountain work of a greater man than Witz. We may be thankful that Providence created this barrier of hills between the deep earnestness of the North and the tolerance of Italy, for to this we owe some of the best mountain-scapes of the Middle Ages. There is romance in the thought of Albrecht D?rer crossing the Brenner on his way to the Venetian lagoons that he loved so well. Did D?rer regard this journey with loathing? Were the great Alps no more than an obstacle on the road to the coast where the Adriatic breaks "in a warm bay 'mid green Illyrian hills." Did he echo the pious cry of that old Monk who could only pray to be delivered from "this place of torment," or did he rather linger with loving memory on the wealth of inspiring suggestion gathered in those adventurous journeys? Contrast is the essence of Art, and D?rer was too great a man to miss the rugged appeal of untamed cliffs, because he could fathom so easily the gentler charm of German fields and Italian waters. You will find in these mountain woodcuts the whole essence of the lovable German romance, that peculiar note of "snugness" due to the contrast of frowning rock and some "gem?tlich" Black Forest ch?let. Hans Andersen, though a Dane, caught this note; and in D?rer's work there is the same appealing romance that makes the "Ice Maiden" the most lovable of Alpine stories. One can almost see Rudy marching gallantly up the long road in D?rer's "Das Grosse Gl?ck," or returning with the eaglets stolen from their perilous nest in the cliffs that shadow the "Heimsuch." Those who pretend that D?rer introduced mountains as a background of gloom have no sense for atmosphere nor for anything else. For D?rer, the mountains were the home of old romance.

Turn from D?rer to Da Vinci, and you will find another note. Da Vinci was, as we shall see, a climber, and this gives the dominant note to his great study of storm and thunder among the peaks, to be seen at Windsor Castle. His mountain rambles have given him that feeling of worship, tempered by awe, which even the Climbers' Guides have not banished. But this book is not a treatise on mountain Art--a fascinating subject; and we must content ourselves with the statement that painters of all ages have found in the mountains the love which is more powerful than fear. Those who doubt this may examine at leisure the mountain work of Brueghel, Titian, or Mantegna. There are many other witnesses. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Hans Leu had looked upon the hills and found them good, and Altdorfer had shown not only a passionate enthusiasm for mountains, but a knowledge of their anatomy far ahead of his age. Wolf Huber, ten years his junior, carried on the torch, and passed it to Lautensack, who recaptured the peculiar note of German romance of which D?rer is the first and the greatest apostle. It would be easy to trace the apostolic succession to Segantini, and to prove that he is the heir to a tradition nearly six hundred years old. But enough has been said. We have adduced a few instances which bear upon the contention that, just as the mountains of the Middle Ages were much the same as the mountains of to-day, so also among the men of those times, as among the men of to-day, there were those who hated and those who loved the heights. No doubt the lovers of mountain scenery were in the minority; but they existed in far larger numbers than is sometimes supposed.

THE PIONEERS

Within the compass of this book, we cannot narrate the history of Alpine passes, though the subject is intensely interesting, but we must not omit all mention of the great classic traverse of the Alps. We should read of Hannibal's memorable journey not in Livy, nor even in Bohn, but in that vigorous sixteenth-century translation which owes its charm and force even more to Philemon Holland the translator than to Livy.

Livy, or rather Holland, begins with Hannibal's sentiments on "seeing near at hand the height of those hills ... the horses singed with cold ... the people with long shagd haire." Hannibal and his army were much depressed, but, none the less, they advanced under a fierce guerilla attack from the natives, who "slipt away at night, every one to his owne harbour." Then follows a fine description of the difficulties of the pass. The poor elephants "were ever readie and anone to run upon their noses"--a phrase which evokes a tremendous picture--"and the snow being once with the gate of so many people and beasts upon it fretted and thawed, they were fain to go upon the bare yce underneeth and in the slabberie snow-broth as it relented and melted about their heeles." A great rock hindered the descent; Hannibal set it on fire and "powred thereon strong vinegar for to calcine and dissolve it," a device unknown to modern mountaineers. The passage ends with a delightful picture of the army's relief on reaching "the dales and lower grounds which have some little banks lying to the sunne, and rivers withall neere unto the woods, yea and places more meet and beseeming for men to inhabit." Experts are divided as to what pass was actually crossed by Hannibal. Even the Col de G?ant has been suggested by a romantic critic; it is certainly stimulating to picture Hannibal's elephants in the G?ant ice-fall. Probably the Little St. Bernard, or the Mont Gen?vre, is the most plausible solution. So much for the great traverse.

Some twenty-five glacier passes had been actually crossed before the close of the sixteenth century, a fact which bears out our contention that in the Middle Ages a good deal more was known about the craft of mountaineering than is generally supposed. There is, however, this distinctive difference between passes and peaks. A man may cross a pass because it is the most convenient route from one valley to another. He may cross it though he is thoroughly unhappy until he reaches his destination, and it would be just as plausible to argue from his journey a love of mountains as to deduce a passion for the sea in every sea-sick traveller across the Channel. But a man will not climb a mountain unless he derives some interest from the actual ascent. Passes may be crossed in the way of business. Mountains will only be climbed for the joy of the climb.

The Roche Melon, near Susa, was the first Alpine peak of any consequence to be climbed. This mountain rises to a height of 11,600 feet. It was long believed to be the highest mountain in Savoy. On one side there is a small glacier; but the climb can be effected without crossing snow. It was climbed during the Dark Ages by a knight, Rotario of Asti, who deposited a bronze tryptych on the summit where a chapel still remains. Once a year the tryptych is carried to the summit, and Mass is heard in the chapel. There is a description of an attempt on this peak in the Chronicle of Novalessa, which dates back to the first half of the eleventh century. King Romulus is said to have deposited treasure on the mountain. The whole Alpine history of this peak is vague, but it is certain that the peak was climbed at a very early period, and that a chapel was erected on the summit before Villamont's ascent in 1588. The climb presents no difficulties, but it was found discreet to remove the statue of the Virgin, as pilgrims seem to have lost their lives in attempting to reach it. The pilgrimages did not cease even after the statue had been placed in Susa.

Petrarch is not the only great name that links the Renaissance to the birth of mountaineering. That versatile genius, Leonardo da Vinci, carried his scientific explorations into the mountains. We have already mentioned his great picture of storm and thunder among the hills, one of the few mementos that have survived from his Alpine journeys. His journey took place towards the end of the fifteenth century. Little is known of it, though the following passage from his works has provoked much comment. The translation is due to Mrs. Bell: "And this may be seen, as I saw it, by any one going up Monboso, a peak of the Alps which divide France from Italy. The base of this mountain gives birth to the four rivers which flow in four different directions through the whole of Europe. And no mountain has its base at so great a height as this, which lifts itself above almost all the clouds; and snow seldom falls there, but only hail in the summer when the clouds are highest. And this hail lies there, so that, if it were not for the absorption of the rising and falling clouds, which does not happen more than twice in an age, an enormous mass of ice would be piled up there by the layers of hail; and in the middle of July I found it very considerable, and I saw the sky above me quite dark; and the sun as it fell on the mountain was far brighter here than in the plains below, because a smaller extent of atmosphere lay between the summit of the mountain and the sun."

We need not summarise the arguments that identify Monboso either with Monte Rosa or Monte Viso. The weight of evidence inclines to the former alternative, though, of course, nobody supposes that Da Vinci actually reached the summit of Monte Rosa. There is good ground, however, for believing that he explored the lower slopes; and it is just possible that he may have got as far as the rocks above the Col d'Ollen, where, according to Mr. Freshfield, the inscription "A.T.M., 1615" has been found cut into the crags at a height of 10,000 feet. In this connection it is interesting to note that the name "Monboso" has been found in place of Monte Rosa in maps, as late as 1740.

The Stockhorn is a modest peak some seven thousand feet in height. Simler tells us that its ascent was a commonplace achievement. Marti, as we have seen in the previous chapter, found numberless inscriptions cut into the summit stones by visitors, enthusiastic in their appreciation of mountain scenery, and its ascent by M?ller, a Berne professor, in 1536, is only remarkable for the joyous poem in hexameters which records his delight in all the accompaniments of a mountain expedition. M?ller has the true feelings for the simpler pleasures of picnicing on the heights. Everything delights him, from the humble fare washed down with a draught from a mountain stream, to the primitive joy of hurling big rocks down a mountain side. The last confession endears him to all who have practised this simple, if dangerous, amusement.

The early history of Pilatus, another low-lying mountain, is much more eventful than the annals of the Stockhorn. It is closely bound up with the Pilate legend, which was firmly believed till a Lucerne pastor gave it the final quietus in 1585. Pontius Pilate, according to this story, was condemned by the Emperor Tiberius, who decreed that he should be put to death in the most shameful possible manner. Hearing this, Pilate very sensibly committed suicide. Tiberius concealed his chagrin, and philosophically remarked that a man whose own hand had not spared him had most certainly died the most shameful of deaths. Pilate's body was attached to a stone and flung into the Tiber, where it caused a succession of terrible storms. The Romans decided to remove it, and the body was conveyed to Vienne as a mark of contempt for the people of that place. It was flung into the Rhone, and did its best to maintain its reputation. We need not follow this troublesome corpse through its subsequent wanderings. It was finally hurled into a little marshy lake, near the summit of Pilatus. Here Pilate's behaviour was tolerable enough, though he resented indiscriminate stone-throwing into the lake by evoking terrible storms, and once a year he escaped from the waters, and sat clothed in a scarlet robe on a rock near by. Anybody luckless enough to see him on these occasions died within the twelve-month.

So much for the story, which was firmly believed by the good citizens of Lucerne. Access to the lake was forbidden, unless the visitor was accompanied by a respectable burgher, pledged to veto any practices that Pilate might construe as a slight. In 1307, six clergymen were imprisoned for having attempted an ascent without observing the local regulations. It is even said that climbers were occasionally put to death for breaking these stringent by-laws. None the less, ascents occasionally took place. Duke Ulrich of W?rttemberg climbed the mountain in 1518, and a professor of Vienna, by name Joachim von Watt, ascended the mountain in order to investigate the legend, which he seems to have believed after a show of doubt. Finally, in 1585, Pastor John M?ller of Lucerne, accompanied by a few courageous sceptics, visited the lake. In their presence, he threw stones into the haunted lake, and shouted "Pilate wirf aus dein Kath." As his taunts produced no effect, judgment was given by default, and the legend, which had sent earlier sceptics into gaol, was laughed out of existence.

Thirty years before this defiant demonstration, the mountain had been ascended by the most remarkable of the early mountaineers. Conrad Gesner was a professor at the ancient University of Z?rich. Though not the first to make climbing a regular practice, he was the pioneer of mountain literature. He never encountered serious difficulties. His mountaineering was confined to those lower heights which provide the modern with a training walk. But he had the authentic outlook of the mountaineer. His love for mountains was more genuine than that of many a modern wielder of the ice-axe and rope. A letter has been preserved, in which he records his resolution "to climb mountains, or at all events to climb one mountain every year."

We have no detailed record of his climbs, but luckily his account of an ascent of Pilatus still survives, a most sincere tribute to the simple pleasures of the heights. It is a relief to turn to it after wading through more recent Alpine literature. Gesner's writing is subjective. It records the impress of simple emotions on an unsophisticated mind. He finds a na?ve joy in all the elemental things that make up a mountain walk, the cool breezes plying on heated limbs, the sun's genial warmth, the contrasts of outline, colour, and height, the unending variety, so that "in one day you wander through the four seasons of the year, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter." He explains that every sense is delighted, the sense of hearing is gratified by the witty conversation of friends, "by the songs of the birds, and even by the stillness of the waste." He adds, in a very modern note, that the mountaineer is freed from the noisy tumult of the city, and that in the "profound abiding silence one catches echoes of the harmony of celestial spheres." There is more in the same key. He anticipates the most enduring reward of the mountaineer, and his words might serve as the motto for a mountain book of to-day: "Jucundum erit postea meminisse laborum atque periculorum, juvabit haec animo revolvere et narrare amicis." Toil and danger are sweet to recall, every mountaineer loves "to revolve these in his mind and to tell them to his friends." Moreover, contrast is the essence of our enjoyment and "the very delight of rest is intensified when it follows hard labour." And then Gesner turns with a burst of scorn to his imaginary opponent. "But, say you, we lack feather beds and mattresses and pillows. Oh, frail and effeminate man! Hay shall take the place of these luxuries. It is soft, it is fragrant. It is blended from healthy grass and flower, and as you sleep respiration will be sweeter and healthier than ever. Your pillow shall be of hay. Your mattress shall be of hay. A blanket of hay shall be thrown across your body." That is the kind of thing an enthusiastic mountaineer might have written about the club-huts in the old days before the hay gave place to mattresses. Nor does Gesner spoil his rhapsody by the inevitable joke about certain denizens of the hay.

There follows an eloquent description of the ascent and an analysis of the Pilate legend. Thirty years were to pass before Pastor M?ller finally disposed of the myth, but Gesner is clearly sceptical, and concludes with the robust assertion that, even if evil spirits exist, they are "impotent to harm the faithful who worship the one heavenly light, and Christ the Sun of Justice." A bold challenge to the superstitions of the age, a challenge worthy of the man. Conrad Gesner was born out of due season; and, though he does not seem to have crossed the snow line, he was a mountaineer in the best sense of the term. As we read his work, we seem to hear the voice of a friend. Across the years we catch the accents of a true member of our great fraternity. We leave him with regret, with a wish that we could meet him on some mountain path, and gossip for a while on mountains and mountaineers.

But Gesner was not, as is sometimes assumed, alone in this sentiment for the hills. In the first chapter we have spoken of Marti, a professor at Berne, and a close friend of Gesner. The credit for discovering him belongs, I think, to Mr. Freshfield, who quotes some fine passages from Marti's writings. Marti looks out from the terrace at Berne on that prospect which no true mountain lover can behold without emotion, and exclaims: "These are the mountains which form our pleasure and delight when we gaze at them from the highest parts of our city, and admire their mighty peaks and broken crags that threaten to fall at any moment. Who, then, would not admire, love, willingly visit, explore, and climb places of this sort? I should assuredly call those who are not attracted by them dolts, stupid dull fishes, and slow tortoises.... I am never happier than on the mountain crests, and there are no wanderings dearer to one than those on the mountains."

This passage tends to prove that mountain appreciation had already become a commonplace with cultured men. Had Marti's views been exceptional, he would have assumed a certain air of defence. He would explain precisely why he found pleasure in such unexpected places. He would attempt to justify his paradoxical position. Instead, he boldly assumes that every right-minded man loves mountains; and he confounds his opponents by a vigorous choice of unpleasant alternatives.

Josias Simler was a mountaineer of a very different type. To him belongs the credit of compiling the first treatise on the art of Alpine travel. Though he introduces no personal reminiscences, his work is so free from current superstition that he must have been something of a climber; but, though a climber, he did not share Gesner's enthusiasm for the hills. For, though he seems to have crossed glacier passes, whereas Gesner confined himself to the lower mountains, yet the note of enthusiasm is lacking. His horror of narrow paths, bordering on precipices, is typical of the age; and if he ventured across a pass he must have done so in the way of business. There is, as we have already pointed out, a marked difference between passes and mountains. A merchant with a holy horror of mountains may be forced to cross a pass in the way of business, but a man will only climb a mountain for the fun of the thing. It is clear that Simler could only see in mountains a sense of inconvenient barriers to commerce, but as a practical man he set out to codify the existing knowledge. Gesner's mountain work is subjective; it is the literature of emotion; he is less concerned with the mountain in itself, than with the mountain as it strikes the individual observer. Simler, on the other hand, is the forerunner of the objective school. He must delight those who postulate that all Alpine literature should be the record of positive facts. The personal note is utterly lacking. Like Gesner, he was a professor at Z?rich. Unlike Gesner, he was an embodiment of the academic tradition that is more concerned with fact than with emotion. None the less, his work was a very valuable contribution, as it summarised existing knowledge on the art of mountain travel. His information is singularly free from error. He seems to have understood the use of the rope, alpenstocks, crampons, dark spectacles, and the use of paper as a protection against cold. It is strange that crampons, which were used in Simler's days, were only reintroduced into general practice within the last decades, whilst the uncanny warmth of paper is still unknown to many mountaineers. His description of glacier perils, due to concealed crevasses, is accurate, and his analysis of avalanches contains much that is true. We are left with the conviction that snow- and ice-craft is an old science, though originally applied by merchants rather than pure explorers.

We quoted Simler, in the first chapter, in support of our contention that foreigners came in great numbers to see and rejoice in the beauty of the Alps. But, though Simler proves that passes were often crossed in the way of business, and that mountains were often visited in search of beauty, he himself was no mountain lover.

It is a relief to turn to Scheuchzer, who is a living personality. Like Gesner and Simler, he was a professor at Z?rich, and, like them, he was interested in mountains. There the resemblance ceases. He had none of Gesner's fine sentiment for the hills. He did not share Simler's passion for scientific knowledge. He was a very poor mountaineer, and, though he trudged up a few hills, he heartily disliked the toil of the ascent: "Anhelosae quidem sunt scansiones montium"--an honest, but scarcely inspiring, comment on mountain travel. Honesty, bordering on the na?ve, is, indeed, the keynote of our good professor's confessions. Since his time, many ascents have failed for the same causes that prevented Scheuchzer reaching the summit of Pilatus, but few mountaineers are candid enough to attribute their failure to "bodily weariness and the distance still to be accomplished." Scheuchzer must be given credit for being, in many ways, ahead of his age. He protested vigorously against the cruel punishments in force against witches. He was the first to formulate a theory of glacier motion which, though erroneous, was by no means absurd. As a scientist, he did good work in popularising Newton's theories. He published the first map of Switzerland with any claims to accuracy. His greatest scientific work on dragons is dedicated to the English Royal Society, and though Scheuchzer's dragons provoke a smile, we should remember that several members of that learned society subscribed to publish his researches on those fabulous creatures.

THE OPENING UP OF THE ALPS

The climbs, so far chronicled, have been modest achievements and do not include a genuine snow-peak, for the Roche Melon has permanent snow on one side only. We have seen that many snow passes were in regular use from the earliest times; but genuine Alpine climbing may be said to begin with the ascent of the Titlis. According to Mr. Gribble, this was climbed by a monk of Engleberg, in 1739. Mr. Coolidge, on the other hand, states that it was ascended by four peasants, in 1744. In any case, the ascent was an isolated feat which gave no direct stimulus to Alpine climbing, and Mr. Gribble is correct in dating the continuous history of Alpine climbing from the discovery of Chamounix, in 1741. This famous valley had, of course, a history of its own before that date; but its existence was only made known, to a wider world, by the visit of a group of young Englishmen, towards the middle of the eighteenth century.

In 1741, Geneva was enlivened by a vigorous colony of young Britons. Of these, William Windham was a famous athlete, known on his return to London as "Boxing Windham." While at Geneva, he seems, despite the presence of his "respectable perceptor," Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, the grandson of the theologian, to have amused himself pretty thoroughly. The archives record that he was fined for assault and kindred offences. When these simple joys began to pall he decided to go to Chamounix in search of adventure.

Martel's letter and his map of Chamounix were printed together with Windham's narrative, and were largely responsible for popularising Chamounix. Those who wished to earn a reputation for enterprise could hardly do so without a visit to the glaciers of Chamounix. Dr. John Moore, father of Sir John Moore, who accompanied the Duke of Hamilton on the grand tour, tells us that "one could hardly mention anything curious or singular without being told by some of those travellers, with an air of cool contempt: 'Dear Sir, that is pretty well, but take my word for it, it is nothing to the glaciers of Savoy.'" The Duc de la Rochefoucauld considered that the honour of his nation demanded that he should visit the glaciers, to prove that the English were not alone in the possession of courage.

More important, in this connection, than Dr. Moore or the duke is the great name of De Saussure. De Saussure belonged to an old French family that had been driven out of France during the Huguenot persecutions. They emigrated to Geneva, where De Saussure was born. His mother had Spartan views on education; and from his earlier years the child was taught to suffer the privations due to physical ills and the inclemency of the season. As a result of this adventurous training, De Saussure was irresistibly drawn to the mountains. He visited Chamounix in 1760, and was immediately struck by the possibility of ascending Mont Blanc. He does not seem to have cherished any ambition to make the first ascent in person. He was content to follow when once the way had been found; and he offered a reward to the pioneer, and promised to recompense any peasant who should lose a day's work in trying to find the way to the summit of Mont Blanc. The reward was not claimed for many years, but, meanwhile, De Saussure never missed a chance of climbing a mountain. He climbed AEtna, and made a series of excursions in various parts of the Alps. When his wife complained, he indited a robust letter which every married mountaineer should keep up his sleeve for ready quotation.

"In this valley, which I had not previously visited," he writes, "I have made observations of the greatest importance, surpassing my highest hopes; but that is not what you care about. You would sooner--God forgive me for saying so--see me growing fat like a friar, and snoring every day in the chimney corner, after a big dinner, than that I should achieve immortal fame by the most sublime discoveries at the cost of reducing my weight by a few ounces and spending a few weeks away from you. If, then, I continue to take these journeys, in spite of the annoyance they cause you, the reason is that I feel myself pledged in honour to go on with them, and that I think it necessary to extend my knowledge on this subject and make my works as nearly perfect as possible. I say to myself: 'Just as an officer goes out to assault a fortress when the order is given, and just as a merchant goes to market on market-day, so must I go to the mountains when there are observations to be made.'"

De Saussure was partly responsible for the great renaissance of mountain travel that began at Geneva in 1760. A group of enthusiastic mountaineers instituted a series of determined assaults on the unconquered snows. Of these, one of the most remarkable was Jean-Andre de Luc.

The Buet is familiar to all who know Chamounix. It rises to the height of 10,291 feet. Its summit is a broad plateau, glacier-capped. Those who have travelled to Italy by the Simplon may, perhaps, recall the broad-topped mountain that seems to block up the western end of the Rhone valley, for the Buet is a conspicuous feature on the line, between Sion and Brigue. It is not a difficult mountain, in the modern sense of the term; but, to climbers who knew little of the nature of snow and glacier, it must have presented quite a formidable appearance. De Luc made several attempts before he was finally successful on September 22, 1770. His description of the view from the summit is a fine piece of writing. Familiarity had not staled the glory of such moments; and men might still write, as they felt, without fear that their readers would be bored by emotions that had lost their novelty.

Before leaving, De Luc observed that the party were standing on a cornice. A cornice is a crest of windblown snow overhanging a precipice. As the crest often appears perfectly continuous with the snow on solid foundation, cornices have been responsible for many fatal accidents. De Luc's party naturally beat a hurried retreat; but "having gathered, by reflection, that the addition of our own weight to this prodigious mass which had supported itself for ages counted for absolutely nothing, and could not possibly break it loose, we laid aside our fears and went back to the terrible terrace." A little science is a dangerous thing; and it was a mere chance that the first ascent of the Buet is not notorious for a terrible accident. It makes one's blood run cold to read of the calm contempt with which De Luc treated the cornice. Each member of the party took it in turn to advance to the edge and look over on to the cliff below supported as to his coattails by the rest of the party.

De Luc made a second ascent of the Buet, two years later; but it was not until 1779 that a snow peak was again conquered. In that year Murith, the Prior of the St. Bernard Hospice, climbed the Velan, the broad-topped peak which is so conspicuous a feature from the St. Bernard. It is a very respectable mountain rising to a height of 12,353 feet. Murith, besides being an ecclesiastic, was something of a scientist, and his botanical handbook to the Valais is not without merit. It is to Bourrit, of whom we shall speak later, that we owe the written account of the climb, based on information which Bourrit had at first hand from M. Murith.

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