THE EARLY MOUNTAINEERS.*

MANY have been the attempts to account for the fascination of mountaineering as a sport, and many have been the failures. No doubt this fascination is due in different natures to somewhat different causes. The man who, when asked why he frequented the mountains, answered that nowhere else did he feel so well, is typical of a large section of the climbing world. Gesner, writing in 1555, lays stress on the physical delights of the rough life and coarse fare of the mountains, and with this view Mr. Gribble, not without a touch of robust, Anglo-Saxon intolerance of sentiment, seems fully to concur. "It is, in fact," he says, "just the sort of thing that most contemporary mountaineers would say, if it had not ceased being worth saying." Again, the beauties of scenery and flora—though, indeed, these are not the ex- clusive property of the mountains—are attractions to many. Perhaps it was these brought Leonardo da. Vinci to Monte Rosa, though we should think it more likely that he came as a man of science than as a man of art. The exercise, too, of natural abilities is, no doubt, a pleasure, and ages of struggle have evolved in man an instinctive delight in overcoming obstacles; indeed many would hold that such is the only real happiness granted to humanity. But there is something behind all this, something far deeper, something which most moun- taineers inay perhaps fail, with Mr. Gribble, to appreciate :— "Thins is no wealth of flowers, Thine are no feasts of youth."

This something is psychological ; indeed, we should call it spiritual, did we wish to make the distinction. On some people the prospect of the great mountain solitudes has the effect of impressing a sense of humility. Mr. Gribble men-

• The Early Mountaineers. By Francis Gribble. London : T. Fisber Uuwin. [21a4

tione how when Goethe "first stood upon a mountain peak the words that rose unbidden to his lips were : Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou so regardest him P ' " and something of the same feeling seems to underlie Petrarch's sentimental mysticism. To others again, when from some lofty summit they gaze, as it were, upon a new earth under the old heaven, humanity seems to acquire, in converse with its silence, a dignity which is lost amid the petty tumults of history and the small worries of the world. It is in the mountains that they approach nearest to the serenity of the Eastern sage; that death, to pursue the illustration, seems merely a passing into Nirvana, merely a more intimate and lasting association with the noblest and highest in Nature. They commune with the spirit of the

middle region, a spirit which has at times a touch of silent sarcasm, but from whom one need never fear the lashing scorn of the Erdgeist in Faust. Maybe it was some such

philosophy as this that sustained, if it did not cheer, Father Placidus, the Job of mountaineering record, who to the end of his life sought consolation amid his silent friends of snow and ice, for he seems to have been the first to know that "deep passion of enduring hours" which is at once the heri-

tage and the brand of the true mountain-lover. It is, perhaps, in a sense in man of kinship with the loftiest manifestations of Nature that this passion has its origin.

The gradual process of evolution by which the attitude of the modern mountaineer is reached from the undisguised horror and disgust of the first explorers, the idle curiosity of the early tourist, and the patient devotion of men of science, the sentimentality of men like Petrarch, and the insupportable priggishness of men like Delfico, is one of the chief interests of Mr. Gribble's volume. And though Mr. Gribble might not be able, any more than others, to explain the power of the mountain-lust over the souls of men, no one who reads his book will doubt that he is able to depict the characters and conceive the attitudes of the early mountaineers in a clear and picturesque manner.

This, however, is, as it were, a secondary aspect of his book. Primarily he is the historian of the pioneer work of mountaineering. The picture he gives is as full as the most enthusiastic could demand—granted always that it is with the beginnings of mountaineering, and not with the history of mountain groups, that he deals, for the Caucasus, &c., are left severely alone—and his plan of keeping himself modestly in the background, and letting the pioneers tell, as far as possible, their own stories, lends a picturesqueness and per- sonal interest to his pages which they must otherwise almost of necessity have wanted.

The mountaineering exploits of the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans were of no great importance—in spite of Hannibal's famous "vinegar "—and are summarily dismissed. The climbs of Petrarch and Leonardo are chiefly interesting on account of the climbers. The date of the discovery of America (1492) is the date of the first mountaineering expedi- tion worthy the name. In that year Dompjulian de Beanpre, acting under the orders of Charles VIII. of France, ascended the peak known as Mont Inaccessible, which he renamed Mont Aiguille, and lest this new title should escape his memory, had it baptised in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. His account is well attested, and is free from the usual supernatural embroidering. No second ascent is recorded till 1834.

The man who may be regarded as, in a sense, the father of modern mountaineering, the first who seems to have climbed for the pleasure of climbing, was a Zurich professor, Conrad Gesner. He is chiefly connected with Pilatus and its legends, to which some space is devoted. Then followed Joaias Simler. It is not known to what extent he was himself a climber, but he certainly showed a considerable knowledge of

the technicalities of snowcraft in his De Alpibus Commen- tarius (1574). More than a century later followed Scheuchzer with his accounts of glaciers and dragons. His credulity is

the leas astonishing when we remember that fifty years before

his birth Topsail's Fourfooted Beasts was the standard book on zoology in this country. When, however, Mr. Gribble compares Scheuchzer's stories to the evidence of the Psychical Research Society he merely exposes himself in a sneer which is equally cheap and unjustified.

Next we come to the history of Chamonix, which practically

begins with Windham and Martel in 1741 and 1742 respectively. This is the least interesting, or at any rate the least novel, part of Mr. Gribble's book, as most of it is already familiar from Mr. Whymper's Guide and Mr. Mathews's Annals; such an important section, however, could obviously not be omitted. He gives a clear and concise summary of the Balmat-Paccard controversy, and passes on to the remaining districts.

The Todi group is sacred to the memory of Father Placidus

Spescha, whom we have already had occasion to mention. Monte Rosa, first visited by Leonardo, at length yielded its secrets to Beck and his companions, to be followed by many others, several of whom left permanent marks of their ascents in the local nomenclature. The Oberland, which boasted the earliest Alpine journal (1806), is dealt with in the same chapter as the Tyrol, the most interesting peak of which—the Gross Glockner—was hardly recognised by geographers previous to 1761. (In the verses on this mountain, p. 209, Lustpallast should surely be Luftpalla.st ?) Next we have the Pyrenees, and a separate chapter devoted to the fascinating character of their explorer, Ramond de Carbonniere, enthusiast, patriot, savant. Lastly, a chapter deals with the exploits performed in 1814 by Orazio Delfico on the Gran' Sasso d'Italia, the highest point of the Apennines.

Only two fatal accidents are recorded, that of Eschen on the Buet, who disappeared down a crevasse, and Escher- strange similarity of names—on the Col de Balme, who slipped from an arete. In connection with this last Mr. Gribble quotes from Pictet an admirable piece of advice to the mountain gymnast : "How little merit and glory there is in risking one's life in feats of prowess in which the most ordinary rope-dancer will always excel the traveller who thinks to give evidence of his clearness of head, or of his agility in these hazardous tours de force."

One of the most charming chapters is that devoted to " The First Lady Mountaineers," which tells of the exploits of Mademoiselle Henriette d'Angeville, who began her climbing career by an ascent of Mont Blanc in her forty-fourth year (1838), and accomplished her twenty-first Alpine ascent at the age of sixty-nine. The scene on the Grands-Mulets is quite delightful. "Count Karol de Stoppen, a Polish nobleman, who was also encamping there, sent his card, with his compliments, by one of hie guides, to Mademoiselle d'Angeville, and requested permission to call upon her in her tent. Mademoiselle d'Angeville consented with pleasure, and proposed that the two parties should join and organise a concert. This was done, and the guides sang their national songs until the sound of a distant avalanche frightened them into silence." This belongs, like the story of the uncon- ventional life led by the three philosophers in the chalet on the Buet and their lofty contempt for the dangers of the cornice, to the Arcadian age of mountaineering. Nowadays we treat snow cornices with considerable respect, and would hardly send our visiting cards on the Grands-Mulets, but still at times necessity makes strange bedfellows.

The volume is got up with much taste and is well printed. It is also profusely illustrated from old engravings and pictures, many of great interest. The manner in which they have been reproduced must, however, be confessed to be the least satisfactory feature of this otherwise admirable history.