Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/141

116 worth living for, but they are sought in vain, if a guide who can "lie in bed and picture every step of the way up "is of the party. Mountaineering, as Mr. Leslie Stephen has pointed out, is "a sport—as strictly as cricket, or rowing, or knurr and spell," and it necessarily follows that its enjoyment depends on the struggle for the victory. To start on an ordinary expedition with guides, is, from the sporting point of view, as interesting—or the reverse—as a "walk over" race.

There is, doubtless, another side to the question. The pious worshippers of the great god "Cook" regard the facilitation of the ascent as an unmixed good. The be-roped and be-cabined Matterhorn, the lie-in-bed-and-picture guide are welcomed by them as the earlier stages of that progress which will culminate in Funnicular railways and cog-wheels. To ascend the Matterhorn in a steam lift, and all the time remember that brave men have been killed by mere stress of difficulty on its gaunt, ice-bound cliffs, will be to the Cockney and his congeners unmixed delight. When they read of the early mountaineers, of their bivouacs, their nights spent in chalets, their frozen toes, and even of whole parties carried to destruction by a single slip, the halo of danger and suffering will seem to envelop them as they sit in their comfortable railway carriages, and they will feel themselves most doughty warriors.