Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/169

136 were bidden to bring stones to build it securely in position. This solemn rite being duly performed, we stretched ourselves at full length and mocked M. Couttet's popgun at Chamonix with a pop of far more exhilarating sort.

The aged narrative from which I have been quoting ends abruptly at this point. Before, however, quitting the summit of one of the steepest rocks in the Alps, I may perhaps be permitted to ask certain critics whether the love of rock-climbing is so heinous and debasing a sin that its votaries are no longer worthy to be ranked as mountaineers, but are to be relegated to a despised and special class of "mere gymnasts."

It would appear at the outset wholly illogical to deny the term "mountaineer"to any man who is skilled in the art of making his way with facility in mountain countries. To say that a man who climbs because he is fond of mountaineering work is not a mountaineer, whilst a man who climbs because it is essential to some scientific pursuit in which he is interested, is a mountaineer, is contrary to the first principles of a logical definition, and I trust will never become general. It may be freely admitted that science has a higher social