Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus.djvu/19

2 and a fitting dwelling-place for the spirits with which old legends people its stone swept slopes. From that moment I have been one of the great peak's most reverent worshippers, and whenever the mighty rock appears above the distant horizon,

I hail its advent with devoutest joy. Even the vulgarisation of Zermatt, the cheap trippers and their trumpery fashions, cannot wholly drive me from the lower slopes, and I still love to gaze at it from amongst the pines of the Riffelberg, or to watch its huge mass soaring above the flowery meadows of the Staffel Alp.