Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/146

140 I once met a man who told me, at 11 a.m., that he had just been up the Charmoz. He seemed mightily proud of his performance, and undoubtedly had gone with extraordinary speed. "But why," I asked myself, "has he done it?" Can any one with eyes in his head, and an immortal soul in his body, care to leave the rugged beauty of the Charmoz ridge in order to race back to the troops of personally-conducted tourists who pervade and make unendurable the mid-day and afternoon at the Montenvers? And this is not exceptional; at Zermatt one may frequently meet men, early in the day, who have wantonly left the most beautiful and inmost recesses of the Alps, the Gabelhorn, Rothhom, or other similar peak, to hurry back to the brass bands and nigger minstrels of that excursionist resort. The guideless climber does none of these things; rarely is he seen returning till the last lingering glow has died out of the western horizon. It is night, and night alone, that drives him back to the crowded haunts of the tourist. This love of living amongst the sunshine and upper snows is the true test of the enthusiast, and marks him off from the tribe of brag and bounce and from all the "doers of the Alps." It must not be assumed that the love of mountains is to be regarded as the first of human duties, or that a man's moral worth can be determined by the usual time of his arrival at a mountain inn; but