Page:My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus (1908).djvu/150

144 the various functions appropriate to these two classes of building, run up the Jungfrau in a steam lift, or climb the Matterhorn on cog-wheels.

But the thought is too horrible. Let the snow-storm blow the reek of the oil-can from our nostrils, and the thundering avalanche and the roaring tempest drown the puny tinkle of cast-iron bells and the blare of cheap German bands. Let us even cherish a hope that the higher Alps will resist the navvy and the engineer for our time, and that we may still be left to worship peacefully at the great shrines of our fathers.

The delights of guideless climbing have, however, led me far from the crags and towers of the Charmoz; they have, I fear, even betrayed me into that greatest of indiscretions, a confession of faith. Prudence suggests, therefore, that I should quit this perilous ground and return to the solid granite of our peak. Till we reached the point where, on our first ascent, we had left our boots, it proved neither more nor less difficult than I had expected; from thence onward it was far easier. Possibly during that expedition the absence of our usual foot-gear impeded, rather than helped, our progress; possibly the extraordinary diminution of ice in the gully, rendering easy what had previously been most terribly difficult, lowered the impression conveyed by the mountain as a whole; or possibly, and the thought brings balm to the more aged