Page:Percival Lowell - an afterglow.djvu/44



As an explorer he stood on the tops of all the mountain peaks that came his way, and equally did he like descending to the abysms of cañons. But, indeed, he did not wait for the mountains to come to him; he sought them in the remotest corners of the earth; going to the sacred mountain of Ontaké in Japan; up the glaciers of the Alps and over the walls and chimneys of the Pyrenees. Speaking of Ontaké and the pilgrim clubs peculiar to it, he said:—

"As the chant swelled it sounded like, and yet unlike, some fine processional of the Church of Rome. And as it rolled along, it touched a chord that waked again the vision of the mountain, and once more before me rose Ontaké, and I saw the long file of pilgrims tramping steadily up the slope.

"Thus, humble though their active members be, the Ontaké pilgrim clubs furnish society not to be found in any other clubs on earth; the company of heaven is to be had for the asking. For the Ontaké pilgrim clubs are the only clubs in the world whose honorary members are, not naval officers, not distinguished foreigners, not princely figureheads, but gods."

The views from mountain summits enraptured him and the zest of the scenes there appealed to him greatly, but withal he was often on botany bent. The planet Mars was the only rival to his