Page:Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy, Stockton, 1872.djvu/215

Rh undertaking. The adventurers are obliged to wear shoes studded with strong iron spikes to prevent slipping; they carry long poles with iron points by which they assist themselves up the steep inclines; they are provided with ladders, and very often the whole party fasten themselves together with a long rope, so that if one slips the others may prevent him from falling.

Where there are steep and lofty precipices, crumbling rocks, and overhanging cliffs, such as those which obstruct the path of the party whose toilsome journey is illustrated in the accompanying engraving, the feat of climbing a Mountain is hazardous and difficult enough; but when heights are reached where the rocks are covered with ice, where deep clefts are concealed by a treacherous covering of snow, where avalanches threaten the traveller at every step, and where the mountain-side often seems as difficult to climb as a pane of glass, the prospect seems as if it ought to appal the stoutest heart.

But some hearts are stouter than we think, and up those icy rocks, along the edges of bewildering precipices, over, under, and around great masses of rock, across steep glaciers where every footstep must be made in a hole cut in the ice, brave men have climbed and crept and gradually and painfully worked their way, until at last they stood proudly on the summit, and gazed around at the vast expanse of mountains, plains, valleys, and forests, spread far and wide beneath them.

In Europe there are regular associations or clubs of mountain-climbers, which at favorable periods endeavor to make the ascent of lofty and difficult Mountains. Nearly every peak of the Pyrenees and the Alps has felt the feet of these adventurers, who take as much delight in their dangerous pursuits as is generally found by the happiest of those who are content with the joys of ordinary altitudes.

We have very many grand Mountains in our country, but we have