On winter evenings, when out of doors the fogs and dirt of London reign supreme, it is the wisest course to sit at home in one's arm-chair, warmed by the blaze of a comfortable fire, and with some favourite book for a companion, to watch the smoke curl upwards from one's pipe. But after a time the book falls on to one's knees, and all sorts and conditions of pictures float lazily through the tobacco mists. I have been told that effects are due to causes. Perhaps these undisciplined wanderings of my brain may be only the inevitable result of a good dinner; perhaps the quiet content that I feel may be caused only by a spirit of contradiction—a knowledge that the arm-chair and the desultory visions of my brain should be ruthlessly put aside, to give place to exact, well-regulated thoughts concentrated on necessary labour. Be it what it may, I will not work to-night. A nebulous peace of mind has claimed and absorbed me which it would be impious to dispel. I shall let my memory lift the curtain behind which lies the past.

The thousand and one small duties of the present, mostly absurd trivialities, the insignificance of which is only equalled by their persistence, can be neglected for once, and shall be as dust in the balance, without weight to disturb the equipoise of my mind. Letters from people I do not know, requesting information on subjects that do not concern me—letters which, as far as I can see, merely stamp the writers as belonging to that class of human animal incapable of thinking for itself—these shall remain unanswered. Why should such shallow creatures be allowed to worry the more robust portion of the universe by their energetic yet irritating display of letter-writing? why have I to spend much ink and thought in answering them? Truly this is a weary world! Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards. Worries and bothers are for ever at one's elbow.

But here I am thus early inveighing against the petty annoyances of the present instead of enjoying those reminiscences of former years that, viewed through the mists of time, have their pleasures enhanced and their pains discounted; when I can allow my memory a free field from which it may pick the fairest flowers that have blossomed in those bygone years.

Ah! a quotation comes wandering by: when it is at home it may be found in an 'Ode to the Terrestrial Globe,' by an unhappy wretch:—

And as it rolls on down the distances of my mind, it leaves me, being in a very contrary frame of mind, somewhat comforted. Moreover, it opens up new channels for thought, and those exquisite lines on golf that occur somewhere in Paradise Lost are of course at once suggested, but I am too lazy to find the context:—

Then I muse over all the golf-courses that I have played on or seen, from St. Andrews to an improvised one above Astor amongst the stately pines on the Himalayan mountains, when the snow peaks and the glaciers, glistening in the marvellous sunshine, play hide-and-seek with the white fleecy clouds that drift over their summits.

Those wonderful mountains! what magnificent outlines, what grandeur, what mystery, what!... Stop! can I be growing sentimental? It must have been the dinner that has produced this particular physiological sensation.

However, the sensation is passing, and my thoughts have flown back naturally to the subject of dinners. Yes, many dinners—what a subject!—glorious, unapproachable, exhaustless dinners! I could write pages, volumes, in praise of dinners; but not for the vulgar, not for the uninitiated—that surely were sacrilege. Dinners that with subtle and insinuating address came and went, leaving behind them fascinating and precious memories, even though 'good digestion did not wait on appetite.' Dinners, too, eaten under the stars. Yes, now I think of it, that was a dinner! when four of us ate a whole sheep, after two weary days and nights spent starving on the icy slopes of Nanga Parbat.

Mountaineering, truly thou art a marvellous and goodly provoker of hunger! Those mortals who may be in search of sensations—big, boisterous, blustering sensations not to be denied—should sacrifice often on thy altars, O Goddess of the Hills!

In the mountains, however, these sensations, these inspired ecstasies of mind and body, may be pushed sometimes rather far; then the recoil comes, and with it contrast, which however is often agreeable. But these memories of unpleasant Alpine half-hours grow faint as one sits in a satisfying arm-chair—they are easily discounted in a process of mental dissipation, by which one cheats oneself; and finally, it is easy to believe that there is no sport like mountaineering. Of course this conclusion is fallacious—conclusions sometimes are. Again my thoughts are interrupted. Outside in the cold, the rain, and the darkness some poor wretch is making night hideous by attempting to sing—

Most true! most philosophical! The Islands of the Blest usually are some distance away. We have been told by the poet that neither are they to be attained by omnibuses, nor to be approached by

Therefore why disturb the darkness, O most miserable one, by dismal reiteration of a well-known fact? But still the song moans out its Cockney dialect, false notes, and falser sentiment; and the singer, drenched to the skin, possibly starving, with probably only one desire, and that for drink, goes his way. I hear the melancholy music die into the distance. Of a truth his sensations cannot be pleasant; but with these few coppers changed into the equivalent of alcohol perhaps he also may

and cheat himself into the belief that life is worth living. That last sentence, now I come to read it over again, seems perhaps a trifle cynical; seems, certainly, but are we not told that things often 'are not what they seem'? I have heard the late poet laureate accused (and by a Scotchwoman, too!) of writing slang.

My thoughts, too, are 'sloping' in a westerly direction. I am on a personally-conducted tour—my brain is in command, and I am the spectator.

If only I can forget that those letters have to be answered, and if no other miserable wretch comes to sing touching refrains outside in the rain, my brain and I shall thoroughly enjoy each other's company; whilst the firelight sheds its dim radiance over glimpses of the metamorphised past and the indeterminable future, till all is so blended together that I cannot tell whether these things have been or are to be.

I see long stretches of Rannoch moor as Stevenson saw it, 'where the mists rise and die away, and showed us that country lying as waste as the sea; only the moorfowl and the peewees crying upon it, and far over to the east a herd of deer moving like dots. Much of it is red with heather; much of the rest broken up with bogs and hags and peaty pools; some had been burnt black in a heath fire; and in another place there are quite a forest of dead firs, standing like skeletons.'

Northward over the moor ponderous Ben Alder lifts his bleak and barren top in massive strength above lonely Loch Ericht, whilst beyond the loch, Schehallion's slender summit, deep blue in the evening sky, tells of that fierce day when the body of the dead Graham lay on the hillside and the sun went down on a lost cause.

Southward are the peaks of the Black Mount and the peaceful hills that feed the upper waters of Glen Lyon; then Buchaille Etive and all those wild, rocky mountains further west, dominating wild Glencoe, stir the memory with the story of how Campbell of Glen Lyon betrayed and murdered the whole of the M'Ians with treachery as black as the cliffs of the Aonach Dubh and as cruel as the winter winds that sweep mercilessly across the corries and pinnacles of Bidean nam Bian, the peak of the storms. Or in imagination I follow Alan Breck with Davie Balfour as they flee by the sea-loch that separates Appin from Mamore up and across to the great moor, toiling and resting, but ever onward, till amongst the labyrinth of glens in the heart of the forest of Ben Alder they found Cluny Macpherson. Yes, Rannoch moor is wild and desolate; and could the grey blocks of stone or the bare slabs of granite that lie amongst the brown heather speak, surely there would be many more tales of bygone adventures to listen to and wonder over.

From Rannoch my mind wanders across the stretches of blue water, past stormy Ardnamurchan to the island of Mull. I am on the summit of Ben More; below lies a ridge smothered in snow and ice. I am trying all I can with words of sweet persuasion to entice my companion, Colin Phillip, down what is obviously the shortest route to the next peak, A Chioch. But he says it is impossible, he will not trust himself on that slope of snow and ice. Now my thoughts fly to the shores of Loch Earn. I am listening to one, a geologist, who expounds to me the marvels of the prehistoric glacier; he also, with words of sweet persuasion, is trying to make me believe that Loch Morar was excavated by a glacier. Those wonderful geological truths, how simple, how all-sufficient they are to explain to the uninitiated the why and wherefore of the ancient mountains; but put not your trust in them; they suffer by the process of evolution, and are changed. Without doubt, in those days Phillip believed that I was totally ignorant of mountaineering; whilst now, perhaps, that geologist thinks that I am equally ignorant of the truth. Whether it is the truth about Loch Morar that I mean, or about that geologist's statement, or about my own, I really don't know.

In imagination I am hurried on; I see myself, footsore and weary, wandering through Ardgour and Moidart, or across from Invercannich through Affric's wild glens down to Shiel House, by the western sea; now I am glissading down Beinn Alligin, or hacking my way through a cornice, apparently hundreds of feet high, on Aonach Mor, my companion Travers meanwhile slowly freezing on the brink of an absolutely perpendicular ice slope, the daylight waning, and our retreat cut off. Then comes a glimpse of the platform at Kingshouse station. I am addressing winged words to Colin Phillip, and he is engaged in a contentious refutation of my argument. The subject is not at all interesting—only the comparative usefulness of painting and photography as a means for reproducing mountain form; but the result is most disgraceful, for presently we are seen sitting at different ends of the platform waiting for the train, and thinking—well, it doesn't matter what we thought. Was it yesterday, or when, that all these things happened? Still it cannot be so very long ago that Phillip climbed Sgurr Alasdair, the finest peak of the Coolin in Skye. Would that on that occasion, just below the summit, I had possessed a camera, for then could I have shown Phillip that photography at least was capable of very faithfully reproducing his manly and superior form, as he was seen approaching the cairn, even though it might be useless in giving us the true proportions of inferior mountains. Neither do I think that I should be overstepping the bounds of prudence should I assert that Colin Phillip has a marked dislike for stone walls. I have hopes, however, that some day a happy combination of the despised camera—the stone wall and Phillip—may yield interesting results. Little did Phillip think, that evening at Kingshouse, that a time would come when the maligned camera would turn—turn its eye on Phillip and on that stone wall—and wink with malicious pleasure.

But in spite of winged words, weary feet, and endless eggs and bacon, these were fine times—from Sutherland to the Galloway Highlands, from Mull to the mountains on Deeside, Colin Phillip and I have wandered in fair weather and in foul.

We have waxed enthusiastic over the Cairngorm mountains. We have watched the last light of day fade far away over the Atlantic behind the islands of the west; and although we may have disagreed in many things, yet we have always acknowledged that for wild beauty, for colour, for atmospheric effects and lonely grandeur, we know of no country that is equal to the Highlands of Scotland.

But a younger century has arrived, and

Somewhere have I seen some remarks about the Coolin, where no mention is made of the mountains as being capable of stirring the imagination or gratifying the mind; no, the subject was 'the ridiculously easy nature of the climbing in Skye,' 'the gabbro of the Coolin being too good,' and so on, the New Mountaineer merely looking upon these peaks and ribs of splintered rock as a useful spot where gymnastic feats might be performed, and even compares the Coolin unfavourably with the decomposing granite slabs at the head of Glen Sannox. Truly the glory of the mountains is departing. The progressive, democratical[P] finger of the 'New Mountaineer' is laid with equal irreverence and mockery on Sgurr nan Gillean and Cir Mhor, and this spirit of irresponsible criticism 'fulfils itself in many ways.' It is not the first time that the Coolin have been 'slandered.' Have they not been called 'inferior mountains'? (Modern Painters). Now the climbers 'run' over the Pinnacle Ridge of Sgurr nan Gillean, and no doubt the next generation (if they have wise fathers) will be induced to take their maternal grandmothers up the inaccessible summit of Sgurr Dearg. One by one the recollections of all our most cherished climbs will be punctured, flat and unprofitable as a collapsed bicycle tire; they will rotate over the rough roads of bygone memories, whilst that progressive democratical finger will guide the new nickel-plated, pneumatic-cushioned, electrically-driven modern mountaineer on his fascinating career. But to return. I am still sitting in my comfortable arm-chair, and looking at my own fingers to see whether they possess a progressive democratical appearance.

Before me passes the vision of a mountain, a beautiful, many-headed mountain, hidden away from democratical enemies of mountaineering, and without the line of vulgarity. Carefully enclosed on its western face lies a corrie named Coire Mhic Fhearchair. I see a party wandering up its glacier-worn entrance. At its head the mist lies low down, but not low enough to hide the precipices that encircle the lochan in its centre. On the right, snow-filled gullies sweep with graceful curves from a dome-shaped peak.

But it is the rock escarpment at the back of the corrie that fascinates their gaze. As the mists begin to clear one by one, they suggest climbs on its face, for there are 1250 feet of bare rock in front of them, broken up into three distinct buttresses with two splendid gullies dividing them. At last they choose the right-hand gully, and, having roped themselves, proceed to cut steps up the steep snow that has drifted into it and obliterated any perpendicular pitches there may be. I am sorry that there are no perpendicular pitches—it is most unfortunate; for I should like to see that party performing all these daring feats so well known to, and beloved by, the professional rock climber, 'How things began to look rather blue.' 'How for a minute or two one of the party remained spread-eagled on the face of a cliff almost despairing of getting up, the desired crack being a good two feet out of reach, till, with a supreme effort, he was propelled from below by a sudden and powerful jerk, his outstretched fingers seize the desired crack.' Nor can I describe how 'the heavy man of the party, his finger tips playing upon the face of the cliff with the delicacy of touch of a professional pianist, his every movement suggestive of the bounding lightness of the airy thistle-down,' followed. No, I am sorry I have no such wildly exciting adventures to relate, nor such poetical fancies wherewith to eke out a plain story. I see that party merely climbing up that gully, in a most uninteresting yet simple manner, by cutting steps. They come to where it ends against a perpendicular and overhanging cliff at least a couple of hundred feet high. Only 200 feet, but higher they cannot go, for none of the party are sufficiently muscular to propel the leader with a jerk upwards that paltry 200 feet. Therefore they climb out to their left, along a narrow and somewhat broken ledge, on to the middle buttress, where a place is found large enough for them all to sit down. They gaze upwards at the last 300 feet that separate them from the summit, but it is steep, very steep, 'A.P.'[Q] Also, it is late in the afternoon; so they comfort themselves by building a cairn, and eating all these delicious things that are so good on a mountain-side—meat sandwiches which have remained from lunch, and taste so full of mustard and so delightfully dry; old, old prunes encrusted with all kinds of additional nutriment from the bottom of some one's pocket; a much-worn stick of chocolate, or perhaps an acidulated drop—on such fare does the hardy mountaineer feed. I see them once more in the gully, but they descend more rapidly than they climbed up it, for the more daring of the party glissade down the lower part, and so home.

On the morrow, however, I see three of the party again setting forth for that precipice. This time, instead of approaching it from the north-west by the Allt Toll a'Ghiubhais, they hire a machine, and drive as far as the foot of Sgurr BÀn on the southern side; then mounting to the peak just to the west of Sgurr BÀn by a well-made deer path, they soon arrive at the summit of the middle buttress, overlooking Coire Mhic Fhearchair. They climb out to the very end of the nose and look down, straight below, and only 300 feet away is the little cairn built on the preceding afternoon, but, as I have remarked before, that 300 feet is very steep. A photograph taken from the most southerly of the three buttresses, so as to get the middle buttress in profile, shows the angle of the last 200 feet to be about 85 degrees, not quite but very nearly 'A.P.' However, they think that they may as well see how far they can descend. The rocks on the left-hand (southern) side of the buttress are obligingly broken up, so that by a series of small climbs the party are enabled to get from one small platform to the next, always edging towards the outside of the buttress. At last they all congregate together. A perpendicular slab, which has partly come away from the front of the crags, bars their way to the right, and, below, a quite perpendicular drop of about 200 feet on to the ledge quietly but firmly impresses on them the fact that that way is not for them. But always in mountaineering, just as things become quite hopeless and 'blue,' then it is the duty of the person who describes the adventure to appeal to the feelings of the public (who, presumably, are unacquainted with that particular climb). It is his duty to picture these unfortunate individuals, fearful that their retreat is cut off, yet unable to proceed; how, having dangled on the ends of ropes, swinging backwards and forwards in the breeze, they return to the ledge baffled; or having climbed on each other's shoulders, they find 'the desired crack two good feet out of reach,' and there is not always one in the party powerful enough to 'propel' the leader 'from below by a sudden and powerful jerk, so that he can with outstretched fingers clutch that desired crack.' But still, with a little imagination, we can see these things. A good imagination is necessary, I may say very necessary, to the enthusiastic climber; much pleasure is otherwise lost.

The party I see, evidently has none of this precious imagination. They are obviously wasting their opportunities most shamefully on that rock face. I see one of them climb out on to the face just under the great loose slab, and disappear round the corner; then the rest follow, and find themselves on the topmost of a series of ledges, and about 200 feet above the small cairn below. I will not describe that traverse, but will merely mention that the party seem quite pleased with it. Then they begin the descent. First they get down a narrow slit between a slab and the buttress, and with a drop of about 10 feet get into the next ledge. Next they have to climb down another slab, bulging over into space, or a perpendicular gully gives them an interesting piece of climbing. About 120 feet from the bottom they build a small cairn, and then, without much further difficulty, they finally find themselves where they had ended their climb on the afternoon of the day before. They do not, however, descend to the bottom of the gully, but about half-way down, traversing out to the left, they make for the ridge connecting Sail MhÒr with the rest of the mountain. It is now evening, and I ought, if orthodox, here 'to burst out in sentences which swell to paragraphs, and in paragraphs which spread over pages; to plunge into ecstasies about infinite abysses and overpowering splendours, to compare mountains to archangels, lying down in eternal winding-sheets of snow, and to convert them into allegories about man's highest destinies and aspirations. This is good when it is well done. Yet most humble writers will feel that if they try to imitate Mr. Ruskin's eloquence, they will pay the penalty of becoming ridiculous. It is not every one who can with impunity compare Alps to archangels.'[R] Yet there is always something about sunsets which is horribly fascinating—from a literary point of view; it is so easy to become suddenly enthusiastic and describe how 'The sun-god once more plunges into the baths of ocean.' The sea too is always useful at such moments. 'Banks of sullen mist, brooding like a purple curtain,' etc., sounds well; and one must not forget 'the shadows of approaching night,'—they form a fitting background for the gloomy and introspective spirit which ought to seize upon one at this particular psychological moment. 'The tumbled fragments of the hills, hoary with memories of forgotten years,' come next, with a vague suggestion of solitude, which should be further emphasised by allusions to 'the present fading away, and being lost in the vast ocean of time, a lifetime being merely a shadow in the presence of these changeless hills.' Then, to end up, mass the whole together, and call it an 'inscrutable pageant'; pile on the shadows, which must grow blacker and blacker, till 'naught remains but the mists of the coming night and darkness'; and if you have an appropriate quotation, put it in!

---