546 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



has a day out from Hell, to the twin-crested summit, and show him 

 the panorama of land and sea, of rivers and famous cities. The Vale 

 of Tempe, the deep gap between Olympus and Ossa, beautiful in its 

 great red cliffs, fountains and spreading plane-trees, was part of a 

 Roman's classical tour. The superb buttresses in which Taygctus 

 breaks down on the valley of the Eurotas were used by the Spartans 

 for other purposes besides the disposal of criminals and weakly babies. 

 The middle regions — the lawns above the Langada Pass, ' virginibus 

 bacchata Lacsenis Taygeta ' — are frequented to this day as a summer 

 resort by Spartan damsels. The very top, the great rock that from a 

 height of 8,000 feet looks down through its woods of oaks and Aleppo 

 pines on the twin bays of the southern sea, is a place of immemorial 

 pilgrimages. It is now occupied by a chapel framed in a tiny court, 

 so choked with snow at the beginning of June that I took the ridge of 

 the chapel roof for a dilapidated stoneman. I have no time to-day to 

 look for evidence in classical literature, to refer to the discriminating 

 epithets applied in it to mountain scenes. 



A third race destined apparently to play a great part in the world's 

 history — the Japanese — are ancient mountain lovers. We are all aware 

 that Fusiyama to the Japanese is (as Ararat to the Armenians) a na- 

 tional symbol ; that its ascent is constantly made by bands of pilgrims ; 

 that it is depicted in every aspect. Those who have read the pleasant 

 book of Mr. Watson, who, as English chaplain for some years at Tokio, 

 had exceptional opportunities of travel in the interior, will remember 

 how often he met with shrines and temples on the summits of the 

 mountains, and how he found pilgrims who frequented them in the 

 belief that they fell there more readily into spiritual trances. The 

 Japanese Minister, when he attended Mr. Watson's lecture at the Al- 

 pine Club, told us that his countrymen never climbed mountains with- 

 out a serious — that is to say, a religious — object. 



India and China would add to my evidence had I knowledge and 

 time enough to refer to their literature. I remember Tennyson point- 

 ing out to me in a volume of translations from the Chinese a poem, 

 written about the date of King Alfred, in praise of a picture of a 

 mountain landscape. But I must return to the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries in Europe; I may go earlier — even back to Dante. 

 His allusions to mountain scenery are frequent; his Virgil had all the 

 craft of an Alpine rock-climber. Eead Leonardo da Vinci's ' Notes/ 

 Conrad Gesner's ' Ascent of Pilatus ' ; study the narratives of the Al- 

 pine precursors Mr. Coolidge has collected and annotated with ad- 

 mirable industry in the prodigious volume he has recently brought out. 



It is impossible for me here to multiply proofs of my argument, to 

 quote even a selection from the passages that show an authentic en- 

 thusiasm for mountains that may be culled from writers of various 



