ON MOUNTAINS AND MANKIND. 341 



tiHMitli and sovonti'iMitli centuries in Europe; I may i?o earlier — even 

 back to Dante. His "allusions to mountain scenery are frequent; 

 his Viroil had all the craftOf an Alpine rock climber. Read Leon- 

 ardo da Vinci's Notes, Conrad Gesner's Ascent of Pilatus; study 

 tlie narratives of the Alpine precursors Mr. (\)olid_£2:e has collected 

 and annotated with admirable 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 

 enthusiasm for mountains that may l)e cuIUmI fi-om writers of vari- 

 ous nations pi'ior (o KlOO a. d. J nmst content myself with the 

 following specimens which will probably be new to most of my 

 liearers. 



lienoit Marti was a i)rofessor of Greek and Hebrew at Bern, and 

 a friend of tiie great Gonrad (lesner (I call him great, for he com- 

 bined the <iualities of a man of science and a man of letters, was one 

 of the fathers of botany as well as of mountaineering, and was, 

 ill his many side(hiess, a typical figure of tlie lienaissance). Marti, 

 m tlie year 1558 or 155!), wrote as follows of the view fi-om his native 

 city : 



" These are the mountains which form our pleasure ami delight " 

 (the Latin is better — '" delicia^ nostra^ nostricpie amores ") " when 

 we gaze at them from the higher parts of our city and admire their 

 miglity peaks and broken crags that threaten to fall at any inoment. 

 Here Ave watch the risings and settings of the sun and seek signs' of 

 the weather. In them we find food not only for our eyes and our 

 minds but also for our bellies;" and he goes on to enumerate the 

 daii'v products of the Oberhmd and the happy life of its population. 

 [ (juote again this good man: ''Who, then, would not admire, love, 

 willingly visit, explore, and climl) places of this sort? I assuredly 

 should call those who are not attracted by them nuishrooms, stupid, 

 dull fishes, and slow tortoises '' {'' fungos, stupidos insulsos pisces, 

 lentosque chelones''). ''In truth, I can not desci-ibe the sort of 

 ati'ection and natural love with which I am drawn to nunnitains, 

 so that I am never hajjpier than on the mountain (-rests, and there 

 are no wanderings dearer to me than those on the mountains." 

 " They are the theater of the Lord, dis])laying monuments of past 

 ages, snch as precipices, I'ocks, peaks, and chasms, and never-melting 

 glaciers; " and so on through many eloquent paragraphs. 



I will only add two sentences from the preface to Siuder's Vallesia^ 

 et Alpium Descriptio, first ])ublished in 15T-1, which seem to me a 

 strong jjiece of evidence in favor of my view : " In the entire district. 



n "Josias Seinler et l*>s ori.sj;iiir's de rAlpini.^iiia jus(iu'en 1000," par W. A. B. 

 Coolidse. Alller Freros. (;re!i()l)le. 



