23 o ROUND THE YEAR 



saddle-like arrangement of the rocks, discovered by 

 Mr. Dakyns of the Geological Survey, and described 

 with figures in Prof. Green's Physical Geology. The 

 ascent is a delightful one, wood and water alternating 

 with moor and grassy slopes. The way leads through 

 Bolton Woods and the Valley of Desolation. There 

 is considerable variety in the composition of the rocks, 

 which means variety in the vegetation and variety in 

 the animal life. I know of no better botanising 

 ground. Insects and Birds are plentiful, and the very 

 streams are full of life. 



To take pleasure in such a ramble up-hill, for we 

 can hardly call it mountaineering, is, I believe, a dis- 

 covery of modern times. Xenophon writes as if he 

 enjoyed a hunt upon Mount Pholoe. He must have 

 appreciated the exhilaration which springs from 

 active exercise in the open air. Hunting on foot he 

 praises as good for the health, the eyesight and the 

 hearing. He thinks it an excellent way of keeping 

 off old age, and training the body for the hardships of 

 war. But he gives no hint that he ever went out on a 

 hillside without dog and net. It is the hollows, the 

 plains, the woods and the rivers, which Virgil chiefly 

 loves. The Alps struck the ancients with horror 

 though they delighted in the soft scenery of the 

 Italian lakes. 



Perhaps the first man who ever climbed a mountain 

 in order to gaze from the top, and then wrote an 

 account of what he had seen, was Petrarch. Living at 

 Vaucluse, near Avignon, curiosity moved him and his 

 brother to ascend the Mont Ventoux, a low Alp, 

 under 7,000 feet. They were warned by an old 



