MOUNTAINS. 119 



broken in to it by successive experiences, beginning 

 perhaps with the half-holiday picnicking phices 

 among the downs of Surrey or the big beeches of 

 Epping Forest, and going on progressively through 

 the ascending scale of VV^elsh, Scotcli, and Irish 

 mountains, till at last we reach the dignity of the 

 Alps, and plant our alpenstock in proud content- 

 ment upon the virgin snows of the Jungfrau or 

 tlie Matterhorn. But what is still more remark- 

 able is the fact that a genuine and deep-seated love 

 for hilly scenery has grown up amongst all our 

 people side by side with this rapid development of 

 the mountaineering instinct. We are not all 

 good pedestrians, but we all admire and love 

 mountain country. To the eighteenth century 

 mountains were simply objects of terror and aver- 

 sion. One may read almost all through the de- 

 scriptions of travellers in wild regions up to the 

 beginning of our own era, and hardly find a single 

 epithet bestowed upon mountains save "horrid," 

 "rugged," "terrific," "gigantic," "enormous," 

 "gloomy," "stupendous," and "inhospitable." 

 We can scarcely ever light upon a single word 

 implying that the mountain was looked upon 

 as beautiful, or as anything else, in fact, except a 

 mere barrier in the way of progress. Doctor 

 Johnson thought the finest view in Scotland was 

 far inferior to the streets of London. 



But the iron road, which has tunnelled its way 



