PEAK-BAGGING IN THE ALTAI 189 



Matterhorn, and the Matterhorn from Mont Blanc, 

 and some of the grandest views in Switzerland, but 

 the northern faces of the Katunskie-Belki range, with 

 the crystal clear glaciers hanging in the sun and 

 sparkling like diamonds, form a picture so striking 

 and beautiful that my experience can offer no parallel 

 to them. It is mere commonplace to say that it was 

 the finest view I had ever beheld. The wind was 

 intensely cold and the mountain seemed to draw 

 nearer, the glory of the panorama before me making 

 me wish for some one with whom to compare im- 

 pressions. One peak in especial, of a shape 

 reminiscent of the Matterhorn, but having an obelisk 

 of rock about 2,000 feet less than that of the famous 

 Swiss mountain, particularly impressed me. It stood 

 out among its comrades with such imposing grace 

 that it was difficult for me to remove my eyes from it. 

 This peak was draped in ice about 50 or 100 feet 

 thick, forming a wall about 2,000 feet in extent. 

 I ,took several photographs and felt as if I could 

 have taken hundreds more. The indescribable beauty 

 of the view before me and the consciousness that I 

 was gazing upon a scene that had never yet been 

 desecrated by the camera, or described by any human 

 being, was one of a lifetime, and amply repaid me for 

 the difficulties and inconveniences I had experienced 

 on my way. Here all was virgin ground. There 

 were no passes known and labelled ; no well-trodden 

 routes to be followed ; no Mark Twain had ever made 

 the ascent of these peaks in imagination ; no tele- 

 scope had scaled their heights before my Zeiss 

 binocular ; no avalanche had hurled its hapless 

 victims to an untimely death ; no Alpine hut 

 vulgarised the slopes or ridges or obscured the view 

 of the summit ; no Baedeker enumerated the guides 

 or reduced the glories of the ascent to a matter of 

 pounds, shillings, and pence. I was in the home of 



