Leadership in Action
The manager as leader has a special responsibility to himself. He is the stroke of the party. Like a good stroke, while exerting himself to the utmost, he has always to keep some strength, nervous and physical, in reserve, to meet a sudden emergency or to vitalize unexpectedly depressing hours of dull return. As a duty to the party he should save himself by making use of the stronger members, should there be any, to take something of his share of the more laborious and less vital labour. A party which knows his value as reserve and management will save him, for instance, some part of his portion in the work of carrying, of leading in soft snow, or of easy step-cutting. They too must recognize he has always to keep something in reserve for a crisis.
The Collective Confidence.
At the same time, no matter what the crisis or his private doubts, he must never appear, if he can possibly help it, to have called out his last reserves, or to be feeling any diminished confidence in his own ability, or in that of his party, to force a successful issue. He must, too, avoid mystery. Nothing is more nerve-trying in critical moments, to men whose experience cannot measure the extent of a crisis, than tense silence or too obvious self-control on the part of those who can. It is better, if the situation is genuinely serious, to bring it down to a human level by blowing off a few words of violent commonplace expletive, than to leave it in that daunting remoteness of gravity for which words are inadequate. The more crucial the occasion, the more does the nerve of the party centre in the leader. Their confidence in his confidence is a more important asset than their confidence in his skill. The combined ability of a party, each one confident in the others and relieved of individual responsibility by his sense of the general confidence, goes further towards success in the solution of difficulties or the repulse of danger than the brilliant independent success which any one individual in it could achieve by reliance on his single skill and nerve.
For this confidence the leader is the focus, and an important decision, such as the resolve to advance or retreat in a given crisis, should be guided by his estimate of the amount of confident capacity represented by the party at the moment, and not merely by his opinion as to his own power to force the passage as an individual.
If he decides to turn back on a climb, he should take the odium of the decision without fear of later criticism. He knew or felt what the collective ability of the party was at the time in relation to the effort demanded, and it is unimportant what an individual may afterwards think might have been his own chances of overcoming the particular difficulty “had he been allowed to try.” If he continues the climb, with the same consciousness advising him, it must be his object to better the chances of success by stimulating the existing confidence into that cheerful humour in which men do their skill most justice.
Keeping Touch.
To keep in touch with every one of a party of friends, so as to continue aware of the way in which their minds and their bodies are being affected by the circumstances, is not easy. On severe climbs it is all but impossible to prevent the rear men, separated by lengths of rope and interruptions of difficult ground, from remaining in ignorance of what is being done in front, or of what is guiding the choice of problems which they are expected in their turn to surmount. For this reason it is helpful to break the habit of silence which falls upon men dealing with serious work,—and which, like the inclination to whisper in a dark room, seems to have behind it some primitive feeling of fear of provoking further attention from unseen but very present forces,—and talk down the rope occasionally, passing question and answer up and down, and cheering the tail with a renewed feeling of unity and confidence drawn from the confidence of the leader. With the same object in view, wherever the climb allows it, the party should be allowed to collect for a moment and forget in talk the depression or doubt inevitable to solitude, before the leaders start again.
Guides are great offenders in this respect. They have no conception of the extra force given by a single united consciousness to a party, of the means to keep in touch with it, or of the help they themselves may draw from it. They climb absorbedly ahead lost in the sense of their own responsibility. Consequently they often turn back, from a doubt of their party or a lack of confidence to carry a climb through on their single responsibility, on occasions where a good amateur leader, with or without guides, can feel himself justified in proceeding. He is in a position to take the even chance of a turn of weather, of the possibility of a return at a later and more unpleasant stage, of the crossing of an exposed couloir or the ascent of a snow or ice slope down which there may be no safe return, because he is confident in his knowledge of the condition of his party, of their concerted action and reserves of strength and cheerfulness, and feels that these are sufficient to carry them over the possible chances of worse weather or more trying conditions, and to lead them through a longer day to a later descent even by another line.
He has to earn his right to his more confident decision in thus matching his men against the mountain by supplementing his single mountaineering experience and instinct firstly by his precautionary care for their condition and humour, and secondly by his ability to keep in close touch with their collective capacity at any and every moment. His reward will be their increasing confidence in themselves, in him, and in their united strength, and the increasing power which this brings with it.
Temper.
A mountaineering party, when in action, is dependent for its good-humoured and hearty co-operation on more than the external interests of the climbs, however well selected beforehand and sustained, on more even than its good health and food, however well cared for. It has to be welded into a fine instrument: its temper is its strength; and its temper has to be kept at just the right heat. Hot words on occasions will do it little harm. Men in a state of primitive well-being are apt to become elemental in temper. A sudden crisis sets off a shower of sparks of language. These do no harm. No experienced man looks upon them as personally directed, or remembers them when the crisis is past. What has really to be guarded against is the effect of monotony in any form, even the irritating repetition of some small unconscious personal trick. Slight resentments become magnified grotesquely during the long hours of silent effort, especially of monotonous effort, on snow, glaciers or path. Any ordinary mountaineer will probably remember occasions when some trifling habit of a good friend, some unintentional or momentary lack of consideration, has taken advantage of the dull ending of a strenuous day to come back upon him irresistibly, and fill him unaccountably with sullen growing resentment. He may realize its foolishness, but, like the similar insistence of the refrain of some silly comic song, it becomes part of the mechanical movement in which his whole being is for the time absorbed.
If he has been fortunate enough to escape such an attack himself, he must at times have been aware of the dangerous electricity accumulating in some one or other of the members of a tired party. It is the commonest symptom of fatigue. A manager has to look out for this. Its consciousness will disappear with the sight of the hotel door, and be secretly regretted on the morrow, but in the meantime he has to prevent the unforgettable being said. Silence is his chief enemy. It is useless to try and tempt tired men, usually tramping in single file, into agreeable conversation, unless some happy accident of the way rests the mind with a new distraction, but he has to seize any desperate occasion for casual remarks. It does not signify what he chatters, provided he is not inappropriately cheerful, and shows himself at least to be completely and seemingly idiotically unconscious of any strain in the situation. Even if he draws the discharge of temper on himself, he has averted all serious danger. Song is the best outlet since it fits in with the mechanical movement while it withdraws attention from it; but song can only be employed when the ground allows of the feet moving in accord. If he himself is one of the two between whom one of these smouldering irritations is getting ominously overcharged in the silence, he has a harder task. But he will have his reward if he can sacrifice his own humour to his sense of responsibility. There is nothing more refreshing to an irritated man who has succeeded, at last, in forcing himself to make a suitably casual and unconscious remark, than to watch the visible efforts of his friend, suddenly deprived of his sure conviction that the resentment was mutually conscious, to pull himself hurriedly together and answer in the lighter key. Both men are so fully aware that their savage humour is ungrounded and absurd, that neither wishes to appear to be left alone in his folly.
Temper is the one permanent peril to all climbing parties, and it is never allowed for sufficiently, or openly treated in its true character as a largely physical phenomenon. Men who have to live long together at great heights, as in the Himalaya, or in great solitudes, as at sea, know that its outbreaks are practically uncontrollable, and many an expedition has failed on its account alone. It is best to treat it frankly as a necessary contingency, and to take the only two precautions possible: the one, to make sure that the men know one another well enough to accept each other’s abusive outbursts as a sick mood, to be answered in like manner, if they will, but not to be remembered; and the other, to impress on them that it is the keen edge of silent resentment or sarcasm that leaves permanent scars, and that blunt abuse or invective, obviously uncontrolled, clears the air like an electric storm, and can be safely countered by retort as noisy and superficial.
It is superfluous, no doubt, to make these suggestions for what may be called the social conduct of a climbing tour. But friends, because they are good friends, are apt to reckon too little with the severe strain put upon comradeship by the circumstances of their mountain association. Personality is tried by the realities of mountaineering in deadly earnest: your good comrade in the hills is a very different man from your pleasant neighbour at the mountaineering dinner. And just as there is no comradeship that can grow so intimate or lasting as that of men who have climbed long together, and faced death, storm, fatigue, success and failure in company, so there is no compact which should be entered upon, with more precaution, or protected with more sedulous care in the trifles of its daily routine.
Unless it be to men whom he is definitely initiating into the pursuit, a leader should not give advice or make direct suggestions; in fact, the less he fusses or appears to be consciously setting the tone, the better. There is nobody so tiresome, in daily contact, as some one who is constantly being cheerful or tactful or managing. Example is the leader’s medium for correction, in humour as in action.
He must see to it that no loophole is left for discord, in small arrangements as in small talk. For this reason it is helpful to let each man look after some department: one to see to the ropes, another to the drinks, and so on; but it is a mistake ever to remind a man of his duty to the party. Management is the leader’s business in the end; and he should see to any omission himself rather than suggest forgetfulness by a criticism. Similarly, as an instance, in dealing with a foreign language, with a new hotel or with a new guide, the negotiation should be entrusted to one alone. He may be chaffed afterwards, but not interrupted at the time. It is feeble in effect and rather humiliating to see, as one often does, two or more sedate Englishmen effusively answering a head waiter in chorus, or treating any remark that has to be made in a foreign language, say to the guide, as an occasion for a collective assertion of individual capacity to speak with tongues and of equal right to use them in giving orders. Again, as a small instance of what I mean, there should be no question of comparing the weights of respective sacks before a climb. It is assumed that each man will carry what he can. If a man is a poor carrier and intentionally lightens his personal luggage, it is a blunder on all counts to ask him to carry more than he offers to take of the common provisions. It may seriously handicap him, and will certainly hurt his feelings. As an exception, however, since it is no reflection on his comradeship, a man who is found to be constantly carrying more than his share may be checked for his own physical good. There are a few men who by development and disposition are unhappy unless heavily weighted. They may be indulged, especially with the charge of the agreeable extra luxuries.
Once he has got his party started, fit and fed, and with no failure or dispute in arrangement or humour that may give room for later discomfort or irritation, the manager has to be especially on the watch for the different effects on his men of the hours before dawn and of the hours of evening return. The habit of talking before sunrise should be tacitly discouraged. Most men are inclined to surliness in the early dark hours, which will disappear with the sun and improved circulation. Silence at this period is fraught with no dangers which the beginning of active climbing will not remove. During these early hours mind and nerves and muscles have got to rediscover their harmonious working for the exertions of the day. Their process of adjustment should not, therefore, be distracted.
In the morning mechanical action and the automatic reflexes have to be re-established, and the mind has to be induced to co-operate. In the evening, as has been shown, when mechanical action tends to degenerate into monotony, and muscular and nervous fatigue become master of the mind, an exactly contrary line of action in management is necessary, and the mind has to be helped to escape from the infection and to reassert its independence by intentional distraction.
Abnormal Moods.
But there are certain abnormal states, unforeseen but inevitable effects of the direct action of mountain incident upon nerve, harmony and energy, which on occasion must be met, and which should therefore be mentioned. Apart from preventable physical exhaustion, and the languor and ill-humour produced by boredom, there are several conditions of mind which may evilly affect the power of a party, and for varying lengths of time.
Reaction.
On the first splendid glow of success, when the difficult ascent has ended triumphantly on the summit, there follows a phase of complete relaxation, of surrender to the simple realization of rest and physical enjoyment. It is a period of indescribable sensations, of imagination run riot, and of will and self-control alike in abeyance.
When the subsequent descent is begun it is at first, for many men, a matter of real difficulty to recover complete control of their machinery, and for the leader to reconstitute the different individuals into a single working unit. For a time the pace must be diminished, and the care redoubled. Precautions, of remonstrance and doubled ropes and moving singly, none of them possibly necessary in the same place with the party in working order must be put into force, until the normal condition is regained. The assumption that the state of mind makes no difference, and that a party can descend as securely the final slopes that it raced up light-heartedly in the bracing moment of success, is all too commonly made, and only too frequently regretted.
Disappointment.
If success has its short following period of danger, disappointment has a longer and more insidious effect. However necessary or admittedly correct the decision to turn back may have been, the disappointment works afterwards, often unconsciously, upon each individual, as he realizes his wasted effort and envisages his fatigue, with now no excitement or bracing of hope to counteract it. So come discouragement, and careless treading, and a resentful attitude towards precautions and manœuvres which no longer have any triumphant object as their excuse. Any weakness in condition or humour will grow doubly apparent at such a time; and as the disappointment is equally present in all minds, it is impossible to pretend unconsciousness of it, and often vain to attempt to raise the atmosphere by a counterfeit of cheerfulness. Mental and social tonics are for the time alike useless. The condition has to be accepted as an indisputable lowering of tone, which in its effects will prejudice the physical capacity of the party in many subtle ways. Since in this one case he cannot check the evil influence at its source in the mind, the leader must employ every concrete mountaineering device to prevent its endangering the actual safety. He must bring out all his reserves of spirit and technique to keep the party concentrated on the momentary details of their descent, and redouble his own activities in order to anticipate or correct any slip or mistake that the lowered tone may induce. On such occasions he can look himself for no relaxation of effort or release from anxiety until the rope is off at last and the safe path regained, no matter how little conscious his party may like to show themselves individually of any depreciation in their skill or good-will.
Over-confidence.
Equally difficult to deal with, and far more frequent in its appearance, is the state of mind to which most mountaineers are subject—and guides also—who have accomplished a great climb successfully and are retracing the comparatively easy passages of the lower ridges, glaciers and tracks. Conscious of their successful performance, confident in their skill and unwearied muscles, intoxicated by air and effort and fortune, they are unaware of fatigue, and the easier ground lulls their judgment into a condition of fatalistic confidence, almost of exaltation. Danger, obvious and immediate, has become familiar, and has been safely avoided; they can neglect its threat when it is not so present. They jump the bergschrund rather than look for the bridge; they chance the unseen rock foothold rather than lose time in using the doubled rope; they glissade the loose snow slope and scorn its possible avalanche; the rope hampers them, it is taken off; and recklessly self-reliant, a reliance that success has fooled them into thinking justified, they rush the risks of hidden crevasses on the glacier, of false steps or loose stones on the easy ridges, with an abandon that it will make them shudder the next day to recall. Even the lower zigzag path to the valley is a danger in such a condition of mind. Safe as Rotten Row for the sure foot, it has a dozen times proved a fatal trap for the stumble of fatigue or the careless swing of over-confidence. Few men can look back on a long mountaineering record without remembering some such evenings of mountain madness; and while they blush (let us hope) even in memory at their folly, they may wish they had had some cool leader to call them, grumbling, to their senses. For while reaction and disappointment reflect at once upon the vitality, lowering the tone and, like a flat liquor, offering little chance of reanimation, over-confidence is an effervescence, an overflow of spirits, which can be more easily regulated by apt manipulation. The leader must take control, sharply and steadily. He has little to fear from the effect of his interference upon a party in such spirits; any resentment will be temporary, and his own labour, of repressing and directing a surplus of energy, will be far less than in the cases where, as has been shown, he may have to provide a stimulus or even a substitute for its absence.
There is an insidious danger common to all these mental states. As one of a party working together, a leader must remember that he himself is subject to infection from a collective mood. He may consider that his confident action on occasion is entirely individual and calculated; or, again, he may be certain that his resolution to retreat represents only his own unbiased judgment; and in either case he may be puzzled later to account for an obvious error. He must learn to allow for his ‘atmospheric’ error, the unconscious perversion of his saner judgment by some collective mood of his party. The risk is very subtle. A leader has no defence against it except to keep its possibility constantly in mind. He must acquire the habit of challenging, mentally, his own opinions of the moment, and of confronting them, detachedly, with the sternest of mountain precepts and rules of thumb. The habit will stand him in good stead in moments of more dangerous decision, of excitement, and, therefore of more probable collective infection. It will at least check him from joining, even in his most ecstatic moments, in an unroped glacier stampede or in a ‘go-as-you-please’ skelter down a buttress; it may save him some of the lasting regrets of the leader who afterwards recognizes that he has turned back prematurely; and it will certainly protect him on many long tramps from that curious infection, hours of united, unreasoning mountain gloom.
Hysteria.
From a fourth state, actual hysteria or hill-shock, a leader is presumably exempt. It occurs more frequently among mountains than anywhere else off the battlefield, since their conditions may put an excessive strain upon unaccustomed nerves. Old climbers are inoculated against most of its risks. If a type of danger has once been experienced, on any subsequent recurrence, even faintly resembling it in character, the consciousness flashes out at once to meet it, in all its possible reactions; the mind takes control of the nerve communications and blocks the way against any evil effects resulting from the sudden shock to the subconscious nervous system. Only an entirely unfamiliar form of danger or an unduly prolonged strain can rout the presence of mind of a tried climber. But it is well to remember that every man has his ‘cracking point,’ and that this is sooner reached in the case of an uneducated guide, however experienced, than in the person of an expert amateur, whose imagination will widen his experience.
It may originate in three ways. Firstly, from exhaustion, irritating brain and nerves until self-control is lost and any slight shock may cause the hysteria to break out, either in the usual violent symptoms, or, more intimidating because less anticipated, in silent tears. Exhaustion, not fear, is the basis. If it has not been possible to anticipate the crisis by precautionary rest or distraction, immediate inaction and quiet reassurance, without remonstrance or contradiction, are the best assistance to recovery.
Or, secondly, it may result from sudden shock, the realization of completely unexpected danger in a placid moment before the mind has time to assert its control over its own group of spinal nerves. This is the moment of panic which is the terror of all who have the charge of collections of human beings, in a theatre or on shipboard. If the shock can be anticipated by even the briefest of introductions, if a collective instantaneous realization of the danger can only be prevented by any method of more gradual communication of the news, half the risk of panic ensuing is gone. For if only the mind has the chance to realize the meaning of the news before the physical shock to the group of subconscious nerves has time to react, it takes command; and the man begins to act, and even to overact, for his own benefit if for no wider audience, in accordance with his conception of suitable gentlemanly behaviour under the circumstances. In climbing, indeed, there is often no time for such a gradual introduction. But in climbing, wherever danger is not cumulative, and therefore gradual, in its approach, the peril is over and past almost as soon as the shock is felt: for instance, the rock has fallen—and missed the party; the slip has occurred—and not pulled them down. So much the leader has in his favour in meeting its after-effects of fear. The crisis being over, it is best, if possible, to pretend to ignore its existence altogether, and to find some reason for a halt and for continued inattention until the nerves have had time to settle down. If this fails, the incident should be cheerfully recalled and discussed until its idea has become familiar, and so harmless. It is useful to remember that no individual panic, and for that matter no form of extreme emotion, can long survive the bland disregard of its existence by some one else in the same circumstances. But if a repetition of the peril still threatens, as might be the case after a rock or snow avalanche, and therefore immediate movement is desirable, the orders for action should be sharp and decided, but quite impersonal: they should neglect any individual more particularly affected, and apparently be addressed to the whole party. Personal attention only tends to increase the self-consciousness and the self-pity which, in the frightened man, will be militating against the recovery of his self-command.
The third and most difficult manifestation, that of hysterical obstinacy, may be the outcome of a long-continued state of nervousness or of, often, groundless fear, accumulating and indulged by self-compassion until it gets beyond control. The hysteria takes the form of a refusal to move up or down, and, without any violent symptoms, remains impervious to reason or direct remonstrance. A halt, and a deliberate disregard, emphasized by general talk about some unrelated matter, will often result in a gradual loosening of the tension, mental and muscular, and the beginnings of unwilling movement. Once the rigidity is past, the rope and quick and not too gentle impulse will do the rest. But if the situation does not allow of even so much delay, stronger measures are necessary. I have seen a guide use a startling slap on the cheek in an extreme case with good effect; or a jerk on the rope, that forces the victim to scramble to recover his own footing, may break the spell. In any case, if the leader is unfortunate enough to suffer such inconvenience with a beginner, he will be wise not to risk the like chance on a mountain a second time, in both their interests.
Vertigo.
What is called giddiness, the paralysing effect of sheer height, suddenly revealed, sometimes produces unexpectedly a similar condition of immobility. Fortunately, in this case it is not accompanied by the same objection to being moved into security by others.
Habit also will remove the inclination, sometimes felt on the edges of sheer walls or cliffs, to ‘throw oneself over.’ This is another of the symptoms of slight vertigo. In spite of its frequent and sensational appearance in narrative, the inclination would seem invariably to confine itself to remaining merely an inclination.
Giddiness, the inclination to fall and the impulse to throw oneself over, is the result of the inability of the eye at the moment to obtain an assurance that the body is upright or in balance. When a child is learning to walk it tumbles all over the place. Then it learns to fix some point on a level with its eye, and it can retain its balance in walking just so long as it can keep its eyes moving towards this point more or less on a level plane. Gradually it learns to get the same assurance from some distant point on the floor ahead: its eye has been educated to reason from a diagonal as much as from a level glance; and the ‘semicircular canal’ has been taught to interpret the message, and convert it into automatic balance. As it moves forward it shifts the point ahead, unconsciously obtaining that the third side of the triangle thus formed by its glance shall always demonstrate that the other two sides, the line of the floor and the vertical line through its own centre of gravity, are forming an approximate right angle. Still later it learns to apply the same principle to uphill or downhill gradients, where the line of gravity makes, not a right angle, but an acute or obtuse angle with the visible surface. That is, it learns to take the constant line of its own centre of gravity as the base-line of its triangle and not the fickle flooring; and it still keeps in balance in movement by measuring the third side with its eye, in order to be assured that whatever angle its body in balance is making with the ground, be it uphill and acute, or downhill and obtuse, shall remain the same during its next movement.
Even as men we cannot be sure that we are upright, that is, in balance—for our muscles permit us a few degrees of sway either way from our line of gravity—unless we are somehow in contact with the visible surface at two successive points in the line of direction in which we are moving, be the contact maintained by the touch of our second foot, by the hand, or by the glance of our eye. Shut your eyes, stand on one foot, and you will have proof of this. Men accustomed only to walking on the level make a habit of selecting the rest-point for their eye some distance ahead. Consequently, when they find themselves on a steep hillside, where the fall of the ground below makes a wider angle with their line of gravity than their eye has been trained to estimate, their glance wanders helplessly, they lose their assurance of balance, and they become ‘giddy’ or feel that they ‘must’ fall over. But habit will correct this. The climber soon learns to shorten his glance, to accept a reduced distance between his two requisite points of contact. The few inches of visible surface near his feet, be it only the edge of a rock ledge or the curve of a snow wall, projected against nothingness, will serve him, with practice, as sufficient rest-point for his eye, and give him the assurance that his body is upright and his balance secure.
Wherever, in climbing, the angle of the surface is so steep that even these few inches of margin for the eye’s reassurance are lacking,—for instance, on a precipitous rock wall with only minute stances, or on an almost vertical ice slope,—then, by the nature of the case, the climber can use his hands; and from this second point of contact, through his fingers, the climber gets an even more concrete assurance of his balance than from the judgment of his eye. There are cases, however, where the hands cannot or should not be used, and where the eye is so far confused that it must divide its responsibility for the second point of contact with some other agent; and for this we learn to use the second foot. Take the case of traversing along the summit of a narrow rock ridge, or across a knife-edge of ice. The hands are useless, and the eyes, unable to remain focused upon the narrow edge, wander away into the depths. The inexpert man will get giddy, and will only save himself, on the rock, by crawling across on hands and knees, thus forcing from his hands the assurance that his eyes refuse; while on the ice he will get giddy and—not get across at all. But the expert can step across either, rapidly and securely. In the first place he learns to focus his eyes undeviatingly upon the thin edge ahead, or upon some fixed point on the same line with it beyond; and in the second place he learns, since an expert’s eye is human and embraces a large field, to divide its balancing duty with his second foot. This foot, advanced in the direction of progress, provides a second rest-point for the assurance of balance quite good enough to complement the eye. He strides out rapidly, so as to shorten the doubtful interval while this foot is in the air, and for assurance in this doubtful interval he trusts again to his fixed glance. A blind-folded tight-rope walker balances on the same principle, only he obtains his assurance from two points of contact even nearer together, from one foot only just in advance of the other, or even from one foot alone, the two requisite points being then represented by his toe and his heel. Loose-wire walkers, who apparently deprive themselves of all fixed points for their estimate, substitute the pole or the parasol in their hands. This their trained sense continues to adjust at such an inclination to the shifting but relatively fixed point of their feet as may always give their hand a second relatively fixed point of judgment by which they can estimate the angle that then body is making, at any instant of rest or motion, with the line of gravity; and its leverage enables them to correct this angle whenever hand plus foot give warning that the body has so far departed from the line as to be entering upon the ‘forbidden degrees.’
The normal mountaineer, however, need never expect to have to do with less than two stable points of judgment, for foot and hand or eye, and these at least a few inches apart. It is entirely incorrect, therefore, for anyone to assume that, because he feels ‘giddy’ looking down from the top of a wall, he is disqualified from high mountaineering. Some degree of giddiness would be excusable in any mountaineer, however expert, who might be asked to look down off the edge of a sheer wall, where there was no handhold, no room to shift a foot forward or backward, and which was too vertical to afford any rest-point below for the eye. If he were asked to walk along the wall, he would probably do it cheerfully. In mountaineering, also, we may count upon handholds when the eye is obstructed or the assurance of a second foot denied us. We need only train our sense of balance to assure us of security upon a basis of narrowly spaced but still quite natural points of judgment. And in the process of learning we shall find that we lose all inclination to giddiness.
The Effect of Height.
There remains one state, of whose nature and origin we at present know very little. It is generally called the ‘psychological’ effect of height; which it almost certainly is not. It has none of the bodily symptoms of mountain sickness; and I know no remedy for it, mental or physical. It is simply that certain men above certain heights appear to lose some portion of their nervous energy. Training or habit seem powerless to restore it. They become incapable of moving with the certainty or rhythm which are theirs at lower levels. You can watch the effects in tentative, slower movements, a visible effort in balancing, clumsiness with the rope, insecurity in steps, sometimes a vagueness or absence of mind, as if the vitality were running low. And yet the men will be most vigorous and competent mountaineers up to their limit of height. Liability to suffer from it appears to depend on no question of physique or of probabilities. As its result many fine climbers on lower hills never achieve marked success in the Alps, and many fine alpinists, including most guides, are failures, relatively, in the Himalaya. If we were to go high enough, we should probably find that every man has his limit of height, above which no training or habit would enable him to climb with his normal vigour or efficiency. But what concerns a leader in the Alps, or an explorer in higher ranges, is to discover which of his party is subject to it, and at what heights, and make his dispositions accordingly if he is planning an expedition or series of expeditions which will exceed this limit. Otherwise, just at those heights and in those situations where the greatest individual skill is called for and the least attention can be spared to others, he will find that the symptoms will begin to put in an unwelcome appearance. The mountaineer himself is rarely aware of his weakness; he probably explains it to himself as a touch of passing mountain sickness. It is only when he, or more probably his leader, notices that it recurs at the same height and that the symptoms are not physical or mental, but affect the mysterious half-way region that we must call ‘nervous,’ that the true cause suggests itself. A leader must watch every new member of his party, and if he finds that he has such a height limit, he must not take him above it, if the ascent is severe, or he must be prepared to give him much increased attention and shepherding until the limit is repassed on the descent.