Climbing on the Himalaya and Other Mountain Ranges

by Norman Collie

Now the worst of all this is that as the nations expand and communication becomes easier, the several, as yet unspoilt, corners of the world, where man has not yet 'forked out' Nature, are in grave danger of being swept bodily into civilisation's net. Unfortunately the majority of mankind is hopelessly lacking in imagination, they are incapable of accommodating themselves to their environment, trying always instead to force their surroundings to fit their own small ideas.

Brighton becomes more civilised in direct ratio as it becomes more like London; and Switzerland—that is to say, where many unimaginative tourists go, and nowadays they go to most places from Lucerne to the tops of the highest mountains—is thus degraded. It becomes a herding place during August for the nations, each brings his own special atmosphere, his family, his newspaper, and himself. The money pours in, the state becomes civilised, and the hotels flourish. If Zermatt possessed first-class beer halls, a golf course, and plenty of motor cars, a very large number of the German, English, and French tourists would gladly amuse themselves each with his particular native pastime, and would never bother themselves about whether Monte Rosa was covered with ice and snow, or was merely a mud heap, or whether glaciers, Matterhorns, Dent Blanches were or were not.

It would be foolish to deny that the interest of mankind in man must necessarily be stronger than the mere abstract pleasure obtained from the contemplation of wild and beautiful scenery. So it follows that when a vast concourse gathers, such as is seen during the season at Zermatt, mankind naturally dominates the environment, and the study of man, not of scenery, prevails. This must be so. Take, for instance, any of our best novelists: of course they deal with people, not things. When Clive Newcome and J. J. (artists too, if you please) crossed the Alps, does Thackeray give us a long account of the scenery? Certainly not: the whole matter is disposed of at once, and in a sentence they are whisked from Baden to Rome. On the other hand, the descriptions of the beauties of Nature by Sir Walter Scott or by Wordsworth, who reads them now except with an occasional yawn? Far more interesting, and properly so too, are narratives of real, live people, their thoughts, their hopes, their disappointments. Soldiers Three appeals to every one; but should one begin to talk about the merits of Claude and Turner as painters of hills, and even quote some of Ruskin's very finest passages about Alps and Archangels, your neighbour at table d'hôte will either think that you are a great bore, or, perhaps, an extremely clever person; but will be far more interested, when the old lady opposite begins to tell how Mr. Jones was caught that very afternoon proposing to Miss Robinson, and how the Bishop of X. is really coming to stop at the hotel for a few days. All this is meant to show that by far the greater number of the hordes that invade Switzerland every year does not in reality take any interest at all, or at best a very feeble one, in the only really national dish that Switzerland has to offer. They neither care for it, nor do they understand it.

Naturally, therefore, the majority with their outside influence, with their own objects, ends, and atmosphere, entirely swamps the small remainder who appreciate the natural beauties of the land, and who fifty years ago practically held undivided possession. In those days the tourists, and they were few in the land, did not in the least mind suffering certain minor hardships owing to the absence of hotels: it was nothing compared with the pleasure that they obtained from the free life and the scenery; also, should they be mountaineers and scale some of the till then unvisited summits, on their descent into the valleys they were looked upon with wonder by the simple village folk and the herders of cattle of the small hamlets; these inhabitants would crowd round, when with arm extended and finger pointing to the distant peak of snow they described how yesterday, at such a time, they and their friend the chamois hunter of the district were on its summit. This sort of thing has most certainly gone, gone for ever. In this respect the Alps are as dead as Queen Anne—they have been overwhelmed in the waters of oblivion. The self-sufficient modern traveller now holds undivided sway in the chief central places of the Alps; and were it possible for him to impress his puny individuality on the great crags and the snow-fields of the mountains, to interfere with the colours of the sunset or the dawn, or to compel the clouds, then perhaps we might agree with the bitter cry of Ruskin, who, speaking of the artistic creative faculty of the present day, says that we 'live in an age of base conceit and baser servility—an age whose intellect is chiefly formed by pillage, and occupied in desecration; one day mimicking, the next destroying, the works of all noble persons who made its intellectual or art life possible to it: an age without honest confidence enough in itself to carve a cherry-stone with an original fancy, but with insolence enough to abolish the solar system, if it were allowed to meddle with it.'

Fortunately they cannot meddle with the mountains and the snow-fields. Still, as in those bygone days, man there is a mere speck. The peaks are as high and the snows as deep. Above, the glories of the sunset and the sunrise are the same, amidst the ice, the snow, and the black rocks; there the taint, and the adverse influence of this invasion of civilisation, is unfelt, although it may have overwhelmed the valleys below. The Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn still are as untouched and unspoiled, as far from vulgarisation as in the days when they were first conquered.

It is only when we descend from the mountains, and at the huts once more enter into contact with this other world, that the change begins to be felt, or when we have returned to our hotel, donned our dress clothes, and are seated before a bad imitation of a dinner, that we finally recognise that the waters of the great modern sea of vulgarity and mediocrity have engulfed us.

Forty years ago Switzerland, or at least the finest part of Switzerland, belonged to the tourist or traveller, call him which you will, who really cared for the healthy, out-of-door existence and the scenery; and to the mountaineer, who, as a rule, appreciated both the natural grandeur of the Alps, and at the same time the pleasure of spending his holidays high up amidst the ice and snow. At that time we find in the Alpine Journal (a record of mountain adventure) endless papers on the climbing and the exploration of the Alps. But if we examine the pages of the Alpine Journal of to-day, a distinct scarcity of papers on the Alps is at once apparent. In the year 1900, out of fourteen articles only five dealt with the Alps, for there nowadays exploration and new climbs are almost impossible. Moreover, records of mere mountain adventure without any description of an ascent of some unconquered peak have become too common. Therefore it is not remarkable that the mountaineer is driven further afield, preferring to win laurels amidst new ranges. But still the Alps are both broad and wide, and after all it is only along certain lines that the great civilised mob disports itself. It is true that all the mountains have been ascended, but surely that only destroys a minor attraction; moreover, fortunately almost anywhere on the Italian side of the watershed one is free from that lamentable state of affairs that obtains at such places as Chamonix, Grindelwald, and Zermatt; and should the mountaineer possess a tent and a sleeping-bag he can always camp out, thus being entirely free. There are places on the south side of Mont Blanc, in the Rutor or in the Grand Paradiso district, in the Valpelline, and in many others, where delightful camps can be made and where one would hardly ever see a stranger for weeks together. There the mountaineer can live practically undisturbed in his own hunting ground of peaks, passes, and glaciers.

Amongst the most pleasant recollections I have of the Alps are those connected with our camps. We always had sleeping-bags, and I may say that during all the years I spent climbing with Mummery only twice have I slept in a hut with him.

There are few more pleasurable sensations than to be comfortable and warm under the lee of some great boulder, watching the stars as they slowly move westward; or to sit by a camp fire after the sun has set, and to recall all the enjoyment of the climb just finished; a feeling of most profound contentment with everything in the world steals over the party; the conversation becomes more and more disjointed as first one and then another turns over and sleeps.

When I look back and think of all the various places where Mummery, Hastings, Slingsby, and I have slept out in the open, far away from the haunts of men, and remember how we enjoyed ourselves, I for one would go back year after year to the Alps if those times could be brought back again. In those days the glass of time, when shaken, ran in golden sands. Now all that is left of them is the memory.