A TRAIL IN THE ROCKIES
Comparisons with the Alps and the Himalayas should be kept till the Rockies have been seen at closer quarters. The finest view I ever had of the Rockies was from a mountain in the Selkirks, at a height of over ten thousand feet, and over a hundred miles from the nearest railway. There I forgot to make comparisons, which after all are somewhat useless. It is easy to say that the Alps are softer and more pictorial—showing that deep blue sky above their snows, which is rarely if ever to be seen in the Rockies. The Canadian skies are too lofty and distant ever to seem to be resting even on the topmost snowfields. The Himalayas again have giants unparalleled. Kinchinjunga, leaning out of the clouds, cannot be matched among the Rockies. But the Rockies—well, the Rockies are different. As yet we are only just getting to Banff.
CHAPTER XIX
A HOT BATH IN BANFF
Everybody stops at Banff. The popular places of the world are not necessarily the most beautiful; and even if they start beautiful, they are not rendered more so by the accretion in their midst of a large number of even first-class hotels. Perhaps first-class hotels increase the feeling for beauty. Indeed the sole defence of luxury worth consideration is that it has this effect. Without luxury, would there exist such an appreciator of beauty as d'Annunzio, to name but one? Pardon, I am getting away from Banff.
It is a very beautiful watering-place at the foot of mountains. It is not spoilt yet, and it will be difficult to spoil it. The air is superb. I learnt that just as I was getting into it on my way from the station. I seemed to be the only person walking into it that morning—except for a local Canadian who was going in to his work. It was still very early in the morning, and distinctly cold, and I said to this Canadian workman:
'It's pretty cold at Banff.'
'It's the finest air in Canada,' he replied, with that characteristic touch of resentment of anything that might be taken as a criticism of his native heath, which every Canadian invariably shows. 'Yes, sir, it's the finest air in Canada, and they're putting down concrete sidewalks.'