DARING DEEDS OF GREAT MOUNTAINEERS

It is a curious fact that until two or three generations ago men did not see beauty in mountain scenery. To them the mountains were always forbidding, full of terror, awful, never alluring or fascinating. Towering peaks, rugged glaciers, lofty precipices, dark ravines, stupendous crags were things to shudder at and avoid.
It is sometimes said that the mountains have lost their terrors, and certainly men seek them in our day from pure love of them, undeterred by the dangers and difficulties which must still be encountered by those who would scale their heights, or penetrate into their recesses. The exploits of Alpine climbers are wonderful for the enthusiasm and the daring which they display; and the achievements of others who have braved the same perils in pursuit of science or commerce show a not less adventurous spirit. Of ventures on the high mountains, therefore, the records of travel are full, and the avalanche, the steep and slippery ice slope, the storm, the exposure to extreme cold, to fatigue, to hunger, to attacks from wild beasts or still wilder men, these and a hundred other forms of danger will still attract, and not deter, those in whose hearts the spirit of adventure stirs.