But at Chamonix the Föhn wind of vulgarity seems to blow perpetually, enveloping always the great mountain in pale and dim eclipse, and obscuring the romance, the charm, and all honest appreciation of the old monarch. Fortunately one can easily run away, leaving this depressing atmosphere behind, and can bask once more in the sunshine, and camp amidst the unspoiled valleys near the snows. Why there are not more mountaineers who take small tents to the Alps is always to me a mystery. For long ago most of the huts have become abominations, whilst the free life that is afforded by camp life adds a very great charm to mountain expeditions. Having tried it so often in the Himalaya, in Skye, in Norway, in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and Switzerland, perhaps I may be biassed, but even if I never again had a chance of climbing a first-class peak in the Alps, I would return there to live the lazy, delightful, disreputable life in a tent, near the ice and the snows and the pine woods, to smell the camp fire, lie on my back all day amidst the grass and the flowers, listening to the wind, and looking at the sky and the great silent peaks. On the other hand, the idea of spending a month at Swiss hotels, arising in the darkness to wander forth in a bad temper, chilled to the bone, in order merely to finish off the remaining peaks of some district, so that I might say I had been up them all, and therefore never be bothered to return again--rather than perpetrate such a hideous waste of time I would go to some secluded spot on the western coast of these islands where the waves were for ever rolling in with that long, lazy, monotonous sweep that is only seen on the shores of the Atlantic, and there I would lie day after day on my back on the sands watching the ever-changing colours of the sea.