telling freely, and without false shame, the simple story of a day among the mountains.” The pioneers had every advantage, a new subject for literary expression, a new field of almost untouched exploration, phrases that had yet to become trite, emotions which never become trite though their expression is apt to fall into a rut. And yet it seems doubtful whether they wrote more freely and more truly than some of those who are writing to-day. In some directions, mountain descriptions have advanced as well as mountain craft. We have no Leslie Stephen and no Whymper, but the best pens at work in _The Alpine Journal_ have created a nobler literature than that which we find in the early numbers. “_The Alpine Journal_,” remarked a worthy president, is “the champagne of Alpine literature.” Like the best champagne, it is often very dry. The early numbers contained little of literary value beyond Gosset’s great account of the avalanche which killed Bennen, and some articles by Stephen and Whymper. Neither Stephen nor Whymper wrote their best for the club journal. _The Cornhill_ contains Stephen’s best work, and Whymper gave the pick of his writing to the Press. One may safely say that the first forty years of the club journal produced nothing better than recent contributions such as “The Alps” by A. D. Godley, “Two Ridges of the Grand Jorasses” by G. W. Young, “The Middle Age of the Mountaineer” by Claud Schuster, “Another Way of Alpine Love” by F. W. Bourdillon, “The Ligurian Alps” by R. L. A. Irving, and “Alpine Humour” by C. D. Robertson. Nor has good work been confined to _The Alpine Journal_. The patient seeker may find hidden treasures in the pages of some score of journals devoted to some aspect of the mountains. The new century has opened well, for it has given us Prof. Collie’s _Exploration in the Himalaya and other Mountain Ranges_, a book of unusual charm. It has given us Mr. Young’s mountain poems, for which we would gladly jettison a whole library of Alpine literature. It has given us _Peaks and Pleasant Pastures_, and a fine translation of Guido Rey’s classic work on the Matterhorn. With these books in mind we can safely assert that the writer quoted at the beginning of this chapter was unduly pessimistic, and that England has contributed her fair share to the subjective literature of the Alps. Let us hope that this renaissance of wonder will suffer no eclipse; let us hope that the Alps may still offer to generations yet unborn avenues of discovery beside those marked “No Information” in the pages of _The Climber’s Guides_. The saga of the Alps will not die from lack of material so long as men find in the hills an inspiration other than the challenge of unclimbed ridges and byways of mountain joy uncharted in the ordnance survey. BIBLIOGRAPHY