Narrow-minded critics affect to believe that Albert Smith was nothing more than a showman, and that Mont Blanc was for him nothing more than a peg on which to hang a popular entertainment. This is not true. Mr. Mathews does him full justice when he says: “He was emphatically a showman from his birth, but it is not true he ascended the mountain for the purpose of making a show of it. His well-known entertainment resulted from a lifelong interest which he had taken in the great summit, of which he never failed to speak or write with reverence and affection.” Mr. Mathews was by no means naturally prejudiced in favour of anybody who tended to popularise the Alps, and his tribute is all the more striking in consequence. Albert Smith fell in love with Mont Blanc long before he had seen a mountain. Nobody can read the story of his first journey with twelve pounds in his pocket, without realising that Albert Smith, the showman, loved the mountains with much the same passion as his more cultured successors. Mr. Mathews adds: “It is but just to his memory to record that he, too, was a pioneer. Mountaineering was not then a recognised sport for Englishmen. Hitherto, any information about Mont Blanc had to be sought for in isolated publications. Smith brought a more or less accurate knowledge of it, as it were, to the hearths and homes of educated Englishmen.... Smith’s entertainment gave an undoubted impetus to mountaineering.” While Smith was lecturing, a group of Englishmen were quietly carrying through a series of attacks on the unconquered citadels of the Alps. In 1854 Mr. Justice Wills made that ascent of the Wetterhorn which has already been referred to. It is fully described in Mr. Justice Wills’s interesting book, _Wanderings among the High Alps_, and, amongst other things, it is famous as the first appearance in Alpine history of the great guide, Christian Almer. Mr. Wills left Grindelwald with Ulrich Lauener, a guide who was to play a great part in Alpine adventure, Balmat and Simond. “The landlord wrung Balmat’s hand. ‘Try,’ said he, ‘to return all of you alive.’” Lauener burdened himself with a “flagge” to plant on the summit. This “flagge” resolved itself on inspection into a very solid iron construction in the shape of a banner, which Lauener carried to the summit on the following day. They bivouacked on the Enge, and climbed next day without great difficulty, to the gap between the two summits of the Wetterhorn, now known as the Wettersattel. They made a short halt here; and, while they were resting, they noticed with surprise two men working up the rocks they had just climbed. Lauener at first supposed they were chamois hunters; but a moment’s reflection convinced the party that no hunter would seek his prey on such unlikely ground. Moreover, chamois hunters do not usually carry on their backs “a young fir-tree, branches, leaves, and all.” They lost sight of the party and continued their meal. They next