Leslie Stephen admitted this, and he had less cause to admit it than most. “I utterly repudiate the doctrine that Alpine travellers are, or ought to be, the heroes of Alpine adventure. The true way, at least, to describe all my Alpine adventures is to say that Michael Anderegg, or Lauener, succeeded in performing a feat requiring skill, strength, and courage, the difficulty of which was much increased by the difficulty of taking with him his knapsack and his employer.” Now, this does less than justice to Leslie Stephen, and to many of the early mountaineers. Often they supplied the brain of the party, and the directing energy. They were pioneers. Yet mountaineering as a fine art owes almost as much to the men who first dispensed with professional assistance. A man who climbs habitually with guides may be, and often is, a fine mountaineer. He _need_ be nothing more than a good walker, with a steady head, to achieve a desperate reputation among laymen. Many of the early pioneers were by no means great athletes, though their mountaineering achievements deceived the public into crediting them with superhuman nerve and strength. Many of them were middle-aged gentlemen, who could have taken no part in active sports which demand a swift alliance of nerve and muscle; but who were quite capable of plugging up the average mixture of easy rock and snow that one meets on the average first-class Alpine peak. They had average endurance, and more than average pluck, for the prestige of the unvanquished peaks still daunted all but the courageous.