They are ascending some 3,000 feet under arduous conditions for the purpose of knocking a ball—a small and expensive ball—along the ground with a stick. This is golf; a proceeding that is with many one of the rare joys of life. Golf has many charms and not the least is that it is a game for everyone. It fires the youth with ambition and comforts the aged, for it fosters the delusion that the end of their days is not yet. The inefficient can play with the expert, without heartburnings and without reproach and receive sympathy in the place of sarcasm. The lamb, indeed, can lie down with the lion and now and then bleat, in the golfer’s tongue, “like as we lie.” The man who wishes to be alone can play alone. The man who loves company can “go round” in a party of four and chatter to them all at once and all the time. Golf too is a discipline, for the spirit of golf is hope. The golfer who has abandoned hope is lost. Lost too is the fatalist who knows he is in a bunker before he gets there. [Illustration: MONTE CARLO: THE CASINO GARDEN.] Golf, moreover, is played under pleasant conditions in the open air, among sand dunes, or by sea beaches, or on breezy downs and in light-hearted surroundings; for there are few links that are not picturesque and cheery. It is besides a pleasant game to watch for the human element in it is so interesting. There is, for example, that fascinating disproportion between the effort made and the result that may be attained. The man at the tee stands with rigid limbs, with every muscle tense, with clenched teeth and a fixed glare in the eye. Then comes a swish with a club that—if a sword—would decapitate an ox and, as a result, the ball dribbles languidly a few mocking feet. If the man fails by misapplied violence the lady is apt to fail by moulding her action on the photographic pose of lady players in the society journals. She wants to get to the “follow through” attitude, when her club will be in the air, her face in a good light and the tip of her right shoe just touching the ground. The caddies too are an interesting company to watch. Being young they are unable to restrain the expression of the emotions and this is often disconcerting. When a fine shot is made the aspect of the caddie is that of serious anxiety, for he has to keep the ball in sight. When a really bad stroke is taken he _must_ laugh and when he is compelled—in order to conceal his laughter—to bury his face in the breast of a fellow-caddie the sight of the convulsed boy, hanging on to a friend, calls for great restraint on the part of the player. The fragments of English picked up by foreign caddies are always curious and nearly always unhappy. I recall a caddie in Egypt who spoke nothing but Arabic; but who, after a very woeful shot burst out, to my surprise, with the petulant remark, “Hell’s own luck!” I learnt later that he used to “carry” for a profane judge.