But in addition to their walking and riding the Indians are great climbers of steep canyon and mountain trails. Men, women, and children alike pass up and down these trails with almost the ease and agility of the goat. I have seen a woman with a _kathak_ (carrying basket) suspended from her forehead containing a load of fruit, of pine nuts, of grass seeds, weighing not less than from 50 to 100 lbs., her baby perched on top of the load, steadily and easily climb a trail that made me puff and blow like a grampus. Few exercises, properly taken, are of greater benefit to the lungs and heart, and indeed, all the vital organs, than is trail or mountain climbing. See that your clothing is easy, especially around the waist, for there must be room for every effort of lung expansion. This applies to men as well as to women, for the wretched and injurious habit is growing among men of wearing a belt instead of suspenders. If the prospective climber is a woman, let her wear a loose, light dress, and with as short a skirt as her common sense, judgment, and conscience will allow her to wear. If she is out “in the wilds,” let her wear trousers and discard skirts entirely as a senseless and barbarous slavery to custom and convention. Shoes should be easy and comfortable, with thick soles and broad, _low_ heels. [Illustration: CLIMBING THE TRAILS IN THE CANYON OF THE HAVASU, ARIZONA.] Begin to climb as early in the morning as possible. Don’t try to do too much at first. Try a small hill. Conquer that by degrees. Get so that you can finally go up and down without any great effort. Then tackle the higher hills, and finally try real mountains, eight, ten, fourteen thousand feet high. If you are delicate to begin with be more careful still, and ask the advice of your physician, but don’t be afraid so long as you do not get fatigued to exhaustion. For climbing develops the thighs and calves of the leg, the muscles of the back, enlarges the lungs, makes the heart pump more and purer (because better oxygenated) blood throughout the whole body, brings about more rapid changes in the material of the body, and thus exchanges old and useless tissue for new and healthy, dissolves and dissipates fat, induces perspiration and exhalations through the kidneys that are peculiarly beneficial. In breathing be sure to keep the mouth closed. Insist upon _nasal_ breathing, and the exercise will perforce make it _deep_ breathing. The deeper you breathe the more good you will get from it. Let the posture be correct or you will lose much good. This is in brief: pull the abdomen in, raise the chest, keep the chin down, and let the arms hang easily and naturally by the side.