Above the Snow Line: Mountaineering Sketches Between 1870 and 1880

CHAPTER I.

AN EXPEDITION IN THE OLDEN STYLE PAGE Buried records—_Litera scripta manet_—The survival of the unfit—A 1 literary octopus—Sybaritic mountaineering—On mountain “form”—Lessons to be learned in the Alps—The growth and spread of the climbing craze—Variations of the art—A tropical day in the valley—A deserted hostelry—The hotel staff appears in several characters—Ascent ...