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MOUNTAINEERING 119
During these years the question of holidays arose. Like
most young schoolmasters, we at Eton were tempted to
knock about abroad or at home in company with each
other and talk " shop." That was the line of least re•
sistance and by no means the most profitable. Some had
hobbies 1 and my belief is that a very large number of
normal boys might be so equipped if we knew more about
the lntelleetual training of childhood. One way and
another it is a sheer necessity of life that new ideas should
be given by recreation ; and it is very easy to over-value
the kind of recreation which is physically fatiguing and
mentally sterile. In 1880, 1887, 1888, I dabbled in Swiss
mountaineering with Alfred Cole, Howson, Welldon, and
others. If it is combined with some botany ,pr geology it
is a noble sport, and in any case teaches valuable qualities
-ndurance, humility, circumspection, awe.
One incident Is worth recording for the instruction of
young mountaineers. One morning in August 1880, after
an abortive attempt on the Bernina (had we not been turned
back by weather after a night in the hut, would such
tyros in climbing have escaped an early death f), we were
tempted by the sight of a snow-glissade at the top of the
Korvatch (the hill which cuts off the sun from Pontresina
in January at 2.45 p.m.) and persuaded our old Eton
friend Charles Lacaita, the only one of us who had
climbed before, to lead us unguided to the top or the hill,
where we should lunch, then enjoy the glissade and come
down. I should mention that two days before I tried the
ascent of the mountain alone, took the wrong line, and
got into a place on the rocks when for some minutes I
could aeither go up nor down. Someone ought to warn
heedless young men from ever scrambling about the Alps
.alone. That, too, was a touch and go.
So Welldon, Howson, Cole. and myself were led by
Lacaita easily up the left-hand side. On the summit,
luncheon ; fine view ; high spirits, but L warned us that
the glissade a little farther on would probably be too
icy. It was a streak of hard frozen snow which escaped
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