Chapter IV: Part 4

Pending that blessed time, I would point out to those public-spirited rich men (and we know there are such) who are ever looking for some useful outlet for their wealth, that here, in the shadow of this storm-cloud that overhangs our mountain scenery, they have a golden chance of ennobling themselves; for it is simple truth that the millionaire who should buy a Snowdon, and make free gift of it to the people, would be a benefactor for all time, and would far outstrip in lasting philanthropy any donor of churches or charities, hospitals or libraries, scholarships or seats of learning. For mountains are the holiest ground that the heart of man has consecrated, and their educating influence is even more potent than that of books; they are the true authors, the standard works, printed in the most enduring type, that cheer and brace, as no written words can do, the minds of those who study them.

In what state, then, shall we hand on to those who follow us these sacred temples of Nature, which, as even so old-fashioned a writer as Wordsworth asserted, are “a sort of national property, in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy”? The day cannot be far distant when our choice must be made, and it is between a sanctuary and a slag-heap that we must choose.

_Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_

FOOTNOTES

[1] _The Cambrian Sketch Book_, by R. R. Davies.

[2] _Rambles among the Mountains, Valleys, and Solitudes of Wales_, by J. H. Cliffe, 1860.

[3] “The simple people who till the soil of Westmorland and Cumberland cannot view in any other light than that of childish ‘laking’ the migrating propensities of all the great people of the south who annually come up like shoals of herrings from their own fertile pastures to the rocky grounds of the north.”--_De Quincey._

[4] The very word “to climb” is beginning to be appropriated by the gymnasts, in whose records we find mention of meetings with “non-climbing parties” at the summits. Scott’s verse, “I climbed the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn,” will evidently have to be rewritten.

[5] See the well-known lines in Scott’s “Helvellyn”:

“Dark green was that spot mid the brown mountain-heather,
Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay.”

[6] Dr. G. A. Selwyn, then Bishop of Lichfield.

[7] “I suppose that I feel the same awe when on their summits that many do on entering a church. To see what kind of earth that is on which you have a house and garden somewhere, perchance! It is equal to a lapse of many years. If you have been to the top of Mount Washington, let me ask, what did you find there? Going up there and being blown on is nothing. We never do much climbing while we are there, but we eat our luncheon, etc., very much as at home. It is after we get home that we really go over the mountain, if ever. What did the mountain say? What did the mountain do?”--_Thoreau._

[8] Captain Cameron, of Glen Brittle House, Isle of Skye.

[9] The expression was used in E. D. Clarke’s _Tour through Wales_, 1791.

[10] The word “glidder” is given in the _English Dialect Dictionary_ as meaning a loose stone. Cf. the line in Scott’s “Shepherd’s Tale”: “Among the glidders grey.”

[11] “I ken the place, as mony does, in fair daylight, but how to find it by moonshine, amang sae mony crags and stanes, as like to each other as the collier to the deil, is mair than I can tell.”--_Heart of Midlothian._

[12] A proof of the sentiment attaching to Snowdon may be found in the number of counties which claim to have a distant view of it from their own highest points; we are told, for example, that it can be seen from the Worcestershire Beacon, at Malvern, across nearly a hundred miles of hill and plain. From what I have been able to discern of the Welsh heights as viewed from the hills of Shropshire, at a range of about fifty or sixty miles, I suspect that “Snowdon” must often be understood as a generic term, and that outlying summits such as the Arenig Fawr, near Bala, sometimes do duty for their chief.

[13] _Description of the Scenery of the Lakes_, 1823.

[14] W. Gilpin, 1786.

[15] See _Climbing in the British Isles_, by W. P. Haskett Smith, i. 86.

[16] Cf. the name of the well-known Nant Ffrancon, meaning “the Valley of the Beavers.”

[17] W. Gilpin’s _Observations on the Mountains of Cumberland_, 1786.

[18] See an interesting article on “Wild Goats in Wales,” in _Country Life Illustrated_, March 2, 1901. Also Mr. J. G. Millais’ _British Mammals_, iii. 213.

[19] “Probably these crests of the earth are for the most part of one colour in all lands, that grey colour of antiquity which Nature loves; colour of unpainted wood, weather-stain, time-stain; not glaring nor gaudy; the colour of all roofs, the colour of things that endure.”--Thoreau, _Journal_, x. 452.

[20] For a description of the flowers of the fells, I may be permitted, to refer the reader to my book _The Call of the Wildflower_, which contains chapters on the flora of Snowdonia and Helvellyn.

[21] _Description of the Scenery of the Lakes._

[22] In the good old days it must have been a practice to build privies actually _over_ small streams, as may be seen from ruins near disused cottages in Wales and Cumberland.

[23] There is an English branch of the League for the Preservation of Swiss Scenery, which has powerful support. Does not charity in this, as in other matters, begin at home?