Publisher's Synopsis
IN a former work, I have given some details of the training of an Alpine guide, so I will not repeat them here. The mountain guides of Switzerland form a class unlike any other, yet in the high standard of honour and devotion they display towards those in their charge, one is reminded of two bodies of men especially deserving of respect and confidence, namely, the Civil Guards of Spain and the Royal Irish Constabulary. Like these, the Alpine guide oftentimes risks his health, strength-even his life-for persons who are sometimes in themselves the cause of the peril encountered. Like these, mere bodily strength and the best will in the world need to be associated with intelligence and foresight. Like these, also, keen, fully-developed powers of observation are essential. A certain climber of early days has wittily related in The Alpine Journal a little anecdote which bears on this point. "Some years ago," writes the late Mr F. Craufurd Grove, "a member of this Club was ascending a small and easy peak in company with a famous Oberland guide. Part of their course lay over a snow-field sinking gradually on one side, sharply ended by a precipice on the other. The two were walking along, not far from the edge of this precipice, when the Englishman, thinking that an easier path might be made by going still nearer the edge, diverged a little from his companion's track. To his considerable surprise, the guide immediately caught hold of him, and pulled him back with a great deal more vigour than ceremony, well-nigh throwing him down in the operation. Wrathful, and not disinclined to return the compliment, the Englishman remonstrated. The guide's only answer was to point to a small crack, apparently like scores of other cracks in the neve, which ran for some distance parallel to the edge of the precipice, and about 15 feet from it."
