with danger to life and limb? Is it for the pay, admittedly good, or the lea and tsamba, on which they appear to thrive? Surely not, because no wage could be commensurate with the risks that are run; no food and drink worth the discomfort and privation experienced at heights where the scarcity of oxygen makes every upward step an action of unbelievable labour; where the setting-up of a small bivouac tent calls for an expenditure of energy out of all proportion to the nature of the task. No, it is something more subtle than personal gain that inspires these men, something so potent that master and man are affected alike, something indefinable that can best be described in the words of Mr. F. S. Smythe, of Everest and Kamet fame, as "the spirit of the hills."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.