I am an unadventurous man,
And always go upon the plan
Of shunning danger where I can.
And so I fail to understand
Why every year a stalwart band
Of tourists go to Switzerland,
And spend their time for several weeks,
With quaking hearts and pallid cheeks,
Scaling abrupt and windy peaks.
In fact, I'm old enough to find
Climbing of almost any kind
Is very little to my mind.
A mountain summit white with snow
Is an attractive sight, I know,
But why not see it _from below_?
Why leave the hospitable plain
And scale Mont Blanc with toil and pain
Merely to scramble down again?
Some men pretend they think it bliss
To clamber up a precipice
Or dangle over an abyss,
To crawl along a mountain side,
Supported by a rope that's tied,
--Not too securely--to a guide;
But such pretences, it is clear,
In the aspiring mountaineer
Are usually insincere.
And many a climber, I'll be bound,
Whom scarped and icy crags surround,
Wishes himself on level ground.
So I, for one, do not propose,
To cool my comfortable toes
In regions of perpetual snows,
As long as I can take my ease,
Fanned by a soothing southern breeze,
Under the shade of English trees.
And anyone who leaves my share
Of English fields and English air
May take the Alps for aught I care!
* * * * *
SPORT MOST APPROPRIATE TO THE LOCALITY.--Shooting pigeons at Monte
Carlo.
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PLEASURE A LA RUSSE.--_Q._ When does a Russian give a Polish peasant a
holiday?
_A._ When he gives him _a kn_outing.
* * * * *