nd comfort
in travelling are necessary preliminaries to our modern mountain
rapture, and in the Middle Ages these were non-existent. Roads and
inns were few; there was danger from robbers as well as weather, so
that the prevailing feelings on such journeys were misery and
anxiety, not pleasure. Knowledge of science, too, was only just
beginning; botany, geology, and geognosy were very slightly diffused;
glacier theories were undreamt of. The sight of a familiar scene near
the great snow-peaks roused men's admiration, because they were
surprised to find it there; this told especially in favour of the
idyllic mountain valleys.

Felix Fabri, the preacher monk of Ulm, visited the East in 1480 and
1483, and gave a lifelike description of his journeys through the
Alps in his second account. He said[2]:

'Although the Alps themselves seem dreadful and rigid from the cold
of the snow or the heat of the sun, and reach up to the clouds, the
valleys below them are pleasant, and as rich and fruitful in all
earthly delights as Paradise itself. Many people and animals inhabit
them, and almost every metal is dug out of the Alps, especially
silver. 'Mid such charms as these men live among the mountains, and
Nature blooms as if Venus, Bacchus, and Ceres reigned there. No one
who saw the Alps from afar would believe what a delicious Paradise is
to be found amid the eternal snow and mountains of perpetual winter
and never-melting ice.'

Very limited praise only extended to the valleys!

In the sixteenth century we have the records of those who crossed the
Alps with an army, such as Adam Reissner, the biographer of the
Frundsberg, and mention their 'awe' at sight of the valleys, and of
those who had travelled to Italy and the East, and congratulated
themselves that their troublesome wanderings through the Alps were
over. Savants were either very sparing of words about their travels,
or else made rugged verses which shewed no trace of mountain
inspiration. There were no outbursts of admiration at sight of the
great snow-peaks; 'horrible' and 'dreadful' were the current
epithets. The aesthetic sense was not sufficiently developed, and
discount as we will for the dangers and discomforts of the road, and,
as with the earlier travellers to the East, for some lack of power of
expression, the fact remains that mountains were not appreciated. The
prevalent notion of beautiful scenery was very narrow, and even among
cultured people only meant