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spots on the surface of the glacier, was told that these represented a body of guides endeavouring to extricate a Doctor of Laws who had stuck deep down in a crevasse, where he was then exemplifying the phenomena of congelation. Yes, it must be admitted as a humiliating fact, that a guide is just as necessary to the pedestrian on the glacier, as a pilot is to a vessel in a shoaly and rocky sea. It was the suffering of spirit endured through some three days of the detested bondage of guidehood, that made me vow that some day when I had leisure for the task I would lift my testimony against the extension, beyond where it is absolutely unavoidable, of a system of voluntary slavery that has rooted itself among the hapless class of persons denominated Tourists. It is not alone in submission to the iron rule of the professional guide that this degrading phenomenon is developed. It exists in the mapping-out, in guide-books and otherwise, of certain routes which the tourist is to take, certain things which he is to see, and certain occurrences—generally arrant falsehoods— in which he is to believe. Having protested against a similar usurpation of authority as to the books which the collector should acquireand read, and the method in which he should read them, I offer these fugitive pages as an inducement to the rambler to shake himself free of guidance, by endeavouring to describe to him a specimen of the kind of scenes he may alight on if he " take his feet in his hands," as an old saying goes, and independently step out of the range of the established tours. Comparison, however it may be denounced by one precept as odious, is by another recommended to us as a valuable medium ofexplanation. I therefore propose to " set off," as dealers say, the merits of my favourite district, by com...
