Free Leading the Blind by Alan; Sillitoe Page A

golden rule is to start on his way betimes in the morning. If strength permits, and a suitable halting-place is to be met with, a two hours’ walk may be accomplished before breakfast. At noon a moderate luncheon is preferable to the regular table-d’hôte dinner. Repose should be taken during the hottest hours, and the journey then continued till 5 or 6 p.m., when a substantial meal may be partaken of.’
    He has much to say on the drawback of having too much luggage, which renders the travellers a prey to porters at every stop. ‘Who has not experienced the exultation which attends the shouldering of the knapsack or wielding of the carpet-bag, on quitting a steamboat or railway station? Who in his turn has not felt the misery of that moment when, surrounded by his “impedimenta”, the luckless tourist is almost distracted by the rival claims of porters, touters, and commissionaires? A light game-bag amply suffices to contain all that is necessary for a fortnight’s excursion. A change of flannel shirts and worsted stockings, a few pocket-handkerchiefs, a pair of slippers, and the necessary “objets de toilette” may be carried with hardly a perceptible increase of fatigue. A piece of green crepe or coloured spectacles to protect the eyes from the glare of the snow, and a leather drinking-cup will also be found useful …’
    The foremost ‘Rule’ for the enthusiast is that he should curb his ardour at the beginning of the tour, and rarely exceed ten hours a day. In the tone of the fatherly schoolmaster Baedeker tells him: ‘Animal spirits are too often in excess of powers of endurance; overtaxing the strength on a single occasion sometimes incapacitates altogether for several days. When a mountain has to be breasted, the prudent pedestrian will pursue the “even tenor of his way” with regular and steady steps; the novice alone indulges in “spurts”. If the traveller will have a third golden maxim for his guidance it may be, “When fatigue begins, enjoyment ceases.”’
    We are forewarned about the chilling reality of actual experience. ‘The first night in a Chalet dispels many illusions. Whatever poetry there may be theoretically in a bed of hay, the usual concomitants of the cold night-air piercing abundant apertures, the ringing of the cow-bells, the sonorous grunting of the swine, and the undiscarded garments, hardly contribute to that refreshing slumber of which the wearied traveller stands in need.’
    Baedeker’s edition of 1911 frowns heavily on: ‘The senseless habit of breaking empty bottles and scattering the fragments (which) has led to inconvenience and even danger near some of the more frequented of these club huts. Bottles when done with should be deposited in some suitable spot where they will be out of the way.’
    As for experiencing the rarefied effects of air in the mountains, Francis Galton in The Art of Travel suggests a cruel and bizarre method of gauging it: ‘On the high plateaux newcomers must expect to suffer. The symptoms are described by many South American travellers; the attack of them is there, among other names, called the puna . The disorder is sometimes fatal to stout plethoric people; oddly enough, cats are unable to endure it. Numerous trials have been made with these unhappy feline barometers, and the creatures have been found to die in frightful convulsions.’
    The first view of Mont Blanc from the northwest is obtained at Sallenches, where the traveller enters the bustling courtyard of the hotel of that name and, during the season, ‘never fails to meet numerous travellers going to or from Chamonix; the latter imparting their impressions of the wonders of Mont Blanc, and their adventurous scrambles in the presence of the “monarch” to the listening expectants of such enjoyment; – all is excitement.’
    A few miles beyond Sallenches is St Gervais, ‘a