It was at Schluderbach, while making an excursion from Cortina to the pretty Misurina Lake, that I became acquainted with a most enthusiastic climber of the Dolomites. He was a young Hungarian, gifted - like most of the educated men and women of his race - with marvelous facility in languages, of which he spoke a half a dozen fluently. For ten years he had been coming every summer to the Am-pezzo valley, had kept the same guide every season, and had surmounted with him all the noted peaks in the vicinity. His love for this adventurous life had even led him to write a book upon the subject, a copy of which he presented to me ere we parted. Unfortunately, however, it is written in Hungarian - a tongue with which I am wholly unacquainted.

There is, by the way, a popular idea that German and Hungarian are kindred languages, but there is absolutely no resemblance between them, the latter being Asiatic in its origin; and this linguistic difference, combined with many other causes, tends toward an ultimate separation of the two great sections of the empire of Austria-Hungary. When one first sees, however, the German words; but close inspection brings a disappointment. Thus one of the sentences in this book on Dolomite ascensions reads as follows: Ejfelt ütött lenn a rejtelmes homályban a san-vitoi toronyora, mikor kiléptem a világ legmagasabb virágos kertjelee. The literary style of Dr. Marczell's volume must, therefore, always be for me unknown and unappreciated until it is translated into one of the languages of western Europe; but what was my astonishment, on looking through his work, to find at the head of several of his chapters appropriate quotations from Longfellow, the first of them being the following passage from " The Masque of Latin letters used by the Hungarians, it seems as if the well-known characters should give him some idea at least of English, French, or Pandora":

Road From Schluderbach To Lake Misurina.

Difficult Pinnacles.

Resting.

"But breathe the air Of mountains, and their unapproachable summits Will lift thee to the level of themselves".

Another section of the volume is preceded by a stanza from Longfellow's well-known poem written on the occasion of the fiftieth birthday of Agassiz:

"And Nature, the old nurse, took

The child upon her knee, Saying, 'Here is a story-book

Thy father has written for thee. Come, wander with me,1 she said,

'Into regions yet untrod; And read what is still unread

In the manuscripts of God.' "

Until about forty years ago the Dolomites were very little known to the outside world. Few travelers came to them, and naturally no one thought of making their ascent. But now not only is the world of tourists awakening to the unique beauty of this land, but among those who come are many eager and experienced cragsmen who wish to plant their feet upon the loftiest and most dangerous of its limestone reefs. Considering the character of these peaks, and the great number of attempts to scale them which are made, it is remarkable that no more accidents occur upon their treacherous cliffs. But that catastrophes of one kind or another do occur, and are not unexpected, is proven by the notices one often sees upon the outer walls of telegraph stations, requesting that any accident to mountain climbers be reported there, so that the news may be communicated to branches of the International Alpine Society at Innsbruck, Botzen, or Vienna. Moreover, one can hardly open a newspaper during the summer season without encountering a paragraph telling of the injury or death of some unfortunate alpinist. Recently published statistics show that between the years 1895 and 1901 two hundred and seventy-six persons were killed in the Swiss Alps alone. How many serious, but not fatal, accidents also occurred during this interval it would be difficult to ascertain. The great majority of these disasters are attributable to the foolishness of overconfident climbers, who think they can dispense with guides; but sometimes even the most experienced meet with death on mountains which they have repeatedly ascended.

A Dolomite Guide.