THE TECHNIQUE OF MOUNTAINEERING. By Dobson, 12s. 6d.)
No Englishman has taught so many people to climb as Jerry Wright, who reigned for years as the senior guide of the Lake District, and has since become the founder and moving spirit of the Mountaineering Association, with its army of volunteer tutors and its many graded courses. And he would be the first to agree that mountaineering cannot be learnt from a textbook. But a textbook with the weight of his experience behind it, putting the theory plainly and illustrating it by good diagrams, is of real value in helping the beginner to sort out his first and often bewildering practical experiences on rock, and I am very glad that The Technique of Mountaineering, originally written for MA members, should now be given a public edition. It will probably replace Bar- ford's famous 'Pelican,' which came out before the Tarbuck and Wexler techniques of belay- ing had been generally accepted, though Mr. Wright is properly severe on the assumption that they or any other methods can ever make it allowable for rock-climbing leaders to fall.
Moreover;an irrepressibly lively personality keeps the information readable and gay. Mr. Wright will digress, for instance, to admit that he was always frightened on steep climbs, even the easy ones, or to launch a controversial attack on the present high-altitude approach. His plea for less grimness and more enjoyment in the Himalayas should provoke some amus- ing discussion round club-hut stoves.
That there was occasionally cheerfulness on Everest one had guessed from Mr. Charles Evans's sketches in Sir John Hunt's otherwise stately official account. Eye on Everest is his complete personal sketch-book, and though it was primarily made with his small daughters in mind, mountaineers of all ages will chuckle over pictures and captions that at their best recall the great Samivel. I hope that responsi- bilities of leadership will not have prevented him from compiling a similar picture-story of Kanchenjunga, and thereby proving that though the British lead the world in Himalayan conquest, they still do it partly for a joke.
ELIZABETH COXHEAD
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