ago, just before the opening of the | Donkin, who was swept away by an Zermatt railway, I was crossing the avalanche in the Caucasus, and who Ried Pass, when my guide, the well- was a delightful companion and the known Imboden, happened to tell me cheeriest of men, I had no more than a the story of another member of the slight acquaintance. fraternity, who, a score of years before, had received such a shock from a narrow escape that he had given up guiding and taken to cab-driving, and I was interested to find that Lochmatter was the man in question, and that he was still engaged in an occupation of which the monotony was in curious contrast with the adventures of his previous career. There was one old ally of mine, however, among the pioneers of mountaineering, whose comparatively early death was mainly due to the effects of the fever which he contracted in the marshes of the Rion River on his return from the expedition in which Elbruz, the highest of European mountains, was first ascended in 1868. A. W. Moore was a man of singular ability as I have thus described the only two well as of infinite humor, and when accidents that have befallen me in the Lord Salisbury was secretary of state mountaineering of many years, and for India, Moore was his most trusted though both were close shaves, I am subordinate, and was the draughtsman, not sure that my life has not been in often on very slight instructions, of the greater peril on more than one occasion most important despatches which emafrom the Mr. Winkles of shooting-par-nated from the "political and secret" ties, if not from the chances of amateur brauch of the department, at a period yachting. In fact, most amusements of crisis in our Indian frontier policy. have a spice of danger in them, and When Lord Randolph Churchill became I doubt whether mountaineering has Indian secretary in 1885, there was an more than, for example, either shoot- amicable contest between him and the ing or hunting. I fancy that no acci- premier as to who should have Moore dent in the Alps has excited public as private secretary; and Lord Salisfeeling more than that on the occasion bury was persuaded to yield, on the of Mr. Whymper's first ascent of the ground that Lord Randolph was new to Matterhorn. I was specially shocked the office, and ought to have the benby the news, as poor Hadow and I had efit of Moore's experience. The result played many a cricket-match together, was, that Moore devoted himself with and only a day or two before he started much self-sacrifice to his chief, and for Switzerland he came to see me at eventually broke down under the the Privy Council office. I happened strain, which was accentuated by reto be treasurer of a club to which he lapses of the old marsh fever. belonged, and when he told me that he doings in the Alps were tremendous, was going abroad with Hudson, cele- and the new peaks which he conquered brated as an ardent mountaineer, I make a long list. Some notion of his laughingly said to him, "Well, if you powers of endurance may be formed are going to break your neck in Switz- from the fact that he once started from erland, you had better pay me your Courmayeur, ascended to the summit subscription before you start," to of Mont Blanc, and went down to Chawhich he rejoined that I might be easy about his coming back, as Hudson was not going to take him mountaineering that year. In less than a fortnight the poor fellow was killed, and when the telegram came, one of my colleagues recalled our conversation. Nobody else, I think, of my many mountaineering friends has ever lost his life in the Alps; for I am sorry to say that with His monix, all within the compass of a single day of twenty-four hours. I myself used to be rather proud of having been the first to go up the Jungfrau from the Eggischhorn hotel in the morning, and return there to table d'hôte in the evening, after accomplishing in eighteen hours what had previously always occupied two days; but, of course, this was nothing compared with Moore's tremendous expedition | tle known regions of Burmah, where, from valley to valley over the head of by the way, he contracted the chest Mont Blanc. And he described as well illness that eventually carried him off, as he climbed. Some of the best pa- to the great grief of a very wide circle pers ever published on mountain travel of friends. have come from his pen, and a copy of Still, I am glad to say that the losses his privately printed "Mountaineering in our brotherhood of mountaineers in 1864" sold a few months ago for have been comparatively rare, while £10 at a public auction. His wit was the friendships cemented in the Alps of the kind that flashes, and can have been numerous and lasting. be scarcely sketched in words, but it Our Alpine Club dinners have annuwas extraordinarily ready. One of his ally brought together a large number friends of the Alpine Club, who had of lovers of our special pastime, and a named each of three or four children good many distinguished men have figafter particular Swiss peaks, once ap- ured at them. For many years Mr. plied to him to suggest suitable names, Leslie Stephen, himself one of the on the same lines, for twins that had pioneers of mountaineering, never recently arrived. Quick as thought failed to delight us with his brilliantly came the answer, "Of course you must humorous oratory; and Mr. Justice call the boy 'Monty' and the girl Wills, the author of the charming 'Rosa.'"' It would be easy to recall "Eagle's Nest," and the conqueror of dozens of good things, varying from many a virgin peak, showed himself mere verbal quips to brilliant but not an excellent after-dinner speaker. It ill-natured sarcasm, which were poured must have been about a dozen years out spontaneously when Moore was in ago that the late Lord Coleridge, who the vein; and few men were better entranced the club with his silvercompany. tongued eloquence, made the confession Another Alpine veteran, of whom I - singular in the mouth of a relative saw a good deal, was the late Frederick of the poet who first showed the apPratt Barlow, who had also a merry preciation of mountain beauty — that wit, and who published some admirable he had never seen a snow peak, and accounts of his expeditions on the Gri- that it was only from description that vola, the grand Paradiso, and one or he could attempt to appreciate the two other peaks. Many students of poetry, the dangers, and the glories of Alpine literature will remember his de- the Alps. On the same occasion, by lightful story of the straits of hunger the way, we heard from Mr. Matthew and thirst to which his party were once Arnold one of those characteristic reduced in the mountains, till they speeches in which the mingled wit and came across some goats that demanded poetry forced one to ignore the curious to be milked; how a pail was wanting, awkwardness of his delivery. But it so Jakob Anderegg threw himself on was at another Alpine Club dinner that his back to suck an elderly matron of a very short oration evoked the most the flock, who vigorously objected to tremendous roars of laughter that ever the teeth of her red-bearded offspring; proceeded from a couple of hundred how she managed to plant one hind throats well braced by Swiss air. foot in his mouth, the other in his eye, distinguished traveller who had made and with a tremendous kick sent him the ascent of an Asiatic mountain rolling over and over on the turf, where (which may be here called "Upapol ") he lay, his disreputable old sides shak- was to return thanks for the visitors; ing with laughter. Barlow was the but though he was a bold mountainfirst to make the interesting and diffi- eer, he was a timid orator. "Got to cult ascent of Monte Rosa from the make a speech ?" said a friend whom Zumstein Sattel; his experience of the he consulted at the club. "Then there Alps was very extensive, and his love is nothing like taking a glass of sherry of exploration carried him to some lit-and bitters first." So said other 332 LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. A friends, one after the other, and on called upon the name of the god to each occasion the prescribed dose was whom he intended to offer; and Strabo, conscientiously swallowed. The effect, adopting his account, adds (15. 3) that on a nervous organization, was nothing they worshipped the sun, whom they less than confusion worse confounded. called Mithras. But in process of So when his achievement had been time, and especially as it spread westdescribed in glowing terms by the pro- ward, this ancient form of belief beposer of the toast, and the celebrated came 80 overlaid with detail and explorer rose to reply, he contented mysticism that it lost its pristine charhimself at first with smiling blandly at acter. It found its way to Europe his audience for a minute or two, as he somewhat earlier than Christianity, swayed backwards and forwards. Then but, as a Roman religion, it may be he began, "Gentlemen, Upapol is sev- considered contemporary with that of enteen thousand levels above the feet Christ, by whose disciples it was reof the sea." There was a roar of garded as a very formidable and danHomeric laughter; but the orator gerous rival. For a long period the smiled still, and continued, "No, that two religions flourished side by side. is all nonsense. Of course, I It has been alleged that the Christian mean twenty thousand seas above the Church adopted many of its doctrines, level of the feet." Another shout and, so far as concerns the heretical made him think that this statement, sects of the Gnostics and Basilidians, too, had something wrong about it, and that is no doubt true. Both systems then he gave up his task in despair, naturally showed points of contact, and we never heard particulars of an especially as regards that mystic symascent which we were quite prepared to bolism which was characteristic of the celebrate as the most remarkable feat religious thought of the age, and they of modern climbing. It was at an- may have mutually borrowed ideas other but I fancy that the readers of from one another; but in the main Maga" may be getting tired of remi- they were very distinct, and when niscences possibly less interesting to Christianity eventually obtained the the public than to the reminiscent, and upper hand, and became the estab I defer to some future opportunity any lished religion of the State, it made further account of the Alpine Club and very short work of stamping out the its doings. For the present, to quote puerile teaching of its opponent. an Irish M.P.'s apology to the speaker, have very little certain knowledge conI withdraw what I was going to say. cerning the worship of Mithras as it H. PRESTON-THOMAS. prevailed amongst the nations who composed the Roman Empire, and that for two reasons: first, because it was essentially a secret and mystic cult; and, secondly, because the enthusiasm and jealousy of the early Christians led them to take extraordinary pains to extirpate its doctrines. From The Gentleman's Magazine. We It Many volumes have been written by AMONG the new religions which took deep root upon the ruins of Roman polytheism, the cult of the Oriental god Mithras occupied a place second only to Christianity. In its origin it seems to have been a very pure form of solar worship, which prevailed amongst the ancient Persians, who, as Herodotus tells us (1. 132), raised no altar, lit no fire, poured no libations, but when one of them desired to sac- Plutarch states (Life of Pompey, c. rifice he brought his victim to a spot of 24) that the Romans learnt the worship ground free from pollution, and there of Mithras from the Cilician pirates 1 who infested the Mediterranean, and pointing inwards. It had a lion's head, were eventually exterminated by Pom- and a human body enveloped in the pey about the year 67 B.C. Then we coils of a serpent. Four wings grew have in St. Jerome's epistle to Læta au from its shoulders, two pointing upallusion to the destruction of a Mithraic wards towards the sky, and two dependtemple at Rome by Gracchus, when ing towards the ground. Its feet rested prefect of the city in 376 A.D. We upon a globe, and each of its hands thus obtain two dates which mark the grasped a key. A Jesuit priest had rise and decline of a religion that pronounced the image to be that of the flourished in the Roman world for a devil, who reigned in the world in the period of four centuries and a half. time of paganism, and Montfaucon, Mithras is sometimes represented as after making every endeavor, without a human being with a lion's head, but avail, to see the statue, came to the more usually as a youth wearing a conclusion that Muto had sent it, at Phrygian cap, tunic, and trousers, with the instigation of the Jesuit, to the a short flowing cloak around his lime-kilns to dry up the damp which it shoulders. Lucian ridicules his for- had absorbed by lying so long in its eign appearance: "There's that Mith-subterranean mansion, or that, by the ras the Mede, with his candys [Oriental | latter's order, it had returned to hell! tunic] and tiara [Phrygian cap], who cannot speak Greek, and does not even understand when people are drinking his health.” (Council of the Gods, c. 9.) The god was similarly represented upon a bas-relief, which was shortly afterwards discovered at the same spot. The figure had a lion's head, and was draped from the waist downwards. It It was taught in the mysteries that stood beside a lighted altar, with its Mithras was sprung from a rock. arms extended, and held a flaming Commodian calls him "the uncon- torch in each hand. From the midst quered god born of a rock" (Liber of its four wings a serpent emerged Instructionunı, 13), and Maternus and encircled it, and from the figure's mentions the stone of the idolaters of mouth issued " a fillet" (probably a which they say beds έк πéтρas (De Errore tongue of fire) which waved over the Profan. Relig. c. 16). This is some- altar. times explained as a reference to the spark of fire that flies from the stone when it is struck, but the worship of Mithras was, as we shall presently see, always, for some reason or another, connected with rocky caves, and so the story may have had some deeper significance. Indeed, it is difficult to say what is the precise origin of such an idea as this, so far back does it lie in the mists of antiquity. According to popular opinion of later days, Mithras himself had a son, named Diorphus, born of a stone. (Plutarch, De Fluviis, 23.) The lion-headed man frequently appears on ancient gems, with the inscription "Mithras." The four wings are an Oriental conception, and are familiar objects upon Assyrian monuments. They are probably intended to denote supernatural powers of locomotion. The globe on which the figure stood indicated the universal dominion of the god, while the torches are emblematical of the heat and light of the sun, and the keys of his power of penetrating the innermost recesses of heaven and earth. It was perhaps a misunderstanding of these and other symbols which gave rise to the vulgar notion that Mithras was a cattle stealer: Father Montfaucon, in his Italian diary, written in 1698, describes a remarkable marble statue of Mithras, which had been recently discovered in the vineyard of Horatio Muto, near St. Vitalis, at Rome. It stood in an underground vault surrounded by a number of small earthen lamps, with wick That is to say, "You depict him be Insuper et furem adhuc depingitis esse : Vertebat boves alienos semper in antris. COMMODIAN, Instruct. 13. sides as a thief; he was always hiding | left, a personification of the sun in a chariot, to which are attached four other people's oxen in caves." The serpent coiled around the statue prancing steeds. In the space between represented the sinuous course of the the two chariots are seven flaming sun amongst the constellations of the altars, symbolical of the seven known heavens. If any evidence is needed in "planets or wandering bodies of the support of this assertion, it is furnished heavens - viz., the Sun, Moon, Mars, by the discovery at Arles of a broken Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. statue, evidently representing Mithras, In front of these altars stands a winged described by Montfaucon. A serpent figure of Mithras with a serpent enis coiled around it four times, and in twined four times around his body. the intervening spaces are sculptured The entire picture is obviously of asthe signs of the Zodiac. tronomical significance, and represents The Mithraic temples were usually the annual course of the sun, from the adorned with a great icon, or sculp- period when it rises in the constellation tured representation of the god in the of the Bull, at the vernal equinox, and act of slaying the mystic bull in a cave. ascends to the zenith of its glory, givHe is arrayed in the conventional cos-ing new life to nature, until the time tume of the East- a sleeved tunic, when it again declines in power as it trousers, and cloak-and wears the descends at the autumnal equinox and Phrygian cap (or "cap of liberty," as returns to the winter solstice. it is sometimes called). He kneels upon the fallen bull, which he grasps by the jaw with his left hand, while with his right he plunges a dagger into its neck. The sacred raven (hierocorax) hovers above his head, a lion crouches by his side, while a dog, a serpent, and a scorpion appear to aid him in his task, and to participate in the slaughter of the dying victim. On the right and left of the group stand two attendant genii, arrayed like Mithras, and holding lighted flambeaux in their hands. One of them holds his torch erect, the other his torch reversed. One of these typical groups found at Rome, and engraved in Montfaucon's great work, Antiquity Explained," contains some significant details which it may be worth our while to notice. On the right-hand side of the sculpture appears a tree covered with leaves, to the boughs of which are attached a lighted torch and the head of the bull Taurus (the sign of the vernal equinox), on the left is another tree, laden with fruit, from whose branches hang a reversed and extinguished torch and the scorpion (the sign of the autumnal equinox). In an upper panel of the sculpture, we see on the right a representation of the moon in a car drawn by two horses, who are falling exhausted to the earth; on the So far the cult is intelligible, and is only one of many forms of solar worship; but now comes in the mystic or hidden teaching, and for an elucidation of this part of the subject we must turn to the pages of a fanciful commentary which Porphyry has written upon a certain "cave of the nymphs," alluded to in Homer's Odyssey, and which incidentally throws much light upon the little understood doctrines of the worship of Mithras. That writer says: 66 The Persians, when teaching in a mystery the descent of souls to earth, and their reascent into heaven, perfect the initiate, 66 cave." For Zoroaster, calling the place a first of all, consecrated among the neigh boring mountains of Persia a natural cave, spring of water, to the honor of Mithras, overgrown with flowers, and containing a creator and father of all. And after him the custom prevailed amongst others of performing the initiations and sacred rites in caves and grottoes, either natural or artificial. (De Antro Nympharum, 6.) Plato says that there are two gates or 'mouths,' through one of which souls ascend into heaven, and through the other theologians constituted the Sun and Moon of which they descend to earth, and the gates of souls who ascended through the sun and descended through the moon. (Ibid. 29.) Homer, too, mentions gates of the sun, by which [says Porphyry] he means Cancer |