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As Related by Thomas George Longstaff
from
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950 (pages 23-24)
August 24th [1898] was an off day, beguiled by lessons in the use of crampons from that enigmatic couple Oscar Eckenstein and Aleister Crowley. Eckenstein was responsible for the introduction of ice-claws, crampons, amongst British mountaineers: he even claimed that their use made the regulation ice-axe unnecessary. There was a peculiarly English opposition to their use in those days; they were scornfully called "artificial aids", but surely, so are special nails in climbing boots or an ice-axe. Crowley was a poet and later a notorious master of Black Magic. At that time, as Laird of Boleskine, he chose to wear full Highland dress, complete with eagle's feather, on all occasions. But he was a fine climber, if an unconventional one. I have seen him go up the dangerous and difficult (true) side of the great icefall of the Mer de Glace below the Géant alone, just for a promenade. Probably the first and perhaps the only time this mad, dangerous and difficult route had been taken. |