The federation of new south wales bushwalking clubs published “The Bushwalker”
This is by B Thompson (c.m-w) from edition number 6. 1942
To all of us in whom the love of mountains and nature is so deeply rooted, it is difficult to realise that mountains were once regarded as objects of dread. Greek and Roman poets write of them with dislike, and even a modern writer has felt this fear – “the threat of the hills and their implication that all men were intruders on the surface of the earth.”
This feeling persisted for centuries, until with the waning of the power of classical traditions, and the throwing off of political and religious bonds, the artificial world of towers and towns became too narrow for man’s widening activities. Then he perceived that nature possessed inexhaustible attractions, although, even then, happiness was regarded as a “sort of energy of contemplation,” and mountain climbing was consequently condemned by those who considered that the enjoyment of physical exercise was antagonistic, not complementary, to the spiritual enjoyment of mountains.
The writings of Rousseau, Goethe, Wordsworth, Shelley, all exemplify the awakening of the age to an appreciation of nature,and the development of a school of thought opposed to the materialism and commercialism of the times.
Later still, man discovered a new joy and health from mountain climbing, shown in the wealth of alpine and mountaineering literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He developed a new interest in natural sciences, where walking became the physical medium for the study of birds, animals, trees and flowers and rocks. With this came a finer natural philosophy. As grey owl says :”A man will always lack something until he is so steeped in the atmosphere of the wild and has been so possessed by long association with it, of a feeling of close kinship and responsibility to it, that he may even unconsciously avoid tramping on too many flowers on his passage through the forest. Then and then, can he become truly receptive to the delicate nuances of a culture that may elude those who are not tuned in to their surroundings.”
Nature also became the inspiration of poetry, landscape painting and music. Beethoven has drawn profusely from nature, particularly in the pastoral symphony, while to Julius Kugy the grandness and harmony of the elements on an alpine summit brought vivid memories of Bach’s music. He seemed “ to catch the silver notes of angel choirs in solemn sacred harmony.”
Man also developed a new sympathy with the inanimate world through personal contact with it. From this arose Pantheistic forms of religion – what Ruskin calls “the instinctive sense of the divine presence not formed into distinct belief” lying at the root of the profound admiration for the nobler aspect of mountain scenery. Although this philosophy was new to western civilization, the hindus have been drawn to the mountains for centuries, and pilgrims to the Himalayas brave the heat and disease of the lower valleys, and finally the freezing airs of the mountains, to purify themselves in the icy glacial waters of the alaknanda river. A Hindu sage of old has written: “He who thinks of Himachal (the Himalayan snows), though he should not behold him, is greater than he who performs all worship in Kashi (Benares).”
Australia is a product of this awakening desire for wider fields of activity and subsequent drift towards nature. The love of wide spaces and mountains seems instinctive to us, but has really been built up by a slow process through the ages. Our literature is not burdened with complex philosophies, although these have helped to establish in us a solid interest and love for nature. Here “we are intolerant of everything that is not simple, unbiased by prescription, liberal as the wind and natural as the mountain crags.”
B Thomson
The Order Of Walkers 