AN EXCITING SLIDE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9160, 1 June 1908, Page 7

AN EXCITING SLIDE.

‘ ‘Many of tis have Insurious hobbies such as yachting, motoring or driving fine ]iorses_, but I discovered a new sort of hobby while at Geneva,” writes Mr' W. George, in Travel. The hero of this strange pastime is Professor Alfred Ohapuis, of Geneva University, a man who finds the daily risking of his life an agreeable relaxation from academic duties. One day I took the steam tramway out toVeyrier, where I alighted just at the foot of tiie lovely Mont Salevo, a long hill of solid limestone, divided into two parts by the wooded valley of Monnetier. From its lofty crest stone has been quarried for ages, and in the cavernous recesses of the rocks above you maystand and survey the whole chain of Mont Blanc and her glistening sisters, the wide expanse of Lake Geneva, the Jura Mountains, all of Canton Vaud and part of France, including the lovely Lake of Annecy in the Haute Savoie. I was looking forw'ard to this surpassing panorama when I thought I beheld a black speck far above descending the aerial cable that conveys the big blocks of stone from the lofty quarries on the summit down to Yeyrier, where they are roughwhen for building purposes. The speck undoubtedly moved, and other observers than I gathered to look up with shaded eyes. It was undoubtedly a man sliding down the wire at breakneck speed. He seemed to be astride a saddle, and evidently had his speed under control. He came lower and lower, halting sometimes as if to admire the landscape. At last he descended at my feet. Of course I asked him to tell me all about the terrrible slide he took so easily, just as you or I might go skating on a pond. '! “It began last year,” M.’Ghapuis told,me, smilingly, ‘‘when I couldn’t get away from my -college for the usual fortnight’s vacation. One day I had climbed the Mont Saleve, and stood talking to the foreman of the quarries up there at Treize Arbes. ‘Show me,’ I said ‘where the cable begins—the place where you hitch on your blocks of stone to send them

down the rope into tho ralley. ’ And forthwith he and I descended the rocky wilderness .until -re saw beneath'ns'a jagged needle of rock. Here the swaying line began, and here, too, the big blocks of limestone were swung by chains on the wire and sent off on their dizzy journey to Yeyrier 3000 feet below. Here was the chance of a lifetime. “ ‘Why,’l said, impulsively, ‘l’d like that big slide myself. It must be a glorious sensation —something like flying.’ The foreman thought I was joking, and when he found I meant it he earnestly besought me to give up the project—or, at any rate, not. to involve him in the - tragedy he felt inevitable. He had sons and daughters growing up, and he and his had borne immaculate reputation until that hour. But I talked him out of all this. And later I 'fashioned for myself a saddle out of bent plates of steel covered with carpet. I also arranged a crude brake whereby I might check the speed of my descent at any moment. I confess my heart fluttered a little the first time I castoff from the needle-like-rock. The whole world seemed to fall from me, and

once or twice I nearly toppled up-side-down. My brake, too, was erratic in action, and at times I slid at a speed exceeding forty miles an hour, so that my breath was taken away. “A'great crowd had gathered to meet me, and gome reproached me for what they called’my foolhardiness. But Monsieur, lam not married, have no living relative, or persons dependent on me. Besides, I have a clear head, have been an

ojppert mountaineer as long as I can 'remember —and last, but surely not least, you have just seen me complete my hundredth descent mile and a half long wire. Each time X grow more and more expert, and now I think nothing of pausing at a height of 2500 feet to bask in the sun, to read the morning’s news entirely undisturbed save by the wheeling eagles of Mont Saleve.