A  Stop  For A Smoke

by J. Geoffrey Brook

If anything has been written on the relationship between walking, chmbing and smoking, I have not seen it. Almost certainly, in these days when zealous research, ” serious contributions to the subject” and so on are seemingly indispensable: when we must not set foot on the hills without everything being regulated down to the last calorie, some earnest soul will have gone into this whole question with scientific thoroughness. But, as I say, I have not read his findings, and I do not want to. He will, in any case, regard any essay like this as being too trivial for attention. But if only one or two kindred spirits are with me we can relax, take that intense look off our faces, and quietly consider one of the milder offshoots of our outdoor days.

Before going any further it might be as well to recommend that non-smokers skip the next few pages. They will not be amused, and will almost certainly be irritated. Your average non-smoker is apt to be a little impatient of this weakness, as he judges it to be, in his fellow men. He would probably agree with Dr. Johnson when he said, “To be sure it is a shocking thing blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people’s mouths, eyes and noses, and having the same thing done to us; yet I cannot account why a thing which requires so little exertion, and yet preserves the mind from total vacuity, should have gone out.” But the Doctor spoke too soon. Smoking has not gone out, and tobacco is burning more strongly than every before—probably Johnson would retort, because there are so many more of us today whose minds require preserving from total vacuity!

And right at the outset I shall arouse the ire of many smokers by asserting, as I do, that the only smoke to be taken seriously is the pipe. Many will contend that a cigarette is the best solace after a long day on the hills, or during the break in a difficult climb. Indeed when the Italian climber, Corti, was eventually extricated from his hazardous position on the Eigerwand recently, the first thing he asked for was a cigarette. But this was almost certainly a temporary aberration arising from his exhausted condition, and when he felt more composed he must surely have filled his pipe.

As a quick and handy soother of irritants the cigarette has its points, but it is only a makeshift smoke, requiring none of the artistry, experience and loving care that go with pipe smoking at its best.

At the same time I cannot leave the cigarette without mention­ing the remarkable tribute paid to it by G. I. Finch in his ” Making of a Mountaineer,” where he contends that apart from its soothing influence it has a beneficial effect at high altitudes. He is writing of his experiences on one of the early Everest Expeditions, and so far as I can understand his theory it runs as follows.

When climbing at height he found that unless he kept his mind constantly on breathing, instead of leaving it as an involuntary action, he suffered from lack of air and suffocation. To counter­act this it was necessary to force the lungs to work more quickly than they would do naturally. Owing to the large volume of air it is necessary to take in at high altitudes in order to obtain a sufficient supply of oxygen, the amount of carbon dioxide normally in the blood is largely removed. This carbon dioxide apparently serves to stimulate the nerve centre controlling the process of involuntary breathing. The nerve centre being no longer stimulated, involuntary breathing has to be replaced by voluntary breathing with a consequent strain on the mind due to the concentration. But both Finch and Geoffrey Bruce found that after a few puffs at a cigarette they could resort once more to normal involuntary breathing, and this they attributed to the fact that there must be something in the tobacco smoke that takes the place of the carbon dioxide in which the blood is deficient, and acts as a stimulant to the involuntary breathing nerve. Finch noted that this effect lasted for as long as three hours.

I will leave our medical members to chew over this, and apologise to others for this brief lapse into the more technical side of smoking.

The cigar, favoured by so many of our Swiss friends, still seems to me to be as out of place on a mountain as an umbrella, although even here at home the whiff of a certain brand can evoke nostalgic memories of the Alps. But if we were to smoke a cigar surely the right time for it is at the end of the day. It is essentially a smoke for indoors, an appendage of good|dinners, good wine, and blazing fires. And for many of us an evening in an Alpine hut would not be complete unless the inevitable fug were laced with the aroma of Rossli-Burgers.

The pipe however is not, like the cigarette and the cigar, an occasional smoke, but it is for any time and any place. It is a smoke in its own right, and there is a certain primitive quality of nature about it that makes the burning of a fragrant tobacco in a briar bowl seem entirely fitting whether the smoker is sitting exalted on a four thousand metre top or is crouching behind a grit-stone block on a gusty Northern moor, or is meandering pensively through wood and meadow. The smoke rises as a benediction.

Dare I strike a discordant note in this rhapsody, and mention the fear that haunts many a would-be young pipe smoker? I mean the fear that smoking is the enemy to fitness, the fear that speed, confidence and stamina will all disappear, that a broken-winded wreck will curse the day he first put match to pipe.

I will answer this not with argument, but with a story. I brought up this very question with a good friend of mine, a guide of Randa, whilst we drew on our pipes sitting under the huge boulder that is generally recognised as a resting place on the steep pull up to the Dom Hut. He told me that as a youth, when he aspired to be a guide, his father, also a guide, once took him on a training climb up the Weisshorn. The old man was then 69 years of age, and all that day he smoked his pipe. When they were almost back in Randa he asked his son, ” How many pipes do you think I have smoked today? ” Young Emil replied, ” I do not know, Father, but you have been smoking all day.’ ” Twenty-eight,” confessed the old man. I met this same patriarch last summer. He is now eighty years of age. He looked fit, was carrying a huge bundle of hay—and was smoking his pipe.

Take a look at the portraits of the old guides, and notice how many of these gnarled stalwarts like to be portrayed with their pipes, and more interesting, how often the shape of the pipe seemed to fit exactly the features of the man. None other than a magnificent curved briar would suit the aristocratic features of a Michel Croz, or a sturdy old briar the rugged face of Jean-Antoine Carrel.

Someone has said that when a man is really fit he can smoke his pipe whilst moving steeply uphill.   This may be a good idea as a test of fitness, but no one is going to pretend that it can give any real enjoyment as a smoke. However slowly and rhythmically you climb, some toil is involved, and a pipe can only be savoured in a state of relaxation. Stevenson had the right idea when he wrote in his essay ” On Walking Tours,” “There are no such pipes to be smoked as those that follow a good day’s march. The flavour of the tobacco is a thing to be remembered, it is so dry and aromatic, so full and fine.”

Another tramping essayist, Hazlitt, said he could not see the sense of walking and talking at the same time, but if he could have thought to include smoking in the walking and talking then it would have made sense. Everything depends on your com­panion, and if he be a pipe smoker also there is nothing more delightful at the end of a long day, with the hard work behind you, than the leisurely tramp back to the hut or camp, with pipes drawing well, and the smoke inspiring the conversation, be it profound or trivial. As Thackeray rightly insisted,” The pipe draws wisdom from the lips of the philosopher, shuts up the mouth of the foolish, and generates a style of conversation contemplative, thoughtful, benevolent and unaffected.”

What kind of pipe, and what brand of tobacco will, to para­phrase Sam Weller, depend on the taste and fancy of the smoker. No one would be so presumptuous as to lay down rules, but a few observations may be made. A clay pipe is out of the question without any doubt. It only has to be dropped once and you are without a pipe. I once saw a climber puffing at a calabash, but I thought this mere affectation. A corncob fits in well with the countryside and, being cheap, it does not matter much whether you lose or break it. In Austria the large pendulous Tyrolean pipe is naturally favoured, but very few Englishmen have acquired the art of looking really at home with this model.

Probably the best pipe for all round use is a short-stemmed briar, like the Fraser Lovat, which can be carried without much inconvenience in the pocket of either trousers or anorak. Never on any account take a long stemmed pipe; it can be too easily snapped off, especially if you are rock climbing and likely to get into a constricted position, such as a chimney. Most important of all, never fail to carry all the time a spare pipe in your ruck­sack. There is nothing more provoking than to have the keen anticipation of a smoke ruined by the dreadful discovery that you have got tobacco and matches but no pipe.

Thus we can settle for the briar as the best and handiest pipe for the mountains. But apart from these utilitarian considerations it has a more potent claim on the affections of the mountaineer. For the briar is in a sense an offspring of the mountains. It came about in this way. Just over a hundred years ago a French pipe manufacturer made a trip to Napoleon’s birthplace in Corsica. One day he dropped and smashed his meerschaum pipe. Just why a pipe smoker and maker should not have had another pipe in his luggage is hard to understand, but he had not, and must have been in sore straits until a village carpenter fashioned him an improvised pipe made from a piece of wood cut locally—which was in fact briar root.

The Frenchman was delighted with the cool, fresh smoking of his new pipe, and felt so sure that other smokers would be the same, that he ordered a consignment of this wood to be delivered to his factory. And so from the little town of St. Claude in the shadow of the Jura Mountains the briar pipe went forth to the smoking world, and who dare deny that the Frenchman’s pre­dilection was not amply vindicated?
As regards tobacco, a fairly solid flake is probably the best as it does not blow about in the wind. A light mixture can be a menace in this respect, and herb tobacco, if anyone still smokes it, quite impossible. It burns like dry hay, and if you are walking behind anyone smoking it in a strong wind, be prepared for a shower of sparks.

I cannot recommend smoking in potholes. The tobacco will not burn as it should in the prevailing dampness, and a valuable pipe is always in danger of being lost or broken in the inevitable wrigglings. A fine briar of my own has now been lying for some years in the jagged depths of Eastwater Cavern in the Mendips.

It would be impossible, and indeed impious, to lay down rules when, where and how a man should smoke. So much depends on the place and the mood. Sometimes restraint during a whole day will make a pipe in the evening, either in relaxation before the fire, or when taking a final stroll, taste all the more fragrant. At other times, sitting perhaps on a hard earned summit with the world at your feet, the feeling of legitimate self-satisfaction causes you instinctively to reach for pouch and pipe. It is always possible that murmurs about the pollution of God’s pure air might be heard, but the pipe smoker is above all things a creature of tolerance; he will quietly knock out his ashes and hold his peace—when he has finished his smoke of course.

The Red Indian certainly gave the pipe its character when he made it the symbol of peace and comradeship; although we draw the line nowadays at passing around and puffing the same pipe, we still recognise its binding spell in a small company of kindred spirits.

One last word on the subject of lighting up. The sensitive smoker will not sully one of the purest of aesthetic pleasures by using anything in the shape of a petrol or gas lighter. Let us stick to the simplicity of matches or spills and keep one small corner free from the all-devouring machine. Even in a high wind the common match can, with a little practice, give a far more reliable light than any of these expensive little monstrosities.

Moderation, even in smoking, is the golden rule, so let the last word be with old Burton, the Anatomist of Melancholy —

” Tobacco, divine, rare, super-excellent tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and the philosopher’s stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases. A good vomit, I confess, a virtuous herb, if it be well qualified, opportunely taken and medicinally used; but as it is commonly abused by most men, which take it as tinkers do ale, ‘ tis a plague, a mischief, a violent purger of goods, lands, health; hellish, devilish and damned tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and soul.”