GUIDE, an agency for directing or showing the way, specifi cally a person who leads or directs a stranger over unknown or unmapped country, or conducts travellers and tourists through a town, or over buildings of interest.
A particular class of guides is employed in mountaineering; these are not merely to show the way, but stand in the position of professional climbers with an expert knowledge of rock and snowcraft, who are in dangerous expeditions an element of safety for the whole party.
This professional class of guides arose in the middle of the 19th century when Alpine climbing became recognized as a sport (see MOUNTAINEERING), though long before that the guiding of travel lers on their way to or from Italy had been a well organized occu pation in mediaeval Switzerland, and many little touches in the Divina Commedia show that Dante was writing from actual expe rience of real, if minor, mountains under a real guide.