A TRAMP ABROAD, Part 6. 

By Mark Twain

(Samuel L. Clemens)

First published in 1880

Illustrations taken from an 1880 First Edition

 * * * * * *

ILLUSTRATIONS:

 1.     PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR 2.     TITIAN'S MOSES 3.     THE AUTHOR'S MEMORIES 236.   A SUNDAY MORNING'S DEMON 237.   JUST SAVED 238.   SCENE IN VALLEY OF ZERMATT 239.   ARRIVAL AT ZERMATT 240.   FITTED OUT 241.   A FEARFUL FALL 242.   TAIL PIECE 243.   ALL READY 244.   THE MARCH 245.   THE CARAVAN 246.   THE HOOK 247.   THE DISABLED CHAPLAIN 248.   TRYING EXPERIMENTS 249.   SAVED! SAVED! 250.   TWENTY MINUTES WORK 251.   THE BLACK RAM 252.   THE MIRACLE 253.   THE NEW GUIDE 251.   SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES 255.   MOUNTAIN CHALET 256.   THE GRANDSON 257.   OCCASIONLY MET WITH 258.   SUMMIT OF THE GORNER GRAT 259.   CHIEFS OF THE ADVANCE GUARD 260.   MY PICTURE OF THE MATTERHORN 261.   EVERYBODY HAD AN EXCUSE 262.   SPRUNG A LEAK 263.   A SCIENTIFIC QUESTION 264.   A TERMINAL MORAINE 265.   FRONT OF GLACIER 266.   AN OLD MORAINE 267.   GLACIER OF ZERMATT WITH LATERAL MORAINE 269.   UNEXPECTED MEETING OF FRIENDS 269.   VILLAGE OF CHAMONIX 270.   THE MATTERHORN 271.   ON THE SUMMIT 272.   ACCIDENT ON THE MATTERHORN (1865) 273.   ROPED TOGETHER 274.   STORAGE OF ANCESTORS 275.   FALLING OUT OF HIS FARM 276.   CHILD LIFE IN SWITZERLAND 277.   A SUNDAY PLAY 278.   THE COMBINATION 279.   CHILLON 280.   THE TETE NOIR 281.   MONT BLANC'S NEIGHBORS 282.   AN EXQUISITE THING 283.   A WILD RIDE 284.   SWISS PEASANT GIRL

CONTENTS: CHAPTER XXXVI Sunday Church Bells--A Cause ofProfanity--A Magnificent Glacier--Fault Finding by Harris--Almostan Accident--Selfishness of Harris--Approaching Zermatt--TheMatterhorn--Zermatt--Home of Mountain Climbers--Fitted out forClimbing--A Fearful Adventure --Never Satisfied

CHAPTER XXXVII A Calm Decision--"I Will Ascend theRiffelberg"--Preparations for the Trip--All Zermatt on theAlert--Schedule of Persons and Things--An Unprecedented Display--AGeneral Turn--out--Ready for a Start--The Post of Danger--The AdvanceDirected--Grand Display of Umbrellas--The First Camp--Almost aPanic--Supposed to be Lost--The First Accident--A Chaplain Disabled--AnExperimenting Mule--Good Effects of a Blunder--Badly Lost--AReconnoiter--Mystery and Doubt--Stern Measures Taken--A Black Ram--Savedby a Miracle--The Guide's Guide

CHAPTER XXXVIII Our Expedition Continued--Experiments with theBarometer--Boiling Thermometer--Barometer Soup--An InterestingScientific Discovery--Crippling a Latinist--A Chaplain Injured--Shortof Barkeepers--Digging a Mountain Cellar--A Young AmericanSpecimen--Somebody's Grandson--Arrival at Riffelberg Botel--Ascent ofGorner Grat--Faith in Thermometers--The Matterhorn

CHAPTER XXXIX Guide Books--Plans for the Return of the Expedition--AGlacier Train--Parachute Descent from Gorner Grat--Proposed Honorsto Harris Declined--All had an Excuse--A Magnificent IdeaAbandoned--Descent to the Glacier--A Supposed Leak--A Slow Train--TheGlacier Abandoned--Journey to Zermatt--A Scientific Question

CHAPTER XL Glaciers--Glacier Perils--Moraines--TerminalMoraines--Lateral Moraines--Immense Size of Glacier--TravelingGlacier----General Movements of Glaciers--Ascent of Mont Blacc--Lossof Guides--Finding of Remains--Meeting of Old Friends--The Dead andLiving--Proposed Museum--The Relics at Chamonix

CHAPTER XLI The Matterhorn Catastrophe of 1563--Mr Whymper'sNarrative--Ascent of the Matterhorn--The Summit--The MatterhornConquered--The Descent Commenced--A Fearful Disaster--Death of LordDouglas and Two Others--The Graves of the Two

CHAPTER XLII Switzerland--Graveyard at Zermatt--Balloting forMarriage--Farmers as Heroes--Falling off a Farm--From St Nicholas toVisp--Dangerous Traveling--Children's Play--The Parson's Children--ALandlord's Daughter--A Rare Combination--Ch iIIon--Lost Sympathy--MontBlanc and its Neighbors--Beauty of Soap Bubbles--A Wild Drive--The Kingof Drivers--Benefit of getting Drunk

CHAPTER XXXVI

[The Fiendish Fun of Alp-climbing]

We did not oversleep at St. Nicholas. The church-bell began to ring atfour-thirty in the morning, and from the length of time it continuedto ring I judged that it takes the Swiss sinner a good while to get theinvitation through his head. Most church-bells in the world are of poorquality, and have a harsh and rasping sound which upsets the temper andproduces much sin, but the St. Nicholas bell is a good deal the worstone that has been contrived yet, and is peculiarly maddening in itsoperation. Still, it may have its right and its excuse to exist, for thecommunity is poor and not every citizen can afford a clock, perhaps; butthere cannot be any excuse for our church-bells at home, for there isno family in America without a clock, and consequently there is no fairpretext for the usual Sunday medley of dreadful sounds that issues fromour steeples. There is much more profanity in America on Sunday than inall in the other six days of the week put together, and it is of a morebitter and malignant character than the week-day profanity, too. It isproduced by the cracked-pot clangor of the cheap church-bells. 

We build our churches almost without regard to cost; we rear an edificewhich is an adornment to the town, and we gild it, and fresco it, andmortgage it, and do everything we can think of to perfect it, and thenspoil it all by putting a bell on it which afflicts everybody who hearsit, giving some the headache, others St. Vitus's dance, and the rest theblind staggers. 

An American village at ten o'clock on a summer Sunday is the quietestand peacefulest and holiest thing in nature; but it is a prettydifferent thing half an hour later. Mr. Poe's poem of the "Bells" standsincomplete to this day; but it is well enough that it is so, for thepublic reciter or "reader" who goes around trying to imitate the soundsof the various sorts of bells with his voice would find himself "up astump" when he got to the church-bell--as Joseph Addison would say. Thechurch is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not bea bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example. It is stillclinging to one or two things which were useful once, but which arenot useful now, neither are they ornamental. One is the bell-ringingto remind a clock-caked town that it is church-time, and another is thereading from the pulpit of a tedious list of "notices" which everybodywho is interested has already read in the newspaper. The clergyman evenreads the hymn through--a relic of an ancient time when hymn-books arescarce and costly; but everybody has a hymn-book, now, and so the publicreading is no longer necessary. It is not merely unnecessary, it isgenerally painful; for the average clergyman could not fire into hiscongregation with a shotgun and hit a worse reader than himself, unlessthe weapon scattered shamefully. I am not meaning to be flippant andirreverent, I am only meaning to be truthful. The average clergyman, inall countries and of all denominations, is a very bad reader. One wouldthink he would at least learn how to read the Lord's Prayer, by and by, but it is not so. He races through it as if he thought the quickerhe got it in, the sooner it would be answered. A person who does notappreciate the exceeding value of pauses, and does not know how tomeasure their duration judiciously, cannot render the grand simplicityand dignity of a composition like that effectively. 

We took a tolerably early breakfast, and tramped off toward Zermattthrough the reeking lanes of the village, glad to get away from thatbell. By and by we had a fine spectacle on our right. It was thewall-like butt end of a huge glacier, which looked down on us from anAlpine height which was well up in the blue sky. It was an astonishingamount of ice to be compacted together in one mass. We ciphered upon itand decided that it was not less than several hundred feet from the baseof the wall of solid ice to the top of it--Harris believed it wasreally twice that. We judged that if St. Paul's, St. Peter's, the GreatPyramid, the Strasburg Cathedral and the Capitol in Washington wereclustered against that wall, a man sitting on its upper edge could nothang his hat on the top of any one of them without reaching down threeor four hundred feet--a thing which, of course, no man could do. 

To me, that mighty glacier was very beautiful. I did not imagine thatanybody could find fault with it; but I was mistaken. Harris had beensnarling for several days. He was a rabid Protestant, and he was alwayssaying:

"In the Protestant cantons you never see such poverty and dirt andsqualor as you do in this Catholic one; you never see the lanes andalleys flowing with foulness; you never see such wretched little stiesof houses; you never see an inverted tin turnip on top of a church fora dome; and as for a church-bell, why, you never hear a church-bell atall. "

All this morning he had been finding fault, straight along. First it waswith the mud. He said, "It ain't muddy in a Protestant canton when itrains. " Then it was with the dogs: "They don't have those lop-eared dogsin a Protestant canton. " Then it was with the roads: "They don't leavethe roads to make themselves in a Protestant canton, the people makethem--and they make a road that IS a road, too. " Next it was the goats:"You never see a goat shedding tears in a Protestant canton--a goat, there, is one of the cheerfulest objects in nature. " Next it was thechamois: "You never see a Protestant chamois act like one of these--theytake a bite or two and go; but these fellows camp with you and stay. "Then it was the guide-boards: "In a Protestant canton you couldn't getlost if you wanted to, but you never see a guide-board in a Catholiccanton. " Next, "You never see any flower-boxes in the windows, here--never anything but now and then a cat--a torpid one; but you takea Protestant canton: windows perfectly lovely with flowers--and as forcats, there's just acres of them. These folks in this canton leave aroad to make itself, and then fine you three francs if you 'trot' overit--as if a horse could trot over such a sarcasm of a road. " Next aboutthe goiter: "THEY talk about goiter!--I haven't seen a goiter in thiswhole canton that I couldn't put in a hat. "

He had growled at everything, but I judged it would puzzle him to findanything the matter with this majestic glacier. I intimated as much; buthe was ready, and said with surly discontent: "You ought to see them inthe Protestant cantons. "

This irritated me. But I concealed the feeling, and asked:

"What is the matter with this one?"

"Matter? Why, it ain't in any kind of condition. They never take anycare of a glacier here. The moraine has been spilling gravel around it, and got it all dirty. "

"Why, man, THEY can't help that. "

"THEY? You're right. That is, they WON'T. They could if they wanted to. You never see a speck of dirt on a Protestant glacier. Look at the Rhoneglacier. It is fifteen miles long, and seven hundred feet thick. If thiswas a Protestant glacier you wouldn't see it looking like this, I cantell you. "

"That is nonsense. What would they do with it?"

"They would whitewash it. They always do. "

I did not believe a word of this, but rather than have trouble I let itgo; for it is a waste of breath to argue with a bigot. I even doubted ifthe Rhone glacier WAS in a Protestant canton; but I did not know, so Icould not make anything by contradicting a man who would probably put medown at once with manufactured evidence. 

About nine miles from St. Nicholas we crossed a bridge over the ragingtorrent of the Visp, and came to a log strip of flimsy fencing whichwas pretending to secure people from tumbling over a perpendicular wallforty feet high and into the river. Three children were approaching; oneof them, a little girl, about eight years old, was running; when prettyclose to us she stumbled and fell, and her feet shot under the rail ofthe fence and for a moment projected over the stream. It gave us asharp shock, for we thought she was gone, sure, for the ground slantedsteeply, and to save herself seemed a sheer impossibility; but shemanaged to scramble up, and ran by us laughing. 

We went forward and examined the place and saw the long tracks which herfeet had made in the dirt when they darted over the verge. If she hadfinished her trip she would have struck some big rocks in the edge ofthe water, and then the torrent would have snatched her downstream amongthe half-covered boulders and she would have been pounded to pulp in twominutes. We had come exceedingly near witnessing her death. 

And now Harris's contrary nature and inborn selfishness were strikinglymanifested. He has no spirit of self-denial. He began straight off, andcontinued for an hour, to express his gratitude that the child was notdestroyed. I never saw such a man. That was the kind of person he was;just so HE was gratified, he never cared anything about anybody else. Ihad noticed that trait in him, over and over again. Often, of course, itwas mere heedlessness, mere want of reflection. Doubtless this may havebeen the case in most instances, but it was not the less hard to baron that account--and after all, its bottom, its groundwork, wasselfishness. There is no avoiding that conclusion. In the instance underconsideration, I did think the indecency of running on in that way mightoccur to him; but no, the child was saved and he was glad, that wassufficient--he cared not a straw for MY feelings, or my loss of such aliterary plum, snatched from my very mouth at the instant it wasready to drop into it. His selfishness was sufficient to place his owngratification in being spared suffering clear before all concern forme, his friend. Apparently, he did not once reflect upon the valuabledetails which would have fallen like a windfall to me: fishing the childout--witnessing the surprise of the family and the stir the thing wouldhave made among the peasants--then a Swiss funeral--then the roadsidemonument, to be paid for by us and have our names mentioned in it. Andwe should have gone into Baedeker and been immortal. I was silent. I wastoo much hurt to complain. If he could act so, and be so heedless and sofrivolous at such a time, and actually seem to glory in it, after allI had done for him, I would have cut my hand off before I would let himsee that I was wounded. 

We were approaching Zermatt; consequently, we were approaching therenowned Matterhorn. A month before, this mountain had been only a nameto us, but latterly we had been moving through a steadily thickeningdouble row of pictures of it, done in oil, water, chromo, wood, steel, copper, crayon, and photography, and so it had at length become a shapeto us--and a very distinct, decided, and familiar one, too. We wereexpecting to recognize that mountain whenever or wherever we should runacross it. We were not deceived. The monarch was far away when we firstsaw him, but there was no such thing as mistaking him. He has the rarepeculiarity of standing by himself; he is peculiarly steep, too, and isalso most oddly shaped. He towers into the sky like a colossal wedge, with the upper third of its blade bent a little to the left. The broadbase of this monster wedge is planted upon a grand glacier-paved Alpineplatform whose elevation is ten thousand feet above sea-level; as thewedge itself is some five thousand feet high, it follows that its apexis about fifteen thousand feet above sea-level. So the whole bulk ofthis stately piece of rock, this sky-cleaving monolith, is above theline of eternal snow. Yet while all its giant neighbors have the look ofbeing built of solid snow, from their waists up, the Matterhorn standsblack and naked and forbidding, the year round, or merely powdered orstreaked with white in places, for its sides are so steep that thesnow cannot stay there. Its strange form, its august isolation, and itsmajestic unkinship with its own kind, make it--so to speak--the Napoleonof the mountain world. "Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, " is a phrase whichfits it as aptly as it fitted the great captain. 

Think of a monument a mile high, standing on a pedestal two miles high!This is what the Matterhorn is--a monument. Its office, henceforth, forall time, will be to keep watch and ward over the secret resting-placeof the young Lord Douglas, who, in 1865, was precipitated from thesummit over a precipice four thousand feet high, and never seen again. No man ever had such a monument as this before; the most imposing ofthe world's other monuments are but atoms compared to it; and they willperish, and their places will pass from memory, but this will remain. 

[The accident which cost Lord Douglas his life (see Chapter xii) alsocost the lives of three other men. These three fell four-fifths of amile, and their bodies were afterward found, lying side by side, upon aglacier, whence they were borne to Zermatt and buried in the churchyard. 

The remains of Lord Douglas have never been found. The secret of hissepulture, like that of Moses, must remain a mystery always. ]

A walk from St. Nicholas to Zermatt is a wonderful experience. Natureis built on a stupendous plan in that region. One marches continuallybetween walls that are piled into the skies, with their upper heightsbroken into a confusion of sublime shapes that gleam white and coldagainst the background of blue; and here and there one sees a bigglacier displaying its grandeurs on the top of a precipice, or agraceful cascade leaping and flashing down the green declivities. Thereis nothing tame, or cheap, or trivial--it is all magnificent. Thatshort valley is a picture-gallery of a notable kind, for it containsno mediocrities; from end to end the Creator has hung it with Hismasterpieces. 

We made Zermatt at three in the afternoon, nine hours out fromSt. Nicholas. Distance, by guide-book, twelve miles; by pedometerseventy-two. We were in the heart and home of the mountain-climbers, now, as all visible things testified. The snow-peaks did not holdthemselves aloof, in aristocratic reserve; they nestled close around, in a friendly, sociable way; guides, with the ropes and axes and otherimplements of their fearful calling slung about their persons, roostedin a long line upon a stone wall in front of the hotel, and waited forcustomers; sun-burnt climbers, in mountaineering costume, and followedby their guides and porters, arrived from time to time, from breakneckexpeditions among the peaks and glaciers of the High Alps; male andfemale tourists, on mules, filed by, in a continuous procession, hotelward-bound from wild adventures which would grow in grandeur everytime they were described at the English or American fireside, and atlast outgrow the possible itself. 

We were not dreaming; this was not a make-believe home of theAlp-climber, created by our heated imaginations; no, for here was Mr. Girdlestone himself, the famous Englishman who hunts his way to the mostformidable Alpine summits without a guide. I was not equal to imagininga Girdlestone; it was all I could do to even realize him, while lookingstraight at him at short range. I would rather face whole Hyde Parks ofartillery than the ghastly forms of death which he has faced among thepeaks and precipices of the mountains. There is probably no pleasureequal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasurewhich is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it. I havenot jumped to this conclusion; I have traveled to it per gravel-train, so to speak. I have thought the thing all out, and am quite sure I amright. A born climber's appetite for climbing is hard to satisfy; whenit comes upon him he is like a starving man with a feast before him; hemay have other business on hand, but it must wait. Mr. Girdlestone hadhad his usual summer holiday in the Alps, and had spent it in his usualway, hunting for unique chances to break his neck; his vacation wasover, and his luggage packed for England, but all of a sudden a hungerhad come upon him to climb the tremendous Weisshorn once more, for hehad heard of a new and utterly impossible route up it. His baggagewas unpacked at once, and now he and a friend, laden with knapsacks, ice-axes, coils of rope, and canteens of milk, were just setting out. They would spend the night high up among the snows, somewhere, andget up at two in the morning and finish the enterprise. I had astrong desire to go with them, but forced it down--a feat which Mr. Girdlestone, with all his fortitude, could not do. 

Even ladies catch the climbing mania, and are unable to throw it off. A famous climber, of that sex, had attempted the Weisshorn a few daysbefore our arrival, and she and her guides had lost their way in asnow-storm high up among the peaks and glaciers and been forced towander around a good while before they could find a way down. When thislady reached the bottom, she had been on her feet twenty-three hours!

Our guides, hired on the Gemmi, were already at Zermatt when wereached there. So there was nothing to interfere with our getting up anadventure whenever we should choose the time and the object. I resolvedto devote my first evening in Zermatt to studying up the subject ofAlpine climbing, by way of preparation. 

I read several books, and here are some of the things I found out. One'sshoes must be strong and heavy, and have pointed hobnails in them. Thealpenstock must be of the best wood, for if it should break, loss oflife might be the result. One should carry an ax, to cut steps in theice with, on the great heights. There must be a ladder, for there aresteep bits of rock which can be surmounted with this instrument--or thisutensil--but could not be surmounted without it; such an obstructionhas compelled the tourist to waste hours hunting another route, when aladder would have saved him all trouble. One must have from one hundredand fifty to five hundred feet of strong rope, to be used in loweringthe party down steep declivities which are too steep and smooth tobe traversed in any other way. One must have a steel hook, on anotherrope--a very useful thing; for when one is ascending and comes to a lowbluff which is yet too high for the ladder, he swings this rope aloftlike a lasso, the hook catches at the top of the bluff, and then thetourist climbs the rope, hand over hand--being always particular to tryand forget that if the hook gives way he will never stop falling tillhe arrives in some part of Switzerland where they are not expecting him. Another important thing--there must be a rope to tie the whole partytogether with, so that if one falls from a mountain or down a bottomlesschasm in a glacier, the others may brace back on the rope and save him. One must have a silk veil, to protect his face from snow, sleet, hailand gale, and colored goggles to protect his eyes from that dangerousenemy, snow-blindness. Finally, there must be some porters, to carryprovisions, wine and scientific instruments, and also blanket bags forthe party to sleep in. 

I closed my readings with a fearful adventure which Mr. Whymper once hadon the Matterhorn when he was prowling around alone, five thousandfeet above the town of Breil. He was edging his way gingerly aroundthe corner of a precipice where the upper edge of a sharp declivity ofice-glazed snow joined it. This declivity swept down a couple of hundredfeet, into a gully which curved around and ended at a precipice eighthundred feet high, overlooking a glacier. His foot slipped, and he fell. 

He says:

"My knapsack brought my head down first, and I pitched into some rocksabout a dozen feet below; they caught something, and tumbled me offthe edge, head over heels, into the gully; the baton was dashed from myhands, and I whirled downward in a series of bounds, each longer thanthe last; now over ice, now into rocks, striking my head four or fivetimes, each time with increased force. The last bound sent me spinningthrough the air in a leap of fifty or sixty feet, from one side of thegully to the other, and I struck the rocks, luckily, with the whole ofmy left side. They caught my clothes for a moment, and I fell back on tothe snow with motion arrested. My head fortunately came the right sideup, and a few frantic catches brought me to a halt, in the neck of thegully and on the verge of the precipice. Baton, hat, and veil skimmedby and disappeared, and the crash of the rocks--which I had started--asthey fell on to the glacier, told how narrow had been the escape fromutter destruction. As it was, I fell nearly two hundred feet in seven oreight bounds. Ten feet more would have taken me in one gigantic leap ofeight hundred feet on to the glacier below. 

"The situation was sufficiently serious. The rocks could not be let gofor a moment, and the blood was spurting out of more than twenty cuts. The most serious ones were in the head, and I vainly tried to closethem with one hand, while holding on with the other. It was useless;the blood gushed out in blinding jets at each pulsation. At last, in amoment of inspiration, I kicked out a big lump of snow and struck itas plaster on my head. The idea was a happy one, and the flow of blooddiminished. Then, scrambling up, I got, not a moment too soon, toa place of safety, and fainted away. The sun was setting whenconsciousness returned, and it was pitch-dark before the Great Staircasewas descended; but by a combination of luck and care, the whole fourthousand seven hundred feet of descent to Breil was accomplished withouta slip, or once missing the way. "

His wounds kept him abed some days. Then he got up and climbed thatmountain again. That is the way with a true Alp-climber; the more fun hehas, the more he wants. 

CHAPTER XXXVII

[Our Imposing Column Starts Upward]

After I had finished my readings, I was no longer myself; I was tranced, uplifted, intoxicated, by the almost incredible perils and adventuresI had been following my authors through, and the triumphs I had beensharing with them. I sat silent some time, then turned to Harris andsaid:

"My mind is made up. "

Something in my tone struck him: and when he glanced at my eye andread what was written there, his face paled perceptibly. He hesitated amoment, then said:

"Speak. "

I answered, with perfect calmness:

"I will ascend the Riffelberg. "

If I had shot my poor friend he could not have fallen from his chairmore suddenly. If I had been his father he could not have pleaded harderto get me to give up my purpose. But I turned a deaf ear to all he said. When he perceived at last that nothing could alter my determination, heceased to urge, and for a while the deep silence was broken only by hissobs. I sat in marble resolution, with my eyes fixed upon vacancy, forin spirit I was already wrestling with the perils of the mountains, andmy friend sat gazing at me in adoring admiration through his tears. At last he threw himself upon me in a loving embrace and exclaimed inbroken tones:

"Your Harris will never desert you. We will die together. "

I cheered the noble fellow with praises, and soon his fears wereforgotten and he was eager for the adventure. He wanted to summon theguides at once and leave at two in the morning, as he supposed thecustom was; but I explained that nobody was looking at that hour; andthat the start in the dark was not usually made from the village butfrom the first night's resting-place on the mountain side. I said wewould leave the village at 3 or 4 P. M. On the morrow; meantime he couldnotify the guides, and also let the public know of the attempt which weproposed to make. 

I went to bed, but not to sleep. No man can sleep when he is about toundertake one of these Alpine exploits. I tossed feverishly all nightlong, and was glad enough when I heard the clock strike half past elevenand knew it was time to get up for dinner. I rose, jaded and rusty, andwent to the noon meal, where I found myself the center of interest andcuriosity; for the news was already abroad. It is not easy to eat calmlywhen you are a lion; but it is very pleasant, nevertheless. 

As usual, at Zermatt, when a great ascent is about to be undertaken, everybody, native and foreign, laid aside his own projects and took upa good position to observe the start. The expedition consisted of 198persons, including the mules; or 205, including the cows. As follows:

   CHIEFS OF SERVICE   SUBORDINATES

   Myself 1 Veterinary Surgeon   Mr. Harris 1 Butler 17 Guides 12 Waiters 4 Surgeons 1 Footman 1 Geologist    1 Barber 1 Botanist 1 Head Cook 3 Chaplains 9 Assistants 2 Draftsman 4 Pastry Cooks 15 Barkeepers 1 Confectionery Artist 1 Latinist

   TRANSPORTATION, ETC. 

 27 Porters 3 Coarse Washers and Ironers 44 Mules 1 Fine ditto 44 Muleteers 7 Cows     2 Milkers

Total, 154 men, 51 animals. Grand Total, 205. 

     RATIONS, ETC.        APPARATUS

 16 Cases Hams 25 Spring Mattresses 2 Barrels Flour 2 Hair ditto 22 Barrels Whiskey Bedding for same 1 Barrel Sugar 2 Mosquito-nets 1 Keg Lemons 29 Tents 2, 000 Cigars   Scientific Instruments 1 Barrel Pies 97 Ice-axes 1 Ton of Pemmican 5 Cases Dynamite 143 Pair Crutches 7 Cans Nitroglycerin 2 Barrels Arnica 22 40-foot Ladders 1 Bale of Lint 2 Miles of Rope 27 Kegs Paregoric 154 Umbrellas

It was full four o'clock in the afternoon before my cavalcade wasentirely ready. At that hour it began to move. In point of numbers andspectacular effect, it was the most imposing expedition that had evermarched from Zermatt. 

I commanded the chief guide to arrange the men and animals in singlefile, twelve feet apart, and lash them all together on a strong rope. Heobjected that the first two miles was a dead level, with plenty of room, and that the rope was never used except in very dangerous places. ButI would not listen to that. My reading had taught me that many seriousaccidents had happened in the Alps simply from not having the peopletied up soon enough; I was not going to add one to the list. The guidethen obeyed my order. 

When the procession stood at ease, roped together, and ready to move, Inever saw a finer sight. It was 3, 122 feet long--over half a mile; everyman and me was on foot, and had on his green veil and his blue goggles, and his white rag around his hat, and his coil of rope over one shoulderand under the other, and his ice-ax in his belt, and carried hisalpenstock in his left hand, his umbrella (closed) in his right, and hiscrutches slung at his back. The burdens of the pack-mules and the hornsof the cows were decked with the Edelweiss and the Alpine rose. 

I and my agent were the only persons mounted. We were in the post ofdanger in the extreme rear, and tied securely to five guides apiece. Ourarmor-bearers carried our ice-axes, alpenstocks, and other implementsfor us. We were mounted upon very small donkeys, as a measure of safety;in time of peril we could straighten our legs and stand up, and letthe donkey walk from under. Still, I cannot recommend this sort ofanimal--at least for excursions of mere pleasure--because hisears interrupt the view. I and my agent possessed the regulationmountaineering costumes, but concluded to leave them behind. Out ofrespect for the great numbers of tourists of both sexes who would beassembled in front of the hotels to see us pass, and also out of respectfor the many tourists whom we expected to encounter on our expedition, we decided to make the ascent in evening dress. 

We watered the caravan at the cold stream which rushes down a troughnear the end of the village, and soon afterward left the haunts ofcivilization behind us. About half past five o'clock we arrived at abridge which spans the Visp, and after throwing over a detachment to seeif it was safe, the caravan crossed without accident. The way now led, by a gentle ascent, carpeted with fresh green grass, to the church atWinkelmatten. Without stopping to examine this edifice, I executeda flank movement to the right and crossed the bridge over theFindelenbach, after first testing its strength. Here I deployed to theright again, and presently entered an inviting stretch of meadowlandwhich was unoccupied save by a couple of deserted huts toward thefurthest extremity. These meadows offered an excellent camping-place. We pitched our tents, supped, established a proper grade, recorded theevents of the day, and then went to bed. 

We rose at two in the morning and dressed by candle-light. It was adismal and chilly business. A few stars were shining, but the generalheavens were overcast, and the great shaft of the Matterhorn was drapedin a cable pall of clouds. The chief guide advised a delay; he said hefeared it was going to rain. We waited until nine o'clock, and then gotaway in tolerably clear weather. 

Our course led up some terrific steeps, densely wooded with larches andcedars, and traversed by paths which the rains had guttered and whichwere obstructed by loose stones. To add to the danger and inconvenience, we were constantly meeting returning tourists on foot and horseback, andas constantly being crowded and battered by ascending tourists who werein a hurry and wanted to get by. 

Our troubles thickened. About the middle of the afternoon the seventeenguides called a halt and held a consultation. After consulting an hourthey said their first suspicion remained intact--that is to say, theybelieved they were lost. I asked if they did not KNOW it? No, they said, they COULDN'T absolutely know whether they were lost or not, becausenone of them had ever been in that part of the country before. They hada strong instinct that they were lost, but they had no proofs--exceptthat they did not know where they were. They had met no tourists forsome time, and they considered that a suspicious sign. 

Plainly we were in an ugly fix. The guides were naturally unwilling togo alone and seek a way out of the difficulty; so we all went together. For better security we moved slow and cautiously, for the forest wasvery dense. We did not move up the mountain, but around it, hoping tostrike across the old trail. Toward nightfall, when we were about tiredout, we came up against a rock as big as a cottage. This barrier tookall the remaining spirit out of the men, and a panic of fear and despairensued. They moaned and wept, and said they should never see their homesand their dear ones again. Then they began to upbraid me for bringingthem upon this fatal expedition. Some even muttered threats against me. 

Clearly it was no time to show weakness. So I made a speech in which Isaid that other Alp-climbers had been in as perilous a position as this, and yet by courage and perseverance had escaped. I promised to standby them, I promised to rescue them. I closed by saying we had plentyof provisions to maintain us for quite a siege--and did they supposeZermatt would allow half a mile of men and mules to mysteriouslydisappear during any considerable time, right above their noses, andmake no inquiries? No, Zermatt would send out searching-expeditions andwe should be saved. 

This speech had a great effect. The men pitched the tents with somelittle show of cheerfulness, and we were snugly under cover when thenight shut down. I now reaped the reward of my wisdom in providing onearticle which is not mentioned in any book of Alpine adventure but this. I refer to the paregoric. But for that beneficent drug, would have notone of those men slept a moment during that fearful night. But for thatgentle persuader they must have tossed, unsoothed, the night through;for the whiskey was for me. Yes, they would have risen in the morningunfitted for their heavy task. As it was, everybody slept but my agentand me--only we and the barkeepers. I would not permit myself to sleepat such a time. I considered myself responsible for all those lives. Imeant to be on hand and ready, in case of avalanches up there, but I didnot know it then. 

We watched the weather all through that awful night, and kept an eye onthe barometer, to be prepared for the least change. There was not theslightest change recorded by the instrument, during the whole time. Words cannot describe the comfort that that friendly, hopeful, steadfastthing was to me in that season of trouble. It was a defective barometer, and had no hand but the stationary brass pointer, but I did not knowthat until afterward. If I should be in such a situation again, I shouldnot wish for any barometer but that one. 

All hands rose at two in the morning and took breakfast, and as soon asit was light we roped ourselves together and went at that rock. For sometime we tried the hook-rope and other means of scaling it, but withoutsuccess--that is, without perfect success. The hook caught once, andHarris started up it hand over hand, but the hold broke and if therehad not happened to be a chaplain sitting underneath at the time, Harriswould certainly have been crippled. As it was, it was the chaplain. Hetook to his crutches, and I ordered the hook-rope to be laid aside. Itwas too dangerous an implement where so many people are standing around. 

We were puzzled for a while; then somebody thought of the ladders. One of these was leaned against the rock, and the men went up it tiedtogether in couples. Another ladder was sent up for use in descending. At the end of half an hour everybody was over, and that rock wasconquered. We gave our first grand shout of triumph. But the joy wasshort-lived, for somebody asked how we were going to get the animalsover. 

This was a serious difficulty; in fact, it was an impossibility. The courage of the men began to waver immediately; once more we werethreatened with a panic. But when the danger was most imminent, we weresaved in a mysterious way. A mule which had attracted attention from thebeginning by its disposition to experiment, tried to eat a five-poundcan of nitroglycerin. This happened right alongside the rock. Theexplosion threw us all to the ground, and covered us with dirt anddebris; it frightened us extremely, too, for the crash it made wasdeafening, and the violence of the shock made the ground tremble. However, we were grateful, for the rock was gone. Its place was occupiedby a new cellar, about thirty feet across, by fifteen feet deep. Theexplosion was heard as far as Zermatt; and an hour and a half afterward, many citizens of that town were knocked down and quite seriously injuredby descending portions of mule meat, frozen solid. This shows, betterthan any estimate in figures, how high the experimenter went. 

We had nothing to do, now, but bridge the cellar and proceed on our way. With a cheer the men went at their work. I attended to the engineering, myself. I appointed a strong detail to cut down trees with ice-axes andtrim them for piers to support the bridge. This was a slow business, forice-axes are not good to cut wood with. I caused my piers to be firmlyset up in ranks in the cellar, and upon them I laid six of my forty-footladders, side by side, and laid six more on top of them. Upon thisbridge I caused a bed of boughs to be spread, and on top of the boughsa bed of earth six inches deep. I stretched ropes upon either side toserve as railings, and then my bridge was complete. A train of elephantscould have crossed it in safety and comfort. By nightfall the caravanwas on the other side and the ladders were taken up. 

Next morning we went on in good spirits for a while, though our waywas slow and difficult, by reason of the steep and rocky nature of theground and the thickness of the forest; but at last a dull despondencycrept into the men's faces and it was apparent that not only they, buteven the guides, were now convinced that we were lost. The fact that westill met no tourists was a circumstance that was but too significant. Another thing seemed to suggest that we were not only lost, but verybadly lost; for there must surely be searching-parties on the roadbefore this time, yet we had seen no sign of them. 

Demoralization was spreading; something must be done, and done quickly, too. Fortunately, I am not unfertile in expedients. I contrived onenow which commended itself to all, for it promised well. I tookthree-quarters of a mile of rope and fastened one end of it around thewaist of a guide, and told him to go find the road, while the caravanwaited. I instructed him to guide himself back by the rope, in case offailure; in case of success, he was to give the rope a series of violentjerks, whereupon the Expedition would go to him at once. He departed, and in two minutes had disappeared among the trees. I payed out the ropemyself, while everybody watched the crawling thing with eager eyes. The rope crept away quite slowly, at times, at other times with somebriskness. Twice or thrice we seemed to get the signal, and a shout wasjust ready to break from the men's lips when they perceived it was afalse alarm. But at last, when over half a mile of rope had sliddenaway, it stopped gliding and stood absolutely still--one minute--twominutes--three--while we held our breath and watched. 

Was the guide resting? Was he scanning the country from some high point?Was he inquiring of a chance mountaineer? Stop, --had he fainted fromexcess of fatigue and anxiety?

This thought gave us a shock. I was in the very first act of detailingan Expedition to succor him, when the cord was assailed with a series ofsuch frantic jerks that I could hardly keep hold of it. The huzza thatwent up, then, was good to hear. "Saved! saved!" was the word that rangout, all down the long rank of the caravan. 

We rose up and started at once. We found the route to be good enoughfor a while, but it began to grow difficult, by and by, and this featuresteadily increased. When we judged we had gone half a mile, we momentlyexpected to see the guide; but no, he was not visible anywhere; neitherwas he waiting, for the rope was still moving, consequently he wasdoing the same. This argued that he had not found the road, yet, butwas marching to it with some peasant. There was nothing for us to dobut plod along--and this we did. At the end of three hours we werestill plodding. This was not only mysterious, but exasperating. And veryfatiguing, too; for we had tried hard, along at first, to catch up withthe guide, but had only fagged ourselves, in vain; for although he wastraveling slowly he was yet able to go faster than the hampered caravanover such ground. 

At three in the afternoon we were nearly dead with exhaustion--and stillthe rope was slowly gliding out. The murmurs against the guide had beengrowing steadily, and at last they were become loud and savage. A mutinyensued. The men refused to proceed. They declared that we had beentraveling over and over the same ground all day, in a kind of circle. They demanded that our end of the rope be made fast to a tree, so as tohalt the guide until we could overtake him and kill him. This was not anunreasonable requirement, so I gave the order. 

As soon as the rope was tied, the Expedition moved forward with thatalacrity which the thirst for vengeance usually inspires. But after atiresome march of almost half a mile, we came to a hill covered thickwith a crumbly rubbish of stones, and so steep that no man of us allwas now in a condition to climb it. Every attempt failed, and ended incrippling somebody. Within twenty minutes I had five men on crutches. 

Whenever a climber tried to assist himself by the rope, it yielded andlet him tumble backward. The frequency of this result suggested an ideato me. I ordered the caravan to 'bout face and form in marching order; Ithen made the tow-rope fast to the rear mule, and gave the command:

"Mark time--by the right flank--forward--march!"

The procession began to move, to the impressive strains of abattle-chant, and I said to myself, "Now, if the rope don't break Ijudge THIS will fetch that guide into the camp. " I watched the ropegliding down the hill, and presently when I was all fixed for triumphI was confronted by a bitter disappointment; there was no guide tied tothe rope, it was only a very indignant old black ram. The fury of thebaffled Expedition exceeded all bounds. They even wanted to wreak theirunreasoning vengeance on this innocent dumb brute. But I stood betweenthem and their prey, menaced by a bristling wall of ice-axes andalpenstocks, and proclaimed that there was but one road to this murder, and it was directly over my corpse. Even as I spoke I saw that my doomwas sealed, except a miracle supervened to divert these madmen fromtheir fell purpose. I see the sickening wall of weapons now; I see thatadvancing host as I saw it then, I see the hate in those cruel eyes; Iremember how I drooped my head upon my breast, I feel again thesudden earthquake shock in my rear, administered by the very ram I wassacrificing myself to save; I hear once more the typhoon of laughterthat burst from the assaulting column as I clove it from van to rearlike a Sepoy shot from a Rodman gun. 

I was saved. Yes, I was saved, and by the merciful instinct ofingratitude which nature had planted in the breast of that treacherousbeast. The grace which eloquence had failed to work in those men'shearts, had been wrought by a laugh. The ram was set free and my lifewas spared. 

We lived to find out that that guide had deserted us as soon as he hadplaced a half-mile between himself and us. To avert suspicion, he hadjudged it best that the line should continue to move; so he caught thatram, and at the time that he was sitting on it making the rope fast toit, we were imagining that he was lying in a swoon, overcome by fatigueand distress. When he allowed the ram to get up it fell to plungingaround, trying to rid itself of the rope, and this was the signal whichwe had risen up with glad shouts to obey. We had followed this ram roundand round in a circle all day--a thing which was proven by the discoverythat we had watered the Expedition seven times at one and same spring inseven hours. As expert a woodman as I am, I had somehow failed to noticethis until my attention was called to it by a hog. This hog was alwayswallowing there, and as he was the only hog we saw, his frequentrepetition, together with his unvarying similarity to himself, finallycaused me to reflect that he must be the same hog, and this led me tothe deduction that this must be the same spring, also--which indeed itwas. 

I made a note of this curious thing, as showing in a striking manner therelative difference between glacial action and the action of the hog. It is now a well-established fact that glaciers move; I consider thatmy observations go to show, with equal conclusiveness, that a hog in aspring does not move. I shall be glad to receive the opinions of otherobservers upon this point. 

To return, for an explanatory moment, to that guide, and then I shall bedone with him. After leaving the ram tied to the rope, he had wanderedat large a while, and then happened to run across a cow. Judging that acow would naturally know more than a guide, he took her by the tail, and the result justified his judgment. She nibbled her leisurely waydownhill till it was near milking-time, then she struck for home andtowed him into Zermatt. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII

[I Conquer the Gorner Grat]

We went into camp on that wild spot to which that ram had brought us. The men were greatly fatigued. Their conviction that we were lost wasforgotten in the cheer of a good supper, and before the reaction had achance to set in, I loaded them up with paregoric and put them to bed. 

Next morning I was considering in my mind our desperate situation andtrying to think of a remedy, when Harris came to me with a Baedekermap which showed conclusively that the mountain we were on was still inSwitzerland--yes, every part of it was in Switzerland. So we were notlost, after all. This was an immense relief; it lifted the weight of twosuch mountains from my breast. I immediately had the news disseminatedand the map was exhibited. The effect was wonderful. As soon as the mensaw with their own eyes that they knew where they were, and that itwas only the summit that was lost and not themselves, they cheered upinstantly and said with one accord, let the summit take care of itself. 

Our distresses being at an end, I now determined to rest the men in campand give the scientific department of the Expedition a chance. First, I made a barometric observation, to get our altitude, but I could notperceive that there was any result. I knew, by my scientific reading, that either thermometers or barometers ought to be boiled, to make themaccurate; I did not know which it was, so I boiled them both. There wasstill no result; so I examined these instruments and discovered thatthey possessed radical blemishes: the barometer had no hand but thebrass pointer and the ball of the thermometer was stuffed with tin-foil. I might have boiled those things to rags, and never found out anything. 

I hunted up another barometer; it was new and perfect. I boiled it halfan hour in a pot of bean soup which the cooks were making. The resultwas unexpected: the instrument was not affecting at all, but there wassuch a strong barometer taste to the soup that the head cook, who wasa most conscientious person, changed its name in the bill of fare. The dish was so greatly liked by all, that I ordered the cook to havebarometer soup every day. 

It was believed that the barometer might eventually be injured, but Idid not care for that. I had demonstrated to my satisfaction that itcould not tell how high a mountain was, therefore I had no real use forit. Changes in the weather I could take care of without it; I did notwish to know when the weather was going to be good, what I wanted toknow was when it was going to be bad, and this I could find out fromHarris's corns. Harris had had his corns tested and regulated at thegovernment observatory in Heidelberg, and one could depend upon themwith confidence. So I transferred the new barometer to the cookingdepartment, to be used for the official mess. It was found that even apretty fair article of soup could be made from the defective barometer;so I allowed that one to be transferred to the subordinate mess. 

I next boiled the thermometer, and got a most excellent result; themercury went up to about 200 degrees Fahrenheit. In the opinion of theother scientists of the Expedition, this seemed to indicate that we hadattained the extraordinary altitude of two hundred thousand feet abovesea-level. Science places the line of eternal snow at about ten thousandfeet above sea-level. There was no snow where we were, consequentlyit was proven that the eternal snow-line ceases somewhere above theten-thousand-foot level and does not begin any more. This was aninteresting fact, and one which had not been observed by any observerbefore. It was as valuable as interesting, too, since it would open upthe deserted summits of the highest Alps to population and agriculture. It was a proud thing to be where we were, yet it caused us a pangto reflect that but for that ram we might just as well have been twohundred thousand feet higher. 

The success of my last experiment induced me to try an experiment withmy photographic apparatus. I got it out, and boiled one of my cameras, but the thing was a failure; it made the wood swell up and burst, and Icould not see that the lenses were any better than they were before. 

I now concluded to boil a guide. It might improve him, it could notimpair his usefulness. But I was not allowed to proceed. Guides haveno feeling for science, and this one would not consent to be madeuncomfortable in its interest. 

In the midst of my scientific work, one of those needless accidentshappened which are always occurring among the ignorant and thoughtless. A porter shot at a chamois and missed it and crippled the Latinist. This was not a serious matter to me, for a Latinist's duties are as wellperformed on crutches as otherwise--but the fact remained that if theLatinist had not happened to be in the way a mule would have got thatload. That would have been quite another matter, for when it comes downto a question of value there is a palpable difference between a Latinistand a mule. I could not depend on having a Latinist in the right placeevery time; so, to make things safe, I ordered that in the future thechamois must not be hunted within limits of the camp with any otherweapon than the forefinger. 

My nerves had hardly grown quiet after this affair when they got anothershake-up--one which utterly unmanned me for a moment: a rumor sweptsuddenly through the camp that one of the barkeepers had fallen over aprecipice!

However, it turned out that it was only a chaplain. I had laid in anextra force of chaplains, purposely to be prepared for emergencieslike this, but by some unaccountable oversight had come away rathershort-handed in the matter of barkeepers. 

On the following morning we moved on, well refreshed and in goodspirits. I remember this day with peculiar pleasure, because it sawour road restored to us. Yes, we found our road again, and in quite anextraordinary way. We had plodded along some two hours and a half, whenwe came up against a solid mass of rock about twenty feet high. I didnot need to be instructed by a mule this time. I was already beginningto know more than any mule in the Expedition. I at once put in a blastof dynamite, and lifted that rock out of the way. But to my surprise andmortification, I found that there had been a chalet on top of it. 

I picked up such members of the family as fell in my vicinity, andsubordinates of my corps collected the rest. None of these poor peoplewere injured, happily, but they were much annoyed. I explained tothe head chaleteer just how the thing happened, and that I was onlysearching for the road, and would certainly have given him timely noticeif I had known he was up there. I said I had meant no harm, and hopedI had not lowered myself in his estimation by raising him a few rods inthe air. I said many other judicious things, and finally when I offeredto rebuild his chalet, and pay for the breakages, and throw in thecellar, he was mollified and satisfied. He hadn't any cellar at all, before; he would not have as good a view, now, as formerly, but what hehad lost in view he had gained in cellar, by exact measurement. He saidthere wasn't another hole like that in the mountains--and he would havebeen right if the late mule had not tried to eat up the nitroglycerin. 

I put a hundred and sixteen men at work, and they rebuilt the chaletfrom its own debris in fifteen minutes. It was a good deal morepicturesque than it was before, too. The man said we were now on theFeil-Stutz, above the Schwegmatt--information which I was glad to get, since it gave us our position to a degree of particularity which we hadnot been accustomed to for a day or so. We also learned that we werestanding at the foot of the Riffelberg proper, and that the initialchapter of our work was completed. 

We had a fine view, from here, of the energetic Visp, as it makes itsfirst plunge into the world from under a huge arch of solid ice, wornthrough the foot-wall of the great Gorner Glacier; and we could also seethe Furggenbach, which is the outlet of the Furggen Glacier. 

The mule-road to the summit of the Riffelberg passed right in front ofthe chalet, a circumstance which we almost immediately noticed, becausea procession of tourists was filing along it pretty much all the time. 

"Pretty much" may not be elegant English, but it is high time it was. There is no elegant word or phrase which means just what it means. --M. T. 

The chaleteer's business consisted in furnishing refreshments totourists. My blast had interrupted this trade for a few minutes, bybreaking all the bottles on the place; but I gave the man a lot ofwhiskey to sell for Alpine champagne, and a lot of vinegar which wouldanswer for Rhine wine, consequently trade was soon as brisk as ever. 

Leaving the Expedition outside to rest, I quartered myself in thechalet, with Harris, proposing to correct my journals and scientificobservations before continuing the ascent. I had hardly begun my workwhen a tall, slender, vigorous American youth of about twenty-three, whowas on his way down the mountain, entered and came toward me with thatbreezy self-complacency which is the adolescent's idea of the well-bredease of the man of the world. His hair was short and parted accuratelyin the middle, and he had all the look of an American person who wouldbe likely to begin his signature with an initial, and spell his middlename out. He introduced himself, smiling a smirky smile borrowed fromthe courtiers of the stage, extended a fair-skinned talon, and while hegripped my hand in it he bent his body forward three times at thehips, as the stage courtier does, and said in the airiest and mostcondescending and patronizing way--I quite remember his exact language:

"Very glad to make your acquaintance, 'm sure; very glad indeed, assureyou. I've read all your little efforts and greatly admired them, andwhen I heard you were here, I ... "

I indicated a chair, and he sat down. This grandee was the grandson ofan American of considerable note in his day, and not wholly forgottenyet--a man who came so near being a great man that he was quitegenerally accounted one while he lived. 

I slowly paced the floor, pondering scientific problems, and heard thisconversation:

GRANDSON. First visit to Europe?

HARRIS. Mine? Yes. 

G. S. (With a soft reminiscent sigh suggestive of bygone joys that maybe tasted in their freshness but once. ) Ah, I know what it is to you. Afirst visit!--ah, the romance of it! I wish I could feel it again. 

H. Yes, I find it exceeds all my dreams. It is enchantment. I go... 

G. S. (With a dainty gesture of the hand signifying "Spare me your callowenthusiasms, good friend. ") Yes, _I_ know, I know; you go to cathedrals, and exclaim; and you drag through league-long picture-galleries andexclaim; and you stand here, and there, and yonder, upon historicground, and continue to exclaim; and you are permeated with your firstcrude conceptions of Art, and are proud and happy. Ah, yes, proud andhappy--that expresses it. Yes-yes, enjoy it--it is right--it is aninnocent revel. 

H. And you? Don't you do these things now?

G. S. I! Oh, that is VERY good! My dear sir, when you are as old atraveler as I am, you will not ask such a question as that. _I_ visitthe regulation gallery, moon around the regulation cathedral, do theworn round of the regulation sights, YET?--Excuse me!

H. Well, what DO you do, then?

G. S. Do? I flit--and flit--for I am ever on the wing--but I avoid theherd. Today I am in Paris, tomorrow in Berlin, anon in Rome; but youwould look for me in vain in the galleries of the Louvre or the commonresorts of the gazers in those other capitals. If you would find me, youmust look in the unvisited nooks and corners where others never thinkof going. One day you will find me making myself at home in some obscurepeasant's cabin, another day you will find me in some forgotten castleworshiping some little gem or art which the careless eye has overlookedand which the unexperienced would despise; again you will find me asguest in the inner sanctuaries of palaces while the herd is content toget a hurried glimpse of the unused chambers by feeing a servant. 

H. You are a GUEST in such places?

G. S. And a welcoming one. 

H. It is surprising. How does it come?

G. S. My grandfather's name is a passport to all the courts in Europe. Ihave only to utter that name and every door is open to me. I flit fromcourt to court at my own free will and pleasure, and am always welcome. I am as much at home in the palaces of Europe as you are among yourrelatives. I know every titled person in Europe, I think. I have mypockets full of invitations all the time. I am under promise to go toItaly, where I am to be the guest of a succession of the noblest housesin the land. In Berlin my life is a continued round of gaiety in theimperial palace. It is the same, wherever I go. 

H. It must be very pleasant. But it must make Boston seem a little slowwhen you are at home. 

G. S. Yes, of course it does. But I don't go home much. There's no lifethere--little to feed a man's higher nature. Boston's very narrow, youknow. She doesn't know it, and you couldn't convince her of it--so I saynothing when I'm there: where's the use? Yes, Boston is very narrow, butshe has such a good opinion of herself that she can't see it. A man whohas traveled as much as I have, and seen as much of the world, sees itplain enough, but he can't cure it, you know, so the best is to leave itand seek a sphere which is more in harmony with his tastes and culture. I run across there, once a year, perhaps, when I have nothing importanton hand, but I'm very soon back again. I spend my time in Europe. 

H. I see. You map out your plans and ... 

G. S. No, excuse me. I don't map out any plans. I simply follow theinclination of the day. I am limited by no ties, no requirements, Iam not bound in any way. I am too old a traveler to hamper myself withdeliberate purposes. I am simply a traveler--an inveterate traveler--aman of the world, in a word--I can call myself by no other name. I donot say, "I am going here, or I am going there"--I say nothing at all, Ionly act. For instance, next week you may find me the guest of a grandeeof Spain, or you may find me off for Venice, or flitting toward Dresden. I shall probably go to Egypt presently; friends will say to friends, "He is at the Nile cataracts"--and at that very moment they will besurprised to learn that I'm away off yonder in India somewhere. I ama constant surprise to people. They are always saying, "Yes, he wasin Jerusalem when we heard of him last, but goodness knows where he isnow. "

Presently the Grandson rose to leave--discovered he had an appointmentwith some Emperor, perhaps. He did his graces over again: gripped mewith one talon, at arm's-length, pressed his hat against his stomachwith the other, bent his body in the middle three times, murmuring:

"Pleasure, 'm sure; great pleasure, 'm sure. Wish you much success. "

Then he removed his gracious presence. It is a great and solemn thing tohave a grandfather. 

I have not purposed to misrepresent this boy in any way, for what littleindignation he excited in me soon passed and left nothing behind it butcompassion. One cannot keep up a grudge against a vacuum. I have triedto repeat this lad's very words; if I have failed anywhere I have atleast not failed to reproduce the marrow and meaning of what he said. He and the innocent chatterbox whom I met on the Swiss lake are the mostunique and interesting specimens of Young America I came acrossduring my foreign tramping. I have made honest portraits of them, notcaricatures. 

The Grandson of twenty-three referred to himself five or six times asan "old traveler, " and as many as three times (with a serene complacencywhich was maddening) as a "man of the world. " There was something verydelicious about his leaving Boston to her "narrowness, " unreproved anduninstructed. 

I formed the caravan in marching order, presently, and after riding downthe line to see that it was properly roped together, gave the command toproceed. In a little while the road carried us to open, grassy land. Wewere above the troublesome forest, now, and had an uninterrupted view, straight before us, of our summit--the summit of the Riffelberg. 

We followed the mule-road, a zigzag course, now to the right, now tothe left, but always up, and always crowded and incommoded by going andcoming files of reckless tourists who were never, in a single instance, tied together. I was obliged to exert the utmost care and caution, forin many places the road was not two yards wide, and often the lower sideof it sloped away in slanting precipices eight and even nine feet deep. I had to encourage the men constantly, to keep them from giving way totheir unmanly fears. 

We might have made the summit before night, but for a delay caused bythe loss of an umbrella. I was allowing the umbrella to remain lost, butthe men murmured, and with reason, for in this exposed region we stoodin peculiar need of protection against avalanches; so I went into campand detached a strong party to go after the missing article. 

The difficulties of the next morning were severe, but our couragewas high, for our goal was near. At noon we conquered the lastimpediment--we stood at last upon the summit, and without the loss of asingle man except the mule that ate the glycerin. Our great achievementwas achieved--the possibility of the impossible was demonstrated, andHarris and I walked proudly into the great dining-room of the RiffelbergHotel and stood our alpenstocks up in the corner. 

Yes, I had made the grand ascent; but it was a mistake to do it inevening dress. The plug hats were battered, the swallow-tails werefluttering rags, mud added no grace, the general effect was unpleasantand even disreputable. 

There were about seventy-five tourists at the hotel--mainly ladies andlittle children--and they gave us an admiring welcome which paid us forall our privations and sufferings. The ascent had been made, and thenames and dates now stand recorded on a stone monument there to prove itto all future tourists. 

I boiled a thermometer and took an altitude, with a most curious result:THE SUMMIT WAS NOT AS HIGH AS THE POINT ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE WHERE IHAD TAKEN THE FIRST ALTITUDE. Suspecting that I had made an importantdiscovery, I prepared to verify it. There happened to be a still highersummit (called the Gorner Grat), above the hotel, and notwithstandingthe fact that it overlooks a glacier from a dizzy height, and that theascent is difficult and dangerous, I resolved to venture up there andboil a thermometer. So I sent a strong party, with some borrowed hoes, in charge of two chiefs of service, to dig a stairway in the soil allthe way up, and this I ascended, roped to the guides. This breezy heightwas the summit proper--so I accomplished even more than I had originallypurposed to do. This foolhardy exploit is recorded on another stonemonument. 

I boiled my thermometer, and sure enough, this spot, which purported tobe two thousand feet higher than the locality of the hotel, turned outto be nine thousand feet LOWER. Thus the fact was clearly demonstratedthat, ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT, THE HIGHER A POINT SEEMS TO BE, THE LOWERIT ACTUALLY IS. Our ascent itself was a great achievement, but thiscontribution to science was an inconceivably greater matter. 

Cavilers object that water boils at a lower and lower temperature thehigher and higher you go, and hence the apparent anomaly. I answer thatI do not base my theory upon what the boiling water does, but upon whata boiled thermometer says. You can't go behind the thermometer. 

I had a magnificent view of Monte Rosa, and apparently all the rest ofthe Alpine world, from that high place. All the circling horizon waspiled high with a mighty tumult of snowy crests. One might haveimagined he saw before him the tented camps of a beleaguering host ofBrobdingnagians. 

NOTE. --I had the very unusual luck to catch one little momentary glimpseof the Matterhorn wholly unencumbered by clouds. I leveled myphotographic apparatus at it without the loss of an instant, and shouldhave got an elegant picture if my donkey had not interfered. It was mypurpose to draw this photograph all by myself for my book, but wasobliged to put the mountain part of it into the hands of theprofessional artist because I found I could not do landscape well. 

But lonely, conspicuous, and superb, rose that wonderful upright wedge, the Matterhorn. Its precipitous sides were powdered over with snow, andthe upper half hidden in thick clouds which now and then dissolved tocobweb films and gave brief glimpses of the imposing tower as through aveil. A little later the Matterhorn took to himself the semblance ofa volcano; he was stripped naked to his apex--around this circledvast wreaths of white cloud which strung slowly out and streamed awayslantwise toward the sun, a twenty-mile stretch of rolling and tumblingvapor, and looking just as if it were pouring out of a crater. Lateragain, one of the mountain's sides was clean and clear, and anotherside densely clothed from base to summit in thick smokelike cloud whichfeathered off and flew around the shaft's sharp edge like the smokearound the corners of a burning building. The Matterhorn is alwaysexperimenting, and always gets up fine effects, too. In the sunset, whenall the lower world is palled in gloom, it points toward heaven out ofthe pervading blackness like a finger of fire. In the sunrise--well, they say it is very fine in the sunrise. 

Authorities agree that there is no such tremendous "layout" of snowyAlpine magnitude, grandeur, and sublimity to be seen from any otheraccessible point as the tourist may see from the summit of theRiffelberg. Therefore, let the tourist rope himself up and go there; forI have shown that with nerve, caution, and judgment, the thing can bedone. 

I wish to add one remark, here--in parentheses, so to speak--suggestedby the word "snowy, " which I have just used. We have all seen hills andmountains and levels with snow on them, and so we think we know all theaspects and effects produced by snow. But indeed we do not until we haveseen the Alps. Possibly mass and distance add something--at any rate, something IS added. Among other noticeable things, there is a dazzling, intense whiteness about the distant Alpine snow, when the sun is on it, which one recognizes as peculiar, and not familiar to the eye. The snowwhich one is accustomed to has a tint to it--painters usually give it abluish cast--but there is no perceptible tint to the distant Alpine snowwhen it is trying to look its whitest. As to the unimaginablesplendor of it when the sun is blazing down on it--well, it simply ISunimaginable. 

CHAPTER XXXIX

[We Travel by Glacier]

A guide-book is a queer thing. The reader has just seen what a man whoundertakes the great ascent from Zermatt to the Riffelberg Hotel mustexperience. Yet Baedeker makes these strange statements concerning thismatter:

 1. Distance--3 hours. 2. The road cannot be mistaken. 3. Guide unnecessary. 4. Distance from Riffelberg Hotel to the Gorner Grat, one hour and a half. 5. Ascent simple and easy. Guide unnecessary. 6. Elevation of Zermatt above sea-level, 5, 315 feet. 7. Elevation of Riffelberg Hotel above sea-level, 8, 429 feet. 8. Elevation of the Gorner Grat above sea-level, 10, 289 feet. 

I have pretty effectually throttled these errors by sending him thefollowing demonstrated facts:

 1. Distance from Zermatt to Riffelberg Hotel, 7 days. 2. The road CAN be mistaken. If I am the first that did it, I want the credit of it, too. 3. Guides ARE necessary, for none but a native can read those finger-boards. 4. The estimate of the elevation of the several localities above sea-level is pretty correct--for Baedeker. He only misses it about a hundred and eighty or ninety thousand feet. 

I found my arnica invaluable. My men were suffering excruciatingly, fromthe friction of sitting down so much. During two or three days, notone of them was able to do more than lie down or walk about; yet soeffective was the arnica, that on the fourth all were able to sit up. I consider that, more than to anything else, I owe the success of ourgreat undertaking to arnica and paregoric. 

My men are being restored to health and strength, my main perplexity, now, was how to get them down the mountain again. I was not willing toexpose the brave fellows to the perils, fatigues, and hardships of thatfearful route again if it could be helped. First I thought of balloons;but, of course, I had to give that idea up, for balloons werenot procurable. I thought of several other expedients, but uponconsideration discarded them, for cause. But at last I hit it. I wasaware that the movement of glaciers is an established fact, for I hadread it in Baedeker; so I resolved to take passage for Zermatt on thegreat Gorner Glacier. 

Very good. The next thing was, how to get down the glaciercomfortably--for the mule-road to it was long, and winding, andwearisome. I set my mind at work, and soon thought out a plan. One looksstraight down upon the vast frozen river called the Gorner Glacier, fromthe Gorner Grat, a sheer precipice twelve hundred feet high. We hadone hundred and fifty-four umbrellas--and what is an umbrella but aparachute?

I mentioned this noble idea to Harris, with enthusiasm, and was about toorder the Expedition to form on the Gorner Grat, with their umbrellas, and prepare for flight by platoons, each platoon in command of a guide, when Harris stopped me and urged me not to be too hasty. He asked me ifthis method of descending the Alps had ever been tried before. I saidno, I had not heard of an instance. Then, in his opinion, it was amatter of considerable gravity; in his opinion it would not be well tosend the whole command over the cliff at once; a better way would be tosend down a single individual, first, and see how he fared. 

I saw the wisdom in this idea instantly. I said as much, and thankedmy agent cordially, and told him to take his umbrella and try the thingright away, and wave his hat when he got down, if he struck in a softplace, and then I would ship the rest right along. 

Harris was greatly touched with this mark of confidence, and said so, in a voice that had a perceptible tremble in it; but at the same time hesaid he did not feel himself worthy of so conspicuous a favor; that itmight cause jealousy in the command, for there were plenty who would nothesitate to say he had used underhanded means to get the appointment, whereas his conscience would bear him witness that he had not sought itat all, nor even, in his secret heart, desired it. 

I said these words did him extreme credit, but that he must not throwaway the imperishable distinction of being the first man to descendan Alp per parachute, simply to save the feelings of some enviousunderlings. No, I said, he MUST accept the appointment--it was no longeran invitation, it was a command. 

He thanked me with effusion, and said that putting the thing in thisform removed every objection. He retired, and soon returned with hisumbrella, his eye flaming with gratitude and his cheeks pallid with joy. Just then the head guide passed along. Harris's expression changed toone of infinite tenderness, and he said:

"That man did me a cruel injury four days ago, and I said in my hearthe should live to perceive and confess that the only noble revenge aman can take upon his enemy is to return good for evil. I resign in hisfavor. Appoint him. "

I threw my arms around the generous fellow and said:

"Harris, you are the noblest soul that lives. You shall not regret thissublime act, neither shall the world fail to know of it. You shall haveopportunity far transcending this one, too, if I live--remember that. "

I called the head guide to me and appointed him on the spot. But thething aroused no enthusiasm in him. He did not take to the idea at all. 

He said:

"Tie myself to an umbrella and jump over the Gorner Grat! Excuse me, there are a great many pleasanter roads to the devil than that. "

Upon a discussion of the subject with him, it appeared that heconsidered the project distinctly and decidedly dangerous. I was notconvinced, yet I was not willing to try the experiment in any riskyway--that is, in a way that might cripple the strength and efficiencyof the Expedition. I was about at my wits' end when it occurred to me totry it on the Latinist. 

He was called in. But he declined, on the plea of inexperience, diffidence in public, lack of curiosity, and I didn't know what all. Another man declined on account of a cold in the head; thought heought to avoid exposure. Another could not jump well--never COULD jumpwell--did not believe he could jump so far without long and patientpractice. Another was afraid it was going to rain, and his umbrella hada hole in it. Everybody had an excuse. The result was what the readerhas by this time guessed: the most magnificent idea that was everconceived had to be abandoned, from sheer lack of a person withenterprise enough to carry it out. Yes, I actually had to give thatthing up--while doubtless I should live to see somebody use it and takeall the credit from me. 

Well, I had to go overland--there was no other way. I marched theExpedition down the steep and tedious mule-path and took up as good aposition as I could upon the middle of the glacier--because Baedekersaid the middle part travels the fastest. As a measure of economy, however, I put some of the heavier baggage on the shoreward parts, to goas slow freight. 

I waited and waited, but the glacier did not move. Night was coming on, the darkness began to gather--still we did not budge. It occurred to methen, that there might be a time-table in Baedeker; it would be well tofind out the hours of starting. I called for the book--it could not befound. Bradshaw would certainly contain a time-table; but no Bradshawcould be found. 

Very well, I must make the best of the situation. So I pitched thetents, picketed the animals, milked the cows, had supper, paregorickedthe men, established the watch, and went to bed--with orders to call meas soon as we came in sight of Zermatt. 

I awoke about half past ten next morning, and looked around. We hadn'tbudged a peg! At first I could not understand it; then it occurred to methat the old thing must be aground. So I cut down some trees and riggeda spar on the starboard and another on the port side, and fooled awayupward of three hours trying to spar her off. But it was no use. Shewas half a mile wide and fifteen or twenty miles long, and there wasno telling just whereabouts she WAS aground. The men began to showuneasiness, too, and presently they came flying to me with ashy faces, saying she had sprung a leak. 

Nothing but my cool behavior at this critical time saved us from anotherpanic. I ordered them to show me the place. They led me to a spot wherea huge boulder lay in a deep pool of clear and brilliant water. It didlook like a pretty bad leak, but I kept that to myself. I made a pumpand set the men to work to pump out the glacier. We made a success ofit. I perceived, then, that it was not a leak at all. This boulder haddescended from a precipice and stopped on the ice in the middle of theglacier, and the sun had warmed it up, every day, and consequently ithad melted its way deeper and deeper into the ice, until at last itreposed, as we had found it, in a deep pool of the clearest and coldestwater. 

Presently Baedeker was found again, and I hunted eagerly for thetime-table. There was none. The book simply said the glacier was movingall the time. This was satisfactory, so I shut up the book and chose agood position to view the scenery as we passed along. I stood there sometime enjoying the trip, but at last it occurred to me that we didnot seem to be gaining any on the scenery. I said to myself, "Thisconfounded old thing's aground again, sure, "--and opened Baedeker tosee if I could run across any remedy for these annoying interruptions. I soon found a sentence which threw a dazzling light upon the matter. It said, "The Gorner Glacier travels at an average rate of a little lessthan an inch a day. " I have seldom felt so outraged. I have seldom hadmy confidence so wantonly betrayed. I made a small calculation: One incha day, say thirty feet a year; estimated distance to Zermatt, three andone-eighteenth miles. Time required to go by glacier, A LITTLE OVER FIVEHUNDRED YEARS! I said to myself, "I can WALK it quicker--and before Iwill patronize such a fraud as this, I will do it. "

When I revealed to Harris the fact that the passenger part of thisglacier--the central part--the lightning-express part, so to speak--wasnot due in Zermatt till the summer of 2378, and that the baggage, comingalong the slow edge, would not arrive until some generations later, heburst out with:

"That is European management, all over! An inch a day--think of that!Five hundred years to go a trifle over three miles! But I am not a bitsurprised. It's a Catholic glacier. You can tell by the look of it. Andthe management. "

I said, no, I believed nothing but the extreme end of it was in aCatholic canton. 

"Well, then, it's a government glacier, " said Harris. "It's all thesame. Over here the government runs everything--so everything's slow;slow, and ill-managed. But with us, everything's done by privateenterprise--and then there ain't much lolling around, you can dependon it. I wish Tom Scott could get his hands on this torpid old slabonce--you'd see it take a different gait from this. "

I said I was sure he would increase the speed, if there was trade enoughto justify it. 

"He'd MAKE trade, " said Harris. "That's the difference betweengovernments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do. TomScott would take all the trade; in two years Gorner stock would go totwo hundred, and inside of two more you would see all the other glaciersunder the hammer for taxes. " After a reflective pause, Harris added, "Alittle less than an inch a day; a little less than an INCH, mind you. Well, I'm losing my reverence for glaciers. "

I was feeling much the same way myself. I have traveled by canal-boat, ox-wagon, raft, and by the Ephesus and Smyrna railway; but when it comesdown to good solid honest slow motion, I bet my money on the glacier. Asa means of passenger transportation, I consider the glacier a failure;but as a vehicle of slow freight, I think she fills the bill. In thematter of putting the fine shades on that line of business, I judge shecould teach the Germans something. 

I ordered the men to break camp and prepare for the land journey toZermatt. At this moment a most interesting find was made; a dark object, bedded in the glacial ice, was cut out with the ice-axes, and it provedto be a piece of the undressed skin of some animal--a hair trunk, perhaps; but a close inspection disabled the hair-trunk theory, andfurther discussion and examination exploded it entirely--that is, in theopinion of all the scientists except the one who had advanced it. Thisone clung to his theory with affectionate fidelity characteristic oforiginators of scientific theories, and afterward won many of the firstscientists of the age to his view, by a very able pamphlet which hewrote, entitled, "Evidences going to show that the hair trunk, in a wildstate, belonged to the early glacial period, and roamed the wastes ofchaos in the company with the cave-bear, primeval man, and the otherOoelitics of the Old Silurian family. "

Each of our scientists had a theory of his own, and put forwardan animal of his own as a candidate for the skin. I sided with thegeologist of the Expedition in the belief that this patch of skin hadonce helped to cover a Siberian elephant, in some old forgotten age--butwe divided there, the geologist believing that this discovery provedthat Siberia had formerly been located where Switzerland is now, whereasI held the opinion that it merely proved that the primeval Swiss was notthe dull savage he is represented to have been, but was a being of highintellectual development, who liked to go to the menagerie. 

We arrived that evening, after many hardships and adventures, in somefields close to the great ice-arch where the mad Visp boils and surgesout from under the foot of the great Gorner Glacier, and here we camped, our perils over and our magnificent undertaking successfully completed. We marched into Zermatt the next day, and were received with themost lavish honors and applause. A document, signed and sealed by theauthorities, was given to me which established and endorsed the factthat I had made the ascent of the Riffelberg. This I wear around myneck, and it will be buried with me when I am no more. 

CHAPTER XL

[Piteous Relics at Chamonix]

I am not so ignorant about glacial movement, now, as I was when I tookpassage on the Gorner Glacier. I have "read up" since. I am aware thatthese vast bodies of ice do not travel at the same rate of speed; whilethe Gorner Glacier makes less than an inch a day, the Unter-Aar Glaciermakes as much as eight; and still other glaciers are said to go twelve, sixteen, and even twenty inches a day. One writer says that the slowestglacier travels twenty-five feet a year, and the fastest four hundred. 

What is a glacier? It is easy to say it looks like a frozen river whichoccupies the bed of a winding gorge or gully between mountains. But thatgives no notion of its vastness. For it is sometimes six hundred feetthick, and we are not accustomed to rivers six hundred feet deep; no, our rivers are six feet, twenty feet, and sometimes fifty feet deep; weare not quite able to grasp so large a fact as an ice-river six hundredfeet deep. 

The glacier's surface is not smooth and level, but has deep swales andswelling elevations, and sometimes has the look of a tossing sea whoseturbulent billows were frozen hard in the instant of their most violentmotion; the glacier's surface is not a flawless mass, but is a riverwith cracks or crevices, some narrow, some gaping wide. Many a man, thevictim of a slip or a misstep, has plunged down one of these and met hisdeath. Men have been fished out of them alive; but it was when theydid not go to a great depth; the cold of the great depths would quicklystupefy a man, whether he was hurt or unhurt. These cracks do not gostraight down; one can seldom see more than twenty to forty feet downthem; consequently men who have disappeared in them have been soughtfor, in the hope that they had stopped within helping distance, whereastheir case, in most instances, had really been hopeless from thebeginning. 

In 1864 a party of tourists was descending Mont Blanc, and while pickingtheir way over one of the mighty glaciers of that lofty region, ropedtogether, as was proper, a young porter disengaged himself from the lineand started across an ice-bridge which spanned a crevice. It broke underhim with a crash, and he disappeared. The others could not see how deephe had gone, so it might be worthwhile to try and rescue him. A braveyoung guide named Michel Payot volunteered. 

Two ropes were made fast to his leather belt and he bore the end of athird one in his hand to tie to the victim in case he found him. He waslowered into the crevice, he descended deeper and deeper between theclear blue walls of solid ice, he approached a bend in the crack anddisappeared under it. Down, and still down, he went, into this profoundgrave; when he had reached a depth of eighty feet he passed underanother bend in the crack, and thence descended eighty feet lower, asbetween perpendicular precipices. Arrived at this stage of one hundredand sixty feet below the surface of the glacier, he peered through thetwilight dimness and perceived that the chasm took another turn andstretched away at a steep slant to unknown deeps, for its course waslost in darkness. What a place that was to be in--especially if thatleather belt should break! The compression of the belt threatened tosuffocate the intrepid fellow; he called to his friends to draw him up, but could not make them hear. They still lowered him, deeper and deeper. Then he jerked his third cord as vigorously as he could; his friendsunderstood, and dragged him out of those icy jaws of death. 

Then they attached a bottle to a cord and sent it down two hundred feet, but it found no bottom. It came up covered with congelations--evidenceenough that even if the poor porter reached the bottom with unbrokenbones, a swift death from cold was sure, anyway. 

A glacier is a stupendous, ever-progressing, resistless plow. It pushesahead of it masses of boulders which are packed together, and theystretch across the gorge, right in front of it, like a long grave or along, sharp roof. This is called a moraine. It also shoves out a morainealong each side of its course. 

Imposing as the modern glaciers are, they are not so huge as were somethat once existed. For instance, Mr. Whymper says:

"At some very remote period the Valley of Aosta was occupied by a vastglacier, which flowed down its entire length from Mont Blanc to theplain of Piedmont, remained stationary, or nearly so, at its mouthfor many centuries, and deposited there enormous masses of debris. Thelength of this glacier exceeded EIGHTY MILES, and it drained a basintwenty-five to thirty-five miles across, bounded by the highestmountains in the Alps. 

"The great peaks rose several thousand feet above the glaciers, andthen, as now, shattered by sun and frost, poured down their showers ofrocks and stones, in witness of which there are the immense piles ofangular fragments that constitute the moraines of Ivrea. 

"The moraines around Ivrea are of extraordinary dimensions. That whichwas on the left bank of the glacier is about THIRTEEN MILES long, andin some places rises to a height of TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTYFEET above the floor of the valley! The terminal moraines (those whichare pushed in front of the glaciers) cover something like twenty squaremiles of country. At the mouth of the Valley of Aosta, the thickness ofthe glacier must have been at least TWO THOUSAND feet, and its width, atthat part, FIVE MILES AND A QUARTER. "

It is not easy to get at a comprehension of a mass of ice like that. Ifone could cleave off the butt end of such a glacier--an oblong blocktwo or three miles wide by five and a quarter long and two thousandfeet thick--he could completely hide the city of New York under it, and Trinity steeple would only stick up into it relatively as far as ashingle-nail would stick up into the bottom of a Saratoga trunk. 

"The boulders from Mont Blanc, upon the plain below Ivrea, assure usthat the glacier which transported them existed for a prodigious lengthof time. Their present distance from the cliffs from which they werederived is about 420, 000 feet, and if we assume that they traveled atthe rate of 400 feet per annum, their journey must have occupied them noless than 1, 055 years! In all probability they did not travel so fast. "

Glaciers are sometimes hurried out of their characteristic snail-pace. A marvelous spectacle is presented then. Mr. Whymper refers to a casewhich occurred in Iceland in 1721:

"It seems that in the neighborhood of the mountain Kotlugja, largebodies of water formed underneath, or within the glaciers (either onaccount of the interior heat of the earth, or from other causes), and atlength acquired irresistible power, tore the glaciers from their mooringon the land, and swept them over every obstacle into the sea. Prodigiousmasses of ice were thus borne for a distance of about ten miles overland in the space of a few hours; and their bulk was so enormous thatthey covered the sea for seven miles from the shore, and remainedaground in six hundred feet of water! The denudation of the land wasupon a grand scale. All superficial accumulations were swept away, andthe bedrock was exposed. It was described, in graphic language, how allirregularities and depressions were obliterated, and a smooth surface ofseveral miles' area laid bare, and that this area had the appearance ofhaving been PLANED BY A PLANE. "

The account translated from the Icelandic says that the mountainlikeruins of this majestic glacier so covered the sea that as far as the eyecould reach no open water was discoverable, even from the highest peaks. A monster wall or barrier of ice was built across a considerable stretchof land, too, by this strange irruption:

"One can form some idea of the altitude of this barrier of ice when itis mentioned that from Hofdabrekka farm, which lies high up on a fjeld, one could not see Hjorleifshofdi opposite, which is a fell six hundredand forty feet in height; but in order to do so had to clamber up amountain slope east of Hofdabrekka twelve hundred feet high. "

These things will help the reader to understand why it is that a man whokeeps company with glaciers comes to feel tolerably insignificant byand by. The Alps and the glaciers together are able to take every bit ofconceit out of a man and reduce his self-importance to zero if he willonly remain within the influence of their sublime presence long enoughto give it a fair and reasonable chance to do its work. 

The Alpine glaciers move--that is granted, now, by everybody. But therewas a time when people scoffed at the idea; they said you might as wellexpect leagues of solid rock to crawl along the ground as expect leaguesof ice to do it. But proof after proof was furnished, and the finallythe world had to believe. 

The wise men not only said the glacier moved, but they timed itsmovement. They ciphered out a glacier's gait, and then said confidentlythat it would travel just so far in so many years. There is record ofa striking and curious example of the accuracy which may be attained inthese reckonings. 

In 1820 the ascent of Mont Blanc was attempted by a Russian and twoEnglishmen, with seven guides. They had reached a prodigious altitude, and were approaching the summit, when an avalanche swept several of theparty down a sharp slope of two hundred feet and hurled five of them(all guides) into one of the crevices of a glacier. The life of oneof the five was saved by a long barometer which was strapped to hisback--it bridged the crevice and suspended him until help came. Thealpenstock or baton of another saved its owner in a similar way. Threemen were lost--Pierre Balmat, Pierre Carrier, and Auguste Tairraz. Theyhad been hurled down into the fathomless great deeps of the crevice. 

Dr. Forbes, the English geologist, had made frequent visits to the MontBlanc region, and had given much attention to the disputed question ofthe movement of glaciers. During one of these visits he completed hisestimates of the rate of movement of the glacier which had swallowedup the three guides, and uttered the prediction that the glacier woulddeliver up its dead at the foot of the mountain thirty-five years fromthe time of the accident, or possibly forty. 

A dull, slow journey--a movement imperceptible to any eye--but it wasproceeding, nevertheless, and without cessation. It was a journeywhich a rolling stone would make in a few seconds--the lofty point ofdeparture was visible from the village below in the valley. 

The prediction cut curiously close to the truth; forty-one years afterthe catastrophe, the remains were cast forth at the foot of the glacier. 

I find an interesting account of the matter in the HISTOIRE DU MONTBLANC, by Stephen d'Arve. I will condense this account, as follows:

On the 12th of August, 1861, at the hour of the close of mass, a guidearrived out of breath at the mairie of Chamonix, and bearing on hisshoulders a very lugubrious burden. It was a sack filled with humanremains which he had gathered from the orifice of a crevice in theGlacier des Bossons. He conjectured that these were remains of thevictims of the catastrophe of 1820, and a minute inquest, immediatelyinstituted by the local authorities, soon demonstrated the correctnessof his supposition. The contents of the sack were spread upon a longtable, and officially inventoried, as follows:

Portions of three human skulls. Several tufts of black and blonde hair. A human jaw, furnished with fine white teeth. A forearm and hand, allthe fingers of the latter intact. The flesh was white and fresh, and both the arm and hand preserved a degree of flexibility in thearticulations. 

The ring-finger had suffered a slight abrasion, and the stain of theblood was still visible and unchanged after forty-one years. A leftfoot, the flesh white and fresh. 

Along with these fragments were portions of waistcoats, hats, hobnailedshoes, and other clothing; a wing of a pigeon, with black feathers; afragment of an alpenstock; a tin lantern; and lastly, a boiled leg ofmutton, the only flesh among all the remains that exhaled an unpleasantodor. The guide said that the mutton had no odor when he took it fromthe glacier; an hour's exposure to the sun had already begun the work ofdecomposition upon it. 

Persons were called for, to identify these poor pathetic relics, and atouching scene ensued. Two men were still living who had witnessed thegrim catastrophe of nearly half a century before--Marie Couttet (savedby his baton) and Julien Davouassoux (saved by the barometer). Theseaged men entered and approached the table. Davouassoux, more than eightyyears old, contemplated the mournful remains mutely and with a vacanteye, for his intelligence and his memory were torpid with age; butCouttet's faculties were still perfect at seventy-two, and he exhibitedstrong emotion. He said:

"Pierre Balmat was fair; he wore a straw hat. This bit of skull, withthe tuft of blond hair, was his; this is his hat. Pierre Carrier wasvery dark; this skull was his, and this felt hat. This is Balmat'shand, I remember it so well!" and the old man bent down and kissed itreverently, then closed his fingers upon it in an affectionate grasp, crying out, "I could never have dared to believe that before quittingthis world it would be granted me to press once more the hand of one ofthose brave comrades, the hand of my good friend Balmat. "

There is something weirdly pathetic about the picture of thatwhite-haired veteran greeting with his loving handshake this friendwho had been dead forty years. When these hands had met last, they werealike in the softness and freshness of youth; now, one was brown andwrinkled and horny with age, while the other was still as young and fairand blemishless as if those forty years had come and gone in a singlemoment, leaving no mark of their passage. Time had gone on, in the onecase; it had stood still in the other. A man who has not seen a friendfor a generation, keeps him in mind always as he saw him last, and issomehow surprised, and is also shocked, to see the aging change theyears have wrought when he sees him again. Marie Couttet's experience, in finding his friend's hand unaltered from the image of it which hehad carried in his memory for forty years, is an experience which standsalone in the history of man, perhaps. 

Couttet identified other relics:

"This hat belonged to Auguste Tairraz. He carried the cage of pigeonswhich we proposed to set free upon the summit. Here is the wing of oneof those pigeons. And here is the fragment of my broken baton; it was bygrace of that baton that my life was saved. Who could have told me thatI should one day have the satisfaction to look again upon this bit ofwood that supported me above the grave that swallowed up my unfortunatecompanions!"

No portions of the body of Tairraz, other than a piece of the skull, had been found. A diligent search was made, but without result. However, another search was instituted a year later, and this had better success. Many fragments of clothing which had belonged to the lost guides werediscovered; also, part of a lantern, and a green veil with blood-stainson it. But the interesting feature was this:

One of the searchers came suddenly upon a sleeved arm projecting froma crevice in the ice-wall, with the hand outstretched as if offeringgreeting! "The nails of this white hand were still rosy, and the poseof the extended fingers seemed to express an eloquent welcome to thelong-lost light of day. "

The hand and arm were alone; there was no trunk. After being removedfrom the ice the flesh-tints quickly faded out and the rosy nails tookon the alabaster hue of death. This was the third RIGHT hand found;therefore, all three of the lost men were accounted for, beyond cavil orquestion. 

Dr. Hamel was the Russian gentleman of the party which made the ascentat the time of the famous disaster. He left Chamonix as soon as heconveniently could after the descent; and as he had shown a chillyindifference about the calamity, and offered neither sympathy norassistance to the widows and orphans, he carried with him the cordialexecrations of the whole community. Four months before the first remainswere found, a Chamonix guide named Balmat--a relative of one of the lostmen--was in London, and one day encountered a hale old gentleman in theBritish Museum, who said:

"I overheard your name. Are you from Chamonix, Monsieur Balmat?"

"Yes, sir. "

"Haven't they found the bodies of my three guides, yet? I am Dr. Hamel. "

"Alas, no, monsieur. "

"Well, you'll find them, sooner or later. "

"Yes, it is the opinion of Dr. Forbes and Mr. Tyndall, that the glacierwill sooner or later restore to us the remains of the unfortunatevictims. "

"Without a doubt, without a doubt. And it will be a great thing forChamonix, in the matter of attracting tourists. You can get up a museumwith those remains that will draw!"

This savage idea has not improved the odor of Dr. Hamel's name inChamonix by any means. But after all, the man was sound on human nature. His idea was conveyed to the public officials of Chamonix, and theygravely discussed it around the official council-table. They were onlyprevented from carrying it into execution by the determined oppositionof the friends and descendants of the lost guides, who insisted ongiving the remains Christian burial, and succeeded in their purpose. 

A close watch had to be kept upon all the poor remnants and fragments, to prevent embezzlement. A few accessory odds and ends were sold. Ragsand scraps of the coarse clothing were parted with at the rate equal toabout twenty dollars a yard; a piece of a lantern and one or two othertrifles brought nearly their weight in gold; and an Englishman offered apound sterling for a single breeches-button. 

CHAPTER XLI

[The Fearful Disaster of 1865]

One of the most memorable of all the Alpine catastrophes was that ofJuly, 1865, on the Matterhorn--already slightly referred to, a fewpages back. The details of it are scarcely known in America. To the vastmajority of readers they are not known at all. Mr. Whymper's account isthe only authentic one. I will import the chief portion of it into thisbook, partly because of its intrinsic interest, and partly because itgives such a vivid idea of what the perilous pastime of Alp-climbingis. This was Mr. Whymper's NINTH attempt during a series of years, tovanquish that steep and stubborn pillar or rock; it succeeded, the othereight were failures. No man had ever accomplished the ascent before, though the attempts had been numerous. 

MR. WHYMPER'S NARRATIVE We started from Zermatt on the 13th of July, athalf past five, on a brilliant and perfectly cloudless morning. We wereeight in number--Croz (guide), old Peter Taugwalder (guide) and histwo sons; Lord F. Douglas, Mr. Hadow, Rev. Mr. Hudson, and I. To insuresteady motion, one tourist and one native walked together. The youngestTaugwalder fell to my share. The wine-bags also fell to my lot to carry, and throughout the day, after each drink, I replenished them secretlywith water, so that at the next halt they were found fuller than before!This was considered a good omen, and little short of miraculous. 

On the first day we did not intend to ascend to any great height, and wemounted, accordingly, very leisurely. Before twelve o'clock we had founda good position for the tent, at a height of eleven thousand feet. Wepassed the remaining hours of daylight--some basking in the sunshine, some sketching, some collecting; Hudson made tea, I coffee, and atlength we retired, each one to his blanket bag. 

We assembled together before dawn on the 14th and started directlyit was light enough to move. One of the young Taugwalders returned toZermatt. In a few minutes we turned the rib which had intercepted theview of the eastern face from our tent platform. The whole of thisgreat slope was now revealed, rising for three thousand feet like a hugenatural staircase. Some parts were more, and others were less easy, butwe were not once brought to a halt by any serious impediment, for whenan obstruction was met in front it could always be turned to the rightor to the left. For the greater part of the way there was no occasion, indeed, for the rope, and sometimes Hudson led, sometimes myself. Atsix-twenty we had attained a height of twelve thousand eight hundredfeet, and halted for half an hour; we then continued the ascent withouta break until nine-fifty-five, when we stopped for fifty minutes, at aheight of fourteen thousand feet. 

We had now arrived at the foot of that part which, seen from theRiffelberg, seems perpendicular or overhanging. We could no longercontinue on the eastern side. For a little distance we ascended by snowupon the ARÊTE--that is, the ridge--then turned over to the right, ornorthern side. The work became difficult, and required caution. In someplaces there was little to hold; the general slope of the mountain wasLESS than forty degrees, and snow had accumulated in, and had filledup, the interstices of the rock-face, leaving only occasional fragmentsprojecting here and there. These were at times covered with a thin filmof ice. It was a place which any fair mountaineer might pass in safety. We bore away nearly horizontally for about four hundred feet, thenascended directly toward the summit for about sixty feet, then doubledback to the ridge which descends toward Zermatt. A long stride rounda rather awkward corner brought us to snow once more. That last doubtvanished! The Matterhorn was ours! Nothing but two hundred feet of easysnow remained to be surmounted. 

The higher we rose, the more intense became the excitement. The slopeeased off, at length we could be detached, and Croz and I, dashed away, ran a neck-and-neck race, which ended in a dead heat. At 1:40 P. M. , theworld was at our feet, and the Matterhorn was conquered!

The others arrived. Croz now took the tent-pole, and planted it in thehighest snow. "Yes, " we said, "there is the flag-staff, but where is theflag?" "Here it is, " he answered, pulling off his blouse and fixing itto the stick. It made a poor flag, and there was no wind to floatit out, yet it was seen all around. They saw it at Zermatt--at theRiffel--in the Val Tournanche... . 

We remained on the summit for one hour--

One crowded hour of glorious life. 

It passed away too quickly, and we began to prepare for the descent. 

Hudson and I consulted as to the best and safest arrangement of theparty. We agreed that it was best for Croz to go first, and Hadowsecond; Hudson, who was almost equal to a guide in sureness of foot, wished to be third; Lord Douglas was placed next, and old Peter, thestrongest of the remainder, after him. I suggested to Hudson that weshould attach a rope to the rocks on our arrival at the difficult bit, and hold it as we descended, as an additional protection. He approvedthe idea, but it was not definitely decided that it should be done. Theparty was being arranged in the above order while I was sketching thesummit, and they had finished, and were waiting for me to be tied inline, when some one remembered that our names had not been left in abottle. They requested me to write them down, and moved off while it wasbeing done. 

A few minutes afterward I tied myself to young Peter, ran down after theothers, and caught them just as they were commencing the descent of thedifficult part. Great care was being taken. Only one man was moving at atime; when he was firmly planted the next advanced, and so on. They hadnot, however, attached the additional rope to rocks, and nothing wassaid about it. The suggestion was not made for my own sake, and I am notsure that it ever occurred to me again. For some little distance we twofollowed the others, detached from them, and should have continued sohad not Lord Douglas asked me, about 3 P. M. , to tie on to old Peter, ashe feared, he said, that Taugwalder would not be able to hold his groundif a slip occurred. 

A few minutes later, a sharp-eyed lad ran into the Monte Rosa Hotel, atZermatt, saying that he had seen an avalanche fall from the summit ofthe Matterhorn onto the Matterhorn glacier. The boy was reproved fortelling idle stories; he was right, nevertheless, and this was what hesaw. 

Michel Croz had laid aside his ax, and in order to give Mr. Hadowgreater security, was absolutely taking hold of his legs, and puttinghis feet, one by one, into their proper positions. As far as I know, noone was actually descending. I cannot speak with certainty, because thetwo leading men were partially hidden from my sight by an interveningmass of rock, but it is my belief, from the movements of theirshoulders, that Croz, having done as I said, was in the act of turninground to go down a step or two himself; at this moment Mr. Hadowslipped, fell against him, and knocked him over. I heard one startledexclamation from Croz, then saw him and Mr. Hadow flying downward;in another moment Hudson was dragged from his steps, and Lord Douglasimmediately after him. All this was the work of a moment. Immediately weheard Croz's exclamation, old Peter and I planted ourselves as firmly asthe rocks would permit; the rope was taut between us, and the jerk cameon us both as on one man. We held; but the rope broke midway betweenTaugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For a few seconds we saw ourunfortunate companions sliding downward on their backs, and spreadingout their hands, endeavoring to save themselves. They passed from oursight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell from the precipice toprecipice onto the Matterhorn glacier below, a distance of nearlyfour thousand feet in height. From the moment the rope broke it wasimpossible to help them. So perished our comrades!

For more than two hours afterward I thought almost every moment that thenext would be my last; for the Taugwalders, utterly unnerved, were notonly incapable of giving assistance, but were in such a state that aslip might have been expected from them at any moment. After a time wewere able to do that which should have been done at first, and fixedrope to firm rocks, in addition to being tied together. These ropes werecut from time to time, and were left behind. Even with their assurancethe men were afraid to proceed, and several times old Peter turned, with ashy face and faltering limbs, and said, with terrible emphasis, "ICANNOT!"

About 6 P. M. , we arrived at the snow upon the ridge descending towardZermatt, and all peril was over. We frequently looked, but in vain, fortraces of our unfortunate companions; we bent over the ridge and criedto them, but no sound returned. Convinced at last that they were neitherwithin sight nor hearing, we ceased from our useless efforts; and, toocast down for speech, silently gathered up our things, and the littleeffects of those who were lost, and then completed the descent. Suchis Mr. Whymper's graphic and thrilling narrative. Zermatt gossipdarkly hints that the elder Taugwalder cut the rope, when the accidentoccurred, in order to preserve himself from being dragged into theabyss; but Mr. Whymper says that the ends of the rope showed no evidenceof cutting, but only of breaking. He adds that if Taugwalder had had thedisposition to cut the rope, he would not have had time to do it, theaccident was so sudden and unexpected. 

Lord Douglas' body has never been found. It probably lodged upon someinaccessible shelf in the face of the mighty precipice. Lord Douglas wasa youth of nineteen. The three other victims fell nearly four thousandfeet, and their bodies lay together upon the glacier when found byMr. Whymper and the other searchers the next morning. Their graves arebeside the little church in Zermatt. 

CHAPTER XLII

[Chillon has a Nice, Roomy Dungeon]

Switzerland is simply a large, humpy, solid rock, with a thin skin ofgrass stretched over it. Consequently, they do not dig graves, theyblast them out with powder and fuse. They cannot afford to have largegraveyards, the grass skin is too circumscribed and too valuable. It isall required for the support of the living. 

The graveyard in Zermatt occupies only about one-eighth of an acre. The graves are sunk in the living rock, and are very permanent; butoccupation of them is only temporary; the occupant can only stay tillhis grave is needed by a later subject, he is removed, then, for they donot bury one body on top of another. As I understand it, a family ownsa grave, just as it owns a house. A man dies and leaves his house to hisson--and at the same time, this dead father succeeds to his own father'sgrave. He moves out of the house and into the grave, and his predecessormoves out of the grave and into the cellar of the chapel. I saw a blackbox lying in the churchyard, with skull and cross-bones painted on it, and was told that this was used in transferring remains to the cellar. 

In that cellar the bones and skulls of several hundred of formercitizens were compactly corded up. They made a pile eighteen feet long, seven feet high, and eight feet wide. I was told that in some of thereceptacles of this kind in the Swiss villages, the skulls were allmarked, and if a man wished to find the skulls of his ancestors forseveral generations back, he could do it by these marks, preserved inthe family records. 

An English gentleman who had lived some years in this region, said itwas the cradle of compulsory education. But he said that the Englishidea that compulsory education would reduce bastardy and intemperancewas an error--it has not that effect. He said there was more seductionin the Protestant than in the Catholic cantons, because the confessionalprotected the girls. I wonder why it doesn't protect married women inFrance and Spain?

This gentleman said that among the poorer peasants in the Valais, it wascommon for the brothers in a family to cast lots to determine whichof them should have the coveted privilege of marrying, and hisbrethren--doomed bachelors--heroically banded themselves together tohelp support the new family. 

We left Zermatt in a wagon--and in a rain-storm, too--for St. Nicholasabout ten o'clock one morning. Again we passed between those grass-cladprodigious cliffs, specked with wee dwellings peeping over at us fromvelvety green walls ten and twelve hundred feet high. It did not seempossible that the imaginary chamois even could climb those precipices. Lovers on opposite cliffs probably kiss through a spy-glass, andcorrespond with a rifle. 

In Switzerland the farmer's plow is a wide shovel, which scrapes up andturns over the thin earthy skin of his native rock--and there the man ofthe plow is a hero. Now here, by our St. Nicholas road, was a grave, andit had a tragic story. A plowman was skinning his farm one morning--notthe steepest part of it, but still a steep part--that is, he was notskinning the front of his farm, but the roof of it, near the eaves--whenhe absent-mindedly let go of the plow-handles to moisten his hands, inthe usual way; he lost his balance and fell out of his farm backward;poor fellow, he never touched anything till he struck bottom, fifteenhundred feet below. [This was on a Sunday. --M. T. ] We throw a halo ofheroism around the life of the soldier and the sailor, because of thedeadly dangers they are facing all the time. But we are not used tolooking upon farming as a heroic occupation. This is because we have notlived in Switzerland. 

From St. Nicholas we struck out for Visp--or Vispach--on foot. Therain-storms had been at work during several days, and had done a deal ofdamage in Switzerland and Savoy. We came to one place where a stream hadchanged its course and plunged down a mountain in a new place, sweepingeverything before it. Two poor but precious farms by the roadside wereruined. One was washed clear away, and the bed-rock exposed; the otherwas buried out of sight under a tumbled chaos of rocks, gravel, mud, and rubbish. The resistless might of water was well exemplified. Somesaplings which had stood in the way were bent to the ground, strippedclean of their bark, and buried under rocky debris. The road had beenswept away, too. 

In another place, where the road was high up on the mountain's face, andits outside edge protected by flimsy masonry, we frequently came acrossspots where this masonry had carved off and left dangerous gaps formules to get over; and with still more frequency we found the masonryslightly crumbled, and marked by mule-hoofs, thus showing that there hadbeen danger of an accident to somebody. When at last we came to abadly ruptured bit of masonry, with hoof-prints evidencing a desperatestruggle to regain the lost foothold, I looked quite hopefully over thedizzy precipice. But there was nobody down there. 

They take exceedingly good care of their rivers in Switzerland and otherportions of Europe. They wall up both banks with slanting solid stonemasonry--so that from end to end of these rivers the banks look like thewharves at St. Louis and other towns on the Mississippi River. 

It was during this walk from St. Nicholas, in the shadow of the majesticAlps, that we came across some little children amusing themselves inwhat seemed, at first, a most odd and original way--but it wasn't; itwas in simply a natural and characteristic way. They were roped togetherwith a string, they had mimic alpenstocks and ice-axes, and wereclimbing a meek and lowly manure-pile with a most blood-curdling amountof care and caution. The "guide" at the head of the line cut imaginarysteps, in a laborious and painstaking way, and not a monkey budged tillthe step above was vacated. If we had waited we should have witnessed animaginary accident, no doubt; and we should have heard the intrepid bandhurrah when they made the summit and looked around upon the "magnificentview, " and seen them throw themselves down in exhausted attitudes for arest in that commanding situation. 

In Nevada I used to see the children play at silver-mining. Of course, the great thing was an accident in a mine, and there were two "star"parts; that of the man who fell down the mimic shaft, and that of thedaring hero who was lowered into the depths to bring him up. I knew onesmall chap who always insisted on playing BOTH of these parts--and hecarried his point. He would tumble into the shaft and die, and then cometo the surface and go back after his own remains. 

It is the smartest boy that gets the hero part everywhere; he is headguide in Switzerland, head miner in Nevada, head bull-fighter in Spain, etc. ; but I knew a preacher's son, seven years old, who once selecteda part for himself compared to which those just mentioned are tameand unimpressive. Jimmy's father stopped him from driving imaginaryhorse-cars one Sunday--stopped him from playing captain of an imaginarysteamboat next Sunday--stopped him from leading an imaginary army tobattle the following Sunday--and so on. Finally the little fellow said:

"I've tried everything, and they won't any of them do. What CAN I play?"

"I hardly know, Jimmy; but you MUST play only things that are suitableto the Sabbath-day. "

Next Sunday the preacher stepped softly to a back-room door to see ifthe children were rightly employed. He peeped in. A chair occupied themiddle of the room, and on the back of it hung Jimmy's cap; one ofhis little sisters took the cap down, nibbled at it, then passed it toanother small sister and said, "Eat of this fruit, for it is good. " TheReverend took in the situation--alas, they were playing the Expulsionfrom Eden! Yet he found one little crumb of comfort. He said to himself, "For once Jimmy has yielded the chief role--I have been wronging him, Idid not believe there was so much modesty in him; I should have expectedhim to be either Adam or Eve. " This crumb of comfort lasted but a verylittle while; he glanced around and discovered Jimmy standing in animposing attitude in a corner, with a dark and deadly frown on his face. What that meant was very plain--HE WAS IMPERSONATING THE DEITY! Think ofthe guileless sublimity of that idea. 

We reached Vispach at 8 P. M. , only about seven hours out from St. Nicholas. So we must have made fully a mile and a half an hour, and itwas all downhill, too, and very muddy at that. We stayed all night atthe Hotel de Soleil; I remember it because the landlady, the portier, the waitress, and the chambermaid were not separate persons, but wereall contained in one neat and chipper suit of spotless muslin, and shewas the prettiest young creature I saw in all that region. She was thelandlord's daughter. And I remember that the only native match to herI saw in all Europe was the young daughter of the landlord of a villageinn in the Black Forest. Why don't more people in Europe marry and keephotel?

Next morning we left with a family of English friends and went by trainto Brevet, and thence by boat across the lake to Ouchy (Lausanne). 

Ouchy is memorable to me, not on account of its beautiful situation andlovely surroundings--although these would make it stick long in one'smemory--but as the place where _I_ caught the London TIMES dropping intohumor. It was NOT aware of it, though. It did not do it on purpose. An English friend called my attention to this lapse, and cut out thereprehensible paragraph for me. Think of encountering a grin like thison the face of that grim journal:

ERRATUM. --We are requested by Reuter's Telegram Company to correct anerroneous announcement made in their Brisbane telegram of the 2d inst. , published in our impression of the 5th inst. , stating that "Lady Kennedyhad given birth to twins, the eldest being a son. " The Company explainthat the message they received contained the words "Governor ofQueensland, TWINS FIRST SON. " Being, however, subsequently informed thatSir Arthur Kennedy was unmarried and that there must be some mistake, atelegraphic repetition was at once demanded. It has been received today(11th inst. ) and shows that the words really telegraphed by Reuter'sagent were "Governor Queensland TURNS FIRST SOD, " alluding to theMaryborough-Gympic Railway in course of construction. The words initalics were mutilated by the telegraph in transmission from Australia, and reaching the company in the form mentioned above gave rise to themistake. 

I had always had a deep and reverent compassion for the sufferings ofthe "prisoner of Chillon, " whose story Byron had told in such movingverse; so I took the steamer and made pilgrimage to the dungeons of theCastle of Chillon, to see the place where poor Bonnivard endured hisdreary captivity three hundred years ago. I am glad I did that, for ittook away some of the pain I was feeling on the prisoner's account. Hisdungeon was a nice, cool, roomy place, and I cannot see why he shouldhave been dissatisfied with it. If he had been imprisoned in a St. Nicholas private dwelling, where the fertilizer prevails, and the goatsleeps with the guest, and the chickens roost on him and the cow comesin and bothers him when he wants to muse, it would have been anothermatter altogether; but he surely could not have had a very cheerlesstime of it in that pretty dungeon. It has romantic window-slits thatlet in generous bars of light, and it has tall, noble columns, carvedapparently from the living rock; and what is more, they are writtenall over with thousands of names; some of them--like Byron's and VictorHugo's--of the first celebrity. Why didn't he amuse himself readingthese names? Then there are the couriers and tourists--swarms of themevery day--what was to hinder him from having a good time with them? Ithink Bonnivard's sufferings have been overrated. 

Next, we took the train and went to Martigny, on the way to Mont Blanc. Next morning we started, about eight o'clock, on foot. We had plenty ofcompany, in the way of wagon-loads and mule-loads of tourists--and dust. This scattering procession of travelers was perhaps a mile long. Theroad was uphill--interminable uphill--and tolerably steep. The weatherwas blisteringly hot, and the man or woman who had to sit on a creepingmule, or in a crawling wagon, and broil in the beating sun, was anobject to be pitied. We could dodge among the bushes, and have therelief of shade, but those people could not. They paid for a conveyance, and to get their money's worth they rode. 

We went by the way of the Tête Noir, and after we reached high groundthere was no lack of fine scenery. In one place the road was tunneledthrough a shoulder of the mountain; from there one looked down into agorge with a rushing torrent in it, and on every hand was a charmingview of rocky buttresses and wooded heights. There was a liberalallowance of pretty waterfalls, too, on the Tête Noir route. 

About half an hour before we reached the village of Argentière a vastdome of snow with the sun blazing on it drifted into view and frameditself in a strong V-shaped gateway of the mountains, and we recognizedMont Blanc, the "monarch of the Alps. " With every step, after that, this stately dome rose higher and higher into the blue sky, and at lastseemed to occupy the zenith. 

Some of Mont Blanc's neighbors--bare, light-brown, steeplelikerocks--were very peculiarly shaped. Some were whittled to a sharp point, and slightly bent at the upper end, like a lady's finger; one monstersugar-loaf resembled a bishop's hat; it was too steep to hold snow onits sides, but had some in the division. 

While we were still on very high ground, and before the descent towardArgentière began, we looked up toward a neighboring mountain-top, andsaw exquisite prismatic colors playing about some white clouds whichwere so delicate as to almost resemble gossamer webs. The faint pinksand greens were peculiarly beautiful; none of the colors were deep, theywere the lightest shades. They were bewitching commingled. We sat downto study and enjoy this singular spectacle. The tints remained duringseveral minutes--flitting, changing, melting into each other; palingalmost away for a moment, then reflushing--a shifting, restless, unstable succession of soft opaline gleams, shimmering over that airfilm of white cloud, and turning it into a fabric dainty enough toclothe an angel with. 

By and by we perceived what those super-delicate colors, and theircontinuous play and movement, reminded us of; it is what one sees in asoap-bubble that is drifting along, catching changes of tint from theobjects it passes. A soap-bubble is the most beautiful thing, and themost exquisite, in nature; that lovely phantom fabric in the sky wassuggestive of a soap-bubble split open, and spread out in the sun. Iwonder how much it would take to buy a soap-bubble, if there was onlyone in the world? One could buy a hatful of Koh-i-Noors with the samemoney, no doubt. 

We made the tramp from Martigny to Argentière in eight hours. We beatall the mules and wagons; we didn't usually do that. We hired a sort ofopen baggage-wagon for the trip down the valley to Chamonix, and thendevoted an hour to dining. This gave the driver time to get drunk. Hehad a friend with him, and this friend also had had time to get drunk. 

When we drove off, the driver said all the tourists had arrived andgone by while we were at dinner; "but, " said he, impressively, "be notdisturbed by that--remain tranquil--give yourselves no uneasiness--theirdust rises far before us--rest you tranquil, leave all to me--I am theking of drivers. Behold!"

Down came his whip, and away we clattered. I never had such a shaking upin my life. The recent flooding rains had washed the road clear away inplaces, but we never stopped, we never slowed down for anything. We toreright along, over rocks, rubbish, gullies, open fields--sometimes withone or two wheels on the ground, but generally with none. Every now andthen that calm, good-natured madman would bend a majestic look over hisshoulder at us and say, "Ah, you perceive? It is as I have said--I amthe king of drivers. " Every time we just missed going to destruction, he would say, with tranquil happiness, "Enjoy it, gentlemen, it is veryrare, it is very unusual--it is given to few to ride with the king ofdrivers--and observe, it is as I have said, I am he. "

He spoke in French, and punctuated with hiccoughs. His friend wasFrench, too, but spoke in German--using the same system of punctuation, however. The friend called himself the "Captain of Mont Blanc, " andwanted us to make the ascent with him. He said he had made more ascentsthan any other man--forty seven--and his brother had made thirty-seven. His brother was the best guide in the world, except himself--but he, yes, observe him well--he was the "Captain of Mont Blanc"--that titlebelonged to none other. 

The "king" was as good as his word--he overtook that long processionof tourists and went by it like a hurricane. The result was that we gotchoicer rooms at the hotel in Chamonix than we should have done ifhis majesty had been a slower artist--or rather, if he hadn't mostprovidentially got drunk before he left Argentière.