Book: A Tramp Abroad, Part 5
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Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> A Tramp Abroad, Part 5
A TRAMP ABROAD
By Mark Twain
(Samuel L. Clemens)
First published in 1880
Part 5.
CHAPTER XXIX
[Looking West for Sunrise]
He kept his word. We heard his horn and instantly got up.
It was dark and cold and wretched. As I fumbled around
for the matches, knocking things down with my quaking hands,
I wished the sun would rise in the middle of the day,
when it was warm and bright and cheerful, and one
wasn't sleepy. We proceeded to dress by the gloom of a
couple sickly candles, but we could hardly button anything,
our hands shook so. I thought of how many happy people
there were in Europe, Asia, and America, and everywhere,
who were sleeping peacefully in their beds, and did not
have to get up and see the Rigi sunrise--people who did
not appreciate their advantage, as like as not, but would
get up in the morning wanting more boons of Providence.
While thinking these thoughts I yawned, in a rather ample way,
and my upper teeth got hitched on a nail over the door,
and while I was mounting a chair to free myself, Harris drew
the window-curtain, and said:
"Oh, this is luck! We shan't have to go out at all
--yonder are the mountains, in full view."
That was glad news, indeed. It made us cheerful right away.
One could see the grand Alpine masses dimly outlined
against the black firmament, and one or two faint stars
blinking through rifts in the night. Fully clothed,
and wrapped in blankets, and huddled ourselves up,
by the window, with lighted pipes, and fell into chat,
while we waited in exceeding comfort to see how an Alpine
sunrise was going to look by candlelight. By and by
a delicate, spiritual sort of effulgence spread itself
by imperceptible degrees over the loftiest altitudes of
the snowy wastes--but there the effort seemed to stop.
I said, presently:
"There is a hitch about this sunrise somewhere.
It doesn't seem to go. What do you reckon is the matter
with it?"
"I don't know. It appears to hang fire somewhere.
I never saw a sunrise act like that before. Can it be
that the hotel is playing anything on us?"
"Of course not. The hotel merely has a property interest
in the sun, it has nothing to do with the management of it.
It is a precarious kind of property, too; a succession
of total eclipses would probably ruin this tavern.
Now what can be the matter with this sunrise?"
Harris jumped up and said:
"I've got it! I know what's the matter with it! We've
been looking at the place where the sun SET last night!"
"It is perfectly true! Why couldn't you have thought of
that sooner? Now we've lost another one! And all through
your blundering. It was exactly like you to light a pipe
and sit down to wait for the sun to rise in the west."
"It was exactly like me to find out the mistake, too.
You never would have found it out. I find out all the mistakes."
"You make them all, too, else your most valuable faculty
would be wasted on you. But don't stop to quarrel,
now--maybe we are not too late yet."
But we were. The sun was well up when we got to the
exhibition-ground.
On our way up we met the crowd returning--men and women
dressed in all sorts of queer costumes, and exhibiting
all degrees of cold and wretchedness in their gaits
and countenances. A dozen still remained on the ground
when we reached there, huddled together about the scaffold
with their backs to the bitter wind. They had their red
guide-books open at the diagram of the view, and were
painfully picking out the several mountains and trying
to impress their names and positions on their memories.
It was one of the saddest sights I ever saw.
Two sides of this place were guarded by railings,
to keep people from being blown over the precipices.
The view, looking sheer down into the broad valley,
eastward, from this great elevation--almost a perpendicular
mile--was very quaint and curious. Counties, towns,
hilly ribs and ridges, wide stretches of green meadow,
great forest tracts, winding streams, a dozen blue lakes,
a block of busy steamboats--we saw all this little
world in unique circumstantiality of detail--saw it
just as the birds see it--and all reduced to the smallest
of scales and as sharply worked out and finished as a
steel engraving. The numerous toy villages, with tiny
spires projecting out of them, were just as the children
might have left them when done with play the day before;
the forest tracts were diminished to cushions of moss;
one or two big lakes were dwarfed to ponds, the smaller
ones to puddles--though they did not look like puddles,
but like blue teardrops which had fallen and lodged
in slight depressions, conformable to their shapes,
among the moss-beds and the smooth levels of dainty
green farm-land; the microscopic steamboats glided along,
as in a city reservoir, taking a mighty time to cover
the distance between ports which seemed only a yard apart;
and the isthmus which separated two lakes looked as if
one might stretch out on it and lie with both elbows
in the water, yet we knew invisible wagons were toiling
across it and finding the distance a tedious one.
This beautiful miniature world had exactly the appearance
of those "relief maps" which reproduce nature precisely,
with the heights and depressions and other details graduated
to a reduced scale, and with the rocks, trees, lakes,
etc., colored after nature.
I believed we could walk down to Waeggis or Vitznau
in a day, but I knew we could go down by rail in about
an hour, so I chose the latter method. I wanted to see
what it was like, anyway. The train came along about
the middle of the afternoon, and an odd thing it was.
The locomotive-boiler stood on end, and it and the whole
locomotive were tilted sharply backward. There were
two passenger-cars, roofed, but wide open all around.
These cars were not tilted back, but the seats were;
this enables the passenger to sit level while going down a
steep incline.
There are three railway-tracks; the central one is cogged;
the "lantern wheel" of the engine grips its way along
these cogs, and pulls the train up the hill or retards its
motion on the down trip. About the same speed--three miles
an hour--is maintained both ways. Whether going up or down,
the locomotive is always at the lower end of the train.
It pushes in the one case, braces back in the other.
The passenger rides backward going up, and faces forward
going down.
We got front seats, and while the train moved along
about fifty yards on level ground, I was not the
least frightened; but now it started abruptly downstairs,
and I caught my breath. And I, like my neighbors,
unconsciously held back all I could, and threw my weight
to the rear, but, of course, that did no particular good.
I had slidden down the balusters when I was a boy,
and thought nothing of it, but to slide down the balusters
in a railway-train is a thing to make one's flesh creep.
Sometimes we had as much as ten yards of almost level
ground, and this gave us a few full breaths in comfort;
but straightway we would turn a corner and see a long steep
line of rails stretching down below us, and the comfort
was at an end. One expected to see the locomotive pause,
or slack up a little, and approach this plunge cautiously,
but it did nothing of the kind; it went calmly on, and went
it reached the jumping-off place it made a sudden bow,
and went gliding smoothly downstairs, untroubled by
the circumstances.
It was wildly exhilarating to slide along the edge of
the precipices, after this grisly fashion, and look straight
down upon that far-off valley which I was describing a while ago.
There was no level ground at the Kaltbad station;
the railbed was as steep as a roof; I was curious
to see how the stop was going to be managed.
But it was very simple; the train came sliding down,
and when it reached the right spot it just stopped--that
was all there was "to it"--stopped on the steep incline,
and when the exchange of passengers and baggage had
been made, it moved off and went sliding down again.
The train can be stopped anywhere, at a moment's notice.
There was one curious effect, which I need not take the
trouble to describe--because I can scissor a description
of it out of the railway company's advertising pamphlet,
and save my ink:
"On the whole tour, particularly at the Descent, we undergo
an optical illusion which often seems to be incredible.
All the shrubs, fir trees, stables, houses, etc., seem to be bent
in a slanting direction, as by an immense pressure of air.
They are all standing awry, so much awry that the chalets
and cottages of the peasants seem to be tumbling down.
It is the consequence of the steep inclination of the line.
Those who are seated in the carriage do not observe that they
are doing down a declivity of twenty to twenty-five degrees
(their seats being adapted to this course of proceeding
and being bent down at their backs). They mistake their
carriage and its horizontal lines for a proper measure
of the normal plain, and therefore all the objects outside
which really are in a horizontal position must show a
disproportion of twenty to twenty-five degrees declivity,
in regard to the mountain."
By the time one reaches Kaltbad, he has acquired confidence
in the railway, and he now ceases to try to ease the
locomotive by holding back. Thenceforth he smokes his
pipe in serenity, and gazes out upon the magnificent
picture below and about him with unfettered enjoyment.
There is nothing to interrupt the view or the breeze;
it is like inspecting the world on the wing. However--to be
exact--there is one place where the serenity lapses for a while;
this is while one is crossing the Schnurrtobel Bridge,
a frail structure which swings its gossamer frame down
through the dizzy air, over a gorge, like a vagrant
spider-strand.
One has no difficulty in remembering his sins while
the train is creeping down this bridge; and he repents
of them, too; though he sees, when he gets to Vitznau,
that he need not have done it, the bridge was perfectly safe.
So ends the eventual trip which we made to the Rigi-Kulm
to see an Alpine sunrise.
CHAPTER XXX
[Harris Climbs Mountains for Me]
An hour's sail brought us to Lucerne again. I judged
it best to go to bed and rest several days, for I knew
that the man who undertakes to make the tour of Europe
on foot must take care of himself.
Thinking over my plans, as mapped out, I perceived that
they did not take in the Furka Pass, the Rhone Glacier,
the Finsteraarhorn, the Wetterhorn, etc. I immediately
examined the guide-book to see if these were important,
and found they were; in fact, a pedestrian tour of Europe
could not be complete without them. Of course that decided
me at once to see them, for I never allow myself to do
things by halves, or in a slurring, slipshod way.
I called in my agent and instructed him to go without delay
and make a careful examination of these noted places,
on foot, and bring me back a written report of the result,
for insertion in my book. I instructed him to go to Hospenthal
as quickly as possible, and make his grand start from there;
to extend his foot expedition as far as the Giesbach fall,
and return to me from thence by diligence or mule.
I told him to take the courier with him.
He objected to the courier, and with some show of reason,
since he was about to venture upon new and untried ground;
but I thought he might as well learn how to take care of
the courier now as later, therefore I enforced my point.
I said that the trouble, delay, and inconvenience
of traveling with a courier were balanced by the deep
respect which a courier's presence commands, and I must
insist that as much style be thrown into my journeys
as possible.
So the two assumed complete mountaineering costumes
and departed. A week later they returned, pretty well
used up, and my agent handed me the following
Official Report
OF A VISIT TO THE FURKA REGION. BY H. HARRIS, AGENT
About seven o'clock in the morning, with perfectly
fine weather, we started from Hospenthal, and arrived at
the MAISON on the Furka in a little under QUATRE hours.
The want of variety in the scenery from Hospenthal made
the KAHKAHPONEEKA wearisome; but let none be discouraged;
no one can fail to be completely R'ECOMPENS'EE for
his fatigue, when he sees, for the first time, the monarch
of the Oberland, the tremendous Finsteraarhorn. A moment
before all was dullness, but a PAS further has placed us
on the summit of the Furka; and exactly in front of us,
at a HOPOW of only fifteen miles, this magnificent mountain
lifts its snow-wreathed precipices into the deep blue sky.
The inferior mountains on each side of the pass form
a sort of frame for the picture of their dread lord,
and close in the view so completely that no other prominent
feature in the Oberland is visible from this BONG-A-BONG;
nothing withdraws the attention from the solitary grandeur
of the Finsteraarhorn and the dependent spurs which form
the abutments of the central peak.
With the addition of some others, who were also bound
for the Grimsel, we formed a large XHVLOJ as we descended
the STEG which winds round the shoulder of a mountain
toward the Rhone Glacier. We soon left the path and took
to the ice; and after wandering amongst the crevices UN PEU,
to admire the wonders of these deep blue caverns, and hear
the rushing of waters through their subglacial channels,
we struck out a course toward L'AUTRE CO^T'E and crossed
the glacier successfully, a little above the cave from
which the infant Rhone takes its first bound from under
the grand precipice of ice. Half a mile below this
we began to climb the flowery side of the Meienwand.
One of our party started before the rest, but the HITZE
was so great, that we found IHM quite exhausted,
and lying at full length in the shade of a large GESTEIN.
We sat down with him for a time, for all felt the heat
exceedingly in the climb up this very steep BOLWOGGOLY,
and then we set out again together, and arrived at last
near the Dead Man's Lake, at the foot of the Sidelhorn.
This lonely spot, once used for an extempore burying-place,
after a sanguinary BATTUE between the French and Austrians,
is the perfection of desolation; there is nothing in sight
to mark the hand of man, except the line of weather-beaten
whitened posts, set up to indicate the direction of the pass
in the OWDAWAKK of winter. Near this point the footpath joins
the wider track, which connects the Grimsel with the head
of the Rhone SCHNAWP; this has been carefully constructed,
and leads with a tortuous course among and over LES PIERRES,
down to the bank of the gloomy little SWOSH-SWOSH, which
almost washes against the walls of the Grimsel Hospice.
We arrived a little before four o'clock at the end
of our day's journey, hot enough to justify the step,
taking by most of the PARTIE, of plunging into the crystal
water of the snow-fed lake.
The next afternoon we started for a walk up the Unteraar glacier,
with the intention of, at all events, getting as far
as the HUETTE which is used as a sleeping-place by most
of those who cross the Strahleck Pass to Grindelwald.
We got over the tedious collection of stones and DE'BRIS
which covers the PIED of the GLETCHER, and had walked
nearly three hours from the Grimsel, when, just as
we were thinking of crossing over to the right,
to climb the cliffs at the foot of the hut, the clouds,
which had for some time assumed a threatening appearance,
suddenly dropped, and a huge mass of them, driving toward
us from the Finsteraarhorn, poured down a deluge of
HABOOLONG and hail. Fortunately, we were not far from
a very large glacier-table; it was a huge rock balanced
on a pedestal of ice high enough to admit of our all
creeping under it for GOWKARAK. A stream of PUCKITTYPUKK
had furrowed a course for itself in the ice at its base,
and we were obliged to stand with one FUSS on each side
of this, and endeavor to keep ourselves CHAUD by cutting
steps in the steep bank of the pedestal, so as to get
a higher place for standing on, as the WASSER rose rapidly
in its trench. A very cold BZZZZZZZZEEE accompanied
the storm, and made our position far from pleasant;
and presently came a flash of BLITZEN, apparently in the
middle of our little party, with an instantaneous clap
of YOKKY, sounding like a large gun fired close to our ears;
the effect was startling; but in a few seconds our attention
was fixed by the roaring echoes of the thunder against
the tremendous mountains which completely surrounded us.
This was followed by many more bursts, none of WELCHE,
however, was so dangerously near; and after waiting a long
DEMI-hour in our icy prison, we sallied out to talk through
a HABOOLONG which, though not so heavy as before, was quite
enough to give us a thorough soaking before our arrival at the
Hospice.
The Grimsel is CERTAINEMENT a wonderful place; situated at
the bottom of a sort of huge crater, the sides of which
are utterly savage GEBIRGE, composed of barren rocks
which cannot even support a single pine ARBRE, and afford
only scanty food for a herd of GMWKWLLOLP, it looks as
if it must be completely BEGRABEN in the winter snows.
Enormous avalanches fall against it every spring,
sometimes covering everything to the depth of thirty
or forty feet; and, in spite of walls four feet thick,
and furnished with outside shutters, the two men who stay here
when the VOYAGEURS are snugly quartered in their distant homes
can tell you that the snow sometimes shakes the house to its
foundations.
Next morning the HOGGLEBUMGULLUP still continued bad,
but we made up our minds to go on, and make the best of it.
Half an hour after we started, the REGEN thickened unpleasantly,
and we attempted to get shelter under a projecting rock,
but being far to NASS already to make standing at all
AGRE'ABLE, we pushed on for the Handeck, consoling ourselves
with the reflection that from the furious rushing
of the river Aar at our side, we should at all events
see the celebrated WASSERFALL in GRANDE PERFECTION.
Nor were we NAPPERSOCKET in our expectation; the water
was roaring down its leap of two hundred and fifty feet
in a most magnificent frenzy, while the trees which cling
to its rocky sides swayed to and fro in the violence of the
hurricane which it brought down with it; even the stream,
which falls into the main cascade at right angles,
and TOUTEFOIS forms a beautiful feature in the scene,
was now swollen into a raging torrent; and the violence
of this "meeting of the waters," about fifty feet below
the frail bridge where we stood, was fearfully grand.
While we were looking at it, GLUECKLICHEWEISE a gleam
of sunshine came out, and instantly a beautiful rainbow
was formed by the spray, and hung in mid-air suspended over
the awful gorge.
On going into the CHALET above the fall, we were
informed that a BRUECKE had broken down near Guttanen,
and that it would be impossible to proceed for some time;
accordingly we were kept in our drenched condition for
EIN STUNDE, when some VOYAGEURS arrived from Meiringen,
and told us that there had been a trifling accident,
ABER that we could now cross. On arriving at the spot,
I was much inclined to suspect that the whole story was a ruse
to make us SLOWWK and drink the more at the Handeck Inn,
for only a few planks had been carried away, and though
there might perhaps have been some difficulty with mules,
the gap was certainly not larger than a MMBGLX might cross
with a very slight leap. Near Guttanen the HABOOLONG
happily ceased, and we had time to walk ourselves tolerably
dry before arriving at Reichenback, WO we enjoyed a good DINE'
at the Hotel des Alps.
Next morning we walked to Rosenlaui, the BEAU ID'EAL
of Swiss scenery, where we spent the middle of the day
in an excursion to the glacier. This was more beautiful
than words can describe, for in the constant progress
of the ice it has changed the form of its extremity
and formed a vast cavern, as blue as the sky above,
and rippled like a frozen ocean. A few steps cut
in the WHOOPJAMBOREEHOO enabled us to walk completely
under this, and feast our eyes upon one of the loveliest
objects in creation. The glacier was all around divided
by numberless fissures of the same exquisite color,
and the finest wood-ERDBEEREN were growing in abundance
but a few yards from the ice. The inn stands in a CHARMANT
spot close to the C^OTE DE LA RIVIE`RE, which, lower down,
forms the Reichenbach fall, and embosomed in the richest
of pine woods, while the fine form of the Wellhorn
looking down upon it completes the enchanting BOPPLE.
In the afternoon we walked over the Great Scheideck
to Grindelwald, stopping to pay a visit to the Upper
glacier by the way; but we were again overtaken by bad
HOGGLEBUMGULLUP and arrived at the hotel in a SOLCHE
a state that the landlord's wardrobe was in great request.
The clouds by this time seemed to have done their worst,
for a lovely day succeeded, which we determined to devote
to an ascent of the Faulhorn. We left Grindelwald just as
a thunder-storm was dying away, and we hoped to find GUTEN
WETTER up above; but the rain, which had nearly ceased,
began again, and we were struck by the rapidly increasing
FROID as we ascended. Two-thirds of the way up were
completed when the rain was exchanged for GNILLIC,
with which the BODEN was thickly covered, and before we
arrived at the top the GNILLIC and mist became so thick
that we could not see one another at more than twenty
POOPOO distance, and it became difficult to pick our way over
the rough and thickly covered ground. Shivering with cold,
we turned into bed with a double allowance of clothes,
and slept comfortably while the wind howled AUTOUR DE
LA MAISON; when I awoke, the wall and the window looked
equally dark, but in another hour I found I could just
see the form of the latter; so I jumped out of bed,
and forced it open, though with great difficulty from
the frost and the quantities of GNILLIC heaped up against it.
A row of huge icicles hung down from the edge of the roof,
and anything more wintry than the whole ANBLICK could
not well be imagined; but the sudden appearance of the
great mountains in front was so startling that I felt no
inclination to move toward bed again. The snow which had
collected upon LA FENE^TRE had increased the FINSTERNISS
ODER DER DUNKELHEIT, so that when I looked out I was
surprised to find that the daylight was considerable,
and that the BALRAGOOMAH would evidently rise before long.
Only the brightest of LES E'TOILES were still shining;
the sky was cloudless overhead, though small curling
mists lay thousands of feet below us in the valleys,
wreathed around the feet of the mountains, and adding
to the splendor of their lofty summits. We were soon
dressed and out of the house, watching the gradual approach
of dawn, thoroughly absorbed in the first near view
of the Oberland giants, which broke upon us unexpectedly
after the intense obscurity of the evening before.
"KABAUGWAKKO SONGWASHEE KUM WETTERHORN SNAWPO!" cried some one,
as that grand summit gleamed with the first rose of dawn;
and in a few moments the double crest of the Schreckhorn
followed its example; peak after peak seemed warmed
with life, the Jungfrau blushed even more beautifully
than her neighbors, and soon, from the Wetterhorn in the
east to the Wildstrubel in the west, a long row of fires
glowed upon mighty altars, truly worthy of the gods.
The WLGW was very severe; our sleeping-place could
hardly be DISTINGUEE' from the snow around it, which had
fallen to a depth of a FLIRK during the past evening,
and we heartily enjoyed a rough scramble EN BAS to the
Giesbach falls, where we soon found a warm climate.
At noon the day before Grindelwald the thermometer could
not have stood at less than 100 degrees Fahr. in the sun;
and in the evening, judging from the icicles formed,
and the state of the windows, there must have been at least
twelve DINGBLATTER of frost, thus giving a change of 80
degrees during a few hours.
I said:
"You have done well, Harris; this report is concise,
compact, well expressed; the language is crisp,
the descriptions are vivid and not needlessly elaborated;
your report goes straight to the point, attends strictly
to business, and doesn't fool around. It is in many
ways an excellent document. But it has a fault--it
is too learned, it is much too learned. What is 'DINGBLATTER'?
"'DINGBLATTER' is a Fiji word meaning 'degrees.'"
"You knew the English of it, then?"
"Oh, yes."
"What is 'GNILLIC'?
"That is the Eskimo term for 'snow.'"
"So you knew the English for that, too?"
"Why, certainly."
"What does 'MMBGLX' stand for?"
"That is Zulu for 'pedestrian.'"
"'While the form of the Wellhorn looking down upon it
completes the enchanting BOPPLE.' What is 'BOPPLE'?"
"'Picture.' It's Choctaw."
"What is 'SCHNAWP'?"
"'Valley.' That is Choctaw, also."
"What is 'BOLWOGGOLY'?"
"That is Chinese for 'hill.'"
"'KAHKAHPONEEKA'?"