A TRAMP ABROAD
BY MARK TWAIN
(Samuel L. Clemens)
. IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER fir BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
IQ06
Copyright, 1879 and 1899, by SAMUEL L, CLEMENS
ILLUSTRATIONS
PHOTOGRAVURE
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING . . . T. de Thuhtrup . Frontispiece
CLIMBING THE RIFFELBERG . T. de Thuhtrup . . . 113
THE MATTERHORN 165
(iii)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
A Trip by Proxy Visit to the Furka Regions Deadman s Lake
Source of the Rhone Glacier Tables Storm in the Moun
tains Grindelwald Dead Language Harris Report . . 9
CHAPTER II.
From Lucerne to Interlaken The Briinig Pass Hermit Home
of St. Nicholas Landslides Children Selling Refreshments
How they Harness a Horse German Fashions .... 22
CHAPTER IIL
The Jungfrau Hotel A Whiskered Waitress An Arkansas Bride
Perfection in Discord A Famous Victory A Look from
a Window About the Jungfrau 37
CHAPTER IV.
The Giesbach Falls Why People Visit Them The Kursaal
From Interlaken to Zermatt on Foot We took a Buggy
Companions Kandersteg Valley Race with a Log ... 49
CHAPTER V.
An Old Guide A Dangerous Habitation Mountain Flowers
Mountain Pigs Chance for Adventure Ascent of Monte
Rosa Among the Snows The Summit 59
CHAPTER VI.
New Interest Lake Daubensee Turning Mountain Corners
Search for a Hat Hotel des Alpes Leuk Baths Gemmi
Precipices Famous Ladders A Change of Clothing . . 73
(v)
vt Contents
CHAPTER VII.
Sunday Church Bells Magnificent Glacier Almost an Accident
The Matterhorn Zermatt Home of Mountain Climbers
A Fearful Adventure Never Satisfied 91
CHAPTER VIII.
Decision to Ascend the Riffelberg Preparations Schedule
of Persons and Things The Advance The First Accident
Saved by a Miracle The Guide s Guide 107
CHAPTER IX.
Our Expedition Continued Scientific Researches A Young
American Specimen Arrival at Riffelberg Hotel Ascent of
Corner Grat Faith in Thermometers The Matterhorn . .124
CHAPTER X.
Guide Books Plans for the Return of the Expedition A Glacier
Train Parachute Descent All had an Excuse The Gla
cier Abandoned Journey to Zermatt 141
CHAPTER XL
Glaciers Glacier Perils Immense Size Traveling Glacier
General Movements Ascent of Mont Blanc Loss of
Guides Meeting of Old Friends The Relics at Chamonix . 152
CHAPTER XII.
The Matterhorn Catastrophe of 1865 The Matterhorn Conquered
The Descent Commenced A Fearful Disaster Death of
Lord Douglas and Two Others 165
CHAPTER XIII.
Switzerland Graveyard at Zermatt From St. Nicholas to Visp
Dangerous Traveling Chillon Mont Blanc and its Neigh
borsA Wild Drive Benefit of Getting Drunk . . . .173
CHAPTER XIV.
Chamonix Contrasts The Guild of Guides The Returned
Tourist The Conqueror of Mont Blanc Professional Jeal
ousy Mountain Music A Hunt for a Nuisance . . . 186
Contents vii
CHAPTER xv.
Looking at Mont Blanc Ascent by Telescope Safe and Rapid
Return Diplomas Asked for and Refused Disaster of 1866
First Ascent of a Woman . 199
CHAPTER XVI.
A Catastrophe which Cost Eleven Lives Accident of 1870 A
Party of Eleven Note-books of the Victims Within Five
Minutes of Safety Facing Death Resignedly 212
CHAPTER XVII.
Hotel des Pyramids Glacier des Bossons One of the Shows
Advice to Tourists Glacier Toll Collector Pure Ice Water
Death Rate A Pleasure Excursionist 215
CHAPTER XVIII.
Geneva American Manners Gallantry Col. Baker of London
. Arkansaw Justice Safety of Women in America Town
of Chambery Turin Insulted Woman Italian Honesty 225
CHAPTER XIX.
In Milan Incidents Met With Children Honest Conductor
The Cathedral Old Masters Tintoretto s Picture
Emotional Tourists Basson s Picture The Hair Trunk . 240
CHAPTER XX.
In Venice - St. Mark s Cathedral Discovery of an Antique
Riches of St, Mark s A Church Robber Hanged Private
Dinner European Food 254
CHAPTER XXI.
Why Some Things Are Art in Rome and Florence The Fig
Leaf Mania Titian s Venus Seeing and Describing A
Real Work of Art Titian s Moses Home 267
viii Contents
APPENDIX.
A. The Portier Analyzed 273
B. Heidelberg Castle Described 278
C. The College Prison and Inmates 284
D. The Awful German Language 290
E. Legends of the Castle o . 308
F. The Journals of Germany , . 314
A TRAMP ABROAD
OF THE
| UNIVERSITY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY 1
OF /
CHAPTER I.
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 per
ceived 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 com
plete 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
(9)
10 A Tramp Abroad
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 cos
tumes 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 F2irka 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 weari
some ; but let none be discouraged ; no one can fail
to be completely recompensfe for his fatigue, when
he sees, for the first time, the monarch of the Ober-
land, 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
A Tramp Abroad 11
front of us, at a hopow of only fifteen miles, this
magnificent mountain lifts its snow-wreathed preci
pices into the deep blue sky. The inferior moun
tains 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 crevasses un peu, to admire
the wonders of these deep blue caverns, and hear
the rushing of waters through their subglacial chan
nels, we struck out a course toward V atitre #?//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 Ge stein. 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
12 A Tramp Abroad
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 swosk-swosk, 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, taken 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 Hutte which is used as a sleep
ing place by most of those who cross the Strahleck
Pass to Grindelwald. We got over the tedious col
lection of stones and debris 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
A Tramp Abroad 13
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 oi
our all creeping under it for gowkarak. A stream of
fuckittypukk 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 bzzzzzzzzeeeee accompanied the storm,
and made our position far from pleasant ; and pres
ently 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
Blunder 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 walk
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
14 A Tramp Abroad
pine arbre y 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 iron shutters, the two men who stay here
Ivhen 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 hpgglebumgullup 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
too 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 250 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 totitefois 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
A Tramp Abroad 15
stood, was fearfully grand. While we were looking
at it t gliicklicheweise 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 Brucke had broken down near
Guttanen, and that it would be impossible to pro
ceed for some time ; accordingly we were kept in
our drenched condition for eine 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 in the
Handeck Inn, for only a few planks had been car
ried away, and though there might perhaps have
been some difficulty with mules, the gap was cer
tainly not larger than a mmbglx might cross with a
very slight leap. Near Guttanen the haboolong hap
pily ceased, and we had time to walk ourselves
tolerably dry before arriving at Reichenbach, wo we
enjoyed a good <ak/at the Hotel des Alps.
Next morning we walked to Rosenlaui, the beau
idtal 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.
16 A Tramp Abroad
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 edit de la riviere, which, lower
down, forms the Reichenbach fall, and embosomed
in the richest of pinewoods, 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 solche a state that the land
lord 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 thunderstorm 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
A Tramp Abroad 17
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 1 jumped
out of bed, and forced it open, though with 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 fenetre had increased the Finsterniss odef
der Dunkelheit, so that when I looked out I was sur
prised to find that the daylight was considerable,
and that the balragoomah would evidently rise be
fore long. Only the brightest of les etoile*, 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 moun
tains, and adding to the splendor of their lofty
summits. We were soon dressed and out of the
house, watching the gradual appoach 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.
18 A Tramp Abroad
** 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 fol
lowed 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 sleep
ing place could hardly be distingue^ from the snow
around it, which had fallen to the depth of &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 at 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 f "
A Tramp Abroad 19
" Dingblatter is a Fiji word meaning degrees V
"You knew the English of it, then?"
" Oh, yes."
What is gnillic* ?"
" That is the Esquimaux term for * snow V
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 f"
" Picture. 5 It s Choctaw."
" What is * schnawp ? "
" < Valley/ That is Choctaw, also."
" What is bolwoggoly ?"
" That is Chinese for hill V
" Kahkahponeeka ? "
"< Ascent. Choctaw."
" But we were again overtaken by bad haggle-
bumgullup! What does hogglebumgullup mean ? "
"That is Chinese for weather ."
" Is hogglebumgullup better than the English
word? Is it any more descriptive?"
"No, it means just the same."
" And dingblatter and gnillic, and bopple/ and
* schnawp/ are they better than the English words ?
" No, they mean just what the English ones do."
" Then why do you use them ? Why have you used
all this Chinese and Choctaw and Zulu rubbish?"
B**
20 A Tramp Abroad
44 Because I didn t know any French but two or
three words, and I didn t know any Latin or Greek
at all. 1
44 That is nothing. Why should you want to use
foreign words, anyhow?"
44 To adorn my page. They all do it.**
14 Who is 4 all ?"
* 4 Everybody. Everybody that writes elegantly.
Anybody has a right to that wants to."
44 1 think you are mistaken." I then proceeded
in the following scathing manner. * When really
learned men write books for other learned men to
read, they are justified in using as many learned
words as they please their audience will under
stand them ; but a man who writes a book for the
general public to read is not justified in disfiguring
his pages with untranslated foreign expressions. It
is an insolence toward the majority of the purchasers,
for it is a very frank and impudent way of saying,
Get the translations made yourself if you want them,
this book is not written for the ignorant classes.
There are men who know a foreign language so well
and have used it so long in their daily life that they
seem to discharge whole volleys of it into their
English writings unconsciously, and so they omit to
translate, as much as half the time. That is a great
cruelty to nine out of ten of the man s readers.
What is the excuse for this? The writer would say
he only uses the foreign language where the delicacy
of his point cannot be conveyed in English. Very
A Tramp Abroad 21
well, then he writes his best things for the tenth
man, and he ought to warn the other nine nor to
buy his book. However, the excuse he offers is at
least an excuse; but there is another set of men
who are like you ; they know a word here and there,
of a foreign language, or a few beggarly little three-
word phrases, filched from the back of the Diction
ary, and these they are continually peppering into
their literature, with a pretense of knowing that
language, what excuse can they offer ? The foreign
words and phrases which they use have their exact
equivalents in a nobler language, English; yet
they think they " adorn their page " when they say
Strasse for street, and Bahnhof for railway station,
and so on, flaunting these fluttering rags of pov
erty in the reader s face and imagining he will be
ass enough to take them for the sign of untold riches
held in reserve. I will let your * learning remain in
your report; you have as much right, I suppose, to
* adorn your page with Zulu and Chinese and
Choctaw rubbish as others of your sort have to
adorn theirs with insolent odds and ends smouched
from half a dozen learned tongues whose a-b abs
they don t even know."
When the musing spider steps upon the red-hot
shovel, he first exhibits a wild surprise, then he
shrivels up. Similar was the effect of these blister
ing words upon the tranquil and unsuspecting Agent,
I can be dreadfully rough on a person when the
mood takes me.
CHAPTER II.
WE now prepared for a considerable walk, from
Lucerne to Interlaken, over the Briinig Pass.
But at the last moment the weather was so good
that I changed my mind and hired a four-horse car
nage. It was a huge vehicle, roomy, as easy in its
motion as a palanquin, and exceedingly comfortable.
We got away pretty early in the morning, after a
hot breakfast, and went bowling along over a hard,
smooth road, through the summer loveliness of
Switzerland, with near and distant lakes and moun
tains before and about us for the entertainment of
the eye, and the music of multitudinous birds to
charm the ear. Sometimes there was only the width
of the road between the imposing precipices on the
right and the clear cool water on the left with its
shoals of uncatchable fishes skimming about through
the bars of sun and shadow; and sometimes, in
place of the precipices, the grassy land stretched
away, in an apparently endless upward slant, and
was dotted everywhere with snug little chalets, the
peculiarly captivating cottage of Switzerland.
The ordinary chalet turns a broad, honest gable
(22)
A Tramp Abroad 23
end to the road, and its ample roof hovers over the
home in a protecting, caressing way, projecting its
sheltering eaves far outward. The quaint windows
are filled with little panes, and garnished with white
muslin curtains, and brightened with boxes of
blooming flowers. Across the front of the house,
and up the spreading eaves and along the fanciful
railings of the shallow porch, are elaborate carvings,
wreaths, fruits, arabesques, verses from Scripture,
names, dates, etc. The building is wholly of wood,
reddish brown in tint, a very pleasing color. It
generally has vines climbing over it. Set such a
house against the fresh green of the hillside, and it