angel with.

By and by we perceived what those super-delicate
colors, and their continuous play and movement, re
minded us of; it is what one sees in a soap-bubble
that is drifting along, catching changes of tint from
the objects it passes. A soap-bubble is the most
beautiful thing, and the most exquisite, in nature;
that lovely phantom fabric in the sky was suggestive
of a soap-bubble split open, and spread out in the
sun. I wonder how much it would take to buy a
soap-bubble, if there was only one in the world?
One could buy a hatful of Koh-i-Noors with the
same money, no doubt.

We made the tramp from Martigny to Argentiere
in eight hours. We beat all the mules and wagons;
we didn t usually do that. We hired a sort of open
baggage-wagon for the trip down the valley to
Charnonix, and then devoted an hour to dining.
This gave the driver time to get drunk. He had a
friend with him, and this friend also had had time
to get drunk.

When we drove oft, the driver said all the tourists
had arrived and gone by while we were at dinner:
11 but," said he, impressively, " be not disturbed



184 A I ramp Abroad

by that remain tranquil give yourselves no un
easiness their dust rises far before us, you shall
see it fade and disappear far behind us rest you
tranquil, leave all to me I am the king of drivers.
Behold !"

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

He spoke in French, and punctuated with hic
coughs. His friend was French, too, but spoke in
German using the same system of punctuation,
however. The friend called himself the " Captain
of Mont Blanc," and wanted us to make the ascent
with him. He said he had made more ascents than
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



A Tramp Abroad 185

him well,- -he was the " Captain of Mont Blanc "
that title belonged to none other.

The * * king was as good as his word he over
took that long procession of tourists and went by it
like a hurricane. The result was that we got choicer
rooms at the hotel in Chamonix than we should have
done if his majesty had been a slower artist or
rather, if he hadn t most providentially got drunk
before he left Argentiere.



CHAPTER XIV.

p-VERYBODY was out of doors ; everybody was
in the principal street of the village, not on
the sidewalks, but all over the street; everybody
was lounging, loafing, chatting, waiting, alert, ex
pectant, interested, for it was train-time. That is
to say, it was diligence-time, the half dozen big
diligences would soon be arriving from Geneva, and
the village was interested, in many ways, in knowing
how many people were coming and what sort of folk
they might be. It was altogether the livest looking
street we had seen in any village on the continent.

The hotel was by the side of a booming torrent,
whose music was loud and strong; we could not see
this torrent, for it was dark, now, but one could
locate it without a light. There was a large en
closed yard in front of the hotel, and this was filled
with groups of villagers waiting to see the diligences
arrive, or to hire themselves to excursionists for the
morrow. A telescope stood in the yard, with its
huge barrel canted up toward the lustrous evening-
star. The long porch of the hotel was populous
with tourists, who sat in shawls and wraps under the

(186)



A Tramp Abroad 187

vast overshadowing bulk of Mont Blanc, and gos
siped or meditated.

Never did a mountain seem so close ; its big sides
seemed at one s very elbow, and its majestic dome,
and the lofty cluster of slender minarets that were its
neighbors, seemed to be almost over one s head. It
was night in the streets, and the lamps were sparkling
everywhere; the broad bases and shoulders of the
mountains were in a deep gloom, but their summits
swam in a strange rich glow which was really day
light, and yet had a mellow something about it which
was very different from the hard white glare of the
kind of daylight I was used to. Its radiance was
strong and clear, but at the same time it was singu
larly soft, and spiritual, and benignant. No, it was
not our harsh, aggressive, realistic daylight; it
seemed properer to an enchanted land or to
heaven.

I had seen moonlight and daylight together before,
but I had not seen daylight and black night elbow to
elbow before. At least I had not seen the daylight
resting upon an object sufficiently close at hand, be
fore, to make the contrast startling and at war with
nature.

The daylight passed away. Presently the moon
rose up behind some of those sky-piercing fingers or
pinnacles of bare rock of which I have spoken
they were a little to the left of the crest of Mont
Blanc, and right over our heads, but she couldn t
manage to climb high enough toward heaven to get



188 A Tramp Abroad

entirely above them. She would show the glittering
arch of her upper third, occasionally, and scrape it
along behind the comb-like row; sometimes a pin
nacle stood straight up, like a statuette of ebony,
against that glittering white shield, then seemed to
glide out of it by its own volition and power, and
become a dim specter, while the next pinnacle
glided into its place and blotted the spotless disk
with the black exclamation point of its presence.
The top of one pinnacle took the shapely, clean-cut
form of a rabbit s head, in the inkiest silhouette,
while it rested against the moon. The unillumined
peaks and minarets, hovering vague and phantom-
like above us while the others were painfully white
and strong with snow and moonlight, made a
peculiar effect.

But when the moon, having passed the line of
pinnacles, was hidden behind the stupendous white
swell of Mont Blanc, the masterpiece of the evening
was flung on the canvas. A rich greenish radiance
sprang into the sky from behind the mountain, and
in this some airy shreds and ribbons of vapor floated
about, and being flushed with that strange tint, went
waving to and fro like pale green flames. After a
while, radiating bars, vast broadening fan-shaped
shadows, grew up and stretched away to the zenith
from behind the mountain. It was a spectacle to
take one s breath, for the wonder of it, and the
sublimity.

Indeed, those mighty bars of alternate light and



A Tramp Abroad 189

shadow streaming up from behind that dark and pro
digious form and occupying the half of the dull and
opaque heavens, was the most imposing and impres
sive marvel I had ever looked upon. There is no
simile for it, for nothing is like it. If a child had
asked me what it was, I should have said, " Humble
yourself, in this presence, it is the glory flowing from
the hidden head of the Creator." One falls shorter
of the truth than that, sometimes, in trying to ex
plain mysteries to the little people. I could have
found out the cause of this awe-compelling miracle
by inquiring, for it is not infrequent at Mont Blanc,
but I did not wish to know. We have not the
reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has,
because we know how it is made. We have lost as
much as we gained by prying into that matter.

We took a walk down street, a block or two, and
at a place where four streets met and the principal
shops were clustered, found the groups of men in
the roadway thicker than ever for this was the
Exchange of Chamonix. These men were in the
costumes of guides and porters, and were there to
be hired.

The office of that great personage, the Guide-in-
Chief of the Chamonix Guild of Guides, was near
by. This guild is a close corporation, and is gov
erned by strict laws. There are many excursion
routes, some dangerous and some not, some that can
be made safely without a guide, and some that can
not. The bureau determines these things. Where
13**



190 A Tramp Abroad

it decides that a guide is necessary, you are forbid
den to go without one. Neither are you allowed to
be a victim of extortion : the law states what you
are to pay. The guides serve in rotation ; you can
not select the man who is to take your life into his
hands, you must take the worst in the lot, if it is
his turn. A guide s fee ranges all the way up from
a half dollar (for some trifling excursion of a few
rods) to twenty dollars, according to the distance
traversed and the nature of the ground. A guide s
fee for taking a person to the summit of Mont Blanc
and back, is twenty dollars and he earns it. The
time employed is usually three days, and there is
enough early rising in it to make a man far more
1 * healthy and wealthy and wise than any one man
has any right to be. The porter s fee for the same
trip is ten dollars. Several fools, no, I mean sev
eral tourists, usually go together, and divide up the
expense, and thus make it light; for if only one f
tourist, I mean went, he would have to have
several guides and porters, and that would make the
matter costly.

We went into the Chief s office. There were maps
of mountains on the walls; also one or two litho
graphs of celebrated guides, and a portrait of the
scientist De Saussure.

In glass cases were some labeled fragments of
boots and batons, and other suggestive relics and
remembrancers of casualties on Mont Blanc. In a
book was a record of all the ascents which have ever



A Tramp Abroad 191

been made, beginning with Nos. I and 2, being
those of Jacques Balmat and De Saussure, in 1787,
and ending with No. 685, which wasn t cold yet.
In fact No. 685 was standing by the official table
waiting to receive the precious official diploma which
should prove to his German household and to his
descendants that he had once been indiscreet enough
to climb to the top of Mont Blanc. He looked very
happy when he got his document ; in fact, he spoke
up and said he was happy.

I tried to buy a diploma for an invalid friend at
home who had never traveled, and whose desire all
his life has been to ascend Mont Blanc, but the
Guide-in-Chief rather insolently refused to sell me
one. I was very much offended. I said I did not
propose to be discriminated against on account of
my nationality ; that he had just sold a diploma to
this German gentleman, and my money was as good
as his; I would see to it that he couldn t keep shop
for Germans and deny his produce to Americans ; I
would have his license taken away from him at the
dropping of a handkerchief; if France refused to
break him, I would make an international matter of
it and bring on a war ; the soil should be drenched
with blood ; and not only that, but I would set up
an opposition shop and sell diplomas at half price.

For two cents I would have done these things,
too ; but nobody offered me the two cents. I tried
to move that German s feelings, but it could not be
done; he would not give me his diploma, neither



192 A Tramp Abroad

would he sell it to me. I told him my friend was
sick and could not come himself, but he said he did
not care a verdammtes pfennig, he wanted his
diploma for himself did I suppose he was going
to risk his neck for that thing and then give it to a
sick stranger? Indeed he wouldn t, so he wouldn t.
I resolved, then, that I would do all I could to
injure Mont Blanc.

In the record book was a list of all the fatal
accidents which had happened on the mountain. It
began with the one in 1820 when the Russian Dr.
Hamel s three guides were lost in a crevasse of the
glacier, and it recorded the delivery of the remains
in the valley by the slow-moving glacier 41 years
later. The latest catastrophe bore date 1877.

We stepped out and roved about the village a
while. In front of the little church was a monument
to the memory of the bold guide Jacques Balmat,
the first man who ever stood upon the summit of
Mont Blanc. He made that wild trip solitary and
alone. He accomplished the ascent a number of
times afterward. A stretch of nearly half a century
lay between his first ascent and his last one. At the
ripe old age of 72 he was climbing around a corner
of a lofty precipice of the Pic du Midi nobody
with him when he slipped and fell. So he died
in the harness.

He had grown very avaricious in his old age, and
used to go off stealthily to hunt for non-existent and
impossible gold among those perilous peaks and



A Tramp Abroad 193

precipices. He was on a quest of that kind when he
lost his life. There was a statue to him, and another
to De Saussure, in the hall of our hotel, and a metal
plate on the door of a room up stairs bore an inscrip
tion to the effect that that room had been occupied
by Albert Smith. Balmat and De Saussure discov
ered Mont Blanc so to speak but it was Smith
who made it a paying property. His articles in
Blackwood and his lectures on Mont Blanc in
London advertised it and made people as anxious to
see it as if it owed them money.

As we strolled along the road we looked up and
saw a red signal light glowing in the darkness of the
mountain side. It seemed but a trifling way up,
perhaps a hundred yards, a climb of ten minutes.
It was a lucky piece of sagacity in us that we con
cluded to stop a man whom we met and get a. light
for our pipes from him instead of continuing the
climb to that lantern to get a light, as had been our
purpose. The man said that that lantern was on
the Grands Mulcts, some 6,500 feet above the valley !
I know by our Riffelberg experience, that it would
have taken us a good part of a week to go up there.
I would sooner not smoke at all, than take all that
trouble for a light.

Even in the daytime the foreshortening effect of
this mountain s close proximity creates curious decep
tions. For instance, one sees with the naked eye a
cabin up there beside the glacier, and a little above
and beyond he sees the spot where that red light was
13**



194 A Tramp Abroad

located ; he thinks he could throw a stone from the
one place to the other. But he couldn t, for the
difference between the two altitudes is more than
3,000 feet. It looks impossible, from below, that
this can be true, but it is true, nevertheless.

While strolling about, we kept the run of the
moon all the time, and we still kept an eye on her
after we got back to the hotel portico. I had a
theory that the gravitation of refraction, being sub
sidiary to atmospheric compensation, the refrangi-
bility of the earth s surface would emphasize this
effect in regions where great mountain ranges occur,
and possibly so even-handedly impact the odic and
idyllic forces together, the one upon the other, as to
prevent the moon from rising higher than 12,200 feet
above sea level. This daring theory had been re
ceived with frantic scorn by some of my fellow-
scientists, and with an eager silence by others.
Among the former I may mention Prof. H ^ * y ;
and among the latter Prof. T^-^ffi. Such is pro
fessional jealousy; a scientist will never show any
kindness for a theory which he did not start himself.
There is no feeling of brotherhood among these
people. Indeed, they always resent it when I call
them brother. To show how far their ungenerosity
can carry them, I will state that I offered to let Prof.
H y publish my great theory as his own dis
covery; I even begged him to do it; J even pro
posed to print it myself as his theory. Instead of
thanking me, he said that if I tried to fasten that



A Tramp Abroad 195

theory on him he would sue me for slander. I was
going to offer it to Mr. Darwin, whom I understood
to be a man without prejudices, but it occurred to
me that perhaps he would not be interested in it
since it did not concern heraldry.

But I am glad, now, that I was forced to father
my intrepid theory myself, for, on the night of which
I am writing, it was triumphantly justified and estab
lished. Mont Blanc is nearly 16,000 feet high; he
hid the moon utterly ; near him is a peak which is
12,216 feet high; the moon slid along behind the pin
nacles, and when she approached that one I watched
her with intense interest, for my reputation as a
scientist must stand or fall by its decision. I cannot
describe the emotions which surged like tidal waves
through my breast when I saw the moon glide be
hind that lofty needle and pass it by without expos
ing more than two feet four inches of her upper
rim above it! I was secure, then. I knew she
could rise no higher, and I was right. She sailed
behind all the peaks and never succeeded in hoisting
her disk above a single one of them.

While the moon was behind one of those sharp
fingers, its shadow was flung athwart the vacant
heavens a long, slanting, clean-cut, dark ray
with a streaming and energetic suggestion of force
about it, such as the ascending jet of water from a
powerful fire engine affords. It was curious to see a
good strong shadow of an earthly object cast upon
so intangible a field as the atmosphere.



196 A Tramp Abroad

We went to bed, at last, and went quickly to
sleep, but I woke up, after about three hours, with
throbbing temples, and a head which was physically
sore, outside and in. I was dazed, dreamy,
wretched, seedy, unrefreshed. I recognized the
occasion of all this: it was that torrent. In the
mountain villages of Switzerland, and along the
roads, one has always the roar of the torrent in his
ears. He imagines it is music, and he thinks poetic
things about it; he lies in his comfortable bed and
is lulled to sleep by it. But by and by he begins to
notice that his head is very sore he cannot account
for it; in solitudes where the profoundest silence
reigns, he notices a sullen, distant, continuous roar
in his ears, which is like what he would experience
if he had sea shells pressed against them he cannot
account for it; he is drowsy and absent-minded;
there is no tenacity to his mind, he cannot keep
hold of a thought and follow it out ; if he sits down
to write, his vocabulary is empty, no suitable words
will come, he forgets what he started to do, and
remains there, pen in hand, head tilted up, eyes
closed, listening painfully to the muffled roar of a
distant train in his ears; in his soundest sleep the
strain continues, he goes on listening, always listening
intently, anxiously, and wakes at last, harassed, irri
table, unrefreshed. He cannot manage to account
for these things. Day after day he feels as if he had
spent his nights in a sleeping car. It actually takes
him weeks to find out that it is those persecuting



t UNIVERSITY }
AVan$rwd 197



torrents that have been making all the mischief. It
is time for him to get out of Switzerland, then, for
as soon as he has discovered the cause, the misery
is magnified several fold. The roar of the torrent is
maddening, then, for his imagination is assisting;
the physical pain it inflicts is exquisite. When he
finds he is approaching one of those streams, his
dread is so lively that he is disposed to fly the track
and avoid the implacable foe.

Eight or nine months after the distress of the
torrents had departed from me, the roar and thunder
of the streets of Paris brought it all back again. I
moved to the sixth story of the hotel to hunt for
peace. About midnight the noises dulled away, and
I was sinking to sleep, when I heard a new and
curious sound; 1 listened: evidently some joyous
lunatic was softly dancin/ a " double shuffle" in
the room over my head. I had to wait for him to
get through, of course. Five long, long minutes
he smoothly shuffled away a pause followed, then
something fell with a heavy thump on the floor. I
said to myself There he is pulling off his boots

thank heavens he is done." Another slight pause

he went to shuffling again ! I said to myself, " Is
he trying to see what he can do with only one boot
on?" Presently came another pause and another
thump on the floor. I said " Good, he has pulled
off his other boot now he is done." But he
wasn t. The next moment he was shuffling again.
1 said, " Confound him, he is at it in his slippers! "



198 A Tramp Abroad

After a little came that same old pause, and right
after it that thump on the floor once more. I said,
" Hang him, he had on two pair of boots ! " For an
hour that magician went on shuffling and pulling off
boots till he had shed as many as twenty-five pair, and
I was hovering on the verge of lunacy. I got my
gun and stole up there. The fellow was in the midst
of an acre of sprawling boots, and he had a boot in
his hand, shuffling it no I mean polishing it. The
mystery was explained. He hadn t been dancing.
He was the " Boots " of the hotel, and was attend
ing to business.



CHAPTER XV.

7TFTER breakfast, that next morning in Chamonix,
i we went out in the yard and watched the gangs
of excursionizing tourists arriving and departing with
their mules and guides and porters ; then we took a
look through the telescope*.at the snowy hump of
Mont Blanc. It was brilliant with sunshine, and the
vast smooth bulge seemed hardly five hundred yards
away. With the naked eye we could dimly make
out the house at the Pierre Pointue, which is located
by the side of the great glacier, and is more than
3,000 feet above the level of the valley; but with
the telescope we could see all its details. While I
looked, a woman rode by the house on a mule, and
I saw ner with sharp distinctness ; I could have de
scribed her dress. I saw her nod to the people of
the house, and rein up her mule, and put her hand
up to shield her eyes from the sun. I was not used
to telescopes ; in fact, I had never looked through a
good one before; it seemed incredible to me that
this woman could be so far away. I was satisfied
that I could see all these details with my naked eye ;
but when I tried it, that mule and those vivid people

(199)



200 A Tramp Abroad

had wholly vanished, and the house itself was be
come small and vague. I tried the telescope again,
and again everything was vivid. The strong black
shadows of the mule and the woman were flung
against the side of the house, and I saw the mule s
silhouette wave its ears.

The telescopulist, - or the telescopulariat, I do
not know which is right, said a party were making
a grand ascent, and would come in sight on the re
mote upper heights, presently; so we waited to ob
serve this performance.

Presently I had a superb idea. I wanted to stand
with a party on the summit of Mont Blanc, merely
to be able to say I had done it, and I believed the
telescope could set me within seven feet of the
uppermost man. The telescoper assured me that it
could. I then asked him how much I owed him for
as far as I had got? He said, one franc. I asked
him how much it would cost me to make the entire
ascent? Three francs. I at once determined to
make the entire ascent. But first I inquired if there
was any danger? He said no, not by telescope;
said he had taken a great many parties to the sum
mit, and never lost a man. I asked what he would
charge to let my agent go with me, together with
such guides and porters as might be necessary? He
said he would let Harris go for two francs ; and that
unless we were unusually timid, he should consider
guides and porters unnecessary ; it was not customary
to take them, when going by telescope, for they were



A Tramp Abroad 201

rather an incumbrance than a help. He said that
the party now on the mountain were approaching
the most difficult part, and if we hurried we should
overtake them within ten minutes, and could then
join them and have the benefit of their guides and
porters without their knowledge, and without ex
pense to us.

I then said we would start immediately. I believe
I said it calmly, though I was conscious of a shudder
and of a paling cheek, in view of the nature of the
exploit I was so unreflectingly engaging in. But the
old dare-devil spirit was upon me, and I said that as
I had committed myself I would not back down ; I
would ascend Mont Blanc if it cost me my life. I
told the man to slant his machine in the proper
direction and let us be off.