encounter on our expedition, we decided to make
the ascent in evening dress.

At fifteen minutes past four I gave the command
to move, and my subordinates passed it along the line.
The great crowd in front of the Monte Rosa hotel
parted in twain, with a cheer, as the procession ap
proached ; and as the head of it was filing by I gave
the order, * Unlimber make ready HOIST !
and with one impulse up went my half mile of
umbrellas. It was a beautiful sight, and a total
surprise to the spectators. Nothing like that had
ever been seen in the Alps before. The applause it
brought forth was deeply gratifying to me, and I
rode by with my plug hat in my hand to testify my
appreciation of it. It was the only testimony I
could offer, for I was too full to speak.



112 A Tramp Abroad

We watered the caravan at the cold stream which
rushes down a trough near the end of the village,
and soon afterward left the haunts of civilization
behind us. About half past five o clock we arrived
at a bridge which spans the Visp, and after throwing
over a detachment to see if it was safe, the caravan
crossed without accident. The way now led, by a
gentle ascent, carpeted with fresh green grass, to
the church at Winkelmatten. Without stopping to
examine this edifice, I executed a flank movement
to the right and crossed the bridge over the Findelen-
bach, after first testing its strength. Here I deployed
to the right again, and presently entered an inviting
stretch of meadow land which was unoccupied save
by a couple of deserted huts toward its furthest
extremity. These meadows offered an excellent
camping place. We pitched our tents, supped,
established a proper guard, recorded the events of
the day, and then went to bed.

We rose at two in the morning and dressed by
candle-light. It was a dismal and chilly business.
A few stars were shining, but the general heavens
were overcast, and the great shaft of the Matterhorn
was draped in a sable pall of clouds. The chief
guide advised a delay; he said he feared it was
going to rain. We waited until nine o clock, and
then got away in tolerably clear weather.

Our course led up some terrific steeps, densely
wooded with larches and cedars, and traversed by
paths which the rains had guttered and which were




CLIMBING THE RIFFELBERG



A Tramp Abroad 113

obstructed by loose stones. To add to the danger
and inconvenience, we were constantly meeting re
turning tourists on foot or horseback, and as con
stantly being crowded and battered by ascending
tourists who were in a hurry and wanted to get by.

Our troubles thickened. About the middle of
the afternoon the seventeen guides called a halt and
held a consultation. After consulting an hour they
said their first suspicion remained intact, that is to
say, they believed 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, be
cause none of them had ever been in that part of
the country before. They had a strong instinct that
they were lost, but they had no proofs, except
that they did not know where they were c They had
met no tourists for some time, and they considered
that a suspicious sign.

Plainly we were in an ugly fix. The guides were
naturally unwilling to go 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 was very dense. We did not move up
the mountain, but around it, hoping to strike across
the old trail. Toward nightfall, when we were about
tired out, we came up against a rock as big as a
cottage. This barrier took all the remaining spirit
out of the men, and a panic of fear and despair
ensued. They moaned and wept, and said they
should never see their homes and their dear ones
8**



114 A Tramp Abroad

again. Then they began to upraid me for bringin
them upon this fatal expedition. Some even mut
tered threats against me.

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

This speech had a great effect. The men pitched
the tents with some little show of cheerfulness, and
we were snugly under cover when the night shut
down. I now reaped the reward of my wisdom in
providing one article which is not mentioned in any
book of Alpine adventure but this. I refer to the
paregoric. But for that beneficent drug, not one of
those men would have slept a moment during that
fearful night. But for that gentle persuader they
must have tossed, unsoothed, the night through;
for the whisky was for me. Yes, they would have
risen in the morning unfitted for their heavy task.
As it was, everybody slept but my agent and me,
only we two and the barkeepers. I would not per-
mit myself to sleep at such a time. I considered



A Tramp Abroad 115

myself responsible for all those lives. I meant to
be on hand and ready, in case of avalanches. I am
aware now, that there were no avalanches up there,
but I did not know it then.

We watched the weather all through that awful
night, and kept an eye on the barometer, to be pre
pared for the least change. There was not the
slightest change recorded by the instrument, during
the whole time. Words cannot describe the comfort
that that friendly, hopeful, steadfast thing 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 know that until afterward.
If I should be in such a situation again, I should not
wish for any barometer but that one.

All hands rose at two in the morning and took
breakfast, and as soon as it was light we roped
ourselves together and went at that rock. For some
time we tried the hook-rope and other means of
scaling it, but without success that is, without
perfect success. The hook caught once, and Harris
started up it hand over hand, but the hold broke
and if there had not happened to be a chaplain sit
ting underneath at the time, Harris would certainly
have been crippled. As it was, it was the chaplain.
He took to his crutches , and I ordered the hook-
rope to be laid aside. It was too dangerous an
implement where so many people were standing
around.

We were puzzled for a while; then somebody



116 A Tramp Abroad

thought of the ladders. One of these was leaned
against the rock, and the men went up it tied to
gether in couples. Another ladder was sent up for
use in descending. At the end of half an hour
everybody was over, and that rock was conquered.
We gave our first grand shout of triumph. But the
joy was short-lived, for somebody asked how we
were going to get the animals over.

This was a serious difficulty; in fact, it was an
impossibility. The courage of the men began to
waver immediately; once more we were threatened
with a panic. But when the danger was most im
minent, we were saved in a mysterious way. A
mule which had attracted attention from the begin
ning by its disposition to experiment, tried to eat a
five-pound can of nitroglycerine. This happened
right alongside the rock. The explosion threw us
all to the ground, and covered us with dirt and
debris; it frightened us extremely, too, for the
crash it made was deafening, and the violence of
the shock made the ground tremble. However, we
were grateful, for the rock was gone. Its place was
occupied by a new cellar, about thirty feet across,
by fifteen feet deep. The explosion was heard as
f ar as Zermatt ; and an hour and a half afterward,
many citizens of that town were knocked down and
quite seriously injured by descending portions of
mule meat, frozen solid. This shows, better than
any estimate in figures, how high the experimenter
went.



A Tramp Abroad 11?

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 and trim them for piers to sup
port the bridge. This was a slow business, for ice-
axes are not good to cut wood with. I caused my
piers to be firmly set up in ranks in the cellar, and
upon them I laid six of my forty-foot ladders, side
by side, and laid six more on top of them. Upon
this bridge I caused a bed of boughs to be spread,
and on top of the boughs a bed of earth six inches
deep. I stretched ropes upon either side to serve
as railings, and then my bridge was complete. A
train of elephants could have crossed it in safety and
comfort. By nightfall the caravan was on the other
side and the ladders taken up.

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



118 A Tramp Abroad

Demoralization was spreading; something must
be done, and done quickly, too. Fortunately, I
am not unfertile in expedients. I contrived one
now which commended itself to all, for it promised
well. I took three-quarters of a mile of rope and
fastened one end of it around the waist of a guide,
and told him to go and find the road, while the
caravan waited. I instructed him to guide himself
back by the rope, in case of failure ; in case of suc
cess, he was to give the rope a series of violent
jerks, whereupon the Expedition would go to him at
once. He departed, and in two minutes had disap
peared among the trees. I payed out the rope
myself, while everybody watched the crawling thing
with eager eyes. The rope crept away quite slowly,
at times, at other times with some briskness. Twice
or thrice we seemed to get the signal, and a shout
was just ready to break from the men s lips when
they perceived it was a false alarm. But at last,
when over half a mile of rope had slidden away it
stopped gliding and stood absolutely still, ^one
minute, two minutes, 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
from excess of fatigue and anxiety?

This thought gave us a shock. I was in the very
act of detailing an Expedition to succor him, when
the cord was assailed with a series of such frantic



A Tramp Abroad 119

jerks that I could hardly keep hold of it. The huzza
that went up, then, was good to hear. " Saved!
saved ! was the word that rang out, all down the
long rank of the caravan.

We rose up and started at once. We found the
route to be good enough for a while, but it began
to grow difficult, by and by, and this feature
steadily increased. When we judged we had gone
half a mile, we momently expected to see the guide;
but no, he was not visible anywhere; neither was he
waiting, for the rope was still moving, consequently
he was doing the same. This argued that he had
not found the road, yet, but was marching to it with
some peasant. There was nothing for us to do but
plod along, and this we did. At the end of three
hours we were still plodding. This was not only
mysterious, but exasperating. And very fatiguing,
too; for we had tried hard, along at first, to catch
up with the guide, but had only fagged ourselves, in
vain ; for although he was traveling slowly he was
yet able to go faster than the hampered caravan
over such ground.

At three in the afternoon we were nearly dead
with exhaustion, and still the rope was slowly
gliding out. The murmurs against the guide had
been growing steadily, and at last they were become
loud and savage, A mutiny ensued. The men re
fused to proceed. They declared that we had been
traveling over and over the same ground all day, in
a kind of circle. They demanded that our end of



120 A Tramp Abroad

the rope be made fast to a tree, so as to halt the
guide until we could overtake him and kill him.
This was not an unreasonable requirement, so I gave
the order.

As soon as the rope was tied, the Expedition
moved forward with that alacrity which the thirst
for vengeance usually inspires. But after a tiresome
march of almost half a mile, we came to a hill
covered thick with a crumbly rubbish of stones, and
so steep that no man of us all was now in a condi
tion to climb it. Every attempt failed, and ended
in crippling somebody. Within twenty minutes I
had five men on crutches. Whenever a climber
tried to assist himself by the rope, it yielded and
let him tumble backwards. The frequency of this
result suggested an idea to me. I ordered the
caravan to bout face and form in marching order ;
I then 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 a battle-chant, and I said to myself,
* Now, if the rope don t break I judge this will
fetch that guide into the camp." I watched the
rope gliding down the hill, and presently when I
was all fixed for triumph I was confronted by a
bitter disappointment; there was no guide tied to
the rope, it was only a very indignant old black
ram, The fury of the baffled Expedition exceeded



A Tramp Abroad 121

all bounds. They even wanted to wreak their un
reasoning vengeance on this innocent dumb brute.
But I stood between them and their prey, menaced
by a bristling wall of ice-axes and alpenstocks, and
proclaimed that there was but one road to this
murder, and it was directly over my corse. Even
as I spoke I saw that my doom was sealed, except a
miracle supervened to divert these madmen from
their fell purpose. I see that sickening wall of
weapons now; I see that advancing host as I saw it
then , I see the hate in those cruel eyes ; I remember
how I drooped my head upon my breast, I feel
again the sudden earthquake shock in my rear, ad
ministered by the very ram I was sacrificing myself
to save ; I hear once more the typhoon of laughter
that burst from the assaulting column as I clove it
from van to rear like a Sepoy shot from a Rodman
gun.

I was saved. Yes, I was saved, and by the
merciful instinct of ingratitude which nature had
planted in the breast of that treacherous beast. The
grace which eloquence had failed to work in those
men s hearts, had been wrought by a laugh. The
ram was set free and my life was spared.

We lived to find out that that guide had deserted
us as soon as he had placed a half mile between
himself and us. To avert suspicion, he had judged
it best that the line should continue to move ; so he
caught that ram, and at the time that he was sitting
on it making the rope fast to it, we were imagining



122 A Tramp Abroad

that he was lying in a swoon, overcome by fatigue
and distress. When he allowed the ram to get up
it fell to plunging around, trying to rid itself of the
rope, and this was the signal which we had risen up
with glad shouts to obey. We had followed this
ram round and round in a circle all day a thing
which was proven by the discovery that we had
watered the Expedition seven times at one and the
same spring in seven hours. As expert a woodman
as I am, I had somehow failed to notice this until
my attention was called to it by a hog. This hog
was always wallowing there, and as he was the only
hog we saw, his frequent repetition, together with
his unvarying similarity to himself, finally caused me
to reflect that he must be the same hog, and this led
me to the deduction that this must be the same
spring, also, which indeed it was.

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

To return, for an explanatory moment, to that
guide, and then I shall be done with him. After leav
ing the ram tied to the rope, he had wandered at large
a while, and then happened to run across a cow.
Judging that a cow would naturally know more than



A Tramp Abroad 123

a guide, he took her by the tail, and the result
justified his judgment. She nibbled her leisurely
way down hill till it was near milking time, then she
struck for home and towed him into Zermatt.



CHAPTER IX.

\ V 7E went into camp on that wild spot to which
VV that ram had brought us. The men were
greatly fatigued. Their conviction that we were
lost was forgotten in the cheer of a good supper,
and before the reaction had a chance 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 and trying to think of a remedy,
when Harris came to me with a Baedeker map
which showed conclusively that the mountain we
were on was still in Switzerland, yes, every part
of it was in Switzerland. So we were not lost,
after all. This was an immense relief; it lifted the
weight of two such mountains from my breast. I
immediately had the news disseminated and the map
exhibited. The effect was wonderful. As soon as
the men saw with their own eyes that they knew
where they were, and that it was only the summit
that was lost and not themselves, they cheered up
instantly and said with one accord, let the summit
take care of itself, they were not interested in its
troubles.

(124)



A Tramp Abroad 125

Our distresses being at an end, I now determined to
rest the men in camp and give the scientific depart
ment of the Expedition a chance. First, I made a
barometric observation, to get our altitude, but I
could not perceive that there was any result. I
knew, by my scientific reading, that either ther
mometers or barometers ought to be boiled, to make
them accurate; I did not know which it was, so I
boiled both. There was still no result; so I ex
amined these instruments and discovered that they
possessed radical blemishes: the barometer had no
hand but the brass 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 half an hour in a pot of bean
soup which the cooks were making. The result was
unexpected : the instrument was not affected at all,
but there was such a strong barometer taste to the
soup that the head cook, who was a most conscien
tious person, changed its name in the bill of fare.
The dish was so greatly liked by all, that I ordered
the cook to have barometer soup every day. It was
believed that the barometer might eventually be
injured, but I did not care for that. I had demon
strated to my satisfaction that it could not tell how
high a mountain was, therefore I had no real use for
it. Changes of the weather I could take care of
without it ; I did not wish to know when the weather



126 A Tramp Abroad

was going to be good, what I wanted to know was
when it was going to be bad, and this I could find
out from Harris s corns. Harris had had his corns
tested and regulated at the government observatory
in Heidelberg, and one could depend upon them
with confidence. So I transferred the new barometer
to the cooking department, to be used for the official
mess. It was found that even a pretty fair article of
soup could be made with the defective barometer ;
so I allowed that one to be transferred to the subor
dinate messes.

I next boiled the thermometer, and got a most ex
cellent result; the mercury went up to about 200
Fahrenheit. In the opinion of the other scientists of
the Expedition, this seemed to indicate that we
had attained the extraordinary altitude of 200,000
feet above sea level. Science places the line of
eternal snow at about 10,000 feet above sea level.
There was no snow where we were, consequently it
was proven that the eternal snow line ceases some
where above the io,ooo-foot level and does not begin
any more. This was an interesting fact, and one
which had not been observed by any observer be
fore. It was as valuable as interesting, too, since
it would open up the 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 pang
to reflect that but for that ram we might just as
well have been 200,000 feet higher.

The success of my last experiment induced me to



A Tramp Abroad 127

try an experiment with my 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 I could not see that the lenses were any
better than they were before.

I now concluded to boil a guide. It might im
prove him, it could not impair his usefulness, But
I was not allowed to proceed. Guides have no
feeling for science, and this one would not consent
to be made uncomfortable in its interest.

In the midst of my scientific work, one of those
needless accidents happened which are always occur
ring 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 well performed on crutches
as otherwise, but the fact remained that if the
Latinist had not happened to be in the way a mule
would have got that load. That would have been
quite another matter, for when it comes down to a
question of value there is a palpable difference be
tween a Latinist and a mule,. I could not depend on
having a Latinist in the right place every time; so,
to make things safe, I ordered that in the future
the chamois must not be hunted within limits of
the camp with any other weapon than the fore
finger.

My nerves had hardly grown quiet after this affair
when they got another shake-up, one which utterly
unmanned me for a moment: a rumor swept sud-



128 A Tramp Abroad

denly through the camp that one of the barkeepers
had fallen over a precipice !

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

On the following morning we moved on, well re
freshed and in good spirits. I remember this day
with peculiar pleasure, because it saw our road
restored to us. Yes, we found our road again, and
in quite an extraordinary way. We had plodded
along some two hours and a half, when we came up
against a solid mass of rock about twenty feet high.
I did not need to be instructed by a mule this time.
I was already beginning to know more than any mule
in the Expedition. I at once put in a blast of
dynamite, and lifted that rock out of the way. But
to my surprise and mortification, 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, and subordinates of my corps collected
the rest. None of these poor people were injured,
happily, but they were much annoyed. I explained
to the head chaleteer just how the thing happened,
and that I was only searching for the road, and
would certainly have given him timely notice if I had
known he was up there. I said I had meant no
harm, and hoped I had not lowered myself in his
estimation by raising him a few rods in the air. I



A Tramp Abroad 129

said many other judicious things, and finally when
I offered to rebuild his chalet, and pay for the break
ages, and throw in the cellar, 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 he had lost in view he had gained in cellar, by
exact measurement. He said there wasn t another
hole like that in the mountains, and he would have
been right if the late mule had not tried to eat up