A Tramp Abroad

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> A Tramp Abroad


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, would have not
one of those men slept a moment during that fearful night. But for that
gentle persuader they must have tossed, unsoothed, the night through;
for the whiskey 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 and the barkeepers. I would not permit myself to sleep
at such a time. I considered myself responsible for all those lives. I
meant to be on hand and ready, in case of 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 prepared 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 sitting 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 are standing around.

We were puzzled for a while; then somebody thought of the ladders.
One of these was leaned against the rock, and the men went up it tied
together 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 imminent, we were
saved in a mysterious way. A mule which had attracted attention from the
beginning by its disposition to experiment, tried to eat a five-pound
can of nitroglycerin. 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 far 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.

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 support 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 were 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.

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 find the road, while the caravan
waited. I instructed him to guide himself back by the rope, in case of
failure; in case of success, 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 disappeared 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 first act of detailing
an Expedition to succor him, when the cord was assailed with a series of
such frantic 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 refused 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 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 condition 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 backward. 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 all bounds. They even wanted to wreak their
unreasoning 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 corpse. 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 the 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, administered 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 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 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 consider 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 leaving 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 guide, he took her by the tail,
and the result justified his judgment. She nibbled her leisurely way
downhill till it was near milking-time, then she struck for home and
towed him into Zermatt.



CHAPTER XXXVIII [I Conquer the Gorner Grat]

We went into camp on that wild spot to which that ram had brought us.
The men were greatly fatigued. Their conviction that we were lost 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 was 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.

Our distresses being at an end, I now determined to rest the men in camp
and give the scientific department 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 thermometers or barometers ought to be boiled, to make them
accurate; I did not know which it was, so I boiled them both. There was
still no result; so I examined 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 affecting at all, but there was
such a strong barometer taste to the soup that the head cook, who was
a most conscientious person, changed its name in the bill of fare.
The dish was so greatly liked by all, that I ordered the cook to have
barometer soup every day. It was believed that the barometer might
eventually be injured, but I did not care for that. I had demonstrated
to my satisfaction that it could not tell how high a mountain was,
therefore I had no real use for it. Changes in the weather I could take
care of without it; I did not wish to know when the weather 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 from the defective
barometer; so I allowed that one to be transferred to the subordinate
mess.

I next boiled the thermometer, and got a most excellent result; the
mercury went up to about 200 degrees Fahrenheit. In the opinion of the
other scientists of the Expedition, this seemed to indicate that we had
attained the extraordinary altitude of two hundred thousand feet above
sea-level. Science places the line of eternal snow at about ten thousand
feet above sea-level. There was no snow where we were, consequently
it was proven that the eternal snow-line ceases somewhere above the
ten-thousand-foot level and does not begin any more. This was an
interesting fact, and one which had not been observed by any observer
before. 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 been two hundred
thousand feet higher.

The success of my last experiment induced me to 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 improve 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 occurring among the ignorant and thoughtless.
A porter shot at a chamois and missed it and crippled the Latinist.
This was not a serious matter to me, for a Latinist's duties are as 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 between 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 forefinger.

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
suddenly 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 refreshed 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 said many other judicious things, and finally when I offered
to rebuild his chalet, and pay for the breakages, 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 the nitroglycerin.

I put a hundred and sixteen men at work, and they rebuilt the chalet
from its own debris in fifteen minutes. It was a good deal more
picturesque than it was before, too. The man said we were now on the
Feil-Stutz, above the Schwegmatt--information which I was glad to get,
since it gave us our position to a degree of particularity which we had
not been accustomed to for a day or so. We also learned that we were
standing at the foot of the Riffelberg proper, and that the initial
chapter of our work was completed.

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

The mule-road to the summit of the Riffelberg passed right in front of
the chalet, a circumstance which we almost immediately noticed, because
a procession of tourists was filing along it pretty much all the time.
[1] The chaleteer's business consisted in furnishing refreshments to
tourists. My blast had interrupted this trade for a few minutes, by
breaking all the bottles on the place; but I gave the man a lot of
whiskey to sell for Alpine champagne, and a lot of vinegar which would
answer for Rhine wine, consequently trade was soon as brisk as ever.

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

Leaving the Expedition outside to rest, I quartered myself in the
chalet, with Harris, proposing to correct my journals and scientific
observations before continuing the ascent. I had hardly begun my work
when a tall, slender, vigorous American youth of about twenty-three, who
was on his way down the mountain, entered and came toward me with that
breeze self-complacency which is the adolescent's idea of the well-bred
ease of the man of the world. His hair was short and parted accurately
in the middle, and he had all the look of an American person who would
be likely to begin his signature with an initial, and spell his middle
name out. He introduced himself, smiling a smirky smile borrowed from
the courtiers of the stage, extended a fair-skinned talon, and while he
gripped my hand in it he bent his body forward three times at the
hips, as the stage courtier does, and said in the airiest and most
condescending and patronizing way--I quite remember his exact language:

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

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

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

GRANDSON. First visit to Europe?

HARRIS. Mine? Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

H. Well, what DO you do, then?

G.S. Do? I flit--and flit--for I am ever on the wing--but I avoid the
herd. Today I am in Paris, tomorrow in Berlin, anon in Rome; but you
would look for me in vain in the galleries of the Louvre or the common
resorts of the gazers in those other capitals. If you would find me, you
must look in the unvisited nooks and corners where others never think
of going. One day you will find me making myself at home in some obscure
peasant's cabin, another day you will find me in some forgotten castle
worshiping some little gem or art which the careless eye has overlooked
and which the unexperienced would despise; again you will find me as
guest in the inner sanctuaries of palaces while the herd is content to
get a hurried glimpse of the unused chambers by feeing a servant.

H. You are a GUEST in such places?

G.S. And a welcoming one.

H. It is surprising. How does it come?

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