A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

the stars. It grew to be a bitter night in that little hotel,

backed up against a precipice that had no visible top to it,

but we kept warm, and woke in time in the morning to find

that everybody else had left for Gemmi three hours before–

so our little plan of helping that German family (principally

the old man) over the pass, was a blocked generosity.

CHAPTER XXXIV

[The World’s Highest Pig Farm]

We hired the only guide left, to lead us on our way.

He was over seventy, but he could have given me nine-tenths

of his strength and still had all his age entitled him to.

He shouldered our satchels, overcoats, and alpenstocks,

and we set out up the steep path. It was hot work.

The old man soon begged us to hand over our coats

and waistcoats to him to carry, too, and we did it;

one could not refuse so little a thing to a poor old man

like that; he should have had them if he had been a hundred

and fifty.

When we began that ascent, we could see a microscopic

chalet perched away up against heaven on what seemed

to be the highest mountain near us. It was on our right,

across the narrow head of the valley. But when we got

up abreast it on its own level, mountains were towering

high above on every hand, and we saw that its altitude

was just about that of the little Gasternthal which we had

visited the evening before. Still it seemed a long way up

in the air, in that waste and lonely wilderness of rocks.

It had an unfenced grass-plot in front of it which seemed

about as big as a billiard-table, and this grass-plot

slanted so sharply downward, and was so brief, and ended

so exceedingly soon at the verge of the absolute precipice,

that it was a shuddery thing to think of a person’s venturing

to trust his foot on an incline so situated at all.

Suppose a man stepped on an orange peel in that yard;

there would be nothing for him to seize; nothing could

keep him from rolling; five revolutions would bring him

to the edge, and over he would go. What a frightful distance

he would fall!–for there are very few birds that fly

as high as his starting-point. He would strike and bounce,

two or three times, on his way down, but this would be

no advantage to him. I would as soon taking an airing

on the slant of a rainbow as in such a front yard.

I would rather, in fact, for the distance down would be about

the same, and it is pleasanter to slide than to bounce.

I could not see how the peasants got up to that chalet–

the region seemed too steep for anything but a balloon.

As we strolled on, climbing up higher and higher, we were

continually bringing neighboring peaks into view and lofty

prominence which had been hidden behind lower peaks before;

so by and by, while standing before a group of these giants,

we looked around for the chalet again; there it was,

away down below us, apparently on an inconspicuous ridge

in the valley! It was as far below us, now, as it had been

above us when we were beginning the ascent.

After a while the path led us along a railed precipice,

and we looked over–far beneath us was the snug parlor again,

the little Gasternthal, with its water jets spouting

from the face of its rock walls. We could have dropped

a stone into it. We had been finding the top of the world

all along–and always finding a still higher top stealing

into view in a disappointing way just ahead; when we looked

down into the Gasternthal we felt pretty sure that we

had reached the genuine top at last, but it was not so;

there were much higher altitudes to be scaled yet.

We were still in the pleasant shade of forest trees,

we were still in a region which was cushioned with beautiful

mosses and aglow with the many-tinted luster of innumerable

wild flowers.

We found, indeed, more interest in the wild flowers