A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

than in anything else. We gathered a specimen or two

of every kind which we were unacquainted with; so we

had sumptuous bouquets. But one of the chief interests

lay in chasing the seasons of the year up the mountain,

and determining them by the presence of flowers and

berries which we were acquainted with. For instance,

it was the end of August at the level of the sea;

in the Kandersteg valley at the base of the pass,

we found flowers which would not be due at the sea-level

for two or three weeks; higher up, we entered October,

and gathered fringed gentians. I made no notes, and have

forgotten the details, but the construction of the floral

calendar was very entertaining while it lasted.

In the high regions we found rich store of the splendid

red flower called the Alpine rose, but we did not find

any examples of the ugly Swiss favorite called Edelweiss.

Its name seems to indicate that it is a noble flower

and that it is white. It may be noble enough,

but it is not attractive, and it is not white.

The fuzzy blossom is the color of bad cigar ashes,

and appears to be made of a cheap quality of gray plush.

It has a noble and distant way of confining itself to the

high altitudes, but that is probably on account of its looks;

it apparently has no monopoly of those upper altitudes,

however, for they are sometimes intruded upon by some

of the loveliest of the valley families of wild flowers.

Everybody in the Alps wears a sprig of Edelweiss in his hat.

It is the native’s pet, and also the tourist’s.

All the morning, as we loafed along, having a good time,

other pedestrians went staving by us with vigorous strides,

and with the intent and determined look of men who were

walking for a wager. These wore loose knee-breeches, long

yarn stockings, and hobnailed high-laced walking-shoes.

They were gentlemen who would go home to England or Germany

and tell how many miles they had beaten the guide-book

every day. But I doubted if they ever had much real fun,

outside of the mere magnificent exhilaration of the

tramp through the green valleys and the breezy heights;

for they were almost always alone, and even the finest

scenery loses incalculably when there is no one to enjoy

it with.

All the morning an endless double procession of mule-mounted

tourists filed past us along the narrow path–the one

procession going, the other coming. We had taken

a good deal of trouble to teach ourselves the kindly

German custom of saluting all strangers with doffed hat,

and we resolutely clung to it, that morning, although it

kept us bareheaded most of the time a nd was not always

responded to. Still we found an interest in the thing,

because we naturally liked to know who were English

and Americans among the passers-by. All continental

natives responded of course; so did some of the English

and Americans, but, as a general thing, these two races

gave no sign. Whenever a man or a woman showed us

cold neglect, we spoke up confidently in our own tongue

and asked for such information as we happened to need,

and we always got a reply in the same language.

The English and American folk are not less kindly than

other races, they are only more reserved, and that comes

of habit and education. In one dreary, rocky waste,

away above the line of vegetation, we met a procession

of twenty-five mounted young men, all from America.

We got answering bows enough from these, of course,

for they were of an age to learn to do in Rome as Rome does,

without much effort.

At one extremity of this patch of desolation, overhung by bare

and forbidding crags which husbanded drifts of everlasting

snow in their shaded cavities, was a small stretch

of thin and discouraged grass, and a man and a family

of pigs were actually living here in some shanties.

Consequently this place could be really reckoned as

“property”; it had a money value, and was doubtless taxed.

I think it must have marked the limit of real estate