A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

choose the time and the object. I resolved to devote

my first evening in Zermatt to studying up the subject

of Alpine climbing, by way of preparation.

I read several books, and here are some of the things

I found out. One’s shoes must be strong and heavy,

and have pointed hobnails in them. The alpenstock

must be of the best wood, for if it should break,

loss of life might be the result. One should carry an ax,

to cut steps in the ice with, on the great heights.

There must be a ladder, for there are steep bits of rock

which can be surmounted with this instrument–or this

utensil–but could not be surmounted without it;

such an obstruction has compelled the tourist to waste

hours hunting another route, when a ladder would have

saved him all trouble. One must have from one hundred

and fifty to five hundred feet of strong rope, to be used

in lowering the party down steep declivities which are

too steep and smooth to be traversed in any other way.

One must have a steel hook, on another rope–a very

useful thing; for when one is ascending and comes to a low

bluff which is yet too high for the ladder, he swings

this rope aloft like a lasso, the hook catches at the top

of the bluff, and then the tourist climbs the rope,

hand over hand–being always particular to try and forget

that if the hook gives way he will never stop falling

till he arrives in some part of Switzerland where they

are not expecting him. Another important thing–there

must be a rope to tie the whole party together with,

so that if one falls from a mountain or down a bottomless

chasm in a glacier, the others may brace back on the rope

and save him. One must have a silk veil, to protect

his face from snow, sleet, hail and gale, and colored

goggles to protect his eyes from that dangerous enemy,

snow-blindness. Finally, there must be some porters,

to carry provisions, wine and scientific instruments,

and also blanket bags for the party to sleep in.

I closed my readings with a fearful adventure which

Mr. Whymper once had on the Matterhorn when he was prowling

around alone, five thousand feet above the town of Breil.

He was edging his way gingerly around the corner of a

precipice where the upper edge of a sharp declivity

of ice-glazed snow joined it. This declivity swept

down a couple of hundred feet, into a gully which curved

around and ended at a precipice eight hundred feet high,

overlooking a glacier. His foot slipped, and he fell.

He says:

“My knapsack brought my head down first, and I pitched into

some rocks about a dozen feet below; they caught something,

and tumbled me off the edge, head over heels, into the gully;

the baton was dashed from my hands, and I whirled downward

in a series of bounds, each longer than the last; now over ice,

now into rocks, striking my head four or five times,

each time with increased force. The last bound sent me

spinning through the air in a leap of fifty or sixty feet,

from one side of the gully to the other, and I struck

the rocks, luckily, with the whole of my left side.

They caught my clothes for a moment, and I fell back on

to the snow with motion arrested. My head fortunately

came the right side up, and a few frantic catches brought

me to a halt, in the neck of the gully and on the verge

of the precipice. Baton, hat, and veil skimmed by

and disappeared, and the crash of the rocks–which I had

started–as they fell on to the glacier, told how narrow

had been the escape from utter destruction. As it was,

I fell nearly two hundred feet in seven or eight bounds.

Ten feet more would have taken me in one gigantic leaps

of eight hundred feet on to the glacier below.

“The situation was sufficiently serious. The rocks could

not be let go for a moment, and the blood was spurting

out of more than twenty cuts. The most serious ones were