A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

or six times as an “old traveler,”and as many as three

times (with a serene complacency which was maddening)

as a “man of the world.” There was something very delicious

about his leaving Boston to her “narrowness,” unreproved

and uninstructed.

I formed the caravan in marching order, presently,

and after riding down the line to see that it was

properly roped together, gave the command to proceed.

In a little while the road carried us to open, grassy land.

We were above the troublesome forest, now, and had an

uninterrupted view, straight before us, of our summit–

the summit of the Riffelberg.

We followed the mule-road, a zigzag course, now to the right,

now to the left, but always up, and always crowded and

incommoded by going and coming files of reckless tourists

who were never, in a single instance, tied together.

I was obliged to exert the utmost care and caution,

for in many places the road was not two yards wide,

and often the lower side of it sloped away in slanting

precipices eight and even nine feet deep. I had to

encourage the men constantly, to keep them from giving

way to their unmanly fears.

We might have made the summit before night, but for a

delay caused by the loss of an umbrella. I was allowing

the umbrella to remain lost, but the men murmured,

and with reason, for in this exposed region we stood

in peculiar need of protection against avalanches;

so I went into camp and detached a strong party to go

after the missing article.

The difficulties of the next morning were severe,

but our courage was high, for our goal was near.

At noon we conquered the last impediment–we stood

at last upon the summit, and without the loss of a

single man except the mule that ate the glycerin.

Our great achievement was achieved–the possibility of

the impossible was demonstrated, and Harris and I walked

proudly into the great dining-room of the Riffelberg

Hotel and stood our alpenstocks up in the corner.

Yes, I had made the grand ascent; but it was a mistake

to do it in evening dress. The plug hats were battered,

the swallow-tails were fluttering rags, mud added no grace,

the general effect was unpleasant and even disreputable.

There were about seventy-five tourists at the hotel–

mainly ladies and little children–and they gave us

an admiring welcome which paid us for all our privations

and sufferings. The ascent had been made, and the names

and dates now stand recorded on a stone monument there

to prove it to all future tourists.

I boiled a thermometer and took an altitude, with a most

curious result: THE SUMMIT WAS NOT AS HIGH AS THE POINT ON

THE MOUNTAINSIDE WHERE I HAD TAKEN THE FIRST ALTITUDE.

Suspecting that I had made an important discovery,

I prepared to verify it. There happened to be a still

higher summit (called the Gorner Grat), above the hotel,

and notwithstanding the fact that it overlooks a glacier

from a dizzy height, and that the ascent is difficult

and dangerous, I resolved to venture up there and boil

a thermometer. So I sent a strong party, with some

borrowed hoes, in charge of two chiefs of service, to dig

a stairway in the soil all the way up, and this I ascended,

roped to the guides. This breezy height was the summit

proper–so I accomplished even more than I had originally

purposed to do. This foolhardy exploit is recorded on

another stone monument.

I boiled my thermometer, and sure enough, this spot,

which purported to be two thousand feet higher than the

locality of the hotel, turned out to be nine thousand

feet LOWER. Thus the fact was clearly demonstrated that,

ABOVE A CERTAIN POINT, THE HIGHER A POINT SEEMS TO BE,

THE LOWER IT ACTUALLY IS. Our ascent itself was a

great achievement, but this contribution to science was

an inconceivably greater matter.

Cavilers object that water boils at a lower and lower

temperature the higher and higher you go, and hence the

apparent anomaly. I answer that I do not base my theory

upon what the boiling water does, but upon what a boiled