A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

thermometer says. You can’t go behind the thermometer.

I had a magnificent view of Monte Rosa, and apparently

all the rest of the Alpine world, from that high place.

All the circling horizon was piled high with a mighty

tumult of snowy crests. One might have imagined he

saw before him the tented camps of a beleaguering host

of Brobdingnagians.

But lonely, conspicuous, and superb, rose that wonderful

upright wedge, the Matterhorn. Its precipitous sides were

powdered over with snow, and the upper half hidden in thick

clouds which now and then dissolved to cobweb films and gave

brief glimpses of the imposing tower as through a veil.

[2] A little later the Matterhorn took to himself the

semblance of a volcano; he was stripped naked to his apex–

around this circled vast wreaths of white cloud which strung

slowly out and streamed away slantwise toward the sun,

a twenty-mile stretch of rolling and tumbling vapor,

and looking just as if it were pouring out of a crater.

Later again, one of the mountain’s sides was clean and clear,

and another side densely clothed from base to summit in

thick smokelike cloud which feathered off and flew around

the shaft’s sharp edge like the smoke around the corners of

a burning building. The Matterhorn is always experimenting,

and always gets up fine effects, too. In the sunset,

when all the lower world is palled in gloom, it points

toward heaven out of the pervading blackness like a finger

of fire. In the sunrise–well, they say it is very fine

in the sunrise.

2. NOTE.–I had the very unusual luck to catch one little

momentary glimpse of the Matterhorn wholly unencumbered

by clouds. I leveled my photographic apparatus at it

without the loss of an instant, and should have got

an elegant picture if my donkey had not interfered.

It was my purpose to draw this photograph all by myself

for my book, but was obliged to put the mountain part

of it into the hands of the professional artist because

I found I could not do landscape well.

Authorities agree that there is no such tremendous “layout”

of snowy Alpine magnitude, grandeur, and sublimity to be

seen from any other accessible point as the tourist may see

from the summit of the Riffelberg. Therefore, let the

tourist rope himself up and go there; for I have shown

that with nerve, caution, and judgment, the thing can be done.

I wish to add one remark, here–in parentheses, so to speak

–suggested by the word “snowy,” which I have just used.

We have all seen hills and mountains and levels with snow

on them, and so we think we know all the aspects and

effects produced by snow. But indeed we do not until

we have seen the Alps. Possibly mass and distance add

something–at any rate, something IS added. Among other

noticeable things, there is a dazzling, intense whiteness

about the distant Alpine snow, when the sun is on it,

which one recognizes as peculiar, and not familiar to

the eye. The snow which one is accustomed to has a tint

to it–painters usually give it a bluish cast–but there

is no perceptible tint to the distant Alpine snow when it

is trying to look its whitest. As to the unimaginable

splendor of it when the sun is blazing down on it–well,

it simply IS unimaginable.

CHAPTER XXXIX

[We Travel by Glacier]

A guide-book is a queer thing. The reader has just seen

what a man who undertakes the great ascent from Zermatt

to the Riffelberg Hotel must experience. Yet Baedeker

makes these strange statements concerning this matter:

1. Distance–3 hours.

2. The road cannot be mistaken.

3. Guide unnecessary.

4. Distance from Riffelberg Hotel to the Gorner Grat,

one hour and a half.

5. Ascent simple and easy. Guide unnecessary.

6. Elevation of Zermatt above sea-level, 5,315 feet.

7. Elevation of Riffelberg Hotel above sea-level,

8,429 feet.

8. Elevation of the Gorner Grat above sea-level, 10,289 feet.

I have pretty effectually throttled these errors by sending

him the following demonstrated facts:

1. Distance from Zermatt to Riffelberg Hotel, 7 days.

2. The road CAN be mistaken. If I am the first that did it,