A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

a pump and set the men to work to pump out the glacier.

We made a success of it. I perceived, then, that it was not

a leak at all. This boulder had descended from a precipice

and stopped on the ice in the middle of the glacier,

and the sun had warmed it up, every day, and consequently

it had melted its way deeper and deeper into the ice,

until at last it reposed, as we had found it, in a deep

pool of the clearest and coldest water.

Presently Baedeker was found again, and I hunted eagerly

for the time-table. There was none. The book simply said

the glacier was moving all the time. This was satisfactory,

so I shut up the book and chose a good position to view

the scenery as we passed along. I stood there some time

enjoying the trip, but at last it occurred to me that we did

not seem to be gaining any on the scenery. I said to myself,

“This confounded old thing’s aground again, sure,”–and

opened Baedeker to see if I could run across any remedy

for these annoying interruptions. I soon found a sentence

which threw a dazzling light upon the matter. It said,

“The Gorner Glacier travels at an average rate of a little

less than an inch a day.” I have seldom felt so outraged.

I have seldom had my confidence so wantonly betrayed.

I made a small calculation: One inch a day, say thirty

feet a year; estimated distance to Zermatt, three and

one-eighteenth miles. Time required to go by glacier,

A LITTLE OVER FIVE HUNDRED YEARS! I said to myself, “I can

WALK it quicker–and before I will patronize such a fraud

as this, I will do it.”

When I revealed to Harris the fact that the passenger part

of this glacier–the central part–the lightning-express part,

so to speak–was not due in Zermatt till the summer

of 2378, and that the baggage, coming along the slow edge,

would not arrive until some generations later, he burst

out with:

“That is European management, all over! An inch a day–think

of that! Five hundred years to go a trifle over three miles!

But I am not a bit surprised. It’s a Catholic glacier.

You can tell by the look of it. And the management.”

I said, no, I believed nothing but the extreme end of it

was in a Catholic canton.

“Well, then, it’s a government glacier,” said Harris.

“It’s all the same. Over here the government runs

everything–so everything’s slow; slow, and ill-managed. But

with us, everything’s done by private enterprise–and then

there ain’t much lolling around, you can depend on it.

I wish Tom Scott could get his hands on this torpid old

slab once–you’d see it take a different gait from this.”

I said I was sure he would increase the speed, if there

was trade enough to justify it.

“He’d MAKE trade,” said Harris. “That’s the difference

between governments and individuals. Governments don’t care,

individuals do. Tom Scott would take all the trade;

in two years Gorner stock would go to two hundred,

and inside of two more you would see all the other glaciers

under the hammer for taxes.” After a reflective pause,

Harris added, “A little less than an inch a day; a little

less than an INCH, mind you. Well, I’m losing my reverence

for glaciers.”

I was feeling much the same way myself. I have traveled

by canal-boat, ox-wagon, raft, and by the Ephesus and

Smyrna railway; but when it comes down to good solid

honest slow motion, I bet my money on the glacier.

As a means of passenger transportation, I consider

the glacier a failure; but as a vehicle of slow freight,

I think she fills the bill. In the matter of putting

the fine shades on that line of business, I judge she

could teach the Germans something.

I ordered the men to break camp and prepare for the land

journey to Zermatt. At this moment a most interesting

find was made; a dark object, bedded in the glacial ice,

was cut out with the ice-axes, and it proved to be a piece

of the undressed skin of some animal–a hair trunk, perhaps;