A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

I should have said, “Humble yourself, in this presence,

it is the glory flowing from the hidden head of the Creator.”

One falls shorter of the truth than that, sometimes,

in trying to explain mysteries to the little people.

I could have found out the cause of this awe-compelling

miracle by inquiring, for it is not infrequent at Mont

Blanc,–but I did not wish to know. We have not the

reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has,

because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we

gained by prying into the matter.

We took a walk down street, a block or two, and a

place where four streets met and the principal shops

were clustered, found the groups of men in the roadway

thicker than ever–for this was the Exchange of Chamonix.

These men were in the costumes of guides and porters,

and were there to be hired.

The office of that great personage, the Guide-in-Chief

of the Chamonix Guild of Guides, was near by. This guild

is a close corporation, and is governed by strict laws.

There are many excursion routes, some dangerous and

some not, some that can be made safely without a guide,

and some that cannot. The bureau determines these things.

Where it decides that a guide is necessary, you are

forbidden to go without one. Neither are you allowed to be

a victim of extortion: the law states what you are to pay.

The guides serve in rotation; you cannot select the man

who is to take your life into his hands, you must take

the worst in the lot, if it is his turn. A guide’s fee

ranges all the way up from a half-dollar (for some trifling

excursion of a few rods) to twenty dollars, according to

the distance traversed and the nature of the ground.

A guide’s fee for taking a person to the summit of Mont

Blanc and back, is twenty dollars–and he earns it.

The time employed is usually three days, and there is

enough early rising in it to make a man far more “healthy

and wealthy and wise” than any one man has any right to be.

The porter’s fee for the same trip is ten dollars.

Several fools–no, I mean several tourists–usually go together,

and divide up the expense, and thus make it light;

for if only one f–tourist, I mean–went, he would have

to have several guides and porters, and that would make the

matter costly.

We went into the Chief’s office. There were maps

of mountains on the walls; also one or two lithographs

of celebrated guides, and a portrait of the scientist

De Saussure.

In glass cases were some labeled fragments of boots

and batons, and other suggestive relics and remembrances

of casualties on Mount Blanc. In a book was a record of all

the ascents which have ever been made, beginning with Nos.

1 and 2–being those of Jacques Balmat and De Saussure,

in 1787, and ending with No. 685, which wasn’t cold yet.

In fact No. 685 was standing by the official table waiting

to receive the precious official diploma which should prove

to his German household and to his descendants that he had once

been indiscreet enough to climb to the top of Mont Blanc.

He looked very happy when he got his document; in fact,

he spoke up and said he WAS happy.

I tried to buy a diploma for an invalid friend at home

who had never traveled, and whose desire all his life has

been to ascend Mont Blanc, but the Guide-in-Chief rather

insolently refused to sell me one. I was very much offended.

I said I did not propose to be discriminated against on

the account of my nationality; that he had just sold

a diploma to this German gentleman, and my money was

a good as his; I would see to it that he couldn’t keep

his shop for Germans and deny his produce to Americans;

I would have his license taken away from him at the dropping

of a handkerchief; if France refused to break him, I would

make an international matter of it and bring on a war;