A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

the picture is a manifest impossibility–that is to say,

a lie; and only rigid cultivation can enable a man to find

truth in a lie. But it enabled Mr. Ruskin to do it,

and it has enabled me to do it, and I am thankful for it.

A Boston newspaper reporter went and took a look at the Slave

Ship floundering about in that fierce conflagration of reds

and yellows, and said it reminded him of a tortoise-shell

cat having a fit in a platter of tomatoes. In my then

uneducated state, that went home to my non-cultivation,

and I thought here is a man with an unobstructed eye.

Mr. Ruskin would have said: This person is an ass.

That is what I would say, now. [1]

1. Months after this was written, I happened into the National

Gallery in London, and soon became so fascinated with the

Turner pictures that I could hardly get away from the place.

I went there often, afterward, meaning to see the rest

of the gallery, but the Turner spell was too strong;

it could not be shaken off. However, the Turners

which attracted me most did not remind me of the Slave Ship.

However, our business in Baden-Baden this time,

was to join our courier. I had thought it best

to hire one, as we should be in Italy, by and by,

and we did not know the language. Neither did he.

We found him at the hotel, ready to take charge of us.

I asked him if he was “all fixed.” He said he was.

That was very true. He had a trunk, two small satchels,

and an umbrella. I was to pay him fifty-five dollars

a month and railway fares. On the continent the railway

fare on a trunk is about the same it is on a man.

Couriers do not have to pay any board and lodging.

This seems a great saving to the tourist–at first.

It does not occur to the tourist that SOMEBODY pays that

man’s board and lodging. It occurs to him by and by,

however, in one of his lucid moments.

CHAPTER XXV

[Hunted by the Little Chamois]

Next morning we left in the train for Switzerland,

and reached Lucerne about ten o’clock at night.

The first discovery I made was that the beauty of the lake

had not been exaggerated. Within a day or two I made

another discovery. This was, that the lauded chamois

is not a wild goat; that it is not a horned animal;

that it is not shy; that it does not avoid human society;

and that there is no peril in hunting it. The chamois is

a black or brown creature no bigger than a mustard seed;

you do not have to go after it, it comes after you;

it arrives in vast herds and skips and scampers all over

your body, inside your clothes; thus it is not shy,

but extremely sociable; it is not afraid of man, on the

contrary, it will attack him; its bite is not dangerous,

but neither is it pleasant; its activity has not been

overstated –if you try to put your finger on it,

it will skip a thousand times its own length at one jump,

and no eye is sharp enough to see where it lights.

A great deal of romantic nonsense has been written

about the Swiss chamois and the perils of hunting it,

whereas the truth is that even women and children

hunt it, and fearlessly; indeed, everybody hunts it;

the hunting is going on all the time, day and night,

in bed and out of it. It is poetic foolishness to hunt

it with a gun; very few people do that; there is not

one man in a million who can hit it with a gun.

It is much easier to catch it that it is to shoot it,

and only the experienced chamois-hunter can do either.

Another common piece of exaggeration is that about the

“scarcity” of the chamois. It is the reverse of scarce.

Droves of one hundred million chamois are not unusual

in the Swiss hotels. Indeed, they are so numerous

as to be a great pest. The romancers always dress up