A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

the chamois-hunter in a fanciful and picturesque costume,

whereas the best way to hut this game is to do it without

any costume at all. The article of commerce called

chamois-skin is another fraud; nobody could skin a chamois,

it is too small. The creature is a humbug in every way,

and everything which has been written about it is

sentimental exaggeration. It was no pleasure to me to find

the chamois out, for he had been one of my pet illusions;

all my life it had been my dream to see him in his native

wilds some day, and engage in the adventurous sport

of chasing him from cliff to cliff. It is no pleasure

to me to expose him, now, and destroy the reader’s delight

in him and respect for him, but still it must be done,

for when an honest writer discovers an imposition it

is his simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down

from its place of honor, no matter who suffers by it;

any other course would render him unworthy of the public

confidence.

Lucerne is a charming place. It begins at the water’s edge,

with a fringe of hotels, and scrambles up and spreads

itself over two or three sharp hills in a crowded,

disorderly, but picturesque way, offering to the eye

a heaped-up confusion of red roofs, quaint gables,

dormer windows, toothpick steeples, with here and there

a bit of ancient embattled wall bending itself over

the ridges, worm-fashion, and here and there an old square

tower of heavy masonry. And also here and there a town

clock with only one hand–a hand which stretches across

the dial and has no joint in it; such a clock helps out

the picture, but you cannot tell the time of day by it.

Between the curving line of hotels and the lake is a broad

avenue with lamps and a double rank of low shade trees.

The lake-front is walled with masonry like a pier,

and has a railing, to keep people from walking overboard.

All day long the vehicles dash along the avenue, and nurses,

children, and tourists sit in the shade of the trees,

or lean on the railing and watch the schools of fishes

darting about in the clear water, or gaze out over the lake

at the stately border of snow-hooded mountains peaks.

Little pleasure steamers, black with people, are coming

and going all the time; and everywhere one sees young

girls and young men paddling about in fanciful rowboats,

or skimming along by the help of sails when there is any wind.

The front rooms of the hotels have little railed balconies,

where one may take his private luncheon in calm,

cool comfort and look down upon this busy and pretty

scene and enjoy it without having to do any of the work

connected with it.

Most of the people, both male and female, are in walking

costume, and carry alpenstocks. Evidently, it is not

considered safe to go about in Switzerland, even in town,

without an alpenstock. If the tourist forgets and

comes down to breakfast without his alpenstock he goes

back and gets it, and stands it up in the corner.

When his touring in Switzerland is finished, he does not

throw that broomstick away, but lugs it home with him,

to the far corners of the earth, although this costs him

more trouble and bother than a baby or a courier could.

You see, the alpenstock is his trophy; his name

is burned upon it; and if he has climbed a hill,

or jumped a brook, or traversed a brickyard with it,

he has the names of those places burned upon it, too.

Thus it is his regimental flag, so to speak, and bears

the record of his achievements. It is worth three francs

when he buys it, but a bonanza could not purchase it

after his great deeds have been inscribed upon it.

There are artisans all about Switzerland whose trade it is

to burn these things upon the alpenstock of the tourist.

And observe, a man is respected in Switzerland according

to his alpenstock. I found I could get no attention there,

while I carried an unbranded one. However, branding is