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person is allowed to go up with less than two guides, and each of these must be paid a hundred francs, or twenty dollars. Then a porter is required to carry provisions and extra clothing, and he must be paid fifty francs. At the little hut, at Grands Mulets, the climber is charged more for his accommodation than he would have to pay at a first-class New-York hotel, and if he thinks to economize by making a supper and breakfast out of the provisions he has brought with him, he is charged five dollars for his bed. It is of no use to try to get the better of a person who keeps a hut hotel, ten thousand feet in the air, where there is no opposition. If one does not like the terms, he may sleep in the snow. When a party goes up, the expenses of each member are somewhat lessened, but the trip is, in any case, a costly one. For this reason, and on account of the hardships and dangers incurred in climbing its vast and snowy steeps, the great majority of tourists are content to gaze upon the towering heights of Mont Blanc without attempting to ascend them.

The more dangerous peaks of Switzerland, such as the Matterhorn, are only ascended by skillful and practiced mountain-climbers, and even these often meet with disaster. On the first ascent of the Matterhorn, four persons lost their lives by falling the dreadful distance of four thousand feet; and not far from this mountain is a little cemetery containing the graves of travelers who have perished in climbing this and neighboring heights. But there are mountains in Switzerland the summits of which can be reached by persons capable of sustaining ordinary fatigue, and they are ascended every summer by hundreds of travellers, many of whom are ladies. The latter sometimes prove themselves very steady and enduring climbers, and in Switzerland it very often happens that when a boy starts out on an excursion he can not tell his sister that she must stay at home that day, because he is going to climb a mountain. Give a girl an alpenstocka long stick with a spike in the end- — a pair of heavy boots with rough nails in the soles, and if she be in good health, and accustomed to exercise, she can climb quite high up in the world on a Swiss mountain.

But, although a fine view may be obtained from a mountain six, eight, or ten thousand feet high, and although the ascent may not be really dangerous, it is of no use to assert that it is an easy thing to go up such mountains; and there are few of them on which there are not some places, necessary to pass, where a slip would make it extremely unpleasant for the person slipping. There are a great many travelers, not used to climbing, or not able to do so, whose nerves are not in that perfect order which would enable them to stand on

the edge of even a moderately high precipice without feeling giddy; and yet these people would like very much to have a view from a mountain-top, and they naturally feel interested when they find that there is in Switzerland a mountain, and a high one, too, from which a magnificent view may be obtained, that can be ascended without any fatigue, or any danger.

To this mountain we are now going. It is called the Rigi, and it is situated on the northern bank of the Lake of Lucerne, or as the Swiss call it, "The Lake of the Four Forest Cantons; " and there is, probably, no lake in the world more beautiful, or surrounded by grander scenery. It is also full of interest historically, for its shores were the scenes of the first efforts for Swiss independence. On one of its arms, the Lake of Uri, we are shown the place where William Tell sprang on the rocks when escaping from the boat of the tyrant Gessler; and in the little village of Altorf, not far away, he shot the apple from his son's head.

At the edge of the lake, at the very foot of the Rigi, is the small town of Vitznau, and it is to this place that the people who wish to ascend the mountain betake themselves, by steamboat. On the other side of the mountain there is another small town, called Arth, where tourists coming from the north begin their ascent; but we shall go up from Lake Lucerne, and start from Vitznau. Arrived at this town, we find ourselves at the foot of a towering mountain, which stretches for miles to the east and west, so that it is more like a short mountainous chain than a single eminence. Its loftiest peak is five thousand nine hundred and six feet,— about the height of our own Mount Washington, in the White Mountains.

In preparing to climb the Rigi, it is not necessary for us to adopt the costume usually worn by mountain-climbers in Switzerland, which, in the case of men and boys, consists of a very short coat, knickerbocker trowsers buttoned at the knee, heavy woolen stockings, stout laced boots with the soles covered with projecting nails, a little knapsack on the back, and a long alpenstock in the hand. We need not carry any provisions, but it is necessary to take some extra wraps with us, for at the top it is often very cold; but although the mountain is very high, and its top rises above the limit of the growth of trees, it does not reach to the line of eternal snow.

There are no icy slopes, up which we must scramble; there are no crevasses, reaching down hundreds of feet into the heart of the mountain, over which we must slowly creep by means of a plank or ladder; there are no narrow footpaths, with a towering wall of rock on one side and a terrible precipice yawning on the other; there are no

wide and glistening snow-fields, on which, if one of us slips and falls, he may slide away so swiftly and so far, that he may never be seen again; there are no vast fissures covered with newly fallen snow on which if a person carelessly treads he disappears forever.

There is also no necessity of our walking in a line with a long rope tied from one to the other, so that if one of us slips the others may hold back, and keep him from falling or sliding very far. None of these dangers, which are to be encountered by those who ascend the higher Alps, and many of the lower Swiss mountains, are to be met with here; and the precautions which those persons must not fail to take are not required on the Rigi. All that is necessary when we are ready to make the ascent, is to buy our tickets, and take our seats in a wide and comfortable railway car. There is a funny little locomotive at one end of this car, and there is a line of rails which leads by various curves and windings and steep ascents, up to the top of the mountain. The locomotive will do the climbing, and all we have to do is to sit still, and look about, and see what there is to be seen.

This railway and the little locomotive are very different from those in ordinary use on level ground. The rails are about the usual distance apart, but between them are two other very strong rails, lying near to each other, and connected by a series of stout iron bars, like teeth. Under the locomotive is a cogwheel which fits into these teeth, and as it is turned around by the engine it forces the locomotive up the steep incline. There is but one car to each train, and this is always placed above the engine, so that it is pushed along when it is going up, and held back when it is coming down. The car is not attached to the locomotive, so that if anything happens to the latter, the car can be instantly stopped by means of a brake which acts on the teeth between the rails, and the locomotive can go on down by itself. There is no power required in going down, and all the engine has to do is to hold back sturdily, and keep the car from coming down too fast. This may be the reason, perhaps, why persons are charged only half as much for coming down as they are charged for going up.

The locomotive does not stand up straight in the ordinary way, but leans backward, and when on level ground, it looks very much as if it had broken down at one end; but when it is on the steep inclines of the mountain, its depressed end, which always goes first, is then as high as the other, and the smokestack stands up perpendicularly. The seats in the cars, too, slope so that the passengers will not slip off them when one end of the car is tilted up. The ascents of the road are

often quite surprising, and one wonders how the locomotive is ever going to get the car, containing forty or fifty people, up those steep inclines. But up it always goes, steadily and resolutely, for the little engine has the power of one hundred and twenty horses.

The whole road is about four and a half miles long, and although the locomotive is so strong, it only goes at the rate of three miles an hour, so that an active person walking by its side might keep up with it for a time, though he would be likely to be very tired before he had gone far.

As we slowly ascend the Rigi, in this comfortable way, we find that we are taking one of the most interesting and novel excursions of our lives. If the weather be fine, there breaks upon the eye, as we rise higher and higher, a succession of those views of mountain, lake, and forest, which only can be had from an elevated position; and as one of these views suddenly appears, and then is cut off by a turn in the road, to be presently succeeded by another, we have a foretaste of what we are going to enjoy when we arrive at the top. The scenery immediately about the railway is also very interesting, and some of the incidents of the trip are not only novel but startling. Sometimes the little train traverses regions of wild forest and rocks; sometimes it winds along the edge of savage precipices; now it passcs into a dark and dreary tunnel, from which it emerges to take an airy flight over a long and narrow bridge, which we in the car can not see beneath us, and where we look far down upon the tree-tops we are passing over. Through wild and desolate scenes, by forests, rocks, and waterfalls, we pass, the little locomotive always puffing and pushing vigorously behind us, until we reach a level plateau, on which stands a large and handsome hotel, with numerous outbuildings. This is called the Rigi Kaltbad, and the situation is a very beautiful one. Many people come here to spend days, and even weeks, enjoying the mountain walks and the grand scenery.

But, after a short stop at the station here, our train passes on, and before long we reach another plateau, much higher up, which is called Rigi Staffel, where there is another large hotel. Then, on we go, up a steep ledge, on the edge of a cliff, which it seems impossible that any train could ascend, until we reach the Rigi Kulm, the highest part of the mountain. When we alight from the train, we see a large and handsome hotel, with several smaller buildings surrounding it, but we find we are not on the very loftiest peak of the Kulm. To this point we must walk, but there are broad and easy paths leading to it, and the ascent is not very great, and does not require many minutes.

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DIAGRAM OF THE LAKE OF LUCERNE AND THE RIGI, SHOWING RAILWAY TO THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN.

containing articles of carved wood or ivory, boxes, bears, birds, spoons, forks, and all those useful and ornamental little things which the Swiss make so well and are so anxious to sell. There are so many of these booths and stands, with the women and men attending to them, that it seems as if a little fair, or bazaar, is being held on the top of the mountain.

We shall doubtless be surprised that the first thing that attracts our attention at this famous place should be preparations to make money out of us; but everywhere through Switzerland the traveler finds people who wish to sell him something, or who continually volunteer to do something for which they wish him to pay. As he drives along the country roads, little girls throw bunches of wild flowers into his carriage and then run by its side expecting some money in return. By the roadside, in the most lonely places, he will find women and girls sitting behind little tables on which they are making lace, which, with a collection of tiny Swiss chalets, and articles of carved wood, they are very eager to sell. When the road passes near a precipitous mountain-side, he will find a man with a long Alpine horn, who awakens the echoes and expects some pennies. At another

which lie in the ravines of the mountains, are often of great depth, extending downward for hundreds of feet, and are formed by the melting of the snow in the lower part of the snow-fields above. The water trickles down when the sun shines on it, and is frozen at night, and thus, in the course of centuries, a vast and solid mass of ice is formed which is sometimes 1500 feet thick. In the glacier which I visited, a long tunnel had been cut, through which a person could comfortably walk, and this led to a fairly large room hewn in the very heart of the glacier, and called the Ice Grotto. There were lamps placed here and there, by which this frigid passage was dimly lighted, and the sensation of finding one's self in the middle of a vast block of ice was truly novel. The walls and roof of the tunnel were transparent for a considerable distance, and I could look into the very substance of the clear blue ice around me. I followed the man who acted as my guide to the end of the tunnel, and then we mounted a few steps into the grotto, which was lighted by a single lamp. The moment I set foot inside this wonderful chamber, with walls, roof, and floor of purest ice, I heard a queer tinkling and thumping in one corner, and looking there, I saw two old women, each playing on a doleful

little zither. They looked like two horrible old witches of the ice. Of course I knew that they were playing for my benefit; and I wondered if they always sat there in that enormous refrigerator, waiting for the visitors who might enter and give them a few centimes in return for their mournful strumming. But when I went out, I found that the old women soon followed, and I suppose they go into the glacier and ensconce themselves in their freezing retreat, whenever they see a tourist coming up the mountain-side.

And now, having recovered from our slight surprise at seeing the signs of traffic on the very top of the mountain, we pass the booths and advance to a wooden railing, which is built on the northern edge of the Kulm. The first thing that strikes our eyes is a vast plain, lying far below us, which, to some people, seems at first like an immense marsh, partly green and partly covered with dark patches, and with pools of water here and there. But when the eye becomes accustomed to this extent of view, we see that those dark patches are great forests; that those pools are lakes, on the shores of which towns and cities are built; and this plain before us is the whole of North Switzerland.

As we turn and look about us, we sec a panorama of three hundred miles in circuit. To the south lies a mighty and glorious range of snow-clad Alps, one hundred and twenty miles in length. We see the white peaks glittering in the sun, the darker glaciers in the ravines, the wide snow-fields, clear and distinct. Between us and these giants are lower mountains, some green and wooded, some bold and rocky. Towns, villages, and chalets are dotted everywhere in the valleys and on the plains.

views from various points. At one place there is a high wooden platform, to which we ascend by steps, at the side of which hangs a little box with a hole in the top, with an inscription in three languages asking us not to forget to remember the owner of this belvedere. From this platform, which is provided with a railing and benches, we can get a clear view in every direction; and stuck about in little sockets, are small colored glasses, through which we may look at the landscape. When we hold a yellow one before our eyes, mountains and plains seem glowing beneath a golden sky; a red one gives us an idea that the whole world is on fire; while through a blue one everything looks cold, dreary, and cheerless.

But we quickly put down the glasses. We want no such things as these to help us enjoy those glorious scenes.

While we stand and gaze from the wide-spread plain to the stupendous mountain ranges, the sun begins to set; and as it sinks below the horizon, the white peaks and snowy masses of the long line of Alps are gradually tinged with that beautiful rosy tint which is called the after-glow. Never were mountains more beautiful than these now appear, and we remain and look upon them until they fade away into the cold, desolate, and awful regions that they are.

The view of the sunrise from the Kulm is one of the great sights enjoyed by visitors, and many persons come to the Rigi on purpose to witness it. On fine mornings, hundreds of tourists may be seen gathered together at daybreak on the top of the Kulm. It is generally very cold at this hour, and they are wrapped in overcoats, shawls, and even blankets taken from the beds, although there are notices in each of the hotel rooms that this is

The view is one of the grandest and most beauti- forbidden. But all shivering and shaking is forful in Europe.

The north side of the Rigi is almost precipitous, and as we again lean over the railing and look down its dizzy slopes, we see lying at our very feet the whole Lake of Zug. Three large towns are upon its banks, and a number of villages. A steamboat, apparently about the size of a spool of cotton, is making its way across the lake. To the left, a great part of the lake of Lucerne is visible, with the city of Lucerne at one end of it, its pinnacles, towers, and walls plainly in view. Away to the north, we see a portion of the city of Zurich, although the greater part of it is hidden by an intervening hill. On the northern horizon, lies the famous Black Forest, and the long line of the Jura Mountains is visible to the west. Looking here and there, we can count, in all, thirteen lakes.

The top of the Kulm is rounded and grassy, and we can walk about and look at the wonderful

gotten when, one after another, the highest snowpeaks are lighted up by the sun, which has not yet appeared to view, and when, gradually and beautifully, the whole vast landscape is flooded with the glory of the day.

But the people who go up on the Rigi to make a stay at the hotels do not content themselves with gazing at the grand panorama to be seen from the Kulm. The life and the scenes on the mountain itself are full of interest. Its promontories, slopes, and valleys are covered with rich grass, over which it is delightful to ramble and climb. Below the Rigi Staffel is a beautiful green hollow, called the valley of Klösterli; handsome cattle, with their tinkling bells, ramble over its rich pastures; and the brown cottages of the herdsmen are seen here and there. There is a Capuchin monastery and chapel in this valley, which was built nearly two hundred years ago, where the Sunday congre

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