The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-23 00:00:00

ALPINE TOURISTS.

(From the Times' Correspondent)
INTERLAKEN, Sept. 19.

I drove out to-day to Lauterbrunnen. My pur-

pose was not to cross overtheWengern Alp to Grin-
delwald, a route now familiar to nine out of ten
English readers that a description of it would be
about as welcome as that of a walkthrough Hanway-
street, from Oxford-street into Tottenham-court-
road. Neither did I care to see the Staubbach, for
that " Dust Cataract," as its name implies, never
remarkable for any great wealth of waters, must in
this extraordinarily dry season be reduced to a mere
gossamer thread. No ; I had a far more sentimental
object in view—l wished to make a pilgrimage on
the footsteps of that lovely, ill-faced young bride
who was killed by lightning on the 21st of June of
this year.
Few incidents with which the public at large were
less directly concerned made a more deep, general,
and lasting impression than the sudden tragic death
of the Hon. Alice Arbuthnot. Strongly affected by
that simple, yet cruel story, 1 eagerly read every
particular with which the papers at the time were
teeming, and with such knowledge of the localities
as my previous Alpine tours gave me I tried to
single out on the map the spot which had been the
scene of that melancholy catastrophe. I confess
I was utterly baffled, and that, up to a few days
since, the only vague idea that dwelt on my mind—
and that was an erroneous one—was that Mrs.
Arbuthnot had perished somewhere in the imme-
diate neighbourhood of Interlaken. I have now
gained by personal inquiry a distinct and thorough
knowledge of all the reader may wish to know on
the sorrowful subject, and I hope a statement of the
means by which I came to such a knowledge may
not prove altogether void of interest.
I drove out to Lauterbrunnen this morning at 8
o'clock. The air was still fresh and almost cool ;

we went along with as perfect a reliance on the en-

durance of our splendid weather as if we had char-
tered it for all the rest of our lifetime ; the merry
rattle of our ricketty einspanner, the smart trot and
jingling bells of our grey pony, the joyous counte-
nance of our young driver, the rushing water of the
Laatschine, the vivid breeze from the great snow
mountains closing the valleys of Lauterbrunnen and
Grindelwald, as we looked up at both of them from
their confluence at Zweilutschinen, left little room
for sad meditation, and the gloomiest thoughts that
now and then crossed my mind turned upon the
hard lot of you who are left in London at the pre-
sent season, hard at work all night, losing the cream
of the autumn morning, and choking with the dust
and mist of a Fleet-street atmosphere.
It is barely an hour and a half's drive from Inter-
laken up to Lauterbrunnen, so it was not long before
we came in sight of the two or three hotels of the
village, the wall-like mountain cliff that overhangs
it, the silver dust-like fall which gives it celebrity,
and on the left of the high road the luxuriant pas-
ture, through which winds the bridle-path up to the
Wengern Alp. Right before us the several snowy
peaks of the Jungfrau, the Monch, and the Eiger
had longbeen looming portentous in the landscape.
I made arrangements with the guide the moment
I alighted at the Hotel Steinbock, not because I
wanted one, but purely on the live-and-let-live prin-
ciple, and, as a lesser evil, that the choice of one
should rid me of the importunity of the others.
We took our way to the Alpine village of Murrell,
situated at the distance of about two hours from
Lauterbrunnen, high up on the mountain, on the
right hand of the road, and opposite to the Wengern
Alp. The way to Murren leads straight up to the
precipice from which the Staubbach takes its 925 ft.
leap. Up it winds, steep and stony, but accessible
to horses, till it crosses the fall itself at the top.
It then wanders on across woods and over pastures
till it reaches the Hotel Silberhorn, the post-house
and only inn of the village. Mr. and Mrs. Arbuth-
not had come up to Murren riding, but upon alight-
ing at the hotel door they dismissed their horses,
and, attended by their guide, Ulrich von Allmen,
they immediately proceeded to their destination,
which was the summit of the Schildhorn, or, accord-
ing to the common parlance here, Schilthorn.
The object of the expedition of this newly-married
pair—they were on their seventh honey week—was
to gain a near insight into that long and vast chain
of snowy mountains of which the Jungfrau is the
queen. There is something irresistibly attractive
in the very name, in the shape, in the outlines of
that virgin mountain, in the close approach one is
allowed of it from the Wengern Alp, no less than
from Murren and other points—a closer approach,
a more immediate plunge as it Were into its bosom,
than can with equal facility be attained with any of
its Alpine sisters ; though, to my mind, the Jungfrau
nowhere shows to greater advantage than from the
gap through which we look at it from under the
huge walnut trees at Interlaken.
IVell, the view from Murren extends over the
Jungfrau right opposite—the Monch, the Eiger,
and the more distant Wetterhorn on the left ; and
the Mittagshorn, Breithorn, Grosshorn, Tschingel-
horn, &c., on the right. The wilderness of great
rocky cliffs falling down perpendicularly upon the
narrow upper valley of Lauterbrunnen, on every
side (the Schwartze Monch alone which is but an
outwork of the Jungfrau, must have a fall of at
least 9,000 feet), is but the foreground to that inter-
minable sea of ice and snow, the glance of which in
such a sun as we had this morning is one of the most
glorious sights the eye could rest upon. Although
Murren is only 5,018 feet above the sea level, and
not more than 2,484 feet above Lauterbrunnen, it
would seem as if it were almost folly to go any higher
up with a hope of gaining a better view. Mr. and
Mrs. Arbuthnot, however, were bound to the Schil-
thorn, a hill to the west of Murren, one of those
outer watch-towers from which not only, as from
the Faulhorn, one looks almost into all that moun-
tain world of the Bernese Oberland, but one can see
many of the Alps of the Valais. and all the north of
Switzerland besides, stretched at one's feet. The
Schilthorn is 9,127 feet high, and its top can only be
reached by four and a half hours' march. For about
two and a half hours the ascent is practicable for
horses, but the Arbuthnots had, as I stated before,
sent theirs back, and they took their way on foot.
It had been asserted that the landlord of the Silber-
horn, Herr Sterchi, had endeavoured to dissuade the
young couple from their enterprise by pointing to
the signs of threatening weather, but Herr Sterchi
assured me not only that he gave no such warning, but
that there was nothing in the look of the sky to deter
any Person from an ascent which, although long and
somewhat fatiguing, is perfectly free from danger.
They set out on foot, and walked up to the distance
of about three hours from Murren, when Ulrich, the
guide, fancied he " smelt electric fluid in the air,"
and, as a storm was visibly gathering, advised a re-
treat. Mr. Arbuthnot, probably considering that
the storm was as likely to overtake them in their
three hours' way back as in their forward march
and feeling that reluctance to acknowledge himself'
beaten that is so peculiar to the English character,
wished to push on. The lady, however, pleaded.
exhaustion, and was left seated
Mountain climber, seated on the ground
T
waiting for their return.
had not gone ten minutes from the spot when they
saw the lightning and heard the crash of the
thunder, and, unwilling to leave the lady to her too
natural alarm, they retraced their steps instantly.
What they found on the spot where ten minutes
before they had left a human being full of life and
happiness has been described to me by the medical
man who was summoned from Interlaken to inspect
the body of the deceased at some ceremony, I pre-
sume, corresponding to the coroner's inquest in
England. Ile said :
" Mrs. Arbuthnot's head and face were perfectly un-
touched ; the hair stood slightly on end, as if with sudden
horror, and the left temple was slightly singed ; down on
the neck, where a brooch rested, the fluid, attracted by the
metal, had burnt a deeper mark, but it was only in the
lower part of the body, as the lady sat on the ground, that
tho weight of the bolt had fallen, consuming at once
nearly all the vital parts, and burying itself in the ground,
where it dug a deep hole about 18 inches in diameter. No
death could be more instantaneous or attended with less
conscious suffering." I

The rest of the tale is soon told. The body of
the unfortunate bride was removed first to Miirren,
then to Interlaken, finally to Berne, where it now
lies interred. Only six days ago, on the 13th of
this month, the Rev. W. Dillon came up from Berne
with 15 men, bearers of a marble cross, which was

to supersede the rude cross of white fir wood with
which the pious mountaineers of Miirren had
marked the scene of the sad tragedy. The new
marble cross, intended as a lasting monument, was
erected at the distance of about eight feet from the
spot on which Mrs. Arbuthnot was found dead ;
on the spot itself a large stone is laid with a heap of
smaller ones upon it, somewhat after the fashion of
a cairn. The cross itself is about three hours' walk
from Miirren, but it is to be seen, as you ascend,
about half an hour before you come up with it.
The record of the funeral transaction performed
on the 13th was put down by Mr. Dillon on the
travellers' book at the Silberhorn ; under his state-
ment are the signatures of the two chief workmen
employed on the occasion—" C.Wiegram de Berne"
and " Henry Hirschgartner, maitre marbrier et
sculpt. de Berne, his placet th monument" (sic).
Mrs. Arbuthnot died, then, not at, or even near,
Interlaken, but on the Schilthorn, above Miirren,
at about seven hours' distance from this place. It
is well that the ill omen of this particular misfortune
should be made to pass away from the horizon of
Interlaken, as the spot has been too truly marked
by cruel mishaps in former times, such as the drown-
ing of the poor lad of 18, Mr. Charles Stuart, son
of Major-General Stuart, in 1835, and the fall of
two young ladies, Miss Bowley, in 1840, and Miss
Corry, in 1850, both from the same dreadful cliffs
of the Harder, a steep mountain immediately at the
back of Interlaken, across the Aar, a mountain
beautifully covered with dense wood and rich mea-
dows at the top, but all scarred and seamed by the
beds of rills, down which an incautious rambler will
slide till he comes to the top of the precipice, and
struggle in vain with nails and teeth to cling to the
treacherous ground which he feels inexorably sink-
ing, sinking under him.
Another fatal accident happened in the same
year, 1850, of which record is kept in the English
church book at Interlaken. Mr. Dutton (Lord
Dutton the people here dub him, usurping a privi-
lege belonging to her Majesty as the fountain of
honour and grace) was hunting the chamois on the
Tschingel glacier. His guide carried a gun behind
him, slung by the straps on his shoulder. The
straps snapped, the gun fell and went off, wounding
Mr. Dutton, who was conveyed to Frutigen, and
there died within the day.