The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-26 00:00:00

The Risks of Swiss Hotels•

Most people who visit Switzerland go up the
Righi, but few Englishmen follow my example of
staying there for a fortnight. It would be impos-
sible to remain so long at the hotel on the summit,
where they do not want you to remain, and where
the daily change of 200 visitors would be a source
of constant irritation ; so I distributed my
time between the hotel, or rather pension on the
Rigid Scheldeck, 5,400 feet high, which is much
frequented by Swiss of the middle class, and a
similar establishment oat the Kaltbad, 4,727 feet,
which is filled during, the season chiefly with aristo-
cratic Germans. . . . Before the present erec-
tion was made, the Kaltbad hotel was of wood; and
the last time that it was IJurned down the fire
spread so rapidly that a lady who was in a bath at
the time was obliged to escape in a sheet—losing
not only the clothes in her rooms, but also every
article of • dress she had just been wearing As
nothing was saved from the conflagration, the
other ladies could not help her, so she had to be put
in a chair and carried down the Righi iu her
African costume, as was related to me by a Zurich
Professor, who himself witnessed the scene. The
wonder is that these wooden hotels in the Alps are
not burned down even oftener than they are, con-
sidering the amount of smokieg that goes on inthem,
the number of travellers they frequently contain, the
dryness of the resiny pinewood, and the winds which
blow about. It is also a mystery how people are
saved when a fire occurs, for no means of escape
appear to be provided. Even these Alpine hostel-
ries have sometimes a fourth storey ; and when you
are put up there to sleep it becomes a curious sub-
ject of speculation as to what effect your head will
have upon the stones below the window should a fire
break out during the night. You begin to consider
whether that German professor, who smoked his huge
pipe intermittingly all the evening, smokes in his
bed also ; and you give undue attention to the inci-
dental statement of the lady who mentioned that
she could never sleep without a light in her room.
In these trying circumstances I always consoled
myself with recalling the story of the member of
the Alpine Club, who is said last year to have
fallen 60 feet upon his head upon some rocks, and
to have injured the rocks very much indeed, with-
out himself suffering serious damage. I always
went to sleep, determined to become a member of
that club as soon as possible ; and I think it must
have been this story which led me to the insanity of
making ascents in the high Alps, which I suppose
qualify for being an M. A. C. Another drawback con-
nectedwith the timber hotels is, that they form a spe-
cies of Dionysius ear. You may not be informed of
what goes on through the entire house ; but if
your ears are of no ordinary acoustic power, it is
difficult to escape hearing, so long as slumber does
not kiss your drooping lids, a good deal of what may
be going on in the room above you, and the room
beneath you, and the room on either side. To many
this is not pleasant ; and if given to speaking while
asleep, the impressions which you convey to timid
persons in the neighbouring apartments will not
only cause them a great deal of unnecessary anxiety,
but may suggest to their minds an exaggerated and
extremely damaging impression of your own life
and character. From one neighbouring coffer-like
chamber I could not help hearing the warning de-
livered in English in a feminine voice, "Tow, William,
you must not speak in your sleep ; everything you
say will be overheard." And it is very easy uttering
such warnings, but of what avail are they when the
man has passed into slumber ?—Blackwood.