The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-22
THE AUGUST MAGAZINES.
aPuTNANI,s.o

tracts;--
Anime travellers and readers of Alpine
AroveIs are familiar with ChamOunix and its
roountain pories, Mont Blanc, the Mer dc
Glace. the Jardin VERT the Brevent. Equally
veil known to them is the Oberland with its
queenly Jungfrau, its encnanting valley OF
Interlaken, its beautiful panorama from the
Riei Kuhn But there is an Alpine valley
orender than that of Chamounix, more strik-
INC in its diversified beauty than any in the
Oberland. allude to the Zermatt Thai. OF
late years, the tide of public favor has
been setting in strongly towards this
secluded nest in the High Alps; the Alpine
Club have explored and re-explored every
peak and pass in and around it, and books
Of travel are full of its praise. For all that
Zermatt WILL l trust, ever remain what 1t has
been hitherto-a quiet haunt for genuine
lovers of Alpine scenery, unfrequented by
the herd of hill and glacier grazers that de-
your Switzerland in a fortnight. The position
of Zermatt favors this comparative isolation.
1t stands at the head of a long narrow valley,
a cA dc sac which has no outlets at the south
except over the st. Theodule pass into Italy.
This pass is not dangerous, but 1t is quite
high. always covered with snow, and
more or less fatiguing to even good
walkers Nor is there any lateral outletinto the
adjacent valleys of Saas on the east and Evo-
lena on the west; unless, indeed, the traveller
is minded to attempt such passages as the
Weiss Thor, the Adler, the Alphubel, or the
Col d'Herns-all grdHdeS courses of great
height and danger, and also of wild beauty.
The ordinary c6ydgeur, therefore, who travels
more for pleasure than adventure is obliged
to conclude his Zermatt trip by retracing his
steps down the valley to the Rhone at Nisp.
Thus isolated, Zermatt stands peerless in
beauty among the great Alpine valleys 1t
offers no one peak that is quite so high as the
dome of Mont Blanc, with its 10, 500 feet of
elevation; but it has the Monte Rosa, 1920,
the hIischabelhorner, $4,000, the Lyskamm,
the Twins, and the Breithorn nearly as high,
the Matterhorn, IA, 500, the Weisshorn within
a fraction of $1,000. And what mountains
they are, too The Hochste Spite of the
Monte Rosa affords the daring climber a
panoramic view surprising any to be had from
the dos dGHe of the Mont Blanc; the Brett
horn displays a dazzling wall of snow that
Outshines the Jungfrau; the Matterhorn,
boldly thrusting its precipitous pile of rock
for thousands of feet into the sky, is the Titan
of the Alps; while the WeisshOrn, pronounced
by Ruskin to be the perfection of mountain
confguration, may be named the Apollo
For the venturesome traveller Zermatt is
rich in attractions, chief among which is the
ascent of the Monte Rosa. l have already
stated that the view from the summit sur
passes that from Mont Blanc; 1 may add that
the ascent is more dangerous. For a long
while Mont Blanc was looked upon
with reverential dread by admirers of Albert
Smith, who failed himself to reach the sum-
mit and the Chamounix guides found pecu-
mary profit in exaggerating the danger, and
thus forcing visitors to take four guides
where one would suffice. Thanks to the en-
terprise and pluck of the Alpine Club, this
delusion has been cured and the ascent of
Mont Blanc is now regarded as anything but
an extraordinary feat.
The following is description of a sunrise
as seen from Monte Rosa-
Towards o'clock we were fairly out at sea
on the great Corner Glacier. The ice was
delightfully."- hard and crisp, and the sharp
headed nails in our shoes "bit" into it as
though they were patent creepers. The night
had imperceptibly given way to the loveliest
dawn, and the stars died out one by one, but
the tall snow mountains still remained of a
ghostly ashen color. Itwas almost oppres-
sive-the sky overhead full of warm light,
and in front these huge spectral snow -wreaths
of the Lyskamm and the Breithorn Not a
breath of air was stirring, not sound was to
be heard except the crunching Of the ice
under foot Suddenly Peter Taugwald uttered
a low exclamation, and pointed with his alpen-
stock to the Hochste Spite that lowered on
our left Sure enough, the dull brown rocks
rays of the rising sun.
We all felt what was coming, and involun-
tarily paused. The entire western side OF the
Monte Rosa-the one turned towards us
rested in deep shadow. AS the sun crept
slowly up, its rays glanced from summit to
summit, falling full upon the Matterhorn far
away to the right. The shadow of the Monte
Rosa rested upon the Lyskamm, while the
latter projected long cone of darl1ish green
upon the twins. The Breithorn still retained
its ashy hue. All at once, in the twinkling Of
an eye, the sun turned the corner of the
Twins and shot single broad ray of light
across the entire face of the Breithorn, flush
ing it to a light orange. From moment to
moment the color on the snow-wreaths grew
warmer and warmer, while the most exquisite
hues of apple-green and violet played about
the submits. For upwards of thirty minutes
this indescribable play of colors lasted, until
the more delicate tints faded slowly away In
the garish glow of the summer day. Never
have / witnessed q spectacle more impress
sively beautiful than this sunrise.
The tints themselves, the shifting of the
shadows, the sudden bursts of light, every
thing combined to create a scene of over
powering beauty. Let the reader imagine
himself standing on one of the grandest
glaciers in the Alps at the very base of fes
tooned wall of snow thousands of feet higl
and stretching away for miles on either side
and then let him imagine these gigantic snow
wreaths throwing the most fantastic shadows
upon each other and colored with the mos
exquisite tints. Such is a sunrise on tn,
Corner Glacier
1t is a mistake to consider sunrise as merel,
an inverted sunset. In the Alps, at least, tn,
whole coloring is different. In place Of the