Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1880-07-29
M1istellameuns &eading,
AN ALPINE SUNRISE.
MARK TWAIN IN SEARCH OF ONE.

The guide-book says that the distance from
the village of Waggis to the summit of Rig
hi Kuhn is only about three and half
hours walking. Accordingly, when Twain
and Harris reached Waggis they thought
there was no particular occasion to hurry,
and so they proceeded leisurely to travel to
the top of the Righi Kuhn. They stopped
the first evening at the first inn they met, and
resolved to be up early the next morning to
see the full effect of an Alpine sunrise from
the summit of the mountain. They did not
awake, however, till halfpast eleven, and
they set out once more, at noon, quite re-
solved to reach the top that same evening"
At six, however, they felt tired, and as they
we're close to a comfortable hotel, they enter
ed it, saying to themselves it would be
quite easy to get up the next morning and
walk to the summit to see the sun rise. They
did not, however, awake until half:past three
the next afternoon. They started, again dis
appointed, but still hopeful of reaching the
summit, at half past four. They lost their
way, and climbed and climbed, and got wet
amid the fog and wet grass. Close upon
midnight they at last "struck" the Righi
Kuhn Hotel, in which man blows horn
early in the morning to awake all those who
wish to see the sun rise from the adjoining
summit. Twain was delighted with this ar
rangement, for now there would be no chance
Of over-sleeping.
"We curled up in the clammy beds, and
went to sleep without rocking. We were so
sodden with fatigue that we never stirred nor
turned over till the booming blasts of the
Alpine horn aroused US. 1t may we'll be i'm
agined that we did not lose any time. We
snatched on few odds and ends of clothing,
cocooned ourselves in the proper red blankets,
and plunged along the halls and out into the
whistling wind bare headed. We saw tall
wooden scaffolding on the very peak Of the
summit, hundred yards away, and made
for it. We rushed up the stairs to the top of
this scaffold, and stood there, above the vast
outlying world, with hair flying and ruddy
blankets waving and cracking in the fierce
breeze.
"'Fifteen minutes too late, at least !" said
Harris, in vexed voice. "The sun is clear
above the horizon"
"'No NATTER 1 said it is most mag
ni6cent spectacle, and we will see it to the
rest of its rising, anyway
"In moment we were deeply absorbed in
the marvel before u.s. and dead to everything
else. The great cloud barred disc Of the sun
stood lust above limitless expanse Of tossing
white-caps, so to speak-a billowy chaos OF
massy mountain domes and peaks draped in
imperishable snow, and flooded with an opa'
line glory of changing and dissolving splen,'
dors, while through riffs in black cloud.
bank above the sun radiatiug lances of dia'
mond-dust shot to the zenith. The cloven
valleys of the lower world swan in a tinted
mist which yelled the ruggedness of their
crags and ribs and ragged forests, and turned
all the forbidding region into a soft and rich
and sensuous paradise.
We could not speak. We could hardly
breathe. We could only gaze in drunken
ecstacy and drink it in. Presently Harris
exclaimed:
"Why, it's going down!
"Perfectly true. We had missed the
morning horn blow, and slept all day. This
was stupefying Harris said