Connecticut western news., 1880-06-16
An Alpine Sunrise.
MARK TWAIN IN SEARCH OF ONE.

from the village of Waggis to the sum- init of Righi Kuhn is only about three and half hours walking. Accordingly, when Twain and Harris reached Waggis ] they thought there was no occasion to hurry, and so they proceeded leisurely | to travel to the top of Righi Kuhn. They stopped the first evening at the first inn they met, and resolved to be up l early the next morning to see the full effect of an Alpine sunrise from the sum- init of the mountain. They did not awake, however, till half past eleven, and they set out once more, at noon, quite resolved to reach the top that san1e even- ing. At six, however, they felt tired, and as they were close to comfortable hotel they entered it, saying to them selves it would be quite easy to get up the next morning and walk to the sum- init to see the sun rise. They did not, however, awake until haf-past three next afternoon. They started, again disappointed, but still hopeful of reach ing the summit, at half-past four. They lost their way, and climbed and climbed, and got wet amid fog and wet grass. Close upon midnight they at last struck the Righi Kuhn Hotel, in which 8 man blows horn early in the morning to awake those who wish to see the sun rise from the adjoining summit. Twain was delighted with this arrangement, fornow there was no chance of oversleep- ing.
 "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. It may we'll be imagined that we did not lose any time. We snatched on few odds and ends of clothing, cocooned ourselves in the prop CT 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 sum- init, a hundred yards away, and made for it. We rushed up stairs to the top of this scaffold, and stood there, above the vast outlying world, with hai1 flying and ruddy blankets waving and cracking in the fierce breeze.
 Fifteen minutes too late, at least? said Harris in 8 vexed voice. 'The sun is clear above the horizon.'
 "'No matter, said, Cit is a most magnificent spectacle, and we will see it do the rest of its rising, anyway .
 "In namomentw we were deeply absorbed in the marvel before us, and dead to everything else. The great cloud-barred disc of the sun stood just above limit less expanse of tossing white-caps, so to speak-a billowy chaos of massive mountain domes and peaks draped in imperishable snow, and flooded with an opaline glory of changing and dissolving splendors, while through rifts in black cloud-bank above the sun, radiating lances of diamond dust shot to the ze- nth. The cloven valleys of the lower world swan in @ tinted mist which vailed the ruggedness of their crags and ribs and ragged forests, and turned all the forbidden region into @ soft and rich and sensuous paradise.
 "We could not speak. We could hardly breath. We could only gaze ill drunken ecstacy and drink it in. Pres ently Harris exclaimed:
 "Why, it's going down P
 "Perfectly true. We had missed the morning horn-blow, and slept all day. This was stupefying. Harris said: "tLook here, the sun isn't the spec tacle-it's us-stacked up here on the top of this gallows, in these idiotic blankets, and two hundred and fifty we'll dressed men and women down there gawking up at us and not caring straw whether the sun rises or sets, so long as they've got such ridiculous spectacle as this to set down ill their memoran- dum-books. They seem to be laughing their ribs loose, and there's one girl there that appears to be going all to pieces. never saw such man as you before. think you are the very last possibility in the way of an ass."
 "What have I done?' I answered with heat.
 "'What have you done? You've got up at half-past seven o'clock in the eve- ming to see the sun rise, that's what you've done.'
 "And have you done any better, I'd like to know? I always used to get up with the lark, till came under the pet rifiying influence of your turgid intel lect.'
 "You used to get up with the lark, oh, no doubt; you'll get up with the hangman one of these days. But you ought to be ashamed to be jawing here like this, in a red blanket, on forty foot scaffold on top of the Alps, and no end of people down there to boot; this isn't any place for an exhibition of temper
 "And so the customary quarrel went on. When the sun was fairly down, we slipped back to the hotel in the charita- | ble glooming, and went to bed again. We had encountered the horn-blower on the way, and he tried to collect compen- sation, not only for announcing the sum- set, which we did see, but for the sum- rise, which we had totally missed, but we said no, we only took our solar ra- tions on the European plan'-pay for what you get. He promised to make us hear his horn in the morning, if we were alive"
 CAUGHT FAsT.-A retired Paris trades man, advanced in years, recently took it into his head to buy coffin. Once in his lodgings he thought he would try how one felt in it. He got in and lay