The Portland daily press., 1880-07-13
An Alpine Sunrise.
M ark Twain in Search of One.

The guide-book says that the distance from
the village of Waggis to the summit of Rigni
Kuhn is only about three and half hours
walking. Accordingly, when Twain and Har-
ris reached Waggis they thought there was no
particular occasion to hurry, and so they pro-
ceeded leisurely to travel to the top of the Rig
hi 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
at noon, quite resolved to reach the top that
same evening. At six, however, they felt
tired, and as they were close to comfortable
hotel they entered it, saying to themselves it
would be quite easy to get up the next morn
ing and walk to the summit to see the sun rise.
They did not, however, awake till half-past
three next afternoon. They started again, dis
appointed, but still hopeful of reaching the
summit, at half-past four. They climbed and
climbed, and lost their way, and got wet amid
fog and wet grass. Close upon midnight they
at last "struck" the Righi Kuhn hotel, in
which man blows horn early in the morn
ing to awake all those who wish to see the sun
rise from the adjoining summit. Twain was
delighted with this arrangement, for now there
would be no chance for oversleeping.
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 AL
pine horn aroused us. 1t may be imagined
that we did not lose much 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 bareheaded. We saw a tall
wooden scaffolding on the very peak of the
summit a hundred yards away, and made for
it. We rushed up the stairs TO the top of this
scaffod and stood there, above the vast out
lying world, with hair flying and ruddy blank
cts waving and cracking in the fierce breeze.
Fifteen minutes too late, at least, said
Harris, in a vexed voice, "The sun is clear
above the horizon"
"No matter" 1 said. sit is most magnifi-
cent spectacle and We will see it do the rest of
its rising, anyway
In moment we were absorbed in the marvel
before us, and dead to everything else. The
great cloud-barred disc of the sun stood Just
above limitless expanse of white caps, so to
speak-a billowy chaos of massy mountain
domes and peaks draped in imperishable snow
and flooded with an opaline glory of changing
and dissolving splendors, while through riffs
in black cloud-bank above the sun, radiat-
ing lances OF the diamond dust shot to the
zenith The cloven valleys of the lower world
swan in tinted mist which veiled the rug
gedness OF their crags and ribs and ragged for
ests, and turned all the forbidding region into
soft, and rich and sensuous paradise.
we could not speak. We could hardly
breathe. We could only gaze in drunben ecs-
tacy and drink it in. Presently Harris ex-
claimed:
why, it's going downl'
Perfectly true. We had missed the morning
horn-blow, and slept all day. This was stupe-
flying. Harris said
Look here, the sun isn't the spectacle it's
us-stacked up here on the top of this gallows
in these idiotic blankets, and two hundred and
fifty well dressed men and women down there
gawking up at us and not caring straw
whether the sun rises and sets, so long as
they've got such ridiculous spectacle as this
to set down in their memorandum books
They seem to be laughing their ribs loose, and
there's one girl there that appears to be going
to pieces. never saw such a man as you be-
fore. L think you are the very last possibility
in the way of an ass"
What have 1 done?' 1 answered with heat. ,
- What have you done? You've got up a