Morning journal and courier., 1884-10-18

She summit = The COgWhee1 Rail.
 ways.
 LUCERNE, Switzerland, Sept. q,
 10 the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER: This is as good day as you are likely to
 get, sir. In fact for this time of the year it
 is what you elegant Americans would term
 day-sy." The speaker was an English speaking attache of the hotel here, with
 whom I have grown quite familiar, and who
 had been authorized to wrap at my door ear
 ly i'll the morning, and report the prospects
 for clear day in which to visit the Rigi
 Kuhn. tAh, indeed!n I retorted, rubbing
 my eyes in dazed way; 'Ewell, if it's dazy,
 there's no need of getting up yet, for ought
 to wait for better day-see?' Then rose, drew on my clothing, looked down over the
 banister to see if my victim had been hurt, when he "tumbled, and walked to the win
 dow. Why,-the fog was so thick that a cross-cut saw would be required to penetrate 1t. If the fellow was trifiing with me at this early hour, I had been none too severe. have since learned that I was too fastidious in my expectations touching the weather There is chronic state of fog, cloud and rain here | at this time of the year, and how even those | who are experienced in Lucerne weather can l correctly divine the probabilities exceeds my comprehension. I wisely concluded not to set up an independent opinion, and groped my way down to the quay where the whistle of the early boat was industriously summoning the early tourist to catch the indiscreet early worm, or rather-as we are told that we are all helpless worms of the dust-summoning ] the early tourist worm to be gobbled up by
 the relentless early guide
 Then occurred an event which seemed sure | to shape the course of the elements A big | Sunday school picnic, exclusively of girls
 came aboard. However diverting it might be I from social point of view for single man f to find himself suddenly in the midst of a ! regular harem of rustic maidens, it was sure 1 augury of bad weather to fall in with Sun ] day school picnic, and I smote my alabaster l brow with a theater- -eomique gesture of de ] spair. The only possible way of securing | fair weather now was to run back and so I l resigned myself to the inevitable Perhaps 1 inc clouds might not be able to see through | the thick fog below, and discover that some body was going in search of picnic Some | times the weather is fair; moreover, weather fair picnickers are along or not, you know: l (Joke).
 do not need to say that the ascent of the ! Rigi may now be made by rail. Too many of your readers have made the ascent in that way already to justify such an antique state ment. But 1 did not make the ascent in this 1 way. Instead of proceeding to Vitznau, the railway terminus, I left the boat at Wiggis a pleasant town two three miles this side ! of Vitznau. Here the old bridle path to the Kuhn began, path over which thousands of feet have passed, representing all the civil l ized countries on the globe. I would avail myself of the two drumsticks with which nature had kindly endowed me- As step aShOTa iad approached with that air of charming song froid which always interests the genuine guide. Beautifully clear day, sir, up at ! the top" "No doubt" 'fI have been up ! already once this morning, and it's fine day." I surveyed that Ananias deliberately 1 from head to foot. I did not object to his | saying that it was fine day, or two fine days, if he wanted to; because every one says that in substance, even when the day is phenomenally nasty,-as the English say. But for him to intimate, or believe or hope, or vaguely long to hope that I would swal- low the story that he had already been to the Kuhn that morning, was insufferable. If he maintained that he had made the ascent of the Rigi prior to that early, he was far from prepared for the final ascent to better, purer world than this No, was not so fresh as all that, although it pretty early in the morning.
 ''If you especially desire it, sir I can go along with you,-" Mo- did not especially desire it. Rather than waste words with the superb prevaricator 1 thrust my right hand deep into my coat froLt, made heroic up ward gesture with my left q excel in such gestures) and uttered the eloquent word Excelsior, (which MT. L. has carelesslv plagiarized from my autobiography in ad- vance. The walk was delightful one al- though I did not have any guide along to whom to whisper 'ESolitude is sweet" The footpath soon crossed the track of mud stream which descended from the mountain in 1795, taking fortnight to reach the lake
 As the path advanced it grew sleeper. On
 either side were pretty ferns and mosses, rank
 growths of English ivy, delicate Alpine flow
 CTS, punches of the thick pulpy rice-plant,
 and occasionally clusters of wild strawberries
 ripening in September. The tintinnabula-
 tion of the cowbel was heard above and be-
 low. Otherwise the silence was broken only
 by the rapid thuds created by the revolving
 paddles of some steamer on the lake below
 which the shape of the hills increased and
 intensified, or by the distant coughs of the
 locomotive that was painfully climbing to
 the same goal which was before me. Anon
 some mountaineer or mountaineeress saluted
 me by the wayside, offering drink of fresh
 milk or lemonade from their well-flled can
 teens, or exposing for sale a tempting dis
 play of fruits, particularly pears such as
 would make the copius cheek of California flush with envy.
 After an hours climbing I entered the
 region of dense fog, which had gradually
 been receding until had overtal1en it. It
 was now impossible to anything but the
 pathway before me. Once or twice 1 met
 band of young English-women, who had
 manifested their independence by walking down, despite the existence ofthe Rigi railway.
 They had their clothes girded about them
 after a fashion that was conducive to success full pedestrianism, though hardly in har- mony with the poetry of nature thereabouts.
 Their shoes were very thick,-thicker than mine, in fact, and that is exhausting the power of comparison. Some impious general izers have the meanness to say that it takes a good capacious shoe to accommodate the foot of the average English woman. How ever that may be, these young English cous- ins of the other sex have my respect for the grod sense which they display in walking. They are certainly great pedestrians, and like charity, that fact covers a multitude of sins in a summer resort,-to my mind. Each girl also carried staff ff,-usually long fanciful one with dainty hoof or horn at it's upper extrimity- You know there is a popular theory that walking-stick is a great help in mountain-climbing; and per haps it is,-I don't know.
 At a halfway point the path led under the Felsenthor, natural archway formed by these huge boulders of conglomerate. Pres ently, as if I had emerged from door, stepped out of the realm of cloud, and stood in marvellous sunshine Below me on every
 
 as far as the eye could reach. The lake was invisible The only land that could see was the Kulm-the highest point of the Rigi above me-and the stupendous snow-capped range of the Alps one hundred and twenty miles in extent, the giant peaks of which projected above the cloud-ocean. Would the clouds melt away? I hoped so; for although the spectacle was most sublime one as it was, and although the ever-changing, kaleid- oscopic vistas of cloud were intensely inter estipg to watch, longed to be able to pierce that tissue of surging fleece and read Swift zerland as map at my feet. But had not nearly reached the summit yet and there was plenty of time.
 Despite the exercise involved in climbing, I was beginning to suffer from the cold. The air was chilly anyway, but to look at that snowy range made my teeth fairly chatter. The middle of September is rather late for the ascent of the Rigi, I take it. Presently I looked at my watch. It indicated the same time that it indicated the last previous occasion when had consulted it. Alas, the change in temperature had been too much for the hitherto faithful timepieee. For over year had it served me conscientiously, refu- sing to yield to the scorching influences of the 'tropic seas to the dust of India's plains, 1