The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-08-21
Fl CALIFORNIAN
ABROAD.
By Thomas Fitch
MONT BLANC.
Thomas Fitch
MONT BLANC.

Copyright lso4.l

built them-dome and watch tower and
wall They are busy in these Alpine
| domfnions-one is brewing clouds, we
know by the smoke; another is folding
away her winter suite of ice, and pre-
pairing cloud-lace for Summer strang-
ers; another is sending down her little
tribute of water to the earth below. 1t
may not rival other and well-to-do
| cascades, but no spray is whittier or
more willing of spirit, and it is the
/ best to be done. Here, even yet, we
/ find star flowers and pale pansies
| among the grasses under the shadow
of the mountain sumach, and after all
We have made no severe ascent. The
| little children with their plain faces,
| and calico caps close against their
brown cheeks come out and smile, and
| lift their bits of palms for aims. How
a franc would astonish them. for they
| do not. in the least, calculate upon re-
suits. 1t lis the custom of the country
| to beg, and those who do not neglect a
duty. Italy has been the color bearer
hitherto in the world of medicants, but
Italy stands abashed in the presence
of begging Switzerland.
AT last we drop in amongst a group
| of dwellings, a sawmill, a tumbling
brook, many trees, a genuine Swiss cot
tage, an arched tower-wooden shielded
and picturesque-and dinner among the
| Alps with the inevitable courses with
out which to Frenchman dinner is
an empty sound-all the same if only
black bread and sour wine. The road
| here is blasted and parted from the
parent rock and the turns are occasion
| ally exceedingly curt. but the keen
edge is gone from my admiration since
the days when I sat beside the Cali
fornia Jehu's who were accustomed to
curve into Dutch Flat on a very thread
of a roa-d-bed, over a precipfce thous-
ands of feet below. and crack their
whips in the ears of shrieking females
and GREATNESS men.
| I believe that a F,renchman would
| dramatic ST. Paul's epstles if he
found them sufficiently sensational.
rs not that Mont Blanc?" asked
my companion, referring to the highest
point in view.
| The Frenchman gave shrug, gesti-
culated. and his elbows apart, grim
aced a little, but spoke no Ineligible
word. But as the fog drifted aside and
barred the brow of the grand old Mon
arch of the mountains, he rose from his
seat. and with true theatrical fervor
exclaimed:
VOLTA! Mont Blanc behoids re Ma
DAME
| The idea was that Mont Blanc had
been patiently waiting since the dawn
of creation, for this supreme moment
to behold my companion.
| "Chamounix sweet vale with it's
verdured slopes. its tumbIing waters,
its shops for the sale of wood carvings,
its catch penny shows, it's bare hotels,
| its Alpine guides, and it's transient
population of climbing Englishmen, is
ali about US. When you have beheld
these and have crossed a glacier and
climbed a mountain, you have done
the Alps.
What r-less humans the English
ladies are. Between the higher classes |
of the British ladies and our Southern |
people there is a homogenity of aspir- |
ates, a generic adherence of the roll |
ing r, and a common fondness for say
ing "heah" and ''neah.'' / was remind |
ed of this by party of English tour
lists here who accented themselves like
unto "Vahgineyans. sah.'
The great .'mer de glace'' is not a /
sea of ice, as it's name would indicate, /
or if so, it is not a placid sea. You
have seen Erie, or Michigan, or Ontario /
in the winter after the storm, when the
wind has hurled the ice ashore, and
piled the pieces in twisted, and tor
tured, and ragged masses, over and
over each other for mile from shore?
Then you have seen the exact appear
ance of an Alpine glacier. You have
seen a dozen Sierra peaks, glistening
their white cowls away up in the air,
each one a little higher than the other?
then have you seen what Carlyle
would have called the simuloranium of
the Alpine range hereabouts-
did not ascend Mont Blanc, nor any
part thereof. Why should 1? The hur-
ricane deck of a mule does not essen
italy differ from that of mustang,
and I have forty pounds more of adipose
tissue to carry than in the days when
L spurred my bucking cayuse up and
down the trail which leads over the
south fork of the Arvencan river in dis
tant California. When indeed did l
ever climb hill merely for the sake
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