Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1908-09-25

for Interlocken C"Between Lakes")
a beautiful and popular resort. Night
hereafter driving around the town, in
company with Capt. George Langhorne,
u. S. A, of Lynchburg, Va. who for
some days will cast his lot with this
pair of his countrymen-and we are
prepared and fitted out for a pull at
one of the highest glacial peaks of the
Alps, Jungfrau. The name signifies
"Young Wife," and is the highest
peak of cluster of three.
We take passage in the gray dawn
upon snorting little tram of six car
riages. A few miles up the valley, and
we are divided into threes, now with
two engines. Still a little higher
ascending rapidly all the while and
three fuming little engines. with bows
downward and stern up on highwheels,
take each two of our coaches, and
away We go at four miles an hour up a
cog railway. What if the cogs should
slip or break1 ask the timorous ladies
who happen to be fellow passengers
with US. All that emergency is amply
provided for by grippers, or spears
made to drop and stick in the ground
il anything should happen to our gear
ing. The ascent is just indescribable
Up, up, we creep, over racing torre nts;
winding sometimes spirally and
sometimes looping or taking the back
course, hundreds of feet higher. Here
is once avalanche of boulders, any
one of which would smash and COM
pletely cover good sized dwelling;
there is waterfall fully five hundred
feet above and falling below us, and.
most weird of all, a great volume of
water spurts out from a cleft in a
giant boulder, clear of all the other
mountain side, and is lost in the valley
9S5 feet below, turning to mist and
spray before touching bottom, an ever
falling dew upon several acres of
meadow kept green by it's benediction.
Yet this, we are told, is the dry sea-
son." and when the rainy season of
fall and the melting SHOWS of spring
give this waterfall, this huge spout,
greater life, it becomes almost torrent,
cleaving the upper air. Still we go up
ward. Beginning at an altitude of
less than four thousand feet above sea
level, we see the Young Wife's snow
bald head of nearly fourteen thousand
feet altitude, still far up, dividing-as
would your finger the bowl of water
every cloud that dares thrust against
her. Stations are met or passed.
Passengers get on; others get Off to
pluck the blue-bottle flowers or the
feathery and white edelweiss, and
gaze upon the shaggy-haired fat cattle.
Whewl a chilly feeling creeps over US,
and we take our overcoats from the
racks. Just little past the middle of
August, the hottest time here, and over
coats in demand, with the sun riding his
mount! Still further, and the few flies
brought among our wraps from the no.
tel fall stiffiy to the car floor. The
grass gives way to stunted messy
growth. A few goats, fewer sheep
and no cattle are seen; yet there are
peasants and their abodes on this side
and on that We stop at a station, and
later are told to keep heads in, and the
lights are turned on. The little play
things of tunnels now give way to one
of five miles, and all the way under the
edge Of the glacier. No humaningenuity
could put road across glacier nor
keep one there. But man is equal to
the occasion and burrows right into the
mountains far enough below the gla-
cier's bottom chow calculated we have
pot learned after some inquiry and on
ap incline with the monarch of frigidity. :,
Every now and then within the tuh-i
mel stop is made and we are invited
to walk along a corridor which opens
out upon fissure of the mountain side
and there view above and below US
the glacier fields we are paralelling
underneath.
The final stop is made at Eismeer, q
terminal station within the tunnel, where
is restaurant, heating and other COM
forts. A look at the thermometer says
two degrees above zero, and that in q
protected tunnel or cove! Guides are
at hand, who offer for a good round fee
to attempt the rest of the climb, FIVE
miles over glacier and fissure, to the
summit of Jungfrau, but will not guar
antee to reach it today or tomorrow or
this month. II the attempt should
prove disastrous to you, and you did
not pull your three guides overheard
into some gaping ice crack, they
would spend the rest of the time paiC
for in sounding for your body to senC
. it back home. If the time paid fol
expired in fruitless search, yol
, were reassured by the informa
{ ton that some four hundred
years hence that particular sec
: tion of the glazier will have worket
down to the melting line-that demar
. cation of incongruities where tn,
. edelweiss blooms in frozen earth oil
the glaciers edge, laved by chilling
sweat that trickles from the ice king.
face when smitten by the slanting ray,
, of the summers sun. Very satisfying
to know that some day a Swiss noun
taineer might pull you from cold stor
, age and hold tercentenary (or some
{ sort of epochical jubilee) over the "onct
I was"! While we never expected to get
ION this earth) so near heaven as the
top of an Alpine sentinel chief, still we