seemed millions of miles distant, as distant as if I had left the earth and was lost in some foreign world. I saw the griefstricken face of my father and the anguish of my mother, and fresh strength and energy came to me and fresh hope. Before budging, I coolly considered how I should proceed. I began slowly, cautiously, to crawl upward, stopping still when I dislodged blocks of the soft shale. After more than an hour of this terrible climb, almost exhausted, almost despairing as I saw the darkness coming upon me, I heard the faint sound of voices in the distance. Lifting up my own, I gave such a yell as the rebels of the South in their palmiest days would have envied. On a ledge of rock far above me I dimly discovered the forms of men. One was the Professor, the other two were peasants. They had ropes and lanterns. The rope was let down, I made it fast under my arms, and was soon drawn up to a place of safety. The Professor had waited for me at the first shepherd's hut; my prolonged absence had alarmed him, and he set out with the two shepherds on the search, following a goat's path that wound along the side of the ravine some eight hundred feet from the bottom. After a few minutes' rest we set out for Argentiere, where we arrived about midnight, too nervous and exhausted to continue the trip to Chamounix.

My tramps into the interior of Switzerland afforded interesting glimpses of peasant life. Many of the peasants own the hut and land on which they live, although the cow and farming implements are often rented. A cow is treated with as much care as a baby. A man or woman generally sits near by, knitting, and taking care that the cow does not fall off the side of the farm. Then the milk, how carefully each drop is saved to make the big cheeses! Merchants from Geneva and Berne and other cities ride in the fall from one house to another and buy the cheeses, which ultimately go to all parts of the world. Before winter sets in the Swiss peasant has a little money snug in hand, the rented cow goes back to her owner, and during the winter, when the deep snow and mountain storms keep him at home, he and his wife and children sit around the pine fire

and carve little wooden figures, human faces, all kinds of animals, deer, bears, etc. These they sell in the spring, when the cheese-making begins again. Such is the life of the Swiss peasantry, simple and happy. They are economical and temperate, save in the matter of tobacco. Big pipes are filled to the top, and the peasant puffs steadily as he knits and watches his cow. Around each châlet, as their cottages are styled, is a small patch of flax or hemp. They have also a few sheep, and in the winter when not carving, they spin flax and make cloth from the wool of their sheep.

One day in a small interior hamlet a travelling shoemaker came by. He takes old cowhides, makes them into rough shoes and leggings, and for this receives at the peasant's châlet his lodging, meals, and about fifteen cents a day in money.

"Yes," he said, "I always have work enough. I go from place to place, and there is always some one needing shoes or wanting a cowhide dressed. They save up the hides until I come and make them into boots and shoes."

The following table shows his income and cost of living:

Table of the Swiss Shoemaker.

Income-estimating board and lodging at fifteen cents per day. $54 60 Fifteen cents per day in money, averaging two hundred and ninety days per year..

42 50

$97 10

Diet.-Breakfast: rye-bread, whey or milk. Dinner: rye-bread, potatoes, Supper: rye-bread, whey or milk. Cost of

Total yearly income.....

milk, sometimes cheese.

In Berne I knew that I was at last in German Switzerland by the long words that greeted me at every turn. The names over the shops and on the lamp-posts are so long they go around once or twice, and even then sometimes the end is left hanging over. Such a word, for instance, as brennmaterialienhandlung is entirely too long to get over one door, so part of it is hung over the door of the neighboring shop. I met this noble word frequently in Berne; it commanded my awe and respect. I thought none the less of it when I found it meant simply "coaldealer." On the contrary, my respect increased for a language able to use such big words for such little things.

CHAPTER XIV.

SCALING THE GRIMSEL PASS AT MIDNIGHT.-ECONOMY THAT LANDED US IN JAIL.-ARRESTED AS A DYNAMITER.-THE STORY OF A HAT.-GERMAN IDEAS OF ENGLISH.-SHUT UP WITH A LUNATIC.-A FLYING MENAGERIE IN BADEN-BADEN.

On my way over the Grimsel Pass I stopped at Interlaken, and there visited the celebrated Milk-cure. A German milkcure is a curious thing. They are not so numerous as the "beer cures," but they are interesting. A park, with shady walks and sparkling fountains, contains an airy pavilion, where, at six o'clock in the morning, frequenters of the cure assemble and drink milk fresh from the cow, and listen to excellent music. They get as full as possible of warm milk, then stroll around the park until ready to hold more, then go again to the pavilion, and take in loads of the lacteal fluid. In any other country this would simply be called swilling milk; here it is a "cure." Fat Germans bloated by beer, or overfed beefeating Englishmen, go to Interlaken, live on milk a few weeks, give their overtaxed stomachs a rest, and pay high prices because it is a "cure." Living on peasants' diet of black bread and milk would work a quicker cure, besides having the advantage of greater economy.

The Grimsel Pass is one of the highest in Switzerland. The last two hours of the way lies buried in the snow; it is safe to attempt its ascent only in the day, and in favorable weather. Within half an hour of the summit is a hospice, a solid granite structure, built to withstand the fierce storms of that bleak region.

It was nearing night when we reached that point, and I was for postponing the passage until morning. The Professor, however, protested.

"The charge for a bed here," he said, consulting his guidebooks, "is four francs (eighty cents). I don't mean to break my record of cheap lodgings. We can easily push over the Pass to-night."

And push we did. We traversed those vast fields of snow as the last rays of the setting sun faded beyond the distant mountains. When at last we stood on the extreme summit among lofty peaks and crags, the keen wind sweeping across the avalanches, chilling with its icy breath, it was night. A more weird and dismal scene cannot be imagined than that viewed by night from the summit of the Grimsel. All is desolationa frozen wilderness. A few yards from where we stood in that vast solitude is a frozen sca, the grave of thousands of soldiers; for as wild and inaccessible as is this spot, it has witnessed two nights of bloody strife. First, in the Middle Ages, the Bernese and the people of the Canton Wallace fought here, and the dead were buried in the frozen waters of the lake. Again, in 1799, Napoleon wanted to drive back the Austrians. The lofty Grimsel was impregnable, until a peasant of Guttannen turned traitor and led the French by a secret path around and across the head of the Rhone Glacier to the hospice. The battle was brief but bloody. The impetuous French drove the Austrians back across the fields of snow, and down into the valley. Many dead were left behind, and these found their last resting-place in the icy Todtensee-"Deadmen's Sea," so called since the bloody fray of 1799.

The traitorous peasant received a large tract of land for his treachery, and Napoleon got Switzerland, and shortly afterwards Italy; for he pursued the Austrians into the lowlands, whipped them at Marengo, and reduced all northern Italy to French control.

Two hours' rapid walking down the steep and rugged path that leads into the Rhone valley brought us to the Rhone Glacier Hotel. Here quite an adventure occurred. The Rhone Glacier Hotel was evidently for first-class tourists; "no tramps need apply" seemed written all over its fashionable exterior.