argers than to the grip of their own legs. When they
saw the train coming, they took prompt measures. They halted the troops,
and rode off down a side lane to be out of harm's way; and when we had
well passed, they rejoined the column, and the march was resumed.

The early train from Berne catches the first boat on the Lake of Thun,
and I landed at the second station on the lake, the village of Gonten or
Gunten. M. Thury's list states that the glaciere known as the Schafloch
is on the Rothhorn, in the Canton of Berne, 4,500 metres of horizontal
distance from Merligen, a village on the shore of the lake; and from
these data I was to find the cave. Gonten was apparently the nearest
station to Merligen, and as soon as the small boat which meets the
steamer had deposited me on the shore, I asked my way, first to the
_auberge_, and then to Merligen. The _auberge_ was soon found, and
coffee and bread were at once ordered for breakfast; but when the people
learned my eventual destination, they would not let me go to Merligen. A
man, to whom--for no particular reason--I had given two-pence, called a
council of the village upon me, and they proceeded to determine whether
I must have a guide from Gonten, or only from a nameless chalet higher
up. The discussion was noisy, and was conducted without words: they do
not speak, those men of Gonten--they merely grunt, and each interprets
the grunts as he wills. My two-penny friend told me what it all meant,
in an obliging manner, but in words less intelligible than the grunts;
and one member of the council drew out so elaborate a route--the very
characters being wild patois--splitting the morning into quarter-stundes
and half-quarter-stundes, with a sharp turn to the right or left at the
end of each, that, as I drank my coffee, I determined to take a guide
from the village, whatever the decision of the council might be.
Fortunately, things took a right turn, and when breakfast was finished,
a deputation went out and found a guide, suspiciously like one of their
number who did not return, and I was informed that Christian Opliger
would conduct me to the Schafloch for five francs, and a _Trinkgeld_ if
I were satisfied with him. In order to prove to me that he had really
been at the cave, six days before, with two Bernese gentlemen, he seized
my favourite low-crowned white hat, and endeavoured to knead it into the
shape of the cave.

Our affairs took a long time to arrange, for grunts and