back. Thenceforth he smokes his pipe in serenity, and gazes out upon the
magnificent picture below and about him with unfettered enjoyment. There
is nothing to interrupt the view or the breeze; it is like inspecting
the world on the wing. However--to be exact--there is one place where
the serenity lapses for a while; this is while one is crossing the
Schnurrtobel Bridge, a frail structure which swings its gossamer frame
down through the dizzy air, over a gorge, like a vagrant spider-strand.

One has no difficulty in remembering his sins while the train is
creeping down this bridge; and he repents of them, too; though he sees,
when he gets to Vitznau, that he need not have done it, the bridge was
perfectly safe.

So ends the eventual trip which we made to the Rigi-Kulm to see an
Alpine sunrise.

CHAPTER XXX

[Harris Climbs Mountains for Me]

An hour's sail brought us to Lucerne again. I judged it best to go to
bed and rest several days, for I knew that the man who undertakes to
make the tour of Europe on foot must take care of himself.

Thinking over my plans, as mapped out, I perceived that they did not
take in the Furka Pass, the Rhone Glacier, the Finsteraarhorn, the
Wetterhorn, etc. I immediately examined the guide-book to see if these
were important, and found they were; in fact, a pedestrian tour of
Europe could not be complete without them. Of course that decided me at
once to see them, for I never allow myself to do things by halves, or in
a slurring, slipshod way.

I called in my agent and instructed him to go without delay and make a
careful examination of these noted places, on foot, and bring me back a
written report of the result, for insertion in my book. I instructed
him to go to Hospenthal as quickly as possible, and make his grand start
from there; to extend his foot expedition as far as the Giesbach fall,
and return to me from thence by diligence or mule. I told him to take
the courier with him.

He objected to the courier, and with some show of reason, since he was
about to venture upon new and untried ground; but I thought he might
as well learn how to take care of the courier now as later, therefore I
enforced my point. I said that the trouble, delay, and inconvenience
of traveling with a courier were balanced by the deep respect which a
courier's presence commands, and I must insist that as much style be
thrown into my journeys as possible.

So the two assumed complete mountainee