appears to be made of a cheap quality of gray plush. It
has a noble and distant way of confining itself to the high altitudes,
but that is probably on account of its looks; it apparently has no
monopoly of those upper altitudes, however, for they are sometimes
intruded upon by some of the loveliest of the valley families of wild
flowers. Everybody in the Alps wears a sprig of Edelweiss in his hat. It
is the native's pet, and also the tourist's.

All the morning, as we loafed along, having a good time, other
pedestrians went staving by us with vigorous strides, and with the
intent and determined look of men who were walking for a wager. These
wore loose knee-breeches, long yarn stockings, and hobnailed high-laced
walking-shoes. They were gentlemen who would go home to England or
Germany and tell how many miles they had beaten the guide-book every
day. But I doubted if they ever had much real fun, outside of the mere
magnificent exhilaration of the tramp through the green valleys and the
breezy heights; for they were almost always alone, and even the finest
scenery loses incalculably when there is no one to enjoy it with.

All the morning an endless double procession of mule-mounted tourists
filed past us along the narrow path--the one procession going, the
other coming. We had taken a good deal of trouble to teach ourselves the
kindly German custom of saluting all strangers with doffed hat, and we
resolutely clung to it, that morning, although it kept us bareheaded
most of the time and was not always responded to. Still we found an
interest in the thing, because we naturally liked to know who were
English and Americans among the passers-by. All continental natives
responded of course; so did some of the English and Americans, but, as
a general thing, these two races gave no sign. Whenever a man or a woman
showed us cold neglect, we spoke up confidently in our own tongue and
asked for such information as we happened to need, and we always got a
reply in the same language. The English and American folk are not less
kindly than other races, they are only more reserved, and that comes of
habit and education. In one dreary, rocky waste, away above the line of
vegetation, we met a procession of twenty-five mounted young men, all
from America. We got answering bows enough from these, of course, for
they were of an age to learn to do in Rome as Rome does, without much
effort.

At one extremity of this patch of desolation, ove