r
dinner, "mightily content with the day's journey," as Mr. Pepys would
have said. I have always been sensitive to the action of diminished
pressure, which produces what is called "mountain sickness" in many
people. Many years ago I climbed by the glacier-pass known as the
Weissthor from Macugnaga to the Riffel Alp, with a stylographic pen in
my pocket. The reservoir of the pen contained a little air, which
expanded as the atmospheric pressure diminished, and at 10,000 feet I
found most of the ink emptied into my pocket. Probably one cause of
the discomfort called "mountain sickness" arises from a similar
expansion of gas contained in the digestive canal, and in the
cavities connected with the ear and nose. The more suddenly the change
of pressure is effected, the more noticeable is the discomfort. But I
was rather pleased than otherwise to note, as I sat in the comfortable
railway carriage, that when we passed 8,000 feet in elevation the old
familiar giddiness, and tendency to sigh and gasp, came upon me
as of yore, as I gathered was the experience of some of my
fellow-passengers: and when we were returning, and had descended
half-way to Lauterbruennen, I enjoyed the sense of restored ease in
breathing which I well remember when the whole experience was
complicated by the fatigue of a long climb. A white-haired American
lady was in the train with me ascending to the Eismeer. "I have longed
all my life," she said, "to see a glaysher--to touch it and walk on
it--and now I am going to do it at last. I and my daughter here have
come right away from America to go on these cars to the glaysher."
When we were descending, I asked the old lady if she had been pleased.
"I can hardly speak of it rightly," she said. "It seems to me as
though I have been standing up there on God's own throne." I do not
sympathise with the Alpine monopolist who would grudge that dear old
lady, and others like her, the little train and tramway by which alone
such people can penetrate to those soul-stirring scenes. They are at
least as sensitive to the beauty of the mountains as are the most
muscular, most long-winded, and most sun-blistered of our friends--the
acrobats of the rope and axe.

Interlaken
_September, 1909_

CHAPTER II

SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER

It is the early summer of 1910 and I have but just returned from a
visit to Switzerland. The latter part of June and the beginning of
July is the best for a stay in that splend