Kansas University Weekly.
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LITERARY.
A September Day in the Alps.
On a fertile Alp, with a western slope at the base of the Moenlichen, lies the village of Wengern. It is not so high as to be wind-swept in the summer months, yet it is high enough to be able to boast that it has an appreciable interval between sunrise and sunset, a condition that hardly holds true in all Alpine valleys. These rich pasture lands, made from the detritus of the overhanging mountain, have tempted the hardy Swiss peasants to build their picturesque chalets a couple of thousand feet above the valley, even if most of their luxuries and necessities must be carried up to that height over the narrow mountain footpaths on their sturdy shoulders. The hills are so steep that there is no difficulty in carrying the hay and other produce down to the valley on the little hand sleds, at any season of the year.
A long time before the sun had risen, one clear morning after the inevitable Swiss breakfast of coffee, rolls and honey, I started to zig zag down the steep foot path into the valley of the Weise Lutschine. It has been proved by careful investigation, that a "zig" is the first slant upward to the right as you approach an incline, and a "zag" is the first slant up to the left. These zig zags were first invented by cows and other domestic animals who were obliged to climb these mountains, and they have never been improved upon by man. Of course the "tourist" can now ascend these heights by the aid of the "Cog railroad," but the true mountaineer always prefers the zig zag.
As I descended I could see away across the dark valley, where the sun was gilding the tops of the nearer mountains, and off to the left it was possible to catch now and then a glimpse of a snow-covered peak, standing white, pure and spotless, where it could catch the first morning beams. All night long, whenever I had been awake, I had heard the distant roar of a mountain stream, and now as I walked
along the bottom of the valley, I could look up a thousand feet at the feathery stream as it crawled, oh, so lazily, over the precipice between the overhanging firs. It is with difficulty that we can believe that a brook that melts entirely into spray before the wind ere it reaches the bottom of the valley, can make a noise so loud as to be heard miles away. But perhaps the stream is not small; perhaps the dizzy height deceives us. Farther on up the narrow valley, between walls of rock so high that the eye and the neck become tired looking for the top, another fall, the Trummelbach, finds its way between the cliffs, and adds its waters to feed the stream. I had seen the cradle of this torrent, as it issued from beneath the glaciers that crowd the valleys on the north side of the Moench and Eiger; I had watched it as it dashed itself to foam on the rocks at the base of the Jungfrau; I had seen where it gathered up the melted avalanches that shot down from the shoulder of the Schneehorn; I had seen it disappear beneath the firs in the dark valley below; and now that same stream is making its final plunge into the valley. It has worn by its continual pounding on the rock, a deep channel into the side of the cliff, so deep in fact that the stream is scarcely visible below; yet we can climb the rustic stairways, and are suddenly brought face to face with the thundering torrent as it spouts between the overhanging rocks into the dark and seething pool.
With all too short a look at these falls, I continued up the valley of the main stream, till at ten o'clock, just as the sun for the first time found its way into the narrow valley, I stopped to take some refreshment at a little wayside inn. Beyond this straggling village, the wagon road, after crossing the rapid stream on a trembling bridge, has dwindled into a bridle path. At the left is a foot path, leading just across the valley to the base of the glacier, to the point where the furrowed ice stream has crept through the
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