THE ALUMNI JOURNAL, 



i6i 



hotel in ashes. Thankful for this de- 

 livery, we journeyed on to Interlaken. 

 This is a beautiful little spot, and from 

 the hotel window I could see, far off in 

 the distance, a majestic mountain, ris- 

 ing almost three miles above the earth, 

 clad in a snowy garment, stately, inspir- 

 ing, serene — the queen of the Alps — the 

 Jungfrau. The name translated is The 

 Maiden, derived, as the guide told me, 

 from the fact that the first person to 

 reach the summit was a maiden. This, 

 no doubt, is one of the sweet stories 

 which the natives love to hurl at trav- 

 elers, hence I said nothing. The moun- 

 tain probably received its name from the 

 appearance of being clothed in an im- 

 maculate garb of white. 



Animated with the thought that at last 

 I had the opportunity to see snow and 

 ice, I summoned two guides to the hotel 

 to arrange for the ascent of the Jung- 

 frau. The first thing we fixed was 

 the price — loo francs each ; then pro- 

 visions for a week, in case we should be 

 snow-bound. The knapsacks contained 

 the following: Eight bottles of wine, 

 two bottles of Cognac, one box of tongue, 

 one smoked tongue, four chickens, eight 

 loaves of bread, sugar, tea, canned soup 

 and candles. 



The next thing was to prepare the 

 shoes with double soles and heavy spikes, 

 put on double sets of underwear, pur- 

 chase smoked spectacles and mountain 

 picks. 



I went to the corner of the street and 

 purchased my pick. The good old 

 woman asked me if I really was to as- 

 cend the Jungfrau. I replied in the 

 affirmative and as I left the establish- 

 ment I heard the murmur, ' ' God bless 

 you." And many a time during the 

 ascent on the night of August 19, 1892, 

 I heard the echo, "God bless you." 



Meanwhile the hotel and neighbor- 

 hood were in commotion. The news of 



the attempt to climb the Jungfrau had 

 spread like all news and I found myself 

 famous at a bound — but only that mor- 

 bid fame which is born of idle curiosity. 

 Agitated by a sense of foreboding, I 

 gave instructions as to searching par- 

 ties in the event of some accident, and 

 then declared myself ready for the or- 

 deal. 



Two gentlemen, who for convenience 

 I will name Moss and Henderson, asked 

 to join the party, and after much persua- 

 sion and with a great deal of reluctance, 

 the guides consented. Henderson was 

 a young cadet from West Point and Moss 

 a middle-aged man. Finally the car- 

 riage arrived, and at 3.30 in the after- 

 noon, amid cheers and waving of hand- 

 kerchiefs, we started out, mindful that 

 perhaps we might never return. 



We followed the course of the rush- 

 ing, roaring mountain torrent fed by the 

 melted snows of the Jungfrau glacier, 

 tracing the road amid wild and rugged 

 scenery till we entered the I^auterbrun- 

 nen valley — by far the finest I had yet 

 seen. It lies between two walls of a 

 mountain, which are so perpendicular 

 and regular as if at some period of the 

 earth's existence the rock had been cleft 

 and separated, forming the valley. 



Numerous waterfalls were to be seen 

 everywhere, some shooting their waters 

 out of the side of the rock — Trummel- 

 bach — as if from a catapult, others tu- 

 multuously splashing down in many 

 cascades, while further on a thin sheet 

 of white majestically falls from a dis- 

 tance of almost a thousand feet. This 

 last, the Staubbach or Dust Brook, is a 

 narrow column of water, which in the 

 long uninterrupted descent is separated 

 into fine spray — ^hence the name. 



At six p. ra. we reached Stechelberg, 

 and discharging our vehicle, began the 

 ascent. I soon learned that a mountain 

 is not simply cone shaped, but is many 



