12 A DAY IN THE OBERLAND 



only from Lauterbriinnen ; in former days we should 

 have started in the small hours of the morning from the 

 Scheidegg, and have climbed through many dangers for 

 some six or seven hours before reaching this spot. 



I confess that I am not enchanted with all of the 

 modern appliances for saving time and labour the tele- 

 graph, the telephone, the automobile, and the aeroplane. 

 But these mountain railways fill me with satisfaction and 

 gratitude. When the Jungfrau railway was first projected, 

 some athletic Englishmen with heavy boots and ice-axes, 

 protested against the " desecration " of regions till then 

 accessible only to them and to me, and others of our 

 age and strength. They declared that the scenery would 

 be injured by the railway and its troops of "tourists." 

 As well might they protest against the desecration caused 

 by the crawling of fifty house-flies on the dome of 

 St. Paul's. These mountains and glaciers are so vast, 

 and men with their railroads so small, that the latter are 

 negligible in the presence of the former. No disfiguring 

 effect whatever is produced by these mountain railways ; 

 the trains have even ceased to emit smoke since they were 

 worked by electricity. I quite agree with those who 

 object to " funiculars." The carriages on these are hauled 

 up long, straight gashes in the mountain side, which have 

 a hideous and disfiguring appearance. But I look forward 

 with pleasure to the completion of the Jungfrau railway 

 to the summit. I hope that the Swiss engineers will 

 carry it through the mountain, and down along the side of 

 the great Aletsch glacier to the Bel Alp and so to Brieg. 

 That would be a glorious route to the Simplon tunnel 

 and Italy ! 



I took three hours in the unwearied train descending 

 from the Eismeer to Interlaken, and was back in my 

 hotel in comfortable time for dinner, " mightily content 

 with the day's journey," as Mr. Pepys would have said. 



