CHAPTER XXV Lucerne--Beauty of its Lake--The Wild Chamois--A Great Error Exposed--Methods of Hunting the Chamois--Beauties of Lucerne--The Alpenstock--Marking Alpenstocks--Guessing at Nationalities--An American Party--An Unexpected Acquaintance--Getting Mixed Up--Following Blind Trails--A Happy Half--hour--Defeat and Revenge CHAPTER XXVI Commerce of Lucerne--Benefits of Martyrdom--A Bit of History--The Home of Cuckoo Clocks--A Satisfactory Revenge--The Alan Who Put Up at Gadsby's--A Forgotten Story--Wanted to be Postmaster--A Tennessean at Washington--He Concluded to Stay A While--Application of the Story CHAPTER XXVII The Glacier Garden--Excursion on the Lake--Life on the Mountains--A Specimen Tourist--"Where're you From?"--An Advertising Dodge--A Righteous Verdict--The Guide-book Student--I Believe that's All CHAPTER XXVIII The Rigi-Kulm--Its Ascent--Stripping for Business--A Mountain Lad--An English Tourist--Railroad up the Mountain--Villages and Mountain--The Jodlers--About Ice Water--The Felsenthor--Too Late--Lost in the Fog--The Rigi-Kulm Hotel--The Alpine Horn--Sunrise at Night CHAPTER XXII [The Black Forest and Its Treasures] From Baden-Baden we made the customary trip into the Black Forest. We were on foot most of the time. One cannot describe those noble woods, nor the feeling with which they inspire him. A feature of the feeling, however, is a deep sense of contentment; another feature of it is a buoyant, boyish gladness; and a third and very conspicuous feature of it is one's sense of the remoteness of the work-day world and his entire emancipation from it and its affairs. Those woods stretch unbroken over a vast region; and everywhere they are such dense woods, and so still, and so piney and fragrant. The stems of the trees are trim and straight, and in many places all the ground is hidden for miles under a thick cushion of moss of a vivid green color, with not a decayed or ragged spot in its surface, and not a fallen leaf or twig to mar its immaculate tidiness. A rich cathedral gloom pervades the pillared aisles; so the stray flecks of sunlight that strike a trunk here and a bough yonder are strongly accented, and when they strike the moss they fairly seem to burn. But the weirdest effect, and the most enchanting is that produced by the diffused light of the low afternoon sun; no single ray is able to pierce its way in, then, but the diffused light takes color from moss and foliage, and pervades the place like a faint, green-tinted mist, the theatrical fire of fairyland. The suggestion of mystery and the supernatural which haunts the forest at all times is intensified by this unearthly glow. We found the Black Forest farmhouses and villages all that the Black Forest stories have pictured them. The first genuine specimen which we came upon was the mansion of a rich farmer and member of the Common Council of the parish or district. He was an important personage in the land and so was his wife also, of course.