Americans -- Europe -- Fiction; Europe -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Walking -- Fiction
The jodeling (pronounced yOdling--emphasis on the O) continued, and
was very pleasant and inspiriting to hear. Now the jodeler appeared--a
shepherd boy of sixteen--and in our gladness and gratitude we gave him
a franc to jodel some more. So he jodeled and we listened. We moved
on, presently, and he generously jodeled us out of sight. After about
fifteen minutes we came across another shepherd boy who was jodeling,
and gave him half a franc to keep it up. He also jodeled us out of
sight. After that, we found a jodeler every ten minutes; we gave the
first one eight cents, the second one six cents, the third one four, the
fourth one a penny, contributed nothing to Nos. 5, 6, and 7, and during
the remainder of the day hired the rest of the jodelers, at a franc
apiece, not to jodel any more. There is somewhat too much of the
jodeling in the Alps.
About the middle of the afternoon we passed through a prodigious natural
gateway called the Felsenthor, formed by two enormous upright rocks,
with a third lying across the top. There was a very attractive little
hotel close by, but our energies were not conquered yet, so we went on.
Three hours afterward we came to the railway-track. It was planted
straight up the mountain with the slant of a ladder that leans against a
house, and it seemed to us that man would need good nerves who proposed
to travel up it or down it either.
During the latter part of the afternoon we cooled our roasting interiors
with ice-cold water from clear streams, the only really satisfying water
we had tasted since we left home, for at the hotels on the continent
they merely give you a tumbler of ice to soak your water in, and that
only modifies its hotness, doesn't make it cold. Water can only be made
cold enough for summer comfort by being prepared in a refrigerator or
a closed ice-pitcher. Europeans say ice-water impairs digestion. How do
they know?--they never drink any.
At ten minutes past six we reached the Kaltbad station, where there is
a spacious hotel with great verandas which command a majestic expanse of
lake and mountain scenery. We were pretty well fagged out, now, but as
we did not wish to miss the Alpine sunrise, we got through our dinner
as quickly as possible and hurried off to bed. It was unspeakably
comfortable to stretch our weary limbs between the cool, damp sheets.
And how we did sleep!--for there is no opiate like Alpine pedestrianism.
In the morning we both awoke and leaped out of bed at the same instant
and ran and stripped aside the window-curtains; but we suffered a bitter
disappointment again: it was already half past three in the afternoon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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