I had a strange trip down the Rigi last Monday morning. I had been staying at the Staffel over Sunday. At ten of Monday, I was to be in Luzern, as an official, to help marry a couple, one of whom was an American. Long before daylight, I was starting down the steep path. It was starlight overhead, and a warm summer morning. Down below, however, the whole valley and all the lakes and hills seemed hidden by a mantle of fog. Every few moments we heard a clap of thunder away down there, or saw a flash of lightning dart along the gray surface. My wife urged me not to descend into clouds that looked so dangerous; but my presence in Luzern was a necessity, and I went ahead. For half an hour my path down the mountain side was dry and beautiful. It was just breaking dawn, when suddenly, and within a few feet distance, I stepped down into a cloud full of water. Instantly I was in a perfect Noah’s flood, and yet I knew a hundred feet above me the stars were shining. The peals of thunder soon seemed to shake the mountains, and the lightning became terrific. A few moments’ walk had brought me out of a dry atmosphere and a quiet morning, into this storm of the Alps. I tried to get back and up the mountain, but I was fairly washed from my feet and the path. In five minutes I was completely lost, and, fearing to tumble off some precipice, I stood stock still. I had reached what seemed a level plateau of tall grass. There I stood till daylight came, and the storm went partly by, when, to my horror, I saw that had I walked another dozen steps I would have gone over a cliff and fallen a thousand feet. I caught a steamer, however, and reached the city, where the groom divided some of his drier garments with me, and the wedding went merrily on. * * * * * Some of the London newspapers are in great wonder over the United States census. A country only a hundred years old, and yet mustering thirty-eight and a half millions of people!! Few European states so large, and none of them so rich and great. * * * * * Our friend, Mr. Witt, had a telephone put up in his house yesterday. It is probably the first one in the country. Great curiosity and interest is manifested here in this invention of a talking apparatus, by which the human voice may be carried a hundred miles. CHAPTER XV 1877 GENERAL GRANT AND THE SWISS PRESIDENT--BANQUET TO GRANT AT BERN--GOOD ROADS--CHARGE D’AFFAIRES FOR SWITZERLAND--WRITING FOR THE MAGAZINES. _July 27, 1877._--General Grant arranged to visit the Swiss capital on the 24th. Our minister being absent, I, as senior consul, went up to Bern to offer him the courtesies of the legation. Quite a crowd of people surrounded him as he came in at the station, and we drove to the Bernerhof hotel. General Adam Badeau was with him, as was also his son Jesse.