It is doubtful if there is any view comparable with that of the Gorner-Grat.  There is what is called a “near view,” and there is also what is known as a “distant view,” for completely surrounded by snow peak and glacier, the eye passes from valley to summit, resting on that wonderful stretch of shining white which forms the skyline.  To say that one can count dozens of glaciers, that he can see fifty summits, that Monte Rosa, the Lyskamm, the Twins, the Breithorn, the Matterhorn, the Dent Blanche, the Weisshorn, with many other mountains of the Valais and Oberland form a complete circle of snow peaks, may establish the geography of the place but it does not convey any but the faintest picture of the sublime grandeur of the scene....

An exciting experience for novices is to go with a guide from the Gorner-Grat to the Hohtaeligrat and thence down to the Findelen Glacier.  It looks dangerous but it is not really so, if the climber is careful, for altho there is a sheer descent on either side of the arete or ridge which leads from the one point to the other, the way is never narrow and only over easy rocks and snow.

The Hohtaeligrat is almost 11,000 feet in altitude and has a splendid survey of the sky line.  One looks up at snow, one looks down at snow, one looks around at snow!  From the beautiful summits of Monte Rosa, the eye passes in a complete circle, up and down, seeing in succession the white snow peaks, with their great glistening glaciers below, showing in strong contrast the occasional rock pyramids like the Matterhorn and the group around the Rothhorn.

THROUGH THE ST. GOTHARD INTO ITALY[45]

BY VICTOR TISSOT

This is Geschenen, at the entrance of the great tunnel, the meeting place of the upper gorges of the Reuss, the valley of Urseren, of the Oberalp, and of the Furka.  Geschenen has now the calm tranquility of old age.  But during the nine years that it took to bore the great tunnel, what juvenile activity there was here, what feverish eagerness in this village, crowded, inundated, overflowed by workmen from Italy, from Tessin, from Germany and France!  One would have thought that out of that dark hole, dug out in the mountain, they were bringing nuggets of gold.

On all the roads nothing was to be seen but bands of workmen arriving, with miners’ lamps hung to their old soldier’s knapsacks.  Nobody could tell how they were all to be lodged.  One double bed was occupied in succession by twenty-four men in twenty-four hours.  Some of the workmen set up their establishments in barns; in all directions movable canteens sprung up, built all awry and hardly holding together, and in mean sheds, doubtful, bad-looking places, the dishonest merchant hastened to sell his adulterated brandy....

The St. Gothard tunnel is about one and two-third miles longer than that of Mount Cenis, and more than three miles longer than that of Arlberg.  While the train is passing with a dull rumbling sound under these gloomy vaults, let us explain how the great work of boring the Alps was accomplished.