What a flower garden the Gemmi Pass is!  After I had got my hands full Joe made me a paper bag, which I pinned to my lapel and filled with choice specimens.  I gathered no flowers which I had ever gathered before except 4 or 5 kinds.  We took it leisurely and I picked all I wanted to.  I mailed my harvest to you a while ago.  Don’t send it to Mrs. Brooks until you have looked it over, flower by flower.  It will pay.

Among the clouds and everlasting snows I found a brave and bright little forget-me-not growing in the very midst of a smashed and tumbled stone-debris, just as cheerful as if the barren and awful domes and ramparts that towered around were the blessed walls of heaven.  I thought how Lilly Warner would be touched by such a gracious surprise, if she, instead of I, had seen it.  So I plucked it, and have mailed it to her with a note.

Our walk was 7 hours—­the last 2 down a path as steep as a ladder, almost, cut in the face of a mighty precipice.  People are not allowed to ride down it.  This part of the day’s work taxed our knees, I tell you.  We have been loafing about this village (Leukerbad) for an hour, now we stay here over Sunday.  Not tired at all. (Joe’s hat fell over the precipice—­so he came here bareheaded.) I love you, my darling.

SAML.

St. Nicholas, Aug. 26th, ’78.  Livy darling, we came through a-whooping today, 6 hours tramp up steep hills and down steep hills, in mud and water shoe-deep, and in a steady pouring rain which never moderated a moment.  I was as chipper and fresh as a lark all the way and arrived without the slightest sense of fatigue.  But we were soaked and my shoes full of water, so we ate at once, stripped and went to bed for 2 1/2 hours while our traps were thoroughly dried, and our boots greased in addition.  Then we put our clothes on hot and went to table d’hote.

Made some nice English friends and shall see them at Zermatt tomorrow.

Gathered a small bouquet of new flowers, but they got spoiled.  I sent you a safety-match box full of flowers last night from Leukerbad.

I have just telegraphed you to wire the family news to me at Riffel tomorrow.  I do hope you are all well and having as jolly a time as we are, for I love you, sweetheart, and also, in a measure, the Bays. —­[Little Susy’s word for “babies."]—­Give my love to Clara Spaulding and also to the cubs. 
                                          SAML.

This, as far as it goes, is a truer and better account of the excursion than Mark Twain gave in the book that he wrote later.  A Tramp Abroad has a quality of burlesque in it, which did not belong to the journey at all, but was invented to satisfy the craving for what the public conceived to be Mark Twain’s humor.  The serious portions of the book are much more pleasing—­more like himself.  The entire journey, as will be seen, lasted one week more than a month.