We got into some dry clothing, and while our supper was preparing we loafed forsakenly through a couple of vast cavernous drawing-rooms, one of which had a stove in it.  This stove was in a corner, and densely walled around with people.  We could not get near the fire, so we moved at large in the artic spaces, among a multitude of people who sat silent, smileless, forlorn, and shivering—­thinking what fools they were to come, perhaps.  There were some Americans and some Germans, but one could see that the great majority were English.

We lounged into an apartment where there was a great crowd, to see what was going on.  It was a memento-magazine.  The tourists were eagerly buying all sorts and styles of paper-cutters, marked “Souvenir of the Rigi,” with handles made of the little curved horn of the ostensible chamois; there were all manner of wooden goblets and such things, similarly marked.  I was going to buy a paper-cutter, but I believed I could remember the cold comfort of the Rigi-Kulm without it, so I smothered the impulse.

Supper warmed us, and we went immediately to bed—­but first, as Mr. Baedeker requests all tourists to call his attention to any errors which they may find in his guide-books, I dropped him a line to inform him he missed it by just about three days.  I had previously informed him of his mistake about the distance from Allerheiligen to Oppenau, and had also informed the Ordnance Depart of the German government of the same error in the imperial maps.  I will add, here, that I never got any answer to those letters, or any thanks from either of those sources; and, what is still more discourteous, these corrections have not been made, either in the maps or the guide-books.  But I will write again when I get time, for my letters may have miscarried.

We curled up in the clammy beds, and went to sleep without rocking.  We were so sodden with fatigue that we never stirred nor turned over till the blooming blasts of the Alpine horn aroused us.  It may well be imagined that we did not lose any time.  We snatched on a few odds and ends of clothing, cocooned ourselves in the proper red blankets, and plunged along the halls and out into the whistling wind bareheaded.  We saw a tall wooden scaffolding on the very peak of the summit, a hundred yards away, and made for it.  We rushed up the stairs to the top of this scaffolding, and stood there, above the vast outlying world, with hair flying and ruddy blankets waving and cracking in the fierce breeze.

“Fifteen minutes too late, at last!” said Harris, in a vexed voice.  “The sun is clear above the horizon.”

“No matter,” I said, “it is a most magnificent spectacle, and we will see it do the rest of its rising anyway.”