for altho there is a sheer descent on either side of the arête or ridge
which leads from the one point to the other, the way is never narrow and
only over easy rocks and snow.

The Hohtäligrat 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