(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.

Twichell also made his reports home, some of which give us
interesting pictures of his walking partner. In one place he wrote:
"Mark is a queer fellow. There is nothing he so delights in as a
swift, strong stream. You can hardly get him to leave one when once
he is within the influence of its fascinations."

Twichell tells how at Kandersteg they were out together one evening
where a brook comes plunging down from Gasternthal and how he pushed
in a drift to see it go racing along the current. "When I got back
to the pat