a tramway to the top of Mt.
Pilatus, at a grade of from 25 to 35 degrees. I did not feel this
in ascending, but in descending I confess to experiencing real
fear. The jog-jog of the cogwheels, the possibility of their
breaking, and the sure destruction that would follow, made me very
nervous. I would have been less so but for a lady unknown to me,
sitting by my side, who became frightened and turned deathly pale.
I was glad indeed when we reached the lake.

From Lucerne Mrs. Sherman went to Neuchatel to meet my niece, Mrs.
Huggins, then sick at that place. The remainder of the party went
to Interlaken and the valley in which it is situated. I have no
room for the description of mountain scenery, and no language can
properly convey a sense of its grandeur. I have mentally contrasted
Mt. St. Bernard and the Simplon with Pike's Peak and Mt. Washburn,
and feel quite sure that in grandeur and in extent of view the
American mountains are superior to those named in Europe, but the
larger population in easy reach of the mountains of Switzerland
will give them the preference for a generation or more. Then Mt.
Shasta will take its place as the most beautiful isolated mountain
in the world, and the Rocky Mountain range will furnish a series
of mountains surpassing the mountains of Switzerland; but both
South America and Asia contain mountains thousands of feet higher
than either or any of the mountains of Europe or North America.

Without going into details of travels over familiar ground all our
party arrived safely at Paris on the 2nd of July, 1889. Unfortunately,
Mrs. Sherman was called back to Neuchatel on the 4th of July, on
account of the continued serious illness of Mrs. Huggins, the
balance of the party remaining in Paris. We were in that city two
weeks and attended the international exposition many times. The
French people know better than any other how to conduct such a
show. The great building in which it was held was so arranged that
similar articles were grouped together, and yet all productions of
a country were in convenient proximity. The French are artists in
almost every branch of human industry. They are cheerful, gay and
agreeable. They are polite and therefore sensitive of any slight,
neglect or rudeness and promptly resent it.

While in Paris we formed some agreeable acquaintances. Whitelaw
Reid, our minister to France, entertained elegantly his countrymen
and his associates in the diploma