August 24 Saturday – From Sam’s notebook:

“…up, shaved breakfasted, before 8—everybody gone but us…visited Gasternthal—gushing waterspout from rock. Sun shining on green ice & blazing snow…Chased a chunk down stream” [MTNJ 2: 143]. (See this source for Twichell’s description of Sam boyishly and joyously chasing a stick downstream.)

The pair set off with an old guide and climbed on foot up through the pass, coming down a precipitous trail to the village of Leuk (a short distance from Leukerbad) [Rodney 106]. In his notebook Sam put the time at 3:30, a hike of seven hours. It was a “raw and rainy night”; Sam missed “our library fire” [2: 144].

The pair rested from their hike in Leuk, then drove a buggy a few miles to Leukerbad. There they observed the strange but civil display of bathing customs at Leukerbad: bathers sat in baths up to their necks, dressed in full flannel outfits, and bathed for hours. Each bather used a small floating table to read or take coffee. Others were permitted to watch the bathers [MTNJ 2: 144n64].

Sam wrote from Leukerbad, Switzerland to Livy, that he and Joe had “a most noble day,” hiking and climbing seven hours. Coming down the last two hours on a “path as steep as a ladder…taxed” the knees. Sam observed that at each altitude level, the weather was like going back a month into the past season. Joe lost his hat over a precipice but found an opera glass [MTLE 3: 107; MTNJ 2: 145].

Bill paid for 750 (marks?) to C.H.H. Schuh, Interlaken merchant of art, for carved picture scene of Shakespeare’s Storm and a black carved table [MTP].