September 4 Wednesday – Sam and Joe set off [from Ouchy] on their last Alpine tramp. Bound for Chamonix, France, they took the train to Martigny, Switzerland, where they arrived at 9 PM and took rooms at the Hotel Clerc
September 5 Thursday – The two “tramps” left Martigny on foot at 8 AM, bound for Chamonix, nineteen uphill miles in the hot sun. They skirted the Tête Noir Mountain. Sam noted the beauty of Argientiere as they approached. They dined at Argientiere and hired a wagon for the last six miles into Chamonix.
I had always had a deep and reverent compassion for the sufferings of the "prisoner of Chillon," whose story Byron had told in such moving verse; so I took the steamer and made pilgrimage to the dungeons of the Castle of Chillon, to see the place where poor Bonnivard endured his dreary captivity three hundred years ago. I am glad I did that, for it took away some of the pain I was feeling on the prisoner's account. His dungeon was a nice, cool, roomy place, and I cannot see why he should have been dissatisfied with it. If he had been imprisoned in a St.
August 31 Saturday – Sam and Twichell took the train from Visp at 10:51 AM to Breveret (Bouveret). At Breveret they took a boat to Ouchy on Lake Geneva, arriving at 5 PM to the waiting family, staying at the Hotel Beau Rivage. Sam noted that a band played in front of the hotel in the evenings, as at Lucerne.
August 26 Monday – Sam and Joe took a train to Locchi-Suste (Visp). [I have not find a reference to Locchi-Suste] From Visp the two hiked “6 hours through mud & rain” the ten miles to St. Nicklaus, Switzerland.
Sam wrote from St. Nicklaus to Livy: “Livy darling, we came through a-whooping, to-day, 6 hours tramp up steep hills & down steep hills, in mud & water shoe-deep, & in a steady pouring rain which never moderated a moment. I was as chipper & fresh as a lark all the way & arrived without the slightest sense of fatigue”
There remains confusion in A Tramp Abroad as to exactly where Mark Twain and Harris (Joe Twichell) were, Leukerbad or Leuk. It's my opinion that they were in Leukerbad if only because he makes the statement on leaving the town that "Next morning, early, we drove to the Rhone valley and took the train for Visp". If Leuk, they would not have needed to drive the Rhone Valley.
August 24 Saturday – 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[erbad] 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”
August 23 Friday – Sam and Twichell said goodbye to the family and left Interlaken.
August 22 Thursday – From Sam’s notebook:
At Jungfrau Hotel, Interlaken—Superb view of the Jungfrau.
Confounded crow woke us all up at daylight.
Set your umbrellas up on these polished wood floors, down it goes. Step suddenly on them, down you go. The lowest snow on the Jf seems but little above the valley level [drawing inserted] [MTNJ 2: 141].