This anonymous journal is the record of a young woman’s visit to the Alps with her uncle. They travelled from London to Calais, visiting Brussels and Cologne before reaching Zurich. There they ascended the Rigi, crossed to Lucerne, and made their way to Altdorf, where they “engaged a guide for the mountains. His name was Franz Fedier, and he certainly showed himself capable of the task he had undertaken”. They crossed the St. Gothard Pass to Andermatt and Hospenthal, and purchased “alpenstocks to be used
on that day at the glacier of the Rhone”. Moving to the Grimsel inn, they visited the Aar and Reichenbach falls, and travelled on horseback across the Scheidegg pass to Grindelwald. They climbed the Faulhorn for the views, then continued via the Wengern Alp to Mürren and Lauterbrunnen. They engaged another guide, Wilhelm Grosse, to take them to Kandersteg, returning with yet another, Abraham Sauerbach. Crossing the Gemmi pass, “one of the wildest of the Alpine passes”, they reached Sierre, continuing to
Martigny on the new railway. “The next day was to me the most enjoyable of all our excursion, I had so often wished to see the Hospice of the Great St. Bernard”. The journal describes the visit, and includes a photograph of “Les freres du Grand St. Bernard”. They next visited the Tête Noire, the Col du Balme, and caught their first sight of Mont Blanc. They stayed in Chamouni, but the next day the top “was wrapped up in a gloomy mantle of rain clouds and did not once look through”. They walked to the top of the
Montanvert in the rain, and “equipped like Esquimaux we followed our guide down to the Mer de Glace. The scene was grand beyond description...” The writer goes on to comment “A great many, ladies included, have ascended Mount Blanc during the past summer, it does not seem very formidable, the guides described the way to us”. They returned via Geneva and Paris “to Edinburgh, well satisfied with our six weeks tour in foreign lands”. The account is nicely illustrated with original photographs of some of the places visited (including Andermatt, “Passage de la Gemmi”, Martigny, Mount Blanc, and “Ascent of Mount Blanc”), and with small lithographic views.