To Understand What I Next Had To Do It Is Necessary To Look Back At
The Little Map On Page 105.
You will observe that the straight way to Rome cuts the Lake of Brienz
rather to the eastward of
The middle, and then goes slap over
Wetterhorn and strikes the Rhone Valley at a place called Ulrichen.
That is how a bird would do it, if some High Pope of Birds lived in
Rome and needed visiting, as, for instance, the Great Auk; or if some
old primal relic sacred to birds was connected therewith, as, for
instance, the bones of the Dodo.... But I digress. The point is that
the straight line takes one over the Brienzer Grat, over the lake, and
then over the Wetterhorn. That was manifestly impossible. But whatever
of it was possible had to be done, and among the possible things was
clambering over the high ridge of the Brienzer Grat instead of going
round like a coward by Interlaken. After I had clambered over it,
however, needs must I should have to take a pass called the Grimsel
Pass and reach the Rhone Valley that way. It was with such a
determination that I had come here to the upper waters of the Emmen,
and stood now on a moist morning in the basin where that stream rises,
at the foot of the mountain range that divided me from the lake.
The Brienzer Grat is an extraordinary thing. It is quite straight; its
summits are, of course, of different heights, but from below they seem
even, like a ridge:
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