Travel in the Bernese Oberland

pursue the urge of curiosity and poetic enthusiasm for the beautiful mountain world.

The body gains twofold, if not sevenfold. First, it gains through movement, secondly through beneficial perspiration, thirdly through the pure, lighter air, fourthly through excellent water and simple, spicy food. It increases in health, in agility — whispered in the ear of some: in beauty — in strength, and in everything conducive to a more effective life. But this does not come to the wanderer without effort; for here, too, applies the ancient saying of Hesiodus Hesiod:

“Before excellence, the immortal gods have placed sweat.” *)

Indeed, if a weakling or an invalid wishes to be carried through the mountains in carriages, litters, or sedan chairs, he can still reach high and far, at least in our Swiss Alps; but the wanderer who entrusts himself to his own feet, and, according to the dictum of Schillerscher Tell Schiller's William Tell, trusts in God and his own agile strength, will find it incomparably more refreshing, freer, and cheaper.

“Most foot travelers,” says Ebel Johann Gottfried Ebel — **) “return from the mountains fatter, more cheerful, and

*) Works and Days. According to the translation by Voß Johann Heinrich Voß. Line 289.
**) Instructions for Traveling in Switzerland in the Most Useful and Enjoyable Manner, Part 1, p. 13 (3rd ed., Zurich, 1809).