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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 29, 13 November 1885, Page 9

Swiss lacustrine dwellings of the steam age — that is, the huge hotels by the lakes of Lucerne and Geneva— are too imposing for the ordinary English tourist and his wife. She cannot dress up to the gorgeously fashionable American beauties, who really are examples of perfection when they come down to dinner in all their glory. On the other hand, in mountain inns, a climbing lady's dress is often almost to simple, apparently consisting chiefly of an old ulster and a battered straw hat, though this estimate is quite hasty and superficial. But if plain dressing arid high climbing mark the mountain hostelry, is it not also rather a noisy domicile? At three in the morning, just as the weary brain, worker think 3 sleep may be coming to him, bebold the Alpine party begins to rise for the enjoyment of the day. They toss boots weighing a stone each about the floor, they nosily tab, they sing, they throw axes and alpenstocks heTe and there, rejoicing in their strength. For about an hour in the gathering light, or before the dawn, this hubbub is kept up, and then the adventurers start to climb the Katzspitzenbeig. If one breathes a faint prayer that they may all break their mountaineering necks, it is hardly to be wondered at, though no doubt to be deplored. Buch are the pleasures of the high Alpine inn, or some of them ; let us hope it is wholesome, for it is notdelicious. — Daily Nan,