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Kurhaus Rosenlaui, Berner Oberland Wednesday. Dearest Father. I will spend a spare ½ hour in supplementing my card of this morning. We have walked up here a couple of hours or so from the top of the rope railway that takes you up to the Reichenbach. It is a most beautiful valley and I am enchanted with this inn which is quite ideal, on the edge of a stream among pine woods with the Rosenlaui glacier tumbling down in front. I think I may very likely come up here later for a day or two in order to do some small difficult rocky peaks on the left of the glacier. Tonight I sleep at the Dossenhütte, a new hut not bewirtschaftet about 4 hours from here high up on the glacier. We are going up there directly after lunch. We've lost no time in getting up into alps, have we! I have Fuhrer with me and a younger brother of his, Heinrich, also a guide. He seems as nice and civil as the elder brother and I think I shall do very well with them. Fuhrer was up the Finsteraarhorn yesterday and says the snow is in fine order. We have a great plan of doing it up a new arête which has not been done before. We shall probably try that next if the good weather lasts. They have had a great deal of rain and snow lately so with good luck I may just come in for a fine spell. It's perfectly enchanting to be among mountains again.
I missed my connection at Lucerne [Luzern] yesterday and had to wait 2 hours and take a slow train which reached Meiringen at 9.30. Heinrich Fuhrer met me there and took me to my inn. I didn't much mind the wait at Lucerne for I walked out and had chocolate and bought some maps I wanted. I could have got my train but for my luggage which they wd only register to Lucerne in London so that I had no time to get it out and reregistered. I ought to have registered it to Basle [Basel] and then straight to Meiringen from there - I'll know another time.
I met Lily Grant Duff walking down the path with a young man as I came up. She was going to lunch in the woods. I shall probably see her party if I come back, which I shall like. It's rather nice tumbling onto people one knows. Tell Moll - oh no, you won't see her - but I was going to say tell her Lily looked very pretty in her big hat and mountain clothes. Dear, dear! I shall be so footsore tonight! one's feet are like butter the first day or two. I wonder if you are going to Caroline today.
Now I must lunch which I feel most ready to do. I wish you were in this charming place. It wd be a good place to come to. It's much the loveliest Alpine inn I have seen. Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude
Enhanced transcription
Evolving Hands is a collaborative digital scholarship project between Newcastle University and Bucknell University which explores the use of Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) and Text Encoded Initiative (TEI XML) to enhance cultural heritage material. In this project, we have applied these methods to a selection of letters from the Gertrude Bell Archive.