Introduction.

As I dare to add my own to the hundred descriptions of our Bernese Oberland, I am seized by the desire not merely to present an illustrative and lively account to the one who never comes there, or to evoke friendly recollections for the one who has wandered through it himself; I am also moved by the wish to provide the local inhabitant as well as the foreigner who intends to travel through it with instructions on how to accomplish that quite usefully, quite pleasantly, and quite adequately. Not everyone who is granted the opportunity to traverse our Bernese Alps will be in a position to see the whole of Switzerland. It is therefore not advantageous for him to take along Ebel’s substantial guide, which makes one so thoroughly acquainted with the latter, on a limited path that does not allow for a tenth of the whole, and to purchase it for the sake of such a subordinate travel plan. But it may also be welcome to the traveler of a greater undertaking