To the dinner that night, I had invited some representative members of the Swiss army, press, learned professions, etc. Colonel Voegli was there; Dr. Willi, the friend of Wagner; Gottfried Kinkel, the professor and poet; Orelli, the banker; Feer, of the Swiss Senate; Vogt, the journalist; Mr. Fish, the American Minister; Mayor Roemer and others.

It was a gentlemen’s dinner. Mrs. Grant remained in her room, after a brief glance at the table and the flowers downstairs.

It was an ideal place for a happy party. Inside the room the Swiss and American colors were blended, and some of the French dishes were rebaptized with American names for the occasion.

Outside, the almost tropical garden reached out into the lake. There was no music in the rooms, but almost every one present made a little speech. General Grant not only answered to the toast in his honor, but in a second speech proposed Switzerland, and especially Zurich, which he had heard spoken of as a “Swiss Athens.” At no time did I ever see him in such good spirits. The table was not so large but all could plainly hear. Numbers of the guests addressed remarks and inquiries about our country to General Grant. He answered kindly, and proposed many questions of his own, until conversation became extremely lively. In short, his reputation for being no talker was smashed all to pieces that evening. He talked much, and he talked well, and was very happy; so were all of us. The two Republics were one around that table, and we were all democrats. General Grant drank wine with the rest of us, but with moderation. President Hayes, he related to me, had a great reputation for drinking absolutely nothing but water. “It is a mistake,” said the General, and he told me how at a dinner at the White House, the night before the inauguration, President Hayes emptied his wine glass very much in the way that all other people did, who had no reputations for total abstinence. He was amused at some of the French-American names on the menu at his plate. I interpreted some of them for him, and, after the dinner, put his menu with its pretty picture of the lake into my breast pocket, as a little souvenir of the occasion.

We separated at midnight, and the next morning some of the same guests and myself escorted him and Mrs. Grant to their train for Paris.

[CHAPTER XVIII]
1878

THE ST. GOTHARD TUNNEL​--​I DESCRIBE IT FOR HARPER’S MAGAZINE​--​ITS COST​--​A GREAT SCARE IN THE TUNNEL.

October, 1878.​--​The great tunnel through the St. Gothard Alps is reaching completion. Nothing like it was ever accomplished before in the world. It happens that Mr. Hellwag, the chief engineer of the stupendous undertaking, is a personal friend, and he gave me every facility for visiting it. His courtesy and hints have helped me in preparing my article for Harper’s (October) Magazine. Hellwag is already famous as the builder of the tunnels for the Brenner pass. He is also the inventor of the Auger, or Spiral tunnel system, by which railway trains reach high elevations up tunnel slopes, winding around and up the inside of mountains. He gave me letters and permits to go everywhere, and, so far as I know, I am the first American to have been inside the tunnel.