except in the costume of the drovers. We pushed our way through the crowd, on the road to Interlachen, and there embarked for Brienz, which lies at the further extremity of a lake of the same name, greatly resembling that of Thun, but somewhat smaller, and surrounded with ruder scenery. The Aar flows through both. Of the five boatmen who formed our equipage, four were women. The men seek foreign military service, (which is now forbidden by law,) or drive the flocks and herds to the mountains, leaving the women to do the work at home. The flat-bottomed boats, which we found on these little mountain lakes, have everywhere been banished by steamers. The Alpine echoes are now awakened by the panting engine and screaming whistle. Opposite to Brienz we landed to view the Giesbach, (gushing torrent,) an extremely picturesque and beautiful object. There is no one fall as lofty as the Staubbach, but the succession of cascades is higher; the stream pours down a greater volume of water, and is surrounded with a far more pleasing landscape. It bounds from rock to rock, its pure silver water glittering through groves of fir, and lower down oak and beech woods, and after a long winding path down the mountain side, dashes foaming into the lake.

Opposite the falls a schoolmaster of Brienz had established himself in a small cottage, with five motherless children, the oldest of whom was but ten or eleven years of age. He accompanied them and himself on the harpsichord, and as the little ones had wonderful voices for their years, the effect was very pleasing. They executed for us some very pretty Ranz des Vaches, with tasteful variations on the native airs of the Oberland. After forty years he is still perched and chirping in his Alpine nest, for it must be the same individual who is described in the hand-book, "whose family and himself are celebrated as the best choristers of native airs in Switzerland. He is now a patriarch of eighty, and most of his children are married, but he is training his grandchildren to the same pro

fession of songsters." Let us hope that they too will not leave the poor old Alpine minstrel.

Brienz is a beautifully situated village at the upper end of the lake; its inhabitants had all gone to the fair at Unterseen. Here the traveller usually takes horses to cross the Brünig mountain to Lungern, but the horses were gone to the fair with the men. We could get but one for ourselves, baggage, and guides. My companion had lamed himself, and was entitled to ride, and I was well pleased to climb the mountain on foot. The road was in some places very steep, and hardly afforded a foothold on the mountain side. The Brünig forms the barrier between Berne and Unterwalden, and after you enter the latter Canton, every thing that deserves the name of a road disappears in this quarter. Nothing remains but to scramble among the rocks, following the footsteps of your guide. But the youthful traveller does not reject this rough contact of mountain life, and the scene as you descend the last hill, repays the fatigue a hundred fold. It was difficult to refrain from cries of delight as we looked down upon the lake and village of Lungern, quietly enfolded by the surrounding hills clothed with woods to their summits, the dark green tint of the meadows at their feet, the peaceful seclusion of the region, traversed by nothing that can be called a highway, and on one side of which there was no approach by wheel carriages; the sound of vespers chimed from the steeple as we drew near the village, the tinkling bells of the returning herds, and the plaintive chant of the cow-boys, and as the evening closed in, the long shadows of the mountains stealing over the lake. Such were the sights, the sounds, as we descended the Brünig to Lungern.

It was probably on his tour to Switzerland, that Sir Walter Scott conceived the idea of making Baillie Jarvie in Rob Roy propose to drain Loch Lomond. The inhabitants of Lungern had labored for years by a tunnel through the Kaiserstuhl, (Emperor's chair,) which forms a natural dam

between the lakes of Lungern and Sarnen, to lower the former. The cost of the work, the want of engineering skill, and the political convulsions of the times, had defeated the execution of this deplorable improvement, and I saw the sweet lake of Lungern in all its natural beauty, as lovely an object as there is in Europe. But keener land speculators, richer companies, more skilful engineers, have accomplished the work. In 1836 the final perforation of the Kaiserstuhl took place, and in sixteen days the water in the lake of Lungern fell to the level of the tunnel. By this operation a broad strip of poor land has been gained round the margin of the lake. In some places its steep banks, having lost the support derived from the pressure of the water, have crumbled and slid into the lake. The newly acquired soil is divided into small holdings, each with its châlet, and is said, on the hand-book, to look like the common 66 property of a free-hold land society."

On entering Unterwalden, one of the four primitive Cantons, you find yourself literally in the Switzerland of the Swiss. Almost all the great traditions and patriotic legends. cluster about this region. We started in the morning from Lungern with a second horse, for which one of our guides had gone round by Meyringen yesterday, while we footed the Brünig. With this reinforcement of the cavalry we entered Sachseln, an ancient Swiss village, held in reverence as the scene of the labors of Saint Nicholas von der Flüe. The parish church dedicated to him is a somewhat stately building; its black marble pillars obtained from quarries in the neighborhood. Saint Nicholas was born in the early part of the fifteenth century, and, after leading an active political and military life, left a large family, and retired heart-stricken with the sins and sorrows of life, to a hermit's cell in the mountains. The fame of his austere penances, of his piety, of his superhuman abstinence, went abroad throughout Unterwalden. He did not live on earthly food. It was rumored that he partook no nourishment but that of the sacred elements received

but once a month. The Bishop sent to investigate the fact, and, according to the tradition, it was substantiated. He once. averted a civil war, by appearing with a message from Heaven, in a Council of eight Cantons assembled at Sarnen, and thus preventing the brethren from breaking up in wrath. This exploit forms the subject of a coarse fresco, in the portico of the church. The skeleton of the saint himself, a frightful object enough, is set up in a shrine before the altar, and readily exhibited to travellers. It is partly clad in robes. richly ornamented with jewels, the gift of devotees, with gilded rays shooting from the head, which give it a dismal resemblance to Death on the pale horse, in Mr. West's picture. A cross set with jewels occupies the place of the heart within the ribs. On a lay figure in a side chapel the garments actually worn by the saint are displayed; and they are borne in procession, on the great festivals of the church, throughout the year. The peasantry of the Canton consider themselves under his especial tutelage, and the feeling toward him seems to be more kindly than one would have anticipated from his ghastly osteological presentment. They call him Brother Claus. When the harvest is abundant, and the flocks and the herds increase and multiply, and the produce of the dairy finds a ready sale, Brother Claus has the credit, and if the reverse of these blessings overtakes them, they are sure Brother Claus has struggled hard with the Evil One, though this time without success.

NUMBER FORTY-NINE.

STANZ, LUCERNE, TELL

Sarnen, proposed drainage of the lake-The Landenberg-Schiller's Wilhelm Tell and birthday-Commotion in Unterwalden in 1818-Type of Swiss houses-Arnold von Winkelreid-Resistance to the French in 1798-Atrocities described by Alison-The attack on Stanzstade commanded by General Foy-His characterLake of the Four Cantons-Lucerne-General Pfyffer's model of SwitzerlandThorwaldsen's lion-Küssnacht one of Gessler's strongholds-Is the history of Tell authentic?-The story of the Apple said to be found in the Danish sagas— Does this prove Tell a myth ?-The hollow way.

SARNEN, on the pretty lake of that name, is the seat of government of Unterwalden. We passed but a few hours here, but long enough to find out that here also the atrocious project of draining the lake to a lower level was in agitation. Whether, as in the case of the lake of Lungern, this project has been carried into execution, I have never heard. It is natural that Americans, with whom the best land in the world sells at a dollar and a quarter the acre, should not be able to sympathize with the Swiss, whose arable territory is so limited, in this eagerness to acquire a few more acres. But to obtain this object by draining their beautiful lakes, seems a most extraordinary blindness to what makes so much of the attraction of the country, and annually fills it with a throng of tourists, whose progress through the cantons may be traced by the golden wake they leave behind them.

There are some objects of interest in and about Sarnen. The Council-house contains the portraits of the Landammen, or local rulers of the canton, for several centuries. That of