Basle, July 13, 1851.

Very striking is the contrast between all of Switzerland I had traversed, before reaching Lucerne, and the route thence to this place. From Como to the middle of Lake Lucerne is something over a hundred miles, and in all that distance there was never so much as one-tenth of the land in sight that could, by any possibility, be cultivated. The narrow valleys, when not too narrow, were arable and generally fertile; but they were shut in on every side by dizzy precipices, by lofty mountains, often snow-crowned, and either wholly barren or with only a few shrubs and stunted trees clinging to their clefts and inequalities, because nothing else could cling there. A fortieth part of these mountain sides may have been so moderately steep that soil could gather and lie on them, in which case they yielded fair pasturage for cattle, or at least for goats: but nine-tenths of their superficies were utterly unproductive and inhospitable. On the mountain-tops, indeed, there is sometimes a level space, but the snow generally monopolizes that. Such is Switzerland from the Italian frontier, where I crossed it, to the immediate vicinity of Lucerne.

Here all is changed. A small but beautiful river debouches from the lake at its west end, and the town is grouped around this outlet. But mountains here there are none—nothing but rich glades and gently swelling hills, covered with the most bounteous harvest, through which the high road runs north-easterly some sixty miles to Basle on the Rhine in the north-east corner of Switzerland, with Germany (Baden) on the east and France on the north. A single ridge, indeed, on this route presents a ragged cliff or two and some heights dignified with the title of mountains, which seem a joke to one who has just spent two days among the Alps.

Grass is the chief staple of this fertile region, but Wheat is abundantly grown and is just beginning to ripen, promising a noble yield. Potatoes also are extensively planted, and I never saw a more vigorous growth. Rye, Oats and Barley do well, but are little cultivated. Of Indian Corn there is none, and the Vine, which had given out on the Italian side some twenty miles below the foot of St. Gothard, does not come in again till we are close to the Rhine. But in its stead they have the Apple in profusion—I think more Apple trees between Lucerne and the Rhine, than I had seen in all Europe before—and they seem very thrifty, though this year's yield of fruit will be light. There are some other trees planted, and many small, thrifty forests, such as I had hardly seen before on the Continent. These increase as we approach the Rhine. There is hardly a fence throughout, and generous crops of Wheat, Potatoes, Rye, Grass, Oats, &c., are growing close up to the beaten road on either side. I don't exactly see how Cattle are driven through such a country, having passed no drove since crossing Mount St. Gothard.

The dwellings are generally large, low structures, with sloping, overhanging roofs, indicating thrift and comfort. Sometimes the first story, or at least the basement, is of hewn-stone, but the greater part of the structure is nearly always of wood. The barns are spacious, and built much like the houses. I have passed through no other part of Europe evincing such general thrift and comfort as this quarter of Switzerland, and Basle, already a well built city, is rapidly improving. When the Railroad line from Paris to Strasburg is completed, the French capital will be but little more than twenty-four hours from Basle, while the Baden line, down the German side of the Rhine, already connects this city easily with all Germany, and is certain of rapid and indefinite extension. Basle, though quite a town in CÆsar's day, is renewing her youth.

THE SWISS.

I am leaving Switzerland, after four days only of observation therein; but during those days I have traversed the country from its southern to its north-eastern extremity, passing through six of the Cantons and along the skirts of another, resting respectively at Airolo, Lucerne, and Basle, and meeting many hundreds of the people on the way, beside seeing thousands in the towns and at work in their fields. This is naturally a very poor country, with for the most part a sterile soil—or rather, naked, precipitous rocks, irreclaimably devoid of soil—where, if anywhere, the poor peasantry would be justified in asking charity of the strangers who come to gaze at and enjoy their stupendous but most inhospitable mountains—and yet I have not seen one beggar to a hundred hearty workers, while in fertile, bounteous, sunny Italy, the preponderance was clearly the other way. And, though very palpably a stranger, and specially exposed by my ignorance of the languages spoken here to imposition, no one has attempted to cheat me from the moment of my entering the Republic till this, while in Italy every day and almost every hour was marked by its peculiar extortions. Every where I have found kindness and truth written on the faces and evinced in the acts of this people, while in Italy rapacity and knavery are the order of the day. How does a monarchist explain this broad discrepancy? Mountains alone will not do, for the Italians of the Apennines and the Abruzzi are notoriously very much like those of the Campagna and of the Val d'Arno; nor will the zealot's ready suggestion of diverse Faiths suffice, for my route has lain almost exclusively through the Catholic portion of this country. Ticino, Uri, Lucerne, etc., are intensely, unanimously Catholic; the very roadsides are dotted with little shrines, enriched with the rudest possible pictures of the Virgin and Child, the Crucifixion, &c., and I think I did not pass a Protestant church or village till I was within thirty miles of this place. Nearly all the Swiss I have seen are Catholics, and a more upright, kindly, truly religious people I have rarely or never met. What, then, can have rendered them so palpably and greatly superior to their Italian neighbors, whose ancestors were the masters of theirs, but the prevalence here of Republican Freedom and there of Imperial Despotism?

Switzerland, shut out from equal competition with other nations by her inland, elevated, scarcely accessible position, has naturalized Manufactures on her soil, and they are steadily extending. She sends Millions' worth of Watches, Silks, &c., annually even to distant America; while Italy, with nearly all her population within a day's ride of the Adriatic or the Mediterranean, with the rich, barbaric East at her doors for a market, does not fabricate even the rags which partially cover her beggars, but depends on England and France for most of the little clothing she has. Italy is naturally a land of abundance and luxury, with a soil and climate scarcely equalled on earth; yet a large share of her population actually lack the necessaries, not to speak of the comforts, of life, and those who sow and reap her bountiful harvests are often without bread: Switzerland has, for the most part, an Arctic climate and scarcely any soil at all; and yet her people are all decently clad and adequately though frugally fed, and I have not seen one person who seemed to have been demoralized by want or to suffer from hunger since I crossed her border. Her hotels are far superior to their more frequented namesakes of Italy; even at the isolated hamlet of Airolo, where no grain will grow, I found everything essential to cleanliness and comfort, while the "Switzer Hoff" at Lucerne and "Les Trois Rois" at Basle are two of the very best houses I have found in Europe. What Royalist can satisfactorily explain these contrasts?

Switzerland, though a small country, and not half of this habitable, speaks three different languages. I found at Airolo regular files of Swiss journals printed respectively in French, Italian, and German: the last entirely baffled me; the two former I read after a fashion, making out some of their contents' purport and drift. Those in French, printed at Geneva, Lausanne, &c., were executed far more neatly than the others. All were of small size, and in good part devoted to spirited political discussion. Switzerland, though profoundly Republican, is almost equally divided into parties known respectively as "Radical" and "Conservative:" the Protestant Cantons being preponderantly Radical, the Catholic generally Conservative. Of the precise questions in dispute I know little and shall say nothing; but I do trust that the controversy will not enfeeble nor paralyze the Republic, now seriously menaced by the Allied Despots, who seem to have almost forgotten that there ever was such a man as William Tell. Let us drink, in the crystal current leaping brightly down from the eternal glaciers, to his glorious, inspiring memory, and to Switzerland a loving and hopeful Adieu!