In the Hotel de la Concorde, the “house of peace,” I found a pleasant chamber on the edge of the Lake of Lucerne; and so near that in its lucid waters I can from my window see the large fish chasing and devouring the little ones, just as big fish on land are doing everywhere. In front, the lofty Pilatus rises in heavy grandeur, and the Buochsherhorn and Stauzerhorn are in full view, with other peaks all white with snow, while it is oppressively hot below. I spent the day here at the foot of the mountain.

There is no life in this little settlement except when the boat arrives with travellers for the Rigi: the mountain comes down so suddenly to the shore that there is hardly room for dwellings, and a few inhabitants only are scattered along on the water’s edge. But it is on the shore of the most enchanting lake in Europe, and at a point where some of the finest views of this lake are to be had. We sat on the bank to see the sun set, a sight of which one never tires; hundreds of travellers have passed up or down the Rigi to-day, and of that whole number we are the only two who have cared to rest here to study and admire the scenery, and at the same time refresh ourselves for future pilgrimages.

There was a crash among the mountains just now: at first we thought it the noise of a steamboat on the lake, but the roar became quickly greater, and we knew that it was an avalanche of ice or of rocks that had come down the side of old Pilatus. It was the first that we had heard, and were very willing that the quiet of our evening should be thus disturbed. Then as if nothing were to be wanting to make the enjoyment of this scene perfect, the clouds marshaled themselves about the Buochsherhorn and played off their lightnings around his head; while torrents of rain came down on the lake below us, and the snow fell in sheets on the loftier mountains in the South. This lake is subject to sudden visitations of storms, and is therefore dangerous for skiffs unless under the guidance of the native boatmen, who know the signs of the weather, and put in for shore when they apprehend the approach of a gale. The hoary mountain Pilatus is said to have derived its name from Pontius Pilate, who was driven away from Rome, became a wretched wanderer here in this wild land, and finally in the horrors of a guilty conscience plunged from one of the crags of this mountain into the lake and perished. From its peculiar position and great height, 7,000 feet above the sea, and the foremost in the Alpine chain at the North, the clouds delight to gather about it, and so many are the storms which come down from this point, the superstitious dwellers on the shores for a long time supposed that poor Pilate was at the bottom of them all, and the lake would never be safe till his troubled spirit was put to rest.

From the summit of the Rigi, the seven towers of Lucerne had caught my eye, but they and the city they overlook and defend, appeared more beautiful and exceedingly picturesque as I approached them by water from Weggis. The old wall, of which the gates and towers are still remaining, surrounds the land side of the town, which stands on a side hill rising gradually from the water; and all outside of the wall the hill is dotted with handsome dwellings embosomed in orchards and rich meadow lands; a picture of quiet beauty and a spot for classic repose that a weary man might almost be pardoned for coveting. The town itself has no pretensions to taste in its architecture, but for beauty of situation on the most attractive of all the Swiss lakes, it is without a rival. The hotels are on the borders of the lake at the very landing, and the lofty Pilatus on the right, the Rigi on the left, and the far loftier and more majestic heights of the Alps in the cantons of Schwytz and Uri are lying in full view of the Swan Hotel, where I lodged, a capital house, which I cordially commend.

We have been exploring the town to find what of interest may be in it, though it is scarcely worth while for any man to look down for a moment while he is in Switzerland, unless he is on the top of a hill. But Lucerne has one peculiar feature of interest, in its covered bridges adorned with curious paintings. In Berlin a gallery for the fine arts was opened over a stable, and some poet ridiculed the idea by suggesting the inscription “Musis et mulis,” to the Muses and mules; but the Lucerne people had the singular fancy of making their bridges over the River Reuss, which divides their town in two, the repository of paintings, some of them possessed of no artistic merit, and all of them more or less injured now by the weather. The bridges are roofed, and under the roof, about ten feet apart, these pictures in triangular frames are fastened up, so that the foot passenger, (no carriages are allowed,) may study them as he walks along. One series illustrates scenes in Swiss history—another on the reverse of the same canvass, the exploits of the patron saints of the town. These are on the Kapell-Bridge which starts near the Swan Hotel, and runs across the very rapid river Reuss, which here emerges from the lake. The Mill-bridge, lower down the river, has a very rude imitation of the paintings of the “Dance of Death,” a series of pictures that are so often attempted, we may be sure they once had power on the minds of men. The originals are destroyed with the exception of the few fragments at Basle. The doggerel verse into which the German text is translated, is about equal in artistic excellence to the painting. The most remarkable bridge which Lucerne once boasted was across the end of the lake, but it has now been removed, the waters crowded back by the hand of art, and the large hotels now stand on the site of the old Hof-Bruche.

In the arsenal is a sacred deposit of old armor, and relics of more than doubtful authenticity, including the sword of William Tell, and the battle-axe which it is said the Reformer Zwingle carried in his hand on the field where he fell. A stranger may look at these and a hundred other curiosities, with some interest, if he has not been already surfeited, as I am, with the same sort of thing.

They have one lion here that is a lion—one of the noblest monuments and magnificent designs that I have seen in Europe. We passed through the Weggis Gate, and by a shaded pleasant walk in the private grounds of General Pfyffer, came to a lonely, lovely dell. On one side of it a huge precipice presents a bare rock face from which the water trickles into a little lake at the base. This rock is fringed on the sides and over the brow with shrubbery and trees, a graceful drapery, and in the solid side of the rock the figure of a dying lion is carved out of the same stone. A broken spear sticks in his side, and the blood oozes from the wound. The agony of death is in his face, but his paw rests on a shield with the arms of France, which even in death he is determined to defend. This monument was designed by the great Thorwalsden, but was executed by Ahorn, a sculptor of Constance, to commemorate the bravery of the Swiss guards who were slain at Paris while defending the Bourbons in the Revolution of 1792. This lion is nearly thirty feet long, and in just proportions, making an impressive monument better than the deed deserves. A representative of the Swiss guard wearing his uniform, is present to expound the design to those who are not quick at finding “sermons in stones.”

A cool delightful walk of fifteen minutes from this sequestered spot brought us into the grounds of a little convent, pleasingly situated on the sloping banks, and among cultivated fields, now fragrant with new-mown hay. An aged priest came by, and taking off his hat politely saluted us as we passed. We paused at the door of the chapel; a single lamp was burning before the altar, and one lonely nun was on her knees performing her evening devotions. It was not in our hearts to disturb the calm current of her thoughts, as she was gazing on the picture of her Saviour, and we did not enter. So sweetly and gracefully did the villas lie among the green fields and fruit trees, with the lake in front of them and the snowy Alps on the other side of it, full in view, but far enough to be in another clime, that I felt very much like setting up a little convent there on a new plan, and sending over the sea, for the community to people it.

Aug. 24.—We had a storm on the Lake this evening. For two or three days the weather had been very hot, so much so that I was not disposed to go tramping, even for the sake of climbing up a hill into a colder atmosphere. We had been lying off, too lazy to write, or to read. So we went a fishing after dinner. The Apostles went fishing. They fished all night, and caught nothing: we fished all the afternoon and had the same success.

Just before nightfall, the wind began to blow all of a sudden as if it had broken out in a new place. It blew all ways at once. The little skiffs that were out on the Lake pulled in for shore with all haste; and in less time than I have taken to tell of it, the scene of calm beauty which the Lake had presented, was changed to that of an angry tempest-tossed sea. The whole valley was filled with black, fierce clouds. Rigi was clothed with thunder. Pilatus was totally obscured. The storm was coming from his quarter, confirming the superstition of the natives, that his troubled spirit stirs the tempest. Through a single break in the clouds I could see the sunshine playing among the valleys away to the south, while darkness and gloom were all around us. The contrast was striking and peculiar to this region, where the sudden elevation of the mountains makes the transitions from one temperature to another rapid. On the bosom of the Lake the reflections of the clouds were exceedingly curious, giving almost as many colors as the rainbow that now began to appear on the Rigi. It was a beautiful bow. No rain had yet fallen here; but there on the side of that noble mountain on whose summit I had spent the night, the blessed bow was resting; so pure, so glorious, so full of sweet suggestions of God’s promise, that I looked on it as on the face of a friend in a strange land. It is just such a bow as they have in America. The same sun and the same showers make it, and the same God hangs it out there, the sign of his faithfulness, the token of his love. Who can be afraid of a storm when the rainbow appears? But it faded, as all bright things fade, and the dark clouds grew darker, and a heavy clap of thunder in the west shook the Alps, and another: not preceded by a streak of chain lightning leaping like a red serpent in the clouds, but by a broad lurid sheet of fire, filling the atmosphere, and then suddenly vanishing into darkness. The rain now came down in sheets; the wind blew with increasing power, and for a few moments it did indeed appear as if the prince of the powers of the air had been suffered to reign, and he was doing his worst while he was left unchained. The ignorance of the people could readily be imposed upon, when such scenes as this are frequent; and I am told, in former times so strictly was the ascent of Mount Pilatus forbidden, lest a storm should be provoked by the intrusion, that a Naturalist, Gessner, had to obtain a special license to pursue his investigations there.

The storm was of short duration. The hundreds, induced by the clear bright morning to go to the summit of Rigi for a sunset and a sunrise, found it was not the entertainment to which they were invited. In full view from my window, though five hours distant, I can see where the clouds cap his head, the rain is pouring there in torrents, the western and eastern sky is enveloped in mists that obscure all view of the sun, and more than half of the time, there is as little to be seen from the summit of Rigi, as in a cellar. The sun is shining brightly now on the lake near me, and a great fleece, as if a thousand flocks had yielded theirs for a robe, is thrown over the crown of the mountain, making a veil that no glass can see through.

The next morning we set off for a walk into the country. The landlord of the Swan assured us it would be a pleasant day, and as this prediction was made at the risk of losing two guests in consequence, we were bound to respect his judgment. We resolved to make an expedition into the country behind Lucerne, cross some of the spurs of the mountains, come around by the foot of old Pilatus, and so return to our lodgings. The whole walk would be only about twelve or fifteen miles, and if we should lose our way and make it a little longer, why so much the better.

It was just eight in the morning as we left and wandered slowly through the streets with our Alpen-stocks or pike staffs in hand. We paused at a church door or two, and looked in, where a few were paying their silent devotions before the altar, with a single burning lamp, and passing out of the gate underneath one of the seven old feudal towers, we took the bank of the river Reuss, and walked by a pleasant path, expecting every moment to find a bridge, as our road was to lead us off to the west, and we must cross the stream to reach it. I asked a little girl, tending two babies in a cottage door, if there was any bridge in that direction, and her ready answer “Nein,” or no, sent us about in a hurry. Here was the first mile thrown away, and retracing our steps, we crossed at the bridge near the wall, and taking the high road toward Berne, were soon in the midst of rural Swiss valley scenery. A path for a mile or more on the bank of the river, shaded by a row of fine trees, led along by the side of the carriage road, but we kept the track, having little desire to miss it again. Three miles of easy walking brought us past the village of Lindau to a bridge over a deep and frightful gorge, through which a mountain stream is rushing, fifty or sixty feet below the bridge. Here it is compressed in one place to a passage it has worn for itself through the solid rock, and not more than three feet wide, but the bed of the ravine gives evidence that the torrent when swollen with melting snows in early summer, or by heavy rains, may be terrible, so that this massive bridge, though very short, is required to resist its force. The sides of this ravine were so precipitous that we did not attempt the descent: but finding a path up the mountain, and learning from a peasant whom we met that it would take us over into a vale, we struck into it, and climbed. The roots of trees in some places made a flight of steps up which we walked, and all the way it was so steep that to get on required resolution and wind. But the ascent though sharp was very short, and in a few minutes we reached a well made winding way, that led us into a lovely vale. Thirsty if not weary, we called at the door of a little dwelling and asked for milk. The farmer and his wife were sitting on wooden benches by a table, taking their meal; what meal it was we could not determine, as it was ten o’clock in the morning; too late for breakfast, too early for dinner. They had an earthen pot of weak coffee or something of the same color, and pieces of brown bread which they dipped in and ate, taking a drink of the fluid now and then, and apparently enjoying their frugal meal. The old woman gave me a “Yah” in answer to my request for milk, and taking a glass tumbler from a closet, she wiped the dust out of it with her fingers, and going into a dark room, the dairy likely, she brought me a draught of as sweet milk as ever wet the lips of man or boy. The cottage was not clean, I am sorry to say it. I looked up a flight of stairs, and the appearance of things there did not suggest to me the idea of taking lodgings, but giving the woman a bit of silver for which she thanked me in German, we walked on, refreshed with the milk and the moment’s rest while getting it.

A little farther on, and a fine mansion with castellated towers, stood on the rising hill commanding a wide prospect of mountain scenery, but the road did not lead us near to it. Perhaps the proprietor of the valley has his home up there, and the tenants below may not be thriving: certainly it looks as if wealth, state, comfort, and elegance were in those old halls and having had milk in the cottage, I presume we might have wine in the mansion.

We soon lost sight of every sign of a dwelling, and walked on through a pine forest, the saddest of all forests to tread in: the sighing of the air through the tree tops making a music “mournful to the soul.” A water course, in hollowed logs carried through the woods, led on to a mill by the way-side, into which we entered to see a novel operation, and as queer a little miller as any body ever saw. The water turned an overshot wheel outside of the mill, and this turned two large wooden cog wheels, which raised two beams and let them fall, up and down, upon pine bark, which was thus pounded up fine enough to be used for tanning. But the miller who fed the mill with the bark was a man dwarf about three feet high, well enough proportioned, a stout healthy fellow, forty years old. He looked up and laughed us a good morning, and went on with his work, which made such a noise that it was useless to converse. And just as we left the mill we met a woman not more than three feet long, so nearly the same age and size, we could not but think they might be another remarkable pair of twins, who would have made the fortune of any body bringing them to America for exhibition.

We were now in a manufacturing valley. The fine water power was improved to drive looms in a mill where twenty girls were weaving, and when we passed, which was at eleven o’clock, they all quit for dinner, and trooped by us in rows of six abreast: hearty looking girls with no hats on, their hair braided, and hanging in two strips half way to their feet. They seemed to be very happy among themselves, and modest and well behaved as we walked along with them for a while. Other establishments for working iron were in the same neighborhood, and a village called Kriens, had some beautiful houses in it—one of them with twelve windows in a row in front, and three stories high, a fine mansion; and all of them were surrounded with flower gardens, tended with care, and glowing with splendid dahlias, and other flowers. The best houses I have yet seen in Switzerland are covered instead of clapboards, with small, round-end shingles, put on so neatly as to look like scollop shell work. So we walked from one to another hamlet, studying life in these secluded places, where the habits of the people are quite as unsophisticated as if they had never been a mile from home—the children did not know of such a place as Lucerne, though not five miles off—but there was peace, order, thrift, and contentment—the mountains rise suddenly from behind their dwellings, and shelter them from the winds, and God watches them in the winter when the deep snow fills this vale, and they are as contented as if they knew that people live on the other side of the hills. Some of the cottages were beautifully covered with grape vines, trained between the windows, and giving them an appearance of luxurious growth, that might be adopted in our country far more than it is. The vine thus cultivated occupies no space that could otherwise be used, and is an ornament and protection, while it yields delicious and abundant fruit.

Our walk this morning of five hours brought us through this valley and back to Lucerne by one o’clock, and if there had been any good reason for it, we could have done a dozen miles more toward night. We had been brought more immediately into contact with the country people, and saw more of their way of life, than we would in a month of travel on the thoroughfares. None of the places we visited are even named in the guide books, and we thus had the pleasure of breaking out of the beaten path, and finding one that was new and interesting.

Lake of the Four Forest Cantons.

Lake Lucerne is called the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons, a longer but a very appropriate name, as its shores are washed by four and only four of the Cantons of Switzerland—Lucerne, Uri, Unterwalden, and Schwytz. Above all the lakes of the country, and perhaps of the world, it is distinguished for the majesty of its scenery and the grandeur of its historical associations.

Speaking of the classic history of the lake and mountains around it, Sir James McIntosh says:

“It is upon this that the superiority of the lake of Lucerne to all other lakes, or as far as I know, to all other scenes upon earth, depends. The vast mountains rising on every side, and closing at the end, with their rich clothing of wood, the soft spots of verdant pasture scattered at their feet, and sometimes on their breast, and the expanse of water unbroken by islands, and almost undisturbed by any signs of living men, make an impression which it would be foolish to attempt to convey by words. The only memorials which would not disgrace such a scene as those of past ages renowned for heroism and virtue, and no part of the world is more full of such venerable ones.”

The shores of this lake are the scenes of William Tell’s illustrious deeds, and the theatre also of modern deeds of valor not surpassed by those of ancient times. It was the contemplation of the moral as well as the physical sublime in this region, that led the same elegant author to write:

“The combination of whatever is grandest in nature, with whatever is pure and sublime in human conduct, affected me more powerfully in the passage of this lake, than any scene which I had ever seen. Perhaps neither Greece nor Rome would have had such power over me. They are dead. The present inhabitants are a new race who regard with little or no feeling the memorials of former ages. This is perhaps the only place in our globe where deeds of pure virtue, ancient enough to be venerable, are consecrated by the religion of the people, and continue to command interest and reverence. No local superstition so beautiful and so moral anywhere exists. The inhabitants of Thermopylae or Marathon know no more of those famous spots than that they are so many square feet of earth. England is too extensive a country to make Runnymede an object of national affection. In countries of industry and wealth the stream of events sweeps away these old remembrances. The solitude of the Alps is a sanctuary destined for the monuments of ancient virtue; Grutli and Tell’s chapel are as much reverenced by the Alpine peasants as Mecca by a devout Musselman; and the deputies of the three ancient cantons met, so late as 1715, to renew their allegiance and their oaths of eternal union.”

Filled with such emotions as these and fresh from the perusal of these fine passages I left Lucerne on a lovely morning in August, the atmosphere pleasantly cooled by the previous storms, and now a glorious cloudless sky hanging over this mountain sea. On a little island, and strange to say the only island in the lake, a monument of wood once stood to the memory of William Tell, but it was struck by lightning and has disappeared. Near it the bay of Kussnacht sets up, where is a chapel to mark the spot on which the arrow from Tell’s unerring bow drank the heart’s blood of his enemy and tyrant Gessler; and a ruined castle said to have been the prison to which Tell was destined when he made his memorable escape of which we shall soon speak. But the boat put up into another bay on the other side under old Pilatus and landed passengers who were taken into the small boats which ply continually among these bays, and distribute the passengers at the several points from which they would make their excursions into the country. Pilatus rises in gloomy grandeur from the very shores of the water, and its bifurcated peak soon is lost sight of, while but one presents itself. Rugged, barren and uninviting as it is, there are those who yet make the ascent, and from this landing, though the ascent is far more difficult, and the view from the summit far less satisfactory than the Rigi.

We now returned to Kussnacht bay; and if the great shooting match which occurred last Monday had been coming off to-day, we would go ashore to see it. Once a year the marksmen of the canton assemble for a trial of their skill with the rifle, and there is also an annual festival, when the best from all the cantons assemble for the federal shooting match. With music and banners and processions, with garlands and arches of victory and feasting and drinking, they keep up this custom from generation to generation; and the riflemen of the Swiss and Tyrol mountains, like their ancestors of the bow, have no rival. The military displays were very miserable. Having just come from France, Prussia, and Austria, where the army was evidently the pet of governments, and the curse of the people, I was pleased to see that the Swiss had no need of armies, and the military procession was sorry enough. But the music was stirring, and the Swiss feel it a part and parcel of their patrimonial inheritance, to be roused by its strains to noble deeds, or melted to tenderness by its subduing power. The lake had assumed to the eye, when looking down upon it from one slope of the Rigi, the form of an X, and now the two promontories that divide it come within a mile of each other, and are called the Noses, which we pass, and enter the bay of Brochs, where the Horn of that name and Stawzer rear their lofty heads. We touched at Bechenried, and then swept the width of the lake again to Gersau, a little cluster of houses at the foot of a gently-receding hill, one of the most remarkable spots of land in the whole world, in the fact that for four hundred years the people of this village, shut out from the rest of mankind by these mighty ramparts of mountains, and having but three miles long and two wide of territory, maintained an independent democratic government of their own. The French invasion of 1798 destroyed their freedom by uniting them to the Canton Schwytz. The mountain-side is covered with orchards, in the midst of which neat cottages nestle sweetly. All the land they have has been washed down from the mountains, and it would not be strange if trees and cottages and people should one day be washed into the lake together. Such a calamity would carry off the old gallows, still standing, but which the government had no occasion to use during its independent existence. Here the scenery of the lake becomes in the highest degree sublime. We stop for a moment at Brunnen, where goods are deposited that are to go over the Alps by St. Gothard into Italy, and on one of the warehouses you see three men painted in bold colors, and their names affixed, the heroes who with Tell achieved the deliverance of Switzerland in 1315. On this spot the alliance was formed between the three cantons of Uri, Unterwalden and Schwytz. Now the vast mountains rise more perpendicularly from the lake: a solitary rock stands a few feet from the shore on the promontory opposite, and passing it we seem to be issuing into a new lake altogether. Away on the ledges, or table land on the heights, stands a little church, and a few dwellings are scattered around, but we lose sight of them, and are now in the midst of a solitude of water, mountain, snow and sky, the grandeur and sublimity of which it is equally impossible for me to exaggerate or describe. No road, not even a footpath can be made along the base of these rocky mountains that literally stand in the water, and thence rear their heads so far into the upper air that the fields of snow lie there in full view, forever whitening in the sun. A little recession from the shore gives lodgment for soil enough to make a secluded bosom in the hills; and this oasis is a sacred spot in Swiss history, for here in the dead of night, the three confederates met to form their plans to deliver their country from the Austrian yoke. This is Grutli, and every American who passes the spot will feel a sympathetic thrill of joy to look on the birth-place of a country’s freedom. Nearly opposite to Grutli, the steamboat slackens its speed, and moves slowly and solemnly by a small chapel, with an open front, and filled with rude paintings of scenes in Swiss history. This chapel is to commemorate the spot where Tell leaped ashore from the boat in which the tyrant Gessler was conveying him from Altorf to his dungeon in Kussnacht. A storm came up with such fury that Gessler, being frightened, and his oarsmen failing, ordered the chains to be taken off from Tell, that he might guide the skiff ashore. He ran it to this rock, leaped ashore, and made his escape. Before the despot reached his castle, Tell had waylaid him and sent an arrow to his heart. This chapel was “built in 1388, by the Canton of Uri, only thirty-one years after Tell’s death, and in the presence of one hundred and fourteen persons who had known the hero. Once a year, mass is said, and a sermon preached in the chapel to the inhabitants of these borders, who repair hither in boats, forming an aquatic procession.”

We were at the head of the lake in a few minutes. I was willing that it should be extended for hours, but the little village of Fluellen was reached, and here we go ashore. The village stands in a marsh, which is formed at the entrance of the river Reuss into the lake, and in consequence the people are subject to goitre and cretinism, those terrible diseases so peculiar to this country. It is not desirable to stay here any longer than is necessary to get away; and there is nothing to attract the stranger. We took the first carriage we found, and rode on to Altorf. At the hotel two young women came out to receive us, as men waiters would do in another country. It was a novelty to be thus received, and giving a hand to each of the damsels I was assisted from the carriage and escorted into the house. One of them, a fine-looking girl of eighteen, in a picturesque and becoming dress, white spencer and short sleeves with a dark skirt and bracelets, insisted on taking my knapsack, which I declined giving up, and leaning on my Alpen stock, I had so much of an argument with her that the travellers formed a circle about us and looked on. While dinner was preparing I walked out to the open square in which that scene was enacted which has been more famous than any other in Swiss history. Here by this fountain was the tree to which the son of William Tell was bound, with the apple on his head, and at the other fountain the father stood, to obey the infamous order of the tyrant to shoot with his cross-bow the apple from the head of his lovely boy. A statue of the father surmounts the fountain. The old village has all the signs of decay, and I found it difficult to believe that here the crowd had gathered five hundred years ago to behold that dreadful spectacle—here stood the monster who had given the cruel order, here fell the arrows from beneath the garment of Tell, which he declared he designed for the tyrant if his arrow had slain his son. I walked out of the village into the narrow meadow under the brow of overhanging mountains, and admired the industry that has terraced the slopes and wrung all the support it would yield from the soil. A row of targets was here, with evidences that the people having long since laid aside the cross bow, are now experts with the rifle: and as this village is the capital of the canton of Uri, it is the rallying place for those trials of skill in which they take so much delight. The tree on which Gessler’s hat was hung, with the command that the people should bow down to it, stood here till 1567, when it was removed and a stone erected in its place.

The valley of Schachen, which we enter on leaving Altorf, delighted me with the beauty of its meadows, in which the Swiss peasants were making hay under a burning sun, while the mountains rising from the edge of the fields were white with snow. The men and women at noon when we passed were resting from their toil, and lying around on the mown grass, the very picture of slow and easy hay-makers. We crossed a rapid stream foaming in its downward course, in which William Tell was drowned while nobly striving to save the life of a child; and a little further on we passed the village in which he was born. Thus in a single day which is not yet half gone, we have seen the various spots in Switzerland made classic by the deeds of William Tell and his compatriots, and the places where that illustrious though rustic hero was born, where he performed his great exploits, and where he perished in the midst of one not less noble than any other that sheds honor on his name. It was a great day to have passed through all these scenes, and I can say, without affectation that my solitary walk in that ruined town of Altorf moved me more than the contemplation of any battle field in Europe.