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went to search for the three others; we sounded with our poles, we cried aloud, we called them by their names, put down a long pole into the snow, and listened—but all was in vain, we heard not the slightest sound. We spent two hours in this melancholy search, and by this time were well nigh frozen, for the wind was bitterly cold, our poles covered with ice, our shoes frozen as hard as horn. We were compelled to descend; we hurried down in perfect silence, and returned to the inn late at night." The avalanche, fatal in this instance, was supposed to be 200 feet in height, and 150 in breadth.

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The peculiar feature in the condition of the Swiss population," says Mr. Laing, the great charm of Switzerland, next to its natural scenery, is the air of well-being, the neatness, the sense of propriety imprinted on the people, their dwellings, their plots of land. They have a kind of Robinson Crusoe industry about their houses and little properties; they are perpetually building, repairing, altering, or improving something about their tenements. The spirit of the proprietor is not to be mistaken in all that one sees in Switzerland. Some cottages, for instance, are adorned with long texts from Scripture, painted on or burnt into, the wood in front over the door; others, especially in the Simmenthal and Haslethal, with the pedigree of the builder and owner. These show sometimes that the property has been held for two hundred years by the same family. The modern taste of the proprietor shows itself in new windows, or additions to the old original picturesque dwelling, which, with its immense projecting roof, sheltering or shading all these successive little additions, looks like a hen sitting with a brood of chickens under her wings.

"None of the women are exempt from field-work, not even in the families of very substantial peasant proprietors, whose houses are furnished as well as any country-houses with us. All work as regularly as the poorest male individual. The land, however, being their own, they have a choice of work, and the hard work is generally done by the men. The felling and bringing home wood for fuel; the mowing grass, generally, but not always; the carrying manure on their back; the handling horses and cows, digging, and such heavy labour, is man's work :-the binding the vine to a pole with a straw, which is done three times in the course of its growth; the making the hay, the pruning the vine, twitching off the superfluous leaves and tendrils,—these lighter, yet necessary jobs to be done about vineyards or orchards, form the woman's work. But females, both in France and Switzerland, appear to have a far more important rôle in the family, among the lower and middle classes, than with us. The female, though not exempt from out-door work, and even hard work, undertakes the thinking and managing department in the family affairs, and the husband is but the executive officer. The female is, in fact, very remarkably superior in manners, habits, tact, and intelligence to the husband, in almost every family of the middle or lower classes in Switzerland. One is surprised to see the wife of such good, even genteel manners, and sound sense, and altogether such a superior person to her station, and the husband very often a mere lout. The hen is the better bird all over Switzerland.'

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CHAPTER III.

THE JURA MOUNTAINS- CROSSED TO ST. CERGUES-NYON- -FIRST SIGHT OF THE LAKE OF GENEVA THE CITY-ITS EDIFICES-ISLAND OF ROUSSEAU-HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS OF GENEVA ITS EMINENT PERSONS.

If the tourist would reach Switzerland from France, he will cross the Jura mountains, a chain of central Europe, usually classed with the Alpine system. It is a range of broad limestone, swelling out at several points to the elevation of more than 5,000 feet above the sea-level, and corresponds exactly with our oolitic system. Luxuriant pine forests clothe the Jura from the base to the summit, and in this respect it differs from the other and loftier mountains of Switzerland. Now these forests appear advancing as so many isolated promontories and outports; then they are grouped into a range of hills, or lift on high their serrated and precipitous ridges; but towards their base, they are variegated by intricate and romantic valleys, and labyrinths of rich meadow land, which strikingly relieve and ornament the sombre forests, covering, as with a rugged mantle of vegetation, the whole mountainous chain.

The traveller, whirled onwards towards Switzerland by the locomotive to Chalons, rumbles across the Jura mountains by diligence; his feelings, meanwhile, being probably strangely excited by the objects around, and especially in anticipation. Rousseau says, at such a time:-"The nearer I approached Switzerland, the more was I excited. The moment, when from the heights of the Jura, I discovered the lake of Geneva, was a moment of extasy and ravishment. The sight of my country, of that country so beloved by me, where torrents of pleasure had inundated my heart; the air of the Alps, so healthful and so pure; the sweet air of my native land, more delicious than the perfumes of the East; that rich and fertile land; that unique country, the most beautiful on which the eye of man ever rested! charming residence to which I had found no equal in the circuit of the world! the sight of a happy and free people! the mildness of the season, the serenity of the climate, a thousand delightful remembrances which aroused all the feelings I had experienced; all this threw me into transports which I cannot — describe, and seemed to restore to me at once the enjoyment of my whole life.”

At St. Cergues, the tourist will do well to pause, and availing himself of a guide and a mule, make the ascent of the Dôle-a task neither wearisome nor perilous, and occupying about three hours;-it is the most elevated summit of this part of the Jura chain, and ample is the reward in the far-stretching scene it commands, no less delightful in its variety than surprising in its extent. If, however, this high gratification be denied, the descent is by a zigzag road to the bottom of the Jura, and crossing a level piece of ground, covered with vineyards and corn-fields, and dotted here and there by villas greatly diversified in size and form, the little town of Nyon, standing on a height, is reached.

But, not to hasten onwards to our loss:-at the edge of the summit of the Jura

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mountains a magnificent view bursts upon the eye. The lake of Geneva is a charming spectacle; but there

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The prospect unfolding to the eye is that of the Mont Blanc range; and should the weather be auspicious, "as a bridegroom cometh forth from his chamber," so may "the monarch of mountains" be seen emerging from his magnificent pavilion of mist and cloud.

On such a spectacle, however, we cannot certainly calculate; for those who know him best, will liken him to the oriental beauty who only now and then reveals her charms as she withdraws her veil; while there is a compensation for the concealment, to which she can make no pretence, in the startling, enthralling, and overwhelming gorgeousness of cloud scenery among the mountains. So it was, indeed, to. Wordsworth, when he exclaimed:

"A step,

A single step, that freed me from the skirts
Of the blind vapour, opened to my view
Glory beyond all glory ever seen,

By waking sense, or by the dreaming soul.
The appearance instantaneously disclosed
Was of a mighty city-boldly say

A wilderness of building, sinking far,
And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth,
Far sinking into splendour without end!
Fabric it seemed of diamond and gold,
With alabaster domes, and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace high
Uplifted; here serene pavilions bright,

In avenues disposed; there towers begirt

With battlements, that on their restless fronts

Bore stars,-illumination of all gems!

O! 'twas an unimaginable sight!

Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks, and emerald turf,

Clouds of all tincture, rocks, and sapphire sky,

Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed,

Molten together, and composing thus,

Each lost in each, that marvellous array

Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge

Fantastic pomp of structure without name,

In fleecy folds voluminous enwrapped.

Right in the midst where inter-space appeared

Of open court, an object like a throne

Beneath a shining canopy of state
Stood fixed." +

Such a throne has the sovereign of the Alps, among whose regalia is

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