the Virgin, and in front of it a trap-door, to look down through which made one giddy. Hither prisoners of state (often those who had been snatched from family and friends, and immured without trial or show of justice-for such was the practice of the lawless times when Chillon was used as the prison-house of feudal tyrants) were brought, and made to kneel in prayer, before the semblance of all that the Catholic imagines of love and mercy. At a signal, the trap-door fell, and the unhappy wretch was dashed to pieces on a stone floor fifty feet below. It is strange that there should be a sort of fascination about such horror; but one gazes and gazes into the abyss, with an intense effort to imagine all the dread particulars of the scene, as if longing to look upon that which freezes the blood in the mere description.

The more we see and hear of feudal practices, as we travel in this part of Europe, the more detestable they seem; and we marvel that even poetry and romance can have thrown any charm over realities so odious. These magicians have, however, shown us principally the better side; the hospitality, the gallantry, the generosity, the courage, the fidelity unto death-of the splendid robbers, and pious and amiable tyrants, under whose sway the south of Europe groaned so long. We see the castle with its outer and inner court, its moat and drawbridge, its round towers, and massive walls; and Chillon is now, just as it stands, all that one could desire in these respects; but one sees gallant knights in the courts, a white-haired warden at the door, a bountiful table spread within, at which all comers are entertained, and lovely ladies presiding at the feast, to which their presence

brings delicacy and grace. We see not the dungeons, the hall of pretended trial, the gallows, the oubliettes, the chamber of torture, which we have not yet mentioned, but which, nevertheless, still exists at Chillon, with its stake, its pulleys, and the marks of flame and of hot irons, trying human flesh and courage, when opinions, or when gold was in question.

All writers of romance, except Scott, have given decep- . tive pictures of feudal times and manners; and even he, though he laid bare in Ivanhoe some of the deepest horrors and blackest abuses of the system, has not been able to prevent the lustre of his own imagination from throwing a certain charm about the whole, even when he was exposing its worst portions. The poor and accidental virtue of aggressive bravery had an overpowering charm for him; and the same feeling which induced him to prepare for a duel in the decline of life, and when his reputation was in its fullest splendor, led him to overrate the dignity and importance of whoever possessed this quality, and to tolerate for its sake much that was wrong both in principle and practice. But peace to the mighty master! He has added largely to the pleasure and improvement of the world; and the traveller in Europe has especial reason to remember him with gratitude, for the great charm with which his works have invested history, and for that general education of the imagination which fits one for seeing with interest all that is left of feudal times. Not a few unscholarly persons are free to confess that they owe most of their knowledge of modern history to Shakspeare and Scott, who resemble each other in more particulars than some people think.

We had Byron's poem with us, and compared the locale minutely. Nothing could be more accurate. The little island, with its three trees, is as remarkable in the lake as in the poem.

TO MARTIGNY.

AT St. Maurice is a Sardinian custom house, and I was pleased with the idea of being once more within the dominions of Carlo Alberto, where I have been longing to ever since I left them, but before long, the tower-like head-dresses of the women, and the prevalence of the dreadful goitre, gave us to understand that we had entered the canton of Vallais; the road having crossed the Sardinian frontier only at a corner. The appearance of the people of the Vallais is most wretched, a sad contrast to the bowery road through which we pass. Everybody begs, or looks as if he had a natural license to beg; and scarce a throat is without its goitre, while many faces exhibit painful marks of imbecility.

This subject of goitre is of course the theme of much speculation among medical men and good citizens in Switzerland. The opinion seems, after ample research and observation, to settle on an atmospheric cause; those positions which are prevented by higher ground from due circulation of air being found to suffer most from goitre. Higher and lower the disease diminishes, or is unknown. Among the Alps there are many valleys thus shut in, and it is here that the wretched inhabitants, poor and unenlight

VOL. II.

ened, go on from generation to generation, suffering under the dreadful visitation, until cretinism becomes established, under which the human character is almost lost. It is a certain cure,-for children and young people,-to remove them to the mountains or to the plains, and give them, at the same time, instruction and employment; and several institutions are now on foot with this object.

A strange feature of the disease is the indifference with which it is regarded by the people themselves. We had even heard that a great sack under the chin was considered an ornamental appendage; but our hostess at Lauterbrunnen denied this. I fancy the notion may have some foundation in the fact that a goitre of uncommon size is a good possession for the road-side beggar, since it makes the pity of the traveller inevitable. A certain punster suggests that the term valley-tudinarians may have had its origin here.

At Aigle, a tolerably clean town, we bought a bottle of vin d'Yvourne on account of its reputation; but we did not find it any better than that which was furnished at Bex, where are the Diablerets and their salt-works, and where we dined very tolerably in a country tavern that reminded me of the western wilds, though our allowance of clean plates would have made the hair of any western damsel stand on end. We often speculate as to where such copious supplies of crockery can come from; and have concluded that the same individuals must return, again and again, to swell the procession, as in the march. of theatrical armies. This luxury is no more stinted in the poorest little country town of Europe than in the

cities; and nowhere is a meal served without napkins -a custom we would gladly see established in our own country towns.

The food that is thus served is often inferior in quality to that which is offered to the traveller at home, but it is cooked with more care; and while with us abundance is often disgusting from the coarse and slovenly manner in which it is served, the scanty supply one is occasionally, (though not often,) obliged to put up with here, becomes tolerable by means of a tasteful and attractive manner of setting it forth. The elaborateness with which everything is done, is quite remarkable. I do not believe these people even have words for the expression so common at the West "Where's the use?" always brought into play when any refinement is proposed.

The head-dresses of the Vallais women are most remarkable, and all set directly on the top of the head, so as to give a defiant air. I mistook the first one we met, for a burthen carried as in Italy. Some are black, with great flutes of ribbon, and curiously-wrought brims; others of straw, but trimmed into the same castellated form, while some are still more grotesque. We saw one woman with a straw hat like an inverted vase, the foot of the vase about three inches across, while the part which joined it to the main body was only about half that width; after which it swelled out to a size which admitted the head, and turned out and up a little for the brim. It was the most extraordinary thing in the way of head-gear, that I ever saw.

Martigny has, for an Alpine town, rather a new look, perhaps because of the destruction it suffered some thirty