the Pincian Hill; but lovely as they are in my memory,
they seem cold and pale when I think of the splendor of such a scene, on
the Bay of San Francisco.

* * * * *

The Little Land of Appenzell.

=_275._= SWISS SCENERY,--A BATTLEFIELD; PICTURESQUE DWELLINGS.

On the right lay the land of Appenzell,--not a table-land, but a region
of mountain, ridge, and summit, of valley and deep, dark gorge, green as
emerald, up to the line of snow, and so thickly studded with dwellings,
grouped or isolated, that there seemed to be one scattered village as
far as the eye could reach. To the south, over forests of fir, the
Sentis lifted his huge towers of rock, crowned with white, wintry
pyramids.

Here, where we are, said the postillion, "was the first battle; but
there was another, two years afterwards, over there, the other side of
Trogen, where the road goes down to the Rhine. Stoss is the place, and
there's a chapel built on the very spot. Duke Frederick of Austria came
to help the Abbott Runo, and the Appenzellers were only one to ten
against them. It was a great fight, they say, and the women helped,--not
with pikes and guns, but in this way: they put on white shirts, and came
out of the woods, above where the lighting was going on. Now when the
Austrians and the Abbot's people saw them, they thought there were
spirits helping the Appenzellers, (the women were all white you see,
and too far off to show plainly,) and so they gave up the fight, after
losing nine hundred knights and troopers. After that, it was ordered,
that the women should go first to the sacrament, so that no man might
forget the help they gave in that battle. And the people go every year
to the chapel, on the same day when it took place."

If one could only transport--a few of these houses to the United
States! Our country architecture is not only hideous, but frequently
unpractical, being at worst, shanties, and at best, city residences set
in the fields. An Appenzell farmer lives in a house from forty to sixty
feet square, and rarely less than four stories in height. The two upper
stories, however, are narrowed by the high, steep roof, so that the true
front of the house is one of the gables. The roof projects at least four
feet on all sides, giving shelter to balconies of carved wood, which
cross the front under each row of windows. The outer walls are covered
with upright, overlapping shingles, not more than two or three