ly anything remains of it now but the
walls of a square tower, from the battlements of which, by mounting to
an encircling gallery, you may obtain a view well worth the effort. As
far as the eye can see in one direction, extends the Black Forest--the
very name of which brings to mind elfish legends innumerable. But,
though our way led along its edge, so that we were shut in by the chill
and gloom of the evergreens which give it its name, we saw neither elves
nor gnomes, nor the traditional "wood-cutter, named Hans, who lived upon
the borders of the Black Forest," about whom we used to read when we
were children.

From Baden-Baden we took the railroad, following the course of the
Rhine to Strasbourg, spending only a night here, in order to visit the
beautiful cathedral; then on to Lucerne, waiting an hour or two to break
the long day's ride, at Basle. Here the mountains began to grow before
our eyes. We shot through tunnel after tunnel, cut in the solid rock,
and suddenly sweeping around a curve, the everlasting hills wrapped in
perpetual snows, greeted our astonished sight. We had reached the Mecca
of our hopes at last.

CHAPTER XIII.

DAYS IN SWITZERLAND.

The Lake of Lucerne.--Days of rest in the
city.--An excursion up the Righi.--The crowd at
the summit.--Dinner at midnight.--Rising before
"the early worm."--The "sun-rise" according to
Murray.--Animated scarecrows.--Off for a tour
through Switzerland.--The lake for the last
time.--Gruetlii.--William Tell's
chapel.--Fluellen.--Altorf.--Swiss haymakers.--An
hour at Amsteg.--The rocks close in.--The Devil's
Bridge.--The dangerous road.--"A carriage has gone
over the precipice!"--Andermatt.--Desolate
rocks.--Exquisite wild flowers.--The summit of the
Furka.--A descent to the Rhone glacier.--Into the
ice.--Swiss villages.--Brieg.--The convent
inn.--The bare little chapel on the hill.--To
Martigny.

WHEN we forget the scene before our dazzled eyes as we stepped out upon
the balcony of the hotel Bellevue at Lucerne, earth will have passed
away. There lay the fair lake, the emerald hills rising from its blue
depths on every side, save where the queer old town sweeps around its
curve, or beyond Pilatus, where the chain is broken, and a strip of
level land lies along the water's edge, sprinkled with red