ere the clouds had parted
overhead, a horned moon hung low in the sky, while the mountains
resolved themselves into shadows or other waiting clouds.

There was a little church between Ouchy and Lausanne, gained by crossing
the fields, where we remembered the Sabbath day, and joined in the
church service led by an English clergyman. These Sabbaths are like
green spots now in memory,--restful, cool, refreshing, and pleasant to
recall,--when the world, and all haste and perplexity of strange sights,
and sounds, and ways, were rolled off like a heavy burden, while we
gathered, a little company of strangers in a strange land, yet of one
family, to unite in the familiar prayers, and hymns, and grand old
chants.

Monday morning the "American cars" bore us away from Lausanne to
Freyburg. But such a caricature are they upon our railway carriages,
that we were inclined to resent the appellation. Low, bare, box-like,
with only three or four seats upon each side, they hardly suggested the
original.

We had chosen the route through Freyburg that we might visit the
suspension bridge, and hear the celebrated organ. The city clings to the
sides of a ravine after the perverse manner of cities, instead of
spreading itself out comfortably upon level land. So steep is the
declivity that the roofs of some of the houses form the pavement for
the street above. At the foot of the ravine flows a river crossed by
bridges, and the towns-people have for centuries descended from the
summit on one side to climb to that upon the other, until some humane
individual planned and perfected this suspension bridge,--the longest in
the world save one,--which is thrown across the chasm. In order to test
its strength, when completed, the inhabitants of the city, or a portion
of them, gathered in a mass, with artillery and horses, _and stood upon
it_! Then they marched over it, preceded by a band of music, with all
the dignitaries of the town at the head of the column. Since it did not
bend or break beneath their weight, it is deemed entirely safe.

Through the most closely-built portion of the city runs the old city
wall, with its high, cone-capped watch-towers, and the narrow, crooked,
and often steep streets are very quaint. The sense of satisfaction which
returns with the memory of these streets is perhaps partly due to the
fact, that the girls of the party surveyed them from above great squares
of gingerbread bought at a _patisserie_ near the station,