intings and
engravings. A gilded ball glittered on the summit of each mast, for no
canvass was set higher than the slender and well-balanced yards, and it
was above one of these that the wilted bush, with its gay appendages,
trembled and fluttered in a fresh western wind. The hull was worthy of so
much goodly apparel, being spacious, commodious, and, according to the
wants of the navigation, of approved mould. The freight, which was
sufficiently obvious, much the greatest part being piled on the ample
deck, consisted of what our own watermen would term an assorted cargo. It
was, however, chiefly composed of those foreign luxuries, as they were
then called, though use has now rendered them nearly indispensable to
domestic economy, which were consumed, in singular moderation, by the more
affluent of those who dwelt deeper among the mountains, and of the two
principal products of the dairy; the latter being destined to a market in
the less verdant countries of the south. To these must be added the
personal effects of an unusual number of passengers, which were stowed on
the top of the heavier part of the cargo, with an order and care that
their value would scarcely seem to require. The arrangement, however, was
necessary to the convenience and even to the security of the bark, having
been made by the patron with a view to posting each individual by his
particular wallet, in a manner to prevent confusion in the crowd, and to
leave the crew space and opportunity to discharge the necessary duties of
the navigation.

With a vessel stowed, sails ready to drop, the wind fair, and the day
drawing on apace, the patron of the Winkelried, who was also her owner,
felt a very natural wish to depart. But an unlooked-for obstacle had just
presented itself at the water-gate, where the officer charged with the
duty of looking into the characters of all who went and came was posted,
and around whom some fifty representatives of half as many nations were
now clustered in a clamorous throng, filling the air with a confusion of
tongues that had some probable affinity to the noises which deranged the
workmen of Babel. It appeared, by parts of sentences and broken
remonstrances, equally addressed to the patron, whose name was Baptiste,
and to the guardian of the Genevese laws, a rumor was rife among these
truculent travellers, that Balthazar, the headsman, or executioner, of the
powerful and aristocratical canton of Berne, was about to be smuggl