cation which exerts a wonderful influence on society. In the large towns the children of similar age and sex are gathered together by their parents in little societies called societies des dimanches. These little clubs are composed of twelve or fourteen children, selected by the parents with a view to their adaptedness to amuse and benefit each other. They meet in turn at the houses of the different parents every Sabbath evening. Their nurses are with them, and the time is spent in amusements common to children. As they grow older these amusements are combined with instruction. This kind of intimacy creates strong friendships which last long after they are dispersed and scattered over the world, and even through life. Girls thus linked together in childhood retain their affection in maturer life, and even in womanhood distinguish each other by the tender appellations of "ma mignonne, mon cœur,' mon ange." This is one great reason why Swiss society is so exclusive, and it is so difficult for a stranger to press beyond its mere formalities. The rank of the husband in Switzerland depends altogether upon that of his wife. Immediately on their marriage he steps into her rank, be it above or below that which he formerly occupied. "" 66 There has been much written about Swiss melodies; and the custom of singing in the open air, in that clear high falsetto is singularly wild and thrilling. The cow herds and dairy maids seem never weary of mingling their voices together in the clear mountain air of the Alps. The effect of it on the traveller is of ten astonishing. Southey, in speaking of it, says, "Surely the wildest chorus that was ever heard by human ears: a song not of articulate sounds, but in which the voice is used as a mere instrument of music, more flexible than any which art could produce; sweet, powerful and thrilling beyond description." The Alp horn, which is merely a tube of wood five or six feet long, bound about with birch bark, is capable of the most melodious sound, when softened and prolonged by the mountain echoes, I ever heard. Nothing in my boyhood captivated my imagination more than the custom which was said to prevail in Switzerland, of the peasantry calling out to each other, as the last sunlight left the highest Alpine peak,-" Praise the Lord." But it loses some of its poe try heard on the spot. It is confined to the more rude and pastoral districts in the Catholic cantons. Having no church near to ring the accustomed vesper bell, its place is supplied by the Alp horn. A cowherd stationed on the highest peaks reclines along some rock, and as the golden sunlight leaves the last heaven-piercing snow-summit, he utters through his mellow horn the first five or six notes of the psalm commencing "Praise ye the Lord." The strain is caught up and prolonged by the mountain echoes and answered from other distant peaks, till the soul-thrilling cadences seem to die away on the portals of heaven. The tones of the horn are indescribably sweet and subduing, awaking all the dormant poetry of a man's nature. But the custom which once seemed to me to be the very embodiment of religion and poetry together, appeared, after all, a very business-like and prosaic matter. It being necessary to carry out the Catholic observance, a horn is substituted for the vesper bell, which one hears ringing every evening in Catholic countries for the same purpose. There is just as much religion in the call of the muezzin from the minaret of some Moslem tower, which one hears at every turn in Turkey. Nay this very custom, which has been more spoken of, more poetized, perhaps, than all others, prevails in some parts of our own country. I remember being in my grown-up boyhood once in an Indian missionary station of the Methodist denomination, where a similar expedient was adopted. Strolling at evening along the banks of a stream, I suddenly heard the prolonged blast of a horn sounding very much like a dinner horn. Its long continuance at that time of night awakened my curiosity, and on inquiring the cause of it, I was informed it was to call the Indians to prayer meeting. A conch shell had supplied the place of a bell. Bending my own steps thither, I arrived just in time to find a low school-house crowded with dusky visages, while the whole multitude was singing at the top of their voices "Old ship Zion." Here was the Alpine custom on which so much sentiment has been expended, but combined with vastly more sense and religion. At the sound of this vesper bell, alias Alp horn, the peasants uncover their heads, and falling on their knees repeat their evening prayers, and then shut up their cattle and retire to their homes. RANZ DES VACHES. 37 The "Ranz des Vaches," which is commonly supposed to be a single air, stands in Switzerland for a class of melodies, the literal meaning of which is cow-rows. The German word is Kureihen-rows of cows. It derives its origin from the manner the cows march home along the Alpine paths at milking time. The shepherd goes before, keeping every straggler in its place by the tones of his born, while the whole herd wind along in Indian file obedient to the call. From its association it always creates home-sickness in a Swiss mountaineer when he hears it in a foreign land. It is said these melodies are prohibited in the Swiss regiments attached to the French army because it produces so many desertions. One of the "Ranz des Vaches" brings back to his imagination his Alpine cottage-the green pasturage-the bleating of his mountain goats-the voices of the milk-maids, and all the sweetness and innocence of a pastoral life; till his heart turns with a sad yearning to the haunts of his childhood and the spot of his early dreams and early happiness. The Swiss retain their old fondness for rifle shooting, and there is annually a grand rifle match at some of the large towns, made up of the best marksmen in all Switzerland. There are also yearly contests in wrestling called Zwing Feste, the most distinguished wrestlers at which are from Unterwalden, Appenzel and Berne. Goitre and Cretinism prevail in some parts of the Alps to a fearful extent, and have prevailed for ages if we can believe 'Juvenal, who asks "Quis tumidum guttur miratur in Alpibus ?" Goitre, it is well known, is a swelling of the thyroid gland or adjoining parts in front of the neck. It increases with years and hangs down on the breast in a most disgusting and shocking manner. The painful spectacle almost destroys one's pleasure in - travelling in many parts of the Alps. Cretinism inhabits the same localities, and is still more painful, for it affects the mind. The limbs become shrivelled and shrunk, the head enlarged, and the afflicted being an idiot. He sits in the sun all day long, and as you approach clamours piteously for money. Dr. McClelland made experiments over a territory of more than a thousand square miles, to test the effect of certain localities on this disease. Mr. Murray quotes from him the following statement showing the proportion between the healthy and sick as the result of his observation, Granite and gneiss-goitre 1-500; cretins none. Mica slate and hornblende slate-goitre none; cretins none. Clay slate-goitre 1-136; cretins none. Transition slate-goitre 1-149; cretins none. Steatic sandstone-goitre none; cretins none. Thus it is seen that low and moist places are more subject to these diseases, while the high and dry portions are comparatively exempt. Confined vallies and ground frequently overflowed are also unfavorable localities. The goitre is hereditary, but does not make its appearance till puberty. It is more common among the females than males. How singular it is that among the most glorious scenery on the earth, we find man subject to a disease that deforms him the most. And what is still more singular, it is among the most beautiful vallies in all the Alps that the inhabitants are peculiarly subject to these diseases. Thus beauty and deformity go hand in hand over the world. SCENERY ABOUT INTERLACHEN. 39 VIII. INTERLACHEN, PASS OF THE WENGERN ALP, BYRON'S MANFRED. INTERLACHEN is as sweet a valley as ever slept in the bosom of nature. At a little distance from it, Lake Thun, with its placid sheet of water, stretches up towards Berne, serving as a mirror to the snow-peaks of Stockhorn, Wiesen, Eigher and Monch, that rise in solemn majesty from its quiet shore. An English yacht has been turned into a steamboat, whose tiny proportions remind one more of a slender model in a toy-shop than a real practical steamboat. Interlachen seems out of the world, and its retired position and magnificent scenery have converted it into an English colony; for two-thirds of the summer visitors are Englishmen. All the houses seem "pensions" or boarding houses, and with their whitewashed walls and large piazzas burst on you at every step from amid the surrounding trees. Set back in the bosom of the Alps, with the Jungfrau rising in view-its endless rides and shaded walks make it one of the sweetest spots in the world. And then in summer, the contrast between the richly clad visitors that swarm it in every direction, and the rustic appearance of the peasantry and the place itself, make it seem more like a dream-land. Near by are the ruins of the castle of Unspunnen, the reputed residence of Manfred. Standing as it does in the very midst of the scenery in which that drama is laid, Byron doubtless had it in mind when he wrote it. Near by, in the quiet valley, there are every year gymnastic games among the peasantry, such as wrestling, pitching the stone, &c. These games owed their origin to a touching incident in the history of Burkhard, the last male de |