It became a matter of doubt which was the most pleasant scene to travel in, or most refreshing and exhilarating to the spirits; the loveliness of the verdure which rests upon the plains of the North of Italy, where the sunny soil is blessed with the most benign of climates, and where

"Il paese intero,

E il sen del abondanza,"

or the romantic wildness of Switzerland. After this the lake widens, and we got on to Maggonico. Then we arrived at Dongo, and after wards Gravedona. This last is quite a little city, a sort of Naples to Como. At a small village, where the steamer came to a wharf, and we landed and took the diligence to a place called Chiavenna. The change of conveyance, and a long drive, and the being cooped up in a close carriage, was disagreeable after the pure air of the lake, The same German young lady accompanied us, and her explanations and remarks made the time pass away. We arrived at Chiavenna at 7 P.M. The next morning we began the regular travelling in Switzerland. We started in the diligence at half past four in the morning and it gradually got brighter until at five we could see the fine vista of mountains which we were coming to. I got out and walked to Campo dulcino, which is a sorry looking place and scarcely deserves its name-but here begins the grand outline of the Alpine scenery. Shortly after we had passed this, we began to ascend by the winding ascents or zigzags in the roads, which are placed in such an ingenious manner that the most precipitous mountain is ascended with comparatively little labour. The monument erected to the engineer who mastered this gigantic work, is placed at the beginning of the pass. The river (the Leera) flows at the bottom of the valley; and, running through craggy stones and down narrow descents, gives a sort of break to the gloom of the sombre mountains. About half-way up the zigzags we came to a cascade called the Azzuno, which was narrow, but gushed from a vast height. A little further on a large torrent rushed headlong in a vast sheet of whitened water, whose foamy flash contrasted vividly with the dark rocks and sombre forests-this is called the Pianazzo. We saw all these parts of the scenery to perfection, as we were outside on the top of a large conveyance which of necessity went slowly. When I got out and walked, the peasantry took off their hats as I passed. They were all neatly dressed, but their clothes homelylooking in point of material, Their cottages in the

upper parts were all built of wood: they were very numerous. Such picturesque sites and romantic views arrested the attention every few yards, that I suppose an artist could not possibly find better work for his pencil than in this most striking country. In the small valleys the herbage and the verdure were most prolific. They were making hay all through the country as we passed, both this and the following day. We ascended to the Spleugen. This pass is the highest point, at which we arrived at during our journey. Here we could gather the snow in the drifts of the roads, and the air was exceedingly cold. No pen could describe, a picture alone, or could portray this wild, savage, and romantic scenery: the hanging forests on the sides of the mountains, the frowning cliffs rising one over the other. Of the whole that I saw I thought that the narrow causeway just immediately before the entrance of the Spleugen, the finest we met with. Here the trees, in luxuriant abundance, grew from every rock or broken cleft in the rock by the side of the yawning precipice. We dined at Spleugen and then, or indeed a short time before, commenced our descent. This was much easier travelling, but the finest and most majestic scenery which is to be met with in the Alps, perhaps, is what we passed through on our descent. The gloomy grandeur, the stupendous precipices, the narrow causeways, and the hanging forests of the Via Mala, have been frequently described. Below, in the deepest recess of the abyss, the Rhine first commencing its course, is here such a small stream as to be almost unnoticed. Sometimes like a giant's fortress, crowned at the top with innumerable trees, the circular rocks rise reaching nearly to the clouds; sometimes an enormous mass, looking as it were cleft by a wedge of Titanic magnitude, lay close to the narrow causeway-the spot called the Middle Bridge is particularly remarkable. The jutting rocks in some parts ofthe road render it most terrific to look at: these scenes present pictures ofthe most sublime, awful, and wonderful features, where the grotesqueness of the natural convulsions "charm the eye with dread." We passed on to Andeer, a delightful little village, and through Thurric, which had been rebuilt a new and clean-looking town, to the valley of the Rhine. We passed onward to Reichenau, the village which is remarkable as containing the school-house in which poor Louis Philippe acted as usher for eight months. The great cultivation and the well-inhabited state of the country were remarkable,

We arrived at Coire at half-past seven, P.M. This is a dull, remote Swiss town: the charges at a wretched inn where we were shown into a room which had numerous parties of police and other parties of the hoi-polloi, sitting smoking and eating in it, and the rude and uncouth manners of the servants-rendered this place disagreeable. We heard here a description of the great works which had brought so many hands into labour in consummating the access to the Spleugen-pass, as well as its descent; this was the chief topic of conversation with all parties. Certainly, in point of conversation, the lower order of the foreigners in Switzerland, France and Italy, excel our rustics in Great Britain and Ireland. Here we stayed during the night, and the next morning started again in the diligence at 5 A.M. We travelled through an exceedingly abundant and fertile country: fruit trees in all directions, and the apple orchards more plentiful than any others. The people who travelled with us in the diligence told us that, on account of the cold which prevailed during the last month, they feared the fruit would be spoiled. The country people appeared very contented and happy. When we arrived at the lake Wallenstein we got into a very pretty steamer: round the lake the scenery was picturesque and the country fertile; it also abounds in fruit trees. Indian-corn seemed to be the most commonly sown of anything: potatoes we saw but very few of; apple-orchards in such numbers that I am surprised that the inhabitants do not make cider. On landing from Lake Wallenstein we had the option of taking an omnibus or of travelling by a canal boat through the narrow strait which runs between the lakes Wallenstein and Zurich; we preferred the former. Still the same rich and beautiful country until we reached Zurich. The canal-boat we considered to be likely to be so close and confined that we were rejoiced to have an opportunity of breathing the fresher air, and seeing the delightful country which lies between the two cities: the lake Zurich does not, however, present any very particular objects of attraction, and, compared with other lakes, is tame. We got to the town of Zurich, which is a central situation, at six in the evening. This is a clean, nice, and comfortable town: there are, however, no buildings of any kind to attract particular attention. The inn was a good one, and the number of travellers at the different tables of the public room made it very lively. We heard many accounts of the Swiss life; of the way in which the inhabitants of all parts of Switzerland take when young to gymnastics; of the robust and healthful frames which they generally possess. We heard several travellers descant with enthusiasm upon the beauties of Swiss scenery. Certainly, in the different traits which constitute romantic scenery, the country stands pre-eminent.

The next day we took the diligence which starts for Schaffhausen, which led us through a country of a much flatter kind than any which

we had been travelling in for some days before. Here orchards of fruit-trees also abounded. The German habit of laying out the grounds in plantations of nearly every sort of production which the climate will admit of, here struck our notice. We saw thus planted, or springing up after having been sown, vines, Indian-corn, tobacco, potatoes, marsh-mallows, hemp, turnips, clover, flax, and many other sort of productions, without a wall, a hedge, ditch, or any land-mark to separate them. We arrived at Shauffhausen about twelve in the day. We took the diligence for Fribourg at three in the afternoon. We passed near the falls of the Rhine but could not get a view of them. All the way for about ten or twelve miles we had a most extensive and open prospect of the line of very flat country on each side of the road. The extensive tracts, as before on the road from Zurich to Shauffhausen, were dotted with the different colours of the produce of the soil, but with the fields undivided by any land-marks.

At nightfall we arrived at the Black Forest-that gloomy and tremendous scene, where the black and massive woods bring to ones mind the romances of the Germanwriters. The fine, clear moon-light shining over these masses of dense forest had a very grand effect. The epithet of Byron, "horribly beautiful," seemed to me not unjust as applied to such a picture. At the further end of where our road passed it, we came to precipitous cliffs, where the frowning masses of rock seemed to threaten the small valley beneath with destruction. I should have been glad to have lingered some little time longer at the place; for, although we certainly got a fine idea of it by the light that we saw it in, yet we had not time to dwell much upon each particular feature of the scene. On our way they would not permit us to stay longer than two or three minutes at each place where they changed horses. At these places we could only get bread and beer. We went into one of them where we saw a number of German soldiers smoking and drinking beer. From the atmosphere of this place we fled for shelter to the interior room: at the same time as we entered some German young ladies came in screaming, laughing, and scarcely able to contain themselves with ebullition of spirits. The phlegm of the men contrasted in the most lively manner with the animation of the women: two of the latter were also in the carriage with us during the remainder of the journey. We also picked up a young American, who, like most of his countrymen whom one meets abroad, was a great traveller, and he acted as interpreter to us when we wanted to speak to the ladies, as we knew not German. We remarked the extraordinary caps which the German women wear, the black wings of which are like miniature windmills. These rustic beauties in face and appearance seemed healthy and blooming.

We reached Fribourg at eleven at night. Here we had an opportunity of remarking the extraordinary sort of bedding with which the

of the engagement. He showed us the French position at La Belle Alliance where Napoleon stood. This has a newly-built house on its site; he showed us also the road which indicates the line of the position of the British infantry-the hollow in which the guards were posted when they were roused up willingly to their duty, which they so manfully performed. Our cicerone said that at the time of the battle he was 16 years of age, and was near the scene, being a native of La Belle Alliance. He assisted in burying the dead. I remarked that both with him and with the young lady who showed off the collection of spoils, was a great deal of the insinuating time-serving language which belongs to their clique, and which they adopt according to the country or prejudice of their hearers. Thus, after we had made the circle of the curiosity chamber, two Frenchmen care in, and the lady being as conversant in that language as in her own, interlarded the whole of her discourse with "After all it was only by the will of Providence that we came off victorious. It was the decree of fate that the victory should have turned out as it did. The fortune of war is not to be combated against." This was calculated to smooth down the bitter annoyance which they must have felt at seeing the different spoils, relics, and trophies. The Belgic lion marks the spot where the Prince of Orange was wounded. This statue, of which so much has been said and written, displays the absurd arrogance, presumption, and ostentation of a nation more than any memorial which I ever witnessed. A few houses are built near it, and at its foot stands a pavilion, in which is a roulette table. When we entered this pavilion, a middle-aged man, who acted as marker, was playing against a young lady, and she was depositing pretty large sums in gold and silver, which were nearly always doubled by the turn of the ball. At each time of losing, the marker began exclaiming against his bad luck, and hoping that fortune would at some time favour him, as he had lost mints of money during the day. And he stated that Mademoiselle had nearly ruined him. I afterwards heard, when I returned to Brussels, that this was a ruse which he used, and the young lady, who was apparently playing for her own fortune, which she appeared to better so considerably, was in point of fact a confederate in the design of inducing the bystanders to hazard their stakes, and was the man's daughter. Not a bad spot I should think for such speculations, thronged, as it is, by such numbers of English visitors. One visitor, of whom we were told, paid five pounds for the trunk of the tree which stood at the junction of the four roads a little way from the monument erected to Gordon and to the German legion. Another man paid a large sum for the autograph of Byron, which was to be seen in the small chapel at Hougoumont. Near the monument of the German legion, was the position of the cavalry British. The farm house of Lahaie Sainte is all built up anew. The forest of Fichemont is seen at a distance; also the monument raised

to the memory of the Prussians who perished in the battle. The ground occupied by the French, is also clearly shown. The church at Waterloo is the place where most of the monuments to the British are to be seen; they are mostly plain slabs of marble. There is a house adjoining this chapel, where the leg of the Marquis of Anglesea is buried. The ground surrounding the Belgic lion is exceedingly open; of a clear day the surrounding country can be viewed to great advantage from it. In the evening we saw the sergeant, who is the prince of guides here, and who I should think would soon realize a fortune. There was an old soldier there also with him, who had a Peninsular medal as also a Waterloo one. Poor fellow! he seemed also an amateur guide, but was evidently illiterate. I thought, when he was talking to us, how many men like this one, who could not sign their names, who had not received qualifications to express themselves in any given language, children of the soil uncultured and untaught, still had behaved so nobly at our several battle fields. It was the hardy, bluff, unlettered sons of the English soil, or the wild half savage Irish, or those of the least instructed order among the Scotch, who stood the brunt of the battle of Waterloo, who received the numerous frightful attacks and charges, which were made, undaunted and unbroken-and who closed up undismayed after so many of their comrades had fallen victims; and who, when the word of command was given them to charge, rushed like bull dogs to their work. To use the brief, but emphatic words of the Great duke, "The gallantry of the British has conquered Napoleon." Wellington, amongst his other transcendant excellencies, possessed the art of speaking to the point, and in few words. Next day we went to see the park, and to visit the different palaces. The former we found a gay lively scene well wooded; it was full of English visitors. Brussels itself seems almost half English. Thus, those whom we met at dinner at the Table d'Hote, were all of the mother country. I addressed a man in the park, who I found was regular cockney, and did not understand a word of French. Certainly, the mode in which the English travel, and the way that they disburse their money, has spoiled the foreigners; it has divested them of the graceful politeness and engaging manner which they formerly were noted for, and in place of it they have learned to look on with contempt, and treat with negligence all who do not travel en prince. The guide book calls this town" a little Paris." The cleanliness and the neatness of its streets seemed very remarkable after leaving Cologne. The soldiers in different costumes looked generally very well; I thought that the handsomest uniform which I saw, was the long blue frock coat and the grenadier cap. The gentry all spoke French, and that was the prevailing language. The German or Dutch was mostly confined to the lower orders. We were able to take our places from Brussels to London, for the 1st class all the way was only two pounds three shillings. When we got to Dover we had our baggage