Mount Rigi, so generally visited by travellers, presents another distinguished feature in this romantic country. The ascent to this mountain having been within a few days rendered extremely difficult by a fall of snow, we were advised not to attempt it, and I the more readily acquiesced, having found the ascent to Montanvert difficult, although unobstructed with snow. I therefore set out to visit two classic spots in the history of Switzerland, which distinguish the banks of this lake; first, the Grütli (the Runnimede of Switzerland), a field now covered with fruit-trees, where the neighbouring cantons on the 12th of November, 1307, first took the engagement to found the liberty of their country. They carried their plan into execution on the 1st of January, 1308, by forcing their tyrannical governors to quit a country thenceforward destined to be free. The second place is about a league and a half distant, it is the Rock of Aschen-berg, 5240 feet above the level of the lake (which is here 600 feet deep), on a part of which, called Tell Platte, that patriot killed the tyrant _Gessler_ here is a small chapel. I also visited the little town of _Gersau_ (which was, by the French, united to the canton of Schweitz), remarkable as being the smallest republic existing in Europe, as it contains only _one hundred square toises_, and from 900 to 1000 inhabitants, who subsist chiefly by agriculture; there is besides, a small manufacture of cotton. Their _metropolis_ is a neat village, where only, perhaps; a pure democracy subsisted without anarchy and dissensions. The canton of Schweitz, which, at present, gives name generally to the whole confederation of cantons, is said to have been first inhabited by some persons forced to _quit Sweden_ by religious differences. The union of this canton to those of Uri and Unterwald, first suggested that more extended confederacy, so essential to the existence of these diminutive states.