You will leave the city of Lucerne, having seen the lion cut in a solid rock as a monument to some Swiss soldiers who were killed in Paris fighting for pay in 1792, and having also walked through the covered bridge that is distinguished, but not adorned, with a series of paintings by Holbein, representing the Dance of Death; and after the boat has gone from the landing about fifteen minutes, you must look back on the crescent city rising from the water’s edge, flanked by the ancient wall on which the useless towers still stand; and on the spires of the cathedral whose organ claims equal honor with that of Freyburg; and the old tower in the centre of the river which was once a light-house, Lucerna, whence the name of the town; and on the green hills, behind and on either side of the city, elegant residences of opulent citizens, and of some who from Paris and more distant parts come here to enjoy the summer in a delicious and healthful clime. Naples is grander, but hardly more beautiful, as she lies around her lovely bay, with Vesuvius, like the Rigi, keeping watch over her Italian charms. For an hour or two out we are in the midst of the same bold and striking scenery which is common to all the Swiss lakes, with nothing of special interest except the historic associations that cluster about the little villages at the foot of the hills on the shores. We would be slow to believe that a population even of a few hundreds could hold on upon the sides of the mountains, or find the means of support among those green meadows, where lies the little village of Gersau, and there are only about 1,500 people in it. Yet so tenacious are these Swiss of independence, that this little, secluded, poor, portionless community, not more than two miles square, maintained its existence as a separate state for more than four centuries, and was then swallowed up by the French in the devouring fires of 1789. It is now part of one of the Swiss cantons. We cross the lake again and come to Brunnen, where the figures of the three historic patriots of Switzerland stand with each a hand held up to heaven, on the outside of the Sustenhaus, on the bank of the water. But when we leave Brunnen, and through a narrow pass enter the Bay of Uri, the grandeur of the view breaks instantly upon us with such a power as to set at defiance the attempt at description unless one has a bolder pen than mine. Philosophers have tried it. Poets have done what they could to illustrate and repeat it. So prudent, and yet so capable a writer as Sir James Mackintosh says it makes “an impression which it would be foolish to attempt to convey by words.” I will therefore not be foolish. Yet you may look with my eyes upon precipitous mountains starting from the bosom of the lake and pointing with silent and solemn majesty into the sky: here and there as we pass are verdant meadows, few and far between, but beautiful as they nestle at the feet