Hither have I just made a pilgrimage, not on foot, as many do. An old woman of seventy-five, carrying her shoes in her hand and toiling up with bare, sore feet, said the priest had bade her travel so to Einsiedeln, and her sins would be pardoned. But I came by the steamboat from Zurich to Ricksterwyl, and was then brought up the hill in a nice covered carriage, a much pleasanter way of doing a pilgrimage than walking barefoot, or even with peas in your shoes. It is a two hours’ ride from the lake, the ascending road being alive with travellers going and coming, and public-houses to entertain the pilgrims invite you to rest. The village itself consists of a multitude of taverns and shops for the sale of images, crosses, medals, &c. Passing through it, we come to a large paved square. On one side of it, and at the foot of a hill which rises behind it, stand the sacred edifices: a vast temple, with the monastic buildings on each side of it, imposing in their appearance among these wilds of nature, where it seems almost a miracle that they can ever have been reared and enjoyed by man. The church itself is adorned with extravagant pictures and marble chapels and shrines, and just at the entrance stands the image of “Our Lady of the Hermits,” the only black image of the Virgin I ever saw. She and the Holy Child wear crowns of gold, and glitter with diamonds and embroidered garments, their faces of ebony shining in the blaze of jewelry and tinsel finery. Before them, worshippers are always kneeling, counting their beads. At the other shrines others are bowing and murmuring their prayers. Painted skeletons of celebrated saints lie exposed in marble shrines. The offerings of those who have had their prayers answered hang around on the walls. All sorts of prayers are here made, and they who make them believe they are answered. In the square in front of the church is a fountain with a dozen jets of water, and each pilgrim drinks from each one of them, to be certain that he drinks of the one out of which the Saviour refreshed himself nine hundred years ago!