And to understand why it is that women work so much in the fields, we must see what is the principal employment of the people. I have seen forty women at work in the same field here, and not a man among them. No sort of work on the farm is considered too heavy for the women. How could it be, when at Boulogne we had crossed the British Channel, and landed in France, women rushed on board the steamer to carry our baggage ashore! And here the women dig the fields, when a plough would do the work far better and more quickly. They carry out manure, or drive a cow that drags a load of it, and spread it on the soil. They mow. They rake and pitch hay. They plant and sow, and reap and pull, and manage the farm as they would do if the men were all off at war. And where are the men? They are not idle, nor dissipated, nor away from home. They are at work, and in the house, not tending the baby, nor baking the bread, nor washing the clothes; but they are industrious, and what are they at? The Swiss are a frugal, saving, thriving people. The amount of arable land is not enough to meet their wants. They are a manufacturing, not an agricultural people, though they export cattle, butter, and cheese. Watches, jewelry, muslins, embroidery, and carved wood-work, are the principal articles of manufacture for export, and these, with a few other branches, employ the most of the men; for the work is done in the country very largely. The city of Geneva sells 75,000 watches yearly; but as you are riding in a _diligence_ among the mountains, a man will step out from a little cottage and hand a neat, small package to the postilion, who puts it carefully into a place prepared for such deposits. It is the works of watches, or some jewelry, which the man has made in his own house, and is now sending to his employer in Geneva. In the retired village where I am now writing, so secluded that if a man should commit a murder and come here to live, the New York detectives would never find him, even here the cellars of small houses are filled with machinery to weave Swiss muslins, and to embroider it exquisitely. The buyers from the Broadway stores have learned where to come, and boxes are lying in front of my window directed to Stewart, and to Arnold and others in New York. The places where this delicate work is done are damp and unhealthy; but unless it is done in a damp room the gossamer thread becomes so brittle that it breaks in weaving.