As you go from Lucerne in a decorous little steamboat down the pleasant Vierwaldstättersee, or Lake of the Four Forest Cantons, with the sloping hills on either side, and the green meadow-patches and occasional house among the trees, you come to a sudden turn where the scenery changes swiftly, and pass between steep and shaggy rocks rising perpendicularly out of the blue water, which seems to get bluer there, into the frowning Bay of Uri, guarded, as if it were the last home of freedom, by great granite hills, lying like sleepy giants with outstretched arms, while the heavy clouds rest black and broken on their summits, and the white vapors float below. Just where the lake makes this turn is the hamlet of Brunnen, which you will not hurry by, if you are wise, but tarry with the kind little hostess of the Golden Eagle by the pleasant shore, and learn, if you will, as nowhere else, what the spirit of the Swiss was in the ancient time, as in this. As you walk across the little valley which stretches down from the hills to the lake where Brunnen is, you remember that it is the town of Schwyz you come to, where dwelt once the hardy, valorous little colony which gave its name to Switzerland,--famous in the annals of this stout-hearted mountain-land for the "peculiar fire" with which they have always fought for their ancient freedom,--worthy to leave their name, in lasting token of the service they did to their fellows and to mankind. Schwyz lies at the foot of the Hacken Mountain, which rises with double peaks known as the Mythen, (Murray and the tourists, with dubious etymological right, translate _Mitres_,)--with the dark forests above it on the slopes, and the green openings sparkling in the sunlight, where men and their herds of cattle breathe a purer air. Behind these everlasting walls the spirit of freedom has found a resting-place through the turbulent centuries, during which, on rough Northern soil, the new civilization was taking root, hereafter to overshadow the earth. Touching the origin of these men of Schwyz, there is a tradition, handed down from father to son, which runs in this wise.