The nucleus proper of Berne (the old mediæval town) is situate on a promontory running between two arms of the River Aare, high above it, however, and connected on three sides, by long-spanned bridges, to the newer outlying portions of the town, where are to be found the more modern residential quarters. Along the southern side of the promontory, facing a splendid view of the Bernese Alps in the distance, with the river running below in the immediate foreground, stretch the handsome buildings of the Federal Palace and other Government offices, flanked on either side by the two most modern hotels, the Bellevue Palace and the Bernerhof, where, when not occupying private residences, members of the Diplomatic Corps and Bernese society congregate. Further along the promontory, beyond the Kirchenfeld Bridge, runs one of the most interesting old streets of Berne, a relic of the Middle Ages, the Rue des Gentilshommes, where many of the houses date back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and several, I believe, even to the fifteenth. This street, in times gone by, was the residential quarter of the old Bernese noblesse, and walking down now under the old arcades, past the Cathedral Square and Terrace, one can still see the dates and emblazoned arms indicating when such and such a house was occupied by the d'Erlachs, the de Wattenwyls, or some other illustrious family. Indeed, many delightful hours can be spent evoking, and peopling with old world silhouettes, the now deserted street, where only stone and beam remain to tell the tale. The very silence, perchance, induces one to note the care evinced in the preservation of every old house, sign, knocker, and quaint bell, evidence of the feeling in which the Bernese hold their departed glories and traditions. The same families still inhabit many of these old houses, but gradually the advantages offered by the more open and modern residential quarters are drawing them slowly, but surely, away. In matters artistic, especially musical, Berne, though small in comparison, offers many of the advantages of larger capitals. It possesses a fine concert hall and a good theatre, visited, especially during the war, by the best European as well as Swiss talent. Owing to Switzerland having maintained her neutrality, and being situated geographically at the very centre of the main belligerent countries, and therefore easily accessible from these, she has become, par excellence, the focus of artistic as well as other propaganda from all quarters.