The chapel, open on the side next the water, is covered with faded frescos of Tell’s history, which our little friends quaintly described; and it contains, besides, an altar and a small pulpit. Here Mass is said once a year on the Friday after the Ascension, when all the people of the neighborhood come hither, and from their boats, grouped outside, hear Mass and the sermon preached to them from the railing in front. This was the feast which my Weggis guide so much desired to see. It is unique in every particular, and Herr H---- was eloquent on the beauty and impressiveness of the scene, at which he had once been present, and which it was easy to understand amidst these magnificent surroundings. Nor is it a common gathering of peasants, but a solemn celebration, to which the authorities of Uri come in state with the standard of Uri--the renowned Uri ox--floating at the bows. As may be supposed, the sermon is always national, touching on all those points of faith, honor, and dignity which constitute true patriotism. Mr. C---- had Murray’s guide-book in his hand, and would not allow us to say another word until he read aloud Sir James Macintosh’s remarks on this portion of the lake, which there occur as follows: “The combination of what is grandest in nature with whatever is pure and sublime in human conduct affected me in this passage (along the lake) more powerfully than any scene which I had ever seen. Perhaps neither Greece nor Rome would have had such power over me. They are dead. The present inhabitants are a new race, who regard with little or no feeling the memorials of former ages. This is, perhaps, the only place on the globe where deeds of pure virtue, ancient enough to be venerable, are consecrated by the religion of the people, and continue to command interest and reverence. No local superstition so beautiful and so moral anywhere exists. The inhabitants of Thermopylæ or Marathon know no more of these famous spots than that they are so many square feet of earth. England is too extensive a country to make Runnymede an object of national affection. In countries of industry and wealth the stream of events sweeps away these old remembrances. The solitude of the Alps is a sanctuary destined for the monuments of ancient virtue; Grütli and Tell’s chapel are as much reverenced by the Alpine peasants as Mecca by a devout Mussulman; and the deputies of the three ancient cantons met, so late as the year 1715, to renew their allegiance and their oaths of eternal union.” “All very well,” said George, “if there really had been a Tell; but this seems to me a body without a soul. Why, this very chapel is in the Italian style, and never could have been founded by the one hundred and twenty contemporaries who are said to have known Tell and to have been present at its consecration.”