Sarnen, the capital of Obwalden, is situated at the north end of its lake of the same name, and is as interesting in its way as its rival Stans; but the green pastoral valley of the Obwalden Aa, though everywhere bordered by lofty hills, is altogether more open and less rugged than its Nidwalden namesake, and terminates, unlike the latter, in the gentle pass of the Brünig, instead of the lofty, snow-clad summits of the Spannörter and Titlis. High above the little mountain town, on a green pedestal of hill, is the stately, Classical parish church, commanding sweeping views across the wide sub-Alpine vale. Here, in the crowded burial-ground, I searched in vain in the early months of 1914 for memorials of any age--almost every cross or stone had been erected since I had last passed along this valley, in driving in the diligence from Meiringen to Lucerne, not quite a quarter of a century earlier. The old bone-houses stand nowadays mostly empty; but the Swiss dead, I suspect, are still frequently deposited in graves that hold them only in temporary tenancy. Here, as elsewhere in Switzerland, you will note the local custom of often letting a photograph of the deceased into his head-stone, beneath a protecting sheet of glass. A mile or two to the south-west of Sarnen, by the shore of the placid lake, is the little village of Sachseln, the church of which (Classical again) is lucky in its possession of the bones of Bruder Klaus. I remember in 1887, on the occasion of the drive already mentioned, passing somewhere in this neighbourhood a long procession of pilgrims, who were doubtless making their way to the shrine of the patriot-saint. "His bones," says Murray, "lie in a glass case above the high altar, the shutters of which are opened for travellers, and are also withdrawn at stated seasons, in order to exhibit the relics to crowds of pilgrims.... There is a wooden figure in the transept, clothed with the saint's veritable robes." I could not, however, discover this aerial place of sepulchre when I explored this church in 1914, nor do I remember the wooden figure, though I found statues of the saint, and of his grandson, Conrad Scheuber, in the parish church of Stans. The same two statements appear substantially in an old edition in my possession of 1872, and have perhaps escaped revision; or perhaps my own memory and observation are at fault. I turn with little hope to the last edition of the egregious Baedeker (1913), and find that the burial of the saint at Sachseln is there entirely ignored. I find, however, as I expected, the number of bedrooms, and the rate of pension, at the Kreuz, the Engel, the Löwe, and the Rössli--at none of which doubtless excellent hotels I have ever stopped, or am ever likely to want to stay! VI