The streets are kept scrupulously clean, as much so as the floor of a well-kept house; a gang is constantly at work sweeping and carrying off the dirt as soon as any can be found. Entering the town from the south, two gate-ways are passed, at short distances from each other, beneath towers which mark epochs in the extension of its walled period. In the upper portion of these gate-ways, still standing over the empty arches, where there is no longer a gate to shut, peaceful pigeons have a cote. They are the only wardens and watchful sentinels to challenge the passer-by. The fronts of the houses rest upon arcades, which form covered walks and are lined with shops. The heavy piers of the arcades exclude the sun, making the shops dark, and the arcade as damp as it is gloomy. All these objections are felt to be more than compensated by the protection furnished from the long winter’s snow. The streets are provided with numerous public fountains of strange devices. They are sculptured and decorated, as if the people loved the water and wished to heighten the pleasure of seeing, welcoming, and using it. This water is brought a great distance from mountain streams, and ceaselessly pours its limpid stream through the open viaducts, and at convenient places is diverted into gigantic stone basins; it is never muddy, and is always delightfully cool. Through each of the principal streets flow additional subterraneous streams of this water, furnishing the best of sewers. This is one of the most pleasing sights common to the smallest Swiss village,--the abundance of good water with which it is supplied; it is ever in sight; overflowing, sparkling everywhere, for every use of man and beast. These fountains resemble those of an Eastern well; to them daily come all the women of the village for the water they will require for their families; and they have other uses, the milk vessels and the cooking utensils are for the most part washed there, and on certain days they are surrounded by groups of _blanchisseuses_. Here, too, the daily news of the village is discussed. Besides their beauty and convenience, these fountains are a species of living records of the taste and manners of past ages. Many date from the sixteenth century, and are ornamented with colossal representations of Swiss warriors, clad in steel, with wasp-shapes and stuffed breasts, wearing diminutive caps, contrasting with their vast exuberance of beard and stern countenances; then come goddesses, archers, bagpipers, and one--the terror of children--the _kinder-fresser-brunnen_, or “child-gormandizer-fountain.” Upon the top of a stone pillar, ten feet high, is seated an obese-looking old man; he has the head and shoulders of one poor baby in his gaping mouth, in the very act of swallowing; a bag full of similar choice morceaus hangs around his neck, and they are apparently struggling to escape the fate of their comrade. In one hand of this ogre are the lower extremities of the child whose head he