The outer wall bears an inscription that, in 1654, a young student’s horse, frightened by some boys, plunged over this precipice with his rider, the horse being killed, but the rider escaped with only a broken arm and leg, and survived the accident thirty years as a preacher. On market day, Tuesday in each week, the streets of Bern are crowded with booths and tables exposing for sale every sort of merchandise, garden and farm products, and live animals, from a goat to a cow, a dog to a horse; pigs and lambs are held in the embrace of their owners, happy and contented with the nursing-bottle. The _Abattoir_, just out of the town, on the banks of the river, with its handsome buildings and beautiful grounds, sooner suggests to the passer-by an attractive pleasure resort than a public slaughter-house.[111] Much of the garden truck and all the dairy product are brought into market in small carts, heavy and stoutly built, pulled by two dogs, one on each side of the shafts, between which is the woman to uphold and guide it, and for this motive power a woman and a dog or a boy and a dog tug together in friendly yoke-fellowship. Dogs are used throughout Switzerland for all light draught purposes; and not always very light, for these dogs have been bred through generations for this purpose, until they have almost the bone and strength of a small horse or ox. They do not seem to be of any distinct canine family, varying much in size, color, and appearance,-- “Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, And curs of low degree.” They serve the twofold purpose of beasts of burden and vigilant guardians; the moment the woman stops and puts down the shafts of the cart the dogs go beneath it and lie down, but their eyes never leave a stranger who comes near, and he would find it dangerous to attempt to touch anything in the absence of their mistress. In the evening, when readiness is made to return home, these dogs express their pleasure with a deep-mouthed barking, forming a chorus of corresponding variety to their breeding; as in procession they pass through the streets this barking becomes a deafening yelp; in their struggle to pass one another, the carts being lightened of their loads, often the women are unable to check them with their own force and that of the brakes, with which the cart is provided, and a general stampede occurs. The dogs are highly valued and kindly treated by their owners; passing along at noon, when the women and the dogs are taking their dinner side by side from their respective tin buckets, you will find that the dogs are not eating of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table, but are furnished with rather a more generous repast. The law limits how many pounds these dogs shall pull, but the woman may pull all she can.