Last week, five of us, including my son, started to climb up the Saentis, the highest mountain in the vicinity. We began the ascent late. Storm and darkness coming on, we lost our way. Half the night was spent up there, creeping about on ice and stones. At last we stood still and yelled all together. We were heard at the little weather hut on top of the mountain at last, and the guides came down with dogs and lanterns and helped us out of our dilemma. We were all well used up, and as for myself, I received an injury that I may never get rid of. We got home next day, and were off the mountains just in time to escape a great snowfall that will bury the path till next year. * * * * * General Sherman’s daughter, Mrs. Thackera, paid us a long visit, as did our old friends, the Edmundsons and Frankels. Together we made excursions, notably to “_The Little Land of Appenzell_,” described so beautifully by Bayard Taylor. We went to the meeting of the people’s parliament--a strange spectacle. All the peasants came, wearing swords as signs of their right to vote. It was a mass meeting in the open air. Ten to fifteen thousand voters stood and voted on the laws of the canton. These laws, proposed by the outgoing officials, had been printed and distributed in the farmhouses weeks before. These officials in old-time garb now stood before the people on a raised platform. There was no discussion at the mass meeting. “Do you want this law--yes or no?” said the President, and that was all there was to it. In two hours’ time new laws had been adopted. The canton officials went through the ceremony of transferring their state mantles to the shoulders of the newly elected officers. Then the vast crowd were asked to bare their heads, hold up their right hands and swear new allegiance to the Republic. When that packed mass of humanity turned their faces to the sun, and held up ten thousand brown hands, it was the most impressive scene one can imagine. They meant it. The vast mountains stood around and looked on in silence. Far below we could see the broad lake shining like a sea of silver. When the oath was over, the bands played, and the peasant lawmakers returned in silence to their homes. There had not been a single disturbance, not a rude, loud word. For hundreds of years this simple people of Appenzell have met and made their laws in this way, and, as a historian said of the old Republic of St. Gall, “They guard their state from disorder and revolution by the simple grace of homely virtues.” * * * * *