We regretted missing a sight of the celebrated model of this part of Switzerland, in which General Pfeiffer, a native of Lucerne, has represented with equal accuracy, mountains and lakes, rivers and cataracts, cottages and towns; exhibiting in one view the Cantons of Lucerne, Zug, Berne, Uri, Schweitz, and Unterwalden. But we were now in haste to get back to Zurich, where I was by this time impatiently expected by my Better-Half. Next morning therefore we continued our route on foot, after stopping to contemplate a little chapel, erected on the spot where (according to Tradition-in despite of the silence of History) Tell shot the Tyrant Gessler, and asserted the liberties of his country. Over the entrance are the following quaint but ominous lines. Hier ist Gessler's hochmuth vom Tell erschossen, Wie lang wird aber solche wahren? Noch lang wenn wir die Ælte waren. Arriving at the lake of Zug, surrounded with hanging vineyards, and cultivated fields, we took boat again for the capital of the Canton, and, continuing our walk fifteen miles further, across fields and plains, we again reached Zurich; after having made a circuit of three hundred miles, the greatest part of which had been performed on foot with an advantage of observation, richly worth the purchase of fatigue. * Here the proud tyrant Gessler fell, How long t'will last, you ask, and tremble- I of the clouds, which had gathered in circling volumes, round the body of an isolated mountain, while its rocky summit, invisibly supported in the air, glowed with the warm refulgence of a noonday sun. At Brunnen, where the cantons of Uri, Schweitz, and Unterwalden, first allied themselves by a defensive treaty, we took boat for Fluellen; rowing between rugged mountains, shagged with firs. Among them we frequently espied cubic cottages, surrounded with little patches of cultivation, perched, at such tremendous heights, upon the very edge of overhanging precipices, that we could scarcely contemplate them without apprehensions, that some of the little boxes would would slide off from their shelving ledges, and come down upon our heads. One of these cultivated specks, actually fell into the lake not long since, together with its little tenement, and all. that it contained. At the foot of a neighbouring ridge, is the valley of Gerisau, forming the smallest Republic in Europe. It can only be approached by water, and the Lilliputian Commonwealth is little more than two leagues in length; yet it contains twelve hundred souls; among whom sumptuary laws would be superfluous, since the keeping of a saddle-horse is there an unknown luxury. Near |