for it appeared that when the gentleman left my room, he had taken up my candlestick instead of his own, upon which I must have left the rings last night,---carelessly enough, certainly.

The relation of this absurd adventure at breakfast, you may suppose, afforded much amusement to Adeline and Colonel Cleveland. The latter seemed particularly entertained at my having persuaded the gentleman that he had seen Plait instead of me. You may suppose that I did not mention the cause of my leaving my room, nor own that the silly scrawl he wrote, contained any other stuff than an avowal of his having taken away a relic of me.

A crowded market, or a fair abroad, is always an amusing sight; but the market of Berne is the most amusing of all. The bustle, the jostling, the clamour, the buying and selling, and drinking and smoking, and coquetting,---the pretty rustics and uncouth boors---but above all, the endless variety of costume afforded us inexpressible amusement. The men in Switzerland no longer wear any national or peculiar costume, and all look like clowns. The women still determinedly adhere to the grotesque, but generally becoming dresses, that have been handed down unchanged for a succession of centuries. Of these the variety is most extraordinary. In a little country like Switzerland, there are at least thirty distinctly different costumes, and we had them all in the market at Berne. We had the Canton de Vaud, the Canton of Glaris, of Unterwald, of Schwitz, of Uri, of Obergestelen, of Fribourg, and of Lucerne--the prettiest of them all-besides the costumes of Berne itself; and finally, we saw one of those famous Gug

gisberg Graces,' whose kilts, (petticoats they cannot be called), are always considerably above the knee, displaying the red garter and substantial calf. But the pencil only can do them justice. They beggar description.

A delightful drive of four hours along a fine road, and through a rich and happy country, brought us to Thun, a little town, situated at the extremity of the beautiful lake of the same name, where the Aar forms its noble outlet.High on a rock above its blue expanse, stands

the lordly castle of Thun, once the seat of the Counts of Thun, and after the extinction of their line, of the Counts of Kyburg. According to tradition, it has been the scene of many a romantic and tragic incident, as well as of that bloody fratricide, which has rendered its name memorable in history.* The castle is still in perfect preservation, and garrisoned as a fortress by some Swiss soldiers. We wandered all over it, and admired the beautiful views its towers and battlements command of the lake and mountains.

As usual, we dined at twelve o'clock at the Table d' Hôte, where we met a good humoured large-made Irish Major of Dragoons, a young Lieutenant of the Navy, full of spirit and enterprise, and a most superlative Dandy-a perfect Exquisite ;-forming the trio of fellow travellers

But however famous in Swiss story, the reader may perhaps never have heard the murderous tale. It is related that Hartmann and Eberhard, at the death of their father, one of the Counts of Kyburg, disputed the succession. Alone, unprotected, and confiding, Eberhard, with the view of settling the difference, visited his brother, who loaded him with chains, and threw him into a dungeon. Being liberated by the command of the all powerful Leopold Duke of Austria, and their contending claims amicably settled by his mediation and authority, a solemn feast was held in honour of their reconciliation, at the castle of Thun, which was attended by all the knights and barons of the surrounding country. During the banquet, irritated, it is said, by the insults and overbearing insolence of Hartmann, Eberhard drew his sword---a murderous conflict ensued---and in the struggle, having reached the castle stairs, Eberhard sheathed his weapon in his brother's bosom, whose bleeding corpse was thrown out over the castle walls into the town.---EDITOR.

I had waylaid upon the stairs at Berne this morning, on suspicion of one of them being the purloiner of my rings. The dread I had entertained of encountering, in this assemblage, the true Knight of the Garter and Rings, was relieved, for he did not appear. There was also a quiet common place sort of English family, consisting of Papa, Mamma, two young ladies and one young gentleman, who à la mode d'Angleterre, never spoke excepting a few low toned necessary words to each other, about the dishes. Thése, with ourselves, made up a party exclusively composed of English people, at a public table in the heart of Switzerland.

After dinner we embarked in a pleasure boat, to row twelve miles to the head of the beautiful lake of Thun, in ancient times called the lake of the Vandals. If, as is said, it derived its appellation from the Vandals having settled on its borders, I must say they were persons of much taste, and little deserved that their names should become a proverbial epithet of reproach for the want of it. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the sail. Behind the rocky shores, richly wooded with pine and birch, tower on one side, the sublime forms of the Stockhorn, the Gros Eiger, the Blümlis Alp, and the Jungfrau, covered with eternal snows, and rearing their mighty summits far above the clouds. Lower down rises from the lake, the lofty and picturesque pyramidal mountain of the Niesen. At its base, your eye penetrates far up the beautiful vale, down which the Kander pours its wild torrent into the lake.* The ruins of

It is an artificial channel. The Kander used to VOL. I.

19*

Gothic castles, to which tradition attaches many a romantic legend-the abandoned walls of 'the Golden Court'-where the proud Counts of Strätlingen once held their magnificent reign -the mysterious dungeons and subterranean passages said still to remain half unexplored around its shattered tower,-and the mouldering vestiges of the castle of Spietz-awake remembrances of those feudal times of wild warfare and romance, which throw a charm so powerful and undefinable over every scene to which they are attached; more especially over scenes of secluded beauty and grandeur, such as this. On the opposite side of the lake, our boatmen pointed out a mountain cave, the inmost recesses of which cannot be penetrated,-where, according to tradition, in the sixth century, St. Beat, a British hermit, and the first christian in Helvetia, lived and died. A fine stream of pure, and of course holy water, from some hidden subterranean source, flows from the cave. Near this spot, at Merlingen, vines and spreading Spanish chesnuts give a richer air to the banks of the lake-while the rural dwellings, the cultivated fields, the picturesque villages, the beautiful vales or thals opening into the bosom of the mountains-the rocks and wild woods on the banks of the lake-and the towering mountains and glaciers far above, beamng with silver lines in the summer sun, presented so enchanting a scene, as our little gaily fall into the Aar below Thun, and its devastating torrent covered the rich plain with desolation. Swiss industry formed this short cut for its furious tide into the lake, and thus preserved the most fertile fields of Switzerland from destruction.