LETTERS FROM A CONTINENTAL TOURIST. 493 



Lausanne, September 4M. 



I ARRIVED at Lausanne yesterday morning, and have ever since 

 been in search of beauties ; I can find none. The town is curious 

 from the circumstance of its being 1 built upon hills, so that many of 

 the streets are nearly perpendicular, and none are to be found at a 

 less angle than forty-five degrees with the horizon. From the signal, 

 a height to the north of the town, you have an extensive view of the 

 valley as far as the Jura mountains, and you see the Savoyard Alps 

 on the other side of the lake. But on the whole, I think Lausanne 

 and its environs less worthy of attentive examination than any town 

 I have been in since I left France. To an Englishman it has some 

 extra interest as having been the residence of Gibbon, but other 

 charms for me it has none, except perhaps the flower gardens which 

 here, as elsewhere in Switzerland, furnish brighter hues than we are 

 used to see in England. 



September 6th. 



I LEFT Lausanne but little pleased with the results of two days in- 

 vestigation, and mounted the diligence for Rome. In it I met with 

 an American gentleman, and as on comparing notes we found our 

 routes lay in the same direction, we agreed to move onward together. 

 The country improves as you approach Berne, and the avenue by 

 which you enter the town is quite beautiful. The principal street of 

 Berne is very fine. The houses built of whitish stone are just suffi- 

 ciently dissimilar to prevent monotony, just sufficiently like to retain 

 symmetry. A colonnade runs under them on either side, and they 

 are built with projecting eaves. Many fountains adorn the street 

 with the emblematical bear represented in all shapes and figures. 

 Sometimes himself in armour, sometimes fondling a mail-clad warrior, 

 in short, in every fantastic guise imaginable. The cathedral is a 

 handsome building of the fifteenth century, deformed, however, by 

 red painted doors which they have set in a square tower over the 

 principal entrance. The Swiss seem to have a passion for red paint; 

 for this is by no means the first time I have been annoyed by its in- 

 trusion in incongruous places. In the interior is a monument erected 

 to 650 Bernese who fell in the battle fought before Berne in 1799, 

 a large number to lose out of a population of not more than thirty 

 thousand, being about a tenth part of the male adults. Some fine 

 stained glass representing the passion of our Saviour adorns the win- 

 dows ; part, however, has been destroyed by a hail storm. To the 

 south of the cathedral is a platform supported by an immensely high 

 wall of stone. The walk here shaded by chestnut trees faces one of 

 the most lovely landscapes that can be imagined. Undulating ground 

 rises wave above wave to a considerable height, thickly clad with 

 trees of many tints of green. In the back-ground the most promi- 

 nent object is the Jung frau-horn with the other ice covered moun- 

 tains of the Oberland. At the foot of the platform the Aar foams 

 and splashes over a rapid, giving life and gaiety to the scene by its 

 incessant noise. 



I walked round Berne in the afternoon. It is built on a tongue o?f 



