LECTURE ON SWITZERLAND. 131 



" Where'er we roam, along the briuk 

 Of Eliiuc, or by tbo aweepiug Po, 



Tbroiigb Alpine vale, or cbanipaign wide — 

 Wbate'er avc look upon — at our side 

 Be cbarity — to bid as tbiuk. 

 And feci — if we would kuow." 



Tbe situatiou of Friburg lias afforded oppoituuity for two pieces ot 

 characteristic enterprise. TLie cliaunel of the river Sariiie forms al- 

 most a loop at tlie town, inclosing it on three sides, and flowing in a 

 deep sandstone valley. The town occupies the top and sides of the 

 promontory thus formed, and on the steep slope the tops of the houses 

 below are on a level with the pavement of the streets above. Into this 

 valley the road to Berne formerly descended, and mounted a precipitous 

 hill on the other side of the strean:;, occupying, with its windings and 

 the slovv' pace by which it was necessarily traversed, an hour, and to pass 

 from one side of the valley' to the other, a distance in a straight line of 

 some three hundred yards. A beautiful susjpension bridge now connects 

 the upper plateau of the town with a point equally high on the oppo- 

 site bank, the suspending cables of wire being firmly fastened iij th^ 

 massive rock on either side, and passing over two neat piers of Jura 

 limestone. This bridge was planned by an engineer of Lyons, but exe- 

 cuted by Swiss workmen, and entirely with Swiss materials. The road- 

 way is eight hundred and ninety-six feet in length between the piers, 

 or two and a half times as long as the elegant structure of the same 

 kind now erected over the Schuylkill at Philadelphia, and once and a 

 half as long as the celebrated chain bridge over the Menai Strait in 

 Wales. The road-way is suspended at the height of one hundred and 

 seventy-four feet above the Saariue, and looking up from the valley the 

 curved wire ropes which support the whole resemble nun^e cords pro- 

 jected against the sky, vrhile the upright wires by which the platform 

 hangs appear like cobwebs. The trials to v/hich this structure was sub- 

 jected by the. authorities before receiving it were many and severe, the 

 hardest that of marching across it two thousand i)eople keeping ste[) to 

 music, the measured cadence producing a continually increasing vibra- 

 tion, and trying the strength to the utmost. The successful completion 

 of this work and its durability have led to the erection of a second of 

 the same kind at another i^oint of the valley ; so that this little town of 

 nine thousand inhabitants may novv' boast of two of the most beautiful 

 bridges in the world. 



Berne, the capital of the largest and most populous canton of the 

 Swiss confederacy, is, in appearance, thoroughly a Swiss town of the 

 old school. Its site is a bold promontory, like that of Friburg, nearly 

 surrounded by the Aar, a. tributary of the Ehine. The appearance of 

 Berne is very quaint. Entering it irom the south, three gateways are 

 passed in succession, at intervals from eacli other, beneath towers which 

 mark so many epochs iu the extension of the walled town. Before the 



