1831.] Recollections of Scenes and Cities. 165 



thing unusuil ; and naturally on inquiring the cause of what I saw, 1 was 

 told that Felix Zerner had returned. It is the custom in the Engadine 

 for youths to go from their native valleys in quest of fortune, and to re- 

 turn when they have found it— and Felix Zerner was one of those sons 

 of adventure who had returned rich to his native town ; it was only the 

 evening before that he had arrived at Fettam, and that day an entertam- 

 ment was to be given at his expense to many of the villagers. The 

 houses of the Engadine are of extraordinary size, and in a large upper 

 room the table was laid out : the feast was fixed for raid-day, and I was 

 invited by FeHx Zerner himself to partake of it. The table was laid 

 with a cloth that would have done credit to a nobleman's feast, and 

 forms were set round, upon which upwards of forty Grisons took their 

 places — Felix Zerner at the head, and myself on his right hand. Per- 

 haps the reader would like to know what were the dishes at this Grison 

 feast, — there were capons without end, enormous pieces of pork, several 

 preparations of chamois, cheese scattered here and tliere, and pastry in 

 extraordinary abundance ; and as for drink, a bottle of pale-coloured 

 wine was placed at the side of each guest. 



The entertainer, who spoke French well, and English a little, told me 

 that he left his native town when he was seventeen ; and that he carried 

 with him twenty crowns. He went first to Lyons, where, by paying 

 eight crowns to the master of a caffee, he got the place of under- waiter ; 

 here he picked up a little money and more knowledge, and at the end ot 

 a year, he left Lyons for Paris, with forty crowns in his pocket. There 

 he hired himself to a restaurateur in the Rue de St. Denis, paying twenty 

 crowns for his place ; and after remaining there till he was twenty-two, 

 he found himself in possession of fifteen hundred francs. With these, 

 he left Paris and set up a restaurant at Orleans, in which he continued 

 twelve years, having in that time amassed no less a sum than forty 

 thousand francs ; he was then thirty-three, and during the seven years 

 that had elapsed since that time, he had travelled to Russia, Germany, 

 and England, in the capacity of a valet and interpreter, and he had now 

 returned to Fettam with a hundred thousand francs (£4000 sterling). 

 This sketch may serve for the outline of the career of almost all those 

 sons of the Grison valleys who leave their homes in quest of fortune, and 

 return after having found it. 



After a little while, the company became uproarious ; political liberty 

 was the theme of discourse and congratulation ; for the Grisons suppose 

 they are the only free people upon earth ; — but the conversation being 

 carried on in the old Provengale, it was unintelligible to me, and I retired 

 below, where I was introduced to the grisette whom Felix Zerner had 

 already made choice of for a bride. He must have been a true Grison 

 at heart, to have chosen any thing so homely, after having spent half a 

 lifetime among the piquantes Orleanoiscs. 



The primitive scenes which I have witnessed among the Grisons, recal 

 to my mind the simplicity of life among a race of mountaineers, who in- 

 habit that range which divides Alsasce from Franche Comic, and is called 

 the Fosgcs mountains. Europe is ransacked for the picturesque ; — but 

 the department of the Vosges is passed by ; and yet I do not know of 

 any place in Europe, where it is to be found in so much perfection. In 

 one feature of the picturesque it is jieculiarly rich, — the ruins with which 

 it every wliere abounds. Scarcely is there an isolated eminence that is 

 not crowned by the ivied walls of one of those strong-liolds, that in 



