fterwards they
made the bear their emblem. They painted the figure of the animal on
their standards. They made images and effigies of him to ornament their
streets, and squares, and fountains, and public buildings. They stamped
the image of him on their coins; and, to this day, you see figures of
the bear every where in Berne. Carved images of Bruin in every attitude
are for sale in the shops; and, not contented with these lifeless
symbols, the people of Berne for a long time had a pit, or den, similar
to those in the Garden of Plants at Paris, where they kept living
specimens for a long time.[4] This den was just without the gates of the
city. The guide book which Rollo read as he was coming into Berne, to
see what it said about the city, stated that there was one bear in the
garden at that time; and he wished very much to go and see it, but he
did not have a very convenient opportunity.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: See Rollo in Paris for an account of these dens for bears
in the Garden of Plants.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE VALLEY OF THE AAR.

After spending several hours in Berne and wondering greatly at the many
strange things which they saw there, Mr. George and Rollo took their
passage in another diligence for Thun, which was a town still farther in
towards the heart of Switzerland on the way to Interlachen. It took only
three or four hours to go to Thun. The town, they found, was small,
compact, surrounded by walls, and very delightfully situated at the end
of a long lake, which extended from that point very far in among the
mountains. There was one thing very remarkable about Thun, at least it
seemed very remarkable to Rollo, although he found afterwards that it
was a common thing in Switzerland; and that was, that the hotels were
all outside the town.

There was reason in this; for the town--though it was a very curious and
romantic place, with a church on a terraced hill at one end of it,
surrounded with a beautifully ornamented church yard, with seats and
bowers here and there at the corners of it, which overlooked the country
and commanded charming views of the lake and mountains--was still, in
the main, very contracted and confined, and hotels would not be
pleasantly situated in it. A little beyond the town, however, on the
margin of the lake, was a delightful region of gardens and pleasure
grounds, with four or five very handsome hotels among them. Mr. George
and Rollo stopped to dine at one of these h