en taking a
table-spoonful, and six or seven bottles per man; and so it proved, for
they had hardly finished the last case before they found that the
medicine acted very powerfully as a cathartic; the whole banditti were
simultaneously attacked with a most violent cholera; they disappeared
one by one; at last the guards could contain themselves no longer, and
they went off too. The two prisoners, perceiving this, rose from the
ground, mounted the horses and galloped off as fast as they could. They
gave notice to the authorities of the first town they arrived at, not
four miles distant, and a large body of cavalry were sent out
immediately. The effects of the medicine had been so violent that the
whole of the banditti were found near to the spot where they had drunk
the king's health, in such a state of suffering and exhaustion that they
could make no efforts to escape, and were all secured, and eventually
hung.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

Lausanne.
I recollect some one saying, that in walking out you should never look
up in the air, but always on the ground, as, by the former practice, you
were certain never to find any thing, although you might by the latter.
So if you will not enter into conversation, you are not likely to obtain
much information; whereas if you do, you will always chance to obtain
some, even from the quarters the least promising. I was seated on the
box of the carriage, with the Swiss _voiturier_--and asked him, "If it
were not a lucrative profession?"

"It may appear so to you, sir," replied he, "from the price paid for the
horses, but it is not so. All we gain, is in five months in the year;
the seven months of winter, we have to feed our horses without
employment for them, that is, generally speaking."

"But have you no employment for them in the winter?"

"Yes, we put them into the waggons and draw wood and stone, which about
pays their expenses. If you are known and trusted, you will be employed
to transport wine, which is more profitable; but that _voiturier_ who
can find sufficient employment for his horses during the winter to pay
their keeping, considers himself very fortunate."

"When you do make money, what do you do with it?"

"If we can buy a bit of land we do, but most people, if they can, buy a
house, which pays better. I prefer land."

"There is not much territory in Switzerland, and land is not often for
s