dly farm, and the happy husband of the
pretty Sennerin. But I did not remain long enough to know much of the
progress of his affairs; for although it took him half the summer to
make me and two similar Arks, we were readily disposed of at once, on
his return to the village. The toy merchant made his yearly visit then,
and carried us all off with a host of other articles of similar
manufacture.

"I hope I may be excused for a little pardonable vanity in describing
our personal appearance to you; for, in common with you all, I have been
also divested by time and rough usage of most of my early charms. When I
was first springing from beneath the skilful fingers of Fritz, I was the
prettiest specimen of a model Swiss cottage set upon a boat floor, that
ever was made. My walls were formed of the pretty very white species of
wood, used by these deft shepherd carvers, and light, graceful openwork
patterns were formed on them, by delicately cut cross pieces of a darker
shade. The roof, with wide projecting eaves, after the regular chalet
pattern, had its cross beams, and here and there the usual stones, laid
on it, which, in the original structures, are placed there to add some
weight of resistance to the furious mountain gales that come sweeping
down the deep gorges. There was a row of windows, which were really cut
out and glazed, through which you might obtain a view of the jumble of
animals huddled together inside. A perforated gallery of light wood ran
all round the walls half way up, from whence a staircase, general to
these Swiss cottages, led down, and in this case terminated on the floor
of the flat wooden boat, which of rather unusual depth, formed the
bottom of the Ark.

"As to my contents, they were of a rather miscellaneous character, for
although Fritz had a natural love for animals, and considerable success
in copying those with which he was acquainted, his knowledge of the more
distant creation was limited to the quaint old woodcuts in his mother's
Bible, in which they were drawn with more spirit and imagination than
correctness. And so Fritz's horses, oxen, pigs, sheep, dogs, and goats
were characteristic and good, but his elephant and camel, though
original, were eccentric, to use a mild term. They were all executed,
however, with great pains, and the wood from which they were carved was
specially selected with a view to their colour and marks. Thus, for
example, the tiger, though his outline and shape were r