hough the fabrics woven by the people are known to
the world of fashion in all countries, few indeed are the travellers who
turn aside from the near highways. The landlord in St. Gall told me that
his guests were almost wholly commercial travellers, and my subsequent
experience among an unspoiled people convinced me that I was almost a
pioneer in the paths I traversed.

It was the last Saturday in April, and at least a month too soon for the
proper enjoyment of the journey; but on the following day the
_Landsgemeinde_, or Assembly of the People, was to be held at Hundwyl,
in the manner and with the ceremonies which have been annually observed
for the last three or four hundred years. This circumstance determined
the time of my visit. I wished to study the character of an Alpine
democracy, so pure that it has not yet adopted even the representative
principle,--to be with and among a portion of the Swiss people at a time
when they are most truly themselves, rather than look at them through
the medium of conventional guides, on lines of travel which have now
lost everything of Switzerland except the scenery.

There was bad weather behind, and, I feared, bad weather before me. "The
sun will soon drive away these mists," said the postilion, "and when we
get up yonder, you will see what a prospect there will be." In the rich
valley of St. Gall, out of which we mounted, the scattered houses and
cloud-like belts of blossoming cherry-trees almost hid the green; but it
sloped up and down, on either side of the rising road, glittering with
flowers and dew, in the flying gleams of sunshine. Over us hung masses
of gray cloud, which stretched across the valley, hooded the opposite
hills, and sank into a dense mass over the Lake of Constance. As we
passed through this belt, and rejoiced in the growing clearness of the
upper sky, I saw that my only prospect would be in cloud-land. After
many windings, along which the blossoms and buds of the fruit-trees
indicated the altitude as exactly as any barometer, we finally reached
the crest of the topmost height, the frontier of Appenzell and the
battle-field of Voeglisegg, where the herdsman first measured his
strength with the soldier and the monk, and was victorious.

"Whereabouts was the battle fought?" I asked the postilion.

"Up and down, and all around here," said he, stopping the carriage at
the summit.

I stood up and looked to the north. Seen from above, the mist had
gathered in