ade of brown nutwood, gave an air of
warmth and elegance to the apartment. All other parts of the house were
equally neat and orderly. The hostess greeted me with, "Be you
welcome!" and set about preparing dinner, as it was now nearly noon. In
the pauses of her work she came into the room to talk, and was very
ready to give information concerning the country and people.

There were already a little table and three plates in the oriel, and
while I was occupied with my own dinner I did not particularly notice
the three persons who sat down to theirs. The coarseness and harshness
of their dialect, however, presently struck my ear. It was pure
Appenzell, a German made up of singular and puzzling elisions, and with
a very strong guttural _k_ and _g_, in addition to the _ch_. Some
knowledge of the Alemannic dialect of the Black Forest enabled me to
understand the subject of conversation, which, to my surprise, was--the
study of the classics! It was like hearing an Irishman talk of Shelley's
"Witch of Atlas" in the broadest Tipperary brogue. I turned and looked
at the persons. They were well-dressed young men, evidently the best
class of Appenzellers,--possibly tutors in the schools of Trogen. Their
speech in no wise differed from that of the common herdsmen, except that
they were now and then obliged to use words which, being unknown to the
people, had escaped mutilation. I entered into conversation, to
ascertain whether true German was not possible to them, since they must
needs read and write the language; but, although they understood me,
they could only partly, and with evident difficulty, lay aside their own
patois. I found this to be the case everywhere throughout the Canton. It
is a circumstance so unusual, that, in spite of myself, associating a
rude dialect with ignorance, I was always astonished when those who
spoke it showed culture and knowledge of the world.

The hostess provided me with a guide and pack-bearer, and I set out on
foot across the country towards Hundwyl. This guide, Jakob by name, made
me imagine that I had come among a singular people. He was so short that
he could easily walk under my arm; his gait was something between a
roll and a limp, although he stoutly disclaimed lameness; he laughed
whenever I spoke to him, and answered in a voice which seemed the
cuneiform character put into sound. First, there was an explosion of
gutturals, and then came a loud trumpet-tone, something like the _Honk!
ho