nk!_ of wild geese. Yet, when he placed his squat figure behind a
tavern table, and looked at me quietly with his mouth shut, he was both
handsome and distinguished in appearance. We walked two miles together
before I guessed how to unravel his speech. It is almost as difficult to
learn a dialect as a new language, and but for the key which the
Alemannic gave me, I should have been utterly at sea. Who, for instance,
could ever guess that _a' Ma' g'si_, pronounced "ama_x_i" (the _x_
representing a desperate guttural), really stands for _einen Mann
gewesen_?

The road was lively with country people, many of whom were travelling in
our own direction. Those we met invariably addressed us with "God greet
you!" or "_Guaet-ti!_" which it was easy to translate into "Good day!"
Some of the men were brilliant in scarlet jackets, with double rows of
square silver buttons, and carried swords under their arms; they were
bound for the _Landsgemeinde_, whither the law of the Middle Ages still
obliges them to go armed. When I asked Jakob if he would accompany me as
far as Hundwyl, he answered, "I can't; I daren't go there without a
black dress, and my sword, and a cylinder hat."

The wild _Tobels_, opening downward to the Lake of Constance, which now
shimmered afar through the gaps, were left behind us, and we passed
westward along a broken, irregular valley. The vivid turf was sown with
all the flowers of spring,--primrose, violet, buttercup, anemone, and
veronica,--faint, but sweetest-odored, and the heralds of spring in all
lands. So I gave little heed to the weird lines of cloud, twisting
through and between the severed pyramids of the Sentis, as if weaving
the woof of storms. The scenery was entirely lovely, and so novel in
its population and the labor which, in the long course of time, had
effaced its own hard traces, turning the mountains into lifted lawns and
parks of human delight, that my own slow feet carried me through it too
rapidly. We must have passed a slight water-shed somewhere, though I
observed none; for the road gradually fell towards another region of
deeply cloven _Tobels_, with snowy mountains beyond. The green of the
landscape was so brilliant and uniform, under the cold gray sky, that it
almost destroyed the perspective, which rather depended on the houses
and the scattered woods of fir.

On a ridge, overlooking all this region, was the large village of
Teufen, nearly as grand as Trogen in its architecture.