"quaint and olden." Being situated at the junction of the frontiers of
France, Germany, and Switzerland, it has a considerable trade and
evinces much commercial life. It has many admirable institutions, a
public library which contains about a hundred thousand volumes, and a
justly famed university which also has a library of two hundred thousand
volumes. The town hall is a curious old structure three centuries old
and of the Gothic style. Most cities have some specialty in
manufacturing, and Bale is not without its peculiarity in this respect.
It consists of the production of silk ribbons of exquisite finish and in
great variety, which find their way to distant and profitable markets.

There is an admirably arranged picture gallery and art museum here,
principally remarkable for the number of paintings by the younger
Holbein, but containing, also, many other fine works of the modern
painters. The cathedral dates back nearly nine hundred years, or, to be
exact, to 1010. It was originally of the Byzantine order, but has been
repaired and added to until it has assumed a Gothic shape. The material
is red sandstone. It has two lofty towers, and the portal is ornamented
with mounted statues of St. George and St. Martin. About six miles from
Bale, on the river near its confluence with the Ergolz, is Augst, upon
the site of the great Roman city of Augusta Rauracorum, founded in the
reign of Augustus. From these ruins have been taken many valuable relics
which are deposited in the museum of Bale.

From Bale we take the railway southward to Lausanne, situated on the
borders of Lake Geneva, where we find a population numbering some
thirty-three thousand. This city occupies a beautiful and commanding
situation overlooking the lake and valley. Its streets are hilly and
irregular, but are well kept and cleanly. The view from the high points
of the town is very fine, the Jura Mountains enclosing a portion of the
landscape, which is vine-clad and varied in its systematic cultivation.
If we stop at the Hotel Gibbon, which is a good house, we shall see in
its garden overlooking the lake, the spot where the historian Gibbon
completed his "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Lausanne is a
delightful summer resort, cool and healthful.

Geneva, with a population of about fifty thousand, is located on the
same lake a short journey southward, being one of the largest and
wealthiest towns in Switzerland. It is situated at the point where