ence
have sprung up those various sects in the curative art which, professing
to treat rationally and openly what hitherto has been shrouded in
mysticism and deception, have multiplied themselves into grape cures,
milk cures, and water cures, and Heaven knows how many other strange
devices "to cheat the ills that flesh is heir to."

We are not going to quarrel with any of these new religions; we forgive
them much for the simple service they have done, in withdrawing their
followers from the confined air, the laborious life, the dreary toil,
or the drearier dissipation of cities, to the fresh and invigorating
breezes, the cheerful quietude, and the simple pleasures of a country
existence.

We care little for the regimen or the ritual, be it lentils or asses'
milk, Tyrol grapes, or pure water, so that it be administered on the
breezy mountain side, or in the healthful air of some lofty "Plateau"
away from the cares, the ambitions, the strife, and the jar-rings of the
active world, with no seductions of dissipation, neither the prolonged
stimulants, nor the late hours of fashion.

It was a good thought, too, to press the picturesque into the service
of health, and show the world what benefits may flow, even to nerves
and muscles, from elevated thoughts and refined pleasures. All this
is, however, purely digressionary, since we are more concerned with the
social than the medical aspects of Hydropathy, and so we come back at
once to Como. The sun has just risen, on a fresh morning in autumn,
over the tall mountain east of the lake, making the whole western shore,
where the Villa d'Este stands, all a-glitter with his rays. Every rock,
and crag, and promontory are picked out with a sharp distinctness, every
window is a-blaze, and streams of light shoot into many a grove and
copse, as though glad to pierce their way into cool spots where the
noonday sun himself can never enter. On the opposite shore, a dim and
mysterious shadow wraps every object, faint outlines of tower and palace
loom through the darkness, and a strange hazy depth encloses the whole
scene. Such is the stillness, however, that the opening of a casement,
or the plash of a stone in the water, is heard across the lake,
and voices come from the mysterious gloom with an effect almost
preternaturally striking.

On a terrace high up above the lake, sheltered with leafy fig-trees and
prickly pears, there walks a gentleman, sniffing the morning air, and
evidently