Some of the peasant young men went
without coats, and with the shirt sleeves fluted; and others wore
butternut-colored suits, the coats of which I can recommend to those
who like the swallow-tailed variety. I suppose one would take a man
into the opera in London, where he cannot go in anything but that
sort. The buttons on the backs of these came high up between the
shoulders, and the tails did not reach below the waistband. There is a
kind of rooster of similar appearance. I saw some of these young men
from the country, with their sweethearts, leaning over the stone
parapet, and looking into the pit of the bear-garden, where the city
bears walk round, or sit on their hind legs for bits of bread thrown
to them, or douse themselves in the tanks, or climb the dead trees set
up for their gambols. Years ago they ate up a British officer who fell
in; and they walk round now ceaselessly, as if looking for another.
But one cannot expect good taste in a bear.

If you would see how charming a farming country can be, drive out on
the highway towards Thun. For miles it is well shaded with giant
trees of enormous trunks, and a clean sidewalk runs by the fine road.
On either side, at little distances from the road, are picturesque
cottages and rambling old farmhouses peeping from the trees and vines
and flowers. Everywhere flowers, before the house, in the windows,
at the railway stations. But one cannot stay forever even in
delightful Berne, with its fountains and terraces, and girls on red
cushions in the windows, and noble trees and flowers, and its stately
federal Capitol, and its bears carved everywhere in stone and wood,
and its sunrises, when all the Bernese Alps lie like molten silver in
the early light, and the clouds drift over them, now hiding, now
disclosing, the enchanting heights.

HEARING THE FREIBURG ORGAN--FIRST SIGHT OF LAKE LEMAN

Freiburg, with its aerial suspension-bridges, is also on a peninsula,
formed by the Sarine; with its old walls, old watch-towers, its
piled-up old houses, and streets that go upstairs, and its delicious
cherries, which you can eat while you sit in the square by the famous
linden-tree, and wait for the time when the organ will be played in
the cathedral. For all the world stops at Freiburg to hear and enjoy
the great organ,--all except the self-satisfied English clergyman,
who says he does n't care much for it, and would rather go about town
and see the old walls; and the young