nd we proceeded
forthwith. This was the fourth time I had crossed the lake of Brientz,
but the first in which I visited the justly celebrated falls, towards
which we now steered on quitting the shore.

Our companion proved to be a merry fellow, and well disposed to work his
passage by his wit. I have long been cured of the notion "that the name
of an American is a passport all over Europe," and have learned to
understand in its place, that, on the contrary, it is thought to be
_prima facie_ evidence of vulgarity, ignorance, and conceit; nor do I
think that the French, as a nation, have any particular regard for us;
but knowing the inherent dislike of a Frenchman for an Englishman, and
that the new-fangled fraternity, arising out of the trading-principle
government, only renders, to a disinterested looker on, the old
antipathies more apparent, I made an occasion, indirectly, to let our
new associate understand that we came from the other side of the
Atlantic. This produced an instantaneous change in his manner, and it
was now that he began to favour us with specimens of his humour.
Notwithstanding all this facetiousness, I soon felt suspicion that the
man was an _employe_ of the Carlists, and that his business in
Switzerland was connected with political plots. He betrayed himself, at
the very moment when he was most anxious to make us think him a mere
amateur of scenery: I cannot tell you how, but still so clearly, as to
strike all of us, precisely in the same way.

The Giesbach is a succession of falls, whose water comes from a
glacier, and which are produced by the sinuosities of the leaps and
inclined planes of a mountain side, aided by rocks and precipices. It is
very beautiful, and may well rank as the third or fourth cascade of
Switzerland, for variety, volume of water, and general effect. A family
has established itself among the rocks, to pick up a penny by making
boxes of larch, and singing the different _ranz des raches_. Your
mountain music does not do so well, when it has an air so seriously
premeditated, and one soon gels to be a little _blase_ on the subject of
entertainments of this sort, which can only succeed once, and then with
the novice. Alas! I have actually stood before the entrance of the
cathedral at Rouen, and the strongest feeling of the moment was that of
surprise at the manner in which my nerves had thrilled, when it was
first seen. I do not believe that childhood, with its unsophistication