fice, since it might give me some further insight into the
condition of the old Swiss nobility. Accordingly we applied for
admission, and obtained it without difficulty.

The Swiss castles, with few exceptions, are built on the breasts, or
spurs, of mountains. The immediate foundation is usually a rock, and the
sites were generally selected on account of the difficulties of the
approach. This latter peculiarity, however, does not apply so rigidly to
Blonay as to most of the other holds of the country, for the rock which
forms its base serves for little else than a solid foundation. I presume
one of the requisites of such a site was the difficulty or
impossibility of undermining the walls, a mode of attack that existed
long before gunpowder was known.

The buildings of Blonay are neither extensive nor very elaborate. We
entered by a modest gateway in a retired corner, and found ourselves at
once in a long, narrow, irregular court. On the left was a _corps de
batiment_, that contained most of the sleeping apartments, and a few of
the others, with the offices; in front was a still older wing, in which
was the knight's hall, and one or two other considerable rooms; and on
the right was the keep, an old solid tower, that was originally the
nucleus and parent of all the others, as well as a wing that is now
degraded to the duties of a storehouse. These buildings form the circuit
of the court, and complete the edifice; for the side next the mountain,
or that by which we entered, had little besides the ends of the two
lateral buildings and the gate. The latter was merely a sort of
chivalrous back-door, for there was another between the old tower and
the building of the knight's hall, of more pretension, and which was
much larger. The great gate opens on a small elevated terrace, that is
beautifully shaded by fine trees, and which commands a view, second, I
feel persuaded, to but few on earth. I do not know that it is so
perfectly exquisite as that we got from the house of Cardinal Rufo, at
Naples, and yet it has many admirable features that were totally wanting
to the Neapolitan villa. I esteem these two views as much the best that
it has ever been my good fortune to gaze at from any dwelling, though
the beauties of both are, as a matter of course, more or less shared by
all the houses in their respective neighbourhoods. The great
carriage-road, as great carriage-roads go on such a mountain-side, comes
up to this gate, though