ficient acquaintance with his friend's opinions to
understand his silence.

The next group that approached was composed of those who lived by the
products of the dairy. Two cowherds led their beasts, the monotonous tones
of whose heavy bells formed a deep and rural accompaniment to the music
that regularly preceded each party, while a train of dairy-girls, and of
young mountaineers of the class that tend the herds in the summer
pasturages, succeeded, a car loaded with the implements of their calling
bringing up the rear. In this little procession, no detail of equipment
was wanting. The milking-stool was strapped to the body of the dairyman;
one had the peculiarly constructed pail in his hand, while another bore
at his back the deep wooden vessel in which milk is carried up and down
the precipices to the chalet. When they reached the sodded arena, the men
commenced milking the cows, the girls set in motion the different
processes of the dairy, and the whole united in singing the Ranz des
Vaches of the district. It is generally and erroneously believed that
there is a particular air which is known throughout Switzerland by this
name, whereas in truth nearly every canton has its own song of the
mountains, each varying from the others in the notes, as well as in the
words, and we might almost add in the language. The Ranz des Vaches of
Vaud is in the patois of the country, a dialect that is composed of words
of Greek and Latin origin, mingled on a foundation of Celtic. Like our own
familiar tune, which was first bestowed in derision, and which a glorious
history has enabled us to continue in pride, the words are far too
numerous to be repeated. We shall, however, give the reader a single verse
of a song which Swiss feeling has rendered so celebrated, and which is
said often to induce the mountaineer in foreign service to desert the
mercenary standard and the tame scenes of towns; to return to the
magnificent nature that haunts his waking imagination and embellishes his
dreams. It will at once be perceived that the power of this song is
chiefly to be found in the recollections to which it gives birth, by
recalling the simple charms of rural life, and by reviving the indelible
impressions that are made by nature wherever she has laid her hand on the
face of the earth with the same majesty as in Switzerland.

Le zermailli dei Colombiette
De bon matin, se san leha.--

REFRAIN.
Ha, ah! ha, ah!
Liauba! Liauba! por