At other times, some portion of the vast field of snow, or rather snowy ice, gliding gently away, exposed to view a new surface of purer white than the first, and the cast-off drapery, gathering in long folds, either fell at once down the precipice, or disappeared behind some intervening ridge, which the sameness of colour rendered invisible, and was again seen soon after in another direction, shooting out of some narrow channel a cataract of white dust, which, observed through a telescope, was, however, found to be composed of broken fragments of ice, or compact snow, many of them sufficient to overwhelm a village, if there had been any in the valley where they fell.

"Seated on their châlet's roof, the ladies forgot that they were cold, wet, bruised, and hungry, and the cup of still-smoking café-au-lait stood still in their hand, while waiting in breathless suspense for the next avalanche, wondering equally at the deathlike silence intervening between each, and the thundering crash that followed. I must own, that while we shut our ears, the mere sight might dwindle down to the effect of a fall of snow from the roof of a house; but when the potent sound was heard along the whole range of many miles, when the time of awful suspense between the fall and the crash was measured, the imagination taking flight, outstripped all bounds at once, and went beyond the mighty reality itself."

The avalanches of winter are occasioned by the masses of snow accumulating on the slopes of the mountains, where it is too dry to attach firmly; and when the weight of snow exceeds the supporting resistance of the surface of the ground, it slides off into the valley below with a suddenness and violence resembling those of a cannon-ball.

When the avalanches are not of very great size, and men and cattle are overwhelmed, then, as the air contained in the interstices of the snow is sufficient to support life, so the animal heat melts the snow, and thus prepares for their extrication; but when they are of very large size, unless speedy succour be afforded, men and cattle will inevitably perish from cold. Those which occur at the end of the winter, and during the spring, are occasioned by the rolling or sliding of masses of snow which have become compact and adhesive and are detached from the higher regions by a thaw, the force of their own weight, or any other cause. Such a mass rolls down the declivities, increasing by the adherence of the snow with which it meets, and it then precipitates itself with frightful violence into the lower districts, dragging with it large pieces of rock, overwhelming and destroying not merely houses but villages, and uprooting entire forests of trees.

In the spring it is, therefore, necessary to take special precautions in the passes of the Alps. Thus, if a pistol be fired off before passing the most dangerous spots, the agitation of the air usually causes the fall of the masses most likely to become detached, and the path may, consequently, be traversed in safety. In perilous places it is necessary to set out early in the morning, before the sun has softened the snow, and to proceed as quickly as possible. It is also recommended that persons who are compelled to make such a journey, should travel in company, and should keep at proper distances from each other, that if on some an avalanche should fall, the others may be able to afford relief. At such times the bells are taken from the horses lest their tinklings should occasion some catastrophe; and the smallest sound will cause a fall of snow. It is even said that pushing with the feet against the edge of a beginning cliff, in a bed of snow, is often sufficient to determine the fall of an avalanche.

An avalanche proved fatal during the ascent of Mont Blanc by Dr. Hamel, a Russian physician, in 1820. The party had breakfasted on the Grand Plateau; they then traversed the plain, and began to ascend the highest steeps of the mountain called among the guides La Calotte de Mont Blanc. In proceeding obliquely upwards, they approached a dark rock deeply imbedded in the snow; when the catastrophe occurred, as thus related by Julien Devouassou, one of the guides:

"At the moment of the disaster, the leading guide was Pierre Carriez; the second, Pierre Balmat; the third, Auguste Tairraz (these three perished); the fourth, myself;

then next to me, Marie Coutet (our captain); then behind were five other guides, with Dr. Hamel, and two English gentlemen. Suddenly, I heard a sort of rushing sound,

not very loud; but I had not time to think about it, as I heard the sound, at the same instant that the avalanche was upon me. I felt my feet slide from beneath me, and saw the three first men falling on the snow with their feet foremost. In falling, I cried out loudly, 'We are all lost!' I tried to support myself by planting the ice-pole below me, but in vain. The weight of snow forced me over the baton, and it slipped out of my hand. I rolled down like a ball in the mass of loose snow. At the foot of the slope was a yawning chasm, to the edge of which I was rapidly descending. Three times I saw the light, as I was rolling down the slope; and when we were all on the very edge of the chasm, I saw the leg of one of my comrades just as he pitched down into the crevice. I think it must have been poor Auguste, for it looked black, and I remember that Auguste had on black gaiters. This was the last I saw of my three companions, who fell headlong into the gulf, and were never seen or heard of again.

"At this moment I was just falling into the same crevice, and can but confusedly understand why I did not; but I think I owe my life to a very singular circumstance. Dr. Hamel had given me a barometer to carry; this was fastened round my waist by a strong girdle. I fancy that at the moment this long barometer got beneath and across me, for the girdle suddenly broke, and I made a sort of bound as I fell; and so, instead of following my poor comrades, I was pushed over into another crevice close by that in which they were killed. This chasm was already partly filled with snow; I do not think that I fell more than fifty feet down, alighting on a soft cushion of snow, and a good deal covered with it above. I suppose, before tumbling into the chasm, we slid down 150 to 200 feet; but I cannot tell, for it seemed to be not more than a minute from the time I heard the noise of the avalanche above me, till I found myself lying deep down in a narrow crack."

Coutet replied to a question:

"I should fancy I slid down near 400 feet, and tumbled headlong about sixty feet." When Julien was asked what his thoughts were during his fall: his reply was,-" While I was rolling I said to myself, Farewell, my wife and my children!' and I asked pardon of God. I absolutely thought nothing of the others."

"On coming to myself," continued Julien, "I was better off than I expected. I was lying on my back, heels upwards, with my head resting against the icy walls of the crack, and could see some light and a little of the blue sky through two openings over my head. I was greatly afraid some of my limbs had been broken, but I had sunk into the mass of soft snow, and though bruised by falling against the sides of the ice, yet nothing was broken, and in a few moments I contrived to get up on my fect. On looking up, I saw a little above me a man's head projecting from the snow. It was Marie Coutet (our captain); he was quite covered with snow up to the neck, his arms pinioned down, and his face quite blue, as if he was nearly suffocated.

"He called to me in a low voice, to come and help him. I found a pole in the crevice (I think not one belonging to those who perished, but another); I went to Coutet, dug round him with the baton, and in a few minutes got Coutet clear out of the snow, and we sat down together. We remained in silence looking at each other for a minute or two, thinking that all the rest were killed. Then I began to crawl up on the snow that partly filled the crack, and in climbing up I saw above David Coutet, who was crying, and saying, 'My poor brother is lost!' I said 'No; he is here below' (for Coutet was climbing behind Julien, and was not seen at first); and I asked, Are the others all up there?' They answered, That there were three missing.' I asked, 'Who they were?' and the answer was 'Pierre Carriez, Pierre Balmat, and Auguste Tairraz.' I then asked, if the gentlemen had received any injury?' and the reply was, 'No.' Then the guides helped us to get up about fourteen feet on the solid ice. They threw us down a little axe to cut steps, and put down their poles, and we two got out. We all

went to search for the three others; we sounded with our poles, we cried aloud, we called them by their names, put down a long pole into the snow, and listened-but all was in vain, we heard not the slightest sound. We spent two hours in this melancholy search, and by this time were well nigh frozen, for the wind was bitterly cold, our poles covered with ice, our shoes frozen as hard as horn. We were compelled to descend; we hurried down in perfect silence, and returned to the inn late at night." The avalanche, fatal in this instance, was supposed to be 200 feet in height, and 150 in breadth.

"The peculiar feature in the condition of the Swiss population," says Mr. Laing, the great charm of Switzerland, next to its natural scenery, is the air of well-being, the neatness, the sense of propriety imprinted on the people, their dwellings, their plots of land. They have a kind of Robinson Crusoe industry about their houses and little properties; they are perpetually building, repairing, altering, or improving something about their tenements. The spirit of the proprietor is not to be mistaken in all that one sees in Switzerland. Some cottages, for instance, are adorned with long texts from Scripture, painted on or burnt into, the wood in front over the door; others, especially in the Simmenthal and Haslethal, with the pedigree of the builder and owner. These show sometimes that the property has been held for two hundred years by the same family. The modern taste of the proprietor shows itself in new windows, or additions to the old original picturesque dwelling, which, with its immense projecting roof, sheltering or shading all these successive little additions, looks like a hen sitting with a brood of chickens under her wings.

"None of the women are exempt from field-work, not even in the families of very substantial peasant proprietors, whose houses are furnished as well as any country-houses with us. All work as regularly as the poorest male individual. The land, however, being their own, they have a choice of work, and the hard work is generally done by the men. The felling and bringing home wood for fuel; the mowing grass, generally, but not always; the carrying manure on their back; the handling horses and cows, digging, and such heavy labour, is man's work:-the binding the vine to a pole with a straw, which is done three times in the course of its growth; the making the hay, the pruning the vine, twitching off the superfluous leaves and tendrils,-these lighter, yet necessary jobs to be done about vineyards or orchards, form the woman's work. But females, both in France and Switzerland, appear to have a far more important rôle in the family, among the lower and middle classes, than with us. The female, though not exempt from out-door work, and even hard work, undertakes the thinking and managing department in the family affairs, and the husband is but the executive officer. The female is, in fact, very remarkably superior in manners, habits, tact, and intelligence to the husband, in almost every family of the middle or lower classes in Switzerland. One is surprised to see the wife of such good, even genteel manners, and sound sense, and altogether such a superior person to her station, and the husband very often a mere lout. The hen is the better bird all over Switzerland.'

CHAPTER III.

THE JURA MOUNTAINS- -CROSSED TO ST. CERGUES-NYON-FIRST SIGHT OF THE LAKE OF GENEVA THE CITY-ITS EDIFICES-ISLAND OF ROUSSEAU-HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS OF GENEVA ITS EMINENT PERSONS.

If the tourist would reach Switzerland from France, he will cross the Jura mountains, a chain of central Europe, usually classed with the Alpine system. It is a range of broad limestone, swelling out at several points to the elevation of more than 5,000 feet above the sea-level, and corresponds exactly with our oolitic system. Luxuriant pine forests clothe the Jura from the base to the summit, and in this respect it differs from the other and loftier mountains of Switzerland. Now these forests appear advancing as so many isolated promontories and outports; then they are grouped into a range of hills, or lift on high their serrated and precipitous ridges; but towards their base, they are variegated by intricate and romantic valleys, and labyrinths of rich meadow land, which strikingly relieve and ornament the sombre forests, covering, as with a rugged mantle of vegetation, the whole mountainous chain.

The traveller, whirled onwards towards Switzerland by the locomotive to Chalons, rumbles across the Jura mountains by diligence; his feelings, meanwhile, being probably strangely excited by the objects around, and especially in anticipation. Rousseau says, at such a time :-"The nearer I approached Switzerland, the more was I excited. The moment, when from the heights of the Jura, I discovered the lake of Geneva, was a moment of extasy and ravishment. The sight of my country, of that country so beloved by me, where torrents of pleasure had inundated my heart; the air of the Alps, so healthful and so pure; the sweet air of my native land, more delicious than the perfumes of the East; that rich and fertile land; that unique country, the most beautiful on which the eye of man ever rested! charming residence to which I had found no equal in the circuit of the world! the sight of a happy and free people! the mildness of the season, the serenity of the climate, a thousand delightful remembrances which aroused all the feelings I had experienced; — all this threw me into transports which I cannot describe, and seemed to restore to me at once the enjoyment of my whole life.”

At St. Cergues, the tourist will do well to pause, and availing himself of a guide and a mule, make the ascent of the Dôle-a task neither wearisome nor perilous, and occupying about three hours;-it is the most elevated summit of this part of the Jura chain, and ample is the reward in the far-stretching scene it commands, no less delightful in its variety than surprising in its extent. If, however, this high gratification be denied, the descent is by a zigzag road to the bottom of the Jura, and crossing a level piece of ground, covered with vineyards and corn-fields, and dotted here and there by villas greatly diversified in size and form, the little town of Nyon, standing on a height,

is reached.

But, not to hasten onwards to our loss-at the edge of the summit of the Jura