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they make within the borders of it a little square enclosed with four walls. In this square they sink a pit, and dig for free-stone; the walls hindering the waters from coming in upon them, when the lake rises and runs on all sides of them. The great convenience of carriage makes these stones much cheaper than any that can be found upon firm land. One sees several deep pits that have been made at several times, as one sails over them. As the lake approaches Geneva it grows still narrower and narrower, till at last it changes its name into the Rhone, which turns all the mills of the town, and is extremely rapid, notwithstanding its waters are very deep. As I have seen a great part of the course of this river, I cannot but think it has been guided by the particular hand of Providence. It rises in the very heart of the Alps, and has a long valley that seems hewn out on purpose to give its waters a passage amidst so many rocks and mountains which are on all sides of it. This brings it almost in a direct line to Geneva. It would there overflow all the country, were there not one particular cleft that divides a vast circuit of mountains, and conveys it off to Lyons. From Lyons there is another great rent, which runs across the whole country in almost another straight line, and, notwithstanding the vast height of the mountains that rise about it, gives it the shortest course it can take to fall into the sea. Had such a river as this been left to itself to have found its way out from among the Alps, whatever windings it had made it must have formed several little seas, and have laid many countries under water before it had come to the end of its course. I shall not make any remarks upon Geneva, which is a republic so well known to the English. It lies at present under some

difficulties, by reason of the emperor's displeasure, who has forbidden the importation of their manufactures into any part of the empire, which will certainly raise a sedition among the people, unless the magistrates find some way to remedy it; and they say it is already done by the interposition of the states of Holland. The occasion of the emperor's prohibition was their furnishing great sums to the king of France for the payment of his army in Italy. They obliged themselves to remit, after the rate of twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling per annum, divided into so many monthly payments. As the interest was very great, several of the merchants of Lyons, who would not trust their king in their own names, are said to have contributed a great deal under the names of Geneva merchants. The republic fancies itself hardly treated by the emperor, since it is not any action of the state, but a compact among private persons that hath furnished out these several remittances. They pretend, however, to have put a stop to them, and by that means are in hopes again to open their commerce into the empire.

FRIBOURG, BERNE, SOLEURRE, ZURICH, ST. GAUL, LINDAW, &c.

From Geneva I travelled to Lausanne, and thence to Fribourg, which is but a mean town for the capital of so large a canton: its situation is so irregular, that they are forced to climb up to several parts of it by stair-cases of a prodigious ascent. This inconvenience, however, gives them a very great commodity, in case a fire breaks out in any part of the town, for,

by reason of several reservoirs on the tops of these mountains, by the opening of a sluice they convey a river into what part of the town they please. They have four churches, four convents of women, and as many for men. The little chapel, called the Salutation, is very neat, and built with a pretty fancy. The college of Jesuits is, they say, the finest in Switzerland. There is a great deal of room in it, and several beautiful views from the different parts of it. They have a collection of pictures representing most of the fathers of their order, who have been eminent for their piety or learning; among the rest, many Englishmen whom we name rebels, and they martyrs. Henry Garnet's inscription says, that when the heretics could not prevail with him, either by force or promises, to change his religion, they hanged and quartered him. At the Capuchins I saw the escargatoire, which I took the more notice of, because I do not remember to have met with any thing of the same in other countries. It is a square place, boarded in, and filled with a vast quantity of large snails, that are esteemed excellent food when they are well dressed. The floor is strewed about half a foot deep with several kinds of plants, among which the snails nestle all the winter season. When Lent arrives, they open their magazines, and take out of them the best meagre food in the world, for there is no dish of fish that they reckon comparable to a ragout of

snails.

About two leagues from Fribourg we went to see a hermitage, that is reckoned the greatest curiosity of these parts. It lies in the prettiest solitude imaginable, among woods and rocks, which, at first sight, dispose a man to be serious. There has lived in it a hermit these five-and-twenty years, who with his own

hands has worked in the rock a pretty chapel, a sacristy, a chamber, kitchen, celiar, and other conveniences. His chimney is carried up through the whole rock, so that you see the sky through it, notwithstanding the rooms lie very deep, He has cut the side of the rock into a flat for a garden, and, by laying on it the waste earth that he has found in several of the neighbouring parts, has made such a spot of ground of it as furnishes out a kind of luxury for a hermit. As he saw drops of water distilling from several parts of the rock, by following the veins of them, he has made himself two or three fountains, in the bowels of the mountain, that serve his table, and water his little garden.

We had very bad ways from hence to Berne, a great part of them through woods of fir-trees. The great quantity of timber they have in this country makes them mend their highways with wood instead of stone. I could not but take notice of the make of several of their barns I here saw. After having laid a frame of wood for the foundation, they place at the four corners of it four huge blocks, cut in such a shape as neither mice nor any other sort of vermin can creep up the sides of them, at the same time that they raise the corn above the moisture that might come into it from the ground. The whole weight of the barn is supported by these four blocks.

What pleased me most at Berne was, their public walks by the great church. They are raised extremely high, and that their weight might not break down the walls and pilasters which surround them, they are built upon arches and vaults. Though they are, I believe, as high as most steeples in England, from the streets and gardens that lie at the foot of them; yet, about forty years ago, a person in his

drink fell down from the very top to the bottom, without doing himself any other hurt than the breaking of an arm. He died about four years ago. There is the noblest summer prospect in the world from this walk, for you have a full view of a huge range of mountains that lie in the country of the Grisons, and are buried in snow. They are about twenty-five leagues distance from the town, though, by reason of their height and their colour, they seem much nearer. The cathedral church stands on one side of these walks, and is perhaps the most magnificent of any Protestant church in Europe, out of England. It is a very bold work, and a master-piece in Gothic architecture.

I saw the arsenal of Berne, where they say there are arms for twenty thousand men. There is, indeed, no great pleasure in visiting these magazines of war, after one has seen two or three of them, yet it is very well worth a traveller's while to look into all that lie in his way; for, besides the idea it gives him of the forces of a state, it serves to fix in his mind the most considerable parts of its history. Thus in that of Geneva, one meets with the ladders, petards, and other utensils, which were made use of in their famous escalade, besides the weapons they took of the Savoyards, Florentines, and French in the several battles mentioned in their history. In this of Berne you have the figure and armour of the count who founded the town, and of the famous Tell, who is represented as shooting at the apple on his son's head. The story is too well known to be repeated in this place. I here likewise saw the figure and armour of him that headed the peasants in the war upon Berne, with the several weapons which were found in the hands of his followers. They show too abundance of arms that they took from the Burgundians in the three great

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