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The district around Gruyere is famous for its cheese, of which it produces a large quantity annually. It is made on a chain of mountains, about ten leagues in length, and four in breadth; but though the cheese is made in the same manner throughout this range, it varies in quality, the produce of the lower pastures not being so highly esteemed

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as that of the more elevated situations. The very finest qualities are said to be too delicate for exportation. The entire district is divided into greater and lesser farms,' which the proprietors let out on lease, at rents varying according to the nature and elevation of the ground. The lower pastures, though not of the best quality, are leased at the highest rate, because, being sooner freed from the snow, and later covered with it, they afford pasture for the cattle for a greater length of time.

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The farmers, who rent pastures, hire from the different peasants in the canton from forty to sixty cows, from the 15th of May to the 8th of October, paying for them certain rates per head. Each cow, on an average, yields daily from twenty to twenty-four quarts of milk, and supplies 200 Swiss pounds of cheese during the five months. On the 18th of October the farmer restores the cows to the different proprietors. The cattle are then pastured in the meadows, which have been twice mowed, until the 10th or 11th of November, when, on account of the snow, they are usually removed to the stables, where they are fed during the winter on hay and after-grass. Throughout the commune of Gruyere, the people are, consequently, above poverty.

Often, therefore, has the appeal been made, like that to "the Wanderer in Switzerland:"

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To such circumstances Professor Forbes thus alludes, after a night's hospitalities, amidst Alpine scenes. "We were astir by five. But it is impossible, generally speaking, to depart in a hurry from a châlet, any more than from a fashionable hotel. It was half-past six before we had breakfasted, and made up our packages; and having left our host satisfied by a moderate gratuity, our caravan was once more under weigh, with the glaciers in our front. Before leaving the subject of châlets, I may observe that the character of the inhabitants is not undeserving of notice. I have always received, both in Switzerland and Savoy, a gentle, a kind, and disinterestedly hospitable reception in the châlets, on the very bounds of civilization, where a night's lodging, however rude, is an inestimable boon to a traveller. These simple people differ very much (it has struck me), from the other inhabitants of the same valleys-their own relatives, who living in villages during the busy trafficking season of summer, have more worldly ways, more excitement, wider interests, and greater selfishness. The true pâtre of the Alps is one of the simplest, and, perhaps, one of the most honest and trust-worthy of human beings. I have often met with touches of character amongst them which have affected me; but, generally, there is an indescribable unity and monotony of ideas which fills the mind of these men, who live during all the finest and stirring part of the year in the fastnesses of their sublimest mountains, seeing scarcely any strange faces, and but few familiar ones, and these always the same; living on friendly terms with their dumb herds, so accustomed to privation as to dream of no luxury, and utterly careless of the rule of empires, or the changes of dynasties. Instead of the busy curiosity about a traveller's motives and objects, in undertaking strange journeys, which is more experienced in villages, the more remote they be, these simple shepherds never evince surprise, and scarcely seem to have curiosity to gratify. Yet, far are they from brutish or uncouth; they show a natural shyness of intermeddling with the concerns of strangers, and a respect for their character, testified by their inofficious care in providing and arranging what conveniences they can produce. Their hospitality is neither that of

• James Montgomery.

ostentation nor of necessity, They give readily what they have, and do not encumber you with apologies for what they have not. Every traveller will see in this description, strong opposition to the Swiss character, as usually displayed; my remarks are confined to my experience in the higher châlets of the Alps. Of course, I do not mean to state that exceptions are not to be met with."

The population of Oberhasli has doubled within the last hundred years, yet this increase does not appear to have been attended by any change in the modes of existence, or extension of previous resources. The consequences, therefore, naturally recal one of the characters in Wordsworth's "Excursion :"

"Among the hills of Athol he was born;

Where on a small hereditary farm,

An unproductive slip of rugged ground,

His parents, with their numerous offspring dwelt ;

A virtuous household, though exceeding poor!

"That stern, yet kindly spirit, who constrains
The Savoyard to quit his naked rocks,

The free-born Swiss to leave his narrow vales,
(Spirit attach'd to regions mountainous

Like their own steadfast clouds), did now impel
His restless mind to look abroad with hope."

The fact is, that it is the nature of pasturage to produce food for a much greater number of people than it can employ. In countries strictly pastural, therefore, many persons are idle, or, at best, have but very inadequate labour. When a father has more than one son, those who are not wanted on the farm are induced to enlist themselves as soldiers, or to emigrate in some other way.

The eye of the traveller in England is sometimes arrested by the blue blossoms of the flax plant. One species he finds, in the month of July, growing in the corn-fields, and a little earlier, as he traverses the chalky, hilly pasture, he may observe the perennial flax in bloom. So abundant, indeed, is the latter in the chalky meadow-land, that it is sometimes scattered all over it among the grass; a profusion which must be traced to a peculiarly congenial soil.

Scarcely is there a plant, not even one of the cereals, which can be regarded as of more service to mankind than the flax. Its strong films yield the thread or yarn, from which is manufactured every kind of linen cloth, from the delicate cambric handkerchief to the stout and durable linen of our couches. The seeds produced by the plant, when expressed, supply the linseed oil so extremely used in painting and manufactures; and their emollient nature renders them suitable to medicinal purposes, and valuable for applications in surgery. The refuse of the seeds is used for feeding cattle; and boiled with chaff, or a portion of grain, furnishes a valuable and nutritive substance.

Flax is cultivated in every country of Europe, and hence the tourist will observe it growing in Switzerland, if he has not the opportunity of watching the successive stages of its manufacture. For when the flax begins to get yellow at the bottom of the stem, it is time to pull it, if very fine flax is desired, such as is made into thread for lace or fine cambric; but then the seed will be of little or no value. It is, therefore, generally left standing until the capsules which contain the seed are fully grown, and the seed formed. Every flax-grower judges for himself what is most profitable on the whole. The pulling then begins, which is done carefully by small handfuls at a time. These are laid upon the ground to dry, two and two obliquely across each other. Fine weather is essential to this part of the operation. Soon after this they are collected in larger bundles and placed with the root end on the ground, the bundles being slightly tied near the seed end; the other end is spread out that the air may have access, and the rain may not

damage the flax. When sufficiently dry, they are tied more firmly in the middle, and stacked in long narrow stacks on the ground. These stacks are built as wide as the bundles are long, and about eight or nine feet high. The length depends on the crop ; they are seldom made above twenty or thirty feet long.

If the field is extensive, several of these stacks are formed at regular distances; they are carefully thatched at the top; and the ends, which are quite perpendicular, are kept up by means of two strong poles driven perpendicularly into the ground. These stacks look from a distance like short mud walls, such as are seen in Devonshire. This is the method adopted by those who defer the steeping till another season. Some carry the flax as soon as it is dry under a shed, and take off the capsules with the seed by rippling, which is drawing the flax through an iron comb fixed in a block of wood: the capsules, which are too large to pass between the teeth of the comb, are thus broken off and fall into a basket or on a cloth below. Sometimes, if the capsules are brittle, the seed is beaten out by means of a flat wooden bat like a small cricket bat. The bundles are held by the root end, and the other end is laid on a board and turned round with the left hand, while the right hand with the bat breaks the capsules, and the linseed falls on a cloth below. The flax is then immediately steeped; but the most experienced flaxsteepers defer this operation till the next season. In this case it is put in barns, and the seed is beat out at leisure in winter.

In Switzerland the flax is broken or scutched at home, when the weather prevents out-door work. With us the common brake consists of four wooden swords fixed in a frame, and another frame with three swords which play in the interstices of the first by means of a joint at one end. The flax is taken in the left hand and placed between the two frames, and the upper frame is pushed down briskly upon it. It breaks the flax in four places, and by moving the left hand and rapidly repeating the strokes with the right, the whole handful is soon broken. It is then scutched by means of a board set upright in a block of wood, so as to stand steady, in which is a horizontal slit about three feet from the ground, the edge of which is thin. The broken flax held in handfuls in the left hand is inserted in this slit, so as to project to the right, and a flat wooden sword of a peculiar shape is held in the right hand; with this the flax is repeatedly struck close to the upright board, while the part which lies in the slit is continually changed by the motion of the left hand. This operation beats off all the pieces of the wood which still adhere to the fibre, without breaking it, and after a short time the flax is cleared of it and fit to be heckled. But the operations of breaking and scutching are tedious and laborious when thus executed by hand.

There are several peculiarities in the employments of the labouring classes of Switzerland. There are, for example, few weaving factories or buildings of any kind, in which weavers are congregated together. Their looms are in their own abodes, which are scattered over the face of the country. They receive from the manufacturer the warp and the woof, and return to him the woven article. Weaving is, therefore, a kind of domestic labour, associated with, and often subordinated to, agricultural employment.

As one of two means of subsistence, it is very common to find several looms in the cottage of a small labouring farmer, the whole of which are worked by the members of the family, when the seasons, or any other circumstances, withdraw them from the field. In the common apartment of the household one or two of the family may be seen weaving, and carrying on, at the same time, their household occupation, and the labour of the field or the garden.

Needle-work finds employment for a large number of the female population. A picture of this kind, after the manner of a line engraving, was one of the remarkable productions of art in the Crystal Palace, and of it we give a faithful representation. It represents a peasant girl, sitting at her cottage door, with an embroidering frame in her hand. She

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