federal Capitol, and its bears carved everywhere in stone and wood,
and its sunrises, when all the Bernese Alps lie like molten silver in
the early light, and the clouds drift over them, now hiding, now
disclosing, the enchanting heights.




HEARING THE FREIBURG ORGAN--FIRST SIGHT OF LAKE LEMAN

Freiburg, with its aerial suspension-bridges, is also on a peninsula,
formed by the Sarine; with its old walls, old watch-towers, its
piled-up old houses, and streets that go upstairs, and its delicious
cherries, which you can eat while you sit in the square by the famous
linden-tree, and wait for the time when the organ will be played in
the cathedral. For all the world stops at Freiburg to hear and enjoy
the great organ,--all except the self-satisfied English clergyman,
who says he does n't care much for it, and would rather go about town
and see the old walls; and the young and boorish French couple, whose
refined amusement in the railway-carriage consisted in the young
man's catching his wife's foot in the window-strap, and hauling it up
to the level of the window, and who cross themselves and go out after
the first tune; and the two bread-and-butter English young ladies,
one of whom asks the other in the midst of the performance, if she
has thought yet to count the pipes,--a thoughtful verification of
Murray, which is very commendable in a young woman traveling for the
improvement of her little mind.

One has heard so much of this organ, that he expects impossibilities,
and is at first almost disappointed, although it is not long in