certainly presented a most extraordinary figure the last I should have expected to have met with in the midst of the Alps. She accosted him from the other end of the table, in every foreign language she was mistress of,--and in some that she was not. But in vain--the old Armenian only shook his head in reply. An Interpreter who attended him, informed her his master had not the honour of understanding her. She then desired the Interpreter, in French, to inform him, how much concerned she was that she could not have the satisfaction of carrying on any conversation with him." On this being expounded to the Armenian, he turned his head round to the Interpreter, and with extreme solemnity, made a high sounding speech--which, on being translated, was- 'Has the young lady then any very important communication to make to me?" All the gentlemen laughed without mercy, and indeed, manners and nobody could help smiling, except the Armenian and the fair blue herself, who, somewhat discomfited, began to say, 'that she had not any very important communication to make, certainly'--but the renewed laughter of the gentlemen here stopped her, and the Interpreter having repeated this fragment of her speech to the Armenian,--he gravely said, 'In that case I cannot see that there is much to regret in my not being able to understand the young lady, since no could good come from our holding communication together.' In spite of the laughter of the gentlemen when this speech was interpreted, the indefa tigable fair one still persevered, and desired the Interpreter to tell him she had some questions to ask him.' 'If they are questions, such as she ought to ask and I to answer,' rejoined the imperturbable Armenian, tell the young lady she had better speak to me in English.' 6 The fair blue now inquired, in her mother tongue, which she seemed to consider quite a degradation to use, What were his motives for visiting Switzerland, and whether he admired it more than his own country?' 'Before I answer these questions,' said the Armenian, after a solemn pause, 'I must first beg leave to inquire, how that information can possibly be of any importance to the young lady?' The laughter that ensued completely silenced the discomfited fair one for a time; yet she soon began to cross question the Interpreter in Italian. But the wily Greek was not to be so easily caught, she could get nothing out of him. When she had done speaking to the interpreter in Italian, the Armenian asked him, in Italian, what the young lady had said? 'Good heavens !-how obstinate!" exclaimed the blue, why I talked to him myself in Italian, and he would not vouchsafe an answer!' The Armenian said something in his own language to the Interpreter, who laughed, and seemed very unwilling to explain what it was, but the fair blue insisted upon hearing it. 'He only said, Mademoiselle,' said the Interpreter,' that he was sorry he did not know that you were speaking Italian.' The laughter of the gentlemen and the anger of the fair blue now exceeded all bounds, and she indignantly left the table, which proved a signal for general dispersion. We afterwards understood that the Armenian was a Catholic Priest, who had come from Rome to Lucerne, on some mission connected with the affairs of the Catholic Church. We slept at the Pastor's; for mine host of the 'Sauvage' informed us, though not till after dinner, that the rooms we had chosen, he was sorry to find were engaged. We had certainly a right to have kept possession of them, but as the man seemed quite as much of a 'Sauvage' as his sign, and as his house was dirty and the parsonage clean, we waived the contest; conceiving it to be for our interest to change our quarters. The Pastor accompanied us in our evening walk to a hill behind the church, which commands a most beautiful view of the valley. His wife, a modest amiable timid young woman, with a large bunch of keys hanging at her girdle, was nursing her first baby, over which she hung with a mother's raptured gaze. The Pastor, both from his conversation and his library, seemed a man of education and intelligence. He spoke a little very bad French, his wife none; so that while we talked in German, Lady Hunlocke amused herself with a book.. ALL that I have hitherto seen of the Alps-all that the imagination can picture of the sublime and the terrible, fade into nothing before the scenes we have actually beheld to-day, in the passage of the Grimsel. Description is vain. Neither the pen, nor the pencil, nor even the magical power of poetry, could convey to those who have not beheld it, the faintest idea of this sublime but horrible pass. But I must endeavour to comprise my history of our adventurous pilgrimage of to-day, in as short a compass as possible. In the first place we sallied forth, like two wandering damsels of old, all alone, in quest of adventures; for Philips was so overcome with the fatigue of our rough expedition yesterday, and was so utterly unfit to attend us, that Lady Hunlocke insisted upon his remaining at Meyringen to recruit, and join us at Altorf, on the Lake of Lucerne, by the short and easy route of the Brunig. Our ride up the vale of Oberhasli, for the first three leagues, was most romantic. The little village of Hasli Imgrund, stands in a most beautiful situation, in a small and highly clutivated plain, surrounded on all sides by the loftiest mountains, bearing every appearance of having been a small lake. The Aar, which waters it, has probably once filled it, and forced its way out through a narrow chasm between two rocky precipices, eight hundred feet in height, which seems to have been rent aṣunder by some convulsion of nature. The peasants stood at the doors of their rural wooden dwellings, picturesquely scattered over the green, to gaze upon us as we passed; as if the sight of strangers was a rare event in their simple and secluded lives. Their air of easy cheerful independence and contentment, was peculiarly pleasing. The Swiss cottages, though built of wood, are remarkably substantial. They are almost always two stories high, with immensely steep high projecting roofs, to support their winter load of snow. Above the first story, a broad penthouse roof stands out, forming a rustic portico and sheltered path, which quite surrounds the house, and is called the Melk Gang. The resin which copiously exudes from the pine wood of which they are built, forms a |