And instantly as this thought struck him, he seized the unlucky little Swiss by the collar, who kicked and rebelled with all his might, conceiving himself in the grasp of a madman, who was going to toss him into the lake; but his struggles were in vain-for he was a shrimp in the hands of the athletic Englishman, who dragged him, in a moment, to the water's edge, and standing over him, in a menacing attitude, exclaimed, Boir! boir!"

6

The trembling Swiss, who fancied he himself wanted to drink, submissively ejaculated Oni Monsieur!" and filling a leathern cup, which with a shaking hand he drew from his pocket, he presented it to the Englishman.

"You damned impudent rascal!' exclaimed the enraged Englishman-do you want to poison me again!' And seizing him by the shoulders, he shook him until his bones must have been nearly dislocated, saying-Boire! vous, vous êtes to boire-in a voice choked with passion.

Trembling in every limb, the poor little Swiss, now beginning to understand, passively took a drink.

'There !—now I think I've done for you!' exclaimed the Englishman triumphantly—' I've paid you up. But oh! oh! the poison! the poison!

Oh! Think of dying this way-poisoned like a rat! Oh! I'm sick !-Oh! Oh! Oh!'

Lady Hunlocke—(who, as well as myself had been all the time in convulsions of laughter),— now attempted to articulate-It is the emetic! You are not poisoned-The water is not poisonous.'

'Oh! Oh! You foolish woman! Oh!-Why you don't understand French. The book says the water is 'trés poissonneux,' which in English means'

That it's very full of fish'-interrupted Lady Hunlocke.

"Of poison, I tell you. Oh !'-ejaculated the poor sick wretch.

Of poisson,' which means fish, certainly; and "poissonneux' means fishy-exclaimed Lady Hunlocke, in a fresh paroxysm of laughter.

When at last he was, with some difficulty, convinced that the lake, instead of being poisonous, merely abounded in fish ; he went nearly distracted with rage, and raved at his own stupidity, at the guides stupidity, at our stupidity, and at the unlucky emetic, which now made him extremely ill in good earnest.

We were by this time close to the little inn of Lowertz, towards which we had began to conduct

him the moment he had swallowed the emetic, and having explained the mistake to his own guide and the people of the inn, we left the poor wretch, whom we sincerely compassionated, though it was impossible to help laughing, to the paroxysm of sickness which was his inevitable lot;-and mounting our cart, quitted the shores of this poisonous lake,* and soon trotted to this pretty village of Art, on the lake of Zug, where we found, to our great mortification, that no horses could be procured in the whole town, to ascend the Righi.

But the welcome news of dinner is ready,' salutes my —so adieu !

ears

* There is really said to be a poisonous lake, near the Great Lake Baikhal, in Siberia, the waters of which are so fatal to animal life, that every living thing dies that drinks of it; and even birds, as they fly over it, perish by its noxious exhalations. Vide Captain Cochrane's Travels in Siberia.

AFTER dinner, while waiting for horses, we amused ourselves with sailing upon the pretty little lake of Zug. We landed on its shores, and walked to the chapel of William Tell, built on the spot where he killed the tyrant Gessler. From the hill

on the right, there is a most beautiful view of the two lakes of Lucerne and Zug, which here are separated only by a narrow ridge of land—and to the left of us, by the woody and verdant mountain of the Righi. Exactly opposite to us, rising from the lake of Lucerne, we were struck with admiration of Mount Pilate, or Pontius Pilate-according to our boatmen; who stoutly maintained that Pontius Pilate himself did actually, in a fit of remorse, drown himself in a bottomless lake on the top of this mountain-(how he came there they could not say)—to which he thus bequeathed his name. 'This lake, they told us, is called the Infernal Gulf, or the Sea of Hell; and when all else is calm and peaceful, its black basin is for ever agitated by midnight storms, and haunted by fiery dragons and howling mountain spirits—and by the spectre of Pontius Pilate himself; all of whom dance around its baleful brink, and descend, wrapped in whirlwinds, and armed with avenging thunderbolts, to desolate the surrounding country. The wrath of these demons is said to be kindled with fiercer fury whenever the foot of a stranger has intruded on the mysterious scene of their infernal orgies. Indeed, this fact is so well known, and so perfectly incontestable, that the Council of Lucerne enacted