What has the land of Alp and glacier,
châlet and chamois, flat watches and Ranz
des Vaches, done, that it is not to have its
hotels mentioned ? They are, I take it, in
many respects superior to, in many wofully
beneath, their French neighbours. Spacious,
well-aired, and cheerful they are certainly ;
often elegant ; always possessing, and vauntingly
too, a certain outward and visible
cleanliness that is not always, alas ! borne out
inwardly. The table-d'hôtes are crowded,
are conversational, spruce, modish, and excellent
in quality ; but to me they are Barmecide
feasts. The truth is, that, with the exception
of Germany, where the bill of fare gives me
an indigestion, I never could get enough to
eat abroad. I am not a glutton. Perhaps I
am nervous, and don't like to ask for things.
I have paid high prices, and sat at boards
of almost innumerable courses ; yet I never
could obtain a thoroughly satisfying meal.
There are épergnes full of sham flowers;
there are waxen fruits on pseudo-Sèvres
dishes (I saw a stopped clock on a table-d'hôte
once) ; there is a grave waiter in evening
costume for the soup ; there are men in livery to
take away your plate.

Most people are acquainted with the theory
about Switzerland. It is held by scientifically
travelled men, that the thirteen cantons are,
in winter-time, tracts of country as flat as
Holland, and as bare as a Siberian steppe.
The inhabitants burrow under the ground
like moles; and they pass their time in
practising their factitious Ranz des Vaches, learning
to pretend that they are expiring of home-
sickness, and making musical snuffboxes and
flat watches. They are visited occasionally by
their friend and patron, Mr. Albert Smith,
who teaches them how to make toys in carved
wood, and brings them prints of sham Swiss
costumes from Paris, against the summer
masquerading time. When the tourist season
is about to commence, Mr. Beverly and Mr.
Danson, from the Surrey Zoological Gardens,
send over a staff of scene-painters and
carpenters; and, the Switzerland of travellers, of
dioramas, and of landscape annuals, is built
up. The toy châlets are put together like
huts for the Crimea, or houses for Australia;
valleys are excavated by Messrs. Fox and
Henderson; the mountains are " flats," the
rocks "set pieces," the cataracts canvas on
rollers. Mr. Murray's Guidebook-maker is
in the secret, and writes the bill of the
performance; and Mr. Gunter does Mont Blanc
by contract. As for the guides and chamois-
hunters, after the Italian opera season is over,
and no more "supers "are wanted for Guillaume
Tell, or the Donna del Lago, their services
are very easily secured at two francs
a-day and their travelling expenses. Mr.
Nathan the Fancy-Ball Costumier finds
the wardrobe; a good stock of the villanous
Swiss coinage—batzen and rappen
—is obtained from the marine store shops
about Drury Lane; and the proprietor of
Wombwell's menagerie kindly lends a few
real chamois and dogs with goîtres. There is
a grand dress rehearsal of " Switzerland as it
isn't" just before the prorogation of Parliament;
and then the thirteen cantons are ready
for the avalanche of lords, invalids, Cambridge
tutors, Oxford undergraduates, French countesses
German barons, travelling physicians,
landscape - painters, fashionable clergymen,
old maids, and cosmopolitan swindlers.

But, as this grand Spectacle costs a great
deal of money, the wary Swiss set about
recovering their outlay by erecting gigantic
hotels: for this they have illimitable table-
d'hôtes: for this they issue advertisements
in execrable English to entrap unwary
voyagers: for this they retain bands of touters—
not the ragged wretches who besiege you at
the custom-house doors in seaport towns, who
fight like wolf-cubs for your luggage, and yell
hoarsely, "Hôtel d'Angleterre! " " Hôtel des
Princes!" " Ver good Inglis Otel, Sare!" —but
civil, well-dressed, well-bred villains, male
and female, who travel with you by rail and
steamboats, who meet you in reading-rooms
and on mountain summits, who are baronesses,
artists, widowers, citizens of the world,
veuves de la grande armée, single married
ladies who have lost all they possess in the
service of " la branche aîneé," and sigh for
the return of the heaven-born Henry Cinq.
They know all the sights, all the legends and
traditions, all the best wines; and they
(confidentially, mind you) advise you, if you want
really good accommodation at a most reasonable
tariff, to put up "—descend " is the word
—at the " Belvedere," or the " Trois
Couronnes," or the " Goldener Drachen," at such-
and-such a place. Curiously, they always
happen to have a card of the particular hotel
about them. Accidentally, of course.

The Swiss have been renowned for ages as
adepts in the art of war. But the Helvetian Gasthof
keepers know, or at least practise, only
one military manÅ“uvre; that is —charging.
They charge like Chester; they are " on " to
you like Stanley. They would pick the bones of
Marmion as clean as dice. Charge! the Guard
at Waterloo, the Irish at Fontenoy, the Dutch
troopers at Aughrim, the six hundred at
Balaklava,—none of these charges could
approach the exterminating onslaught of the
terrible Swiss landlord-landsknechts. You
are too glad to escape with your minor
baggage, and leave your military chest behind
you. You look at the bill, in after days, as
you would at a gazette after a battle, gorged
with the list of killed, wounded, and missing
£. s. d. Few men have the courage to read
a Swiss hotel bill straight through, or even to
look at it in its entirety. The best way to
take it, is by instalments; folding it into slips
like a large newspaper in a railway carriage.
Read a few items, then take breath. Read
again, and grumble. Read again, and swear.
Then, make a sudden dive at the sum total,
as at a hot chestnut from a fire bar. Reel, turn