sight-dazzling in its brilliancy, shot from a black cloud that hung directly above our heads, and darted down into the very bottom of the gulf, illuminating, for the instant, every object with phosphoric light, and in another second resigning it to its former obscurity and gloom: it was followed by a loud clap of thunder. I had never before seen forked lightning among mountains. I felt a thrill of the nerves at the sight which I could not describe. It seemed to me to be one of those poetical circumstances of nature which, in earlier ages, might have suggested to the heathen the idea of ascribing to the chief of their gods the control of the storms. Jupiter, the thunderer, with the bolt or forked lightning in his hand, was a god of power and sublimity not unworthy their unenlightened notions of the Deity.

The evening now drew in apace; and we thought ourselves fortunate in escaping with only a little rain and no storm. I did not see another forked flash. Mr. Bray said that the Genius of Romance had sent that I have mentioned, to oblige me, on hearing my wishes

amongst his own mountains and woods. We did not arrive at Lenzkirch till nine o'clock the same evening. But I must now conclude, and that I am, my dear brother,

assure you

Most affectionately yours,

ANNA ELIZA BRAY.

LETTER IX.

TO A. J. KEMPE, ESQ. F.S. A.

Housed at the little Inn of Lenzkirch. - Fille de la

at making Tea.

Swiss

Maison. Attempts Houses; their peculiarities. Goats and Cows, how lodged. Start for Stuhlingen; its Castle and Situation. - German Songs. - A Bargain made. - Dinner.—Journey continued. — A River crossed. Switzerland entered. First Sight of Schaffhausen.

the Mountains. The Rhine.

—

Arrival at the Crown.

My dear Brother,

We got comfortably housed at the village inn of Lenzkirch. We had all of us a very sufficient appetite after our drive: I, who had eaten little dinner, was indeed hungry, and glad to get a potage and bread; my nephew, however, renewed his attempts at making tea, and he could not have chosen a worse place for the experi

ment.

We were waited upon by a young woman, who told us she was the fille de la maison, which

is very different from being the fille de chambre, since the first implies the rank of landlord's daughter, and the second only that of servant in the inn. Our fille de la maison was pronounced by my companions to be tolerably pretty; she was certainly naturally genteel, and there was something of the air of Paris in her curtsey and address, though I found she had never been beyond her native mountains. I did my best to make acquaintance with her, and succeeded. She was perfectly good-humoured, and submitted to all the running up and down stairs, and getting slop basins, and changing musty teapots for those that might be sweet, and trying to procure something more fresh than the few spoonfuls of old tea she had produced, as well as making many efforts to find a substitute for a teakettle, and all this trouble (which no German would think of giving, indeed none but an Englishman) she bore without a murmur. At length my nephew, in despair, went down to the kitchen himself, and there had the boiling water ladled into his teapot, from a great cauldron, by an old woman.

We were all very fagged and tired, and went to bed as soon as we had ended our meal. Here we had the German balloons (for so did I always call them) outside our beds as before. My bed was so narrow and short (and rendered still more so by a monstrous pillow that would keep one in a sitting or reclining position all night) that I was forced to make some change in its arrangements: first, I tossed aside the balloon; and secondly, though the pillow was decorated with a linen case that had old point-lace let into its seams, with crimson silk underneath, I soon sent it after the balloon, and substituted for it my own travelling pillow from the seat of the carriage: it had, on this evening, met with a tumble in the mud, but I was too tired to be nice, and slept upon it as well as if I had been in the finest bed in England.

Ere I take leave of Lenzkirch, let me say the houses about it are built of wood, and are all of a Swiss character. We remarked one peculiarity, that the slates or tiles which formed their roof were pretty, and shaped exactly the same as those small pieces, cut in wood, which, the one