meal very quickly. This is the custom among the rich and great, as well as among the poor.

Their religion requires frequent ablutions, and they are naturally cleanly, so that this use of their hands in eating is not so filthy as might be supposed. Their temperance is probably the chief cause of the constant health they usually enjoy. Tedious illnesses are uncommon among them. They are extremely fond of anointing themselves; even the poorest people do it on holidays. Those who are in good circumstances are fond of burning incense, and sprinkling their clothes with sweet-scented waters; and both are done when a stranger comes in, as is usual in most Mahometan countries. The Arabs are fond of society, and great frequenters of the coffee-houses.

The dress of the Arabs is very simple; large white trowsers, a blue and white striped shirt with very wide sleeves, a leathern girdle, a short jacket without sleeves, a scarf thrown over the shoulders, and a turban, consisting of a cap with a shawl twisted round it, together with a pair of slippers, constitute the whole of their attire. A short crooked knife or dagger is stuck into their girdle, and it is there that the poor carry their purses, and smoking utensils, &c.

This nation is divided into two distinct classes of men, who differ materially in their habits and manners; the inhabitants of the towns, and those of the desert: the latter are always encamped, and continually changing their place of abode; the former, settled in cities and villages, are those of whom we now intend to speak.

Hospitality is prescribed by their religion: the traveller is peculiarly the object of the charitable, and the good effects of this benevolent precept are felt in Arabia, as well as other Mahometan countries. Fountains and inns are common as in other parts of Asia; and though nothing but house-room is provided by the one, or water by the other, the abstemiousness and simple habits of the Arabians render every thing beyond that, superfluous. The heroes of all their romances are celebrated for their liberality as well as their bravery, and those virtues were fostered by the doctrines of Mahomet. His uncle Abdallah was one of the three, concerning whom some Arabs had been disputing the point of liberality; when each determined to go to the one whom he preferred, to ask his assistance. Abdallah was just mounting his camel for a long journey: "Son of the uncle of the Apostle of God," said the man who wished to try his liberality, "I am a traveller in distress." Abdallah, immediately alighting, gave him the camel with all her trappings, only requiring him not to dispose of a sword, slung from the saddle, because it had belonged to Ali. The camel carried, besides robes of silk, 4000 pieces of gold, but the sword was still more valuable. The second of the disputants went to Kais, the next of the three about whom they had been debating, and learned from a servant

66

that his master was asleep; Take, however," said he, "these 7000 pieces of gold; it is all we have in the house, and shew this token to my master's camel-driver; he will provide you with a camel and slave for your journey home."-Arabah, the third of these generous men was leaning on two slaves, for his eye-sight failed him, and on his way to the mosque, when he met the man who wished to put his liberality to the test. No sooner had he heard the request, than, clapping his hands together, and lamenting his misfortune in having no money, desired him to take the two slaves; which the other refused, t Arabah declared that he would liberate them if he did not, and, dis missing his slaves, went onward, feeling his way by the wall. The palm for liberality was given, as may be supposed, in favour of Arabah

he

The Arabs are er, tremely courteous; in feriors in rank or ag always kiss, or attem to kiss, the hand of the superiors. Equals e brace each other, putti cheek to cheek. They use, when addressing Mussulmans, the com mon salutation, Es-salam Alei-kum, which properly signifies, "God save you!" and that explains why Mahometans are unwilling to give it to Christians; the latter also dislike to use it, as being connected with the faith of Mahomet. They have a great deal of etiquette in the form of their visits, and it ap pears, that subjects not allowed to sit down in presence of the imam, or magistrate. They sit cross-legged, as most of the Asiatics do; and inferiors may be said to rest upon their heels when in the company of their superiors, uncomfortable posture. Their houses are not luxurious; even those of the great have few conveniences, while the habitations of the lower orders are miserable hovels.

are

a most

STORIES

OF

FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

SECOND SERIES.

SWITZERLAND.

taineers, wrestling matches are frequent.

SWITZERLAND is the name given to an union of twenty-two cantons, or small states. The manufactures of this country consist of lace, gloves, ribbons, paper, leather, and wood carvings.

One of the largest and most interesting branches of Swiss industry is the watchmaking trade. It is carried on to an immense and still increasing extent in the mountainous district of Neuchatel, in the French portion of the Canton of Berne, and in the town and neighbourhood of Geneva. It has been a source of wealth and comfort to many thousands of the inhabitants.

Among the

amuse

ments of the Swiss mounRegular trials of strength

are agreed upon, and a prize, such as a cheese or a sheep, is awarded

D

to the winner. Another sport is balancing a ponderous stone upon the palm of the right hand, bent backwards to the shoulders; and, after swinging the body to and fro for some time, with one foot raised from the ground, sending the fragment, by great exertion, against a mark. Firing with a rifle at a target is also commonly practised, and once a year each canton sends a certain number of its inhabitants to compete for a prize. These meetings are a national festivity.

Avalanches are common in Switzerland, and are immense masses of snow of a globular form, which gather as they roll till they acquire the size of a miniature mountain, and are more terrible to see even than to hear. This is true of many of those which fall in winter, but not of those which descend in spring and early summer. The Swiss have different names for various kinds of avalanches. There is the dust avalanche, and the ground avalanche. The former is the falling of loose fresh-fallen snow. Gathering into huge drifts upon some peak till it is detached by its own weight, it slides away until it reaches a precipice, when it commences rolling and thundering down the mountain. Increasing in bulk at every bound, and extending farther and wider, it acquires at length an impetus and strength that sweeps down whole forests in its passage, as if the trees were slender reeds, and moves across the entire valley, into which it lands. This, however, is not the most dangerous kind of avalanche, as it only buries people and cattle, and does not crush them; so that they can be dug out again without serious injury. The ground avalanche, however, is a more serious matter. It falls in the spring time, and is dislodged by the action of the sun, south winds, and rain. These thawing the upper surface, the water trickles down through the crevices, increasing their width and depth till huge blocks, indeed immense precipices, are sawn loose by this slow process; and, tipping over or sliding away, come with fearful force down the precipitous sides of the mountain. A village disappears in its path in a breath-trees three feet in diameter are snapped off like pipe stems, and nothing but a wild ruinous waste is left where it sweeps in its wrath. It is singular that these avalanches have paths they travel as regular as a deer. This is indicated by the shape of the mountains, and if the path comes straight on the site of a village, the inhabitants build strong parapets of mason work, against which the avalanches may thunder and accumulate. These prove sometimes, however, too weak for the falling mass, and are borne away in its headlong sweep, adding still greater ruin and terror to its march. A village situated in a pass of the mountains, had such a wall built behind its church to protect it. For a long time it withstood the shock of the avalanches that fell against it, but at length there came one too strong to be resisted, and bore away parapet, church, hamlet and all. The wind caused by an avalanche in its

passage is sometimes terrific. A blast is awakened by the rapid motion of the headlong mass, like that created by a cannon ball in its descent, which extends to some distance both sides of it, and bears down trees and whirls them like feathers through the atmosphere. A church spire was once blown down by one that fell a quarter of a mile off. These masses of ice and snow sometimes fill up immense gorges, and are bored through by the torrent, forming a natural bridge, over which the peasants drive their cattle the entire summer. The Swiss have their protectors, which are the forests that are left standing on a mountain side above a hamlet to shield it from avalanches.

Those which fall early in summer are attended with very little danger, as they usually descend in abysses where no traveller ever steps. They are seen at a distance, and hence have none of the appearance commonly supposed to belong to an avalanche. You hear first a rumbling sound, which soon swells to a full, though distant thunder tone; and in turning your eye towards the spot whence the sound proceeds, you see something which appears like a small white rivulet pouring down the mountain side, now disappearing in some ravine, and now reappearing on the edge of some cliff, over which it runs, and falls with headlong speed and increased roar, till it finally drops in some deep abyss. You wonder at first how so small a movement can create so deep and startling a sound, but in that apparently small rivulet are rolling whole precipices of ice, with a rapidity and power that nothing could resist. Yet these terrible visitants become as familiar to the Swiss as our own rain-storms to us. The peasantry wait their regular descent in the spring as indications that winter is over. Those which are loosened by the human voice or the jingling of bells are so nicely balanced at the time, that it requires but the slightest change or shock in the atmosphere to overturn them in an instant.

Glaciers are the frozen drapery of the Alps, clothing them in winter and summer in robes of ice. They are formed by the successive thawing and freezing of the loose snow in spring and summer. Melting in the daytime and freezing at night, the whole mass at length becomes crystalized; and as the lower portions melt in summer, they gradually move down the mountain, carrying with them remains of rocks and stone, making a perfect geological cabinet of the hill it throws up.

Glaciers begin at an elevation of about 8000 feet or a little lessabove this are eternal snow fields. These glaciers constitute one of the most striking features of Alpine scenery.

As they throw down the declivities the obstructions they meet with, and the broken surface over which they pass, cast them into every variety of shape. Towers are suddenly squeezed up forty or fifty feet high, and precipices thrown out which topple over with the roar of