Or How, Between That Town And Bale, The Road Meandered Among
Thriving Villages Of Wooden Cottages, With Overhanging Thatched
Roofs,
And low protruding windows, glazed with small round panes of
glass like crown-pieces; or how, in every little Swiss
Homestead,
with its cart or waggon carefully stowed away beside the house, its
little garden, stock of poultry, and groups of red-cheeked
children, there was an air of comfort, very new and very pleasant
after Italy; or how the dresses of the women changed again, and
there were no more sword-bearers to be seen; and fair white
stomachers, and great black, fan-shaped, gauzy-looking caps,
prevailed instead.
Or how the country by the Jura mountains, sprinkled with snow, and
lighted by the moon, and musical with falling water, was
delightful; or how, below the windows of the great hotel of the
Three Kings at Bale, the swollen Rhine ran fast and green; or how,
at Strasbourg, it was quite as fast but not as green: and was said
to be foggy lower down: and, at that late time of the year, was a
far less certain means of progress, than the highway road to Paris.
Or how Strasbourg itself, in its magnificent old Gothic Cathedral,
and its ancient houses with their peaked roofs and gables, made a
little gallery of quaint and interesting views; or how a crowd was
gathered inside the cathedral at noon, to see the famous mechanical
clock in motion, striking twelve. How, when it struck twelve, a
whole army of puppets went through many ingenious evolutions; and,
among them, a huge puppet-cock, perched on the top, crowed twelve
times, loud and clear.
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