From a hill near Berne we first caught the distant harmony of a number of mellow-toned bells, which pastoral sounds, our Swiss informed us, were produced by the cattle (round whose necks the bells were suspended), and who were at that moment descending in large herds from the mountains, for the evening milking. At the same time we were struck by a glorious view of the Alps (_note_ N.), their frozen peaks rosy from the reflection of departing light: one of the highest of them is called, from hence, Monte Rosa. I have never listened to church bells (when their clang has been mellowed by distance) without a feeling of melancholy; but these seemed to breathe of innocent joy, and to tell a tale of peace, happiness, comfort, and domestic delight. This, I know, must have proceeded in both cases from early associations, and in the latter from the influence of ideas connected with poetry. What an ever-springing source of exquisite enjoyment is that divine gift! A susceptibility of its powers is like a sixth sense, for which it becomes all who possess it to be truly grateful to the benevolent Donor.
We now entered Berne. This is a fine large town, with a remarkably handsome entrance. We obtained most excellent rooms, replete with every essential comfort, and furnished with taste, at our inn (_au Faucon_), which was spacious enough to be taken for some ancient castle, when the feudal lords lodged a hundred or two of retainers, besides guests, beneath their ample roof. It was built in the form of an oblong square, with three galleries, one above another (each of which had interminable passages connected with it, all leading to different suites of apartments), looking down upon an open court or area in the midst. In this court a little army of washerwomen were assembled (belonging, I believe, to the establishment), carrying on the process of purification with great activity (in tubs almost large enough for brewing vats), and with hot water, which is an unusual thing upon the continent. Apropos to cleanliness, we all made the same observation in passing through Switzerland, namely, that the inhabitants (more especially in the protestant cantons) seemed to understand the comfort inseparable from this virtue, and that they certainly practised it in a far higher degree than any people we had seen since leaving England. We have frequently met with better accommodations (because cleanliness has been scrupulously attended to) in the inferior inns of Switzerland than in the most superb hotels of Paris, Turin, Milan, &c. I am sorry to be obliged, however, to except those of Geneva, which are allowed by the inhabitants themselves to be all very dirty.