Switzerland

lled away from the past by geologist and anthropologist, we are coming to a clearer idea of the origins of this wonderful civilisat

they bring up to the surface light, is inclined now to tell us that the begin

cord which is contemporary with us in time but with the Neolithic Age in development, the working of what one may call the lake forces, towards civilisation. The Australian aborigines-poor nomads almost without law, architecture, or clothing-when they won to a good steady fishing-ground managed to advance a little towards a higher civilisation. When a coast lagoon gave good supply of crustaceans and other fish, you may note at the old aboriginal camping-grounds timid ventures towards art, certain rock drawings, effective if crude. Stomachs being regularly filled, the minds of these primitives began to work.

appealed to his dawning sense of property. It offered some steadiness of food supply and so appealed to his dawning sense of stability. It appealed also to the new

e Iron Age. But it was probably in Switzerland, the area richest in suitable lakes of all Europe, that the primitive lake-dwellers flourished most strongly. A whole chain of lake settlements have been discovered around Lake Zurich, and recently, when Mr. Ritter, famous for the gigantic scheme to supply Paris with water from the Swiss lakes, "corrected" the meanderin

FROM MONT PELERIN, AT THE EAST

mud, were found to be planted in rows and squares, in great number. There were picked out of the mud bones, antlers, weapons and implements of various kinds. Dr. Ferdinand Keller was sent from Zurich to examine the workings, and he pronounced them to be the site of a lake settlement, probably of some very ancient Celtic tribe. Many marks of a prehistoric occupation had been found before 1853, but no traces of dwellings. The discovery caused a sensation,

and daub alternating formed the floors, and the walls had a covering of clay, or else of bulrushes or straw. A fence of wickerwork ran round each hut. Light bridges, easily moved, connected the huts with each other and with the shore. Each house contained

a fibre of flax, and made a coarse pottery. Men and women wore ornaments of metal, of glass, of leather, of carved stones. Probably the later generations of

to begin to cultivate a community life. Seemingly there were three different epochs in the age of the lake-dwellers, of which two were of the later Stone Age and one of the Bronze Age. Switzerland had then, probably, as thick a population as most parts of Europe, and at the earliest stage of the lake-dwellings that population was almost as advanced in culture as were the forefathers of the Grecian and Roman civilisations. But later it was not so. Those nomad

standard of civilisation as they. With the Iron Age the lake-dwellings seem to have been abandoned and the lake-dwellers merged into the general body of the Helvetians. What we know as Switzerland to-day was then occupied by Celts, Rh?tians

the soil was skilful, and they had a knowledge of architecture, their fortifications in particular being praised by Roman writers as excellent. Local traditions said that Hercules had once visited Helvetia and taught the Helvetians arts and laws. That was the picturesque way of stating that their ideas of civilisation had come from Greece. These Helvetians wer

be king. The chief Orcitrix, it is told, aspiring to kingly power, was burned to death. The Swiss do not seem to have copied the Grecian religious system, adhering to their ancient Druidical worship. Perhaps the gloomy and savage form which Protesta

tly pressing down seeking fresh outlets. The first conflict between the Helvetii and the Romans was when the Tigurini tribe of Switzerland joined with the Cimbri in an attack upon Roman Gaul and defeated a Roman army under Cassius and Piso. That was 107 B.C. The Romans did not make any serious attempt to avenge that humilia

eneva the Helvetii found the bridge over the Rhone broken up by C?sar's order. After useless attempts to cross the river, they turned towards the Jura Mountains, and whilst they were toiling over the steep and rugged Pas de l'Ecluse, C?sar returned to Italy to gather his legions. Returning to Gaul, he arrived in time to see the Helvetians cross the Arar (Sa?ne). The Tigurini were the last to cross. On them C?sar fell and almost exterminated them, thus wiping out the old stain on the Roman arms. The Roman legions had crossed the Sa?ne in twenty-four hours,

A RANGE FROM THE SOUTH SI

, and poured on the Roman front, but were quite unable to stand against the steady discipline of the legions. They lost the battle but won the respect of C?sar, and the remnant of this "nation on trek" were helped by him to return to their homes and were allow

were kindred with the Italian Etruscans, came so completely under Roman influence that to this day in the valleys of the Engadine a corrupted Latin tongue is spoken, somewhat similar to that of the Roumanians of the Balkan Peninsula. Under Augustus western Switzerla

ans. After a time the Helvetians were but little distinguishable from the Romans, adopting their manners and their faith. Wealthy

places 15 feet high. In the day of Vespasian the city was as big as Canterbury is to-day, and with its walls, theatre, and aqueduct could look down up

ok possession of all the east. The Burgundians followed, and, to a greater degree than most of the civilised world, Switzerland had to face the horrors that followed the disruption of the Roman Empire. Gradually there emerged from the welter the beginnings of the Switzerland of to-day, in part representing the old Gallic Helvetians

After that flood of "blarney" St. Columban goes on to complain of the infamia in which the Papal Seat is steeped. Out of that remonstrance nothing seems to have come, but when St. Columban joined issue with the masterful Queen Brunhilde of Burgundy he met a spirit as imperious as his own. To guard her own power in the Court of Burgundy the famous Brunhilde encouraged her grandson, the reigning king, to keep mistresses rather than to marry a queen. St. Columban referred to the children of these mistresses as a "brothel brood." Shortl

eople to ring if they wished to appeal for justice. One day as he was at dinner this bell began to ring. None could inform him what was the matter. The bell rang a second time, and then a third. On this the emperor rose from the table, saying, "I am sure there is some poor man you do not wish me to see." He walked down the hill to the chapel, where, hanging to the bell rope, he found a snake. The snake led C

to centuries of struggle in the vindication of her independence. The story of that