The next morning we visited the church and the convent.  The first presented a tame picture, compared to that I had witnessed in the former visit, for there was not a pilgrim present; the past year it had been crowded.  There were, however, a few groups of the villagers kneeling at the shrine, or at the different altars, to aid the picturesque.  We ascended into the upper part of the edifice, and walked in those narrow galleries through which I had formerly seen the Benedictines stalking in stealthy watchfulness, looking down at the devotees beneath.  I was admitted to the cloisters, cells, library, &c., but my companions were excluded as a matter of course.  It is merely a spacious German convent, very neat, and a little barnish.  A recent publication caused me to smile involuntarily once or twice, as the good father turned over the curiosities of the library, and expatiated on the history and objects of his community; but the book in question had evidently not yet, if indeed it will ever reach this remote spot.

We had a little difficulty here in getting along with the French; and our German (in which, by the way, some of the party are rather expert) had been acquired in Saxony, and was taken for base coin here.  The innkeeper was an attentive host, and wished to express every thing that was kind and attentive; all of which he succeeded in doing wonderfully well, by a constant use of the two words, “par exemple.”  As a specimen of his skill, I asked him if an extra horse could be had at Einsiedeln, and his answer was, “Par exemple, monsieur; par exemple, oui; c’est-a-dire, par exemple.”  So we took the other horse, par exemple, and proceeded.

Our road carried us directly across the meadows that had been formed in the lake of Lowertz, by the fall of the Rossberg.  When on them, they appeared even larger than when seen from the adjacent mountain; they are quite uneven, and bear a coarse wiry grass, though there are a few rocks on their surface.  Crossing the ruin of Goldau, we passed on a trot from the desolation around it, into the beautiful scenery of Arth.  Here we dined and witnessed another monastic flirtation.

After dinner we drove along the shores of the lake of Zug, winding directly round the base of the cone of the Righi, or immediately beneath the point where the traveller gets the sublime view of which you have already heard.  This was one of the pleasantest bits of road we had then seen in Switzerland.  The water was quite near us on the right, and we were absolutely shut in on the left by the precipitous mountain, until having doubled it, we came out upon an arm of the lake of Lucerne, at Kuesnacht, to which place we descended by the chemin creux.  Night overtook us again while crossing the beautiful ridge of land that separates the bay of Kuesnacht from the foot of the lake, but the road being excellent, we trotted on in security until we alighted, at nine o’clock, in the city of Lucerne.