Christian’s patois was of so hopeless a description, that I was tempted to give it up in despair, and walk on in silence.  Still, as we were together for a whole long day, for better or for worse, it seemed worth while to make every effort to understand each other, else I could learn no local tales and legends, and Christian would earn but little Trinkgeld; so we struggled manfully against our difficulties.  A confident American lady, meditating Europe, and knowing little French and no German, is said to have remarked jauntily that if the worst came to the worst she could always talk on her fingers to the peasants; but I did not attempt to avail myself of the results of early practice in that universal language.  Christian’s answers—­the more intelligible parts of them—­were a stratified succession of yes and no, and as he was a man naturally polite and acquiescent, the assentient strata were of more frequent occurrence; but of course, beyond showing his good-will, such answers were of no practical value.  At length, after long perseverance, we were rewarded by the appearance of a curiosity which eventually gave each the key to the other’s cipher.  This was a strong stream of water, flowing out of the trunk of a growing tree, at a height of six feet or so from the ground; and I was so evidently interested in the phenomenon, that Christian exerted himself to the utmost, at last with success, to explain the construction of the fountain.  A healthy poplar, seven or eight years old, is taken from its native soil, and a cold iron borer is run up the heart of the trunk from the roots, for six feet or more, by which means the pith is removed, and the trunk is made to assume the character of a pipe.  A hole is then bored through from the outside of the trunk, to communicate with the highest point reached by the former operation, and in this second hole a spout is fixed.  The same is done at a very short distance above the root, in the part of the trunk which will be buried in the earth when the tree is replanted, and the poplar is then fixed in damp ground, with the pipe at its root in connection with one of the little runs of water which abound in meadows at the foot of hills.  A well-known property of fluids produces then the strange effect of an unceasing flow of water from an iron spout in the trunk of a living tree; and, as poplars love water, the fountain-tree thrives, and is more vigorous than its neighbours.  This sort of fountain may be common in some parts of Switzerland, but I have not seen them myself except in this immediate neighbourhood.  There is said to be one near Stachelberg.