Before long, I heard a Meinherr! from Christian, in a tone which I knew meant rest and some food.  He explained that he would rather take two small refreshments, one here and one at the Schafloch, than one large refreshment at the cave; so we propped ourselves on the grass, and tapped the hotte.  The cheese proved to be delightful—­six years old, the landlady told us afterwards, and apparently as hard as a bone, but when once mastered its flavour was admirable.  Christian persuaded me to taste the wine, of which he had a high opinion, and he was electrified by the universal shudder the one taste caused.  The grapes from which it was brewed had been grown in a gooseberry garden, and all the saccharine matter carefully extracted; the wine had been left without a cork since the first dawn of its existence, and the heat and jolting of its travels on Christian’s back had reduced it to the condition of warm flat vinegar.  He drank it with the utmost relish, and was evidently reconciled to my verdict by the consideration that there would be all the more for him.

From the appearance of the bread and cheese when the meal had come to an end, I concluded that my companion had changed his mind in the course of feeding, and had resolved to compress the whole eating of the day into one large refreshment here.  The consumptive powers of the Swiss-German peasant, when his meal is franked, has not unfrequently reminded me of the miraculous eating performed by a yellow domino of that nation, at the fete by which Louis XIV. celebrated the second marriage of the Dauphin.  This domino was of large size, and ate and drank voraciously throughout the entertainment, which lasted many hours, retiring every five minutes or so, and returning speedily with unabated appetite.  The thing became at length so portentous, that enquiries were instituted, and it was found that the trusty Cent-Suisses had joined at a domino, and were drawing lots all through the evening for the next turn at eating; so that each man’s time was necessarily limited, and he accordingly made the most of it.

We soon took to the rocks, and found them, as the charcoal-burner had promised, sufficiently stiff work.  Colonel (now General) Dufour visited the Schafloch with a party of officers in 1822, and he describes[57] the path as a dangerous one, so much so that several of the gallant members of his party could not reach the cave:  he uses rather large words about the precipices, and it is a matter of observation that military service on the Continent tends to induce a habit of body which is not the most suitable for doubtful climbing.  The mountain seemed to be composed, in this part, of horizontal layers of crumbling shale, with a layer now and then of stone, about the thickness of an ordinary house-tile.  The stone layers project from the looser masonry, and afford an excellent foot-hold; but a slip might be unpleasant.  Every one who has done even a small amount of climbing has met with