Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/168

184 “But I am going with thee! I am here for that very purpose!”

“Nay, that is delightful!” And now the steamer was put in motion and the two friends sat side by side, in the most cordial conversation, whilst I enjoyed the sight of their happiness, and views of the richly-populated banks of the Lake of Zürich. Charming villas and manufactories, with their tall, smoking chimneys, lay interspersed with groves and cultivated fields. Before us, arose in the distance, the snowy Alps of Glacis and Appenzell.

At Kapperschwyl, we took a carriage, and entered and ascended the Canton Schwytz. The weather had become stormy and wet. After a three hours' drive, we arrived in rain and gloom, at the little town of Einsiedeln, which for the greater part is a town of houses of entertainment for the pilgrims to the convent and its Holy Virgin. Lights shone from every window in the town. Ten thousand pilgrims are said to have arrived for the morrow's festival. A letter which I had brought with me procured us rooms, however, and a most kind reception at the inn to which it was addressed.

San Loretto in Italy, St. James of Compostella in Spain, and Einsiedeln, or “Notre Dames des Eremites,” in Switzerland, are the most frequented places of pilgrimage in Europe.

It is now, according to the chronicle, many centuries since Meinrad, Count of Sulgen on the Danube, built for himself a hermit's cell on the heights of Etzel, together with a chapel for a miraculous image of the Virgin, which had been given to him by