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A FASTING HERMIT.

have to go on climbing down sooty chimneys, Christmas Eve, forever, and conferring kindness on other people's children, to make up for deserting his own.

A LANDSLIDE.

His bones are kept in a church in a village (Sachseln,) which we visited, and are naturally held in great reverence. His portrait is common in the farm houses of the region, but is believed by many to be but an indifferent likeness. During his hermit life, according to the legend, he partook of the bread and wine of the communion once a month, but all the rest of the month he fasted.

A constant marvel with us, as we sped along the bases of the steep mountains on this journey, was, not that avalanches occur, but that they are not occurring all the time. One does not understand why rocks and landslides do not plunge down these declivities daily. A landslip occurred three quarters of a century ago, on the route from