A System of Geography, Popular and Scientific, Or a Physical, Political, and Statistical Account of the World and Its Various Divisions, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A System of Geography, Popular and Scientific, or a Physical, Political, and Statistical Account of the World and Its Various Divisions, Vol. 2

Population.] Upwards of one-third of the surface of Switzerland, co sisting of Alps and Glaciers, is wholly uninhabitable. Given Schoch, Creme, and Hassel's estimates of the alation of bahitah Switzerland in 1816. Stein in his Geography publ' ed in 1826, estimat the population at and Balbi in his recent Balance Palitiqr at Jacob states the census taken in 1821, to have bee 1,783,23l; and in 1827, Of this number about two-third speak German; the majority of the remaining third speak French abou Italian; and Romanah - a corrupted dialect of the Latin which has been supposed to come very near to the colloquial dielec alleged to have been in use among the Romans. Most of the le speal these different languages very ill, especially the Germans, Wm dialect in many of the cantons is almost unintelligible to a native of Germany. Manners and Ciatoms.) The Swiss are in general a robust and hand some race, their labour being such as invigorates without exhausting the human frame. The costumes of Switzerland are simple, and calculated rather for convenience than ostentation, but are not on that account the less graceful. The higher ranks imitate the fashions prevalent in France. The Swiss have preserved many of the original features of their national character, particularly in those cantons which have least intercourse with foreigners. They are brave and honest in a high degree; and notwith standing their habits of emigration, their attachment to their countryis proverbial, and few leave home without the hope in prospect of at least returning to end their days in the home of their childhood. The Swiss, while engaged in foreign service, will often have his whole national sym pathies so powerfully awakened by a Swiss air, as to forget a soldier's onour in his longings to revisit his fatherland; and nothing cheers the industrious Swiss pedlar, during his long wanderings through all the towns of Europe, so much as the prospect of returning home and becoming the proprietor of a little smiling cottage on the Engadine, or some other to mantic district of his native land. The Swiss dine generally at mid-day.

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