A PHYSICIAN'S HOLYDAY. * IN the autumnal vacation of last year,

when all London was out of' town, Dr. Forbes took a physician's holyday in a trip to Switzerland. He was accompanied by two young men, and the party were prepared to rough it if need were. They started from London on the 3d of August, for Ostend ; reached Basle on the 11th, by means of railways, the Rhine, and an occasional lift; from Basle they encircled Switzerland, with frequent deviations in search of the picturesque. The falls of Schaffhausen, Zurich, Zuz, 1Vallenstatt, Coire, the wonderful piece of alpine engineering called the Via Male from the original state of the road, Altorf, Luzern, the regions of the Jungfrau, and Mont Blanc, with the Hospice of St,. Ber- nard, were visited, mostly on foot, but with assistance along the high- road from horse and voiture. The Swiss tour was accomplished in a month ; the party leaving Geneva on the 11th September, as they arrived at Basle on the 11th August, and finally reached London on the 16th September. The total cost of the trip was about a guinea per diem each person ; but it should be observed that the party appear to have been economical, with a tendency to "temperance."

The intellectual delight and the improvement in health and spirits that Dr. Forbes derived from his tour, coupled with a little of that un- easiness which arises from an overcharged breast, has induced him to pub- lish an account of what he has done, as an example for others to follow. No doubt, upon the principle of Rothschild, that "what another man does

can do," the thing may be done if there is strength to do it. The tourist who treads in Dr. Forbes's footsteps should, however, carefully consider his constitutional powers and habits before starting. Five o'clock in the morning, five-and-twenty miles a day, ten or fifteen hours in the open air, a small modicum of bed, and rugged mountain-paths sometimes all but perpendicular, were things of no moment to Dr. Forbes. Some- times he might indulge a little later in the morning, and he took ad- vantage of a steamer or a car to get him on his road, and occasionally attacked a mountain on the back of a mule ; but many hours' walking, very moderate sleep, and short meals, were the rule of his journey, and this continuously : as "regular as the day came" Dr. Forbes and party were up and at it. How many men in London, or out of it, could stand this making a toil of a pleasure, or if they could get through it what bene- fit it would do them afterwards we do not know. As a matter of enjoy- ment, we suspect that six weeks or even two months would be better than a mouth for the journey. Those who contemplate a thorough or a partial tour through Switzerland will find A Physician's Holyday very useful Dr. Forbes gives some good general advice to the tourist, economical, hygienic, viatorial ; he carries him through good ways, by good modes of locomotion, to good inns ; he shows him the best out-of-doors sights, and takes him out of the high road to places less known while he will stimulate the lazy or sauntering traveller by precept and example. The reader who travels • A Physician's Holyday ; or a Month in Switzerland, in the Summer of 1848. By John Forbes, 31.D., F.R.S. With a Map and Illustrations. Published by Murray. in his arm-chair will glean amusement and information from Dr. Forbes. Ile has the activity of a professional man, the objects that excite the attention of the physician, with the frank and attractive manners which distinguish the medical over the other professions, and rather induce the confidence of strangers. As far as time permitted in such a race against time, Dr. Forbes visited the medical institutions in his way, inquired into the more marked class of local diseases, (as cretenism,) and freely mingled pith the peasantry, or the people who attended him en route. He has a feeling as well as an eye for the beauties of nature, and the power of presenting them to others. But he indulges much in description, in too diffusive a style. Day after day, the features of the country and the impressions they leave upon the tourist's mind are exhibited at large, some- times scarcely relieved even by the incidents of the road or the inn ; so that a want of variety and human interest is too frequently felt. For the tourist, who expects to see the original, or to whom the description recalls it, this may not be an objection; but it rather oppresses the mere home reader by a superfluity of images without ideas.

Throughout Switzerland Dr. Forbes found complaints of the bad sea- son, caused by the unsettled state of the Continent ; but nowhere any disposition to retrograde from Liberal ideas. This was the case not only in the Protestant Cantons, but in the Roman Catholic Cantons that formed the League of the Sunderbund. It was the same during the short time he was in the territories of Piedmont, on the subjects of religion, war, and politics. "About two or three miles from Contanlines there are three small oratories erected, close by the road-side, two of them containing small figures of Christ and the Virgin. On these the following inscription greets the wayfarer in good clear print: Monsieur Louis Rendu accorde lludulgence de 40 jours a Quiconque recitera un Pater Noster et no Ave Marie devant cet Oratoire.' This is certainly a very civil thing of M. Rondo; but, as far as I could learn, his civility does not seem to be much appreciated by those who have the best opportunities of profiting by it. I conversed with several of the country-people on the subject, and found some careless' some doubtful, and some openly sceptical and recusant. One young man said, he had not yet found time to go and say the required prayers. A man and his wife, busy in their hay-field near at hand, seemed to regard the thing as a capital joke, when I asked them if they took advantage of their vicinity to the oratory to make so profitable a bargain for their peccadilloes. A third cottager, an old man of a graver stamp, treated the subject more seriously, and in a way not at all complimentary to Monsieur Rendu. He said that it was, to say the least, an absurdity to think that any man, be he who he may, priest, bishop, or pope, could pardon the sins of another man. He told me that these oratories have been erected at the expense of individuals of the neighbourhood, either before death or in terms of thew last will, as means of atonement for their own offences.

"M. Benda is, I believe, the Bishop of Annecy, bishop of the diocese; and is, in spite of these puerilities, known to be a man of science. * * *

"During our last few days' journeying in the territories of his Sardinian Ma- jesty, all the attractions of external nature could not hinder our being interested by the opinions and feelings of the people. Everywhere we found the public mind agitated, as was natural, with the actual state of the country, and its political and socialprospects. Everywhere there was a warm feeling for the independence of the kingdom, and a willingness to make sacrifices for this, prevalent ; but the ac- tual war, deemed one of aggression on the part of the King, not of self-defence, was most unpopular. The late disasters in Lombardy had disheartened the people generally; and the universal and most extensive recruiting, the consequence of these, brought the evils of war home to the hearth of every man. The extent of this recruiting may be judged by the fact, that in the small commune of Cormay- ear, containing only 1,800 inhabitants, no fewer than one hundred men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-six had recently been drawn by the conscrip- tion, and had already joined the army. As far as I could learn, not one of these men left their homes with good will: and no wonder; independently of the inhe- rent evils of military service, the Sardinian soldier's pay is so absurdly small that it may be said to be next to nothing—not more than one-and-half sons per day "Amid all its harsh inflictions, it was a comfort to know that the conscription was not altogether blind in its decimations: such men as could prove themselves the mainstay of their respective families, even though of the fatal age, were ex- empted from service. Our driver from Cormayeur to Aosta, for instance, was in this happy predicament, from being the only son of his mother and the brother of several sisters.

It was curious to find in this small commune of Cormayeur—this out-of-the- way place at the foot of the distant Mont Blanc—how the recent revolution in France had made itself felt: a striking proof not merely of the delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi,' but also of the universal sympathy of interests, so to speak, misting among the nations of modern times. Not fewer than sixty-five indivi- duals of Cormayenr were in good employment in Paris at the time of the break- ing-out of the insurrection, chiefly as manufacturers of colours in the establish- ment of one of their countrymen grown rich there. Of these, not fewer than thirty-two, dismissed for want of work, had actually returned to the commune ; and of those who remained at Paris, the majority were glad to accept half the usual amount of wages.

"The new constitution of Piedmont or Sardinia promulgated by Charles Al- bert was the theme of all, and immensely prized. Whether granted willingly or no, whether intended to be permanent or not—and all seem to have strong doubts on these points—the general feeling was, that once granted it should be kept. To preserve this their Magna Charta, neither revolution nor war would be shrunk from; and all I spoke with seemed to be prepared to guarantee their new rights at all hazards.

"The two great practical boons the common people seemed best to understand and most to prize were, the relief from clerical oppression and taxation, and the liberty of the press. • • "Since the promulgation of the constitution establishing liberty of the press, newspapers have become quite fashionable; and in Aosta they are eagerly devoured even by the common people. They had not, however, yet extended far into the country. For instance, neither before the constitution nor since did any news- paper reach the commune of Cormayeur, at least any that was accessible to the working classes; but here and elsewhere every one seemed to be aware of the na- ture and vast importance of a free press. Averse as every one seemed to war, there was only one sentiment on this head in relation to the constitution: they would fight for it and for Piedmont, but not for foreign objects."

Dr. Forbes added this note while the sheets were passing through the press—

"March 1849. The utter discomfiture of the Sardinian army, and the termi- nation of the war by a single battle, of which accounts are just received, will stir- Prise no one who had an opportunity of knowing the feelings of the people re- specting Charles Albert and his wars."

Politics and general feeling were not the only things that drew our author's attention from Swiss scenery. He attended to the useful arts, and gives these hints on butter.

"it is a singular fact, and one I could not bring myself to believe until I had it confirmed to me by repeated testimony, that the whole of the butter produced in any one of these Alpine pastures is preserved sweet, or at least, perfectly fit for use, through the whole season without any admixture of salt. The follow- ing is the way in which it is treated. A narrow deal board, not more than four or five inches wide, is fixed horizontally in an open place in the dairy of the chalet: wooden pins from two to three feet in length are fixed in an upright position into this, their whole length projecting above its surface. As the butter is made it is placed daily around these pins (one at a time) beginning at their lower end, and in a mass not exceeding at first the width of the board. Every day as more batter is made it is added to the previous portion around the pin, the diameter of the growing mass being gradually enlarged upwards until the upper surface overhangs the base to a considerable extent, like an inverted beehive. When one pin is tilled, another is proceeded with in like manner, and so on. The exposed surface of these masses gets soon covered with a sort of hard film which effectually excludes the access of the air; and this circumstance, with two others— viz, the complete expression of milk from the batter, and the unobstructed cir- culation of a cool mountain air through the chalet,—will go far to explain how butter so treated can remain so long without becoming spoiled. "I should like this experiment to be tried in some of our English dairies. The Swiss manipulators had no doubt of the trial succeeding, provided all the above- mentioned requisites of complete expression of the milk, a low temperature, and

a free circulation of air,. were obtained. • •

"The mode of preparing the winter store of batter seems to me much more important; and I will here describe it in detail, as I believe it is little known in England, and ought to be more so. I refer to what is called in the Vallais and in Piedmont boiled butter (beam cuit), the form in which this article of diet is universally used, at least for all purposes of cookery. "In looking at the horrid compound sold in England as salt butter, at least the cheaper sorts of it used by the poorer classes, I cannot but believe that its supersession by the boiled butter of Switzerland would be advantageous both to the comfort and health of a large proportion of our countrymen. It can hardly be believed that such an offensive, briny, and semi-putrid mass as the cheaper sorts of our salt butter, can be without serious detriment to the health of the consumers, any more than the salted meat formerly issued to our seamen was so. The only difference in the two cases, is the comparative quantity consumed in each case: in itself, I am disposed to regard the rancid butter as the more un- wholesome of the two. The boiled butter, while infinitely more palatable' is neither saline nor rancid, and consequently, is calculated to be more easily di- gested, and to produce) a more wholesome material for absorption into the system. "I give the receipt for the process of making the boiled batter in the words I took it down from the mouth of my guide from the valley of Entremont, with the addition of some little variations in the process, as I obtained them from others learned in the same art.

"Formula.—Into a clean copper pan [better, no i doubt, tinned] pat any quantity of butter, say from twenty to forty pounds, and place t over a very gentle fire, so that it melt slowly ; and let the beat be so graduated that the melted! mass does not come to the boil in less than about two hours. Daring all this time the butter must be frequently stirred, say once in five or ten minutes, BO that the whole mass may be thoroughly intermixed, and the top and bottom change places from time to time. When the melted mass boils, the fire is to be so regulated as to keep the butter at a gentle boil for about two hours more; the stirring being still continued, but not necessarily so frequently as before. The vessel is then to be removed front the fire, and set aside to cool and settle, stall gradually ; this process of cooling being supposed also to require about two hours. The melted mass is then, while still quite liquid, to be carefully poured into the croc or jar in which it is to be kept. In the process of cooling, there is deposited a whitish cheesy sediment proportioned to the quantity of batter, which is to be carefully prevented erom intermixture with the preserved butter.

"As might be expected, there are some variations in the process in the practice of different individuals."