300

DOMESTIC MA.NNERS OF TUE PEUSSIANS.

abouts owing to the proximity of the Rhine Falls. To tliiscircumstance the town is said to owe its name.

Schaff hausen was at first only a hamlet, tlien it rose to bea small market-town, and when Count Eberhart de Neuenbürghad founded and richly endowed the renowned Abbey of AllSaints in its vicinity, it was elevated (in the 13th Century) tothe dignity of an Imperial city, the Abbot exercising sovereignauthority over the place. Schaff hausen was then enclosedwitbin walls, and continued to increase in power, and itsinhabitants in wealth, under the ecclesiastical dominion.

A hundred years later, the Emperor Lewis of Bavariamortgaged the city to Austria; but the Citizens redeemed theirindependence by themselves paying the money for which theirtown had been pawned. A few years later, again, it enteredinto a treaty with the Helvetic Confederation, and becomingthe ally of the Swiss in many a battle, was ultimately, in theyear 1501, incorporated among the Federal States as the12th Canton. 4

During the wars of the French Revolution, the Frenchand the Austrians occupied it by turns, and when Napoleonestablished himself as Mediator of the Helvetic Confederation,its Constitution and privileges were revised and modified likethose of the other cantons.

Thus it continued tili the year 1831, when its governmentwas finally settled upon a more liberal and extended basis.

It now contains an industrious population of 7500 souls,and is the seat of considerable trade; though it is but littleresorted to, except as a halting-place for travellers and visitorsto the neighbouring Rhine Falls—there being few objects inthe town itself worthy of notice.

The antique architecture of Schaff hausen, indeed, forms itsmain point of attraction; for the city is distinguished above