SCHAFFHAUSEN.

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almost every town in Switzerland by tlie mediseval characterof its houses, its gates, and its citadel.

The streets, with tlie exception of the Vorder-Stadt, aremostly dark, from the broad projecting eaves which slantdown before the upper Windows like monstrous eye-shades.The houses are generally narrow and tall, while the majorityhave several storeys of bastion-like oriel Windows, with thesign of the house carved on a central tablet, and their wallscovered with ornamental stucco-work, while their transomsand mullions are decorated with carvings. Some of thebuildings at the corners of the streets have long semi-octagonal rondels, reaching from the top to the bottom ofthe house, and with pyramidal roofs after the fashion of theturret seen flanking the walls of the Castle on the hill in theengraving.

Others, especially the old Zünfte (or guilds), have veryhandsome antique door-ways, pillared and porched, elaboratelysculptured over, and with quaint verses graven on the lintels.The Schmiede-zunft, nearly opposite the "Krone'''' Gasthof, inthe Vorder-gösse, is a curious specimen of such middle-agework—rieh as the carving of an old oaken altar-piece.

A little above this, in the same street or lane, is an enor-mous gabled house, the front of which is frescoed all over.This is styled "Zum Ritter," and has allegorical figures ofImmortality and Farne painted between the lower Windows,and heads of M. T. Cicero and some other Roman gentlemenabove, whilst between the attic casements there is a figure ofQuintus Curtius on horseback, leaping headlong down into thestreet.

Many other houses, also, have their fronts illustrated withfrescoes. A butcher's shop has a figure of Justice, holdinga bright pair of scales, painted on the walls, and another bythe Vor-stadt is decorated with a gigantic figure styled Zum