or RAAS des VACHES, a celebrated melody of the cow-herds in Switzerland. There seem to be several melodies of that name, employed to assemble the cows in the evening, and to lead them home from their Alpine pastures. The great violinist Viotti wrote down one of these, which he heard amongst the valleys of Switzerland; and used to perform it with such effect in London as to draw tears from his auditors. It has been frequently related, on unquestionable authority, that Swiss soldiers on foreign service, when they happened to hear the rans des vaches performed, were so overpowered by its effect as to be rendered incapable of attending to their duty.

We know a British officer in the army who witnessed a remarkable instance of this effect in the military band attached to an English regiment. In Rogers' Pleasures of Memory there is an elegant allusion made to the nostalgia or homesickness produced by the rans des vaches upon Swiss soldiers in foreign lands.