Come mild Sun,
From mercy's pale,
Light up our house and home.'"
Voyage from Leith to Lapland in 1850,
by W. Hurton, vol. i. p. 104.
Dr. Forbes writes:
"We had very indifferent rest in our inn, owing to the over-zeal of the Chur watchmen, whose practice it is to perambulate the town through the whole night, twelve in number, and who on the present occasion displayed a most energetic state of vigilance. They not only called, but sung out, every hour, in the most sonorous strains, and even chanted a long string of verses on the striking of some.... I suppose the good people of Chur think nothing of these chantings, or from habit hear them not; but a tired traveller would rather run the risk of being robbed in tranquillity, than be thus sung from his propriety during all the watches of the night."—A Physician's Holiday, pp. 80, 81.
Dr. Forbes gives a copy of a "Watch Chant at Chur," with a translation, pp. 81, 82. At p. 116. he says:
"In our hotel at Altorf we were again saluted, during the vigils of the night, but in a very mitigated degree, with some of the same patriotic and pious strains which had so disturbed us at Chur. As chanted here, however, they were far from unwelcome. The only other place, I think, where we heard these Wächterrufe was Neufchatel. These calls are very interesting relics of the old times, and must be considered indicative as well of the simple habits of the old time, as of the pious feelings of the people of old."
He then gives the Evening and Morning Chants in the town of Glarus, and the chant in use in some places in the canton of Zurich; but in Zurich itself the chant is no longer heard.
Dr. Forbes concludes the twelfth chapter with the following observation: