The river draws me after it.  We leave the town together, and I am soon in the midst of those market-gardens where the infant Topffer lost himself, and, overtaken by nightfall, fell to making his famous analysis of fear.  The big pumping wheels still overtop the willows, and cast their shadows over the lettuce-fields.  In the distance rise slopes of woodland, on Sundays the haunt of holiday-makers.  The Rhone leaps and eddies, singing over its gravel beds.  Two trout-fishers are taxing all their strength to pull a boat up stream beneath the shelter of the bank.

Perhaps I was wrong in not waiting to hear what M. Plumet had to tell me.  He is not the kind of man to gesticulate wildly without good reason.

On the lake.

The steamer is gaining the open water and Geneva already lies far behind.  Not a ripple on the blue water that shades into deep blue behind us.  Ahead the scene melts into a milky haze.  A little boat, with idle sails embroidered with sunlight, vanishes into it.  On the right rise the mountains of Savoy, dotted with forests, veiled in clouds which cast their shadows on the broken slopes.  The contrast is happy, and I can not help admiring Leman’s lovely smile at the foot of these rugged mountains.

At the bend in the banks near St. Maurice-en-Valais, the wind catches us, quite a squall.  The lake becomes a sea.  At the first roll an Englishwoman becomes seasick.  She casts an expiring glance upon Chillon, the ancient towers of which are being lashed by the foam.  Her husband does not think it worth his while to cease reading his guide-book or focusing his field-glass for so trifling a matter.

On the diligence

I am crossing the Simplon at daybreak, with rosepink glaciers on every side.  We are trotting down the Italian slope.  How I have longed for the sight of Italy!  Hardly had the diligence put on the brake, and begun bowling down the mountain-side, before I discovered a change on the face of all things.  The sky turned to a brighter blue.  At the very first glance I seemed to see the dust of long summers on the leaves of the firs, six thousand feet above the sea, in the virgin atmosphere of the mountain-tops:  and I was very near taking the creaking of my loosely fixed seat for the southern melody of the first grasshopper.

BAVENO

No one could be mistaken; this shaven, obsequious, suavely jovial innkeeper is a Neapolitan.  He takes his stand in his mosaic-paved hall, and is at the service of all who wish for information about Lago Maggiore, the list of its sights; in a word, the programme of the piece.

Isola Bella, Isola Madre.

Yes, they are scraped clean, carefully tended, pretty, all a-blowing and a-growing; but unreal.  The palm trees are unhomely, the tropical plants seem to stand behind footlights.  Restore them to their homes, or give me back Lake Leman, so simply grand.