Without speaking a word, with the same worshipping expression upon every face, we followed him with our eyes.... Then, when he had quite disappeared, "Quick! let us dress quickly! We certainly will not allow him to wait for us."
III
Behold us, in our turn, at the edge of the lake of the "Four Cantons," on the wharf, which shelters a whole fleet of white boats with slackened sails.
What a landscape! What scenery!—And what a harmonious setting for the picture!
The lake, so pure, so clear that it seems like a mass of blue crystal, a liquid sapphire, is lost to sight between the spurs of the mountains. On one side looms Mount Pilatus, of the purple grey of storm clouds, rugged and bare, outlining against the sky its rocky summit; on the other, verdant Righi undulates, bristling with dark green firs that form a contrast to its bright lawns of tender green. And beyond, dim, cloudy, and unreal, appear the indentations of the Alps.
Choosing a boatman, we call to him, proudly,
"To Tribschen."
With a thrust of his boat hook the man launches us from the bank and spreads his sail.
Now it is the city that we see, the old Lucerne with its unequal houses, its many belfries, its unused bastions, spread out above the picturesque little wooden bridge which we had hardly noticed when we crossed it, but which now redoubles the curves of its rustic arches in the blue waters of the lake.