ON a clear bright day, the hot air tempered by a gentle breeze wafted down from the ice-covered mountains, with others we left Geneva, to cross the mountains and visit Mont Blanc, that patriarch of the Alps. The blue waters of Lake Geneva danced and sparkled in the sunlight as our steamer sped along towards Nyon.

At last we were skimming over the surface of that wonderful body of water whose peans have for hundreds of years been sung by the poets, in prose and verse, of all countries. Rosseau, Voltaire, Byron, Goethe have revelled in the delights of its tranquil beauty and celebrated its charms in immortal words. And it is indeed a fitting theme for a poet’s song. To-day its deep blue surface is broken into a myriad of ripples. Here and there, sailing slowly along, are large barges with the graceful lateen sails that are seldom seen except upon the Mediterranean. The shores are lined with rich foliage, the cedar of Lebanon mingling its sweet odor with that of the chestnut, the walnut and the magnolia, the whole enlivened with pretty villas and picturesque hamlets.

Though more beautiful, Lake Geneva has a peculiarity that is enjoyed by Lake Constance. It is subject to a change of level. At places, where the bed of the lake is narrow, the water occasionally rises several feet above the ordinary level, and remains so for half an hour or more, this too without any previous warning of what was about to occur. Another peculiarity is that hidden springs oftentimes break forth from the bed of the lake and form a current so swift that it is impossible, almost, to stem the tide. These springs are very dangerous to oarsmen and are nearly as badly feared by the fishermen as the waterspouts that frequently occur.

Here, as everywhere, we had all sorts of people with us. We had a widower, and a widow with a daughter, and the widower had been making love to the widow all the way from London, which the widow accepted more than kindly. Indeed, the attentions of the ancient beau had become so marked, that to the mind of any widow of experience, it was only a question of time as to a proposal direct, which she was waiting for impatiently.

Among others on the boat was the Young Man who Knows Everything, who has studied everything, and who has that rasping memory that enables him to retain everything he ever read, as well as every thought that ever passed through his mind, and the self-sufficiency that impels him to thrust his own talk at you, at no matter how inopportune a time, and no matter how inapplicable it may be to whatever is being discussed. He will discuss a question with you to-day, and when in his bed at night he will remember something that he should have said at the time, and break in upon you a week after with the omitted remark, with no preface, no explanation, taking it for granted that any discussion you ever had with him was of sufficient importance to take full possession of your mind and occupy it forever and forever. He had had an argument with the widower the night before at the hotel in Geneva, upon the authority of the Old Testament, which the widower, as was natural, forgot in an hour. Our widow and widower were sitting near the stern, in loving proximity, discussing quietly the loneliness of their situation. The young man was waiting very close, entirely oblivious of what they were saying, and only anxious to fire off his charge.

“Ah, Mrs. Redding,” said the widower, “when one has once tasted the sweets of congenial companionship—”

In broke the young man:

“It was the old dispensation, and is not binding on us to-day at all. Therefore you needn’t do everything that Moses put upon the Jews; but, Mr. Thompson, you can just bet your sweet life that you are perfectly safe in not doing anything that he said the Jews should not do.”

The widower looked daggers, and the widow broadswords. As handsome a proposal as was ever to be made was nipped in the bud—an opportunity for the widow was lost which might never be regained. Who could tell? Possibly his passion might cool off. The fish was hooked but not landed, and this insufferable argument-monger was the cause of it.

“Blast your Moses,” uttered the irate widower. “Madam, if there is any part of this boat safe from the intrusion of young men who dabble in Moses, let us find it.”

And they went off, leaving the young man not at all abashed. He merely turned to an amused spectator, with the remark:

“That man’s face proves the correctness of the Darwinian theory. In time his descendants may become men. I was about to enlighten him on an important subject, but he would not.”

There never was a boat loaded with tourists which did not have on its deck the man who was doing Europe on insufficient capital. He spent money freely in London, Paris nearly finished him, and he commenced traveling on credit in Switzerland. His method was very simple: he borrowed a hundred francs of every man he thought simple enough to lend it to him. It was always the same story, he had drawn on his people at home and would have the money at the next stopping place but one. Then he always slipped away from his victim at the next stopping place and was seen no more. We had him, but he did not succeed. There were too many old travelers in the party.

Geneva, on a plateau above the level of the lake, with its picturesque background of rugged mountains, gradually melts into a solid mass of buildings, bridges and parks as we go up the lake, past the mammoth hotels, with their beautifully arranged lawns and gardens. On the left, in an immense pleasure park, is the Rothschild villa, a country seat as beautiful as the surroundings. For miles the left bank of the lake is lined with summer residences, nestling among the lovely groves of fragrant trees.

On the right bank, a range of hills, starting way up the lake, rises gradually higher and higher until it culminates, apparently, in Mt. Blanc, fifty-six miles away. These mountains, rugged and severe, slope gradually down to the bank of the lake, which is lined with well cultivated farms.

The lake is a study. Its bright blue waters are as clear as crystal, the small white pebbles on the bottom being plainly discernable. As the sharp prow cleaves the water and throws it off on either side, the hue is changed into a dark green, making a charming contrast with the unruffled water beyond, which retains its peculiar blue.

Long before Nyon is reached, the white buildings of Geneva have faded away in a mild rose colored haze, through which the dim outlines of the mountains can just be seen.

After an hour’s run, full of beauty, Nyon, a favorite resting place for tourists, is reached, and the steamer stops long enough to take on three or four mountain climbers, who, with Alpenstocks in hand and knapsacks on back, are going on a pedestrian expedition on the other side of the lake.

The sharp pointed roofs of Nyon’s houses, its quaint streets, pretentious hotels and historic buildings make it a favorite resort all Summer long.

The faro bankeress was of the party, she and her husband. The husband looked listlessly into the blue water, and enjoyed the succession of beautiful views, and studied nature in all its aspects, with a party of kindred spirits, in the hot cabin below, over a game of euchre, with a rapid succession of orders for cognac and water. That’s all he saw of Lake Leman. He played moodily, as though the time taken from his magnificent game at home was so much wasted. Green cloth was more to him than emerald water, and he never desired to see an elevation greater than a roulette ball.

His wife made the acquaintance of, and fastened herself to, a party of actual tourists, and to them she discoursed volubly of the prices of silk stockings in Paris, and of dress making and millinery and kindred topics. There was one young girl who really had the eye of a hawk for the actually beautiful, who would go into raptures as some wonderfully beautiful view dawned upon us, and who felt an enthusiasm which she must share with somebody. And so she would pull the faro bankeress by the sleeve, and interrupt her flow of talk.

“And then you see these stockings are—”

“Oh, Mrs. ——, do look at that mountain with the cataract rushing down its side!”

A hasty glance at the wonderful work of nature.

“Oh, yes, my dear—it’s nice. But them stockings. Why, in New York, at any first-class store—”

And so forth, and so on.

Tibbitts was gorgeously arrayed in a Parisian suit, with trowsers very wide at the bottom, and cuffs of preposterous length and width. He discussed all sorts of abstruse questions with grave German professors, neither understanding a word of what the other was saying, and so he passed for a very wise young man. More men would be so esteemed if they would always talk in language which nobody can understand. I remember of being wonderfully impressed with the profundity of a New England metaphysical talker, but alas! when his six syllabled words were translated into common English, I wondered at the stupidity of his commonplaces.

But poor Tibbitts was finally conquered. There was a Jew on board who was selling the “art work” of the country. He spoke all languages, as the Continental Jews all can. Tibbitts admired a little ivory carving.

“What is the price of it?”

“My tear sir ze work of art vill be given avay for ze redeecoolus sum oof two huntret francs. It gost me dwice dot.”

Then Tibbitts winked a wink of intelligence to the rest of us, as if he should say, “See me unmask this Jew.”

“I will give you five francs for it.”

“Fife francs? Fadder Abraham, but you laugh at me! I vill dake—but no, mine friend, dis ees a bat season—you dake him.”

Then the laugh was not with Tibbitts. The “ivory carving” was the basest kind of an imitation, and would be dear at a half franc. And Tibbitts retired sullenly to the cabin below, and all the way up his American friends amused themselves by asking to see his rare ivory carving.

There is so much that is beautiful on this side that time slips away without notice, so that when Thonon is reached it scarcely seems possible that it has taken an hour to make the run across the lake from Nyon.

At the entrance to Thonon, the channel is very tortuous, and once, near the landing, you may seek in vain for the entrance or the way out. There is a little lake all by itself, hemmed in on every side, apparently, by mountain and forest.

Surrounded by mountains, Thonon nestles at the foot of a vineyard-covered hill, up the sides of which low houses, with their queer, overhanging roofs, line narrow, angular streets that seem to be too steep for any practical use.

High up the side of the hill is a picturesque terrace, with pretty, vine-clad houses on the site of the old ducal palaces destroyed by the Bernese in 1536, from which a beautiful view of the lake and surrounding country is obtained.

At one time this little place was the residence of the Counts and Dukes of Savoy, it still being the capital of the Savoyard Province of Chamblais. The vineyards in this neighborhood produce the fine white wines that are celebrated the world over.

Touching for a few minutes at Evian, a favorite resort for wealthy people from the south of France, with its pretty hotels, charming oak shaded promenades, the boat sped rapidly on toward Auchy, crossing the lake again. Looking up the lake the mountain ranges, towering high above, change their form and color with every revolution of the wheel. Just ahead of us on the right, a great peak, starting abruptly from the water’s edge, shoots straight up into the air for a thousand or two feet. All about us are the green covered hills, forming a rare frame for the picture of the sun-lit lake, dotted here and there with a lateen sail, and the slowly drifting smoke of a pleasure steamer that skirts along the shores. At this point a long detour is made around a huge hill that juts out into the water, completely shutting out the view on the right. As we passed round it, an exclamation of surprise and wonder involuntarily burst forth at the sight of the TÊte Noire, which lay before us, with its lofty peaks crowned with eternal snow.

On we go, past pretty little villages, any one of which would be a most delightful place to spend the Summer; past vineyards, with their luscious fruit ripening in the sun, until, just above Chillon, we come to the Castle of Chillon, made famous by Byron.

This ancient castle, built as far back as A.D. 830, stands in a picturesque position on a barren rock some twenty yards from the shore, with which it is connected by a wooden bridge. Its history is full of romance, from the time Louis le Debonnaire incarcerated within its gloomy walls—from which but the sky, the Alps, and Lake Leman, could be seen—the Abbot Wala of Corvey, for instigating his sons to rebellion, down to the reigns of the Counts of Savoy, who used it as a military prison. The walls of its dingy dungeons are literally covered with names of persons who have visited them, among others being those of Byron, Victor Hugo, George Sands, and Eugene Sue.

Here in Republican Switzerland the traces only of monarchy remain, for which the Swiss should perpetually thank heaven. Everywhere else in Europe the monster actually lives—here only its ghost survives. It is here a remembrance to be shuddered at, not a living reality. But they had it here once. There was a time, and the Castle of Chillon is a silent testimony to it, when a duke or a king, who claimed to be of better clay than ordinary mortals, could seize a man and immure him within its gloomy walls, just as Victoria, by the accident of birth, Mistress of Britain, may order the arrest of an Irishman who opens his mouth the wrong way. Kilmainham is the Irish Chillon, and there are within its walls men whose hair is turning gray, not in a single night, but turning gray just as surely.

The ancient tyrants who lorded it over Switzerland were not one whit worse than the tyrants who now lord it over Europe. Royalty is royalty, the same in all ages, because based upon the same infernal heresy. It is the absolute rule of a class, backed by organized force.

Switzerland, America and France have repudiated it, and the rest of the civilized world will. But what oceans of blood must flow before all this is accomplished.

In order to be a complete and very radical Republican one needs to visit a few just such places as the Castle of Chillon, that the true inwardness of monarchy may be realized.

As the castle, so full of historical interest, fades away, the boat rounds the head of the lake, where the river Rhone pours its gray glacial waters into the brilliant blue of the lake, making a clearly defined mark of gray and blue at least a quarter of a mile from the shore. Then Vernayaz is reached and we disembark for our trip across the Alps.

As the boat glides up to the dock, the ancient castle, built in the twelfth century, is pointed out. Its walls and towers are very massive, and bid fair to stand as long as the city endures. Near the castle is a chateau, where, at one time, Joseph Bonaparte lived. It is now the property of the Moravians, and all its former grandeur is sunk in the abysses of a boys’ school.

Just opposite the town the Jura mountains have entirely changed in appearance, and are full of strange, fantastic peaks and crags, while Mt. Blanc, always visible, presents different faces as the boat changes its course, always, however, grand and fascinating.