At Lugano.—Geographically this seems to be Italy. But people remind one always of the artificial frontier which makes it Switzerland. What's that matter? Get up early. Ha! there it is. Cloudless sky! And such a blue! Ultramarine at a guinea the thimbleful. Hurry down to enjoy its beauty as long as possible. Fortunate I did so, for by ten o'clock it has all vanished. Go up a hill. View from top would be fairly clear for Helvellyn. But for Italy! Amiable and chatty Italian reminds me that I am not in Italy. Ah, of course not. Will get there as soon as I can. Meanwhile mope in hotel, for it is now raining steadily. Not a magnificent mountain downpour, with thunder and lightning, howling of wind, crashing of elements, alarums and excursions, and that sort of thing; only a quiet, steady rain, which would be disliked even in Ambleside. But in Ambleside there would be a fire. Here I sit in a draughty, chilly corridor, with some melancholy Germans, all of us wearing overcoats indoors. They remind me that I am not in Italy. Anyone could see that.

At Pallanza.—Here on Lago Maggiore there must really be the Rowbotham effects. My room looks over the lake. "La vista È bellissima," says the waiter in the evening. Hooray! Now to forget the gloom of Switzerland and England. Wake early. Misty morning. Good sign of fine weather probably. Into bed again. Wake again. Only half-past seven. Still misty. Into bed again. Wake once more. Still misty. Evidently quite early. Hullo! still half-past seven. Watch stopped. Ring. "Si, Signore," says the chambermaid, in the mixed dialect which she has invented for foreigners, "il est dieci heures." Ten! By Jove! With that fog? She assures me it will clear away, "se non oggi, domani." Bellissima vista looks exactly like Derwentwater in rain. Grey water, grey sky, grey mountains, wreathed in grey mist. It does not clear to-day, so it may to-morrow.

Next day even worse. Fog greyer, and rain with it. Mud everywhere. Notice a practical German tourist with three umbrellas strapped on his knapsack. Wise man! He knows this climate, and also the advantage of a change of clothes, or of umbrellas. So useful to have a morning umbrella, an afternoon umbrella, and a sort of evening-dress umbrella to bring down to the table d'hÔte. When tired of gazing at the mist, I read a three days old Times, preserved in the reading-room. Hullo! what is that sound? A piano-organ! Heavens! To think that I should have travelled hundreds of miles from London to hear the grinding of an organ while I read the Times in a fog! Why, in Kensington Gardens I could have done as much.

A First Impressionist.