dripping wharf, almost deserted, on which
were seen, through the mist as through a sheet of oiled paper, a few
passengers wrapped in ulsters and formless india-rubber garments, and
the helmsman standing motionless, muffled in his hooded cloak, his
manner grave and sibylline, behind this notice printed in three
languages:--

"Forbidden to speak to the man at the wheel."

Very useless caution, for nobody spoke on board the "Winkelried,"
neither on deck, nor in the first and second saloons crowded with
lugubrious-looking passengers, sleeping, reading, yawning, pell-mell,
with their smaller packages scattered on the seats--the sort of scene we
imagine that a batch of exiles on the morning after a coup-d'Etat might
present.

From time to time the hoarse bellow of the steam-pipe announced the
arrival of the boat at a stopping-place. A noise of steps, and of
baggage dragged about the deck. The shore, looming through the fog, came
nearer and showed its slopes of a sombre green, its villas shivering
amid inundated groves, files of poplars flanking the muddy roads along
which sumptuous hotels were formed in line with their names in letters
of gold upon their facades, Hotel Meyer, Mueller, du Lac, etc., where
heads, bored with existence, made themselves visible behind the
streaming window-panes.

The wharf was reached, the passengers disembarked and went upward, all
equally muddy, soaked, and silent. 'Twas a coming and going of umbrellas
and omnibuses, quickly vanishing. Then a great beating of the wheels,
churning up the water with their paddles, and the shore retreated,
becoming once more a misty landscape with its _pensions_ Meyer,
Mueller, du Lac, etc., the windows of which, opened for an instant, gave
fluttering handkerchiefs to view from every floor, and outstretched
arms that seemed to say: "Mercy! pity! take us, take us... if you only
knew!.."

At times the "Winkelried" crossed on its way some other steamer with its
name in black letters on its white paddle-box: "Germania.".. "Guillaume
Tell"... The same lugubrious deck, the same refracting caoutchoucs, the
same most lamentable pleasure trip as that of the other phantom vessel
going its different way, and the same heart-broken glances exchanged
from deck to deck.

And to say that those people travelled for enjoyment! and that all
those boarders in the Hotels du Lac, Meyer, and Mueller were captives for
pleasure!

Here, as on the Rigi-Kulm, the thing that above a