table appearance of fury. The sail-boats
vanished, and even the steamers went through it with a good deal of
struggling and reluctance.

As soon as the weather became better, we went to Lausanne, preferring
the road, with a view to see the country. It is not easy to fancy
anything prettier than this drive, which ran, nearly the whole distance,
along the foot of hills, that would be mountains anywhere else, and
quite near the water. The day was beautiful, and we had the lake, with
its varying scenery and movement, the whole time in sight; while the
road, an excellent solid wheel-track, wound between the walls of
vineyards, and was so narrow as scarcely to admit the passage of two
carriages at a time. At a short distance from Lausanne, we left the
margin of the lake, and ascended to the level of the town, through a
wooded and beautifully ornamented country.

We found our friends established in one of the numberless villas that
dot the broken land around the place, with their windows commanding most
of that glorious view that I have already described to you. Mont Benon,
a beautiful promenade, was close at hand, and, in the near view, the eye
ranged over fields, verdant and smooth lawns, irregular in their
surfaces, and broken by woods and country-houses. A long attenuated
reach of the lake stretched away towards Geneva, while the upper end
terminated in its noble mountains, and the mysterious, glen-like gorge
of Valais. We returned from this excursion in the evening, delighted
with the exterior of Lausanne, and more and more convinced that, all
things considered, the shores of this lake unite greater beauties, with
better advantages as a residence, than any other part of Switzerland.

After remaining at Vevey a day or two longer, I went to Geneva, in the
Winkelried, which had got a new commander; one as unaffected as his
predecessor had been fantastical. Our progress was slow, and, although
we reached the port early enough to prevent being locked out, with the
exception of a passage across Lake George, in which the motion seemed
expressly intended for the lovers of the picturesque, I think this the
most deliberate run, or rather _walk_, I ever made by steam.

I found Geneva much changed, for the better, in the last four years.
Most of the hideous sheds had been pulled down from the fronts of the
houses, and a stone pier is building, that puts the mighty port of New
York, with her commercial _energies_, to shame. In othe