How beautiful and varied is the scene before me at this hour! It is a lovely moonlight night, and the lake shines bright and tranquil as a polished mirror. The laughing stars lie buried in the blue depths below. On the bosom of this fairy lake are scores of lover-laden row boats, shooting, turning, gliding, in every possible direction. As the oars strike the water, they gleam in the moonlight like paddles of silver. There are two, four, or six persons in each boat. Several boats have now grouped together, and all have joined in singing “Moonlight on the Lake,” and the soft music floats over the still waters until it dies away in the distance. There is a momentary pause. And now, just in front of the long line of four-story hotels, which are set back about one hundred feet from the lake, the Hungarian Band breaks forth and its wild melodies are echoed from the surrounding hills. Next the Neapolitan Quartette causes a perfect uproar of laughter as it discourses the latest Italian comic songs with banjo accompaniment. As the clock from the cathedral tower announces the hour of eleven, a change comes over the scene. The street lamps are extinguished, and the good-humored multitude pour forth their extravagant praises of the brilliant display of fireworks which are now filling the air with noise and showers of falling stars. Thus do tourists and visitors spend their summer evenings in this little town of Lucerne, this “Swiss Lady of the Lake.” All through the month of August, thunder-storms of unusual grandeur have been prevalent in Switzerland. Twenty-four hours ago, I witnessed a thunder-storm that made a lasting impression. It was twelve o’clock at night. The evening before all nature was in confusion. The angry clouds were like seething volcanoes, shooting up their thunderheads as if they would strike heaven in the face. Behind these cloud-battalions, which were constantly forming and reforming in ranks of war, the sun was skirmishing. Now and then his fiery darts would pierce the serrate columns, but immediately they would close up the gap and shut out the sun. As if given up in despair, he retired behind the western hills. The world was then locked in the embrace of night, and given over to the remorseless storm-god. The angry clouds began to gather from the east and west and north and south, growing denser and darker as they came. Muttering thunder could be heard in the distance. At last the crisis came. One blinding flash of lightning followed another. The lakes roared. The earth moved. The mountains reeled! Thunder answered thunder! Deep called unto deep! The peaks, like mountain monarchs, seemed to be quarreling with each other; each peak had a voice and each glen an echo! One moment all was painfully dark, and the next a mighty sheet of flame could be seen falling from the clouds upon the mountain tops. There it lingered for a moment, and then, rolling itself into billows, it came dashing down the rocky steeps like cataracts of