The "pat-a-pat" of a steamer's wheels was the only sound, and that was very distant, and when the boat came near, the passengers cheered the canoe, and smiles of (was it not?) envy told of how pleasant and pretty she looked. After a little wavering in my plans, I settled it was best to go to the Swiss side, and, after coasting by the villages, I selected a little inn in a retired bay, and moored my boat, and ordered breakfast. Here was an old man of eighty-six, landlord and waiter in one, a venerable man, and I respect age more while growing older. He talked with me for five hours while I ate, read, and sketched, and feasted my eyes on mountain views, and answered vaguely to his remarks, said in a sleepy way, and in a hot, quiet, basking sun. There are peaceful and almost dreamy hours of rest in this water tour, and they are sweet too after hard toil. It is not all rapids and struggles when you journey with a canoe. Close to the inn was the idiot asylum, an old castle with poor demented women in it. The little flag of my boat attracted their attention, and all the inmates were allowed to come out and see it, with many smiles of pleasure, and many odd remarks and gestures. Disentangling myself from this strange group, I landed again further down, and, under a splendid tree, spent an hour or two in carpenter's work (for I had a few tools on board), to repair the boat's damages and to brighten her up a bit for the English eyes I must expect in the next part of the voyage. Not a wave had energy to rise on the lake in the hot sun. A sheep-bell tinkled now and then, but in a tired, listless, and irregular way. A gossamer spider had spun his web from my mast to the tree above, and wagtails hopped near me on the stones, and turned an inquiring little eye to the boat half in the water, and its master reclining on the grass. It was an easy paddle from this to the town of Constance, at the end of the lake. Here a _douanier_ made a descent upon me and was inexorable. "You _must_ have the boat examined." "Very well, pray examine it." His Chief was absent, and I must put the canoe in the Custom-house till to-morrow morning. An hour was wasted in palaver about this, and at first I protested vigorously against such absurdity in "free Switzerland." But Constance is not in Switzerland, it is in the Grand Duchy of Baden, and so to keep it "grand," they must do very little things, and at any rate can trouble travellers. At length an obliging native, ashamed of the proceeding, remonstrated with the douanier, and persuaded him at least to search the boat and let it pass.