It was not cold at Lucerne, though it was as yet only early March. The air was as soft and balmy as at Venice. As I sat there the mountain skyline brightened first to a faint pink, the snow on the ridges took on a lavender and bluish hue as at evening, the green of the lower slopes became softly visible and the water began to reflect the light of the sky, the shadow of the banks, the little boats, and even some wild ducks flying over its surface,--ducks coming from what bleak, drear spaces I could only guess. Presently I saw a man come out from a hotel, enter a small canoe and paddle away in the direction of the upper lake. No other living thing appeared until the sky had changed from pink to blue, the water to a rich silvery gray, the green to a translucent green and the rays of the sun came finally glistering over the peaks. Then the rough notches and gaps of the mountains--gray where blown clear of snow, or white where filled with it--took on a sharp, brilliant roughness. You could see the cold peaks outlined clearly in the water, and the little steeples of the churches. My wild ducks were still paddling briskly about. I noticed that a particular pair found great difficulty in finding the exact spot to suit them. With a restless quank, quank, quank, they would rise and fly a space only to light with a soft splatter and quack cheerfully. When they saw the lone rower returning they followed him, coming up close to the hotel dock and paddling smartly in his vicinity. I watched him fasten his boat and contemplate the ducks. After he had gone away I wondered if they were pets of his. Then the day having clearly come, I went inside. By ten o’clock all Lucerne seemed to have come out to promenade along the smooth walks that border the shore. Pretty church-bells in severe, conical towers began to ring and students in small, dark, tambourine-like hats, jackets, tight trousers, and carrying little canes about the size of batons, began to walk smartly up and down. There were a few travelers present, wintering here, no doubt,--English and Americans presenting their usual severe, intellectual, inquiring and self-protective dispositions. They stood out in sharp contrast to the native Swiss,--a fair, stolid, quiescent people. The town itself by day I found to be as clean, spruce and orderly as a private pine forest. I never saw a more spick and span place, not even in ge-washed and ge-brushed Germany.