Of the five great primary divisions of the Vierwaldstättersee--and one is driven, however anxious to preserve the configuration of the cross, to recognize a fifth, and separate, division in the Bay, or Lake, of Uri--of the five great divisions of the Lake of Lucerne, that which extends to the quays of Lucerne itself is the most placid and domestic in respect of actual shore-line. True, there is always a background of lofty mountain, sufficiently magnificent and sufficiently near at hand to impress itself on the landscape as a component, and even dominant, feature; but the actual littoral in this compartment of the lake--and Lucerne, unlike Zurich or Geneva, but to some extent like Como, is literally partitioned into compartments--is softly arcadian in character, with low, gently swelling hills of slight, inconclusive contour, knee-deep with hay and flowers, and shoulder-deep with apple-blossom and orchard. Next, I think, in ascending scale is the Bay of Küsnacht, so called from the big village at its head. The north-west shore of this is again of mildly pastoral character; but directly from its south-east margin rise the deep, dark woods of the Rigi, supplying that hint of real Alpine sublimity--it is still merely a hint--that is wholly absent from the immediate shores of the little Lucernersee strictly so-called. The road from Lucerne to Küsnacht, where it skirts this bay beyond the big, scrambling village of Meggen, is one of the pleasantest view-points within easy touch of Lucerne whence to enjoy across the water the noble mountain background that screens the south shore of the main lake. On a mild spring evening, when this splendid landscape is an ætherialized study in black and white; when the snowflakes and cowslips are pushing up in thousands through the quickly growing grass; when the host of margent rushes scarcely quivers in the stillness; and when the opposite mountains are reflected without a ripple in the calm and silent lake, it is hard to believe that all this exquisite beauty, which seems so unearthly and unexplored, is really the much boasted, much advertised, much visited "Lovely Lucerne"--it is difficult to realize that the paddle of a steamer ever churns this unruffled mirror, or that the harsh whistle of the ascending locomotive ever wakes the echoes on steadfast Rigi. Those who visit Lucerne only in the deadly oppression of the high season, when every lake-side quay swarms like an ant-hill, and every village rings like Babel, are apt to carry away wrong impressions of this still absolutely unimpaired lake. The playground at seasons is densely packed, but the place has received no permanent wrong; those who can reconcile Nature and a crowd will be happy here even in August, when "All Bedlam or Parnassus is let out;" those, on the other hand, who seek the mountains, not exactly perhaps in the spirit of Manfred, but at any rate in Manfred's happier mood--