for not making a port in the great square; always maintained that the wine of St. Saphorin was very savory drinking for those who could get no better; laughed at the idea of their being sufficient cordage in the world to reach the bottom of the Genfer See; was of opinion that the trout was a better fish than the fera; spoke with singular moderation of his ancient masters, the bourgeoisie of Berne, which, however, he always affirmed kept singularly bad roads In Vaud, while those around its own city were the best in Europe, and otherwise showed himself to be a discreet and observant man.  In short, honest Jean Descloux was a fair sample of that homebred, upright common-sense which seems to form the instinct of the mass, and which it is greatly the fashion to deride in those circles in which mystification passes for profound thinking, bold assumption for evidence, a simper for wit, particular personal advantages for liberty, and in which it is deemed a mortal offence against good manners to hint that Adam and Eve were the common parents of mankind.

“Monsieur has chosen a good time to visit Vevey,” observed Jean Descloux, one evening, that they were drifting in front of the town, the whole scenery resembling a fairy picture rather than a portion of this much-abused earth; “it blows sometimes at this end of the lake in a way to frighten the gulls out of it.  We shall see no more of the steam-boat after the last of the month.”

The American cast a glance at the mountain, drew upon his memory for sundry squalls and gales which he had seen himself, and thought the boatman’s figure of speech less extravagant than it had at first seemed.

“If your lake craft were better constructed, they would make better weather,” he quietly observed.

Monsieur Descloux had no wish to quarrel with a customer who employed him every evening, and who preferred floating with the current to being rowed with a crooked oar.  He manifested his prudence, therefore, by making a reserved reply.

“No doubt, monsieur,” he said, “that the people who live on the sea make better vessels, and know how to sail them more skilfully.  We had a proof of that here at Vevey,” (he pronounced the word like v-vais, agreeably to the sounds of the French vowels,) “last summer, which you might like to hear.  An English gentleman—­they say he was a captain in the marine—­had a vessel built at Nice, and dragged over the mountains to our lake.  He took a run across to Meillerie one fine morning, and no duck ever skimmed along lighter or swifter!  He was not a man to take advice from a Swiss boatman, for he had crossed the line, and seen water spouts and whales!  Well, he was on his way back in the dark, and it came on to blow here from off the mountains, and he stood on boldly towards our shore, heaving the lead as he drew near the land, as if he had been beating into Spithead in a fog,”—­Jean chuckled at the idea of sounding in the Leman—­“while he flew along like a bold mariner, as no doubt he was!”