, one of the most
striking of which was its apparent abandonment to the use and pleasure
of strangers. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the water was
everywhere bordered by hotels and pensions. Such large places as Vevay
and Lausanne had their proper life, of course, but of smaller ones, like
Montreux, the tourist seemed to be in exclusive possession. In our walks
thither we met her--when the tourist was of that sex--young, gay,
gathering the red leaves of the Virginia-creeper from the lakeward
terraces of the highway; we met him, old, sick, pale, munching the sour
grapes, and trying somehow to kill the time. Large listless groups of
them met every steamboat from which we landed, and parties of them
encountered us on every road. "A hash of foreigners," the Swiss call
Montreux, and they scarcely contribute a native flavor to the dish. The
Englishman no longer characterizes sojourn there, I should say; the
Americans, who pay and speak little or no French, and the Russians, who
speak beautiful French but do not pay, are there in about equal
abundance; there are some French people; but if it came to my laying my
hand upon my heart, I should say there seemed more Germans than any
other nationality at Montreux. They are not pretty to look at, and
apparently not pleasant; and it is said that the Swiss, who digest them
along with the rest of us, do not like them. In fact, the Germans seem
everywhere to take their new national consequence ungraciously.

Besides the foreigners, there is not much to see at Montreux, though one
must not miss the ancient church which looks out from its lofty place
over the lake, and offers the visitor many seats on its terrace for the
enjoyment of the same view. The day we went he had pretty well covered
the gravel with grape-skins; but he had left the prospect undisturbed.

What struck me principally in Montreux was its extreme suitability to
the purposes of the international novelist. It was full of sites for
mild incidents, for tacit tragedies, for subdued flirtations, and
arrested improprieties. I can especially recommend the Kursaal at
Montreux to my brother and sister fictionists looking about for a pretty
_entourage_. Its terrace is beaten by the billows of the restless lake,
and in soft weather people sit at little tables there; otherwise they
take their ices inside the cafe, and all the same look out on the
Dent-du-Midi, and feel so bored with everybody that they are just in the