e midst
of such a scene as this, on the day of their embarkation, and occupied
himself sometimes by looking at the shores of the lake and the mountains
beyond, and sometimes by watching the movements and actions of the
various groups of tourists before him. In the mean time, the boat left
the landing, and began to glide along rapidly on her way over the
surface of the water.

The shores of the lake are very fertile and populous, and at every eight
or ten miles, especially on the northern shore, you come to a large
town. The steamboats stop at these towns to take and leave passengers.
They do not, in such cases, usually land at a pier, but the passengers
come and go in large boats, and meet the steamer at a little way from
the shore. Rollo used to take great pleasure in going forward to the
bows of the steamer, and watch these boats as they came out from the
shore. If there were two of them, they would come out so far that the
track of the steamer should lie between them, and then, when the steamer
stopped her paddles, they would come up, one on one side and the other
on the other, and the passengers would come up on board by means of a
flight of steps let down from the steamer, just abaft the paddle boxes.
When the passengers had thus come up, the baggage would be passed up
too; and then those passengers who wished to go ashore at that place
would go down the steps in the boats, and when all were embarked, the
boats would cast off from the steamer, and the steamer would go on her
way as before. The boats then would row slowly to the land, with the
passengers in them that were to stop at that place.

The way of paying for one's passage on board these boats was very
different from that adopted in America. There was no colored waiter to
go about the decks and saloons ringing a bell, and calling out, in a
loud and authoritative voice, Passengers who haven't settled their fare
will please call at the captain's office and settle. Instead of this,
the clerk of the boat came himself, after each landing, to the new
passengers that had come on board at that landing, and, touching his hat
to them, in the most polite manner, asked them to what place they wished
to go. He had a little slate in his hand, with the names of all the
towns where the steamer was to touch marked upon it. As the several
passengers to whom he applied gave him the name of the place of their
destination, he made a mark opposite to the name of the place on his