noon
`` There is no such country , '' she said , `` and worse than all , I have no motor-boat . '' Nevertheless , a shape which closely resembled `` Lorelei '' was floating like a white water-lily on a green calyx of canal , in the place where I had , or dreamed that I had , left her an hour ago . And having assembled on board that white apparition , we started , or dreamed that we started for Leiden -- a place where I hoped to score a point or two with my lady . The boisterous wind of the early morning had dropped at noon , leaving the day hot and unrefreshed , with no breath of air stirring . But on the water , traveling at eight or nine miles an hour , we forgot the heavy July heat which on shore had burned our faces . They were fanned by a constant breeze of our own making which tossed us a bouquet of perfume from flowery fields as we slipped by , the only sound in our ears the cry of sea-going gulls overhead , and the delicate fluting of the water as our bows shattered its crystals among pale , shimmery sedges and tall reeds . Tiny canals of irrigation wandered like azure veins through a maze of blossoming pink and gold in the sun-bright meadows , and as far as the most sweeping glance could reach , the horizon seemed pinned down to earth with windmills .