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 OF ENGLISH TEXTS 
 GENERAL EDITOR 
 
 HENRY VAN DYKE 
 
 Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. Professor C. T. 
 Winchester, Wesleyan University. 40 cents. 
 
 Burke's Speech on Conciliation. Professor William Mac- 
 Donald, Brown University. 35 cents. 
 
 Byron, Wordsworth, Shei.ley, Keats, and Browning. Pro- 
 fessor C. T. Copeland, Harvard University, and Henry Milner 
 Rideout. 40 cents. 
 
 Carlyle'S EIssaY on Burns. Professor Edwin Mims, Trinity Col- 
 lege, North Carolina. 35 cents. 
 
 Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. Professor George E. Wood- 
 berry, Columbia University. 30 cents. 
 
 H.MERS0N'S Essays. Henry van Dyke. 35 cents. 
 
 Franklin's Autobiography. Professor Albert Henry Smyth, Cen- 
 tral High School, Philadelphia. 40 cents. 
 
 < MSKEl.l.'s Ckani-ord. Professor Charles E. Rhodes, Lafayette High 
 School, Buffalo. 40 cents. 
 
 George Eliot's Silas Marnkk. Professor W. L. Cross, Yale 
 University. 40 cents. 
 
 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield and Df-serted Village. Pro- 
 fessor James A. Tufts, Phillips Exeter Academy. 45 cents. 
 
 Irving's Sketcii-Book. Professor Martin W. Sampson, Cornell 
 University. 45 cents. 
 
 Lamb's Essays of Ei.ia. Professor John F. Genung, Amherst 
 College. 40 cents. 
 
 Macaui.ay's Addison. Professor Charles F. McClumpha, University 
 of Minnesota. 35 cents.
 
 Gateway Series 
 
 Macaulay's Life of Johnson. Professor J. S. Clark, Northwestern 
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 Macaulay's Addison and Johnson. In one volume. (McCIumpha 
 and Clark.) 45 cents. 
 
 Macaulay's Milton, Rev. E. L. Gulick, Lawrenceville School. 
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 Milton's Minor Poems. Professor Mary A. Jordan, Smith College, 
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 Scott's Ivanhoe. Professor Francis H. Stoddard, New York Uni- 
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 ScoiT's Lady of the Lake. Professor R. M. Alden, Leland Stan- 
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 Shakespeare's As You Like It. Professor Isaac N. Demmon, 
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 Shakespeare's Julius C^sar. Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie, "The 
 Outlook." 35 cents. 
 
 Shakespeare's Macheth. Professor T. M. Parrott, Princeton Uni- 
 versity. 40 cents. 
 
 Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Professor Felix E. Schel- 
 ling, University of Pennsylvania. 35 cents. 
 
 Stevenson's Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey. 
 Professor Gilbert S. Blakely, Morris High School, New York. 
 
 Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, and 
 The Passing of Arthur. Henry van Dyke. 35 cents. 
 
 Tennyson's Princess. Professor Katharine Lee Bates, Wellesley 
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 Washington's Farewell Address and Webster's First Bunker 
 Hill Oration. Frank W. Pine, The Hill School, Pottstown, Pa.
 
 fW[\^vX'f'trui<) O'^vU^iU^^-^L-^A^i^
 
 GATEIVAY SERIES 
 
 AN INLAND ^'()YAGE 
 
 AND 
 
 TRAVELS Willi A DONKEY 
 
 BY 
 
 R015KRT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 
 EDITED HY 
 GlLr.KRT SYKKS I5LAKELY 
 
 DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, MORRIS HIGH SCIIUOL 
 NEW YORK CITY 
 
 NFAV YORK •:■ CINCINNATI •:•( mcACO 
 
 ami«:rican book company
 
 CorVRIGHT, igti, BY 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY. 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London. 
 
 Stevenson's inland voyage, etc. 
 W. P. I
 
 m ^SOQl H3f 
 
 GENERAL EDITOR'S NOTE 
 
 This series of books aims, first, to give the English texts 
 required for entrance to college in a form which shall make 
 them clear, interesting, and helpful to those who are beginning 
 the study of literature ; and, second, to supply the knowledge 
 which the student needs to pass the entrance examination. 
 For these two reasons it is called TAe Gateway Series. 
 
 The poems, plays, essays, and stories in these small vol- 
 umes are treated, first of all, as works of literature, which were 
 written to be read and enjoyed, not to be parsed and scanned 
 and pulled to pieces. A short life of the author is given, and 
 a portrait, in order to help the student to know the real person 
 who wrote the book. Tlie introduction tells what it is about, 
 and how it was written, and where the author got the idea, 
 and what it means. The notes at the foot of the page are 
 simply to give tlie sense of the hard words so that the student 
 can read straight on without turning to a dictionary. The 
 other notes, at the end of the book, explain difficulties and 
 allusions and fine points. 
 
 The editors are chosen jjecause of their thorough training 
 
 and special fitness to deal with the books committed to them, 
 
 and because they agree with this idea of what a Gateway 
 
 .Series ought to lie. They express, in each case, their own 
 
 views of the books which they edit. Sini])]icity, thorougli- 
 
 ness, shortness, and clearness, — these, we hope, will be tlie 
 
 marks of the series. 
 
 HENRY VAN DYKE,
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Map 
 
 An Inland Voyage 
 
 Preface to First Edition . 
 Dedication ..... 
 Antwerp to Boom .... 
 On the Willebroek Canal 
 The Royal Sport Nautique 
 At Maubeuge ..... 
 On the Sambre Canalized : To Quartes 
 Pont-sur-Sambre : We are Pedlars . 
 
 The Travelling Merchant 
 On the Sambre Canalized : To Landrecies 
 At Landrecies .... 
 
 Sambre and Oise Canal : Canal-boats 
 The Oise in Flood .... 
 Origny Sainte-Benoite : A By-day . 
 
 The Company at Table 
 Down the Oise : To Moy 
 La Fere of Cursed Memory 
 Down the Oise : Through the Golden Valk-y 
 Noyon Cathedral .... 
 Down the Oise : To Compiegne 
 At Compiegne .... 
 
 Changed Times .... 
 Down the Oise : Church Interiors . 
 Precy and the Marionettes 
 Back to the World .... 
 
 Notes 
 
 vi 
 
 I 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 lO 
 
 15 
 21 
 
 27 
 33 
 39 
 44 
 50 
 
 55 
 60 
 
 69 
 76 
 
 83 
 
 88 
 
 95 
 
 97 
 
 102 
 
 105 
 tie 
 
 116 
 123 
 
 135 
 End of Volume
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 A GREAT many American boys and girls have become 
 acquainted with Robert Louis Stevenson through some 
 of his dehghtful romantic stories, perhaps Treasure 
 Island or Kidnapped or David Balfour} To them, as to 
 many others, it is of great interest to follow the events 
 of his life, which was almost as romantic as his stories. 
 Though his ancestors for generations had lived and died 
 in Scotland, he felt in him an irresistible desire to wander, 
 to see new sights, meet new people, and enjoy strange 
 experiences. So, though he always loved Scotland as the 
 land of his birth and childhood, he was at home in 
 France, in Germany, in the United States, and in many 
 of the islands of the Pacific. His grave is in the Samoan 
 Islands, almost as far from his native land and the graves 
 of his fathers as half the distance rounrl the world. 
 
 The Stevensons were a family of engineers, famous for 
 long years of service in cstal)lishing lighthouses in Scottish 
 waters. The author's grandfather won fame for himself 
 and his family by constructing the Bell Rock lighthouse, 
 the first lighthouse ever built on a reef below the 
 
 * In England this is called Catriona, and forms I'art II of tlic 
 story David Balfour, of which Kiiiuappedinxxn^ Part I. 
 
 vii
 
 viii Inland Voyage 
 
 surface of the water at the lowest tide. According to 
 the account given by his grandson in the unfinished 
 A Family of Engineers, he was a strong, masterful man 
 who in the lighthouse service was " king to his finger- 
 tips." And yet in spite of his severity and rough ex- 
 terior he was most kind and thoughtful, not only for his 
 family, but for those in his service and for their families. 
 
 Many of these traits were possessed in large measure 
 by his son Thomas, the father of Robert Louis. Mr. Col- 
 vin speaks of him as " a staunch friend and sagacious 
 adviser, trenchant in judgement and demonstrative in 
 emotion, outspoken, dogmatic — despotic, even, in little 
 things, but withal essentially chivalrous and soft hearted." 
 He had many disappointments that he found very hard 
 to bear. Of course he was proud of the work done by 
 the Stevenson family and of the name they had made. 
 What could be more natural than that he should wish his 
 only son to follow in his profession and maintain the 
 family name and reputation? But Robert Louis had not 
 the health nor the inclination to gratify his father's ambi- 
 tion. Then, too, the son differed greatly from his father 
 in taste, in temperament, habits of Hfe, and in religious 
 beliefs. Relations between them were sometimes strained, 
 but the father's love and good sense were strong, and so 
 he was able to overlook some things and appreciate the 
 traits of character, very different from his own, that in 
 due time made his son so famous. It is one of the 
 evidences of his greatness that this dogmatic, even des- 
 potic Scotchman could accept with grace such great
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 disappointments and could enter so sympathetically and 
 so tenderly into his son's life. 
 
 Stevenson's mother was Margaret Balfour, the daughter 
 of a clergyman in the parish of Colinton. In tempera- 
 ment she was very different from her husband, for she 
 was quick, vivacious, and full of interest in whatever was 
 going on about her. She steadily looked on the bright 
 side of life, and was a charming hostess. Unfortunately 
 her health was far from strong ; she suffered from chest 
 and nerve troubles in early life and was often unable to 
 give personal care to her son in his many sicknesses. If 
 he inherited from her his constitutional weaknesses, he 
 also inherited from her, vivacity, an artistic tempera- 
 ment, a deep interest in many things, a power to enjoy, 
 and a spirit that was strong in the midst of discourage- 
 ment. 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson was born at 8 Howard Place, 
 Edinburgh, November 13, 1850. He was a delicate 
 child ; but had no serious sickness until he was about 
 two years old. From that time he was never very strong, 
 took cold easily, and was often ill for months at a time. 
 Since his mother was more or less an invalid, he was left 
 to a large extent to the care of a nurse. And his nurse 
 became one of the important influences in his childhood. 
 Alison Cunningham, always " Cummie " to him, was the 
 loyal devoted nurse from the time he was eighteen 
 months old until he was too old to need her care, and re- 
 mained with the family long afterward. She was a de- 
 vout Scotch woman, who roused his imaginative terror
 
 X Inland Voyage 
 
 with her pictures of hell, but who at other times read 
 him tales that appealed strongly to his romantic nature 
 and recited poetry with such dramatic effect that it made 
 a great impression on him. He was thoroughly devoted 
 to her and made frequent references to her both in his 
 poems and in his essays. 
 
 Handicapped as he was by fits of sickness so that 
 sometimes he could not leave his room all winter, he was 
 kept to a large extent from associations with other chil- 
 dren and got his entertainment from books, pictures, and 
 his nurse. His poem. The Land of Counterpane, gives 
 us a vivid picture of the invalid boy. 
 
 " When I was sick and lay a-bed, 
 I had two pillows at my head, 
 And all my toys beside me lay 
 To keep me happy all the day. 
 
 "And sometimes for an hour or so 
 I watched my leaden soldiers go. 
 With different uniforms and drills, 
 Among the bedclothes, through the hills ; 
 
 " And sometimes sent my ships in fleets 
 All up and down among the sheets ; 
 Or brought my trees and houses out 
 And planted cities all about. 
 
 " I was the giant, great and still. 
 That sits upon the pillow hill, 
 And sees before him, dale and plain, 
 The pleasant Land of Counterpane,"
 
 Introduction xi 
 
 At times, however, especially in the summer, he had long 
 visits at his Grandfather Balfour's in Colinton. Here he 
 found other children, for it was a favourite place with his 
 cousins as well as himself, and here were passed the hap- 
 piest times of his childhood. The Manse, where his 
 grandfather lived, was next to the churchyard ; and here 
 the children, led by the imaginative Robert, looked for 
 ghosts and -played games of witches, ghosts, and fairies. 
 It is thus easy for us to see not only the imagination that 
 later gave us Treasure Island and Kidnapped, but also 
 how that imagination was fostered and developed. 
 
 As might be expected in the case of so dehcate a boy, 
 his education was somewhat irregular. For two or three 
 years he was a student at the Edinburgh Academy, for a 
 few weeks he was at an English private school, and for 
 longer or shorter times at private schools in Edinburgh. 
 But these facts are comparatively unimportant, for the 
 real education that he received he got not so much at the 
 schools, which he very irregularly attended, as in travel 
 and reading. On account of his mother's health he 
 spent several winters in I'>ance and in summer made 
 various excursions to different parts of Scotland. He 
 read much from poetry and romance, from essays 
 and history. To prepare him for the vocation of a 
 civil engineer he was sent \.o E<linburgh University, where 
 his work was not distinguished. What a|)pealed tc; him 
 he studied with good success, but much of the i)rescribed 
 work was uninteresting and therefore unstudied. He 
 says of himself that he was "an inveterate truant and
 
 xii Inland Voyage 
 
 idler," and it is evident that his university work was not a 
 source of gratification to his friends. At length he came 
 to an understanding with his father that he should defi- 
 nitely give up the idea of becoming an engineer, though 
 his father insisted that he should pursue the study of law 
 that he might have something more than authorship to 
 fall back on for a means of livelihood. Accordingly he 
 dropped engineering studies and in their place took those 
 of law and was admitted to the bar in 1875. On the 
 door of the family home appeared the plate, Robert 
 Louis Stevenson, Advocate, but he never really pursued 
 the practice of law. His steadfast ambition was to be a 
 man of letters. 
 
 During the latter part of his university life he made 
 frequent trips to London and the Continent, and in the 
 four years that followed he repeatedly yielded to the de- 
 sire to wander that seems to have been in his blood. 
 During this period he made many warm friends and 
 some that had a powerful effect on his life and fortunes. 
 Among them were Mrs. Sitwell, who became an impor- 
 tant factor in his spiritual development ; Sidney Colvin, 
 his most intimate friend and literary adviser ; W. E. 
 Henley, his collaborator in dramas and colleague in mag- 
 azine work; Andrew Lang; Edmund Gosse ; Leslie 
 Stephen ; and Mrs. Osbourne, his future wife. He spent 
 much time in France ; in Paris, of which he was very 
 fond, and at Barbizon and Grez, where there were con- 
 genial colonies of artists. It was during this time, too, 
 that he made the two journeys of which we have an ac-
 
 Introduction xiii 
 
 count in the present volume. All these years his serious 
 thought was given to literature, although it was far from 
 being his means of support. For that he was dependent 
 on a liberal allowance from his father. The works written 
 at this time comprise, besides the two included in this 
 volume. The New Arabian Nights, the papers published 
 later as Virginibus Puerisque, and more than twenty other 
 articles published in the magazines, and later, many of 
 them, included in his volumes of essays. 
 
 The year 1879 marked a crisis in Stevenson's life. 
 Three years before, on his return from his " inland voy- 
 age," he found at Grez, where he often stayed with his 
 artist friends, an American woman, Mrs. Osbourne, and 
 her two young children. Her home was in California, 
 but having had an unhappy married life, she sought new 
 surroundings. Accordingly she had come to France, where 
 she was energetically following the pursuit of painting. 
 Stevenson fell in love with her, but the difficulties were 
 so great that he could have nothing more than a remote 
 hope of marriage. In the year 1879 she returned to 
 California, and Stevenson, a few months later, determined 
 to follow. His friends who knew of his plan all strongly 
 advised against it. He felt so sure of the opposition (jf 
 his parents that he did not even consult them. Although 
 the income from his writing had always been very small, 
 he now determined to give up the allowance that he had 
 from his father and trust entirely to his literary work for 
 his support. Accordingly, partly for economy and partly 
 for an experience that he might turn to literary use, he
 
 xiv Inland Voyage 
 
 took passage on the Devonia as a second-class or a third- 
 class passenger. He moved freely among the steerage 
 passengers, learning what he could from them and prov- 
 ing himself their sincere and helpful friend. After a few 
 hours in New York he started in an emigrant train across 
 the continent. His experiences he has given us in 
 The Amateur Emigrant and Across the Plains. The 
 strain of the journey and the hardships he suffered left 
 him in an exhausted condition. To recuperate he went 
 into the mountains above Monterey and camped in the 
 open air. But he was near to death's door and would 
 probably never have recovered had it not been for 
 two goatherds, who took pity on him, removed him to 
 their shelter, and cared for him until his strength re- 
 turned. 
 
 After a few weeks spent not unpleasantly in Monterey, 
 he went, December, 1879, to San Francisco. Here he 
 struggled with poverty, with loneliness, and with ill 
 health. He worked very hard, but got little immediate 
 return ; his correspondence with his parents was short 
 and unsatisfactory ; and he tried to scrimp a little more, 
 fearing that he should come to actual want. Worn by 
 anxiety, constant work, and lack of proper food, he 
 broke down in health before the end of the winter. 
 Had it not been for Mrs. Osbourne, who cared for him 
 until his strength returned, he would probably not 
 have lived. His father, at this time learning more 
 about his son's affairs, acknowledged that he had -been 
 labouring under a misapprehension, and telegraphed him
 
 Introduction xv 
 
 that he might count on the old allowance of ;^2 5o a 
 year. In May he was married to Mrs. Osbourne and 
 went up into the hills to a deserted mining camp, where 
 they roughed it for some weeks and where in spite of 
 some hardships his health grew stronger. The story of 
 life in this mining camp is found in The Silverado 
 Squatters. In the summer he learned that his father 
 and mother were both anxious to have him return 
 and bring his wife. So, in August, he sailed from 
 New York with his family and was welcomed in Liver- 
 pool, a little more than a year after his departure for 
 America. 
 
 Of his marriage it should be said that both husband 
 and wife seemed peculiarly adapted for each other, and 
 that their married life proved to be abundantly happy 
 until they were separated by death. Mrs. Stevenson was 
 warmly received by her husband's family and was espe- 
 cially a favourite with her father-in-law. 
 
 From this time till his death, fourteen years later, Steven- 
 son's health was a source of almost constant anxiety to 
 his family. I lis lungs were affected so that he had more 
 or less frc(iucnt hemorrhages. The doctor advised spend- 
 ing the winter in Switzerland, and so for two winters 
 the invalid somewhat impatiently lived and wrote at 
 Davos in the mountains of Switzerland. The next two 
 winters, 1882-1883, were spent most haj)pily in Southern 
 France and the three following in Hournemouth, England, 
 where Thomas Stevenson purchased a house and presented 
 it to his daughter-in-law.
 
 xvl Inland Voyage 
 
 All these years of invalidism, however, were full of 
 hard work. He established his reputation as a writer, 
 and his books were more and more in demand. When 
 he returned from California, he had a good deal of liter- 
 ary material which he used to a large extent in magazine 
 articles. His first popular success was Treasure Is/ant/, 
 which met with little favour when it first appeared as a 
 serial in Young Folks^ Magazhie in 1881, but which was 
 widely read and very popular when, two years later, it 
 appeared in book form. Prince Otto, Kidnapped, A 
 Child's Garden of Verses, and The Strange Case of Dr. 
 Jekyll and Air. Hyde, soon followed and won for him a 
 very wide and enthusiastic audience. 
 
 Continued ill health made a change of climate again 
 desirable, and the death of his father and consequent 
 breaking up of the home left him free to go wherever it 
 might seem best. Accordingly in 1887 with his family, 
 including his mother, he bade farewell to Scotland and 
 England, a farewell which proved to be his last, and 
 sailed for the United States. If he had any doubt of the 
 fame that had preceded him, he must have been surprised 
 and pleased with the reception given him in New York. 
 Perhaps he compared his arrival at this time with that 
 eight years before. Then he came alone, unheralded, an 
 emigrant ; he stayed at a poor little hotel on West Street, 
 near the docks. Now he was surrounded by his family, 
 met by friends and others delighting to do him honour, 
 not to speak of a crowd of reporters ; he was received 
 by people of wealth and distinction and entertained by
 
 Introduction xvii 
 
 them at their homes. He was sought out by magazine 
 editors who vied with one another in offering large sums 
 for his work, and he made arrangements with them that 
 proved exceedingly profitable to him. 
 
 The first winter he spent in the Adirondack Mountains 
 at Saranac Lake, where, in spite of Severe cold and much 
 discomfort, his health improved ; but the desire to travel 
 burned in his blood, and so in the early summer he was 
 again going across the plains to California. With a longing 
 for the sea, which perhaps he inherited from his ancestors 
 who built lighthouses in the northern waters, he hired the 
 yacht Casco for a trip in the Pacific. Although the voy- 
 age was taken largely for his health, he had a most liberal 
 offer from McClure's Magazine for letters of travel which 
 should give an account of his journey. For the three 
 years from 1888 to 1890 Stevenson travelled up and down 
 the Pacific, visiting the most important groui)s of islands 
 and making long stops at the Hawaiian Islands, the (Gil- 
 bert Islands, Tahiti, and the Samoan Islands. He had a 
 great many interesting experiences of which we may read 
 in his book, /// the South Seas. Sometimes he was be- 
 calmed ; at other times he was in the fury of the hurri- 
 cane. He escaped from these dangers of the sea and also 
 fr(jm those of fever and of savages. He entered into 
 the life of the natives, of the missionaries, and of other 
 foreign resi(lent.s, eager to learn and to help. He was 
 trusted by the natives and loved by some of the chiefs 
 with intense devotion. In Hawaii he visited the leper 
 settlement, played crotiuet with the diseased children
 
 xviii Inland Voyage 
 
 and cheered those who were giving their lives to the care 
 of those unfortunates. P>erywhere he carried cheer and 
 courage and kindly sympathy and left behind, as he went 
 on, groups of sorrowing friends. 
 
 Years before, he had dreamed of building a house in 
 the mild climate of Southern France, and now the longing 
 for a home returned, only instead of France it was to be 
 in one of the Pacific islands. For several reasons he de- 
 cided on one of the Samoan group, and here bought 
 four hundred acres, densely wooded, two miles from 
 the coast and six hundred feet above the sea. Here 
 he built a house that became a resting place for many 
 a European travelling in Pacific waters and that stood 
 with open doors for scores of natives who found in 
 their Tusitala, as they called Stevenson, a sincere friend 
 and wise adviser. This place he called Vailima, from the 
 Samoan for "five waters." Here he worked, finishing 
 many books and beginning others that were left unfinished, 
 when four years later, December 3, 1894, he was sud- 
 denly stricken down in the midst of his family and died 
 without regaining consciousness. 
 
 It is delightful to read of the love that Stevenson in- 
 spired in the natives. He was always sincerely their 
 friend, listening to their troubles and giving them wise 
 advice without fear or favour. When the chief Mataafa 
 and his political associates were kept in prison, he visited 
 them and did them little kindnesses. He was a father 
 to his family of servants and gathered them at the close 
 of day in the great hall of his home for evening prayers.
 
 Introduction xix 
 
 Mr. Balfour has quoted Mr. Lloyd Osbourne's account 
 of the way the natives sought Stevenson's advice on all 
 sorts of subjects : — 
 
 " Government chiefs and rebels consulted him with 
 regard to policy ; political letters were brought to him 
 to read and criticize ; his native following was so widely 
 divided in party that he was often kept better informed 
 on current events than any other one person in the country. 
 Old gentlemen would arrive in stately procession with 
 squealing pigs for the ' chief-house of wisdom,' and 
 would beg advice on the capitation tax or some such 
 subject of the hour ; an armed party would come from 
 across the island with gifts, and a request that Tusitala 
 would take charge of the funds of the village, and buy 
 the roof iron for a proposed church. Parties would 
 come to hear the latest news of the proposed disarm- 
 ing of the country, or to arrange a private audience 
 with one of the officials ; and poor war-worn chieftains, 
 whose only anxiety was to join the winning side, and 
 who wished to consult with Tusitala as to which that 
 might be. Mr. Stevenson would sigh sometimes as he 
 saw these stately folk crossing the lawn in single file, their 
 attendants following behind with presents and baskets, 
 but he never failed to hear them." 
 
 They showed their regard for him in many ways, the 
 most notable of which probably was the building of the 
 " Roafl of the Loving Heart," a broad and beautiful road 
 to Vailima, built by the Mataafa chiefs, who had' been be- 
 friended in prison. The grief of the Samoans at their
 
 XX Inland Voyage 
 
 Tusitala's death was deep and sincere, A group of them 
 took their places about his body the evening of his death 
 and refused to leave. All night long they kept their 
 silent watch, and the following day they bore the coffin 
 by a rough and difficult path to the top of the hill above 
 Vailima, where he rests far from the graves of his fathers, 
 but near a people whom he loved and who devotedly loved 
 him in return. On one side of the tomb are the follow- 
 ing words in Samoan : — 
 
 THE TOMB OF TUSITALA 
 
 "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will 
 lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: 
 where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried." 
 
 On the other side is Stevenson's own Requicfti. 
 
 Under the wide and starry sky, 
 Dig the grave and let me lie. 
 Glad did I live and gladly die, 
 And I laid me down with a will. 
 
 This be the verse you grave for me : 
 Here he lies where he longed to be ; 
 Home is the sailor, home from the sea. 
 And the hunter home from the kill.
 
 XXI
 
 PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION 
 
 To equip so small a book with a preface is, I am 
 half afraid, to sin against proportion. But a preface 
 is more than an author can resist, for it is the reward 
 of his labours. When the foundation stone is laid, the 
 architect appears with his plans, and struts for an hour 
 before the public eye. So with the writer in his preface : 
 he may have never a word to say, but he must show 
 himself for a moment in the portico, hat in hand, and 
 with an urbane demeanour. 
 
 It is best, in such circumstances, to represent a deli- 
 cate shade of manner between humility and superiority : 
 as if the book had been written by some one else, and 
 you had merely run over it and inserted what was good. 
 But for my part I have not yet learned the trick to that 
 perfection ; I am not yet able to dissemble the warmth 
 of my sentiments towards a reader; and if I meet him 
 on the threshold, it is to invite him in with country 
 cordiality. 
 
 To say truth, T had no sooner finished reading this 
 little book in proof, than I was seized upon by a dis- 
 tressing apprehension. It occurred to me that I might 
 not only be the first to read these pages, but the last 
 as well ; that I might have pioneered this very smiling 
 
 I
 
 2 Preface to First Edition 
 
 tract of country all in vain, and find not a soul to follow 
 in my steps. The more I thought, the more I disliked 
 the notion ; until the distaste grew into a sort of panic 
 terror, and I rushed into this Preface, which is no more 
 than an advertisement for readers. 
 
 What am I to say for my book? Caleb and Joshua 
 brought back from Palestine a formidable bunch of 
 grapes ; alas ! my book produces naught so nourishing ; 
 and for the matter of that, we live in an age when 
 people prefer a definition to any quantity of fruit. 
 
 I wonder, would a negative be found enticing? for, 
 from the negative point of view, I flatter myself this 
 volume has a certain stamp. Although it runs to con- 
 siderably upwards of two hundred pages, it contains 
 not a single reference to the imbecility of God's uni- 
 verse, nor so much as a single hint that I could have 
 made a better one myself. — I really do not know where 
 my head can have been. I seem to have forgotten all 
 that makes it glorious to be man. — 'Tis an omission 
 that renders the book philosophically unimportant; but 
 I am in hopes the eccentricity may please in frivolous 
 circles. 
 
 To the friend who accompanied me, I owe many 
 thanks already, indeed I wish I owed him nothing else ; 
 but at this moment I feel towards him an almost exag- 
 gerated tenderness. He, at least, will become my 
 reader : — if it were only to follow his own travels 
 
 alongside of mine. 
 
 R. L. S.
 
 TO 
 SIR WALTER GRINDLAY SIMPSON, BART. 
 
 My dear Cigarette, 
 
 It was enough that you should have shared so liberally in 
 the rains and portages of our voyage ; that you should have 
 had so hard a battle to recover the derelict Arethtisa on the 
 flooded Oise ; and that you should thenceforth have piloted 
 a mere wreck of mankind to Origny Saintc-Benoite and a 
 supper so eagerly desired. It was perhaps more than enough, 
 as you once somewhat piteously complained, that I should 
 have set down all the strong language to you, and kept the 
 appropriate reflections for myself I could not in decency 
 expf)se you to share the disgrace of another and more jniblic 
 shipwreck. But now that this voyage of ours is going into 
 a cheap edition, that peril, we shall hope, is at an end, and 
 I may put your name on the burgee.* 
 
 But I cannot pause till 1 have lamented the fate of our two 
 ships. That, sir, was not a fortunate day when we projected 
 the posses.sion of a canal-barge ; it was not a fortunate day 
 when we shared our day-dream with the most hojieful of 
 day-dreamers. Vox a while, indeed, the world looked smil- 
 ingly. The barge was procured and christened, and as the 
 I'leven Thousand Virf^ins of Colot^tic, lay for .some months, 
 the admired of all admirers, in a pleasant river and under the 
 
 1 A jK-nnant used by yaclils. 
 3
 
 4 Dedication 
 
 walls of an ancient town. M. Mattras, the accomplished 
 carpenter of Moret, had made her a centre of emulous labour ; 
 and you will not have forgotten the amount of sweet cham- 
 pagne consumed in the inn at the bridge end, to give zeal 
 to the workmen and speed to the work. On the financial 
 aspect, I would not willingly dwell. The Eleven Thousand 
 Virgins of Cologne rotted in the stream where she was beauti- 
 fied. She felt not the impulse of the breeze ; she was never 
 harnessed to the patient track-horse. And when at length 
 she was sold, by the indignant carpenter of Moret, there were 
 sold along with her the Arethiisa and the Cigarette, she of 
 cedar, she, as we knew so keenly on a portage, of solid-hearted 
 English oak. Now these historic vessels fly the tricolor and 
 
 are known bv new and alien names. 
 
 R. L. S.
 
 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 ANTWERP TO BOOM 
 
 Wk made a great stir in Antwerp Docks. A stevedore 
 and a lot of dock porters took up the two canoes, and 
 ran with them for the sUp. A crowd of children followed, 
 cheering. The Cigarette went off in a splash and a bub- 
 ble of small breaking water. Next moment the Arethusa 5 
 was after her. A steamer was coming down, men on the 
 paddle-box shouted hoarse warnings, the stevedore and 
 his porters were bawling from the quay. But in a stroke 
 or two the canoes were away out in the middle of the 
 Scheldt, and all steamers, and stevedores, and other 10 
 'long-shore vanities were left behind. 
 
 The sun shone brightly; the tide was making — four 
 jolly miles an hour; the wind blew steadily, with occa- 
 sional squalls. For my part, I had never been in a canoe 
 under sail in my life; and my first experiment out in the 15 
 middle of this big river, was not made without sonic 
 trepidation. What would happen when the wind first 
 caught my little canvas? I suppose it was almost as try- 
 ing a venture into the regions of the unknown, as to pub- 
 lish a first book, or to marry. But my doubts were not ao 
 of long duration; and in five minutes you will not be 
 surprised to learn that I had tied my sheet. 
 
 5
 
 6 Inland Voyage 
 
 I own I was a little struck by this circumstance my- 
 self; of course, in company with the rest of my fellow- 
 men, I had always tied the sheet in a sailing-boat ; but in 
 so little and crank a concern as a canoe, and with these 
 5 charging squalls, 1 was not prepared to find myself follow 
 the same principle ; and it inspired me with some con- 
 temptuous views of our regard for life. It is certainly 
 easier to smoke with the sheet fastened ; but I had never 
 before weighed a comfortable pipe of tobacco against an 
 
 lo obvious risk, and gravely elected for the comfortable 
 pipe. It is a commonplace, that we cannot answer for 
 ourselves before we have been tried. But it is not so 
 common a reflection, and surely more consoling, that we 
 usually find ourselves a great deal braver and better than 
 
 IS we thought. I believe this is every one's experience: 
 but an apprehension that they may belie themselves in 
 the future prevents mankind from trumpeting this cheer- 
 ful sentiment abroad. I wish sincerely, for it would have 
 saved me much trouble, there had been some one to put 
 
 20 me in a good heart about life when I was younger; to 
 tell me how dangers are most portentous on a distant 
 sight ; and how the good in a man's spirit will not suffer 
 itself to be overlaid, and rarely or never deserts him in the 
 hour of need. But we are all for tootling on the senti- 
 
 25 mental flute in literature ; and not a man among us will go 
 to the head of the march to sound the heady ^ drums. 
 
 It was agreeable upon the river. A barge or two 
 went past laden with hay. Reeds and willows bordered 
 
 ^ Impetuous.
 
 Antwerp to Boom 7 
 
 the stream ; and cattle and grey venerable horses came 
 and hung their mild heads over the embankment. Here 
 and there was a pleasant village among trees, with a noisy 
 shipping yard ; here and there a villa in a lawn. The 
 wind served us well up the Scheldt and thereafter up the 5 
 Rupel ; and we were running pretty free when we began 
 to sight the brickyards of Boom, lying for a long way on 
 the right bank of the river. The left bank was still green 
 and pastoral, with alleys of trees along the embankment, 
 and here and there a flight of steps to serve a ferry, 10 
 where perhaps there sat a woman with her elbows on her 
 knees, or an old gentleman with a staff and silver spec- 
 tacles. But Boom and its brickyards grew smokier and 
 shabbier with every minute ; until a great church with a 
 clock, and a wooden bridge over the river, indicated the 15 
 central quarters of the town. 
 
 Boom is not a nice place, and is only remarkable for 
 one thing : that the majority of the inhabitants have a 
 private opinion that they can speak English, which is not 
 justified by fact. This gave a kind of haziness to our 20 
 intercourse. As for the Hdtel (ic la Navigation, I think it 
 is the worst feature of the place. It boasts of a sanded 
 parlour, with a bar at one end, hjoking on the street ; 
 and another santled parlour, darker and colder, with an 
 empty birfl-cage and a tricolour subscription box by way 25 
 of sole adornment, where we made shift to dine -in the 
 company of three imcommunicative engineer apprentices 
 and a silent bagman.' The food, as usual in ilclgium, 
 ^ A commercial traveller.
 
 8 Inland Voyage 
 
 was of a nondescript occasional character ; indeed, I 
 have never been able to detect anything in the nature of 
 a meal among this pleasing people ; they seem to peck 
 and trifle with viands all day long in an amateur spirit : 
 
 5 tentatively French, truly German, and somehow falling 
 between the two. 
 
 The empty bird-cage, swept and garnished, and with 
 no trace of the old piping favourite, save where two wires 
 had been pushed apart to hold its lump of sugar, carried 
 
 lo with it a sort of graveyard cheer. The engineer appren- 
 tices would have nothing to say to us, nor indeed to the 
 bagman ; but talked low and sparingly to one another, or 
 raked us in the gas-light with a gleam of spectacles. For 
 though handsome lads, they were all (in the Scotch 
 
 15 phrase) barnacled.^ 
 
 There was an English maid in the hotel, who had been 
 long enough out of England to pick up all sorts of funny 
 foreign idioms, and all sorts of curious foreign ways, 
 which need not here be specified. She spoke to us very 
 
 20 fluently in her jargon, asked us information as to the 
 manners of the present day in England, and obligingly 
 corrected us when we attempted to answer. But as we 
 were dealing with a woman, perhaps our information was 
 not so much thrown away as it appeared. The sex likes 
 
 25 to pick up knowledge and yet preserve its superiority. 
 It is good policy, and almost necessary in the circum- 
 stances. If a man finds a woman admire him, were it 
 only for his acquaintance with geography, he will begin 
 1 Fitted with spectacles.
 
 Antwerp to Boom 9 
 
 at once to build upon the admiration. It is only by un- 
 intermittent snubbing that the pretty ones can keep us in 
 our place. Men, as Miss Howe or Miss Harlowe would 
 have said, "are such encroachers." For my part, I am 
 body and soul with the women ; and after a well- married s 
 couple, there is nothing so beautiful in the world as the 
 myth of the divine huntress. It is no use for a man to 
 take to the woods ; we know him ; Anthony tried the 
 same thing long ago, and had a pitiful time of it by all 
 accounts. But there is this about some women, which 10 
 overtops the best gymnosophist among men, that they 
 suffice to themselves, and can walk in a high and cold 
 zone without the countenance of any trousered being. 
 I declare, although the reverse of a professed ascetic, 
 I am more obliged to women for this ideal than I should 15 
 be to the majority of them, or indeed to any but one, for 
 a spontaneous kiss. There is nothing so encouraging as 
 the spectacle of self-sufficiency. And when I think of 
 the slim and lovely maidens, running the woods all night 
 to the note of Diana's horn ; moving among the old oaks,'2o 
 as fancy-free as they; things of the forest and the star- 
 light, not touched by the commotion of man's hot and 
 turljid life — although there are plenty other ideals that I 
 should prefer — I find my heart beat at the thought of 
 this one. 'Tis to fail in life, but to fail with what a grace ! 25 
 That is not lost which is not regretted. And where — 
 here slips out the male — where would be much of the 
 glory of inspiring love, if there were no contempt to over- 
 come ?
 
 lo Inland Voyage 
 
 ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 
 
 Next morning, when we set forth on the Willebroek 
 Canal, the rain began heavy and chill. The water of 
 the canal stood at about the drinking temperature of 
 tea ; and under this cold aspersion the surface was 
 
 5 covered with steam. The exhilaration of departure, and 
 the easy motion of the boats under each stroke of the 
 paddles, supported us through this misfortune while it 
 lasted ; and when the cloud passed and the sun came 
 out again, our spirits went up above the range of stay-at- 
 
 lo home humours. A good breeze rustled and shivered in 
 the rows of trees that bordered the canal. The leaves 
 flickered in and out of the light in tumultuous masses. 
 It seemed sailing weather to eye and ear ; but down 
 between the banks the wind reached us only in faint 
 
 15 and desultory puffs. There was hardly enough to steer 
 "by. Progress was intermittent and unsatisfactory. A 
 jocular person, of marine antecedents, hailed us from the 
 tow-path with a "C'est vite, mais c'est lofig." 
 
 The canal was busy enough. Every now and then we 
 
 20 met or overtook a long string of boats, with great green 
 tillers ; high sterns with a window on either side of the 
 rudder, and perhaps a jug or a flower-pot in one of the 
 windows ; a dingy following behind ; a woman busied 
 about the day's dinner, and a handful of children. These 
 
 25 barges were all tied one behind the other with tow-ropes,
 
 On the Willebroek Canal ii 
 
 to the number of twenty-five or thirty ; and the line was 
 headed and kept in motion by a steamer of strange con- 
 struction. It had neither paddle-wheel nor screw ; but 
 by some gear not rightly comprehensible to the unme- 
 chanical mind, it fetched up over its bow a small bright s 
 chain which lay along the bottom of the canal, and paying 
 it out again over the stern, dragged itself forward, link 
 by link, with its whole retinue of loaded scows. Until 
 one had found out the key to the enigma, there was 
 something solemn and uncomfortable in the progress of lo 
 one of these trains, as it moved gently along the water 
 with nothing to mark its advance but an eddy alongside 
 dying away into the wake. 
 
 Of all the creatures of commercial enterprise, a canal- 
 barge is by far the most delightful to consider. It may 15 
 spread its sails, and then you see it sailing high above 
 the tree-tops and the wind-mill, sailing on the aqueduct, 
 sailing through the green corn-lands : the most picturesque 
 of things amphibious. Or the horse plods along at a 
 foot-pace as if there were no such thing as business in 20 
 the world; and the man dreaming at the tiller sees the 
 same spire on the hori/on all day long. It is a mystery 
 how things ever get to their destination at this rate ; and 
 to see the barges waiting their turn at a lock, affords a 
 fine lesson of how easily the worKl may be taken. There 25 
 should be many contented spirits on boanl, for such a 
 life is both to travel and to stay at home. 
 
 The chimney smokes for dinner a.s you go along ; the 
 banks of the canal slowly unroll their scenery to con-
 
 12 Inland Voyage 
 
 templative eyes; the barge floats by great forests and 
 through great cities with their pubHc buildings and their 
 lamps at night j and for the bargee, in his floating home, 
 " travelling abed," it is merely as if he were listening to 
 5 another man's story or turning the leaves of a picture 
 book in which he had no concern. He may take his 
 afternoon walk in some foreign country on the banks of 
 the canal, and then come home to dinner at his own 
 fireside. 
 
 lo There is not enough exercise in such a life for any 
 high measure of health ; but a high measure of health is 
 only necessary for unhealthy people. The slug of a 
 fellow, who is never ill nor well, has a quiet time of it in 
 life, and dies all the easier. 
 
 IS I am sure I would rather be a bargee than occupy any 
 position under Heaven that required attendance at an 
 office. There are few callings, I should say, where a 
 man gives up less of his liberty in return for regular 
 meals. The bargee is on shipboard — he is master in 
 
 20 his own ship — he can land whenever he will — he can 
 never be kept beating off a lee shore a whole frosty night 
 when the sheets are as hard as iron ; and so far as I can 
 make out, time stands as nearly still with him as is com- 
 patible with the return of bedtime or the dinner-hour. 
 
 25 It is not easy to see why a bargee should ever die. 
 
 Half-way between VVillebroek and Villevorde, in a beau- 
 tiful reach of canal like a squire's avenue, we went ashore 
 to lunch. There were two eggs, a junk of bread, and a 
 bottle of wine on l)oard the Arethusa ; and two eggs and
 
 On the Willebroek Canal 13 
 
 an Etna cooking apparatus on board the Cigarette. The 
 master of the latter boat smashed one of the eggs in the 
 course of disembarkation ; but observing pleasantly that 
 it might still be cooked a la papier, he dropped it into 
 the Etna, in its covering of Flemish newspaper. We 5 
 landed in a blink of fine weather ; but we had not been 
 two minutes ashore, before the wind freshened into half 
 a gale, and the rain began to patter on our shoulders. 
 We sat as close about the Etna as we could. The spirits 
 burned with great ostentation ; the grass caught flame 10 
 every minute or two, and had to be trodden out ; and 
 before long there were several burnt fingers of the 
 party. But the solid quantity of cookery accomplished 
 was out of proportion with so much display ; and when 
 we desisted, after two applications of the fire, the sound 15 
 egg was little more than loo-warm ; and as for a la papier, 
 it was a cold and sordid fricassee of printer's ink and 
 broken egg-shell. We made shift to roast the other two, 
 by putting them close to the burning spirits ; and that 
 with better success. And then wc uncorked the bottle of ao 
 wine, and sat down in a ditch with our canoe aprons over 
 our knees. It rained smartly. Discomfort, when it is 
 honestly uncomfortable and makes no nauseous preten- 
 sions to the contrary, is a vastly humorous business ; and 
 people well steeped and stupefied in the open air, are in 25 
 a good vein for laughter. From this point of view, even 
 egg a la papier, offered byway of food, may ])ass muster 
 as a sort of accessory to the fun. Hut this manner of 
 jest, although it may be taken in good part, does not
 
 14 Inland Voyage 
 
 invite repetition ; and from that time forward, the Etna 
 voyaged like a gentleman in the locker of the Cii^arefie. 
 
 It is almost unnecessary to mention that when lunch 
 was over and we got aboard again and made sail, the 
 
 5 wind promptly died away. The r'est of the journey to 
 Villevorde, we still spread our canvas to the unfavouring 
 air ; and with now and then a puff, and now and then a 
 spell of paddling, drifted along from lock to lock, be- 
 tween the orderly trees. 
 
 lo It was a fine, green, fat landscape ; or rather a mere 
 green water-lane, going on from village to village. 
 Things had a settled look, as in places long lived in. 
 Crop-headed children spat upon us from the bridges as 
 we went below, with a true conservative feeling. But 
 
 IS even more conservative were the fishermen, intent upon 
 their floats, who let us go by without one glance. They 
 perched upon sterlings and buttresses and along the slope 
 of the embankment, gently occupied.- They were indif- 
 5ju* ', ferent, like pieces of dead nature. They did not move 
 '' ^ 20 any more than if they had been fishing in an old Dutch 
 print. The leaves fluttered, the water lapped, but they 
 continued in one stay like so many churches established 
 by law. You might have trepanned every one of their 
 innocent heads, and found no more than so much coiled 
 
 25 fishing line below their skulls. I do not care for your 
 stalwart fellows in india-rubber stockings breasting up 
 mountain torrents with a salmon rod ; but I do dearly 
 love the class of man who plies his unfniitful art, for ever 
 and a day, by still and depopulated waters. 
 
 'I
 
 The Royal Sport Nautique 15 
 
 At the last lock, just beyond Villevorde, there was a 
 lock mistress who spoke French comprehensibly, and 
 told us we were still a couple of leagues from Brussels. 
 At the same place the rain began again. It fell in 
 straight, parallel lines ; and the surface of the canal was 5 
 thrown up into an infinity of little crystal fountains. 
 There were no beds to be had in the neighbourhood. 
 Nothing for it but to lay the sails aside and address our- 
 selves to steady paddling in the rain. 
 
 Beautiful country houses, with clocks and long lines of 10 
 shuttered windows, and fine old trees standing in groves 
 and avenues, gave a rich and sombre aspect in the rain 
 and the deepening dusk to the shores of the canal. I 
 seem to have seen something of the same effect in engrav- 
 ings : opulent landscapes, deserted and overhung with 15 
 the passage of storm. And throughout we had the escort 
 of a hooded cart, which trotted shabbily along the tow- 
 path, and kept at an almost uniform distance in our wake. 
 
 THE Rr)YAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 
 
 The rain took off near Laeken. liut the sun was 
 already down ; the air was chill ; and we had scarcely a 20 
 dry stitch between the pair of us. Nay, now we found 
 ourselves near the end of the Alice Verte, and on the very 
 threshold of Brussels we were confronted by a serious 
 difficulty. The shores were closely lined by canal- boats 
 waiting their turn at the lock. Nowhere was there any 25 
 convenient landing-place ; nowhere so much as a stable-
 
 i6 Inland Voyage 
 
 yard to leave the canoes in for the night. We scrambled 
 ashore and entered an estaminet ' where some sorry fel- 
 lows were drinking with the landlord. The landlord was 
 pretty round with us ; he knew of no coach-house or 
 5 stable-yard, nothing of the sort ; and seeing we had come 
 with no mind to drink, he did not conceal his impatience 
 to be rid of us. One of the sorry fellows came to the rescue. 
 Somewhere in the corner of the basin there was a slip, he 
 informed us, and something else besides, not very clearly 
 
 10 defined by him, but hopefully construed by his hearers. 
 Sure enough there was the slip in the corner of the 
 basin ; and at the top of it two nice-looking lads in boat- 
 ing clothes. The Arethusa addressed himself to these. 
 One of them said there would be no difficulty about a 
 
 1 5 night's lodging for our boats; and the other, taking a 
 cigarette from his lips, inquired if they were made by 
 Searle & Son. The name was quite an introduction. 
 Half-a-dozen other young men came out of the boat- 
 house bearing the superscription Royal Sport Nau- 
 
 20TIQUE, and joined in the talk. They were all very 
 polite, voluble and enthusiastic ; and their discourse was 
 interlarded with English boating terms and the names of 
 English boat-builders and English clubs. I do not know, 
 to my shame, any spot in my native land where I should 
 
 25 have been so warmly received by the same number of 
 people. We were English boating men, and the Belgian 
 boating men fell upon our necks. I wonder if French 
 Huguenots were as cordially greeted by English Protes- 
 
 1 A drinking-house.
 
 The Royal Sport Nautique 17 
 
 tants when they came across the Channel out of great 
 tribulation. But after all, what religion knits people so 
 closely as a common sport? 
 
 The canoes were carried into the boat-house ; they 
 were washed down for us by the Club servants, the sails 5 
 were hung out to dry, and everything made as snug and 
 tidy as a picture. And in the meanwhile we were led 
 upstairs by our new-found brethren, for so more than one 
 of them stated the relationship, and made free of their 
 lavatory. This one lent us soap, that one a towel, a third 10 
 and fourth helped us to undo our bags. And all the time 
 such questions, such assurances of respect and sympathy ! 
 I declare I never knew what glory was before. 
 
 " Yes, yes, the Royal Sport Nautique is the oldest club 
 in Belgium." 15 
 
 " We number two hundred." 
 
 " We " — this is not a substantive speech, but an abstract 
 of many speeches, the impression left upon my mind after 
 a great deal of talk ; and very youthful, pleasant, natural 
 and patriotic it seems to me to be — " \Vc have gained 20 
 all races, except those where we were cheated by the 
 French." 
 
 "You must leave all your wet things to be dried." 
 
 "O! entre frcres ! In any boat-house in England wc 
 'should find the same." ( I (f)r<Iially hope they might.) ,5 
 
 " En Ang/eterre, voua einploycz dcs siu/ing- seats, n' est- 
 er pas ? " 
 
 " We are all employed in comnicr<c during the day ; but 
 in the evening, voyez vous, nous sommes sen'eux."
 
 1 8 Inland Voyage 
 
 These were the words. They were all employed over 
 the frivolous mercantile concerns of Belgium during the 
 day ; but in the evening they found some hours for the 
 serious concerns of life. I may have a wrong idea of 
 5 wisdom, but I think that was a very wise remark. People 
 connected with literature and philosophy are busy all their 
 days in getting rid of second-hand notions and false 
 standards. It is their ])rofession, in the sweat of their 
 brows, by dogged thinking, to recover their old fresh 
 
 10 view of life, and distinguish what they really and originally 
 like from what they have only learned to tolerate perforce. 
 And these Royal Nautical Sportsmen had the distinction 
 still quite legible in their hearts. They had still those 
 clean perceptions of what is nice and nasty, what is inter- 
 
 ijcsting and what is dull, which envious old gentlemen 
 refer to as illusions. The nightmare illusion of middle age, 
 the bear's hug of custom gradually squeezing the life out 
 of a man's soul, had not yet begun for these happy-starr'd 
 young Belgians. They still knew that the interest they 
 
 20 took in their business was a trifling affair compared to 
 their spontaneous, long-suffering affection for nautical 
 sports. To know what you prefer, instead of humbly say- 
 ing Amen to what the world tells you you ought to pre- 
 fer, is to have kept your soul alive. Such a man may be 
 
 25 generous; he may be honest in something more than the ' 
 commercial sense ; he may love his friends with an elec- 
 tive, personal sympathy, and not accept them as an 
 adjunct of the station to which he has been called. He 
 may be a man, in short, acting on his own instincts, keeping
 
 The Royal Sport Nautique 19 
 
 in his own shape that God made him in ; and not a mere 
 crank in the social engine house, welded on principles that 
 he does not understand, and for purposes that he does 
 not care for. 
 
 For will anyone dare to tell me that business is mores 
 entertaining than fooUng among boats? He must have 
 never seen a boat, or never seen an office, who says so. 
 And for certain the one is a great deal better for the 
 health. There should be nothing so much a man's busi- 
 ness as his amusements. Nothing but money-grubbing 
 can be put forward to the contrary ; no one but 
 Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell 
 From Heaven, 
 
 durst risk a word in answer. It is but a lying cant that 
 would represent the merchant and the banker as people 15 
 disinterestedly toiling for mankind, and then most useful 
 when they are most absorbed in their transactions ; for 
 the man is more important than his services. And when 
 my Royal Nautical Sportsman shall have so far fallen 
 from his hopeful youth that he cannot pluck up an en- 20 
 thusiasm over anything but his ledger, I venture to doubt 
 whether he will be near so nice a fellow, and whether he 
 would welcome, with so good a grace, a couple of 
 drenched Englishmen ])addling into Brussels in the 
 dusk. 'S 
 
 When we had changed our wet clothes and drunk a glass 
 of pale ale to the Club's prosperity, one of their number 
 escorted us to an hotel. He wo\il«l not join us at our 
 dinner, but he had no objection to a glass of wine.
 
 20 Inland Voyage 
 
 Enthusiasm is very wearing ; and I begin to understand 
 why prophets were unpopular in Judaea, where they were 
 best known. For three stricken hours did this excellent 
 young man sit beside us to dilate on boats and boat-races ; 
 5 and before he left, he was kind enough to order our bed- 
 room candles. 
 
 We endeavoured now and again to change the subject ; 
 but the diversion did not last a moment : the Royal Nau- 
 tical Sportsman bridled, shied, answered the question, 
 
 lo and then breasted once more into the swelling tide of his 
 subject. I call it his subject; but I think it was he who 
 was subjected. The Arethusa, who holds all racing as a 
 creature of the devil, found himself in a pitiful dilemma. 
 He durst not own his ignorance for the honour of Old 
 
 1 5 England, and spoke away about English clubs and Eng- 
 lish oarsmen whose fame had never before come to his 
 ears. Several times, and once, above all, on the question 
 of sliding-seats, he was witiiin an ace of exposure. As 
 for the Cigarette, who has rowed races in the heat of his 
 
 20 blood, but now disowns these slips of his wanton youth, his 
 case was still more desperate ; for the Royal Nautical 
 proposed that he should take an oar in one of their eights 
 on the morrow, to compare the English with the Belgian 
 stroke. I could see my friend perspiring in his chair 
 
 25 whenever that particular topic came up. And there was 
 yet another proposal which had the same effect on both 
 of us. It appeared that the champion canoeist of Europe 
 (as well as most other champions) was a Royal Nautical 
 Sportsman. And if we would only wail until the Sunday,
 
 At Maubeuge 2i 
 
 this infernal paddler would be so condescending as to 
 accompany us on our next stage. Neither of us had the 
 least desire to drive the coursers of the sun against Apollo. 
 When the young man was gone, we countermanded 
 our candles, and ordered some brandy and water. The s 
 great billows had gone over our head. The Royal Nau- 
 tical Sportsmen were as nice young fellows as a man would 
 wish to see, but they were a trifle too young and a thought 
 too nautical for us. We began to see that we were old 
 and cynical ; we liked ease and the agreeable rambling lo 
 of the human mind about this and the other subject ; we 
 did not want to disgrace our native land by messing an 
 eight, or toiling pitifully in the wake of the chamjMon 
 canoeist. In short, we had recourse to flight. It seemed 
 ungrateful, but we tried to make that good on a card 15 
 loaded with sincere compliments. And indeetl it was no 
 time for scruples ; we seemed to feel the hot breath of 
 the champion on our necks. 
 
 AT MArr.KUCIE 
 
 Partly from the terror we had of our good friends the 
 Royal Nauticals, partly from the fact that there were no jo 
 fewer than fifty-five locks between lirussels and Charleroi, 
 we concluded that we should travel by train across the 
 frontier, boats and all. I-'ifty-fivc lo<ks in a day's journey 
 was pretty well tantamount t(j trtidging the whole distance 
 on foot, with the canoes upon our shoulders, an objert of as
 
 22 Inland Voyage 
 
 astonishment to the trees on the canal side, and of honest 
 derision to all right-thinking children. 
 
 To pass the frontier, even in a train, is a difficult matter 
 for the Arethusa. He is, somehow or other, a marked 
 5 man for the official eye. Wherever he journeys, there are 
 the officers gathered together. Treaties are solemnly 
 signed, foreign ministers, ambassadors, and consuls sit 
 throned in state from China to Peru, and the Union Jack 
 flutters on all the winds of heaven. Under these safe- 
 
 10 guards, portly clergymen, school-mistresses, gentlemen in 
 grey tweed suits, and all the ruck and rabble of British 
 touristry pour unhindered, Murray in hand, over the 
 railways of the continent, and yet the slim person of the 
 Arethusa is taken in the meshes, while these great fish go 
 
 IS on their way rejoicing. If he travels without a passport, 
 he is cast, without any figure about the matter, into noi- 
 some dungeons : if his papers are in order, he is suffered 
 to go his way indeed, but not until he has been humiliated 
 by a general incredulity. He is a born British subject, 
 
 2o yet he has never succeeded in persuading a single official 
 of his nationality. He flatters himself he is indifferent 
 honest ; yet he is rarely taken for anything better than a 
 spy, and there is no absurd and disreputable means of 
 livelihood but has been attributed to him in some heat of 
 
 25 official or popular distrust. . . . 
 
 For the life of me I cannot understand it. I too have 
 been knolled to church, and sat at good men's feasts ; but 
 I bear no mark of it. I am as strange as a Jack Indian to 
 their official spectacles. I might come from any part of
 
 At Maubeuge . 23 
 
 the globe, it seems, except from where I do. My an- 
 cestors have laboured in vain, and the glorious Constitu- 
 tion cannot protect me in my walks abroad. It is a great 
 thing, believe me, to present a good normal type of the 
 nation you belong to. - 
 
 Nobody else was asked for his papers on the way to 
 Maubeuge ; but I was ; and although I clung to my rights, 
 I had to choose at last between accepting the humiliation 
 and being left behind by the train. I was sorry to give 
 way ; but I wanted to get to Maubeuge. 10 
 
 Maubeuge is a fortified town, with a very good inn, the 
 Grand Cerf. It seemed to be inhabited princiiially by 
 soldiers and bagmen ; at least, these were all that we 
 saw, except the hotel servants. We had to stay there 
 some time, for the canoes were in no hurry to follow us, 15 
 and at last stuck hopelessly in the custom-house until we 
 went back to liberate them. There was nothing to do, 
 nothing to see. We had good meals, which was a great 
 matter ; but that was all. 
 ^ The Cii^arette was nearly taken up upon a charge of ao 
 drawing the fortifications : a feat of which he was hope- 
 lessly incapable. And besides, as I suppose each bellig- 
 erent nation has a i)]an of the other's fortified places 
 already, these precautions are of the nature of shutting the 
 stable-door after the steed is away. But I have no doubt 25 
 they help to keep up a good spirit at home. It is a great 
 thing if you can persuade i)eoi)le that they are someli(nv 
 or other partakers in a mystery. It makes them feel 
 bigger. Even the Freemasons, who have been shown up to
 
 24 Inhmd Voyage 
 
 satiety, preserve a kind of pride ; and not a grocer among 
 them, however honest, harmless, and empty-headed he may 
 feel himself to be at bottom, but comes home from one of 
 their coenacuhi ^ with a portentous significance for himself. 
 
 5 It is an odd thing, how happily two people, if there are 
 two, can live in a place where they have no acquaintance. 
 I think the spectacle of a whole life in which you have no 
 part paralyses personal desire. You are content to be- 
 come a mere spectator. The baker stands in his door ; 
 
 10 the colonel with his three medals goes by to the cafe at 
 night ; the troops drum and trumpet and man the ram- 
 parts, as bold as so many lions. It would task language to 
 say how placidly you behold all this. In a place where 
 you have taken some root, you are provoked out of your 
 
 15 indifference ; you have a hand in the game ; your friends 
 are fighting with the army. But in a strange town, not 
 small enough to grow too soon familiar, nor so large as to 
 have laid itself out for travellers, you stand so far apart 
 from the business, that you positively forget it would be 
 
 10 possible to go nearer ; you have so little human interest 
 around you, that you do not remember yourself to be a 
 man. Perhaps, in a very short time, you would be one no 
 longer. Gymnosophists go into a wood, with all nature 
 seething around them, with romance on every side ; it 
 
 25 would be much more to the purpose, if they took up their 
 abode in a dull country town, where they should see just so 
 much of humanity as to keep them from desiring more, 
 and only the stale externals of man's life. These externals 
 
 1 Feasts.
 
 At Maubeuge 25 
 
 are as dead to us as so many formalities, and speak a dead 
 language in our eyes and ears. They have no more mean- 
 ing than an oath or a salutation. We are so much accus- 
 tomed to see married couples going to church of a Sun- 
 day that we have clean forgotten what they represent ; s 
 and novelists are driven to rehabilitate adultery, no less, 
 when they wish to show us what a beautiful thing it is for 
 a man and a woman to live for each other. 
 
 One person in Maubeuge, however, showed me some- 
 thing more than his outside. That was the driver of the 10 
 hotel omnibus : a mean-enough looking litde man, as 
 well as I can remember ; but with a spark of something 
 human in his soul. He had heard of our little journey, 
 and came to me at once in envious sympathy. How he 
 longed to travel! he told me. How he longed to be 15 
 somewhere else, and see the round world before he went 
 into the grave ! " Here I am," said he. " I drive to 
 the station. Well. And then I drive back again to the 
 hotel. And so on every day and all the week round. 
 My God, is that life? " I could not say I thought it was jo 
 — for him. He pressed me to tell him where I had 
 been, and where I hoped to go ; and as he listened, I 
 declare the fellow sighed. Might not this have been a 
 brave African traveller, or gone to the Indies after Drake? 
 Rut it is an evil age for the gipsily inclined among men. 35 
 He who can sit squarcst on a three-legged stool, he it is 
 who has the wealth and glory. 
 
 I wonder if my friend is still driving the omnibus for 
 <'^ the Gran^ Cerf? Not very likely, I believe ; for I tliink
 
 26 Inland Voyage 
 
 he was on the eve of mutiny when we passed through, 
 and perhaps our passage determined him for good. Bet- 
 ter a thousand times that he should be a tramp, and mend 
 pots and pans by the wayside, and sleep under trees, 
 5 and see the dawn and the sunset every day above a new 
 horizon. I think I hear you say that it is a respectable 
 position to drive an omnibus ? Very well. What right 
 has he who likes it not to keep those who would like it 
 dearly out of this respectable position ? Suppose a dish 
 
 10 were not to my taste, and you told me that it was a fa- 
 vourite among the rest of the company, what should I 
 conclude from that ? Not to finish the dish against my 
 stomach, I suppose. 
 
 Respectability is a very good thing in its way, but it 
 
 15 does not rise superior to all considerations. I would not 
 for a moment venture to hint that it was a matter of 
 taste ; but I think I will go as far as this : that if a po- 
 sition is admittedly unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary, 
 and superfluously useless, although it were as respectable 
 
 20 as the Church of England, the sooner a man is out of it, 
 the better for himself, and all concerned.
 
 On the Sambre Canalized 27 
 
 ON THE SAMBRE CANALIZED 
 
 To QUARTES, 
 
 About three in the afternoon the whole establishment 
 of the Grand C<?;/ accompanied us to the water's edge. 
 The man of the omnibus was there with haggard eyes. 
 Poor cage-bird ! Do I not remember the time when I 
 myself haunted the station, to watch train after train carry s 
 its complement of freemen into the night, and read the 
 names of distant places on the time-bills with indescrib- 
 able longings ? 
 
 We were not clear of the fortifications before the rain 
 began. The wind was contrary, and blew in furious gusts ; 10 
 nor were the aspects of nature any more clement than the 
 doings of the sky. For we passed through a stretch of 
 blighted country, sparsely covered with brush, but hand- 
 somely enough diversified with factory chimneys. We 
 landed in a soiled meadow among some pollards, and is 
 there smoked a pipe in a flawof fair weather. Hut the wind 
 blew so hard we could get little else to smoke. There 
 were no natural objects in the neighbourhood, but some 
 sordid workshops. A group of children headed by a tall 
 girl stood and watched us from a little distance all the jo 
 time we stayed. I heartily wonder what they thought of 
 us. 
 
 At Hautmont, the lock was almost impassable; the
 
 28 Inland Voyage 
 
 landing-place being steep and high, and the launch at a 
 long distance. Near a dozen grimy workmen lent us a 
 hand. They refused any reward ; and, what is much 
 better, refused it handsomely, without conveying any 
 5 sense of insult. " It is a way we have in our country- 
 side," said they. And a very becoming way it is. In 
 Scotland, where also you will get services for nothing, the 
 good people reject your money as if you had been trying 
 to corrupt a voter. When people take the trouble to do 
 
 10 dignified acts, it is worth while to take a little more, and 
 allow the dignity to be common to all concerned. But 
 in our brave Saxon countries, where we plod threescore 
 years and ten in the mud, and the wind keeps singing in 
 our ears from birth to burial, we do our good and bad 
 
 15 with a high hand and almost offensively ; and make even 
 our alms a witness-bearing and an act of war against the 
 wrong. 
 
 After Hautmont, the sun came forth again and the wind 
 went down ; and a little paddling took us beyond the 
 
 20 ironworks and through a delectable land. The river 
 wound among low hills, so that sometimes the sun was at 
 our backs, and sometimes it stood right ahead, and the 
 river before us was one sheet of intolerable glory. On 
 either hand, meadows and orchards bordered, with a 
 
 25 margin of sedge and water flowers, upon the river. The 
 hedges were of great height, woven about the trunks of 
 hedgerow elms; and the fields, as they were often very 
 small, looked like a series of bowers along the stream. 
 There was never any prospect ; sometimes a hill-top with
 
 Oil the Sambre Canalized 29 
 
 its trees would look over the nearest hedgerow, just to 
 make a middle distance for the sky ; but that was all. 
 The heaven was bare of clouds. The atmosphere, after 
 the rain, was of enchanting purity. The river doubled 
 among the hillocks, a shining strip of mirror glass ; and 5 
 the dip of the paddles set the flowers shaking along the 
 brink. 
 
 In the meadows wandered black and white cattle 
 fantastically marked. One beast, with a white head and 
 the rest of the body glossy black, came to the edge to 10 
 drink, and stood gravely twitching his ears at me as I 
 went by, like some sort of preposterous clergyman in a 
 play. A moment after I heard a loud ])lungc, and, turn- 
 ing my head, saw the clergyman struggling to shore. 
 The bank had given way under his feet. ,5 
 
 Besides the cattle, we saw no living things except a 
 few birds and a great many fishermen. These sat along 
 the edges of the meadows, sometimes with one rod, 
 sometimes with as many as half a score. They seemed 
 stupefied with contentment ; and when we induced them jo 
 to exchange a few words with us about the weather, their 
 voices sounded cpiiet and far-away. There was a strange 
 fliversily of opinion among them as to the kind of fish 
 for which they set their lures ; although they were all 
 agreed in this, that the river was abundantly supplied, aj 
 Where it was plain that no two of them had ever caught 
 the same kind of fish, wc could not help suspecting that 
 perhaps not any one of them had ever caught a fish at 
 all. 1 hoi)e, since the afternoon was so lovely, that they
 
 30 Inland Voyage 
 
 were one and all rewarded ; and that a silver booty went 
 home in every basket for the pot. Some of my friends 
 ■ would cry shame on me for this ; but I prefer a man, 
 were he only an angler, to the bravest pair of gills in all 
 5 God's waters. I do not affect fishes unless when cooked 
 in sauce ; whereas an angler is an important piece of 
 river scenery, and hence deserves some recognition among 
 canoeists. He can always tell you where you are after 
 a mild fashion ; and his quiet presence serves to accen- 
 
 10 tuate the solitude and stillness, and remind you of the 
 glittering citizens below your boat. 
 
 The Sambre turned so industriously to and fro among 
 his little hills, that it was past six before we drew near 
 the lock at Quartes. There were some children on the 
 
 15 tow-path, with whom the Cigarette fell into a chaffing 
 talk as they ran along beside us. It was in vain that I 
 warned him. In vain I told him, in English, that boys 
 were the most dangerous creatures ; and if once you be- 
 gan with them, it was safe to end in a shower of stones. 
 
 20 For my own part, whenever anything was addressed to 
 me, I smiled gently and shook my head as though I were 
 an inoffensive person inadequately acquainted with 
 French. For indeed I have had such experience at 
 home, that I would sooner meet many wild animals than 
 
 25 a troop of healthy urchins. 
 
 But I was doing injustice to these peaceable young 
 Hainaulters. When the Cigarette went off to make in- 
 quiries, I got out upon the bank to si'oke a pipe and 
 superintend the boats, and became at once the centre of
 
 On the Sambre Canalized 31 
 
 rrmch amiable curiosity. The children had been joined 
 by this time by a young woman and a mild lad who had 
 lost an arm ; and this gave me more security. When I 
 let slip my first word or so in French, a little girl nodded 
 her head with a comical grown-up air. " .^h, you see," 5 
 she said, " he understands well enough now ; he was just 
 making believe." And the little group laughed together 
 very good-naturedly. 
 
 They were much impressed when they heard we came 
 from England ; and the little girl proffered the informa- 10 
 tion that England was an island " and a for way from 
 here — bien loin (Tici." 
 
 " Ay, you may say that, a far way from here," said the 
 lad with one arm. 
 
 I was as nearly home-sick as ever I was in my life ; 15 
 they seemed to make it such an incalculable distance to 
 the place where I first saw the day. 
 
 They admired the canoes very much. And I observed 
 one piece of delicacy in these children which is worthy 
 of record. They had been deafening us for the last hun- »o 
 dred yards with i)etitions for a' sail ; ay, and they deaf- 
 ened us to the same tune next morning when we came to 
 start ; but then, when the canoes were lying empty, there 
 was no word of any such petition. Delicacy? or perhaps 
 a bit of fear for the water in so crank a vessel ? I hate »s 
 cynicism a great deal worse than I do the devil ; unless per- 
 haps the two were the same thing? And yet 'tis a good 
 tonic ; the cold tub and bath-towel of the sentiments ; and 
 positively necessary to life in cases of advanced sensibility.
 
 32 Inland Voyage 
 
 From the boats they turned to my costume. They 
 could not make enough of my red sash ; and my knife 
 filled them with awe. 
 
 "They make them like that in England," said the boy 
 
 5 with one arm. I was glad he did not know how badly 
 
 we make them in England now-a-days. " They are for 
 
 people who go away to sea," he added, " and to defend 
 
 one's life against great fish." 
 
 I felt I was becoming a more and more romantic 
 lo figure to the little group at every word. And so I sup- 
 pose I was. Even my pipe, although it was an ordinary 
 French clay, pretty well " trousered," as they call it, 
 would have a rarity in their eyes, as a thing coming from 
 so far away. And if my feathers were not very fine in 
 15 themselves, they were all from over seas. One thing in 
 my outfit, however, tickled them out of all politeness; 
 and that was the bemired condition of my canvas shoes. 
 I suppose they were sure the mud at any rate was a home 
 product. The little girl (who was the genius of the party) 
 20 displayed her own sabots ^ in competition ; and I wish you 
 could have seen how gracefully and merrily she did it. 
 
 The young woman's milk-can, a great amphora of 
 hammered brass, stood some way off upon the sward. I 
 was glad of an opportunity to divert public attention 
 25 from myself, and return some of the compliments I had 
 received. So I admired it cordially both for form and 
 colour, telling them, and very truly, that it was as beauti- 
 ful as gold. They were not surprised. The things were 
 ^ Wooden shoes worn by the peasants.
 
 Pont-sur-Sambre 23 
 
 plainly the boast of the country-side. And the children 
 expatiated on the costliness of the amphorae, which sell 
 sometimes as high as thirty francs apiece ; told me how 
 they were carried on donkeys, one on either side of the 
 saddle, a brave caparison in themselves ; and how they 5 
 were to be seen all over the district, and at the larger 
 farms in great number and of great size. 
 
 PONT-SUR-SAMBR E 
 
 We are Pedlars 
 
 The Cigarette returned with good news. There were 
 beds to be had some ten minutes' walk from where we 
 were, at a place called Pont. W'e stowed the canoes in 10 
 a granary, and asked among the children for a guide. 
 The circle at once widened round us, and our offers of 
 reward were received in dispiriting silence. \V'e were 
 plainly a pair of liluebeards to the ciiildrcn ; they niigiit 
 speak to us in pul^lic ])laces, and where they had the ad- 15 
 vantage of numbers ; but it was another thing to venture 
 off alone with two uncoutli and legendary characters, who 
 had dropped from the clouds upon their hamlet this (juiet 
 afternoon, sashed and beknived, and with a flavour of 
 great voyages. The owner of the granary came to our 20 
 assistance, singled out one little fellow and liircatt-ncd 
 him with corporalities ; or I suspect wc .should have had 
 to find the way for ourselves. As it was, he was niorf 
 frightened at the cranary man than the strangers, hnving
 
 34 Inland Voyage 
 
 perhaps had some experience of the former. But I fancy 
 his little heart must have been going at a fine rate ; for 
 he kept trotting at a respectful distance in front, and 
 looking back at us with scared eyes. Not otherwise may 
 
 S the children of the young world have guided Jove or one 
 of his Olympian compeers on an adventure. 
 
 A miry lane led us up from Quartes with its church 
 and bickering wind-mill. The hinds were trudging home- 
 wards from the fields. A brisk little old woman passed 
 
 lo us by. She was seated across a donkey between a pair 
 of glittering milk-cans ; and, as she went, she kicked 
 jauntily with her heels upon the donkey's side, and scat- 
 tered shrill remarks among the wayfarers. It was nota- 
 ble that none of the tired men took the trouble to reply. 
 
 15 Our conductor soon led us out of the lane and across 
 country. The sun had gone down, but the west in front 
 of us was one lake of level gold. The path wandered 
 awhile in the open, and then passed under a trellis like a 
 bower indefinitely prolonged. On either hand were 
 
 20 shadowy orchards ; cottages lay low among the leaves and 
 sent their smoke to heaven ; every here and there, in an 
 opening, appeared the great gold face of the west. 
 
 I never saw the Cigarette in such an idyllic frame of 
 mind. He waxed positively lyrical in praise of country 
 
 25 scenes. I was little less exhilarated myself; the mild air 
 of the evening, the shadows, the rich lights, and the 
 silence made a symphonious accompaniment about our 
 walk \ and we both determined to avoid towns for the 
 future and sleep in hamlets.
 
 Pont-sur-Sambre 35 
 
 At last the path went between two houses, and turned 
 the party out into a wide muddy high-road, bordered, as 
 far as the eye could reach on either hand, by an unsightly 
 village. The houses stood well back, leaving a ribbon 
 of waste land on either side of the road, where there were s 
 stacks of firewood, carts, barrows, rubbish heaps, and a 
 little doubtRil grass. Away on the left, a gaunt tower 
 stood in the middle of the street. What it had been in 
 past ages, I know not : probably a hold in time of war ; 
 but now-a-days it bore an illegible dial-plate in its upper 10 
 parts, and near the bottom an iron letterbox. 
 
 The inn to which we had been recommended at 
 Quartes was full, or else the landlady did not like our 
 looks. I ought to say, that with our long, damp india- 
 rubber bags, we presented rather a doubtful type of civili- 15 
 zation : like rag-and-bone men, the Ci):;arefte imagined. 
 "These gentlemen are pedlars?" — Ces messieurs sont 
 des marchands? — asked the landlady. And then, with- 
 out waiting for an answer, which 1 suppose she thought 
 superfluous in so i)lain a case, recommended us to a ao 
 butcher who lived hard by the tower and took in travellers 
 to lodge. 
 
 Thither went we. But the butcher was flitting,' and all 
 his beds were taken down. Or else he didn't like our look. 
 As a parting shot, we had " These gentlemen are pedlars ? " as 
 
 It began to grow dark in earnest. We could no longer 
 distinguish the faces of the i)eople who jjassed us by with 
 an inarticulate good evening. And the householders of 
 J Scutch for moving.
 
 ^6 Inland Voyage 
 
 Pont seemed very economical with tlieir oil ; for we saw 
 not a single window lighted in all that long village. I 
 believe it is the longest village in the world ; but I dare- 
 say in our predicament every pace counted three times 
 
 5 over. We were much cast down when we came to the 
 last atiberge ; and looking in at the dark door, asked tim- 
 idly if we could sleep there for the night.. A female 
 voice assented in no very friendly tones. We clapped 
 the bags down and found our way to chairs. 
 
 10 The place was in total darkness, save a red glow in the 
 chinks and ventilators of the stove. But now the land- 
 lady lit a lamp to see her new guests ; I suppose the 
 darkness was what saved us another expulsion ; for I can- 
 not say she looked gratified at our appearance. We were 
 
 15 in a large bare apartment, adorned with two allegorical 
 prints of Music and Painting, and a copy of the Law 
 against Public Drunkenness. On one side, there was a 
 bit of a bar, with some half-a-dozen bottles. Two 
 labourers sat waiting supper, in attitudes of extreme 
 
 20 weariness ; a plain-looking lass bustled about with a sleepy 
 child or two ; and the landlady began to derange the pots 
 upon the stove and set some beef-steak to grill. 
 
 "These gentlemen are pedlars?" she asked sharply. 
 And that was all the conversation forthcoming. We be- 
 
 25 gan to think we might be pedlars after all. I never knew 
 a population with so narrow a range of conjecture as the 
 innkeepers of Pont-sur-Sambre. But manners and bear- 
 ing have not a wider currency than bank-notes. You have 
 only to get far enough out of your beat, and all your accom-
 
 Pont-sur-Sambre 37 
 
 plished airs will go for nothing. These Hainaulters could 
 see no difference between us and the average pedlar. In- 
 deed we had some grounds for reflection, while the steak 
 was getting ready, to see how perfectly they accepted us 
 at their own valuation, and how our best politeness and 5 
 best efforts at entertainment seemed to fit quite suitably 
 with the character of packmen. At least it seemed a good 
 account of the profession in France, that even before 
 such judges, we could not beat them at our own weapons. 
 
 At last we were called to table. The two hinds (and 10 
 one of them looked sadly worn and white in the face, as 
 though sick with overwork and underfeeding) supped off 
 a single plate of some sort of bread-berry, some potatoes 
 in their jackets, a small cup of coffee sweetened with 
 sugar candy, and one tumbler of swipes. The landlady, 15 
 her son, and the lass aforesaid, took the same. Our meal 
 was quite a banquet by comparison. We had some beef- 
 steak, not so tender as it might have been, some of the 
 potatoes, some cheese, an extra glass of the swipes, and 
 white sugar in our coffee. -' 
 
 You see what it is to be a gentleman — I beg your 
 pardon, what it is to be a pedlar. It had not before 
 occurred to me that a pedlar was a great man in a Ial)ourer's 
 ale-house ; but now that I had to enact the part for an even- 
 ing, I found that so it was. Me has in his hedge (juarters, 25 
 somewhat the same pre-eminenry as the man wlio takes 
 a private ])arlour in a hotel. The more you look into it, 
 the more infinite are the class distinctions among men ; 
 and possibly, by a happy dispensation, there is no one at
 
 38 Inland Voyage 
 
 all at the bottom of the scale ; no one but can find some su- 
 periority over somebody else, to keep up his pride withal. 
 We were displeased enough with our fare. Particularly 
 the Cigarette ; for I tried to make believe that I was 
 S amused with the adventure, tough beef-steak and all. 
 According to the Lucretian maxim, our steak should have 
 been flavoured by the look of the other people's bread- 
 berry. But we did not find it so in practice. You may 
 have a head knowledge that other people live more poorly 
 
 10 than yourself, but it is not agreeable — I was going to 
 say, it is against the etiquette of the universe — to sit at 
 the same table and pick your own superior diet from among 
 their crusts. I had not seen such a thing done since 
 the greedy boy at school with his birthday cake. It was 
 
 15 odious enough to witness, I could remember; and I had 
 never thought to play the part myself But there again 
 you see what it is to be a pedlar. 
 
 There is no doubt that the poorer classes in our country 
 are much more charitably disposed than their superiors in 
 
 20 wealth. And I fancy it must arise a great deal from the 
 comparative indistinction of the easy and the not so easy 
 in these ranks. A workman or a j^edlar cannot shutter 
 himself off from his less comfortable neighbours. If he 
 treats himself to a luxury, he must do it in the face of a 
 
 25 dozen who cannot. And what should more directly lead 
 to charitable thoughts? . . . Thus the poor man, camp- 
 ing out in life, sees it as it is, and knows that every 
 mouthful he puts in his belly has been wrenched out of 
 the fingers of the hungry.
 
 Pont-sur-Sambre 39 
 
 But at a certain stage of prosperity, as in a balloon ascent, 
 the fortunate person passes through a zone of clouds, and 
 sublunary matters are thenceforward hidden from his 
 view. He sees nothing but the heavenly bodies, all in 
 admirable order and positively as good as new. He finds s 
 himself surrounded in the most touching manner by the 
 attentions of Providence, and compares himself involun- 
 tarily with the lilies and the skylarks. He does not pre- 
 cisely sing, of course ; but then he looks so unassuming 
 in his open Landau ! If all the world dined at one lo 
 table, this philosophy would meet with some rude knocks. 
 
 PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 
 
 The TkAVKi.i.iNf; Mkrchant 
 
 Like the lackeys in Moli^re's farce, when the true noble- 
 man broke in on their high life below stairs, we were 
 destined to be confronted with a real pedlar. To make 
 the lesson still more poignant for fallen gentlemen like us, 15 
 he was a pedlar of infinitely more consideration than the 
 sort of scurvy fellows we were taken for : like a lion 
 among mice, or ship of war bearing down upon two cock- 
 boats. Indeed, he did not deserve the name of pedlar 
 at all : he was a travelling merchant. ^o 
 
 I suppose it was about half-past eight when this worthy. 
 Monsieur Hector Gilliard of Maubcuge, turned uj) at the 
 ale-house floor in a tilt-cart drawn by a donkey, and cried 
 cheerily on the inhabitants. lie was a lean, nervous
 
 40 Inland Voyage 
 
 flibbertigibbet of a man, with something the look of an 
 actor, and something the look of a horse-jockey. He had 
 evidently prospered without any of the favours of edu- 
 cation ; for he adhered with stern simplicity to the mas- 
 5 culine gender, and in the course of the evening passed off 
 some fancy futures in a very florid style of architecture. 
 With him came his wife, a comely young woman with her 
 hair tied in a yellow kerchief, and their son, a little fellow 
 of four, in a blouse and military kepi. It was notable that 
 
 lo the child was many degrees better dressed than either of 
 the parents. We were informed he was already at a board- 
 ing-school ; but the holidays having just commenced, 
 he was off to spend them with his parents on a cruise. 
 An enchanting holiday occupation, was it not? to travel 
 
 15 all day with father and mother in the tilt-cart full of count- 
 less treasures; the green country rattling by on either 
 side, and the children in all the villages contemplating 
 him with envy and wonder? It is better fun, during the 
 holidays, to be the son of a travelling merchant, than son 
 
 20 and heir to the greatest cotton-spinner in creation. And 
 as for being a reigning prince — indeed I never saw one 
 if it was not Master Gilliard ! 
 
 While M. Hector and the son of the house were putting 
 up the donkey, and getting all the valuables under lock 
 
 25 and key, the landlady warmed up the remains of our beef- 
 steak, and fried the cold potatoes in slices, and Madame 
 Gilliard set herself to waken the boy, who had come far 
 that day, and was peevish and dazzled by the light. He was 
 no sooner awake than he began to prepare himself for supper
 
 Pont-sur-Sambre 41 
 
 by eating galette,' unripe pears, and cold potatoes — with, 
 so far as I could judge, positive benefit to his appetite. 
 
 The landlady, fired with motherly emulation, awoke 
 her own little girl ; and the two children were confronted. 
 Master Gilliard looked at her for a moment, very much s 
 as a dog looks at his own reflection in a mirror before he 
 turns away. He was at that time absorbed in the galette. 
 His mother seemed crestfallen that he should display so 
 little inclination towards the other sex ; and expressed 
 her disappointment with some candour and a very proper 10 
 reference to the influence of years. 
 
 Sure enough a time will come when he will pay more 
 attention to the girls, and think a great deal less of his 
 mother : let us hope she will like it as well as she seemed 
 to fancy. But it is odd enough; the very women who 15 
 profess most contempt for mankind as a sex, seem to find 
 even its ugliest particulars rather lively and high-minded 
 in their own sons. 
 
 The little girl looked longer and with more interest, 
 probably because she was in her own house, while he was ao 
 a traveller and accustomed to strange sights. And besides 
 there was no galette in the case with her. 
 
 All the time of supper, there was nothing spoken of but 
 my young lord. 'I'iie two parents were both absurdly fond 
 of their child. Monsieur kept insisting on his sagacity : 25 
 how he knew all the children at school by name; and 
 when this utterly failed on trial, how he was cautious and 
 exact to a strange degree, and if asked anything, he would 
 
 ' Broa<i tl)iii cake.
 
 42 Inland Voyage 
 
 sit and think — and think, and if he did not know it, " my 
 faith, he wouldn't tell you at all — 7na foi, il tie vous le dira 
 pas." Whichiscertainly a very high degree of caution. At 
 intervals, M. Hector would appeal to his wife, with his mouth 
 5 full of beef-steak, as to the little fellow's age at such or 
 such a time when he had said or done something memo- 
 rable ; and I noticed that Madame usually pooh-poohed 
 these inquiries. She herself was not boastful in her vein ; 
 but she never had her fill of caressing the child ; and she 
 
 lo seemed to take a gentle pleasure in recalling all that was 
 fortunate in his little existence. No schoolboy could 
 have talked more of the hoUdays which were just begin- 
 ning and less of the black school-time which must inevi- 
 tably follow after. She showed, with a pride perhaps 
 
 15 partly mercantile in origin, his pockets preposterously 
 swollen with tops and whistles and string. When she called 
 at a house in the way of business, it appeared he kept her 
 company ; and whenever a sale was made, received a sou 
 out of the profit. Indeed they spoiled him vastly, these 
 
 ao two good people. But they had an eye to his manners 
 
 for all that, and reproved him for some little faults in 
 
 breeding which occurred from time to time during supper. 
 
 On the whole, I was not much hurt at being taken for 
 
 a pedlar. 1 might think that I ate with greater delicacy, 
 
 25 or that my mistakes in French belonged to a different 
 order ; but it was plain that these distinctions would be 
 thrown away upon the landlady and the two labourers. 
 In all essential things, we and the Gilliards cut very much 
 the same figure in the ale-house kitchen. M. Hector
 
 Pont-sur-Sambre 43 
 
 was more at home, indeed, and took a higher tone 
 with the world ; but that was exphcable on the ground 
 of his driving a donkey-cart, while we poor bodies 
 tramped afoot. I daresay, the rest of the company 
 thought us dying with envy, though in no ill sense, to be 5 
 as far up in the profession as the new arrival. 
 
 And of one thing I am sure : that everyone thawed 
 and became more humanized and conversable as soon as 
 these innocent people appeared upon the scene. I would 
 not very readily trust the travelling merchant with any 10 
 extravagant sum of money ; but I am sure his heart was 
 in the right place. In this mixed world, if you can find 
 one or two sensible places in a man, above all, if you 
 should find a whole family living together on such 
 pleasant terms, you may surely be satisfied, and take the 15 
 rest for granted ; or, what is a great deal better, boldly 
 make up your mind that you can do perfectly well without 
 the rest ; and that ten thousand bad traits cannot make 
 a single good one any the less good. 
 
 It was getting late. M. Hector lit a stable lantern and ao 
 went off to his cart for some arrangements ; and my 
 young gentleman proceede<l to divest himself (jf the 
 better part of his raiment, and play gymnastics on his 
 mother's lap, and tiicnce on to the floor, with ai ( 0111- 
 paniment of laughter. 35 
 
 " Are yoM going to sleep alone?" asked the servant lass. 
 
 "There's little fear of that," says Master Milliard. 
 
 "You sleep alone at school," objected his mother. 
 " Come, come, you must be a man."
 
 44 Inland Voyage 
 
 But he protested that school was a different matter 
 from the hoHdays ; that there were dormitories at school ; 
 and silenced the discussion with kisses : his mother 
 smiling, no one better pleased than she. 
 
 5 There certainly was, as he phrased it, very little fear 
 that he should sleep alone ; for there was but one bed 
 for the trio. We, on our part, had firmly protested 
 against one man's accommodation for two ; and we had 
 a double-bedded pen in the loft of the house, furnished, 
 
 lo beside the beds, with exactly three hat pegs and one 
 table. There was not so much as a glass of water. But 
 the window would open, by good fortune. 
 
 Some time before I fell asleep the loft was full of the 
 sound of mighty snoring : the Gilliards, and the labourers, 
 
 IS and the people of the inn, all at it, I suppose, with one 
 consent. The young moon outside shone very clearly over 
 Pont-sur-Sambre, and down upon the ale-house where all 
 we pedlars were abed. 
 
 ON THE SAMBRE CANALIZED 
 
 To Landrecies 
 
 In the morning, when we came downstairs, the land- 
 20 lady pointed out to us two pails of water behind the 
 street-door. " Voila de Veau pourvous debarbouiller,'^ says 
 she. And so there we made a shift to wash ourselves, while 
 Madame Gilliard brushed the family boots on the outer 
 door-step, and M. Hector, whistling cheerily, arranged
 
 On the Sambre Canalized 45 
 
 some small goods for the day's campaign in a portable 
 chest of drawers, which formed a part of his baggage. 
 Meanwhile the child was letting off Waterloo crackers all 
 over the floor. 
 
 I wonder, by-the-by, what they call Waterloo crackers 5 
 in France ; perhaps Austerlitz crackers. There is a great 
 deal in the point of view. Do you remember the French- 
 man who, travelling by way of Southampton, was put 
 down in Waterloo Station, and had to drive across Waterloo 
 bridge? He had a mind to go home again, it seems. 10 
 
 Pont itself is on the river, but whereas it is ten minutes' 
 walk from Quartes by dry land, it is six weary kilo- 
 metres ' by water. We left our bags at the inn, and walked 
 to our canoes through the wet orchards unencumbered. 
 Some of the children were there to see us off, but we 15 
 were no longer the mysterious beings of the night before. 
 A departure is much less romantic than an unexplained 
 arrival in the golden evening. Although we might be 
 greatly taken at a ghost's first appearance, we should 
 behold him vanish with comparative etpianimity. 20 
 
 The good folk of the inn at Pont, when wc called there 
 for the bags, were overcome with marvelling. At sight 
 of these two dainty little boats, with a fluttering Union 
 Jack on each, and all the varnish shining from the 
 sponge, they began to perceive that they had entertained as 
 angels unawares, 'i'he landlady stood upon the bridge, 
 probably lamenting she had charged so little ; the son 
 ran to and fro, and called out the neighbours to enjoy the 
 1 Nearly four miles.
 
 46 Inland Voyage 
 
 sight ; and we paddled away from quite a crowd of wrapt 
 observers. These gentlemen pedlars, indeed ! Now you 
 see their quality too late. 
 
 The whole day was showery, with occasional drench- 
 
 5 ing plumps. We were soaked to the skin, then partially 
 dried in the sun, then soaked once more. But there 
 were some calm intervals, and one notably, when we 
 were skirting the forest of Mormal, a sinister name to the 
 ear, but a place most gratifying to sight and smell. It 
 
 10 looked solemn along the river side, drooping its boughs 
 into the water, and piling them up aloft into a wall of 
 leaves. What is a forest but a city of nature's own, full 
 of hardy and innocuous living things, where there is 
 nothing dead and nothing made with the hands, but the 
 
 15 citizens themselves are the houses and public monu- 
 ments? There is nothing so much alive, and yet so 
 quiet, as a woodland ; and a pair of people, swinging 
 past in canoes, feel very small and bustling by compari- 
 son. 
 
 20 And surely of all smells in the world, the smell of 
 many trees is the sweetest and most fortifying. The sea 
 has a rude, pistolling sort of odour, that takes you in the 
 nostrils like snuff, and carries with it a fine sentiment of 
 open water and tall ships ; but the smell of a forest, 
 
 25 which comes nearest to this in tonic quality, surpasses it 
 by many degrees in the quality of softness. Again, the 
 smell of the sea has little variety, but the smell of a 
 forest is infinitely changeful ; it varies with the hour of 
 the day not in strength merely, but in character ; and the
 
 On the Sambre Canalized 47 
 
 different sorts of trees, as you go from one zone of the 
 wood to another,- seem to Hve among different kinds of 
 atmosphere. Usually the resin of the fir predominates. 
 But some woods are more coquettish in their habits ; 
 and the breath of the forest of Mormal, as it came aboard s 
 upon us that showery afternoon, was perfumed with 
 nothing less delicate than sweet-briar. 
 
 I wish our way had always lain among woods. Trees 
 are the most civil society. An old oak that has been 
 growing where he stands since before the Reformation, 10 
 taller than many spires, more stately than the greater 
 part of mountains, and yet a living thing, liable to 
 sicknesses and death, like you and me : is not that in 
 itself a speaking lesson in history? Hut acres on acres 
 full of such patriarchs contiguously rooted, their green 15 
 tops billowing in the wind, their stalwart younglings 
 pushing up about their knees : a whole forest, healthy 
 and beautiful, giving colour to the light, giving perfume 
 to the air : what is this but the most imi)osing piece in 
 nature's repertory? Heine wished to lie like Merlin under 20 
 the oaks of Broceliande. I should not be satisfied with 
 one tree ; but if the wood grew together like a banyan 
 grove, I would be buried under the tap-root of the 
 whole ; my parts should circulate from oak to oak ; and 
 my consciousness should be diffused abroad in all the as 
 forest, and give a common heart to that assembly of 
 green spires, so that it also might rejoice in its own 
 loveliness ancl dignity. I think 1 feel a thousanil 
 squirrels leaping from bough to bough in my vast mau-
 
 48 Inland Voyage 
 
 soleum ; and the birds and tlic winds uicrrily coursing 
 over its uneven, leafy surface. 
 
 Alas ! the forest of Mormal is only a little bit of a 
 wood, and it was but for a little way that we skirted by 
 5 its boundaries. And the rest of the time the rain kept 
 coming in squirts and the wind in squalls, until one's 
 heart grew weary of such fitful, scolding weather. It was 
 odd how the showers began when we had to carry the 
 boats over a lock, and must expose our legs. They al- 
 io ways did. This is a sort of thing that readily begets a 
 personal feeling against nature. There seems no reason 
 why the shower should not come five minutes before or 
 five minutes after, unless you suppose an intention to 
 affront you. The Cigarette had a mackintosh which put 
 15 him more or less above these contrarieties. But I had 
 to bear the brunt uncovered. I began to remember that 
 nature was a woman. My companion, in a rosier temper, 
 listened with great satisfaction to my Jeremiads, and ironi- 
 cally concurred. He instanced, as a cognate matter, the 
 20 action of the tides, " Which," said he, " was altogether 
 designed for the confusion of canoeists, except in so far 
 as it was calculated to minister to a barren vanity on the 
 part of the moon. " 
 
 At the last lock, some little way out of Landrecies, I 
 25 refused to go any further ; and sat in a drift of rain by 
 the side of the bank, to have a reviving pipe. A vivacious 
 old man, whom I take to have been the devil, drew near 
 and questioned me about our journey. In the fulness of 
 my heart, I laid bare our plans before him. He said, it
 
 On the Sambre Canalized 49 
 
 was the silliest enterprise that ever he heard of. Why, 
 did I not know, he asked me, that it was nothing but 
 locks, locks, locks, the whole way ? not to mention that, 
 at this season of the year, we should find the Oise quite 
 dry ? " Get into a train, my little young man," said he, s 
 " and go you away home to your parents." I was so 
 astounded at the man's malice, that I could only stare at 
 him in silence. A tree would never have spoken to me 
 like this. At last, I got out with some words. We had 
 come from Antwerp already, I told him, which was a 10 
 good long way ; and we should do the rest in spite of 
 him. Yes, I said, if there were no other reason, I would 
 do it now, just because he had dared to say we could not. 
 The pleasant old gentleman looked at me sneeringly, 
 made an allusion to my canoe, and marched off, wagging 15 
 his head. 
 
 I was still inwardly fuming, when up came a pair of 
 young fellows, who imagined I was the Cigarctte^s servant, 
 on a comparison, I su])pose, of my bare jersey with the 
 other's mackintosh, and asked me many (picstions about ao 
 my place and my master's character. I said he was a good 
 enough fellow, but had this absunl voyage on the head. 
 "O no, no," sai<l one, "you must not say that; it is 
 not absurd ; it is very courageous of him." I believe 
 these were a couple of angels sent to give me heart again. 25 
 It was truly fortifying to reproduce all the old man's in- 
 sinuations, as if they were original to me in my chararter 
 of a malcontent footman, and have them brushed away 
 like so many flies by these aihnirable young men.
 
 ^o Inland Voyage 
 
 When I recounted this affair to the Cigarette, " they 
 must have a curious idea of how Enghsh servants behave," 
 says he, dryly, " for you treated me like a brute beast at 
 the lock." 
 5 I was a good deal mortified ; but my temper had suf- 
 fered, it is a fact. 
 
 AT LANDRECIES 
 
 At Landrecies the rain still fell and the wind still 
 blew; but we found a double-bedded room with plenty of 
 furniture, real water-jugs with real water in them, and 
 
 10 dinner : a real dinner, not innocent of real wine. After 
 having been a pedlar for one night, and a butt for the 
 elements during the whole of the next day, these com- 
 fortable circumstances fell on my heart like sunshine. 
 There was an English fruiterer at dinner, travelling with a 
 
 15 Belgian fruiterer ; in the evening at the cafe, we watched 
 our compatriot drop a good deal of money at corks ; and 
 I don't know why, but this pleased us. 
 
 It turned out we were to see more of Landrecies than 
 we expected ; for the weather next day was simply bed- 
 
 20 lamite. It is not the place one would have chosen for a 
 day's rest ; for it consists almost entirely of fortifications. 
 Within the ramparts, a few blocks of houses, a long row 
 of barracks, and a church figure, with what countenance 
 they may, as the town. There seems to be no trade ; 
 
 25 and a shopkeeper, from whom I bought a sixpenny flint 
 and steel, was so much affected, that he filled my pockets 
 with spare flints into the bargain. The only public build-
 
 At Landrecies 51 
 
 ings that had any interest for us, were the hotel and the 
 (■(///'. But we visited the church. There hes Marshal 
 Clarke. But as neither of us had ever heard of that military 
 hero, we bore the associations of the spot with fortitude. 
 
 In all garrison towns, guard-calls, and reveilles, and 5 
 such like make a fine romantic interlude in civic business. 
 Bugles, and drums, and fifes are of themselves most excel- 
 lent things in nature ; and when they carry the mind to 
 marching armies, and the picturesque vicissitudes of war, 
 they stir up something proud in the heart. But in a ic 
 shadow of a town like Landrecies, with little else moving, 
 these points of war made a proportionate commotion. 
 Indeed, they were the only things to remember. It was 
 just the place to hear the round going by at night in the 
 darkness, with the solid tramp of men marching, and the 15 
 startling reverberations of the drum. It reminded you, 
 that even this place was a point in the great warfaring 
 system of Europe, and might on some future day be 
 ringed about with cannon smoke and thunder, and make 
 itself a name among strong towns. 20 
 
 The drum, at any rate, from its martial voice and nota- 
 ble physiological effect, nay even from its cum])rous and 
 comical shape, stanrls alone among the instruments of 
 noise. And if it be true, as I have heard it said, that 
 drums are covered with asses' skin, what a picturescjuc j.s 
 irony is there in that ! As if this long-suffering animal's 
 hide had not been sufficiently belaboured (hiring life, 
 now by Lyonnese costermongers,' now by presumptuous 
 ' Pedlars of fruit and vegetables.
 
 52 Inland V(3yage 
 
 Hebrew prophets, it must be stripped from his poor 
 hinder quarters after death, stretched on a drum, and 
 beaten night after night round the streets of every garri- 
 son town in Europe. And up the heights of Alma and 
 S Spicheren, and wherever death has his red flag a-flying, 
 and sounds his own potent tuck upon the cannons, there 
 also must the drummer boy, hurrying with white face over 
 fallen comrades, batter and bemaul this slip of skin from 
 the loins of peaceable donkeys. 
 
 lo Generally a man is never more uselessly employed than 
 when he is at this trick of bastinadoing asses' hide. We 
 know what effect it has in life, and how your dull ass will 
 not mend his pace with beating. But in this state of 
 mummy and melancholy survival of itself, when the hollow 
 
 IS skin reverberates to the drummer's wrist, and each dub-a- 
 dub goes direct to a man's heart, and puts madness there, 
 and that disposition of the pulses which we, in our big way 
 of talking, nickname Heroism : — is there not something 
 in the nature of a revenge upon the donkey's persecutors? 
 
 20 Of old, he might say, you drubbed me up hill and down 
 dale, and I must endure ; but now that I am dead, those 
 dull thwacks that were scarcely audible in country lanes, 
 have become stirring music in front of the brigade ; and 
 for every blow that you lay on my old great coat, you will 
 
 25 see a comrade stumble and fall. 
 
 Not long after the drums had passed the cafe, the Cig- 
 arette and the Arethusa began to grow sleepy, and set 
 out for the hotel which was only a door or two away. Rut 
 although we had been somewhat indifferent to Landrecies,
 
 At Landrecies 53 
 
 Landrecics hail not been indifferent to lis. All day, we 
 learned, people had been running out between the squalls 
 to visit our two boats. Hundreds of persons, so said re- 
 port, although it fitted ill with our idea of the town — 
 hundreds of persons had inspected them where they 5 
 lay in a coal-shed. We were becoming lions in Lan- 
 drecies, who had been only pedlars the night before in 
 Pont. 
 
 And now, when we left the cafe, we were pursued and 
 overtaken at the hotel door by no less a person than the 10 
 Juge de Paix ; a functionary, as far as I can make out, of 
 the character of a Scotch Sheriff Substitute. He gave us 
 his card and invited us to sup with him on the spot, very 
 neatly, very gracefully, as Frenchmen can do these things. 
 It was for the credit of Landrecies, said he ; and although 15 
 we knew very well how little credit we could do the i)lace, 
 we must have been churlish fellows to refuse an invitation 
 so politely introduced. 
 
 The house of the Judge was close by ; it was a well- 
 appointed bachelor's establishment, with a curious collec- 30 
 tion of old brass warming-pans upon the walls. Some of 
 these were most elaborately carved. It seemed a jjictur- 
 esque idea for a collector. You could not Ixlp thinking 
 how many night-cai)s had wagged over these warming- 
 pans in past generations ; what jests may have l>een made 35 
 and kisses taken, while they were in service; and how 
 often they had been uselessly paraded in the bed of death. 
 If they could only speak, at what absurd, indecorous, and 
 tragical scenes had they not been present 1
 
 ^4 Inland Voyage 
 
 The wine was excellent. When we made the Judge 
 our compliments upon a bottle, "I do not give it you 
 as my worst," said he. I wonder when Englishmen will 
 learn these hospitable graces. They are worth learn- 
 
 5 ing ; they set off life, and make ordinary moments orna- 
 mental. 
 
 There were two other Landrecienses present. One was 
 the collector of something or other, I forget what ; the 
 other, we were told, was the principal notary of the place. 
 
 lo So it happened that we all five more or less followed the 
 law. At this rate the talk was pretty certain to become 
 technical. The Cigarette expounded the poor laws very 
 magisterially. And a litde later I found myself laying 
 down the Scotch Law of Illegitimacy, of which I am 
 
 IS glad to say I know nothing. The collector and the no- 
 tary, who were both married men, accused the Judge, 
 who was a bachelor, of having started the subject. He 
 deprecated the charge, with a conscious, pleased air, just 
 like all the men I have ever seen, be they French or Eng- 
 
 20 lish. How strange that we should all, in our unguarded 
 moments, rather like to be thought a bit of a rogue with 
 the women! 
 
 As the evening went on, the wine grew more to my 
 taste ; the spirits proved better than the wine ; the com- 
 
 2 5 pany was genial. This was the highest water mark of 
 popular favour on the whole cruise. After all, being in a 
 Judge's house, was there not something semi-official in 
 the tribute? And so, remembering what a great country 
 France is, we did full justice to our entertainment.
 
 Sambre and Oise Canal 55 
 
 Landrecies had been a long while asleep before we re- 
 turned to the hotel ; and the sentries on the ramparts 
 were already looking for daybreak. 
 
 SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL 
 
 Canal-boats 
 
 Next day we made a late start in the rain. The Judge 
 politely escorted us to the end of the lock under an 5 
 umbrella. We had now brought ourselves to a pitch of 
 humility in the matter of weather not often attained ex- 
 cept in the Scotch Highlands. A rag of blue sky or a 
 glimpse of sunshine set our hearts singing ; and when the 
 rain was not heavy, we counted the day almost fair. ,0 
 
 Long lines of barges lay one after another along the 
 canal ; many of them looking mighty spruce and ship- 
 shape in their jerkin of Archangel tar picked out with 
 white and green. Some carried gay iron railings and 
 quite a parterre of flower-[)ots. Children played on the 15 
 decks, as heedless of the rain as if they had been brought 
 up on Loch Carron side ; men fished over the gunwale, 
 some of them untirr umbrellas ; women did tlieir wash- 
 ing ; nnd every Ixirge boasted its mongrel cur by way of 
 watch-dog. Each one barked furiously at the canoes, ao 
 running alongside until he had got lo the end of his own 
 ship, and so passing on the word to the dog aboard the 
 next. We must have seen sometliing like a hundred of 
 these embarkations in the course of that day's paddle,
 
 56 Inland Voyage 
 
 ranged one after another like the houses in a street ; 
 and from not one of them were we disappointed of this 
 accompaniment. It was like visiting a menagerie, the 
 Cigarette remarked. 
 5 These little cities by the canal side had a very odd 
 effect upon the mind. They seemed, with their flower- 
 pots and smoking chimneys, their washings and dinners, 
 a rooted piece of nature in the scene ; and yet if only 
 the canal below were to open, one junk after another 
 
 10 would hoist sail or harness horses and swim away into all 
 parts of France ; and the impromptu hamlet would 
 separate, house by house, to the four winds. The chil- 
 dren who played together to-day by the Sambre and Oise 
 Canal, each at his own father's threshold, when and where 
 
 15 might they next meet? 
 
 For some time past the subject of barges had occupied 
 a great deal of our talk, and we had projected an 
 old age on the canals of Europe. It was to be the 
 most leisurely of progresses, now on a swift river at the 
 
 20 tail of a steam-boat, now waiting horses for days together 
 on some inconsiderable junction. We should be seen 
 pottering on deck in all the dignity of years, our white 
 beards falling into our laps. We were ever to be busied 
 among paint-pots ; so that there should be no white fresher, 
 
 25 and no green more emerald than ours, in all the navy of 
 the canals. There should be books in the cabin, and 
 tobacco-jars, and some old Burgundy as red as a Novem- 
 ber sunset and as odorous as a violet in April. There 
 should be a flageolet whence the Cigarette, with cunning
 
 Sambre and Oise Canal 57 
 
 touch, should draw melting music under the stars ; or 
 l)erhaps, laying that aside, upraise his voice — somewhat 
 thinner than of yore, and with here and there a quaver, 
 or call it a natural grace note — in rich and solemn 
 I)salmody. . 
 
 All this simmering in my mind set me wishing to go 
 aboard one of these ideal houses of lounging. I had 
 l^lenty to choose from, as I coasted one after another, 
 and the dogs bayed at me for a vagrant. At last I saw a 
 nice old man and his wife looking at me with some interest, 10 
 so I gave them good day and pulled up alongside. I 
 began with a remark upon their dog, which had somewhat 
 the look of a pointer; thence I slid into a compliment 
 on Madame's flowers, and thence into a word in praise 
 of their way of life. , 
 
 If you ventured on such an experiment in P^ngland you 
 would get a slap in the face at once. The life would be 
 shown to be a vile one, not without a side shot at your 
 better fortune. Now, what I like so much in France is 
 the clear unflinching recognition by everybody of his ao 
 own luck. They all know on which side their bread is 
 buttered, and take a pleasure in showing it to others, 
 which is surely the better jjarl of religion. And they 
 scorn to make a poor mouth over their poverty, whi< h 
 I take to be the better j)art of manliness. I have heard 35 
 a woman in quite a better jjosition at home, with a g(j()(l 
 bit of money in hand, refer to her own child with a 
 horrid whine as " a poor man's child." I would not say 
 such a thing to the Dtikc of Westminster. .And the
 
 58 Inland Voyage 
 
 French are full of this spirit of independence. Perhaps 
 it is the result of republican institutions, as they call 
 them. Much more likely it is because there are so few 
 people really poor, that the whiners are not enough to 
 5 keep each other in countenance. 
 
 The people on the barge were delighted to hear that 
 I admired their state. They understood perfectly well, 
 they told me, how Monsieur envied them. Without 
 doubt Monsieur was rich ; and in that case he might 
 
 10 make a canal-boat as pretty as a villa — joli cointne un 
 
 chateau. And with that they invited me on board their 
 
 own water villa. They apologized for their cabin ; they 
 
 had not been rich enough to make it as it ought to be. 
 
 "The fire should have been here, at this side," ex- 
 
 15 plained the husband. " Then one might have a writing- 
 table in the middle — books — and " (comprehensively) 
 " all. It would be quite coquettish — ^a serai f tout-a-fait 
 coquet.'''' And he looked about him as though the im- 
 provements were already made. It was plainly not the 
 
 20 first time that he had thus beautified his cabin in imagina- 
 tion ; and when next he makes a hit, I should expect to 
 see the writing-table in the middle. 
 
 Madame had three birds in a cage. They were no 
 great thing, she explained. Fine birds were so dear. 
 
 25 They had sought to get a Hollandais last winter in Rouen 
 (Rouen? thought I ; and is this whole mansion, with its 
 dogs and birds and smoking chimneys, so far a traveller 
 as that? and as homely an object among the cliffs and 
 orchards of the Seine as on the green plains of Sambre?)
 
 Sambre and Oise Canal 59 
 
 — they had sought to get a Hollandais last winter in 
 Rouen ; but these cost fifteen francs a-piece — picture it 
 
 — fifteen francs ! 
 
 ''Pour un tout petit oiseau — For quite a little bird," / 
 added the husband. 5 
 
 As I continued to admire, the apologetics died away, 
 and the good people began to brag of their barge, and 
 their happy condition in life, as if they had been Emperor 
 and F^mpress of the Indies. It was, in the Scotch phrase, 
 a good hearing, and put me in good humour with the 10 
 world. If people knew what an inspiriting thing it is to 
 hear a man boasting, so long as he boasts of what he really 
 has, I believe they would do it more freely and with a 
 better grace. 
 
 They began to ask about our voyage. You should have is 
 seen how they sympathized. They seemed half ready to 
 give up their barge and follow us. But these cana/ctti vlxq 
 only gipsies semi-domesticated. The semi-domestication 
 came out in rather a pretty form. .Suddenly .Madame's 
 brow darkened. " Crpemiant," she began, and then ao 
 stopped; and then )>egan again by asking me if I were 
 single? 
 
 "Yes," said I. 
 
 "And your friend who went by just now?" 
 
 He also was unmarried. as 
 
 O then — all was well. She could not have wives 
 left alone at home ; but since there were no wives in the 
 question, we were doing the best we could. 
 
 "To see about one in the world," saifl the husband,
 
 6o Inland Voyage 
 
 *' il n'y a que ^a — there is nothing else worth while. A 
 man, look you, who sticks in his own village like a bear," 
 he went on, " — very well, he sees nothing. And then 
 death is the end of all. And he has seen nothing." 
 
 5 Madame reminded her husband of an Englishman who 
 had come up this canal in a steamer. 
 
 " Perhaps Mr. Moens in the Ytene,'" I suggested. 
 "That's it," assented the husband. " He had his wife 
 and family with him, and servants. He came ashore at 
 
 lo all the locks and asked the name of the villages, whether 
 from boatmen or lock-keepers ; and then he wrote, wrote 
 them down. O he wrote enormously ! I suppose it was 
 a wager." 
 
 A wager was a common enough explanation for our own 
 
 IS exploits, but it seemed an original reason for taking 
 notes. 
 
 THE OISE IN FLOOD 
 
 Before nine next morning the two canoes were in- 
 stalled on a light country cart at Etreux : and we were 
 soon following them along the side of a pleasant valley 
 
 20 full of hop-gardens and poplars. Agreeable villages lay 
 here and there on the slope of the hill; notably, Tupigny, 
 with the hop-poles hanging their garlands in the very 
 street, and the houses clustered with grapes. There was 
 a faint enthusiasm on our passage ; weavers put their 
 
 25 heads to the windows ; children cried out in ecstasy at 
 sight of the two " boaties " — barquettes : and bloused
 
 The Oise in Flood 6i 
 
 pedestrians, who were acquainted with our charioteer, 
 jested with him on the nature of his freight. 
 
 We had a shower or two, but light and flying. The 
 air was clean and sweet among all these green fields and 
 green things growing. There was not a touch of .autumn 5 
 in the weather. And when, at Vadencourt, we launched 
 from a little lawn opposite a mill, the sun broke forth 
 and set all the leaves shining in the valley of the Oise. 
 
 The river was swollen with the long rains. From 
 Vadencourt all the way to Origny, it ran with ever quick- 10 
 ening speed, taking fresh heart at each mile, and racing 
 as though it already smelt the sea. The water was yellow 
 and turbulent, swung with an angry eddy among half-sub- 
 merged willows, and made an angry clatter along stony 
 shores. The course kept turning and turning in a nar-is 
 row and well-timbered valley. Now, the river would 
 approach the side, and run gliding along the chalky base 
 of the hill, and show us a few open colza fields among 
 the trees. Now, it would skirt the garden-walls of houses, 
 where we might catch a glimi^se through a doorway, and ao 
 see a priest pacing in the riiequcred sunlight. .Ag^iin, the 
 foliage closed so thickly in front, that there seemed to be 
 no issue; only a thicket of willows, overtopped by elms 
 and poplars, under which the river ran flush and fleet, 
 and where a kingfisher flew past like a piece of the blue 25 
 sky. On these different manifesiations, the sun poured 
 its clear and catholic looks, 'i'he shadows lay as solid on 
 the swift surface of tlie stream as on the stable meadows. 
 The light sparkled golden in the dancing poplar leaves,
 
 62 Jnland Voyage 
 
 and brought the hills into communion with our eyes. 
 And all the while the river never stopped running or took 
 breath ; and the reeds along the whole valley stood 
 shivering from top to toe. 
 
 5 There should be some myth (but if there is, I know it 
 not) founded on the shivering of the reeds. There are 
 not many things in nature more striking to man's eye. It 
 is such an eloquent pantomime of terror; and to see such 
 a number of terrified creatures taking sanctuary in every 
 
 10 nook along the shore, is enough to infect a silly human 
 with alarm. Perhaps they are only a- cold, and no won- 
 der, standing waist deep in the stream. Or perhaps they 
 have never got accustomed to the speed and fury of the 
 river's flux, or the miracle of its continuous body. Pan 
 
 IS once played upon their forefathers ; and so, by the hands 
 of his river, he still plays upon these later generations 
 down all the valley of the Oise ; and plays the same air, 
 both sweet and shrill, to tell us of the beauty and the 
 terror of the world. 
 
 2o The canoe was like a leaf in the current. It took it up 
 and shook it, and carried it masterfully away, like a Cen- 
 taur carrying off a nymph. To keep some command on our 
 direction required hard and diligent plying of the paddle. 
 The river was in such a hurry for the sea ! Every drop 
 
 3 5 of water ran in a panic, like as many people in a fright- 
 ened crowd. But what crowd was ever so numerous, or 
 so single-minded? All the objects of sight went by at a 
 dance measure ; the eyesight raced with the racing river ; 
 the exigencies of every moment kept the pegs screwed so
 
 The Oise in Flood 6^ 
 
 tight, that our being quivered hke a well-tuned instru- 
 ment ; and the blood shook off its lethargy, and trotted 
 through all the highways and by-ways of the veins and 
 arteries, and in and out of the heart, as if circulation were 
 but a holiday journey, and not the daily moil of three- s 
 score years and ten. The reeds might nod their heads 
 in warning, and with tremulous gestures tell how the 
 river was as cruel as it was strong and cold, and how 
 death lurked in the eddy underneath the willows. But 
 the reeds had to stand where they were ; and those who lo 
 stand still are always timid advisers. As for us, we could 
 have shouted aloud. If this lively and beautiful river 
 were, indeed, a thing of death's contrivance, the old 
 ashen rogue had famously outwitted himself with us. I 
 was living three to the minute. I was scoring points 15 
 against him every stroke of my paddle, every turn of the 
 stream. I have rarely had better profit of my life. 
 
 For I think we may look upon our little private war 
 with death somewhat in this light. If a man knows he 
 will sooner or later be robbed upon a journey, he will 20 
 have a bottle of the best in every inn, and look uj)on all 
 his extravagances as so much gained upon the thieves. 
 And above all, where instead of simply spending, he makes 
 a profitable investment for some of his money, when it 
 will be out of risk of loss. So every bit of brisk living, 3$ 
 and above all when it is heallhfui, is just so much gained 
 upon the wholesale filcher, death. We shall have the less 
 in our pockets, the more in our stomnch, when he cries 
 stand and deliver. A swift stream is a favourite artifice
 
 64 Inland Voyage 
 
 of his, and one that brings him in a comfortable thing 
 per annum ; but when he and I come to settle our ac- 
 counts, I shall whistle in his face for these hours upon the 
 upper Oise. 
 5 Towards afternoon we got fairly drunken with the sun- 
 shine and exhilaration of the pace. We could no longer 
 contain ourselves and our content. The canoes were too 
 small for us ; we must be out and stretch ourselves on 
 shore. And so in a green meadow we bestowed our limbs 
 
 10 on the grass, and smoked deifying tobacco and proclaimed 
 the world excellent. It was the last good hour of the day, 
 and I dwell upon it with extreme complacency. 
 
 On one side of the valley, high upon the chalky summit 
 of the hill, a ploughman with his team appeared and dis- 
 
 15 appeared at regular intervals. At each revelation he 
 stood still for a few seconds against the sky : for all the 
 world (as the Cigarette declared) like a toy Burns who 
 had just ploughed up the Mountain Daisy. He was the 
 only living thing within view, unless we are to count the 
 
 20 river. 
 
 On the other side of the valley a group of red roofs and 
 a belfry showed among the foliage. Thence some inspired 
 bell-ringer made the afternoon musical on a chime of bells. 
 There was something very sweet and taking in the air he 
 
 25 played ; and we thought we had never heard bells speak so 
 intelligibly, or sing so melodiously, as these. It must have 
 been to some such measure that the spinners and the young 
 maids sang, "Come away. Death," in the Shakespearian 
 lUyria. There is so often a threatening note, something
 
 The Oise in Flood 6^ 
 
 blatant and metallic, in the voice of bells, that I believe 
 we have fully more pain than pleasure from hearing them ; 
 but these, as they sounded abroad, now high, now low, 
 now with a plaintive cadence that caught the ear like the 
 burthen of a popular song, were always moderate and tun- 5 
 able, and seemed to fall in with the spirit of still, rustic 
 places, like the noise of a waterfall or the babble of a 
 rookery in spring. I could have asked the bell-ringer for 
 his blessing, good, sedate old man, who swung the rope 
 so gently to the time of his meditations. I could have 10/ — ^ 
 blessed the priest or the heritors,' or whoever may be con- 
 cerned with such affairs in France, who had left these 
 sweet old bells to gladden the afternoon, and not held 
 meetings, and made collections, and had their names re- 
 peatedly printed in the local paper, to rig up a peal of 15 
 brand-new, brazen, Birmingham-hearted substitutes, who 
 should bombard their sides to the provocation of a brand- 
 new bell-ringer, and fill the echoes of the valley with terror 
 and riot. 
 
 At last the bells ceased, and with their note the sun 20 
 withdrew. The jjiece was at an end ; shadow and silence 
 possessed the valley of the Oise. We took to the paddle 
 with glad hearts, like peojjle who have sat out a noble 
 performance, anfl return to work. The river was more 
 dangerous here; it ran swifter, the eddies were morels 
 sudden and violent. .All the way down we had had our 
 fill of difficulties. Sometimes it was a weir* which could 
 
 ' Proprietors or land owners in Scoll.iixl. 
 
 2 A <I.Tm for holding i)ack the walcr in a river.
 
 66 Inland Voyage 
 
 be shot, sometimes one so shallow and full of stakes thai 
 we must withdraw the boats from the water and carry 
 them round. But the chief sort of obstacle was a con- 
 sequence of the late high winds. Every two or three 
 5 hundred yards a tree had fallen across the river and 
 usually involved more than another in its fall. Often 
 there was free water at the end, and we could steer 
 round the leafy promontory and hear the water sucking 
 and bubbling among the twigs. Often, again, when the 
 
 lo tree reached from bank to bank, there was room, by 
 lying close, to shoot through underneath, canoe and all. 
 Sometimes it was necessary to get out upon the trunk 
 itself and pull the boats across ; and sometimes, where 
 the stream was too impetuous for this, there was nothing 
 
 15 for it but to land and "carry over." This made a fine 
 series of accidents in the day's career, and kept us aware 
 of ourselves. 
 
 Shortly after our re-embarkation, while I was leading 
 by a long way, and still full of a noble, exulting spirit in 
 
 20 honour of the sun, the swift pace, and the church bells, 
 the river made one of its leonine pounces round a corner, 
 and I was aware of another fallen tree within a stone-cast. 
 I had my back-board down in a trice, and aimed for a 
 place where the trunk seemed high enough above the 
 
 25 water, and the branches not too thick to let me slip 
 below. When a man has just vowed eternal brotherhood 
 with the universe, he is not in a temper to take great 
 determinations coolly, and this, which might have been a 
 very important determination for me, had not been taken
 
 The Oise in Flood 67 
 
 under a happy star. The tree caught me about the 
 chest, and while I was yet struggling to make less of 
 myself and get through, the river took the matter out of 
 my hands, and bereaved me of my boat. The Arethusa 
 swung round broadside on, leaned over, ejected so much 5 
 of me as still remained on board, and thus disencumbered, 
 whipped under the tree, righted, and went merrily away 
 down stream. 
 
 I do not know how long it was before I scrambled on 
 to the tree to which I was left clinging, but it was longer 10 
 than I cared about. My thoughts were of a grave and 
 almost sombre character, but I still clung to my paddle. 
 The stream ran away with my heels as fast as I could pull 
 up my shoulders, and I seemed, by the weight, to have 
 all the water of the Oise in my trousers pockets. You «5 
 can never know, till you try it, what a dead i)ull a river 
 makes against a man. Death himself had me by the 
 heels, for this was his last ambuscado, and he must now 
 join personally in the fray. And still I held to my 
 paddle. At last I dragged myself on to my stomach on 20 
 the trunk, and lay there a breathless sop, with a mingled 
 sense of humour and injustice. A poor figure I must 
 have presented to 15iirns upon the hill-top with his team. 
 But there was the parldle in my hand. On my tomb, if 
 ever I have one, I mean to get these words inscribed : 25 
 " He climg to his paddle." 
 
 The Cii^^atrtte had gone past awhile l)cforc ; for, as I 
 might have observed, if I had been a little less pleased 
 with the universe at tlic n)uinenl, there was a clear way
 
 68 Inland Voyage 
 
 round the tree-top at the farther side. He had offered 
 his services to haul me out, but as I was then already on 
 my elbows, I had declined, and sent him down stream 
 after the truant Arethusa. The stream was too rapid for 
 
 5 a man to mount with one canoe, let alone two, upon his 
 hands. So I crawled along the trunk to shore, and pro- 
 ceeded down the meadows by the river side. I was so 
 cold that my heart was sore. I had now an idea of my 
 own, why the reeds so bitterly shivered. I could have 
 
 lo given any of them a lesson. The Cigarette remarked 
 facetiously, that he thought I was " taking exercise " as 
 I drew near, until he made out for certain that I was 
 only twittering with cold. I had a rub-down with a 
 towel, and donned a dry suit from the india-rubber bag. 
 
 IS But I was not my own man again for the rest of the voyage. 
 I had a queasy sense that I wore my last dry clothes 
 upon my body. The struggle had tired me ; and perhaps, 
 whether I knew it or not, I was a little dashed in spirit. 
 The devouring element in the universe had leaped out 
 
 20 against me, in this green valley quickened by a running 
 
 stream. The bells were all very pretty in their way, but 
 
 I had heard some of the hollow notes of Pan's music. 
 
 'Would the wicked river drag me down by the heels, 
 
 indeed? and look so beautiful all the time? Nature's 
 
 25 good-humour was only skin-deep after all. 
 
 There was still a long way to go by the winding course 
 of the stream, and darkness had fallen, and a late bell 
 was ringing in Origny Sainte-Benoite, when we arrived.
 
 Origny Sainte-Benoite 6g 
 
 ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 
 
 A Bv-DAY 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and the church bells had 
 little rest ; indeed I do not think I remember anywhere 
 else so great a choice of services as were here offered to 
 the devout. And while the bells made merry in the sun- 
 shine, all the world with his dog was out shooting among 5 
 the beets and colza. 
 
 In the morning a hawker and his wife went down the 
 street at a foot-pace, singing to a very slow, lamentable 
 music, "O France, vies amours.'' It brought everybody 
 to the door ; and when our landlady called in the man to 10 
 buy the words, he had not a copy of them left. Slie was 
 not the first nor the second who had been taken with the 
 song. There is something very pathetic in the love of the 
 French people, since the war, for dismal patriotic music- 
 making. I have watched a forester from Alsace while 15 
 some one was singing " Les via/lieiirs de la France,'^ at a 
 baptismal party in the neighbourhood of I'ontainebleau. 
 He arose from the table and took his son aside, close by 
 where I was standing. "Listen, listen," he said, bearing 
 on the boy's shoulder, " and remember this, my son." ao 
 A little after he went out into tl:e garden suddenly, and 
 I could hear him sobbing in the darkness. ' 
 
 The htimilialion of their arms and the loss of Alsace 
 and T,()rrainc made a sore pull on the endurance of this
 
 70 Inland Voyage 
 
 sensitive people ; and their hearts are still hot, not so 
 much against Germany as against the Empire. In what 
 other country will you find a patriotic ditty bring all the 
 world into the street? But affliction heightens love; 
 S and we shall never know we are Englishmen until we 
 have lost India. Independent America is still the cross 
 of my existence ; I cannot think of Farmer George with- 
 out abhorrence ; and I never feel more warmly to my 
 own land than when I see the stars and stripes, and re- 
 
 10 member what our empire miglit have been. 
 
 The hawker's little book, which I purchased, was a 
 curious mixture. Side by side with the flippant, rowdy 
 nonsense of the Paris music-halls, there were many pas- 
 toral pieces, not without a touch of poetry, I thought, 
 
 15 and instinct with the brave independence of the poorer 
 class in France. There you might read how the wood- 
 cutter gloried in his ax, and the gardener scorned to be 
 ashamed of his spade. It was not very well written, this 
 poetry of labour, but the pluck of the sentiment redeemed 
 
 20 what was weak or wordy in the expression. The martial 
 and the patriotic pieces, on the other hand, were tearful, 
 womanish productions one and all. The poet had passed 
 under the Caudine Forks ; he sang for an army visiting 
 the tomb of its old renown, with arms reversed ; and sang 
 
 25 not of victory, but of death. There was a number in the 
 hawker's collection called Consents Fran^ais, which may 
 rank among the most dissuasive war-lyrics on record. It 
 would not be possible to fight at all in such a spirit. The 
 bravest conscript would turn pale if such a ditty were
 
 Origny Sainte-Benoite 71 
 
 struck up beside him on the morning of battle ; and 
 whole regiments would pile their arms to its tune. 
 
 If Fletcher of Saltoun is in the right about the influ- 
 • ence of national songs, you would say France was come 
 to a poor pass. But the thing will work its own cure, 5 
 and a sound-hearted and courageous people weary at 
 length of snivelling over their disasters. Already Paul 
 Deroulede has written some manly military verses. There 
 is not much of the trumpet note in them, perhaps, to stir 
 a man's heart in his bosom ; they lack the lyrical elation, "o 
 and move slowly ; but they are written in a grave honour- 
 able, stoical spirit, which should carry soldiers far in a 
 good cause. One feels as if one would like to trust 
 Deroulede with something. It will be happy if he can so 
 far inoculate his fellow-countrymen that they may be 15 
 trusted with their own future. And in the meantime, here 
 is an antidote to " French Conscripts " and much other 
 doleful versification. 
 
 We had left the boats overnight in the custody of one 
 whom we shall call Carnival. I did not properly catch 20 
 his name, and perhaj)s that was not unfortunate for him, 
 as I am not in a position to hand him down with honour 
 to posterity. To this person's prenjiscs we strcjllcd in 
 the course of the day, and found quite a little deputation 
 inspecting the canoes. There was a stout gentleman with as 
 a knowledge of the river, which 'ie seemed eager to iui- 
 part. There was a very elegant yoimg gentleman in a 
 black coat, with a smattering of F.nglish, who led the t.ilk 
 at once to the Oxforfl and Cambridge boat-race. And
 
 72 Inland Voyage 
 
 then there were three handsome girls from fifteen to 
 twenty ; and an old gendeman in a blouse, with no teeth 
 to speak of, and a strong country accent. Quite the pick 
 of Origny, I should suppose. 
 5 The Cigarette had some mysteries to perform with his 
 rigging in the coach-house ; so I was left to do the parade 
 single-handed. I found myself very much of a hero 
 whether I would or not. The girls were full of little shud- 
 derings over the dangers of our journey. And I thought 
 10 it would be ungallant not to take my cue from the ladies. 
 My mishap of yesterday, told in an off-hand way, pro- 
 duced a deep sensation. It was Othello over again, with 
 no less than three Desdemonas and a sprinkling of sym- 
 pathetic senators in the background. Never were the 
 15 canoes more flattered, or flattered more adroitly. 
 
 "It is like a violin," cried one of the girls in an ecstasy. 
 
 " I thank you for the word, mademoiselle," said I. 
 " All the more since there are people who call out to me, 
 that it is like a coffin." 
 20 " O ! but it is really like a violin. It is finished like a 
 violin," she went on. 
 
 " And polished like a violin," added a senator. 
 
 " One has only to stretch the cords," concluded an- 
 other, "and then tum-tumty-tum " — he imitated the re- 
 25 suit with spirit. 
 
 Was not this a graceful litde ovation? Where this 
 people finds the secret of its pretty speeches, I cannot 
 imagine ; unless the secret should be no other than a 
 sincere desire to please? But then no disgrace is at-
 
 Origny Sainte-Benoite 73 
 
 tached in France to saying a thing neatly ; whereas in 
 England, to talk like a book is to give in one's resignation 
 to society. 
 
 The old gentleman in the blouse stole into the coach- 
 house, and somewhat irrelevantly informed the Cigarette s 
 that he was the father of the three girls and four more : 
 quite an exploit for a Frenchman. 
 
 " You are very fortunate," answered the Cigarette 
 politely. 
 
 And the old gentleman, having apparently gained his 10 
 point, stole away again. 
 
 We all got very friendly together. The- girls proposed 
 to start with us on the morrow, if you please ! And jest- 
 ing apart, every one was anxious to know the hour of our 
 departure. Now, when you arc going to crawl into your 15 
 canoe from a bad launch, a crowd, however friendly, is 
 undesirable ; and so we told them not before t\velve, and 
 mentally determined to be off by ten at latest. 
 
 Towards evening, we went abroad again to post some 
 letters. It was cool and pleasant; the long village wasao 
 quite empty, except for one or two urchins who followed 
 us as they might have followed a menagerie ; the hills 
 and the tree-tops looked in from all sides through the 
 clear air ; and the bells were chiming for yet another 
 service. 'S 
 
 Suddenly, we sighted the three girls standing, with a 
 fourth sister, in front of a shoj) on the wide selvage of tlie 
 roadway. We had been very merry with them a little 
 while ago, to be sure. But what was the etiquette of
 
 74 Inland Voyage 
 
 Origny? Had it been a country road, of course we 
 should have spoken to them ; but here, under the eyes 
 of all the gossips, ought we to do even as much as bow? 
 I consulted .the Cigarette. 
 5 " Look," said he. 
 
 I looked. There were the four girls on the same spot ; 
 but now four backs were turned to us, very upright and 
 conscious. Corporal Modesty had given the word of 
 command, and the well-disciplined picket had gone right- 
 
 lo about-face like a single person. They maintained this 
 formation all the while we were in sight ; but we heard 
 them tittering among themselves, and the girl whom we 
 had not met, laughed with open mouth, and even looked 
 over her shoulder at the enemy. I wonder was it alto- 
 
 15 gether modesty after all ? or in part a sort of country 
 provocation ? 
 
 As we were returning to the inn, we beheld something 
 floating in the ample field of golden evening sky, above 
 the chalk cliffs and the trees that grow along their summit. 
 
 20 It was too high up, too large, and too steady for a kite ; 
 and as it was dark, it could not be a star. For although 
 a star were as black as ink and as rugged as a walnut, so 
 amply does the sun bathe heaven with radiance, that it 
 would sparkle like a point of light for us. The village 
 
 25 was dotted with people with their heads in air ; and the 
 children were in a bustle all along the street and far up 
 the straight road that climbs the hill, where we could still 
 see them running in loose knots. It was a balloon, we 
 learned, which had left Saint Quentin at half-past five
 
 Origny Sainte-Benoite 75 
 
 that evening. Mighty composedly the majority of the 
 grown people took it. But we were English, and were 
 soon running up the hill with the best. Being travellers 
 ourselves in a small way, we would fain have seen these 
 other travellers alight. 5 
 
 The spectacle was over by the time we gained the top 
 of the hill. All the gold had withered out of the sky, and 
 the balloon had disappeared. Whither? I ask myself; 
 caught up into the seventh heaven ? or come safely to 
 land somewhere in that blue uneven distance, into which 10 
 the roadway dipped and melted before our eyes? Prob- 
 ably the aeronauts were already warming themselves at 
 a farm chimney, for they say it is cold in these unhomely 
 regions of the air. The night fell swifdy. Roadside 
 trees and disappointed sightseers, returning through the 15 
 meadows, stood out in black against a margin of low red 
 sunset. It was cheerfuller to face the other, way, and so 
 down the hill we went, with a full moon, the colour of a 
 melon, swinging high above the wooded valley, and the 
 white cliffs behind us faintly reddened by the fire of the so 
 chalk kilns. 
 
 The lami)s were lighted, and the salads were being 
 made in Origny Sainte-Benoite by the river.
 
 76 Inland Voyage 
 
 ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 
 
 The Company at Table 
 
 Although we came late for dinner, the company at 
 table treated us to sparkling wine. " That is how we are 
 in France," said one. "Those who sit down with us are 
 our friends." And the rest applauded. 
 
 5 They were three altogether, and an odd trio to pass 
 the Sunday with. 
 
 Two of them were guests like ourselves, both men of 
 the north. One ruddy, and of a full habit of body, with 
 copious black hair and beard, the intrepid hunter of 
 
 10 France, who thought nothing so small, not even a lark or 
 a minnow, but he might vindicate his prowess by its cap- 
 ture. For such a great, healthy man, his hair flourishing 
 like Samson's, his arteries running buckets of red blood, 
 to boast of these infinitesimal exploits, produced a feel- 
 
 15 ing of disproportion in the world, as when a steam- 
 hammer is set to cracking nuts. The other was a quiet, 
 subdued person, blond and lymphatic and sad, with 
 something the look of a Dane : " Tristes tetes de DanoisT 
 as Gaston Lafenestre used to say. 
 
 20 I must not let that name go by without a word for the 
 best of all good fellows now gone down into the dust. 
 We shall never again see Gaston in his forest costume — 
 he was Gaston with all the world, in affection, not in dis- 
 respect — nor hear him wake the echoes of Fontainebleau
 
 Origny Sainte-Benoite 77 
 
 with the woodland horn. Never again shall his kind 
 smile put peace among all races of artistic men, and 
 make the Englishman at home in France. Never more 
 shall the sheep, who were not more innocent at heart 
 than he, sit all unconsciously for his industrious pencil, s 
 He died too early, at the very moment when he was 
 beginning to put forth fresh sprouts, and blossom into 
 something worthy of himself; and yet none who knew 
 him will think he lived in vain. I never knew a man so 
 little, for whom yet I had so much affection ; and I find 10 
 it a good test of others, how much they had learned to 
 understand and value him. His was indeed a good in- 
 fluence in life while he was still among us; he had a 
 fresh laugh, it did you good to see him ; and however 
 sad he may have been at heart, he always bore a bold 15 
 and cheerful countenance, and took fortune's worst as it 
 were the showers of spring. Hut now his mother sits 
 alone by the side of Fontainebleau woods, where he 
 gathered mushrooms in his hardy and penurious youth. 
 
 Many of his pictures found their way across the 20 
 channel : besides those which were stolen, when a das- 
 tardly Yankee left him alone in London with two English 
 pence, and perhaps twice as many wf)rds of English. If 
 anyone who reads these lines should have a scene of 
 sheep, in the manner of Jacques, with this fine creature's as 
 signature, let him tell himself that one of the kindest and 
 l)ravcst of men has lent a hand to dcrorntc his loflging. 
 There may be better pictures in the National Cialk-ry ; 
 but not a painter among the generations had a better
 
 y8 Inland Voyage 
 
 heart. Precious in the sight of the Lord of humanity, 
 the Psalms tell us, is the death of his saints. It had 
 need to be precious ; for it is very costly, when by the 
 stroke, a mother is left desolate, and the peacemaker, 
 
 5 and peace-looker, of a whole society is laid in the ground 
 with Caesar and the Twelve Apostles. 
 
 There is something lacking among the oaks of Fon- 
 tainebleau ; and when the dessert comes in at Barbizon, 
 people look to the door for a figure that is gone. 
 
 10 The third of our companions at Origny was no less a 
 person than the landlady's husband : not properly the 
 landlord, since he worked himself in a factory during the 
 day, and came to his own house at evening as a guest : 
 a man worn to skin and bone by perpetual excitement, 
 
 15 with baldish head, sharp features, and swift, shining eyes. 
 On Saturday, describing some paltry adventure at a 
 duck-hunt, he broke a plate into a score of fragments. 
 Whenever he made a remark, he would look all round 
 the table, with his chin raised, and a spark of green light 
 
 20 in either eye, seeking approval. His wife appeared now 
 and again in the doorway of the room, where she was 
 superintending dinner, with a " Henri, you forget your- 
 self," or a " Henri, you can surely talk without making 
 such a noise." Indeed, that was what the honest fellow 
 
 25 could not do. On the most trifling matter, his eyes kin- 
 dled, his fist visited the table, and his voice rolled abroad 
 in changeful thunder. I never saw such a petard of a 
 man ; I think the devil was in him. He had two favourite 
 expressions : " it is logical," or illogical as the case might
 
 Origny Sainte-Benoite 79 
 
 be : and this other, thrown out with a certain bravado, as 
 a man might unfurl a banner, at the beginning of many 
 a long and sonorous story : " I am a proletarian, you 
 see." Indeed, we saw it very well. God forbid, that 
 ever I should find him handling a gun in Paris streets. 5 
 That will not be a good moment for the general 
 public. 
 
 I thought his two phrases very much represented the 
 good and evil of his class, and to some extent of his 
 country. It is a strong thing to say what one is, and not 10 
 be ashamed of it ; even although it be in doubtful taste 
 to repeat the statement too often in one evening. I should 
 not admire it in a duke, of course ; but as times go, the 
 trait is honourable in a workman. On the other hand, it 
 is not at all a strong thing to put one's reliance upon logic ; 15 
 and our own logic particularly, for it is generally wrong. 
 We never know where we are to end, if once wc begin 
 following words or doctors. There is an upright stock in 
 a man's own heart, that is trustier than any syllogism ; and 
 the eyes, and the sympathies and apjjetites, know a thing 20 
 or two that have never yet been stated in controversy. 
 Reasons are as plentiful as blackberries ; and like fisti- 
 cuffs, they serve impartially with all sides. Doctrines do 
 not stand or fall by their proofs, and arc only logical in 
 so far as they are cleverly put. An able controversialist '5 
 no more than an a!)le general tleinonstratcs the justice of 
 his cause. But France is all gone wandering after one 
 or two big words ; it will take some tinie before they can 
 be satisfied that they are no more than words, however
 
 8o Inland Voyage 
 
 big ; and when once that is done, they will perhaps find 
 logic less diverting. 
 
 The conversation opened with details of the day's shoot- 
 ing. When all the sportsmen of a village shoot over the 
 5 village territory pro mdiviso, it is plain that many ques- 
 tions of etiquette and priority must arise. 
 
 " Here now," cried the landlord, brandishing a plate, 
 
 " here is a field of beet-root. Well. Here am I then. 
 
 I advance, do I not? Eh b'len ! sacristi," and the state- 
 
 10 ment, waxing louder, rolls off into a reverberation of oaths, 
 
 the speaker glaring about for sympathy, and everybody 
 
 y nodding his head to him in the name of peace. 
 
 The ruddy Northman told some tales of his own prow- 
 ess in keeping order : notably one of a Marquis. 
 IS "Marquis," I said, "if you take another step I fire 
 upon you. You have committed a dirtiness, Marquis." 
 
 Whereupon, it appeared, the Marquis touched his cap 
 and withdrew. 
 
 The landlord applauded noisily. " It was well done," 
 
 20 he said. " He did all that he could. He admitted he 
 
 was wrong." And then oath upon oath. He was no 
 
 marquis-lover either, but he had a sense of justice in him, 
 
 this proletarian host of ours. 
 
 From the matter of hunting, the talk veered into a 
 25 general comparison of Paris and the country. The pro- 
 letarian beat the table like a drum in praise of Paris. 
 " What is Paris ? Paris is the cream of France. There 
 are no Parisians : it is you and I and everybody who are 
 Parisians. A man has eighty chances per cent, to get on
 
 Origny Salnte-Benoite 8 1 
 
 in the world in Paris." And he drew a vivid sketch of 
 the workman in a den no bigger than a dog-hutch, making 
 articles that were to go all over the world. ''Eh bicn, 
 quoi, c'est magnifique, (a/" cried he. 
 
 The sad Northman interfered in praise of a peasant's 5 
 life ; he thought Paris bad for men and women ; " cen- 
 tralization," said he — 
 
 But the landlord was at his throat in a moment. It 
 was all logical, he showed him; and all magnificent. 
 " What a spectacle I What a glance for an eye ! " And lo 
 the dishes reeled upon the table under a cannonade of blows. 
 
 Seeking to make peace, I threw in a word in praise of 
 the liberty of opinion in PVance. I could hardly have 
 shot more amiss. There was an instant silence, and a 
 great wagging of significant heads. They did not fancy is 
 the subject, it was plain ; but they gave me to understand 
 that the sad Northman was a martyr on account of his 
 views. "Ask him a bit," said they. " Just ask him." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said he in his quiet way, answering me, al- 
 though I had not spoken, " I am afraid there is fess liberty ao 
 of opinion in France than you may imagine." And with 
 that he dropped his eyes, and seemed to consider the 
 subject at an end. 
 
 Our curiosity was mightily excited at this. How, or 
 why, or when, was this lymphatic bagman martyred ? We 25 
 concluded at once it was on some religious cjuestion, and 
 brushed up our memories of the Inquisition, which were 
 principally drawn from I'fie's horrid story, and the sermon 
 Tristram Shandy, I believe.
 
 82 Inland Voyage 
 
 On the morrow we had an opportunity of going further 
 into the question ; for when we rose very early to avoid a 
 sympathizing deputation at our departure, we found the 
 hero up before us. He was breaking his fast on white 
 5 wine and raw onions, in order to keep up the character 
 of martyr, I conclude. We had a long conversation, and 
 made out what we wanted in spite of his reserve. But 
 here was a truly curious circumstance. It seems possible 
 for two Scotchmen and a Frenchman to discuss during a 
 
 lolong half hour, and each nationality have a different idea 
 in view throughout. It was not till the very end that we 
 discovered his heresy had been political, or that he sus- 
 pected our mistake. The terms and spirit in which he 
 spoke of his political beliefs were, in our eyes, suited to 
 
 IS religious beliefs. And vice versa. 
 
 Nothing could be more characteristic of the two coun- 
 tries. Politics are the religion of France ; as Nanty Ewart 
 would have said, "Ad — d bad religion;" while we, at 
 home, keep most of our bitterness for little differences 
 
 20 about a hymn-book, or a Hebrew word which, perhaps, 
 neither of the parties can translate. And perhaps the 
 misconception is typical of many others that may never 
 be cleared up : not only between people of different race, 
 but between those of different sex. 
 
 25 As for our friend's martyrdom, he was a Communist, 
 or perhaps only a Communard, which is a very different 
 thing ; and had lost one or more situations in consequence. 
 I think he had also been rejected in marriage ; but perhaps 
 he had a sentimental way of considering business which
 
 Down the Oise : To Moy 83 
 
 deceived me. He was a mild, gentle creature, anyway ; 
 and I hope he has got a better situation, and married a 
 more suitable wife since then. 
 
 DOWN THE OISE : TO MOY 
 
 Carxh'al notoriously cheated us at first. Finding us 
 easy in our ways, he regretted having let us off so cheaply ; 5 
 and taking me aside, told me a cock-and-bull story with 
 the moral of another five francs for the narrator. The thing 
 was palpably absurd ; but I paid up, and at once dropped 
 all friendliness of manner, and kept him in his place as an 
 inferior with freezing British dignity. He saw in a mo- 'o 
 ment that he had gone too far, and killed a willing horse ; 
 his face fell ; I am sure he would have refunded if he 
 could only have thought of a decent pretext. He wished 
 me to drink with him, but I would none of his drinks. He 
 grew pathetically tender in his professions; but 1 walked 15 
 beside him in silence or answered him in stately courtesies ; 
 anrl when we got to the landing-jjlace, passed the word in 
 English slang to the Cigarette. 
 
 In spite of the false scent we had thrown out the day 
 before, there must have been fifty people about the 20 
 bridge. We were as pleasant as we could be with all but 
 Carnival. We sajfl good-bye, shaking hands willi the; 
 old gentleman who knew the river anri the young 
 gentleman who had a smattering of ICnglish ; but never a 
 word for Carnival. Poor (!arnival, here was a huinilia- ^i; 
 lion. He who had been so much identified with the
 
 84 Inland Voyage 
 
 canoes, who had given orders in our name, who 
 had shown off the boats and even the boatmen 
 like a private exhibition of his own, to be now so 
 publicly shamed by the lions of his caravan ! I never 
 5 saw anybody look more crestfallen than he. He hung 
 in the background, coming timidly forward ever and 
 again as he thought he saw some symptom of a relenting 
 humour, and falling hurriedly back when he encountered 
 a cold stare. Let us hope it will be a lesson to him. 
 
 10 I would not have mentioned Carnival's peccadillo had 
 not the thing been so uncommon in France. This, for 
 instance, was the only case of dishonesty or even sharp 
 practice in our whole voyage. We talk very much about 
 our honesty in England. It is a good rule to be on your 
 
 15 guard wherever you hear great professions about a very 
 little piece of virtue. If the English could only hear how 
 they are spoken of abroad, they might confine themselves 
 for a while to remedying the fact ; and perhaps even 
 when that was done, give us fewer of their airs. 
 
 20 The young ladies, the graces of Origny, were not pres- 
 ent at our start, but when we got round to the second 
 bridge, behold it was black with sight-seers ! We were 
 loudly cheered, and for a good way below, young lads and 
 lasses ran along the bank still cheering. What with 
 
 25 current and paddling, we were flashing along like swal- 
 lows. It was no joke to keep up with us upon the woody 
 shore. But the girls picked up their skirts, as if they 
 were sure they had good ankles, and followed until their 
 breath was out. The last to weary were the three graces
 
 Down the Oise : To Moy 85 
 
 and a couple of companions ; and just as they too had 
 had enough, the foremost of the three leaped upon a tree 
 stump and kissed her hand to the canoeists. Not Diana 
 herself, although this was more of a Venus after all, could 
 have done a graceful thing more gracefully. " Come back 5 
 again ! " she cried ; and all the others echoed her ; and 
 the hills about Origny repeated the words, " Come back." 
 But the river had us round an angle in a twinkling, and 
 we were alone with the green trees and running water. 
 
 Come back? There is no coming back, young ladies, 10 
 on the impetuous stream of life. 
 
 The merchant bows unto the seaman's star, 
 The ploughman from the sun his season takes. 
 
 And we must all set our pocket watches by the clock of 
 fate. There is a headlong, forthright tide, that bears 15 
 away man with his fancies like a straw, and runs fast in 
 time and space. It is full of curves like this, your wind- 
 ing river of the Oise ; and lingers and returns in pleasant 
 pastorals; and yet, rightly thought upon, never returns at 
 all. For though it should revisit the same acre of meadow ao 
 in the same hour, it will have made an ample sweep 
 between whiles ; many little streams will have fallen in ; 
 many exhalations risen towards the sun; and even al- 
 though it were the same acre, it will no more lie the same 
 river of Oise. And thus, O graces of Origny, although ».s 
 the wandering fortune of my life should carry me back 
 again to where you await death's whistle by the river,
 
 86 Inland Voyage 
 
 that will not be the old I who walks the street ; and those 
 wives and mothers, say, will those be you? 
 
 There was never any mistake about the Oise, as a 
 matter of fact. In these upper reaches it was still in a 
 5 prodigious hurry for the sea. It ran so fast and merrily, 
 through all the windings of its channel, that I strained my 
 thumb, fighting with the rapids, and had to paddle all the 
 rest of the way with one hand turned up. Sometimes, it 
 had to serve mills ; and being still a little river, ran very 
 
 lo dry and shallow in the meanwhile. We had to put our 
 legs out of the boat, and shove ourselves off the sand of 
 the bottom with our feet. And still it went on its way 
 singing among the poplars, and making a green valley in 
 the world. After a good woman, and a good book, and 
 
 15 tobacco, there is nothing so agreeable on earth as a 
 river. I forgave it its attempt on my life ; which was after 
 all one part owing to the unruly winds of heaven that had 
 blown down the tree, one part to my own mismanage- 
 ment, and only a third part to the river itself, and that, 
 
 20 not out of malice, but from its great pre-occupation over 
 its business of getting to the sea. A difficult business, 
 too; for the detours it had to make are not to be 
 counted. The geographers seem to have given up the 
 attempt ; for I found no map represent the infinite con- 
 
 25 tortion of its course. A fact will say more than any of 
 them. After we had been some hours, three if I mistake 
 not, flitting by the trees at this smooth, breakneck gallop, 
 when we came upon a hamlet and asked where we were, 
 we had got no farther than four kilometres (say two
 
 Down the Oise : To Moy 87 
 
 miles and a half) from Origny. If it were not for the 
 honour of the thing (in the Scotch saying), we might 
 almost as well have been standing still. 
 
 We lunched on a meadow inside a parallelogram of 
 poplars. The leaves danced and prattled in the wind all 5 
 round about us. The river hurried on meanwhile, and 
 seemed to chide at our delay. Little we cared. The 
 river knew where it was going ; not so we : the less our 
 hurry, where we found good quarters and a pleasant 
 theatre for a pipe. At that hour, stockbrokers were shout- 10 
 ing in Paris Bourse for two or three per cent. ; but we 
 minded them as little as the sliding stream, and sacrificed 
 a hecatomb of minutes to the gods of tobacco and diges- 
 tion. Hurry is the resource of the faithless. Where a 
 man can trust his own heart, and those of his friends, to- 15 
 morrow is as good as to-day. And if he die in the mean- 
 while, why then, there he dies, and the (juestion is solved. 
 
 We had to take to the canal in the course of the after- 
 noon ; because, where it crossed the river, there was, not 
 a bridge, but a siphon. If it had not been for an excited 20 
 fellow on the bank, we should have paddled right into 
 the siphon, and thenceforward not paddled any more. 
 We met a man, a gentleman, on the tow-path, who was 
 much interested in our cruise. And I was witness to a 
 strange seizure of lying suffered by the Cij^arcilc : who, as 
 because his knife came from Norway, narrated all sorts of 
 adventures in that country, where he has never been. 
 He was rpiite feverish at the end, and pleaded demonia- 
 cal possession.
 
 88 Inland Voyage 
 
 Moy (pronounce Moy) was a pleasant little village, 
 gathered round a chateau in a moat. The air was per- 
 fumed with hemp from neighbouring fields. At the 
 Golden Sheep, we found excellent entertainment. German 
 5 shells from the siege of La Fere, Nurnberg figures, gold 
 fish in a bowl, and all manner of knick-knacks, embel- 
 lished the pubHc room. The landlady was a stout, plain, 
 short-sighted, motherly body, with something not far 
 short of a genius for cookery. She had a guess of her 
 
 10 excellence herself. After every dish was sent in, she 
 would come and look on at the dinner for a while, with 
 puckered, blinking eyes. "Cest bon, n'est-ce pas ?" she 
 would say ; and when she had received a proper answer, 
 she disappeared into the kitchen. That common French 
 
 IS dish, partridge and cabbages, became a new thing in my 
 eyes at the Golden Sheep ; and many subsequent dinners 
 have bitterly disappointed me in consequence. Sweet 
 was our rest in the Golden Sheep at Moy. 
 
 LA FERE OF CURSED MEMORY 
 
 We lingered in Moy a good part of the day, for we 
 zowere fond of being philosophical, and scorned long jour- 
 neys and early starts on principle. The place, moreover, 
 invited to repose. People in elaborate shooting costumes 
 sallied from the chateau with guns and game-bags ; and 
 this was a pleasure in itself, to remain behind while these 
 25 elegant pleasure-seekers took the first of the morning. 
 In this way, all the world may be an aristocrat, and play
 
 La Fere of Cursed Memory 89 
 
 the duke among marquises, and the reigning monarch 
 among dukes, if he will only outvie them in tranquillity. 
 An imperturbable demeanour comes from perfect pa- 
 tience. Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, 
 but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private 5 
 pace, like a clock during a thunder-storm. 
 
 We made a very short day of it to La F^re ; but the 
 dusk was falling, and a small rain had begun before we 
 stowed the boats. La F^re is a fortified town in a plain, 
 and has two belts of rampart. Between the first and the 10 
 second, extends a region of waste land and cultivated 
 patches. Here and there along the wayside were posters 
 forbidding trespass in the name of military engineering. 
 At last, a second gateway admitted us to the town itself. 
 Lighted windows looked gladsome, whiffs of comfortable 15 
 cookery came abroad upon the air. The town was full 
 of the military reserve, out for the French Autumn ma- 
 na'uvres, and the reservists walked speedily and wore their 
 formidable great-coats. It was a fine night to be within 
 doors over dinner, and hear the rain upon the windows. 20 
 
 The Cigarette and I could not sufficiently congratulate 
 each other on the prospect, for we had been told there 
 was a capital inn at La F6re. Such a dinner as we were 
 going to eat ! such beds as we were to sleep in ! — and all 
 the while the rain raining on houseless folk over allaj 
 the poplared country-side ! It made our mouths water. / 
 The inn bore the name of some woodland animal, stag, 
 or hart, or hind, I fr^rgct whifh. Hut I shall never forget 
 how spacious and how eminently habitable it looked as
 
 go Inland Voyage 
 
 we drew near. The carriage entry was lighted up, not 
 by intention, but from the mere superfluity of fire and 
 candle in the house. A ratde of many dishes came to 
 our ears ; we sighted a great field of tablecloth ; the 
 5 kitchen glowed like a forge and smelt like a garden of 
 things to eat. 
 
 Into this, the inmost shrine, and physiological heart, of 
 a hostelry, with all its furnaces in action, and all its 
 dressers charged with viands, you are now to suppose us 
 
 10 making our triumphal entry, a pair of damp rag-and-bone 
 men, each with a limp india-rubber bag upon his arm. 
 I do not beUeve I have a sound view of that kitchen ; I 
 saw it through a sort of glory : but it seemed to me 
 crowded with the snowy caps of cookmen, who all turned 
 
 IS round from their saucepans and looked at us with surprise. 
 There was no doubt about the landlady, however : there 
 she was, heading her army, a flushed, angry woman, full 
 of affairs. Her I asked politely — too politely, thinks the 
 Cigarette — if we could have beds: she surveying us 
 
 20 coldly from head to foot. 
 
 "You will find beds in the suburb," she remarked. 
 " We are too busy for the like of you." 
 
 If we could make an entrance, change our clothes, and 
 order a bottle of wine, I felt sure we could put things 
 
 25 right ; so said I : "If we cannot sleep, we may at least 
 dine," — and was for depositing my bag. 
 
 What a terrible convulsion of nature was that which 
 followed in the landlady's face ! She made a run at us, 
 and stamped her foot.
 
 La Fere of Cursed Memory 91 
 
 "Out with you — out of the door!" she screeched. 
 " Sortez ! sortez! sortcz par la pork I " 
 
 I do not know how it happened, but next moment we 
 were out in the rain and darkness, and I was cursing 
 before the carriage entry hke a disappointed mendicant. 5 
 Where were the boating men of Belgium? where the 
 Judge and his good wines? and where the graces of 
 Origny? Black, black was the night after the firelit 
 kitchen ; but what was that to the blackness in our hearts? 
 This was not the first time that I have been refused a 10 
 lodging. Often and often have I planned what I should 
 do if such a misadventure happened to me again. And 
 nothing is easier to plan. But to put in execution, with 
 the heart boiling at the indignity? Try it; try it only 
 once; and tell me what you did. 15 
 
 It is all very fine to talk about tramps and morality. 
 Six hours of police surveillance (such as I have had), or 
 one brutal rejection from an inn door, change your views 
 ujjon the subject like a course of lectures. As long as 
 you keep in the upper regions, with all the world bowing 20 
 to you as you go, social arrangements have a very hand- 
 some air ; but once get under the wheels, and you wish 
 society were at the devil. I will give most respectable 
 men a fortnight of such a life, and then I will ofler them 
 twopence for what remains of their morality. 35 
 
 For my part, when I was turned out of the Stag, or the 
 Tfind, or whatever it was, I would have set the temple of 
 l)iana on fire, if it had been handy. 'I'here was no 
 crime complete enough to express my disapj)roval of
 
 92 Inland Voyage 
 
 human institutions. As for the Cigarette, I never knew a 
 man so altered. " We have been taken for pedlars again," 
 said he. " Good God, what it must be to be a pedlar 
 in reality ! " He particularized a complaint for every joint 
 5 in the landlady's body. Timon was a philanthropist along- 
 side of him. And then, when he was at the top of his 
 maledictory bent, he would suddenly break away and be- 
 gin whimperingly to commiserate the poor. " I hope to 
 God," he said, — and I trust the prayer was answered, — 
 
 lo " that I shall never be uncivil to a pedlar." Was this the 
 imperturbable Cigarette? This, this was he. O change 
 beyond report, thought, or belief ! 
 
 Meantime the heaven wept upon our heads ; and the 
 windows grew brighter as the night increased in darkness. 
 
 IS We trudged in and out of La Fere streets ; we saw shops, 
 and private houses where people were copiously dining ; 
 we saw stables where carters' nags had plenty of fodder 
 and clean straw ; we saw no end of reservists, who were 
 very sorry for themselves this wet night, I doubt not, and 
 
 20 yearned for their country homes ; but had they not each 
 man his place in La Fere barracks? And we, what had 
 we? 
 
 There seemed to be no other inn in the whole town. 
 People gave us directions, which we followed as best we 
 
 25 could, generally with the effect of bringing us out again 
 upon the scene of our disgrace. We were very sad people 
 indeed by the time we had gone all over La Fere ; and 
 the Cigarette had already made up his mind to lie under 
 a poplar and sup off a loaf of bread. But right at the
 
 La Fere of Cursed Memory 93 
 
 other end, the house next the town gate was full of light 
 and bustle. " Bazin, aubergiste, loge a pied" was the 
 sign. "A la Croix de Malte." There were we received. 
 
 The room was full of noisy reservists drinking and smok- 
 ing ; and we were very glad indeed when the drums and s 
 bugles began to go about the streets, and one and all had 
 to snatch shakoes ^ and be off for the barracks. 
 
 Bazin was a tall man, running to fat : soft-spoken, with 
 a delicate, gentle face. We asked him to share our wine ; 
 but he excused himself, having pledged reservists all day 10 
 long. This was a very different type of the workman- 
 innkeeper from the bawling disputatious fellow at Origny. 
 He also loved Paris, where he had worked as a decora- 
 tive painter in his youth. There were such opportunities 
 for self-instruction there, he said. And if anyone has read 15 
 Zola's descrijjtion of the workman's marriage party visit- 
 ing the IvOuvre, they would do well to have heard 15azin 
 by way of antidote. He had delighted in the museums 
 in his youth. "One sees there little miracles of work," 
 he said ; " that is what makes a good workman ; it kindles 20 
 a spark." We asked him how he managed in La F6rc. " I 
 am married," he said, "and I have my pretty children. 
 Hut frankly, it is no life at all. I'Vom morning to niglil 
 1 [)ledge a pack of good enough fellows wiio know noth- 
 ing." as 
 
 It faired as the night went on, and the moon came out 
 of the clouds. We sat in front of the door, talking softly 
 with T'a/.in. At the guard-hotisc opposite, the guard was 
 
 ' MiliLiry taps.
 
 94 Inland Voyage 
 
 being for ever turned out, as trains of field artillery kept 
 clanking in out of the night, or patrols of horsemen 
 trotted by in their cloaks. Madame Bazin came out 
 after a while ; she was tired with her day's work, I sup- 
 5 pose ; and she nestled up to her husband and laid her 
 head upon his breast. He had his arm about her and 
 kept gently patting her on the shoulder. I think Bazin 
 was right, and he was really married. Of how few people 
 can the same be said ! 
 
 lo Little did the Bazins know how much they served us. 
 We were charged for candles, for food and drink, and for 
 the beds we slept in. But there was nothing in the bill 
 for the husband's pleasant talk ; nor for the pretty spec- 
 tacle of their married life. And there was yet another 
 
 IS item uncharged. For these people's politeness really set 
 us up again in our own esteem. We had a thirst for con- 
 sideration ; the sense of insult was still hot in our spirits ; 
 and civil usage seemed to restore us to our position in 
 the world. 
 
 20 How little we pay our way in life ! Although we have 
 our purses continually in our hand the better part of 
 service goes still unrewarded. But I like to fancy that a 
 grateful spirit gives as good as it gets. Perhaps the 
 Bazins knew how much I liked them? perhaps they also 
 
 25 were healed of some slights by the thanks that I gave 
 them in my manner?
 
 Down the Oise 95 
 
 DOWN THE OISE 
 Through the Golden Valley 
 
 Below La Fere the river runs through a piece of open 
 pastoral country ; green, opulent, loved by breeders ; 
 called the Golden Valley. In wide sweeps, and with a 
 swift and equable gallop, the ceaseless stream of water 
 visits and makes green the fields. Kine, and horses, 5 
 and little humorous donkeys browse together in the 
 meadows, and come down in troops to the river side to 
 drink. They make a strange feature in the landscape ; 
 above all when startled, and you see them galloping to 
 and fro, with their incongruous forms and faces. It gives 10 
 a feeling as of great, unfenced pampas, and the herds of 
 wandering nations. There were hills in the distaru:e 
 upon either hand ; and on one side the river sometimes 
 bordered on the wooded spurs of Coucy and St. Gobain. 
 
 The artillery were practising at La Fere ; and soon the 15 
 cannon of heaven joined in that loud play. Two conti- 
 nents of cloud met and exchanged salvos overhead ; while 
 all round the horizon we could sec sunshine and clear air 
 upon the hills. What with the guns and the thunder, the 
 herds were all frighted in the Golden Valley. We could ao 
 see them tossing their heads, and rimning to and fro in 
 timorous indecision ; and when they had made up their 
 minds, and the donkey followed the horse, and the cow 
 was after the donkey, we could hear their hoofs thun- 
 dering abroad over tlic meadows. It had a martial sound, ^s
 
 g6 Inland Voyage 
 
 like cavalry charges. And altogether, as far as the ears 
 are concerned, we had a very rousing battle-piece per- 
 formed for our amusement. 
 
 -^ At last the guns and the thunder dropped off; the sun 
 5 shone on the wet meadows ; the air was scented with the 
 breath of rejoicing trees and grass ; and the river kept 
 unweariedly carrying us on at its best pace. There was a 
 manufacturing district about Chauny ; and after that the 
 banks grew so high that they hid the adjacent country, 
 
 10 and we could see nothing but clay sides, and one willow 
 after another. Only, here and there, we passed by a vil- 
 lage or a ferry, and some wondering child upon the bank 
 would stare after us until we turned the corner. I dare- 
 say we continued to paddle in that child's dreams for many 
 
 IS a night after. 
 
 Sun and shower alternated like day and night, making 
 the hours longer by their variety. When the showers 
 were heavy I could feel each drop striking through my 
 jersey to my warm skin ; and the accumulation of small 
 
 20 shocks put me nearly beside myself. I decided I should 
 buy a mackintosh at Noyon. It is nothing to get wet ; 
 but the misery of these individual pricks of cold all over 
 my body at the same instant of time, made me flail the 
 water with my paddle like a madman. The Cigarette 
 
 25 was greatly amused by these ebullitions. It gave him 
 
 something else to look at, besides clay banks and willows. 
 
 All the time, the river stole away like a thief in straight 
 
 places, or swung round corners with an eddy ; the willows 
 
 nodded and were undermined all day long; the clay
 
 Noyon Cathedral 97 
 
 banks tumbled in ; the Oise, which had been so many 
 centuries making the Golden Valley, seemed to have 
 changed its fancy, and be bent upon undoing its perform- 
 ance. AVhat a number of things a river does, by simply 
 following Gravity in the innocence of its heart ! 5 
 
 NOYON CATHEDRAL 
 
 Novox stands about a mile from the river, in a little 
 plain surrounded by wooded hills, and entirely covers an 
 eminence with its tile roofs, surmounted by a long, straight- 
 backed cathedral with two stiff towers. .As we got into 
 the town, the tile roofs seemed to tumble uphill one upon 10 
 another, in the oddest disorder ; but for all their scram- 
 bling, they (lid not attain above the knees of the cathedral, 
 which stood, upright and solemn, over all. As the streets 
 drew near to this presiding genius, through the market 
 place under the Hotel de Villc, they grew emptier and 15 
 more composed. Blank walls and shuttered windows 
 were turned to the great edifice, ami grass grew on the 
 white causeway. " I'lit off thy shoes from off thy feet, for 
 the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." The 
 I/(^trl dti Nord, nevertheless, lights its secular tapers 20 
 within a stone cast of the church ; and we had the superb 
 east-end before our eyes all morning from the window of 
 our bedroom. I have seldom looked on the east-end of 
 a church with more complete sympathy. .As it flanges 
 out in three wide terraces, and settles <lown broadly on it, 
 llie earth, it looks like the poop of some gnat olil hattle-
 
 98 Inland Voyage 
 
 ship. Hollow-backed buttresses carry vases, which figure 
 for the stern lanterns. There is a roll in the ground, and 
 the towers just appear above the pitch of the roof, as 
 though the good ship were bowing lazily over an Atlantic 
 5 swell. At any moment it might be a hundred feet away 
 from you, climbing the next billow. At any moment a 
 window might open, and some old admiral thrust forth a 
 cocked hat, and proceed to take an observation. The old 
 admirals sail the sea no longer ; the old ships of battle 
 
 10 are all broken up, and live only in pictures; but this, that 
 was a church before ever they were thought upon, is still 
 a church, and makes as brave an appearance by the Oise. 
 The cathedral and the river are probably the two oldest 
 things for miles around ; and certainly they have both a 
 
 IS grand old age. 
 
 The sacristan ^ took us to the top of one of the towers, 
 and showed us the five bells hanging in their loft. From 
 above, the town was a tessellated pavement of roofs and 
 gardens ; the old line of rampart was plainly traceable ; 
 
 20 and the sacristan pointed out to us, far across the plain, 
 in a bit of gleaming sky between two clouds, the towers 
 of Chateau Coucy. 
 
 I find I never weary of great churches. It is my 
 favourite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never 
 
 25 so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral : a thing 
 as single and specious as a statue to the first glance, 
 and yet, on examination, as lively and interesting as a for- 
 est in detail. The height of spires cannot be taken by 
 
 1 Sexton.
 
 Noyon Cathedral 99 
 
 trigonometry ; they measure absurdly short, but how tall 
 they are to the admiring eye ! And where we have so 
 many elegant proportions, growing one out of the other, 
 and all together into one, it seems as if proportion tran- 
 scended itself and became something different and more 5 
 imposing. I could never fathom how a man dares to 
 lift up his voice to preach in a cathedral. What is he to 
 say that will not be an anti-climax? For though I have 
 heard a considerable variety of sermons, I never yet heard 
 one that was so expressive as a cathedral. 'Tis the best 10 
 preacher itself, and preaches day and night ; not only 
 telling you of man's art and aspirations in the past, but con- 
 victing your own soul of ardent sympathies ; or rather, like 
 all good preachers, it sets you preaching to yourself ; — and ^ 
 every man is his own doctor of divinity in the last resort. 15 
 
 As I sat outside of the hotel in the course of the after- 
 noon, the sweet groaning thunder of the organ floated 
 out of the church like a summons. I was not averse, 
 liking the theatre so well, to sit out an actor two of the 
 play, but I could never rightly make out the nature of the 2° 
 service I beheld. Four or five priests and as many chor- 
 isters were singing Miserere before the high altar when 
 I went in. There was no congregation but a few old 
 women on chairs and old men kneeling on the pavement. 
 After a while a long train of young girls, walking two and ».S 
 two, each with a lighted taper in her hand, and all dressed 
 in black with a white veil, came from behind the altar and 
 began to descend the nave ; the four first carrying a Vir- 
 gin and child upon a table. 'I'he priests an<l choristers
 
 lOO Inland Voyage 
 
 arose from their knees and followed after singing " Ave 
 Mary " as they went. In this order they made the cir- 
 cuit of the cathedral, passing twice before me where I 
 leaned against a pillar. The priest who seemed of most 
 
 5 consequence was a strange, down-looking old man. He 
 kept mumbling prayers with his lips ; but as he looked 
 upon me darkling, it did not seem as if prayer were 
 uppermost in his heart. Two others, who bore the bur- 
 then of the chaunt, were stout, brutal, military-looking 
 
 lo men of forty, with bold, over-fed eyes ; they sang with 
 some lustiness, and trolled forth " Ave Mary " like a gar- 
 rison catch. The little girls were timid and grave. As 
 they footed slowly up the aisle, each one took a moment's 
 glance at the Englishman ; and the big nun who played 
 
 15 marshal fairly stared him out of countenance. As for the 
 choristers, from first to last they misbehaved as only boys 
 can misbehave ; and cruelly marred the performance 
 with their antics. 
 
 I understood a great deal of the spirit of what went on. 
 
 20 Indeed it would be difficult not to understand the Mise- 
 rere, which I take to be the composition of an atheist. 
 If it ever be a good thing to take such despondency to 
 heart, the Miserere is the right music and a cathedral a 
 fit scene. So far I am at one with the Catholics : — an 
 
 25 odd name for them, after all? But why, in God's name, 
 these holiday choristers? why these priests who steal 
 wandering looks about the congregation while they feign 
 to be at prayer? why this fat nun, who rudely arranges 
 her procession and shakes delinquent virgins by the
 
 Noyon Cathedral loi 
 
 elbow? why this spitting, and snuffing, and forgetting of 
 keys, and the thousand and one little misadventures that 
 disturb a frame of mind, laboriously edified with chaunts 
 and organings? In any playhouse reverend fathers may 
 see what can be done with a little art, and how, to move 5 
 high sentiments, it is necessary to drill the supernumera- 
 ries and have every stool in its proper place. 
 
 One other circumstance distressed me. I could bear 
 a Miserere myself, having had a good deal of open air 
 exercise of late ; but I wished the old people somewhere 10 
 else. It was neither the right sort of music nor the right 
 sort of divinity for men and women who have come 
 through most accidents by this time, and probably have 
 an opinion of their own upon the tragic element in life. 
 A person up in years can generally do his own Miserere 15 
 for himself; although I notice that such an one often 
 prefers Jubilate Deo for his ordinary singing. On the 
 whole, the most religious exercise for the aged is prob- 
 ably to recall their own experience ; so many friends 
 dead, so many hopes disappointed, so many slips and ao 
 stumbles, and withal so many bright days and smiling 
 providences ; there is surely the matter of a very elo- 
 quent sermon in all this. 
 
 On the whole, I was greatly solemnized. In the little 
 pictorial map of our whole Inland Voyage, which my 25 
 fancy still preserves, and sometimes unrolls for the 
 amusement of odd moments, Noyon cathedral figures on 
 a most preposterous scale, and must be nearly as large as 
 a department. I can still see the faces of the i)riests as
 
 I02 Inland Voyage 
 
 if they were at my elbow, and hear Ave Maria, ora pro 
 nobis sounding through the church. All Noyon is blotted 
 out for me by these superior memories ; and I do not 
 care to say more about the place. It was but a stack of 
 5 brown roofs at the best, where I believe people live very 
 reputably in a quiet way ; but the shadow of the church 
 falls upon it when the sun is low, and the five bells are 
 heard in all quarters, telling that the organ has begun. 
 If ever I join the church of Rome, I shall stipulate to be 
 10 Bishop of Noyon on the Oise. 
 
 DOWN THE OISE: TO COMPIEGNE 
 
 The most patient people grow weary at last with being 
 continually wetted with rain ; except of course in the 
 Scotch Highlands, where there are not enough fine 
 intervals to point the difference. That was like to be 
 
 1 5 our case, the day we left Noyon. I remember nothing 
 of the voyage ; it was nothing but clay banks and willows, 
 and rain ; incessant, pitiless, beating rain : until we 
 stopped to lunch at a little inn at Pimprez, where the 
 canal ran very near the river. We were so sadly drenched 
 
 20 that the landlady lit a few sticks in the chimney for our 
 comfort ; there we sat in a steam of vapour, lamenting 
 our concerns. The husband donned a game-bag and 
 strode out to shoot ; the wife sat in a far corner watching 
 us. I think we were worth looking at. We grumbled 
 
 25 over the misfortune of La Fere ; we forecast other La 
 Feres in the future ; — although things went better with
 
 Down the Oise : To Complegne 103 
 
 the Cigarette for spokesman ; he had more aplomb 
 altogether than I ; and a dull, positive way of approach- 
 ing a landlady that carried off the india-rubber bags. 
 Talking of La Fere, put us talking of the reservists. 
 
 " Reservery," said he, " seems a pretty mean way to 5 
 spend one's autumn holiday." 
 
 " About as mean," returned I, dejectedly, " as canoeing." 
 
 "These gentlemen travel for their pleasure?" asked 
 the landlady, with unconscious irony. 
 
 It was too much. The scales fell from our eyes. An- 10 
 other wet day, it was determined, and we put the boats 
 into the train. 
 
 The weather took the hint. That was our last wetting. 
 The afternoon faired up : grand clouds still voyaged in the 
 sky, but now singly, and with a depth of blue around 15 
 their path ; and a sunset, in the daintiest rose and gold, 
 inaugurated a thick night of stars and a month of unbroken 
 weather. At the .same time, the river began to give us a 
 better outlook into the country. The banks were not so 
 high, the willows disappeared from along the margin, and »o 
 pleasant hills stood all along its course and marked their 
 profile on the sky. 
 
 In a little while, the canal, coming to its last lock, be- 
 gan to discharge its water-houses on the Oise ; so that we 
 had no lack of company to fear. 1 lere were all our old 25 
 friends ; the Deo Gratias of Condc and the Four Sons of 
 Aymon journeyed cheerily down stream along with us ; 
 we exchanged waterside plca.santrics with the steersman 
 perched among the lumber, or the driver hoarse with
 
 I04 Inland Voyage 
 
 bawling to his horses ; and the children came and looked 
 over the side as we paddled by. We had never known 
 all this while how much we missed them ; but it gave us 
 a fillip to see the smoke from their chimneys. 
 
 5 A little below this junction, we made another meeting 
 of yet more account. For there we were joined by the 
 Aisne, already a far- travelled river and fresh out of 
 Champagne. Here ended the adolescence of the Oise ; 
 this was his marriage day ; thenceforward he had a stately, 
 
 lo brimming march, conscious of his own dignity and sundry 
 dams. He became a tranquil feature in the scene. 
 The trees and towns saw themselves in him, as in a mirror. 
 He carried the canoes lightly on his broad breast ; there 
 was no need to work hard against an eddy : but idleness 
 
 IS became the order of the day, and mere straightforward 
 dipping of the paddle, now on this side, now on that, 
 without intelligence or effort. Truly we were coming into 
 halcyon weather upon all accounts, and were floated tow- 
 ards the sea like gentlemen. 
 
 20 We made Compiegne as the sun was going down : a 
 fine profile of a town above the river. Over the bridge 
 a regiment was parading to the drum. People loitered 
 on the quay, some fishing, some looking idly at the stream. 
 And as the two boats shot in along the water, we could 
 
 25 see them pointing them out and speaking one to another. 
 We landed at a floating lavatory, where the washerwomen 
 were still beating the clothes.
 
 At Compiegne 105 
 
 AT COMPIEGNE 
 
 We put up at a big, bustling hotel in Compiegne, 
 where nobody observed our presence. 
 
 Reservery and general militarismus (as the Germans 
 call it) was rampant. A camp of conical white tents 
 without the town looked like a leaf out of a picture Bible ; 5 
 sword-belts decorated the walls of the cafes; and the 
 streets kept sounding all day long with military music. 
 It was not possible to be an Englishman and avoid a 
 feeling of elation ; for the men who followed the drums 
 were small, and walked shabbily. Each man inclined at 10 
 his own angle, and jolted to his own convenience, as he 
 went. There was nothing of the superb gait with which 
 a regiment of tall Highlanders moves behind its music, 
 solemn and inevitable, like a natural phenomenon. Who, 
 that has seen it, can forget the drum-major pacing in 15 
 front, the drummers' tiger-skins, the pipers' swinging 
 plaids, the strange elastic rhythm of the whole regiment 
 footing it in time — and the bang of the drum, when the 
 brasses cease anfl the shrill pipes take up the martial 
 story in their [)larc? so 
 
 A girl at school in l-'rance began ti; describe one of 
 our regiments on parade, to her French schoolmates ; 
 and as she went on, she told me, the recollection grew so 
 vivid, she became so prcjiid to be the countrywoman of 
 such soldiers, and so sorry to be in another country, thai as 
 her voice failed her and she burst into tears. I li;ive 
 never forgotten that girl ; and I think she very nearly
 
 io6 Inland Voyage 
 
 deserves a statue. To call her a young lady, with all its 
 niminy associations, would be to offer her an insult. She 
 may rest assured of one thing ; although she never should 
 marry a heroic general, never see any great or immediate 
 
 5 result of her life, she will not have lived in vain for her 
 native land. 
 
 But though French soldiers show to ill advantage on 
 parade, on the march they are gay, alert, and willing like 
 a troop of fox-hunters. I remember once seeing a com- 
 
 lo pany pass through the forest of Fontainebleau, on the 
 Chailly road, between the Bas Br^au and the Reine 
 Blanche. One fellow walked a little before the rest, and 
 sang a loud, audacious marching song. The rest bestirred 
 their feet, and even swung their muskets in time. A 
 
 15 young officer on horseback had hard ado to keep his 
 countenance at the words. You never saw anything so 
 cheerful and spontaneous as their gait ; schoolboys do 
 not look more eagerly at hare and hounds ; and you 
 would have thought it impossible to tire such willing 
 
 20 marchers. 
 
 My great delight in Compiegne was the town-hall. I 
 doted upon the town-hall. It is a monument of Gothic 
 insecurity, all turreted, and gargoyled, and slashed, and 
 bedizened with half a score of architectural fancies. 
 
 25 Some of the niches are gilt and painted; and in a great 
 square panel in the centre, in black relief on a gilt ground, 
 Louis XII rides upon a pacing horse, with hand on hip 
 and head thrown back. There is royal arrogance in every 
 line of him ; the stirrupped foot projects insolently from
 
 At Compiegiie 107 
 
 the frame ; the eye is hard and proud ; the very horse 
 seems to be treadingwithgratificationover prostrate serfs, 
 and to have the breath of the trumpet in his nostrils. So 
 rides for ever, on the front of the town-hall, the good king 
 Louis XII, the father of his people. 5 
 
 Over the king's head, in the tall centre turret, appears 
 the dial of a clock ; and high above that three little 
 mechanical figures, each one with a hammer in his hand, 
 whose business it is to chime out the hours and halves and 
 quarters for the burgesses of Compiegne. The centre 10 
 figure has a gilt breast-plate; the two others wear gilt 
 trunk-hose ; and they all three have elegant, flapping hats 
 like cavaliers. As the quarter approaches, they turn their 
 heads and look knowingly one to the other ; and then, 
 kling go the three hammers on three little bells below. 15 
 The hour follows, deep and sonorous, from the interior of 
 the tower; and the gilded gentlemen rest from their 
 labours with contentment. 
 
 I had a great deal of healthy pleasure from their ma- 
 nceuvres, and took good care to miss as few performances ao 
 as possible ; and I found that even the Cit^aretle, while 
 he pretended to desjjise my enthusiasm, was more or less 
 a devotee himself. There is something highly absurd in 
 the exposition of such toys to the outrages of winter on a 
 house-top. They would be more in keeping in a glasses 
 case before a NQrnberg clock. Al)oveall, at night, when 
 the chilclren are abed, and even grown people are snor- 
 ing under cpiilts, does it not seem impertinent to leave 
 these gingerbread figures winking and tinkling to tlie
 
 io8 Inland Voyage 
 
 stars and the rolling moon? The gargoyles may fitly 
 enough twist their ape-like heads ; fitly enough may the 
 potentate bestride his charger, like a centurion in an old 
 German print of the Via Dolorosa ; but the toys should 
 S be put away in a box among some cotton, until the sun 
 rises, and the children are abroad again to be amused. 
 
 In Compi^gne post-office, a great packet of letters 
 awaited us ; and the authorities were, for this occasion 
 only, so polite as to hand them over upon application. 
 
 lo In some way, our journey may be said to end with this 
 letter-bag at Compi6gne. The spell was broken. We had 
 partly come home from that moment. 
 
 No one should have any correspondence on a journey ; 
 it is bad enough to have to write ; but the receipt of letters 
 
 15 is the death of all holiday feeling, 
 
 " Out of my country and myself I go." I wish to take 
 a dive among new conditions for a while, as into another 
 element. I have nothing to do with my friends or my 
 affections for the time ; when I came away, I left my heart 
 
 20 at home in a desk, or sent it forward with my portmanteau 
 to await me at my destination. After my journey is over, 
 I shall not fail to read your admirable letters with the 
 attention they deserve. But I have paid all this money, 
 look you, and paddled all these strokes, for no other pur- 
 
 25 pose than to be abroad ; and yet you keep me at home 
 with your perpetual communications. You tug the string, 
 and I feel that I am a tethered bird. You pursue me all 
 over Europe with the little vexations that I came away to 
 avoid. There is no discharge in the war of life, I am
 
 At Compiegne 109 
 
 well aware ; but shall there not be so much as a week's 
 furlough ? 
 
 We were up by six the day we were to leave. They 
 had taken so little note of us that I hardly thought they 
 would have condescended on a bill. But they did, with s 
 some smart particulars too ; and we paid in a civilized 
 manner to an uninterested clerk, and went out of that 
 hotel, with the india-rubber bags, unremarked. No one 
 cared to know about us. It is not possible to rise before a 
 village ; but Compiegne was so grown a town, that it took 10 
 its ease in the morning ; and we were up and away while 
 it was still in dressing-gown and slippers. The streets 
 were left to people washing door-steps ; noboily was in 
 full dress but the cavaliers upon the town-hall ; they were 
 all washed with dew, spruce in their gilding, and full of i.s 
 intelligence and a sense of professional responsibility, 
 Kling, went they on the bells for the half-past six, as we 
 went by. I took it kind of them to make me this parting 
 compliment ; they never were in better form, not even at 
 noon upon a Sunday. so 
 
 There was no one to see us off but the early washer- 
 women — early and late — who were already i)cating the 
 linen in their floating lavatory on the river. They were 
 very merry and matutinal in their ways ; plunged their 
 arms boldly in, an<l seemed not to feel the shock. It 75 
 would be dispiriting to me, this early beginning and first 
 cold dabble, of a most dispiriting day's work. I'.iil I lif- 
 lieve they would have been as unwilling to change days 
 with us, as we could be to change with them. They
 
 iio Inland Voyage 
 
 crowded to the door to watch us paddle away into the 
 thin sunny mists upon the river; and shouted heartily 
 after us till we were through the bridge. 
 
 CHANGED TIMES 
 
 There is a sense in which those mists never rose from 
 5 off our journey ; and from that time forth they lie very 
 densely in my note-book. As long as the Oise was a small 
 rural river, it took us near by people's doors, and we could 
 hold a conversation with natives in the riparian fields. But 
 now that it had grown so wide, the life along shore passed 
 
 10 us by at a distance. It was the same difference as between 
 a great public highway and a country bypath that wanders 
 in and out of cottage gardens. We now lay in towns, 
 where nobody troubled us with questions ; we had floated 
 into civilized life, where people pass without salutation. 
 
 15 In sparsely inhabited places we make all we can of each 
 encounter ; but when it comes to a city, we keep to our- 
 selves, and never speak unless we have trodden on a man's 
 toes. In these waters we were no longer strange birds, 
 and nobody supposed we had travelled further than from 
 
 20 the last town. I remember, when we came into L'Isle 
 Adam, for instance, how we met dozens of pleasure-boats 
 outing it for the afternoon, and there was nothing to dis- 
 tinguish the true voyager from the amateur, except, perhaps, 
 the filthy condition of my sail. I'he company in one boat 
 
 25 actually thought they recognized me for a neighbour. 
 Was there ever anything more wounding? All the ro-
 
 Changed Times 1 1 1 
 
 mance had come down to that. Now, on the upper Oise, 
 where nothing sailed as a general thing but fish, a pair of 
 canoeists could not be thus vulgarly explained away ; we 
 were strange and picturesque intruders ; and out of people's 
 wonder sprang a sort of light and passing intimacy all s 
 along our route. There is nothing but tit for tat in this 
 world, though sometimes it be a httle difficult to trace; 
 for the scores are older than we ourselves, and there has 
 never yet been a settling-day since things were. You get 
 entertainment pretty much in proportion as you give. As lo 
 long as we were a sort of odd wanderers, to be stared at 
 and followed like a quack doctor or a caravan, we had no 
 want of amusement in return ; but as soon as we sank 
 into commonplace ourselves, all whom we met were simi- 
 larly disenchanted. And here is one reason of a dozen '5 
 why the world is dull to dull i)ersons. 
 
 In our earlier adventures there was generally some- 
 thing to do, and that quickened us. Even the showers 
 of rain had a revivifying effect, and shook up the brain 
 from torpor. But now, when the river no longer ran in a 20 
 proper sense, only glided seaward with an even, outright, 
 but imperceptible speed, and when the sky smiled upon 
 us day after day without variety, we began to slip into 
 that golden doze of the mind which fcjilows upon much 
 exercise in the ojien air. I have stupefied myself in this 25 
 way more than once ; indeed, I dearly love the feeling ; 
 but I never had it to the same degree as when paddling 
 down the Oise. It was the apotheosis of stupidity. 
 
 We ceased reading entirely. Sometimes wIkii I foimd
 
 1 12 Inland Voyage 
 
 a new paper, I took a particular pleasure in reading a 
 single number of the current novel ; but I never could 
 bear more than three instalments ; and even the second 
 was a disappointment. As soon as the tale became in 
 
 5 any way perspicuous, it lost all merit in my eyes ; only a 
 single scene, or, as is the way with these feuilletons, half 
 a scene, without antecedent or consequence, like a 
 piece of a dream, had the knack of fixing my interest. 
 The less I saw of the novel, the better I liked it : a 
 
 lo pregnant reflection. But for the most part, as I said, 
 we neither of us read anything in the world, and em- 
 ployed the very little while we were awake between bed 
 and dinner in poring upon maps. I have always been 
 fond of maps, and can voyage in an atlas with the great- 
 
 15 est enjoyment. The names of places are singularly invit- 
 ing ; the contour of coasts and rivers is enthralling to the 
 eye ; and to hit, in a map, upon some place you have 
 heard of before, makes history a new possession. But we 
 thumbed our charts, on these evenings, with the blankest 
 
 2o unconcern. We cared not a fraction for this place or 
 that. We stared at the sheet as children listen to their 
 rattle ; and read the names of towns or villages to forget 
 them again at once. We had no romance in the matter ; 
 there was nobody so fancy-free. If you had taken the 
 
 25 maps away while we were studying them most intently, 
 it is a fair bet whether we might not have continued to 
 study the table with the same delight. 
 
 About one thing we were mightily taken up, and that 
 was eating. I think I made a god of my belly. I re-
 
 Changed Times 113 
 
 member dwelling in imagination upon this or that dish 
 till my mouth watered ; and long before we got in for the 
 night my appetite was a clamant, instant annoyance. 
 Sometimes we paddled alongside for a while and whetted 
 each other with gastronomical fancies as we went. Cake 5 
 and sherry, a homely refection, but not within reach upon 
 the Oise, trotted through my head for many a mile ; and 
 once, as we were approaching Verberie, the Ci^:;atctte 
 brought my heart into my mouth by the suggestion of 
 oyster patties and Sauterne. 10 
 
 I suppose none of us recognize the great part that is 
 played in life by eating and drinking. The appetite is so 
 imperious, that we can stomach the least interesting 
 viands, and pass off a dinner hour thankfully enough on 
 bread and water; just as there are men who must read 15 
 something, if it were only Bradshaui' s Guide. But there 
 is a romance about the matter after all. Probably the 
 table has more devotees than love ; and I am sure that 
 food is much more generally entertaining than scenery. 
 Do you give in, as Walt Whitman would say, that you arc ao 
 any the less immortal for that? 'J"hc true materialism is 
 to be ashamed of what we are. To detect the flavour of 
 an olive is no less a piece of human perfection than to 
 find beauty in the colours of the sunset. 
 
 Canoeing was easy work. To dip the paddle at the as 
 proper inclination, now ri.i,'lu, now left ; to kct'i) the head 
 down stream ; to empty the little pool that gathered in 
 the lap of the apron ; to screw tip the eyes against the 
 glittering sparkles of sim upon the water; or now and
 
 114 Inland Voyage 
 
 again to pass below the whistling tow-rope of the Deo 
 Gratias of Cond^, or the Four Sons of Aymon — there 
 was not much art in that ; certain silly muscles managed 
 it between sleep and waking ; and meanwhile the brain 
 
 S had a whole holiday, and went to sleep. We took in, at 
 a glance, the larger features of the scene ; and beheld, 
 with half an eye, bloused fishers and dabbling washer- 
 women on the bank. Now and again we might be half 
 wakened by some church spire, by a leaping fish, or by a 
 
 10 trail of river grass that clung about the paddle and had to 
 be plucked off and thrown away. But these luminous 
 intervals were only partially luminous. A little more of 
 us was called into action, but never the whole. The 
 central bureau of nerves, what in some moods we call 
 
 15 Ourselves, enjoyed its holiday without disturbance, like a 
 Government Office. The great wheels of intelligence 
 turned idly in the head, like fly-wheels, grinding no grist. I 
 have gone on for half an hour at a time, counting my strokes 
 and forgetting the hundreds. I flatter myself the beasts 
 
 20 that perish could not underbid that, as a low form of con- 
 sciousness. And what a pleasure it was ! What a hearty, 
 tolerant temper did it bring about ! There is nothing 
 captious about a man who has attained to this, the one 
 possible apotheosis in life, the Apotheosis of Stupidity ; 
 
 25 and he begins to feel dignified and longaevous like a 
 tree. 
 
 There was one odd piece of practical metaphysics which 
 accompanied what I may call the depth, if I must not 
 caU it the intensity, of my abstraction. What philosophers
 
 Changed Times 115 
 
 call me and not me, ego and non ego, preoccupied me 
 whether I would or no. There was less me and more not 
 me than I was accustomed to expect. I looked on upon 
 somebody else, who managed the paddling ; I was aware 
 of somebody else's feet against the stretcher ; my own s 
 body seemed to have no more intimate relation to me 
 than the canoe, or the river, or the river banks. Nor 
 this alone : something inside my mind, a part of my 
 brain, a province of my proper being, had thrown off 
 allegiance and set up for itself, or perhaps for the some- 10 
 body else who did the paddling. I had dwindled into 
 quite a little thing in a corner of myself. I was isolated 
 in my own skull. Thoughts presented themselves un- 
 bidden ; they were not ray thoughts, they were plainly 
 someone else's; and I considered them like a part of the 15 
 landscape. I take it, in short, that I was about as near 
 Nirvana as would be convenient in practical life; and if 
 this be so, I make the Buddhists my sincere compliments ; 
 'tis an agreeable state, not very consistent with mental 
 brilliancy, not exactly profitable in a money point of 20 
 view, but very calm, golden, and incurious, and one that 
 sets a man superior to alarms. It may be best figured by 
 supposing yourself to get dead drunk, and yet keep sober 
 to enjoy it. I have a notion that open air labourers must 
 spend a large portion of their days in this ecstatic stupor, 25 
 which explains their high composure and endurance. A 
 pity to go to the expense of laudantim, when here is a 
 better paradise for notliing ! 
 
 This frame of mind was the great exploit of our voyage,
 
 1 1 6 Inland Voyage 
 
 take it all in all. It was the farthest piece of travel ac- 
 complished. Indeed, it lies so far from beaten paths of 
 language, that I despair of getting the reader into sympa- 
 thy with the smiling, complacent idiocy of my condition ; 
 
 5 when ideas came and went Hke motes in a sunbeam ; when 
 trees and church spires along the bank surged up from 
 time to time into my notice, like solid objects through a 
 rolling cloudland ; when the rhythmical svvish of boat 
 and paddle in the water became a cradle-song to lull my 
 
 10 thoughts asleep ; when a piece of mud on the deck was 
 sometimes an intolerable eyesore, and sometimes quite a 
 companion for me, and the object of pleased considera- 
 tion ; — and all the time, with the river running and the 
 shores changing upon either hand, I kept counting my 
 
 IS strokes and forgetting the hundreds, the happiest animal 
 in France. 
 
 DOWN THE OISE: CHURCH INTERIORS 
 
 We made our first stage below Compi^gne to Pont Sainte 
 Maxence. I was abroad a little after six the next morn- 
 ing. The air was biting and smelt of frost. In an open 
 
 2o place, a score of women wrangled together over the day's 
 market ; and the noise of their negotiation sounded thin 
 and querulous like that of sparrows on a winter's morning. 
 The rare passengers blew into their hands, and shuffled 
 in their wooden shoes to set the blood agog. The streets 
 
 25 were full of icy shadow, although the chimneys were 
 smoking overhead in golden sunshine. If you wake early
 
 Down the Oise : Church Interiors 117 
 
 enough at this season of the year, you may get up in De- 
 cember to break your fast in June. 
 
 I found my way to the church ; for there is always 
 something to see about a church, whether hving worship- 
 pers or dead men's tombs ; you find there the deadUest 5 
 earnest, and the hollowest deceit ; and even where it is 
 not a piece of history, it will be certain to leak out some 
 contemporary gossip. It was scarcely so cold in the 
 church as it was without, but it looked colder. The 
 white nave was positively arctic to the eye ; and the taw- 10 
 driness of a continental altar looked more forlorn than 
 usual in the solitude and the bleak air. Two priests sat 
 in the chancel, reading and waiting penitents ; and out 
 in the nave, one very old woman was engaged in her de- 
 votions. It was a wonder how she was able to pass her 15 
 beads when healthy young people were breathing in their 
 palms and slapping their chest ; but though this con- 
 cerned me, I was yet more disi)irited by the nature of 
 her exercises. She went from chair to chair, from altar 
 to altar, circumnavigating the church. To each shrine, 20 
 she dedicated an equal number of beads and an ecjual 
 length of time. Like a prudent capitalist with a some- 
 what cynical view of the commercial prospect, she desired to 
 place her snpjjlications in a great variety of heavenly secur- 
 ities. She would risk nothing on the credit of any single in- 25 
 tercessor. C)ut of the whole company of saints and angels, 
 not one but was to suppose himself her chamjjion elect 
 against the Great Assizes 1 I could only think of it as a dull, 
 transparent jugglery, based upon unconscious unbelief, y
 
 ii8 Inland Voyage 
 
 She was as dead an old woman as ever I saw ; no more 
 than bone and parchment, curiously put together. Her 
 eyes, with which she interrogated mine, were vacant of 
 sense. It depends on what you call seeing, whether you 
 5 might not call her blind. Perhaps she had known love : 
 perhaps borne children, suckled them and given them 
 pet names. But now that was all gone by, and had left 
 her neither happier nor wiser ; and the best she could do 
 with her mornings was to come up here into the cold 
 
 lo church and juggle for a slice of heaven. It was not with- 
 out a gulp that I escaped into the streets and the keen 
 morning air. Morning? why, how tired of it she would 
 be before night ! and if she did not sleep, how then? It 
 is fortunate that not many of us are brought up publicly 
 
 15 to justify our lives at the bar of threescore years and ten ; 
 fortunate that such a number are knocked opportunely 
 on the head in what they call the flower of their years, and 
 go away to suffer for their foUies in private somewhere 
 else. Otherwise, between sick children and discon- 
 
 20 tented old folk, we might be put out of all conceit of 
 hfe. 
 
 I had need of all my cerebral hygiene during that 
 day's paddle : the old devotee stuck in my throat sorely. 
 But I was soon in the seventh heaven of stupidity; and 
 
 25 knew nothing but that somebody was paddling a canoe, 
 while I was counting his strokes and forgetting the 
 hundreds. I used sometimes to be afraid I should re- 
 member the hundreds ; which would have made a toil of 
 a pleasure ; but the terror was chimerical, they went out
 
 Down the Oise : Church Interiors 1 19 
 
 of my mind by enchantment, and I knew no more than 
 the man in the moon about my only occupation. 
 
 At Creil, where we stopped to lunch, we left the canoes 
 in another floating lavatory, which, as it was high noon, 
 was packed with washerwomen, red-handed and loud- 5 
 voiced; and they and their broad jokes are about all 
 I remember of the place. I could look up my history 
 books, if you were very anxious, and tell you a date or 
 two; for it figured rather largely in the English wars. 
 But I prefer to mention a girls' boarding-school, which 10 
 had an interest for us because it was a girls' boarding- 
 school, and because we imagined we had rather an 
 interest for it. At least — there were the girls about the 
 garden ; and here were we on the river ; and there was 
 more than one handkerchief waved as we went by. It 15 
 caused quite a stir in my heart ; and yet how we should 
 have wearied and despised each other, these girls and I, 
 if we had been introduced at a croquet party ! But this 
 is a fashion I love : to kiss the hand or wave a handker- 
 chief to people I shall never see again, to play with 20 
 possibility, and knock in a peg for fancy to hang upon. 
 It gives the traveller a j(jg, reminds him that he is not a 
 traveller everywhere, and that his journey is no more 
 than a siesta by the way on the real march of life. 
 
 The church at Crcil was a nondescript place in the 25 
 inside, splashed with gaudy lights from the windows, and 
 picked out with medallions of the Dolorous Way. But 
 there was one oddity, in the way of an rx voio, wIh( h 
 pleased me hugely : a faithful model of a canal-boat,
 
 I20 Inland Voyage 
 
 swung from the vault, with a written aspiration that God 
 should conduct the Saint Nicolas of Creil to a good 
 haven. The thing was neatly executed, and would have 
 made the delight of a party of boys on the waterside. 
 5 But what tickled me was the gravity of the peril to be 
 conjured. You might hang up the model of a sea-going 
 ship and welcome : one that is to plough a furrow round 
 the world, and visit the tropic or the frosty poles, runs 
 dangers that are well worth a candle and a mass. But 
 
 lo the Saint Nicolas of Creil, which was to be tugged for 
 some ten years by patient draught horses, in a weedy 
 canal, with the poplars chattering overhead, and the 
 skipper whistling at the tiller; which was to do all its 
 errands in green, inland places, and never got out of sight 
 
 IS of a village belfry in all its cruising; why, you would 
 have thought if anything could be done without the 
 intervention of Providence, it would be that ! But 
 perhaps the skipper was a humorist : or perhaps a 
 prophet, reminding people of the seriousness of life by 
 
 20 this preposterous token. 
 
 At Creil, as at Noyon, Saint Joseph seemed a favourite 
 saint on the score of punctuality. Day and hour can be 
 specified ; and grateful people do not fail to specify them 
 on a votive tablet, when prayers have been punctually 
 
 35 and neatly answered. Whenever time is a consideration, 
 Saint Joseph is the proper intermediary. I took a sort of 
 pleasure in observing the vogue he had in France, for 
 the good man plays a very small part in my religion at 
 home. Yet I could not help fearing that, where the
 
 Down the Oise : Church Interiors 121 
 
 Saint is so much commended for exactitude, he will be 
 expected to be very grateful for his tablet. 
 
 This is foolishness to us Protestants ; and not of great 
 importance anyway. Whether people's gratitude for the 
 good gifts that come to them be wisely conceived or 5 
 dutifully expressed, is a secondary matter, after all, so 
 long as they feel gratitude. The true ignorance is when 
 a man does not know that he has received a good gift, 
 or begins to imagine that he has got it for himself. The 
 self-made man is the funniest windbag after all ! There 10 
 is a marked difference between decreeing light in chaos, 
 and lighting the gas in a metropolitan back-parlour with a 
 box of patent matches ; and do what we will, there is always 
 something made to our hand, if it were only our fingers. 
 
 But there was something worse than foolishness pla-15 
 carded in Creil Church. The Association of the Living 
 Rosary (of which I had never previously heard) is respon- 
 sible for that. This association was founded, according 
 to the printed advertisement, by a brief of Pope Gregory 
 Sixteenth, on the 17th of January, 1832 : according to a 20 
 coloured bas-relief, it seems to have been founded, 
 sometime or other, by the Virgin giving one rosary to 
 Saint Dominic, and the Infant Saviour giving another to 7 
 Saint Catherine of Sienna. Pope Gregory is not so 
 imposing, but he is nearer hand, I could not distinctly 25 
 make out whether the association was entirely devotional, 
 or had an eye to goofl works ; at least it is highly organ- 
 ized : the names of fourteen matrons and misses were 
 filled in for each week of the month as associates, with
 
 122 Inland Voyage 
 
 one other, generally a married woman, at the top for 
 Zelatricc : the choragus of the band. Indulgences, 
 plenary and partial, follow on the performance of the 
 duties of the association. " The partial indulgences are 
 5 attached to the recitation of the rosary." On " the reci- 
 tation of the required disai/ie," a partial indulg.ence 
 promptly- follows. When people serve the kingdom of 
 Heaven with a pass-book in their hands, I should always 
 be afraid lest they should carry the same commercial 
 
 lo spirit into their dealings with their fellow-men, which 
 would make a sad and sordid business of this life. 
 
 There is one more article, however, of happier import. 
 " All these indulgences," it appeared, " are applicable to 
 souls in purgatory." For God's sake, ye ladies of Creil, 
 
 15 apply them all to the souls in purgatory without delay ! 
 Burns would take no hire for his last songs, preferring to 
 serve his country out of unmixed love. Suppose you 
 were to imitate the exciseman, mesdames, and even if 
 the souls in purgatory were not greatly bettered, some 
 
 20 souls in Creil upon the Oise would find themselves 
 none the worse either here or hereafter. 
 
 I cannot help wondering, as I transcribe these notes, 
 whether a Protestant born and bred is in a fit state to 
 understand these signs, and do them what justice they 
 
 25 deserve ; and I cannot help answering that he is not. They 
 cannot look so merely ugly and mean to the faithful as 
 they do to me. I see that as clearly as a proposition in 
 Euclid. For these believers are neither weak nor wicked. 
 They can put up their tablet commending Saint Joseph
 
 Precy and the Marionettes i 23 
 
 for his dispatch, as if he were still a village carpenter; 
 they can " recite the required dizaiiw,'" and metaphori- 
 cally pocket the indulgence, as if they had done a job for 
 heaven ; and then they can go out and look down un- 
 abashed upon this wonderful river flowing by, and up with- 5 
 out confusion at the pin-point stars, which are themselves 
 great worlds full of flowing rivers greater than the Oise. 
 I see it as plainly, I say, as a proposition in Euclid, that 
 my Protestant mind has missed the point, and that there 
 goes with these deformities some higher and more relig- 10 
 ious spirit than I dream. 
 
 I wonder if other people would make the same 
 allowances for me ? Like the ladies of Creil, having 
 recited my rosary of toleration, I look for'my indulgence 
 on the spot. 15 
 
 PRl^CY AND Till': MARION EITRS 
 
 Wk mafle PriJcy about sundown. The plain is rich with 
 tufts of poplar. In a wide, luminous curve, the Oise lay 
 under the hill-side. A faint mist began to rise and con- 
 found the different distances together. 'I'herc was not a 
 sound audible but that of the sheep-bells in some mead- .-.q 
 ows by the river, and the creaking of a cart down the 
 long roail that descends the hill. 'I'iic villis in tluir 
 gardens, the shops along the street, all seemed to have 
 been deserted tlie <lay before; and I felt inclined to walk 
 discreetly as one fetis in a silent fon-st. All of a sudden, as 
 we came roiuul a corner, anrl there, in a little green round
 
 124 Inland Voyage 
 
 the church, was a bevy of girls in Parisian costumes play- 
 ing cro(]uet. Their laughter and the hollow sound of 
 ball and mallet made a cheery stir in the neighbourhood ; 
 and the look of these slim figures, all corseted and rib- 
 5 boned, produced an answerable disturbance in our hearts. 
 We were within sniff of Paris, it seemed. And here were 
 females of our own species playing croquet, just as if 
 Pr^cy had been a place in real life, instead of a stage in 
 the fairy land of travel. For, to be frank, the peasant 
 
 10 woman is scarcely to be counted as a woman at all, and after 
 having passed by such a succession of people in petticoats 
 digging and hoeing and making dinner, this company of 
 coquettes under arms made quite a surprising feature in 
 the landscape, and convinced us at once of being fallible 
 
 15 males. 
 
 The inn at Pr^cy is the worst inn in France. Not 
 even in Scotland have I found worse fare. It was kept 
 by a brother and sister, neither of whom was out of their 
 teens. The sister, so to speak, prepared a meal for us ; 
 
 20 and the brother, who had been tippling, came in and 
 brought with him a tipsy butcher, to entertain us as we 
 ate. We found pieces of loo-warm pork among the 
 salad, and pieces of unknown yielding substance in the 
 ragoiU. The butcher entertained us with pictures of 
 
 ^5 Parisian life, with which he professed himself well ac- 
 quainted; the brother sitting the while on the edge of the 
 billiard table, toppling precariously, and sucking the 
 stump of a cigar. In the midst of these diversions, bang 
 went a drum past the house, and a hoarse voice began
 
 Precy and the Marionettes 125 
 
 issuing a proclamation. It was a man with marionettes 
 announcing a performance for that evening. 
 
 He had set up his caravan and hghted his candles on 
 another part of the girls' croquet green, under one of 
 those open sheds which are so common in France to 5 
 shelter markets ; and he and his wife, by the time we 
 strolled up there, were trying to keep order with the 
 audience. 
 
 It was the most absurd contention. The show-people 
 had set out a certain number of benches ; and all who sat 10 
 upon them were to pay a couple of sons for the accom- 
 modation. They were always quite full — a bumper 
 house — as long as nothing was going forward ; but let 
 the show-woman appear with an eye to a collection, and 
 at the first rattle of her tambourine the audience slij^pcd 15 
 off the seats, and stood round on the outside with their 
 hands in their pockets. It certainly would have tried an 
 angel's temper. The showman roared from the pro- 
 scenium ; he had been all over France, and nowhere, no- 
 where, " not even on the borders of (icrmany," had he 20 
 met with such misconduct. Such thieves and rogues and 
 rascals, as he called them ! And every now and again 
 the wife issued on another round, and added her shrill 
 quota to the tirade. I remarked here, as elsewhere, how 
 far more copious is the female mind in the material of 25 
 insult. The aiidicnrc laughed in high good humour 
 over the man's declamations ; Injt they bridled and cried 
 aloud imdcr the woman's ptmgcnt sallies. She picked 
 out the sore points. She had the honour of the village
 
 126 Inland Voyage 
 
 at her mercy. Voices answered her angrily out of the 
 crowd, and received a smarting retort for their trouble. 
 A couple of old ladies beside me, who had duly paid for 
 their seats, waxed very red and indignant, and dis- 
 5 coursed to each other audibly about the impudence of 
 these mountebanks ; but as soon as the show-woman caught 
 a whisper of this, she was down upon them with a swoop : 
 if mesdames could persuade their neighbours to act with 
 common honesty, the mountebanks, she assured them, 
 
 10 would be polite enough : mesdames had probably had 
 their bowl of soup, and perhaps a glass of wine that even- 
 ing ; the mountebanks also had a taste for soup, and did 
 not choose to have their little earnings stolen from them 
 before their eyes. Once, things came as far as a 
 
 IS brief personal encounter between the showman and some 
 lads, in which the former went down as readily as one 
 of his own marionettes to a peal of jeering laughter. 
 
 I was a good deal astonished at this scene, because I 
 am pretty well acquainted with the ways of French stroll- 
 
 2o ers, more or less artistic ; and have always found them 
 singularly pleasing. Any stroller must be dear to the 
 right-thinking heart ; if it were only as a living protest 
 against offices and the mercantile spirit, and as something 
 to remind us that life is not by necessity the kind of 
 
 25 thing we generally make it. Even a German band if you 
 see it leaving town in the early morning for a campaign 
 in country places, among trees and meadows, has a ro- 
 mantic flavour for the imagination. There is nobody, un- 
 der thirty, so dead but his heart will stir_ a little at sight
 
 Precy and the Marionettes 127 
 
 of a gipsies' camp. "We are not cotton-spinners all;" 
 or, at least, not all through. There is some life in hu- 
 manity yet : and youth will now and again find a brave 
 word to say in dispraise of riches, and throw up a situation 
 to go strolling with a knapsack. 5 
 
 An Englishman has always special facilities for inter- 
 course with French gymnasts ; for England is the natural 
 home of gymnasts. This or that fellow, in his tights and 
 spangles, is sure to know a word or two of English, to 
 have drunk English off-n-aff, and perhaps performed in 10 
 an English music-hall. He is a countryman of mine by 
 profession. He leaps, like the Belgian boating men, to 
 the notion that I must be an athlete myself. 
 
 But the gymnast is not my favourite ; he has little or 
 no tincture of the artist in his composition; his soul is 15 
 small and pedestrian, for the most part, since his profes- 
 sion makes no call upon it, and does not accustom him to 
 high ideas. But if a man is only so much of an actor 
 that he can stumble through a farce, he is made free of a 
 new order of thoughts. He has something else to think 20 
 about beside the money-box. 1 Ic has a jiride of his own, 
 and, what is of far more importance, he has an aim be- 
 fore him that he can never (juitc attain. He has gone 
 upon a pilgrimage that will last him his life long, because 
 there is no end to it short of per''cction. He will better 25 
 upon himself a little day by day ; or even if he has given 
 up the attcm[)t, he will always remember that once upon 
 a time he had conceived this high ideal, that once upon 
 a time he had fallen in love with a star. " 'Tis better to
 
 128 Inland Voyage 
 
 have loved and lost." Although the moon should have 
 nothing to say to Endymion, although he should settle 
 down with Audrey and feed pigs, do you not think he 
 would move with a better grace, and cherish higher 
 
 5 thoughts to the end? The louts he meets at church 
 never had a fancy above Audrey's snood ; but there is a 
 reminiscence in Endymion's heart that, like a spice, keeps 
 it fresh and haughty. 
 
 To be even one of the outskirters of art, leaves a fine 
 
 lo stamp on a man's countenance. I remember once dining 
 with a party in the inn at Chateau Landon. Most of 
 them were unmistakable bagmen ; others well-to-do peas- 
 antry ; but there was one young fellow in a blouse, whose 
 face stood out from among the rest surprisingly. It 
 
 1 5 looked more finished; more of the spirit looked out 
 through it ; it had a living, expressive air, and you could 
 see that his eyes took things in. My companion and 
 I wondered greatly who and what he could be. It was 
 fair time in Chateau Landon, and when we went along 
 
 20 to the booths, we had our question answered ; for there 
 was our friend busily fiddling for the peasants to caper 
 to. He was a wandering violinist. 
 
 A troop of strollers once came to the inn where I was 
 staying, in the department of Seine et Marne. There 
 
 25 was a father and mother; two daughters, brazen, blowsy 
 huzzies, who sang and acted, without an idea of how to 
 set about either ; and a dark young man, like a tutor, a 
 recalcitrant house-painter, who sang and acted not amiss. 
 The mother was the genius of the party, so far as genius
 
 Precy and the Marionettes 129 
 
 can be spoken of with regard to such a pack of incompe- 
 tent humbugs ; and her husband could not find words to 
 express his admiration for her comic countryman. " You 
 should see my old woman," said he, and nodded his 
 beery countenance. One night, they performed in the 5 
 stable-yard, with flaring lamps : a wretched exhibition, 
 coldly looked upon by a village audience. Next night, 
 as soon as the lamps were lighted, there came a plump of 
 rain, and they had to sweep away their baggage as fast as 
 possible, and make off to the barn where they harboured, 10 
 cold, wet, and supperless. In the morning, a dear friend 
 of mine, who has as warm a heart for strollers as I have 
 myself, made a little collection, and sent it by my hands 
 to comfort them for their disappointment. I gave it to 
 the father; he thanked me cordially, and wc drank a cup 15 
 together in the kitchen, talking of roads, and audiences, 
 and hard times. 
 
 When I was going, up got my old stroller, and off with 
 his hat. " T am afraid," said he, " that Monsieur will 
 think me altogether a beggar; but 1 have another 20 
 demand to make upon him." I began to hate him on 
 the spot. " We play again to-night," he went on. " Of 
 course, I shall refuse to accept any more money from 
 Monsieur and his friends, who have l)ccn already so 
 liberal. Rut our programme of to-night is something as 
 truly creditable ; and I cling to the idea that Monsieur 
 will honour us with his jirescnrc." And then, with a 
 shrug and a smile : " Monsieur tmderstands — the vanity 
 of an artist ! " Save the mark ! The vanity of an artist !
 
 I JO Inland Voyage 
 
 That is the kind of thing that reconciles me to life : a 
 ragged, tippling, incompetent old rogue, with the manners 
 of a gentleman, and the vanity of an artist, to keep up 
 his self-respect ! 
 
 5 But the man after my own heart is M. de Vauversin. 
 It is nearly two years since I saw him first, and indeed I 
 hope I may see him often again. Here is his first pro- 
 gramme, as I found it on the breakfast table, and have 
 kept it ever since as a rehc of bright days : — 
 
 lo " Mesdames et Messieurs, 
 
 " Mademoiselle Ferrario et M. de Vauversin 
 auront Vhonneur de chanter ce soir les morceaux sui- 
 vants. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Ferrario chantera — Mignon — Oiseaux 
 
 1 5 Legers — France — Des Fran^ais dorment la — Le chateau 
 bleu — Oil voulez-vous alter ? 
 
 " M. de Vauversin — Madame Fontaine et M. Robinet 
 — Les plongeurs a cheval — Le Marl mecontent — Tais- 
 toi, gamin -r- Mon voisin V original — Heureux comme ga 
 
 20 — Comme on est trompe." . 
 
 They made a stage at one end of the salle-d-manger} 
 And what a sight it was to see M. de Vauversin, with a 
 cigarette in his mouth, twanging a guitar, and following 
 Mademoiselle Ferrario's eyes with the obedient, kindly 
 25 look of a dog ! The entertainment wound up with a 
 tombola, or auction of lottery tickets : an admirable 
 amusement, with all the excitement of gambling, and no 
 
 ^ Dining-room.
 
 Precy and the Marionettes 131 
 
 hope of gain to make you ashamed of your eagerness ; 
 for there, all is loss ; you make haste to be out of pocket ; 
 it is a competition who shall lose most money for the 
 benefit of M. de Vauversin and Mademoiselle Ferrario. / 
 
 M. de Vauversin is a small man, with a great head of S 
 black hair, a vivacious and engaging air, and a smile that 
 would be delightful if he had better teeth. He was once 
 an actor in the Chdiclet ; but he contracted a nervous 
 affection from the heat and glare of the footlights, which 
 unfitted him for the stage. At this crisis Mademoiselle 10 
 Ferrario, otherwise Mademoiselle Rita of the Alcazar, 
 agreed to share his wandering fortunes. " I could never 
 forget ihe generosity of that lady," said he. He wears 
 trousers so tight that it has long been a problem to all 
 who knew him how he manages to get in and out of 15 
 them. He sketches a little in water-colours ; he writes 
 verses ; he is the most patient of fishermen, and spent 
 long days at the bottom of the inn-garden fruitlessly dab- 
 bling a line in the clear river. 
 
 You should hear him recounting his experiences over a 20 
 bottle of wine ; such a pleasant vein of talk as he has, with 
 a rearly smile at his own mishaps, and every now and then 
 a sudden gravity, like a man who should hear tiie surf 
 roar while he was telling the perils of the deep. For it 
 was no longer ago than last night, perhaps, that the re- 25 
 ceiptsonly amounted to a franc and a half, to cover three 
 francs of railway fare and two of board and lodging, 'ihe 
 Maire,' a man worth a million of money, sat in the front 
 
 * Mayor.
 
 132 Inland Voyage 
 
 seat, repeatedly applauding Mdlle. Ferrario, and yet gave 
 no more than three soi/s the whole evening. Local au- 
 thorities look with such an evil eye upon the strolling artist. 
 Alas ! I know it well, who have been myself taken for one, 
 
 5 and pitilessly incarcerated on the strength of the misap- 
 prehension. Once, M. de Vauversin visited a commis- 
 sary of police for permission to sing. The commissary, 
 who was smoking at his ease, politely doffed his hat upon 
 the singer's entrance. " Mr. Commissary," he began, '' I 
 
 10 am an artist." And on went the commissary's hat again. 
 No courtesy for the companions of Apollo ! " They are 
 as degraded as that," said M. de Vauversin, with a sweep 
 of his cigarette. 
 
 But what pleased me most was one outbreak of his, 
 
 15 when we had been talking all the evening of the rubs, indig- 
 nities, and pinchings of his wandering life. Someone said 
 it would be better to have a million of money down, and 
 Mdlle. Ferrario admitted that she would prefer that might- 
 ily. "Eh Men, mot 71011; — not I," cried de Vauversin, 
 
 20 striking the table with his hand. " If anyone is a failure 
 in the world, is it not I ? I had an art, in which I have 
 done things well — as well as some — better perhaps than 
 others ; and now it is closed against me. I must go about 
 the country gathering coppers and singing nonsense. Do 
 
 25 you think I regret my life? Do you think I would rather 
 be a fat burgess, like a calf ? Not I ! I have had mo- 
 ments when I have been applauded on the boards : I think 
 nothing of that ; but I have known in my own mind some- 
 times, when I had not a clap from the whole house, that I
 
 Precy and the Marionettes 133 
 
 had found a true intonation, or an exact and speaking 
 gesture ; and then, messieurs, I have known what pleasure 
 was, what it was to do a thing well, what it was to be an 
 artist. And to know what art is, is to have an interest 
 for ever, such as no burgess can find in his petty concerns. 5 
 Tenez, messieurs, je vats votis le dire — it is like a reli- 
 gion." 
 
 Such, making some allowance for the tricks of memory 
 and the inaccuracies of translation, was the profession of 
 faith of M. de Vauversin. I have given him his own 10 
 name, lest any other wanderer should come across him, 
 with his guitar and cigarette, and Mademoiselle Ferrario ! 
 for should not all the world delight to honour this un- 
 fortunate and loyal follower of the Muses? May Apollo 
 send him rimes hitherto undreamed of; may the river be 15 
 no longer scanty of her silver fishes to his lure ; may the 
 cold not pinch him on long winter rides nor the village 
 jack-in-office affront him with unseemly manners ; and 
 may he never miss Mademoiselle Ferrario from his side, 
 to follow with his dutiful eyes and accompany on the 20 
 guitar ! 
 
 The marionettes made a very dismal entertainment. 
 They performed a piece called Pyramus and Thisbc, in 
 five mortal acts, and all written in Alexandrines fully as 
 long as the performers. One marionette was the king ; 25 
 another the wicked counsellor ; a third, credited with 
 exceptional beauty, represented Thisbe ; and then there 
 were guards, and obdurate fathers, and walking gentlemen. 
 Nothing particular took place during the two or three acts
 
 134 Inland Voyage 
 
 that I sat out ; but you will be pleased to learn that the 
 unities were properly respected, and the whole piece, with 
 one exception, moved in harmony with classical rules. 
 That exception was the comic countryman, a lean mari- 
 5 onette in wooden shoes, who spoke in prose and in a broad 
 patois much appreciated by the audience. He took un- 
 constitutional liberties with the person of his sovereign ; 
 kicked his fellow marionettes in the mouth with his wooden 
 shoes, and whenever none of the versifying suitors were 
 
 10 about, made love to Thisbe on his own account in comic 
 prose. 
 
 This fellow's evolutions, and the little prologue, in 
 which the showman made a humorous eulogium of his 
 troop, praising their indifference to applause and hisses, 
 
 IS and their single devotion to their art, were the only cir- 
 cumstances in the whole affair that you could fancy 
 would so much as raise a smile. But the villagers of 
 Pr^cy seemed delighted. Indeed, so long as a thing is 
 an exhibition, and you pay to see it, it is nearly certain 
 
 20 to amuse. If we were charged so much a head for sun- 
 sets, or if God sent round a drum before the hawthorns 
 came in flower, what a work should we not make about 
 their beauty ! But these things, like good companions, 
 stupid people early cease to observe : and the Abstract 
 
 as Bagman tittups past in his spring gig, and is positively 
 not aware of the flowers along the lane, or the scenery 
 of the weather overhead.
 
 Back to the World 135 
 
 BACK TO THE WORLD 
 
 Of the next two days' sail little remains in my mind, 
 and nothing whatever in my note-book. The river 
 streamed on steadily through pleasant riverside land- 
 scapes. Washerwomen in blue dresses, fishers in blue 
 blouses, diversified the green banks; and the relation of 5 
 the two colours was like that of the flower and the leaf in 
 the forget-me-not. A symphony in forget-me-not ; I 
 think Th^ophile Gautier might thus have characterized 
 that two days' panorama. The sky was blue and cloud- 
 less; and the sliding surface of the river held up, in 10 
 smooth places, a mirror to the heaven and the shores. 
 The washerwomen hailed us laughingly ; and the noise 
 of trees and water made an accompaniment to our doz- 
 ing thoughts, as we fleeted down the stream. 
 
 The great volume, the indefatigable purpose of the' 5 
 river, held the mind in chain. It seemed now so sure 
 of its end, so strong and easy in its gait, like a grown, 
 man full of determination. The surf was roaring for it ■ 
 on the sands of Havre. 
 
 I''or my own jiart, slip])ing along this moving thorough- 20 
 fare in my fiddle-case of a canoe, I also was beginning to 
 grow aweary for my ocean. To the civilized man there 
 must come, sooner or later, a desire for civilization. I 
 was weary of dip])ing the patldlc ; I was weary of living 
 on the skirts of life; I wished to be in the thick of it 25 
 once more ; I wished to get to work ; I wished to meet
 
 136 Inland Voyage 
 
 people who understood my own speech, and could meet 
 with me on equal terms, as a man, and no longer as a 
 curiosity. 
 
 And so a letter at Pontoise decided us, and we drew 
 5 up our keels for the last time out of that river of Oise 
 that had faithfully piloted them, through rain and sun- 
 shine, for so long. For so many miles had this fleet and 
 footless beast of burthen charioted our fortunes, that we 
 turned our back upon it with a sense of separation. We 
 
 10 had made a long detour out of the world, but now we 
 were back in the familiar places, where life itself makes 
 all the running, and we are carried to meet adventure 
 without a stroke of the paddle. Now we were to return, 
 like the voyager in the play, and see what rearrangements 
 
 IS fortune had perfected the while in our surroundings; 
 what surprises stood ready made for us at home ; and 
 whither and how far the world had voyaged in our 
 absence. You may paddle all daylong; but it is when 
 you come back at nightfall, and look in at the familiar 
 
 20 room, that you find Love or Death awaiting you beside 
 the stove ; and the most beautiful adventures are not 
 those we go to seek.
 
 TRrW'KLS WITH A DONKEY 
 IX 'rill- CI'VRNNES
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 Dedication 
 
 Map 
 
 Velay 
 
 The Donkey, the Pack, and the Packsaddle 
 The Green Donkey-driver 
 I have a Goad . 
 
 Upper Gevaudan 
 
 A Camp in the Dark 
 Cheylard and Luc 
 
 Ol'r Lady of the Snows 
 Father ApoUinaris . 
 The Monks 
 The Boarders . 
 
 Upper Gevaudan {Continued^) 
 
 Across the Goulet 
 
 A Night among the Pines 
 The Country ok the Ca.nhsaku^ 
 
 Across the Lozere . 
 
 Pont (]e Montvert 
 
 In the Valley of the Tarn 
 
 Florae .... 
 
 In the Valley of the Mimente 
 
 The Heart of the Country 
 
 The Last Day . 
 
 Farewell, Modestine 
 
 Notes 
 
 ii 
 
 End of V 
 
 3 
 
 ID 
 20 
 
 28 
 40 
 
 46 
 
 60 
 68 
 
 7S 
 
 84 
 
 92 
 
 103 
 
 106 
 
 III 
 
 120 
 
 126 
 
 blume
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 My dear Sidney Colvin, 
 
 The journey wliich this little book is to describe was very 
 agreeable and fortunate for me. After an uncouth beginning, 
 I had the best of luck to the end. But we are all travellers 
 in what John Bunyan calls the wilderness of this world — all, 
 too, travellers with a donkey ; and the best that we find in 
 our travels is an honest friend. He is a fortunate voyager 
 who finds many. We travel, indeed, to find them. They 
 are the end and the reward of life. They keep us worthy 
 of ourselves ; and when we are alone, we are only nearer to 
 the absent. 
 
 Every book i.s, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the 
 friends of him who writes it. They alone take his meaning; 
 they find jjrivate messages, assurances of love, and expres- 
 sions of gratitude dropped for them in every corner. The 
 public is but a generous patron who defrays the postage. 
 Yet, though the letter is directed to all, wc have an old and 
 kindly custom of addressing it on the outside to one. Of 
 what shall a man be proud, if he is not proud of his friends? 
 And so, my dear Sidney Colvin, it is with pride that I sign 
 
 myself affectionately yours, 
 
 K. L. S.
 
 Map to illustrate 
 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 liV 
 Kobert Louis Stcveiiion 
 
 Marseille? 
 
 GULF 
 
 O F 
 
 LYONS
 
 VELAY 
 
 ' Many are the mighty things, 
 
 and nought is more mighty 
 
 thatt wan. . . . //e masters 
 
 by his dez'ices the tenant of 
 
 the fields.^ — Sophocles. 
 ' Who hath loosed the bands of 
 
 the wild ass ? ' — Job. 
 
 THE IXJNKKY, THE PACK, AM) THE 
 i'ACKSADDLE 
 
 In a little place called the Le Monastier, in a pleasant 
 highland valley fifteen miles from Ee Puy, I spent about 
 a month of fine days. Monastier is notable for the mak- 
 ing of lace, for drunkenness, for freedom of language, and 
 for unparalleled political dissension. There are adherents 5 
 of each of the four French parties — Legitimists, ( )rleanists, 
 Imperialists, and Republicans — in this little moun- 
 tain town ; and they all h.ite, loathe, decry, and calum- 
 niate each other. Ivxcept for business purposes, or to 
 give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid lo 
 aside even the civility of speech. ' Tis a mere mountain 
 Poland. In the midst of this Habylon I found myself a 
 rallying-point ; every one was anxious to be kind and 
 
 3
 
 4 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 helpful to the stranger. This was not merely from the 
 natural hospitality of mountain people, nor even from the 
 surprise with which I was regarded as a man living of his 
 own free will in Le Monastier, when he might just as well 
 5 have lived anywhere else in this big world ; it arose a good 
 deal from my projected excursion southward through the 
 C^vennes. A traveller of my sort was a thing hitherto 
 unheard of in that district. I was looked upon with con- 
 tempt, like a man who should project a journey to the 
 
 10 moon, but yet with a respectful interest, like one setting 
 forth for the inclement Pole. All were ready to help in 
 my preparations ; a crowd of sympathizers supported me 
 at the critical moment of a bargain ; not a step was taken 
 but was heralded by glasses round and celebrated by a 
 
 IS dinner or a breakfast. 
 
 It was already hard upon October before I was ready 
 to set forth, and at the high altitudes over which my road 
 lay there was no Indian summer to be looked for. I was 
 determined, if not to camp out, at least to have the means 
 
 2o of camping out in my possession ; for there is nothing 
 more harassing to an easy mind than the necessity of 
 reaching shelter by dusk, and the hospitality of a village 
 inn is not always to be reckoned sure by those who trudge 
 on foot. A tent, above all for a solitary traveller, is 
 
 25 troublesome to pitch and troublesome to strike again ; and 
 even on the march it forms a conspicuous feature in your 
 baggage. A sleeping-sack, on the other hand, is always 
 ready — you have only to get into it ; it serves a double 
 purpose — a bed by night, a portmanteau by day ; and it
 
 The Donkey, Pack, and Packsaddle 5 
 
 does not advertise your intention of camping out to every 
 curious passer-by. This is a huge point. If the camp is 
 not secret, it is but a troubled resting-place ; you become 
 a public character ; the convivial rustic visits your bedside 
 after an early supper; and you must sleep with one eye 5 
 open, and be up before the day. I decided on a sleeping- 
 sack ; and after repealed visits to Le Puy, and a deal of 
 high living for myself and my advisers, a sleeping-sack 
 was designed, constructed, and triumphally brought home. 
 
 This child of my invention was nearly six feet square, 10 
 exclusive of two triangular flaps to serve as a pillow by 
 night and as the top and bottom of the sack by day. I 
 call it ' the sack,' but it was never a sack by more than 
 courtesy : only a sort of lung roll or sausage, green water- 
 proof cart-cloth without and blue sheep's fur within. It 15 
 was commodious as a valise, warm and dry for a bed. 
 There was luxurious turning room for one ; and at a pinch 
 the thing might serve for two. I could bury myself in it 
 up to the neck ; for my head 1 trusted to a fur cap, with 
 a hood to fcJld down over my ears, and a band to pass 20 
 under my nose like a respirator ; and in case of heavy 
 rain I proposed to make myself a little tent, or tentlct, 
 with my waterproof coat, three stones, and a bent branch. 
 
 It will readily l)e conceived that I could not carry this 
 huge package on my own, merely human, shoulders. It 25 
 remained to choose a beast of burden. N(nv, a horse is 
 a fine lady among animals, flighty, timid, delicate in eating, 
 of tender health ; he is too valuable and too restive to 
 be left alone, so that you are chained to your brute as to a
 
 6 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 fellow galley-slave ; a dangerous road puts him out of his 
 wits ; in short, he's an uncertain and exacting ally, and 
 adds thirty-fold to the troubles of the voyager. What I 
 required was something cheap and small and hardy, and 
 
 5 of a stolid and peaceful temper; and all these requisites 
 pointed to a donkey. 
 
 There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of rather unsound 
 intellect according to some, much followed by street-boys, 
 and known to fame as Father Adam. Father Adam had 
 
 10 a cart, and to draw the cart a diminutive she-ass, not much 
 bigger than a dog, the colour of a mouse, with a kindly eye 
 and a determined underjaw. There was something neat 
 and high-bred, a quakerish elegance, about the rogue that 
 hit my fancy on the spot. Our first interview was in 
 
 15 Monastier marlcet-place. To prove her good temper, 
 one child after another was set upon her back to ride, 
 and one after another went head over heels into the air ; 
 until a want of confidence began to reign in youthful 
 bosoms, and the experiment was discontinued from a 
 
 20 dearth of subjects. I was already backed by a deputa- 
 tion of my friends ; but as if this were not enough, all the 
 buyers and sellers came round and helped me in the bar- 
 gain ; and the ass and I and Father Adam were the cen- 
 tre of a hubbub for near half an hour. At length she 
 
 25 passed into my service for the consideration of sixty-five 
 francs and a glass of brandy. The sack had already cost 
 eighty francs and two glasses of beer ; so that Modestine, 
 as I instantly baptized her, was upon all accounts the 
 cheaper article. Indeed, that was as it should be ; for
 
 The Donkey, Pack, and Packsaddle 7 
 
 she was only an appurtenance of my mattress, or self- 
 acting bedstead on four castors. 
 
 I had a last interview with Father Adam in a billiard- 
 room at the witching hour of dawn, when I administered 
 the brandy. He professed himself greatly touched by s 
 the separation, ami declared he had often bought white 
 bread for the donkey when he had been content with black 
 bread for himself ; but this, according to the best authori- 
 ties, must have been a flight of fancy. He had a name 
 in the village for brutally misusing the ass ; yet it is cer- 10 
 tain that he shed a tear, and the tear made a clean mark 
 down one cheek. 
 
 By the advice of a fallacious local saddler, a leather pad 
 was made for me with rings to fasten on my bundle ; and 
 I thoughtfully completed my kit and arranged my toilet. 15 
 By way of armoury and utensils, I took a revolver, a little 
 spirit-lamp and pan, a lantern and some halfpenny candles, 
 a jack-knife, and a large leather flask. The main cargo 
 consisted of two entire changes of warm clothing — be- 
 sides my travelling wear of country velveteen, pilot-coat, 20 
 and knitted spencer — some books, and my railway rug, 
 which, being also in the form of a bag, made me a double 
 castle for roUl nights. The permanent larder was repre- 
 sented by cakes f>r chocolate and tins of Bologna sausage. 
 .'Ml this, except what I carried about my person, was easily 25 
 stowed into the sheepskin bag ; and by good fortuni' 1 
 threw in my empty knapsack, rather for convenience of 
 carriage than from any thought that I should want it on 
 my journey. I'or more- immediate needs, 1 took a leg of
 
 8 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 cold mutton, a bottle of Beaujolais, an enr/pty bottle to 
 carr)' milk, an egg-beater, and a considerable quantity of 
 black bread and white, like Father Adam, for myself and 
 donkey, only in my scheme of things the destinations were 
 s reversed. 
 
 Monastrians, of all shades of thought in polidcs, had 
 agreed in threatening me with many ludicrous misadven- 
 tures, and with sudden death in many surprising forms. 
 Cold, wolves, robbers, above all the nocturnal pracdcal 
 
 lo joker, were daily and eloquently forced on my attention. 
 Yet in these vaticinations,' the true, patent danger was 
 left out. Like Christian, it was from my pack I suffered 
 by the way. Before telling my own mishaps, let me, in 
 two words, relate the lesson of my experience. If the 
 
 IS pack is well strapped at the ends, and hung at full length 
 — not doubled, for your life — across the packsaddle, the 
 traveller is safe. The saddle will certainly not fit, such is 
 the imperfection of our transitory life; it will assuredly 
 topple and tend to overset ; but there are stones on every 
 
 20 roadside, and a man soon learns the art of correcting any 
 tendency to overbalance with a well-adjusted stone. 
 
 On the day of my departure I was up a little after five ; 
 by six, we began to load the donkey ; and ten minutes 
 after, my hopes were in the dust. The pad would not stay 
 
 25 on Modestine's back for half a moment. I returned it to 
 its maker, with whom I had so contumelious a passage 
 that the street outside was crowded from wall to wall 
 with gossips looking on and listening. The pad changed 
 
 1 Predictions.
 
 The Donkey, Pack, and Packsaddle 9 
 
 hands with much vivacity ; perhaps it would be more 
 descriptive to say that we threw it at each other's heads ; 
 and, at any rate, we were very warm and unfriendly, and 
 spoke with a deal of freedom. 
 
 I had a common donkey packsaddle — a barde, ass 
 they call it — fitted upon Modestine ; and once more 
 loaded her with my effects. The doubled sack, my pilot- 
 coat (for it was warm, and I was to walk in my waist- 
 coat), a great bar of black bread, and an open basket 
 containing the white bread, the mutton, and the bottles, 10 
 were all corded together in a very elaborate system of 
 knots, and I looked on the result with fatuous content. 
 In such a monstrous deck-cargo, all poised above the don- 
 key's shoulders, with nothing below to balance, on a 
 brand-new packsaddle that had not yet been worn to 15 
 fit the animal, and fastened with brand-new girths that 
 might be expected to stretch and 'slacken by the way, 
 even a very careless traveller should have seen disaster 
 brewing. That elaborate system of knots, again, was 
 the work of too many sympathizers to be very artfully 20 
 designed. It is true they tightened the cords with a 
 will ; as many as three at a time would have a foot 
 against Modestine's quarters, and be hauling with clenched 
 teeth ; but I learned afterwards that one thoughtful per- 
 son, without any exercise of force, can make a more solid 25 
 job than half a dozen heated and enthusiastic grooms. 
 I was then but a novice ; even after the misadventure 
 of the pad nothing could disturb my security, and 1 went 
 forth from the stable-door as an ox goeth to the slaughter.
 
 lO Travels with a Donkey 
 
 THE GREEN DONKEY-DRIVER 
 
 The bell of Monastier was just striking nine as I got 
 quit of these preliminary troubles and descended the hill 
 through the common. As long as I was within sight of 
 the windows, a secret shame and the fear of some laugh- 
 5 able defeat withheld me from tampering with Modestine. 
 She tripped along upon her four small hoofs with a sober 
 daintiness of gait ; from time to time she shook her ears 
 or her tail ; and she looked so small under the bundle 
 that my mind misgave me. We got across the ford with- 
 
 lo out difficulty — there was no doubt about the matter, she 
 was docility itself — and once on the other bank, where 
 the road begins to mount through pine-woods, I took in 
 my right hand the unhallowed staff, and with a quaking 
 spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine brisked up her 
 
 15 pace for perhaps three steps, and then relapsed into her 
 former minuet. Another application had the same effect, 
 and so with the third. I am worthy the name of an Eng- 
 lishman, and it goes against my conscience to lay my hand 
 rudely on a female. I desisted, and looked her all over 
 
 20 from head to foot ; the poor brute's knees were trembling 
 and her breathing was distressed ; it was plain that she 
 could go no faster on a hill. God forbid, thought I, that 
 I should brutalize this innocent creature ; let her go at 
 her own pace, and let me patiently follow. 
 
 25 What that pace was, there is no word mean enough to 
 describe ; it was something as much slower than a walk
 
 The Green Donkey-driver 1 1 
 
 as a walk is slower than a run ; it kept me hanging on 
 each foot for an incredible length of time ; in five minutes 
 it exhausted the spirit and set up a fever in all the muscles 
 of the leg. And yet I had to keep close at hand and 
 measure my advance exactly upon hers ; for if I dropped 5 
 a few yards into the rear, or went on a few yards ahead, 
 Modestine came instantly to a halt and began to browse. 
 The thought that this was to last from here to Alais nearly 
 broke my heart. Of all conceivable journeys, this prom- 
 ised to be the most tedious. I tried to tell myself it was 10 
 a lovely day ; I tried to charm my foreboding spirit with 
 tobacco ; but I had a vision ever present to me of the 
 long, long roads, up hill and down dale, and a pair of 
 figures ever infinitesimally moving, foot by foot, a yard to 
 the minute, and, like things enchanted in a nightmare, 15 
 approaching no nearer to the goal. 
 
 In the meantime there came up bcliind us a tall peas- 
 ant, perhaps forty years of age, of an ironical snuffy coun- 
 tenance, and arrayed in the green tail-coat of the country. 
 He overtook us hand over hand, and stopped to consider 20 
 our pitiful advance. 
 
 " Your donkey," says he, " is very old ? " 
 
 I told him I believed not. 
 
 Then, he sii|)poscd, we had conic far. 
 
 I told him wc had but newly left Monasticr. 25 
 
 " Etvous manhez commc (a f " cried-hc ; and, throwing 
 back his head, he laughed long and heartily. I wntrhcd 
 him, half prepared to feel offended, until he had satisfied 
 his mirth ; and then, " You must have no pity on these
 
 12 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 animals," said he ; and, plucking a switch out of a thicket, 
 he began to lace Modestine about the sternworks, uttering 
 a cry. The rogue pricked up her ears and broke into a 
 good round pace, which she kept up without flagging, and 
 5 without exhibiting the least symptom of distress, as long 
 as the peasant kept beside us. Her former panting and 
 shaking had been, I regret to say, a piece of comedy. 
 y My dens ex tnachind, before he left me, supplied some 
 excellent, if inhumane, advice ; presented me with the 
 
 lo switch, which he declared she would feel more tenderly 
 than my cane ; and finally taught me the true cry or 
 masonic word of donkey-drivers, " Proot ! " All the time 
 he regarded me with a comical incredulous air, which was 
 embarrassing to confront ; and smiled over my donkey- 
 
 is driving, as T might have smiled over his orthography, or 
 his green tail-coat. But it was not my turn for the 
 moment. 
 
 I was proud of my new lore, and thought I had learned 
 the art to perfection. And certainly Modestine did won- 
 
 20 ders for the rest of the forenoon, and I had a breathing 
 space to look about me. It was Sabbath ; the mountain 
 fields were all vacant in the sunshine ; and as we came 
 down through SL Martin de Frugeres, the church was 
 crowded to the door, there were people kneeling without 
 
 25 upon the steps, and the sound of the priest's chanting 
 came forth out of. the dim interior. It gave me a home 
 feeling on the spot ; for I am a countryman of the Sab- 
 bath, so to speak, and all Sabbath observances, like a 
 Scotch accent, strike in me mixed feelings, grateful and
 
 The Green Donkey-driver 13 
 
 the reverse. It is only a traveller, hurrying by like a 
 person from another planet, who can rightly enjoy the 
 peace and beauty of the great ascetic feast. The sight 
 of the resting country does his spirit good. There is 
 something better than music in the wide unusual silence ; 5 
 and it disposes him to amiable thoughts, like the sound 
 of a little river or the warmth of sunlight. 
 
 In this pleasant humour I came down the hill to where 
 Goudet stands in a green end of a valley, with Chateau 
 Beaufort opposite upon a rocky steep, and the stream, ic 
 as clear as crystal, lying in a deep pool between them. 
 Above and below, you may hear it wimpling over th^ 
 stones, an amiable stripling of a river, which it seems 
 absurd to call the Loire. On all sides, Goudet is shut in 
 by mountains; rocky foot-paths, practicable at best for 15 
 donkeys, join it to the outer world of France ; and the 
 men and women drink and swear, in their green corner, 
 or look up at the snow-clad peaks in winter from the 
 threshold of their homes, in an isolation, you would think, 
 like that of Homer's Cyclops. I'.ut it is not so ; the post- 20 
 man reaches Goudet with the letter-bag; the aspiring 
 ycjuth of (iouflet are within a day's walk of the railway at 
 J^ Puy ; and here in the inn you may find an engraved 
 portrait of the host's nephew, Rc-gis Senac, " Professor of 
 Fencing and Champion of the two Americas," a distinc- 25 
 tion gained by him, along with the sum of five hundred 
 dollars, at Tammany Hall, New York, on the lotli .April 
 1 876. 
 
 I hurried over my midday meal, and was early forth
 
 14 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 again. But, alas, as we climbed the interminable hill 
 upon the other side, " Proot ! " seemed to have lost its 
 virtue. I prooted like a lion, I prooted mellifluously like a 
 sucking-dove ; but Modestine would be neither softened 
 
 5 nor intimidated. She held doggedly to her pace ; noth- 
 ing but a blow would move her, and that only for a sec- 
 ond. I must follow at her heels, incessantly belabouring. 
 A moment's pause in this ignoble toil, and she relapsed 
 into her own private gait. I think I never heard of any one 
 
 10 in as mean a situation. I must reach the lake of Bouchet, 
 where I meant to camp, before sundown, and, to have 
 even a hope of this, I must instantly maltreat this uncom- 
 plaining animal. The sound of my own blows sickened 
 me. Once, when I looked at her, she had a faint resem- 
 
 15 blance to a lady of my acquaintance who formally loaded 
 me with kindness ; and this increased my horror of my 
 cruelty. 
 
 To make matters worse, we encountered another don- 
 key, ranging at will upon the roadside ; and this donkey 
 
 20 chanced to be a gentleman. He and Modestine met 
 nickering for joy, and I had to separate the pair and beat 
 down their young romance with a renewed and feverish 
 bastinado. If the other donkey had had the heart of a 
 male under his hide, he would have fallen upon me tooth 
 
 25 and hoof; and this was a kind of consolation — he was 
 plainly unworthy of Modestine's affection. But the inci- 
 dent saddened me, as did everything that spoke of my 
 donkey's sex. 
 
 It was blazing hot up the valley, windless, with vehe-
 
 The Green Donkey-driver i 5 
 
 ment sun upon my shoulders ; and I had to labour so 
 consistently with my stick that the sweat ran into my eyes. 
 Every five minutes, too, the pack, the basket, and the 
 pilot-coat would take an ugly slew to one side or the 
 other ; and I had to stop Modestine, just when I had got s 
 her to a tolerable pace of about two miles an hour, to tug, 
 push, shoulder, and readjust the load. And at last, in the 
 village of Ussel, saddle and all, the whole hypothec turned 
 round and grovelled in the dust below the donkey's belly. 
 She, none better pleased, incontinently drew up and 10 
 seemed to smile ; and a party of one man, two women, 
 and two children came up, and, standing round me in a 
 half-circle, encouraged her by their example. 
 
 I had the devil's own trouble to get the thing righted ; 
 and the instant 1 had done so, without hesitation, it 15 
 toppled and fell down upon the other side. Judge if I 
 was hot ! And yet not a hand was offered to assist me. 
 The man, indeed, told me I ought to have a package of 
 a different shape. I suggested, if he knew nothing better 
 to the point in my predicament, he might hold his tongue. 20 
 .'\nd the good-natured dog agreed with me smilingly. It 
 was the most despicable fix. I must plainly content my- 
 self with the pack for Modestine, and take the following 
 items for my own share of the portage : a cane, a quart 
 flask, a pilot-jacket heavily weighted in the pockets, two 25 
 pounds of black bread, and an open basket full of meats 
 and bottles, I believe I may say I am not devoid of great- 
 ness of soul ; for I did not recoil from this infamous bur- 
 den. I disposed it, Heaven knows how, so as to be
 
 1 6 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 mildly portable, and then proceeded to steer Modestine 
 through the village. She tried, as was indeed her invari- 
 able habit, to enter every house and every court-yard in 
 the whole length ; and, encumbered as I was, without a 
 5 hand to help myself, no words can render an idea of my 
 difficulties. A priest, with six or seven others, was ex- 
 amining a church in process of repair, and he and his 
 acolytes laughed loudly as they saw my plight. I remem- 
 bered having laughed myself when I had seen good men 
 
 10 struggling with adversity in the person of a jackass, and 
 the recollection filled me with penitence. That was in 
 my old light days, before this trouble came upon me. 
 God knows at least that I shall never laugh again, thought 
 I. But O, what a cruel thing is a farce to those engaged 
 
 IS in it ! 
 
 A little out of the village, Modestine, filled with the 
 demon, set her heart upon a by-road, and positively re- 
 fused to leave it. I dropped all my bundles, and, I am 
 ashamed to say, struck the poor sinner twice across the 
 
 20 face. It was pitiful to see her lift up her head with sliut 
 eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came very near 
 crying ; but I did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely 
 down by the roadside to consider my situation under 
 the cheerful influence of tobacco and a nip of brandy. 
 
 25 Modestine, in the meanwhile, munched some black bread 
 with a contrite hypocritical air. It was plain that I must 
 make a sacrifice to the gods of shipwreck. I threw away 
 the empty bottle destined to carry milk ; I threw away 
 my own white bread, and, disdaining to act by general
 
 The Green Donkey-driver 17 
 
 average, kept the black bread for Modestine ; lastly, I 
 threw away the cold leg of mutton and the egg-whisk, al- 
 though this last was dear to my heart. Thus I found 
 room for everything in the basket, and even stowed the 
 boating-coat on the top. By means of an end of cord I s 
 slung it under one arm ; and although the cord cut my 
 shoulder, and the jacket hung almost to the ground, it 
 was with a heart greatly lightened that I set forth again. 
 
 I had now an arm free to thrash Modestine, and cruelly 
 I chastised her. If I were to reach the lakeside before 10 
 dark, she must bestir her little shanks to some tune. Al- 
 ready the sun had gone down into a windy-looking mist ; 
 and although there were still a few streaks of gold far off 
 to the east on the hills and the black fir-woods, all was 
 cold and grey about our onward path. An infinity of 15 
 little country by-roads led hither and thither among the 
 fields. It was the most pointless labyrinth. I could see 
 my destination overhead, or rather the peak that domi- 
 nates it ; but choose as I i)leased, the roads always ended 
 by turning away from it, and sneaking back towards the 20 
 valley, or northward along the margin of the hills. The 
 failing light, the waning colour, the naked, unhomely, 
 stony country through which I was travelling, threw me 
 into some flespondcnry. I promise you, the stick was 
 not idle ; I think every decent step that Modestine took 25 
 must have cost me at least two emphatic blows. There 
 was not another sound in the neighbourhood but lli.it of 
 my unwearying bastinado. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of my toils, the load once more 
 
 TRAVELS WMTl A UONKKV — 2
 
 1 8 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 bit the dust, and, as by enchantment, all the cords were 
 simultaneously loosened, and the road scattered with my 
 dear possessions. The packing was to begin again from 
 the beginning ; and as I had to invent a new and better 
 5 system, I do not doubt but I lost half an hour. It began 
 to be dusk in earnest as I reached a wilderness of turf 
 and stones. It had the air of being a road which should 
 lead everywhere at the same time ; and I was falling into 
 something not unlike despair when I saw two figures 
 
 lo stalking towards me over the stones. They walked one 
 behind the other like tramps, but their pace was remark- 
 able. The son led the way, a tall, ill-made, sombre, 
 Scotch-looking man ; the mother followed, all in her 
 Sunday's best, with an elegantly- embroidered ribbon to 
 
 15 her cap, and a new felt hat atop, and proffering, as she 
 strode along with kilted petticoats, a string of obscene 
 5*^' 'and blasphemous oaths. 
 
 I hailed the son and asked him my direction. He 
 pointed loosely west and northwest, muttered an inaudible 
 
 20 comment, and, without slacking his pace for an instant, 
 stalked on, as he was going, right athwart my path. The 
 mother followed without so much as raising her head. I 
 shouted and shouted after them, but they continued to 
 scale the hill-side, and turned a deaf ear to ray outcries. 
 
 25 At last, leaving Modestine by herself, I was constrained to 
 run after them, hailing the while. They stopped as I 
 drew near, the mother still cursing ; and I could see she 
 was a handsome, motherly, respectable-looking woman. 
 The son once more answered me roughly and inaudibly,
 
 The Green Donkey-driver 19 
 
 and was for setting out again. But this tii^ie I simply 
 collared the mother, who was nearest me, and, apologizing 
 for my violence, declared that I could not let them go 
 until they had put me on my road. They were neither 
 of them offended — rather mollified than otherwise ; told 5 
 me I had only to follow them ; and then the mother asked 
 me what I wanted by the lake at such an hour. I replied, 
 in the Scotch manner, by inquiring if she had far to go 
 herself. She told me, with another oath, that she had an 
 hour and a halfs road before her. And then, without 10 
 salutation, the pair strode forward again up the hill-side 
 in the gathering dusk. 
 
 I returned for Modestine, pushed her briskly forward 
 and, after a sharp ascent of twenty minutes, reached the 
 edge of a plateau. The view, looking back on my day's 15 
 journey, was both wild and sad. Mount Mc'zenc and the 
 peaks beyond St. Julien stood out in trenchant gloom 
 against a cold glitter in the east ; and the intervening field 
 of hills had fallen together into one broad wash of shadow, 
 except here and there the outline of a wooded sugar-loaf in 20 
 black, here and there a white irregular i)atch to rei)resent 
 a cultivated farm, and here and there a blot where the 
 Loire, the Gazeille, or the Laussonne wandered in a gorge. 
 
 Soon we were on a high-road, and suri)rise seized on 
 my mind as I beheld a village of some magnitude close at 25 
 hand ; for I had been told that the neighbourhood of the 
 lake was uninhabited except by trout. The road smoked 
 in the twilight with cliildren driving home cattle from the 
 fields ; and a pair of mounted stride-legged women, hat
 
 20 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 and cap and all, dashed past me at a hammering trot from 
 the canton where they had been to church and market. 
 I asked one of the children where I was. At Bouchet St. 
 Nicolas, he told me. Thither, about a mile south of my 
 5 destination, and on the other side of a respectable sum- 
 mit, had these confused roads and treacherous peasantry 
 conducted me. My shoulder was cut, so that it hurt 
 sharply ; my arm ached like toothache from perpetual 
 beating ; I gave up the lake and my design to camp, and 
 lo asked for the auberge} 
 
 X/ I HAVE A GOAD 
 
 The auberge of Bouchet St. Nicolas was among the 
 least pretentious I have ever visited ; but I saw many 
 more of the Uke upon my journey. Indeed, it was typical 
 
 15 of these French highlands. Imagine a cottage of two 
 stories, with a bench before the door ; the stable and 
 kitchen in a suite, so that Modestine and I could hear 
 each other dining ; furniture of the plainest, earthen 
 floors, a single bedchamber for travellers, and that without 
 
 20 any convenience but beds. In the kitchen cooking and 
 eating go forward side by side, and the family sleep at 
 night. Anyone who has a fancy to wash must do so in 
 public at the common table. The food is sometimes 
 spare ; hard fish and omelette have been my portion 
 
 25 more than once ; the wine is of the smallest, the brandy 
 abominable to man ; and the visit of a fat sow, grouting 
 
 lAn inn.
 
 I have a Goad 2i 
 
 under the table and rubbing against your legs, is no im- 
 possible accomi)animent to dinner. 
 
 But the people of the inn, in nine cases out often, show 
 themselves friendly and considerate. As soon as you 
 cross the doors you cease to be a stranger ; and although 5 
 these peasantry are rude and forbidding on the highway, 
 they show a tincture of kind breeding when you share 
 their hearth. At Bouchet, for instance, I uncorked my 
 bottle of Beaujolais, and asked the host to join me. He 
 would take but little. 10 
 
 " I am an amateur of such wine, do you see ? " he 
 said, "and I am capable of leaving you not enough." 
 
 In these hedge-inns the traveller is expected to eat 
 with his own knife; unless he ask, no other will be sup- 
 plied : with a glass, a whang of bread, and an iron fork, 15 
 the table is completely laid. My knife was cordially 
 admired by the landlord of Bouchet, and the spring filled 
 him with wonder. 
 
 " I should never have guessed that," he said. " I 
 would bet," he added, weighing it in his hand, " that this 20 
 cost you not less than five francs." 
 
 When I told him it had cost me twenty, iiis jaw 
 dropped. 
 
 He was a mild, handsome, sensible, friendly old man, 
 astonishingly ignorant. His wife, who was not so pleas- as 
 ant in her manners, knew how to read, although 1 <1() not 
 suppose she ever did so. She had a share of brains and 
 spoke with a cutting cm[)hasis, like one who ruled the 
 roast.
 
 22 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 " My man knows nothing," she said, with an angry 
 nod ; " he is Uke the beasts." 
 
 And the old gentleman signified acquiescence with his 
 head. There was no contempt on her part, and no 
 5 shame on his ; the facts were accepted loyally, and no 
 more about the matter. 
 
 I was tightly cross-examined about my journey ; and 
 the lady understood in a moment, and sketched out 
 what I should put into my book when I got home, 
 lo " Whether people harvest or not in such or such a place ; 
 if there were forests ; studies of manners ; what, for 
 example, I and the master of the house say to you ; the 
 beauties of Nature, and all that." And she interrogated 
 me with a look. 
 15 " It is just that," said I. 
 
 " You see," she added to her husband, " I understood 
 that." 
 
 They were both much interested by the story of my 
 misadventures. 
 20 " In the morning," said the husband, " I will make you 
 something better than your cane. Such a beast as that 
 feels nothing ; it is in the proverb — diir comme un dne ; 
 you might beat her insensible with a cudgel, and yet you 
 would arrive nowhere." 
 25 Something better ! I little knew what he was 
 offering. 
 
 The sleeping-room was furnished with two beds. I had 
 one ; and I will own I was a little abashed to find a 
 young man and his wife and child in the act of mounting
 
 I have a Goad 23 
 
 into the other. This was my first experience of the sort; 
 and if I am ahvays to feel equally silly and extraneous, I 
 pray God it be my last as well. I kept my eyes to my- 
 self, and know nothing of the woman except that she 
 had beautiful arms, and seemed no whit abashed by 5 
 my appearance. As a matter of fact, the situation was 
 more trying to me than to the pair. A pair keep each 
 other in countenance ; it is the single gentleman who has 
 to blush. But I could not help attributing my sentiments 
 to the husband, and sought to conciliate his tolerance 10 
 with a cup of brandy from my flask. He told me that 
 he was a cooper of Alais travelling to St. Etienne in 
 search of work, and that in his spare moments he followed 
 the fatal calling of a maker of matches. Me he readily 
 enough divined to be a brandy merchant. 15 
 
 I was up first in the morning (Monday, September 23d), 
 and hastened my toilet guiltily, so as to leave a clear 
 field for madam, the cooper's wife. I drank a bowl of 
 milk, and set off to explore the neighbourhood of Bouchet. 
 It was perishing cold, a grey, windy, wintry morning ; 20 
 misty clouds flew fast and low ; the wind jiiped over the 
 naked platform ; and the only speck of colour was away 
 behind Mount Miizenc and the eastern hills, where the 
 sky still wore the orange of the dawn. 
 
 It was five in the morning, and four thousand feet 25 
 above the sea ; and I had to bury my hands in my 
 pockets and trot. People were trooi)ing out to the la- 
 bours of the field by twos and threes, and all turned round 
 to stare upon the stranger. I had seen thcin coming
 
 24 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 back last night, I saw them going afield again ; and there 
 was the life of Bouchet in a nutshell. 
 
 When I came back to the inn for a bit of breakfast, 
 the landlady was in the kitchen combing out her daugh- 
 5 ter's hair ; and I made her my compliments upon its 
 beauty. 
 
 "O no," said the mother; "it is not so beautiful as it 
 ought to be. Look, it is too fine." 
 
 Thus does a wise peasantry console itself under adverse 
 lo physical circumstances, and, by a startling democratic pro- 
 cess, the defects of the majority decide the type of beauty. 
 
 "And where," said I, " is monsieur? " 
 
 " The master of the house is upstairs," she answered, 
 " making you a goad." 
 15 Blessed be the man who invented goads ! Blessed the 
 innkeeper of Bouchet St. Nicolas, who introduced me to 
 their use ! This plain wand, with an eighth of an inch 
 of pin, was indeed a sceptre when he put it in my hands. 
 Thenceforward Modestine was my slave. A prick, and she 
 20 passed the most inviting stable-door. A prick, and she 
 broke forth into a gallant little trotlet that devoured the 
 miles. It was not a remarkable speed, when all was said ; 
 and we took four hours to cover ten miles at the best of 
 it. But what a heavenly change since yesterday ! No 
 25 more wielding of the ugly cudgel ; no more flailing with 
 an aching arm ; no more broadsword exercise, but a dis- 
 creet and gentlemanly fence. And what although now 
 and then a drop of blood should appear on Modestine's 
 mouse-coloured wedge-like rump? I should have pre-
 
 I have a Goad 25 
 
 ferred it otherwise, indeed ; but yesterday's exploits had 
 purged my heart of all humanity. The perverse little 
 devil, since she would not be taken with kindness, must 
 even go with pricking. 
 
 It was bleak and bitter cold, and, except a cavalcade 5 
 of stride-legged ladies and a pair of post-runners, the 
 road was dead solitary all the way to Pradelles. I scarce 
 remember an incident but one. A handsome foal with 
 a bell about his neck came charging up to us upon a 
 stretch of common, sniffed the air martially as one about 10 
 to do great deeds, and, suddenly thinking otherwise in 
 his green young heart, put about and galloped off as he 
 had come, the bell tinkling in the wind. For a long 
 while afterwards I saw his noble attitude as he drew up, 
 and heard the note of his bell; and when I struck the 15 
 high-road, the song of the telegraph wires seemed to con- 
 tinue the same music. 
 
 Pradelles stands on a hill-side, high above the Allier, 
 surrounded by rich meadows. They were cutting after- 
 math on all sides, which gave the neighbourhood, this 20 
 gusty autumn morning, an untimely smell of hay. On 
 the opposite bank of the Ailicr the land kept mounting 
 for miles to the horizon : a tanned and sallow aulumn 
 landscape, with black blots of fir-wood and white roads 
 wandering through the hills. Over all this the clouds 25 
 shed a uniform and purplish shadow, sad and somewhat 
 menacing, exaggerating height and distance, and throw- 
 ing into still higher rc-lief tlic twisted ribbons of the liigh- 
 way. It was a cheerless prospect, but one stimulating to
 
 26 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 a traveller. For I was now upon the limit of Velay, and 
 all that I beheld lay in another country — wild G^vaudan, 
 mountainous, uncultivated, and but recently disforested 
 from terror of the wolves. 
 5 Wolves, alas, like bandits, seem to flee the traveller's ad- 
 vance ; and you may trudge through all our comfortable 
 Europe, and not meet with an adventure worth the name. 
 But here, if anywhere, a man was on the frontiers of hope. 
 For this was the land of the ever-memorable Beast, 
 
 lo the Napoleon Buonaparte of wolves. What a career was 
 his ! He lived ten months at free quarters in G^vaudan 
 and Vivarais; he ate women and children and " shepherd- 
 esses celebrated for their beauty " ; he pursued armed 
 horsemen ; he has been seen at broad noonday chasing a 
 
 15 post-chaise and outrider along the king's high-road, and 
 chaise and outrider fleeing before him at the gallop. He 
 was placarded like a political offender, and ten thousand 
 francs were offered for his head. And yet, when he was 
 shot and sent to Versailles, behold ! a common wolf, and 
 
 20 even small for that. " Though I could reach from pole 
 to pole," sang Alexander Pope ; the little corporal shook 
 Europe ; and if all wolves had been as this wolf, they 
 would have changed the history of man. M. Elie Ber- 
 thet has made him the hero of a novel, which I have read, 
 
 25 and do not wish to read again. 
 
 I hurried over my lunch, and was proof against the 
 landlady's desire that I should visit our Lady of Pradelles, 
 "who performed many miracles, although she was of 
 wood " ; and before three-quarters of an hour I was
 
 I have a Goad 27 
 
 goading Modestine down the steep descent that leads to 
 Langogne on the Allier. On both sides of the road, in 
 big dusty fields, farmers were preparing for next spring. 
 Every fifty yards a yoke of great-necked stolid oxen were 
 patiently haling at the plough. I saw one of these mild 5 
 formidable servants of the glebe, who took a sudden in- 
 terest in Modestine and me. The furrow down which he 
 was journeying lay at an angle to the road, and his head 
 was solidly fixed to the yoke like those of caryatides be- 
 low a ponderous cornice ; but he screwed round his big 10 
 honest eyes and followed us with a ruminating look, until 
 his master bade him turn the plough and proceed to re- 
 ascend the field. From all these furrowing ploughshares, 
 from the feet of oxen, from a labourer here and there 
 who was breaking the dry clods with a hoe, the wind 15 
 carried away a thin dust like so much smoke. It was a 
 fine, busy, breathing, rustic landscape ; and as I continued 
 to descend, the highlands of G<ivaudan kept mounting 
 in front of me against the sky. 
 
 I had crossed the Loire the day before ; now I was to 20 
 cross' the Allier; so near, are these two confluents in 
 their youth. Just at the bridge of Langogne, as the long- 
 promi.sc(l rain was beginning to fall, a lassie of some 
 seven or eight addressed me in the sacramental |)hrase, 
 " D'oh 'st que vous venez ? " She did it with so high an 25 
 air that she set me laughing; and this cut her to the 
 quick. She was evidently one who reckoned on respect, 
 and stood looking after me in silent dudgeon, as I crossed 
 the bridge and entered the county of Gc-vaudan.
 
 28 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 UPPER GEVAUDAN 
 
 ' The way also here was very weari- 
 some through dirt and slabbi- 
 ness ; nor jvas there on all this 
 ground so much as one inn or 
 victualling-house wherein to 
 refresh the feebler sort! 
 
 — " Pilgrim's Progress." 
 
 A CAMP IN THE DARK 
 
 The next day (Tuesday, September 24th), it was two 
 o'clock in the afternoon before I got my journal written 
 up and my knapsack repaired, for I was determined to 
 carry my knapsack in the future and have no more ado 
 
 5 with baskets ; and half an hour afterwards I set out for 
 Le Cheylard I'Eveque, a place on the borders of the 
 forest of Mercoire. A man, I was toid, should walk there 
 in an hour and a half; and I thought it scarce too am- 
 bitious to suppose that a man encumbered with a donkey 
 
 10 might cover the same distance in four hours. 
 
 All the way up the long hill from Langogne it rained 
 and hailed alternately ; the wind kept freshening steadily, 
 although slowly ; plentiful hurrying clouds — some drag- 
 ging veils of straight rain-shower, others massed and 
 
 15 luminous as though promising snow — careered out of 
 the north and followed me along my way. I was soon 
 out of the cultivated basin of the AUier, and away from
 
 A Camp in the Dark 29 
 
 the ploughing oxen, and such like sights of the country. 
 Moor, heathery marsh, tracts of rock and pines, woods of 
 birch all jewelled with the autumn yellow, here and there 
 a few naked cottages and bleak fields, — these were the 
 characters of the country. Hill and valley followed val- 5 
 ley and hill ; the little green and stony cattle-tracks 
 wandered in and out of one another, split into three or 
 four, died away in marshy hollows, and began again 
 sporadically on hill-sides or at the borders of a wood. 
 
 There was no direct road to C'heylard, and it was no 10 
 easy affair to make a passage in this uneven country and 
 through this intermittent labyrinth of tracks. It must 
 have been about four when I struck Sagnerousse, and 
 went on my way rejoicing in a sure point of departure. 
 Two hours afterwards, the dusk rapidly falling, in a lull of 15 
 the wind, I issued from a fir-wood where I had long been 
 wandering, and found, not the looked-for village, but an- 
 other marish bottom among rough-and-tumble hills. For 
 some time past I had heard the ringing of cattle-bells 
 ahead ; and now, as I came out of the skirts of the 20 
 wood, I saw near upon a dozen cows and perhajjs as 
 many more black figures, which I conjectured to be 
 children, although tiie mist had almost unrecognizably 
 exaggerated their forms. These were all silently following 
 each other round and round in a circle, now taking hands, 25 
 now breaking up with chains and reverences. A dance 
 of children appeals to very innocent and lively thoughts ; 
 but, at nightfall on the marshes, the thing was eerie and 
 fantastic to behold. Even I, who am well enough read
 
 JO Travels with a Donkey 
 
 in Herbert Spencer, felt a sort of silence fall for an instant 
 on my mind. The next, I was pricking Modestine for- 
 ward, and guiding her like an unruly ship through the 
 open. In a path, she went doggedly ahead of her own 
 5 accord, as before a fair wind ; but once on the turf or 
 among heather, and the brute became demented. The 
 tendency of lost travellers to go round in a circle was de- 
 veloped in her to the degree of passion, and it took all the 
 steering I had in me to keep even a decently straight 
 
 10 course through a single field. 
 
 While I was thus desperately tacking through the bog, 
 children and cattle began to disperse, until only a pair of 
 girls remained behind. From these I sought direction on 
 my path. The peasantry in general were but little dis- 
 
 15 posed to counsel a wayfarer. One old devil simply re- 
 tired into his house, and barricaded the door on my 
 approach ; and I might beat and shout myself hoarse, he 
 turned a deaf ear. Another, having given me a direction 
 which, as I. found afterwards, I had misunderstood, com- 
 
 20 placently watched me going wrong without adding a sign. 
 He did not care a stalk of parsley if I wandered all night 
 upon the hills ! As for these two girls, they were a pair 
 of impudent sly sluts, with not a thought but mischief. 
 One put out her tongue at me, the other bade me follow 
 
 25 the cows ; and they both giggled and jogged each other's 
 elbows. The Beast of G^vaudan ate about a hundred 
 children of this district ; I began to think of him with 
 sympathy. 
 
 Leaving the girls, I pushed on through the bog, and
 
 A Camp in the Dark 31 
 
 got into another wood and upon a well-marked road. It 
 grew darker and darker. Modestine, suddenly beginning 
 to smell mischief, bettered the pace of her own accord, 
 and from chat time forward gave me no trouble. It was 
 the first sign of intelligence I had occasion to remark in 5 
 her. At the same time, the wind freshened into half a 
 gale, and another heavy discharge of rain came flying up 
 out of the north. At the other side of the wood I sighted 
 some red windows in the dusk. This was the hamlet of 
 Fouzilhic; three houses on a hill-side, near a wood of 10 
 birches. Here I found a delightful old man, who came a 
 little way with me in the rain to put me safely on the 
 road for Cheylard. He would hear of no reward ; but 
 shook his hands above his head almost as if in menace, 
 and refused volubly and shrilly, in unmitigated patois. 15 
 
 All seemed right at last. My thoughts began to turn 
 upon dinner and a fireside, and my heart was agreeably 
 softened in my bosom. Alas, and I was on the brink of 
 new and greater miseries ! Suddenly, at a single swoop, 
 the night fell. I have been abroad in many a black 20 
 night, but never in a blacker. A glimmer of rocks, a 
 glimmer of the track where it was well beaten, a certain 
 fleecy density, or night within night, for a tree, — this was 
 all that I could discriminate. The sky was simply dark- 
 ness overhead ; even the flying clouds pursued their way 25 
 invisibly to human eyesight. I could not fiistinguish my 
 hand at arm's length from tin- track, nor my goad, at the 
 same distance, from the meadows or the sky. 
 
 Soon the road that I was following split, after the
 
 32 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 fashion of the country, into three or four in a piece of 
 rocky meadow. Since Modestine had shown such a fancy 
 for beaten roads, I tried her instinct in this predicament. 
 But the instinct of an ass is what might be expected from 
 5 the name ; in half a minute she was clambering round 
 and round among some boulders, as lost a donkey as you 
 would wish to see. I should have camped long before 
 had I been properly provided ; but as this was to be so 
 short a stage, I had brought no wine, no bread for myself 
 
 10 and little over a pound for my lady-friend. Add to this, 
 that I and Modestine were both handsomely wetted by 
 the showers. But now, if I could have found some 
 water, I should have camped at once in spite of all. 
 Water, however, being entirely absent, except in the form 
 
 15 of rain, I determined to return to Fouzilhic, and ask a 
 guide a little further on my way — "ahttle farther lend 
 thy guiding hand." 
 
 The thing was easy to decide, hard to accomplish. In 
 this sensible roaring blackness I was sure of nothing but 
 
 20 the direction of the wind. To this I set my face, the 
 road had disappeared, and I went across country, now in 
 marshy opens, now baffled by walls unscalable to Modes- 
 tine, until I came once more in sight of some red 
 windows. This time they were differently disposed. It 
 
 25 was not Fouzilhic, but Fouzilhac, a hamlet little distant 
 from the other in space, but worlds away in the spirit of 
 its inhabitants. I tied Modestine to a gate, and groped 
 forward, stumbling among rocks, plunging mid-leg in 
 bog, until I gained the entrance of the village. In the
 
 A Camp in the Dark ^3 
 
 first lighted house there was a woman who would not open 
 to me. She could do nothing, she cried to me through 
 the door, being alone and lame ; but if I would apply at 
 the next house, there was a man who could help me if he 
 had a mind. - 
 
 They came to the next door in force, a man, two 
 women, and a girl, and brought a pair of lanterns to ex- 
 amine the wayfarer. The man was not ill-looking, but 
 had a shifty smile. He leaned against the door-post, and 
 heard me state my case. All I asked was a guide as far lo 
 as Cheylard. 
 
 " CVj/ (/ue, voycz-voiis, il fait Jioir," said he. 
 
 I told him that was just my reason for requiring 
 help. 
 
 "I understand that," said he, looking uncomfortable ; 15 
 " mais — c'fsi — (/e la peine ^ 
 
 I was willing to pay, I said. He shook his head. I 
 rose as high as ten francs ; but he continued to shake his 
 head. " Name your own price, then," said I. 
 
 " Ce li* est pas (a,^' he said at length, and with evident 20 
 difficulty ; " but I am not going to cross the door — mais 
 je nr sortirai pas de la ported 
 
 I grew a liillc warm, and asked him what he proposed 
 that I should do. 
 
 "Where arc you going beyond ('hcylard ? " he asked 23 
 by way of answer. 
 
 "That is no affair of yours," I returned, for I was not 
 going to indulge his bestial curiosity ; " it changes nothing 
 in my present predicament." 
 
 TRAVELS WITH A DONKKV — 3
 
 34 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 " Cest vrai, ga,'^ he acknowledged, with a laugh ; 
 " oui, c'est vrai. Et d^oii venez vous ? " 
 
 A better man than I might have felt nettled. 
 
 "O," said I, " I am not going to answer any of your 
 
 5 questions, so you may spare yourself the trouble of putting 
 
 them. I am late enough already ; I want help. If you 
 
 will not guide me yourself, at least help me to find some 
 
 one else who will." 
 
 " Hold on," he cried suddenly. " Was it not you who 
 10 passed in the meadow while it was still day? " 
 ^^' " Yes, yes," said the girl, whom I had not hitherto rec- 
 ognized ; " it was monsieur ; I told him to follow the cow." 
 " As for you, mademoiselle," said I, " you are a 
 farceuseT ^ 
 IS " And," added the man, " what the devil have you done 
 to be still here?" 
 
 What the devil, indeed 1 But there I was. " The 
 great thing," said I, " is to make an end of it ; " and 
 once more proposed that he should help me to find a 
 2o guide. 
 
 " O est que ^'' he said again, "c'est que — il fait noir" 
 "Very well," said I ; "take one of your lanterns." 
 " No," he cried, drawing a thought backward, and again 
 intrenching himself behind' one of his former phrases; 
 25 " I will not cross the door." 
 
 I looked at him. I saw unaffected terror struggling on 
 his face with unaffected shame ; he was smiling pitifully 
 and wetting his hp with his tongue, like a detected school- 
 
 1 A joker.
 
 A Camp in the Dark 35 
 
 boy. I drew a brief picture of my state, and asked him 
 what I was to do. 
 
 " I don't know," he said ; " I will not cross the door." 
 
 Here was the Beast of G^vaudan, and no mistake. 
 
 " Sir," said I, with my most commanding manners, 5 
 " you are a coward." 
 
 And with that I turned my back upon the family party, 
 who hastened to retire within their fortifications ; and 
 the famous door was closed again, but not till I had over- 
 heard the sound of laughter. Filia barbara pater bar- 10 
 barior. Let me say it in the plural : the Beasts of 
 G^vaudan. 
 
 The lanterns had somewhat dazzled me, and I ploughed 
 distressfully among stones and rubbish-hea[)s. All the 
 other houses in the village were both dark and silent; 15 
 and though I knocked at here and there a door, my 
 knocking was unanswered. It was a bad business ; I gave 
 up Fouzilhac with my curses. The rain had stopped, and 
 the wind, which still kept rising, began to dry my coat 
 and trousers. " Very well," thought I, " water or no 20 
 water, I must camp." But the first thing was to return 
 to Modestine. I am pretty sure I was twenty minutes 
 groping for my lady in the dark ; and if il liad not been 
 for the unkindly services of the bog, into which I once 
 more stumbled, I might have still been groping for her at 25 
 the dawn. My next business was to gain the shelter of a 
 wood, for the wind was cold as well as boisterous. How, 
 in this well-wooded distri<;t, I should have been so long 
 in finding one, is another of the insoluble mysteries of
 
 ^6 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 this (lay's adventures ; but I will take my oath that I put 
 near an hour to the discovery. 
 
 At last black trees began to show upon my left, and, 
 suddenly crossing the road, made a cave of unmitigated 
 5 blackness right in front. I call it a cave without exag- 
 geration; to pass below that arch of leaves was like 
 entering a dungeon. I felt about until my hand encoun- 
 tered a stout branch, and to this I tied Modestine, a 
 haggard, drenched, desponding donkey. Then I low- 
 
 loered my pack, laid it along the wall on the margin of 
 the road, and unbuckled the straps. I knew well enough 
 where the lantern was ; but where were the candles ? I 
 groped and groped among the tumbled articles^ and, 
 while I was thus groping, suddenly I touched the spirit- 
 
 15 lamp. Salvation ! This would serve my turn as well. 
 The wind roared un weary ingly among the trees : I 
 could hear the boughs tossing and the leaves churning 
 through half a mile of forest ; yet the scene of my en- 
 campment was not only as black as the pit, but admir- 
 
 20 ably sheltered. At the second match the wick caught 
 flame. The light was both livid and shifting ; but it cut 
 me off from the universe, and doubled the darkness of 
 the surrounding night. 
 
 I tied Modestine more conveniently for herself, and 
 
 25 broke up half the black bread for her supper, reserving the 
 other half against the morning. Then I gathered what 
 I should want within reach, took off my wet boots and 
 gaiters, which I wrapped in my waterproof, arranged my 
 knapsack for a pillow under the flap of my sleeping-bag.
 
 A Camp in the Dark 37 
 
 insinuated my limbs into the interior, and buckled my- 
 self in like a bambino. I opened a tin of Bologna 
 sausage and broke a cake of chocolate, and that was all 
 I had to eat. It may sound offensive, but I ate them 
 together, bite by bite, by way of bread and meat. All 1 5 
 had to wash down this revolting mixture was neat brandy : 
 a revolting beverage in itself. But I was rare and 
 hungry ; ate well, and smoked one of the best cigarettes 
 in my experience. Then I put a stone in my straw hat, 
 pulled the flap of my fur cap over my neck and eyes, 10 
 put my revolver ready to my hand, and snuggled well 
 down among the sheepskins. 
 
 I questioned at first if I were sleepy, for I felt my 
 heart beating faster than usual, as if with an agreeable 
 excitement to which my min<l remained a stranger. But 15 
 as soon as my eyelids touched, that subtle glue leaped be- 
 tween them, and they would no more come separate. The 
 wind among the trees was my lullaby. Sometimes it 
 sounded for minutes together with a steady even rush, 
 not rising nor abating ; and again it would swell and burst 20 
 like a great crashing breaker, and the trees would patter 
 me all over with big drops from the rain of the afternoon. 
 Night after night, in my own bctlroom in the country, I 
 have given ear to this perturbing concert of the wind 
 among the woods ; but whether it was a difference in the 25 
 trees, or the lie of the ground, or because I was myself 
 outside and in the midst of it, the fact remains that the 
 wind sang to a different tune among these woods of 
 G«ivaudan. I hearkened and hearkened ; and mean-
 
 38 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 while sleep took gradual possession of my body and 
 subdued my thoughts and senses ; but still my last wak- 
 ing effort was to listen and distinguish, and my last con- 
 scious state was one of wonder at the foreign clamour in 
 5 my ears. 
 
 Twice in the course of the dark hours — once 
 when a stone galled me underneath the sack, and again 
 when the poor patient Modestine, growing angry, pawed 
 and stamped upon the road — I was recalled for a brief 
 10 while to consciousness, and saw a star or two overhead, 
 and the lace-like edge of the foliage against the sky. When 
 I awoke for the third time (Wednesday, September 25 th), 
 the world was flooded with a blue light, the mother of the 
 dawn. I saw the leaves labouring in the wind and the rib- 
 15 bon of the road ; and, on turning my head, there was Mo- 
 destine tied to a beech, and standing half across the path in 
 an attitude of inimitable patience. I closed my eyes again, 
 and set to thinking over the experience of the night. I 
 was surprised to find how easy and pleasant it had been, 
 20 even in this tempestuous weather. The stone which 
 annoyed me would not have been there, had I not been 
 forced to camp blindfold in the opaque night ; and I had 
 felt no other inconvenience except when my feet encoun- 
 tered the lantern or the second volume of Peyrat's Pas- 
 25 tors of the Desert among the mixed contents of my 
 sleeping-bag j nay more, I had felt not a touch of cold, 
 and awakened with unusually lightsome and clear 
 sensations. 
 
 With that, I shook myself, got once more into my boots
 
 A Camp in the Dark 39 
 
 and gaiters, and breaking up the rest of the bread for 
 Modestine, strolled about to see in what part of the world 
 I had awakened. Ulysses, left on Ithaca, and with a mind 
 unsettled by the goddess, was not more pleasantly astray. 
 I have been after an adventure all my life, a pure dispas- s 
 sionate adventure, such as befell early and heroic voyag- 
 ers ; and thus to be found by morning in a random wood- 
 side nook in G^vaudan — not knowing north from south, 
 as strange to my surroundings as the first man upon the 
 earth, an inland castaway — was to find a fraction of my 10 
 day-dreams realized. I was on the skirts of a little wood 
 of birch, sprinkled with a few beeches ; behind, it ad- 
 joined another wood of fir ; and in front it broke up 
 and went down in open order into a shallow and meadowy 
 dale. All around there were bare hill-tops, some near, 15 
 some far away, as the perspective closed or opened, but 
 none apparently much higher than the rest. The wind 
 huddled the trees. The golden specks of autumn in the 
 birches tossed shiveringly. Overhead the sky was full of 
 strings and shreds of vapour, flying, vanishing, reappear- 20 
 ing, and turning about an axis like tumblers, as the wind 
 hounded them thnjugh heaven. It was wild weather and 
 famishing cold. I ate some chocolate, swallowed a mouth- 
 ful of brandy, and smoked a cigarette before the cold 
 should have time to disable my fingers. And by the time 25 
 I had got all this done, and had made my pack and bound 
 it on the packsaddle, the day was tiptoe on the threshold 
 of the east. We hafl not gone many steps along the lane, 
 before the sun, still invisible to me, sent a glow of gold
 
 40 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 over some cloud mountains that lay ranged along the 
 eastern sky. 
 
 The wind had us on the stern, and hurried us bitingly 
 forward. I buttoned myself into my coat, and walked on 
 5 in a pleasant frame of mind with all men, when suddenly, 
 at a corner, there was Fouzilhic once more in front of me. 
 Nor only that, but there was the old gentleman who had 
 escorted me so far the night before, running out of his 
 house at sight of me, with hands upraised in horror, 
 lo "My poor boy! " he cried, "what does this mean?" 
 I told him what had happened. He beat his old hands 
 like clappers in a mill, to think how lightly he had let me 
 go ; but when he heard of the man of Fouzilhac, anger 
 and depression seized upon his mind. 
 15 "This time, at least," said he, "there shall be no mis- 
 take." 
 
 And he Hmped along, for he was very rheumatic, for 
 about half a mile, and until I was almost within sight of 
 Cheylard, the destination I had hunted for so long. 
 
 -^l 
 
 CHEYLARD AND LUC 
 
 20 Candidly, it seemed little worthy of all this searching. 
 A few broken ends of village, with no particular street, 
 but a succession of open places heaped with logs and 
 fagots ; a couple of tilted crosses, a shrine to our Lady 
 of all Graces on the summit of a little hill ; and all this, 
 
 25 upon a rattling highland river, in the corner of a naked 
 valley. What went ye out for to see ? thought I to my-
 
 Cheylard and Luc 41 
 
 self. But the place had a life of its own. I found a board 
 commemorating the liberalities of Cheylard for the past 
 year, hung up, like a banner, in the diminutive and tottering 
 church. In 1877, it appeared, the inhabitants subscribed 
 forty-eight francs ten centimes for the " Work of the Prop- 5 
 agation of the Faith." Some of this, I could not help 
 hoping, would be applied to my native land. Cheylard 
 scrapes together halfpence for the darkened souls in 
 Edinburgh ; while Balquiddcr and Dunrossness bemoan 
 the ignorance of Rome. Thus, to the high entertainment 10 
 of the angels, do we pelt each other with evangelists, like 
 schoolboys bickering in the snow. 
 
 The inn was again singularly unpretentious. The whole 
 furniture of a not ill-to-do family was in the kitchen : the 
 beds, the cradle, the clothes, the plate-rack, the meal- 15 
 chest, and the photograph of the parish priest. There 
 were five children, one of whom was set to its morning 
 prayers at the stair-foot soon after my arrival, and a sixth 
 would erelong be forthcoming. I was kindly received by 
 these good folk. They were much interested in my mis- 20 
 adventure. The wood in which I had slept belonged to 
 them ; the man of Fouzilhac they thought a monster of 
 initpiity, and coimselled me warmly to summon him at 
 law — " because I might have died." The good wife was 
 horror-stricken to see me drink over a i)int of uncreamed 25 
 milk. 
 
 " You will do yourself an evil," she said. " I'lTinit me 
 to boil it for you." 
 
 After I had begun the morning on this delightful
 
 42 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 liquor, she having an infinity of things to arrange, I was 
 permitted, nay requested, to make a bowl of chocolate 
 for myself. My boots and gaiters were hung up to dry, 
 and, seeing me trying to write my journal on my knee, 
 5 the eldest daughter let down a hinged table in the chim- 
 ney-corner for my convenience. Here I wrote, drank my 
 chocolate, and finally ate an omelette before I left. The 
 table was thick with dust ; for, as they explained, it was 
 not used except in winter weather. I had a clear look 
 
 10 up the vent, through brown agglomerations of soot and 
 blue vapour, to the sky ; and whenever a handful of twigs 
 was thrown on to the fire, my legs were scorched by the 
 blaze. 
 
 The husband had begun life as a muleteer, and when I 
 
 IS came to charge Modestine showed himself full of the 
 prudence of his art. " You will have to change this pack- 
 age," said he ; " it ought to be in two parts, and then you 
 might have double the weight." 
 
 I explained that I wanted no more weight ; and for no 
 
 2o donkey hitherto created would I cut my sleeping-bag in 
 two. 
 
 " It fatigues her, however," said the innkeeper ; " it 
 fatigues her greatly on the march. Look." 
 
 Alas, there were her two forelegs no better then raw 
 
 25 beef on the inside, and blood was running from under her 
 tail. They told me when I left, and I was ready to believe 
 it, that before a few days I should come to love Modestine 
 like a dog. Three days had passed, we had shared some 
 misadventures, and my heart was still as cold as a potato
 
 Cheylard and Luc 43 
 
 towards my beast of burden. She was pretty enough to 
 look at ; but then she had given proof of dead stupicHty, 
 redeemed indeed by patience, but aggravated by flashes 
 of sorry and ill-judged light-heartedness. And I own 
 this new discovery seemed another point against her. 5 
 What the devil was the good of a she-ass if she could not 
 carry a sleeping-bag and a few necessaries? I saw the 
 end of the fable rapidly approaching, when I siiould have 
 to carry Modestine. .-l^'sop was the man to know the 
 world ! I assure you 1 set out with heavy thoughts upon 10 
 my short day's march. 
 
 It was not only heavy thoughts about Modestine that 
 weighted me upon the way ; it was a leaden business al- 
 together. P'or first, the wind blew so rudely that I had 
 to hold on the pack with one hand from Cheylard to 15 
 Luc J and second, my road lay through one of the most 
 beggarly countries in the world. It was like the worst 
 of the Scotch Highlands, only worse; cold, naked, and 
 ignoble, scant of wood, scant of heather, scant of life. 
 A road and some fences broke the unvarying waste, and 20 
 the line of the road was marked by upright pillars, to 
 sen'C in time of snow. 
 
 Why anyone should desire to visit eitlicr I-uc or Chey- 
 lard is more than my much-inventing spirit can suppose. 
 Kor my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. 1 25 
 travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move ; to feel 
 the neefjs and hitches u( our life more nearly ; to come 
 ilown off this feather-bed ()( civilization, and find the 
 globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.
 
 44 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied 
 with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be 
 worked for. To hold a pack upon a packsaddle against 
 a gale out of the freezing north is no high industry, but it 
 
 5 is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind. 
 And when the present is so exacting, who can annoy him- 
 self about the future ? 
 ^ , \ I came out at length above the Allien A more un- 
 ~^^ sightly prospect at this season of the year it would be 
 
 lo hard to fancy. Shelving hills rose round it on all sides, 
 here dabbled with wood and fields, there rising to peaks 
 alternately naked and hairy with pines. The colour 
 throughout was black or ashen, and came to a point in 
 the ruins of the castle of Luc, which pricked up impu- 
 
 isdently from below my feet, carrying on a pinnacle a tall 
 white statue of Our Lady, which, I heard with interest, 
 weighed fifty quintals,' and was to be dedicated on the 
 6th of October. Through this sorry landscape trickled 
 the Allier and a tributary of nearly equal size, which 
 
 2o came down to join it through a broad nude valley in 
 Vivarais. The weather had somewhat lightened, and 
 the clouds massed in squadron ; but the fierce wind still 
 hunted them through heaven, and cast great ungainly 
 
 ^^plashes of shadow and sunlight over the scene. 
 
 *25 Luc itself was a straggling double file of houses wedged 
 
 between hill and river. It had no beauty, nor was there 
 
 any notable feature, save the old castle overhead with its 
 
 fifty (quintals of brand-new Madonna. But the inn was 
 
 1 A modem French quintal is 220 pounds.
 
 Cheylard and Luc 45 
 
 clean and large. The kitchen, with its two box-beds 
 hung with clean check curtains, with its wide stone chim- 
 ney, its chimney-shelf four yards long and garnished with 
 lanterns and religious statuettes, its array of chests and 
 pair of ticking clocks, was the very model of what a 5 
 kitchen ought to be ; a melodrama kitchen, suitable for 
 bandits or noblemen in disguise. Nor was the scene 
 disgraced by the landlady, a handsome, silent, dark old 
 woman, clothed and hooded in black like a nun. Even 
 the public bedroom had n character of its own, with the 10 
 long deal tables and benches, where fifty might have 
 dined, set out as for a harvest-home, and the three box- 
 beds along the wall. In one of these, lying on straw and 
 covered with a pair of table-napkins, did I do penance 
 all night long in goose-flesh and chattering teeth, and'S 
 sigh from time to time as I awakened fur my sheepskin 
 sack and the lee of some great wood.
 
 46 Trjavels with a Donkey 
 
 OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 
 
 « / behold 
 The House, the Brotherhood austere — 
 And what am I, that I atn here ? ' 
 — Matthew Arnold. 
 
 FATHER APOLLINARIS 
 
 Next morning (Thursday, 26th September) I took the 
 road in a new order. The sack was no longer doubled, 
 but hung at full length across the saddle, a green sausage 
 six feet long with a tuft of blue wool hanging out of either 
 
 5 end. It was more picturesque, it spared the donkey, and, 
 as I began to see, it would insure stability, blow high, 
 blow low. But it was not without a pang that I had so 
 decided. For although I had purchased a new cord, and 
 made all as fast as I was able, I was yet jealously uneasy 
 
 10 lest the flaps should tumble out and scatter my effects 
 along the line of march. 
 
 My way lay up the bald valley of the river, along the 
 march of Vivarais and G^vaudan. The hills of Gevaudan 
 on the right were a little more naked, if anything, than 
 
 15 those of Vivarais upon the left, and the former had a 
 monopoly of a low dotty underwood that grew thickly in 
 the gorges and died out in solitary burrs upon the shoulders 
 and the summits. Black bricks of fir-wood were plastered 
 here and there upon both sides, and here and there were
 
 Father ApoUinaris 47 
 
 cultivated fields. A railway ran beside the river ; the 
 only bit of railway in Gevaudan, although there are many 
 proposals afoot and surveys being made, and even, as 
 they tell me, a station standing ready built in Mende. A 
 year or two hence and this may be another world. The 5 
 desert is beleaguered. Now may some Languedocian 
 Wordsworth turn the sonnet into patois: " Mountains and 
 vales and floods, heard vk that whistle?" 
 
 At a place called La Bastide I was directed to leave the 
 river, and follow a road that mounted on the left among 10 
 the hills of Vivarais, the modern Ardeche ; for I was now 
 come within a little way of my strange destination, the 
 Trappist monastery of our Lady of the Snows. The sun 
 came out as I left the shelter of a pine-wood, and I be- 
 held suddenly a fine wild landscape to the south. High 15 
 rocky hills, as blue as sapphire, closed the view, and be- 
 tween these lay ridge upon ridge, heathery, craggy, the 
 sun glittering on veins of rock, the underwood clambering 
 in the hollows, as rude as God made them at the first. 
 There was not a sign of man's hand in all the prospect ; 20 
 and indeed not a trace of his passage, save whore genera- 
 tion after generation had walked in twisted foot-paths, in 
 and out among the beeches, and up and down u|)on the 
 channelled slopes. The mists, which had hitherto beset 
 me, were now brf)kcn into clouds, and fled swiftly and 25 
 shone l)rightly in the sun. I drew a long breath. It was 
 grateful to come, after so long, u|)on a scene of some at- 
 traction for the human heart. I own I like definite form 
 in what my eyes arc to rest u|)f)n ; and if landscapes were
 
 48 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 sold, like the sheets of characters of my boyhood, one 
 penny plain and twopence coloured, I should go the 
 length of twopence every day of my life. 
 
 But if things had grown better to the south, it was still 
 5 desolate and inclement near at hand. A spidery cross on 
 every hill-top marked the neighbourhood of a religious 
 house ; and a quarter of a mile beyond, the outlook south- 
 ward opening out and growing bolder with every step, a 
 white statue of the Virgin at the corner of a young plan- 
 
 10 tation directed the traveller to our Lady of the Snows. 
 Here, then, I struck leftward, and pursued my way, driv- 
 ing my secular donkey before me, and creaking in my 
 secular boots and gaiters, towards the asylum of silence. 
 I had not gone very far ere the wind brought to me the 
 
 15 clanging of a bell, and somehow, I can scarce tell why, 
 my heart sank within me at the sound. I have rarely ap- 
 proached anything with more unaffected terror than the 
 monastery of our Lady of the Snows. This it is to have 
 had a Protestant education. And suddenly, on turning 
 
 20 a corner, fear took hold on me from head to foot — slavish 
 superstitious fear ; and though I did not stop in my ad- 
 vance, yet I went on slowly, Hke a man who should have 
 passed a bourne unnoticed, and strayed into the country 
 of the dead. For there upon the narrow new-made road, 
 
 25 between the stripling pines, was a mediaeval friar, fighting 
 with a barrowful of turfs. Every Sunday of my childhood 
 I used to study the Hermits of Marco Sadeler — enchant- 
 ing prints, full of wood and field and mediaeval landscapes, 
 as large as a county, for the imagination to go a travelling
 
 Father Apollinaris 49 
 
 in ; and here, sure enough, was one of Marco Sadeler's 
 heroes. He was robed in white hke any spectre, and 
 the hood falling back, in the instancy of his contention 
 with the barrow, disclosed a pate as bald and yellow as a 
 skull. He might have been buried any time these thou- 5 
 sand years, and all the lively parts of him resolved into 
 earth and broken up with the farmer's harrow. 
 
 I was troubled besides in my mind as to etiquette. 
 Durst I address a person who was under a vow of 
 silence? Clearly not. But drawing near, I doffed my 10 
 cap to him with a far-away superstitious reverence. He 
 nodded back, and cheerfully addressed me. Was I 
 going to the monastery? Who was I? An English- 
 man? Ah, an Irishman, then? 
 
 " No," I said, " a Scotsman." 15 
 
 A Scotsman? .\h, he had never seen a Scotsman 
 before. And he looked inc all over, his good, honest, 
 brawny countenance shining with interest, as a boy might 
 look u[)on a lion or an alligator. From him I learned 
 with disgust that I couhi not be received at our Lady of ac 
 the Snows; I might get a meal, perhai)s, but that was 
 all. And then, as our talk ran on, and it turned out that 
 I was not a pedlar, but a literary man. wlio drew land- 
 scapes and was going to write a book, he changed his 
 manner of thinking as to my reception (for I fc.ir they 25 
 respect persons even in a 'rr.i|)pist monastery), and told 
 me I must be sure to ask for the l''alher Prior, and state 
 my rase to him in full. On second thoughts he deter- 
 mined to go down with me himself ; he thought he could 
 
 TRAVELS WITH A IKJNKKY — 4
 
 50 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 manage for me better. Might he say that I was a geog- 
 rapher? 
 
 No ; I thought, in the interests of truth, he positively 
 might not. 
 5 "Very well, then " (with disappointment), " an author." 
 
 It appeared he had been in a seminary with six young 
 Irishmen, all priests long since, who had received news- 
 papers and kept him informed of the state of ecclesias- 
 tical affairs in England. And he asked me eagerly after 
 10 Dr. Pusey, for whose conversion the good man had 
 continued ever since to pray night and morning. 
 
 " I thought he was very near the truth," he said ; " and 
 he will reach it yet ; there is so much virtue in prayer." 
 
 He must be a stiff ungodly Protestant who can take 
 
 IS anything but pleasure in this kind and hopeful story. 
 
 While he was thus near, the subject, the good father asked 
 
 me if I were a Christian ; and when he found I was not, 
 
 or not after his way, he glossed it over with great 
 
 goodwill. 
 
 20 The road which we were following, and which this 
 
 stalwart father had made with his own two hands within 
 
 the space of a year, came to a corner, and showed us 
 
 some white buildings a little further on beyond the wood. 
 
 At the same time, the bell once more sounded abroad. 
 
 25 We were hard upon the monastery. Father Apollinaris 
 
 (for that was my companion's name) stopped me. 
 
 " I must not speak to you down there," he said. " Ask 
 for the Brother Porter, and all will be well. But try to 
 see me as you go out again through the wood, where I
 
 The Monks 51 
 
 may speak to you. I am charmed to have made your 
 acquaintance." 
 
 And then suddenly raising his arms, flapping his 
 fingers, and crying out twice, " I must not speak, I must 
 not speak ! " he ran away in front of me and disappeared 5 
 into the monastery door. 
 
 I own this somewhat ghastly eccentricity went a good 
 way to revive my terrors. But where one was so good and 
 simple, why should not all be alike ? I took heart of grace, 
 and went forward to the gate as fast as Modestine, who 10 
 seemed to have a disaffection for monasteries, would per- 
 mit. It was the first door, in my acquaintance of her, 
 which she had not shown an indecent haste to enter. I 
 summoned the place in form, though with a quaking heart. 
 Father Michael, the Father Hospitaller, and a pair of 15 
 brown-robed brothers came to the gate and spoke with me 
 awhile. I think my sack was the great attraction ; it had 
 already beguiled the heart of poor ApoUinaris, who hnd 
 charged me on my life to show it to the Father Prior. 
 I'lUt whether it was my address, or the sack, or the idea 20 
 speedily published among that part of the brotherhood 
 who attend on strangers tliat I was not a i)cdlar after all, 
 I found no difficulty as to my recejjtion. Modestine was 
 led away by a layman tf) the stables, and I and my pack 
 were received into our Lady of the Snows. 'S 
 
 THK MONKS 
 
 Father Micmai.i., a jjieasant, fresh-fared, smiling man, 
 perhaps of tiiirty-fivc, took me to the pantry, and gave
 
 52 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 me a glass of liqueur to stay me until dinner. We had 
 some talk, or rather I should say he listened to my prattle 
 indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, like a 
 spirit with a thing'of clay. And truly when I remembered 
 5 that I descanted principally on my appetite, and that it 
 must have been by that time more than eighteen hours 
 since Father Miqhael had so much as broken bread, I 
 can well understand that he would find an earthly savour 
 in my conversation. But his manner, though superior, 
 10 was exquisitely gracious; and I find I have a lurking 
 curiosity as to Father Michael's past. 
 
 The whet administered, I was left alone for a little in the 
 
 monastery garden. This is no more than the main court, 
 
 laid out in sandy paths and beds of parti-coloured dahlias, 
 
 15 and with a fountain and a black statue of the Virgin in the 
 
 centre. The buildings stand around it four-square, bleak, 
 
 as yet unseasoned by the years and weather, and with no 
 
 other features than a belfry and a pair of slated gables. 
 
 Brothers in white, brothers in brown, passed silently along 
 
 20 the sanded alleys ; and when I first came out, three 
 
 hooded monks were kneeling on the terrace at their 
 
 prayers. A naked hill commands the monastery upon 
 
 one side, and the wood commands it on the other. It 
 
 Hes exposed to wind ; the snow falls off and on from Oc- 
 
 25 tober to May and sometimes lies six weeks on end ; but if 
 
 they stood in Eden, with a climate like heaven's, the 
 
 buildings themselves would offer the same wintry and 
 
 cheerless aspect ; and for my part, on this wild September 
 
 day, before I was called to dinner, I felt chilly in and out.
 
 The Monks S3 
 
 When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother Ambrose, 
 a hearty conversable Frenchman (for all those who wait 
 on strangers have the liberty to speak), led me to a little 
 room in that part of the building which is set apart for 
 MM. les retraitanis. It was clean and whitewashed, and s 
 furnished with strict necessaries, a crucifix, a bust of 
 the late Pope, the Imitation in French, a book of religious 
 meditations, and the Life of Elizabeth Seton, evangelist, it 
 would appear, of North America and of New England in 
 particular. As far as my experience goes, there is a fair »o 
 field for some more evangelization in these quarters ; but 
 think of Cotton Mather ! I should like to give him a 
 reading of this little work in heaven, where I hope he 
 dwells ; but perhaps he knows all that already, and much 
 more; and perhaps he and Mrs. Seton are the dearest 15 
 friends, and gladly unite their voices in the everlasting 
 psalm. Over the table, to conclude the inventory of the 
 room, hung a set of regulations for MM. les retraitants : 
 what services they should attend, when they were to tell 
 their beads or meditate, and when they were to rise and 20 
 go to rest. At the foot was a notable N.H. : " Lc temps 
 libre est employe a Fexamen de eonseience, a la confession, 
 afairede bonnes resolutions, &c." To make good resolu- 
 tions, indeed ! You might talk as fruitfully of making 
 the hair grow on your head. 25 
 
 I had scarce explored my niche when Brother Ambrose 
 returned. An English boanlc-r, it appeared, would like 
 to speak with me. I i)rofcssed my willingness, and the 
 friar ushered in a fresh, young, little Irishman of fifty, a
 
 54 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 deacon of the Church, arrayed in strict canonicals, and 
 wearing on his head what, in default of knowledge, I can 
 only call the ecclesiastical shako.^ He had lived seven 
 years in retreat at a convent of nuns in Belgium, and now 
 5 five at our Lady of the Snows ; he never saw an English 
 newspaper ; he spoke French imperfectly, and had he 
 spoken it like a native, there was not much chance of 
 conversation where he dwelt. With this, he was a man 
 eminently sociable, greedy of news, and simple-minded 
 
 10 like a child. If I was pleased to have a guide about the 
 monastery, he was no less delighted to see an English 
 face and hear an English tongue. 
 
 He showed me his own room, where he passed his 
 time among breviaries, Hebrew bibles, and the Waverley 
 
 IS novels. Thence he led me to the cloisters, into the 
 chapter-house, through the vestry, where the brothers' 
 gowns and broad straw hats were hanging up, each with 
 his religious name upon a board, — names full of legen- 
 dary suavity and interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, 
 
 2o or Pacifique ; into the library, where were all the works of 
 Veuillot and Chateaubriand, and the Odes et Ballades, 
 if you please, and even Moliere, to say nothing of in- 
 numerable fathers and a great variety of local and general 
 historians. Thence my good Irishman took me round 
 
 25 the workshops, where brothers bake bread, and make 
 cartwheels, and take photographs ; where one superin- 
 tends a collection of curiosities, and another a gallery 
 of rabbits. For in a Trappist monastery each monk has 
 
 1 A military cap.
 
 The Monks 55 
 
 an occupation of his own choice, apart from his religious 
 duties and the general labours of the house. Each must 
 sing in the choir, if he has a voice and ear, and join in 
 the haymaking if he has a hand to stir ; but in his private 
 hours, although he must be occupied, he may be occupied 5 
 on what he likes. Thus I was told that one brother 
 was engaged with literature ; while Father Apollinaris 
 busies himself in making roads, and the Abbot employs 
 himself in binding books. It is not so long since this 
 Abbot was consecrated, by the way ; and on that occa- 10 
 sion, by a special grace, his mother was permitted to enter 
 the chapel and witness the ceremony of consecration. A 
 proud day for her to have a son a mitred abbot ; it makes 
 you glad to think they let her in. 
 
 In all these joumeyings to and fro, many silent fathers 15 
 and brethren fell in our way. Usually they paid no more 
 regard to our passage than if we had been a cloud ; but 
 sometimes the good deacon had a permission to ask of 
 them, and it was granted by a jieculiar movement of the 
 hands, almost like that of a dog's paws in swimming, or 20 
 refused by the usual negative signs, and in either case 
 with lowered eyelids and a certain air of contrition, as of 
 a man who was steering very close to evil. 
 
 The monks, by special grace of their Abbot, were still 
 taking two meals a day ; but it was already time for their 25 
 grand fast, which begins somewhere in September and 
 lasts till Kaster, and during which they eat but once in 
 the twenty-fours, and that at two in the afternoon, twelve 
 hours after they have begun the toil and vigil of the day.
 
 ^6 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 Their meals are scanty, but even of these they eat spar- 
 ingly ; and though each is allowed a small carafe of wine, 
 many refrain from this indulgence. Without doubt, the 
 most of mankind grossly overeat themselves ; our meals 
 5 serve not only for support, but as a hearty and natural 
 diversion from the labour of life. Although excess 
 may be hurtful, I should have thought this Trappist regi- 
 men defective. And I am astonished, as I look back, 
 at the freshness of face and cheerfulness of manner of all 
 
 10 whom I beheld. A happier nor a healthier company I 
 should scarce suppose that I have ever seen. As a 
 matter of fact, on this bleak upland, and with the inces- 
 sant occupation of the monks, life is of an uncertain 
 tenure, and death no infrequent visitor, at our Lady of 
 
 15 the Snows. This, at least, was what was told me. But 
 if they die easily, they must live healthily in the mean- 
 time, for they seemed all firm of flesh and high in colour ; 
 and the only morbid sign that I could observe, an unusual 
 brilliancy of eye, was one that served rather to increase 
 
 20 the general impression of vivacity and strength. 
 
 Those with whom I spoke were singularly sweet tem- 
 pered, with what I can only call a holy cheerfulness in 
 air and conversation. There is a note, in the direction to 
 visitors, telling them not to be offended at the curt speech 
 
 25 of those who wait upon them, since it is proper to monks 
 to speak little. The note might have been spared ; to a 
 man the hospitallers were all brimming with innocent talk, 
 and, in my experience of the monastery, it was easier to 
 begin than to break off a conversation. With the excep-
 
 The Monks 57 
 
 tion of Father Michael, who was a man of the world, they 
 showed themselves full of kind and healthy interest in all 
 sorts of subjects — in politics, in voyages, in my sleeping- 
 sack — and not without a certain pleasure in the sound 
 of their own voices. 5 
 
 As for those who are restricted to silence, I can only 
 wonder how they bear their solemn and cheerless isola- 
 tion. .And yet, apart from any view of mortification, I 
 can see a certain policy, not only in the exclusion of 
 women, but in this vow of silence. I have had some ex- 10 
 perience of lay phalansteries,' of an artistic, not to say a 
 bacchanalian, character; and seen more than one associ- 
 ation easily formed and yet more easily dispersed. With 
 a Cistercian rule, perhaps they might have lasted longer. 
 In the neighbourhood of women it is but a touch-and-go 15 
 association that can be formed among defenceless men ; 
 the stronger electricity is sure to triumph ; the dreams of 
 IxDyhood, the schemes of youth, are abandoned after an 
 interview of ten minutes, and the arts and sciences, and 
 professional male jollity, deserted at once for two sweet 20 
 eyes and a caressing accent. And next after this, the 
 tongue is the great divider. 
 
 I am almost ashamed to pursue this wordly criticism of 
 a religious rule ; but there is yet another point in which 
 the Trappist order appeals to me as a model of wisdom. 25 
 V>y two in the morning the clapper goes upon the bell, and 
 so on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by fjuarter, 
 till eiglit, the hour of rest; so infinitesimally is the day 
 
 ' Co-operative associatiuns where membcra live in tuiiiinon.
 
 58 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 divided among different occupations. The man who 
 keeps rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches to the 
 chapel, the chapter-room, or the refectory, all day long : 
 every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to perform ; 
 
 5 from two, when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he 
 returns to receive the comfortable gift of sleep, he is upon 
 his feet and occupied with manifold and changing busi- 
 ness. I know many persons, worth several thousands in 
 the year, who are not so fortunate in the disposal of their 
 
 10 lives. Into how many houses would not the note of the 
 monastery bell, dividing the day into manageable portions, 
 bring peace of mind and healthful activity of body ? We 
 speak of hardships, but the true hardship is to be a dull 
 fool, and permitted to mismanage life in our own dull and 
 
 IS foolish manner. 
 
 From this point of view, we may perhaps better under- 
 stand the monk's existence. A long novitiate and every 
 proof of constancy of mind and strength of body is re- 
 quired before admission to the order ; but I could not 
 
 20 find that many were discouraged. In the photographer's 
 studio, which figures so strangely among the outbuildings, 
 my eye was attracted by the portrait of a young fellow in 
 the uniform of a private of foot. This was one of the 
 novices, who came of the age for service, and marched 
 
 25 and drilled and mounted guard for the proper time among 
 the garrison of Algiers. Here was a man who had surely 
 seen both sides of life before deciding ; yet as soon as he 
 was set free from service he returned to finish his 
 novitiate.
 
 The Monks 59 
 
 This austere rule entitles a man to heaven as by right. 
 When the Trappist sickens, he quits not his habit ; he 
 lies in the bed of death as he has prayed and laboured in 
 his frugal and silent existence ; and when the Liberator 
 comes, at the very moment, even before they have carried 5 
 him in his robe to lie his little last in the chapel among 
 continual chantings, joy-bells break forth, as if for a 
 marriage, from the slated belfry, and proclaim through- 
 out the neighbourhood that another soul has gone to God. 
 
 .\t night, under the conduct of my kind Irishman, I 10 
 took my place in the gallery to hear compline and Salve 
 Regina, with which the Cistercians bring every day to a 
 conclusion. There were none of those circumstances 
 which strike the Protestant as childish or as tawdry in 
 the public offices of Rome. A stern simplicity, height- 15 
 ened by the romance of the surroundings, spoke directly 
 to the heart. I recall the whitewashed chapel, the 
 hooded figures in the choir, the lights alternately oc- 
 cluded and revealed, the strong manly singing, the silence 
 that ensued, the sight of cowled heads i)Owed in i)rayer, 20 
 and then the clear trenchant beating of the bell, breaking 
 in to show that the la.st office was over and the hour of 
 sleep had come ; and when I remember, I am not sur- 
 prised that I made my escape into the court with some- 
 what whirling fancies, and stood like a man bewildered 25 
 in the windy starry night. 
 
 But I was weary ; and when I had fjuicted my spirits 
 with Elizabeth Scton's memoirs — a dull work — the cold 
 and the raving of the wind among the i)ines — for my
 
 6o Travels with a Donkey 
 
 room was on that side of the monastery which adjoins 
 the woods — disposed me readily to slumber, I was 
 wakened at black midnight, as it seemed, though it was 
 really two in the morning, by the first stroke upon the 
 5 bell. All the brothers were then hurrying to the chapel ; 
 the dead in life, at this untimely hour, were already be- 
 ginning the uncomforted labours of their day. The dead 
 in life — there was a chill reflection. And the words of 
 a French song came back into my memory, telling of the 
 to best of our mixed existence : 
 
 " Que t'as de belles filles, 
 Girofle ! 
 Girofla ! 
 Que t'as de belles filles, 
 IS V Amour les compter a ! " 
 
 And I blessed God that I was free to wander, free to 
 hope, and free to love. 
 
 ^ THE BOARDERS 
 
 But there was another side to my residence at our 
 Lady of the Snows. At this late season there were not 
 
 20 many boarders ; and yet I was not alone in the public 
 part of the monastery. This itself is hard by the gate, 
 with a small dining-room on the ground-floor, and a 
 whole corridor of cells similar to mine upstairs. I have 
 stupidly forgotten the board for a regular retraiiant; but 
 
 25 it was somewhere between three and five francs a day.
 
 The Boarders 6i 
 
 and I think most probably the first. Chance visitors 
 like myself might give what they chose as a free-will offer- 
 ing, but nothing was demanded. I may mention that 
 when I was going away, Father Michael" refused twenty 
 francs as excessive. I explained the reasoning which led 5 
 me to offer him so much ; but even then, from a curious 
 point of honour, he would not accept it with his own 
 hand. " I have no right to refuse for the monastery," he 
 explained, " but I should prefer if you would give it to 
 one of the brothers." lo 
 
 I had dined alone, because I arrived late ; but at supper 
 I found two other guests. One was a country parish 
 priest, who had walked over that morning from the seat 
 of his cure near Mende to enjoy four days of solitude and 
 prayer. He was a grenadier in person, with the hale 15 
 colour and circular wrinkles of a peasant ; and as he com- 
 l)lained much of how he had been impeded by his skirts 
 upon the march, I have a vivid fancy portrait of liiin, 
 striding along, upright, big-boned, with kilted cassock, 
 through the bleak hills of (Ic-vaudan. The other was a 20 
 short, grizzling, thick-set man, from forty-five to fifty, 
 dressed in tweed with a knitted spencer, and the red ribbon 
 of a decoration in his button-hole. This last was a hard 
 person to classify. He was an old soldier, who had seen 
 service and risen to the rank of commandant ; and he 25 
 retained some of the brisk decisive manners of tlie camp. 
 On the other hand, as soon as his resignation was accepted, 
 he had coine to our Lady of the Snows as a boarder, and, 
 after a brief experience of its ways, had decided to remain
 
 62 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 as a novice. Already the new life was beginning to 
 modify his appearance ; already he had acquired somewhat 
 of the quiet and smiling air of the brethren ; and he was 
 as yet neither an officer nor a Trappist, but partook of the 
 5 character of each. And certainly here was a man in an 
 interesting nick of life. Out of the noise of cannon and 
 trumpets, he was in the act of passing into this still country 
 bordering on the grave, where men sleep nightly in their 
 grave-clothes, and, like phantoms, communicate by signs. 
 
 lo At supper we talked politics. I make it my business, 
 when I am in France, to preach political goodwill and 
 moderation, and to dwell on the example of Poland, much 
 as some alarmists in England dwell on the example of 
 Carthage. The priest and the Commandant assured me 
 
 15 of their sympathy with all I said, and made a heavy sigh- 
 ing over the bitterness of contemporary feeling. 
 
 "Why, you cannot say anything to a man with which 
 he does not absolutely agree," said I, " but he flies up at 
 you in a temper." 
 
 20 They both declared that such a state of things was anti- 
 christian. 
 
 While we were thus agreeing, what should my tongue 
 stumble upon but a word in praise of Gambetta's modera- 
 tion. The old soldier's countenance was instantly suffused 
 
 25 with blood ; with the palms of his hands he beat the table 
 like a naughty child. 
 
 ^^ Comment, monsieur?" he shouted. " Comtneiit? 
 Gambetta moderate? Will you dare to justify these 
 words?"
 
 The Boarders 63 
 
 But the priest had not forgotten the tenor of our talk. 
 And suddenly, in the height of his fury, the old soldier 
 found a warning look directed on his face ; the absurdity 
 of his behaviour was brought home to him in a flash ; 
 and the storm came to an abrupt end, without another 5 
 word. 
 
 It was only in the morning, over our coffee (Friday, 
 September 2 7th), that this couple found out I was a heretic. 
 I suppose I had misled them by some admiring expres- 
 sions as to the monastic life around us ; and it was only 10 
 by a point-blank question that the truth came out. I had 
 been tolerantly used, both by simple Father Apollinaris 
 and astute Father Michael ; and the good Irish deacon, 
 when he heard of my religious weakness, had only patted 
 me upon the shoulder and said, "You must be a Catholic 15 
 and come to heaven." But I was now among a different 
 sect of orthodox. These two men were bitter and upright 
 and narrow, like the worst of Scotsmen, and indeed, upon 
 my heart, I fancy they were worse. The priest snorted 
 aloiul like a battle-horse. 20 
 
 " £/ %'ous prctniikz nuuirir dam ccttc csplcf t/c croy- 
 ancc?'' he demanded; and there is no type used by 
 mortal printers large enough to ([ualify his accent. 
 
 I humbly indicated that I had no design of changing. 
 
 Hut he could not away with such a monstrous attitude. 25 
 " No, no," he cried; " you must change. You have come 
 here, Ood has led you here, and you must embrace 
 the opportunity." 
 
 I made a slip in policy ; I appealed to the family affec-
 
 64 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 tions, though I was speaking to a priest and a soldier, 
 two classes of men circumstantially divorced from the 
 kind and homely ties of life. 
 
 "Your father and mother?" cried the priest. "Very 
 S well ; you will convert them in their turn when you go 
 home." 
 
 I think I see my father's face ! I would rather tackle 
 the Gsetuhan lion in his den than embark on such an 
 enterprise against the family theologian. 
 
 10 But now the hunt was up ; priest and soldier were in 
 full cry for my conversion ; and the Work of the Propa- 
 gation of the Faith, for which the people of Cheylard 
 subscribed forty-eight francs ten centimes during 1877, 
 was being gallantly pursued against myself. It was an 
 
 IS odd but most effective proselytizing. They never sought 
 to convince me in argument, where I might have at- 
 tempted some defence ; but took it for granted that I was 
 both ashamed and terrified at my position, and urged me 
 solely on the point of time. Now, they said, when God 
 
 20 had led me to our Lady of the Snows, now was the appointed 
 hour. 
 
 " Do not be withheld by false shame," observed the 
 priest, for my encouragement. 
 
 For one who feels very similarly to all sects of religion, 
 
 25 and who has never been able, even for a moment, to weigh 
 seriously the merit of this or that creed on the eternal 
 side of things, however much he may see to praise or 
 blame upon the secular and temporal side, the situation 
 thus created was both unfair and painful. I committed
 
 The Boarders 65 
 
 my second fault in tact, and tried to plead that it was all 
 the same thing in the end, and we were all drawing near 
 by different sides to the same kind and undiscriminating 
 Friend and Father. That, as it seems to lay-spirits, 
 would be the only gospel worthy of the name. But 5 
 different men think differently ; and this revolutionary 
 aspiration brought down the priest with all the terrors of 
 the law. He launched into harrowing details of hell. 
 The damned, he said — on the authority of a little book 
 which he had read not a week before, and which, to add 10 
 conviction to conviction, he had fully intended to bring 
 along with him in his pocket — were to occupy the same 
 attitude through all eternity in the midst of dismal tortures. 
 And as he thus expatiated, he grew in nobility of aspect 
 with his enthusiasm. 'S 
 
 As a result the pair concluded that I should seek out 
 the Prior, since the Abbot was from home, and lay my 
 case immediately before him. 
 
 " Cest mon conseil comme ancicn mi/iiaire" observed 
 the Commandant ; " fi celui tie monsieur comvic 20 
 prHre:' 
 
 " Oiii" added the cure, scntcntiously nodding ; " comme 
 aricien mililaire — et comme prNre'' 
 
 .At this moment, whilst I was somewhat embarrassed 
 how to answer, in came one of the monks, a liltlc brown 25 
 fellow, as lively as a grig," and with an Italian accent, who 
 threw himself at once into the contention, but in a milder 
 and more persuasive vein, as befiilcd one of these pleasant 
 
 ' Cricket. 
 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY — 5
 
 66 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 brethren. Look at /u'm, he said. The rule was very 
 hard ; he would have dearly liked to stay in his own 
 country, Italy — it was well known how beautiful it was, 
 the beautiful Italy ; but then there were no Trappists in 
 
 5 Italy ; and he had a soul to save ; and here he was. 
 
 I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a cheerful 
 Indian critic has dubbed me, " a faddling hedonist " ; for 
 this description of the brother's motives gave me some- 
 what of a shock. I should have preferred to think he had 
 
 lo chosen the life for its own sake, and not for ulterior 
 purposes ; and this shows how profoundly I was out of 
 sympathy with these good Trappists, even when I was 
 doing my best to sympathize. But to the cure the argu- 
 ment seemed decisive. 
 
 15 "Hear that!" he cried. "And I have seen a 
 marquis here, a marquis, a marquis " — he repeated 
 the holy word three times over — " and other 
 persons high in society ; and generals. And here, 
 at your side, is this gentleman, who has been so many 
 
 20 years in armies — decorated, an old warrior. And here 
 he is, ready to dedicate himself to God." 
 
 I was by this time so thoroughly embarrassed that I 
 pleaded cold feet, and made my escape from the apart- 
 ment. It was a furious windy morning, with a sky much 
 
 25 cleared, and long and potent intervals of sunshine ; and I 
 wandered until dinner in the wild country towards the 
 east, sorely staggered and beaten upon by the gale, but 
 rewarded with some striking views. 
 
 At dinner the Work of the Propagation of the Faith
 
 The Boarders 67 
 
 was recommenced, and on this occasion still more dis- 
 tastefully to me. The priest asked me many questions as 
 to the contemptible faith of my fathers, and received my 
 replies with a kind of ecclesiastical titter. 
 
 " Your sect," he said once ; " for I think you will admit 5 
 it would be doing it too much honour to call it a 
 religion." 
 
 " As you please, monsieur," said I. " La parole est a 
 
 vous." 
 
 At length I grew annoyed beyond endurance; and 10 
 although he was on his own ground and, what is more to 
 the purpose, an old man, and so holding a claim upon 
 my toleration, I could not avoid a protest against this 
 uncivil usage. He was sadly discountenanced. 
 
 "I assure you," he said, "I have no inclination to 15 
 laugh in my heart. I have no other feeling but interest 
 in your soul." 
 
 And there ended my conversion. Honest man ! he 
 was no dangerous deceiver ; but a country parson, full of 
 zeal and faith. Long may he tread Oil-vaudan with his 20 
 kilted skirts — a mm strong to walk and strong to com- 
 fort his parishioners in death ! I daresay lie would beat 
 bravely through a snowstorm where his duty called him ; 
 and it is not always the most faithful believer who makes 
 the cunningest apostle. "S
 
 68 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 UPPER GEVAUDAN {continued) 
 
 "The bed 7V(TS made, the room was fit, 
 By punctual eve tlie stars ivere lit ; 
 The air was sweet, the ivater ran ; 
 N^o need loas there for maid or man. 
 When we put up, my ass and I, 
 At God'' s green ca7-avanserai.'" 
 
 — Old Play. 
 
 ACROSS THE GOULET 
 
 The wind fell during dinner, and the sky remained 
 clear ; so it was under better auspices that I loaded 
 Modestine before the monastery gate. My Irish friend 
 accompanied me so far on the way. As we came through 
 5 the wood, there was Pfere Apollinaire hauling his barrow ; 
 and he too quitted his labours to go with me for perhaps 
 a hundred yards, holding my hand between both of his in 
 front of him. I parted first from one and then from the 
 other with unfeigned regret, but yet with the glee of the 
 
 lo traveller who shakes off the dust of one stage before hurry- 
 ing forth upon another. Then Modestine arid I mounted 
 the course of the AUier, which here led us back into 
 G^vaudari towards its sources in the forest of Mercoire. It 
 was but an inconsiderable burn before we left its guid- 
 
 15 ance. Thence, over a hill, our way lay through a naked 
 plateau, until we reached Chasserades at sundown. 
 
 The company in the inn-kitchen that night were all
 
 Across the Goulet 69 
 
 men employed in survey for one of the projected rail- 
 ways. They were intelligent and conversable, and we 
 decided the future of France over hot wine, until the 
 state of the clock frightened us to rest. There were four 
 beds in the little upstairs room ; and we slept six. But 5 
 I had a bed to myself, and persuaded them to leave the 
 window open. 
 
 " He, bourgeois ; il est cinq heures /" was the cry that 
 wakened me in the morning (Saturday, September 28th). 
 The room was full of a transparent darkness, which dimly 10 
 showed me the other three beds and the five different 
 nightcaps on the pillows. But out of the window the 
 dawn was growing ruddy in a long belt over the hill-tops, 
 and day was about to flood the plateau. The hour was 
 inspiriting ; and there seemed a promise of calm weather, 15 
 which was perfectly fulfilled. I was soon under way with 
 Modestine, The road lay for a while over the plateau, and 
 then descended through a precipitous village into the 
 valley of the Chassezac. This stream ran among green 
 meadows, well hidden from the world by its steep banks ; 20 
 the broom was in flower, and here and there was a ham- 
 let sending up its smoke. 
 
 At last the path crossed the Chassezac upon a bridge, 
 and, forsaking this deep hollow, set itself to cross the 
 mountain of I -a (loulet. It wound up through Lestampes 25 
 by upland fields and woods of beech anfl birch, and with 
 every corner brought me into an acfjuaintance with some 
 new interest. Kvcn in the gully of the Chassezac my 
 ear had been struck by a noise like that of a great bass
 
 yo Travels with a Donkey 
 
 bell ringing at the distance of many miles ; but this, as I 
 continued to mount and draw nearer to it, seemed to 
 change in character, and I found at length that it came 
 from some one leading flocks afield to the note of a 
 5 rural horn. The narrow street of Lestampes stood full of 
 sheep, from wall to wall — black sheep and white, bleat- 
 ing like the birds in spring, and each one accompanying 
 himself upon the sheep-bell round his neck. It made 
 a pathetic concert, all in treble. A little higher, and 
 
 10 I passed a pair of men in a tree with pruning-hooks, 
 and one of them was singing the music of a bourree} 
 Still further, and when I was already threading the 
 birches, the crowing of cocks came cheerfully up to 
 my ears, and along with that the voice of a flute dis- 
 
 15 coursing a deliberate and plaintive air from one of the 
 upland villages. I pictured to myself some grizzled, 
 apple-cheeked, country schoolmaster fluting in his bit of 
 a garden in the clear autumn sunshine. All these beauti- 
 ful and interesting sounds filled my heart with an un- 
 
 20 wonted expectation ; and it appeared to me that, once 
 past this range which I was mounting, I should descend 
 into the garden of the world. Nor was I deceived, for I 
 was now done with rains and winds and a bleak country. 
 The first part of my journey ended here ; and this was 
 
 25 like an induction of sweet sounds into the other and 
 more beautiful. 
 
 There are other degrees oi feynt%%^ as of punishment, 
 besides the capital ; and I was now led by my good 
 1 A country dance. 2 gtate of being doomed.
 
 Across the Goulet 71 
 
 spirits into an adventure which I relate in the interest of 
 future donkey-drivers. The road zigzagged so widely on 
 the hill-side that I chose a short cut by map and com- 
 pass, and struck through the dwarf woods to catch the 
 road again upon a higher level. It was my one serious 5 
 conflict with Modestine. She would none of my short 
 cut ; she turned in my face, she backed, she reared ; she, 
 whom I had hitherto imagined to be dumb, actually 
 brayed with a loud hoarse flourish, like a cock crowing 
 for the dawn. I plied the goad with one hand ; with 10 
 the other, so steep was the ascent, I had to hold on the 
 packsaddle. Half a dozen times she was nearly over 
 backwards on the top of me ; half a dozen times, from 
 sheer weariness of spirit, I was nearly giving it up, and 
 leading her down again to follow the road, liut I took 15 
 the thing as a wager, and fought it through. I was 
 surprised, as I went on my way again, by what appeared 
 to be chill raindrops falling on my hand, and more than 
 once looked up in wonder at the cloudless sky. But it 
 was only sweat which came dropping from my brow. 20 
 
 Over the summit of the (loulct there was no marked 
 road — only upright stones posted from space to space 
 to guide the drovers. The turf underfoot was springy 
 and well scented. I had no company but a lark or two, 
 anfl met but one bullock-cart between lycstampes and 25 
 Ulcymard. In front of me I saw a shallow valley, and 
 beyond that the range of the I^)zere, sparsely wooded 
 and well enough modelled in the flanks, but straight and 
 (lull in outline. There was scarce a sign of culture;
 
 72 Travels with a Donkey- 
 
 only about Bleymard, the white high-road from Villefort 
 to Mende traversed a range of meadows, set with spiry 
 poplars, and sounding from side to side with the bells of 
 flocks and herds. 
 
 A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES 
 
 5 From Bleymard after dinner, although it was already 
 late, I set out to scale a portion of the Lozere. An ill- 
 marked stony drove-road guided me forward ; and I met 
 nearly half-a-dozen bullock-carts descending from the 
 woods, each laden with a whole pine-tree for the winter's 
 
 lo firing. At the top of the woods, which do not climb very 
 high upon this cold ridge, I struck leftward by a path 
 among the pines, until I hit on a dell of green turf, where a 
 streamlet made a littlespout over some stones to serve me 
 for a water-tap. " In a more sacred or sequestered bower 
 
 15 . . . nor nymph, nor faunus, haunted." The trees were not 
 old, but they grew thickly round the glade : there was no 
 outlook, except northeastward upon distant hill-tops, or 
 straight upward to the sky ; and the encampment felt se- 
 cure and private like a room. By the time I had made my 
 
 20 arrangements and fed Modestine, the day was already be- 
 ginning to decline. I buckled myself to the knees into 
 my sack and made a hearty meal ; and as soon as the sun 
 went down, I pulled my cap over my eyes and fell asleep. 
 Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but 
 
 25 in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews 
 and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the
 
 A Night among the Pines 73 
 
 face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to 
 people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light 
 and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield. All 
 night long he can hear Nature breathing deeply and freely ; 
 even as she takes her rest, she turns and smiles ; and there s 
 is one stirring hour unknown to those who dwell in houses, 
 when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping 
 hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet. 
 It is then that the cock first crows, not this time to an- 
 nounce the dawn, but like a cheerful watchman speeding 10 
 the course of night. Cattle awake on the meadows ; sheep 
 break their fast on dewy hill-sides, and change to a new 
 lair among the ferns ; and houseless men, who have lain 
 down with the fowls, open their dim eyes and behold the 
 beauty of tiic night. 15 
 
 At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of 
 Nature, are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same 
 hour to life? Do the stars rain down an influence, or do 
 we share some thrill of mother earth below our resting 
 bodies ? Even shepherds and old country-folk, who are the 20 
 deepest read in these arcana,' have not a guess as to the 
 means or purpose of this nightly resurrection. Towards 
 two in the morning they declare the thing takes .place; 
 and neither know nor inquire further. And at least it is a 
 pleasant incident. We arc disturbed in our slumber only, 25 
 like the luxurious Montaigne, " that we may the better 
 and more sensibly relish it." We have a moment to look 
 upon the stars, and there is a s|)ecial pleasure for some 
 
 ' Secrets.
 
 74 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 minds in the reflection that we share the impulse with all 
 outdoor creatures in our neighbourhood, that we have 
 escaped out of the Bastille of civilization, and are become, 
 for the time being, a mere kindly animal and a sheep of 
 5 Nature's flock. 
 
 When that hour came to me among the pines, I wak- 
 ened thirsty. My tin was standing by me half full of water. 
 I emptied it at a draught ; and feeling broad awake after 
 this internal cold aspersion, sat upright to make a cigarette. 
 
 10 The stars were clear, coloured, and jewel-like, but not 
 frosty. A faint silvery vapour stood for the Milky Way. 
 All around me the black fir-points stood upright and stock- 
 still. By the whiteness of the packsaddle, I could see 
 Modestine walking round and round at the length of her 
 
 15 tether ; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward ; 
 but there was not another sound, save the indescribable 
 quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily 
 smoking and studying the colour of the sky, as we call the 
 void of space, from where it showed a reddish grey be- 
 
 20 hind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black 
 between the stars. As if to be more like a pedlar, I wear 
 a silver ring. This I could see faintly shining as I raised 
 or lowered the cigarette ; and at each whiff the inside of 
 my hand was illuminated, and became for a second the 
 
 25 highest light in the landscape. 
 
 A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than a stream 
 of air, passed down the glade from time to time ; so that 
 even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all 
 night long. I thought with horror of the inn at Chasse-
 
 A Night among the Pines 75 
 
 rades and the congregated nightcaps ; with horror of the 
 nocturnal prowesses of clerks and students, of hot theatres 
 and pass-keys and close rooms. I have not often enjoyed 
 a more serene possession of myself, nor felt more inde- 
 pendent of material aids. The outer world, from which 5 
 we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle habit- 
 able place ; and night after night a man's bed, it seemed, 
 was laid and waiting for him in the fields, where God 
 keeps an open house. I thought I had rediscovered one 
 of those truths which are revealed to savages and hid from 10 
 jjolitical economists : at the least, I had discovered a new 
 jileasure for myself. And yet even while I was exulting 
 in my solitude I became aware of a strange lack. I wished 
 a companion to lie near me in the starlight, silent and not 
 moving, but ever within touch. For there is a fellowship 15 
 more quiet even tlian solitude, and which, rightly under- 
 stood, is solitude made perfect. And to live out of doors 
 with the woman a man loves is of all lives the most com- 
 plete and free. 
 
 As I thus lay, between content and longing, a faint noise 20 
 stole towards mc through the [)incs. 1 thought, at first, 
 it was the crowing of cocks or the barking of dogs at some 
 very distant farm ; I)Ut steadily and gradually it took ar- 
 ticulate shape in my ears, until I became aware that a 
 I)assenger was going by upon the high-road in the valley, 25 
 and singing loudly as he went. 'F'hcre was more of good- 
 will than grace in his performance ; but he troIK-d with 
 am|)le limgs ; and the sound of his voice took hold upon 
 the hill-side and set the air shaking in the leafy glens.
 
 76 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 I have heard people passing by night in sleeping cities ; 
 some of them sang ; one, I remember, played loudly on 
 the bagpipes. I have heard the ratde of a cart or carriage 
 spring up suddenly after hours of stillness, and pass, for 
 
 5 some minutes, within the range of my hearing as I lay 
 abed. There is a romance about all who are abroad in 
 the black hours, and with something of a thrill we try to 
 guess their business. But here the romance was double : 
 first^ this glad passenger, lit internally with wine, who sent 
 
 10 up his voice in music through the night ; and then I, on 
 the other hand, buckled into my sack, and smoking alone 
 in the pine-woods between four and five thousand feet 
 towards the stars. 
 
 When I awoke again (Sunday, 29th September), many 
 
 IS of the stars had disappeared ; only the stronger companions 
 of the night still burned visibly overhead ; and away tow- 
 ards the east I saw a faint haze of light upon the horizon, 
 such as had been the Milky Way when I was last awake. 
 Day was at hand. I lit my lantern, and by its glow-worm 
 
 20 light put on my boots and gaiters ; then I broke up some 
 bread for Modestine, filled my can at the water-tap, and 
 lit my spirit-lamp to boil myself some chocolate. The 
 blue darkness lay long in the glade where I had so sweetly 
 slumbered ; but soon there was a broad streak of orange 
 
 25 melting into gold along the mountain tops of Vivarais. 
 A solemn glee possessed my mind at this gradual and 
 lovely coming in of day. I heard the runnel with delight ; 
 I looked round me for something beautiful and un- 
 expected; but the still black pine-trees, the hollow glade,
 
 A Night among the Pines 77 
 
 the munching ass, remained unchanged in figure. Noth- 
 ing had altered but the Hght, and that, indeed, shed over 
 all a spirit of life and of breathing peace, and moved me 
 to a strange exhilaration. 
 
 I drank my water chocolate, which was hot if it was not s 
 rich, and strolled here and there, and up and down about 
 the glade. While I was thus delaying, a gush of steady 
 wind, as long as a heavy sigh, poured direct out of the 
 quarter of the morning. It was cold, and set me sneezing. 
 The trees near at hand tossed their black plumes in its lo 
 passage ; and I could see the thin distant spires of pine 
 along the edge of the hill rock slightly to and fro against 
 the golden east. Ten minutes after, the sunlight spread 
 at a gallop along the hill-side, scattering shadows and 
 sparkles, and the day had come completely. 15 
 
 I hastened to prejjare my pack, and tackle the steep 
 ascent that lay before mc ; but I had something on my 
 mind. It was only a fancy ; yet a fancy will sometimes 
 be importunate. I had been most hosi)itably received 
 and punctua:lly served in my green caravanserai. The 20 
 room was airy, the water excellent, and the dawn had 
 called me to a moment. I say nothing of the tapestries 
 or the inimitable ceiling, nor yet of the view which I 
 commanded from tiie windows ; but I felt I was in some 
 one's debt for all this liberal entertainment. And no it 25 
 pleased me, in a half- laughing way, to leave pieces of 
 money on the turf as I went along, until I had left enough 
 for my night's lodging. I trust they did not fall to some 
 rich and churlish drover.
 
 78 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 THE COUNTRY OF THE 
 CAMISARDS 
 
 ' We travelled in (he print of olden wars; 
 1 'et all the land was green ; 
 And love we found, and peace, 
 Where fire and war had been. 
 They pass and s/nile, the children of the sword — 
 1X0 more the sivord they wield ; 
 And O, how deep the corn 
 Along the battlefield I * 
 
 — W. P. Bannatyne. 
 
 ACROSS THE LOZERE 
 
 The track that I had followed in the evening soon died 
 out, and I continued to follow over a bald turf ascent a 
 row of stone pillars, such as had conducted me across the 
 Goulet. It was already warm. I tied my jacket on the 
 
 5 pack, and walked in my knitted waistcoat. Modestine 
 herself was in high spirits, and broke of her own accord, 
 for the first time in my experience, into a jolting trot that 
 set the oats swashing in the pocket of my coat. The 
 view, back upon the northern G^vaudan, extended with 
 
 10 every step ; scarce a tree, scarce a house, appeared upon 
 the fields of wild hill that ran north, east, and west, all 
 blue and gold in the haze and sunlight of the morning. 
 A multitude of little birds kept sweeping and twittering
 
 Across the Lozere 79 
 
 about my path ; they perched on the stone pillars, they 
 pecked and strutted on the turf, and I saw them circle 
 in volleys in the blue air, and show, from time to time, 
 translucent flickering wings between the sun and me. 
 
 Almost from the first moment of my march, a faint 5 
 large noise, like a distant surf, had filled my ears. Some- 
 times I was tempted to think it the voice of a neighbour- 
 ing waterfall, and sometimes a subjective result of the 
 utter stillness of the hill. But as I continued to advance, 
 the noise increased and became like the hissing of an 10 
 enormous tea-urn, and at the same time breaths of cool 
 air began to reach me from the direction of the summit. 
 At length I understood. It was blowing stifily from the 
 south upon the other slope of the Ix)zcre, and every step 
 that I took I was drawing nearer to the wind. 15 
 
 Although it had been long desired, it was quite unex- 
 pectedly at last that my eyes rose above the summit. A 
 step that seemed no way more decisive than many other 
 steps that had preceded it — and, " like stout Cortez when, 
 with eagle eyes, he stared on the Pacific," I took posses-' 20 
 sion, in my own name, of a new qtiarter of the world. 
 For behold, instead of the gross turf ram])art 1 had been 
 mounting for so long, a view into the hazy air of heaven, 
 and a land of intricate blue hills below my feet. 
 
 The Lozere lies nearly east and we?t, cutting (Itl-vaudan-as 
 into two unequal parts; its highest |)oint, this l*i( dc 
 Finiels, on which 1 was then standing, rises upwards of 
 five thoiisand six himdrcd feet al)f)ve the sea, and in dear 
 weather commands a view over all lower Languedoc to
 
 8o Travels with a Donkey 
 
 the Mediterranean Sea. I have spoken with people who 
 either pretended or believed that they had seen, from the 
 Pic de P'iniels, white ships sailing by MontpcUier and 
 Cette. Behind was the upland northern country through 
 
 5 which my way had lain, peopled by a dull race, without 
 wood, without much grandeur of hill-form, and famous in 
 the past for little beside wolves. But in front of me, half 
 veiled in sunny haze, lay a new G6vaudan,rich, picturesque, 
 illustrious for stirring events. Speaking largely, I was in 
 
 10 the C^vennes at Monastier, and during all my journey ; 
 but there is a strict and local sense in which only this 
 confused and shaggy country at my feet has any title to 
 the name, and in this sense the peasantry employ the 
 word. These are the C^vennes with an emphasis : the 
 
 isC^vennes of the C^vennes. In that undecipherable 
 labyrinth of hills, a war of bandits, a war of wild beasts, 
 raged for two years between the Grand Monarch with all 
 his troops and marshals on the one hand, and a few thou- 
 sand Protestant mountaineers upon the other. A hundred 
 
 2o-and eighty years ago, the Camisards held a station even 
 on the Lozere, where I stood ; they had an organization, 
 arsenals, a military and religious hierarchy ; their affairs 
 were " the discourse of every coffee-house " in London ; 
 England sent fleets in their support ; their leaders prophe- 
 
 25sied and murderec^; with colours and drums, an*d the 
 singing of old French psalms, their bands sometimes 
 affronted daylight, marched before walled cities, and 
 dispersed the generals of the king ; and sometimes at 
 night, or in masquerade, possessed themselves of strong
 
 Across the Lozere 8 1 
 
 castles, and avenged treachery upon their allies and 
 cruelty upon their foes. There, a hundred and eighty 
 years ago, was the chivalrous Roland, " Count and Lord 
 Roland, generalissimo of the Protestants in France," 
 grave, silent, imperious, pock-marked ex-dragoon, whom s 
 a lady followed in his wanderings out of love. There was 
 Cavalier, a baker's apprentice with a genius for war, 
 elected brigadier of Camisards at seventeen, to die at 
 fifty-five the English governor of Jersey. There again 
 was Castanet, a partisan leader in a voluminous peruke lo 
 and with a taste for controversial divinity. Strange gen- 
 erals, who moved apart to take counsel with the God of 
 Hosts, and fled or offered batde, set sentinels or slept in 
 an unguarded camp, as the Spirit whispered to their 
 hearts ! And there, to f(jllow these and other leaders, was 15 
 the rank and file of prophets and disciples, bold, patient, 
 indefatigable, hardy to run upon the mountains, cheering 
 their rough life with psalms, eager to fight, eager to pray, 
 listening devoutly to the oracles of brainsick children, 
 and mystically putting a grain of wheat among the pewter 20 
 balls with which they charged their muskets. 
 
 I had travelled hitherto through a dull district, and in 
 the track of nothing more notable than the child-eating 
 IJeast of G^vaudan, the Napoleon Buonaparte of wolves, 
 r.ut now I was to go down into the scene of a romantic 25 
 chapter — or, better, a romantic footnote — in the his- 
 tory of the world. What was left of all this bygone dnst 
 and heroism? I was l(jld that I'rcjlestantism still surviverl 
 in this hcail seat of Protestant resistance ; so much the 
 
 TKAVliLS Willi A DUNKKY — 6
 
 82 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 priest himself had told me in the monastery parlour. But 
 I had yet to learn if it were a bare survival, or a lively 
 and generous tradition. Again, if in the northern C6- 
 vennes the people are narrow in religious judgements, and 
 5 more filled with zeal than charity, what was I to look for 
 in this land of persecution and reprisal — in a land where 
 the tyranny of the Church produced the Camisard rebel- 
 lion, and the terror of the Camisards threw the Catholic 
 peasantry into legahzed revolt upon the other side, so that 
 
 lo Camisard and Florentin skulked for each other's lives 
 among the mountains ? 
 
 Just on the brow of the hill, where I paused to look 
 before me, the series of stone pillars came abruptly to an 
 end ; and only a little below, a sort of track appeared and 
 
 15 began to go down a breakneck slope, turning like a cork- 
 screw as it went. It led into a valley between falhng hills, 
 stubbly with rocks like a reaped field of corn, and floored 
 further down with green meadows. I followed the track 
 with precipitation ; the steepness of the slope, the con- 
 
 20 tinual agile turning of the line of descent, and the old un- 
 wearied hope of finding something new in a new country, 
 all conspired to lend me wings. Yet a little lower and 
 a stream began, collecting itself together out of many 
 fountains, and soon making a glad noise among the hills. 
 
 25 Sometimes it would cross the track in a bit of waterfall, 
 with a pool, in which Modestine refreshed her feet. 
 
 The whole descent is like a dream to me, so rapidly 
 was it accomplished. I had scarcely left the summit ere 
 the valley had closed round my path, and the sun beat
 
 Across the Lozere 83 
 
 upon me, walking in a stagnant lowland atmosphere. 
 The track became a road, and went up and down in easy 
 undulations. I passed cabin after cabin, but all seemed 
 deserted ; and I saw not a human creature, nor heard 
 any sound except that of the stream. I was, however, 5 
 in a different country from the day before. The stony 
 skeleton of the world was here vigorously displayed to 
 sun and air. The slopes were steep and changeful. Oak- 
 trees clung along the hills, well grown, wealthy in leaf, 
 and touched by the autumn with strong and luminous 10 
 colours. Here and there another stream would fall in 
 from the right or the left, down a gorge of snow-white and 
 tumultuary boulders. The river in the bottom (for it 
 was rapidly growing a river, collecting on all hands as it 
 trotted on its way) here foamed awhile in desperate rapids, 15 
 and there lay in pools of the most enchanting sea-green 
 shot with watery browns. As far as I have gone, I have 
 never seen a river of so changeful and delicate a hue ; 
 crystal was not more clear, the meadows were not by half 
 so green ; and at every pool I saw I felt a thrill of longing 20 
 to be out of these hot, dusty, and material garments, and 
 bathe my naked body in the moimtain air and water. All 
 the time as I went on I never forgot it was the Sabbath ; 
 the stillness was a perpetual reminder ; and I heard in 
 spirit the church-bells clamouring all over ICurope, and 35 
 the psalms of a thousand churches. 
 
 At length a human sound struck upon my ear — a 
 cry strangely modulated between pathos and derision ; 
 and looking across the valley, I saw a little urchin sitting
 
 84 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 in a meadow, with his hands about his knees, and dwarfed 
 to ahnost comical smallness by the distance. But the 
 rogue liad picked me out as I went down the road, from 
 oak-wood on to oak-wood, driving Modestine ; and he 
 5 made me the compHments of the new country in this trem- 
 ulous high-pitched salutation. And as all noises are lovely 
 and natural at a sufficient distance, this also, coming 
 through so much clean hill air and crossing all the green 
 valley, sounded pleasant to my ear, and seemed a thing 
 10 rustic, like the oaks or the river. 
 
 A little after, the stream that I was following fell into 
 the Tarn, at Pont de Montvert of bloody memory. 
 
 PONT DE MONTVERT 
 
 One of the first things I encountered in Pont de Mont- 
 vert was, if I remember righdy, the Protestant temple ; 
 
 IS but this was but the type of other novelties. A subtle 
 atmosphere distinguishes a town in England from a town 
 in France, or even in Scotland. At Carlisle you can see 
 you are in one country ; at Dumfries, thirty miles away, 
 you are as sure that you are in the other. I should find 
 
 20 it difficult to tell in what particulars Pont de Montvert 
 differed from Monastier or Langogne, or even Bleymard ; 
 but the difference existed, and spoke eloquently to the 
 eyes. The place, with its houses, its lanes, its glaring 
 river-bed, wore an indescribable air of the South. 
 
 25 All was Sunday bustle in the streets and in the public- 
 house, as all had been Sabbath peace among the moun-
 
 Pont de Montvert 85 
 
 tains. There must have been near a score of us at dinner 
 by eleven before noon ; and after I had eaten and 
 drunken, and sat writing up my journal, I suppose as 
 many more came dropping in one after another, or by 
 twos and threes. In crossing the Lozere I had not only 5 
 come among new natural features, but moved into the 
 territory of a different race. These people, as they hur- 
 riedly dispatched their viands in an intricate sword-play 
 of knives, questioned and answered me with a degree of 
 intelligence which excelled all that I had met, except 10 
 among the railway folk at Chasserades. They had open 
 telling faces, and were lively both in speech and manner. 
 They not only entered thoroughly into the spirit of my 
 little trip, but more than one declared, if he were rich 
 enough, he would like to set forth on such another. 15 
 
 Even physically there was a pleasant change. I had 
 not seen a pretty woman since I left Monastier, and there 
 but one. Now of the three who sat down with me to 
 dinner, one was certainly not beautiful- -a poor timid 
 thing of forty, quite troubled at this roaring tahlr (Vlu)te, 20 
 whom I squired and helped to wine, and pledged and 
 tried generally to encourage, with (jiiitc a contrary effect ; 
 but the other two, both married, were both more hand- 
 some than the average of women. And Clarisse? 
 What shall I say of Clarisse ? She waited the table with 25 
 a heavy placable nonchalance, like a performing cow ; 
 her great grey eyes were steejjed in amorous languor ; 
 her features, although fleshy, were of an original and ac- 
 curate design ; her mouth had a curl; her nostril spoke
 
 86 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 of dainty pride ; her cheek fell into strange and interest- 
 ing lines. It was a face capable of strong emotion, and, 
 with training, it offered the promise of delicate senti- 
 ment. It seemed pitiful to see so good a model left to 
 
 5 country admirers and a country way of thought. Beauty 
 should at least have touched society ; then, in a moment, 
 it throws off a weight that lay upon it, it becomes con- 
 scious of itself, it puts on an elegance, learns a gait and a 
 carriage of the head, and, in a moment, paict dea. Be- 
 
 lo fore I left I assured Clarisse of my hearty admiration. 
 She took it Hke milk, without embarrassment or wonder, 
 merely looking at me steadily with her great eyes ; and I 
 own the result upon myself was some confusion. If 
 Clarisse could read English, I should not dare to add 
 
 15 that her figure was unworthy of her face. Hers was a 
 case for stays ; but that may perhaps grow better as she 
 gets up in years. 
 
 Pont de Montvert, or Greenhill Bridge, as we might 
 say at home, is a place memorable in the story of the 
 
 zoCamisards. It was here that the war broke out; here 
 that those southern Covenanters slew their Archbishop 
 Sharpe. The persecution on the one hand, the febrile 
 enthusiasm on the other, are almost equally difficult to 
 understand in these quiet modern days, and with our 
 
 25 easy modern beliefs and disbeliefs. The Protestants 
 were one and all beside their right minds with zeal and 
 sorrow. They were all prophets and prophetesses. 
 Children at the breast would exhort their parents to good 
 works. "A child of fifteen months at Quissac spoke
 
 Pont de Montvert 87 
 
 from its mother's arms, agitated and sobbing, distinctly 
 and with a loud voice." Marshal Villars has seen a 
 town where all the women " seemed possessed by the 
 devil," and had trembling fits, and uttered prophecies 
 publicly upon the streets. A prophetess of Vivarais was s 
 hanged at Montpellier because blood flowed from her 
 eyes and nose, and she declared that she was weeping 
 tears of blood for the misfortunes of the Protestants. 
 And it was not only women and children. Stalwart dan- 
 gerous fellows, used to swing the sickle or to wield the 10 
 forest ax, were likewise shaken with strange paroxysms, 
 and spoke oracles with sobs and streaming tears. A 
 persecution unsurpassed in violence had lasted near a 
 score of years, and this was the result upon the perse- 
 cuted ; hanging, burning, breaking on the wheel, had 15 
 been in vain ; the dragoons had left their hoof-marks 
 over all the country-side ; there were men rowing in the 
 galleys, and women pining in the prisons of the Church ; 
 and not a thought was changed in the heart of any up- 
 right Protestant. »o 
 
 Now the head and forefront of the persecution — after 
 Lamoignon de P.aville — Francois de Langlade du Chayla 
 Cpronounced Chcila), Archpriest of the Cevennes and In- 
 spector of Missions in the same country, had a house in 
 which he sometimes dwelt in the town of Pont de Mont- 3$ 
 vert. He was a conscientious person, who seems to have 
 been intended by nature for a pirate, and now fifty-five, 
 an age by which a man has learned all the moderation of 
 which he is capable. A missionary in his youth in China,
 
 88 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 he there suffered martyrdom, was left for dead, and only 
 succoured and brought back to life by the charity of a 
 pariah.^ We must suppose the pariah devoid of second 
 sight, and not purposely malicious in this act. Such an 
 5 experience, it might be thought, would have cured a man 
 of the desire to persecute ; but the human spirit is a thing 
 strangely put together ; and, having been a Christian 
 martyr, Du Chayla became a Christian persecutor. The 
 Work of the Propagation of the Faith went roundly for- 
 
 10 ward in his hands. His house in Pont de Montvert 
 served him as a prison. There he plucked out the hairs 
 of the beard, and closed the hands of his prisoners upon 
 live coals, to convince tliem that they were deceived in 
 their opinions. And yet had not he himself tried and 
 
 1 5 proved the inefficacy of these carnal arguments among the 
 Buddhists in China? 
 
 Not only was life made intolerable in Languedoc, but 
 flight was rigidly forbidden. One Massip, a muleteer, 
 and well acquainted with the mountain paths, had already 
 
 20 guided several troops of fugitives in safety to Geneva ; 
 and on him, with another convoy, consisting mostly of 
 women dressed as men, Du Chayla, in an evil hour for 
 himself, laid his hands. The Sunday following, there 
 was a conventicle of Protestants in the woods of Altefage 
 
 25 upon Mount Boughs ; where there stood up one Siguier 
 — Spirit Siguier, as his companions called him — a wool- 
 carder, tall, black-faced, and toothless, but a man full of 
 
 1 A man of the lowest class in India and much despised by those 
 above him, hence an outcast.
 
 Pont de Montvert 89 
 
 prophecy. He declared, in the name of God, that the 
 time for submission had gone by, and they must betake 
 themselves to arms for the deliverance of their brethren 
 and the destruction of the priests. 
 
 The next night, 24th July, 1702, a sound disturbed the s 
 Inspector of Missions as he sat in his prison-house at 
 Pont de Montvert ; the voices of many men upraised in 
 psalmody drew nearer and nearer through the town. It 
 was ten at night ; he had his court about him, priests, 
 soldiers, and servants, to the number of twelve or fifteen, 10 
 and now dreading the insolence of a conventicle below 
 his very windows, he ordered forth his soldiers to report. 
 But the psalm-singers were already at his door, fifty strong, 
 led by the inspired S(iguier, and breathing death. To 
 their summons, the archpriest made answer like a stout 15 
 old persecutor, anrl bade his garrison fire upon the mob. 
 One Camisard (for, according to some, it was in this night's 
 work that they came by the name) fell at this discharge ; 
 his comrades burst in the door with hatchets and a beam 
 of wood, overran the lower story of the house, set free 20 
 the prisoners, and finding one of them in the vine, a sort 
 of Scavenger's Daughter of the i)lacc and period, re- 
 doubled in fury against l)u Chayla, and sought by re- 
 peated assaults to carry the upper Hoors. I5ut he, on his 
 side, had given absolution to his men, and they bravely s.s 
 held the staircase. 
 
 " Children of God," cried the prophet, " hold your 
 hands. Let us burn the house, with the ])riest and the 
 satellites of liaal."
 
 go Travels with a Donkey 
 
 The fire caught readily. Out of an upper window Du 
 Chayla and his men lowered themselves into the garden 
 by means of knotted sheets ; some escaped across the 
 river under the bullets of the insurgents ; but the arch- 
 5 priest himself fell, broke his thigh, and could only crawl 
 into the hedge. What were his reflections as this second 
 martyrdom drew near? A poor, brave, besotted, hateful 
 man, who had done his duty resolutely according to his 
 light both in the C^vennes and China. He found at least 
 
 10 one telling word to say in his defence ; for when the roof 
 fell in and the upbursting flames discovered his retreat, 
 and they came and dragged him to the public place of the 
 town, raging and calling him damned — " If I be damned," 
 said he, " why should you also damn yourselves? " 
 
 IS Here was a good reason for the last ; but in the course 
 of his inspectorship he had given many stronger which all 
 told in a contrary direction ; and these he was now to 
 hear. One by one, Siguier first, the Camisards drew near 
 and stabbed him. "This," they said, " is for my father 
 
 20 broken on the wheel. This for my brother in the galleys. 
 That for my mother or my sister imprisoned in your 
 cursed convents." Each gave his blow and his reason ; 
 and then all kneeled and sang psalms around the body till 
 the dawn. With the dawn, still singing, they defiled 
 
 25 away towards Frugferes, further up the Tarn, to pursue 
 the work of vengeance, leaving Du Chayla's prison-house 
 in ruins, and his body pierced with two-and-fifty wounds 
 upon the public place. 
 
 'Tis a wild night's work, with its accompaniment of
 
 Pont de Montvert 91 
 
 psalms ; and it seems as if a psalm must always have a 
 sound of threatening in that town upon the Tarn. But 
 the story does not end, even so far as concerns Pont de 
 Montvert, with the departure of the Camisards. The 
 career of Siguier was brief and bloody. Two more priests 5 
 and a whole family at Ladev^ze, from the father to the 
 servants, fell by his hand or by his orders ; and yet he 
 was but a day or two at large, and restrained all the time 
 by the presence of the soldiery. Taken at length by a 
 famous soldier of fortune, Captain Poul, he appeared 10 
 unmoved before his judges. 
 
 "Your name?" they asked. 
 
 " Pierre Siguier." 
 
 " Why are you called Spirit ? " 
 
 " Because the Spirit of the Lord is with me." 15 
 
 " Your domicile? " 
 
 " lately in the desert, and soon in heaven." 
 
 " Have you no remorse for your crimes? " 
 
 " I have committed none. My soul is like a garden 
 full of shelter amiof founiainsy 20 
 
 At Pont de Montvert, on the 1 2th of August, he had 
 his right hanfl stricken from his body, was burned alive. 
 And his soul was like a garden? So perhaps was the 
 soul of I)u Chayla, the Christian martyr. And perhaps 
 if you could read in my soul, or I could read in yours, 25 
 our own composure might seem little less surprising. 
 
 Du Chayla's house still stands, with a new roof, beside 
 one of the bridges of the town ; and if you are curious 
 you may sec the terrace-garden into which he dropped.
 
 92 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN 
 
 A NEW road leads from Pont de Montvert to Florae by 
 the valley of the Tarn ; a smooth sandy ledge, it runs 
 about half-way between the summit of the cliffs and the 
 river in the bottom of the valley ; and I went in and out, 
 S as I followed it, from bays of shadow into promontories 
 of afternoon sun. This was a pass like tliat of Killie- 
 crankie ; a deep turning gully in the hills, with the Tarn 
 making a wonderful hoarse uproar far below, and craggy 
 summits standing in the sunshine high above. A thin 
 
 10 fringe of ash-trees ran about the hill-tops, like ivy on a 
 ruin ; but on the lower slopes, and far up every glen, the 
 Spanish chestnut-trees stood each four-square to heaven 
 under its tented foliage. Some were planted, each on its 
 own terrace no larger than a bed ; some, trusting in their 
 
 15 roots, found strength to grow and prosper and be straight 
 and large upon the rapid slopes of the valley ; others, 
 where there was a margin to the river, stood marshalled 
 in a line and mighty like cedars of Lebanon. Yet even 
 where they grew most thickly they were not to be thought 
 
 20 of as a wood, but as a herd of stalwart individuals ; and 
 the dome of each tree stood forth separate and large, 
 and as it were a little hill, from among the domes of its 
 companions. They gave forth a faint sweet perfume 
 which pervaded the air of the afternoon ; autumn had 
 
 25 put tints of gold and tarnish in the green; and the sun 
 so shone through and kindled the broad foliage, that 
 each chestnut was relieved against another, not in shadow.
 
 In the Valley of the Tarn 93 
 
 but in light. A humble sketcher here laid down his 
 pencil in despair. 
 
 I wish I could convey a notion of the growth of these 
 noble trees ; of how they strike out boughs like the oak, 
 and trail sprays of drooping foliage like the willow ; of 5 
 how they stand on upright fluted columns like the pillars 
 of a church ; or like the olive, from the most shattered 
 bole can put out smooth and youthful shoots, and begin 
 a new life upon the ruins of the old. Thus they partake 
 of the nature of many different trees; and even their 10 
 prickly top-knots, seen near at hand against the sky, have 
 a certain palm-like air that impresses the imagination. 
 But their individuality, although compounded of so many 
 elements, is but the richer and the more original. And 
 to look down upon a level filled with these knolls of 15 
 foliage, or to see a clan of old unconquerable chestnuts 
 cluster "like herded elephants" upon the spur of a 
 mountain, is to rise to higher thoughts of the powers that 
 arc in Nature. 
 
 Ik'tween Modestine's laggard humour and llie Ijcaulyio 
 of the scene, we made little progress all that afternoon ; 
 and at last finding the sun, although still far from setting, 
 was already beginning to desert the narrow valley of the 
 Tarn, I began to cast about for a place to camp in. 
 This was not easy to find ; the terraces were too narrow, 25 
 and the ground, where it was unterraced, was usually too 
 steep for a man to lie upon. I should have slipped all 
 night, and awakened towards morning with my feet or 
 my head in the river.
 
 94 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 After perhaps a mile, I saw, some sixty feet above the 
 road, a little plateau large enough to hold my sack, and 
 securely parapeted by the trunk of an aged and enormous 
 chestnut. Thither, with infinite trouble, I goaded and 
 s kicked the reluctant Modestine, and there I hastened to 
 unload her. There was only room for myself upon the 
 plateau, and I had to go nearly as high again before I 
 found so much as standing room for the ass. It was on 
 a heap of rolling stones, on an artificial terrace, certainly 
 
 10 not five feet square in all. Here I tied her to a chestnut, 
 and having given her corn and bread and made a pile of 
 chestnut-leaves, of which I found her greedy, I descended 
 once more to my own encampment. 
 
 The position was unpleasantly exposed. One or two 
 
 15 carts went by upon the road ; and as long as daylight 
 lasted I concealed myself, for all the world like a hunted 
 Camisard, behind my fortification of vast chestnut trunk ; 
 for I was passionately afraid of discovery and the visit of 
 jocular persons in the night. Moreover, I saw that I 
 
 20 must be early awake ; for these chestnut gardens had 
 been the scene of industry no farther gone than on the 
 day before. The slope was strewn with lopped branches, 
 and here and there a great package of leaves was propped 
 against a trunk ; for even the leaves are serviceable, and 
 
 25 the peasants use them in winter by way of fodder for 
 their animals. I picked a meal in fear and trembling, 
 half lying down to hide myself from the road ; and I 
 daresay I was as much concerned as if I had been a scout 
 from Joani 's band above upon the Lozere, or from
 
 In the Valley of the Tarn 95 
 
 Salomon's across the Tarn, in the old times of psalm- 
 singing and blood. Or, indeed, perhaps more ; for the 
 Camisards had a remarkable confidence in God ; and a 
 tale comes back into my memory of how the Count of 
 G^vaudan, riding with a party of dragoons and a notary 5 
 at his saddlebow to enforce the oath of fidelity in all the 
 country hamlets, entered a valley in the woods, and 
 found Cavalier and his men at dinner, gaily seated on 
 the grass, and their hats crowned with box-tree garlands, 
 while fifteen women washed their linen in the stream. 10 
 Such was a field festival in 1 703 ; at that date Antony 
 Watteau would be painting similar subjects. 
 
 This was a very different camp from that of the night 
 before in the cool and silent pine-woods. It was warm 
 and even stifling in the valley. The shrill song of frogs, 15 
 like the tremolo note of a whistle with a pea in it, rang 
 up from the river side before the sun was down. In the 
 growing dusk, faint rustlings began to run to and fro 
 among the fallen leaves ; from time to time a faint chirp- 
 ing or cheeping noise wouhl fall upon my ear; and from ao 
 time to time I thought I could sec the movenunt of 
 something swift and indistinct between the chestnuts. A 
 profiision of large ants swarmed upon the ground ; bats 
 whisked by, and mosquitoes droned overhead. The long 
 boughs with their bunches of leaves htmg against the sky as 
 like garlands ; anfl those immediately above and around 
 me had somewhat the air of a trellis which should have 
 been wrecked and half overthrown in a gale of wind. 
 
 Sleep for a long time fled my eyelids ; and just as I
 
 96 Travels with a Donkey- 
 
 was beginning to feel quiet stealing over my limbs, and 
 settling densely on my mind, a noise at my head startled 
 me broad awake again, and, I will frankly confess it, brought 
 my heart into my mouth. It was such a noise as a per- 
 S son would make scratching loudly with a finger-nail, it 
 came from under the knapsack which served me for a 
 pillow, and it was thrice repeated before I had time to sit 
 up and turn about. Nothing was to be seen, nothing more 
 was to be heard, but a few of these mysterious rustlings 
 
 10 far and near, and the ceaseless accompaniment of the 
 river and the frogs. I learned next day that the chest- 
 nut gardens are infested by rats ; rustUng, chirping, and 
 scraping were probably all due to these ; but the puzzle, 
 for the moment, was insoluble, and I had to compose 
 
 15 myself for sleep, as best I could, in wondering uncertainty 
 about my neighbours. 
 
 I was wakened in the grey of the morning (Monday, 
 30th September) by the sound of footsteps not far off 
 upon the stones, and opening my eyes, I beheld a peasant 
 
 20 going by among the chestnuts by a foot-path that I had 
 not hitherto observed. He turned his head neither to 
 the right nor to the left, and disappeared in a few strides 
 among the foliage. Here was an escape 1 But it was 
 plainly more than time to be moving. The peasantry 
 
 25 were abroad ; scarce less terrible to me in my non- 
 descript position than the soldiers of Captain Poul to an 
 undaunted Camisard. I fed Modestine with what haste 
 I could ; but as I was returning to my sack, I saw a man 
 and a boy come down the hill-side in a direction crossing
 
 In the Valley of the Tarn 97 
 
 mine. They unintelligibly hailed me, and I replied with 
 inarticulate but cheerful sounds, and hurried forward to 
 get into my gaiters. 
 
 The pair, who seemed to be father and son, came 
 slowly up to the plateau, and stood close beside me for s 
 some time in silence. The bed was open, and I saw 
 with regret my revolver lying patently disclosed on the 
 blue wool. At last, after they had looked me all over, 
 and the silence had grown laughably embarrassing, the 
 man demanded in what seemed unfriendly tones : — 10 
 
 "You have slept here? " 
 
 "Yes," said I. "As you see." 
 
 "Why?" he asked. 
 
 " My faith," I answered lightly, " I was tired," 
 
 He next inquired where I was going and what I had 15 
 had for dinner ; and then, without the least transition, 
 " C'est bien, " he added, " come along." And he and 
 his son, without another word, turned off to the next 
 chestnut-tree but one, which they set to pruning. The 
 thing had passed off more sim|)ly than I hojjed. He was jo 
 a grave, respectable man ; and his unfricndl) voice did 
 not imply that he thought he was speaking to a criminal, 
 btit merely to an inferior. 
 
 I was soon on the road, nibbling a cake of chocolate 
 and seriously occupied with a case of conscience. Was I as 
 to pay for my night's lodging? I had slept ill, the l)ed 
 was full of fleas in the shape of ants, there was no water 
 in the room, the very dawn had neglected to call me in 
 the morning. I might have missed a train, had there 
 
 TKAVKI.S Willi A DONKKV — 7
 
 98 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 been any in the neighbourhood to catch. Clearly, I was 
 dissatisfied with my entertainment ; and I decided I 
 should not pay unless I met a beggar. 
 
 The valley looked even lovelier by morning ; and soon 
 S the road descended to the level of the river. Here, in a 
 place where many straight and prosperous chestnuts 
 stood together, making an aisle upon a swarded terrace, 
 I made my morning toilet in the water of the Tarn. It 
 was marvellously clear, thrillingly cool ; the soapsuds dis- 
 
 10 appeared as if by magic in the swift current, and the 
 white boulders gave one a model for cleanliness. To wash 
 in one of God's rivers in the open air seems to me a sort 
 of cheerful solemnity or semi-pagan act of worship. To 
 dabble among dishes in a bedroom may perhaps make 
 
 IS clean the body ; but the imagination takes no share in 
 such a cleansing. I went on with a light and peaceful 
 heart, and sang psalms to the spiritual ear as I advanced. 
 Suddenly up came an old woman, who point-blank de- 
 manded alms. 
 
 20 " Good," thought I ; " here comes the waiter with the bill." 
 And I paid for my night's lodging on the spot. Take 
 it how you please, but this was the first and the last 
 beggar that I met with during all my tour. 
 
 A step or two farther I was overtaken by an old man in 
 
 35 a brown nightcap, clear-eyed, weather-beaten, with a faint- 
 excited smile. A little girl followed him, driving two 
 sheep and a goat ; l)ut she kept in our wake, while the 
 old man walked beside me and talked about the morn- 
 ing and the valley. It was not much past six ; and for
 
 In the Valley of the Tarn 99 
 
 healthy people who have slept enough, that is an hour of 
 expansion and of open and trustful talk. 
 
 " Connaissez-vous le Seigneur i " he said at length. 
 
 I asked him what Seigneur he meant ; but he only re- 
 peated the question with more emphasis and a look in his 5 
 eyes denoting hope and interest. 
 
 " Ah ! " said I, pointing upwards, " I understand you 
 now. Yes, I know Him ; He is the best of acquaint- 
 ances." 
 
 The old man said he was delighted. " Hold," he 10 
 added, striking his bosom; "it makes me happy here." 
 There were a few who knew the Lord in these valleys, he 
 went on to tell me ; not many, but a few. " Many are 
 called," he quoted, " and few chosen." 
 
 " My father," said I, " it is not easy to say who know the i.s 
 Lord ; and it is none of our business. Protestants and 
 Catholics, and even those who worshi)) stones, may know 
 Him and be known by Him ; for He has made all." 
 
 I did not know I was so good a preacher. 
 
 The old man assured me he thought as I did, and ao 
 repeated his expressions of j)leasure at meeting me. 
 "We are so few," he said. "They call us Moravians 
 here ; but down in the department of Gard, where there 
 are also a good number, they are called Derbists, after 
 an English pastor." ».■; 
 
 I began to understand that I was figuring, in question- 
 able taste, as a member of some sect to me unknown ; 
 but I was more pleased with tlic pleasure of my com- 
 panion than embarrassed by my own equivocal position.
 
 100 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 Indeed I can see no dishonesty in not avowing a differ- 
 ence ; and especially in these high matters, where we 
 have all a sufficient assurance that, whoever may be in 
 the wrong, we ourselves are not completely in the right. 
 5 The truth is much talked about ; but this old man in a 
 brown nightcap showed himself so simple, sweet, and 
 friendly that I am not unwilling to profess myself his 
 convert. He was, as a matter of fact, a Plymouth 
 Brother. Of what that involves in the way of doctrine 
 
 lo I have no idea nor the time to inform myself; but I 
 know right well that we are all embarked upon a trouble- 
 some world, the children of one Father, striving in many 
 essential points to do and to become the same. And al- 
 though it was somewhat in a mistake that he shook hands 
 
 15 with me so often and showed himself so ready to receive 
 my words, that was a mistake of the truth-finding sort. 
 For charity begins blindfold ; and only through a series 
 of similar misapprehensions rises at length into a settled 
 principle of love and patience, and a firm belief in all 
 
 20 our fellow-men. If I deceived this good old man, in the 
 like manner I would willingly go on to deceive others. 
 And if ever at length, out of our separate and sad ways, we 
 should all come together into one common house, I have a 
 hope, to which I cling dearly, that my mountain Plymouth 
 
 25 Brother will hasten to shake hands with me again. 
 
 Thus, talking like Christian and Faithful by the way, 
 he and I came down upon a hamlet by the Tarn. It 
 was but a humble place, called La Vernfede, with less than 
 a dozen houses, and a Protestant chapel on a knoll.
 
 In the Valley of the Tarn loi 
 
 Here he dwelt ; and here, at the inn, I ordered my 
 breakfast. The inn was kept by an agreeable young man, 
 a stonebreaker on the road, and his sister, a pretty and 
 engaging girl. The village schoolmaster dropped in to 
 speak with the stranger. And these were all Protestants 5 
 — a fact which pleased me more than I should have ex- 
 pected ; and, what pleased me still more, they seemed 
 all upright and simple people. The Plymouth Brother 
 hung round me with a sort of yearning interest, and 
 returned at least thrice to make sure I was enjoying my 10 
 meal. His behaviour touched me deeply at the time, 
 and even now moves me in recollection. He feared to 
 intrude, but he would not willingly forego one moment of 
 my society ; and he seemed never weary of shaking me 
 by the hand. 15 
 
 When all the rest had drifted off to their day's work, 
 1 sat for near half an hour with the young mistress of 
 the house, who talked pleasantly over her seam of the 
 chestnut harvest, and the beauties of the Tarn, and old 
 family affections, broken up when young folk go from jo 
 home, yet still subsisting. Hers, I am sure, was a sweet 
 nature, with a country ])lainne.ss and nnich delicacy un- 
 derneath ; and he who takes her to his heart will doubtless 
 be a fortunate young man. 
 
 The valley below La Vernedc pleased me more and .»s 
 more as I went forward. Now the hills approached 
 from cither hand, nakefl and crumbling, and walled in 
 the river between cliffs ; and now the valley widened and 
 became green. The road led me past the old castle of
 
 I02 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 Miral on a steep ; past a battlemented monastery, long 
 since broken up and turned into a church and parson- 
 age ; and past a cluster of black roofs, the village of 
 Cocur^s, sitting among vineyards and meadows and 
 
 5 orchards thick with red apples, and where, along the 
 highway, they were knocking down walnuts from the 
 roadside trees, and gathering them in sacks and baskets. 
 The hills, however much the vale might open, were still 
 tall and bare, with cliffy battlements and here and there a 
 
 lo pointed summit ; and the Tarn still rattled through the 
 stones with a mountain noise. I had been led, by bag- 
 men of a picturesque turn of mind, to expect a horrific 
 country after the heart of Byron ; but to my Scotch eyes 
 it seemed smiling and plentiful, as the v^^eather still gave 
 
 1 5 an impression of high summer to my Scotch body; al- 
 though the chestnuts were already picked out by the au- 
 tumn, and the poplars, that here began to mingle with them, 
 had turned into pale gold against the approach of winter. 
 There was something in this landscape, smiling although 
 
 20 wild, that explained to me the spirit of the Southern Cov- 
 enanters. Those who took to the hills for conscience' 
 sake in Scotland had all gloomy and bedevilled thoughts ; 
 for once that they received God's comfort they would be 
 twice engaged with Satan ; but the Camisards had only 
 
 25 bright and supporting visions. They dealt much more 
 in blood, both given and taken ; yet I find no obsession 
 of the Evil One in their records. With a light conscience, 
 they pursued their life in these rough .times and circum- 
 stances. The soul of Siguier, let us not forget, was like
 
 Florae 1 03 
 
 a garden. They knew they were on God's side, with a 
 knowledge that has no parallel among the Scots ; for the 
 Scots, although they might be certain of the cause, could 
 never rest confident of the person. 
 
 " We flew," says one old Camisard, " when we heard 5 
 the sound of psalm-singing, we flew as if with wings. We 
 felt within us an animating ardour, a transporting desire. 
 The feeling cannot be expressed in words. It is a thing 
 that must have been experienced to be understood. How- 
 ever weary we might be, we thought no more of our weari- 10 
 ness and grew light, so soon as the psalms fell upon our 
 ears." 
 
 The valley of the Tarn and the people whom I met at 
 La Vern^de not only explain to me this passage, but the 
 twenty years of suffering which those who were so stifl'15 
 and so bloody when once they betook themselves to war, 
 endured with the meekness of children and the constancy 
 of saints and peasants. 
 
 ILORAC 
 
 O.v a branch of the Tarn stands Florae, the seat of a 
 siibprefecture, with an old castle, an alley of planes, many 20 
 (luaint street-corners, and a live fountain welling from the 
 hill. It is notable, besides, for handsome women, and as 
 one of the two capitals, Alais being the other, of the 
 country of the Camisards. 
 
 The landlord of tin- inn took me, after I had eaten, to as 
 an adjoining cafe, where I, or rather my journey, became 
 the topic of the afternoon. Everyone had some sugges-
 
 104 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 tion for my guidance ; and the subprefectorial map was 
 fetched from the subprefecture^ itself, and much thumbed 
 among coffee-cups and glasses of liqueur. Most of these 
 kind advisers were Protestant, though I observed that 
 5 Protestant and Catholic intermingled in a very easy man- 
 ner ; and it surprised me to see what a lively memory 
 still subsisted of the religious war. Among the hills of 
 the southwest, by Mauchline, Cumnock, or Carsphairn, 
 in isolated farms or in the manse, serious Presbyterian 
 
 10 people still recall the days of the great persecution, and 
 the graves of local martyrs are still piously regarded. 
 But in towns and among the so-called better classes, I 
 fear that these old doings have become an idle tale. If 
 you met a mixed company in the King's Arms at Wigtown, 
 
 15 it is not likely that the talk would run on Covenanters. 
 Nay, at Muirkirk of Glenluce, I found the beadle's wife 
 had not so much as heard of Prophet Peden. But these 
 Cdvenols were proud of their ancestors in quite another 
 sense ; the war was their chosen topic ; its exploits were 
 
 20 their own patent of nobility ; and where a man or a race 
 has had but one adventure, and that heroic, we must ex- 
 pect and pardon some prolixity of reference. They told 
 me the country was still full of legends hitherto uncol- 
 lected ; I heard from them about Cavalier's descendants 
 
 25 — not direct descendants, be it understood, but only 
 
 cousins or nephews — who were still prosperous people 
 
 in the scene of the boy-general's exploits ; and one farmer 
 
 had seen the bones of old combatants dug up into the air 
 
 1 The office of the subprefect, the official of the place.
 
 Florae 105 
 
 of an afternoon in the nineteenth century, in a field where 
 the ancestors had fought, and the great-grandchildren 
 were peaceably ditching. 
 
 Later in the day one of the Protestant pastors was so 
 good as to visit me : a young man, intelligent and polite, 5 
 with whom I passed an hour or two in talk. Florae, he 
 told me, is part Protestant, part Catholic ; and the differ- 
 ence in religion is usually doubled by a difference in 
 politics. You may judge of my surprise, coming as I did 
 from such a babbling purgatorial Poland of a place as 10 
 Monastier, when I learned that the population lived to- 
 gether on very quiet terms ; and there was even an ex- 
 change of hospitalities between households thus doubly 
 separated. Black Camisard and White Camisard, militia- 
 man and Miquelet and dragoon, Protestant prophet and 15 
 Catholic cadet of the White Cross, they had all been 
 sabring and shooting, burning, pillaging, and murdering, 
 their hearts hot with indignant passion ; and here, after 
 a hundred and seventy years, Protestant is still Protestant, 
 Catholic still Catholic, in mutual toleration and mild 20 
 amity of life. But the race of man, like that indomitable 
 nature whence it sprang, has medicating virtues of its 
 own; the years and seasons bring various harvests; the 
 sun returns after the rain; and mankind outlives secular 
 animosities, as a single man awakens fn^m the passions 35 
 of a day. We judge our ancestors from a more divine 
 position ; and the dust being a little laid with several 
 centuries, we can see both sides adornctl with human 
 virtues and fighting with a show of right.
 
 io6 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 I have never thought it easy to be just, and find it 
 daily even harder than I thought. I own I met these 
 Protestants with dehght and a sense of coming home. 
 I was accustomed to speak their language, in another and 
 5 deeper sense of the word tlian that which distinguishes 
 between French and EngHsh; for the true babel is a 
 divergence upon morals. And hence I could hold more 
 free communication with the Protestants, and judge them 
 more justly, than the Catholics. Father Apollinaris may 
 
 10 pair off with my mountain Plymouth Brother as two guile- 
 less and devout old men ; yet I ask myself if I had as 
 ready a feeling for the virtues of the Trappist ; or had I 
 been a Catholic, if I should have felt so warmly to the 
 dissenter of La Vern^de. With the first I was on terms 
 
 IS of mere forbearance ; but with the other, although only 
 on a misunderstanding and by keeping on selected points, 
 it was still possible to hold converse and exchange some 
 honest thoughts. In this world of imperfection we gladly 
 welcome even partial intimacies. And if we find but one 
 
 20 to whom we can speak out of our heart freely, with whom 
 we can walk in love and simplicity without dissimulation, 
 we have no ground of quarrel with the world or God. 
 
 IN THE VALLEY OF THE MIMENTE 
 
 On Tuesday, ist October, we left Florae late in the 
 afternoon, a tired donkey and tired donkey-driver. A 
 25 little way up the Tarnon, a covered bridge of wood in- 
 troduced us into the valley of the Mimente. Steep rocky 
 red mountains overhung the stream; great oaks and
 
 In the \'alley of the Mimente 107 
 
 chestnuts grew upon the slopes or in stony terraces; 
 here and there was a red field of millet or a few apple- 
 trees studded with red apples; and the road passed hard 
 by two black hamlets, one with an old castle atop to 
 please the heart of the tourist. 5 
 
 It was difficult here again to find a spot fit for my en- 
 campment. Even under the oaks and chestnuts the 
 ground had not only a very rapid slope, but was heaped 
 with loose stones ; and where there was no timber the hills 
 descended to the stream in a red precipice tufted with 10 
 heather. The sun had left the highest peak in front of 
 me, and the valley was full of the lowing sountl of herds- 
 men's horns as they recalled the flocks into the stable, 
 when I spied a bight of meadow some way below the 
 roadway in an angle of the river. 'I'hither I descended, 15 
 and, tying Modestine provisionally to a tree, proceeded 
 to investigate the neighbourhood. A grey pearly even- 
 ing shadow filled the glen; objects at a little distance 
 grew indistinct and melted bafflingly into each other ; and 
 the darkness was rising steadily like an exhalation. I jo 
 approached a great oak which grew in the meadow, hard 
 by the river's brink ; when to my disgust the voices of 
 chilflren fell upon my ear, and 1 beheld a house round 
 the angle on the other bank. I had half a mintl to pack 
 and be gone again, but the growing darkness moved me js 
 to remain. I had only to make no noise until the night 
 was fairly come, and trust to the dawn to call me early 
 in the morning. But it was hard to be annoyed by 
 neighbours in such a great hotel.
 
 io8 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 A hollow underneath the oak was my bed. Before I 
 had fed Modestine and arranged my sack, three stars were 
 already brightly shining, and the others were beginning 
 dimly to appear. I slipped down to the river, which 
 5 looked very black among its rocks, to fill my can ; and 
 dined with a good appetite in the dark, for I scrupled to 
 light a lantern while so near a house. The moon, which 
 I had seen, a pallid crescent, all afternoon, faintly illumi- 
 nated the summit of the hills, but not a ray fell into the 
 
 10 bottom of the glen where I was lying. The oak rose be- 
 fore me like a pillar of darkness ; and overhead the heart- 
 some stars were set in the face of night. No one knows 
 the stars who has not slept, as the French happily put it, 
 a la belle eioile. He may know all their names and dis- 
 
 15 tances and magnitudes, and yet be ignorant of what alone 
 concerns mankind, their serene and gladsome influence on 
 the mind. The greater part of poetry is about the stars ; 
 and very justly, for they are themselves the most classical 
 of poets. These same far-away worlds, sprinkled like 
 
 20 tapers or shaken together like a diamond dust upon the 
 sky, had looked not otherwise to Roland or Cavalier, when, 
 in the words of the latter, they had "no other tent but the 
 sky, and no other bed than my .mother earth." 
 
 All night a strong wind blew up the valley, and the 
 
 25 acorns fell pattering over me from the oak. Yet, on this 
 first night of October, the air was as mild as May, and I 
 slept with the fur thrown back. 
 
 I was much disturbed by the barking of a dog, an animal 
 that I fear more than any wolf. A dog is vastly braver,
 
 In the Valley of the Mimente 109 
 
 and is besides supported by the sense of duty. If you 
 kill a wolf, you meet with encouragement and praise ; but 
 if you kill a dog, the sacred rights of property and the 
 domestic affections come clamouring rounii you for redress. 
 At the end of a fagging day, the sharp, cruel note of a tlog's 5 
 bark is in itself a keen annoyance ; and to a tramp like 
 myself, he represents the sedentary and respectable world 
 in its most hostile form. There is something of the clergy- 
 man or the lawyer about this engaging animal ; and if he 
 were not amenable to stones, the boldest man would shrink 10 
 from travelling afoot. I respect dogs much in the do- 
 mestic circle ; but on the highway or sleeping afield, I 
 both detest and fear them. 
 
 I was wakened next morning (Wednesday, October 2d) 
 by the same dog — for I knew his bark — making a charge 15 
 down the bank, and then, seeing me sit up, retreating 
 again with great alacrity. The stars were not yet quite 
 extinguished. The heaven was of that enchanting mild 
 grey-blue of the early morn. A still clear light began to 
 fall, and the trees on the hill-side were outlined shari>ly jo 
 against the sky. The wind had veered more to the north, 
 and no longer reached me in the glen ; but a.s I was going 
 on with my jjreparations, it drove a white cloud very 
 swiftly over the hill-top ; and looking up, I was surprised 
 to sec the cloud dyed with gold. In these high regions 25 
 of the air, the sun was already shining as at noon. If 
 only the clouds travelled high enough, we should see the 
 same thing all night long. For it is always daylight in the 
 fields of space.
 
 no Travels with a Donkey 
 
 As I began to go up the valley, a draught of wind came 
 down it out of the seat of the sunrise, although the clouds 
 continued to run overhead in an almost contrary direction. 
 A few steps farther, and I saw a whole hill-side gilded with 
 5 the sun ; and still a little beyond, between two peaks, a 
 centre of dazzling brilliancy appeared floating in the sky, 
 and I was once more face to face with the big bonfire 
 that occupies the kernel of our system. 
 
 I met but one human being that forenoon, a dark 
 
 lo military-looking wayfarer, who carried a game-bag on a 
 baldric ; but he made a remark that seems worthy of 
 record. For when I asked him if he were Protestant or 
 Catholic — 
 
 "O," said he, "I make no shame of my religion. I 
 
 15 am a Catholic." 
 
 He made no shame of it ! The phrase is a piece of 
 natural statistics ; for it is the language of one in a mi- 
 nority. I thought with a smile of Baville and his dragoons, 
 and how you may ride rough-shod over a religion for a 
 
 20 century, and leave it only the more lively for the friction. 
 Ireland is still Catholic ; the C^vennes still Protestant. 
 It is not a basketful of law-papers, nor the hoofs and 
 pistol-butts of a regiment of horse, that can change one 
 tittle of a ploughman's thoughts. Outdoor rustic people 
 
 25 have not many ideas, but such as they have are hardy 
 plants and thrive flourishingly in persecution. One who 
 has grown a long while in the sweat of laborious noons, 
 and under the stars at night, a frequenter of hills and 
 forests, an old honest countryman, has, in the end, a
 
 The Heart of the Country 1 1 1 
 
 sense of communion with the powers of the universe, and 
 amicable relations towards his God. Like my mountain 
 Plymouth Brother, he knows the Lord. His religion does 
 not repose upon a choice of logic ; it is the poetry of the 
 man's experience, the philosophy of the history of his life. 5 
 God, like a great power, like a great shining sun, has ap- 
 peared to this simple fellow in the course of years, and 
 become the ground and essence of his least reflections; 
 and you may change creeds and dogmas by authority, or 
 proclaim a new religion with the sound of trumpets, if 10 
 you will ; but here is a man who has his own thoughts, 
 and will stubbornly adhere to them in good and evil. He 
 is a Catholic, a Protestant, or a Plymouth Brother, in the 
 same indefeasible sense that a man is not a woman, or a 
 woman not a man. For he could not vary from his faith, 15 
 unless he could eradicate all memory of the i)ast, and, in a 
 strict and not a conventional meaning, change his mind. 
 
 THE IlLART OF 'Fill': COUNTRY 
 
 I WAS now drawing near to Cassagnas, a cluster of black 
 roofs upon the hill-side, in this wild valley, am(;ng chest- 
 nut gardens, and looked upon in the clear air by many jo 
 rocky peaks. 'Fhc road along the Mimentc is yet new, 
 nor have the mountaineers recovered their surprise when 
 the first cart arrived at Cassagnas. I'.iit although it lay 
 thus apart from the current of men's business, this hamlet 
 had already made a figure in the history of France, aj 
 Hard by, in caverns of the mountain, was one of the five
 
 112 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 arsenals of the Camisards ; where they laid up clothes 
 and corn and arms against necessity, forged bayonets and 
 sabres, and made themselves gunpowder with willow char- 
 coal and saltpetre boiled in kettles. To the same caves, 
 5 amid this multifarious industry, the sick and wounded 
 were brought up to heal ; and there they were visited by 
 the two surgeons, Chabrier and Tavan, and secretly 
 nursed by women of the neighbourhood. 
 
 Of the five legions into which the Camisards were divided, 
 
 lo it was the oldest and the most obscure that had its maga- 
 zines by Cassagnas. This was the band of Spirit Si^guier ; 
 men who had joined their voices with his in the 68th 
 Psalm as they marched down by night on the archpriest 
 of the C^vennes. Siguier, promoted to heaven, was 
 
 IS succeeded by Salomon Couderc, whom Cavalier treats in 
 his memoirs as chaplain-general to the whole army of the 
 Camisards. He was a prophet ; a great reader of the 
 heart, who admitted people to the sacrament or refused 
 them by " intentively viewing every man " between the 
 
 2o eyes ; and had the most of the Scriptures off by rote. 
 And this was surely happy ; since in a surprise in August 
 1 703, he lost his mule, his portfolios, and his Bible. It 
 is only strange that they were not surprised more often 
 and more effectually ; for this legion of Cassagnas was 
 
 25 truly patriarchal in its theory of war, and camped without 
 sentries, leaving that duty to the angels of the God for 
 whom they fought. This is a token, not only of their 
 faith, but of the trackless country where they harboured. 
 M. de Caladon taking a stroll one fine day, walked with-
 
 The Heart of the Country 113 
 
 out warning into their midst, as he might have walked 
 into " a flock of sheep in a plain," and found some asleep 
 and some awake and psalm-singing. A traitor had need 
 of no recommendation to insinuate himself among their 
 ranks, beyond " his faculty of singing psalms " ; and even s 
 the prophet Salomon " took him into a particular friend- 
 ship." Thus, among their intricate hills, the rustic troop 
 subsisted ; and history can attribute few exploits to them 
 but sacraments and ecstasies. 
 
 People of this tough and simple stock will not, as 1 10 
 have just been saying, prove variable in religion ; nor will 
 they get nearer to apostasy than a mere external conform- 
 ity like that of Naaman in the house of Rimmon. When 
 Louis XVI, in the words of the edict, " convinced by the 
 uselessness of a century of persecutions, and rather from is 
 necessity than sympathy," granted at last a royal grace of 
 toleration, Cassagnas was still Protestant ; and to a man, 
 it is so to this day. There is, indeed, one family that is 
 not Protestant, but neither is it Catholic. It is that of 
 a Catholic cure in revolt, who has taken to his bosom a 20 
 schoolmistress. And his conduct, it's worth noting, is 
 disapproved by the Protestant villagers. 
 
 " It is a bad idea for a man," said one, " to go back 
 from his engagements." 
 
 The villagers whom I saw seemed intelligent after a 25 
 countrified fashion, and were all jilain and dignified in 
 manner. As a Protestant myself, I was well looked upon, 
 and my acquaintance with history gained me farther 
 respect. For we had something not unlike a religious 
 
 INLAND VOYAGE — 8
 
 114 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 controversy at table, a gendarme and a merchant with 
 whom I dined being both strangers to the place and Catho- 
 lics. The young men of the house stood round and 
 supported me ; and the whole discussion was tolerantly 
 5 conducted, and surprised a man brought up among the 
 infinitesimal and contentious differences of Scotland. 
 The merchant, indeed, grew a little warm, and was far less 
 pleased than some others with my historical acquirements. 
 But the gendarme was mighty easy over it all. 
 
 10 " It's a bad idea for a man to change," said he ; and 
 the remark was generally applauded. 
 
 That was not the opinion of the priest and soldier at 
 our Lady of the Snows. But this is a different race ; and 
 perhaps the same great-heartedness that upheld them to 
 
 15 resist, now enables them to differ in a kind spirit. For 
 courage respects courage ; but where a faith has been 
 trodden out, we may look for a mean and narrow popula- 
 tion. The true work of Bruce and Wallace was the union 
 of the nations ; not that they should stand apart awhile 
 
 20 longer, skirmishing upon their borders ; but that, when 
 the time came, they might unite with self-respect. 
 
 The merchant was much interested in my journey, and 
 thought it dangerous to sleep afield. 
 
 "There are the wolves," said he; "and then it is 
 
 25 known you are an Englishman. The English have always 
 long purses, and it might very well enter into some one's 
 head to deal you an ill blow some night." 
 
 I told him I was not much afraid of such accidents ; 
 and at any rate judged it unwise to dwell upon alarms or
 
 The Heart of the Country 115 
 
 consider small perils in the arrangement of life. Life 
 itself, I submitted, was a far too risky business as a whole 
 to make each additional particular of danger worth regard. 
 " Something," said I, " might burst in your inside any day 
 of the week, and there would be an end of you, if you 5 
 were locked into your room with three turns of the key." 
 
 " Cependant,'" said he, " coucher dehors! " 
 
 " God," said I, " is everywhere." 
 
 " Cependant, coucher dehors ! " he repeated, and his 
 voice was eloquent of terror. 10 
 
 He was the only person, in all my voyage, who saw 
 anything hardy in so simple a proceeding; although 
 many considered it superfluous. Only one, on the other 
 hand, professed much delight in the idea ; and that was 
 my Plymouth Brother, who cried out, when I told him I 15 
 sometimes preferred sleeping under the stars to a close 
 and noisy ale-house, " Now I see that you know the Lord ! " 
 
 The merchant asked me for one of my cards as I was 
 leaving, for he said I should be something to talk of in 
 the future, and desired me to make a note of his request 20 
 and reason ; a desire with which I have thus comjilied. 
 
 A little after two I struck across the Mimenle, and took 
 a rugged path southward up a hill-side covered with loose 
 stones and tufts of heather. At the top, as is the habit of 
 the coimtry, the path disai)pearefl ; and I left my she-ass 25 
 munching heather, and went forward alone to seek a road. 
 
 I was now on the separation of two vast watersheds ; 
 behind me all the streams were bound for the Garonne 
 and the Western Ocean ; before me was the basin of the
 
 ii6 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 Rhone. Hence, as from the Loz^re, you can see in clear 
 weather the shining of the Gulf of Lyons ; and perhaps 
 from here the soldiers of Salomon may have watched for 
 the topsails of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and the long-prom- 
 5 ised aid from England. You may take this ridge as lying 
 in the heart of the country of the Camisards ; four of the 
 five legions camped all round it and almost within view — 
 Salomon and Joani to the north, Castanet and Roland to 
 the south ; and when Julien had finished his famous work, 
 
 10 the devastation of the High C^vennes, which lasted all 
 through October and November, 1703, and during which 
 four hundred and sixty villages and hamlets were, with 
 fire and pickax, utterly subverted, a man standing on 
 this eminence would have looked forth upon a silent, 
 
 15 smokeless, and dispeopled land. Time and man's activity 
 have now repaired these ruins ; Cassagnas is once more 
 roofed and sending up domestic smoke ; and in the 
 chestnut gardens, in low and leafy corners, many a pros- 
 perous farmer returns, when the day's work is done, to 
 
 20 his children and bright hearth. And still it was perhaps 
 the wildest view of all my journey. Peak upon peak, 
 chain upon chain of hills ran surging southward, channelled 
 and sculptured by the winter streams, feathered from 
 head to foot with chestnuts, and here and there breaking 
 
 25 out into a coronal of cliffs. The sun, which was still far 
 from setting, sent adrift of misty gold across the hill-tops, 
 but the valleys were already plunged in a profound and 
 quiet shadow. 
 
 A very old shepherd, hobbling on a pair of sticks, and
 
 The Heart of the Country 117 
 
 wearing a black cap of liberty, as if in honour of his near- 
 ness to the grave, directed me to the road for St. Ger- 
 main de Calberte. There was something solemn in the 
 isolation of this infirm and ancient creature. Where he 
 dwelt, how he got upon this high ridge, or how he pro- 5 
 posed to get down again, were more than I could fancy. 
 Not far off upon my right was the famous Plan de Font 
 Morte, where Poul with his Armenian sabre slashed down 
 the Camisards of Siguier. This, methought, might be 
 some Rip van Winkle of the war, who had lost his com- 10 
 rades, fleeing before Poul, and wandered ever since upon 
 the mountains. It might be news to him that Cavalier had 
 surrendered, or Roland had fallen fighting with his back 
 against an olive. .Xnd while I was thus working on my 
 fancy, I heard him hailing in broken tones, and saw him 15 
 waving me to come back with one of his two sticks. I 
 had already got some way past him ; but, leaving Mo- 
 destine once more, retraced my steps. 
 
 Alas, it was a very commonplace affair. The old 
 gentleman had forgot to ask the pedlar what he sold, and 20 
 wished to remedy this neglect. 
 
 I told him sternly, " Nothing." 
 
 "Nothing ?" cried he. 
 
 I repeated " Nothing," and made off. 
 
 It's odd to think of, but perha])s I thus became as in- 25 
 explicable to the old man as he had been to nic. 
 
 The road lay under chcstntits, and though I saw a ham- 
 let or two below me in the vale, and many lone houses of 
 the chestnut farmers, it was a very solitary march all
 
 ii8 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 afternoon ; and the evening began early underneath the 
 trees. But I heard the voice of a woman singing some 
 sad, old, endless ballad not far off. It seemed to be 
 about love and a bclamoureux, her handsome sweetheart ; 
 5 and I wished I could have taken up the strain and an- 
 swered her, as I went on upon my invisible woodland 
 way, weaving, like Pippa in the poem, my own thoughts 
 with hers. What could I have told her? Little enough ; 
 and yet all the heart requires. How the world gives and 
 
 lo takes away, and brings sweethearts near, only to separate 
 them again into distant and strange lands ; but to love is 
 the great amulet which makes the world a garden ; and 
 " hope, which comes to all," outwears the accidents of 
 life, and reaches with tremulous hand beyond the grave 
 
 IS and death. Easy to say : yea, but also, by God's mercy, 
 both easy and grateful to believe ! 
 
 We struck at last into a wide white high-road, carpeted 
 with noiseless dust. The night had come ; the moon 
 had been shining for a long while upon the opposite 
 
 20 mountain; when on turning a corner my donkey and I 
 issued ourselves into her light. I had emptied out my 
 brandy at Florae, for I could bear the stuff no longer, and 
 replaced it with some generous and scented Volnay ; and 
 now I drank to the moon's sacred majesty upon the road. 
 
 25 It was but a couple of mouthfuls ; yet I became thence- 
 forth unconscious of my limbs, and my blood flowed with 
 luxury. Even Modestine was inspired by this purified 
 nocturnal sunshine, and bestirred her little hoofs as to a 
 livelier measure. The road wound and descended swiftly
 
 The Heart of the Country 119 
 
 among masses of chestnuts. Hot dust rose from our feet 
 and flowed away. Our two shadows — mine deformed 
 with the knapsack, hers comically bestridden by the pack 
 — now lay before us clearly outlined on the road, and 
 now, as we turned a corner, went off into the ghostly dis- 5 
 tance, and sailed along the mountain like clouds. From 
 time to time a warm wind rustled down the valley, and 
 set all the chestnuts dangling their bunches of foliage and 
 fruit ; the ear was filled with whispering music, and the 
 shadows danced in tune. And next moment the breeze 10 
 had gone by, and in all the valley nothing moved except 
 our travelling feet. On the opposite slope, the monstrous 
 ribs and gullies of the mountain were faintly designed in 
 the moonshine ; and high overhead, in some lone house, 
 there burned one lighted window, one sfjuare spark of red 15 
 in the huge field of sad nocturnal colouring. 
 
 At a certain point, as I went downward, turning many 
 acute angles, the moon disai)peared behind the hill ; and 
 I pursued my way in great darkness, until another turning 
 shot me without preparation into St. Oermain de Calberte. 20 
 The place was asleep and silent, and buried in opaciue 
 night. Only from a single open door, some lamplight 
 escajjcd upon the road to show me that I was come 
 among men's habitations. The two last gossips of the 
 evening, still talking by a garden wall, directed me to 25 
 the inn. The landlady was getting her chicks to bed ; the 
 fire was already out, and had, not wiihcnit grumbling, to 
 be rekindled ; half an hour later, and I nmst have gone 
 supperless to roost.
 
 I20 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 THE LAST DAY 
 
 When I awoke (Thursday, 2d October), and, hearing 
 a great flourishing of cocks and chuckling of contented 
 hens, betook me to the window of the clean and comfort- 
 able room where I had slept the night, I looked forth on 
 5 a sunshiny morning in a deep vale of chestnut gardens. 
 It was still early, and the cock-crows, and the slanting 
 lights, and the long shadows encouraged me to be out and 
 look round me. 
 
 St. Germain de Calberte is a great parish nine leagues 
 
 10 round about. At the period of the wars, and immediately 
 before the devastation, it was inhabited by two hundred 
 and seventy-five families, of which only nine were Catho- 
 lic ; and it took the cure seventeen September days to go 
 from house to house on horseback for a census. But the 
 
 15 place itself, although capital of a canton, is scarce larger 
 than a hamlet. It lies terraced across a steep slope in the 
 midst of mighty chestnuts. The Protestant chapel stands 
 below upon a shoulder ; in the midst of the town is the 
 quaint old Catholic church. 
 
 20 It was here that poor Du Chayla, the Christian martyr, 
 kept his library and held a court of missionaries ; here he 
 had built his tomb, thinking to lie among a grateful popu- 
 lation whom he had redeemed from error ; and hither on 
 the morrow of his death they brought the body, pierced 
 
 25 with two-and-fifty wounds, to be interred. Clad in his 
 priestly robes, he was laid out in state in the church. The 
 cure, taking his text from Second Samuel, twentieth chapter
 
 The Last Day 121 
 
 and twelfth verse, "And Amasa wallowed in his blood in 
 the highway," preached a rousing sermon, and exhorted 
 his brethren to die each at his post, like their unhappy 
 and illustrious superior. In the midst of this eloquence 
 there came a breeze that Spirit Siguier was near at hand; 5 
 and behold ! all the assembly took to their horses' heels, 
 some east, some west, and the cure himself as far as 
 Alais. 
 
 Strange was the position of this little Catholic metrop- 
 olis, a thimbleful of Rome, in such a wild and contrary 10 
 neighbourhood. On the one hand, the legion of Salomon 
 overlooked it from Cassagnas ; on the other, it was cut 
 off from assistance by the legion of Roland at Mialet. 
 The cure, Louvrelenil, although he took a panic at the 
 archpriest's funeral, and so hurriedly decamped to Alais, 15 
 stood well by his isolated pulpit, and thence utteretl ful- 
 minations against the crimes of the Protestants. Salomon 
 besieged the village for an hour and a half, but was beat 
 back. The militiamen, on guard before the cure's door, 
 could be heard, in the black hours, singing Protestant 20 
 psalms and holding friendly talk with the insurgents. And 
 in the morning, although not a shot had been fired, there 
 would not be a round of powder in their flasks. Wiiere 
 was it gone ? All handed over to the Camisards for a 
 consideration. Untrusty guardians for an isolated priest! 25 
 
 That these continual stirs were once busy in St. Ger- 
 main de Calbcrte, the imagination with difificulty receives; 
 all is now so quiet, the pulse of* human life now beats so 
 low and still in this hamlet of the mountains. Boys fol-
 
 122 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 lowed me a great way off, like a timid sort of lion-hunters ; 
 and people turned round to have a second look, or came 
 out of their houses, as I went by. My passage was the 
 first event, you would have fancied, since the Camisards. 
 5 There was nothing rude or forward in this observation ; it 
 was but a pleased and wondering scrutiny, like that of 
 oxen or the human infant ; yet it wearied my spirits, and 
 soon drove me from the street. 
 
 I took refuge on the terraces, which are here greenly 
 
 lo carpeted with sward, and tried to imitate with a pencil 
 the inimitable attitudes of the chestnuts as they bear up 
 their canopy of leaves. Ever and again a little wind went 
 by, and the nuts dropped all around me, with a light and 
 dull sound, upon the sward. The noise was as of a thin 
 
 IS fall of great hailstones ; but there went with it a cheerful 
 human sentiment of an approaching harvest and farmers 
 rejoicing in their gains. Looking up, I could see the 
 brown nut peering through the husk, which was already 
 gaping ; and between the stems the eye embraced an 
 
 20 amphitheatre of hill, sunlit and green with leaves. 
 
 I have not often enjoyed a place more deeply. I 
 moved in an atmosphere of pleasure, and felt light and 
 quiet and content. But perhaps it was not the place 
 alone that so disposed my spirit. Perhaps some one was 
 
 25 thinking of me in another country ; or perhaps some 
 thought of my own had come and gone unnoticed, and 
 yet done me good. For some thoughts, which sure 
 would be the most beautiful, vanish before we can rightly 
 scan their features ; as though a god, travelling by our
 
 The Last Day 123 
 
 green highways, should but ope the door, give one smiling 
 look into the house, and go again for ever. Was it 
 Apollo, or Mercury, or Love with folded wings? Who 
 shall say ? But we go the lighter about our business, and 
 feel peace and pleasure in our hearts. 5 
 
 I dined with a pair of Catholics. They agreed in the 
 Condemnation of a young man, a Catholic, who had 
 married a Protestant girl and gone over to the religion of 
 his wife. A Protestant born they could understand and 
 respect; indeed they seemed to be of the mind of an old 10 
 Catholic woman, who told me that same day there was 
 no difference between the two sects, save that, " wrong 
 was more wrong for the Catholic," who had more light 
 and guidance ; but this of a man's desertion filled them 
 with contempt. 15 
 
 " It is a bad idea for a man to change," said one. 
 
 It may have been accidental, but you see how this 
 phrase pursued me ; and for myself, I believe it is the 
 current philosophy in these parts. I have some difficulty 
 in imagining a better. It's not only a great flight of con- 20 
 fidcncc for a man to change his creed and go out of his 
 family for heaven's sake; but the odds are — nay, and 
 tlie hope is — that, with all this great transition in the eyes 
 of man, he has not changed himself a hair's-breadth to the 
 eyes of lied. I lonour to lliose who do so, for the wrench 25 
 is sore. P.ut it argues something narrow, whether of 
 strength or weakness, whether of the projjliel or tlie fool, 
 in those who can take a sufficient interest in such infini- 
 tesimal and human operations, or who can quit a friend-
 
 124 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 ship for a doubtful process of the mind. And I think 
 I should not leave my old creed for another, changing 
 only words for other words ; but by some brave reading, 
 embrace it in spirit and truth, and find wrong as wrong 
 S for me as for the best of other communions. 
 
 Th.e phyiioxera^ was in the neighbourhood ; and instead 
 of wine we drank at dinner a more economical juice o\ 
 the grape — /a Parisienne, they call it. It is made by 
 putting the fruit whole into a cask with water ; one by 
 
 lo one the berries ferment and burst ; what is drunk during 
 the day is supplied at night in water ; so, with ever another 
 pitcher from the well, and ever another grape exploding 
 and giving out its strength, one cask of Parisienne may 
 last a family till spring. It is, as the reader will anticipate, 
 
 15 a feeble beverage, but very pleasant to the taste. 
 
 What with dinner and coffee, it was long past three be- 
 fore I left St. Germain de Calberte. I went down beside 
 the Gardon of Mialet, a great glaring watercourse devoid 
 of water, and through St. Etienne de Valine Frangaise, 
 
 20 or Val Francesque, as they used to call it ; and towards 
 evening began to ascend the hill of St, Pierre. It was a 
 long and steep ascent. Behind me an empty carriage 
 returning to St. Jean du Gard kept hard upon my tracks, 
 and near the summit overtook me. The driver, like the 
 
 25 rest of the world, was sure I was a pedlar ; but, unlike 
 
 others, he was sure of what I had to sell. He had noticed 
 
 the blue wool which hung out of my pack at either end ; 
 
 and from this he had decided, beyond my power to alter 
 
 1 An insect that attacks and injures the grape-vine.
 
 The Last Day 125 
 
 his decision, that I dealt in blue-wool collars, such as deco- 
 rate the neck of the French draught-horse. 
 
 I had hurried to the topmost powers of Modestine, for I 
 dearly desired to see the view upon the other side before 
 the day had faded. But it was night when I reached the 5 
 summit; the moon was riding high and clear; and only 
 a few grey streaks of twilight lingered in the west. A 
 yawning valley, gulfed in blackness, lay like a hole in 
 created nature at my feet ; but the outline of the hills was 
 sharp against the sky. There was Mount Aigoal, the 10 
 stronghold of Castanet. And Castanet, not only as an 
 active undertaking leader, deserves some mention among 
 Camisards ; for there is a spray of rose among his laurel ; 
 and he showed how, even in a public tragedy, love will 
 have its way. In the high tide of war he married, in his 15 
 mountain citadel, a young and i)retty lass called Mariette. 
 There were great rejoicings ; and the bridegroom released 
 five-and-twenty jirisoners in honour of the glad event. 
 Seven months afterwards Mariette, the Princess of the 
 ('evennes, as they called her in derision, fell into the hands 20 
 of the authorities, where it was like to have gone hard 
 with her. Hut Castanet was a man of execution, and 
 loved his wife. He fell on Valleraugue, and got a lady 
 there for a hostage ; and for the first and last time in that 
 war there was an exchange of i)risoners. Their dauglUer, 25 
 pledge of some starry night upon Mount Aigoal, has left 
 descendants to this day. 
 
 Modestine and I — it was our last meal together — had 
 a snack upon the top of St. Pierre, I on a heap of stones.
 
 126 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 she standing by me in the moonlight and decorously eat- 
 ing bread out of my hand. The poor brute would eat 
 more heartily in this manner ; for she had a sort of affec- 
 tion for me, which I was soon to betray. 
 5 It was a long descent upon St. Jean du Gard, and we 
 met no one but a carter, visible afar off by the glint of the 
 moon on his extinguished lantern. 
 
 Before ten o'clock we had got in and were at supper; 
 fifteen miles and a stiff hill in little beyond six hours ! 
 
 FAREWELL, MODESTINE 
 
 lo On examination, on the morning of October 3d, Modes- 
 tine was pronounced unfit for travel. She would need at 
 least two days' repose according to the ostler ; but I was 
 now eager to reach Alais for my letters ; and, being in a 
 civilized country of stage-coaches, I determined to sell 
 
 15 my lady-friend and be off by the diligence that afternoon. 
 Our yesterday's march, with the testimony of the driver 
 who had pursued us up the long hill of St. Pierre, spread 
 a favourable notion of my donkey's capabilities. Intend- 
 ing purchasers were aware of an unrivalled opportunity. 
 
 20 Before ten I had an offer of twenty-five francs ; and 
 before noon, after a desperate engagement, I sold her, 
 saddle and all, for five-and-thirty. The pecuniary gain 
 is not obvious, but I had bought freedom into the 
 bargain. 
 
 25 St. Jean du Gard is a large place and largely Protestant. 
 The niaire, a Protestant, asked me to help him in a small
 
 Farewell, Modestine 127 
 
 matter which is itself characteristic of the country. The 
 young women of the C^vennes profit by the common 
 religion and the difference of the language to go largely 
 as governesses into England ; and here was one, a native 
 of Mialet, struggling with English circulars from two differ- 5 
 ent agencies in London. I gave what help I could ; and 
 volunteered some advice, which struck me as being ex- 
 cellent. 
 
 One thing more I note. The phylloxera has ravaged 
 the vineyards in this neighbourhood ; and in the early 10 
 morning, under some chestnuts by the river, I found a 
 party of men working with a cider-press. I could not at 
 first make out what they were after, and asked one fellow 
 to explain. 
 
 " Making cider," he said. " Oui, c'est comme (a. 15 
 Comme dans le tionlf " 
 
 There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice : the country 
 was going to the devil. 
 
 It was not until I was fairly seated by the driver, and 
 rattling through a rocky valley wilii dwarf olives, that 1 20 
 became aware of my bereavement. I had lost Modestine. 
 Up to that moment I had thouglit I hated her; but now 
 
 she was gone, 
 
 " And, O, 
 The difference to me! " 35 
 
 For twelve days we had been fast companions; wc hail 
 travelled upwards of a hundred and twenty miles, crossed 
 several respectable ridges, and jogged along with our six legs 
 by many a rocky and many a bf)ggy by-road. After the first
 
 128 Travels with a Donkey 
 
 day, although sometimes I was hurt and distant in manner, 
 I still kept my patience ; and as for her, poor soul ! she had 
 come to regard me as a god. She loved to eat out of my 
 hand. She was patient, elegant in form, the colour of an 
 
 5 ideal mouse, and inimitably small. Her faults were those 
 of her race and sex ; her virtues were her own. Farewell, 
 and if for ever — 
 
 Father Adam wept when he sold her to me ; after I 
 had sold her in my turn, I was tempted to follow his 
 
 10 example ; and being alone with a stage-driver and four or 
 five agreeable young men, I did not hesitate to yield to 
 my emotion.
 
 NOTES 
 
 /VN INLAND VOYAGE 
 [The heavy figures arc for the page, and the lighter ones for the line.] 
 
 The canoe trip of which " An Inland Voyage " is an account was 
 taken in the autumn of 1876 with Sir Walter Simpson, an enthusi- 
 astic canoeist, and from their university days a warm personal 
 friend of Stevenson. They had canoed before along the inlets of 
 the Scottish coast, and while they were different in temperament, 
 they were alike at least in their love for the sea. This journey can 
 be traced from Antwerp up the Scheldt and the Rupcl rivers to 
 Boom ; thence by the Willcbroek Canal to Brussels ; and thence 
 by train, by river, by canal, and on foot to Pontoise, where the 
 canoes, the Cigarette and the Arethiisa, were left. What became 
 of them may be learned from the letter to Sir Walter Simpson, 
 given on page 3 of this book. From the trip Stevenson derived 
 health and happiness, and for his account of the voyage here pub- 
 lished he received twenty jxiuiids. 
 
 5 : 22. Tied my sheet. It is somewhat risky to sail a canoe at 
 all. If, however, a canoeist docs wish to sail he holds the rope so 
 that he can most easily let out the sail when the gusts of wind 
 come. To tic the rope would make a dangerous sport more dan- 
 gerous. 
 
 g : 3. Miss Howe or Miss Harlowe. Characters in Samuel Rich- 
 ardson's novel, C/«//w(j JliirUmc. — S. Anthony, rnibahly a ref- 
 erence to .Saint Anlh<iny of Thebes, who S(j1(I his pos.sessions, gave 
 the proceeds to the poor, and then went into the desert, where he 
 spent the most of his life as a hermit, lie is called the father of 
 monastic asceticism. — 1 1 . Gymnosophist. A philosopher of a 
 
 i
 
 ii Inland Voyage 
 
 sect said to have been founded by Alexander the Great. The mem- 
 bers renounced all bodily pleasures. 
 
 lo: i8. "C'est vite, mais c'est long." "It is rapid, but 
 it is long," i.e. you are going fast but you have a long journey. 
 — 21. Tillers. The levers by which the rudders are turned and 
 the boats guided. — 23. Dingy. The smallest boat of a ship. 
 
 12 : 27. Like a squire's avenue. An avenue through the estate 
 of a country gentleman. 
 
 14:17. Sterlings. Piles driven close together. — 23. Tre- 
 panned. A trepan is a saw used by a surgeon in operating on a 
 skull. The verb means to perform an operation on the skull. 
 
 15 : 22. Allee Verte. Green Walk. A walk between double 
 rows of lime trees leading from Brussels in the direction of Laeken. 
 
 16:28. Huguenots. A name given to French Protestants be- 
 fore the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 
 
 17:24. Entrefreres. Among brothers. — 26. " En Angleterre," 
 etc. "In England you use sliding seats, do you not ? " — 29. Voyez- 
 vous, nous sommes serieux. But in the evening " you see, we are 
 serious." 
 
 19: 12. Mammon. Paradise Lost, Book i, 678-683. 
 
 21:3. To drive the coursers of the sun against Apollo. See 
 the myth of Phaethon, who attempted to drive the chariot of the 
 sun. 
 
 22 : 12. Murray. One of the leading guide books so called from 
 its editor and publisher. — 16. He is cast . . . into noisome dun 
 geons. See Att Epilogue to an Inland Voyage in Across the 
 Plains for an instance of Stevenson's arrest as a suspicious character. 
 
 25 : 26. He who can sit squarest on a three-legged stool. He 
 who devotes himself most closely to office work. Stevenson 
 scorned the humdrum life of an office clerk. 
 
 30 : 27. Hainaulters. Ilainaut or Ilainault is a district in south- 
 western Belgium and northeastern France. 
 
 32:12. Trousered. Coloured by tobacco stain. — 22. Amphora. 
 A Greek word for a two-handled vessel used for wine, oil, etc.
 
 Notes ill 
 
 34 . 5. Jove. See Hawthorne's story of Baucis and Philemon 
 in The Wonder Book, "The Miraculous Pitcher." 
 
 35:16. Rag-and-bone men. Ragpickers. 
 
 36:6. Auberge. An inn. 
 
 37: 13. Bread-berry, A food for invalids made by pouring 
 boiling water on toasted bread and seasoning with sugar. — 
 15. Swipes. English slang for poor weak beer. 
 
 38 : 6. The Lucretian maxim. Stevenson evidently refers to 
 such a saying as, " Wc find our own bread sweeter when we know 
 that others have less than we." 
 
 39 : 10. Landau. See the dictionary to note the distinguishing 
 features of this carriage and why the word is spelled with a capi- 
 tal letter. — 12. Molidre's farce. Moliere was a great French 
 dramatist of the seventeenth century. The farce referred to is Les 
 Precieuses Ridiailes. 
 
 40 : 4. He adhered ... to the masculine gender. All his ad- 
 jectives and pronouns were masculine witliout regard to the gender 
 of the nouns with which they should have agreed. — 6. Fancy 
 futures. Opinions concerning the rise and fall of prices in the 
 market. — 9. K6pi. Cap. 
 
 44:21. " Voilll de I'eau," etc. "Hereissomewaterforwasliing 
 yourselves." 
 
 45 = 3- Waterloo. .\ town in Belgium famous for the final defeat 
 of Napoleon. — 6. Austerlitz. A town in Austria famous for a 
 great victory of Xajjolcon. 
 
 46:8. Mormal, a sinister name to the ear. A word used to 
 signify an old sore. 
 
 47 : 20. Merlin under the oaks of Broceliande. Merlin, a magi- 
 cian of King Arthur's time, is said to have been left sjiell-bound in 
 a hollow oak in the woods of Broceliande. See Tennyson's " Mer- 
 lin and Vivian " in The Idylls of the h'ini^. — 22. Banyan. The 
 banyan tree sends out shoots from its branches that take root and be- 
 come additional trunks. One tree may thus enlarge itself until it 
 covers a large area, frequently as much as too yards in diameter.
 
 iv Inland Voyage 
 
 48: 18. Jeremiads. Tales of sorrow or complaint, so called 
 from Jeremiah, the Hebrew prophet, and writer oi Lamentations. 
 
 50: 19. Bedlamite. A madman, an inmate of a lunatic asylum. 
 The word Bedlam is a corruption of Bethlehem and was applied 
 to the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London, which was 
 founded in 1247 and later became a hospital for the insane. 
 
 51 : 14. Round. The officer and his attendants who make the 
 round of the garrison to see that all is well. — 28. Presumptuous 
 Hebrew prophets. See the story of Balaam and his ass, Numbers 
 xxii. 21-35. 
 
 52 : 4. Alma and Spicheren. Alma is a river in the Crimea, 
 where the Allies won a victory over Russia in the Crimean "War. 
 Spicheren is a place in Lorraine, Germany, the scene of a German 
 victory over the French in the Franco-Prussian War. 
 
 55:13. Jerkin. A short coat. — Archangel. A place in 
 Russia where tar is obtained. — 15. Parterre. An ornamental 
 arrangement of flower beds or plots. — 1 7. Loch Carron. An inlet 
 on the west coast of Scotland well known to Stevenson. 
 
 59:20, "Cependant." "However." 
 
 60 : 7. Mr. Moens. An English writer who had a short time 
 before made a trip similar to Stevenson's in the steam yacht Ytene. 
 
 61: 18. Colza. A variety of cabbage cultivated for the seeds, 
 which yield a valuable oil. 
 
 62 : 14. Pan. Creek god of shepherds, who is said to have used 
 a reed for his flute. — 21. Centaur. A Greek mythological being, 
 half man, half horse. 
 
 64: 17. Burns. See Burns's poem, To a Mountain Daisy. — 
 28. "Come away. Death." See Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, 
 ii. 4. 
 
 69 : 9. "0 France, mes amours." " O France, my loves." — 
 16. "Lesmalheursde la France.' "The misfortunes of France." 
 — 23. Alsace and Lorraine. Districts in Germany that belonged 
 to France until after the Franco-Prussian War of 1 870-1 871. 
 
 70:7. Farmer George. George HI; "so called because he
 
 Notes V 
 
 was like a farmer in dress, manners, and tastes. Also called ' The 
 Farmer King.' " Brewer, The Reader's Handbook. — 23. Caudine 
 Forks. Two narrow passes in Italy where the Romans were de- 
 feated in 321 B.C. 
 
 71 : 3. Fletcher of Saltoun. Andrew Fletcher, a Scotch patriot 
 who made himself famous by saying: " If a man were permitted to 
 make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws 
 of a nation." 
 
 72:12. Othello. Othello, in Shakespeare's play, won the heart 
 of Desdemuna by telling the story of his adventures. 
 
 76 : 18. " Tristes tetes de Danois 1 " " Sad Danish heads !"— 
 19. Gaston Lafenestre. A French painter of Stevenson's ac- 
 quaintance. — 24. Fontainebleau. A town thirty-five miles from 
 Paris and a forest said to be the most beautiful in France. Tliis 
 region was the haunt of artists and was well known to Stevenson. 
 See Stevenson's essay, Fontainebleau. 
 
 77 : 25. Jacques. Another French painter of Stevenson's time. 
 
 78 : 8. Barbizon. A village on the outskirts of the forest of Fon- 
 tainebleau especially frequented by Stevenson and his artist friends. 
 
 79 : 3. Proletarian. A term from Roman antiquity which 
 meant the lowest class of citizens. 
 
 80:5. Pro indiviso. All together. 
 
 81 : 3. "Eh bien, quoi, cest magnifique, (ja!" "Well, now, it 
 is magnificent indeed." — 28. Poe's horrid story. The Pit and the 
 Pendulum. — 29. Tristram Shandy. A mncl of tiie eighteenth 
 century, by I^urencc Sterne. 
 
 82:17. Nanty Ewart. See Scott's Redf^auntlet, Chap. xv. — 
 25. Communist, Communard. A communist believes that all 
 means of production should be held in commtm by all the peoi)le. 
 A communard believes in government by communes independent 
 f)f one another, 'i'he two words are sometimes useil synonymously. 
 
 87:20. Siphon. A conduit that takes the water of the river 
 under the canal. — 28. Demoniacal possession. See Luke iv, 
 33-36.
 
 vi Inland Voyage 
 
 88 : 5. La F§re. One of the places besieged by the Prussians 
 in the Franco-Prussian War. — Niirnberg figures. Statuettes, 
 etc., made at Niirnberg (or Nuremburg) in Bavaria. — 12. "C'est 
 bon, n'est-ce pas ? " " It is good, is it not ?" 
 
 92:5. Timon. A Greek of the time of the Peloponnesian War 
 and the cynical hero of Shakespeare's Timoti of Athens, He was 
 called "The Misanthrope" from his attitude of disgust toward peo- 
 ple in general. 
 
 93 : 2. " Bazin, aubergiste, loge a pied." "Innkeeper, lodging 
 for pedestrians. At the sign of the Maltese cross."— 16. Zola's 
 description of the marriage party. See Zola's VAssojuinoir, 
 Chap. iii. 
 
 97:15. Hotel de Ville. A town-hall. 
 
 99: 22. Miserere. The chant in the Roman Catholic service be- 
 ginning, "Miserere mei Domine." Pity me, Lord. 
 
 loi : 17. Jubilate Deo. The chant beginning "Jubilate Deo." 
 Shout for joy unto the Lord. — 29. A department. One of the 
 sections into which France is divided for government. 
 
 103 : 26. Deo Gratias and Four Sons of Aymon. The names of 
 canal-boats seen a day or two before on the canal. 
 
 106 : 23. Gargoyled. Decorated with gargoyles, water-spouts 
 carved to represent the heads of strange and hideous beasts. — 
 27. Louis XII. King of France, 1498-1515. 
 
 108:4. Via Dolorosa. The Dolorous Way, the street along 
 which Jesus Christ passed to his crucifixion. 
 
 112 : 6. Feuilletons. A portion of a French newspaper devoted 
 to light literature, or, as here, articles in this part of the paper. 
 
 113 : 16. Bradshaw's Guide. The Fnglish railway guide, named 
 from its originator. — 20. Walt Whitman. American poet, 
 1819-1892. 
 
 115: 17. Nirvana. In the Buddhist system of religion Nirvana 
 is the final saving of the soul from transmigration, and hence the 
 happy freedom from all the evils of worldly existence. 
 
 117:28. Great Assizes. The assizes in England are sessions of 
 
 1
 
 Notes vii 
 
 the county or circuit court, hence the Great Assizes means the last 
 judgement. 
 
 119 : 28. Ex voto. As a votive offering. 
 
 122:2. Zelatrice. A zealous person. The term is often used 
 for a nun who is put in charge of the younger women in a con- 
 vent. — 6. Dizaine. Ten prayers. — 18. The exciseman. Burns. 
 — 28. Euclid. The Greeic geometrician who wrote the first trea- 
 tise on geometry. The term, Euclid, is used in general for geome- 
 try. 
 
 125: I. Marionettes. Puppets moved by strings as in a Punch 
 and Judy show. 
 
 127 : 29. " 'Tis better to have loved and lost, 
 
 Than never to have loved at all." 
 
 — Tennyson, In iMemoriam, xxvii. 
 
 128 : 2. Endymion. A mythological youth with wliom Diana fell 
 in love. — 3. Audrey. A country maiden in Shakespeare's As 
 You Like ft. — 6. Snood. A rilihon which binds the hair of a 
 
 young unmarried Scotchwoman. — 11. Chateau Landon. A vil- 
 lage near l''ontaineblcau. — 24. Seine et Marne. The department 
 in which is the forest <jf l-'ontaineijleau. 
 
 130 : 10. Mesdames et Messieurs, etc. " Toadies and gentlemen. 
 Mademoiselle Kerrario and Monsieur de Vauversin will have the 
 honor <jf singing this evening the following selections. Mademoi- 
 selle Fcrrario will sing ' Mignon,' 'Swift liirds,' 'France,' 'French- 
 men sleep there,' 'The IJluc Caslle,' 'Where are you going?' 
 Monsieur dc Vauversin will sing ' Madame Fontaine and Monsieur 
 Robinct,"The Divers on Horsel)ack,' ' Tlie I )issalisried Husband,' 
 'Keep silent, my boy,' 'My Queer Neighbour,' ' Happy as it is,' 
 ' llow one is fleccivcd.' " 
 
 133:6. Tenez, messieurs, etc. \ow, gentlemen, I will tell 
 you what it is. — 25. Pyramus and Thisbe. For a humorous 
 performance of the old story of Pyramus and Thisbe, sec MiJsumiuer 
 NiqhCs Dream.
 
 viii Inland Voyage 
 
 134:1. The unities. Aristotle laid down the laws long observed 
 by writers of drama that every play should observe unity of time, 
 i.e. keep the time of the play within the limits of one day ; unity 
 of place, i.e. that there should be no change of place ; and unity 
 of action, i.e. that the action or story should be constantly followed. 
 
 135 : 8. Theophile Gautier. A French poet and critic of the 
 nineteenth century.
 
 NOTES 
 
 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 [The heavy figures are for the page, and the lighter ones for the line.] 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Simpson, after the re- 
 turn from their " inland voyage," were so enthusiastic that they 
 straightway planned another trip, a tramping trip among the moun- 
 tains. Sir Walter, however, was not a good walker, and after some 
 delays finally gave up the plan ; but Stevenson, to whose romantic 
 nature the thought of walking through an unfamiliar country and 
 spending the night by the roadside in his sleeping-bag appealed 
 strongly, purchased a donkey and set out from Monastier on the 23d 
 of September, 1878. His account of the twelve days' trip, written 
 from the journal that he kept from day to day, is full of romantic 
 and human interest. As liefore, he gained health and experience, 
 on the whole happy, and received twenty pounds for his story. 
 
 3:1. Le Monastier. For a longer account of this mountain village 
 sec Stevenson's A Mountain Town in France. — 6. Legitimists, 
 etc. The Legitimists favoured the old line of Bourbon kings ; the 
 Orleanists, the Prince of Orleans ; the Imperialists, the son of Louis 
 Napolecjn ; and the Republicans, the republic established after the 
 Kranco-I'russian War of 1870. — 12. Poland. Since its partition, 
 I'uland has been the seat of fierce political dissensions. 
 
 5:21. Respirator. An instrument for lircathing through, used 
 by persons with weak lungs or by those employed where tliere is 
 dust, smoke, or gas. 
 
 6 : 25. Sixty-five francs. A franc is e(|ual to about twenty cents. 
 — 27. Modestine. A fanciful name suggesting small si/.e and 
 modest s\avs. 
 
 8:12. Christian. The traveller in I'.unyan's Piltp-ini^s Progress. 
 
 i
 
 ii Travels with a Donkey 
 
 ri:26. "Et vous marchez comme^a!" "And you go like 
 that ! " 
 
 12 : 8. Deus ex machina. " A god from the machine," i.e. from 
 a theatrical contrivance by which a deity is made to appear on the 
 scene to help or protect his favourites. — 27. A countryman of 
 the Sabbath. The Sabbath is observed in Scotland v/ith unusual 
 strictness. 
 
 13 : 20. Homer's Cyclops. A rude and lawless people living on 
 the tops of lofty hills and in hollovk^ caves. See The Odyssey, 
 Book ix. 
 
 15 : 8. Hypothec. A Scottish legal term for a landlord's right 
 over the property of his tenant in security for debt. Here then it 
 means the whole property. 
 
 16 : 8. Acolytes. Those who have been ordained to the highest 
 of the four minor orders in the Roman Catholic church. Assistant 
 clergymen. 
 
 22:22. Dur comme un ine. Tough as a donkey. 
 
 26: 10. Napoleon Buonaparte of wolves. A famous wolf that 
 ranged certain districts of France for some years and was the sub- 
 ject of wildly extravagant tales. When it was killed in 1787, it 
 was found to be of ordinary size. — 21. Alexander Pope. A poet 
 of the eighteenth century, 1 688-1 744. — The little corporal. A 
 nickname for Napoleon. — 23. M. Elie Berthet. Author of Bele 
 du Gevaudan (Beast of Gevaudan), 1815-1891. 
 
 27 : 9. Caryatides. Draped female figures used in ornate build- 
 ings in place of plain pillars, so called from Caryae, a village in 
 Greece where there was a temple of Diana. — 25. "D'OU 'st que 
 vous venez ? " " Where do you come from ? " 
 
 30:1. Herbert Spencer. An English philosopher and writer, 
 1 820- 1 903. Stevenson implies that a student of philosophy should 
 be above a belief in ghosts and fairies. 
 
 32 : 16. "A little farther," etc. See Milton's Samson Agonistes, 
 1. I. 
 
 33 : 12. "C'est que, voyez-vous, 11 fait noir." "But then, you
 
 Notes iii 
 
 see, it is dark." — i6. "Mais — c'est — de la peine." "But it 
 is troublesome." — 2o. " Ce n'est pas 9a." "That isn't it." — 
 21. "Mais je ne sortirai pas de la porte." "But I am not going 
 to cross the door." 
 
 34 : 1. "C'est vrai, 9a." "That is true." — 2. "Oui, c'est vrai. 
 Et d'oii venez-vous?" "Yes, tliat is true, and whence have you 
 c(jme ? " — 21. " C'est que, c'est que — il fait noir." " But then, 
 but then, it is dark." 
 
 35 : 10. Filia barbara pater barbarior. The daughter barbar- 
 ous, the father ipore barljaruus. 
 
 37:6. Neat brandy. Brandy pure, unadulterated; specifically, 
 not mixed with water, undiluted. 
 
 38 : 24. Pastors of the Desert. A history of the Protestant per- 
 secution in France, especially interesting to one about to go into 
 the country of the Camisards. 
 
 39 : 3- Ulysses, left on Ithaca. See The Odyssey, Book xiii, for 
 the return of L'lysses to his home in Ithaca while he was asleep, 
 and for his surprise on waking. 
 
 40 : 23. Lady of all Graces. The Virgin Mary. 
 
 41:9. Balquidder and Dunrossness. Remote Protestant par- 
 ishes in Scotlaml and ihc Shetland Islands. 
 
 43 : 9. .£sop. The famous (Ircek writer of fables. Look up the 
 fable of the man who carried his donkey. 
 
 47:7. Wordsworth. An Knglish poet, 1770-1850. See his 
 sonnet called, rrnuU -vere ye mouulitins, when in time of old. 
 — 13. Trappist. The Trappists are a monastic body, a branch of the 
 Cistercian order, so caller! fr<im the village of Saligny-la-Trappe in 
 France, where the abbey of La Trappc was founded in 1140, The 
 rules of the order are very severe as will be seen from Stevenson's 
 account. There arc two liranchcs of the order in the United States; 
 the Abbey of flcthscniani- in I'<nnsylvania, and one at Melleray, 
 Iowa. — 13. Our Lady of the Snows. A monastery so nameil 
 from its position among the hills in the region of snow. 
 
 48:1. Sheets of characters. I'icturcs sold in sheets. See " A
 
 Iv Travels with a Donkey 
 
 Penny Plain and Two-pence Coloured " in Stevenson's Memories and 
 Portraits. 
 
 50 : 10. Dr. Pusey. An English clergyman who advocated the 
 return to doctrines and forms of worship like those of the Roman 
 Catholic church. Some of his associates joined the church of 
 Rome, but Dr. Pusey remained in the English church. 
 
 51 : 15. Father Hospitaller. The monk appointed to receive 
 strangers. 
 
 53 : 5. MM. les retraitants. Persons who have retired to the 
 monastery for a short time for rest and meditati(^, but who have 
 not joined the order. Stevenson refers to them later as boarders. 
 — 7. The Imitation. 7'he Imitation of Christ, a religious book by 
 Thomas a Kempis, a German abbot (1380-1471). — 8. Elizabeth 
 Seton. An American protestant who joined the church of Rome 
 in 1805 and founded the Sisters of Charity. — 12. Cotton Mather. 
 A Puritan theologian of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 who was a leader of religious thought in Massachusetts. — 21. "Le 
 temps libra," etc. "Their free time is to be used for inward 
 thought, for confession, and for forming good resolutions. " 
 
 54:19. Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, Pacifique. Famous monks of 
 different times and countries. — 21. Veuillot and Chateaubriand. 
 French authors of comparatively recent time. — 22. Moliere. The 
 great French dramatist of the seventeenth century. Stevenson 
 expresses his surprise that dramas, poetry, and modern French 
 literature should be found here where attention was given so 
 exclusively to things religious. 
 
 57 : 8. Mortification. Subduing the passions and appetites by 
 abstinence and severities inflicted on the body. — 14. Cistercian. 
 The Cistercian monks were an old order bound together by severe 
 rules and intense devotion to religion. 
 
 58 : 3. Chapter-room. The room where the monks of the order 
 fthe chapter) meet for business. — 3. The refectory. The dining- 
 hall. — 4. Office. A prescribed service of the church. 
 
 59:11. Compline. The religious exercise which closes the ser-
 
 Notes V 
 
 vices of the clay. — II. Salve Regina. A hvmn to the N'irgin 
 Mary in the Roman Catholic breviary. 
 60: II. "Que t'as de belles filles." French song. 
 
 " What beautiful daughters you have, 
 Girofle, Girofla, 
 What beautiful daughters you have, 
 Love will number them." 
 
 62:23. Gambetta. A French statesman prominent after the 
 Franco-Prussian War. — 27. "Comment, monsieur?" "How is 
 that, sir ? How is that ? " 
 
 63 : 21. " Et V0U3 pr^tendez mourir," etc. " And you expect to 
 die in that sort of belief." 
 
 64 : 8. Gaetulian Lion. Gaetulia was a district in ancient times 
 in northwestern Africa, now included in Morocco. 
 
 65: 19. "C'est men conseil comme," etc. "That is my advice 
 as a former soldier and this gentleman's as a priest." — 22. "Oui, 
 comme ancien," etc. "Yes, as an old soldier and a priest." 
 
 66:7. "A faddling hedonist." Hedonists were philosophers 
 who exalted the gralilicali(m of the senses, or put ])leasure first. 
 
 67:8. "La parole est k vous." This phrase means, "It is 
 your turn to speak." Hut ])robably what Stevenson intended to 
 say was wo/ — ■" it is your word." 
 
 69:8. "HS, bourgeois; il est cinq heures." " Hey, citi/en, it 
 is live o'clock." 
 
 73:26. Montaigne. A French essayist, 1 533-1 592. 
 
 74 : 3. Bastille. The famous prison in Paris that fell at the 
 time of the 1' r(n< h Revolution. 
 
 79 : 14. The Lozdre. A mountain in the Cevcnnes in a district 
 also callc'l I.ozere. 
 
 80:3. Montpellier and Cette. Towns in France on the shore 
 of the Mediterranean. — 17. Grand Monarch. I.ouis XI\'. — 
 20. The Camisards. The Protestants of the Cevcnnes who rose 
 in 1702 in an insurrection against the persecutions of Louis
 
 vi Travels with a Donkey 
 
 XIV. The insurrection lasted three years and ended with or 
 soon after the death of their leader, Roland Laporte, mentioned 
 here as Roland. 
 
 8i : 9. Jersey. An island in the English Channel. 
 
 82: 10. Florentin. A band of Roman Catholics, so called from 
 St. Florent, a small town where they organized. 
 
 84:17. Carlisle. An English town near the Scotch border. — 
 18. Dumfries. A Scotch town near the English border, made 
 famous as the residence and burial place of Robert Burns. 
 
 86:9. Patet dea. Appears as a goddess. — 21. Archbishop 
 Sharpe. James Sharpe, Archbishop of St. Andrews, was killed in 
 1679 by the Covenanters, a company of Scotch who fought fiercely 
 to maintain their Presbyterian form of worship when England tried 
 to force the forms of the English church upon them. See Scott's 
 Old Mortality, for a vivid picture of the time. It is not strange 
 that this young Scotchman should draw comparisons between the 
 Covenanters and the Camisards. 
 
 87 : 2. Marshal Villars. The French general who put down the 
 Camisard insurrection. — 18. Galleys. Ancient seagoing vessels 
 propelled by oars. The labor of rowing was often performed by 
 slaves or prisoners of war. In France criminals were commonly 
 condemned to this service. 
 
 89 : 22. Scavenger's Daughter. Corruption of Skevington's 
 daughter. " An instrument of torture, invented by Sir Wm. Skev- 
 ington, which so compressed the body as to force the blood to 
 flow from the nostrils and sometimes from the hands and feet." 
 Am. Cyc. — 29. Baal. Chief god of the Canaanites. See i Kings 
 xviii. 17-40. 
 
 92 : 6. Killiecrankie. A pass in the Grampian mountains of 
 Scotland, where Claverhouse, the persecutor of the Scotch Cove- 
 nanters, fell in 1689. 
 
 94 : 29. Joani and Salomon. Camisard leaders. 
 
 95: II. Antony Watteau. A French painter of the early eight- 
 eenth century.
 
 Notes vii 
 
 99:3. " Connaissez-vous le Seigneur?" "Do you know the 
 Lord?" — 22. Moravians. A small but thoroughly devoted sect 
 that have made themselves well known both in Europe and America 
 by their simplicity of life and remarkable missionary zeal. They 
 are best known in this country in Pennsylvania. 
 
 100 : 26. Christian and Faithful. Two of the characters in Ban- 
 yan's Pilgrim^ s Progress. 
 
 102 : 21. Those who took to the hills, etc. This gloomy trait 
 of character so ajiparent in the Scotch Covenanters is most clearly 
 illustrated in the character of Balfour of Burley, in Scott's Old 
 Mortality. 
 
 104 : 8. Mauchline, etc. In the country districts of Scotland, 
 especially among the unlettered, they still remember the Cove- 
 nanters, but in towns the people have largely forgotten these con- 
 tests for a free religion. Stevenson, therefore, takes special notice 
 of a different condition existing in Southern France. 
 
 108: 14. A la belle 6toile. Literally, under the beautiful star; 
 in the open air. 
 
 113:13. Naaman. Fur the beautiful story of Naaman, see 2 
 Kings v. 
 
 114:18. Bruce and Wallace. The greatest military heroes of 
 Scotland. 
 
 115:7. "Cependant, coucher dehors 1" " However, to sleep out 
 of doors ! " 
 
 116:4. Sir Cloudesley Shovel. A I'.riiish admiral on the 
 Mediterranean with a lleet at the lime of the Camisard insurrection. 
 
 118:7. Pippa. In the poem /';//(/ /V7,r.r«, by Robert Browning. 
 
 127:15, "Oui.c'est comme^a. Commedans le nord ! " "Yes, 
 that is the way it is. Just a.s in the North." — 24. 
 
 •' And, 0. 
 The difierence to me ! " 
 
 Sec Wordsworth's poem beginning, "She dwell among the untrod- 
 den ways."
 
 TEACHERS' OUTLINES 
 FOR STUDIES IN ENGLISH 
 
 Based on the Requirements for Admission to College 
 
 By GILBERT SYKES BLAKELY, A.M., Instructor in 
 English in the Morris High School, New York City. 
 
 50.50 
 
 THIS litde book is intended to present to teachers 
 plans for the study of the English texts required for 
 admission to college. These Oudines are full of 
 inspiradon and suggestion, and will be welcomed by every 
 live teacher who hitherto, in order to avoid ruts, has been 
 obliged to compare notes with other teachers, visit classes, 
 and note methods. The volume aims not at a discussion of 
 the principles of teaching, but at an application of certain 
 principles to the teaching of some of the books most 
 generally read in schools. 
 
 ^ The references by page and line to the book under 
 discussion are to the texts of the Gateway Series; but the 
 Outlines can be used with any series of English classics. 
 ^[ Certain brief plans of study are developed for the 
 general teaching of the novel, narrative poetry, lyric 
 poetry, the drama, and the essay. The suggestions are 
 those of a practical teacher, and follow a definite scheme 
 in each work to be studied. There are discussions of 
 methods, topics for compositions, and questions for review. 
 The lists of questions are by no means exhaustive, but 
 those that are given are suggestive and typical. 
 ^ The appendix contains twenty examinations in English, 
 for admission to college, recently set by different colleges 
 in both the East and the West. 
 
 AMERIQAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
 <S87)
 
 A HISTORY OF ENGLISH 
 LITERATURE 
 
 By REUBEN POST HALLECK, M.A. (Yale), 
 Louisville Male High School. Price, ^1.25 
 
 HALLECK'S HISTORY OF ENGLISH LIT- 
 ERATURE traces the development of that litera- 
 ture from the earliest times to the present in a 
 concise, interesting, and stimulating manner. Although the 
 subject is presented so clearly that it can be readily com- 
 prehended by high school pupils, the treatment is sufficiently 
 philosophic and suggestive for any student beginning the 
 study. 
 
 ^i The book is a history of literature, and not a mere col- 
 lection of biographical sketches. Only enough of the facts 
 of an author's life are given to make students interested in 
 him as a personality, and to show how his environment 
 affected his work. Each author's productions, their rela- 
 tions to the age, and the reasons why they hold a position 
 in literature, receive adequate treatment. 
 ^1 One of the most striking features of the work consists in 
 the way in which literary movements are clearly outlined at 
 the beginning of each chapter. Special attention is given to 
 the essential qualities which differentiate one period from 
 another, and to the animating spirit of each age. The author 
 shows that each period has contributed something definite 
 to the literature of England. 
 
 ^f At the end of each chapter a carefully prepared list of 
 books is given to direct the student in studying the original 
 works of the authors treated. He is told not only what to 
 read, but also where to find it at the least cost. The book 
 contains a special litcriirv map of l'"i))'!ancl in ( olors. 
 
 AMKRICAN BOOK C(JIV1PANY 
 
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 INTRODUCTION TO 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 By BRANDER MATTHEWS, A.M., LL.B., Profes- 
 sor of Literature, Columbia University. Price, $i.oo 
 
 EX-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, in a most ap- 
 preciative review in The Bookman, says : "The 
 boolc is a piece of work as good of its kind as any 
 American scholar has ever had in his hands. It is just 
 the kind of book that should be given to a beginner, be- 
 cause it will give him a clear idea of what to read, and of 
 the relative importance of the authors he is to read ; yet it 
 is much more than merely a book for beginners. Any 
 student of the subject who wishes to do good work here- 
 after must not only read Mr. Matthews' book, but must 
 largely adopt Mr. Matthews' way of looking at things, 
 for these simply written, unpretentious chapters are worth 
 many times as much as the ponderous tomes which con- 
 tain what usually passes for criticism ; and the principles 
 upon which I\Ir. Matthews insists with such quiet force 
 and good taste are those which must be adopted, not 
 only by every student of American writings, but by every 
 American writer, if he is going to do what is really worth 
 doing. ... In short, Mr. Matthews has produced 
 an admirable book, both in manner and matter, and has 
 made a distinct addition to the very literature of which he 
 writes." 
 
 ^[ The book is amply provided with pedagogical features. 
 Each chapter includes questions for review, bibliograph- 
 ical notes, facsimiles of manuscripts, and portraits, while 
 at the end of the volume is a brief chronology of American 
 literature. 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
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 COMPOSITION-RHETORIC 
 
 By STRATTON D. BROOKS, Superintendent of 
 Schools, Boston, Mass., and MARIETTA HUB- 
 BARD, formerly English Department, High School, 
 La Salle, 111. Price, Si-oo 
 
 THE fundamental aim of this volume is to enable pupils 
 to express their thoughts freely, clearly, and forcibly. 
 At the same time it is designed to cultivate literary 
 appreciation, and to develop some knowledge of rhetorical 
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 York State Education Department. 
 
 ^[ In Part One are given the elements ot description, narra- 
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 treatment of the four forms of discourse already discussed is 
 furnished in Part Two. In each partis presented a series of 
 themes covering these subjects, the purpose being to give the 
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 from the frequent repetition of an act. A single new princi- 
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 ^[ The pupils are taught how to correct their own errors, 
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 and with other school studies is made throughout the book. 
 ^[ The modern character of the illustrative extracts can not 
 fail to interest every boy and girl. Concise summaries are 
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 ENGLISH PROSE 
 
 Critical Essays 
 
 Edited with Introductions and Notes by THOMAS H. 
 DICKINSON, Ph.D., and FREDERICK W. ROE, 
 A.M., Assistant Professors of English, University ot 
 Wisconsin. Price, ^l-oo- 
 
 THIS book for college classes presents a series of ten 
 selected essays, which are intended to trace the 
 development of English criticism in the nineteenth 
 century. The essays cover a definite period, and exhibit 
 the individuality of each author's method of criticism. In 
 each case they are those most typical of the author's crit- 
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 critical tendencies of his age. The subject-matter provides 
 interesting material for intensive study and class room dis- 
 cussion, and each essay is an example of excellent, though 
 varying, style. 
 
 •[y They represent not only the authors who write, but 
 the authors who are treated. The essays provide the 
 best things that have been said by England's critics on Swift, 
 on Scott, on Macaulay, and on Emerson. 
 
 ^ The introductions and notes provide the necessary bio- 
 graphical matter, suggestive points for the use of the teacher 
 in stimulating discussion of the form or content of the essays, 
 and such aids as will eliminate those matters of detail that 
 might prove stumbling blocks to the student. Though the 
 essays are in chronological order, they may be treated at 
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 ESSENTIALS IN HISTORY 
 
 ESSENTIALS IN ANCIENT HISTORY . ^1.50 
 
 From the earliest records to Charlemagne. By 
 ARTHUR MAYER WOLFSON, Ph.D., First 
 Assistant in History, DeWitt Clinton High School, 
 New York 
 
 ESSENTIALS IN MEDIEVAL AND MODERN 
 HISTORY ^1.50 
 
 From Charlemagne to the present day. By SAMUEL 
 BANNISTER HARDING, Ph.D , Professor of 
 European History, Indiana University 
 
 ESSENTIALS IN ENGLISH HISTORY . $1.50 
 
 From the earliest records to the present day. By 
 ALBERT PERRY WALKER, A.M., Master in 
 History, English High School, Boston 
 
 ESSENTIALS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. ^1.50 
 
 From the discovery to the present day. By ALBERT 
 BUSHNELL HART, LL.D., Professor of History, 
 Harvard University 
 
 THESE volumes correspond to the four subdivisions 
 required by the College Entrance Examination 
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 partment. Each volume is designed for one year's work. 
 Each of the writers is a trained historical scholar, familiar 
 with the conditions and needs of secondary schools. 
 ^1 The effort has been to deal only with the things which 
 are typical and characteristic; to avoid names and details 
 which have small significance, in order to deal more justly 
 with the forces which have really directed and governed 
 mankind. Especial attention is paid to social hi.story. 
 ^j The books are readable and teachable, and furnish brief 
 but useful sets of bibliographies and suggestive questions. 
 No pains have been spared by maps and pictures to furnish 
 a significant and thorough body of illustration. 
 
 AMKRICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
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 THE MASTERY OF BOOKS 
 
 By HARRY LYMAN KOOPMAN, A.M., Librarian 
 of Brown University. Price, 90 cents 
 
 IN this book Mr. Koopman, whose experience and 
 reputation as a librarian give him unusual qualifications 
 as an adviser, presents to the student at the outset the 
 advantages of reading, and the great field of literature 
 open to the reader's choice. He takes counsel with the 
 student as to his purpose, capacities, and opportunities in 
 reading, and aims to assist him in following such methods 
 and in turning to such classes of books as will further the 
 attainment of his object. 
 
 ^ Pains are taken to provide the young student from the 
 beginning with a knowledge, often lacking in older readers, 
 of the simplest literary tools — reference books and cata- 
 logues. An entire chapter is given to the discussion of 
 the nature and value of that form of printed matter which 
 forms the chief reading of the modern world — periodical 
 literature. Methods of note-taking and of mnemonics 
 are fully described ; and a highly suggestive and valuable 
 chapter is devoted to language study. 
 ^ One of the most valuable chapters in the volume to 
 most readers is that concerning courses of reading. In 
 accordance with the author's new plan for the guidance 
 of readers, a classified list of about fifteen hundred books 
 is given, comprising the most valuable works in reference 
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 cated in notes. 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
 CS. 106)
 
 INTRODUCTORY COURSE 
 IN EXPOSITION 
 
 By FRANCES M. PERRY, Associate Professor of 
 Rhetoric and Composition, Wellesley College. 
 
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 EXPOSITION is generally admitted to be the most 
 commonly used form of discourse, and its successful 
 practice develops keen observation, deliberation, 
 sound critical judgment, and clear and concise expression. 
 Unfortunately, however, expository courses often fail to 
 justify the prevailing estimate of the value of exposition, 
 because the subject has been presented in an unsystem- 
 atized manner without variety or movement. 
 ^[ The aim of this book is to provide a systematized 
 course in the theory and practice of expository writing. 
 The student will acquire from its study a clear under- 
 standing of exposition — its nature ; its two processes, 
 definition and analysis ; its three functions impersonal 
 presentation or transcript, interpretation, and interpretative 
 presentation ; and the special application of exposition in 
 literary criticism. He will also gain, through the practice 
 required by the course, facility in writing in a clear and 
 attractive way the various types of exposition. The 
 volume includes an interesting section on literary criticism. 
 ^1 The method used is direct exposition, amply reinforced 
 by examples and exercises. The illustrative matter is 
 taken from many and varied sources, but much of it is 
 necessarily modern. The book meets the needs of 
 students in the final years of secondary schools, or the 
 first years of collc^'c. 
 
 AMERICAN \U)()K COMPANY
 
 DESCRIPTIVE 
 
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