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EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY 
 EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS 
 
 TRAVEL AND 
 TOPOGRAPHY 
 
 AN INLAND VOYAGE AND 
 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 
 INTRODUCTION BY ARMOUR CALDWELL 
 
THE PUBLISHERS OF EVERYMAN'S 
 LIBRARY WILL BE PLEASED TO SEND 
 FREELY TO ALL APPLICANTS A LIST 
 OF THE PUBLISHED AND PROJECTED 
 VOLUMES TO BE COMPRISED UNDER 
 THE FOLLOWING THIRTEEN HEADINGS 
 
 TRAVEL # SCIENCE # FICTION 
 
 THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY 
 
 HISTORY & CLASSICAL 
 
 FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 
 
 ESSAYS & ORATORY 
 
 POETRY & DRAMA 
 
 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 REFERENCE 
 
 ROMANCE 
 
 IN FOUR STYLES OF BINDING: CLOTH, 
 FLAT BACK, COLOURED TOP; LEATHER, 
 ROUND CORNERS, GILT TOP: LIBRARY 
 BINDING IN CLOTH, & QUARTER PIGSKIN 
 
 New York: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 
 
AN INLAND 
 VOYAGE & 
 TRAVELS 
 
 aDONKEY^ 
 
 rfo *2 
 
 <*to 
 
 ROBERTIDUIS STEVENSON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 E-P'DUTTONKO 
 
 Mono/rranh 
 

 <v 
 
 Copyright, 1913, 
 By E. P. Dutton & Company 
 
 ©CI.A357198 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 " There is not a life in all the records of the 
 past but, properly studied, might lend a hint and 
 a help to some contemporary," wrote Stevenson 
 in his essay on The Morality of the Profession 
 of Letters. And of the lives of few men is this 
 more finely true than of the life of Stevenson 
 himself; for to few men is it given to preserve 
 a nicer consonance between " the theory of life " 
 and " the art of living." The life of a man is 
 a bigger, a finer thing than any single deed which 
 issues forth from it ; and we may find in the end 
 that the best of Stevenson's works is his life. To 
 say that his life rather than his Treasure Island 
 is his masterpiece is to cut close to the truth. 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson was born at Edin- 
 burgh the 13th day of November, 1850. From 
 his father and his grandfather, who were eminent 
 lighthouse engineers, he probably derived his 
 structural carefulness and his love of the sea. 
 From his mother he inherited a happy spirit, a 
 roving love of active life, and something of his 
 bad health. When she was past sixty, and had 
 spent a lifetime in conventional Edinburgh, she 
 cheerfully broke all the old bonds and removed 
 to Apia, in the South Sea Islands, where she 
 learned to ride bare-back and go bare-foot with 
 her then famous son Robert. The gusto and 
 zest with which the aged mother took up a new 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 manner of life in a new and isolated part of the 
 world helps to explain the son's fondness for 
 calling himself a tramp and a gipsy. On his 
 mother's side, one ancestor was a minister and 
 another a Professor of Moral Philosophy. From 
 these two men Stevenson derived a turn for mor- 
 alizing. In fact, he himself wrote of his ma- 
 ternal grandfather, the Rev. Lewis Balfour: 
 " Now I often wonder what I have inherited from 
 this old minister. I must suppose, indeed, that 
 he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, 
 though I never heard it maintained that either 
 of us loved to hear them." But, while Steven- 
 son liked at times to point the moral, he was not, 
 like Carlyle, primarily Moralist; his attitude was 
 rather a fusion of that of the Moralist and that 
 of the Artist; he was at once a preacher and a 
 Bohemian ; he would lay down loftily the maxims 
 of life, but he would live life with the carefree 
 heartiness of a boy. These, then, were the an- 
 cestral strains in his blood; and his life and char- 
 acter seem unusually logical resultants. 
 
 For his nurse, Alison Cummingham, Stevenson, 
 to the end of his days, expressed an unbounded 
 devotion. " Cummy " it was, rather than his 
 mother, who read to him tales of adventure and 
 poems, while he stood at her knee, and to whom 
 he later (1885) dedicated his best collection of 
 poems, A Child's Garden of Verses. 
 
 Nearly all that we have to record of Stevenson 
 is in some way related to the fact that he started 
 life as a delicate or sickly child. His attendance 
 upon school was for this reason desultory. He 
 made frequent trips to southern France for his 
 health's sake. At school, he soon gained, and al- 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 ways after held, the reputation for ignoring en- 
 tirely those studies which did not please his fancy 
 and for delving most assiduously into those sub- 
 jects which he liked. It was no wonder, then, 
 that, after three and a half years' pursuit of the 
 engineering course at the University of Edin- 
 burgh, he failed signally in his work and flatly 
 refused to proceed farther. Of this period he 
 afterward wrote, in "Random Memories " : 
 " Anstruther is a place sacred to the Muse. . . . 
 This was when I came as a young man to glean 
 engineering experience from the building of a 
 breakwater. What I gleaned I am sure I don't 
 know; but indeed I had already my own private 
 determination to be an author; I loved the art 
 of words and the appearances of life. ... To 
 grow a little catholic is the compensation of years ; 
 youth is one-eyed ; and in those days, though I 
 haunted the breakwater by day, and even loved 
 the place for the sake of the sunshine, the thril- 
 ling seaside air, the wash of the waves on the sea- 
 face, the green glimmer of the diver's helmet 
 far below, and the musical clinking of the 
 masons, my one genuine preoccupation lay else- 
 where, and my only industry was in the hours 
 when I was not on duty." 
 
 This determination to follow a literary career 
 was a great disappointment to his father, who 
 had destined the lad to be a marine engineer, 
 a profession in which his father, his two uncles, 
 and his grandfather had already excelled. But 
 Robert compromised with his father by taking 
 up the law. Accordingly, we find him, in July, 
 1875, called to the Scottish Bar. He took up 
 quarters for the practice of law, and went so 
 
x INTRODUCTION 
 
 far as to hang his name outside the door, but 
 no clients came, and he soon abandoned the pro- 
 fession. 
 
 From this time on, Stevenson spent most of 
 his time in the pursuit of health. He was des- 
 tined not to stay long in one place, and it is with 
 difficulty that we follow, in any detail, the full 
 course of his wanderings. At the age of six- 
 teen, he had already visited the more picturesque 
 parts of Italy, Switzerland, and the Rhine region. 
 Before he left the university, he had made, in 
 1872, excursions in Scotland, Frankfort, the 
 Black Forest, and Normandy, and, in 1875, the 
 Western Isles (Scotland), Chester, Wales, and 
 Buckinghamshire. The next year in company 
 with Sir Walter Simpson, son of the world- 
 famous promulgator of chloroform, he made a 
 canoe-trip in Belgium and France, which re- 
 sulted in the publication of his first printed book, 
 An Inland Voyage (1878). 
 
 On his return from this voyage, he met, in 
 the art-settlement of Fontainebleau, in the heart 
 of France, an American lady, Mrs. Osbourne, 
 who had left an uncongenial husband in Cali- 
 fornia in order to seek a more attractive at- 
 mosphere for her two children and herself. A 
 strong attachment soon grew up between the 
 American woman and the young Scotchman, and 
 each found it difficult to forget the other. In 
 1879, Mrs. Osbourne returned to her native 
 state and Stevenson went on another journey 
 — this time through the Cevennes, France, an 
 account of which appeared in a volume entitled 
 Travels zvith a Donkey (1879). 
 
 Although he had now the acquaintance of 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 such men as Mr. Sidney Colvin, Mr. Andrew 
 Lang, W. E. Henley, and George Meredith, 
 these could not hold his mind from the one 
 woman who had come into his life, and soon after 
 Mrs. Osbourne's departure, Stevenson set sail for 
 America, going in the steerage of an emigrant 
 ship, partly for the sake of economy and partly 
 for the experience, which he later described 
 in The Amateur Emigrant and Across the 
 Plains. But in California came the breakdown. 
 The knowledge that his father thought his life 
 rather vagabondish at this time, the hardships 
 of the long voyage, followed by the slow, stifling 
 journey across the continent (it was August) 
 and the news of Mrs. Osbourne's illness : all 
 combined to shatter his own delicate health. 
 In consequence, another trip of one hundred and 
 fifty miles south to the Coast Range of mountains 
 beyond Monterey was now necessary. Here he 
 endeavored to win back his strength by camp- 
 ing alone out of doors. This was nearly the un- 
 doing of him, for he lay two nights in a stupor 
 under a tree, where two goatherds finally found 
 him. As soon as he had sufficiently recovered, 
 he returned to San Francisco, where he was 
 nursed back to something like his old self by 
 Mrs. Osbourne, and began in stern earnest his 
 struggle with life — a struggle which was to 
 grow harder year by year till the end. 
 
 To make matters worse, his affair with Mrs. 
 Osbourne had been misreported to his father, 
 who now cut off Robert's accustomed income. 
 The voyager was for the first time thrown ut- 
 terly upon his own resources. He began to write 
 essays and sketches for the magazines, but he 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 had difficulty in getting the editors to accept 
 them, and received little money for them. These 
 were assuredly dark, drear months through 
 which the young man was passing, but he never 
 lost heart, never turned his back on his chosen 
 art. But Fortune, before many months, shone 
 upon him with redoubled rays : he had improved 
 somewhat in health; his father, who now under- 
 stood the situation, renewed the annuity; and 
 Mrs. Osbourne was at last free to marry. Ac- 
 cordingly, there was consummated, in May, 1880, 
 one of those well-nigh perfect unions. Mrs. 
 Stevenson (as we must now call her) was of a 
 literary temperament, o? unconventional habits 
 of thought and action, and of a warmly affection- 
 ate nature; and she certainly added immeasur- 
 ably to the happiness of the remaining years of 
 her husband's life. After a brief stay with his 
 family at a deserted mining town fifty miles 
 north of San Francisco — the scene of The 
 Silverado Squatters — he sailed for Liverpool 
 with his wife and stepson. 
 
 But he soon found, as he had repeatedly found 
 before, that he could not endure the rigors of a 
 northern climate, and the rest of his life became 
 a continuous quest after health. Of this period, 
 his friend, Mr. Sidney Colvin writes : " His 
 life became that of an invalid, vainly seeking 
 health by change of place, rarely out of the doc- 
 tor's hands, often forbidden to speak (a depriva- 
 tion almost as great to himself as to those about 
 him), and for the most part denied the pleasures 
 of outdoor exercises. His courage, naturally of 
 the kind that courts danger in a life of action and 
 adventure, had to be trained to the passive mood 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 of endurance under distressing physical disabil- 
 ities. The trial was manfully borne; his pres- 
 ence never ceased to be sunshine to those about 
 him ; and in every interval of respite he worked 
 with eager toil and in unremitting pursuit of the 
 standards he had set before himself." But while 
 still in his native Scotland, he unwittingly com- 
 menced his masterpiece, Treasure Island. The 
 Stevensons were spending the early autumn of 
 1 88 1 at Braemar, a small village in the north- 
 center of Scotland. To console his little step- 
 son for the continued mirky weather, which en- 
 forced the lad's staying indoors, he conceived 
 the notion of writing a boy's book of adventure, 
 such as he himself had delighted to hear nurse 
 " Cummy " narrate to him when he was a boy. 
 The story, at first called The Sea Cook, was 
 published serially in Young Folks, where it 
 created little stir; on its appearance over a year 
 later (1883) in book form, however, its author 
 sprang into immediate fame. None of his other 
 works, save possibly the story of Dr. Jekyll 
 and Mr. Hyde (1886), has held the public 
 attention so widely and so long. 
 
 Meantime, Stevenson had been far from idle. 
 Earlier in the year in which he had commenced 
 Treasure Island (that is, in 1881), he had 
 collected a number of his essays and sketches in 
 a volume entitled Virginibus Puerisque which 
 he followed up the next year with another volume 
 of essays, Familiar Studies of Men and Books. 
 In the latter year (1882), he gathered his short 
 stories also in a volume which he called the 
 New Arabian Nights. 
 
 Thus Stevenson continued to write and to 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 travel. Two winters he spent at Davos Platz 
 (Switzerland), a part of another at Marseilles, 
 a year at Hyeres (on the Mediterranean Sea, 
 not far from Marseilles) ; then, to be near his 
 father, whose health was failing, he lived for 
 three years at Bournemouth (on the south coast 
 of England). Finally, his father having died, 
 he turned his back upon Europe forever and 
 sailed once again to America, in August of 1887. 
 That winter he spent at Saranac Lake, in the 
 care of a doctor. After three cruises, he built 
 himself a home in the far-off island of Samoa, 
 in the South Seas, in 1890, where his literary 
 activity became greater than ever — if possible 
 — and where he also found time to concern 
 himself with the politics of the island and give 
 valuable assistance in internal improvements. 
 Here death suddenly overtook him, in 1894, sin- 
 cerely mourned by the natives, who looked upon 
 him as a wise and almost god-like judge in their 
 affairs, who called him affectionately Tusitala 
 (Teller of Tales), who, in recognition of the 
 many benefits he had bestowed upon them, built 
 to his house a great white road which they called 
 " The Road of the Loving Heart," and who, 
 after he had put off pain and disease forever, 
 cut an almost perpendicular pathway to the top 
 of the mountain Vaea, and bore his body thence 
 to its last resting place. 
 
 When we consider the circumstances under 
 which Stevenson labored, his literary output, 
 both in quantity and in quality, seems astound- 
 ing. He published his first real book at the age 
 of twenty-eight, and he died in his forty-fourth 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 year: yet he crowded into these sixteen years 
 over forty separate publications, to say nothing 
 of the ten titles which have been added since his 
 death. His works now occupy about thirty 
 volumes, which is a record, pretty evenly sus- 
 tained, of almost two volumes a year, every one 
 of which was composed with scrupulous con- 
 science by a " master of the magic of words," 
 to use Kipling's phrase. He preached the " gos- 
 pel of work," and lived it; the quality which he 
 most exalted was Courage, and this he himself 
 had in double degree. He liked even pirates 
 for their courage. He lived his life with a will 
 and with good cheer, not dreading to lay it down 
 when he must; there is no more self -revealing, 
 consistent, and winning personality in English 
 literature. 
 
 To have met life on its own terms, and not 
 to have asked of it especial favors ; to have been 
 handicapped from the start of the race by a 
 frail body, and yet to have taught us, in brave, 
 compelling phrases, the duties of work, of cour- 
 age, of simple manliness, and of happiness; to 
 have labored amidst trying and curtailing condi- 
 tions, and yet to have achieved a man's measure 
 of work at an age when many of us have but 
 half begun ; and then to have gone down at last 
 with honor, if not with victory — with his hand 
 still at the helm, and joy in his heart, and a smile 
 on his lips : surely this was not to have lived in 
 vain. 
 
 On Stevenson's tombstone, there is inscribed, 
 in obedience to his own wish, the Requiem which 
 he composed for himself: 
 
xvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 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 hill. 
 
 Armour Caldwell 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The Pentland Rising, a Page of History 1666, 
 1866; The Charity Bazaar: an Allegorical Dia- 
 logue, 1868; An Appeal to the Church of Scotland, 
 1875; An Inland Voyage, 1878; Picturesque Notes 
 on Edinburgh, 1879; Travels with a Donkey in the 
 Cevennes, 1879; Deacon Brodie, or The Double 
 Life (Drama, in collaboration with W. E. Henley), 
 1880; Not I, and other Poems, 1881 ; Virginibus 
 Puerisque, 1881 ; Familiar Studies of Men and 
 Books, 1882; Moral Emblems, 1882; New Arabian 
 Nights, 1882; Treasure Island, 1883; The Silver- 
 ado Squatters, 1883 ; Admiral Guinea, and Beau 
 Austin (Dramas, in collaboration with W. E. Hen- 
 ley), 1884; Prince -Otto, 1885; A Child's Garden 
 of Verses, 1885 ; More New Arabian Nights : the 
 Dynamiter, 1885; Macaire (Melodramatic Farce, 
 in collaboration with W. E. Henley), 1885; The 
 Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1886; 
 Kidnapped, 1886; Some College Memories, 1886; 
 The Merry Men, and other Tales and Fables, 1887; 
 Underwoods (Poems), 1887; Thomas Stevenson, 
 Civil Engineer, 1887; Memories and Portraits, 
 1887; Ticonderoga: a Poem, 1887; Memoir of 
 Fleeming Jenkin (Introduction to Papers of Fleem- 
 ing Jenkin), 1887; The Black Arrow: a Tale of 
 the Two Roses, 1888; Misadventures of John 
 Nicholson, 1888 (from Yule Tide) ; The Master of 
 Ballantrae, 1888; The Wrong Box (in collaboration 
 with Mr. Lloyd Osbourne), 1889; Ballads, 1890; 
 The South Seas, 1890 (privately printed) ; 1890 
 (thirty-five letters); Father Damien, 1890; The 
 Wrecker (in collaboration with Mr. Lloyd Os- 
 
xviii BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 bourne), 1892; Across the Plains, with other Mem- 
 ories and Essays, 1892; A Footnote to History, 
 1892; Three Plays (Deacon Brodie, Beau Austin, 
 and Admiral Guinea), 1892; Island Nights Enter- 
 tainments, 1893; War in Samoa, 1893; David Bal- 
 four (a Sequel to Kidnapped; called Catriona, in 
 England), 1893; The Ebb-Tide (in collaboration 
 with Mr. Lloyd Osbourne), 1894. 
 
 Posthumous Publications. — Vailima Letters, 
 1895; Four Plays (in Collaboration with W. E. 
 Henley), 1895; Fables (with new Edition of Dr. 
 Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), 1896; Weir of Hermiston, 
 1896; Songs of Travel, 1896; Familiar Epistles in 
 Prose and Verse (for private distribution), 1896; 
 St. Ives (last chapters by Mr. A. T. Quiller-Couch), 
 1898 (from Pall Mall Magazine) ; Lay Morals and 
 other Papers (containing some new matter), 191 1; 
 Letters (complete edition, chronologically arranged, 
 containing the Vailima Letters and 150 new let- 
 ters), 191 1. 
 
 Editions of Works. — Edinburgh Edition, edited 
 by Sidney Colvin (includes contributions to peri- 
 odicals and many uncollected writings), 28 vols., 
 1894-98; Pentland Edition, with Bibliographical 
 Notes by Edmund Gosse, 1906, etc. ; Biographical 
 Edition (with Prefaces by Mrs. R. L. Stevenson), 
 1905; Swanston Edition, 191 1. 
 
 Songs of Travel, and other Verse, edited by S, 
 Colvin, 1896; Letters to his Family and Friends, 
 edited by Sidney Colvin, 1899; Some Stevenson 
 Letters, with Introduction by H. Townsend, 1902; 
 Essays, edited by W. L. Phelps, 1906. 
 
 Life. — Henry James, in Partial Portraits, 1894; 
 By Prof. Walter Raleigh, 1895 I Edmund Gosse, 
 Robert Louis Stevenson: Personal Memories (in 
 Critical Kitkats, 1896) ; H. B. Baildon, 1901 ; Gra- 
 ham Balfour, 1901 (the standard Life) ; G. K. 
 Chesterton (Bookman "Booklets"), 1902; Earl of 
 Rosebery, Wallace, Burns, Stevenson: Apprecia- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY xix 
 
 tions, 1903 ; Stevenson's Shrine, The Record of a 
 Pilgrimage, by Laura Stubbs, 1903; A. J. Japp, 
 Robert Louis Stevenson: a Record, an Estimate, 
 and a Memorial (with some unpublished let- 
 ters), 1905; also in Famous Scots Series (M. M. 
 Black), and Modern English Writers (L. C. Corn- 
 ford). 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 An Inland Voyage 
 
 Dedication xxiii 
 
 Preface xxv 
 
 Antwerp to Boom 3 
 
 On the Willebroek Canal 8 
 
 The Royal Sport Nautique 14 
 
 At Maubeuge ... . .20 
 
 On the Sambre Canalised: to Quartes ... 25 
 Pont-sur-Sambre : We Are Pedlars .... 31 
 
 The Travelling Merchant 38 
 
 On the Sambre Canalised: to Landrecies . . 44 
 
 At Landrecies 50 
 
 Sambre and Oise Canal: Canal Boats ... 55 
 
 The Oise in Flood 61 
 
 Origny Sainte-Benoite : A By-day .... 70 
 
 The Company at Table 77 
 
 Down the Oise: to Moy 85 
 
 La Fere of Cursed Memory 91 
 
 Down the Oise: Through the Golden Valley. 98 
 
 Noyon Cathedral 10 1 
 
 Down the Oise: to Compiegne 107 
 
 At Compiegne no 
 
 Changed Times 116 
 
 Down the Oise: Church Interiors .... 123 
 
 Precy and the Marionettes 130 
 
 Back to the World 142 
 
 xxi 
 
xxii CONTENTS 
 
 Travels with a Donkey page 
 
 Dedication 146 
 
 Velay 
 
 The Donkey, the Pack, and the Pack-saddle . 147 
 
 The Green Donkey-driver 154 
 
 I have a Goad 165 
 
 Upper Gevaudan 
 
 A Camp in the Dark 173 
 
 Cheylard and Luc 186 
 
 Our Lady of the Snows 
 
 Father Apollinaris . . 191 
 
 The Monks 197 
 
 The Boarders 206 
 
 Upper- GeVaudan (Continued) 
 
 Across the Goulet 214 
 
 A Night Among the Pines . . . . . . 219 
 
 The Country of the Camisards 
 
 Across the Lozere 225 
 
 Pont de Montvert 232 
 
 In the Valley of the Tarn 240 
 
 Florae 252 
 
 In the Valley of the Mimente 256 
 
 The Heart of the Country 261 
 
 The Last Day 270 
 
 Farewell, Modestine 277 
 
AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 TO 
 SIR WALTER GRINDLAY SIMPSON, Bart. 
 
 My dear Cigarette, 
 
 It was enough that you should have shared so 
 liberally in the rams and portages of our voyage; 
 that you should have had so hard a battle to re- 
 cover the derelict Arethusa on the flooded Oise; 
 and that you should thenceforth have piloted a 
 mere wreck of mankind to Origny Sainte-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 
 reflexions for myself. I could not in decency ex- 
 pose you to share the disgrace of another and more 
 public 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 I have lamented the fate 
 of our two ships. That, sir, was not a fortunate 
 day when we projected the possession of a 
 canal barge; it was not a fortunate day when 
 we shared our day-dream with the most hopeful 
 of day-dreamers. For a while, indeed, the world 
 looked smilingly. The barge was procured and 
 christened, and as the Eleven Thousand Virgins 
 of Cologne, lay for some months, the admired 
 of all admirers, in a pleasant river and under the 
 walls of an ancient town. M. Mattras, the accom- 
 plished carpenter of Moret, had made her a centre 
 
xxiv DEDICATION 
 
 of emulous labor; and you will not have forgotten 
 the amount of sweet champagne 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 beautified. 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 Arethusa and the Cigarette, 
 she of cedar, she, as we knew so keenly on a por- 
 tage, of solid-hearted English oak. Now these his- 
 toric vessels fly the tricolor and are known by 
 new and alien names. 
 
 R, L. S. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 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 labors. When the founda- 
 tion 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 demeanor. 
 
 It is best, in such circumstance, to represent 
 a delicate shade of manner between humility 
 and superiority: as if the book had been written 
 by someone 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 per- 
 fection ; 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, I had no sooner finished 
 reading this little book in proof than I was seized 
 upon by a distressing 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 
 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 
 
 XXV 
 
xxvi PREFACE 
 
 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 formida- 
 ble 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 defi- 
 nition 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. Al- 
 though it runs to considerably upwards of two 
 hundred pages, it contains not a single reference 
 to the imbecility of God's universe, 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 seemed to have forgotten 
 all that makes it glorious to be man. 'Tis an 
 omission that renders the book philosophically un- 
 important ; 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 noth- 
 ing else; but at this moment I feel towards him 
 an almost exaggerated tenderness. He, at least, 
 will become my reader — if it were only to fol- 
 low his own travels alongside of mine. 
 
 R. L. S. 
 
AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 ANTWERP TO BOOM 
 
 We 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 slip. A 
 crowd of children followed cheering. The Ciga- 
 rette went off in a splash and a bubble of small 
 breaking water. Next moment the Arethasa 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 'longshore 
 vanities were left behind. 
 
 The sun shone brightly; the tide was making 
 — four jolly miles an hour; the wind blew 
 steadily, with occasional squalls. For my part, 
 I had never been in a canoe under sail in my 
 life; and my first experiment out in the middle 
 of this big river was not made without some 
 trepidation. What would happen when the wind 
 first caught my little canvas? I suppose it was 
 almost as trying a venture into the regions of the 
 unknown as to publish a first book, or to marry. 
 But my doubts were not of long duration; and 
 in five minutes you will not be surprised to learn 
 that I had tied my sheet. 
 
 3 
 
4 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 I own I was a little struck by this circumstance 
 myself; of course, in company with the rest of my 
 fellow-men, I had always tied the sheet in a sail- 
 ing-boat ; but in so little and crank a concern as a 
 canoe, and with these charging squalls, I was not 
 prepared to find myself follow the same princi- 
 ple; and it inspired me with some contemptuous 
 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 obvious risk, and gravely 
 elected for the comfortable pipe. It is a com- 
 monplace, that we cannot answer for ourselves 
 before we have been tried. But it is not so com- 
 mon a reflection, and surely more consoling, that 
 we usually find ourselves a great deal braver and 
 better than we thought. I believe this is every 
 one's experience: but an apprehension that they 
 may belie themselves in the future prevents man- 
 kind from trumpeting this cheerful sentiment 
 abroad. I wish sincerely, for it would have saved 
 me much trouble, there had been some one to put 
 me in a good heart about life when I was 
 younger; to tell me how dangers are most por- 
 tentous 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- 
 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 wil- 
 lows bordered the stream; and cattle and grey, 
 venerable horses came and hung their mild heads 
 
ANTWERP TO BOOM 5 
 
 over the embankment. Here and there was a 
 pleasant village among trees, with a noisy ship- 
 ping-yard ; here and there a villa in a lawn. The 
 wind served us well up the Scheldt and there- 
 after up the 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 embank- 
 ment, and here and there a flight of steps to 
 serve a ferry, where perhaps there sat a woman 
 with her elbows on her knees, or an old gentle- 
 man with a staff and silver spectacles. 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, indi- 
 cated the central quarters of the town. 
 
 Boom is not a nice place, and is only remark- 
 able 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 intercourse. 
 As for the Hotel de la Navigation, I think it is 
 the worst feature of the place. It boasts of a 
 sanded parlor, with a bar at one end, looking 
 on the street; and another sanded parlor, darker 
 and colder, with an empty bird-cage and a tri- 
 color subscription box by way of sole adornment, 
 where we made shift to dine in the company of 
 three uncommunicative engineer apprentices and 
 a silent bagman. The food, as usual in Belgium, 
 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 
 
6 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 an amateur spirit: 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 favorite, 
 save where two wires had been pushed apart to 
 hold its lump of sugar, carried with it a sort 
 of graveyard cheer. The engineer apprentices 
 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 gaslight with 
 a gleam of spectacles. For though handsome 
 lads, they were all (in the Scotch phrase) bar- 
 nacled. 
 
 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 fluently in 
 her jargon, asked us information as to the man- 
 ners 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 to pick up knowl- 
 edge and yet preserve its superiority. It is good 
 policy, and almost necessary in the circumstances. 
 If a man finds a woman admires him, were it 
 only for his acquaintance with geography, he 
 will begin at once to build upon the admiration. 
 It is only by unintermittent 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 couple, there is nothing so beautiful in 
 
ANTWERP TO BOOM 7 
 
 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 over- 
 tops 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 be to the 
 majority of them, or indeed to any but one, for a 
 spontaneous kiss. There is nothing so encoura- 
 ging as the spectacle of self-sufficiency. And 
 when I think of the slim and lovely maidens, run- 
 ning the woods all night to the note of Diana's 
 horn; moving among the old oaks, as fancy-free 
 as they; things of the forest and the starlight, 
 not touched by the commotion of man's hot and 
 turbid 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! 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 
 overcome ? 
 
ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 
 
 Next morning, when we set forth on the Wille- 
 broek Canal, the rain began heavy and chill. 
 The water of the canal stood at about the drink- 
 ing temperature of tea; and under this cold 
 aspersion, the surface was covered with steam. 
 The exhilaration of departure, and the easy mo- 
 tion 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-home humors. 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 
 and desultory puffs. There was hardly enough 
 to steer by. Progress was intermittent and un- 
 satisfactory. A jocular person, of marine ante- 
 cedents, hailed us from the tow-path with a 
 " C'est vite, mais c'est long/' 
 
 The canal was busy enough. Every now and 
 then we met or overtook a long string of boats, 
 with great green tillers ; high sterns with a win- 
 dow 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. 
 
ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 9 
 
 These barges were all tied one behind the other 
 with tow-ropes, to the number of twenty-five or 
 thirty; and the line was headed and kept in mo- 
 tion by a steamer of strange construction. 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 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 Joaded scows. Until one had 
 found out the key to the enigma, there was 
 something solemn and uncomfortable in the 
 progress of 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 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 the world; and the man dreaming at 
 the tiller sees the same spire on the horizon 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 world may be taken. 
 There should be many contented spirits on board, 
 for such a life is both to travel and to stay at 
 home. 
 
 The chimney smokes for dinner as you go 
 
10 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 along; the banks of the canal slowly unroll their 
 scenery to contemplative eyes; the barge floats 
 by great forests and through great cities with 
 their public buildings and their lamps at night; 
 and for the bargee, in his floating home, " travel- 
 ling abed," it is merely as if he were listening 
 to 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. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 ship-board; he is master in 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 compatible with the return of 
 bedtime or the dinner-hour. It is not easy to 
 see why a bargee should ever die. 
 
 Half-way between Willebroek and Villevorde, 
 in a beautiful 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 board 
 the Arethusa; and two eggs and an Etna cook- 
 
ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 11 
 
 ing apparatus on board the Cigarette. The 
 master of the latter boat smashed one of the 
 eggs in the course of disembarkation; but ob- 
 serving pleasantly that it might still be cooked 
 a la papier, he dropped it into the Etna, in its 
 covering of Flemish newspaper. We 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 os- 
 tentation ; the grass caught flame 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 egg was a little more than 
 loo- warm ; and as for a la papier, it was a cold 
 and sordid fricassee of printer's ink and broken 
 eggshell. We made shift to roast the other two 
 by putting them close to the burning spirits, 
 and that w T ith better success. And then we un- 
 corked the bottle of wine, and sat down in a 
 ditch with our canoe aprons over our knees. 
 It rained smartly. Discomfort, when it is hon- 
 estly uncomfortable and makes no nauseous pre- 
 tensions to the contrary, is a vastly humorous 
 business ; and people well steeped and stupefied 
 in the open air are in a good vein for laughter. 
 From this point of view, even egg a la papier 
 offered by way of food may pass muster as a 
 sort of accessory to the fun. But this manner 
 of jest, although it may be taken in good part, 
 does not invite repetition; and from that time 
 
12 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 forward the Etna voyaged like a gentleman in 
 the locker of the Cigarette. 
 
 It is almost unnecessary to mention that when 
 lunch was over and we got aboard again and 
 made sail, the wind promptly died away. The 
 rest of the journey to Villevorde we still spread 
 our canvas to the unfavoring 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. 
 
 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 even more con- 
 servative 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 oc- 
 cupied. They were indifferent like pieces of dead 
 nature. They did not move 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 es- 
 tablished by law. You might have trepanned 
 every one of their innocent heads and found no 
 more than so much coiled 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 un- 
 fruitful art forever and a day by still and de- 
 populated waters. 
 
 At the lock just beyond Villevorde there was 
 a lock mistress who spoke French comprehen- 
 
ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL 13 
 
 sibly, 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 thrown 
 up into an infinity of little crystal fountains. 
 There were no beds to be had in the neighbor- 
 hood. Nothing for it but to lay the sails aside 
 and address ourselves to steady paddling in the 
 rain. 
 
 Beautiful country houses, with clocks and long 
 lines of 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 engravings : opu- 
 lent landscapes, deserted and overhung with 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 uni- 
 form distance in our wake. 
 
THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 
 
 The rain took off near Laeken. But the sun 
 was already down; the air was chill; and we 
 had scarcely a dry stitch between the pair of 
 us. Nay, now we found ourselves near the end 
 of the Allee 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 convenient landing-place ; nowhere 
 so much as a stable-yard to leave the canoes in 
 for the night. We scrambled ashore and entered 
 an estaminet where some sorry fellows were 
 drinking with the landlord. The landlord was 
 pretty round with us ; he knew of no coach-house 
 or 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. Some- 
 where in the corner of the basin there was a 
 slip, he informed us, and something else besides, 
 not very clearly 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 boating-clothes. The Arethusa 
 addressed himself to these. One of them said 
 there would be no difficulty about a night's lodg- 
 ing for our boats ; and the other, taking a ciga- 
 rette from his lips, inquired if they were made 
 
 14 
 
THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 15 
 
 by Searle & Son. The name was quite an intro- 
 duction. Half-a-dozen other young men came 
 out of a boat-house bearing the superscription 
 Royal Sport Nautique, and joined in the talk. 
 They were all very polite, voluble, and enthusi- 
 astic; 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 have been so warmly received by the 
 same number of people. We were English boat- 
 ing-men, and the Belgian boating-men fell upon 
 our necks. I wonder if French Huguenots were 
 as cordially greeted by English Protestants when 
 they came across the Channel out of great tribula- 
 tion. But, after all, what religion knits people 
 so closely as common sport? 
 
 The canoes were carried into the boat-house; 
 they were washed down for us by the club serv- 
 ants, the sails 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 
 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." 
 
 " 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 
 
16 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 youthful, pleasant, natural, and patriotic it seems 
 to me to be — " We have gained all races, except 
 those where we were cheated by the French." 
 
 " You must leave all your wet things to be 
 dried." 
 
 " O ! Entre freres! In any boat-house in 
 England we should find the same." (I cordially 
 hope they might.) 
 
 "En Angleterre, vous employee des sliding- 
 seats, n'est-ce pas? " 
 
 " We are all employed in commerce during 
 the day; but in the evening, voyez-vous, nous 
 sommes serieux!' 
 
 These were the words. They were all em- 
 ployed 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 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 no- 
 tions and false standards. It is their profession, 
 in the sweat of their brows, by dogged think- 
 ing, to recover their old fresh view of life, and 
 distinguish what they really and originally like 
 from what they have only learned to tolerate per- 
 force. 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 interesting and what is 
 dull, which envious old gentleman 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-star'd young Belgians. They still 
 
THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 17 
 
 knew that the interest they took in their business 
 was a trifling affair compared to their spontane- 
 ous, long-suffering affection for nautical sports. 
 To know what you prefer, instead of humbly 
 saying Amen to what the world tells you you 
 ought to 'prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. 
 Such a man may be generous ; he may be honest 
 in something more than the commercial sense; 
 he may love his friends with an elective, 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 in- 
 stincts, keeping 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 any one dare to tell me that business 
 is more entertaining than fooling 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 business 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 disinterestedly toiling for man- 
 kind, 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 
 
18 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 from his hopeful youth that he cannot pluck up 
 an enthusiasm 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 English- 
 men paddling into Brussels in the dusk. 
 
 When we had changed our wet clothes and 
 drunk a glass of pale ale to the club's pros- 
 perity, one of their number escorted us to a 
 hotel. He would not join us at our dinner, 
 but he had no objection to a glass of wine. En- 
 thusiasm is very wearing; and I begin to under- 
 stand 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 upon boats and boat-races; and before 
 he left, he was kind enough to order our bed- 
 room candles. 
 
 We endeavored now and again to change the 
 subject; but the diversion did not last a moment: 
 the Royal Nautical Sportsman bridled, shied, 
 answered the question, 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 igno- 
 rance for the honor of old England, and spoke 
 away about English clubs and English oarsmen 
 whose fame had never before come to his ears. 
 Several times, and once, above all, on the ques- 
 tion of sliding-seats, he was within an ace of 
 exposure. As for the Cigarette, who has rowed 
 races in the heat of his blood, but now disowns 
 these slips of his wanton youth, his case was 
 
THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 19 
 
 still more desperate ; for the Royal Nautical pro- 
 posed 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 whenever that particular 
 topic came up. And there was yet another pro- 
 posal 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 wait 
 until the Sunday, 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 counter- 
 manded our candles, and ordered some brandy 
 and water. The great billows had gone over 
 our head. The Royal Nautical 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 agree- 
 able rambling of the human mind about this and 
 the other subject; we did not want to disgrace our 
 native land by messing at eight, or toiling piti- 
 fully in the wake of the champion canoeist. In 
 short, we had recourse to flight. It seemed un- 
 grateful, but we tried to make that good on a 
 card loaded with sincere compliments. And in- 
 deed it was no time for scruples ; we seemed to 
 feel the hot breath of the champion on our necks. 
 
AT MAUBEUGE 
 
 Partly from the terror we had of our good 
 friends the Royal Nauticals, partly from the 
 fact that there were no fewer than fifty-five locks 
 between Brussels and Charleroi, we concluded 
 that we should travel by train across the frontier, 
 boats and all. Fifty-five locks in a day's journey 
 was pretty well tantamount to trudging the whole 
 distance on foot, with the canoes upon our shoul- 
 ders, an object of 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 dif- 
 ficult matter for the Arethusa, He is, somehow 
 or other, a marked 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 safeguards, 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 on their way rejoicing. If 
 he travels without a passport, he is cast, without 
 any figure about the matter, into noisome dun- 
 geons: if his papers are in order, he is suffered 
 
 20 
 
AT MAUBEUGE 21 
 
 to go his way indeed, but not until he has been 
 humiliated by a general incredulity. He is a 
 born British subject, yet he has never succeeded 
 in persuading a single official of his nationality. 
 He flatters himself he is indifferent honest; yet 
 he is rarely known 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 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 spec- 
 tacles. I might come from any part of the globe, 
 it seems, except from where I dor My ancestors 
 have labored 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 be- 
 tween accepting the humiliation and being left 
 behind by the train. I was sorry to give way, but 
 I wanted to get to Maubeuge. 
 
 Maubeuge is a fortified town with a very good 
 inn, the Grand Cerf. It seemed to be inhabited 
 principally 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, 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. 
 
22 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 The Cigarette was nearly taken up upon a 
 charge of drawing the fortifications : a feat of 
 which he was hopelessly incapable. And besides, 
 as I suppose each belligerent nation has a plan 
 of the other's fortified places already, these pre- 
 cautions are of the nature of shutting the stable 
 door after the steed is away. But I have no 
 doubt they help to keep up a good spirit at home. 
 It is a great thing if you can persuade people 
 that they are somehow or other partakers in a 
 mystery. It makes them feel bigger. Even the 
 Freemasons, who have been shown up to 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 cccnacida with a 
 portentous significance for himself. 
 
 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 paralyzes 
 personal desire. You are content to become a 
 mere spectator. The baker stands in his door; 
 the colonel with his three medals goes by to the 
 cafe at night; the troops drum and trumpet and 
 man the ramparts 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 indif- 
 ference ; 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 
 
AT MAUBEUGE 23 
 
 be 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. Gymnoso- 
 phists go into a wood with all nature seething 
 around them, with romance on every side ; it 
 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 
 are as dead to us as so many formalities, and 
 speak a dead language in our eyes and ears. 
 They have no more meaning than an oath or a 
 salutation. We are so much accustomed to see 
 married couples going to church of a Sunday 
 that we have clean forgotten what they repre- 
 sent; 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 
 something more than his outside. That was the 
 driver of the hotel omnibus: a mean enough look- 
 ing little 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 some- 
 where 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 — for him. He 
 
24 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 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? But it is an evil. age for the gipsily 
 inclined among men. He who can sit squarest 
 on a three-legged stool, he it is who has the 
 wealth and glory. 
 
 I wonder if my friend is still driving the omni- 
 bus for the Grand Cerf! Not very likely, I be- 
 lieve; for I think he was on the eve of mutiny 
 when we passed through, and perhaps our pas- 
 sage determined him for good. Better a thou- 
 sand times that he should be a tramp, and mend 
 pots and pans by the wayside, and sleep under 
 trees, 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 were not 
 to my taste, and you told me that it was a favorite 
 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 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 position is admittedly 
 unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary, and super- 
 fluously useless, although it were as respectable 
 as the Church of England, the sooner a man is 
 out of it, the better for himself, and all concerned. 
 
ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED 
 
 TO QUARTES. 
 
 About three in the afternoon the whole estab- 
 lishment of the Grand Cerf 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 its 
 complement of freemen into the night, and read 
 the names of distant places on the time-bills with 
 indescribable longings ? 
 
 We were not clear of the fortifications before 
 the rain began. The wind was contrary, and 
 blew in furious gusts; nor were the aspects of 
 nature any more clement than the doings of the 
 sky. For we passed through a blighted country, 
 sparsely covered with brush, but handsomely 
 enough diversified with factory chimneys. We 
 landed in a soiled meadow among some pollards, 
 and there smoked a pipe in a flaw of fair weather. 
 But the wind blew so hard we could get little 
 else to smoke. There were no natural ob- 
 jects in the neighborhood, but some sordid 
 workshops. A group of children, headed by 
 a tall girl, stood and watched us from a little 
 distance all the time we stayed. I heartily won- 
 der what they thought of us. 
 
 At Hautmont, the lock was almost impassable ; 
 the landing-place being steep and high, and the 
 
 25 
 
26 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 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 hand- 
 somely, without conveying any sense of insult. 
 " It is a way we have in our country-side," said 
 they. And a very becoming way it is. In Scot- 
 land, where also you will get services for noth- 
 ing, the good people reject your money as if you 
 had been trying to corrupt a voter. When 
 people take the trouble to do 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 three- 
 score years and ten in the mud, and the wind 
 keeps singing in our ears from birth to burial, we 
 do our good and bad 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 iron works 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 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 
 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. 
 
ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED 27 
 
 The atmosphere, after the rain, was of enchant- 
 ing purity. The river doubled among the hill- 
 ocks, a shining strip of mirror glass; and 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 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 plunge, and, turning 
 my head, saw the clergyman struggling to shore. 
 The bank had given way under his feet. 
 
 Besides the cattle, we saw no living things ex- 
 cept a few birds and a great many fishermen. 
 These sat along the edges of the meadows, some- 
 times with one rod, sometimes with as many as 
 half a score. They seemed stupefied with con- 
 tentment ; and, when we induced them to ex- 
 change a few words with us about the weather, 
 their voices sounded quiet and far away. There 
 was a strange diversity 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. Where it 
 was plain that no two of them had ever caught 
 the same kind of fish, we could not help suspect- 
 ing that perhaps not any one of them had ever 
 caught a fish at all. I hope, since the afternoon 
 was so lovely, that they were one and all re- 
 warded; 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 
 
28 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 of gills in all 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 wh'ere you are, after a mild 
 fashion; and his quiet presence serves to accen- 
 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 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 began with them, it was safe to end in a 
 shower of stones. For my own part, whenever 
 anything was addressed to me, I smiled gently 
 and shook my head, as though I were an in- 
 offensive person inadequately acquainted with 
 French. For, indeed, I have had such an ex- 
 perience at home that I would sooner meet many 
 wild animals than a troop of healthy urchins. 
 
 But I was doing injustice to these peaceable 
 young Hainaulters. When the Cigarette went off 
 to make inquiries, I got out upon the bank to 
 smoke a pipe and superintend the boats, and be- 
 came at once the centre of much 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. 
 " Ah, you see," she said, " he understands well 
 
ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED 29 
 
 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 prof- 
 fered the information that England was an 
 island " and a far way from here — bien loin 
 d'ici." 
 
 " Ay, you may say that, a far way from 
 here," said the lad with one arm. 
 
 I was nearly as homesick as ever I was in my 
 life; 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 chil- 
 dren which is worthy of record. They had been 
 deafening us for the last hundred yards with 
 petitions for a sail; ay, and they deafened us 
 to the same tune next morning when we came 
 to start, but then, when the canoes w 7 ere 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 cynicism a great 
 deal worse than I do the devil; unless perhaps, 
 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. 
 
 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 with one arm. I was glad he did not 
 know how badly we make them in England now- 
 adays. " They are for people who go away to 
 
30 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 sea," he added, " and to defend one's life against 
 great fish." 
 
 I felt I was becoming a more and more ro- 
 mantic figure to the little group at every word. 
 And so I suppose I was. Even my pipe, al- 
 though 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 themselves, they were all from over 
 seas. One thing in my outfit, however, tickled 
 them out of all politeness; and that was the be- 
 mired 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) displayed her own sabots in compe- 
 tition; 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 from myself and return 
 some of the compliments I had received. So I 
 admired it cordially both for form and color, 
 telling them, and very truly, that it was as 
 beautiful as gold. They were not surprised. 
 The things were plainly the boast of the coun- 
 try-side. And the children expatiated on the 
 costliness of these amphorse, which sell some- 
 times 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 were to be seen all over 
 the district, and at the larger farms in great num- 
 ber and of great size. 
 
PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 
 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. We stowed the canoes in 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. 
 We were plainly a pair of Bluebeards to the 
 children; they might speak to us in public places, 
 and where they had the advantage of numbers; 
 but it was another thing to venture off alone 
 with two uncouth and legendary characters, who 
 had dropped from the clouds upon their hamlet 
 this quiet afternoon, sashed and beknived, and 
 with a flavor of great voyages. The owner of 
 the granary came to our assistance, singled out 
 one little fellow, and threatened him with cor- 
 poralities; or I suspect we should have had to 
 find the way for ourselves. As it was, he was 
 more frightened at the granary man than the 
 strangers, having perhaps had some experience 
 of the former. But I fancy his little heart must 
 have been going at a fine rate, for he kept trot- 
 ting at a respectful distance in front, and looking 
 back at us with scared eyes. Not otherwise may 
 the children of the young world have guided 
 
 31 
 
32 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 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 homewards from the fields. A 
 brisk little old woman passed us by. She was 
 seated across a donkey between a pair of glitter- 
 ing milk-cans, and, as she went, she kicked 
 jauntily with her heels upon the donkey's side, 
 and scattered shrill remarks among the wayfar- 
 ers. It was notable that none of the tired men 
 took the trouble to reply. 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 trel- 
 lis like a bower indefinitely prolonged. On either 
 hand were 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 scenes. I was little less exhila- 
 rated 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. 
 
 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 
 
PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 33 
 
 stacks of firewood, carts, barrows, rubbish heaps, 
 and a little doubtful 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 : prob- 
 ably a hold in time of war; but nowadays it bore 
 an illegible dial-plate in its upper parts, and near 
 the bottom an iron letter-box. 
 
 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 civilization: like the rag-and- 
 bone men, the Cigarette imagined. " These 
 gentlemen are pedlars ? — Ces messieurs sont des 
 marchands?" — asked the landlady. And then, 
 without waiting for an answer, which I suppose 
 she thought superfluous in so plain a case, 
 recommended us tp*a butcher who lived hard by 
 the tower and took in travellers to lodge. 
 
 Thither went we. But the butcher was flit- 
 ting, and all his beds were taken down. Or else 
 he didn't like our looks. As a parting shot, we 
 had, " These gentlemen are pedlars?" 
 
 It began to grow dark in earnest. We could 
 no longer distinguish the faces of the people 
 who passed us by with an inarticulate good-even- 
 ing. And the householders of Pont seemed very 
 economical with their 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 over. We were much cast 
 down when we came to the last auberge, and, look- 
 ing in at the dark door, asked timidly if we could 
 sleep there for the night. A female voice as- 
 
34 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 sented, in no very friendly tones. We clapped 
 the bags down and found our way to chairs. 
 
 The place was in total darkness, save a red 
 glow in the chinks and ventilators of the stove. 
 But now the landlady lit a lamp to see her new 
 guests; I suppose the darkness was what saved 
 us another expulsion, for I cannot say she 
 looked gratified at our appearance. We were 
 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 laborers sat waiting 
 supper, in attitudes of extreme weariness; a 
 plain-looking lass bustled about with a sleepy 
 child of two, and the landlady began to derange 
 the pots upon the stove and set some beefsteak to 
 grill. • 
 
 " These gentlemen are pedlars ? " she asked 
 sharply ; and that was all the conversation forth- 
 coming. We began to think we might be ped- 
 lars, after all. I never knew a population with 
 so narrow a range of conjecture as the inn-keep- 
 ers 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 accomplished airs will go for 
 nothing. These Hainaulters could see no differ- 
 ence between us and the average pedlar. Indeed, 
 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 best efforts at enter- 
 tainment seemed to fit quite suitably with the 
 character of packmen. At least it seemed a good 
 
PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 35 
 
 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 one of them looked sadly worn and 
 white in the face, as though sick with over- work 
 and under-feeding) 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, her son, and the lass aforesaid 
 took the same. Our meal was quite a banquet 
 by comparison. We had some beefsteak, not 
 so tender as it might have been, some of the 
 potatoes, some cheese, an extra glass of 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 laborer's alehouse ; but now that 
 I had to enact the part for the evening, I found 
 that so it was. He has in his hedge quarters 
 somewhat the same pre-eminency as the man 
 who takes a private parlor 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 all at the bot- 
 tom 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 amused with the adventure, 
 tough beefsteak and all. According to the Lu- 
 cretian maxim, our steak should hav-e been fla- 
 
36 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 vored 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 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 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 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 pedlar cannot 
 shutter himself off from his less comfortable 
 neighbors. If he treats himself to a luxury, he 
 must do it in the face of a dozen who cannot. 
 And what should more directly lead to charitable 
 thoughts ? . . . Thus the poor man, camping 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. 
 
 But at a certain stage of prosperity, as in a bal- 
 loon 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 
 himself surrounded in the most touching manner 
 by the attentions of Providence, and compares 
 
PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 37 
 
 himself involuntarily with the lilies and the sky- 
 larks. He does not precisely sing, of course; 
 but then he looks so unassuming in his open 
 Landau! If all the world dined at one table, 
 this philosophy would meet with some rude 
 knocks. 
 
PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 
 The Travelling Merchant. 
 
 Like the lackeys in Moliere's farce, when the 
 true nobleman 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, he was a 
 pedlar of infinitely more consideration than the 
 sort of scurvy fellows we were taken for; like 
 a lion among mice, or a 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. 
 
 I suppose it was about half -past eight when 
 this worthy, Monsieur Hector Gilliard, of Mau- 
 beuge, turned up at the alehouse door in a tilt 
 cart drawn by a donkey, and cried cheerily on 
 the inhabitants. He was a lean, nervous flibber- 
 tigibbet 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 favors of education, for he adhered 
 with stern simplicity to the masculine 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 the child was many degrees 
 
 38 
 
PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 39 
 
 better dressed than either of the parents. We 
 were informed he was already at a boarding- 
 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 all day with father and mother in 
 the tilt cart full of countless treasures ; the green 
 country rattling by on either side, and the chil- 
 dren 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 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! 
 
 Whije M. Hector and the son of the house 
 were putting up the donkey and getting all the 
 valuables under lock and key, the landlady 
 warmed up the remains of our beefsteak 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 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 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 dis- 
 play so little inclination towards the other sex, 
 
40 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 and expressed her disappointment with some 
 candor and a very proper reference to the influ- 
 ence 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 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 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. The two parents 
 were both absurdly fond of their child. Mon- 
 sieur kept insisting on his sagacity; 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 sit and think — and think, and if he 
 did not know it, " my faith, he wouldn't tell 
 you at all — ma foi, il ne vous le dira pas/' 
 Which is certainly a very high degree of caution. 
 At intervals, M. Hector would appeal to his wife, 
 with his mouth full of beefsteak, as to the little 
 fellow's age at such or such a time when he had 
 said or done something memorable ; and I noticed 
 that Madame usually poohpoohed these inquiries. 
 She herself was not boastful in her vein; but 
 she never had her fill of caressing the child; 
 and she seemed to take a gentle pleasure in re- 
 
PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 41 
 
 calling all that was fortunate in his little exist- 
 ence. No school-boy could have talked more of 
 the holidays which were just beginning and less 
 of the black school-time which must inevitably 
 follow after. She showed, with a pride perhaps 
 partly mercantile in origin, his pockets preposter- 
 ously swollen with tops, and whistles, and string. 
 When she called at a house in the way of busi- 
 ness, 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 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. I might think that I ate 
 with greater delicacy, 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 laborers. 
 In all essential things we and the Gilliards cut 
 very much the same figure in the alehouse 
 kitchen. M. Hector was more at home, indeed, 
 and took a higher tone with the world ; but that 
 was explicable on the ground of his driving a don- 
 key-cart, while we poor bodies tramped afoot. I 
 dare say the rest of the company thought us dying 
 with envy, though in no ill sense, to be as far up 
 in the profession as the new arrival. 
 
 And of one thing I am sure; that every one 
 thawed and became more humanized and con- 
 versible as soon as these innocent people appeared 
 upon the scene. I would not very readily trust 
 the travelling merchant >vith any extravagant 
 
42 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 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 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 went off to his cart for some arrange- 
 ments, and my young gentleman proceeded to 
 divest himself of the better part of his raiment 
 and play gymnastics on his mother's lap, and 
 thence on to the floor, with Accompaniment of 
 laughter. 
 
 " Are you going to sleep alone ? " asked the 
 servant lass. 
 
 " There's little fear of that/' says Master Gil- 
 Hard. 
 
 " You sleep alone at school," objected his 
 mother. " Come, come, you must be a man." 
 
 But he protested that school was a different 
 matter from the holidays ; that there were dormi- 
 tories at school, and silenced the discussion with 
 kisses, his mother smiling, no one better pleased 
 than she. 
 
 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 accommoda- 
 tion for two; and we had a double-bedded pen 
 in the loft of the house, furnished, beside the 
 beds, with exactly three hat pegs and one table. 
 
PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 43 
 
 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 Gil- 
 liards, and the laborers, 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 alehouse 
 where all we pedlars were abed. 
 
ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED 
 To Landrecies. 
 
 In the morning, when we came down-stairs 
 the landlady pointed out to us two pails of water 
 behind the street door. " Voila de Veau pour 
 vous debarb outlier" says she. And so there we 
 made a shift to wash ourselves, while Madame 
 Gilliard brushed the family boots on the outer 
 doorstep, and M. Hector, whistling cheerily, ar- 
 ranged 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 way, what they call Water- 
 loo crackers in France; Perhaps Austerlitz 
 crackers. There is a great deal in the point of 
 view. Do you remember the Frenchman 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. 
 
 Pont itself is on the river, but whereas it is 
 ten minutes' walk from Quartes by dry land, 
 it is six weary kilometres 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 were 
 no longer the mysterious beings of the night be- 
 fore. A departure is much less romantic than 
 
 44 
 
ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED 45 
 
 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 equanimity. 
 
 The good folks of the inn at Pont, when we 
 called there for the bags, were overcome with 
 marvelling. At the 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 
 angels unawares. The landlady stood upon the 
 bridge, probably lamenting she had charged so 
 little; the son ran to and fro, and called out the 
 neighbors to enjoy the sight; and we paddled 
 away from quite a crowd of rapt observers. 
 These gentlemen pedlars, indeed! Now you see 
 their quality too late. 
 
 The whole day was showery, with occasional 
 drenching 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 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 citizens 
 themselves are the houses and public monuments ? 
 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 
 comparison. 
 
46 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 And surely, of all smells in the world the smell 
 of many trees is the sweetest and most fortify- 
 ing. The sea has a rude pistolling sort of odor, 
 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, 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 different sorts 
 of trees, as you go from one zone of the wood 
 to another, seem to live among different kinds 
 of atmosphere. Usually the rosin of the fir pre- 
 dominates. But some woods are more coquet- 
 tish in* their habits; and the breath of the forest 
 Mormal, as it came aboard upon us that showery 
 afternoon, was perfumed with nothing less deli- 
 cate than sweetbrier. 
 
 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, 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 ? But acres on acres 
 full of such patriarchs contiguously rooted, their 
 green tops billowing in the wind, their stalwart 
 younglings pushing up about their knees ; a whole 
 forest, healthy and beautiful, giving color to the 
 light, giving perfume to the air; what is this but 
 the most imposing piece in nature's repertory? 
 Heine wished to lie like Merlin under the oaks 
 
ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED 47 
 
 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 forest, and give a 
 common heart to that assembly of green spires, 
 so that it, also, might rejoice in its own loveli- 
 ness and dignity. I think I feel a thousand 
 squirrels leaping from bough to bough in my 
 vast mausoleum; and the birds and the winds 
 merrily coursing over its uneven, leafy sur- 
 face. 
 
 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 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 always 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 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 com- 
 panion, in a rosier temper, listened with great 
 satisfaction to my jeremiads, and ironically con- 
 curred. He instanced, as a cognate matter, the 
 action of the tides, " which," said he, " was alto- 
 gether designed for the confusion of canoeists, 
 
48 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 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 Lan- 
 drecies, I refused to go any farther; and sat in 
 a drift of rain by the side of the bank, to have a 
 reviving pipe. A vivacious old man, whom I 
 took to have been the devil, drew near, and ques- 
 tioned me about our journey. In the fulness of 
 my heart I laid bare our plans before him. He 
 said it 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, " 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 al- 
 ready, I told him, which was a good long way; 
 and we should do the rest in spite of him. Yes, 
 I said, if there were no other reason, 1 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 his head. 
 
 I was still inwardly fuming when up came 
 a pair of young fellows, who imagined I was the 
 Cigarette's servant, on a comparison, I suppose, of 
 my bare Jersey with the other's mackintosh, and 
 asked me many questions about my place and my 
 master's character. I said he was a good enough 
 fellow, but had this absurd voyage on the head. 
 " Oh, no, no," said one, " you must not say that; 
 
ON THE SAMBRE CANALISED 49 
 
 it is not absurd; it is very courageous of him." 
 I believe these were a couple of angels sent to 
 give me heart again. It was truly mortifying 
 to reproduce all the old man's insinuations, as 
 if they were original to me in my character of 
 a malcontent footman, and have them brushed 
 away like so many flies by these admirable young 
 men. 
 
 When I accounted this affair to the Cigarette, 
 " They must have a curious idea of how English 
 servants behave," says he, drily, " for you treated 
 me like a brute beast at the lock/' 
 
 I was a good deal mortified; but my temper 
 had suffered, 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 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 comfort- 
 able circumstances fell on my heart like sun- 
 shine. There was an English fruiterer at din- 
 ner, travelling with a 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 that we were to see more of 
 Landrecies than we expected; for the weather 
 next day was simply bedlamite. 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, and a shop-keeper 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 
 buildings that had any interest for us were the 
 hotel and the cafe. But we visited the church. 
 There lies Marshal Clarke. But as neither of 
 
 50 
 
AT LANDRECIES 51 
 
 us had ever heard of that military hero, we bore 
 the associations of the spot with fortitude. 
 
 As in all garrison towns, guard-calls, and reveil- 
 les, and such like, make a fine, romantic interlude 
 in civic business. Bugles, and drums, and fifes 
 are of themselves most excellent 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 
 shadow of a town like Landrecies, with little else 
 moving, these points of war made a proportion- 
 ate 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 
 startling reverberations of the drum. It re- 
 minded 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. 
 
 The drum, at any rate, from its martial voice 
 and notable physiological effect, nay, even from 
 its cumbrous and comical shape, stands 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 picturesque 
 irony is there in that! As if this long-suffering 
 animal's hide had not been sufficiently belabored 
 during life, now by Lyonnese costermongers, 
 now by presumptuous 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 garrison 
 town in Europe. And up the heights of Alma 
 
52 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 and 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 com- 
 rades, batter and bemaul this slip of skin from 
 the loins of peaceable donkeys. 
 
 Generally a, man is never more uselessly em- 
 ployed than when he is at this trick of bastinado- 
 ing 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 hol- 
 low 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 per- 
 secutors? 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 be- 
 come stirring music in front of the brigade, and 
 for every blow that you lay on my old great- 
 coat, you will see a comrade stumble and fall. 
 
 Not long after the drums had passed the cafe, 
 the Cigarette and the Arethnsa began to grow 
 sleepy, and set out for the hotel, which was only 
 a door or two away. But although we had been 
 somewhat indifferent to Landrecies, Landrecies 
 had not been indifferent to us. All day, we 
 learned, people had been running out between 
 the squalls to visit our two boats. Hundreds of 
 persons, so said report, although it fitted ill with 
 our idea of the town, — hundreds of persons had 
 
AT LANDRECIES 53 
 
 inspected them where they lay in a coal-shed. 
 We were becoming lions in Landrecies, who had 
 been only pedlars the night before in Pont. 
 
 And now, when we left the cafe, we were pur- 
 sued and overtaken at the hotel door by no less 
 a person than the 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 Landre- 
 cies, said he ; and although we knew very well 
 how little credit we could do the place, we must 
 have been churlish fellows to refuse an invita- 
 tion so politely introduced. 
 
 The house of the judge was close by; it was 
 a well-appointed bachelor's establishment, with 
 a curious collection of old brass warming-pans 
 upon the walls. Some of these were most elab- 
 orately carved. It seemed a picturesque idea for 
 a collector. You could not help thinking how 
 many night-caps had wagged over these warm- 
 ing-pans in past generations; what jests may 
 have been made and kisses taken while they were 
 in service; and how often they had been use- 
 lessly paraded in the bed of death. If they could 
 only speak, at what absurd, indecorous, and 
 tragical scenes had they not been present? 
 
 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 learning; they set off 
 life and make ordinary moments ornamental. 
 
 There were two other Landrecienses present. 
 
54 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 One was the collector of something or other, 
 I forget what; the other, we were told, was the 
 principal notary of the place. So it happened 
 that we all five more or less followed the law. 
 At this rate, the talk was pretty certain to be- 
 come technical. The Cigarette expounded the 
 poor laws very magisterially. And a little later 
 I found myself laying down the Scotch law of 
 illegitimacy, of which I am glad to say I know 
 nothing. The collector and the notary, 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 English. 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 company was congenial. This was 
 the highest water mark of popular favor 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 en- 
 tertainment. Landrecies had been a long while 
 asleep before we returned 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 umbrella. We had now brought 
 ourselves to a pitch of humility, in the matter of 
 weather, not often attained except 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. 
 
 Long lines of barges lay one after another 
 along the canal, many of them looking mighty 
 spruce and shipshape in their jerkin of Archangel 
 tar picked out with white and green. Some car- 
 ried gay iron railings and quite a parterre of 
 flower-pots. Children played on the decks, as 
 heedless of the rain as if they had been brought 
 up on Loch Caron side; men fished over the 
 gunwale, some of them under umbrellas ; women 
 did their washing; and every barge boasted its 
 mongrel cur by way of watch-dog. Each one 
 barked furiously at the canoes, running along- 
 side until he had got to the end of his own ship, 
 and so passing on the word to the dog aboard the 
 next. We must have seen something like a hun- 
 dred of these embarkations in the course of that 
 day's paddle, ranged one after another like the 
 houses in a street ; and from not one of them were 
 
 55 
 
56 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 we disappointed of this accompaniment. It was 
 like visiting a menagerie, the Cigarette remarked. 
 
 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 would hoist sail 
 or harness horses and swim away into all parts of 
 France; and the impromptu hamlet would sep- 
 arate, house by house, to the four winds. The 
 children who played together to-day by the Sam- 
 bre and Oise Canal, each at his own father's 
 threshold, when and where might they next meet ? 
 
 For some time past the subject of barges had 
 occupied a great deal of our talk, and we had pro- 
 jected an old age on the canals of Europe. It 
 was to be the most leisurely of progresses, now 
 on a swift river at the tail of a steamboat, now 
 waiting horses for days together on some incon- 
 siderable 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 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 November sun- 
 set and as odorous as a violet in April. There 
 should be a flageolet whence the Cigarette, with 
 cunning touch, should draw melting music under 
 the stars; or perhaps, 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 psalmody. 
 
SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL 57 
 
 All this simmering in my mind set me wishing 
 to go aboard one of these ideal houses of loun- 
 ging. I had plenty 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, so I gave 
 them good-day and pulled up alongside. I be- 
 gan 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 
 England 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, un- 
 flinching recognition by everybody of his 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 part of religion. 
 And they scorn to make a poor mouth over their 
 poverty, which I take to be the better part of man- 
 liness. I have heard a woman in quite a better 
 position at home, with a good 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 Duke of Westminster. And the 
 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 keep each other in 
 countenance. 
 
 The people on the barge were delighted to hear 
 that I admired their state. They understood 
 
58 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 perfectly well, they told me, how Monseiur envied 
 them. Without doubt Monsieur was rich, and in 
 that case he might make a canal boat as pretty 
 as a villa — joli comme 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," 
 explained the husband. " Then one might have 
 a writing-table in the middle — books — and " 
 (comprehensively) " all. It would be quite co- 
 quettish — ga serait tout-a-fait coquet. " And 
 he looked about him as though the improvements 
 were already made. It was plainly not the first 
 time that he had thus beautified his cabin in 
 imagination; and when next he makes a hit, I 
 should expect to see the writing-table in the mid- 
 dle. 
 
 Madame had three birds in a cage. They were 
 no great thing, she explained. Fine birds were 
 so dear. 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 or- 
 chards of the Seine as on the green plains of 
 Sambre?) — they had sought to get a Hollandais 
 last winter in Rouen ; but these cost fifteen francs 
 apiece — picture it — fifteen francs ! 
 
 " Pour un tout petit oiseau — For quite a little 
 bird," added the husband. 
 
 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 Empress of the Indies. It 
 
SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL 59 
 
 was, in the Scotch phrase, a good hearing, and 
 put me in good-humor with the 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 seen how they sympathized. They 
 seemed half ready to give up their barge and fol- 
 low us. But these canaletti are only gipsies semi- 
 domesticated. The semi-domestication came out 
 in rather a pretty form. Suddenly Madame's 
 brow darkened. " Cependant," she began, and 
 then stopped ; and then began again by asking me 
 if I were single. 
 
 "Yes," said I. 
 
 " And your friend who went by just now? " 
 
 He also was unmarried. 
 
 Oh, 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," said the hus- 
 band, " il n'y a que ga — there is nothing else 
 w r orth 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." 
 
 Madame reminded her husband of an English- 
 man who had come up this canal in a steamer. 
 
 " Perhaps Mr. Moens in the Ytene" I sug- 
 gested. 
 
 " That's it," assented the husband. " He had 
 his wife and family with him, and servants. He 
 came ashore at all the locks and asked the name 
 
60 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 of the villages, whether from boatmen or lock- 
 keepers; and then he wrote, wrote them down. 
 Oh, he wrote enormously! I suppose it was a 
 wager." 
 
 A wager was a common enough explanation 
 for our own exploits, but it seemed an original 
 reason for taking notes. 
 
THE OISE IN FLOOD 
 
 Before nine next morning the two canoes were 
 installed on a light country cart at Etreux; and 
 we were soon following them along the side of a 
 pleasant valley 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 heads to the windows ; children cried out in 
 ecstasy at sight of the two " boaties " — bar- 
 quettes; and Housed pedestrians, who were ac- 
 quainted 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 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-quickening 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 turn- 
 
 61 
 
62 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 ing in a narrow and well-timbered valley. Now 
 the river would approach the side, and run glid- 
 ing 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 glimpse through a doorway, and see 
 a priest pacing in the checkered sunlight. Again, 
 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 sky. On these 
 different manifestations the sun poured its clear 
 and catholic looks. The shadows lay as solid on 
 the swift surface of the stream as on the stable 
 meadows. The light sparkled golden in the dan- 
 cing poplar leaves, and brought the hills into com- 
 munion 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. 
 
 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 pan- 
 tomime of terror; and to see such a number of 
 terrified creatures taking sanctuary in every nook 
 along the shore is enough to infect a silly human 
 with alarm. Perhaps they are only acold, and no 
 wonder, 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 once played upon 
 their forefathers; and so, by the hands of his 
 river, he still plays upon these later generations 
 
THE OISE IN FLOOD 63 
 
 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. 
 
 The canoe was like a leaf in the current. It 
 took it up and shook it, and carried it master- 
 fully away, like a Centaur 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 of water ran in a panic, like so many people 
 in a frightened 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 exigen- 
 cies of every moment kept the pegs screwed so 
 tight that our being quivered like a well-tuned in- 
 strument, and the blood shook off its lethargy, 
 and trotted through all the highways and byways 
 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 threescore years and 
 ten. The reeds might nod their heads in warn- 
 ing, 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 wil- 
 lows. But the reeds had to stand where they 
 were ; and those who 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 against him every stroke of my 
 paddle, every turn of the stream. I have rarely 
 had better profit of my life. 
 
64 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 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 have a bottle of the best in every 
 inn, and look upon 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, and above all when it is healthful, 
 is just so much gained upon the wholesale filcher, 
 death. We shall have the less in our pockets, the 
 more in our stomachs, when he cries, Stand and 
 deliver. A swift stream is a favorite artifice of 
 his, and one that brings him a comfortable thing 
 per annum ; but when he and I come to settle our 
 accounts I shall whistle in his face for these hours 
 upon the upper Oise. 
 
 Towards afternoon we got fairly drunken with 
 the sunshine and the 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 on 
 the grass, and smoked deifying tobacco, and pro- 
 claimed 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 ap- 
 peared and disappeared 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 to5' Burns who had just ploughed 
 up the Mountain Daisy. He was the only living 
 
THE OISE IN FLOOD 65 
 
 thing within view, unless we are to count the 
 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 after- 
 noon musical on a chime of bells. There was 
 something very sweet and taking in the air he 
 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 
 Illyria. There is so often a threatening note, 
 something 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 bur- 
 den of a popular song, were always moderate and 
 tunable, 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 blessed 
 the priest or the heritors, or whoever may be 
 concerned 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 repeatedly printed in the local pa- 
 per, to rig up a peal of brand-new, brazen, Bir- 
 mingham-hearted substitutes, who should bom- 
 bard their sides to the provocation of a brand-new 
 bell-ringer, and fill the echoes of the valley with 
 terror and riot. 
 
66 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 At last the bells ceased, and with their note the 
 sun withdrew. The piece was at an end ; shadow 
 and silence possessed the valley of the Oise. We 
 took to the paddle with glad hearts, like people 
 who have sat out a noble performance and return 
 to work. The river was more dangerous here ; it 
 ran swifter, the eddies were more sudden and 
 violent. All the way down we had had our fill 
 of difficulties. Sometimes it was a weir which 
 could be shot, sometimes one so shallow and full 
 of stakes that we must withdraw the boats from 
 the water and carry them round. But the chief 
 sort of obstacle was a consequence of the late 
 high winds. Every two or three hundred yards 
 a tree had fallen across the river, and usually in-* 
 volved 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 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 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 honor 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, 
 
THE OISE IN FLOOD 67 
 
 and aimed for a place where the trunk seemed 
 high enough above the 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 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 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 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 can never know, 
 till you try it, what a dead pull a river makes 
 against a man. Death himself had me by the 
 heels, for this was his last ambuscade, 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 the trunk, and lay there a 
 breathless sop, with a mingled sense of humor 
 and injustice. A poor figure I must have pre- 
 sented to Burns upon the hill-top with his team. 
 
68 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 But there was the paddle in my hand. On my 
 tomb, if ever I have one, I mean to get these 
 words inscribed : " He clung to his paddle." 
 
 The Cigarette had gone past awhile before; 
 for, as I might have observed, if I had been a 
 little less pleased with the universe at the mo- 
 ment, there was a clear way 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 Are thus a. The stream 
 was too rapid for a man to mount with one 
 canoe, let alone two, upon his hands. So I 
 crawled along the trunk to shore, and proceeded 
 down the meadows by the riverside. I was 
 so cold that my heart was sore. I now had an 
 idea of my own why the reeds so bitterly shiv- 
 ered. I could have 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. 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 uni- 
 verse had leaped out 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 OISE IN FLOOD 69 
 
 the time? Nature's good-humor was only skin 
 deep, after all. 
 
 There was still a long way to go by the wind- 
 ing course of the stream, and darkness had 
 fallen, and a late bell was ringing in Origny 
 Sainte-Benoite when we arrived. 
 
ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 
 A By-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 sunshine, all the 
 world with his dog was out shooting among 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, mes amours/' 
 It brought everybody to the door ; and when our 
 landlady called in the man to buy the words, 
 he had not a copy of them left. She 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 some one was sing- 
 ing " Les malheurs de la France" at a baptismal 
 party in the neighborhood of Fontainebleau. 
 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." A little after he went 
 out into the garden suddenly, and I could hear 
 him sobbing in the darkness. 
 
 The humiliation of their arms and the loss of 
 
 70 
 
ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 71 
 
 Alsace and Lorraine made a sore pull on the 
 endurance of this 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; 
 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 without abhorrence; and I 
 never feel more warmly to my own land than 
 when I see the stars and stripes, and remember 
 what our empire might 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 pastoral pieces, not without a 
 touch of poetry, I thought, and instinct with the 
 brave independence of the poorer class in France. 
 There you might read how the wood-cutter 
 gloried in his axe, and the gardener scorned to 
 be ashamed of his spade. It was not very well 
 written, this poetry of labor, but the pluck of the 
 sentiment redeemed what was weak or wordy 
 in the expression. The martial and the patriotic 
 pieces, on the other hand, were tearful, woman- 
 ish 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 not of victory, but of death. 
 There was a number in the hawker's collection 
 called Consents Francais, 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 
 
72 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 if such a ditty were 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 influence of national songs, you would say 
 France was come to a poor pass. But the thing 
 will work its own cure, 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, and move 
 slowly; but they are written in a grave, honor- 
 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 fel- 
 low-countrymen that they may be 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 over night in the cus- 
 tody of one whom we shall call Carnival. I did 
 not properly catch his name, and perhaps that 
 was not unfortunate for him, as I am not in a 
 position to hand him down with honor to pos- 
 terity. To this person's premises we strolled 
 in the course of the day, and found quite a little 
 deputation inspecting the canoes. There was a 
 stout gentleman with a knowledge of the river, 
 which he seemed eager to impart. There was 
 a very elegant young gentleman in a black coat, 
 with a smattering of English, who led the talk 
 at once to the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. 
 
ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 73 
 
 And then there were three handsome girls from 
 fifteen to twenty; and an old gentleman in a 
 blouse, with no teeth to speak of, and a strong 
 country accent. Quite the pick of Origny, I 
 should suppose. 
 
 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 shudderings 
 over the dangers of our journey. And I thought 
 it would be ungallant not to take my cue from 
 the ladies. My mishap of yesterday, told in an 
 offhand way, produced a deep sensation. It was 
 Othello over again, with no less than three Des- 
 demonas and a sprinkling of sympathetic sen- 
 ators in the background. Never were the 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. " 
 
 " Oh ! but it is really like a violin. It is fin- 
 ished like a violin," she went on. 
 
 " And polished like a violin," added a senator. 
 
 " One has only to stretch the cords," concluded 
 another, " and then tum-tumty-tum " ; he imi- 
 tated the result with spirit. 
 
 Was not this a graceful little 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 attached in France to saying a 
 thing neatly; whereas in England, to talk like 
 
74 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 a book is to give in one's resignation to so- 
 ciety. 
 
 The old gentleman in the blouse stole into the 
 coach-house, and somewhat irrelevantly informed 
 the Cigarette that he was the father of the three 
 girls and four more; quite an exploit for a 
 Frenchman. 
 
 " You are very fortunate/' answered the Ciga- 
 rette politely. 
 
 And the old gentleman, having apparently 
 gained his point, stole away again. 
 
 We all got very friendly together. The girls 
 proposed to start with us on the morrow, if you 
 please. And, jesting apart, every one was 
 anxious to know the hour of our departure. 
 Now, when you are going to crawl into your 
 canoe from a bad launch, a crowd, . however 
 friendly, is undesirable, and so we told them 
 not before twelve, 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 was 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. 
 
 Suddenly we sighted the three girls, standing, 
 with a fourth sister, in front of a shop on the 
 wide selvage of the roadway. We had been 
 very merry with them a little while ago, to be 
 sure. But what was the etiquette of Origny? 
 Had it been a country road, of course we should 
 have spoken to them; but here, under the eyes 
 
ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 75 
 
 of all the gossips, ought we to do even as much 
 as bow? I consulted the Cigarette. 
 
 " 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 Mod- 
 esty had given the word of command, and the 
 well-disciplined picket had gone right-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 altogether modesty 
 after all, or in part a sort of country provoca- 
 tion? 
 
 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. 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, al- 
 though 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 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 St. 
 Quentin at half-past five 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 travel- 
 
76 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 lers ourselves in a small way, we would fain 
 have seen these other travellers alight. 
 
 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 some- 
 where in that blue, uneven distance, into which 
 the roadway dipped and melted before our eyes? 
 Probably 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 swiftly. Roadside trees and 
 disappointed sightseers, returning through the 
 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 color of a melon, swing- 
 ing high above the wooded valley, and the white 
 cliffs behind us faintly reddened by the fire of 
 the chalk-kilns. 
 
 The lamps were lighted, and the salads were 
 being made in Origny Sainte-Benoite by the 
 river. 
 
ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 
 The Company at Table. 
 
 Although we came late for dinner, the com- 
 pany 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. 
 
 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 France, who thought nothing 
 so small, not even a lark or a minnow, but he 
 might vindicate his prowess by its capture. 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 feeling 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 Danois!" as Gas- 
 ton Lafenestre used to say. 
 
 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 disrespect, — 
 
 77 
 
78 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 nor hear him wake the echoes of Fontainebleau 
 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 un- 
 consciously for his industrious pencil. He died 
 too early, at the very moment when he was be- 
 ginning 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 it a good test of 
 others, how much they had learned to under- 
 stand and value him. His was, indeed, a good 
 influence 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 and cheerful countenance 
 and took fortune's worst as it were the showers 
 of spring. But 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 Channel; besides those which were stolen, 
 when a dastardly Yankee left him alone in Lon- 
 don with two English pence, and, perhaps, twice 
 as many words of English. If any one who 
 reads these lines should have a scene of sheep, in 
 the manner of Jacques, with this fine creature's 
 signature, let him tell himself that one of the 
 kindest and bravest of men has lent a hand to 
 decorate his lodging. There may be better pic- 
 tures in the National Gallery; but not a painter 
 
ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 79 
 
 among the generations had a better 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 a stroke, a mother is left desolate, and 
 the peace-maker and the 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 
 Fontainebleau ; and when the dessert comes in 
 at Barbizon, people look to the door for a figure 
 that is gone. 
 
 The third of our companions at Origny was 
 no less a person than the landlady's husband; 
 not properly the landlord, since he worked him- 
 self 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, 
 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 around the table 
 with his chin raised and a spark of green light 
 in either eye, seeking approval. His wife ap- 
 peared now and again in the doorway of the 
 room, where she was superintending dinner, with 
 a " Henri, you forget yourself," or a " Henri, 
 you can surely talk without making such a noise." 
 Indeed, that was what the honest fellow could 
 not do. On the most trifling matter his voice 
 kindled, 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 favorite expressions, " It 
 
80 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 is logical/' or illogical, as the case might be; 
 and this other thrown out with a certain bra- 
 vado, 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. That 
 will not be a good moment for the general 
 public. 
 
 I thought his two phrases very much repre- 
 sented 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 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 honorable in a workman. On the 
 other hand, it is not at all a strong thing to put 
 one's reliance upon logic; and our own logic 
 particularly, for it is generally wrong. We never 
 know where we are to end if once we begin fol- 
 lowing 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 appetites know a thing or two that have never 
 yet been stated in controversy. Reasons are as 
 plentiful as blackberries; and, like fisticuffs, they 
 serve impartially with all sides. Doctrines do 
 not stand or fall by their proofs and are only 
 logical in so far as they are cleverly put. An 
 able controversialist no more than an able general 
 demonstrates the justice of his cause. But 
 France is all gone wandering after one or two 
 big words ; it will take some time before they can 
 be satisfied that they are no more than words, 
 
ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 81 
 
 however big; and, when once that is done, they 
 will perhaps find logic less diverting. 
 
 The conversation opened with details of the 
 day's shooting. When all the sportsmen of a 
 village shoot over the village territory pro indi- 
 viso, it is plain that many questions 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, bien! 
 sacristi; " and the statement, waxing louder, rolls 
 off into a reverberation of oaths, the speaker 
 glaring about for sympathy, and everybody nod- 
 ding his head to him in the name of peace. 
 
 The ruddy Northman told some tales of his 
 own prowess in keeping order : notably one of a 
 Marquis. 
 
 " Marquis," I said, " if you take another step 
 I fire upon you. You have committed a dirti- 
 ness, Marquis." 
 
 Whereupon, it appeared, the Marquis touched 
 his cap and withdrew. 
 
 The landlord applauded noisily. " It was well 
 done," 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 general comparison of Paris and the coun- 
 try. . The proletarian 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 in 
 
82 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 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 bien, quoi, c'est magnifique, 
 qal" cried he. 
 
 The sad Northman interfered in praise of a 
 peasant's life; he thought Paris bad for men and 
 women. " Centralization/' said he — 
 
 But the landlord was at his throat in a moment. 
 It was all logical, he showed him, and all magnifi- 
 cent. " What a spectacle ! What a glance for 
 an eye ! " And 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 France. I 
 could hardly have shot more amiss. There was 
 an instant silence and a great wagging of sig- 
 nificant heads. They did not fancy 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, answer- 
 ing me, although I had not spoken, " I am 
 afraid there is less liberty 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 bag- 
 man martyred ? We concluded at once it was on 
 some religious question, and brushed up our 
 memories of the Inquisition, which were princi- 
 pally drawn from Poe's horrid story, and the 
 sermon in Tristram Shandy, I believe. 
 
ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 83 
 
 On the morrow we had an opportunity of go- 
 ing 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 wine and raw 
 onions, in order to keep up the character of 
 martyr, I conclude. We had a long conversa- 
 tion, and made out what we wanted in spite of 
 his reserve. But here was a truly curious cir- 
 cumstance. It seems possible for two Scotch- 
 men and a Frenchman to discuss during a long 
 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 suspected our mistake. The 
 terms and spirit in which he spoke of his political 
 beliefs were, in our eyes, suited to religious be- 
 liefs. And vice versa. 
 
 Nothing could be more characteristic of the 
 two countries. Politics are the religion of 
 France ; as Nanty Ewart would have said, " A 
 
 d d bad religion/' while we, at home, keep 
 
 most of our bitterness for all differences about a 
 hymn-book or a Hebrew word which, perhaps, 
 neither of the parties can translate. And per- 
 haps 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. 
 
 As for our friend's martyrdom, he was a Com- 
 munist, 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 
 
84 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 deceived me. He was a mild, gentle crea- 
 ture, anyway, and I hope he has got a better sit- 
 uation and married a more suitable wife since 
 then. 
 
DOWN THE OISE 
 To Moy. 
 
 Carnival notoriously cheated us at first. 
 Finding us easy in our ways, he regretted hav- 
 ing let us off so cheaply, and, taking me aside, 
 told me a cock-and-bull story, with the moral 
 of another five francs for the narrator. The 
 think 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 freez- 
 ing British dignity. He saw in a moment 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 I walked beside him in 
 silence or answered him in stately courtesies, 
 and, when we got to the landing-place, 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 bridge. We were as pleasant as we 
 could be with all but Carnival. We said good- 
 bye, shaking hands with the old gentleman who 
 knew the river and the young gentleman who 
 had a smattering of English, but never a word 
 for Carnival. Poor Carnival, here was a humili- 
 ation. He who had been so much identified with 
 
 85 
 
86 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 the canoes, who had given orders in our name, 
 who had shown off the boats and even the boat- 
 men like a private exhibition of his own, to be 
 now so publicly shamed by the lions of his cara- 
 van! I never saw anybody look more crest- 
 fallen than he. He hung in the background, 
 coming timidly forward ever and again as he 
 thought he saw some symptom of a relenting 
 humor, and falling hurriedly back when he en- 
 countered a cold stare. Let us hope it will be 
 a lesson to him. 
 
 I would not have mentioned Carnival's pecca- 
 dillo 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 
 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 awhile to 
 remedying the fact, and perhaps even when that 
 was done, give us fewer of their airs. 
 
 The young ladies, the graces of Origny, were 
 not present 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 current and 
 paddling, we were flashing along like swallows. 
 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 and a couple of 
 
DOWN THE OISE 87 
 
 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 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, 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, forth- 
 right tide, that bears away man with his fancies 
 like straw, and runs fast in time and space. It 
 is full of curves like this, your winding 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 in the same hour, it will 
 have made an ample sweep between whiles ; many 
 little streams will have fallen in; many exhala- 
 tions risen towards the sun; and even although 
 it were the same acre, it will not be the same river 
 Oise. And thus, O graces of Origny, although 
 the wandering fortune of my life should carry 
 me back again to where you await death's whistle 
 by the river, that will not be the old I who 
 walks the street; and those wives and mothers, 
 say, will those be you? 
 
88 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 There was never any mistake about the Oise, 
 as a matter of fact. In these upper reaches it 
 was still in a prodigious hurry for the sea. It 
 ran so fast and merrily, through all the wind- 
 ings 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 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 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 
 mismanagement, and only a third part to the 
 river itself, and that not out of malice, but from 
 its great preoccupation over its own 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 at- 
 tempt; for I found no map represent the infinite 
 contortion 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 further than four kilometres (say 
 two miles and a half) from Origny. If it were 
 not for the honor of the thing (in the Scotch 
 
DOWN THE OISE 89 
 
 saying), we might almost as well have been 
 standing still. 
 
 We lunched on a meadow inside a parallelo- 
 gram of poplars. The leaves danced and prat- 
 tled in the wind all 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 stock- 
 brokers were shouting 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 digestion. 
 Hurry is the resource of the faithless. Where 
 a man can trust his own heart, and those of his 
 friends, to-morrow is as good as to-day. And 
 if he die in the meanwhile, why, then, there he 
 dies, and the question is solved. 
 
 We had to take to the canal in the course of 
 the afternoon; because where it crossed the 
 river there was, not a bridge, but a siphon. If 
 it had not been for an excited 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 suf- 
 fered by the Cigarette; who, because his knife 
 came from Norway, narrated all sorts of ad- 
 ventures in that country, where he has never been. 
 He was quite feverish at the end, and pleaded 
 demoniacal possession. 
 
 Moy (pronounce Moy) was a pleasant little vil- 
 
90 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 lage, gathered round a chateau in a moat. The 
 air was perfumed with hemp from neighboring 
 fields. At the Golden Sheep we found excellent 
 entertainment. German shells from the siege of 
 La Fere, Niirnberg figures, gold-fish in a bowl, 
 and all manner of knickknacks, embellished the 
 public 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 excellence herself. After every 
 dish was sent in, she would come and look on 
 at the dinner for awhile, with puckered, blinking 
 eyes. u Cest bon, n'est-ce pas? " she would 
 say; and when she had received a proper answer, 
 she disappeared into the kitchen. That com- 
 mon French dish, partridge and cabbages, be- 
 came a new thing in my eyes at the Golden 
 Sheep; and many subsequent dinners have bit- 
 terly 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 were fond of being philosophical, and scorned 
 long journeys 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 
 elegant pleasure-seekers took the first of the 
 morning. In this way all the world may be an 
 aristocrat, and play the duke among marquises, 
 and the reigning monarch among dukes, if he 
 will only outvie them in tranquillity. An im- 
 perturbable demeanor comes from perfect pa- 
 tience. Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or 
 frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune 
 at their own private pace, like a clock during a 
 thunder-storm. 
 
 We made a very short day of it to La Fere; 
 but the dusk was falling and a small rain had be- 
 gun before w r e stowed the boats. La Fere is a 
 fortified town in a plain, and has two belts of 
 rampart. Between the first and the second ex- 
 tends a region of waste land and cultivated 
 patches. Here and there along the wayside were 
 posters forbidding trespass in the name of mili- 
 tary engineering. At last a second gateway ad- 
 mitted us to the town itself. Lighted windows 
 looked gladsome, whiffs of comfortable cookery 
 came abroad upon the air. The town was full 
 
 91 
 
92 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 of the military reserve, out for the French 
 Autumn manoeuvers, 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. 
 
 The Cigarette and I could not sufficiently con- 
 gratulate each other on the prospect, for we had 
 been told there was a capital inn at La Fere. 
 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 all the pop- 
 lared country-side. It made our mouths water. 
 The inn bore the name of some woodland ani- 
 mal, stag, or hart, or hind, I forget which. But 
 I shall never forget how spacious and how emi- 
 nently habitable it looked as we drew near. 
 The carriage entry was lighted up, not by in- 
 tention, but from the mere superfluity of fire 
 and candle in the house. A rattle of many 
 dishes came to our ears ; we sighted a great field 
 of tablecloth; the 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 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 
 believe 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 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 
 
LA FERE OF CURSED MEMORY 93 
 
 of affairs. Her I asked politely — too politely, 
 thinks the Cigarette — if we could have beds, 
 she surveying us coldly from head to foot. 
 
 " You will find beds in the suburb/' she re- 
 marked. u 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 right; so said I, " If we cannot 
 sleep, we may at least dine," — and was for de- 
 positing 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. 
 
 " Out with you, — out of the door ! " she 
 screeched. " Sortez! sortez! sortez par la 
 portel" 
 
 I do not know how it happened, but next mo- 
 ment we were out in the rain and darkness, and 
 I was cursing before the carriage entry like a 
 disappointed mendicant. 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 heart? 
 This was not the first time that I have been re- 
 fused a 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. 
 
 It is all very fine to talk about tramps and moral- 
 ity. Six hours of police surveillance (such as 
 I have had) or one brutal rejection from an inn 
 
94 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 door change your views upon the subject like a 
 course of lectures. As long as you keep in the 
 upper regions, with all the world bowing to you 
 as you go, social arrangements have a very 
 handsome 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 offer them twopence for what 
 remains of their morality. 
 
 For my part, when I was turned out of the 
 Stag, or the Hind, or whatever it was, I would 
 have set the temple of Diana on fire if it had 
 been handy. There was no crime complete 
 enough to express my disapproval of human in- 
 stitutions. 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 par- 
 ticularized a complaint for every joint in the 
 landlady's body. Timon was a philanthropist 
 alongside of him. And then, when he was at the 
 top of his maledictory bent, he would suddenly 
 break away and begin whimperingly to com- 
 miserate the poor. " I hope to God," he said, 
 — and I trust the prayer was answered, — " that 
 I shall never be uncivil to a pedlar." Was this 
 the imperturbable Cigarette? This, this was he. 
 Oh, change beyond report, thought, or belief! 
 
 Meantime the heaven wept upon our heads; 
 and the windows grew brighter as the night in- 
 creased in darkness. 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 re- 
 
LA FERE OF CURSED MEMORY 95 
 
 servists, who were very sorry for themselves this 
 wet night, I doubt not, and 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 fol- 
 lowed as best we 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 other end, the house next the town- 
 gate was full of light and bustle. " Basin, 
 aubergiste, loge a pied/' was the sign. " A la 
 Croix de Malte." There were we received. 
 
 The room was full of noisy reservists drink- 
 ing and smoking; and we were very glad indeed 
 when the drums and 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 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 
 decorative painter in his youth. There were 
 such opportunities for self-instruction there, he 
 said. And if any one has read Zola's description 
 of the workman's marriage party visiting the 
 Louvre they would do well to have heard Bazin 
 by way of antidote. He had delighted in the 
 
96 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 museums in his youth. " One sees there little 
 miracles of work," he said; " that is what makes 
 a good workman; it kindles a spark." We asked 
 him how he managed in La Fere. " I am mar- 
 ried," he said, " and I have my pretty children. 
 But frankly, it is no life at all. From morning 
 to night I pledge a pack of good-enough fellows 
 who know nothing." 
 
 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 Bazin. At the guard- 
 house opposite the guard was being for ever 
 turned out, as trains of field artillery kept clank- 
 ing in out of the night or patrols of horsemen 
 trotted by in their cloaks. Madame Bazin came 
 out after awhile; she was tired with her day's 
 work, I suppose; and she nestled up to her hus- 
 band 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 ! 
 
 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 hus- 
 band's pleasant talk; nor for the pretty spectacle 
 of their married life. And there was yet an- 
 other item uncharged. For these people's po- 
 liteness really set us up again in our own esteem. 
 We had a thirst for consideration; the sense of 
 insult was still hot in our spirits ; and civil usage 
 seemed to restore us to our position in the world. 
 
 How little we pay our way in life! Although 
 we have our purses continually in our hand, the 
 
LA FERE OF CURSED MEMORY 97 
 
 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, were 
 healed of some slights by the thanks that I gave 
 them in my manner? 
 
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 gal- 
 lop, the ceaseless stream of water visits and makes 
 green the fields. Kine, and horses, and little 
 humorous donkeys browse together in the mead- 
 ows, and come down in troops to the riverside 
 to drink. They make a strange feature in the 
 landscape; above all when startled, and you see 
 them galloping to and fro, with their incongru- 
 ous forms and faces. It gives a feeling as of 
 great, unfenced pampas, and the herds of wan- 
 dering nations. There were hills in the distance 
 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 cannon of heaven joined in that loud 
 play. Two continents of cloud met and ex- 
 changed salvos overhead; while all round the 
 horizon we could see sunshine and clear air upon 
 the hills. What with the guns and the thunder, 
 the herds were all frightened in the Golden Val- 
 ley. We could see them tossing their heads, and 
 running to and fro in timorous indecision; and 
 when they had made up their minds, and the 
 
 98 
 
DOWN THE OISE 99 
 
 donkey followed the horse, and the cow was 
 after the donkey, we could hear their hoofs thun- 
 dering abroad over the meadows. It had a 
 martial sound, like cavalry charges. And alto- 
 gether, as far as the ears are concerned, we had 
 a very rousing battle piece performed for our 
 amusement. 
 
 At last, the guns and the thunder dropped off ; 
 the sun 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, 
 and we could see nothing but clay sides, and one 
 willow after another. Only here and there we 
 passed by a village or a ferry, and some wonder- 
 ing child upon the bank w r ould stare after us 
 until we turned the corner. I dare say we. con- 
 tinued to paddle in that child's dreams for many 
 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 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 was greatly 
 amused by these ebullitions. It gave him some- 
 thing else to look at besides clay banks and wil- 
 lows. 
 
100 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 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 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 performance. 
 What a number of things a river does by simply 
 following Gravity in the innocence of its heart! 
 
NOYON CATHEDRAL 
 
 Noyon stands about a mile from the river, in 
 a little plain surrounded by wooded hills, and en- 
 tirely covers an eminence with its tile roofs, sur- 
 mounted by a long, straight-backed cathedral 
 with two stiff towers. As we got into the town, 
 the tile roofs seemed to tumble up-hill one upon 
 another, in the oddest disorder; but for all their 
 scrambling they did not attain above the knees 
 of the cathedral, which stood, upright and solemn, 
 over all. As the streets drew near to this pre- 
 siding genius, through the market-place under 
 the Hotel de Ville, 'they grew emptier and more 
 composed. Blank walls and shuttered windows 
 were turned to the great edifice, and grass grew 
 on the white causeway. " Put off thy shoes 
 from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou 
 standest is holy ground." The Hotel du Nord, 
 nevertheless, lights its secular tapers 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 ter- 
 races, and settles down broadly on the earth, it 
 looks like the poop of some great old battle-ship. 
 Hollow-backed buttresses carry vases, which fig- 
 ure 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 
 
 101 
 
102 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 were bowing lazily over an Atlantic 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 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 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. Frqm above the town was a tes- 
 sellated pavement of roofs and gardens; the old 
 line of rampart was plainly traceable; 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 favorite kind of mountain scenery. Man- 
 kind was never 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 ex- 
 amination, as lively and interesting as a forest in 
 detail. The height of spires cannot be taken 
 by trigonometry; they measure absurdly short, 
 and 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 transcended 
 itself and became something different and more 
 
NOYON CATHEDRAL 103 
 
 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-cli- 
 max ? 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 
 preacher itself, and preaches day and night ; not 
 only telling you of man's art and aspirations 
 in the past, but convicting your own soul of 
 ardent sympathies ; or rather, like all good preach- 
 ers, it sets you preaching to yourself, — and every 
 man is his own doctor of divinity in the last re- 
 sort. 
 
 As I sat outside of the hotel in the course of 
 the afternoon, the sweet, groaning thunder of 
 the organ floated out of the church like a sum- 
 mons. I was not averse, liking the theatre so 
 well, to sit out an act or two of the play, but I 
 could never rightly make out the nature of the 
 service I beheld. Four or five priests and as 
 many choristers 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 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 Virgin and Child 
 upon a table. The priests and choristers arose 
 from their knees and followed after, singing 
 " Ave Mary " as they went. In this order they 
 made the circuit of the cathedral, passing twice 
 before me where I leaned against a pillar. The 
 priest who seemed of most consequence was a 
 
104 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 strange, down-looking old man. He kept mum- 
 bling players with hs 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 burden of the chant, were stout, brutal, 
 military-looking men of forty, with bold, over- 
 fed eyes; they sang with some lustiness, and 
 trolled forth " Ave Mary " like a garrison 
 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 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. Indeed, it would be difficult not to un- 
 derstand the Miserere, 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 odd name for them, after all ! But why, in 
 God's name, these holiday choristers? why these 
 priests who steal wandering looks about the con- 
 gregation while they feign to be at prayer? why 
 this fat nun, who rudely arranges her procession 
 and shakes the delinquent virgins by the elbow? 
 why this spitting, and snuffing, and forgetting 
 of keys, and the thousand and one little misad- 
 ventures that disturb a frame of mind, labori- 
 ously edified with chants and organings? In 
 any play-house reverend fathers may see what 
 can be done with a little art, and how, to move 
 
NOYON CATHEDRAL 105 
 
 high sentiments, it is necessary to drill the super- 
 numeraries 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 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 for himself ; although I notice that 
 such an one often prefers Jubilate Deo for his 
 ordinary singing. On the whole, the most re- 
 ligious exercise for the aged is probably to recall 
 their own experience; so many friends dead, so 
 many hopes disappointed, so many slips and 
 stumbles, and withal so many bright days and 
 smiling providences; there is surely the matter 
 of a very eloquent sermon in all this. 
 
 On the whole I was greatly solemnized. In 
 the little pictorial map of our whole Inland 
 Voyage, which my fancy still preserves, and 
 sometimes unrolls for the amusement of odd mo- 
 ments, Noyon cathedral figures on a most pre- 
 posterous scale, and must be nearly as large as 
 the department. I can still see the faces of the 
 priests as if they were at my elbow, and hear 
 Ave Maria, or a 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 brown roofs at the best, where I believe people 
 live very reputably in a quiet way ; but the shadow 
 
106 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 of the church falls upon it when the sun is low, 
 and the five bells are heard in all quarters, tell- 
 ing that the organ has begun. If ever I join 
 the church of Rome I shall stipulate to be 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 differ- 
 ence. That was like to be 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 that the landlady lit a few sticks 
 in the chimney for our comfort; there we sat 
 in a steam of vapor 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 over the misfortune of La Fere; we 
 forecasted other La Feres in the future, — al- 
 though things went better with the Cigarette for 
 spokesman; he had more aplomb altogether than 
 I ; and a dull, positive way of approaching a land- 
 lady that carried off the india-rubber bags. Talk- 
 ing of La Fere put us talking of the reservists. 
 
 " Reservery," said he, " seems a pretty mean 
 way to spend one's autumn holiday." 
 
 " About as mean," returned I, dejectedly, " as 
 conoeing." 
 
 107 
 
108 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 " These gentlemen travel for their pleasure?" 
 asked the landlady, with unconscious irony. 
 
 It was too much. The scales fell from our 
 eyes. Another 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 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 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, began to discharge its water houses on the 
 Oise; so that we had no lack of company to fear. 
 Here were all our old friends; the Deo Gratias 
 of Conde and the Four Sons of Aymon journeyed 
 cheerily down the stream along with us; we ex- 
 changed water-side pleasantries with the steers- 
 man perched among the lumber, or the driver 
 hoarse with bawling to his horses; and the chil- 
 dren came and looked over the side as we pad- 
 dled 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. 
 
 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 
 
DOWN THE OISE 109 
 
 day; thenceforward he had a stately, 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 be- 
 came the order of the day, and mere straightfor- 
 ward 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 towards the sea 
 like gentlemen. 
 
 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 
 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 
 
 We put up at a big, bustling hotel in Com- 
 piegne, where nobody observed our presence. 
 
 Reservery and general militarismus (as the 
 Germans call it) was rampant. A camp of con- 
 ical white tents without the town looked like a 
 leaf out of a picture Bible; sword-belts decorated 
 the walls of the cafes, and the streets kept sound- 
 ing 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 in- 
 clined at 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 pa- 
 cing in front, the drummers' tiger-skins, the pip- 
 ers' swinging plaids, the strange, elastic rhythm 
 of the whole regiment footing it in time, and 
 the bang of the drum when the brasses cease, 
 and the shrill pipes taking up the martial story 
 in their place? 
 
 A girl at school in France began to 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 
 
 proud to be a countrywoman of such soldiers, 
 
 and so sorry to be in another country, that her 
 
 no 
 
AT COMPIEGNE 111 
 
 voice failed her and she burst into tears. I have 
 never forgotten that girl, and I think she very 
 nearly 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 genefal, never see any great or immediate 
 result of her life, she will not have lived in vain 
 for her native land. 
 
 But though French soldiers show to ill-advan- 
 tage on parade, on the march they are gay, alert, 
 and willing, like a troop of fox-hunters. I re- 
 member once seeing a company pass through the 
 forest of Fontainebleau, on the Chailly road, 
 between the Bas Breau 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 mus- 
 kets in time. A young officer on horseback had 
 hard ado to keep his countenance at the words. 
 You never saw anything so cheerful and spon- 
 taneous as their gait; school-boys do not look 
 more eagerly at hare and hounds ; and you would 
 have thought it impossible to tire such willing 
 marchers. 
 
 My great delight in Compiegne was the town 
 hall. I doted upon the town hall. It is a monu- 
 ment of Gothic insecurity, all turreted, and gar- 
 goyled, and slashed, and bedizened with half a 
 score of architectural fancies. 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 stir- 
 
112 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 nipped foot projects insolently from the frame; 
 the eye is hard and proud ; the very horse seems 
 to be treading with gratification over 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. • 
 
 Over the king's head, in the tall centre tur- 
 ret, 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 
 figure has a gilt breastplate ; the two others wear 
 gilt trunkhose; and they all three have elegant, 
 flapping hats like cavaliers. As the quarter ap- 
 proaches they turn their heads and look know- 
 ingly one to the other; and then, kling go the 
 three hammers on three little bells below. The 
 hour follows, deep and sonorous, from the in- 
 terior of the tower; and the gilded gentlemen 
 rest from their labors with contentment. 
 
 I had a great deal of healthy pleasure from 
 their manoeuvers, and took good care to miss 
 as few performances as possible; and I found 
 that even the Cigarette, while he pretended to* 
 despise my enthusiasm, was more or less a dev- 
 otee himself. There is something highly absurd 
 in the exposition of such toys to the outrages 
 of winter on a housetop. They would be more 
 in keeping in a glass case before a Niirnberg 
 clock. Above all, at night, when the children are 
 abed, and even grown people are snoring under 
 quilts, does it not seem impertinent to leave these 
 gingerbread figures winking and tinkling to the 
 
AT COMPIEGNE 113 
 
 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 cen- 
 turion in an old German print of the Via Dolor- 
 osa; but the toys should be put away in a box 
 among some cotton, until the sun rises, and the 
 .children are abroad again to be amused. 
 
 In Compiegne 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. 
 
 In some way, ^ur journey may be said to end 
 with this letter-bag at Compiegne. 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 is the death of all holi- 
 day feeling. 
 
 " Out of my country and myself I go.'' I 
 wish to take a dive among new conditions for 
 awhile, 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 at home 
 in a desk, or sent it forward with portmanteau 
 to await me at my destination. After my jour- 
 ney 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 purpose 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 
 
114 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 is no discharge in the war of life, I am 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 some smart particulars, too; 
 and we paid in a civilized manner to an uninter- 
 ested 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 its ease in the morn- 
 ing; and we were up and away while it was still 
 in dressing-gown and slippers. The streets were 
 left to people washing door-steps; nobody was 
 in full dress but the cavaliers upon the town 
 hall; they were all washed with dew, spruce in 
 their gilding, and full of 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. 
 
 There was no one to see us off but the early 
 washerwomen, — early and late, — who were al- 
 ready beating the linen in their floating lavatory 
 on the river. They were very merry and mat- 
 utinal in their ways; plunged their arms boldly 
 in, and seemed not to feel the shock. It would 
 be dispiriting to me, this early beginning and 
 first cold dabble of a most dispiriting day's work. 
 But I believe they would have been as unwilling 
 to change days with us as we could be to change 
 
AT COMPIEGNE 115 
 
 with them. They 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 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 us by at a distance. It 
 was the same difference as between a great pub- 
 lic highway and a country by-path that wanders 
 in and out of cottage gardens. We now lay 
 in towns, where nobody troubled us with ques- 
 tions; we had floated into civilized life, where 
 people pass without salutation. In sparsely in- 
 habited places we make all we can of each en- 
 counter; but when it comes to a city, we keep 
 to ourselves, and never speak unless we have 
 trodden on a man's toes. In these waters we 
 were no longer strange* birds, and nobody sup- 
 posed we had travelled farther than from 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 distinguish the true 
 voyager from the amateur, except, perhaps, the 
 filthy condition of my sail. The company in 
 one boat actually thought they recognized me 
 for a neighbor. Was there ever anything more 
 wounding? All the romance had come down 
 
 116 
 
CHANGED TIMES 117 
 
 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 intrud- 
 ers; and out of people's wonder sprang a sort 
 of light and passing intimacy all along our route. 
 There is nothing but tit for tat in this world, 
 though sometimes it be a little difficult to 
 trace; for the scores are older than we our- 
 selves, and there has never yet been a settling- 
 day since things were. You get entertainment 
 pretty much in proportion as you give. As long 
 as we were a sort of odd wanderers, to be stared 
 at and followed like a quack doctor or a cara- 
 van, we had no want of amusement in return; 
 but as soon as we sank into commonplace our- 
 selves, all whom we met were similarly disen- 
 chanted. And here is one reason of a dozen 
 why the world is dull to dull persons. 
 
 In our earlier adventures there was generally 
 something 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 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 
 follows upon much exercise in the open air. I 
 have stupefied myself in this 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, when 
 I found a new paper, I took a particular pleasure 
 
118 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 in reading a single number of the current novel ; 
 but I never could bear more than three instal- 
 ments ; and even the second was a disappointment. 
 As soon as the tale became in any way perspicu- 
 ous, it lost all merit in my eyes; only a single 
 scene, or, as is the way with these jeuilletons, 
 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 pregnant reflection. But for 
 the most part, as I said, we neither of us read 
 anything in the world, and employed 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 greatest enjoyment. The names of places 
 are singularly inviting; the contour of coasts 
 and rivers is enthralling to the eye; and to hit 
 in a map upon some place you have heard of be- 
 fore makes history a new procession. But we 
 thumbed our charts, on those evenings, with the 
 blankest unconcern. We cared not a frac- 
 tion 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 maps away while we were study- 
 ing 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 m&de a god of 
 my belly. I remember dwelling in imagination 
 upon this or that dish till my mouth watered; 
 
CHANGED TIMES 119 
 
 and long before we got in for the night my ap- 
 petite was a clamant, instant annoyance. Some- 
 times we paddled alongside for awhile and 
 whetted each other with gastronomical fancies 
 as we went. Cake and sherry, a homely refec- 
 tion, but not within reach upon the Oise, 
 trotted through my head for many a mile; and 
 once, as we were approaching Verberie, the Ciga- 
 rette brought my heart into my mouth by the 
 suggestion of oyster patties and Sauterne. 
 
 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 stom- 
 ach the least interesting viands, and pass off a 
 dinner hour thankfully enough on bread and 
 water; just as there are men who must read 
 something, if it were only Bradshaw'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 gen- 
 erally entertaining than scenery. Do you give 
 in, as Walt Whitman would say, that you are 
 any the less immortal for that? The true ma- 
 terialism is to be ashamed of what we are. To 
 detect the flavor of an olive is no less a piece 
 of human perfection than to find beauty in the 
 colors of the sunset. 
 
 Canoeing was easy work. To dip the paddle 
 at the proper inclination, now right, now left; 
 to keep the head down stream; to empty the 
 little pool that gathered in the lap of the apron; 
 to screw up the eyes against the glittering 
 sparkles of sun upon the water; or now and 
 again to pass below the whistling tow-rope of 
 the Deo Gr atlas of Conde, or Four Sons of 
 
120 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 Aymon, — there was not much art in that; cer- 
 tain silly muscles managed it between sleep 
 and waking; and meanwhile the brain 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 washerwomen on the bank. Now and 
 again we might be half wakened by some church 
 spire, by a leaping fish, or by a trail of river 
 grass that clung about the paddle and had to be 
 plucked off and thrown away. But these lu- 
 minous 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 Ourselves, enjoyed 
 its holiday without disturbance, like a Govern- 
 ment Office. The great wheels of intelligence 
 turned idly in the head, like flywheels, 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 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; and he begins 
 to feel dignified and longevous like a tree. 
 
 There was one odd piece of practical meta- 
 physics which accompanied what I may call the 
 depth, if I must not call it the intensity, of my 
 abstraction. What philosophers 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 
 
CHANGED TIMES 121 
 
 on upon somebody else, who managed the pad- 
 dling; I was aware of somebody else's feet 
 against the stretcher ; my own 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 somebody 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 unbidden; they 
 were not my thoughts, they were plainly some 
 one else's; and I considered them like a part 
 of the 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 agree- 
 able state, not very consistent with mental bril- 
 liancy, not exactly profitable in a money point 
 of 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 laborers must 
 spend a large portion of their days in this ec- 
 static stupor, which explains their high com- 
 posure and endurance. A pity to go to the ex- 
 pense of laudanum when here is a better paradise 
 for nothing! 
 
 This frame of mind was the great exploit of 
 our voyage, take it all in all. It was the farthest 
 piece of travel accomplished. Indeed, it lies so 
 far from beaten paths of language that I despair 
 of getting the reader into sympathy with the 
 
122 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 smiling, complacent idiocy of my condition ; when 
 ideas came and went like 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 cloud-land; when 
 the rhythmical swish of boat and paddle in the 
 water became a cradle-song to lull my 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 consideration; and all the time, with the 
 river running and the shores changing upon 
 either hand, I kept counting my strokes and for- 
 getting the hundreds, the happiest animal in 
 France. 
 
DOWN THE OISE 
 Church Interiors. 
 
 We made our first stage below Compiegne to 
 Pont Sainte-Maxence. I was abroad a- little after 
 six the next morning. The air was biting and 
 smelt of frost. In an open 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 were full of icy- 
 shadow, although the chimneys were smoking 
 overhead in golden sunshine. If you wake 
 early enough at this season of the year, you 
 may get up in December to break your fast in 
 June. 
 
 I found my way to the church, for there is 
 always something to see about a church, whether 
 living worshippers or dead men's tombs; you 
 find there the deadliest earnest, and the hollowest 
 deceit; and even where it is not a piece of his- 
 tory, it will be certain to leak out some contem- 
 porary 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 tawdriness of a continental altar looked 
 more forlorn than usual in the solitude and the 
 bleak air. Two priests sat in the chancel read- 
 
 123 
 
124 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 ing 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 beads when healthy young people were 
 breathing in their palms and slapping their chest ; 
 but though this concerned me, I was yet more 
 dispirited by the nature of her exercises. She 
 went from chair to chair, from altar to altar, 
 circumnavigating the church. To each shrine 
 she dedicated an equal number of beads and an 
 equal length of time. Like a prudent capitalist 
 with a somewhat cynical view of the commercial 
 prospect, she desired to place her supplications 
 in a great variety of heavenly securities. She 
 would risk nothing on the credit of any single 
 intercessor. Out of the whole company of 
 saints and angels, not one but was to suppose 
 himself her champion elect against the Great As- 
 sizes! I could only think of it as a dull, trans- 
 parent jugglery, based upon unconscious unbelief. 
 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 inter- 
 rogated mine, were vacant of sense. It depends 
 on what you call seeing, whether you 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 church and juggle 
 for a slice of heaven. It was not without a gulp 
 that I escaped into the streets and the keen morn- 
 ing air. Morning? why, how tired of it she 
 would be before night! and if she did not sleep, 
 
DOWN THE OISE 125 
 
 how then? It is fortunate that not many of us 
 are brought up publicly 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 follies in pri- 
 vate somewhere else. Otherwise, between sick 
 children and discontented old folk, we might be 
 put out of all conceit of life. 
 
 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 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 remember 
 the hundreds ; which would have made a toil of a 
 pleasure ; but the terror was chimerical, they went 
 out 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 washer- 
 women, red-handed and loud-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 had an interest for us 
 because it was a girls' boarding-school, and be- 
 cause 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 
 
126 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 was more than one handkerchief waved as we 
 went by. It 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 intro- 
 duced at a croquet party ! But this is a fashion 
 I love : to kiss the hand or wave a handkerchief 
 to people I shall never see again, to play with 
 possibility, and knock in a peg for fancy to hang 
 upon. It gives the traveller a jog, 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 Creil was a nondescript place 
 in the 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 ex voto, which pleased me 
 hugely: a faithful model of a canal boat, swung 
 from the vault, with a written aspiration that 
 God should conduct the St. Nicholas of Creil to 
 a good haven. The thing was neatly executed, 
 and would have made the delight of a party of 
 boys on the water-side. 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 the St. Nicholas 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 of a village belfry in all its cruising; 
 
DOWN THE OISE 127 
 
 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 this preposterous 
 token. 
 
 At Creil, as at Noyon, St. Joseph seemed a 
 favorite 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 and neatly an- 
 swered. Whenever time is a consideration, St. 
 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 saint is so much com- 
 mended 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 received or 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 him- 
 self. The self-made man is the funniest wind- 
 bag after all ! There is a marked difference be- 
 tween decreeing light in chaos, and lighting the 
 gas in a metropolitan back-parlor with a box of 
 patent matches; and, do what we will, there is 
 always something made to our hand, if it were 
 only four fingers. 
 
 But there was something worse than foolish- 
 
128 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 ness placarded in Creil Church. The Associa- 
 tion of the Living Rosary (of which I had never 
 previously heard) is responsible for that. This 
 association was founded, according to the printed 
 advertisement, by a brief of Pope Gregory Six- 
 teenth, on the 17th of January, 1832: according 
 to a colored bas-relief, it seems to have been 
 founded, some time or other, by the Virgin giv- 
 ing one rosary to St. Dominic, and the Infant 
 Saviour giving another to St. Catherine of Si- 
 enna. Pope Gregory is not so imposing, but 
 he is nearer hand. I could not distinctly make 
 out whether the association was entirely devo- 
 tional, or had an eye to good works; at least it 
 is highly organized; the names of fourteen ma- 
 trons and misses were filled in for each week of 
 the months as associates, with one other, gen- 
 erally a married woman, at the top for Zelatrice, 
 the choragus of the band. Indulgences, plenary 
 and partial, follow on the performance of the 
 duties of the association. " The partial indul- 
 gences £re attached to the recitation of the rosary. " 
 On " the recitation of the required dizaine," 
 a partial indulgence 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 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, apply them all to 
 the souls in purgatory without delay! Burns 
 
DOWN THE OISE 129 
 
 would take no hire for his last songs, preferring 
 to serve his country out of unmixed love. Sup- 
 pose you were to imitate the exciseman, mes- 
 dames, and even if the souls in purgatory were 
 not greatly bettered, some 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 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 com- 
 mending St. Joseph for his despatch as if he were 
 still a village carpenter; they can "recite the 
 required dizaine" and metaphorically pocket the 
 indulgences 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 without confusion at the pinpoint stars, 
 which are themselves great worlds full of flow- 
 ing rivers greater than the Oise. I see it as 
 plainly, I say, as a proposition in Euclid, that 
 my Protestant mind had missed the point, and 
 that there goes with these deformities some 
 higher and more religious 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. 
 
pr£cy and the marionettes 
 
 We made Precy about sundown. The plain 
 is rich with tufts of poplar. In a wide, lumi- 
 nous curve the Oise lay under the hillside. A 
 faint mist began to rise and confound the dif- 
 ferent distances together. There was not a sound 
 audible but that of the sheep-bells in some mead- 
 ows by the river, and the creaking of a cart 
 down the long road that descends the hill. The 
 villas in their gardens, the shops along the street, 
 all seemed to have been deserted the day before; 
 and I felt inclined to walk discreetly as one feels 
 in a silent forest. All of a sudden we came round 
 a corner, and there, in a little green round the 
 church, was a bevy of girls in Parisian costumes 
 playing croquet. Their laughter and the hollow 
 sound of ball and mallet made a cheery stir in the 
 neighborhood; and the look of these slim figures, 
 all corseted and ribboned, produced an answer- 
 able disturbance in our hearts. We were with- 
 in sniff of Paris, it seemed. And here were 
 females of our own species playing croquet, 
 just as if Precy had been a place in real 
 life instead of a stage in the fairyland of travel. 
 For, to be frank, the peasant-woman is scarcely 
 to be counted as a woman at all, and after hav- 
 ing passed by such a succession of people in pet- 
 ticoats digging, and hoeing, and making dinner, 
 this company of coquettes under arms made quite 
 
 130 
 
PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 131 
 
 a surprising feature in the landscape, and con- 
 vinced us at once of being fallible males. 
 
 The inn at Precy 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; 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 ragout. The butcher entertained us with 
 pictures of Parisian life, with which he professed 
 himself well acquainted; 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 is- 
 suing a proclamation. It was a man with mar- 
 ionettes announcing a performance for that even- 
 ing. 
 
 He had set up his caravan and lighted his 
 candles on another part of the girls' croquet green, 
 under one of those open sheds which are so com- 
 mon in France to 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 upon them were to pay 
 a couple of sous for the accommodation. 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 the tambourine the au- 
 
132 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 dience slipped 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 proscenium; he 
 had been all over France, and nowhere, no- 
 where, " not even on the borders of Germany," 
 had he met with such misconduct. Such thieves, 
 and rogues, and rascals as he called them ! And 
 now and again the wife issued on another round, 
 and added her shrill quota to the tirade. I re- 
 marked here, as elsewhere, how far more copious 
 is the female mind in the material of insult. 
 The audience laughed in high good-humor over 
 the man's declamations; but they bridled and 
 cried aloud under the woman's pungent sallies. 
 She picked out the sore points. She had the 
 honor of the village at her mercy. Voices 
 answered her angrily out of the crowd, and re- 
 ceived a smarting retort for their trouble. A 
 couple of old ladies beside me, who had duly 
 paid for their seats, waxed very red and indig- 
 nant, and discoursed 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 neighbors to act 
 with common honesty, the mountebanks, she as- 
 sured them, would be polite enough; mesdames 
 had probably had their bowl of soup, and, per- 
 haps, a glass of wine that evening; the mounte- 
 banks, 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 brief personal encounter between the 
 showman and some lads, in which the former 
 
PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 133 
 
 went down as readily as one of his own mar- 
 ionettes to a peal of jeering laughter. 
 
 I was a good deal astonished at this scene, be- 
 cause I am pretty well acquainted with the ways 
 of French strollers, 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 some- 
 thing to remind us that life is not by necessity 
 the kind of 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 flavor for the imagination. There is no- 
 body under thirty so dead but his heart will stir 
 a little at sight of a gypsies' camp. " We are 
 not cotton-spinners all," or, at least, not all 
 through. There is some life in humanity yet; 
 and youth will now and again find a brave word 
 to say in dispraise of riches, and throw up a sit- 
 uation to go strolling with a knapsack. 
 
 An Englishman has always special facilities 
 for intercourse with French gymnasts; for Eng- 
 land 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 aff-n-aff, and, perhaps, performed in 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 favorite; he has 
 little or no tincture of the artist in his composi- 
 tion; his soul is small and pedestrian for the 
 
134 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 most part, since his profession 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 some- 
 thing else to think about beside the money-box. 
 He has a pride of his own, and, what is of far 
 more importance, he has an aim before him that 
 he can never quite attain. He has gone upon a 
 pilgrimage that will last him his life long, be- 
 cause there is no end to it short of perfection. 
 He will better himself a little day by day; or, 
 even if he has given up the attempt, he will al- 
 ways remember that once upon a time he had 
 conceived this high ideal, that once upon a time 
 he fell in love with a star. " 'Tis better 
 to have loved and lost." Although the moon 
 should have nothing to say to Endymion, al- 
 though he should settle down with Audrey and 
 feed pigs, do you not think he would move with 
 a better grace and cherish higher 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 stamp on a man's countenance. I remem- 
 ber once dining with a party in the inn at Chateau 
 Landon. Most of them were unmistakable bag- 
 men; others well-to-do peasantry; but there was 
 one young fellow in a blouse, whose face stood 
 out from among the rest surprisingly. It 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 
 
PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 135 
 
 companion and I wondered greatly who and what 
 he could be. It was fair time in Chateau Lan- 
 don, and when we went along 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 were a father and mother ; two 
 daughters, brazen, blowsy hussies, 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 can be spoken of with regard to such 
 a pack of incompetent 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 
 stable-yard with flaring lamps: a wretched ex- 
 hibition, 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 harbored, 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 we drank a cup to- 
 gether in the kitchen, talking of roads and au- 
 diences, and hard times. fc 
 
 When I was going, up got my old stroller, and 
 
136 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 off with his hat. " I am afraid," said he, " that 
 Monsieur will think me altogether a beggar ; but 
 I have another 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 been already so liberal. 
 But our programme of to-night is something 
 truly creditable; and I cling to the idea that 
 Monsieur will honor us with his presence." 
 And then, with a shrug and a smile : " Monsieur 
 understands, — the vanity of an artist !" Save 
 the mark! The vanity of an artist! 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! 
 
 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 programme as I found 
 it on the breakfast-table, and have kept it ever 
 since as a relic of bright days: 
 
 " Mesdames et Messieurs, 
 
 " Mademoiselle Ferrario et M. de Vauversin 
 auront l'honneur de chanter ce soir les morceaux 
 suivants : 
 
 " Mademoiselle Ferrario chantera : Mignon — 
 Oiseaux Legers — France — Des Frangais dorment 
 la — Le chateau bleu — Ou voulezvous aller? 
 
 " M. de Vauversin : Madame Fontaine et M. 
 Robinet — Les plongeurs a cheval — Le Mari 
 mecontent — Tais-toi, gamin — Mon voisin Torig- 
 inal — Heureux comme ga — Comme on est 
 trompe." 
 
PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 137 
 
 They made a stage at one end of the salle-a- 
 manger. And what a sight it was to see M. de 
 Vauversin, with a cigarette in his mouth, twang- 
 ing a guitar, and following Mademoiselle Fer- 
 rario's eyes with the obedient, kindly look of a 
 dog! The entertainment wound up with a 
 tombola, or auction of lottery tickets : an ad- 
 mirable amusement, with all the excitement of 
 gambling, and no 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 com- 
 petition who shall lose most money for the bene- 
 fit of M. de Vauversin and Mademoiselle Fer- 
 rario. 
 
 M. de Vauversin is a small man, with a great 
 head of 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 
 Chatelet; but he contracted a nervous affection 
 from the heat and glare of the footlights, which 
 unfitted him for the stage. At this crisis 
 Mademoiselle Ferrario, otherwise Mademoiselle 
 Rita of the Alcazar, agreed to share his wander- 
 ing fortunes. " I could never forget the gen- 
 erosity 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 them. He sketches a little in water-colors, 
 he writes verses : he is the most patient of fisher- 
 men, and spent long days at the bottom of the 
 inn-garden fruitlessly dabbling a line in the 
 clear river. 
 
 You should hear him recounting his experi- 
 ences over a bottle of wine ; such a pleasant vein 
 
138 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 of talk as he has, with a ready smile at his own 
 mishaps, and every now and then a sudden grav- 
 ity, like a man who should hear the surf roar 
 while he was telling the perils of the deep. For 
 it was no longer ago than last night, perhaps, 
 that the receipts only amounted to a franc and 
 a half to cover three francs of railway fare and 
 two of board and lodging. The Maire, a man 
 worth a million of money, sat in the front seat, 
 repeatedly applauding Mademoiselle Ferrario, 
 and yet gave no more than three sous the whole 
 evening. Local authorities look with such an 
 evil eye upon the strolling artist. Alas ! I know 
 it well, who have been myself taken for one, and 
 pitilessly incarcerated on the strength of the mis- 
 apprehension. Once M. de Vauversin visited a 
 commissary 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 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, when we had been talking all the evening 
 of the rubs, indignities, and pinchings of his 
 wandering life. Some one said it would be bet- 
 ter to have a million of money down, and 
 Mademoiselle Ferrario admitted that she would 
 prefer that mightily. "Eh bien> y moi non: — 
 not I," cried De Vauversin, striking the table 
 with his hand. " If any one is a failure in the 
 world, is it not I ? I had an art, in which I have 
 
PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 139 
 
 done things well, — as well as some, better, per- 
 haps, than others; and now it is closed against 
 me. I must go about the country gathering cop- 
 pers and singing nonsense. Do you think I re- 
 gret my life? Do you think I would rather be 
 a fat burgess, like a calf ? Not I ! I have had 
 moments when I have been applauded on the 
 boards: I think nothing of that; but I have 
 known in my own mind sometimes, when I had 
 not a clap from the whole house, that I had 
 found a true intonation, or an exact and speak- 
 ing 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 forever, such 
 as no burgess can find in his petty concerns. 
 Tenez, messieurs je vais voits le dire, — it is like 
 a religion." 
 
 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 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 honor this 
 unfortunate and loyal follower of the Muses? 
 May Apollo send him rhymes hitherto undreamed 
 of; may the river be 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 guitar! 
 
140 AN INLAND VOYAGE 
 
 The marionettes made a very dismal entertain- 
 ment. They performed a piece called Pyramus 
 and Thisbe, in five mortal acts, and all written in 
 Alexandrines fully as long as the performers. 
 , One marionette was the king ; 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 dur- 
 ing the two or three acts 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 
 marionette in wooden shoes, who spoke in prose 
 and in a broad patois much appreciated by the 
 audience. He took unconstitutional liberties 
 with the person of his sovereign; kicked his fel- 
 low-marionettes in the mouth with his wooden 
 shoes, and whenever none of the versifying 
 suitors were about, made love to Thisbe on his 
 own account in comic prose. 
 
 This fellow's evolutions, and the little pro- 
 logue, in which the showman made a humorous 
 eulogium of his troop, praising their indifference 
 to applause and hisses, and their single devotion 
 to their art, were the only circumstances in the 
 whole affair that you could fancy would so much 
 as raise a smile. But the villagers of Precy 
 seemed delighted. Indeed, so long as a thing is 
 an exhibition, and you pay to see it, it is nearly 
 certain to amuse. If we were charged so much 
 a head for sunsets, or if God sent round a drum 
 before the hawthorns came in flower, what work 
 should we not make about their beauty! But 
 
PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 141 
 
 these things, like good companions, stupid people 
 early cease to observe ; and the Abstract 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 
 
 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 
 river-side landscapes. Washerwomen in blue 
 dresses, fishers in blue blouses, diversified the 
 green banks; and the relation of the two colors 
 was like that of the flower and the leaf in the 
 forget-me-not. A symphony in forget-me-not; 
 I think Theophile Gautier might thus have char- 
 acterized that two days' panorama. The sky 
 was blue and cloudless ; and the sliding surface of 
 the river held up, in 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 dozing 
 thoughts, as we fleeted down the stream. 
 
 The great volume, the indefatigable purpose 
 of the 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. For my own part slipping along this 
 moving thoroughfare 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 dipping the paddle ; I was weary 
 of living on the skirts of life; I wished to be in 
 the thick of it once more ; I wished to get to work ; 
 
 142 
 
BACK TO THE WORLD 143 
 
 I wished to meet 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 up our keels for the last time out of that 
 river of Oise that had faithfully piloted them, 
 through rain and sunshine, 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 
 had 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 fortune had per- 
 fected the while in our surroundings; what sur- 
 prises stood ready-made for us at home; and 
 whither and how far the world had voyaged in 
 our absence. You may paddle all day long; 
 but it is when you come back at nightfall, and 
 look in at the familiar room, that you find Love 
 or Death awaiting you beside the stove; and the 
 most beautiful adventures are not those we go to 
 seek. 
 
TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 IN THE CAYENNES 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 My dear Sidney Colvin, 
 
 The journey which 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 Bun- 
 yan 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 for- 
 tunate 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 is, in an intimate sense, a circular 
 letter to the friends of him who writes it. They 
 alone take his meaning; they find private messages, 
 assurances of love, and expressions 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, we have an 
 old and kindly custom of addressing it on the out- 
 side to one. Of what shall a man be proud, if he 
 is not proud of his friends ? And so, my dear Sid- 
 ney Colvin, it is with pride that I sign myself affec- 
 tionately yours, 
 
 R. L. S. 
 
 146 
 
TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 VELAY 
 
 "Many are the mighty 
 things, and nought is 
 more mighty than man. 
 . . . He masters by 
 his devices the tenant 
 of the fields/' — Anti- 
 gone. 
 
 " Who hath loosed the 
 bands of the wild 
 ass?"— Job. 
 
 THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE 
 PACK-SADDLE 
 
 In a little place called Le Monastier, in a 
 pleasant highland valley fifteen miles from Le 
 Puy, I spent about a month of fine days. Mon- 
 astier is notable for the making- of lace, for 
 drunkenness, for freedom of language, and for 
 unparalleled political dissension. There are ad- 
 herents of each of the four French parties — Le- 
 gitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists, and Republi- 
 cans — in this little mountain-town ; and they 
 all hate, loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. 
 Except for business purposes, or to give each 
 other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid 
 aside even the civility of speech. 'Tis a mere 
 
 147 
 
148 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 mountain Poland. In the midst of this Babylon 
 I found myself a rally ing-point; every one was 
 anxious to be kind and 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 Monastier, when he might just 
 as well have lived anywhere else in this big 
 world; it arose a good deal from my projected 
 excursion southward through the Cevennes. 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 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 mo- 
 ment of a bargain ; not a step was taken but was 
 heralded by glasses round and celebrated by a 
 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 of 
 camping out in my possession; for there is noth- 
 ing more harassing to an easy mind than the ne- 
 cessity of reaching shelter by dusk, and the hos- 
 pitality 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 
 troublesome to pitch, and troublesome to strike 
 again; and even on the march it forms a con- 
 spicuous feature in your baggage. A sleeping- 
 sack, on the other hand, is always ready — you 
 
VELAY 149 
 
 have only to get into it; it serves a double pur- 
 pose — a bed by night, a portmanteau by day ; 
 and it does not advertise your intention of camp- 
 ing 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 bed- 
 side after an early supper; and you must sleep 
 with one eye open, and be up before the day. 
 I decided on a sleeping-sack; and after repeated 
 visits to Le Puy, and a deal of high living for 
 myself and my advisers, a sleeping-sack was de- 
 signed, constructed, and triumphally brought 
 home. 
 
 This child of my invention was nearly six feet 
 square, 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 long roll or sausage, green waterproof 
 cart cloth without and blue sheep's fur within. It 
 was commodious as a valise, warm and dry for a 
 bed. There w r as 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 I trusted to a fur cap, with a hood 
 to fold down over my ears and a band to pass 
 under my nose like a respirator; and in case of 
 heavy rain I proposed to make myself a little 
 tent, or tentlet, with my waterproof coat, three 
 stones, and a bent branch. 
 
 It will readily be conceived that I could not 
 carry this huge package on my own, merely hu- 
 man, shoulders. It remained to choose a beast 
 of burthen. Now, a horse is a fine lady among 
 
150 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 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 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 re- 
 quired was something cheap and small and hardy, 
 and 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 a cart, and 
 to draw the cart a diminutive she-ass, not much 
 bigger than a dog, the color of a mouse, with a 
 kindly eye and a determined under- jaw. 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 Monastier 
 market-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 dearth of subjects. I 
 was already backed by a deputation of my 
 friends; but as if this were not enough, all the 
 buyers and sellers came round and helped me in 
 the bargain ; and the ass and I and Father Adam 
 were the centre of a hubbub for near half an 
 hour. At length she 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 Mo- 
 
VELAY 151 
 
 destine, as I instantly baptized her, was upon 
 all accounts the cheaper article. Indeed, that was 
 as it should be ; for 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 him- 
 self greatly touched by the separation, and de- 
 clared 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 
 authorities, must have been a flight of fancy. 
 He had a name in the village for brutally mis- 
 using the ass; yet it is certain 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 toilette. By way of 
 armory and utensils, I took a revolver, a little 
 spirit-lamp and pan, a lantern and some half- 
 penny candles, a jack-knife and a large leather 
 flask. The main cargo consisted of two entire 
 changes of warm clothing — besides my travel- 
 ling wear of country velveteen, pilot-coat, and 
 knitted spencer — some books, and my railway- 
 rug, which, being also in the form of a bag, 
 made me a double castle for cold nights. The 
 permanent larder was represented by cakes of 
 chocolate and tins of Bologna sausage. All this, 
 except what I carried about my person, was 
 easily stowed into the sheepskin bag; and by 
 good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, 
 
152 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 rather for convenience of carriage than from 
 any thought that I should want it on my journey. 
 For more immediate needs, I took a leg of cold 
 mutton, a bottle of Beaujolais, an empty bottle to 
 carry 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 reversed. 
 
 Monastrians, of all shades of thought in poli- 
 tics, had agreed in threatening me with many 
 ludicrous misadventures, and with sudden death 
 in many surprising forms. Cold, wolves, rob- 
 bers, above all the nocturnal practical 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 pack is well 
 strapped at the ends, and hung at full length — 
 not doubled, for your life — across the pack- 
 saddle, 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 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 on Modestine's 
 back for half a moment. I returned it to its 
 maker, with whom I had so contumelious a pas- 
 sage that the street outside was crowded from 
 
VELAY 153 
 
 wall to wall with gossips looking on and listen- 
 ing. The pad changed hands with much vivac- 
 ity; 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 pack-saddle — a barde, 
 as they call it — fitted upon Modestine; and 
 once more loaded her with my effects. The 
 double sack, my pilot-coat ( for it was warm, and 
 I was to walk in my waistcoat), a great bar of 
 black bread, and an open basket containing the 
 white bread, the mutton, and the bottles, 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 donkey's shoulders, with nothing 
 below to balance, on a brand-new pack-saddle 
 that had not yet been worn to 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 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 person, without 
 any exercise of force, can make a more solid job 
 than half-a-dozen heated and enthusiastic grooms. 
 I was then but a novice ; even after the misadven- 
 ture of the pad nothing could disturb my se- 
 curity, and I went forth from the stable-door as 
 * an ox goeth to the slaughter. 
 
THE GREEN DONKEY-DRIVER 
 
 The bell of Monastier was just striking nine as 
 I got quit of these preliminary troubles and de- 
 scended the hill through the common. As long 
 as I was within sight of the windows, a secret 
 shame and the fear of some laughable 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 without 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 pace for per- 
 haps 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 Englishman, and it goes against 
 my conscience to lay my hand rudely on a fe- 
 male. I desisted, and looked her all over from 
 head to foot; the poor brute's knees were trem- 
 bling 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. 
 
 154 
 
VELAY 155 
 
 What that pace was, there is no word mean 
 enough to describe; it was something as much 
 slower than a walk as a walk is slower than a 
 run; it kept me hanging on each foot for an in- 
 credible length of time; in five minutes it ex- 
 hausted 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 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 jour- 
 neys, this promised to be the most tedious. I 
 tried to tell myself it was 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, approaching no nearer to the goal. 
 
 In the meantime there came up behind us a 
 tall peasant, perhaps forty years of age, of an 
 ironical snuffy countenance, and arrayed in the 
 green tail-coat of the country. He overtook us 
 hand over hand, and stopped to consider our piti- 
 ful advance. 
 
 'Your donkey," says he, " is very old?" 
 
 I told him, I believed not. 
 
 Then, he supposed, we had come far. 
 
 I told him, we had but newly left Monastier. 
 
 " Et vous marches comme cal" cried he; and, 
 throwing back his head, he laughed long and 
 heartily. I watched him, half prepared to feel 
 offended, until he had satisfied his mirth; and 
 
156 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 then, " You must have no pity on these animals," 
 said he; and, plucking a switch out of a thicket, 
 he began to lace Modestine about the stern-works, 
 uttering a cry. The rogue pricked up her ears 
 and broke into a good round pace, which she 
 kept up without flagging, and 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. 
 
 My deus ex machina, before he left me, sup- 
 plied some excellent, if inhumane, advice; pre- 
 sented me with the 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 re- 
 garded me with a comical incredulous air, which 
 was embarrassing to confront; and smiled over 
 my donkey-driving, as I 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 h&d 
 learned the art to perfection. And certainly 
 Modestine did wonders for the rest of the fore- 
 noon, 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 St. Martin de Frugeres, the church was 
 crowded to the door, there were people kneel- 
 ing without upon the steps, and the sound of the 
 priest's chanting came forth out of the dim in- 
 terior. It gave me a home feeling on the spot; 
 for I am a countryman of the Sabbath, so to 
 speak, and all Sabbath observances, like a Scotch 
 accent, strike in me mixed feelings, grateful and 
 
VELAY 157 
 
 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; and it 
 disposes him to amiable thoughts like the sound 
 of a little river or the warmth of sunlight. 
 
 In this pleasant humor I came down the hill 
 to where Goudet stands in the green end of a 
 valley, with Chateau Beaufort opposite upon a 
 rocky steep, and the stream, as clear as crystal, 
 lying in a deep pool between them. Above and 
 below, you may hear it wimpling over the 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, prac- 
 ticable at best for 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. But it is not so; 
 the postman reaches Goudet with the letter-bag; 
 the aspiring youth of Goudet are within a day's 
 walk of the railway at Le Puy; and here in the 
 inn you may find an engraved portrait of the 
 host's nephew, Regis Senac, " Professor of 
 Fencing and Champion of the two Americas," 
 a distinction gained by him, along with the sum 
 of five hundred dollars, at Tammany Hall, New 
 York, on the ioth April, 1876. 
 
 I hurried over my midday meal, and was early 
 forth again. But, alas, as we climbed the in- 
 terminable hill upon the other side, " Proot ! " 
 
158 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 seemed to have lost its virtue. I prooted like a 
 lion, I prooted mellifluously like a sucking-dove ; 
 but Modestine would be neither softened nor in- 
 timidated. She held doggedly to her pace; 
 nothing but a blow would move her, and that 
 only for a second. I must follow at her heels, 
 incessantly belaboring. A moment's pause in this 
 ignoble toil, and she relapsed into her own private 
 gait. I think I never heard of any one in as 
 mean a situation. I must reach the lake of 
 Bouchet, where I meant to camp, before sun- 
 down, and, to have even a hope of this, I must 
 instantly maltreat this uncomplaining animal. 
 The sound of my own blows sickened me. Once, 
 when I looked at her, she had a faint resemblance 
 to a lady of my acquaintance who formerly 
 loaded me with kindness; and this increased my 
 horror of my cruelty. 
 
 To make matters worse, we encountered an- 
 other donkey, ranging at will upon the roadside ; 
 and this other donkey 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 and hoof; and this was a 
 kind of consolation — he was plainly unworthy 
 of Modestine's affection. But the incident sad- 
 dened me, as did everything that spoke of my 
 donkey's sex. 
 
 It was blazing hot up the valley, windless, with 
 vehement sun upon my shoulders; and I had to 
 labor so consistently with my stick that the sweat 
 ran into my eyes. Every five minutes, too, the 
 
VELAY 159 
 
 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 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 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 ex- 
 ample. 
 
 I had the devil's own trouble to get the thing 
 righted; and the instant I had done so, without 
 hesitation, it 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, in- 
 deed, told me I ought to have a package of a dif- 
 ferent shape. I suggested, if he knew nothing 
 better to the point in my predicament, he might 
 hold his tongue. And the good-natured dog 
 agreed with me smilingly. It was the most 
 despicable fix. I must plainly content myself 
 with the pack for Modestine, and take the fol- 
 lowing items for my own share of the portage : 
 a cane, a quart flask, a pilot- jacket heavily 
 weighted in the pockets, two pounds of black 
 bread, and an open basket full of meats and 
 bottles. I believe I may say I am not devoid of 
 greatness of soul; for I did not recoil from this 
 infamous burthen. I disposed it, Heaven knows 
 how, so as to be mildly portable, and then pro-__ 
 ceeded to steer Modestine through the village. 
 She tried, as was indeed her invariable habit, to 
 
160 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 enter every house and every courtyard in the 
 whole length; and, encumbered as I was, with- 
 out a hand to help myself, no words can render 
 an idea of my difficulties. A priest, with six or 
 seven others, was examining a church in process 
 of repair, and he and his acolytes laughed loudly 
 as they saw my plight. I remembered having 
 laughed mys.elf when I had seen good men 
 struggling with adversity in the person of a 
 jackass, and the recollection filled me with peni- 
 tence. 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 
 in it! 
 
 A little out of the village, Modestine, filled 
 with the demon, set her heart upon a by-road, 
 and positively refused to leave it. I dropped all 
 my bundles, and, I am ashamed to say, struck the 
 poor sinner twice across the face. It was pitiful 
 to see her lift up her head with shut 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. Modestine, in the mean- 
 while, 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 average, kept the black bread 
 for Modestine; lastly, I threw away the cold leg 
 of mutton and the egg-whisk, although this last 
 was dear to my heart. Thus I found room for 
 
VELAY 161 
 
 everything in the basket, and even stowed the 
 boating-coat on the top. By means of an end of 
 cord I 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 dark, she must bestir her little 
 shanks to some tune. Already 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 little country by-roads led hither and 
 thither among the fields. It was the most point- 
 less labyrinth. I could see my destination over- 
 head, or rather the peak that dominates it; but 
 choose as I pleased, the roads always ended by 
 turning away from it, and sneaking back towards 
 the valley, or northward along the margin of the 
 hills. The failing light, the waning color, the 
 naked, unhomely, stony country through which I 
 was travelling, threw me into some despondency. 
 I promise you, the stick was not idle; I think 
 every decent step that Modestine took must have 
 cost me at least two emphatic blows. There was 
 not another sound in the neighborhood but that 
 of my unwearying bastinado. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of my toils, the load 
 once more 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 begin- 
 ning; and as I had to invent a new and better 
 
162 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 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 stalk- 
 ing towards me over the stones. They walked 
 one behind the other like tramps, but their pace 
 was remarkable. The son led the way, a tall, 
 ill-made, sombre, Scotch-looking man ; the mother 
 followed, all in her Sunday's best, with an ele- 
 gantly-embroidered ribbon to her cap, and a new 
 felt hat atop and proffering, as she strode along 
 with kilted petticoats, a string of obscene and 
 blasphemous oaths. 
 
 I hailed the son and asked him my direction. 
 He pointed loosely west and north-west, mut- 
 tered an inaudible comment, and, without slack- 
 ing his pace for an instant, stalked on, as he was 
 going, right athwart my path. The mother fol- 
 lowed without so much as raising her head. I 
 shouted and shouted after them, but they con- 
 tinued to scale the hillside, and turned a deaf ear 
 to my outcries. At last, leaving Modestine by 
 herself, I was constrained to run after them, hail- 
 ing 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 in- 
 audibly, and was for setting out again. But this 
 time I simply collared the mother, who was near- 
 est 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 
 
VELAY 163 
 
 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 half's road before her. And then, 
 without salutation, the pair strode forward again 
 up the hillside 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 journey, was 
 both wild and sad. Mount Mezenc 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 black, here 
 and there a white irregular patch to represent a 
 cultivated farm, and here and there a blot where 
 the Loire, the Gazeille, or the Lausonne wandered 
 in a gorge. 
 
 Soon we w r ere on a highroad, and surprise 
 seized on my mind as I beheld a village of some 
 magnitude close at hand ; for I had been told that 
 the neighborhood of the lake was uninhabited 
 except by trout. The road smoked in the twi- 
 light with the children driving home cattle from 
 the fields; and a pair of mounted stride-legged 
 women, hat 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 destination, and on the other side of a re- 
 
164 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 spectable summit, had these confused roads and 
 treacherous peasantry conducted me. My shoul- 
 der was cut, so that it hurt sharply; my arm 
 ached like a toothache from perpetual beating; 
 I gave up the lake and my design to camp, and 
 asked for the auberge. 
 
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 like upon my jour- 
 ney. Indeed, it was typical 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 plain- 
 est, earthen floors, a single bed-chamber for 
 travellers, and that without any convenience but 
 beds. In the kitchen cooking and eating go 
 forward side by side, and the family sleep at 
 night. Any one w^hoJias 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 more than once ; the wine is of 
 the smallest, the brandy abominable to man; 
 and the visit of a fat sow, grouting under the 
 table and rubbing against your legs, is no im- 
 possible accompaniment to dinner. 
 
 But the people of the inn, in nine cases out of 
 ten, show themselves friendly and considerate. 
 As soon as you cross the doors you cease to be a 
 stranger; and although this peasantry are rude 
 and forbidding on the highway, they show a tinc- 
 ture 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. 
 
 165 
 
166 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 " 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 supplied: with a glass, a whang 
 of bread, and an iron fork, the table is com- 
 pletely 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 cost you not less than five 
 francs," 
 
 When I told him it had cost me twenty, his 
 jaw dropped. 
 
 He was a mild, handsome, sensible, friendly 
 old man, astonishingly ignorant. His wife, who 
 was not so pleasant in her manners, knew how 
 to read, although I do not suppose she ever did 
 so. She had a share of brains and spoke with 
 a cutting emphasis, like one who ruled the roast. 
 
 " My man knows nothing," she said, with an 
 angry nod; "he is like the beasts." 
 
 And the old gentleman signified acquiescence 
 with his head. There was no contempt on her 
 part, and no shame on his; the facts were ac- 
 cepted loyally, and no more about the matter. 
 
 I was tightly cross-examined about by jour- 
 ney ; and the lady understood in a moment, and 
 sketched out what I should put into my book 
 when I got home. " Whether people harvest or 
 not in such or such a place; if there were for- 
 ests; studies of manners; what, for example, I 
 and the master of the house say to you; the 
 
VELAY 161 
 
 beauties of Nature, and all that." And she in- 
 terrogated me with a look. 
 
 " 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. 
 
 " 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 — dur comme tin dne; you might beat 
 her insensible with a cudgel, and yet you would 
 arrive nowhere." 
 
 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 into the other. This 
 was my first experience of the sort; and if I am 
 always to feel equally silly and extraneous, I 
 pray God it be my last as well. I kept my 
 eyes to myself, and know nothing of the woman 
 except that she had beautiful arms, and seemed 
 no whit abashed by my appearance. As a mat- 
 ter 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 con- 
 ciliate his tolerance 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 
 
168 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 he readily enough divined to be a brandy mer- 
 chant. 
 
 I was up first in the morning (Monday, Sep- 
 tember 23d), and hastened my toilette 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 neighborhood of Bouchet. It was 
 perishing cold, a grey, windy, wintry morning; 
 misty clouds flew fast and low; the wind piped 
 over the naked platform; and the only speck of 
 color was away behind Mount Mezenc and the 
 eastern hills, where the sky still wore the orange 
 of the dawn. 
 
 It was five in the morning, and four thousand 
 feet above the sea ; and I had to bury my hands 
 in my pockets and trot. People were trooping 
 out to the labors of the fields by twos and threes, 
 and all turned round to stare upon the stranger. 
 I had seen them coming 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 comb- 
 ing out her daughter's hair; and I made her my 
 compliments upon its beauty. 
 
 " O no," said the mother; " it is not so beauti- 
 ful as it ought to be. Look, it is too fine." 
 
 Thus does a wise peasantry console itself under 
 adverse physical circumstances, and, by a start- 
 ling democratic process, the defects of the ma- 
 jority decide the type of beauty. 
 
 " And where," said I, "is monsieur?" 
 
 " The master of the house is up-stairs," she 
 answered, " making you a goad." 
 
 Blessed be the man who invented goads! 
 
VELAY 169 
 
 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 passed the most inviting stable- 
 door. A prick, and she broke forth into a gal- 
 lant 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 more wielding of the ugly 
 cudgel; no more flailing with an aching arm; 
 no more broadsword exercise, but a discreet and 
 gentlemanly fence. And what although now 
 and then a drop of blood should appear on 
 Modestine's mouse-colored wedge-like rump? I 
 should have preferred 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 of stride-legged ladies and a pair of 
 post-runners, the road was dead solitary all the 
 way to Pradelles. I scarce remember an inci- 
 dent 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 
 to do great deeds, and, suddenly thinking other- 
 wise in his green young heart, put about and gal- 
 loped 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 highroad, the 
 
170 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 song of the telegraph-wires seemed to continue the 
 same music. 
 
 Pradelles stands on a hillside, high above the 
 Allier, surrounded by rich meadows. They were 
 cutting aftermath on all sides, which gave the 
 neighborhood, this gusty autumn morning, an 
 untimely smell of hay. On the opposite bank of 
 the Allier the land kept mounting for miles to 
 the horizon; a tanned and sallow autumn land- 
 scape, with black blots of fir- wood and white 
 roads wandering through the hills. Over all 
 this the clouds shed a uniform and purplish 
 shadow, sad and somewhat menacing, exaggera- 
 ting height and distance, and throwing into still 
 higher relief the twisted ribbons of the highway. 
 It was a cheerless prospect, but one stimulating 
 to a traveller. For I was now upon the limit 
 of Velay, and all that I beheld lay in another 
 county — wild Gevaudan, mountainous, unculti- 
 vated, and but recently disforested from terror 
 of the wolves. 
 
 Wolves, alas, like bandits, seem to flee the 
 traveller's advance ; and you may trudge through 
 all our comfortable Europe, and not meet with 
 an adventure worth the name. But here, if any- 
 where, a man was on the frontiers of hope. For 
 this was the land of the ever-memorable Beast, 
 the Napoleon Buonaparte of wolves. What a 
 career was his! He lived ten months at free 
 quarters in Gevaudan and Vivarais ; he ate women 
 and children and " shepherdesses celebrated for 
 their beauty " ; he pursued armed horsemen ; he 
 has been seen at broad noonday chasing a post- 
 chaise and outrider along the king's highroad, 
 and chaise and outrider fleeing before him at the 
 
VELAY 171 
 
 gallop. He was placarded like a political of- 
 fender, and ten thousand francs were offered 
 for his head. And yet, when he was shot and 
 sent to Versailles, behold! a common wolf, and 
 even small for that. " Though I could reach 
 from pole to pole/' said 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 Berthet has made 
 him the hero of a novel, which I have read, 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 goading Modestine 
 down the steep descent that leads to Langogne 
 on the Allien 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, formidable servants of 
 the glebe, who took a sudden interest in Modes- 
 tine 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 below a ponderous cornice; but he 
 screwed round his big honest eyes and followed 
 us with a ruminating look, until his master bade 
 him turn the plough and proceed to reascend the 
 field. From all these furrow r ing ploughshares, 
 from the feet of oxen, from a laborer here and 
 there who was breaking the dry clods with a hoe, 
 the wind carried away a thin dust like so much 
 smoke. It was a fine, busy, breathing, rustic 
 
172 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 landscape; and as I continued to descend, the 
 highlands of Gevaudan kept mounting in front of 
 me against the sky. 
 
 I had crossed the Loire the day before; now 
 I was to cross the Allier; so near are these two 
 confluents in their youth. Just at the bridge 
 of Langogne, as the long-promised rain was be- 
 ginning to fall, a lassie of some seven or eight ad- 
 dressed me in the sacramental phrase, " D'ou'st 
 que vous venez?" She did it with so high an 
 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 Gevaudan. 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 
 
 " The way also here was 
 very wearisome 
 through dirt and slab- 
 biness; nor was there 
 on all this ground so 
 much as one inn or 
 victualling- house 
 wherein to refresh the 
 feebler s o r t"— Pil- 
 grim'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 with baskets; 
 and half an hour afterwards I set out for Le 
 Cheylard L'Eveque, a place on the borders of 
 the forest of Mercoire. A man, I was told, 
 should walk there in an hour and a half; and I 
 thought it scarce too ambitious to suppose that 
 a man encumbered with a donkey 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; plenti- 
 ful hurrying clouds — some dragging veils of 
 straight rain-shower, others massed and lumi- 
 
 173 
 
174 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 nous, 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 Allier, 
 and away from 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 valley 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 hillsides or at the borders of a wood. 
 
 There was no direct road to Cheylard, and it 
 was no easy affair to make a passage in this un- 
 even country and through this intermittent laby- 
 rinth 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 the wind, I issued from a fir-wood where 
 I had long been wandering, and found, not the 
 looked-for village, but another 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 wood, 
 I saw near upon a dozen cows and perhaps as 
 many more black figures, which I conjectured 
 to be children, although the mist had almost un- 
 recognizably exaggerated their forms. These 
 were all silently following each other round and 
 round in a circle, now taking hands, now break- 
 ing up with chains and reverences. A dance of 
 children appeals to very innocent and lively 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 175 
 
 thoughts; but, at nightfall on the marshes, the 
 thing was eerie and fantastic to behold. Even 
 I, who am well enough read 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 accord, as before a fair wind; but 
 once on the turf or among heather, and the brute 
 became demented. The tendency of lost travel- 
 lers to go round in a circle was developed in her 
 to the degree of passion, and it took all the steer- 
 ing I had in me to keep even a decently straight 
 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 peas- 
 antry in general were but little disposed to counsel 
 a wayfarer. One old devil simply retired into 
 his house, and barricaded the door on my ap- 
 proach; and I might beat and shout myself 
 hoarse, he turned a deaf ear. Another, hav- 
 ing given me a direction which, as I found 
 afterwards, I had misunderstood, complacently 
 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 Jher 
 tongue at me, the other bade me follow the cows ; 
 and they both giggled and jogged each other's 
 elbows. The Beast of Gevaudan ate about a 
 hundred children of this district. I began to 
 think of him with sympathy. 
 
176 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 Leaving the girls, I pushed on through the bog, 
 and got into another wood and upon a well- 
 marked road. It grew darker and darker. Mo- 
 destine, suddenly beginning to smell mischief, 
 bettered the pace of her own accord, and from 
 that time forward gave me no trouble. It was the 
 first sign of intelligence I had occasion to re- 
 mark in her. At the same time, the wind fresh- 
 ened into half a gale, and another heavy dis- 
 charge 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 hillside, near a 
 wood of 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 re- 
 fused volubly and shrilly, in unmitigated patois. 
 
 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 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 darkness overhead; even the 
 flying clouds pursued their way invisibly to human 
 eye-sight. I could not distinguish my hand at 
 arm's length from the track, nor my goad, at 
 the same distance, from the meadows or the sky. 
 
 Soon the road that I was following split, after 
 
UPPER G^VAUDAN 177 
 
 the 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 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, and a little over a 
 pound for my lady-friend. Add to this, that I 
 and Modestine .were both handsomely w r etted 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 of rain, I determined 
 to return to Fouzilhic, and ask a guide a little 
 further on my way — " a little farther lend thy 
 guiding hand." 
 
 The thing was easy to decide, hard to ac- 
 complish. In this sensible roaring blackness I 
 was sure of nothing but the direction of the 
 wind. To this I set my face; the road had dis- 
 appeared, and I went across country, now in 
 marshy opens, now baffled by walls unscalable to 
 Modestine, until I came once more in sight of 
 some red windows. This time they were dif- 
 ferently disposed. It was not Fouzilhic, but 
 Fouzilhac, a hamlet little distant from the other 
 in space, but worlds away in the spirit of its in- 
 habitants. I tied Modestine to a gate, and groped 
 forward, stumbling among rocks, plunging mid- 
 leg in bog, until I gained the entrance of the vil- 
 lage. In the first lighted house there was a 
 
178 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 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 examine 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 as Cheylard. 
 
 " C'est que, voyez-vous, il fait noir" said he. 
 
 I told him that was just my- reason for re- 
 quiring help. 
 
 " I understand that," said he, looking un- 
 comfortable ; " mais — c'est — de la peine." 
 
 I was willing to pay, I said. He shook his 
 head. I rose as high as ten francs; but he con- 
 tinued to shake his head. " Name your own 
 price, then," said L 
 
 " Ce n'est pas qa" he said at length, and with 
 evident difficulty ; " but I am not going to cross 
 the door — mais je ne sortirai pas de la porte" 
 
 I grew a little warm, and asked him what he 
 proposed that I should do. 
 
 "Where are you going beyond Cheylard?" 
 he asked 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." 
 
 " C'est vrai, qa" he acknowledged, with a 
 laugh ; " oui, c'est vrai. Et d'ou venez-vous? ' 
 
 A better man than I might have felt nettled. 
 
 " O," said I, " I am not going to answer any 
 of your questions, so you may spare yourself the 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 179 
 
 trouble of putting them. I am late enough al- 
 ready; 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 passed in the meadow while it was 
 still day?" 
 
 " Yes, yes," said the girl, whom I had not 
 hitherto recognized ; " it was monsieur ; I told 
 him to follow the cow." 
 
 " As for you, mademoiselle,'' said I, " you are 
 a farceiise" 
 
 " And," added the man, " what the devil have 
 you done to be still here? " 
 
 What the devil, indeed! 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 guide. 
 
 " C'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 ; " 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 lip with 
 his tongue, like a detected school-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 Gevaudan, and no mis- 
 take. 
 
180 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 " Sir/' said I, with my most commanding man- 
 ners, " you are a coward." 
 
 And with that I turned my back upon the family 
 party, who hastened to retire within their fortifi- 
 cations; and the famous door was closed again, 
 but not till I had overheard the sound of laughter. 
 Filia barbara pater barbarior. Let me say it in 
 the plural : the Beasts of Gevaudan. 
 
 The lanterns had somewhat dazzled me, and 
 I ploughed distressfully among stones and rub- 
 bish-heaps. All the other houses in the village 
 were both dark and silent ; and though I knocked 
 at here and there a door, my knocking was un- 
 answered. 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 water, I must 
 camp." But the first thing was to return to Mo- 
 destine. I am pretty sure I was twenty minutes 
 groping for my lady in the dark; and if it had 
 not been for the unkindly services of the bog, into 
 which I once more stumbled, I might have still 
 been groping for her at 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 district, I should have been 
 so long in finding one, is another of the in- 
 soluble mysteries of this day'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 blackness right in front. I 
 call it a cave without exaggeration; to pass be- 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 181 
 
 low that arch of leaves was like entering a 
 dungeon. I felt about until my hand encountered 
 a stout branch, and to this I tied Modestine, a 
 haggard, drenched, desponding donkey. Then 
 I lowered 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-lamp. 
 Salvation! This would serve my turn as well. 
 The wind roared unwearyingly among the trees ; 
 I could hear the boughs tossing and the leaves 
 churning through half a mile of forest; yet the 
 scefie of my encampment was not only as black 
 as the pit, but admirably 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 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 knap- 
 sack for a pillow under the flap of my sleeping- 
 bag, insinuated my limbs into the interior, and 
 buckled myself in like a bambino. I opened a tin 
 of Bologna sausage and broke a cake of choco- 
 late, 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 I had to wash 
 down this revolting mixture was neat brandy: 
 a revolting beverage in itself. But I was rare and 
 
182 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 hupgry; 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, 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 mind re- 
 mained a stranger. But as soon as my eyelids 
 touched, that subtle glue leaped between 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 like a great crash- 
 ing breaker, and the trees would patter me all 
 over with big drops from the rain of the after- 
 noon. Night after night, in my own bedroom 
 in the country, I have given ear to this perturb- 
 ing concert of the wind among the woods; but 
 whether it was a difference in the 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 Gevaudan. I hearkened and hearkened ; and 
 meanwhile sleep took gradual possession of my 
 body and subdued my thoughts and senses; but 
 still my last waking effort was to listen and dis- 
 tinguish, and my last conscious state was one of 
 wonder at the foreign clamor in 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 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 183 
 
 was recalled for a brief 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, Sep- 
 tember 25th), the world was flooded with a blue 
 light, the mother of the dawn. I saw the leaves 
 laboring in the wind and the ribbon of the road; 
 and, on turning my head, there was Modestine 
 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 experi- 
 ence of the night. I was surprised to find how 
 easy and pleasant it had been, even in this tem- 
 pestuous 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 
 encountered the lantern or the second volume of 
 Peyrat's Pastors of the Desert among the mixed 
 contents of my sleeping-bag; nay more, I had 
 felt not a touch of cold, and awakened with un- 
 usually lightsome and clear sensations. 
 
 With that, I shook myself, got once more into 
 my boots 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 
 dispassionate adventure, such as befell early and 
 heroic voyagers; and thus to be found by morn- 
 ing in a random woodside nook in Gevaudan — 
 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 
 
184 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 my day-dreams realized. I was on the skirts of 
 a little wood of birch, sprinkled with a few 
 beeches; behind, it adjoined 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, 
 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 vapor, flying, vanishing, 
 reappearing, and turning about an axis like 
 tumblers, as the wind hounded them through 
 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 I had got all this done, and had made 
 my pack and bound it on the pack-saddle, the 
 day was tiptoe on the threshold of the east. We 
 had not gone many steps along the lane, before 
 the sun, still invisible to me, sent a glow of gold 
 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 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 up- 
 raised in horror. 
 
UPPER G& VAUDAN 185 
 
 "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. 
 
 " This time, at least/' said he, " there shall be 
 no mistake." 
 
 And he limped along, for he was very rheu- 
 matic, for about half a mile, and until I was 
 almost within sight of Cheylard, the destination 
 I had hunted for so long. 
 
CHEYLARD AND LUC 
 
 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, upon 
 a rattling highland river, in the corner of a 
 naked valley. What went ye out for to see? 
 thought I to myself. 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 Propagation of the Faith." 
 Some of this, I could not help hoping, would be 
 applied to my native land. Cheylard scrapes to- 
 gether half-pence for the darkened souls in Edin- 
 burgh; while Balquidder and Dunrossness be- 
 moan the ignorance of Rome. Thus, to the 
 high entertainment of the angels, do we pelt each 
 other with evangelists, like school-boys 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-chest, and the 
 photograph of the parish priest. There were 
 
 186 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 187 
 
 five children, one of whom was set to its morn- 
 ing 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 misadventure. The 
 wood in which I had slept belonged to them ; the 
 man of Fouzilhac they thought a monster of in- 
 iquity, and counselled me warmly to summon him 
 at law — " because I might have died." The 
 good wife was horror-stricken to see me drink 
 over a pint of uncreamed milk. 
 
 " You will do yourself an evil," she said. 
 " Permit me to boil it for you." 
 
 After I had begun the morning on this delight- 
 ful 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, the eldest 
 daughter let down a hinged table in the chimney- 
 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 up the vent, through 
 brown agglomerations of soot and blue vapor, 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 came to charge Modestine showed himself 
 full of the prudence of his art. " You will have 
 to change this package," said he ; " it ought to 
 be in two parts, and then you might have double 
 the weight." 
 
188 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 I explained that I wanted no more weight ; and 
 for no 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 than 
 raw 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 mis- 
 adventures, and my heart was still as cold as a 
 potato towards my beast of burthen. She was 
 pretty enough to look at ; but then she had given 
 proof of dead stupidity, 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. 
 What the devil was the good of a she-ass if she 
 could not carry a sleeping-bag and a few neces- 
 saries? I saw the end of the fable rapidly ap- 
 proaching, when I should have to carry Modes- 
 tine. ^Esop was the man to know the world ! I 
 assure you I set out with heavy thoughts upon 
 my short day's march. 
 
 It was not only heavy thoughts about Mo- 
 destine that weighted me upon the way; it was 
 a leaden business altogether. For first, the wind 
 blew so rudely that I had to hold on the pack with 
 one hand from Cheylard to Luc ; and second, my 
 road lay through one of the most beggarly coun- 
 tries 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 unvary- 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 189 
 
 ing waste, and the line of the road was marked by- 
 upright pillars, to serve in time of snow. 
 
 Why any one should desire to visit either Luc 
 or Cheylard is more than my much-inventing 
 spirit can suppose. For my part, I travel not 
 to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's 
 sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the 
 needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to 
 come down off this feather-bed of civilization, 
 and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn 
 with cutting flints. 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 pack-saddle against a gale out 
 of the freezing north is no high industry, but it 
 is one that serves to occupy and compose the 
 mind. And when the present is so exacting, who 
 can annoy himself about the future? 
 
 I came out at length above the Allier. A more 
 unsightly prospect at this season of the year it 
 would be 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 'color throughout was 
 black or ashen, and came to a point in the ruins 
 of the castle of Luc, which pricked up impudently 
 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. Though this, 
 sorry landscape trickled the Allier and a tribu- 
 tary of nearly equal size, which 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 
 
190 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 still hunted them through heaven, and cast great 
 ungainly splashes of shadow and sunlight over 
 the scene. 
 
 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 clean and large. 
 The kitchen, with its two box-beds hung with 
 clean check curtains, with its wide stone chimney, 
 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 kitchen ought to be ; a melodrama 
 kitchen, suitable for bandits or noblemen in dis- 
 guise. Nor was the scene disgraced by the land- 
 lady, a handsome, silent, dark old woman, clothed 
 and hooded in black like a nun. Even the public 
 bedroom had a character of its own, with the 
 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 sigh from 
 time to time as I awakened for my sheepskin sack 
 and the lee of some great wood. 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 
 
 "I behold 
 The House, the Brother- 
 hood austere — 
 And what am I, that I am 
 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 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 pur- 
 chased a new cord, and made all as fast as I was 
 able, I was yet jealously uneasy 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 Gevaudan. 
 The hills of Gevaudan on the right were a 
 little more naked, if anything, than 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 
 
 191 
 
192 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 the summits. Black bricks of fir-wood were 
 plastered here and there upon both sides, and here 
 and there were 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 desert is beleaguered. Now may 
 some Languedocian Wordsworth turn the sonnet 
 into patois: "Mountains and vales and floods 
 heard ye 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 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 pinewood, and I beheld 
 suddenly a fine wild landscape to the south. 
 High rocky hills, as blue as sapphire, closed the 
 view, and between 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 ; and 
 indeed not a trace of his passage, save where 
 generation after generation had walked in 
 twisted foot-paths, in and out among the beeches, 
 and up and down upon the channelled slopes. 
 The mists, which had hitherto beset me, were 
 now broken into clouds, and fled swiftly and 
 shone brightly in the sun. I drew a long breath. 
 It was grateful to come, after so long, upon a 
 scene of some attraction for the human heart. 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 193 
 
 I own I like definite form in what my eyes are 
 to rest upon; and if landscapes were sold, like 
 the sheets of characters of my boyhood, one 
 penny plain and twopence colored, I should go 
 the length of twopence every day of my life. 
 
 But if things had grown better to the south, 
 it was still desolate and inclement near at hand. 
 A spidery cross on every hill-top marked the 
 neighborhood of a religious house; and a quarter 
 of a mile beyond, the outlook southward opening 
 out and growing bolder with every step, a white 
 statue of the Virgin at the corner of a young 
 plantation directed the traveller to our Lady of 
 the Snows. Here, then, I struck leftward, and 
 pursued my way, driving my secular donkey be- 
 fore 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 clanging of a bell, and somehow, I can 
 scarce tell why, my heart sank within me at the 
 sound. I have rarely approached 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 turn- 
 ing a corner, fear took hold on me from head to 
 foot — slavish superstitious fear ; and though I 
 did not stop in my advance, yet I went on slowly, 
 like a man who should have passed a bourne un- 
 noticed, and strayed into the country of the dead. 
 For there upon the narrow new-made road, be- 
 tween the stripling pines, was a mediaeval friar, 
 fighting with a barrowful of turfs. Every Sun- 
 day of my childhood I used to study the Hermits 
 of Marco Sadeler — enchanting prints, full of 
 wood and field and mediaeval landscapes, as 
 
194 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 large as a county, for the imagination to go a- 
 travelling in; and here, sure enough, was one of 
 Marco Sadeler's heroes. He was robed in white 
 like any spectre, and the hood falling back, in the 
 instancy of his contention with the barrow, dis- 
 closed a pate as bald and yellow as a skull. He 
 might have been buried any time these thousand 
 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 eti- 
 quette. Durst I address a person who was un- 
 der a vow of silence? Clearly not. But draw- 
 ing near, I doffed my 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 Englishman? 
 Ah, an Irishman, then? 
 
 "No," I said, "a Scotsman." 
 
 A Scotsman ? Ah, he had never seen a Scots- 
 man before. And he looked me all over, his 
 good, honest, brawny countenance shining with 
 interest, as a boy might look upon a lion or an 
 alligator. From him I learned with disgust that 
 I could not be received at our Lady of the Snows ; 
 I might get a meal, perhaps, 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, who 
 drew landscapes and was going to write a book, 
 he changed his manner of thinking as to my re- 
 ception (for I fear they respect persons even in 
 a Trappist monastery), and told me I must be 
 sure to ask for the Father Prior, and state my 
 case to him in full. On second thoughts he de- 
 termined to go down with me himself ; he thought 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 195 
 
 he could manage for me better. Might he say 
 that I was a geographer? 
 
 No; I thought, in the interests of truth, he 
 positively might not. 
 
 "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 newspapers and kept him informed 
 of the state of ecclesiastical affairs in England. 
 And he asked me eagerly after 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 anything but pleasure in this kind and hope- 
 ful 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 good-will. 
 
 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. We 
 were hard upon the monastery. Father Apolli- 
 naris (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 
 
196 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 wood, where I 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 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 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 brown-robed 
 brothers came to the gate and spoke with me 
 awhile. I think my sack was the great attrac- 
 tion; it had already beguiled the heart of poor 
 Apollinaris, who had charged me on my life to 
 show it to the Father Prior. But whether it was 
 my address, or the sack, or the idea speedily pub- 
 lished among that part of the brotherhood who 
 attend on strangers that I was not a pedlar after 
 all, I found no difficulty as to my reception. 
 Modestine was led away by a layman to the 
 stables, and I and my pack were received into our 
 Lady of the Snows. 
 
THE MONKS 
 
 Father Michael, a pleasant, fresh-faced, smil- 
 ing man, perhaps of thirty-five, took me to the 
 pantry, and gave 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 re- 
 member that I descanted principally on my appe- 
 tite, and that it must have been by that time more 
 than eighteen hours since Father Michael had so 
 much as broken bread, I can well understand that 
 he would find an earthly savor in my conversa- 
 tion. But his manner, though superior, was ex- 
 quisitely 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 party-colored dahlias, and with a foun- 
 tain 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 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 
 
 197 
 
198 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 lies exposed to wind; the snow falls off and on 
 from October 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, be- 
 fore I was called to dinner, I felt chilly in and 
 out. 
 
 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 re- 
 traitants. It was clean and whitewashed, and 
 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 Eliza<- 
 beth Seton, evangelist, it would appear, of North 
 America and of New England in particular. As 
 far as my experience goes, there is a fair 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 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 go to rest. At 
 the foot was a notable N. B. : " Le temps libre 
 est employe a Vexamen de conscience, a la con- 
 fession, a faire de bonnes resolutions/' etc. To 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 199 
 
 make good resolutions, indeed ! You might talk 
 as fruitfully of making the hair grow on your 
 head. 
 
 I had scarce explored my niche when Brother 
 Ambrose returned. An English boarder, it ap- 
 peared, would like to speak with me. I professed 
 my willingness, and the friar ushered in a fresh, 
 young little Irishman of fifty, a 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 Bel- 
 gium, and now 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 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 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 re- 
 ligious name upon a board, — names full of leg- 
 endary suavity and interest, such as Basil, Hil- 
 arion, Raphael, or Pacifique; into the library, 
 where were all the works of Veuillot and Chateau- 
 briand, and the Odes et Ballades, if you please, 
 and even Moliere, to say nothing of innumerable 
 fathers and a great variety of local and general 
 historians. Thence my good Irishman took me 
 
200 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 round the workshops, where brothers bake bread, 
 and make cart-wheels, and take photographs; 
 where one superintends a collection of curiosities, 
 and another a gallery of rabbits. For in a Trap- 
 pist monastery each monk has an occupation of 
 his own choice, apart from his religious duties 
 and the general labors 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 oc- 
 cupied, he may be occupied 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 Abbott em- 
 ploys himself in binding books. It is not so long 
 since this Abbot was consecrated, by the way; 
 and on that occasion, 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 journey ings to and fro, many silent 
 fathers 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 peculiar movement of the 
 hands, almost like that of a dog's paws in swim- 
 ming, or 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 al- 
 ready time for their grand fast, which begins 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 201 
 
 somewhere in September and lasts till Easter, and 
 during which they eat but once in the twenty- 
 four hours, and that at two in the afternoon, 
 twelve hours after they have begun the toil and 
 vigil of the day. Their meals are scanty, but 
 even of these they eat sparingly; 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 
 serve not only for support, but as a hearty and 
 natural diversion from the labor of life. Al- 
 though excess may be hurtful, I should have 
 thought this Trappist regimen defective. And I 
 am astonished, as I look back, at the freshness of 
 face and cheerfulness of manner of all 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 incessant occupation of the monks, life is of 
 an uncertain tenure, and death no infrequent 
 visitor, at our Lady of the Snows. This, at 
 least, was what was told me. But if they die 
 easily, they must live healthily in the meantime, 
 for they seemed all firm of flesh and high in 
 color ; and the only morbid sign that I could ob- 
 serve, an unusual brilliancy of eye, was one that 
 served rather to increase the general impression 
 of vivacity and strength. 
 
 Those with whom I spoke were singularly 
 sweet-tempered, 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 of those who 
 wait upon them, since it is proper to monks to 
 speak little. The note might have been spared; 
 
202 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 to a man the hospitallers were all brimming with 
 innocent talk, and, in my experience of the mon- 
 astery, it was easier to begin than to break off a 
 conversation. With the exception of Father 
 Michael, who was a man of the world, they 
 showed themselves full of kind and healthy in- 
 terest 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. 
 
 As for those who are restricted to silence, I can 
 only wonder how they bear their solemn and 
 cheerless isolation. 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 experience of 
 lay phalansteries, of an artistic, not to say a 
 bacchanalian, character; and seen more than one 
 association easily formed, and yet more easily dis- 
 persed. With a Cistercian rule, perhaps they 
 might have lasted longer. In the neighborhood 
 of women it is but a touch-and-go association 
 that can be formed among defenceless men; the 
 stronger electricity is sure to triumph ; the dreams 
 of boyhood, the schemes of youth, are abandoned 
 after an interview of ten minutes, and the arts 
 and sciences, and professional male jollity, de- 
 serted at once for two sweet eyes and a caressing 
 accent. And next after this, the tongue is the 
 great divider. 
 
 I am almost ashamed to pursue this worldly 
 criticism of a religious rule; but there is yet an- 
 other point in which the Trappist order appeals 
 to me as a model of wisdom. By two in the 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 203 
 
 morning the clapper goes upon the bell, and so 
 on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by quar- 
 ter, till eight, the hour of rest; so infinitesimally 
 is the day 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; from two, 
 when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he re- 
 turns to receive the comfortable gift of sleep, he 
 is upon his feet and occupied with manifold and 
 changing business. I know many persons, worth 
 several thousands in the year, who are not so for- 
 tunate in the disposal of their lives. Into how 
 many houses would not the note of the monas- 
 tery-bell, dividing the day into manageable por- 
 tions, 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 foolish man- 
 ner. 
 
 From this point of view, we may perhaps bet- 
 ter understand the monk's existence. A long 
 novitiate, and every proof of constancy of mind 
 and strength of body is required before admission 
 to the order ; but I could not find that many were 
 discouraged. In the photographer's studio, 
 which figures so strangely among the outbuild- 
 ings, 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 and drilled 
 and mounted guard for the proper time among 
 the garrison of Algiers. Here was a man who 
 
204 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 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. 
 
 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 labored in his frugal and silent 
 existence; and when the Liberator comes, at the 
 very moment, even before they have carried 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 pro- 
 claim throughout the neighborhood that another 
 soul has gone to God. 
 
 At night, under the conduct of my kind Irish- 
 man, I took my place in the gallery to hear com- 
 pline 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, heightened 
 by the romance of the surroundings, spoke directly 
 to the heart. I recall the whitewashed chapel, 
 the hooded figures in the choir, the lights al- 
 ternately occluded and revealed, the strong 
 manly singing, the silence that ensued, the sight 
 of cowled heads bowed in prayer, and then the 
 clear trenchant beating of the bell, breaking in 
 to show that the last office was over and the 
 hour of sleep had come; and when I remember, 
 I am not surprised that I made my escape into 
 the court with somewhat whirling fancies, and 
 stood like a man bewildered in the windy starry 
 night. 
 
 But I was weary; and when I had quieted my 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 205 
 
 spirits with Elizabeth Seton's memoirs — a dull 
 work — the cold and the raving of the wind 
 among the pines — for my 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 bell. All the brothers were then hurrying 
 to the chapel; the dead in life, at this untimely 
 hour, were already beginning the uncomforted 
 labors 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 best of our mixed existence : 
 
 " Que t'as de belles filles, 
 
 Girofle ! 
 
 Girofla ! 
 
 Que t'as de belles filles, 
 
 L' Amour les comptera ! " 
 
 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 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 up-stairs. I have 
 stupidly forgotten the board for a regular re- 
 traitant; but it was somewhere between three and 
 five francs a day, and I think most probably the 
 first. Chance visitors like myself might give 
 what they chose as a free-will offering, but 
 nothing was demanded. I may mention that 
 when I was going away, Father Michael refused 
 twenty francs as excessive. I explained the rea- 
 soning which led me to offer him so much; but 
 even then, from a curious point of honor, 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/' 
 
 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 color and 
 circular wrinkles of a peasant; and as he com- 
 plained much of how he had been impeded by 
 
 206 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 207 
 
 his skirts upon the march, I have a vivid fancy- 
 portrait of him, striding along, upright, big- 
 boned, with kilted cassock, through the bleak 
 hills of Gevaudan. The other was a 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 buttonhole. 
 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 retained some 
 of the brisk decisive manners of the camp. On 
 the other hand, as soon as his resignation was 
 accepted, he had come to our Lady of the Snows 
 as a boarder, and after a brief experience of its 
 ways, had decided to remain as a novice. Al- 
 ready 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 character of each. And cer- 
 tainly 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 coun- 
 try bordering on the grave, where men sleep 
 nightly in their grave-clothes, and, like phan- 
 toms, communicate by signs. 
 
 At supper we talked politics. I make it my 
 business, when I am in France, to preach politi- 
 cal good-will 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 of their 
 sympathy with all I said, and made a heavy 
 sighing over the bitterness of contemporary feel- 
 ing. 
 
208 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 " 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." 
 
 They both declared that such a state of things 
 was antichristian. 
 
 While we were thus agreeing, what should 
 my tongue stumble upon but a word in praise of 
 Gambetta's moderation. The old soldier's coun- 
 tenance was instantly suffused with blood; with 
 the palms of his hands he beat the table like a 
 naughty child. 
 
 " Comment, monsieur? " he shouted. " Com^ 
 ment? Gambetta moderate? Will you dare to 
 justify these words?" 
 
 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 be- 
 havior was brought home to him in a flash ; and 
 the storm came to an abrupt end, without another 
 word. 
 
 It was only in the morning, over our coffee 
 (Friday, September 27th), that this couple found 
 out I was a heretic. I suppose I had misled them 
 by some admiring expressions as to the monastic 
 life around us; and it was only by a point-blank 
 question that the truth came out. I had been 
 tolerantly used, both by simple Father Apol- 
 linaris 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 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 Scots- 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 209 
 
 men, and indeed, upon my heart, I fancy they 
 were worse. The priest snorted aloud like a 
 battle-horse. 
 
 " Et vous pretendez moitrir dans cette espece 
 de croyance? " he demanded ; and there is no type 
 used by mortal printers large enough to qualify 
 his accent. 
 
 I humbly indicated that I had no design of 
 changing. 
 
 But he could not away with such a monstrous 
 attitude. " No, no/' he cried ; " you must change. 
 You have come here, God has led you here, and 
 you must embrace the opportunity." 
 
 I made a slip in policy ; I appealed to the family 
 affections, 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 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 Gaetulian lion in his den than 
 embark on such an enterprise against the family 
 theologian. 
 
 But now the hunt was up; priest and soldier 
 were in full cry for my conversion; and the 
 Work of the Propagation 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 odd 
 but most effective proselytising. They never 
 sought to convince me in argument, where I 
 might have attempted some defence; but took it 
 for granted that I was both ashamed and terri- 
 fied at my position, and urged me solely on the 
 
210 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 point of time. Now, they said, when God had 
 led me to our Lady of the Snows, now was the 
 appointed hour. 
 
 " Do not be withheld by false shame," ob- 
 served the priest, for my encouragement. 
 
 For one who feels very similarly to all sects of 
 religion, 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 com- 
 mitted 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 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 conviction to conviction, he had fully in- 
 tended 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. 
 
 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 ancien militaire" 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 211 
 
 observed the Commandant ; " et celid de mon- 
 sieur comme pretre." 
 
 "Oui" added the cure, sententiously nodding; 
 " comme ancien militaire — et comme pretre." 
 
 At this moment, whilst I was somewhat em- 
 barrassed how to answer, in came one of the 
 monks, a little brown 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 befitted one of these 
 pleasant brethren. Look at him, 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 Italy; and 
 he had a soul to save; and here he was. 
 
 I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a cheer- 
 ful Indian critic has dubbed me, " a faddling 
 hedonist " ; for this description of the brother's 
 motives gave me somewhat of a shock. I should 
 have preferred to think he had 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 argument seemed decisive. 
 
 " Hear that!" he cried. " And I have seen 
 a marquis here, a marquis, a marquis " — he re- 
 peated 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 years in armies — decorated, 
 an old warrior. And here he is, ready to dedi- 
 cate himself to God." 
 
212 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 I was by this time so thoroughly embarrassed 
 that I pleaded cold feet, and made my escape 
 from the apartment. It was a furious windy 
 morning, with a sky much cleared, and long and 
 potent intervals of sunshine; and I wandered un- 
 til 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 was recommenced, and on this occasion 
 still more distastefully to pie. 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 it would be doing it too much honor 
 to call it a religion." 
 
 " As you please, monsieur," said I. €t La pa- 
 role est a vous" 
 
 At length I grew annoyed beyond endurance; 
 and 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 inclina- 
 tion to laugh in my heart. I have no other feel- 
 ing 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 Gevaudan with his kilted skirts — 
 a man strong to walk and strong to comfort his 
 parishioners in death ! I dare say he would beat 
 
OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 213 
 
 bravely through a snow-storm where his duty 
 called him; and it is not always the most faithful 
 believer who makes the cunningest apostle. 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 
 
 (continued) 
 
 " The bed was made, the 
 
 room was fit, 
 By punctual eve the stars 
 
 were lit; 
 The air was sweet, the 
 
 water ran; 
 No need was there for 
 
 maid or wian, 
 When we put up, my ass 
 
 and I, 
 At God's green caravan- 
 
 serai." 
 
 Old Play. 
 
 ACROSS THE GOULET 
 
 The wind fell during dinner, and the sky re- 
 mained 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 the wood, there was 
 Pere Apollinaire hauling his barrow; and he too 
 quitted his labors 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 traveller who shakes 
 off the dust of one stage before hurrying forth 
 upon another. Then Modestine and I mounted 
 the course of the Allier, which here led us back 
 
 214 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 215 
 
 into Gevaudan towards its sources in the forest 
 of Mercoire. It was but an inconsiderable burn 
 before we left its guidance. 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 men'employed in survey for one of the 
 projected railways. They were intelligent and 
 conversable, and we decided the future of France 
 over hot wine, until the state of the clock fright- 
 ened us to rest. There were four beds in the 
 little up-stairs room; and we slept six. But I 
 had a bed to myself, and persuaded them to leave 
 the window open. 
 
 "He, bourgeois; il est cinq hemes I" was the 
 cry that wakened me in the morning (Saturday, 
 September 28th). The room was full of a trans- 
 parent darkness, which dimly 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, which was perfectly 
 fulfilled. I was soon under way with Modestine. 
 The road lay for awhile 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 ; the broom was in flower, 
 and here and there was a hamlet 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 La Goulet. It wound 
 
216 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 up through Lestampes by upland fields and woods 
 of beech and birch, and with every corner brought 
 me into an acquaintance with some new interest. 
 Even in the gully of the Chassezac my ear had 
 been struck by a noise like that of a great bass 
 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 rural horn. The nar- 
 row street of Lestampes stood full of sheep, 
 from wall to wall — black sheep and white 
 bleating like the birds in spring, and each 
 one accompanying himself upon the sheep- 
 bell round his neck. It made a pathetic con- 
 cert, all in treble. A little higher, and I passed 
 a pair of men in a tree with pruning-hooks, 
 and one of them was singing the music of 
 a bovirree. Still further, and when I was al- 
 ready threading the birches, the crowing of pocks 
 came cheerfully up to my ears, and along with 
 that the voice of a flute discoursing 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 
 unwonted 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 like 
 an induction of sweet sounds into the other and 
 more beautiful. 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 217 
 
 There are other degress of feyness, as of pun- 
 ishment besides the capital, and I was now led 
 by my good spirits into an adventure which I re- 
 late in the interest of future donkey-drivers. 
 The road zigzagged so widely on the hillside that 
 I chose a short cut by map and compass, and 
 struck through the dwarf woods to catch the road 
 again upon a higher level. It was my one se- 
 rious 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 the other, 
 so steep was the ascent, I had to hold on the 
 pack-saddle. 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 fol- 
 low the road. But I took 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 rain-drops 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. 
 
 Over the summit of the Goulet 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, and met but one 
 bullock-cart between Lestampes and Bleymard. 
 In front of me I saw a shallow valley, and beyond 
 that the range of the Lozere, sparsely wooded 
 and well enough modelled in the flanks, but 
 
218 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 straight and dull in outline. There was scarce 
 a sign of culture; only about Bleymard, the white 
 highroad 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 
 
 From Bleymard after dinner, although it was 
 already late, I set out to scale a portion of the 
 Loizere. An ill-marked stony drove-road guided 
 me forward; and I met nearly half-a-dozen bul- 
 lock-carts descending from the woods, each 
 laden with a whole pine-tree for the winter's 
 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 little spout over some stones to serve me for a 
 water-tap. " In a more sacred or sequestered 
 bower — nor nymph nor faunus haunted." The 
 trees were not old, but they grew thickly round 
 the glade: there was no outlook, except north- 
 eastward upon distant hill-tops, or straight up- 
 ward to the sky; and the encampment felt secure 
 and private like a room. By the time I had made 
 my arrangements and fed Modestine, the day 
 was already beginning to decline. I buckled my- 
 self 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 in the open world it passes lightly, with 
 its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours 
 are marked by changes in the face of Nature. 
 What seems a kind of temporal death to people 
 
 219 
 
220 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 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 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 announce the dawn, but like a 
 cheerful watchman speeding the course of night. 
 Cattle awake on the meadows ; sheep break their 
 fast on dewy hillsides, 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 the night. 
 
 At what inaudible summons, at what gentle 
 touch of Nature, are all these sleepers thus re- 
 called 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 countryfolk, who are the 
 deepest read in these arcana, have not a guess as 
 to the means or purpose of this nightly resurrec- 
 tion. Towards two in the morning they declare 
 the thing takes place; and neither know nor in- 
 quire further. And at least it is a pleasant in- 
 cident. We are disturbed in our slumber only, 
 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 
 special pleasure for some minds in the reflection 
 that we share the impulse with all outdoor crea- 
 tures in our neighborhood, that we have escaped 
 out of the Bastille of civilization and are become, 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 221 
 
 for the time being, a mere kindly animal and a 
 sheep of Nature's flock. 
 
 When that hour came to me among the pines, 
 I awakened 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. The 
 stars were clear, colored, and jewel-like, but not 
 frosty. A faint, silvery vapor stood for the 
 Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points 
 stood upright and stock-still. By the whiteness 
 of the pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walking 
 round and round at the length of her tether; I 
 could hear her steadily munching at the sward; 
 but there was not another sound, save the in- 
 describable quiet talk of the runnel over the 
 stones. I lay lazily smoking and studying the 
 color of the sky, as we call the void of space, 
 from where it showed a reddish gray behind the 
 pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black be- 
 tween 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 illu- 
 minated ; and became for a second the 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 Chasserades and the 
 congregated nightcaps; with horror of the noc- 
 turnal prowesses of clerks and students, of hot 
 theatres and pass-keys and close rooms. I have 
 not often enjoyed a more serene possession of my- 
 
222 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 self, nor felt more independent of material aids. 
 The outer world, from which we cower into our 
 houses, seemed after all a gentle habitable 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 re- 
 discovered one of those truths which are re- 
 vealed to savages and hid from political econo- 
 mists: at the least, I had discovered a new 
 pleasure 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 
 more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly 
 understood, is solitude made perfect. And to 
 live out of doors with the woman a man loves is 
 of all lives the most complete and free. 
 
 As I thus lay, between content and longing, a 
 faint noise stole towards me through the pines. 
 I thought, at first, it was the crowing of cocks 
 or the barking of dogs at some very distant farm ; 
 but steadily and gradually it took articulate shape 
 in my ears, until I became aware that a passenger 
 was going upon the highroad in the valley, and 
 singing loudly as he went. There was more of 
 good-will than grace in his performance; but he 
 trolled with ample lungs; and the sound of his 
 voice took hold upon the hillside and set the air 
 shaking in the leafy glens. 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 rattle of a cart or 
 carriage spring up suddenly after hours of still- 
 ness, and pass, for some minutes, within the 
 
UPPER GEVAUDAN 223 
 
 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 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 to- 
 wards the stars. 
 
 When I awoke again (Sunday, 29th Septem- 
 ber), many of the stars had disappeared ; only the 
 stronger companions of the night still burned 
 visibly overhead ; and away towards 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 glowworm light put on my boots and 
 gaiters ; then I broke up some bread for Modes- 
 tine, 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 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 de- 
 light; I looked round me for something beautiful 
 and unexpected ; but the still black pine-trees, the 
 hollow glade, the munching ass, remained un- 
 changed in figure. Nothing had altered but the 
 light, 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 
 
224 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 it was not 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 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 hillside, scattering shadows and 
 sparkles, and the day had come completely. 
 
 I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle the 
 steep ascent that lay before me ; but I had some- 
 thing on my mind. It was only a fancy; yet a 
 fancy will sometimes be importunate. I had been 
 most hospitably received and punctually served 
 in my green caravanserai. The 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 the windows; but I felt I 
 was in some one's debt for all this liberal enter- 
 tainment. And so it pleased me, in a half -laugh- 
 ing 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. 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE 
 CAMISARDS 
 
 " We travelled in the print of olden wars ; 
 
 Yet all the land was green; 
 
 And love we found, and peace, 
 
 Where fire and war had been. 
 They pass and smile, the children of the sword — - 
 
 No more the sword they wield; 
 
 And O, how deep the corn 
 
 Along the battle-field ! " 
 
 W. P. Bannatyne 
 
 ACROSS THE LOZ^RE 
 
 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 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 sent the oats s washing 
 in the pocket of my coat. The view, back upon 
 the northern Gevaudan, extended with 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 about my path ; they 
 perched on the stone pillars, they pecked and 
 
 225 
 
226 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 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 large noise, like a distant surf, had filled 
 my ears. Sometimes I was tempted to think it 
 the voice of a neighboring waterfall, and some- 
 times 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 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 stiffly from the south upon the other 
 slope of the Lozere, and every step that I took 
 I was drawing nearer to the wind. 
 
 Although it had been long desired, it was quite 
 unexpectedly at last that my eyes rose above the 
 summit. A step that seemed no way more de- 
 cisive than many other steps that had preceded it 
 — and, " like stout Cortez when, with eagle eyes, 
 he stared on the Pacific," I took possession, in 
 my own name, of a new quarter of the world. 
 For behold, instead of the gross turf rampart 
 I 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 west, cutting 
 Gevaudan into two unequal parts ; its highest 
 point, this Pic de Finiels, on which I was then 
 standing, rises upwards of five thousand six hun- 
 dred feet above the sea, and in clear weather com- 
 mands a view over all lower Languedoc to the 
 Mediterranean Sea. I have spoken with people 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 227 
 
 who either pretended or believed that they had 
 seen, from the Pic de Finiels, white ships sail- 
 ing by Montpellier and Cette. Behind was the 
 upland northern country through 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 Ge- 
 vaudan, rich, picturesque, illustrious for stirring 
 events. Speaking largely, I was in the Cevennes 
 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 Cevennes with 
 an emphasis : the Cevennes of the Cevennes. 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 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 
 prophesied and murdered ; with colors and drums, 
 and 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 castles, and 
 avenged treachery upon their allies and cruelty 
 upon their foes. There, a hundred and eighty 
 
228 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 years ago, was the chivalrous Roland, " Count 
 and Lord Roland, generalissimo of the Protes- 
 tants in France/' grave, silent, imperious, pock- 
 marked ex-dragoon, whom 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 volu- 
 minous peruke and with a taste for controversial 
 divinity. Strange generals, who moved apart to 
 take counsel with the God of Hosts, and fled or 
 offered battle, set sentinels or slept in an un- 
 guarded camp, as the Spirit whispered to their 
 hearts! And there, to follow these and other 
 leaders, was 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, listen- 
 ing devoutly to the oracles of brain-sick children, 
 and mystically putting a grain of wheat among 
 the pewter 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 Beast of Gevaudan, the Napo- 
 leon Buonaparte of wolves. But now I was to 
 go down into the scene of a romantic chapter 
 — or, better, a romantic foot-note — in the his- 
 tory of the world. What was left of all this 
 by-gone dust and heroism ? I was told that Prot- 
 estantism still survived in this head seat of 
 Protestant resistance; so much the priest him- 
 self had told me in the monastery parlor. But I 
 had yet to learn if it were a bare survival, or a 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 229 
 
 lively and generous tradition. Again, if in the 
 northern Cevennes the people are narrow in re- 
 ligious judgments, and 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 
 rebellion, and the terror of the Camisards threw 
 the Catholic peasantry into legalized revolt upon 
 the other side, so that Camisard and Florentin 
 skulked for each other's lives among the moun- 
 tains ? 
 
 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 began to go down a 
 breakneck slope, turning like a corkscrew as it 
 went. It led into a valley between falling hills, 
 stubbly with rocks like a reaped field of corn, 
 and floored further down with green meadows. 
 I followed the track with precipitation ; the steep- 
 ness of the slope, the continual agile turning of 
 the line of descent, and the old unwearied 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. 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 upon me, walking in a 
 stagnant lowland atmosphere. The track be- 
 came a road, and went up and down in easy un- 
 
230 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 dulations. 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, 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 colors. 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, 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 to be out of these hot, 
 dusty, and material garments, and bathe my 
 naked body in the mountain 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 clamoring 
 all over Europe, and 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 in a meadow, with his hands 
 about his knees, and dwarfed to almost comical 
 smallness by the distance. But the rogue had 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 231 
 
 picked me out as I went down the road, from 
 oak-wood on to oak-wood, driving Modestine; 
 and he made me the compliments of the new 
 country in this tremulous high-pitched saluta- 
 tion. 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 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 Montvert was, if I remember rightly, the 
 Protestant temple; but this was but the type of 
 other novelties. A subtle atmosphere distin- 
 guishes 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 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. 
 
 All was Sunday bustle in the streets and in the 
 public-house, as all had been Sabbath peace 
 among the mountains. 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 drop- 
 ping in one after another, or by twos and threes. 
 In crossing the Lozere I had not only come among 
 new natural features, but moved into the terri- 
 tory of a different race. These people, as they 
 hurriedly despatched 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 among the railway folk 
 at Chasserades. They had open telling faces, 
 
 232 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 233 
 
 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. 
 
 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 cer- 
 tainly not beautiful — a poor timid thing of forty, 
 quite troubled at this roaring table d'hote, whom 
 I squired and helped to wine, and pledged and 
 tried generally to encourage, with quite a con- 
 trary effect; but the other two, both married, 
 were both more handsome than the average of 
 women. And Clarisse? What shall I say of 
 Clarisse? She waited the table with a heavy 
 placable nonchalance, like a performing cow ; her 
 great grey eyes were steeped in amorous languor ; 
 her features, although fleshy, were of an original 
 and accurate design; her mouth had a curl; her 
 nostril spoke of dainty pride; her cheek fell into 
 strange and interesting lines. It was a face ca- 
 pable of strong emotion, and, w T ith training, it 
 offered the promise of delicate sentiment. It 
 seemed pitiful to see so good a model left to 
 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 conscious of itself, it puts on an ele- 
 gance, learns a gait and a carriage of the head, 
 and, in a moment, patet dea. Before I left I 
 assured Clarisse of my hearty admiration. She 
 took it like milk, without embarrassment or 
 wonder, merely looking at me steadily with her 
 
234 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 great eyes; and I own the result upon myself 
 was some confusion. If Clarisse could read 
 English, I should not dare to add 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 Camisards. It was here that the 
 war broke out ; here that those southern Covenant- 
 ers slew their Archbishop Sharpe. The perse- 
 cution on the one hand, the febrile enthusiasm 
 on the other, are almost equally difficult to under- 
 stand in these quiet modern days, and with our 
 easy modern beliefs and disbeliefs. The Protes- 
 tants 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 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 pos- 
 sessed by the devil," and had trembling fits, and 
 uttered prophecies publicly upon the streets. A 
 prophetess of Vivarais was hanged at Montpel- 
 lier 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. Stal- 
 wart dangerous fellows, used to swing the sickle 
 or to wield the forest axe, were likewise shaken 
 with strange paroxysms, and spoke oracles with 
 sobs and streaming tears. A persecution unsur- 
 passed in violence had lasted nearly a score of 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 235 
 
 years, and this was the result upon the perse- 
 cuted; hanging, burning, breaking on the wheel, 
 had been 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 upright Protes- 
 tant. 
 
 Now the head and forefront of the persecu- 
 tion — after Lamoignon de Bavile — Frangois de 
 Langlade du Chayla (pronounced Cheila), Arch- 
 priest of the Cevennes and Inspector of Missions 
 in the same country, had a house in which he 
 sometimes dwelt in the town of Pont de Mont- 
 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, he there suf- 
 fered martyrdom, was left for dead, and only 
 succoured and brought back to life by the charity 
 of a pariah. We must suppose the pariah de- 
 void of second sight, and not purposely malicious 
 in this act. Such an 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 mar- 
 tyr, Du Chayla became a Christian persecutor. 
 The Work of the Propagation of the Faith went 
 roundly forward 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 con- 
 vince them that they were deceived in their opin- 
 ions. And yet had not he himself tried and 
 
236 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 proved the inefficacy of these carnal arguments 
 among the Buddhists in China? 
 
 Not only was life made intolerable in Langue- 
 doc, but flight was rigidly forbidden. One Mas- 
 sip, a muleteer, and well acquainted with the 
 mountain-paths, had already 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 upon Mont Rouges; where 
 there stood up one Seguier — Spirit Seguier, as 
 his companions called him — a wool-carder, tall, 
 black- faced, and toothless, but a man full of 
 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 deliver- 
 ance of their brethren and the destruction of 
 the priests. 
 
 The next night, 24th July, 1702, a sound dis- 
 turbed the 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, sol- 
 diers, and servants, to the number of twelve 
 or fifteen; and now dreading the insolence of a 
 conventicle below his very windows, he ordered 
 forth his soldiers to report. But the psalm-sing- 
 ers were already at his door, fifty strong, led by 
 the inspired Seguier, and breathing death. To 
 their summons, the archpriest made answer like 
 a stout old- persecutor, and bade his garrison 
 fire upon the mob. One Camisard ( for, accord- 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 237 
 
 ing 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 the prisoners, and finding one 
 of them in the vine, a sort of Scavenger's Daugh- 
 ter of the place and period, redoubled in fury 
 against Du Chayla, and sought by repeated as- 
 saults to carry the upper floors. But he, on his 
 side, had given absolution to his men, and they 
 bravely held the staircase. 
 
 " Children of God," cried the prophet, " hold 
 your hands. Let us burn the house, with the 
 priest and the satellites of Baal." 
 
 The fire caught readily. Out of an upper win- 
 dow 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 archpriest himself fell, broke 
 his thigh, and could only crawl into the hedge. 
 What were his reflections as this second martyr- 
 dom drew near? A poor, brave, besotted, hate- 
 ful man, who had done his duty resolutely ac- 
 cording to his light both in the Cevennes and 
 China. He found at least 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 ? " 
 
 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, 
 
238 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 Seguier first, the Camisards drew near and 
 stabbed him. " This," they said, " is for my 
 father broken on the wheel. This for my brother 
 in the galleys. That for my brother 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 away 
 towards Frugeres, further up the Tarn, to pur- 
 sue 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 accompani- 
 ment of 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 Se- 
 guier was brief and bloody. Two more priests 
 and a whole family at Ladeveze, 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 unmoved 
 before his judges. 
 
 " Your name?" they asked. 
 
 " Pierre Seguier." 
 
 " Why are you called Spirit? " 
 
 " Because the Spirit of the Lord is with me." 
 
 " 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 and of fountains." 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 239 
 
 At Pont de Montvert, on the 12th of August, 
 he had his right hand stricken from his body, and 
 was burned alive. And his soul was like a 
 garden ? So perhaps was the soul of Du Chayla, 
 the Christian martyr. And perhaps if you could 
 read in my soul, or I could read in yours, our 
 own composure might seem little less surpris- 
 ing. 
 
 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 see the terrace gar- 
 den into which he dropped. 
 
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, as I followed it, 
 from bays of shadow into promontories of after- 
 noon sun. This was a pass like that 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 sun- 
 shine high above. A thin 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 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 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 put tints of gold and tarnish in the 
 
 240 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 241 
 
 green ; and the sun so shone through and kindled 
 the broad foliage, that each chestnut was relieved 
 against another, not in shadow, but in light. A 
 humbler 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 droop- 
 ing foliage like the willow; of 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 dif- 
 ferent trees; and even their 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 foliage, or to see a clan 
 of old unconquerable chestnuts cluster " like 
 herded elephants " upon a spur of a mountain, 
 is to rise to higher thoughts of the powers that 
 are in Nature. 
 
 Between Modestine's laggard humor and the 
 beauty of the scene, we made little progress all 
 that afternoon; and at last finding the sun, al- 
 though still far from setting, was already begin- 
 ning 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, and the ground, where it was unter- 
 raced, was usually too steep for a man to lie 
 upon. I should have slipped all night, and 
 
242 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 awakened towards morning with my feet or my 
 head in the river. 
 
 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 kicked the re- 
 luctant Modestine, and there I hastened to un- 
 load her. There was only room for myself upon 
 the plateau, and I had to go nearly as high again be- 
 fore I found so much as standing room for the ass. 
 It was on a heap of rolling stones, on an arti- 
 ficial terrace, certainly 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 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 forti- 
 fication of vast chestnut trunk; for I was pas- 
 sionately afraid of discovery and the visit of 
 jocular persons in the night. Moreover, I saw 
 that I must be early awake; for these chestnut- 
 gardens had been the scene of industry no further 
 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 
 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 dare say I was as much concerned 
 as if I had been a scout from Joani's band above 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 243 
 
 upon the Lozere or from 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 Ge- 
 vaudan, riding with a party of dragoons and a 
 notary at his saddle-bow to enforce the oath of 
 fidelity in all the country hamlets, entered a val- 
 ley 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 fif- 
 teen women washed their linen in the stream. 
 Such was a field festival in 1703; at that date 
 Antony Watteau would be painting similar sub- 
 jects. 
 
 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, 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 chirping or cheeping noise would fall upon 
 my ear ; and from time to time I thought I could 
 see the movement of something swift and in- 
 distinct between the chestnuts. A profusion of 
 large ants swarmed upon the ground; bats 
 whisked by, and mosquitoes droned overhead. 
 The long boughs with their bunches of leaves 
 hung against the sky like garlands; and 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 
 
244 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 just as I 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 person 
 would make scratching loudly with a finger-nail, 
 it came from under the .cnapsack 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 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 ; rustling, chirp- 
 ing, and scraping were probably all due to these; 
 but the puzzle, for the moment, was insoluble, 
 and I had to compose myself for sleep, as best 
 I could, in wondering uncertainty about my neigh- 
 bors. 
 
 I was wakened in the grey of the morning 
 (Monday, 30th September) by the sound of foot- 
 steps not far off upon the stones, and opening 
 my eyes, I beheld a peasant 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 ! 
 But it was plainly more than time to be moving. 
 The peasantry were abroad; scarce less terrible 
 to me in my nondescript position than the sol- 
 diers 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 hillside in a direction cross- 
 ing mine. They unintelligibly hailed me, and I 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 245 
 
 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 some time in silence. The bed was 
 open, an.d I saw with regret my revolver lying 
 patently m disclosed on the blue wool. At last, 
 after they had looked me all over, and silence 
 had grown laughably embarrassing, the man de-- 
 manded in what seemed unfriendly tones : 
 
 "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 had for dinner ; and then, without the least 
 transition, " Cest 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 simply than I hoped. He was 
 a grave, respectable man; and his unfriendly 
 voice did not imply that he thought he was speak- 
 ing to a criminal, but 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 to pay for my night's lodg- 
 ing? I had slept ill, the bed 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 
 been any in the neighborhood to catch. Clearly, 
 I was dissatisfied with my entertainment; and I 
 decided I should not pay unless I met a beg- 
 gar. 
 
246 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 The valley looked even lovelier by morning; 
 and soon 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 
 toilette in the water of the Tarn. It was marvel- 
 lously clear, thrillingly cool; the soap-suds dis- 
 appeared as if by magic in the swift current, and 
 the white boulders gave one a model for clean- 
 liness. 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 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 demanded alms. 
 
 " 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 a brown nightcap, clear-eyed, weather- 
 beaten, with a faint, excited smile. A little girl 
 followed him, driving two sheep and a goat ; but 
 she kept in our wake, while the old man walked 
 beside me and talked about the morning and 
 the valley. It was not much past six; and for 
 healthy people who have slept enough, that is an 
 hour of expansion and of open and trustful 
 talk. 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 247 
 
 " Connaissez-vous le Seigneur? " he said at 
 length. 
 
 I asked him what Seigneur he meant ; but he 
 only repeated the question with more emphasis 
 and a look in his eyes denoting hope and interest. 
 
 "Ah!" said I, pointing upwards, "I under- 
 stand you now. Yes, I know Him; He is the 
 best of acquaintances." 
 
 The old man said he was delighted. " Hold," 
 he 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 Lord; and it is none of our business. 
 Protestants and Catholics, and even those who 
 worship 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 repeated his expressions of pleasure at meet- 
 ing me. " We are so few," he said. " They 
 call us Moravians here ; but down in the depart- 
 ment of Gard, where there are also a good num- 
 ber, they are called Derbists, after an English 
 pastor." 
 
 I began to understand that I was figuring, in 
 questionable taste, as a member of some sect to 
 me unknown; but I was more pleased with the 
 pleasure of my companion than embarrassed by 
 my own equivocal position. Indeed I can see no 
 dishonesty in not avowing a difference; and es- 
 pecially in these high matters, where we all have a 
 sufficient assurance that, whoever may be in the 
 
248 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 wrong, we ourselves are not completely in the 
 right. 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 un- 
 willing to profess myself his convert. He was, 
 as a matter of fact, a Plymouth Brother. Of 
 what that involves in the way of doctrine I have 
 no idea nor the time to inform myself; but I 
 know right well that we are all embarked upon 
 a troublesome world, the children of one Father, 
 striving in many essential points to do and to 
 become the same. And although it was some- 
 what in a mistake that he shook hands with me 
 so often and showed himself so ready to receive 
 my words, that was a mistake of the truth-find- 
 ing 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 our fellow-men. 
 If I deceived this good old man, in the like man- 
 ner 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 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 Vernede, with less than a dozen houses, and 
 a Protestant chapel on a knoll. Here he dwelt ; 
 and here, at the inn, I ordered my breakfast. 
 The inn was kept by an agreeable young man, a 
 stone-breaker on the road, and his sister, a pretty 
 and engaging girl. The village school-master 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 249 
 
 had dropped in to speak with the stranger. And 
 these were all Protestants — a fact which pleased 
 me more than I should have expected ; 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 en- 
 joying my meal. His behavior 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. 
 
 When all the rest had drifted off to their day's 
 work, I 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 home, yet still sub- 
 sisting. Hers, I am sure, was a sweet nature, 
 with a country plainness and much delicacy un- 
 derneath ; and he who takes her to his heart will 
 doubtless be a fortunate young man. 
 
 The valley below La Vernede pleased me more 
 and more as I went forward. Now the hills ap- 
 proached from either hand, naked 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 Miral on a steep ; 
 past a battlemented monastery, long since broken 
 up and turned into a church and parsonage ; and 
 past a cluster of black roofs, the village of Co- 
 cures, sitting among vineyards and meadows and 
 orchards thick with red apples, and where, along 
 the highway, they were knocking down walnuts 
 
250 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 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 pointed 
 summit; and the Tarn still rattled through the 
 stones with a mountain noise. I had been led, 
 by bagmen of a picturesque turn of mind, to ex- 
 pect a horrific country after the heart of Byron; 
 but to my Scotch eyes it seemed smiling and plen- 
 tiful, as the weather still gave an impression of 
 high summer to my Scotch body; although the 
 chestnuts were already picked out by the autumn, 
 and the poplars, that there began to mingle with 
 them, had turned into pale gold against the ap- 
 proach of winter. 
 
 There was something in this landscape, smiling 
 although wild, that explained to me the spirit 
 of the Southern Covenanters. 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 
 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 circumstances. The 
 soul of Seguier, let us not forget, was like 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 the sound of psalm-singing, we flew 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 251 
 
 as if with wings. We felt within us an anima- 
 ting ardor, a transporting desire. The feeling 
 cannot be expressed in words. It is a thing that 
 must have been experienced to be understood. 
 However weary we might be, we thought no more 
 of our weariness 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 Vernede not only explain to me this 
 passage, but the twenty years of suffering which 
 those, who were so stiff and so bloody when once 
 they betook themselves to war, endured with the 
 meekness of children and the constancy of saints 
 and peasants. 
 
FLORAC 
 
 On a branch of the Tarn stands Florae, the 
 seat of a subprefecture, with an old castle, an 
 alley of planes, many quaint street-corners, and 
 a live fountain welling from the hill. It is not- 
 able, besides, for handsome women, and as one 
 of the two capitals, Alais being the other, of the 
 country of the Camisards. 
 
 The landlord of the inn took me, after I had 
 eaten, to an adjoining cafe, where I, or rather 
 my journey, became the topic of the afternoon. 
 Every one had some suggestion 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 Protestant and Catholic intermingled in a 
 very easy manner; and it surprised me to see 
 what a lively memory still subsisted of the re- 
 ligious war. Among the hills of the south-west, 
 by Mauchline, Cumnock, or Carsphairn, in iso- 
 lated farms or in the manse, serious Presbyterian 
 people still recall the days of the great perse- 
 cution, 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 do- 
 ings have become an idle tale. If you met a 
 mixed company in the King's Arms at Wigtown, 
 it is not likely that the talk would run on Cov- 
 enanters. Nay, at Muirkirk of Glenluce, I found 
 
 252 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 253 
 
 the beadle's wife had not so much as heard of 
 Prophet Peden. But these Cevenols were proud 
 of their ancestors in quite another sense ; the war 
 was their chosen topic; its exploits were their 
 own patent of nobility; and where a man or a 
 race has had but one adventure, and that heroic, 
 we must expect and pardon some prolixity of 
 reference. They told me the country was still 
 full of legends hitherto uncollected; I heard from 
 them about Cavalier's descendants — 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 of an afternoon in the nine- 
 teenth century, in a field where the ancestors had 
 fought, and the great-grandchildren were peace- 
 ably ditching. 
 
 Later in the day one of the Protestant pastors 
 was so good as to visit me : a young man, intel- 
 ligent and polite, with whom I passed an hour 
 or two in talk. Florae, he told me, is part Prot- 
 estant, part Catholic; and the difference in re- 
 ligions is usually doubled by the difference in 
 politics. You may judge of my surprise, coming 
 as I did from such a babbling purgatorial Poland 
 of a place as Monastier, when I learned that the 
 population lived together on ver)' quiet terms; 
 and there was even an exchange of hospitalities 
 between households thus doubly separated. Black 
 Camisard and White Camisard, militiamen and 
 Miquelet and dragoon, Protestant prophet and 
 Catholic cadet of the White Cross, they had all 
 been sabring and shooting, burning, pillaging and 
 murdering, their hearts hot with indignant pas- 
 
254 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 sion ; and here, after a hundred and seventy years, 
 Protestant is still Protestant, Catholic still Catho- 
 lic, in mutual toleration and mild 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 har- 
 vests; the sun returns after the rain; and man- 
 kind outlives secular animosities, as a single man 
 awakens from the passions 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 adorned with human virtues 
 and fighting with a show of right. 
 
 I had never thought it easy to be just, and find 
 it daily even harder than I thought. I own I 
 met these Protestants with delight and a sense 
 of coming home. I was accustomed to speak 
 their language, in another and deeper sense of 
 the word than that which distinguishes between 
 French and English; for the true babel is a di- 
 vergence upon morals. And hence I could hold 
 more "free communication with the Protestants 
 and judge the more justly, than the Catholics. 
 Father Apollinaris may pair off with my moun- 
 tain Plymouth Brother as two guileless and de- 
 vout old man; 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 Vernede. With the first 
 I was on terms 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 hon- 
 est thoughts. In this world of imperfection we 
 gladly welcome even partial intimacies. If we 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 255 
 
 find but one 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 little way up the Tarnon, a covered 
 bridge of wood introduced us into the valley of 
 the Mimente. Steep rocky red mountains over- 
 hung the stream; great oaks and 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. 
 
 It was difficult here again to find a spot fit 
 for my encampment. 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 heather. 
 The sun had left the highest peak in front of me, 
 and the valley was full of the lowing sound of 
 herdsmen'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. 
 Thither I descended, and, tying Modestine pro- 
 visionally to a tree, proceeded to investigate the 
 neighborhood. A grey pearly evening shadow 
 filled the glen; objects at a little distance grew in- 
 distinct and melted bafflingly into each other ; and 
 the darkness was rising steadily like an exhala- 
 tion. I approached a great oak which grew in 
 
 956 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 257 
 
 the meadow, hard by the river's brink; when to 
 my disgust the voices of children fell upon my 
 ear, and I beheld a house round the angle on the 
 other bank. I had half a mind to pack and be 
 gone again, but the growing darkness moved me 
 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 neighbors in such a great hotel, 
 A hollow underneath the oak was my bed. 
 Before I had fed Molestine and arranged my 
 sack, three stars were already brightly shining, 
 and the others were beginning dimly to appear. 
 I slipped dow r n to the river, which 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 aft- 
 ernoon, faintly illuminated the summit of the 
 hills, but not a ray fell into the bottom of the 
 glen where I was lying. The oak rose before me 
 like a pillar of darkness ; and overhead the heart- 
 some stars were set in the face of the night. No 
 one knows the stars w T ho has not slept, as the 
 French happily put it, a la belle etoile. He may 
 know all their names and distances and magni- 
 tudes, 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 faraway 
 worlds, sprinkled like 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 
 
258 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 but the sky, and no other bed than my mother 
 earth." 
 
 All night a strong wind blew up the valley, and 
 the 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, 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 do- 
 mestic affections come clamoring round you for 
 redress. At the end of a fagging day, the sharp, 
 cruel note of a dog's bark is in itself a keen an- 
 noyance; and to a tramp like myself, he repre- 
 sents the sedentary and respectable world in its 
 most hostile form. There is something of the 
 clergyman or the lawyer about this engaging ani- 
 mal; and if he were not amenable to stones, the 
 boldest man would shrink from travelling afoot. 
 I respect dogs much in the domestic 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 down the bank, and 
 then, seeing me sit up, retreating again with great 
 alacrity. The stars were not yet quite extin- 
 guished. 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 hillside 
 were outlined sharply against the sky. The 
 wind had veered more to the north, and no longer 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 259 
 
 reached me in the glen; but as I was going on 
 with my preparations, it drove a white cloud 
 very swiftly over the hill-top; and looking up, 
 I was surprised to see the cloud dyed with gold. 
 In these high regions 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. 
 
 As I began to go up the valley, a draught of 
 wind came down it out of the seat of the sun- 
 rise, although the clouds continued to run over- 
 head in an almost contrary direction. A few 
 steps farther, and I saw a whole hill-side gilded 
 with the sun; and still a little beyond, between 
 two peaks, a centre of dazzling brilliancy ap- 
 peared 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 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 re- 
 ligion. I 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 minority. I thought with a smile of 
 Bavile and his dragoons, and how you may ride 
 rough-shod over a religion for a century, and 
 leave it only the more lively for the friction. 
 Ireland is still Catholic; the Cevennes still Prot- 
 estant. It is not a basketful of law-papers, nor 
 the hoofs and pistol-butts of a regiment of horse, 
 
260 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 that can change one tittle of a ploughman's 
 thoughts. Outdoor rustic people 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 sense of com- 
 munion 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. God, 
 like a great power, like a great shining sun, has 
 appeared 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 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, unless he could 
 eradicate all memory of the past, and, in a strict 
 and not a conventional meaning, change his 
 mind. 
 
THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY 
 
 I was now drawing near to Cassagnas, a clus- 
 ter of black roofs upon the hillside, in this wild 
 valley, among chestnut gardens, and looked upon 
 in the clear air by many rocky peaks. The road 
 along the Mimente is yet new, nor have the 
 mountaineers recovered their surprise when the 
 first cart arrived at Cassagnas. But although 
 it lay thus apart from the current of men's busi- 
 ness, this hamlet has already made a figure in the 
 history of France. Hard by, in caverns of 
 the mountains, was one of the five arsenals of 
 the Camisards; where they laid up clothes and 
 corn and arms against necessity, forged bay- 
 onets and sabres, and made themselves gun- 
 powder with willow charcoal and saltpetre boiled 
 in kettles. To the same caves, amid this multi- 
 farious 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 neighborhool. 
 
 Of the five legions into which the Camisards 
 were divided, it was the oldest and the most 
 obscure that had its magazines by Cassagnas. 
 This was the band of Spirit Seguier; men who 
 had joined their voices with his in the 68th 
 Psalm as they marched down by night on the 
 archpriest of the Cevennes. Seguier, promoted 
 to heaven, was succeeded by Salomon Couderc, 
 whom Cavalier treats in his memoirs as chap- 
 
 261 
 
262 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 Iain-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 " be- 
 tween the eyes; and had the most of the Scrip- 
 tures off by rote. And this was surely happy; 
 since in a surprise in August, 1703, 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 Cas- 
 sagnas was 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 harbored. M. 
 de Caladon, taking a stroll one fine day, walked 
 without 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 recom- 
 mendation to insinuate himself among their 
 ranks, beyond " his faculty of singing psalms " ; 
 and even the prophet Salomon " took him into 
 a particular friendship." Thus, among their in- 
 tricate hills, the rustic troop subsisted; and his- 
 tory can attribute few exploits to them but 
 sacraments and ecstasies. 
 
 People of this tough and simple stock will not, 
 as I have just been saying, prove variable in 
 religion; nor will they get nearer to apostasy 
 than a mere external conformity 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 necessity than sympathy," granted 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 263 
 
 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 schoolmistress. And his con- 
 duct, 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 countrified fashion, and were all plain 
 and dignified in manner. As a Protestant my- 
 self, I was well looked upon, and my acquaintance 
 with history gained me farther respect. For 
 we had something not unlike a religious contro- 
 versy at table, a gendarme and a merchant with 
 whom I dined being both strangers to the place 
 and Catholics. The young men of the house 
 stood round and supported me; and the whole 
 discussion was tolerantly conducted, and sur- 
 prised 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 his- 
 torical acquirements. But the gendarme was 
 mighty easy over it all. 
 
 " 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 resist, now en- 
 ables them to differ in a kind spirit. For 
 courage respects courage; but where a faith has 
 
264 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 been trodden out, we may look for a mean and 
 narrow population. The true work, of Bruce 
 and Wallace was the union of the nations; not 
 that they should stand apart awhile longer, skir- 
 mishing upon their borders; but that, when the 
 time came, they might unite with self-re- 
 spect. 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 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 acci- 
 dents; and at any rate judged it unwise to dwell 
 upon alarms or consider small perils in the ar- 
 rangement of life. Life itself, I submitted, was 
 a far too risky business as a whole to make 
 each additional particular of danger worth re- 
 gard. " Something," said I, " might burst in 
 your inside any day of the week, and there would 
 be an end of you, if you 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. 
 
 He was the only person, in all my voyage, 
 who saw anything hardy in so simple a pro- 
 ceeding; although many considered it superflu- 
 ous. 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 sometimes preferred sleeping under the 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 265 
 
 stars to a close and noisy alehouse, " 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 some- 
 thing to talk of in the future, and desired me 
 to make a note of his request and reason; a 
 desire with which I have thus complied. 
 
 A little after two I struck across the Mimente, 
 and took a rugged path southward up a hillside 
 covered with loose stones and tufts of heather. 
 At the top, as is the habit of the country, the 
 path disappeared; and I left my she-ass munch- 
 ing heather, and went forward alone to seek a 
 road. 
 
 I was now on the separation of two vast water- 
 sheds ; behind me all the streams were bound for 
 the Garonne and the Western Ocean; before me 
 was the basin of the Rhone. Hence, as from 
 the Lozere, 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-promised 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 fin- 
 ished his famous work, the devastation of the 
 High Cevennes, which lasted all through Oc- 
 tober and November, 1703, and during which 
 four hundred and sixty villages and hamlets 
 were, with fire and pickaxe, utterly subverted, a 
 man standing on this eminence would have looked 
 forth upon a silent, smokeless, and dispeopled 
 
266 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 land. Time and man's activity have now re- 
 paired these ruins ; Cassagnas is once more roofed 
 and sending up domestic smoke ; and in the chest- 
 nut gardens, in low and leafy corners, many 
 a prosperous farmer returns, when the day's 
 work is done, to 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 out into a coronal of cliffs. The 
 sun, which was still far from setting, sent a 
 drift 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 wearing a black cap of liberty, as if 
 in honor of his nearness to the grave, directed 
 me to the road for St. Germain 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 proposed 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 
 and his Armenian sabre slashed down the Cam- 
 isards of Seguier. This, methought, might be 
 some Rip van Winkle of the war, who had lost 
 his comrades, 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. And while I was thus working on my 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 267 
 
 fancy, I heard him hailing in broken tones, and 
 saw him waving me to come back with one of 
 his two sticks. I had already got some way 
 past him; but, leaving Modestine 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 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 perhaps I thus be- 
 came as inexplicable to the old man as he had 
 been to me. 
 
 The road lay under chestnuts, and though I 
 saw a hamlet or two below me in the vale, and 
 many lone houses of the chestnut farmers, it 
 was a very solitary march all 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 bel amoureux, her hand- 
 some sweetheart ; and I wished I could have taken 
 up the strain and answered 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 takes away, and brings sweethearts 
 near, only to separate them again into distant 
 and strange lands ; but to love is the great amu- 
 let which makes the world a garden; and " hope, 
 which comes to all," outwears the accidents of 
 life, and reaches with tremulous hand beyond 
 
268 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 the grave 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 highroad, 
 carpeted with noiseless dust. The night had 
 come; the moon had been shining for a long 
 while upon the opposite mountain ; when on turn- 
 ing 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 Vol- 
 nay; and now I drank to the moon's sacred 
 majesty upon the road. It was but a couple 
 of mouthfuls; yet I became thenceforth uncon- 
 scious of my limbs, and my blood flowed with 
 luxury. Even Modestine was inspired by this 
 purified nocturnal sunshine, and bestirred her 
 little hoofs to a livelier measure. The road 
 wound and descended swiftly among masses of 
 chestnuts. Hot dust rose from our feet and 
 flowed away. Our two shadows — mine de- 
 formed with the knapsack, hers comically be- 
 stridden by the pack — now lay before us clearly 
 outlined in the road, and now, as we turned a 
 corner, went off into the ghostly distance, and 
 sailed along the mountainlike clouds. From 
 time to time a warm wind rustled down the val- 
 ley, 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 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 over- 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 269 
 
 head, in some lone house, there burned one 
 lighted window, one square spark of red in the 
 huge field of sad nocturnal coloring. 
 
 At a certain point, as I went downward, turn- 
 ing many acute angles, the moon disappeared 
 behind the hill; and I pursued my way in great 
 darkness, until another turning shot me without 
 preparation into St. Germain de Calberte. The 
 place was asleep and silent, and buried in opaque 
 night. Only from a single open door, some 
 lamplight escaped upon the road to show me I 
 was come among men's habitations. The two 
 last gossips of the evening, still talking by a 
 garden wall, directed me to the inn. The land- 
 lady was getting her chicks to bed; the fire was 
 already out, and had, not without grumbling, 
 to be rekindled ; half an hour later, and I must 
 have gone supperless to roost. 
 
THE LAST DAY 
 
 When I awoke (Thursday, 3d October) and 
 hearing a great flourishing of cocks and chuck- 
 ling of contented hens, betook me to the window 
 of the clean and comfortable room where I had 
 slept the night, I looked forth on a sunshiny 
 morning in a deep vale of chestnut gardens. It 
 was still early, and the cock-crows, and the slant- 
 ing lights, and the long shadows encouraged me 
 to be out and look round me. 
 
 St. Germain de Calberte is a great parish nine 
 leagues round about. At the period of the wars, 
 and immediately before the devastation, it was 
 inhabited by two hundred and seventy-five fami- 
 lies, of which only nine were Catholic; and it 
 took the cure seventeen September days to go 
 from house to house on horseback for a cen- 
 sus. But the 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. 
 
 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, think- 
 ing to lie among a grateful population whom he 
 had redeemed from error ; and hither on the mor- 
 row of his death they brought the body, pierced 
 with two-and-fifty wounds, to be interred. Clad 
 
 270 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 271 
 
 in his priestly robes, he was laid out in state in 
 the church. The cure, taking his text from 
 Second Samuel, twentieth chapter 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 Seguier was near at hand ; 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 
 metropolis, a thimbleful of Rome, in such a 
 wild and contrary neighborhood. 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 de- 
 camped to Alais, stood well by his isolated pul- 
 pit, and thence uttered fulminations against the 
 crimes of the Protjestants. Salomon beseiged 
 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 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. Where 
 was it gone? All handed over to the Camisards 
 for a consideration. Untrusty guardians for an 
 isolated priest! 
 
 That these continual stirs were once busy in 
 St. Germaine de Calberte, the imagination with 
 
272 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 difficulty receives; all is now so quiet, the pulse 
 of human life now beats so low and still in this 
 hamlet of the mountains. Boys followed 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. There was noth- 
 ing 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 carpeted with sward, and tried to imi- 
 tate 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 fall of great hailstones; 
 but there went with it a cheerful human senti- 
 ment of an approaching harvest and farmers re- 
 joicing 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 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 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 COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 273 
 
 the most beautiful, vanish before we can rightly 
 scan their features; as though a god, travelling 
 by our 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. 
 
 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 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. 
 
 " 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 be- 
 lieve it is the current philosophy in these parts. 
 I have some difficulty in imagining a better. It's 
 not only a great flight of confidence for a man to 
 change his creed and go out of his family for 
 heaven's sake ; but the odds are — nay, and the 
 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 God. Honor to 
 those who do so, for the wrench is sore. But 
 it argues something narrow, whether of strength 
 or weakness-, whether of the prophet or the fool, 
 in those who can take a sufficient interest in 
 
274 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 such infinitesimal and human operations, or who 
 can quit a friendship 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 
 for me as for the best of other communions. 
 
 The phylloxera was in the neighborhood; and 
 instead of wine we drank at dinner a more eco- 
 nomical juice of the grape — la Parisienne, they 
 call it. It is made by putting the fruit whole 
 into a cask with water; one by one the berries 
 ferment and burst ; what is drunk during the day 
 is supplied at night in water; so, with ever an- 
 other 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, a 
 feeble beverage, but very pleasant to the taste. 
 
 What with dinner and coffee, it was long past 
 three before 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 Vallee Francaise, or Val Fran- 
 cesque, as they used to call it ; and towards even- 
 ing 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 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 his decision, that I 
 
THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 275 
 
 dealt in blue-wool collars, such as decorate the 
 neck of the French draught-horse. 
 
 I had hurried to the topmost powers of Mo- 
 destine, 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 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 out- 
 line of the hills was sharp against the sky. There 
 was Mount Aigoal, the 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 mountain citadel, a young and 
 pretty lass called Mariette. There were great 
 rejoicings; and the bridegroom released five-and- 
 twenty prisoners in honor of the glad event. 
 Seven months afterwards Mariette, the Princess 
 of the Cevennes, as they called her in derision, 
 fell into the hands of the authorities, where it 
 was like to have gone hard with her. But Cas- 
 tanet 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 prison- 
 ers. Their daughter, pledge of some starry 
 night upon Mount Aigoal, has left descendants 
 to this day. 
 
 Modestine and I — it was our last meal to- 
 gether — had a snack upon the top of St. Pierre, 
 I on a heap of stones, she standing by me in the 
 
276 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 * 
 
 moonlight and decorously eating bread out of 
 my hand. The poor brute would eat more 
 heartily in this manner; for she had a sort of 
 affection for me, which I was soon to betray. 
 
 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 be- 
 yond six hours! 
 
FAREWELL, MODESTINE 
 
 On examination, on the morning of October 
 4th, Modestine was pronounced unfit for travel. 
 She would need at least two days' repose ac- 
 cording to the ostler; but I was now eager to 
 reach Alais for my letters; and, being in a civi- 
 lized country of stage-coaches, I determined to 
 sell 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 favor- 
 able notion of my donkey's capabilities. Intend- 
 ing purchasers were aware of an unrivalled 
 opportunity. Before ten I had an offer of twen- 
 ty-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. 
 
 St. Jean du Gard is a large place and largely 
 Protestant. The maire, a Protestant, asked me 
 to help him in a small matter which is itself 
 characteristic of the country. The young women 
 of the Cevennes 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 cir- 
 culars from two different agencies in London. 
 I gave what help I could; and volunteered some 
 advice, which struck me as being excellent. 
 
 One thing more I note. The phylloxera has 
 ravaged the vineyards in this neighborhood ; and 
 in the early morning, under some chestnuts by 
 
 277 
 
278 TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
 
 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 
 ca. Comme dans le nord!" 
 
 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 with 
 dwarf olives, that I became aware of my bereave- 
 ment. I had lost Modestine. Up to that mo- 
 ment I had thought I hated her ; but now she was 
 gone, 
 
 " And, O, 
 The difference to me ! " 
 
 For twelve days we had been fast companions ; 
 we had 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 boggy by-road. After the 
 first 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 color of 
 an 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 example; and being alone with a 
 stage-driver and four or five agreeable young 
 men, I did not hesitate to yield to my emotion. 
 
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