'^^'^ LmB /J/Jiy Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN \ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES 5/ ACROSS FEANCE IN A CAEAVAN ACROSS FRANCE IN A CAIUYAN BEIXG SOME ACCOUNT OF A JOrRXEY FROM BORDEAUX TO GENOA IN THE "ESCARGOT" TAKEX IN THE WINTER 1SS9-D0 AUTHOR OF A DAY OF MY LIFE AT ETON' G eorD e (V Ua en t — Oov^ K< JJrlitlj 50 tlhtstrations by 3oIjn ElUlallacf, after Skctcfjrs bg tijc Sutfjor WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AN^D SOXS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCXCII All Rif/Jits reserved * ■•#%♦ i^ • ^'^ • (I.* , f ^ % V -» T.'E TO PEGGY, THE DARLING PARTNER OF MY life's journey. -« / y^ CONTENTS. CHAT. I'AGE I. OF THE PUUCFIASE OF THE ESCARGOT : WITH SOME DE- TAILS OF HER COXSTRUCTIOX, 1 II. OX THE EMBARKATIOX OF THE ESCARGOT FOR FOREIGX PARTS, 11 III. OF OUR TRAXSACTIOXS AT BORDEAUX, .... 18 IV. OF OUR FURTHER TRAXSACTIOXS AT BORDEAUX, . . 36 V. OF THE FIRST STAGE OF OUR JOURXEY — BORDEAUX TO MARMAXDE, 52 VI. OF OUR SOJOURX AT MARMAXDE, 73 VII. C)X AGAIX — TOXXEIXS — AIGUILLOX— PORTE STE MARIE — AGEX — I.A MAGISTERE — MALAUZE — CASTELSARASSIX — AGAIXST TIME, . 96 VIII. STILL AGAIXST TIME — FIXHAX — GRISOLLES — COUTEXSART — TOULOUSE, 120 IX. STAYIXG AT TOULOUSE — AXOTHER RECRUIT TO THE EX- PEDITIOX, 137 X. MOXTGISCARI) — VILLEFRAXCHE — CASTELXADAURY — ALZOXXE — CARCASSOXXE 147 \l Contents. XI. CAKCASSDNNT. — MoLX — NAH150XNK, XII. I!i:Zli;i{.S — Mi:ZK— (JI.IKAX— MONTPKLLIKH, . XI II. M'lNTrKI.I.IKR — I.rXKI. — VAUVKRT — .ST (.II.LES — ARLES, XIV. AHI.KS— .-^AI-OX — UOiiXAC — l'aSSA.SSIX — MARSEILLE.S, XV. AT .MARSEILLES, XVI. Cr.IKS — I.E liEAUSSET — T(nLOX, .... XVII. TOCLOX — I'U.IET VILLE- (iOXEAROX — VIDAUBAX — FRI^JCS, XVIII. l'esTEREL — CAXXES, XIX. CA'iXES — XICE — liEAULIEU — MOXACO — MEXTOXE, XX. OVER roXT ST LOUIS IXTO ITALY — VEXTIMIGLIA — SAX REMO, X.\I. (tXE<;i.IA — ALASSIO .VT LAST, XML OF OUR STAY AT ALASSIO, XXIII. E(»R\VARI) : — DISASTER AXD SHIPWRECK XXIV. ITT STHAIOHT AOAIX — OX TO SAVOXA, XXV. Tin; LAST MISHAP — CO(;OLETTO VOLTRI — GEXOA — THE EXn OF THE EXPEDITIOX, ...... 164 177 lit7 21.-) 237 2oO 2G4 288 306 330 346 358 371 386 398 PAGE ILLUSTEATIONS. AX l-ARLY START, . K.\ KOUTK, TO BE TAKEX AT BEDTIME, CIIA:SSEUR FRAX(^'AIS. THE HUMBLIXG OF JAME:>, EXTRY OF KIXG CARXIVAL, THE BALL AT ALASSIO, . Frontispiece Ti) face parji' 5 2 70 12G 17S 312 3G4 MAP SHOWIXG ROUTE OF THE ESCARGOT, at end t l;; cp^iM^rMm^ Tillllfll'.lifcllili'f ' ^..^-T" Viv . ;.^.,M\m ^^^'i! CHAPTER I. OF THE PURCHASE OF THE ESCARGOT : WITH SOME DETAILS OF HER CONSTRL'CTIOX. TT7H0SE idea the Escargot originally was, I am not pre- ^^ pared to definitely state. I had a kind of notion that she was mine, but Peggy says Xo, she was hers : which of course affords considerable grounds for my supposing that such must have been the case. However, it is needless to A 2 The Voyage of the Escavgot. filter into that (luestion here: suffice it to say, that when it had been aLrreed ])et\veeii ourselves tliat caravan travelling was a delightful mode of existence in the abstract, it eople who wanted one another had on this occasion lun against each otlier — well, certain moneys passed from me to liim, and the Escargot l)ecame an established fact in my stablf-yard. I niay mention here, liy the way, that our new possession's name was one wliich we l:)estowed upon her ourselves: in fact, it was the first thing that we did to her. Her former owiH-r iiad called her ))y a far more pretentious name — the Ilirondelle: but we dislike on princi[)le promises that are not likfly to bt' jtcrformed ; and it S(;enied to us that a Hirondelle which weiglie(l just under two tons could hardly be expected to act up to licr naiue. I'eggy ol)ji'eted to the Elephant as an emendation, as w(dl as to the Hippopotamus, so we ultimately ilccidcd on tlu; Escargot, and a more expressive ii.mic than that I d(»ii't think we could have chosen. ^Vt■ bad settled on our route some time liefore we had cvcii bf'^nui to negotiate for the }iui'chase of the Escargot: when we liad bcg\in to talk about it, it was already nearly the end of Sejitcndiei', and of course it would have Ix-en un- sati.-tactoiy — mind. I don't say impossible, as that is a word which oiiglit to be expunged from every caravanist's vocalui- Some Details ((s to Iter Co}istruefloti. 3 lary — to have attempted to start on a eaiavan expedition anywhere within the limits of the United Kingdom, wliieh, mueli though we love it as our native country, is still un- deniably an extrenudy muddy and fogy the results of his ex[>erience, ami didn't have so much trouble in fitting her out as we should have had if we had bought her new from the Iniilder. The liudy was thirteen feet over all in length, six feet six inches in width, and the same in height, tiie highest point of the roof, taking it as mounted on the wheels, l)eing nine fffi six fi-om the ground. The underworks were a splendid bii of smilhery, calculated to resist even tiie most extra- oidinaiy shocks, — a not altogether miwise ])recaution, con- sidning all tilings. The wheels stood rather abnormally far apart, right outside the ]»ody, and the extreme length of axle was eight feet six inches, which of course made the luiiniug ratiier heavy, but had the counter-advantage of lemlering tlie whole structure of excessively stal)le equili- brium ; and both hind wheels were fitted with a shoe and a jiowerful lever biake, and there was a roller sto]) to one of them to lie]]) in going u]) hill. The wheels were ])ainted red picked out with l)Iack, as was also the pole, wliich was of ;ish, and ready fitted with chains. ]>elow the l)ody be- twcrii tlic hind wheels was a large case, jiainted white, and -icin.-il with a bar and ]iadlock, containing all the stable iv(jiii>itcs and other tilings, such as our l»ath, the parailin- o;! (.Ill, the lifting-jack, and the force - ])um]), which was woikcd by tlie foot and had a long delivery-]»i})e to connect witli ;iiioth'-r (Icpciiibiig ays that I never can de.scril>e anvthing; but Some J)<'f((i/s (fs to licr Const met ion. 7 as I l)elievc slic l)iise.s lior indictiuent solely on the f:icL tliiit T am not always as capable as she would like of taking;- home to her an accurate and minute description of any particular lady's attire whom I may have met at some ,^arden-])arty wliich I have had the misfortune of attending alone, I don't think it is entirely a Just one. lUit then tliere were of course a quantity of things of a more movable description wliich we had to get for ourselves. lUankets and sheets, &c., for the bed, were of course forth- coming from our ordinary domestic stores : for a counterpane we had a i)laid of I'eggy's ancestral tartan, which served also in the daytime to disguise the true meaning of the couch-like arrangement at the back : curtains and cushions Peggy and her handmaids, whose one cause of discontent for the time being w\as that they were not coming with us, made out of art serge and other suchlike materials, whose nature is un- treatable too particularly by man. Our plates, dishes, and saucepans were chiefly of enamelled iron ; but we could not reconcile ourselves to the idea of enamelled iron teacups, so we had them of china to start with, which however gradually degenerated into stoneware : our glasses, owing to the same prejudice, were of glass, "We took six of each variety of spoon, as also of forks and knives : there were also various wonderful inventions, which I fancy are to be found in every well-regulated kitchen, but with which I had never till then had so close an acquaintance, for whisking and slicing and ladling. We had an earthenware teapot and a tin coli'ee one, and two enamelled iron water-jugs. All the crockery, so-called and real, was carefully arranged to make the minimum of noise and to experience the minimum of risk — that is, as we supposed l)efore we started would have had that efiect, l)ut which arrangement had to be 8 Tlie Voi/af/e of the E scar got. luotlifit'il fniiii tiiiu' to time duriii^^ tlic journey. However, for the most i)ait we found it successful as regarded the more I'sscutial details : tlie dishes and saucepans were jiaeked in the pantiy cupl>oard, with felt-covered l)attens nailed l)etween them to prevent them rattling; the plates were strapped tightly in sets of three against the roof; the cups were hung on hooks fixed on the partition hulk- head on tine side, with the saucers in wire racks just helow them, and the glasses fitted into sockets in a shelf on the other side. We had two lamps to start with, one an ordi- nary hurricane lantern which served hoth for inside and outside use, and the (»tlier a piano lamp heavily weighted at the hase so as not to be easily knocked over, and which stood on a 1 (racket with raised edges close to the sink. I pit'vided myself also witii a complete set of joining tools, ;ind one or two besides that I l)elieve are generally con- iieete(l with the liousebreakiiig profession, l)ut wln'ch I was told were in(Hs])ensable with a structure like our caravan, which e\-entualiy proved to l)e the case ; and a revolver with whieh 1 juactised assiduously for some days previous to dill' final departui'c from our home at my cowhouse dnii)-, and attaineil a ci-rtain degree of proHciencv, sulli- eieiit at any rate to enable me to speak with confidence with my enemies at tlie door of the Escaigot, should any ehalice to ])i'esent themselves. And We took a l»ox full of medicines of a more oi' less homely character, suitable fdi' the einei'j-eneies of tlaVel. ^\'e had also a jiatenl filter which I shall not name, U)\ teal- of haviiiu' some of those ]ieo])le who always know eveiytliiii^ asseiting that I have received a £100 cheque from the make)' f..r the adveitisement ; but if it should all'oid him aii\- ;^i at ificatioii, and lie I'emembeis a certain Some Details as to Iter Const ruction. 9 individual of not altogcthci' uii})r('p()ss('ssin<4 appcaiaiicc coiiiini;- to liis siiop and buyinti; a filter and askini^ a lot of questions about how to woi'k it, and otherwise |ic" that clearly showed that they didn't in the least exjx'ct that we wouM. I had made all arrangements with the (ieneral .Steam Xa\igation Com])any for shi])])ing the Eseargot o\'er to J5or- deaux, and I had likewise chartered onr local coalman to hold hims(df in reaiUness to horse her, ^vhen the time came, u]) to London. We ex})erienced a delay of a week owing to a dock-strike which liroke ont at that time, l)ut at last I got the ex])ected telegram from the head oliiee of the Com])any to say they were ready for us: I forwarded the news to the coal-merchant, and at ten o'clock precisely on the night of Tnesday the 19th of Xovemher we — that is, myself and one of the coal-merchant's men; Peggy had gone u}) to London to stay with some friends and get some " things " — left my stahle-yard, and set out in the direction of the Metropolis in the Escargot. Through the silent village, and past the coal- yard, where the eoal-merchant and his wife, the only people visil)le, were standing with lanterns to see us go by, and wish us Good-speed ; and past the last house out on to the main road. It was a cold and foggy night, calculated rather to provoke shivering than thought; Ijut still I couldn't help thinking to some extent of all that might ha})pen before I came back by that way again. The journey to London was not very productive of in- cident : the road is very straight all the way, and at no time very interesting, and it was particularly miinteresting in the pitchy l)lackness of that night. AVe travelled chiefly at a walk, as the horses had already been about twenty miles, off and on, carting coals in the course of the day ; as had also the coalmau : so after we had gone a little way, I relieved him at the reins, while he retired into the interior to take a snooze, which lasted till I had twice driven off the road, 14 The Voyage of the Escargot. and only just niisstnl going into the ditch, on which lie declared hiinscll' ]it'it'cctly refreshed, and resumed his original ]»(ist. I found hiiu a most intelligent man — as the news- pa))er reporters say, though why they should take it for granlecl, as they seem to imply, that the average individual whom they haxc anything to do with is not to ])e expected t(» he intelhgent, I don't know — and he put me up to a lot aliout horses, and 1 liad the consolation of learning that, as a ruh', they don't get more tlian tliree things the matter with them at a tinu'. And so proceeding and conversing we came to llounslow, where we pulled up at a night-house to halt for an hour and a half. We put the nosehags on to the hoises, and went ourselves to have a cup of tea and a waiin hy the fireside in the house, where my companion introduced me to a select circle of Covent Garden waggoners who liad halted there for the same purpose as ourselves. One Would perha])s su])}iose, from wliat one sees, and hears, of him in the cro\\(h'd streets of London in the daytime, that the Covent (lai'deii waggoner is l)y nature rather a rough cus- tomer; hut I must say, fi'oni my ])ersonal ex])erience on that ocejision of tlie good-nature and ])riniitive ci\ility that ]ire- vailed amongst our circle, not only towai'ds myself as a stiaiigcr, hut hetween its hahitual constituents, that to my miml he c()m])arcs favourahly with a good many ])eo])l(i who coiisiilei' themselves his hetters, who may find themsehcs com- ]"'llc(l to he up and doing at two o'clock in the morning. ^\^• got undci' weigli again ahout half-])ast three: the hnuses 's\y\\ \\\) thickei' and thicker on each side as we jiasscd thinugh IhtMit foi'ject, being that we wei-e jiait of l>arnuni's show, which had landed a few (lavs ])r('vi(>usly, gone astray. V>\\t at last a gentleman in a hat that onc-e might have l)een a hillyeock, and a l)lue jersey and a ])air of corduroys, but with a singular absence of linen altout his attire, volunteered to show us the way. He ad(h'essed me somewhat familiarly as "young man," which at first I resented inwardly, till I reflected that i)er- ha]»s one miglit i'X])ect to have to put u]) with that sort of thing sometimes in a caravan, and after all it was not quite so familiar as '"old man"; so I left off resenting: and mean- while he had hauled himself up on to the footboard beside me, and we were ])re])aring to resume our route. A lunnber of the strangers in those parts tried to climl) up too, presum- ably with a view to acquiring information so as to I)e able to direct the next inquirer; but our new ally fought tlu'm all oir, iind tuining down a very narrow lane, which was made still narrower liy the ])reparations for the Xew Tower l>ridge, all the tiaflic, however, being fortunately bound in the same direction as ourselves, we arrived at last at our destination at half-])ast seven A.M. precisel}'. A\'e took the horses out, and the coalman went away in seaich of a stable to give them an hour or two of rest before^ taking them home again. I handed over the Kscargot to the whaif authorities, and went to the friends where Teggy wa-^ .-tayiiig. and to bed. \\ li'ii I next saw the Kscargot slie was hanging Ix'tween til'- fiiinaments at the end of a long chain, lieing slowly ]<. weird (Ml Im the deck of the good shij) Albatross. 1 had gone down to the wharf on the morning of the Alluitross's TJic hyinharkotloii. V sailiiiii,' to take Jaiiics on hoard, as lie was to ^o out to ]>oi- (leaux l»y sea too. [ am not lialtitually of a nervous disposi- tion, l)Ut T couldn't lu'lj) wisliing I hadn't ai'rived at that })articular nionicnt, for it seemed iiievital)le that soniethinii must ^'ive way, and our future liomt; l)e dashed into a thou- sand frai!,nK'nts. Uut all went well, and I hreatlied again ; then 1 delivered James into the charge of the cook, and re- turned on shore. TIu! last rope was let go; the Alhatrcjss slowly moved away from the wharf, and I felt that the ex- pedition had really hegun ! If is>%Ai^/# CIIAPTEIi in. OF OUK TliAXiiACTIOXS AT IJORDKAUX. Thk All lat Kiss \vitli llic Escargot and James on Loard sailed on the Fiiday : Teg;.:}' and I followed on liie next day, .-]M-ii(liii:_r the Sunday in Paris, and going on 1»y the rapide wliidi ivaclu'd Jiovdeaux on the ^Monday night. 1'lie ]»re- liniiiiaiy pail of the journey was not unaec(tin])anied with advi'iii lire, though it was quite of an uncaravanlike kind, ami iiiighl ha\f ha]i]iciii'(l to any ordinaiy travellers ; consisling, lii-t. of Mill missing the night tiain on Sunday, thi-ough the sliiipidily (if (lur hntcl-jKiiifi', who, after he had shut us into our call. diivciiMJ thr driver to the wronle person would he thinking of going to l)ed at night, or else befin'e said })ersons would l)e thinking of getting up in the morning. And secondly, when we had got on board the rap'ah', the engine broke down when we were only half-way to (Orleans, and w"e had to wait two hours for another to l)e sent to tow us, collapsed engine and all, out of our difficulty; and then this succouring engine, having presumedly been tasked beyond its powers by the extra weight thus put u])()n it, l)r(jke down in its turn about twenty miles from Bordeaux : so that altogether, instead of arriving at our destination at half-past seven in the morning, according to our original progrannne, we didn't get there till a cpiarter to nine at jnght. The wt>ariness and vexation of spirit caused by all this delay was not materially diminished by tlie knowledge that the Albatross was expected in Bordeaux about mid-day on the ^Monday, and that while we were thus kicking our heels in the train all sorts of things might l»e happening to the Escargot if she had been shot out on to the quays, a friend- less, homeless caravan with no one to claim her. However, as things tiu'ned out, our fears proved groundless. I took Peggy to a hotel, and while dinner was getting ready I rushed down to the quay to find out anything that I could 20 77/ 1' Voyrifjc of the E scar got. aliinit iiur missing lia1)it;itioii. There was only one man, a kind of (luck ]Kilicenian, down there at all, ])nt he told nie to my great relief that the Albatross had not arrived; and furlhei', having something to do with the signals, he was in a ])osili(in to tell me that she had not been heard of since leaving the Thames. >sext morning I learnt at the (Jeneral Steam Navigation ("onipany's Agency that almost immediately after leaving the wharf at London a heavy fog had C(jme down njxin her, and she hadn't got out of the Thames till late on the Saturday; and as there was an(jther fog waiting for her at the mi Hit h of the Garonne, there seemed very little i)ros- pi'ci (if her arriving for two or three days to come at the very least. Nor ^\\^\ slie. ]>ut meanwhile we had plenty to occn])y (tursclvcs with. Everybody in the G. S. N. Co.'s office knew about the Escargot somehow — presnmably by telegra])h : tin- otlicials at the London headquarters had taken a warm interest in us and nur expedition when we were ari'anging fill- the tiaiisit, and this wlien translated into Erench was i»f cduise much wainier ; in fact it might almost l)e styled vehement. Everybody in that Agency had something to say on the subject; and then when they had said it, I was foiiually iiitio(hiced to the s])ecial clerk who was to see me thioiigh the eustom-liouse, and perform all the necessary eeveiiioiijcs for jiitioi hiciiig So doubtful a piece of goods as .1 eiiiavaii into Eraiice. We bad two letteis of introduction, both to eminent wine- luticbants of Bordeaux, and after I had finished at the Au'iiey, ;iii(| been Iiaek to bicakfast and t(t ]tick uj) Teggy, w<' lost no lime ill going out ami |)i'esenting them. There were tiiini syiiiptoiiis on the pait of oui- new friends of a desiic lo )M-rsu,i(|i' us to ciy otr even at this advanced stage of the Our yransactiojts at Bordeaux. 21 ])r()CtH'(liii!j;s ; Init when \V(^ had shown oiirsclvcs flnii,— a new iiiolivc for our hciiiL!; so liaviiisj; of courso now developed itself in the eonseionsness of how foolish we should look if we IuiihmI liaek now we had eoine so far; that was, always allowini;' that tiie Esear of the kind of tliineo])le who had died some centuries ago, but had been ]ireserved in some way, and stuck up in a row against the wall of a chuich vault instead of being decently interred Yikv respectabU- citizens: not entirely uninteresting, but for the most ])art ghastly. In the evening we dined with our new friend X(t I. and his equally kind-hearted wife. The dinner was excellent, and so w"ere the wines, and 1 jiicked u)) a gooil deal of miscellaneous information on the suliject of the manufacture of the latter; but as the ' Encyclo- jiadia ' will ]irol»alily give the details far better than I should, I shall not lepeal them here. Tliere was still no news of the Albatross when W(> inqinrcd at the (.nice next morning. I'eggy went back to the hotel to wiite more letters; it is strange what a number of letters niif can write when one lias nothing ]>articular to do — I sup- ]iosr it is in some way coinieeted with the qualms of con- seirnec; and I went witii my coachman friend to look al >onie nioic lioises. (lood news tra\'els fast; anil it had evi- dently -ni abiiiad Somehow among the hoise-dealers and ]i\eiy >ialile kec|iris of tlic citv that an Englishman of toler- ably innocent appearance was on the look-out for horses; and I xisited that ilay. in com]»any with my ad\iser, about fifteen Our Trdusacftons (it Ihn'dc^m.r. 23 (lifl'cicnt stalilcs, lari^c and small, and 1 slioidil say iiitciNicwcd all the (lid screws in liovdcaux. I had told my ai^cnl that I wanted sometliinjj; ot" a res])eetalile ai^'e, as nioi-e likely lo lie (piiet, l)ut the niajoi'ity of the (|nadni])eds iJiodiieed in this round ^v^'re ])al]iahly too veiierahle ; any four of them taken together could luive counted their sixty sunnners hetween them, and some indi\idnals amoiiL!; them c(>uld have xevy nearly dont' so without any assistance: S(j having connnended my agent for his rigid attention to my general directions, I gave him more ])artieular ones for his further guidance, fixing the standard at somewhere about six years old, so as to avoid at any rate the necessity of having to carry a feeding-bottle amongst our stal)le furniture, and told him to try again. That evening we dined with onr friends Xo. II. and passed another most pleasant evening. The All)atross had at last arrived in the river wlien we called in for news on the third day, but had missed the tide, and so couldn't come up till early the f(jllow"ing morn- ing. Our hopes Ijeing thus raised, we went on to our host of the preceding evening, according to an arrange- ment which he had made with us to help us through a ditliculty which had newly arisen — at his suggestion. It appeared that to ensure our safe passage through the less frequented districts which we would have to traverse, we would require a certificate of respectal)ility from some one in authority ; the general opinion being that that some one was the Prefet of Bordeaux. I nuist own that the sugges- tion was rather a shock to our feelings: apart from the fact that I had provided myself with a passport with the Lion and Unicorn in all their glory at the top of it, and a great deal about Lord Salisbury and a very little about Peggy and myself underneath, which, like an English bank-note, 24 TJie Voijar/c of the E scar got. (lULjlit to have canied us anywhere, our respectability wa.s a tliini: which it had never so much as occurred to us to (juestittn, and we felt somewhat liurt at the bare pdssibihty of anybody else doing it for us: but on con- sidei-ation we retlected that, in the first place, we were going to i)lac('S that niiglitn't, in the received sense of the wold, l»e counted as anywliere ; and secondly, that we were going to be caravan people, and it was just probable that some of tlie less enlightened aborigines of the interior might feel uneasy about their hen - roosts till tliey had had the advantage of a more than merely visual acquaint- ance witli us. So we liad gulped down our pride, and accepte(l our friend's offer of his managing clerk to see us tln-ough the business. The managing clerk was all ready for us; l)ut witli Peggy as interpieter, we got to understand ejich other perfectly ; and brsides that, lie knew exactly wliat he had been told otl to do for us ]>eforehand, which saved quite seventy-five per cent of j)reliminary conversation. So we lost no time, and left the oiiice at 11.30. We couldn't find the Prefet of J'.iirdraux, because, as was only naturally consistent with thf dignity of liis station, he w"asn't at the Prefecture; he had gone into the country fr>r the chase: but after explor- ing the building from cellar to garret, and making our way into several wrong oiliees, and being mistaken for i lit fUi ling emigrants, and parents of convicts wishing to take ;i last farewell of their erring sons before they were shi]»pfil (ilf to Xew Caled<»nia, and for parties about to many, and tnr a lot of other tilings, we at last found till- light cjfik, and our interpreter made him a long oration all almut what we had come for; to which, after he had li-^tened attentively throughout, he replied that it Our Transactions at Bordeaux. 'ZO Wiis ail adiiir of wliich lu' could not take the res])oiisiltiIity, and we must go to the Coiiiniissary of I'oliee. It was then one o'elock, and we began to feel that we wanted some luncheon. However, we determined to per- severe, and went oil" to the east end of Bordeaux to the Central Police Station, where, on endeavouring to effect an entrance by the main door, we were told by the soldier on guard that we couldn't go in there, as the Commissary was holding a party, and we must go round l)y the side- door. I took the opportunity of running into a pastry- cook's shop on the way and purchasing a franc's worth of biscuits. AVe found the side-door, but it was the wrong- one, and we plunged into the guard-room where the portion of the police who were off duty were eating their lunch. One of them rose, however, and put us back again into the riglit track, when our guide had explained all over again what we wanted, through another door at the back, which he shut behind us immediately we had passed through. There was only one other door out of the yard in which we now found ourselves, so we made for that, and came to a passage with three more doors. Our guide knocked at one of these, and a man put his head out and told us we must wait till they had finished what they had on hand in there just then. So we sat down on the edge of a coal -box wliich was in the passage, and waited. Time, 1.30 P.M. We ate all our biscuits, and wished we had brought some more, the more especially that a very appetising savour of beef-steak and onions made itself apparent through that door. There was not much to amuse ourselves with in that passage : one of the doors was studded with nails — perhaps it was a cell ; there were three hundred and fifty-seven nails in it ; D 2(5 llie Voyage of the Escavgot. 1\'>4U"V saitl tlu'iv wore thiw liuiulred ami sevoiity, l»ut I think I was riuht — ihive Imiulretl and fifty-seven. And at a ({nailer ]iasl two then' eanie a rattling, ^vhich miglit liave been eliains, l>nt whieli sounded more like plates; and then the man ])ut his head out again, and told us we might eome in. Theie were two otlu'r men seated at desks in a very small room, about twiee the size of u ship's eahin: our guide rushed at one. who referred him to the other, and he poureil forth the whole of our history for the third time. Then the man said it was not a matter for him at all, and we must go to thi' Claire. r>y the time we reaehed the ]\Iairie, whieh, as far as I t-ould locate it, lay at the extreme other end of the town, it was just twenty minutes past three, and being the Maire's fi'tf day, or some other equally im})ortant publie anniversary, they were just pre})aring to eelebrate the occasion by ])utting up llie shutters with a view to an early closing. Hut I tliink our eonductor was beginning by this time to feel as desperate as ourselves: he seizeil on the first clerk we came aeross, got between him and his hat, and refused to let him It'avc tliat jilaee till lie had granted us our desire, Tlie ollicial cowered beneath his vehemence, and reluctantly admitted that it was in his })ower to ilo sometliing for us, liui we must first lake our jtassport to a sworn translator, get him to turn it into French, and then ])ring it back to lie witnessed and slamjied liy llie ]Maire. So we let liim g", and went on our way to lind a sworn translator. We foinitl nne under tlie arcade of the (Jpera-House : he was a veiy auneial'le little man, in ap]>earance something like leinien's apMihecary, and ])romised not only to have the Maiislatinn leaily in two days, but also to get all the neces- sary witnessing and stamj)ing done for us; so we left our Our Transfictioits at Boi'den/ii,!-. 27 j»ass|)(»iL ill liis cliJir^c, and dcjtarUMl rcjoicini:. Then it was lialt'-pasl i'oiir. \\v tliaiikcd our i. wlialevcr that might have l^een ; l)Ut seeing it was I — .iiid Janifs: So a'_'rfeablf' did James seem to have made Our Transactions at Bordeaux. 29 liimst'lt' on tlie voyajj;*', — lie eonciMled a ])()int and eonscnlctl. James wantctl to lick him all over too. Then I had to take James to tlu' dovjinc and pass him throngh there, whieh 1 ('fleeted with the aid of my special General Steam clerk, who was all ready there to hel]) me ; and having satisfied them, first, that he was not a wolf — ])ure collies seemingly not lieing iiK'hided in the French lists of the canine species — and secondly, that he had no si)irits or tohacco concealed ahout him, I took him to the hotel, where, after he had knocked Peggy y my predecessor in the caravan, and had taken careful measure- ments and approximate weights in English before we left ;30 The Voijrff/e of the Escargot. hoiiu', wliic-li, willi the aid of a Frciicli dictionary a])pendix, I had ()ceu]ii('d my Icisuu' time whilst "sve were waitinj^^ at I'xiicU'aiix ill iviideriiiL;' into metres and kilogrammes; so iKiw \vi' tiMik llu' result of my calculations into the General Steam Otlice, and went oU" to fill up the interval with our (•thcr liusiiu'ss. ()ur cx-eiiachman had made arrangements for us to house the Kseargot, when she arrived, at a livery-stable u}) at till' hack of the town, where there was a large covered cmirtyard and a ridiiig-scliool, either of which would answer the ]nii'iHist'; so now, when I had dro])ped Peggy for a while at the hotel to Continue her voluminous correspondence, I fclclicd him, and went with him to give directions to the iJN'crv-slahlc kee])er to come and fetch the caravan when she had hi ■en formally passed l)y the government olficials. 'J'hcii we went i>n to another stahlc, where there was another jiair of hoiscs on view — a lady and a gentleman — wiiicli seemed to a certain extent lucky, as Peggy and I had been discuss- ing what we sliould call our steeds when we got them, and having in a kind of way made up our minds that they W(tulil he of the two sexes, had decidetl on Jeannette and Jeannot. 1'hese specimens were certainly not too young; rpiite o\er six — evi'ii my inex})erienced eyes could see that — and rather inclined to run to l)one; l)ut they both had \cry ies]iectable histories, according to their then owner, one ha\iiig belongeij to a mar([uis and the other to a duke ; aiiara])liernaha to take up our quarters in tlie Eseargot, and get shaken down into her, so to speak, l)efore we really set oh" on our journey. The vet met us at tlie stahles, and ])roiioun('ed tlie horses sound, so far as lie eould see; so, as oui' agent was waiting up tliere too, in more or less of a state of anxiety as to tlie verdict — so he said — we sent him off' at once to tell the dealer to send the steeds round; which he did with the utmost alacrity, sending a written war- lanty with tlicni as to their soundness and ca])ahility for work. Tlu'ii we went hack into town again, and hought a great many more what Peg said were aVisohite necessaries — about as many, it seemed to me, as we had l)ought as ])ositively last tilings to make eveiything comjdete lu'fore — for the journey ; and on the way hack to the staliles we called on hoth sets of our fiiends and left P.P.C cards, and then bought a franc's worth of tell -centime ])ostcards, which we took home and caiefully iille(| up with our route for the next three weeks Onr furf/icr Ti ansact'unis at Boi'dcau.r. .'57 or so, with tlii''i»riiici]ial ])lac('s for our friends to send letters to, to wait for us — as we were intending' to start on the ^Monday. That nin'lit Te^i;' cooked lier first dinner — onieletti; and eut- U'ts, a _ii;n'at eulinaiy success, except that the een a fool than a knave; but still nolxxly, except per- haps on the s])ur of the nionient and immediately after the event, likes to acknowledge that he has Iteen made a fool of; and it is only a stern sense of duty towards all otliei- intending caravanists that compels me here to state tliat o)i that })articular occasion at Bordeaux I was made an out-and-out fool of, without the smallest mistake ahout it. Tlie astute reader will proljably have guessed already that the elementary factors of this folly were the horses; and thi' astute reader, as usual, is riglit. To cease heating about tlie busli, then, and to go straight to the centre of matters: tliough I had bought more than one horse, or pony, as tlie case might be, before that, and liad invariably suffered in the process, to the extent of losing at least a third of \\\\ money wlien I sold them again, owing to some elaborate and unsuspected defect in them that had esca])ed evervl)ody's notice exce])t tlie l)uyer's, yet I had iM'Vt'r had sucli an un])romising pair of screws palmed off on me before. On tlie Sunday afternoon, as I ha\e already mentioned, \ve Jmd them out in tlie livery - stable brake, and they liad liehaved very decently; on tlie Monday we weie originally delayeil in our ])roi)osed start by the collars \vhieh I had orch-red f(»i' tliem not Ix'ing ready; but to till u]i time, w( — that is, the livery-stable keei)er, our agent, Iwi) siahlr-heljx'is, and myself — took tliem for another s])in in tlif bi;ike about ten o'clock in tlie morning. They a<'eoiiiplislie(l a wvy fair trot this time, but they W(»uldii't do aiiytliiuL;- lictweeii that and a dead sto]), which was in- (■on\i'iiifi)t, as (if course, when on (»ur travels, we should want to do iiioif walking than anvthing else. However, Our fnrtJicr Transactions at Bordean.v. :5!) on (lur iclurii to tlu' yard wt' nave tliciii the cliancc of rc- trit'viiiu,' tiicir character by })Uttiii^ tliein, with their hor- rowed collars, to the Escurgot, whose weight, of course was not comlucive to too inucli trotting; but under these circumstances they ])ositively refused to move at any pace, or in any direction except backwards : that indeed they did with such goodwill that it really began to seem advis- able to harness them in hind part before, had it not been that caravan travelling in itself was calculated to excite (piite sutUcient remark amongst the inhabitants of the more rural districts of the country, without adopting any such extraordinary methods of stiuudating it. Xo amoinit of whi])])ing or leading could induce them to go properly ahead : during the first attempt we steadily retrograded from the gate to half-way back along tlie yard ; and when, after a pause of some nnnutes to give them an opportunity of thinking better of it, we made a second, it only ended in o\ir 1 (ringing up short against the C(jach-house doors at the extreme back end, to the no small danger of its and the Escargot's paint. It was quite clear that I had Iteen '"had": I looked to our agent for an explanation, but he declared that he hail never been so surprised in his life, and he had l)een in the iKn'se-dealiuL;; line himself for over tliirty-five years; and he took upon himself to l)egin to censure me for having paid the dealer before I had kept the horses for some little time, which, considering that I had diuie so on the understanding, from him, that that was the law, written or unwritten, in Erance, I thought was rather good. However, there was only one thing to be done, and that was to get my money back, or else another pair of horses in exchange for these; preferably the former, as I had no 40 Tlie Vo\ja()e of tha Escargot. threat aialtition for ^uinji; to tlie same dealer ai to secure as full (Mimjieiisatioii as ])ossible for my wrongs, by ki'epjng, at any rate, as much as I (•()uld get, if only to make up my loss by weight: so with the aid ()>()' fni'tJir)' 7'r((itS(fctl]clcly out of the ([uestion. The mare had jti'obably been worked in u genllemairs carriage at some lime or aiiolliei', but now that the iirst effects of her doctoring had worn of!', \\;is e\ ideiitly not up to drawing the Escai'got, Onr fiirtlicr T)'(nisacfio)is at n, the I'esult of our idtimatum was that the dealer ])ositively refused to do anything further towards the redress of his misdoings. l)e L went with nu; accordingly to his lawyer, and the next thing to be done was to hold a trial next day of the original i)air l)efore two witnesses of well- known probity ; in which trial the horses behaved quite as they were wanted to do — viz., they stood ])erfectly still and decdined to budge an inch either way this time. I was gen- erous and threw in the alternative })air, to give the dealer the l)enetit of the doubt ; l)ut tliey were likewise perfectly ini- moN'able, from sheer inanition. Then we returned to the lawyer, and drew np an affidavit, or anyway the French equivalent for it, to that effect, and he remanded us till the following jMonday. At the end of the appointed ])eriod, when we went to call upon him, howcAcr, he told us that he had been in the meantime making inquiries, and interposed the advice, which I consider was particularly disinterested on his ])art, that I slunild go no further in the ])roceedings, as he had discovered that the dealer was a man of straw, put u]) by other miscreants of a still baser sort; so that a trial, after probably kee])ing us in liordeaux for perhaps three or four months, might only end in his being shut up, through inability to pay — which certainly would have l)een no more than his deserts, l)ut wouldn't give me back my money. I must plead guilty to a certain want of public si)irit on this occasion, but I really hardly saw that I was bound to 44 Tlie Voyacje of the E scar (jot. spend my Iidliday in l)iing-in;j; French swindlers to justice for tlieni. ])e L and his lawyer taking quite the same ])usillani- mous view of the matter as I did, the only course remaining was to get rid of my screws for what they would fetch, or give them in i)art payment for some new ones. Here again de L was of inestimable assistance to us: with him I s})ent the next week in making a second tour of stahles in liordeaux, l)Ut this time of a higlier class than before. I found myself, though a (piite recent arrival, one of tlie most famous persons in horse-dealing circles in Bordeaux; one or two of tlie dealers even went so far as to ask de L if he thought I could be taken in again as easily, but a glance from him soon convinced them that he, at any rate, was not to be trilled with; and I was now admitted into the inmost sanctums of the various stables, with the result that I began to have a considerably more favourultle impression of the vendalile horseflesh of IJoi'deaux than I might otherwise have taken away with me. The chief difficulty that we found in doing any business with them was the getting rid of the ]»air of white el(']»liants that I had eating tlieir heads off in the livery stable, — 1 had already, l)y the lawyer's advice, sent back the second jiair, he being of o]»inion, tliougli very reluctantly, that I had no right to keep them as a makew"eight : two or three dealers with whom we had xcvy nearly come to terms, whfu tiicy iiad been up to look at my goods, fought shy of the liaigain at that ])oint, hinting that those sort of articles iiiiL^ht be iiKuIc to sell, liut wei'c ceitaiiily not made to buy; and r cjiii't say that I very much wondeicd. J5ut at last, afttT iinicli ])cise\'ei'ance, we came aci'oss a dealer who said, that scfjiiu it was to olilige de T, , he would so far sacri- fice his reputation for sagacity as to take them o\-er from me Oni' I'd I'thci' TrcDisavtioiis at Bordcrtti.r, 45 at just a third of the ])ric(' I had Li'i veil for tlu'iii,()ii coiKUtinii (if my jtayiiiL!,' him the halaiicc for a pair of iiiie-lookiii^ slroiiL!; IJrctoii marcs whit-h he liad for disposal. De L approNcd of tht' mares, and so (Ud his particular vet, and the mares themselves, Nvhen ])Ut to the Escar<^ot, ])r(»\\'d themseh'es eapal)le of ])ullini;' her about quite easily; and so on the second Saturday after we ought to have started, the ])idspects of our expedition were considerably brightened, though at a most extravagant expenditure on the item of ex])erien(H'. ^Meanwhile, however, we had not been altogether wasting our time in other ways during our enforced sojourn at Bor- deaux ; indeed there was some consolation, however small, to l)e gained from the fact that if it had not l)een for that enforced sojourn, we should have started on our journey only to find out a great many trivial defects in lioth our ecjuip- meiit and our method of managing it when it would lia\e been less convenient to us to do so. It is very well to know how a thing ought to turn out theoretically, but it not at all unfre(|ueiitly tloes turn out something very different practi- cally. The livery-stable keeper and his wife were a very nice littk' cou})Ie, a gentleman's late coachman and lady's- maid, who had married and set u}) in lousiness on their own account, and were very ready to help us in every way. I attended the stables chiefly in the intervals while de L recruited himself from his labours in my liehalf with a spell of office work, and got a great deal of practical useful know- ledge from little L the liusband, in the care and manage- ment of the horse — my first pair, till I g(it rid of them, l)eiiig suitable for experimenting on, if for nothing else. I also did a good deal of carpentering work of a. lesser description, in the way of brackets, drawer partitions, &c., itc. Peggy set 4G TIh' Voijage of the Escargot. herself to study eodkery mider the (fuidance of jMadaiiie L , and not only mastered the art of ^w/ an feu and other French luxuries, l)ut, what was perhaps more useful still, hecame comparatively well versed in the tricks of the market, going out shopi)ing with iVIadame every day with a view to learning how not to 1)e im])osed u])on. James was very ha])])y in the stal)le-yard, having found a donkey, which he regarded as his special property — he has one at home which doesn't do much l)esides play with him — and the two used to si)end tlie whole day racing uj) and down the yard, playfully sna])])ing at one another and tunil)ling over one another, much to the delight of the stahlemen, who passed a good deal of their time — French stahlemen generally seem to have ])lenty of time too — in watching them and encouraging them to further antics. Tlie two started off on an excursion into the town on their own account one day, the donkey having no douht volunteered to show James round; l)ut their al)- sence was s])eedily discovered l)y the stahlemen, and they were hrought l)ack ignominiously l)efore they had crossed the nearest stjuare. But the chief thing which we discoAered, and we were very glad we did so, was — well, not exactly the necessity, hut the advisahility, of luning a man or hoy to assist us in (lui- various work. What witii the cooking, and the cleaning, and the looking after tiu^ horses, it appeared very evident that if we (Hd all of them entirely ourselves, we would liave \crv little time left to enjoy ourselves: as soon as tlie morn- ing inutiiic had l)een got through, the afternoon one had to he Iteguu, and when that was finished, we had to get to W(»rk on the eNcning one. And yet there ai'c ])eo])le who can't see that a sei'vant's life is not the ])leasantest life in the woild 1 Our fnrtlicr Tiriiisdctunis at liordcro/.r. 47 A\'(' hadn'L Nt'i'V t'ur to y the iiiaj^niitieeiiee of his voiee while sinu'ilijj; at his Work, as was his lial)it: he ehielly atl'ected (•})eratie airs, and lie rendered them in a way that, if cultivated, would have hrouj^dit him a fortune on the stajje — really. Tiien he in his turn took a great fancy to us, and was always doing us little services in a shy (juiet way, till he really t[uite won our hearts: and our resolution to get a man and his arrangement to leave L coinciding, we proposed to him that he should come with us. He jum}ied at the idea, and immediately set to work to make i)reparations f(»r coming. But there were unfortunately dithculties in the way: he revealed to us that he was the eldest son of a ]tostmaster in the Pyrenean dis- trict, and till within a year Ijefore, he had acted as postilion to his father's horses, heing excused from military service I'V reason of his l)eing the soudcn dr famillc ; l)ut he had left his house on account of a tpiarrel with his father, who Would not consent to his marrying the girl of his choice; aiul of course l>y the law of France, being a mere stri})ling of tiiirty or thereabouts, he could not marry without his father's coiisrnt. Now, before he co\dd go with us, he had to get lfa\i' and the jirojier pa})ers from the ]\Iaire of his village — such are the glorious |)rivileges (»f living in a free and en- lightened llejiultlic ; and so he took his dejiarture thither for that jiurposc, in the highest of spirits, for he was as much infatuated with the ])ros})ect of tiie journey as we were oni'>rl\-es. I'.ut alas for the free and enlightened la-jaddic! — al least fiMiu the benighted and o]ij)ressed outsider's ])oint of view — he ifiuiiifd ill two days with a downcast countenance, reporting that thf lea\e and the papers had both been refused bv tin- ]\Iaire. on tiie iriound that as soiifiiii ih: Oxr ftirthci' Transactions at Bordcan.i'. 41) fdiitillr lit' must I'ciiiiiiii in liis own village; indeed tlie Maire hadn't known till then that lu' had Ix'cn away from his villa'u'e, and had ordered iiis instant return on ]»ain of imprisonmt'nt, with full military service to follow, for ha vim;- violated the conditions of his exemption. We sul>- _i;-ested that he would be sustaining liis family as well, if not ])erhaps better, by coming with us, as there was an institution known as the I'euny Post, by means of which he coulil ])erfectly well transmit a portion of or all his wages, if necessary, to his ])arents ; but he had Ijeen l)old enough to represent that to the Maire himself, and had l)een all but ordered off to solitary confinement at once, for presum- ing to argue with the authorities: no, the souticn dc famille nnist live with his parents, even if he had to live on his parents, and he must be back in a week; so there was an end of it, and we had to give up all hope of obtaining poor Emile's services, greatly to our nuitual regret. One good, howe\'er, arose out of it for him, which was that his parents were so frightened at the idea of their poor unprotected Ijoy leaving them, either as a soldier or else to be carried off by wicked people in caravans, that as an extra inducement to his remaining at home they had consented to his marriage at the end of the next year, which was a considerable source of consolation; but he nevertheless would have pre- ferretl, he said, to have come with us, to earn some money really to start us fair from his yard-gates, Emile to ]iilot us ahjiig the boulevards, and Joseph, of course, as ananged, to accompany us to the end of our journey as groom, head Ixjttle-waslier, &c., as required. AVe left ])oor Madame L at the door of lier hous(! in tears, lliougli ho])ing we would Jiot come l)ack again too soon, which was meant well, l)ut at first sight sounded a little odd. L ;.\ Rc*Ui'j: .Bory the town trallie, was very considerable, and we found it rather didleult to find our sea-leas.s(Ml the fii-st deciphcralilc kiloiiictn'-stoiu', ten kiloiiictrcs in the very fair time of out' hour; then \\i\ niatlf L!;ootl ut u]) with: Peg, iiowever, says, Xo, this is the ^Metrojtolc (tf tiie future in its chrysalis state. Jnscjih ]iro\t'd invaluable. The }nd]ter ])\d)lic stables were full, but he blarneyed the landlady into letting us ])ut our uiares up in her private stal)le — really nothing luit a sjied with piinie\al litter kneaded together in a soil of ])aste on the llooi', and a laiider fixed horizontally and at an aiigli- along niie wall to serve as a manger. The litter is all jtut into a ]>it dug out of the floor, so that all the Ihn'dcdii.t' tit Massod P)arsao tho soonory was iniiu'ovod l>y a distant viow of tho mountains on tho otlior sido of tho Garonno to our loft. AVo liad a lonij; hill — whioli tho niaros did not tako so woll as yostorday. luit wo oxousod thoni on aooount of thoir oxortions at tlio outsot of tho day's journoy — thon a lionililo liit of stony road, anil thou wo oauio to Lanixon. Horo wo had to cross tlio Garonno. Wo found tho hrid;_;o, a \i'ry narrow susponsion-hritlm'. so narrow in- dooil tliat at lirst si^ht it didn't lodk as if our ^'i^rht foot two of axlo Would ;j;ot through ; but wo had to go ovor. or fail in i>ur ontor}>riso of gotting to the sunny soutii : so wo wont at it. .Toso}«h driving, and I going backwards in front of tho niaros. ready to eall out if there was any sign of cither of tho axle-lioxos bringing up against the }>iors. I woidilu't haNo had my finger l>otwoon those boxes and those piers if 1 had been ]vud for it; but we got through — that was the Lrrcat thing — and ]iassod over, with a magniticent view of the Garonne rolling beneath us. to Sto Macaire on tho other Md.-. AVo halted just lioyond Sto ^facairo. at a ]>lace where tluf.' ways met. for lunch. There were very few jicojilo a!„,ut — it is Very odd how few ])oo[ile there iiavo as yot • •\fr bfcn about in these French ]tlaies ; there wore (^nly \\\>> \ i.-ibli' to the naked eyo in tiio whole of Lmgou — hero thiie w,(- at first only one small buy. and he went and fetched the .itiiers. consisting of his father, mother, aunt, -i-ter. and b,il>y nf unknown sex, to cMme and look at us. Tht-y t"ld u- We ( i.uld jmt u]> tho mares at a chdf.c"i' hard li<)i'(J<'(i ii.c to ^fn r/i(Oit(/('. 01 liy — which \V(; ihou^^'hL Wits a very nice iclic of th<- old (lays wlicii ('\-t'iT ;j;ciitl('iiiaii aiid Dohlfiuaii kcj^L ojicii house t'oi' any one who cared to ask for it; hut the ja'ojti-ictoi- of I he dii'(fr(tii proNcd to ]»(' ;i hi;j,hly I'csjx'ctahlc jtaity in the market - uardcninL:; line, wjiose chief claiiu to the title r^f rhdtdd.iii was that his dwelling; had two stor(;ys to it. Ifow- e\fr, he recei\-e(| us A'ery hroperly fit tlie liames we l)rought from England, and the latter kept sli])ping ofl" and galling the mares' necks. Bordeaux to Marmande. 63 However, we })atehed tlieni up for the time Ijeing witli some s})are umbrella-straps we liad on Ijoard, and so went on hy a rather better road, over which we managed to pick np a little of our lost time. The road was nnicli prettier in this part, wooded slopes coming right down to it on tlie left, and continuing from it down to the rail- way below us on the right. We crossed a little river — I think the Uordogne — and then came to a village, as it was beginning to grow dark, on a very steep hill, which we liadn't expected from the old lady's description of our coming difiiculty, and failing in our attempt to take the hill at a run, brought up about half-way up it, in the very midst of the village infant-school, whicli was just turning cnit. However, the little innocents seemed to be quite used to this sort of thing, and not nearly so anxious for their lives and limbs as we were ; indeed, in a moment from their first appearance they seemed to be gambolling about amongst the very wheels and hoofs of the mares. "We hailed the head infant, who told us of a renfort to be had at the bottom — it seemed that the old lady had either forgotten or not looked on this as a hill w^orth counting ; the bad liill was still to come, and this was only the place to get the renfort. AYe had been slowly receding all this time from our own weight ; and now, as there was no room to turn safely, we let ourselves go altogether, and backed dow^n to the bottom to the renfort' s door. This renfort was built on exactly the same pattern as the other one : we engaged it and its owner for this and the next hill ; and then having backed a little farther for a run, took the hill in grand style amid the cheers of the juvenile crowd. We continued on with our team of three for some distance, and it grew quite dark and we lighted up, but it was so black G4 The Voyage of the Escargot. that we could scarcely make out even the figure of the ren- forticr as he sat sideways on his horse, jogging along ahead of us. He had l)ells, which was fortunate, as we met a lot of carts, drawn ])y liullocks dressed in the curious wliite night- shirt sort of garment of the country, coming home from their work, and it would have l)een rather a had look-out if we had collided with them ; but we passed them all safely with a cheery Good night, as often as not in a woman's voice, from each of them. One advantage of the darkness was that the mares did not see the hill, and our first intimation of it was the rcnforticr hailing us to tell us we were at the top, and there was no need for him to come any farther, as now we had f)nly to go down all the way to La IJeolle. I paid him what [ thought just, l)asing my calculation on what we had given the former man, and on his demurring, gave him all the small change we had left between us; Imt he went on demurring, so I told him I couldn't give him any more, as I liadn't any more change, at which he retired grumbling, and we thought we had got rid (»f liim. Rut as we were going gingerly down the hill with the brake hard on, we heard his liells sounding l)ehind us: he had changed Ids ]iiiiid, and was coming in pursuit of us. He bore us no ill feeling, liowever ; for, first, when we were just on the point of taking tlu; wrong road into the town, he shot ])ast us and warned us of our mistake, and tlieii when we had recovered llic riglit track and gone a little farther, we suddenly came u]ion him standing by a Ijlaze of light from an ojx-n sta1)le- i\iti\y, wliither he had preceded us to prepare for our coming. The stable was good, Init there was no good ])lace for the I->s('argot, oidy on the edge of a very steej) end)aid\'ment, without iiny ])ara])et, where the slightest shake, e\'en James's toilet in the morning, might have precipitated us in fragments Bordeaux to Mnrniande. 65 into the lower town Ijelow. Just then an old lady came up and told us that she didn't as a rule let stabling, but seein ; she will take anything tliat is given her : since then she has eaten all her Imm-mash, and done her best to get at ]\Jary Ann's, so we don't think there is much to be afraid of al)out lier. "NVe have received some slight abuse from people who wanted to come down the lane, and called out to us t(j make room for them, but they have all cooled down when, finding we jtaid no attention to them, they have come on, and had plenty of room to spare to pass us after all. AVe are just going to retire to rest ; it is close on midnight. I hope this l)Out of Mary Ann's won't last long; but the thing is clear, we shan't get away to-morrow. ' ■*^'^*"'"' ^^^Y' CHAPTER YI. OF OUIl SOJOUKN AT MARMA^"DE. Friday/, Dec. 20. — Here we are still at Mannaiide. ]\Iaiy Ann is a little better to-day, l)nt hasn't eaten much, so we can't h()})e to get away even to-morrow. AVe spent the morning, Peggy cooking and I cleaning: we went out to the liutcher's and bought a large piece of beef, for I'eggy to make into a 2^ot cm feu, which, not even allowing for its being her first attempt by herself, has been a tremendous success. I discovered a new kind of pump : one sits (,)n the top on a sort of piston, and the water conies. I began a good many acquaintances at the pump, whicli we may have to develop if we stop here any length of time, as we are rather be- ginning to fear, from what the vet says, we may liave to do, I was rather surprised at first to find how little excitement we caused ; but it seemed that we were generally supposed to be })art of the fair which happens to l)e going on here at present. I gave the Escargot a good sweeping-out, and put down an old bit of carpet — which our predecessors have left for us in the fodder-ljox — over our new one, as we find that K 74 llie Voyrifn' of tlie Escanjot. y the side of the Claronne, and saw a great nund)er of peo])le fishing, almost as many as one would see in an e(pial stretch of the Thames on a Siniday, and they seemed to l)e having about tlie sauK^ amount of luck. When we came to the bridge, aflei' altout a mile's walk, we climt>ed u]) on to it, and there met a mf)st agreeable clerk of the works, who showed us oNcr it with great ])ride ; liut it was only 700 metres long after all : Jose]»h had made? a mistake of a 0, so we can't go home jind tell oui' fiieiids that we have seen a bridge much loiigei' ilian any other biidge after all, as we had hope(l a remarkalile and unex])lained })ro])ensity for wriggling like a snake towards the bed and getting cockled u]) in hea])s for us to entangle our legs in and tund)le over. I cut my lingers very badly doing tiiis somehow, which is a thing I have never done beforf^ with a carpet: Jose])]i came to the fore, as he is lieginning to do on all occasions now, and strongly advi.sed me to ])Ut on a bran-mash ; but this seemed to me to lie worthy of lieing reservelaisti'r. In the afteiiioon Peg and James and I went for a walk in the town. James insisliMl on going into all the shojis to look lound. and generally got something thrown at him, but he went on doing il all the same. "We went to the post-ofUcc Our Sojourn at Marinande. 77 to get four stall!} )s and five post-cards, and we liad to wait five-aiid-twenty iiiiiiutes for them, as half the population of jMarinande seemed to he in there learning to write, and the other half helping them, and nothing would induce the officials to take us out of our turn even for such a modest recpiest as we had come on. James filled up his time with a tight with four other dogs under the office tahle, which nearly resulted in our heing turned out altogether. Then we went along the Route de Toidouse to survey what sort of road we are going to have in the future. "VVe met a lot of peo])le who l)egged from us — they didn't look in the least as if they wanted anything, but I suppose they thought there was no harm in trying ; and a man drawing his own caravan himself, but he didn't look a very inviting sort of individual, so that our fellow-feeling didn't carry us to the point of fraternising with him. We returned home by the boule^'ards and railway station, and found that two gendarmes had been down on the Escargot like wolves on the f(jld ; l)ut Joseph was all there in our aljsence, and they proved to Ije only friends of the proprietress of the Hotel de France come from motives of private curiosity, and when Joseph, who had just cleaned the Escargot thoroughly outside and in, had shown them round, had gone away highly delighted, not to say envious of our manner of life, after the manner of the policemen in '• The Pirates of Penzance." AVe gave Mary Ann some vinegar and salt this evening ]ty way of whetting her appetite, which we poked down her throat on a duster wrapped round the end of a stick, and cleaned her teeth with. The hotel proprietress's husband came in to lielp us again, and got his fingers bitten during the operation ; l)ut he was quite pleasant about it, and almost went so far as to say he liked it. We have had more people 78 The Voyage of the Esc argot. shouting; at us to j^et out of the way tliis evening, and we have also heen much gratified by hearing a nianiina who was taking an unwilhng child home from the fair, threaten to give it to the " great nasty people in the caravan," meaning us. I have l)een cleaning out the patent filter, which is a Work of some elaboration and patience, and involves coating one's self over with a good deal of dift'erent kinds of charcoal. James is sleeping in the stable to-night. He is at present singing himself to sleep. Sunday, Dec. 22. — Dull. "We had a great deal of rain in the night. ]\Iary Ann is much better to-day and is picking a bit, l»ut it still looks very doubtful whether we shall even get away to-morrow. Joseph went to church at the cathedral this morning, and made inquiries for us, but reported that there is a Pi-otestant service here only once a-nionth. The carpet began its old tricks this morning, l)ut we settled the matter liy taking it up altogether for the day, as it is as well to make some difference on Sunday. "We have been improving our acipiaintance to-day with our neighl)Ours in the lane, who are enjoying a well-merited rest from tiieii' weekly labour to-day. James has l)een the medium l)etween us and most of them : lu; goes after the cats^only wanting to i)lay with them, as he does witli his own })rivate kitten at lionie, l)Ut they don't look at it in that liglit — and ])ursues them to tlie I'efuge of their own door- steps or dust-heaps; then we go aftei' him, and when we come up with him at the doorstep or (hist-hea]), as the case may be, ;i])ologise and explain to the owiiei' of tlie eat, and tiie thing is done. There is a baker, who has spent a good part of his oy : and an old gentleman just opposite to us next the stables, wlio can hardly be said to be taking a rest, as his chief occupation on other days is bringing out a plank and standing on it on his doorstep in the sun, and he has been doing very much the same all day to-day. I don't think they quite know what to make of us ; indeed I fancy they are very much inclined to think that we are not all that we ought to be, as they can't understand people travel- ling in caravans with no ostensible object but to get in course of time to a certain far- distant place ; but for all that, they are very friendly, and Peg and I have picked up a lot of the colloquialisms of the country that we have never had any opportunity of learning yet, and may prove very useful to us hereafter. In the afternoon we took James for a walk. The place was swarming with orphan establishments, all out walking two and two in the greatest order and regularity, which James disturl)ed to a great extent by getting mixed up with the orphans' legs, and creating panics ; and we felt it our duty to chastise him summarily, if only to show that we weren't acconq)lices in his evil doings. He also had three fights with other dogs. We sat for some time on the river-bank, which was very peaceful : all the fishers had gone away for their holiday, and there was nothing to mar the natural beauty of the Ijroad river rolling on between its banks except ourselves and one man in a boat of primitive con- struction, in which he rowed backwards — that is, forwards 80 Tlie Voyafje of the Escarcjot. — and 8(tiiie ueese. Then \ve went across tlie Itridge to- wanls S]»ain. We were going along on the other side when suddeidy a two- wheeled cart dashed past ns with Jacqnes l>onhoninie, liis wife, and all liis own and liis wife's sisters and consins and aunts crammed into it, not to s}>eak of their children jammed into the interstices to complete tlie i»acking, all drawn l)y one pony of small stature hut great heart. We were almost envying tlieir enjoyment, for they did seem thoroughly liap})y, when suddeidy the near wheel came off, and in an instant they were all in the ditcli, a struggling indistinguishable mass of humanity. "We ran to help tliem out and iiKpiire if any of them were hurt, I tut they all came u}) smiling at first, and tlien when they had quite recovered themselves, all fell abusing each other, and tlie lessor of the cart and })oiiy, and everyljody they could think of, and finally James, who, they declared, had frightened the l>ony, which was rather good, as he had been about fifty yards ahead, over the embankment, and for once in his life, as far as we could see, hadn't been in any mischief. So we left them to get their cart and themselves home by themselves. "We got home aliout .').30, and since then have lieen writing letters before and after dinner. The ]\Iissus is in roaring health and quite! //(^aV-, Joseph says, which, being inteipreted, means that she has l)een kicking her heels all over the ]>lac('. She is to Ix' taken out for exercise to-niorrow if we (Kiii't get away. MoiKhiij^ ])((■. 2."'). — Beautiful day. Here we are still. The Missus is gloriously well; Josejih took her out exer- <'isiim this morning, looking immensely ]»roud at linding himself oil the liack of a horse again, and she ran away with him a u^ood deal of the wav back towards Bordeaux: Our Sojourn at Marmande. 81 but Mary Ann is still ailing, though she is eating slightly better. "VVe are beginning to feel just a little despondent over it, though for tlie most part resigned, and trying to forget our trouble by devising new occupations. I have l)ouglit a new clay pipe and have set to work to colour it. I have also proposed to Peg that I shall take this oppor- tunity of growing a beard — I really began the day before yesterday, but it has not been absolutely necessary to mention it to her till to-day. She has, however, strenu- ously opposed herself to this proceeding. I think she is nnich mistaken, as I believe there are a lot of good ])erths I have failed to get by reason of my youthful appearance. But we have compromised the matter: I am under a kind of vow, like the warriors of old, not to shave till we get to Toulouse, and then if she doesn't like the effect I am to cut the beard off. At present I must acknowdedge the effect is rather awful. "VVe got through the daily morning round, and I put the old carpet down, and then sat on the footboard wdth my feet on the steps reading ' Westward Ho ! ' and smoking and talking to the old gentleman on the plank opposite. Peg wrote letters. James has attached himself very closely to the old gentleman, and spends most of the morning sharing his plank with him, as he found that was aljout the sunniest spot there was for him to sit in. "\Ye are beginning to get rather nervous about whether our money will last out, as, not counting on this delay, I only brought away a limited quantity, and our stay here has almost eaten up the small margin I allowed over the esti- mated expenses to Toulouse, where is the next place I can draw money. AVe have been through what we have left, and have apportioned it out day by day, allowing for L 82 Tlie Voyage of the Escargot. our stopping here over Chri.stnias-day, as it seems pretty certain we shall have to do now. If we don't leave on the 2Gtli, we shall have to devise something else. We went for a stroll in the afternoon, intending to sit on one of the henches on the promenade overlooking the river, hut we found them all occupied hy elderly retired laljourers of the town, so we only went a little way up the road along which we came in the other day, and then came l)ack to tea. James only fought two dogs to-day. "We have written to Agen and Castelsarassin for any letters that may Ije waiting for us there. The carpet has gone wrong again this evening. I have nailed it down to the floor at the end nearest the door. Taradaij, Dec. 24. — A^ery wet. We si)rang a leak in the ventilator over the stove in the night, and T had to get up and stop it with a duster. Mary Ann lias been eating a little better to-day, but not enougli to justify a start. I was all tlie morning contriving a movable driving-seat to put on the footboard, as we have found standing all the time when driv- ing is very tiring. My labour has resulted in an arrange- ment more resendjling the ordinary milking-stool of civilisa- tion tlian anything, which wasn't (piite the design I liad in my head when T started, but I thiidc it will do. IVg divided her time between hemming S(nne new window-curtains and cooking lunch ; and we had a little excitement at luncheon- time, to vary the })resent monotony of our daily existence, in a doubt which originated with Peg as U) whether slie had dro])[)ed her needle into tlie hash, which was subse(|uciitly increased Ijy her missing her thimble also. I don't think 1 have masticated my food so well for a long time. However our doubts were eventually ]>roved U) Ix; luifounded, l)y my finding the needle in the cushion on which 1 was sitting, and Our Sojourn at Marmande. 83 the thiiuble turned up when I was putting the carpet straight again, whicli lias taken to wriggUng towards tlie door, now it lias been restrained from going the otlier way. James has been very much depressed all day. Joseph recommended him a bran-mash. We held another council of war this morning, and agreed that it would be better not to run things quite so fine if pos- sible, but try if some of the local bankers wouldn't advance us some money on our letter of introduction and circular note ; or if not, send them on as a pledge of good faith to our banker at Toulouse, and ask him to forward us an instalment by post. After lunch, therefore, we went out, and having found a banker, — it didn't seem to matter much which we began with, a snufi'y old party who lived in a sort of second- rate pawnbroker's shop, as we know it in pictures of course, up two flights of stairs, — we told him our story, which we had carefully rehearsed beforehand, with the aid of a dictionary and conversation-book, so that there might be no mistake ; to which he listened, and then said, without the slightest hesitation, that he couldn't help us, as he couldn't tell if my bankers at home were solvent. Goodness gracious ! I won- der what my bankers w(juld say if they had heard him ? ]5ut possibly we might be able to do something with the Societe Generale. We went off to the Societe Generale, and said our story all over again, pointing out to the cashier whom we interviewed that my bankers were in correspondence with other of their branches in other towns ; and a little ray of hope dawned on us — we were remanded for inquiries till half-past four. We came home feeling something the same as a criminal must do while waiting for the verdict, and filled up the time in making a beefsteak-pie for dinner. Joseph had f^one out fishing;. I think he is beginning; to understand 84 The Voyage of the Escargot. our present distress, although we haven't yet confided in him, and is trying to save us some expense by contriving small additions to our table. We got l>ack to the l)ank punctually at half-past four, and there our hopes met a crusliing Idow. A meeting of directors had been hastily summoned, and, after much discussion, had decided that they couldn't change my circular note. Nothing remained now Init to write for a rcnfort to Toulouse. We composed a letter to the banker, perfect in grammar and idiom, put the circular note with it into one envelope, and the letter of introduction into another, so as not to put all our eggs into one basket, and then having, after a consider- able hunt, and l)y a great piece of good fortune, found the oidy Toulouse directory in Marmande, through the kind offices of the cafdier who had originally welcomed us on our arrival, addressed the two envelopes, and cotmmitted them, registered, to the care of the post. If they are lost now, we shall l)e more up a tree than ever; but we must ho})e for the best. We got letters fnmi Agen this afternoon which were sent there about a fortnight ago. For the news they gave us we might as well have l)een in the Wild West of America, l)ut they were very welcome all the same. After our return from the ])Ost, the old gentleman opposite us invited us to stej) in and see his sister, who, it seems, is the Ijreadwinner of the ])air, sitting indoors all day and working hard at lace-making. She was a pleasant-spoken woman ; but their chief object in getting us to come in was that they wanted us to make large jmrchascs of lace. It was certainly very nice-looking lace, as far as I am comi)etent to judge of such things; but there was a sort of latent irony al)out it all, under our present cir- cumstances, tliat considerably tickled us. Our Sojourn at Mannandc. 85 We liave l)een finding that the American folding-tahle ^ve hought for the expedition is ratlier cunihersonie; so, to-night at (hnner, we tried our predecessor's old plan of three dovetailed planks put across from locker to locker, and secured witli tlunnhscrews on each side. The main drawback in this arrangement is that the person who sits on the inner side eitiier has to go to his place before the table is set up before and stop there till it is removed after the meal, or else climl) over or creep under it when all tlie things are on it, both of which manoeuvres are rather risky, the first being not unlikely to result in a kind of thunderbolt falling on the table, and the second in a sort of earthquake going off underneath it : still we think it is, on the whole, more convenient for two. We have been much troubled during the last two or three days by Hies, of whicli almost all that there are in jNlar- mande seem to have congregated in our little home : it is a great comj^liment, no doubt, if it may be taken to imply that the interior of the Escargot is the warmest place in the town, but we could have dispensed with it. ]\Iary Ann has really eaten more to - day, so that our hopes in that respect are beginning to go up again. To-night being Christmas Eve, Marmande appears to have gone generally on the spree. Joseph reported having been turned out of his bedroom at the Hotel de France, because it was wanted for a party to hold a rh-cillon in — receillon, we take it, is French for making a night of it — from which we gather that our factotum has been hitherto luxuriat- ing in one of the best salons of the hotel. Occasional revel- lers have been passing dow"n our lane. I won't particularise too much ; but if, as they say, a Frenclnnan very seldom gets drunk, it must be acknowledged that when he does — say once a-year — he gets very drunk indeed. I am sorry to say the 8G Jlie Voyage of the Escargot. soil of the washerwoiuiin seems to have taken a little more than is ;j;oo(l for him : lie is at this moment out in the lane tryinii; to siiii,% hut the result sounds more like an attempt to imitate James, wlio is uplifting his usual evening melody in the stable. We are just going to hear the midnight Mass. "We liave l)een to hear the midnight Mass at the Cathedral. There was an immense crowd of all classes, and all seemed to have eniiie tliere with really serious intent; so that it was rather a pity tliat our feelings were somewhat jarred upon by the mercenary proceedings of the old woman wlio let out the chairs at two sous apiece, and didn't seem to entertain the smallest feelings of compunction in pursuing people about tlu' l)uildiiig, and interrupting tliem after they had begun their prayers, to make sure they had paid lier pro- ])i'ily. I must confess I was secretly rather pleased to see a young man take advantage of one of her longer sorties to cliinb up and hand down over twenty of her chairs to his friends; and I tliink they all got away scot-free. The music was not anytliing very grand, Init once tlie cliair dis- putes liad been tinislied, it was all very solemn, and one eoulthi't hel]) a(hniring the simple faith that was evident oil the faces of all these poor people; for liy far the larger majority of tliem were poor, tliere being only a very few sinits ill the front of the ceiitn; aisle occujiied ])y tlie Sous Prefet, the colonel of the regiment (juartered here, tiie ]\raire, and tlic otliei' grandees of the place and their families. "We stojiped til! the very end : there was a fearful crusli coming oui. as only one small door was opened for the whole of the coiigregjiiion, but we got through it all right, and have just got iionie. The night is beautiful: the rain has quite cleared otf, and the niooii is shining brightly, which is a good thing. Our Sojourn at Marmande. 87 as Marmande is as badly lighted as any of the other places we have passed yet ; or perliaps they econonuse their gas when there is moonhglit. Wednesday, Dec. 25 {Christmas-day). — We were rejoiced this morning, on going throngh our usual matutinal formula with Joseph of " lion jour, Joseph ; " " Lon jour, monsieur et madame ; " " Et connnent va la jument ? mange-t-elle ? " to have his usual reply of " l\as beaucoup, monsieur," varied into an almost triumphant, " Oui, monsieur, tres bien ! " Mary Ann is eating, and has been out for a walk with Joseph and the Missus ; and now if our money comes from Toulouse and the weather holds, we can get away to- morrow. We took a holiday to-day, except that I took up the old carpet and put it back again into the fodder-box, as it doesn't seem that we are going to manage it anyhow. The other people in the lane took a holiday too : for the most part they, as did also the rest of Marmande, as we found when we went out for a little prowl round, spent the morn- ing in bed recruiting themselves, after their exertions last night, for further efforts in the afternoon and evening. Our old friend of the plank appeared on his wonted post in his complete Christmas get-up, which bore all the signs of hav- ing been neatly folded up ever since the last anniversary, and simply reeked of lavender — a straw hat, yellow trousers, and a blue frock-coat w^ith brass buttons of extreme antiquity ; in fact, about as antique as anything we have seen yet in Marmande. Joseph came to us this morning, and with something of an air of mystery begged us not to prepare any lunch ; but when we asked him his reason for such a remark- able — not to say, to the superficial observer, unreasonable — petition, for, besides the needs of our appetites in these 88 TJn' Voi/ar/e of the Escanjot. times of saiiuMiess, \ve have come to look forward to our meals in miuh the same manner as peoj)le do on Ixjard ship, as an aid to getting through tlie time, he C(juld con- tain liis secret no longer, and confessed to ns that he was jireparing a surprise for us in the shape of some gihkr which he had })urcliased from an itinerant vendor for three sous, and was liaving cooked for us at the hotel. We were mucli touclied hy this little proof of his devotion to us, and s])eiit tlie rest of the time speculating as to what sort of thing the fjihirr at three sous was going to turn out. We had to wait rather beyond our usual hour for lunch for it, but at last J(jse})h exultingly brought it along : it was a small l»rown l)ird, al)out the size of a small grouse, but the manner of serving it up was the gem of the whole thing: it had on its liead and all its plumage, and was seated in a very life- like attitude on the top of a large cut of fried bread, with a little cha]»let of flowers round its head, and two geraniums intertwined in its tail feathers, wliile in its mouth it carried a laige ])iece of lemon. We were doubting how to carve it, l)ut Josepli soon solved the difficulty by pulling out four skewers concealed amongst the plumage, which served to fix on the head, the tw(j wings, and the tail res])ectively, and tlie liird lay as if it was going to have its bath, and (juite ready to eat. It was very plump and very good: Jose])h called it a f/rivr, which according to our dictionary means a tlirusli ; l»ut 1 don't think it can have been that, for it tasteil more like what it looked — a kind of grouse. Josrph was very keen for us to keep the plumage and liead, wliich hi- thijjks may be worked up at some future; oecasion into sdiiicthiiig ornamental in the fire-screen way ; so n(»t to hurt bis feelings, we have stuck tliem uj) for tlie time Ix-ing over the door just inside. Our Sojourn at Marmande. 89 In the afternoon we took another walk over the sus])ension 1)ri(lue, and then struck off the roads into tlie fiekls ; but we found ourselves getting into a morass, so turned l)ack, and went through the town. James was particularly iniquitous to-day : he would chase all the children we met to take their Christmas cakes from them ; and when we had at last broken him of that, he went into all the groceries one after the other, and walked leisurely round looking at everything, as if we had all the money we wanted and had told him to choose himself a Christmas box ; and when the grocer chased him out, and I went after him to chastise him, he got betw"een an old lady and the wall, and began to roll him- self up in her carefully preserved silk dress, till he nearly upset her, and she began to call for help, and we were afraid we should have the police down on us. Of course we apologised in our very best French ; and James came home fastened by his collar to my handkerchief, and after being well punished, was given two hours' imprisonment in the stables till dinner, when we let him out because it was Christmas-day. Peg has developed a toothache this evening ; Joseph has, it is getting almost needless to state now, recommended a bran-mash. I did most of the cooking, therefore, this even- ing. The piece of resistance of our Christmas dinner was a sweetbread : by the way, we had a little adventure getting that this afternoon, as when we got to the butcher's we could neither of us recollect the French for sweetbread, and when I made a shot at iiain 8ucr6, he politely referred us to the baker. However, fortunately, just then we perceived one hanging up in a corner, so we got what we wanted by pointing at it. Then we had beefsteak and onions, though the beefsteak was really only a rib. I cried so over peeling M 90 The Voyage of the Escargot. tlidso onions that \\% l)egan to be quite frightened that I must have been suddenly overcome l)y some long-}»ent-up emotion. And we had fiery plum-pudding, and a bottle of two-t'rane wine, wiiieh of course was reckless extravagance, but one is I'xeused those sort of things at Christmas; and we toasted all our absent friends, and barring Peg's tooth- ache, had quite a festive evening, and kept it up till late, .lames has been allowed to sit up to-night, l)ut I am just going to take him across to the stable to bed. 11. oO v.y\. — The washerwoman's son is making a tiresome knocking and wailing noise outside his mother's door, calling to her to oi)en and let him in. Either the whole family has gone out, or else to bed leaving him to repent his youthful errors in tlie cold outside. T}iur>idaij, Dec. 26. — Xo answer has yet come from the liaidvcr — it could hardly be expected with yesterday Christ- mas-day — So we are still here. It rained hard last night, and the old leak brt)ke out again, and I had to get u]) and re]ieat the ])erformance with the duster. ]\Iary Ann is still going on well towards thorough convalescence: Joseph was going t(» take her and the Missus out again this morning, to try liow thi'y went with the Ixdls; l)ut it came on to rain, so he canu' back again before he had got very far. Couse- ([uently both the mares have l»een exhibiting signs of "gaiety" in their stable, rathe]- to the alarm of a little n>/ii/iiis roi/";/> I//- who has ])Ut iiis whole turn-out, })ony and call ami all, into tiie stable, and who is ])articularly nervous about the cart, whicii is rather perilously near the Missus's heels. I'oor W's bas lieen the invalid today, having l)een in bed siineriiig ollaiKl on all day with toothache, .so that except once to the cbcuiist iu the morning to get some stuff for her, Our Sojourn at Marniandc. 91 iind once to the post-ofFice iiud to get some cakes for tea in the afternoon, I have hardly been cnit at all. I did all the eookiiig to-day, — (cvfs a la idat lov liincli, and fried cutlets with ])otatoes and carrots, and rice pudding, for dinner; and thougli I say it that jwrhaps shouldn't, I think I have all the materials of a first-class clicf in me. I spent most of the rest of the day uiaking out my chart of the road, which I have finished, and in the evenins; altering the curtaiu of our hed-chamher iuto a sliding one by means of a thick piece of wire twisted threefold to make a rod. The top of the cara- van just mider the roof is fearfully hot, and I feel as if I had been working in a coal-mine : I don't think there is quite ra])id enough exit for the hot air, though we don't feel it in the least in the lower regions, about the normal level of our heads, and it does get away in time through the ventilators. I nmst tr}^ and think out some way of remedying this. Friday, Dec. 27. — Dull and (hizzling rain. Peg is all right again ; so is Mary Ann. Our rcnfort arrived this morning ; and we would have started again to-day, only that the weather has been such that we were afraid that if we did, ]Mary Ann might get another chill, and we should have all the same Ijother over again ; so we thought it l)est not to run any I'isk, and give her another day this side of recovery, and so lia\'e put off' our departure till to-morrow morning. The rcnfort from Toulouse came by the first post, in the shape of an oi'der on a private l)ank at ]\Iarmande which is in correspondence with the one at Toulouse ; and I went out at once in search of this private bank. It was a very private bank indeed, and it was a long time before I could find any one who knew the way to it. There was a sort of idea that it was somewhere along the Toulouse road, and I walked some mile or so along tliat till I had passed quite the last 92 TJw Vo)/ar/e of the Escargot. house thiit liad any coiiuectioii with Munnande, and so I turned hack aijain. Then I met an ohl woman from whom 1 in(|uiri'd just on the chance, and after thinking a hit, she re- caUed my private l)anker to lier meuKuy as a young man wlio liad not long since lost his father, and then having got on the riglit track, after a little more consideration she showed nu' whei-e he lixed. The hank was situated in an ordinary-look- ing villa sort of residence, standing l)ack ahout a hundred yards from the road: the office itself was round at the hack of the villa in the ])lace where one would have expected the scullery to he: indeeost-ollioo, an honost man mot mo at tho (li>or with my purse, and gave it liaok to me. 1 oi course o\i>rossod how truly grateful I was, and he eon^ratulatod me on tho fact of my missing ])roporty having fallen into the hands of tho only honost man in Marmande : he may have been, hut 1 think it would have sounded l)Otter if he had got a friend to say so for him. This I'vtMiing. having made all our ]>ropa.rations for a start to-mornuv, we have hoeomo kind of disorganised, anil have simply idled the whole evening away : wo have seareoly even looked at the haromotor. as wo are gi>ing to start in the morning, weather or no. I have eanght a good many speei- mens of tho Mi'.^ca Marnunu/m.-^i.^. and removed them gently I'ut firmly from the interior of the caravan, as we don't want to take away any with us on the journey. I have also smoked a good deal. The clay pipe is beginning to I'olour quite respi'ctahly. Wo tinished the last of our six boxes of '2i>0 wax-matches which we brought from England, this morning, and have bci'u forcoil to fall back on the French variety. They are of two kinds: one wont strike, and tho constant failure to make them do so tends to diMuoraliso one; and tho other will strike, ami instantly im]>regnati's the whole atmospliere f"r yards round with sulphur, whereby one is in ilangor of sutloratiou. A decent wax-match or s^ifoty-mati'h is not to i'o had for lo\i' or money: these are the evils {4 monoj>oly, W'c ha\c tried tlcputing the match-striking do]>artmont to •b-.,ph. thinking that maybo as ho has l>een brought up to them, lio Would be able to manage tluMu better; but tho only result has lieru that I have ]»ickod up a great many things to >av which cfii.iinlv sound bettor in French. f)ni' Sojourn at Mayraaiuh' 95 llic M;iniiiui(l(( Musical Society has b(!en ])i^actisiii^f all the ('Veiling at the Hotel (l(i Fi'aiice, accoiiipaiii(;(l ]jy JaiiKiS in his stable. We have given Joseph the alarum again, and are retiring early — 10.30 P.M. I hav(; just looked out ; the sky is breaking a little, so tiiere are some hopes iov tt ela.-srs. Tin- f'.'j hiidii't clfaied (ill at nine: hut adheriim to oui' res- TonJieius to Castelsai'assiu. 97 ohition of yesterday, and profiting by our experience not to waste any more time in vain ex])ectations, we at last set out from the spot wliicli liad known us so long, exactly at 9.10. AVe liad no room to turn in the lane, so we had to go right up to the other end, where it got wider, to do so, then came l)ack down it, waving our adieux as we passed to our friends of the last few days, and so out into the street, wliere the cafdicr and the proprietress of the Hotel de Trance and her husband were standing at the corner to see us pass, and along to the market-place. Here the market was going on, and there was an innnense crowd of people, but we got through without any accident, though we had some ^'ery near shaves of slaughtering various old women who were sitting \-ery close to the edge of the road, exposing their wares under the customary red undjrellas of their profession, and of upsetting two or three itinerant ^;r?^iss/c?*'s trucks. We passed another caravan also making its way out of the town, and so(jn left it far behind : the fog still continued, though occasionally there was a faint gleam of sun ; but the roads were hard after the frost, and for the most part slightly descending again, and without many stones so far, and tlie mares were stepping out well, and quite of their own accord. At Faugerolles, ten kilometres, which we did in a very little over the liour, we pulled up for a moment to put the couvcrturcs straight, which we had kept on the mares for greater precaution, and wdiich were slipped all to one side : somewhat to our alarm, ]\Iary Ann was beginning to wheeze again slightly. Joseph says he thinks it is only a little of the cold remainino; on her chest, and she will get all rio-ht when we get into warmer weatlier ; and the vet w"as quite positive that she was not j^oussivc ; but I have looked up Youatt, and I find there is such a thing as hereditary roar- 98 77/ e Vojidfje oftlw Escargot. iiig : it doesn't seem from what he says that there is aiiy- thini,' serious about a horse being so ; but it isn't pretty, and we are hoping sincerely tliat she is not going to prove a hered- itary roarer. It is just tlie sort of thing that one can't get any one to believe when one has got a horse that one wants to sell him. There was a sign-post just beyond Faugerolles which told us we had come eighty-nine kilometres from ]>ordeaux, and had forty-eight to go to Agen. AVe had restrained the spon- taneous impetuosity of the mares now and were going at half speed, \aried every now and then by a walk, as of course we were not at all happy about Mary Ann. The fog lifted a little, and we began to see more of the country round, which was very tlat. Presently we came up with a })OStman, and I got down and walked with him some way. He was the local postman for Faugerolles, and had to walk to Tonneins one day with the out letters, and come back the next with the in letters. Faugerolles appears to be a happy place: I shall go and live there some day when I want a spell of almost ])er- fect rest. We offered him a lift, but he declined with many thanks, as he said he shouldn't gain anything by getting to his destination before the appointed hour, and indeed an in- ([uiry miglit be started as to how he had managed to do it, and he might get into troul)le, so we wished him good-bye, and left him. We then broke into a half trot for another tliiee kilometres, in the course of which we raced a juiitr r'dissi train that was going in the same direction as ourselves alouu^ ilu- line to the left, and beat it. Now we understand wliy ii talpon him : lie got rolled over in the mud and snow, and Tonneiiis to Ca.stelsara.ssin. 105 came back to us in a frightful state of dirt and foam ; but he maintained the honour of his country nobly, and beat them off in spite of tlieir superior size and nunibers, for ^vhic]l we gave him great praise : and he lias been going about with his nose in the air and his tail up all day, and wanting to fight every dog he meets. The weather was looking a little Ijetter when we started. There was a steep hill down a little way out of the town, and then the road became flat again, with snow-clad hills in the distance. The sun came out, and shone on the white country, and I think it was the prettiest sight we have seen yet. AVe crossed the railway, and turned to the left along for some way till the rising ground closed in on us again : then we went along the side of the hill, with the slopes covered with snow coming down to the road on the left, and the Lot on the right, which was canalised here, with straight rows of poplars on each side of the two tow-paths. "We went at the rate of nearly twelve kilometres the hour along this part, — Mary Ann's roaring has quite ceased, for which we are very thank- ful : I suppose Joseph was right, and the hot water and solution of linseed that we gave her last night has done for her what was required, — and we reached Porte Ste Marie at 11.30. Porte Ste Marie is a pretty little town on the side of the hill, looking particularly clean and white to-day by reason of the snow-covering it had all over it. AVe stopped there for lunch, as we found St Hilaire would be too uneven a break in the day's journey, putting up at the Hotel de I'Europe — a rather superior-looking little hotel with a picturesque porch and verandah, very like an old-fashioned English country inn — on the avenue leading into the towm. The people there were very nice, and gave us hot water and everything we lOG Tliv Vojjfifje of the Escargot. wanted. The snow stopped altogether while we were waiting there: it had not been coming down more than ten or twelve flakes at a time all the morning, but we could dispense very well with even that small amount. "NVe left Porte Ste ^NFarie about 1.30 : we had to pass through the main street of the town, which was very tortuously built — most of the houses being of timber, and apparently put up one by one, and just as the original owners had thought proper, without any particular reference to any regularity of frontage in the whole ; and very narrow, so that there was only just room for us, and we narrowly escaped carrying away some of the old signs that were hanging over the shop doors. The in- habitants all fled into their houses, and peeped out from their doors and windows to see the accident come off; but we got away safely at last, and went along at a good pace again, the road continuing, as before, along the side or at the foot of the hills to our left ; and away in the distance on the right we could see the hills on the other side of the valley of the Garonne, all as pure white as the rest of the landscape. Stones as before. AVe passed Frontac, on the Garonne, a typical little village, with its church, and its well, and its Cafe de Commerce, pre- cisely on the pattern of all the other villages ; and then the road, which had been pretty undulating all day, became more so, and we had to reduce our pace. Stopping for a lilow at the top of one very steep though short ascent, in front of a solitary little roadside cnfi'^ we came upon a large })arty assembled of young peasants with their sweethearts, who inim(;diately surrounded us with shouts and interchanges oi rustic cliail', thinking that a good opportunity had come in their way lor the bestowal and reception of fairings. We met with some triHing reproach for having thus raised their Ton7ieins to Castelsarassin. 107 expectations in vain, but we apologised, and I think they forgave us ; but from what we could see by looking back, the young men didn't get off so well at the hands of their sweet- hearts — so illogical, not to say tyrannical, is the female mind under certain conditions. Then the road became flat again — keeping along the canal, which ran along here at a considerably higher level than we were — and terribly stony, so that we dropped to a walk altogether. Peg sat in the door of the Escargot on one of the folding-chairs and drove, while Joseph and I walked along- side the mares' heads talking to them. James ran on in front for a hundred yards or so, then came back, and then ran on again, thereby increasing the length of his day's journey by quite two-thirds more than it need have been, and all the while bristling with expectation and in prepara- tion for a light ; but as no other dogs appeared, he wasted his energies in this respect also. We passed St Hilaire, a long, straggly place, the larger portion of it lying on the other side of the canal, which here, by means of locks, had climbed down to a lower level ; and Colognac, where we came on all the good people coming out of church, including the music, which consisted of a bassoon. The dear old curd was surrounded by his flock, to whom he was no doubt giving good advice, and perhaps, good old man, something more substantial out of his slender pittance. It was a subject worthy of a picture. And then still on, passing the only other vehicle we had seen actually on the road to-day — a straw -cart driven by an old man, who looked like a brigand retired on half-pay, with the most evil countenance I have seen for some time, and drawn by an ancient mare, and a foal, the Isaac of her old age, harnessed tandem fashion ; and so we came in sight of 108 The Vo )/'(;/(' oft/w J'Jscfnyot. Aj^en, 142 kilometres from lionloaux : to-day's journey a little over twenty-nine. There was a steep bridge to mount over the railway — quite a larity in France ; and even here I don't think they would have departed from their usual system, more economi- cal even if more dangerous, of a level crossing, if it had not been that the bridge crossed over the canal too. Then we had to climb up on to the promenades, which run round the town, answering to the boulevard of the ordinary French town, and much, if not exactly, the same thing; but I be- lieve from what we gathered while asking the way to the stables froui some of the inhabitants, that the Agennais are rather touchy about people calling their promenades by any other name. Joseph had been told of a stable by his friends at ^larmande, and we were not long in finding it, just (ipi)osite the blacksmith's, about 5.30. It is the best stable we have had yet ; the tioor is bricked and properly drained, and there are hanging partitions between tiie horses that sejiarate them from each other much more etlectually than the usual temporary pole. AVe are drawn up by the side nf the promenades in front of the arch into the stable. We went for a walk round the town before dinnei-, which is a C(»m}iaralively tine })lace, as it should be, being the capital of a de])artment. There is a theatre and two market-places, one old, with ctiloiniades running round it, evidently the oUl centre of tlir town, the streets immediately leading out of it l)eing Very narrow, witii the houses visibly inclining towards each other at the lop, and very primitive and dirty, in fact re- markably like Seven Dials before the recent imi»rovements. There i- a tine pulilic jilace with a garden, with a statue of doan of Arc in the middle, which they are very proud of, Toiiiiehhs to CastclsaraHsin. 109 tliougli T don't know exactly wliat connection she liud with Tlie okl brigand witli the curious pair lias come up with us again, and put up at tlie same stables. He made a most barefaced attempt to annex our second stable lantern which we bought at Marmande fair this evening, declaring he had taken liis into the stable, and as ours was the only one there, that must l)e it. He waxed positively violent over it, and when I eventually perceived his lantern hanging down from the shaft on the farther side of his cart, as it stood outside us on the promenades, and showed it to him, he didn't amend his language very much even then. Monday, Dec. 30. — To-day was very cold and foggy. We only made half a day of it to-day, as we first had to wait to have tlie mares shod, which they were beginning to want, after all the hard roads and stones they have come along, and then when they were ready, j\Ir James was nowhere to be found : when last seen he was talking to some not over- respectable dogs whose acquaintance he had made on the promenades, and it was sup]iosed that he must have accepted their invitation, without asking our permission, to walk round and see something of the town. There was a skin-dresser's shop next door to the huvette attached to our stables, and Joseph threw out dark hints as to the possibility of James having be(m beguiled in there and made away with for the sake of his coat ; but we thought that could hardly have hap- pened without his letting us know, so dismissed the horrible idea from our minds, and organised ourselves into three parties to thoroughly scour the town in search 6f him. Peg walked for some distance back along the way we had come in yesterday ; Joseph took the one half of the town itself, and I the other. I don't think I left a street unsearched 110 Tlie Voyage of tit e Escargot. on my part — 1 certainly saw more of Agen than I should otherwise have done ; and then I went over all Joseph's ])art too, shouting and whistling at intervals as I went along, till I rather wonder that I was not questioned by the police. We all reassembled about an hour and a half later, but nobody had anything to report, and we were very nearly beginning to think that Joseph must be right after all, or if not exactly so, as far as that James had been stolen by some one, and we should never see our poor scamp again ; and I was just starting off on a last search, befoje putting the matter in the hands of the police — for we had resolved that we would stop at Agen, at any rate till we were certain that there was no hope — when suddenly looking back along the promenades, to where a sort of short canal ran up, forming a rvl (It- sac at right angles to them, I saw ]Mr James a])})ear for a moment on the bank of this canal round the corner of a house, gambolling in all unconsciousness of the anxiety he had l)een causing us, with a big wolf-hound with whom he appeared to be on the highest terms of friendslnp. I ran after them, calling and whistling with all my might : James's conscience nf) doubt struck him at that moment, and he and his friend instantly disappeared rouiul the corner. Teg and Joseph liad not seen what 1 had, and came after me at a slower pace : Peg told me afterwards she thought for the moment that the grief had turned my brain — which doesn't say ^■ery much for her o])inion of my l)rain. 1 ran still faster, and when I turned the corner, there was James running away as hard as he could, trying to explain to his fiicnd, who was running alongsidi; of him, his reasons for doing so: I ran even still faster — I didn't think 1 could ever sjirint like that, and I really doubt if I shall ever be able to Tonneins to Castdsavassin. Ill do so again — and gradually gained on them ; till the big wolf-hound, seeing, I suppose, that there was a very good prospect of James getting into trouble, and not wishing to be involved in it him- self, broke off to the left across a plot of waste land, and left James to his fate. James evi- dently now saw how hol- low these hastily-struck- np friendships often are, and that it was better to come back to his bid and better tried alliance, cost what it temporarily might ; so he sat himself deliberately down in the centre of the path and waited till I had come up to him, when he cowered on the gromid, looking up at me piteously and entreating me not to be too hard on him. I took him by the collar and led him back to where Peg and Joseph were coming along behind to meet us, and then we all returned to the Escargot. The rejoicing- there over the returned prodigal was great, but it was slightly tempered with a little judicious chastisement. We had a bit of a dispute with the stable proprietor this morning, over one of the hanging partitions, which the Missus, in a fit of gaiety and trying to reach over at Mary Ann with her hind leg, had brought down, pulling the staple into which the suspending bar was hooked out of the ceiling. It was really only a matter of five minutes' work, with a ladder and a gimlet, to make a new hole in the rafter for the staple, but the man wanted to charue us three francs for it. I offered to do it 112 TJic Voyafjc of the Escargot. myself for nothing, but he wouldn't accept my ofler ; so not wishing the bother of a j^roees vcrlaJ, which it might have led to, with other impediments to our going on to follow, we compromised the matter with 1 franc 50 centimes, which overcharge we partly took out by giving him to understand that he was an old fraud. We got away in the end, after lunch, at l.oO. We left Agen through the promenades, then round behind the statue of Joan of Arc, and so out. There was no view, as it has been so foggy all day. We are longing for the time to come wlien we shall turn our faces south. The road was worse than ever, and all uphill for the first part of the journey, then flat, but still with a slight inclination to ascend. We have been going along most of the day with the hills to f»ur left, then the road, then the canal, then the railway, then the Garonne, all running alongside in parallel lines, the Garonne in this part Ijeing about as wide as the Thames at London Bridge : the other Ijank, as far as we could see for the fog, was very flat. At 8t Jean de Thurac we made our only stoj)page for the day, and that was only for twenty minutes while a cart which had got well broadside across the road ])reliminary to shedding a wheel was got out of the way. Shortly after that we crossed the railway and the canal, and the frontier into Tarn et Garonne. The hills then edged away to the left and the Garonne to llie right, and the last Ijit of country into La oMagistere was l>lain. We readied La ^Nlagistere — only ten kilometres to- day—at four, tlie sliortest journey and about the worst time we liavc made yet ; l»ut then the weather, and the roads, and the incline, have all been against us. We are fixed uj) for the niglit in front of the Hotel du Clieval Xoir, at least that is what WL' su])pose to be the name of tlie hostelry in ques- Tonne ins to Castelsarassin. 113 tion ; the si^i;ii itself runs thus : Hotel du — then a picture of a milk-white steed, and then underneath that — Xoir. The proprietress wanted to make us undertake to pay extra stabling on account of tlie size of our mares, but we firmly resisted her demands, and threatened to go on even to Castelsarassin to-night if she persisted in her extortionate demands, so she has given in on that point. Perhaps she was partly justified in trying to get us to pay something more than the usual price at the first onset, as there has been a great run on her stables, there being a lot of people on the move just now, going to spend New-Year's day in their family circles ; and two or three have rather demurred to our mares sharing the stables with their beasts, as they seem to be afraid of some cannibal propensities on their part. However, Joseph and I have built in our part of the stables with a construction of hurdles and poles and rope, completely surrounding our mares, which I haven't a doubt they could kick down in a moment if they chose ; but it has an appear- ance of security which has pacified the fears of the other owners, and none of them have eventually gone elsewhere, as the old lady seemed to fear they would. We are beginning to run short of money again, our expenses having somehow considerably exceeded our esti- mate, and in spite of our renfort at ]\Iarmande, which we thought would carry us through to Toulouse comfortably, what with the high prices at Aiguillon, and the shoeing and damages at Agen, and other vmforeseen things like that, we are now reduced to thirty francs again, all told. With rigid economy, however, I think we can do it. Tuesday, Dec. 31. — Dull day again for the most part. The Missus took her turn at frightening us this morning, by breaking out into slight swellings about the legs : the garcon, p 114 77a' VoyKje vf the Escargot. and all the other people who were usiiiij: the stable at I^i Magistt-re, took upon themselves the /-'''h- of Job's comforters, and it must be allowed did it remarkably well, all bein;j: iinanimoiH in their opinion tliat the swellinu would develop itself into somethinu: very serious, and the mare would be laid up helpless before wt- had gone live kih^netre'*. lUit we couldn't afl'urd to wait, even if we had been willing to listen to tlie voice of the siren in the shape of the }»roprietress of the Hotel ilu Cheval Xoir. who dilated to us on the many attractions in the form of [>retty walks, not to speak (tf lier own company, that we should find at La Magistt-re: it appeared that her hotel was connected by ties of blood with the butcher and baker and milkman of the place. This we k-arnt fr'>m Joseph when we were discussing the probaUe rt-asons for her anxiety i^v us to stop ; so that her )'ersuasions did not altogether originate from the favourable impresod voyage, and to promise us an easy journey to < 'astelsarassin, with no liills. iUit we sulisequently found that slie had either wih'uUy (k-eeiw-tl us or el-e was too anxious to please, as by far the larger half oi our day's jiMini<'y lias lieen one stt-aily bit df collar-work, and we have walk.-d ('Very step of the twenty-nine kilometres wr liave niaile to-day. <^ur roail at first lay along the (iaronne. which lay Im-Iow u- to the right a-^ we steadily mounted hiulin- and luLiliei-, wiili no ixdief by even the .-smallest stretch of down- ward iinliiie. Mary .Vnn was showing no synij'toms of relapsim,' into her old wheeze, but the Missus was evidently Tonneins to Castelsairi.^sin. 115 feeling the work in licr sick legs, and we were very nervous lest our friends at the stable should prove to have prophesied rightly. AVe passed several caravans en route, or at anchor by the side of the road every now and then, tliis being the time for fairs, when there are a great many such people on the move from place to place. One that particularly struck us for its simplicity, not to speak of the ingenuity of its proprie- tor, was drawn by two dogs and the proprietor's wife, he himself sitting on the step in front leisurely smoking his pipe. And we have passed to-day more vehicles of every sort and size on the road than we have ever done before, all full up to tlie brim with happy-looking holiday folk bound to their respective paternal roof-trees to celebrate the beginning of the Xew Year. They all saluted us with best wishes for the anniversary, and their dogs — for they most of them had dogs in attendance — exchanged compliments with James, who seemed to know that now is a time for universal good-fellow- ship, and laid aside the warlike demeanour which he has been displaying the last two days. Joseph suggested fomenting the Missus's legs with vinegar when we stopped for lunch, so we tried the experiment for the first time of lighting the stove while in motion, in order that we might have the vinegar ready hot directly we stopped; but it was a signal failure, and only resulted in a general disarrangement of soot and smoke all about the interior of the caravan, so we had to desist for fear of suffocation, and we shan't try to do it again. AVe reached Malauze at eleven, and put up at the Cafe Boulet, in the stable of a very pleasant grandmotherly old party who cultivated pigs and turkeys, and who came and chaffed Joseph and me somewhat unmercifully while we were IIG The Voyage of the Escargot. doctoring the Missus, and when she saw us in dilficulties about administering a dose of thicul to the Missus, suggest- ing we shoukl grow, or that she shoukl run round to her son, tlie carpenter's, and fetcli a ladder to enable us to reach up to the mare's mouth properly. Joseph is almost as keen an advocate for thicul as for a bran-mash on all occasions, and as, so far as I can find from Youatt, it doesn't do either any harm or any good, I have usually indulged him in this respect. Anyhow, there couldn't have been much risk in the administration of the dose to-day, for I having only a very oscillating log to stand on to pour it down the ]\Iissus's throat, she got very little of it into her mouth at all, and certainly not more than an eighth of that went down. Joseph had laid his hat down just on the other side of her, and most of the bottle poured straight into that. James, meanwhile, having tried to get the pigs and turkeys to play with liim, and failed, went off for a walk round the village. It is a pity James can't write, as he has always made a point of taking a thorough survey of all the places we have stopped at or passed through since he has been allowed to run, and he could make a much better journal out of his travels than we can ever do. I generally have to superintend the horses, while Peg cooks the luncheon, so we only get the most superficial view of places. AVe left ]\Ialauze at one. The old lady didn't want us to ])ay anything, but said she would be very glad to sell us either a turkey or a ])ig if we liked to buy it of her; but we had to decline, as we certainly couldn't acconnnodate a ]»ig, and it would lie a very tight fit for a turkey as well, even in sections in tlu; limited space of our oven, besides the bother of ])lueking it. So we had to press fifty centimes on her, which was the utmost she would take, and she paid us the Tonneins to Castelsarassin. 117 compliment of saying we were quite tlie nicest caravan people she had ever come across. By the way, talking of plucking things, we Jiave had to get rid of poor Joseph's gibicr remains, which, not having been properly embalmed, were beginning to get rather troublesome. We did it surreptitiously, the day before yesterday afternoon, out of the back windows as we came along, for fear of hurting Joseph's feelings. We had a steep climb up all at one go till we had mounted another 200 feet by the barometer ; we unfortunately hadn't kept account of how high we had come up before lunch ; and then we had a splendid view down below us of the junction of the Tarn and the Garonne, both rivers with thickly wooded banks, and gradually approaching their meeting-place at an obtuse angle to each other through a fertile plain with large patches of forest dotted about it ; and away in the distance beyond the plain lofty snow-covered mountains, probably offshoots of the Pyrenees. JSTow at last, after twenty kilometres climbing up, we began to descend very slightly till we came to Moissac, and then we crossed the Canal de Midi, and at last turned to the right and due south, in which direction we are going to continue till we get to Toulouse, when we shall be sixty kilometres nearer the sun, and we trust sincerely out of these perpetual fogs. From Moissac to Castelsarassin the road lay as straight as it could go, and as flat as it could lie, taking no advantage to itself and "iving none to the mares, for the whole of the intervening seven kilometres. There were some stones, but the road was for the most part good ; but the worst of it was, that we never seemed to be coming to the end of it. At last our hearts were rejoiced by meeting people walking out 118 Tltc Voyrirjc of the Escargot. along the side of the road, — lovers, no doubt, many of them, registering a new stock of vows for the coming-in year : to us they were like Columbus's birds, and we knew we must be nearing our destiiuition. We reached Castelsarassin eventually a little after half-]iast six; our average to-day has only lieen about 4^ kilometres an hour. AVe had a little difficulty about finding a place to put up at : as the first auhirgistr or hotel proprietress, whichever she wished to be calleil, could not guarantee that the shadow of her house would protect us from an incursion of the police, as we have generally found hitherto it is supposed to do ; so we came on throngli the town, along a very well-paved street of medium width to the boulevard on the other side, where we are now drawn up in front of tlie Hotel de rAbeille. Our host, who appeared to have just woke up, and was not very coherent, couldn't, for some reason or other, take the mares in, though he says he has stables ; Init he directed us to his brother's over the way, where we found tlie acconnuodation very ctmi- fortable, something similar to that at Agen. "We have been for a walk to the ]»ost and got three letters, wliicli have been waiting for us for nearly a fortnight. Tiien we Went and did some necessary shopping of meat, vegetables, and groceries, whii-h has made a considerable hole in our finances, and we have (>nly got fifteen francs left ; and it seems as if it will bt' almost ]>i;-itively necessary to sloj) liere to-morrow, as, though tlie Missus isn't actually seriously bad yet, ii would be rasli to go on without a good day's rest and liandauing. I don't think, howe\'er, that we can get \ery many unfoi-escen expenses into the next two days, and our ordinary ones, now we are well stocked, oughtn't to exceed tlie fifteen I'l'an*-; and by tlie middle of the third day, unless we have exceiitiunally bad luck, we ought to Ije at Toulouse. Tonneins to Crtsfclsco'rts.siji. 119 James nearly sent an old woman into a tit this evenim^- by suddenly jumpini;' on her, and attempting to seize the Xew- Year's cake which she was carrying home. We are now sitting waiting for the Xew Year to come in : we are keeping up the time-honoured old custom of keeping the door open, but though the snow is falling thickly again outside, with the tire in our stove burning brightly we are very comfortable, and there could be many worse places than this to spend the last hours of the old year in. The town is wonderfully (j^uiet, but Peg says the French don't as a rule trouble themselves abour the year that is going out : they have got tired of that, and are only thinking about the new toy, so to speak, to come. Twelve has just struck. A happy Xew Year to every one ! 120 CHAPTER VIII. STILL AGAINST TIME — FINIIAX — GIUSOLLES — COUTENSAKT —TOULOUSE. 1890. Wednesday/, Jan. 1. — The New Year has not begun very propi- tiously. It lias been a miserably wet day all day : })Oor Peg was in bed all this morning with neuralgia ; not altogether unconnected, perhaps, with the good old New Year's Eve custom of sitting up last night : Joseph has l)een on the sick- list all day with a bad bilious lieadache. Tlie mares, how- ever, have been quite well ; the Missus's legs are again reduced, by constant cold water and vinegar bandaging, to their normal size. I went out in the morning in tlie rain with James to make a preliminary survey of Castelsarassin. Its cliief constituent parts are one long narrow street up from one end of the town to the other, and another long narrow street down back again, with little alleys interjoining the two ; and to tlie right of the down street a large square with houses on two sides, the Catliedral on the third, and the boulevard, which runs right round the tfy la'-'i ":e.f,i ■:iLr':tfi:. itf ui I "^-'ir'^ -riicir: :niiie tlkt^ i^fricii.s -.'t:iii>tHri»iiiC!i^f 2L:u:ii: jia^'i urTneiieL if :: Ji. ~Iie :u.: "jiuiy iiuf 'xz jC 3ii: ;•; ia iir ^::"»irL£H^ i^ T. -.4*^^11 "j.iuf jirt :iir J^iy^T-rrk — ^.t w^.Tiiifn .ce. II ii-r rraiie. 7 ■.)^v.\l Ti.f "JirL.u'.iIiirLy jiiLUiriiLei ■v:i>tn I Ti o.":f^L :Li--t- :n~ z:. !:rn. 2>:j: -h: zimii. I 1:11 i.±"ii':. :ei:ta.ae ie ;e"'o:. r!:if -fcrf^M T'rrr ~'fr'7 2tir':";'V 1:11: :- -viif "fry Jickj 'vij Ml Ti^ iLir: ^- rill ii^ 13 ■:r':i:!i.:iL7 it^uiiZy j.-^. ZjLk iiiijx.-:n- v^r'f !ie:ir .t :.ie '/'vi ::i ^ur li j cr i±.-:r ;i;r ir-n in/ir^mc r^t-n xt ^in: "• T"i^- i:; i le'fi !r':>fHL:ii: :r i-vtiiny H-iii".^!- "V'f I'lu: ^:irfil";" ^i^f i':'ii: : ■ -r Li'i 'jw/a. ui'i^jl :i "Vt i;ui 'e-n i_' T'^:. „i 1,11-; "ioii- Liit :r'ir.i ">:i:ic :.: i-.i'iiir ui:cc; "'ill it-'T-'i T-r:: J:"-^ni?;: ?'i^v 17--. uiii -Ai-r :r: iuil-s "^'r^'t li.n :''■"•: i-i'i -.ir*; :;u: "uiiiT^ :?: 13 i^: I'lu :ii '^i^lx-. vt -Vtr^ v u:u::iir '.:>-r-. "Vt iiiuiif «:Tiie ni; i_:^\ti^ w ": '^'m '.jv^uIziuv.-. :.: '""ZL.-:- ^c.ii::>-. V it-r'- v -r "V'tr'-: irin;! :':r TLiie 2_ji:in • '.ct-: '.;u'-..-:r Tiir. Mo',i:^qiM.-arS *o C-^r-:-ri.^>- '-'■'-'l-Xii^'Si >^ '.' . »^ i »' L-- J-''~"' "3" I'^l 150 TJte Voi/ar/e uf the Escarr/ot. twenty kilometres from Toulouse in three hours, at a little ca/t' with a stable attached to it by the side of the road at the foot of the hill, for lunch. There was a gendarmerie a little farther along the road, with a gendarme in undress syringing his horse's legs : both the gendarme and the horse looked very ordinary sort of productions when out of their ofticial clothes — the gendarme especially, who, barring his pantaloons, might have been just an everyday stable-man, and not in the least calculated to inspire tliat awe which one feels when one meets them rigged out in all their glory. A striking illustration of the doctrines of Sartor llesartus. James certainly showed no respect for the law in this guise — I am beginning to doubt indeed if he has any for anything in any guise whatever; but anyhow, on this occasion he walked in the calmest manner into the gendarmerie, and stopped there for some time, evidently making a thorough inspection, and to some purpose too, for he came out l^earing a huge bone, which he had either coaxed out of or more probably purloint-d from the gendarmerie cook. After we had lunched, we climbed up into the townlet al.)Ove. I have a vague siSonne. 151 was locked, so tliat we couldn't see what the inside was like, were all the erections of interest that we discovered. Tliere were two inhahitants visible, one male and the other female ; no doubt there are others, but they were all gone out to work in the fields or in some other town. James inspected the interior of two or three houses, but in the fourth he met with a reception he did not expect in the shape of two large savage- looking boar-hounds, and he came tumbling out again a great deal faster tlian he had gone in, with them after him, and never stopped running till he found himself safe at the cara- van at tlie bottom of the hill, though his assailants only pursued him for a very short distance. When we had followed him, v.^e found the gendarme, who had resumed his war-paint, minutely investigating the Escargot, but it was quite unprofessionally : he told us he had been in to look at the mares, and how he wished his Government would give him a mount like that ; and how he wished too he could throw up gendarming, and go a trip like ours with Ins wife and children. AVe left Montgiscard at three, Peg driving now, and con- tinued along the road with the steep bank into which the hill had degenerated on the right and the canal on the left, till we came to Baziege, a town about as large, and rather in the same style, as Marmande. There we learnt that Ville- franche was only five kilometres farther, our original cal- culation Ijy the map proving right after all, so we determined to carry out our first plan and go on there. The mares made a slight attempt at rebellion : they are getting very knowing, and did not see going on again for the third time in the day after they had pulled up in front of the hotel where we had stopped to make our inquiries at Baziege ; so in return we made them trot the whole of the rest of the wav. The road 152 21ii' VoijiKjc of the Ef^cargot. was Hat and good, across the plain again, and tlie evening was beautifully clear, affording us a splendid view of the Pyrenees, with the snow still on some of the highest peaks ; and we reached Yillefranche at 5.30, and put up in front of the Hotel de Commerce. Except James, who has taken his usual walk round, none of us have been out this evening: Willie is still suffering rather from his cold, and I feel as if I had neuralgia coming on. Wednesday, Jan. 8. — Last night was very windy, but the morning broke very tine, and its promise of bright weather has been well fulfilled : we have had a glorious day's journey, one to make one appreciate caravan life to the utmost. Willie was up very late this morning ; he is feeling much better, but he had lost himself in his feather-bed again, so w^e did not get away till 9. .'30. I woke up with a bad attack of neuralgia myself, but the beauty of this kind of life is that one has scarcely time to feel ill, as one does when one is leading a more sedentary life, and as we ])roceeded on our road it passed off, and I feel all rigiit this evening. We started by meeting a funeral, and Joseph was thrown into a fearful state of su])erstitious perturbation — even amounting to a desire to turn round and go back again, as he was positive that we should meet with an accident before we reached our destination this evening. I'eg was a little nervous too, but not to the same extent as Joseph ; but AVillie and I were heartless enough to scoO' at their fears, and brute strength ultimately ])revailing, we came on. We certainly didn't begin with any ill-luck, as the liist four kil(jmetres of our day's run were over quite the very best l»it of road we have had yet, as hard and ilat and smooth as a billiard-table. We had very pix'tty undulating country to our right and left, and the air was fresh and Ijalmv, Montgiscard to Cdrcassonnc. 153 and presently I'c^' had qiute for^^otten her first qualms, and only -Tosepli was left grnnibling to himself that this was all very well, hut he knew that it was only tempting us on to the inevitable disaster. AVe passed a good many carts on the road, apparently constructed of nothing but baskets piled up to a gigantic height : if there was anybody in charge of any of them, they were quite invisible, the baskets seeming to start directly from the axle - tree, with nothing to keep them from all toppling over but a marvellous arrangement of ropes twined in and out amongst them. AVe passed Avignonet, a little town lying in a hole, with a pretty church on the hill above it, in half an hour, our rate of travelling up to there being ten miles an hour. There we had to wait for a moment for James, who has quite recovered no^^■, and has been running all day again, and who, coming here upon a perfect covey of cats, completely forgot that he was following us, and turned aside to pursue them, endeavouring to persuade at least one of them to come and play with him. AVe crossed the frontier into Aude a little farther on, and there the road began to be bad again : Joseph smiled sen- tentiously, and murmured to himself that now the mishap was coming ; but we went along safely, leaving the obelisk to the memory of liiquet, the engineer of the Canal du Midi, to the right, and passing through La Bastide, that monument town of the time when England was only part of a pro- jected vast continental empire. Willie took the reins here, and I retired to lie down on the outside of the bed for a bit, as just then a sharp twinge of neuralgia came on. James, who had been taking a hasty bath in a roadside ditch, naturally thought that if I was making myself comfortable, it was time for him to do so likewise, and jumped up on the u 154 Tlic Voiiaije of the Escargot. bed too, to keep nie company, and has been very cross with nie all day because I, of course, promptly removed him. Joseph next came to me with somewhat of an air of triumph, and said he was sure ^lary Ann had a shoe loose, as he heard it rattling: so I had to get up again, and when we had stopped, examined all her four feet to see if such was the case : but it proved not to be so, the clicking noise being only caused l»y her occasionally rather overstepping herself with her near hind leg, and so bringing that shoe and the corresponding fore one together ; so that it was some little time before I could get the quiet I required : but at last I got off into a beautiful sleep, and when I woke up quite myself again, and went out on to the footboard to join the others, I found we had just climbed up a very long hill, and were looking down from the ridge on to Castelnadaury. "We had a beautiful view from that point of a succession of green valleys reaching to the foot of the Pyrenees, quite refreshing after the wintry sort of country we have hitherto been used to. Then we descended again, meeting several caravans cijming up, the occupants of some of which seemed amused at uur arrival, calling out to us tliat we were too late, as the fair had ended yesterday. AVe passed eight windmills all in a row on our way down, and then entered the town, wliich lies partly on the side and partly round the foot of the hill (in the ojijiosite side of the valley to that whicli we had come duwn. Then we went right through the town, loi iking for a suitable i)lace to stop at. Castelnadaury is rL-markabk', if for nothing else, for the scarcity of mihcrfji^i and hotels in it, the proportion of them to the other houses being only aliout one to seven instead of one to three as in most other French towns: and we didn't find anything to suit us till we had got nearly out on the other side, where Montfjiscard to Carcassonne. 155 we came on a sort of livery stable opening on to the main street, the owner of which was lounging at his door witli his hands in his pockets, apparently dreaming or thinking of nothing in particular ; but on our asking if we could put our mares up, and station ourselves outside without being interfered with, he suddenly woke up with a jump, and said he would Ije delighted to do anything in his power for us. So there we stopped at 12.30 for the night, as we have only made a half-day of it to-day ; and we haven't had an accident after all. We had rather a mishap at lunch, AVillie, unfortunately, knocking over the frying-pan containing our buttered eggs — our last eggs — all over James. It is generally supposed that James himself was the cause of the accident, by runnin between "Willie's legs. He howled a bit, as naturally the red-hot eggs burnt liim rather, but he was soon consoled by being able to pick the fragments out of his coat when tliey got cooler. AVillie and I had to go out and get more eggs. After lunch, ^Villie and I went out to look for a room for him. W"e tried several places, but the people all declared they were full, or that they didn't like to take in people who had no luggage with them, and couldn't even have it fetched from the station ; but at last we got a top attic at the Hotel de France, conditionally, that was to say, on AVillie bringing his bag from his " carriage," which he rep- resented as being' at some stables farther along in the town, in three-fjuarters of an hour. AVe went back, and having taken the bag, and put the proprietor's mind at rest as to the engagement of the room being a genuine one, 'Willie went to get his hair cut, while Pen and I started for a \valk round the town. There is a basin of the Canal du ]\Ii(li here, and a good Tf\<^ Vo'^'ii^ or the ^^tiy^A""^. leal 'ivd^ ccwt: in.i Fe,- n m :Li: paxi of -Lr ;.jwil. d~e principal irr«tirinc lo be hocse iiles An.'i iiniber. Tbere rf:i~ wibk ::r ^^jci-f ■iiscicce al'r'ii^ tlie caiLil. •i I ■^;i; i-'^sri ili-frf '.:" i iea- for ■M:ni n-f :~" of 'VsbL ;iii-i '~-f '^■mz biiok inio zh.ii j, r"oilo- o^orboz. jjii worb. ii ■^•r :aooo : ■arn .-U .i —i.^' T -•-,,.- w *-: ."'.••.~— ■r*fen. lire Z'-OO'T't— "\Miiife we vTcre o::i ^vaLkin^ 'v^r^ norioed all over :Le :.c-«-l adver.iseinti.i5 ca' a 'K-onderful Engli^L 'jihni still reiL.a-y.'r.j aner :Le re?t ''-'f tie fair Lad 2 one. and t-o "'•e seen 'on lie ]>j-Lilevard5.. Hi- T-'or.rair. ^iven on tie pOit?. rei'resentei him in :Le ■unifom: of a Grenadier Gnai-diman. and^ ;t;dginz ■ ^. . v> i,:^ VI ■- >■> '^ L:^^- W^ --,-■ irr W- led :v Lis keoT^r. He was m tz.e I t" "."p.";-^ an'i "■•rTi.am'T 158 Tlie Voy<((je of the Escargot. eiglit feet hiyli, and seemed to be broad in proportion. Of course, lie might have been padded, but tlie size of his hands and feet tended to disprove tliis. His keeper gave a short lecture in French as to his height and weiglit, and how fast he could walk, and how much he habitually ate and drank at a sitting, and the giant strode two or three times round his pen to demonstrate the rapidity of his pace, and then put his arm out at right angles, and with it cleared the head of the keeper, who w^as not a small man himself. Then he shook hands with the audience. AVhen he came to us we somewhat astoinshed him, and also raised ourselves con- sideraljly in the opinions of the rest of the audience, by addressing him in his native tongue — we were (piite sure by this time as to his being a genuine iMiglishman from tlie accent with which he spoke French — asking liim how long he had been in the Guards, and what part of England he came from. To the first (question he answered five years, and to the second, Shropshire; ex])ressing himself highly delighted at meeting fellow-countrymen, and inviting us to come into his caravan at the back. AVe did not quite like taking Peg, so we took her home, and then, having furnished ourselves with a small jiarcel of English tobacco as an offering to the giant, AVillie and 1 went back to accept his invitation. "We went in to another parade, and then, wlien all the rest of the pcoj)le had left, stei)})(Ml over the hanging, and followed him to his caravan. It was quite half as long again as ours, and without the lockers, l)ut furnished with two war(lrol)es, a deal tal)le, three wooden cliairs, a coke-stove close to the door, and the beil across the back as in ours ; the whole arrangenuMit [)res(!nting a mucli mon; roomy elVect than in the Escargot, though, of course, there couldn't be expected to be all the conveniences. JfoiLf(/isc((rd fo Cai'cassoime. 159 Our frieiul could only stand up in one place in the centre, where there was a hole cut and a sort of turret let into the roof for that jjurpose. We each took a chair, and he gave us some very curious old rum and water, which we would have given worlds not to have drunk, hut we couldn't very well get out of it without offending him : then he took off his coat, and we had full evidence that he was all real, and, sit- ting in his shirt-sleeves, gradually related us his history, with considerahle interruptions from time to time, when he was summoned by his keeper to go on parade in the tent. He began Ly confessing that lie had never really been in the Guards. We did our best to put him at his ease, by telling him that we had never supposed he really had ; but he excused himself for passing himself off as a Guardsman, on the ground that foreigners never would look at him if he hadn't got some kind of uniform on. Then he went on to tell us that he was born at Market Drayton in Shropshire, where his father, a small farmer, had died leaving him nothing but a large family of gro wing-up brothers and sisters, and a large accumulation of debts ; so finding that with all his work there was no prospect of ever doing sufficient at home to keep the ones or pay off the others, he accepted an offer made him by Wombwell to join his show, and had been travelling about in the show line ever since, at first under engagements to various circus and other proprietors, but now on liis own hook, lie was getting very sick of it, as was his wife, who was travelling about with him, and they were longing to get home again to their children, whom they had sent home to his brothers and sisters in Shropshire ; so they were only working their way north now, and when they got to the Channel they were going to sell their caravan and cross to their native land. He told his story very simply, and IGO Tlie Voyage of the Escarcfot. only by degrees, not in the least as if he had got it up liy heart for any Englishman he might come across. I think he de- served great credit for sticking to a profession he abhorred till he had paid off his father's debts and started his younger brothers and sisters in the world, as he told us he had done. Towards the end of the evening his wife, a nice tidy little Englishwoman, who, I should say, had been a gentleman's servant, came in from taking the money at the door, and said there were no more people wanting to come in. They had taken fifteen francs altogether in the course of the day. The giant said that wasn't bad, considering that it was not exactly the proper fair-time ; sometimes in larger towns and in full fair-time they had taken as much as forty or fifty francs every day for three or four days, but then there were a lot of out- going expenses, such as for horses, which they hired from place to place, and the two assistants, and the fees to the police for their place at the fairs. ]>y that time it was jiast ten, so on the wife remarking that she was dead tired, which she looked, poor body, we took the hint, which indeed we had Iteen watching for for some time, as we rather thought we were intruding a little too long on the giant's privacy ; Init he wouldn't hear of us going before this, and after he liad made us drink some more rum to a safe return to our native land, we left, "Willie going to his hotel and I to the Escargot, after passing a most-interesting evening. Thiirsdaij, Jan. 9. — To-day has been very foggy and rainy. ^Ve passed a somewhat unquiet night, owing to James, who had ]trobaljly been heli)ing some poor Castelnadaurian witli his sui»]»('r yesterday, evincing strong symptoms of incii)ient illne-s at al)out two in tlie morning, so that we had to turn him (JUt to lie on tlie footboard, a proceeding which he re- Mont (J i scar d to Carcasso7ine. IGl sentt'd exceedingly, and kept us awake for a very long time by his remonstrances and efforts to come in again. Perhaps it was from that, perhaps — though I sincerely hope not — it meant that I am in for another series of attacks the same as I had last summer, — let us not even suggest that it had any- thing to do with the giant's rum last night ; but anyway I had another fearful bout of neuralgia all over the top of my head when I woke up this morning, and I did not at all regret that, owing to "Willie's late appearance from his hotel, we didn't make a start till 9.15. Willie excused himself, though, indeed, there was scarcely any need for it, partly for the above-mentioned reason, partly because we are beginning to get quite used to it, and rather to look on it as the regular thing, by telling us that he had been so much not called, that not only had he had to wake himself, but he couldn't get any one to bring him any hot water ; and even when he had finished dressing, after he had shouted and whistled and stamped about in vain, for a long time, he had had to put the money for his room in a piece of paper addressed to the proprietress, and come away with- out having seen a soul. We had a steep incline down out of the town, and then came to a place where two ways met. This was Cjuite out of keeping with our map, wdiich ignored the second road alto- gether, so as there was nobody near to ask, we took the one to the right as pointing slightly more in the south-easterly direction which we wanted to go in, and rattled gaily along a capital bit of road for nearly three kilometres : then we at last met three peasants going to their work with, their spades in one hand and holding their blue cotton umbrellas over their heads with the other, and it occurred to us that it might be as well to ask them if we were on the right road ; X 162 The Voyage of the Escargot. and as might almost have been expected from the usual run of such things, it turned out that we weren't, so we had to go back the whole three kilometres, feeling rather foolisli, not to say cross, and take the left-hand road. This brought us at once to a big hill, on which we nearly stuck ; and when we had surmounted that, I retired to lie down again, and slept the sleep of the peaceful till we pulled up in front of the Alzonne Hotel de Commerce for lunch. The otlier watch reported that the road had been comparatively uninteresting, —a long stretch, more or less flat, with only one village, Villepente, and only an occasional labourer in the fields to vary the monotony. We stopped at Alzonne an hour only, as we wanted to get tlie mares safe into their stable for the night out of the rain, wliich was still continuing in a steady drizzle. The scenery to Carcassonne was a great improvement on the first part of the day : we passed right through a range of very consider- able liills, of wild and rocky appearance. I think they are the beginning of the Cevennes. The roads became very hilly as well, but tliey were good, and the mares wanted no doubt to get in out of the wet as mucli as we did, so that we sighted Carcassonne Cite, standing on its hill, about three o'clock. The country round Carcassonne itself was flatter, and given up to vine culture, a great many of the vineyards being put under water after the manner of our water-meadows at liome. We readied Carcassonne — thirty-flve kilometres — at .3.45, and very soon found a place to put the mares uj) at, an mOjiyrfjc close to tlie railway at the entrance to the town, we Ijcing drawn up beside a piece of " eligible building land " on tlie o])posite side of the road, AVe went to the post, where we had to wait a preposterous time for our letters, while a man was getting a post-oflice Montgiscard to Carcassonne. G3 order. l*eople in France seem to be always getting post- otlice orders, and the officials do take such an unconscionable time making them out. We only had time to do the Grande Place after that, and found a hotel for Willie, and then come home to dinner. It is still raining, but the sky gives some promise of an improvement. My head is much better. TJiere is a fearful noise going on at this moment on the railway. Peg suggests earthquakes, but I think it is only all the engines blowing ofi' for the ni^ht. I _1 1G4 CHArTElf XL CARCASSONNE — MOUX — XArvROXXK. Friday, Jan. 10. — Dull, but not altogether unfine. Willie was later than ever this morning. He had not overslept himself, but he found a sho\ver-1)ath and a barber and all sorts of luxuries at his hotel, and a})peared at last looking quite s])ruce, and very unlike a caravan traveller, so much so that we felt constrained to ask him if he minded walking with us. Xot that we don't do our best to keep ourselves as neat as possible, but we can't exi)ect to come up to looking as if we had just come straight out of bandboxes. We have reason to believe Willie had his hair cut again. I never knew any one have his hair cut so often as he does. I wonder that it doesn't give up trying to grow. As it was, we liad to call for him on our way into the town, as we had made up our minds to stop till after lunch, and spend the morning doing Carcassonne. It is an interesting old town with very narrow streets and old houses, and the old ramparts still remain almost perfect all round (nie side, overlooking the boulevards, instead of having been judled down to make room for them, as in most French towns, llesides the usual boulevards there is a fine avenue Carcasso7ine to Narhonne. 1G5 running down one side, with a park opening out of it on the hank of the Aude, where we sat and gazed at the old Cite, a castle, I should say, almost the size of "Windsor, and placed very like Windsor, on the top of a hill on the other side of the Aude — a very important stronghold, 1 helieve, in the olden time, with its old stone bridge connecting it with the town on this side. The people here are very dark, and mostly good- looking, rather of a Spanisli type ; I suppose a relic of the old times when tlie borders of France and Spain were very much mixed up, and indeed the lords of these parts and their vassals were very much of any nationality that suited their convenience best for the moment. We left our anchorage a little after one, passed through the outskirts of the town, over the old bridge over the Aude, and under tlie casde-hill. Our way at first was uphill, but it w^as a good road, with no stones, though we were again in luck as regarded them, as they were here, too, all piled up on each side of the road, and another day might have seen them all down. We had the bells on the mares for the first time to-day, and they don't mind them in the least : the couvcrturcs, however, were very troublesome. Joseph, l)y the way, has annexed my best railway rug to put over one mare, while he puts the driving rug over the other, so as to make a change for them in and out of the stable : and they kept slipping down to one side, and all but tumbling off. Joseph, however, didn't seem in the least to mind climbing along the pole every now and then to put them right, while we were trotting along. I was rather glad I hadn't to do it myself ; indeed I think I should have taken the rugs oft' altogether if I had had to. We passed through some very fine country to-day, a con- tinuation of what we had yesterday, only that the hills were IGG The Voyage of the Escargot. even wilder, and with granite excrescences cropping up plentifully : not very far out of Carcassonne we passed another old castle to the right, probably once belonging to some old baron, a thorn in the side of the lords of Carcas- sonne. The peasants' costumes are beginning to be more characteristic now : the groundwork is the same, but there is more display of decoration about them, both in the men's and women's, in the way of trimming and colour, and an extensive use of coloured pocket-handkerchiefs. At Trebes we crossed tlie railway, and for a l)it we had a stretch of Hat road as we kept along the Aude valley, with the hills rising close off the road to the right, and the river running to the left, looking rather like some of the upper reaches of the Thames, as far as I5arbeira, a very Spanish-lookiug village, with ecjually Spanish-looking people. Here we came on a curious but somewhat embarrassing arrangement of stones, great l)ig ones placed in sort of open trellis-work order, each rank behind the openings in the rank in front of it: the object of tliis we failed to discover, so suppose that it must be a custom of the country, perhaps a relic of bygone times, when they wanted to tri]) up tlie unwary traveller; they keep u]) the custom, tliougli tliey have forgotten the reason. Then we got back into the liills again, here avowedly become the Cevennes. 'They were a little tamed in places into beaiing olives and vineyards, but the scenery was still very line. The marcs thorougldy enjoyed the constant variety oi up and down liill, the (me serving to counteract the otlier; it must liave Iteen quite a holiday to them after their old experiences. The carts in this part of the country are constructed ])rincii)ally of hay, at least they a])])ear so, built U]) on the same system as the baskets the other day, on the baie axles. Carcassonne to JVarhonne. 107 At Douzeiis wo had to cross the railway again. They certainly take their time about opening the gates in this part of the country, and make as much fuss over it as if they were opening tlie railway altogether. After the trdin has passed they wave two Hags ; then they blow a horn twice, and wait till it has been answered all up and down the line to the next station on both sides ; then they roll the flags up, and stick them in the ground, and then they blow the horn again, this time more triumphantly ; and after that they go to their little hut, and look in at the clock to see if they have kept all the vehicles which have accumulated at their gates on each side of the line waiting the prescribed time, and then they blow another horn to make sure, and after allowing five minutes to give any of their distant colleagues a chance of answering them, they wind in two or three hundred yards of steel rope on to a wheel, which I believe has to do with a distant signal somewhere, and then at last tliey open the gates, — all of which is no doubt done with a purpose, maybe the best of purposes, according to their lights, but it is stupendously irritating. We then climbed up and came down two more long hills, the last one being very steep as well, so much so that the collars were all over the mares' ears coming down as we reached Moux, twenty- five and a half kilometres, the longest stage we have done without a stop yet, at five. We are stationed in front of the Hotel de I'Espagne, on the side of the street. The stables are very crowded with commis voyagcurs horses, but they have made room for our mares, and they are in very comfortable quarters considering. "Willie and James and I have been for a walk since dinner along the road, but it is very dark, and they don't run to gas or oil lamps here, so we are not much the wiser. Joseph, 1G8 TJic Voyage of the Escargot. who has a wonderful idea tliat every one is always thirsting for his Llood, just for the fun of the thing apparently, has mandouvred to get put into the same room as Willie, so that Willie can protect him against the iiirocio\\°,commisvoyageurs here. He has just been and told Willie he must come to bed, lest he should be locked out. This is a gentle fiction. The truth is, that even now Joseph is in too great a funk to go to bed by himself. Saturday, Jan. 11.— This morning broke very stormy and windy. Josepli was late, and we very nearly had to go without milk, as there was only one place in the whole of Moux where it was to be got, and that was only open from 5 to G.30. However, we managed to get some from the proprietor of the cows as lie passed out with his herd to the fields. He gave it us as a great favour, saying tliat it was what lie had been keeping for himself, and we must come next time at the proper hour, or we shouldn't get any. Of course we said we would l^e sure and not forget. AVe left Moux at 8.45. Tlie weather was improving, and tlie roads were good. There had been stones recently put down, but tliey had had a roller over them, and they were well woi'u in. 'Hie scenery in this part was again wild and mountainous. AVe liad got \\\U) the lieart of the Cevennes, and it was simply magnificent. At Couilliac, we very nearly stuck on a very long hill. I tliink tlie mares didn't a[)prove of coming out in this damp-looking weather, and were in- clined to be sulky, l>ut we coaxed tliem up with soft l)lan- dishments, and after that they refused nothing for the rest of the journey. Indeed to-day we have achieved our fastest run on record, arriving at Xarbonne, tliirty kilometres, at 12.10 — that is, three and a lialf liours. After we had passed Lezignan, a fairly large towji, nine and Carc((sso)ine to Narhonne. IGO a lialf kilometres from JMoiix, I hud what seems to be '^oiiio- to be my usual morniug dose of neuralgia, and I retired to tlie bed, where I had a splendid sleep, only being woke once at a place where we had run on to a lot of loose stones, not yet crushed down, and all hands were required to shove the Escargot through. It wasn't the mares' fault that time. Tliey were struggling and pulling all the time as hard as they knew how, but we were almost up to the axles in the stones, and if it hadn't been for twenty or thirty cantonnicrs, who had been putting down the stones, I think we should have been there still. Then I went to sleep once more, and wasn't disturbed again till I woke of my own accord with tlie neuralgia quite gone away, just as we were coming in siglit of Narbonne. The last bit of road lay over a plain. We entered the be- ginning of the town and then turned to the right, where we found a large range of wooden buildings on the outer side of the boulevards, partly stables and partly sheds and outhouses, for the country drovers to put their cattle up in when they brought them in to market. We found the proprietor en- gaged in a quarrel with several drovers, each of whom appeared to want the whole place for himself and his beasts, and from the ferocious manner in which he was carrying on, we rather expected a rebuff; but as soon as he had finished, he cast aside his anger as it had been a cloak, and turning to us, welcomed us quite enthusiastically warmly, saying we were quite welcome to any space we might choose to appro- priate in his stable, and we could put the Escargot wherever we liked on the open street outside, for it all belonged to him, and, his faith ! he would like to see the policeman who would dare to interfere with us, who were his honoured guests. We accordingly took the mares out, and piloting them Y 170 The Voyage of the Escargot. witli some ditliculty through a herd of pigs which was just being driven out of the door where we had to go in, and were running about in all the wrong directions as pigs do, led them into the stable : it was crowded with horses of all sorts and sizes, and there didn't seem to be room even for one more little pony, let alone our two big mares. Our host asserted that lie would undertake to put thirty more horses in easily, but we declined trying the experiment ; so as we seemed to have particularly taken his fancy, he thought a minute and said we could have two cow-stalls that had been vacated this morning. Tlie cow-stalls proved to be really better accommodation than the stable, so we immediately jumped at the offer, and having extracted a promise from the owner tliat on no account should our mares be disturbed, which lie said would be absolutely impossible, as did not he know whom he liad to deal with — one might almost liave supposed that he took us for princes and princesses in disguise — we led the mares in and made tliem comfort- able, as we are going to sto]) here over the Sunday. The cowhouse is much better drained and better ventilated — according to our English ideas — than any stable we liave had yet ; they seem to l»e more careful of their cows than their liorses in France. The open space where we are drawn up has been very lively all day with cows and sheep and pigs and turkeys going out or coming in, witli an occasional additional excite- ment in tlie shape of one or otlier of tliese various beasts or birds escaping from tlieir proper herds, and being pursued and dodged about Ijy its own master and everybody else who niiglit liajipen to be aljout till it was got into a corner, and Ijrouglit back witli ignominy to its proper allegiance. Tliere were several dogs aljout, mostly of a breed a very rough copy Carcassonne to Xarhonnc. 171 of James, and James very soon after our arrival had first fought and then made friends with most of them, and entered into all the spirit of the fun ; only if, as happened more than once, any of the escaped animals took refuge under the Escargot, he wouldn't allow any of the other dogs under, but kept all the sport of fetching it out to himself. He had a thoroughly happy afternoon — with refreshments ; for another caravan having drawn up on the other side of the open space later in the day, he ingratiated himself with the young woman belonging to it, and spent the intervals between the various events going over and getting tit-bits out of her. Peg began making ii 'pot cm feu almost immediately on our arrival, and so, like most cooks, preferred our room to our company during the process of its manufacture ; so Willie and I went to the post to see if there were any letters. The Aude runs through the town proper, with bridges over it at frequent intervals connecting the two parts, and with walks along both sides, giving this lower part of the town a somewhat Dutch appearance. We counted fifty savonneuscs on the river - bank, all vehemently thumping the clothes between two l)oards, alternately with wringing them out to such a degree of tightness that one almost expected to see them come apart in their hands ; which accounts for the somewhat dilapidated state that my shirt-fronts have been reduced to since we have been in France : one wants to have one's things made of block-tin to stand that sort of usage. There were no letters at the post, — at least the man said so, though I have every reason to believe I saw one in the bundle he was holding in his hand, and he couldn't be persuaded to let me look for myself ; so we went back to fetch Peg, and then resumed our explorations. There is a very pretty slice 172 The Voyage of the Escargot. of park along one side of the town, where there is to be a band to-morrow ; the old part of the town lies on a hill, up which we climbed through very narrow and very dirty streets to the cathedral. Only the choir is finished ; I don't quite see where they would put the other part unless they built it down the side of the hill : what there is of it, however, is a very fine specimen of architecture, and not spoilt by too much of that tawdry decoration that infests so many of the finest French cathedrals. There was a christening going on while we were there, which we stopped to watch. The Xarbonnais are for the most part very dark and handsome, botli men and women ; the hcrri is the common type of head-dress here for the men, the women tie up their heads in bright-coloured handkerchiefs. Then it set in for a good steadily wet evening, so we turned homewards again. We bought some oysters on tlie way back from a woman wdio was retailing them in the streets. This purchase was attended with some evil conse- quences to the vendor's daughter, as, having no change, tlie former went to look for the daughter, whom she found sit- ting in a corner behind an umbrella carrying on a desperate flirtation witli a young, and to judge from the mother's wrath, ineligible young man : they were a very good-looking couple, and we were sorry for them, for after having got our oysters and left, on looking back we perceived the mother storming at tlie girl, who was in tears, and the young man liovering round a little way off, not quite sure whetlier he dared interfere or not. We had to carry the oysters in our pockets, as the old lady hadn't any paper to wrap them in ; then we bought a ])ottle of Cliablis to drink with them, and a bottle of St Estephe for dessert, and a pack of cards to pass away the evening with, — so that altogether when we Carcassonne to Narhonne. 173 arrived at the Escargot we did not present a too respectable appearance. We liad a fearful struggle witli the oysters : we had for- gotten when we bought them that we would have to open them, and we had no oyster-knife ; and I think they were the most tenacious oysters I have ever liad to do with. The consequence was, that we broke both our pocket-knives and a sardine-opener over them, disarranged all the interior of the Escargot, and inflicted some severe gashes on our own fingers and the furniture : and it was not till three-quarters of an hour after our usual dinner-hour that we sat down, panting and exhausted, but triumphant. How those oysters must have chuckled at first when they heard us trying to get in ; they certainly died bravely, and I hope we didn't hurt them very much. We were well rewarded, liowever, for our perseverance, for they were very delicate and capital eating, and the Chablis was excellent. After dinner we played Nap till 10.30, and then Willie had to go to his hotel on the boulevards, which Josepli had found for him, and carried his bag to in the course of the afternoon. Joseph has got a room with the 'patron of the atable. Sitnday, Jan. 12.^ — -Fine day but very windy. I had a bad bout of neuralgia this morning, so there not being anything to get up for, there being no English church here. Peg made me stop in bed till twelve, and dosed me with antipyrine. Willie didn't appear either till just before lunch ; he said he had quite overdone himself over the oysters last night : he has read somewhere that an oyster takes a force of 1319 times its own weight to open it, so averaging the weight of those we had last night at 3 oz., the force we must have ex- pended over two dozen of them must have been something prodigious — enough to have propelled the Escargot ! 174 The Voyage of the Escargot. After lunch we went out to hear the band, but we only found a crowd of disappointed Sunday outers round the band- stand, reading a notice to say that there was going to be no music to-day, as the band was all laid up through influenza ; so we went on to the post, where the official in cliarge to-day was not quite as obtuse as the one yesterday, and allowed me to look at the letters, and the one I thought yesterday was for me proved to be really so : it had been waiting liere over a week. Then we went to see the Musee in the old Hotel de Ville, which once was used as a royal palace. There is a very good collection of china and antiquities there ; and the rooms sacred to the memory of Louis XIII., who stopped here a good deal, with the furniture just as lie had used it. There is a terrace at the back with a fountain and some fine old trees, under which we could picture the knights and dames of the olden time walking, and talking nonsense or otherwise, the former variety being in the preponderance, very much the same as they always have done and always will do, and maybe Louis XIII. strolling along on Cinq- Mars' arm. in the days before reasons of state had stepped in to break off' the eternal friendship that they had sworn to each other, — and with that we passed out through a side-door into the street again. ]\Iy letter, amongst other things, told me that the Xarbonne honey was considered the best in the world, and strongly advised us to try it, so we now went to an ipiccric, where we saw p(jts and pots of it displayed in the window, and bought four of them — two for our own use, and tlu; other two to take home to our relations. The epicicr was a very agreeably disposed man, and wanted to know a great deal aljout England, and English manners and customs. He seemed t(j lune been particularly struck by what he had Carcassonne to Narhonne. ]75 read about the English Sunday, and tried to get us to give him a complete account and explanation of our manner of keeping the day ; hut the attempted moral discussion failed signally, mostly owing to our want of command over the French language — at any rate, when it had got away into such abstract depths as that. However, we told him that we were not so blindly prejudiced as not to avail ourselves of the good things that nature and art, under Providence, had produced, and put into his window, when we came across them, which he took as a very pretty compliment, and hoped we would soon look in again. A\^e were sorry that we thought we shouldn't be able to ; but that honey proved to be so good at tea that we had to return there in about an hour and a half after all, or there wouldn't have been any left for our relations. We had a cake for tea which, I am sorry to say, did not testify as it should to the honesty of the ISTarbonnais i^dtissicr from whom we bought it. He affirmed, with all the appearance of injured innocence, that it was baked fresh this morning. We couldn't help thinking that it was rather dry, but trusting in the iKdissicrs word, told ourselves that that was only the specialty of the Xarbonnais cake ; but, alas ! when we had given Joseph the remains, he hadn't taken two bites before his teeth closed over a most unmistakable Twelfth-night doll, and the IJiUissicr stood convicted. After tea we went out for another walk on our side of the river. We came on the fair, which was in full swing, with all its Aaried attractions of fat ladies, giants, merry- go-rounds, and a very shaky -looking switchback -railway, which I wouldn't have gone on if I had been paid for it. It was fearfully windy on the square where the fair was, and the people's hcrris and coloured shawls were flying all 176 The Voyage of tlie Escargot. over tlie place with their owners in pursuit, making it as difiicult to walk about as it would be in the thick of a football-match. When we had at last, all three of us, caught our own hats therefore, we came home, and sent Joseph to the fair in our stead, with fifty centimes in his pocket, which he laid out very profitably in five shows. The gale has got up so that we have had to. put the shoes on the hind-wheels, as we found the Escargot was starting off on a journey on her own account. There has been a fearful family row in the caravan over the way. The woman objected to her husband bringing home five or six friends to tea, and was turned out into the cold for it, where she sat entreating forgiveness for fully three-quarters of an hour, when the brutes at last let her in. CHAP TEE XII. BEZIEUS — MEZE — GIJEAX — MONTPELLIEU. Monday, Jan. 13. — To-day was fine, though still rather windy. We assembled our party successfully at a com- paratively early hour this morning, and having settled our account with the amiable iKdron, who said that his heart was broken at our departing, — though why he should have taken such a fancy to us we can't make out, unless Joseph had been yarning about us, — and charged us more than the average amount for our stabling, presumably to cover the necessary repairs. AVe left at nine. z 178 Tlie V(>i/^(ge of the Escargot. "We found tlie same sort of mysterious criss-cross arrange- ment of stones just outside the town, but we had a satis- factory explanation of them at last — namely, that they are intended to distribute the trafhc equally over the road, instead of letting it make a groove for itself in the best parts, the stones being shifted by the cantonnicrs every day. Joseph had learnt this from some of the drovers he had met at the stable. But in spite of this not altogether unreasonable purpose, the ^Missus began to resent the constant winding in and out to avoid them, and presently stopped dead short, as if she had made up her mind not to go another step, and the having taken hold of her, as Joseph remarked, there is every reason to suppose that she wouldn't have, at any rate of her own accord; but just then a kind carter came by with his team and his big whip, and seeing our little diflerence with her, smiled meaningly at us, and, without saying a word, caught her such a crack with the said whip over the hindquarters, that before we had time even to thank him we were out of sight, and liying along the road at such a pace that when at last we did begin to slacken speed again, we found that we had come tliree kilometres in ten minutes. The country round was all flat, with swamped vineyards, the same as we had seen before Carcassonne. "We passed Coursan, and then crossed the Aude, which was about as wide at that part as the Thames at Windsor, and shortly afterwards the frontier into Herault. AVe had been coming all this time along a very Hat road, with the Cevennes to our left, l^ut now we began to climb again, first jjassing over a viaduct Ijuilt over one of the valleys, half of the roadway on which was tilled up with heaps of stones ready to l>e ])ut down. AVe met another cart, and were rather Beziers to Moyitpellier. 179 doubtful how we were going to pass, but the carter was very obliging, as we have found all his species all the way along, and gave way, though it was really his side of the road. Just after that the Missus had another fit of tlie sulks on our coining to a very long hill, and we were revolving for some little time in the middle of the road before she was persuaded to face it. We then climbed on past Nissan, another village of a Spanisli type, with a clean white church, with the bells on a framework of masonry outside, and so farther, always mount- ing, till at last we got to the very top, and there before us saw Ijeziers, standhig on high ground, with its cathedral prominent on the summit, and a long road winding to it from where we stood, all down-hill, to counterbalance all that we had been toiling up. The Missus had not the slight- est objection to this form of road, and we ran down in less than no time, this side of the mountains being laid out in olive-yards, and, crossing the canal, came to the bottom of the steep main street of Beziers. The Missus refused again here, and liad evidently been occupying herself on the journey in instilling some of her rebellious spirit into Mary Ann, for we got no help from that quarter this time. AVe had another short period of waltzing round in the middle of the street, during which time a small crowd collected, and a policeman asked us, very mildly, how long we were going to stop there, to which I couldn't help replying with the Scotsman's famous question, " Did he think we were doing it for pleasure ? " rendered into idiomatic French. But at last it struck the Missus that we were very probably going to put up at the top of the hill ; she passed the word to Mary Ann to give over her antics, and we went up in one run to the top of 180 Tlie Voyage of the E scar (jot. the hill, then turned back and took another sliort hill, which rose zigzag to the first, in a second run, and were in the Grande Place, being satisfactorily convinced that these demonstra- tions of the ]\Iissus were nothing more nor less than sheer cussedness. We found a large livery-stable, where the patron said he could take us in, but wiien we had got in through a narrow arch, he wanted to stow us right away at the back in a shed with a lot of other vehicles in front of us, so we backed out again, and tried our luck at another yard a little down a street leading out of the Place. Here we took the precaution of going in first to see what sort of place we could have. We made our choice, to which the ixdron assented, and then came the question if the Escargot would go under the archways at the two ends of the stable through which she had to pass to reacli the yard. She only just did it with half an inch to spare, and we drew up in the midst of an admiring and somewhat excited assemlilage of carters and drovers at the side of the yard at 1.15, having made twenty-six kilometres in four and a quarter liours. There was a good deal of live-stock about the yard, very much the .same as at Xarbonne, only tliat tlicre were no pigs : we had scarcely got inside when James made a most un- justifiable attack on a turkey, probably anticipating as ea.sy a victory as he had lately been achieving at Xarbonne ; but lie found he had caught a Tartar this time, for tlie turkey turned on liim, ami there ensued a regular staiul-up tight, all tlie other dogs and fowls and drovers, kt., &c., getting up on haystacks and otht-r coigns of vantage to see. The figlit lasi(,'d (]uit(! ten minutes, and resulted in the complete dis- comfiture of James, who came Ijack to the Escargot looking remarkablv foolish. Bezievs to Montpellier. 181 After luncli we went for a walk, leaving James on tlie footboard to take care of the Escargot, Joseph had disap- peared, liaving a headaclie, and being gone to take a nirda in front of the 'patron's kitchen-fire. There is a small hotel luider the same management as the yard, where AVillie and Joseph have found rooms for the night. We went out on to the Place, where we found the remains of the fair, for which we were one day too late again. There was a most gorgeous caravan, all painted blue and gold, and the arms of all the countries in Europe emblazoned on the panels, the English arms, turned completely round, from a heraldic point of view, being very conspicuous, — with a band on the top, and a beautiful lady in an embroidered Spanish jacket and spangled continuations of a very baggy type — a sort of rational dress costume — dispensing antidotes for rheumatism to an eager crowd of buyers from the box. "We found out the Madeleine Church, a sombre sort of building, well suited for the tragedy whose memory lends it its greatest interest — the massacre of the Catholics by the Albigenses — it seems to me that it was about six of one and half-a-dozen of the other in those old times, except that one side was considerably the stronger : and then we went on in search of the Cathedral. We were some time before we succeeded, as the higher part of Beziers is a perfect labyrinth of narrow streets, and it seemed once we had got in that we would never get out of it again, 'and the only man we met to ask the way proved to be dumb, probably the only dumb man in Beziers, so he was not much use. However, by dint of always going up the steepest street, we at last reached the object of our search. It is a very fine old Gothic building, and looks as if it had been built to serve as a fortress as well, as it very probably was. It is 182 llie Voyage of the Escargot. surrounded by platforms looking out all four ways, and we had a magnificent view of the country along which we liave been coming these last few days, — of the Pyrenees away to the south ; and in the direction along which we have to go to-morrow, the first glimpse of the Mediterranean. We made our way down by a reverse process to that we had come up, and passed through the market-place, an ol>long place, shaded over with trees, and very picturesque tumble- down old liouses all round it. When we got back to the Escargot we found Joseph bursting with excitement to tell us of a gross delinquency on James's part, who finding himself in full command of the interior of the Escargot for five minutes, and with the pantry- door open, had availed himself of the opportunity, probably, in the limited period at his disposal, at the utmost incon- venience to himself, to dispose of the whole of a leg of mutton, wliich we had intended for our dinner to-night. James was perfectly conscious of his guilt, and instead of having bounded out to welcome us as is his wont, had scpieezed himself as tightly as possible into the farthest corner near the bed, where he was cowering under the pangs of conscience — and not improlmbly indigestion. Summary retribution followed : we will draw a veil over the par- ticulars ; Init I don't tliink James will so much as look inside tliat pantry cupboard again for some time. We had to go out and buy some chops in place of the mutton, as we are going to the theatre, and there was no time to begin anotlier joint all over again. When we got io the theatre, which we did rath(;r early, for fear we sliould not get seats, we found that we need not have liuiried, as, with the exce})tion of ourselves in tlie balcony, tliere was only one other small boy in the orchestra. Beziers to MontpelUcr. 183 in tlie whole of tlie house ; and it was not till another twenty minutes had passed that the rush came: about five -and - twenty young Beziers bloods in the pit. The performance was a very miscellaneous one, but we certainly got plenty for our money if nothing else : there were three short dramas of the type that tlie strivers for higher education through the agency of our music-halls are trying to introduce ; then four comic songs, sung by a lady of a certain age, in as many appropriate costumes, accompanied by a very cracked piano, and the small boy whom we had first observed, on the flute ; and lastly, a variety man, who in appearance was rather like Mr Corney Grain, — but far be it from me to say that his performance was in the least like that great artist's. We couldn't help laughing at it the whole time, but I must in justice add that we blushed at ourselves for doing so, for it was quite one of the most — if not the most — vulgar thing I have ever seen : when I mention that two of his best, or, from another point of view, his worst representations, were those of a Lycee boy with his first cigar, and an itinerant mandolinist, and that he acted them thoroughly in character, I don't think I need say any more. The waits between the different sections of the evening's entertainment were nearly as long as the sections them- selves, but the audience was very good-tempered, and ex- hibited not the slightest ill-feeling against the management. Willie and I filled up the intervals by reading the ' Petit Journal,' which we had brought in our pockets, which brought upon us the united wrath of the whole of the pit, who, looking round for something to pass the time, and perceiving our occupation, worked themselves up into quite a \\ti\Q furore, shouting to us to put away those papers, and "^4 has la 2Jolitiquc! " till one could almost imagine one was in 184 Tlic Voyage of the Escargot. the Senate-house at Cambridge on a Degree-day. However, as we were above them, and so were quite safe, as they couldn't drop anything on to our heads, we paid no attention, and read cahnly on, having the additional gratification that, besides amusing ourselves, we were doing them a like service as well. The entertainment lasted till nearly one, and then there was another item on the programme ; but the audience below suddenly stampeded as one man, and we followed their example. AVhen we got to the yard we found we were shut out, and every one had gone to bed, and couldn't be made to hear, so we had to make a forcible entry through a defective bar in a side-gate. Teg and "Willie got through without accident. I, being of rather thicker build, stuck lialf-way, and had to be dragged through by the others at some risk lo the buttons of my waistcoat. Once inside, Willie luckily found a door open into his hotel, so went off to bed. It is a beautiful night, and quite warm. Tut:>i(hiii, Jan. 14. — AVe had rather a disturbed night, as there were a lot of cows in the sheds round the Beziers yard who had had their calves taken away from them, and were mourning for them the whole night. AVhat with that, and the theatre last night, therefore, I got up with a bad headache, amounting to an attack of neuralgia, ami I was not sorry when Joseph told us the first thing this morning that the mares would want shoeing very soon, and as there was a blacksmith next door, should he take the opportunity of having it done there. I tried to occupy the time during the operation Ijy sleeping oil" my headache, while I'fg and AN'illic went out for a walk; but for a long time Josepli would not leave me in j)eace, turning up every five minutes or so to say that I slundd have plenty of time for my rest. Beziers to AloiifpeUier. 185 as the blacksmith had a lot of jobs on hand, and couldn't do ours for another two or three hours at least, till at last I could stand it no longer, and adjourned his further visita- tions sine liord witli a boot. I got up about eleven, and just as the mares were coming back from the forge, led by Joseph and the farrier. Some sensation was caused amongst the carters, &c., who had come round to admire our mares, by the ]\[issus planting her forefoot right on the top of my hind one. A murmur of horror shivered round the assembly, arms were stretched out to catch me, and hands were plunged into pockets — those great big trouser pockets like a clown's which every Frenchman of the working classes wears, and in which he carries most of his luggage when on a journey — and in half a minute I could have drunk more spirituous liquors than I have ever done in any given hour of my life ; but, why I rather wonder myself, unless it was that the Missus, being a lady, behaved and trod as such, I felt not the smallest ill effects at the time, and walked away without the slightest inclination to faint, amid the openly expressed admiration of the crowd at the fortitude of the English ; but I am afraid that it was somewhat of a bogus triumph that I won for my country, for I haven't felt the slightest after-effects all day, and there was not even a bruise on the place when I took my boots and socks off. AVe were going to lunch before we started, off a rolled tongue which we had bought at Xarbonne, but on going to the larder w^e found it gone. James had actually eaten it yesterday in the same five minutes as he had eaten the mutton. He was again rep- rimanded to the same effect as last night. It is no use leaving him to profit by experience as taught him by his after-sensations inside on these occasions, as he never 18G Tlie Voyage of the Escargot. has any. We liad to fall back upon omelette therefore, and after we had lunched we left the stables a little after noon. We started by taking a wrong turning, but we climbed over a lot of rubbish-heaps and waste ground back into the proper road again, and were soon clear of the town. The Missus was again not in very first-class form. The poor beast was rather distressed witli a slightly galled shoulder. We have examined the collars, and they seem to be all right, but we think it must have been produced by her struggles yesterday. However, we put some rag with cooling lotion over the place, to keep the collar from touching it, and then we went along better. The road after the descent out of the town was very flat and very straight, with the stones not yet put down. The railway ran alongside of us on our left, and the canal on our right. After passing Cers, all round were evident signs that we were ap])roaching the sea. Sand-hills lay to our riglit, with those rushes growing out of them that one almost invariably finds in connection with sand-hills, and the rest of the country round was sandy or peaty, with rushes and heath in place of the olive-yards and vineyards we have been lately passing, the scenery reminding us very strongly of parts of tlie Dorsetshire coast, and soon be\ond the sand-hills we saw tlie sea itself lying like a blue line about four kilometres off. We crossed the Libron and passed Vias, and tlien the road l)ecame very narrow, running witli a steej) embankment down on each side, and it was lucky we didn't meet any- thing, or one of us would Iiave probably had to go over the cdLic — the I'ic du Loup, an extinct volcano, lisiiig in front U) the left of our course. Twenty-two kilometres from ]>eziers, whicli we did in a little over three liours, we Beziers to Mimt^K'Uier. 187 crossed the Herault and entered the narrow streets of Agde — the black city — all huilt, including its cathedral, out of the lava of the Pic du Loup, at whose feet it lies, like another Pompeii, and perhaps, like tliat ill-fated town, falsely secure from long immunity from disaster, and des- tined one day to be destroyed when the long-slumbering mountain shall rouse itself again. We are now in the re- gion of earthquakes. We had a very tight fit through the streets, and were very fairly in the way to lose ourselves ; but a kindly old lady, who was sitting on the top of a pile of oranges in a cart drawn by a very diminutive donkey, in which she was returning from the market, offered to pilot us through. We followed in her wake along the bank of the Herault, and then crossed another bridge, which led us into the country again ; rather inclining inland, but still retaining the same sea-coast character as before. AYe had the choice here of either keeping the more inland road to Meze or going- round by the strip outside the Etang de Thou and by Cette : tlie second would, perhaps, have been the prettiest ; but from the map it looked as if that route would have been a matter of great nicety of balance, if indeed in places it would have been wide enough across for the Escargot's wheels, so we decided on the ]\Ieze road, and followed our old lady. We were quite rewarded for our choice by the view that we came on a little farther on : the Etang de Thou lying all along to our right, calm and blue, with the white felucca sails dotted about it, and the outer beach and the Mediterranean beyond, and at the far corner of the Etang, at the end of the outer beach, Mont St Clair, with Cette nestling at its foot, like a pretty English watering-place, 188 llie Voyafje of the Escarf/of. with its tiny white liouses, and the masts of the shipping anchored round it ; and beyond ]\Iont St Clair another mountain, — and all this in the clearest of atmospheres, and under tlie brightest of suns. It was a sight to make the heart glad, a complete compensation for our long journey, even if we had wanted any, which we didn't. And then, like Xemesis of old, as if to prevent us from becoming too elate, our first mosquito swooped down upon us ; but his career was brief, for he was promptly smashed, and his cor]ise lifted up and thrown out on to the road. We ke[)t up a ding-dong race with the old lady in tlie donkey-cait, but finally won by a head at [Marseillan, where she turned aside down a lane off the main street, waving us an adieu with the handle of her umlirella. After we had passed Lazelle, a fishy-looking sort of town on an arm of tlie Etang wliich ran u]) here, and where we saw the Jeu de I'aume for the first time, the scenery became less coast-like — vines appearing amongst the heath, and occa- sional ])lots of ])l(iugh-land, where the peasants were sow- ing tlieir cro]is, using a })rimitive sort of drilling-machine, like a long wine-funnel, which they held in one hand, and dribbled the seed, which they carried in a box slung over their shoulder, down it witli the other. "We met a good many old peojJc riiling on donkeys, with large panniers at each side, into wiiich they put their legs, which gave them tlie ap])earance of not liaving any. It was Ijeginning to Lirow dark when wc crossed the single line of railway that runs to (.'ette, and we got various reports as to the length of llif road lo 'Slc/M from jiassers-by, varying from tliree to six kilometres; so, to make sure, m'c put on a little extra speed, and soon kn(jcked <»lf' two of wlialever it was: then WL' turned sliarj) to the right, and came into ^le/e Beziers to Mont pell ier. 189 at a sharp trot at a few minutes past six — forty-two kilo- metres in six liours, and in one run. AVe have got a very comfortaljle berth in front of the Hotel du Lion : the iiatvonnc is an old lady — I wonder why so many hotel-keepers' widows survive their husbands — and trh aimahk, as even Joseph allows, whose opinion of the people of the South has grown worse in inverse proportion to ours growing better. Meze is a small town on an arm of the Etang, whieh seems to subsist principally by fishing : for a fishing town it is remarkably clean. We went out for a walk after dinner down to the port. The moon was out, and the ellect of the shipping lying on the perfectly still dark water and all the shadows was C|uite enough to soothe even the most troubled breast. There is a theatre here, but it is closed to-night ; if we had only come last night we would have been able to enjoy the unique pleasure of seeing the " ]>arber of Seville " for seventy-five centimes. After we returned we played Xap, but that wretched bo}' Joseph kept interrupting us with reports that if Willie didn't come into the hotel at once he would be locked out. This was at half- past nine, so Willie told him to go away and he would risk being locked out, and he retired grumblinfr. When Willie eventually did go to bed at 10.45, he found the door un- locked after all. Joseph had only been afraid as usual of going to bed in the hotel without any of us near him. JVcdncsday, Jan. 15. — Lovely day. We were up at seven, but owdng to the untimely loss of Willie in his bed, which was an even more than usually soft feather bed, and various other little impediments, that more uncharitable people might have classed under the general head of dawdling, we didn't leave Meze till eleven. We were rather troubled with dogs last night, and this morning there were still large 190 TJie Voyage of the Escargot. quantities of them perambulating the streets, ostensibly for the purpose of giving the male portion of the population, when it is not pursuing its usual occupation of lounging in the sun with its hands in its pockets, something to shy stones at. This, like the Jeu de Paume yesterday, was, perhaps, part of our first introduction to thoroughly Southern customs. ]Meze is at any rate the first place where we liave seen water selling in the streets yet. AVe were partly delayed by Joseph having lost the key of the fodder-box, — we have constantly had a good deal of troubhi with tliose keys : they are supposed always to hang on a nail over the road chart ; but generally some one or other of us has just had occasion to use them, and has not put them back again, and now there are four of us it is worse than ever. Joseph declared positively that Willie had had them last, and Willie hadn't touched them since he gave them to Peg, and Peg had handed them to me, because I wanted to unlock the tool-chest. This last piece of evidence, however, brought them back to Joseph, as I hadn't opened the tool-chest since yesterday before we arrived at Meze, and Joseph must have had them to get the corn for the mares' supper ; so we made him turn himself inside out, and sure enough they had got away into the lining of his waist- coat, he having forgotten one complete round of the crew tliat they had made. Then we found that we were short of sugar, so Willie and I went on to get some, taking James with us. We went lo every I'/iircric in the place ; but they were all out of sugar, or never kept it, and it was only when we had descended one step lower in the social scale, and tried at a sort of ship- chandler's, tliat we succeeded in procuring the only half pound of wliite sugar in Meze, and then the sho])man Beziers to MontpelUer. 191 seemed rather doubtful as to whether it would be good for us. It seems that the ]\Iezians don't use sugar, or anyhow only the coarser kinds. When we got half-way back to the Escargot, we missed James. AVe whistled and called to him loud enough to have been heard all over Meze, but he did not appear. The last place we had seen him was in the market-square, where he was tasting gooseberries off an old woman's stall, so we went back to look for him there. We searched the market thoroughly, and inquired of every individual stall-keeper if he or she had seen anything of him, but all in vain ; so we worked our wav back, going up all the lanes and alleys off' the main street, encountering some very remarkable odours in the course of our explora- tion, whistling and calling and listening to catch any faint bark, if James had been beguiled into any house, and kept there for the sake of his skin. All, however, was in vain, and we were returning rather downcast to report our loss to Peg, when who should meet us but Master James, prancing about and smiling, as if leading his friends a wild-goose chase was a form of sport that had never entered his head : it was impossible to chastise him much, as he might have thought it was for coming home when he had lost us, but we made him understand that he must stick to us another time. Very soon after we had got away my neuralgia came on again, and I had to retire, leaving Willie and Joseph on watch. My neuralgia seems to have settled down on me for a regular ten-to-two sort of period every day. I have found that taking snuff relieves it to a great extent, but it is a considerable nuisance, as it absolutely incapacitates me from any of the innocent peaceful enjoyment of caravan- travelling while it lasts ; though, of course, when there is anything disagreeable to do, such as getting the mares up 192 The Voj/ar/c of the J^scargof. a liill or through any stones, I don't feel tlie pain while the other trouble lasts. To-day it lasted straight on end for the best part of tlie journey. The first part to Gijean was smooth and witliout stones, and we quite did one of our records, reacliing Clijean — twelve kilometres — in an hour and ten minutes. Here we pulled up for lunch by the side of some- body's garden-wall. There was not a soul about in the street except one small child munching a bit of bread : James went for it, and it disappeared. "We left at 2.10 after a slight delay, owing to the ]\Iissus's caprices, who would insist on taking her place to be har- nessed tail foremost, and when remonstrated with, Ijegan to be a little free with her hoofs. However, we at last got away. Gijean is a very long village, and took us some tmw. to get clear of it ; then we continued along, the road being mostly down-hill for once and a way, which put the mares in a very good temper. There was a succession of heathy hills to the right, and fields with the early crops just beginning to appear on the left. I began to feel mucli better now, so "Willie and I got down and walked through Faljriques, and about two and a half kilometres farther. The road all along here was singularly destitute of traflic, the oidy vehicle we passed being a cart drawn by the smallest donkey in the world, with two extremely stout lovers squeezed into it, with their arms affectionately twined round eacli other's waists, — a disconsolate widow and widower we took them to Ijc from their appearance. Then we at last had a long hill up, which the mares, taking a nice-minded view of things, took (piiti; willingly : llu; sceneiy now liecame more woody. "Willie said that there was a great forest here, not so very long ago, in which one of Marrvat's heroes — he can't exactlv remember which, Jieziers to Montpellkn-. 193 and it lias slipped my memory too, though I once knew all Marryat's books pretty well by heart — hid in when he escaped from Toulon. Then we had another hill up, and when we got to the top of that we had a good view of IMontpellier below us, with its fine cathedral spire in its midst, and its aqueduct stretching away on arches for an immense way into the distance. There was a tremendous hill down into the town, and it was all the mares could 2b 194 The Voyafje of the Escavgot. do to keep tlie Escargot back ; and we entered on the boulevards. There were a lot of people about, it being apparently market-day, but nobody could tell us of any place to put up at, and a good many of those we asked .sniffed in a somewhat sententious manner, as if tiiey didn't tliink we should ever get a place, so we set to work to search for ourselves. "We had a fearful hunt : we went half - way round tlie boulevards one way, and then turned back and went the otlier half round the other way, but all in vain ; then we tried up some of the streets leading off" the boulevards, which were very narrow, and in some cases we had to back out of them for tlurty yards or so, as there was no possible means of turning round once we were in them, and we were still unsuccessful. One [)lace was quite full ; at another they wouldn't take us if we lived in tlie caravan ; at another we couldn't get in because the door was too narrow, Ovx., kc. : but even if it hadn't been for these objec- tions, nobody seemed to regret not being able to accom- modate us. Montpellier is evidently an eminently respect- able town, and doesn't hold out the arms of liospitality to caravan people. At last a citizen told us of a place down tlie Lunel road, beyond the bridge, three kilometres off' — the ( Jreen House ; .so we set off' for that. It was a great deal more like five kilometres ; and when we got tliere, there was nothing but a .sort of turnpike house, whose inmate never had lieard of tlie Green Ibjuse, the oidy thing green there being evidently ourselves: so we retui-ned to the town, feeling that our only hope was to go on gyrating round tlie boulevards till sonie- Ixxly took us in, if only to get rid of us. Peg suggested tliat tlie police nnght do it ; Ijut it was now past five, and getting Beziers to Moiitpdlk'r. 195 bitterly cold, and we were beginning to feel that even that would be better than nothing. A carter we met on tlie road back recommended us to the Old licd Hat, where he said all sorts of roycmx put up, and he thought they would be likely to take us in ; but even there they refused us : we haven't felt so small before on the whole of our voyage. They had the grace, however, to tell us of another place wliere carts from the country put up. round by the military hospital, so we went there, and at last found our much-longed-for shelter. The jMtroyi was not too agree- able, but just agreeable enough to say we might come in : it was a very tight fit in at the entrance-arch, and when we liad passed through we found ourselves in a huge stable with the beasts all along each side of it, and carts and commis voi/ar/curs' chaises drawn up in the space between : the whole place being only lighted and ventilated through the arch, so that when the door is shut it was pitch-dark except for artificial light, and all that there is of that consists of an oil- flare like one sees on a street market-stall, on one side of the door. Several of the other vehicles were moved a little on one side, and we had to navigate through the rest, as the patron insisted on our coming right to the farthest end of the stable. So here we were settled at 6.15, having made about forty-five kilometres of it altogether to-day, what with our peregrinations round the boulevards and the rest. The Missus gave us another fright directly we took her out, by simulating an attack of colic ; but we dosed her promptly, in which we were assisted by the garcoji of the stable, who is more inclined to favour us than his patron seems to be. However, it proved to be a false alarm. We dined out this evening, as there is a certain want of freshness in the stable. Then we took a short walk round the town, 19G TJie Voyage of the Escargot. and saw the Hotel de Ville, the Opera House, and the triumphal arch to commemorate the Pievocation of the Edict of Xantes, "Willie has got a bed at the Hotel de rOpera, in the centre of the town, and has gone off to bed. It is a very curious sensation being in this stable : there is an old gentleman, proprietor of a movable stall, who has his bed under a sort of tilt on his barrow ; but before going to sleep he is now eating his supper on his stall by the aid of one very guttering candle, of whelks and absinthe, a very few of tlie first to a great deal of the latter. T\\q, rjarcon has told us that he has a history: he came up to Montpellier twenty years ago with two sous, and now he hasn't even got that. I hope he won't set the stable on fire : there is lots of straw about, and he has a deal of absinthe inside him. I shall watch till I am sure all is quiet. CHAPTER XIII. MONTPELLIER — LUXEL — VAUVEKT — ST GILLES — AKLES. Thursday, Jan. 16. — We had a fairly good night on the whole, though there was a cock in our stables whom we found crowing when we came in last night, and was going on steadily when we went out for a walk at 11.30 : he most likely thought that if it was going to be always dark like that, he had better make sure of becfinnincf his crow in time by never leaving off at all. It was a very strange sensation waking up in that dark place, and recalled the experiences of youth, when one had to get up by candle- light at about 6.30 on a winter's morning and dress shiver- ingly to go in to early school : or later, those not C[uite 198 The Voyac/i' oftlic Escargot. such uncomfortal)le ones, because one could command more creature comforts as accessories, of getting up in a London fog. As it was, if we hadn't had tlie alarum with us we might have gone on sleeping till now. "We got up about 8.30 and had our breakfast by lamplight : Willie by agree- ment didn't turn up, but had his coffee at his hotel. Then we cleaned up a l)it and went out for a walk. One ad- vantage of the perpetual niglit has been that it seems to have, at any rate for the time being, effectually cheated the neuralgia, which didn't come on at its usual time this morning, probably because it didn't realise that the day could possibly have begun. "We went on to the Peyrou, a sort of terraced garden, considerably embellished in honour of Louis XIV., and then into the town to the market, where we bought some peas and new potatoes, tlie first we have had yet, and met Willie, who liad only just got up, and then we came back to lunch. James didn't go out with us in the morning, as he too was puzzleeauvoisin and Generac : there seemed to have been some eoiii'/nis roijajjcnrs down in these parts lately who had been doing a large business in Eiffel Tower Ijcrris, for not a child whom we passed on the road — masculine, feminine, or doubt- ful — but had on a Icrri, with the lively presentment of that modern hideosity worked in red wool on the crown. Through these villages, a long way before the first, all the way be- tween them, and a long way after the last, was one steady pull up : at Generac we had a very tight fit through the narrow streets, the radius of wliose windings was barely large enough in places to take the length of the Escargot in ; and we also nearly came to grief in the main drain of tlie village, which was a deep ditch right across the road, and when we had got our fore wheels down into it, it required a tremendous lift on the part of the mares to get them out again : indeed, if the pole hadn't been of extra good quality, I doubt if the strain on it wouldn't have snapped it ; as it was, it bent like a first-class Damascus blade. At last we got to the top of the incline, and there stopped to blow a bit. AVe had the side of the hill above us on our right, but to the left it sloped away towards the valley be- low, where we could see Ximes in the distance, w^ith the sun, which had just struggled out, shining on its spires and white 208 Tlic Voyage of the Escargot. houses : clumps of timber were dotted about the country, and there wore a good many reedy places about, giving evidence of the sandy soil, of which there is a great preval- ence about here. We had a good bit of Hat, and then began to go down again till we reached the plain below, all sand ; probably the Ehone area covered the whole of it, and this plain was only formed out of the alluvial deposit that the river was constantly bringing down. "We reached St Gilles, a straggly sort of town on a bit of a hill, on the top of which the cathedral is built, at 12.30, and pulled up in front of the stnble of the Hotel du Cheval IManc for lunch. After we had lunched we went to see the Cathedral, passing through narrow streets, whicli didn't seem to have altered much since the old days of the frightful struggles between the Albigenses and the Inquisition, of wliich St Gilles was one of the great centres. The Cathedral is quite one of the most interesting we have seen yet : the porch is Byzantine, and there are lions at tlie top, where the old bishops and the feudal lords used to sit in judgment on tlu'ir vassals ; and some most peculiar sculi)tures of the Fall ami the Last Judgment, grotesque enough to give one tlie nightmare. Tlie architecture inside is Xorman ; but the pillars are only half there, having, I believe, been cut in half and used out of the ruins of the old choir, which lies at the back. All this is, so to siieak, on tlie first storey ; on the gricargot from its slantindicular position of last night down to the lioidc\ards ]»elow, wliere we are certainly more comfort- able, as we haven't to clind) ujihill to get to the l)ack part, Aries to Marseilles. 219 as we had to do in the okl position. Joseph has been spend- ing the afternoon in beautifying the mares and the Escargot, and himself by having his hair cut, and it is difficult to say which looks the most spruce. We had dinner, and have been reading the ' Aries Howler ' all the evening on the iniquities of our nation as against the poor harmless Portuguese, who have been presuming on their weakness to take all sorts of liberties with our rights in Africa. We have learnt that we are cowardly, thieving, unjust, oppressors of the helpless, and pretty nearly everything else bad that can be imagined. However, I don't suppose Lord Salisbury reads the ' Aries Howler ' as a rule. The ' Petit Journal ' is principally occu- pied with a man who lias travelled from A^ienna to Paris in a packing-case. Monday, Jan. 20. — To-day has been very fine and bright again. We got our party together at a reasonably early hour, and left Aries at 9.20. We went out along the boulevards past the Poman walls, then downhill for the next quarter of an hour or so, with the Poman aqueduct to our right, till we crossed the canal, and got on to a perfectly flat plain again. James here behaved foolishly again, and thinking that it was time to pay out the wheels for the harm they have done him, set to work to bite them again, with the almost inevitable result that he got his other fore-paw run over, and had to be picked up and lifted into his old corner at the back by the bed, where he has been lying groaning and licking the in- jured foot all day. We had an absolutely flat road before us now, and for the most part, as far as we could judge from the map, no place to stop at, St Raphael and St Martin, which we passed in the first hour and a half of our journey, being of course much too short a stage for the first half of it, which of course we always 220 llw Voijar/c of the Escargot. like making tlie longest half, if possible. However, we passed one or two diligences evidently coming from somewhere, so we went on in hopes, and so entered on the Plain de la Cran, a wide extent of country bearing nothing but large stones and very short grass, on which there were large numbers of sheep browsing more or less at large, stretching far away to the horizon on tlie right, and terminated in the left distance by the Chaine des Alpines, which culminated far away aliead of us in the sombre - looking peak of the ^lont de Defends. Tliis plain has a legend attached to it that it was where Her- cules fought the Ligurians, and the stones lying all about are those tliat his father Zeus sent down from heaven when he asked him for hel}) to throw at his enemies. I must say I have always tliought that the labours of Hercules were rather overrated feats, like those of a great many of the old god-ljorn heroes, as there was generally a tendency on their part when tliey were getting the worst of a dispute to '^ tell father" or "motlier," as the case might Ije, like little boys in the London streets, AVe went on and on, and the road resolved itself into a perfectly straight line, reaching as far as we could see into the distance aliead of us, with cypresses on each side, but no sign of a village ; Ijut at last we came to a place where there were symptoms of rather better cultivation of the ]>lain behind the cyiiresses on the right, and through a break Ijetween them <»n the left, standing l)ack about iifty yards from the mad, there was an nnhi rij<\ a sort of half-way house, with no onu al^out, but with the welcome announcT-nient hung outside that there was to Ije found accommodation for man and beast. We pulled up at 12.15 by a little stream of running water tliat ran down \^y the side of the road, and as much in the shade of the cyjtresses as possible, though that A)'I('s to Marseilles. 221 was not much, as the sun was nearly straight overhead, and took the mares out. The ]\rissus was no sooner free than she started oil" straight to the stable with the greatest alacrity ; she has a great idea of wlieu she has done enough. There we stopped for nearly two hours, eating our frugal lunch, and enjoying the absolute peacefulness of the scene ; a pleasant breeze sprang up behind us while we were stopping, and made an agreeable rustling in the cypresses, and the stream gently murnnired as it rippled past ; there were no signs of life whatever except the bleating of some sheep who had been turned out with their lambs in a better bit of pasturage just the other side of the cypresses; the afternoon was perfectly lovely, and the whole surroundings impressed one with an almost overpowering desire to go to sleep a la lotus-eater, and remain there the rest of one's days. ]]ut all things must have an end, and at last the time came to put the mares to again, and proceed on our way. Joseph and I fetched them out of the stable — Joseph said there were j^eople in the house, and took the money for the stabling, 40 centimes, in to them, but not a soul did we otliers see — and then we continued along the same straight road, without an incline either way on it that could be detected, without, perhaps, the aid of a spirit-level, tlie breeze behind us having considerably increased by this time, and, as it seemed to us, materially aiding us along. We went along at a good pace, doing the next eight kilo- metres in forty minutes. Then we crossed the canal, and left the distinct characteristics of the plain behind, and the cypresses ; before us the Chaine d'Eguilles was rising into view, with Salon lying on the slopes at its foot. Xow the stones began again, but they were not so difficult of passing as usual, for the simple reason that the good j3eoi:)le of the 900 TJie Voyage of the Escargot. neighbourhood had diligently removed them from one side of the road as soon as they had been put down, so that we had a clear though somewhat rough passage to travel on. We passed the Salon cemetery to tlic left, and the race-course, in contradistinction to it, on the riglit, and then entered the town itself at four, having done forty-two kilometres to-day. Salon is a large town on undulating ground, very clean- looking and very busy, with good sliops. "We followed the boulevards very nearly to the exit of the Marseilles road, at the other end of the town, and halted in front of the Cafe du Xord, close by the town-pump. A civil patron and an equally civil garcon came out and wanted to take the whole trouble of unharnessing the mares and taking them in on themselves, but, of course, we declined so nmch kindness ; however, as tliey seemed so anxious, we let them do most of the work, only looking on to see that it was satisfactorily done. Tlien "Willie and I went to find a hotel, whicli we had some difficulty in doing, as the jjcople didn't seem to like our appearance ; perhaps it was because I went with Willie, and I hadn't clianged out of my travelling clothes into my walking-about ones : accordingly, at seemingly the last ])lace left in the town tliat we hadn't yet tried, I kept round tlie corner wliile Willie went to make his arrange- menls l)y himself, and there lie was successful. All the ])rincipal Iniildings and inns are on the boulevards, with fine old gates leading oil' them to the older town inside, but I don't thiid-c much goes on inside, as the streets are so narrow: tlie inhaliitants ])rol)ably relirci there to sleep, ami criiiH; out like rabbits from a warren to get their living. We found a liandsome fountain and a statue of Craponne, who was burn at Sahjn. We bought some chestnuts off a stall on the boulevards, and a small Itoy made a most unprovoked Aries to Marseilles. 223 attempt on Willie's life with a toy pistol, and then we returned to dinner, which Peg had stayed at home to pay especial attention to, as we were going to have a real English plum-pudding, Joseph had been pumping meanwhile, and a passer-by had called in to ask if he was winding up the machinery of the marionettes. Joseph has his suspicions, as he usually has, of the over-friendly natives, and has again been sitting in the stable to make sure that the mares got all their oats. The plum-pudding proved a great success. Since dinner Ave liave been engaged in digesting it and reading the ' ^Marseilles Thunderer,' still on the iniquities of us brutal English. There has been a fearful row at a caf^ over the way, and a man was forcibly ejected through a plate-glass window ; but for a wonder no police appeared from unex- pected quarters, and the disputants were left to fight it out by themselves. It has apparently all ended fairly amicably. Salon is a fearfully late place to go to bed : there are only 6895 inhabitants, the guide-book says, and I am sure, from the noise that is still going on (11.15), that the whole of these are on the boulevards. Tuesday, Jan. 21. — There was a good deal of rain, but it has been a beautiful day. The Salon people were all up and about very early, if, indeed, as we are rather inclined to doubt, from the continuous noise throughout the night, they had ever been to bed. We left at 9.20. The garcon turned out to see us off and gave us a regular military salute, stand- ing at the present with his stable -broom in front of the pump, which Joseph told us was because he had just served his time in the army, and Joseph had told him that Willie was an officer in the Queen of England's service. We were still going along the Iloute Departmentale, as we 224 Tlw Voyage of the Esearcjot. have been making a short cut across to Marseilles instead of going round l)y Ximes, which would have taken us at least two days longer. James still professes to be bad, though we can't help suspecting that he is again rather trading on his injury a little more than he need. "We had a pretty level bit of running for the first half-hour, and then struck into the spurs of tlie Chaine d'Eguillcs, our first experience of them being a long pull uphill of four kilometres, past Lancon, an old walled village on the left, and through some very fine cuttings in the granite rocks, varied by embankments sloping down to the barren heath country in the valleys between the ditlerent elevations. Then we went down a bit, and then up another long liill, this time witli olive-yards on both sides, and into a wild heathy and rocky sort of pass, like tlie scenes at the play where the brigands come down to perpetrate their wicked doings. This liill was also quite four kilometres long, but the mares took both quite unllinchingly, and without even a suggestion of wanting a rcnfuri. We took a liit of a blow at the top, meeting a nice frcsli breeze almost in our faces, and then descended the wIkjIc four kilometres again, coming out from the pass on to a winding bit of road along the side of the hill, with a Hat plain below us to the right, with great lumps of rock sticking up in it here and tliere, and the Etang de JJerre in the distance. AVc were going down at a fair pace, -loseph, who was driving, having the greatest objection to put the brake on ; he seems to look u])on it as a kind of slur on his driving powers, and requires constant looking after to prevent liim taking it oft surreptitiously ; but a man on a bicycle whirled past us at aljont six times our rate, and was out of sight almost befon; we realisccl from hearing his bell behind us that Ik; was coining: wliether he got to the bottom safe we don't know. Aries to Marseilles. 225 but we trust so, as wo didn't subsequently come on any remains. We left La Tare to our left, then crossed a stream, passing- several carts, from whose drivers we made inquiries as to the distance to Marseilles, where we were trying to get to to-night, but as usual only received conflicting replies, varying from twenty-eight kilometres to forty : then began to go up again, again through cuttings and along embank- ments, with plenty of gorse dotted about in the wild rocky scenery through which we passed. Willie and I walked up this hill. A cart, with a mule, a donkey, and a horse, coming down the hill passed us, loaded with barrels, and our hearts went out towards it with thoughts of home, for those barrels were all marked as full of the best Glenlivat ! Then we went down again along a very winding road, with olive-yards to our left and the heath to our right, and the Etang de Berre still nearer at the bottom : then followed a little stretch of level road under an avenue of young trees, and so we arrived at Rognac at 12.30, twenty-two kilometres in three hours ten minutes, which, considering the ups and downs, was very fair travelling. Ifognac lies on a little road of its own off the lloute Departmentale, so we had to turn aside to find a place to put up at : we found an aubcrgc, with an old man sitting in an arm-chair in front of the door, who told us we could put up our mares there, but we must do it ourselves, as he was paralysed in his legs, and all the rest of his people had gone off' to the fields. Indeed, every one in the village seemed to be gone to the fields too, or somewhere, for the whole time we stopped there we only saw one little girl with a cat in a basket, and an old woman, who came and asked us if we sold cures for rheumatism. Peg gave her a little of our home- 2 F 22G Tlie Voyage of the Escargot. made embrocation, with directions that she was on no account to drink it, and not to tell anybody else, as we didn't know but what some of the inhabitants might be only lying low in their houses, and if they heard there were gratuitous remedies going about, we might have been mobbed. After all, I don't suppose it is so very odd that one sees so few people about in the villages, for if one passes through an average English village on a working day, one doesn't meet many people. We left liognac a little after two, returned to tlie main road, and continued for a little along a very sandy bit by the Etang de P)erre, then crossed the railway, and enjoyed a twenty-five minutes' pull uphill, and along a sort of Corniclie road through the Chaine de Yitrolles, passing an old castle on the cliff above us. Then we went down again to Griffon, wliich consisted entirely, as far as we could see, of an anhergc at a place where four ways met ; and presently came to the Pas de Lonricres, with a stiff ascent up. "While we were per- paring to tackle this, an old man passed us in a little pony- cart, and just as he came to us fired a gun off into the air: whether it was to show us tliat he was armed, and that tliere was no use therefore our trying any of our caravan nonsense on him, or whether it was only a custom of tlie inlmljitants of this part of the country to make their horses go uphill, we are still ignorant : anyhow, in this case it had the latter effect, f(jr the little pony raced off up the hill as hard as it could tear, and very much as if it had the bit between its teeth, and they were lost to sight round the next corner in a iiir)Tnent. It took us another five-and-twenty minutes to get up that hill : the stones were fortunately only standing at the side of the road, but it hadn't got over the rain of last night, and was dreadfullv stickv. However, with nnich trouble and Aries to Marseilles. 227 vexation of spirit, we arrived at the top, and there was Les Pennes perched up on the cliff ahove us in a most picturesque, and probably in former times a most desirable position, when people were not at home to each other so much as they are now, and it wasn't considered rude to roll down stones on unwelcome visitors. We went throusrh a tunnel and throug-h the lower half of the village, wdiich lay on that side of the mountain, and on about another kilometre to L' Assassin, a very small hamlet, consisting of a hotel on one side of a place where three ways met, and a Gendarmerie, with its married quarters attached to it, opposite — nothing more : a benighted - looking place, and seemingly very fitly named. And then there was another severe hill in front of us, so, as we had already made thirty-five kilometres, we thought it best to stop for the night. Time 4.15. The proprietor, a big fat man in his shirt-sleeves, and a pair of blue stuff continuations, was standing at his door with his hands in the pockets of the latter, staring at us, to see what we intended to do ; but after we had been struggling for some minutes in the mud, which is particularly thick about here, and making no progress in our endeavours to get the Escargot into the sort of three-sided court standing back from the road which constituted his premises, he suddenly proved most obliging in his efforts to assist us, not only summoning to our aid his two garcons, but produced various mechanical instruments from his stables and outhouses to assist us in our object. I think this is about the stickiest place we have ever encamped in yet : we all shoved ourselves and the garcons shoved, and tlie patron brought all his forces of lever and screw and inclined plane into play, and the mares pulled till they got quite out of temper and disheartened, but we were a good quarter of an hour before we had got ourselves 228 Tlie Voyage of the E^^cargot. into position for the night, close up against the liotel wall, with a tremendous list to port, so much so that walking about inside the Escargot is something like taking exercise on a ^Mansard roof; but the proprietor says we nnist stand here, as one has to be particularly careful wlien one lives opposite a Gendarmerie. This is a weird place to stop for the night, particularly windy, and the associations of the cross-roads and the name of the place are distinctly suggestive. Joseph lias got a legend all ready-made, to soothe any incipient nervousness on our part, of a horrible murder by a soldier of some thirty or forty people — Joseph's stories never lose anything l)y the telling — at these identical cross-roads, where he was eventu- ally hanged and then buried under the sign-post, and the place was given its present name, and the Gendarmerie put there in consequence. Josepli is not altogether happy, in spite of the ]tresence of the Gendarmerie : still lie has lately taken to com- forting himself to a certain extent by tlie retlection that people ought to be just as afraid of us as we are of them, as they don't know liow many bandits there may be concealed in the Escargot, ready to steal out and cut all their thruats at some given moment. L'Assassin is not a very convenient ]»lace to get provisions. AVe got our wine and bread as a great favour from the liotel, though tlie patron gave us to understand that it was at the greatest inconvenience to himself, for he had his house full this evening for a reunion of carters from all the country round about. Joseph tramped back into Les Pennes and got some lemons and eggs, and we had to watch for the only iiKiri-hirnil in the place from whom we could get milk to come by with his Hocks and herds at nightfall, lie was a party whose i)rincipal article of attire was a sheepskin, and looked Arh's to Marseilles. 229 exactly as if he liad stepped straight out of the " ]\Ias- cotte." We had also some difficulty getting Willie a bed, as there was a great run on them this evening owing to the rcuniun, and the only way AVillie has been aljle to secure a room to himself has been by engaging four beds right off all to himself — a lordly offer which Joseph declares will make the natives more suspicious of us than ever, and possibly may excite them into rising up against us in a Ijody. Our private notion is that Joseph wishes Willie to disarm tlie supposed suspicion by inviting him to occupy one of the spare beds. However, Willie has been firm, as he says he would a deal sooner risk the suspicions tlian endure Joseph's snores. We have been playing whist since dinner, though consider- ably under difficulties, as Willie, who occupied the upper locker, w^as constantly sliding off against the table, and bring- ing himself and it and the whole of the cards in a confused mass on to me, who was sitting down below him. Peg and dummy occupied the arm-chair in the gangway, and though they had to balance themselves very nicely, were at any rate out of danger. This constantly one - sided position rather tends to make one a little sea-sick, and the general strange- ness of it is not lessened by all the pictures and ornaments which are fixed keeping at their proper relative angles to the floor. James is rather upset like the rest of us, and tliough there are a lot of cats about, has not been taking the smallest interest in them. Our bed is all down by the head ; but I remember once being put to sleep like that in hospital when I had a bad leg, and whether from that or all the other things they did for me I quite recovered : so I suppose the position may be considered healthy, and we have no right to complain, except that we haven't got bad legs. The carts have been arriving all night, and the court is full 230 The Voyrige of the Escavgot. of them ; the revelry within is getting fast and furious. The barometer has fallen considerably. I have just looked out, and I am afraid it is blowing up for rain. There are two big wolf-liounds wandering round tlie liouse, waiting to snaj) u]» any uxu- they may meet aljout ; fortunately they missed Willie when lie went across to bed. Arle.^ to Marseilles. 231 A strange thing has just happened : there has heen a fear- ful crack up above, and one of the planks of the roof has split almost right along its whole length. Peg had vague ideas of earthquakes ; but I suppose it is really the change of tempera- ture from the heat we have been lately having to the cold w^e have come in for now. We have made all the preparations we can against rain with dusters in the stove ventilator, and trusting to it not knowing about the new crack yet. When it does, we shall have to do what we can with putty. Wednesday/, Jem. 22. — We had a good deal of rain in the night, and it was still drizzling this morning, but the sun struggled out, and it gradually developed into a fairly fine day, though somewhat cloudy. All the carts had gone by seven o'clock this morning, in spite of the late hour that the riiinion had been kept up to last night. Willie came down about 8. SO ; he reported having passed a fairly good night, though it was lucky he had taken tlie four beds, as their combined clothing only made up a sufficiently substantial covering to just keep the cold out. We left L' Assassin at 9.40, and immediately entered on the hill we desisted from last night. It was terribly sticky — tlie hills in the Chaine d'Estade, which this belonged to, are mainly composed of marble, which in wet weather seems to have the property of turning to a kind of Devonshire cream^ — and quite four kilometres long, and we had a tre- mendous fight of over forty minutes to get up it, Willie with the reins. Peg putting large marble blocks behind the wheels as we slowly advanced a yard or so at a time — those blocks will be a pleasing reminiscence to any one who follows us up that hill — Joseph on the Missus's back postilion-wise, James limping around again, and, when nobody w^as looking at him, taking occasionally snaps at his enemies the wheels, and 232 Tlic Voi/ar/c of the Escargot. myself alternately at the mares' heads or at the particular wheel whicli seemed to be sticking more than the others for the moment : but at last we arrived at the top, 500 feet above Avhere we had started, all of us, Escargot included, one mass of mud, till it really couldn't be said that any one of us was more disreputable than the others — and then we had nothing to do but to go down again. We liadn't far to go before we got to St Antoine, and rejoined the lioute Xationale, after several days' absence from it, and here the outskirts of ^Marseilles practically began, with suburban villas standing in their own walled gardens as at Wimbledon or Putney, belonging to " individual gents," as Joseph expressed it. Tiie road liere became slightly un- dulating, like the swell of the ocean after a storm. We had a fine view of the bay to our left, with the Chateau d'lf in the distance, and on the right tlie chain of mountains over the end of whicli we had just l)et'n coming. The road was a good deal cut up by the traffic after the rain, and presently we came to cobbles, which were perhaps worse than the ordinary road, as tliey were very greasy, and it was all we could do to kee]) the mares from slipping down on the unwonted foothold. We passed the octroi without anything but the merest formality, then struggled up a sharp incline all cobliles, and pulled up to inquire for a ])lace to put up at. Nobody seemed to know of any such place, so we con- tinued deeper into the town, through a greater crowd of vehicles tlian we have yet had experience of, and none of tliem seeming to keep any i)articular side of the road. \\'(.' passed tlie Arc de 'J'riomi»he, and tlicn went, ])artly walking, ])artly sliding, down a tremendously steep street, witli Josc-pli sitting on the Ijrake, and our hearts in our mouth<, for the mares were on tlie verge of slipping down A)'Ies to Marseilles. 233 on to their noses the whole way, and if they had gone down, goodness only knows what would have happened, for the Escargot was travelling purely of her own weight, and all the mares were really doing was helping to keep her back ; but we got safely to the bottom without an accident, and found ourselves in a kind of market-place with four pro- menades with trees, running transverse-wise to the Cannebiere, the principal street of the town. Here we made further inquiries, and were recommended to two hotels in that immediate neighbourhood, but neither of them was suitable, not only because their stables and coach - houses were perfectly dark, like that at Montpellier, but, leaving our own prejudices out of the question, the doors were too narrow for the Escargot to go in. So we backed out of the narrow streets into which we had penetrated, as we found there was no other end to them, and wandered on in an aindess sort of fashion up the tremendous length of the Eue de Kome till we came to the Place de Castellane, where Willie and I got down, and went across to a cab- stand to ask the cabbies if they could tell us of any place. They were very friendly, and one of them left his vehicle in ') charge of a comrade, and came and guided us to a livery- stable just off the Place, but that was again too narrow and dark. We then decided to continue on the Eoute de Toulon, on the chance of finding some place where country carts put up, more in the suburbs. Just then a kind youth, who looked like an otfice clerk, and whom we had noticed more 'than once following us in our progress through the town, admiring us respectfully from afar, but too shy to make any nearer advances, came forward and modestly ventured the informa- tion that we should find a very good place in that direction 2 G 234 21 le Voyage of the Escarfjot. called the Clialet, where all the market-carts put up when they came into town. "We thanked him, and set off in search of it. On our next inquiry, however, when we had already gone a long way, and there were no signs of the haven where we would be, nobody seemed to know any- thing about it, and all seemed to be of opinion that there was no place out that way which would do for us, and we were just on the point of turning back in almost despair, when our young friend came up again from behind, where he had been still patiently following us, and said that if we would only be so kind as to take him up on to the caravan, he would stake his honour that wc sliould not be disappointed in him, but he would guide us to the Clialet himself. We accordingly helped him up on to the footboard — much to liis deliglit, as he let out a little nervously, as if afraid that we should put him down again wlien we discovered that his kindly ofl'er was not entirely disinterested, tliat it had always been the ambition of his life to travel on a real caravan — so while we were proceeding along, Peg took him inside, and showed him all tlie wonders of the interior. We went along for about a kilometre by the Cheniin de Toulon, and at last came to a great yard opening oil" the street, with a gate in a high wall. This was the place, and we turned in. Tlie good youth liad certainly not deceived us, for tliis is certainly the best stopping-place we have been in yet — not even allowing for its being in a big town, where we liave always f(nnid our worst quarters hitherto. We tlianked our guide profusely, \mi he positively refused to acce|)t any sort of retmn for his kindness — of course, not money, but some little trifle from amongst our caravan treasures — saying tliat lie iiad Ijeen amply rewarded by the gratification of our wi-h. He introduced us to the patron, a big burly A)'les to Marseilles. 235 man, who looks like a carter himself, then got down, and saluting us politely, went on his way. The yard is about four acres in extent, with a cafe and the stables in the far corner. We are in the corner close to the gate : there are no carts in at present, and the main portion of the large space is used as a bowling-alley. The ^;«i!rti7i is a most obliging man, and having satisfied himself of our respectability, is prepared to do anything for us. The first thing he did for us was to find us a laundress, as we are going to stop here some days, and are taking tlie opportunity of sending our things, of which we have been accumulating a vast collection in our fodder-box, to the w%ash. Joseph is to sleep in the cafe with the j^a- troii's family ; but there is no suitable accommodation for Willie, so as soon as we had cleaned ourselves he put his necessary things into his bag and we went down into the town to find a hotel. Willie is putting up at the Hotel de Petit Louvre on the Cannebiere. We have been spending the whole day in the town, lunching at a Duval restaurant, then loafing al)Out enjoying the wonders of the Cannebiere till dinner- time, at which meal we were vastly amused, though at the same time touched, by our observations of our neighbours at the next table — a good old man up for the day from the country, who had got his two soldier sons out on leave, and was giving them a dinner, and enjoying their pleasure at the unwonted good fare in an honest simple way that it did one's heart good to see. And then came the event of the evening : we went to see Judic. The piece was " Mamzelle Xitouche": it might not bear literal translation into English perhaps altogether, but I don't think it w^as really one whit worse than some 23G The Voyfiije of tlie Kscargot. of the things we liave on the London stage now. And Judic's acting ! — it is as good as a tonic. We passed some specimens of young Marseilles, evidently burning for a lark, but a sudden cry of " Police ! " sobered them at once, and they were even as though butter would not have melted in their mouths. "We got home about a quarter to midnight, the good-natured imtron having trusted us with the key of the gate. CHAPTER XA AT MARSEILLES. Thursday, Jan. 23. — To-day lias been a glorious day. We didn't get up till very late this morning ; and when at last we did, we had to exercise some caution over our toilet, for the juvenile population of this part of Marseilles have found us out, and took the keenest interest in our doings in the interior of the Escargot, climbing up on the foot- board and wheels and everywhere where they thought there was a chance of peeping in through the blinds, which we kept tightly drawn, till the patron perceived them, and came and dispersed them with a horsewhip. When we were dressed, we went down town and found a bath establishment, where we had a glorious polish up : for our wooden bath in the Escargot, though highly effi- cient, is still somewhat confined, and does not allow of that unrestrained splashing around that makes the morning tub at home so delightful. I took the opportunity of having my 238 The Voyage of the E scar got. hair cut and a thorough shave, and we emerged from the establishment feeling quite new persons. Then we went to fetcli "Willie from his hotel : James does not go out with us here, as all dogs have to be muzzled in the streets, and he would only be miserable. However, he is perfectly happy, as he has lots of room to run about in the yard, and there are i;)lenty of cats to run after, and when he is tired of that form of amusement, generally some one in the cafd to coax into giving him something to eat, which is his next prin- cipal object in life. We had to wait a little while for "Willie, who had like- wise got up very late, and was also beautifying himself : then we had lunch at a cafe on the Cannebiere, and after we had been to the post and got our letters, and to the bank and got some money, we went to see the port. There were two or three English yachts tliere, on the way home from the IJiviera regattas, and one little steam-yacht that had Ijeen making a trip something like ours tlirough France, only through the canals. There was not as much shi])ping there as usual, an old boatman, with whom we made friends and wlio wanted us to come for a sail, told us, owing to the (|uarantine ; but there was the most fearful smell there conceivable, and after we had been there a very short time it began to affect us, worse perhaps on account of all the fresh air we have been enjoying lately than it might have done otherwise, so we came away, took a look at the Cathedral, a sort oi arrangement in Ijlack and white that I don't care for very mucli, and then went to call on ]\r al his ollice, a sort of connection of ours, to wliom we bad an introduction, and who received us very kindly, and wiili whom we have made an engagement for Sunday, as he is up to his eyes in work and can't spare any otlu-r day. At Marseilles. 239 Marseilles as a whole is a tremendously busy place ; the people here walk faster and talk less about the streets than I have seen in any other town in France. "We took another walk up the Cannebiere, and I'eg bought some stuff for a new dress, and then we had afternoon coffee at the Grande Maison Doree, a palatial edifice on that street : nobody there speaks a word of English, which perhaps after all is much the same that a foreigner would find in London, but one somehow doesn't expect it abroad. Then we came back to dinner in the Escargot, buying the materials for it as we came along, and gradually accumulating parcels till we looked like three Private Secretaries, only that the parcels were much more untidily done up in flimsy newspaper, and not secured by string, as they never are in France, and it was a great mercy we got them all home safely without spilling any of their contents. We got a ready-made chicken at a rotissew's to-day, partly to give Peg a holiday from her cooking, and partly because we were attracted by the performance within the shop, which we witnessed through the windows. The whole thing only seemed to take five minutes : the fowl w^as plucked, trussed, put on a spit, plunged into what looked like the centre of a burning fiery furnace, held there for a moment or two, and reproduced, not in the form of a " charred remain," as one would have supposed it would have been, but done to a turn ; and we were so struck with admiration that we went in and bought it. It was excellent, though of course we cannot admit that we could not have cooked it better ourselves. After dinner we went out to find a dressmaker for Peg : we had full directions from the patron, but somehow missed our way, and did a good deal of the more slummy parts of 240 Tlic Voyage of the Escargot. the town in the course of our search. We ran her to earth at last, but only induced her by the most specious promises to came back to the Escargot ; she was so utterly mystified at the notion that any one living in tlie yard of the Chalet could require her services. "Willie and I sat on the steps and smoked, while Peg and she confabulated inside on the mysteries to which, of course, we could not ])resunie to penetrate ; and naturally, when the conference was over, there was not enough of the evening left to make it worth while going out again. Willie went away early to his hotel : I have been writing some letters, and now we are going to turn in. Friday, Janxuxrij 24. — .V lovely day again, and the glass is still going up. Joseph and I took the canvas oh' tlie sides of the Escargot this morning, and she now stands in all her beauty of white body with yellow panels ready to enter into the sunny south. AVe have also given her a thorough cleaning outside, but I am afraid that will only result in more rain and consequent mud the first day we go on again, as it usually has done hithertfj. AVillie came round only just in time for lunch, having, for once in a way, as he wished us to understand, overslept himself. We went out in the afternoon to the post-oflice, where we found a new man in charge — a new broom, I suppose — as he was more particular about giving us our letters than any man we have yet had to do witli, and indeed wouldn't give Willie his till he had not only told him what tlie post- mark on it was and most of its contents, which was all very WfU in this instance, as Willie was expecting a ])articular othcial letter, but miglit have been inconvenient in the generality of cascjs. Then wc climbed up an exceedingly high hill to the Notre At Jfai-scilles. 241 Hame do la Garde, a pretty little church perched at the very highest point of jNIarseilles, with pictures, and models of legs and arms, and bits of rope and wreckage hung up in every available space all round tlie walls as offerings of thanks- giving for the escapes of tlie offerers from fire, pestilence, ac- cident, and shipwreck. Tlie pictures are in a great many cases mere daubs, and in most almost funny in their details, but for all that there is a simple faith about them that touches one. The sacristan told us that there are heaps more older ones stowed away in the crypt below, as they are only exposed for a certain time, and by degrees, as more space is wanted for the constantly incoming offerings, the oldest are moved down below, and so on. The golden statue of Xotre Dame de la Garde stands on the highest pinnacle of the church, a landmark visible miles out at sea, and a glad sight to the storm-wearied mariner as he at last returns to this haven where he would be. There is a grand view from the terrace of the town and harbour, with the islands outside and the mountains at the back all covered with forest, over which we shall have to pass when we continue on our way. We walked down again : there is an omnibus which runs up to the top, but it has to go so slowly both up and down that it really doesn't save anything. AVe went down through some public gardens and came out by the prefecture, where there was a large crowd, waiting apparently for some noted criminal to come out, as the prison van, " Tied Maria " here instead of " Black," was waiting at the door, and every- body was very much excited, but we couldn't get any one to tell us what it was all about ; that is so often the case on the edge of a crowd. Then we had tea at a pdtissiers in the Eue de Eome ; tlie tea was as usual not up to much, but 2 H 242 TJie Voyacjc of tlie Escargot. such cream ! and such cakes ! 1 we are thinking about them still ; I only devoutly hope we shan't have to go on thinking of them for some little time to come. Then we went and bought presents — Christmas presents — for the people at home ; all the bazaars here are entree libre, but it can hardly be said of them that they are sortie lihrc, as it requires a person of great fortitude to walk out of them without having bought something. However, we have got a very fair selec- tion of presents : the only drawback to them is that getting them so long before we go back we may take a liking to them for ourselves, and have to get more for the other people ; so there is no real economy in it. We bought our dinner at a butcher's, who surprised us by his polyglottism, speaking English, French, and German all equally well, till we learnt he was an Alsatian : lie had on an entire suit of Ijlue linen, which caused us to refer to him as the blue Alsatian ])utcher at once. We made a hasty dinner off beefsteak, and then went to the ]>lay again, a melodrama of the most conventional Adelphi type, called " La Lutte pour la A'ie," which was obligingly translated on the programme, why, I cannot say, unless the French have adopted the P^nglish term in the same way as they have our racing terms, " Struggle for Life." The hero was an adventurer, " un vrai struggle-for-lifeur," the argument told us, who enjoyed a tolerably successful career through tlie first four acts of the play, and of course came to a l»ad end in the lifth. Favart acted ; but we cannot say we enjoyed the ]ilay immensely. We had a weary walk home, as we could not induce any cabs to bring us up to our yard ; I think the calibies sus]iected some evil designs on them- selves or their horses wlien we had l)eguiled them to these unfrequented jiarts of tlie town. Peg looks so like a con- At Marseilles. 243 spirator in disguise. We found James very Lad on our return ; I think he must have made too many friends at the Chalet cafd. Saturday, Jan. 25. — A glorious day, I spent the morning greasing the wheels and the fore-carriage, and myself to a considerable extent, as I have at last found something that the invaluable Joseph can't do, and had to take the greater part of the job on my own shoulders. I am sorry to say Joseph can be very stupid when he tries. This morning, when he was helping me to take the hind wheel off, he sud- denly let it go, and it came with all its force on my head : I was kneeling down working the jack to get the wheel off the ground ; and if it had quite stunned me instead of only half as it did, ten to one I should have brought down the jack, and the whole caravan would have tipped over on the top of nie. "We had lots of spectators, as to-day seemed to be a sort of holiday, and there have been twenty or thirty tram- men playing at bowls in the yard. James has made great friends with them, and varied his usual pursuit after cats by chasing the bowls, but they were very good-tempered about it, and did not seem to mind. However, none of them so much as offered to raise a finger to help me, but after all, they were in their best holiday clothes, so why should they ? The wheels wanted greasing, but they have got plenty on now, and as for the fore-carriage, we have put on a small epiccric-h\\ of candles and soap, so that the Escargot ought almost to run away of herself when we go on again. Joseph has been making rcnscigncmcnts about the Eoute de Toulon from the fre(|uenters of the cafe, and has been so thoroughly crammed up in a series of the most marvellous legends of robbers, witches, and other perils of the road, that he almost seems to be doubtful whether he won't leave our 244 The V(>ya(je of tlw Escargot. service before we pluiicie into such a hazardous country. AVe have been brought up on most of the stories ourselves, having viviil recoHections of the greater part of them at the latter ends of our French exercise-books, which we used to read secretly at school when we ought to have been drudging away in (piest of our grandfather's pens, or making personal remarks on the nose of the gardener, and we are happily aware that if these robbers, kc, did ever exist, it was in the good old times a hundred years ago or more ; but Joseph takes them all as having happened last week, and likely to happen again next, and refuses to be coniforted. I did not go out after lunch, but stopped at home and gave the inside of the Escargot a thorough scour out with boiling water, yellow soap, and a scrubbing-l)rush, and now slie looks (juite spick and span, and the wood and brass work is all as bright as new, in preparation for M 's visit to-morrow. I have somehow managed to remove all tlie skin off the ])ack of my own knuckles in tlie course of the scrubbing, but I suppose one wants practice to be pro])erly hardened to that sort of thing, like everything else. Peg and "Willie went out first to her dressnuiker to try on the new dress, aiul tlien to further exphjre tlie town. They dis- covered the Zoological (Jardens, Ijut kindly refrained from going in till 1 am with tlieni, and contented themselves with seeing the upper end of the giraffe over the hedge. Tiiis evening a poor man, witli his face fearfully swollen and tied u]) in a uapkin, came to the foot of our steps and humbly entreated us to remove a tooth which was troulding him t(-rribly. He was most sadly disappointed at hearing thai We didn't do an\- business of that sort, as he told us he had walked from the other end of the town, where it seems our fame has tia\-elled, only peo]»le have got hold of a mis- At Marseilles. 245 taken impression tliat we are travelling dentists. This is quite a new thing we have been taken for : we are getting quite used to being looked upon as a show, and at L'Assassin the patron asked us if we weren't vets, because we have a horse -shoe nailed over our doorway; but we have never been asked to practise dentistry before. We were quite sorry for the poor man ; and, indeed, when he had gone away lamenting, regretted that we had not tried to remove his trouble, as we have some excellent pincers in the tool-box, and Willie and I are both pretty strong, and I daresay we could have managed it. AVe dined out at tlie Duval Eestaurant again. AVe had Bouillabaisse by way of soup: far be it from me to depreciate what the immortal Thackeray has celebrated, but I think it is a dish that Vv'ants an acquired taste to enjoy it. As we got it, the main ingredients seemed to be hot water, bits of thinly sliced stale bread, and the heads and tails of some coarse fish, the whole being strongly impregnated with saffron ; but it was the right thing to eat at Marseilles, so at any rate we are happy in ha^•ing done a duty. "VVe went on to coffee at the Maison Boric, where they keep English illustrated papers of some weeks back, and then we came home. Sandaij, Jan. 20. — A'ery fine again. We got up latish, but were in time for church, which is held in a room of what seems to be a very inadequate size for the English colony at Marseilles, in the Hue Sylvabelle. Then we went to lunch at Willie's hotel, where M joined us, and in the afternoon to the Zoological Gardens, which lie right away nearly straight along the AUees and Boulevards, con- tinuing from the Cannebiere and tlie Paie de Koailles, at the back of the Palais de Longchamp. 24G The Voyage of the E scar got. The entrance is up two fine flights of steps, horse-shoe- wise, and through the Palais de Longchamp, which stands in a sort of semicircle at one end of the Boulevard de Long- champ, consisting of tlie Natural History Museum at one end and the Picture -Gallery at the other, the two being connected by a colonnade, culminating in a triumphal arch in tlie centre, witli a sort of fountain waterfall, with Tritons and other water-beings, between the two flights of steps. The Zoological Gardens are nothing very much, the only animals worth seeing being the bears ; but there were lots of people about, and plenty to study in the way of Prench middle-class society. AVe brought ^I back to tea in the Escargot, trying a short cut from the Zoological Gardens, and most effectually losing our way in some of the back parts of the town. ]\I admired the caravan very much, and stopped till past 5.30, wlien he had to go away to make up his mails. We had a late but frugal dinner off an omelette and some bread and butter : the fact was, that after our tea we didn't feel equal to very much lunch. Then we spent the evening talking and making up arrears of correspondence. It has turned terribly cold this evening; the mistral has begun, and we nre rather repenting having taken the canvas oil". Joseph has been to tlie races to-day, and enjoyed himself very much, having met a lot of liis old stable friends : I ho])e he won't get into any miscliief. Monda//, Jen. 27. — To-day lias been much colder: the 'ijiistral is still blowing, and when one is out of the sun is enough to wither one up. I have got a bad cold : I trust it is iK)t influenza, which is prevalent at Marseilles now as much as at other places. I (lid not get up till 10.30, and then it was only in response At Marseilles. 247 to a pathetic appeal from Jose})li that I should come and pass my judgment on the mares, whom some chance acquain- tance of his had, I suppose to get a draw out of him, designated as maigrcs. I can't say that I was particularly anxious to in- trude on Joseph's disputes, but I thought there might possibly be something come over our mares, and there is nothing that I am so fidgety about as them, so I dressed hastily and went to the stables and inspected them. They were perfectly liealthy, and comfortably sleek, tliough not too much so, and when, to make sure, I had made Joseph trot them up and down the yard, and had listened to their breathing, there was nothing evident the matter with them, so I was able to tell Joseph I was perfectly satisfied, which brought tears of thankfulness into his eyes, as he replied that since his master had nothing to say against his treatment of his charges, he did not care what spiteful people chose to say about it. I fear, however, that if he could get that false friend into a dark place, there would be trouble of some sort or other ensuing. "We took out the old brake-blocks this morning, which were pretty well finished off to the very last down the hill in the liue de I'Aix the other day, meaning to put a couple of the spare ones we have in the fodder-box in their place ; but we found when we had got them in that they were a great deal too small, so we have had to send them to a coach-builder to have additional facings put on tliem ; otherwise they woidd not have bit the wheels at all. In this we were materially assisted by the ixdron of the yard, who proved to be a retired coach -builder himself, and naturally knows a good many others of the same profession. By using his name, we have gained a promise that our brake-blocks shall be home first thing to-morrow morning. After lunch. Peg and I went out. AVillie stopped at home 248 TJte yoyaf/e of the Escargot. with James, as he has not been feeling well all day. "We went to the post, and then fell into the web of a milliner, who had displayed the veriest duck of a bonnet in her window that completely overcame Peg, and we had to go in and buy it : caravanning has not in the least changed Peg's natural in- stincts. Then we hired a tly, and took a drive round the Corniche road, going rouml in fine style, with a great quantity of whip-cracking and putting on of that efficient though ex- ceedingly tardy brake that is common to French veliicles, and whicli the driver invariably spends quite half his time in putting on and tlie other lialf in putting off; past the bath- ing establishments and all the fashionable seaside villas of the well-to-do Marseillais, with a lovely view of the Mediterranean and tlie He d'lf, at least so far as tlie sun, whicli was reflected dazzlingly off the blue surface into our eyes, would allow us, by the racecourse to the Trade, the liotten IJow of Marseilles, and down the drive there, back to the Place de Castellane, where we stopped the other day to make our enquiries. "We had the drive all to ourselves, as it was not the hour for fashionable Marseilles to turn out, all but one runaway baker's cart, which came tearing down to meet us when we were about half-way to the Place, witii three gentlemen riders in attendance, presumably witli a vague idea of stopping it, but really only frightening tlie horse more. How the affair ended we didn't see, but when we last viewed tliem, the whole cavalcade was making straight to tlie parapet at the end along tlie sea. "We got down at the I'lace de Castellane, and came back to }pick Willie up and go by appointment to tea with ]\I at the same pdtU--iicrs we discovered the other day in the Pue de Pome. His entertainment was even more luxurious than wliat we gave ourselves on that occasion, and our feelings At Marseilles. 249 afterwards are proportionately greater. Then jNI- liad to say Good-bye to us for good, as we shan't be fortunate enough to see him again this time, and we went home by degrees, buying some photographs of Marseilles, calling in on Peg's dressmaker, who is not any better than the rest of her species in the matter of punctuality, and purchasing a roll of linoleum, which we have had our eye on almost ever since we came to Marseilles, as a desirable substitute for our car- pet, not only because it is cooler now we are coming to more sunny latitudes, but also because it is easier to clean than we have found our carpet to be in the event of culinary accidents. Willie and I carried home the roll ourselves, much to the wonder of the shopman. AVe mystified him additionally by telling him he couldn't send it home for us, for we had no home. I rather think he imagines we are going to camp out somewhere under the linoleum. AVe have been spending the evening fitting it to the Escargot : it is a vast improvement. 2i CHAPTEIJ XVI. CUJ ES — LE BEAUSSET — TO U LOX. TacHday, Jan. 28. — To-day lias been coLlisli again, tlie 'iiiistraJ still continuin,Lf. AVe were woke very early, before six indeed, by the coach-builder coming with his myrmidons to put our brake-blocks on, which they did with a sledge- hammer, and it was lucky the brakes themselves are good pieces of wrought-iron, or they would have been smashed all to pieces. Anyhow, they made it quite impossible to go on reposing, so we were both, up and dressed l)y 6.30, and in- tending to make a virtue of necessity and an early start. J5ut we experienced all kinds of delays. First, Willie did not appear till nearly ten, having required some little extra bed to get rid of his yesterday's seediness. Then Peg's faith- less dressmaker kept us waiting for another hour, and wouldn't have finished then if Peg hadn't gone and stood over her while she put in the last stitches, wliich, as far as I Cxje.s to Toulon. 251 can understaiul tliose things, meant quite half of what she ought to have done long ago. And then we had a small dis- cussion over the bill, which was distinctly faulty, — we will say, as I liked the man for the many little services he has done us, purely owing to the defective education of the 'patron in arithmetic, — and that had to be carefully worked out all over again. And, lastly, we had to catch James, who was playing bowls with some tram-men and was very loath to come away ; so that in the end we found it best to have lunch before we started, and we did not eventually get away till 12.55. We had to pass through a considerable extent of streets to begin with, not of the best macadam, and we w^ere shaken about fearfully for some twenty minutes : we went down a fair-sized hill, and then along a flat road, gradually at length getting clear of the tow^n, having steep cuttings through what I suppose were the back of the cliff's to our right, and country villas like those we passed coming into Marseilles standing in their own little grounds to the left. The octroi on this side was a long way out of the town, very little way indeed before we came to St Marcel ; then we continued on over a very bad bit of road full of holes through La Penne, a large village on the side of a hill, to Aubagnac, a large pottery place, w'liere we had to slacken speed to pass through, as the first thing we saw on enterinci; the town was a notice forbid- ding vehicles to trot. The Missus on this took it into her head that it w-as time to stop, and we had a tremendous struggle with her, which very nearly ended in our backing bodily into a great heap of pots set out there to dry in the sun, as seemed to be the custom all along the side of the street, — a somewhat risky custom for the safety of the local industry. Joseph thinks that the collars are hurting the mares again. However, we at last persuaded the Missus to go on, and 252 TJie Voyage of the Escargot. we passed down an easy incline through a wonderfully pretty Swiss-like valley in the Chaine de la Rodesange, and came to the beginning of the forest which we viewed the other day from the Xotre Dame de la Garde, with a big hill up in front of us, of which the other end was quite out of siglit. The Missus here turned obstinate again, not liking the looks of the trouble to come, and for a minute or so we were in the ditch ; but that was more than all our combined patience could stand, and we soon made her pull us out again, and for a good hundred yards or so at a racing pace up the first part of the hill. Then we dropped again into a steadier pace, and went up and up and round about the side of the hills, Joseph beguiling the monotony of the way Ijy retailing all the stories he liad heard at the Chalet of tlie murders and dark deeds that had been wrought on that road, and keeping a sharp look-out for brigands and murderers behind every rock and bush tliat we passed, till we had climbed up 1100 feet Ijy the barometer : then we paused for a moment and began to go down again. "We went through a wonderfully pretty rocky pass, then down a road winding round the hill to lessen the suddenness ."). The Alissus was a little fidgety at starting ; we are afraid it is really the collar hurting her, and are going to take steps the first thing to-morrow morning either to have them altered or else get new ones. However, at last we got away, and had scarcely got clear of Cuj'es liefoie tlie mountain liegan again ; indeed tlie two roads over the mountains at each end of the plain are the only visilde Ctfjes to IhifJou. 255 means of ifetting in or out of it. The scenery soon Ijecanie very much the same as yesterday ; rocky excrescences at the sides of tlie road and plenty of fir and other timher, with occasional breaks on the side nearest tlie plain, with little" patches of cultivation showing through tliem. We went up steadily for thirty-five minutes, making only two kilo- metres in that time, and then stopped for a rest, as the ]\Iissus was evidently really in distress, and ]\Iary Ann did not look as happy as she might be in her collar ; the collars seem to have got a great deal too big, and throw the weight too far back on tlieir shoulders. While we were resting, a small l)oy on a mule passed, evidently a professional renfort, as he had all the necessary paraphernalia al)out him : we debated a little, and decided that it would be kindest to hire his services to assist our poor mares, so Joseph was sent after him — he had already jogged about 200 yards down the hill when we made up all our minds — to make an agreement with him and fetch him back. We agreed with him for two francs, then hooked the mule on to the end of the pole, and proceeded ; the mares going more willingly now they had something in front to encourage them, but not too fast, as the l)oy told us his mule had already been up the mountain this morning three times before. The mule was a very venerable beast, the boy said over thirty, with grey hair and tail, and an extraordinary goatee sort of beard, also grey. His shoes struck us as somewhat remarkable, as they stuck out in front of his feet like a pair of carpet slippers a great deal too large for him ; but from our obser- vations the rest of the day, we have come to the conclusion that those must be the shoes of the country. I suppose there is a reason for them ; perhaps they are intended to give a better foothold up and down the hills, but I should 2dG The Voyage of the Uscco-got. liave said myself that they were very liable to make the beast trip. The boy \vas a pretty little boy, with black hair and very large dark eyes : he told Peg, in answer to her ques- tions, that he was really an Italian, and his name was Emile Caramine ; he was nine years old, and had never been to school, and he didn't want to, because he could be more useful to his parents employed as he was now. I have heard boys express the first part of this sentiment before, but I am afraid not many of them from tlie same disinterested motives. There was a good deal of fun about liim, and when he found Joseph was anxious to hear about brigands and sucli things, lost no opportunity of pointing out tlieir liaunts in every sort of hole and behind every large tree that we passed, till one might have imagined that there must have been too keen a com])etition in that line of business to make it a success in those parts. Josepli took it all in like milk at first, Ijut wlien he began to sus- pect from our smiling that he was being chafled, I am sorry to say got quite angry witli the boy, and would have revenged himself on him somehow, probably with the whip, if we hadn't prevented liim pretty sharply. Wc passed a lot of peasants leading mules, all dressed in large baggy blue trousers (the peasants, of course, not tl)e mules), and with bottles and otlier provisions sticking out of their pockets, Aery much like clowns ; all evidently returning fnjm renforviivj veliicles uj) to the top : rcnfnirinrj ap])arently is the chief occupation of tiie male Cujans, while their wives work in the fields. (3ne of these men stopped our boy and gave him some instructions : when we asked the Ijoy what they were, he told us tliat was his father, and lie had been tellinL,' liim he must ask three francs Ciijcs to 'Toulon. 257 when ho got to the top, because tlie mule was tired. It seemed rather an odd way of doing business, making us pay a franc more for a second-hand mule than for a fresli one ; but after all it was a good pull up any way, and we did not like to risk the boy's getting a beating from his parent if lie didn't take back wliat he had been told — that is to say, taking for granted that the bright little fellow had been told, instead of ourselves, as to more sus- picious people might have seemed tlie more likely method of making the agreement, and had not been happily and spontaneously inspired to the change in the bargain. At 500 feet up the forest ceased for a bit on our right, the road rising along the side of the mountain, the slopes below us down to the plain being terraced into well-dug little plots, dotted about with small heaps of earth, each with one straight stick standing upright in the middle of it. "VVe asked the boy what these heaps were, and he told us something about their containing a peculiar kind of stone for putting into vinegar, but we couldn't exactly make out what he meant : I am inclined to fancy that it was only a method of fostering the young olives. There was a chasseur got up in the usual style sitting on the edge of the road at this point waiting for something to come by. 'We couldn't help being reminded of the anglers on the bank of the Thames on a Sunday afternoon, and, maintaining the illusion, we went and asked him if he had had any sport, and he gave us the usual answer, " Xot yet" : he was watch- ing for a sparrow, he said, which he knew was about there, but though he had been waiting the whole morning, and his comrades had gone into the forest to beat for it. it had not yet come by. So we wished him good-bye and good luck, and passed on, sufficiently interested in him to look 2 K 1258 The Voyage of the Escargot. out sharply for the sparrow ourselves, but there was no sign of it : indeed, though we soon got back into the thick of the forest on both sides of us again, the most remarkable thing, wliich we had certainly observed before, but now from this circumstance forced itself prominently upon our notice, was the entire absence of any animal life whatever anywhere, ex- cept our mares and ourselves. I suppose constant genera- lions of chasscui'.-i, ruthlessly destroying everything they met, must have completely denuded the forest of all the fauna. At eleven we crossed the frontier into Var, and stones began at once, the Yar people having put them down ex- actly to the boundary of their department, not an inch more or less. A'ery shortly after that our renfort announced that we were at the top, so we paid him his three francs, giving him the benefit of the dou])t, and then went on by ourselves, still througli the forest, over a miserably stony and unrolled bit of road for about half an hour, and then began to dip down again sliglitly. In another (piarter of an hour we had left the forest and were out on the other side of the mountain, running down grandly with slack traces, and the brake as hard on as it would go, along embankments and through cuttings, down a series of steady inclines, the road winding so that we could look up and see where we had come along, curling backwards and forwards along tlie side of the mountain above us. "We came down all that we had gone up this morning in twenty-five minutes: the sensation of the descent was most exhilarating, and there was just enough risk about it to make it exciting, especially in turning the sharper corners from one slope to the other. "When we liad come down GOO feet, the liarometer visibly rising all the time, the road straight- ened out a bit : we had now got into the midst of olive-yards Cujes to Toulon. 259 and oi'cliards, all the fruit-trees being beautifully out in blossom. The view was magnificent, with plain and forest below us to the right, and a glimpse of the sea in the far dis- tance, with Ciotat lying under a mountain. "We saw the sparrow here at last, which the cliasscur had been looking out for ; he has evidently emigrated from his native forest, as he found it too hot to hold him. We had another 100 feet to descend into Le ]jeausset ; the road was much smoother and better than we had had it yet this morning: a trottcv.r came up with us in his skeleton cart and fast pony, and we raced him down to the bottom ; he won into Le Beausset, but it was a very tight race. AVe reached Le Beausset at 12.30, having done the twelve kilometres down in forty-five minutes, and put up at a hotel standing a little way off' the main road, on the side road lead- ing up to the village proper. Le Beausset was all agog with the excitement of the tircuje du sort, which is going on all over France just now: the I'refet had come over from Toulon for it, and the place was all decorated with flags ; the gendarmes were all out in their best clothes, and most of the youths of the village were driving up and down in hired vehicles, with no particular purpose except to air their good luck if they had drawn a lucky number, and to disguise their chagrin if an unlucky one, while those who couldn't afford cabs had formed themselves into a band, and were marching up and down headed by a boy beating a drum, all, I grieve to say, more or less the worse for liquor ; but perhaps they had some excuse on this occasion. We had another little struggle with the Missus getting away, and nearly took a young tree which was standing just outside the hotel door away with us as a memento of our visit to La Beausset. Then we had a long straight piece of 2G0 Tlie Voyage of the Escargot. good road throuj^h the valley, with a stream running along- side of us to our left, and the mountains on each side of us gradually closing in on the road, till after twenty minutes running we began to go downhill again, and the cliffs came right in on us as we entered the pass of Ollioules, one of the finest hits of our journey yet. There was an old castle on a crag above us, with a village below it commanding the en- trance to the pass ; then the rocks came nearer and nearer into each other till at last there was only just space for the road to creep along a sort of slielf on the right of the fissure in the mountains, with the precipice on that side rising up sheer above us, sometimes even overhanging us so far as to nearly meet the one on the other side, and a low wall on our left to keep us from going down into the torrent that raged along below on its way to the sea, sharing the space with the road between the two walls of rock. AVe had about five kilometres of this, the road being very muddy, as the sun hadn't reached 'it sufficiently to dry up the rain of last week. AVe passed several fiys with excur- sionists from Toulon, in the course of our passage tlirough ; a very tight squeeze it was to pass them sometimes, and we were not at all sorry for tlie otherwise absurd upside-down Trench rule of the road, which gave us the inside, away from tlie torrent. Then we passed another castle, in a position wliieh woidd give its holders an indisputable control of the ]iass— I Ijelieve the non-hnldiug of lliis pass was one of the biggest strategical Idunders that our i)eople ever made, and lost us 'J'oulon — and came out into the open again; down anotlicr .'lOO feet through orange and lemon groves — Ollioules i- I he warmest i)lace, so the guide-book says, in the south of France — to Ollioules itself, a little Italian-looking town, lying in tlie \allev lietween two hills. Cvjes to Toulon. 2G1 The ]\rissus ol)jected very strongly to go any farther to-day, and -we liad a terrific pitched battle with her to get her to go uj) the hill out of Ollioules : getting her up any incline when she takes one of her capricious fits is getting quite a work of art with us now : "Willie goes to the head, Peg goes behind ready with large stones to put behind the wheel, and I go to the wheels and heave at the spokes. I believe my chest has expanded quite three inches from all the heaving of this kind that I have done. Joseph stands on the footboard, and gene- rally, in his excitement, not to say wrath at the Missus, breaks out into a sort of war- dance, with a vocal accompaniment, that we trust may be an appropriate war-song handed down from his Gaulish ancestors, but which we are very much afraid isn't ; and James jumps round barking, and encourag- ing everybody with the strictest impartiality, and so we ad- vance perhaps four feet. Then, if Peg hasn't time to block the wheel that hasn't got the roller, and of course she has strict injunctions not to attempt it if there is the smallest risk to her fingers, the Escargot swings round backwards on the one blocked wheel at right angles to the fore-carriage, and we rest there a few moments, and then begin again, and so on up to the top. But when we got to the top of this hill, we found to our joy that it was our last, and that the rest of our course was one steady downward incline into Toulon, which we saw^ at the end of a long straight road, with its forts and harbour full of men-of-war, showing over the tops of the houses. It was fearfully dusty here, and we almost regretted the mud we had just left. We had scarcely passed the Ollioules octroi before we came on that of Toulon. I suppose the inhabitants of the two communes have put them so close together for purposes of reciprocal retaliation. AVe had a more rigid cross-exam- 262 TJie Voyage of the Escargot. illation tlian usual at the Toulon octroi, but no search. I think the officer was afraid of our step, but he wouldn't have found much if lie had looked, except a half-carved leg of mutton, and I don't suppose he would have charged on that. A\'e arrived at the gate through the fortifications, which are mucli the same as the old Portsmouth lines, at 4.25, thirty-five kilometres from Cujes — a pretty good record, considering the country we have come through. The gate was very narrow, and only just gave us room to pass, and when we got to the other end of it — it was a tunnel- like sort of construction — there were two low stone posts, just wide enough for the tires of our fbrewheels to shave between, but just too high to let the axles pass over them. Here we stuck for a few minutes, impeding tiie whole of the traffic along the main road to the Kiviera, and nicely angry several people who were coming behind us were ; but we called on the mares, and they made a gigantic and heroic efl'oit, ]i0(tr ]\Iary Ann all but cominLi down on the treacherous cobbles that paved the road just at tliat s]iot, and the fore- axles actually re^■t)lved themselves over the rounded to[ts of the posts, the whole weight of the fore})art of the Escargot coming on them for a moment, the wheels being lifted com- ]ik'tcly oil' the ground. "\Vc dropped to our proper level on the (jther side with a shock tliat testified to the strengtli of our underworks, but, of course, tlien we were all right, a.s the hind-axles cleared the posts easily. Then we went along tlie Ijoulevards, Joseph, wlin was driving, taking us duwii to the dockyard gates Ity mistake, wliere we were challenged by a sentry, and had to turn l^ack aL'':iin,and out at another gale, which we naturally a])proached ratliei- anxiously; but, fortunately, tb.ere were no more stone IHjsts ; over the moat l>y a diawltridge, and past the Ijull- Ci'jes to Toulon. 2G3 ring to the ][otel dii Lapiii Blanc, a little aulter'jc in the suburbs where conntry carts put up, and to which Joseph had a letter of reconiniendation from the 'patron of the Chalet at Marseilles. The patron is a little man with a pointed beard. The garcon is a very big smooth-faced man, who looks as if he could demolish the p'ltron with one stroke of his little finger if he liked, but, nevertheless, treats him with the profoundest respect. The patron was a little nervous about our stove, as he has a lot of hay and straw about his yard, and all his buildings are of wood, but we assured him that we were most careful people, and further, that we had no chimney, and so that tliere was no danger of sparks ; so, for the one reason or for the other, he waived all further objections, and consented to our remaining. We have very snug quarters in the farthest corner of the yard from the road, with a view over some waste building land of the harbour. ' AVe have only been out to the post, and to find a hotel for Willie, and since dinner have been spending a quiet domestic evening answerino; letters, &c. CHAITKR XVn. TOULO.V PUJET Vir.I.K GOXp-AltoX VIDAUnAX FREJU?5. Yliv.rsrJni/, Jiin. 30. — A very tine day. We Nvore not up particularly early this morning, and then spent tlie remainder of it interviewing m(;re or less unintelligent saddlers about the collars. I didn't much want to go to the expense of ordering new ones, as I paid a good deal for those we have had hillierto, so we tried no less than five saddlers with a Toulon to F re jus. 265 view to having the ohi ones altered; l)ut none of them could, or more probahly would, undertake that job. So as it would he very poor economy to knock up the mares for the sake of saving the price of new collars, we had to order them from the last man we interviewed. Willie didn't turn up till close upon lunch-time, as it appears that when he went to bed last night he found the hotel people had coolly disposed of his room to some one ^vhom they thought would pay them better, judging from the size of his bag, and had transferred the said bag to another hotel, which he had some little difficulty in finding at eleven at night. After lunch, we went for a walk in the town. AVe tried to get in to see the dockyard, but we found it required an order from the Governor to do so, and he is in Paris, and not coming back till tlie middle of next month. So we went down to the hassin, and watched the men-of-war, of which there are three — two turret-ships and a despatch- boat — and a lot of torpedo-boats lying in there ; and were begged to come for a row round them by various elderly men of a quasi-naval type : but Peg can never make up her mind to go in a boat unless she is absolutely obliged to, and "Willie and I, of course, did not like to leave her. James made great friends with a man-of-war's boat's crew that was lying at the edge of the hassin, and even went on board, and was as nearly as possible being carried off. We amused ourselves for some time walking about among the crowd of all sorts and conditions of men which was loafing or hurrying about the quay, and looking at the curiosities in the marine-dealers' shops ; and then we went on the Place d'Armes, and listened to the military band playing there while we had our afternoon coffee — James, who never hears music without being affected by it, again 2l 266 TJie Voyage of the Escargot. distinguishing himself by taking up a sitting position just under the bandstand, and giving vent to a series of the most sonorous liowls in time with the music, till he had got quite a little crowd round him, and we had to remove him on the chain for fear lest he should be arrested by the police. As we were leaving the place, we saw a poster to the effect that Judic had followed in our track, and was going to play at the theatre this evening, so we rushed home, made a hasty dinner, and went to see her — as she is a form of enjoyment which one should never lose an opportunity of experiencing, AVe secured the last seats in the theatre, which is a large one, but to-night was crowded. First we had Coquelin Cadet in " Le Depit Amoureux," and then Judic in " Xiniclie." It is a rather more questionable play than " Mamzelle Xitouche," but one entirely forgets that in Judic's acting. The entire audience was as enthvisiastic as ourselves, and when the play was over called her again and again, making her sing song after song, till we had to tear our- selves away for fear of being locked out of our yard, and she is very likely going on singing still. As it was, we had to climb in tlirough a broken })aling. The Hies here are something fearful : tlie ceiling is per- fectly black with them. They are quite impervious to tobacco smoke ; probably French Hies get too much of that to mind it, and though we have improvised a fly-paper with a mustard leaf spread over with a mixture of wine and jam, they seem to prefer sitting about anywhere, even in the most uncomfortable places, to availing themselves of the luxuries thus afforded them. Friday, Jan. .'51. — Fine day. I had a bad attack of neuralgia again this morning, and so didn't get up till late. When I Toulon to Frejus. 2G7 did get up we all went into the town to find my banker's correspondent. Willie has been reading up the account of the siege of Toulon by tlie French when the English held it, and pointed out to us the various positions whence the French made it too hot for us to stop in the place : the hill where Buonaparte dragged his guns up to is especially steep, and apparently inaccessible for anything on wheels, and we certainly had our own usual weapon of consummate audacity turned against us on this occasion. Tlie streets in the old part of Toulon are very narrow and dirty and odoriferous ; they wind also in a somewhat con- fusing manner, and we lost our way more than once ; and when at last we arrived at the address given me of the lianker T was in search of, we found no signs of a bank there whatever. However, we rang the bell, and were told by the ■porticr that though there was no Ijank there, yet a lady of the same name as the banker lived on the second storey ; so we all went up, and found a neat YxiiXo. filh de cliamhrc, who held us at bay on the narrow staircase while we told her our story and showed her our letter of credit, and asked her, if that wasn't the bank, if she couldn't at least tell us where it was. I fancy she thought we were a party of adventurers come to get money out of her mistress on false pretences ; but while we were parleying with her, suddenly a door on the landing above opened, and a lady in the deepest of widow's mourning came out and asked the maid what we wanted. The maid told her, and then she said, in a rather light and airy way, which didn't strike us as very appropriate to the circumstances, that yes, there had been a bank there once, in her late husband's time, but he was dead now, and for her, her faith ! she didn't trouble about those things any lonsjer ; and she couldn't even tell us who had succeeded 268 The Voyage of the Escargot. him ill his business — she seemed to have a kind of notion that when a banker deceased, nobody troubled themselves any furtlier about his bank — she didn't think any one had succeeded him : so, as it didn't seem likely that we should get anything more out of her, we bade her good morning, and went down-stairs again to the street. "We were rather up a tree for a little while, as we had come to our last napoleon, and we didn't know where to turn for some more ; but we eventually decided on going to Willie's hotel and borrowing a directory, and then working through all the bankers in Toulon till we found one who would honour our circular notes. While we were examining the directory, the proprietress of the hotel came past us, and hearing us mention the name of the deceased banker we had just been to visit, though she could not understand English, was sharp enough to immediately jump at the position of affairs, and telling us that we were not the first people who had been disappointed in the same way, gave us the address of his successor — for lie had a successor after all, in spite of his widow's doubts on tlie subject. It was fortunate that we met the one person in Toulon who could put us in the right track. Then we came back to luncli. Tliere is a little family party establislied close to us in tlie yard, consisting of a father, mother, two boys, and a very pretty little black-eyed girl, who have come up to town in a four- wheeled market-cart with a tilt, under which they are going to sleep to-iiiglit, more or less comfortably — rather less, judging from what we can see of tlie size of the interior and its arrangements. They produced a couple of trestles, tliree planks, and some stools, and rigged up an al fresco dining- ronm, where tliey made themselves quite at home over a frugal dinner of bread and olives and half a sardine apiece. Toulon to Frejii.'^. 2G9 witli a bottle of cheap wine. They had even bronght tlie family cat with them ; and we were admiring the little scene of domestic felicity, when lo ! it was all changed : the little girl offended in some way against the niceties of rnral etiquette, and was promptly and embarrassingly publicly chastised by her stern father ; the mother took her part, and the two parents fell to mutual abuse and to throwing the remains of the repast at each other, while the two boys endeavoured to pacify them, and only got cuffs from both sides for their pains ; and it ended in the happy gathering transforming itself into a very unhappy one, all the five members of it withdrawing angry, and most of them sobbing, into different corners of the yard, where they have remained sulking with each other pretty well ever since. I suppose they must come together some time or other when fatigue obliges them to retire to repose under their tilt ; but it will be uncommonly close Cjuarters under there for five people not on speaking terms. We wrote letters after lunch, and then went out on the boulevards to note some of the humours of the fair which is going on there ; but it was very much the same as most fairs, except that there was a little additional enlivenment in the shape of a large body of sailors, who were patronising all the booths with great liberality, and making themselves generally popular with tlie multitude by their willingness to treat anybody who hadn't any money of his own to spend on the various shows. They especially affected the shooting- galleries. One of these particularly attracted our notice from the novelty of the results of hitting its bull's-eye : a section of a panorama was set going across a little stage on the top of the target, generally representing some episode of French military or naval prowess, while a barrel - organ 270 TliC Voyage of the Escargot. ground out appropriate tunes. AVe stood and watched this for some time, trying to make out what the particular com- bats and sieges were, a jolly boatswain who was standing by us assisting us in our guesses ; till a brilliantly coloured representation of (General Boulanger was brought into view, galloping on his liistoric charger to victory somewhere, while the organ played the Boulanger ]March, and — we shouldn't have believed it if we hadn't seen it — a gendarme came and interfered ; and as tliere were decided symptoms of a row, we cleared out, not knowing but what, with the readi- ness of ebullition of tlie rrench character, this mightn't be the nucleus of a new revolution ; and we came home to tea. We haven't been out again since, but have been occupy- ing the rest of the evening witli a tremendous })itched battle with the Hies, which are worse than ever. AVe have broken two teacups and a milk-jug in our endeavours to get rid of them, and one would liave supposed that any tly of sense would liave preferred stopping outside in peace to coming into a place where he knows Ijy experience that he can't sit down for a moment to rest without being hit at with the end of a wet duster; but they don't, and are iloeking about as persistently as ever, and for tlie time trium})hani, as Willie has at last gone away to Ijed, antl Teg and I and James are com])letely exhausted witli our exertions. Still we have tlie satisfaclinn of knowing that there are at least 1000 Hies less in the- W(jrld : it took us a good quarter of an liour to (■oiled the cor})ses and sweep them out of the door on to lb'' ground Itehjw, where they are now lying, (piile an ajipre- ciable little heap, a regular least for the cocks and liens (jf the yard when they find them out. J(jseph had a turn at them wliilf wt,- were (nit, Irving to l)urn them ()Ut in some Toulon to Frejus. 271 patent way of his own ; but he only succeeded in all but set- ting- fire to the Escargot. One of the mats was well alight, and if we hadn't happened to come in when we did, we should very likely have found nothing but the wheels and underworks left. AVe have made a lamentable discovery this evening while searcliing in the corners and along the shelves for any stray corpses of our foes ; we have carried away tlie door-key of the Chalet yard at Marseilles. I have not unfrecpiently taken away latch-keys from places where I have been lodging in my bachelor days ; but this thing is about the size of an ordinary church-door key, and how it escaped our notice I can't conceive. Saturday, Feh. 1. — To-day has been cold but fine. AVe had a bad night, as there was a dog howling at the moon from its rising to its setting without stopping, and the result was that even the alarum did not wake us this morning, for the first time on record. Consequently we were not up much before nine ; then Joseph came and reported that Mary Ann had broken a shoe, so she had to be taken to the farrier's ; and then the saddler did not turn up as he had promised witli the new collars and the traces, which we have had lined with sheepskins, to avoid all possible risk of any more rubbing, as it is best to give the mares every chance before imputing all their caprices to pure cussedness. The saddler did not arrive till past one, so that we had to have luncheon in our yard, and we did not eventually get away till 2.30, in consequence of which lateness we had to thread our way very carefully through all the carts that had come in during the morning. Our mares were intensely proud of themselves in all the glory of their new collars and in their new sheep's clothing ; the man has put 970 The Voyage of the Escargot. on the entire fleeces, with fill the wool hanging in festoons, making them look for all the world like a couple of sofas. Joseph had beguiled the saddler out of a new whip, by way of commission, I suppose, and was proceeding to use it very extensively over the mares when they weren't in the least needing it, till I took it away from him, which put iiim more or less in the sulks for the greater part of the day. "We had good going as soon as we had got clear of the town and the stones, but the country was not very interest- ing for the first five kilometres as far as La Valette, a small winding town through which we again had to walk, as one seems to have to do in most of the towns and villages in these parts. There we entered the range of Les Maures, and the scenery began to 'be prettier, with hills all round, and orchards close to the sides of the road, with the spring blossom out in all its beauty, and olives interspersed thickly amongst the fruit-trees, making a pleasant contrast of different greens. Sollies Pont, the next place of any consideration that we passed, is a longish town, with the usual labyrintliine kind of streets, Ijoasting gas-lamps — quite a rarity in these parts — and apparently devoted to rope-making and the cultivation of olives, the former industry being carried on in the open street, giving it the appearance of being overrun with count- less gigantic spider's webs, and the latter being evident in the numbers of the olive-trees, that had quite ousted every otlier form of vegetation for some distance in the innnediate neighbourhood. There is a very dirty little river with a bridge over it, and an old square keep just at tlie exit from the town on the east side, which has been patched up, and I think is used as a storehouse for olives. Toulon to Frejus. 273 We bought a cake at Sollies I'ont, and as soon as we had got clear of the town liad five o'clock tea (without the tea, as we find it next to impossible to boil a kettle while we are in motion) off it, finishing it off at one sitting, as we had a tremendous appetite on from the very fresh air in these parts. Then we continued on through a sort of quarry country to Cuers, where there is a fine Jubilee pump in the middle of the town, and where we had once thought of stopping ; but as it was still comparatively early, we came on to I'll jet Ville, twenty-eight kilometres, which we reached at G.15, and put up in a side street off the main street, alongside the Hotel d'ltalie, the principal hostelry in the place. The mares are in a vaulted stable that looks like a cellar, only it is above ground ; the half which they are not occupying is fitted up with a miniature theatre, where, the 2)atron tells me, they often have first-class operas and plays performed by strolling companies when they chance to come along that way. The population of this place consists, as far as we have seen, entirely of old men, riding about on nudes of about the same age as themselves. After dinner, Willie and Joseph and James went in to the hotel to have a game of billiards, James standing on his hind paws with his elbows on the table, and making his remarks on the game in a very pronounced fashion, much to the amusement of the honrgcoisie who had come in to take their evening glass of absinthe. It is much colder this evening, and the glass is falling rapidly ; we are afraid we are going to have another dose of mistral. Sunday, Feb. 2. — To-day has been again cold, but fine. Peg had a bad toothache in the night, so we waited a bit 2 M 274 Jlie Voyage of the Escarcjut. before starting, to let her make up for some of her lost rest, and did not leave Pnjet Ville till 10.30. There was great excitement in l*ujet Ville this morning over a young criminal who was being walked through the department to Draguignan, the chef-lieu, to take his trial for some offence he had committed, and had been put up for the night in the hotel stables. "We did not see him ourselves at that time, as he had already gone on when we got up, but Joseph told us about him, and there was a little crowd still standing about in front of the hotel where it had assembled to see him off, all talking and gesticulating at once, just as one sees in England when it has been found that a fox has been depre- dating the local hen-roosts. The general opinion in this case, too, seemed to be tliat the moral tone of tlie village had been in danger from the presence of a hardened criminal unbeknownst in its midst ; and even Jose])h was more than half inclined to suspect that our mares had l)een corrupted by his contiguity during the night. However, the crowd gradually recovered from its excite- ment, and then, as it was assembled, aiis tlie remains of some of the ancient quays. There is a splendid strip of sand along the shore, and the Frejus people evidently bathe there /' ' I X- in the summer, as there is a bathing establishment, with a caj'6 attached, but they are both shut at present. St Tiaphael lies to the east about two miles off, in a little bay of its own, with rocky cliffs beyond it, and the Alpes Maritimes appeariiig over all in the distance behind, with the setting sun shining on the snow on their summits. We sat down and watched the sea for some little time. James had never seen it before, and was very much surprised at 286 Tlie ^ ^oyarjc of t h e Esca i yot . the novel sight, and apparently rather irritated at the waves: then we took the opportunity of throwing him in for a bath, and he was more surprised than ever, and very much irritated at us, running ahead of us all the way back and refusing to speak to us, and he has scarcely got over it yet. AVhen we got back we found Joseph had been l)usying himself about a rcnfort for the morning, as we start for a long pull up over L'Esterel directly we leave Frejus to-morrow, and has secured one. He won't come under 10 francs, but frum the appearance of the climb on tlie map, and in tlie present dilapidated state of our mares — for I am afraid that tlie ]\Iissus can't be in the best of liealth or she wouldn't be so whimsical — it will prol)ably be worth the money : anyliow, we certainly can't do witliout some renfort, and if tlio natives are really taking advantage of our need, we must grin and bear it. Joseph has made friends with a small boy who is attached to the stable in some way, and has been trying to douche ^lary Ann's leg with our little pump, l)Ut has missed her someliow and douclied the patron, who was still strolling up and down, instead, much to the wrath and dis- turl)ance of the Italian apatliy of the latter, and it took some little diplomacy on our ])art to persuade him that we had not commanded the insult. "We have been taking an inventory this evening of all the things we have collected on the journey — purely l)y accident — from places we have stoppcnl at. "We have, besides the Marseilles key, a saucepan from Cujes, and six colVt'c bowls from various jilaces in which our milk has Ijcen handed in to us in the morning, aiul which we have forgotten in the hurry of departure to return : but we can salve our consciences Toulon to Frejus. 'I'Sl to a great extent with the fact that all our own bowls that we liad when we started have been left behind at one place or the other, besides which there have been one hay-fork at Toulouse, a small spirit-lamp kettle at Toulon, and any amount of dusters which Joseph has had for stable use, and which will quite compensate the owners of the bowls for their loss — if we have only left them at the right places. ,/^' CHAPTER XVIir LESTERKL Tuesday, Feb. 4. — There was aiiDther hard frost in tlic niglit, Imt the (lay has heen very In-iijlit ami tine. AVe were u]) early, aiul '" had everything: ready and our hill paid — which afier all was not so very exor- Ititant, thouc,di we considered it rather calm on the jiart of the fjiirroii d(,'miimlin;4 a ponr-hdirr, after all he hadn't done fnr us — hy eii^ht, at which time the rcufort had promised on his wnnl of honour as a rcnforf that he would come round. He diiln't eventually a]i])ear till ll.."'.(i, and then it was to tell us that lie had chaimed his mind and wouldn't come LEsterel to Cannes. 289 with us after all ; but lie had had the grace to find us a substitute, whom he had brouglit along with him, and to whom he introduced us— a venerable mule, in charge of a funny old toothless gentleman dressed in a suit of cordu- roys, and who, from his appearance, might just as well liave been the oldest inhabitant of an English village as of a foreign town. AVe navigated down the slope off the p/«fc and went througli tlie town past the seminary, and the hill began immediately we were clear of the town. There were more rioman remains on this side ; several arches of a very fine aqueduct, further relics of Frejus's departed greatness. The country round was stony, and productive of nothing but cork- trees ; but there were plenty of them, and from the numbers that were stripped, it would seem that when the Frejuscans are not asleep they do a considerable business in that line. We all got out and walked for about two hours, to relieve the mares of at least our weight, except Joseph, whom we left on the footboard to drive : he persuaded the rcnfortier, who was a good-natured old fellow, to hand over the charge of his beast to him, and was very proud of his miscellaneous team of three ; but it was not at first so much of a success as it might have been, as the rcnfort's harness was a peculiar arrangement of a kind of running rigging, and it kept shooting out ahead like the small end of a telescope, till its owner took it in hand, and, by a complicated system of knots and splices, prevented it from doing so any more. AVe were not long before we were well into the Esterelles, the road winding in a zigzag fashion in and out, according as the engineers had seen their opportunities, round the sides of the hills, rocky in some places, covered with bits of forest in others, and with a stream dashing along at the bottom of 2 290 The Voyage of the Escargot. the precipice to our left. The ohl road, whose makers, after the fasliion of tlieir time, liad carried it in as direct a fashion as possible, without regard to the convenience of travellers, took a much steeper line almost straight over the mountains to our right. "Willie presently got in, as his foot began to hurt him from some cause or other, and Peg and I kept on walking : and we came to a wild ravine, down the middle of which the torrent rushed at the bottom, with the road on the right at the top of a steep precipice going sheer down to it, and an e([ually steep cliff rising sheer to the right again of the rtjad. Here AVillie and Joseph broke into a trot, as the road descended for a bit on this sort of shelf along which it was passing, and Peg and I were left behind and had to toil after them for some time, not being able to make them hear our shouts to them to stop. The road then crossed a sort of L)evirs bridge, from one side of tlie ravine to tlie other, liigh up abovii the torrent, and began to climb in a steady incline u}) tlie side of the mountain again : here the truants stopped, and gave us time to come up with them. AVe got in again, I'eg rather tired with her walk, and we continued on ahuig a road dug out of or banked up against tlie side of the mountain, occasionally stopping f(jr a blow, always rising, right round a sheltered valley, which the en- terprising mountaineers had cultivated into fields and vine- yards, and were working there happily below us ; a trium})h of iinhistry over nature, though amply rewarded l)y its re- sults, as the valley, once Ijiought into cultivation, must be a jHufect natural hothouse, and pioductive of ]»retty nearly anything one coidd wish ; but we would like to know those ]/fopk-s hist(jry, and what lirst induced their forefathers to couiti and li\e tiit-rf. Joseph, who had been passing his time coming u]» the niounlain in being crammed u{) by the old IJEstereJto Cannes. 291 TCjiforticr — wlio had at a very early stage of the journey taken up his position on the footboard — in all sorts of new brigand stories, gave it as his opinion tliat they were the descendants of brigands, and that when they had done working in their fields, they resumed their ancestors' former occupation by way of recreation. Some fellow-travellers here joined us, consisting of a very big fat French cornmis voyagcur, with his very small tliin wife, a rather pretty little woman, with whom Peg fraternised, in a typical commis voyagcur s four-wheeled chaise, with a hood over the front seat, and the back piled up with boxes of samples covered over with waterproof cloth, drawn by a fat but will- ing little pony ; who, as soon as we came up to him, made up liis mind that, at any rate, we shouldn't pass him, and put his head down and pulled away most pluckily, keeping ahead of our great mares and their rcnfort all the way that we kept in their company. Our fat friend was delighted to see us, partly because at first he took us for fellow commis xogagcurs, but mostly, as he told us, with a sigh of relief, almost imme- diately on our coming up to him, because our combined forces would prove more efficient in case of our meeting any ban- dits, as it appeared that he sliared Joseph's fears in that respect most implicitly. He strongly objected to the moun- tain, and he certainly looked, poor man, as if he had good reason, as I don't think I have ever seen any one in such an absolute state of melt before, but he took it very cheerfully, and made very fair company all the way that we went along together, giving us his opinion of the different parts of France, both physically, socially, and commercially. He and his wife certainly had had plenty of experience, as they were travel- ling for a large house in Lille, whence they had set out in February, and had been more or less on the go ever since. 292 TJie Voyage of the Escargot. He was very proiul of his little pony's performances, and challed our biir mares most unmercifully, as if they were human bein,!,^'^, at their lettint^ a little animal so much smaller than themselves keep ahead of them ; but still he was very anxious not to offend, and, thinking perhaps that he had hurt our feelinlendid place, the Faisan J)orL'e, ratlier dear, Ijut elysian in its apj)ointments and food ; Init the town is a tremendous way oil', nearly three kilometres. Willie has had some troul^le in finding a liotel, but has at last got a room at a littlf llot(d .Suisse, a sort of roinmis w/r/yc;//" place ; all tlie other hotels are full. Josejjh is sleeping at the coacliman's. Tiuly i)\\v lines have fallen in pleasant i)laces. ]\'i(liiis(hiii, Fch. ~j. — To-day has been very fine, but very colli, and we have been going about in greatcoats all day, "We have spent the day doing Cannes: it is a beautiful little LEsterel to Cannes. 299 place, but I can't say I should ever care to live there for any length of time, as there is too much of the fashionable walk- about-on-the-parade-in-one's-best-hat-and-clothes place about it to suit me. It is a very long walk into the town, taking quite half an hour along a very up-and-down road, with nice villas on each side with walled gardens overlooking the road. AVe went in for the first time in the morning, and walked up and down the Eue d'Antibes, the principal street in the town, looking in at the shops and making one or two purchases of the usual olive-wood souvenirs, Sec, amongst them a sort of cookery-book almanac, with a dinner and lunch on it for every day in the year : we are afraid, however, that most of its menus are rather beyond the capabilities of our stove and other culinary ecjuipments. There were not many people about ; 1 suppose it was too cold for the habitual residents and visitors. AVe went to the post and on the promenade along the sea, where there is a statue to Lord Brougham, who invented Cannes, and died here. When we got back to our quarters at the Bocca for lunch, we found Joseph had decorated James in bright red ribbons round every available place he could put them — his neck, legs, tail, and ears — making him look like a clown dog. James did not appreciate his finery at all, and was waltzing round and turning somer- saults with great energy to get rid of it. AVe returned to the promenade after lunch, and after having bought an English paper, and after having read it entirely through, from the births, marriages, and deaths to the printer's name on the last page, found our way to the public garden, where the band was playing. At first the garden was almost entirely occupied by nursemaids and children ; then, a little later, on came an influx of Germans ; 300 Tlie Voyage of the Escargot. and, last of all, specimens of the English population : there were a lot of people whom we knew hy sight in London, but we haven't as yet met any one we know to speak to, though we liave no doubt we should come across some if we only stopped here long enough. All the young English ladies seem to have gone in for Kodaks, which they carry about slung from their shoulders by a strap, with the push and button conveniently close to tlieir riglit hands : which is calculated to make one plume one's self up a bit, as one never knows that they mayn't be shooting one if they fancy they see anything peculiar about one. We had afternoon tea at a confectioner's on the Paie d'Antibes, and then loafed about till time for dinner, which we had at the same place where the otliers had it last night, the Faisan iJon'e. It is a very expensive place, and we were constrained to restrict ourselves to soup, a beefsteak, and a sweet omelette ; but such soup ! and such a beefsteak 1 1 and such an omelette ! ! I This is written without any prejudice to i'eg's cooking, who could, we know, turn out any of these things (juite as well: I sjieak thus laudatorily with the mental comparison only to the ordinary French cafd restaurant. On returning home again, we found tliat our host had left cards on us, inviting us to tea with tliem ; so we went in, and liave Ix-en ])assing a most pleasant evening in the Imisoiu of the family. Tliis consists of fiur host, liis mother, and his elder Itrother, and tliere was also a naval lieutenant, on leave for tlie niglit from the squadron in tlie Oolfe d(^ Jouan : none of them could talk any F^nglisli, Imt they Were m<»st lenient to "Willie's and my French, and, of course. Peg got on without the slightest difliculty. They insisted on a reeai»it\dation of the whole of our adventures, ]ir(j(biciiig a series of the most splendid ordnance maps, IJEsterel to Ccuines. ;]01 about six inches to the mile, to ilhistrate them. AVe asked them as to the truth of Joseph's legend about the aulcrrjc on the Esterelles, which, they say, is more or less true in a general way ; but the evil-doings that went on there took place in the middle of last century. The naval lieutenant told us that the Lapin Blanc, wdiere we stayed at Toulon, has a fearfully bad name, and they were all much impressed with our hardihood at stopping there ; though where the hardihood came in, wdien we were quite unaware of any peril, I fail to see exactly. They are quite disappointed that we are going on so soon, as the mother had quite expected we were going to stop some time, and, indeed, had given orders to have a spare kitchen that they have in their house prepared for our use, and a room for Willie during our stay ; but we have to make our way as quickly as possible to Alassio to join Peg's mother and sister, who are waiting for us there : and, besides that, we really feel we have sponged on these good people quite sufficiently already; and how we can ever return their kindness we can't think, except that we have obtained a promise from the two sons that they will come and stay with us whenever they come to England, wdiich, they think, may be some time this year. They are coming to tea with us to-morrow, and our American lady friend, through whom we first got to know them, is to come too. "We said good night about eleven. llnij-xdaij, Fcl). 6. — To-day has been again fine, but still very cold. We had a visit from our American friend this morning, and repeated our invitation to tea ; then we went into the town to get the necessaries for it, and also to the post. Tiiere was a registered letter for AYillie from his agent ; 302 Tlie Voi/ar/e of the Escargot. but the officials wouldn't give it him as he hadn't got a pass- port, whicli was a great shock to his feelings, as the letter contained all the money that he was waiting for to go on with. They wouldn't accept our passport as a guarantee, but said they must have a reference to some one in the town. Fortunately, by the greatest chance, "Willie has found that tlie brother of his hotel proprietor was a former waiter at a hotel at Folkestone where he often walks over to from Shornclifl'e and dines, and the said brotlier happens to be staying at the hotel now, and fell into Willie's arms with gratitude for past tips last night : so, recollecting this, AVillie went oil' immediately and fetched both the l)rothers in to prove his identity, and so got his letter ; l)ut it is a warning to people when they are travelling in caravans never to be witliout a pass])ort. We tried to walk back to the Locca by the beach: we got along some way, tlie walking not being particularly agreeable, as the sand is so deep and shifting, and we had to leap or oilierwise circumvent two or three impediments which might liave been mountain rills, or migiit have been drains, and perhaj^s were a mixture of both ; luckily we got over them witliout any accident. After we had walked a ^■ery hjug way, however, the sliore came to an end in an angle between the sea and the railway; naturally we coiddn't gu inio tlie sea, and a high puling made of sharpened sleepers set up on eiul prevented us from climbing up on to the rail- way, not U) speak of all the pains and }>eiialties held out for those who were audacious and active enough t<.) climb the jialings on a notice-lxjard just inside them ; and we had come too far to think of going back, so we crawled along a shelf on one side of a culvert through whicli one of the afore- mentioned streams ran, and came out into somebody's garden IJEsterel to Cannes. 303 on the other side : thence we made our way through a gap in a liedge on to an cnijdoi/ds path on the landward side of the railway, and so past the IJocca station back into the road again ; and there we found that we had only shirked about half a kilometre of it. After lunch ^Monsieur X came out and asked us if we would like to come and see liis glass-works, which we did. They were makinn' large flagons, like Max Greger's on a yery large scale, to hold the wine of the district, and we watched the whole process from the lifting out of the lump of molten glass from the furnace on the end of the blowing- tube to the final deposit of the finished flagon to cool : they turn out about a thousand an hour. There are about two hundred workmen employed, and I should say the manu- factory coyers oyer three acres of ground, a siding running into it from the railway. The back premises are piled up with heaps of spoilt glass in lumps of all sorts of shapes and sizes, some of whose effects are beautiful ; we haye brought away two or three specimens, which will serye as paper- weights. Monsieur X showed us with great pride a row of umbrella pines between their house and the shore, which he says are quite a landmark for yessels as they come into Cannes harbour. Then we gaye our tea : Monsieur X came, but his brother was busy, or shy, we haye reason to belieye, like a great many of the best of their species, and Mrs , our American friend, with a pretty young lady friend, who brought a yery nice African dog with her. James was as civil as could be, and did his best to entertain his guest, but he was yery neryous, and did not reciprocate his advances but sat -under the wheels and shivered, and wished for his mistress to come home all the time. Monsieur X ex- 304 Tlie Voycuje of the Escargot, cused himself very early and left, to attend, he said, to some important letters ; but Mrs tells us that he is only a shade less painfully shy than his brotlier, and though he is briniminL!; over witli goodness towards his fellow-creatures, can scarcely look any of them in the face through nervous- ness. She and her friend stopped till quite late, and told us all about the X s : their whole history is one of good- ness that makes one's heart warm to hear it. ]\Iadame X , the mother, is tlie owner of nearly all the Bocca, and years agd. seeing tlie great poverty and misery amongst her ten- ants, she took counsel with a friend, and turned the vast quantities of sand on her foreshore to account, by starting the glass manufactory for the employment of her people. Tlie manufactory is carried on at a loss, but she never turns any of her workpeople oil', and she is deservedly blessed as a saint in every cottage in the ]k)cca. Then again, some years agfi, when tliere was a great Hood, and many of the people were drowned out of their homes, she turned her own house into an asylum, and sheltered and fed over tliirty poor families till tlie trouble was over. And there is no one so poor or helpless who comes to her, but she considers their poverty or helplessness quite sufficient passport to her lieait ; and she has brought up her sons to be like her, and to cany on her good work after her. It really makes one feel better to know such people. "We walked part of the way ])ack with ]\Irs () — and her friend, to wlicre they had to turn olf up to their villa: then went on into the town, and after walking rapidly up and down the promenade Ijy the sea, lounging being out of the question, turned in to dinner at the Faisan Dori'e again. Tlicn we came back to the Escargot, and about nine o'clock Weill in to spend the evening with Madame X again, LEstcrel to Cannes. 305 thinking to say Good-bye and thank her for all her kindness in taking us wanderers in without so much as a question as to our antecedents ; but she is determined to leave nothing undone, and declares she is going to be up to-morrow in time to wish us good-speed on our journey. 2q ;30G CHArXEPt XIX. CAGXES — NICK — BEAULIEU — MONACO — MENTOXE, Friday, Feb. 7. — To-day was dull, ^^'e were up pretty early, and all ready to start, but our dear old ^Madame X had so set her heart on saying Good-bye to us that we stopped till she was ready. Then we made an adieu to her through her sitting-room window. The two Messieurs X had run away somewhere, and were not to be found ; and steering our way cautiously, but safely, through the rows of bottles, we gained the road again, took our last farewell of the coaclnnan, who was as sorry to lose us as any of them, and was oidy with the utmost difficulty persuaded to take a little present that we had ready for him, and at last turned (nir faces from about as jdeasant an experience as we have had during the whole of our expedition. The hills into the town were rather severe, but the mares were still in a good temper after all the comfort they had l^een enjoying so long, and gave us no trouble. Half-way along the road we met the elder ^Monsieur X" , who accounted for his absence l)y presenting Peg with a magni- iicent bouquet of llowers which he had tramped all tlie way into Cannes to get, and so we left the last (^f these good Cagncs to Mentone. 307 people with regrets, at any rate on our own side, and we think, from what we have seen of them, on theirs as well. All the rank and fashion of Cannes was out in the streets as we passed through. We stopped at the corner of the street leading to Willie's hotel while he got his bag, and then went on till we got to the railway, where we had to wait some time for a train to pass, and the level crossing to be opened. Meanwhile it came on to rain, and it has been going on ever since, and it is still cold. This is the third day that we have been wearing greatcoats, and that is for the first time on the whole of the journey. We are begin- ning to look on this " sunny south " as a bit of a fraud. After the railway came a steepish hill with a continuation of the villas on each side, and very stony, and the mares began to sulk again ; perhaps they had not realised before this that they were going to leave their late comfortable quarters for good. We fought them over two or three more moderate hills, and then the road became rather more level as it followed the sea-coast round the Golfe de Jouan, a nice little bay with villas on the slopes at the back of the road, and the Cap d'Antibes with its lighthouse shutting it in on the east, which would have been pretty in fine weather, but didn't show to advantage in the rain to-day. The road was fearfully muddy, and we all picked up a good deal of it, especially James, who, with the remains of his finery still hanging about him, looked like a decayed ballet-dancer at a village open-air fair. We turned inland across the neck of the Cap d'Antibes, not going into the town, which looks a strongly fortified place, but skirting round it, and after that the road became uninteresting, passing over a very flat bit of country with the railway to our right, and the sea just beyond, all the 308 Tlie Voijage of the Escanjot. way to Cagnes, where we halted for lunch in the middle of a perfect pelt of rain opposite the station, at the Cafe de la Gare, wliere the kind-hearted ^wyage of the Escargot. a long climb iip of nearly half an hour, and then came out on a lovely view of the Mediterranean, witli the lofty moun- tains of the coast rising straight out of it, with villas dotted here and there, and fruit and olive trees without number clothing their sides, the road and the railway run- ning alongside on their respective terraced routes close to the edge of the shore. There were lots of carriages on the road, and lots of beggars in various stages of cripple- dom and rags. These last make a good thin" of their profession, as many a gambler bound for Monte Carlo thinks he brings himself luck in proportion to the alms he gives them. We came down on to the harbour of Villefranche, well protected by its headland on the east, and deep \\\) to the very shore : the French squadron was lying there as we passed, so close in that we could almost have dropped a stone over on to one of the men-of-war's deck which was anchored close below us. AVe skirted round the harbour and through the little town of Villefranclie, then left tlie coast to cut across the neck of the headland, and so came to JJeaulieu. lieaulieu lies up a little slope a short way ofi' the main road, so we turned aside into llie Nillage and pulled up out- side the principal hotel to see whether tliey could take us in there. The IJeauliais, however, are not accustomed to taking in caravan peoj)le, and l)esides, though we disserted largely on our e.\ce))tional respectability, the hotel stables were full. They told us, liowever, of a cdfc in a ,^arden a little fartlier along the main road wliere they thouglit we might find accommodation, so we thanked them and (■aiiH3 oil. We took a short cut back into the main road, which niiulit have resulted in a premature ending to our Cagnes to Mentone. 315 journey, as when we came to its exit into the proper track, we found a huge gutter right across it, into which our fore-wheels descended with a bump which completely flat- tened tlie springs till the upper halves touched the lower, and we were thoroughly enfoncued for a few minutes ; but a little crowd of loafers who had been hanging around an inferior sort of cafe close by came and very kindly lent their shoulders, and their aid and the goodness of our underworks eventually got us over the obstacle without any real accident. AVe found the Beau Eivage, a nice little cafe in a pretty olive-garden overlooking the sea, and after a short con- fabulation between the proprietor and his wife, they con- sented to take us in as a great favour, though they took care to make us understand that they didn't as a rule en- courage caravan people, their customers being in a much superior rank of life. AVe were established at 3.15, having only run a little over an hour to-day ; but we are clear of Nice, and the journey is quite enough for a Sunday. We restored the confidence of the cafcticrs to some ex- tent by giving them a large order for coffee, and then we went out for a walk round the village, which consists mainly of hotels and villas, the latter, from their lawn- tennis grounds, evidently belonging mostly to English people ; but it is a charming little place, and one above all in this sunny south which, if I was obliged, I should choose to live in. AVe enquired at the post for a lady friend of ours who often stays here, but she has not come out this year. After dinner we strolled about the garden and amused ourselves watching an extempore ball of Nice excursionists, of whom there were a lot over to dine, which has been going on in a kind of sallc attached to the cafe, 316 The Voyage of the Escargot. to the strains of a rather dilapidated piano-organ. All is quiet now except for the waves beating against the rocks at the bottom of tlie garden. The moon on the sea is perfectly lovely, "Willie and Joseph have been given rooms, also as a great favour, in the cafe. Mondai/, Feb. 10. — We had a splendid night's rest, and woke up early to a lovely morning ; but it has still been very cold all day, and there has been a dusty wind blowing which, if it were in England, I should say meant rain. Our bill at the cnfe at Beaulieu was prodigious : we could have slept, had dinner, and put up the mares at a first-class hotel for very little over it ; but the cafctier still impressed upon us, while we were gazing at it in wonder and almost admiration at its magnificence, that we had much to 1)0 thankful to him for the favour he had accorded us in taking us in at all, so after that we could hardly say very much. We left ]>eaulieu at 0.20, and very soon regained the Corniche road, winding in and out along the line of the sea, sometimes tbrough tunnels, somelimes over bridges, and always with the mountains rising straiglit up on our left and the drop down on the right to the railway Ijelow, which just had room to run along between the road and the sea. It was rather early for the daily influx of visitors to Monte Carlo, so we had the road pretty well to our- selves except for an occasional carriage going in the same direction as ourselves, with some particularly keen gambler in it ])ressing forward to reacli tlie Casino in time for its ojiening. Tlie j)rofessional beggars were just waking up and takiii'.: u]) their positions for tlie day, and fireut the mares were as impervious to his reproaches as they were to his whip, wliicli we had given him full leave to lay on to them ; and it began to seem rather probable that we sliould have to stop there all night in hopes of their royal highnesses being more condescending to- morrow, when a cart came by loaded with wood, and tlie cJiarrctkr perceiving our dilliculty, which indeed was nudging us rather a nuisance to tlie trafiic along the road, as we were taking ii]) a good share of it, without wasting any time on words, innnediately uidiarnessed his team of four good-sized horses, which he was drawing tandem, after the manner of such teams, from his cart, and having removed tlie rnifm-l , liooked them Ijodily on to our ])ole ; tlien gave one ])istol- lik(; crack of his whi]), and the team bending to their wi^rk, carried our entire turnout to the top of the liill, our mares being obliged to move; ])erforce, to save themselves from being pidled over, though it was very little, if any, of the Cafjiics to Mentone. :]21 weight of the Escargot that they took on tlieinselves. The cliarreticr, as has been the case more than once before in our travels, utterly declined to take any remuneration, and re- turned with his team to his own cart, wishing us a safe ending to our journey ; but we felt constrained to give the poor rcnforticr something for his trouble, for he had certainly done his best, and it was not his fault if he had not fulfilled his part of the bargain. Then we went down again, which we effected very easily, as the descent was steep, and the Escargot ran down all the way by her own weight, and then there came a bit of level past a little cafe overlooking the sea, along which we ran still by our own impetus ; but we were not long before we had a very good insight into the amount of work the mares were, or weren't, doing, for, from want of co-operation on their part, we were no sooner beginning to slacken speed by reason of the com- mencement of another hill up, than we ran straight into and got very awkwardly entangled in a telegraph-post. And even wdien we had, by sheer force of arm, tugged the whole thing out of that, and set the mares straight to the hill, they stood looking at it, and not moving a bit more than before, except backwards, to accommodate themselves to the spontaneous retrogression of the caravan, which, in spite of the brake, was slowly retracing the few yards that she had been carried upwards by her own rush, till we rooted some large stones out of the ditch by the side of the road — there were none anywhere near besides — and checked her for the moment in her downward career. Then Willie ran back to the little cafe to see if he could find a Tcnfort; but there w"as only an old woman at home, who told him that her son had taken the only pony in tlie place, and that was a very little one, into Mentone, and wouldn't be back 2 s 322 The Voyage of the Escargot. till late in the evening, so that that was no use. However, we had never really acknowledged ourselves beaten by the mares, and had only given into them so far for our own convenience, and so now we determined to make them go up this hill by themselves, which they were perfectly able to do if they liked. We accordingly took up our old accustomed positions, and started — really started this time, as the mares saw, no doubt by the determination in Willie's eye, who was leading them, that wo meant business, and we advanced about ten yards: then the Missus's collar, the new Toulon one, broke, and the wliole weight being thus suddenly thrown on to Mary Ann — though we have to allow that this time she had cast aside all evil influences, and was again doing her best — the caravan began slowly retrograding again, this time in a slant- ing direction towards the cliff, and it was only l*eg's prompti- tude with her stone which saved tlie hind-wheel from "oint; into the ditch. Here we stayed in rather an awkward position, while Willie and I got out the necessary tools and materials to try and patch up tlie collar as best we could, as we were occupying quite half the roadway, and there were a lot of carriages passing from time to time : but there was really plenty of room to pass driving carefully, and they all went by without a grumljle, tlieir feeling towards us being more probably pity for our predicament than anger for our obstructiveness. But just as we had nearly finished, and it was very impor- tant that tlie mares should be })erfectly still, for 1 liad a liradawl ])erilously near the ]\Iissus's tliroat, an extra mag- nificent turn-out came down the hill with a pair of fine black horses, a coachman and a footman in smart liveries on the l)')x, a gorgeous coat-of-arms on the panels, and inside an cMcil}- gentleman with a young lady seated by his side both Cagnes to Mentone. 323 in deep mourning. They pulled up when they had got close to us, and the elderly gentleman thundered out to us to clear out of the road and make way for his carriage to pass ; but knowing perfectly well, from the fact of the other carriages having passed, that there was lots of room for them, and having in mind that every one has as good a right as any one else to the higliway, provided he isn't wilfully obstructing it, we didn't see why w^e should run the risk of further difficul- ties by acceding to his demand, so replied quite politely that we couldn't very well move, if it was all the same to him, but that we would guarantee the safety of his varnish, if he would only order his coachman to drive on carefully past us, as all the other carriages had done. However, this didn't suit him, and he began to storm at us, and use language which he cer- tainly ought to have been ashamed of using before his own companion, even if he didn't respect Peg's sex, letting alone her rank, which perhaps he might be forgiven for not grasp- ing on the moment, saying that it was not all the same to him, and that if we didn't move out in a couple of shakes (or the French equivalent) he would get down and give us a "grand coup de dcrrierc," so when it had come to that we considered it best to continue our operations and pay no further attention to him, but let himself swear himself out. Of course, if he did get down to carry out his threat, we would have to take the necessary measures for self-defence, but there was time enough to think of that. So there we remained in a kind of dead-lock for another five minutes : we w"eren't going to move for him, and he was too obstinate to try the experiment which we had recommended to him, of ordering his coachman to drive, at any rate so far as he could, past us ; he all the while continuing his fire of choice language, in spite of the endeavours of his companion 324 21 K> Voyage of tlie Escanjot. to restrain him, she, we fancy, beginning to realise that we weren't exactly travelling tinkers, or something of that sort. He insisted on it that we were voyav.x, canaille, and he would telegraph from Monaco to the police at Mentone, and we would soon know whom we had been obstructing, which we felt rather inclined to tell him would rather interest us than otherwise, as any one with a finer command of French slang it had never been our fortune hitherto to meet. How- ever, we didn't, but still worked on in dignified silence. Fortune, however, proved unkind to us in the end, for when we had finished the temporary repair of the collar, we started the mares again ; but we hadn't gone two yards before the horrid thing gave way again. The wooden framing was as rotten as could be, and wouldn't liold the wire-splicing we had bound it up with. ]\Iary Ann made a gallant effort to keep her ground, but it was no use ; the incline was too steep, and the Kscargot receded again, this time with Ijoth the near wheels in the ditch, and our reviler drove by triumphant, though it was no victory of liis own gaining. AVe were literally in a hole now, well enfonceed in the mud at the bottom of the ditch, one collar hopelessly broken, and no prospect of a rcnfort, for the tiailic on this road was not of the kind that we could very well e.xpect to get a horse from it to hel]) pull us out of our trouble. Just then a carriage came l)y, and, to our sur})rise, we saw sitting in it a lady who is our next-door neighljour at home. She made her coacliman pull up, and was good enough to recognise us, though liy this time Willie and I were by no means as re- sjicctable as we might be, as we had a good deal of tlie mud out of tlie ditch over us; l)Utwe could hardly ask her to lend us a liorse, as she was oidy in a hired carriage, S(j we made light of our difficulty to her, and after she had given us a Cannes to Mentone. 325 sinnniary of home news, for she had only lately come out from there, she went on her way. It was a pleasant though rather an unfortunate meeting, as she may take the im- pression home to our friends that we have been habitually in the ditch on our way across France, which, from their antici- patory lamentations over the whole expedition, they will prob- ably be quite ready to believe. ])Ut now something had to be done, so we first took off the broken collar and replaced it with one of our old ones, which fortunately we didn't give the Toulon saddler as part pay- ment, as he wouldn't allow us anything like their worth. Then we cast about for some way to get out of the ditch. Presently a body of cantonnicrs came by on their way to work farther up the hill. AVillie and I waylaid them, and offered them large sums if they would come and help us to shove ; but tliey were the slaves of duty, and said they could do nothing without the consent of their chief, who was higher up the hill round the corner. However, they were only going to work a very little farther along, so if we liked to go and ask him, they %vould be quite close to come back and help us when we had got his leave. I ran on up the hill, but there was no chief cantonnier visible ; but there icas a small cafe, and my next conjecture that he would be very likely refresh- ing himself in there proved correct. I got the necessary consent, and ran back to the caravan, picking up the cantonnicrs on the way, and taking them along with ]ne. I found our little company now increased by a good-natured-looking Englishman, who had come along on his way from Monte Carlo to Mentone on foot, and seeing fellow"- countrymen in distress, was standing by to see if he could be of any help ; also a little Frenchman, who had come by in a little basket pony-carriage, and had also stopped to help us, if 326 The Voyage of the E scar got. possible. From him Willie had learnt the somewhat start- ling news that our late adversary was the Prince of Monaco. We hereby unanimously place it on record, that though we may occasionally, though very rarely, have met with coldness from the various sorts and conditions of people whom we have come across on our journey, the only rudeness and abuse that we have experienced has been from a man who considers himself one of the crowned heads of Europe. We are upholders of royalty by tradition and principle, but if tliere were more of these petty potentates about with his manners, even making all allowances for his taking us for vagrants, we would all soon dcLrenerate into out-and-out liadicals. Our little Frenchman regretted that his pony could not be of any use to us, but while tlie rest of us were occu])ying ourselves over the measures for extricating the Escargot from the ditch, he busied himself stopping all tlic empty carriages and carts tliat came by, and trying to get them to lend us a liorse for a rcuforf. lie was a native of Mentone, lui told us, and knew a great many c^(hiij, Fch. V-\. — To-day lias l^cen fine Ijut .still very cold. \Vc are lje;,dnnin_Lj to seriously doubt the wisdom of sending' iu\alids to winter in the ]liviera, as the climate seems to be just as treacherous as Enuland — bright sun and cuttincr Oneglia to Alassio. 347 east winds, and the houses are far less well adapted for cold weather. The police were after us early this morning again ; but this time it was about James, who after making a fearful noise at an early hour tliis morning, to the complete ruination of any satisfactory rest on our part, when I at last turned him out, had gone for a walk on his own account into the town, and had promptly been arrested and taken off to prison for not having a muzzle. It was lucky that the stable proprietor could speak French, as otherwise we might not have been able to learn the entire trutli about James, and he might have been languishing in prison for the rest of his days. The stable proprietor explained that the policeman had come round to know if I wished to redeem James ; so of course I hurriedly dressed, and having learnt from our friend that I must go to the commissary of police, started off there im- mediately with Joseph. The chief police-station lay in the middle of the labyrinthine old town, and if it hadn't been for the kindness of a native, who guided us the whole way, I don't think we should ever have got there. I asked a police- man who was standing at the door where I ought to go, and he said we must go to the Mairie, so we had to start off again in search of that, and when we had at last stumbled upon it by accident, another policeman who was standing at that door sent us all the way back to the police-station. This time we asked nobody's advice, but made our way into a room where there was a policeman sitting at a desk at each end of the room, and other policemen put away on benches all round the walls till they were wanted. "We walked boldly up to the desk at the other end of the room, and without waiting to be asked, poured forth our story of James's loss and how we had come to ransom him to 348 The Voyage of the EHcargot. the officer sittin<,f thtTo. "When we had finished, lie inti- mated that he hadn't understood a word we had said, and relegated us to the other otficial at the other end. This man was more intelligent, being perhaps retained there for the use of benighted foreigners, and when I had paid him down 2 francs 50 centimes, he wrote something on a piece of paper, and giving it to me, told us to follow a policeman, into whose charge he put us. "We followed the policeman into the back premises of the police-station, where we found a miserable sort of ratcatcher- looking individual with a long stick with a noose at the end sitting asleep on a bench. Our conductor woke him and showed him our bit of paper, on which he arose and beckoned us to come with him, which we did down to the !Mole, he taking us through the most fashionable parts of San liemo, as if purposely to bring us to shame should we happen to meet any one of our more respectable friends who might chance to be at San Kemo while we were in his company. Arrived at the ]\Iole, he unlocked the d(jor of a vault constructed on the landward side of it, and there we saw James, not in the least unhappy, but playing with a fox-terrier pup^iy who had been sharing his fate, and not apparently in the least hurry to come along with us. How- ever, we were too glad to think we had saved him from ihe fate which the nearness of the harbour vividly suggested had we not shortly come ti» his relief, to scold him much, so we put him at once on the chain and brought him home, giving the dog-catcher a little sometliing for his troulile, loi' after all he had oidy lieen doing his duty. A\'(; eventually left San ]Jemo at 10. 55, and continued our way all along the sea the whole way from San ]Jemo to Alassio, sometimes along Hat bits of shore, especially Oneglia to Alassio. 349 about tliG villaues and towns, sometimes creeping round tlie headlands along a sort of shelf hewn out in the side of the cliff, with the precipice sheer down to the sea from three to six hundred feet below : passing through Taggia, Iiiva, San Stefano, San Lorenzo, Porto Maurizio, Oneglia, Diano Marina, and Andorra. AVe have done forty-five kilo- metres to-day, our longest day's journey ; and we have had more adventures crowded into it than we have ever had in any day's journey yet. Even in themselves the little towns here, apart from any external accessories, were quite little adventures, as the streets through which we passed were so narrow that there was just a pleasing amount of exciting doubt whether we should get through, and indeed, if it hadn't been for the softness of the material of which the houses were built, or maybe it was the countless layers of whitewash that have been put on them since they were built many centuries ago, we should have stuck in a great many places by reason of the width of our axles. As it was, we ha^"e left furrows along the walls on each side in one part or other of almost every town or village we have passed to-day. And then, for the more extraordinary adventures. The first was at San Stefano, where they are at last waking up to the fact that after all it might be advisable to rebuild their houses, and not go on living any longer in the wooden barracks which the Government was kind enough to put up for them, after the earthquake. Just at the entrance to the town, they had erected a scaffolding round one of the ruined houses, and shored it up l)y beams reaching across the street to the wall of the opposite house, in case lest, in the course of their repairing, they might bring down the whole building with a run ; and having got so far, the re- 350 Tlie Voyage of the Escargot. storers were sitting on a heap of ddhris smoking cigarettes and admiring their liandiwork, "When %ve came up to this, it looked ratlier questionable whether the shoring wasn't placed too low for us to go under ; hut as tliere was no other way round, and one would naturally suppose, before one knew the habits of Italians very well, that they would take care to allow, even if it was only just enough, room for an ordinary hay-cart to go underneath, which would be just about the height of the roof of the Escargot, we gave them tlie benefit of the doubt, and drove the mares very slowly and carefully under the beam. But not quite slowly enough, as it proved: the beam sloped to such an extent that, though the highest point of our roof would have cleared it, the point of the eave farthest from the ruined building didn't, and though the shock was apparently a very slight one, eitlier tlie weight of the Escargot told, or else the shoring was a careless piece of work, and before we knew where we were, llie wliole beam was slithering down between the two walls on to tlie backs of the mares. Fortunately the other end nearest the ruin reached the ground first, and our end — i.e., the one we had knocked — followed it more slowly down the opposite wall. Willie and I both rushed to that end of the footboard and got our shoulders under the beam, so that, resting as it did there slantindicularly, we saved it fiom doing more than just graze the ^Missus's back, and there we stood for two or three minutes, until the workmen had leisurely got up, and thrown away their cigarettes, and come to the grounded end of the ]»eam; after which they took the weight at that end, while A\'il!ie and 1 slowly walked our end across to the other end fif the footboard and handed it down to them, to lay under the wall (jf the ruin till we had passed. It was fortunate Oneglia to Alassio. 351 that the mares behaved so admirably, as if they had taken fright and moved on, we must have let the beam drop on their backs, and very likely have injured them very severely : as it was, there was just the smallest bit of hair rubbed off the ]\Iissus's shoulder. The amusing thing was the perfect calm- ness of the workmen, whose only anxiety at all was in the direction of getting something out of us for their trouble ; but mere justice prevented us from giving them that, and we drove on, leaving them grumbling, and very likely they have put back the beam in exactly the same position — that is, if they have been able to raise the necessary energy. By the way, talking of earthquakes, we have been coming through traces of its destroying path the whole way to-day, every place we have passed having been more or less knocked about by it, especially Diano Marina, which we passed this afternoon, which was the centre of it, and of wliich indeed tiiere is scarcely a whole house left : a great many standing with the whole of one side come bodily away, like when one opens the front of a child's doll's house, and so that we could see the pictures still hanging on the walls in some of them. The Government has built wooden barracks for temporary residences for the inhabitants of all the places that suffered, till they can build their houses up again ; l)ut it is thoroughly characteristic of the Italians that the majority of them are in not the smallest hurry to rebuild, being perfectly content to pig up in the barracks, and I dare- say, if pressure isn't put on them, they will go on living in them for the rest of their lives. The second adventure was at Oneglia, a larger town than the others, about half-way, where we stopped for lunch. A great misfortune there befell us in the shape of the loss of our keys, and altogether this time, as Joseph dropped them 352 The Voyafjc of tJic Escan/ot. out of his ^vaistcoat pocket — where as usual lie oughtn't to have been carrying tlieni — down the hotel well, at which he was stooping over to see his reflection in the water. It is a most unfortunate thing that we didn't have the duplicate pair that we were having made at Mentone finished, hut still it was lucky that we lost them on the last day of the journey. "We had to get a rcnfort out of Onegiia, as tliere was a hill up out of it over the Capo Buta, which took us three- quarters of an hour to climb up. It took us exactly twelve minutes to run down the other side. When we got to Cervo, it was beginning to get very near sundown, and we still had a loug way to go ; but we were resolved to get to Alassio to- night, so we climbed up on to tlie side of tlie cliff's again and came on, round headland after headland, hoping each one was going to be tlie last. Xight, however, had set well in when we at last roumU'd Capo Mele, and a wayfarer, to wliom we shouted as we passed, replied tliat qucsta qui, wliich is about as mucli Italian as we have picked up to be .sure of as yet, down below there was Laigueglia and Alassio ; Ijut he added something else wliicli we did not understand, till we had got a little farther down tlie last slope, when we only just ])ulle(l up in time to avoid crashing into our third adventure. This consisted of a huge rock which had been blasted out of the cliff, and was now lying comfortably more than half-way across the road, so that there would have been scarcely room for an ordinary carriage to pass between it and the parapet of the road, let alone the Escargot ; and to make matters worse, for even the hypothetical ordinary cairiage, there were heaps and heaps (jf dchris of rock ]iiled up against the parapet, reducing the available roadway to a mere footpath. And as might have been expected, the 0)ief/Ua to Alassio. 'J J -J quarryineu, having done so much, were just putting their tools together and were starting to go home. Willie and I ran forward and expostulated with them, but without effect for some time. They coolly seemed to think that since we had been stupid enougli to get there, we had better stop there all night ; but being so near our destination, we were reckless, and went on increasing our promises of reward till at last we touched the head - quarryman's heart, and he having wliistled back as many of his subordinates as had not tramped out of hearing, we set to work to surmount the obstacle. First we ran the Escargot forward as far as she would go, to take her measure for the space that would be required : then two of the men climbed up on to the top of the rock, and with very inadequate tools began pecking away at it to make room for the roof of the Escargot to pass, while two others pecked at it down below to make room for the wheels, and the rest of us meanwhile worked all we knew to heave the smaller debris on the other side of the road over the para- pet down to the shore below. It was lucky, as one quarry man, who was more facetious than the rest, and likewise spoke a little broken French, remarked, that there were no lovers walking along down there. This went on about an hour and a half. AVe had taken the mares out, as they were beginning to get a little fidgety from the cold, and Joseph was leading them up and down a little farther down the road. Every now and then we ran the Escargot a little forward by hand, to see how much more cutting was wanted, and at last there were only about three inches required to let the hind axle go by. Then we gave up chipping any more, and all got under the near side, and, with one mightv heave, lifted the whole thing over this last 2 Y 354 The Voycifje of the Escargot. remaining protrusion, and the obstacle was passed. AVe put the mares to again, and having rewarded the quarrymen as promised (that job cost us 20 francs, but it was worth it), came on slowly down the hill and through Laigiieglia, Willie and T walking on in front with lanterns on each side of the road to guide Joseph, as it was by this time as dark as pitch, till we came to the suburbs of Alassio. There we found the streets as narrow as usual, but we had scraped about half-way through, when progress was again stopped by a heap of earthquake debris piled up against the oft' wall, and in which our wheels on that side got so deeply enfonceed in our attempt to take it with a run, that, with all the struggles of tlie mares, we could neither get backwards nor forwards. A small crowd speedily collected, every one l)roft'ering advice, but it did not seem to occur to any of them to give us any more material help ; and then a policeman came up, wlio we expected was going to tlireaten us with all tlie terrors of the law for obstructing the streets ; but he was quite callous as to that oflence, and liad only hurried on to the scene on hearing the news in alarm for his own house- door, which he begged us to be careful of, as it had only just been painted, and after that he j(jined the general crowd of advisers. At this point we thouglit it advisable to send poor Peg, wlio was shivering with cold, on with James to tlie Grand Hotel, wliere her mother was, and wliither we were destined, to announce our arrival, and perhaps get some one to come out to our help. After she liad gone, we stuck there quite another quarter of an hour, the bystanders still chattering, till at last AVillie and I g(jt ini])atient, and having taken the nian-s out again, went to the hind-wheels ourscdves, which Were the deejtest sunk in, and tokl them in good ])lain Eng- Oneglia to Alassio. 355 lish that tliey would bo doing us much more service if tliey came and shoved too, instead of wasting their breath with a lot of useless talking, and our winged words actually had the desired effect. In half a minute they were all round the Es- cargot too, some at the pole, some at the, fore, some at the hind wheels, and some under the body, and with another great lift we got the wheels free, and descended on to the smooth pavement all clear again. The policeman came to me while "Willie and Joseph were putting the mares to again, and made me understand that it was no use our tr}ing to get through the town proper, as the streets were much too narrow, but that our best plan would be to go round by the station to the Grand Hotel ; so as soon as we were ready, having thanked him and the other assistants, we started in the direction that he had recom- mended. But presently we found ourselves in a large square, with no apparent exit except by the way by which we had come in, and another which had a notice-board, of which the evident import was that no vehicles were on any account allowed to pass it, stuck up at the end. A man passed by at that moment, and we hailed him and asked him the way to the hotel, to which he replied by ]:)ointing down the inter- dicted street. But the notice ? we asked. Oh, that was of no consequence, he said, so we set off boldly past the notice : but the street was shaped like a funnel, and got narrower and narrower, till there was only just room as we came to the other end for our axles, and there was another post sunk into the pavement in the middle of the roadway, which, although it hadn't got another notice on it, was an even more effectual bar to our further advance than the other. Just then, a man in evening clothes accosted me, and asked me if I was tlie gentleman with the caravan, as he had come 356 The Voyage oftheEscargot. out from tlie hotel to meet me, and on my saying that I was, asked me where the caravan was. I pointed backwards up the street, and he said that we couldn't come down there because of the post; to whicli I responded that I could see that per- fectly well, but we couldn't possibly go back again, and tlie only thing I could see to do was to i)ull up the post, and if there w as any row pay the tine afterwards. On tliat, lie went into a drinking-shop at tlie corner and fetched out four Oneglia to Alcissio. 357 ruffians, and with no further ado we pulled up the post, and drove out of our trap trmmphantly, rigiit under the nose of three gendarmes, who were looking at us ; hut our friend told us that this is Carnival night — it had struck us that the Alassio people, of whom there were a goodly number about the streets, were rather oddly attired — and the police were not very particular as to what was done in the town. So we put back the post loosely, and drove on to the hotel, and here we have put the mares up in a comfortable stable for a good rest till we go on our final stage to Genoa, and I'eg and I are established in a room in the hotel, the first night we have slept in a house for over two months. The Escargot is drawn up in front of the backdoor of the hotel, and Joseph and James have taken possession of it for the time being. And we are not altogether sure that we enjoy this return to civilisation. 358 CHAPTER XXIL OF OUR STAY AT ALASSIO. "We Stopped at Alassio a little under three weeks, to give tlie mares time to recruit tliemselves before we took them on to Genoa, where, alas ! they would have to be sold, and we would have to finish our vagabond life, at any rate for a good long time to come. We returned for the time being to civil- isation, taking rooms and living in the hotel, Joseph taking our place in the Escargot — nominally in company with James, but actually by himself, as James, for some reason or other, for the most part preferred spending his nights on the cold stone back-staircase of the hotel. Joseph was rather inclined to raise objections at first to his new quarters, coming to us tlie first few mornings with lamentable tales of liow cold and wretched the interior of tlie Escargot was ; but we really didn't see that what had Ijcen good enough for us was not good enough for him, considering that we had taken him from a bed on the straw in a staljle — and, as a matter of fact, experience had tauglit us that as regarded draughts the state of tli(' hotel was to that of the Escar'fot as infinitv to nought. Joseph, however, let out the real secret of his dislike to slccj^ing in the caravan by one day adding to his lamentations. Our Stay at Alassio. 359 probably as an extra inducement to our relenting, that there were always sucli strange noises about the outside of her all night, which made it evident that he was still imbued with the idea that there was a gigantic European conspiracy to take his one particular life, and we really couldn't put our- selves out for that. The hotel was pretty full, most of the inmates being retired major-generals, though of course there were excep- tions, the principal being a talented lady authoress and the brother of an eminent Eastern explorer, who, indeed, per- haps from the fact that they were exceptions to the major- general rule, performed the functions of the principal leaders of society in the little community. The larger part of the people were hahihids of the hotel, coming there regularly every season, and those who were not had been there for the whole of the winter ; but Peg's mother and sister liaving come in advance of us had broken the ice for us, so to speak, so that we were received with great cordiality, and not regarded as inter- lopers, as is so often the case with late comers at a foreign hotel mainly supported by our prudently reserved fellow- countrymen. Perhaps the somewhat novel mode of our arrival had something to do with the welcome accorded us, as Alassio is a place not overburdened with excitement, and any small diversion would, I should suppose, be agreeable, as a change from the general monotony of a life whose chief object of existence is to be the first to get hold of the ' Times ' on its arrival every day. Through the hotel people we soon got to know the residents in the villas round about, so that we had nothing to complain of in our life at Alassio, as far as life at a health-resort goes. Alassio is a funny little place, quite a type of the usual Italian coast town, the town proper lying squeezed in 360 TJie Voyage of the Escavfjot. between its walls, tlie whole thing built somewhere in the good old medieval times of pirates and all those sort of joys, and hardly touched since. The main coast road runs right through it, in at the gate at one end and out at the gate at the other, forming the main street of the town, the narrowness of which may be imagined w])en I state that, on tlie first night of our arrival, when we had strayed by mistake back into the street, it was just a touch-and-go affair in places whether our axle-boxes wouldn't bring up short against projections in the walls. The street widens out in one or two places into sort of squares, which form bays to enable carts coming in opposite directions to pass each other ; but carts don't often pass along the street at all, generally preferring to go round. Off tlie main street are various side streets or alleys leading to the less fashionable parts of the town. Tlie sho]xs of Alassio are not numerous, and the majority of those which do exist don't seem to sell anything. Tlie chief em})orium of the town partook something of the nature of the ordinary village shop of our native land, where one could ask for anything one wanted from a penny-w^orth of soft sugar to a bicycle, and if they didn't happen to liave it at the time, one had to go without it. This sliop was the great resort of the ladies in the hotel, who used to frequent it in search of strangely sliaped pots and pans, sucli as the Italian peasant uses for preparing his frugal meal, but which they destined for j)rominent positions in their drawing-rooms at home. There was also at one period a considerable run on coloured pocket-handkerchiefs, till one day, the sup[)ly running short, the proprietress of the establishment, on 1 icing f[uestioned wlien she would have any more, was understood to reply tliat slie was expecting some more from Our Stay at Alassio. 3G1 England very shortly ; after which the demand for them slackened. A desire to cultivate colloquial Italian was generally ex- pressed as the reason for this lavish outlay on domestic decoration ; hut, as a matter of fact, the dialect of the lady of the shop and her husband was so essentially provincial, that the conversation, however well intentioned it might be at the commencement, generally degenerated about a quarter of the way through it into a kind of Volapuk, and finally lapsed into signs for the latter half of it. Willie and I always began at the other end, and never attempted anything beyond signs. Our first purchase was a padlock, which we bought the day after our arrival to supply the place of the one which had had to be broken open, owing to Joseph's care- lessness about the keys. "Willie first drew a picture of it on a leaf of his note-book, but that only produced a little round pot with a rising handle like a basket — I suppose because that was the kind of article chiefly affected by the British as a nation in these parts. And then, after we had shown the woman keys and made noises supposed to be like the open- ing of padlocks, and resorted to various other dodges, she at last smiled and shook her head, and pointing to a ladder in the corner of the shop, intimated that we had better climb about and look for what we wanted for ourselves, which we did ; and whenever afterwards we went to get anything at that shop, we always went straight for the ladder, and it was noticeable that we always got what we wanted twenty-five per cent sooner than anybody else. Outside the town proper, at a respectful distance all round the walls, was a sort of secondary suburb or set of suburbs, put up, I suppose, as the population increased and got too tight for its original shell. These adjuncts contained the 2z 3G2 Tlie Voi/af/e of the Escargot. railway-station, post-oftice, and other public buildings that were not contemplated in the original plan of the average medieval town. The post-office ^vas a little hole in the wall in the side of the entrance-passage of a private house, and was presided over by a venerable official, who opened or shut the liatch of this opening at his own convenience; and it appeared to be usually more to his convenience to shut it. He as often as not kept our letters a week before sending tliem on to us, and he invariably made mistakes of foreign telegrams, so tliat our communication with the outside world was somewhat precarious, indeed almost as medieval as the town itself. Ijut it ^vould not do to be hard on the old man ; lie had in all likelihood shed his blood on the field of battle for his country half a century before. Tlien beyond this first set of suburbs there was a big hotel at each end of the town ; ours lay at the east end, with its backdoor opening on to the sea-beach. In front of it ran the road, then a little liit of cultivated land, tlien a half- grown boulevard, then the railway, and tlien the hills rose straight up beliind, on which were situated most of the villas of the regular fixed English residents of Alassio. There was another set of suburbs still farther to the east from our hotel, in wliicli there were other villas. The ])rincipal local amusements were playing lawn-tennis at some one or other of the residential villas, and taking oui- luncheon out, and climbing up some of tlie hills at the back in search of pictures([ue places in which to eat it. 'Hie ascent of the hills was i)erformed by means of paths called .s/V/Ycrs-, which were designed, also in the good old times, after tlie iiKjdel of ;i kitchen chimney, being quite as steep, and nearly as narrow, and paved with large stones, warranted to wear out the thickest shooting-boots in three attempts. Still, Our Stay at Alassio. 3G3 tlie view from the top was very fine ; when it was clear we were tokl we could see Corsica, and a great many people did see it : and there were some quaint old villages up there, built on the plan of rabbit-warrens, and inliabited by goats and old women, and pretty though somewhat scantily clothed children — and that portion of us that survived to achieve the summit always considered itself amply rewarded for its pains. The young doctor of the place turned out to be an old col- lege acquaintance of mine, and he put us up to a good many of the ways of the place. Amongst many other things for which Willie and I were indebted to him was an introduction to the local Carnival ball, which took place a little time after our arrival. It was a somewhat mixed affair, so that it gave us ample opportunity of seeing one phase of the real life of the people. It was held in a big sort of assembly room in the centre of the town. There was a platform at one end, apparently used on occasions as a stage for private theatri- cals, but now occupied by the music, which consisted of a piano-organ, worked by any of the guests who didn't happen to feel disposed to dance for the moment. All the town was there ; amongst others, both the hotel waiters and two of the chamber-maids, We went as " distinguished visitors," being in ordinary costume, and nobody resented us — on the con- trary, we were conducted by the master of the ceremonies to a place of honour at the top of the room. There we found all the chief people of the town, who accorded us a liearty welcome — in Italian — to which we replied equally heartily — in English ; and then, fortunately, just as there seemed a possibility of the conversation flagging, we made the acquaintance of a retired sea-captain, who had served in more than one English ship in his time, and very kindly acted as interpreter for tlie rest of the evening. 364 The Voyage of the Escargot. The dancing was inclined to be vigorous, but tliere was still grace about it : the floor looked as if it had been care- fully planed across the grain all over in preparation for the festivity ; but as nobody glode, but the prevailing fashion of dancing was to lift the feet well off the floor between each step, that didn't matter much, and everybody was evidently enjoying him or her self thoroughly, in spite of any trivial deficiencies in the plant of the entertainment. There were some very pretty girls there, sitting round the room in fancy dress, but unmasked : they were chiefly looking on, and only danced when asked by some private friend or by some one specially introduced ; the rule of masked balls being that one is only free to ask people one doesn't know to dance when they have their masks on. There was another rule about that ball that I think might be very advantageously adopted in some of our crowded London ball-rooms during tlic season — that was, that only a certain number of couples were allowed on tlie floor at once, according to the discretion of the master of the ceremonies ; and when that official con- sidered they had had their share of the fun for the time being, he clapped his hands, and they all filed off through a door at the end of the room leading into a kind of lobby wliicli opened off' it, and took their places in a queue to work round the lobby, and out at another door when their turn came again. "Willie and I are neither of us at any time great dancers, l)Ut llie sight of all this genuine enjoyment fired us with a si»irit of emulation: the only ol)jection to our taking an aclive part in the proceedings was a certain amount of sliyness aliout dancing witli partners wlio would be a thou- sand to one as ignorant of our language as we were of theirs. Tlie actual askincr them to dance would be of Our Stay at Alassio. 3G5 course a mere trifle, and wouldn't be much more unin- telligible than it very often is in a London ball-room, but it was the intervals between the dancing that we dreaded. We were in hopes of seeing the two clianiber-maids, but tliey were masked, and we couldn't make them out for certain. But there was a certain enormously fat lady, however, whom we had noticed sitting in a corner looking on at the dancing : she was masked, but probably nobody could sum- mon up sufticient energy to undertake her pilotage, and so she had been sitting there disconsolately all the evening. A spirit of adventure seized me : and anyhow, if she could be got two or tln-ee times round the room, she would be too much occupied getting her breath in the interval to want to talk much. I accordingly challenged Willie, if I danced with her, that he should do the same afterwards : he agreed, and I marched boldly across the room, and, bowing to the lady, gave her to understand in the most fashionable London season mumble that I would be glad of the honour of a dance with her. She rose with alacrity : I spent the short interval before tlie master of the cere- monies gave the signal for a fresh lot of couples to start, in getting a firm hold of her, and then we started. She took a little time to get under weigh — she must have weighed twenty-six stone if she weighed an ounce — but at last, after I had run round her two or three times, we got up the necessary swing, and off w"e went. Our pro- gress was colossal : as we acquired greater speed so we acquired greater force, and we whirled about amongst the other couples like the teetotum in the child's castle game, the other dancers representing the castles, and, as they came in contact with us, being sent spinning on to the 3GG The Voi/ar/e of tltc Escargot. laps of tlie sitters-out, or into the fartliest corners of the room. Our turn was soon over ; but no amount of clapping of the ]\I.C.'s hands availed to stop us in our triumphant career : we could no more pull up than if we had been the Scotch express — not so well, perhaps, as we hadn't got an automatic brake on. The only thing to be done was to cease all voluntary movement, and let our impetus die out of itself : and this it did at last, and I conducted my partner with some slight feeling of pride back to her seat, and, making her a bow, to which she responded with a feeble Gratias, returned to Willie, self-satisfied with the agreeable consciousness of a duty done. Our nautical friend congratulated me on my feat; and it turned out afterwards that he had good reason to know what it was that I had accomplished, for the doctor told us that the lady was his wife. Willie did his part like a man a little later in the evening: the lady was evidently flattered Ijy the impression she had made on the part of the two young English noblemen ; but it was interesting to ol)serve how unanimously all the other dancers retired for the time being, when they saw her getting ready for action the second time, so that she and Willie had prac- tically the whole floor to themselves. ^Meanwhile, the mares had been waxing fat in the hos- [litable staljle of the Orand' Hotel, and it was not much wonder tliat they did, for wlien I came to pay my corn bill, I found tiiat they had been living at the rate of six feeds a-day each, thanks to Josejih's anxiety to make tliem look W(;]l for their imjiending sale: it is a matter of some suijirjve to me indeed tliat they didn't burst. They like- wi-t' lic'^an to kick, and we to experience the inconvenience so eoniiuon id people who are placed in a position liy for- Ou)' Stay at Alassio. '?>C)7 tune to have a stud whicli they don't in the least want to bother to use. I tokl Josepli to take them out for riding exercise every day, hut that didn't content them, and, in the exuberance of their spirits, they pulled down all the furniture in the staljle — not much, to be sure, but enough to occasion a comj)laint on the part of the hotel ostler — so then I gave him cartc-Uanclie to take any one out for a drive in the hotel waggonette whom he liked, and who liked to go : whicli permission he availed himself of with the greatest alacrity, and might have been seen con- ducting select parties of somewhat nervous ladies'-maids every morning and afternoon, first with one mare and then with the other. But that didn't prove to be sufficient exercise for them either, for the waggonette was unto them even as a tin kettle to a dog's tail, and they both ran away with it one after the other, and narrowly missed smashing it all to bits ^^y trying to take it into the stable with them ; and, when they had at last been unharnessed and shut into the stable again, set to work to valse round and round the place, till the terrified ostler came running into the hotel to know where Joseph and myself were, to come and stop them, as he didn't dare to go in, and all the other beasts, consisting of two mules and the doctor's pony, had climbed up into the mangers to get out of the way of their hoofs. So we had to reduce their diet by knocking off half their corn and giving them carruba seed — a kind of bean that grows on trees, and is more commonly used in Italy to feed horses than corn — and likewise take them out for exercise in the caravan, which we stripped of the bed and the stove and all the other interior fittings, and so transformed it into a very comfortable omnibus, in which we used to take out picnic 368 TJte Voyage of tlic Escarrpt. parties to the principal places of interest in the neighbour- hood : at least, such as we could reasonably get at, for besides the main road along the Piiviera, there was only one broad one that could possibly be used, and that only with difficulty, for the passage of tlie Escargot. We had our regular party : Peg's niotlier and sister ; an old lady who sat opposite to us at tallc d'hote — and with whom I fell in love at first sight on account of her likeness to my dear old grand- mother — and lier daughter; the chaplain and one of his daughters ; and an artist of some note and his wife, wlio had arrived at the hotel some two days after we did, and who were profoundly taken with the idea of adopting caravanning for themselves some day for the furtherance of the husband's professional work, — all of wliom, with Peg, AVillie, James, Joseph, and myself, made up a tolerably good caravanful, needing some careful and tiglit packing ; but they all declared they enjoyed themselves immensely, and were always ready to go on an expedition when a new one was announced. And the weiglit of the combined party took some of the exuberance out of the mares : tliere was a considerable hill up round the Cai)0 San Croce out of Alassio, and after tlio lirsL two or three expeditions, tlie ^Missus took to jibbing at that in quite the old style, thus entirely relieving us of any ap})rehensions of tlieir running away with the Escargot when we resumed our journey. "We made two or tliree expeditions to Albenga, with its curious old Poman Ijridge standing uselessly now by tlie side of the road — the river, wliicli it once crossed, having shifted Ijodily away to the other side of the town. Albenga is a larjish }tlace, with a Cathedral and a perfect labyrinth of streets, in which our party were always losing themselves: the only iHijie for them in that case being to make their way Our Stay at Alassiv. 3 09 somehow to the outside of the town, and then follow the wall till they came to the caravan, and there wait for the others to do the same, as, if they attempted to go in search of them, they only had to begin all over again. I never saw so many children all together as there were in the suburbs of Albenga ; and after our first two or three visits they began to look for us, and came round the mares in hundreds to get us to throw coppers for them to scramble : a most anuising pastime for those who were waiting, as it was productive of the most delightful chaos of legs and arms ever seen, with James rushing excitedly round the struggling mass, and playfully laying hold of the end of any fluttering garments, of which there were plenty, that might catch his eye. Our chief expedition off the main road was up a by-road about half a mile before coming to Albenga, along the bank of the river, to a place called Villanova, apparently because it was as old as any place in Italy. It was a most interesting little hole ; I should say just an old feudal castle, adapted by the peasantry after the fall of their oppressors to their own purposes — very picturesque, but, heavens I so filthily dirty. The weather was very cold all the time we were at Alassio, and another form of amusement w"e got out of the Escargot was tea-parties to those of our friends who wished to get warm, and found it impossible to do so at the some- what limited fireplace accommodation of the hotel. "We could get up any degree of warmth we liked, and there was a great run on us on that account ; I have seen as many as fifteen people packed inside to afternoon tea, and we had to pull the person nearest the door rather sharply away, to enable the company to disperse when the entertainment was over. But the days passed on, and it was time for us to be 3 a 370 Jlie Voyage of the Escargot. getting on to Genoa, to be able to be out of the country within the prescribed fifty days of the douane. And so at last the morning broke when we rose from our couch of civilisation for the last time, and took our places — but not altogether with regret — for our return to gipsydom. 37 CHAPTEE XXIII. FOliWARD ! — DISASTER AND SHIPWRECK. "We Started off blithely, as the novels say, on the second Thursday after our arrival at Alassio. For the final section of our voyage to Genoa Willie did not accompany us. It is one of the hardships of the British soldier officer's life that when he does get away on leave, it is only strictly on suffer- ance, and he has to keep the War Office up to date as to his latitude and longitude on the earth's surface, so that it can get at him, if it should chance to want him, at any moment ; and it happened that tlie last communication that AYillie had received from those in authority over him had been to the effect that very likely the next would summon him home. Xow, though Willie could give approximately his various positions at different intervals during the next three days, as he had been doing throughout the journey, he couldn't give them exactly enough to suit the exigencies of the occasion in question, and so, with the fear of a court- martial or some other equally unpleasant function before him, he deemed it more advisable to remain where he was till the time came for him to come on straight, and in one stage, with the less nomadic contingent of the family to Genoa. 372 The Voyage ofthcEscatrjut. AVe started then, as I said before, on the Thursday morning, at about ten of the clock. We had intended to leave at half- past eight ; but for reasons already given in similar cases in the preceding parts of this history, and now unnecessary, therefore, to be recapitulated, we hadn't. Everybody came out to see us off. All, or at any rate most, of the major- generals and their followings ; the lady authoress, the ex- plorer's brother, and all the rest of them, including our worthy host of the Grand Hotel and his lady, and all the staff of waiters, cooks, and chamber-maids. And from the villas on the hills came the chaplain and his family ; and all the rest of the residents, except a few, and they sent letters of apology and sympathy with our cause, as, of course, was only right on a great public occasion such as this ; and the doctor, — and all were laden with smiles and bouquets, and good wishes for a safe ending to our journey. It was a line day. The mares were in grand condition, and everything seemed to us propitious — that is to say, to Peggy, to James, who, seeing the Escargot really prepared for the voyage again, restrained himself from the diurnal and ever futile pursuit after the aboriginal cats of the locality, and took up his oflicial position half in and half out of the door- way, and to myself. Xot so, however, to Joseph. As I took my place, after shaking hands all round for positively the last time, and helping Peggy up beside him on the foot- ]>oard, I heard him muttering something between his teetii, and on my (juestioning him as to the cause of his apparent (lis(|uietude, he confided to me in a low tone that he knew ]io good would come to us that journey, for the priest — meaning the chaplain — had driven away all prospects of good fortune by intruding his presence on our start. I gave him coiK.isely, but pretty clearly, to understand that he was Disaster and SliipivrecJc. .373 an ass ; and then, with a final adieu cast to the assenibly in general, we set off. Tlie mares seemed to know they were to be engaged in genuinely serious work again, and responded cheerily to our call upon tliem. Through the narrow out- lying suburb, fortunately meeting nothing on the way, past the villas beyond, and across the level-crossing of the railway. Here we met another party of leave-takers, Willie and his mother and sister, our old lady friend and her daughter, and tlie artist and his wife, and, at the request of the latter, pulled up for a few minutes while they took a photograph of us in travelling order. That done, we began the ascent of the hill. Tlie ^Missus objected a little at first ; but eventually, prob- ably induced thereto by the representations of the more sensible Mary Ann that they were going to face it for the last time, and perhaps after they had once got over it they would find better tilings in store for them on the other side, set herself to the collar, and took the incline at a good solid walk. Peg's mother came inside with me, while Peg and the rest of the party follow^ed behind to the top of the hill. There Peg got up, and her mother got down, and the brake having been put on, we went away down the hill, with handkerchiefs and hands waving to ns till the next turn in the Pdviera road round Capo San Croce shut out our last view of Alassio and its hospitable company. AVe continued along at a fair swinging trot for the next four miles or so, nearly all down-hill to Albenga, where a few of our small friends of our former visit waved their welcomes to us as we rumbled past, but I am afraid were a little disappointed that we did not repeat the fun of that occasion. Then a good flat road past the old bridge, gradu- ally verging inland through olive-yards and vineyards, and 374 The Voyafjc of tJie Escargot. then towards the coast again as we passed Ceriale, and two miles farther came in sight of Loano. There between our- selves and that flourishing townlet an awful expanse of stones met our view, covering the whole width of the road for at least half a mile, quite eighteen inches deep, as bad as, if indeed not worse than, anything that we had ex- perienced of that kind in France, and without even a steam- roller at work on it to aftbrd us the poor consolation that the Highway Board, or whatever the Italian equivalent for that may be, was at least making a show of doing something to better it for purposes of traffic. Evidently in Italy they put down their stones, or even, when necessary, entirely new metal their roads, and let them and the traffic adapt themselves to each other as best they can. Xo doubt, if any of tlie authorities had been about at tlie time, they would have welcomed the two tons of tlie Escargot as a perfect godsend for the district; but we didn't look on it in that light : we lield a council of war, and cast al)Out for some means of going round. There was a bridge over one of the make-believe rivers of the country just Ijefore coming to the oljstacle, and just on tlie other side of it, at right angles on the left, was a narrow by-road running ])etween two stone walls. It didn't in any way promise to take us in the right direction, but it was smooth, and anything of that nature was l^etter tlian tlie stones, so we determined to trust ourselves to it. We crossed the l»ridg<', struggled across the corner of the offending stones, wliicli rumlded us all up together till we couldn't tell whicli was us and whicli was tlie crockery, and ])uni])ed down off lln'ui on to the alternative route, hoping that by pursuing a iiKtliodictl system of always turning the first to the right, we sliouM thereby circumvent the dilficulty, and come back Disaster and Shipwreck. 375 in time to a happier condition of things on the State high- way. We proceeded for some distance l)efore we came to a turn to the right at all, and then it only led into a ploughed field, so we had to continue our researches and go on and on, the road liecoming alarmingly narrower, and the walls alarmingly higher every minute, till at last we began to feel a little nervous lest we had struck on the road to Turin or some- where in that direction, where we didn't in the least want to go, when to our great joy we came on a native, the third we had seen since leaving Albenga. The other two had l)een looking out of windows in Ceriale. Where the Italian rural population puts itself away to during tlie day I can't say, nor when it does its work. Somebody of course must do the work, as tlie fields are all tilled and the vines and olives all trimmed and trained, but one very seldom sees any one doing it. However, to return to our immechate native. Fortunately he was only using his own legs as a means of locomotion, as we couldn't possibly have got past liim under any other circumstances : as it was, he had to flatten himself out against one wall to prevent our off wheel grazing him more severely than it did, wliile our near axles carved their habit- ual groove in the other wall. Our deficiencies in the Italian line led us to confine our inquiries from liim to the single word •' (ienova ? " after the fashion of ]Mrs A'lJecket, intonated in an interrogative kind of way, wliile I pointed with the whip along tlie road in front of us ; but on his only shrugging his shoulders and vouchsafing no reply, it occurred to Peggy that very likely Genoa was a place he had never heard of, as being lieyond the limit of his daily walk to and from his work, so she tried him with " Loano ? " gesticulating in the 37G The Voyfujc of the Escaiyot. same fashion in lier turn. This seemed to toneh him more nearly ; a faint gleam of intelligence iiickered on his counte- nance, and raising his umbrella — all Italian peasants have umbrellas, the same as French — he pointed with it in the direction whence we had come. Of course that wasn't good enough. I went through a series of pantomimic manccuvres demonstrative of tlie impossibility of turning the Escargot round except l)y executing a complete somersault with tlie whole tiling, and the fact being already pretty oljvious without any such demonstration, he Ijegan to perceive that if he was going to help us at all, it nmst l)e some other way. lie was not apparently in more of a hurry than the average Italian peasant, so though he had l)een coming in the opposite direction to ourselves when we met him, his next move was to climb up in a dignified way on the foot- Ixjard alongside of me, and make signs that ho would guide our erring footsteps back iuto the riglit path. I gave him a till of tobacco for his ]>ipe, to relieve liim of some of the embarrassment of our forced silence, and then we proceeded. Still on and on, and Jose])h was just beginning to mutter again this time, to the efl'ect that he was sure this was a tlecfA' sent out by brigands on purpose to lure i)eople in caravans to their destruction, when at last we came to the expected turn to the riglit. It was a very sharp turn, at an acute angle to the track we had lieen following hitherto, which of course was good, in that it }»romised a speedier return to the main road ; but owing to the same circum- stance, it was a very tight S(|uee/e round the angle, and we (lid a good deal towards transforming it into an elegant (■ur\<' while we were negotiating it. Here our guide made signs that he wanted to be put down, and something for Disaster and Shiinvrcclv. 377 himself, pointino- at the same time strai^t^ht ahead, to denote that we liad only to follow our noses to get to Loano, so we satisfied his requirements, and when he had left us, continued on our way rejoicino-. True enough the track did lead us to Loano, or anyway to one side of it, into a big sort of grass square surrounded by vineyard walls, looking very like a drying-ground, and where, as we had now come a good ten miles, we halted for luncli, unhitching the mares for them to have their feed as well. Then I had a lesson to the effect that it never does to trust anything to anybody else. Master Joseph informed us that there was nothing for the poor beasts to eat in the fodder-box. It appeared that in the course of our fattening them up at Alassio, we had used up the last of the oats that were to be had in the place, and so had had to come away without any : we hadn't even brought a single carrulja seed with us. I didn't tell Joseph all I thought, but sent him out with a sack to see if he couldn't buy anything in Loano ; and meanwhile Peggy and James and I cooked and ate our lunch, while the poor mares strolled about at the length of their halters, trying to nibble something of the dried-up ver- dure of the little common, and occasionally putting their faces in at the doorway, and looking as if they thought they would like some poached eggs and sardines too. Joseph was away about three-quarters of an hour, and when he did at last return, it was with the dispiriting news that he hadn't been able to get anything whatever ! This was a pretty state of things : we could do nothing but give the mares the remainder of our bread — fortunately there was a good deal of it — and some water, I have seen Swiss horses go for a whole day on nothing else, but then they are used to it, and besides, they are never as big as our great strapping 3b 378 Tlie Voijage of the Escargot. mares were, but there was no help for it. I felt quite remorseful when the poor animals looked at us wistfully with their great sad eyes, as we put them in again, as if to ask if that was really all they were going to get ; but I promised them a good feed to make up for their present short commons when we got in for tlie night, and so we shook the dust off our feet against inhospitable Loano. It now being about a quarter to three, it behoved us to try and push on as fast as possible in order to make Xoli at a reasonable hour in the evening, which tlie proprietor of the (rrand Hotel had told us was the first place where we would bo likely to find a decent stable for the mares for the night. "We got Ijack to the sea after Loano, and kept along a fairly level road through Pietra Liguria to Finalmarina, where we had to turn aside at tlie town gates, by reason of their Ijeing really too narrow this time to let us through, and go round Ijy a kind of marine parade between the walls and the sea, at considerable risk to the infant portion of tlie population, which was disjiorting itself out there before its tea-time. There the way was l)econiing more up and down, as tlie hills drew in towards the coast again, and the rail- way, wliich had rejoined our track, kept dodging in and out of tunnels as it passed under tlie spurs which ran out into the sea, and over whicli we laljoriously climbed, and so came to Varigotti. It was now beginning to sliow signs of getting dark, one can't call it dusk, as they don't have any dusk worth speak- ing of in Italy, and as we had another two or three miles to go, over wliat did not seem a very promising road, we did onr best to ])us]i on; but tlie want of the noonday feed, and the eonstaut ailditional strain on the collars in the ascents, were beginning to tell on the mares, and though we encouraged Disaster and Shipwreck. 379 them to our utmost, we couldn't *^Qt anything half as good out of them as tlie pace we had made in the morning. Be- sides, the ]\Iissus was beginning her old tricks, and jibbed more and more every time we tried to persuade her to go on, until our prospects of reaching Noli by anything like day- light seemed very small. After Varigotti we crossed tlie railway, and then came a steady climb for about a quarter of a mile. Here the Missus became obstinate, jibbed, backed, and jibbed again, till we got broadside on right across the road about half-way up, with our hind-wheels perilously near the edge of the em- bankment up which the road was carried. Some railway gangers coming by just then, I appealed to them to lend us a hand, and thougli of course they couldn't understand what I said, it was very clear what we wanted ; so having with a mighty effort on our part, and an extra amount of barking on that of James, who had been keeping up his usual ex- cited chant the whole time, evidently considering that the more he shouted the more he helped us, got the Escargot straight into her course, we then blocked the wheels with large boulders to prevent her swinging l)ack out of it again. Then the gangers put their hands to the sides and back — Italians don't seem to have ever yet grasped what a vast increase of power one gets by putting one's shoulder direct to one's work — and with a shove as nearly all together as we could manage, and the liearty co-operation of the excellent Mary Ann, we pushed the Escargot, till at last for very shame, not to speak of to prevent being run over, the Missus began to do her share of the work as well, forgetting her little troubles for the moment, and so, struggling and groaniug and panting, and raising an overwhelming cloud of dust, we reached the top of the hill. 380 Tlte Voyage of the Escargot. Here we stopped to thank our assistants, and present them with a slight token of our gratitude ; and were proceeding, when, to our surprise, one of them came to the step of the Escargot, and, as spokesman for his companions, gave us very unmistakably to understand by his signs that they did not consider (jur gratuity enough. The difference between the French and Italian lower orders in similar circumstances will be at once evident to the studious reader of this book, and requires no further comment from myself. However, on the principle that in Home one must take the Ilomans as one finds them, I expressed myself extremely sorry for the mistake, and I did know enough of his language by this time to ask him verbally how much more he expected. He as- sessed his party's service at just half as much again as I had given them. I had made it a fair round sum, as it just hap- pened that it would divide exactly evenly amongst them, in shares that I am sure, though I say it perhaps that shouldn't, would have Ijcen willingly and gratefully accepted Ijy any peasant (if any less grasping nationality than that which we now had to deal with, as a recompense for his extremely small portion of a furhrng's shove. I must say I was parti- cularly tickled at the idea of their exactly fixing a ])rice for what in any other country would have been done in the light of a piece of goodwill more than anything else. iJut, as it ha])})ened, I found on searching my pockets that r had not a soldi of small change left, so 1 had perforce to signify that I could not satisfy them. Then the man began to tlireaten, and two of his companions laid hold of the mares' heads. I'eg was a little alarmetl ; but as it was no use ai-guing any further, when neither of the parties under- stet on our right, on which side, too, we could liear the sea l)eating far down l)elow on tlie rocks, and, very dindy, our team striding along in front of us. Presently the Kscargot Ijegiin to gain imi)etus as we proceeded down the incline : the mares liad to liasten their ])ace to keep out of lier way, and tli(; rciifart still more to keep out of theirs ; when, suddcidy, Joseph called to me to stand clear, and stej>ped quickly over to tlie near side of the footboard, jostling me Disaster and SJu'jnvreck. 385 rij^lit to the end. I had only just time to look down and realise that the rotten old lashing had snapped, and the ]<]scargot had taken charge, and was running of her own weight down the hill, when crash ! How the mares escaped w%as a miracle ; and thanks be to Providence that our forecarriage was built strong enough to bear the test. Joseph had had the presence of mind to pull the near rein as taut as he could, and the traces had turned the forecarriage towards the cliff instead of the mud wall, and we had run into a boulder lying under the cliff. A shout from our fisher escort, a shriek from Peggy, which she couldn't restrain, and we turned over at an angle of forty- five decrees into the ditch ! 3c 38G CHAPTEE XXIV. PUT STRAIGHT AGAIX — OX TO SAYOXA. XoTHiXG could be done tliat night to extricate us from tlie awkward situation into whicli we had fallen, so after holding a consultation with Joseph and the man with the l)roken French, we decided on the best course being for Joseph to take the mares into Xoli and put them up there, while two of the fislier people carried our broken pole between them to get it mended the first thing in the morning, and Ijring it along with them when they came with additional help ])otli of men and appliances to lift ns back into our normal horizontal position. We found that we had Ijeen wrecked close to one of the short intervals between two of the interminalile tunnels through which the railway passes in that section of its course, and a very nice-spoken — though lie only spoke in Italian — signalman wlio had heard the noise of our crash came along to see what was the matter, and promised us tlie use of the tools that he kept in his liut for liasty repairs on tlie line when we sliould want them in the morning. He also promised to keep an eye on us all night, so as to be ready to come to our aid if anybody should attack us ; and then having at his advice hung out our hurricane- On to Savona. 387 lamp on the outer hook of the Escargot, to prevent anything driving into ns in tlie dark, we bade good night to the con- course, and they going off, Peggy and James and I were left to our own company and devices. It was not the very happiest kind of position to be in, out all alone there two miles away from the nearest human being, with the exception of the signalman, in a dark road, with the sea soughing sixty or seventy feet down below us ; nor the most comfortable, as we had nothing but the remains of our eggs and sardines, and a few very stale biscuits, the remains of one of our Alassio picnics, to subsist upon ; and when we should want to go to bed, our bed was so steep from the pillow^ to the feet that one almost felt as if one was standing upright in it. But we had a miraculous escape to be tliankful for, and we felt that it would be rather mean not to try to make the best of it ; so we managed to make a fairish meal out of our fragments, with lots of hot tea, which in our then half-frozen condition was a real luxury, though it was without milk, to wash it down. The cooking was rather a one-sided job, and we could only fill the kettle half-full by reason of the angle that the stove was at : and then about half-past nine we built up the foot of the bed with cushions and all the stray furniture that seemed suitable for the pur- pose, till we had brought it up to the requisite level with tlie head, and after a final look out to see that the lamp was all right, and an interchange of good wishes with the faithful signalman, who was occupying some of his leisure time be- tween the passing of two trains with a contemplation of the outside architecture of the caravan, w^e turned in, and it would certainly be wrong to say that we slept badly. We were woke at five o'clock, however, by a tremendous cackling just under our stern window, somewhat resembling 388 Tlie Voyarje of the E scar got. the i)airot-liouse in tlie Zoo, and looking out I saw, by the very dim streaks of daylight that were just showing, that it was the relief-party already arrived, and preparing to set to work to lift us out of the ditch. I hurried into my clothes, and went out to join them. I found the signalman was already there, and had assumed command of the operations, an arrangement which, seeing that he was tlie one with most head on his shoulders, and also of the same language as the rank and tile of the party, I very readily acquiesced in. "We got the jack out of the fodder-box, but then we found that, owing to the depth that tlie caravan had fallen into the ditch, we hadn't room to work it, so we had to take the fodder- box itself right off, which had the additional advantage of considerably lightening the load we had to lift. Then we placed the jack under the hind axle and proceeded to hoist ; but just as we had got the jack up to its full lift, the edge of the ditch gave way, and down came the whole thing again, rather to Peg's alarm inside, to whom the sudden shock conveyed the notion of a kind of earthquake. We lield another counsel of war, and decided it would be Ijest to raise the forecarriage first, which we did very gingerly Imt successfully, and tlien hove the fore-wheels round with crowbars worked against the rock as a fulcrum, till we got both of tliem over the road and dropped them gently on to il : then returning to tlie hind-wheels, we placed the jack more securely this lime and raised it, and at the critical moment when the near hind-wheel reached the level of the road, with crowljars and shoulders and a prodigimis expendi- ture of Siicrdiiii nti!^ ! and Ch risfog ! we swung the whole caravan round, and the jack slowly tipping over on its own base, tile K'onc, and he would have to make it good : so I again offered him his franc, and said that if he would go on in front and get his 'padrone ready, and meet us at Koli, we would be very glad to settle matters with him in person — a proposal with which anybody but an Italian would have closed at once, considering the circumstances ; but he was resolved to get his full demand out of me, and so went on groaning out about his padrone not being able to come and see us, and being sure not to take such a small sum for his valuable line, till at last I told our intermed- iary to let him know that I retracted even the franc, and if the padrone did not turn up at Xoli, so much the bet- ter for me. The importunate one again retired at that, and sat down for some time; but at last, after calling out that he was going on to Xoli, and that we should find the padrone there waiting to hale us before the authorities, he set off at a snail's pace over the hill, looking back every 3 D 394 Jlie Voi/arje of tlw Escargot. now and then, evidently in the expectation that we were going to call him back again, but we didn't, \Ve then liad lunch, and at last Joseph came back with the rcnfort, the same small beast which had come to help us out of our trouble before ; and, hitching him on to the pole, we started away for the second time at about one o'clock. This time we were successful : encouraged as usual by the consciousness of something in front of her, and with the pain on her Hank somewhat alleviated by the applica- tion of my bath - sponge, the Missus now faced the hill bravely, and passing through a tunnel at the top of it, we came out on the other side of the cape, with Noli lying in the next bay below us. The signalman accompanied us for a good way this time, leaving us with hearty good wishes for our future safety, at the bottom of the hill down, to walk back througli the railway tunnel to his box : one of the few accommodating lower-class Italians whom we met in the course of this part of our travels. Xoli is a good -sized town as towns in that part of the country go, apparently chiefly devoted to fishing, lying back from the shore a bit, with tlie road between itself and the sea. We stopped there for about half an hour, in order to replenisli our fodder - sacks at a store Joseph had found during his former visits to the place, and during the wait we liad a large crowd of wondering idlers surging round us, all hazarding guesses as to what we were, and some of tliciu showing themselves to be more adventurous than the rest l)y Imrriedly touching our mares' noses. Xeitlier our old friend with the rope turned up, however, nor did his IKxlronc, and we have heard nothing more of either of them unto tliis day. Joseph had engaged the rcnfort to take us on to Savona, On to Savona. 395 as I had told him to do, speed being rather an object now, as we were due at Genoa before the IMonday, when the rest of our party were to come on, and we were now a good day and a half behind time. We could not press forward too fast, owing to the crank condition of our pole ; but we kept along at a good steady six kilometres an hour, sometimes along level bits of road where the hills drew back from the shore, but more often up and down round the many headlands which jut out into the Mediterranean along that coast, always being careful to put the shoe on now going down the least hill, passing villages and little towns — in more than one of the latter having to walk ahead of the Escargot to keep a sharp look-out against the axles catching in the walls of the streets — and late in the afternoon we arrived at Savona. Our rc7iforiier was a good enough man in his way, but when he found that we weren't so conversant with his language as he was, did not make much further effort to understand us or to make himself understood by us, but jogged along contentedly, sitting sideways on his horse, smoking his pipe, and to all appearance very frequently fast asleep. At the entrance to Savona he left us, making signs that the police would not allow him to come any further with us — reasons unstated — so we were thrown upon our own resources to find a camping-ground for the night. Savona is a large place, with fine streets and squares, of which we saw rather more than we wanted during our wan- derings in search of a resting-place ; but at last, by special good fortune, we happened to address ourselves to the one livery-stable keeper in the town who spoke French, and he readily agreed to take us in. The way to his quarters lay over an open drain with just road enough left to take the 396 Tlie Voi/ar/c of the Escargot. inside edj^'es of the tires of our wheels : artillery competi- tion drivinj^ wasn't in it. As it was, our near fore-wheel slipped into the drain, and was only pulled out by sheer strength on the part of the mares ; but that passed safely, we found a comfortable stable, of sorts, for the mares on the other side : and we were run up to the side of the road at the end of the stable, in the most casual manner, right in front of a cliurch — our host, on a policeman raising some olijection to the proceeding, telling him tliat we were ]»ersonal friends of his, the Prince and Princess of Wales travelling very mucli iivotj., or something of tliat sort, after wliich we were no more molested. It eame on to sleet soon after we liail cast anchor, so Peggy, who had a l)it of a headache, diut We were doomed to be what is vulgarly termed sold again. A\'hen I got back to the carpenter's shop, about three- End of the Expedition. 403 quarters of an hour later, expecting to find tlie jiole finished, or anyliow very nearly so, I found instead that the carpenter and his men had apparently forgotten all about it, and were busily engaged on somebody else's job, which they had com- menced as soon as the novelty of mine had worn off. I pro- tested in dumb show, but for some time they paid no atten- tion, till at last I boldly took up one of the abandoned spoke-shaves and began to work at my pole myself. The carpenters then left their work and came round me, and I was preparing myself indeed to be forcibly ejected from the shop ; but their intentions proved to be by no means hostile, and being I suppose by this time tired of their other occupa- tion, and ready to change back again, they resumed work with a will. I stood over them this time : they worked skilfully, as all Italians can by nature when they try — witness that noble monument to their industry, the Law Courts — but their tools seemed rather primitive, not being much in advance of those used in Christopher Columbus's time, — I wonder by the way if any of those fellows could have told me who Christopher Columbus was, — and the progress, though steady now, was rather slow, and it was another two and a half hours good before we got the fittings on, and the pole was ready for use. The carpenter proposed painting it to match the other, but we had no time for ^■anities of that sort, and so about half- past four we carried the new pole triumphantly back to the caravan and fitted it into its socket. I paid the carpenter twelve francs, as he asked, and which seemed reasonable, and then, having put our team to as soon as we could, we left Christopher Columbus's birthplace and proceeded on our onward way. It was pretty dark by this thne, and we had to go at half-speed; but the rcnforticr knew 404 llic Voyage of tltc Escargot. llie road well, so that we liail no further mishaps, and reached Voltri al about seNen o'clock. There we decided that it was now far too late to think of entering Clenoa. AVe had to draw up for over an hour in the middle of the street, while tlie renfurticr went to look for a place to put up at; hut at last, about half-past eight, we were safely located at the side of the road at tlie other end of the town, opposite a somewhat inferior-looking public-house, on a stee}) hill, with two big stones under our hind-wlieels to prevent us running back, and creating havoc amongst the public and private buildings of the flourishing city of Voltri at the bottom. The innkeeper was a surly sort of man, and it required all the Idarney that the rcnforticr was master of to persuade him to give ns milk and bread even at famine prices; but at last he gave in, and after supper we turned in early, having given Joseph strict injunctions to be up betimes, so as to make an early start to get into Genoa Itefore the traflic became too crowded. Joseph called us early enougli on the morrow, but we did nrtt leave Voltri till nearly nine o'clock, owing to our having to still the conscience of tlie rfnfurticr — who said that his master liad given liim the strictest orders to be back at Savona early tliat morning — witli tlie promise of a doulde day's pay. We had our doul»ts altout those orders, but this was the last day of the voyage, and we could afford to Ite generous. .Vt I'egli we came on the tram from Genoa, ami what with llu; lines iif that, and the vileness of the road on either sidi; of it, it is still a wonder to me that we did not get a wheel wrenched oft when just in sight of rxii- (iiiid stopping-place. Uut we manonivred over the dauui'is without accident througii the suburbs of (Jenoa, and ascciidiii'j tlic last hill round bv the Pliare, entered EikJ oftlic Expedition. 405 Genoa itself aljout eleven, and pulled up on a piece of waste ground at the entrance to the town, opposite the inner harbour. The hotel proprietor at Alassio had written to his colleague of the Hotel de Londres at Genoa to ask him to prepare for us, and so now Pecrgy and I dressed and left the Escargot in Joseph's charge, having, with the renforticr s aid, squared an adjacent policeman, and walked on till we came to that hotel to see what had been done. The proprietor welcomed us cordially : he had everything ready for us, stables, standing- place for the Escargot, and rooms for ourselves ; and he kindly came back with us to where we had left the others, to conduct us into port. We helped him up inside, and set forward under his guidance : he was a little nervous about losing his dignity from being seen in a caravan, and so re- mained ensconced behind me as I stood in the doorway, peeping out over my shoulder and directing me as to the proper turns as we went along. There was a tremendous hill up to the stables, and he doubted wliether our team could pull the Escargot up it : so did I ; but the mares seemed to know" that tliis was the end of all things, and they took it without a flinch — I think as sharp a gradient as we had on the whole of our journey. Tlie stables were comfortable, and the Escargot was laid up in a stone-mason's yard opposite. Eeggy and I packed up our portmanteaus, and the porter came round to fetch them to the hotel, and so with much regret we ceased our residence in the trustv Escara'ot for a'ood. 406 The Voyage of tlie Escargot. The rest of our party came on to Genoa the next day, and for a week after tliat "Willie and I were busy seeing to the sale of the mares and the shipping of the Escargot. The first we managed, after going the round of all the wharfingers and carriers of the city, who seemed to he the most likely customers, by advertising, which produced a marble-master — if that's the correct expression for a man who owns marble quarries — from the very place where we had stopped to have our new pole made, Cogoletto. He wanted to give me about three-fourths of their original price ; but as they were in nnich better condition than when we had first bought them, we didn't see that, and so by walking away scornfully after every increased bid that he made, we at last succeeded in getting him up to the original price and a quarter, without a warranty, — but we knew he couldn't think we had cheated him, for we learnt from Joseph that before he came to call on us at the hotel he had l)rought a vet up and carefully gone all over them. The money was paid down, and good old Missus and ^lary Ann left early next morning, the whole expedition having taken a sorrowful farewell of them the night of their sale, for they had served us well and faith- fully, having brought us a fair 7"»0 miles, in spite of their occasional eccentricities. The shipping of the Escargot was very kindly seen to by Mr(i , agent to the (leneral Steam Navigation Company at (lenoa. We had to miss one steamer, which had loaded up so full at Leghorn that tlie captain was afraid of taking the Escargot on board, and so, as Willie and I wanted to coiiK' home, We had to put her in pawn with the custom- hou-f till tli(,' next steamer should arri\'e. The custom-house, by thf way, lotjk a fiuf out of my deposit money, for having unwittingly sold the mares without giving them notice. Two End of the Expedition. 407 carters in the employ of the custom-house came with their liorses one afternoon just before we left, and we took her right through Clenoa to the gate at the other end, in whicli we stuck after the same manner that we did at Toulon, and out into the suburbs, where we left her covered over with tarpaulin till an opportunity occurred for shipping her back to England. And soon afterwards Peg and her mother and sister left for Florence, and Willie and James and I returned to our normal pursuits in England, bringing with us Joseph, who begged hard to be allowed to remain in my service. The Escargot, I heard from the General Steam Xavigation Company, just got out of Italy on tlie fiftieth day, thus saving the forfeiture of my deposit. But the voyage from Genoa is a long one, and Peggy had finished her extra tour in Italy, and had been home some time and settled, when, in the second week in May, the London office of the company telegraphed me that the expected steamer had been signalled, and would shortly be up tlie river. I went to meet her : there was some diCficulty in landing the Escargot, as it was a different wharf to that from which slie had been shipped wdien she left, and she had to be lowered first into a lighter and floated round to a more convenient spot. Our new pole was broken in the course of these proceedings, but an in- genious wharf-keeper mended it up by nailing planks along it over tlie fracture. I had little difficulty in passing the custom-house ; and then, having previously telegraphed to the coalman, when he arrived with his horses, which he did with the greatest promptitude within three and a half hours, 408 lltv Voi/age of flic Escargot. we turned our faces towards home, at 9.30 on a Saturday evening, and after travelling- all night, arrived at 2 a.:m. at the place whence, just about six months before, we had set off, and laid up the good caravan Escargot in her well-earned resting-place. !Mav it Ije our uood fortune ere lonir to set forth a<:rain ! ri'.iNTi:i) r.v \mi.mam ulaikwooi. anh I J s p A ! i i isr ^*^ Lon£itu(i^ I »*j/ of_Creenmc^ Longitude 2 East of Sreenwicfi 3 ]F THE "ESCARGOT" BLACKWOOD » SONS, EDINBURGH i LOr^DO^ CATALOGUE OF MESSRS BLACKWOOD & SONS' PUBLICATIONS. PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS FOR ENGLISH READERS. 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