Slowly the two lights above on the cliff seemed to wheel round as we doubled the Cape. Slowly two little dots in the distance swelled up into big vessels in full sail, and others rose from the far-off waters, all converging to the same port with myself; their very presence being companionship, and their community of purpose begetting a mutual interest. For these craft deep in the water the navigation here is rather intricate, though the excellent and uniform system of buoys employed in France does all that is possible to make the course clear; but my little boat, drawing less than three feet of water, could run safely even over the shallows, though, as a rule, I navigated her by the regular channels, as this gave me much additional interest in the bearings about every port.

When the lights at Havre hove in sight the welcome flashing was a happy reward to a long day's toil, and as the yawl sped forward cheerily through the intervening gloom, the kettle hummed over the lamp, and a bumper of hot grog was served out to the crew. Soon we rounded into the harbour, quiet and calm, with everybody asleep at that late hour; and it was some time more before the Rob Roy could settle into a comfortable berth, and her sails were all made up, and bed unrolled, and the weary sailor was snoring in his blanket.

Next day the people on the quays were much amused by the curious manoeuvres of my little dingey; its minute size, its novel form (generally pronounced to be like a half walnut-shell), its bright colour, and the extraordinary gyrations and whirlings which it could perform, for practice taught some new feat in it almost every day.

At night there was a strange sound, shrill and loud, which lasted for hours, and marred the calm eve and the quiet twinkling of the stars. This came from a hundred children collected by a crackbrained stranger (said to be English). These he gave cakes and toys to by day lavishly, and assembled them at night on the quay to sing chorus to his incoherent verses—a proceeding quite wonderful to be permitted by the police so strict in France.



CHAPTER VI.

The Seine—A wetting—Pump—Locks—Long reach—Rouen—Steering—A mistake—Horny hands—Henpecked—British flag—The captain's wife.

Havre was a good resting-place to receive and send letters, read up the newspapers, get a long walk, and a hot bath, and fresh water and provisions. Bacon I found, after many trials to cook it, was a delusion, so I gave mine to a steamboat in exchange for bread. Hung beef too was discovered to be a snare—it took far too long to cook, and was tough after all; so I presented a magnificent lump to a bargee, whose time was less precious and his teeth more sharp. Then one mast had to come down in preparation for the bridges on the Seine; and therefore with these things to do, and working with tools and pen, all the hours were busily employed until, at noon on June 26, I hooked on to a steamer, 'Porteur,' with its stern paddles very common in France, to be towed up the river; a long and troublesome voyage of about 300 miles, so winding is the course to Paris by the Seine.

This mode of progress was then new to me, and I had made but imperfect preparations, so that when we rounded the pier to the west, and met the short, snappish sea in the bay, every wave clashed over me, and in ten minutes I was wet to the skin, while a great deal of water entered the fore-compartment of the yawl through the hole for the chain-cable at that time left open. {85} The surprising suddenness of this drenching was so absurd that one could only laugh at it, nor was there time to don my waterproof suit—the sou'wester from Norway ten years ago, the oilskin coat (better than macintosh) from Denmark last year, and the canvas trowsers.

A good wetting can be calmly borne if it is dashed in by a heavy sea in honest sailing, or is poured down upon you from a black cloud above; but here it was in a mere river-mouth, and on a sunny day, and there was no opportunity to change for several hours, until we stopped at a village to discharge cargo. The river at that place was narrow, and all the swell I thought was past; so, after a complete change of clothes, it was too bad to find in a mile or two the same story over again, and another wetting was the result. The evening rest was far from comfortable with my bedding all moist, and both suits of clothes wet through. One has therefore to beware of the accompaniments of being towed. The boat has no time to go over the waves, and, long rope or short, middle or side, steering ever so well, the water shipped when a heavy boat is swiftly towed must be as well prepared for as if it were in a regular gale on open sea.

The Rob Roy had now in the hold a great deal of water, and for the first time I had to apply the pump, which, having been carefully fitted, acted well. An india-rubber tube leading down to the keel was in such a position that I could immediately screw on a copper barrel and work the piston with one hand, so as to clear the stern compartment. By turning a screw valve I could let the water come from the centre compartment, if any was there, and then I went to the fore-compartment, about seven feet long, which held the spare stores, and a curiosity in the shape of a regulation chimney-pot hat to be worn on state occasions, but which was brought out once a week merely to brush off the green mould.

At noon the steamer set off again, dragging the yawl astern, and soon entered the first lock on the Seine, where the buildings around us, the neat stone barriers, and the dress and the very looks of the men forcibly recalled to my mind the numerous river locks passed in my canoe trips, but in so different a manner, by running the boat round every one of them on the gravel or over the grass.

The waste of time now in passing through each lock was prodigious. While nearing it the steamer sounded her shrill whistle to give warning, but still the lock was sure to be full of barges and boats. Then our cavalcade had to draw aside until the sluggish barges in front had all come out, and we went into the great basin with bumps, and knocks, and jars, and shouting. It required active use of the boathook for me to get the Rob Roy into the proper place in the lock, and then to keep her there. The men were not clumsy nor careless, but still the polished mahogany yawl had no chance with the heavy floats and barges in a squeezing and scratching match, and it was always sure to go to the wall.

Time seemed no object to these people, they were no doubt paid by the day. The sun shone upon them and it was pleasant simply to exist and to loiter in life, so why make haste? Finally we ascended as the lock filled, and then a second and a third joint cut off from our too long tail of barges had to be passed in also. After all, the captain and sometimes the whole crew deliberately adjourned to the lock-keeper's house for a "glass" and a chat; and when that was entirely done, and every topic of the day discussed, they all came back and had another supplemental parliament on the steamer's deck, like ladies saying "good bye" at a morning visit; so that, perhaps, in an hour from beginning it, the work of ten minutes was accomplished, and the engine turned again once more—a tedious progress. Thus it was that four nights and part of five days were passed in mounting the Seine.

The scenery on the banks is in many places interesting, in a few it is pretty, and it is never positively dull. The traffic on the river is considerable above Rouen; but as there are two railways besides, few passengers go by water. The architecture and engineering on this fine river are indeed splendid. The noble bridges, the vast locks, barrages, quays, barriers, and embankments are far superior to ours on the Thames, though that river floats more wealth in a day than the Seine does in a month.

The sailors and dockmen were eager for my cargo of books; and among the various odd ways by which these had to be given to men on large vessels, there is one shown in the sketch alongside, where the cabin-boy of a steamer looking through the round deadlight with an imploring request in his face, stretched out an eager hand to catch the book lifted up on the end of one of my sculls.

[Picture: Cabin-boy reaching for book]

Then the neatness and apparent cleanliness of the villages, and the well-clothed, well-mannered people—all so "respectable." France is progressing by great leaps and bounds, at least in what arrests the eye. Its progress in government, liberty, and politics, is perhaps rather like that in a waltz.

Life in a towed yacht, alone on the Seine, is a somewhat hard life. You have to be alert, and to steer for sometimes twenty hours a day, and to cook and eat while steering. At about three o'clock in the morning the steamer's crew seemed suddenly to rise from the deck by magic, and stumble over coal-sacks, and thus abruptly to begin the day. We stopped about nine o'clock at night, and the crew flopped down on deck again, asleep in a moment, but not I for an hour or two.

As the grey dawn uncovered a new and cloudless sky, the fierce bubblings in the boiler became strong enough to turn the engine, and our rope was slipped from the bank. Savoury odours from the steamer soon after announced to me their breakfast cooking, and the Rob Roy's lamp too was speedily in full blast. Eggs or butter or milk were instantly purveyed, if within reach at a lock; sometimes delicious strawberries and other fruits or dainties, the only difficulty was to cook at all properly while steering and being towed.

It is easy to cook and to steer at sea without looking up for many minutes. The compass tells you by a glance, and if not, the tiller has a nudge which speaks to the man who knows the meaning of its various pressures, through any part of his body it may happen to touch. But if you forget to steer constantly and minutely in a heavy boat towed on a river, she swerves in an instant, and shoots out right and left, and dives into banks or trees, or into the steamer's side-swell, and the man at the wheel turns round with a courteous French scowl, for he feels by his tiller in a moment, and you cannot escape his rebuke.

There was no romance in this manner of progress up the river. The poetry of wandering where you will, and all alone, cannot be thrown around a boat pulled by the nose while you are sitting in her all day. The Rob Roy, with mast down, and tied by a tow-rope, was like an eagle limping with clipped pinion and a chained foot. Still, for the man not churlish, there is scarcely any time or place or person wholly devoid of interest, if he is determined to find it there.

The steamboat captain and crew were chatty enough; and when we towed a string of barges, the yawl was lashed alongside of one of these (and not at the end of the line), so that I visited my fellow-travellers, and soon became friends, and then interchanged presents. All this "Social Science" of the sailor was far better done by the French bargee than in England.

In both countries they frequently mistook me at first for a common sailor in charge of a yacht, for my dress told no more. As intercourse proceeded it was curious to watch the gradual recognition of the fact that this "sailor" talked and thought not just the same as others. Then they regarded me as an agent come to sell the pretty boat; but it was in England only that any of them could be made to believe that the owner of the Rob Roy "would not part with his boat, did not want a cook or cabin-boy, and was not at all anxious to see the end of his voyage." Sometimes the conversation, begun as between equals, would gradually get the word "Sir" sprinkled over it; and once or twice—and this not in France—it came down at last to that "glass of beer," sheepishly enough asked for, which of course instantly drowns the converse that has been free on one side and independent on the other.

"Workmen," "working men," "artizans," or whatever they are, or whatever you may call them—I mean the class now being spoiled by petting in England—let them be told (perhaps it may be said plainest by their best friends) that there are just as many proud exclusives among them as in any other stratum of society, and that they have at least a full share too of conceit, foppery, and affectation.

It may be heresy to say so, but the "horny hand" has no necessary connection whatever with the "honest heart," as is the fashion to assert on one side, and almost to believe on the other; and the friend who really does shake that hand with a brotherly feeling is the most likely and the best entitled to refuse to talk popular nonsense of this sort about the "people."

For the night we stopped usually in towns, but once or twice we rested in a great bend of the river where the steamer was run straight into the trees and made fast ashore exactly as if it were on the Mississippi and not on the Seine.

That thousands of solitary fishermen should sit lonesome on the river was the same puzzle to me as it had been before in canoeing on other French streams. Their silence and patience, during hours of this self-inflicted isolation, were incredible for Frenchmen, fond as we at first think all of them to be of "billard," cafe, or dancing puppies, of anything, in fact, provided it assumes to be lively.

One thing I am at last decided about, that it is not to catch fish these men sit there; and the only reasonable explanation I can find of the phenomenon is that all these meek and lone fishermen are husbands unhappy at home!

There are numerous sailing-boats and rowing-boats on the Seine; but I did not see one that there was any difficulty in not coveting—their standard of marine beauty is not ours. All rigs and all sizes were there, even to a great centre board cutter, twenty-five feet broad, and any number of yards long, in which the happy yachtsman could sail up and down between two bridges which bounded him on either side to a two miles' reach!

The French national flag is perhaps the prettiest on the world's waters; but as it is repeated to the eye by every boat and building, the sight of it becomes tiresome, and suggests that absence of private influence and enterprise so striking to an Englishman in every French work. Then again their sailors (not to say their landsmen) in very many instances do not even know our English flag when they see it, our union-jack or ensign flying free on every shore.

At first I used to carry the French flag as well as our British jack out of compliment to their country, but as I found out that even in some of their newspapers the Rob Roy was mentioned as a "beautiful little French yacht," I determined that that mistake at any rate should not be fostered by me, so down came the tricolour, and my Cambridge Boat-club flag took its place.

In one reach of the river we came upon a very unusual sight for a week day, a French yacht sailing. Her flag was half-mast high, and she was drifting down the stream, a helpless wreck. A distracted sort of man was on board, and a lady, or womankind at least, with dishevelled locks (carefully disordered though), the picture of wan weary wretchedness, and both of these hapless ones entreated our captain to tow their little yacht home. But, after a knowing glance, he quickly passed them in silence, and another steamer behind us also rounded off so as to give the unhappy pair the widest possible berth. Perhaps both captains preferred English sovereigns to French francs.

I was charged about 3l. for being towed to Paris; but the various steamers (six in all) I employed on the river were every one well managed, and with civil people on board. Indeed, I became a favourite with one captain's wife, a sturdy-looking body, always cutting up leaves of lettuce. She gave me a basin of warm soup, and I presented her with some good Yorkshire bacon. Next day she cooked some of this for me with beans, and I returned the present by a packet of London tea, a book, a picture of Napoleon, and another of "the Rob Roy on the Seine," in the highest style of art attainable by a man steering all the time he is at the easel.

From all this it will be readily understood by any one who has travelled much in various ways that to be towed up the Seine is quite different from all other modes of progress, and that it brings you among a large, new, and sharply-defined class of people, who could scarcely be known, and certainly could not be studied so well in any other way.

Nor is the traveller less interesting to these people than they are to him. Often it was necessary to restrain the inquisitive French gamins, who would teaze a boat to pieces if not looked after; but it is always against the grain with me to be strict with boys, especially about boats, for I hold that it is a good sign of them when they relish nautical curiosities.



CHAPTER VII.

Dull reading—Chain boat—Kedging—St. Cloud—Training-Dogs—Wrong colours—My policeman—Yankee notion.—Red, White, and Blue.

The effect of living on board a little boat for a month at a time without more than three or four nights of usual repose, was to bring the mind and body into a curious condition of subdued life, a sort of contemplative oriental placid state in which both cares and pleasures ceased to be acute, and the flight of time seemed gliding and even, and not marked by the distinct epochs which define our civilised life. Although this passive enjoyment was really agreeable—and, in fine weather and good health, perhaps a mollusc could affirm as much of its existence,—certainly an experience of the condition I have described enables one to understand what is evidently the normal state of many thousands of hard-worked, ill-fed, and irregularly-sleeped labourers; the men who, sitting down thus weary at night, we expect to read some prosy book full of desperately good advice, of which one half the words are not needed for the sense and the other half are not understood by the reader. {98}

The last tug-boat we had to use was of a peculiar kind, and I am not aware that it is employed upon any of our rivers in Britain. A chain is laid along the bottom of the Seine for (I think) two hundred miles. At certain hours of the day a long solidly-built vessel with a powerful engine on board comes over this, and the chain is seized and put round a wheel on board. By turning this wheel one way or the other it is evident that the chain will be wound up and let down behind, while it cannot slip along the river's bottom—the enormous friction is enough to prevent that, and therefore the boat is wound up and goes through the water. The power of this chain-boat is so great that it will pull along, and that too against the rapid stream, a whole string of barges, several of them of 300 tons' burthen. The long fleet advances steadily though slowly, and the irresistible engine works with smokeless funnels, but there are groanings within, telling of tight-strained iron, and earnest undertoned breathings of confined steam.

Although the chain-boat is not often steered for the purpose of avoiding other vessels (these must take care of their own safety), yet it has to be carefully managed by the rudders (one at each end), so that it may drop the chain in a proper part of the river for the next steamer of the Company which is to use it. When two such boats meet from opposite directions, and both are pulling at the same chain, there is much time lost in effecting a passage, and again when the chain-boat and all its string of heavy craft arrives at a lock, you may make up your mind for a long delay. It is evident that we do not require this particular sort of tug-boat on the Thames below Teddington, for the strong tide up and down twice every day carries along thousands of tons of merchandize at a rapid pace, and one or two men will be enough to attend upon each barge. In fact we have the sun and moon for our tugs. These draw the water up, and the tide is the rope which hauls our ships along.

To manoeuvre properly with the Rob Roy in such a case as this with the chain-boat required every vigilance, and strong exercise of muscular force, as well as caution and prompt decision, for I had sometimes to cling to the middle barge, then to drop back to the last, and always to keep off from the river-banks, the shoals, and the trees. On one occasion we had to shift her position by "kedging" for nearly half a mile, and this in a crowded part of the Seine too, where the current also was swift. On another occasion the sharp iron of a screw steamer's frame ran right against my bow, and at once cut a clean hole quite through the mahogany. Instantly I seized a lump of soft putty, and leaning over the side I squeezed it into the hole, and then "clinched" it (so to speak) on the inside; and this stop-gap actually served for three weeks, until a proper repair could be made.

The lovely precincts of St. Cloud came in sight at dawn on the last day of June, prettier than Richmond, I must confess, or almost any river-town we can boast of in England; and here I was to rest while my little yawl was thoroughly cleaned, brightly varnished, and its inside gaily painted with Cambridge blue, so as to appear at the French Exhibition in its very best suit, and then at the British Regatta on the Seine.

Some days were occupied in this general overhaul, during which the excellent landlady of the hotel where I slept must have been more amazed even than she declared, to see her guest return each day clad in blue flannel, and spattered all over with varnish and paint, for the captain was painter as well as cook. Of course all this was exchanged for proper attire after working hours.

In the cool of the morning, three fine young fellows are running towards us over the bridge; with lithe and easy step, speed but not haste, and in white flannel and white shoes. They have come to contend at the regatta here, the first of an invasion of British oarsmen, who soon fill the lodgings, cover the river, and waken up the footpath early with their rattling run. Some of these are brown-faced watermen from Thames and Humber and Tyne, others are ruddy-cheeked Etonians or University men, or hard-trained Londoners, and others have come over the Atlantic; John Bull's younger brothers from New Brunswick, not his cousins from New York. You might pick out among these the finest specimens of our species, so far as pluck and muscle make the man.

Few of the French oarsmen could be classed with any of the divisions given above. Rowing has not attained the position in France which it holds in England. For much of our excellence in athletics and field sports we have to thank our well-abused English climate, which always encourages and generally necessitates some sort of exercise when we are out of doors.

But it is a new and healthy sight on the Seine, these fine fellows running in the mornings, and it gives zest to our walk by the beautiful river.

Here also as we stroll about, two dogs gave us much amusement: one was a Newfoundland, who dashed into the water grandly to fetch the stick thrown in by his master. The other was a bulldog, who went in about a yard or so at the same time, and then as the swimmer brought the stick to shore the intruder fastened on it, and always managed somehow to wrest the prize from the real winner, and then carried it to his master with the cool impudence which may be seen not seldom when the honour and reward gained by one person are claimed and even secured by another. {102}

From the truck to the keel the Rob Roy had been thoroughly refreshed and beautified. The perfection of a yacht's beauty is that nothing should be there for only beauty's sake. In the strict observance of this rule the English certainly do excel every other nation; and whether you take a huge steam-engine, a yacht, or a four-in-hand drag, it is certainly acknowledged by the best connoisseurs of each, that ornament will not make a bad article good, while it is likely to make a good one look bad.

Even the flags of a yacht have each a meaning, and are not mere patches of pretty colours. Therefore they ought to be made, at all events, perfectly correct first, and then as pretty and neat as you please. I examined the flags of all the boats and yachts and steamers at the Exhibition; and there was wonderfully little taste in their display; nearly every one—English and foreign—was cut wrong, or coloured wrong, or too large for the boat that carried them. Even our Admiralty Barge, where specimens of boats from England were exhibited, had a flag flying, with the stripes in the 'jack' quite wrong. She was the only craft on that side of the Pont de Jena; but as it was the English side I anchored there, right opposite the sloping sward of the Exhibition, and I did this without asking any questions, for it is best now and then to do right things at once, and not to delay until time is wasted in proving them to be right.

Here I slept on board my little craft in perfect comfort, and could spend all the rest of the day on shore. Each morning about 7 o'clock you might notice a smart-looking French policeman standing on the grass bank of the Exhibition, and staring hard at the Rob Roy. He had come to see her captain at his somewhat airy toilette, and he was particularly interested, and even amazed, to witness the evolutions of a toothbrush, which were not only interesting but instructive as involving an idea perfectly new—hard also to comprehend from so distant an inspection. Surely he thought this strange implement must be a novelty imported from England for exhibition here.

As he gazed in wonder at the rapid exercise, I sometimes gave the curious instrument an extra flourish above or below, and the intelligent and courteous gendarme never rightly decided whether or not the toothbrush was an essential though inscrutable part of the yacht's sailing gear. Our acquaintance, however, improved, and he kindly took charge of the boat in my absence; not without a mysterious air as he recounted its travels (and a good deal more), to the numerous visitors,—many of whom, after his explanations, left the Rob Roy quite delighted that they had seen "the little ship which had sailed from America!"

The boat "Red, White, and Blue" he thus confounded with mine—was at that time not far off, in a house by itself, amid the other wonders which crowded the gardens of the Exhibition.

[Picture: The French policeman]

The two venturesome Americans who came to Europe in this ship had but scant pleasure either in their voyage itself or in their visit to France and England. Storm, wet, and hunger on the wide Atlantic were patiently borne in hopes of meeting a warm welcome in Old England; but, instead, they had the cold chill of doubt. Many of their sufferings in both these ways were directly due to their own and their friends' mismanagement, the stupid construction of their cabin, the foolish three-masted rig of their boat, the boastful wager of the boat's builder, and their imprudence in painting up the boat on her arrival, and tarring the ropes; and, lastly, in allowing a mutilated paper to be issued as their "original log."

Disappointed here, they turned to Paris, expecting better days. Fair promises were made. Steamers were to tow the boat up the Seine in triumph; but it was towed against a bridge and smashed its masts. Agents were to secure goodly numbers to visit her; but for three months scarcely any one paid for a ticket, until at length the vessel was admitted into the grounds of the Exhibition. Finally, the ruined Captain ran away to England, but cleverly contrived to carry his ship with him. Whatever may be thought as to the wisdom or advantage of making such a voyage and in such a boat, it is a very great pity that when it has been effected there should be a failure in appreciating its marvellous accomplishment.

The possibility of taking a boat across the Atlantic, with west wind prevailing and with no rocks or shoals to fear, is altogether beyond doubt. The ill-fate of two other boats that have tried the feat shews how dangerous it is to try. The success of another more recent trip of 'man and wife' in one boat is reassuring. But after examining, probably more than any body else, the evidence in their case—the men, the log, the documents, and affidavits, and the boat, and its contents, also the numerous doubts and criticisms from all quarters, both in London and Paris, and in Dover and Margate, I have good reason to believe that the "Red, White, and Blue" had no extraneous help in her voyage across that wide ocean. The unexplained wonder is that men able and willing to perform such a deed as this should be incapable of building and rigging their boat so as to do it comfortably.



CHAPTER VIII.

Presents—The Emperor—Anecdote—The Abbe in London—A vert—Singing girl—English bird—Model—Old friend—The Turks—Guzzling—The friture.

As they walked past the building where this travelled ship was shewn, many of the visitors seemed each to be reading a paper in his hands, while some have a gilt-edged book, and others a broadsheet with a large woodcut on it.

These people have come past that other building, which seems to be all windows; and let us stop there a few minutes to see why the groups crowd round, and reach out their hands, and go away reading.

If you heard that it is "only some tracts" being given away, and then turned away yourself, you have lost a wonderful sight: one that, well pondered upon, has wide suggestions to the mind that thinks; and a sight that, of its kind, was quite unexampled at any time and anywhere. Inside this building, and another near it, were hundreds of thousands of Bibles, Testaments, periodicals, papers, picture books and tracts, beautifully printed in the languages of visitors from distant lands, and mostly given free to those who will receive them.

Even in England, at none of our Exhibitions or any other place, had such a proceeding been permitted, doubtless from prudential reasons,—the fear of "giving offence" or exciting disturbance; so that it had been left to France, at a time when pleasure seemed the chief and only object of all, to brave these supposed dangers, and, despite all scruples, to give utmost freedom to the distribution of God's Word and of man's comments upon it. The example was not without fruit; at each subsequent Grand Exhibition, and even under the Republic in 1878, the Book of Law and Gospel has been freely given in the frivolous capital of France.

The fact is, if you mean to get at all the people, you cannot find them in the same place or reach them by the same road, or treat them in the same way; and all the people must be got at somehow.

As fast as they could give these books and papers out of the windows, several persons were delivering them into the open hands of the people, and when a window became vacant, and there was need of some one to help, the post was filled by the crew of the yawl.

We intended to stay only a short time, but six hours often passed before the interesting work could be left; I can never forget those hours, and the subsequent occasions of the same sort.

Every variety of person came quickly before us, of nationality, of manner, of dress, of language, and of bearing, as each drew near, took a paper, read a few lines, thanked the donor, and then went off reading as they walked, or with reflecting gaze, or simply astonished.

Hundreds of soldiers came to the window, sometimes a dozen of them at once, and these all asked for their 'Empereur.' This meant the special copy of the well-known periodical 'British Workman,' which was translated into French, and had a very large and well-done woodcut of Napoleon III. on its broad first page. The generosity of some good men supplied funds to give one of these Emperor papers to every soldier, policeman, and public employe; and much additional interest was attached to the paper because it was actually printed before their eyes at a press in the centre of the building, and because the press itself had borne off a gold medal for excellence of workmanship. {110}

Priests came often, and even returned to get tracts for their villages in distant parts of France. Germans asked for papers in "Allemand," and numerous Italians and Spaniards asked for them in their languages. Two Russians came, but we had then no books in Russ; and at length four grave Mussulmen stood before me in turbans and flowing robes, with a suppliant but dignified air, while their interpreter said they wanted to buy a "dictionary to learn English from." Now they will easily get these dictionaries in the "Beaconsfield Library" of Cyprus.

Although in frequent tours in foreign lands we had been accustomed to see minglings of the people from many nations, the sight at this window was more varied in the components of the constant flowing stream of human beings for hours and hours than we ever saw before.

Some years ago, travelling in Algeria with an Arab guide, I put up for the night at an old semaphore station, where was a French soldier in charge. It was far from any houses, and on a high hill, and he had a visit only every fortnight from his friends, who brought him provisions on mules' backs. He willingly let me in, and spread a mattress for me on the floor alongside his own. The Arab he kept outside, and the poor fellow had to sleep coiled up on the doorstep.

The Frenchman was courteous and intelligent; but he had only one thing to read for many weeks, a vapid French novel. He said he would willingly read something better if he had it. At the next French town I searched for some better book, and this caused me to find the agent of the Bible Society, and so a parcel of books, religious and secular, were sent off to the telegraph station; but my attention once drawn to the French soldiers and their reading, it was impossible not to follow a subject so interesting and important. The regiment quartered in the town had but a few Testaments. {112} By a little exertion about a hundred copies were obtained and distributed. I saw the men reading these in the streets for hours under the trees, and I sailed in a man-of-war carrying the regiment to Mexico. Not one in five of these men survived that fearful campaign.

Priestly opposition to this giving of Testaments resulted in an appeal to the General in command. He asked the priests if the book was a "bad one," and when it was not possible to say "yes," he gave the book free course. Inquiry was excited by this opposition, and 1500 Testaments were received.

There was a remarkable contrast between the absence of public efforts by French Romanists to disseminate their opinions at the Exhibition and the unusual freedom for others, sanctioned by the late Archbishop of Paris. Various causes were at work to produce this very unexpected state of things, and they will not be alluded to here. But the points thus noticed remind one forcibly of what actually occurred in 1851, when the then Archbishop of Paris specially appointed the Abbe Miel, a learned and able man, to go to London and to do his best to further Romanism here during the Exhibition.

One of his first acts was to issue two small tracts on the supremacy of the Pope and of St. Peter; and some hundred thousand of these, beautifully printed, were distributed in London. A copy came to the hands of a clever layman, well skilled in the Romish controversy; and he saw immediately that this little tract, if not well answered, might do much harm.

After careful study of the subject, he wrote to the Abbe, calling attention to several important misquotations in the tract, which were evident when it was compared with original documents in the British Museum. The Abbe replied, that he was not responsible for the accuracy of the extracts, but that they had been given to him by the late Cardinal Wiseman.

The Protestant layman then wrote a series of letters in a well-known English newspaper, Bell's Weekly Messenger, upon the subject treated in the tract, and for the time the matter dropped. Years afterwards he received a letter from the Abbe, stating that these newspaper articles had convinced him of the need of inquiry into the subject, and he went to Rome to consult his former instructors. Finally, this Abbe, selected as the champion of Rome by the Archbishop of Paris, and convinced by the arguments adduced by a layman in London, renounced the Romish church, and though offered promotion for his past services, he came to London and went straight to the house of the layman, whom he had not yet seen.

Often have I walked with that clever Abbe, riveted by his deeply interesting conversation, his new and fresh views of English life, his forcible exposures of those false estimates of Protestant truth which had for so many years blinded him, and his explanations of the machinery then in action at the Oratory, near the Strand.

But his former allies could not brook the desertion of so formidable a champion, and he was driven by their continual annoyance to seek another home. So he went to Ireland, and soon became the best teacher of the French language in Dublin, from whence he removed to America. Let us hope that there, at least, he is free to profess the truth he had found, and to be one of the instances—very rare indeed they are—of a consistent and steady Protestant, who had for years before been thoroughly imbued with those doctrines which gnaw at the very vitals of mental perception, and obliterate the sense of fairness, and which very seldom leave enough alive in the mind to hold even real truth firmly.

It will not be breaking the promise that our visit to the exhibition is not to involve us in a description of all its wonders, if we walk up-stairs and look into the Tunisian Cafe, attracted by the well-known drumming and the moaning dirge which Easterns call music. Tunis is best seen out of Tunis, for the broidered gold and bright-coloured slippers can then be enjoyed without those horrible scenes of filth—dead camels, open sewers, and maimed beggars which encase the shabby mud walls I have seen so near the marble ruins of old Carthage.

The cafe was full of visitors. English and Americans were admiring a pretty singing girl about fifteen years of age, who was beautifully dressed, and sitting with four very demure and ugly Orientals in the little orchestra.

Soon she rose and sang a song. Black eyes, blackest of hair, pale cheeks, languid grace. She is a fair daughter from the rising sun. "Yes, there is certainly something in their Eastern beauty which is quite beyond what Britons or Yankees see at home!"

But the words and music of the song seemed known to me. Surely she is now singing English while she shakes the golden sequins in her long jet hair and rattles her tambourine? We asked a waiter, and he said she could sing Turkish, Spanish, French, and English. At last being persuaded that her pronunciation of English was too distinct for a foreigner, we took the very bold measure of going up to the orchestra, and saying to the young lady, "You are English, are you not?" She stared, and held down her face, which still was pale, even if she blushed and answered "Yes, sir." "Are you here alone?—no relation, no woman friend with you?" "Yes." "And do they treat you well?" "Yes." "From what part of England?" "From —-shire."

I said she seemed to mean the words of the song she had sung,

'I wish I were a bird, and I would flee away.'

and I asked if she could read, and would like a nice book. "Oh yes, I should, and very much." Now there was a stall set up in the Exhibition by "The Pure Literature Society," from 11, Buckingham Street, Adelphi, London, which selects about three thousand books from various publishers, but publishes none itself; gets no profits on its sales except thanks and satisfaction; so that its catalogue is likely to contain what it may wish should be read. {117} Here we selected a very interesting volume with many illustrations, suitable for the girl's reading; and soon at the cafe again, I bowed to the senior fiddler, who nodded assent, and then the poor pale lonely girl had the pleasant book as a remembrance of home placed in her hands, and a promise given her that a good Christian lady would call that evening.

So perhaps our catalogue of nationalities at the Exhibition ought to be somewhat abridged, and not wholly founded upon the variety it presents to the eye; especially as in London, too, we may remember Punch's crossing-sweeper, who, being dressed in Hindoo garb, begged from a passer-by with, "Take pity on the poor Irishman—Injun, I mane."

On the Sunday the little dingey had its usual cargo, and the bargemen on the Seine, in the heart of Paris, were just as glad as others elsewhere to get something to read.

Among the curiosities exhibited in the English Naval Architecture building here was a very beautiful model of the Rob Roy canoe, presented to its owner by the builders, Messrs. Searle, who have already built some hundreds of such canoes on the principles first applied in that above mentioned; and to me it was even more gratifying to find in the Admiralty Barge, the Rob Roy canoe itself, with sails set and the flag of the Royal Canoe Club flying, and with maps of the paddling voyages through Europe.

Very speedily I launched my old travelling companion, and had a paddle up the river by moonlight, and it was surprising to find that scarcely any water leaked in, though the other boats which were hung up in the barge were found to be a good deal injured by the strong draught of wind rushing through the arch of the bridge, and then under the open sides of the shed, covered only by a roof. But then those other boats were new, and perhaps some were not built of such well-seasoned wood {119} as Messrs. Searle employ beyond all other boat-builders I know; whereas the weatherbeaten Rob Roy had been too long inured to wet and dry, sun and wind, heat and cold, to be affected with the rheumatism and ague which shook even the man-of-war's boats on the barge.

The sketch (see next page), represents a man watering a horse, and who swum it out to my boat to get a paper, and then carefully placed the gift in a dry place ashore until he should be able to use it when he was dressed again.

My life at the Exhibition soon settled into a somewhat regular one. Seeing, seeing, seeing all day, and then returning to my quiet bed on the river at night, with a 'Times' newspaper to study, and books and letters. It was a variety to launch the dingey, and scull along the quays and visit the other yachts, all of them most hospitable to the Rob Roy. I ventured even to go alongside the Turkish vessel, the Dahabeeh, from the Nile, full of specimen "fellahs," all hidden by a curtain of grey calico, except to those who had paid their franc for general entrance. We never observed any visitor actually on board this vessel; indeed, it required a bold inquirer to face those solemn Africans' gaze, as they sat cross-legged on deck, and ate their soup from a universal bowl, or calmly inspired from their chibouques, and blew out a formal and composed puff of the bluest tobacco-smoke. It did, indeed, soon forcibly recall the feelings of Egyptian travel to see these men;—the red fiery sunsets, the palm-trees, and crocodiles, and obelisks, and Indian corn, and, over all, the thrumming, not unmusical sound of the tarabookrah—earthen drum—with the wailing melodies in a minor key of the "Chaldaeans whose cry is in the ships." {121}

[Picture: Sunday ride]

So I ventured near in my dingey, and the imperturbable Egyptians were fairly taken by surprise. They soon rallied to a word or two in their language and an Englishman's smile, and rapidly we became friends, and talked of Damascus and Constantinople, and finally decided that "Englishman bono!" The shape and minute dimensions of my dingey much astonished them; but they probably believed, that in that very craft I had come all the way from London.

The luxury of Paris must have at least some effect in making gourmands of the young generation, even if their fathers did not set the example. The operation, or rather the solemn function, of breakfast or dinner, is with many Frenchmen the only serious act in life. When people can afford to order a dinner in exact accordance with the lofty standard of excellence meant by its being "good," the diner approaches the great proceeding with a staid and watchful air, and we may well leave him now he is involved in such important service. But with the octroi duty for even a single pheasant at two shillings and sixpence, there are many good feeders who cannot afford to "dine well," and the fuss they make about their eatables is something preposterous. It is a vice—this systematic gluttony—that seems to be steadily increasing in France for the last twenty years, at least in its public manifestation, and moreover it is an evil somewhat contagious.

One evening, while some of us had dinner at the Terrasse in St. Cloud, a family entered the room, and were partly disrobing themselves of bonnets and hats for a regular downright dinner, when the waiter came, and in reply to the order of a "friture" he calmly said they had none.

At this awful news the whole party were struck dumb and pale, and they leant back on their chairs as if in a swoon. The poor waiter prudently retreated for reinforcements, and the landlady herself came in to face the infuriate guests.

"No friture!" said the father. "No friture, and we come to St. Cloud?" he muttered deeply in rage. His wife proceeded to make horribly wry faces, whereat Rob Roy irreverently laughed, but he was not observed, for they noticed nothing of the external trifling world. The daughters heaved deep sighs, and then burst into voluble and loud denunciations. Then the son (who wanted dinner at any rate, and the objurgations might do afterwards) proposed at once to leave the desolate, famine-stricken spot.

But though this was debated warmly, it was not carried. They had already anchored, as it were, and they resolved to dine "starving," and to grumble all the time of dinner when no one subject was talked about except the friture. It was a miserable spectacle to witness, but confirming the proposition, not at all new, that the French care more about eating than even John Bull.



CHAPTER IX.

Paris Regatta—Absentees—Novelties—New Brunswickers—Steam yachts—Canoe race—Canoe chase—Entangled—M. Forcat—Challenge.

While the voyage in the Rob Roy's dingey on Sunday was such as we have described, it was a busy time a little further down the river at St. Cloud, being the first day of the Paris Regatta, which continued also on the Monday, and then our British Regatta occupied the next four days. These two were under separate committees. The British Regatta was managed by experienced oarsmen, and His Royal Highness the Commodore of the Canoe Club was patron—not a merely nominal patron but presiding frequently at the committee meetings held at Marlborough House, and generously contributing to the funds. The Emperor of the French also gave us his name, and prizes to the amount of 1000l. were offered in a series of contests open to all the world. In these better days now the rowing world of France could lately count upon the patronage of their distinguished Foreign Minister, M. Waddington, who rowed in the same boat with me at Cambridge—'ages ago.'

But this experiment of holding an international regatta in a foreign country was quite novel, and there were difficulties around it which it is not convenient to detail.

Notwithstanding the hasty predictions of people who could not approve of what was originated and carried out without requiring their advice, the regatta brought together a splendid body of the best oarsmen and canoeists in the world from England, France, and America. Three Champions of England for the first time contended at the same place. The most renowned watermen came from Thames and Tyne and Humber, and eight-oared boats raced for the first time on the Seine. The weather was magnificent, the course was in perfect order, and better than almost any other of equal length near any capital; the arrangements made were the very best that might be contrived under the peculiarly difficult circumstances which could not be controlled, even by a committee comprising the very best men for the purpose, and zealous in their work; and lastly the racing itself, for spirit and for speed, and for that exciting interest which is caused by equal excellence sustained during well-contested struggles, was never surpassed.

But this grand exhibition of water athletics was not seen by more than a few hundreds of persons, so that "Tribunes," richly draped, and with streamers flying above, and seats below for 1000 visitors, often had not three people there at a time.

The French oarsmen must have been absent at some "better" place, and of the French public you might see more of them assembled on the roadside round a dancing dog. The Emperor could not come—perhaps Bismarck would not let him, and as the Prince of Wales had to be in his proper place as the representative of England, receiving the Sultan in London, this important duty prevented His Royal Highness from enjoying the pleasure he might well have counted upon after the trouble he had taken in connection with the British Regatta in Paris.

But after stating this disappointment bluntly, it will be remembered by all who were at St. Cloud, that there was a great deal of real amusement, as well as of hard work, and the whole had a strange novelty both in its charms and its troubles.

For crews in "hard training" to sit down to bifteck, and Medoc, omelette, and haricots verts, with strawberries and cream, and bad French jabbered round, was certainly a novelty. To see a group of London watermen, addressed in unknown tongues, but perfectly self-possessed, visiting the Exhibition in the morning and rowing a race in the afternoon, was new; and to observe the complete bewilderment of soldiers and police at the whole proceedings, which came upon them of course with surprise in a country where no one reads the papers for an advertisement, except about a new play, or an infallible pill—all this was very amusing to those who could listen and look on.

The English rowing-men soon made themselves as comfortable as they could in their new quarters, and suffered patiently the disagreeables of French lodgings. They repaired their boats, often broken by the transit from London, and behaved with good humour in proportion to their good sense. Even the grumblers were satisfied, because they were provided with a new set of grievances; and so things passed off better than was expected by those who knew the real circumstances of the venture. It was the first regatta of the kind, and doubtless it will be the last.

No particular description of the various races for eight-oars, four-oars, pair-oars, and sculling, by watermen and amateurs, would be interesting to general readers; but a few notable lessons were there to be learned, which will probably not be disregarded.

An interesting feature was added to the occasion by the arrival of four men, who came from New Brunswick, to row at this regatta. They had no coxswain to steer them, as every other boat had, but the rudder was worked by strings leading to one of the rowers' feet.

They contended first in a race where it was not allowed to use "outrigged" boats (so called because they are so narrow that the oars cannot work on the gunwale, but are rigged out on iron frames). Moreover, they rowed in a broad, heavy, clumsy-looking craft, with common oars like those used at sea, and they pulled a short jerky stroke, and had to go round a winding French course—indeed with apparently every disadvantage; yet they came in first, beating English and French, and winning 40l.

The same crew went in next for another race, and in another boat, an outrigger they had brought with them from the Dominion of Canada, and again they were first, and won 40l. more. {128} At once "Les Canadiens" became the favourites and heroes of the day. Englishmen cheered them because they were the winners, and some Frenchmen cheered them because they supposed the men were French, whereat the hardy Canadians smiled with French politeness, but muttering the while round protestations, intelligible only to English ears.

The river Seine was made unusually lively during the summer by the movement upon it of a whole fleet of steamers of all shapes and sizes, and with flags often exceedingly 'coquet.' Little screw yachts or steam launches flitted up and down, sometimes so small as to admit only three or four people on board, with a bit of awning to deflect the sun; others were crowded with passengers. This style of locomotion is peculiarly adapted to Parisians. It has all the heat, bustle, and noise that can be desirable in nautical pleasures, and yet it almost avoids those highly inconvenient undulations which open water has too often the bad taste to assume. The completion of the Thames Embankment and of the purification of our river has already made water travelling more fashionable in London. Soon, perhaps, the Representative of some powerful Trades-union or incorrupt Borough, will see by the Westminster Clock that it is time to go down to the "House," and will order his double-screw steamer round to the water steps near his terrace door; and no coachman in those days need apply for a place unless he can steer.

Even now, the number of miniature steamers, tug-boats, and private yachts on the Thames is large and increasing; while a few years ago not one was to be seen. Most of these are pretty little things, and the best of all craft to be handled safely in the crowded waterway. The multitude of them one sees at Stockholm shews what may be seen some day in Middlesex.

Several English screw yachts had come to Paris. Mr. Manners Sutton kindly lent his to the Regatta Committee, and the steam launch of the Admiralty Barge was also used, so that the umpire was able to follow each race in a proper position for seeing fair play, while the Rob Roy was anchored at the winning-post, to guard the palm of victory. Here, too, various bomb-shells were fired high into the air at the end of each race, and were supposed to correspond in number with the place of the winning boat on the programme; but somehow they so exploded as effectually to confuse the audience they were meant to enlighten as to "who had won:" which uncertainty, we all know, is one of the principal excitements of a regatta, and it can be sometimes prolonged even until the day afterwards.

The other features of these rowing matches on the Seine may be left to the reader's imagination if he has seen a regatta before; and if he has not seen one, he could not well apprehend the thing by reading. The canoe races, however, being more novel, have another claim on attention.

One of these races was for fast canoes, and to be decided only by speed. The other was a "canoe chase," in which dexterity and pluck were required for success.

For the canoe race three Englishmen had brought from the Thames three long boats with long paddles, and they were the three fastest canoes in England, so far as could be proved by previous trials. Against these, three French canoes were entered, all of them short, and with short paddles. One of these, propelled by an Englishman (resident in Paris), came in easily first, and the second prize was won by a Frenchman. Here, surely, was a good sound lesson to English canoe-men who wished to paddle fast on still water, in a boat useless for any other purpose, and slower at last than a skiff with two sculls. Accordingly, we accepted the beating with thanks.

The 'Canoe Chase,' first instituted at our Club races on the Thames, was found to be an agreeable variety in nautical sport, and very amusing. Therefore, two prizes were offered at the Paris Regatta for a canoe chase, open to all the "peoples." Five French canoes entered, but there was only one English canoeist ready in his Rob Roy to meet all comers (the Hon. A. F. Kinnaird).

The canoes were drawn up on land alongside each other, and with their steins touching the lower step of the "Tribune" or Grand Stand. It was curious to observe the various positions taken up by the different men, as each adopted what he thought was the best manner of starting. One was at his boat's stern; another, at the side, half carried his canoe, ready to be "off;" another grasped the bow; while the most knowing paddler held the end of his "painter" (or little rope) extended from the bow as far as it would reach.

All dashed off together on being started, and ran with their boats to the water. The Frenchmen soon got entangled together by trying to get into their boats dry; but the Englishman had made up his mind for a wetting, and it might as well come now, at once, as in a few minutes after, so he rushed straight into the river up to his waist, and therefore being free from the crowding of others, he got into his boat all dripping wet, but foremost of all, and then paddled swiftly away. The rest soon followed; and all of them were making to the flag-boat anchored a little way off, round which the canoes must first make a turn. Here the Englishman, misled by the various voices on shore telling him the (wrong) side he was to take, lost all the advantage of his start so that all the six boats arrived at the flag-boat together, each struggling to get round it, but locked with some other-opponent in a general scramble. Next, their course was back to the shore, where they jumped out and ran along, each one dragging his boat round another flag on dry land, amid the cheers and laughter of the dense group of spectators, who had evidently not anticipated a contest so new in its kind, and so completely visible from beginning to end. Again, dashing into the water the little struggling fleet paddled away to another flag-boat, but not now in such close array. Some stuck in the willows or rushes, or were overturned and had to swim; and the chance of who might win was still open to the man of strength and spirit, with reasonably good luck. Once more the competing canoes came swiftly back to shore, and were dragged round the flag, and another time paddled round the flag-boat; and now he was to be winner who could first reach the shore again and bring his canoe to the Tribune: a well-earned victory, won by the Hon. A. F. Kinnaird, far ahead of the rest.

[Picture: The struggle]

The whole affair lasted not much longer than might be required to write its history; but the strain was severe upon pluck and muscle, and called forth several qualities very useful in life at sea, but which mere rowing in a straight race does not require and cannot therefore exhibit. Instantly after this exciting contest, a Frenchman challenged the winner to another chase over the same course. But as the challenger had not thought fit to enter the lists and test his powers in the chase, which was open to him like the rest, it would, of course, have been quite unfair to allow him, quite fresh, to have a special race with the hard-worked winner, though the Englishman was at once ready to accept the gage.

Among the visitors to the regatta was M. Forcat, whose peculiar system of propelling boats I have mentioned in the account of a former voyage; and he brought up for exhibition, and for the practical trial by the winner of the canoe chase, a very narrow and crank boat, rowed by oars jointed to a short mast in front of the sitter, and thus obtaining one of the advantages possessed by canoeists, that their faces are turned to the bow, and so they see where they are going.

It is no doubt an enormous disadvantage that in ordinary rowing your back is turned upon the course, with all its dangers and beauties; and this inconvenience is only put up with because you can go faster as you row with your back foremost, and the scenery is of no account if a river serves only to float the skiff but not to please the eye. As for travelling on new and lovely waters in this style, with face to the stern, it is just as if you were to walk backwards along a road, and to think you could appreciate the picturesque either by a stare at the retreating beauties you are leaving, or by a glance now and then over your shoulder at what is coming. But though M. Forcat's boat had the rower's face to the bow, the form and size of the nondescript novelty were not to be understood in a moment, and we tried to dissuade our young canoeist from entering hastily a new sort of boat, very easily capsized. He had his own will, however, and his own way, because he was a Scot, and only "English" in the sense we use that word for "British,"—too frequently thereby giving dire offence to the blue lion of the North, whose armorial tail is so punctiliously correct as to the precise curl and make up of its "back hair."

"He's upset," they cried in a minute or so. But we might well let so good a swimmer take his chance; he merely pushed the boat ashore, and then took a pleasant swim, until he was finally captured and put into the Rob Roy's cabin, to change his wet clothes as well as a modest man might do behind a plaid screen and before the curious world.

Therefore in boats, as well as in business and politics, we may learn lessons from one another, both on the water and on the land: from Canada, as to the steering and the stroke; from France, as to the fast, quick turning canoe in still water; and from England, as to the man.

It was to see this regatta and to help in it that the Rob Roy had pushed her way to Paris; and for this six hundred miles of river navigation in a sea-going boat were justifiable, yet often did I feel much the sea-trim lifeboat yawl was out of place upon a calm inland water like the Seine.

Before the arrival of my little yacht, a challenge had been sent to her to sail on the Seine against a French yacht there. To this I replied that it would be scarcely a fair match for the Rob Roy, a sea craft, to race on a river known only to one of the competitors; but that the yawl would gladly sail a match with any French yacht having only one man on board,—the course to be at sea either one hundred miles for speed, or one week for distance, and communication not allowed with any other boat or shore. No answer came.



CHAPTER X.

Dawn music—Cleared for action—Statistics—Blue Peter—Passing bridges—A gale—A shave—Provisions—Toilette—An upset—Last bridge—A peep below—Cooking inside—Preserved provisions—Soups.

The Rob Roy was very pleasant lodgings when moved down to the lovely bend at St. Cloud. Sometimes she was made fast to a tree, and the birds sung in my rigging, and gossamers spun webs on the masts, and leaves fell on the deck. At other times we struck the anchor into soft green grass, and left the boat for the day, until at night, returning from where the merry rowers dined so well in training, and after a pleasant and cool walk "home" by the river side, there was the little yawl all safe on a glassy pool, and her deck shining spangled with dewdrops under the moon, and the cabin snug within,—airy but no draughts, cool without chill, and brightly lighted up in a moment, yet all so undisturbed, without dust or din, and without any bill to pay.

Awake with the earliest sun, there was always the same sound alongside as we lay at anchor. The sweet murmurings of the water running by, cleft by my sharp bow, and gliding in wavelets along the smooth sides only a few inches from my ear, and sounding with articulate distinctness through the tight mahogany skin; and then there was the muttering chatter of the amateur fisherman, who was sure to be at his post, however early.

This respectable personage, not young but still hearty, is in his own boat,—a boat perfectly respectable too, and well found in all particulars, flat, brown, broad, utterly useless for anything but this its duty every morning.

Quietly his anchor is dropped, and he then fixes a pole into the bottom of the river, and lashes the boat to that, and to that it will be fixed until nine o'clock; at present it is five. He puts on a grey coat, and brown hat, and blue spectacles, all the colours of man and boat being philosophically arranged, and as part of a complicated and secret plot upon the liberties of that unseen, mysterious, and much-considered goujon which is poetically imagined to be below. It has baffled all designs for this last week, for it is a wily monster, but this morning it is most certainly to be snared.

Rod, line, float, hook, bait, are all prepared for the conflict, and the fisherman now seats himself steadily in a sort of arm-chair, and with stealth and gravity drops the deceitful line into hidden deeps. At that float he will stare till he cannot see. He looks contented; at any rate, no muscle moves in his face, though envy may be corroding his soul. After an hour he may just yield so much as to mutter some few sounds, or a suppressed moaning over his hard lot, 'and that is what I hear in my cabin.' Then at last he rises with a determined briskness in his mien, and the resentment against fate from an ill-used man, and he casts exactly three handfuls of corn or bread-crumbs into the water, these to beguile the reluctant obstinate gudgeon, who, perhaps, poor thing, is not so much to blame for inattention after all, being at the time just one hundred and fifty yards away, beside those bulrushes.

Indeed that very idea seems to have struck the fisherman too, and he marks the likely spot, and will go there to-morrow, not to-day—no, he will always stick one day at one place. How he moves to or from it I do not know, for the man and boat had always come before I saw them, and I never stopped long enough to see them depart. Four men fished four mornings thus, and only two fish were caught by them in my presence.

The regatta is over, and Nadar's balloon is in the sky, but seeming no bigger than other balloons, so soon does the mind fail to appreciate positive size when the object you look at is seen alone. It is the old story of the moon, which "looks as large as a soup-plate," and yet Nadar's Geant was the largest balloon ever seen, and it carries a house below it instead of a car—a veritable house, with two storeys, and doors and windows. The freedom of its motion sailing away reminds me that the Rob Roy ought to be moving too,—that she was not built to dabble about on rivers, but to charge the crested wave; and, indeed, there was always a sensation of being pent up when she was merely floating near the inland cornfields, and so far from the salt green sea; and this, too, even though pleasant parties of ladies were on board, and boys got jaunts and cruises from me, which I am certain pleased them much; still the reef-points on her sails rattled impatiently for real breezes and the curl of the surf, while the storm mizen was growing musty, so long stowed away unused.

Next day, therefore, the Blue Peter was flying at the fore, and the Rob Roy's cellar had its sea stock laid in from "Spiers and Pond," of ale, and brandy, and wine. Before a fine fresh wind, with rain pelting cheerfully on my back, we scudded down the Seine. To sail thus along a rapid stream with many barges to meet, and trees overhanging, and shoals at various depths below, is a very capital exercise, especially if you feel your honour at stake about getting aground, however harmless that would be. But the Seine has greater difficulties here, because the numerous bridges each will present an obstacle which must be dealt with at once, and yet each particular bridge will have its special features and difficulties, not perhaps recognized when first you meet them so suddenly. {142} The bridges on the Seine were often not high enough to allow the yawl to pass under, except in the centre, or within a few feet on one side or other of the keystone, and as the wind is deflected by the bridge, just at the critical moment when you reach such places, and the current of water below rushes about in eddies from the piers, there is quite enough of excitement to keep a captain pretty well awake in beating to windward through these bridges; for the wind must be dead ahead a great part of the time, because the river bends about and about with more and sharper turns than almost any other of the kind.

Though sun and wind had varnished my face to the proper regulation hue, in perfect keeping with a mahogany boat, yet the fortnight of fresh water had softened that hardiness of system acquired in real sea. My hands had gradually discarded, one after another, the islands of sticking-plaister, and a whole geography of bumps and bruises, which once had looked as if no gloves ever could get on again—or rather as if the hands must always be encased in gloves to be anywhere admissible in a white-skinned country.

But now once again outward bound, though still so many miles from the iodine scent of the open sea, and the gracious odour of real ship's tar, one's nerves are strung tight in a moment. The change was hailed with joy, though sudden enough, from the glassy pond-like water at St. Cloud, lulled only by gentle catspaws, half asleep and dreaming, to the rattling of spars and blocks, and hissing of the water, in the merry whistling gale by which we now were rapt away.

At Argenteuil there are numerous French pleasure-boats, and the Rob Roy ran into a good berth. Next day there was a downright gale, so I actually had to reef before starting, because in a narrow river the work of beating against the wind is very severe on legs and arms, and especially on one's hands, unless they are hardened, and kept hard, too, by constant handling of the strong ropes.

At length we put into a quiet bay, where the river Oise joined the Seine, and we moored snugly under the lee of a green meadow, while trees were above waving and rustling in the breeze. It was far from houses, for I wished to have a good rest, as the tossing of the former night had almost banished sleep.

But soon the inquisitive natives found the yawl in her hiding-place, and they sat on the grass gazing by the hour. The surroundings were so much like a canoe voyage, that I felt more strongly than ever the confinement to a river, while the sea would have been so open and grand under such a breeze. Therefore I gave up all idea of sailing down the Seine any more, and decided to get towed to Havre, and to launch out fairly on our proper element once more.

Yet it was fine fun to row about in the dingey, and to discover a quaint old inn, and to haul ashore my tiny cockleshell and dine. Here they were certainly an uncouth set, they did not even put a cloth on the table, nor any substitute for it,—a state of things seen very seldom indeed in the very outermost corners of my various trips.

Faithful promise was made by a man that he would rouse me from slumber in my cabin under the haybank at the passing of the next steamer, be it light or dark at the time. The shriek of the whistle came in the first hours of morning, and the man ran to tell it, with one side of his face shaven, and the other frothed over with lather.

Being towed down is so like being towed up the river, that we need merely allude to a few features in the voyage westward.

At one pretty town we stopped to unload cargo for some hours, and I climbed the hills, scaled the old castle walls, and dived into curious tumbledown streets. The keeper of the newspaper-shop confessed to me his own peculiar grievance, namely, that he often sent money to England in reply to quack advertisements, but never had any reply. He seemed to be too "poli" to credit my assertion that there are "many rogues in perfidious Albion," and on the whole he was scarcely shaken in the determination to persevere in filling their pockets, though he might empty his own.

An old man at a lock was delighted by a New Testament given to him. "I know what this is; it is Protestant prayers. Oh, they are good." Then he brought his wife and his grandchildren, and every one of them shook hands.

It was not very easy to get one's sea-stores replenished in the continuous run down the Seine. Sometimes I saw a milkman trundling his wheelbarrow over a bridge, and, jumping on shore, I waylaid him for the precious luxury, or sent off a boy for bread, and butter, and eggs; but, of course, the times of eating had nothing to do with any hours, or recurring seasons for a meal: you must cook when you can, and snatch a morsel here or there, in a lock or a long reach of the stream. At night the full moon sailed on high, and the crew lay down with their faces over the steamer's side, chattering with their English comrade till it was far past bed-time, for we shall be off at three to-morrow morning.

The steam in the boiler first warns of the coming bustle as its great bubbles burst inside, and rattle the iron plates. Then, being more frequent and tighter bound, they give out a low moaning, hidden rumble; and if the boat touches the side of the steamer, there is a strong vibration through all her sonorous planks, until some tap is turned in the engine, and the rush of steam leaps into the cylinder as if indignant at its long restraint. You had better get up now (there is no dressing, for the simple reason that there has been no undressing), and in two minutes you are fresh and hearty, though it is only a few hours since you dropped to rest.

Rouen looks as if it would be all that is pleasant for a sailing-boat to rest in. Never was a greater deception. It is difficult to find an anchorage, and impossible to get a quiet berth by the quay. The bustle all day, and the noise all night, keep you ever on the tenterhooks; though, as these discomforts are caused by the active commerce of the port, one ought to bear them patiently.

In one of the numerous melees of barges, boats, and steamers whirling round and round, amid entangled hawsers, and a swift stream, we had at last to invoke aid from shore, and a number of willing loungers gladly hauled on my rope. Some of these men, when I thanked them, said they had more to thank me for,—the books I had given them in my voyage up. Still, with all this aid, the Rob Roy was inextricably entangled with other heavier craft, and, in shoving her off I tumbled overboard, and had to put up with a thorough wetting; so, after a warm bath ashore, more a la mode, I returned to my little cabin for a profound sleep.

Rain, almost ceaseless for a whole day and night, had searched the smallest chink, and trickled ungraciously into my very bed-room. But I suspended an iron tea-cup in the dark just over my body, so that one little stream was intercepted. This was the first really hard pressure of wet on the Rob Roy, and all the defects it brought to light were entirely remedied afterwards at Cowes.

On each of the four preceding nights I had been aroused for the next day's work at three, or two, or even one o'clock, in the dark, and yet for one night more there was to be no regular repose.

My mast had been made fast to the quay wall, but in forgetfulness that on a tidal river this fastening must be such as to allow for several feet of fall as the water ebbs. Therefore, about the inevitable hour of one o'clock, in the dark, there was a loud and ominous crack and jerk from the rope, and I knew too well the cause. In the rainy night it was a troublesome business to arrange matters, and next day was a drowsy one with me, spent in the strange old streets of the town.

The policeman had orders to call me at any hour when a steamer went by, and, being hooked at last to the powerful twin-screw Du Tremblay, with a pleasant captain, I rejoiced to near the very last bridge on the river, with the feeling at heart, "After this we are done with fresh-water sailing."

It was a suspension-bridge, and the worthy captain forgot all about the Rob Roy and her mast, when he steered for a low part, where his own funnel could pass because it was lowered, but where I saw in a moment my mast must strike.

There was no time to call out, nor would it have availed even to chop the towing-line with my axe, for the boat had too much "way" on her to stop. Therefore I could only duck down into the well, to avoid the falling spars and the splinters.

The bridge struck the mast about two feet from the top, and, instead of its breaking off with a short snap, the mast bent back and back at least four feet just as if it were a fishing rod, to my great amazement. The strong vibration of its truck (pomme the French call it), throbbed every nerve of boat and man, as it scraped over each plank above, and then the mast sprang up free from the bridge with such a switch, that it burst the lashings of both the iron shrouds merely by this rebound.

Now was felt the congratulation that we had carefully secured a first-rate mast for the Rob Roy, one of the pieces of Vancouver wood, proved, by the competitions lately held, to be the strongest of all timber.

The moments of expected disaster and of happy relief were vivid as they passed, but I made the steamer stop, and on climbing the mast, I found not even the slightest crack or injury there. Henceforth we shall trust the goodly spar in any gale, with the confidence only to be had by a crucial test like this.

As we shall soon be at sea again, but the river is calm enough here, perhaps this will be a fit opportunity for the reader to peep into Rob Roy's cave as it was usually made up for the night.

The floor of the cabin is made of thin mahogany boards, resting on cross-beams. The boards are loose, so that even in bed I can pull one up, and thus get at my cellar or at the iron pigs of ballast. The bed is of cork, about seven feet long and three feet wide. On this (for it was rather hardish) I put a plaid, {150} and then a railway rug, which being coloured, had been substituted for a blanket, as the white wool of the latter insisted on coming off, and gave an untidy look to my thick blue boating-jacket.

One fold of the rug was enough for an ample covering, and I never once was cold in the cabin.

A large pillow was encased by day in blue (the uniform colour of all my decorations), and it was stripped at night to be soft and smooth for the cheek of the sleeper.

Putting under this my coats and a regulation woven Jersey, with the yacht's name worked in red across its breast in regular sailor's fashion, the pillow became a most comfortable cushion, and the woodcut shows me reclining in the best position for reading or writing, as if on a good sofa. On my right hand behind is a candle-lamp, with a very heavy stand. It rests upon a shelf, which can be put in any convenient place by a simple arrangement.

[Picture: The Cabin]

In the sketch already given at p. 41, there is a tarpaulin spread over the well, and this was used on one occasion when we had to cook in rain while at anchor. {151}

On the same side, and below the boxes, "Tools" and "Eating," already mentioned, are two large iron cases, labelled "Prog,"—a brief announcement which vastly troubled the brains of several French visitors, whose English etymology did not extend to such curt terms.

In these heavy boxes are cases of preserved meats, soups, and vegetables, and these I found perfectly satisfactory in every respect, when procured at a proper place (Morel's in Piccadilly). Here you can get little tin cases, holding half a pint each and sealed up hermetically. {152}

To cook one of these tins full—which, with bread and wine is an ample dinner—you cut the top circle with the lever-knife, but allowing it to be still attached by a small part to the tin, and fold this lid part back for a handle.

Then put the tin into a can of such a shape and size that it has about half an inch of water all round the tin, but not reaching too high up, else it may bubble over when boiling, and as you can use salt water or muddy water for this water-jacket, it will not do to sprinkle any of that inside the tin.

The can is then hung over the Rob Roy lamp, and in six minutes the contents of the tin are quite hot. Soup takes less time, and steak perhaps a little more, depending on the facility of circulation of the materials in the tin and the amount of wind moderating the heat. The preserved meat or soup has been thoroughly cooked before it is sold, and it has sauce, gravy, and vegetables, and the oxtail has joints, all properly mixed. Therefore, in this speedy manner your dinner is prepared, and indeed it will be smoking hot and ready before you can get the table laid, and the "things" set out from the pantry.

Concentrated soup I took also, but it has a tame flavour, so it was put by for a famine time, which never came. As for "Liebig's Extract of Meat," you need not starve while there is any left, but that is the most we can say in its favour.



CHAPTER XI.

High tide—Seine pilot—To bed—Terrible scene—A tumble in—In the swell—Novel steeling—The Empress—Puzzled—Night thoughts—The Start—A draft on the deck—Balloon jib—On the deep.

On the Seine there is a tide phenomenon, called the barre, as in English rivers the bore, which, when not provided for, is very dangerous, especially at spring tides. The water then rushes up the narrowing funnel-shaped estuary, in a broad and swelling wave, sometimes four feet high, and this will sweep off even large vessels from their anchors, and it causes many wrecks.

On a former occasion when I happened to be in this neighbourhood, a high tide had been truly predicted by astronomers, which would culminate at the little town of Caudebec on the Seine, but would also rise higher than ever known before on all the adjacent coasts.

The news of this coming wonder spread over France, and there being then a lull in Europe as to revolutions, &c. (except, of course, the perennial revolution in Spain), the quidnuncs of the provinces had to run to the coast for an excitement. Excursion trains, and heavily-laden steamers poured volumes of people into Caudebec, and many of them had never seen salt sea before. At the fashionable bathing-town of Trouville the sight was a strange one when thousands of expectant observers paraded the soft white sand as the full moon shone on a waveless sea, and the brilliant dresses of the ladies coloured the beautiful tableau.

The tide flowed and flowed; it bubbled over the usual bounds of the shore; it trickled into the bathing sheds; it swelled still higher upon the trim-kept promenade, until it lapped the highest point and then went gently down again. Eclipses and tides are patent proofs to the people that physical science can appeal to. The "music of the spheres" hath also a true rhythm, "There is neither speech nor language but their voices are heard."

To escape this barre on the Seine, our steamer anchored by the quaint old town of Quilleboeuf with other vessels; and, though the wind howled and the rain poured, the hill beside us sheltered all from its blasts, which were too wild and powerful in the sea outside to allow us to proceed next day. {156}

However, our Seine pilot pointed to an English steamer "which dared not go out;" so any remonstrance on the subject was silenced, and then he boldly asked if I would like a pilot on board the Rob Roy (towed by the steamer all the time), and I had sufficient command of countenance to decline with due gravity. Better, perhaps, it would have been for me not to carry then so much of the John Bull into these strange waters, as will be seen from what occurred that night.

The tide rushed up with extraordinary strength, until it was quite full. Then it paused for five minutes, and again it set off in the opposite direction with the same fury, increased, too, by the stream and the wind being also down the river.

At each of these changes every vessel, of course, swung round to its anchor, and so must have loosened its hold, while all the water picture changed from right to left like a scene shifted on the stage. During this short interval of quiet you could row ashore, but to get back again was almost impossible when the full torrent of water ran in straight.

As night came on I noticed that our steamer's anchor was dragging, and that other steam vessels, more on the alert, were easing the strain on their cables by working their engines at half power all the time.

"Captain, we are dragging anchor." "No, sir," he said, "you are mistaken." "I am sure we are dragging: I have watched for ten minutes." "No, sir, I am certain we do not drag." He said this with such firmness, that I confidingly believed it, and turned into bed.

But it was not to sleep, except in fitful snatches. The sound of the water hurrying by my side, like a mill race, and within a few inches of my ear, had a strange and unwonted effect, not now to soothe, but to drive sleep away. Bits of wood and other debris often struck my mahogany sounding-board with a loud thump, until I became accustomed even to this, and was in a dreamy dozing about one o'clock.

Then there came a new noise,—a low, steady rap, tap, tap, tap, on the boat, and from underneath. For a moment or two there was a sensation without apprehension,—a sort of mesmeric, irresistible spell; but a sudden thought burst through the trance, and with a powerful impression of what was doing—one no less horrid than true—I dashed off covering, roof, hatchway, and all, and stood upon deck to meet a terrible scene.

Our steamer had drifted in the dark until we closed upon another steamboat astern. My yawl, tied to the stern of one, was between that and the bows of the other, the anchor chain of which had already got underneath the waist of the Rob Roy, and had been ringing the rap, tap, tap of a warning that undoubtedly saved her life. Light flashed from the riding lamp at the steamer's bow full on my boat's deck, which was now heeled over deeply until the dark water rushed through her gunwale; it seemed that only a few seconds more and the poor little yawl would sink in the flood, or be ground into splinters by the two great iron monsters nearing each instant in the dark.

All this was noticed in the same rapid glance which in such dangers grasps a whole scene in a moment and stamps it in the mind for years.

My boat hung on the cold iron chain, yet it wavered with equal poise to go this way or that. If she could be swerved to the stern she might possibly escape destruction, but if to the other side, then the strong rope at her bow would entirely prevent her escape. With a loud shout to arouse the crews I put every atom of bodily force into one strenuous shove, straining nerve and muscle in the desperate effort until I could not see. She trembled and surged—it was successful, and I fell into the water, but my yawl was saved. {159a}

Crash came the two steamers together. I heeded nothing of their din and smashing, and the uproar of the men, but I scrambled all wet into my cabin, nervously shaking with excitement and a chattering of teeth. Then I sat down to sum up my bruises,—a barked shin, sprained thigh, and bleeding cheek-bone; and a hapless object I must have seemed, bathing, by turns, my leg, and shin, and face, from a brandy bottle, and then a gulp inside. In a survey of the yawl made next day, there was to be seen (as still there is) the marks of the iron chain-links deeply impressed in the mahogany planks of her waist. The piece of wood that bears these mementoes of that night's deed might well be cut out and kept as a curious memorial. The bowsprit also was found to have been nipped at the end (though it had been drawn in close to the stem), and the squeeze had quite flattened the strong iron ring upon it, and jammed up the wood into a pulp as if it were cork. {159b}

The weather did not moderate next day, but we started nevertheless, and when the waves of the wider sea were tumbling in I expected to have a wetting as in passing here before; but the sea was in fine long swells, and so the yawl rode over them buoyantly. Also the large twin-screw tugboat is far more pleasant to follow than the smaller steamer with its two paddle-wheels, one at each side of the stern. {160}

In another way also I managed better than before while undergoing the process of being towed. I set the hatch of the well in front of me, and then allowed the reflection of the funnel of the steamer upon the wet deck of my boat to be seen through a chink, while my head and body were entirely concealed and completely sheltered from spray.

Now, having marked where this reflection rested, when I was exactly in a proper line abaft the steamer, I was enabled to steer altogether by the shadowy image, although I could not see the object itself to which I was directing the bow of my boat. The captain and crew of the steamer were very much astonished with this proceeding. {161}

Arriving at Havre on July 21, there was need for a good rest, and the port was suited for it. There is quiet water in a sequestered nook of the harbour and plenty of amusement on shore. Havre, too, was in a state of much excitement, for the Empress was about to embark thence for England, and the Imperial yacht was in the basin, with a splendid crew on board. In the evening the Emperor also came to the town, to escort his wife when she embarked, and as his carriage drove past the crowd ran after it hallooing.

The last time I had seen the Empress Eugenie was under somewhat peculiar circumstances; she was floating in the sea, and we shall tell more of her Majesty afloat in a future page, when fair bathers at Margate appear.

The beautiful English yacht 'Vindex' was on the gridiron with the Rob Roy; that is to say, on a sunk stage of wood, on which you can place a vessel, if it is desired to examine or repair its hull and keel when the tide leaves it there dry.

'Vindex' had come to the Havre Regatta, and as she had won the prize there in the previous year a great deal of interest was shown about her now. But the regatta on this occasion was by no means interesting, for the wind fell into calm, and it was merely a drifting match.