THE RIDE TO GENEVA.
"DEAR LUCY:
"I am going to give you an account of my night ride from Lyons to
Geneva.
"I got to the diligence office before father came, because I was going
to ride up in the bellows-top. I call it the bellows-top so that you may
understand it better. It is a place up in the second story of the
diligence, where there are seats for four persons, and a great
bellows-top over their heads. _I_ think it is the best place, though
people have to pay more for the coupe, which is right under it. I got
eight francs, which is more than a dollar and a half, for exchanging my
seat in the coupe for one on the banquette. I exchanged with a lady. I
suppose she did not like to climb up the ladder. You see in the coupe
you step right in as you would into a carriage; but you have to go up
quite a long ladder to get to the banquette. I counted the steps. There
were thirteen.
"When I got to the office, the men were using the ladder to put up the
baggage. They put the baggage on the top of the diligence, along the
whole length of it behind the bellows-top. They pack it all in very
closely, beginning immediately behind, and coming regularly forward, as
far as it will reach. There is a frame over it, and a great leather
covering. They pull the covering forward as fast as they get the trunks
packed, until at last the baggage is all covered over as far forward as
to the back of the bellows-top.
"The men were using the ladders when I came, getting up the baggage; so
I climbed up by the little steps that are made on the side of the
diligence. I liked my seat very much. Before me was a great leather
boot. The boot was fastened to an iron bar that went across in front, so
that it did not come against my knees. Above me was the bellows-top, to
keep off the rain. Up under the roof of the bellows-top there was a sash
folded together and fastened up by straps. I unfastened one of the
straps, and saw that I could let down the sash if I wished, and thus
make a glass window in front of me, so as to shut me in nicely from the
wind, if it should grow cold in the night. Behind me was a curtain. The
curtain was loose. I pushed it back, and found I could look out on the
top of the diligence where the men were at work packing the trunks and
baggage. The men wore blue frocks shaped like cartmen's frocks.[C]
[Footnote C: Such a frock is called a _blouse_--pronounced _blooze_.
Almost all working men in France wear them. Hence the class of workmen
in France are sometimes called the _blouses_.]
"Right before the boot was the postilion's seat. It was a little lower
than my seat, and was large enough for two. The conductor's seat was at
the end of my seat, under the bellows-top. There was one thing curious
about his seat, and that is, that there was a joint in the iron bar of
the boot, so that he could open his end of it, and get out and in
without disturbing the boot before the rest of the passengers. When I
wanted to get out I had to climb over the boot to the postilion's seat,
and so get down by the little iron steps.
"The reason I wanted to get down was so as to buy some oranges. There
was a woman down there with oranges to sell. She had them in a basket. I
thought perhaps that I might be thirsty in the night, and that I could
not get down very well to get a drink of water. So I climbed down and
bought four oranges. I bought one for myself, and two to give father and
mother, and one more because the woman looked so poor. Besides, they
were not very dear--only fifteen centimes apiece. It takes five centimes
to make a sou, and a sou is about as much as a cent.
"When I had bought my oranges I climbed up into my place again.
"There were several people beginning to come and stand about the door of
the bureau. I suppose they were the travellers. Some came in cabs, with
their trunks on before with the postilion. I counted up how many the
diligence would hold, and found that in all, including the two
postilion's seats, and the conductor's, that there were places for
twenty-one. But when we started we had twenty-four in all. Where the
other three sat you will see by and by.[D]
[Footnote D: The diligence is very large. It has four separate
compartments. For a more full account of the construction of the
vehicle, and for one or two engravings representing it, see Rollo's Tour
in Switzerland.]
"As fast as the passengers came to the office, the men took their
baggage and packed it with the rest, on the top of the diligence, and
the passengers themselves stood about the door, waiting for the horses
to be put in.
"Some of the passengers came on foot, with commissioners to bring their
baggage. The commissioners carried their baggage on their backs. They
had a frame something like an old-fashioned kitchen chair strapped to
their shoulders, and the baggage was piled upon this very high. One
commissioner that came had on his frame, first a big black trunk,
placed endwise, and then a portmanteau, then a carpet bag, and on the
top a bandbox. The bandbox reached far above his head. I should not
think they could possibly carry such heavy loads.
"Presently I saw father and mother coming in a cab. So I climbed down to
meet them. The men in the blouses took their trunk and carried it up the
ladder, and then I opened the coupe door for them, and let them get in.
I told mother that my place was exactly over her head, and that I was
then going to climb up to it, and that when I was there I would knock on
the floor, and she would know that I had got there safely; and I did.
"By and by they got all the baggage packed, and they pulled the great
leather covering over it, and fastened it to the back of the
bellows-top. Then I could push up the curtain behind me and look in at
the place where the baggage was stowed. It looked like a garret. It was
not quite full. There was room for several more trunks at the forward
end of it.
"Pretty soon after this they brought round the horses and harnessed them
in. Then the clerk came out of the bureau and called off the names of
the passengers from his list. First he called the names of those who
were to go in the coupe. He said, in a loud voice,--
"'Monsieur Holiday and Madame Holiday!'
"And he looked in at the coupe door, and father said, 'Here.'
"Then he called out,--
"'Madame Tournay!'
"That was the name of the lady that had changed places with me. So she
got into the coupe. That made the coupe full.
"In the same manner the clerk called off the names of those who were to
go in the interior, which is the centre compartment. The interior holds
six.
"Then he called off the names of those that were to go in the 'rotonde,'
which is the back compartment. You get into the rotonde by a door
behind, like the door of an omnibus.
"Then the clerk called out the names of the people that were to come up
to the banquette with me. There were six of them, and there seemed to be
only room for three. So I could not imagine where they were all going to
sit. They came in a row, one behind the other, up the ladder. Very soon
I saw how they were going to sit; for the three that came first--a man
and woman and a girl--when they came into the banquette, pushed up the
curtain at the back side of it, and so climbed in behind to the garret,
and sat on the trunks. When the curtain was down, after they were in,
they were all in the dark there.
"However, pretty soon they contrived to fasten up the curtain, and then
they could see out a little over our shoulders. The girl sat directly
behind me. I asked her if she could see, and she said she could, very
well.
"The postilion then climbed up, with the reins in his hand, and called
out to the horses to start on. He talked to his horses in French, and
they seemed to understand him very well. The great thing, though, was
cracking his whip. You can scarcely conceive how fast and loud he
cracked his whip, first on one side and then on the other, till the
whole court rang again. The horses sprang forward and trotted off at
great speed out of the place, and wheeled round the corner to the quay;
and while they were going, the conductor came climbing up the side of
the coach to his place.
"The conductor never gets into his place before the diligence starts. He
waits till the horses set out, and then jumps on to the step, and so
climbs up the side while the horses are going.
"A diligence is a monstrous great machine; and when it sets out on a
journey in a city, the rumbling of the wheels on the pavement, and the
clattering of the horses' feet, and the continual cracking of the
coachman's whip, and the echoes of all these sounds on the walls of the
buildings, make a wonderful noise and din, and every body, when the
diligence is coming, hurries to get out of the way. Indeed, I believe
the coachman likes to make all the noise he can; for he has sleigh bells
on the harness, and, besides cracking his whip, he keeps continually
shouting out to the horses and the teamsters on the road before him; and
whenever he is passing through a town or a village he does all this more
than any where else, because, as I suppose, there are more people there
to hear him.
"Presently, after driving along the quay a little way, we turned off to
one of the great stone bridges that lead across the Rhone. We went over
this bridge in splendid style. I could see far up and down the river,
and trains of wagons and multitudes of people going and coming on the
other bridges. The water in the river was running very swift. There were
some boats along the shore, but I don't see how the people could dare to
venture out in them in such a current.
"As soon as we had got over the bridge, we struck into a beautiful road
across the country, and the postilion cracked on faster and harder than
ever. We had five horses, three abreast before, and two behind. They
went upon the gallop, and the postilion kept cracking his whip about
them and over their ears all the time. I thought for a while that he was
whipping them; but when I leaned forward, so that I could look down and
see, I found that he did not touch them with his whip at all, but only
cracked the snapper about them, and shouted at them in French, to make
them go. The road was as hard and smooth as a floor, and it was almost
as white as a floor of marble.
"The country was very beautiful as long as we could see. There were no
fences, but there were beautiful fields on each side of the road,
divided into squares, like the beds of a garden, with all sorts of
things growing in them.
"Every now and then we came to a village. These villages were the
queerest looking places that you can imagine. They were formed of rows
of stone houses, close to each other and close to the street. They were
so close to the street, and the street was usually so narrow, that there
was scarcely room sometimes to pass through. I could almost shake hands
with the people looking out the second story windows. I cannot imagine
why they should leave the passage so narrow between the houses on such a
great road. If there were any people in the street of the village when
we went through, they had to back up against the wall when we passed
them, to prevent being knocked down.
"When we were going through any of these villages, the postilion drove
faster than ever. He would crack his whip, and cheer on his horses, and
make noise and uproar enough to frighten half the town.
"We went on in this way till it began to grow dark. The postilion handed
the lanterns up to the conductor, and he lighted them with some matches
that he carried in his pocket. The lanterns had reflectors in the back
of them, and were very bright. When the postilion put them back in their
places on the front of the coach, the light shone down on the road
before us, so that the way where the horses were going was as bright as
day.
[Illustration: GOING THROUGH THE VILLAGE.]
"After a time the moon rose, and that made it pretty bright every where.
Still I could not see very far, and as the people around me were
talking, I listened to what they were saying. The conductor was telling
stories about diligences that had been robbed. He said that once, when
he was travelling somewhere, the diligence was attacked by robbers, and
he was shot by one of them. He was shot in the neck; and he had to keep
in his bed six months before he got well. I listened as well as I could,
but the diligence made such a noise that I could not understand all
he said, and I did not hear where it was that this happened. I suppose
it was probably in Italy, for I have heard that there were a great many
robbers there.
"After a while I began to feel sleepy. I don't remember going to sleep,
for the first thing I knew after I began to feel sleepy was that I was
waking up. We were stopping to change horses. We stopped to change
horses very often--oftener than once an hour. When we changed horses we
always changed the postilion too. A new postilion always came with every
new team. It was only the conductor that we did not change. He went with
us all the way.
"We changed horses usually in a village; and it was very curious to see
what queer-looking hostlers and stable boys came out with the new teams.
Generally the hostlers were all ready, waiting for the diligence to
come; but sometimes they would be all asleep, and the conductor and the
postilion would make a great shouting and uproar in waking them up.
"When the new team was harnessed in, the new postilion would climb up to
his seat, with the reins in his hands, and, without waiting a moment, he
would start the horses on at full speed, leaving the poor conductor to
get on the best way he could. By the time the horses began to go on the
gallop, the conductor would come climbing up the side of the coach into
his place.
"It was curious to see how different the different teams were in regard
to the number of horses. Sometimes we had four horses, sometimes five,
and once we had seven. For a long time I could not tell what the reason
was for such a difference. But at last I found out. It was because some
of the stages were pretty nearly level, and others were almost all up
hill. Of course, where there was a great deal of up hill they required
more horses. At the time when they put on seven horses I knew that we
had come to a place where it was almost all up hill; and it was. The
road went winding around through a region of hills and valleys, but
ascending all the time. Still the road was so hard and smooth, and the
horses were so full of life, that we went on the full trot the whole
way. Four horses could not have done this, though, with such a heavy
load. It took seven.
"In almost all the villages we came to we saw long lines of wagons by
the road side. They were very curious wagons indeed. They were small.
Each one was to be drawn by one horse. There was no body to them, but
only two long poles going from the forward axletree to the back
axletree; and the load was packed on these poles, and covered with
canvas. It looked just like a big bundle tied up in a cloth. These were
wagons that had stopped for the night. Afterwards, when the morning
came, we overtook a great many trains of these wagons, on the road to
Geneva. They were loaded with merchandise going from France into
Switzerland. There was only one driver to the whole train. He went along
with the front wagon, and all the rest followed on in a line. The horses
were trained to follow in this way. Thus one man could take charge of a
train of six or eight wagons.
"There was one very curious thing in the arrangement, and that was, that
the last horse in the train had a bell on his neck, something like a cow
bell. This was to prevent the driver from having to look round
continually to see whether the rest of the horses were coming or not. As
long as he could hear the bell on the last one's neck he knew they were
all coming; for none of the middle ones could stop without stopping all
behind them.
"I suppose that sometimes some of the horses in the train would stop;
then the driver would observe that the bell ceased to ring, and he would
stop his own wagon, and go back to see what was the matter. If he found
that any of them stopped to eat grass by the way, or because they were
lazy, he would give them a whipping, and start them on, and that would
teach them to keep marching on the next time.
"I know what I would do if I were the last horse. Whenever I wanted to
stop and rest I would keep shaking my head all the time, and that would
make the driver think that I was coming along.
"One time, when we were stopping to change horses, I heard some one
below me calling to me,
"'Rollo!'
"I believe I was asleep at that time, and dreaming about something,
though I don't remember what it was. I started up and reached out as far
as I could over the boot, and looked down. I found it was my mother
calling to me.
"'Rollo,' says she, 'how do you get along?'
"'Very nicely indeed, mother,' says I; 'and how do you get along?'
"'Very well,' says she.
"Just then I happened to think of my oranges; so I asked mother if she
was not thirsty, and she said she was a little thirsty, but she did not
see how she could get any drink until the morning, for the houses were
all shut up, and the people were in bed and asleep. So I told her that I
had an orange for her and for father. She said she was very glad indeed.
"I could not get down very well to give the oranges to her, so I put
them in my little knapsack, and let them down by a string. I had the
string in my pocket.
"Mother took the oranges out of the knapsack, and then I pulled it up
again. I told her that I had plenty more for myself.
"Father cut a hole in one of the oranges that I sent down to mother, and
then she squeezed the juice of it out into her mouth. She said
afterwards that I could not conceive how much it refreshed her. I don't
think _she_ could conceive how glad I was that I had bought it for her.
"A little while after sunrise we came to a village where we were going
to change horses, and the conductor said that we should stop long enough
to go into the inn if we pleased, and get some coffee. So father and
mother got out of the coupe, and went in. I climbed down from my place,
and went with them. Mother said she went in more to see what sort of a
place the inn was than for the sake of the coffee.
"It was a very funny place. The floor was of stone. There was one table,
with cups on it for coffee, and plates, and bread and butter. The loaves
of bread were shaped like a man's arm--about as big round, and a good
deal longer. The coffee was very good indeed, on account of there being
plenty of hot milk to put into it.
"After we had had our breakfast we went on, and the rest of our ride was
through a most magnificent country. There was a long, winding valley,
with beautiful hills and mountains on each side, and a deep chasm in the
middle, with the River Rhone roaring and tumbling over the stones down
at the bottom of it. The road went wheeling on down long slopes, and
around the hills and promontories, with beautiful green swells of land
above it and below it. The horses went upon the run. The postilion had a
little handle close by his seat--a sort of crank--that he could turn
round and round, and so bring a brake to bear against the wheels, and
thus help to hold the carriage back. When he began to go down a slope he
would turn this crank round and round as fast as he could, till it was
screwed up tight, cheering the horses on all the time; and then he would
take his whip and crack it about their ears, and so we go down the
hills, and wheel round the great curves, almost on the run, and could
look down on the fields and meadows and houses in the valley, a thousand
feet below us. It was the grandest ride I ever had.
"But I have been so long writing this letter that I am beginning to be
tired of it, though I have not got yet to Geneva; so I am going to stop
now. The rest I will tell you when I see you.
"Your affectionate cousin,
"ROLLO."
"P.S. There is one thing more that I will tell you, and that is, that
we went through a castle at one place in the valley. It was a castle
built by the French to guard their frontier. Indeed, there were two
castles. The road passes directly through one of them, and the other is
high up on the rocks exactly above it. The valley is so narrow, and the
banks are so steep, that there is no other possible place for the road
except through the lower castle. The road has to twist and twine about,
too, just before it comes to the castle gates, and after it goes away
from them on the other side, so that every thing that passes along has
some guns or other pointing at them from the castle for more than a
mile. I don't see how any enemy could possibly get into France this way.
"There was also a place where the Rhone goes under ground, or, rather,
under the rocks, and so loses itself for a time, and then after a while
comes out again. It is a place where the river runs along in the bottom
of a very deep and rocky chasm, and the rocks have fallen down from
above, so as to fill up the chasm from one side to the other, and all
the water gets through underneath them. We looked down into the chasm as
the diligence went by, and saw the water tumbling over the rocks just
above the place where it goes down. I should have liked to stop, and to
climb down there and see the place, but I knew that the diligence would
not wait."