(_Extracts from the Travel Diary of Toby, M.P._)
_Gulf of Lyons, Friday._--The casual traveller on Continental railways,
especially in France, is familiar with the official attitude towards the
hapless wayfarer. The leading idea is to make the journey as difficult
and as uncomfortable as possible. The plan is based on treatment of
parcels or baggage. The passenger is bundled about, shunted, locked up
in waiting-rooms, and finally delivered in a limp state at whatever hour
and whatsoever place may suit the convenience of the railway people.
Discover the same spirit dominant in management and arrangements of the
sea service. Steamer from Marseilles to Tunis advertised to sail to-day
at noon. On taking tickets, ordered to be on board at ten o'clock.
Why two hours before starting? Gentleman behind counter shrugs his
shoulders, hugs his ribs with his elbows, holds out his hands with
deprecatory gesture and repeats, "_À dix heures, Monsieur_."
Gestures even more eloquent than speech. Plainly mean that unless we are
alongside punctually at ten o'clock our blood, or rather our passage,
will be on our own heads. Spoils a morning; might have gone about town
till eleven o'clock; breakfasted at leisure; sauntered on board a few
minutes before noon. However, when in Marseilles chant the
"_Marseillaise_."
Down punctually at ten; found boat in course of loading; decks full of
dirt and noise, the shouting of men, the creaking of the winch, the
rattling of the chains. Best thing to do is to find our cabin, stow away
our baggage, and walk on the quay, always keeping our eye on the boat
lest she should suddenly slip her moorings and get off to sea without
us. Look out for steward. Like the Spanish fleet, steward is not yet in
sight. Roaming about below, come upon an elderly lady, with a lame leg,
an alarming squint, and a waist like a ship's. (Never saw a ship's
waist, but fancy no mortal man could get his arm round it.) The elderly
lady, who displayed signs of asthma, tells me she is the stewardess. Ask
her where is our cabin. "_Voilà_," she says. Following the direction of
her glance, I make for a berth close by. Discover I had not made
allowance for the squint; she is really looking in another direction.
Carefully taking my bearings by this new light, I make for another
passage; find it blocked up; stewardess explains that they are loading
the ship--apparently through the floor of our cabin. "_Tout à l'heure_,"
she says, with comprehensive wave of the hand.
Nothing to be done but leave our baggage lying about, go on deck, and
watch the loading. Better not leave the ship. If the laborious Frenchmen
in blouses and perspiration see our trunks, they will certainly pop them
into the hold, where all kinds of miscellaneous parcels, cases and bales
are being chucked without the slightest attempt at fitting in.
A quarter to twelve; only fifteen minutes now; getting hungry; had
coffee and bread and butter early so as not to miss the boat. Watch a
man below in the hold trying to fit in a bicycle with a
four-hundredweight bale, a quarter-ton case, and a barrel of cement.
Evidently piqued at resistance offered by the apparently frail,
defenceless contrivance. Tries to bend the fore wheel so as to
accommodate the cask; that failing, endeavours to wind the hind wheel
round the case; failing in both efforts, he just lays the bicycle loose
on the top of the miscellaneous baggage and the hatch is battened down.
In the dead unhappy night that followed, when the sea was on the deck, I
often thought of the bicycle cavorting to and fro over the serrated
ridge of the cargo.
Ten minutes to twelve; a savoury smell from the cook's galley. Suppose
_déjeuner_ will be served as soon as we leave the dock. Heard a good
deal of superiority of French cooking aboard ship as compared with
British. Some compensation after all for getting up early, swallowing
cup of coffee and bread and butter, and rushing off to catch at ten
o'clock a ship that sails at noon. Perhaps the cloth is laid now; better
go and secure places. Find saloon. Captain and officers at breakfast,
their faces illumined with the ecstasy born to a Frenchman when he finds
an escargot on his plate.
Evidently they are breakfasting in good time so as to take charge of the
ship whilst _nous autres_ succeed to the pleasures of the table. What's
our hour, I wonder? Find some one who looks like a steward; ask him;
says, "_Cinq heures et demie_." A little late that for breakfast, I
diffidently suggest. Explains not breakfast but dinner; first meal at
5.30 P.M. Can't we have _déjeuner_ if I pay for it? I ask,
ostentatiously shaking handful of coppers in trousers-pocket. No, he
says, severely; that's against the _règlement_.
Steamer starts in seven minutes; noticed at dock-gates women with
baskets of dubious food; dash off to buy some; clutch at a plate of
sandwiches, alleged to be compacted of _jambon de York_. Get back just
as gangway is drawn up. Sit on deck and munch our sandwiches. "I know
that Ham," said Sark, moodily. "It came out of the Ark."
Recommitted it to the waves, giving it the bearings for Ararat. Ate the
bread and wished half-past five or Blucher would come.
* * * * *
A lovely day in Marseilles; not a breath of wind stirred the blue water
that laved the white cliffs on which Château d'If stands. Shall have a
lovely passage. Make ourselves comfortable on deck with cushions and
books. Scarcely outside the harbour when a wind sprang up from S.E. dead
ahead of us. The sea rose with amazing rapidity; banks of leaden-hued
clouds obscured the sun-light; then the rain swished down; saloon deck
cleared; passengers congregated under shelter in the saloon; as the
cranky little steamer rolled and pitched, the place emptied. When at
5.30 the dinner-bell rang, only six took their places, and all declined
soup. With the darkness the storm rose. If the ship could have made up
its mind either to roll or to pitch, it could have been endured. It had
an agonising habit of leaping up with apparent intent to pitch, and,
changing its mind, rolling over, groaning in every plank. Every third
minute the nose of the ship being under water, and the stern clear out,
the screw leaped full half-length in the air, sending forth
blood-curdling sounds. Midway came a fearsome crash of crockery, the
sound reverberating above the roar of the wind, and the thud of the
water falling by tons on the deck, making the ship quiver like a spurred
horse.
"I begin to understand now," said Sark, "how the walls of Jericho fell."
Much trouble with the Generalissimo. When he came aboard at Marseilles
he suffused the ship with pleasing sense of the military supremacy of
Great Britain. Has seen more than seventy summers, but still walks with
sprightly step and head erect. The long droop of his carefully-curled
iron-grey moustache is of itself sufficient to excite terror in the
bosom of the foe. The Generalissimo has not the word retreat in his
vocabulary. He was one of the six who to-night sat at the dinner-table
and deftly caught scraps of meat and vegetable as the plates flew past.
But after dinner he collapsed. Thought he had retired to his berth;
towards nine o'clock a faint voice from the far end of the cabin led to
discovery of him prone on the floor, where he had been flung from one of
the benches. We got him up, replaced him tenderly on the bench, making a
sort of barricade on the offside with bolsters. A quarter of an hour
later the ship gave a terrible lurch to leeward; the screw hoarsely
shrieked; another batch of crockery crashed down; above the uproar, a
faint voice was heard moaning, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
We looked at the bench where we had laid the Generalissimo, his martial
cloak around him. Lo! he was not.
Guided by former experience, we found him under the table. Evidently no
use propping him up. So with the cushions we made a bed on the floor,
and the old warrior securely slept, soothed by the swish of the water
that crossed and recrossed the cabin floor as the ship rolled to leeward
or to starboard.
When the Generalissimo came aboard at Marseilles, surveying the
fortifications of the harbour as if he intended storming them, his
accent suggested that if not of foreign birth, he had lived long in
continental courts and camps. Odd to note how, as his physical
depression grew, an Irish accent softened his speech, till at length he
murmured of misery in the mellifluous brogue of County Cork.
Pretty to see the steward when the flood in the saloon got half a foot
deep ladle it out with a dustpan.
_Tunis, Monday_, 1 A.M.--Just limped in here with deck cargo washed
overboard, bulwarks stove in, engine broken down, an awesome list to
port, galley so clean swept the cook doesn't know it, the cabins
flooded, and scarce a whole bit of crockery in the pantry. Twenty-one
hours late; not bad on a thirty-six-hours' voyage.
Captain comforts us with assurance that having crossed the Mediterranean
man and boy for forty years, he never went through such a storm. Have
been at sea a bit myself; only once, coasting in a small steamer off
Japan, have I seen--or, since it was in the main pitch dark,
felt--anything like it. Generalissimo turned up at dinner last night,
his moustache a little draggled, but his port once more martial. His
chief lament is, that going down to his berth yesterday morning, having
spent Friday night in the security of the saloon floor, he found his
boots full of water. This brings out chorus of heartrending experience.
Every cabin flooded; boxes and portmanteaus floating about. Sark and I
spent a more or less cosy night in the saloon. To us entered
occasionally one of the crew ostentatiously girt with a life-belt. Few
incidents so soothing on such a night. Fortunately, we did not hear
till entering port how in the terror of the night two conscripts, bound
for Bizerta, jumped overboard and were seen no more.
"If this is the way they usually get to Tunis," says Sark, "I hope the
French will keep it all to themselves. In this particular case, there is
more in the Markiss's 'graceful concession' than meets the eye."
* * * * *
RIVER GAMBLING.--"Punting," says the _Daily News_, "has become a very
fashionable form of amusement on the Upper Thames." So it is at Monte
Carlo. Punting is given up by all who find themselves in hopelessly low
water.
* * * * *
LIVE WHILE YOU MAY.--_Timid Passenger_ (_as the gale freshened_). "Is
there any danger?" _Tar_ (_ominously_). "Well, them as likes a good
dinner had better hev it to-day!"
* * * * *
SATISFACTORY.--We are glad to be able to report that the gentleman who
one day last week, while walking on the bank of the Thames near Henley,
fell in with a friend, is doing well. His companion is also progressing
favourably.
* * * * *
[Illustration: TOO SOLID
_Skipper._ "Did ye got the proveesions Angus?"
_Angus._ "Ay, ay! A half loaf, an' fouer bottles o' whiskey."
_Skipper._ "An' what in the woarld will ye be doin' wi' aal that
bread?"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: RESIGNATION
_Sympathetic Old Gentleman._ "I'm sorry to see your husband suffer so,
ma'am. He seems very----"
_Lady Passenger_ (_faintly_). "Oh dear! He isn't my husband. 'Sure I
don't know who the ge'tleman is!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: A FLIGHT OF FANCY
_Visitor._ "Good morning: tide's very high this morning, eh?"
_Ancient Mariner._ "Ar, if the sea was all _beer_, there wouldn' be no
bloomin' 'igh tides!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: A QUESTION OF HOSPITALITY AT HENLEY
"Unbidden guests are often welcomest when they are
gone."--_Shakespeare._]
* * * * *
[Illustration: A DELICIOUS SAIL--OFF DOVER
_Old Lady._ "Goodness gracious, Mr. Boatman! What's that?"
_Stolid Boatman._ "That, mum! Nuthun, mum. Only the Artillery a
prac-_ti_-sin', and that's one o' the cannon balls what's just struck
the water!!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: POOR HUMANITY!
_Bride._ "I think--George, dear--I should--be better--if we walked
about----"
_Husband_ (_one wouldn't have believed it of him_). "You can do as you
like, love. I'm very well (!) as I am!!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Intelligent Foreigner._ "I am afraid zey are not much
use, zeze grand works of yours at Dovaire. Vot can zey do against our
submarines?--our leetle Gustave Zêde? Ah, ze submarine e' is mos
terrible, an' ze crews also--ze matelots--zey are 'eroes! Vy, every time
zey go on board of him zey say goodbye to zer vives an' families!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: A TRYING MOMENT
_Doris._ "Oh, Jack, here come those Sellerby girls! Do show them how
beautifully you can punt."]
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE HEIGHT OF IMPROPRIETY
_Miss Grundison, Junior._ "There goes Lucy Holroyd, all alone in a boat
with young Snipson, as usual! So imprudent of them!"
_Her Elder Sister._ "Yes; how shocking if they were upset and
drowned--without a chaperon, you know!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: LOCAL OPTION
_Captain of Clyde steamer_ (_to stoker, as they sighted their port_).
"Slack awee, Donal', slack awee"--(_he was interested in the liquors
sold_)--"they're drencken haurd yenoo!!"]
* * * * *
'ARRY ON A 'OUSE-BOAT
[Illustration]
Dear Charlie,--It's 'ot, and no error!
Summer on us, at last, with a bust;
Ninety odd in the shade as I write, I've a 'ed, and a thunderin'
thust.
Can't go on the trot at this tempryture, though I'm on 'oliday
still;
So I'll pull out my _eskrytor_, Charlie, and give you a touch of
my quill.
If you find as my fist runs to size, set it down to that quill,
dear old pal;
Correspondents is on to me lately, complains as I write like a gal.
Sixteen words to the page, and slopscrawly, all dashes and blobs.
Well, it's true;
But a quill and big sprawl is the fashion, so wot is a feller to do?
Didn't spot you at 'Enley, old oyster--I did 'ope you'd shove in
your oar.
We 'ad a rare barney, I tell you, although a bit spiled by the pour.
'Ad a invite to 'Opkins's 'ouse-boat, prime pitch, and swell party,
yer know,
Pooty girls, first-class lotion, and music. I tell yer we did let
things go.
Who sez 'Enley ain't up to old form, that Society gives it the slip?
Wish you could 'ave seen us--and heard us--old boy, when aboard of
our ship.
Peonies and poppies ain't in it for colour with our little lot,
And with larfter and banjos permiskus we managed to mix it up 'ot.
My blazer was claret and mustard, my "stror" was a rainbow gone
wrong!
I ain't one who's ashamed of his colours, but likes 'em mixed
midd-lingish strong.
'Emmy 'Opkins, the fluffy-'aired daughter, a dab at a punt or canoe,
Said I looked like a garden of dahlias, and showed up her neat
navy blue.
[Illustration]
Fair mashed on yours truly, Miss Emmy; but that's only jest by the
way,
'Arry ain't one to brag of _bong jour tunes_; but wot I wos wanting
to say
Is about this here "spiling the River" which snarlers set down to
our sort.
Bosh! Charlie, extreme Tommy rot! It's these sniffers as want to
spile sport.
Want things all to theirselves, these old jossers, and all on the
strictest Q. T.
Their idea of the Thames being "spiled" by the smallest suggestion
of spree,
Wy, it's right down rediklus, old pal, gives a feller the dithreums
it do.
I mean going for them a rare bat, and I'm game to wire in till
all's blue.
Who are they, these stuckuppy snipsters, as jaw about quiet and
peace,
Who would silence the gay "constant-screamer" and line the Thames
banks with perlice;
Who sneer about "'Arry at 'Enley," and sniff about "cads on the
course,"
As though it meant "Satan in Eden"? I'll 'owl at sich oafs till
I'm 'oarse!
Scrap o' sandwich-greased paper 'll shock 'em, a ginger-beer
bottle or "Bass,"
Wot 'appens to drop 'mong the lilies, or gets chucked aside on
the grass,
Makes 'em gasp like a frog in a frying-pan. Br-r-r-r! Wot old
mivvies they are!
Got nerves like a cobweb, I reckon, a smart banjo-twang makes
'em jar.
I'm toffy, you know, and no flies, Charlie; swim with the swells,
and all that,
But _I_'m blowed if this bunkum don't make me inclined to turn
Radical rat.
"Riparian rights," too! Oh scissors! They'd block the backwaters
and broads,
Because me and my pals likes a lark! Serve 'em right if old Burns
busts their 'oards!
Rum blokes, these here Sosherlist spouters! There's Dannel the
Dosser, old chap,
As you've 'eard me elude to afore. Fair stone-broker, not wuth
'arf a rap--
Knows it's all Cooper's ducks with _him_, Charlie; won't run to
a pint o' four 'arf,
And yet he will slate me like sugar, and give me cold beans with
his charf.
Sez Dannel--and dash his darned cheek, Charlie!--"Monkeys like
you"--meaning _Me_!--
"Give the latter-day Mammon his chance. Your idea of a lark or
a spree
Is all Noise, Noodle-Nonsense, and Nastiness! Dives, who wants
an excuse
For exclusiveness, finds it in _you_, you contemptible
coarse-cackling goose!
"Riparian rights? That's the patter of Ahab to Naboth, of course;
But 'tis pickles like you make it plausible, louts such as you give
it force.
You make sweet Thames reaches Gehennas, the fair Norfolk Broads
you befoul;
You--_you_, who'd make Beulah a hell with your blatant Bank
Holiday howl!
"Decent property-owners abhor you; you spread your coarse feasts
on their lawns,
And 'Arry's a hog when he feeds, and an ugly Yahoo when he yawns;
You litter, and ravage, and cock-sky; you romp like a satyr obscene,
And the noise of you rises to heaven till earth might blush red
through her green.
"You are moneyed, sometimes, and well-tailored; but come you from
Oxford or Bow,
You're a flaring offence when you lounge, and a blundering pest when
you row;
Your 'monkeyings' mar every pageant, your shindyings spoil
every sport,
And there isn't an Eden on earth but's destroyed when it's
'Arry's resort.
"Then monopolist Mammon may chuckle, Riparian Ahabs rejoice;
There's excuse in your Caliban aspect, your hoarse and ear-torturing
voice,
You pitiful Cockney-born Cloten, you slum-bred Silenus, 'tis you
Spoil the silver-streamed Thames for Pan-lovers, and all the
nymph-worshipping crew!"
I've "reported" as near as no matter! I don't hunderstand more
than arf
Of his patter; he's preciously given to potry and classical charf.
But the cheek on it, Charlie! A Stone-broke! I _should_ like to give
him wot for,
Only Dannel the Dosser's a dab orf of whom 'tain't so easy to score.
But it's time that this bunkum was bunnicked, bin fur too much on
it of late--
Us on 'Opkins's 'ouse-boat, I tell yer, cared nix for the
ink-spiller's "slate."
_I_ mean doin' them Broads later on, for free fishing and shooting,
that's flat.
If I don't give them dash'd Norfolk Dumplings a doing, I'll eat my
old 'at.
Rooral quiet, and rest, and refinement? Oh, let 'em go home and
eat coke.
These fussy old footlers whose 'air stands on hend at a row-de-dow
joke,
The song of the skylark sounds pooty, but "skylarking" song's
better fun,
And you carn't do the rooral to-rights on a tract and a tuppenny bun.
As to colour, and kick-up, and sing-song, our party was fair to
the front;
But we wosn't alone; lots of toppers, in 'ouse-boat, or four-oar,
or punt,
Wos a doin' the rorty and rosy as lively as 'Opkins's lot,
Ah! the swells sling it out pooty thick; _they_ ain't stashed by no
ink-spiller's rot.
Bright blazers, and twingle-twang banjoes, and bottles of Bass,
my dear boy,
Lots of dashing, and splashing, and "mashing" are things every man
must enjoy,
And the petticoats ain't fur behind 'em, you bet. While top-ropes
I can carry,
It ain't soap-board slop about "Quiet" will put the clear kibosh
on 'Arry.
* * * * *
"JAM" NON "SATIS."
(_A Lay of Medmenham, by a Broken-hearted Boating Man landing from the
Thames, who was informed that, by the rules of the Hotel, visitors were
not allowed jam with their tea if served in the garden._)
There's a river hotel that is known very well,
From the turmoil of London withdrawn,
Between Henley and Staines, where this strange rule obtains--
That you must not have jam on the lawn.
In the coffee-room still you may eat what you will,
Such as chicken, beef, mutton, or brawn,
Jam and marmalade too, but, whatever you do,
Don't attempt to eat jam on the lawn.
Young Jones and his bride sought the cool river side,
And she said, as she skipped like a fawn,
"As it _is_, it is nice, but 'twould be paradise,
Could we only have jam on the lawn!"
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE THAMES
(Development of the houseboat system)]
* * * * *
[Illustration: "DOWN IN THE DEEP"
Fun at Henley Regatta. Bertie attempts to extricate his punt from the
crowd.]
* * * * *
[Illustration: "I say, you girls, we shall be over in a second, and if
you can't swim better than you punt, I'm afraid I shan't be able to save
both of you!"]
* * * * *
[Illustration: A PLEDGED M.P. (1869).
_M.P.'s Bride._ "Oh! William, dear--if you are--a Liberal--do bring in a
Bill--next Session--for that underground tunnel!!"]
* * * * *