Hunger--Music at the mill--Sentiment and chops--River
Limmat--Fixed on a fall--On the river Aar--The Rhine
again--Douaniers--Falls of Lauffenburg--The cow cart.
The wetting and excitement of yesterday made me rather stiff in
beginning again; and anon, when a rushing sound was heard in front I was
aware of a new anxiety as to whether this might not mean the same sort
of rough work as yesterday's over again, whereas hitherto this sound of
breakers to come had always promised nothing but pleasure. However,
things very soon came back to their old way, a continuous and varied
enjoyment from morning to night.
The river was rapid again, but with no really difficult places. I saw
one raft in course of preparation, though there were not many boats, for
as the men there said, "How could we get boats _up_ that stream?"
The villages near the river were often so high up on lofty cliffs, or
otherwise unsuitable, that I went on for some miles trying in vain to
fix on one for my (No. 1) dinner. Each bend of the winding water held
out hopes that down there at last, or round that bluff cape at farthest,
there must be a proper place to breakfast. But when it was now long past
the usual hour, and the shores got less inhabited and hunger more
imperative, we determined to land at a mill which overhung the stream in
a picturesque spot.
I landed unobserved. This was a blunder in diplomacy, for the canoe was
always good as credentials; but I climbed up the bank and through the
garden, and found the hall door open; so I walked timidly into a large,
comfortable house, leaving my paddle outside lest it might be regarded
as a bludgeon. I had come as a beggar, not a burglar.
The chords of a piano, well struck and by firm fingers, led me towards
the drawing-room; for to hear music is almost to make sure of welcome in
a house, and it was so now.
My bows and reverences scarcely softened the exceedingly strange
appearance I must have made as an intruder, clothed in universal
flannel, and offering ten thousand apologies in French, German, and
English for thus dropping down from the clouds, that is to say, climbing
up from the water.
The young miller rose from the piano, and bowed. His fair sister
stopped her sweet song, and blushed. For my part, being only a sort of
"casual," I modestly asked for bread and wine, and got hopelessly
involved in an effort to explain how I had come by the river
unperceived. The excessive courtesy of my new friends was embarrassing,
and was further complicated by the arrival of another young lady, even
more surprised and hospitable.
Quickly the refreshments were set on the table, and the miller sealed
the intimacy by lighting his ample pipe. Our conversation was of the
most lively and unintelligible character, and soon lapsed into music,
when Beethoven and Goss told all we had to say in chants and symphonies.
The inevitable sketch-book whiled away a good hour, till the ladies were
joined by a third damsel, and the adventures of Ulysses had to be told
to three Penelopes at once. The miller's party became humorous to a
degree, and they resisted all my efforts to get away, even when the
family dinner was set on the board, and the domestic servants and
farm-labourers came in to seat themselves at a lower table. This was a
picture of rural life not soon to be forgotten.
The stately grandmamma of the mansion now advanced, prim and stiff, and
with dignity and matronly grace entreated the stranger to join their
company. The old oak furniture was lightened by a hundred little trifles
worked by the women, or collected by the tasteful diligence of their
brother; and the sun shone, and the mill went round, and the river
rolled by, and all was kindness, "because you are an Englishman."
The power of the _Civis Romanus_ is far better shown when it draws forth
kindness, than when it compels fear. But as respects the formal
invitation it would not do to stop and eat, and it would not do to stop
and not eat, or to make the potatoes get cold, or the granddames' dinner
too late; so I _must_ go, even though the girls had playfully hidden my
luggage to keep the guest among them.
The whole party, therefore, adjourned to the little nook where my boat
had been left concealed; and when they caught sight of its tiny form,
and its little fluttering flag, the young ladies screamed with delight
and surprise, clapping their hands and waving adieux as we paddled away.
I left this happy, pleasant scene with mingled feelings, and tried to
think out what was the daily life in this sequestered mill; and if my
paddling did for a time become a little sentimental, it may be pardoned
by travellers who have come among kind friends where they expected
perhaps a cold rebuff.
The romantic effect of all this was to make me desperately hungry, for
be it known that bread and wine and Beethoven will not do to dine upon
if you are rowing forty miles in the sun. So it must be confessed that
when an hour afterwards I saw an auberge by the water's edge it became
necessary to stifle my feelings by ordering an omelette and two chops.
The table was soon spread under a shady pear-tree just by the water, and
the Rob Roy rested gently on the ripples at my feet.
The pleasures of this sunny hour of well-earned repose, freshened by a
bunch of grapes and a pear plucked from above my head, were just a
little troubled by a slight apprehension that some day the miller's
sister might come by and hear how had been comforted my lacerated heart.
Again "to boat," and down by the shady trees, under the towering rocks,
over the nimble rapids, and winding among orchards, vineyards, and
wholesome scented hay, the same old story of constant varied pleasure.
The hills were in front now, and their contour showed that some rivers
were to join company with the Reuss, which here rolled on a fine broad
stream, like the Thames at Putney. Presently the Limmat flowed in at one
side, and at the other the river Aar, which last then gives the name to
all the three, though it did not appear to be the largest.
This is not the only Aar among the rivers, but it is the "old original
Aar," which Swiss travellers regard as an acquaintance after they have
seen it dash headlong over the rocks at Handek.
It takes its rise from two glaciers, one of them the Finster Aar
glacier, not far from Grimsel; and to me this gave it a special
interest, for I had been hard pushed once in the wilds near that homely
Hospice.
It was on an afternoon some years ago, when I came from the Furca, by
the Rhone glacier to the foot of the valley, walking with two Germans;
and as they were rather "muffs," and meant to stop there, I
thoughtlessly set off alone to climb the rocks and to get to the Grimsel
by myself.
This is easy enough in daylight, but it was nearly six o'clock when I
started, and late in September; so after a short half-hour of mounting,
the snow began to fall, and the darkness was not made less by the white
flakes drifting across it. By some happy conjuncture I managed to scale
the pathless mountain, and struck on a little stream which had often to
be forded in the dark, but was always leading to the desired valley.
At length the light of the Hospice shone welcome as a haven to steer
for, and I soon joined the pleasant English guests inside, and bought a
pair of trousers from the waiter at 3_s._ 6_d._ for a change in the wet.
But paddling on the Aar had no great danger where we met it now, for the
noisy, brawling torrent was sobered by age, and after much knocking
about in the world it had settled into a steady and respectable river.
A few of my friends, the snags, were however lodged in the water
hereabouts, and as they bobbed their heads in uneasy beds, and the river
was much discoloured, it became worth while to keep a sharp lookout for
them.
The "river tongue," explained already as consisting of sign language
with a parallel comment in loud English, was put to a severe test on a
wide stream like this. Consider, for example, how you could best ask the
following question (speaking by signs and English only) from a man who
is on the bank over there a hundred yards distant.
"Is it better for me to go over to those rocks, and keep on the left of
that island, or to pull my boat out at these stumps, and drag her on
land into this channel?"
One comfort is the man made out my meaning, for did he not answer, "Ya
vol?" He could not have done more had we both learned the same
language, unless indeed he had _heard_ what I said.
Mills occurred here and there. Some of these had the waterwheel simply
built on the river; others had it so arranged as to allow the shaft to
be raised or lowered to suit the varying height of water in floods and
droughts. Others had it floating on barges. Others, again, had a half
weir built diagonally across part of the river; and it was important to
look carefully at this wall so as to see on which side it ought to be
kept in selecting the best course. In a few cases there was another
construction; two half weirs, converged gradually towards the middle of
the river, forming a letter V, with its sharp end turned _up_ the
stream, and leaving a narrow opening there, through which a torrent
flowed, with rough waves dancing merrily in the pool below.
I had to "shoot" several of these, and at other times to get out and
lower the boat down them, in the manner explained before.
On one occasion I was in an unaccountably careless fit, and instead of
first examining the depth of the water on the edge of the little fall, I
resolved to go straight at it and take my chance.
It must be stated that while a depth of three inches is enough for the
canoe to float in when all its length is in the water, the same depth
will by no means suffice at the upper edge of a fall. For when the boat
arrives there the fore part, say six or seven feet of it, projects for a
time over the fall and out of the water, and is merely in the air,
without support, so that the centre of the keel will sink at least six
or seven inches; and if there be not more water than this the keel
catches the crest of the weir, and the boat will then stop, and perhaps
swing round, after which it must fall over sideways, unless considerable
dexterity is used in the management.
Although a case of this sort had occurred to me before, I got again into
the same predicament, which was made far more puzzling as the fore end
of the boat went under a rock at the bottom of the fall, and thus the
canoe hung upon the edge, and would go neither one way nor another.[XXIV.]
It would also have been very difficult to get out of the boat in this
position; for to jump feet foremost would have broken the boat--to
plunge in head first might have broken my head on the rocks below.
[XXIV.] This adventure was the result of temporary carelessness,
while that at the rapids was the result of impatience, for the passage
of these latter could probably have been effected without encountering
the central wave had an hour or two been spent in examining the place.
Let not any tourist, then, be deterred from a paddle on the Reuss, which
is a perfectly suitable river, with no unavoidable dangers.
[Illustration: "Fixed on the fall."]
The canoe was much wrenched in my struggles, which ended, however, by
man and boat tumbling down sideways, and, marvellous to say, quite
safely to the bottom.
This performance was not one to be proud of. Surely it was like
ingratitude to treat the Rob Roy thus, exposing it to needless risk when
it had carried me so far and so well.
The Aar soon flows into the Rhine, and here is our canoe on old Rhenus
once more, with the town of Waldshut ("end of the forest") leaning over
the high bank to welcome us near.
There is a lower path and a row of little houses at the bottom of the
cliff, past which the Rhine courses with rapid eddies deep and strong.
Here an old fisherman soon spied me, and roared out his biography at the
top of his voice; how he had been a courier in Lord Somebody's family;
how he had journeyed seven years in Italy, and could fish with
artificial flies, and was seventy years old, with various other reasons
why I should put my boat into his house.
He was just the man for the moment; but first those two uniformed
_douaniers_ must be dealt with, and I had to satisfy their dignity by
paddling up the strong current to their lair; for the fly had touched
the spiders' web and the spiders were too grand to come out and seize
it. Good humour, and smiles, and a little judicious irony as to the
absurd notion of overhauling a canoe which could be carried on your
back, soon made them release me, if only to uphold their own dignity,
and I left the boat in the best drawing-room of the ex-courier, and
ascended the hill to the hotel aloft.
But the man came too, and he had found time to prepare an amended report
of the boat's journey for the worthy landlord, so, as usual, there was
soon everything ready for comfort and good cheer.
Waldshut is made up of one wide street almost closed at the end, and
with pretty gardens about it, and a fine prospect from its high
position; but an hour's walk appeared to exhaust all the town could
show, though the scenery round such a place is not to be done with in
this brief manner.
The visitors soon came to hear and see more nearly what the newspapers
had told them of the canoe. One gentleman, indeed, seemed to expect me
to unfold the boat from my pocket, for a French paper had spoken about a
man going over the country "with a canoe under his arm." The evening was
enlivened by some signals, burned at my bedroom-window to lighten up the
street, which little entertainment was evidently entirely new--to the
Waldshutians at least.
Before we start homewards on the Rhine with our faces due West, it may
be well very briefly to give the log bearings and direction of the
canoe's voyage up to this point.
First, by the Thames, July 29, E. (East), to Shoeburyness, thence to
Sheerness, S. From that by rail to Dover, and by steamer to Ostend, and
rail again, Aug. 7, to the Meuse, along which the course was nearly E.,
until its turn into Holland, N.E. Then, Aug. 11, to the Rhine, S.E., and
ascending it nearly S., until at Frankfort, Aug. 17, we go N.E. by rail
to Asschaffenburg, and by the river wind back again to Frankfort in
wide curves. Farther up the Rhine, Aug. 24, our course is due S., till
from Freyburg the boat is carted E. to the Titisee, and to
Donaueschingen, and, Aug. 28, descends the Danube, which there flows
nearly E., but with great bends to N. and S. until, Sept. 2, we are at
Ulm. The rail next carries us S. to the Lake of Constance, which is
sailed along in a course S.W., and through the Zeller See to
Schaffhausen, Sept. 7, about due W. Thence turning S. to Zurich, and
over the lake and the neck of land, and veering to the W. by Zug, we
arrive on Lucerne, Sept. 10, where the southernmost point of the voyage
is reached, and then our prow points to N., till, Sept. 12, we land at
Waldshut.
This devious course had taken the boat to several different kingdoms and
states--Holland, Belgium, France, Wurtemburg, Bavaria, and the Grand
Duchy of Baden, Rhenish Prussia, the Palatinate, Switzerland, and the
pretty Hollenzollern Sigmaringen. Now we had come back again to the very
Grand Duchy again, a land where all travellers must mind their p's and
q's.
The ex-courier took the canoe from his wife's washing-tubs and put her
on the Rhine, and then he spirited my start by recounting the lively
things we must expect soon to meet. I must take care to "keep to the
right," near the falls of Lauffenburg, for an English lord had been
carried over them and drowned;[XXV.] and I must beware of Rheinfelden
rapids, because an Englishman had tried to descend them in a boat with a
fisherman, and their craft was capsized and the fisherman was drowned;
and I must do this here, and that there, and so many other things
everywhere else, that all the directions were jumbled up together. But
it seemed to relieve the man to tell his tale, and doubtless he sat down
to his breakfast comfortable in mind and body, and cut his meat into
little bits, and then changed the fork to the right hand to eat them
every one, as they all do hereabouts, with every appearance of content.
[XXV.] This was Lord Montague, the last of his line, and on the
same day his family mansion of Cowdray, in Sussex, was burned to the
ground.
Up with the sails! for the East wind freshens, and the fair wide river
hurries along. This was a splendid scene to sail in, with lofty banks of
rock, and rich meads, or terraces laden with grapes. After a good
morning's pleasure here the wind suddenly rose to a gale, and I took in
my jib just in time, for a sort of minor hurricane came on, raising tall
columns of dust on the road alongside, blowing off men's hats, and
whisking up the hay and leaves and branches high into the air.
Still I kept the lug-sail set; and with wind and current in the same
direction I scudded faster than I ever sailed before in my life. Great
exertion was required to manage a light skiff safely with such a
whirlwind above and a whirlwater below; one's nerves were kept in
extreme tension, and it was a half-hour of pleasant excitement.
For this reason it was that I did not for some time notice a youth who
had been running after the boat, yelling and shrieking, and waving his
coat in the air.
We drew nearer to him, and "luffed up," hailing him with, "What's the
matter?" and he could only pant out "Wasserfall, Wasserfall, funf
minuten!"----the breeze had brought me within a hundred yards of the
falls of Lauffenburg,--the whistle of the wind had drowned the roar of
the water.
I crossed to the right bank (as the ex-courier had directed), but the
youth's loud cries to come to the "links," or left side, at last
prevailed, and he was right in this. The sail was soon lowered, and the
boat was hauled on a raft, and then this fine young fellow explained
that five minutes more would have turned the corner and drawn me into
the horrid current sweeping over the falls.
While he set off in search of a cart to convey the boat, I had time to
pull her up the high bank and make all snug for a drive, and anon he
returned with a very grotesque carter and a most crazy vehicle,
actually drawn by a milch cow! All three of us laughed as we hoisted the
Rob Roy on this cart, and the cow kicked vehemently, either at the cart,
or the boat, or the laughing.
Our procession soon entered the little town, but it was difficult to be
dignified. As the cart with a screeching wheel rattled slowly over the
big round stones of the street, vacant at midday, the windows were soon
full of heads, and after one peep at us, down they rushed to see the
fun.[XXVI.] A cow drawing a boat to the door of a great hotel is
certainly a quaint proceeding; although in justice to the worthy
quadruped I should mention that she now behaved in a proper and ladylike
manner.
[XXVI.] A sketch of this cow-cart will be found, _post_, page 213.
Here the public hit upon every possible way but the right one to
pronounce the boat's name, painted in blue letters on its bow. Sometimes
it was "Roab Ro," at others "Rubree," but at length a man in spectacles
called out, "Ah! ah! Valtarescote!" The mild Sir Walter's novels had not
been written in vain.
The falls of Lauffenburg[XXVII.] can be seen well from the bridge which
spans the river, much narrowed at this spot.
[XXVII.] "Lauffenburg" means the "town of the falls," from "laufen,"
to run; and the Yankee term "loafer" may come from this "herum laufer,"
one running about.
A raft is coming down as we look at the thundering foam--of course
without the men upon it; see the great solid frame that seems to resent
the quickening of its quiet pace, and to hold back with a presentiment
of evil as every moment draws it nearer to the plunge.
Crash go all the bindings, and the huge, sturdy-logs are hurled
topsy-turvy into the gorge, bouncing about like chips of firewood, and
rattling among the foam. Nor was it easy to look calmly on this without
thinking how the frail canoe would have fared in such a cauldron of cold
water boiling.
The salmon drawn into this place get terribly puzzled by it, and so are
caught by hundreds in great iron cages lowered from the rocks for this
purpose. Fishing stations of the same kind are found at several points
on the river, where a stage is built on piles, and a beam supports a
strong net below. In a little house, like a sentry-box, you notice a man
seated, silent and lonely, while he holds tenderly in his hand a dozen
strings, which are fastened to the edges of the net. When a fish is
beguiled into the snare, or is borne in by the swift current
bewildering, the slightest vibrations of the net are thrilled along the
cords to the watcher's hand, and then he raises the great beam and
secures the prize.
My young friend, who had so kindly warned me, and hired the cow, and
shown the salmon, I now invited to breakfast, and he became the hero of
the hour, being repeatedly addressed by the other inquirers in an
unpronounceable German title, which signifies, in short, "Man
preserver."
Here we heard again of a certain four-oared boat, with five Englishmen
in it, which had been sent out from London overland to Schaffhausen, and
then descended the Rhine rowing swiftly. This, the people said, had come
to Lauffenburg about six weeks before, and I fully sympathised with the
crew in their charming pull, especially if the weather was such as we
had enjoyed; that is to say, not one shower in the boat from the source
of the Danube to the Palace of Westminster.