Private concert--Thunderer--La Hardt Forest--Mulhouse
Canal--River Ill--Reading stories--Madame Nico--Night
noises--Pets--Ducking--Vosges--Admirers--Boat on wheels--New
wine.
Bâle is, in every sense, a turning-point on the Rhine. The course of the
river here bends abruptly from west to north, and the character of the
scenery beside it alters at once from high sloping banks to a widespread
network of streams, all entangled in countless islands, and yet ever
tending forward, northward, seaward through the great rich valley of the
Rhine with mountain chains reared on each side like two everlasting
barriers.
Here then we could start anew almost in any direction, and I had not
settled yet what route to take, whether by the Saone and Doubs to paddle
to the Rhone, and so descend to Marseilles, and coast by the Cornici
road, and sell the boat at Genoa; or--and this second plan must be
surely a better alternative, if by it we can avoid a sale of the Rob
Roy--I could not part with her now--so let us at once decide to go back
through France.
We were yet on the river slowly paddling when this decision was arrived
at, and the river carried me still, for I determined not to leave its
pleasant easy current for a slow canal, until the last possible
opportunity. A diligent study of new maps procured at Bâle, showed that
a canal ran northward nearly parallel to the Rhine, and approached very
near to the river at one particular spot, which indeed looked hard
enough to find even on the map, but was far more dubious when we got
into a maze of streamlets and little rivers circling among high osiers,
so thick and close that even on shore it was impossible to see a few
yards.
But the line of tall poplars along the canal was visible now and then,
so I made a guesswork turn, and it was not far wrong, or at any rate we
got so near the canal that by winding about for a little in a pretty
limpid stream, I brought the Rob Roy at last within carrying distance.
A song or two (without words) and a variation of the music by whistling
on the fingers would be sure to bring anybody out of the osiers who was
within reach of the outlandish concert, and so it proved, for a woman's
head soon peered over a break in the dense cover. She wished to help to
carry the boat herself, but the skipper's gallantry had scruples as to
this proposal, so she disappeared and soon fetched a man, and we bore
the canoe with some trouble through hedges and bushes, and over dykes
and ditches, and at last through deep grassy fields, till she was safely
placed on the canal.
The man was delighted by a two-franc piece. He had been well paid for
listening to bad music. As for the boat she lay still and resigned,
awaiting my next move, and as for me I sighed to give a last look
backward, and to say with Byron--
"Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long delighted
The stranger fain would linger on his way!
Thine is a scene alike where souls united
Or lonely contemplation thus might stray;
And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey
On self-condemning bosoms, it were here,
Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay,
Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere,
Is to the mellow earth as autumn to the year.
Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu!
There can be no farewell to scene like thine;
The mind is colour'd by thy every hue;
And if reluctantly the eyes resign
Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine!
'Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise;
More mighty spots may rise, more glaring shine,
But none unite in one attaching maze
The brilliant, fair, and soft--the glories of old days.
The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom
Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen,
The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom,
The forest's growth, and gothic walls between,
The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been
In mockery of man's art; and these withal
A race of faces happy as the scene,
Whose fertile bounties here extend to all,
Still springing o'er thy banks, though empires near them fall.
But these recede. Above me are the Alps,
The palaces of nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And throned eternity in icy halls
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche--the thunderbolt of snow!
All that expands the spirit, yet appals,
Gather around these summits, as to show
How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man below."
--_Childe Harold, Canto III._
To my surprise and satisfaction the canal had a decided current in it,
and in the right direction too. It is true that this current was only
about two miles an hour, but even that is something; and though the
little channel was hardly twelve feet wide, yet it was clear and deep,
and by no means stupid to travel on.
After a few miles I came to a drawbridge, which rested within a foot of
the water. A man came to raise the bridge by machinery, and he was
surprised to see my way of passing it instead, that is, to shove my
boat under it, while I quietly walked over the top and got into the boat
at the other side. This was, without doubt, the first boat which had
traversed the canal without the bridge being raised, but I had passed
several very low bridges on the Danube, some of them not two inches
above the surface of the water. The very existence of these proves that
no boats pass there, and mine only passed by pulling it over the bridge
itself. It may be asked, how such a low bridge fares in flood times? and
the answer is, that the water simply flows all over it. In some cases
the planks which form the roadway are removed when the water rises, and
then the wayfaring man who comes to the river must manage in some other
mode. His bridge is removed at the very time when the high water makes
it most necessary.
The bridge man was so intelligent in his remarks that we determined to
stop there and breakfast, so I left the canoe in his charge and found my
way to a little publichouse at the hamlet of Gros Kembs, and helped the
wizened old lady who ruled there to make me an omelette--my help, by the
bye, consisted in ordering, eating, and paying for the omelette, for the
rest she was sure to do well enough, as all French women can, and no
English ones.
The village gossips soon arrived, and each person who saw the boat came
on to the inn to see the foreigner who could sail in such a _batteau_.
The courteous and respectful behaviour of Continental people is so
uniform that the stranger among them is bound, I think, to amuse and
interest these folk in return. This was most easily done by showing all
my articles of luggage,[XXVIII.] and of course the drawings. A Testament
with gilt leaves was, however, the chief object of curiosity, and all
the _savants_ of the party tried in turn to read it.
[XXVIII.] See an inventory of these in the Appendix.
One of these as spokesman, and with commendable gravity, told me he had
read in their district newspaper about the canoe, but he little expected
to have the honour of meeting its owner.
Fancy the local organ of such a place! Is it called the "News of the
Wold," or the "Gros Kembs Thunderer"? Well, whatever was the title of
the Gazette, it had an article about Pontius Pilate and my visit to the
Titisee in the Black Forest, and this it was no doubt which made these
canal people so very inquisitive on the occasion.
The route now lay through the great forest of La Hardt, with dense
thickets on each side of the canal, and not a sound anywhere to be heard
but the hum now and then of a dragon fly. One or two woodmen met me as
they trudged silently home from work, but there was a lonely feeling
about the place without any of the romance of wild country.
In the most brilliant day the scenery of a canal has at best but scant
liveliness, the whole thing is so prosaic and artificial, and in fact
stupid, if one can ever say that of any place where there is fresh air
and clear water, and blue sky and green trees.
Still I had to push on, and sometimes, for a change, to tow the boat
while I walked. The difference between a glorious river encircling you
with lofty rocks and this canal with its earthen walls was something
like that between walking among high mountains and being shut up by
mistake in Bloomsbury-square.
No birds chirped or sung, or even flew past, only the buzzing of flies
was mingled with the distant shriek of a train on the railway. It is
this railway which has killed the canal, for I saw no boats moving upon
it. The long continued want of rain had also reduced its powers of
accommodation for traffic, and the traffic is so little at the best that
it would not pay to buy water for the supply. For in times of drought
canal water is very expensive. It was said that the Regent's Canal, in
London, had to pay 5,000_l._ for what they required last summer, in
consequence of the dryness of the season.
At length we came to a great fork of the canal in a wide basin, and I
went along the branch to the town of Mulhouse, a place of great wealth,
the largest French cotton town--the Manchester of France.
The street boys here were very troublesome, partly because they were
intelligent, and therefore inquisitive, and partly because manufacturing
towns make little urchins precocious and forward in their manners.
I hired a truck from a woman and hired a man to drag it, and so took the
boat to the best hotel, a fine large house, where they at once
recognized the canoe, and seemed to know all about it from report.
The hotel porter delayed so long next morning to wheel the boat to the
railway, that when we took her into the luggage office as usual and
placed the boat on the counter with the trunks and band-boxes, the
officials declined to put it in the train.
This was the first time it had been refused on a railroad, and I used
every kind of persuasion, but in vain, and this being the first
application of the kind on French soil we felt that difficulties were
ahead, if this precedent was to hold good.
Subsequent experience showed that the French railways will not take a
canoe as baggage; while the other seven or eight countries we had
brought the boat through were all amenable to pressure on this point.
We had desired to go by the railway only a few miles, but it would have
enabled me to avoid about fifty locks on the canal and thus have saved
two tedious days. As, however, they would not take the boat in a
passenger train we carried her back to the canal, and I determined to
face the locks boldly, and to regard them as an exercise of patience and
of the flexor muscles, as it happens sometimes one's walk is only "a
constitutional."
The Superintendent of the Rhine and Rhone Canal was very civil, and
endeavoured to give me the desirable information I required, but which
he had not got, that is to say, the length, depth, and general character
of the several rivers we proposed to navigate in connexion with streams
less "canalizé," so I had to begin again as usual, without any knowledge
of the way.
With rather an ill-tempered "adieu" to Mulhouse, the Rob Roy set off
again on its voyage. The water assumed quite a new aspect, now that one
_must_ go by it, but it was not so much the water as the locks which
were objectionable. For at each of these there is a certain form of
operations to be gone through--all very trifling and without variety,
yet requiring to be carefully performed, or you may have the boat
injured, or a ducking for yourself.
When we get to a lock I have to draw to the bank, open my waterproof
covering, put my package and paddle ashore, then step out and haul the
boat out of the water. By this time two or three persons usually
congregate. I select the most likely one, and ask him to help in such a
persuasive but dignified manner that he feels it an honour to carry one
end of the boat while I take the other, and so we put her in again above
the barrier, and, if the man looks poor, I give him a few sous. At some
of the locks they asked me for a "carte de permission," or pass for
travelling on their canal, but I laughed the matter off, and when they
pressed it with a "mais monsieur," I kept treating the proposal as a
good joke, until the officials were fairly baffled and gave in. The fact
is, we had got into the canal as one gets over the hedge on to a public
road, and as I did not use any of the water in locks or any of the
lock-keepers' time, and the "pass" was a mere form, price 5_d._, it was
but reasonable to go unquestioned; and besides, this "carte" could not
be obtained except at the beginning. Having set off late, we went on
until about sunset, when the route suddenly passed into the river Ill,
a long dull stream, which flows through the Vosges into the Rhine.
This stream was now quite stagnant, and a mere collection of pools
covered by thick scum. It was therefore a great comfort to have only a
short voyage upon it.
When the Rob Roy again entered the canal, an acquaintance was formed
with a fine young lad, who was reading as he sauntered along. He was
reading of canoe adventures in America, and so I got him to walk some
miles beside me, and to help the boat over some locks, telling him he
could thus see how different actual canoeing was from the book stories
about it made up of romance! He was pining for some expansion of his
sphere, and specially for foreign travel, and above all to see England.
We went to an _auberge_, where I ordered a bottle of wine, the cost of
which was twopence halfpenny. After he left, and as it was now dark, I
halted, put my boat in a lock-keeper's house, and made his son conduct
me to the little village of Illfurth, a most unsophisticated place
indeed, with a few vineyards on a hill behind it, though the railway has
a road station near. It was not easy to mistake which was the best house
here even in the dark, so I inquired of Madame at "The White Horse" if
she could give me a bed. "Not in a room for one alone; three others will
be sleeping in the same chamber."
This she had answered after glancing at my puny package and travel-worn
dress, but her ideas about the guest were enlarged when she heard of how
he had come, and so she managed (they always do if you give time and
smiles and show sketches) to allot me a nice little room to myself, with
two beds of the hugest size, a water-jug of the most minute dimensions,
and sheets very coarse and very clean. Another omelette was consumed
while the customary visitors surrounded the benighted traveller;
carters, porters, all of them with courteous manners, and behaving so
well to me and to one another, and talking such good sense, as to make
me feel how different from this is the noisy taproom of a roadside
English "public."
Presently two fine fellows of the Gendarmerie came in for their half
bottle of wine, at one penny, and as both of them had been in the Crimea
there was soon ample subject for most interesting conversation. This was
conducted in French, but the people here usually speak a patois utterly
impossible for one to comprehend. I found they were discussing me under
various conjectures, and they settled at last that I must be rather an
odd fish, but certainly "a gentleman," and probably "noble." They were
most surprised to hear I meant to stop all the next day at Illfurth,
simply because it was Sunday, but they did not fail to ask for my
passport, which until this had been carried all the way without a single
inquiry on the subject.
The sudden change from a first-rate hotel this morning to the roadside
inn at Illfurth, was more entertaining on account of its variety than
for its agreeables; but in good health and good weather one can put up
with anything.
The utter silence of peaceful and cool night in a place like this reigns
undisturbed until about four o'clock in early morn, when the first sound
is some matutinal cock, who crows first because he is proud of being
first awake. After he has asserted his priority thus once or twice,
another deeper toned rooster replies, and presently a dozen cocks are
all in full song, and in different keys. In half an hour you hear a
man's voice; next, some feminine voluble remarks; then a latch is moved
and clicks, the dog gives a morning bark, and a horse stamps his foot in
the stable because the flies have aroused to breakfast on his tender
skin. At length a pig grunts, his gastric juice is fairly awake, the day
is begun. And so the stream of life, thawed from its sleep, flows
gently on again, and at length the full tide of village business is soon
in agitation, with men's faces and women's quite as full of import as if
this French Stoke Pogis were the capital of the world.
While the inmates prepare for early mass, and my bowl of coffee is set
before me, there are four dogs, eight cats, and seven canaries (I
counted them) all looking on, moving, twittering, mewing, each evidently
sensible that a being from some other land is present among them; and as
these little pets look with doubtful inquiring eyes on the stranger,
there is felt more strongly by him too, "Yes, I am in a foreign
country."
On Sunday I had a quiet rest, and walk, and reading, and an Englishman,
who had come out for a day from Mulhouse to fish, dined in the pleasant
arbour of the inn with his family. One of his girls managed to fall into
a deep pond and was nearly drowned, but I heard her cries, and we soon
put her to rights. This Briton spoke with quite a foreign accent, having
been six years in France; but his Lancashire dialect reappeared in
conversation, and he said he had just been reading about the canoe in a
Manchester paper. His children had gone that morning to a Sunday-school
before they came out by railway to fish in the river here; but I could
not help contrasting their rude manners with the good behaviour of the
little "lady and gentleman" children of my host. One of these,
Philibert, was very intelligent, and spent an hour or two with me, so we
became great friends. He asked all kinds of questions about England and
America, far more than I was able to answer. I gave him a little book
with a picture in it, that he might read it to his father, for it
contained the remarkable conversation between Napoleon and his Marshal
at St. Helena concerning the Christian religion, a paper well worth
reading, whoever spoke the words.
This Sunday being an annual village fête a band played, and some very
uncouth couples waltzed the whole day. Large flocks of sheep, following
their shepherds, wandered over the arid soil. The poor geese, too, were
flapping their wings in vain as they tried to swim in water an inch
deep, where usually there had been pleasant pools in the river. I
sympathized with the geese, for I missed my river sadly too.
My bill here for the two nights, with plenty to eat and drink, amounted
to five shillings in all, and I left good Madame Nico with some regret,
starting again on the canal, which looked more dully and dirty than
before.
After one or two locks this sort of travelling became so insufferable
that I suddenly determined to change my plans entirely--for is not one
free? By the present route several days would be consumed in going over
the hills by a series of tedious locks; besides, this very canal had
been already traversed by the four-oar boat Waterwitch some years ago.
A few moments of thought, and I got on the bank to look for a way of
deliverance. Far off could be seen the vine-clad hills of the Vosges,
and I decided at once to leave the canal, cross the country to those
hills, cart the canoe over the range, and so reach the source of the
Moselle, and thus begin to paddle on quite another set of rivers. We
therefore turned the prow back, went down the canal, and again entered
the river Ill, but soon found it was now too shallow to float even my
canoe. Once more I retraced my way, ascending the locks, and, passing by
Illfurth, went on to reach a village where a cart could be had.
Desperation made me paddle hard even in the fierce sun, but it was not
that this so much troubled me as the humiliation of thus rowing back and
forward for miles on a dirty, stagnant canal, and passing by the same
locks two or three times, with the full conviction that the people who
gazed at the procedure must believe me not only to be mad (this much one
can put up with), but furiously insane, and dangerous to be at large.
Whether we confess it or not we all like to be admired. The right or
wrong of this depends on for what and from whom we covet admiration. But
when the deed you attract attention by is neither a great one, nor a
deed which others have not done or cannot do, but is one that all other
people could but would not do, then you are not admired as remarkable
but only stared at as singular.
The shade of a suspicion that this is so in any act done before
lookers-on is enough to make it hateful. Nay, you have then the
sufferings of a martyr, without his cause or his glory. But I fear that
instead of getting a cart for the canoe I am getting out of depth in
metaphysics, which means, you know, "When ane maun explains till anither
what he disna understaun himsel, that's metapheesics."
Well, when we came to the prescribed village, named Haidwiller, we found
they had plenty of carts, but not one would come to help me even for a
good round sum. It was their first day with the grapes, and "ancient
customs must be observed"; so we went on still further to another
village, where they were letting out the water from the canal to repair
a lock.
[Illustration: "The Rob Roy on wheels."]
Here was a position of unenviable repose for the poor Rob Roy! No water
to float in, and no cart to carry her.
To aid deliberation I attacked a large cake of hot flour baked by the
lock-keeper's dirty wife, and we stuck plums in it to make it go down,
while the man hied off to the fields to get some animal that could drag
a clumsy vehicle--cart is too fine a name for it--which I had impressed
from a ploughman near.
The man came back leading a gloomy-looking bullock, and we started with
the boat now travelling on wheels, but at a most dignified pace.[XXIX.]
[XXIX.] The sketch represents the lady cow which dragged the cart
at Lauffenburg, but it will do almost equally well for the present
equipage.
This was the arrangement till we reached another village, which had no
vineyards, and where therefore we soon found a horse, instead of the
gruff bullock; while the natives were lost in amazement to see a boat in
a cart, and a big foreigner gabbling beside it.
The sun was exceedingly hot, and the road dusty; but I felt the walk
would be a pleasant change, though my driver kept muttering to himself
about my preference of pedestrianism to the fearful jolts of his cart.
We passed thus through several villages on a fine fruitful plain, and at
some of them the horse had to bait, or the driver to lunch, or his
employer to refresh the inner man, in every case the population being
favoured with an account by the driver of all he knew about the boat,
and a great deal more.
At one of the inns on the road some new wine was produced on the table.
It had been made only the day before, and its colour was exactly like
that of cold tea, with milk and sugar in it, while its taste was very
luscious and sweet. This new wine is sometimes in request, but
especially among the women. "Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and
new wine the maids." (Zech. ix. 17.)