River Moselle--Epinal--The Tramp--Halcyon--Painted
woman--Beating to quarters--Boat in a hedge--The
Meurthe--Moving House--Tears of a mother--Five francs.
Under a dark arbour-like arch of foliage, where the water was deep and
still, I made fast to the long grass, cast my tired limbs into the
fantastic folds of ease, and, while the bottle lasted and the bread, I
watched the bees and butterflies, and the beetles and rats, and the
coloured tribes of airy and watery life that one can see so well in a
quiet half hour like this.
How little we are taught at school about these wondrous communities of
real life, each with its laws and instincts, its beauties of form, and
marvellous ingenuities!
How little of flowers and insects, not to say of trees and animals, a
boy learns as school-lessons, while he has beaten into him at one end
and crammed in at the other the complicated politics of heathen gods,
and their loves and faction fights, which are neither real nor possible.
The Moselle rapidly enlarged in volume, though one could easily see
that it had seldom been so low before. It is a very beautiful river to
row on, especially where we began. Then it winds to the west and north,
and again, turning a little eastwards, traverses a lovely country
between Treves and Coblentz, where it joins the ancient Rhine.
My resting-place for this evening was Epinal, a town with little to
interest; and so we could turn to books and pencils until it was time
for bed.
Next day the scenery was by no means so attractive, but I had plenty of
hard work, which was enjoyed very much, my shoes and socks being off all
day, for it was useless to put them on when so many occasions required
me to jump out.
Here it was a plain country, with a gravel soil, and fast rushings of
current; and then long pools like the Serpentine, and winding turns
leading entirely round some central hill which the river insisted upon
circumventing.
At noon we came upon a large number of labourers at work on a milldam,
and as this sort of crowd generally betokens something to eat (always,
at any rate, some drinkable fluid), I left my boat boldly in mid-stream,
and knocked at a cottage, when an old woman came out. "Madame, I am
hungry, and you are precisely the lady who can make me an omelette."
"Sir, I have nothing to give you."
"Why," said I, "look at these hens; I am sure they have laid six eggs
this morning, they seem so conceited."
She evidently thought I was a tramp demanding alms, and when told to
look at the boat which had come from England, she said she was too old
and too blind to see. However, we managed to make an omelette together,
and she stood by (with an eye, perhaps, to her only fork) and chatted
pleasantly, asking, "What have you got to sell?" I told her I had come
there only for pleasure. "What sort of pleasure, Monsieur, can you
possibly hope to find in _this_ place?" But I was far too gallant to say
bluntly that her particular mansion was not the ultimate object of the
tour. After receiving a franc for the rough breakfast, she kept up a
battery of blessings till the Rob Roy started, and she ended by
shrieking out to a navvy looking on, "I tell you every Englishman is
rich!"
Next day was bright and blue-skyed as before, and an early start got the
fine fresh morning air on the water.
The name of this river is sometimes pronounced "Moselle," and at other
times "Mosel," what we should call "Mozle." When a Frenchman speaks of
"la Moselle," he puts an equal emphasis on each of the three syllables
he is pronouncing; whereas generally we Englishmen call this river
Mosélle.
The name of a long river often indeed goes through changes as it
traverses various districts and dialects; for instance, the Missouri,
which you hear the travellers in Kansas call "Mzoory," while they wend
along the Californian road.
When the scenery is tame to the canoist, and the channel of the river is
not made interesting by dangers to be avoided, then one can always turn
again to the animals and birds, and five minutes of watching will be
sure to see much that is curious.
Here, for instance, we have the little kingfisher again, who had met us
on the Danube and the Reuss, and whom we knew well in England before;
but now we are on a visit to _his_ domain, and we see him in his private
character alone. There are several varieties of this bird, and they
differ in form and colour of plumage. This "Royal bird," the _Halcyon_
of antiquity, the _Alcedo_ in classic tongue, is called in German "Eis
fogl," or "Ice bird," perhaps because he fishes even in winter's frost,
or because his nest is like a bundle of icicles, being made of minnows'
bones most curiously wrought together.
But now it is on a summer day, and he is perched on a twig within two
inches of the water, and under the shade of a briar leaf, his little
parasol. He is looking for fish, and is so steady that you may easily
pass him without observing that brilliant back of azure, or the breast
of blushing red.
When I desired to see these birds, I quietly moved my boat till it
grounded on a bank, and, after it was stationary thus for a few minutes,
the Halcyon fisher got quite unconcerned, and plied his task as if
unseen.
He peers with knowing eye into the shallow below him, and now and then
he dips his head a bit to make quite sure he has marked a fish worth
seizing; then suddenly he darts down with a spluttering splash, and
flies off with a little white minnow, or a struggling sticklebat nipped
in his beak.
If it is caught thus crosswise, the winged fisherman tosses his prey
into the air, and nimbly catches it in his mouth, so that it may be
gulped down properly. Then he quivers and shakes with satisfaction, and
quickly speeds to another perch, flitting by you with wonderful
swiftness, as if a sapphire had been flung athwart the sunbeam, flashing
beauteous colours in its flight.
Or, if bed-time has come, or he is fetching home the family dinner, he
flutters on and on, and then with a little sharp note of "good-bye,"
pops into a hole, the dark staircase to his tiny nest, and there he
finds Mrs. Halcyon sitting in state, and thirteen baby Kingfishers
gaping for the dainty fish.
This pretty bird has an air of quiet mystery, beauty, and vivid motion,
all combined, which has made him a favourite with the Rob Roy.
Strangely enough, the river in this part of its course actually gets
less and less as you descend it. Every few miles some of the water is
drawn off by a small canal to irrigate the neighbouring land, and in a
season of drought like this, very little of the abstracted part returns.
They told me that the Moselle river never has been so "basse" for 30
years, and I was therefore an unlucky _voyageur_ in having to do for the
first time what could have been done more easily in any other season.
As evening fell we reached the town of Chatel, and the Rob Roy was sent
to bed in the washhouse of the hotel. But five minutes had not elapsed
before a string of visitors came for the daily inspection of the boat.
As I sauntered along the bridge a sprightly youth came up, who had not
seen the canoe, but who knew I was "one of her crew." He was most
enthusiastic on the subject, and took me to see _his_ boat, a
deadly-looking flat-bottomed open cot, painted all manner of patterns;
and as he was extremely proud of her I did not tell him that a boat is
like a woman, too good to paint: a pretty one is spoiled by paint, and a
plain one is made hideous.
Then he came for a look at the Rob Roy, and, poor fellow, it was amusing
to observe how instantly his countenance fell from pride to intense
envy. He had a "boating mind," but had never seen a really pretty boat
till now. However, to console himself he invited me to another hotel to
drink success to the canoe in Bavarian beer, and to see my drawings, and
then I found that my intelligent, eager, and, we may add, gentlemanly
friend was the waiter there!
A melancholy sensation pervaded the Rob Roy to-day, in consequence of a
sad event, the loss of the captain's knife. We had three knives on board
in starting from England; one had been given away in reward for some
signal service, and this which was now lost was one with a metal haft
and a curious hook at the end, a special description made in Berlin, and
very useful to the tourist. It is not to be wondered that in so many
leaps and somersaults, and with such constant requirements for the knife
to mend pencils, &c., &c., the trusty blade should at last have
disappeared, but the event suggests to the next canoeman that his
boat-knife should be secured to a lanyard.
One singular conformation of the river-bed occurred in my short tour
upon this part of the Moselle. Without much warning the banks of rock
became quite vertical and narrowed close together. They reminded me of
the rock-cutting near Liverpool, on the old railway to Manchester. The
stream was very deep here, but its bed was full of enormous stones and
crags, very sharp and jagged, which, however, could be easily avoided,
because the current was gentle.
A man I found fishing told me that a little further on there was an
"impossible" place, so when after half a mile the well-known sound of
rushing waters came (the ear got marvellous quick for this), we beat to
quarters and prepared for action.
The ribbon to keep my hat was tied down. Sleeves and trousers were
tucked up. The covering was braced tight and the baggage secured below;
and then came the eager pleasures of anticipating, wishing, hoping,
fearing, that are mixed up in the word excitement.
The sound was quite near now, but the river took the strangest of all
the forms I had yet seen.
If you suppose a trench cut along Oxford-street to get at the
gas-pipes, and if all the water of a river which had filled the street
before suddenly disappeared in the trench, that would be exactly what
the Moselle had now become.
The plateau of rock on each side was perfectly dry, though in flood
times, no doubt, the river covers that too. The water boiled and foamed
through this channel from 3 to 20 feet deep, but only in the trench,
which was not five feet wide.
An intelligent man came near to see me enter this curious passage, but
when we had got a little way in I had to stop the boat, and this too by
putting my hands on both sides of the river!
Then I got out and carefully let the boat drive along the current, but
still held by the painter. Soon it got too narrow and fast even for this
process, so I pulled the canoe upon the dry rock, and sat down to
breathe and to cool my panting frame.
Two other gentlemen had come near me by this time, and on a bridge above
were several more with two ladies.
I had to drag the boat some hundred yards over most awkward rocks, and
these men hovered round and admired, and even talked to me, and actually
praised my perseverance, yet not one offer of any help did any one of
them give!
In deep water again, and now exactly under the bridge I looked up and
found the whole party regarding the Rob Roy with curiosity and smiles.
Within a few yards was a large house these people had come from, and I
thought their smiles were surely to preface, "Would you not like a glass
of wine, Sir, after your hour of hard work?" But as it meant nothing of
the sort I could not help answering their united adieux! by these words,
"Adieu, ladies and gentlemen. Many to look, but none to help. The
exhibition is gratuitous!" Was it wrong to say this? It was utterly
impossible not to think as much.
One or two other places gave trouble without interest, such as when I
had to push the boat into a hedge point foremost, and to pull it through
by main force from the other side, and then found, after all, it was
pushed into the wrong field, so the operation had to be done over again
in a reverse direction.
But never mind, all this counted in the day's work, and all the trouble
of it was forgotten after a good night's sleep, or was entirely
recompensed by some interesting adventure.
The water of the Moselle is so clear that the scenery under the surface
continually occupied my attention. In one long reach, unusually deep and
quiet, I happened to be gazing down at some huge trout, and
accidentally observed a large stone, the upper part of a fine column, at
the very bottom of the water, at least ten feet below me. The capital
showed it to be Ionic, and near it was another, a broken pediment of
large dimensions, and a little further on a pedestal of white marble. I
carefully examined both banks, to see if a Roman villa or bridge, or
other ruin, indicated how these subaqueous reliques had come into this
strange position, and I inquired diligently at Charmes, the next town;
but although much curiosity was shown on the subject, no information was
obtained, except that the Romans had built a fort somewhere on the river
(but plainly not at that spot), so we may consider that the casual
glance at the fish revealed a curious fragment of the past hitherto
probably unnoticed.
After pulling along the Moselle, from as near to its source as my canoe
could find water, until the scenery became dull at Charmes, we went by
railway from thence to Blainville, on the river Meurthe, which is a
tributary of the Moselle, for I thought some new scenery might be found
in this direction. The Rob Roy was therefore sent by itself in a
goods-train, the very first separation between us for three months. It
seemed as if the little boat, leaning on its side in the truck, turned
from me reproachfully, and we foreboded all sorts of accidents to its
delicate frame, but the only thing lost was a sponge, a necessary
appendage to a boat's outfit when you desire to keep it perfectly dry
and clean.
Two railway porters, with much good-humoured laughing, carried the Rob
Roy from the station to the river's edge, and again we paddled cheerily
along, and on a new river, too, with scenery and character quite
different from that of the Moselle.
The Meurthe winds through rich plains of soft earth, with few rocks and
little gravel. But then in its shallows it has long thick mossy weeds,
all under the surface. These were found to be rather troublesome,
because they got entangled with my paddle, and since they could not be
seen beforehand the best channel was not discernible, as where rocks or
gravel give those various forms of ripples which the captain of a canoe
soon gets to know as if they were a chart telling the number of inches
of depth. Moreover, when you get grounded among these long weeds, all
pointed down stream, it is very difficult to "back out," for it is like
combing hair against the grain.
The larger rivers in France are all thoroughly fished. In every nook you
find a fisherman. They are just as numerous here as in Germany they are
rare. And yet one would think that fishing is surely more adapted to the
contemplative German than to the vivacious French. Yet, here they are
by hundreds, both men and women, and every day, each staring intently on
a tiny float, or at the grasshopper bait, and quite satisfied if now and
then he can pull up a gudgeon the size of your thumb.
[Illustration: "French Fishers."]
Generally, these people are alone, and when they asked me at hotels if I
did not feel lonely in the canoe, the answer was, "Look at your
fishermen, for hours by choice alone. They have something to occupy
attention every moment, and so have I." Sometimes, however, there is a
whole party in one clumsy boat.
The _pater familias_ sits content, and recks not if all his time is
spent in baiting his line and lighting his pipe. The lazy "hopeful" lies
at full length on the grass, while a younger brother strains every nerve
to hook a knowing fish that is laughing at him under water, and winking
its pale eye to see the fisher just toppling over. Mademoiselle chatters
whether there are bites or not, and another, the fair cousin, has got on
shore, where she can bait her hook and set her cap and simper to the
bold admirer by her side.
Not one of these that I have spoken to had ever seen an artificial fly.
Then besides, we have the fishers with nets. These are generally three
men in a boat, with its stem and its stern both cocked up, and the whole
affair looking as if it must upset or sink. Such boats were painted by
Raphael in the great Cartoons, where all of us must have observed how
small the boat is compared with the men it carries.
Again, there are some young lads searching under the stones for
_ecrevisses_, the freshwater prawns, much in request, but giving very
little food for a great deal of trouble. Near these fishers the pike
plies his busy sportsman's life below the surface, and I have sometimes
seen a poor little trout leap high into the air to escape from the
long-nosed pursuer, who followed him even out of the water, and snapped
his jaws on the sweet morsel impudently. This sound, added to the very
suspicious appearance of the Rob Roy gliding among the islands, decides
the doubtful point with a duck, the leader of a flock of wild ducks that
have been swimming down stream in front of me with a quick glance on
each side, every one of them seemingly indignant at this intrusion on
their haunts; at last they find it really will not do, so with a scream
and a spring they flap the water and rise in a body to seek if there be
not elsewhere at least some one nook to nestle in where John Bull does
not come.
That bell you hear tinkling is at the ferry, to call the ferryman who
lives at the other side, and he will jump into his clumsy boat, which is
tied to a pulley running on a rope stretched tight across the river. He
has only to put his oar obliquely on the gunwale, and the transverse
pressure of the current brings the boat rapidly to the other bank.
Paddling on, after a chat with the ferryman (and he is sure to be ready
for that), a wonderful phenomenon appears. We see a house, large, new,
and of two stories high, it has actually moved. We noticed it a few
minutes ago, and now it has changed its position. I gaze in
astonishment, and while we ponder, lo! the whole house entirely
disappears. Now, the true explanation of this is soon found when we get
round the next corner of the reach;--the house is a great wooden bathing
"etablissement," built on a barge, and it is being slowly dragged up the
stream.
After wonder comes sentiment. Three women are seen on the river-bank
evidently in great alarm: a mother, a daughter, and a servant maid, who
searched in vain for two boys, supposed to have gone away to fish, but
now missing for many hours. They eagerly inquired if I had seen the
lads, and implored me with tears to give them advice.
I tried all I could to recollect, but no! I had not seen the boys, and
so the women went away distracted, and left me sorrowful--who would not
be so at a woman's tears, a mother's too? But suddenly, when toiling in
the middle of a very difficult piece of rock-work, lowering the boat, I
remembered having seen those boys, so I ran over the fields after the
anxious mamma and soon assured her the children had been safe an hour
ago, and their faithful servant with them, but that _he_ had become the
fisherman, and they, like boys, had got tired of the rod, and were
playing with a goat.
When the poor mother heard we had seen the little fellows and they were
safe, her tears of joy were quite affecting, and they vividly recalled
one's schoolboy days, when the thoughtless playtime of childhood so
often entails anxiety on a loving mother's heart.
Such, then, are the river sights and river wonders, ever new, though
trifling perhaps when told, but far more lively and entertaining than
the common incidents of a dusty road, or a whirring, shrieking train.
With a few wadings and bumpings, and one or two "vannes," or weirs, we
slipped along pleasantly until evening came. Still it was only a slow
stream, and the towers of St. Nicholas, long visible on the horizon,
seemed ever to move from side to side without being any nearer, so much
does this river wind in its course. I paddled at my best pace, but the
evening rapidly grew darker, until we overtook two French youths in a
boat, the first occasion on which we had noticed Frenchmen rowing for
exercise. They could not keep up with the canoe, so we had to leave them
ingloriously aground on a bank, and yet too lazy to get out and help
their boat over the difficulty.
Soon after I came to a great weir about fifteen feet in height, the
deepest we had yet encountered, and half a sigh was heaved when it was
evident that there was no escape from all the bother of getting out and
gymnasticizing here after a long day's work. It was a matter of some
time and trouble to get the boat over this weir in the dark; but what
was far worse immediately followed, as I found myself in a maze of
shallows, without light to see how to get through them. Whenever we
stopped, too, for rest, there was only darkness, silence, and no
motion--not even the excitement of a current to arouse. Finally, I had
to wade and haul the boat along, and jump in and ferry myself over the
pools, for nearly half a mile, until at length the "look-out" man of our
starboard watch shouted, "A bridge and a house on the lee bow!" and a
joyous cheer burst forth from the crew.
All this, which may be told in a few sentences, took a full hour of very
tiresome work, though, as there was no current, there was no danger, and
it was merely tedious, wet, unlighted, and uncomfortable. Nevertheless I
sang and whistled all the time.
When the bridge was arrived at, I was sure it must be a town, and then
there happened a scene almost an exact counterpart of that which took
place at Gegglingen, on the Danube.
I pulled up my boat on the dark shore, and, all dripping wet, I mounted
to the house above, and speedily aroused the inmates. A window opened,
and a worthy couple appeared in their night-dresses, holding a candle to
examine the intruder. The tableau was most comical. The man asked, "Is
it a farce?" He could scarcely expect a traveller from England to arrive
there at such an hour. But he soon helped me to carry the boat to a
little Restaurant, where a dozen men were drinking, who rushed out with
lamps to look at the boat, but entirely omitted to help the forlorn
captain.
Nor was there any room in this Restaurant, so we had to carry the boat
through the dark streets to another house, where another lot of topers
received me in like style. We put the Rob Roy into a garden here, and
her sails flapped next morning while a crowd gazed over the walls with
anxious curiosity. The worthy husband who had thus left his spouse that
he might carry my wet boat, all slippery with mud, was highly pleased
with a five-franc piece, which was the least I thought him to deserve,
though it was like a five-pound note to him in such a cheap country.
Next morning in the light of day we had a survey of the scene of last
night's adventure. It was very amusing to trace the various channels we
had groped about in the darkness.
Here I met a French gentleman, of gay and pleasant manner, but who
bemoaned his lot as Secretary of a great factory in this outlandish
place, instead of being in joyous, thoughtless, brilliant Paris, where,
he said, often for days together he did not sleep in bed, but ran one
night into the next by balls, theatres, and supper parties.
He kindly took me to see the great salt works, that send refined salt
all over Europe. This rock salt is hoisted out of a deep mine, in blocks
like those of coal, having been hewn from the strata below, which are
pierced by long and lofty galleries. Then it is covered in tanks by
water, which becomes saturated, and is conducted to flat evaporating
pans, when the water is expelled by the heat of great furnaces, and the
salt appears in masses like snow-drift. Salt that is sold by weight they
judiciously wet again, and other qualities sold by measure they cleverly
deposit in crooked crystals, so as to take up as much space as possible!
We found a canal here, and as the river was so shallow I mounted to the
artificial channel, and with a strong and fair wind was soon sailing
along rapidly. This canal has plenty of traffic upon it, and only a few
locks; so it was by no means tedious. They asked for my card of
permission, but I smiled the matter off as before. However, an officer
of the canal who was walking alongside looked much more seriously at the
infringement of rules, and when we came to a lock he insisted we must
produce the "carte." As a last resort, I showed him the well-worn
sketch-book, and then he at once gave in. In fact, after he had laughed
at the culprit's caricatures, how could he gravely sentence him to
penalties?
It is wonderful how a few lines of drawing will please these outlying
country people. Sometimes we gave a small sketch to a man when it was
desirable to get rid of him: he was sure to take it away to show
outside, and when he returned I had departed. Once we gave a little girl
a portrait of her brother, and next morning she brought it again all
crumpled up. Her mother said the child had held it all night in her
hand.