In a well-known passage of the _Inland Voyage_ the following incident
is related to the same purport, but in another style:--
_Chauny, Aisne [September 1876]._
MY DEAR HENLEY,--Here I am, you see; and if you will take to a map, you
will observe I am already more than two doors from Antwerp, whence I
started. I have fought it through under the worst weather I ever saw in
France; I have been wet through nearly every day of travel since the
second (inclusive); besides this, I have had to fight against pretty
mouldy health; so that, on the whole, the essayist and reviewer has
shown, I think, some pluck. Four days ago I was not a hundred miles from
being miserably drowned, to the immense regret of a large circle of
friends and the permanent impoverishment of British Essayism and
Reviewery. My boat culbutted me under a fallen tree in a very rapid
current; and I was a good while before I got on to the outside of that
fallen tree; rather a better while than I cared about. When I got up, I
lay some time on my belly, panting, and exuded fluid. All my symptoms
_jusqu' ici_ are trifling. But I've a damned sore throat.--Yours ever,