A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe on Rivers and Lakes of Europe Part 13

It is surely quite fair to go by the easiest way, provided there is no carrying overland adopted, or other plan for shirking the water. The method accordingly used in this case was rather a novel mode of locomotion, and it was quite successful, as well as highly amusing.

In the wide plain of breakers here, the central district seemed radically bad, so we cautiously kept out of the main current, and went where the stream ran fast enough nevertheless. I sat stridelegs on the deck of the boat near its stern, and was thus floated down until the bow, projecting out of the water, went above a ridge of rocks, and the boat grounded. Thus I received the shock against my legs (hanging in the water), so that the violence of its blow was eased off from the boat.

Then I immediately fixed both feet on the rock, and stood up, and the canoe went free from between my knees, and could be lowered down or pushed forward until the water got deeper, and when it got too deep to wade after her I pulled the boat back between my knees, and sat down again on it as before.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Astride the Stern."]

The chief difficulty in this proceeding was to be equally attentive at once to keep hold of the boat, to guide it between rocks, to keep hold of the paddle, and to manage not to tumble on loose stones, or to get into the water above the waist.

Thus by successive riding and ferrying over the deep pools, and walking and wading in the shallows, by pushing the boat here, and by being carried upon it there, the lower rapids of Rheinfelden were most successfully pa.s.sed without any damage.

It will be seen from the description already given of the rapids at Bremgarten, and now of these two rapids on the Rhine, that the main difficulties are only for him who goes there uninformed, and that these can be avoided by examining them on the spot at the cost of a walk and a short delay. But the pleasure is so much enhanced by the whole thing being novel, that, unless for a man who wishes simply to _get past_, it is better to seek a channel for oneself, even if a much easier one has been found out by other people.

The town of Rheinfelden was now in view, and I began to wonder how the English four-oar boat we had traced as far as Lauffenburg could have managed to descend the rapids just now pa.s.sed. But I learned afterwards that the four-oar had come there in a time of flood, when rocks would be covered, and probably with only such eddies as I have already noticed higher up the river where it was deep. So they pulled on bravely to Bale, where the hotel folks mentioned that when the five moist Britons arrived their clothes and baggage were all drenched, and the waiter said, with a malicious grin, that thereby his friend the washerwoman had earned twenty-seven francs in one night.

On the left bank of the river was a large building with a smooth gravel sh.o.r.e in front, to which I steered at once. This was the great salt-water baths of Rheinfelden--a favourite resort for crippled invalids. The salt rock in the earth beneath impregnates the springs with such an intensity of brine that eighty per cent. of fresh water has to be added before the saline mixture can be medicinally employed as a bath. If you take a gla.s.s of the water as it proceeds from the spring, and put a little salt in it, the salt will not dissolve, the water is already saturated. A drop of it put on your coat speedily dries up and leaves a white stain of minute crystals. In fact, this water seemed to me to be far more saline than even the water of the Dead Sea, which is in all conscience salt enough, as every one knows who has rubbed it on his face in that reeking-hot death-stricken valley of Jericho.

Though the sh.o.r.e was pleasant here and the water was calm, I found no one to welcome me now, and yet this was the only time I had reason to expect somebody to greet the arrival of the canoe. For in the morning a worthy German had told me he was going by train to Rheinfelden, and he would keep a look out for the canoe, and would surely meet me on the beach if I "ever got through the rapids." But I found afterwards that he _had_ come there, and with his friends, too, and they had waited and waited till at last they gave up the Rob Roy as a "missing ship."

Excellent man, he must have had some novel excuses to comfort his friends with as they retired, disappointed, after waiting in vain!

There was however, not far off, a poor woman washing clothes by the river, and thumping and bullying them with a wooden bludgeon as if her sole object was to smash up the bachelor's shirt-b.u.t.tons. A fine boy of eight years old was with her, a most intelligent little fellow, whose quick eye at once caught sight of the Rob Roy as it dashed round the point into the smooth water of the bay, and landed me there a tired, tanned traveller, wet and warm.

This juvenile helped me more than any man ever did, and with such alacrity, too, and intelligence, and good humour, that I felt grateful to the boy. We spread out the sails to dry, and my socks and shoes in the sun, and sponged out the boat, and then dragged her up the high bank. Here, by good luck, we found two wheels on an axle left alone, for what purpose I cannot imagine; but we got a stick and fastened it to them as a pole, and then put the boat on this extemporized vehicle, and with the boy (having duly got permission from his mamma) soon pulled the canoe to the gates of the old town, and then rattling through the streets, even to the door of the hotel. A bright franc in the lad's hand made him start with amaze, but he instantly rose to the dignity of the occasion, and some dozens of other urchins formed an attentive audience as he narrated over and over the events of the last half-hour, and ended always by showing the treasure in his hand, "and the Herr gave me this!"

The Krone hotel here is very prettily situated. It is a large house, with balconies overlooking the water, and a babbling _jet d'eau_ in its garden, which is close by the river.

The stream flows fast in front, and retains evidence of having pa.s.sed through troublous times higher up; therefore it makes no small noise as it rushes under the arches of the covered wooden bridge, but though there are rocks and a few eddies the pa.s.sage is easy enough if you look at it for five minutes to form a mental chart of your course. My German friend having found out that the canoe had arrived after all, his excitement and pleasure abounded. Now he was proved right. Now his promises, broken as it seemed all day, were all fulfilled.

He was a very short, very fat, and very hilarious personage, with a minute smattering of English, which he had to speak loudly, so as to magnify its value among his Allemand friends, envious of his accomplishment.

His explanations of the contents of my sketch-book were truly ludicrous as he dilated on it page by page, but he well deserved all grat.i.tude for ordering my hotel bedroom and its comforts, which were never more acceptable than now after a hard day's work. Music finished the evening, and then the hum of the distant rapids sung me a lullaby breathing soft slumber.

Next morning, as there was but a short row to Bale, I took a good long rest in bed, and then carried the canoe half way across the bridge where a picturesque island is formed into a terraced garden, and here we launched the boat on the water. Although the knocks and strains of the last few days were very numerous, and many of them of portentous force, judging by the sounds they made, the Rob Roy was still hale and hearty, and the carpenter's mate had no damages to report to the captain. It was not until harder times came, in the remainder of the voyage, that her timbers suffered and her planks were tortured by rough usage.

A number of ladies patronized the start on this occasion, and as they waved their parasols and the men shouted Hoch! and Bravo! we glided down stream, the yellow paddle being waved round my head in an original mode of "salute," which I invented specially for returning friendly gratulations of this kind.

Speaking about Rheinfelden, Baedeker says, "Below the town another rapid of the Rhine forms a sort of whirlpool called the Hollenhaken," a formidable announcement, and a terrible name; but what is called here a "whirlpool" is not worth notice.

The sound of a railway train beside the river reminds you that this is not quite a strange, wild, unseen country. Reminds you I say, because really when you are in the river bed, you easily forget all that is beyond it on each side.

Let a landscape be ever so well known from the road, it becomes new again when you view it from the level of the water. For before the scene was bounded by a semicircle with the diameter on the horizon, and the arch of sky for its circ.u.mference. But when you are seated in the canoe, the picture changes to the form of a great sector, with its point on the clear water, and each radius inclining aloft through rocks, trees, and mossy banks, on this side and on that. And this holds good even on a well worn river like the Thames. The land-scenes between Oxford and London get pretty well known and admired by travellers, but the views will seem both fresh and fair if you row down the river through them.

Nay, there are few rivers which have such lovely scenery as the Thames can show in its windings along that route.

But our canoe is now getting back to civilization, and away from that pleasant simplicity where everything done in the streets or the hotel is strange to a stranger. Here we have composite candles and therefore no snuffers; here the waiter insists on speaking English, and sitting down by me, and clutching my arm, he confidentially informs me that there are no "bean green," translating "haricots verts," but that perhaps I might like a "flower caul," so we a.s.sent to a cauliflower.

This is funny enough, but far more amusing is it when the woman waiter of some inland German village shouts louder German to you, because that she rattles out at first is not understood. She gazes with a new sensation at a guest who actually cannot comprehend her voluble words, and then guest and waiter burst into laughter.

Here too I saw a boat towed along the Rhine--a painful evidence of being near commerce, even though it was in a primitive style; not that there was any towing-path, but men walked among the bushes, pulling the boat with a rope, and often wading to do so. This sight told me at once that I had left the fine free forests where you might land anywhere, and it was sure to be lonely and charming.

After a few bends westward we come in sight of the two towers of Bale, but the setting sun makes it almost impossible to see anything in its brightness, so we must only paddle on.

The bridge at Bale was speedily covered by the idle and the curious as the canoe pulled up at an hotel a few yards from the water on Sept.

14th.

It was here that the four-oared boat had arrived some weeks ago with its moist crew. The proprietor of the house was therefore much pleased to see another English boat come in, so little and so lonely, but still so comfortable and so dry. I walked about the town and entered a church (Protestant here of course), where a number of people had a.s.sembled at a baptism. The baby was fixed on a sort of frame, so as to be easily handed about from mother to father, and from clerk to minister; I hereby protest against this mechanical arrangement as a flagrant indignity to the little darling. I have a great respect for babies, sometimes a certain awe.

The instant the christening was done, a happy couple came forward to be married, an exceedingly clumsy dolt of a bridegroom and a fair bride, not very young, that is to say, about fifty-five years old. There were no bridesmaids or other perplexing appurtenances, and after the simple ceremony the couple just walked away, amid the t.i.tters of a numerous crowd of women. The bridegroom did not seem to know exactly what to do next. He walked before his wife, then behind her, and then on one side, but it did not somehow feel quite comfortable, so he a.s.sumed a sort of diagonal position, and kept nudging her on till they disappeared in some house. Altogether, I never saw a more unromantic commencement of married life, but there was this redeeming point, that they were not bored by that dread infliction--a marriage breakfast--the first meeting of two jealous sets of new relations, who are all expected to be made friends at once by eating when they are not hungry, and listening when there is nothing to say. But, come, it is not proper for me to criticise these mysteries, so let us go back to the inn.

In the coffee-room a Frenchman, who had been in London, has just been instructing two Mexicans, who are going there, as to hotels, and it is excessively amusing to hear his description of the London "Caffy Hous,"

and the hotels in "Lyces-ter-squar." "It is p.r.o.nounced squar," he said, "in England."

CHAPTER XI.

Private concert--Thunderer--La Hardt Forest--Mulhouse Ca.n.a.l--River Ill--Reading stories--Madame Nico--Night noises--Pets--Ducking--Vosges--Admirers--Boat on wheels--New wine.

Bale 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 Ma.r.s.eilles, 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 ca.n.a.l, until the last possible opportunity. A diligent study of new maps procured at Bale, showed that a ca.n.a.l 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 sh.o.r.e it was impossible to see a few yards.

But the line of tall poplars along the ca.n.a.l 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 ca.n.a.l 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 d.y.k.es and ditches, and at last through deep gra.s.sy fields, till she was safely placed on the ca.n.a.l.

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 ca.n.a.l 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 pa.s.sing 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 ca.n.a.l without the bridge being raised, but I had pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s there, and mine only pa.s.sed 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.