Rollo in Geneva Part 2

CHAPTER III.

THE RIDE TO GENEVA.

"DEAR LUCY:

"I am going to give you an account of my night ride from Lyons to Geneva.

"I got to the diligence office before father came, because I was going to ride up in the bellows-top. I call it the bellows-top so that you may understand it better. It is a place up in the second story of the diligence, where there are seats for four persons, and a great bellows-top over their heads. _I_ think it is the best place, though people have to pay more for the coupe, which is right under it. I got eight francs, which is more than a dollar and a half, for exchanging my seat in the coupe for one on the banquette. I exchanged with a lady. I suppose she did not like to climb up the ladder. You see in the coupe you step right in as you would into a carriage; but you have to go up quite a long ladder to get to the banquette. I counted the steps. There were thirteen.

"When I got to the office, the men were using the ladder to put up the baggage. They put the baggage on the top of the diligence, along the whole length of it behind the bellows-top. They pack it all in very closely, beginning immediately behind, and coming regularly forward, as far as it will reach. There is a frame over it, and a great leather covering. They pull the covering forward as fast as they get the trunks packed, until at last the baggage is all covered over as far forward as to the back of the bellows-top.

"The men were using the ladders when I came, getting up the baggage; so I climbed up by the little steps that are made on the side of the diligence. I liked my seat very much. Before me was a great leather boot. The boot was fastened to an iron bar that went across in front, so that it did not come against my knees. Above me was the bellows-top, to keep off the rain. Up under the roof of the bellows-top there was a sash folded together and fastened up by straps. I unfastened one of the straps, and saw that I could let down the sash if I wished, and thus make a gla.s.s window in front of me, so as to shut me in nicely from the wind, if it should grow cold in the night. Behind me was a curtain. The curtain was loose. I pushed it back, and found I could look out on the top of the diligence where the men were at work packing the trunks and baggage. The men wore blue frocks shaped like cartmen's frocks.[C]

[Footnote C: Such a frock is called a _blouse_--p.r.o.nounced _blooze_.

Almost all working men in France wear them. Hence the cla.s.s of workmen in France are sometimes called the _blouses_.]

"Right before the boot was the postilion's seat. It was a little lower than my seat, and was large enough for two. The conductor's seat was at the end of my seat, under the bellows-top. There was one thing curious about his seat, and that is, that there was a joint in the iron bar of the boot, so that he could open his end of it, and get out and in without disturbing the boot before the rest of the pa.s.sengers. When I wanted to get out I had to climb over the boot to the postilion's seat, and so get down by the little iron steps.

"The reason I wanted to get down was so as to buy some oranges. There was a woman down there with oranges to sell. She had them in a basket. I thought perhaps that I might be thirsty in the night, and that I could not get down very well to get a drink of water. So I climbed down and bought four oranges. I bought one for myself, and two to give father and mother, and one more because the woman looked so poor. Besides, they were not very dear--only fifteen centimes apiece. It takes five centimes to make a sou, and a sou is about as much as a cent.

"When I had bought my oranges I climbed up into my place again.

"There were several people beginning to come and stand about the door of the bureau. I suppose they were the travellers. Some came in cabs, with their trunks on before with the postilion. I counted up how many the diligence would hold, and found that in all, including the two postilion's seats, and the conductor's, that there were places for twenty-one. But when we started we had twenty-four in all. Where the other three sat you will see by and by.[D]

[Footnote D: The diligence is very large. It has four separate compartments. For a more full account of the construction of the vehicle, and for one or two engravings representing it, see Rollo's Tour in Switzerland.]

"As fast as the pa.s.sengers came to the office, the men took their baggage and packed it with the rest, on the top of the diligence, and the pa.s.sengers themselves stood about the door, waiting for the horses to be put in.

"Some of the pa.s.sengers came on foot, with commissioners to bring their baggage. The commissioners carried their baggage on their backs. They had a frame something like an old-fashioned kitchen chair strapped to their shoulders, and the baggage was piled upon this very high. One commissioner that came had on his frame, first a big black trunk, placed endwise, and then a portmanteau, then a carpet bag, and on the top a bandbox. The bandbox reached far above his head. I should not think they could possibly carry such heavy loads.

"Presently I saw father and mother coming in a cab. So I climbed down to meet them. The men in the blouses took their trunk and carried it up the ladder, and then I opened the coupe door for them, and let them get in.

I told mother that my place was exactly over her head, and that I was then going to climb up to it, and that when I was there I would knock on the floor, and she would know that I had got there safely; and I did.

"By and by they got all the baggage packed, and they pulled the great leather covering over it, and fastened it to the back of the bellows-top. Then I could push up the curtain behind me and look in at the place where the baggage was stowed. It looked like a garret. It was not quite full. There was room for several more trunks at the forward end of it.

"Pretty soon after this they brought round the horses and harnessed them in. Then the clerk came out of the bureau and called off the names of the pa.s.sengers from his list. First he called the names of those who were to go in the coupe. He said, in a loud voice,--

"'Monsieur Holiday and Madame Holiday!'

"And he looked in at the coupe door, and father said, 'Here.'

"Then he called out,--

"'Madame Tournay!'

"That was the name of the lady that had changed places with me. So she got into the coupe. That made the coupe full.

"In the same manner the clerk called off the names of those who were to go in the interior, which is the centre compartment. The interior holds six.

"Then he called off the names of those that were to go in the 'rotonde,'

which is the back compartment. You get into the rotonde by a door behind, like the door of an omnibus.

"Then the clerk called out the names of the people that were to come up to the banquette with me. There were six of them, and there seemed to be only room for three. So I could not imagine where they were all going to sit. They came in a row, one behind the other, up the ladder. Very soon I saw how they were going to sit; for the three that came first--a man and woman and a girl--when they came into the banquette, pushed up the curtain at the back side of it, and so climbed in behind to the garret, and sat on the trunks. When the curtain was down, after they were in, they were all in the dark there.

"However, pretty soon they contrived to fasten up the curtain, and then they could see out a little over our shoulders. The girl sat directly behind me. I asked her if she could see, and she said she could, very well.

"The postilion then climbed up, with the reins in his hand, and called out to the horses to start on. He talked to his horses in French, and they seemed to understand him very well. The great thing, though, was cracking his whip. You can scarcely conceive how fast and loud he cracked his whip, first on one side and then on the other, till the whole court rang again. The horses sprang forward and trotted off at great speed out of the place, and wheeled round the corner to the quay; and while they were going, the conductor came climbing up the side of the coach to his place.

"The conductor never gets into his place before the diligence starts. He waits till the horses set out, and then jumps on to the step, and so climbs up the side while the horses are going.

"A diligence is a monstrous great machine; and when it sets out on a journey in a city, the rumbling of the wheels on the pavement, and the clattering of the horses' feet, and the continual cracking of the coachman's whip, and the echoes of all these sounds on the walls of the buildings, make a wonderful noise and din, and every body, when the diligence is coming, hurries to get out of the way. Indeed, I believe the coachman likes to make all the noise he can; for he has sleigh bells on the harness, and, besides cracking his whip, he keeps continually shouting out to the horses and the teamsters on the road before him; and whenever he is pa.s.sing through a town or a village he does all this more than any where else, because, as I suppose, there are more people there to hear him.

"Presently, after driving along the quay a little way, we turned off to one of the great stone bridges that lead across the Rhone. We went over this bridge in splendid style. I could see far up and down the river, and trains of wagons and mult.i.tudes of people going and coming on the other bridges. The water in the river was running very swift. There were some boats along the sh.o.r.e, but I don't see how the people could dare to venture out in them in such a current.

"As soon as we had got over the bridge, we struck into a beautiful road across the country, and the postilion cracked on faster and harder than ever. We had five horses, three abreast before, and two behind. They went upon the gallop, and the postilion kept cracking his whip about them and over their ears all the time. I thought for a while that he was whipping them; but when I leaned forward, so that I could look down and see, I found that he did not touch them with his whip at all, but only cracked the snapper about them, and shouted at them in French, to make them go. The road was as hard and smooth as a floor, and it was almost as white as a floor of marble.

"The country was very beautiful as long as we could see. There were no fences, but there were beautiful fields on each side of the road, divided into squares, like the beds of a garden, with all sorts of things growing in them.

"Every now and then we came to a village. These villages were the queerest looking places that you can imagine. They were formed of rows of stone houses, close to each other and close to the street. They were so close to the street, and the street was usually so narrow, that there was scarcely room sometimes to pa.s.s through. I could almost shake hands with the people looking out the second story windows. I cannot imagine why they should leave the pa.s.sage so narrow between the houses on such a great road. If there were any people in the street of the village when we went through, they had to back up against the wall when we pa.s.sed them, to prevent being knocked down.

"When we were going through any of these villages, the postilion drove faster than ever. He would crack his whip, and cheer on his horses, and make noise and uproar enough to frighten half the town.

"We went on in this way till it began to grow dark. The postilion handed the lanterns up to the conductor, and he lighted them with some matches that he carried in his pocket. The lanterns had reflectors in the back of them, and were very bright. When the postilion put them back in their places on the front of the coach, the light shone down on the road before us, so that the way where the horses were going was as bright as day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOING THROUGH THE VILLAGE.]

"After a time the moon rose, and that made it pretty bright every where.

Still I could not see very far, and as the people around me were talking, I listened to what they were saying. The conductor was telling stories about diligences that had been robbed. He said that once, when he was travelling somewhere, the diligence was attacked by robbers, and he was shot by one of them. He was shot in the neck; and he had to keep in his bed six months before he got well. I listened as well as I could, but the diligence made such a noise that I could not understand all he said, and I did not hear where it was that this happened. I suppose it was probably in Italy, for I have heard that there were a great many robbers there.

"After a while I began to feel sleepy. I don't remember going to sleep, for the first thing I knew after I began to feel sleepy was that I was waking up. We were stopping to change horses. We stopped to change horses very often--oftener than once an hour. When we changed horses we always changed the postilion too. A new postilion always came with every new team. It was only the conductor that we did not change. He went with us all the way.

"We changed horses usually in a village; and it was very curious to see what queer-looking hostlers and stable boys came out with the new teams.

Generally the hostlers were all ready, waiting for the diligence to come; but sometimes they would be all asleep, and the conductor and the postilion would make a great shouting and uproar in waking them up.

"When the new team was harnessed in, the new postilion would climb up to his seat, with the reins in his hands, and, without waiting a moment, he would start the horses on at full speed, leaving the poor conductor to get on the best way he could. By the time the horses began to go on the gallop, the conductor would come climbing up the side of the coach into his place.

"It was curious to see how different the different teams were in regard to the number of horses. Sometimes we had four horses, sometimes five, and once we had seven. For a long time I could not tell what the reason was for such a difference. But at last I found out. It was because some of the stages were pretty nearly level, and others were almost all up hill. Of course, where there was a great deal of up hill they required more horses. At the time when they put on seven horses I knew that we had come to a place where it was almost all up hill; and it was. The road went winding around through a region of hills and valleys, but ascending all the time. Still the road was so hard and smooth, and the horses were so full of life, that we went on the full trot the whole way. Four horses could not have done this, though, with such a heavy load. It took seven.

"In almost all the villages we came to we saw long lines of wagons by the road side. They were very curious wagons indeed. They were small.

Each one was to be drawn by one horse. There was no body to them, but only two long poles going from the forward axletree to the back axletree; and the load was packed on these poles, and covered with canvas. It looked just like a big bundle tied up in a cloth. These were wagons that had stopped for the night. Afterwards, when the morning came, we overtook a great many trains of these wagons, on the road to Geneva. They were loaded with merchandise going from France into Switzerland. There was only one driver to the whole train. He went along with the front wagon, and all the rest followed on in a line. The horses were trained to follow in this way. Thus one man could take charge of a train of six or eight wagons.

"There was one very curious thing in the arrangement, and that was, that the last horse in the train had a bell on his neck, something like a cow bell. This was to prevent the driver from having to look round continually to see whether the rest of the horses were coming or not. As long as he could hear the bell on the last one's neck he knew they were all coming; for none of the middle ones could stop without stopping all behind them.

"I suppose that sometimes some of the horses in the train would stop; then the driver would observe that the bell ceased to ring, and he would stop his own wagon, and go back to see what was the matter. If he found that any of them stopped to eat gra.s.s by the way, or because they were lazy, he would give them a whipping, and start them on, and that would teach them to keep marching on the next time.