John MacGregor

“ It is, as in the voyage of life, that our cares and hardships are our very Mentors of living. Our minds would only vegetate if all life were like a straight canal, and we in a boat being towed along it. The afflictions that agitate the soul are as its shallows, rocks, and whirlpools, and the bark that has not been tossed on billows knows not half the sweetness of the harbour of rest. ”

“ The arch of this dark tunnel made an excellent frame to a magnificent picture; for before me was stretched out broad France. All streams at our back went down to the all-absorbing Rhine, but those in front would wend their various ways, some to the Mediterranean, others into the Bay of Biscay, and the rest into the British Channel.
A thousand peaks and wooded knolls were on this side and that, while a dim panorama of five or six villages and sunny plains extended before us. This was the chain of the Vosges mountains and their pleasant vales, where many valorous men have been reared. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Wellington; or, if you are tired of the water for a time, you can leave your boat at an inn—it will not be "eating its head off," like a horse; or you can send it home or sell it, and take to the road yourself, or sink into the dull old cushions of the "Première Classe," and dream you are seeing the world.
With such advantages, then, and with good weather and good health, the canoe voyage about to be described was truly delightful, and I never enjoyed so much continuous pleasure in any other tour. ”

“ We like to see the source of a great river; a romantic man must have much piquant thought at the sight, and a poetic man must be stirred by its sentiment. Every great thought must also have had a source or germ, and it would be interesting to know how and when some of the grand ideas that have afterwards aroused nations first thrilled in the brain of a genius, a warrior, a philosopher, or a statesman. And besides having a source, each stream of thought has a current too, with ripples and deep pools, and scenery as it were around. ”

“ He was just the man for the moment; but first those two uniformed douaniers must be dealt with, and I had to satisfy their dignity by paddling up the strong current to their lair; for the fly had touched the spiders' web and the spiders were too grand to come out and seize it. Good humour, and smiles, and a little judicious irony as to the absurd notion of overhauling a canoe which could be carried on your back, soon made them release me, if only to uphold their own dignity, and I left the boat in the best drawing-room of the ex-courier, and ascended the hill to the hotel aloft. ”

“ The wood is so thick, the rocks so quaint and high and varied, the water so clear, and the grass so green. Winding here and turning there, and rushing fast down this reach and paddling slow along that, with each minute a fresh view, and of new things, the mind is ever on the qui vive, or the boat will go bump on a bank, crash on a rock, or plunge into a tree full of gnats and spiders. This is veritable travelling, where skill and tact are needed to bear you along, and where each exertion of either is rewarded at once. ”

“ The shade will be better enjoyed when resting in the boat under a high rock, or in a cool water cave, or beneath a wooden bridge, or within the longer shadow of a pine-clad cliff.
Often I tried to rest those midday hours (for one cannot always work) on shore, in a house, or on a grassy bank; but it was never so pleasant as at full length in the canoe, under a thick grown oak-tree, with a book to read dreamily, and a mild cigar at six for a penny, grown in the fields we passed, and made up at yesterday's inn. ”

“ But with these amusements, and a little wading, you sit quite dry, and, leaning against the backboard, smoothly glide past every danger, lolling at ease where the current is excessive, and where it would not be safe to add impetus, for the shock of a collision there would break the strongest boat.
If incidents like these, and the scenery and the people ashore, were not enough to satisfy the ever greedy mind, some louder plashing, with a deeper roar, would announce the rapids. This sound was sure to waken up any sleepiness, and once in the middle of rough water all had to be energy and life. ”

“ The close acquaintance with the people of strange lands, and the constant observation of nature around, and the unremitting attention necessary for progress, all combine to make a voyage of this sort improving to the mind thus kept alert, while the body thoroughly enjoys life when regular hard exercise in the open air dissipates the lethargy of these warmer climes.
These were my thoughts as I came to the Seine and found a cool bank to lie upon under the trees, with my boat gently rocking in the ripples of the stream below, and the nearer sound of a great city telling that Paris was at hand. ”

“ A crane jumps up here, a duck flutters there, splash [23] leaps a gleaming trout by your side, the rushing sound of rocks warns you round that corner, or anon you come suddenly upon a millrace. All these, in addition to the scenery and the people and the weather, and the determination that you must get on, over, through, or under every difficulty, and cannot leave your boat in a desolate wold, and ought to arrive at a house before dark, and that your luncheon bag is long since empty; all these, I say, keep the mind awake, which would perchance dose away for 100 miles in a first-class carriage. ”

“ There are peaceful and almost dreamy hours of rest in this water tour, and they are sweet too after hard toil. It is not all rapids and struggles when you journey with a canoe.
Close to the inn was the idiot asylum, an old castle with poor demented women in it. The little flag of my boat attracted their attention, and all the inmates were allowed to come out and see it, with many smiles of pleasure, and many odd remarks and gestures. ”

“ In sailing while the wind is light you need not always sit, as must be done for paddling. Wafted by the breeze you can now recline, lie down, or lie up, put your legs anyhow and anywhere, in the water if you like, and the peak of the sail is a shade [134] between the sun and your eyes, while the ripples seem to tinkle cheerfully against the bow, and the wavelets seethe by smoothly near the stern. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The men asked if I had come down the rapids in that boat. "Yes." "By the middle channel?" "Yes." They smiled to each other, and then both at once commenced a most voluble and loud-spoken address in the vilest of patois. Their eagerness and energy rose to such a pitch that I began to suppose they were angry; but the upshot of all this eloquence (always louder when you are seen not to understand one word of it) was this, "There are other rapids to come. You will get there in half an hour. They are far worse than what you have passed. Your boat must be carried round them on land." ”

“ We stopped to breakfast at a new canal cutting, and as there were many gamins about, I fastened a stone to my painter and took the boat out into the middle of the river, and so left her moored within sight of the arbour, where I sat, and also within sight of the ardent-eyed boys who gazed for hours with wistful looks on the tiny craft and its fluttering flag. ”

“ The Reuss has many cascades and torrent gorges as it runs among the rough crags, and it falls nearly 6,000 feet before it reaches the Lake of Lucerne, this lake itself being still 1,400 feet above the sea.
A gradual current towards the end of the lake entices you under the bridge where the river starts again on its course, at first gently enough, and as if it never could get fierce and hoarse-voiced when it has taken you miles away into the woods and can deal with you all alone. ”

“ The Kloster at Beuron is a favourite place for excursionists from the towns in the neighbourhood, and no doubt some day soon it will be a regular "place to see" for English travellers rowing down the Danube; for it is thus, and only thus, you can approach it with full effect. The moon had come forth as I leaned out of my bedroom window, and it whitened the ample circus of beetling crags, and darkened the trees, while a fainter and redder light glimmered from the monks' chapel, as the low tones of midnight chanting now and then reached the ear. ”

“ But it was a shame to be a phantom ship too often, and it was far more amusing to go right into the middle of these people, who knew nothing about the canoe, who had never seen a boat, and never met a foreigner in their lives. Thus, when a waterfall was found too high to "shoot," or a wide barrier made it advisable to take the boat [80] by land, I used to walk straight into the hayfields, pushing the boat point foremost through a hedge, or dragging her steadily over the wet newly-mown grass in literal imitation of the American craft which could go "wherever there was a heavy dew." ”

“ It is humiliating to sit in a leaky boat—it is like a lame horse or a crooked gun; of all the needful qualities of a boat the first is to keep out the water. So I stopped at the first village, and got a man to mix white lead and other things, and we carefully worked this into all the seams, leaving it to harden while I had my breakfast in the little auberge close by the shore, where they are making the long rafts to go down to Paris, and where hot farmers come to sip their two-penny bottle of wine. ”

“ In the wildest parts of the best rivers the channel is too narrow for oars, or, if wide, it [2] is too shallow for a row-boat; and the tortuous passages, the rocks and banks, the weeds and snags, the milldams, barriers, fallen trees, rapids, whirlpools, and waterfalls that constantly occur on a river winding among hills, make those very parts where the scenery is wildest and best to be quite unapproachable in an open boat, for it would be swamped by the sharp waves, or upset over the sunken rocks which it is utterly impossible for a steersman to see. ”

“ In an instant, if you hesitate, the boat is on a bank; and it is remarkable how speedily the exercise of this resolution becomes experienced into habit, but of course only after some severe lessons.
It is exciting to direct a camel over the sandy desert when you have lost your fellow-travellers, and to guide a horse in trackless wilds alone; but the pleasure of paddling a canoe down a rapid, high-banked, and unknown river, is far more than these. ”

“ All life got to be a smooth and gliding thing, of dreamy pictures and far-off sounds, without [24] fuss and without dust or anything sudden or loud, till at length the bustle and hammers of Liege neared the Rob Roy—for it was always the objects and not myself that seemed to move. Here I saw a fast steamer, the Seraing, propelled by water forced from its sides, and as my boat hopped and bobbed in the steamer's waves we entered a dock together, and the canoe was soon hoisted into a garden for the night.
Gun-barrels are the rage in Liege. Everybody there makes or carries or sells gun-barrels. ”

“ He sees all his course, and the scenery besides. With one powerful sweep of his paddle he can instantly turn the canoe, when only a foot distant from fatal destruction. He can steer within an inch in a narrow place, or pass through reeds and weeds, branches and grass; can hoist and lower his sail without changing his seat; can shove with his paddle when aground, or jump out in good time to prevent a decided smash. He can wade and haul the light craft over shallows, or drag it on dry ground, through fields and hedges, over dykes, barriers, and walls ”

“ The gradual approach to Paris by gliding down the Seine was altogether a new sensation. By diligence, railway, or steamer, you have nothing like it—not certainly by walking into Paris along a dusty road.
For now we are smoothly carried on a wide and winding river, with nothing to do but to look and to listen while the splendid panorama majestically unfolds. Villas thicken, gardens get smaller as houses are closer, trees get fewer as walls increase. ”

“ This town of Meaux has a bridge with houses on it, and great mill-wheels filling up the arches as they used to do in old London-bridge. Pleasant gardens front the river, and cafés glitter there at night. These are not luxuries but positive necessaries of life for the Frenchman, and it is their absence abroad which—we believe—is one chief cause of his being so bad a colonist, for the Frenchman has only the expression "with me" for "home," and no word for "wife" but "woman." ”

“ 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 [240] 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. ”