Dull reading—Chain boat—Kedging—St. Cloud—Training-Dogs—Wrong colours—My policeman—Yankee notion.—Red, White, and Blue.

The effect of living on board a little boat for a month at a time without more than three or four nights of usual repose, was to bring the mind and body into a curious condition of subdued life, a sort of contemplative oriental placid state in which both cares and pleasures ceased to be acute, and the flight of time seemed gliding and even, and not marked by the distinct epochs which define our civilised life. Although this passive enjoyment was really agreeable—and, in fine weather and good health, perhaps a mollusc could affirm as much of its existence,—certainly an experience of the condition I have described enables one to understand what is evidently the normal state of many thousands of hard-worked, ill-fed, and irregularly-sleeped labourers; the men who, sitting down thus weary at night, we expect to read some prosy book full of desperately good advice, of which one half the words are not needed for the sense and the other half are not understood by the reader. [98]

The last tug-boat we had to use was of a peculiar kind, and I am not aware that it is employed upon any of our rivers in Britain. A chain is laid along the bottom of the Seine for (I think) two hundred miles. At certain hours of the day a long solidly-built vessel with a powerful engine on board comes over this, and the chain is seized and put round a wheel on board. By turning this wheel one way or the other it is evident that the chain will be wound up and let down behind, while it cannot slip along the river’s bottom—the enormous friction is enough to prevent that, and therefore the boat is wound up and goes through the water. The power of this chain-boat is so great that it will pull along, and that too against the rapid stream, a whole string of barges, several of them of 300 tons’ burthen. The long fleet advances steadily though slowly, and the irresistible engine works with smokeless funnels, but there are groanings within, telling of tight-strained iron, and earnest undertoned breathings of confined steam.

Although the chain-boat is not often steered for the purpose of avoiding other vessels (these must take care of their own safety), yet it has to be carefully managed by the rudders (one at each end), so that it may drop the chain in a proper part of the river for the next steamer of the Company which is to use it. When two such boats meet from opposite directions, and both are pulling at the same chain, there is much time lost in effecting a passage, and again when the chain-boat and all its string of heavy craft arrives at a lock, you may make up your mind for a long delay. It is evident that we do not require this particular sort of tug-boat on the Thames below Teddington, for the strong tide up and down twice every day carries along thousands of tons of merchandize at a rapid pace, and one or two men will be enough to attend upon each barge. In fact we have the sun and moon for our tugs. These draw the water up, and the tide is the rope which hauls our ships along.

To manoeuvre properly with the Rob Roy in such a case as this with the chain-boat required every vigilance, and strong exercise of muscular force, as well as caution and prompt decision, for I had sometimes to cling to the middle barge, then to drop back to the last, and always to keep off from the river-banks, the shoals, and the trees. On one occasion we had to shift her position by “kedging” for nearly half a mile, and this in a crowded part of the Seine too, where the current also was swift. On another occasion the sharp iron of a screw steamer’s frame ran right against my bow, and at once cut a clean hole quite through the mahogany. Instantly I seized a lump of soft putty, and leaning over the side I squeezed it into the hole, and then “clinched” it (so to speak) on the inside; and this stop-gap actually served for three weeks, until a proper repair could be made.

The lovely precincts of St. Cloud came in sight at dawn on the last day of June, prettier than Richmond, I must confess, or almost any river-town we can boast of in England; and here I was to rest while my little yawl was thoroughly cleaned, brightly varnished, and its inside gaily painted with Cambridge blue, so as to appear at the French Exhibition in its very best suit, and then at the British Regatta on the Seine.

Some days were occupied in this general overhaul, during which the excellent landlady of the hotel where I slept must have been more amazed even than she declared, to see her guest return each day clad in blue flannel, and spattered all over with varnish and paint, for the captain was painter as well as cook. Of course all this was exchanged for proper attire after working hours.

In the cool of the morning, three fine young fellows are running towards us over the bridge; with lithe and easy step, speed but not haste, and in white flannel and white shoes. They have come to contend at the regatta here, the first of an invasion of British oarsmen, who soon fill the lodgings, cover the river, and waken up the footpath early with their rattling run. Some of these are brown-faced watermen from Thames and Humber and Tyne, others are ruddy-cheeked Etonians or University men, or hard-trained Londoners, and others have come over the Atlantic; John Bull’s younger brothers from New Brunswick, not his cousins from New York. You might pick out among these the finest specimens of our species, so far as pluck and muscle make the man.

Few of the French oarsmen could be classed with any of the divisions given above. Rowing has not attained the position in France which it holds in England. For much of our excellence in athletics and field sports we have to thank our well-abused English climate, which always encourages and generally necessitates some sort of exercise when we are out of doors.

But it is a new and healthy sight on the Seine, these fine fellows running in the mornings, and it gives zest to our walk by the beautiful river.

Here also as we stroll about, two dogs gave us much amusement: one was a Newfoundland, who dashed into the water grandly to fetch the stick thrown in by his master. The other was a bulldog, who went in about a yard or so at the same time, and then as the swimmer brought the stick to shore the intruder fastened on it, and always managed somehow to wrest the prize from the real winner, and then carried it to his master with the cool impudence which may be seen not seldom when the honour and reward gained by one person are claimed and even secured by another. [102]

From the truck to the keel the Rob Roy had been thoroughly refreshed and beautified. The perfection of a yacht’s beauty is that nothing should be there for only beauty’s sake. In the strict observance of this rule the English certainly do excel every other nation; and whether you take a huge steam-engine, a yacht, or a four-in-hand drag, it is certainly acknowledged by the best connoisseurs of each, that ornament will not make a bad article good, while it is likely to make a good one look bad.

Even the flags of a yacht have each a meaning, and are not mere patches of pretty colours. Therefore they ought to be made, at all events, perfectly correct first, and then as pretty and neat as you please. I examined the flags of all the boats and yachts and steamers at the Exhibition; and there was wonderfully little taste in their display; nearly every one—English and foreign—was cut wrong, or coloured wrong, or too large for the boat that carried them. Even our Admiralty Barge, where specimens of boats from England were exhibited, had a flag flying, with the stripes in the ‘jack’ quite wrong. She was the only craft on that side of the Pont de Jena; but as it was the English side I anchored there, right opposite the sloping sward of the Exhibition, and I did this without asking any questions, for it is best now and then to do right things at once, and not to delay until time is wasted in proving them to be right.

Here I slept on board my little craft in perfect comfort, and could spend all the rest of the day on shore. Each morning about 7 o’clock you might notice a smart-looking French policeman standing on the grass bank of the Exhibition, and staring hard at the Rob Roy. He had come to see her captain at his somewhat airy toilette, and he was particularly interested, and even amazed, to witness the evolutions of a toothbrush, which were not only interesting but instructive as involving an idea perfectly new—hard also to comprehend from so distant an inspection. Surely he thought this strange implement must be a novelty imported from England for exhibition here.

As he gazed in wonder at the rapid exercise, I sometimes gave the curious instrument an extra flourish above or below, and the intelligent and courteous gendarme never rightly decided whether or not the toothbrush was an essential though inscrutable part of the yacht’s sailing gear. Our acquaintance, however, improved, and he kindly took charge of the boat in my absence; not without a mysterious air as he recounted its travels (and a good deal more), to the numerous visitors,—many of whom, after his explanations, left the Rob Roy quite delighted that they had seen “the little ship which had sailed from America!”

The boat “Red, White, and Blue” he thus confounded with mine—was at that time not far off, in a house by itself, amid the other wonders which crowded the gardens of the Exhibition.

The French policeman

The two venturesome Americans who came to Europe in this ship had but scant pleasure either in their voyage itself or in their visit to France and England. Storm, wet, and hunger on the wide Atlantic were patiently borne in hopes of meeting a warm welcome in Old England; but, instead, they had the cold chill of doubt. Many of their sufferings in both these ways were directly due to their own and their friends’ mismanagement, the stupid construction of their cabin, the foolish three-masted rig of their boat, the boastful wager of the boat’s builder, and their imprudence in painting up the boat on her arrival, and tarring the ropes; and, lastly, in allowing a mutilated paper to be issued as their “original log.”

Disappointed here, they turned to Paris, expecting better days. Fair promises were made. Steamers were to tow the boat up the Seine in triumph; but it was towed against a bridge and smashed its masts. Agents were to secure goodly numbers to visit her; but for three months scarcely any one paid for a ticket, until at length the vessel was admitted into the grounds of the Exhibition. Finally, the ruined Captain ran away to England, but cleverly contrived to carry his ship with him. Whatever may be thought as to the wisdom or advantage of making such a voyage and in such a boat, it is a very great pity that when it has been effected there should be a failure in appreciating its marvellous accomplishment.

The possibility of taking a boat across the Atlantic, with west wind prevailing and with no rocks or shoals to fear, is altogether beyond doubt. The ill-fate of two other boats that have tried the feat shews how dangerous it is to try. The success of another more recent trip of ‘man and wife’ in one boat is reassuring. But after examining, probably more than any body else, the evidence in their case—the men, the log, the documents, and affidavits, and the boat, and its contents, also the numerous doubts and criticisms from all quarters, both in London and Paris, and in Dover and Margate, I have good reason to believe that the “Red, White, and Blue” had no extraneous help in her voyage across that wide ocean. The unexplained wonder is that men able and willing to perform such a deed as this should be incapable of building and rigging their boat so as to do it comfortably.