FOOTNOTES:
[I.] See [Appendix]. Special hints for those who intend to "canoe it" will usually be given in the footnotes, or in the [Appendix].
[II.] At Ostend I found an English gentleman preparing for a voyage on the Danube, for which he was to build a "centre board" boat. Although no doubt a sailing boat could reach the Danube by the Bamberg canal, yet, after four tours on that river from its source as far as Pest, I am convinced that to trust to sailing upon it would entail much tedious delay, useless trouble, and constant anxiety. If the wind is ahead you have all the labour of tacking, and are frequently in slack water near the banks, and often in channels where the only course would be dead to windward. If the wind is aft the danger of "running" is extreme where you have to "broach to" and stop suddenly near a shallow or a barrier. With a strong side wind, indeed, you can sail safely, but this must come from north or south, and the high banks vastly reduce its effect.
[III.] Frequent trials afterwards convinced me that towing is only useful if you feel very cramped from sitting. And this constraint is felt less and less as you get accustomed to sit ten or twelve hours at a time. Experience enables you to make the seat perfectly comfortable, and on the better rivers you have so frequently to get out that any additional change is quite needless. Towing is slower progress than paddling, even when your arms are tired, though my canoe was so light to tow that for miles I have drawn it by my little finger on a canal.
[IV.] This is an exceptional case, and I wrote from England to thank the officer. It would be unreasonable again to expect any baggage to be thus favoured. A canoe is at best a clumsy inconvenience in the luggage-van, and no one can wonder that it is objected to. In France the railway fourgons are shorter than in other countries, and the officials there insisted on treating my canoe as merchandise. The instances given above show what occurred in Belgium and Holland. In Germany little difficulty was made about the boat as luggage. In Switzerland there was no objection raised, for was not I an English traveller? As for the English railway guards, they have the good sense to see that a long light article like a canoe can be readily carried on the top of a passenger carriage. Probably some distinct rules will be instituted by the railways in each country, when they are found to be liable to a nautical incursion, but after all one can very well arrange to walk or see sights now and then, while the boat travels slower by a goods-train.
[V.] The legend about Pilate extends over Germany and Italy. Even on the flanks of Stromboli there is a talus of the volcano which the people dare not approach, "because of Pontius Pilate."
[VI.] After trying various modes of securing the canoe in a springless cart for long journeys on rough and hilly roads, I am convinced that the best way is to fasten two ropes across the top of a long cart and let the boat lie on these, which will bear it like springs and so modify the jolts. The painter is then made fast fore and aft, so as to keep the boat from moving back and forward. All plans for using trusses of straw, &c., fail after a few miles of rolling gravel and coarse ruts.
[VII.] The old Roman Ister. The name Donau is pronounced "Doanou." Hilpert says, "Dönau allied to Dón and Düna (a river)." In Celtic Dune means "river," and Don means "brown," while "au" in German is "island" (like the English "eyot").
The other three rivers mentioned above, and depicted in the plan on the map with this book, seem to preserve traces of their Roman names. Thus the "Brigach" is the stream coming from the north where "Alt Breisach" now represents the Roman "Mons Brisiacus," while the "Brege" may be referred to "Brigantii," the people about the "Brigantinus Lacus," now the "Boden See" (Lake Constance), where also Bregentz now represents the Roman "Brigantius." The river Neckar was "Nicer" of old, and the Black Forest was "Hercynia Silva."
The reader being now sufficiently confused about the source of the Danube and its name, let us leave the Latin in the quagmire and jump nimbly into our canoe.
[VIII.] The best geographical books give different estimates of this, some above and others below the amount here stated.
[IX.] See sketch, ante, [page 49].
[X.] Two stimulants well known in England are much used in Germany,—tea and tobacco.
(1) The tobacco plant (sometimes styled a weed, because it also grows wild) produces leaves, which are dried and rolled, and then treated with fire, using an appropriate instrument, by which the fumes are inhaled. The effect upon many persons is to soothe; but it impairs the appetite of others. The use is carried to excess in Turkey. The leaves contain a deadly poison.
(2) The tea weed (sometimes styled a plant, because it also grows under cultivation) produces leaves, which are dried and rolled, and then treated with fire, using an appropriate instrument, by which the infusion is imbibed. The effect upon many persons is to cheer; but it impairs the sleep of others. The use is carried to excess in Russia. The leaves contain a deadly poison.
Both these luxuries are cheap and portable, and are daily enjoyed by millions of persons in all climates. Both require care and moderation in their use. Both have advocates and enemies; and it cannot be settled by argument whether the plant or the weed is the more useful or hurtful to mankind.
[XI.] The invention of this method was made here, but its invaluable advantages were more apparent in passing the second rapid of Rheinfelden. See post, [page 186], where described, with a sketch.
[XII.] Murray says: "The Meuse has been compared to the Wye; but is even more romantic than the English river." I would rank the Wye as much above the Meuse as below the Danube for romance in scenery.
[XIII.] Knapsack, from "schnap," "sach," provision bag, for "bits and bats," as we should say; havresack is from "hafer," "forage bag." Query.—Does this youthful carriage of the knapsack adapt boys for military service, and does it account for the high shoulders of many Germans?
[XIV.] In the newspaper accounts of the weather it was stated that at this time a storm swept over Central Europe.
[XV.] It will be noticed how the termination "ingen" is common here. Thus in our water route we have passed Donaueschingen, Geisingen, Mehringen, Tuttlingen, Friedingen, Sigmaringen, Riedlingen, Ehingen, Dischingen, and Gegglingen, the least and last. In England we have the "ing" in Dorking, Kettering, &c.
[XVI.] These maelstroms seem at first to demand extra caution as you approach, but they are harmless enough, for the water is deep, and it only twists the boat round; and you need not mind this except when the sail is up, but have a care then that you are not taken aback. In crossing one of these whirlpools at full speed it will be found needless to try to counteract the sudden action on your bow by paddling against it, for it is better to hold on as if there were no interference, and presently the action in the reverse direction puts all quite straight.
[XVII.] His Majesty has not forgotten the canoe, as will be seen by the following extract from the Paris intelligence in the "Globe" of April 20 (His Majesty's birthday):—
"By an edict, dated April 6, 1866, issued this morning, the Ministre d'Etat institutes a special committee for the organisation of a special exhibition, at the Exposition Universelle of 1867, of all objects connected with the arts and industry attached to pleasure boats and river navigation. This measure is thought to display the importance which amateur navigation has assumed during the last few years—to display the honour in which is held this sport nouveau, as it is denominated in the report, and to be successful in abolishing the old and absurd prejudices which have so long prevented its development in France. The Emperor, whose fancy for imitating everything English leads him to patronise with alacrity all imitation of English sports in particular, is said to have suggested the present exhibition after reading MacGregor's 'Cruise of the Rob Roy,' which developes many new ideas of the purposes besides mere pleasure to which pleasure boats may be applied, and would be glad to encourage a taste for the exploration of solitary streams and lonely currents amongst the youth of France."
[XVIII.] Each of these was in shape like the cigar ship which I had sailed past on the Thames, and which has since been launched.
[XIX.] This word, like other expressive French words, is commonly used in Germany and Switzerland.
[XX.] This is so very useful in extending the horizon of view, and in enabling you to examine a whole ledge of sunken rocks at once, that it is well worth the trouble of a week or two's practice.
[XXI.] I had not then acquired the knowledge of a valuable fact, that a sharp wave of this kind never has a rock behind it. A sharp wave requires free water at its rear, and it is therefore in the safest part of the river so far as concealed dangers are concerned. This at least was the conclusion come to after frequent observation afterwards of many such places.
[XXII.] See a faithful representation of this incident, so far as relates to the water, in the [Frontispiece].
[XXIII.] However, I made the landlord here take eight francs as a compromise.
[XXIV.] This adventure was the result of temporary carelessness, while that at the rapids was the result of impatience, for the passage of these latter could probably have been effected without encountering the central wave had an hour or two been spent in examining the place. Let not any tourist, then, be deterred from a paddle on the Reuss, which is a perfectly suitable river, with no unavoidable dangers.
[XXV.] This was Lord Montague, the last of his line, and on the same day his family mansion of Cowdray, in Sussex, was burned to the ground.
[XXVI.] A sketch of this cow-cart will be found, post, [page 213].
[XXVII.] "Lauffenburg" means the "town of the falls," from "laufen," to run; and the Yankee term "loafer" may come from this "herum laufer," one running about.
[XXVIII.] See an inventory of these in the [Appendix].
[XXIX.] The sketch represents the lady cow which dragged the cart at Lauffenburg, but it will do almost equally well for the present equipage.
[XXX.] This invention, l'Extincteur, has since been exhibited in London, and it seems to be a valuable one.
[XXXI.] The Loss of the Kent East Indiaman by Fire in the Bay of Biscay, by General Sir D. Macgregor, K.C.B. (Religious Tract Society, Paternoster-row.) See a further note on this in the [Appendix].
[XXXII.] The giant called "Anak," who has been exhibiting in London, is from the Vosges mountains.
[XXXIII.] Among other celebrated French "stations" there is the mountain of La Salette, near Grenoble, where, even in one day, 16,000 pilgrims have ascended to visit the spot where the Virgin Mary was said to have spoken to some shepherds. On the occasion of my pilgrimage there I met some donkeys with panniers bringing down holy water (in lemonade bottles) which was sold throughout Europe for a shilling a bottle, until a priest at the bottom of the mountain started a private pump of his own. The woman who had been hired to personate the Holy Saint confessed the deception, and it was exploded before the courts of law in a report which I read on the spot; but the Roman Catholic papers, even in England, published attractive articles to support this flagrant imposture, and its truth and goodness were vehemently proclaimed in a book by the Romish Bishop of Birmingham, with the assent of the Pope. Methinks it is easier to march barefoot 100 miles over sharp stones than to plod your honest walk of life on common pavement and with strong soled boots.
[XXXIV.] Some days previously a stranger gave me a bundle of papers to read, for which I thanked him much. Afterwards at leisure I examined the packet, which consisted of about thirty large pages sewn together, and comprising tracts upon politics, science, literature, and religion. The last subject was prominent, and was dealt with in a style clever, caustic, and censorious, which interested me much. These tracts were printed in England and with good paper and type. They are a weekly series, distributed everywhere at six shillings a dozen, and each page is entitled "The Saturday Review."
[XXXV.] The bamboo mast was meant originally to serve also as a boat-hook or hitcher, and had a ferrule and a fishing gaff neatly fastened on the end, which fitted also into the mast step. I recollect having used the boat-hook once at Gravesend, but it was instantly seen to be a mistake. You don't want a boat-hook when your canoe can come close alongside where it is deep, and will ground when it is shallow. Besides, to use a boat-hook you must drop the paddle.
[XXXVI.] The figures in [ ] are the dimensions of the old Rob Roy.
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