Two Summers in Guyenne: A Chronicle of the Wayside and Waterside

by Edward Harrison Barker

'Why give yourselves the devil's trouble,' said he,' in pulling the boat over here, when there is a beautiful place at the other end of the barrage, where you can go down with the current? The water is a bit jumpy, but there is nothing to fear.'

For a moment I hesitated, but I saw the miller shake his head; and this decided me to cross at the spot where we were. The old man looked on with an expression that was not benevolent, and when the boat was ready to be dropped on the other side, the motive of his anxiety to send us down a waterfall came out. He had spread a long net here in amongst the reeds, and he did not wish us to spoil his fishing.

When we got below the mill we saw the water that was not wanted for the wheel, tumbling in fury down a steep, narrow channel, in which were set various poles and cross-beams. And it was down this villainous diversoir that the old rascal would have sent us, knowing that we should have come to grief there. The boat would almost certainly have struck some obstacle and been overturned by the current.

Sometimes people rushed from the fields where they were working to the banks to watch us. Dark men, with bare chests, and as hairy as monkeys; women, likewise a good deal bare, with heads covered by great sun-bonnets, and children burnt by the sun to the colour of young Arabs, stood and gazed speechless with astonishment. Who were we in this strange-looking boat that went so fast, and whence had we come? They knew that we must have come a long, long way; but, how did we do it? How did we get over the barrages? These were the thoughts that puzzled them. No boat had ever been known to treat the obstacles of the Dronne in this jaunty fashion before.

Several more weirs were passed; one with great difficulty, for the canoe had to be dragged and jolted thirty or forty yards through the corner of a wood. Then the evening fell again when we were following the windings of a swift current that ran now to the right and now to the left of what seemed to be a broad marsh covered with reeds and sedges. Sometimes the current carried us into banks gloomy with drooping alders, or densely fringed with brambles. When I heard squeals behind, I knew that Hugh was diving through a blackberry-bush, or a hanging garden of briars.

I was sorry for him; but my business was to keep the canoe's head in the centre of the current, and leave the stern to follow as it might. At every sudden turning Hugh became exceedingly watchful; but in spite of his steering the stern would often swing round into the bank, and then there was nothing for him to do but to duck his head as low as he could, and try to leave as little as possible of his ears upon the brambles. Before the end of this day he gave signs of restlessness and discontent.

Our stopping-place to-night was to be La Roche Chalais, a rather important village, just within the department of the Dordogne. We still seemed to be far from it, notwithstanding all the haste we had made. While the air and water were glowing with the last flush of twilight, myriads of swallows, already on their passage from the north, spotted the clear sky, and settled down upon the alders to pass the night. At our approach they rose again, and filled the solitude with the whirr of their wings. We likewise disturbed from the alders great multitudes of sparrows that had become gregarious. They stayed in the trees until the boat was about twenty yards from them, and then rose with the noise of a storm-wind beating the leaves. One of the charms of this waterfaring is, that you never know what surprise the angle of a river may bring. Very tired, and rather down at heart, we turned a bend and saw in front of us a clear placid reach, on which the reds and purples were serenely dying, and at a distance of about half a mile, a fine bridge with the large central arch forming with its reflection in the water a perfect ellipse.

On the left of the bridge was a wooded cliff, the edges of the trees vaguely passing into one another and the purple mist, and above them all, against the warmly-fading sky was the spire of a church. That, said I, can be no other than the church of La Roche Chalais; and so it turned out.

There was a large mill below the bridge, where we met with much politeness, and where our boat was taken charge of. Here we were told there was a good hotel at La Roche, and we set off to find it. But how did we set off? With bare feet, carrying our boots in our hands, and looking the veriest scarecrows after our four days of amphibious life. We had tried to put on our boots, but vainly, for they had been flooded. Now, this was the chief cause of the unpleasantness that soon befell us, for no pilgrims ever had more disgraceful-looking feet than ours. Fortunately it was nearly dark, and the people whom we met did not examine us very attentively. Moreover, they saw bare feet on the road and in the street every day of their lives during the summer.

At the inn, however, our appearance made an instantaneously bad impression. It was the most important hotel in a considerable district. It lay in the beat of many commercial travellers—men who never go about with bare feet, or in dirty flannel and battered straw hats, but are always dressed beautifully. We walked straight into the house, with that perfect composure which the French say is distinctly British, and sudden consternation fell upon the people there. Two elderly ladies, sister hotel-keepers—one of whom had a rather strongly-marked moustache, for which, of course, poor woman, she was not responsible—came out of the kitchen, and stood in the passage fronting us. It was not to welcome us to their hostelry, but to prevent us penetrating any farther, that they took up this position.