I now quote from Francis Newman's Personal Narrative (published 1856), which is one of the most interesting of travel books, and very graphically written in the form of letters to his friends at home. [Footnote: Newman and Lord Congleton were both at this time about twenty-three years of age.]
"River Garonne, At Anchor in Steamboat, 23rd Sept., 1830.
"We sailed finely on Saturday from Dublin, while sheltered by the Irish coast; but in the evening we tasted the Atlantic with a south-wester, which proved a bitter dose. For nearly fifty hours we tossed, with very slow progress, until all our bones were bruised, etc., etc…. I have never seen anything like the sea on the French coast.
"The Bay of Biscay fulfilled all its proverbial roughness: the whole sea was dells and knolls. It was terrible to see the pilot jump aboard while his boat was alternately tossed above our deck; he was caught by the sailors in their arms…. The custom-house officers have detained the ship so long that we are left here by the tide…. The officers were very civil. They were all amazed at the number of our packages" (as well they might be!)… "The prospect of our porterages is frightful. Think of us at the top of a hotel and an army of porters carrying up the height of three stories many hundredweights of trunks, chests, hampers, bags, baskets, to stow into our bedrooms for the night! And this misery is to be repeated everywhere….
"I talk French clumsily, yet get on somehow…. My French having been chiefly mathematical, I do not know the names of many common things…."
At Toulouse in October:—"I am already a Frenchman. If you doubt it, learn that I take wine or raisins for breakfast, and never speak to a peasant without raising my hat…. This vin ordinaire is not 'bad,' in the sense of intoxicating, but in another way. However, if it supplies the place of tea, it is vain to rail at it."
The next entry is while they were staying at Marseilles on 13th October, and concerns the cheapness of the provisions.
"All provisions appear within reach of the poorest. I have been in some very low eating-houses here, and perceive apparently poor people breakfast on meat. Nothing seems dear but milk and butter; we get none but goats' milk here…. The finest purple grapes are here 1d. or 3/4d. a pound, and as much bread as I can eat for 1-1/2d…. I had a provoking accident at Béziers. On our leaving the barge, the carman drove off without securing our boxes—he was in a violent passion against some girl porters (a domestic institution of Béziers)…. I roared out, 'Arrêtez! Arrière! Vous n'avez pas attaché la corde!' But in vain; and in an instant down came from the very top the little medicine chest given me by M——. It fell on its corner, which saved the glass bottles; but every dovetailing is broken, the hinges wrenched off, the panels split."
Of course the travelling is chiefly by diligence and canal boat, and for English ladies very often terribly rough and trying. But Mrs. and Miss Cronin had resolved to face discomforts, etc., equally with their companions, and would have no little ameliorations in the way of comforts for themselves.
One great danger, too, occurred, from which they were only rescued by the promptitude of Newman and Mr. Parnell (as throughout the diary Newman alludes to Lord Congleton). Once, in travelling by canal near Marseilles, Newman found the level of the canal-boat was "dangerously high, from the arches. Once we had a narrow escape. There was a sudden cry of 'A bas!' We turned and saw we were rapidly nearing an arch which would knock off our heads. The horses kept at a short canter. Old Mrs. C. was sitting quietly on deck, wholly absorbed, and never dreaming that the sailors could be calling to her. Miss C. was sitting on a box, fast asleep. Several of us rushed at once towards them, and pulled them off their seats on to the deck. Literally they fell upon me in a heap, and we just passed safe under the arch. Mrs. C.'s bonnet and my hat got smashed."