In the Track of R. L. Stevenson and Elsewhere in Old France

by J. A. Hammerton

BOOM ON THE RUPEL

"Boom is not a nice place."—R. L. S.

VILLEVORDE ON THE WILLEBROEK CANAL

"The rest of the journey to Villevorde, we still spread our canvas to the unfavouring air."—R. L. S.

As it had been my pleasant fortune in the summer of 1903, together with a friend, to follow the footsteps of Stevenson in his travels among the Cevennes, and the pilgrimage having proved plentiful of literary interest, it seemed to me that one might find in a journey by road along the route of "An Inland Voyage" as much of interest, and certainly some measure of personal pleasure. Moreover, with the disciple's daring, often greater than the master's, I desired to test the plan of going alone. But it was more by happy chance than any planning of mine that I betook myself, with my bicycle, to Antwerp at precisely the same season that, eight-and-twenty years before, Stevenson and his companion set out upon their canoe voyage by river and canal, from that ancient port to the town of Pontoise, near the junction of the Seine and Oise, and within hail of Paris.

In the preface to the first edition of An Inland Voyage, its author expresses the fear that he "might not only be the first to read these pages, but the last as well," and that he "might have pioneered this very smiling tract of country all in vain, and found not a soul to follow in my steps." That others have been before me in my late pilgrimage is more than probable, although I have found no trace of them; but perhaps I have not searched with care, for I would fain flatter myself that here, as in the Cevennes, I found a field of interest where there had been no passing of many feet.

II.

Antwerp seems a town so antique that no change of modern handiwork can alter in any vital way its grey old features. Yet in my own acquaintance with it, on its outward quarters at least, it has taken on surprisingly the veneer of modern Brussels, though by the river-side it remains much as it was when, in the later days of August, 1876, the Cigarette and the Arethusa, with their adventurous occupants, were launched into the Scheldt to the no small excitement of the loungers about the docks. There must have been some excitement, too, in the breasts of the voyagers, but, like the true Scots they were, we can well believe they gave no show of it. Stevenson had never been in a canoe under sail before, and to tie his sheet in so frail a craft in the middle of a wide and busy river called for no contemptible degree of courage. But he tied his sheet.