From Sheerness to Dover was the route, and on the branch line train the Rob Roy had to be carried on the coals in the engine-tender, with torrents of rain and plenty of hot sparks driven into her by the gale; but after some delay at a junction the canoe was formally introduced to a baggage-waggon and ticketed like a portmanteau, the first of a series of transits in this way.
The London Chatham and Dover Railway Company took this new kind of "box" as passengers' luggage, so I had nothing to pay, and the steamer to Ostend was equally large-hearted, so I say, "Canoemen, choose this channel."
But before crossing to Belgium I had a day at Dover, where I bought some stuff and had a jib made for the boat by deft and fair fingers, had paddled the Rob Roy on the green waves which toss about off the pier-head most delectably. The same performance was repeated on the top of the swell, tumbling and breaking on the "digue"[II.] at Ostend, where, even with little wind, the rollers ran high on a strong ebb tide. Fat bathers wallowed in the shallows, and fair ones, dressed most bizarre, were swimming like ducks. All of these, and the babies squalling hysterically at each dip, were duly admired; and then I had a quieter run under sail on their wide and straight canal.
Rollers off the Digue.
With just a little persuasion the railway people consented to put the canoe in the baggage-van, and to charge a franc or two for "extra luggage" to Brussels. Here she was carried on a cart through the town to another station, and in the evening we were at Namur, where the Rob Roy was housed for the night in the landlord's private parlour, resting gracefully upon two chairs.
Two porters carried her through the streets next morning, and I took a paddle on the Sambre, but very soon turned down stream and smoothly glided to the Meuse.
Glancing water, brilliant sun, a light boat, and a light heart, all your baggage on board, and on a fast current,—who would exchange this for any diligence or railway, or steamboat, or horse? A pleasant stream was enough to satisfy at this early period of the voyage, for the excitement of rocks and rapids had not yet become a charm.
It is good policy, too, that a quiet, easy, respectable sort of river like the Meuse should be taken in the earlier stage of a water tour, when there is novelty enough in being on a river at all. The river-banks one would call tame if seen from shore are altogether new when you open up the vista from the middle of the stream. The picture that is rolled sideways to the common traveller now pours out from before you, ever enlarging from a centre, and in the gentle sway of the stream the landscape seems to swell on this side and on that with new things ever advancing to meet you in succession.
How careful I was at the first shallow! getting out and wading as I lowered the boat. A month afterwards I would dash over them with a shove here and a stroke there in answer to a hoarse croak of the stones at the bottom grinding against my keel.