Deducting from these statements the usual 50 per cent. for exaggeration, everything appeared satisfactory, so I yielded my boat to the current, and, at parting, waved my yellow paddle to certain fair friends who had honoured me with their countenance, and who were now assembled on the bridge. After this a few judicious strokes took the Rob Roy through the town and past the pleasant environs, and we were now again upon running water.
The current, after a quiet beginning, soon put on a sort of "business air," as if it did not mean to dally, and rapidly got into quick time, threading a devious course among the woods, hayfields, and vineyards, and it seemed not to murmur (as streams always do), but to sing with buoyant exhilaration in the fresh brightness of the morn.
It certainly was a change, from the sluggish feeling of dead water in the lakes to the lively tremulous thrilling of a rapid river like the Reuss, which, in many places, is as wide as the Rhine at Schaffhausen. It is a wild stream, too fast for navigation, and therefore the villages are not built on the banks, and there are no boats, and the lonely, pathless, forest-covered banks are sometimes bleak enough when seen from the water.
For some miles it was easy travelling, the water being seldom less than two feet deep, and with rocks readily visible by the eddy bubbling about them, because they were sharp and jagged. It is the long smooth and round-topped rock which is most treacherous in a fast river, for the spray which the current throws round such a rock is often not different from an ordinary wave.
Now and then the stream was so swift that I was afraid of losing my straw hat, simply from the breeze created by great speed—for it was a day without wind.
It cannot be concealed that continuous physical enjoyment such as this tour presented is a dangerous luxury if it be not properly used. When I thought of the hospitals of London, of the herds of squalid poor in fœtid alleys, of the pale-faced ragged boys, and the vice, sadness, pain, and poverty we are sent to do battle with if we be Christian soldiers, I could not help asking, "Am I right in thus enjoying such comfort, such scenery, such health?" Certainly not right, unless to get vigour of thought and hand, and freshened energy of mind, and larger thankfulness and wider love, and so, with all the powers recruited, to enter the field again more eager and able to be useful.
In the more lonely parts of the Reuss the trees were in dense thickets to the water's edge, and the wild ducks fluttered out from them with a splash, and some larger birds like bustards often hovered over the canoe. I think among the flying companions I noticed also the bunting, or "ammer" (from which German word comes our English "yellow hammer"), wood-pigeons, and very beautiful hawks. The herons and kingfishers were here as well, but not so many of them as on the Danube.
Nothing particular occurred, although it was a pleasant morning's work, until we got through the bridge at Imyl, where an inn was high up on the bank. The ostler helped me to carry the boat into the stable, and the landlady audaciously charged me 4s. 6d. for my first dinner (I always had two dinners on full working days), being pretty sure that she need not expect her customer to stop there again.
The navigation after this began to be more interesting, with gravel banks and big stones to avoid, and a channel to be chosen from among several, and the wire ropes of the ferries stretched tightly across the river requiring to be noticed with proper respect.
You may have observed how difficult it is, sometimes, to see a rope when it is stretched and quite horizontal, or at any rate how hard it is to judge correctly of its distance from your eye. This can be well noticed in walking by the seashore among fishing-boats moored on the beach, when you will sometimes even knock your nose against a taut hawser before you are aware that it is so close.