That bell you hear tinkling is at the ferry, to call the ferryman who lives at the other side, and he will jump into his clumsy boat, which is tied to a pulley running on a rope stretched tight across the river. He has only to put his oar obliquely on the gunwale, and the transverse pressure of the current brings the boat rapidly to the other bank.
Paddling on, after a chat with the ferryman (and he is sure to be ready for that), a wonderful phenomenon appears. We see a house, large, new, and of two stories high, it has actually moved. We noticed it a few minutes ago, and now it has changed its position. I gaze in astonishment, and while we ponder, lo! the whole house entirely disappears. Now, the true explanation of this is soon found when we get round the next corner of the reach;—the house is a great wooden bathing "etablissement," built on a barge, and it is being slowly dragged up the stream.
After wonder comes sentiment. Three women are seen on the river-bank evidently in great alarm: a mother, a daughter, and a servant maid, who searched in vain for two boys, supposed to have gone away to fish, but now missing for many hours. They eagerly inquired if I had seen the lads, and implored me with tears to give them advice.
I tried all I could to recollect, but no! I had not seen the boys, and so the women went away distracted, and left me sorrowful—who would not be so at a woman's tears, a mother's too? But suddenly, when toiling in the middle of a very difficult piece of rock-work, lowering the boat, I remembered having seen those boys, so I ran over the fields after the anxious mamma and soon assured her the children had been safe an hour ago, and their faithful servant with them, but that he had become the fisherman, and they, like boys, had got tired of the rod, and were playing with a goat.
When the poor mother heard we had seen the little fellows and they were safe, her tears of joy were quite affecting, and they vividly recalled one's schoolboy days, when the thoughtless playtime of childhood so often entails anxiety on a loving mother's heart.
Such, then, are the river sights and river wonders, ever new, though trifling perhaps when told, but far more lively and entertaining than the common incidents of a dusty road, or a whirring, shrieking train.
With a few wadings and bumpings, and one or two "vannes," or weirs, we slipped along pleasantly until evening came. Still it was only a slow stream, and the towers of St. Nicholas, long visible on the horizon, seemed ever to move from side to side without being any nearer, so much does this river wind in its course. I paddled at my best pace, but the evening rapidly grew darker, until we overtook two French youths in a boat, the first occasion on which we had noticed Frenchmen rowing for exercise. They could not keep up with the canoe, so we had to leave them ingloriously aground on a bank, and yet too lazy to get out and help their boat over the difficulty.
Soon after I came to a great weir about fifteen feet in height, the deepest we had yet encountered, and half a sigh was heaved when it was evident that there was no escape from all the bother of getting out and gymnasticizing here after a long day's work. It was a matter of some time and trouble to get the boat over this weir in the dark; but what was far worse immediately followed, as I found myself in a maze of shallows, without light to see how to get through them. Whenever we stopped, too, for rest, there was only darkness, silence, and no motion—not even the excitement of a current to arouse. Finally, I had to wade and haul the boat along, and jump in and ferry myself over the pools, for nearly half a mile, until at length the "look-out" man of our starboard watch shouted, "A bridge and a house on the lee bow!" and a joyous cheer burst forth from the crew.
All this, which may be told in a few sentences, took a full hour of very tiresome work, though, as there was no current, there was no danger, and it was merely tedious, wet, unlighted, and uncomfortable. Nevertheless I sang and whistled all the time.
When the bridge was arrived at, I was sure it must be a town, and then there happened a scene almost an exact counterpart of that which took place at Gegglingen, on the Danube.