INLAND VOYAGE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CI, Issue 15446, 8 September 1914, Page 2

INLAND VOYAGE.

FROM ANTWERP TO PARIS. THROUGH THE AY A R COUNTRY BY WATER. SOME PAGES FROM STEVENSON. ' Robert Louis Stevenson spent his | la<t years in Samoa, and to his death i in that far-away land always opposed j the domination of Germany, though j he did not live io see its full achieve, i liient. is ours again, and tlie grave of the gnat writer is in British .soil. But the name of Stevenson is associated with the war in another sphere. .Just as h's last yea is were passed in ihe distant isles of. the South .Seas cn ilie very rim of the great maelstrom to the existing struggle, so in his youth lie voyaged through the very centre of it from Antwerp to Pans, through ihe very land now devastated with all the horrors of this latter-day cataclysm. •'Voyaged." not travelled, for he went by water all the way in a canoe, by the livers of- ]jelirium and France and tlie canals which link them together by a silver chain. It w;k a placid, smiling countrys : dc t.ien. and Stevenson's voyage was a sort of floating onward over still waters, mid tlie green pastures How different now. when the waters run blood! In his inimitable style he tells the story in his little book. "An Inland Voyage'' which must be familiar to many of our readers, but which will bear quotation again to-day for tlie beauty of its pictures «f ihe- tranquil land through which he and h's companion went and also for the contrast :t all offers with the same country as it now is, trampled with the hooves of countless charging cavalry and drenched in the blood of the myriads of slain. THROUGH GREEN PASTURES. From Antwerp. Stevenson and his mate. Sir Walter Simpson, in thencanoes, the Arethusa ami the Cigarette, sailed up tlte Scheldt and by the Willcbroelc Canal to Brussels. '"lt was agreeable on the river,'-' 'lie writes. "A barge or two went- past laden with hay. Heeds and w.ilows bordered the stream; and cattle and gioy venerable. horses came and hung their mild heads over t'lie embankment. Here and there a pleasant village among trees, with a noisy shipping yard ; here and thero a villa in a lawn. The left bank was still green and pastoral, with alleys of trees along tho embankment, aitd here and there a flight of steps to serve a ferry where perhaps tlie re sat a woman -.nth her elbows on her knees or an old gentleman v.-ith a '-uff -inri silver spectacles. ... A ,»ie;it church with a clcck and a wio-.lon hridg • over tho rtver indicated :Jie cmtral quarters of the town." ".'lien ; f the cr.i.-al fr in the Scheldt to Brtrnvis: "It was a fine green, fat landscape; or rather a mere green water-lane. go : ng oh fn.m village to village. Things had a- settled look, as in places long lived in Beautiful countrv houses, with clocks and long lines of shuttered windows, and fine trees standing in groves and avenues, gavo a. rich and sambre aspect ill tlie rain and deepening dusk of the shores of the canal. I seem t-o have seen something of tho : same effqab :itl engraving:;, opulent landscape?, ed. and overhung witii the passage of storm." " MAUBEUGE—THE FRONTIER FORTRESS. Uhere are no fewer than fifty-five locks on the canal between Brussels and Charleroi. s > the Arethusa and the Cigarette travelled by train across the 1 rentier to Maubeuge. Of this town, oltcn mentioned ill the news from the war, lie says: '."Maubeuge is a fortified town, wit'ii :i very good inn. the Grand Corf. It seemed to he inhabited principally by soldiers and bagmen. • - . The Cigarette was nearly taken up upon a charge of drawing tlie fortifications : a feat of which hiT wn s hopelessly incapable. And besides, as I suppose each belligerent nation lias a plan of ihe other's fortified places'already, these precautions are of the nature ot shutting the stable door after tho steed is away. But I have no doubt tliey help to keep up a good spirit at home. - . . The baker stands at Ins do3r; the colonel with his three medals goes by the caie at night; tho troops drum ami trumpet ami man the ramparts, as bold as so many lions. It would task language to say 'how placidly you behold all this. In a pi aco where you have taken root-, you are provoked out of your indifference: you liavo a hand in the game; your fr.ends are fighting with tho army. But in a strange town] not small enough to grow too soon famil'ar, nor so large- as to have laid itself cut for travellers, you stand so far apart from the business that you positively forget it would be possible to go nearer; you iitavo so little human interest, around you that you do not remember yourself to be a man." ALONG THE SAMBRE. From Maubeuge the pair paddled their canoes on into France along the •Sambre, iately, as often and often in bygone years, a hotly contested lino between battling arm.es. It is a shnrgish nver canul.sed for the purposes of navigation, and ot the country ;t traverses Stevenson says: "The wind was contrary and blew in furious gusts; nor wero the aspects of Nature any more cl'ement than tin- doings of the sky For wo passed through a stertch of blighted countrv. sparsely covered with bush, but handsomely enough diversified with factory chimneys." They went through tlie 'locks at' Haunionu mhl then "the sun came forth again and the wind went down: and a little paddling took us beyond the ironworks and through a detectable land. The river wound among low hills. On' e tlier hand, meadows and orchards, bordered with a marg n of sedge and water flowers upon the river. The hedges were of great height, woven alrjut the- trunks of hedgerow elins; and the fields, as they were often verv small looked like a:series of bowers along the stream. . . In tho meadows wan! den <1 black and white catilo fantastically marked. . .' . Besides the cattle we saw no living things except a few birds and a gre-at many fishermen."

A TYPICAL VILLAGE. 'llto voyngiiurs went through tiio look :it (Juartes and waJkcd across country to Pimt-sur-Suinbre at sunset. '-'Kiu path wandered a while in the open and then pas-,d under a tiellis like a bower indefinitely prolonged. On either s;tliwere shadowy oreliards; cottages lay low .Hiioiit; the leaves and sent tho'.r smoke to heaven ami there. in an opcuini;. appeared the Lireat no!d iaoe of tho west. . At last tho path went between tmi houses ami turned the party out into a wide, muddy liijih-read. bordered, as lap as the eye could reach, on «-> titer hand by ;in unsightly village. 'I ho houses stood well baek. leaving a ribbon ot' waste land <>n either sido of tlie road, where there were stacks of lirewood. earls, barrows. rubbish beans and a htfie doubtful jirass. Awav en the left. lower stand in th--middle of tile street. What it hail lk-'-n in pa.-i a'/es. 1 know not. probably a IIOM in time of war. but nowadays n b. iv an illegible <ti.ll plate in its upper part-;, and near the bottom an iron letter-box." Stevenson then des» er.l-i s the l-inielis inn or allbi-iire and tii<- pedlar Moils tnr 11 ■» t <»i- (• i: Ii;11<1 cf Maiib-tiLe- an entertaining passage; Vm: ii'-t -xa'-tly api'vi: s here

LAX I)RF.CIES AM) A DI?EAM.

So along tlu v canalised Sambre tho pair floated tranquilly. They skirted tilt; forest of Mormal, scene of one of the sanguinary encounters between the Germans and Brit.sh, and came to Landreeies. "It is not the place." says Stevenvon. ''one would have chosen for a day's rest; lor it consists almost, entirely of fortifications. Within the rr.niparis a few blocks of houses, a long row of barracks and a church, figure, with what countenance they may, as the town. Jn all garrison towns, guard calls and reveilles and such like, make a fine romantic interlude in civic business. Bugles and drums and lil'es are of themselves most -excellent, things in nature; and when they carry the mind to marching armies, aiid tho picturesque vicissitudes of war they stir up something proud in the heart. Hut in i shadow of a. town like Laudrecics. with little else moving, these points of war made a propoitionatc commotion. Indeed tliev were the only things to remember. It was just the place to hear the round going by at night in the darkness, with the solid tramp of men inarching, and the startling reverberations of fiie drum. It reminded, you that even tins place was a point" in the great, warfaring system of Eurone and might on some future day bo ringed about with can no a smoke" and thunder and make itself a name among towns. ' How lit tic could Stevenson have dreamed ihat bis own countrymen some twenty years after his death, would help to make t'hat name! THE GOLDEN VALLEY OP THE OISE. A canal connects the upper waters of ihe Sambre and the Oise and thus, bv these tributaries—the Mouse and th'c Seine. Hut canals over watersheds have locks and tlhe inland voyageurs decided t> make a portage of it. '"Tho. two canoes were installed on a light country (-art at lit reus; and wc were soon Kiilowing them along the side of a. peasant valley full of hop-gardens and poplare. Agreeable villages lay here and there on the slope of the liill: not-abi-v. Tupigny. with the hop-poles hanging their garlands in the very street and the liouses clustered witli'grapes. 'I he air was clear and sweet among all these green fields and green things growing. And when, at Vadencr.urt. we launched from a" little lawn oppos : tc a mill, the sun broke forth and set a ll the leaves shining in tile valley of the o:se. . . . T'lie course of tlie river kept turning and turning in a narrow and well-timbered valley. Now the river would approach the s-de, and run gVding along the clialky baso of tho hill and show lis a few open colza fields among the trees. Now it would skirt the garden walls of houses, where we migiit catch a glimpse through a doorway, and see a priest pacing in the chequered sunl'glit. . • ■ On one side of tho valley "high upon the chalky summit of the* hfli, a ploughman with his team appeared ana disappeared at regular intervals. On tho other side of the valley a group of red roofs and a belfry showed among t.io ioliage. f J hcneo insured bellringor made the afternoon musical with his clrlines. . . At last the bells ceased and with their note the sun w'.t/hdrew. The piece was at an end; shadow and ? : lence possessed the va'lev of the Oise." FRANCE'S MOURNINGAt Origny Sainte-Benolte the pair cf amateur waterman spent Sunday. . "in a Jl fVvker „ft]id ; liis wife went down, the street. to ttiverv slow lamentable music, '0 Franco, mes very pathetic in the love of the French people, since filie war, for dismal patriotic music-making. I have watched a forester from Alsace wliilo some one was s:nging 'Les iMalbeurs de la France'at a baptismal party in the neighbourhood of Fontainebleau. He arose from the table and took his son aside, close by whore I was standing. 'L : sten! Listen!' ho said, bearing on tho boy's shoulder, 'and remember this, my sen.'" A little alter lio went out into tine garden suddenly, and I could hear him sobbing in the darkness. The humiliation of their arms and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine made a sore pull on the endurance of t-liis sensitive peo--1-I*'; and their hearts are still hot, not so much against Germany as against t'lie Empire. ... A scund-hcarted and courageous people weary at length of snivelling over their disasters. Already Paul Deroulede has written some manlv military verses in a grave, honourable. stoical spirit, which should carry soldiers far in a good cause." Down tho river the canoeists came to La Fere, which they fuund "full of the military reserve out for the Frencfil autumn manoeuvres." In this fortress town they had an unpleasant experience in finding hotel accommodation, which was crystallised in tlie phrase in tho book. "La Fere, of cursed memory.' Here we may leave them in their quiet progress down tho golden va.liey of the Oise. For at La Fere tho line of the Allies now stands, and the havoc of war has apparently reached no further. The Golden Vall'ey is st'.ll the golden vallet of a fair and fertile countrv invio'ated. But for liow long?