o the lock-keeper's
house for a "glass" and a chat; and when that was entirely done, and
every topic of the day discussed, they all came back and had another
supplemental parliament on the steamer's deck, like ladies saying "good
bye" at a morning visit; so that, perhaps, in an hour from beginning it,
the work of ten minutes was accomplished, and the engine turned again
once more--a tedious progress. Thus it was that four nights and part of
five days were passed in mounting the Seine.

The scenery on the banks is in many places interesting, in a few it is
pretty, and it is never positively dull. The traffic on the river is
considerable above Rouen; but as there are two railways besides, few
passengers go by water. The architecture and engineering on this fine
river are indeed splendid. The noble bridges, the vast locks, barrages,
quays, barriers, and embankments are far superior to ours on the Thames,
though that river floats more wealth in a day than the Seine does in a
month.

The sailors and dockmen were eager for my cargo of books; and among the
various odd ways by which these had to be given to men on large vessels,
there is one shown in the sketch alongside, where the cabin-boy of a
steamer looking through the round deadlight with an imploring request in
his face, stretched out an eager hand to catch the book lifted up on the
end of one of my sculls.

[Picture: Cabin-boy reaching for book]

Then the neatness and apparent cleanliness of the villages, and the
well-clothed, well-mannered people--all so "respectable." France is
progressing by great leaps and bounds, at least in what arrests the eye.
Its progress in government, liberty, and politics, is perhaps rather like
that in a waltz.

Life in a towed yacht, alone on the Seine, is a somewhat hard life. You
have to be alert, and to steer for sometimes twenty hours a day, and to
cook and eat while steering. At about three o'clock in the morning the
steamer's crew seemed suddenly to rise from the deck by magic, and
stumble over coal-sacks, and thus abruptly to begin the day. We stopped
about nine o'clock at night, and the crew flopped down on deck again,
asleep in a moment, but not I for an hour or two.

As the grey dawn uncovered a new and cloudless sky, the fierce bubblings
in the boiler became strong enough to turn the engine, and our rope was
slipped from the bank. Savoury odours from the steamer soon after
announced to me their