sprinkle any of that
inside the tin.

The can is then hung over the Rob Roy lamp, and in six minutes the
contents of the tin are quite hot. Soup takes less time, and steak
perhaps a little more, depending on the facility of circulation of the
materials in the tin and the amount of wind moderating the heat. The
preserved meat or soup has been thoroughly cooked before it is sold, and
it has sauce, gravy, and vegetables, and the oxtail has joints, all
properly mixed. Therefore, in this speedy manner your dinner is
prepared, and indeed it will be smoking hot and ready before you can get
the table laid, and the "things" set out from the pantry.

Concentrated soup I took also, but it has a tame flavour, so it was put
by for a famine time, which never came. As for "Liebig's Extract of
Meat," you need not starve while there is any left, but that is the most
we can say in its favour.

CHAPTER XI.

High tide--Seine pilot--To bed--Terrible scene--A tumble in--In the
swell--Novel steeling--The Empress--Puzzled--Night thoughts--The Start--A
draft on the deck--Balloon jib--On the deep.

On the Seine there is a tide phenomenon, called the _barre_, as in
English rivers the _bore_, which, when not provided for, is very
dangerous, especially at spring tides. The water then rushes up the
narrowing funnel-shaped estuary, in a broad and swelling wave, sometimes
four feet high, and this will sweep off even large vessels from their
anchors, and it causes many wrecks.

On a former occasion when I happened to be in this neighbourhood, a high
tide had been truly predicted by astronomers, which would culminate at
the little town of Caudebec on the Seine, but would also rise higher than
ever known before on all the adjacent coasts.

The news of this coming wonder spread over France, and there being then a
lull in Europe as to revolutions, &c. (except, of course, the perennial
revolution in Spain), the _quidnuncs_ of the provinces had to run to the
coast for an excitement. Excursion trains, and heavily-laden steamers
poured volumes of people into Caudebec, and many of them had never seen
salt sea before. At the fashionable bathing-town of Trouville the sight
was a strange one when thousands of expectant observers paraded the soft
white sand as the full moon shone on a waveless sea, and the brilliant
dresses of the ladies coloured the beautiful tableau.

The tide flowed and flowed; it bubbled over the usual bounds of the
sho