idea of taking a little trip on his own
account, an excursion that would be a rest after the strenuous three
months' travel and sightseeing--one that he could turn into literature.
He engaged Joseph Very, a courier used during their earlier European
travels, and highly recommended in the Tramp Abroad. He sent Joseph over
to Lake Bourget to engage a boat and a boatman for a ten days' trip
down the river Rhone. For five dollars Joseph bought a safe, flat-bottom
craft; also he engaged the owner as pilot. A few days later--September
19--Clemens followed. They stopped overnight on an island in Lake
Bourget, and in his notes Clemens tells how he slept in the old castle
of Chatillon, in the room where a pope was born. They started on their
drift next morning. To Mrs. Clemens, in some good-by memoranda, he said:

The lake is as smooth as glass; a brilliant sun is shining.

Our boat is so comfortable and shady with its awning.

11.20. We have crossed the lake and are entering the canal. Shall
presently be in the Rhone.

Noon. Nearly down to the Rhone, passing the village of Chanaz.

Sunday, 3.15 P.M. We have been in the Rhone three hours. It
is unimaginably still & reposeful & cool & soft & breezy. No rowing
or work of any kind to do--we merely float with the current we glide
noiseless and swift--as fast as a London cab-horse rips along--8
miles an hour--the swiftest current I've ever boated in. We have the
entire river to ourselves nowhere a boat of any kind.

Pleasant it must have been in the warm September days to go swinging
down that swift, gray stream which comes racing out of Switzerland into
France, fed from a thousand glaciers. He sent almost daily memoranda of
his progress. Half-way to Arles he wrote:

It's too delicious, floating with the swift current under the
awning these superb, sunshiny days in deep peace and quietness.

Some of these curious old historical towns strangely persuade me,
but it is so lovely afloat that I don't stop, but view them from the
outside and sail on. We get abundance of grapes and peaches for
next to nothing. My, but that inn was suffocating with garlic where
we stayed last night! I had to hold my nose as we went up-stairs or
I believe I should have fainted.

Little bit of a room, rude board floor unswept, 2 chairs, unpainted
white pine table--void the furniture! Had a good firm bed, solid as