dirt, maintains itself at the
latitude of Manchester; whose excellent money-making inhabitants, if
thrown in the way of a party of Lyonnais, would scarcely feel themselves
among strangers, so complete would be the similarity of habits and
manners. The transition, therefore, to those wafted down the sunny
valley of the Rhone, is as theatrical as the scenery itself, but with
the agreeable addition of reality. Every surrounding object contributes
to the magic of the change. Taking leave of a bare and treeless country,
and its consequently rough and ungenial climate, which, in its turn,
will necessarily exercise its influence on the character of the
population, you find yourself gliding between vine-clad mountains, not
black and rugged like those of the Rhine, but soft and rosy, and lighted
by a sky, which begins here to assume a southern brilliancy. The
influence of the lighter atmosphere first begins to be felt, expanding
the organs, and filling the frame with a sensation, unknown to more
northern climes, of pleasure derived from mere existence. Then the
language you hear on all sides is new and musical; for the crew of the
steamer is Provencal, and their _patois_ falls on the ear with something
approaching the soft accent of Italy; while their expressive eyes,
sunburnt faces, and a certain mixture of animation and languor--the
exact counterpart of the phlegmatic industry of the north, complete the
scene, with which they are in perfect harmony.

_A propos_ of harmony, when the sailors' dinner hour arrived, they were
summoned by an air of Rossini, played on a bugle; the performer--one of
their number--having first thrown himself flat on the deck, in the
attitude of a Turk about to receive the bastinado, and then raising his
chest, by the aid of his two elbows, to the height required for the
inflation of the instrument.

Nor is this leap from north to south so purely imaginary, since the boat
Sirius, aided by the furious current, actually paddled at the rate of
from seventeen to eighteen miles an hour; and we reached Avignon at
sunset, about five o'clock. The distance being calculated, allowing for
the windings of the river, will verify the rate maintained during the
day. Notwithstanding the odious nature of comparisons, I could not help
forming that between this river and the Rhine, and giving the preference
to the first. The bold though gloomy precipices of the Rhine yield, in
point of charm, to the more open expanse of