Our chief recreation, our sole consolation, during the long weeks of our
imprisonment, was to watch from our windows the pleasure-seekers passing
by in small open boats, and to reflect what an awful day they had had, or
were going to have, as the case might be.

In the forenoon they would head up stream--young men with their
sweethearts; nephews taking out their rich old aunts; husbands and wives
(some of them pairs, some of them odd ones); stylish-looking girls with
cousins; energetic-looking men with dogs; high-class silent parties; low-
class noisy parties; quarrelsome family parties--boatload after boatload
they went by, wet, but still hopeful, pointing out bits of blue sky to
each other.

In the evening they would return, drenched and gloomy, saying
disagreeable things to one another.

One couple, and one couple only, out of the many hundreds that passed
under our review, came back from the ordeal with pleasant faces. He was
rowing hard and singing, with a handkerchief tied round his head to keep
his hat on, and she was laughing at him, while trying to hold up an
umbrella with one hand and steer with the other.

There are but two explanations to account for people being jolly on the
river in the rain. The one I dismissed as being both uncharitable and
improbable. The other was creditable to the human race, and, adopting
it, I took off my cap to this damp but cheerful pair as they went by.
They answered with a wave of the hand, and I stood looking after them
till they disappeared in the mist.

I am inclined to think that those young people, if they be still alive,