"douche" of Aix-les-Bains having been explained, Smollett and his
party proceeded agreeably to Avignon, where by one of the strange
coincidences of travel he met his old voiturier Joseph "so
embrowned by the sun that he might have passed for an Iroquois."
In spite of Joseph's testimonial the "plagues of posting" are
still in the ascendant, and Smollett is once more generous of
good advice. Above all, he adjures us when travelling never to
omit to carry a hammer and nails, a crowbar, an iron pin or two,
a large knife, and a bladder of grease. Why not a lynch pin,
which we were so carefully instructed how to inquire about in
Murray's Conversation for Travellers?

But-the history of his troublous travels is drawing to an end.
From Lyons the route is plain through Macon, Chalons, Dijon,
Auxerre, Sells, and Fontainebleau--the whole itinerary almost
exactly anticipates that of Talfourd's Vacation Tour one hundred
and ten years later, except that on the outward journey Talfourd
sailed down the Rhone.

Smollett's old mental grievances and sores have been shifted and
to some extent, let us hope, dissipated by his strenuous
journeyings, and in June 1765, after an absence of two years, he
is once more enabled to write,

"You cannot imagine what pleasure I feel while I survey the white
cliffs of Dover at this distance [from Boulogne]. Not that I am
at all affected by the nescio qua dulcedine natalis soli of
Horace.

"That seems to be a kind of fanaticism, founded on the prejudices