canal slowly unroll their scenery to contemplative eyes; the barge
floats by great forests and through great cities with their public
buildings and their lamps at night; and for the bargee, in his
floating home, 'travelling abed,' it is merely as if he were
listening to another man's story or turning the leaves of a
picture-book in which he had no concern. He may take his afternoon
walk in some foreign country on the banks of the canal, and then
come home to dinner at his own fireside.

There is not enough exercise in such a life for any high measure of
health; but a high measure of health is only necessary for
unhealthy people. The slug of a fellow, who is never ill nor well,
has a quiet time of it in life, and dies all the easier.

I am sure I would rather be a bargee than occupy any position under
heaven that required attendance at an office. There are few
callings, I should say, where a man gives up less of his liberty in
return for regular meals. The bargee is on shipboard--he is master
in his own ship--he can land whenever he will--he can never be kept
beating off a lee-shore a whole frosty night when the sheets are as
hard as iron; and so far as I can make out, time stands as nearly
still with him as is compatible with the return of bed-time or the
dinner-hour. It is not easy to see why a bargee should ever die.

Half-way between Willebroek and Villevorde, in a beautiful reach of
canal like a squire's avenue, we went ashore to lunch. There were
two eggs, a junk of bread, and a bottle of wine on board the
Arethusa; and two eggs and an Etna cooking apparatus on board the
Cigarette. The master of the latter boat smashed one of the eggs
in the course of disembarkation; but observing pleasantly that it