from St. Apre in a boat such as mine.

Now, as there was no wager to make me hurry, and my main purpose in giving
myself all the trouble that lay before me was to see things, I put my
paddle down, and leaving Hugh to work off some of his youthful ardour for
navigation, I gave myself up for awhile to the spell of this most charming
stream. Its breadth and its depth were constantly changing, and in a truly
remarkable manner. Now it was scarcely wider than a brook might be, and was
nearly over-arched by its alders and willows; now it widened out and
sped in many a flashing runnel through a broad jungle of reeds where the
blistering rays of the sun beat down with tropical ardour; then it slept in
pools full of long green streamers that waved slowly like an Undine's hair.
Here and there all about stood the waxen flowers of sagittaria above the
barbed floating leaves, cool and darkly green. Close to the banks the tall
and delicately branching water-plantains, on which great grasshoppers
often hang their shed skins, were flecked with pale-pink blooms-flowers of
biscuit-porcelain on hair-like stems.

The splashing of a water-wheel roused me from my idle humour. We had
reached--much too quickly--our first mill-dam. It was a very primitive sort
of dam, formed of stakes and planks, but chiefly of brambles, dead wood
and reeds that had floated down and lodged there. Then began the tugging,
pushing, and lifting, to be continued at irregular intervals for several
days. The canoe was less than three feet wide in the middle, but it was
more than six yards long, and this length, although it secured steadiness
and greatly reduced the risk of capsizing in strong rapids or sinister
eddies, brought the weight up to about 170 lb., without reckoning the
baggage, which was turned out upon the grass or on the stones at each weir.
After passing the first obstacle, we floated into one of those long deep
pools which lend a peculiar charm to the Dronne. Usually covered in summer