Over the Col-de-balme, and, before you are aware, are
among the lacking at Interlachen.
Wednesday, June 22. Adieu to Paris! Ho for Chalons sur Saone! After
affectionate farewells of our kind friends, by eleven o'clock we were
rushing, in the pleasantest of cars, over the smoothest of rails,
through Burgundy that was; I reading to H. out of Dumas'
_Impressions de Voyage_, going over our very route. We arrived at
Chalons at nine in the evening, and were soon established in the Hotel
du Park, in two small, brick-floored chambers, looking out upon the
steamboat landing.
Thursday, 23. Eight o'clock A. M. Since five we have had a fine bustle
on the quay below our windows. There lay three steamers, shaped, for
all the world, like our last night's rolls. One would think Ichabod
Crane might sit astride one of them and dip his feet in the water.
They ought to be swift. _L'Hirondelle_ (the Swallow) flew at
five; another at six. We leave at nine.
Eleven o'clock. Here we go, down the Saone. Cabin thirty feet by ten,
papered and varnished in invitation of maple. Ladies knitting,
netting, nodding, napping; gentlemen yawning, snoring; children
frolicking; dogs whining. Overhead a constant tramping, stamping, and
screeching of the steam valve. H. suggests an excursion forward. We
heave up from Hades, and cautiously thread the crowded _Al Sirat_
of a deck. The day is fine; the air is filled with golden beams.
More and more beautiful grows the scene as we approach the Rhone - the
river broader, hills more commanding, and architecture tinged with the
Italian. Bradshaw says it equals the Rhine.
At Lyons there was a scene of indescribable confusion. Out of the hold
a man with a rope and hook was hauling baggage up a smooth board.
Three hundred people were sorting their goods without checks. Porters
were shouldering immense loads, four or five heavy trunks at once,
corded together, and stalking off Atlantean. Hatboxes, bandboxes, and
valises burst like a meteoric shower out of a crater. "_A moi, a
moi!_" was the cry, from old men, young women, soldiers,
shopkeepers, and _pretres_, scuffling and shoving together.
Careless at once of grammar and of grace, I pulled and shouted with
the best, till at length our plunder was caught, corded and poised on
an herculean neck. We followed in the wake, H. trembling lest the cord
should break, and we experience a pre-Alpine avalanche. At length,
however, we breathed more freely in rooms _au quatrieme of Hotel de
l'Univers_.
After dinner we drove to the cathedral. It was St. John's eve. "At
twelve o'clock to-night," said H., "the spirits of all who are to die
this year will appear to any who will go alone into the dark cathedral
and summon them"! We were charmed with the interior.
