THE SAONE-STEAMER-COCHE D'EAU.

251

THE SAONE---STEAMER---COCHE D'EAU.

It was at five o'clock on a December morning, while torrents of rain came down, en masse, from the heavens, that I paced the streets of Lyons to reach the steamer. The banks of the Saone for many miles above Lyons, are very beautiful; and we soon flew past the COCHE D'EAU that had started long before us. Will it be believed that the great French people continue to navigate the great Rivers, Rhone and Saone, to this day, by means of canal barges, tow-ropes, and horse-flesh ? Will it be credited that nine-tenths of the volatile French travellers prefer these wretched tubs to the STEAMER that plies between Lyons and Chalons; because they thus save a few francs, at the expense of 15 or 16 hours' additional purgatory—and the loss of a night's rest at Maçon, enjoyed by the steam passengers! Such is the fact. It was on this passage that I first saw a nondescript species of steamer, which excited wonder as well as laughter. It was a long black vessel, resembling a very large and ugly coal-barge, with the paddles, or rather the paddle, behind instead of at the sides. From a round hole in the stern of this WATER WITCH, there burst forth, about every two minutes, a tremendous explosion of gas, smoke, wind, and water, forming a long and stinking train in her wake. The whole resembled some huge, mis-shapen sea-monster, or overgrown hippopotamus, crawling along the surface of the river, and amusing itself by letting off PETARDS from its stern ports. If it be by such steamers as these that a certain MARTIAL DEPUTY intends to invade the British dominions, I apprehend the attempt will prove but a harmless explosion of gas-a vapoury

bravado !*

I was agreeably surprised to find that the steamer in which we were embarked, was impelled by English ENGINES-and commanded by a BRITISH TAR! This might be one reason why the French prefer going by the miserable COCHE D'EAU! We arrived at Maçon in time for a comfortable supper; and while I was anticipating the refreshment of a good night's rest, I was petrified on learning that the DILIGENCE, in which I had taken the whole of the courÉ, and for which I had paid 220 francs at Lyons, was not in correspondence with the STEAMER, bat with the opposition COCHE D'EAU; and that, as the latter would travel all night, and get to Chalons some hours before the steamer, my diligence would, in all probability, be on its way to Paris by the time I arrived at Chalons! Here was a piece of agreeable intelligence! Here was a precious specimen (as I imagined) of Lyonese candour.

* "With steam-boats (said M. Maugin in the Chamber of Deputies, on the 28th Jan. 1831) we could carry arms and battalions into Ireland.”—Vide page 32 of this work.

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The clerk of the Bureau well knew that I was going by the steamer, but never let drop a hint that I might thereby lose my passage in his diligence, although I had paid a triple fare: The following remark of Mr. Matthews flashed across my mind, and excited some indignation. Lyons is filled with a manufacturing, money-getting tribe, who wear their hearts in their purses. The sight of an Englishman is wormwood to them." There was but one way of extricating myself from this dilemma, and of avoiding the risk I might run by sleeping at MAÇON-that was, to embark in the execrable coCHE D'EAU, which was expected in a couple of hours, and travel on all night. This I did—and of all the horrible nights I ever spent, this was the worst! The vessel was crowded to excess-a storm of sleet and snow rendered it impossible to keep on deck-and the complication of mephitic odours below, threatened death to the whole of the passengers. But this was not all. The right bank of the Saone, along which we were towing against a strong current, became lined with vessels piled with wood, which had taken refuge from the storm and the darkness of the night. The tow-rope was perpetually getting entangled with these vessels; and every time the steersman sheered the COCHE D'EAU off into the middle of the stream, to avoid these wood-barges, the poor horses were either dragged into the water by the sudden jerk, or the passage-boat itself was brought nearly on her beam-ends, in consequence of the tow-rope being fastened to the mast head, and thus acting as a powerful lever upon an unballasted and flat-bottomed vessel! Fifty times were we on the verge of being upset, and all precipitated into the foaming SAONE, during a storm of sleet and in the middle of a dark night! Meantime the crowded state of the 'tween-decks, where many of the women and children were sick from the violent sallies and oscillations of the boat, as well as from the insufferable heat and stench of the place, rendered this infernal PONTON a perfect focus of pestilent and suffocating exhalations, which must have bred a plague had the voyage continued 24 hours! I had pitied Horace's sufferings, while the bard was towed along the Appian Canal by a lazy mule; but gladly would I have exchanged my shipmates of the COCHE D'EAU for the "mali culices ranæque palustres" of the Pontine Fens!

At length we reached CHALONS, more dead than alive, and procured a good breakfast. I had the pleasure of seeing the steamer arrive, after all, half an hour before we started, and thus of finding that I might have avoided the horrors of the COCHE D'EAU, and slept comfortably at Maçon! I could not, however, have safely trusted to this chance-and was uncharitable enough to suspect that the clerk of the Bureau, at Lyons, wilfully or carelessly involved me in the danger of losing my place. But it is very probable that I was wrong—and, therefore, I absolve the Lyonese scribe from any premeditated mischief.

When the passengers of the various other compartments of our new vehicle

a

learnt that I had taken the whole of the CourÉ for myself, they were not little astonished, and cracked some witty jokes at my expense-all turning on the point, that JOHN BULL or JOHN FOOL and his money are soon parted. I made my bed in the courÉ very contentedly, and was soon fast asleep-so that I lost the pleasure of seeing the environs of CHALONS. When I awoke, I perceived that the snow was at least a foot deep on the road, and that the horses could hardly ever go at a trot. To make a long story (if not a long journey) short, we were four days and three nights on the road from Chalons to Paris! Every part of the diligence was crowded to suffocation—and at the approach of the second night, a naval captain, who had been many years a prisoner of war in one of the PONTONS at Portsmouth, and who had indulged in some jeu d'esprits on our starting from Chalons, became all at once amazing civil to me at the table d'hôte, ultimately proposing to share with me the comforts of the coUPÉ, as he found the interior of the diligence far worse than the hulks of the prison-ship in England. I certainly pitied him; but I had become rather selfish, and declined the offer with as much politeness as a rude Anglais could be expected to shew on the occasion. One thing is certain, that by a timely foresight, and some pecuniary sacrifice, I saved my own life. I am positive that three nights in a closed-up diligence, after the exhaustion of the COCHE D'EAU, would have killed me outright! Never did I spend 220 francs to greater advantage than on this journey. I read by day and slept by night, arriving in the capital of the grand nation as fresh as when I started from Naples.

Those who remember the early Winter of 1829, and who are acquainted with the state of the roads in France, may conceive what a journey this was in the month of December. On several occasions, the diligence stuck fast in the mud, and horses were obliged to be procured from neighbouring towns to extricate man and beast. On my making some observations respecting the state of the roads in France, I was answered by one and all that the fault lay with the BOURBONS! Were they better in the time of Napoleon? No, was the reply. Then how are the BOURBONS accountable for this national defect? Answer.-Because Napoleon had the concerns of the world on his hands, whereas the BOURBONS have nothing to do but to improve the internal state of the country! This may shew the state of feeling towards the late dynasty.

And now, having exhausted the reader's patience, and traversed a circuit of three thousand five hundred miles, in little more than three months, during which, the excitement of the mind was at least equal to the exercise of the body, I descried once more from the summit of Shuter's Hill, and with no unpleasant emotions, the grove of masts, the canopy of smoke, and the hundred spires of MODERN BABYLON.

It has often been my lot to hail the chalky cliffs, on returning from many a

different and distant clime, as well as from more limited excursions; but I never set foot on British soil without feelings of pride and pleasure, on comparing it with other territories, however clothed in richer verdure—however canopied by brighter skies. In all my wanderings round this globe, (and Heaven has given my share) from the rising to the setting sun, from “Java's palmy isle" to Iceland's dreary shores, I have never yet seen that spot on which I would fix my residence in preference to the much-abused Albion, with all its faults, its feuds, and its misfortunes! This sentiment was called forth in the candour of youth, and became confirmed with the caution of age. Time has not weakened it—experience has not altered it—prejudice has not warped it. How often "on strands remote," beneath the dazzling ardour of a tropical sun, or the Cimmerian gloom of hyperborean skies, have I aspirated to my far-distant COUNTRY, the affectionate address of the wandering poet to his beloved brother!

Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee;
Still to my COUNTRY turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags, at each remove, a length'ning chain !

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THE

INFLUENCE

(MORAL, PHYSICAL, AND MEDICINAL,)

OF AN

ITALIAN CLIMATE & RESIDENCE,

IN

SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH.

SECTION THE FIRST.

PHYSICAL INFLUENCE.

THE influence of climate, not only on the complexion, but on the features and on the whole organization of man, as well as of animals and vegetables, is now unquestioned. The inhabitants of Italy, notwithstanding the unlimited admixture of Gothic, Grecian, Afric, and Asiatic blood, are almost as uniformly nationalized, in respect to colour, features, and even moral character, as the inhabitants of Spain, Greece, Egypt, Hindostan, or China. It is impossible to attribute this national stamp or impress entirely, or even principally, to race or hereditary descent in any country-and least of all in Italy, which, from the circumstance of its universal domination at one time, and complete subjugation at another, became an immense human menagerie, where specimens, nay, colonies, of every people on the face of the earth were commixed and blended together ad infinitum. Climate, then, assisted by some other physical causes, and many of a moral nature, has effected as homogeneous a people, mental and corporeal, in Italy, as in most other countries.