The journey which this little book is to describe was very agreeable and
fortunate for me. After an uncouth beginning, I had the best of luck to
the end. But we are all travellers in what John Bunyan calls the
wilderness of this world - all, too, travellers with a donkey: and the
best that we find in our travels is an honest friend. He is a fortunate
voyager who finds many. We travel, indeed, to find them. They are the
end and the reward of life. They keep us worthy of ourselves; and when
we are alone, we are only nearer to the absent.
Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the friends of
him who writes it. They alone take his meaning; they find private
messages, assurances of love, and expressions of gratitude, dropped for
them in every corner. The public is but a generous patron who defrays
the postage. Yet though the letter is directed to all, we have an old
and kindly custom of addressing it on the outside to one. Of what shall
a man be proud, if he is not proud of his friends? And so, my dear
Sidney Colvin, it is with pride that I sign myself affectionately yours,
R. L. S.
VELAY
Many are the mighty things, and nought is more mighty than man. . . .
He masters by his devices the tenant of the fields.
SOPHOCLES.
Who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?
JOB.
THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE PACK-SADDLE
In a little place called Le Monastier, in a pleasant highland valley
fifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent about a month of fine days. Monastier
is notable for the making of lace, for drunkenness, for freedom of
language, and for unparalleled political dissension. There are adherents
of each of the four French parties - Legitimists, Orleanists,
Imperialists, and Republicans - in this little mountain-town; and they all
hate, loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. Except for business
purposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid
aside even the civility of speech. 'Tis a mere mountain Poland. In the
midst of this Babylon I found myself a rallying-point; every one was
anxious to be kind and helpful to the stranger. This was not merely from
the natural hospitality of mountain people, nor even from the surprise
with which I was regarded as a man living of his own free will in Le
Monastier, when he might just as well have lived anywhere else in this
big world; it arose a good deal from my projected excursion southward
through the Cevennes. A traveller of my sort was a thing hitherto
unheard of in that district. I was looked upon with contempt, like a man
who should project a journey to the moon, but yet with a respectful
interest, like one setting forth for the inclement Pole. All were ready
to help in my preparations; a crowd of sympathisers supported me at the
critical moment of a bargain; not a step was taken but was heralded by
glasses round and celebrated by a dinner or a breakfast.
It was already hard upon October before I was ready to set forth, and at
the high altitudes over which my road lay there was no Indian summer to
be looked for. I was determined, if not to camp out, at least to have
the means of camping out in my possession; for there is nothing more
harassing to an easy mind than the necessity of reaching shelter by dusk,
and the hospitality of a village inn is not always to be reckoned sure by
those who trudge on foot. A tent, above all for a solitary traveller, is
troublesome to pitch, and troublesome to strike again; and even on the
march it forms a conspicuous feature in your baggage. A sleeping-sack,
on the other hand, is always ready - you have only to get into it; it
serves a double purpose - a bed by night, a portmanteau by day; and it
does not advertise your intention of camping out to every curious passer-
by. This is a huge point. If a camp is not secret, it is but a troubled
resting-place; you become a public character; the convivial rustic visits
your bedside after an early supper; and you must sleep with one eye open,
and be up before the day. I decided on a sleeping-sack; and after
repeated visits to Le Puy, and a deal of high living for myself and my
advisers, a sleeping-sack was designed, constructed, and triumphantly
brought home.
This child of my invention was nearly six feet square, exclusive of two
triangular flaps to serve as a pillow by night and as the top and bottom
of the sack by day. I call it 'the sack,' but it was never a sack by
more than courtesy: only a sort of long roll or sausage, green waterproof
cart-cloth without and blue sheep's fur within. It was commodious as a
valise, warm and dry for a bed. There was luxurious turning room for
one; and at a pinch the thing might serve for two. I could bury myself
in it up to the neck; for my head I trusted to a fur cap, with a hood to
fold down over my ears and a band to pass under my nose like a
respirator; and in case of heavy rain I proposed to make myself a little
tent, or tentlet, with my waterproof coat, three stones, and a bent
branch.
It will readily be conceived that I could not carry this huge package on
my own, merely human, shoulders. It remained to choose a beast of
burden. Now, a horse is a fine lady among animals, flighty, timid,
delicate in eating, of tender health; he is too valuable and too restive
to be left alone, so that you are chained to your brute as to a fellow
galley-slave; a dangerous road puts him out of his wits; in short, he's
an uncertain and exacting ally, and adds thirty-fold to the troubles of
the voyager.
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