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64 pages

English

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pubOne.info present you this wonderfully illustrated edition. A New Impression with a Frontispiece by Walter Crane

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France

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	27 septembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	2
EAN13	9782819927570
Langue	English

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Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
by Robert Louis Stevenson
A New Impression with a Frontispiece by WalterCrane
London: Chatto & Windus, 1907

My Dear Sidney Colvin,
The journey which this little book is to describewas very agreeable and fortunate for me. After an uncouthbeginning, I had the best of luck to the end. But we are alltravellers in what John Bunyan calls the wilderness of this world—all, too, travellers with a donkey: and the best that we find inour travels is an honest friend. He is a fortunate voyager whofinds many. We travel, indeed, to find them. They are the end andthe reward of life. They keep us worthy of ourselves; and when weare alone, we are only nearer to the absent.
Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circularletter to the friends of him who writes it. They alone take hismeaning; they find private messages, assurances of love, andexpressions of gratitude, dropped for them in every corner. Thepublic is but a generous patron who defrays the postage. Yet thoughthe letter is directed to all, we have an old and kindly custom ofaddressing 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 moremighty than man. . . . He masters by his devices the tenant of thefields.
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 pleasanthighland valley fifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent about a month offine days. Monastier is notable for the making of lace, fordrunkenness, for freedom of language, and for unparalleledpolitical dissension. There are adherents of each of the fourFrench parties— Legitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists, andRepublicans— in this little mountain-town; and they all hate,loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. Except for businesspurposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, theyhave laid aside even the civility of speech. ’Tis a mere mountainPoland. In the midst of this Babylon I found myself arallying-point; every one was anxious to be kind and helpful to thestranger. This was not merely from the natural hospitality ofmountain people, nor even from the surprise with which I wasregarded as a man living of his own free will in Le Monastier, whenhe might just as well have lived anywhere else in this big world;it arose a good deal from my projected excursion southward throughthe Cevennes. A traveller of my sort was a thing hitherto unheardof in that district. I was looked upon with contempt, like a manwho should project a journey to the moon, but yet with a respectfulinterest, like one setting forth for the inclement Pole. All wereready to help in my preparations; a crowd of sympathisers supportedme at the critical moment of a bargain; not a step was taken butwas heralded by glasses round and celebrated by a dinner or abreakfast.
It was already hard upon October before I was readyto set forth, and at the high altitudes over which my road laythere was no Indian summer to be looked for. I was determined, ifnot to camp out, at least to have the means of camping out in mypossession; for there is nothing more harassing to an easy mindthan the necessity of reaching shelter by dusk, and the hospitalityof a village inn is not always to be reckoned sure by those whotrudge on foot. A tent, above all for a solitary traveller, istroublesome to pitch, and troublesome to strike again; and even onthe march it forms a conspicuous feature in your baggage. Asleeping-sack, on the other hand, is always ready— you have only toget into it; it serves a double purpose— a bed by night, aportmanteau by day; and it does not advertise your intention ofcamping out to every curious passer-by. This is a huge point. If acamp is not secret, it is but a troubled resting-place; you becomea public character; the convivial rustic visits your bedside afteran early supper; and you must sleep with one eye open, and be upbefore the day. I decided on a sleeping-sack; and after repeatedvisits to Le Puy, and a deal of high living for myself and myadvisers, a sleeping-sack was designed, constructed, andtriumphantly brought home.
This child of my invention was nearly six feetsquare, exclusive of two triangular flaps to serve as a pillow bynight and as the top and bottom of the sack by day. I call it ‘thesack, ’ but it was never a sack by more than courtesy: only a sortof long roll or sausage, green waterproof cart-cloth without andblue sheep’s fur within. It was commodious as a valise, warm anddry for a bed. There was luxurious turning room for one; and at apinch the thing might serve for two. I could bury myself in it upto the neck; for my head I trusted to a fur cap, with a hood tofold down over my ears and a band to pass under my nose like arespirator; and in case of heavy rain I proposed to make myself alittle tent, or tentlet, with my waterproof coat, three stones, anda bent branch.
It will readily be conceived that I could not carrythis huge package on my own, merely human, shoulders. It remainedto choose a beast of burden. Now, a horse is a fine lady amonganimals, flighty, timid, delicate in eating, of tender health; heis too valuable and too restive to be left alone, so that you arechained to your brute as to a fellow galley-slave; a dangerous roadputs him out of his wits; in short, he’s an uncertain and exactingally, and adds thirty-fold to the troubles of the voyager. What Irequired was something cheap and small and hardy, and of a stolidand peaceful temper; and all these requisites pointed to adonkey.
There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of ratherunsound intellect according to some, much followed by street-boys,and known to fame as Father Adam. Father Adam had a cart, and todraw the cart a diminutive she-ass, not much bigger than a dog, thecolour of a mouse, with a kindly eye and a determined under-jaw.There was something neat and high-bred, a quakerish elegance, aboutthe rogue that hit my fancy on the spot. Our first interview was inMonastier market-place. To prove her good temper, one child afteranother was set upon her back to ride, and one after another wenthead over heels into the air; until a want of confidence began toreign in youthful bosoms, and the experiment was discontinued froma dearth of subjects. I was already backed by a deputation of myfriends; but as if this were not enough, all the buyers and sellerscame round and helped me in the bargain; and the ass and I andFather Adam were the centre of a hubbub for near half an hour. Atlength she passed into my service for the consideration ofsixty-five francs and a glass of brandy. The sack had already costeighty francs and two glasses of beer; so that Modestine, as Iinstantly baptized her, was upon all accounts the cheaper article.Indeed, that was as it should be; for she was only an appurtenanceof my mattress, or self-acting bedstead on four castors.
I had a last interview with Father Adam in abilliard-room at the witching hour of dawn, when I administered thebrandy. He professed himself greatly touched by the separation, anddeclared he had often bought white bread for the donkey when he hadbeen content with black bread for himself; but this, according tothe best authorities, must have been a flight of fancy. He had aname in the village for brutally misusing the ass; yet it iscertain that he shed a tear, and the tear made a clean mark downone cheek.
By the advice of a fallacious local saddler, aleather pad was made for me with rings to fasten on my bundle; andI thoughtfully completed my kit and arranged my toilette. By way ofarmoury and utensils, I took a revolver, a little spirit-lamp andpan, a lantern and some halfpenny candles, a jack-knife and a largeleather flask. The main cargo consisted of two entire changes ofwarm clothing— besides my travelling wear of country velveteen,pilot-coat, and knitted spencer— some books, and my railway-rug,which, being also in the form of a bag, made me a double castle forcold nights. The permanent larder was represented by cakes ofchocolate and tins of Bologna sausage. All this, except what Icarried about my person, was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag;and by good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, rather forconvenience of carriage than from any thought that I should want iton my journey. For more immediate needs I took a leg of coldmutton, a bottle of Beaujolais, an empty bottle to carry milk, anegg-beater, and a considerable quantity of black bread and white,like Father Adam, for myself and donkey, only in my scheme ofthings the destinations were reversed.
Monastrians, of all shades of thought in politics,had agreed in threatening me with many ludicrous misadventures, andwith sudden death in many surprising forms. Cold, wolves, robbers,above all the nocturnal practical joker, were daily and eloquentlyforced on my attention. Yet in these vaticinations, the true,patent danger was left out. Like Christian, it was from my pack Isuffered by the way. Before telling my own mishaps, let me in twowords relate the lesson of my experience. If the pack is wellstrapped at the ends, and hung at full length— not doubled, foryour life— across the pack-saddle, the traveller is safe. Thesaddle will certainly not fit, such is the imperfection of ourtransitory life; it will assuredly topple and tend to overset; butthere are stones on every roadside, and a man soon learns the artof correcting any tendency to overbalance with a well-adjustedstone.
On the day of my departure I was up a little afterfive; by six, we began to load the donkey; and ten minutes after,my hopes were in the dust. The pad would not stay on Modestine’sback for half a moment. I returned it to its maker, with whom I hadso contumelious a passage that the street outside was crowded fromwall to wall with gossips looking on and listening.