Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1878 - Inland voyage

4 An Inland Voyage,
deserts him in the hour of need. But we are all
for tootling on the sentimental flute in literature ;
and not a man among us will go to the head of
the march to sound the heady drums.
It was agreeable upon the river. A barge or
two went past laden with hay. Reeds and
willows bordered the stream ; and cattle and
gray venerable horses came and hung their mild
heads over the embankment. Here and there
was a pleasant village among trees, with a noisy
shipping yard ; here and there a villa in a lawn.
The wind served us well up the Scheldt and
thereafter up the Rupel\ and we were running
pretty free when we began to sight the brick-
yards of Boom, lying for a long way on the
right bank of the river. The left bank was stili
green and pastoral, with alleys of trees along
the embankment, and here and there a flight of
steps to serve a ferry, where perhaps there sat a
woman with her elbows on her knees, or an old