Rollo on the Rhine

"Very well," said Mr. George. "That's a very good plan. Only I advise you to make a bargain with the captain to put you ashore any where you like. Because you know you may get tired before you have gone so far as ten miles.

"In fact," continued Mr. George, "I would not say any thing about the distance that you wish to go to the captain. Just make a bargain with him to let you go aboard his raft for a little while, and to send you ashore whenever you wish to go."

"Yes," said Rollo, "I will; that will be the best plan. But I am sure that I shall want to go as far as ten miles."

So Rollo went to his trunk, and began to unlock it in a hurried manner; and when he had opened it, he put his hand down into it at the left hand corner, on the front side, which was the place where he always kept his fishing line.

"What are you looking for?" said Mr. George.

"My fishing line," replied Rollo; "is not that a good plan?"

"Yes," said Mr. George, "an excellent plan."

Rollo had no very definite idea of being able to fish while on the raft, but there was a sort of instinct which prompted him always to take his fishing line whenever he went on any excursion whatever that was connected with the water. Mr. George had a pretty definite idea that he would not be able to fish; but still he thought it a good plan for Rollo to take the line, for he observed that to have a fishing line in his pocket, on such occasions, was always a source of pleasure to a boy, even if he did not use it at all.

Rollo, having found his fishing line, shut and locked his trunk, and ran down stairs.

As soon as he had gone, Mr. George rose and rang the bell.

Very soon the waiter came to the door.

"This young gentleman who is with me," said Mr. George, "wishes to go on board this raft, and sail down the river a little way."

"Yes, sir," said the waiter. "Rudolf is arranging it for him."

"Very well," said Mr. George. "And now I wish to have you send a commissioner secretly to accompany him. The commissioner is to remain on the raft as long as Rollo does, and leave it when he leaves it, and keep in sight of him all the time till he gets home, so as to see that he does not get into any difficulty."

"Yes, sir," said the waiter.

"But let the commissioner understand that he is not to let Rollo know any thing about his having any charge over him, nor to communicate with him in any way, unless some emergency should arise requiring him to interpose."

"Yes, sir," said the waiter, "I will explain it to him."

"And choose a good-natured and careful man to send," continued Mr. George; "one that speaks French."

"Yes, sir," replied the waiter; and so saying, he disappeared, leaving Mr. George to go on with his writing.

In the mean time Rollo had gone down to the shore with the waiter Rudolf, and was standing there near a boat which was drawn up at the foot of the landing stairs, watching the raft, which was now getting pretty near. There was a great company of men at each end of the raft. Rollo could see those at the lowest end the plainest. They were standing in rows near the end of the raft, and every six of them had an oar. There were eight or ten of these oars, all projecting forward, from the front end of the raft, and the raftsmen, by working them, seemed to be endeavoring to row that end of the raft out farther into the stream. It was the same at the farther end of the raft. There was a similar number of oarsmen there, and of oars, only those projected behind, just as the others did before. There were no oars at all along the sides of the raft.

The fact is, that these monstrous rafts are always allowed to float down by the current, the men not attempting to hasten them on their way by rowing. All that they attempt to do by their labor is to keep the immense and unwieldy mass in the middle of the stream. Thus they only need oars at the two ends, and the working of them only tends to row the raft sidewise, as it were. Sometimes they have to row the ends from left to right, and sometimes from right to left, according as the current tends to drift the raft towards the left or the right bank of the river.

Rollo did not understand this at first, and accordingly, when he first saw these rafts coming with a dense crowd of men at each end, rowing vigorously, while there was not a single oar to be seen, nor even any place for an oar along the sides, he was very much surprised at the spectacle. He thought that the men at the back end of the raft were sculling; but what those at the forward end were doing he could not imagine. When, however, he came to consider the case, he saw what the explanation must be, and so he understood the subject perfectly.

At length, when Rollo saw that the forward end of the raft, in its progress down the river, had come nearly opposite to the place where he was standing, he got into the boat, and the boatman rowed him out to the raft. As soon as they reached the raft Rollo stepped out upon the boards and logs. The top of the raft made a very good and smooth floor, being covered with boards, and it was high and dry above the water. Rollo looked down into the interstices, and saw that that part of the raft which was under water was formed of logs and timbers of very large size, placed close together side by side, with a layer above crossing the layer below. The whole was then covered with a flooring of boards, so close and continuous that Rollo had to look for some time before he could find any openings where he could look down and see how the raft was constructed.

In the middle of the raft were several houses. The houses were made of boards, and were of the plainest and simplest construction. Around the doors of these houses several women were sitting wherever they could find shady places. Some were knitting and some were sewing. There were several children there too, amusing themselves in various ways. One was skipping a rope. Rudolf conducted Rollo up to one of these families, and told the women that he was an American boy, who was travelling with his uncle on the Rhine, and seeing this raft going by, had a curiosity to come on board of it. The women looked very much pleased when they heard this. Some of them had friends in America, and others were thinking of going themselves with their husbands; and they immediately began to talk very volubly to Rollo, and to ask him questions. But as they spoke German, Rollo could not understand what they said.

In the mean time the waiter had gone away to speak to the captain of the raft, and to make arrangements for having Rollo put ashore when he had sailed long enough upon it. The captain was walking to and fro, upon a raised platform, near the middle of the raft. This platform I will describe presently. In a few minutes the man returned.

"The captain gives you a good welcome," said he, "and says he wishes he could talk English, for he wants to ask you a great many questions about America. He says you may stay on the raft as long as you please, and when you wish to go ashore, you have only to go and get on board one of the boats, and that will be a signal. He will soon see you there, and will send a man to row you to the shore."

Rollo liked this plan very much. So Rudolf, having arranged every thing, wished Rollo a "good voyage," and went off in the boat as he came.

Thus Rollo was left alone, as it were, upon the raft; and for a moment he felt a little appalled at the idea of going down through such a dark and gloomy gorge as the bed of the river here presented to view, on such a strange conveyance, and surrounded with so wild and savage a horde of men as the raftsmen were,—especially since, as he supposed, there was not a human being on board with whom he could exchange a word of conversation. It is true the commissioner whom his uncle George had sent was on the raft. He had come out in the same boat with Rollo, and had remained when the boat went back to the shore. But Rollo had not noticed him particularly. He observed, it is true, that two men came with him to the raft, and that only one returned; but he thought it probable that the other might be going down the river a little way, or perhaps that he belonged to the raft. He had not the least idea that the man had come to take charge of him, and so he felt as if he were entirely alone in the new and strange scene to which he found himself so suddenly transferred.

There were, however, so many things to attract his attention that at first he had no time to think much of his loneliness. There was a fire burning at a certain part of the raft, not far from the door of one of the houses, and he went to see it. As soon as he reached it, the mystery in respect to the means of having a fire on such a structure, without setting the boards and timbers on fire, was at once solved. Rollo found that the fire was built upon a hearth of sand. There was a large box, about four feet square and a foot deep, which box was filled with sand, and the fire was built in the middle of it. It seemed to Rollo that this was a very easy way to make a fireplace, especially as the sand seemed to be of a very common kind, such as the raftsmen had probably shovelled up somewhere on the shore of the river.

"The very next time I build a raft," said Rollo, "I will have a fire on it in exactly that way."

There was a sort of barricade or screen built up on two sides of this fire, to keep the wind from blowing the flame and the heat away from the kettle that was hung over it. This screen was made of short boards, nailed to three posts, that were placed in such a manner as to make, when the boards were nailed to them, two short fences, at right angles to each other, or like two sides of a high box. The corner of this screen was turned towards the wind, and thus the fire was sheltered. A pole passed across from one of the posts to the other, and the kettle was hung upon the pole.

After examining this fireplace Rollo went to look at the platform where the captain had his station. This platform was about six feet high and ten feet long; and it was just wide enough for the captain to walk to and fro upon it. There was a flight of steps leading up to this platform from the floor of the raft, and a little railing on each side of it, to keep the captain from falling off while he was walking there.

The object of having this platform raised in this way, was to give the captain a more commanding position, so as not only to enable him to survey the whole of the raft, and observe how every thing was going on upon it, but also to give him a good view of the river below, so that he might watch the currents, and see how the raft was drifting, and give the necessary orders for working it one way or the other, as might be required in order to keep it in the middle of the stream.

Then Rollo went to the forward end of the raft to see the raftsmen row. The oars were of monstrous size, as you might well suppose to be the case from the fact that each of them required six men to work it. These six men all stood in a row along the handle of the oar, which seemed to be as large as a small mast. They all pressed down upon the handle of the oar so as to raise the blade out of the water, and then walked along over the floor of the raft quite a considerable distance. At last they stopped, and lifting up their hands, they allowed the blade of the oar to go down into the water. Then they turned, and began to push the oar with their hands the other way. The outside men had to reach up very high, for as the oar was very long, and the blade was now necessarily in the water, the end of the handle was raised quite high in the air. The men, accordingly, that were nearest the end of the oar, were obliged to hold their hands up high, in order to reach it; and they all walked along very deliberately, like a platoon of soldiers, pushing the oar before them as they advanced. And as each of the other six oars had a similar platoon marching with it to and fro, and as all acted in concert, and kept time with each other in their motions, the whole operation had quite the appearance of a military manœuvre. Rollo watched it for some time with great satisfaction.

After this Rollo walked up and down the raft two or three times, and then his attention was attracted by a steamer going by. The steamer cut her way through the water with great speed, and the waves made by her paddle wheels dashed up against the margin of the raft as if it had been along shore.

There was a great number of tourists on board the steamer. Rollo could see them very distinctly sitting under the awning on the deck. Some were standing by the railing and examining the raft by means of their spy glasses or opera glasses. Others were seated at tables, eating late breakfasts, in little parties by themselves. The boat glided by very swiftly, however, and soon Rollo could see nothing of her but the stern, and the foaming wake which her paddle wheels left behind them in the water.

As soon as the steamboat had gone by, Rollo began to feel a slight sense of loneliness on the raft, which feeling was increased by the sombre aspect of the scenery around him. The river was closely shut in by mountains on both sides, and between them the raft seemed to be drifting slowly down into a dark and gloomy gorge, which, though it might have seemed simply sublime to a pleasant party viewing it together from the cheerful deck of a steamer, or from a comfortable carriage on the banks, was well fitted to awaken an emotion of awe and terror in the mind of a boy like Rollo, floating down into it helplessly on an enormous raft, with a hundred men, looking more like brigands than any thing else, marching solemnly to and fro at either end of it, working prodigious oars, with incessant toil, to prevent its being carried upon the rocks and dashed to pieces. In fact, Rollo began soon to wish that he was safe on shore again.

"I am very thankful," said he to himself, "that I made a bargain with the captain to put me ashore whenever I wished to go. I don't believe that I shall wish to go more than half way to Boppard."

So saying, Rollo looked anxiously down the river. The mountains looked more and more dark and gloomy, and they appeared to shut in before him in such a manner that he could not see how it could be possible for such an immense raft to twist its way through between them.

"I don't believe I shall wish to go more than a quarter of the way to Boppard," said he.

Two or three minutes afterwards, on looking back, he saw the town of St. Goar, where he had embarked, gradually disappearing behind a wooded promontory which was slowly coming in the way, and cutting it off from view.

ROLLO ON THE RAFT.

"In fact," said Rollo to himself, "since I am not going all the way to Boppard, I had better not go much farther; for I shall have to walk back, as the steamer does not stop this side of Boppard. Besides, I have seen all that there is on the raft already, and there is no use in staying on it any longer."

So he concluded to go at once to the boat, according to the arrangement which he had made with the captain. He was afraid that he might have to wait some time before the captain would see him; but he did not. The captain saw him immediately, and sent a man to row him ashore. Two men came, in fact, the commissioner being one of them. But Rollo did not pay any particular attention to this circumstance. He did not even observe that it was the same man that had come on board with him. Rollo could not talk to the oarsman on the way, but on landing he gave him a little money,—about what he thought was proper,—and then went up into the road with a view to go home. The commissioner, in order not to awaken any suspicions in Rollo's mind that he was following him, turned away as soon as he landed, and walked along the tow path down the stream.

Rollo went slowly home. He had not been more than half an hour on the raft, and had not gone down the stream more than a mile; so that in three quarters of an hour after he had left his uncle at the hotel he found himself drawing near to it again, on his return.

He felt a little ashamed to get back so soon. So he thought that he would not go in at once and report himself to his uncle, but would go down on the bank of the river, and see if he could find a place to fish a little while, until some little time should have elapsed, so as to give to the period of his absence a tolerably respectable duration. "Uncle George will laugh at me," said he to himself, "if he sees me come home so soon."

So Rollo went down to the quay, and taking out his fishing line, he began to make arrangements for fishing. He did not, however, feel quite at his ease. There seemed to be something a little like artifice in thus prolonging his absence in order to make his uncle think that he had gone farther down the river than he had been. It was not being quite honest, he thought.

"After all," said he to himself, "I'll go and tell uncle George now. I shall have a better time fishing if I do. If he chooses to laugh at me, he may. If he is going to do it, I should like to have it over."

So he went into the hotel, and advanced somewhat timidly to the door of the room where he had left his uncle writing. He opened the door, and looking in, said,—

"Uncle George! I've got back."

Mr. George did not seem at all surprised, but looking up a moment from his writing, he smiled, and said,—

"Ah! I'm glad to see you safe back again. It is rather lonesome here without you. Did you have a pleasant voyage?"

"Yes," said Rollo, "very pleasant. Only I did not go very far. I got them to put me ashore about a mile below here."

"That was right," said Mr. George. "You did exactly as I should have done myself. In fact you can see all you wish to see on such a raft in half an hour."

"Yes," said Rollo, "I found that I could."

"And I am very glad that you came to tell me," said Mr. George, "as soon as you came home."

So Rollo, quite relieved in mind, went down stairs again, and returning to the quay, he resumed his fishing.

Chapter XII.

Dinner

About half past three o'clock Rollo went up to his uncle's room.

"Uncle George," said he, "have not you got almost through with your writing?"

"Why," said Mr. George, "are you tired of staying here?"

"Yes," said Rollo, "I am tired of being down in the bottom of such a deep valley. I wish you would put away your writing and go on up the river till we get out where we can see, and then you may write as much as you please."

"Do you wish to go up the river to-night?" asked Mr. George.

"Yes," said Rollo, "very much."

Mr. George took out his watch.

"Go down and ask the waiter when the next steamer comes along."

Rollo went down, and presently returned with the report that the next steamer came by at five o'clock.

"There is a place up the river about two hours' sail, called Bingen," said Mr. George, "where the mountains end. Above that the country is open and level, and the river wide. We might go up there, I suppose; but what should we do for dinner?"

"We might have dinner on board the steamer," said Rollo.

"Very well," said Mr. George; "that's what we will do. You may go and tell the waiter to bring me the bill, and then be ready at half past four. That will give me an hour more to write."

At half past four Rollo came to tell Mr. George that the steamer was coming. The trunk had been previously carried down and put on board a small boat, for this was one of the places where the steamers were not accustomed to come up to a pier, but received and landed passengers by means of small boats that went out to meet them in the middle of the river. Such a boat was now ready at the foot of the landing stairs, and Mr. George and Rollo got into it.

The boatman waited until the steamer came pretty near, and then he rowed out to meet it. He stopped rowing when the boat was opposite to the paddle wheel of the steamer, and the steamer stopped her engine at the same time. A man who stood on the paddle box threw a rope to the boat, and the boatman made this rope fast to a belaying pin that was set for the purpose near the bow of the boat. By means of this rope the boat was then drawn rapidly up alongside the steamer, at a place directly aft the paddle wheel, where there was a little stairway above, and a small platform below, both of which, when not in use, were drawn up out of the way, but which were always let down when passengers were to come on board. As soon as the boat came alongside this apparatus, Rollo and Mr. George stepped out upon the platform, and went up the little stairway, the hands on board the steamer standing there to help them. In a moment more the trunk was passed up, the boat was pushed off, and the paddle wheels of the steamer were put in motion; and thus, almost before Rollo had time to think what was going on, he found himself comfortably seated on a camp stool under the awning, by the side of Mr. George, on the quarter deck of the steamer, and sailing swiftly along on his voyage up the river.

"What sudden transitions we pass through," said, Mr. George, "in travelling on the Rhine!"

"Yes," said Rollo, "it seems scarcely five minutes ago that I was sitting, all by myself, on the bank of a lonesome river, fishing; and now I am on board a steamer, with all this company, and dashing away through the water at a great rate."

"True," said Mr. George; "and how quickly we came on board! One minute we are creeping along slowly over the water in a little boat, and the next, as if by some sort of magic, we find ourselves on the deck of the steamer, with the boat drifting away astern."

"How high the mountains are," said Rollo, "along the shores here! Do the mountains end at Bingen?"

"Yes," said Mr. George, "at Bingen, or soon after that. There the country opens, and the banks of the river become level and flat. The river widens, and there are a great many islands in it. There we come to railroads again too, for where the land is level they can make railroads very easily. It would be very difficult to make a railroad here, though I believe they are going to do it."

"I should think it would be difficult," said Rollo. "But now, uncle George, about our dinner."

"Very well," said Mr. George, "about the dinner." So the two travellers held a consultation on this subject, and concluded what to have. A few minutes afterwards a waiter came by, carrying a large salver, with some coffee and bread and butter upon it, for a gentleman on the deck. Mr. George beckoned to this waiter, and when he came to him, he ordered the dinner that he and Rollo had agreed upon. It consisted of sausages for Rollo, a beefsteak for Mr. George, and fried potatoes for both. After that they were to have an omelet and some coffee. The coffee on board the Rhine steamers, being made with very rich and pure milk, is delicious.

The waiter brought up a small square table to the part of the deck where Mr. George and Rollo were sitting, which was under the shady side of the awning, and set it for their dinner. In about twenty minutes the dinner was ready. The table itself was as neat and nice as possible, and the dishes which had been ordered were prepared in the most perfect manner. I need not add, I suppose, that Mr. George and Rollo—it being now so late—were provided with excellent appetites. So they had a very good time eating their dinner. While they were eating it they could watch the changes in the scenery of the banks, as they glided swiftly along, and observe the steamers, tow boats, and other river craft, that passed them from time to time.

While they were at dinner, Rollo asked Mr. George about the rafts, and where the timber that they were made of came from.

DINNER ON THE RHINE.

"Why, you see," said Mr. George, "the River Rhine, in the upper portions of it, has a great many branches which come down from among the mountains, where nothing will grow well but timber. So they reserve these places for forests, and as fast as the timber gets grown, they cut it down, and slide it down the slopes to the nearest stream, and then float it along till they come to great streams; and there they form it into rafts, and send it down the river to Holland and Belgium, where timber does not grow."

"Would not timber grow in Belgium and Holland?" asked Rollo.