Stevenson - Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes

My Dear Sidney Colvin,

The journey which this little book is to describe was very agreeable andfortunate for me. After an uncouth beginning, I had the best of luck tothe end. But we are all travellers in what John Bunyan calls thewilderness of this worldall, too, travellers with a donkey: and thebest that we find in our travels is an honest friend. He is a fortunatevoyager who finds many. We travel, indeed, to find them. They are theend and the reward of life. They keep us worthy of ourselves; and whenwe are alone, we are only nearer to the absent.

Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the friends ofhim who writes it. They alone take his meaning; they find privatemessages, assurances of love, and expressions of gratitude, dropped forthem in every corner. The public is but a generous patron who defraysthe postage. Yet though the letter is directed to all, we have an oldand kindly custom of addressing it on the outside to one. Of what shalla man be proud, if he is not proud of his friends? And so, my dearSidney Colvin, it is with pride that I sign myself affectionately yours,

R. L. S.

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.

In a little place called Le Monastier, in a pleasant highland valleyfifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent about a month of fine days. Monastieris notable for the making of lace, for drunkenness, for freedom oflanguage, and for unparalleled political dissension. There are adherentsof each of the four French partiesLegitimists, Orleanists,Imperialists, and Republicansin this little mountain-town; and they allhate, loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. Except for businesspurposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laidaside even the civility of speech. 'Tis a mere mountain Poland. In themidst of this Babylon I found myself a rallying-point; every one wasanxious to be kind and helpful to the stranger. This was not merely fromthe natural hospitality of mountain people, nor even from the surprisewith which I was regarded as a man living of his own free will in LeMonastier, when he might just as well have lived anywhere else in thisbig world; it arose a good deal from my projected excursion southwardthrough the Cevennes. A traveller of my sort was a thing hithertounheard of 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 were readyto help in my preparations; a crowd of sympathisers supported me at thecritical moment of a bargain; not a step was taken but was heralded byglasses round and celebrated by a dinner or a breakfast.

It was already hard upon October before I was ready to set forth, and atthe high altitudes over which my road lay there was no Indian summer tobe looked for. I was determined, if not to camp out, at least to havethe means of camping out in my possession; for there is nothing moreharassing 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 bythose who trudge on foot. A tent, above all for a solitary traveller, istroublesome to pitch, and troublesome to strike again; and even on themarch it forms a conspicuous feature in your baggage. A sleeping-sack,on the other hand, is always readyyou have only to get into it; itserves a double purposea bed by night, a portmanteau by day; and itdoes 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 troubledresting-place; you become a public character; the convivial rustic visitsyour 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 afterrepeated visits to Le Puy, and a deal of high living for myself and myadvisers, a sleeping-sack was designed, constructed, and triumphantlybrought home.

This child of my invention was nearly six feet square, exclusive of twotriangular flaps to serve as a pillow by night and as the top and bottomof the sack by day. I call it 'the sack,' but it was never a sack bymore than courtesy: only a sort of long roll or sausage, green waterproofcart-cloth without and blue sheep's fur within. It was commodious as avalise, warm and dry for a bed. There was luxurious turning room forone; and at a pinch the thing might serve for two. I could bury myselfin it up to 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 a littletent, or tentlet, with my waterproof coat, three stones, and a bentbranch.

It will readily be conceived that I could not carry this huge package onmy own, merely human, shoulders. It remained to choose a beast ofburden. Now, a horse is a fine lady among animals, flighty, timid,delicate in eating, of tender health; he is too valuable and too restiveto be left alone, so that you are chained to your brute as to a fellowgalley-slave; a dangerous road puts him out of his wits; in short, he'san uncertain and exacting ally, and adds thirty-fold to the troubles ofthe voyager. What I required was something cheap and small and hardy,and of a stolid and peaceful temper; and all these requisites pointed toa donkey.

There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of rather unsound intellectaccording to some, much followed by street-boys, and known to fame asFather Adam. Father Adam had a cart, and to draw the cart a diminutiveshe-ass, not much bigger than a dog, the colour of a mouse, with a kindlyeye and a determined under-jaw. There was something neat and high-bred,a quakerish elegance, about the rogue that hit my fancy on the spot. Ourfirst interview was in Monastier market-place. To prove her good temper,one child after another was set upon her back to ride, and one afteranother went head over heels into the air; until a want of confidencebegan to reign in youthful bosoms, and the experiment was discontinuedfrom a dearth of subjects. I was already backed by a deputation of myfriends; but as if this were not enough, all the buyers and sellers cameround and helped me in the bargain; and the ass and I and Father Adamwere the centre of a hubbub for near half an hour. At length she passedinto my service for the consideration of sixty-five francs and a glass ofbrandy. The sack had already cost eighty francs and two glasses of beer;so that Modestine, as I instantly baptized her, was upon all accounts thecheaper article. Indeed, that was as it should be; for she was only anappurtenance of my mattress, or self-acting bedstead on four castors.