him an almost exaggerated tenderness. He, at least, will become my

reader: --if it were only to follow his own travels alongside of

mine.

R.L.S.

ANTWERP TO BOOM

We made a great stir in Antwerp Docks. A stevedore and a lot of

dock porters took up the two canoes, and ran with them for the

slip. A crowd of children followed cheering. The Cigarette went

off in a splash and a bubble of small breaking water. Next moment

the Arethusa was after her. A steamer was coming down, men on the

paddle-box shouted hoarse warnings, the stevedore and his porters

were bawling from the quay. But in a stroke or two the canoes were

away out in the middle of the Scheldt, and all steamers, and

stevedores, and other 'long-shore vanities were left behind.

The sun shone brightly; the tide was making--four jolly miles an

hour; the wind blew steadily, with occasional squalls. For my

part, I had never been in a canoe under sail in my life; and my

first experiment out in the middle of this big river was not made

without some trepidation. What would happen when the wind first

caught my little canvas? I suppose it was almost as trying a

venture into the regions of the unknown as to publish a first book,

or to marry. But my doubts were not of long duration; and in five

minutes you will not be surprised to learn that I had tied my

sheet.

I own I was a little struck by this circumstance myself; of course,

in company with the rest of my fellow-men, I had always tied the

sheet in a sailing-boat; but in so little and crank a concern as a

canoe, and with these charging squalls, I was not prepared to find

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