I always fraternized with these ladies, doffing my hat, and drawing back my left foot for a bow (though the graceful action is not observed under the macintosh). Other travellers, also, may find there is something to be seen and heard if they pass five minutes at the washing-barge. But even if it were not instructive and amusing thus to study character when a whole group is met with at once, surely it is to be remembered that the pleasure of seeing a new sight and of hearing a foreigner speak cheerful and kind words, is to many of these hard-working, honest mothers a bright interlude in a life of toil. To give pleasure is one of the best pleasures of a tourist; and it is in acting thus, too, that the lone traveller feels no loneliness, while he pleases and is pleased. Two Englishmen may travel together agreeably among foreigners for a week without learning so much of the life, and mind, and manners of the people as would be learned in one day if each of the tourists went alone, provided he was not too shy or too proud to open his eyes, and ears, and mouth among strangers, and had sense enough to be an exception to the rule that "Every Englishman is an island." Merely for a change, I ran the Rob Roy into a long millrace in search of breakfast. This stream having secured hold of the boat stealthily ran away with us in a winding course among the hayfields, and quite out of reach of the river, until it seemed that after all we were only in a streamlet for irrigation, which would vanish into rills an inch deep in a water meadow. However, I put a bold face on it, and gravely and swiftly sped through the fields, and bestowed a nod now and then on the rural gazers. A fine boy of twelve years old soon trotted alongside, and I asked him if he was an honest lad, which he answered by a blush, and "Yes." "Here is a franc, then. Go and buy me bread and wine, and meet me at the mill." A few of the "hands" soon found out the canoe, moored, as it was thought, in quiet retirement, with its captain resting under a tree, and presently a whole crowd of them swarmed out, and shouted with delight as they pressed round to see. The boy brought a very large bottle of wine, and a loaf big enough to dine four men; and I set to work with an oarsman's appetite, and that happy _sang froid_ which no multitude of gazers now could disturb. However, one of the party invited me into her house, and soon set delicate viands before the new guest, while the others filled the room in an instant, and were replaced by sets of fifty at a time, all very good-humoured and respectful.