The Rob Roy is built of oak, and covered fore and aft with cedar. She is made just short enough to go into the German railway waggons; that is to say, fifteen feet in length, twenty-eight inches broad, nine inches deep, weighs eighty pounds, and draws three inches of water, with an inch of keel. A paddle seven feet long, with a blade at each end, and a lug sail and jib, are the means of propulsion; and a pretty blue silk Union Jack is the only ornament. The elliptic hole in which I sit is fifty-four inches long and twenty broad, and has a macintosh cover fastened round the combing and to a button on my breast; while between my knees is my baggage for three months, in a black bag one foot square and five inches deep. But, having got this little boat, the difficulty was to find where she could go to, or what rivers were at once feasible to paddle on, and pretty to see. Inquiries in London as to this had no result. Even the Paris Boat Club knew nothing of French rivers. The best German and Austrian maps were frequently wrong. They made villages on the banks which I found were a mile away in a wood, and so were useless to one who had made up his mind (a good resolve) never to leave his boat. It was soon, therefore, evident that, after quitting the Rhine, this was to be a voyage of discovery. And as I would most gladly have accepted any hints on the matter myself, so I venture to hope that this narrative will lessen the trouble, while it stimulates the desire of the numerous travellers who will spend their vacation in a canoe.[I.] [I.] See Appendix. Special hints for those who intend to "canoe it" will usually be given in the footnotes, or in the Appendix. Not that I shall attempt to make a "handbook" to any of the streams. The man who has a spark of enterprise would turn from a river of which every reach was mapped and its channels all lettered. Fancy the free traveller, equipped for a delicious summer of savage life, quietly submitting to be cramped and tutored by a "Chart of the Upper Mosel," in the style of the following extracts copied literally from two Guide-books;-- (1) "Turn to the r. (right), cross the brook, and ascend by a broad and steep forest track (in 40 min.) to the hamlet of Albersbach, situate in the midst of verdant meadows. In five min. more a cross is reached, where the path to the l. must be taken; in 10 min. to the r., in the hollow, to the saw mill; in 10 min. more through the gate to the r.; in 3 min. the least trodden path to the l. leading to the Gaschpels Hof; after 1/4 hr. the stony track into the wood must be ascended," &c., &c.--_From B----'s Rhine, p. 94_. (2) "_To the ridge of the Riffelberg_ 8,000 ft. _Hotel_ on top very good. 2 hrs. up. Guide 4 fr. Horse and man 10 fr. Path past the Church: then l. over fields; then up through a wood 1 hr. Past châlets: then r. across a stream."-- _----'s Handbook_.