We set sail, with a faint breeze, at about eleven o’clock, with twenty-nine degrees Reaumur, towards south. I remained with the Frenchmen till noon. Thibaut was soon somewhat the worse for liquor, and uttered all kinds of stale witticisms. Although he has sojourned many years in these parts, he still remains while on his travels a genuine Parisian, who, wherever he goes, never divests himself of the Parisian atmosphere, and interests himself in nothing, properly speaking, but the doings of that city. To-day his brain was haunted with the Parisienne, which he was humming incessantly, although he had not seen the revolution to which it owes its origin. The two other gentlemen are a perfect contrast: Arnaud affecting to be continually busy, without however producing anything, and throwing out continual bitter taunts against his young colleague Sabatier. The windows are covered with curtains: he does not venture out of doors to make the necessary inquiries; but merely now and then looks at the box-compass, although the vessels turn every moment, and go first to the right, and then to the left shore. The compass, therefore, affords no indication whatever of the course of the stream, for the boundaries of its shore generally decrease from the height of the water, and become undefined; and thus a correction of the compass might possibly be made on the return voyage. Sabatier, on the contrary, appears quite negligent and lazy, because he is not well, and will not endure the arrogance of Arnaud; so that these gentlemen engineers mutually accuse each other of ignorance. In other respects, he seems to me a frank and open youth, who might be taken for an American rather than for a Frenchman, from his having served in Texas.