Among the nearest and the oldest friends of his I never was, but to few friends, nearer and older, does my _desiderium_ go back so frequently; simply because almost every day brings something newly learned or known, which would have appealed most to his unequaled breadth of knowledge and interest and sympathy. ANDREW LANG. AN INLAND VOYAGE "Thus sang they in the English boat." MARVELL. _TO_ _SIR WALTER GRINDLAY SIMPSON, BART._ _My dear "Cigarette,"_ _It was enough that you should have shared so liberally in the rains and portages of our voyage; that you should have had so hard a paddle to recover the derelict "Arethusa" on the flooded Oise: and that you should thenceforth have piloted a mere wreck of mankind to Origny Sainte-Benoite and a supper so eagerly desired. It was perhaps more than enough, as you once somewhat piteously complained, that I should have set down all the strong language to you, and kept the appropriate reflections for myself. I could not in decency expose you to share the disgrace of another and more public shipwreck. But now that this voyage of ours is going into a cheap edition, that peril, we shall hope, is at an end, and I may put your name on the burgee._ _But I cannot pause till I have lamented the fate of our two ships. That, sir, was not a fortunate day when we projected the possession of a canal barge; it was not a fortunate day when we shared our daydream with the most hopeful of daydreamers. For a while, indeed, the world looked smilingly. The barge was procured and christened, and as the "Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne," lay for some months, the admired of all admirers, in a pleasant river and under the walls of an ancient town. M. Mattras, the accomplished carpenter of Moret, had made her a centre of emulous labour; and you will not have forgotten the amount of sweet champagne consumed in the inn at the bridge end, to give zeal to the workmen and speed to the work. On the financial aspect I would_ _not willingly dwell. The "Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne" rotted in the stream where she was beautified. She felt not the impulse of the breeze; she was never harnessed to the patent track-horse. And when at length she was sold, by the indignant carpenter of Moret, there were sold along with her the "Arethusa" and the "Cigarette", she of cedar, she, as we knew so keenly on a portage, of solid-hearted English oak. Now these historic vessels fly the tricolour and are known by new and alien names._ _R. L. S._ PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION