Of course all the people with whom we were brought into contact--the captain and crew of the boat, the riverside loungers at the landing-places, the hosts and households of the little inns in the small places at which the boat stopped every night (it never travelled save by daylight)--were all mystified, and had all their ideas of the proprieties and the eternal fitness of things outraged by the phenomenon of a party of English ladies and gentlemen--supposed by virtue of ancient and well recognised reputation to be all as rich as Crœsus, and who were at all events manifestly able to pay for a carriage--choosing such a method of travelling. Nor had English wanderers at that time earned the privilege since accorded to their numerousness, of doing all sorts of strange things unquestioned on the score of the well-known prevalent insanity of the race. _All_ who came within sight of us were utterly puzzled at the unaccountableness of the phenomenon. And one does not mystify the whole of a somewhat rude population without risking disagreeables of various sorts. On looking back on the circumstances from my present lofty and calm observatory, I am disposed to wonder that nothing worse betided us than the one adventure of which I am about to speak. But, as I remember, the people generally were, if somewhat ruder and rougher than an English population of similar status, upon the whole very kindly and good-natured. But at one place--a village called Pleintling--we did get into trouble, which very nearly ended tragically. The terms upon which we were to be housed for the night, and the price to be paid for our accommodation of all sorts had been settled overnight, and the consciousness that we were giving unusual trouble induced us to pay without grumbling such a price for our beds and supper and breakfast as the host had assuredly never received for his food and lodging in all his previous experience. But it was doubtless this very absence of bargaining which led our landlord to imagine that he had made a mistake in not demanding far more, and that any amount might be had for asking it from so mysterious a party who parted, too, so easily with their money. So as we were stepping on board the next morning he came down to the water’s edge, and with loud vociferation demanded a sum more than the double of that which we had already paid him. The ladies, and indeed all the party save myself, who was the paymaster, had already gone on board, and I was about to follow, unheeding his demands and his threats, when he seized me by the throat, and dragging me backwards, declared in stentorian tones that he had not been paid. I sturdily refused to disburse another kreutzer. The other men, who had gone on board, jumped back to my assistance. But suddenly, as if they had risen from the earth, several other fellows surrounded us and dragged down my friends. The old landlord, beside himself with rage, lifted an axe which he had in his hand, and was about