a rock, & you could have brained an ox with the bolster.

These six hours have been entirely delightful. I want to do all the
rivers of Europe in an open boat in summer weather.

Still further along he described one of their shore accommodations.

Night caught us yesterday where we had to take quarters in a
peasant's house which was occupied by the family and a lot of cows &
calves, also several rabbits.--[His word for fleas. Neither fleas
nor mosquitoes ever bit him--probably because of his steady use of
tobacco.]--The latter had a ball & I was the ballroom; but they
were very friendly and didn't bite.

The peasants were mighty kind and hearty & flew around & did their
best to make us comfortable. This morning I breakfasted on the
shore in the open air with two sociable dogs & a cat. Clean cloth,
napkins & table furniture, white sugar, a vast hunk of excellent
butter, good bread, first-class coffee with pure milk, fried fish
just caught. Wonderful that so much cleanliness should come out of
such a phenomenally dirty house.

An hour ago we saw the Falls of the Rhone, a prodigiously rough and
dangerous-looking place; shipped a little water, but came to no
harm. It was one of the most beautiful pieces of piloting & boat
management I ever saw. Our admiral knew his business.

We have had to run ashore for shelter every time it has rained
heretofore, but Joseph has been putting in his odd time making a
waterproof sun-bonnet for the boat, & now we sail along dry,
although we have had many heavy showers this morning.

Here follows a pencil-drawing of the boat and its new awning, and he
adds: "I'm on the stern, under the shelter, and out of sight."

The trip down the Rhone proved more valuable as an outing than as
literary material. Clemens covered one hundred and seventy-four pages
with his notes of it, then gave it up. Traveling alone with no one but
Joseph and the Admiral (former owner of the craft) was reposeful and
satisfactory, but it did not inspire literary flights. He tried to
rectify the lack of companionship by introducing fictitious characters,
such as Uncle Abner, Fargo, and Stavely, a young artist; also Harris,
from the Tramp Abroad; but Harris was not really there this time, and
Mark Twain's genius, given rather to elaboration than to construction,
found it too severe a task to imagine a string of adventures wit