hould say, where a man gives up less of his liberty in return for
regular meals. The barge is on shipboard--he is master in his own
ship--he can land whenever he will--he can never be kept beating off a
lee-shore a whole frosty night when the sheets are as hard as iron; and,
so far as I can make out, time stands as nearly still with him as is
compatible with the return of bed-time or the dinner-hour. It is not
easy to see why a barge should ever die.

Half-way between Willebroek and Villevorde, in a beautiful reach of
canal like a squire's avenue, we went ashore to lunch. There were two
eggs, a junk of bread, and a bottle of wine on board the _Arethusa_; and
two eggs and an Etna cooking apparatus on board the _Cigarette_. The
master of the latter boat smashed one of the eggs in the course of
disembarkation; but observing pleasantly that it might still be cooked
_a la papier_, he dropped it into the Etna, in its covering of Flemish
newspaper. We landed in a blink of fine weather; but we had not been two
minutes ashore before the wind freshened into half a gale, and the rain
began to patter on our shoulders. We sat as close about the Etna as we
could. The spirits burned with great ostentation; the grass caught flame
every minute or two, and had to be trodden out; and before long, there
were several burnt fingers of the party. But the solid quantity of
cookery accomplished was out of proportion with so much display; and
when we desisted, after two applications of the fire, the sound egg was
little more than loo-warm; and as for _a la papier_, it was a cold and
sordid _fricassee_ of printer's ink and broken egg-shell. We made shift
to roast the other two, by putting them close to the burning spirits;
and that with better success. And then we uncorked the bottle of wine,
and sat down in a ditch with our canoe aprons over our knees. It rained
smartly. Discomfort, when it is honestly uncomfortable and makes no
nauseous pretensions to the contrary, is a vastly humorous business; and
people well steeped and stupefied in the open air are in a good vein for
laughter. From this point of view, even egg _a la papier_ offered by way
of food may pass muster as a sort of accessory to the fun. But this
manner of jest, although it may be taken in good part, does not invite
repetition; and from that time forward, the Etna voyaged like a
gentleman in the locker of the _Cigarette_.

It is almost unnecessary to mention that when lunch was ove