Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    An Inland Voyage
    An Inland Voyage
    An Inland Voyage
    Ebook136 pages2 hours

    An Inland Voyage

    By Robert Louis Stevenson and Sheba Blake

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Robert Louis Stevenson's 1878 travelogue, An Inland Voyage, details his canoeing trip through France and Belgium in 1876. Pioneering new ground in outdoor literature, this was Stevenson's first book. He had decided to become free from his parent's financial support so that he might freely pursue the woman he loved; to support himself he wrote travelogues, most notably An Inland Voyage, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes and The Silverado Squatters. Stevenson undertook the journey with his friend, Sir Walter Grindlay Simpson, at a time when such outdoor travel for leisure was considered unusual and it resulted in this romantic and original work that still inspires travelers today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSheba Blake Publishing
    Release dateDec 1, 2021
    ISBN9783986779160
    Author

    Robert Louis Stevenson

    Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (geb. 13. November 1850 in Edinburgh; gest. 3. Dezember 1894 in Vailima, nahe Apia, Samoa) war ein schottischer Schriftsteller des viktorianischen Zeitalters. Stevenson, der an Tuberkulose litt, wurde nur 44 Jahre alt; jedoch hinterließ er ein umfangreiches Werk von Reiseerzählungen, Abenteuerliteratur und historischen Romanen sowie Lyrik und Essays.

    Read more from Robert Louis Stevenson

    Related to An Inland Voyage

    Related ebooks

    Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Bard In The Woods

      Nov 30, 2020

      Bard In The Woods
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Crazy Times at Sea

      Feb 3, 2017

      A long time ago in an office far, far away, I received a typewritten manuscript that told a harrowing tale of a transatlantic voyage gone horribly wrong. The author and his girlfriend had answered a magazine advertisement for crew (yes, it was that l

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Paul Heiney

      Oct 27, 2023

      Paul Heiney
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Tom Cunliffe

      Nov 6, 2020

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Tom Cunliffe

      Nov 6, 2020

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Tom Cunliffe

      Jan 29, 2021

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Tom Cunliffe

      Jan 29, 2021

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      John Ashbery

      Mar 15, 2019

      He could understand the things at home.—Wallace Stevens, “Things of August” Scribbled on the expansive mist, the desireof many dwindles to usand our “activities,” wholesomeor otherwise. Soon it becomes apparentthat neither they nor I have any prise o

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Paul Heiney

      Oct 27, 2023

      Paul Heiney
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Dream Job?

      Aug 4, 2022

      Mad about the boat Dave Selby is the proud owner of a 5.48m (18ft) Sailfish, which he keeps on a swinging mooring on the picturesque Blackwater estuary in Essex The most horrific thing I ever read in PBO – apart from every episode of Learning From Ex

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Press-ganged!

      Jun 13, 2019

      Press-ganged!
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Press Ganged!

      May 1, 2020

      Press Ganged!
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Sound Of Music

      Apr 3, 2020

      The Sound Of Music
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Tom Cunliffe

      Mar 25, 2022

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Tom Cunliffe

      Mar 25, 2022

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A New Beginning

      May 27, 2021

      THE JOURNEYING MOON Shortly after the war I married and tried to settle down to a life in London. Like most of my generation, though, I was infected by restlessness. Early in our lives we had been given a taste for the world of action, and too much a

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Time Out

      Mar 27, 2020

      Time Out
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Backyard Travel Writing

      Feb 6, 2020

      Backyard Travel Writing
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Four Poems

      Sep 4, 2018

      In London. England. Who knows why?Perhaps this rumpled guyFrom central casting or a page of Dickens.He’s taking ordinary usTo haunts of the illustrious,Where even dull pulse quickens. A red felt hat’s dark fingered brim,Food-spotted vest are—him.A mo

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Bliss Of Ignorance

      Jan 14, 2022

      The Bliss Of Ignorance
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Paul Heiney

      Apr 28, 2023

      How does the glass looking this morning- the one tells you the general state of your cruising frame of mind? Is that glass half empty, or is it half full? On the happiness scale of one to twenty, are you closer to the depths of the miserable single d

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Paul Heiney

      Apr 28, 2023

      How does the glass looking this morning- the one tells you the general state of your cruising frame of mind? Is that glass half empty, or is it half full? On the happiness scale of one to twenty, are you closer to the depths of the miserable single d

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Time Out

      Feb 25, 2022

      Time Out
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Time Out

      Feb 25, 2022

      Time Out
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Two Poems

      Jul 1, 2022

      After centuries of deferralto the white sky cloud cover God, who kept me on orange alert,babbling for mercies that were batted away sloppilylike dustballs in the wake of a sock, I turned to the Divine Creatrix,who built the short night, I was convinc

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Time Out

      Nov 22, 2019

      Alright, I know that Herman Melville isn’t everyone’s cup of tea (or should that be coffee, given that Starbucks is named after a character in Moby Dick?), but anyway, I’m going to argue its case. First up, I realise that the book is as thick as a wh

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Cruising With

      Mar 21, 2024

      Stop judging me. Please. So I went on a cruise. And enjoyed it. Let me guess, you “could think of nothing worse” than spending your holiday on a cruise ship. I'm aware of the stereotypes that spring to mind when I say “cruise”: people crowded into sm

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Meet The Author

      Mar 16, 2020

      Richard Wadley is a retired geologist and mining company executive. In 2005, he moved to the Waterberg Plateau near the town of Vaalwater with his wife Lyn, where he began a 12-year process of researching and writing Waterberg Echoes. At more than 80

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Home

      Dec 27, 2018

      Home
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for An Inland Voyage

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      An Inland Voyage - Robert Louis Stevenson

      Robert Louis Stevenson

      An Inland Voyage

      First published by Sheba Blake Publishing Corp. 2021

      Copyright © 2021 by Robert Louis Stevenson

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

      Robert Louis Stevenson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      Sheba Blake Publishing Corp.

      2288 Crossrail Dr

      Atlanta, GA 30349

      support@shebablake.com

      First edition

      Cover art by Sheba Blake

      Editing by Sheba Blake

      This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

      Find out more at reedsy.com

      Publisher Logo

      Contents

      Preface

      1. Antwerp to Boom

      2. On the Willebroek Canal

      3. The Royal Sport Nautique

      4. At Maubeuge

      5. To Quartes

      6. We Are Pedlars

      7. The Travelling Merchant

      8. To Landrecies

      9. At Landrecies

      10. Canal Boats

      11. The Oise in Flood

      12. A By-Day

      13. The Company at Table

      14. To Moy

      15. La Fere of Cursed Memory

      16. Through the Golden Valley

      17. Noyon Cathedral

      18. To Compiegne

      19. At Compiegne

      20. Changed Times

      21. Down the Oise: Church Interiors

      22. Precy and the Marionettes

      23. Back to the World

      About the Author

      Preface

      To equip so small a book with a preface is, I am half afraid, to sin against proportion. But a preface is more than an author can resist, for it is the reward of his labours. When the foundation stone is laid, the architect appears with his plans, and struts for an hour before the public eye. So with the writer in his preface: he may have never a word to say, but he must show himself for a moment in the portico, hat in hand, and with an urbane demeanour.

      It is best, in such circumstances, to represent a delicate shade of manner between humility and superiority: as if the book had been written by some one else, and you had merely run over it and inserted what was good. But for my part I have not yet learned the trick to that perfection; I am not yet able to dissemble the warmth of my sentiments towards a reader; and if I meet him on the threshold, it is to invite him in with country cordiality.

      To say truth, I had no sooner finished reading this little book in proof, than I was seized upon by a distressing apprehension. It occurred to me that I might not only be the first to read these pages, but the last as well; that I might have pioneered this very smiling tract of country all in vain, and find not a soul to follow in my steps. The more I thought, the more I disliked the notion; until the distaste grew into a sort of panic terror, and I rushed into this Preface, which is no more than an advertisement for readers.

      What am I to say for my book? Caleb and Joshua brought back from Palestine a formidable bunch of grapes; alas! my book produces naught so nourishing; and for the matter of that, we live in an age when people prefer a definition to any quantity of fruit.

      I wonder, would a negative be found enticing? for, from the negative point of view, I flatter myself this volume has a certain stamp. Although it runs to considerably upwards of two hundred pages, it contains not a single reference to the imbecility of God’s universe, nor so much as a single hint that I could have made a better one myself.—I really do not know where my head can have been. I seem to have forgotten all that makes it glorious to be man.—‘Tis an omission that renders the book philosophically unimportant; but I am in hopes the eccentricity may please in frivolous circles.

      To the friend who accompanied me I owe many thanks already, indeed I wish I owed him nothing else; but at this moment I feel towards him an almost exaggerated tenderness. He, at least, will become my reader: —if it were only to follow his own travels alongside of mine.

      R.L.S.

      One

      Antwerp to Boom

      Chapter Separator

      We made a great stir in Antwerp Docks. A stevedore and a lot of dock porters took up the two canoes, and ran with them for the slip. A crowd of children followed cheering. The Cigarette went off in a splash and a bubble of small breaking water. Next moment the Arethusa was after her. A steamer was coming down, men on the paddle-box shouted hoarse warnings, the stevedore and his porters were bawling from the quay. But in a stroke or two the canoes were away out in the middle of the Scheldt, and all steamers, and stevedores, and other ‘long-shore vanities were left behind.

      The sun shone brightly; the tide was making—four jolly miles an hour; the wind blew steadily, with occasional squalls. For my part, I had never been in a canoe under sail in my life; and my first experiment out in the middle of this big river was not made without some trepidation. What would happen when the wind first caught my little canvas? I suppose it was almost as trying a venture into the regions of the unknown as to publish a first book, or to marry. But my doubts were not of long duration; and in five minutes you will not be surprised to learn that I had tied my sheet.

      I own I was a little struck by this circumstance myself; of course, in company with the rest of my fellow-men, I had always tied the sheet in a sailing-boat; but in so little and crank a concern as a canoe, and with these charging squalls, I was not prepared to find myself follow the same principle; and it inspired me with some contemptuous views of our regard for life. It is certainly easier to smoke with the sheet fastened; but I had never before weighed a comfortable pipe of tobacco against an obvious risk, and gravely elected for the comfortable pipe. It is a commonplace, that we cannot answer for ourselves before we have been tried. But it is not so common a reflection, and surely more consoling, that we usually find ourselves a great deal braver and better than we thought. I believe this is every one’s experience: but an apprehension that they may belie themselves in the future prevents mankind from trumpeting this cheerful sentiment abroad. I wish sincerely, for it would have saved me much trouble, there had been some one to put me in a good heart about life when I was younger; to tell me how dangers are most portentous on a distant sight; and how the good in a man’s spirit will not suffer itself to be overlaid, and rarely or never deserts him in the hour of need. But we are all for tootling on the sentimental flute in literature; and not a man among us will go to the head of the march to sound the heady drums.

      It was agreeable upon the river. A barge or two went past laden with hay. Reeds and willows bordered the stream; and cattle and grey venerable horses came and hung their mild heads over the embankment. Here and there was a pleasant village among trees, with a noisy shipping-yard; here and there a villa in a lawn. The wind served us well up the Scheldt and thereafter up the Rupel; and we were running pretty free when we began to sight the brickyards of Boom, lying for a long way on the right bank of the river. The left bank was still green and pastoral, with alleys of trees along the embankment, and here and there a flight of steps to serve a ferry, where perhaps there sat a woman with her elbows on her knees, or an old gentleman with a staff and silver spectacles. But Boom and its brickyards grew smokier and shabbier with every minute; until a great church with a clock, and a wooden bridge over the river, indicated the central quarters of the town.

      Boom is not a nice place, and is only remarkable for one thing: that the majority of the inhabitants have a private opinion that they can speak English, which is not justified by fact. This gave a kind of haziness to our intercourse. As for the Hotel de la Navigation, I think it is the worst feature of the place. It boasts of a sanded parlour, with a bar at one end, looking on the street; and another sanded parlour, darker and colder, with an empty bird-cage and a tricolour subscription box by way of sole adornment, where we made shift to dine in the company of three uncommunicative engineer apprentices and a silent bagman. The food, as usual in Belgium, was of a nondescript occasional character; indeed I have never been able to detect anything in the nature of a meal among this pleasing people; they seem to peck and trifle with viands all day long in an amateur spirit: tentatively French, truly German, and somehow falling between the two.

      The empty bird-cage, swept and garnished, and with no trace of the old piping favourite, save where two wires had been pushed apart to hold its lump of sugar, carried with it a sort of graveyard cheer. The engineer apprentices would have nothing to say to us, nor indeed to the bagman; but talked low and sparingly to one another, or raked us in the gaslight with a gleam of spectacles. For though handsome lads, they were all (in the Scots phrase) barnacled.

      There was an English maid in the hotel, who had been long enough out of England to pick up all sorts of funny foreign idioms, and all sorts of curious foreign ways, which need not here be specified. She spoke to us very fluently in her jargon, asked us information as to the manners of the present day in England, and obligingly corrected us when we attempted to answer. But as we were dealing with a woman, perhaps our information was not so much thrown away as it appeared. The sex likes to pick up knowledge and yet preserve its superiority. It is good policy, and almost necessary in the circumstances. If a man finds a woman admire him, were it only for his acquaintance with geography, he will begin at once to build upon the admiration. It is only by unintermittent snubbing that the pretty ones can keep us in our place. Men, as Miss Howe or Miss Harlowe would have said, ‘are such ENCROACHERS.’ For my part, I am body and soul with the women; and after a well- married

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1