About a quarter of a century ago, I had the chance of seeing some experiments in the search for water by the use of “the divining rod” on a thirsty stretch of the Berkshire chalk range. Oddly enough (what a lot of odd things there are lying all round us!) at the highest points of this very range you might come on “dew-ponds,” which never seemed to run dry, though how the white chalky water got there, or kept there, no one, I believe, has ever been able to explain from that day to this. But these “dew-ponds” were of no use, of course, to the cottages scattered along the hillside, and whoever wanted spring-water, had to go down about 400 feet for it. Well, I neglected that chance, and ever since have been regretting it.
My notion of the water-diviner was gathered from Sir Walter’s famous portrait of Dousterswivel in theAntiquary; a fellow “who amongst fools and womankind talks of the Cabala, the divining-rod, and all the trumpery with which the Rosicrucians cheated a darker age, and which, to our eternal disgrace, has in some degree revived in our own.” I was resolved that the revival should in no case be forwarded by me, and so lost my opportunity, and have been ever since tantalised by reports of marvels wrought by the hazel-wand, as to which I was quite at a loss to form any reasonable opinion. It was with no little satisfaction, therefore, that I received, and accepted, an invitation to assist at a water-search about to be undertaken by a diviner of considerable reputation in the outskirts of Deer Leap Wood, in the parish of Wootton, Surrey.
This wood, notable even amongst the loveliest of that favoured county, belongs to the worthy representative of the author ofSylvaand theMemoirs, who, having built some excellent cottages on its confines, desires to find the occupants a good supply of spring-waterin situ. Accordingly a group of us, men and women of all ages, and of all degrees of scepticism—for I doubt if there was a single believer in the efficacy of the rod, though the squire himself and a friend preserved a judicious silence—gathered last Friday after breakfast on the lawn before Wootton House, to await the arrival of the water-doctor, whom the agent had gone to meet at the station. It was agreed on all hands that a preliminary test should be applied, and that the lawn on which we stood offered quite admirable facilities for this purpose. For, more than two hundred years ago, John Evelyn had diverted a portion of the stream, which runs down the valley in which the house stands, for the purpose of making a fountain on the terraces. (Let it be noted in passing, that the lead-work of that fountain has needed no repair from that day to this! Therewereplumbers in those days!) From this fountain two pipes carry the water into the house, under the lawn on which we stood. Now the lawn turf is as smooth as a billiard-table, without the slightest indication of the whereabouts of these pipes, which indeed was only known vaguely to the squire, and not at all to any one else of those present. If the divining-rod could discover these, the experiment at “Deer Leap Wood” might be undertaken with good hope.
Well, the doctor, conducted by the steward, arrived in due course, a stout middle-aged man, of the stamp of a high-class mechanic; plain and straightforward in speech, and with no pretence whatever to mystery. In answer to our questions, he said: “He couldn’t tell how it came about; but of this he was sure, that he could find springs and running water. Thirty years ago he was working as a mason at Chippenham, with a Cornish miner amongst others. He saw this man find water with the rod; had then tried it himself, and found he could do it. That was all he knew. Any one*of us might have the same power. Why, two young gentlemen who saw him working at Warleigh, near Bath, had copied him, and found a spring right under their father’s library.” We listened, and then proposed that he should just try about the lawn. He produced a hazel twig shaped like a Y, the arms, each some eighteen inches long; the point, perhaps, six inches. I may note, however, that the dimensions can be of no consequence, for he used at least half a dozen in his trials, cutting them at random out of the hazel-bush as we walked along, and taking no measure of any of them. Taking an arm of the Y between the middle fingers of each hand, he walked across the lawn slowly, stooping slightly forward, so as to keep the point downwards, about a foot from the ground. He had not gone a dozen yards before the rod quivered, and then the point rose at once straight up into the air. “There’s running water here,” he said, “and close to the surface.” We marked the spot and followed him, and some twenty-five yards further the point of the Y again sprang up into the air. The steward, who knew the plans accurately, was appealed to, and admitted that these were the precise spots under which the pipes ran. In answer to the suggestion that the point sprang up by pressure of his fingers, voluntary or involuntary, he asked two of us to hold the arms beyond his fingers, and see if we could prevent the point rising. We did so (I being one), and did all we could to keep it pointed downwards, but it rose in spite of us, and I watched his hands carefully at the same time and could detect no movement whatever of the muscles. Then he broke one of the arms, all but the bark, and still the point rose as briskly as ever. Lastly, he proposed that each of us should try if we had the power. We did so, but without success, except that in the case of Mrs. Evelyn and another lady the point trembled, and seemed inclined, though unable, to rise. He then took hold of their wrists, and at once it rose, nearly as promptly as it had done with him. This was enough; and we started in procession, on ponies, in carriage^, or walking, to Deer Leap Wood, where in the course of an hour he marked with pegs some half dozen spots, under which running water will be found at from 70 feet to 100 feet. He did not pretend to be able to give the exact depth, but only undertook to give the outside limits. And so we all went back to lunch, and Mullins took his fee and departed. I know, sir, that you have many scientific readers, and can picture to myself the smile tinged with scorn with which they will turn to your next page when they get thus far. Well, I own that the boring remains to be done, the results of which I hope to send you in due course. Meantime, let me remind them of a well-known adventure of one of the most famous of their predecessors towards the end of last century. Sir Joseph Banks, botanising on the downs on a cloudless June day, came across a shepherd whom he greeted with the customary “Fine day,”—“Ees,” was the reply, “but there’ll be heavy rain yet, afore night.” Sir Joseph passed on unheeding, and got a thorough drenching before he reached his inn. Next morning he went back, found the shepherd, and put a guinea in his hand, with “Now, my man, tell me how you knew there was going to be rain yesterday afternoon.”
“Whoy,” said Hodge, with a grin, “I zeed my ould ram a shovin’ hisself back’ards in under thuck girt thornin bush; and wenever a doos that there’ll sartin sure be heavy rainfall afore sundown.”
Note.—Water was found where it was expected by the Diviner, and this well is now used by the tenants of the Deer Leap Cottages.—October 1895.
“Why, what on earth can this be?” I asked of the man who stood next me in the Foregate some ten days ago, as we paused at a crossing to allow the strange object which had drawn from me the above ejaculation to pass on, with its attendant crowd. It was a mighty gilded waggon, certainly fourteen feet long by six feet or seven feet broad. It was drawn by four handsome bays. On two raised seats at the front sat eight men, English, I fancy, every man of them, but clad over their ordinary garments in long leather coats with fringes, such as our familiar Indians wear in melodrama, and in the broad-brimmed, soft felts of the Western cowboy. They were all armed with brass instruments and made the old streets resound with popular airs. Behind these raised seats, in the body of the waggon, rode some half dozen, including three strapping brown men, Indians, I fancy they pose for, but they looked to me more like the half-castes whom one sees on the Texan and Mexican ranches on the Bio Grande. They also were clad in fringed leather coats, and wore sombreros over their long black locks. The sides of the waggon, where not gilt, were panelled with mirrors, on which were emblazoned the Stars and Stripes and other coloured devices. Altogether, the thing seemed to me well done in its way, whatever it might mean; and I turned inquiringly to my neighbour and repeated my question, as the huge gilded van and its jubilant followers passed away down the station road. “Oh! ’tis the ‘Merikin chap, as cures folks’s rheumatics and draws their teeth.”
“He must draw something more than their teeth,” I said, “to keep up all that show.” My neighbour grinned assent. “He’ve drawed pretty nigh all the loose money as is going hereabouts already,” he said as we parted. “One more quack to fleece the poor,” I thought, as I walked on. “Well, anyhow, they get a show for their shillings; that van beats Barnum!”
In this mind I reached the vicarage of one of our biggest city parishes to which I was bound. “I don’t know about quack,” said the vicar, when I had detailed my adventure on the way, using that disparaging phrase; “but this I do know, that I have given over writing certificates for my poor from downright shame, the demand is so great.” And then he explained that the “medicineman,” whose stage name was Sequah, made no charge to any patient who brought a clergyman’s certificate of poverty; that the van had now been in the town above a week; and at first he, the vicar, had given such certificates freely, both for treatment (tooth-drawing) and for the medicines, but now refused except in the case of the very poorest. No! not because Sequah was an impostor; on the contrary, he had done several noteworthy cures—at any rate temporary cures—on some of the vicar’s own parishioners: notably in the case of one old man who had been drawn up to the van in a wheel-chair. He had had rheumatism for two years, which had quite disabled him, and was in great pain when he got on the platform. After he had been treated he walked down the steps without help, and wheeled his chair home himself. Unluckily, Sequah had advised him to get warm woollen underclothing, and on his pleading that he had not the money to buy it, had given him a sovereign. This so elated him that he felt quite a new man, and could not help breaking his sovereign on the way home to give the new man a congratulatory glass at a favourite pot-house. This had thrown him back, and his knees were a little stiff again, but the pain had not returned even in this case.
After such testimony from a thoroughly trustworthy and matter-of-fact witness, I resolved to see this strange thing with my own eyes, and went off straight from the vicarage to the scene of action, to which the vicar directed me. This was an old tan-yard about half an acre in extent, and was full of people when I arrived, the space immediately round the waggon being densely crowded. It was drawn up in the middle of the plot. The eight brass-bandsmen had wheeled round so as to look down from their raised benches on the floor of the waggon, on which was a large leather chair. In front of the chair, speaking to the crowd from the end of the waggon, stood a tall figure, in a finer kind of leather-fringed coat, ornamented with rows of blue, red, and white beads. At first glance I thought it was a woman from the fineness of the features, and masses of long, light hair falling on the shoulders. A second glance, however, showed me that it was a man, and a vigorous and muscular one too. He was explaining that the medicines he was going to sell presently were not “scientific,” but “natural” medicines, “compounded of the water of a Californian spring and certain botanic ingredients”! I will not trouble you with a list of all the ailments they will cure if taken steadily and in sufficient doses, but get on at once to the performance. Having finished his speech, he put on his sombrero, took up a pair of forceps from a table on which a row of them were displayed, and stood by the chair. Upon this, advanced an apparently endless line of men, women, and children, marshalled by the Indians who stood at the foot of the steps. One by one they came up, sat down in the chair, passed under Sequah’s hands, and descended the steps on the other side of the waggon into the wondering crowd, while the band discoursed vigorous and continuous music. I watched him draw at least fifty teeth in less than as many minutes. The patient just sat down, opened his mouth, pointed to the peccant tooth, and it was out in most cases before he could wink. There were perhaps three or four cases (of adults) in which things did not go quite so smoothly, and one—that of a young woman, who seized her bonnet and rushed down the steps in evident pain and rage—after which he stopped the band, and explained to us that her tooth was so decayed that he had had to break the stump in the jaw. This he had done, and should have taken the pieces out without causing any further pain, if she had just waited a few more seconds. There are rumours flying round that the infirmary is crowded daily with patients in agonies from broken fangs which have been left in by Sequah. On the other hand, two of our doctors whom I have met admit that he is a very remarkable “extractor,” and has first-rate instruments.
There were still crowds waiting their turn when he finished his tooth-drawing for the day, and announced that he would now treat a case of rheumatism. Thereupon, an elderly man—who gave his name and address, and stated that he had been rheumatic for twelve years, unable to walk for two, and was now in great pain—was carried up the steps and put in the chair. Then buffalo-robes were brought by the Indians, two of whom held them up so as to conceal Sequah and the third, a rubber, who remained inside with the patient. Then the brass band struck up boisterously, the buffalo-robe screen was agitated here and there, and a strong and very pungent smell (not unlike hartshorn) spread all round. I timed them, and at the end of eighteen minutes the buffalo-robes were lowered, and there was the old man dressed again and seated in the chair. The band stopped. Sequah asked the old man if he felt any pain now. He replied, “No,” and then was told to walk to the front of the platform, which he did; then to get down the ladder, walk round the waggon amongst the crowd, and come up on the other side, which he did, looking, I must say, as astonished as I was, at his own performance. Then six or seven men, mostly elderly, came up and declared that they had been similarly treated, and were wonderfully better, some of them quite cured and at work again. Then Sequah invited any person who had been treated by him or taken his medicines and were none the better, to come up into the waggon and tell us about it, as that was their proper place and not below. This offer seemed quitebona fide, but it did not impress me, as I doubt whether any protesting patient would have had much chance of ascending the steps, which were kept by the Indians and their able-bodied confederates. No one answering, two big portmanteaus were brought up, out of which he began to sell his medicines at a dollar (4s.) the set—two bottles and two small packets. The rush to be served began, people crushing and struggling to get near enough to hand up their hats or caps with 4s. in them, which were returned with the medicines in them. I watched for at least ten minutes, when, there being apparently no end to the purchases, I strolled away, musing on the strange scene, and wondering what the attraction can be in the Bohemian life which could induce a man of this evident power to wander about the world in a gilded waggon, in a ridiculous costume, and talking transparent clap-trap, to sell goods which apparently want no lies telling about them.
I may add that I went again last Saturday, when there was even a greater crowd, and an older and more severe case of rheumatism was treated with quite as great (apparent) success.
Idoubt if any of your readers has less sympathy than I with the yearning to go back twenty, thirty, or forty years (as the case may be), which seems to be a note of contemporary literature, and therefore, I take it, of the average mind of the men and women of our day, who have passed out of their first youth. “The Elixir of Life,” which Bulwer dreamed and wrote of, which should restore youth, with its bounding pulses and golden locks, its capacity for physical enjoyment, and for building castles in Spain, I think I may say with confidence I would not drink four times a day, with twenty minutes’ promenade between the glasses (as I am just now drinking of thesource Cosarhere), even if anelixir vito sourcewere to come bubbling up to-morrow in this enchanting Auvergne valley, and our English doctor here at Royat—known to all readers of Mr.Punch’s“Water Course”—were to put it peremptorily on my treatment-paper to-morrow morning. It is not surely the “good fellowswhose beards are gray,” who sigh over the departure of muscular force, and sure quickness of eye and nerve, which enabled them in years gone by to jump five-barred gates or get down to leg-shooters. They are glad to see the boys doing these things, and rejoicing in them; but, for themselves, do not desire any more to jump five-barred gates or get down to leg-shooters. They have learned the wise man’s lesson, that there is a time for all things, and that those who linger on life’s journey and fancy they can still occupy the pleasant roadside places after their part of the column has passed on ahead, will surely find themselves in the way of, and be shouldered out by, the next division, without a chance of being able to regain their place in the line, side by side with old comrades and contemporaries.
But it is one thing to fall out of the line of march of one’s own accord, from an unwise hankering after roadside pleasures, and quite another to have to fall out because one can no longer keep one’s old place in the column by reason of failing wind, or muscle, or nerve; and the man of sense who feels his back stiffening, or his feet getting tender, will do well to listen to such hints betimes, and betake himself at once to whatever place or regimen holds out the best hope of enabling him to keep step once more, till the day is fairly over and the march done. It is for this reason, at any rate, that I find myself at Royat, from which I have been assured by more than one trustworthy friend who has tested the waters, that I shall return after three weeks “with new tissues,” and “fit to fight for my life.” I don’t see any prospect of having to fight for my life in my old age, though one can’t be too confident with the new Radicalism looming up so menacingly, and am very well content with my old tissues, if they can’ only be got into fair working order again, of which I already begin to think there is good prospect here, though my experience of thesources“Eugénie” and “Cæsar” is as yet not a week old.
It is more than twenty years since I have written to you from France over this signature, and since that time I have only been once in Paris, for two days on business. The gay city is much less changed than I expected to find it, so far as one can judge from a drive across it from the Gare de l’Ouest to the Gare de Lyon, and a stroll (after depositing luggage at the latter station) along the Rue de Rivoli and the Quais, and through the streets of the old city. The clearance which has left an open space in front of Notre Dame, so that one can get a good view of the western front, seemed to me the most noteworthy improvement. The great range of public buildings and offices which have been added to the Louvre are stately and impressive, but cannot make up for the disappearance of the Tuileries. The Eiffel Tower is a great disappointment. All buildings should be either beautiful or useful; but it is neither, and only seems to dwarf all the other buildings. But one change impressed me grievously. Where are all the daintily dressed women and children gone to? Perhaps the world of fashion may be out of town; but there must be some two millions of people left in Paris, a quarter of them at least well-to-do citizens, and able to give as much care as of old to their toilets. Nevertheless, I assure you, I sought in vain for one really dainty figure such as one used to meet by the score in every street. Can twenty years of the true Republic have made La Belle France dowdy? It is grievous to think of it, and I hope to be undeceived before I get back amongst the certainly better got-up women of my native land.
For my nine hours’ journey south, I bought a handful of the cheap illustrated papers—Le Grelot, Le Troupier, and others—which seem to be as much the daily intellectual fare of the French travelling public as (I regret to say)Tit-Bitsand its congeners are, at any rate in my part of England. Of course it is always difficult to know what “the people” are thinking or caring about; but to get at what they read must be not a bad test. A perusal of these certainly surprised me favourably, especially in this respect, that they were almost entirely free from the pruriency which is so generally supposed to be the characteristic of modern French literature.
I wish I could speak half as favourably of the attitude of France, so far as these journals disclose it, towards her neighbours; but this is about as bad as it can be, touchy, jealous, and unfair, all round. Take, for instance, theTroupier, which is specially addressed to the Army. The cartoon represents the “Grand Jeu de Massacre,” at which all passers-by are invited to join free of charge. Thejeuconsists of throwing at a row of puppets, citizens of Alsace-Lorraine, in which a brutal German soldier is indulging, while the French “Ministre des Affaires (qui lui sont) Etrangères” slumbers peacefully on a neighbouring seat. But we come off at least as badly as Germany. In a vigorous leader, entitled “Une Reculade,” on the Zanzibar Question, after a very bitter opening against England—“il n’y a guère de pays qui n’ait été roulé dupé et volé par elle,”—theTroupierbreaks into a song of triumph over the backing-down of England, “flanquée d’Allemagne et de ses alliés,” before the resolute attitude of France. “Cette reculade,” it ends, “de nos ennemis indique suffisamment que La France a repris la place et le rang qui lui conviennent, et qu’elle est de taille à se faire respecter partout et par tous. C’est tout ce que nous desirions.” In all commercial and industrial matters we are equally grasping and unscrupulous. There seems to be just now a great stir in the sardine industry, and, so far as I can make out, English and American Companies seem to be competing for a monopoly of that savoury little fish. It is, however, upon the English “Sardine Union Company, Limited”—“qui s’appelle en France, Société Générale de l’Industrie Sardinière de France”—that the vials of journalistic wrath are being emptied. “Sept polichinelles,” it would seem, have subscribed for one share each, and the whole scheme is utterly rotten. Nevertheless, this bogus Company threatens to buy up all the sardine manufactories in France at fancy prices, and, the control being in England, will manufacture there all the metal boxes, and will build all the fishing-boats over there, “au détriment de nos constructeurs Français,” and so on, and so on. I was getting quite melancholy over all these onslaughts on my native country, when I came upon a topic which alone seems to excite the petit-journaliste more than the sins of the long-toothed Englishman—viz. those of priests and their followers and surroundings. Here is a comic example, over which the Grelot foams in trenchant and sarcastic but incredibly angry sentences. A Belgian Council has decided to divide the 500 fr. which it has voted to the “Institut Pasteur,” the vote being “pour M. Pasteur et pour St. Hubert.” This remarkable vote was carried on the pleading of a Deputy, who, after paying homage to M. Pasteur, added: “C’est un grand homme qui a opéré des cures merveilleuses; seulement il y a un autre grand homme, qui depuis onze cent soixante-trois années a opéré des miracles, c’est St. Hubert—M. Pasteur devra travailler longtemps avant d’en arriver là.” I am afraid you will have no room for more than one of the scathing sentences in which the writer tosses this unlucky vote backwards and forwards: “M. Pasteur acceptera-t-il de partager les 500 fr. avec St. Hubert (adresse inconnue), ou St. Hubert refusera-t-il de partager avec M. Pasteur (adresse connue)?—‘That is the question/ comme disait le nommé Shakespeare.”
It was in the midst of such instructive if not entirely pleasant reading, that I arrived at Clermont, the old capital of Auvergne, by far the most interesting town I have been in this quarter of a century, not excepting Chester. From thence, one comes up to Roy at, about three miles, in an electric tramway, or by ’bus or cab.
Some thirty years ago, more or less, I remember reading with much incredulous amusement Sir Francis Head’s “Bubbles of the Brunnen.” It was in the early days of the Saturday Review, when the infidel Talleyrand gospel of surtout jooint de zèle was being preached to young England week by week in those able but depressing columns. I, like the rest of my contemporaries, was more or less affected by the cold water virus, and was certainly inclined to look from the superior person standpoint on what I could not but regard as the outpourings of the second childhood of an eccentric septuagenarian, who was really asking us to believe that the Schwalbach waters were as miraculously potent as the thigh-bone of St. Glengulphus, of which is it not written inThe In-goldsby Legends:—
And cripples, on touching his fracturedos femoris,
Threw down their crutches and danced a quadrille.
I need scarcely say to you, sir, that it is many years since I have been thoroughly disabused of this depressing heresy; but perhaps one never quite recovers from such early demoralisation. At any rate, now that I find myself approaching Sir Francis’s age, and much in his frame of mind when he blew his exhilarating bubbles, I can’t quite make up my mind to turn myself loose, as he did, and in Lowell’s words, “pour out my hope, my fear, my love, my wonder,” upon you and your readers. The real fact, however, stated in plain (Yankee) prose is, that Schwalbach (I have been there) “is not a circumstance” to this refuge for the victim of gout, rheumatism, eczema, dyspepsia, and I know not how many more kindred maladies, amongst the burnt-out volcanoes of the Department Puy-de-Dome. Nevertheless, you may fairly say, and I should agree, that my ten days’ experience of the effect of the waters is scarcely sufficient to make me a trustworthy witness as to the healing properties of these springs. Twenty-one days is the prescribed course, and as I am as yet but half through, I will not “holloa till I am out of the wood,” but will try in the first place to give you some idea of this Royat les Bains and its surroundings.
Let us look out from this third-floor window at which I am writing, on the highest guest-floor of the topmost hotel in Royat, to which a happy chance (or my good angel, if I have one) led me on my arrival. I look out across a narrow valley, from three to four hundred yards wide, upon a steep hill which forms its opposite side. They say this hill is a burnt-out volcano. However that may be, it is now clothed with vineyards on all but the almost precipitous places where the rock peeps out. On the highest point, against the sky-line, stands out a small white house, calling itself the Hôtel de l’Observatoire, from which there must be a magnificent view; but how it is to be reached I have not yet learned, for there is no visible road or footpath, and the peasants object to one’s attempting the ascent through the vineyards. The valley winds up round this hill, taking a turn to the north, our side widening out and sweeping back behind Royat Church and village, to which the retreating hill behind forms a most picturesque background. For, on the lower slope, just above the houses, are stretches of bright green meadow, interspersed amongst irregular clumps of oak; above this comes a brown-red belt of rough ground, growing heather and wild strawberries; and, again above that, all along the brow, are dense pine woods. The constant changes of colour which this southern sun brings out all day long on this hillside make it difficult to break away from one’s window and descend to theétablissementto drink waters and take baths. This institution lies down at the bottom of the valley I have been describing, some 200 feet below this window, and 150 feet below the broad terrace which is thrown out from the ground-floor of this hotel. From the terrace a rough zigzag path leads down to the brook, which rushes down from Royat village in a succession of tiny waterfalls, sending up to us all day the murmur of running water. On reaching the brook’s bank, we have about one hundred yards to walk by its side, when, crossing a good road which runs round it, we reach the low wall of the park, in which lies the bathing establishment. From this point the electric tram-cars run to Clermont, carrying backwards and forwards for two sous baigneurs and holiday-folk enough, I should say, to pay handsome dividends. This park occupies the whole breadth of the valley, pushing back the houses on either side against the hillsides. Its main building, a handsome structure, built of lava, with red-tiled roof, contains all the separate baths and apiscine, or swimming bath, besides a good-sized hall for sanitary gymnastics, and asalle d’escrime, in which a professor instructs pupils daily in fencing andle boxe. The broad path runs from top to bottom of this park, having thisétablissementbuilding on its left or northern side, and on its right two parallel terraces, one above the other. On the lower of these is the greatsource, the “Eugénie,” which bubbles up here in magnificent style, sending up some millions of gallons daily. Over the Eugéniesourceis a pavilion, with open sides and striped red and white curtains. A second pavilion on the same terrace, a little lower down, is devoted to the band, which plays every afternoon for two or three hours; and below that again, the casino. On the second or upper terrace are a few favouredchâletshops, for the sale of books, pictures, photographs, and the pottery andbijouterieof Auvergne. Then, above again, comes the road which encloses the park, on the opposite side of which are the row of large hotels built against the rocky side of the valley, and communicating at the back from their upper stories with the road which runs up to Royat village. The rest of the park is laid out in lawns and garden-beds, full of bright flowers and walks, amongst which are found three other sources—the Cæsar, the St. Mart, and the St. Victor, each of which has its small drinking-pavilion. In front of these several pavilions and along the terraces are a plentiful supply of seats, and chairs which you can carry about to any spot you may select under the shade of the plane-trees and acacias which line the terraces and walks, with weeping-willows, chestnuts, and poplars happily interspersed here and there. The abundant water-supply which the brook brings down is well utilised, so that the whole park, some six acres in extent, is kept as fresh and green, and the flower-beds as luxuriant and bright with colour, as if it were in dear, damp England. At the bottom of the park, a handsome viaduct of arches, built of lava, spans the valley, seeming to shut Royat in from the outer world, and beyond, the valley broadens out into a wide plain, with Clermont, the capital of Auvergne, in the foreground, and beyond the city, stretching right away to Switzerland, a splendid sea (as it were) of corn and maize and vines and olives, the richest, it is said, in the whole ofla belleFrance. It is stated in all the guidebooks, and by trustworthy residents, that on a clear day you may see Mont Blanc from Royat, but as yet I have not been lucky enough.
Unless I have failed altogether in describing the view which lies constantly before me—from the pine-clad hillside over Royat village, with its gray church and white red-roofed houses to the west, away down over the park and surrounding hotels and shops, and viaduct and city and plain to the far east—you can now fancy what it must be in the early morning, when the light mist is lying along the hillsides until the sun has had time to dispose of the clouds in the upper air, or at night, when the clear sky is thick with stars, and the Northern Lights flame up behind the silent volcano opposite this Hôtel de Lyon. There is no place on earth, from the back-slums of great cities to the mountain-peak or mid-ocean, to which early morns and evening twilights do not bring daily, or almost daily, some touch of the beauty of light-pictures which sun and moon and stars paint for us so patiently, whether we heed them or no; but to get them in their full perfection, one should be able to look at them in the light, dry, warm air of such places as these volcanic highlands of Auvergne.
And now for the life we lead in this air and scenery. Every morning at six I arrive at the Cæsar spring and drink two glasses, with twenty minutes’ interval between them. Then I climb the hill tocafé au laitand two small rolls and butter on the terrace, which comes off about 7 A.M., as soon as the last of our party of four has come up from the park. Rest till eleven follows, when we havedéjeûner à la fourchette, which, as we sit down about a hundred, lasts for an hour. In the afternoon I drink two glasses at the St. Mart spring, and between them have twenty minutes in thepiscine, which is my great treat of the day. Going punctually at two, when the ladies surrender this swimming-bath to the men, I almost always get it to myself, and enjoy it as I used to do years ago, when my blood was warm enough, lying about amongst the waves on the English coast, and letting them just tumble and toss me about as they would. This water comes warm from the Eugénie spring daily, and is so buoyant that one can lie perfectly still on the top of it with one’s hands behind one’s head; and if there were no roof to thepiscine, and one could only look straight up all the time into the deep-blue sky, twice as high, so it looks, as ours in England, the physical enjoyment would be perfect. It is not far from that as it is, and I thoroughly sympathise with Browning’s Amphibian:—
From worldly noise and dust,
In the sphere which overbrims
With passion and thought—why, just
Unable to fly, one swims.
Isuppose there never was a garden since Eden (unless, perhaps, in the early days of the Jesuit settlements in the Paraguay) in which the devil has not had a tree or a corner somewhere; and it would be well for us all if he were no more in evidence in other health and holiday resorts than he is here in theparc. His booth is at the end of the middle terrace, a small pavilion, well shaded by tall acacias, in which in the afternoons you can risk a franc, occasionally two, every minute on thecourse des petits chevaux. Thecourseis a round table, with eight or ten concentric grooves, in each of which a small horse and jockey runs. Outside thiscourse, with room for a page-boy to move round between the two, there is a slight railing with a flat top, at which the players sit round and post their stakes. These are collected by the page, who lets each player draw a number in exchange for the francs. As soon as he has made his circuit, the croupier gives a turn to a handle which works the machinery. The first turn brings all the horses into line, and the next starts them round the course, each in his own groove. After another turn or two, the croupier lets go the handle, and the puppets begin to scatter, the winner being the one which passes the post last before the machine stops, and they all come to a standstill.
Then the croupier calls out the winning number, and the owner gets all the stakes, except one, which goes to the table. Beyond this, the Company has no interest whatever, so it is said. Of course one looks with jealousy at every such game of chance, and I was inclined to think at first that the croupier was in league with two women, one spectacled, who sat steadily at one end of the players, playing in partnership, and seeming to win oftener than any of the others; but the longer I watched, the weaker grew my suspicions. Most of the players, by the way, are women, though there are a few men who come and sit for hours, playing and smoking cigarettes. Besides the sitters many strollers come up, stake their francs for a course or two, and then move on, not unfrequently with a handful of silver. On the whole, if play is to be allowed at all, it can scarcely take a more harmless form, if only the good-natured French papa could be kept from letting his children play for him. He comes up with a child of ten or twelve years, lets them sit down, and supplies them from behind with the necessary francs, and after a round or two the little faces flush and hands shake, especially if they be girls, in a way which is painful to see. A child gambling is as sad a sight, for every one but the devil and his elect, as this old world can show.
Next to thecourses des petits chevaux, at some thirty yards’ distance, comes the large pavilion in which the excellent band sit and play for an hour in the forenoon and afternoon, and again at 8 P.M. Round the pavilion is a broad space, gravelled and well shaded, and furnished with chairs which are occupied all the afternoon bybaigneursand visitors, mostly in family groups, the women knitting or sewing, and the children playing about in the intervals of the music, and before and after the regular concerts. Occasionally they have abal d’enfantsin this space, controlled by a master of the ceremonies, a dancing-, master, I am told. Under him the children, boys and girls of thirteen or fourteen, down to little trots who can scarcely toddle, may enjoy polkas, galops, and thetaran-tole des postilions, as well as the gravel allows; and now and again comes adéfilé, in which, in couples carefully graduated according to size and age, the children march round the walks, and in and out amongst the approving sitters. A very pretty, and to me rather a curious sight, as I much doubt if the English boy could be induced to perform such a march, even in the hope of small packets of bonbons at the end, which are distributed to the best performers.
The big orchestral platform in this pavilion is often occupied, when the band is not playing, by itinerant performers, who (I suppose) hire it from the Company in the hope of getting a few francs out of the sitting and circulating crowd. The performances are poor, so far as I have seen, though one conjurer certainly played a trick which entirely beat me at the time, and for which I am still quite unable to account. He produced what he called agarotte, made of two stout planks which shut one upon another (like our old stocks), and in which was a central hole for the neck, and two smaller ones for the wrists. This garotte he handed round, and though I did not get hold of it, I inspected it in the hands of a youth who was standing just in front of me, and satisfied myself that the planks were solid wood. Then he placed it on a stand, and called up a stout damsel in the flesh-coloured tights which seem to bede rigueurfor all female performers, who knelt down and laid her neck in the big hole, and a wrist in each of the smaller ones. The conjurer then let down the upper plank upon her, and having borrowed a signet ring from an elderlydécoréFrenchman who was sitting near the platform, proceeded to encircle the two planks with strips of stout paper or tape, which he sealed with the ring. Then he held up a screen for the space of twenty seconds, and on lowering it the damsel was posturing in her tights, while thegarotteremainedin situ, with the tapes still there and the seals unbroken. By what trick she got her head and hands out I was utterly unable to guess, and strolled away with the rather provoking sense of having been fooled through my eyes. I hope a green parrot who flew down and sat on the railing close to thegarotte, with his head wisely on one side, flew off better satisfied.
Below, on the lowest terrace, at the end of theétablissementbuildings, is thesalle d’escrime, which is open daily in the afternoons, when you may see through the big windows the “Maître d’Escrime, Professeur de S.A.R. le Prince des Galles,” sitting ready to instruct pupils, or, so it seemed, to try a friendly bout with all comers. The former were generally too much of mere beginners to make any show worth seeing, but on one day an awkward customer turned up who ran the professor, so far as I could judge, very hard. Indeed, I am by no means sure that he acknowledged several shrewd hits, but my knowledge of fencing is too small to make my judgment worth much. Le boxe is also announced to go on here, but I have never seen the gloves put on yet. Indeed, I much doubt whether young Frenchmen really like having their heads punched for love. It is an eccentricity which does not seem to spread out of the British Isles. There was a temptingassaut d’armeslast Sunday, presided over by General Paquette, at which elevenmaîtres d’escrimeof regiments in this department, and one professor from Paris were to fence. I was sorely tempted to go, but as the thermometer stood at 80° in the shade, and so reinforced my insular prejudices as to the day, abstained.
Again, beyond the Casino, on the upper terrace, is a good croquet-ground on the broad gravel space at the lower end of theparc. I should think it a difficult ground to play on, but as a rule the French boys are decidedly good players, and seem to enjoy the game thoroughly, and to get round the hoops quicker than any of ours could do on a lawn like a billiard-table. The Casino, besides a restaurant and reading-room, contains a theatre, at which there are performances five nights in the week, and generally a ball on the off-nights. These are often fancy-balls, and always, I hear, very lively; but I cannot speak from experience, never having as yet descended either to them or to the plays and operettas. When one can sit out on a terrace and see the lights coming out in the valley, and the Milky Way and all the stars in the heaven shining as they only do down South, even the artists of the Théâtre Français, and the other theatrical stars who visit the Casino in the season, cannot get me indoors o’ nights, even at Casino prices. These are very reasonable, theabonnementfor a seat being only 1 franc a night, or 2 francs for afauteuil. Your readers may perhaps be able to judge of the kind of entertainment given by a specimen. To-night there are two operettas,—Violonnaux, music by Offenbach; andLes Charbonneurs, music by G. Coste. I own I never heard of either of the pieces.
I think, sir, you will allow that there are attractions enough of all kinds provided by the Compagnie Anonyme des Eaux Minérales de Royat, who own theparcand run the business. They can well afford it, as every visitor pays 10 francs as anabonnementfor drinking the waters, and the charges for baths are high, e.g. 2.50 francs for a separate bath, and 2 francs for the swimming-bath, decidedly more than any of our English watering-places, not excepting Bath; but one has so much more fun, if one wants it, for the money. And then there is this immense thing to be said for this Royat Company,—their park is entirely free and open to any one who cares to walk through it. I have seen scores of peasants in blouses, and their wives, sitting about during the concerts, not on the same terrace with the band, where a sou is charged for chairs, but near enough to hear the music perfectly; and one meets them all about the garden, walking and chatting amongst the—I was going to write “well dressed,” but that they are not, but eminently respectable, if rather dowdy—crowds of bathers and visitors. I do not, of course, mean that there are no exceptions, either in the case of dowdiness or respectability, but they are rare enough to prove the rule. On the other hand, the number of religious of both sexes is remarkable who come to use the waters, principally for throat ailments. Sisters of several kinds, some wearing black hoods with white breastplates, others in large white head-dresses, with long flaps, like a bird’s wings, which flap as they walk, are frequent in the early mornings and other quiet times; and besides the regular clergy, there are three monkish orders represented. Of these the most striking are two Franciscans, I believe, clad in rough, ruddy-brown flannel gowns, reaching to the ground, with large rosaries hanging before and cowls behind, and girt with knotted ropes. Peter the Hermit preached the First Crusade in the neighbouring Church of St. Mary of the port at Clermont, assisted doubtless by many a friar clad precisely as these are, except that the modern monk or friar (as I was disappointed to note, at any rate in one case) does not go bare-footed, or even in sandals, but in substantial shoes and trousers! I was much struck by the quiet, patient, and reverent expression on all the faces, very different from what I remember in past years. Persecution may very well account, however, for this. There is no branch, I take it, of the Church Universal which does not thrive under it, in the best sense.