An Etcher's Voyage of Discovery. 335 



as gently as might be, for it seemed wrong to break so 

 beautiful a mirror. At last I toiled no more, and the 

 little boat glided on and on with its own motion, as if 

 drawn by invisible spirits. During the whole voyage I 

 had found nothing so exquisite as this, nor has any other 

 impression fixed itself so perfectly in my memory. 



That scene was too ethereal to be etched ; but next day 

 I drew this bridge, partly because it was the last bridge 

 on the Unknown River, and partly as a memorial of the 

 great and disastrous flood. In these terrible month? of 

 1870, when a thousand bridges that spanned the fair 

 rivers of France have been ruined to check the progress 

 of an invader more to be dreaded than any inundation, 

 men pray that the rains may fall and the waters rise till 

 the streams are all torrents and the plains all inland 

 seas. 



After this bridge, the scenery of the shore began to 

 assume the large aspect that belongs to the stately Loire. 

 A steep bank rose in the distance, clothed with vines 

 and crowned with a group of buildings clustering round 

 convent-towers. The current became swifter, as if the 

 Unknown River were hastening to its end ; it curved 

 rapidly once or twice, then suddenly behold an expanse 

 of broad water before me, flowing westwards, and, before 

 I had time quite perfectly to realize the change, the 

 canoe was carried out upon the Loire. 



And so the voyage came to a successful end, and for 

 the first time since first his waters flowed, the Unknown 

 River has been navigated. Shall I conclude with a 

 triumphant boast, and affirm that although Gaul and 



