A FIRST STAGE BY SEA. 503 



starting-point ; and, better luck still, the ancient mariner chew- 

 ing his quid was " the captain " of the ferry, the Charon, into 

 whose charge we and our fellow passengers were about to com- 

 mit ourselves. And who were our fellow passengers already 

 on the spot, awaiting their turn, he told us, since morning ? A 

 score of black porkers, two calves, a yearling heifer, and, lowest 

 of all not even redeemed by unintelligibility of utterance a 

 couple of pig-drovers. " No use to come yet/' explained Charon, 

 though it was already half an hour after supposed hour of sail- 

 ing two o'clock. " All this lot's to be got in yet, and they 

 haven't swilled the boat down after landing them sheep. Bring 

 yer veicle in half an hour. My chaps '11 help ye aboard. So 

 in the hot summer sun we drove round Ryde's already half- 

 deserted precincts, for were not the island regattas all com- 

 pleted, and Society accordingly out of serge for the year. The 

 Canoe Pond remained, but its company was at low tide. Only 

 an odd craft or two broke its surface, and the Esplanade was 

 given over to a few nursemaids in charge of encumbrances 

 requiring more sea air while their mothers needed change 

 elsewhere. 



Returning to the Slip., we were now made aware of what was 

 before us. The sea was fully a quarter of a mile out, with a 

 stretch of wet sand thickly strewn with seaweed leading to it, 

 while some fifty yards within the shallow water lay the flat- 

 bottomed barge which was to be our transport. The porkers 

 were already half-way to the water's edge. Their drovers, 

 stripped of boots and stockings, and with , trousers rolled up, 

 followed after them with uncouth noises and muttered blas- 

 phemy. They were yet to make it loudly apparent that even a 

 western mule-driver, in his most exasperated moments, would 

 not, on their own ground, be " in the same street " with them. 

 Indeed, I question if either mule-driver or cowboy (well-broken 

 and untiring as the latter is in the trying ordeal of " rustling 

 ca'ves ") would have gone through with the job they now 

 encountered. And yet everything began so glibly. The 

 astonished swine, hustled suddenly into the water, found them- 



