CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 
with its pointed ends appears to be but an am- 
plification of the tender. 
Our boat or barge, as it was technically called, 
was decked over and provided with a small 
cock-pit astern, and an equally small cabin or 
cuddy in the bow. It was schooner-rigged 
with two masts, and, although the owners took 
great pride in the white sails, and said the boat 
could therefore sail the faster, I myself re- 
gretted that the sails were not stained a pic- 
turesque red, or pink, or brown, as were those 
of many other barges in this region. Some of 
these stains were wonderful bits of colour, 
shading like a water-colour wash from dark 
mahogany in one part of the sail, to a light 
pinkish hue in another part. Others were more 
uniform, but the effect was always pleasing 
and suggestive of the colouring of the sails in 
far less rugged and more smiling waters. 
In the cuddy of our boat was a tiny iron 
stove, which, however, took up so much of the 
little room that there was but space for one 
man to lie out at length on that side, and here 
my friend made his bed. On the other transom 
Mathias and Martial by overlapping end to end 
were able to sleep, and sleep they did there 
105 
