1893 COSTEBELLE 319 



Then came tlie journey to Costebelle, which he 

 describes as follows : 



To James Romanes, Esq. 



H6tel rErmitage, Costebelle : November 4, 1893. 



My dearest James, — I ought to have answered 

 long ago the kind letter which I received from you 

 just as I was driving to the Oxford station, and read 

 in the train. But I am still such a wretched invahd 

 that I shrink from the smallest exertion, whether of 

 body or mind. I caught a violent cold in crossing 

 the Channel, which kept me in bed for three days at 

 Amiens, and left me so weak that I had to further 

 break the journey at Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles— 

 finally arriving here with a still feverish temperature. 

 But this has now subsided. 



We found not only Paris but quite as much Lyons 

 and Marseilles in a state of delirium over the Eussian 

 fleet officers, with whom we were muddled up all the 

 way, greatly to our inconvenience. This was espe- 

 cially the case on leaving Lyons, where the railway 

 officials, after having put our luggage (containing our 

 circular notes) in the railway station, locked the 

 doors of the latter in our faces, when the pohce and 

 mihtary officials hurried us down the hill again in the 

 town (in the rudest of ways) till the arrival of the 

 Eussians nearly an hour after our train was timed to 

 depart. We had no doubt that our hand baggage had 

 all been carried ofi in our railway carriage without us 

 and without labels ; but on at last getting into the 

 station found that our train had not started. 



