1 8 An Inland Voyage.
occupied. They were indifferent like pieces of
dead nature. They did not move any more
than if they had been fishing in an old Dutch
print. The leaves fluttered, the water lapped,
but they continued in one stay like so many
churches established by law. You might have
trepanned every one of their innocent heads,
and found no more than so much coiled fishing
line below their skulls. I do not care for your
stalwart fellows in india-rubber stockings breast-
ing up mountain torrents with a salmon rod ;
but I do dearly love the class of man who plies
his unfruitful art, for ever and a day, by still
and depopulated waters.
At the last lock just beyond Villevorde, there
was a lock mistress who spoke French compre-
hensibly, and told us we were still a couple of
leagues from Brussels. At the same place, the
rain began again. It fell in straight, parallel lines ;
and the surface of the canal was thrown up into