some time in England in a small boat, he had often wished to have been himself party to a more extensive voyage. His travels were confined merely to the canals, rivers, and small lakes of Cambridgeshire, and the neighbouring counties; a small craft, rigged schooner fashion, carried himself and man Friday, with double and single barrelled gun, dog and provisions, and also a tarpaulin covering, with horse rugs ad lib. to keep out the rain and night air. The scenery was not over interesting, to be sure, but there was a plenty of good shooting for the sportsman, for the ecclesiologist numerous fine churches to inspect, and for the lover of good cheer, a set of real English farmers, hearty and always glad to see one. Thus, to one of the crew of the Undine' at least, this mode of travelling was not altogether new.

Last May, two of our party having completed their peregrinations of Dartmoor, were visiting on foot the lovely and picturesque valleys, and the rugged cliff scenery of North Devon (intending thence to cross over into Wales, and so on to the Lakes) when one of them received a letter from the Professor, inviting him (if a third could be found to do the work of bow in a pair oar) to undertake a cruise through France, and down the

Rhine. Fortunately here was a third hand, who was willing to make up the crew, and immediately an answer was returned, accepting the offer, though leaving the Professor to strike out the course, and do all that was necessary in regard of the boat before starting.

In the following pages, the writer makes no attempt at flowing language, or even a description of the beauties of scenery; they contain essentially what they profess to give―viz., a simple and unvarnished account of our cruise in the 'Undine.'

As regards the greater part of our route, ' volumes have been poured forth, and will be succeeded by volumes, as long as the noblest scenes of nature can excite admiration, or until some miracle rob men of the desire to tell what they have seen, and express what they feel.'

ports, of course, carried our real names. Onethe Professor, as we called him (though it was no easy matter to find a soubriquet for that distinguished personage), was to have the entire charge and management of the funds, the pro

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curing of provisions, and in fact of everything in connexion with money matters. The Captain

(a quondam Captain of his College Boat Club) was intrusted with the command and care of the boat; while the Doctor (the little Doctor, as he has always been called among his old associates), having never before crossed the Channel, was to be allowed more leisure than the others to look about him, but was also to keep a strict eye on the knapsacks, &c., when we arrived at any town, lest, perhaps, they might be carried off by some well-intentioned commissionaire or hotel porter; and a very good hand at this work he eventually proved to be, for whenever we were annoyed by one of those most troublesome of all creatures, we invariably set the Doctor to work at him; nor was he the less successful either in ridding us of this importunate race because his stock of French was limited.

We next visited the yard of Messrs. Noulton and Wyld, boatbuilders, Lambeth, with whom we had previously corresponded, and found that the boat would be ready to leave London the following morning. She was a new boat this season, of precisely the same make and build as the Water Lily,' which descended the Danube last year;

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and the Captain, with the consent of his crew, determined on having her named 'The Undine.'

Passports were the next things to be procured; and as it is necessary to have a certificate to the fact of one's being a British subject, in making an application for a Foreign Office passport, a younger brother of the Captain's had been requested to obtain them for himself and the Doctor, from a magistrate of the town in which they resided. In making our application by letter for these passports, the Captain, by an oversight, enclosed his brother's letter instead of the note he himself had written, the which, had it by any chance happened to have fallen into Lord Clarendon's own hands, would have surprised him rather, especially since his Lordship's own name is George. It ran thus—

DEAR GEORGE,

I enclose the certificates you desired, and hope they are what you are in want of,

Yours ever,

T. H. H.

The following morning the Professor left with the boat for Newhaven, intending to proceed at once to Dieppe; while we were to complete our purchases in the shape of costume, and join him