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OCR Rendition - approximate
134 Life and Letters of Francis Galton speak _French said to an Englishman who was with me, "malade," i.e. injured in one of the rapids and obliged to lie by. I accordingly made an agreement with this Englishman whom I had picked up the day before to hire a boat between us and to get down as we could to Vienna. Well a boat we got, i.e. a punt of unplaned boards kept together with wooden spikes and in this we set off at 3 'a.m. - It was horribly cold- and a strong wind in our teeth, but we luckily got on, bailing out continually. On leaving the hills the wind troubled us less and about 2 o'clock we passed Molk having gone down all the rapids; here the wind freshened. I accordingly took an oar, i.e. a tip of a fir-tree with a bit of board nailed to one end and rowed as hard as I could to Stein (look in the map), it was very hard work. At Stein we changed men and got two rowers and arrived at Vienna at 2 o'clock this morning. Being not allowed to cross the barriers we had to walk two miles with baggage to the Police Station and then another mile to a sleeping place, 13 beds in one room. Got up at 7 and have been walking about seeing sights, till about an hour ago 92,p.m. The Englishman is a Major Parry, has seen some Canadian service, and in an eternal fuss and flurry, clubs with me and as he does not know one word of German is always full of gratitude. I have just come from hearing Strauss play. I have had the pleasantest possible voyage, nice companions-very nice indeed in some cases. N.B. Linz is universally famous for the beauty of its fair sex, and so is Wiirzburg, and everything prosperous. I have never enjoyed- myself more. I shall be back in quite time enough to Cambridge (I have altered my return route) so don't be at all uneasy about that-and I shall be in Constantinople on the 23rd. Don't write after me because I am not quite sure of my return route, but I will write, if I have time from Constantinople. , I would have given anything to see your physiognomies, when you received my letter from Giessen. Didn't Bessy say : " What a monkey "? Well, Good bye and believe me ever Your affectionate son FRAs. GALTON. Dear Pemmy, I have been sketching away. I wish that I had you with me, you would so enjoy the journey. You certainly nowhere see such universally happy faces as in Germany, it puts one in the best possible humour. I am laughing half the day,, and I am tanned as red as mahogany, perfectly independent and in the best good humour imaginable. Then in the evenings I tooled with a diligence friend to the coffee gardens where. all the fashionable of the town are assembled, and flirt furiously ; really I feel quite at home everywhere. I saw such splendid etchings and sketches today by all the first masters. Every style from Albert Diirer to Raphael, the trees are done beautifully (Ah.! Mr Francis!) I wish you could see them they are the Archduke Charles' Collection and .35,000 in all-and how is Bessy, I suppose as fat and healthy as possible after Tenby, and Delly and Mammy and Lucy and brothers? I should like just to have a peep at all your pretty faces again, it seems at least a month since I left Frankfort and I do not know how long since I saw you. last. Well, Good bye. I think of you all sometimes. FRAs. GALTON. Oh, the joy of it- all, when the roving lust is on you, and all men reflect- the happiness that radiates from yourself ! The writer can recollect -a three months' journey on foot alone from Heidelberg to the gates of Vienna and back when only a little older than Francis Galton ;
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