An Inland Voyage Section 3 - The Royal Sport Nautique

Robert Louis Stevenson (0:00)

Section 3 of An Inland Voyage The rain took off near Lacon, but the sun was already down, the air was chill, and we had scarcely a dry stitch between the pair of us. Nay, now we found ourselves near the end of the Allée Bête, and on the very threshold of Brussels we were confronted by a serious difficulty. The shores were closely lined by canal boats waiting their turn at the lock. Nowhere was there any convenient landing place, nowhere so much as a stable yard, to leave our canoes in for the night. We scrambled ashore, and entered an estaminae, where some sorry fellows were drinking with the landlord. The landlord was pretty round with us, he knew of no coach-house or stable yard, nothing of the sort, and seeing we had come with no mind to drink, he did not conceal his impatience to be rid of us. One of the sorry fellows came to our rescue. Somewhere in the corner of the basin there was a slip, he informed us, and something else besides, not very clearly defined by him, but hopefully construed by his hearers. Sure enough, there was the slip in the corner of the basin, and at the top of it two nice-looking lads in boating-clothes.

The arithuser addressed himself to these. One of them said there would be no difficulty about the night's lodging for our boats, and the other, taking a cigarette from his lips, inquired if they were made by Surland's son. The name was quite an introduction. Half a dozen other young men came out of the boathouse bearing the subscription Royal Sport Nautique, and joined in the talk. They were all very polite, voluble, and enthusiastic. And their discourse was interladied with English boat terms, and the names of English boat-builders, and English clubs.

I do not know, to my shame, any spot in my native land where I should have been so warmly received by the same number of people. We were English boat-ing men, and the Belgian boat-ing men fell upon our necks. I wonder if French Huguenots were as cordially greeted by English Protestants when they came across the channel out of great tribulation. But after all, what religion knits people so closely as a common sport?

The canoes were carried into the boathouse, they were washed down for us by the club servants, the sails were hung out to dry, and everything made as snug and tidy as a picture. And in the meanwhile we were led upstairs by our new-found brethren, for so more than one of them stated the relationship, and made free of their lavatory. This one sent us soap, that one a towel, a third and fourth helped us undo our bags, and all the time such questions, such assurances of respect and sympathy. I declare I never knew what glory was before. Yes, yes, the Royal Sport Nautique is the oldest club in Belgium. We number 200 We, this is not a substantive speech, but an abstract of many speeches. The impression left upon my mind after a great deal of talk, and very youthful, pleasant, natural, and patriotic it seems to me to be. We have gained all races except those where we were cheated by the French. You must leave all your wet things to be dried. Oh, entrefraire, in any boathouse in England we should find the same. I cordially hope they might. En Angleterre, vous employez des sliding seats, n'est-ce pas? We are all employed in commerce during the day, but in the evening, voyez-vous nous sommes sérieux?

These were the words. They were all employed over the frivolous mercantile concerns of Belgium during the day, but in the evening they found some hours for the serious concerns of life. I may have a wrong idea of wisdom, but I think that was a very wise remark. People connected with literature and philosophy are busy all their days in getting rid of second-hand notions and standards. It is their profession, in the sweat of their brows, by dogged thinking, to recover their old fresh view of life, and distinguish what they really and originally like, from what they have only learned to tolerate perforce. And these Royal Nautical sportsmen had the distinction still quite legible in their hearts. They had still those clean perceptions of what is nice and nasty, what is interesting and what is dull, which envious old gentlemen refer to as illusions. The nightmare illusion of middle-age, the bear's hug of custom, gradually squeezing the life out of a man's soul, had not yet begun for these happy-starred young Belgians. They still knew that the interest they took in their business was a trifling affair, compared to the spontaneous, long-suffering affection for nautical sports. To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. Such a man may be generous, he may be honest in something more than the commercial sense, he may love his friends with an elective personal sympathy, and not accept them as an adjunct of the station to which he has been called. He may be a man, in short, acting on his own instincts, keeping in his own shape that God made in him, and not a mere crank in the social engine house, welded on principles that he does not understand, and for purposes that he does not care of.