After one or two locks this sort of travelling became so insufferable that I suddenly determined to change my plans entirely--for is not one free? By the present route several days would be consumed in going over the hills by a series of tedious locks; besides, this very canal had been already traversed by the four-oar boat Waterwitch some years ago.
A few moments of thought, and I got on the bank to look for a way of deliverance. Far off could be seen the vine-clad hills of the Vosges, and I decided at once to leave the canal, cross the country to those hills, cart the canoe over the range, and so reach the source of the Moselle, and thus begin to paddle on quite another set of rivers. We therefore turned the prow back, went down the canal, and again entered the river Ill, but soon found it was now too shallow to float even my canoe. Once more I retraced my way, ascending the locks, and, passing by Illfurth, went on to reach a village where a cart could be had. Desperation made me paddle hard even in the fierce sun, but it was not that this so much troubled me as the humiliation of thus rowing back and forward for miles on a dirty, stagnant canal, and passing by the same locks two or three times, with the full conviction that the people who gazed at the procedure must believe me not only to be mad (this much one can put up with), but furiously insane, and dangerous to be at large.
Whether we confess it or not we all like to be admired. The right or wrong of this depends on for what and from whom we covet admiration. But when the deed you attract attention by is neither a great one, nor a deed which others have not done or cannot do, but is one that all other people could but would not do, then you are not admired as remarkable but only stared at as singular.
The shade of a suspicion that this is so in any act done before lookers-on is enough to make it hateful. Nay, you have then the sufferings of a martyr, without his cause or his glory. But I fear that instead of getting a cart for the canoe I am getting out of depth in metaphysics, which means, you know, "When ane maun explains till anither what he disna understaun himsel, that's metapheesics."
Well, when we came to the prescribed village, named Haidwiller, we found they had plenty of carts, but not one would come to help me even for a good round sum. It was their first day with the grapes, and "ancient customs must be observed"; so we went on still further to another village, where they were letting out the water from the canal to repair a lock.