the end of the rudder handle; those others
washing their chubby babies, tapping their
green and white painted water-casks, turning
out their children to play on the grass
bank, watering their flower-pots, feeding their
dog, preparing the leeks and carrots and
sorrel to put into their meagre-day broth—
every one of those amphibious women has
just as much the air of being "settled" in
life, as if she dwelt in that mud-built cottage
yonder, which never stirs from place to place.
It does not matter to them one pint of canal
water whether the barque is laden with coke
from Mons, iron-ore from Marquise, stone
from the quarries of Haut Barreau, wine from
Bordeaux, or wood from the Calais saw-mills;
they still are mistresses of the square little
cabin in the stern. Their own ménage has
just the same look, their husbands smoke the
same quantity of tobacco, and utter exactly
the same daily number of sacré noms, they
take upon themselves exactly the same share
of towing-work, and handle their eprier, or
quant,* with equal vigour whether they are
up north or down south, in France or
Belgium, under the wooded hill, or on the level
naked marsh. Probably the last thought that
troubles them on waking is, "Where are we
got to now, my husband?" It is a hardy
life, and a happy life; rollicking, great-boy-like,
with a sharp appetite and a warm
temper. "This is sad cold work!" I hypocritically
remarked to a rosy-faced fellow, who had
just received a snowball down the scruff of his
neck, by way of pastime while the lock was filling.
"Wouldn't you like better to go and work
in the warm glass-house down there?"—"Bah,
merci! I am very much obliged to you," he
answered with a grimace that was well worth
a five-franc piece. "We are warm enough here,
at times, Monsieur, I assure you. When I
begin my penitence, I will go and work in
the glass-house." There are plenty of public
boats which, for a few sous, will carry you
considerable distances about the lower basin
of the Aa; but a week's regular canal-ing
over the country, with a pleasant party on
board, would be an agreeable novelty in the
way of travelling trips.

* "Quant" is the Norfolk word for the long pole with
which barges are pushed forwards. I have no doubt it is
good old English.

At St. Omer, or thereabouts, the fate of the
Aa in olden time was to find the sea ready to
receive it; and then of course its memoirs
came at once to an abrupt conclusion. But,
in 1853, its term of existence has only arrived
at its most important period. From St. Omer
till it reaches the ocean, Heaven and the
Wateringues alone know how, it is changed
into a quiet, canal-ised, hard-working river,
slaving steadily for the good of thousands,
and yet making the least possible stir in the
world.

Ancient geography is extremely uncertain
and difficult, especially along the coast-line of
a country; but it is pretty certain that, in
the days of that universal genius Julius
Cæsar, the irregular triangle lying between
Calais, Gravelines, Dunkerque, Cassel, and
St. Omer, was not then dry land as now, but
was occupied by an estuary known to French
antiquaries as the Golfe Itius, or Iccius. In
1815 an anchor was found in the earth, at
the foot of the hill of Cassel, which must have
belonged to some vessel riding there when
the mount was still a promontory, or possibly
an island. It was dug up from a depth of
twelve feet beneath the soil (no extraordinary
accumulation during several hundred years),
and still retained fastened to its ring a cable
which extended northwards for more than
two hundred and fifty feet. It was evident
that the vessel had been driven into the
offing by a sudden squall, after having broken
her cable. You cannot dig a ditch within
the area of this filled-up estuary, without
casting up sea-shells exactly like those now
found upon the beach. A layer of turf, too,
very generally spread, also tells its own
suggestive story. Fragments of boats, and
other human sea-faring vestiges, are by no
means rare to disinter. So that with what
the Aa brought down from the hills, with
what the tide fetched from the cliffs of Blanez
and Dover, with what the force of vegetation
accumulated, and what the draining-tools of
men have done, the Itian Gulf is now dry
land, and the realm ruled over by the
full-grown monarch Aa.

His Majesty must have been a great
nuisance at first, as he passed through the
quagmiry and fresh-curdled marshes; breaking
out of bounds, and running backwards
and forwards continually, without either
rhyme or reason. But the regal authority
being once restrained within the constitutional
limits of an embankment, the first step was
laid for progressive improvement on a sure
foundation. In the fourteenth century people
began to feel that their rights were secure;
and that so far from having any further
reason to alarm themselves, they could make
their sovereign serve them, in case of need,
as a more powerful defender than an army of
ten thousand men. "If," say the people
dwelling under the protection of the Aa, "If
you dare to make a hostile invasion, and
encamp malevolently beneath our walls we
will let loose the Aa upon you, and will either
rot you little by little, like so many sheep, or
drown you at once, like the dogs that you
are!"

The Aa travels by many roads on his way
from the gates of St. Omer to the sandy
boundary which is making the sea retreat
before him. He divides and sub-divides, and
re-unites, and then branches quite away,
filling this canal and refreshing that stagnant
watergand. It looks like an intentional
preparation of a subject of dispute, that this
portion of the river Aa should ever (as in
1192) have been made to form the boundary
between France and Flanders. Part of his