Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes

by Robert Louis Stevenson.
My Dear Sidney Colvin,

The journey which this little book is to describe was very
agreeable and fortunate for me. After an uncouthbeginning, I had

the best of luck to the end. But we are all travellers in what
John Bunyan calls the wilderness of this world - all, too,

travellers with a donkey: and the best that we find in our travels
is an honest friend. He is a fortunate voyager who finds many. We

travel, indeed, to find them. They are the end and the reward of
life. They keep us worthy of ourselves; and when we are alone, we

are only nearer to the absent.
Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the

friends of him who writes it. They alone take his meaning; they
find private messages, assurances of love, and expressions of

gratitude, dropped for them in every corner. The public is but a
generous patron who defrays the postage. Yet through the letter is

directed to all, we have an old and kindly custom of addressing it
on the outside to one. Of what shall a man be proud, if he is not

proud of his friends? And so, my dear Sidney Colvin, it is with
pride that I sign myself affectionately yours,

R. L. S.
VELAY

Many are the mighty things, and nought is more mighty than man. . .
. . He masters by his devices the tenant of the fields.

SOPHOCLES.
Who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?

JOB.
THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE PACK-SADDLE

IN a little place called Le Monastier, in a pleasant highland
valley fifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent about a month of fine

days. Monastier is notable for the making of lace, for
drunkenness, for freedom of language, and for unparalleled

political dissension. There are adherents of each of the four
French parties - Legitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists, and

Republicans - in this little mountain-town; and they all hate,
loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. Except for business

purposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they
have laid aside even the civility of speech. 'Tis a mere mountain

Poland. In the midst of this Babylon I found myself a rallying-
point; every one was anxious to be kind and helpful to the

stranger. This was not merely from the natural hospitality of
mountain people, nor even from the surprise with which I was

regarded as a man living of his own free will in Le Monastier, when
he might just as well have lived anywhere else in this big world;

it arose a good deal from my projected excursionsouthward through
the Cevennes. A traveller of my sort was a thing hitherto unheard

of in that district. I was looked upon with contempt, like a man
who should project a journey to the moon, but yet with a respectful

interest, like one setting forth for the inclement Pole. All were
ready to help in my preparations; a crowd of sympathisers supported

me at the critical moment of a bargain; not a step was taken but
was heralded by glasses round and celebrated by a dinner or a

breakfast.
It was already hard upon October before I was ready to set forth,

and at the high altitudes over which my road lay there was no
Indian summer to be looked for. I was determined, if not to camp

out, at least to have the means of camping out in my possession;
for there is nothing more harassing to an easy mind than the

necessity of reaching shelter by dusk, and the hospitality of a
village inn is not always to be reckoned sure by those who trudge

on foot. A tent, above all for a solitary traveller, is
troublesome to pitch, and troublesome to strike again; and even on

the march it forms a conspicuous feature in your baggage. A
sleeping-sack, on the other hand, is always ready - you have only

to get into it; it serves a double purpose - a bed by night, a
portmanteau by day; and it does not advertise your intention of

camping out to every curious passer-by. This is a huge point. If
a camp is not secret, it is but a troubled resting-place; you

become a public character; the convivial rustic visits your bedside
after an early supper; and you must sleep with one eye open, and be

up before the day. I decided on a sleeping-sack; and after
repeated visits to Le Puy, and a deal of high living for myself and

my advisers, a sleeping-sack was designed, constructed, and
triumphantly brought home.

This child of my invention was nearly six feet square, exclusive of
two triangular flaps to serve as a pillow by night and as the top

and bottom of the sack by day. I call it 'the sack,' but it was
never a sack by more than courtesy: only a sort of long roll or

sausage, green waterproof cart-cloth without and blue sheep's fur
within. It was commodious as a valise, warm and dry for a bed.

There was luxurious turning room for one; and at a pinch the thing
might serve for two. I could bury myself in it up to the neck; for

my head I trusted to a fur cap, with a hood to fold down over my
ears and a band to pass under my nose like a respirator; and in

case of heavy rain I proposed to make myself a little tent, or
tentlet, with my waterproof coat, three stones, and a bent branch.

It will readily be conceived that I could not carry this huge
package on my own, merely human, shoulders. It remained to choose

a beast of burden. Now, a horse is a fine lady among animals,
flighty, timid, delicate in eating, of tender health; he is too

valuable and too restive to be left alone, so that you are chained
to your brute as to a fellow galley-slave; a dangerous road puts

him out of his wits; in short, he's an uncertain and exacting ally,
and adds thirty-fold to the troubles of the voyager. What I

required was something cheap and small and hardy, and of a stolid
and peacefultemper; and all these requisites pointed to a donkey.

There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of rather unsound intellect
according to some, much followed by street-boys, and known to fame

as Father Adam. Father Adam had a cart, and to draw the cart a
diminutive she-ass, not much bigger than a dog, the colour of a

mouse, with a kindly eye and a determined under-jaw. There was
something neat and high-bred, a quakerish elegance, about the rogue

that hit my fancy on the spot. Our first interview was in
Monastier market-place. To prove her good temper, one child after

another was set upon her back to ride, and one after another went
head over heels into the air; until a want of confidence began to

reign in youthful bosoms, and the experiment was discontinued from
a dearth of subjects. I was already backed by a deputation of my

friends; but as if this were not enough, all the buyers and sellers
came round and helped me in the bargain; and the ass and I and

Father Adam were the centre of a hubbub for near half an hour. At
length she passed into my service for the consideration of sixty-

five francs and a glass of brandy. The sack had already cost
eighty francs and two glasses of beer; so that Modestine, as I

instantly baptized her, was upon all accounts the cheaper article.
Indeed, that was as it should be; for she was only an appurtenance

of my mattress, or self-acting bedstead on four castors.
I had a last interview with Father Adam in a billiard-room at the

witching hour of dawn, when I administered the brandy. He
professed himself greatly touched by the separation, and declared

he had often bought white bread for the donkey when he had been
content with black bread for himself; but this, according to the

best authorities, must have been a flight of fancy. He had a name
in the village for brutally misusing the ass; yet it is certain

that he shed a tear, and the tear made a clean mark down one cheek.
By the advice of a fallacious local saddler, a leather pad was made

for me with rings to fasten on my bundle; and I thoughtfully
completed my kit and arranged my toilette. By way of armoury and

utensils, I took a revolver, a little spirit-lamp and pan, a
lantern and some halfpenny candles, a jack-knife and a large

leather flask. The main cargo consisted of two entire changes of