being hauled by eighty horses; narrates the collision with a steamboat
coming down the stream, which drags the animals into the water, setting
the boats adrift in the current, destroying them and their cargo, and
typifying as it were the ruin of the old traffic on the Rhone. The river
itself is described, its dangerous shoals, its beautiful banks, its
towns and castles. We learn how the boats were manœuvred; the life on
board and the ideas of the men are set before us minutely. Legends and
stories concerning the river and the places along the shores abound, of
course; and into this general background is woven the tale of a Prince
of Orange and a little maiden called the Anglore, two of the curiously
half-real, half-unreal beings that Mistral seems to love to create. The
Prince comes on board the fleet, intending to see Orange and Provence;
some day he is to be King of Holland, but has already sickened of court
ceremonies and intrigues.

"Uno foulié d'amour s'es mes en tèsto."

This dreamy, imaginative, blond Prince is in search of a Naïade and the
mysterious "swan-flower," wherein the fair nymph is hidden. This flower
he wears as an emblem. When the boatmen see it, they recognize it as the
_fleur de Rhône_ that the Anglore is so fond of culling. The men get
Jean Roche, one of their number, to tell the Prince who this mysterious
Anglore is, and we learn that she is a little, laughing maiden, who
wanders barefoot on the sand, so charming that any of the sailors, were
she to make a sign, would spring into the water to go and print a kiss
upon her little foot. Not only is the Prince in search of a nymph and a
flower, not only does he wish to behold Orange, he wishes also to learn
the language in which the Countess of Die sang lays of love with
Raimbaud of Orange. He is full of thoughts of the olden days, he feels
regret for the lost conquests. "But why should he feel regret, if he may