The rapidity of the current has given rise to a method of crossing which we do not see in England: a rope is stretched across the river, generally at the narrowest parts, and the ferry-boat is attached to this rope by a pulley, which passes along with it; and thus, when merely committed to the stream, with a little help from the rudder, which is made very large, the boat is impelled to the opposite shore. The rope is elevated sufficiently for boats descending the river to pass underneath it, either by attaching it to a rock, or to a piece of rough masonry erected for that purpose. The rapid current of the Rhone is continually shifting the gravelly bottom on which it runs, and this produces a continual noise, like the frying of fish, but louder.
We slept at Ancone, a little village on the banks of the river. I counted twenty beds at the inn, and every thing about them seemed very clean; indeed the sheets in France are always clean, and I never had occasion to doubt whether they had not been already used, which has sometimes been the case in England.
Although the exertion of the rower is trifling, the progress made by the help of the current is very considerable. We were little more than ten hours from Vienne to Ancone, a distance of seventy-six miles; from Ancone to Pont St. Esprit, six leagues of the country, or about twenty-four miles, very little more than three; so that we travelled nearly seven miles and a half per hour. Allowing two for the effect of the oars, we shall have five and a half for the rapidity of the stream, which is about the same as from Lyon to Vienne. The course of the Rhone from the Lake of Geneva to the sea, measured along all its windings, is nearly three hundred miles, according to the best maps, and the elevation of that lake is 1,200 feet above the Mediterranean Sea. This would give an average descent of four feet per mile. The descent from Geneva to Lyon is probably much greater than this, especially as it includes the loss of the Rhone, and a considerable space, where the river runs with great velocity in a deep bed, and the channel is but a few yards wide; and although, on the other hand, it is probable, that the descent from Beaucaire to the sea is trifling, since there the valley opens, and a wide spread of alluvial soil begins, yet perhaps we cannot calculate the descent of the Rhone from Lyon to Avignon at more than three feet per English mile, or one foot in 1,760.