The Utriculares speedily reached Æmilius, gave vent to a cheer; they lifted him on their shoulders, and, swinging the inflated skins and shouting, marched off, out of the gardens, through the Forum, down the main street of the lower town unmolested, under the conduct of Callipodius.
CHAPTER V
THE LAGOONS
The men who carried and surrounded Æmilius proceeded in rapid march, chanting a rhythmic song, through the town till they emerged on a sort of quay beside a wide-spreading shallow lagoon. Here were moored numerous rafts.
Now, sir, said one of the men, as Æmilius leaped to the ground, if you will take my advice, you will allow us to convey you at once to Arelate. This is hardly a safe place for you at present.
I must thank you all, my gallant fellows, for your timely aid. But for you I should have been forced to eat of the dedicated cakes, and such as are out of favor with the god or, rather, with the priesthood that lives by him, as cockroaches and black beetles by the baker such are liable to get stomach aches, which same stomach aches convey into the land where are no aches and pains. I thank you all.
Nay, sir, we did our duty. Are not you patron of the Utriculares?
I am your patron assuredly, as you did me the honor to elect me. If I have lacked zeal to do you service in time past, henceforward be well assured I will devote my best energies to your cause.
We are beholden to you, sir.
I to you the rather.
Perhaps the reader will desire to understand who the wind-bag men were who had hurried to the rescue of Æmilius. For the comprehension of this particular, something must be said relative to the physical character of the country.
The mighty Rhône that receives the melted snows of the southern slope of the Bernese Oberland and the northern incline of the opposed Pennine Alps receives also the drain of the western side of the Jura, as well as that of the Graian and Cottian Alps. The Durance pours in its auxiliary flood below Avignon.
After a rapid thaw of snow, or the breaking of charged rain clouds on the mountains, these rivers increase in volume, and as the banks of the Rhône below the junction of the Durance and St. Raphael are low, it overflows and spreads through the flat alluvial delta. It would be more exact to say that it was wont to overflow, rather than that it does so now. For at present, owing to the embankments thrown up and maintained at enormous cost, the Rhône can only occasionally submerge the low-lying land, whereas anciently such floods were periodical and as surely expected as those of the Nile.
The overflowing Rhône formed a vast region of lagoons that extended from Tarascon and Beaucaire to the Gulf of Lyons, and spread laterally over the Crau on one side to Nîmes on the other. Nîmes itself stood on its own river, the Vistre, but this fed marshes and broads that were connected with the tangle of lagoons formed by the Rhône.
Arelate, the great emporium of the trade between Gaul and Italy, occupied a rocky islet in the midst of water that extended as far as the eye could reach. This tract of submerged land was some sixty miles in breadth by forty in depth, was sown with islets of more or less elevation and extent. Some were bold, rocky eminences, others were mere rubble and sand-banks formed by the river. Arelate or Arles was accessible by vessels up and down the river or by rafts that plied the lagoons, and by the canal constructed by Marius, that traversed them from Fossoe Marino. As the canal was not deep, and as the current of the river was strong, ships were often unable to ascend to the city through these arteries, and had to discharge their merchandise on the coast upon rafts that conveyed it to the great town, and when the floods permitted, carried much to Nemausus.
As the sheets of water were in places and at periods shallow, the rafts were made buoyant, though heavily laden, by means of inflated skins and bladders placed beneath them.
As the conveyance of merchandise engaged a prodigious number of persons, the raftsmen had organized themselves into the guild of Utriculares, or Wind-bag men, and as they became not infrequently involved in contests with those whose interests they crossed, and on whose privileges they infringed, they enlisted the aid of lawyers to act as their patrons, to bully their enemies, and to fight their battles against assailants. Among the numerous classic monumental inscriptions that remain in Provence, there are many in which a man of position is proud to have it recorded that he was an honorary member of the club of the inflated-skin men.
Nemausus owed much of its prosperity to the fact that it was the trade center for wool and for skins. The Cevennes and the great limestone plateaux that abut upon them nourished countless herds of goats and flocks of sheep, and the dress of everyone at the period being of wool the demand for fleeces was great; consequently vast quantities of wool were brought from the mountains of Nîmes, whence it was floated away on rafts sustained by the skins that came from the same quarter.
The archipelago that studded the fresh-water sea was inhabited by fishermen, and these engaged in the raft-carriage. The district presented a singular contrast of high culture and barbarism. In Arles, Nîmes, Narbonne there was a Greek element. There was here and there an infusion of Phœnician blood. The main body of the people consisted of the dusky Ligurians, who had almost entirely lost their language, and had adopted that of their Gaulish conquerors, the Volex. These latter were distinguished by their fair hair, their clear complexions, their stalwart frames. Another element in the composite mass was that of the colonists. After the battle of Actium, Augustus had rewarded his Egypto-Greek auxiliaries by planting them at Nemausus, and giving them half the estates of the Gaulish nobility. To these Greeks were added Roman merchants, round-headed, matter-of-fact looking men, destitute of imagination, but full of practical sense.
These incongruous elements that in the lapse of centuries have been fused, were, at the time of this tale, fairly distinct.
You are in the right, my friends, said Æmilius. The kiln is heated too hot for comfort. It would roast me. I will go even to Arelate, if you will be good enough to convey me thither.
With the greatest of pleasure, sir.
Æmilius had an office at Arles. He was a lawyer, but his headquarters were at Nemausus, to which town he belonged by birth. He represented a good family, and was descended from one of the colonists under Agrippa and Augustus. His father was dead, and though he was not wealthy, he was well off, and possessed a villa and estates on the mountain sides, at some distance from the town. In the heats of summer he retired to his villa.
On this day of March there had been a considerable gathering of raftsmen at Nemausus, who had utilized the swollen waters in the lagoons for the conveyance of merchandise.
Æmilius stepped upon a raft that seemed to be poised on bubbles, so light was it on the surface of the water, and the men at once thrust from land with their poles.
The bottom was everywhere visible, owing to the whiteness of the limestone pebbles and the sand that composed it, and through the water darted innumerable fish. The liquid element was clear. Neither the Vistre nor the stream from the fountain brought down any mud, and the turbid Rhône had deposited all its sediment before its waters reached and mingled with those that flowed from the Cebennæ. There was no perceptible current. The weeds under water were still, and the only thing in motion were the darting fish.
The raftmen were small, nimble fellows, with dark hair, dark eyes and pleasant faces. They laughed and chatted with each other over the incident of the rescue of their patron, but it was in their own dialect, unintelligible to Æmilius, to whom they spoke in broken Latin, in which were mingled Greek words.