The Cigarette

The Arethusa

The Arethusa and The Cigarette share a companionable relationship, possibly as fellow travelers or allies.

Mr. Commissary

Mr. Commissary and The Cigarette have a formal, possibly supervisory relationship.

To Sir Walter Grindlay Simpson, Bart.

The dedicatee, addressed as 'my dear Cigarette', who shared in the rains and portages of the voyage.

Antwerp to Boom

Launches into the water from Antwerp docks.

On the Willebroek Canal

The other canoe, equipped with an Etna cooking apparatus that proves troublesome during the shore lunch.

The Royal Sport Nautique

The other canoeist; he has rowed in the past but now disowns it, and is anxious about being asked to row in an eight.

At Maubeuge

Nearly arrested for allegedly drawing the fortifications, a feat he is incapable of.

On the Sambre Canalised: To Quartes

Travels with the narrator; engages in chaffing talk with children along the towpath.

Pont-sur-Sambre: We Are Pedlars

Travels with the narrator; waxes lyrical about country scenes and shares in the pedlar experience.

On the Sambre Canalised: To Landrecies

Travels with the narrator; wears a mackintosh and dryly comments on the narrator's behavior.

At Landrecies

Grows sleepy after the café and returns to the hotel; expounds the Poor Laws at the Judge's supper.

Sambre and Oise Canal: Canal Boats

Travels with the narrator; comments on the barking dogs as like a menagerie; imagined playing flageolet and singing psalms in their canal-boat retirement.

The Oise in Flood

Traveling companion who jokes about the narrator's shivering and compares a ploughman to a toy Burns.

Origny Sainte-Benoîte: A By-Day

The Cigarette accompanies the narrator, works on his rigging, and observes the girls' modesty.

Down the Oise: To Moy

Suffers a strange seizure of lying, claiming adventures in Norway where he has never been.

La Fère of Cursed Memory

Travels with the narrator; reacts with indignation and then pity after being refused lodging.

Down the Oise: Through the Golden Valley

The narrator's companion, amused by the narrator's reactions to the rain.

Down the Oise: To Compiègne

Acts as spokesman with aplomb, handling the landlady with a dull, positive manner.

At Compiègne

Shares the narrator's enthusiasm for the mechanical clock figures on the town hall, despite pretending to despise it.

Changed Times

The Cigarette is the narrator's companion on the canoe trip; they share gastronomical fancies and the experience of the river's changing character.

Epilogue to An Inland Voyage

The more elegant and philosophical companion, who carries a volume of Michelet, is arrested briefly but released due to his respectable appearance and passport.