She had got on board a boat moored close to ours, and
believing that she had only to step on shore, actually walked into
the river. She was only ten minutes under water, and the probabilities
are, that if the circumstance had been made known, and prompt
assistance afforded, she might have been resuscitated. Amid the number
of English passengers on board the steamer, the chances were very much
in favour of its carrying a surgeon, accustomed to the best methods
to be employed in such cases. No inquiry of the kind was made, and we
understood that the body had been conveyed to a church, there to await
the arrival of a medical man from the town.
We were, of course, inexpressibly shocked by this fatal catastrophe,
the more so because we all felt that we might have been of use had
we been told the truth. The grief and distraction of the son and
daughter, who had thus lost a parent, very possibly prevented them
from taking the best measures in a case of such emergence; whereas
strangers, anxious to be of service, and having all their presence of
mind at command, might have afforded very important assistance. How
little had we thought, during the day spent so pleasantly upon the
Rhone, that a fiat had passed which doomed one of the party to an
untimely and violent death! Our spirits, which had been of the gayest
nature, were damped by this incident, which recurred to our minds
again and again, and we were continually recollecting some trifling
circumstance which had prepossessed us in favour of the family, thus
suddenly overwhelmed by so distressing an event.
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