September 19 Saturday –After installing the family in Ouchy, Sam left at 2 p.m. with Joseph Verey in the purchased boat (see Sept. 16) and the first night stopped on an island in Lake Bourget, where they slept in the old castle of Châtillon in a room where Pope Celestin IV was born at the end of the eighth century [MTB 924; NB 31 TS 5-6; Aix-Les-Bains,etc.114 by Dr. Léon Brachet (1884) ]. A letter arrived from Charles Dudley Warner just as Sam was leaving Ouchy [Sept 22 to Warner].

Sam also wrote an account of the trip he called “part diary and part comment,” titled, “Down the Rhône,” which was first published in 1923 in Europe and Elsewhere. The account begins on this day:

Our point of departure was to be the Castle of Châtillon on Lake Bourget, not very far from Aix-les-Bains. I went down from Geneva by rail on a Saturday afternoon, and reached the station nearestthe castle during the evening. I found the courier waiting for me. He had been down in the lake region several days, hunting for a boat, engaging the boatman, etc. [Neider, Complete Essays 594].