# At Maubeuge explained — Travel Essays > Chapter companion for Travel Essays by Robert Louis Stevenson. ## What happens The travelers decide to take a train across the frontier due to the many locks between Brussels and Charleroi. The narrator describes the difficulty of passing through customs, especially for the Arethusa, who is repeatedly mistaken for a spy. Upon arriving in Maubeuge, a fortified town, they find little to do but eat and observe. The narrator reflects on the experience of being a detached spectator in a strange town and recounts a poignant encounter with the hotel omnibus driver, who longs for travel and adventure. ## Themes in this chapter ### Freedom vs. Confinement The omnibus driver's longing for travel contrasts with his daily routine, highlighting the tension between a settled life and the desire for adventure. ### Travel and Discovery The chapter explores the challenges and humiliations of travel, as well as the transformative potential of seeing new places. ### Human Connection and Community The narrator's brief but meaningful connection with the omnibus driver underscores the universal human desire for a life of purpose and exploration. ## Character check-ins ### The Arethusa The narrator's companion, who is repeatedly singled out by officials and mistaken for a spy despite being a British subject. ### The Cigarette Nearly arrested for allegedly drawing the fortifications, a feat he is incapable of. ### The English Mentioned as part of the 'ruck and rabble of British touristry' who travel unhindered. ## Key lines > Fifty-five locks in a day’s journey was pretty well tantamount to trudging the whole distance on foot, with the canoes upon our shoulders, an object of astonishment to the trees on the canal side, and of honest derision to all right-thinking children. Having to pass through fifty-five locks in one day would be like walking the entire distance while carrying the canoes, making us a spectacle for the trees and a laughingstock for sensible children. _The narrator humorously exaggerates the difficulty of navigating the locks._ > He is a born British subject, yet he has never succeeded in persuading a single official of his nationality. Despite being a natural-born British citizen, he has never been able to convince any official of that fact. _The Arethusa's repeated failure to prove his nationality to customs officials._ > I think the spectacle of a whole life in which you have no part paralyses personal desire. You are content to become a mere spectator. Observing a life you are not involved in can numb your own ambitions, making you satisfied to just watch. _Reflection on the detachment felt in a foreign town._ > How he longed to travel! he told me. How he longed to be somewhere else, and see the round world before he went into the grave! He expressed a deep desire to travel, to be elsewhere, and to see the world before he died. _The omnibus driver's yearning for adventure._ > Better a thousand times that he should be a tramp, and mend pots and pans by the wayside, and sleep under trees, and see the dawn and the sunset every day above a new horizon. It would be far better for him to become a wanderer, repairing pots and pans, sleeping outdoors, and experiencing new sunrises and sunsets each day. _The narrator's idealistic vision of a free life for the driver._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/travel_essays_se/chapters/at-maubeuge - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/travel_essays_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/travel_essays_se/chapters