ALL night the Statesman, the Editor, the Artist and
the Scribbler had been rumbling northward in a sleeping
car, and as day dawned the steady and quickened
clank of wheels told that they were on a down grade
toward the Lake, and nearing the point where vacation
was really to begin. They had turned into their respective
berths somewhere south of Albany; they awoke and
looked down from a precipitous hillside into the clear
Lake. Presently the train slowed and in another minute
they were questioning the station-master about their
canoes, which had preceded them as freight some days
before.
"No, can't wait till after breakfast. Must see them
now."
So the station-master rather reluctantly unlocked his
freight room and there in a row side by side lay the "Red
Lakers" and the "Chrysalids," for all the world like two
pairs of twins tucked in a big bed together. For the
station-master—bless him!—had thoughtfully spread a
tarpaulin over them so that only their darling noses were
in sight.
Mlle. Rochefort at home.
It should here be explained that the terms "Red
Lake" and "Chrysalid" designate certain models of canoes,
the first being named for the locality where the
canoes are built, while the appropriateness of the second
must be evident from the accompanying sketch.
Let the Expeditionis Personæ now be introduced.
Chrysalis and Chrysalid.
Behold the Becky Sharp (flagship) and the Cherub,
commanded respectively by the Editor and the Scribbler,
and constituting the "First Division." Behold also the
"Rochefort" and the "Arethusela"
[1] forming
the Second Division, and commanded by the Statesman and the Artist.
The Twins.
Over the meeting between each man and his canoe
a veil is delicately drawn. Even the station-master considerately
stepped out upon the platform during the few
moments when each metaphorically made his canoe put
out its tongue and answer questions as to its moral and
physical well-being. The interview was satisfactory
to all save the Statesman, who detected several minute
scratches on the deck of the Rochefort and declared that
palpable demoralization had resulted from her enforced
association with Red Lakers.
The Artist having volunteered to stay by the boats
while his companions breakfasted at the neighboring
tavern, was straightway beset by a number of wayfarers
who demanded full accounts of the canoes and of canoeing
in general. The Artist had been in the lecture field, and
as the spirit was strong upon him, he gave the assembled
multitude (about a dozen in all) a comprehensive account
of the art. No reporter was present, but his remarks are
believed to have been about as follows:
"In the civilized acceptation of the term, gentlemen,"
(here the six small boys who composed a fraction of the
audience punched one another in the ribs,) "modern canoeing
dates back only a few years,—some fifteen in England
and half as many in America. Its acknowledged progenitor
is Mr. John Macgregor, an English barrister to whom
was vouchsafed the brilliant idea of crossing the canoe of
the North American Indian with the Esquimaux Kayak,
for purposes of civilized recreation, the product being a
hybrid known as the Rob Roy model. (Here the speaker
seized the station-master's chalk and drew rapidly upon
the wall in illustration of his meaning.) Although the
canoe exists among all savage nations, it reached its
greatest perfection for inland and coast wise navigation
among the North American Indians. The 'birch,' as
it is familiarly called, is so nearly perfect for use on forest
streams that the Hudson's Bay Company, after various
experiments with wood and iron, settled down, years ago,
to its almost exclusive use for their vast transportation
service extending throughout the British American Possessions.
The Kayak, built as it is of a light frame with
skin stretched over it, has less weight and more strength
than the birch, and as it is all covered over excepting a
man-hole amidships, it is evidently the more seaworthy of
the two. It has, however, no carrying capacity to speak
of, beyond its crew of one."
Kayak—Birch—Rob-Roy.
"A different craft from either of these is required for
the use of the civilized voyager. He wants a boat which
will not, like the birch, leak if it happens to touch bottom.
He wants one which will retain its buoyancy even when
full of water; which at a pinch he can carry alone across a
portage; which is roomy enough to sleep in, large enough
to carry stores and equipments for a reasonable number
of days, staunch and seaworthy in any weather when it
is pleasant to be on the water, and readily obedient to
his hand under sail or paddle.
"No doubt Mr. Macgregor drew his first inspiration
from the two barbarian models referred to. He designed
a boat known as the 'Rob-Roy,' which was easy to paddle,
which could be slept in, and in which he made many
long cruises. It was, however, decidedly faulty in many
particulars, being wet and uncomfortable in a sea-way,
owing to its lack of 'sheer;' it was also of small sailing capacity.
In smooth water, the 'Rob-Roy' has its advantages,
but for general purposes the 'Nautilus' model is decidedly
its superior. This was designed by Mr. Baden
Powell, another Englishman, who improved on Mr. Macgregor's
model by giving his boat greater 'bearings,' that
is, a broader and flatter bottom, that of the original Rob
Roy being nearly semi-circular, and by raising her lines
at stem and stern so that it was nearly impossible to drive
her nose under in a sea-way. This made her very difficult
to manage under paddle with the wind abeam,
so in subsequent plans the sheer was considerably
reduced, and the change proved to be a decided improvement.
Under Full Sail—Chrysalid.
"The 'Chrysalids' (here the speaker indicated the
Arethusela and the Rochefort) are variations of the
Nautilus type. You perceive at a glance their great
superiority in every particular over the 'Red Laker'
(pointing to the Cherub and the Becky Sharp) which
lie beside them, and which are merely elaborate copies
of the Indian birch made of wood and rigged for cruising.
I will draw for you a Chrysalid under sail." (The Artist
turned again to his extemporized black-board and with a
few rapid strokes produced the sketch on page 28).
Meanwhile the local population had dropped in one
by one, until he had a respectable audience, and the
Scribbler, who had finished his breakfast and drawn near,
began to consider the expediency of taking up a collection.
"You see how ship-shape she is in all respects, (applause,
the Artist bowing,) I will now, in order that my
fellow voyagers may not accuse me of partiality, show you
also a Red Laker under sail." Again the station-master's
chalk was in requisition, and presently a sketch something
like this adorned the wall. As the Artist was proceeding,
a youth near the door, who, the Artist vows, had been
bribed by the Scribbler, checked him with, "I say, mister,
that there Red Laker makes the best looking picter of the
two, don't it?"
Close Hauled Red Laker.
The Artist had not compared his illustrations, and on
glancing at them, was obliged to explain that certain
peculiarities of outline assuredly did give a false impression
in this instance:—"However," he went on easily, resuming
the imperturbable manner which had become
habitual with him in the desk, "as I was about to say,
having thus become Anglicized, it was merely a question
of time how soon the modern and improved canoe should
be re-naturalized in America. It was introduced in 1872
by Mr. W. L. Alden, founder and senior member of the
New York Canoe Club, an association to which the boats
before you belong, and which now has a fleet of about
thirty canoes, and a somewhat larger number of active
and honorary members."
The Artist ceased and the Scribbler led off in a round
of applause, which was however, but feebly seconded.
Breakfast over, the quartette donned their blue flannels
and sauntered down to the shore, followed by a
curious throng of the inhabitants. (N. B. The throng of
inhabitants is seen at the right.)
The Lake, which at an early hour had been placid as
a anglican sermon, was, by the time the fleet was ready
to start, breaking furiously against the wharf before a
northerly breeze and the mariners were glad to launch
and stow their canoes under the lee of the railway bridge,
and the critical supervision of the local small-boy.
The Quartette.
For six months the four comrades had made preparations
for the cruise, but the knowledge which worketh
experience worked also calamity, for the stores which
were unloaded from steamboats and express cars on the
shore of the lake, would have justified each captain of a
canoe in chartering a steamer of moderate dimensions as
a tender. As such a course would have tended to the
destruction of the picturesqueness of the squadron under
sail, it was given up without a murmur, so the quartette,
each man for himself, proceeded to the exasperating duty
of deciding what he best could spare and return. The
Statesman decided against carrying a tent, a tin pail, a
couple of hundred weight of canned goods, a life-preserver,
a Bible and a looking-glass which he had
brought with him, but retained a double-barrelled gun,
a twenty-pound bag of duck-shot and a volume of Tupper's
"Proverbial Philosophy."
The Local Small Boy.
"If your boat springs a leak, no earthly power can
save her, with such a cargo," said the Editor.
"I'll keep the shot where I can drop it overboard in
such case," briskly replied the Statesman.
"What good will that do?" asked the Editor, "if the
Tupper remains on board?"
"The Tupper will make a capital anchor, though,"
suggested the Artist, as he reluctantly laid upon a heap,
to be returned, a field easel, a camp-stool, a medicine-chest,
a set of Shakespeare in three volumes, and a
demijohn, the latter, by some deplorable oversight, having
arrived empty. The Scribbler carefully inspected two
bulky portmanteaus, extracted therefrom a single change
of underclothing, a box of cigars, a tooth-brush and a
comb, and returned the bags with their contents. The
Editor concluded that perhaps he might be safe in Acadia
without the copy of Webster's Dictionary which he
had brought thus far in several thicknesses of rubber
cloth, and a mental survey of the proposed route convinced
him that he might dispense with his faithful
scissors and paste-pot, inasmuch as no newspaper was
published on either the Lake or the River, but he stowed
in his boat a gold headed-cane and a horse-pistol, explaining,
as he did so,
"These are the interviewer's only faithful friends."
The individual property thus rejected, with the superfluous
stores which had been purchased en bloc by
the quartette, threatened for a little while to cause a
"corner" in freight cars, but a threat to charter several
steamers which were idle upon the Lake brought the
railway agent to his senses, and gave his Company an
excuse to put upon Wall Street a story of sudden increase
of gross earnings. The rejected cargoes were
stowed, and then the Editor, calling his companions
apart from the immense crowd of gazers and listeners, said,
"Gentlemen, by virtue of long experience as a fighting
editor, I hereby assume command of this expedition,
and propose to be obeyed and respected accordingly.
I detail the Statesman as Vice-commodore, commanding
the Second Division."
"Vice," murmured the Artist, "what an ideal title
for a Statesman!"
The Commodore continued, "The Artist I appoint
Purser—"
"What delicious sarcasm!" interrupted the newly
appointed Vice; "the idea of an Artist taking care of
money! Judas and his bag are nowhere."
"And the Scribbler," resumed the Commodore, "will
be Cook, a position to which his experience in concocting
literary hash most richly entitles him. During the
cruise all family, baptismal and social names will be
dropped, and the members of the expedition will be
known only by their nautical titles. Is every one ready
to embark?"
"Ready!" replied the Vice, the Purser and the Cook
in chorus; the paddles were seized, and the Commodore
was giving the command "Shove off!" when the Vice
exclaimed,
"Gracious! how could I have forgotten it?" Then
he ran to the pile of rejected material and rescued an
immense brown paper parcel containing something which
seemed to be instinct with every angle and line known
to the student of conic sections. Hurriedly stowing it
away in his forward compartment, he shoved his boat
from the beach.
"What is it?" shouted the fleet.
"It was a present to me from a constituent," roared
he, at the top of his lungs, the wind whisking away his
words. "That's what it is."
This was accepted as a diplomatic and statesmanlike
way of saying "None of your business," so the rest held
their peace, and gave themselves to the serious work of
making headway against the sea.
'Tis ever thus! Never have any of the Four started
on a cruise without having at the very beginning to
tax their as yet unaccustomed muscles by paddling
straight in the teeth of an adverse gale. Of course the
canoes are at their heaviest and must be expected to leak
more or less after a fortnight's baking in a box-car. So
when all are ready the command paddles round through
the draw, points toward a headland three miles off dead to
windward, and doggedly settles down to its work. It takes
nearly two hours to cover the distance, and the Chrysalids
have had to bail at frequent intervals under the protecting
care of Red Lakers. The headland is reached at
last, however, and then comes the bath for which all have
been longing. If any future explorer finds an unaccountable
deposit of cinders and scoriæ off that point he may
ascribe them, if he likes, to prehistoric volcanic convulsions,
but the four voyagers know better.
It was now noon, and a substantial luncheon was followed
by a long siesta under the cedars, while lungs accustomed
to inhale the de-oxidized atmosphere of the
city filled themselves with the first draughts of ozone
from the great paradise of spruce which stretches almost
unbroken from the Canada line to the Arctic circle.
Grand mountain forms rose against the sky, the city was
far away; they were free!
The sun lacked but three hours of setting, when the
squadron shook off the delicious languor that succeeded
its unwonted exertions, bailed out the Chrysalids, now
thoroughly soaked, and in a condition which their owners
were pleased to consider "tight," wiped up with a sponge
the few drops that had penetrated the seams of the Red
Lakers, and paddled merrily away toward an island blue
in the afternoon haze, on which it had been determined to
camp over Sunday. The lake was by this time ashamed
of the boisterous welcome it had given to the fleet, and
was undergoing a burnishing process preparatory to serving
as a mirror for the sunset. By dusk camp was made
in a lean-to left by some considerate predecessors. The
canoes were anchored in the lee of a shingly point, excepting
the Rochefort, which her commander carefully,
and for some inscrutable parliamentary reason, anchored
to windward, and by nine o'clock all, with one exception,
were rolled in their blankets, and sound asleep.
AS is the case in all well regulated families, the Cook
was the first person to greet the morning of the second
day. He not only did so, but he greeted it in its
extreme infancy, an instant after his own watch, had it
been a repeater, would have struck midnight, and from
this moment onward he manifested the liveliest interest
in the growth of the new day. His impatience could
scarcely be attributable to a desire to see the sun rise, for
at home the Cook habitually rose at dawn, and had already
an unequalled collection of sunrises in his mental portfolio.
In truth, the Cook was very cold. He had smiled
pityingly as he saw his companions retire each under a
pair of woolen blankets, while he himself stretched freely
upon his rubber sheet, with no covering whatever.
Woolen blankets in July, when at midday the thermometer
stood at ninety degrees in the shade!—the Cook perspired
anew at the thought, and chuckled over the superior
good luck which had led him to forget his blankets
when he left New York, thereby materially reducing the
bulk of his equipment. Woolen blankets might be necessary
to the city existence of the Statesman, the Editor
and the Artist, for each of the gentlemen represented
professions which are notoriously cold-blooded, but as
for the Scribbler—well, all scribblers come early in life to
regard blankets as rarely attainable luxuries, and to depend
for warmth upon their own inner man.
But on this particular occasion the inner man of the
Cook failed to respond to the demand made upon it.
The Cook would have encouraged the inner man had he
known where the expeditionary brandy was kept, but no
racking of memory elicited the information desired. He
scraped carefully among the ashes of his evening fire,
hoping that some coals might have remained alive to
kindle a new one, but the fire had been of wood too small
to leave coals, and the Cook's matches were wet. He
might have had dry matches, brandy—yes, and a share in
the blankets themselves, all in an instant, had he but awakened
either of his brother officers. But the Cook's pride
exceeded in greatness even his discomfort, so he sought
consolation in his own reflections, as men are always possessed
to do at just such times, when their reflections are
in the most shocking condition imaginable. The Cook
paced the sand, hugged himself, and tried to believe that
there had been no such day as yesterday, and that he
had never left a blanket in New York. Then he tried to
draw his rubber blanket noiselessly from the tent, to throw
over his shoulders, but one side of the Purser rested upon
its extreme edge, and the Purser was of the conventional
English ponderosity. Then the Cook tried to revive his
spirits with a song, sung softly between his teeth, but
these last named gateways of sound were trembling so
that the song itself became sadly demoralized. The
Cook had once written a convincing essay on "The
Power of the Imagination, as Exemplified by Physical
Facts," and recalling this, he soliloquized "Physician, heal
thyself!" Honestly he endeavored to obey the injunction,
by imagining himself burrowing in a whole bale of
Mackinaw blankets, as he had once done in the far west
when smitten by an ague, but the warmth was as imperceptible
in the former case as in the latter.
The night wore on, to the extent of two or three thousand
hours, and reduced the chilling Cook at last to a
single desire:—he wished that before he froze to death
he might have a thermometer, a pencil and paper, and
record for the benefit of coming canoeists this terrible
temperature—if, indeed, the thermometer could indicate
it before the mercury itself would freeze.
Then came that mysterious hour of the night in which
night, itself still regnant, trembles at the prospect of its own
dissolution. It was the hour in which sick men who are foredoomed
to die generally accept the inevitable: it was also
the hour in which the Commodore, in his home capacity
of Editor, always left the office of the "Daily Tocsin," and
walked home with a sedative cigar for company. The
force of habit being strong in the Commodore, he rustled
uneasily under his blankets, and finally emerged from the
tent, filling a pipe as he came.
"Just the man!" exclaimed the Cook. "I want to
smoke, but I hadn't the heart to awake any one to beg a
dry match."
Both pipes lighted, the Cook remarked,
"D-d-don't you think it would be more cheerful to
smoke by a f-f-fire?"
And the Commodore, with a very perceptible flavor
of irony in his tones, replied,
"I d-d-don't know but I d-d-do."
Five minutes sufficed in which to make a roaring fire:
then the Cook scraped up a ridge of sand a few feet from
the blaze, allowed it to heat, stretched himself against it
and was asleep in an instant. An experienced seaman,
however, when in a position of grave responsibility, never
allows himself entire freedom from care. Hence in the
present instance the sailor-like instincts acquired by the
Commodore during long years of sedentary life, caused
him some anxiety as he once more lay down in the tent.
The wind had freshened from the southward, and he
deemed it his duty to arouse the Vice whose canoe, as
has been stated, was anchored off a lee shore while the
rest were securely sheltered behind a point. The reply
elicited by his appeal was somnolent rather than respectful,
and the Commodore resolving upon disciplinary measures
in the morning, once more arose and sought the
beach. Professional instinct had not been at fault. There
was the Rochefort full of water, rolling heavily in the
trough of the sea, and banging her cedar broadside
against the stony shore. With that devotion to the
service characteristic of the true sailor, the commanding
officer laid aside at once his trousers and the dignity of
his station, and rescued, at the risk of wetting his remaining
garment, the vessel which the inexperience of a subordinate
had imperiled. In this connection it may be
well to remark that a stone which weighs twelve pounds
out of the water weighs only about seven beneath its
surface. Ignorance of this simple mechanical principle
led a well-meaning and occasionally meritorious officer
into the error of using such a stone for an anchor.
Still the Cook slept when the Commodore returned
from his labor of love, and crept shiveringly into his
blankets.
The hours passed, the sun arose and beat upon the
Cook's face, and still he slept. By the time the occupants
of the tent awoke the sun had performed his toilet so
thoroughly that not a dewdrop remained visible. But
still the Cook slept, and when the Vice saw him he took
in the situation at a glance, and remarked:
"Methinks I remember a cruise in which the Alderman
was temporarily without blankets."
The Vice performed his ablutions, shaved himself,
eyed the fire, walked impatiently around the Cook, and
finally exclaimed:
"Boys, I'm starving, but it's too bad to rouse that
tired wretch. I'll take his place this morning. He does
well enough as a cook, but he has some silly notions that
I'd like to reason him out of. He always cooks with hot
coals; now I propose to show him that a bright blaze is
just as useful, and far sooner made ready. Besides I am
the proud owner of a utensil which is destined to revolutionize
the art of coffee-making." The others were fain
to acquiesce in this arrangement, but the Purser, with
characteristic prudence, put some water to boil in the
regular way. The Statesman meanwhile burrowed among
his stores and shortly appeared bearing the brown paper
parcel which had excited curiosity at the beginning of
the voyage. Tearing off the paper he exhibited a structure
of the general appearance depicted.
The Vice's Coffee Pot before.
"Here," said he, rapidly resolving it into its component
parts, "is the receptacle for the coffee. And you
fill this part—no, this one—with water. Then you put it
on the fire. As soon as it boils you turn it bottom up.
Let's see—no, it was bottom up before; you turn it right
side up and there you are. Coffee strained, not boiled."
This last with a contemptuous glance at the sleeping
cook.
The Vice's Coffee Pot after.
The Vice piled wood upon the fire, and while it blazed
up fiercely he hastily filled the wonderful coffee-pot half
full of water, and set it in the midst of the flames. Five
minutes later the Cook awoke from a dream of hearing a
tin peddler's wagon upset on a stone pavement. Rubbing
his eyes he beheld the Vice, with a long hooked stick,
rescuing various pieces of tin from the fire, and dropping
them upon a boulder near by.[2] The flame had resolved
the wonderful coffee-pot into its dozen or more original
fragments, and as the Vice made a final dive for the spoutless,
handleless, topless vessel, the Cook drawled:
"Some people cook over coals, and some prefer a
blaze."
"Why," spluttered the Vice, as he blew upon a burned
finger, "the Alderman always made coffee over a
blaze."
"Then he did it in a coffee-pot with a bail which
hooked on, instead of being fastened by solder. And
besides he suspended it over the fire after this fashion."
The Vice walked away to his boat in disgust, while the
rest seated themselves about the unprofessional breakfast
which had been made ready. Presently he sauntered
boldly among them with what he was pleased to term a
coffee-cup in hand, looking rather red in the face, but
sturdily demanding his breakfast.
"Some of that potted salmon, Purser. Pass us the
bread, Commodore. I say, Cook, isn't that coffee ready
yet? Commodore, this thing won't work. If fellows are
going to shirk their share of the drudgery, the service will
go to the dogs. What I want is my coffee, and I want it
NOW, do you hear, Cook?"
But the Cook was magnanimous, for he had a coffee-pot
of his own, and though the Vice contended that the
coffee made therein had not the aroma peculiar to that
made in the one which he had loved, and lost, he revealed
the hollowness of his plea, (or his stomach) by drinking
twice as much as any one else did.
The Flag officer deemed the moment a fitting one to
administer, firmly but kindly, a merited rebuke to the subordinate
whose heedlessness had on the preceding night
imperilled the safety of a valuable vessel. On being asked
if he had anything to say in his own defence, the disgraced
officer replied with unblushing effrontery that he
was warm and comfortable when the Commodore waked
him; he was sleepy, and he knew the Commodore would
get up and do what had to be done anyhow, and he didn't
want to get up in the cold and—
A Sporhungan.
Here the Commodore broke in with an authoritative
"Silence, Sir," but as the rest of the fleet went off in convulsions
of irreverent laughter, he thought it best to let
the matter drop.
Saturday is a good day to begin a canoe-cruise. The
unwonted exercise induces weariness which the first night
in camp does not wholly remove, so that a day of rest
and a second night of more refreshing sleep, are usually
acceptable to all. Opposite is what the voyagers
looked at from their camp, throughout that peaceful
Sunday.
At this camp too, the regular details were permanently
and formally arranged. The Scribbler having confirmed
the Commodore's judgment, and evinced a decided genius
for cookery, consented to serve permanently as chef, the
rest taking turns on successive days as foragers, woodcutters,
and dish-washers.
The Sanctuary.
AS the squadron turned out and took its matutinal
swim, soon after sunrise, the lake was dimpled by a
favorable breeze, and after breakfast orders were issued
to make sail.
"I've got to make a spar first, Commodore," exclaimed
the Cook, "my main boom is gone, or hasn't
come, I don't know which."
"Find another at once," said the commanding officer,
and the Cook seized the hatchet, and started into the
timber, returning presently with an elm pole weighing
twenty pounds, nearly half the weight of his boat, his
original boom having been a piece of bamboo weighing
a scant half-pound. By dint of hard work with
hatchet and knife, he worked this log into a makeshift for
a boom.
"I wonder," remarked the Cook, as he dropped his
knife for a moment, and caressed the blistered palms of
his hands, "why all you fellows insist on having decks.
I don't wonder that you two Chrysalids," referring to the
Vice and the Purser, whose boats were of that famous
model, "I don't wonder that you two Chrysalids do it, for
the builder of your boats stupidly decked them before
you bought them, but the Commodore, who, like me, was
sensible enough to buy a Red Lake boat, wasn't satisfied
to leave it free and open as he found it, but has gone and
stretched rubber-cloth over it fore and aft. It's as bad
as sailing in a coffin, to sail in any of them."
The Cook selects a Boom. (Below is the one that was lost.)
"I'd as lieve sail in a coffin as in a bath-tub," replied
the Vice, who, having commanded a blockade-runner
during the late unpleasantness, had a natural fondness for
tight decks and plenty of them.
"A well-covered bath-tub," remarked the Commodore,
"is fully as seaworthy as a mahogany-topped coffin,
and far less suggestive of canoeing on the Styx. But
for a cover of some sort, I confess an affection. It keeps
things dry; if a man capsizes—"
"A canoeist has no business to capsize," interrupted
the Cook, who had learned canoeing on a Western river,
and in a "dug out," which could only be turned over by
the united efforts of at least two men, "and a canoeist has
no right to have 'things' lying so loosely as to drop out."
At length the squadron set sail. The wind had freshened,
and the white caps were as numerous and agitated
as in a large female seminary during a night alarm of fire.
The Commodore, the Vice and the Purser were all experienced
sailors, so they shortened sail, but the Cook,
having never handled a boat under sail before, possessed
his soul of the nautical bliss that comes of ignorance.
Shorten sail? He would show those fellows what a fearless
sailor and a good boat could do, when the wind was
disposed to aid them. The Cook experimented nervously
for a few moments to learn where the sail should
really be to catch the most wind, but when he learned he
made full use of his knowledge, and his boat, the Cherub,
seemed literally to fly. It passed the Becky Sharp, (the
flagship) so rapidly that the Cook had not time to study
the Commodore's face long enough to know how that
official liked it; it passed the Rochefort, causing the Vice
to scowl as if the unoffending Cherub were a member of
the party which the whilom statesman hated; it threw
for an instant the shadow of its great white mainsail on
the Arethusela, darkening the blonde complexion and
golden locks of the Artist-Purser.
Then the Cook began to enjoy his boat and himself.
A pistol which he had in his pocket to be ready for a shot
at some passing water-bird, chafed him somewhat, and he
laid it in the bottom of the boat, where it would be
equally handy and less troublesome. He had heard that
a canoeist should always be barefooted, so he kicked off
his shoes. He pitied his comrades who sat upon the hard
bottoms of their boats as they sailed, while he sat upon
the many folds of a large tent. All the inner lines of his
beautiful canoe were before his eye, instead of being hidden
by decks, as those of his companions were—if, indeed,
there were any beautiful lines any where about
their boats.
The Cook was happy; he fastened the sheet of his
mainsail to a cleat, softly whistling, as he did so, "A
Life on the Ocean Wave," neither thinking nor caring
that the ocean was really several hundred miles away.
He was astonished and delighted that sailing was so easy
an art to acquire, but pshaw—sailors, like poets, are born,
not made. Had not one of his ancestors sailed with
Drake when that hero interfered with the sailing directions
that had been delivered to the Spanish Armada?
What might he not have achieved himself, had cruel fate
not ordained that ink should be his only fluid element?
Just here the Cherub made such astonishing speed that
the Cook determined roughly to "time" his boat, so he
estimated a mile of distance by the trees upon the shore,
opened his watch and laid it in the bottom of the boat,
before his eyes.
But Solomon said that pride must have a fall, and
when there is any unpleasant saying of Scripture to be fulfilled,
a conceited canoeist is as good as any one else that
can be selected for the purpose. The squadron was
approaching a point beyond which its course would be
changed. The Commodore shouted "Ready about!"
and the Cook's self-confidence disappeared as rapidly as
if it had been the conscience of a congressman after an
interview with a "subsidy" lobbyist. "Jibe!" shouted
the Commodore. The Cook, almost in despair, looked
astern, to see what the others did. He saw their masts
straighten, their sails flap irresolutely for a moment, and
then fill on the opposite side. How was it done? Accident
came to the Cook's rescue: a wretched steersman
at best, he had almost forgotten his helm as he looked
astern, and an unintentional turn of the wrist of his steering
hand turned the boat's head from the wind. Around
came the new boom; the Cook had never before seen a
boom come around on his own boat, and he had no idea
of how close the same would come to the plane occupied
by his own head. But the time occupied by an industrious
boom in jibing is not sufficient for prolonged meditation,
and while the Cook was wondering what to do, the boom
attended faithfully to its own business. The elasticity of a
green elm log is an unknown quantity; the Cook's dome
of thought was equally inelastic, so the Cook soon heard
a heavy thud, as when one throws a mighty stone at a
well-laden chestnut tree. Then the Cook heard a splash,
and he was not allowed to remain in doubt as to the
object which caused it. All the terrible stories he had
heard about men who had been carried down by the
sails and rigging of capsizing boats came hurrying into
his mind, and he swam so vigorously to escape a similar
fate, that his boat had time to turn leisurely over and
adjust itself to its new condition before he dared to
pause in his mad career. (See Frontispiece.)
Then the Cook swam to his boat, and resting an elbow
upon her keel, gazed pensively around him. Something
that seemed to be a peculiarly-shaped dark fish, a little
way below the surface in front of him, proved to be
the slowly sinking form of one of his shoes, going to
join its mate. A black bundle, consisting of most of the
Cook's personal effects wrapped in a rubber-blanket, was
rescued by the Commodore just as it seemed discouraged
by the difficulty it experienced in floating. The Cook's
hat, one of the paddles, a covered tin pail containing
butter, a worthless bit or two of board, and sundry other
articles of little value, were picked up by other members
of the expedition, but the indisposition of watches, pistols,
and even wet tents to wander aimlessly about on the
bosom of a lake is known to all students of comparative
specific gravities. The Cook groped for the painter of
his own boat; his other hand he rested upon the stern
of the flagship, and thus the demoralized couple reached
the shore. The remainder of the squadron had already
disembarked, and the Purser made haste to extend the
hospitalities of a private flask, but he robbed the draught
of its flavor by asking, as he passed it,
"Shall I explain to you why canoes are usually
decked?"
And the Cook was so absorbed in contemplation of
his bare feet, that he did not even look up. At length he
inquired as to the depth of the lake; the Vice obligingly
paddled to the scene of the disaster, took soundings, and
reported fifty feet. To go through fifty feet of water to
cover two feet not over dry was not to be thought of, but
what hope was there of replacing lost shoes in a wilderness—even
when Acadia was reached, the natives probably
made and wore only wooden sabots.
The overturned boat was righted, and the Cook
emptied his portmonnaie and laid his money on a sheltered
rock to dry, while he should change his clothing and
restore his boat. Then the Commodore, consulting a
chart, discovered that there was a village only ten miles
distant on the border of the lake, and it was large enough
to justify a hope of shoes: the squadron should put in
there. The delighted Cook proposed an immediate start,
particularly as a force of small boys was approaching.
The village was reached, the Cook found a pair of shoes,
but on attempting to pay for them he remembered having
left his money on a stone to dry. And that stone
was ten miles away, it could only be reached by paddling
against a head wind, and when last seen the ground containing
the stone was occupied in force by boys! The
Cook, as he walked back to his boat, was in a savage frame
of mind, and wanted to hurt somebody or something,
but no one would laugh at him, or offer sympathy.
Suddenly his eye fell upon the extempore boom; a
moment later and that faithful spar which had done
only its honest duty, sank deeply in the lake. The Cook's
credit was good, however, and he succeeded in borrowing
from the Statesman enough money to pay for the
shoes and a blanket, and buy a bamboo fishing-pole from
a casual youth who angled on the adjacent wharf. This
was speedily converted into a boom of proper size and
weight.
"The rest of us may as well go booming, too," remarked
the Commodore, who had been strongly stimulated
by the exhibition of spirit in which the Cook had indulged.
By this time there had gathered about the
squadron quite a crowd. It was, however, a crowd of
great conservatism; each man seemed to have in his
pocket a valuable something, which required the unremitting
contact of his hands, as well as something in his
mouth which would escape were he to part his lips. Occasionally,
however, one would release a hand long
enough to test the weight of the Vice's canoe, which
was the only one that had been drawn entirely out of the
water, and as each of the sixty odd men present did this
at least once, gravely uttering, as he did so, the monosyllable
"Gosh!" the Vice was extremely delighted.
The expletive recalled the days of his innocent youth.
Gosh.
"It is plain to see," said he, "that living right on the
edge of monarchical institutions as they do, these poor
fellows have never before seen a boat of any lightness
and grace."
"Don't forget, please," remarked the Cook, "that my
canoe, which is lighter and faster than yours, was made
in Canada."
Having repaired damages, the squadron proceeded,
paddling side by side along the shore in search of favorable
camping ground.
The Vice's Boom Toggle.
"How does the Alderman toggle his boom, Vice?"
asked the Purser, who during the day had his own private
troubles with that important spar, and was beginning to
have some misgivings as to rig.
"Same as I do mine, with a brass collar for the mast,
and a screw and bolt arrangement to make the boom fast.
See?" And the Vice exhibited his boom where it was
attached to the mast.
"That's just like mine," said the Purser, "and I don't
altogether like it. I believe simple jaws and lashing, such
as you see on any sail-boat, are more convenient."
The Commodore's Sprit.
"No true canoeist will sacrifice style, merely for convenience,"
replied the Vice sententiously. "Now, there
is more style about a Chrysalid than about a Red Laker,
and that more than compensates for their inferior speed,
and carrying capacity, and so on. Every man should have
his boom rigged in the most complicated manner. Now
look at the Cook, and the Commodore. See their booms,
(The Commodore accommodatingly held up the foot of
his mast for inspection,) or sprits rather. They are not
properly booms. Now, that rubber band passed through
a ring, and over a cross-head or a notch on the end of the
sprit, undoubtedly keeps a light sail flatter than any other
contrivance I know of, but there's nothing ship-shape
about it. 'Twouldn't be allowed for a moment in the
navy. You want something that it takes some skill to
manage."
"Thanks," said the Purser, "I see the thing in its
true light now," and he went to work when camp was
reached and fitted jaws to his boom, and even threatened
to adopt the leg-of-mutton sprit-sail before he went
cruising again.
"I don't see," commented the Cook, "why the india-rubber
arrangement should not be adapted to a boom as
well as a sprit. It only requires a little ingenuity, and
would keep the sail quite as flat as does your present
rig."
Rounding a promontory the fleet sighted a wooded
island three-quarters of a mile from shore, and as such an
island is for several reasons preferable to the main land
for camping, they made for it at once and found it all
that their fancy had painted. The fleet with one exception
was hauled upon the beach, but the Vice, anxious
to retrieve his reputation for seamanship, made fast the
painter of the Rochefort to a stone which he could hardly
lift and hove her short under the lee of the point. The
flag-officer silently noticed these preparations, but said
nothing, resolved not to interfere again between the
Rochefort and her commander.
Here again it was found that former generations of campers-out had
sojourned, leaving their lean-to, scientifically constructed of poles
and bark, standing for the accommodation of posterity. As the sun sank
black bass began to break the glassy surface of the lake in search of
their evening meal.
Island Camp.
"Would that the Alderman were here," remarked the
Vice, as he watched the circles widen on the water, and
heard the inspiriting splash as the fish flashed up in the
sun's rays, "he would catch us a string of bass and show
the cook how to fry them, in less than half an hour."
But the Commodore had been putting his rod together,
and having in the course of the day killed a large
bull-frog, he now lashed a portion of its hind leg to a hook
with fine thread and quietly launching the flagship, stood
up in her amidships and made a cast as far out toward
the feeding ground as possible. A vigorous pull rewarded
his effort and almost as soon as the Alderman
could have done it he had two thumping bass and a
good sized chub, or dace, which the Purser and Vice
cleaned and the Cook fried to a turn for supper.
"The Alderman would not have stood up in his boat
to catch these fish," said the Vice with a crisp "second cut
from the tail" on his plate, "that kind of thing isn't
regular."
"No; it would be decidedly irregular in some boats,"
remarked the Cook.
"I'll bet you cigars for the crowd—my choice ones,
that I've preserved carefully in my water-tight,—that I
can throw a line from a Chrysalid."
"Done."
A Vigorous Pull.
The Arethusela had nothing aboard, so the Vice borrowed
her and the Commodore's rod, and pushed out a
few yards from the beach. Then rising gingerly to his
feet he made one or two gentle casts with great circumspection
and was about to claim his wager, but thinking
to perfect his claim, made a third cast, which was a thought
too vigorous. (Result shown on page 65.)
The flag ship was still afloat, and the Commodore being
anxious about his rod, sprang aboard and pushed off
to the rescue, but the Vice sternly waved him back.
"You may take your rod, if you like," said he,
"though I could manage that too well enough, but I'll
show you another point of superiority in a Chrysalid."
The Commodore took the rod and backed off to a
respectful distance. The Arethusela had righted herself
instantly after discharging her occupant, and floated full
of water, but still buoyant from the air in her large water-tight
compartments. The Vice picked up his paddle, and
put it aboard and then swam to the stern, which he
grasped with both hands, and managed by a sudden and
judicious effort to mount.
Then, hitching carefully along, leap-frog fashion, he
was soon seated amidships, bailing the water out with his
hat, the canoe still floating with considerable buoyancy.
"That is well done," was the general verdict. "A
Chrysalid's water-tights are more efficient than those of
a Red Laker provided she has any to bless herself withal."
A little too Vigorous.
"I want to take a bath," said the Commodore, "before
turning in, and as a long enough time has now passed
since supper to reasonably warrant exemption from congestion,
I think I will test my water-tights if the Vice
will permit me so to denominate the bags which serve in
that capacity on board the flag ship. At any rate, I will
prove to you that I can climb aboard a Red Laker without
upsetting. I take precautions, you see, against wetting
my toggery."
Aquatic Leap-frog.
So saying the Commodore stripped, embarked, and
when in deep water jumped overboard, climbing on board
just as the Vice had done, and with about the same ease.
Then he sat on the gunwale and upset his boat, filling her
with water. She floated, but by no means so buoyantly
as had the Arethusela, and the task of climbing on board
was somewhat more critical as the power of flotation
was so much less. However, the water being perfectly
smooth, it was accomplished, and it is probable that the
Commodore could have bailed her out without going
ashore, if he had given time enough to the operation, and
darkness had not come on. As it was, he prudently and
laboriously paddled the water-logged flag ship ashore,
where all hands performed their evening toilettes, and sat
down around the camp fire to enjoy cigars, which the Vice
had promptly handed over to the Cook, remarking that
he did so under protest and stipulating that no precedent
should thereby be established: "For," said he, "I laid a
wager that I could throw a line while standing in the
boat, and no fair-minded man can say I didn't do it."
With the moan of a rising gale in their ears, the
members of the expedition soon dropped off to sleep.
AT dawn the Purser arose and woke the camp with
the blood-curdling cry, "The Rochefort is gone!"
The rest, as soon as they could rub their eyes open,
scanned the lake to leeward, but no trace of the missing
canoe could be seen. The sky was grey with low driving
clouds and the lake repeated the sombre hue, save when it
broke into white before the southerly gale.
With ill concealed reluctance the Commodore offered
to lend his darling Becky to the bereaved Statesman, who
protested that the loss of an election was as nothing in
comparison with his present affliction. It must be admitted,
too, that his remarks as to going in a Red Laker
to the rescue of a Chrysalid, were not altogether gracious.
However, the Purser volunteered to go with him in search
of the runaway, each man following one side of the lake
which was here only about two miles wide. Under the
shortest possible sail, then, they set out, each standing
across the wind at first, so as to close in with the shore
and then follow it down with the wind astern. They
went merrily off riding the white caps like ducks, and
turning to follow the dark wooded shores to the North.
Presently the Purser was observed to broach to, and after
a short time he went ashore, unshipped his mast and proceeded
under paddle. It subsequently transpired that
the sea wrenched off one of the "gudgeons" which held
the rudder, and he was thereupon disabled for sailing
purposes. The wind, however, was dead astern, and he
progressed almost as easily and as fast as if he had not
lost his helm.
"His Ship she was a-wrack."
Meanwhile the Vice proceeded, anxiously scanning the
coast, and at length had the pleasure of discovering the
runaway some three miles down the lake, full of water,
and with the sea, in dear old Robinson Crusoe's immortal
words, "making a clean breach over her." That she
was not stove into match-wood speaks well for her builder's
workmanship. She had carried her anchor with her
all the way, having been hove so short that she gradually
worked off the steep beach as the wind and sea rose, and
had not even cable enough out to anchor her off the lee
shore on which she finally brought up.
As the Vice approached her, the buoyant Red-Laker
rising cork-like with him on the white capped waves, he
could not but be struck by the ship-shape appearance of
the wreck. As has been intimated, the Vice is distinguished
for elaboration of equipment, and he had anchored
his canoe the night before with her sails beautifully furled,
and every strand of her multitudinous running rigging
exactly in position. Now she looked for all the world like
a miniature frigate cast away on a rocky coast, and the
solitary spectator half expected to discover a crew of pigmies
clinging to her hatch-combings, as he drew near.
The first thing to be done however, was to signal the
Purser, who was coasting the opposite shore. To beach
his borrowed boat with such a sea running, and where
there was not any beach but boulders, was a problem
which might easily have floored the greatest statesman,
but the Commodore is glad to certify, that the task was
accomplished with due regard for the welfare of the flagship,
and this while the Vice's own beloved Rochefort was
perhaps banging herself to pieces on the boulders.
By dint of firing his revolver and waving his dandy,
unshipped for the purpose, he succeeded in attracting the
Purser's attention, and saw him change his course. This
done, he waded to the stranded Rochefort, expecting to
find her hopelessly broken amidships, but on getting her
off the rocks, she floated as well as ever, showing that her
compartments were still uninjured; so, anchoring her in
waist-deep water, with her head to the sea, the Vice
proceeded to bail.
Why this amber hue of the water? Alas, the Vice
carried the coffee of the fleet and it was not in a water-tight
box. Why this slight saccharine quality? Alas
again, the Vice carried the expeditionary sugar. The
coffee did not prove a total loss. Persistent boiling
extracted from it a passable beverage, which served until
a market town was reached, but the sugar was past redemption.
By the time the Purser had reached the scene of disaster
the wreck was pumped dry, and careful inspection
showed that she was wholly uninjured save as regards a
few bruises. So the Vice unshipped her masts, and
rightly judging that the Becky Sharp would be the easiest
to tow, made fast her painter, and started on the long
paddle against the wind back to camp.
To the rest of the fleet this escapade argued poor
seamanship on the part of the Vice, but to him it only
proved the moral obliquity of his boat. In order to
shield his own reputation, he ruthlessly alleged against
her the most abominable nautical crimes, and would
never trust her alone thereafter, unless she was tied to a
large tree or a huge boulder.
The Purser, meanwhile, noting the shoreward trend
of the waves, instituted a successful search for his lost
rudder, which he found ashore in a quiet cove. On returning
to camp, he and the Vice admitted that there are
certain advantages connected with a steering oar, which
do not belong to a rudder, and each resolved thereafter
to carry a suitable row-lock, so as not to be entirely
disabled for sailing in case of accidents. Nevertheless,
while a rudder holds, it is certainly more convenient than
a paddle to steer with, but at the same time it necessitates
an awkward amount of stern-post, which renders the
boat hard to turn, and has usually to be shipped and unshipped
in changing from sail to paddle. For this reason
the Vice is accustomed to remark, that it is always well
to have another fellow at hand in a Red-Laker to render
aid in emergencies. Of course it was necessary to dry
the Rochefort before proceeding, and it was afternoon
before the Purser had repaired his steering gear, and
everything was in readiness. There is always enough to
do however, so all hands busied themselves in sundry
tinkerings until after dinner, when, as the sky had cleared
and the wind had somewhat moderated, the order was
given to make sail, and the pretty island was speedily left
behind, the fleet skimming along the wooded shore like
a flock of white sea gulls.
Now whatever advantages a Chrysalid may possess
over and above a Red-Laker, she is nowhere in point of
speed on a free wind. Consequently the first division
invariably ran away from the second, and was obliged
every little while to lie by and wait for it to come up.
After his first experience in jibing, the Cook had been
content for awhile to trust to a spruce breeze, and indeed
there had been since his overturn no favoring wind until
now. He soon acquired commendable skill in laying a
straight course. He no longer zig-zagged over the lake
as at first. Evidently, however, something weighed upon
his mind, for as with his companion boat he entered a bay
to wait for the second division:
"Commodore," said he.
"Well?"
"I say, what is tacking anyhow?"
"Why it's working to windward."
"Yes, I know, but how do you do it?"
"O, I see. You don't understand the theory of sailing
a boat. Well, I must own you're a plucky one. And
you've done mighty well too."
Then the Commodore made his companion lie to,
while the flagship worked past him to windward by
short tacks. The Cook with his usual aptitude soon
caught the idea and satisfactorily put it in practice.
Then, as the breeze was moderate, there followed
lessons in "jibing" and "wearing," with explanations
of the circumstances under which each was
necessary.
By the time the second division rounded the point,
the Cook's spirits had risen, and he began once more to
prate of his piratical ancestry who knew no home but the
ocean.
"What were you two benighted Red Lakers doing
in the bay this side of Black Point?" asked the Vice as
the party sat by the fire that evening.
"Merely a little discussion as to merits of rig, and the
best way of handling a boat, with practical illustrations,"
said the Cook, who clung frantically to the remnant of
his reputation for seamanship, and trusted to the Commodore's
magnanimity not to expose him.
"O, that was it, eh? And what conclusions did you
reach with your Red Lake monstrosities?"
"We had plenty of time to reach any conclusions,
and have them illustrated and published, and sell a dozen
editions before you came along," retorted the Cook.
"We were trying experiments," said the Commodore
adroitly, "in going about, and we concluded that the
best way was to come up into the wind as sharp as you
like, hauling in a little on the dandy sheet to help, and
then as soon as the mainsail shivers, give her one or two
strokes with the paddle, let go your dandy sheet, hold
your boom over till the mainsail fills, and her head falls
off, shift your paddle to the lee side and there you are."
"Yes," said the Vice, who is a devoted adherent of a
"sliding gunter" rig with full boom and gaff, standing
lug, dandy, jib and flying jib, as distinguished from the
two leg-of-mutton sails carried by the Red Lakers.
"Yes, there you are indeed with your steering paddle
and other unseamanlike contrivances. Now let me show
you how a Chrysalid goes about. We will suppose this
log to be the canoe."
"Parallel exact, so far," broke in the Cook, "Go
ahead." Taking no notice of the interruption the Vice
proceeded, seating himself astride the log.
"We will suppose the canoe to be under full sail on
the port tack, with everything drawing. Order is given
'ready about,' crew spring to stations. Helmsman gives
her a good full, passes port tiller-rope over his shoulder,
takes it in his teeth and has his paddle handy. Let go
flying jib halyards, and in with your down haul. Let go
main sheet, and if you get a chance, haul in a little on the
dandy. Round with your helm. When the mainsail
begins to shiver, top your boom or lift it clear while she
swings. If she don't come round, help her with your
paddle. Let go dandy sheet if you hauled in on it. Let
go topping lift, slack away weather jib sheet as soon as
she is pointed on starboard tack. Bowse in flying jib
halyards, letting mainsail take care of itself, make all fast,
haul in main sheet, and there you are all ship-shape."
"And hull down astern of the Red Lakers," added
the Commodore.
During this explanation the Vice had, after his own
enthusiastic fashion, gone through all the motions, as he
described them, and when he appealed to his auditors to
know if it was not a far more artistic performance than
that which the Commodore described, no one had a
word to say.
"Just tell us, Vice," said the Cook, "how many ropes
have you to attend to?"
"O there are only a few," responded the Vice, curiously
enough not seeing the trap into which he was falling,
"There are the dandy halyards, sheet and brail, that's three,
main halyards—peak and throat—sheet, brail, and topmast
halyards, that's seven, jib halyards, down haul, outhaul
and sheets, that's twelve. Flying jib ditto ditto, that's
seventeen. Tiller ropes and painter, that's all, total
twenty. Oh, yes, and there's the signal halyards, that's
twenty-two, or twenty-three if you have a pair on your
topmast."
"He does get ahead of us, that's a fact, Commodore,"
drawled the Cook. "Now I can only make out two halyards,
two sheets and a painter, five in all, unless I count
my fish-line, and he has twenty-three. I give it up."
"Yes," said the Vice musingly, "when you are in a
Chrysalid canoe, properly rigged, you have a sense of
completeness, not to be attained elsewhere." Then suddenly
changing the subject:
"I thought," said he, as he helped himself to an eighth
slice of toast, "that I was lucky when the Cook kindly
volunteered to carry my tent as a seat, and thus relieve my
boat from a certain amount of weight, but now I am wondering
under what cover this expedition will sleep tonight."
It so happened that the expedition had not yet
felt the loss of their tent, having at the different camps
chanced upon lean-tos and other adequate substitutes.
"When you lack information on any matter connected
with canoeing," said the Cook, "come to me." The Cook
emptied his third cup (pint) of coffee, unrolled a pack in
his boat, and displayed a piece of stout sheeting, five
yards long and two and three-quarter yards wide, with
four rope loops at each end for tent pins, and a row of
button-holes, a foot apart, along each edge. He also displayed
two triangular pieces of the same material, at the
bases of each of which were three loops for pins, and along
the other two sides a row of buttons.
The Cook's Tent.
"Button these together properly," said he, "set the
whole affair up on poles, and cross pole, or across a rope
strung tightly between two trees, and you have a larger
and better ventilated tent than the one I left in the lake;
it won't weigh half as much, either. Except in very cold
weather or driving rain, the end pieces will not be necessary.
Indeed, it can be set over a canoe, so as to cover
all the open portion of the boat."
The Cook's Tent.
The whole supper table gazed admiringly, until the
Commodore asked,
"Why have the holes, instead of the buttons, on the
main piece?"
"So that you may affix the ends either from the inside
or outside. The latter is the easier way, but occasionally
the wind blowing from the front, will come in
very freely between the fastenings outside, so that the
canoeist who drops asleep with a head full of pleasant
dreams, will awake with a head full of neuralgia."
"And if it rains, what is to prevent this tent from leaking
like a sieve, and distributing shower baths impartially
among the clean and the unclean?"
"Two things—a steep pitch or a neat coat of oil,"
said the Cook.
"The water-proof of the pudding is in the eating,"
remarked the Commodore, who had begun to yawn.
"Set the tent at once."
The tent was set on a line between two trees, the
front remaining open, and half an hour later there lay
within it four men who were beginning fully to realize
how delicious weariness may become, when it is earned
by the body instead of the brain. With sand for
mattresses, and a rubber blanket each for sheets, they
slept more soundly than they had ever done at home
upon springs and between linen. The only visitations
they experienced were heavenly ones. Venus glided past
the open front, but saw no one there over whom her fastidious
gaze cared to linger. Saturn peeped suspiciously
in, but passed on contentedly, assured that in the presence
of such sound sleepers his rings were as safe as if
they were Indian Rings at Washington. Mars glared in
with his great red face, but the quartette had been all
day on the water, under an unfamiliar sun, so there were
four fiery faces to Mars' one, and the blazing old fellow
went off in a huff and got behind a little cloud to hide his
mortification.
IF the reader has watched with any interest, the development
of what may perhaps without offence be
termed canoebial character, he must have been pained to
observe that however fair minded the average canoeist
maybe in other respects, neither his judgment nor his
statements can be trusted where his own boat is concerned.
Of this fact each member of the expedition became
convinced in the course of the first day out, and the
authors deem it their duty to warn the public against indiscriminate
belief in the virtues ascribed to different
canoes by their respective owners.[3] The Statesman, who
has associated to some extent with sporting men, says,
that he has observed a like trait in owners of horses, dogs
and yachts, and all know that every mother discovers
in her own children beauties and virtues which no other
living being is able to perceive. Why then, should
a trait which is beautiful in one case be scoffed at in
another? The authors hold that a sublime faith in one's
own canoe, is one of the noblest sentiments that can animate
the human breast.
Morning opened with the usual brisk breeze ruffling
the lake from the south, and the fleet made all preparations
to continue the voyage under sail. Hardly,
however, were they clear of the land when the wind fell
suddenly, and in a wonderfully short space of time the
lake was like a mill pond. An occasional puff of wind
however, justified keeping sails set, and so alternating from
paddle to canvas, a broad expanse was passed, and the
"narrows" neared where mountains seemed trying to
shoulder one another into the lake, and where, as if they
had fallen off in the scuffle, several rocky, wood-crowned
islands floated double as it were, on the glassy water. By
the time the shadow of the woods was reached, all hands
were glad to stop until the declining sun should make
motion a little more endurable, so a cool and shady nook
was selected where several hours were spent in meditative
contemplation of as lovely a panorama as ever rested the
eyes of leisurely voyagers.
This laisser aller fashion of cruising is the only really
enjoyable plan. Your restless spirits will push on and
make their twenty-five miles a day, rain or shine, but
your philosopher is content it may be with five or six,
and recks not if he be obliged to cut his journey short at
its latter end. So the hours drifted slowly by until the
mountains threw their shadows across the lake, and a
gentle breeze once more invited action.
It took only an hour or two to run out from the shadow
of the mountain range, and see stretching out toward the
north the low lying hills which characterize the broad St.
Lawrence Valley, for thitherward tend in the Canadas
all waters that run down hill. The lake, too, spread out
again, its edges bordered by extensive shallows whereon
grew tall graceful bulrushes, each of which rose six or
eight feet or more above the water, tapering beautifully
and smoothly from near an inch in diameter at the base,
to a needle-like point at the top. Sometimes when the
wind was fresh, the cruisers would run in among them.
There was something peculiarly fascinating in thus flying
through vast green stretches of rustling, bending reeds.
The breeze was almost wholly checked near the water,
but the peaks of the sails caught it above the supple
rushes, and the canoes went whistling through them,
their sharp bows dividing the green stems as they flew
along, and a broad swath bowing under the booms as
they swung out to leeward.
Now and then a startled marsh hen, or wild fowl
of some sort, would rise almost from under the gunwales
and go scuttling off, frightened half to death at the unwonted
invasion of her retreat. The solitude was perfect.
"Green grow the Rushes, oh!"
The canoeists could see nothing of one another when separated
by a few yards. Any one might have upset and
been left far behind, before the rest could have discovered
his loss, and then the chance of ever finding him would
have been as one to a hundred. However the water was
only two or three feet deep, so that there was no actual
danger. Along such tracts as this the fleet coasted this afternoon,
and there was no apparent prospect of getting
beyond, or through the reeds to find a camp. The lake
was wide, and it was not expedient to cross it so near
nightfall, and with a threatening sky. So sails were
prudently furled and the four cruisers paddled along
hoping to find, somewhere, an opening through which
the land could be reached. The sky grew dark. Rain
began to plash around, and suddenly night shut down,
with a cold driving mist and not a glimmer of light to
show the bearings, save an occasional momentary gleam
from one of the little light-houses away off toward the
north. The fleet had drawn out into the lake in order to
get a better sight at the coast line, and here it rode with
the heaving water all around, and no means of steering to
a place of safety. The Vice had taken the bearings with
his compass, but now as fast as a lantern was lighted to
steer by, the wind blew it out, so there was nothing for it
but keep together, and steer by the sea. After a somewhat
anxious time, with startling suddenness, a long
dark wall seemed to rise through the rain and drive
straight forward over the lake. "Hold all" was the
word for a moment, but there was no roar of surf, only
a whistling murmur as of a million wings. Then the
dark wall opened and the reeds were recognized as
old friends. The course in which the fleet was heading,
had been entirely problematical, for the wind was very
gusty and variable, but it was certain that among the
countless slender stems was safety from the fiercest gale
that ever blew. Pushing inward for a hundred yards or
so, the boats were moored side by side, to sheaves of
reeds, and their occupants proceeded to make themselves
as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances,
feeling, as the Cook remarked, better able than ever before
to appreciate the early experiences of Moses.
Now, if ever, was the time to try the Purser's "Rob
Roy cuisine." He had imported it at great outlay of
treasure from England and had repeatedly explained its
beauties, but having received it just on the eve of departure
from New York, he had never practically tested its
virtues, and the professional prejudices of the Cook were
so obstinately in favor of a wood fire, that he could never
be persuaded to use a substitute. This "cuisine" is a
canoeing device invented by Mr. Macgregor, the father
of modern canoeing. In external appearance it is a circular
box of plated copper. The main part of the box is
used as a stew-pan, the top as a frying-pan. Moreover
it contains, compactly fitted, an alcohol blast-lamp, and
a multitude of little cooking contrivances which are
admirable under circumstances like those in which the
command was now placed. The Purser knew by heart the
theoretical rules for managing the cuisine, but as has
been stated, had never put them in practice.
By the light of the little lanterns, he now took out the
compact apparatus, opened it, filled the lamp, placed the
standard on his forward deck, struck a match and applied
it to the aperture. An innocent, bluish flame appeared,
flickered for a moment, gathered strength, burst into a
roar, shot upward three feet, shook itself, and prepared
seemingly to consume the entire fleet. The Purser shrank
backward as far as the narrow limits of his Chrysalid
would allow, and glared helplessly at the vicious little
engine, while he made abortive efforts to reduce it to
decorum. The rest shipped their cables and hauled off,
leaving him to his fate.
"Kick it overboard."
"Put your hat on it."
"Blow it out."
"Douse that glim," were some of the directions
shouted, as muskrats skurried away into the darkness,
and an owl and one or two bats swooped within the circle
of light to see what was up. But the Purser remembered
the bill he had paid, and resolved to risk his life rather
than lose his "cuisine."
As the roaring continued without abatement and with
no disastrous results, it presently occurred to the Cook
that here was a splendid heat going to waste. In a trice
he had the coffee pot in position, and in a marvelously
short time more each man had a cup of hot coffee and a
rude sandwich, cut hap-hazard from a half soaked loaf.
The Rob Roy cuisine was unanimously voted a success,
where for any reason an ordinary fire cannot be lighted.
It is not pretended that a remarkably comfortable
night followed this episode, but it was much better than
driving aimlessly before the wind on the lake, and most
of the party managed to get some sleep under their
rubber blankets. At any rate the expedition was safe,
and its members could listen without concern to the gale
that roared a few feet over their heads, but touched
them not.
Morning dawned on a somewhat forlorn set of
castaways. Every man was more or less damp,
not to say wet, and the Vice with his bedraggled mutton-chop
whiskers presented a peculiarly lugubrious appearance
as he exasperated the Americans of the party by
singing in the pitch of an Irish "keen" the old Southern
air "Maryland, My Maryland."
The day promised to be a fair one, and by sunrise
land had been reached, a fire built, dry clothes extracted
from bags and water-tight compartments, and amiability
once more asserted its mild and benignant sway over
the depressed spirits of the command. This was the last
day on the lake, although its lower end was on a small
scale what the geographers might almost term a lacustrine
river. It was broad, that is, and at times nearly
currentless. The nominal division between lake and
river, however, was marked by a railway bridge and here
it was understood the fleet must stop for official recognition
by her majesty's representative before crossing the
Dominion line. The town lay low along the lake shore,
and under the shelter of a wooden breakwater the fleet
successfully effected a landing. The Commodore, after a
few moments spent in making himself look as respectable
as possible, set off on his official visit to the British
Consulate. As he departed, the Vice asked if the needed
stores were not to be purchased at this point, and before
the expedition entered alien if not hostile waters.
"But the Consul's brow was sad."
"Of course not," said the Cook. "You can buy better
things for half the money in Canada."
"Under a monarchical government," added the Purser.
"That is undoubtedly the best plan," said the Commodore.
"Now look here. I'm a citizen of the United States,"
began the Vice, but, the Purser, the Cook and the Commodore
fled in as many different directions and left him
gesticulating solus upon the lonely shore.
Presently the Commodore returned, followed shortly
by the British Consul, who wished to assure himself that
the squadron was not the advance guard of a Fenian expedition.
The Vice begged the right to receive him officially
in the Commodore's stead, and this favor being
granted, the Consul was treated to half an hour of impassioned
eloquence upon the rights of man.
Meanwhile the breeze freshened and inflated itself to
the size of a gale. Sloops and sail boats began to huddle
together behind the little breakwater. The custom-house
officer kindly offered to find a trusty guard for the canoes
while their officers should go ashore, but the suggestion
was declined with thanks. The Purser longed to be on
British soil once more, the Vice was impatient to pat his
own love of country on the back, by observing how much
more miserably England's subjects exist than do those of
his own happy land, the Commodore saw a fort in the distance,
which he and the Cook, having once been soldiers,
were impatient to inspect, and the Cook pined for Canada,
because he understood that the expeditionary butter pail
might there be more cheaply refilled. Then the humane
custom-house officer appealed to their sense of personal
safety, to their regard for the friends and creditors who
might miss them if they were drowned, as they surely
would be if they ventured out in such a storm. But the
eye of Britannia was gazing upon the expedition from
under the pith helmet of the Consul, so the Commodore
roared,
"Prepare to pass bridge! Strike standing rigging!
Club and private signals fore and aft!"
"One minute, Commodore," shouted the Vice, who
was dancing frantically about his boat, "where shall I display
the flag of Our Country?" And the Vice reverently
drew a small American flag from his bosom.
"Display it in your pocket," replied the Commodore,
rudely. "Forward!"
The Vice glared angrily, and got as far with a reply
as to shout, "The Alderman always—" when the sight
of the Cherub, the Arethusela and the Becky Sharp,
dancing vivaciously on the big waves as their respective
commanders plied their paddles rapidly, each with the
intention of being the first to pass between the piles of the
bridge and cross the Dominion line, caused the Vice to become
inspired with the strongest sentiment acquired in the
practice of statesmanship, namely, that nothing is so disastrous
as to be left behind. The wind being directly
abaft, there could be no possible doubt as to the fate of
any commander or boat that might be dashed against
the piles, particularly if he first got into the trough of the
sea, and was cast up broadside. Each man braced himself,
leaning warily forward, each paddle performed wondrous
and unexpected gyrations in air, and the colors
vanished and darted up again like guidons in a cavalry
fight. The commodorial helmet was blown off at this
juncture, and in recovering it the flag ship had fallen
some distance to the rear. Noting this with some disgust,
the Commodore successfully executed a tactical movement
which redounded greatly to his own glory. He shouted,
"On, first division, deploy column. Squadron into line;
Guide Right, March! (when manœuvering the squadron,
the Commodore was everlastingly bothered by unbidden
reminiscences of army tactics, which led him to enunciate
orders applicable to the handling of a battalion instead of
a fleet).
The effect of this command was to subject the squadron
to the moral influence of discipline; it was also to
arrest for an instant the progress of the three boats which
had distanced the Commodore's, for it was the flagship
itself that was at the right, and upon this the squadron
was to align itself. The principal effect was to give the
wily Commodore the advantage of a boat's length. The
Vice comprehended the trick only when it was too late,
and the gnashing of his teeth could be distinctly heard
above the whistling of the gale. But if distanced by
trickery, he at least could console himself with patriotism,
which is the last refuge of a Statesman.[4] Wildly he
snatched the flag of his country from his pocket; proudly
he waved it aloft as the nose of his canoe shot safely between
the piles. Gloriously the holy rag fluttered in the
air for an instant; then it wrapped a fold about a huge oak
splinter of one of the under-timbers of the bridge, which
nearly dislocated the Vice's shoulder in passing. Then
it concluded to remain where it was, and there it flutters
to this day, to show to timorous mariners where the gallant
Vice passed the bridge. As for the Vice himself, he
dropped, his paddle as he emerged, several lengths behind
every body else, into the comparatively still water behind
the bridge; then he rubbed his agonized shoulder, and
remarked,
"Patriotism always did play the devil with Statesmen."
The United States Garrison.
The squadron now drifted under the granite walls of
a United States fort, which commanded the approaches
from Her Majesty's dominions. It bore the marks of
neglect usually seen in an unoccupied and unfinished fort,
but as the canoes drew near, signs of life manifested
themselves about the sally-port, and in less time than it
takes to write it the entire garrison had embarked and
was advancing to reconnoitre the approaching fleet. A
parley ensued to the mutual edification of both parties,
and then the race for the Dominion line was resumed and
easily won by the Purser, who paddled into water so shoal
that the mud was visible just below the surface. He
turned his boat on her centre as rapidly as a man could
do with a canoe of the Chrysalid pattern; then he arose
and exclaimed, as the Vice and the Cook drew up,
The Purser on British Soil.
"Gentlemen, this is the first time in eight years that
I've stood upon British soil. 'God save the Queen!'
say I, and three cheers"—
"You're not on British soil," interrupted the Vice;
"you're on British water." But the Purser, unmindful
of the interruption, had got as far as "hip, hip!"—when
the motion of raising his hat destroyed his equilibrium,
and a second later he was more than knee deep in a
hummock of greyish-blue mud.
"Now you're on British soil," continued the Vice;
"how do you like it as far as you've got?"
But the unchanged ecstasy of the Purser's patriotic
face banished from the hearts of his companions any
memories of '76 and 1812 that might have been hiding
there, and the three cheers were heartily given with a
supplementary "tiger," which was fully as noisy as if it
had been one of the tigers native to the royal lady's own
Indian Empire.
The Purser extracted himself with some difficulty
from his native clay, and all paddled to a shelving beach
for the noontide rest, the Cook and the Commodore striking
up "God save the Queen," out of compliment to the
Purser. The others joined in and the notes of the noble
old anthem rang far across the water until it was noticed
that the Vice was patriotically roaring the words:
"My Country 'tis of thee
Sweet land of libertee,"
instead of the original. The other two Americans,
although they were old United States soldiers, could not
brook this gratuitous affront to their English companion,
so they vigorously attacked the Vice with their paddles
and spattered him till he was fain to cry "quarter."
Then the bows grated on the sand, and springing lightly
ashore, the Vice mounted a boulder and delivered himself
as follows, while the rest, dumb with amazement, sat in
their boats to listen and applaud:
[5]"Far be it from me fellow-citiz—mariners, to disturb
the harmony of this joyful occasion. We are
gathered tonight almost upon the very spot where Chartreaux
and Champlain and Vanjohn and Rouget Noir
fit the Injuns and made them knuckle to the Jesuit
Fathers, with none to molest nor make them afraid.
Here subsequently Lord Howe and Commodore Vanderbilt
marched their squadrons and manœuvered their
battalions, and spliced the main brace, and shivered their
timbers according to the dictates of their own consciences.
Did any of them ever go back on their environment?
No; contrariwise they harmonized, and shall we their
successors fail to do likewise? Never, gentlemen, never.
It has been hurled in our faces by the honorable gentleman
from England, that the great republic is rotten with
corruption—that our highest officers are not above
peculation. Let me ask that honorable gentleman and
his allies (here the Statesman indicated the Commodore
and the Cook,) if any president of the United States ever
stole corn meal and had his disgraceful act perpetuated
in his country's literature? I pause for a reply. None?
Then none has ever done such a deed. And yet, gentlemen,
it is recorded of one of the most exemplary of English
monarchs that he not only stole the then current
equivalent of corn meal, but caused it to be used
on the royal table. I invite you to join me in singing
a song to the glory of Old England—one, two,
three; sing!
(Air Auld Lang Syne.)
When good King Arthur ruled this land,
He was a goodly king.
He stole three pecks of barley meal,
To make a bag-pudding.
A bag-pudding the Queen did make,
And stuffed it well with plums,
And in it put great lumps of fat,
As big as my two thumbs.
The King and Queen did eat thereof,
And noblemen beside,
And what they could not eat that night,
The Queen next morning fried.
(Great applause.)
"Can anything more clearly indicate a low moral sentiment
than the existence, and acknowledged popularity
of this song? Fellow citizens (carried away by the tide
of eloquence the Statesman forgot to say shipmates) and
you, sir, whose alien friendship I am proud to own,
although the unfortunate accident of a foreign birth (for
which I cannot blame you,) opens a chasm between us—fellow
citizens, I have done. My native land is behind
me. I now appeal for protection to the Queen of England,
and for the time being repudiate the American
Eagle—though with all his faults I love him still."
Amid thunders of applause the Vice jumped down
and inquired why luncheon was not ready.
After an hour's rest and refreshment in a sheltered
nook, the squadron proceeded on its way under paddle,
the wind having died out, making for a heavily wooded
island visible several miles distant, on which it was surmised
there would be good camping ground. Islands
indeed proved to be the most satisfactory camping places
that were found during the expedition, and were invariably
selected when practicable.
The squadron paddled socially along, side by side,
until the Cook stopped his stroke and fell behind. As
he seemed to be engaged in making some not very satisfactory
arrangement of his luggage, the Commodore
ranged alongside and asked what was the matter.
"I can't fix my seat so as to be comfortable."
"Thought so."
"How do you fix yours?"
"Why this way," and the Commodore, vacated his
seat, turning round and sitting on his forward thwart, so
as to afford an unobstructed view. The two other canoes
had now drawn near.
"Look at that," said the Vice. "He can stand up
and turn round without upsetting in that old tub of his."
"So can I," said the Cook, suiting the action to the
word.
"So cannot we," said the Purser, and the Vice. "But
what are you looking at?"
It is a characteristic of Chrysalid canoeists that they
never notice anything outside of their own boats until
they bring up all standing, as it were, against it. Hence
the Commodore's seat was a novelty to them, and they
gazed upon it with mute admiration.
A Canoe Seat.
The blocks in which the cross-pieces rest, are screwed
to the inside of the canoe. The cross-pieces are ash sticks
about an inch in diameter. They are fourteen inches
apart. Over and around them is passed a piece of fourteen
inch canvas, with grommets for lacing on the under
side. The seat should have a slight slope aft and should
be so placed that a back-board will rest conveniently
against the after thwart or bulkhead. If the cross-pieces
spring too much, two bits of wood cut to fit between
them on either side of the canvas will make the whole
structure very firm and elastic. A simpler arrangement is
a movable thwart made of half-inch pine, with cross-pieces
tongued and grooved across the ends to prevent splitting.
If made eighteen inches wide, such a thwart may be used
for a lee-board, as the canoeist should sit on or near the
bottom of his craft when under canvas.
"There are some advantages about Red Lake canoes,"
said the Vice.
"Very plebeian though," said the Cook, satirically;
"their principal mission is to go cruising with Chrysalids
in the capacity of tenders."
"Yes," said the Vice, "I admit their carrying capacity."
"And their superior speed," said the Cook.
"And their great stability," added the Commodore.
So with cheerful chaff the fleet went on its way, and in
a couple of hours was making camp on a pretty island,
evidently a resort for picnickers and which was playfully
called "Murderer's Isle," from an unpleasant episode of
early days.
The Commodore, having noted an abundance of drift
lying about, detailed himself to procure fire-wood, and
stretched at full length upon the dry sand, leisurely
tossed fragments of wood toward the spot where the
Cook was engaged in the soothing attempt to light a fire
with damp paper and wet matches, and the Purser was
scraping, within the water's edge, a hole to be used after
supper as a dish-pan, when the expedition suddenly obtained
its first foreign view of the picturesque. From the
shore of the main land there crept out something which
at first bore itself somewhat as indicated on the next page.
The Picturesque afar.
It finally resolved itself into a strange craft which
seemed to be a generous pig-trough remodelled by one
with yearnings after the art of the undertaker. Standing,
yet bent nearly double, in the stern was a slight,
short old man, clothed in raiment utterly unlike anything
which any member of the expedition had ever
seen at home. The old man paddled his boat at a
surprising rate of speed directly toward the camp of
the expedition, and as he did so the gazers gradually
lost their enjoyment of the picturesque in the realization
of a dread duty about to devolve upon them for the first
time during the cruise. The old man being a Canadian,
it naturally resulted that he must be a Frenchman, and
incapable of English. Who was to converse with him?
The Cook, who had picked up some French among the
Louisiana creoles, but had not for ten years heard or
spoken a word of the beautiful language, modestly retired
behind the Commodore's broad shoulders. The silence
began to be terrible, but it was bliss compared with the
sensation with which the group shuddered when the
strange craft slid noiselessly and darkly up the beach, and
her crew partially undoubled himself and remarked,
"Wahu ei hoo mi eh ha ma?"
The Picturesque anear.
Three mariners involuntarily dropped back a pace or
two; the fourth (the Cook) felt secure in his inconspicuousness
until he discovered that he had been dropped to
the ground by the Commodore's backward movement,
and that the Commodore was nervelessly sitting upon
him. At length the Vice, whose admiration for the
French Commune had caused him to immure himself
many a night with some ex-Communists who had escaped
to America, asked in faltering tones,
"Q'est-ce-que vous voulez?"
"That's it," gasped the Cook, as he endeavored to
reanimate the Commodore's spinal cord with the sharp
end of a quill toothpick, "make the ancient mariner explain
himself."
But the Ancient Mariner only shook his head with a
vague look, and said,
"O hyu wuh oo mi en?"
Wahu ei hoo mi eh ha ma?
Then the Commodore, who had lived a year in Paris,
and was familiar with the polite phrases there in vogue,
said,
"Voulez-vous pourboire?"
The old man shook his head, scrutinized the
party closely, read the names of the boats, and exclaimed,
"Haw hihi."
Then the Purser, who before he left Oxford had made
a French translation of the "Antigone" of Sophocles,
which competent judges pronounced superior to that of
Voltaire, stepped a pace to the front to hide his blanched
countenance, and said,
"Nous ne comprenons pas."
And the old man replied,
"Haw hihi, hahu?"
By this time the Cook, who had extricated himself
from beneath the ruins of the Commodore, was discreetly
and rapidly seeking the leafy coverts of the forest, but
the Vice detected him and dragged him back. The
Cook put on an air of bravery and exclaimed,
"It's no use, boys; I'm convinced that he's a Basque,
who has strayed up into France, and somehow got over
here. I speak half a dozen languages, but there are no
affinities between the Basque and any other known dialect.
It will be just as well to talk English to him as
anything else, so here goes. Say, old friend, we don't
know what you're driving at, but"—here a happy thought
struck the Cook, "say it over again." And while the
Cook listened attentively, the old man repeated his first
inquiry,
"Wahu ei hoo mi eh ha ma?"
"Certainly!" exclaimed the Cook briskly, "how
much do you ask for them?"
"Hihi heh," replied the old man with great animation.
"It's a bargain," said the Cook; "Purser, please give
the ancient mariner half a dollar?" And then the Cook,
with the air of a man who comprehended the wisdom of
the ages, explained to his astonished auditors. "Gentlemen,
our visitor is not a Frenchman at all; he is an
Irishman whose palate has departed, and he wants to
know if we will buy two pike and a bass—'hoo mi eh ha
ma,'—you know." The old man in the meantime hurried
to his boat, paddled off to a crate anchored on the edge
of the channel, and returned with a string of fish in the
full vigor of life.
The three linguists sat deliberately down upon the
sand, and their lips remained closed until coaxed from
their obduracy by the mingled odors of coffee, fried fish,
buttered toast and canned peaches. The Vice was heard
to mutter, "French I can talk and most patois I can
understand, but Basque complicated with loss of palate
throws me." Presently however he began to exhibit symptoms
of his accustomed loquacity.
Supper Table.
It so happened that the supper table was sustained
by resting against the cut-water of the Cherub, and it
gradually dawned upon the Vice that there was something
peculiar about her construction, something, that
is, different from the construction of a Chrysalid
which is built in the orthodox style, known as lap-streak
or clinker, the planks being of quarter-inch white cedar,
and the timbers of well seasoned oak. Said he, addressing
the owners of the Red Lakers:
"Why don't the joints between your planking show?"
"Because the boats are not built in that way," said
the Cook.
"But that's no way to build a boat; the seams can't
be made tight unless the planks over-lap. Look at the
Rochefort."
"Very true," said the Commodore, "but our boats
don't seem to leak so very much more than yours do, for
all that."
"How are they built any how?" and the Purser and
the Vice simultaneously arose and examined the Red
Lakers by moonlight and firelight.
Mention has already been made of the characteristic
indifference of Chrysalid owners to all canoes which are
not Chrysalids until some chance occurrence forces them
to make examination.
In this respect they strikingly resemble certain ecclesiastical
sects, which rest serenely ignorant of other denominations,
until they stumble upon information inadvertently,
which startles into respectful investigation.
"Why they are perfectly smooth inside and out,"—"no
timbers at all,"—"what lots of rivets," were some
of the remarks.
"Certainly, haven't we told you so a dozen times,"
said the Cook, "and you never looked at them before."
"How do you suppose they are made?" asked the
Vice.
"I am informed," replied the Commodore, "that thin
strips of white cedar are steamed and bent transversely
over an exact model or "last" of the intended canoe.
The edges are straight so that they fit closely against
one another. When all these are in place, a longitudinal
outside sheathing of cedar or other wood, butternut in the
case of our boats, is copper-fastened to the inner lining,
the nails being driven through both thicknesses at short
intervals, and clinched on the inside. The ribs and
sheathing as used by the builder are each a quarter-inch
thick, so that the total thickness is half an inch. The
canoe is perfectly free from ribs inside, and from the
raised edges outside, and cannot leak while she remains
sound. Her strength is necessarily immense from the
way in which she is put together."
"I think," added the Cook, "that we get a good deal
of speed out of this model from the absence of the over-laps
which are unavoidable in clinker built boats. These
necessarily hold the water to an extent which must be
appreciable in so light a craft. Moreover, the fore and aft
curve of the bottom line rids them of a deal of what
builders call 'skin-friction.' Recent experiments indicate
that a shape like the bowl of a spoon offers the least
resistance in passing over the surface of water."
"Your boats approximate to the spoon shape, that's a
fact," said the Purser.
"Look at those rivets," remarked the Vice, "they
make her look as though she were freckled."
"Granted," was the Cook's answer, "but are not
freckles beautiful when they indicate a sound constitution?"
"The rib-and-batten, and the paper boats are quite
as smooth outside," the Commodore admitted, "but,
they all have internal projections which are sometimes
inconvenient, as for instance when you wish to sleep on
board, or when you are trying to sponge out sand and so
forth."
The Purser and the Vice closed the dispute by proving
that their lap-streak cedar boats when empty were
somewhat lighter than the others, and the Commodore
and Cook were fain to be content with asserting that if
lightness were the only object, Red-Lakers could be built
lighter than Chrysalids by using thinner stuff.
THE Vice and the Purser, having boats of the
Chrysalid model, were so long in stowing their cargoes
that the Commodore and the Cook started in advance
of the remainder of the squadron and made a
brisk run to a British fort, the outline of whose parapet
was discernible to a military eye, on an island some
miles distant. When built during the last war, this work
was far beyond the range of Yankee guns, but now the
two forts might exchange cards with some chance of
doing execution, albeit they are out of sight of one
another.
Doubting what reception they might meet at the
hands of a British garrison, the voyagers resolved themselves
into two divisions, one of which approached the
water-gate, while the other ran behind a stockade which
flanked the work. No sentries being visible upon the
parapet, the two officers disembarked and having learned
in former days never incautiously to approach an earthwork,
they advanced up the glacis and along the counterscarp
with due circumspection. Suddenly the Cook
paused, seized his companion's arm; struck a dramatic
attitude and exclaimed,
"Behold the garrison!"
An Unknown Fortress.
The couple, who had walked as they conversed, had
reached one of the bastions, and as the Cook spoke, the two
men beheld, between the gabion-lined walls of an embrasure,
three children with uncovered heads and saucer-like
eyes.
"'Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled
front,'" said the Cook.
"'And thus be it ever,'" quoted the Commodore.
By this time the Purser and the Vice had made the
island, and joined the first arrivals, who carefully and
with professional pride inspected the outward defences
of the fort, using technical military terms with a fluency
which humbled their civilian companions into comparative
silence. At length the Vice, noticing the rotting
stockade, the weedy ditch, and other signs of inattention,
ventured to let the eagle scream a note or two.
"Just like everything else, that is subject to the decaying
influence of monarchical institutions," said he.
"How quickly a handful of our brave fellows would take
possession of it!"
"Perhaps," admitted the Commodore, "but I'd prefer
to risk my chances from the inside."
The Purser immediately patted the Commodore on
the back, while the Vice opened his eyes and demanded
an explanation.
"Some forts," remarked the Commodore, "are like
singed cats; they fight better than they look. This fort
is in better condition now, than half the forts were that
have become historic."
"But in case of sudden war," said the Vice, "there's
nothing at hand to repair a broken-down fort with, is
there?"
"Yes; living men; they make and unmake forts," said
the Commodore brusquely.
"It's the same way with conventions and caucuses,"
remarked the Vice, regaining his self-respect as he imagined
himself once more the Commodore's equal.
"You've been a soldier," said the Purser to the Cook,
"and I am longing to see once more the uniform of my native
country. Tell me how to gain admission to the fort."
The Cook replied,
"Go around to the sally port, which you will be sure
to find opening away from the neighboring republic, and
fire your pistol. The guard will hurry out and make you
its prisoner; then the Commodore and I will come around
and intercede for you, on the ground of your ignorance."
The Purser looked disdainful; "And think you," said
he, "that Britain's laws are so fitful as to waver under the
persuasions of a brace of Yankees?"
"When Yankees can't persuade Britishers," remarked
the Vice, "they usually proceed to"—
"Pack a High Court of Arbitration," interrupted the
Purser.
The quartette straggled through the tall weeds, which
prevented farther chaff, and reached the sally port. The
heavy gates hung aloft, their duty being discharged by
deputy in the shape of long rails resting edgewise in
two posts, and with "No Admittance" painted upon a
board. The garrison, moving on interior lines, gradually
massed itself behind the board, its forefingers
taking wary positions within its respective mouths. Behind,
and in the centre of the terreplain, towered an
enormous haystack. "Behold," said the Purser, "the
ingenuity with which the garrison has placed the haystack
just where riflemen can take shelter behind it, and
command the entrance to the fort, picking off infatuated
Yankees who venture upon the drawbridge."
The British Garrison.
"True," retorted the Cook, "the idea is not unlike
that of General Jackson, who used cotton-bales at New
Orleans, but I believe it was not Yankees, who were picked
off." The contrast between the ideal and the real was so
absorbing, as the four stood at the bridge-head, that some
time elapsed before they realized that clouds had gathered
heavily, and begun to drop their contents.
"My main hatch is open!" shrieked the Vice, as he
hurried off to his canoe.
The Sally Port.
"My tobacco—and it's a rare Brazilian article—is
lying in the bottom of my boat!" shouted the Cook, as
he followed the Vice.
"The Vice and the Cook will tow up the other boats,"
ordered the Commodore, "while the Purser and I construct
temporary shelter."
Several hundred yards from the fort was a group of
trees and a board pile, and to this the commanding officer
and the Purser hastened. The trees seemed to have
been a favorite resort of cattle, and the contents of the
board pile were rotten, but it was not a time to be particular,
so a beam was stretched between the limbs of two
trees, and boards slanted against it to shed the rain.
Fortunately a platform of boards happened to be just
where the extempore shed would cover it. When the Vice
and the Cook returned, the latter considerately bringing
dinner material with him, it was discovered to be noon-day,
so the party did justice to bread and butter, cold tongue,
and a can of apricots. Suddenly the Vice remarked,
"I suppose these boards beneath our feet are the
floor of some late military structure. I can't help noticing
how perfectly they are combined for drainage, sagging,
as they do, at the centre."
The Commodore had not before noticed the peculiarity
alluded to, but now his mathematical eye saw that
the depression in the boards was lower than the surface of
the surrounding ground. Extracting a trolling line from
the Vice's pocket, he lowered a sinker cautiously in a
crack between two boards, unrolled considerable line,
withdrew it, and remarked,
"I have the pleasure of informing the squadron that
during military occupation of the fort, the inmates of the
hospital, the ruins of which we behold in front of us, had
an abundant supply of cool water from a very deep well,
which well is at the present moment directly under us,
while the boards which cover it are slowly breaking."
Every one sprang to his feet. While at his home occupation
of statesmanship, the Vice never beheld disaster
impending over his own party without speedily traversing
the whole distance between his own party and the
opposition, so on this particular occasion, his instincts impelled
him to dash through rain, mud, and thistles toward
the ruins of the hospital, whose wall offered the most distinct
shelter within view. The Vice wore a helmet, his
long whiskers fluttered behind him on the breeze, his
shoulders and body were covered by a black rubber blanket,
his trowsers were rolled high above his stockingless
calves, and he wore a huge pair of carpet slippers, which
were nearly as wide as they were long. His figure and
attitudes, as he ran, were so full of suggestion that the
artist preserved them in a series of sketches, severally entitled.
The Vampire Bat.
"The Flight of Cain."
"Scotch Laird enjoying His Favorite Weather."
"Study of the Bottom of a Bear's Foot."
"Rip Van Winkle chased by Dogs."
"Mephistophiles Triumphant."
"Election Returns from a Rural District."
"The great Vampire Bat."
The absence of the Vice left his late companions in
possession of additional elbow room, but on a rainy day
there are blessings more to be desired than elbow room.
Among these is a pipe of tobacco, and four walls between
which to smoke it. The Cook's precious Brazilian tobacco
was wet, the Commodore and the Purser had left their
pouches in their boats, but each man had a pipe in his
pocket, and it was known that the Vice had in his possession
a bag of delicious weed. So dispatches were sent
him during a slight lull in the storm, and the Commodore
and Purser made a reconnoissance in the direction of the
fort. The garrison being invisible, the storming party
dashed over the bridge and beneath the temporary portcullis,
putting to flight a large body of chickens who were
carelessly resting upon their arms in the guard-room.
These alarmed the commander of the fort, who at once
emerged from headquarters, with an axe upon his
shoulder, and himself in dishabille.
The Commodore saluted the commandant, and asked,
with due formality, the courtesy of shelter for himself and
companions, and for permission to walk about the fort
when the rain should cease.
"Is it wantin' to be out av the wet ye are?" asked
the commandant; "come straight into the kitchen an
dhry yerselves."
"There are two more of us, yet to come," explained
the Commodore.
"Ah, niver ye fear," quoth the old man; "isn't the
kitchen in the casemate that held the biggest gun, in
the good ould times, an' hasn't a whole company av the
Rifles been in there to wanst many's the time."
The Commandant.
The casemate proved of generous size, as was also the
cooking-stove that stood in the midst of it. The commandant's
wife and children made haste to place chairs,
while one child was detailed to bring in the Vice and the
Cook at the double-quick. Soon the quartette sat about
the refilled stove, and though the month was July, no
one thought to push back his chair. Gradually there
stole over the party that delicious drowsiness which is
peculiar to a man who has been acting as clothes-horse
to a wet suit—a drowsiness
"That resembles slumber only
As the mist resembles rain"—
a drowsiness which demands not sleep, but smoke. In
short, each member of the expedition was dying for a
pipe, but he would have prolonged his sensation of dissolution
to its logical end rather than have got out of
his chair on the one hand, or, on the other, have ventured
to smoke in an apartment which was apparently
the host's parlor as well as his kitchen. But the Vice,
the Statesman, the moulder of men, came at the critical
instant to the rescue of his companions and to that of
"A nearer one
Still, and a dearer one"—
himself.
"You must find it quite lonesome here at times," he
remarked to the commandant of the fort.
"Thrue for yez, an' I do," responded her Majesty's
representative.
"Still," continued the Vice, "I suppose you can once
in a while take some comfort out of a drop and a smoke?"
The commandant of the fort winked profoundly. The
Vice passed his half pint flask stealthily to the custodian
of Britain's honor, and the old man, first prudently sending
his wife out of the casemate for something, drained
the flask with the greatest courtesy and enthusiasm.
Then the Vice remarked,
"I suppose you get very good smoking tobacco in
Canada, as there is no duty on it, but permit me to leave
you a fine pouch of it, as a slight remembrance of your
courtesy to us."
The commandant accepted the token of esteem, and
smiled his thanks from every line of his wrinkled visage.
Then he opened the pouch, and advanced his ancient
nose, first cautiously, then critically, and finally with
a sniff of decided approbation.
The Commandant's Lady.
"Try it at once," said the Vice, with ill-dissembled
eagerness. "Don't hesitate on our account—we are old
smokers."
The commandant acted at once upon the suggestion,
first courteously passing the bag to his guests. Within
three minutes these traditional enemies were smoking
the pipe of peace together, nor was lovely woman missing
from the circle, for the commandant's lady filled and lit,
not exactly a yard, but a "lady-finger" of clay herself,
and puffed thereat with great satisfaction.
The rain ended, the party went out to look at the
fort, and discovered that what from the outside had
appeared a mere earthwork was really a very carefully
built fort, with stone quarters, galleries, casemates and
revetments, and easy of defence to a mere handful of
men.
Just as the party was bidding adieu to their kind
entertainers, there occurred an accident which displayed
to an unexpected degree the esprit de corps of the expedition.
The commandant had offered the Commodore
some milk for the expedition, if some one would wait an
hour for it—the cows were quite a way off, he said. To
wait inside a grim fort while the sun shone brightly outside,
and four canoes needing inspection on account of
damages by rain, was a duty to chill the ardent soul.
Just then, however, when the Commodore was wondering
if he could safely forget his own morning detail of
himself as fleet milkman, and assign this duty to some
one else, the commandant's older daughter, heretofore
invisible, and of about eighteen or twenty summers,
appeared from an adjoining room.
"I'll stay, Commodore," shouted three manly voices
in unison. The Commodore was so affected by this
devotion to the interests of the fleet that he felt shamed
into a determination to remain true to his self-appointed
duty, but when he beheld the Purser's pleading eyes,
more eloquent than any words could be, human sympathy
overcame soulless discipline in the Commodore's rugged
breast, and the brotherhood of man asserted itself.
The wind and the shower died together, and as each
captain of a vessel had some special reason to wish himself
farther on his journey, it was agreed that the squadron
should proceed under paddles, and camp for the night at
a point which the Vice knew all about, having camped
there during a previous cruise with the Alderman. This
plan was accepted with expressions of the liveliest satisfaction.
As the Purser rejoined the command with his milk
pail, the three Americans were seriously conversing about
garrison life, as it exists in the British service.
"I have often read," the Vice was saying, "of the
exalted social tone which pervades the British army, and
I confess that I am glad to have been admitted even for
so short a time into society so select."
"I have always understood," said the Commodore,
"that the commandant of an English military post is
sure to be a gentleman of high social position at home."
The Cook remarked that "it was pleasant to have the
notions of the simple and unaffected manners of the English
aristocracy, as derived from contemporaneous literature,
so pleasantly confirmed by an actual experience."
"But you know that there isn't any—" put in the
Purser.
The Cook went on serenely with his remarks, in the
same vein and was so ably seconded by his fellow citizens,
that the Purser finally embarked and paddled away,
stopping a few yards from shore to shout defiantly back,
"It was all Gladstone's doings, you know. But for
him there would have been a regular garrison there,
and may be you wouldn't have been so cordially
received."
To be out of doors and at liberty for ten days is, to
men without physical vices, wonderfully exhilarating, and
enforced confinement by a few hours of rain only intensifies
physical spirit and alertness. Every nerve and
muscle seems to demand something to do, a mountain to
climb, an untamed horse to ride, a locomotive to drive, a
regiment to lead into a battle, or—as was the case with
the Vice on this particular afternoon—a good, close,
vicious political canvass to dash into. To gratify and
utilize this sensation, there is no sport superior or equal
to that of paddling a canoe. Rowing may lessen the
physical disquiet, but while the canoeist sits upright
in his boat, voluntarily working only with his arms,
and learning of unsupposed physical availability and
grace with every motion, the oarsman sways to and
fro like the deserted half of a melancholy hinge, which
wavers helplessly about in air, always longing for something
to attach itself to, but never finding it. Besides,
the paddler faces his water and his goal, instead
of fixing his eyes unceasingly upon the fleeting past.
The oarsman's duties are confined to steady pulling,
while with every stroke of his paddle, the canoeist pulls
and pushes also, discharging these duties with alternate
arms as he works upon the opposite sides of his boat.
The exercise is not passive, like that which one takes on
horseback, nor does it partake of that mental strain
which a man experiences when he takes the helm of his
own yacht. It is superior, by far, in physical benefit, to
that most exhilarating experience that comes of driving
a canoe under full sail and before a brisk breeze. And
if, after an hour's work at the beginning of a cruise,
the canoeist finds himself the owner of two handfuls of
blisters which nobody cares to borrow, he finds himself
at its end in possession of a fund of strength, spirits,
and clearness of head and heart that are far too precious
to lend, although they may have been bought very
cheaply.
The paddles used by the modern canoeist are like
that represented on the cover of this book. They are
very light, being made usually of spruce, an inch and a
half in diameter at the largest part of the shaft. For a
wide canoe a nine foot paddle is desirable, but for narrower
craft one seven and a half feet or even seven feet
long is sufficient. A common ferule joint in the middle
facilitates close packing. Two joints dividing the paddle
in three parts, do not work well in practice. Rubber
rings, or the two halves of a three inch rubber ball cut
to slip over the shafts prevent the water from dripping
inboard.
The squadron had sailed thus far without beholding
any of the picturesque which is peculiarly French, but
now it hoped that at landing, the essence of Acadia
would be visible. It seemed for a few moments as if this
hope was about to be realized, for as the boats approached
their prospective landing, two quaintly dressed boys stood
observantly and quietly upon the bank, instead of dancing
and hooting like savages, or casting stones and objurgations
at the squadron, as almost any brace of boys
in the United States would have done under similar
circumstances.
"Note the respectful ways engendered by monarchical
institutions," observed the Commodore.
"Rather the absence of the spirit which the heavy
hand of despotism has crushed out," replied the Vice.
As the boats were beached, the boys timidly approached
them. The Vice, forgetting his first encounter
of the picturesque, accosted them in French, and was
somewhat confused by their replies until he learned that
the youths were of English parentage, and that they
lisped.
The boys were soon reinforced by their father, a
tall, modest, but self-reliant looking man, who eyed the
camping preparations of the party with an interest which
was greater than curiosity, and which was explained
afterward by the discovery that he had been of the Argonauts
of '49.
The Vice, in his capacity of Statesman, knew the
honest farmer as a type, only as the principal element of
mass-meetings which he sometimes addressed; the Commodore,
when in his editorial chair, knew him principally
as a subscriber to be secured; the Cook, when playing
scribbler, found the farmer-type useful to contrast with
other types, and the Purser, when in his studio, knew
him only as an occasional adjunct to a pastoral composition.
But after the self-contained, hard-working, rather
lonely and diffident farmer had lounged about the camp
for a couple of hours that evening, the party learned, as
the city-bred man needs sorely to learn about many
another farmer, that the old man could see something in
a sunset besides tints reducible into pigments, more in a
book than its writer's art, that he knew more of the essentials
of politics than the editor and statesman combined,
and stranger still, that he cared neither to edit a newspaper
nor to run for office.
After a good supper and a cheerful pipe or two, the
Commodore, who had been extremely quiet for a few
moments, announced that he considered it the proper
thing for canoeists to sleep in their boats instead of
tents.
"Then," said the Commodore, "if the river rises
suddenly, you will be in your boat, instead of having it
drift away from you."
"And if you turn over in bed, in such case," remarked
the Vice, "you'll never know what drowned you."
The Commodore did not reply, for the real object of
suggestion was to emphasize one point of superiority of
the Red Lake model, after which his own boat and the
Cook's were built, over the Chrysalid model affected by
the other two mariners. But the Commodore's will was
law, and that night the four men slept each in his own
canoe, a rubber blanket thrown across a line extending
from mast to mast affording protection from dew and
possible rain.
ON the morning of this day, two canoeists arose
from their nautical couches with that satisfied
air which betokens a night of peaceful rest, but the
Vice and the Purser arose only after many a premonitory
groan, and even then they strongly resembled a couple
of rough logs from which a single slab had been sawn,
so flattened was one side of each. The Commodore eyed
them with manifest satisfaction, called the attention of
each of them to the appearance of the other, and exclaimed,
"Observe the effect of sleeping in a canoe with ribs
and a bottom board! I was curious to see how the experiment
would result."
"I wish, then," grunted the Vice, as by vicious
pinches he sought to restore animation in his flattened
side, "I wish—ow—that your devotion to science had
prompted you to try the experiment upon yourself, and
borrowed my canoe to do it in."
"Thanks, thanks," rejoined the Commodore, briskly,
"but I had an experiment of the same sort to try in my
own boat, which has a smooth concave bottom. I beg
you will observe how my outlines preserve their habitual
shapeliness."
The flat-sided sufferers retired for a bath, and speedily
forgot their sorrows. If the morning bath in a city
bath-tub is a washer-away of fragments of slumber, and
a merry awakener, how much more delightful is the same
exercise in an ever-replenishing body of water half a
mile wide and hundreds of miles long, enclosed only by
blue sky, green trees and brown earth, with no close dining-room
and conventional breakfast to be descended to,
no morning paper to be read, no vile horse-car to go to
business on, nor any hard pavement to tramp over, and
no brother man to find fault with, except in that cheerful
banter which always comes back to bless the giver.
Thus thought the Cook as he stood waist deep in the
clear water, and thus he might have continued to think
for a long time had his foot not impinged upon the
riparian rights of an honest mussel with slightly parted
shells.
The Commodore had already been out for provisions,
and returned rejoicing.
"Another proof of the superiority of monarchical institutions,"
said he. "Instead of the prices we have
been accustomed to heretofore, I pay twelve cents a-piece
for chickens, ten cents per pound for butter, and three
cents per dozen for eggs."
"And you are pleased to regard this cheapness as a
virtue?" asked the Vice. "Is no one but the buyer
to be considered?" How do you suppose people live
who sell the products of their industry at such starvation
figures? But monarchists and imperialists have but a
single idea—to crush the poor."
The Commodore shrunk an inch or two in length and
breadth, but soon recovered himself, donned a vicious
smile, and announced with assumed cheerfulness that the
time had come to "sling the healthy," whereby monarchists,
imperialists and republicans would suffer alike.
"What's that?" asked the Cook.
The Commodore grinned sardonically. "He wants
to know what, slinging the healthy, is," said he. "Well,
he'll know before dinner. It means paddling—paddling
in earnest, young man—paddling a ten or fifteen mile
stretch, instead of a leisurely half mile."
There seemed no alternative, for the river was as
smooth as glass. The sun noted the mirror-like surface
of the water, and his natural vanity caused him to rub up
his face until its brightness could not be increased. Just
by way of refreshing the pleasurable sensation of beholding
his face in the water, he dropped his gaze quite frequently
upon the blue-shirted backs of the canoeists,
until each man imagined that he must have caught some
sparks from the camp-fire. Then it seemed as if there
must be rain falling from the cloudless sky, for the Cook
felt water-drops coursing steadily down his back. The
Purser was sure his boat must be leaking, for water was
gradually soaking the small canvas cushion on which he
sat in the bottom of his canoe. The Vice's slippers grew
clammily moist, and the Commodore's eyes filled with
water which was not an accumulation of remorseful tears.
But no man would debase himself so far as to be the first
to cry for mercy.
But the Vice, the Statesman, was true to his profession.
To have suggested a rest would have been merely
a straight-forward act which even an idiot might have
performed. The Vice preferred to gain his point by an
exercise of intellect. Half a mile down the stream was a
small pier; to this the Vice called the panting Commodore's
attention, and exclaimed,
"That, by gosh,[6] is the identical dock where the
Alderman and I went swimming. I assume that all such
important precedents are to be respectfully observed?"
"They are," said the Commodore, almost fainting
with the ecstasy of the transition from despair to hope.
Within ten minutes the boats were beached, and four
perspiring canoeists, after an interval of rest, made haste
to disrobe and take headers from the pier into the refreshing
water.
From this pier the Commodore called the attention of
his companions to a glittering spire which shot heavenward
a mile down the river, and exclaimed,
"There begins Acadia. Every spire we see hereafter will
be of that precise pattern—they are as unchanging as the
beautiful faith which our sister Church of Rome maintains."
The Dock.
"Have we a Ritualist among us?" whispered the
Vice to the Cook, with a face full of horror.
"Ye—es," replied the Cook, reluctantly, "but don't
think too hardly of the poor fellow. Editors must have
some sort of religious belief, you know—they're human,
like the rest of us—and how can they reconcile their
practice to any thing but a religion of mere forms? What
would religion be, if it did not provide for every man's
own peculiar infirmities?"
The Vice eyed the Commodore with abating horror,
nevertheless he began to talk Baptist doctrine to him.
He even, to arouse his faculties to the utmost, strode up
and down the shore warbling to himself (so the Purser
declared) something like this:
"Baptist, Baptist is my style,
Baptist born was I.
I've been baptized in the Baptist way
And Baptist will I die."
But the Commodore was obdurate, and intimated that
the Vice's experience in upsetting from a canoe had something
to do with his denominational preference; things had
to go according to law in newspaper offices, he said; the
newspaper was the highest embodiment of human intellect,
and so he reasoned, analogically, that men had no
higher model to which to conform religion. The Vice
sighed and determined to convert the Commodore—at a
more convenient season.
The calm and heat continued, and no one was rude
enough to make suggestions to the Commodore about
starting. Indeed, the Purser remembered that he had
brought a hammock, which until now he had forgotten.
It was one of the most remarkable hammocks in the
world—woven of silk by an Italian sailor—wouldn't the
Commodore just try it? The Commodore accepted the
proffer in gracious spirit; then the Cook remembered that
the Commodore had never tried the wonderful, the priceless
Brazilian tobacco, and there could be no fitter place
than a hammock in which to sample it. The general result
was that the Commodore occupied the hammock until
the Cook announced dinner, and even then he arose with
noticeable reluctance.
After dinner the breeze sprang up again, and as it
wafted clouds of dust into the eyes, faces and hair of the
expedition, as well as upon their garments, still damp
with honest sweat, every one hailed with joy the order to
sail. Besides, the dinner had been a mere lunch, and as
the largest town on the river was but a few miles distant,
the Cook suggested that an excellent dinner might be
procured there at a quaint little French inn which he had
visited in other days. This suggestion led to a lively
race, which as usual in such cases was won by the Cook.[7]
Whether beating or beaten, however, the pleasure of
spreading all sails and making the best possible time in a
good wind, was more than sufficient reward for all the
effort put forth. With a boat fourteen feet long, and
weighing, all rigging, spars, personal property, stores, etc.,
included, a scant hundred and fifty pounds, yet carrying
fifty square feet of canvas, the canoeist has to exert to
the uttermost his clearness of vision, nicety of touch (at
the helm) weather wisdom, and balancing ability. He
is himself his own ballast and the principal portion of the
cargo. The shifting of five pounds of weight would compel
a capsize, and the slightest flaw, carelessly caught,
would even more certainly induce the same undesirable
result. To keep all dead weight as far as possible below
the water line, the navigator sits in the bottom of his
boat, his back resting against a small board which, in turn,
bears upon the after thwart or bulkhead. In one hand
he holds the sheet of his mainsail; if he steers with a
rudder, he holds one tiller rope in the same hand, and
the other in the remaining digits. If he steers with a paddle,
which is for several reasons the preferable mode, he
holds the paddle with the hand unoccupied by the sheet;
there is thus a steady strain upon both arms, and this
strain is also a perfect brace. Some canoeists work the
tiller with the feet, and this when properly carried out is
a very convenient mode, but not every one who has tried
it succeeds in making it work. The time which intervenes
between the coming of a flaw and the full fruition of a
capsize, is usually about three seconds, but one of these
suffices for prevention, if the sailor promptly lets go his
sheet or allows his boat's head to go into the wind. In
practice, however, a flaw seldom strikes a close-hauled
sail; the pilot's ear detects it coming several seconds before
it strikes, and so, before it appears, the mainsail is as
innocent of the possibility of abetting disaster as if it were
the proprietor of a gambling saloon, who had been forewarned
by some sympathetic police captain of an impending
raid, or a skilful insurance president who knows that
the state inspector is coming. How the canoeist's ear detects
the coming flaw is the mystery and despair of the
novice, though several hours of practice make this wisdom
seem an acquisition some centuries old. When the
"green" canoeist experiences a flaw, he generally seeks
safety by letting go his sheet and at the same time steering
"into the wind". Safety is at once assured, but when
the boat again takes the "course," the other boats, if sailed
by experts, are already too far away to be available if one
wishes to borrow an æsthetic idea or a pipe of tobacco.
The experienced sailor lets his sheet go sufficiently, but
he knows to a breath when the flaw is sufficiently spent to
allow him to "haul close" again, and he holds his course
to a point all the while, saving some wind by throwing
his weight well to windward. If he has a satisfactory
family, but lacks as much life insurance as he desires,
he will prefer to try a good wind over water not more
than five feet deep, (and such water is a hundred times
as plentiful as deeper water) but the chance of capsizing
a sober canoeist of a week's practice is less than that of
falling dead in the street at home; it is as easy to avoid
as if it were the risk of stepping over a precipice in full
view, for in the former case the catastrophe is as easily
foreseen as in the latter. And while the boat is flying
(literally, for her bottom barely touches the water, and
she can sail at a respectable speed over tide-mud barely
glazed with water,) its occupant has every pleasure experienced
by the owner of a twenty-thousand dollar
yacht. He has the same glorious wind whistling in his
ears, the same sharp remonstrance of the waters divided
by the bow, the same murmurs of recognition and complaint
by the same waters as they reunite under the stern-post,
the same sense of triumph over one element, of
compulsion of another, which if it had its own way would
be only a fitful ally, the same glorious abandon of health
and spirits revelling in pure air and in endeavor unconstrained
by age, sex, or previous conditions of social or
business servitude. And when the sail is over, or the
season itself is ended, the delightful memories of the
cruise are not, as in the case of the yachtsman, palled by
recollections of the frightful expense of the crew, or the
extortionate charges of ship-builders for repairs. And
while the yachtsman lays up his boat for the winter, and
bemoans the wasting interest upon her cost, and the
various charges for dockage, keeping, etc., the canoeist
quietly puts his boat upon his back, or, at worst a cart,
carries it to his house, and puts her down in the cellar or
up in the garret (after an unsuccessful attempt to have her
wintered on top of the piano in the parlor) in either of
which places he may visit her as frequently as he pleases,
in any weather, and refresh any memories that may seem
laggard when recalled.
Under the Elms.
The party went into camp in the shade of some grand
old elms which stood in front of what had once been her
Majesty's barracks. During the political changes which
had turned the British spear into the Canadian pruning-hook,
the barracks had been diverted from their original
purpose into homes for the friendless poor; the shore of the
river in front of them was, therefore, full of the discarded
crockery and broken bottles peculiar to a certain phase
of poverty, and as the Vice and the Purser stepped barefooted
into the water to carry their boats ashore, the
soles of their feet testified to the truth of the scriptural
saying "The poor ye have with you always."[8]
As the expedition landed, weary, foot sore, hungry, unshaven,
and covered with the dust of their last camp, the
sight of a busy town, full of brisk well-to-do people, caused
them to experience to the uttermost the sensations peculiar
to the vagabond and the pariah. A marvelously good
dinner at a marvelously low price comforted the material
part of their inner man, but their mental parts remained
ill at ease. So uncomfortable were they that the party
took pattern after the vulgar who wish to appear as gentlemen—they
purchased and smoked the best cigars in
the town. Returned to their camp, the spectacle of a
number of well-dressed, sprightly children playing under
the trees reminded them strongly of home, where changes
of clothing were more numerous than on board canoes,
and where whatever bath tub may be available, is not
paved with scrap tin and broken glass and crockery.
The Enchantress.
Suddenly an unexpected, an unhoped for influence
appeared upon the scene. A young lady, who apparently
had a nephew or niece among the children, strolled toward
the water's edge a little way from the boats, and amused
herself with the gambols of a huge water-dog. The parlor
critic would scarcely have called her beautiful—probably
at the Court of Jove there were goddesses more
beautiful than Juno, nevertheless Juno ruled men as no
rival beauty did. The lady with the dog noticed no
member of the expedition, but it was impossible for the
mariners to be as unconcerned in return, for maidens who
are embodiments of health, strength, grace and modesty
are not seen often enough even where maidens most
do congregate. The Commodore sat down and leaned
against a tree to hide the dusty back of his shirt; the
Purser made haste to don a blue jacket which he had
fortunately brought with him; the Vice, who, apparently
with malice aforethought, had shaved himself, sat in his
canoe, adjusted his statesmanlike glasses, and took full
satisfaction out of the ennobling spectacle, while the Cook,
with characteristic modesty, crept within the tent, where
he might behold and yet remain invisible. When the lady
departed, as unfortunately she did, the quartette debated
whether she went on wings, or floated off on one of the
clouds that were hovering about, or was wafted away by
the fortunate breezes which could express their admiration
without being suspected of forwardness or flattery,
or, whether she was suddenly translated to a better
world, as the Vice enthusiastically declared was no more
than her desert. And yet, the material optics of every
member of that expedition knew that the lady walked
away upon her own feet, as any ordinary mortal would
have done, for each of them had gazed industriously after
her as long as her form was visible. The difference of
opinion led to no dispute, however, for the manners of
the expedition had noticeably improved within an hour,
and though no canoeist had modified his apparel in any
way, each man had something in his face which made him
more presentable.
Meanwhile the little clouds which had been previously
acting, each for itself, gathered in convention, resolved
that in union there was strength, and then proceeded to
business. The merry children, with juvenile trust in
nature, suspected nothing until they felt it, and then protests
were of no avail. But the Commodore took charge
of the entire party, and massed it within the expedition's
tent, where the children had a glorious time while the
navigators strolled about outside and made-believe enjoy
the heaven-sent shower-bath. Then the shower departed
and so did the children, the shades of night were drawn,
and behind these the expedition hid itself while it
changed its soaked clothing. Then it lit its evening
candle and prepared for bed, the Vice and the Purser insisting
that the evening couches should be within the tent
instead of the boats. While in the preliminary stages of
a discussion, however, a vivacious small dog announced
the approach of visitors, and then ushered to the front of
the tent a gentleman, a lady and a small hand-wagon.
The couple proved to be the parents of one of the children
who had been sheltered by the tent during the afternoon,
and they had called to express their thanks, some
of which were from the tongue and heart, while others
were from the hand-wagon, and consisted of bottles of
excellent ale, a huge loaf of cake, some dainty preserves,
etc. The gentleman proved to be an ex-officer of a
famous Canadian regiment, so the Commodore and the
Cook talked military affairs with him; he knew all about
Dominion politics, so he and the Vice found a point of
contact; he was also of English birth, and when the
Purser learned this, he monopolized him, and the couple
talked church and agriculture, Gladstone and Melton-Mowbray
pork pies, while the lady exhibited a degree of
tact and vivacity which prevented the other gentlemen
from remembering that the place was not a parlor, and
that they themselves were not within their respective
funereal dress suits. Then several citizens with aquatic
tastes dropped in, one by one, and offered various generous
hospitalities, and the result of it all was that the
expedition thought no more of its shabbiness than if this
condition had suddenly gone out of existence.
It was not until an unprecedentedly late hour that the
last visitor departed, and the members of the squadron
retired with a faint notion that rain was again beginning
to patter upon the leaves overhead.
SLEEP was sedulously courted this morning by the
entire squadron, for not only did the late hours and
social dissipations of the preceding night have a soporific
effect, but a steady rain had set in during the small
hours, and not even the Cook felt any disposition to arise
and shine. The tent was rather close quarters for four,
so the Commodore had slept in his canoe, and for him
rising meant stepping out of a dry nest into a steady
down-pour. After a while, however, voices began to
issue from the tent and a desire for breakfast soon asserted
itself. As the camp was in the outskirts of a
town, no wood was to be had save through purchase, so
the Rob-Roy cuisine was resorted to with eminent success,
and a wandering small boy who spoke nothing but
Kanuck of the most rudimentary description, was persuaded
to fill an order from the maternal larder.
Breakfast was at last finished, and numerous pipes
were smoked to kill time until the rain should cease, but
still it poured down with such steady persistency, that it
had its effect even upon the buoyant spirits of the quartette.
The sole objects of interest which presented themselves
were boats laden with hay which drove past the
tent-door down the river before the wind. These the
Commodore sketched with the adjoining result, and then
relapsing into a state of demoralization was maliciously
portrayed by the artist on page 147. At length the showers
became intermittent, and the two division commanders
sallied forth in different directions to collate information
regarding the rapids.
Aristocratic.
Plebeian.
"One charm of the character of your true rural," remarked
the Commodore, on their return to compare notes, "is that he is
unconventional. When you have learned the opinions of one, upon matters
about him, you are not justified in accepting them as those of the
community at large."
The Commodore Weather Bound.
"Very true," said the Vice. "I have spent two
hours in interviewing the honest villagers near the waterside,
to ascertain if the rapids, which begin a short half
mile below, are passable, and from no two of them did I
get the same reply. One said yes, another said no, a
third looked doubtful, a fourth encouraging, number five
was dumb, and from a dozen or two others I obtained
enough of shrugs, gestures, and facial contortions to
supply the clown of a pantomime. So little recks your
true rural of what doesn't particularly concern him that
one fellow, who works in a flour-mill, informed me that
there were no rapids whatever, any where in the river."
"Proof positive that he doesn't pay taxes upon property,"
said the Commodore. "The tax-collector is the
grand educator upon local geography: hence, the most
intelligent nations of Europe are those which are taxed
heaviest."
"The Turks, for instance," suggested the Vice. "I
accept your theory, however, for the sake of offering it
back to you as proof positive that we Americans are the
most intelligent people on the face of the globe."
"The exact bearings of taxation upon the passability
of rapids," said the Commodore, "may be clear to a
statesman's mind, but the editorial brain fails to record
any impression regarding it. The question is, are we to
run the rapids or pass around them by canal? I propose
first to listen to the counsels of my captains, and then to
act according to my own. Officers will speak in reverse
order of rank. Cook?"
"Run the rapids by all means," promptly replied the
Cook, who had no nautical reputation to lose, but might
gain an immense amount without exceeding the demand.
"Purser?" said the Commodore.
The custodian of the fleet's treasure tossed his
auburn locks gaily behind his ears, and replied,
"As well ask the bird if it would soar heavenward,
the imprisoned soul if it would yearn for light, the poet
if he would seek his ideal!"
"Or a duck could he swim," put in the Vice.
"Do you mean that you prefer to run the rapids?"
asked the Commodore.
"Certainly," replied the Purser.
"Say so, then," said the Commodore, with editorial
sternness, "Vice?"
"The one delight of a canoe cruise," said the Vice,
"is to run rapids. I don't know of another joy that compares
with it, unless it be that of a Presidential campaign
full of personalities."
"I decide in favor of the canal," said the Commodore.
"My duty to society demands it. Moreover, I
encountered this morning a large number of natives, all
of whom without a single exception assured me that the
rapids could not be run. Running unknown rapids is
attended by considerable danger, and while the loss of a
Statesman, an Artist or a Scribbler might be a blessing to
suffering humanity, an Editor cannot be spared. Editors
are born, not made, and are consequently very rare."
"Which fact, like that of the crocodile destroying its
young," remarked the Vice, "is a proof of the merciful
interposition of Providence to save the human race from
what might otherwise be a terrible scourge."
As the natives had missed neither spoons, poultry
nor any other easily secreted property during the night,
they viewed the departing fleet with kindly eyes, and
pressed sundry favors upon it. The expedition attempted
to advance in column under sail, but it speedily
became involved in difficulties with sundry saw-logs and
slightly submerged ropes, until all available seamanship
was called into exercise to avoid humiliating disaster.
When the entrance to the canal was reached, the
navigators discovered that the water was spanned, at
short intervals, by bridges not only so low as to compel
the striking of masts, but also to necessitate the striking
of signal staffs fore and aft, and the temporary assumption,
by the various commanders, of a physical attitude
most truly devout. As the fourth bridge was approached
by the expedition, it was also reached by an industrious
shower, and no one made haste to pass from under the
cover afforded by the structure.
"Think of the poor sailors on the broad ocean, with
no bridge to shelter them," remarked the Cook, as he
improved the opportunity to light a peaceful pipe. Just
then a small stream of water, in search of its final level,
meandered between two planks of the bridge, and trickled
into the Cook's pipe, producing a sizzle which seemed to
greatly titillate the nerves of those who were not smoking.
Then another stream struck the helmet of the Vice
and broke into what would have been a graceful cascade
had not its perfect curve been broken by the official
nose. The Purser bowed his head to avoid showing
unseemly merriment at the expense of his superior officer,
when another stream, heavily charged with the soil
which wagons had deposited upon the bridge, insinuated
itself between his shirt and his skin. Then began a magnificent
but ineffectual struggle of mind against matter.
Given, a bridge the planks of which were not more than
ten inches wide, and several men whose shoulders exceeded
in width any two of the planks, and whose depth
of chest, with its environment, also exceeded the distance
between any two cracks, and the reader will perceive,
more freely than by any logical form of demonstration,
the utter futility of free will in a contest against
destiny. The best that man can do in such an unequal
conflict is to prepare himself as well as possible for the
blow, and this the Commodore did by throwing a rubber
poncho (a square sheet with a hole in the middle) over his
head, the ends dropping outside the gunwales of the
boat, and shedding the water into the canal. The
wooden decks of the Chrysalids kept water from dripping
into the boats except amidships, the oilcloth decking of
the flagship served a similar purpose, but the inside of
the Cherub was soon deplorable in the extreme.
In time the sun banished the shower, and under its
beams the canoeists brightened sufficiently to drop into
song, beating time with their paddles. As they approached
one bridge, and recurred to the reflection that
civilization has its penalties as well as its pleasures, the
keeper of the bridge good-naturedly opened it.
"By Jove!" exclaimed the Commodore, "no one but
a Frenchman would have been civil enough to do that.
Let's sing the 'Marseillaise' for him, and remind him
of his far distant home. Now!
'Allons, enfants de la patrie.
Le jour de gloire est arrivè.'"
The song was given with spirit, and with that confidence
of accent which song somehow inspires. The
squadron, in perfect line, and keeping a rhythmic stroke
as of one man, reached the bridge just as they struck the
refrain,—
"Aux armes, citoyens!
Formez vos battalions!
Marchez, marchez, qu'un sang impur,
Abreuve nos sillons."
The bridge-keeper raised himself from the leaning
position which he had at first assumed, his eye brightened,
a flush of red showed under the dark brown of his cheek.
"That's a magnificent song," he shouted in French.
"What do you call it?"
Aux Armes Citoyennes.
Four paddles stopped abruptly in mid-air, four men
stared blankly at each other, then the Commodore sank
back into his cockpit as nerveless as Salvini in the finale
of "La Morte Civile." In a moment he recovered himself
enough to gasp,
"True enough; the ancestors of these French Canadians
came over a century before Rouget de Lisle was
born!"
"What?" exclaimed the Vice, hastily backing out of
line and turning his boat, "and that poor fellow knows
nothing of the glory of his race, of the rights of man, and
things? I'll go back and enlighten him."
"Let him alone," said the Purser. "He knows
enough to be polite and sympathetic—to volunteer extra
labor that others may be saved annoyance, so he knows
more of the rights of man than you can teach him."
The Vice meekly drew back into line, merely asking
if it was not nearly dinner-time. As one bank of the
canal was heavily covered with weeds, and the other was
being frequently traversed by tow-horses, the noon-day
meal was taken in the boats, the four being temporarily
lashed together that the various viands might be passed
back and forth without danger of being dropped overboard.
The leisure consequent upon dining enabled the
squadron to observe critically the crews of the various
barges that passed, and to learn that although the spirit
of trade has not altered the French canal-boatmen of
Canada from their national model, the environment of
circumstance has made the rider of the canal-horse like
unto his brother navigators of all climes. The remarks
which these gentlemen volunteered as they passed the
squadron were all couched in the French tongue, but the
accent was that of the Erie canal, the Delaware and Hudson,
and all other watery highways upon which the
motive power is equine or mulish.
These canalers indeed, as was quickly evident, were of
cosmopolitan or at least of republican habit, for so personal
did their remarks become that some means of retaliation
or self-defence was manifestly necessary. Dignified
silence is all very well, but your modern canaler
does not appreciate it in the traditional fashion, and when
a quiet professional gentleman is invited to "come out of
that and have a head put on him" by a burly ruffian, it
is apparent that the policy of silence is not always that
of wisdom. Under these circumstances it occurred to
the Vice, who had been a "Son of Malta," that portions
of the extinct ritual might be made available. The
Cook was accordingly instructed to hang the expeditionary
frying-pan over his forward-thwart and provide himself
with a short baton, wherewith to beat it after the
manner of a Chinese gong. The next "Bargees" that we
encountered opened the usual conversation, inquiring
where we were from, and where bound, all which questions
were answered with due civility. Then the chaff
element cropped out.
"Say, Boss, whar did you get that hat?" The remark
was addressed to the Commodore who headed the
line. In a resonant voice that officer repeated: "He
asks where did I get my hat."
Then the Vice, "He asks where did he get his hat?"
Then the Purser, "He asks where did he get his hat?"
Then the Cook, "He asks where did he get his hat?"
and then lifting his bâton he proclaimed in a stentorian
voice RECORDED! and mightily smote the frying-pan
till it rung again. The invariable sequence of this was a
momentary pause, during which the squadron usually
passed out of ear-shot. Sometimes however, the canalers
attempted a continuation of the attack, as for instance:
"Now then," (but really this part of the sentence can
only be represented by blanks) "Come out o' that, and
I'll learn yer."
Commodore. "He calls us scions of a noble race."
Vice. "He calls us scions of a noble race."
Purser. "He calls us scions of a noble race."
Cook. "He calls us scions of a noble race. Recorded!
Whang!!"
"The recorded answer turneth away chaff," said the
Vice somewhat irreverently after the success of the experiment
was established, and so it was, for the profane
resources of the most fluent mule-driver failed him in
the presence of the frying-pan.
Soon after dinner the squadron approached a lock,
and the Commodore went ashore to exhibit the passes of
his command. As the collective measurement of the
boats did not reach ten tons, the four had been included
in a single pass, the cost of which was twenty cents, and
this sufficed for the dozen locks which were to be passed
before the smooth water of the river could again be
reached. It was probably a realization of the small
amount of money which their labor represented which
made the various lock-keepers so solemn of mien as they
labored over their gates to let the Liliputian squadron
through. The walls of each lock were substantially built
of huge blocks of grey stone, and as the water subsided
rapidly the Artist imagined himself being let down into a
dark dungeon. He hastily drew his portfolio from a
locker, and proceeded to sketch a study for a "Prisoner
of Chillon," hugging the shady side of the lock as he did
so. The sketch proceeded to his satisfaction, and then
some loose earth behind the stones ejected through a
crack some of its superfluous moisture in a parabolic
curve over the Artist's shoulder, and upon the sketch,
putting in some half tints which gave the picture an air
of extreme realism and antiquity.
Reaching at length a long stretch of canal upon which
no boats were visible, the squadron disembarked and
washed its respective faces with soap, an operation rendered
necessary by the drippings it had encountered
under the bridge, and during the various showers. An
hour later, the face of the Vice looked as if it had been
liberally but carelessly patched with court-plaster. Fragments
of skin fluttered aimlessly from his cheeks and
brow, while his Roman nose was as picturesque as the
brown shoulders of a tramp who had lately begged a very
ragged white shirt. The Vice became conscious that he
was attracting attention, and a pocket-mirror, furtively
consulted, revealed to him the cause. He passed his
mirror to the others, and the merriment of the party came
to a sudden stop, for every one else was displaying symptoms
of impending trouble of the same sort. Not one of
them had experienced an hour of sunshine a day for
months; their faces had been burning steadily for days,
and the alkali of the soap had destroyed the last bond
between the burned cuticle and that beneath. The Purser
suggested that cold cream, being peculiarly a French
production, could doubtless be found in the next village,
but the Vice said him nay.
"Frenchmen who don't know the Marseillaise when
they hear it," said he, "can't be expected to know anything
about the appliances of modern civilization."
The morning's rain, the late start and sundry delays
had hindered the fleet more than it realized, and the sun
was setting before the canal was half-way passed. It
became necessary therefore to camp on the canal bank,
but this was no great hardship, as a smooth strip of green
sward opportunely presented itself on the side away from
the tow-path, as shown at the left of this sketch. A moral
title is appended to this illustration because the Vice
went off by himself after supplies and came back
thoroughly sobered, as he intimated, by the sublime
immensity of the canal, which, he said, stretched away
before him like the narrow path which he remembered
as depicted in the "Pilgrim's Progress" of his
boyhood.
Alone with his Conscience.
Indeed there was a pastoral beauty about this canal
which one is not apt to associate with artificial waterways.
It was but a few miles in length and skirted a
lovely valley, rich in historic association and beautifully
diversified by wood and meadow, hill and stream. Beyond
the lowlands, as shown in the sketch, rose a commanding
and somewhat isolated mountain range which
caught the last rays of the setting sun, and welcomed
him again in the morning in such charming fashion that
it was simple luxury to exist within the range of its influence.
Since crossing the line, too, minor incidents of daily
recurrence recalled the fact that this valley was first penetrated
by emissaries of "Mother Church." On every
side the little tin covered spires, one just like the other,
arose, and at sunrise and sunset, the matin and vesper
bells sent their notes far and near, reminding all within
range that the priest was at the altar holding aloft the
sacred emblems and repeating the angelus. The members
of the expedition were all Protestants by birth and
association, but there was not one of them who had not
a tender spot in his heart when the bells rang out and he
knew that hundreds of fellow beings, far and near, paused
a moment at their tasks to repeat the prayer that the
church had taught them to say. These little churches, of
which this may serve as a type, form a charming feature
of the Acadian land. You may walk into any of them
at any hour, and some are very quaint, and in a strange
fashion touching, in their interior design and adornment.
It seemed as though the prayers of generations of simple
minded folk were imprisoned there, willing and ever
anxious to get up to heaven, if that were possible, and
yet hampered somehow so that they did not make it out.
Often as one or another of the quartette strolled into
a village church and sat down in the suggestive silence,
a man or woman would come in and kneeling repeat a
prayer. To say that the act is mechanical and heartless
is not to the purpose. It may be both mechanical and
heartless, but it is not meaningless, and through it and
other like observances, the church retains a tolerably
strong hold upon a very considerable fraction of Christendom.
Would that the home-feeling could be as successfully
cultivated by some of our Protestant sects as it seems to
be by the church of Rome. Perhaps however the home
feeling as it there exists is incompatible with advanced
thought, and the liquefaction of gases, and Boston Monday
Lectures.
The Typical Church.
So at least the Vice was remarking when he suddenly
became aware that a canal-propeller was coming down
his recent straight and narrow path, towing behind her an
endless chain of lumber barges. Anxiety for the boats
banished every other sentiment. The Red Lakers were
confidently trusted to take care of themselves by their
commanders, but Chrysalids must be carefully tended and
held off shore, lest the swell should dash them against the
stone facing of the embankment. Considering what the
Rochefort had been through on her various lee shores,
this solicitude seemed rather superfluous. Furthermore,
no perceptible swell was caused by the passage of the
tow, and the only notable result was that the Purser, in
his anxiety to hold the Arethusela off shore with a boat-hook,
lost his balance and took a ducking, much to the
amusement of spectators on the canal boats.
An exquisite moonlit night was this on the canal.
The tent stood white against the grassy bank, the canal
glittered, from far away could be heard the hoarse roar of
rapids, and farther still the blue mountain range rose flat
against the sky as if it had no irregularities save those
which marked its outline. Only one anxiety marred the
serenity of the fleet.
Ever since "the Enchantress" arose upon its horizon,
one member of the command who shall be nameless, had
not been quite in his right mind. While passing along
the canal, he had evinced a preference for such airs as
"Annie Laurie" and "The Girl I left behind Me," while
the "Mulligan Guards" and the Marseillaise failed to stir
his soul as was their wont. This evening he passed walking
up and down the canal bank in the moonlight, apart
from the rest, and he was even suspected of declaiming
poetry sotto-voce. There the squadron left him when it
turned in.
After a long interval of quiet, no one knows what the
hour was, the sleepers were softly awakened by the enthusiast,
who by the straggling moonbeams was seen with
a finger on his lips as an injunction of silence, while with
the other hand he pointed toward the remains of the
camp-fire in front of the tent. Each man arose noiselessly;
one softly cocked his revolver, another grasped a
boat hook, while a third clutched two empty beer-bottles,
stole out of the tent, and peered warily about, in the
shadows of the trees. Each man saw that the boats were
safe, and as all cargoes had been removed to the tent
before nightfall, the nature of the danger which impended
could not be imagined by any one. The demented man
threw several twigs upon the smouldering embers, thus
making a bright light; then he squatted near the fire,
motioned to the others to take similar attitudes, and
spoke thus to his mystified auditors:
"Gentlemen, for years I have endeavored to formulate
a definition of the phrase 'pretty girl;' not to give
a mere literal description, but one which should be
artistic as well as truthful, and have the virtue, peculiar
to all true art, of suggesting more than it says. At last
I have fully succeeded; or, rather, a glorious inspiration
has enlightened me. Before disclosing this marvel of
truth and poetry, I beg you to give me your own definitions
of the same precious phrase—they will be useful by
way of contrast."
"I can better tell you what a pretty girl is not," answered
one of the party promptly. "She is not an imbecile
who rouses people at dead of night for the idiotic
purpose of revising standard lexicography."
"Nor is she," quoth another, who, being a very light
sleeper, sprang to his feet, in a violent fit of trembling, on
being aroused, "nor is she a being who will in cold blood
frighten an honest fellow almost to death."
"Nor a person whose literary musings disturb the
slumber of any one, unless, haply, he be editor of a paper
containing a poet's column," said the third.
"Listen, then," replied the lunatic, his look of scorn
giving place to a lambent light from within, which irradiated
his pale features. "A pretty girl is a person from
whose glass you are willing to drink, after she is done
with it."
For several moments there was dead silence, then
somebody asked in the iciest of tones,
"And you aroused us only for the purpose of imparting
this."
"I did."
"Have I offered you a single affront since the cruise
began?" asked another. "I certainly have tried hard to
do my duty, and have never discriminated knowingly
against any one."
"You are guiltless," was the reply.
"I suppose I am the guilty one," groaned the third.
"I gave him a cigar to-day which was not what it should
have been. But how out of all proportion to the offence
is the punishment!"
The object of these denunciations, remaining unchanged
of mien, began again to pace the bank beneath
the moonbeams, while his companions returned to their
blankets and failed miserably to devise any vengeance
commensurate with his shameful act.
At length the wisest of the trio, raising himself on his
elbow, exclaimed "I have it—make him marry one."
AT length the voyagers seemed really in Acadia. A
large village at the lower end of the canal exhibited
in charming profusion the red-tiled roofs, white stuccoed
cottages, and verandahs peculiar to French village architecture;
all signs over the shop-doors were in French,
and nearly all of them indicated that spirituous liquors
were sold there; the native stare was of short duration
and respectful, instead of long drawn and insolent, as it
would have been at any canal terminus in the United
States, and the village dogs did not respond to whistles
delivered in the American manner. A single new house
with Mansard roof had intruded itself in the village, but
the Cook promptly suggested that it must belong to
some fugitive American statesman, so it could not be
considered as part of the village proper.
At this suggestion the Vice became pensive and was
presently discovered questioning a resident as to the
personal appearance of certain American sojourners.
His curiosity was pardonable as he had been conspicuous
in breaking up a famous metropolitan Ring, and knew
personally some of its fugitive fragments.
No factory reared its horrid front aloft, so the village
maidens were meek-eyed and healthy, and the young
men did not congregate at street corners with hands in
pockets. Two or three score of men stood upon the walls
of the final lock, to look at the boats, but they displayed
none of the officious curiosity which any able-bodied
American citizen would have considered necessary under
like circumstances. To the Commodore, the Purser and
the Cook the change from the restless activity with
which they were familiar was inexpressibly delightful,
but the Vice regarded everything with cold suspicion.
"The natural result of monarchical rule," was his incessant
comment upon whatever he saw. "There is waterpower
enough going to waste," said he, pointing to the
rapids, "for a manufacturing city such as the world has
never seen. Capital would be attracted, labor would
follow, facilities for navigation would increase, farmers
would have a home market for their produce, real estate
would increase in value, and local politics would become
a science. But see it as it is! Why, I doubt if it has a
board of aldermen, or even a mayor!"
"Then it is Acadia indeed," murmured the Purser,
raising his head from a sketch he had hastily made of
a sweet-faced girl who was gazing wonderingly yet
modestly from a window.
The Water Front.
From the river below the lock the expedition saw
the foot of the rapids, and near them a ruined fort. A
double invitation to view the picturesque was not to be
declined, so every one paddled up as far as the rapids
would allow. The fort bore date of 1711, and tradition
said that it had been constructed for defence against
the Indians, in the days when Canada was still New
France, from which it was safe to infer that the North
American savage was not in the habit of rounding rapids by
canal when he disported himself in his light canoe. The
work had been stripped to its bare walls, not by relic-hunters
but by searchers after seasoned fuel, and its water-wall
had fallen in, but enough remained to show the plan
of the work. The Commodore and the Purser broiled in
the sun at the gateless sally-port and endeavored to
reconstruct the work in the interest of romance. They
filled it with picturesque men-at-arms, gallant officers,
and venerable priests, and took care not to omit the
occasional Indian maiden, while the Vice calculated the
cost of transforming the work into a distillery, and the
Cook, who had climbed to a sealed loophole overhead
in search of reflections which did not appear, gently led
the thoughts of the romancers back to the real by an
occasional shower of partly pulverized mortar.
It presently occurred to him, however, that the stock
of bread was running low, only one loaf being left from
the supply laid in beyond the line. He accordingly made
a requisition on the Purser for the necessary funds and
paddled off to the village. In a few moments he was
seen returning, partly concealed behind something which
he had placed on the forward deck. As the bow touched
the sand the mysterious object was seen to be merely a
loaf of bread beside which, for the sake of contrast, the
Cook had laid the remaining loaf of the United States
pattern.
No Ruins in America (Ruskin).
The Vice regarded the two with a puzzled air. "Why,"
he asked, "should forty millions of people living in a free
republic, be content with loaves of such diminutive size
when the subjects of a despotic monarchy are provided
with bread on a scale so truly magnificent?"
Two Loaves—a Contrast.
"The loaves are to one another in an inverse proportion
to the population which they represent," said the
Cook.
In quality and price, this loaf compares favorably with
that of the American baker, but in size and shape it is
unlike anything that elsewhere exists under the same
name. Its shape is that of a cloven mountain, and its
size—well, if such loaves were used in Judea eighteen
hundred years ago, the miracle of the feeding of the five
thousand would not seem so very wonderful after all. A
single loaf materially increased the draft of the Cook's
boat, and had he bought four, as he had expected to do, it
would have been necessary to have chartered a store-ship.
As the party sat in the shadow of one of the water
bastions and viewed the rapids in their changing forms
but changeless beauty, the Vice fell into gloomy reverie.
"It's always so," said he. "We've paddled through a
straight cut canal for ten miles, been drenched with water
and wind, jeered by mule-drivers, and in French, too,—loosened
the skin from our faces, caused heaven only
knows how much inward profanity among lock-keepers,
lost a whole day and ten miles of scenery, and all because
we were afraid to run the rapids, which would have
brought us here in an hour. It's the same way in politics;
caution means labor and trouble, but if you dash ahead
in spite of every thing and every body, you're sure to
come out all right. The Alderman always said—"
"It isn't too late yet," interrupted the Commodore.
"I am so desirous of seeing some one run those rapids
that I will be one of any two to carry your boat as far up
the stream as you like, if you will run down in her."
"Agreed!" shouted the Vice, "but—" here he prudently
admitted to himself the defects of the model of
his boat, "I wonder if the Cook wouldn't rather do it in
the Cherub—you will find it far the easier to carry."
"Certainly," replied the Cook; "besides, she is far
safer, faster and more manageable than your craft. She
has no keel to catch upon a rock and tip one over, and
her peculiar construction makes it impossible to start a
leak, no matter how hard you may strike a stone with
her."
The Cherub was promptly unloaded and carried up
the stream half a mile, when the Cook seeing an almost
unbroken line of rocks crossing the river, stopped her
bearers. He then divested himself of all clothing except
such as is technically denominated "gents underwear."
The boat was placed in the water, heading up stream, and
the Cook embarked, bracing his back against the amidship
thwart, and his knees against the sides. The painter
was thrown in, and he started to paddle out into the
stream, but the current was in the habit of working its own
sweet will upon floating bodies, and it promptly signified
as much to the Cook by whirling him around so rapidly
that the force of rotary motion almost deprived him of
his scalp and whiskers—his helmet he had thoughtfully
left ashore. Then the boat danced merrily along, saluting
each inviting rock with a long soft caress, yet obeying
the paddle with an alacrity of which no Chrysalid canoe
could ever be capable. The time occupied by the trip
seemed so great to the Cook, that a thousand years added
or subtracted would have had no perceptible influence
upon the total; according to the Commodore's pulse,
however, (all watches having stopped) rather less than
four minutes had elapsed since the start when the Cook
paddled the Cherub up to the smooth beach below the
rapid, and found that she had not shipped a drop of
water, nor started, in striking the rocks, anything more
important than varnish.
Down the Rapids.
The four sat for a while longer under the shadow of
the main gateway, and then proceeded on their way in
order to reach a camping ground not in the immediate
vicinity of any village.
Upon the broad basin into which the river spread
below the fort, the sun shone with a fierceness which set
at naught the vulgar theory that solar heat decreases as
one goes northward. The voyagers decided, without a dissenting
voice, that the isothermal line which reached this
portion of Canada was that of the Desert of Sahara, and
the Vice, whose scientific ideas were rather vague, suggested
that it had probably passed through several blast-furnaces
and a ratification meeting on its way north. A
gentle breeze finally came to the relief of the party,
and at the same time there came certain of the natives to
inquire about the speed, etc., of the boats, and as the
river at this point was very wide, and the canoeists were
not averse to displaying their seamanship, the boats were
soon doing the picturesque to the delight of all beholders.
Suddenly, however, the breeze took offence at something
and vanished, leaving the boats a mile or two from shore.
Paddles were manfully plied, the nearest shade upon the
banks being several miles away. As no one but a denizen
of the abode of the finally impenitent could realize what
the heat of that afternoon actually was, it is extremely
unlikely that the tale will ever be told, but the Purser
solemnly declares unto this day that the sleeve of his blue
flannel shirt was scorched by the sun.
The fresh meat purchased at the end of the canal
having succumbed to the heat, the expedition went out
in a body, on making camp, in search of animal food.
The nearest house seemed miles away, so the Vice took
to his favorite pastime of trolling for pickerel, the Purser
went into the forest with the Vice's gun, and the Commodore
and the Cook started, with boat-hooks, to secure
bullfrogs for a fricassee. The Vice caught nothing, as
men universally do when they troll, the Purser got nothing
but a bruised shoulder, while the Commodore and the
Cook, having failed to secure so much as a single
batrachian, lost what little character they had for perseverance
under difficulties, and swore roundly that the
French inhabitants had hunted the frogs till they were
too shy to be successfully harpooned. The voyagers fell
back upon their canned provisions, made a tolerably satisfactory
supper and straightway engaged in a discussion
on the kinds of wood available in that most important
branch of industry, the construction of canoes, and their
accessories.
American white-cedar, they concluded, is undoubtedly
the best of all woods for building light boats. It is now
exported for this purpose to all parts of the world where
artistic boat-building is practiced. Its structure is such
that a blow or scrape, such as boats are likely to receive,
merely indents without splintering or splitting. It is
moreover very light. It has no special beauty of grain
but takes varnish well and has an agreeable color, which
improves with age.
A Quiet Cove.
Oak is handsomer in appearance, but is too heavy and
splinters badly at the edges when exposed to wear and
tear. It is usually the best available wood for keels and
timbers.
Spanish cedar splits too easily to be used for planking,
but makes a handsome deck, and is strong enough when
properly supported by carlines.
Butternut is a little heavier than cedar, but is somewhat
harder and tougher, and is far more beautiful in
color and grain. In point of texture and toughness there
is small choice between the two. If one is willing to
paddle a pound or two of additional weight for the sake
of appearances, let him choose butternut. If not, white
cedar is best. Clear butternut can be had in longer and
wider strips than cedar.
For stem and stern posts hackmatack is given the
preference, by nearly all builders. For the timbers,
carlines, and interior braces of all sorts, tough, nonsplitable
woods are used, different builders having different
favorites.
The masts technically denominated the "main" and
"dandy," may be of white-ash, spruce or pine—the last
being lightest and weakest. They should be carried
up without any taper, a short distance above the deck—say
three feet for the main and two for the dandy.
This is not very essential, it merely makes them bend
more symmetrically under sail pressure. Ash is heavier
than spruce, but more slender and graceful spars may be
made from it, owing to its greater strength. The Commodore
having tried both, rather prefers ash. Some
members of the New York Club have used bamboo for
masts with satisfactory results; for its weight it is certainly
the strongest of spars, and in appearance it is
all that can be desired, except that it does not taper
quite enough at the top to suit a fastidious eye. This
objection might be overcome by using a topmast of
pine or spruce.
It is almost always convenient to have the masts of a
canoe jointed, so that they can be readily stowed below
decks. The simplest and cheapest way is to place
the mast so that it shall be an inch and a quarter or less
at the joint, that being the largest regular size of fishing-rod
ferrules. Such joints have been fully tested and are
strong enough. The device known as the "sliding gunter"
is a brass fitting which holds the main topmast and
slides up and down the mainmast, operated by a halyard.
It works very well when in perfect order, but is apt to
give trouble when the parts get wet. Moreover it necessitates
a clumsily large lower-mast, since this part must
be deeply grooved to receive the topmast-halyard over
which the "gunter" slides. The Vice who has tried the
sliding gunter rig has decided to adopt a simple nine-foot
mast with a mainsail like that shown in the illustration
on page 107, and a ferrule joint. The sail runs up and
down on rings as do those of the Red Lakers, and having
throat and peak halyards attached to the gaff, the
peak can be dropped or raised without lowering the sail.
This has the effect of reefing and shaking out without
the bother of tying the reef-points shown in the sketch
referred to, on the lower part of the mainsail.
The Red Lakers, by the way, are reefed by means of
a small brass S. hook carried at the peak of each sail.
The sail is lowered away and this hook passed through
any one of the rings on which it runs. When hoisted
again the sail is of course correspondingly reduced in area.
It was ten o'clock before the squadron had settled all
this and was content to turn in.
THE disgust of the voyagers on the next morning,
when they found themselves reduced to breakfasting
on bread and coffee, was provocative of vigorous
paddling, and a large town was soon reached. The voyagers
passed en route a small Indian camp, in which were
exhibited some of the positive results of civilized environment,
for one of the men had a beard, and the only visible
squaw wore an apron with pockets. As the town was
one at which the expedition expected many letters, there
was a movement in force upon the post-office, which consisted
of two cigar boxes upon the table of a sitting-room;
one of these contained letters received, and the other mail
matter to be transmitted; one contained, after the expedition
had received its letters, a single postal card, and
the other, when the voyagers deposited their home and
business correspondence, was so full that the pleasant lady
in charge was visibly affected by the sudden increase of
business. There were several streets of very old and
very quaint cottages, and a church, externally a duplicate
of every other church on the river, and containing an odd
yet touching assortment of votive offerings. Among
these was a huge model of a full-rigged ship; this swung
aloft from the centre of the ceiling, and doubtless kept
nervous worshippers from the pews directly beneath it.
The value of such an object of contemplation must be
inestimable for the adolescent portion of the congregation,
that is if the Acadian fancy is as much given over
to dreams of piratical adventure on the high seas, as is
that of American youth.
Three women were upon their knees in the church;
two were utterly oblivious to the entrance of the outlandish
foreign quartette, but the third kept alive the faith
of man in womanish curiosity, for she stared at the party
as long as it was visible. The four sailors walked around
the side aisles past the "Stations of the Cross," more, it
must be admitted, from longings artistic rather than devout,
and were about to leave the church, when two
bright looking youths of seventeen or eighteen entered
the organ loft, and sang several hymns, accompanying
themselves with the organ which was presumably blown
by a third. The Vice interviewed them and asked what
portion of the service they had been conducting, and
learned that they had been singing merely for amusement.
Fancy two healthy young Americans going into
church during business hours, and singing hymns for purposes
of personal diversion! Their associates would
promptly cut their acquaintance, their employers would
discharge them for laziness, and their parents, if truly
affectionate, would hasten to call a physician skilled in
treating the victims of mental aberration. The quartette
concluded that their fond imaginings regarding the uses
of aerial ships had been at fault. Maritime adventure
can have no place in the Acadian mind.
A careful survey of the picturesque little hamlet
showed that it was infested, though not infected, by a
railroad; from this the whole village shrunk away, so that
a modern "Railway Hotel," which stood near the station,
stood alone, in unrelieved ugliness. The Vice, with
his prejudice against every thing foreign, insisted upon
the expedition dining at this hotel, because it reminded
him of home, and within half an hour he endured the
worst meal that had ever been set before him. The
Cook, who had been detailed to watch the boats while his
associates dined, sank into a peaceful slumber in the
Cherub, and became an object of interest to several
natives and many hundreds of flies. The former, though
somewhat curious, were too polite to arouse the sleeping
watchman, but the latter being evidently summer visitors
from the States, had neither conscience nor modesty, so
the slumberer awoke and devoted some moments to
drowsy sympathy for the defunct Pharaoh and his people
who suffered under the seventh plague. Then he paced
the river-bank, looking about for the picturesque, and
was rewarded by a glimpse of the old, old story, which
went down the river road between a bashful young man
and a comely maiden.
Near this point the river contained several beautiful
islands, and to one of these the squadron made its way
after dinner. The distance was small—a mere matter of
five miles—but the fact that it had to be traversed by
paddle and under a blazing sun, caused the trip to
seem fully long enough for an afternoon voyage. A delightful
camping ground was finally reached, however; a
narrow grassy plateau spreading itself under a belt of
thick trees, with lovely outlooks up and down the river.
It was the Commodore's tour of duty for forage, and
after a lesson in Canadian French from the Vice, who had
it at second hand from the Alderman, he paddled over to
the mainland. The substance of his instructions was that
milk instead of being "lait" was "lât," sounding the
final "T," also that the final "S" was in most cases
sounded. He tried the nearest house.
"Bon jour, Madame. Avez vous du lât, à vendre?"
Glances exchanged among the members of the household
with frequent repetitions of the word "lât."
"Comment, M'sieu?"
The Commodore repeated the sentence. Same effect.
"Ne comprens pas."
Another trial with some changes of structure and pronunciation.
"M'sieu, we no speak Anglais."
The Commodore went his way to the next house, half
a mile distant, and protected by a black dog of great
apparent enterprise. Interview substantially duplicated.
At the third house the discovery was made that the
Alderman's information as to the pronunciation of "lait"
was erroneous.
Pronouncing the word in usual manner he was readily
understood, but there was no milk to be had. So he
paddled over to the island again and approached the
somewhat "swell" mansion of the proprietor, which had
been shunned in the first instance because the occupants
of such mansions not infrequently scorn the advances of
canoeists in the direction of supplies. Ascending a footpath
from the landing, the Commodore found himself
before a square brick house standing in the midst of
forest trees, many being superb specimens of spruce and
balsam, which sent their perfect spires of green sixty or
seventy feet upward. The underbrush had been cleared
away, so that a somewhat broken lawn spread from the
house to the edge of the bluff, and through the tree-trunks
there opened an expanse of rich meadow-land dotted
with cottages crossed by lines of dark coniferous woods,
and backed by the blue Belœil range. Lost in the contemplation
of the delicious landscape, the Commodore
was for a time merged in the love of nature, but a rude
interruption was in store for him. No sign of human life
had been visible when he turned his back upon the house
and became absorbed in the contemplation of the beautiful,
but a sudden bark rang upon the air and was instantly
taken up, as it seemed from all parts of the island.
The case of James Fitzjames and the ambuscaded
Highlanders flashed through his mind as a parallel one:
A Charming Landscape.
"Instant through copse and heath arose
Bonnets and spears and bended bows."
He turned from the scene which the Artist has depicted
and beheld what is shown on the following page. The
apparent relative dimensions of himself and the dogs are
faithfully preserved.
On they came, but by this time the Commodorial
soul had returned from its æsthetic wanderings. If there
is one thing of which he is less afraid than another, it is
dogs. Consequently when the leader, a shaggy brute of
great external ferocity, reached him, he remarked in a low
tone of voice, "One moment, old chap. You are making
a great mistake. It is all right. I am going to the
house for milk." "Major," for that turned out to be his
name, accepted the explanation with perfect courtesy, told
his followers that it wasn't the fellow he thought, and
would they hush their noise, and so all fared along together
with occasional growls from still suspicious members
of the cortége, and turned the corner of the house,
where were seen two seemly maidens of the peasant
class, sitting on a verandah with their needle-work.
"Bon jour, Mesdemoiselles," said the Commodore,
raising his helmet. "Nous sommes campé la-bas, et
nous avons besoin de lait, de pain et de beurre." The
last few words had a reassuring Olendorfesque sound,
which, as it were, set the speaker on his pins.
The girls looked at one another doubtfully, "Il parle
Allemand, n'est ce pas, Louise?" said one.
A Shock to the Commodore's Nerves.
"Mais non," said the other, "Je crois que c'est l'Anglais."
The Commodore seated himself on the steps and
buried his head in his hands. One of the dogs whined
and poked a cold, sympathetic nose against his cheek.
It presently occurred to him that the silence, which was
becoming embarrassing, was in danger of being broken by
the irrepressible laughter of the young women, who continued
their work with mischievous glances at their discomfited
visitor. The Commodore is a bashful man, and
it has always seemed to him that the laughter of girls
is particularly and peculiarly derisive. However, by dint
of frequent repetitions of "pain" "beurre" and "lait,"
he at length succeeded in making himself understood.
The two girls bestirred themselves to procure the
desired articles, which by the way proved to be of excellent
quality and of absurdly low price. Meanwhile the
dogs had become so friendly as to be troublesome, and
the two biggest were actually fighting for the privilege of
receiving personal attention.
On hearing of this experience, the Purser, who is very
fond of dogs, was anxious to be detailed for milk at once,
and the Vice, who is,
"Steel amid the din of arms
And wax amid the fair,"
longed to air his French in connection with the girls,
whom the Commodore represented as possessed of rare
charms and engaging manners. It was evident that
there would be no trouble about the milk detail at this
camp. Indeed a rivalry sprang up between the Purser
and the Vice which was only kept within bounds by the
necessity of a co-partnership, one being as hopelessly
embarrassed in canine society as was the other in that
of young women. It followed as a natural result that
they invariably went for milk in company and were a
long time in getting it. The Vice's French was cultivated
to a degree which left him without a rival in the
fleet, while the two always came back to camp with a
retinue of dogs which nearly drove the Cook crazy by
investigating the expeditionary stores.
On the grassy plateau before mentioned, the four
graceful boats lay side by side, and in them as the fire
burned low, the four voyagers composed themselves to
rest, and the Cook and Purser were lulled to slumber by
the tones of the Vice who pointed out the constellations,
and discoursed learnedly of the precession of the equinoxes.
The Commodore, who chanced to be somewhat
wakeful, feigned an interest in astronomy, which he had
never before displayed, and evinced such an appetite for
sidereal nomenclature that he presently had the Vice out
of bed, so to speak, and shiveringly endeavoring to discover
certain hypothetical stars whose locality the Commodore
carefully described, but which could not be seen
from the recumbent position occupied by his companion.
Having for a sufficient space indulged in this justifiable
revenge for certain insubordinate acts on the part of the
Vice, the Commodore suddenly became sleepy, and left
the astronomer to discover the ruse at his leisure.
The next day was Sunday and sunny, and a canvass
of commanders showed that the squadron was Sabbatarian
to a degree which would almost satisfy a Pharisee.
This feeling was so strong in the Vice, whose day it was
to be scullion, that he volunteered to leave until Monday
all dishes needing washing, but the Purser, who succeeded
him with the dish-cloth, declined to exact any such extreme
test of the Vice's fidelity to the fourth commandment.
A suggestion, by the Cook, that the officers
should attend divine service in a body, was voted down,
on the ground, that the nearest church, whose spire was
plainly visible down the river, was distant more than a
Sabbath day journey. (N. B. There was no wind, and to
paddle back from church would be to paddle against the
current.) But the Cook was determined to go to church.
He shaved himself, sponged his uniform into some semblance
of neatness, oiled his shoes until they lost some of
their rusty look, emptied the baggy breast-pockets of his
shirt, unloaded his boat, and sponged out the inside.
Then he washed and smoothed a white handkerchief, the
latter operation being performed by folding the kerchief,
"four double," placing it between two folds of a sail, and
sitting determinedly upon it for the space of half an hour.
Then the Cook carefully disposed the handkerchief in his
pocket, so that some inches of white corner should show
against the dark blue of his shirt; he bade his slothful
companions a reproachful farewell, shoved his boat from
shore, and started for the sanctuary. The distance was
at least five miles, the sun very hot, and the hour uncertain,
but regarding the latter the Cook had some experience
in guessing time rudely by the apparent altitude of
the sun, so he paddled briskly along, and though he perspired
freely, the fact led him to compare himself, with
considerable satisfaction, with the early American settlers
who endured so much discomfort rather than remain
away from church. That he had no prayer-book, and
was rather unfamiliar with the Mass except as a verbal
accompaniment to some of his favorite music, did not
distress him greatly, for in truth he was not as intent
upon worship as he might have been. He had gone to
church in French-American settlements in other days,
and had seen how the worshippers cast off the dingy
garments of the farm and shop, and appeared in bright
and costly raiment, so the Cook was now going to church
principally in search of the picturesque. At the end of
half an hour's paddling he saw that opposite the church
he was aiming for there was another, which had been
hitherto hidden by the foliage upon a small island. The
sacred edifices, with their dependent villages, seemed to
be of equal size, and the Cook was distraught with uncertainty
as to which to visit. Then along the road of one
bank he saw many vehicles passing at the trot and full of
people. Couldn't be?—yes, it was true—that the service
at one church was over. The Cook hastily took a racing
stroke, and made for the other church, which was still a
mile away, but suddenly a procession of carriages appeared
from that direction. The Cook dubiously paused
in mid-stream, endeavored to estimate the two lines of
vehicles to ascertain which was most promising; then he
ran his boat ashore and scrambled up the bank. A bramble
claimed his handkerchief, but he did not pause to
contest the claim; he dashed across the dusty road,
seated himself on the top-rail of a fence, and rigidly inspected
the occupants of the vehicles until of vehicles
there were no more. Then with a sigh he descended
from his perch and started to paddle back, against the
current, to his camp and the hungry men for whom he
had to prepare dinner. Even his small measure of Sabbatarian
virtue had its reward, however, for just then
there came along a tug towing a barge load of lumber;
under its shady side the Cook found a convenient place
to tie his own boat, while from the cabin-window of the
barge, the Captain's black-eyed, black-haired wife, leaned
and, taking the Cook for an innocent scull-racer from
Montreal, warned him impressively against "the cheats,
the hogs of Yankees," who would make his life miserable
if he went on to the States.
On reaching camp the Cook found the Commodore
and the Vice engaged in varnishing their somewhat tarnished
boats, one using brown shellac, and the other,
coach varnish of the costliest description.
"Shellac," the Commodore was saying, "is certainly
inferior to your varnish in beauty of finish, but it dries in
fifteen minutes, and stands water, for all that I can see,
quite as well."
The Vice admitted disappointment in that the varnish
which he had been at such pains to procure, turned a
bluish-white color, when exposed to wet, recovering its
lustre, however, on drying. This was certainly an objectionable
feature, and marred the complexion of the
Rochefort in a way that was highly exasperating to her
owner, especially when his companions jeered him on the
number of coats with which he had covered his boat.
"Look at my varnish," said the Cook finally after the
others had somewhat exhausted the topic. "It is not
shellac, neither is it coach varnish, yet the Cherub is
arrayed in a coat which retains its lustre better than
either of yours."
"What is it?"
"Even 'Pellucidite.' I know not the process whereby
the lac is dissolved, which forms its basis, but it stands
water better than any other that I know of, and is no
more expensive than the ordinary kinds."
In fact after duly weighing the matter, the cruisers
concluded that Pellucidite is the best varnish known to
them for general use on canoes. It appears to be less
affected by constant exposure than any other that they
have tried.
"Varnishing," said the Vice, as he lay in the shade
and contemplated the Rochefort glittering in the sun, "is
perhaps the most ennobling way for a canoeist to spend
his time after he has received his boat from the builder.
Every coat you put on adds so much to her beauty. I
believe I've gone over my boat in parts thirteen times."
"That's one thing that I don't like about a Chrysalid,"
said the Commodore. "Half your original outlay
goes for fittings which it is much better fun to make
yourself, and you have no recourse but to varnish and
re-varnish. Now you get a Red Laker clear fore and aft—excepting
two and a half feet of decking, at bow and
stern, and you go to work and contrive and experiment in
a manner highly stimulating to a properly organized mind,
until you get her decked or covered over with a removable
covering of wood or water-proof cloth, and rigged
to suit you. I admit, though, that some people would
rather pay more money and have less tinkering to do.
Nevertheless I hold that tinkering is essentially a higher
order of intellectual employment than is mere varnishing,
admirable as that may be when used in moderation."
"There is enough to do in all conscience," replied the
Vice, "about a Chrysalid. Look at my hatches. They
consumed an enormous amount of brain force in the preparation."
As has been already stated, the Chrysalid boats have
rather more than four feet of bow and stern devoted to
water-tight compartments, which of course occupy a great
deal of space, but are extremely useful in case of accident.
These spaces the Vice had made available for light articles,
such as extra clothing, etc., by cutting hatchways in
his deck, and fastening them down by means of thumbscrews,
the seams being rendered water-tight by strips of
india rubber used as packing. Red Lakers, on the contrary,
have all the room they want, but their water-tight
compartments, if they have any, are only large enough
for the purpose of flotation. Their owners therefore are
fain to be content with water-proof bags or sheets for
the protection of their haberdashery.
The charms of the natural scenery about the island
finally lured the Vice away from the annotations which he
was preparing for a new edition of "Jefferson's Manual,"
and he went with the Cook to explore a beautiful creek
which emptied opposite the camp. Its charms were
many, and its ways as devious as those of a woman about
whom romancers write, so the couple followed it as a
matter of course, until the declining sun warned them to
return to their camp, but as they turned their boats'
heads homeward they paddled only with leisurely strokes,
so loth were they to leave the beautiful alternations of
sunny hillside and shady grove, solitary giants of trees,
and thickets full of birds, mats of lily pads, and bars
covered with just water enough to enhance the brilliancy
of their shining sands. The Cook heaved a deep sigh,
and said,
"What a pity that this fair spot is where it is, among
a set of peasants who are blind to its true value."
"Indeed it is," said the Vice. "There never was a
finer bit of ground for a beer garden, and such a place
would call for a brewery; this, in turn, would bring out an
opposition establishment, and malt and hops would look
up, while coopers would find steady employment."
"Mercy!" murmured the Cook imploringly, "mercy!"
"Or," continued the Vice, "it would make a beautiful
park; not large to be sure, but there is enough forestland
to clear, and enough bare land to plant with forest
trees, to occupy a great many voters along about election
time. Then the grades are such that the roads could be
constructed only by an immense amount of work, and as
there's no stone near by, the contract for road-filling
would amount to a handsome thing. Properly managed,
such a park would hold a party together for twenty
years, unless some set of old fogies happened to impose
a landscape gardener and architect upon the commissioners."
The Cook made haste to quit the creek and return to
camp, and that same evening he experienced a severe
bilious attack. As the Purser was already ill from a
surfeit of rice and maple syrup at dinner, and the Vice
was rapidly succumbing to the same viands, the Commodore
charged himself with preparing a supper which
should have for its principal feature an entirely new dish—to
wit, fried frogs' legs. He had devised a beautiful
method of taking the musical batrachians. He baited a
very fine fish-hook with a bit of red flannel and affixed it
to an eighty-foot trout-line. Then joining a fourteen foot
rod he walked along the shady shore, and cast his line.
Should the fisher for trout sneer at such outlandish fishing,
and pot-fishing at that, he should know that to catch
a bull-frog with hook and line requires a better eye and
more skillful hand than are sufficient to successful trout-fishing.
The frog never "rises" to the bait; the latter
must be let gently down before his eyes and nose, and
then, as he leisurely opens his jaws, be dropped into his
mouth. The slightest breath of wind, or tremor of arm,
causes the bait to graze the cheek of the game, and then
an angry foot is lifted to brush it away, and a goggle eye
rolls back reproachfully at the disturber. When the bait is
taken, the frog seems to realize but slowly that anything
unusual has occurred, and the sportsman is likely to
accuse him of lacking the proper spirit of a game fish (or
beast, or bird, whichever he may please to call it), but
when the truth dawns upon the frog's mind he gives a leap,
to view which would drive a kangaroo into mortification
and suicide, and then goes for deep water with an
alacrity which causes the reel to buzz merrily. Having
tested the length of the line, however, his method changes
to that of a goat, and he pulls stubbornly in a single direction
while the sportsman reels him in. The Commodore
illustrated this operation but once however, for after
landing his first frog he was unable to find another to try
his wiles upon. A few moments before, the creatures
sat numerously along the water's edge, blankly blinking,
and as reserved and unsympathetic as a body of officeholders
at a civil service reform meeting; the spectacle
of the suspension of one of their own number, however,
was one which they were quick to see and take warning by.
Later in the evening the quartette received a call from
a fine looking old farmer and his wife, both arriving in one
of those peculiarly rotten old skiffs which, when one sees
them in use, seem strong arguments in favor of a special
Providence interposing to protect human life. The lady
was curious to see the culinary outfit of the party, while
her husband led conversation slowly but surely toward
the subject of the late war in the States. When he
learned that some of the party had seen military service,
he manifested great satisfaction, and told of his own experiences,
which the military and political exigencies of
France had caused to be of varied but stirring nature.
The Vice listened with a sympathy born of his recollections
of the blockade-running service, but when he learned
that the old fellow, when a soldier, had once fraternized
with the revolutionists and fought beside them behind a
barricade, he shouted, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité,"
and tumultously embraced the grizzly old warrior in true
French fashion.
The next morning found the expedition still in camp
upon the island, and not caring to depart. Scenery so
diversified it had not been the fortune of any of the party
to have seen elsewhere. Every hour of the day revealed
some new beauty, and every change of light discovered
new charms in those which had been seen before.
The Cook, who had become so enamored of the view
that he occasionally forgot his official duties, arose at
dawn one morning to enjoy the scene by sunrise. The
air was chilly, so he kindled his fire and soon had a fine
bed of coals behind which he stretched himself, with his
face to the east. The dawn had doffed its bluish-grey
night-robe and was putting on a morning-dress of soft
pink, but doing it as leisurely as if this were not an age
of action, and as if time were not money. Then its complexion
slowly but steadily brightened under the influence
of atmosphere unpolluted by factory chimney, and undisturbed
by rumbling omnibus or rattling milk-wagon. It
glanced kindly down into the farmer's barnyard, and received
murmuring acknowledgments from the cattle and
fowls; it peered between the young trees on the steep
bank of the opposite shore, and each of them seemed to
stand a little straighter than before, while each leaf
gazed down into the watery mirror beneath and made its
most elaborate toilet. The river saw it coming, and,
ashamed of its own leaden complexion, hastened to throw
over its face a misty veil which should prevent too close
a gaze until the river's only valet should arise from his
couch behind the dawn, and brighten the heavy countenance.
The birds greeted cheerily the acquaintance
who came every day, and whose only fault was that it
never remained long enough; the tiny blossoms beneath
the trees began to peer forth at it; a million daisies turned
their yellow eyes toward it, and with each new attention
bestowed it blushed more and more. It sent the politest
of zephyrs to beg the river to remove its veil; it lavished
its own charms upon the river until the stream seemed to
have emerged suddenly from the fountain of youth; the
most subtle and delicious perfumes diffused themselves
every where, and the Cook breathed them in with a feeling
that he was absorbing Nature's own sweet self. Then
there floated through the air an odor more pronounced
and less fragrant, and the Cook discovered that a large
fold of one of his baggy trouser legs had succumbed to
the attentions of the neighboring fire, and disappeared
like the baseless fabric of a vision and left but a rag
behind. Just then the Purser, who at home was a philosopher
as well as an artist, emerged yawning from his
couch and proceeded to the river and his ablutions.
"Purser," said the Cook; "you believe in the conservation
of force; tell me now, I pray you, in what potent
form the lost fabric of my trouser leg will reappear?"
"In a tailor's bill," replied the Purser, and the Cook,
a wiser and a sadder man, sauntered off to fill the expeditionary
coffee-pot.
"The squadron," remarked the Commodore, as he
drained his second pint of coffee and laid aside his emptied
plate, "will now prepare itself for the reception of
a plain but startling statement. I call upon you all to
bear witness that I did not in the least discourage the
little ebullition on the part of the Cook which led him to
run the rapids at the fort through the humiliating device
of getting his boat carried up stream, so that he could
float down. I wish now to inform the fleet that real
rapids are before us. (Sensation, the squadron well
knowing that naught in the nature of rapids intervened
between them and the St. Lawrence.) You all know, by
report at least, that the river a few miles below is
crossed by a railway bridge. This railway traverses a
rough section of country and shortly touches the head-waters
of a wild river where they break from one of the
largest of our mountain lakes. Over this road I have
secured transportation for the fleet, and in two days at
the latest I hope that the "Becky Sharp" will show the
expedition the way down the "Horse Race" at Lake
End. The stream to which I refer falls into a navigable
river which in its turn joins the St. Lawrence within easy
reach of transportation to New York. I have prudently
kept this contemplated change of plan to myself until I
could be reasonably assured of its feasibility. The
letters received at the fort gave me the desired information,
and I now submit my proposition to the fleet."
"We don't want to reach any where," said the Purser.
"Wherever we are is paradise."
"No, we don't want to reach any where," said the
Vice. "We must in some way distinguish ourselves
from the tramps to whom we outwardly bear so faithful
a resemblance. I'm in no hurry; my canvass for the fall
elections don't begin for a month. Besides, on expeditions
like this I believe, with the Alderman—"
"Wherever we are may be paradise," remarked the
Cook, "but I never heard of manna being found except
in the wilderness, and in my official capacity I would
state that the manna of this expedition is reduced to one
pair of frogs'-legs, and that these, having been gathered
on the Sabbath, are, in short, spoiled."
Immediately every man began to stow his boat, and
in a short time the expedition was paddling over the line
of the Cook's Sabbath-day journey. At the first village
touched by the squadron the Purser, who went ashore for
stores, discovered that in spite of the distance from great
centres of thought, the rights of woman had gained full
recognition. The store was managed by a woman, who
left a loom to wait upon the customer, while her husband
smoked calmly in his chair and exhibited no sign of disapproval.
Nor were there lacking sufficient indications of the
universal brotherhood of man. The village was as destitute
of shade-trees as if it had been for years under the
charge of a New Jersey road-board, and all forest trees
had been as carefully removed from the broad expanse of
farming land as if they had been noxious weeds. A
stone pier which extended a little way into the river had
cracked and settled as thoroughly as it could have done
under the fostering care of a dock commission, and some
people living in a house close to a large stagnant pool
bewailed, as a direct visitation of Providence, the serious
illness of a member of their family.
At this point the expedition admitted the advisability
of obtaining from mid-stream all water for drinking and
culinary purposes. They saw numerous small floats, extending
fifty or more feet into the river, and at the end
of each of these, (the day being Monday) bent a woman
over a washtub, while at the landward end of the float a
fire of driftwood burned under a kettle, and sturdy
daughters of the family were engaged in tending the fire,
wringing the clothes and hanging them on the bushes to
dry. The beautiful simplicity of all these arrangements
so impressed the Vice, that no sooner had the expedition
camped on a verdant point than he remarked that he did
not see why men should not wash as well as women, and
extracting some articles of apparel from their hiding
place, he shortly presented the appearance depicted on
the following page, and now and then expressed his surprise
that the fleet was not as much interested in watching
his proceedings as it had been in those of the Canadian
blanchisseuses along the water side.
It had needed but the stimulus of action to make the
squadron forget its lotus-life at the island where it seemed
always afternoon, and around the evening fire a healthful
reaction set in favor of rapids and the contemplated
change of programme.
"Use Laundry Soap and be Happy."
AFTER breakfast the Commodore announced that
as nearly as he could estimate the town of St.
Ursus was only about one hour's run from the camp, and
that thence the squadron was to be shipped across country,
to Lake End, a freight train being due about the middle
of the morning, and a passenger train following shortly
after noon. With light hearts the squadron paddled down
a lovely stretch of river, past one or two "swell" houses
at which the Vice looked askance, as the probable abodes
of an "effete aristocracy." Two ladies, however, were
encountered out rowing in a boat, and as they gave pleasant
greeting to the Vice who happened to pass nearest
them, his opinions underwent a marked change, and he
expressed himself as not averse to associating with peeresses
in their own right, as he declared these undoubtedly were.
In due time the bridge was reached; the little station
at one end thereof was enlivened for a time by the presence
of four canoes and their owners, the station-master
showed a Montreal paper only a few hours old, the
freight train thundered up and away bearing the most
important part of the command, and after two or three
hours of dining and loafing about, the four inferior beings
followed in a passenger car. Thence an hour later they
emerged and stood upon the platform at Lake End, gazing
southward through a rugged mountain gateway which
closed in steeply on the dark blue waters.
It was but a few minutes work to secure the services
of a wagoner, who, for fifty cents, transported the four
canoes one by one to the water's edge and deposited
them ready for launching. By mid-afternoon the Purser
and Cook had bought a few necessary supplies and the
Commodore and Vice had reconnoitered the dam and
scanned the rapids below, down which it was intended to
run before sunset.
In the Second Rapids.
Very quickly the news spread through the little town
that four Yankees were going down the Race, and by the
time all was ready for passing the boats over a practicable
part of the dam, the whole population, male and female,
including summer boarders in the bewildering toilettes
of the period, were ranged along the banks, with the
exception of those who came to lend a hand, and a squad
headed by the local hotel-keeper, who strove to dissuade
the party from what he represented as a rash venture.
The hotel-keeper in fact was very kind, offering to provide
good rooms over night and send the boats round the
Race in a wagon in the morning. But the white water
was all the while roaring its invitation and drowning his
arguments, and though a witness was finally brought
who, having only one leg, declared that he had "run"
the rapids, and that the squadron couldn't do it, the
temptation was too strong to be resisted, so one after
another, with safe intervals between, the cruisers paddled
out into the flashing water, and then for a few minutes,
with every sense on the alert, every nerve strained, no
one had an eye for anything save sunken rocks, treacherous
swirls of the current, and the hundred indications
which to the canoeist indicate the deepest water and
the safest channel. It seemed only a few seconds, but
the better part of a mile had been passed when the
four waited for one another in the first reach of quiet
water that afforded us a resting place. Each had grazed a
few rocks in the first rapid, but all had passed triumphantly
and without visible mishap beyond the ken of the
hotel keeper, and the villagers, and were content.
Half the Race, however, was yet to be run, and there
was barely enough of daylight left for the undertaking.
"The stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight past,"
sang the Purser as he paddled the Arethusela out into
the stream to show the channel, the flagship following,
the Cherub next, and the Rochefort bringing up the
rear—an order of sequence that was presently effectually
reversed. Just below the head of the next rapid the
Arethusela hung upon a rock, and in an instant her
commander was overboard and struggling in a fierce
waist-deep current to keep his footing, and retain a hold
upon his boat. To add to his discomfiture his paddle
had come apart and half of it was floating merrily down
the stream. As the Commodore swept past, the discomfited
Purser called on him to save it; and two or three
strokes brought him nearly within reach, but at the same
time deflected him from the only path of safety. The
next minute he, too, was in the water, which, before
testing, he supposed to be knee-deep, but which proved
to be nearer neck-deep, while the fugitive paddle, with a
playful flourish of its blade, dived under a log, disappeared
for a moment from view, and then danced cheerfully down
the swift waters beyond. At this crisis the Cherub and
Rochefort appeared, and flashed past as, half swimming,
half wading, the two strove to reach a secure footing.
They shouted derisive inquiries for orders to the
Commodore, and presently disappeared around the bend
below.
Speaking unofficially and strictly in a private capacity,
the Commodore admits that he had all he could do to
avoid grievous wreck on the logs beneath which his companion's
elusive paddle had vanished. Wading and
swimming were alike irreconcilable with the conditions,
for the bed of the river was full of boulders over which
the water boiled without breaking. He tried the plan
of holding on to his boat and floating; but after being
dragged and bumped for a few yards over the stones, he
gave that up and resigned himself to careful wading until
he reached the shallows, where he at length succeeded in
re-embarking—no easy task, by the way, in swift water—and
soon joined the Cherub and Rochefort.
Down the Race.
A camping spot was selected on a bank of sawdust
near which was a mighty pile of dry mill waste, and the
three proceeded to light a fire and make a somewhat
needful change of clothing, before getting supper and
turning in for the night. After a long time the Arethusela
came in sight, her crew laboriously working a half-paddle—though
why a spare one stowed below decks was
not used was never found out—and examining the shores
and channel for the lost property. This was happily discovered
close to camp, and presently a "lean-to," was
covered with the soaked tent, which made a reasonably
comfortable shelter.
Sawdust is not so bad to sleep on when you have a
boat or a rubber-blanket under you, but it retains moisture
badly, and is seldom dry more than an inch below
the surface. Moreover, the dry part catches fire and
burns in an exceedingly persistent and stealthy manner,
tunneling unsuspected in all directions and making itself
very disagreeable. The members of the expedition, however,
knew its nature and provided against its vagaries by
wetting thoroughly in the vicinity of the fire, where the
Cook speedily had coffee and a tempting pan of scrambled
eggs ready for the evening meal.
The voyagers went to sleep this night with unwonted
noises in their ears, namely the close-at-hand roar of
rapids rising and falling as the mysterious and imperceptible
changes of the evening air bore it, now heavily, now
faintly, through the thick forest of spruce. It was a wilder
region than that through which they had been passing on
the lake and its outlet, and the woods gave out sounds
at night which often aroused one and another with the
pleasing and yet uncomfortable thought of bears and
lynxes in his half awakened brain.
HERE, at the foot of "Rapid No. 2," the authors
would say a word for the benefit of the inexperienced.
They are asked by cautious readers if this kind of
play is not dangerous. Certainly, just as coasting, and
travelling by rail, and crossing Broadway, and playing base
and foot-ball, are dangerous. In short, just exactly as life
itself is dangerous. They would not advise any but bold
swimmers to undertake the amusement; but where proper
survey is taken to avoid possible falls, a wetting is the worst
that can ordinarily happen. During the entire trip no mishaps
occurred save those which came in as part of the fun,
and although the voyagers were wet and dry half a dozen
times a day, not one caught the slightest cold, or suffered
any ill effects from exposure. Hardly any woman, and not
by any means all men, can be expected to appreciate the
fun of these duckings and other uncertainties of canoe
cruising. It may as well be admitted, however, that no
out-of-door recreation that is worthy the name, is wholly
without risk. The steadiest horses sometimes take fright
and run away. Without its rivalries and possible perils
to heart and hand, croquet itself would be but an insipid
pastime. All excitement presupposes risk of some kind,
but it refreshes body and brain alike when taken in reasonable
doses and in a fashion that does not infringe on
the rights of others. Since the Saturday afternoons of
their boyhood the authors have experienced nothing so
delightful as those long days on lake and river.
To certain members of the fleet the awakening in the
chilly morning air, with fog rising from the water and
drifting through the slender spires of balsam and spruce,
was the reverse of inspiriting, and the uncertainty as to
the course of the river below did not tend to create an
irresistible eagerness for farther rapids and farther
wettings. The sun however, soon drove away the mist,
dried the heavy dew from boats and equipments, and
gradually, as the river dimpled in the sunlight and rushed
brimming past in a swift deep current, it resumed its
attractiveness and, as soon as clothing was dry enough to
put on, every man was eager to begin the day's adventures,
and get it comfortably wet again.
Single file should be the order of procedure in a rapid
river where there is any question as to the width of unobstructed
channel. On sighting a rapid whose foot cannot
be clearly seen from its head, some one should reconnoitre,
and after noting the bearings of the current, should
lead the way, the rest of the fleet following at safe intervals
and taking prompt warning from his example in case
he comes to grief. As a general rule the water is deepest
near the concave shore. The reason is obvious. Each
general shore-line of a crooked stream is a series of points
and bays modified by a hundred varying conditions.
Every point tends to deflect the current toward the opposite
shore, and where the strongest current is, there is
ordinarily the deepest water. Where the stream breaks
into rapids the same rule holds good, but is liable to endless
modifications from boulders and rocks of all shapes
and sizes. Nevertheless it may be assumed that it has
been trying for untold ages to shape its channel according
to nature's rule, and it will be found in most cases to
have attained a reasonable success. At the head of a
rapid the white broken water is almost invariably V
shaped, the apex pointing down stream. Between the
arms of the V the water is comparatively smooth, and
dark. Along the arms and below the apex is white
water, thrown up more or less into waves. It is generally
the safest course, barring casual rocks which may put in
an appearance anywhere, to head directly for the apex
of the V, keeping in unbroken water as long as possible.
Then trust to luck and a quick eye and hand to avoid
the rocks which come too near the surface. Nothing but
experience can teach one to recognize these, and even
recognition does not always imply the ability to avoid
disaster.
If a keel-boat hangs resolutely on an obstacle, there
is nothing for its occupant to do but to jump overboard,
and the quicker the better, if he wishes to keep his stores
dry. In many cases such a boat may swing free or be
lifted clear by a powerful thrust of the paddle. The
canoeist's instinct is all that he has to tell him whether to
jump or thrust. With a keelless canoe the case is different
as it is comparatively rare that such an one will hang
persistently to an obstacle. It is often best however, to
take to the water in order to save the canoe from hard
knocks and scrapes. In view of this necessity for jumping
overboard, some protection is necessary for the feet, and
there is nothing so good as the common canvas bathing-shoes
with thick soles of hemp or jute. An old pair of
slippers is, however, far better than nothing.
Upon the whole, the best policy is to sit as usual
amidships and give to rocks the widest berth possible.
There is a pernicious doctrine in some quarters, derived
it must be confessed from English canoeists, that in running
rapids it is well to sit astride the canoe near the
stern, and lift her clear if she strikes by simply standing
up on the bottom of the stream, if it can be reached with
the feet. The Purser tried this once, purely out of patriotism,
but did not make a very good demonstration of
its advantages, for he upset as soon as he ran out of shoal
water, or rather he took a ducking in order to save his
stores which would inevitably have been wet had he tried
for an instant longer to maintain his precarious seat.
The rivers of Europe may admit of this very unpicturesque
mode of running a rapid, but those of America
do not take to it kindly.
The keels of the Chrysalids, are a decided disadvantage
in this phase of canoeing. They give the canoe additional
draught, and hang with provoking tenacity upon
any rock or other obstacle which they encounter. The
Red-Lakers on the contrary slide with an inch or more
to spare over an obstacle which would bring a Chrysalid
to instant grief. They turn far more easily, and hence
can much more readily be made by a quick swerve to one
side or the other, to avoid a threatened danger. The
blindest worshipper of the Chrysalid model can claim
nothing for a keel in swift water, save that it receives the
hard knocks which would otherwise have scarified the
more fragile bottom planks. This argument in their favor
is not good for much, as the keel cannot protect more
than two or three inches on each side, unless the obstacle
happens to be broad and flat. Under these conditions,
it was to be expected that the Rochefort would select
with excellent judgment a place whereon to demonstrate
the advantages of her keel. It may have been at the
foot of Rapid No. 9, at any rate it was at the head of a
comparatively quiet reach of water where three of the
fleet had drawn out of the current with a view to luncheon.
The Vice was the last to arrive, and was sweeping
boldly down where the current was swift and deep, having
passed the white water, when suddenly he was observed
to bring up all standing, his boat swinging round
instantly across the current, having fixed a malicious grip
upon a hidden rock, over which the water boiled, but did
not break. The Vice was unceremoniously plumped out
on the down-stream side into water that was neck deep
and running like a mill-race, but as he wore a life-belt he
feels justified in maintaining that he did not go entirely
under. He succeeded in getting a hold upon the rock
by the aid of his boat hook, and seated himself thereon,
holding his boat by the painter as she floated, full of water
and only sustained by her air-tight compartments, a yard
or two below him. The picture that he presented at
this moment was comical in the extreme, and he was
heartlessly kept sitting there,—he could not very well get
off alone with his boat to manage,—while the Commodore
made a sketch. The regular artist was too much concerned
at his friend's critical situation to pay any attention
to the calls made upon him for a careful study. The current
was so swift and deep that efforts to reach the Vice
by swimming were unsuccessful, so it became necessary
to wade out a few rods below him and catch his boat,
when he let her float down. He easily swam ashore
when relieved of this charge, and once more the Rochefort
had to be emptied of everything, and all lay by for
two or three hours, while her owner and his belongings
were spread out on the rocks to dry, he discoursing, the
while, until all fell asleep, of the innate viciousness of a
boat which could thus deliberately bring her commander
to confusion and shame.
The Vice sits for his Portrait.
It was in "Number 12" that all came nearest to utter
discomfiture, that is to actual overturns, and consequent
wettings of things not intended to be wet. Never had
the Vice, whose turn it was to survey the route, seen
a more innocent-looking rapid. It swept down in a
slight curve, dancing in the sun and seemingly offering a
clear channel. It was the flagship's turn to bring up the
rear, and in watching the descent of the others the Commodore
perceived that at a certain point each crew of one
became as it were demoralized, and struggled mightily
with the current until each turned at a right angle and
went on its way into the pool below. The reason was
not apparent until he reached the same point, when he
suddenly became aware that the stream was bearing him
with great velocity directly upon a huge rock. To go to
starboard was certain wreck. The only safety lay in turning
sharply to port, as his predecessors had done. To all
appearance this was utterly impossible, and, while straining
every nerve to make good his escape, the flag-officer
fully expected to be rolled over into twelve feet of water
in the most undignified manner, and in full view of the
fleet. Just at the last moment, when an overturn seemed
inevitable, an unexpected set-back from the rock caught
the canoe and whirled her instantly over a delightful little
dip, hardly high enough to be termed a fall, into the deep
water below, where the rest of the fleet lay enjoying the
perplexity and relief through which each in his turn had
passed. It is quite impossible under such circumstances
to shout advice, for the roar of the water completely overpowers
the voice. What would have happened if any or
all had struck the rock? Why, each and all would have
been spilled comfortably into deep water, to be sure,
whence it would have been easy to swim ashore and put
things to rights.
After a day of exciting work of this kind it was not
unpleasant in the afternoon to paddle out upon the
smooth waters of a little lake in the midst of the forest.
Along its gentle swelling shores were scattered farm
houses, beyond which the rough clearings crept up the
hillsides. Two or three huge water-oaks bent over the
shore in a shady cove, and here the squadron took shelter
until the sun's rays should be less vertical. Presently
from a neighboring farm house there came down to the
water's edge a damsel who proceeded artlessly to rivet
upon herself the attention of the fleet by lighting a fire
under a boiler, and doing up the family washing at the
lake-side. The artist filled a page or two of his sketchbook
with studies from the life, but refuses for some reason
to furnish them for publication. She was near
enough, however, to afford a fine opportunity, as the
Artist said, to study the peculiar French type of form and
feature, as modified by several generations of life in a
foreign climate.
Presently the Commodore, under pretence of inquiring
after eggs and milk, approached la blanchisseuse. The
Cook lounged respectfully behind his commanding officer,
while the latter addressed the woman in alleged French
to receive only a dismal shake of the head in reply. He
repeated his question, changing the phraseology, but with
a different result, while the Cook, to relieve the Commodore's
evident embarrassment, softly whistled the
Thuringian "Volks-lied." A pleased glance from the
woman elicited a word or two from the Cook; after a
short but spirited conversation in which the Commodore
took no part, the Cook informed his companion that the
desired supplies could be had at the house, and the two
men departed.
"Confound this French lingo!" exclaimed the Commodore,
"there are as many dialects in this region as
there are towns, and I don't easily pick them up; how do
you manage to do it?"
"My dear fellow," said the Cook impressively, "there
is one rule to be unvaryingly observed in conversing with
these people: never speak French to a woman who understands
only the German language."
The Commodore dropped the milk-pail—fortunately
it was empty—and endeavored to swear the Cook to
secrecy, with what success this narrative doth show. But
he derived some consolation from frequent allusions to
the Purser's professional studies of the "French type of
form and feature, as modified by a change of abode."
When the sun was low enough to cast the shadow of
the hills upon the lake, the fleet started and made its
way toward a distant point which, it was surmised, was
not far from the outlet and would afford good camping
ground for the night. A more delightful three mile paddle
can hardly be imagined. The peculiarly sacred stillness
of a forestland at sunset was over all the scene; a
silence that seemed absolute, and was yet vocal with
noises that did not break the spell. The plash of leaping
fish, the far off scream of an eagle, the occasional laughter
of a loon, the measured dip of paddles, none of these were
discordant with nature, and even the human tones that
now and then floated from the distant houses were so
faint as to be inoffensive. The voyagers hardly exchanged
a word as side by side they slid through the
reflected hues of sunset, watching in silence the mighty
mountain that rose in dark purple against the west, and
gathered around its summit a night-cap of cloud that
changed from red to grey just as the point was reached
and the tent pitched beneath a huge gnarled pine, that
towered above its fellows, and offered, as the Vice suggested,
an admirable mark for any nocturnal thunderstorm
that might be wandering in this direction. Only
one thing aroused any apprehensions as to the comfort
of this camp, and that was the ceaseless roar (the word
is used advisedly in preference to "hum") of insects.
They proved innocuous, however, and sleep soon came
down upon the tired canoeists.
CONTRARY to custom the camp had been pitched
where the morning sun would strike in upon it.
This is undesirable unless an early start is the order of
the day, for breakfast in the level rays of a summer sun
is not so comfortable as in the shade of a natural screen.
At a tolerably seasonable hour, therefore, the squadron
paddled around the point and across the reach which still
separated them by two miles or so from the outlet. For
variety the wind was dead ahead, but the distance was
soon passed and the flash of rapids at the very lip of the
lake announced that the stream maintained the character
which it had displayed in the earlier portion of its
career. In a moment the four pretty canoes were in
line at ample distance apart and were dancing down the
swift current into a dark sweep of spruce-covered banks,
with four as light hearted vagabonds on board as ever
left care behind them.
In retrospect it is hardly possible to recall any part
of this romantic river where a halt was not a luxury
merely because of the picturesque surroundings. Seldom
could the eye reach more than half a mile up or down
stream, for the precipitous or forest-covered banks were
continually pushing out on the one side and receding on
the other, while between them the river curved and
wound in a perpetual succession of rapids, pools, and
quiet stretches. The current even in its most quiet moods
was singularly swift and powerful, bearing the fleet onward
with hardly an effort, at the rate of six or seven
miles an hour. When clearings occurred they were
on the points, as is always the case in thinly settled countries.
Naturally such points are formed in the re-entrant
angle of the stream, and become places of deposit for
drift and alluvium in flood time. The opposite bank
is usually bold and with soil enough in most cases to
sustain only the wild forest growth. The quiet reaches,
however, are frequently broken where the river forces
its way through narrow passages, or over rocky ledges.
There are no dangerous falls until within a mile of the
mouth, and there is only one dam between the lake and
the falls. This dam the voyagers reached a few hours
after leaving the lake; hours full of the pleasant, healthful
excitement of rapids and wild shifting scenery.
Striking the back-water of the mill-pond a mile above
the dam, the fleet paddled down and soon came in sight
of the logs and crib-work which indicate the presence of
a saw-mill.
Drawing up alongside the boom, all hands walked
across the dam and considered the chances of running
the race-way. Noon had passed however, and while the
question was still unsettled, children came down from the
mill-settlement with fresh raspberries, and butter made in
the French style, without salt, and thus reminded of
luncheon, it was decided, in view of an approaching
thunder shower, to adjourn to the shelter of the mill.
Here an incident occurred which proved as it had never
been proved before the admirable discipline maintained
in the personnel of the command.
In the early days of the cruise it became painfully
evident to the real canoeists who were connected with
the expedition, that in one particular at least an unseemly
tendency toward effeminate luxury was developing itself.
The Vice and the Purser, on the first day out, produced
with an air of insufferable superiority, china plates, and
bowls which they were pleased to denominate coffee cups.
The relative size of these as compared with the legitimate
tin-cups used by the Commodore and the Cook is herewith
shown. Of course the flag-officer at once detected
the ruse, and foiled the conspirators by issuing at the
first camp, Special Order No. 1 to this effect:
The coffee ration will always be measured in the Cook's cup, that being
the standard pint recognized at these headquarters.
By order of the Commodore.
Possible infringement on the rights of individuals
having thus been provided against, it was only necessary
to counteract so far as possible the demoralizing effect of
the daily sight of china upon the morale of the expedition.
This end was diligently sought by the commanding officer
by every means in his power, but to no purpose. He
personally supervised the daily measuring of coffee with
the Cook's cup, but by some means the china bowls were
always filled, and their owners never failed to remark upon
the superior excellence of coffee taken from such receptacles
over that imbibed from barbaric tin. It was
evident that sooner or later a resort must be had to arbitrary
measures, but no fitting opportunity presented itself
until the squadron took refuge in the mill as narrated
above.
Comparative Coffee Cups.
The thunder storm proved to be of extraordinary
violence, throwing down trees, overturning buildings and
playing the mischief generally.
Midway of the meal the wind so increased as to drive
the rain in upon the festive board. The Commodore
saw that the time had come for action, and acted with
the promptitude which should always characterize an able
commander. "Prepare for a change of base," he shouted
above the roar of rain and wind. "Purser, coffee-pot
and sugar; Vice, devilled turkey and salt; Cook, bread and
butter." Each man seized the articles indicated and fled
to a place of shelter. With a gleam of triumph in his eye
the Commodore collected the remaining dishes, and taking
his life in his hand, for the good of the service, sprang
upon a pile of logs that was awaiting the saw, and attempted
to cross it at a run. At the third step a log
tilted. The Commodore went down, while the spasmodic
upward motion of the arms, under such circumstances,
sent the dishes aloft. They speedily came down, but it
was in pieces that did the Cook's heart good to see. The
Commodore, it is true, might have broken his leg, but he
did not, and while he somewhat ruefully rubbed his starboard
shin, he watched with scarce concealed satisfaction
the gathering of the fragments. Not a bowl or a plate
remained. The morale of the expedition was saved!
After the storm passed, it became necessary to circumvent
or run the dam. It was a logging dam, some
eighteen feet in perpendicular height, and offered extraordinary
inducements for running, but with a little too
much risk, so the boats were laboriously passed one by
one over the wing of the dam, and found themselves at
the head of a superb rapid which swept beneath and
around a rocky cape, and quickly carried the fleet beyond
the ken of the little forest settlement lying around the mill.
If possible the scenery below the mill was more picturesque
than any previously seen. At one point the
woods were on fire, and for a few hundred yards the
smoke was so thick that progress had to be made with
extreme caution, as the current was swift and the channel
full of rocks. At another the stream wound slowly
between wood-crowned cliffs, whose geological nature
severely taxed the scientific attainments of the expedition,
and tempted a long sojourn, while the Artist vainly
essayed a realistic sketch of the strangely convoluted
strata, which made the face of the cliff so wonderfully
expressive of the elemental strife and torture that must
have shaped it in some by-gone age. So with alternating
reaches of swift and still water, the lovely stream
coursed downward, bearing the fleet only too rapidly
toward its junction with the larger river. One more
night was passed among the spruces of its rugged shores,
and shortly after the next morning's start it became
evident that the forest stream was preparing to fulfill its
destiny in driving the saws of a great mill. Houses
straggled along the bank, and presently the fleet was
feeling its way among logs and booms to a landing place.
A few hours sufficed to procure transportation around
the beautiful falls, and by sundown the squadron was
making camp as usual on the banks of a broad placid
river, which to all appearances was the same which it left
a few days before. Here was Acadia again, and something
of a mental effort was necessary to realize that
it was another Acadia from that wherein the first æon of
the cruise had passed. The vesper bell sounded as
before, the lumber laden barges drifted as lazily as ever,
and the villages named after unheard of saints dotted
the banks in close succession, and the roar of rapids was
no longer to be heard.
IT had been something of a relief to stow masts and
sails compactly away for a few days, and now again it
was an agreeable change to be once more under canvas
and see the slender masts bend and spring before the
breeze.
In the course of a day's sail the river narrowed perceptibly,
as rivers are wont to do as they near their outlets,
and the various members of the expedition, having
noted the fact, proceeded, each in his own way, to discover
the cause thereof. A melancholy howl (learned
from Garibaldians in Italy) by the Vice, who was always
in the rear, was rightly construed by the occupants of the
Red Lakers (in the advance) as a sign that the Vice
wanted to light his pipe, so the Cook, who by virtue of
his official position was custodian of the expeditionary
matches, lay to until the Vice came alongside.
"The river," remarked the Vice, between puffs, "is
narrowing—every mile. Suppose it—should keep on—doing
it for—fifty miles more; it—would close entirely
before—it reached the—ow!—(here the flame of the
match reached the Vice's fingers)—reached St.—the devil,
oh!" for the Vice had dropped the still blazing fragment
upon his bare foot.
"No such saint in any calendar but that of politics,"
said the Cook reprovingly.
"The St. Lawrence, I meant, of course," said the
Vice: "the devil isn't recognized by any party at all."
"I suppose not," answered the Cook, who had
dropped into a dreamy reverie. "The true workers in
this world are never recognized by those who are most
entirely dependent upon them."
"You're begging the question," exclaimed the Vice,
examining his scorched instep. "An apology in the
shape of your flask of olive oil will be satisfactory.
How do you explain the river's shrinking, any how?"
"Why, it's growing deeper, and as there's only a given
amount of water, it can't occupy more space in one
direction without narrowing in another. It's a precedent
you might safely follow in politics."
The Vice reflected for a moment; then a sweet smile
irradiated his features, his left eye closed, his right forefinger
was slowly laid athwart his nose, and he replied,
"I knew that long ago, my boy; it's the mainstay of
the business—the system, I mean. Let the party broaden,
and 'Othello's occupation's gone.'"
But the Cook, having relieved his mind of chaff which
nevertheless carried (unknown to him) a grain of wheat,
determined to inflict upon some one else the questioning
to which he had been subjected, so he speedily overhauled
the other Chrysalid containing the Purser, and demanded
the reason of the river's narrowing. The Purser abruptly
ceased patching a sonnet which he had scribbled upon
the blade of a spare paddle, and answered,
"The water-drops, so long united, have a premonition
of the doom of separation soon to befall them, and
they cling more closely to each other, for a last fond interchange
of sentiment."
"Water is not compressible by its own volition,"
promptly replied the Cook, who loved cyclopedias, and
never knew sentiment when he encountered it. But the
Purser, who hated questions so intensely that, had he
lived in the time of that vigorous old interrogation point
yclept Socrates, would have tramped a thousand miles
for hemlock rather than have left the sage unpoisoned,
ran ashore to avenge himself upon the Commodore, who
had beached his boat to await the coming up of his lagging
fleet. To the commanding officer the Purser put
the disturbing question as to the cause of the narrowing
of the river, and with the following result:
"Rivers shrink toward their natural channel for the
same reason that capitalists take to government bonds—because
their banks are slippery, and suffer by the many
rushes upon them."
The villages grew nearer together as rapidly as the
shores did, and ahead and aloft there were always in sight
several church spires of the unvarying pattern peculiar to
churches along the river. Every spire was metal-covered
and bright, the latter perhaps because there were no opposition
houses of worship to cause that dismalness of
aspect affected by all churches in neighborhoods where
religion tends more to squabbling than to sanctity. At
short intervals appeared the residences of the priests,
each indicated by a tall cross at the gateway. The Commodore,
with his peculiar regard for the church so near a
sister to his own, signified a half-intention to go ashore
to confession, but on being reminded that but a week remained
for the cruise, and that no such short time would
suffice an editor in which to unburden his soul of its
manifold sins and transgressions, he forbore to make
others suffer for his own faults. It was noticed thereafter,
however, that he doffed his helmet respectfully
whenever he sailed past a church, and that when his own
day for foraging came, he preferred always to purchase
milk from a priest's housekeeper.
About this time the Purser began to drop behind in a
manner inexplicable even by the known slowness of his
boat; even the slow-sailing Vice distanced him, so the
Cook, not without a special appreciation of the Purser's
tobacco, went ashore to wait for his comrade to come up.
The bank of the river was high, and the Cook, who had
been hugging the shore for shade, had made company for
himself by roaring sundry staves, supposing that no one
but his comrades were within listening distance. Great
was his surprise, therefore, when on clambering up the
bank he beheld a closely built village in front of him.
Had the locality been any but Acadia, even the river
banks could not have hidden the town, but here the
dwellings are as modest of mien as the natives. Few
boast of a second story, nor is the floor of the first very
much raised above the level of the ground. In exterior
dimensions, most of the houses reminded the Cook of his
chicken-house at home, or of those suburban villas which
cluster so thickly upon the hills adjoining Central Park.
But with size the last-named parallel ceased, for the exteriors
were painted, the floors, seen through the open
doors and windows, were clean, and no pig disported
himself about the door-step. Children clustered about
them as thickly as they always do about very small
houses, but the matrons lacked that fagged, heaven-hungry
mien peculiar to their sisters in climes where the
Scripture is fulfilled by the greatest being the servant of
all—all of her own servants. Here one might speak of
love in a cottage and not be laughed out of society—hopeless,
indeed, would be his fate were he to desire any
other sort of asylum for his affections.
The Cook longed for social intercourse in this real
Acadia, but he doubted the ability of his French to see
him through; fortunately he espied a shop, and therein
he purchased sundry sticks of candy; with one of these
gravitating between his fingers and lips, he strolled about,
and within five minutes he had enchained in sweet bonds
several lapsful of dark-eyed children whose pure intuitions
taught them that in the great human search for
sweetness and light it was never well to decline a proffered
half of the desirable whole.
When the Purser drew near, it was with a sketchbook
loaded with drawings of odd boats which had been passed
at their moorings; and the names of these, with those of
their owners, which were painted in antique letters astern,
would have been of inestimable value to any writer of a
French romance. And he brought something dearer yet
to the eyes and heart of the Cook, and yet not wholly
unpicturesque, it being a pair of cockerels, handsomely
spangled, which he had purchased of a thrifty dame with
whom he had exchanged some courteous words as he
lounged past her riparian laundry in his boat. The Cook
hastily took to his boat, distanced the Commodore and
Vice, and an hour later announced broiled chickens for
dinner, the gridiron having been a few feet of stout wire,
which after use could be crumpled together into a thin
handful of old iron, yet extended, at need, to a two-chicken
capacity.
After the expedition had dined, each member discovered,
upon arising, that the human side is not destitute
of muscles, and that a steady strain of half a day at
rudder and paddle, can search these out in a manner as
uncomfortable as it is thorough. The Purser, who usually
made himself conspicuous, when ashore, by a broad red
woolen sash, apparently a muffler such as small boys wear
upon their necks in winter, was by far the most agile of
the party, and his companions, as they rubbed away the
stitches in their sides, inwardly vowed that the picturesque
was not always ridiculously useless, particularly when
assumed on proper occasions, instead of being treated as
of constant utility.
As the wind was gaining in industry, the Commodore
permitted an overlong delay, to be improved physically,
and while this was being enjoyed there hove in view
a craft peculiar to French-American waters, but which
would not be tolerated anywhere else. It was an immense
barge, considerably more awkward than a canal
boat, and moved by two great square sails, each with
a mast to itself. The breeze which bellied the canvas of
this monster would have driven a canoe along at the
rate of twelve miles an hour, but the barge proceeded so
leisurely that a maiden sauntering along the road on
the bank chatted with the pilot for a mile or two without
quickening her pace. Having both his vessel and his
sweetheart upon his mind, it is not strange that the
pilot did not perceive the four foreign craft beached
a-starboard; the maiden, however, with a woman's eye
for color, caught sight of the club signal which the Cook
always flew at his masthead, instead of upon the mainpeak,
with which it would have been furled when sail
was taken in. Her figure, which had afforded so gracious
a relief against the blue sky behind her, disappeared with
the unscientific effect of seeming to leave a cloud behind,
and as the unintentional listeners devoutly thanked
heaven for such knowledge of the French tongue as had
enabled them to overhear the artless affectionate dialogue
which had been going on, they saw, gazing at the
pilot, how dark the Acadian complexion can be when
displayed in the face of a lover newly made lonesome.
Gladly would the swain himself have retired from sight,
but the helm of his boat was obedient only under greatest
effort, so he strained sullenly at the tiller, a figure at first
amusing but soon pathetic. The sentiment which keeps
the world from growing old was not a stranger to the
canoeists, so the Purser murmured a bit from Jasmin and
caught a hint which for years he had tried to take from
Jules Breton; the Cook wished there might be a joint of
chicken left to offer the poor fellow; the Commodore
hailed him heartily, and offered to carry him out a taste
of brandy in token of a professional and sentimental
sympathy, and the Vice sent him a good cigar; and it
came to pass that five minutes later the ere-while lovelorn
helmsman was trolling a song of war and slaughter
as merrily as if love and Evangeline had never existed.
"Ah," sighed the Commodore, "the days are gone
when rum and true religion were the principal supports
of fallen humanity. Smoke seems to answer that fellow's
purpose as well as religion."
"If my memory serves me rightly," said the Vice, as if
in profound reflection, "a great deal of the religion I
have heard preached, was well informed with a something
from which smoke is a natural deduction."
"That," said the Purser, "is because in the universal
fitness of things a man recalls most readily that which he
most urgently needs. No one can wonder that a politician—"
"Language unparliamentary," interrupted the Vice,
with a wry face.
"A statesman, then," resumed the Purser, "should recall
most vividly the only element by which he can effectually
be purified."
"Sulphur is not to be used under the rays of the
sun," interposed the Commodore; "let's take to a more
cooling element."
A few moments were devoted to extra-careful stowing,
for there was a likelihood that terra firma would again
be reached only on the shores of the great St. Lawrence.
The Vice, with the statesmanlike instinct of saving himself
by assisting his companions heavenward, endeavored
by fair means and foul to persuade the others to accommodate
his gun, shot-bag and the volume of Tupper, but
regarding the latter his failure was complete. At length
he slyly tossed it into the branches of an umbrageous ash,
a picturesque old landmark of centuries. But the Commodore
saw him, and went handsomely to the rescue
of the old tree by knocking the book out with a
boat-hook.
"There are trees enough being destroyed daily by
coon-hunters, road-boards, and other villains," said he,
"and I won't stand quietly by and see so splendid a specimen
crushed beneath so relentless a weight."
"But somebody may find the book," pleaded the
Vice, who was already afloat.
"Thank heaven, the natives can't read English,"
replied the Commodore, "so they won't be injured."
"But I supposed I might find it there when I came
this way on next summer's cruise," said the Vice.
"So you will," said the Commodore; "neither wind
nor wave can move any thing so heavy: when that book
changes its base, there'll be nothing left to cruise with,
and nobody left to cruise."
The Commodore, for reasons which he would not
explain, had ordered that the St. Lawrence should be
reached that day, even though there was not a breath of
wind, and the whole trip had to be made under paddle, and
the Cook knew full well that when a Commodore (or anyone
else) issues an order that sounds well and prints nicely,
its success or failure depends largely upon the digestion
of those who are expected to execute it. So the Cook
prepared a meal as digestible as it was bountiful, and
within an hour the expedition had consumed enough of
omelettes, stewed potato, rice croquettes, cream-toast and
coffee to have terrified their respective wives into applying
for divorces on the ground of inordinate appetite.[9]
It is barely possible that the meal was prolonged with
the hope that a breeze might spring up in the meantime,
and do away with the necessity not only of paddling, but
of taking down and stowing away all standing rigging,
which in still water is likely to unfavorably affect the
time of the boat. But no breeze came, not even in reply
to some vigorous whistling on the part of the Commodore.
So the expedition took to its several paddles, and got
into mid-stream to get all possible assistance from the
current, and then, just where the river was widest, and
the squadron furthest from shore, a brisk breeze came
down as unexpectedly as if it were a savings bank, and
each man had to paddle ashore again to re-step his masts
so that he could set his sail. Then the squadron ran
rapidly down the river, wondering only if such a breeze
on so small a water could work a man up to so keen an
ecstacy, how they would be able to contain themselves
when cruising upon the almost shoreless St. Lawrence.
As usual,[10] the Cook, in the Cherub, soon took the lead,
and rapidly increased the distance between himself and
his companions. There was nothing to fear, for the Vice,
who had previously been through the river with the
Alderman, had assured the party that there was not
another rapid between it and the St. Lawrence. And
even if there should be one which the Vice had forgotten,
the Cook would be glad of the geographical ignorance
which would enable him to shoot it without the attendance
of three other boats, with their advisory counsels.
So he hauled his mainsail close and flew along through
the water, his steering-paddle keeping upon his wrist a
strain more delicious than man ever felt at the larger end
of a trout-rod. He shouted, he whistled, and finally,
there being no critic within hearing distance, he sang.
And as his rather uncertain voice rose and fell, the wind
seemed to supply a deep bass, a foundation into which
his wavering notes fitted perfectly. He fervently thanked
the wind, and the tall trees through which it roared, for
their sympathetic effort; he redoubled his own vocal exertions,
and the wind and trees, apparently touched by his
appreciation, seemed to assist more heartily than before.
Suddenly the Cook noticed that the east bank, from which
direction the wind came, was without trees at that point,
and while he dropped into silence to wonder how the
sound could be created where the means were lacking, the
bass turned gradually to sub-bass. Suddenly he saw an
irregularly intermitting spout of water near the middle of
the river, then he noticed a troubled wrinkle across the
river's entire front. He hastily let his boat come up into
the wind and run into what seemed a cove on the east
bank, and as she ran ashore there arose a loud shout of
applause from a dozen men congregated there.
"No one ever came so near before," said one, in
French.
"Saved by a minute!" ejaculated another.
"Could he have meditated suicide?" murmured a
third. "No; he looks not like one who has been disappointed
in love."
The Cook courteously but firmly demanded an explanation,
and one of the bystanders, a venerable man in
the dusty coat of a miller, led him to a slight elevation
to obtain it. Then the Cook saw that a natural and
abrupt fall of about fifteen feet extended entirely across
the river! In an instant he vowed a handsome subscription
to the campaign fund of whatever candidate might
run against the Vice in the autumn campaign.
The other boats approached in the order of their
rapidity, the Chrysalids coming last, and the Vice's
admission that his boat, with its keel, could never have
escaped had it been in the Cherub's dangerous proximity
to the falls, so reacted upon the Cook's temper that he
alienated a portion of the intended subscription to the
opposition campaign fund, and expended it upon a dinner
for four, for which he gave the proprietress of an
adjoining hotel—"Le Hotel de la Ville"—carte blanche.
And the landlady did her best. For an hour she and
several assistants hung over two stoves, while other
assistants scoured the neighborhood for delicacies. The
dinner was appetizing, as was all whereof the squadron partook
in Acadia after they had learned to avoid the railroad
hotels. Finally after all else was disposed of, an immense
dish of raspberries was placed upon the table, and beside
it a small bowl full of what seemed to be buttermilk.
"There!" exclaimed the Vice, eying the bowl with
manifest disgust, "that's an illustration of the effect of
monarchical institutions upon physical habits. The dinner
has been perfect, thus far, but now, just when the
climax should be attained, they offer us buttermilk!"
"Perhaps it's cream," suggested the Commodore.
"Cream?" said the Vice scornfully. "Oh no. I
know cream. Cream is a thin blue fluid. This is not
like it in the least."
Here the Vice scooped a teaspoonful of the pasty
fluid, and brought it gently towards his fastidious nose.
Suddenly he tasted it, straightened rigidly, and exclaimed,
"Judas Iscariot! It is cream!"
The Vice said no more until he had sampled the
bowl to the extent of a saucerful. Then he raised his
face and displayed unwonted lines of thoughtfulness and
conviction, as he exclaimed,
"Gentlemen, if an English cow gave that cream, I
have no hesitation in saying that our independence
wasn't worth fighting for!"
"Huzza!" shouted the Commodore and the Purser,
as they fell into each other's embrace and wept conservative
tears upon each other's blue shirt-collars, while the
sternly patriotic Cook pushed the seductive bowl afar and
whistled the "Star-Spangled Banner," as a counter-irritant.
But when he asked for his bill, and found that it was but
thirty-five cents for each individual, he retired to the
hotel parlor where there was an asthmatic cottage-organ
and penitently played "Rule, Britannia," keeping, however,
a cautious foot upon the soft pedal lest his temporary
lapse from national love should be discovered.
On returning to the boats it was discovered that the
small boy who had been engaged as watchman had accumulated
half a hundred deputies. As none of these
expected any money, the fickle Vice fluctuated back to
his first love among the nations, and was rebuked by the
Commodore for judging all things by a financial standard.
The breeze had apparently been to dinner too, for it
was amazingly reinvigorated and marked about forty
flaws to the hour. An order to carry only "dandy"
sails was protested against by the entire command, and
the Commodore, hoping that the coffin trade was not
depressed in the shipping port at the river's mouth, reluctantly
gave way to the wishes of his subordinates.
The result was that extraordinary time was made, and
twenty-five miles were passed almost before the voyagers
realized that the afternoon was waning.
As they approached the close of their voyage, the
considerable town where their voyage was to end, it
occurred to the squadron that its personal and individual
appearance was the reverse of prepossessing. A halt
was accordingly made, and for an hour assiduous attention
was paid to baths, soap, shaving utensils, and the
carefully preserved remnants of what had once been
laundried articles of wear. The one pocket mirror had
long since disappeared, so that certain delicate operations
of the toilette were performed with some uncertainty.
The Commodore had reached the final touches, and was
tenderly arranging the thin locks which still cluster about
his posterior cranial processes. To this task he devoted
for a time all the powers of his gigantic intellect, but in
the absence of the accustomed mirror, the result was unsatisfactory.
Dropping his hand at last, the Commodore
sighed, and looked around for assistance. The Vice, resplendent
in a white shirt and neck-tie, was unoccupied.
To him the Commodore, tendering the fragmentary
comb:
"I say, Vice, part my hair, will you, please."
The Vice marveled, but mechanically took the comb,
while the Commodorial dome was bowed conveniently
before him. Long he paused, so long that the Commodore,
losing patience, called out, "Why don't you go
ahead?"
"My dear boy," said the Vice, "So I would, but
there's nothing in the world to part."
The venerable mariner slowly straightened himself,
looked blankly for a moment into the face of his lieutenant,
and passed his hand reflectively over the smooth
top of his head.
"I beg your pardon, boys," he said at last. "I had
forgotten. This cruise has made me so much younger
that I thought I wasn't bald yet. It's high time for me
to be back at the office—'There'll be no parting there.'"
Of the remainder of the run, some five or six miles,
no member of the squadron is mentally fitted to give a
correct account. Every one wanted to be first in port,
and the Vice, in anticipation of being the fortunate man,
had secretly extemporized a new star spangled banner to
carry at the peak of his mainsail. But both Red Lakers
shot ahead of the Chrysalids, and the Vice at last ignominiously
took in his national ensign because it wasted a
certain amount of wind.[11] Finding there was but one boat
against him, the Cook assumed that he had himself already
won the race, so he began to compose a sarcastic
address to be delivered to his associates as one by one
they rejoined him at whatever landing-place he might
select. While he composed he heard a whiz, he saw a
shadow, and the wind died (apparently) so suddenly that
he barely had time to adjust the trim of his boat to
avoid capsizing. Looking about him he saw the great
sails of the flagship passing him to windward, and he
heard the voice of the Commodore, in tones which no
combination of type can express, shouting,
"Come to the best hotel and see me when you get
in!"
So the Cook looked about for some excuse to make
for what would be his probable tardiness, and he soon
found it. As he flew past a large assemblage of rafts, he
found their occupants, all Canadians, in an extreme fever
of curiosity to know how the boats were steered; the
wind being from their own bank, they could not see the
steering-oar on the opposite side. They also looked upon
the Red Lake boats, built in their own country, as utter
strangers, which fact enabled the Cook to moralize, by
comparison, upon the ignorance of people about their
own neighbors, and upon the peculiar fancies which in
such cases are made to do duty as facts. The Cook explained
to the full extent of his knowledge and his
French, and then, sighting the Chrysalids within a mile
he sheared away, and within five minutes a swell from a
steamer sent a wave of St. Lawrence water under his
bows, and he saw the "Great Lone River of the North,"
from the midst of as entangling an alliance of steamers,
barges, tugs, schooners, ferry-boats, yachts, fishing boats
and pirogues as any canoe was ever imperilled of, while
the Commodore lay under the lee of a decayed pier, and
placidly smoked at his subordinate's confusion.
The St. Lawrence was hailed with delight by the
tardy Chrysalids when they reached it, and then the party
strolled to the post office, debating whether to run up to
Montreal, which course the wind favored, or down to
Quebec, with the current and an occasional tide to help.
All admitted that the cruise had but fairly begun; placid
lakes and beautiful rivers were all very well, but,
"Give to them the roaring seas
And the white waves heaving high,"
or as much thereof as was within the bestowal of a river
many miles across. Just then they reached the post-office,
their change of course deprived them of mail
matter for several days. How it came about, nobody
knew; but within an hour the Commodore, his boat
stowed for return as freight, was on a train for New York,
and his comrades were mourning that they could not accompany
him. That evening all the canoes were stowed,
and placed on board a south-bound canal-boat, while the
Vice, the Purser and the Cook sat in Christian garb upon
the deck of the Montreal steamer, smoked cigars instead
of pipes, and discussed dados, symphony concerts, the
woman question, the railroad riots, and the impending
finance muddle as conventionally as if they had never
lived out of doors.
A few days later they met at a canoe club dinner in
New York, but neither claw-hammer coat nor white
tie could smother the fire within them as they discussed
the merits of their respective boats.
"The Chrysalids don't ziz-zag when they're paddled,
as the keelless Red Lakers do," observed the Vice.
"Nor do they keep within hailing distance in a breeze
in which even a dead log would run and be joyful," retorted
the Commodore.
"They need no lee-board to keep them from drifting
down the wind," said the Purser.
"Nor more than three men to land them on a shore
upon which a gentle tug at the painter will beach a Red
Laker," said the Cook.
"Give me a boat," said the Vice, "which steers in the
ordinary ship-shape manner."
"I," remarked the Commodore, "prefer one whose
Commander don't have to analyze a whole rope yard before
he can get her into sailing condition."
"The idea of oilcloth decks for any sort of a craft!"
exclaimed the Purser.
"Or of decks that make you imagine it's resurrection
morn, and you're crossing the Styx in your own coffin,"
said the Cook.
"Order, gentlemen," shouted the ruler of the feast;
"if you've any personal difficulties to settle, please retire
to the ante-room, and cease disturbing the club."
"Ze ante-room," remarked the caterer, "is full of ze
Alderman an' ze Judge, who fight about ze merits of ze
Rob Roy boats an' ze paper canoe."
"Then I will settle the question myself," said the President,
taking from his pocket a copper cent of the fathers.
"Heads signifies the superiority of the Chrysalids, tails of
the Red Lakers."
The coin spun in the air, and the quartette sprang to
its collective feet. It came down exactly edgewise into
a bit of Fromage de Brie, and so remained.
IN the preceding pages the authors have introduced
in a desultory way some hints which it is hoped may
prove of practical use to inexperienced or possibly to experienced
canoeists. There are some questions however
which are asked by every one who contemplates engaging
in this delightful recreation, and to a few of these questions
answers are now volunteered.
I. Where can I get a canoe?
The best answer is a list of builders. James Everson,
Williamsburgh, N. Y., W. Jarvis, Ithaca, N. Y., and
George Roahr, Harlem, N. Y., build excellent boats after
the Nautilus model and its modifications. These all
build on the well known lap-streak or clinker plan, using
cedar planks and oak timbers. Mr. J. H. Rushton of
Canton, N. Y., builds after the Nautilus and Rob Roy
models, also after a model of his own. He has a peculiar
method of construction, which makes his work very
strong and serviceable. Walters & Sons, of Troy, N. Y.,
build paper boats after the Nautilus and Rob Roy models,
D. Herald, of Rice Lake, Ontario, Canada, builds
canoes on a model of his own approximating to the best
type of Indian "birch." His method of building is
described on page 106. The model is admirable for
speed, sea-worthiness and safety. At Ottawa, Canada, is
a builder named English whose boats are well spoken of
but the authors are not personally acquainted with them.
J. F. West, of East Orange, N. J., builds light and serviceable
boats of ash strips covered with painted canvas.
He does not build for sale, but will furnish information
for those who wish to build for themselves.
II. How much does a canoe cost?
Seven dollars a foot is not an unfair rule whereby to
estimate the cost of a lap-streak, Nautilus model, including
spars and rudder. Some builders charge more, others
less than this. The Canadian canoes are cheapest of all,
but to the first cost must be added the tariff duty for
importation into the United States (about thirty per cent
ad valorem). Herald's highest priced canoe, seventeen
feet long, was at latest advices forty-five dollars. This
size is built under his patent and copper fastened throughout.
Built in the rib-batten style, the price is ten
dollars less and canoes of smaller sizes of both kinds still
less. The Nautilus models are largely decked over fore
and aft without extra cost, and are provided with ample
water-tight compartments which are invaluable in case of
accident and may be fitted with hatches which render
them available for stowage. The other models whose
first cost is less, are not provided with these conveniences
except by special arrangement, involving of course additional
expense. A canoe may be purchased and fully
rigged for less than a hundred dollars if her purchaser is
gifted with mechanical ingenuity. Or if money is no
object, the cost may be run up to almost any figure.
The ordinary price of a double-bladed paddle is in the
United States five dollars. All the builders make them.
A specialist is Henry Mitchell, of Bergen, New Jersey.
III. Miscellaneous.
For sails use the best unbleached heavy twilled cotton
sheeting, double width. Cut so that the selvedge will form
the leach of the sail. Hem half an inch wide, stitched on
both edges. Strong laid cotton cord about an eighth of
an inch in diameter should be sewed along the luff of the
sail, and is by no means undesirable along the other edges,
loops for making fast being provided whenever needed.
All these cotton articles should be well soaked before
being made up to prevent unequal shrinkage. The plates
entitled "Under full sail," and "Close hauled" give a sufficiently
accurate idea of the size and shape of sails. The
"Chrysalid," as drawn, is supposed to be fourteen feet
long, and the "Red Laker" seventeen feet. From this
the size of the sails can be easily ascertained. The flying
jib shown in one of the cuts is of no practical use, and no
one is advised to rig one.
Laid or braided cotton cord of one-eighth-inch or a
little more in diameter is best for running rigging. For
painter use braided sash cord, or best Manilla hemp.
Probably the best varnish for canoes, spars, paddles,
etc., is "Pellucidite" Nos. 1 and 2, made by Seely and
Stevens, of No. 32 Burling Slip, New York. The same
house has "paste filling" which should be applied before
the varnish. The best brown shellac is very good and
possesses the inestimable virtue of drying in ten minutes.
It may be applied over the paste filling above mentioned.
All varnishes are better and clearer for being laid on and
suffered to dry in the sun.
All metal work about a canoe should be brass or copper.
If it is nickel-plated, so much the better.
Decks or coverings of some sort are essential. These
may be fixed as in the Nautilus model, or movable, which
is better for obvious reasons. Canvas, rubber, or glazed
cloth serve very well. A simple and inexpensive device
is to sew small rings in the edges and hook them over
small round-headed brass screws set along the gunwale.
Let the screws be either on top of the gunwale or under
it. If set along the outer edge they are sure to be
knocked off. The authors, after a trial of flexible covers,
have decided in favor of wooden decks, fastened along
the gunwale with simple keys, staples, or buttons. If
cloth is used ridge-poles are necessary to make a watershed.
Wooden decks should be cambered or arched for
the same reason. The open central space should have a
flexible cover available in rain.
Some of the open canoes have thwarts which are
curved downward. This makes them uncomfortable to
sleep in, and the builder should be directed to curve
them upward. They can be easily changed if desired.
The masts should be stepped in fixed copper tubes,
because these relieve the canoeist from the often difficult
task of feeling about blindly for the lower step in the
bottom of the boat, and because an accidental starting of
the mast may lift it clear of the step, in which case,
lacking the tube, it will inevitably split the deck. Suitable
tapered tubes known as hose-pipes are kept in stock
by dealers in copper tubing. The taper is an advantage
as the mast cannot well be stuck fast therein. Cost
only a few cents.
Bags of cork-shavings, air-pillows, tin cans, or other
like devices may serve open canoes instead of the water-tight
compartments of Nautili.
Melted candle grease rubbed into a crack will make it
temporarily water tight. White lead is more permanent,
and gutta-percha softened in warm water and pressed in
is highly recommended. This last is not vouched for
personally.
Fine copper wire is very useful about a canoe for
lashings, etc.:
Very light and easily working mast-rings may be
made by stringing wooden or glass beads on stout copper
wire, which is then bent to the desired size. Solid rings
without beads (or "pearls" in strictly nautical phrase) are
apt sometimes to hang on the mast. The beads serve as
little wheels in running the sail up and down.
The "latteen" rig is very pretty, but very dangerous.
It is not recommended. The "standing lug" which is,
in effect the latteen with nearly all the dangerous part cut
off, works very well.
A lee-board may be used to advantage in working to
windward. It should be hung over the lee-side a little
forward of amidships. The simplest way of making it
fast is to pass a line through holes in its upper edge so
that turns can be taken over the cleats used for sheets.
The strain of a lee-board is quite heavy and all its connections
must be made strong. It has of course to be
shifted from side to side as often as the canoe goes about.
In paddling some sort of a cushion or elastic seat is
necessary. Abrasions and possibly more serious difficulties
will follow a disregard of this advice.
Do not undertake to be a canoeist unless you can
swim easily and well, and do not attempt to sail until you
are well accustomed to your boat under paddle.
To render cloth of any kind water-proof the following
recipe may be found useful:
Into a bucket of soft water put half a pound of sugar
of lead and half a pound of powdered alum: stir at intervals
during a day or two until a clear, saturated solution
is formed. Pour off into another vessel, soak the
cloth therein for twenty-four hours and then hang it to
dry in the shade without wringing. By this process an
insoluble salt is deposited on the cloth fibres and the fabric
will shed water like a duck's back. Woolens such as
good Scotch tweed, retain their water-proof qualities indefinitely,
cottons not so long.
A glue which is practically water-proof may be made
by boiling isinglass (Russian is best) in skimmed milk.
The proper proportion is about two ounces to a pint.
Common glue treated in like manner is rendered a good
deal more capable of resisting moisture than when made
with water in the usual way.
THE END.
