University of Virginia Library

THE CANAL-BOAT.

Of all the ways of travelling which obtain
among our locomotive nation, this said vehicle,
the canal-boat, is the most absolutely prosaic
and inglorious. There is something picturesque,
nay, almost sublime, in the lordly march
of your well-built, high-bred steamboat. Go
take your stand on some overhanging bluff,
where the blue Ohio winds its thread of silver,
or the sturdy Mississippi makes its path through
unbroken forests, and it will do your heart good
to see the gallant boat walking the waters with
unbroken and powerful tread, and, like some fabled
monster of the wave, breathing fire, and
making the shores resound with its deep respirations.
Then there is something mysterious,
even awful, in the power of steam. See it curling
up against a blue sky some rosy morning—
graceful, fleeting, intangible, and to all appearance
the softest and gentlest of all spiritual
things—and then think that it is this fairy spirit
that keeps all the world alive and hot with motion;

think how excellent a servant it is, doing
all sorts of gigantic works, like the genii of
old; and yet, if you let slip the talisman only for
a moment, what terrible advantage it will take
of you! and you will confess that steam has
some claims both to the beautiful and the terrible.
For our own part, when we are down
among the machinery of a steamboat in full
play, we conduct ourself very reverently, for we
consider it as a very serious neighbourhood; and
every time the steam whizzes with such red-hot
determination from the escape valve, we start as
if some of the spirits were after us. But in a
canal-boat there is no power, no mystery, no
danger; one cannot blow up, one cannot be
drowned, unless by some special effort: one
sees clearly all there is in the case—a horse, a
rope, and a muddy strip of water—and that is
all.

Did you ever try it, reader? If not, take an
imaginary trip with us, just for experiment.
“There's the boat!” exclaims a passenger in the
omnibus, as we are rolling down from the Pittsburg
Mansion House to the canal. “Where?”
exclaim a dozen of voices, and forthwith a dozen
heads go out of the window. “Why, down
there, under that bridge; don't you see those
fights?” “What! that little thing?” exclaims

an inexperienced traveller; “dear me! we
can't half of us get into it!” “We! indeed,”
says some old hand in the business; “I think
you'll find it will hold us and a dozen more
loads like us.” “Impossible!” say some.
“You'll see,” say the initiated; and, as soon as
you get out, you do see, and hear too, what
seems like a general breaking loose from the
Tower of Babel, amid a perfect hailstorm of
trunks, boxes, valises, carpet-bags, and every
describable and indescribable form of what a
Westerner calls “plunder.”

“That's my trunk!” barks out a big, round
man. “That's my bandbox!” screams a heart-stricken
old lady, in terror for her immaculate
Sunday caps. “Where's my little red box?
I had two carpet-bags and a—My trunk had
a scarle—Halloo! where are you going with
that portmanteau? Husbard! husband! do
see after the large basket and the little hair
trunk — oh! and the baby's little chair!”
“Go below—go below, for mercy's sake, my
dear; I'll see to the baggage.” At last, the
feminine part of creation perceiving that, in
this particular instance, they gain nothing by
public speaking, are content to be led quietly
under hatches, and amusing is the look of dismay
which each new-comer gives to the confined

quarters that present themselves. Those
who were so ignorant of the power of compression
as to suppose the boat scarce large enough
to contain them and theirs, find, with dismay, a
respectable colony of old ladies, babies, mothers,
big baskets, and carpet-bags already established.
“Mercy on us!” says one, after surveying
the little room, about ten feet long and
six high, “where are we all to sleep to-night?”
“O me! what a sight of children!” says a young
lady, in a despairing tone. “Poh!” says an initiated
traveller; “children! scarce any here;
let's see: one—the woman in the corner, two—
that child with the bread and butter, three—and
then there's that other woman with two—really,
it's quite moderate for a canal-boat: however,
we can't tell till they have all come.”

“All! for mercy's sake, you don't say
there are any more coming!” exclaim two or
three in a breath; “they can't come; there is not
room!”

Notwithstanding the impressive utterance of
this sentence, the contrary is immediately demonstrated
by the appearance of a very corpulent
elderly lady, with three well-grown daughters,
who come down looking about them most
complacently, entirely regardless of the unchristian
looks of the company. What a mercy

it is that fat people are always good-natured!

After this follows an indiscriminate raining
down of all shapes, sizes, sexes, and ages—men,
women, children, babies, and nurses. The state
of feeling becomes perfectly desperate. Darkness
gathers on all faces. “We shall be smothered!
we shall be crowded to death! we can't
stay here!” are heard faintly from one and another;
and yet, though the boat grows no wider,
the walls no higher, they do live, and do
bear it, in spite of repeated protestations to the
contrary. Truly, as Sam Slick says, “there's
a sight of wear in human natur'.”

But, meanwhile, the children grow sleepy,
and divers interesting little duets and trios
arise from one part or another of the cabin.

“Hush, Johnny! be a good boy,” says a pale,
nursing mamma, to a great, bristling, white
headed phenomenon, who is kicking very much
at large in her lap.

“I won't be a good boy, neither,” responds
Johnny, with interesting explicitness; “I want
to go to bed, and so-o-o-o!” and Johnny makes
up a mouth as big as a teacup, and roars with
good courage, and his mamma asks him “if he
ever saw pa do so,” and tells him that “he is
mamma's dear, good little boy, and must not

make a noise,” with various observations of the
kind, which are so strikingly efficacious in such
cases. Meanwhile, the domestic concert in other
quarters proceeds with vigour. “Mamma
I'm tired!” bawls a child. “Where's the baby's
night-gown?” calls a nurse. “Do take
Peter up in your lap, and keep him still.” “Pray
get out some biscuits to stop their mouths.”
Meanwhile, sundry babies strike in “con spirito,”
as the music-books have it, and execute
various flourishes; the disconsolate mothers
sigh, and look as if all was over with them; and
the young ladies appear extremely disgusted,
and wonder “what business women have to be
travelling round with babies!”

To these troubles succeeds the turning-out
scene, when the whole caravan is ejected into
the gentlemen's cabin, that the beds may be
made. The red curtains are put down, and in
solemn silence all, the last mysterious preparations
begin. At length it is announced that
all is ready. Forthwith the whole company
rush back, and find the walls embellished by a
series of little shelves, about a foot wide, each
furnished with a mattress and bedding, and
hooked to the ceiling by a very suspiciously
slender cord. Direful are the ruminations and
exclamations of inexperienced travellers, particularly

young ones, as they eye these very
equivocal accommodations. “What! sleep up
there! I won't sleep on one of those top
shelves, I know. The cords will certainly
break.” The chambermaid here takes up the
conversation, and solemnly assures them that
such an accident is not to be thought of at all;
that it is a natural impossibility—a thing that
could not happen without an actual miracle;
and since it becomes increasingly evident that
thirty ladies cannot all sleep on the lowest
shelf, there is some effort made to exercise
faith in this doctrine; nevertheless, all look on
their neighbours with fear and trembling; and
when the stout lady talks of taking a shelf, she
is most urgently pressed to change places with
her alarmed neighbour below. Points of location
being after a while adjusted, comes the
last struggle. Everybody wants to take off
their bonnet, to look for their shawl, to find
their cloak, to get their carpet-bag, and all set
about it with such zeal that nothing can be
done. “Ma'am, you're on my foot!” says one.
“Will you please to move, ma'am?” says somebody,
who is gasping and struggling behind you.
“Move!” you echo. “Indeed, I should be very
glad to, but I don't see much prospect of it.”
“Chambermaid!” calls a lady, who is struggling
among a heap of carpet-bags and children at
one end of the cabin. “Ma'am!” echoes the
poor chambermaid, who is wedged fast, in a
similar situation, at the other. “Where's my
cloak, chambermaid?” “I'd find it, ma'am, if
I could move.” “Chambermaid, my basket!”
“Chambermaid, my parasol!” “Chambermaid,
my carpet-bag!” “Mamma, they push me so!”
“Hush, child; crawl under there, and lie still
till I can undress you.” At last, however, the
various distresses are over, the babies sink to
sleep, and even that much-enduring being, the
chambermaid, seeks out some corner for repose.
Tired and drowsy, you are just sinking
into a doze, when bang! goes the boat
against the sides of a lock, ropes scrape, men
run and shout, and up fly the heads of all the
top shelf-ites, who are generally the more juvenile
and airy part of the company.

“What's that! what's that!” flies from
mouth to mouth; and forthwith they proceed to
awaken their respective relations. “Mother!
Aunt Hannah! do wake up; what is this awful
noise?” “Oh, only a lock!” “Pray be still,”
groan out the sleepy members from below.

“A lock!” exclaim the vivacious creatures,
ever on the alert for information; “and what is
a lock, pray?”

“Don't you know what a lock is, you silly
creatures? Do lie down and go to sleep.”

“But say, there ain't any danger in a lock, is
there?” respond the querists. “Danger!” exclaims
a deaf old lady, poking up her head,
“what's the matter? There ha'n't nothin'
burst, has there?” “No, no, no!” exclaim the
provoked and despairing opposition party, who
find that there is no such thing as going to
sleep till they have made the old lady below
and the young ladies above understand exactly
the philosophy of a lock. After a while the
conversation again subsides; again all is still;
you hear only the trampling of horses and the
rippling of the rope in the water, and sleep
again is stealing over you. You doze, you
dream, and all of a sudden you are started by
a cry, “Chambermaid! wake up the lady that
wants to be set ashore.” Up jumps chambermaid,
and up jumps the lady and two children,
and forthwith form a committee of inquiry as
to ways and means. “Where's my bonnet?”
says the lady, half awake, and fumbling among
the various articles of that name. “I thought
I hung it up behind the door.” “Can't you find
it?” says poor chambermaid, yawning and rubbing
her eyes. “Oh, yes, here it is,” says the
lady; and then the cloak, the shawl, the gloves

the shoes, receive each a separate discussion.
At last all seems ready, and they begin to
move off, when, lo! Peter's cap is missing.
“Now where can it be?” soliloquizes the lady.
“I put it right here by the table-leg; maybe it
got into some of the berths.” At this suggestion,
the chambermaid takes the candle, and
goes round deliberately to every berth, poking
the light directly in the face of every sleeper.
“Here it is,” she exclaims, pulling at something
black under one pillow. “No, indeed,
those are my shoes,” says the vexed sleeper.
“Maybe it's here,” she resumes, darting upon
something dark in another berth. “No, that's
my bag,” responds the occupant. The chambermaid
then proceeds to turn over all the children
on the floor, to see if it is not under them,
in the course of which process they are most
agreeably waked up and enlivened; and, when
everybody is broad awake, and most uncharitably
wishing the cap, and Peter too, at the
bottom of the canal, the good lady exclaims,
“Well, if this isn't lucky! here I had it safe
in my basket all the time!” and she departs
amid the—what shall I say?—execrations?—
of the whole company, ladies though they be.

Well, after this follows a hushing up and
wiping up among the juvenile population, and

a series of remarks commences from the various
shelves, of a very edifying and instructive
tendency. One says that the woman did not
seem to know where anything was; another
says that she has waked them all up; a third
adds that she has waked up all the children too;
and the elderly ladies make moral reflections
on the importance of putting your things where
you can find them—being always ready; which
observations, being delivered in an exceedingly
doleful and drowsy tone, form a sort of subbass
to the lively chattering of the upper shelf-ites,
who declare that they feel quite wide
awake—that they don't think they shall go to
sleep again to-night—and discourse over everything
in creation, until you heartily wish you
were enough related to them to give them a
scolding.

At last, however, voice after voice drops off;
you fall into a most refreshing slumber; it
seems to you that you sleep about a quarter
of an hour, when the chambermaid pulls you
by the sleeve: “Will you please to get up,
ma'am; we want to make the beds.” You start
and stare. Sure enough, the night is gone.
So much for sleeping on board canal-boats.

Let us not enumerate the manifold perplexities
of the morning toilet in a place where
every lady realizes most forcibly the condition

of the old woman who lived under a broom:
`All she wanted was elbow room.” Let us
not tell how one glass is made to answer for
thirty fair faces, one ewer and vase for thirty
lavations; and, tell it not in Gath! one towel
for a company! Let us not intimate how ladies'
shoes have, in the night, clandestinely slid
into the gentlemen's cabin, and gentlemen's
boots elbowed, or, rather, toed their way among
lady's gear, nor recite the exclamations after
runaway property that are heard. “I can't find
nothin' of Johnny's shoe!” “Here's a shoe in
the water pitcher—is this it?” “My side-combs
are gone,” exclaims a nymph with dishevelled
curls!” “Massy! do look at my
bonnet!” exclaims an old lady, elevating an
article crushed into as many angles as there
are pieces in a minced pie. “I never did sleep
so much together in my life,” echoes a poor little
French lady, whom despair has driven into
talking English.

But our shortening paper warns us not to
prolong our catalogue of distresses beyond
reasonable bounds, and therefore we will close
with advising all our friends who intend to try
this way of travelling for pleasure, to take a
good stock both of patience and clean towels
with them, for we think that they will find
abundant need for both.