Voyage of The Paper Canoe [31]
feet and a half of water. The boats are drawn through the locks by stationary steam-engines, the use of which is discontinued when the business becomes slack; then the boatmen use their mules for the same purpose. To tow an average-sized canal-boat, loaded, requires four mules, while an empty one is easily drawn by two. It proved most expeditious as well as convenient not to trouble the lock-master to open the gates, but to secure his assistance in carrying the canoe along the tow-path to the end of the lock, which service occupied less than five minutes. In this way the canoe was carried around seven locks the first day, and when dusk approached she was sheltered beside a paper shell in the boat-house of Princeton College Club, which is located on the banks of the canal about one mile and a half from the city of Princeton.
In this narrow watercourse these indefatigable collegians, under great disadvantages, drill their crews for the annual intercollegiate struggle for championship. One Noah Reed provided entertainment for man and beast at his country inn half a mile from the boat-house, and thither I repaired for the night.
This day's row of twenty-six miles and a half had been through a hilly country, abounding in rich farm lands which were well cultivated. The next morning an officer of the Princeton Bank awaited my coming on the banks of the sluggish canal. He had taken an early walk from the town to see the canoe. At Baker's Basin the bridge-tender, a one-legged man, pressed me to tarry till he could summon the Methodist minister, who had charged him to notify him of the approach of a paper canoe.
Through all my boat journeys I have remarked that professional men take more interest in canoe journeys than professional oarsmen; and nearly all the canoeists of my acquaintance are ministers of the gospel. It is an innocent way of obtaining relaxation; and opportunities thus offered the weary clergyman of studying nature in her ever-changing but always restful moods, must indeed be grateful after being for months in daily contact with the world, the flesh, and the devil. The tendency of the present age to liberal ideas permits clergymen in large towns and cities to drive fast horses, and spend an hour of each day at a harmless game of billiards, without giving rise to remarks from his own congregation, but let the overworked rector of a country village seek in his friendly canoe that relief which nature offers to the tired brain, let him go into the wilderness and live close to his Creator by studying his works, and a whole community vex him on his return with "the appearance of the thing." These self-constituted critics, who are generally ignorant of the laws which God has made to secure health and give contentment to his creatures, would poison the sick man's body with drugs and nostrums when he might have the delightful and generally successful services of Dr. Camp Cure without the after dose of a bill. These hardworked and miserably paid country clergymen, who are rarely, nowadays, treated as the head of the congregation or the shepherd of the flock they are supposed to lead, but rather as victims of the whims of influential members of the church, tell me that to own a canoe is indeed a cross, and that if they spend a vacation in the grand old forests of the Adirondacks, the brethren are sorely exercised over the time wasted in such unusual and unministerial conduct.
Everywhere along the route the peculiar character of the paper canoe attracted many remarks from the bystanders. The first impression given was that I had engaged in this rowing enterprise under the stimulus of a bet; and when the curious were informed that it was a voyage of study, the next question was "How much are you going to make out of it?" Upon learning that there was neither a bet nor money in it, a shade of disappointment and incredulity rested upon the features of the bystanders, and the canoeist was often rated as a "blockhead" for risking his life without being paid for it.
At Trenton the canal passes
In this narrow watercourse these indefatigable collegians, under great disadvantages, drill their crews for the annual intercollegiate struggle for championship. One Noah Reed provided entertainment for man and beast at his country inn half a mile from the boat-house, and thither I repaired for the night.
This day's row of twenty-six miles and a half had been through a hilly country, abounding in rich farm lands which were well cultivated. The next morning an officer of the Princeton Bank awaited my coming on the banks of the sluggish canal. He had taken an early walk from the town to see the canoe. At Baker's Basin the bridge-tender, a one-legged man, pressed me to tarry till he could summon the Methodist minister, who had charged him to notify him of the approach of a paper canoe.
Through all my boat journeys I have remarked that professional men take more interest in canoe journeys than professional oarsmen; and nearly all the canoeists of my acquaintance are ministers of the gospel. It is an innocent way of obtaining relaxation; and opportunities thus offered the weary clergyman of studying nature in her ever-changing but always restful moods, must indeed be grateful after being for months in daily contact with the world, the flesh, and the devil. The tendency of the present age to liberal ideas permits clergymen in large towns and cities to drive fast horses, and spend an hour of each day at a harmless game of billiards, without giving rise to remarks from his own congregation, but let the overworked rector of a country village seek in his friendly canoe that relief which nature offers to the tired brain, let him go into the wilderness and live close to his Creator by studying his works, and a whole community vex him on his return with "the appearance of the thing." These self-constituted critics, who are generally ignorant of the laws which God has made to secure health and give contentment to his creatures, would poison the sick man's body with drugs and nostrums when he might have the delightful and generally successful services of Dr. Camp Cure without the after dose of a bill. These hardworked and miserably paid country clergymen, who are rarely, nowadays, treated as the head of the congregation or the shepherd of the flock they are supposed to lead, but rather as victims of the whims of influential members of the church, tell me that to own a canoe is indeed a cross, and that if they spend a vacation in the grand old forests of the Adirondacks, the brethren are sorely exercised over the time wasted in such unusual and unministerial conduct.
Everywhere along the route the peculiar character of the paper canoe attracted many remarks from the bystanders. The first impression given was that I had engaged in this rowing enterprise under the stimulus of a bet; and when the curious were informed that it was a voyage of study, the next question was "How much are you going to make out of it?" Upon learning that there was neither a bet nor money in it, a shade of disappointment and incredulity rested upon the features of the bystanders, and the canoeist was often rated as a "blockhead" for risking his life without being paid for it.
At Trenton the canal passes