I was inclined to be poetical about the Grand Canal. In my imagination
De Witt Clinton was an enchanter, who had waved his magic wand from the
Hudson to Lake Erie and united them by a watery highway, crowded with
the commerce of two worlds, till then inaccessible to each other. This
simple and mighty conception had conferred inestimable value on spots
which Nature seemed to have thrown carelessly into the great body of
the earth, without foreseeing that they could ever attain importance. I
pictured the surprise of the sleepy Dutchmen when the new river first
glittered by their doors, bringing them hard cash or foreign
commodities in exchange for their hitherto unmarketable produce. Surely
the water of this canal must be the most fertilizing of all fluids; for
it causes towns, with their masses of brick and stone, their churches
and theatres, their business and hubbub, their luxury and refinement,
their gay dames and polished citizens, to spring up, till in time the
wondrous stream may flow between two continuous lines of buildings,
through one thronged street, from Buffalo to Albany. I embarked about
thirty miles below Utica, determining to voyage along the whole extent
of the canal at least twice in the course of the summer.
Behold us, then, fairly afloat, with three horses harnessed to our
vessel, like the steeds of Neptune to a huge scallop-shell in
mythological pictures. Bound to a distant port, we had neither chart
nor compass, nor cared about the wind, nor felt the heaving of a
billow, nor dreaded shipwreck, however fierce the tempest, in our
adventurous navigation of an interminable mudpuddle; for a mudpuddle it
seemed, and as dark and turbid as if every kennel in the land paid
contribution to it. With an imperceptible current, it holds its drowsy
way through all the dismal swamps and unimpressive scenery that could
be found between the great lakes and the sea-coast. Yet there is
variety enough, both on the surface of the canal and along its banks,
to amuse the traveller, if an overpowering tedium did not deaden his
perceptions.
Sometimes we met a black and rusty-looking vessel, laden with lumber,
salt from Syracuse, or Genesee flour, and shaped at both ends like a
square-toed boot, as if it had two sterns, and were fated always to
advance backward. On its deck would be a square hut, and a woman seen
through the window at her household work, with a little tribe of
children who perhaps had been born in this strange dwelling and knew no
other home. Thus, while the husband smoked his pipe at the helm and the
eldest son rode one of the horses, on went the family, travelling
hundreds of miles in their own house and carrying their fireside with
them. The most frequent species of craft were the “line-boats,” which
had a cabin at each end, and a great bulk of barrels, bales, and boxes
in the midst, or light packets like our own decked all over with a row
of curtained windows from stem to stern, and a drowsy face at every
one. Once we encountered a boat of rude construction, painted all in
gloomy black, and manned by three Indians, who gazed at us in silence
and with a singular fixedness of eye. Perhaps these three alone, among
the ancient possessors of the land, had attempted to derive benefit
from the white mail’s mighty projects and float along the current of
his enterprise. Not long after, in the midst of a swamp and beneath a
clouded sky, we overtook a vessel that seemed full of mirth and
sunshine. It contained a little colony of Swiss on their way to
Michigan, clad in garments of strange fashion and gay colors, scarlet,
yellow, and bright blue, singing, laughing, and making merry in odd
tones and a babble of outlandish words. One pretty damsel, with a
beautiful pair of naked white arms, addressed a mirthful remark to me.
She spoke in her native tongue, and I retorted in good English, both of
us laughing heartily at each other’s unintelligible wit. I cannot
describe how pleasantly this incident affected me. These honest Swiss
were all itinerant community of jest and fun journeying through a
gloomy land and among a dull race of money-getting drudges, meeting
none to understand their mirth, and only one to sympathize with it, yet
still retaining the happy lightness of their own spirit.
Had I been on my feet at the time instead of sailing slowly along in a
dirty canal-boat, I should often have paused to contemplate the
diversified panorama along the banks of the canal. Sometimes the scene
was a forest, dark, dense, and impervious, breaking away occasionally
and receding from a lonely tract, covered with dismal black stumps,
where, on the verge of the canal, might be seen a log-cottage and a
sallow-faced woman at the window. Lean and aguish, she looked like
poverty personified, half clothed, half fed, and dwelling in a desert,
while a tide of wealth was sweeping by her door. Two or three miles
farther would bring us to a lock, where the slight impediment to
navigation had created a little mart of trade. Here would be found
commodities of all sorts, enumerated in yellow letters on the
window-shutters of a small grocery-store, the owner of which had set
his soul to the gathering of coppers and small change, buying and
selling through the week, and counting his gains on the blessed
Sabbath. The next scene might be the dwelling-houses and stores of a
thriving village, built of wood or small gray stones, a church-spire
rising in the midst, and generally two taverns, bearing over their
piazzas the pompous titles of “hotel,” “exchange,” “tontine,” or
“coffee-house.” Passing on, we glide now into the unquiet heart of an
inland city,—of Utica, for instance,—and find ourselves amid piles of
brick, crowded docks and quays, rich warehouses, and a busy population.
We feel the eager and hurrying spirit of the place, like a stream and
eddy whirling us along with it. Through the thickest of the tumult goes
the canal, flowing between lofty rows of buildings and arched bridges
of hewn stone. Onward, also, go we, till the hum and bustle of
struggling enterprise die away behind us and we are threading an avenue
of the ancient woods again.
This sounds not amiss in description, but was so tiresome in reality
that we were driven to the most childish expedients for amusement. An
English traveller paraded the deck, with a rifle in his walking-stick,
and waged war on squirrels and woodpeckers, sometimes sending an
unsuccessful bullet among flocks of tame ducks and geese which abound
in the dirty water of the canal. I, also, pelted these foolish birds
with apples, and smiled at the ridiculous earnestness of their
scrambles for the prize while the apple bobbed about like a thing of
life. Several little accidents afforded us good-natured diversion. At
the moment of changing horses the tow-rope caught a Massachusetts
farmer by the leg and threw him down in a very indescribable posture,
leaving a purple mark around his sturdy limb. A new passenger fell flat
on his back in attempting to step on deck as the boat emerged from
under a bridge. Another, in his Sunday clothes, as good luck would have
it, being told to leap aboard from the bank, forthwith plunged up to
his third waistcoat-button in the canal, and was fished out in a very
pitiable plight, not at all amended by our three rounds of applause.
Anon a Virginia schoolmaster, too intent on a pocket Virgil to heed the
helmsman’s warning, “Bridge! bridge!” was saluted by the said bridge on
his knowledge-box. I had prostrated myself like a pagan before his
idol, but heard the dull, leaden sound of the contact, and fully
expected to see the treasures of the poor man’s cranium scattered about
the deck. However, as there was no harm done, except a large bump on
the head, and probably a corresponding dent in the bridge, the rest of
us exchanged glances and laughed quietly. O, bow pitiless are idle
people!
The table being now lengthened through the cabin and spread for supper,
the next twenty minutes were the pleasantest I had spent on the canal,
the same space at dinner excepted. At the close of the meal it had
become dusky enough for lamplight. The rain pattered unceasingly on the
deck, and sometimes came with a sullen rush against the windows, driven
by the wind as it stirred through an opening of the forest. The
intolerable dulness of the scene engendered an evil spirit in me.
Perceiving that the Englishman was taking notes in a memorandum-book,
with occasional glances round the cabin, I presumed that we were all to
figure in a future volume of travels, and amused my ill-humor by
falling into the probable vein of his remarks. He would hold up an
imaginary mirror, wherein our reflected faces would appear ugly and
ridiculous, yet still retain all undeniable likeness to the originals.
Then, with more sweeping malice, he would make these caricatures the
representatives of great classes of my countrymen.
He glanced at the Virginia schoolmaster, a Yankee by birth, who, to
recreate himself, was examining a freshman from Schenectady College in
the conjugation of a Greek verb. Him the Englishman would portray as
the scholar of America, and compare his erudition to a school-boy’s
Latin theme made up of scraps ill-selected and worse put together. Next
the tourist looked at the Massachusetts farmer, who was delivering a
dogmatic harangue on the iniquity of Sunday mails. Here was the
far-famed yeoman of New England; his religion, writes the Englishman,
is gloom on the Sabbath, long prayers every morning and eventide, and
illiberality at all times; his boasted information is merely an
abstract and compound of newspaper paragraphs, Congress debates, caucus
harangues, and the argument and judge’s charge in his own lawsuits. The
book-monger cast his eye at a Detroit merchant, and began scribbling
faster than ever. In this sharp-eyed man, this lean man, of wrinkled
brow, we see daring enterprise and close-fisted avarice combined. Here
is the worshipper of Mammon at noonday; here is the three times
bankrupt, richer after every ruin; here, in one word, (O wicked
Englishman to say it!) here is the American. He lifted his eyeglass to
inspect a Western lady, who at once became aware of the glance,
reddened, and retired deeper into the female part of the cabin. Here
was the pure, modest, sensitive, and shrinking woman of
America,—shrinking when no evil is intended, and sensitive like
diseased flesh, that thrills if you but point at it; and strangely
modest, without confidence in the modesty of other people; and
admirably pure, with such a quick apprehension of all impurity.
In this manner I went all through the cabin, hitting everybody as hard
a lash as I could, and laying the whole blame on the infernal
Englishman. At length I caught the eyes of my own image in the
looking-glass, where a number of the party were likewise reflected, and
among them the Englishman, who at that moment was intently observing
myself.
The crimson curtain being let down between the ladies and gentlemen,
the cabin became a bedchamber for twenty persons, who were laid on
shelves one above another. For a long time our various incommodities
kept us all awake except five or six, who were accustomed to sleep
nightly amid the uproar of their own snoring, and had little to dread
from any other species of disturbance. It is a curious fact that these
snorers had been the most quiet people in the boat while awake, and
became peace-breakers only when others cease to be so, breathing tumult
out of their repose. Would it were possible to affix a wind-instrument
to the nose, and thus make melody of a snore, so that a sleeping lover
might serenade his mistress or a congregation snore a psalm-tune!
Other, though fainter, sounds than these contributed to my
restlessness. My head was close to the crimson curtain,—the sexual
division of the boat,—behind which I continually heard whispers and
stealthy footsteps; the noise of a comb laid on the table or a slipper
dropped on the floor; the twang, like a broken harp-string, caused by
loosening a tight belt; the rustling of a gown in its descent; and the
unlacing of a pair of stays. My ear seemed to have the properties of an
eye; a visible image pestered my fancy in the darkness; the curtain was
withdrawn between me and the Western lady, who yet disrobed herself
without a blush.
Finally all was hushed in that quarter. Still I was more broad awake
than through the whole preceding day, and felt a feverish impulse to
toss my limbs miles apart and appease the unquietness of mind by that
of matter. Forgetting that my berth was hardly so wide as a coffin, I
turned suddenly over and fell like an avalanche on the floor, to the
disturbance of the whole community of sleepers. As there were no bones
broken, I blessed the accident and went on deck. A lantern was burning
at each end of the boat, and one of the crew was stationed at the bows,
keeping watch, as mariners do on the ocean. Though the rain had ceased,
the sky was all one cloud, and the darkness so intense that there
seemed to be no world except the little space on which our lanterns
glimmered. Yet it was an impressive scene.
We were traversing the “long level,” a dead flat between Utica and
Syracuse, where the canal has not rise or fall enough to require a lock
for nearly seventy miles. There can hardly be a more dismal tract of
country. The forest which covers it, consisting chiefly of white-cedar,
black-ash, and other trees that live in excessive moisture, is now
decayed and death-struck by the partial draining of the swamp into the
great ditch of the canal. Sometimes, indeed, our lights were reflected
from pools of stagnant water which stretched far in among the trunks of
the trees, beneath dense masses of dark foliage. But generally the tall
stems and intermingled branches were naked, and brought into strong
relief amid the surrounding gloom by the whiteness of their decay.
Often we beheld the prostrate form of some old sylvan giant which had
fallen and crushed down smaller trees under its immense ruin. In spots
where destruction had been riotous, the lanterns showed perhaps a
hundred trunks, erect, half overthrown, extended along the ground,
resting on their shattered limbs or tossing them desperately into the
darkness, but all of one ashy white, all naked together, in desolate
confusion. Thus growing out of the night as we drew nigh, and vanishing
as we glided on, based on obscurity, and overhung and bounded by it,
the scene was ghostlike,—the very land of unsubstantial things, whither
dreams might betake themselves when they quit the slumberer’s brain.
My fancy found another emblem. The wild nature of America had been
driven to this desert-place by the encroachments of civilized man. And
even here, where the savage queen was throned on the ruins of her
empire, did we penetrate, a vulgar and worldly throng, intruding on her
latest solitude. In other lands decay sits among fallen palaces; but
here her home is in the forests.
Looking ahead, I discerned a distant light, announcing the approach of
another boat, which soon passed us, and proved to be a rusty old
scow,—just such a craft as the “Flying Dutchman” would navigate on the
canal. Perhaps it was that celebrated personage himself whom I
imperfectly distinguished at the helm in a glazed cap and rough
great-coat, with a pipe in his mouth, leaving the fumes of tobacco a
hundred yards behind. Shortly after our boatman blew a horn, sending a
long and melancholy note through the forest avenue, as a signal for
some watcher in the wilderness to be ready with a change of horses. We
had proceeded a mile or two with our fresh team when the tow-rope got
entangled in a fallen branch on the edge of the canal, and caused a
momentary delay, during which I went to examine the phosphoric light of
an old tree a little within the forest. It was not the first delusive
radiance that I had followed.
The tree lay along the ground, and was wholly converted into a mass of
diseased splendor, which threw a ghastliness around. Being full of
conceits that night, I called it a frigid fire, a funeral light,
illumining decay and death, an emblem of fame that gleams around the
dead man without warming him, or of genius when it owes its brilliancy
to moral rottenness, and was thinking that such ghostlike torches were
just fit to light up this dead forest or to blaze coldly in tombs,
when, starting from my abstraction, I looked up the canal. I
recollected myself, and discovered the lanterns glimmering far away.
“Boat ahoy!” shouted I, making a trumpet of my closed fists.
Though the cry must have rung for miles along that hollow passage of
the woods, it produced no effect. These packet-boats make up for their
snail-like pace by never loitering day nor night, especially for those
who have paid their fare. Indeed, the captain had an interest in
getting rid of me; for I was his creditor for a breakfast.
“They are gone, Heaven be praised!” ejaculated I; “for I cannot
possibly overtake them. Here am I, on the ‘long level,’ at midnight,
with the comfortable prospect of a walk to Syracuse, where my baggage
will be left. And now to find a house or shed wherein to pass the
night.” So thinking aloud, I took a flambeau from the old tree,
burning, but consuming not, to light my steps withal, and, like a
jack-o’-the-lantern, set out on my midnight tour.