PACKET-BOAT.--HEAT.--CEDAR SWAMP, LONG SWAMP, AND MUSQUITO
SWAMP.--UTICA.
This day, up to the meridian, had been temperately warm, but not in the
least sultry or unbearable. The boat was exceedingly clean, not
over-crowded; and I sat down within its neat cabin, anticipating a
couple of days' quiet travel, which, if a little monotonous, would be at
least unattended by the fatigue and dust of a stage journey between this
and Utica.
The boat for a few hours went on merrily; the eternal forest closed
about us, and the sound of our horses' feet alone broke upon its
silence. Towards evening the heat became great, and after sunset the
southern sky began to give forth continuous sheets of flame, along whose
pale surface would occasionally dart lines of red forked lightning,
whilst the breeze gradually died away. My first idea was, that we were
about to be favoured with a refreshing storm of rain and thunder; but
vain were my hopes: I watched and listened, but no drop fell, no sound
was heard.
Meantime, the heat increased as the night closed in: the little cots,
however, were duly hung one below another along the sides of the cabin.
I had procured an upper berth, with a window by my side; and having
exhausted my patience, and wearied my sight watching the fiery sky, I at
last ventured to creep below. Although a hotter atmosphere can hardly be
imagined, I slept tolerably sound; but, on waking, found myself anything
but refreshed. The sun was not yet above the horizon when I crept forth
on to the deck: it was that hour of morning which, of all others, one
expects to be invigorating and cool, as indeed it usually is in all
climates; but here, enclosed within the banks of the canal, and
surrounded by swamp and forest, there was no morning air for us. My mind
was made up to leave the boat at the first place where a stage might be
procured.
All this day the air absolutely stood still. At our places of halt we
were joined by men who had left the stages in consequence of those
vehicles not being able to travel. Our pace was reduced considerably;
and the cattle, although in excellent condition, were terribly
distressed. At Lockport we found business nearly at a stand-still; the
thermometer was at 110 degrees of Fahrenheit. We passed several horses
dead upon the banks of the canal, and were compelled to leave one or two
of our own in a dying state. Here more persons joined than we could well
accommodate, and I found positively that all movement by the stage route
was at an end, forty horses having fallen on the line the day previous.
To attempt abiding in any of the places along the canal, I was assured
would be an exchange for the worse; so the only course was to endure the
"ills we had," and certainly these did not become the lighter through
practice. Towards the second night our progress became tediously slow,
for it appeared to grow hot in proportion as the evening advanced.
The south-western sky was again banked up by black clouds, from which
the sheet lightning never ceased to burst. Under other circumstances the
scene would have been viewed as one of infinite grandeur; but, at
present, every consideration became absorbed by our sufferings, for to
this the affair really amounted.
This night I found it impossible to look in upon the cabin; I therefore
made a request to the captain that I might be permitted to have a
mattress on deck: but this, he told me, could not be; there was an
existing regulation which positively forbade sleeping upon the deck of a
canal packet; indeed, he assured me that this could only be done at the
peril of life, with the certainty of catching fever and ague. I appeared
to submit to his well-meant arguments; but inwardly resolved, _coute qui
coute_, not to sleep within the den below, which exhibited a scene of
suffocation and its consequences that defies description.
I got my cloak up, filled my hat with cigars, and, planting myself about
the centre of the deck, here resolved, _malgre_ dews and musquitoes, to
weather it through the night.
"What is this name of the country we are now passing?" I inquired of one
of the boatmen who joined me about the first hour of morning.
"Why sir, this is called the Cedar Swamp," answered the man, to whom I
handed a cigar, in order to retain his society and create more smoke,
weak as was the defence against the hungry swarms surrounding us on all
sides.
"We have not much more of this Cedar Swamp to get through, I hope?"
inquired I, seeking for some consolatory information.
"About fifty miles more, I guess," was the reply of my companion,
accompanying each word with a sharp slap on the back of his hand, or on
his cheek or forehead.
"Thank Heaven!" I involuntarily exclaimed, drawing my cloak closer about
me, although the heat was killing; "we shall after that escape in some
sort, I hope, from these legions of musquitoes?"
"I guess not quite," replied the man; "they are as thick, if not
thicker, in the Long Swamp."
"The Long Swamp!" I repeated: "what a horrible name for a country! Does
the canal run far through it?"
"No, not so very far, only about eighty miles."
"We've then done with swamps, I hope, my friend?" I inquired, as he kept
puffing and slapping on with unwearied constancy.
"Why, yes, there's not a heap more swamp, that is to say, not close to
the line, till we come to within about forty miles of Utica."
"And is that one as much infested with these infernal insects as are
the Cedar and Long Swamps."
"I guess _that_ is _the_ place above all for musquitoes," replied the
man grinning. "Thim's the real gallinippers, emigrating north for the
summer all the way from the Balize and Red River. Let a man go to sleep
with his head in a cast-iron kettle among thim chaps, and if their bills
don't make a watering-pot of it before morning, I'm d----d. They're
strong enough to lift the boat out of the canal, if they could only get
underneath her."
I found these swamps endless as Banquo's line: would they had been
shadows only; but alas! they were yet to be encountered, horrible
realities not to be evaded. I closed my eyes in absolute fear, and
forbore further inquiry.
Here I remained throughout the whole night, dozing a little between
whiles, but never foregoing my cigar for a minute. Towards daylight the
dew descended like rain, but brought with it no coolness to earth or
man: it felt exactly as though it had been boiled the day before, and
had not been left long enough to get cool.
During this day many of our men frequently threw themselves overboard,
clothes and all on, that is, in shirt and trousers, these being all of
habiliment that could be worn; I really feared that some of them who had
been a little too free in their cold applications, that is, of iced
water and brandy, would have gone mad.
This blessing of ice we were seldom many hours without, the poorest
hovel on the canal being commonly provided with it in sufficient
abundance to give us a supply. The inhabitants, I found, were suffering
from the unusual continuance of heat as much as strangers: at night they
built huge fires of pine before their doors, so that the thick smoke
might penetrate the dwelling, and scour the infernal musquitoes out of
it. At these fires we would find the poor women sitting in the smoke at
the risk of suffocation; pale, haggard, with their hair neglected and
dishevelled, looking like worn-out ghosts rather than living beings. The
oldest inhabitants on the line of the canal assured us they never
remembered any heat of three days' continuance which could compare to
this; and I believe them, since no man could long endure such a
visitation.
This evening our condition was in no way improved, except that we heard
the sound and felt the presence of a strong current of northerly wind;
but it blew as though issuing from a furnace, and afforded no present
relief. The sky continued to show "fiery off," and the musquitoes of
that ilk did credit to the genealogy my informant ascribed to them: but
there is a period beyond which even suffering ceases; this happy
insensibility I had attained; and when after midnight we were landed at
Utica, I felt as though I could have slept soundly and well even beneath
the heated deck of our canal packet.
I got an excellent bed at the hotel, however; and at daylight awoke to
feel once more the delightful sensation of coolness. In the night heavy
rain had fallen; a light but pleasant breeze was blowing; and the past
was already a subject for merriment, although it was such matter for
jest as I never willingly will undertake to collect again.