Rain on the canal, and the wrong kind of paddle

version, the surface was covered with steam. The exhilaration of departure and the easy

motion of the boats under each stroke of the paddles supported us through this misfortune

while it lasted. And when the cloud passed and the sun came out again, our spirits went

up above the range of stay-at-home humours. A good breeze rustled and shivered in the rows

of trees that bordered the canal. The leaves flickered in and out of the light and tumultuous

masses. It seemed sailing weather to eye and ear, but down between the banks the wind reached

us only in faint and desultory puffs. There was hardly enough to steer by. Progress was

intermittent in unsatisfactory. A jocular person of marine antecedents hailed us from

the towpath with a "C'est vite, mais c'est long." The canal was busy enough. Every now

and then we met or overtook a long string of boats with great green tillers, high sterns

with a window on either side of the rudder, and perhaps a jug or a flower pot in one of

the windows. A dinghy followed behind, a woman busyed about the day's dinner, and a handful

of children. These barges were all tied, one behind the other with tow ropes, to the number

of twenty-five or thirty, and the line was headed and kept in motion by a steamer of

strange construction. It had neither paddle wheel nor screw, but by some gear, not rightly

comprehensible to the unmechanical mind, it fetched up over its bow a small, bright chain,

which lay along the bottom of the canal, and, paying it out again over the stern, dragged

itself forward, link by link, with its whole retinue of loaded scous. Until one had found

out the key to the enigma, there was something solemn and uncomfortable in the progress of

one of these trains as it moved gently along the water, with nothing to mark its advance

but an eddy alongside, dying away into the wake.

Of all the creatures of commercial enterprise, a canal barge is by far the most delightful

to consider. It may spread its sails, and then you see it sailing high above the treetops

and the windmill, sailing on the aqueduct, sailing through the green cornlands, the most

picturesque of things amphibious. Or the horse plods along at a foot pace, as if there were

no such thing as business in the world, and the man dreaming at the tiller sees the same

spire on the horizon all day long. It is a mystery how things ever get to their

destination at this rate, and to see the barges waiting their turn at a lock affords

a fine lesson of how easily the world may be taken. There should be many contented spirits

on board, for such a life is both to travel and to stay at home.

The chimney smokes for dinner as you go along. The banks of the canal slowly unroll their

scenery to contemplative eyes.