window on either side of the rudder, and perhaps a jug or a flower-
pot in one of the windows; a dinghy following behind; a woman
busied 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 skows. 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 tree-tops and the windmill,
sailing on the aqueduct, sailing through the green corn-lands: 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