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.