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