I Felt Much Drawn Towards A Young
Priest With Delicate And Refined Features, Who
Now Engaged Me In Conversation.
He was an
adept in all that related to boats.
He loved the
beautiful lake, and was never happier than when
upon its mirrored surface, except when laboring
at his duties among the poor of the ninth
district of New York. The son of a distinguished
general, he inherited rare talents, which were
placed at his Saviour's service. His Christianity
was so liberal, his aspirations so noble, his
sympathies so strong, that I became much interested
in him; and when I left the lake, shortly after,
he quietly said, "When you return next summer
to build your cottage, let me help you plan the
boat-house." But when I returned to the shores
of Lake George, after the completion of my
voyage to the Gulf of Mexico, no helping hand was
there, and I built my boat-house unassisted; for
the gentle spirit of the missionary Paulist had
gone to God who gave it, and Father Rosencranz
was receiving his reward.
When I joined my travelling companion, David
Bodfish, he grievously inveighed against the
community of Whitehall because some dishonest
boatmen from the canal had appropriated the
stock of pipes and tobacco he had laid in for his
three or four days' voyage to Albany. "Sixty
cents' worth of new pipes and tobacco," said
David, in injured tones, "is a great loss, and a
Bodfish never was worth anything at work without
his tobacco. I used to pour speerits down to keep
my speerits up, but of late years I have depended
on tobacco, as the speerits one gets nowadays
isn't the same kind we got when I was a boy and
worked in old Hawkin Swamp."
Canal voyaging, after one has experienced the
sweet influences of lakes George and
Champlain, is indeed monotonous. But to follow
connecting watercourses it was necessary for the
Mayeta to traverse the Champlain Canal
(sixty-four) and the Erie Canal (six miles) from
Whitehall to Albany on the Hudson River, a total
distance of seventy miles.
There was nothing of sufficient interest in the
passage of the canal to be worthy of record save
the giving way of a lock-gate, near Troy, and
the precipitating of a canal-boat into the vortex
of waters that followed. By this accident my
boat was detained one day on the banks of the
canal. On the fourth day the Mayeta ended her
services by arriving at Albany, where, after a
journey of four hundred miles, experience had
taught me that I could travel more quickly in a
lighter boat, and more conveniently and
economically without a companion. It was now about
the first week in August, and the delay which
would attend the building of a new boat
especially adapted for the journey of two thousand
miles yet to be travelled would not be lost, as by
waiting a few weeks, time would be given for
the malaria on the rivers of New Jersey,
Delaware, and Maryland, and even farther south, to
be eradicated by the fall frosts.
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