We Did Not Once Use The Wheels Which We Had Provided.
Taking Advantage Of The Eddy, We Were Sometimes Floated
Up to the
locks almost in the face of the falls; and, by the same cause,
any floating timber was
Carried round in a circle and repeatedly
drawn into the rapids before it finally went down the stream.
These old gray structures, with their quiet arms stretched over
the river in the sun, appeared like natural objects in the
scenery, and the kingfisher and sandpiper alighted on them as
readily as on stakes or rocks.
We rowed leisurely up the stream for several hours, until the sun
had got high in the sky, our thoughts monotonously beating time
to our oars. For outward variety there was only the river and
the receding shores, a vista continually opening behind and
closing before us, as we sat with our backs up-stream; and, for
inward, such thoughts as the muses grudgingly lent us. We were
always passing some low, inviting shore, or some overhanging
bank, on which, however, we never landed.
Such near aspects had we
Of our life's scenery.
It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest
stream is _mediterranean_ sea, a smaller ocean creek within the
land, where men may steer by their farm-bounds and cottage-lights.
For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have
known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has
chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes
ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor. From an old
ruined fort on Staten Island, I have loved to watch all day some
vessel whose name I had read in the morning through the
telegraph-glass, when she first came upon the coast, and her hull
heaved up and glistened in the sun, from the moment when the
pilot and most adventurous news-boats met her, past the Hook, and
up the narrow channel of the wide outer bay, till she was boarded
by the health-officer, and took her station at Quarantine, or
held on her unquestioned course to the wharves of New York. It
was interesting, too, to watch the less adventurous newsman, who
made his assault as the vessel swept through the Narrows, defying
plague and quarantine law, and, fastening his little cockboat to
her huge side, clambered up and disappeared in the cabin. And
then I could imagine what momentous news was being imparted by
the captain, which no American ear had ever heard, that Asia,
Africa, Europe - were all sunk; for which at length he pays the
price, and is seen descending the ship's side with his bundle of
newspapers, but not where he first got up, for these arrivers do
not stand still to gossip; and he hastes away with steady sweeps
to dispose of his wares to the highest bidder, and we shall
erelong read something startling, - "By the latest arrival," - "by
the good ship - - ." On Sunday I beheld, from some interior hill,
the long procession of vessels getting to sea, reaching from the
city wharves through the Narrows, and past the Hook, quite to the
ocean stream, far as the eye could reach, with stately march and
silken sails, all counting on lucky voyages, but each time some
of the number, no doubt, destined to go to Davy's locker, and
never come on this coast again.
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