VII.GARRISON LIFE.

"My Country 'tis of theeSweet land of libertee,"

instead of the original. The other two Americans, although they were old United States soldiers, could not brook this gratuitous affront to their English companion, so they vigorously attacked the Vice with their paddles and spattered him till he was fain to cry "quarter."Then the bows grated on the sand, and springing lightly ashore, the Vice mounted a boulder and delivered himself as follows, while the rest, dumb with amazement, sat in their boats to listen and applaud:

[5]"Far be it from me fellow-citiz—mariners, to disturb the harmony of this joyful occasion. We are gathered tonight almost upon the very spot where Chartreaux and Champlain and Vanjohn and Rouget Noir fit the Injuns and made them knuckle to the Jesuit Fathers, with none to molest nor make them afraid. Here subsequently Lord Howe and Commodore Vanderbilt marched their squadrons and manœuvered their battalions, and spliced the main brace, and shivered their timbers according to the dictates of their own consciences. Did any of them ever go back on their environment? No; contrariwise they harmonized, and shall we their successors fail to do likewise? Never, gentlemen, never. It has been hurled in our faces by the honorable gentleman from England, that the great republic is rotten with corruption—that our highest officers are not above peculation. Let me ask that honorable gentleman and his allies (here the Statesman indicated the Commodore and the Cook,) if any president of the United States ever stole corn meal and had his disgraceful act perpetuated in his country's literature? I pause for a reply. None? Then none has ever done such a deed. And yet, gentlemen, it is recorded of one of the most exemplary of Englishmonarchs that he not only stole the then current equivalent of corn meal, but caused it to be used on the royal table. I invite you to join me in singing a song to the glory of Old England—one, two, three; sing!

(Air Auld Lang Syne.)When good King Arthur ruled this land,He was a goodly king.He stole three pecks of barley meal,To make a bag-pudding.A bag-pudding the Queen did make,And stuffed it well with plums,And in it put great lumps of fat,As big as my two thumbs.The King and Queen did eat thereof,And noblemen beside,And what they could not eat that night,The Queen next morning fried.(Great applause.)

"Can anything more clearly indicate a low moral sentiment than the existence, and acknowledged popularity of this song? Fellow citizens (carried away by the tide of eloquence the Statesman forgot to say shipmates) and you, sir, whose alien friendship I am proud to own, although the unfortunate accident of a foreign birth (for which I cannot blame you,) opens a chasm between us—fellow citizens, I have done. My native land is behind me. I now appeal for protection to the Queen of England, and for the time being repudiate the American Eagle—though with all his faults I love him still."

Amid thunders of applause the Vice jumped down and inquired why luncheon was not ready.

After an hour's rest and refreshment in a sheltered nook, the squadron proceeded on its way under paddle, the wind having died out, making for a heavily wooded island visible several miles distant, on which it was surmised there would be good camping ground. Islands indeed proved to be the most satisfactory camping places that were found during the expedition, and were invariably selected when practicable.

The squadron paddled socially along, side by side, until the Cook stopped his stroke and fell behind. As he seemed to be engaged in making some not very satisfactory arrangement of his luggage, the Commodore ranged alongside and asked what was the matter.

"I can't fix my seat so as to be comfortable."

"Thought so."

"How do you fix yours?"

"Why this way," and the Commodore, vacated his seat, turning round and sitting on his forward thwart, so as to afford an unobstructed view. The two other canoes had now drawn near.

"Look at that," said the Vice. "He can stand up and turn round without upsetting in that old tub of his."

"So can I," said the Cook, suiting the action to the word.

"So cannot we," said the Purser, and the Vice. "But what are you looking at?"

It is a characteristic of Chrysalid canoeists that they never notice anything outside of their own boats until they bring up all standing, as it were, against it. Hence the Commodore's seat was a novelty to them, and they gazed upon it with mute admiration.

A Canoe Seat.

The blocks in which the cross-pieces rest, are screwed to the inside of the canoe. The cross-pieces are ash sticksabout an inch in diameter. They are fourteen inches apart. Over and around them is passed a piece of fourteen inch canvas, with grommets for lacing on the under side. The seat should have a slight slope aft and should be so placed that a back-board will rest conveniently against the after thwart or bulkhead. If the cross-pieces spring too much, two bits of wood cut to fit between them on either side of the canvas will make the whole structure very firm and elastic. A simpler arrangement is a movable thwart made of half-inch pine, with cross-pieces tongued and grooved across the ends to prevent splitting. If made eighteen inches wide, such a thwart may be used for a lee-board, as the canoeist should sit on or near the bottom of his craft when under canvas.

"There are some advantages about Red Lake canoes," said the Vice.

"Very plebeian though," said the Cook, satirically; "their principal mission is to go cruising with Chrysalids in the capacity of tenders."

"Yes," said the Vice, "I admit their carrying capacity."

"And their superior speed," said the Cook.

"And their great stability," added the Commodore. So with cheerful chaff the fleet went on its way, and in a couple of hours was making camp on a pretty island, evidently a resort for picnickers and which was playfully called "Murderer's Isle," from an unpleasant episode of early days.

The Commodore, having noted an abundance of drift lying about, detailed himself to procure fire-wood, and stretched at full length upon the dry sand, leisurely tossed fragments of wood toward the spot where the Cook was engaged in the soothing attempt to light a fire with damp paper and wet matches, and the Purser was scraping, within the water's edge, a hole to be used after supper as a dish-pan, when the expedition suddenly obtained its first foreign view of the picturesque. From the shore of the main land there crept out something which at first bore itself somewhat as indicated on the next page.

The Picturesque afar.

It finally resolved itself into a strange craft which seemed to be a generous pig-trough remodelled by one with yearnings after the art of the undertaker. Standing, yet bent nearly double, in the stern was a slight, short old man, clothed in raiment utterly unlike anything which any member of the expedition had ever seen at home. The old man paddled his boat at a surprising rate of speed directly toward the camp of the expedition, and as he did so the gazers gradually lost their enjoyment of the picturesque in the realization of a dread duty about to devolve upon them for the first time during the cruise. The old man being a Canadian, it naturally resulted that he must be a Frenchman, andincapable of English. Who was to converse with him? The Cook, who had picked up some French among the Louisiana creoles, but had not for ten years heard or spoken a word of the beautiful language, modestly retired behind the Commodore's broad shoulders. The silence began to be terrible, but it was bliss compared with the sensation with which the group shuddered when the strange craft slid noiselessly and darkly up the beach, and her crew partially undoubled himself and remarked,

"Wahu ei hoo mi eh ha ma?"

The Picturesque anear.

Three mariners involuntarily dropped back a pace or two; the fourth (the Cook) felt secure in his inconspicuousness until he discovered that he had been dropped to the ground by the Commodore's backward movement, and that the Commodore was nervelessly sitting upon him. At length the Vice, whose admiration for the French Commune had caused him to immure himself many a night with some ex-Communists who had escaped to America, asked in faltering tones,

"Q'est-ce-que vous voulez?"

"That's it," gasped the Cook, as he endeavored toreanimate the Commodore's spinal cord with the sharp end of a quill toothpick, "make the ancient mariner explain himself."

But the Ancient Mariner only shook his head with a vague look, and said,

"O hyu wuh oo mi en?"

Wahu ei hoo mi eh ha ma?

Then the Commodore, who had lived a year in Paris, and was familiar with the polite phrases there in vogue, said,

"Voulez-vous pourboire?"

The old man shook his head, scrutinized the party closely, read the names of the boats, and exclaimed,

"Haw hihi."

Then the Purser, who before he left Oxford had made a French translation of the "Antigone" of Sophocles, which competent judges pronounced superior to that of Voltaire, stepped a pace to the front to hide his blanched countenance, and said,

"Nous ne comprenons pas."

And the old man replied,

"Haw hihi, hahu?"

By this time the Cook, who had extricated himself from beneath the ruins of the Commodore, was discreetly and rapidly seeking the leafy coverts of the forest, but the Vice detected him and dragged him back. The Cook put on an air of bravery and exclaimed,

"It's no use, boys; I'm convinced that he's a Basque, who has strayed up into France, and somehow got over here. I speak half a dozen languages, but there are no affinities between the Basque and any other known dialect. It will be just as well to talk English to him as anything else, so here goes. Say, old friend, we don't know what you're driving at, but"—here a happy thought struck the Cook, "say it over again." And while the Cook listened attentively, the old man repeated his first inquiry,

"Wahu ei hoo mi eh ha ma?"

"Certainly!" exclaimed the Cook briskly, "how much do you ask for them?"

"Hihi heh," replied the old man with great animation.

"It's a bargain," said the Cook; "Purser, please give the ancient mariner half a dollar?" And then the Cook, with the air of a man who comprehended the wisdom of the ages, explained to his astonished auditors. "Gentlemen, our visitor is not a Frenchman at all; he is an Irishman whose palate has departed, and he wants to know if we will buy two pike and a bass—'hoo mi eh ha ma,'—you know." The old man in the meantime hurried to his boat, paddled off to a crate anchored on the edge of the channel, and returned with a string of fish in the full vigor of life.

The three linguists sat deliberately down upon the sand, and their lips remained closed until coaxed from their obduracy by the mingled odors of coffee, fried fish, buttered toast and canned peaches. The Vice was heard to mutter, "French I can talk and most patois I can understand, but Basque complicated with loss of palate throws me." Presently however he began to exhibit symptoms of his accustomed loquacity.

Supper Table.

It so happened that the supper table was sustained by resting against the cut-water of the Cherub, and it gradually dawned upon the Vice that there was something peculiar about her construction, something, that is, different from the construction of a Chrysalid which is built in the orthodox style, known as lap-streak or clinker, the planks being of quarter-inch white cedar, and the timbers of well seasoned oak. Said he, addressing the owners of the Red Lakers:

"Why don't the joints between your planking show?"

"Because the boats are not built in that way," said the Cook.

"But that's no way to build a boat; the seams can't be made tight unless the planks over-lap. Look at the Rochefort."

"Very true," said the Commodore, "but our boats don't seem to leak so very much more than yours do, for all that."

"How are they built any how?" and the Purser and the Vice simultaneously arose and examined the Red Lakers by moonlight and firelight.

Mention has already been made of the characteristic indifference of Chrysalid owners to all canoes which are not Chrysalids until some chance occurrence forces them to make examination.

In this respect they strikingly resemble certain ecclesiastical sects, which rest serenely ignorant of other denominations, until they stumble upon information inadvertently, which startles into respectful investigation.

"Why they are perfectly smooth inside and out,"—"no timbers at all,"—"what lots of rivets," were some of the remarks.

"Certainly, haven't we told you so a dozen times,"said the Cook, "and you never looked at them before."

"How do you suppose they are made?" asked the Vice.

"I am informed," replied the Commodore, "that thin strips of white cedar are steamed and bent transversely over an exact model or "last" of the intended canoe. The edges are straight so that they fit closely against one another. When all these are in place, a longitudinal outside sheathing of cedar or other wood, butternut in the case of our boats, is copper-fastened to the inner lining, the nails being driven through both thicknesses at short intervals, and clinched on the inside. The ribs and sheathing as used by the builder are each a quarter-inch thick, so that the total thickness is half an inch. The canoe is perfectly free from ribs inside, and from the raised edges outside, and cannot leak while she remains sound. Her strength is necessarily immense from the way in which she is put together."

"I think," added the Cook, "that we get a good deal of speed out of this model from the absence of the over-laps which are unavoidable in clinker built boats. These necessarily hold the water to an extent which must be appreciable in so light a craft. Moreover, the fore and aft curve of the bottom line rids them of a deal of what builders call 'skin-friction.' Recent experiments indicate that a shape like the bowl of a spoon offers the least resistance in passing over the surface of water."

"Your boats approximate to the spoon shape, that's a fact," said the Purser.

"Look at those rivets," remarked the Vice, "they make her look as though she were freckled."

"Granted," was the Cook's answer, "but are not freckles beautiful when they indicate a sound constitution?"

"The rib-and-batten, and the paper boats are quite as smooth outside," the Commodore admitted, "but, they all have internal projections which are sometimes inconvenient, as for instance when you wish to sleep on board, or when you are trying to sponge out sand and so forth."

The Purser and the Vice closed the dispute by proving that their lap-streak cedar boats when empty were somewhat lighter than the others, and the Commodore and Cook were fain to be content with asserting that if lightness were the only object, Red-Lakers could be built lighter than Chrysalids by using thinner stuff.

Footnotes[4]This was not the noun used by Dr. Johnson in his famous definition of patriotism.[5]Reported in full on the spot by the Editor.

Footnotes

[4]This was not the noun used by Dr. Johnson in his famous definition of patriotism.

[5]Reported in full on the spot by the Editor.

VII.GARRISON LIFE.

THE Vice and the Purser, having boats of the Chrysalid model, were so long in stowing their cargoes that the Commodore and the Cook started in advance of the remainder of the squadron and made a brisk run to a British fort, the outline of whose parapet was discernible to a military eye, on an island some miles distant. When built during the last war, this work was far beyond the range of Yankee guns, but now the two forts might exchange cards with some chance of doing execution, albeit they are out of sight of one another.

Doubting what reception they might meet at the hands of a British garrison, the voyagers resolved themselves into two divisions, one of which approached the water-gate, while the other ran behind a stockade which flanked the work. No sentries being visible upon the parapet, the two officers disembarked and having learned in former days never incautiously to approach an earthwork, they advanced up the glacis and along the counterscarp with due circumspection. Suddenly the Cook paused, seized his companion's arm; struck a dramatic attitude and exclaimed,

"Behold the garrison!"

An Unknown Fortress.

The couple, who had walked as they conversed, had reached one of the bastions, and as the Cook spoke, the two men beheld, between the gabion-lined walls of an embrasure, three children with uncovered heads and saucer-like eyes.

"'Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front,'" said the Cook.

"'And thus be it ever,'" quoted the Commodore.

By this time the Purser and the Vice had made the island, and joined the first arrivals, who carefully and with professional pride inspected the outward defences of the fort, using technical military terms with a fluency which humbled their civilian companions into comparative silence. At length the Vice, noticing the rotting stockade, the weedy ditch, and other signs of inattention, ventured to let the eagle scream a note or two.

"Just like everything else, that is subject to the decaying influence of monarchical institutions," said he. "How quickly a handful of our brave fellows would take possession of it!"

"Perhaps," admitted the Commodore, "but I'd prefer to risk my chances from the inside."

The Purser immediately patted the Commodore on the back, while the Vice opened his eyes and demanded an explanation.

"Some forts," remarked the Commodore, "are like singed cats; they fight better than they look. This fortis in better condition now, than half the forts were that have become historic."

"But in case of sudden war," said the Vice, "there's nothing at hand to repair a broken-down fort with, is there?"

"Yes; living men; they make and unmake forts," said the Commodore brusquely.

"It's the same way with conventions and caucuses," remarked the Vice, regaining his self-respect as he imagined himself once more the Commodore's equal.

"You've been a soldier," said the Purser to the Cook, "and I am longing to see once more the uniform of my native country. Tell me how to gain admission to the fort."

The Cook replied,

"Go around to the sally port, which you will be sure to find opening away from the neighboring republic, and fire your pistol. The guard will hurry out and make you its prisoner; then the Commodore and I will come around and intercede for you, on the ground of your ignorance."

The Purser looked disdainful; "And think you," said he, "that Britain's laws are so fitful as to waver under the persuasions of a brace of Yankees?"

"When Yankees can't persuade Britishers," remarked the Vice, "they usually proceed to"—

"Pack a High Court of Arbitration," interrupted the Purser.

The quartette straggled through the tall weeds, which prevented farther chaff, and reached the sally port. Theheavy gates hung aloft, their duty being discharged by deputy in the shape of long rails resting edgewise in two posts, and with "No Admittance" painted upon a board. The garrison, moving on interior lines, gradually massed itself behind the board, its forefingers taking wary positions within its respective mouths. Behind, and in the centre of the terreplain, towered an enormous haystack. "Behold," said the Purser, "the ingenuity with which the garrison has placed the haystack just where riflemen can take shelter behind it, and command the entrance to the fort, picking off infatuated Yankees who venture upon the drawbridge."

The British Garrison.

"True," retorted the Cook, "the idea is not unlike that of General Jackson, who used cotton-bales at New Orleans, but I believe it was not Yankees, who were picked off." The contrast between the ideal and the real was soabsorbing, as the four stood at the bridge-head, that some time elapsed before they realized that clouds had gathered heavily, and begun to drop their contents.

"My main hatch is open!" shrieked the Vice, as he hurried off to his canoe.

The Sally Port.

"My tobacco—and it's a rare Brazilian article—is lying in the bottom of my boat!" shouted the Cook, as he followed the Vice.

"The Vice and the Cook will tow up the other boats," ordered the Commodore, "while the Purser and I construct temporary shelter."

Several hundred yards from the fort was a group of trees and a board pile, and to this the commanding officerand the Purser hastened. The trees seemed to have been a favorite resort of cattle, and the contents of the board pile were rotten, but it was not a time to be particular, so a beam was stretched between the limbs of two trees, and boards slanted against it to shed the rain. Fortunately a platform of boards happened to be just where the extempore shed would cover it. When the Vice and the Cook returned, the latter considerately bringing dinner material with him, it was discovered to be noon-day, so the party did justice to bread and butter, cold tongue, and a can of apricots. Suddenly the Vice remarked,

"I suppose these boards beneath our feet are the floor of some late military structure. I can't help noticing how perfectly they are combined for drainage, sagging, as they do, at the centre."

The Commodore had not before noticed the peculiarity alluded to, but now his mathematical eye saw that the depression in the boards was lower than the surface of the surrounding ground. Extracting a trolling line from the Vice's pocket, he lowered a sinker cautiously in a crack between two boards, unrolled considerable line, withdrew it, and remarked,

"I have the pleasure of informing the squadron that during military occupation of the fort, the inmates of the hospital, the ruins of which we behold in front of us, had an abundant supply of cool water from a very deep well, which well is at the present moment directly under us, while the boards which cover it are slowly breaking."

Every one sprang to his feet. While at his home occupation of statesmanship, the Vice never beheld disaster impending over his own party without speedily traversing the whole distance between his own party and the opposition, so on this particular occasion, his instincts impelled him to dash through rain, mud, and thistles toward the ruins of the hospital, whose wall offered the most distinct shelter within view. The Vice wore a helmet, his long whiskers fluttered behind him on the breeze, his shoulders and body were covered by a black rubber blanket, his trowsers were rolled high above his stockingless calves, and he wore a huge pair of carpet slippers, which were nearly as wide as they were long. His figure and attitudes, as he ran, were so full of suggestion that the artist preserved them in a series of sketches, severally entitled.

The Vampire Bat.

"The Flight of Cain."

"Scotch Laird enjoying His Favorite Weather."

"Study of the Bottom of a Bear's Foot."

"Rip Van Winkle chased by Dogs."

"Mephistophiles Triumphant."

"Election Returns from a Rural District."

"The great Vampire Bat."

The absence of the Vice left his late companions in possession of additional elbow room, but on a rainy day there are blessings more to be desired than elbow room. Among these is a pipe of tobacco, and four walls between which to smoke it. The Cook's precious Brazilian tobacco was wet, the Commodore and the Purser had left their pouches in their boats, but each man had a pipe in his pocket, and it was known that the Vice had in his possession a bag of delicious weed. So dispatches were sent him during a slight lull in the storm, and the Commodore and Purser made a reconnoissance in the direction of the fort. The garrison being invisible, the storming party dashed over the bridge and beneath the temporary portcullis, putting to flight a large body of chickens who were carelessly resting upon their arms in the guard-room. These alarmed the commander of the fort, who at once emerged from headquarters, with an axe upon his shoulder, and himself in dishabille.

The Commodore saluted the commandant, and asked, with due formality, the courtesy of shelter for himself and companions, and for permission to walk about the fort when the rain should cease.

"Is it wantin' to be out av the wet ye are?" askedthe commandant; "come straight into the kitchen an dhry yerselves."

"There are two more of us, yet to come," explained the Commodore.

"Ah, niver ye fear," quoth the old man; "isn't the kitchen in the casemate that held the biggest gun, in the good ould times, an' hasn't a whole company av the Rifles been in there to wanst many's the time."

The Commandant.

The casemate proved of generous size, as was also the cooking-stove that stood in the midst of it. The commandant's wife and children made haste to place chairs, while one child was detailed to bring in the Vice and the Cook at the double-quick. Soon the quartette sat about the refilled stove, and though the month was July, no one thought to push back his chair. Gradually there stole over the party that delicious drowsiness which is peculiar to a man who has been acting as clothes-horse to a wet suit—a drowsiness

"That resembles slumber onlyAs the mist resembles rain"—

a drowsiness which demands not sleep, but smoke. In short, each member of the expedition was dying for a pipe, but he would have prolonged his sensation of dissolution to its logical end rather than have got out of his chair on the one hand, or, on the other, have ventured to smoke in an apartment which was apparently the host's parlor as well as his kitchen. But the Vice, the Statesman, the moulder of men, came at the critical instant to the rescue of his companions and to that of

"A nearer oneStill, and a dearer one"—

himself.

"You must find it quite lonesome here at times," he remarked to the commandant of the fort.

"Thrue for yez, an' I do," responded her Majesty's representative.

"Still," continued the Vice, "I suppose you can once in a while take some comfort out of a drop and a smoke?"

The commandant of the fort winked profoundly. The Vice passed his half pint flask stealthily to the custodian of Britain's honor, and the old man, first prudently sending his wife out of the casemate for something, drained the flask with the greatest courtesy and enthusiasm. Then the Vice remarked,

"I suppose you get very good smoking tobacco in Canada, as there is no duty on it, but permit me to leave you a fine pouch of it, as a slight remembrance of your courtesy to us."

The commandant accepted the token of esteem, and smiled his thanks from every line of his wrinkled visage. Then he opened the pouch, and advanced his ancient nose, first cautiously, then critically, and finally with a sniff of decided approbation.

The Commandant's Lady.

"Try it at once," said the Vice, with ill-dissembled eagerness. "Don't hesitate on our account—we are old smokers."

The commandant acted at once upon the suggestion, first courteously passing the bag to his guests. Within three minutes these traditional enemies were smoking the pipe of peace together, nor was lovely woman missing from the circle, for the commandant's lady filled and lit, not exactly a yard, but a "lady-finger" of clay herself, and puffed thereat with great satisfaction.

The rain ended, the party went out to look at the fort, and discovered that what from the outside hadappeared a mere earthwork was really a very carefully built fort, with stone quarters, galleries, casemates and revetments, and easy of defence to a mere handful of men.

Just as the party was bidding adieu to their kind entertainers, there occurred an accident which displayed to an unexpected degree theesprit de corpsof the expedition. The commandant had offered the Commodore some milk for the expedition, if some one would wait an hour for it—the cows were quite a way off, he said. To wait inside a grim fort while the sun shone brightly outside, and four canoes needing inspection on account of damages by rain, was a duty to chill the ardent soul. Just then, however, when the Commodore was wondering if he could safely forget his own morning detail of himself as fleet milkman, and assign this duty to some one else, the commandant's older daughter, heretofore invisible, and of about eighteen or twenty summers, appeared from an adjoining room.

"I'llstay, Commodore," shouted three manly voices in unison. The Commodore was so affected by this devotion to the interests of the fleet that he felt shamed into a determination to remain true to his self-appointed duty, but when he beheld the Purser's pleading eyes, more eloquent than any words could be, human sympathy overcame soulless discipline in the Commodore's rugged breast, and the brotherhood of man asserted itself.

The wind and the shower died together, and as eachcaptain of a vessel had some special reason to wish himself farther on his journey, it was agreed that the squadron should proceed under paddles, and camp for the night at a point which the Vice knew all about, having camped there during a previous cruise with the Alderman. This plan was accepted with expressions of the liveliest satisfaction.

As the Purser rejoined the command with his milk pail, the three Americans were seriously conversing about garrison life, as it exists in the British service.

"I have often read," the Vice was saying, "of the exalted social tone which pervades the British army, and I confess that I am glad to have been admitted even for so short a time into society so select."

"I have always understood," said the Commodore, "that the commandant of an English military post is sure to be a gentleman of high social position at home."

The Cook remarked that "it was pleasant to have the notions of the simple and unaffected manners of the English aristocracy, as derived from contemporaneous literature, so pleasantly confirmed by an actual experience."

"But you know that there isn't any—" put in the Purser.

The Cook went on serenely with his remarks, in the same vein and was so ably seconded by his fellow citizens, that the Purser finally embarked and paddled away, stopping a few yards from shore to shout defiantly back,

"It was all Gladstone's doings, you know. But forhim there would have been a regular garrison there, and may be you wouldn't have been so cordially received."

To be out of doors and at liberty for ten days is, to men without physical vices, wonderfully exhilarating, and enforced confinement by a few hours of rain only intensifies physical spirit and alertness. Every nerve and muscle seems to demand something to do, a mountain to climb, an untamed horse to ride, a locomotive to drive, a regiment to lead into a battle, or—as was the case with the Vice on this particular afternoon—a good, close, vicious political canvass to dash into. To gratify and utilize this sensation, there is no sport superior or equal to that of paddling a canoe. Rowing may lessen the physical disquiet, but while the canoeist sits upright in his boat, voluntarily working only with his arms, and learning of unsupposed physical availability and grace with every motion, the oarsman sways to and fro like the deserted half of a melancholy hinge, which wavers helplessly about in air, always longing for something to attach itself to, but never finding it. Besides, the paddler faces his water and his goal, instead of fixing his eyes unceasingly upon the fleeting past. The oarsman's duties are confined to steady pulling, while with every stroke of his paddle, the canoeist pulls and pushes also, discharging these duties with alternate arms as he works upon the opposite sides of his boat. The exercise is not passive, like that which one takes onhorseback, nor does it partake of that mental strain which a man experiences when he takes the helm of his own yacht. It is superior, by far, in physical benefit, to that most exhilarating experience that comes of driving a canoe under full sail and before a brisk breeze. And if, after an hour's work at the beginning of a cruise, the canoeist finds himself the owner of two handfuls of blisters which nobody cares to borrow, he finds himself at its end in possession of a fund of strength, spirits, and clearness of head and heart that are far too precious to lend, although they may have been bought very cheaply.

The paddles used by the modern canoeist are like that represented on the cover of this book. They are very light, being made usually of spruce, an inch and a half in diameter at the largest part of the shaft. For a wide canoe a nine foot paddle is desirable, but for narrower craft one seven and a half feet or even seven feet long is sufficient. A common ferule joint in the middle facilitates close packing. Two joints dividing the paddle in three parts, do not work well in practice. Rubber rings, or the two halves of a three inch rubber ball cut to slip over the shafts prevent the water from dripping inboard.

The squadron had sailed thus far without beholding any of the picturesque which is peculiarly French, but now it hoped that at landing, the essence of Acadia would be visible. It seemed for a few moments as if thishope was about to be realized, for as the boats approached their prospective landing, two quaintly dressed boys stood observantly and quietly upon the bank, instead of dancing and hooting like savages, or casting stones and objurgations at the squadron, as almost any brace of boys in the United States would have done under similar circumstances.

"Note the respectful ways engendered by monarchical institutions," observed the Commodore.

"Rather the absence of the spirit which the heavy hand of despotism has crushed out," replied the Vice.

As the boats were beached, the boys timidly approached them. The Vice, forgetting his first encounter of the picturesque, accosted them in French, and was somewhat confused by their replies until he learned that the youths were of English parentage, and that they lisped.

The boys were soon reinforced by their father, a tall, modest, but self-reliant looking man, who eyed the camping preparations of the party with an interest which was greater than curiosity, and which was explained afterward by the discovery that he had been of the Argonauts of '49.

The Vice, in his capacity of Statesman, knew the honest farmer as a type, only as the principal element of mass-meetings which he sometimes addressed; the Commodore, when in his editorial chair, knew him principally as a subscriber to be secured; the Cook, when playingscribbler, found the farmer-type useful to contrast with other types, and the Purser, when in his studio, knew him only as an occasional adjunct to a pastoral composition.

But after the self-contained, hard-working, rather lonely and diffident farmer had lounged about the camp for a couple of hours that evening, the party learned, as the city-bred man needs sorely to learn about many another farmer, that the old man could see something in a sunset besides tints reducible into pigments, more in a book than its writer's art, that he knew more of the essentials of politics than the editor and statesman combined, and stranger still, that he cared neither to edit a newspaper nor to run for office.

After a good supper and a cheerful pipe or two, the Commodore, who had been extremely quiet for a few moments, announced that he considered it the proper thing for canoeists to sleep in their boats instead of tents.

"Then," said the Commodore, "if the river rises suddenly, you will be in your boat, instead of having it drift away from you."

"And if you turn over in bed, in such case," remarked the Vice, "you'll never know what drowned you."

The Commodore did not reply, for the real object of suggestion was to emphasize one point of superiority of the Red Lake model, after which his own boat and the Cook's were built, over the Chrysalid model affected bythe other two mariners. But the Commodore's will was law, and that night the four men slept each in his own canoe, a rubber blanket thrown across a line extending from mast to mast affording protection from dew and possible rain.

VIII.THE BEGINNING OF ACADIA.

ON the morning of this day, two canoeists arose from their nautical couches with that satisfied air which betokens a night of peaceful rest, but the Vice and the Purser arose only after many a premonitory groan, and even then they strongly resembled a couple of rough logs from which a single slab had been sawn, so flattened was one side of each. The Commodore eyed them with manifest satisfaction, called the attention of each of them to the appearance of the other, and exclaimed,

"Observe the effect of sleeping in a canoe with ribs and a bottom board! I was curious to see how the experiment would result."

"I wish, then," grunted the Vice, as by vicious pinches he sought to restore animation in his flattened side, "I wish—ow—that your devotion to science had prompted you to try the experiment upon yourself, and borrowed my canoe to do it in."

"Thanks, thanks," rejoined the Commodore, briskly, "but I had an experiment of the same sort to try in my own boat, which has a smooth concave bottom. I begyou will observe how my outlines preserve their habitual shapeliness."

The flat-sided sufferers retired for a bath, and speedily forgot their sorrows. If the morning bath in a city bath-tub is a washer-away of fragments of slumber, and a merry awakener, how much more delightful is the same exercise in an ever-replenishing body of water half a mile wide and hundreds of miles long, enclosed only by blue sky, green trees and brown earth, with no close dining-room and conventional breakfast to be descended to, no morning paper to be read, no vile horse-car to go to business on, nor any hard pavement to tramp over, and no brother man to find fault with, except in that cheerful banter which always comes back to bless the giver. Thus thought the Cook as he stood waist deep in the clear water, and thus he might have continued to think for a long time had his foot not impinged upon the riparian rights of an honest mussel with slightly parted shells.

The Commodore had already been out for provisions, and returned rejoicing.

"Another proof of the superiority of monarchical institutions," said he. "Instead of the prices we have been accustomed to heretofore, I pay twelve cents a-piece for chickens, ten cents per pound for butter, and three cents per dozen for eggs."

"And you are pleased to regard this cheapness as a virtue?" asked the Vice. "Is no one but the buyerto be considered?" How do you suppose people live who sell the products of their industry at such starvation figures? But monarchists and imperialists have but a single idea—to crush the poor."

The Commodore shrunk an inch or two in length and breadth, but soon recovered himself, donned a vicious smile, and announced with assumed cheerfulness that the time had come to "sling the healthy," whereby monarchists, imperialists and republicans would suffer alike.

"What's that?" asked the Cook.

The Commodore grinned sardonically. "He wants to know what, slinging the healthy, is," said he. "Well, he'll know before dinner. It means paddling—paddling in earnest, young man—paddling a ten or fifteen mile stretch, instead of a leisurely half mile."

There seemed no alternative, for the river was as smooth as glass. The sun noted the mirror-like surface of the water, and his natural vanity caused him to rub up his face until its brightness could not be increased. Just by way of refreshing the pleasurable sensation of beholding his face in the water, he dropped his gaze quite frequently upon the blue-shirted backs of the canoeists, until each man imagined that he must have caught some sparks from the camp-fire. Then it seemed as if there must be rain falling from the cloudless sky, for the Cook felt water-drops coursing steadily down his back. The Purser was sure his boat must be leaking, for water was gradually soaking the small canvas cushion on which hesat in the bottom of his canoe. The Vice's slippers grew clammily moist, and the Commodore's eyes filled with water which was not an accumulation of remorseful tears. But no man would debase himself so far as to be the first to cry for mercy.

But the Vice, the Statesman, was true to his profession. To have suggested a rest would have been merely a straight-forward act which even an idiot might have performed. The Vice preferred to gain his point by an exercise of intellect. Half a mile down the stream was a small pier; to this the Vice called the panting Commodore's attention, and exclaimed,

"That, by gosh,[6]is the identical dock where the Alderman and I went swimming. I assume that all such important precedents are to be respectfully observed?"

"Theyare," said the Commodore, almost fainting with the ecstasy of the transition from despair to hope.

Within ten minutes the boats were beached, and four perspiring canoeists, after an interval of rest, made haste to disrobe and take headers from the pier into the refreshing water.

From this pier the Commodore called the attention of his companions to a glittering spire which shot heavenward a mile down the river, and exclaimed,

"There begins Acadia. Every spire we see hereafter will be of that precise pattern—they are as unchanging as the beautiful faith which our sister Church of Rome maintains."

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