A CANAL ADVENTURE.
“Oh hapless our fate was, each one and all,
For we were wreck-ed on the Erie Canal,”
Old Ballad.
On an evening in the month of July, 1836, I embarked at Lockport, in company with some fourteen passengers, on board an Erie Canal packet, destined for Rochester. It will be remembered that this was during the great migrating period in the United States, when all nations and pursuits had representatives on our principal travelling routes. Our party was no sooner aboard than the “bold captain” gave the word, the horses were got “under weigh,” the feathers set, and all hands called to pick out their shelf—a six foot-by-one convenience, suspended by cords—upon which they stowed away passengers for the night. Babel never heard a greater confusion of tongues than this call set wagging. But above them all was heard the silver tone of a travelling exquisite, piping out:—
“I-aw am first, cap'en, really,—I claim pwior choice, I do, dem if I don't.”
Happening to be first on the register, it was accorded, and the captain suggested a locker berth, as the most comfortable.
“No! no!—dem,—beg you-a pawden, cap'en,” shouted the exquisite, “some gwos, fat individual, might get on the upa shelf and bweak down,—I should be mangled howibly.”