ERIE CANAL.
PACKET-BOAT.—HEAT.—CEDAR SWAMP, LONG SWAMP, AND MUSQUITO SWAMP.—UTICA.
This day, up to the meridian, had been temperately warm, but not in the least sultry or unbearable. The boat was exceedingly clean, not over-crowded; and I sat down within its neat cabin, anticipating a couple of days' quiet travel, which, if a little monotonous, would be at least unattended by the fatigue and dust of a stage journey between this and Utica.
The boat for a few hours went on merrily; the eternal forest closed about us, and the sound of our horses' feet alone broke upon its silence. Towards evening the heat became great, and after sunset the southern sky began to give forth continuous sheets of flame, along whose pale surface would occasionally dart lines of red forked lightning, whilst the breeze gradually died away. My first idea was, that we were about to be favoured with a refreshing storm of rain and thunder; but vain were my hopes: I watched and listened, but no drop fell, no sound was heard.
Meantime, the heat increased as the night closed in: the little cots, however, were duly hung one below another along the sides of the cabin. I had procured an upper berth, with a window by my side; and having exhausted my patience, and wearied my sight watching the fiery sky, I at last ventured to creep below. Although a hotter atmosphere can hardly be imagined, I slept tolerably sound; but, on waking, found myself anything but refreshed. The sun was not yet above the horizon when I crept forth on to the deck: it was that hour of morning which, of all others, one expects to be invigorating and cool, as indeed it usually is in all climates; but here, enclosed within the banks of the canal, and surrounded by swamp and forest, there was no morning air for us. My mind was made up to leave the boat at the first place where a stage might be procured.
All this day the air absolutely stood still. At our places of halt we were joined by men who had left the stages in consequence of those vehicles not being able to travel. Our pace was reduced considerably; and the cattle, although in excellent condition, were terribly distressed. At Lockport we found business nearly at a stand-still; the thermometer was at 110 degrees of Fahrenheit. We passed several horses dead upon the banks of the canal, and were compelled to leave one or two of our own in a dying state. Here more persons joined than we could well accommodate, and I found positively that all movement by the stage route was at an end, forty horses having fallen on the line the day previous. To attempt abiding in any of the places along the canal, I was assured would be an exchange for the worse; so the only course was to endure the "ills we had," and certainly these did not become the lighter through practice. Towards the second night our progress became tediously slow, for it appeared to grow hot in proportion as the evening advanced.
The south-western sky was again banked up by black clouds, from which the sheet lightning never ceased to burst. Under other circumstances the scene would have been viewed as one of infinite grandeur; but, at present, every consideration became absorbed by our sufferings, for to this the affair really amounted.
This night I found it impossible to look in upon the cabin; I therefore made a request to the captain that I might be permitted to have a mattress on deck: but this, he told me, could not be; there was an existing regulation which positively forbade sleeping upon the deck of a canal packet; indeed, he assured me that this could only be done at the peril of life, with the certainty of catching fever and ague. I appeared to submit to his well-meant arguments; but inwardly resolved, coûte qui coûte, not to sleep within the den below, which exhibited a scene of suffocation and its consequences that defies description.
I got my cloak up, filled my hat with cigars, and, planting myself about the centre of the deck, here resolved, malgré dews and musquitoes, to weather it through the night.