The lamp shed a dim light over the sleepers, and all went well till some one--and there always was some one--began to snore. _Sn-a-a-aw!_--_aw-aw-poof!_ They would turn uneasily and try to compose themselves to slumber again. No use. _Sn-a-a-aw_--_poof!_ “D---- that fellow! Chunk him in the ribs, somebody, and make him turn over. Is this thing to go on forever? Gentlemen, are you going to stand this all night? If you are, I am not. I am going to get up and dress. Who is he anyhow? No gentleman would or could snore in that way.”
After a while silence would be restored, and all would drop off to sleep again, except the little fellow in the upper berth, who lying there would listen to the _trahn-ahn-ahn-ahn_ of the packet-horn as we drew nigh the locks. How mournfully it sounded in the night! what a doleful thing it is at best, and how different from the stage-horn with its cheery, ringing notes! The difference in the horns marks the difference in the two eras of travel; not that the canal period is doleful--I would not say that, but it is less bright than the period of the stage-coach.
To this day you have only to say within my hearing _trahn-ahn-ahn_, to bring back the canal epoch. I can see the whole thing down to the snubbing post with its deep grooves which the heavy rope had worn. Indeed, I think I could snub a boat myself with very little practice, if the man on deck would say “_hup!_” to the horses at the proper time.
We turned out early in the morning, and had precious little room for dressing. But that was no hardship to me, who had just emerged from a big boarding school dormitory. Still, I must say, being now a grown and oldish man, that I would not like to live and sleep and dress for twenty or thirty years in the cabin of a canal-packet. The ceremony of ablution was performed in a primitive fashion. There were the tin basins, the big tin dipper with the long wooden handle. I feel it vibrating in the water now, and the water a little muddy generally; and there were the towels, a big one on a roller, and the little ones in a pile, and all of them wet. These were discomforts, it is true, but, pshaw! one good, big, long, deep draught of pure, fresh morning air--one glimpse of the roseate flush above the wooded hills of the James, one look at the dew besprent bushes and vines along the canal bank--one sweet caress of dear mother nature in her morning robes, made ample compensation for them all. Breakfast was soon served, and all the more enjoyed in consequence of an hour’s fasting on deck; the sun came out in all his splendor; the day was fairly set in, and with it there was abundant leisure to enjoy the scenery, that grew more and more captivating as we rose, lock after lock, into the rock-bound eminences of the upper James. This scenery I will not attempt to describe, for time has sadly, dimmed it in my recollection. The wealth of the lowlands, and the upland beauty must be seen as I have seen them, in the day of their prime, to be enjoyed.