Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/135

Rh a seasonable sprinkling of bodily exercise, was prolonged until the line of damp, evening exhalations following in our wake, warned us within.

As our boat boasted the unusual dimensions of a hundred feet keel, we flattered ourselves that the accounts we had read and heard of their inconveniences as dormitories, might have been exaggerated. We continued zealously to praise all that admitted of being praised, in order to turn attention from the evils that we began to suspect might be coming upon us. But when the novelty of the out-door exhibition had entirely ceased, when the tables with refreshments and books were removed, and we, being requested to leave our seats, were huddled into the area of the boat, like sheep for the slaughter, there commenced a series of mystic preparations which stripped the scene of all its lingerings of romance. With amazement we gazed upon the narrow shelves and ghosts of mattresses, ranged row above row, in fearfully close proximity, as if for baking in an oven; hoping that our senses deceived us, and that we could not possibly be expected there to deposit our persons. The people of large proportions, and those expected to lodge directly under them, evinced great consternation, and with good reason. In short, though we had the attentions of a kindly-disposed chambermaid, no description of the discomforts of a close summer night in a crowded canal-boat, may be supposed to transcend the truth. I refer the uninitiated to a graphic delinea-