Canal boat

“ When we came nearer it showed itself a body of men hauling something along. Yes, it was the life-boat, afloat on the troubled waves of the canal, each man seated in his own place, his hands quiet upon his oar, his cork-jacket braced about him, his feet out before him, ready to pull the moment they should pass beyond the broken gates of the lock out on the awful tossing of the waves. ”

“ Here there is no rushing and thronging as on the railway, no dashing and rocking as in the steam-packet, nor any shaking in going over the ground as in the pleasure-vans. The ripple the boat makes is scarcely heard. You can even distinguish the rustling of the tiny waves among the sedge that sways idly to and fro on the banks of the canal. It is a beautiful sight to see these boats full of holiday passengers, gliding slowly along within a yard or two of the shore in the summer sunshine ”

“ To glide smoothly along through the country on the deck of a canal boat is a method of locomotion affording opportunities to view the landscape o’er with much comfort and constant though not too rapid changes of entertainment. Necessarily running as near the shore as possible, a slight shift of the tiller by an obliging helmsman would enable a small boy to effect a landing and take a quick look into the canal blacksmith shop, or to walk a stretch with the youth driving the horses, and then re-embark without attracting too much attention. ”

“ Howbridge as soon as any word came from Mr. O’Neil.
To Hank Dayton was left the task of picking out some mules to tow the houseboat through the stretch of canal. About a week, or perhaps longer, would be consumed on this trip, as there was no hurry.
Where the voyage is kept up for any length of time, two sets of mules or horses are used in towing canal boats. When one team is wearied it is put in the stable, which is on board the canal boat, and the other team is led out over a bridge, or gangplank, specially made for the purpose, on to the towpath. ”

“ By the record it appears that the whole six tiers of canal-boats were towed by hawsers from the stern of the steamboat extending aft from eighty to one hundred fathoms, which were fastened to the foremost tier of the canal-boats, showing that the canal-boat of the libellants was more than a thousand feet astern of the steamboat when the whole were in motion, as the canal-boats are about a hundred feet in length. All the canal-boats except the first tier were propelled by lines from the stern of the canal-boat immediately ahead, and they were kept in their places by breastlines. ”

“ Passing through a lock in a small boat, and in company with a canal-boat, is not a perfectly safe thing to do, for if the ropes which fasten the canal-boat should break—which they sometimes do—the water rushing in through the sluices would force the canal-boat against the lower gate, and crush the small boat like an egg-shell. ”

“ Sail-boats are used on the canal; but as the wind is not always fair, they at times use the tow-line, but men, and not animals, pull it. The boats that are on the canal do not pass into the river, nor those of the river into the canal. There must of course be another boat taken at Atfi, and the baggage changed from [244] one to the other. This consumes time and is attended with some expense.
The country through which the canal passes is nearly a dead level, and, in some places, I should think, lower than the level of the river. ”

“ One of the most important matters that the canal engineer and manager has to deal with, is the adoption of the form of boat best suited for the gauge of his canal and the character of the traffic to be dealt with. The majority of canals are of too limited dimensions to admit of the employment of boats of large size. Even on some of the largest rivers—such as the Thames, the Danube, and the Rhine—the size of vessels employed has to be kept down to a limit which would be deemed ridiculous for ocean-going steamers. ”

“ The canal extends to the foot of the mountain, and there, of course, it stops; the passengers being conveyed across it by land carriage, and taken on afterwards by another canal boat, the counterpart of the first, which awaits them on the other side. There are two canal lines of passage-boats; one is called The Express, and one (a cheaper one) The Pioneer. The Pioneer gets first to the mountain, and waits for the Express people to come up; both sets of passengers being conveyed across it at the same time. ”

“ But in a canal boat there is no power, no mystery, no danger; one cannot blow up, one cannot be drowned, unless by some special effort: one sees clearly all there is in the case—a horse, a rope, and a muddy strip of water—and that is all. ”

“ The canal lock of to-day is a very slow working affair, as we all know, and is such a clumsy piece of mechanism that only ships of a limited tonnage can pass through it. When a canal-boat comes along it is let into the first lock, and if that is on the higher level the gates are closed, and the water is allowed to run out until the boat is floating on a level equal to that in the other portion of the lock. ”

“ The universal method of hauling boats on canals until very recent times has been animal power exerted through a tow-rope attachment to the boat. In China the hauling is done by men who walk along a tow-path on the bank and pull the boat after them; in most other countries this work is done by horses and mules. Various attempts have been made to substitute steam-power for hauling canal-boats, and such power is considerably used, but as yet no mechanical motive power can be said to have replaced animal power. ”

“ The English canal boat is about 70 or 75 ft. long and 7 or 8 ft. in beam; canal barges are the same length but 14 or 15 ft. in width, so that locks which will hold one of them will admit two of the narrower canal boats side by side. In general canal locks are just long enough to accommodate the longest vessels using the navigation. In some cases, however, provision is made for admitting a train of barges; such long locks have sometimes intermediate gates by which the effective length is reduced when a single vessel is passing. ”

“ The other means of getting a canal boat over a hill is by means of a lock. When the waterway is stopped in its level progress by reaching a hill, a square place is excavated and lined with rocks so as to form a water-tight basin, the open end being closed by big, wooden gates.
The Bluebird was now approaching one of these locks, where it was to be raised from a low to a higher level. While Hank managed the mules, Neale steered the boat into the stone-lined basin. ”

“ The travelling in the canal-boat was very slow; the roads (as it rained during a couple of hours each night) were bad, and almost bottomless, and in many places the horses could scarcely wade through the mud; but for this one must be prepared in all travelling by canal. It is slow work, and the only chance of enjoyment which a traveller on such a ride has, is to walk afoot alongside when he can. In places where the road was tolerably elevated and dry, the passengers often got out and wandered for miles beside the long ark-like box. ”

“ The canal-boats go down many of these falls at high water without danger, and some of them even at low water, though locks are at hand. Sometimes even a small boat is guided down in the deepest part, by humoring the current, and keeping the boat perfectly straight and upright,—though not without danger ”

“ In the fresh-water reaches, the width varies from 120 to 60 feet, with an average depth of 6 feet, and a current varying from 1⁄2 to 11⁄4 mile per hour. Every variety of boat is to be found on this canal, ranging from 3 to 80 tons.
In the Delta canals there is a large number of passenger boats, built on improved English models, but the majority of the craft are built on native lines, clumsy in appearance, but good cargo carriers notwithstanding, and almost all are decked. The haulage is almost entirely carried on by men; no cattle are used. ”

“ It is now 3513⁄4 miles in length, 70 feet wide on the surface and 56 feet wide at the bottom having 72 locks, each 110 feet by 18 feet, and 7 feet deep. The limit of the canal for navigation, however, is only 6 feet of water, restricting its use to vessels of 240 tons capacity, say, 8,000 bushels of wheat.
Navigation has hitherto been carried on by horse traction—the boats running in pairs—and by small steam tugs towing three or four boats, after them. The tug often pushes one boat ahead and tows the others behind. ”

“ All they needed was a leader with a tuning-fork, and off they would start, making the great canal a pretty musical place on fine summer evenings. We traveled night and day, and at night the boat, lighted up as well as we could do it then, with lanterns and lamps burning whale-oil, and with candles in the cabin, looked like a traveling banquet-hall or opera-house or tavern.
We were always crowded with immigrants when we went west; and on our eastern voyages even, our passenger traffic was mostly related to the West, its trade, and its people. ”

“ A more important system of transferring canal-boats from one level to another is the vertical lift or lift-lock system, which has been installed in a number of places and is proposed for several other places where very high and important differences of level occur. In the vertical lift-lock system, the boat is floated into a movable trough, the ends of which are closed by gates, while similar gates close the ends of the canal approaches. ”

“ Now a Japanese boat passed slowly along the canal; then a smaller craft with cargo, flying the Dutch flag; a British boat brilliantly lighted, its passengers, many of them in uniform, dancing on deck. The canal is so narrow that great ships must creep slowly and carefully along, with no place for miles where one boat may pass another. It is a miracle, this 4Suez Canal, and the story of its building a most fascinating tale. Its banks are scarred by the battles of the great war. ”

“ The Packet boats ply between the large towns on the canal, from Schenectady to Utica; from Utica to Rochester, &c., so that a traveller, in going through the whole route, must shift his baggage and himself from one boat to another, three or four times. But the Line boats run the whole length of the canal, from Albany or Troy to Buffalo.—These boats are furnished with horses by a company, who have them stationed at regular intervals of about twelve miles the whole distance. ”

“ Haulage.—The horse or mule walking along a tow-path and drawing or “tracking” a boat or barge by means of a towing rope, still remains the typical method of conducting traffic on the smaller canals; on ship-canals Animal power. vessels proceed under their own steam or are aided by tugs. Horse traction is very slow. The maximum speed on a narrow canal is about 31⁄2 m. an hour, and the average speed, which, of course, depends largely on the number of locks to be passed through, very much less. It has been calculated that in England on the average one horse hauls one narrow canal boat about 2 m. ”

“ We saw the eight locks joining together on the Caledonian Canal, called Neptune's Stairs; and at another place on the canal William, who had been asleep, instinctively wakened just in time to see a dredging machine at work: we stopped the carriage, and walked down to look at it: took a boat and rowed round the vessel, and went on board and saw the machinery. A steam-engine works an endless chain of buckets round and round upon a platform with rollers. ”

“ Moreover it is quite necessary that a boat should be afloat, to make a rope fast to the shore, where the canal has very sharp curves, as is the case in the old part of it, between Toulouse and Cette; and inasmuch as the boat cannot be hoisted up to davits or inboards, it will be manifest that room must be left for her in the lock. We had just room under the stern for one 13 feet boat athwart. ”

“ From this I take her "Night in a Canal-Boat." Extremely effective when read with enthusiasm and proper variety of tone. I quote it as a boon for the boys and girls who are often looking for something "funny" to read aloud.
THE CANAL-BOAT. BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
Of all the ways of travelling which obtain among our locomotive nation, this said vehicle, the canal-boat, is the most absolutely prosaic and inglorious. There is something picturesque, nay, almost sublime, in the lordly march of your well-built, high-bred steamboat. ”

“ He could, however, trace its course for some distance, by the masts and sails of vessels which he saw at different distances rising among the green trees. Along the dike, on one side, was a high road, and on the other, a tow path. Different boats were coming and going in the part of the canal that was near. They were drawn by long and slender lines, that were fastened to a tall mast set up [Pg 181] near the bows of the boat. Some were drawn by men, and some by horses. ”

“ We met several boats, and the dexterity by which the line was slackened by one boat, to permit the other, which kept its towing mast standing, to pass over the cord, according to the custom which governs this sort of rencontre on the canal, was admirable, as also was the ease and skill with which the skipper who has the care of the line throws it up on one side, and catches it on the other of a bridge under which the boat is obliged to pass. ”

“ Such was the character of the boat in which the Count and Baron were now travelling. The scenery need not be minutely described; but it presented a pleasing level on every side, and the canal being in many places raised above the surrounding country, they could look down from their seat on the deck of the boat on the corn-fields and broad green meadows, scattered over with farmhouses and cottages, and occasionally with a few trees. Windmills of course very often made their appearance, and cows, generally black and white, but mixed sometimes with a few red ones, were to be seen on every hand. ”