Steaming

“ What ideas would come to one as one watched the little steamer, the only link that held one still bound to the world of men, weigh anchor and steam slowly down the green inlet, departing and leaving one behind it, as one watched it growing smaller, dwindling ever, till it was a mere speck, and then saw it vanish, leaving the green riband of water unbroken save for the passing bergs? ”

“ Returning to the river, I plunged into the current to relieve me from the pinching frost, that gnawed every part of my skin that had become wet; and rushing forward as fast as the weight of the water, that pressed me downward, would permit, was soon up to my chin in melted ice, when rising to the surface, I exerted my utmost strength and skill to gain the opposite shore by swimming in the shortest space of time. At every stroke of my arms and legs, they were cut and bruised by cakes of solid ice, or weighed down by floating masses of congealed snow. ”

“ It often happens that during the night our little steamer crowds itself to one side of the river and stops. Then we may expect to see a splendid sight. Out of the dark depths of the forest comes a glowing, radiant apparition, small at first, but getting larger and larger until it moves down upon us like a tangle of moon and stars drifting through the trees.
This is nothing but another little steamboat coming down the river with its lighted windows and decks, and its blazing basket of pine-knots. ”

“ You can form no idea of one's sensations as the steamer pushes her way through an ice jam. For miles around, as far as the eye can reach, the sea is covered with huge, glistening blocks. Sometimes the deep-blue water shows between, and sometimes they are so tightly massed together that they look like a hummocky white field. How any one can get a steamer along through it is a never-ending source of amazement, and my admiration for the captain is unstinted. ”

“ We crawled down to the river bank and feeble folk were we, That Julie Claire from God-knows-where, and Barb-wire Bill and me. From shore to shore we heard the roar the heaving ice-floes make, And loud we laughed, and launched our raft, and followed in their wake. The river swept and seethed and leapt, and caught us in its stride; And on we hurled amid a world that crashed on every side. With sullen din the banks caved in; the shore-ice lanced the stream; The naked floes like spooks arose, all jiggling and agleam. ”

“ The steamer, whether of peace or war, is a melancholy substitute for the splendid though sinister galley, with her ranks of oars and towers of canvas, or for the dainty lateen-sailed vessels, skimming the waters like flying fish, and the Frank garb ill replaces the graceful Arab dress. ”

“ My book remains unopened; it is pleasanter to read the earth and air. The bees hum, a wood-dove calls, the soothing roar of the rapids rises and falls. So sweet is summer air, so caressing are summer sounds.
How the sails have multiplied on the river! Is it the haze or the sudden sunlight that has transformed their canvas into unaccustomed color? Yonder a larger vessel, of different mold from the pleasure-craft, is rounding the river’s curve in her cruise up-stream. Her clean-cut prow rises high in air, her painted canvas is spread, and the sunlight strikes the gold of her sides. ”

“ On sea and sky a more melancholy tone had come,–dull, slaty grays crowding in from every quarter. And over the darkening waters there seemed a tragic note, half-threatening, intensified by every plunge of the steamer and by the swish of waters very near the deck. ”

“ The bitter winds of an angry spring, the sleet and wet snow of a belated winter, the floating blocks of ice crushing against the side of the boat, the black water swishing over man and boy, the broken waves battering each and battering the craft between, the harsh, inclement world near and far. ”

“ The thundering seas slowly rise with their white crests glowing in the ebon darkness as the brave old tramp steamer, like a frightened thing, stays her way a moment, and shivers as seas strike the weather bow. Then again she pitches onward, as wonderful little men, with bony, haggard faces with weary eyes in them, stare into the furnace fires of the steamer’s bowels, and shovel and stoke to sustain an honest existence, and drink tank water. ”

“ For a steamer goes independently of the wind, ignores it, shoves her nose in its face, and the wind pays her back by becoming an enemy, but a sailing-ship lives by wind, humours it, coaxes the last hair's-breadth of it, and the wind, flattered, ignores that all the time it is being managed and made of use. ”

“ As the steamer passed by, churning the muddy water into big waves, the tug put on all steam, the hawser straightened out as tense as iron, the big ship gave a lazy lurch as a wave struck her, and to the unspeakable delight of all hands they found themselves once more afloat and in deep water. ”

“ The crisp air, the sunlight, the movement on the river, and the moving river itself—the road that ran with us, seeming to sympathise with us, animate us, and encourage us on—freshened me with new hope. I felt mortified to be of so little use in the boat; but, there were few better oars-men than my two friends, and they rowed with a steady stroke that was to last all day. ”

“ The waves will come rolling in, streaming out in the wind like a courser’s mane, with snowy crest, and breaking with thundering roar they will sink back seething with foam. As the tide rises a few drops will fall pattering upon your feet ”

“ As the lines of steamers dwindle the river widens; and when we come to the bend of a long reach, it opens into a metal-coloured surface of gleaming water trembling with the speeding of its own rushing, though it retains polish enough to serve as a mirror, and to hold under each vessel the dark, inverted shadow of a phantom ship. ”

“ All about us are the green covered hills, forming a rare frame for the picture of the sun-lit lake, dotted here and there with a lateen sail, and the slowly drifting smoke of a pleasure steamer that skirts along the shores. ”

“ There are steamers which endeavour to stem the current, but they make scant headway; sometimes a fugitive afraid of the rails will pull up stream; the birds do fly with the spring winds against the retreat of winter ”

“ The wind and the storm have mighty power over them. But the well-directed steamer rides proudly over their agitated surface with all her precious cargo of life, and holds steadily on her way to the destined port in despite of wind and waves. ”

“ I do not mean to say that at the end of a week a young fellow could take charge of a fifteen-thousand-ton steamer, driving twenty knots an hour through the brine, racing from land to land, fair weather and foul, clear sky or cloudy, steering by degrees on the compass card and making landfalls with most amazing precision. ”

“ Then, while you are dreamily gazing into the depths of this leafy ocean lane, the little steamer, seeming hardly larger than a duck, turning into some passage not visible until the moment of entering it, glides into a wide expanse—a sound filled with islands, sprinkled and clustered in forms and compositions such as nature alone can invent ”

“ The steam which rises from swamps and pools, is as dear and domestic as that of our own kettle. What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter's day, when the meadow mice come out by the wallsides, and the chicadee lisps in the defiles of the wood? ”

“ A little steamer was coming through it, rolling so terribly that momentarily it seemed that she could not recover herself, but must go under. As they watched, a great wave reared itself up and hit her squarely, burying her in a cloud of foam. ”

“ What can the child on some great ocean steamer caught in a winter's storm do to overcome the tempest? Can it drive the fierce blasts back to their northern haunts? Can its little hand hold the wheel and guide the great ship? ”

“ If he travels after nightfall, the chances are his craft will steal unawares close to a black head above a swimming body. With both wind and current meeting the canoe, no suspicion of his presence catches the scent of the sharp-nosed swimmer. ”

“ In our age the great steamer thrusts past and is quickly gone; the tug runs the sailing-ship to the docks or to her mooring buoys, and there is no life in the fabric she drags. In Sloper's time steamers were few; the water of the river teemed with sailing craft of every description ”

“ I say rather stately, for the high and graceful hull of the steamer comes to a lame and impotent conclusion in its squat chimney, like a large-faced man with a mayhemed nose, and in its toy masts and rigging, like a stout woman with curl-papers or a thin wisp of ringlet. ”

“ The great steamer looms out larger and larger, and slowly grows to a stupendous reality. Hearty English faces smile over the bulwarks, and from the pendent steps and the grated platform on to which the homeward-bound, tawny and of a curry powder colour, will contrive to leap, with again something of the old vigour. ”

“ A great wind arose over the land, the clouds flew across the sky, and it grew as dark as night; the leaves fell from the trees, and the water foamed and dashed upon the shore. In the distance the ships were being tossed to and fro on the waves, and he heard them firing signals of distress. ”

“ So also is the rapidity of each stream, some of them moving in a turbulent and awful manner, as the rapids and eddies at the foot of large falls, some moving in large majestic waves like the swells of a large deep lake agitated by the wind, and some in a beautiful smooth current, down which the canoes are scarcly perceived to move. ”

“ The wind being fair and the river in full flood—seven men's height above the usual level, and boiling and bubbling and tearing down like a torrent—we sail from daylight to dark, but at night we are hauled up and moored to the bank, so that the people may go ashore to sleep if they are so minded. ”

“ Where in mist tie rock is hiding, And the sharp reef lurks below, And the white squall smites in summer, And the autumn tempests blow; Where, through gray and rolling vapor, From evening unto morn, A thousand boats are hailing, Horn answering unto horn. ”

“ When seen from the deck of a coasting steamer they seem almost to hang over the sea heaving more than 8,000 feet below their summits. Strangely beautiful are these mighty ridges when the moonlight bathes them and turns the sea beneath to silver. ”

“ We stopped at elementary wooden landing-stages beside small hamlets, bought eggs, fish, fruit from peasant women and children, backed out into midstream again, making our big wave that went washing along the banks and drenching incautious boys and girls; we beat up the water with our paddle, [214] turned, saw ourselves clear of the pier, and a widening stretch of water between us and the bank, found our course between the buoys, avoided the weirs and the shallows. ”

“ If we can’t get a steamer in the early morning you can hide in the brush by the wharf till the boat discharges her passengers; and when they are climbing the hill, you step into the path and head for the steamer. ”

“ On your right hand, the river comes roaring forward with all the agitation of a tempestuous ocean, recoiling in waves and whirlpools, as if determined to resist the impulse which is forcing it downward to the gulf. When within a few yards, and apparently at the moment of sweeping away, it plunges headlong into what seems a bottomless pit, for the vapor is so thick at the foot of the precipice that the torrent is completely lost to the view. ”

“ To have a strike while the twilight is coming on, a big fellow, with the line spinning off your reel as if it would never stop, to see your salmon leap into the air and strike the water, to reel him [204] in, then plunge! and down, down he goes; to feel the twilight deepening as you try to get him in closer to the canoe again; to know suddenly that it is dark and that the hours are going by; to feel your wrist aching, your body tense with excitement ”

“ She seems to belong to the sea, with her tall tapering masts, her cloud of moving canvas, and her buoyant motion over the rolling waves. Her movements are all comprehensible, and above-board she is invariably clean, and her crew are connected in one's mind with nautical stories which charmed one in the long-past days of youth. A steamer is very much the reverse. ”

“ One, apparently in a spirit of daring, would set out to cross our path—leaving his little cove, he would glide with the utmost rapidity over the river in front of us, leaving a silver line on the smooth surface of the stream, and after we had passed, glide back, bobbing up and down upon the waves in our wake. ”

“ The line of the steamer's wash which is now on the point of breaking along the shore is so nearly realizable as one with the sun or the sky, or me, or any visible or tangible part of the whole, for each is the expression of the Absolute.... ”

“ If there be no wind at all, the men row, five oars on each side; but when the surface of the stream is ruffled by the slightest breath of wind, the men immediately stop rowing, and the boat drifts down with the current. ”

“ The yellow and tepid river may float his scow, and cheer his eye with its reflections and its ripples, but the boatman quenches his thirst at this small rill alone. It is this purer and cooler element that chiefly sustains his life. The race will long survive that is thus discreet. ”

“ Strange-looking vessels are borne upon the bosom of the stream, unwieldy in form, with long lines of oars shooting out from each side, and prows resplendent with paint and gilding, standing high up out of the water. ”

“ The moment you have passed the fisherman, and the noise and movement of the steamer have frightened the fish toward the shore, he darts out in his boat with one end of a net of many roods in extent, takes a semi-circular sweep and frequently draws in again with very little delay fraught with a school of most luxurious Shad. ”

“ Even an expert and powerful swimmer, filling in there, would have but a slender chance of coming out alive, for if he were not sucked under by the eddies of that boiling current and jammed beneath some sunken ledge, 205the odds would be very great on his brains being knocked out amongst the rocks that thrust their ugly fangs here and there above the surface of the stream. ”