The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-05-10
A FLOATING TOWN.

From the month of April to the month
of December one may hardly ever take
steamboat trip up or down the Hud-
son river without passing one of those
big canal boat lows dragging slowly
and heavily along the wide stretch of
water in the wake of a more distant pad
dle-wheel steamboat. Sometimes these
lows, five or six boats abreast, and
stretching away half mile in length, look
like floating town with long lines of
level decks for streets, and squat awning
covered capinS VITA 1tue Snln4ng windows
and bright green binds for the houses;
sometimes they appear like little Gus
tered villages or hamlets OF heavy Darges,
with a scattering population OF a lew
dozen men, women and children to give
lie TO each.
To reach the humanity that is the real
heart OF all the picturesque scene one
must become cltlZen OF that drifting
toWr-an lnhabltant of a floating home,
like the other floating homes that make
up the transient community that clngs
together for the thirty odd hours of Voy-
age 1t takes TO run from New York TO
Albany. For the good simple people are
very ready to respond TO any advances
made toward acquaintanceshlp, and one
soon becomes Intimate with ones neigh
bors, visiting across the decks, and per-
maps down into the cabin home. The
little narrow space is always immacu-
lately clean. There are nearly always
Mowers in the little curtained window,
and the easy rocking chair is priskly
ouSted Tor the visitor. Ii one stays long
enough with them and shows sufficient
interest i'll their affairs, the captain and
MS wife Will talk very freely about them
selVes-of their simple hopes and dspira-
lions; OF the pleasures and sorrows they
have to look back upon. 1t is thus when
= n n
they cease to be a mere remote and pictu-
rescue aggregation, and become individ-
ual human entities of real warm, mesh
and blood.
ungling eXhilaration than 1 felt that
morning, when, coming upon deck in
the brisk GOODNESS of the early daytime
L saw all around me the quaint level OF
own peculiar life, the great wide river
stretching away on all Sides the distant
tuo-boats straining at the slow moving
mass, and just ahead the open door or
the highlands standing wide for the pas
sage OF the silvery level of water beyond.
1t was like fresh draught of the nectar
OF vitality after long months of work to
awaken into an existence so new as
TINS, so strange, so full of the interest of
unwonted things, so lusty with It's Wig
orouS freshness.
1t had been pretty late when we left
New York the evening before, and we
perfect way that there was great lot of
ooatS being gathered together in the chop
Ply waters that lie betwixt the Battery
and Governors Island, and presently that
we ourselves were an integer of the gem
eral whole. Now it was the fresh keen
daylight again; the sun shone as bright
as lightning and as hard as steel, and
there was swift cool wind blowing that
drove white-caps down the river and sent
the clouds flying to the eastward across
the profoundly clear and fathomiesS Sky !
Now we could see how big and busy was
the floating town of which we and our
boat were a component part.
Everywhere they were washing down
the decks with noisy dashings and
swashings of bucketfuls of water and q
ceaseless scratching and rasping of scrub |
bing brooms, the rubber-booted men nard |
at work pattering and stopping about in !
the sheets of water. The toilets of some |
Of the boats had already been made, and |
they were now slowly drying in the sun
light, but nevertheless there was a gen
eral impression of the universal wet cool
ness, as if the whole town was taking
bath Everywhere the smoke was sweep
ing away from the cabin stove pipes, !!
ana there was prevailing smell of cook /
ing breakfast filling the swift fresh air
The river bumboats had begun to come
OH from the shore. There was one lust |
ahead of us and another down the tow,
boat beside which it lay. These bum
boats-little steamboats, fitted out in the |
cabin like a peddler's wagon with ali !
sorts of knicknacks and canal boat neces- (
sites and luxuries, from tape, buttons,
ana shoestr1ngs to bananas, tobacco and |
peanuts; from fresh milk to bottled beer |
these bumboats Turk everywhere along
the river shore, from the lower part of the /
Highlands to up above Newburgh. From |
a aozen different points they come putting |
OIL IN tremendous hurry and with a |
great deal of footing of piping whistles |
struggling to catch up with the slow
moving tow, and whistling to let the
Doatmen know that they are coming. |
Reaching the tow, they throw out a line
as spider throws out web over a big
ny, and so clinging to the nearest canal
boat, never let go their hold until the last |
penny is drained from that part of the
noatlng town.-From Through Island |
Waters" by Howard Pyle, in Haper's
Magazine for May