The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-08-21
THE UPPER CONNECTICUT.
Observations Made by Recent Urban
 Visitor

Observations Made by Recent Urban Visitor.
 listener in the Boston Transcript says: The Listener has also been for a few hours on the banks of the upper Connecticut river-in that mountainous reach of 1t where it Is not at this season
 by any means a great river put where 1t needs an immense amount of exposed sandy bottom for overflow space in the freshet tine-and now goes dashing back and forth, from side to side of this cXpansa, leaving deep amber pool here, flecked With foam, now dividing to flank with two wide torrents, will low and alder-covered island, and bear ing everywhere at intervals, ponderous logs which go blundering along endwise or side wise as the mood or the current strikes them. There are places where the logs collect especially do they lodge where the river tumbles over d ledge. And 1t is q Fascinating game to bet with ores self, as the logs drift sol emnly down, whether they will get over one of those places. At all the villages there are famous swimming places, where the boys dive off like so many South Sea islanders. Even in these smooth pools the current is strong, and there is danger enough to make the swimming exciting. The Listener watched a dozen naked boys leaping off the ledge into seemingly bottomless depths, they swan off to the floating logs, sprawling and yelling and one fellow floated On his back until the cur rnnt landed him on gravel bank quite a distance below. But nearly every one of these Connecticut swimming pools has formidable drowning record --and no wor der, for their amber heoKed surfaces are as fascinating as any Lorelei could make them, and when all the other fellows can swim it is hard to keep out But while swim ming seems to be a popular amusement for boys and men on the Connecticut, there is next to no boating. There are long stretches were canoes could be safely and agreeably navigated, and the Listener knows of cases in which canoes have been taken all the way up the Connecticut and down again with out accident,
 People up that way seem to be unac- quainted with the charms of the canoe; and this is true of the majority of the American peol le everywhere. Around Boston, fortunately. the canoe is firmly established in almost everybody's fa- TOT The canoe is to every other kind of boat what the violin is to every other kind of musical instrument. It is pure poetry There is nothing mechanical about it: propulsion is a matter of voli- tion, fer the paddler at the stern, so soon as he has mastered his art in any degree, no longer thinks about the an- gle at which he shall put his paddle into the water but merely wills that it shall go this way or that way, and it goes And under ordinary circumstan- ccs the work of padding is so easy and so placid that 1t does not in the least interfere with thinking or talking or mixing Cne's self up with the natural objects about one, or surrendering ones thoughts completely to the keep ing of someone else who may be in the boat. All these things are well known to those who have paddled the canoe; but how agreeable they can be can never be surmised by any one who has never got fully into the spirit of canoe- ing.