on the Delaware, which, we soon found, was only one of scores before us, and a small one—even a "smooth one." But it will save other descriptions; and it gives our first impression of the river. Having run the Delaware from Port Jervis to Philadelphia, we found that this first rapid was singularly characteristic. All the considerable rapids are of a somewhat similar formation,—except the Great Foul Rift, which is unique.
The rapids of the Delaware are formed in the main by an oblique line of rocks crossing the river, leaving a narrow channel on one side, or sometimes the opening is almost one-third of the way across, with reefs on both sides.
With deep water, say in May or June, when the river is from eight to ten feet higher than it was in the last week of August, a canoeman may run two hundred miles of this incomparable river without striking a stone. But every foot of fall in the stream makes a totally new river; and he who goes down on a freshet in early summer cannot imagine what the river is like at low water in late autumn.
The Delaware is a river of extraordinary pitch, the fall from Port Jervis to Philadelphia being nearly 1,200 feet.
On that first afternoon we intended to run down
