"Well,"—a long pause—"you fellows must want something to do!"
A song sung by some country girls and boys in a boat, passing close to the mountain foot, makes a memory of music and echo as vivid as the gleam of the cardinal flower. They slowly move their unwieldly-looking crooked oars, characteristic of the Delaware—the flat blade set on the oar at an obtuse angle. But this oar, lunged on the gunwale of the flat-bottomed boat, or bateau, is suited to a river of rifts, the bent blade enabling the rower to sweep the shallow water without striking.
The river is rich with bass, and the fishers are numerous. Below Walpack Bend, a lady in a boat, excited and joyous, holds up a splendid fish as we pass.
"See! I've just caught it!" she says. It was at least five pounds weight. A gentleman in the boat tells us that we can run all the rapids down the river—"except the Great Foul Rift!"
Here it was again; and from this time forward, almost every one to whom we spoke warned us in about the same words. Hence grew an unexpressed desire in each of our minds to get away from this croaking rapid; we longed to reach and run it, and have done with it.
But we were approaching one of the glories of
