A SUMMER VOYAGE 27 



lumbermen sometimes take their families or friends, 

 and have a jollification all the way to Trenton or to 

 Philadelphia. In some places the speed is very- 

 great, almost equaling that of an express train. 

 The passage of such places as Cochecton Falls and 

 "Foul Kift" is attended with no little danger. 

 The raft is guided by two immense oars, one before 

 and one behind. I frequently saw these huge im- 

 plements in the driftwood alongshore, suggesting 

 some colossal race of men. The raftsmen have 

 names of their own. From the upper Delaware, 

 where I had set in, small rafts are run down which 

 they call "colts." They come frisking down at a 

 lively pace. At Hancock they usually couple two 

 rafts together, when I suppose they have a span of 

 colts ; or do two colts make one horse ? Some parts 

 of the framework of the raft they call "grubs;" 

 much depends upon these grubs. The lumbermen 

 were and are a hardy, virile race. The Hon. Charles 

 Knapp, of Deposit, now eighty-three years of age, 

 but with the look and step of a man of sixty, told 

 me he had stood nearly all one December day in the 

 water to his waist, reconstructing his raft, which had 

 gone to pieces on the head of an island. Mr. Knapp 

 had passed the first half of his life in Colchester and 

 Hancock, and, although no sportsman, had once taken 

 part in a great bear hunt there. The bear was an 

 enormous one, and was hard pressed by a gang of 

 men and dogs. Their muskets and assaults upon 

 the beast with clubs had made no impression. Mr. 

 Knapp saw where the bear was coming, and he 



