124 Aval. 



LETTER XXIX. 



Montezuma, July, 1820. 

 My Dear Sir, 



I consider navigation on a canal, not only 

 the least expensive, but the most secure mode of 

 travelling that can be adopted. Here is no burst- 

 ing of boilers nor any other accident to which 

 steam-boats are exposed. You can neither be 

 burnt nor drowned, and your horses cannot run 

 away with your carriage and dash it to atoms ; 

 but then you must be on the constant look out to 

 avoid a fracture of the head from the low and ill 

 constructed bridges : why, in this country of 

 wood, stone should be used for erecting bridges ; 

 why they should be made so low as just to avoid 

 the boat ; why they should contain abutments 

 jutting out into the canal, and for ever striking 

 the boat ; and why the stones should be piled 

 upon each other without mortar, are questions 

 which I must refer to the decision of the Canal 

 Board and their engineers. If the bridges had 

 been sufficiently elevated, then the boat could 

 have been drawn from a mast instead of the side, 

 a is practiced in Flanders, and an unceasing aid 

 pernicious wearing of the banks by the drag rope 



