92 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
card he thrust into my hand. But, as it most unfortunately 
occurred, I found the office of the “Canal Route” for Phila- 
delphia, &c., was next door to our hotel, and I was tempted, 
weakly enough, no doubt! to go in and book my name “clear 
through.” Insensate creature that I was. The canal boats 
would not start till after dark, so that I spent the hours 
allotted to daylight by the cathedral clocks, in exploring the 
streets of this dim Cyclopian city. 
The incessant clang of sledge-hammers had become suffi- 
ciently monotonous when the evening closed in, and I was 
glad enough to take coach and be transported to the Canal 
Depot, when the usual vexations and delay consequent, had 
to be endured. 
Finally, however, we got underweigh, with such a cargo of 
pigs, poultry and humanity, as even canal boats are seldom 
blessed with. I stood upon tiptoe for the fresh air in the 
cabin, until the time had actually come when people must ge 
to bed; when that awful personage, the Captain, summoned 
us all together, and informed us that every man, woman and 
child aboard, must stow his, her or itself away along the face 
of the narrow walls, in the succession of their registration 
during the day. Now, it happened that as gentlemen are 
not usually up before daybreak, that I stood first upon the 
first list, and was of course entitled to the first choice of 
hammocks. We panted in the centre of the close-jammed 
crowd, waiting till the ladies, who always take precedence in 
America, had been called off. As it happened that this 
right of choice was finally definitive for the route, and deter- 
mined whether one should sleep upon a hammock, or the 
floor, or the tables, for several successive nights—it was a 
matter of no little moment. 
It occurred while the ladies were being disposed of, that I 
heard above the buzz around me the name of Audubon spoken. 
My attention was instantly attracted by that magical sound. 
