466 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Dec. 27, 1888* 



N 



NECK EN. 



ONE who were present during the last week of the A. C. A. 

 A meet th is year will soon f orget the charming little folk song 

 which was sung so often bv Mr. Lund berg, of the Mohican O. U 

 The song, already a favorite with many who had heard it m 

 Albany, was called for before Mr. Lundberg had spent half ot bis 

 first evening in camp, and by next morning every one m camp 

 was whistling or humming the refrain. No doubt that part of its 

 popularity was due to the magnificent voice of the singer, but it 

 has also all the sweetness and melody that is so characteristic of 

 the folksongs of Germany and the northern nations. Necken is 

 a mythical spirit of the Swedish folklore, an i elf who assumes 

 various characters, often that of a merman, ana m the. song he is 

 described iu tbis character, singing to the music of his harp. 1 he 

 following English words are in no way a translation, but were 

 written to the air bv a friend of Mr. Lundberg, Mr. John H. 

 Jewett. of Worcester, Mass. In sending the music Mr. Lundberg 

 savs: ''Publish it as a memory of the pleasant A. C. A. meet ot 

 1888." The air has evidently found a permanent place m that 

 rather mixed repertoire of shanty songs, college glees, i rench 

 Canadian chansons aud scraps of opera that enliven the camp- 

 fires of the A. O. A. mee\ and perhaps some among our readers 

 may be able to set words to it more suited to such use than either 

 the original or the English words here gi ven. 



SWEDISH LOVE SONG. 

 (Nech&n). 



English words written for and dedicated to] my friend Olof 

 Ragnar Gottfried Lundberg.] 

 Sweetheart, the day bath no gladness, 



While we thus liuger apart; 

 Moonlight and starlight bring sadness, 



Thou art the light of my heart! 

 Here in the darkness entreating, 

 Longing my Love for thee — 



Softly thy name I'm repeating, 

 Come thou, my Love, back to me. 



Fondly as ever I'm dreaming— 

 Dreaming my Sweetheart of thee; 



Visions of hope now are beaming 

 Bright as the dawn o'er the sea. 



List! how my fond huart is beating, 

 Beating with love for thee— 



Softly thy name I'm repeating, 

 Come thou, my Love, back to me. 



What though the world be deceiving; 



Round us though shadows may lie; 

 Safe in each other believing. 



Bravely love on thou and I! 

 Ncckcn shall bear thee my greeting 



Sweetheart far o'er the sea— 



Softly thy name I'm repeating, 

 Come thou, my Love, back to me! 



Sweetheart, the spring time aud flowers 



Tell us of harvests to come; 

 Ripening through long summer hours. 



Waiting the glad harvest-home! 

 Hasten! Our summer is fleeting, 



Th' harvest, Love, waits for thee— 



Softly thy name I'm repeating, 

 Come thou, my Love, hack to me. 



Worcester, Mass., Sept. 30, 1884. 



John H. Jewett. 



N ECKEN. 



Several popular canoe songs will be found in the. Forest and 

 Stream of May 2 8,1885. 



AN IMPERFECT CRUISING OUTFIT. 



MY cruising outfit is neither that long sought for perfect affair, 

 nor is it complete, and, although I will never confess it, I am 

 afraid that it is in truth a failure, not because I have not spent i 

 more money upon it than I should have done, but because, be- 

 tween what I can get, and desire, and what 1 want, there is a ' 

 great gulf fixed. I began last, season with what I proudly thought 

 was a very nice kit, indeed, with the exception of the canoe's hull, I 

 the frying pan and the billy, it was entirely new, and every de- 

 tail had been worked out on paper. Of course it never was com- 

 pleted as planned, because I found there was so much that was 

 wrong in the more important members that I bad all I could do 

 to remedy the exile that already existed without bringing fresh j 

 miseries upon me; and now there is hardly an article i n that brand ! 

 new kit that would recognize itself in a glass, so to speak. One 1 

 reason for this was that I made two or three solitary cruises this 

 year; and there's nothing like a solitary cruise, even of a day and 

 a half, to set a fellow's canoe inventing organs to work; and 

 another was that the wet, cold weather of the past autumn pre- 

 vented my usual fall outing, aud I was reduced to monkeying. At 

 present a goodly portion of my outfit is in store, another cantil is 

 upon the wavs, and a third portion is on paper, and the three sec- 

 tions are so badly mixed up in mine own mind that in describing 

 my kit I must 'een consider it as a perfected whole, what it will 

 be next spring, not what it is. | 

 My canoe is a smooth skin— both inside and out— fiat-floored j 

 15x29, with a turtle deck that gives her a depth of 13in. at the fore j 

 end of her 5ft. cockpit, and when the season began, she was • 

 equipped with a folding board, two small end compartments, a ! 

 deck tiller and drop rudder, two light hatches that reduce the j 

 cockpit to 18 by 24in. and a deck seat back rest. The.princi-' 

 pal changes that 1 have made in the little craf tie have been to 

 replace the folding board, which was slow, in the way, and a 

 continual nuisance, by a 1 i Si ra. steel board. 30in. long and I3in. ' 

 deep. This board has been put in entirely forward of the cock- 

 pit, and this has thrown the center of lateral resistance so far 

 forward that in future my jigger must not be more than one- 

 fourth the area of the mainsail. I do not look upon this as a 

 defect, however as a small jigger is a boon and a blessing to the 

 cruiser, whatever it may be to the racer. As an experiment I 

 havi; put in a small movable bulkhead on each side of the new 

 centerboard box, with the hope that in This simple way 1 can get, 

 dry storage. I depend upon a piece of rubber tubing fastened to 

 the jambing edge of the movable part of the bulkhead for tight- 

 ness, and upon a simple wedge slide catch, to keep the whole in 

 place. Whether this will work or not, who can say, it is still 

 untried, if it does I will abandon water tight bags. 



There is still a very decided something to be added to my canoe, : 

 and that is a foot steering gear. What it is to be like I do not as yet 

 know, but Ido know what I waut it to do. It must enable me to i 

 keep control of the canoe with one foot, not only when I am inside. ! 

 but when I am outside of her, and be simple, direct-acting and ' 

 light. As the substitution of the plate for the folding board has 

 given me a few pounds to come and go on, I hope that even after I 

 have put in the bulkhead and the foot steering gear, the canoe 

 will be no heavier than she was. i 

 My rig includes 1hree "Tramp" sails, one of 60ft. area, one of 40 ' 

 and one of 15, and they were rigged exactly in the manner and j 

 form devised by their inventor. Although I had very bad luck ! 

 with my cotton last year, and never got a decently set sail on 1 

 the canoe, I am quite satisfied that this is the best hoisting rig j 

 yet discovered. Its great defect as a cruising sail is, that it can J 

 only be unshipped from the mast byunreving everything, no ' 

 end of a job, and a frightful nuisance. To overcome this defect I 

 have replaced the jaw and ring at the boom by a collar with two 

 lugs, which connect by means of a split peg with an eye bolt in 

 the spar end, and have slotted pieces of brass brazed on the bat- 

 ten rings, which slip over tongues on the batten ferrules. By 

 pulling out three split keys the sail is, but for the halliard, en- 

 tirely free from themast, and howto get that halliard free is the 

 difficulty. The only practical plan of doing this I have been able 

 to devise is to cut the halliard at the knot, which prevents jamb- 

 ing. and splice two eyes into the ends thus formed. Thes« eyes 

 can be pulled through the yard blocks, an' they be small enough, 

 and by slipping one through the ether and a toggle into the end of \ 

 the first, the connection can be made in a second. It is a some- 

 what clumsy device, I know, but it works. I use no halliard on 

 the jigger, setting it with a ring and pin on a short mast that 

 ■ serves to hold up one end of the canoe tent when ashore, and 1 

 can lift the mast off and stow it away from inside the canoe. | 

 Next in importance to the canoe and its rig is the sleeping I 

 equipment, and I have taken more trouble with this part of my . 

 outfit than with any other, because upon sound sleep depends-- 1 

 owing to an unfortunate tendency to insomnia— my physical and 

 mental well being, to a greater extent than is altogether pleasant. 

 Last spring, the traditions of canoeing to the contrary, I came to 

 the conclusion that a square-topped canoe tent was not all that 

 could be desired, and had a hipped A tent 6ft. in length, 3ft. high 

 3ft. wide and 3ft. on the ridge, with a side flap, built for me 

 Although made of good heavy drill it only weighs abort half as 

























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