2BM 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct, 7, 1800. 
1(0 ^fiarhnim ^anmi 
Old Boats. 
Pkowling along the level shores of meadow, pasture 
and woodland, I sometimes come upon an old boat that, 
having outlived its usefulness, has been abandoned by its 
owner, apparently with as little sentiment and regard for 
what it has been as that with which a worn-out garment 
is cast aside. When it was hauled ashore for the last 
time at its accustomed landing by its master, who 
beached it with no securer fastening^ the next spring or 
autumn flood crept up and dragged it away, to drift for- 
lorn and unguided but by the caprice of wind and cur- 
rent. ' ■' •' 
Whoever chooses may appropriate it to whatever use 
he can find for it. Stranded or afloat, lonely, lifeless, it 
becomes the familiar of all wild creatures, who learn to be 
as fearless of it as of any other inert bit of driftwood. 
Muskrats board the water-logged derelict, and wild ducks 
swim as its consort. 
After blowing hither and yoh on trtatiy idle voyages, 
bumping its prow on various inhospitable steep shores, 
and scraping its sides against insulated trees till, beached 
far up on the flooded lands, it found a resting place at 
last among iloodwood and driftweeds. 
One knows at first sight tliat the poor craft is no 
truant, brouglit to a chance port without help of paddle, 
oar or sail, but that it came to such haphazard stranding 
through slow neglect and final abandonment, apparent 
enough in its worn and faded paint, in its rents and 
patches that have grown clumsier and more careless year 
by year, in seams that gape too wide for pitch and 
oakum to mend. 
One feels a kind of pity as he contemplates these for- 
saken wrecks that once played their part in the life of 
men, and gave their share in some measure to its work 
or pastime. Eacli bears some plainly written fragments 
of its history whereof imagination may fill out the chapi- 
ters. 
Lying broadside to, among the driftwood of which she 
is a part, and a little below the lighter line of driftweed 
that hems the green meadow with a band of faded drab, 
is an ancient scow of primitive pattern. The straight lines 
of her battered, unpainted sides arc not relieved by the 
slightest curve from bow to stern, from gunwale to 
bottom; the rigid inch and a half pine plank would not 
have yielded to such frivolity if her builder had demanded 
it, which he, of as plain stuff and angular mould, cer- 
tainly never did. The flat bottom slants upward at the 
same angles to the broad, square bow and stern, which 
can only be distinguished from one another now by a 
hole for a jackstaft' in the short forward deck and various 
cinder marks upon it — scars received in nocturnal war- 
fare against the fishes. The thwarts are gone, one 
clumsy rowlock has been wrenched off, the other re- 
mains with the stump of its one wooden tholepin, that 
once held an awkward oar in place by a wooden loop. 
One of the crosswise bottom boards is gone, and in its 
place a parallelogram of green herbage is growing, wild 
grasses and English grasses, with groundnut vines bind- 
ing them together and a sprawl of five-fingers holding up 
a humble offering of yellow blossoms. All the gaping 
seams arc calked with spires of grass, and moss is gath- 
ering on the heel marks of the owners, who long since 
made their last voyage in this craft. 
In the days of her life she was busy and useful. She 
assisted in the building of timber rafts and then towed 
them to the saw mills; voyaged to the grist mills with 
her owner's grain; cruised along shore, gathering drift- 
wood for his kitchen fire; made trips to the lake for sand 
and on many another useful voyage pursued her slow 
course to the rhythmic tliump, crtak and splash of oars 
and heaved long sighs as her broad prow breasted the 
waters. 
Parties of hay-makers took passage on her in droughty 
seasons, when the upland grass was scant, to mow the 
rank marsh growth. This they carried on poles and 
piled in stacks stilted above the autumnal overflow to 
await hauling by teams in winter. These marsh stacks 
loomed up on the flat, shorn expanse like mammoth 
muskrat houses. You may still/ find among the drift- 
vvood the shoes, worn smoother by long attrition than 
their first rude fashioning left them. 
The sober craft indulged in occasional playspells, yet 
carried into them something of the staid and business- 
like character of her everyday life. In windless spring 
nights, when the marshes were flooded and fish swam 
where the haymakers plodded in September, she cruised 
over the same ground, her way lighted by a flaring 
jack, fullfcd with fat pine. Behind her stood the spear- 
man, his intent face illuminated by the red glare, his 
weapon in hand ready to spring to the deadly poise. Be- 
hind, in shifting light and shadow, sat or stood the pad- 
dler or poleman, steadily plying his chosen implement, 
to whose strokes the heavy boat moved steadily for- 
ward. 
Frightened water fowl sprang to flight before it, bright- 
ly illuminated for an instant, then flashed out like sparks 
quenched in the darkness. A dazed muskrat floated mo- 
tionless in the full glare of the torch, then dived with 
a sudden resounding splash that startled spearman and 
paddler from their silence. 
Lighting the broad, glittering water circle, whose 
edge was gnawed at and bitten -by reaching shadows, it 
crept along the shore, here naked, there fringed with un- 
leaved trees that materialized in gaUnt specters out of 
the mystery of "darkness. Thus the old boat made her 
wandering voyage and gathered her various fare; then 
with light quenched went into the darkened homeward 
way. , , . . . _ . 
In showery summer days, when thrifty housewives 
said it rained too hard for men to work out doors, aratV 
they coitld go fishing,' the scow M'^as moored, bow and 
stern, to stakes alongside the channel, where the crew 
angled in moist discomfort and a dreary monotony of 
sound, the steady tinkle of raindrops on the black Water, 
the thin bass of the bullfrogs, the purr of rain on dis- 
tant woods, among which the monosyllabic discourse of 
the anglers and the splash of their sinkers fell at intervals 
v/ithout jarrinsr the dull concord, while the sharp metallic 
clatter of a kingfisher berated them for their misuse of 
his feypriff perches, the ^sfiing st3.kes> ■ 
In halves of broken hay days, during treacherous dog- 
day weather, the scow went trolling for pickerel, the 
channel's length from the falls to the broad blue bay 
of the lake, or with seine and elm bark ropes folded and 
coiled in a great heap on her wide stern, took chief part 
in seine hauling at the sandbar. 
A staunch craft she has been, returning with resound- 
ing stroke and uncompromising bow the buffets of 
Champlain's white-capped w»^aves. Now all her days of 
work and pastime are spent. A forlorn vagabond, she is 
no one's boat — any one's driftwood. Some further reach- 
ing spring flood than that which stranded her here may 
A Reliii m the Past. 
set her afloat again to wallow gunwale deep through the 
troubled waters, and be beached on some other shore or 
cast piecemeal, here and there, in unrecognizable frag- 
ments. Wherever she voyages she will have no naviga- 
tors but the idle winds and waves and currents. 
In the shade of shore-lining trees that annually bathe 
ankle deep in the spring floods, when the pickerel swim 
among their bolls and the painted plumage of the wood 
drake floats double beside their gray reflections, one 
stumbles upon the half-stripped bones of an old trapping 
skifi". Though of almost as primitive mould, she is of 
yery different pattern from the scow. Short and narrow, 
sharp at both ends, her sides of three-lapped streaks 
fastened to a few knees of natural crook, she was as 
cranky as the other was steady, and more heavily bur- 
dened with one person than the other with as many as 
"In Shade of Trees," 
could find room in her. Yet the trapper, standing up- 
right, a, little abaft midships, adroitly humored her cranky 
tricks, as with his long setting pole he drove her oVer sub- 
merged logs and coaxed her through intricate passages 
of the flooded wood, or with sturdy axe-strokes chopped 
notches for his traps, or set them as he squatted by log, 
feed-bed and house. Cruising within shot of a muskrat. 
duck or pickerel, he stooped and snatched his ready 
gun from the hooks that, with the leather flap that cov- 
ered the lock, still hold their places. 
In memory I follow him as I saw him on his solitary 
voyage fifty years ago. Now he coasted along a low, 
naked shore; now circumnavigated a low shaggy island of 
button bush, iiow thridded the flooded woods, always 
alert for promising places to set trap in, now stopping to 
set one. now to lift one aboard with its drowned victim. 
'*Ih Memory 'l Follow- Him." 
and then to reset it. His course was marked by the 
inconspicuous crotched tally sticks that an eye less prac- 
ticed than his would scarcely notice. Now he braves the 
rapid water of the broad marsh and channek that the 
season of floods has merged in a. lakelike expanse. He 
lands on a further shore in some warm nook, where the 
.\pril sunshine comes and the keen April north wind does 
not. Here he skins his furry cargo, while the expectant 
crows, watching from safe tree tops, aAvait their repast, 
and the thronging blackbirds gurgle above him, and the 
basking frogs croak a lazy chorus around him. Per- 
haps, as broken and useless as his stranded craft, he yet 
lingers somewhere on these earthly shores; pei*haps has 
drifted to the unknown coast, from whence no returning 
voyager brings us tidings. 
With the same surroundings. I find the decaying hulk 
of one of the most primitive of water craft embedded in 
alluvia! mould and bed-embowered in royal ferns. Quite 
ong with the wmwrQitght logs of 4riftwQo4 ^s^t lie 
around it, is a log canoe. So clumsily made was she 
an Indian might have fashioned a neater one with fire 
and stone tools, though the maker of this had an axe, 
adze and gouge of steel, in proof whereof their marks 
still endure. 
The butt log of a great pine, out of which a saw mill 
could have sliced material for a whole fleet of small 
craft, went to the wasteful construction of thi« one boat 
When there was an end of chopping, hewing and goug- 
ing, the pile of chips was of greater bulk than the boat. 
In spite of her crankiness and her troughlike model, it 
could be said in her praise that she was a solid, seamless 
shell, needing neither oakum nor pitch to make her 
water-tight, and the wkolesome odor of the freshly hewn 
pine, sweating turpentine at every pore, was a pleasanter" 
smell, than that of paint. Her sort were the commonest 
craft on our waters when I was a boy, yet I do not re- 
member one so new that it had not taken on the weather- 
beaten gray of age, so scarce and precious had suitable 
trees for making them become, 
I recollect their accustomed navigators as meii also 
bearing marks of age and long service — old men who 
were uncles to all younger generations. They were not 
fishing for sport, but engaging in it as a serious business 
of life, befitting their bent forms and intent faces. 
" Ef you want tu ketch fish, you must bait your hook 
wi' necessity," Uncle Stafford would inform us as we 
gazed enviously over his gunwale at the fare of great 
pike lying thick on the canoe bottom. He used a lure 
composed of pork rind and red flannel, but no doubt ne- 
cessity sharpened his wits to a proper judgment of the 
length of line and regulation of the speed of the canoe. 
This he paddled so noiselessly that the wary bittern was 
undisturbed by its passage. In autumn he prowled as 
silently over the same course, and the canoe, nosing her 
way along the same watery path, stole upon great flocks 
of ducks. Then, after a long aim, the iron-bound relic 
of 1812 belched out its palm's breadth of powder, shot 
snd tow, and a roar that shook the shores with slow 
rebounding echoes. The old gunner shot for the gre.atest 
count with the least expenditure of ammunition, and 
rarely spent half a dozen charges in a day. He was a pot- 
hunter, but an abundant supply of game would have out- 
lasted many generations of his kind. Happj^ he to de- 
part while it still endured, with no guilt of its extermina- 
tion on his soul. 
Like him, her last voyage ended, his old canoe rests 
at peace with all things. In springtime the muskrat fear- 
lessly boards her, the wood duck perches on her gunwale, 
the spawning pike and pickerel bask beside her, and now, 
when the thin autumnal shade blotches her weather- 
beaten gray with darker patches, the grouse drums on the 
moss-grown bow, the mink makes his runway along the 
rotting bottom, and the fox prowls near the shell of 
crumbling wood, unscared by the taint of recent human 
touch. Amid such sylvan solitude as the trees she was 
wrought from, made its slow growth, the old craft 
molders to the dust of earth, to live again in the- lusty 
life of other trees. Rowland E. Robinson. 
River Rambles in Florida. 
There, is a tempering for distempered lives 
On the raw terms ttiat nature has to give 
To those who seek her meat. 
Braving her harsher tempers one survives. 
And keeps the terms of the life primitive. 
To seek, to slay and eat. 
If one starts to wander about the half-settled regions 
of Florida he should be communicative and friendly 
with the natives he may meet, and these acquaintance's 
will impart to him all the recipes, precautions and strata - 
gems that appertain to his present state of life. The 
recipes are perhaps the moist important, because neither 
rea.son nor instinct tells a man how to turn to best ac- 
count and touch the keynote of the flavor of turtle, bird, 
fish or quadruped, while he is a dullard who cannot find 
out how to outwit his prey. 
If you meet one of these gentlemen oti the St. Johns 
River with a spider, a chunk of salt bacon, a little coffee 
£ind flour, and a cornatoe can, used for boiling and making 
cofl'ee, you may know that here is a hunter or a fisher- 
man out to stay. In case of rain the cracker keeps his 
flour dry with a palmetto leaf, and does not mind being 
wet himself. He is of a caste above that of the chronicler, 
and as I find there is no end to what a boat will carry 
I am constantly seduced by new thought of conv^eniences. 
Instead of a palmetto fan to protect my flour merely 
I aft'ect a tabernacle adapted as a canvas roof to the 
boat, so that I may be housed somewhat like Noah when 
the windows of heaven are open or the doors of day are 
shut. Drawn over supports and ridgepole this buttons 
about the gunwale and keeps out rain, mosquitoes and 
snakes. Ventilation is provided for by means of flaps 
of mosquito netting, which are tied back to protect from 
tearing before the tent cover, as it may be called, is taken 
down and stow"ed in the morning. 
The stern of my 14ft. flat-bottomed boat affords good 
sleeping room. The bed adopted consists of a few Tight 
Ijieces of board cut to fit between the 'two rear thwarts, 
makinga movable deck over the contents of the boat, upon 
which the bed is spread. To counterbalance the sleeper 
the cooking irons and other heavy articles are loaded 
forward. This is also a convenient ballasting for sail- 
ing when the navigator sits astern,' 
A sail is one of those indispensable things which (?nce 
taken you will never be without. It is the true water 
horse, and having tried his service you feel ever after 
a deep-seated discontent when you are tugging for many 
miles at a pair of oars. 
My mast unsteps at pileasure, and together with the 
sail and fishing rods is laid on the shore at night to be 
out of the way. , , 
In May last T started 01* a cruise on the upper St. 
Johns— that is to say, above Sanford, Avhich is the termi- 
nus of navigation for steamboats. The month is a most 
favorable time for good sailing winds. 
I write in, the singular, the word "I'* not always being 
an egotistical word, but sometimes merely a lonely word. 
The St. Johns River maintaining for the most part a 
north and south course, has ,-i deflection above Sanford 
lying east and west for twenty-seven miles between Lake 
Monroe and Lake Harney T started out, therefo.re, 
going east. 
