FOREST AND STREAM 
Observe the Comfortable Upper Deck. 
360 
clean and sweet sleeping room, but a pleasant 
shelter for rainy days. 
On deck above, newly painted and made pre¬ 
sentable in every way, an awning can be 
stretched, and underneath chairs, settees, ham¬ 
mocks, rugs, etc., with appropriate flags at bow 
and stern. In the larder aft would be stored 
such necessaries as the city affords; canned 
goods, preserves, groceries, and wines and to¬ 
bacco if desired. As for the staple articles of 
food—meats, eggs, vegetables and milk—they 
are available every day along the route, and this 
is one of the advantages of the houseboat 
cruise. 
The owner of the craft will probably accom¬ 
pany her to act as pilot, and, if so desired, his 
wife or relative will serve as cook at wages of 
four or five dollars a week. If the party is com¬ 
posed entirely of men, excellent male steamboat 
cooks are to be found in the vicinity of the slip 
whose hire does not exceed forty dollars a month. 
These men are capable of serving a great variety 
of dishes. 
The largest and finest of these craft may be 
had, including owner-pilot services, for about one 
hundred and forty dollars a month, although the 
smaller ones, known as “feeders” may be secured 
for a less sum. This includes putting the boat 
into condition for human habitation. Two boats 
going together will lighten expenses very ma¬ 
terially. 
If the time is short, a trip as far as Platts- 
burg, where an excursion into the Adirondacks 
may be taken, will be found pleasurable. This 
will include short stops at Albany, where a dash 
to Saratoga may be made; Glens Falls, where 
a trip to Lake George is a delightful day’s jour¬ 
ney ; and Lake Champlain, with its historic asso¬ 
ciations. If, however, more time is at the ex¬ 
cursionists’ disposal, the boat may be carried on 
to Montreal, Quebec, Lake Ontario, and Niagara 
Falls, the return route being made by way of 
Erie Canal. Certainly, for diversity of scenery 
and interest, historical and legendary, as well as 
for opportunities to the hunter 'and fisherman, 
the itinerary could not be excelled. 
With a congenial party, there is no limit to 
the sport. The route is one of the most pic¬ 
turesque on the whole continent. For artists 
the boat may be turned literally into a floating 
studio. A good camera as well as musical in¬ 
struments will be found recreative, the former 
for odd moments of the day, the latter for 
moonlight nights on deck. Motorcycles, or even 
an automobile, may be taken with advantage for 
the sundry side excursions, and a tent for the 
Adirondacks and elsewhere if a land trip is in¬ 
dulged in far from the floating headquarters. 
With all these diversions, and the cruise an ab¬ 
solutely safe one, there should be no hindrance 
to a charming summer’s rest cure. 
To the lover of Nature in her calm and quiet 
moods, there is nothing more picturesque than 
some canals of the United States. Perhaps the 
old Chesapeake and Ohio Canal as it follows 
the Potomac River from Washington to Cum¬ 
berland is as grand in scenery as any. The 
ragged crags of the Point of Rocks, the mossy 
grandeur of Maryland Heights, the superb beau¬ 
ties of Harper’s Ferry, where the waters of the 
Shenandoah meet the Potomac on its way to the 
sea. are but a few of the glories along the line 
of this historic canal. A mule is the best mo¬ 
tive power on a canal, for the swash from a 
propeller wears down the strongest banks. 
On this canal the jaded man of business can 
spend a week or ten days gliding almost imper¬ 
ceptibly, parallel with one of the grandest rivers 
in the world, sleeping in commodious apartments, 
breathing the pure air of the mountains and ab¬ 
sorbing the beauties of a prodigal nature. 
In Canada, too, there are houseboat colonies, 
of which the one on the Kootenay is probably 
the best known and most popular. The railroad 
company was responsible for the innovation, 
building and equipping the houseboats as lures 
for hunters and anglers. The experiment was 
a success. Not only sportsmen, but mere lovers 
of primitive scenery and wildwood life found 
their way into the region, and the Kootenay 
houseboats are never tenantless from June until 
October. 
California has her houseboats, and the “arks” 
of San Francisco Bay, sheltered by the island 
of Belvedere, are long established institutions. 
Here a bath is a matter of stepping off the porch, 
a stroll is taken in a boat, and the splash of oars 
announces butcher and baker. Many of these 
boats are owned by groups of young fellows who 
must be all day in the city, but in this way man¬ 
age to make vacations of their early mornings 
and evenings. Whole families occupying others 
give the needed element of girl. A decrepit 
ocean steamer serves as one summer cottage, 
while another rs made of four horse-cars of the 
variety known as bobtail set on a float. It is a 
life of good health and good fellowship, and win¬ 
ter has to announce itself with some sharp¬ 
ness to drive the colony ashore. In the Middle 
West, where the waters are sheltered, house¬ 
boats are not by any means of an unknown 
quantity. Several very elaborate and comfort¬ 
able craft with numerous smaller boats are an¬ 
chored on beautiful lakes. The Mississippi, 
whose strong current is somewhat of an obstacle 
to happy houseboating, has nevertheless one of 
the handsomest houseboats in this country. A 
wealthy lumberman living in a Mississippi River 
town has had built for him a luxurious summer 
home, and propelled by a sternwheel steamer. 
All through the long summer this houseboat, 
filled with jolly parties of guests, wends its way 
up and down the great river, anchoring where 
whim suggests, moving on when will dictates. 
The Ohio and Illinois rivers have their house¬ 
boats. A favorite home of the summer house¬ 
boat is on Georgian Bay and among the Thou¬ 
sand Islands of the St. Lawrence River. Some 
of these houseboats, both on Georgian and Alex¬ 
andria Bays, are most elaborately appointed and 
decorated, and really are quite equal to many a 
summer villa or cottage. They are so large 
as to contain twelve to fifteen sleeping rooms, 
and kitchen and servants’ quarters, and are gen¬ 
erally two stories high, with a roof garden on the 
flat top of the second story. The English house¬ 
boats as a rule have the kitchen and servants’ 
quarters on a small tender. 
The most beautiful waters in America are 
inaccessible to the ocean-going yacht, be it steam 
or sail. The long shallow bays or lagoons, 
landlocked by the keys of shifting sands, are 
strangers to all but the fishermen with their flat- 
bottomed punts. The yachtsman casts a long¬ 
ing eye at the labyrinth of bays, inlets, and 
bayous, whose glassy waters are shadowed by pri¬ 
meval foliage. He knows that these waters are 
full of fish. The banks invite exploration, but 
his experienced eye, as well as his chart, show 
that there is not depth of water sufficient for 
the passage of his deep craft. Not so the own¬ 
er of a houseboat. He Can sail on any waters that 
will support tlie drifting wreckage of the sea. 
When the purse permits, the problem of loco¬ 
motion of houseboats is easy. Assuming that 
the boat is of simple type, without means of its 
own for propulsion, and that the cruise is upon 
waters where towing from the banks is not 
practicable, a small launch has been found best. 
It is well known that a given horsepower will 
tow much more effectually than it can propel. 
Witness, for instance, a single tugboat towing 
a mile or so of big coal barges and making 
very good time, in spite of the enormous drag 
upon her cable. A small launch, with any of the 
improved motive powers, will walk away with 
a vessel of twenty times her displacement. Not, 
of course, against wind and tide, but under 
favorable conditions, and such are all that a 
houseboatman ought to expect. With a launch 
to go a-marketing, or for the mail, or to call 
upon neighbors afloat or ashore, the problems of 
houseboat navigation are greatly simplified with¬ 
out infringing upon the space intended for the 
accommodation of passengers and crew. How¬ 
ever, the compact little engines which so swiftly 
propel the various types of motor craft are of 
sufficient power to give speed to the ordinary 
houseboat. There is no waste of power. Suffi¬ 
cient gasolene can safely be stored in bulkheads 
