Through Canal-Land in a Canadian Canoe | Page 4

of tea with the skipper and his family.
Life on board one of these slow-moving canal barges appeared to me to possess many charms. The barge people seem to pass a sort of amphibious existence, belonging neither to the land nor to the water, but having a human interest in each. The women and children almost wholly live aboard their floating homes, often never stepping ashore from one day to the other and going about their domestic duties, as well as those connected with their calling, with all the precision and cheerfulness in the world, as if there were nothing strange or out-of-the-way in their surroundings.
Then the scenery through which they pass. To anyone who is capable of appreciating the beauties of Nature in the slightest degree, there must be something soothing and elevating in constantly being brought face to face with Nature in all her varying charms. Now gliding calmly past a water-side village, with the children running out to give you a greeting; then through a waving, poppy-starred cornfield, or past low-lying meadows, with the meditative cattle standing knee-deep in the sweet pasturage, and anon a bend in the canal carries you past wood-lands where the trees meet overhead and form a cool canopy through which the rays of the sun can only penetrate here and there in slanting beams.
When my thoughts wander in this groove, I often marvel at people electing to live in stuffy, smoky towns, when the charms of the country are at their bidding.
Proceeding on our journey after tea, we eventually arrived at Stoke-on-Trent, and went ashore to seek shelter for the night at a wayside cottage.
We got afloat in the morning after our swim and a hearty breakfast, and proceeded past the outskirts of the town, which we were not sorry to leave behind.
It came on to rain soon after we left Stoke-on-Treat; but as we were well prepared with macintoshes to face the elements, we proceeded cheerily on our way.
After paddling for about four miles we came to the entrance of another long tunnel, which we entered, after taking the precaution to provide ourselves with candles. We had a nasty experience in navigating through this tunnel, which I should not much care to encounter again.
After proceeding cautiously for some distance, during which we had to avoid a ducking, and possibly a swamping, from the numerous "weep-holes" that let showers of land water descend from the roof, our candle suddenly went out and left us in total darkness. To make matters worse, a lot of land-water was coming through the tunnel, which, together with the backwash of a tug some little way ahead of us, tried us considerably, and finally wedged our canoe between the two walls of the tunnel.
We did not relish the situation at all, I can assure you, especially as we could not take stock of our whereabouts; but after a deal of rocking and shoving (during which we had a narrow escape from capsizing), we managed to get the canoe clear of the walls, and worked our way backwards, hand-over-hand, to the mouth of the tunnel.
After this experience we were strangely unanimous as to the desirability of going through in some less risky manner (we accused each other of "funking" afterwards), and accordingly sought the aid of a man, a boy, and a wheelbarrow, and in this unconventional manner conveyed our goods and chattels overland to the other end of the tunnel.
In the course of our journey along the canals we passed through a number of these tunnels, including the one that starts close to Chatterby Station, and goes under Yield and Golden Hills. The passage of barges through some of these tunnels is performed in a very curious manner, as owing to the roofs being too low to admit of tugs passing through, the heavily laden canal barges have to be "footed" along by men and boys lying on their backs and pushing against the roof or walls of the tunnel.
As may be imagined, but slow progress is made in this manner, the passage of some of the tunnels occupying upwards of an hour. In some cases, however, the tunnels are provided with a narrow tow-path running through them, which, of course, greatly facilitates the passage, as when once momentum is obtained, a man and a boy can tow a barge through without much difficulty.
We next reached Harecastle, in Cheshire, where we landed for lunch. Re-starting, after doing justice to a good feed, we soon encountered a cluster of thirty-five locks (think of it) all grouped together within a distance of six miles. Finding the negotiating of two or three a weariness of the flesh, we cast around for help, and fortunately came across a "locked-out" coal-miner, who for two shillings cheerfully trotted on ahead, and opened each of