So, there was Richmond seated beside the falls in the James—­those water-bars that the river would not let down for any ship to pass; there was where our journey would end.  To be sure, long years ago, the pale-faces outwitted the old tawny Powhatan by building a canal around its barriers.  Their ships climbed great steps that they called locks; and, passing around the falls and rapids, went up and on their way far toward the mountains.  But the river knew the ways of the white man, and kept its water-bars up and waited.

After a while the pale-faces took to a new way of getting themselves and their belongings over the country; they went rolling about on rails instead of floating on the water; and before long, they almost forgot the old waterways.  Nature waited a while and then took their abandoned canals to grow rushes and water-lilies; and she covered the tow-paths with green and put tangles of undergrowth along; and then she gave it all to the birds and the frogs and the turtles.

So, it came to pass that river barriers counted once more—­that the barrier across our river counted once more.  We did not know whether the canal ahead of us was wholly abandoned; but we did know that it was so obstructed as to no longer furnish a way of getting a vessel above the falls.

The Powhatan was master again; and a little way beyond that next bend it would bar the progress of Gadabout just as, three centuries earlier, it had barred the progress of the exploring boats that the first settlers sent up from James Towne.

Well, it was high time anyway for our journey to end.  We had been several months upon the river—­several months in travelling one hundred miles!  One can not always go lazing on, even in a houseboat; even upon an ancient waterway leading through Colonial-land.

The old river may carry you to the beginning-place of your country; it may bear you on to the doors of famous colonial homes, full of old-time charm and traditional courtesy.  But if so, then all the more need for falls and rapids to put a reasonable end to your houseboat voyage.

We came about the bend in the stream and, at sight of the city before us, were reminded of the keen prevision of its colonial founder.  When Colonel William Byrd, that sagacious exquisite of Westover, came up the river one day in 1733 to this part of his almost boundless estate, and laid the foundations of Richmond here in the wilderness beside the Falls of the James, he foresaw that he was founding a great city.  A “city in the air” he called it, and his dream came true.  Its realization in steeples and spires and chimneys and roof-lines opened before us now upon the slopes and the summits of the river hills.

Soon we were skirting the city’s water front.  We passed piers and factories and many boats.  We went from the pure air of the open river into the tainted breath of the town.  Among many odours there came to be chiefly one—­that of tobacco from the great factories.