We did not carry our horses on this boat; but stopped at relay stations for fresh teams, and after we had pulled out from one of these stations, we went flying along at from six to eight miles an hour, with a cook getting up nine meals; and we often had a “sing” as we called it when in the evening the musical passengers got together and tuned up.  Many of them carried dulcimers, accordions, fiddles, flutes and various kinds of brass horns, and in those days a great many people could sing the good old hymns in the Carmina Sacra, and the glees and part-songs in the old Jubilee, with the soprano, tenor, bass and alto, and the high tenor and counter which made better music than any gathering of people are likely to make nowadays.  All they needed was a leader with a tuning-fork, and off they would start, making the great canal a pretty musical place on fine summer evenings.  We traveled night and day, and at night the boat, lighted up as well as we could do it then, with lanterns and lamps burning whale-oil, and with candles in the cabin, looked like a traveling banquet-hall or opera-house or tavern.

We were always crowded with immigrants when we went west; and on our eastern voyages even, our passenger traffic was mostly related to the West, its trade, and its people.  Many of the men had been out west “hunting country,” and sat on the decks or in the cabins until late at night, telling their fellow-travelers what they had found, exchanging news, and sometimes altering their plans to take advantage of what somebody else had found.  Some had been looking for places where they could establish stores or set up in some other business.  Some had gone to sell goods.  Some were travelers for the purpose of preying on others.  I saw a good deal of the world, that summer, some of which I understood, but not much.  I understand it far better now as I look back upon it.

I noticed for the first time now that class of men with whom we became so well acquainted later, the land speculators.  These, and the bankers, many of whom seemed to have a good deal of business in the West, formed a class by themselves, and looked down from a far height on the working people, the farmers, and the masses generally, who voyaged on the same boats with them.  They talked of development, and the growth of the country, and the establishments of boats and the building of railways; while the rest of us thought about homes and places to make our livings.  The young doctors and lawyers, and some old ones, too, who were going out to try life on the frontiers, occupied places in between these exalted folk and the rest of us.  There were preachers among our passengers, but most of them were going west.  On almost every voyage there would be a minister or missionary who would ask to have the privilege of holding prayer on the boat; and Captain Sproule always permitted it.  The ministers, too, were among those who hunted up the singers in the crowds and organized the song services from the Carmina Sacra.