[Illustration:  Printing-press at which Franklin worked when A boy.]

“Philadelphia was one hundred miles farther; I set out, however, in a boat for Amboy, leaving my chest and things to follow me round by sea.  In crossing the bay, we met with a squall that tore our rotten sail to pieces, prevented our getting into the Kill, and drove us upon Long Island.  In our way a drunken Dutchman, who was a passenger too, fell overboard; when he was sinking, I reached through the water to his shock pate and drew him up, so that we got him in again.  His ducking sobered him a little, and he went to sleep, taking first out of his pocket a book, which he desired I would dry for him.”

The book proved to be the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” in Dutch, well printed, and with copper-plate illustrations, a fact which greatly interested the book-loving traveller.

“On approaching the island, we found it was a place where there could be no landing, there being a great surge on the stony beach.  So we dropped anchor, and swung out our cable towards the shore.  Some people came down to the shore, and hallooed to us, as we did to them; but the wind was so high, and the surge so loud, that we could not understand each other.  There were some small boats near the shore, and we made signs, and called to them to fetch us; but they either did not comprehend us, or it was impracticable, so they went off.

“Night approaching, we had no remedy but to have patience till the wind abated, and in the mean time the boatman and myself concluded to sleep, if we could; and so we crowded into the hatches, where we joined the Dutchman, who was still wet, and the spray, breaking over the head of our boat, leaked through to us, so that we were soon almost as wet as he.  In this manner we lay all night, with very little rest; but the wind abating the next day, we made a shift to reach Amboy before night, having been thirty hours on the water, without victuals, or any drink but a bottle of filthy rum, the water we sailed on being salt.”

The story seems hard to credit.  The travellers had already spent fifteen times the period it now takes to make the complete journey, and were but fairly started; while they had experienced almost as much hardship as though they were wrecked mariners, cast upon a desolate coast.  The remainder of the journey was no less wearisome.  The traveller thus continues his narrative: 

“In the evening I found myself very feverish, and went to bed; but having read somewhere that cold water drunk plentifully was good for a fever, I followed the prescription, and sweat plentifully most of the night.  My fever left me, and in the morning, crossing the ferry, I proceeded on my journey on foot, having fifty miles to go to Burlington, where I was told I should find boats that would carry me the rest of the way to Philadelphia.