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"I don't see how they ever got a big boat up here at all." "Well, Sir Alexander says that this was part of the worst water they found," said Rob. "Sometimes they had to pull the boat up by hanging on to the overhanging trees they couldn't go ashore to track her, they couldn't get bottom with their setting-poles, and of course they couldn't paddle. Yet we came down like a bird!"
And now that we find the luxury of travelling by water actually superior to that of staying at home on land, we begin to feel a budding veneration for the man who first found out that steam could be substituted, with such marvellous advantage, for helpless dependence on the wind and miserable tugging at oars and setting-poles. Who was he?
"He's gone up the other branch," shouted Chichester, above the roar of the stream, "we must follow him! Push across the rapids! Push lively!" So the men seized their setting-poles and shoved as fast as they could across the foot of the rapids, while the rushing torrent threatened at every moment to come in over the side and swamp the canoe.
The river has a very strong current, and from two to three miles an hour is all that can be done against it with setting-poles when there is a heavy load in the canoe. In places the water was too shallow even for a bark, and the men stepped over-board and lifted her along.
There was no canal to help in getting to the head of it, and it was beyond the strength of our crew to push the boat up with setting-poles. There was a towpath along the U.S. bank on which stood three yoke of oxen. A stout cable was hooked to their whiffle-tree and they started.
"With setting-poles, assisted by the current of the river. This place is only five miles from Ocala, to which a railroad has been laid out, though it may be years before it is built," replied Cornwood. "We are in the very heart of Florida now. It is not more than thirty-five miles to Gainesville, to which a stage runs from Ocala three times a week; and that place is on the railroad to Cedar Keys.
We stepped out into the water, and getting our lines, and using our long double blades as fenders, "tracked" the canoes up through the boil. The Indians in their heavier boats used "setting-poles" with marvellous dexterity, and by furious exertion were able to draw steadily up the grade though at times they too "tracked," and even portaged.
This latter was the best conveyance that the emigrant could command. A few were so fortunately situated on the banks of rivers that they could float down with the current in flat-boats, while their cattle were being driven along the shore; or, if it was necessary to ascend toward the head-waters of a river, they could work their way up-stream with setting-poles.
But that task, after a pleasant rowing of a couple of hours had brought them to it, was, by dint of hard struggles against the current, with oars as long as oars could be made to prevail; with setting-poles when oars ceased to serve the purpose; and with ropes attached to the boats and drawn from point to point or rock to rock, when neither oars nor poles were of any avail; together with the carrying both boats and baggage by land round the last and most difficult ascent, that task was at length accomplished, and, before one o'clock in the afternoon, all the boats, with their loading, were safely launched on the broad bosom of the wild and picturesque Molechunk-a-munk.
The boatmen were astir before daylight, hoisting the sails, for the wind had turned to the north, as it often does after a thunderstorm. There were places, where the current ran so fast that setting-poles had to be used, but we got on well, and, by-and-by, sighted two towns Ogdensburg and Prescott, the one bright and tidy, the other with a weather-beaten uninviting look.
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