Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: September 20, 2025
The boat was one of those which are really stores, and which travel up and down these rivers, laden with what the natives most need, and stopping wherever there is a ranch. They are the only stores which many of the country-dwellers see from year's end to year's end. They float down-stream, and up-stream are poled by their crew, or now and then get a tow from a steamer.
Reenforcements were gathered on the road, so that when Vincennes was reached the little army numbered about five hundred. From Detroit the party dropped easily down the river to Lake Erie, where it narrowly escaped destruction in a blinding snowstorm. By good management, however, it was brought safely to the Maumee, up whose sluggish waters the bateaux were laboriously poled.
The craft seemed seaworthy, and he proceeded to forage for a punt-pole. Fully equipped at length, he stepped on board and poled himself out from the shore. Arrived at the farther bank, he calmly disembarked and tied up under the willows. He paused a few seconds to light another cigarette, then turned from the river and sauntered up the path between the high box hedges.
In the morning we shot a squirrel, and during the day got another. Toward evening we heard the sound of the falls, and poled to the shore. The night was cold. We had no shelter. It rained heavily. We were drenched and almost frozen. In the morning our little strength was gone. We got on our raft, and poled it along till we were close to the falls; and then put in to the shore.
If only we were back in the days when there were no steamers and the Nile must have been like a perpetual dream! But never mind. At least we refused Baroudi's steam-tug. So we shall just go up with the wind, or be poled up when there is none, if we aren't tied up under the bank. That's the only way to travel on the Nile, but of course Baroudi uses it, as one uses the railway, to go to business."
In visiting the great castle of the Tycoon, a stone fortification notable not only for its own size, but for the dimensions of the huge single stones of which it is built, we went by boat, following a sluggish watercourse, an eighth of a mile wide, and so shallow that we poled through it.
"Had two," said Dick, watching the approaching punt, which was still half a mile away, and being poled steadily in and out of the winding water-lane, now hidden by the dry rustling reeds which stood covered with strands of filmy conferva or fen scum. "But he hasn't had the powder we promised him." "No," said Dick loftily; "not yet." "Why, you haven't brought it, Dick!"
In a few minutes they were on board and out upon the lake, with Eben lying upon the bottom of the boat. John had found a long slim stick, and with this he poled. But when the water became too deep he paddled with one of the oars which had escaped the fire. Little was said at first as they moved slowly forward toward the lower end of the island.
George Wick poled the bully clear of the surf with one of the oars, then jumped forward and hoisted the red sail. Darling drew his chart from his pocket, examined it, then raised his glasses and studied the coast-line to the southward. The wind was light, but dead on shore. The bully hauled across it cleverly. A whitish gray haze stood along the sky-line to the east.
One of the men, who had been over the river before, said: "Look out for a waterfall and rapids, some twenty miles down, boys. Don't get carried over them, or you'll be lost. And there's another bad fall and rapids below that." We poled the raft into the current, and let it drift. Toward night we paddled to the shore and camped there.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking