ONE of the chief charms in a boatman's life is its freedom, and what that freedom is no one knows until he throws aside the chains of every-day life, steps out of the worn ruts, and, with his kit beside him, his oar in his hand, feels himself master of his time, and FREE. There is one duty incumbent on the voyager, however, and that is to keep his face set upon his goal. Remembering this, I turned my back upon the beguiling city of New Orleans, with its orange groves and sweet flowers, its old buildings and modern civilization, its French cafs and bewitching oddities of every nature, taking away with me among my most pleasant memories the recollection of the kind hospitality of the gentlemen of the "Southern Boat Club," who presented me with a duplicate of the beautiful silk pennant of their club. My shortest route to the Gulf of Mexico was through New Basin Canal, six miles in length, into Lake Pontchartrain, and from there to the Gulf. If I had disembarked upon the levee, at the foot of Julia Street, when I arrived in New Orleans, there would have been only a short portage of three-quarters of a mile, in a direct line, to the canal; but my little craft had been left in the keeping of the Southern Boat Club, and the position of their boat-house made a portage of two miles a necessity. An express-wagon was procured, and, accompanied by Mr. Charles Deckbar, a member of the club, the little boat was safely carried through the city streets, and once more shot into her native element in the waters of New Basin Canal. The first part of this canal runs through the city proper, and then through a low swampy region out into the shallow lake Pontchartrain. At the terminus of New Basin Canal I found a small light-house, two or three hotels, and a few houses, making a little village. A small fleet of schooners, which had brought lumber and firewood from Shieldsboro and other Gulf ports, was lying idly along the sides of the canal, awaiting a fair wind to assist them in making the return trip. I rowed out of the canal on to the lake; but finding that the strong wind and rough waves were too much for my boat, I beat a hasty retreat into the port of refuge, and, securing my bow-line to a pile, and my stern-line to the bob-stay of a wood-schooner, the "Felicit," I prepared to ride out the gale under her bow. The skippers of the little fleet were very civil men. Some of them were of French and some of Spanish origin, while one or two were Germans. My charts interested them greatly; for though they had navigated their vessels for years upon the Gulf of Mexico, they had never seen a chart; and their astonishment was unbounded when I described to them the bottom of the sea for five hundred miles to the eastward, over a route I had never travelled.