All this day the air absolutely stood still. At our places of halt we were joined by men who had left the stages in consequence of those vehicles not being able to travel. Our pace was reduced considerably; and the cattle, although in excellent condition, were terribly distressed. At Lockport we found business nearly at a stand-still; the thermometer was at 110 degrees of Fahrenheit. We passed several horses dead upon the banks of the canal, and were compelled to leave one or two of our own in a dying state. Here more persons joined than we could well accommodate, and I found positively that all movement by the stage route was at an end, forty horses having fallen on the line the day previous. To attempt abiding in any of the places along the canal, I was assured would be an exchange for the worse; so the only course was to endure the "ills we had," and certainly these did not become the lighter through practice. Towards the second night our progress became tediously slow, for it appeared to grow hot in proportion as the evening advanced. The south-western sky was again banked up by black clouds, from which the sheet lightning never ceased to burst. Under other circumstances the scene would have been viewed as one of infinite grandeur; but, at present, every consideration became absorbed by our sufferings, for to this the affair really amounted. This night I found it impossible to look in upon the cabin; I therefore made a request to the captain that I might be permitted to have a mattress on deck: but this, he told me, could not be; there was an existing regulation which positively forbade sleeping upon the deck of a canal packet; indeed, he assured me that this could only be done at the peril of life, with the certainty of catching fever and ague. I appeared to submit to his well-meant arguments; but inwardly resolved, _coute qui coute_, not to sleep within the den below, which exhibited a scene of suffocation and its consequences that defies description. I got my cloak up, filled my hat with cigars, and, planting myself about the centre of the deck, here resolved, _malgre_ dews and musquitoes, to weather it through the night. "What is this name of the country we are now passing?" I inquired of one of the boatmen who joined me about the first hour of morning. "Why sir, this is called the Cedar Swamp," answered the man, to whom I handed a cigar, in order to retain his society and create more smoke, weak as was the defence against the hungry swarms surrounding us on all sides. "We have not much more of this Cedar Swamp to get through, I hope?" inquired I, seeking for some consolatory information. "About fifty miles more, I guess," was the reply of my companion, accompanying each word with a sharp slap on the back of his hand, or on his cheek or forehead.