It was well enough, for without those oars I could never have brought it back. I got in, the sail being set, and he pushed me from shore. A stiff breeze was sweeping down the river, and I did not like to run before it, lest it should blow me out upon the lake and clear over to Canada. So, I thought I would try tacking, and run up the river a little way, in order to have easy sailing back. With the helm in one hand and a line attached to the boom in the other, I went flying across the river, which was only about four hundred feet wide, and presently brought up against the other shore. I looked quickly around to see if the owner was observing me, found he wasn’t, pushed my boat off with an oar, got the sail set right for the other tack, and went sailing for the western shore again. This time, I “tacked” in time, turned the boat pretty skillfully, and the boom sweeping around before the wind hit me a deuce of a “belt” on the head and knocked my hat off into the water. I then lowered the sail and shipped the oars. Recovering my hat, I then unshipped the oars, and hoisted my sail again. [Illustration: “The boom sweeping around before the wind, hit me a deuce of a ‘belt’ on the head and knocked my hat off into the water.”—_Smith on the Genesee.   Page 120._ ] I had seen persons “tack” before, and make pretty good time against a head-wind. It looked simple and easy; but with me it went rather awkwardly. I couldn’t make any “time” up stream at all, but found after each “tack” that I had drifted further and further down. I had better have cast anchor and waited for a port or starboard wind, so far as making “time” was concerned. At last, much disgusted with a sail boat, I lowered my sail and took her in with the oars, vowing never to try a sail boat again: another vow I kept for nearly a year. I then hired a light row boat and went up to the “Lower Falls”—that is, a cataract of some seventy or eighty feet, about a mile and a half below the principal Falls of Genesee. I had some stiff rowing to get up, too, for the current was very swift near the Falls. But didn’t I come back, though, when I started to return! I only used my oars to keep the boat straight, and the current carried me down as the wind bears a feather before it. The next day was Sunday, and learning that a small steam pleasure boat was to make a trip that afternoon from the landing, to a little harbor on the lake shore, some eight or ten miles from the mouth of the river, I went down and embarked for the voyage.