About nine or ten o'clock each evening the boats tie up at some lock. At all of these locks there are refreshment-stands and neat taverns of which the traveller must avail himself, since there are no accommodations for visitors on the boats. On the fourth day, wishing to vary my experience, I boarded another boat. Her deck was the very model of neatness. Verily the spirit of either a Yankee housewife or a Dutch vrow must have presided over that boat and tyrannized over the poor wretches who managed it. Black Care seemed to sit continually upon their brows. They were living scrubbing-brushes. They were scrub-mad. From morn to dewy eve they scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, and doubtless in their dreams they still scrubbed on. The crew consisted of a man and his wife, their boy and an old uncle of the boy. I found, to my delight, that the boy was a very communicative young gentleman, flowing freely in talk without any pumping on my part. The various quaint technical phrases which I learned from him shall now be imparted to the reader. The _berme_, or _heel-path_, is the side of the canal opposite the tow-path; _basins_ are small coves in the canal where boats may lie over; _stop-lock_, a sort of quay; the _bit_, a timber-head at the bow of the boat. _Snub her!_ is a phrase of command, meaning, "Tie the boat to a post on the bank." _Pipe-poles_ are steering-poles. The _stern pile_ (of coal on this canal) is in a large crib near the stern and just in front of the cabin, and is placed in this particular part of the long and unwieldy boat in order to make her obey the helm better. _Timber-heads_ project above the deck to "snub" lines on. _Tow-posts_ are short upright posts near the bow, to which the tow-line is fastened. The _combings_ are the pieces the hatches rest on and surround the hold in an oval form. The _wale-plank_ is the edge of the deck, projecting out over the water like a welt around the entire circumference of the boat.