The passage from Troy to Buffalo was by the Erie Canal, then the great thoroughfare from tide-water to the lakes. It swarmed with two kinds of boats, distinguished as line and packet, the latter drawn by three horses moving at a trot and conveying passengers exclusively, with light luggage. These were for the more exalted and wealthy travelers, who desired speedier transit and better accommodations, while boats of the line, moved by two horses at a walking pace, were suitable for emigrants like ourselves, and crowded to an over fullness with a miscellany of men, women, children and household freight. My recollections of this portion of the journey are of exceeding roughness and discomfort. The youngsters were not greatly regarded in the general disarray and scramble. I remember the coarse, scanty fare of the second table, to which the children were relegated, wherein vile smelling boiled cabbage figured as a steady quantity, and oppressive nights in a stifling berth at the very end of the crowded cabin, the horror of it augmented to my sensitive olfactories by the foul broom which the cabin-maid persistently kept hanging on the partition at the head of my bunk. Among the seniors there was more disregard of annoyances, an heroic determination to make the best of everything, a spirit of good fellowship and kindly mutual helpfulness, and a hearty open air freedom of speech and action. Songs were sung and stories told which infringed the delicacy of the politest circles but were not really offensive to healthy minds, inconveniences were ignored and pleasant trifles magnified, a small joke created large merriment, and the hearty and robust expansiveness of frontier life, in which resides a peculiar charm unceasingly felt by all who have ever fairly come under it, was beginning at the very entrance of a new world of nature and of man. Absurdly prominent stands out my wonder at being called Bub for the first time, followed by conjecture what the word could mean and where it came from. But all light, momentary afflictions passed like distempered dreams when once we were afloat on the blue waters of Lake Erie, in the steamboat Daniel Webster, bound for Toledo. I had not thought there could be anything so grand in all the world as this little, fussy, splashing side-wheeler, to me a veritable floating palace. An event of moment occurred on the passage. On the wide divan under the cabin windows of the stern I noticed a delicate man of refined features, much in contrast with the body of the voyagers. He had several books lying beside him, and, as I approached in shy curiosity, asked me in kindly wise, would I like a book, and tossed apart on the divan a copy of Irving's Sketch Book. I lay there stretched at length, absorbed and lost, until the waning light dulled the bright page of this delightful author. Who can explain why the generation succeeding his own so neglects him?