'At first, when you embark, all seems fair; the eleemosynary negro, who vexes his clarionet, and governs its tuneful ventiges, to pay for his passage, seems a very Apollo to your ear; the appointments of the boat appear ample; a populous town slowly glides from your view, and you feel quite comfortable and contented. As yet, you have not gone below. 'Things above' attract your attention--some pretty point of landscape, or distant steeple, shining among the summer trees. Anon, the scenery becomes tame, and you descend. A feeling comes over you as you draw your first breath in the cabin, which impels to the holding of your nose. The cabin is full; you have hit your head twice against the ceiling thereof, and stumbled sundry times against the seats at the side. Babies, vociferous babies, are playing with their mothers' noses, or squalling in appalling concert. If you stir, your foot treads heavily upon the bulbous toes of some recumbent passenger; if you essay to sleep, the gabble of those around you, or the noisy gurgle of a lock, arouses you to consciousness; and then, if you are of that large class of persons in whom the old Adam is not entirely crucified, then you _swear_. Have you any desire for literary entertainment? Approach the table. There shall you find sundry tracts; a copy of the Temperance Recorder; Goldsmith's Animated Nature, and Plutarch's Lives. By and by dinner approaches: and oh! how _awful_ the suspense between the hours of preparation and realization! Slowly, and one by one, the dishes appear. At long intervals, or spaces of separation from each other--say five for the whole length of the boat--you behold tumblers arranged, with two forlorn radishes in each. The butter lies like gravy in the plate; the malodorous passengers of the masculine gender draw nigh to the scanty board; the captain comes near, to act _his_ oft-repeated part, as President of the day. Oh, gracious! 'tis a scene of enormous cry and scanty wool. It mendicants description. . . . But the grand charm and scene of a canal packet is in the evening. You go below, and there you behold a hot and motley assemblage. A kind of stillness begins to reign around. It seems as if a protracted meeting were about to commence. Clergymen, capitalists, long-sided merchants, who have come from far, green-horns, taking their first experience of the wonders of the deep on the _canawl_, all these are huddled together in wild and inexplicable confusion. By and by the captain takes his seat, and the roll of berths is called. Then, what confusion! Layer upon layer of humanity is suddenly shelved for the night; and in the preparation, what a world of bustle is required! Boots are released from a hundred feet, and their owners deposit them wherever they can. There was one man, OLLAPOD beheld