A new canal-boat, the _Seneca Chief_, had been built of Lake Erie cedar for the opening trip, and lay moored in the harbor at Buffalo. On her deck were two paintings, one of the scene which was soon to be enacted, Buffalo creek and harbor with the canal-boat moving away along the canal, and the other representing Governor Clinton as Hercules, dressed in Roman costume, and resting from his labors. At nine o’clock in the morning a grand procession formed in front of the court-house and marched to the head of the canal. Governor Clinton and his staff, and a group of prominent New Yorkers who had been closely connected with the furtherance of the project, went on board the _Seneca Chief_ and an address was given. Upon the boat had been placed two new kegs containing Lake Erie water, which was to be mingled at New York with that of the ocean. The _Seneca Chief_ was to be followed by four other canal-boats, and a fifth craft, which was called _Noah’s Ark_. The last contained, under the title “Products of the West,” a bear, two eagles, two fawns, several fish, and two Indian boys,--the counterparts of the “beasts, birds, and creeping things” of the Bible story. As four magnificent gray horses pulled at the tow-rope of the _Seneca Chief_ and the vessel began to move, a signal-gun was discharged, and all along the route the cannon that had been stationed took up the sound and passed it on till the news of the opening was carried to New York in one hour and thirty minutes. New York responded, sending the message back to Buffalo in the same time. [Illustration: Through the Locks at Lockport] At almost every town and village along the route the _Seneca Chief_ was met with exercises, dinners, triumphal arches, and illuminations. So steadily was the party welcomed and fêted that it took them six days to make the journey to Albany. Two or three of the celebrations are of especial interest. At Lockport the boat was greeted by a salute of guns which had been captured by Perry at the battle of Lake Erie, being discharged by a gunner who was said to have fought under Napoleon. At Rochester a dramatic ceremony had been arranged. Rain was falling when the guests arrived, but this did not dampen the inhabitants’ zeal. They assembled in large numbers along the banks of the canal, headed by eight companies of uniformed soldiers. As the boat approached the great nine-arch stone aqueduct over the Genesee River, the _Young Lion of the West_, stationed there “to protect the entrance,” pushed out from the shore and a voice hailed the _Seneca Chief_. “Who comes there?” cried the _Young Lion’s_ spokesman. “Your brothers from the West, on the waters of the Great Lakes.” “By what means have they been diverted so far from their natural course?” “By the channel of the Grand Erie Canal.” “By whose authority, and by whom, was a work of such magnitude accomplished?” “By the authority and by the enterprise of patriotic people of the state of New York.”