When quite sated with the water, I fixed on Horgen to stop at for a rest, to the intense delight of all the Horgen boys. How they did jump and caper about the canoe, and scream with the glee of young hearts stirred by a new sight!
It was one of the great treats of this voyage to find it gave such hours of pleasure to the juvenile population in each place. Along the vista of my recollection as I think over the past days of this excursion, many thousand childish faces brimming with happiness range their chubby or not chubby cheeks.
These young friends were still more joyous when the boat was put into a cart, and the driver got up beside it, and the captain of the canoe began his hot walk behind.
A number of their mammas came out to smile on the performance, and some asked to have a passage to England in the boat, to which there was the stock reply, given day by day, "Not much room for the crinoline." Only once was there the rejoinder, that the lady would willingly leave her expansion at home; though on another occasion (and that in France, too) they answered, "We poor folks don't wear crinoline."
In every group there were various forms of inquisitiveness about the canoe. First, those who examined it without putting questions; and then those who questioned about it without examining. Some lifted it to feel the weight; others passed their hands along its smooth deck to feel the polished cedar; others looked underneath to see if there was a keel, or bent the rope to feel how flexible it was, or poised the paddle (when I let them), and said, "How light!" and then more critical inquirers measured the boat's dimensions, tapped its sides with their knuckles, and looked wise; sketched its form, scrutinized its copper nails, or gently touched the silken flag, with its frayed hem and colour fading now; in all places this last item, as an object of interest, was always the first exclaimed about by the lady portion of the crowd.
It is with such little but pleasant trivialities that a traveller's day may be filled in this enchanting atmosphere where simply to exist, to breathe, to gaze, and to listen, are enough to pass the sunny hours, if not to engage the nobler powers of the mind.