manufactory on the river Hudson, two miles above Troy. Mr.
George A. Waters put his own canoe into the water, and proposed to
escort me a few miles down the river. If I had any misgivings as to the
stability of my paper canoe upon entering her for the first time, they
were quickly dispelled as I passed the stately Club-house of the
Laureates, which contained nearly forty shells, _all_ of paper.

The dimensions of the Maria Theresa were: length, fourteen feet; beam,
twenty-eight inches; depth, amidships, nine inches; height of bow from
horizontal line, twenty-three inches; height of stern, twenty inches.
The canoe was one-eighth of an inch in thickness, and weighed
fifty-eight pounds. She was fitted with a pair of steel outriggers,
which could be easily unshipped and stowed away. The oars[B] were of
spruce, seven feet eight inches long, and weighed three pounds and a
quarter each. The double paddle, which was seven feet six inches in
length, weighed two pounds and a half. The mast and sail--which are of
no service on such a miniature vessel, and were soon discarded--weighed
six pounds. When I took on board at Philadelphia the canvas deck-cover
and the rubber strap which secured it in position, and the outfit,--the
cushion, sponge, provision-basket, and a fifteen-pound case of
charts,--I found that, with my own weight included (one hundred and
thirty pounds), the boat and her cargo, all told, provisioned for a
long cruise, fell considerably short of the weight of three Saratoga
trunks containing a very modest wardrobe for a lady's four weeks'
visit at a fashionable watering-place.

The rain ceased, the mists ascended, and the sunlight broke upon us as
we swiftly descended upon the current of the Hudson to Albany. The city
was reached in an hour and a half. Mr. Waters, pointing his canoe
northward, wished me _bon voyage_, and returned to the scene of the
triumphs of his patient labors, while I settled down to a steady row
southward. At Albany, the capital of the state, which is said to be one
hundred and fifty miles distant from New York city, there is a tidal
rise and fall of one foot.

A feeling of buoyancy and independence came over me as I glided on the
current of this noble stream, with the consciousness that I now
possessed the right boat for my enterprise. It had been a dream of my
youth to become acquainted with the charms of this most romantic river
of the American continent. Its sources are in the clouds of th