,
which is an arm of the lower bay of New York harbor. The strait, from
Elizabethport to its mouth, is called Arthur Kill; the whole distance
through the Kills, from Constable's Point to Raritan Bay, is about
seventeen statute miles. At the mouth of Arthur Kill the Raritan River
opens to the bay, and the city of Perth Amboy rests on the point of
high land between the river and the strait.

Roseville and Tottenville are on the Staten Island shores of Arthur
Kill, the former six miles, the latter ten miles from Elizabethport.
The tide runs swiftly through the Kills. Leaving Mr. Campbell's
residence at nine A. M., with a tide in my favor as far as Newark Bay,
I soon had the tide against me from the other Kill until I passed the
Rahway River, when it commenced to ebb towards Raritan Bay. The marshy
shores of the Kills were submerged in places by the high tide, but
their monotony was relieved by the farms upon the hills back of the
flats.

At one o'clock my canoe rounded the heights upon which Perth Amboy is
perched, with its snug cottages, the homes of many oystermen whose fleet
of boats was anchored in front of the town. Curious yard-like pens
constructed of poles rose out of the water, in which boats could find
shelter from the rough sea.

The entrance to the Raritan River is wide, and above its mouth it is
crossed by a long railroad bridge. The pull up the crooked river
(sixteen miles) against a strong ebb-tide, through extensive reedy
marshes, was uninteresting. I came upon the entrance of the canal which
connects the rivers Raritan and Delaware after six o'clock P. M., which
at this season of the year was after dark. Hiding the canoe in a secure
place I went to visit an old friend, Professor George Cook, of the New
Jersey State Geological Survey, who resides at New Brunswick. In the
morning the professor kindly assisted me, and we climbed the high bank
of the canal with the canoe upon our shoulders, putting it into the
water below the first two locks. I now commenced an unexciting row of
forty-two miles to Bordentown, on the Delaware, where this artificial
watercourse ends.

This canal is much travelled by steam tugs towing schooners of two
hundred tons, and by barges and canal-boats of all sizes drawing not
above seven feet and a half of water. The boats are drawn through the
locks by stationary steam-engines, the use of which is discontinued when
the business becomes slack; then the boatmen use their mules for t