it had been secretly undermining its way, for it revealed its fatal symptoms, the bright fevered spot the gradual wasting of flesh- and the painful sinking away into utter feebleness. - We parted when the boat reached its place of destination; and a few weeks afterward, upon taking up the village paper, I saw the following obituary notice: Died in A, Catherine F—, aged seventeen; the idolized sister of an absent brother—the only daughter of a widowed mother.' I HAVE given but two of many, very many, sketches that memory records. How numerous are the cases of this disease, that must have occurred within the remembrance of every one! Consumption, like the horrid idol of the Hindoos, rolls over our land, and annually crushes beneath its wheels more than fifty thousand victims. The number startles us, and appears incredible. But let every one look back for a few years, and see whether he will not find, in his neighborhood, among his acquaintance, and it may be even in his own family, enough to bring conviction, not only that this is true, but enough, too, to make him feel that something should be done, and that speedily, to arrest the progress of this desolating scourge. G. OLLAPODIANA. NUMBER FIFTEEN. page of mine who participatest in - listen to me. Wouldst Oн thou who lookest over this the 'portance of the travels' history of ŎLLAPOD thou journey with comfort through the west of New-York, avoid the canal-boats. 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 tumbled 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! 't is a scene of enormous cry and scanty wool. It mendicants description. --- ༔ I WAS walking on the deck after dinner ducking my head every moment at the cry of Bridge! when the captain joined me, and began to relate the perils that he had encountered, during his experience on the deep waters' over which we were gliding. It is not for every one,' said he, to appreciate the perils of an official station like mine. That little lad who stands beside you, and who, though a stranger to you, seems to have a desire for your company- that urchin, could he stay with me ten years, would be a sailor like me, and could relate like me his hardships. Every year is fruitful of incident. Last year it was in the fall this canawl was visited with a gale- and such a gale! Do not discredit me, when I say, that, owing to the violence of it, nearly a dozen boats were compelled to hug the shore; and believe me, too, when I tell you, that for twenty-five minutes this very boat rested upon a sand bank, caused by the entrance of a creek. Judge of my feelings at that awful moment! I ordered on deck the cook, the steward, and the rest of the crew, together with such passengers as were not sound asleep, insensible of their danger, and with as much coolness as I could command, under the circumstances, I bade them prepare for the worst. Two venerable persons of the female sex old women, as one wild young man, whom no danger could appal, denominated them— escaped safe to land. Dire terror ruled the hour. The winds blew ; the awful ripples dashed against the prow, as if they were mad; and one distracted lady rushed about the deck, inquiring if I had seen her husband, Mr. Smilax Waterhouse. Answering her in the negative, I bent my way to what is vulgarly called the tail end of the boat. What a sight here met my eye! The two ladies, it is true, had escaped safe to land, but they were in a woful plight - one of them having lost her shoe in the water, and the other her night-cap. On horror's head horrors accumulated: and I was on the eve of sinking in despair, with no hopes of ever getting off the sand-bar, when deliverance came! A swell from the lock, a few rods above, lifted us from our fearful situation, and restored us to safety and comfort.' BUT the grand charm and scene of a canal-packet is in the evening. If on your way from Schenectady to Utica, the sun goes down into the rosy west, just after you leave that beautiful gorge in the Mohawk mountains, where you see the towering pines on one side, rising precipitously near three hundred feet above you, and on the other, the gentle river, calmly gliding through the vale below-forming the only tolerable scene on the route. Well, 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 him—who pulled off the boots of another person, thinking the while mistaken individual! — that he was disrobing his own shrunken legs of their leather integuments, so thick were the limbs and feet that steamed and moved round about. Another tourist fat, oily, and round - who had bribed the steward for two chairs placed by the side of his berth, whereon to rest his abdomen, amused the assembly by calling out: Here, waiter! bring me another pillow! I have got the ear-ache, and have put the first one into my auricular organ! Thus wore the hours away. Sleep, you cannot. Feeble moschetoes, residents in the boat, whose health suffers from the noisome airs they are nightly compelled to breathe, do their worst to annoy you; and then, Phoebus Apollo! how the sleepers snore! There is every variety of this music, from the low wheeze of the asthmatic, to the stentorian grunt of the corpulent and profound. Nose after nose lifts up its tuneful oratory, until the place is vocal. Some communicative free-thinkers talk in their sleep, and altogether, they make a concerto and a diapason equal to that which Milton speaks of, when through the sonorous organ from many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes.' At last, morning dawns; you ascend into pure air, with hair unkempt, body and spirit unrefreshed, and show yourself to the people of some populous town into which you are entering, as you wash your face in canal water on deck, from a hand basin! It is a scene, I say again, take it for all in all, that throws description upon the parish, and makes you a pauper in words. Ohe jam satis! You may meet with much edification on board one of these craft, in observing the working of what is called human nature. At dinner, a sour old bachelor, who had been once a supercargo to Smyrna, and then a merchant in a small way - one who had all the stiff formality of a half-cut gentleman, without the education or tact necessary for the composition of even such a personage-procured from a basket, which he was taking with him on his journey, a bottle of warm champaigne. A country friend, with whom he was accidentally travelling, was solicited to imbibe the vinous beverage with him. This friend was one of those malàpropos characters, who, with the best intentions, are always saying something wrong. On renewing his glass, he said: Well now, this 'ere tastes like something- - this arn't like the sour cider we get in the country, is it, any how?' I hope you don't mean,' said the fidgetty host, 'that there is any thing wrong about it?' 'Oh, not by no means whatsomever. I reckon that it is good. Let me give you a toast. Success to American manufactures! Sir,' responded the ci-devant supercargo, what do you mean? Why do you give that toast, of all others? I ask you candidly, is this wine like American manufacture?' -and 'God bless you, neighbor, I did n't mean nothing of that kind I say, let's drop the subject. Were you ever in Newark?' The face of the old fellow assumed the hue of scarlet. He sat down his glass, and looking daggers at his friend, in his eye. observed: Fire stood 'I don't know what your object is but you are evidently trying to insult me. What has Newark to do with this champaigne ? Do you suppose it is made there? Sir, your conduct is outrageous.' The countryman sunk back against the boat-side, observing that he 'would n't never attempt to get up a variety in his conversation again.' THIS reminds me of a scene told of Lockport. A clown there walked up leisurely to the stall of one of those small traders who furnish canal-tourists of limited means with wittles and drink,' and just as he was on the point of vending a large lot of sausages to a hungry-looking traveler, which were to last him until his arrival at Buffalo, the vagabond, looking suspiciously at the article, and addressing the seller, said: 4 Is them good sassenges?' Yes, they are good sausages, you ignorant ramus. You would like to keep me from selling 'em, if you could fix it that way, I don't doubt.' No I would n't,' responded the loafer; I don't know nothing 'special about them sassenges; they may be good sassenges; I don't say they a'nt good sassenges; all I do say is, that wheresomever you see them kind o' sassenges, you don't see no dogs! 'I guess, on reflection,' said the traveler, 'that I won't negotiate for them articles. That man's last remark has gi'n me a dislike to 'em.' Is it not pleasant to revisit the scenes of one's early days? So silently questioned Ollapod himself, as he journeyed toward the West, what time the sun was sinking in the occident, leaving his last rays on those dark forests of pines and cedars which begird the lake of Oneida, in the Onondago country. The 'exclusive extra' performed its locomotive office with wonderful rapidity and effect the cattle attached thereunto having only the labor of drawing wife, self, and servant.' Pleasant was it to rise at S, in the morning, and walk about, gazing at familiar scenes, unvisited for years. Nature, sweet nature! was still the same: and as I journeyed hurriedly round and round, looking upon the pigmy doings of man, compared with the scenery fashioned by the hand of God, the Spirit of the Past came by, and fanned me with her fairy wings. A thousand recollections filled my mind as I perambulated, until I chanted, in my trance of memory, a part of a beautiful poem, by a native bard, who of late has sadly degenerated in his verses: 'I stand upon my native hills again! Broad, round, and green, that in the southern sky, How many events come before the mind like the shadow of a dream! Such was my sojourn in 'the place where I was born.' It was short but sweet. I found my heart filled with teeming recollections: every thing was new to my eye; but I felt that my bosom was unchanged. I have and I thank my GOD for the possession-feelings and sensibilities, untainted and unworn. In my spirit, I can still experience that newness of delight which is said to wear off easily by contact with the world. It is not so with me. A poem or a scene- the lapse of a beautiful river, or the sheen of a rich woodland or field - can yield for my mind the same fruitage of contentment which it felt and relished in other days. For the perpetual presence of this capacity, I am deeply and devoutly thankful. I would not exchange it for worlds. 'SWEET AUBURN! loveliest village of'—and so forth. Every body knows the quotation. Charming were the hours we passed therein, |