On the passenger boats I met a great many people, and was joked a good deal about the girls, some of whom seemed to take quite a shine to me, just as they do to any fair-haired, reasonably clean-looking boy; especially if he has a little reputation; but though I sometimes found myself looking at one of them with considerable interest there was not enough time for as slow a boy as I to begin, let alone to finish any courting operations on even as long a voyage as that from Albany to Buffalo.

I was really afraid of them all, and they seemed to know it, and made a good deal of fun of me.
We did not carry our horses on this boat; but stopped at relay stations for fresh teams, and after we had pulled out from one of these stations, we went flying along at from six to eight miles an hour, with a cook getting up nine meals; and we often had a "sing" as we called it when in the evening the musical passengers got together and tuned up.

Many of them carried dulcimers, accordions, fiddles, flutes and various kinds of brass horns, and in those days a great many people could sing the good old hymns in the _Carmina Sacra_, and the glees and part-songs in the old _Jubilee_, with the soprano, tenor, bass and alto, and the high tenor and counter which made better music than any gathering of people are likely to make nowadays.

All they needed was a leader with a tuning-fork, and off they would start, making the great canal a pretty musical place on fine summer evenings.

We traveled night and day, and at night the boat, lighted up as well as we could do it then, with lanterns and lamps burning whale-oil, and with candles in the cabin, looked like a traveling banquet-hall or opera-house or tavern.
We were always crowded with immigrants when we went west; and on our eastern voyages even, our passenger traffic was mostly related to the West, its trade, and its people.