My mind went back to the last
time I had seen it; across the house-tops of old Manhattan it was,
and under what widely different conditions!
At last a merciful Providence closed my eyes and I was soon transported
by the arms of Morpheus to the little lake in Central Park that I had
liked so well. I dreamed of gliding slowly over the waters of that
placid lake, and awoke to find myself being energetically kicked in the
shins by my female neighbour. There was nothing to do but indulge in
a few appropriate thoughts on this community-sleeping-apartment life,
and then I got up to wander forward, as best I could in the dark,
across the sleeping forms and take refuge on top of my case of cognac.
We seemed to be down in a pool of vast darkness, of whose walls no
one could guess the limits. I listened to the gurgling of water at
the bow and wondered how it was possible for the man at the wheel
to guide our course without colliding with the many tree trunks that
were scattered everywhere about us. The river wound back and forth,
hardly ever running straight for more than half a mile, and the pilot
continually had to steer the boat almost to the opposite bank to keep
the trailing canoes from stranding on the sand-bars at the turns.
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