A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers - Pennsylvania State ...

tion, that it was thought by some that, with a little expense
in removing rocks and deepening the channel, “there might
be a profitable inland navigation.” I then lived some-where
to tell of.
Such is Commerce, which shakes the cocoa-nut and breadfruit
tree in the remotest isle, and sooner or later dawns on
the duskiest and most simple-minded savage. If we may be
pardoned the digression, who can help being affected at the
thought of the very fine and slight, but positive relation, in
which the savage inhabitants of some remote isle stand to
the mysterious white mariner, the child of the sun?—as if we
were to have dealings with an animal higher in the scale of
being than ourselves. It is a barely recognized fact to the natives
that he exists, and has his home far away somewhere,
and is glad to buy their fresh fruits with his superfluous commodities.
Under the same catholic sun glances his white ship
over Pacific waves into their smooth bays, and the poor
savage’s paddle gleams in the air.
Man’s little acts are grand,
Beheld from land to land,
A <strong>Week</strong> on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
164
There as they lie in time,
Within their native clime
Ships with the noontide weigh,
And glide before its ray
To some retired bay,
Their haunt,
Whence, under tropic sun,
Again they run,
Bearing gum Senegal and Tragicant.
For this was ocean meant,
For this the sun was sent,
And moon was lent,
And winds in distant caverns pent.
Since our voyage the railroad on the bank has been extended,
and there is now but little boating on the Merrimack.
All kinds of produce and stores were formerly conveyed by
water, but now nothing is carried up the stream, and almost
wood and bricks alone are carried down, and these are also
carried on the railroad. The locks are fast wearing out, and
will soon be impassable, since the tolls will not pay the ex-