Amid nature's most magnificent scenery we linked the romance of yesterday with the humdrum of the workaday present. We established a new maxim, namely: To avoid the beaten path take the towpath! We enjoyed to the superlative degree the rare privilege of "Seeing America First," because we saw it as the first American saw it....

"Sometub" narrowly escaped being christened "Kitchen Maid." It is literally a kitchen-made craft, that is, it was put together in the kitchen after its knockdown frame was received from a Michigan boatbuilder. When culinary activities in the aforesaid kitchen were partially suspended it afforded an ideal boatyard, but the fact that a kitchen would be put to such extraordinary use there was attracted thither a constant line of spectators, the majority of whom had as little nautical knowledge as t

There was a familiar rattle of harness. The specters moved again, but more quickly this time. Against the black infiniteness of the mountains across the river were the shadowy forms of a pair of gray mules hitched in tandem. Wearily they plodded off, and moving slowly, tediously, silently behind them a canal boat followed along at the end of an invisible towline. A canal boat at night is a great hulk of hush. Its silence is positively uncanny. A few ripples momentarily disturb the placid surface

We made no haste to leave the hospitable dock at Woodmont. The day was ideal and our camera was chaffing under long idleness. I had passed this point a score of times on daylight trains of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and longed for an opportunity to tarry here. On our voyage in "Sometub" we realized the oft-repeated wish and made the most of it. A heartless motor, however, robbed the "heart of Maryland" of much of its heartsomeness—for us. Leaving Woodmont about the middle of the forenoon on

Next to Alexandria, Shepherdstown is perhaps the oldest important settlement in the Potomac valley. It is one of the few old towns in the country that has not been defaced by too much present day progress. Shepherdstown has always been a substantial prosperous place and does not affect the gewgaws of the new rich municipality. In some respects it resembles Concord, Massachusetts. Its streets have many features in common with the thoroughfares of the old-time New England towns. In many of the res

"It would be very fine, except for the neighbors," I told him. "Pigs have a habit of getting up too early in the morning to suit us." This was not quite the reason for our objection to mooring beside a pig pen, but I aimed to be diplomatic. Perhaps they might be his pigs. "Crackey!" exclaimed the lockmaster, "You-all don't intend to spend the night in that boat, do you?" "Yes," I answered. "We have the most comfortable cabin you ever saw." Before the lockmaster could answer another man, who hast

The dying embers of a campfire were visible across an arm of the lake and after dinner we went to pay a neighborly call. Beside the fire was a tiny "pup" tent supported by two canoe paddles. On our approach three young men greeted us. A week before, they told us, they had started out from their homes in Washington on a fishing trip up the river. In the Potomac the bass were not biting but the mosquitoes were and betwixt hope and desperation they had turned into the canal. Now they were having fa