The shores of the stream
were strewn with wrecks; there lay bleaching in the sand the ribs of many
a once gallant craft.
Innumerable were the devices of the builders to keep their inventions
afloat. Some paid great attention to the form of the hull, others to the
kind of cargo and the loading of it, while others--and these seemed the
majority--trusted more to some new sort of sail, or new fashion of
rudder, or new application of propelling power. And it was wonderful to
see what these new ingenuities did for a time, and how each generation
was deceived into the belief that its products would sail on forever. But
one fate practically came to the most of them. They were too heavy, they
were too light, they were built of old material, and they went to the
bottom, they went ashore, they broke up and floated in fragments. And
especially did the crafts built in imitation of something that had
floated down from a previous generation come to quick disaster. I saw
only here and there a vessel, beaten by weather and blackened by time
--so old, perhaps, that the name of the maker was no longer legible; or
some fragments of antique wood that had evidently come from far up the
stream. When such a vessel appeared there was sure to arise great dispute
about it, and from time to time expeditions were organized to ascend the
river and discover the place and circumstances of its origin.
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