Such is Commerce, which shakes the cocoa-nut and bread-fruit 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,
     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 expense of repairing them, and so in a few years there will be an end of boating on this river.  The boating at present is principally between Merrimack and Lowell, or Hooksett and Manchester.  They make two or three trips in a week, according to wind and weather, from Merrimack to Lowell and back, about twenty-five miles each way.  The boatman comes singing in to shore late at night, and moors his empty boat, and gets his supper and lodging in some house near at hand, and again early in the morning, by starlight perhaps, he pushes away up stream, and, by a shout, or the fragment of a song, gives notice of his approach to the lock-man, with whom he is to take his breakfast.  If he gets up to his wood-pile before noon he proceeds to load his boat, with the help of his single “hand,” and is on his way down again before night.  When he gets to Lowell he unloads his boat, and gets his receipt for his cargo, and, having heard the news at the public house at Middlesex or elsewhere, goes back with his empty boat and his receipt in his pocket to the owner, and to get a new load.  We were frequently advertised of their approach by some faint sound behind us, and looking round saw them a mile off, creeping stealthily up the side of the stream like alligators.  It was pleasant to hail these sailors of the Merrimack from time to time, and learn the news which circulated with them.  We imagined that the sun shining on their bare heads had stamped a liberal and public character on their most private thoughts.