blowing up the ice around her with bomb-shells. The "standing from under," when the slabs rained down, after those explosions, was "spry work."
I supposed that the sharper the boat, or the more like a wedge—with the wheels far aft, so that she could take advantage of the cracks in the ice—the better. But it was quite the contrary. They needed the length of the boat for a lever to make her wheels act short on the bow, and then, having once entered a crack (which could not be followed far without bending away from their course), they could manage to break out of it. When ice was thick enough to bear an ox-team, as it was most of the time, the only way to get through it was to crush it down with the weight of the boat. They had a false bow put on, therefore, cased in copper, which would enable them to slide up over the edge, with the force of their headway. This would crush it under, for a short distance, and then they would back, get on another head of steam, and charge again. It was sometimes a long and tedious job, breaking through the winding narrows of the Highlands in this way, and there was danger, always, of letting the boat stop long enough for the ice to tighten around her.
Passengers jumped on board almost anywhere, with a projecting plank jutting out, while they slackened a little. Freight was taken on board, and landed, by horse-teams coming out to them on the ice. It was droll, sometimes,
