For
thirteen months he travelled through the country, and when he returned
to New York in the autumn of the next year, the citizens gave a banquet
in his honor, at Castle Garden, which surpassed anything of the kind
that had ever been seen.
Then General Lafayette sailed away to France again. In the month after
he had gone, with all the city cheering him and making such a din that
you would have thought that there never could be a greater, in the very
next month the city was again all decorated, and more shouts rent the
air, for a grand undertaking had just been completed, which you shall
now hear of.
Ever since the days of the Revolution there had been talk of digging a
canal from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean; for you must know that
in these days there being no railroads, most of the traffic and travel
were done by water. This canal had been long talked of, but no step had
been taken toward building it.
Now you will remember that De Witt Clinton, while he was Mayor, took a
great deal of interest in everything that was for the good of the city.
Well, after he had been Mayor for some years, he became Governor of the
State, and it was he who came to think that although the building of the
canal would be a great undertaking, for it would have to be more than
300 miles long, it might after all be accomplished.
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