WILD-FOWL SHOOTING. 165 



full speed, and the boat was thus thrown forward several feet, 

 this being repeated till the bar was past. When the water 

 still proved too shallow, the vessel had to be forced backwards 

 off the bar. 



The chief amusement of the passengers was wild-fowl 

 shooting. An immense number of all kinds of birds go down 

 the river every autumn, on their way to the south for the 

 winter, and these would settle down for the night on the 

 sandbars. We used, therefore, to get up a party among the 

 passengers, when the boat was moored for the night (as the 

 river was so shallow, it did not pay to run after dark), and 

 having borrowed the small boat which was generally towed 

 astern, we rowed to the nearest sandbar. Here we hid 

 ourselves behind snags or logs which had become imbedded in 

 the sand, and for about an hour at sunset the firing was often 

 incessant, the crew retrieving the birds which fell into the 

 river, and becoming so excited that they did not hesitate to 

 plunge into the water to get them. In this way we often got 

 thirty or forty ducks in an evening, besides some geese, not to 

 speak of those which we shot during the daytime, as our 

 captain was good-natured enough to allow us to take the boat 

 to recover any which fell. This shooting from a moving 

 steamer required a good deal of practice, as it was necessary to 

 allow for the speed at which the boat was going, and at first we 

 missed a good many. 



We passed Fort Leavenworth, which, when I first came to 

 America, was on the border of the Indian country, but which 

 had now been left far behind by the settlements, and was used 

 only as a depot. At St. Louis we changed steamers and 

 remained one day, putting up at the Lindell House, a very good 



