96 ALEJXAND^R WII^ON: POET-NATURAUST 



Ohio. The banks of these rich flats are from 

 twenty to sixty and eighty feet high, and even these 

 last were within a few feet of being overflowed in 

 December, 1808. 



"I now stripped, with alacrity, to my new avoca- 

 tion. The current went about two and a half miles 

 an hour, and I added about three and a half miles 

 more to the boat's way with my oars. In the 

 course of the day I passed a number of arks, or, as 

 they are usually called, Kentucky boats, loaded, 

 with what it must be acknowledged are the most 

 valuable commodities of the country: viz. men, 

 women, and children, horses and ploughs, flour, 

 millstones, &c. Several of these floating caravans 

 were loaded with store goods for the supply of the 

 settlements through which they passed, having a 

 counter erected, shawls, muslins, &c., displayed, 

 and everything ready for transacting business. On 

 approaching a settlement they blow a horn or tin 

 trumpet, which announces to the inhabitants their 

 arrival. I boarded many of these arks, and felt 

 much interested at the sight of so many human 

 beings, migrating like birds of passage to the lux- 

 uriant regions of the south and west. The arks are 

 built in the form of a parallelogram, being from 

 twelve to fourteen feet wide, and from forty to 

 seventy feet long, covered above, rowed only occa- 

 sionally by two oars before, and steered by a long 

 and powerful one fixed above. * * * 



"The barges are taken up along shore by setting 

 poles, at the rate of twenty miles or so a day; the 

 arks cost about one hundred and fifty cents per 

 foot, according to their length; and when they 



