Ixx LIFE OF 



called, Kentucky boats, loaded with what it must be acknowledged 

 are the most valuable commodities of a 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 those arks, and felt much inter- 

 ested at the sight of so many human beings migrating, like birds 

 of passage, to the luxuriant 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 occasionally 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 

 reach their places of destination, seldom bring more than one-sixth 

 their original cost. These arks descend from all parts of the Ohio 

 and its tributary streams, — the Alleghany, Monongahela, Muskingum, 

 Sciota, Miami, Kentucky, Wabash, &c, in the months of March, 

 April, and May, particularly with goods, produce, and emigrants, 

 the two former for markets along the river, or at New Orleans, the 

 latter for various parts of Kentucky, Ohio, and the Indiana territory. 

 I now return to my own expedition : 



" I rowed twenty odd miles the first spell, and found I should be 

 able to stand it perfectly well. About an hour after night, I put 

 up at a miserable cabin, fifty-two miles from Pittsburgh, where I 

 slept on what I supposed to be corn stalks, or something worse ; so 

 preferring the smooth bosom of the Ohio to this brush heap, I got 

 up long before day, and, being under no apprehension of losing my 

 way, I again pushed out into the stream. The landscape on each side 

 lay in one mass of shade ; but the grandeur of the projecting head- 

 lands and vanishing points, or lines, was charmingly reflected in the 

 smooth glassy surface below. I could only discover when I was 

 passing a clearing by the crowing of cocks, and, now and then, in 

 more solitary places, the big horned owl made a most hideous 



