LIFE OF WILSON. 
cxviii 
biscuit and cheese, and a bottle of cordial presented me by a gen- 
tleman of Pittsburg; my gun, trunk and great coat, occupied one 
end of the boat; I had a small tin occasionally to bale her, and to 
take my beverage from the Ohio with ; and bidding adieu to the 
smoky confines of Pitt, I launched into the stream, and soon wind- 
ed away among the hills that every where enclose this noble river. 
The weather was warm and serene, and the river like a mirror, 
except where floating masses of ice spotted its surface, and which 
required some care to steer clear of ; but these to my surprise, in 
less than a day’s sailing, totally disappeared. Far from being con- 
cerned at my new situation, I felt my heart expand with joy at the 
novelties which surrounded me ; I listened with pleasure to the 
whistling of the Red-bird on the banks as I passed, and contem- 
plated the forest scenery as it receded, with increasing delight. 
The smoke of the numerous sugar camps, rising lazily among the 
mountains, gave great effect to the varying landscape ; and the 
grotesque log cabins, that here and there opened from the woods, 
were diminished into mere dog-houses by the sublimity of the im- 
pending mountains. If you suppose to yourself two parallel ranges 
of forest-covered hills, whose irregular summits are seldom more 
than three or four miles apart, winding through an immense extent 
of country, and enclosing a ifiver half a mile wide, which alternate- 
ly washes the steep declivity on one side, and leaves a rich flat 
forest-clad bottom on the othei', of a mile or so in breadth, you 
will have a pretty correct idea of the appearance of the 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 over- 
flowed in December, 1808. 
I now stripped, with alacrity, to my new avocation. 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 oai s. 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 ac- 
