shore on either hand would be closely scanned for signs of unusual fertility, or for the opening of some small stream suggesting a good place to “settle.”  When a spot was picked out the boat would be run aground, the boards of the cabin erected skilfully into a hut, and a new outpost of civilization would be established.  As these settlements multiplied, and the course of emigration to the west and southwest increased, river life became full of variety and gaiety.  In some years more than a thousand boats were counted passing Marietta.  Several boats would lash together and make the voyage to New Orleans, which sometimes occupied months, in company.  There would be frolics and dances, the notes of the violin—­an almost universal instrument among the flatboat men—­sounded across the waters by night to the lonely cabins on the shores, and the settlers not infrequently would put off in their skiffs to meet the unknown voyagers, ask for the news from the east, and share in their revels.  Floating shops were established on the Ohio and its tributaries—­flatboats, with great cabins fitted with shelves and stocked with cloth, ammunition, tools, agricultural implements, and the ever-present whisky, which formed a principal staple of trade along the rivers.  Approaching a clump of houses on the bank, the amphibious shopkeeper would blow lustily upon a horn, and thereupon all the inhabitants would flock down to the banks to bargain for the goods that attracted them.  As the population increased the floating saloon and the floating gambling house were added to the civilized advantages the river bore on its bosom.  Trade was long a mere matter of barter, for currency was seldom seen in these outlying settlements.  Skins and agricultural products were all the purchasers had to give, and the merchant starting from Pittsburg with a cargo of manufactured goods, would arrive at New Orleans, perhaps three months later, with a cabin filled with furs and a deck piled high with the products of the farm.  Here he would dispose of his cargo, perhaps for shipment to Europe, sell his flatboat for the lumber in it, and begin his painful way back again to the head of navigation.

The flatboat never attempted to return against the stream.  For this purpose keel-boats or barges were used, great hulks about the size of a small schooner, and requiring twenty-five men at the poles to push one painfully up stream.  Three methods of propulsion were employed.  The “shoulder pole,” which rested on the bottom, and which the boatman pushed, walking from bow to stern as he did so; tow-lines, called cordelles, and finally the boat was drawn along by pulling on overhanging branches.  The last method was called “bushwhacking.”  These became in time the regular packets of the rivers, since they were not broken up at the end of the voyage and required trained crews for their navigation.  The bargemen were at once the envy and terror of the simple folk along the shores.  A wild, turbulent