the whisperings of Nature, were careless of the workaday world, so far away,—simply glad to be alive.

For the better understanding of the numerous historical references in the Log, I have thought it well to present in the Appendix a brief sketch of the settlement of the Ohio Valley. To this Appendix, as a preliminary reading, I invite those who may care to follow "Pilgrim" and her crew upon their long journey from historic Redstone down to the Father of Waters.

A selected list of Journals of previous travelers down the Ohio, has been added, for the benefit of students of the social and economic history of this important gateway to the continental interior.

AFLOAT ON THE OHIO

CHAPTER I.

On the Monongahela—The over-mountain path—Redstone Old Fort—The Youghiogheny—Braddock's defeat.

In camp near Charleroi, Pa., Friday, May 4.—Pilgrim, built for the glassy lakes and smooth-flowing rivers of Wisconsin, had suffered unwonted indignities in her rough journey of a thousand miles in a box-car. But beyond a leaky seam or two, which the Doctor had righted with clouts and putty, and some ugly scratches which were only paint-deep, she was in fair trim as she gracefully lay at the foot of the Brownsville shipyard this morning and received her lading.

There were spectators in abundance. Brownsville, in the olden day, had seen many an expedition set out from this spot for the grand tour of the Ohio, but not in the personal recollection of any in this throng of idlers, for the era of the flatboat and pirogue now belongs to history. Our expedition is a revival, and therein lies novelty. However, the historic spirit was not evident among our visitors—railway men, coal miners loafing out the duration of a strike, shipyard hands lying in wait for busier times, small boys blessed with as much leisure as curiosity, and that wonder of wonders, a bashful newspaper reporter. Their chief concern centered in the query, how Pilgrim could hold that goodly heap of luggage and still have room to spare for four passengers? It became evident that her capacity is akin to that of the magician's bag.

"A dandy skiff, gents!" said the foreman of the shipyard, as we settled into our seats—the Doctor bow, I stroke, with W—— and the Boy in the stern sheets. Having in silence critically watched us for a half hour, seated on a capstan, his red flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows, and well-corded chest and throat bared to wind and weather, this remark of the foreman was evidently the studied judgment of an expert. It was taken as such by the good-natured crowd, which, as we pushed off into the stream, lustily joined in a chorus of "Good-bye!" and "Good luck to yees, an' ye don't git th' missus drowndid 'fore ye git to Cairo!"

The current is slight on these lower reaches of the Monongahela. It comes down gayly enough from the West Virginia hills, over many a rapid, and through swirls and eddies in plenty, until Morgantown is reached; and then, settling into a more sedate course, is at Brownsville finally converted into a mere mill-pond, by the back-set of the four slack-water dams between there and Pittsburg. This means solid rowing for the first sixty miles of our journey, with a current scarcely perceptible.

The thought of it suggests lunch. At the mouth of Redstone Creek, a mile below Dunlap Creek, our port of departure, we turn in to a shaly beach at the foot of a wooded slope, in semi-rusticity, and fortify the inner man.

A famous spot, this Redstone Creek. Between its mouth and that of Dunlap's was made, upon the site of extensive Indian fortification mounds, the first English agricultural settlement west of the Alleghanies. It is unsafe to establish dates for first discoveries, or for first settlements. The wanderers who, first of all white men, penetrated the fastnesses of the wilderness were mostly of the sort who left no documentary traces behind them. It is probable, however, that the first Redstone settlement was made as early as 1750, the year following the establishment of the Ohio Company, which had been chartered by the English crown and given a half-million acres of land west of the mountains and south of the Ohio River, provided it established thereon a hundred families within seven years.

"Redstone Old Fort"—the name had reference to the aboriginal earthworks—played a part in the Fort Necessity and Braddock campaigns and in later frontier wars; and, being the western terminus of the over-mountain road known at various historic periods as Nemacolin's Path, Braddock's Road, and Cumberland Pike, was for many years the chief point of departure for Virginia expeditions down the Ohio River. Washington, who had large landed interests on the Ohio, knew Redstone well; and here George Rogers Clark set out (1778) upon flatboats, with his rough-and-ready Virginia volunteers, to capture the country north of the Ohio for the American arms—one of the least known, but most momentous conquests in history.

Early in the nineteenth century, Redstone became Brownsville. But, whether as Redstone or Brownsville, it was, in its day, like most "jumping off" places on the edge of civilization, a veritable Sodom. Wrote good old John Pope, in his Journal of 1790, and in the same strain scores of other veracious chroniclers: "At this Place we were detained about a Week, experiencing every Disgust which Rooks and Harpies could excite." Here thrived extensive yards in which were built flatboats, arks, keel boats, and all that miscellaneous collection of water craft which, with their roisterly crews, were the life of the Ohio before the introduction of steam rendered vessels of deeper draught essential; whereupon much of the shipping business went down the river to better stages of water, first to Pittsburg, thence to Wheeling, and to Steubenville.

All that is of the past. Brownsville is still a busy corner of the world, though of a different sort, with all its romance gone. To the student of Western history, Brownsville will always be a shrine—albeit a smoky, dusty shrine, with the smell of lubricators and the clang of hammers, and much talk thereabout of the glories of Mammon.

The Monongahela is a characteristic mountain trough. From an altitude of four or five hundred feet, the country falls in sharp steeps to a narrow alluvial bench, and then a broad beach of shale and pebble; the slopes are broken, here and there, where deep, shadowy ravines come winding down, bearing muddy contributions to the greater flood. The higher hills are crowned with forest trees, the lower ofttimes checkered with brown fields, recently planted, and rows of vines trimmed low to stakes, as in the fashion of the Rhine. The stream, though still majestic in its sweep, is henceforth a commercial slack-water, lined with noisy, grimy, matter-of-fact manufacturing towns, for the most part literally abutting one upon the other all of the way down to Pittsburg, and fast defiling the once picturesque banks with the gruesome offal of coal mines and iron plants. Surprising is the density of settlement along the river. Often, four or five full-fledged cities are at once in view from our boat, the air is thick with sooty smoke belched from hundreds of stacks, the ear is almost deafened with the whirr and roar and bang of milling industries.

Tipples of bituminous coal-shafts are ever in sight—begrimed scaffolds of wood and iron,