Four Months in a Sneak-Box Part 4

[A night under a German coverlet.]

CHAPTER V.

FROM CINCINNATI TO THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER

CINCINNATI.-- MUSIC AND PORK IN PORKOPOLIS.-- THE BIG BONE LICK OF FOSSIL ELEPHANTS.-- COLONEL CROGHAN'S VISIT TO THE LICK.-- PORTAGE AROUND THE "FALLS," AT LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY.-- STUCK IN THE MUD.-- THE FIRST STEAMBOAT OF THE WEST.-- VICTOR HUGO ON THE SITUATION.-- A FREEBOOTER'S DEN.-- WHOOPING AND SAND-HILL CRANES.-- THE SNEAK-BOX ENTERS THE MISSISSIPPI.--

THE next day being Sat.u.r.day, and the mercury still standing at seven degrees above zero, I walked to Covington, and crossed the suspension- bridge to Cincinnati. It was the season of the year when the vast pork-packing establishments were in full blast, and the amount of work done spoke well for western enterprise.

Pork-raising and pork-packing is one of the great industries of the Ohio valley, and the Cincinnati and Louisville merchants have control of the largest portion of the business growing out of it.

When a stranger visits the pork-packing establishments of Cincinnati he marvels at the immensity and celerity of the various manipulations, which commence with the killing of a squealing pig, and the transformation of his hogs.h.i.+p, in a few minutes, into a well-cleaned animal, hanging up to cool in a store-room, from which he is taken a little later and immediately cut up and packed in barrels for market.

The reader may have a distaste for statistics, but I cannot impress upon him the magnitude of this great industry without giving a few reliable figures.

The number of hogs packed in Cincinnati during the past twenty-one years, from 1853 to 1875, was 9,242,972. While Cincinnati was at work on one season's crop of pork of 632,302 pigs, her rival, Chicago, on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Michigan, killed and packed in the same time her crop of 2,501,285 animals.

The "Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Cincinnati Price Current,"

published while the author has been writing this chapter, shows what our country can do in supplying meat for foreign as well as home markets. The states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee, contributed to the packing establishments between November 1, 1877, and March 1, 1878, during the winter season of six months, 6,505,446 hogs; and during the summer season, from March 1 to November 1, 2,543,120 animals,--making a one year's total of 9,048,566 pigs, which averaged a net weight, when dressed, of two hundred and twenty- six pounds. Thus the weight of meat alone packed in one year was 2,044,975,916 pounds. Add to this the crop of California, Oregon, and Canada of the same year, and the total swells to 12,301,589 hogs, duly registered as having been killed by the pork-packers, and there still remain uncounted all the pigs killed in thirty-eight states by farmers for their own and neighbors' consumption.

This annual crop of pork a jocund professor once described as "a prodigious ma.s.s of heavy carburetted hydrogen gas and scrofula;" but the chemists of our day would more properly stigmatize it as a vast quant.i.ty of Luzic, Myristic, Palmitic, Margaric, and Stearic acids in combination with glycerine and fibre.

A western savant, having investigated the parasites existing in hogs, affirms that in western pork, eight animals out of every one hundred are affected by that muscle-boring pest so dangerous to those who have eaten the infected meat, and so well known to all students as the Trichina spiralis. The distinguished writer Letheby says of this parasite: "As found in the human subject (after death) it is usually in the encysted state, when it has pa.s.sed beyond its dangerous condition, and has become harmless. In most cases, when thus discovered, there is no record of its action, and therefore it was once thought to be an innocent visitor; but we now know that while it was free, (that is, before nature had barricaded it up in the little cyst,) its presence was the cause of frightful disorders, killing about fifty per centum of its victims in terrible agony. The young worms having hatched in the body of man, migrate to the numerous muscles, causing the most excruciating pain, so that the patient, fearing to move his inflamed muscles, would lie motionless upon his back, and if he did not die in this state of the disorder, nature came to the rescue and imprisoned the creature by surrounding it with a fibrous cyst, where it lives for years, being ready at any moment to acquire activity when it is swallowed and released from its cell."

Another parasite found in the muscles of the pig is known as the Cysticercus cellulosus, and the animals afflicted by it are said to have the measles. This larva of the tapeworm exists in the pig in little sacs not larger than a pin's head, and can be seen by the naked eye. The strong brine of the packer does not kill them, and I have known them to be taken alive from a boiled ham. The great heat of frying alone renders them harmless. When partially-cooked, measly pork is eaten by man, the gastric juice of the stomach dissolves the membranous sac which contains the living larva, and the animal soon pa.s.ses into the intestines, where, clinging by its hooks, it holds on with wonderful tenacity, rapidly sending out joint after joint, until the perfect tapeworm sometimes attains a length of thirty feet.

Let us hope, for the credit of humanity, that these facts are not generally known, for man has ills enough without incurring the risks of such a diet. If pork must form a staple, let the genealogical tree of his pigs.h.i.+p be carefully sought after, and let the would-be consumer ask the question considered so important in a certain river- bounded city of Pennsylvania, "Who was his grandfather?"

In the year 1800 Cincinnati was a little pioneer settlement of seven hundred and fifty men, women, and children. Her census of 1880 will not fall far short of a quarter of a million. She contributes more than her share to feed the world, and is, strange to say, as celebrated for the terpsich.o.r.ean art as for her pork. Even Boston must yield her the palm as a musical centre, and give to the inhabitants of the once rough western city the credit due them for their versatility of talent, and the ease with which they render Beethoven, or "take a turn in pork," as occasion may demand, many of the music-loving citizens being engaged at times in a commercial way with this staple.

Having obtained at a bookstore a copy of Lloyd's Map of the Mississippi River, I returned to the tailor's, where I was greeted in the most kindly manner, and informed that the young lady of the house, the only daughter of my host, had voluntarily left home to visit some city relations, that I might occupy her comfortably furnished room, with the open fireplace, which was now filled with blazing wood, and sending forth a genial glow into the heavily-curtained apartment. When I protested against this promotion in the social scale, and refused to deprive the young lady of her room, I was informed that she knew "WHO WAS WHO," and had insisted upon leaving her room that a gentleman might be properly entertained in it. From this time my now agreeable host stoutly refused to accept payment in advance for my daily rations, while, with his family and apprentices, he took up his quarters each evening in my new room, relating his experiences during the war, and giving me many original ideas.

It grew warmer, but the ice of the creek in which my boat lay did not melt. The water was, however, falling, and it became necessary to cut out the sneak-box, and slide her over the ice into the unfrozen Ohio.

My host had become alarmed, and kept an anxious eye upon the boat. "De peoples knows de poat is here, and some of dem hab told others about it. If you don't hide her down de rivver to-night, she will be stolen by de rivver thieves." I was thus forced to leave these kind people, who about noon escorted me to the duck-boat, and showered upon me their best wishes for a prosperous voyage. It was a glorious afternoon, and the sun poured all his wealth of light and cheerfulness upon the valley.

Late in the day I pa.s.sed the mouth of the Big Miami River. Indiana was on the right, while Kentucky still skirted the left bank of the river.

The state of Ohio had furnished the Ohio River with a margin for four hundred and seventy-five miles. The Little Miami River joins the Ohio six miles above Cincinnati; the Big Miami enters it twenty miles below the city. These streams flow through rich farming regions, but they are not navigable. After pa.s.sing the town of Aurora, which is six miles below the Big Miami, I caught sight of the mouth of a creek, whose thickets of trees, in the gloom of the fast approaching night, almost hid from view the outlines of a forlorn-looking shanty-boat.

Clouds of smoke, with the bright glare of the fire, shot out of the rusty stove-pipe in the roof, but I soon discovered that it was the abode of one who attended strictly to his own business, and expected the same behavior from his neighbors. So, saying good evening to this man of solitary habits, I quickly rowed past his floating hermitage into the darkness of the neighboring swamp. I soon put my own home in order, ate my supper, and retired, feeling happy in the thought that I should before long reach a climate where my out-door life would not be attended with so many inconveniences.

The next day a milder but damper atmosphere greeted me. By noon I had rowed twenty-two miles, and was off the mouth of Big Bone Lick Creek, in Kentucky. Two miles from the mouth of this creek are some springs, the waters of which are charged with sulphur and salt. The most interesting feature of this locality was the fact that here were buried in one vast bed the fossil bones of "The Mastodon and the Arctic Elephant." Formerly these prehistoric relics of a departed fauna were scattered over the surface of the earth. The first mention of this locality was made, I think, by a French explorer in 1649. It is again referred to by a British subject in 1765. A rare copy of a private journal kept by this early explorer of the Ohio, Colonel George Croghan, was published in G. W. Featherstonhaugh's "American Journal of Geology," of December, 1831. This monthly publication ended with its first year's existence. Only five copies of this number were known to be in print three years since, when Professor Thomas, of Mount Holly, New Jersey, encouraged the issue of a reprint of one hundred copies, from which some of our public libraries have been supplied.

This Colonel George Croghan, in company with deputies from the Seneca, Shawnesse, and Delaware nations, left Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), in two bateaux, on the 15th of May, 1765, bound on a mission to the Indian tribes of the Ohio valley. On the 29th of the month the expedition reached the Little Miami River. Colonel Croghan there commences his account of the Big Bone Lick region. He says: "May 30th we pa.s.sed the Great Miami River, about thirty miles from the little river of that name, and in the EVENING arrived at the place WHERE THE ELEPHANTS'

BONES ARE FOUND, when we encamped, intending to take a view of the place next morning. This day we came about seventy miles. The country on both sides level, and rich bottoms, well watered. May 31st. Early in the morning we went to the great Lick, where those bones are only found, about four miles from the river, on the south-east side. In our way we pa.s.sed through a fine-timbered, clear wood: we pa.s.sed into a large road, which the buffaloes have beaten, s.p.a.cious enough for two wagons to go abreast, and leading straight into the Lick. It appears that there are vast quant.i.ties of these bones lying five or six feet under ground, which we discovered in the bank at the edge of the Lick.

We found here two tusks above six feet long; we carried one, with some other bones, to our boat, and set off."

In relation to the aboriginal inhabitants of the country of the Ohio valley, it is interesting to note that the "Six Nations" held six of the gates to New York, and were strong because they were united, for Colonel Croghan's enumeration of them shows that they had only two thousand one hundred and twenty fighting-men, and were never supported by more than about two thousand warriors from tributary tribes, when at war with the whites.

That the Iroquois, with their adopted children, have not lost in numbers up to the present day, is a curious fact. About six thousand of the descendants of the "Six Nations" are at Forestville, Wisconsin, on government reservations; and the official agent reports that nearly two thousand of them can read and write; that they have twenty-nine day schools, and two manual-labor schools; that they cultivate their lands so diligently that they pay all the expenses of their living.

They are reported as advancing in church discipline, growing in temperance; and are making rapid progress towards a complete civilization.

These six thousand, with other descendants of the Iroquois in Canada, will no doubt make up a total equal in number to the members of the old "Indian Confederacy," so graphically pictured in the glowing pages of Mr. Francis Parkman, the reliable historian, who has given us such vivid descriptions of the French rule in America as have called forth the unqualified praise of students of American history on both sides of the Atlantic.

Having rowed forty-three miles in twelve hours, I reached the town of Vevay, Indiana, which was first settled by a Swiss colony, to whom Congress granted lands for the purpose of encouraging grape-culture.

Keeping close under the banks of the river, I entered a little creek a mile below the village, where a night, restful as usual, was pa.s.sed.

On Tuesday I rose with the moon, though it was as late as five o'clock in the morning; but, although fertile farms were stretched along the river's bank, and the land gave every sign of careful culture, it was anything but an enjoyable day, as the rain fell in almost uninterrupted showers from eight o'clock A. M. until dusk, when I was glad to find an inviting creek on the Kentucky sh.o.r.e, about one mile below Bethlehem, and had the great satisfaction of logging thirty- eight miles as the day's run.

It was necessary to make an early start the next day, as I must run the falls of the Ohio at Louisville, Kentucky, or make a portage round them. The river was enveloped in fog; but I followed the sh.o.r.e closely, hour after hour, until the sun dispelled the mists, and my little duck-boat ran in among the barges at the great Kentucky city.

Here, at Louisville, is the only barrier to safe navigation on the Ohio River. These so-called Falls of the Ohio are in fact rapids which almost disappear when the river is at its full height. At such times, steam-boats, with skilful pilots aboard, safely follow the channel, which avoids the rocks of the river. During the low stage of the water, navigation is entirely suspended. The fall of the current is twenty-three feet in two miles. To avoid this descent, in low water, and to allow vessels to ascend the river at all times, a ca.n.a.l was excavated along the left sh.o.r.e of the rapids from Louisville to s.h.i.+ppingsport, a distance of two miles and a half. It was a stupendous enterprise, as the pa.s.sage was cut almost the entire distance through the solid rock, and in some places to the great depth of forty feet.

On the 25th of September, 1816, when Louisville had a population of three thousand inhabitants, her first steamboat, the Was.h.i.+ngton, left the young city for New Orleans. A second trip was commenced by the Was.h.i.+ngton on March 3, 1817. The whole time consumed by the voyage from Louisville to New Orleans, including the return trip, was forty- one days. The now confident Captain Shreve, of the Was.h.i.+ngton, predicted that steamboats would be built which could make the pa.s.sage to New Orleans in ten days. I have been a pa.s.senger on a steamboat which ascended the strong currents of the river from New Orleans to Louisville in five days; while the once pioneer hamlet now boasts a population exceeding one hundred thousand souls.

As the bow of my little craft grounded upon the city levee, a crowd of good-natured men gathered round to examine her. From them I ascertained that the descent of the rapids could not be made without a pilot; and as the limited quarters of the sneak-box would not allow any addition to her pa.s.senger-list, a portage round the falls became a necessity. The ca.n.a.l was not to be thought of as it would have been a troublesome matter, without special pa.s.ses from some official, to have obtained the privilege of pa.s.sing through with so small a boat. The crowd cheerfully lifted the sneak-box into an express-wagon, and fifteen minutes after reaching Louisville I was en route for Portland, mailing letters as I pa.s.sed through the city. The portage was made in about an hour. At sunset the little boat was launched in the Ohio, and I felt that I had returned to an old friend. The expressman entered with entire sympathy into the voyage, and could not be prevailed upon to accept more than a dollar and a half for transporting the boat and her captain four miles.

When night came on, and no friendly creek offered me shelter, I pushed the boat into a soft, muddy flat of willows, which fringed a portion of the Kentucky sh.o.r.e, where there was just enough water to float the sneak-box. The pa.s.sing steamers during the night sent swashy waves into my lair, which kept me in constant fear of a ducking, and gave me anything but a peaceful night. This was, however, all forgotten the next morning, when the startling discovery was made that the river had fallen during the night and left me in a quagmire, from which it seemed at first impossible to extricate myself.

The boat was imbedded in the mud, which was so soft and slimy that it would not support my weight when I attempted to step upon it for the purpose of pus.h.i.+ng my little craft into the water, which had receded only a few feet from my camp. I tried pus.h.i.+ng With my oak oar; but it sunk into the mire almost out of sight. Then a small watch-tackle was rigged, one block fastened to the boat, the other to the limb of a willow which projected over the water. The result of this was a successful downward movement of the willow, but the boat remained in statu quo, the soft mud holding it as though it possessed the sucking powers of a cuttlefish.

I could not reach the firm sh.o.r.e, for the willow brush would not support my weight. There was no a.s.sistance to be looked for from fellow-voyagers, as the river-craft seemed to follow the channel of the opposite sh.o.r.e; and my camp could not be seen from the river, as I had taken pains to hide myself in the thicket of young willows from all curious eyes. There was no hope that my voice would penetrate to the other side of the stream, neither could I reach the water beyond the soft ooze. Being well provisioned, however, it would be an easy matter to await the rise of the river; and if no friendly freshet sent me the required a.s.sistance, the winds would harden the ooze in a few days so that it would bear my weight, and enable me to escape from my bonds of mud.

While partaking of a light breakfast, an idea suddenly presented itself to my mind. I had frequently built crossways over treacherous swamps. Why not mattress the muddy flat? Standing upon the deck of my boat, I grasped every twig and bough of willow I could reach, and making a mattress of them, about two feet square and a few inches thick, on the surface of the mud at the stern of my craft, I placed upon it the hatch-cover of my boat. Standing upon this, the sneak-box was relieved of my weight, and by dint of persevering effort the after part was successful]y lifted, and the heavy burden slowly worked out of its tenacious bed, and moved two or three feet nearer the water. By s.h.i.+fting the willow mattress nearer the boat, which was now ON the surface of the mud, and not IN it, my floating home was soon again upon the current, and its captain had a new experience, which, though dearly bought, would teach him to avoid in future a camp on a soft flat when a river was falling.

A foggy day followed my departure from the unfortunate camp of willows; but through the mist I caught glimpses of the fine lands of the Kentucky farmers, with the grand old trees shading their comfortable homes. In the drizzle I had pa.s.sed French's Creek, and after dark ran upon a stony beach, where, high and dry upon the bank, was a shanty-boat, which had been converted into a landing-house, and was occupied by two men who received the freight left there by pa.s.sing steamers. The locality was six miles below Brandenburg, Kentucky, and was known as "Richardson's Landing." Having rowed forty miles since morning, I "turned in" soon after drawing my boat upon the shelving strand, antic.i.p.ating a quiet night.

At midnight a loud noise, accompanied with bright flashes of light, warned me of the approach of a steamboat. She soon after ran her bow hard on to the beach, within a few feet of my boat. Though the rain was falling in torrents, the pa.s.sengers crowded upon the upper deck to examine the snow-white, peculiarly shaped craft, or "skiff" as they called it, which lay upon the bank, little suspecting that her owner was snugly stowed beneath her deck. I suddenly threw up the hatch and sat upright, while the strong glare of light from the steamer's furnaces brought out every detail of the boat's interior.

This sudden apparition struck the crowd with surprise, and, as is usual upon such an occasion in western America, the whole company showered a fire of raillery and "chaff" upon me, to which, on account of the heavy rain, I could not reply, but, dropping backward into my bed, drew the hatch into its place. The good-natured crowd would not permit me to escape so easily. Calling the entire s.h.i.+p's company from the state-rooms and cabins to join them, they used every artifice in their power to induce me to show my head above the deck of my boat.

One shouted, "Here, you deck-hand, don't cut that man's rope; it's mean to steal a fellow's painter!" Another cried, "Don't put that heavy plank against that little skiff!" Suspecting their game, however, I kept under cover during the fifteen minutes' stay of the boat, when, moving off; they all shouted a jolly farewell, which mingled in the darkness with the hoa.r.s.e whistle of the steamer, while the night air echoed with cries of; "Snug as a bug in a rug;" "I never seed the like afore;" "He'll git used to livin'in a coffin afore he needs one," &c.

The reader who may have looked heretofore upon swamps and gloomy creeks as too lonely for camping-grounds, may now appreciate the necessity for selecting such places, and understand why a voyager prefers the security of the wilderness to the annoying curiosity of his fellow-man.

The rains of the past two days had swollen the Kentucky River, which enters the Ohio above Louisville, as well as the Salt River, which I had pa.s.sed twenty miles below that city, besides many other branches, so that the main stream was now rapidly rising. After leaving Richardson's Landing, the rain continued to fall, and as each tributary, affected by the freshet, poured logs, fallen trees, fence- rails, stumps from clearings, and even occasionally a small frame shanty, into the Ohio, there was a floating raft of these materials miles in length. Sometimes an unlucky shanty-boat was caught in an eddy by the ma.s.s of floating timber, and at once becoming an integral portion of the whole, would float with the great raft for two or three days. The owners, being in the mean time unable to free themselves from their prison-like surroundings, made the best of the blockade, and their fires burned all the brighter, while the enlivening music of the fiddle, and the hilarity induced by frequent potions of corn whiskey, with the inevitable games of cards, made all "merry as a marriage bell," as they floated down the river.

In the evening, a little creek below Alton was reached, which sheltered me during the night. Soon the rain ceased, and the stars shone kindly upon my lonely camp. I left the creek at half-past four o'clock in the morning. The water had risen two feet and a half in ten hours, and the broad river was in places covered from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e with drift stuff; which made my course a devious one, and the little duck-boat had many a narrow escape in my attempts to avoid the floating ma.s.s. The booming of guns along the sh.o.r.e reminded me that it was Christmas, and, in imagination, I pictured to myself the many happy families in the valley enjoying their Christmas cheer. The contrast between their condition and mine was great, for I could not even find enough dry wood to cook my simple camp-fare.

An hour before sunset, while skirting the Indiana sh.o.r.e, I pa.s.sed a little village called Batesville, and soon after came to the mouth of a crooked creek, out of which, borne on the flood of a freshet, came a long, narrow line of drift stuff. Just within the mouth of the creek, in a deep indenture of the high bank, a shanty-boat was snugly lashed to the trees. A young man stood in the open doorway of the cabin, was.h.i.+ng dishes, and as I pa.s.sed he kindly wished me a "Merry Christmas," inviting me on board. He eagerly inspected the sneak-box, and p.r.o.nounced it one of the prettiest "tricks" afloat. "How my father and brother would like to see you and your boat!" exclaimed he. "Can't you tie up here, just under yonder p'int on the bank? There's an eddy there, and the drift won't work in enough to trouble you."

The invitation so kindly given was accepted, and with the a.s.sistance of my new acquaintance my boat was worked against the strong current into a curve of the bank, and there securely fastened. I set to work about my house-keeping cares, and had my cabin comfortably arranged for the night, when I was hailed from the shanty-boat to "come aboard." Entering the rough cabin, a surprise greeted me, for a table stood in the centre of the room, covered with a clean white cloth, and groaning under the weight of such a variety of appetizing dishes as I had not seen for many a day.

"I thought," said the boy, "that you hadn't had much Christmas to-day, being as you're away from your folks; and we had a royal dinner, and there's lots left fur you--so help yourself." He then explained that his father and brother had gone to a shooting-match on the other side of the river; and when I expressed my astonishment at the excellent fare, which, upon closer acquaintance, proved to be of a dainty nature (game and delicate pastry making a menu rather peculiar for a shanty- boat), he informed me that his brother had been first cook on a big pa.s.senger steamer, and had received good wages; but their mother died, and their father married a second time, and--Here the young fellow paused, evidently considering how much of their private life he should show to a stranger. "Well," he continued, "our new mother liked cities better than flatboats, and father's a good quiet man, who likes to live in peace with every one, so he lets mother live in Arkansas, and he stays on the shanty-boat. We boys joined him, fur he's a good old fellow, and we have all that's going. We git plenty of cat-fish, buffalo-fish, yellow perch, and ba.s.s, and sell them at the little towns along the river. Then in summer we hire a high flat ash.o.r.e,--not a flatboat,--I mean a bit of land along the river, and raise a crop of corn, 'taters, and cabbage. We have plenty of shooting, and don't git much fever 'n ager."

I had rowed fifty-three miles that day, and did ample justice to the Christmas dinner on the flatboat. The father and brother joined us in the evening, and gave me much good advice in regard to river navigation. The rain fell heavily before midnight, and they insisted that I should share one of their beds in the boat; but as small streams of water were trickling through the roof of the shanty, and my little craft was water-tight, I declined the kindly offer, and bade them good-night.

The next day being Sunday, I again visited my new acquaintances upon the shanty-boat, and gathered from their varied experiences much of the river's lore. The rain continued, accompanied with lightning and thunder, during the entire day, so that Monday's sun was indeed welcome; and with kind farewells on all sides I broke camp and descended the current with the now almost continuous raft of drift- wood. For several hours a sewing-machine repair-shop and a photographic gallery floated with me.

The creeks were now so swollen from the heavy rains, and so full of drift-wood, that my usual retreat into some creek seemed cut off; so I ran under the sheltered side of "Three Mile Island," below Newburg, Indiana. The climate was daily improving, and I no longer feared an ice blockade; but a new difficulty arose. The heavy rafts of timber threatened to shut me in my camp. At dusk, all might be open water; but at break of day "a change came o'er the spirit of my dream," and heavy blockades of timber rafts made it no easy matter to escape.

There were times when, shut in behind these barriers, I looked out upon the river with envious eyes at the steamboats steadily plodding up stream against the current, keeping free of the rafts by the skill of their pilots; and thoughts of the genius and perseverance of the inventors of these peculiar craft crowded my mind.