s of the Indians, whom they were bent on displacing, would have
furnished sufficient cause for conflict.

First of the craft to follow the Indian canoes and the bateaux of the
French missionaries down the great rivers, was the flatboat--a homely and
ungraceful vessel, but yet one to which the people of the United States
owe, perhaps, more of real service in the direction of building up a great
nation than they do to Dewey's "Olympia," or Schley's "Brooklyn." A
typical flatboat of the early days of river navigation was about
fifty-five feet long by sixteen broad. It was without a keel, as its name
would indicate, and drew about three feet of water. Amidships was built a
rough deck-house or cabin, from the roof of which extended on either side,
two long oars, used for directing the course of the craft rather than for
propulsion, since her way was ever downward with the current, and
dependent upon it. These great oars seemed to the fancy of the early
flatboat men, to resemble horns, hence the name "broadhorns," sometimes
applied to the boats. Such a boat the settler would fill with household
goods and farm stock, and commit himself to the current at Pittsburg. From
the roof of the cabin that housed his family, cocks crew and hens cackled,
while the stolid eyes of cattle peered over the high parapet of logs built
about the edge for protection against the arrow or bullet of the wandering
redskin. Sometimes several families would combine to build one ark.
Drifting slowly down the river--the voyage from Pittsburg to the falls of
the Ohio, where Louisville now stands, requiring with the best luck, a
week or ten days--the 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 cabin