erful, so unassuming, so free, and easy, and frank, and kind, and
gay, that even the young, and overawed, and embarrassed visitor at once
forgot his fears, and felt himself by the side of an old and familiar
friend.

* * * * *

=_Timothy Flint, 1780-1840._= (Manual, p. 490.)

From "Recollections of the Mississippi Valley."

=_177._= THE WESTERN BOATMAN.

Three is no wonder that the way of life which the boatman, lead, in turn
extremely indolent and extremely laborious, for days together requiring
little or no effort, and attended with no danger, and then on a sudden
laborious and hazardous beyond the Atlantic navigation, generally
plentiful as it regards food, and always so as it regards whiskey,
should always have seductions that prove irresistible to the young
people that live near the banks of the river. The boats float by their
dwellings on beautiful spring mornings, when the verdant forest, the
mild and delicious temperature of the air, the delightful azure of the
sky of this country, the fine bottom on the one hand, and the romantic
bluff on the other, the broad, and smooth stream rolling calmly down
through the forest, and floating the boat gently forward,--all these
circumstances harmonize in the excited youthful imagination. The boatmen
are dancing to the violin on the deck of their boat. They scatter their
wit among the girls on the shore, who come down to the water's edge to
see the pageant pass. The boat glides on until it disappears behind a
point of wood; at this moment, perhaps, the bugle, with which all the
boats are provided, strikes up its note in the distance, over the water.
These scenes, and these notes, echoing from the bluffs of the beautiful
Ohio, have a charm for the imagination, which, although I have heard a
thousand times repeated, and at all hours, and in all positions, is even
to me always new, and always delightful. No wonder that to the young,
who are reared in these remote regions, with that restless curiosity
which is fostered by solitude and silence, who witness scenes like these
so frequently,--no wonder that the severe and unremitting labors of
agriculture, performed directly in the view of such scenes, should
become tasteless and irksome.

* * * * *

=_Washington Irving, 1783-1839._= (Manual, pp. 478, 498.)

From "Knickerbocker's History of New York."

=_178._= FROM "TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS."

A histor