s of history.

The following description of the employment of this class of people is
from the pen of an anonymous American author:--

"There is something inexplicable in the fact, there could be men found,
for ordinary wages, who would abandon the systematic but not laborious
pursuits of agriculture to follow a life, of all others except that of
the soldier, distinguished by the greatest exposure and privation. The
occupation of a boatman was more calculated to destroy the constitution
and to shorten life than any other business. In ascending the river it
was a continued series of toil, rendered more irksome by the snail-like
rate at which they moved. The boat was propelled by poles, against
which the shoulder was placed, and the whole strength and skill of the
individual were applied in this manner. As the boatmen moved along the
running board, with their heads nearly touching the plank on which they
walked, the effect produced on the mind of an observer was similar to
that on beholding the ox rocking before an overloaded cart. Their
bodies, naked to their waist for the purpose of moving with greater ease
and of enjoying the breeze of the river, were exposed to the burning
suns of summer and to the rains of autumn. After a hard day's push they
would take their `fillee,' or ration of whisky, and, having swallowed a
miserable supper of meat half burnt, and of bread half baked, stretched
themselves, without covering, on the deck, and slumber till the
steersman's call invited them to the morning `fillee.' Notwithstanding
this, the boatman's life had charms as irresistible as those presented
by the splendid illusions of the stage. Sons abandoned the comfortable
farms of their fathers, and apprentices fled from the service of their
masters. There was a captivation in the idea of `going down the river,'
and the `youthful boatman who had pushed a keel' from New Orleans felt
all the pride of a young merchant after his first voyage to an English
sea-port. From an exclusive association together they had formed a kind
of slang peculiar to themselves; and from the constant exercise of wit
with the squatters on shore, and crews of other boats, they acquired a
quickness and smartness of vulgar retort that was quite amusing. The
frequent battles they were engaged in with the boatmen of different
parts of the river, and with the less civilised inhabitants of the lower
Ohio and Mississippi, invested them with that furious re