thwest--a wilderness then, but now teeming with three
million of men, and sending to Washington thirty-four representatives.

Cincinnati was the _point de depart_ of many of the expeditions
against the Indians between the revolution and the war of 1812. When
that war broke out it acquired new importance. Military men replaced
the hunter and Indian, and every arrival brought a reinforcement of
troops. From it Taylor and Croghan marched with Gen. Harrison
northward, and to it the victorious army returned from the Thames.
When peace returned, a new activity was infused into Cincinnati; the
vast disbursements made by the government had attracted thither many
adventurers. Then commenced the era of bateau navigation, and the
advent of a peculiar race of men, of whom now no trace remains. Rude
boats were built and freighted with produce, which descended the river
to New Orleans, where the cargo was disposed of, and the boat itself
broken up and sold. The crew, after a season of dissipation, returned
homeward by land, through the country inhabited by the Chactas and
Chickasas, and the yet wilder region infested by thieves and pirates.
It was no uncommon thing for the boatmen never to return. Exposure
to danger made them reckless; and they were often seen floating down
the bosom of the stream, with the violin sounding merrily, but with
their rifles loaded, and resting against the gunwales, ready to be
used whenever an emergency arose. All the west even now rings with
traditions of the daring of this race; and the traveler on the waters
of the west often has pointed out to him the scene of their bloody
contests and quarrels.

[Illustration: VIEW OF CINCINNATI OHIO.]

The era of steam began, and this state of things passed away. The
mighty discovery of Fulton created yet more activity in the west; and
a current of trade, second in importance to none on the continent,
except, perhaps, those of New York and Philadelphia, sprung from it.
As the States of Kentucky and Ohio began to fill up, the farmers and
planters crowded to Cincinnati with their produce, and the character
of the population changed. The day of the voyageur was gone, and lines
of steamboats crowded its wharf. The peculiar character of the country
around it, teeming with the sustenance for animals and grazing, made
it the centre of a peculiar business which, unpoetical as it may seem,
doubled every year, until in 1847 it amounted to more than the value
of the cotton