and
whistling, to lighten my sorrows, till at last I perceived at the bank
of the river, and five hundred yards ahead, one of those large rafts,
constructed pretty much like Noah's ark, in which a Wabash farmer
embarks his cargo of women and fleas, pigs and chickens, corn, whisky,
rats, sheep, and stolen niggers; indeed, in most cases, the whole of the
cargo is stolen, except the wife and children, the only portion whom the
owner would very much like to be rid of; but these will stick to him as
naturally as a prairie fly to a horse, as long as he has spirits to
drink, pigs to attend to, and breeches to mend.

"Well, as she was close to the bank, I got in. The owner was General
John Meyer, from Vincennes, and his three sons, the colonel, the
captain, and the judge. They lent me a sort of thing, which many years
before had probably been a horse-blanket. With it I covered myself,
while one of the *'boys spread my clothes to dry, and, as I had nothing
left in the world, except thirty dollars in my pocket-book, I kept that
constantly in my hand till the evening, when, my clothes being dried, I
recovered the use of my pocket. The general was free with his 'Wabash
water' (western appellation for whisky), and, finding me to his taste,
as he said, he offered me a passage gratis to New Orleans, if I could
but submit myself to his homely fare; that is to say, salt pork, with
plenty of gravy, four times a day, and a decoction of burnt bran and
grains of maize, going under the name of coffee all over the States--the
whisky was to be _ad libitum_.

"As I considered the terms moderate, I agreed, and the hospitable
general soon entrusted me with his plans. He had gone many times to
Texas; he loved Texas--it was a free country, according to his heart;
and now he had collected all his own (he might have said, 'and other
people's too'), to go to New Orleans, where his pigs and corn, exchanged
against goods, would enable him to settle with his family in Texas in a
gallant style. Upon my inquiring what could be the cause of a certain
abominable smell which pervaded the cabin, he apprized me that, in a
small closet adjoining, he had secured a dozen of runaway negroes, for
the apprehension of whom he would be well rewarded.

"Well, the next morning we went on pretty snugly, and I had nothing to
complain of, except the fleas and the 'gals,' who bothered me not a
little. Three days afterwards we entered the Ohio, and the current being
very