sleek and dapper fellow,
though with clothes rather the worse for wear, came trudging along
the road toward Marietta. Seeing our camp, he asked for a drink. Being
apparently disposed to tarry, the Doctor, to get him started, offered
to walk a piece with him. Our comrade staid out so long, that at last
I went down the road in search of him, and found the pair sitting on
a moonlit bank, as cozily as if they had been always friends. The
stranger had revealed to the Doctor that he was a street fakir, "by
perfesh," and had "struck it rich" in Chicago during the World's
Fair, but somehow had lost the greater part of his gains, and was
now associated with his brother, who had a junk-boat; the brother was
"well heeled," and staid and kept store at the boat, while the fakir,
as the walking partner, "rustled 'round 'mong th' grangers, to stir
up trade." The Doctor had, in their talk, let slip something about
certain Florida experiences, and when I arrived on the scene was being
skillfully questioned by his companion as to the probabilities of
"a feller o' my perfesh ketch'n' on, down thar?" The result of this
pumping process must have been satisfactory: for when we parted with
him, the fakir declared he was "go'n' try't on thar, next winter, 'f I
bust me bottom dollar!"

CHAPTER VIII.

Life ashore and afloat--Marietta, "the Plymouth Rock of the
West"--The Little Kanawha--The story of Blennerhassett's
Island.

Blennerhassett's Island, Sunday, May 13th.--The day broke without fog,
at our camp on the rocky steep above Marietta. The eastern sky was
veiled with summer clouds, all gayly flushed by the rising sun, and
in the serene silence of the morning there hung the scent of dew, and
earth, and trees. In the east, the distant edges of the West Virginia
hills were aglow with the mounting light before it had yet peeped over
into the river trough, where a silvery haze lent peculiar charm to
flood and bank. Up river, one of the Three Brothers isles, dark and
heavily forested, seemed in the middle ground to float on air. A
bewitching picture this, until at last the sun sprang clear and strong
above the fringing hills, and the spell was broken.

The steamboat traffic is improving as we get lower down. Last evening,
between landing and bedtime, a half dozen passed us, up and down,
breathing heavily as dragons might, and leaving behind them foamy
wakes which loudly broke upon the shore. Before morning, I was at
int