t is not every day that river travelers put in at this dreamy,
far-away port. The wife had camped with her husband, when he was boss
of a railway construction gang, and both of them frankly envied us our
trip. So did a neighboring storekeeper, a tall, lean, grave young man,
clean-shaven, coatless and vestless, with a blue-glass stud on his
collarless white shirt. Apparently there was no danger of customers
walking away with his goods, for he left his store-door open to all
comers, not once glancing thitherward in the half-hour he sat with us
on a stick of timber, in which he pensively carved his name.

Life goes easily in Hockingport. Years ago there was some business up
the Big Hocking (short for Big Hockhocking), a stream of a half-dozen
rods' width, but now no steamer ventures up--the railroads do it all;
as for the Ohio--well, the steamers now and then put off a box or bale
for the four shop-keepers, and once in a while a passenger patronizes
the landing. There is still a little country traffic, and formerly
a sawmill was in operation here; you see its ruins down there below.
Hockingport is a type of several rustic hamlets we have seen
to-day; they are often in pairs, one either side of the river, for
companionship's sake.

We are idling, despite the knowledge that on turning every big bend we
are getting farther and farther south, and mid-June on the Lower Ohio
is apt to be sub-tropical. But the sinking sun gives us a
shadowy right bank, and that is most welcome. The current is only
spasmodically good. Every night the river falls from three to six
inches, and there are long stretches of slack-water. The steamers pick
their way carefully; we do not give them as wide a berth as formerly,
for the wakes they turn are no longer savage--but wakes, even when
sent out by stern-wheelers at full speed, now give us little trouble;
it did not take long to learn the knack of "taking" them. Whether
you meet them at right angles, or in the trough, there is the same
delicious sensation of rising and falling on the long swells--there
is no danger, so long as you are outside the line of foaming breakers;
within those, you may ship water, which is not desirable when there
is a cargo. But the boys at the towns sometimes put out in their rude
punts into the very vortex of disturbance, being dashed about in the
white roar at the base of the ponderous paddle wheels, like a Fiji
Islander in his surf-boat. We heard, the other day, of a bo