ht little Kentucky
county-seat, well-built at the feet of thickly-forested uplands. At
the lower end of the village, the Little Sandy enters through a wooded
dale, which near the mouth opens into a broad meadow. Not many miles
below, is a high sloping beach, picturesquely bestrewn with gigantic
boulders which have in ages past rolled down from the hill-tops above.
Here, among the rocks, we again set up a rude screen from the still
piercing wind; and, each wrapped in a gay blanket, lunch as operatic
gypsies might, in a romantic glen, enjoying mightily our steaming
chocolate, and the warmth of our friendly stove--for dessert, taking
a merry scamper for flowers, over the ragged ascent from whence the
boulders came. Everywhere about is the trumpet creeper, but not yet
in bloom. The Indian turnip is in blossom here, and so the smaller
Solomon's seal, yellow spikes of toad-flax, blue and pink phlox,
glossy May apple; high up on the hillside, the fire pink and
wintergreen; and, down by the sandy shore, great beds of blue wild
lupin, and occasionally stately spikes of the familiar moth mullein.

With the temperature falling rapidly, and a drizzling rain taking the
starch out of our enthusiasm, we early sought a camping ground. For
miles along here, springs ooze from the base of the high clay bank
walling in the wide and rocky Ohio beach, and dry spots are few and
far between. We found one, however, a half mile above Little Scioto
River (346 miles),[A] with drift-wood enough to furnish us for years,
and the beach thick-strewn with fossils of a considerable variety of
small bivalves, which latter greatly delighted the Doctor and the Boy,
who have brought enough specimens to the tent door to stock a college
museum.

Dinner over, the crew hauled Pilgrim under cover, and within prepared
for her sailing-master a cosy bed, with the entire ship's stock of
sleeping-bags and blankets. W----, the Boy, and I then started off
to find quarters in Sciotoville (1,000 inhabitants), which lies just
below the river's mouth, here a dozen rods wide. Scrambling up the
slimy bank, through a maze of thorn trees, brambles, and sycamore
scrubs, we gained the fertile bottom above, all luscious with tall
grasses bespangled with wild red roses and the showy pentstemon. The
country road leading into the village is some distance inland, but at
last we found it just beyond a patch of Indian corn waist high, and
followed it, through a covered bridge, and dow