aring
the bars; and the swash upon shore was so violent that I was more than
once awakened, each time to find the water line creeping nearer
and nearer to the tent door. As we sweep onward to-day, upon an
accelerated current, the fringing willows, whose roots before the
rise were many feet up the slopes of sand and gravel, are gracefully
dipping their boughs in the rushing flood. With the rise, come the
sweepings of the beaches--bits of lumber, fallen trees, barrels,
boxes, 'longshore rubbish of every sort; sometimes it hangs in ragged
rafts, and we steer clear of such, for Pilgrim's progress is greater
than that of these unwelcome companions of the voyage, and we wish no
entangling alliances.

Much tobacco is raised on the rounded, gently-sloping hills below
Maysville. Away up on the acclivities, in sheltered spots near the
fields in which they are to be transplanted, or in fence-corners
in the ever-broadening bottoms, we note white patches of thin cloth
pinned down over the young plants to protect them from untoward
frosts. There are many tobacco warehouses to be seen along the
banks--apparently farmers cooperate in maintaining such; and in
front of each, a roadway leads down to the water's edge, indicating
a steamboat landing. On the town wharves are often seen portly
barrels,--locally, "puncheons,"--filled with the weed, awaiting
shipment by boat; most of the product goes to Louisville, but there
are also large buyers in the smaller Kentucky towns.

Occasionally, to-day, we have seen moored to some rustic landing a
great covered barge, quite of the fashion of the golden age of Ohio
boating. At one end, a room is partitioned off to serve as cabin, and
the sweeps are operated from the roof. These are produce-boats, which
are laden with coarse vegetables and sometimes live stock, and floated
down to Cincinnati or Louisville, and even to St. Louis and New
Orleans. In ante-bellum days, produce-boats were common enough, and
much money was made by speculative buyers who would dispose of their
cargo in the most favorable port, sell the barge, and then return by
rail or steamer; just as, in still earlier days, the keel or flatboat
owner would sell both freight and vessel on the Lower Mississippi,--or
abandon the craft if he could not sell it,--and "hoof it home," as a
contemporary chronicler puts it.

Ripley, Levanna (417 miles), Higginsport (421 miles), Chilo (431
miles), Neville (435 miles), and Point Pleasant (442 mil