y, more
venturesome than the rest, piled his cairn highest up the slope; and
when daylight revealed the fact that the river, in its four-feet rise,
had crept nearest his goal, there was much juvenile rejoicing.

There is a gray sky, this morning. With a cold headwind on the
starboard quarter, we hug the lee of the Ohio shore. The river is well
up in the willows now. Crowding Pilgrim as closely as we may, within
the narrow belt of unruffled water, our oars are swept by their
bending boughs, which lightly tremble on the surface of the flood. The
numerous rock-cumbered ravines, coursing down the hills or through the
bottom lands, a few days since held but slender streams, or were,
the most of them, wholly dry; but now they are brimming with noisy
currents all flecked with foam--pretty pictures, these yawning
gullies, overhung with cottonwoods and sycamores, with thick
undergrowth of green-brier and wild columbine, and the yellow buds of
the celandine poppy.

The hills are showing better cultivation, as we approach the great
city. The farm-houses are in better style, the market gardens larger,
prosperity more evident. Among the pleasing sights are frequent
farmsteads at the summits of the slopes, with orchards and vineyards,
and gardens and fields, stretching down almost to the river--quite,
indeed, on the Ohio side, but in Kentucky flanked at the base by
the railway terrace. Numerous ferries connect the Kentucky railway
stations with the eastern bank; one, which we saw just above New
Richmond, O. (446 miles), was run by horse power, a weary nag in a
tread-mill above each side-paddle. Although Kentucky has the railway,
there is just here apparent a greater degree of thrift in Ohio--the
towns more numerous, fields and truck-gardens more ample, on the whole
a better class of farm-houses, and frequently, along the country road
which closely skirts the shore, comfortable little broad-balconied
inns, dependent on the trade of fishing and outing parties.

Just below the Newport waterworks are several coal-barge
harbors--mooring-grounds where barges lie in waiting, until hauled off
by tugs to the storage wharves. In the rear of one of these fleets, at
the base of a market garden, we found a sunny nook for lunch--for here
on the Kentucky side the cold wind has full sweep, and we are glad of
shelter when at rest. Across the river is a broad, low bottom given up
to market gardeners, who jealously cultivate down to the water's edge