,
leaving the merest fringe of willows to protect their domain. At the
foot of this fertile plain, the Little Miami River (460 miles) pours
its muddy contribution into the Ohio; and beyond this rises the
amphitheater of hills on which Cincinnati (466 miles) is mainly built.
We see but the outskirts here, for two miles below us there is a sharp
bend in the river, and only a dark pall of smoke marks where the city
lies. But these outlying slopes are well dotted with gray and white
groups of settlement, separated by stretches of woodland over which
play changing lights, for cloud masses are sweeping the Ohio hills
while we are still basking in the sun.

Above us, crowning the Kentucky ascents, or nestled on their wooded
shoulders, are many beautiful villas, evidently the homes of the
ultra-wealthy. Close at hand we have the pleasant chink-chink of
caulking hammers, for barges are built and repaired in this snug
harbor. Now and then a river tug comes, with noisy bluster of smoke
and steam, and amid much tightening and slackening of rope, and
wild profanity, takes captive a laden barge,--as a cowboy might a
refractory steer in the midst of a herd,--and hauls it off to be
disgorged down stream. And just as we conclude our lunch, German
women come with hoes to practice the gentle art of horticulture--a
characteristic conglomeration, in the heart of our busy West; the
millionaire on the hill-top, the tiller on the slope, shipwright on
the beach, and grimy Commerce master of the flood.

Setting afloat on a boiling current, thick with driftwood, we soon
were coursing between city-lined shores--on the Kentucky side, Newport
and Covington, respectively above and below Licking River; and in an
hour were making our way through the labyrinth of steamers thickly
moored with their noses to land, and cautiously creeping around to a
quiet spot at the stern of a giant wharf-boat--no slight task this,
with the river "on the jump," and a false move liable to swamp us if
we strike an obstruction at full gait. No doubt we all breathed freer
when Pilgrim, too, was beached,--although it be only confessed in
the privacy of the log. With her and her cargo safely stored in
the wharf-boat, we sought a hotel, and, regaining our bag of
clothing,--shipped ahead of us from McKee's Rocks,--donned urban
attire for an inspection of the city.

And a noble city it is, that has grown out of the two block-houses
which George Rogers Clark planted here in 17