i, of which the new official was a prominent member--"so
that," Symmes sorrowfully writes, "Losantiville will become extinct."
Five years of Indian campaigning followed, the features of which were
the crushing defeats of Harmar and St. Clair, and the final victory
of Mad Anthony Wayne at Fallen Timbers. It was not until the Treaty
of Greenville (1795), the result of Wayne's brilliant dash into the
wilderness, that the Revolutionary War may properly be said to have
ended in the West.

Those were stirring times on the Ohio, both ashore and afloat; but,
amidst them all, Cincinnati grew apace. Ellicott, in 1796, speaks of
it as "a very respectable place," and in 1814, Flint found it the
only port that could be called a town, from Steubenville to Natchez,
a distance of fifteen hundred miles; in 1825 he reports it greatly
grown, and crowded with immigrants from Europe and from our own
Eastern states. The impetus thus early gained has never lessened, and
Cincinnati is to-day one of the best built and most substantial cities
in the Union.

CHAPTER XV.

The story of North Bend--The "shakes"--Driftwood--Rabbit
Hash--A side-trip To Big Bone Lick.

Near Petersburg, Ky., Friday, May 25th.--This morning, an hour before
noon, as we looked upon the river from the top of the Cincinnati
wharf, a wild scene presented itself. The shore up and down, as far as
could be seen, was densely lined with packets and freighters; beyond
them, the great stream, here half a mile wide, was rushing past like a
mill-race, and black with all manner of drift, some of it formed into
great rafts from each of which sprawled a network of huge branches.
Had we been strangers to this offscouring of a thousand miles of
beach, swirling past us at a six-mile gait, we might well have doubted
the prudence of launching little Pilgrim upon such a sea. But for two
days past, we had been amidst something of the sort, and knew that to
cautious canoeists it was less dangerous than it appeared.

A strong head wind, meeting this surging tide, is lashing it into
a white-capped fury. But lying to with paddle and oars, and dodging
ferries and towing-tugs as best we may, Pilgrim bears us swiftly past
the long line of steamers at the wharf, past Newport and Covington,
and the insignificant Licking,[A] and out under great railway
bridges which cobweb the sky. Soon Cincinnati, shrouded in smoke,
has disappeared around the bend, and we are in the fast-thinning