live-box,
I visited with the little band. It was a comfortable room, furnished
rather better than the average shore cabin, and the Green River man's
family of half-a-dozen were well-kept, pleasant-faced, and polite.
Altogether it was a much more respectable houseboat company than any
we have yet seen on the river. But the fish-stories which that Green
River man tells, with an honest-like, open-eyed sobriety, would do
credit to Munchausen.

The rain, at first spasmodic, became at last persistent. Two miles
farther down, at Cypress Bend (806 miles), we ran into an Indiana
hill, where on a steep slope of yellow shale, all strewn with rocks,
our tent was hurriedly pitched. There was no driving of pegs into
this stony base, so we weighted down the canvas with round-heads, and
fastened our guys to bushes and boulders as best we might. Huddled
around the little stove, under the fly, the crew dined sumptuously
_en course_, from canned soup down to strawberries for dessert,--for
Evansville is a good market. It is not always, we pilgrims fare thus
high--the resources of Rome, Thebes, Bethlehem, Herculaneum, and the
other classic towns with which the Ohio's banks are dotted, being none
of the best. Some days, we are fortunate to have aught in our larder.

* * * * *

Brown's Island, Wednesday, 6th.--This morning's camp-fire was welcome
for its warmth. The sky has been clear, but a sharp, cold wind has
prevailed throughout the day, quite counteracting the sun's rays;
we noticed townsfolk going about in overcoats, their hands in their
pockets. In the ox-bow curves, the breeze came in turn from every
quarter, sometimes dead ahead and again pushing us swiftly on. In
seeking the lee shore, Pilgrim pursued a zigzag course, back and
forth between the States,--now under the brow of towering clay banks,
corrugated by the flood, and honeycombed by swallows, which in flocks
screamed and circled over our heads; again, closely brushing the
fringe of willows and sycamores and maples on low-lying shores. Thus
did we for the most part paddle in placid water, while above us the
wind whistled in the tree-tops, rustled the blooming elders and
the tall grasses of the plain, and, out in the open river, caused
white-caps to dance right merrily.

We met at intervals to-day, several houseboats, the most of them
bearing the inscription prescribed by the new Kentucky license
law, which is now being enforced, the essential features