s occasion demanded; George Rogers Clark, descending the river with
his handful of heroic Virginians to win for the United States the
great Northwest, and for himself the laurels of fame; the Marietta
pilgrims, beating Revolutionary swords into Ohio plowshares; and all
that succeeding tide of immigrants from our own Atlantic coast
and every corner of Europe, pouring down the great valley to plant
powerful commonwealths beyond the mountains. A richly-varied panorama
of life passes before us as we contemplate the glowing story of the
Ohio.

In making our historical pilgrimage we might more easily have
"steamboated" the river,--to use a verb in local vogue; but, from the
deck of a steamer, scenes take on a different aspect than when viewed
from near the level of the flood; for a passenger by such a craft, the
vistas of a winding stream change so rapidly that he does not realize
how it seemed to the canoeist or flatboatman of old; and there are too
many modern distractions about such a mode of progress. To our minds,
the manner of our going should as nearly as possible be that of the
pioneer himself--hence our skiff, and our nightly camp in primitive
fashion.

The trip was successful, whatever the point of view. Physically, those
six weeks "Afloat on the Ohio" were a model outing--at times rough, to
be sure, but exhilarating, health-giving, brain-inspiring. The Log of
the "Pilgrim" seeks faintly to outline our experiences, but no words
can adequately describe the wooded hill-slopes which day by day girt
us in; the romantic ravines which corrugate the rim of the Ohio's
basin; the beautiful islands which stud the glistening tide; the great
affluents which, winding down for a thousand miles, from the Blue
Ridge, the Cumberland, and the Great Smoky, pour their floods into
the central stream; the giant trees--sycamores, pawpaws, cork elms,
catalpas, walnuts, and what not--which everywhere are in view in this
woodland world; the strange and lovely flowers we saw; the curious
people we met, black and white, and the varieties of dialect which
caught our ear; the details of our charming gypsy life, ashore and
afloat, during which we were conscious of the red blood tingling
through our veins, and, alert to the whisperings of Nature, were
careless of the workaday world, so far away,--simply glad to be alive.

For the better understanding of the numerous historical references
in the Log, I have thought it well to present in the Appe