e drawl out the number of feet. Sometimes
their sleepy drawling tones would suddenly cease, and crying loudly, "No
alli agua!" they would swing themselves over the side of the boat into
the river, and begin their strange and intricate manipulations with the
poles. Then, again, they would carry the anchor away off and by means of
great spars, and some method too complicated for me to describe, Captain
Mellon would fairly lift the boat over the bar.

But our progress was naturally much retarded, and sometimes we were
aground an hour, sometimes a half day or more. Captain Mellon was
always cheerful. River steamboating was his life, and sand-bars were his
excitement. On one occasion, I said, "Oh! Captain, do you think we
shall get off this bar to-day?" "Well, you can't tell," he said, with a
twinkle in his eye; "one trip, I lay fifty-two days on a bar," and then,
after a short pause, "but that don't happen very often; we sometimes lay
a week, though; there is no telling; the bars change all the time."

Sometimes the low trees and brushwood on the banks parted, and a young
squaw would peer out at us. This was a little diversion, and picturesque
besides. They wore very short skirts made of stripped bark, and as
they held back the branches of the low willows, and looked at us with
curiosity, they made pictures so pretty that I have never forgotten
them. We had no kodaks then, but even if we had had them, they could not
have reproduced the fine copper color of those bare shoulders and arms,
the soft wood colors of the short bark skirts, the gleam of the sun upon
their blue-black hair, and the turquoise color of the wide bead-bands
which encircled their arms.

One morning, as I was trying to finish out a nap in my stateroom,
Jack came excitedly in and said: "Get up, Martha, we are coming to
Ehrenberg!" Visions of castles on the Rhine, and stories of the
middle ages floated through my mind, as I sprang up, in pleasurable
anticipation of seeing an interesting and beautiful place. Alas! for my
ignorance. I saw but a row of low thatched hovels, perched on the edge
of the ragged looking river-bank; a road ran lengthwise along, and
opposite the hovels I saw a store and some more mean-looking huts of
adobe.

"Oh! Jack!" I cried, "and is that Ehrenberg? Who on earth gave such a
name to the wretched place?"

"Oh, some old German prospector, I suppose; but never mind, the place
is all right enough. Come! Hurry up! We are going to sto