i, has left us a clear
picture of the process by which these heavy tubs, loaded with forty or
fifty tons of freight, were forced upstream against a swift current:

"Wherever a point projected so as to render the course or bend below it
of some magnitude, there was an eddy, the returning current of which
was sometimes as strong as that of the middle of the great stream. The
bargemen, therefore, rowed up pretty close under the bank and had merely
to keep watch in the bow lest the boat should run against a planter or
sawyer. But the boat has reached the point, and there the current is
to all appearance of double strength and right against it. The men, who
have rested a few minutes, are ordered to take their stations and lay
hold of their oars, for the river must be crossed, it being seldom
possible to double such a point and proceed along the same shore. The
boat is crossing, its head slanting to the current, which is, however,
too strong for the rowers, and when the other side of the river has been
reached, it has drifted perhaps a quarter of a mile. The men are by this
time exhausted and, as we shall suppose it to be 12 o'clock, fasten the
boat to a tree on the shore. A small glass of whiskey is given to
each, when they cook and eat their dinner and, after resting from their
fatigue for an hour, recommence their labors. The boat is again seen
slowly advancing against the stream. It has reached the lower end of a
sandbar, along the edge of which it is propelled by means of long poles,
if the bottom be hard. Two men, called bowsmen, remain at the prow to
assist, in concert with the steersman, in managing the boat and keeping
its head right against the current. The rest place themselves on the
land side of the footway of the vessel, put one end of their poles on
the ground and the other against their shoulders and push with all their
might. As each of the men reaches the stern, he crosses to the other
side, runs along it and comes again to the landward side of the bow,
when he recommences operations. The barge in the meantime is ascending
at a rate not exceeding one mile in the hour."

Trustworthy statistics as to the amount and character of the Western
river trade have never been gathered. They are to be found, if anywhere,
in the reports of the collectors of customs located at the various
Western ports of entry and departure. Nothing indicates more definitely
the hour when the West awoke to its first era of big business t