, the communities show signs of decay.

We had been told, above, that Huntington, W. Va. (306 miles), was "a
right smart chunk of a town." And it is. There are sixteen thousand
people here, in a finely-built city spread over a broad, flat plain.
Brick and stone business buildings abound; the broad streets are
paved with brick, and an electric-car line runs out along the bottom,
through the suburb of Ceredo, W. Va., to Catlettsburg, Ky., nine miles
away. Huntington is the center of a large group of riverside towns
supported by iron-making and other industries--Guyandotte and Ceredo,
in West Virginia; Catlettsburg, just over the border in Kentucky; and
Proctorville, Broderickville, Frampton, Burlington, and South Point,
on the opposite shore.

We are camping to-night in the dense willow grove which lines the West
Virginia beach from Huntington to the Big Sandy. Above us, on the wide
terrace, are fields and orchards, beyond which we occasionally hear
the gong of electric cars. A public path runs by the tent, leading
from the lower settlements into Huntington. Among our visitors have
been two houseboat men, whose craft is moored a quarter of a mile
below. One of them is tall, thick-set, forty, with a round, florid
face, and huge mustaches,--evidently a jolly fellow at his best,
despite a certain dubious, piratical air; a jaunty, narrow-brimmed
straw hat is perched over one ear, to add to the general effect;
and between his teeth a corn-cob pipe. His younger companion is
medium-sized, slim, and loose-jointed, with a baggy gait, his cap
thrown over his head, with the visor in the rear--a rustic clown, not
yet outgrown his freckles. But three weeks from the parental farm in
Putnam County, Ky., the world is as yet a romance to him. The
fellow is interesting, because in him can be seen the genesis of a
considerable element of the houseboat fraternity. I wonder how long it
will be before his partner has him broken in as a river-pirate of the
first water.

[Footnote A: Washington was much interested in a plan to connect, by a
canal, the James and Great Kanawha Rivers, separated at their sources
by a portage of but a few miles in length. The distance from Point
Pleasant to Richmond is 485 miles. In 1785, Virginia incorporated the
James River Company, of which Washington was the first president. The
project hung fire, because of "party spirit and sectional jealousies,"
until 1832, when a new company was incorporated, under which