as we are now getting, would cause a general activity. In the autumn
of 1818, Hall reports that three millions of dollars' worth of
merchandise were lying on the shores of the Monongahela, waiting for
a rise of water to float them to their destination. "The Western
merchants were lounging discontentedly about the streets of Pittsburg,
or moping idly in its taverns, like the victims of an ague." The
steamers did something to alleviate this condition of affairs; but
it was not until the coming of railways, to carry goods quickly
and cheaply across country to deep-water ports like Wheeling, that
permanent relief was felt.

But what of the Maysville of to-day? It extends on both sides of
Limestone Creek for about two miles along the Kentucky shore, at no
point apparently over five squares wide, and for the most part but
two or three; for back of it forested hills rise sharply. There is a
variety of industries, the business quarter is substantially built,
and there are numerous comfortable homes with pretty lawns.

On the opposite shore is Aberdeen, where Kentucky swains and lasses,
who for one reason or another fail to get a license at home, find
marriage made easy--a peaceful, pleasant, white village, with trees
a-plenty, and romantic hills shutting out the north wind.

We are camped to-night on a picturesque sand-slope, at the foot of
a willow-edged bottom, and some seven feet above the river level. We
need to perch high, for the storm has been general through the basin,
and the Ohio is rising steadily.

[Footnote A: See Shaler's _Kentucky_ (Amer. Commonwealth series),
Collins's _History of Kentucky_, and Hale's _Trans-Alleghany
Pioneers_. Shaler gives the date as 1756; but Hale, a specialist in
border annals, makes it 1755.]

[Footnote B: See _ante_, p. 126.]

[Footnote C: Palmer (1817) paid five dollars for his passage from
Pittsburg to Cincinnati (465 miles), without food, and fifty cents per
hundred pounds for freight to Marietta. Imlay (1792) says the rate
in his time from Pittsburg to Limestone was twenty-five cents per
hundred. In 1803, Harris paid four dollars-and-a-half per hundred for
freight, by wagon from Baltimore to Pittsburg.]

CHAPTER XIV.

Produce boats--A dead town--On the Great Bend--Grant's
birthplace--The Little Miami--The genesis of Cincinnati.

Point Pleasant, O., Wednesday, May 23rd.--The river rose three feet
during the night. Steamers go now at full speed, no longer fe