The levee in a river town, before the railroads came snorting and puffing across country and interfering with the monopoly so long enjoyed by the steamboat, was a scene of continuous turmoil and activity. Sometimes, now, one sees on a levee a great deal of hurrying and noise. But the busiest scenes of to-day sink into insignificance compared with those which are rapidly becoming little more than an indistinct memory. The immense cargoes of freight of every description would be ranged along the river front, and little flags could be seen in every direction.

These flags were not, perhaps, exactly evidence of the activity of the schoolmaster, or of the prevalence of superior education. They were, rather, reminders of the fact that a great majority of the rank and file of river workers could read little, and write less. To tell a colored roustabout twenty or thirty years ago to fetch a certain cargo, labeled with the name of a particular boat or consignee, would have been to draw from the individual addressed a genuine old-time plantation grin, with some caustic observation about lack of school facilities in the days when the roustabout ought to have been studying the "three Rs," but was not. It was, however, comparatively easy to locate a cargo by means of a flag, and identification seldom failed, as the flags could be varied in color, shape and size, so as to provide distinction as well as difference.

Those who remember the busy levee scene, with the flag adornment referred to, will agree that there was something picturesque as well as noisy about the old river days, and will be inclined to regret, and almost deplore, the fact that things are not, from a river man's standpoint, what they were.

In no country in the world has railroad building been carried on with so much enterprise as in our native land. Prior to the enormous expenditure on track building and railroad equipment, advantage had to be taken of the extraordinary opportunities for navigation and transportation afforded by the great waterways of the country. As railroads were naturally built in the East before the West, the value of our Middle and Western waterways is naturally best understood by the average reader, because they continued to play an indispensable part in the transaction of business of every character until quite a recent period.

The Eastern rivers are less magnificent in extent and volume than those of the West, though many of them are picturesque and attractive in the extreme. The Hudson has often been spoken of as the "Thames of America," not because there is any resemblance between the length of the two rivers upon which are situated the two greatest cities of modern times. The simile is the result rather of the immense number of costly family residences and summer resorts built along the banks of both rivers.

In another chapter we say something of a trip down the picturesque Hudson, whose banks are lined with historic landmarks and points of pressing interest. We give an illustration of a pleasure boat on the Hudson, which reminds one of many delightful river trips taken at various periods, and also of the events of national importance which centered around the river that is crowded, year after year, with pleasure-seekers from the overcrowded metropolis at its mouth.

A Fin de Siecle Pleasure Steamer

The Mississippi River is the largest and grandest in North America. A few miles above St. Louis it is joined by the Missouri River, and if the distance from the source of the latter to the Gulf of Mexico be calculated, the longest river in the world is found. At a considerable distance from the source of the Father of Waters are the Falls of St. Anthony, discovered more than two hundred years ago by enterprising pioneers, who thought they had discovered the headwaters of the great river. The scenery of the river at the falls and beyond them is very attractive, and in many cases so beautiful as to be beyond verbal description. In many other parts of the river the scenery is grand, though occasionally there are long stretches of flat country which are inclined to become monotonous and barren of poetic thought.