UPON arriving at Pittsburgh, on the morning of December 2d, 1875, after a dreary night's ride by rail from the Atlantic coast, I found my boat—it having preceded me—safely perched upon a pile of barrels in the freight-house of the railroad company, which was conveniently situated within a few rods of the muddy waters of the Monongahela.
The sneak-box, with the necessary stores for the cruise, was transported to the river's side, and as it was already a little past noon, and only a few hours of daylight left me, prudence demanded an instant departure in search of a more retired camping-ground than that afforded by the great city and its neighboring towns, with the united population of one hundred and eighty thousand souls. There was not one friend to give me a cheering word, the happy remembrance of which might encourage me all through my lonely voyage to the Gulf of Mexico.
The little street Arabs fought among themselves for the empty provision-boxes left upon the bank as I pushed my well-freighted boat out upon the whirling current that caught it in its strong embrace, and, like a true friend, never deserted or lured it into danger while I trusted to its vigorous help for more than two thousand miles, until the land of the orange and sugar-cane was reached, and its fresh, sweet waters were exchanged for the restless and treacherous waves of the briny sea. Ah, great river, you were indeed, of all material things, my truest friend for many a day!
The rains in the south had filled the gulches of the Virginia mountains, the sources of the Monongahela, and it now exhibited a great degree of turbulence. I was not then aware of the tumultuous state of the sister tributary, the Alleghany, on the other side of the city. I supposed that its upper affluents, congealed during the late cold weather, were quietly enjoying a winter's nap under the heavy coat in which Jack Frost had robed them. I expected to have an easy and uninterrupted passage down the river in advance of floating ice; and, so congratulating myself, I drew near to the confluence of the Monongahela and Alleghany, from the union of which the great Ohio has its birth, and rolls steadily across the country a thousand miles to the mightier Mississippi.
The current of the Monongahela, as it flowed from the south, covered with mists rising into the wintry air,—for the temperature was but a few degrees above zero,—had not a particle of ice upon its turbid bosom.
I rowed gayly on, pleased with the auspicious beginning of the voyage, hoping at the close of the month to be at the mouth of the river, and far enough south to escape any inconvenience from a sudden freezing of its surface, for along its course between its source at Pittsburgh and its debouchure at Cairo the Ohio makes only two hundred and twelve miles of southing,—a difference of about two and a half degrees of latitude. It is not surprising, therefore, that this river during exceedingly cold winters sometimes freezes over for a few days, from the state of Pennsylvania to its junction with the Mississippi.
In a few minutes my boat had passed nearly the whole length of the Pittsburgh shore, when suddenly, upon looking over my shoulder, I beheld the river covered with an ice-raft, which was passing out of the Alleghany, and which completely blocked the Ohio from shore to shore. French Creek, Oil Creek, and all the other tributaries of the Alleghany, had burst from their icy barriers, thrown off the wintry coat of mail, and were pouring their combined wrath into the Ohio.
This unforeseen trouble had to be met without much time for calculating the results of entering the ice-pack. A light canoe would have been ground to pieces in the multitude of icy cakes, but the half-inch skin of soft but elastic white swamp-cedar of the decked sneak-box, with its light oaken runner-strips firmly screwed to its bottom, was fully able to cope with the difficulty; so I pressed the boat into the floating ice, and by dint of hard work forced her several rods beyond the eddies, and fairly into the steady flow of the strong current of the river.
[The start—head of the Ohio River.]
There was nothing more to be done to expedite the journey, so I sat down in the little hold, and, wrapped comfortably in blankets, watched the progress made by the receding points of interest upon the high banks of the stream. Towards night some channel-ways opened in the pack, and, seizing upon the opportunity, I rowed along the ice-bound lanes until dusk, when happily a chance was offered for leaving the frosty surroundings, and the duck-boat was soon resting on a shelving, pebbly strand on the left bank of the river, two miles above the little village of Freedom.