The Boy and I made an expedition into the town, for milk and water, but were obliged to climb one of the sharpest ascents hereabout, before our search was rewarded. A pretty little farmstead it is, up there on the lofty hill above us, with a wealth of chickens and an ample dairy, and fat fields and woods gently sloping backward into the interior. The good farm-wife was surprised that I was willing to "pack" commodities, so plentiful with her, down so steep a path; but canoeing pilgrims must not falter at trifles such as this.
Point Pleasant is the birthplace of General Grant. Not every hamlet has its hero, hereabout. Everyone we met this evening,—seeing we were strangers, the Boy and I,—told us of this halo which crowns their home.
Cincinnati, Thursday, May 24th.—During the night there were frequent heavy downpours, during which the swollen torrent by our side roared among its boulders right lustily; and occasionally a heavy farm-wagon crossed the country bridge which spans the ravine just above us, its rumblings echoing in the quarried glen for all the world like distant thunder. Before turning in, each built a cairn upon the beach, at the point which he thought the water might reach by morning. The Boy, more venturesome than the rest, piled his cairn highest up the slope; and when daylight revealed the fact that the river, in its four-feet rise, had crept nearest his goal, there was much juvenile rejoicing.
There is a gray sky, this morning. With a cold headwind on the starboard quarter, we hug the lee of the Ohio shore. The river is well up in the willows now. Crowding Pilgrim as closely as we may, within the narrow belt of unruffled water, our oars are swept by their bending boughs, which lightly tremble on the surface of the flood. The numerous rock-cumbered ravines, coursing down the hills or through the bottom lands, a few days since held but slender streams, or were, the most of them, wholly dry; but now they are brimming with noisy currents all flecked with foam—pretty pictures, these yawning gullies, overhung with cottonwoods and sycamores, with thick undergrowth of green-brier and wild columbine, and the yellow buds of the celandine poppy.
The hills are showing better cultivation, as we approach the great city. The farm-houses are in better style, the market gardens larger, prosperity more evident. Among the pleasing sights are frequent farmsteads at the summits of the slopes, with orchards and vineyards, and gardens and fields, stretching down almost to the river—quite, indeed, on the Ohio side, but in Kentucky flanked at the base by the railway terrace. Numerous ferries connect the Kentucky railway stations with the eastern bank; one, which we saw just above New Richmond, O. (446 miles), was run by horse power, a weary nag in a tread-mill above each side-paddle. Although Kentucky has the railway, there is just here apparent a greater degree of thrift in Ohio—the towns more numerous, fields and truck-gardens more ample, on the whole a better class of farm-houses, and frequently, along the country road which closely skirts the shore, comfortable little broad-balconied inns, dependent on the trade of fishing and outing parties.
Just below the Newport waterworks are several coal-barge harbors—mooring-grounds where barges lie in waiting, until hauled off by tugs to the storage wharves. In the rear of one of these fleets, at the base of a market garden, we found a sunny nook for lunch—for here on the Kentucky side the cold wind has full sweep, and we are glad of shelter when at rest. Across the river is a broad, low bottom given up to market gardeners, who jealously cultivate down to the water's edge, leaving the merest fringe of willows to protect their domain. At the foot of this fertile plain, the Little Miami River (460 miles) pours its muddy contribution into the Ohio; and beyond this rises the amphitheater of hills on which Cincinnati (466 miles) is mainly built. We see but the outskirts here, for two miles below us there is a sharp bend in the river, and only a dark pall of smoke marks where the city lies. But these outlying slopes are well dotted with gray and white groups of settlement, separated by stretches of woodland over which play changing lights, for cloud masses are sweeping the Ohio hills while we are still basking in the sun.
Above us, crowning the Kentucky ascents, or nestled on their wooded shoulders, are many beautiful villas, evidently the homes of the ultra-wealthy. Close at hand we have the pleasant chink-chink of caulking hammers, for barges are built and repaired in this snug harbor. Now and then a river tug comes, with noisy bluster of smoke and steam, and amid much tightening and slackening of rope, and wild profanity, takes captive a laden barge,—as a cowboy might a refractory steer in the midst of a herd,—and hauls it off to be disgorged down stream. And just as we conclude our lunch, German women come with hoes to practice the gentle art of horticulture—a characteristic conglomeration, in the heart of our busy West; the millionaire on the hill-top, the tiller on the slope, shipwright on the beach, and grimy Commerce master of the flood.
Setting afloat on a boiling current, thick with driftwood, we soon were coursing between city-lined shores—on the Kentucky side, Newport and Covington, respectively above and below Licking River; and in an hour were making our way through the labyrinth of steamers thickly moored with their noses to land, and cautiously creeping around to a quiet spot at the stern of a giant wharf-boat—no slight task this, with the river "on the jump," and a false move liable to swamp us if we strike an obstruction at full gait. No doubt we all breathed freer when Pilgrim, too, was beached,—although it be only confessed in the privacy of the log. With her and her cargo safely stored in the wharf-boat, we sought a hotel, and, regaining our bag of clothing,—shipped ahead of us from McKee's Rocks,—donned urban attire for an inspection of the city.