Henderson (795 miles) is a substantial Kentucky town of nine thousand souls, with large tobacco interests, we are told, ranking next to Louisville in this regard. Through the morning, the mist had been thickening. While we were passing beneath the railway bridge at Henderson, thunder sounded, and the western sky suddenly blackened. Pulling rapidly in to the town shore, shelter was found beneath the overhanging deck of a deserted wharf-boat. We had just completed preparations with the rubber blankets and ponchos, when the deluge came. But the sheltering deck was not water-tight; soon the rain came pouring in upon us through the uncaulked cracks, and we were nearly as badly off in our close-smelling quarters as in the open. However, we were a merry party under there, with the Doctor giving us a touch of "Br'er Rabbit," and the boy relating a fantastic dream he had had on the Towhead last night; while I told them the story of Audubon, whose name will ever be associated with Henderson.
The great naturalist was in business at Louisville, early in the century; but in 1812, he failed in this venture, and moved to Henderson, where his neighbors thought him a trifle daft,—and certainly he was a ne'er-do-well, wandering around the woods, with hair hanging down on his shoulders, a far-away look in his eyes, and communing with the birds. In 1818, the botanist Rafinesque, on the first of his several tramps down the Ohio valley,—he had a favorite saying, that the only way for a botanist to travel, was to walk,—stopped over at Henderson to visit this crazy fellow of whom he had heard. Rafinesque had a hope that Audubon might buy some of his colored drawings; but when he saw the wonderful pictures which Audubon had made, he acknowledged that his own were inferior—a sore confession for Rafinesque, who was an egotist of the first water. Audubon had but humble quarters, for it was hard work in those days for him to keep the wolf from the door; nevertheless, he entertained the distinguished traveler, whom he was himself destined to far eclipse. One night, a bat flew into Rafinesque's bedroom, and in driving it out he used his host's fine Cremona as a club, thus making kindling-wood of it. Two years later, still steeped in poverty, Audubon left Henderson. It was 1826 before he became known to the world of science, when little of his life was left in which to enjoy the fame at last awarded him.
We had lunch on Henderson Island, three miles down, and for warmth walked briskly about on the strand, among the willow clumps. It rained again, after we had taken our seats in the boat, and the head-wind which sprang up was not unwelcome, for it necessitated a right lively pull to make headway. W—— and the Boy, in the stern-sheets, were not uncomfortable when swathed to the chin in the blankets which ordinarily serve us as cushions.
Ten miles below Henderson, was a little fleet of houseboats, lying in a thicket of willows along the Indiana beach. We stopped at one of them, and bought a small catfish for dinner. The fishermen seemed a happy company, in this isolated spot. The women were engaged in household work, but the men were spending the afternoon collected in the cabin of one of their number, who had recently arrived from Green River. While waiting for the fish to be caught in a live-box, I visited with the little band. It was a comfortable room, furnished rather better than the average shore cabin, and the Green River man's family of half-a-dozen were well-kept, pleasant-faced, and polite. Altogether it was a much more respectable houseboat company than any we have yet seen on the river. But the fish-stories which that Green River man tells, with an honest-like, open-eyed sobriety, would do credit to Munchausen.
The rain, at first spasmodic, became at last persistent. Two miles farther down, at Cypress Bend (806 miles), we ran into an Indiana hill, where on a steep slope of yellow shale, all strewn with rocks, our tent was hurriedly pitched. There was no driving of pegs into this stony base, so we weighted down the canvas with round-heads, and fastened our guys to bushes and boulders as best we might. Huddled around the little stove, under the fly, the crew dined sumptuously en course, from canned soup down to strawberries for dessert,—for Evansville is a good market. It is not always, we pilgrims fare thus high—the resources of Rome, Thebes, Bethlehem, Herculaneum, and the other classic towns with which the Ohio's banks are dotted, being none of the best. Some days, we are fortunate to have aught in our larder.
Brown's Island, Wednesday, 6th.—This morning's camp-fire was welcome for its warmth. The sky has been clear, but a sharp, cold wind has prevailed throughout the day, quite counteracting the sun's rays; we noticed townsfolk going about in overcoats, their hands in their pockets. In the ox-bow curves, the breeze came in turn from every quarter, sometimes dead ahead and again pushing us swiftly on. In seeking the lee shore, Pilgrim pursued a zigzag course, back and forth between the States,—now under the brow of towering clay banks, corrugated by the flood, and honeycombed by swallows, which in flocks screamed and circled over our heads; again, closely brushing the fringe of willows and sycamores and maples on low-lying shores. Thus did we for the most part paddle in placid water, while above us the wind whistled in the tree-tops, rustled the blooming elders and the tall grasses of the plain, and, out in the open river, caused white-caps to dance right merrily.
We met at intervals to-day, several houseboats, the most of them bearing the inscription prescribed by the new Kentucky license law, which is now being enforced, the essential features of which inscription are the home and name of the owner, and the date at which the license expires. The standard of education among houseboaters is evinced by the legend borne by a trader's craft which we boarded near Slim Island: "Lisens exp.rs Maye the 24 1895." The young woman in charge, a slender creature in a brilliant red calico gown, with blue ribbons at the corsage, had been but recently married to her lord, who was back in the country stirring up trade. She had few notions of business, and allowed us to put our own prices on such articles as we purchased. The stock was a curious medley—a few staple groceries, bacon and dried beef, candies, crockery, hardware, tobacco, a small line of patent medicines, in which blood-purifiers chiefly prevailed, bitters, ginger beer, and a glass case in which were displayed two or three women's straw hats, gaudily-trimmed. The woman said their custom was, to tie up to some convenient shore and "buy a little stuff o' the farmers, 'n' in that way trade springs up," and thus become known. Two or three weeks would exhaust any neighborhood, whereupon they would move on for a dozen miles or so. Late in the autumn, they select a comfortable beach, and lie by for the winter.
Mt. Vernon, Ind. (819 miles), is on a high, rolling plain, with a rather pretty little court-house set in a park of grass, some good business buildings, and huge flouring-mills, which appear to be the leading industry. Another flouring-mill town, with the addition of the characteristic Kentucky distillery, is Uniontown (833 miles), on the southern shore—a bright, neat little city, backed by smooth, picturesque green hills.
The feature of the day was the entrance, through a dreary stretch of clay banks, of the Wabash River (838 miles), which divides Indiana from Illinois. Three hundred and sixty yards wide at the mouth, about half the width of the Ohio, it is the most important of the latter's northern affluents, and pours into the main stream a swift-rushing body of clear, green water, which at first boldly pushes over to the heavily-willowed Kentucky shore the roily mess of the Ohio, and for several miles exerts a considerable influence in clarification. The Lower Wabash, flowing through a soft clay bottom, runs an erratic course, and its mouth is a variable location, so that the bounds of Illinois and Indiana, hereabout, fluctuate east and west according to the exigencies of the floods. The far-reaching bottom itself, however, is apparently of slight value, giving evidence, in the dreary clumps of dead timber, of being frequently inundated.