Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/272

 (like young bears, according to his phrase) that they scuffle for hours without drawing blood, and when their breath is exhausted they will sit down quietly to recruit, and then "up and at it again."

We picked some fine wild greens (lamb's quarters) and got some milk, and next morning,

May 14th, proceeded. At eight miles below we passed some good settlements on the right, and a ferry, from whence a trace is opened seventy-five miles, to Vincennes. Leaving Sinking creek on the right, and a large double log cabin and very fine settlement on the left, ten miles more brought us to squire Tobin's on the Indiana side, where we landed in the skiff. The squire has opened a fine farm in the three years he has been from Redstone, Pennsylvania.

A keel of forty tons came to the landing at the same time we did. She was worked by a horizontal wheel, kept in motion by six horses going round in a circle on a gallery above the boat, by which are turned two cog wheels fixed each to an axle which projects over both gunwales of the boat, one before and the other behind the horizontal wheel. Eight paddles are fixed on the projecting end of each axle, which impel the boat about five or six miles an hour, so that she can be forced against the current about twenty miles a day. One Brookfield, the owner, who conducts the boat, had her built last year about two miles above Louisville, in Kentucky, and then went in her to New Orleans, from whence he was now {240} returning, disposing of a cargo of sugar from place to place in his ascent. He expected to get home and to commence a second voyage in about a month. Seven horses had died during the voyage, and he had only two remaining of the first set he had commenced with.