Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 9).djvu/110

104 and settled like the Ohio Basin. What a line of daring voyageurs that was from La Salle to Céloron and Washington, who feasted their eyes upon the virgin beauty of La Belle Rivière, from their heavily-loaded, long canoes; in these craft came the explorers of Ohio and Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois; they ploughed the waters of the Muskingum far back in the distant day when those waters were, as the name implies, clear as an elk's eye; they forged slowly up the Licking and Scioto, the Beaver and the Kanawhas. In the early days the canoe was the customary bearer of two significant kinds of freight: wampum and Indian goods and presents, and packs of peltry. The history of the canoe cannot be repeated, for the Indians are vanished who loved the bright presents brought to them from the East; and the fur bearing animals which once supplied the eastern markets are gone. We speak of the value of our cargoes on the Ohio today; it is great, truly; but what would be the value today of the furs brought in one season down the Wabash, Licking, Miami, Scioto, Kanawha, Muskingum, and Beaver and up