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178 he sets out again; this is repeated, until perhaps getting tired of this mode of merchandizing, he sets himself down in some town or village as a wholesale merchant, druggist or apothecary, practicing physician, or lawyer, or something else, that renders him respectable in the eyes of his neighbors, where he lives amidst wealth and comforts the remainder of his days—nor is it by any known that his fortune was founded in the paddling of a canoe, or trafficking in apples, cider-royal, peach-brandy, whiskey, &c. &c. &c."

This refers to the early trader; the house-boater of the later day was not, primarily, engaged in any trade, though many were. Nearly every kind of a shop known on land has floated on the Ohio. As a class, however, the proprietors of these craft were, and are, fishermen. "Queer people you meet on the river," wrote a correspondent who recently journeyed down the Ohio by canoe, "but perhaps the most interesting of all are the 'shanty-boat' tribe. We had had a long, hard morning's pull against head winds and had made little progress, were behind time and were dis-