The story of North Bend--The "shakes"--Driftwood--Rabbit
Hash--A side-trip To Big Bone Lick.
Near Petersburg, Ky., Friday, May 25th.--This morning, an hour before
noon, as we looked upon the river from the top of the Cincinnati
wharf, a wild scene presented itself. The shore up and down, as far as
could be seen, was densely lined with packets and freighters; beyond
them, the great stream, here half a mile wide, was rushing past like a
mill-race, and black with all manner of drift, some of it formed into
great rafts from each of which sprawled a network of huge branches.
Had we been strangers to this offscouring of a thousand miles of
beach, swirling past us at a six-mile gait, we might well have doubted
the prudence of launching little Pilgrim upon such a sea. But for two
days past, we had been amidst something of the sort, and knew that to
cautious canoeists it was less dangerous than it appeared.
A strong head wind, meeting this surging tide, is lashing it into
a white-capped fury. But lying to with paddle and oars, and dodging
ferries and towing-tugs as best we may, Pilgrim bears us swiftly past
the long line of steamers at the wharf, past Newport and Covington,
and the insignificant Licking,[A] and out under great railway
bridges which cobweb the sky. Soon Cincinnati, shrouded in smoke,
has disappeared around the bend, and we are in the fast-thinning
suburbs--homes of beer-gardens and excursion barges, havens for
freight-flats, and villas of low and high degree.
When we are out here in the swim, the drift-strewn stream has a more
peaceful aspect than when looked at from the shore. Instead of rushing
past as if dooming to destruction everything else afloat, the debris
falls behind, when we row, for our progress is then the greater.
Dropping our oars, our gruesome companions on the river pass us
slowly, for they catch less wind than we; and then, so silent the
steady march of all, we seem to be drifting up-stream, until on
glancing at the shore the hills appear to be swiftly going down and
the willow fringes up,--until the sight makes us dizzy, and we are
content to be at quits with these optical delusions.
We no longer have the beach of gravel or sand, or strip of clay
knee-deep in mud. The water, now twelve feet higher than before
the rise, has covered all; it is, indeed, swaying the branches of
sycamores and willows, and meeting the edges of the corn-fields of
venturesome farmers who have cultivated far down, taking the risk of
a "June fresh." Often could we, if we wished, row quite within the
bulwark of willows, where a week ago we would have ventured to camp.
The Kentucky side, to-day, from Covington out, has been thoroughly
rustic, seldom broken by settlement; while Ohio has given us a
succession of suburban towns all the way out to North Bend (482
miles), which is a small manufacturing place, lying on a narrow bottom
at the base of a convolution of gentle, wooded hills. One sees that
Cincinnati has a better and a broader base; North Bend was handicapped
by nature, in its early race.
When Ohio came into the Union (1803), it was specified that the
boundary between her and Indiana should be a line running due north
from the mouth of the Big Miami. But the latter, an erratic stream,
frequently the victim of floods, comes wriggling down to the Ohio
through a broad bottom grown thick to willows, and in times of high
water its mouth is a changeable locality. The boundary monument is
planted on the meridian of what was the mouth, ninety-odd years ago;
but to-day the Miami breaks through an opening in the quivering line
of willow forest, a hundred yards eastward (487 miles).
Garrison Creek is a modest Kentucky affluent, just above the Miami's
mouth. At the point, a group of rustics sat on a log at the bank-top,
watching us approach. Landing in search of milk and water, I was taken
by one of them in a lumbersome skiff a short distance up the creek,
and presented to his family. They are genuine "crackers," of the
coarsest type--tall, lean, sallow, fishy-eyed, with tow-colored hair,
an ungainly gait, barefooted, and in nondescript clothing all patches
and tatters. The tousle-headed woman, surrounded by her copies in
miniature, keeps the milk neatly, in an outer dairy, perhaps because
of market requirements; but in the crazy old log-house, pigs and
chickens are free comers, and the cistern from which they drink is
foul. Here in this damp, low pocket of a bottom, annually flooded to
the door-sill, in the midst of vegetation of the rankest order, and
quite unheedful of the simplest of sanitary laws, these yellow-skinned
"crackers" are cradled, wedded, and biered. And there are thousands
like unto them, for we are now in the heart of the "shake" country,
and shall hear enough of the plague through the remainder of our
pilgrimage. As for ourselves, we fear not, for it is not until autumn
that danger is imminent, and we are taking due precaution under the
Doctor's guidance.
Two miles beyond, is the Indiana town of Lawrenceburg, with the
unkempt aspect so common to the small river places; and two miles
still farther, on a Kentucky bottom, Petersburg, whose chiefest
building, as viewed from the stream, is a huge distillery. On a high
sandy terrace, a mile or so below, we pitch our nightly camp. All
about are willows, rustling musically in the evening breeze, and,
soaring far aloft, the now familiar sycamores. Nearly opposite, in
Indiana, the little city of Aurora is sparkling with points of light,
strains of dance music reach us over the way, and occasional shouts
and gay laughter; while now and then, in the thickening dusk of the
long day, we hear skiffs go chucking by from Petersburg way, and the
gleeful voices of men and women doubtless being ferried to the ball.
* * * * *
Near Warsaw, Ky., Saturday, May 26th.--Our first mosquito appeared
last night, but he was easily slaughtered. It has been a comfort to
be free, thus far, from these pests of camp life. We had prepared
for them by laying in a bolt of black tarlatan at Wheeling,--greatly
superior this, to ordinary white mosquito bar,--but thus far it has
remained in the shopman's wrapper.
The fog this morning was of the heaviest. At 4 o'clock we were
awakened by the sharp clanging of a pilot's signal bell, and there,
poking her nose in among our willows, a dozen feet from the tent, was
the "Big Sandy," one of the St. Louis & Cincinnati packet line.
She had evidently lost her bearings in the mist; but with a deal
of ringing, and a noisy churning of the water by the reversed
paddle-wheel, pulled out and disappeared into the gloom.
The river, still rising, is sweeping down an ever-increasing body of
rubbish. Islands and beaches, away back to the Alleghanies on the main
stream, and on thousands of miles of affluents, are yielding up those
vast rafts of drift-wood and fallen timber, which have continually
impressed us on our way with a sense of the enormous wastage
everywhere in progress--necessary, of course, in view of the
prohibitive cost of transportation. Nevertheless, one thinks pitifully
of the tens of thousands who, in congested districts, each winter
suffer unto death for want of fuel; and here is this wealth of forest
debris, the useless plaything of the river. But not only wreckage of
this character is borne upon the flood. The thievish river has picked
up valuable saw-logs that have run astray, lumber of many sorts,
boxes, barrels--and now and then the body of a cow or horse that
has tumbled to its death from some treacherous clay-cliff or rocky
terrace. The beaches have been swept clean by the rushing flood, of
whatever lay upon them, be it good or bad, for the great scavenger
exercises no discretion.
The bulk of the matter now follows the current in an almost solid
raft, as it caroms from shore to shore. Having swift water everywhere
at this stage, for the most part we avoid entangling Pilgrim in the
procession, but row upon the outskirts, interested in the curious
medley, and observant of the many birds which perch upon the branches
of the floating trees and sing blithely on their way. The current
bears hard upon the Aurora beach, and townsfolk by scores are out in
skiffs or are standing by the water's edge, engaged with boat-hooks in
spearing choice morsels from the debris rushing by their door--heaping
it upon the shore to dry, or gathering it in little rafts which they
moor to the bank. It is a busy scene; the wreckers, men, women, and
children alike, are so engaged in their grab-bag game that they
have no eyes for us; unobserved, we watch them at close range, and
speculate upon their respective chances.
Rabbit Hash, Ky. (502 miles), is a crude hamlet of a hundred souls,
lying nestled in a green amphitheater. A horse-power ferry runs over
to the larger village of Rising Sun, its Indiana neighbor. There is
a small general store in Rabbit Hash, with postoffice and paint-shop
attachment, and near by a tobacco warehouse and a blacksmith shop,
with a few cottages scattered at intervals over the bottom. The
postmaster, who is also the storekeeper and painter, greeted me with
joy, as I deposited with him mail-matter bearing eighteen cents' worth
of stamps; for his is one of those offices where the salary is the
value of the stamps cancelled. It is not every day that so liberal a
patron comes along.
"Jemimi! Bill! but guv'm'nt business 's look'n' up--there'll be some
o' th' rest o' us a-want'n this yere off'c', a ter nex' 'lection, I
reck'n'."
It was the blacksmith, who is also the ferryman, who thus bantered the
delighted postmaster,--a broad-faced, big-chested, brown-armed man,
with his neck-muscles standing out like cords, and his mild blue eyes
dancing with fun, this rustic disciple of Tubal Cain. He sat just
without the door, leather apron on, and his red shirt-sleeves rolled
up, playing checkers on an upturned soap-box, with a jolly fat farmer
from the hill-country, whose broad straw hat was cocked on the back
of his bald head. The merry laughter of the two was infectious. The
half-dozen spectators, small farmers whose teams and saddle-horses
were hitched to the postoffice railing, were themselves hilarious
over the game; and a saffron-skinned, hollow-cheeked woman in a blue
sunbonnet, and with a market-basket over her arm, stopped for a moment
at the threshold to look on, and then passed within the store, her
eyes having caught the merriment, although her facial muscles had
apparently lost their power of smiling.
Joining the little company, I found that the farmer was a blundering
player, but made up in fun what he lacked in science. I tried to
ascertain the origin of the name Rabbit Hash, as applied to the
hamlet. Every one had a different opinion, evidently invented on the
spur of the moment, but all "'lowed" that none but the tobacco
agent could tell, and he was off in the country for the day; as for
themselves, they had, they confessed, never thought of it before. It
always had been Rabbit Hash, and like enough would be to the end of
time.
We are on the lookout for Big Bone Creek, wishing to make a side trip
to the famous Big Bone Lick, but among the many openings through the
willows of the Kentucky shore we may well miss it, hence make constant
inquiry as we proceed. There was a houseboat in the mouth of one
goodly affluent. As we hove in sight, a fat woman, whose gunny-sack
apron was her chief attire, hurried up the gang-plank and disappeared
within.
"Hello, the boat!" one of us hailed.
The woman's fuzzy head appeared at the window.
"What creek is this?"
"Gunpowder, I reck'n!"--in a deep, man-like voice.
"How far below is Big Bone?"
"Jist a piece!"
"How many miles?"
"Two, I reck'n."
Big Bone Creek (512 miles), some fifty or sixty feet wide at the
mouth, opens through a willow patch, between pretty, sloping hills. A
houseboat lay just within--a favorite situation for them, these
creek mouths, for here they are undisturbed by steamer wakes,
and the fishing is usually good. The proprietor, a rather
distinguished-looking mulatto, despite his old clothes and plantation
straw-hat, was sitting in a chair at his cabin door, angling; his
white wife was leaning over him lovingly, as we shot into the scene,
but at once withdrew inside. This man, with his side-whiskers and fine
air, may have been a head-waiter or a dance-fiddler in better days;
but his soft, plaintive voice, and hacking cough, bespoke the invalid.
He told us what he knew about the creek, which was little enough, as
he had but recently come to these parts.
At an ordinary stage in the Ohio, the Big Bone cannot be ascended in a
skiff for more than half a mile; now, upon the backset, we are able to
proceed for two miles, leaving but another two miles of walking to
the Lick itself. The creek curves gracefully around the bases of the
sugar-loaf hills of the interior. Under the swaying arch of willows,
and of ragged, sprawling sycamores, their bark all patched with green
and gray and buff and white, we have charming vistas--the quiet
water, thick grown with aquatic plants; the winding banks, bearing
green-dragons and many another flower loving damp shade; the
frequent rocky palisades, oozing with springs; and great blue herons,
stretching their long necks in wonder, and then setting off with
a stately flight which reminds one of the cranes on Japanese ware.
Through the dense fringe of vegetation, we have occasional glimpses of
the hillside farms--their sloping fields sprinkled with stones, their
often barren pastures, numerous abandoned tracts overgrown with weeds,
and blue-grass lush in the meadows. Along the edges of the Creek, and
in little pocket bottoms, the varied vegetation has a sub-tropical
luxuriance, and in this now close, warm air, there is a rank smell
suggestive of malaria.
These bottoms are annually overflowed, so that the crude little
farmsteads are on the rising ground--whitewashed cabins, many of them
of logs, serve as houses; for stock, there are the veriest shanties,
affording practically no shelter; best of all, the rude tobacco-drying
sheds, in many of which some of last year's crop can still be seen,
hanging on the strips. We are out of the world, here; and barefooted
men and boys, who with listless air are fishing from the banks, gaze
at us in dull wonder as we thread our tortuous way.
Finally, we learned that we could with profit go no higher. Before
us were two miles of what was described as the roughest sort of
hill road, and the afternoon sun was powerful; so W---- accepted the
invitation of a rustic fisherman to rest with his "women folks" in
a little cabin up the hill a bit. Seeing her safely housed with the
good-natured "cracker" farm-wife, the Doctor, the Boy, and I trudged
off toward Big Bone Lick. The waxy clay of the roadbed had recently
been wetted by a shower; the walking, consequently, was none of the
best. But we were repaid with charming views of hill and vale, a
softly-rolling scene dotted with little gray and brown fields, clumps
of woodland, rail-fenced pastures, and cabins of the crudest sort--for
in the autumn-tide, the curse of malaria haunts the basin of the
Big Bone, and none but he of fortune spurned would care here in this
beauty-spot to plant his vine and fig-tree. Now and then our path
leads us across the winding creek, which in these upper reaches
tumbles noisily over ledges of jagged rock, above which luxuriant
sycamores, and elms, and maples arch gracefully. At each picturesque
fording-place, with its inevitable watering-pool, are stepping-stones
for foot pilgrims; often a flock of geese are sailing in the pool,
with craned necks and flapping wings hissing defiance to disturbers of
their sylvan peace.
The travelers we meet are on horseback--most of them the
yellow-skinned, hollow-cheeked folk, with lack-luster eyes, whom we
note in the cabin doors, or dawdling about their daily routine.
On nearing the Lick, two young horsewomen, out of the common, look
interestedly at us, and I stop to inquire the way, although the
village spire is peering above the tree-tops yonder. Pretty, buxom,
sweet-faced lassies, these, with soft, pleasant voices, each with her
market-basket over her arm, going homeward from shopping. It would
be interesting to know their story--what it is that brings these
daughters of a brighter world here into this valley of the living
death.
Two hundred yards farther, where the road forks, and the one at the
right hand ascends to the small hamlet of Big Bone Lick, there is
an interesting picture beneath the way-post: a girl in a blue calico
gown, her face deep hidden in her red sunbonnet, sits upon a chestnut
mount, with a laden market-basket before her; while by her side,
astride a coal-black pony, which fretfully paws to be on his way, is a
roughly dressed youth, his face shaded by a broad slouched hat of the
cowboy order. They have evidently met there by appointment, and are
so earnestly conversing--she with her hand resting lovingly, perhaps
deprecatingly, upon his bridle-arm, and his free hand nervously
stroking her horse's mane, while his eyes are far afield--that they do
not observe us as we pass; and we are free to weave from the incident
any sort of cracker romance which fancy may dictate.
The source of Big Bone Creek is a marshy basin some fifty acres in
extent, rimmed with gently-sloping hills, and freely pitted with
copious springs of a water strongly sulphurous in taste, with a
suggestion of salt. The odor is so powerful as to be all-pervading,
a quarter of a mile away, and to be readily detected at twice that
distance. This collection of springs constitutes Big Bone Lick,
probably the most famous of the many similar licks in Kentucky,
Indiana, and Illinois.
The salt licks of the Ohio basin were from the earliest times resorted
to in great numbers by wild beasts, and were favorite camping-grounds
for Indians, and for white hunters and explorers. This one was first
visited by the French as early as 1729, and became famous because
of the great quantities of remains of animals which lay all over the
marsh, particularly noticeable being the gigantic bones of the extinct
mammoth--hence the name adopted by the earliest American hunters, "Big
Bone." These monsters had evidently been mired in the swamp, while
seeking to lick the salty mud, and died in their tracks. Pioneer
chronicles abound in references to the Lick, and we read frequently
of hunting-parties using the ribs of the mammoth for tent poles, and
sections of the vertebrae as camp stools and tables. But in our own
day, there are no surface evidences of this once rich treasure of
giant fossils; although occasionally a "find" is made by enterprising
excavators,--several bones having thus been unearthed only a week ago.
They are now on exhibition in the neighboring village, preparatory to
being shipped to an Eastern museum.
As we hurried back over the rolling highway, thunder-clouds grandly
rose out of the west, and great drops of rain gave us moist warning
of the coming storm. W---- was watching us from the cabin door, as we
made the last turning in the road, and, accompanied by the farm-wife
and her two daughters, came tripping down to the landing. She had been
entertained in the one down-stairs room, as royally as these honest
cracker women-folk knew how; seated in the family rocking-chair, she
had heard in those two hours the social gossip of a wide neighborhood;
learned, too, that the cold, wet weather of the last fortnight had
killed turkey-chicks and goslings by the score; heard of the damage
being done to corn and tobacco, by the prevalent high water; was told
how Bess and Brindle fared, off in the rocky pasture which yields
little else than mulleins; and how far back Towser had to go, to claim
relationship to a collie. "And weren't we really show-people, going
down the river this way, in a skiff? or, if we weren't show-people,
had we an agency for something? or, were we only in trade?" It seems a
difficult task to make these people on the bottoms believe that we are
skiffing it for pleasure--it is a sort of pleasure so far removed from
their notions of the fitness of things; and so at last we have given
up trying, and let them think of our pilgrimage what they will.
The entire family now assembled on the muddy bank, and bade us a
really affectionate farewell, as if we had been, in this isolated
corner of the world, most welcome guests who were going all too soon.
In a few strokes of the oars we were rounding the bend; and waving
our hands at the little knot of watchers, went forth from their lives,
doubtless forever.
The storm soon burst upon us in full fury. Clad in rubber, we rested
under giant trees, or beneath projecting rock ledges, taking advantage
of occasional lulls to push on for a few rods to some new shelter. The
numerous little hillside runs which, in our journey up, were but dry
gullies choked with leaves and boulders, were now brimming with muddy
torrents, rushing all foam-flecked and with deafening roar into the
central stream. At last the cloud curtain rolled away, the sun gushed
out with fiery rays, the arch of foliage sparkled with splendor--in
meadow and on hillside, the face of Nature was cleanly beautiful.
At the creek mouth, the distinguished mulatto still was fishing from
his chair, and standing by his side was his wife throwing a spoon.
They nodded to us pleasantly, as old friends returned. Gliding by
their boat, Pilgrim was soon once more in the full current of the
swift-flowing Ohio.
We are high up to-night, on a little grass terrace in Kentucky, two
miles above Warsaw. The usual country road lies back of us, a rod or
two, and then a slender field surmounted by a woodland hill. Fortune
favors us, almost nightly, with beautiful abiding-places. In no place
could we sleep more comfortably than in our cotton home.
[Footnote A: So called from the Big Buffalo Lick, upon its banks.]