water, prevented the boat from getting sufficiently near the bank, and it became necessary to use the paddles to take a different position.

"Back out! and try it again!" exclaimed a voice from the shore. "Throw your pole wide, and brace off, or you'll run against a snag."

This was a kind of language long familiar to us on the Ohio. It was a sample of the slang of the keel-boatmen.

The speaker was immediately cheered by a dozen of voices from the deck; and I recognized in him the person of an old acquaintance, familiarly known to me from my boyhood. He was leaning carelessly against a large beech, and as his left arm carelessly pressed a rifle to his side, presented a figure that Salvator* would have chosen from a million, as a model for his wild and moody pencil. His stature was upwards of six feet, his proportions perfectly symmetrical, and exhibiting the evidence of herculean powers. To a stranger he would have seemed a complete mulatto. Long exposure to the sun and weather on the Lower Ohio and Mississippi had changed his skin; and, but for the fine European cast of his countenance, he might have passed for the principal warrior of some powerful tribe. Although at least fifty years of age, his hair was as black as the wing of the raven. Next to his skin he wore a red flannel shirt, covered by a blue capote, ornamented with white fringe. On his feet were moccasons; and a broad leathern belt, from which hung, suspended in a sheath, a large knife, encircled his waist.

As soon as the steamboat became stationary, the cabin passengers jumped on shore. On ascending the bank, the figure I have just described advanced to offer me his hand.

"How are you, Mike?” said I.

"How goes it?" replied the boatman, grasping my hand with a squeeze I can compare to nothing but that of a blacksmith's vice.

66

"I am glad to see you," he continued, in his abrupt man

* Salvator Rosa, a celebrated painter of forest scenes and bandits.

ner.

"I am going to shoot at the tin cup for a quart -— off hand and must be judge."

you

I understood Mike at once, and on any other occasion should have remonstrated, and prevented the daring trial of skill. But I was accompanied by a couple of English tourists, who had scarcely ever been beyond the sound of Bow bells, and who were travelling post over the United States to make up a book of observations on our manners and customs. There were, also, among the passengers, a few bloods from Baltimore and Philadelphia, who could conceive of nothing equal to Howard or Chestnut Streets, and who expressed great disappointment at not being able to find terrapins and oysters at every village. My tramontane pride was aroused, and I resolved to give them an opportunity of seeing a western lion - for such Mike undoubtedly was in all his glory. The philanthropist may start, and accuse me of a want of humarity. I deny the charge, and refer, for apology, to one of the best understood principles of human nature.

Mike, followed by several of his crew, led the way to a beech grove, some little distance from the landing. I invited my fellow-passengers to witness the scene. On arriving at the spot, a stout, bull-headed boatman, dressed in a hunting shirt, but barefooted, in whom I recognized a younger brother of Mike, took a tin cup, which hung from his belt, and placed it on his head. Although I had seen this feat performed before, I acknowledge I felt uneasy, whilst this silent preparation was going on. But I had not much time for re

flection, for this second Albert exclaimed,·

“Blaze away, Mike, and let's have the quart.”

My travelling companions, as soon as they recovered from the first effect of their astonishment, exhibited a disposition to interfere. But Mike, throwing back his left leg, levelled his rifle at the head of his brother. In this horizontal position the weapon remained for some seconds as immovable as if the arm that held it was affected by no pulsation.

"Elevate your piece a little lower, Mike, or you will lose," cried the imperturbable brother.

I know not if the advice was obeyed; but the sharp crack of the rifle immediately followed, and the cup flew off thirty or forty yards, rendered unfit for future service. There was a cry of admiration from the strangers, who pressed forward to see if the foolhardy boatman was really safe. He remained as immovable as if he had been a figure hewn out of stone. He had not even winked, when the ball struck the cup within two inches of his head.

"Mike has won!" I exclaimed; and my decision was the signal which, according to their rules, permitted him of the target to remove from his position. No more sensation was exhibited among the boatmen than if a common wager had been won. The bet being decided, they hurried back to their boat, giving me and my friends an invitation to partake of "the treat." We declined, and took leave of the thoughtless creatures. In a few moments afterwards, we observed their "keel" wheeling into the current, the gigantic form of Mike bestriding the large steering oar, and the others arranging themselves in their places in front of the cabin, that extended nearly the whole length of the boat, covering merchandise of immense value. As they left the shore, they gave the Indian yell, and broke out into a sort of unconnected chorus, commencing with,

"Hard upon the beech oar!

She moves too slow!

All the way to Shawneetown,
Long while ago."

XLVIII.—THE SAME CONCLUDED.

OUR travellers returned to the boat lost in speculation on the scene, and the beings they had just beheld; and no doubt the circumstance has been related a thousand times, with all the necessary amplifications of finished tourists.

Mike Fink may be viewed as the correct representative of a class of men now extinct, but who once possessed as marked

a character as that of the gypsies of England, or the lazzaroni of Naples. The period of their existence was not more than a third of a century. The character was created by the introduction of trade on the western waters, and ceased with the successful establishment of the steamboat.

There is something inexplicable in the fact that there could be men found, for ordinary wages, who would abandon the systematic, but not laborious pursuits of agriculture, to follow a life, of all others except that of the soldier, distinguished by the greatest exposure and privation. The occupation of a boatman was more calculated to destroy the constitution, and to shorten life, than any other business. In ascending the river, it was a continued series of toil, rendered more irksome by the snail-like rate at which they moved. The boat was propelled by poles, against which the shoulder was placed; and the whole strength and skill of the individual were applied in this manner. As the boatmen moved along the running board, with their heads nearly touching the plank on which they walked, the effect produced on the mind of an observer was similar to that on beholding the ox rocking before an overloaded cart. Their bodies, naked to their waist for the purpose of moving with greater ease, and of enjoying the breeze of the river, were exposed to the burning suns of summer, and to the rains of autumn. After a hard day's push, they would take their "fillu," or ration of whiskey, and having swallowed a miserable supper of meat half burnt, and of bread half baked, stretch themselves without covering on the deck, and slumber till the steersman's call invited them to the morning "fillu."

Sons

Notwithstanding this, the boatman's life had charms as irresistible as those presented by the illusions of the stage. abandoned the comfortable farms of their fathers, and apprentices fled from the service of their masters. There was a captivation in the idea of "going down the river," and the youthful boatman who had "pushed a keel" from New Orleans felt all the pride of a young merchant after his first voyage to an English seaport. From an exclusive association

together, they had formed a kind of slang peculiar to themselves; and from the constant exercise of wit with "the squatters" on shore, and crews of other boats, they acquired a quickness and sharpness of retort that was quite amusing.

On board of the boats thus managed, our merchants intrusted valuable cargoes, without insurance, and with no other guaranty than the receipt of the steersman, who possessed no other property than his boat; and the confidence thus reposed was seldom abused.

Among these men, Mike Fink stood an acknowledged leader for many years. Endowed by nature with those qualities of intellect that give the possessor power, he would have been a conspicuous member of any society in which his lot might have been cast. An acute observer of human nature has remarked, "Opportunity alone makes the hero. Change but their situations, and Cæsar would have been but the best wrestler on the green." With a figure cast in a mould that added much of the symmetry of an Apollo to the limbs of a Hercules, he possessed gigantic strength, and his character was noted for the most daring intrepidity. At the court of Charlemagne, he might have been a Roland; with the crusaders, he would have been the favorite with the knight of the lion heart; and in our revolution, he would have ranked with the Morgans and Putnams of the day. He was the hero of a hundred fights, and the leader of a thousand daring adventures. From Pittsburg to St. Louis and New Orleans, every farmer on the shore kept on good terms with Mike — otherwise there was no safety for his property. Wherever he was an enemy, like his great prototype Rob Roy, he levied the contribution of black mail for the use of his boat. Often at night, when his tired companions slept, he would take an excursion of four or five miles, and return before morning rich in spoil. On the Ohio, he was known as the "Snapping Turtle," and on the Mississippi, as the "Snag."

At the early age of seventeen, Mike's character was displayed by enlisting himself in a corps of scouts -a body of irregular rangers employed on the north-western frontier of