restless curiosity which is fostered by solitude and silence, looked upon the severe and unremitting labor of agriculture as irksome and tasteless compared to such a life, and that they embraced every opportunity, either openly or covertly, to devote themselves to an employment which seemed full of romance to their youthful

visions.

Steam had not exerted its magic influence on the western waters, and the rich cargoes which ascended the Mississippi in keelboats and barges were propelled by human labor for nearly two thousand miles, slowly advancing against the strong current of these rivers. The boatmen, with their bodies naked to the waist, spent the long and tedious days traversing the "running board," and pushing with their whole force against their strong setting-poles firmly fixed against their shoulder. Thus, with their heads suspended nearly to the track on the running-board, they propelled their freighted barge up the long and tedious route of the river. After a hard day's toil, at night they took their "fillee," or ration of whisky, swallowed their homely supper of meat half burned and bread half baked, and retiring to sleep, they stretched themselves upon the deck, without covering, under the open canopy of heaven, or probably enveloped in a blanket, until the steersman's horn called them to their morning "fillee" and their toil.

Hard and fatiguing was the life of a boatman; yet it was rare that any of them ever changed his vocation. There was a charm in the excesses, in the frolics, and in the fightings which they anticipated at the end of the voyage, which cheered them on. Of weariness none would complain; but rising from his hard bed by the first dawn of day, and reanimated by his morning draught, he was prepared to hear and obey the wonted order, "Stand to your poles and set off!" The boatmen were masters of the windinghorn and the fiddle, and as the boat moved off from her moorings, some, to cheer their labors, or to "scare off the devil and secure good luck," would wind the animating blast of the horn, which, mingling with the sweet music of the fiddle, and reverberating along the sounding shores, greeted the solitary dwellers on the banks with news from New Orleans.

Their athletic labors gave strength incredible to their muscles, which they were vain to exhibit, and fist-fighting was their pastime. He who could boast that he had never been whipped, was bound to fight whoever disputed his manhood. Keelboatmen and bargemen looked upon raftsmen and flatboatmen as their natural enemies, and a meeting was the prelude to a "battle-royal." They were great sticklers for "fair play," and whosoever was worsted in battle must abide the issue without assistance.

Their arrival in port was a general jubilee, where hundreds often met together for diversion and frolic. Their assemblages were often riotous and lawless to extremes, when the civil authorities were defied for days together. Had their numbers increased with the population of the West, they would have endangered the peace

of the country; but the first steamboat that ascended the Ohio sounded their death-knell, and they have been buried in the tide,

never more to rise.

Mike Fink, usually called "the last of the boatmen," was a fair specimen of his race. Many curious anecdotes are related of him. He was born in Pittsburgh. In early youth, his desire to become a boatman was a ruling passion which soon had its gratification. He served on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers as a boatman, until thrown out of employment by the general use of steamboats. When the Ohio was too low for navigation, he spent most of his time at shooting matches in the neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and soon became famous as the best shot in the country. On that account he was frequently called bang all, and hence, frequently excluded for participating in matches for beef; for which exclusion he claimed and obtained for his forbearance the fifth quarter of beef, as the hide and tallow are called. His usual practice was to sell his fifth quarter to the tavern keeper for whisky, with which he treated everybody present, partaking largely himself. He became fond of strong drink, and could partake of a gallon in twentyfour hours without the effect being perceivable.

Mike's weight was about one hundred and eighty pounds; height about five feet nine inches; countenance open; skin tanned by sun and rain; form broad and very muscular, and of Herculean strength and great activity. His language was of the half horse and half alligator dialect of the then race of boatmen. He was also a wit, and on that account he gained the admiration and excited the fears of all the fraternity; for he usually enforced his wit with a sound drubbing, if any one dared to dissent by neglecting or refusing to laugh at his jokes; for, as he used to say, he cracked his jokes on purpose to be laughed at in a good humored way, and that no man should make light of them. As a consequence, Mike had always around him a chosen band of laughing philosophers. An eye bunged up, or a dilapidated nose or ear, was sure to win Mike's sympathy and favor, for he made proclamation: "I'm a Salt River Roarer! I'm chuck full of fight, and I love the wimin,' etc.; and he did, for he had a sweetheart in every port. Among his chosen worshipers, who would fight their death for him, as they termed it, were Carpenter and Talbot. Each was a match for the other in prowess, in fight, or skill in shooting, having each been under Mike's diligent training.

Mike, at one time, had a woman who passed for his wife; whether she was truly so, we do not know. But at any rate, the following anecdote is a rare instance of conjugal discipline.

Some time in the latter part of autumn, a few years after the close of the late war with Great Britain, several keelboats landed for the night near the mouth of the Muskingum, among which was that of Mike. After making all fast, Mike was óbserved, just under the bank, scraping into a heap the dried beech leaves, which had been blown there during the day, having just

fallen from the effects of the early autumn frosts. To all questions as to what he was doing he returned no answer, but continued at his work until he had piled them up as high as his head. He then separated them, making a sort of an oblong ring, in which he laid down, as if to ascertain whether it was a good bed or not. Getting up, he sauntered on board, hunted up his rifle, made great preparations about his priming, and then called in a very impressive manner upon his wife to follow him. Both proceeded up to the pile of leaves, poor "Peg" in a terrible flutter as she had discovered that Mike was in no very amiable humor.

"Get in there and lie down," was the command to Peg, topped off with one of Mike's very choicest oaths. "Now, Mr. Fink," she always mistered him when his blood was up-" what have I ` done? I don't know, I'm sure—"

"Get in there and lie down, or I'll shoot you," with another oath, and drawing up his rifle to his shoulder. Poor Peg obeyed, and crawled into the leaf pile, and Mike covered her up with the combustibles. He then took a flour barrel and split the staves into fine pieces, and lighted them at the fire on board the boat, all the time watching the leaf pile, and swearing he would shoot Peg if she moved. So soon as his splinters began to blaze he took them into his hand and deliberately set fire, in four different places, to the leaves that surrounded his wite. In an instant the whole mass was on fire, aided by a fresh wind which was blowing at the time, while Mike was quietly standing by enjoying the fun. Peg, through fear of Mike, stood it as long as she could; but it soon became too hot, and she made a run for the river, her hair and clothing all on fire. In a few seconds she reached the water and plunged in, rejoiced to know she had escaped both fire and rifle so well. "There," said Mike, "that'll larn you not to be winkin' at them fellers on t'other boat."

Mike first visited St. Louis as a keelboatman, in 1814 or '15. Among his shooting feats the following are related by eye witnesses. In ascending the Mississippi above the Ohio, he saw a Sow with a couple of pigs, about one hundred feet distant on the river bank. He declared, in boatman phrase, he wanted a pig, and took up his rifle to shoot one, but was requested not to do so. He, however, laid his rifle to his face, and as the boat glided along under easy sail, he successively shot off the tail of each of them close to the rump, without doing them any other harm. Being, on one occasion, in his boat at the St. Louis landing, he saw a negro standing on the river bank, gazing in wonder at the show about him. Mike took up his rifle and shot off the poor fellow's heel. He fell badly wounded and crying murder. Mike was arrested and tried in the county court, and found guilty by a jury. His justification of the offense was, that the fellow's heel projected too far behind, preventing him from wearing a genteel boot, and he wished to correct the defect. His particular friend, Carpenter, was also a great shot. Carpenter and Mike used to fill a tin cup with

whisky, and place it by turns on each others' heads, and shoot at it with a rifle at the distance of seventy yards. It was always bored through without injury to the one on whose head it was placed. This feat is too well authenticated to admit of question. It was often performed, and they liked the feat the better because it showed their confidence in each other.

In 1822, Mike and his two friends, Carpenter and Talbot, engaged in St. Louis with Henry and Ashley to go up the Missouri with them in the threefold capacity of boatmen, trappers, and hunters. The first year, a company of about sixty ascended as high as the mouth of Yellow Stone River, where they built a fort for the purposes of trade and security. From this place, small detachments of men, ten or twelve in a company, were sent out to hunt and trap on the tributary streams of the Missouri and the Yellow Stone. When winter set in, Mike and his company returned to a place near the mouth of the Yellow Stone, and preferring to remain out of the fort, they dug a hole or cave in the bluff bank of the river, in which they resided during the winter, which proved a warm and commodious habitation, protecting them from the winds and the snows. Here Mike and his friend Carpenter had a deadly quarrel, supposed to have been caused by a rivalry in the good graces of a squaw. It was for awhile smothered by the interposition of friends.

On the return of spring, the party revisited the fort, where Mike and Carpenter, over a cup of whisky, revived the recollection of their past quarrel, but made a treaty of peace which was to be solemnized by their usual trial of shooting the cup of whisky off each others' heads. To determine who should have the first shot, Mike proposed that they should "sky (toss up) a copper," which was done and resulted in Mike's favor. Carpenter seemed to be aware of Mike's unforgiving treacherous disposition, but scorning to save his life by refusing to fulfill his contract, he prepared for death, and bequeathed his gun, shot-pouch, powder-horn, belt, pistols, and wages to Talbot. Without changing a feature, Carpenter filled the cup with whisky to the brim. Mike loaded, picked the flint, and leveled his rifle at the head of Carpenter, at the distance of sixty yards. After drawing the bead, he took down his rifle from his face, and smilingly said:

"Hold your noddle steady, Carpenter! Don't spill the whisky; I shall want some presently."

He again raised, cocked his piece, and in an instant Carpenter fell, and expired without a groan. Mike's ball had penetrated precisely through the center of his forehead. He coolly set down his rifle, and applying the muzzle to his mouth, blew the smoke out of the touch-hole, without saying a word, keeping his eye steadily on the fallen body of Carpenter. His first words were:

"Carpenter! have you spilt the whisky?" He was then told he had killed him. "It is all an accident!" rejoined Mike, "for I took as fair a bead on the black spot on the cup, as ever I took

on a squirrel's eye. How did it happen?" He then cursed the gun, the powder, the bullet, and finally, himself.

This catastrophe, in a country where the strong arm of the law could not reach, passed off for an accident. Talbot determined to revenge the death of his friend. No opportunity offered for some months after, until one day Mike, in a fit of gasconading, declared that he had purposely killed Carpenter, and was glad of it. Talbot instantly drew from his belt a pistol, bequeathed by Carpenter, and shot Mike through the heart; he fell, and expired without a word. Talbot also went unpunished, as nobody had authority or inclination to call him to account. In truth, he was as ferocious and dangerous as the grizzly bear of the prairies, and soon after perished in attempting to swim a river.

INDIAN WARFARE.

THIS is a subject which presents human nature in its most revolting features, as subject to a vindictive spirit of revenge, and a thirst of human blood, leading to an indiscriminate slaughter of all ranks, ages, and sexes, by the weapons of war, or by torture. The history of man is, for the most part, one continued detail of bloodshed, battles, and devastations. War has been, from the earliest periods of history, the almost constant employment of individuals, clans, tribes, and nations.

If the modern European laws of warfare have softened in some degree, the horrid features of national conflicts, by respecting the rights of private property, and extending humanity to the sick, wounded and prisoners; we ought to reflect that this amelioration is the effect of civilization only. The natural state of war knows no such mixture of mercy with cruelty. In his primitive state, man knows no object in his wars, but that of the extermination of his enemies, either by death or captivity. The wars of the Jews were exterminatory in their object. The destruction of a whole nation was often the result of a single campaign. Even the beasts themselves were sometimes included in the general massacre.

It is, to be sure, much to be regretted, that our people so often followed the cruel examples of the Indians, in the slaughter of prisoners, and sometimes women and children; yet let them receive a candid hearing at the bar of reason and justice, before they are condemned as barbarians equally with the Indians themselves. History scarcely presents an example of a civilized nation carrying on a war with barbarians, without adopting the mode of warfare of the barbarous nation. The ferocious Suwarrow, when at war with the Turks, was as much of a savage as the Turks themselves. His slaughters were as indiscriminate as theirs but during his wars against the French, in Italy, he faithfully observed the laws of civilized warfare.