manufactures, and wooden ware. Its imports were sugar, tea, rice, lemons, fine cloths, needles, pins, thread, buttons, fine cutlery, watches, musical instruments, etc. As the exports were much more heavy and bulky than the imports, more shipping was needed to carry them. Thus, while the imports were brought up the Mississippi and Ohio on horse-boats, much of the exports was floated down on flat-boats rudely and cheaply constructed, which were broken up and sold for lumber at New Orleans. Some of the flat-boatmen returned home on the horse-boats, but most of them by land, as the distance from New Orleans to the Ohio overland was only about half that by river, and the horse-boats made slow progress up stream, against the powerful current.
If these flat-boatmen had belonged to any other community they would have been left to find their way home through the wilderness as best they could, each man for himself. But they were engaged in the business of the commonwealth, and the commonwealth cared carefully for them. A route was surveyed and a good path cleared through tangled thickets and cane-brakes; creeks and morasses were
