ripples; and of 'shoots,' or rapids (French chutes). It was as necessary to have violins on board as to have whiskey and all the traditions in song or picture of 'the jolly boatman' date back to that by-gone day. Between the two sides of the river there was already a jealousy. Ohio was called 'the Yankee State' and Flint tells us that it was a standing joke among the Ohio boatmen when asked their cargo to reply, 'Pit-coal indigo, wooden nutmegs, straw baskets, and Yankee notions.' The same authority describes this sort of questioning as being inexhaustible among the river people and asserts that from one descending boat came this series of answers all of which proved to be truthful:
"'Where are you from?'
'Redstone.'
'What is your lading?'
'Millstones.'
'What's your captain's name?'
'Whetstone.'
'Where are you bound?'
'To Limestone.'"
"It was the highway of emigration," a pioneer has written of the Ohio in its early
