The Ohio River is another of the great tributaries of the Mississippi.  In years gone by the importance of this waterway was enormous.  The Mississippi itself runs through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.  The Ohio taps and drains a much older country than many of these States, and hence its importance in the days when Cincinnati was the great gateway of the West and a manufacturing city of first importance.

The Ohio is a great river for more than a thousand miles, and connects Pittsburg with Cairo, running through such important towns as Louisville and Cincinnati.  On this river some of the most interesting events in river history have been enacted in the past.  Many a tragedy and many a comedy are included in its annals, and even to-day, although paralleled, crossed and recrossed by railroads, it is a most important highway of commerce.

The Tennessee River is a tributary of the Ohio, which it enters so near the Mississippi as to have a very close connection with that great river.  Entering the Ohio at Paducah, Kentucky, the Tennessee is one of the largest and most important rivers east of the Mississippi.  It is formed by the union of two rivers which rise in the Allegheny Mountains and unite at Kingston, Tennessee.  The river then runs southwest through Alabama, and turning northward, passes through portions of Tennessee and Kentucky.  In length the Tennessee exceeds 1,200 miles, and, with the exception of very dangerous places here and there, it is strictly a navigable river.

Running as it does, through a country not yet thoroughly supplied with railroad accommodation, the Tennessee forms an important connection between a number of small shipping points, which would otherwise be cut off from commercial intercourse with large centers.  Hence the transportation facilities are good, and in many respects remind one of old days when river traffic was general.  Boats run almost all the year around up this river as far as Alabama points, and not only is a large and lucrative freight business transacted, but pleasure and health-seekers are also carried in large numbers.

Everything was not prosaic in river life in the old days.  All of us have heard of the great races on the Mississippi River between magnificent steamers, and of the excitement on deck as first one and then the other gained a slight advantage.  Stories, more or less reliable, have been told again and again of the immense sums of money made and lost by speculators who backed their own boats against all comers.  Tricks and jokes also prevailed and continue up to the present time.  The passenger on a Tennessee River boat is almost sure to be told how a very popular first mate escaped arrest by disguising himself as a cook.  The story is amusing enough to bear repetition, and bereft of corroborative detail, evidently designed to lend artistic verisimilitude to the narrative, it is as follows: