While the visitor was yet lost in the contemplation of these treasures of the arts and sciences, he was startled by the approach of a strong and sprightly step; and, turning with instinctive reverence to the door of entrance, he was met by the tall, and animated, and stately figure of the patriot himself, his countenance beaming with intelligence and benignity, and his outstretched hand, with its strong and cordial pressure, confirming the courteous welcome of his lips; and then came that charm of manner and conversation that passes all description—­so cheerful, so unassuming, so free, and easy, and frank, and kind, and gay, that even the young, and overawed, and embarrassed visitor at once forgot his fears, and felt himself by the side of an old and familiar friend.

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=_Timothy Flint, 1780-1840._= (Manual, p. 490.)

From “Recollections of the Mississippi Valley.”

=_177._= THE WESTERN BOATMAN.

Three is no wonder that the way of life which the boatman, lead, in turn extremely indolent and extremely laborious, for days together requiring little or no effort, and attended with no danger, and then on a sudden laborious and hazardous beyond the Atlantic navigation, generally plentiful as it regards food, and always so as it regards whiskey, should always have seductions that prove irresistible to the young people that live near the banks of the river.  The boats float by their dwellings on beautiful spring mornings, when the verdant forest, the mild and delicious temperature of the air, the delightful azure of the sky of this country, the fine bottom on the one hand, and the romantic bluff on the other, the broad, and smooth stream rolling calmly down through the forest, and floating the boat gently forward,—­all these circumstances harmonize in the excited youthful imagination.  The boatmen are dancing to the violin on the deck of their boat.  They scatter their wit among the girls on the shore, who come down to the water’s edge to see the pageant pass.  The boat glides on until it disappears behind a point of wood; at this moment, perhaps, the bugle, with which all the boats are provided, strikes up its note in the distance, over the water.  These scenes, and these notes, echoing from the bluffs of the beautiful Ohio, have a charm for the imagination, which, although I have heard a thousand times repeated, and at all hours, and in all positions, is even to me always new, and always delightful.  No wonder that to the young, who are reared in these remote regions, with that restless curiosity which is fostered by solitude and silence, who witness scenes like these so frequently,—­no wonder that the severe and unremitting labors of agriculture, performed directly in the view of such scenes, should become tasteless and irksome.

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=_Washington Irving, 1783-1839._= (Manual, pp. 478, 498.)

From “Knickerbocker’s History of New York.”