river resembles the migration of birds, and we invariably find those of a feather flocking together.  It would be hard to trace these creatures to their lair; but the Alleghany and Monongahela region, with the towns of the upper Ohio, may be said to furnish most of them.  Let them come from where they may (and we feel sure none will quarrel for the honor of calling them citizens), the fall of the leaf seems to be the signal for looking up winter-quarters, and the river with its swift current the inviting path to warmer suns and an easy life.

The shanty-boatman looks to the river not only for his life, but also for the means of making that life pleasant; so he fishes in the stream for floating lumber in the form of boards, planks, and scantling for framing to build his home.  It is soon ready.  A scow, or flatboat, about twenty feet long by ten or twelve wide, is roughly constructed.  It is made of two-inch planks spiked together.  These scows are calked with oakum and rags, and the seams are made water-tight with pitch or tar.  A small, low house is built upon the boat, and covers about two-thirds of it, leaving a cockpit at each end, in which the crews work the sweeps, or oars, which govern the motions of the shanty-boat.  If the proprietor of the boat has a family, he puts its members on board,—­not forgetting the pet dogs and cats,—­with a small stock of salt pork, bacon, flour, potatoes, molasses, salt, and coffee.  An old cooking-stove is set up in the shanty, and its sheet-iron pipe, projecting through the roof, makes a chimney a superfluity.  Rough bunks, or berths, are constructed for sleeping-quarters; but if the family are the happy possessors of any furniture, it is put on board, and adds greatly to their respectability.  A number of steel traps, with the usual double-barrelled gun, or rifle, and a good supply of ammunition, constitute the most important supplies of the shanty-boat, and are never forgotten.  Of these family-boats alone I passed over two hundred on the Ohio.

This rude, unpainted structure, with its door at each end of the shanty, and a few windows relieving the barrenness of its sides, makes a very comfortable home for its rough occupants.

If the shanty-man be a widower or a bachelor, or even if he be a married man laboring under the belief that his wife and he are not true affinities, and that there is more war in the house than is good for the peace of the household, he looks about for a housekeeper.  She must be some congenial spirit, who will fry his bacon and wash his shirts without murmuring.  Having found one whom he fondly thinks will “fill the bill,” he next proceeds to picture to her vivid imagination the delights of “drifting.”  “Nothing to do,” he says, “but to float with the current, and eat fresh pork, and take a hand at euchre.”  The woods, he tells her, are full of hogs.  They shall fall an easy prey to his unfailing gun, and after them, when further south, the golden orange shall delight her thirsty soul, while all the sugar-cane she can chew shall be gathered for her.  Add to these the luxury of plenty of snuff with which to rub her dainty gums, with the promise of tobacco enough to keep her pipe always full, and it will be hard to find among this class a fair one with sufficient strength of mind to resist such an offer; so she promises to keep house for him as long as the shanty-boat holds together.