muscular power."[1] Under certain circumstances it was serviceable to catch hold of the bushes and trees on a river's bank and pull a keel-boat upstream; this was commonly known as "bushwhacking" and was particularly useful in times of high water. The number of keel-boats on the Ohio was not as large, probably, as would be supposed. It is on record that from November 24, 1810 to January 24, 1811—two winter months—twenty-four of these craft descended the "falls" of the Ohio at Louisville. It is probable that at this time there were not over three or four hundred keel-boats regularly plying the Ohio and its tributaries.
The narrowness of the keel-boat, it will be noted, permitted it to ply far up the larger tributaries of the Ohio and to a considerable way up its smaller tributaries—territory which the barge and flat-boat could never reach. It is probable, therefore, that the keel-boat brought much territory into touch with the world that otherwise was never reached save by the heavy freighter and the pack-saddle; indeed it is
- ↑ The American Pioneer, vol. ii, p. 271.
