roustabout became the deckhand of post-bellum days. The riverman
as a type was unknown except on the larger rivers in the earlier
years of water traffic. What an experience it would be today to
rouse one of those remarkable individuals from his dreaming, as
Davy Crockett did, with an oar, and hear him howl "Halloe
stranger, who axed you to crack my lice?"--to tell him in his own
lingo to "shut his mouth or he would get his teeth sunburnt"--to
see him crook his neck and neigh like a stallion--to answer his
challenge in kind with a flapping of arms and a cock's crow--to
go to shore and have a scrimmage such as was never known on a
gridiron--and then to resolve with Crockett, during a period of
recuperation, that you would never "wake up a ringtailed roarer
with an oar again."

The riverman, his art, his language, his traffic, seem to belong
to days as distant as those of which Homer sang.



CHAPTER VI. The Passing Show Of 1800

Foreign travelers who have come to the United States have always
proved of great interest to Americans. From Brissot to Arnold
Bennett while in the country they have been fed and clothed and
transported wheresoever they would go--at the highest prevailing
prices. And after they have left, the records of their sojourn
that these travelers have published have made interesting reading
for Americans all over the land. Some of these trans-Atlantic
visitors have been jaundiced, disgruntled, and contemptuous;
others have shown themselves of an open nature, discreet,