%205. A Trip down the Ohio in 1790.%--In the long keel boat he would put his wife, his children, and such travelers as had been waiting at Pittsburg for a chance to go down the river. In the flatboat would be his cattle or his stores. Two dangers beset the voyager on the Ohio. His boat might become entangled in the branches of the trees that overhung the river, or be fired into by the Indians who lurked in the woods. The cabin of the keel boat, therefore, was low, that it might glide under the trees, and the roof and sides were made as nearly bullet-proof as possible. The whole craft was steered by a huge oar mounted on a pivot at the stern.[1] [Footnote 1: See the boats in the pictures on next page.] [Illustration: Map of Ohio] %206. Towns along the Ohio.%--As the emigrant in such an ark floated down the river, he would come first to Wheeling, a town of fifty log cabins, and then to Marietta, a town planted in Ohio in 1788 by settlers sent by the Ohio Company. Below Marietta were Belpre and Gallipolis, a settlement made by Frenchmen brought there by the Scioto Company. Yet farther down, on the Kentucky side, were Limestone (now Maysville) and Newport, opposite which some settlers were founding the city of Cincinnati. Once past Cincinnati, all was unbroken wilderness till one reached Louisville in Kentucky, beyond which few emigrants had yet ventured to go. [Illustration: %Cincinnati in 1802 (Fort Washington)%] %207. Cotton Planting.%--The South, in 1790, was on the eve of a great industrial revolution. The products of the states south of Virginia had been tar, pitch, resin, lumber, rice, and indigo. But in the years following the peace the indigo plants had been destroyed year after year by an insect. As the plant was not a native of our country, but was brought from the West Indies, it became necessary either to import more seed plants, or to raise some other staple. Many chose the latter course, and about 1787 began to grow cotton. [Illustration: %Farmers' Castle (Belpre) in 1791%]