Another means of conveyance on the river, frequently used by Audubon, was the keel boat or barge, which, in some cases, was also roofed and would hold about two hundred barrels of flour.[204] When assisted by oars in the bow, it could reduce the time of a journey to New Orleans by ten or fifteen days. These barges were pushed up stream with the aid of setting poles at an average rate of about twenty miles a day, or, if loaded, they were laboriously "cordelled," or drawn by the hands of men who trudged along the banks pulling at the cordelle. The chief pleasures which Audubon's business ventures in the West seem to have afforded him were his leisurely journey by river and long horseback rides to Philadelphia to buy goods, when he could roam through his "beautiful and darling forests of Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania," which gave him grand opportunities to make observations upon birds and animal life of every sort. He would seldom hesitate to swerve from his course to study his favorites, and has related how on one occasion, when driving before him several horses laden with merchandise and dollars, he quite lost sight of the pack saddles and the cash they bore, in watching the motions of a warbler. But few coaches, said Audubon, were available in those days, and the post roads were often unfit for lighter carriages. To cover the distance from Louisville to Philadelphia on horseback required about twenty days, and only a capable animal and rider could make forty miles a day; when steamer traffic on the Ohio[205] was well in hand this time was reduced to six or seven days, in performing a journey which the modern railroad has shortened to not far from as many hours.