For lack of one of these little blessings--which the prejudice of friends had influenced me to leave behind--my daily meals for the first two or three weeks generally consisted of cold, cooked canned beef, bread and butter, canned fruits, and cold river water. The absence of hot coffee and other stimulants did not affect my appetite, nor the enjoyment of the morning and evening repasts, cold and untempting as they were. The vigorous day's row in the open air, the sweet slumbers that followed it at night in a well-ventilated apartment, a simple, unexciting life, the mental rest from vexatious business cares, all proved superior to any tonic a physician could prescribe, and I became more rugged as I grew accustomed to the duties of an oarsman, and gained several pounds avoirdupois by the time I ended the row of twenty-six hundred miles and landed on the sunny shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Sunday broke upon me a sunless day. The water of the creek was too muddy to drink, and the rain began to fall in torrents. I had anticipated a season of rest and quiet in camp, with a bright fire to cheer the lonely hours of my frosty sojourn on the Ohio, but there was not a piece of dry wood to be found, and it became necessary to change my position for a more propitious locality; so I rowed down the stream twelve miles, to Big Grave Creek, below which, and on the left bank of the Ohio, is the town of Moundsville. One of the interesting features of this place is its frontage on a channel possessing a depth of fifteen feet of water even in the dryest seasons. Wheeling, at the same time of the year, can claim but seven feet. Here, also, is the great Indian mound from which it derives its name. The resting-place of my craft was upon a muddy slope in the rear of a citizen's yard which faced the river; but when the storm ended, on Monday morning, my personal effects were hidden from the gaze of idlers by securely locking the hatch, which was done with the same facility with which one locks his trunk--and the former occupant was at liberty to visit the "Big Grave." I walked through the muddy streets of the uninteresting village to the conspicuous monument of the aboriginal inhabitant of the river's margin. It was a conical hill, situated within the limits of the town, and known to students of American pre-historic races as the "Grave Creek Mound." This particular creation of a lost race is the most important of the numerous works of the Mound Builders which are found throughout the Ohio Valley. Its circumference at the base is nine hundred feet, and its height seventy feet. In 1838 the location was owned by Mr. Tomlinson, who penetrated to the centre of the mound by excavating a passage on a level with the foundation of the structure. He then sank a shaft from the apex to intercept the ground passage. Mr. Tomlinson's statement is as follows: