With the old-style method of travel by keel-boat and barges (1780-1810), going down the river was easy enough, but ascending stream was indeed difficult. A mile an hour was the maximum rate of progress, and if the wind and tide chanced to be unfavorable, many days were lost in waiting. Then, again, the craft was likely to strike a snag or run aground, and the strength and patience of the crew would be completely exhausted ere another start could be effected. Sometimes the men became so exasperated that they would leave the boat or barge _en masse_ and return afoot whence they had started. It required three and often four months to come up to Louisville from New Orleans. Nor was this all. Bands of desperadoes infested the forest on either shore, and would hold up a boat or barge,--prototypes of the notorious train robbers of later days. The records of river navigation are filled with thrilling incidents and studies of unique character. But notwithstanding these difficulties European tourists ventured into the wilds in search of novelty or on business speculations. One of these came to the Falls city as early as 1806, and afterwards, in writing his impressions of the place, said: “I had thought Cincinnati one of the most beautiful towns I had seen in America, but Louisville, which is almost as large, equals it in beauty and in the opinion of many exceeds it.” Robert Fulton and Daniel French went into the steamboat-building business at Pittsburg, after the trip of the _Orleans_ in 1811; and a few years later better facilities were afforded for travel on the Ohio. The Eastern visitor to Louisville should by all means come from Cincinnati, or even Pittsburg, by boat in order to study the historic scenes and associations of the “Rhine of America.” Distinct epochs in American literature have arisen from the inspiration and suggestion given by this celebrated stream and life along its course to the various writers who travelled its waters.