In 1836 the steam-whistle had not yet been introduced on the boats of the western rivers. Upon approaching towns and cities in those days, vessels resorted to all manner of schemes and contrivances to attract attention. They were compelled to do so in order to secure their share of freight and passengers, so spirited was the competition between steamboats from 1836 to 1840. There were no railroads in the West (indeed there were but one or two in the East), and all traffic was by water. Consequently steamboat-men had all they could do to handle the crowds of passengers and the tons of merchandise offered them. Shippers and passengers had their favorite packets. The former had their huge piles of freight stacked upon the wharves, and needed the earliest possible intelligence of the approach of the packet so that they might promptly summon clerks and carriers to the shore. The passengers, loitering in neighboring hotels, demanded some system of warning of a favorite steamer's coming, that they might avoid the disagreeable alternative of pacing the muddy levees for hours at a time, or running the risk of being left behind. Without a whistle, how was a boat to let the people know it was coming, especially if some of those sharp bends for which the Ohio River is famous intervened to deaden the splashing stroke of its huge paddle-wheels, or the regular puff, puff, puff, puff, of its steam exhaust-pipes? The necessity originated several crude signs, chief among which was the noise created by a sudden escapement of steam either from the rarely used boiler waste-pipes close to the surface of the river, or through the safety-valve above. By letting the steam thus rush out at different pressures, each boat acquired a sound peculiarly its own, which could be heard a considerable distance, though it was as the tone of a mouth-organ against a brass-band, when compared with the ear-splitting roar of our modern steamboat-whistle. Townspeople of Cincinnati and elsewhere became so proficient in distinguishing these sounds of steam escapement that they could foretell the name of any craft on the river at night or before it appeared in sight. It was reserved for the steamboat _Champion_ to carry this idea a little further. It purposed to catch the eye of the patron as well as his ear. The _Champion_ was one of the best known vessels plying on the Mississippi in 1836. It was propelled by a walking-beam engine. This style of steam-engine is still common on tide-water boats of the East, but has long since disappeared from the inland navigation of the West. To successfully steam a vessel up those streams against the remarkably swift currents, high-pressure engines had to be adopted generally. In that year, however, there were still a number of boats on the Mississippi and Ohio which, like the _Champion_, had low-pressure engines and the grotesque walking-beams.