skipper with two men and a boy. They all take turns at the steering-oar, and are constantly obliged to handle the immense sweeps to keep the cumbersome craft in the best channel. The work of baling water is no light one, and apparently goes on day and night with little intermission. They use for this purpose a great wooden scoop, or shovel, and throw the water out over the side from the floor of the rude little hut which shelters the bunks of the crew. Two of us accepted a cheery invitation to go aboard one of these boats, and we spent the larger part of the forenoon lounging in the shade of the deck-house and indolently watching the ever-changing panorama on either side of the river. The skipper, a very fatherly old man, a shrewd observer, with a great knowledge of river life, was busy part of the time in tending a large tin kettle which was thrust, gypsy-like, into the side of a fire which was brightly burning on the tiles with which the boat was laden. As soon as we saw that the meal was almost ready to be served we made a move to leave, not wishing to interrupt this ceremony. But the old man detained us almost by force, and insisted on our eating before they began. He placed [Illustration: ON THE TILE-BOAT] between us a large bowl of coarse, yellow-glazed pottery, gave us a wooden spoon apiece, and a thick wedge of black bread, which we broke, according to his commands, into the capacious vessel. When the soup was ready he poured it over the bread, filled the bowl to the brim, handed us each a bottle of beer, and bade us eat and drink until not a crumb or a drop remained. We were hungry, the soup was delicious, and the beer cool and refreshing, and we did not longer hesitate, but fell to at once. The only thing which interfered with our full enjoyment of the meal was the presence of a generous supply of beef in the soup, in chunks as large as our fists. Our maxillary muscles were not sufficiently well developed to enable us to masticate the phenomenally tough fibre of this meat, and we chose our opportunity when the broad back of the hospitable skipper was turned and slid it overboard. To our relief it went to the bottom like a sounding lead, and did not, as we feared, come bobbing up astern to bear witness to our insincerity. We gave our host a tiny American flag as a souvenir of our visit. He would take no money nor any of our stores, but was delighted with the Stars and Stripes, more especially as we had explained that the following day was Freiheit’s Tag, or Independence Day, in the great Republic of the West. We left him diligently digging a hole with his knife in the high stem-piece of the boat to plant the flag there.