Many who survived an attack of fever, and reached the healthy country of Tennessee, were long recovering sufficient strength to resume their journey home. One would suppose that men would have been reluctant to engage in a service which exposed them to such great suffering and mortality without extraordinary compensation; but such was the love of adventure and recklessness of danger which characterized the young men of the West, that there was no lack of hands to man the boats, although their number increased from twenty-five to fifty per cent yearly. The fact that some of these boatmen would return with fifty Spanish dollars, which was a large sum at that day, was no small incentive to others, who perhaps never had a dollar of their own."[57] The "ark" of pioneer days was, as the name implies, the earliest type of houseboat. "These boats," Mr. Harris records, "are generally called 'Arks;' and are said to have been invented by Mr. Krudger, on the Juniata, about ten years ago [1795]. They are square, and flat-bottomed; about forty feet by fifteen, with sides six feet deep; covered with a roof of thin boards; and accommodated with a fire-place. They require but four hands to navigate them, carry no sail, and are wafted down by the current."[58] Rafting logs down the Ohio was one of the great employments of the men of three-quarters of a century ago. "Our raft," testified an old _voyageur_ who went down the Allegheny and Ohio from Olean, New York in 1821, "was one hundred and twenty feet long and sixty wide and about two feet deep. It had eight oars. In the center was our cabin, which was twenty by sixteen, and contained, of course, our provisions and valuables, ... and our _stove_. This was a patent range peculiar to those days and quite wonderful in its way. It was made of a wooden box lined with clay. It had a hole in the top for a kettle, and another through which the smoke passed to an aperture in the roof of our cabin, left for that purpose.... Our crew consisted of ten persons, including a man and his wife and one child, who were going to migrate.... There are many eddies along the river and at them we tried to tie up at night in order to be out of the current.... From Pittsburg to Cincinnati, five hundred miles, the river being broad and deep and free from snags, we could travel night and day.... At one point in our trip we saw a raft stranded on an island; but the Captain did not seem to take the matter very seriously to heart, and answered our salutations by singing and dancing and lustily waving his hat as we passed by.... At Limestone, [Maysville] Ky., seventy miles east of Cincinnati, I stopped and sold some shingles, the raft and the rest of the crew going on. After I had transacted my business, I took passage on another going to C. [Cincinnati]. At L. [Limestone] I remember seeing a bell on a tavern for the first time. This raft had the misfortune to run into a flatboat