The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-05-29
EARLY AMERICAN TRAVEL.
Sailing Once the Principal Mode-West-
ern Migration Before 1910.


ern Migration Before 1910.
DR.. Edward Eggleston lectured re-
Gently at the Peabody institute on
Modes of Travel and Western Migra.
ton Before $780," the third of the
course on THE Culture-History of the
American People" DIR. Eggleston has
made important historical research on
this subject, and he presents the result
of his good work in a thoroughly inter.
esting and instructive way.
Coast and river sailing" he said,
''were the main modes of travel. All
settlements were near the water in the
early colonial period, Lancaster, Pa,
being the only inland town of any
size, and it had a population of ten
thousand at the close of the revolution
Travel in any large way was
done in sloops. On the Hudson
river the boatmen lived with
their families in the sloops. as boat
men did in Holland, and as their sue.
cessors, the canal and towboatmen and
their families do at the present day.
All life was slow-going at that time
The tidewater Virginia counties were
divided so that each county would lie
wholly on one river, in order that
travel to the county seat could be made
on water.
1.-THE pereauger, or pettyauger, is it
was sometimes called, played an i'm
portant part in shoal-water navigation.
The word is derived from the Spanish,
and is ignorantly defined in many die
tionaries as canoe or ferry-boat. 1t
never was a canoe, but sort of galley,
probably an ancient and primitive
form 1t had two masts, which could
be taken down, and it could be pro-
peeled by oars. 1t had no upper deck
excepting a shelter at each end. It
was the commonest coasting yes
Sci from the West Indies to Long Is
land sound. For all smaller navigation
canoes of various kinds were used. The
pirogue. or split canoe, with a board
laid in the middle, carried as high as
forty or even eighty barrels of pitch.
The bullboat was made by putting a
frame of wood inside the skin of buff
falo or OK. 1t was of immense antiqui-
ty, at least two thousand years and
proba bly, four thousand years old, hav-
ing been described in poem of Luz
cans, which is beautifully translated
by Sir Walter Raleigh in these fresh
and vigorous lines:
"'The moistened ozier Of the heavy willow
Is woven first into a little boat.
Then clothed in buliocks hide. upon the hillov
or proud river doth 1t float
Under the waterman;
So on the lakes of overswelline Pc
Sails the Venitean ana the Briton 50,
On the outspread ocean
'"This boat, which Caesar found used
in Britain, is still used on the west
coast of Ireland, where it is called a
curragh, the word doubtless being de-
rived from the coracle of Caesar. In
Ireland the boat is now covered with
canvas instead OF skins.
''The Indians were in the habit Of
carrying the skin coverings with them
on their journeys by land. and then
cutting from tree the wood for q
temporary frame whenever it was
necessary 10 cross the water. Within
on the frontier. A man and his son,
more than one hundred and sixty
years ago, made the first voyage that
was ever made by an Epglishman
down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers
to New Orleans in one of these boats.
The man, John Howard, on his arrival
was arrested by the French as a sus-
picious character and sent to France.
He afterward got away. and IL waz he
xx-f,, 80 "a inf
which enabled him TO secure some of
the most valuable lands in Virginia
Baltimore sun.