of feet. Sometimes their sleepy drawling tones would suddenly
cease, and crying loudly, "No alli agua!" they would swing
themselves over the side of the boat into the river, and begin
their strange and intricate manipulations with the poles. Then,
again, they would carry the anchor away off and by means of great
spars, and some method too complicated for me to describe,
Captain Mellon would fairly lift the boat over the bar.

But our progress was naturally much retarded, and sometimes we
were aground an hour, sometimes a half day or more. Captain
Mellon was always cheerful. River steamboating was his life, and
sand-bars were his excitement. On one occasion, I said, "Oh!
Captain, do you think we shall get off this bar to-day ?" "Well,
you can't tell," he said, with a twinkle in his eye; "one trip, I
lay fifty-two days on a bar," and then, after a short pause, "but
that don't happen very often; we sometimes lay a week, though;
there is no telling; the bars change all the time."

Sometimes the low trees and brushwood on the banks parted, and a
young squaw would peer out at us. This was a little diversion,
and picturesque besides. They wore very short skirts made of
stripped bark, and as they held back the branches of the low
willows, and looked at us with curiosity, they made pictures so
pretty that I have never forgotten them. We had no kodaks then,
but even if we had had them, they could not have reproduced the
fine copper color of those bare shoulders and arms, the soft wood
colors of the short bark skirts, the gleam of the sun upon their
blue-black hair, and the turquoise color of the wide bead-bands
which encircled their arms.