One of the gifts she loved the best was a little steamboat, which the natives called "smoking canoe."

THE FASTEST STEAMBOATS In 1807, the first practical steamboat puffed slowly up the Hudson, while the people ranged along the banks gazed in wonder.

Characteristics of Western steamboats.

He had a small, flat-bottomed steamboat and a number of little boats propelled by fifty black paddlers.

Every modern European state is more or less like a cranky, ill-built steamboat in which some idiot has mounted and loaded a monstrous gun with no apparatus to damp its recoil.

In the railway car, on the crowded steamboat, or at the large hotels, where all were entire strangers, she forgot to watch and criticise her husband, and if any dereliction from etiquette did occur, he yielded so readily to her suggestion that to him seemed an easy task.

The next thing we shall hear of will be exclusive steamboats, exclusive railroads, and both for the uses of the exclusive people.

"I'm afeard," says Cap'n Ambuster, "that, when I git a harnsome new skiff, I shall want a harnsome new steamboat, and then the boat will go to cruisin' round for a harnsome new Cap'n.

The "country" was located on one of the numerous islands forming the outskirts of the city and could be reached by the father after he finished work by a fifteen-minute ride on one of the innumerable little steamboats running back and forth like so many busy shuttles across every sheet of water in the vicinity of Stockholm.

They are even now easy of access; and as soon as the traffic warrants it they will be made still more so; then, from Sao Luis Caceres, they will be speedily reached by light steamboat up the Sepotuba and by a day or two's automobile ride, with a couple of days on horse-back in between.

They threw up fortifications, loaded and unloaded steamboats, and performed such other labor as was required.

Two hardy fishermen have ventured out at low tide to a large rock and are casting their lines into the boiling waters for rock-cod or porgies, while the Italian fishing boats, with their queer striped sails, form a striking contrast to the massive steamboats, with smoke trailing from their twin funnels, that are outward bound for China or Japan.

Among those who appeared to have suffered most severely from the rocking of the miserable little steamboat was a young, fair-haired girl, apparently about seventeen years of age, who seemed almost insensible.

" Here follows a description of the voyage, and he continues: "Yesterday we anchored off the Floating Light, sixteen miles from the city, unable to reach the dock on account of the wind, but the post-office steamboat (or steamer, as they call them here) came to us from Liverpool to take the letter-bags, and I with other passengers got on board, and at twelve o'clock I once more placed my foot on English ground.

" Here follows a description of the voyage, and he continues: "Yesterday we anchored off the Floating Light, sixteen miles from the city, unable to reach the dock on account of the wind, but the post-office steamboat (or steamer, as they call them here) came to us from Liverpool to take the letter-bags, and I with other passengers got on board, and at twelve o'clock I once more placed my foot on English ground.

We slid out of St. Katharine's Dock at noon on the appointed day, and with a pair of sooty steamboats hitched to our vessel, moved slowly down the Thames in mist and drizzling rain.

"It is the whistle of the steamboatthe first steamboat on the Ohio.

Besides these were two boxes of tin soldiers, cannon, tents, swords, a fully equipped lead army, a mechanical fish, and a small zinc steamboat, suitable for a cruise in a bath-tub.

"The 'New York Mercantile Advertiser,' of May, 1819, contained the following notice: "'The swift steamboat Walk-in-the-Water is intended to make a voyage early in the summer from Buffalo, on Lake Erie, to Michilimackinac, on Lake Huron, for the conveyance of company.

A belated steamboat was swashing down stream, and a schooner, having but little of wind and less of tide to help it along, was rocking listlessly in the long swell.

After much bargaining, they brought home a wonderful four-wheeled steamboat and a beautiful train of cars.

The first clumsy steamboat seemed a marvel to those who had known no other propulsive power than that of the wind or the oar.

On the left extends a long row of small many-colored steamboats, which start every hour in the day for Dordrecht, Arnhem, Gonda, Schiedam, Brilla, Zealand, and continually send forth clouds of white smoke and the sound of their cheerful bells.

The great rivers that rolled in silence through unbroken forests, have become the highways of trade, upon whose bosoms the white sails of commerce are spread, and through whose waters countless steamboats plough their way.