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with whom we have passed several days, having become domesticated to a certain extent aboard our steamer. - Could one travel on our Western waters with an assurance of safety I know of no more agreeable mode of passing a summer's week -- The boat is a moving theatre of unclear: museum? of human character - here are congregated together unclear or X'd out natives of every land— American, German, Irish, Scotch, Spanish, English and French, Negro & White -- The travelling merchants' agent, the farmer, the emigrant, the tourist, the invalid, the "blackleg" the military man, the preacher & the artist,while attached to the boat itself are the captain & his boatmen, a peculiar race, the negro firemen who entertained us as they passed the town where most of them resided when "home" by shouting at the top of their voices the chorus to one of their glees a huge negro giving the words with stentorian expression — all these again modified by individual character and circumstances, form studies of endless novelty & amusements to an observer -- Much information is also acquired by the intercourse with fellow passengers, as there are scarcely any who may not have seen or known something peculiar to themselves