noon
A wire rope led from the foretopmast to the file of mules on the tow-path a hundred yards ahead , and by dint of much banging and swearing and urging , the detachment of drivers managed to get a speed of two or three miles an hour out of the mules against the stiff current . The Neckar has always been used as a canal , and thus has given employment to a great many men and animals ; but now that this steamboat is able , with a small crew and a bushel or so of coal , to take nine keel-boats farther up the river in one hour than thirty men and thirty mules can do it in two , it is believed that the old-fashioned towing industry is on its death-bed . A second steamboat began work in the Neckar three months after the first one was put in service . -LSB- Figure 4 -RSB- At noon we stepped ashore and bought some bottled beer and got some chickens cooked , while the raft waited ; then we immediately put to sea again , and had our dinner while the beer was cold and the chickens hot . There is no pleasanter place for such a meal than a raft that is gliding down the winding Neckar past green meadows and wooded hills , and slumbering villages , and craggy heights graced with crumbling towers and battlements . In one place we saw a nicely dressed German gentleman without any spectacles . Before I could come to anchor he had got underway .