126	LIFE  ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
ought to be able to take the boat there and put her in that same spot
again yourself! The cry of'quarter twain' did not really take hig
mind from his talk, but his trained faculties instantly photographed
the bearings, noted the change of depth, and laid up the important
details for future reference without requiring any assistance from him
in the matter. If you were walking and talking with a friend, and
another friend at your side kept up a monotonous repetition of the
vowel sound A, for a couple of blocks, and then in the midst inter-
jected an H, thus, A, A, A, A, A, R, A, A, A, etc., and gave the P
no emphasis, you would not be able to state, two or three weeks
afterward, that the B, had been put in, nor be able to tell what
objects you were passing at the moment it was done. But you could
if your memory had been patiently and laboriously trained to do that
sort of thing mechanically.
Give a man a tolerably fair memory to start with, and piloting
will develop it into a very colossus of capability. But only in the
matters it is daily drilled in. A time would come when the man's
faculties could not help noticing landmarks and soundings, and his
memory could not help holding on to them with the grip of a vice;
but if you asked that same man at noon what he had had for break-
fast, it would be ten chances to one that he could not tell you.
Astonishing things can be done with the human memory if you will
devote it faithfully to one particular line of business.
At the time that wages soared so high on the Missouri Hiver, my
chief, Mr. Bixby, went up there and learned more than a thousand
miles of that stream with an ease and rapidity that were astonishing.
"When he had seen each division once in the daytime and once at
night, his education was so nearly complete that he took out a ^4 day-
light ' license; a few trips later he took out a full license, and went
to piloting day and night—and he ranked A 1, too.
Mr. Bixby placed me as steersman for a while under a pilot whose
feats of memory were a constant marvel to me. However, his
memory was born in him, I think, not built. For instance, some-
body would mention a name. Instantly Mr. Brown would break
* Oh, I knew him.    Sallow-faced, red-headed fellow, with a little
scar on the side of his throat, like a splinter under the flesh.  He was