253	LIFS ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
got to admire men that deal in ideas of that size and can tote them
around without crutches; but you haven't got to believe they can do
such miracles, have you! And yet you ain't absolutely obliged to
believe they can't. I reckon the safe way, where a man can afford it,
is to copper the operation, and at the same time buy enough pro-
perty in "Vicksburg to square you up in case they win. Government
is doing a deal for the Mississippi, now—spending loads of money
on her. When there used to be four thousand steamboats and ten
thousand acres of coal-barges, and rafts and trading scows, there
wasn't a lantern from St. Paul to New Orleans, and the snags were
thicker than bristles on a hog's back; and now when there's three
dozen steamboats and nary barge or raft, Government has snatched
out all the snags, and lit up the shores like Broadway, and a boat's as
safe on the river as she'd be in heaven. And I reckon that by the
time there ain't any boats left at all, the Com-mission will have
the old thing all reorganised, and dredged out, and fenced in, and
tidied up, to a degree that will make navigation just simply per-
fect, and absolutely safe and profitable; and all the days will be
Sundays, and all the mates will be Sunday-school su-WHAT-
in-the-natwn^you-fooling--around'there-fory you sons of unrighteous-
ness, heirs of perdition f Going to be a year getting that hogshead
ashore?*
During our trip to New Orleans and back, we had many con-
versations with river men, planters, journalists, and officers of the
Biver Commission—with conflicting and confusing results. To
wit:—
1.	Some believed in the Commission's scheme to arbitrarily and
permanently confine (and thus deepen) the channel, preserve threat-
ened shores, etc.
2,	Some believed tihat the Commission's money ought to be spent
oaly oix building and repairing the great system of levees.
&, Some believed that the higher you. build your levee, the higher
the river's bottom will rise; and that consequently the levee system
is a mistake.
4. Some believed in the scheme to relieve the river, in flood-time,
by turning its surplus waters off into Lake Borgne, etc.