446	LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
disappeared, and cut-offs that had been made, a generation before th»
oldest bald-head in the company had ever set his foot in a pilot-
house!
Many and many a time did this ancient mariner appear on the
scene in the above fashion, and spread disaster and humiliation
around him. If one might believe the pilots, he always dated big
islands back to the misty dawn of river history; and he never used
the same island twice; and never did he employ an island that still
existed, or give one a name which anybody present was old enough
to have heard of before. If you might believe the pilots, he was
always conscientiously particular about little details; never spoke of
' the State of Mississippi/ for instance—no, he would say, * "When
the State of Mississippi was where Arkansas now is;' and would
never speak of Loni.sia.Tia or Missouri in a general way, and leave an
incorrect impression on your mind—no, he would say, * When
Louisiana was up the river farther/ or ^c When Missouri was on the
Illinois side.'
The old gentleman was not of literary turn or capacity, but he
used to jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about
the river, and sign them * mabk twain/ and give them to the * New
Orleans Picayune.' They related to the stage and condition of the
river, and were accurate and valuable; and thus far, they contained
no poison. But in speaking of the stage of the river to-day, at a
given point, the captain was pretty apt to drop in a little remark
about this being the first time he had seen the water so high or so
low at that particular point for forty-nine years; and now and then
he would mention Island So-and-so, and follow it, in parentheses, with
some such observation as * disappeared in 1807, if I remember
rightly.* In these antique interjections lay poison and bitterness for
the other old pilots, and they used to chaff the 'Mark Twain*
paragraphs with unsparing mockery.
It so chanced that one of these paragraphs^1 became the text for
^1 The original M.S. of it, in the captain's own hand, has been sent to me
from New Orleans. It reads as follows—
•VlCKSBTJBO, May 4, 3869.
* My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans: The water is
feigher this far up than it has been since 1815. My opinion is that the water