108

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

find to do to keep from dying of the blues during the low water
season I

Once, in one of these lovely island chutes, we found our course
completely bridged by a great fallen tree. This will serve to show
how narrow some of the chutes were. The passengers had an hour's

El.

* YJBLLOW-PACBD MISEEABLBS.'
recreation in a virgin wilderness, while the boat-hands chopped the
bridge away j for there was no such thing as turning back, you
comprehend.
From Cairo to Baton Houge, when the river is over its banks, you
have no particular trouble in the night, for the thousand-mile wall of