166 LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
they not only add weight but they never will * trim boat.' They
always run to the side when there is anything to see, whereas a
conscientious and experienced steam boat man would stick to the
centre of the boat and part his hair in the middle with a spirit
level.
No way-freights and no way-passengers were allowed, for the
racers would stop only at the largest towns, and then it would be
only ' touch and go/ Coal flats and wood flats were contracted for
beforehand, and these were kept ready to hitch on to the flying
steamers at a moment's warning. Double crewg were carried, so that
all work could be quickly done.
The chosen date being come, and all things in readiness, the two
great steamers back into the stream, and lie there jockeying a
moment, and apparently watching each other's slightest movement,
like sentient creatures; flags drooping, the pent steam shrieking
through safety-valves, the black smoke rolling and tumbling from
the chimneys and darkening all the air. People, people everywhere \
the shores, the house-tops, the steamboats, the ships, are packed with
them, and you know that the borders of the broad Mississippi are
going to be fringed with humanity thence northward twelve hundred
miles, to welcome these racers.
Presently tall columns of steam burst from the 'scape-pipes of both
steamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroes mounted
on capstans wave their small flags above the massed crews on the
forecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a few waiting seconds,
two mighty choruses burst forth—and here they come ! Brass bands
bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders from the shores, and
the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind.
Those boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and
St. Louis, except for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch
thirty-cord wood-boats alongside. You should be on board when
they take a couple of those wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of
men into each; by the time you have wiped your glasses and put
them on, you will be wondering what has become of that wood.
Two nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day
after day. They might even stay side by side, but for the fact that
pilots are not all alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race If