RACING DAYS. 1*9
rences, but through carelessness they have been mislaid. This boat,
the * John J. Koe/ was so slow that when she finally sunk in Madrid
Bend, it was five years before the owners heard of it. That was
always a confusing fact to me, but it is according to the record, any
way. She was dismally slow; still, we often had pretty exciting
times racing with islands, and rafts, and such things. One trip,
however, we did rather well. We went to St. Louis in sixteen days.
But even at this rattling gait I think we changed watches three
times in Fort Adams reach, which is five miles long. A * reach *
is a piece of straight river, and of course the current drives through
such a place in a pretty lively way.
That trip we went to Grand Gulf, from New Orleans, in four
days (three hundred and forty miles); the ' Eclipse ' and * Shotwell'
did it in one. We were nine days out, in the chute of 63 (seven
hundred miles); the < Eclipse' and * Shotwell' went there in two
days. Something over a generation ago, a boat called the * J. M.
White' went from New Orleans to Cairo in three days, six hours,
and forty-four minutes. In 1853 the 'Eclipse' made the same trip
in three days, three hours, and twenty minutes.1 In 1870 the
' K. E. Lee' did it in three days and one hour. This last is called
the fastest trip on record. I will try to show that it was not. For
this reason: the distance between New Orleans and Cairo, when the
*J. M. White' ran it, was about eleven hundred and six miles;
consequently her average speed was a trifle over fourteen miles per
hour. In the ' Eclipse's' day the distance between the two ports
had become reduced to one thousand and eighty miles; consequently
her average speed was a shade under fourteen and three-eighths miles
per hour. In the * R. E. Lee's' time the distance had diminished to
about one thousand and thirty miles; consequently her average was
about fourteen and one-eighth miles per hour. Therefore the
' Eclipse's' was conspicuously the fastest time that has ever been
made.
1 Time disputed. Some aathoritiee add 1 hour and 16 minutes to this.