LZFJS Otf TSM MISSISSIPPI*

CHAPTER

I BETUBN TO MY MUTTONS.

AFTER twenty-one years' absence, I felt a very strong desire to see
the river again, and the steamboats, and such of the boys as might
be left ; so I resolved to go out there. I enlisted a poet for company,
and a stenographer to * take him down,' and started westward about
the middle of April.

As I proposed to make notes, \* ith a view to printing, I took
some thought as to methods of procedure. I reflected that if I were
recognised, on the river, I should not be as free to go and come, talk,
inquire, and spy around, as I should be if unknown ; I remembered
that it was the custom of steam boatmen in the old times to load up
the confiding stranger with the most picturesque and admirable lies,
and put the sophistieated friend off with dull and ineffectual facts :
so I concluded, that, from a business point of view, it would be an
advantage to disguise our party with fictitious names. The idea was
certainly good, but it bred infinite bother; for although Smith,
Jones, and Johnson are easy names to remember when there is no
occasion to remember them, it is next to impossible to recollect them
when they are wanted. How do criminals manage to keep a brand-
new alias in mind 1 This is a great mystery. I was innocent ; and
yet was seldom able to lay my hand on my new name when it was
needed; and it seemed to me that if I had had a crime on my
conscience to further confuse me, I could never have kept the name
by me at alL

We left per P&rnsylvania Railroad, at 8 A.M. April 18.

Speaking of dress* Grace and pictareequeness drop gradually
out of it as 0&e travels mway from New York.'