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LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI

CHAPTER XXVIIL

UNCLE MUMFORD UNLOADS.

ALL day we swung along down the river, and had the stream almost
wholly to ourselves. Formerly, at such a stage of the water, we
should have passed acres of lumber raffcs, and dozens of big coal
barges ; also occasional little trading-scows, peddling along from farm

THE STEAMEE « MABK TWAIN.
to farm, with the pedler's family on board ; possibly, a random scow,
bearing a humble Hamlet and Co. on an itinerant dramatic trip. But
tbese were all absent. Far along in the day, we saw one steamboat;
just one, and no more. She was lying at rest in the shade, within
the wooded mouth of the Obion Kver. The spy-glass revealed the
f&efe that she was named for me—or he was named for me, whichever