292

LIFE 03 THE MISSISSIPPI.

One night the boat struck a snag in the head of Kentucky Bend, and
sank with astonishing buddenness; water already well above the
cabin floor when the captain got aft. So he cut into his wife's state-
room from above with an axe -} she was asleep in the upper berth
the roof a flimsier one than was supposed; the first blow crashed
down through the rotten boards and clove her skull.

This bend is all filled up now—result of a cut-off; and the same
agent has taken the great and once much-frequented Walnut Bend,

and set it away back in
a solitude far from the
accustomed track of
passing steamers.

Helena we visited,
and also a town I had
not heard of before, it
being of recent birth—
Arkansas City. It was
born of a railway; the
Little Hock, Mississippi
River and Texas JRail-
road touches the river
there. We asked a
passenger who belonged
there what sort of a
place it was. 'Well,'
said he, after consider-
ing, and with the air
of one who wishes to
take time and be accu-
rate, * It?s a hell of a place/ A description which was photographic
for exactness. There were several rows and clusters of shabby frame-
bouses, and a supply of mnd sufficient to insure the town against a
famiBB in that article for a hundred years; for the overflow had but
Imfeely subsided. There were stagnant ponds in the streets, here and
t&ere, and a dozen rude scows were scattered about, lying aground
wkfrever they happened to have been when the waters drained off
people could do their visiting and shopping on foot once more.

FATAL BLOW.