534 LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
one; no printed acres of world-wide news to be read at breakfast,
mornings—a tedious dull absence of such matter, instead; hence,
also, no running to see steamboats smoking into view in the distance
up or down, and ploughing toward the town—for none came, the
river lay vacant and undisturbed; no rush and turmoil around the
railway station, no struggling over bewildered swarms of passengers
by noisy mobs of hackmen—all quiet there; flour two hundred dollars
a barrel, sugar thirty, corn ten dollars a bushel, bacon five dollars a
pound, rum a hundred dollars a gallon; other things in proportion :
consequently, no roar and racket of drays and carriages tearing along
the streets; nothing for them to do, among that handful of non-com-
batants of exhausted means; at three o'clock in the morning,
silence; silence so dead that the measured tramp of a sentinel can be
heard a seemingly impossible distance; out of hearing of this lonely
sound, perhaps the stillness is absolute: all in a moment come
ground-shaking thunder-crashes of artillery, the sky is cobwebbed
with the cria-crossmg red lines streaming from soaring bomb-shells,
and a rain of iron fragments descends upon the city; descends upon
the empty streets: streets which are not empty a moment later, but
mottled with dim figures of frantic women and children skurrying
from home and bed toward the cave dungeons—encouraged by the
humorous grim soldiery, who shout 'Bats, to your holes!' and laugh.
The cannon-thunder rages, shells scream and crash overhead, the
iron rain pours down, one hour, two hours, three, possibly six, then
stops; silence follows, but the streets are still empty; the silence
continues; by-and-bye a head projects from a cave here and there and
yonder, and reconnoitres, cautiously; the silence still continuing,
bodies follow heads, and jaded, half smothered creatures group them-
selves about, stretch their cramped limbs, draw in deep draughts of
the grateful fresh air, gossip with the neighbours from the next cave;
maybe straggle off home presently, or take a lounge through the
town, if the stillness continues; and will skurry to the holes again,
by-and-bye, when the war-tempest breaks forth once more.
There being but three thousand of these cave-dwellers—merely
tine population of a village—would they not come to know each other,
affcer a week or two, and familiarly; insomuch that the fortunate or
unfortunate experiences of one would be of interest to all?