444 LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
The proximity of the forecastle to the pilot-house, no doubt, rendered this aa
easy matter; but how different on one of our palaces of the present day.
' In 1827 we find aim on board the " President," a boat of two hundred
and eighty-five tons burden, and plying between Smithland and New Orleans.
Thence he joined the " Jubilee " in 1828, and on this boat he did his first
piloting in the St. Louis trade; his first watch extending from Herculaneum
to St. Genevieve. On May 26, 1836, he completed and left Pittsburgh in
charge of the steamer " Prairie," a boat of four hundred tons, and the fiist
steamer with a state-room cabin ever seen at St. Louis. In 1857 he intro-
duced the signal for meeting boats, and which has, with some slight change,
been the universal custom of this day ; in fact, is rendered obligatory by act
of Congress.
* As general items of river history, we quote the following marginal notes
from his general log—
<In March, 1825, Gen. Lafayette left New Orleans for St. Louis on th»
low-pressure steamer " Natchez."
* In January, 1828, twenty-one steamers left the New Orleans wharf to
celebrate the occasion of Gen. Jackson's visit to that city.
'In 1830 the "North American" made the run from New Orleans to
Memphis in six days—best time on record to that date. It has since been
made in two days and ten hours.
' In 1831 the Red River cut-off formed.
*In J832 steamer " Hudson*' made the run from "White River to Helena,
a distance of seventy-five mDes, in twelve hours. This was the source oi
much talk and speculation among parties directly interested.
* In 1839 Great Horseshoe cut-ofi" formed.
* Up to the present time, a term of thirty-five years, we ascertain, by re-
ference to the diary, he has made four hundred and sixty round trips to New-
Orleans, which gives a distance of one million one hundred and four thousand
miles, or an average of eighty-six miles a day.'
Whenever Captain Sellers approached a body of gossiping pilots,
a chill fell there, and talking ceased. For this reason: whenever
six pilots were gathered together, there would always be one or two
newly ftedged ones in the lot, and the elder ones would be always
* showing off1 before these poor fellows; making them sorrowfully
feel how callow they were, how recent their nobility, and how humbk
tfefiir degree, by talking largely and vaporously of old-time experiences
*at th£ river j ahrays making it a point to date everything back ag
tar as they could, so as tc make the new men feel their newness to
Hie sharpest degree possible, and envy the old stagers in the lik»