446 LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI. disappeared, and cut-offs that had been made, a generation before th» oldest bald-head in the company had ever set his foot in a pilot- house! Many and many a time did this ancient mariner appear on the scene in the above fashion, and spread disaster and humiliation around him. If one might believe the pilots, he always dated big islands back to the misty dawn of river history; and he never used the same island twice; and never did he employ an island that still existed, or give one a name which anybody present was old enough to have heard of before. If you might believe the pilots, he was always conscientiously particular about little details; never spoke of ' the State of Mississippi/ for instance—no, he would say, * "When the State of Mississippi was where Arkansas now is;' and would never speak of Loni.sia.Tia or Missouri in a general way, and leave an incorrect impression on your mind—no, he would say, * When Louisiana was up the river farther/ or c When Missouri was on the Illinois side.' The old gentleman was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used to jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about the river, and sign them * MABK TWAIN/ and give them to the * New Orleans Picayune.' They related to the stage and condition of the river, and were accurate and valuable; and thus far, they contained no poison. But in speaking of the stage of the river to-day, at a given point, the captain was pretty apt to drop in a little remark about this being the first time he had seen the water so high or so low at that particular point for forty-nine years; and now and then he would mention Island So-and-so, and follow it, in parentheses, with some such observation as * disappeared in 1807, if I remember rightly.* In these antique interjections lay poison and bitterness for the other old pilots, and they used to chaff the 'Mark Twain* paragraphs with unsparing mockery. It so chanced that one of these paragraphs1 became the text for 1 The original M.S. of it, in the captain's own hand, has been sent to me from New Orleans. It reads as follows— •VlCKSBTJBO, May 4, 3869. * My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans: The water is feigher this far up than it has been since 1815. My opinion is that the water