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PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

1928

ALL

RIGHTS RESERVED

THE ‘BODY OF THE NATION.’

j0TJT the basin of the Mississippi is the Body or the Nation. All
the other parts are hat members, important in themselves, yet
more important in their relations to this. Exclusive of the Lake
basin and of 300,000 square miles in Texas and New Mexico, which
in many aspects form a part of it, this basin contains about 1,250,000
square miles. In extent it is the second great valley of the world,
being exoeeded only by that of the Amazon. The valley of the
frozen Obi approaches it in extent; that of the La Plata comes next
in space, and probably in habitable capacity, having about f of its
area; then comes that of the Yenisei, with about £; the Lena,
Amoor, Hoang-ho, Yang-tse-kiang, and Nile, f; the Ganges, less
than |; the Indus, less than £; the Euphrates, |; the Rhine, It
exceeds in extent the whole of Europe, exclusive of Russia, Norway,
and Sweden. It would contain Austria four times, Germany or
Spain five time s, France six times, the British Islands or Italy ten
times. Conceptions formed from the river-basins of Western Europe
are rudely shocked when we consider the extent of the valley of the
Mississippi; nor are those formed from the sterile basins of the
great rivers of Siberia, the lofty plateaus of Central Asia, or the
mighty sweep of the swampy Amazon more adequate. Latitude,,
elevation, and rainfall all combine to render every part of the
Mississippi Yalley capable of supporting a dense population. As a
dtcelling-plaee for civilised man it is by far the first upon our globe.

Editor's Tabus, Harper *s Magazine, February, 1863.

LIFE

ON THE MISSISSIPPI

f By

MARK T W A 1 7

CHATTO &P WINDUS

LONDON

PRINTED I 1SI GREAT BRITAIN

1928

ABB

RIOHTS RESERVED

THE ‘BODY OF THE NATION.*

jgUT the basin of the Mississippi is (he Body of thb Nation. AD
the other parts are but members, important in themselves, yet
more important in their relations to this. Exclusive of the Lake
basin and of 300,000 square miles in Texas and New Mexico, which
in many aspects form a part of it, this basin contains about 1,250,000
square miles. In extent it is the second great valley of the world,
being exceeded only by that of the Amazon. The valley of the
frozen Obi approaches it in extent; that of the La Plata comes next
in space, and probably in habitable capacity, having about $ of its
area; then comes that of the Yenisei, with about §; the Lena,
Amoor, Hoang-ho, Yang-tse-kiang, and Nile, f; the Ganges, less
than |; the Indus, less than §; the Euphrates, $; the Bhine, A* I*
exceeds in extent the whole of Europe, exclusive of Russia, Norway,
and Sweden. It would contain Austria four times, Germany or
Spain jive times , France six times , the British Islands or Italy ten
times. Conceptions formed from the river-basins of Western Europe
are rudely shocked when we consider the extent of the valley of the
Mississippi; nor are those formed from ike sterile basins of the
great rivers of Siberia, the lofty plateaus of Central Asia, or the
mighty sweep of the swampy Amazon more adequate. Latitude,
elevation, and rainfall all combine to render every part of the
Mississippi Valley capable of supporting a dense population. As a
dwelling-place for civilised man it is by far the first upon our glebe.

Editoe’s Table, Harper's Magasme, February , 1863.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER L

THE RIVER AND ITS HISTORY.

PACK

The Mississippi is Well worth Reading about—It is Remarkable—In¬
stead of Widening towards its Mouth, it grows Narrower—It Empties
four hundred and six million Tons of Mud—It was First Seen in
1542—It is Older than some Pages in European History—De Soto
has the Pull—Older than the Atlantic Coast—Some Half-breeds chip
in—La Salle Thinks he will Take a Hand

CHAPTER II.

THE RIVER AND ITS EXPLORERS.

La Salle again Appears, and so does a Cat-fish—Buffaloes also—Some
Indian Paintings are Seen on the Rocks— 4 The Father of Waters *
does not Flow into the Pacific—More History and Indians—Some
Curious Performances, not Early English—Natchez, or the Site of it,
is Approached.. ... 11

CHAPTER III.

FRESCOES FROM THE PAST.

A little History—Early Commerce—Coal Fleets and Timber Bafts—We
start on a Voyage—I seek Information—Some Mnsic—The Trouble
begins—Tall Talk—The Child of Calamity—Ground and lofty
Tumbling—The Wash-up—Business and Statistics—Mysterious Band
—Thunder and Lightning—The Captain speaks—AUbright weeps—

The Mystery settled—Chaff—I am Discovered—Some Art-work pro¬
posed—I give an Aooount of Myself—Released.20

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BOYS’ AMBITION*.

The Boys’ Ambition—Village Scenes—Steamboat Pictures—A Heavy
Swell—A Bunaway ...

PAGB

CHAPTER V.

I WANT TO BE A CUB-PILOT.

A Traveller—A Lively Talker—A Wild*cat Victim. . 0 « „ 47

CHAPTER VL

A CUB-PILOT’S EXPERIENCE.

Besieging the Pilot—Taken along—Spoiling a Hap—Fishing foT a
Plantation— 4 Points * on the Biver—A Gorgeous Pilot-house , . 55

CHAPTER yn.

A DARING DEED.

River Inspectors—Cottonwoods and Plum Point—Hat-Island Crossing-
Touch and Go—It is a Go—A Lightning Pilot • • . . .

CHAPTER VEIL

PERPLEXING LESSONS.

A Heavy-loaded Big Gun—Sharp Sights in Darkness—Abandoned to his
—Scraping the Banks—Learn him or Kill Vn™

CHAPTER IX.

CONTINUED PERPLEXITIES.

Shake the Reef—Reason Dethroned—The Face of the Water—A
Bewitching Scene—Romance and Beauty .

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER X.

COMPLETING MY EDUCATION.

Patting on Airs—Taken down a bit—Learn it as it is—The River
Rising.. . . . .

PA.61

CHAPTER XI.

THE RIVES RISES.

In the Tract Business—Effects of the Rise—Plantations gone—A Mea¬
sureless Sea—A Somnambulist Pilot—Sapematoral Piloting—Nobody
there—All Saved.105

CHAPTER XU

SOUNDING.

Low Water—Yawl Sounding—Buoys and Lanterns—Cubs and Soundings

—The Boat Sunk—Seeking the Wrecked . . . . . .115

CHAPTER XHL

A pilot’s needs.

A Pilot's Memory—Wages soaring—A Universal Grasp—Skill and

Nerve—Testing a ‘ Gab*—‘ Back her for Life ’—A Good Lesson 123

CHAPTER XIV.

RANK AND DIGNITY OP PILOTING.

Pilots and Captains—High-priced Pilots—Pilots in Demand—A Whistler

—A cheap Trade—Two-hundxed-and-fifty-dollar Speed • . .136

CHAPTER XV.

THE PILOT’S MONOPOLY.

New Pilots undermining the Pilots* Association—Crutches and Wages—
Putting on Airs—The Captains Weaken—The Association Laughs—

The Secret Sign—An Admirable System—Bough on Outsiders—A
Tight Monopoly—No Loophole—The Railroads and the War . . 146

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XVI.

RACING DAYS.

All Aboard A Glorious Start—Loaded to Win—Bands and Bugles

Boats and Boats—Racers and Racing . • •

PAGE

161

CHAPTER XVIL

CUT-OFFS AND STEPHEN.

Cut-offs_Ditching and Shooting—Mississippi Changes—A Wild Night

—Swearing and Guessing—Stephen in Debt—He Confuses his
Creditors—He makes a New Deal——Will Pay them Alphabetically ■ 173

CHAPTER XVIII.

I TAKE A FEW EXTRA LESSONS.

Sharp Schooling—Shadows—I am Inspected—Where did you get them
Shoes ?—Pull her Down—I want to kill Brown—I try to run her—I
am Complimented

CHAPTER XIX.

BROWN AND I EXCHANGE COMPLIMENTS.

A Question of Veracity—A Little Unpleasantness—1 have an Audience

with the Captain—Mr. Brown Retires .193

CHAPTER XX.

A CATASTROPHE.

I become a Passenger—We hear the News—A Thunderous Crash—They
Stand to their Posts—In the Blazing Sun—A Gruesome Spectacle—

His Hour has Struck , ........ 201

CHAPTER XXI.

A SECTION IN MY BIOGRAPHY.

I get my license—The War Begins—I become a Jack-of-all-trade

. 21)

CONTENTS.

sift

CHAPTER XXII.

I RETURN TO MY MUTTONS.

PAGB

1 try the Alias Business—Region of Goatees—Boots begin to Appear—

The River Man is Missing—The Young Man is Discouraged—Speci¬
men Water—A Fine Quality of Smoke—A Supreme Mistake—We
Inspect the Town—Desolation Way-traffic—A Wood-yard. • . 212

CHAPTER XXin.

TRAVELLING INCOGNITO.

Old French Settlements—We start for Memphis—Young Ladies and
Russia-leather Bags.. 223

CHAPTER XXIY.

MY INCOGNITO IS EXPLODED.

I receive some Information—Alligator Boats—Alligator Talk—She was
a Rattler to go—I am Found Out.228

CHAPTER XXY.

FROM CAIRO TO HICKMAN.

The Devil’s Oven and Table—A Bombshell falls—No Whitewash—
Thirty years on the River—Mississippi Uniforms—Accidents and
Casualties—Two hundred Wrecks—A Loss to Literature—Sunday-
Schools and Brick Masons . . . ...... 237

CHAPTER XXYL

UNDER FIRE.

War Talk—I Tilt over Backwards—Fifteen Shot-holes—A Plain Story—

Wars and Feuds—Darnell versus Watson-—A Gang and a Wood pile—
Western Grammar—River Changes—New Madrid—Floods and
Falla . .. .245

CONTENTS

sft

CHAPTER XXYIL

SOME IMPORTED ARTICLES.

PAGl

Tourists and their Note-books—Captain Hall—Mrs. Trollope’s Emo¬
tions — Hon. Charles Augustus Murray's Sentiment — Captain
Marryat’s Sensations—Alexander Mackay’s Feelings—Mr. Parkman
Reports. .... 255

CHAPTER XXVTIL

UNCLE MUMFORD UNLOADS.

Swinging down the River—Named for Me—Plum Point again—Lights
and Snag Boats— Infini te Changes—A Lawless River—Changes and
Jetties—Unde Mumford Testifies—Pegging the River—What the
Government does—The Commission Men and Theories. 4 Had them
Bad*—Jews and Prices . ...... 260

CHAPTER XXIX.

A FEW SPECIMEN BRICKS.

Murel’s Gang—A Consummate Tillain—Getting Rid of Witnesses—
Stewart turns Traitor—I Start a Rebellion—I get a New Suit of
Clothes—We Cover our Tracks—Pluck and Capacity—A Good Sama¬
ritan City—The Old and the New . ..272

CHAPTER XXX.

SKETCHES BY THE WAY.

A Melancholy Picture—On the Move—River Gossip—She Went by
a- Sparklin’—Amenities of Life—A World of Misinformation—Elo¬
quence of Silence—Striking a Snag—Photographically Exact—

Plank Side-walks. ..285

CHAPTER XXXI.

A THUMB-PRINT AND WHAT CAME OP IT.

Mutinous Language—The Dead-house—Cast-iron German and Flexible

English—A Dying Man’s Confession—I am Bound and Gagged_

I get Myself Freer—I Begin my Search—The Man with one Thumb-
Bed Paint and White Paper—He Dropped on his Knees—Fright and

CONTENTS. **

FAGS

Gratitude—I Fled through the Woods—A Grisly Spectacle—Shout,

Man, Shout—A Look of Surprise and Triumph—The Muffled Gurgle
of a Mocking Laugh—How strangely Things happen—The Hidden
Money .. ^

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE DISPOSAL OP A BONANZA.

Bitter’s Narrative—A Question of Money—Napoleon—Somebody is
Serious—Where the Prettiest Girl used to Live . . . * * BIS

CHAPTER XXXIH.

REFRESHMENTS AND ETHICS*

A Question of Division—A Place where there was no Licence—The
Calhoun Land Company—A Cotton-planter’s Estimate—Halifax and
Watermelons—Jewetied-up Bar-keepers.322

CHAPTER XXXIV*

TOUGH YARNS.

An Austere Man—A Mosquito Policy—Facts dressed in Tights—A
swelled Left Ear.329

CHAPTER XXXV.

VICKSBURG DURING THE TROUBLE.

Signs and Scars—Cannon-thunder Pages—Cave-dwellers—A Continual
Sunday—A ton of Iron and no Glass—The Ardent is Saved—Mule
Meat—A National Cemetery—A Dog and a Shell—Railroads and
Wealth—Wharfage Eoonomy—Vicksburg versus The ‘ Gold Dust *—

A Narrative in Anticipation ........ 332

CHAPTER XXXVL

THE PROFESSOR'S YARN.

The Professor Spins a Yarn—An Enthusiast in Cattle—He makes a
Proposition—Loading Beeves at Acapulco—He wasn’t Raised to it—

He is Roped in—His Dull Eyes Lit Up—Four Aces, you Ass!—He
doesn’t Care for the Gores . . 343

rvi

CONTENTS,

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE EOT) OP THE ‘GOLD DUST. r

A Terrible Disaster—The ‘ Gold Dust ’ Explodes her Boilers—The End
of a Good Man. . . *

i-ag*

352

CHAPTER XXXVHI.

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL.

Mr. Dickens has a Word—Best Dwellings and their Furniture—Albums
and Music—Pantelettes and Conch-shells—Sugar-candy Babbits and
Photographs—Horse-hair Sofas and Snuffers—Bag Carpets and Bridal
Chambers . .354

CHAPTER XXXIX.

MANUFACTURES AND MISCREANTS.

Rowdies and Beauty—Ice as Jewellery—Ice Manufacture—More Sta¬
tistics—Some Drummers—Oleomargarine versus Butter—Olive Oil
versus Cotton Seed—The Answer was not Caught—A Terrific Epi¬
sode—A Sulphurous Canopy—The Demons of War—The Terrible
Gauntlet «. 33 $

CHAPTER XL.

CASTLES AND CULTURE.

In Flowers, like a Bride—A White-washed Castle—A Southern Prospec¬
tus—Pretty Pictures— An Alligator’s Meal. 339

CHAPTER XT/T.

THE METROPOLIS OF THE SOUTH.

The Approaches to New Orleans—A Stirring Street—Sanitary Improve¬
ments—Journalistic Achievements—Cisterns Wells ... 375

CHAPTER XLTT.

HYGIENE AND SENTIMENT.

Beautiful Grave-yards—Chameleons and Panaceas—Inhumation and
Ihfer^on—Mortality and Epidemics—The Cost of Funerals . , 383

CONTENTS.

rvii

CHAPTER XL1H

THE ART OF INHUMATION.

1 meet an Acquaintance—Coffins and Swell Houses—Mrs. O’Flaherty
goes One Better—Epidemics and Embamming—Six hundred for a
Good Case—Joyful High Spirits

PA€M

389

CHAPTER XLTV.

CITY SIGHTS.

French and Spanish Parts of the City—Mr. Cable and the Ancient
Quarter—Cabbages and Bouquets—Cows and Children—The Shell
Boad—The West End—A Good Square Meal—The Pompano—The
Broom-Brigade—Historical Painting—Southern Speech—Lagniappe. 395

CHAPTER XLV.

SOUTHERN SPORTS.

’ Waw * Talk—Cock-Fighting—Too much to Bear—Fine Writing—Mule
Racing.406

CHAPTER XLYL

ENCHANTMENT AND ENCHANTERS.

Mardi-Gras—The Mystic Crewe—Bex and Belies—Sir Walter Scott—

A World Set Back—Titles and Decorations—A Change . . . 416

CHAPTER XLYEL.

UNCLE REMUS AND MR. CABLE.

Uncle Bemus—The Children Disappointed—We Bead Aloud—Mr. Cable
and Jean ah Poquelin—Involuntary Trespass—The Gilded Age—An
Impossible Combination—The Owner Materialises, and Protests . 422

CHAPTER XLYIIL

SUGAR AND POSTAGE.

Tight Curls and Springy Steps—Steam-ploughs—‘No. 1.’Sugar—A Frank¬
enstein Laugh—Spiritual Postage—A Place where there are no
Butchers or Plumbers—Idiotic Spasms.426

xviii

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XLIX.

EPISODES IN PILOT LIFE.

Pilot-Fanners—Working on Shares—Consequences—Men who Stick to
their Posts—He saw what he would do—A Day after the Fair . •

PACK

436

CHAPTER L.

THE * ORIGINAL JACOBS.’

A Patriarch—Leaves from a Diary—A Tongue-stopper—The Ancient

Mariner—Pilloried in Print—Petrified Truth ..... 443

CHAPTER LI.

REMINISCENCES.

A Fresh 4 Cub*at the Wheel—A Valley Storm—Some Remarks on Con¬
struction—Sock and Buskin—The Man who never played Hamlet—

I got Thirsty—Sunday Statistics . , . . , 449

CHAPTER LIL

A BURNING BRAND.

I Collar an Idea—A Graduate of Harvard—A Penitent Thief—His Story
in the Pulpit—Something Symmetrical—A Literary Artist—A Model
Epistle—Pumps again Working—The * Hub * of the Note . . . 457

CHAPTER Lm,

MT BOYHOOD’S HOME.

A Masterly Retreat—A Town at Rest—Boyhood’s Pranks—Friends
of my Youth—The Refuge for Imbeciles—I am Presented with my
Measure ....... «... 470

CHAPTER LIV.

PAST AND PRESENT.

A Special Judgment—Celestial Interest—A Night of Agony—Another

Bad Attack—I become Convalescent—I address a Sunday School_

A Model Boy •••••*...,«

476

CONTEXTS.

CHAPTER LV.

A VENDETTA AND OTHER THINGS.

PA&a

A second Generation—A hundred thousand Tons of Saddles—A Dark
and Dreadful Secret—A Large Family—A Golden-haired Darling—

The Mysterious Cross—My Idol is Broken—A Bad Season of Chills
and Fever—An Interesting Cave 485

CHAPTER LYE

A QUESTION OF LAW.

Perverted History—A Guilty Conscience—A Supposititious Case—A

Habit to be Cultivated—I Drop my Burden—Difference in Time , 492

CHAPTER LYTL

AN ARCHANGEL.

A Model Town—A Town that comes up to Blow in the Summer—The
Scare-crow Dean—Spouting Smoke and Flame—An Atmosphere that
tastes good—The Sunset Land . 498

CHAPTER LYIIL

ON THE UPPER RIVER.

An Independent Race—Twenty-four-hour Towns—Enchanting Scenery
—The Home of the Plough—Black Hawk—Fluctuating Securities—

A Contrast—Electric Lights.. - • 606

CHAPTER LIX.

LEGENDS AND SCENERY.

Indian Traditions and Rattlesnakes—A Three-ton Word—Chimney Rock
—The Panorama Man—A Good Jump—The Undying Head—Peboan
and Seegwun . • • . ..614

CONTENTS,

CHAPTER LX.

SPECULATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS.

PA81

The Head of Navigation-From Roses to Snow—Climatic Vaccination—

A Long Ride-Bones of Poverty—The Pioneer of Civilisation-Jug
of Empire—Siamese Twins—The Sugar-bush—He Wins his Bride—

The Mystery about the Blanket—A City that is always a Novelty-
Home again . ...... 523

APPENDIX.

4 ,-Voyage of the Times-Democrat’s Relief Boat through the Inundated

Regions .535

B -...... ... 544

C. —Reception of Captain Basil Hall’s Book in the United States . , 648

D. -The Undying Head , , , ..551

page

Yiew on the Biver ... 2

A High-water Sketch . . . 3

La Salle Canoeing ... 4
He Soto Sees it . . . . 6

Classifying their Offspring . 7

Burial of De Soto . . . . 8

Canadian Indians .... 9

Inundation Scene , . . . 10

Crossing the Lakes . , .12

Anchored in the Stream . . 13
Hospitably Received . . * 14

La Salle on the Ice . . 15
Consecrating the Robbery . 17
'The Temple Wall . . . . 18

The Lonely River . . .19
Early Navigation . . . . 21

A Lumber Raft ... .22

I Swum along the Raft . . 23
He Jumped up in the Air . 24
Went around in a Circle . . 26
He Knocked them Sprawling . 27
An Old-fashioned Breakdown . 28
The Mysterious Barrel . . 30

PAGE

Soon there was

a Begular

Storm .

. . . 32

The Lightning

Killed Two

Men .

. , . . 33

Grabbed the Little Child . 34

Ed got up Mad

. . . 35

* Who are You ? *

. . . . 36

1 Charles William

Allbright,

Sir * .

. . . 38

Overboard .

. . . . 39

Our Permanent Ambition . .40

Water Street Clerks . . . 41

All Go Hurrying to the Wharf 42
The Town Drunkard Asleep

Once More ....

A Shining Hero

. .

Day Dreams ....

Bored with Travelling .

. .

* Tell Me where it is—

-I’ll

FETCH IT ’ .

Sublime in Profanity .

, .

His Tears Dripped upon

THE

Lantern .

3211

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS,

PAGE |

PAGB&

The Chalk Pipe . •

•

Hauled Aboard • •

. . 121

He Easily Borrowed Six Dollars

On Soundings . • •

•

. 122

Besieging the Pilot

•

A City Street . * *

. . 124

‘This is Nine-mile Point'

Let a Leadsman cey

* Half

‘Come! turn out* . *

Twain ! ’

. 120

A Minute Later .

Oh, I Knew Him! . .

. . 127

You’re a Smart One •

So Full of Laugh !

•

. 128

Get a Memorandum Book

•

Scared to Death

ft . 180

A Sumptuous Temple .

Where is Mr. Bixby?.

♦ 131

Music and Games , .

If You Love Me, Back her !

. 134

Biyeb Inspectors * «

Back her, Back her! *

•

. 135

A Tangled Knot

♦

Very Brief Authority •

. . 137

Insensibly they Drew Together

Treated with Marked

Defr-

Stand By, now 1 .

RENCE . • • •

•

. 138

Shoulder to Shoulder *

You Take My Boat * *

. . 140

‘Over She Goes!'. •

•

No Foolin'! • « *

•

« 141

Loading and Firing.

Went to Whistling. *

. * 143

Changing Watch •

•

Steamer at Night *

. 145

All Well—but Me . •

Burst into a Fury . ♦

. . 147

Learning the River .

Resurrected Pilots •

•

. 148

Learn Me or Kill Ms .

The Captain Stor3ikd

. a 151

‘That's a Beef' .

•

The Sign of Membership

a 152

‘ Set Her Back *

Posting his Report . •

. . 155

Me. Bixby Stepped into View

Added to the Fold

. 157

I Stood Like One Bewitched

A Justifiable Advance .

• * 158

Sunset Views .

Steamboat Time •

. 168

Wearing a Toothpick .

Drowsy Engineers * •

. * 165

‘ Do You SEE THAT STUMP ?

Brass Bands Bray .

•

. 167

Drifting Logs

100

The Parting Chorus

• • 168

The Orator of the Scow

•

101

Race of the Lee and

THE

Gambling down Below

•

103

Natchez . . .

•

. 172

Tow-boat Supremacy

•

104

Dangerous Ditching •

* ft 174

Tract Distributing .

•

106 :

A Scientist . •

•

• 175

Yellow-faced Mirkra-wt/feb.

108

Deluged and Careened •

. . 177

On a Shoreless Sea

•

109

The Spectre Steamer .

. 178

The Phantom Assumed

THE

*My, What a Rack I've Had!'. 180

W HEEL * i , .

•

111

Beaming Bbnignantly •

* 182

Nobody There . , .

•

113

The Debt-Payer

a ft 183

Dark Piloting .

•

114

Pilot Brown .

. 185

Sounding • • • •

•

116

1 ‘Abe You Horace Bigsby’s

Oh, how Awful! •

119

Cub?' ... .

• 185

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

xxiii

PAQB

4 Hold up your Foot* . « . 187

* Take that Ice-Pitcher* . . 188

* Pull her Down ’ . • . 189

I Killed Brown Every Night . 190
Hurled Me Across the House . 191
Killing Brown • . . .192

I Hit Brown a Good Honest

Blow.195

The Backet had Brought
Everybody to the Deck . . 197

‘So You have been Fighting I’. 199
An Emancipated Slave . . 200

Henry and I sat Chatting . . 202
Emptying the Wood-flat . . 203

The Explosion—A Startled

Barber.204

Ealer Saves his Flute . . 205

The Fire Drove the Axemen

Away • . . ... 207

The Hospital Ward . . ,208

Funeral Wreaths . . . . 210

The Land of full ‘Goatees* . 213
Station Loafers . . . . 214

Under an Alias . . . ,215

‘ Do You Drink this Slush ? * .216
Sound-asleep Steamboats . . 218

Asleep, in Soundless Vacancy . 219
Dead Past Resurrection . • 220

The Wood-yard Man . . .221

Waiting for a Trip. . . . 224

The Electric Light . . .225

A Landing. 226

A Close Inspection . • . 227

Showing the Bells . . . . 229

An Alligator Boat . • .230

Alligator Pilots • • . . 231

The Sacred Bird . , • .233

Counting the Vote . * . 234

‘ Here 1 You Take Her ’ . .235

Boat-travellers . . • . 236

Grand Tower. . . . .237

PAGE

A Dairy Farm. 239

Threw the Preacher Over¬

board • . » . • .241

Illinois Ground . ... 243'

His Maiden Battle ... 246

Mighty Warm Times . . • 247

‘ Where did You See that

Fight ? *. 248

Darnell v. Watson . • . . 249

They Kept on Shooting • . 251

Island No. 10 . . . . . 252

Flood on the Biver . . . 253

A Dismal Witness . • • • 256

The Steamer ‘Mark Twain* . 260

A Government Lamp . . . 261

Snags.262

Artificial Daylight . . . 263
Uncle Mumford .... 265

Talking over the Situation . . 269

The Tow.271

A Soul-moving Villain • . . 273

Selling the Negro . , , 274

Concealed in the Brake . . 273
A Man came in Sight . . . 277

I Shot Him through the Head 278
Another Victim . . . . 279

Pleasantly Situated . . .281

Memphis— A Landing Stage . . 282
Natives at Dinner . . . 283

A Light-keeper . . . . 285

Negro Travellers . . .287

‘Any Boat gone up?* . . . 288

A World of Misinformation . 283
A Fatal Blow ..... 292
Elaborate Style .... 293
The Night Approach .. . . 296

Napoleon in 1871 • • , . 297

The Man’s Eyes opened slowly 299
They rummaged the Cabin . . 302
On the Bight Track « , 304

Thumb-Prints . . • * . 305

SX1V

LIST OT ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

PAG*

He Dropped on his Knees .

. 306

West End ' • •

•

. 381

The Tragedy ....

. 308

The Cemetery . .

•

. 383

In the Morgue . .

. 310

Immortelles .

. 384

I SAT DOWN BY HIM .

. 313

Chameleons . .

. 385

We began to cool off

. 316

Relics .

•

. 387

‘Ain’t that so, Thompson ?’ .

. 317

He Chuckled

. 389

He is Happy where He is .

. 318

‘Why, Just Look at

IT 1 ’

. 391

Warmed up into a Quarrel .

. 319

Ambition . . .

•

. 392

Napoleon as it is . •

. 321

An Explanation •

. 393

Caving Banks .

. 323

The St. Charles Hotel .

. 396

The Commission Dealer

. 324

The Shell Road .

. 898

The Israelite • • •

. 325

Spanish Fort

•

. 399

The Bar-keeper •

. 326

The Broom Brigade

. 400

A Plain Gill ....

. 327

‘ Whah You was ? * .

. 402

A 4 Watermillion ’

. 328

For Lagniappe

. 403

Mosquitoes.

. 329

Lagniappe . . .

. 405

A Bad IS ah ....

. 330

4 Waw’ Talk .

. 407

Fanning Himself

. 331

Cock-pit . . .

. 409

Vicksburg ....

. 332

Guests ...

. 411

The River was Undisturbed.

. 333

Absence of Harmony

•

. 414

The Cave Dwellers .

. 335

Collision . •

. 415

Bringing the Children .

. 337

Mardi-Gras

•

, 417

Wait and Make Certain .

. 838

Chivalry • .

. 419

■‘Mule Meat ? ’ ....

. 339

Tools of the Trade.

. 421

Native Wild-woods •

. 341

Uncle Remus .

. 423

My Promenade ....

. 344

We Read Aloud

. 424

A Short Stout Bag • .

. 346

A River Landing .

. 425

The Door was A-crack •

. 348

The Captain

. 427

■‘Five Hundred Better’

. 349

Pilot Town .

. 431

< Been Laying for you Duffers

i’ 350

Smoke and Gossip •

. 432

An Explosion ....

. 353

The Interview

. 434

An Interior ....

. 357

Over the Breastboard .

. 438

Cleansing Themselves .

. 360

Thornburgh’s Cub

. 440

Natchez.

. 368

He Clung to a Cotton-bale

. 441

Drummers.

. 366

A Chill Fell There

. 445

‘Smell Them, Taste Them’

. 367

Sellers’s Monument

. 447

Columbia Female Institute .

. 370

1 am Anxious About the Time

. 451

The Graceful Palmetto .

. 373

Stage-struck .

. 453

High Water ....

. 375

* Look here. Have You got that

The Wharves ...

. 376

Drink yet ? ’ .

• 4 55

Canal Street ....

. 377

Williams Plies His Trade

, 548

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS,

XXV

PAGl

He Pulled some ‘Leather’

. ,460

The Crisis , . , ,

.461

Mission Work , . .

. .463

Williams.

.468

The Days of Long Ago .

, .472

A Practical Joke. . .

.474

Fools for St. Louis . .

. .475

‘I sat up in Bed Quaking’

.477

‘All Right, Dutchy -

Ahead’. . . . .

,480

We all Flew Home. ,

. .482

Random Rubbish . . .

.484

The Consecrated Knife .

. .488

A Cheap and Pitiful Rum.

.489

A Bad Case of Shakes .

, .491

I Tamper with My Conscience . 494

My Burden is Lifted , ,

.496

Bad Dreams . .

. .497

Henry Clay Dean ,

.500

The House Began to Break into
Appuuse. , . . , .501

A Former Resident . . ,505
An Independent Race . , .507

The Man with a Trademark , 509-
Majestic Bluffs . . . . 510

‘Nuth’n,’ says Smith . , ,512

Queen’s Bluff. 515-

Chimney Rock . , . .516

The Maiden’s Rock . . . , 517

The Lecturer .... 519-
St, Paul . . . . , .524

An Early Postmaster . . .526

The First Arrival , , . , 527

Minneapolis and the Falls of
St. Anthony . , . .529

The Mixture , , . . ,581

An Arkansas River Post Office 535
Indian Ornaments . . .561

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTER I.

THE RIVER AND ITS HISTORY.

Thu Missis sippi is well worth reading about. It is not a common
place river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable. Consider¬
ing the Missouri its main branch, it is the longest river in the world
—four thousand three hundred miles. It seems safe to say that it
is also the crookedest river in the world, since in one part of its
journey it uses up one thousand three hundred miles to cover the
same ground that the crow would fly over in six hundred and seventy-
five. It discharges three times as much water as the St. Lawrence,
twenty-five times as much as the Rhine, and three hundred and
thirty-eight times as much as the Thames. No other river has so
vast a drainage-basin: it draws its water supply from twenty-eight
States and Territories ; from Delaware, on the Atlantic seaboard, and
from all the country between that and Idaho on the Pacific slope—
a spread of forty-five degrees of longitude. The Mississippi receives
and carries to the Gulf water from fifty-four subordinate rivers that
are navigable by steamboats, and from some hundreds that are navi¬
gable by flats and keels. The area of its drainage-basin is as great as
the combined areas of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Prance,
Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Turkey ; and almost
all this wide region is fertile; the Mississippi valley, proper, is ex¬
ceptionally so.

It is a remarkable river in this: that instead of widening toward
its mouth, it grows narrower; grows narrower and deeper. Prom the

life on the Mississippi.

junction of the Ohio to a point half way down to the sea, the width
averages a mile in high water : thence to the sea the width steadily
diminishes, until, at the ‘Passes,’ above the mouth, it is but little
over half a mile. At the junction of the Ohio the Mississippi’s depth
is eighty-seven feet; the depth increases gradually, reaching one hun¬
dred and twenty-nine just above the mouth.

The difference in rise and fall is also remarkable—not in the
upper, but in the lower river. The rise is tolerably uniform down
to .Natchez (three hundred and sixty miles above the mouth)—about

fifty feet. But at Bayou La Fourche the
river rises only twenty-four feet; at New
Orleans only fifteen, and just above the
mouth only two and one half.

An article in the New Orleans ‘ Times-
Democrat,’ based upon reports of able engineers, states that the river
^^y empties four hundred and six million tons of mud into the
Gulf of Mexico which brings to mind Captain Marryat’s rude name
for the Mississippi —‘ the Great Sewer.’ This mud

^he m^ d and tW ° hundred and forty-one feet^high

The mud deposit gradually extends the land—-but onlv crr-.A ''

* *« it quite . aird of .

7**.^ W. daped mo, a, me ta* Hi pm. to

TEE RIVER AND ITS ELI STORY.

The belief of the scientific people is, that the month used to be at
Baton Rouge, where the hills cease, and that the two hundred miles
of land between there and the Gulf was built by the river. This
gives us the age of that piece of country, without any trouble at all—
one hundred and twenty thousand years. Yet it is much the youth-
fullest batch of country that lies around there anywhere.

The Mississippi is remarkable in still another way— its disposition
to make prodigious jumps by cutting through narrow necks of land,
and thus straightening and shortening itself. More than once it has

several river towns out into the rural districts, and built up sand
bars and forests in front of them. The town of Delta used to be
three miles below Vicksburg : a recent cut-off has radically changed
the position, and Delta is now two miles above Vicksburg.

Both of these river towns have been retired to the country by that
cut-off. A cut-off plays havoc with boundary lines and jurisdictions :
for instance, a man is living in the State of Mississippi to-day, a cut¬
off occurs to-night, and to-morrow the man finds himself and his land

4 LIFE ON TEE MISSISSIPPI.

over on the other side of the river, within the boundaries and subject
to the laws of the State of Louisiana ! Such a thing, happening in
the upper river in the old times, could have transferred a slave from
Missouri to Illinois and made a free man of him.

The Mississippi does not alter its locality by cut-offs alone : it is
always changing its habitat bodily —is always moving bodily sidewise.
At Hard Times, La., the river is two miles west of the region it used
to occupy. As a result, the original site of that settlement is not
now in Louisiana at all, but on the other side of the river, in the

State of Mississippi. Nearly the whole of that one tho'icsand three
hundred miles of old Mississippi Fiver which La Salle floated down
in his canoes 9 two hundred years ago , is good solid dry ground now .
The river lies to the right of it, in places, and to the left of it in other
places.

Although the Mississippi's mud builds land but slowly, down at
the mouth, where the Gulf*s billows interfere with its work, it builds
fast enough in better protected regions higher up : for instance,
Prophet's Island contained one thousand five hundred acres of land

THE RIVER AND IT8 HISTORY.

thirty years ago ; since then the river has added seven hundred acres
to it.

But enough of these examples of the mighty stream’s eccentricities
for the present—I will give a few more of them further along in the
book.

Let us drop the Mississippi’s physical history, and say a word
about its historical history—so to speak. We can glance briefly at
its slumbrous first epoch in a couple of short chapters; at its second
and wider-awake epoch in a couple more; at its flushest and widest-
awake epoch in a good many succeeding chapters; and then talk
about its comparatively tranquil present epoch in what shall be left
of the book.

The world and the books are so accustomed to use, and over-use,
the word fi new ’ in connection with our country, that we early get
and permanently retain the impression that there is nothing old about
it. We do of course know that there are several comparatively old
dates in American history, but the mere figures convey to our minds
no just idea, no distinct realisation, of the stretch of time which they
represent. To say that De Soto, the first white man who ever saw
the Mississippi River, saw it in 1542, is a remark which states a fact
without interpreting it: it is something like giving the dimensions of
a sunset by astronomical measurements, and cataloguing the colours
by their scientific names;—as a result, you get the bald fact of the
sunset, but you don’t see the sunset. It would have been better to
paint a picture of it.

The date 1542, standing by itself, means little or nothing to us;
but when one groups a few neighbouring historical dates and facts
around it, he adds perspective and colour, and then realises that this
is one of the American dates which is quite respectable for age.

For instance, when the Mississippi was first seen by a white man,
less than a quarter of a century had elapsed since Francis I.’s defeat
at Pavia; the death of Raphael; the death of Bayard, sans peur et
sans reproche ; the driving out of the Knights-Hospitallers from
Rhodes by the Turks; and the placarding of the Ninety-Five Proposi¬
tions,—the act which began the Reformation. When De Soto took
his glimpse of the river, Ignatius Loyola was an obscure name; the
order of the Jesuits was not yet a year old ; Michael Angelo’s paint

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

was not yet dry on the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel; Mary
Queen of Scots was not yet born, but would he before the year closed.
Catherine de Medici was a child; Elizabeth of England was not yet
in her teens ; Calvin, Benvenuto Cellini, and the Emperor Charles V.
were at the top of their fame, and each was manufacturing history
after his own peculiar fashion; Margaret of Navarre was writing the
‘ Heptameron ’ and some religious books,—the first survives, the
others are forgotten, wit and indelicacy being sometimes better

literature preservers

and the tournament were

the frequent pastime of titled fine gentlemen who could fight
better than they could spell, while religion was the passion of
their ladies, and classifying their offspring into children of full
rank and children "by brevet their pastime. In fact, all around,
religion was in a peculiarly blooming condition: the Council of
Trent was being called ; the Spanish Inquisition was roasting, and
racking, and burning, with a free hand; elsewhere on the continent the
nations were being persuaded to holy living by tbe sword and fire; in

THE RIVER AND ITS HISTORY.

England, Henry VIII. had suppressed the monasteries, burnt Fisher
and another bishop or two, and was getting his English reformation
and his harem effectively started. When De Soto stood on the banks
of the Mississippi, it was still two years before Luther’s death ; eleven
years before the burning of Servetus; thirty years before the St. Bar¬
tholomew slaughter; Babelais was not yet published; ‘ Don Quixote ’
was not yet written; Shakspeare was not yet bom ; a hundred long

years must still elapse before
Englishmen would hear the
If name of Oliver Cromwell.

.JP® Unquestionably the . djs-

CLASSIFYING- THEIR OFFSPRING.

which considerably mellows and modifies / )

the shiny newness of our country, and ' 1

gives her a most respectable outside-aspect of rustiness and antiquity.

De Soto merely glimpsed the river, then died and was buried in
it by his priests and soldiers. One would expect the priests and the
soldiers to multiply the river’s dimensions by ten—the Spanish custom
of the day—and thus move other adventurers to go at once and ex¬
plore it. On the contrary, their narratives when they reached home,
did not excite that amount of curiosity. The Mississippi was left un¬
visited by whites during a term of years which seems incredible in
our energetic days. One may 4 sense 9 the interval to his mind, after

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI

a fashion, by dividing it up in this way : After De Soto glimpsed the
river, a fraction short of a quarter of a century elapsed, and then
Shakspeare was born; lived a trifle more than half a century, then
died; and when he had been in his grave considerably more than half
a century, the second white man saw the Mississippi. In our day we
don't allow a hundred and thirty years to elapse between glimpses of
a marvel. If somebody should discover a creek in the county next to
the one that the North Pole is in, Europe and America would start

BURIAL OP DEi SOTO.

fifteen costly expeditions thither : one to explore the creek, and the
other fourteen to hunt for each other.

Eor more than a hundred and fifty years there had been white
settlements on our Atlantic coasts. These people were in intimate
communication with the Indians : in the south the Spaniards were
robbing, slaughtering, enslaving and converting them ; higher up, the
English were trading beads and blankets to them for a consideration,
and throwing in civilisation and whiskey, ‘ for lagniappe ; 91 and in
Canada the French were schooling them in a rudimentary way, mis-

1 See p. 402.

THE BIVEJR AND ITS HISTORY.

sionarying among them, and drawing whole populations of them at a
time to Quebec, and later to Montreal, to buy furs of them. Neces¬
sarily, then, these various clusters of whites must have heard of the
great river of the far west ; and indeed, they did hear of it vaguely,—
so vaguely and indefinitely, that its course, proportions, and locality
were hardly even guessable. The mere mysteriousness of the matter
ought to have fired curiosity and compelled exploration; but this did
not occur. Apparently nobody happened to want such a river,

CANADIAN INDIANS.

nobody needed it, nobody was curious about it; so, for a century and
a half the Mississippi remained out of the market and undisturbed.
When De Soto found it, he was not hunting for a river, and had no
present occasion for one; consequently he did not value it or even
take any particular notice of it.

But at last La Salle the Frenchman conceived the idea of seeking
out that river and exploring it. It always happens that when a
man seizes upon a neglected and important idea, people inflamed
with the same notion crop up all around. It happened so in this
instance.

LIFE ON TEE MISSISSIPPI\

Naturally the question suggests itself, Why did these people want
the river now when nobody had wanted it in the five preceding
generations? Apparently it was because at this late day they
thought they had discovered a way to make it useful; for it had
come to be believed that the Mississippi emptied into the Gulf of
California, and therefore afforded a short cut from Canada to China.
Previously the supposition had been that it emptied into the Atlantic,
or Sea of Virginia.

CHAPTER EL

THE RIVER AND ITS EXPLORERS.

La Salle himself sued for certain high privileges, and they were
graciously accorded him by Louis XIV. of inflated memory. Chief
among them was the privilege to explore, far and wide, and build
forts, and stake out continents, and hand the same over to the king,
and pay the expenses himself; receiving, in return, some little advan¬
tages of one sort or another; among them the monopoly of buffalo
hides. He spent several years and about all of his money, in making
perilous and painful trips between Montreal and a fort which he had
built on the Illinois, before he at last succeeded in getting his expedi¬
tion in such a shape that he could strike for the Mississippi.

And meantime other parties had had better fortune. In 1673
Joliet the merchant, and Marquette the priest, crossed the country
and reached the banks of the Mississippi. They went by way of the
Great Lakes; and from Green Bay, in canoes, by way of Fox River
and the Wisconsin. Marquette had solemnly contracted, on the feast
of the Immaculate Conception, that if the Virgin would permit him
to discover the great river, he would name it Conception, in her
honour. He kept his word. In that day, all explorers travelled
with an outfit of priests. De Soto had twenty-four with him. La
Salle had several, also. The expeditions were often out of meat, and
scant of clothes, but they always had the furniture and other requisites
for the mass; they were always prepared, as one of the quaint
. chroniclers of the time phrased it, to * explain hell to the salvages.’

■v. On the 17th of June, 1673, the canoes of Joliet and Marquette
j and their five subordinates reached the junction of the Wisconsin
with the Mississippi. Mr. Parkman says: * Before them a wide and

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

rapid current coursed athwart their way, by the foot of lofty heights
wrapped thick in forests/ He continues : 4 Turning southward, they
paddled down the stream, through a solitude unrelieved by the faintest
trace of man/

A big cat-fish collided with Marquette’s canoe, and startled him;
and reasonably enough, for he had been warned by the Indians that
he was on a foolhardy journey, and even a fatal one, for the river
contained a demon 4 whose roar could be heard at a great distance,

CBOSSING THE LAKES.

and who would engulf them in the abyss where he dwelt.’ I have
seen a Mississippi cat-fish that was more than six feet lon» and
weighed two hundred and fifty pounds; and if Marquette’s fish was
ttte fellow to that one, he had a fair right to think the river’s roaring
demon was come. ®

‘ At length the buffalo began to appear, grazing in herds on the
great prairies which then bordered the river; and Marquette describes

l tup j d ]00k of ^ old bulls « they stared at the
intruders through the tangled mane which nearly blinded them.’

THE RIVER AND ITS EXPLORERS.

The voyagers moved cautiously : 6 Landed at night and made a
tire to cook their evening meal; then extinguished it, embarked
again, paddled some way farther, and anchored in the stream, keeping
a man on the watch bill morning/

They did this day after day and night after night; and at the end
of two weeks they had not seen a human being. The river was an
awful solitude, then. And it is now, over most of its stretch.

But at the close of the fortnight they one day came upon the foot¬
prints of men in the mud of the western bank—a Robinson Crusoe
experience which carries an electric shiver with it yet, when one

ANCHORED IN THE STREAM.

stumbles on it in print. They had been warned that the river
Indians were as ferocious and pitiless as the river demon, and de¬
stroyed all comers without waiting for provocation ; but no matter,
Joliet and Marquette struck into the country to hunt up the proprie¬
tors of the tracks. They found them, by-and-bye, and were hospitably
received and well treated—if to be received by an Indian chief who
has taken off his last rag in order to appear at his level best is to be
received hospitably ; and if to be treated abundantly to fish, porridge,
and other game, including dog, and have these things forked into
one’s mouth by the ungloved fingers of Indians is to be well treated.

14 LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

In the morning the chief and six hundred of his tribesmen escorted
the Frenchmen, to the river and bade them a friendly farewell.

On the rocks above the present city of Alton they found some rude
and fantastic Indian paintings, which they describe. A short distance
below ‘a torrent of yellow mud rushed furiously athwart the calm
blue current of the Mississippi, boiling and surging and sweeping in
its course logs, branches, and uprooted trees.’ This
was the mouth of the Missouri, ‘ that savage river,’ 1. if ll

which ‘descending from its mad career through a

HOSPITABLY RECEIVED.

vast unknown of barbarism, poured

its turbid floods into the bosom of 'IJM'T i/J/|

its gentle sister.’ *

By-and-bye they passed the mouth of the Ohio; they passed cane-
brakes ; they fought mosquitoes ; they floated along, day after day,
through the deep silence and loneliness of the river, drowsing in the
scant shade of makeshift awnings, and broiling with the heat; they
encountered and exchanged civilities with another party of Indians;
and at last they reached the mouth of the Arkansas (about a month

THE RIVER AND ITS EXPLORERS.

out from their starting-point), where a tribe of war-whooping savages
swarmed out to meet and murder them; but they appealed to the
Virgin for help; so in place of a fight there was a feast, and plenty
of pleasant palaver and fol-de-rol.

They had proved to their satisfaction, that the Mississippi did not
empty into the Gulf of California, or into the Atlantic. They
believed it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. They turned back, now,
and carried their great news to Canada.

LA SALLE ON THE ICE.

But belief is not proof. It was reserved for La Salle to furnish
the proof. He was provokingly delayed, by one misfortune after
another, but at last got his expedition under way at the end of the
year 1681/ In the dead of winter he and Henri de Tonty, son of
Lorenzo Tonty, who invented the tontine, his lieutenant, started down
the Illinois, with a following of eighteen Indians brought from Hew
England, and twenty-three Frenchmen. They moved in procession
down the surface of the frozen river, on foot, and dragging their
canoes after them on sledges.

ZIFE ON TELE MISSISSIPPI .

At Peoria Lake they struck open water, and paddled thence to
the Mississippi and turned their prows southward. They ploughed
through the fields of floating ice, past the mouth of the Missouri;
past the mouth of the Ohio, by-and-bye; 4 and, gliding by the wastes of
bordering swamp, landed on the 24th of February near the Third
Chickasaw Bluflk,’ where they halted and built Fort Prudhomme.

* Again,’ says Mr. Parkman, ‘ they embarked; and with every
stage of their adventurous progress, the mystery of this vast new
world was more and more unveiled. More and more they entered
the realms of spring. The hazy sunlight, the warm and drowsy air,
the tender foliage, the opening flowers, betokened the reviving life of
nature. 1

Day by day they floated down the great bends, in the shadow of
the dense forests, and in time arrived at the mouth of the Arkansas.
First, they were greeted by the natives of this locality as Marquette
had before been greeted by them—with the booming of the war drum
and the flourish of arms. The Virgin composed the difficulty in
Marquette’s case; the pipe of peace did the same office for La Salle.
The white man and the red man struck hands and entertained each
other during three days. Then, to the admiration of the savages, La
Salle set up a cross with the arms of France on it, and took possession
of the whole country for the king—the cool fashion of the time—
while the priest piously consecrated the robbery with a hymn. The
priest explained the mysteries of the faith 4 by signs/ for the saving
of the savages; thus compensating them with possible possessions in
Heaven for the certain ones on earth which they had just been
robbed of And also, by signs, La Salle drew from these simple
children of the forest acknowledgments of fealty to Louis the Putrid,
over the water. Nobody smiled at these colossal ironies.

These performances took place on the site of the future town of
Napoleon, Arkansas, and there the first confiscation-cross was raised
on the banks of the great river. Marquette’s and Joliet’s voyage of
discovery ended at the same spot—the site of the future town of
Napoleon. When De Soto took his fleeting glimpse of the river,
away back in the dim early days, he took it from that same spot—the
site of the future town of Napoleon, Arkansas. Therefore, three out
of the four memorable events connected with the discovery and ex-

THE RIVER AND ITS EXPLORERS .

ploration of the mighty river, occurred, by accident, in one and the
same place. It is a most curious distinction, when one comes to look
at it and think about it. France stole that vast country on that
spot, the future Napoleon; and by and by Napoleon himself was to
give the country back again!—make restitution, not to the owners,
but to their white American heirs.

CONSECRATING- THE ROBBERY.

The voyagers journeyed on, touching here and there; * passed the
sites, since become historic, of Vicksburg and Grand Gulf;’ and
visited an imposing Indian monarch in the Teche country, whose
capital city was a substantial one of sun-baked bricks mixed with
straw—better houses than many that exist there now. The chiefs
house contained an audience room forty feet square; and there he

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

received Tonty in State, surrounded by sixty old men clothed i^
white cloaks. There was a temple in the town, with a mud wall
about it ornamented with skulls of enemies sacrificed to the sun.

The voyagers visited the Natchez Indians, near the site of the
present city of that name, where they found a ‘ religious and political
despotism, a privileged class descended from the sun, a temple and a
sacred fire.* It must have been like getting home again; it was
home with an advantage, in fact, for it lacked Louis XIV.

THE TEMPLE WALL.

A few more days swept
swiftly by, and La Salle stood

in the shadow of his confiscating cross, at the meeting of the waters
from Delaware, and from Itaska, and from the mountain ranges close
upon the Pacific, with the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, his task
finished, his prodigy achieved. Mr. Parkman, in closing his fascina¬
ting narrative, thus sums up:

1 On that day, the realm of France received on parchment a stu¬
pendous accession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of the
Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of

THE RIVER AND ITS EXPLORERS .

the Gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare
peaks of the Rocky Mountains—a region of savannas and forests, sun-
cracked deserts and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers,
ranged by a thousand warlike tribes, passed beneath the sceptre of
the Sultan of Versailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice,
inaudible at half a mile.’

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTER III.

FRESCOES FROM THE PAST.

Apparently the river was ready for business, now. But no, the
distribution of a population along its banks was as calm and
deliberate and time-devouring a process as the discovery and explo¬
ration had been.

Seventy years elapsed, after the exploration, before the river’s
borders had a white population worth considering; and nearly fifty
more before the river had a commerce. Between La Salle’s opening
of the river and the time when it may be said to have become the
vehicle of anything like a regular and active commerce, seven
sovereigns had occupied the throne of England, America had become
an independent nation, Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had rotted and
died, the Prench monarchy had gone down in the red tempest of the
revolution, and Xapoleon was a name that was beginning to be talked
about. Truly, there were snails in those days.

The river’s earliest commerce was in great barges—keelboats,
broadhoms. They floated and sailed from the upper rivers to Hew
Orleans, changed cargoes there, and were tediously warped and poled
back by hand. A voyage down and back sometimes occupied nine
months. In time this commerce increased until it gave employment
to hordes of rough and hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering
terrific hardships with sailor-like stoicism; heavy drinkers, coarse
frolickers in moral sties like the Natchez-under-the-hill of that day,
heavy fighters, reckless fellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-
witted, profane; prodigal of their money, bankrupt at the end of the
trip, fond of barbaric finery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main,
honest, trustworthy, faithful to promises and duly, and often pic¬
turesquely magnanimous.

FRESCOES FROM TEE PAST

By and by the steamboat intruded. Then for fifteen or twenty
years, these men continued to run their keelboats down-stream, and
the steamers did all of the up-stream business, the keelboatmen selling
their boats in New Orleans, and returning home as deck passengers
in the steamers.

But after a while the steamboats so increased in number and in
speed that they were able to absorb the entire commerce; and then
keelboating died a permanent death. The keelboatman became a
deck hand, or a mate, or a pilot on the steamer; and when steamer-
berths were not open to him, he took a berth on a Pittsburgh coal-

In the heyday of the steamboating prosperity, the river from end
to end was flaked with coal-fleets and timber rafts, all managed by
hand, and employing hosts of the rough characters whom I have been
trying to describe. I remember the annual processions of mighty
rafts that used to glide by Hannibal when I was a boy,—an acre or
so of white, sweet-smelling boards in each raft, a crew of two dozen
men or more, three or four wigwams scattered about the raft's vast
level space for storm-quarters,—and I remember the rude ways
and the tremendous talk of their big crews, the ex-keelboatmen and

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

their admiringly patterning successors; for we used to swim out a
quarter or third of a mile and get on these rafts and have a ride.

By way of illustrating keelboat talk and manners, and that now-
departed and hardly-remembered raft-life, I will throw in, in this place,
a chapter from a book which I have been working at, by fits and
starts, during the past five or six years, and may possibly finish in
the course of five or six more. The book is a story which details
some passages in the life of an ignorant village boy, Huck Finn, son
of the town drunkard of my time out west, there. He has run away
from his persecuting father, and from a persecuting good widow who

A LUMBER RAJFr.

wishes to make a nice, truth-telling, respectable boy of him; and
with him a slave of the widow’s has also escaped. They have found
a fragment of a lumber rafb (it is high water and dead summer time),
and are floating down the river by night, and hiding in the willows
by day,—bound for Cairo,—whence the negro will seek freedom in
the heart of the free States. But in a fog, they pass Cairo without
knowing it. By and by they begin to suspect the truth, and Huck
Finn is persuaded to end the dismal suspense by swimming down to
a huge rafb which they have* seen in the distance ahead of them,
creeping aboard under cover of the darkness, and gathering the
needed information by eavesdropping:—

FRESCOES FROM THE FAST.

But you know a young person can’t wait very well when he is impatient
to find a thing out. We talked it oyer, and by and by Jim said it was such
a black night, now, that it wouldn’t be no risk to swim down to the big raft
and crawl aboard and listen—they would talk about Cairo, because they
would be calculating to go ashore there for a spree, maybe, or anyway they
would send boats ashore to buy whiskey or fresh meat or something. Jim
had a wonderful level head, for a nigger: he could most always start a good
plan when you wanted one.

I stood up and shook my rags off and jumped into the river, and struck
out for the raft’s light. By and by, when I got down nearly to her, I eased
up and went slow and cautious. But everything was all right nobody at
the sweeps. So I swum down along the raft till I was most abreast the

camp fire in the middle,
then I crawled aboard and
inched along and got in
amongst some bundles of
shingles on the weather

side of the fire. There was thirteen men there—they was the watch on deck
of course. And a mighty rough-looking lot, too. They had a jug, and tin
cups, and they kept the jug moving. One man was singing—roaring, you
may say; and it wasn’t a nice song—for a parlour anyway. He roared
through his nose, and strung out the last word of every line very long.
When he was done they all fetched a kind of Injun war-whoop, and then

another was sung. It begun:—

* There was a woman in our towdn.
In our towdn did dwed’l (dwell,)
She loved her husband dear-i-lee,
But another man twyste as wed’L

24 LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

Singing too, riloo, riloo, riloo,

Bi-too, riloo, rilaj-e,

She loved her husband dear-i-lee,

But another man twyste as wed’l.

And so on—fourteen verses. It was kind of poor, and when he was going
to start on the next verse one of them said it was the tune the old cow died
on; and another one said, 4 Oh, give us a rest.’ And another one told him

FRESCOES FROM THE FAST\ ^ 25

down, which was all oyer ribbons, and says, * You lay thar tell his sufferins

is over/ .

Then he jumped up in the air and cracked his aeels together again and

shouted out—

‘Whoo-oop! I’m the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-
bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!—Look at me ! Pm
the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a
hurricane, darn’d by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related
to the small-pox on the mother’s side ! Look at me! I take nineteen alli¬
gators and a barl of whiskey for breakfast when I’m in robust health, and
a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I’m ailing ! I split the
everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the thunder when I speak !
Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room according to my strength !
Blood’s my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is music to my ear !
Oast your eye on me, gentlemen !—and lay low and hold your breath, for I’m
bout to turn myself loose ! ’

All the time he was getting this off, he was shaking his head and
looking fierce, and kind of swelling around in a little circle, tucking up his
wrist-bands, and now and then straightening up and beating his breast with
his fist, saying, * Look at me, gentlemen! ’ When he got through, he
jumped up and cracked his heels together three times, and let off a roaring
‘whoo-oop! I’m the bloodiest son of a wildcat that lives ! ’

Then the man that had started the row tilted his old slouch hat down
over his right eye; then he bent stooping forward, with his back sagged and
his south end sticking out far, and his fists a-skoving out and drawing in in
front of him, and so went around in a little circle about three times, swelling
himself up and breathing hard. Then he straightened, and jumped up and
cracked his heels together three times, before he lit again (that made them
cheer), and he begun to shout like this—

4 Whoo-oop! bow .your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow's
a-coming! Hold me down to the earth, for I feel my powers a-working !
whoo-oop! I’m a child of sin, don’t let me get a start! Smoked glass,
here, for all! Don’t attempt to look at me with the naked eye, gentlemen!
When I’m playful I use the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude
for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales ! I scratch my head
with the lightning, and purr myself to sleep with the thunder I When Pm
cold, I bile the Gulf of Mexico and bathe in it; when I’m hot I fan myself
with an equinoctial storm; when I’m thirsty I reach up and suck a cloud
dry like a sponge; when I range the earth hungry, famine follows in my
tracks! Whoo-oop I Bow your neck and spread! I put my hand on the
sun’s face and make it night in the earth; I bite a piece out of the moon
and hurry the seasons; I shake myself and crumble the mountains I Con-

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

template me through leather— don't use the naked eye ! I’m the man with
a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels! The massacre of isolated communi¬
ties is the pastime of my idle moments, the destruction of nationalities the
serious business of my life ! The boundless vastness of the great American
desert is my enclosed property, and I bury my dead on my own premises! *
He jumped up and cracked his heels together three times before he lit (they

cheered him again), and as he come

down he shouted out: 1 Whoo-oop !
bow your neck and spread, for the
pet child of calamity’s a-coming 1 '
Then the other one went to
swelling around and blowing again
—the first one—the one they called
Bob; next, the Child of Calamity
chipped in again, bigger than ever;
then they both got at it at the same
time, swelling round and round each
other and punching their fists most
into each other’s faces, and whoop¬
ing and jawing like Injuns; then
Bob called the Child names, and the
Child called him names back again:
next, Bob called him a heap rougher
names and the Child come back at
him with the very worst kind of
language; next, Bob knocked the
Child’s hat off, and the Child picked
it up and kicked Bob’s ribbony hat
about six foot; Bob went and got
it and said never mind, this wara’t
going to be the last of this thing,
because he was a man that never
forgot and never forgive, and so

‘WENT ABOUND IN A CIRCLE.’ the CMd lo ° k OUt ' f ° r there

was a tune a-coming, just as sure as

he was a living man, that he would
have to answer to him with the best blood in his body. The Child said no
man was willinger than he was for that time to come, and he would give
Bob fair warning, now , never to cross his path again, for he could never rest
till he had waded in his blood, for such was his nature, though he was
sparing him now on account of his family, if he had one.

Both of them was edging away in different directions, growling and

FRESCOES FROM THE PAST.

shaking their heads and going* on about what they was going to do; "but a
little black-whiskered chap skipped up and says—

‘ Come back here, you couple of chicken-livered cowards, and I’ll thrash

the two of ye ! 5

And he done it, too. He snatched them, he jerked them this way and
that, he booted them around, he knocked them sprawling faster than they

in v

* HE KNOCKED THEM SPBA.WLING.*

could get up, Why, it warn’t two minutes till they begged like dogs—and
how the other lot did yell and laugh and clap their hands all the way
through, and shout ‘Sail in, Corpse-Maker t’ ‘Hi! at him again, Child of
Calamity ! 9 * Bully for you, little Davy ! ’ Well, it was a perfect pow-wow

for a while. Bob and the Child had red noses and black eyes when they got
through. little Davy made them own up that they were sneaks and cowards

LIFE OF- THE MISSISSIPPI.

and not fit to eat with a dog or drink with a nigger; then Bob and the
Child shook hands with each other, very solemn, and said they had always
respected each other and was willing to let bygones be bygones. So then
they washed their faces in the river ; and just then there was a loud order
to stand by for a crossing, and some of them went forward to man the
sweeps there, and the rest went aft to handle the after-sweeps.

I laid still and waited for fifteen minutes, and had a smoke out of a pipe
that one of them left in reach; then the crossing was finished, and they

stumped back and Lad a drink around and went to talking and singing again.
Next they got out an old fiddle, and one played and another patted juba,
and the rest turned themselves loose on a regular old-fashioned keel-boat
break-down. They couldn’t keep that up very long without getting winded,
so by and by they settled around the jug again.

They sung e jolly, jolly raffcman’s the life for me,’ with a rousing chorus,
and then they got to talking about differences betwixt bogs, and tbeir different
kind of habits; and next about women and tbeir different ways: and next
about the best ways to put out houses that was afire j and next about what

FRESCOES FROM THE PAST. *

ought to be done with the Injuns; and next about what a king had to do,
and how much he got; and next about how to make cats fight; and next
about what to do when a man has fits ; and next about differences betwixt
clear-water rivers and muddy-water ones. The man they called Ed said
the muddy Mississippi water was wholesomer to drin k than the clear water
of the Ohio ; he said if you let a pint of this yaller Mississippi water settle,
you would have about a half to three quarters of an inch of mud in the
bottom, according to the stage of the river, and then it wam’t no better
than Ohio water—what you wanted to do was to keep it stirred up—and
when the river was low, keep mud on hand to put in and thicken the water
up the way it ought to be.

The Child of Calamity said that was so ; he said there was nutritiousness
in the mud, and a man that drunk Mississippi water could grow com in his
stomach if he wanted to. He says—

‘ You look at the graveyards; that tells the tale. Trees won't grow
worth chucks in a Cincinnati graveyard, but in a Sent Louis graveyard they
grow upwards of eight hundred foot high. It’s all on account of the water
the people drunk before they laid up. A Cincinnati corpse don’t richen a soil
any.’

And they talked about how Ohio water didn’t like to mix with Missis¬
sippi water. Ed said if you take the Mississippi on a rise when the Ohio is
low, you’ll find a wide band of clear water all the way down the east side
of the Mississippi for a hundred mile or more, and the minute you get out a
quarter of a mile from shore and pass the line, it is all thick and yaller the
rest of the way across. Then they talked about how to keep tobacco from
getting mouldy, and from that they went into ghosts and told about a lot
that other folks had seen; hut Ed says—

t Why don’t you tell something that you’ve seen yourselves P Now let
me have a say. Five years ago I was on a raft as big as this, and right
along here it was a bright moonshiny night, and I was on watch and boss of
the stabboard oar forrard, and one of my pards was a man named Dick All-
bright, and he come along to where I was sitting, forrard—gaping and
stretching, he was—and stooped down on the edge of the raft and washed
his face in the river, and come and set down by me and got out his pipe, and
had just got it filled, when he looks up and says—

‘ “ Why looky-here,” he says, “ ain’t that Buck Miller’s place, over yander
in the bend? ”

‘“ Yes,” says I, “it is—why?” He laid his pipe down and leant his
head on his hand, and says—

‘ “I thought we’d he furdeT down.” I says—

i a I thought it too, when I went off watch”—we was standing six hours
on and six off — u hut the hoys told me,” I says, “ that the raft didn’t seem

ZIFF ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

to hardly move, for the last hour,” says I, “though she’s a slipping alone

all right, now,” says I. He give a kind of a groan, and says_ ° ®

‘ “ I’ve seed a raft act so before, along here,” he says, “ ’pears to me the
current has most quit above the head of this bend durin’ the last two years ”
he says. J ’

‘ Well, he raised up two or three times, and looked away off and around
on the water. That started me at it, too. A body is always doin^ what
he sees somebody else doing, though there mayn’t he no sense in it. Pretty
soon I see a black something floating on the water away off to stabboard

and quartering behind us.
I see he was looking at it,
too. X says—

e “ What’s that ? ” He
says, sort of pettish,—

‘ “ Tain’t nothing but
an old empty bar’l.”

1 “ An empty bar’l! 9
says I, “why,” says I, “a
spy-glass is a fool to your
eyes. How can you tell
it’s an empty bar’l P ” He
says—

{ “ I don’t know ; I
reckon it ain’t a bar’l, but I
thought it might be,” says
he.

1 “ Yes,” I says, “ so it
might be, and it might be
anything else, too; a body
can’t tell nothing about it,
such a distance as that,” I
says.

■, , , . f We hadn’t nothing

else to do, so we kept on watching it. By and by I says—

believe^ 2 ^ ^°°^ r ’^ ere ’ ^bright, that thing’s a-gaining on us, I

ne ! 6r ^ dnotbin g- He thing gained and gained, and I judged it
must be a dog ftat was about teed out. Well, we swung down into the

087 ? V

THE MYSTEEIOUS BAEEEL.

FRESCOES FROM THE PAST

* u I don’t know.” Says I—

* u You tell me, Dick Allbright.” He says—

* "Well, I knowed it was a barl; I’ve seen it before; lots has seen it;
they says it’s a haunted barl.”

i I called the rest of the watch, and they come and stood there, and I
told them what Dick said. It floated right along abreast, now, and didn’t
gain any more. It was about twenty foot off Some was for haying it
aboard, but the rest didn’t want to. Dick Allbright said rafts that had
fooled with it had got bad luck by it. The captain of the watch said he didn’t
believe in it. He said he reckoned the barl gained on us because it was in a
little better current than what we was. He said it would leave by and by.

‘ So then we went to talking about other things, and we had a song, and
then a breakdown; and after that the captain of the watch called for another
song; but it was clouding up, now, and the barl stuck right thar in the
same place, and the song didn’t seem to have much warm-up to it, somehow,
and so they didn’t finish it, and there warn’t any cheers, but it sort of
dropped flat, and nobody said anything for a minute. Then everybody
tried to talk at once, and one chap got off a joke, but it wam’t no use, they
didn’t laugh, and even the chap that made the joke didn’t laugh at it,
which ain’t usual. We all just settled down glum, and watched the barl,
and was oneasy and oncomfortable. Well, sir, it shut down black and still,
and then the wind begin to moan around, and next the lightning begin to
play and the thunder to grumble. And pretty soon there was a regular
storm, and in the middle of it a man that was running aft stumbled and fell
and sprained his ankle so that he had to lay up. This made the boys shake
their heads. And every time the lightning come, there was that barl with
the blue lights winking around it We was always on the look-out for it.
But by and by, towards dawn, she was gone. When the day come we couldn’t
see her anywhere, and we wam’t sorry, neither.

* But next night about half-past nine, when there was songs and high
jinks going on, here she comes again, and took her old roost on the stabboard
side. There wam’t no more high jinks. Everybody got solemn; nobody
talked; you couldn’t get anybody to do anything but set around moody
and look at the barl. It begun to cloud up again. When the watch
changed, the off watch stayed up, ’stead of turning in. The storm ripped
and roared around all night, and in the middle of it another man tripped and
sprained his ankle, and had to knock off The barl left towards day, and
nobody see it go.

i Everybody was sober and down in the mouth all day. I don’t mean
the kind of sober that comes of leaving liquor alone—not that. They was
quiet, but they all drunk more than usual—not together—but each
sidled off and took it private, by himself.

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

6 After dark the off watch didn't turn in ; nobody sung, nobody talked*
the boys didn’t scatter around, neither ; they sort of huddled together, for*
rard ; and for two hours they set there, perfectly still, looking steady in the
one direction, and heaving a sigh once in a while. And then, here comes
the barl again. She took up her old place. She staid there all night; no*
body turned in. The storm come on again, after midnight. It got awful
dark; the rain poured down; hail, too; the thunder boomed and roared

and bellowed; the wind blowed a hurricane; and the lightning spread over
everything in big sheets of glare, and showed the whole raft as plain as day;
and the river lashed up white as milk as far as you could see for miles, and
there was that bar’l jiggering along, same as ever. The captain ordered the
watch to man the after sweeps for a crossing, and nobody would go—no
more sprained ankles for them, they said. They wouldn’t even walk aft.
^Tell then, just then the sky split wide open, with a crash, and the lightning

FRESCOES FROM THE PAST.

killed two men of the after watch, and crippled two more. Crippled them
how, says you ? "Why, sprained their ankles /

4 The bar’] left in the dark hetwixt lightnings, towards dawn. Well, not
a body eat a bite at breakfast that morning. After that the men loafed
around, in twos and threes, and talked low together. But none of them
herded with Dick Allbright.

They all give him the cold
shake. If he come around where
any of the men was, they split
up and sidled away. They
would n’t man the sweeps with
him. The captain had all the skills
hauled up on the raft, alongside
of his wigwam, and would n't let
the dead men be took ashore to
be planted; he did n’t believe a
man that got ashore would come
back ; and he was right.

4 After night come, you could
see pretty plain that there was
going to be trouble if that bar’l
come again; there was such a
muttering going on. A good
many wanted to kill Dick All-
bright, because he’d seen the bar’l
on other trips, and that had an
ugly look. Some wanted to put
him ashore. Some said, let’s all
go ashore in a pile, if the bar’l
comes fcgain.

4 This kind of whispers was
still going on, the men being
bunched together forrard watch¬
ing for the bar’l, when, lo and

behold you, here she comes again.
Down she comes, slow and steady,
and settles into her old tracks.

‘THE LIGHTNING- KILLED TWO
MEN.’

You could a heard a pin drop. Then up comes the captain, and says:—

4 44 Boys, don’t be a pack of children and fools; I don’t want this bar’l to
be dogging us all the way to Orleans, and you don’t; well, then, how’s the
best way to stop it? Bum it up,—that’s the way. I’m going to fetch it'
aboard,” he says. And before anybody could say a word, in he went.

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

‘ He swum to it, and as he come pushing it to the raft, the men spread to
one side. But the old man got it aboard and busted in the head, and there
was a baby in it! Yes, sir, a stark naked baby. It was Dick Allbright’s
baby; he owned up and said so.

< “ Yes,” he says, a-leaning over it, “ yes, it is my own lamented darling,
my poor lost Charles William Allbright deceased,” says he,—for he could

curl his tongue around the
bulliest words in the lan¬
guage when he was a mind
to, and lay them before you
without a jint started, any¬
wheres. Yes, he said he used
to live up at the head of this
bend, and one night he choked
his child, which was crying,
not intending to kill it,—
which was prob’ly a lie,—and
then he was scared, and buried
it in a bar’l, before his wife
got home, and off he went,
and struck the northern trail
and went to rafting; and this
was the third year that the
bar’l had chased him. He
said the bad luck always begun
light, and lasted till four men
was killed, and then the bar!
did n’t come any more after
that. He said if the men
would stand it one more night,
—and was a-going on like
that,—but the men had got
enough. They started to get
out a boat to take him ashore
and lynch him, but he grabbed
the little child all of a sudden
and jumped overboard with it hugged up to his breast and shedding tears,
and we never see him again in this life, poor old suffering soul, nor Charles
William neither.’

‘ Who was shedding tears ? ’ says Boh; e was it Allbright or the baby ? ’
c "Why, Allbright, of course; didn’t I tell you the baby was dead P Been
dead three years—how could it cry P ’

► GRABBED THE LITTLE CHILD.’

FRESCOES FROM THE PAST.

3fi

‘Well, never mind how it could cry—how could it keep all that time? :
says Davy. ‘ You answer me that . 7

‘ I don’t know how it done it/ says Ed. ‘ It done it though—that’s all
I know about it/

‘ Say—what did they do with the bar’l P 7 says the Child of Calamity*
c Why, they hove it overboard, and it sunk like a chunk of lead/

' Edward, did the child look like it was choked ? 7 says one.

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

that barl to prove the thing by. Show us the bunghole— do —and we I]
all believe you/

* Say, boys,’ says Bill, ‘ less divide it up. Thar’s thirteen of us. I can
swaller a thirteenth of the yarn, if you can worry down the rest/

Ed got up mad and said they could all go to some place which he ripped
out pretty savage, and then walked off aft cussing to himself, and they yelling
and jeering at him, and roaring and laughing so you could hear them a
mile.

So they run there with a lantern and

crowded up and looked in on me.

‘ Come out of that, you beggar! ’ says one.

* Who are you P ’ says another.

1 What are you after here P Speak up prompt, or overboard you go/

1 Snake him out, boys. Snatch him out by the heels/

X began to beg, and crept out amongst them trembling. They looked me
over, wondering, and the Child of Calamity says—

^ A cussed thief! Leud a hand and less heave him overhoard ! 9

FRESCOES FROM THE PAST.

‘ No,’ says Big Bob,‘ less get out the paint-pot and paint him a sky blue
all over from head to heel, and then heave him over t’

‘ Good I that’s it. Go for the paint, Jimmy.’

When the paint come, and Bob took the brush and was just going to
begin, the others laughing and rubbing their hands, I begun to cry, and that
sort of worked on Davy, and he says—

c ’Vast there! He’s nothing but a cub. * I’ll paint the man that
tetches him! ’

So I looked around on them, and some of them grumbled and growled,
and Bob put down the paint, and the others did n’t take it up.

‘ Come here to the fire, and less see what you’re up to here,’ says Davy.
‘Now set down there and give an account of yourself^ How long have you
been aboard here ? ’

* Not over a quarter of a minute, sir,’ says I.

* How did you get dry so quick ? ’

6 1 don’t know, sir. I’m always that way, mostly/

‘ Oh, you are, are you ? What’s your name ? ’

I wara’t going to tell my name. I didn’t know what to say, so I just
says—

( Charles William Allbright, sir.’

Then they roared—the whole crowd; and I was mighty glad I said that,
because maybe laughing would get them in a better humor.

When they got done laughing, Davy says—

4 It won’t hardly do, Charles William. You couldn’t have growed this
much in five year, and you was a baby when you come out of the bar’l, you
know, and dead at that. Come, now, tell a straight story, and nobody’ll
hurt you, if you ain’t up to anything wrong. What is your name ? 9

6 Aleck Hopkins, sir. Aleck James Hopkins.’

‘ Well, Aleck, where did you come from, here ? 9

1 From a tradin g scow. She lays up the bend yonder* I was bora on
her. Pap has traded up and down here all his life; and he told me to swim
off here, because when you went by he said he would like to get some of
you to speak to a Mr. Jonas Turner, in Cairo, and tell him-’

* Oh, come! ’

‘ Yes, sir, it’s as true as the world; Pap he says-’

‘ Oh, your grandmother ! 9

They all laughed, and I tried again to talk, but they broke in on me and
stopped me.

‘Now, looky-here,’ says Davy; ‘you’re scared, and so you talk wild.
Honest, now, do you live in a scow, or is it a lie P ’

‘ Yes, sir, in a trading scow. She lays up at the head of the bend. But
I wara’t born in her. It’s our first trip.’

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

' Now you’re talking! What did you come aboard here, for ? To
steal ? ’

‘ No, sir, I didn't.—It was only to get a ride on the raft. All boys does
that.’

' Well, I know that. But what did you hide for P 1
1 Sometimes they drive the boys off.’

'So they do. They might steal. Looky-here; if we let you off this
time, will you keep out of these kind of scrapes hereafter ? ’

' ’Deed I will, boss. You try me.’

6 ^dght, then. You ain’t but little ways from shore Overboard

with you, and don’t you make a fool of yourself another time this way._

Blast it, boy, some raftsmen would rawhide you till you were black and
blue!

FRESCOES FROM TEE PAST

I didn't wait to kiss good-bye, but went overboard and broke for shore,
When Jim come along by and by, the big raft was away out of sight
around the point. I swum out and got aboard, and was mighty glad to see
home again.

The boy did not get the information he was after, but his adven¬
ture has furnished the glimpse of the departed raftsman and keelboat-
man which I desire to offer in this place.

I now come to a phase of the Mississippi River life of the flush
times of steamboating, which seems to me to warrant full examina¬
tion—the marvellous science of piloting, as displayed there. 1 believe
there has been nothing like it elsewhere in the world.

! Hannibal, Missouri.

THE BOYS' AMBITION.

^ ^ «- — r” ."X s "

try that kind of life ; now an pirates These ambi-

izxz - -».. —

boatman always remained.

Once a day a . t t \

cheap, gandy packet I U'| 1__ i 1

or two clerks sitting , W ater-street clerks.’

in front of the Water

Sek et splSttomed chairs tilted hack against the wall chins on
breasts! hats slouched over their faces, asleep-with shmgle-shavm„s
enough around to show what broke them down; a sow and a litter of
pigs loafing along the sidewalk, doing a good business m watermelon
rinds and seeds; two or three lonely little freight piles scattered
about the ‘ levee; ’ a pile of ‘ skids ’ on the slope of the stone-paved

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

wharf, and the fragrant town drunkard asleep in the shadow of them;
two or three wood flats at the head of the wharf, but nobody to listen
to the peaceful lapping of the wavelets against them; the great
Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile¬
wide tide along, shining in the sun; the dense forest away on the
other side; the * point ’ above the town, and the * point ’ below,
bounding the river-glimpse and turning it into a sort of sea, and
withal a very still and brilliant and lonely one. Presently a film of

dark smoke appears- above one of those remote * points; ’ instantly a
negro drayman, famous for his quick eye and prodigious voice, lifts
up the cry, £ S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin’! ’ and the scene changes ! The
town drunkard stirs, the clerks wake up, a furious clatter of drays
follows, every house and store pours out a human contribution, and
all in a twinkling the dead town is alive and moving. Prays, carts,
men, boys, all go hurrying from many quarters to a common centre,
the wharf. Assembled there, the people fasten their eyes upon the

THE BOYS* AMBITION.

coming boat as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time. And
the boat is rather a handsome sight, too. She is long and sharp and
trim and pretty; she has two tall, fancy-topped chimneys, with a
gilded device of some kind swung between them; a fanciful pilot¬
house, all glass and * gingerbread,* perched on top of the ‘ texas * deck
behind them; the paddle-boxes are gorgeous with a picture or with
gilded rays above the boat’s name; the boiler deck, the hurricane
deck, and the texas deck are fenced and ornamented with clean white
railings; there is a idag gallantly flying from the jack-staff; the
furnace doors are open and the fires glaring bravely; the upper decks
are black with passengers; the captain stands by the big bell, calm,
imposing, the envy of all; great volumes of the blackest smoke are
rolling and tumbling out of the chimneys—a husbanded grandeur
created with a bit of pitch pine just before arriving at a town; the
crew are grouped on the forecastle; the broad stage is run far out
over the port bow, and an envied deck-hand stands picturesquely on
the end of it with a coil of rope in his hand; the pent steam is
screaming through the gauge-cocks; the captain lifts his hand, a bell
rings, the wheels stop ; then they turn back, churning the water to
foam, and the steamer is at rest. Then such a scramble as there is
to get aboard, and to get ashore, and to take in freight and to dis¬
charge freight, all at one and the same time; and such a yelling and
cursing as the mates facilitate it all with ! Ten minutes later the
steamer is under way again, with no flag on the jack-staff and no
black smoke issuing from the chimneys. After ton more minutes
the town is dead again, and the town drunkard asleep by the skids
once more.

My father was a justice of the peace, and I supposed he possessed
the power of life and death over all men and could hang anybody that
offended him. This was distinction enough for me as a general
thing ; but the desire to be a steamboatman kept intruding, neverthe¬
less. I first wanted to be a cabin-boy, so that I could come out with
a white apron on and shake a table-cloth over the side, where all my
old comrades could see me; later I thought I would rather be the
deck-hand who stood on the end of the stage-plank with the coil of
rope in his hand, because he was particularly conspicuous. But these
were only day-dreams,—they were too heavenly to be contemplated

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

as real possibilities. By and by one of our boys went away. He was
not heard of for a long time. At last he turned up as apprentice
engineer or 4 striker ’ on a steamboat. This thing shook the bottom
out of all my Sunday-school teachings. That boy had been notori¬
ously worldly, and I just tlie reverse; yet he was exalted to this
eminence, and I left in obscurity and misery. There was nothing
generous about this fellow in his greatness. He would always manage

to have a rusty bolt to

scrub while his boat
tarried at our town,
and he would sit on the
inside guard and scrub
it, where we could all
see him and envy him
and loathe him. And
whenever his boat was
laid up he would come
home and swell around
the town in his blackest
and greasiest clothes, so
that nobody could help
remembering that he
was a steamboatman;
and he used all sorts of
steamboat technicalities
in'his talk, as if he were
so used to them that he

‘THE TOWN DRUNKARD ASLEEP ONCE
MORE . 1

forgot common people
could not understand

them. He would speak
of the c labboard ’ side of a horse in an easy, natural way that would
make one wish he was dead. And he was always talking about 1 St.
Looy 7 like an old citizen ; he would refer casually to occasions when
he c was coming down Fourth Street,’ or when he was * passing by the
Planter’s House/ or when there was a fire and he took a turn on the
brakes of fi the old Big Missouri ; ’ and then he would go on and lie
about how many towns the size of ours were burned down there that

THE BOYS ’ AMBITION.

day. Two or three of the boys had long been'persons of consideration
among us because they had been to St. Louis ,once and had a vague
general knowledge of its wonders, but the day of their glory was over
now. They lapsed
into a humble silence,
and learned to dis¬
appear when the
ruthless £ cub ’-engi¬
neer approached.

This fellow had
money, too, and hair
oil. Also an ignorant
silver watch and a
showy brass watch
chain. He wore a
leather belt and used
no suspenders. If
ever a youth was
cordially admired and
hated by his com¬
rades, this one was.

No girl could with¬
stand his charms.

He e cut out’ every
boy in the village.

When his boat blew
up at last, it diffused
a tranquil content¬
ment among us such
as we had not known
for months. But
when he came home
the next week, alive,
renowned, and ap¬
peared in church ail battered up and bandaged, a shining hero, stared
at and wondered over by everybody, it seemed to ns that the partiality
of Providence for an undeserving reptile had reached a point where it
was open to criticism.

‘a smmNG HERO.’

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

This creature’s career could produce but one result, and it speedily
followed. Boy after boy managed to get on the river. The minister’s
son became an engineer. The doctor’s and the post-master’s sons
became f mud clerks; ’ the wholesale liquor dealer’s son became a bar¬
keeper on a boat; four sons of the chief merchant, and two sons of
the county judge, became pilots. Pilot was the grandest position of
all. The pilot, even in those days of trivial wages, had a princely
salary—from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a
month, and no board to pay. Two months of his wages would pay a
preacher’s salary for a year. Now some of us were left disconsolate.
We could not get on the river—at least our parents would not let us.

So by and by I ran away. I said I never would come home
again till I was a pilot and could come in glory. But somehow I
could not manage it. I went meekly aboard a few of the boats that
lay packed together like sardines at the long St. Louis whaif, and
very humbly inquired for the pilots, but got only a cold shoulder and
short words from mates and clerks. I had to make the best of this
sort of treatment for the time being, but I had comforting day¬
dreams of a future when I should be a great and honoured pilot,
with plenty of money, and could kill some of these mates and clerks
and pay for them.

CHAPTER Y.

I WANT TO BE A CUB-PILOT.

Months afterward the hope within me struggled to a reluctant death,
and I found myself without an ambition. But I was ashamed to go
home. I was in Cincinnati, and I set to work to map out a new
career. I had been reading about the recent exploration of the river
Amazon by an expedition sent out by our government. It was said
that the expedition, owing to difficulties, had not thoroughly explored
a part of the country lying about the head-waters, some four thousand
miles from the mouth of the river. It was only about fifteen hundred
miles from Cincinnati to Hew Orleans, where I could doubtless get a
ship. I had thirty dollars left; I would go and complete the explora¬
tion of the Amazon. This was all the thought I gave to the subject.
I never was great in matters of detail. I packed my valise, and took
passage on an ancient tub called the c Paul Jones/ for Hew Orleans.
For the sum of sixteen dollars I had the scarred and tarnished
splendours of c her' main saloon principally to myself, for she was
not a creature to attract the eye of wiser travellers.

When we presently got under way and went poking down the
broad Ohio, I became a new being, and the subject of my own admi¬
ration. I was a traveller ! A word never bad tasted so good in my
mouth before. I had an exultant sense of being bound for mysterious
lands and distant climes which I never have felt in so uplifting a
degree since. I was in such a glorified condition that all ignoble
feelings departed out of me, and I was able to look down and pity the
untravelled with a compassion that had hardly a trace of contempt in
it. Still, when we stopped at villages and wood-yards, I could not
help lolling carelessly upon the railings of the boiler deck to enjoy the

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

envy of the country boys on the bank. If they did not seem to dis¬
cover me, I presently sneezed to attract their attention, or moved to
a position where they could not help seeing me. And as soon as I
knew they saw me I gaped and stretched, and gave other signs of
being mightily bored with travelling.

I kept my hat

stayed where the
could strike me,
get the bronzed
look of an old
second day was

off all the time, and
wind and the sun
because I wanted to
and weather-beaten
traveller. Before the
half gone I experi¬
enced a joy which
filled me with the
purest gratitude; for
I saw that the skin
had begun to blister
and peel off my face
and neck. I wished
that the boys and
girls at home could
see me now.

We reached Louis¬
ville in time—at least
the neighbourhood of
it. We stuck hard
and fast on the rocks
in the middle of the
river, and lay there
four days. I was
now beginning to
feel a strong sense of
being a part of the

boat’s family, a sort of infant son to the captain and younger brother
to the officers. There is no estimating the pride I took in this
grandeur, or the affection that began to swell and grow in me for
those people. I could not know how the lordly steamboatman scorns
that sort of presumption in a mere landsman. I particularly

‘bored with travelling-.’

r WANT TO BE A CUB-PILOT.

longed to acquire the least trifle of notice from the big stormy
mate, and I "was on the alert for an opportunity to do him a service
to that end. It came at last. The riotous powwow of setting a spar
was going on down on the forecastle, and I went down there and
stood around in the way—or mostly skipping out of it—till the mate
suddenly roared a general order for somebody to bring him a capstan
bar. I sprang to hia side and said : * Tell me where it is 111 fetch
it!’

If a rag-picker had offered to do a diplomatic service for the
Emperor of Hussia, the monarch could not have been more astounded
than the mate was. He even stopped swearing. He stood and
stared down at me. It took him ten seconds to scrape his disjointed
remains together again. Then he said impressively : * Well, if this
don’t heat hell! ’ and turned to his work with the air of a man who
had been confronted with a problem too abstruse for solution.

I crept away, and courted solitude for the rest of the day. I did
not go to dinner; I stayed away from supper until everybody else
had finished. I did not feel so much like a member of the boat’s
family now as before. However, my spirits returned, in instalments,
as we pursued our way down the river. I was sorry I hated the mate
so, because it was not in (young) human nature not to admire him.
He was huge and muscular, his face was bearded and whiskered all
over; he had a red woman and a blue woman tattooed on his right
arm,—one on each side of a blue anchor with a red rope to it ; and in
the matter of profanity he was sublime. When he was getting out
cargo at a landing, I was always where I could see and hear. He
felt all the majesty of his great position, and made the world feel it,
too. When he gave even the simplest order, he discharged it like a
blast of lightning, and sent a long, reverberating peal of profanity
thundering after it. I could not help contrasting the way in which
the average landsman would give an order, with the mate’s way of
doing it. If the landsman should wish the gang-plank moved a foot
farther forward, he would probably say : * James, or William, one of
you push that plank forward, please; ’ but put the mate in his place
and he would roar out: ‘ Here, now, start that gang-plank for’ard !
Lively, now I What ’re you about! Snatch it! snatch it! There !
there 1 Aft again ! aft again! don’t you hear me ? Dash it to dash 1

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

are you going to sleep over it! ’ Vast heaving. ’Vast heaving, I tell

you I Going to heave it clear astern ? WHERE ’re you going with
that barrel! forward with it Tore I mate you swallow it, you dash-
dash-dash-cfasA<3<£ split between a tired mud-turtle and a crippled
hearse-horse !'

1 wished I could talk like that.

When the soreness of my adven¬
ture with the mate had somewhat

I WANT TO BE A CUB-PILOT.

could not well have helped it, I hung with such homage on his words
and so plainly showed that I felt honoured by his notice. He told
me the names of dim capes and shadowy islands as we glided by them
in the solemnity of the night, under the winking stars, and by and

by got to talking about himself. He seemed over sentimental for a
man whose salary was six dollars a week—or rather he might have
seemed so to an older person than I. But I drank in his words
hungrily, and with a faith that might have moved mountains if it
had been applied judiciously. What vas it to me that he was soiled

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

and seedy and fragrant with gin ? What was it to me that his
grammar was had, his construction worse, and his profanity so void
of art that it was an element of weakness rather than strength in
his conversation? He was a wronged man, a man who had seen
trouble, and that was enough for me. As he mellowed into his
plaintive history his tears dripped upon the lantern in his lap, and I
cried, too, from sympathy. He said he was the son of an English
nobleman—either an earl or an alderman, he could not remember
which, but believed was both * his father, the nobleman, loved him,
but his mother hated him from the cradle ; and so while he was still
a little boy he was sent to c one of them old, ancient colleges ’—he
couldn’t remember which ; and by and by his father died and his
mother seized the property and 1 shook 5 him as he phrased it. After
his mother shook him, members of the nobility with whom he was
acquainted used their influence to get him the position of ‘ loblolly-
boy in a ship; ’ and from that point my watchman threw off all tram¬
mels of date and locality and branched out into a narrative that
bristled all along with incredible adventures ; a narrative that was so
reeki n g with bloodshed and so crammed with hair-breadth escapes
and the most engaging and unconscious personal villainies, that I sat
speechless, enjoying, shuddering, wondering, worshipping.

It was a sore blight to find out afterwards that he was a low,
vulgar, ignorant, sentimental, half-witted humbug, an untravelled
native of the wilds of Illinois, who had absorbed wildcat literature
and appropriated its marvels, until in time he had woven odds and
ends of the mess into this yarn, and then gone on telling it to fledg¬
lings like me, until he had come to believe it himself.

CHAPTER VI.
a cub-pilot's experience.

What with lying on the roeks four days at Louisville, and some other
delays, the poor old ‘Paul Jones' fooled away about two weeks in
making the voyage from Cincinnati to New Orleans. This gave me
a chance to get acquainted with one of the pilots, and he taught me
how to steer the boat, and thus made the fascination of river life more
potent than ever for me.

It also gave me a chance to get acquainted with a youth who had
taken deck passage—more's the pity; for he easily borrowed six
dollars of me on a promise to return to the boat and pay it back to me
the day after we should arrive. But he probably died or forgot, for
he never came. It was doubtless the former, since he had said his
parents were wealthy, and he only travelled deck passage because it
was cooler. 1

I soon discovered two things. One was that a vessel would not
be likely to sail for the mouth of the Amazon under ten or twelve
years; and the other was that the nine or ten dollars still left in my
pocket would not suffice for so imposing an exploration as I had
planned, even if I could afford to wait for a ship. Therefore it
followed that I must contrive a new career. The ‘ Paul Jones ' was
now bound for St. Louis. I planned a siege against my pilot, and at
the end of three hard days he surrendered. He agreed to teach me
the Mississippi River from New Orleans to St. Louis for five hundred
dollars, payable out of the first wages I should receive after gradu¬
ating. I entered upon the small enterprise of i learning 9 twelve or
thirteen hundred miles of the great Mississippi River with the easy
1 * Deck ’ passage— i*. steerage passage.

LIFE OF' THE MISSISSIPPI.

confidence of my time of life. It I liad really known what. I was
about to require of my faculties, I should not have had the courage to
begin. I supposed that all a pilot had to do was to keep his boat in the
river, and I did not consider that that could be much of a trick, since

it was so wide.

The boat
oacked out from
New Orleans at
four in the after¬
noon, and it was
4 our watch ’ until
eight. Mr. Bixby,
my chief, 4 straight¬
en ed her up/
plowed her along
past the sterns of
the other boats
that lay at the
Levee, and then
said, 4 Here, take
her; shave those
steamships as close
as you ’d peel an
apple/ I took the
wheel, and my
heart-beat flut¬
tered up into the
hundreds; for it
seemed to me that
we were about to scrape the
side off every ship in the line,
we were so close. I held my
breath and began to claw the
boat away from the danger;
and I had my own opinion of the pilot who had known no better
than to get us into such peril, but I was too wise to express it. In
half a minute I had a wide margin of safety intervening between

4 HE EASILY BORROWED SIX DOLLARS.’

A CUB-PIZOFS EXPERIENCE.

the * Paul Jones ’ and the ships ; and within ten seconds more I was
set aside in disgrace, and Mr. Bixby was going into danger again and
flaying me alive with abuse of my cowardice. I was stung, but I
Was obliged to admire the easy, confidence with which my chief loafed
from side to side of his wheel, and trimmed the ships so closely
that disaster seemed ceaselessly imminent. When he had cooled a
little he told me that the easy water was close ashore and the current
outside, and therefore we must hug the bank, up-stream, to get the
benefit of the
former, and stay
well out, down¬
stream, to take
advantage of the
latter. In my own
mind I resolved to
be a down-stream
pilot and leave the
up - streaming to

people dead to
prudence.

Now and then
Mr. Bixby called
my attention to
certain things.

Said he, ‘ This is
Six-Mile Point.’ I
assented. It was
pleasant enough
information, but I could not see the bearing of it. I was not con¬
scious that it was a matter of any interest to me. Another time he
said, ‘This is Nine-Mile Point.’ Later he said, ‘This is Twelve-
Mile Point.’ They were all about level with the water’s edge; they
all looked about alike to me; they were monotonously unpicturesque.

I hoped Mr. Bixby would change the subject. But no; he would
crowd up around a point, hugging the shore with affection, and then
say r ‘ The slack water ends here, abreast this bunch of China-trees;
now we cross over.’ So he crossed over. He gave me the wheel

‘BESIEGING THE PILOT.’

LIFE OK THE JUSSISSIFPL

once or twice, but I bad no luck. I either came near chipping off the
edge of a sugar plantation, or I yawed too far from shore, and so
dropped back into disgrace again and got abused.

The watch was ended at last, and we took supper and went to bed.
At midnight the glare of a lantern shone in my eyes, and the night
watchman said—

understand this extraordinary procedure; so X presently gave up
trying to, and dozed off to sleep. Pretty soon the watchman was
back again, and this time he was gruff. I was annoyed. I said :—
c What do you want to come bothering around here in the middle
of the night for % Now as like as not I’ll not get to sleep again to¬
night.’

The watchman said—

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

at a star and was holding her straight up the middle of the river.
The shores on either hand were not much more than half a mile apart,

but they seemed wonderfully
far away and ever so vague and
indistinct. The mate said :—
e We’ve got to land at
Jones’s plantation, sir.’

The vengeful spirit in me
exulted. I said to myself, I
wish you joy of your job, Mr.
Bixby; you’ll have a good
time finding Mr. Jones’s plan¬
tation such a night as this;
and I hope you never will find
it as long as you live.

Mr. Bixby said to the
mate:—

‘ Upper end of the planta¬
tion, or the lower ? ’

4 Upper.’

4 1 can’t do it. The stumps
there are out of water at this
stage. It’s no great distance
to the lower, and you’ll have
to get along with that.’

‘All right, sir. If Jones
don’t like it he ’ll have to lump
it, I reckon.’

And then the mate left.
My exultation began to cool
and my wonder to come up.
Here was a man who not only
proposed to find this planta¬
tion on such a night, but to
I dreadfully wanted to ask a
as many short answers as my
All I desired to ask

*A MINUTE LATER . 1

find either end of it you preferred,
question, but I was carrying about
cargo-room would admit of, so I held my peace.

A CUB-PILOT'S EXPERIENCE.

Mr. Bixby was the simple question whether he was ass enough to
really imagine he was going to find that plantation on a night
when all plantations were exactly alike and all the same colour.
But I held in. I used to have fine inspirations of prudence in
those days.

Mr. Bixby made for the shore and soon was scraping it, just the
same as if it had been daylight. And not only that, but singing—

* Father in heaven, the day is declining,’ etc.

It seemed to me that I had put my life in the keeping of a peculiarly
reckless outcast. Presently he turned on me and said:—

* What’s the name of the first point above New Orleans ? *

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said
I didn’t know.

‘ Don’t know f *

This manner jolted me. I was down at the foot again, in a
moment. But I had to say just what I had said before.

* ‘Well, you’re a smart one,’ said Mr. Bixby. 4 What’s the name
of the next point ? ’

Once more I didn’t know.

* Well, this beats anything. Tell me the name of any point or
place I told you.’

I studied a while and decided that I couldn’t.

* Look here! What do you start out from, above Twelve-Mile
Point to cross over % ’

* I—I—don’t know.'

{ You—you—don’t know 1 ’ mimicking my drawling manner of
speech. ‘ What do you know 1 ’

‘ I—I—nothing, for certain.*

‘ By the great Caesar’s ghost, I believe you! You’re the stupidest
dunderhead I ever saw or ever heard of, so help me Moses! The
idea of you being a pilot— you / Why, you don’t know enough to
pilot a cow down a lane.’

Oh, but his wrath was up i He was a nervous man, and he
shuffled from one side of his wheel to the other as if the floor was
hot. He would boil a while to himself, and then overflow and scald

me again,

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

e Look here! What do you suppose I told you the names of
those points for ? *

I tremblingly considered a moment, and then the devil of temp¬
tation provoked me to say :—

‘Well—to—to—be entertaining, I thought/

This was a red rag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he
was crossing the river at the time) that 1 judge it made him blind,

because he ran over the steering-oar of
—- a trading-scow. Of course the traders

sent up a volley of red-hot profanity. ITever was a man so grateful
as Mr. Bixby was: because he was brim full, and here were
subjects who would talk back . He threw open a window, thrust
his head out, and such an irruption followed as I never had heard
before. The fainter and farther away the scowmen’s curses drifted,
the higher Mr. Bixby lifted his voice and the weightier his
adjectives grew. When ‘ he closed the window he was empty. You

I tell you a thing, put it down right away. There’s only one way to
be a pilot, and that is to get this entire river by heart. You have
to know it just like ABC.’

That was a dismal revel a- . ,

tion to me; for my :
was never loaded wii
thing but blank
cartridges. How¬
ever, I did not feel
discouraged long. I
judged that it was
best to make some !
allowances, for
doubtless Mr. Bix- j
by was 4 stretching.’ f
Presently he pulled '
a rope and struck a [
r few strokes on the
big bell. The stars

were all gone now,

and the night was as black as ink. I could hear the wheels churn

along the bank, but I was not entirely certain that I could see the

shore. The voice of the invisible watchman called up from the hurri¬
cane deck—

* What’s this, sir ? ’
c Jones’s plantation.’

I said to myself, I wish I might venture to offer a small bet that
it isn’t. But I did not chirp. I only waited to see. Mr. Bixby
handled the engine bells, and in due time the boat’s nose came to the
land, a torch glowed from the forecastle, a man skipped ashore, a
darky’s voice on the bank said, ‘ Gimme de k’yarpet-bag, Mars*
Jones,’ and the next moment we were standing up the river again,
all serene. I reflected deeply awhile, and then said—but not aloud_

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

Well, the finding of that plantation was the luckiest accident that
ever happened; hut it couldn't happen again in a hundred years.'
And I fully believed it was an accident, too.

By the time we had gone seven or eight hundred miles up the
river, I had learned to be a tolerably plucky upstream steersman, in
daylight, and before we reached St. Louis I had made a trifle of
progress in night-work, but only a trifle. I had a note-book that
fairly bristled with the names of towns, ‘ points,' bars, islands, bends,
reaches, etc.; but the information was to be found only in the note¬
book—none of it was in my head. It made my heart ache to think
1 had only got half of the river set down; for as our watch was four
hours off and four hours on, day and night, there was a long four-
hour gap in my book for every time I had slept since the voyage
began.

My chief was presently hired to go on a big New Orleans boat,
and I packed my satchel and went with him. She was a grand
affair. When I stood in her pilot-house I was so far above the water
that I seemed perched on a mountain; and her decks stretched so far
away, fore and aft, below me, that I wondered how I could ever have
considered the little * Paul Jones ' a large craft. There were other
differences, too. The * Paul Jones’s * pilot-house was a cheap, dingy,
battered rattle-trap, cramped for room: but here was a sumptuous
glass temple; room enough to have a dance in; showy red and gold
window-curtains; an imposing sofa; leather cushions and a back to
the high bench where visiting pilots sit, to spin yams and * look at
the river; * bright, fanciful * cuspadores 5 instead of a broad wooden
box filled with sawdust; nice new oil-cloth on the floor; a hospitable
big stove for winter; a wheel as high as my head, costly with inlaid
work; a wire tiller-rope; bright brass knobs for the hells; and a
tidy, white-aproned, black * texas-tender,' to bring up tarts and ices
and coffee during mid-watch, day and night. Now this was 4 some¬
thing like;' and so I began to take heart once more to believe that
piloting was a romantic sort of occupation after all. The moment we
were under way I began to prowl about the great steamer and fill
myself with joy. She was as dean and as dainty as a drawing-room ;
when I looked down her long, gilded saloon, it was like gazing
through a splendid tunnel; she had an oil-picture, by some gifted

A CUB PILOTS EXPERIENCE .

sign-painter, on every state-room door; she glittered with no end of
prism-fringed chandeliers; the clerk’s office was elegant, the bar was
marvellous, and the bar-keeper had been barbered and upholstered at

66 LIFE ON 2 HE MISSISSIPPI.

of men. The fires were fiercely glaring from a long row of furnaces,
and over them were eight huge boilers! This was unutterable pomp!
The mighty engines—but enough of this. I had never felt so fine
before. And when I found that the regiment of natty servants
respectfully 1 sir’d ’ me, my satisfaction was complete.

CHAPTER VII.

A DARING DEED.

When I returned to the pilot-house St. Louis was gone and I was
lost. Here was a piece of river which was all down in my book, but
I could make neither head nor tail of it: you understand, it was
turned around. I had seen it when coming up-stream, but I had
never faced about to see how it looked when it was behind me. My
heart broke again, for it was plain that I had got to leirn this trou¬
blesome river both ways .

The pilot-house was full of pilots, going down to ‘ look at the
river/ What is called the * upper river ’ (the two hundred miles
between St. Louis and Cairo, where the Ohio comes in) was low - and
the Mississippi changes its channel so constantly that the pilots used
to always find it necessary to run down to Cairo to take a fresh look,
when their boats were to lie in port a week; that is, when the water
was at a low stage. A deal of this 6 looking at the river' was done
by poor fellows who seldom had a berth, and whose only hope of
getting one lay in their being always freshly posted and therefore
ready to drop into the shoes of some reputable pilot, for a single trip,
on account of such pilots sudden illness, or some other necessity.
And a good many of them constantly ran up and down inspecting the
river, not because they ever really hoped to get a berth, but because
(they being gueste of the boat) it was cheaper to * look at the river ’
than stay ashore and pay board. In time these fellows grew dainty
in their tastes, and only infested boats that had an established reputa¬
tion for setting good tables. All visiting pilots were useful, for they
were always ready and willing, winter or summer, night or day, to
go out in the yawl and help buoy the channel or assist the boat's

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

pilots m any way they could. They were likewise welcome because
all pilots are tireless talkers, when gathered together, and as they
talk only about the river they are always understood and are always
interesting. Your true pilot cares nothing about anything on earth
but the river, and his pride in his occupation surpasses the pride of
Hngs.

We had a fine company of these river-inspectors along, this trip.
There were eight or ten; and there 'was abundance of room for them
in our great pilot-house. Two or three of them w r ore polished silk
hats, elaborate shirt-fronts, diamond breastpins, kid gloves, and

patent-leather boots. They were choice
in their English, and bore themselves
with a dignity proper to men of solid
means and prodigious reputation as pilots. The others were more or
less loosely dad, and wore upon their heads tall felt cones that were
suggestive of the days of the Commonwealth.

I was a cipher in this august company, and felt subdued, not to
say torpid. I was not even of sufficient consequence to assist at the
wheel when it was necessary to put the tiller hard down in a hurry ;
the guest that stood nearest did that when occasion required—and
this was pretty much all the time, because of the crookedness of the
channel and the scant water. I stood in a comer; and the fa.1V I
listened to took the hope all out of me. One visitor said to another—

A DARING DEED.

* Jim, bow did you run Plum Point, coming up ? *

* It was in the night, there, and 1 ran it the way one of the boys
on the “ Diana ” told me; started out about fifty yards above the
wood pile on the false point, and held on the cabin under Plum Point
till I raised the reef—quarter less twain—then straightened up for
the middle bar till I got well abreast the old one-limbed cotton-wood
in the bend, then got my stern on the cotton-wood and head on the
low place above the point, and came through a-booming—nine and a
half.’

c Pretty square crossing, an’t it % 1

* Yes, but the upper bar’s working down fast/

Another pilot spoke up and said—

' I had better water than that, and ran it lower down ; started
out from the false point—mark twain—raised the second reef abreast
the big snag in the bend, and had quarter less twain/

One of the gorgeous ones remarked—

c I don’t want to find fault with your leadsmen, but that’s a good
deal of water for Plum Point, it seems to me/

There was an approving nod all around as this quiet snub dropped
on the boaster and * settled ’ him. And so they went on talk-talk-
talking. Meantime, the thing that was running in my mind was,
6 Now if my ears hear aright, I have not only to get the names of all
the towns and islands and bends, and so on, by heart, but I must
even get up a warm personal acquaintanceship with every old snag
and one-limbed cotton-wood and obscure wood pile that ornaments
the banks of this river for twelve hundred miles; and more than
that, I must actually know where these things are in the dark, unless
these guests are gifted with eyes that can pierce through two miles of
solid blackness; I wish the piloting business was in Jericho and I
had never thought of it/

At dusk Mr. Dixby tapped the big bell three times (the signal to
land), and the captain emerged from his drawing-room in the forward
end of the texas, and looked up inquiringly. Mr. Bixby said_

c We will lay up here all night, captain/

* "Very well, sir/

That was alL The boat came to shore and was tied up for the
night. It seemed to me a fine thing that the pilot could do as he

70 LIFE OX TEE MISSISSIPPI.

pleased, without asking so grand a captain’s permission. I took my
supper and went immediately to bed, discouraged by my day’s obser¬
vations and experiences. My late voyage’s note-booking was but a
confusion of meaningless names. It had tangled me all up in a knot
every time I had looked at it in the daytime. I now hoped for res¬
pite in sleep; but no, it revelled all through my head till sunrise
again, a frantic and tireless nightmare.

Next morning I felt pretty rusty and low-spirited. We went

booming along, taking a good many
chances, for we were anxious to c get
out of the river ’ (as getting out to
Cairo was called) before night should
overtake us. But Mr. Bixby’s
partner, the other pilot, presently
grounded the boat, and we lost so
much time in getting her off that it
was plain that darkness would over¬
take us a good long way above the
mouth. This was a great misfor¬
tune, especially to certain of our
visiting pilots, whose boats would
have to wait for their return, no
matter how long that might be. It
sobered the pilot-house talk a good
deal. Coming up-stream, pilots did
not mind low water or any kind of
darkness ; nothing stopped them but
fog. But down-stream work was
different; a boat was too nearly helpless, with a stiff current pushing
behind her; so it was not customary to run down-stream at night in
low water.

There seemed to be one small hope, however: if we could get
through the intricate and dangerous Hat Island crossing before night,
we could venture the rest, for we would have plainer sailing and
better water. But it would be insanity to attempt Hat Island at
night. So there was a deal of looking at watches all the rest of the
day, and a constant ciphering upon the speed we were making; Hat

TANGLED KNOT.’

A DARING DEED,

Island was the eternal subject; sometimes hope was high and some¬
times we were delayed in a bad crossing, and down it went again.
For hours all hands lay under the burden of this suppressed excite**
ment; it was even communicated to me, and I got to feeling so
solicitous about Hat Island, and under such an awful pressure of re
sponsibility, that I wished I might have five minutes on shore to draw
a good, full, relieving breath, and start over again. We were standi n g
no regular watches. Each of our pilots ran such portions of the river
as he had run when coming up-stream, because of his greater familiarity
with it; but both remained in the pilot-house constantly.

An hour before sunset, Mr. Bixby took the wheel and Mr. W-

stepped aside. For the next thirty minutes every man held his
watch in his hand and was restless, silent, and uneasy. At last some¬
body said, with a doomful sigh—

6 Well, yonder's Hat Island—and we can't make it.'

All the watches closed with a snap, everybody sighed and muttered
something about its being 4 too bad, too bad—ah, if we could ordy
have got here half an hour sooner I ’ and the place was thick with the
atmosphere of disappointment. Some started to go out, but loitered,
hearing no bell-tap to land. The sun dipped behind the horizon, the
boat went on. Inquiring looks passed from one guest to another;
and one who had his hand on the door-knob and had turned it, waited,
then presently took away his hand and let the knob turn back again.
We bore steadily down the bend. More looks were exchanged,
and nods of surprised admiration—but no words. Insensibly the
men drew together behind Mr. Bixby, as the sky darkened and one
or two dim stars came out. The dead silence and sense of waiting
became oppressive. Mr. Bixby pulled the cord, and two deep, mellow
notes from the big bell floated off on the night. Then a pause, and
one more note was struck. The watchman's voice followed, from the
hurricane deck—

' Labboard lead, there ! Stabboard lead !'

The cries of the leadsmen began to rise out of the distance, and
were gruffly repeated by the word-passers on the hurricane deck.

4 M-a-r-k three I . . . . M-a-r-k three! . . . . Quarter-less three!
.... Half twain! . . . . Quarter twain 1 . „ . . M-a-r-k twain 1
. , . . Quarter-less-'

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

Mr. Bixby pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint
jinglings far below in the engine room, and our speed slackened.
The steam began to whistle through the gauge-cocks. The cries of
the leadsmen went on—and it is a weird sound, always, in the night.
Every pilot in the lot was watching now, with fixed eyes, and talking
under his breath. hTobody was calm and easy but Mr. Bixby. He
would put his wheel clown and stand on a spoke, and as the steamer
swung into her (to me) utterly invisible marks—for we seemed to be

sea—he would meet and fasten her
there. Out of the murmur of half-audible talk, one caught a coherent
sentence now and then—such as_

c There; she’s over the first reef all right l ’

After a pause, another subdued voice—

‘Her stern’s coming down just exactly right, by George / 5
Now she s in the marks \ over she goes ! ’

Somebody else muttered—

* Oh, it was done beautiful— beautiful! ’

A BARING DEED.

Now the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted with
the current. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not, the
stars being all gone by this time. This drifting was the dismalest
work; it held one’s heart still. Presently I discovered a blacker
ffloom than that which surrounded us. It was the head of the island.

We were closing right down upon it. We entered its deeper shadow,
and so imminent
seemed the peril
that I was likely
to suffocate; and
I had the strong¬
est impulse to do
something , any¬

thing, to save the
vessel. But still
Mr. Bixby stood
by his wheel, si¬
lent, intent as a
cat, and all the pi¬
lots stood shoulder
to shoulder at his
back.

‘ She’ll not
make it! ’ some¬
body whispered.

The water grew
shoaler and shoal-
er, by the leads¬
man’s cries, till it
was down to—

4 Eight-and-a-half! . . . . E-i-g-h-t feet! . . . . E-i-g-h-t feet I
.... Seven-and-’

Mr. Bixby said warningly through his speaking tube to the
engineer—

c Stand by, now ! ’

£ Aye-aye, sir ! ’

£ Seven-and-a-half! Seven feet! $fo-and-’

‘ STAND BY, NOW ! ’

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

We touched bottom ! Instantly Mr. Bixby set a lot of bells ringing,
shouted through the tube, c Xow , let her have it—every ounce you've
got! ’ then to his partner, 1 Put her hard down ! snatch her I snatch
her!' The boat rasped and ground her way through the sand,
hung upon the apex of disaster a single tremendous instant, and
then over she went! And such a shout as went up at Mr. Bixby’s
back never loosened the roof of a pilot-house before!

There was no more trouble after that. Mr. Bixby was a hero
that night * and it was some little time, too, before his exploit ceased
to be talked about by river men.

Fully to realise the marvellous precision required in laying the
great steamer in her marks in that murky waste of water, one should
know that not only must she pick her intricate way through snags
and blind reefs, and then shave the head of the island so closely as to
brush the overhanging foliage with her stem, but at one place she
must pass almost within arm's reach of a sunken and invisible wreck
that would snatch the hull timbers from under her if she should
strike it, and destroy a quarter of a million dollars' worth of steam¬
boat and cargo in five minutes, and maybe a hundred and fifty human
lives into the bargain.

The last remark I heard that night was a compliment to Mr.
Bixby, uttered in soliloquy and with unction by one of our guests.
He said—

1 By the Shadow of Death, but he's a lightning pilot I'

OYER SHE GOES.’

CHAPTER Till.

PEKPLEXING LESSONS.

At the end of what seemed a tedious while, I had managed to pack
my head full of islands, towns, bars, * points,’ and bends; and a
curiously inanimate mass of lumber it was, too. However, inasmuch
as I could shut my eyes and reel off a good long string of these names
without leaving out more than ten miles of river in every fifty, I
began to feel that I could take a boat down to New Orleans if I
could make her skip those little gaps. But of course my complacency
could hardly get start enough to lift my nose a trifle into the air,
before Mr. Bixby would think of something to fetch it down again.
One day he turned on me suddenly with this settler—

4 What is the shape of Walnut Bend % ’

He might as well have asked me my grandmother’s opinion of
protoplasm. I reflected respectfully, and then said I didn’t know it
had any particular shape. My gunpowdery chief went off with a
bang, of course, and then went on loading and firing until he was out
of adjectives.

I had learned long ago that he only carried just so many rounds
of ammunition, and was sure to subside into a very placable and even
remorseful old smooth-bore as soon as they were all gone. That word
* old’ is merely affectionate; he was not more than thirty-four. I
waited. By and by he said—

4 My boy, you’ve got to know the shape of the river perfectly. It
is all there is left to steer by on a very dark night. Everything else is
blotted out and gone. But mind you, it hasn’t the same shape in the
night that it has in the day-time.’

4 How on earth am I ever going to learn it, then ? ’

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

4 How do you follow a hall at home in the dark ? Because you
know the shape of it. You can’t see it.’

4 Bo you mean to say that I’ve got to know all the million trifling
variations of shape in the banks of this interminable river as well as
I know the shape of the front hall at home % ’

c On my honour, you’ve got to know them better than any man
ever did know the shapes of the halls in his own house.’
e I wish I was dead ! ’

‘LOADING AND FIRING.

t How I don’t want to discourage you, but-’

‘"Well, pile it on me; I might as well have it now as another
time.’

f You see, this has got to be learned; there isn’t any getting
around it. A clear starlight night throws such heavy shadows that
if you didn t know the shape of a shore perfectly you would claw
away from every bunch of timber, because you would take the black
shadow of it for a solid cape; and you see you would be getting
scared to death every fifteen minutes by the watch. You would he

PERPLEXING LESSONS.

fifty yards from shore all the time when you ought to be within fifty
feet of it. You can’t see a snag in one of those shadows, but you
know exactly where it is, and the shape of the river tells you when
you are coming to it. Then there’s your pitch-dark night; the river
is a veiy different shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on a
starlight night. AH shores seem to be straight lines, then, and mighty
dim ones, too; and you’d run them for straight lines only you know
better. You boldly drive your boat right into what seems to be a solid,
straight wall (you knowing very well that in reality there is a curve
there), and that wall falls back and makes way for you. Then there’s
your gray mist. You take a night when there’s one of these grisly,
drizzly, gray mists, and then there isn’t any particular shape to a
shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of the oldest man that
ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of moonlight change the shape
of the river in different ways. You see-’

6 Oh, don’t say any more, please ! Have I got to learn the shape
of the river according to all these five hundred thousand different
ways ? If I tried to carry all that cargo in my head it would make
me stoop-shouldered.’

6 No! you only learn the shape of the river; and you learn it
with such absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape
that s in your head, and never mind the one that’s before your eyes.’

/ "Very well, I’ll try it; but after I have learned it can I depend
on it ? Will it keep the same form and not go fooling around ? ’

Before Mr. Bixby could answer, Mr. W-came in to take the

watch, and he said—

‘ Bixby, you’ll have to look out for President’s Island and all that

country clear away up above the Old Hen and Chickens. The banks
are caving and the shape of the shores changing like everything.
Why, you wouldn’t know the point above 40. You can go up inside
the old sycamore-snag, now.’ 1

So that question -was answered. Here were leagues of shore
changing shape. My spirits were down in the mud again. Two things
seemed pretty apparent to me. One was, that in order to he a pilot a
man had got to learn more than any one man ought to be allowed to

1 It may not be necessary, but still it can do no harm to explain that
inside means between the snag and the shore._M. T.

LIFP OX THJS MISSISSIPPI.

know: and the other was, that he must learn it all over again in a
different way every twenty-four hours.

K'u

NL vm..- w

4 %

W/V"

IjJi ’i iiiinu |

_" 'M&jk

^ =■

''■'w

fjijij

‘CHANGING- WATCH.

That night we had the watch until
twelve. ISTow it was an ancient river
custom for the two pilots to chat a bit
when the watch changed. While the
relieving pilot put on his gloves and
lit his cigar, his partner, the retiring
pilot, would say something like this—

4 1 judge the upper bar is making
down a little at Hale’s Point; had
quarter twain with the lower lead and
mark twain 1 with the other.’

1 Two fathoms. ‘ Quarter twain’ is 2 \ fathoms, 13o feet. ‘ Mark three’ is
three fathoms.

PERPLEXING LESSONS .

* Yes, I thought it was making down a little, last trip. Meet any
boats ? *

f Met one abreast the head of 21, but she was away over hugging
the bar, and I couldn’t make her out entirely. I took her for the
* Sunny South’—hadn’t any skylights forward of the chimneys.’

And so on. And as the relieving pilot took the wheel his part¬
ner 1 would mention that we were in such-and-such a bend, and say
we were abreast of such-and-such a man’s wood-yard or plantation.
This was courtesy * I supposed it was necessity . But Mr. W—•
came on watch full twelve minutes late on this particular night,—a
tremendous breach of etiquette; in fact, it is the unpardonable sin
among pilots. So Mr. Bixby gave him no greeting whatever, but
simply surrendered the wheel and marched out of the pilot-house
without a word. I was appalled; it was a villainous night for
blackness, we were in a particularly wide and blind part of the river,
where there was no shape or substance to anything, and it seemed in¬
credible that Mr. Bixby should have left that poor fellow to kill the
boat trying to find out where he was. But I resolved that I would
stand by him any way. He should find ubat he was not wholly
friendless. So I stood around, and waited to be asked where we

were. But Mr. W- plunged on serenely through the solid

firmament of black cats that stood for an atmosphere, and never
opened his mouth. Here is a proud devil, thought I; here is a limb
of Satan that would rather send us all to destruction than put him¬
self under obligations to me, because I am not yet one of the salt
of the earth and privileged to snub captains and lord it over every¬
thing dead and alive in a steamboat. I presently climbed up on the
bench ; I did not think it was safe to go to sleep while this lunatic
was on watch.

However, I must have gone to sleep in the course of time, because
the next thing I was aware of was the fact that day was breaking,

Mr. W- gone, and Mr. Bixby at the wheel again. So it was

four o’clock and all well—but me; I felt like a skinful of dry bones
and all of them trying to ache at once.

Mr. Bixby asked me what I had stayed up there for. X confessed

1 ‘ Partner * is technical for ‘ the other nilot.'

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

that it was to do Mr. W-a benevolence,—tell him where he was.

It took five minutes for the entire preposterousness of the thing to
filter into Mr. Bixby’s system, and then I judge it filled him nearly
up to the chin; because he paid me a compliment—and not much of
____ a one either. He

^ middle of it in the dark and not tell me

all well but me.’ which hall it is; how am I to know ? ’

‘ Well, you’ve got to, on the river ! ’

4 AU ri g ht * Then I’m glad I never said anything to Mr. W_’

* I should say so. Why, he’d have slammed you through the
window and utterly ruined a hundred dollars’ worth of window-sash
and stuff.’

PERPLEXING LESSONS

I was glad this damage had been saved, for it would have made
me unpopular with the owners. They always hated anybody who
had the name of being careless, and injuring things.

I went to work now to learn the shape of the river; and of all
the eluding and ungraspable objects that ever I tried to get mind or
hands on, that was the chief. I would fasten my eyes upon a sharp,

4 learning the river.’

wooded point that projected far
into the river some miles ahead
of me, and go to laboriously
photographing its shape upon my brain ; and just as I was beginning
to succeed to my satisfaction, we would draw up toward it and the
exasperating thing would begin to melt away and fold back into the
bank 1 If there had been a conspicuous dead tree standing upon
the very point of the cape, I would find that tree inconspicuously
merged into the general forest, and occupying the middle of a

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

straight shore, when I got abreast of it! No prominent hill would
stick to its shape long enough for me to make up my mind what its
form really was, but it was as dissolving and changeful as if it had
been a mountain of butter in the hottest comer of the tropics.
Nothing ever had the same shape when I was coming down-stream
that it had borne when I went up. I mentioned these little difficulties
to Mr. Bixby. He said—

‘ That's the very main virtue of the thing. If the shapes didn't
change every three seconds they wouldn't be of any use. Take this
place where we are now, for instance. As long as that hill over
yonder is only one hill, I can boom right along the way I’m going;
but the moment it splits at the top and forms a V, I know I've got
to scratch to starboard in a hurry, or I’ll bang this boat's brains out
against a rock; and then the moment one of the prongs of the V
swings behind the other, I've got to waltz to larboard again, or I'll
have a misunderstanding with a snag that would snatch the keelson
out of this steamboat as neatly as if it were a sliver in your hand.
If that hill didn’t change its shape on bad nights there would be an
awful steamboat grave-yard around here inside of a year.’

It was plain that I had got to learn the shape of the river in all
the different ways that could be thought of,—upside down, wrong end
first, inside out, fore-and-affc, and ( thortships,*— and then know what
to do on gray nights when it hadn't any shape at alL So I set about
it. In the course of time I began to get the best of this knotty lesson,
and my self-complacency moved to the front once more. Mr. Bixby
was all fixed, and ready to start it to the rear again. He opened on
me after this fashion—

* How much watei did we have in the middle crossing at Hole-in-
the-Wall, trip before last ?'

I considered this an outrage. I said—

4 Every trip, down and up, the leadsmen are singing through that
tangled place for three quarters of an hour on a stretch. How do yon
reckon I can remember such a mess as that ? 9

4 My boy, you've got to remember it. You've got to remember
the exact spot and the exact marks the boat lay in when we had the
shoaiest water, in every one of the five hundred shoal places between
St. Louis and New Orleans; and you mustn't get the shoal soundings

PERPLEXING LESSONS

and marks of one trip mixed up with the shoal soundings and marks
of another, either, for they're not often twice alike. You must keep
them separate.'

When I came to myself again, I said—

* When I get so that I can do that, I'll be able to raise the dead,
and then I won't have to pilot a steamboat to make a living. I wantr
to retire from this business. I w T ant a slush-bucket and a brush;
I'm only fit for a roustabout. 1 haven’t got brains enough to be a
pilot; and if I had I wouldn't have strength enough to carry them
around, unless I went on crutches.'

i Now drop that! When I say I’ll learn 1 a man the river, I
mean it. And you can depend on it, I'll learn him or kill him/

1 * Teach’ is not in the river vocabulary.

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTER IX.

CONTINUED PERPLEXITIES.

There was no use in arguing with a person like this. I promptly
put such a strain on my memory that by and by even the shoal
water and the countless crossing-marks began to stay with me. But
the result was just the same. I never could more than get one knotty
thing learned before another presented itself. Now I had often seen
pilots gassing at the water and pretending to read it as if it were a
book; but it was a book that told me nothing. A time came at last,
however, when Mr. Bixby seemed to think me far enough advanced
to bear a lesson on water-reading. So he began—

c Do you see that long slanting line on the face of the water 1
Now, that's a reef. Moreover, it's a bluff reef. There is a solid
sand-bar under it that is nearly as straight up and down as the side
of a house. There is plenty of water close up to it, but mighty
little on top of it. If you were to hit it you would knock the boat's
brains out. Do you see where the line fringes out at the upper end
and begins to fade away 1 *

‘Yes, sir.*

‘Well, that is a low place ; that is the head of the reef. You
can climb over there, and not hurt anything. Cross over, now, and
follow along close under the reef—easy water there—not much
current.'

I followed the reef along till I approached the fringed end. Then
Mr. Bixby said—

‘ Now get ready. Wait till I give the word. She won't want to
mount the reef; a boat hates shoal water. Stand by—wait— wait —
keep her well in hand. Now cramp her down! Snatch her I snatch
her 1*

CONTINUED PERPLEXITIES.

He seized the other side of the wheel and helped to spin it around
until it was hard down, and then we held it so. The boat resisted,
and refused to answer for a -while, and next she came surging to star¬
board, mounted the reef, and sent a long, angry ridge of water foaming
away from her bows.

1 !Now watch her; watch her like a cat, or she’ll get away from

‘ THAT ’S A REEF.’

you. When she fights strong and the tiller slips a little, in a jerky,
greasy sort of way, let up on her a trifle; it is the way she tells you
at night that the water is too shoal; but keep edging her up, little
by little, toward the point. You are well up on the bar, now; there
is a bar under every point, because the water that comes down around
it forms an eddy and allows the sediment to sink. Do you see those

CONTINUED PERPLEXITIES.

white columns of steam far aloft out of the 'scape pipes, but it was
too late. The boat had e smelt’ the bar in good earnest ; the foamy
ridges that radiated from her bows suddenly disappeared, a great dead
swell came rolling forward and swept ahead of her, she careened far
over to larboard, and went tearing away toward the other shore as if
she were about scared to death. We were a good mile from where
we ought to have been, when we finally got the upper hand of her
again.

During the afternoon watch the next day, Mr. Bixby asked me if
I knew how to run the next few miles. I said—

* Go inside the first snag above the point, outside the next one,
start out from the lower end of Higgins's wood-yard, make a square
crossing and-’

‘ That’s all right. I’ll be back before you close up on the next
point.’

But he wasn’t. He was still below when I rounded it and entered
upon a piece of river which I had some misgivings about. I did not
know that he was hiding behind a chimney to see how I would per¬
form. I went gaily along, getting prouder and prouder, for he had
never left the boat in my sol© charge such a length of time before.
I even got to ‘ setting ’ her and letting the wheel go, entirely, while I
vaingloriously turned my back and inspected the stern marks and
hummed a tune, a sort of easy indifference which X had prodigiously
admired in Bixby and other great pilots. Once I inspected rather
long, and when I faced to the front again my heart flew into my
mouth so suddenly that if I hadn’t clapped my teeth together I
should have lost it. One of those frightful bluff reefs was stretching
its deadly length right across our bows I My head was gone in a
moment j I did not know which end I stood on 5 I gasped and could
not get my breath; I spun the wheel down with such rapidity that
it wove itself together like a spider’s web j the boat answered and
turned square away from the reef, but the reef followed her ! I fled,
and still it followed, still it kept—right across my bows! I never
looked to see where I was going, I only fled. The awful crash was
imminent ■ why didn’t that villain come ! If I committed the crime
of ringing a bell, I might get thrown overboard. But better that
than kill the boat. So in blind desperation I started such a rattling
* shivaree ’ down below as never had astounded an engineer in this

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

world before, I fancy. Amidst the frenzy of the bells the engines
began to back and fill in a furious way, and my reason forsook its
throne—we were about to crash into the woods on the other side of the
river. J ; st then Mr. Bixby stepped calmly into view on the hurricane
deck. My soul went out to him in gratitude. My distress vanished;
I would have felt safe on the brink of Niagara, with Mr. Bixby on the
hurricane deck. He blandly and sweetly took his tooth-pick out of
his mouth between his fingers, as if it were a cigar—we were just in
the act of climbing an overhanging big tree, and the passengers were
scudding astern like rats—and lifted up these commands to me ever
so gently—

4 Stop the starboard. Stop the larboard. Set her back on both.'

The boat hesitated, halted, pressed her nose among the boughs a
critical instant, then reluctantly began to back away

4 Stop the larboard. Gome ahead on it. Stop the starboard. Come
ahead on it. Point her for the bar.'

I sailed away as serenely as a summer's morning. Mr. Bixby
came in and said, with mock simplicity—

4 When you have a hail, my boy, you ought to tap the big bell
three times before you land, so that the engineers can get ready.'

I blushed under the sarcasm, and said I hadn’t had any hail.

* Ah ! Then it was for wood, I suppose. The officer of the watch
will tell you when he wants to wood up.’

I went on consuming and said I wasn't after wood.

4 Indeed ] Why, what could you want over here in the bend, then 1
Did you ever know of a boat following a bend up-stream at this stage
of the river 1

4 No, sir,—and I wasn't trying to follow it. I was getting away
from a bluff reef.’

4 No, it wasn't a bluff reef; there isn't one within three miles of
where you were.'

4 But I saw it. It was as bluff as that one yonder/

4 Just about. Bun over it! *

4 Do you give it as an order ?'

4 Yes. Bun over it.'

4 If I don't, I wish I may die.

All right \ I am taking the responsibility/

CONTINUED PERPLEXITIES.

I was just as anxious to kill.the boat, now, as I had been to save

her before. I impressed my orders upon ray memory, to be used at
the inquest, and _ _....

made a straight ____JA

break for the reef.- -- -—---- y ^

As it disappeared _ JTj JHJj\ "

under our^boTrs^I

a bluff reef. How ~~

am I ever going to tell them apart ? * I *

I I can’t tell you. It is an instinct.

By and by you will just naturally |i l j (U

know one from the other, but you |r| 1%

never will be able to explain why or ■ J > // /Mff \;J Jj If

how you know them apart.’ jl [ /am K| M fl ✓

It turned out to be true. The )fj ; f
face of the water, in time, became a j)! /JfimillfmS V

wonderful book—a book that was a' [ 1 fife"- l

dead language to the uneducated pas- 1 i ■ | j wjjK WffjJm'j lY^ 3 \

senger, but which told its mind to me I tifl)'! IMl f ' 1 1

without reserve, delivering its most W;// W§ l-'l 1 i f\ \ >

cherished secrets as clearly as if it Jw fijL' > '* f

uttered them with a voice. And it Jo

was not a book to be read once and
thrown aside, for it had a new story

to tell every day. Thoughout the long *** * STEPPED ^ VIEW '
twelve hundred miles there was never a page that was void of interest.

MR. B. STEPPED IXTO VIEW.

LIPB ON TUB MISSISSIPPI .

never one that you could leave unread without loss, never one that
you would want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in
some other thing. There never was so wonderful a book written
by man; never one whose interest was so absorbing, so unflagging, so
sparklingly renewed with every re-perusal. The passenger who could
not read it was charmed with a peculiar sort of faint dimple on
its surface (on the rare occasions when he did not overlook it alto¬
gether) ; hut to the pilot that was an italicized passage; indeed, it
was more than that, it was a legend of the largest capitals, with a
string of shouting exclamation points at the end of it; for it meant
that a wreck or a rock was buried there that could tear the life
out of the strongest vessel that ever floated. It is the faintest and
simplest expression the water ever makes, and the most hideous
to a pilot’s eye. In truth, the passenger who could not read this
book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it painted by
the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these
were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of
reading-matter.

hTow when I had mastered the language of this water and had
come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as
familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a
valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost
something which could never be restored to me while I lived.
All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic
river! I still keep in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I
witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of
the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue
brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating,
black and conspicuous ; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling
upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling,
tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy
flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful
circles and radiating lines, ever bo delicately traced; the shore on our
left was densely wooded, and the sombre shadow that fell from this
forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like
silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree
waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed

£ I STOOD LIKE ONE BEWITCHED.’

from noting the glories and the charms
which the moon and the sun and the
twilight wrought upon the river’s face;
another day came when I ceased alto¬
gether to note them. Then, if that
sunset scene had been repeated, I should
have looked upon it without rapture,
and should have commented upon it, inwardly, after this fashion: This
sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow; that floating
log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting
mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill some¬
body’s steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like
•that; those tumbling e boils * show a dissolving bar and a changing
^channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder

94 LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously •
that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the £ break’ from a
new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could
have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single
living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever
going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old
landmark %

No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river.
All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of
usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a
steamboat. Since those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart.
What does the lovely flush in a beauty’s cheek mean to a doctor but a
£ break’ that ripples above some deadly disease? Are not all her
visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols
of hidden decay % Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn’t he
simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome
condition all to himself 1 And doesn’t he sometimes wonder whether
he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade ?

CHAPTEB X.

COMPLETING MY EDUCATION.

Whosoever has done me the courtesy to read my chapters which
have preceded this may possibly wonder that I deal so minutely with
piloting as a science. It was the prime purpose of those chapters; and
I am not quite done yet. I wish to show, in the most patient and pains¬
taking way, what a wonderful science it is. Ship channels are buoyed
and lighted, and therefore it is a comparatively easy undertaking to
learn to run them ; clear-water rivers, with gravel bottoms, change
their channels very gradually, and therefore one needs to learn them
but once; but piloting becomes another matter when you apply it to
vast streams like the Mississippi and the Missouri, whose alluvial
banks cave and change constantly, whose snags are always hunting up
new quarters, whose sand-bars are never at rest, whose channels are
for ever dodging and shirking, and whose obstructions must be con¬
fronted in all nights and all weathers without the aid of a single
light-house or a single buoy ; for there is neither light nor buoy to be
found anywhere in all this three or four thousand miles of villainous
river. 1 I feel justified in enlarging upon this great science for the
reason that I feel sure no one has ever yet written a paragraph about
it who had piloted a steamboat himself, and so had a practical know¬
ledge of the subject. If the theme were hackneyed, I should be
obliged to deal gently with the reader; but since it is wholly new,
I have felt at liberty to take up a considerable degree of room with it.

When I had learned the name and position of every visible fea¬
ture of the river ; when I had so mastered its shape that I could shut
my eyes and trace it from St. Louis to Hew Orleans; when I had

1 True at the time referred to ; not true now (1882).

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

learned to read the face of the ■water as one would cull the news from
the morning paper; and finally, when I had trained my dull memory
to treasure up an endless array of soundings and crossing-marks, and
keep fast hold of them, I judged that my education was complete: so
I got to tilting my cap to the side of my head, and wearing a tooth¬
pick in my mouth at the wheel. Mr. Bixby had his eye on these airs.
One day he said—

‘ What is the height of that bank yonder, at Burgess's ?’

‘ How can I tell, sir 1 It is three quarters of a mile away.'

4 Very poor eye—very poor.
Take the glass.’

I took the glass, and pre¬
sently said—

6 I can’t tell. I suppose
that that bank is about a foot
and a half high.’

4 Foot and a half! That’s
a six-foot bank. How high
was the bank along here last
trip?’

4 I don’t know; I never
noticed.’

‘You didn’t? Well, you
must always do it hereafter.’
‘Why?’

* weabing a toothpick.’ { Because you’ll have to

know a good many things that
it tells you. For one thing, it tells you the stage of the river—tells
you whether there’s more water or less in the river along here than
there was last trip.’

* The leads tell me that.’ I rather thought I had the advantage
of him there.

‘ Yes, but suppose the leads lie ? The bank would tell you so,
and then you’d stir those leadsmen up a bit. There was a ten-foot
bank here last trip, and there is only a six-foot bank now. What does
that signify ? ’

6 That the river is four feet higher than it was last trip.’

COMPLETING MY EDUCATION

4 Very good. Is the river rising or falling % ’

4 Rising/

4 ISTo it ain’t/

4 1 guess 1 am right, sir. Yonder is some drift-wood floating down
the stream/

4 A rise sta?*ts the drift-wood, but then it keeps on floating a while
after the river is done rising. Now the bank will tell you about this.
Wait till you come
to a place where it
shelves a little. Now
here; do you see this
narrow belt of fine
sediment % That was
deposited while the
water was higher.

You see the drift¬
wood begins to strand,
too. The bank
helps in other ways.

Do you see that
stump on the false
point ? ’

4 Ay, ay, sir/

4 Well, the water
is just up to the roots
of it. You must make
a note of that/

4 Why ? ’ « DO YOU SEJB5 THAT STUMP 2 ’

‘Because that

means that there’s seven feet in the chute of 103/

4 But 103 is a long way up the river yet/

4 That’s where the benefit of the bank comes in. There is water
enough in 103 now, yet there may not be by the time we get there;
but the bank will keep us posted all along. You don’t run close
chutes on a falling river, up-stream, and there are precious few of them
that you are allowed to run at all down-stream. There’s a law of the
United States against it. The river may be rising by the time we

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

get to 103, and in that case we’ll run it. We are drawing—how
much ? ’

* Six feet aft,—six and a half forward.*

I Well, you do seem to know something.*

‘ But what I particularly want to know is, if I have got to keep
up an everlasting measuring of the banks of this river, twelve hundred
miles, month in and month out %*

i Of course ! *

My emotions were too deep for words for a while. Presently I
said—

t And how about these chutes ? Are there many of them ? *

I I should say so. I fancy we shan’t run any of the river this trip
as you’ve ever seen it run before— so to speak. If the river begins to
rise again, we’ll go up behind bars that you’ve always seen standing
out of the river, high and dry like the roof of a house; we’ll cut across
low places that you’ve never noticed at all, right through the middle
of bars that cover three hundred acres of river ; we’ll creep through
cracks where you’ve always thought was solid land; we’ll dart
through the woods and leave twenty-five miles of river off to one
side; we’ll see the hind-side of every island between New Orleans and
Cairo.*

* Then I’ve got to go to work and learn just as much more river as
I already know.*

‘ Just about twice as much more, as near as you can come at it.*

* Well, one lives to find out. I think I was a fool when I went
into this business.*

L Yes, that is true. And you are yet. But you’ll not be when
you've learned it.*

c Ah, I never can learn it.’

i I will see that you do?

By and by I ventured again—

* Have I got to learn all this thing just as I know the rest of the
river—shapes and all—and so I can run it at night % 9

1 Yes. And you’ve got to have good fair marks from one end of
the river to the other, that will help the bank tell you when there is
water enough in each of these countless places—like that stump, you
know. When the river first begins to rise you can run half a dozen

COMPLETING MY EDV CATION W

of the deepest of them m 3 when it rises a foot more you can run another
dozen ; the next foot will add a couple of dozen, and so on : so you
see you have to know your banks and marks to a dead moral
certainty, and never get them mixed ; for when you start through one
of those cracks, there’s no backing out again, as there is in the big
river; you’ve got to go through, or stay there six months if you get
caught on a falling river. There are about fifty of these cracks which
you can’t run at all except when the river is brim full and over the
banks.’

‘ This new lesson is a cheerful prospect.’

* Cheerful enough. And mind what I’ve just told you; when
you start into one of those places you’ve got to go through. They are
too narrow to turn around in, too crooked to back out of, and the
shoal water is always up at the head; never elsewhere. And the
head of them is always likely to be filling up, little by little, so that
the marks you reckon their depth by, this season, may not answer for
next.’

* Learn a new set, then, every year % ’

* Exactly. Cramp her up to the bar! What are you standing up
through the middle of the river for % ’

The next few months showed me strange things. On the same
day that we held the conversation above narrated, we met a great rise
coming down the river. The whole vast face of the stream was
black with drifting dead logs, broken boughs, and great trees that had
caved in and been washed away. It required the nicest steering to
pick one’s way through this rushing raft, even in the day-time, when
crossing from point to point; and at night the difficulty was mightily
increased ; every now and then a huge log, lying deep in the water,
would suddenly appear right under our bows, coming head-on ; no use
to try to avoid it then; we could only stop the engines, and one
wheel would walk over that log from one end to the other, keeping up
a thundering racket and careening the boat in a way that was very
uncomfortable to passengers. Now and then we would hit one of
these sunken logs a rattling bang, dead in the centre, with a full head
of steam, and it would stun the boat as if she had hit a continent.
Sometimes this log would lodge, and stay right across our nose, and
back the Mississippi up before it; we would have to do a little craw-

100

LIFE ON TEE MISSISSIPPI.

fishing, then, to get away from the obstruction* We often hit white
logs, in the dark, for we could not see them till we were right on
them; but a black log is a pretty distinct object at night. A white
snag is ah ugly customer when the daylight is gone.

Of course, on the great rise, down came a swarm of prodigious
timber-rafts from the head waters of the Mississippi, coal barges from
Pittsburgh, little trading scows from everywhere, and broad-horns
from Posey County,’ Indiana, freighted with c fruit and furniture ’—
the usual term for describing it, though in plain English the freight

* DEIFTDSTGr LOGS.

thus aggrandised was hoop-poles and
pumpkins. Pilots bore a mortal hatred
to these craft; and it was returned
with usury. The law required all such
helpless traders to keep a light burning,
but it was a law that was often broken.

All of a sudden, on a murky night, a

light would hop up, right under our bows, almost, and an agonised
voice, with the backwoods * whang ’ to it, would wail out—

‘ Whar’n the - you goin’ to ! Cain’t you see nothin’, you

dash-dashed aig-suckin’, sheep-stealin’, one-eyed son of a stuffed
monkey! ’

Then for an instant, as we whistled by, the red glare from our
furnaces would reveal the scow and the form of the gesticulating
orator as if under a lightning-flash, and in that instant our firemen
and deck-hands would send and receive a tempest of missiles and

104

LIFE OF TEE MISSISSIPPI.

in time to sheer off, d^ng no serious\4amage, unfortunately, but
coming so near it that had good hopes for a moment. These
people brought up their lantern,Vthen, of course; and as we backed
and filled to get away, the precious family stood in the light of it—
both sexes and various ages—and cursed us till everything turned
blue. Once a coalboatman sent a bullet through our pilot-house,
when we borrowed a steeling oar of Mm in a very narrow place.

CHAPTER XI.

THE RIVER RISES.

During this big rise these small-fry craft were an intolerable nuisance.
We were running chute after chute,—a new world to me,—and if
there was a particularly cramped place in a chute, we would be pretty
sure to meet a broad-horn there; and if he failed to be there, we
would find him in a still worse locality, namely, the head of the chute,
on the shoal water. And then there would be no end of profane
cordialities exchanged.

Sometimes, in the big river, when we would be feeling our way
cautiously along through a fog, the deep hush would suddenly he
broken by yells and a clamour of tin pans, and all in instant a log
raft would appear vaguely through the webby veil, close upon us;
and then we did not wait to swap knives, hut snatched our engine
bells out by the roots and piled on all the steam we had, to scramble
out of the way! One doesn’t hit a rock or a solid log raft with a
steamboat when he can get excused.

You will hardly believe it, but many steamboat clerks always
carried a large assortment of religious tracts with them in those old
departed steamboating days. Indeed they did. Twenty times a day
we would be cramping up around a bar, while a string of these small-
fiy rascals were drifting down into the head of the bend away above
and beyond us a couple of miles. Now a skiff would dart away from
one of them, and come fighting its laborious way across the desert of
water. It would * ease all,’ in the shadow of our forecastle, and the
p ant i ng oarsmen would shout, * Gimme a pa-a-per!' as the skiff
^ drifted swiftly astern. The clerk would throw over a file of New
> Orleans journals. If these were picked up without comment) you

10(i

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

might notice that now a dozen other skiffs had been drifting down
upon us without saying anything. You understand, they had been
waiting to see how No. 1 was going to fare. No. 1 making no com¬
ment, all the rest would bend to their oars and come on, now; and as
fest as they came the clerk would heave over neat bundles of religious

tracts, tied to shingles. The
amount of hard swearing which
twelve packages of religious lite-
rature will command when impartially divided up among twelve
raftsmen’s crews, who have pulled a heavy skiff two miles on a hot
dayto get them, is simply incredible.

As I have said, the big rise brought a new world under my vision.
By the time the river was over its banks we had forsaken our old
paths and were hourly climbing over bars that had stood ten feet out

THE RIVER RISES.

107

of water before ; we were shaving stumpy shores, like that at the foot
of Madrid Bend, which I had always seen avoided before; we were
clattering through chutes like that of 82, where the opening at the
foot was an unbroken wall of timber till our nose was almost at the
very spot. Some of these chutes were utter solitudes. The dense,
untouched forest overhung both banks of the crooked little crack, and
one could believe that human creatures had never intruded there
before. The swinging grape-vines, the grassy nooks and vistas
glimpsed as we swept by, the flowering creepers waving their red
blossoms from the tops of dead trunks, and all the spendthrift richness
of the forest foliage, were wasted and thrown away there. The
chutes were lovely places to steer in; they were deep, except at the
head; the current was gentle; under the * points 9 the water was
absolutely dead, and the invisible banks so bluff that where the tender
willow thickets projected you could bury your boat’s broadside in
them as you tore along, and then you seemed fairly to fly.

Behind other islands we found wretched little farms, and
wretcheder little log-cabins; there were crazy rail fences sticking a
foot or two above the water, with one or two jeans-clad, chilLs-
racked, yellow-faced male miserables roosting on the top-rail, elbows
on knees, jaws in hands, grinding tobacco and discharging the result
at floating chips through crevices left by lost teeth; while the rest of
the family and the few farm-animals were huddled together in an
empty wood-flat riding at her moorings close at hand. In this flat-
boat the family would have to cook and eat and sleep for a lesser or
greater number of days (or possibly weeks), until the river should
fall two or three feet and let them get back to their log-cabin and
their chills again—chills being a merciful provision of an all-wise
Providence to enable them to take exercise without exertion. And
this sort of watery camping out was a thing which these people
were rather liable to be treated to a couple of times a year : by the
December rise out of the Ohio, and the June rise out of the Missis¬
sippi. And yet these were kindly dispensations, for they at least
enabled the poor thi n g s to rise from the dead now and then, and look
upon life when a steamboat went by. They appreciated the blessing,
too, for they spread their mouths and eyes wide open and made the
most of these occasions. Now what could these banished creatures

108

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI .

find to do to keep from dying of the blues during the low water
season I

Once, in one of these lovely island chutes, we found our course
completely bridged by a great fallen tree. This will serve to show
how narrow some of the chutes were. The passengers had an hour’s

* YELLOW-FACED misebables.’

recreation in a virgin wilderness, while the boat-hands chopped the

n ge away, for there was no such thing as turning back, you
comprehend.

From Oarro to Baton Rouge, when the river is over its banks, you
have no particular trouble in the night, for the thousand-mile wall of

THE RIVER RISES.

109

dense forest that guards the two banks all the way is only gapped
with a farm or wood-yard opening at intervals, and sc you can’t 6 get
out of the river ’ much easier than you could get out of a fenced
lane; but from Baton Rouge to New Orleans it is a different matter.
The river is more than a mile wide, and very deep—as much as two
hundred feet, in places. Both banks, for a good deal over a hundred
miles, are shorn of their timber and bordered by continuous sugar
plantations, with only here and there a seattering'sapling or row of
ornamental China-trees. The timber is shorn off clear to the rear of
the plantations, from two to four miles. "When the first frost
threatens to come, the planters snatch off their crops in a. hurry.

ON A SHOBELESS SEA.

When they have finished grinding the cane, they form the refuse of
the stalks (which they call bagasse) into great piles and set fire to
them, though in other sugar countries the bagasse is used for fuel in
the furnaces of the sugar mills. Now the piles of damp bagasse burn
slowly, and smoke like Satan’s own kitchen.

An embankment ten or fifteen feet high guards both banks of the
Mississippi all the way down that lower end of the river, and this
embankment is set back from the edge of the shore from ten to per¬
haps a hundred feet, according to circumstances; say thirty or forty
feet, as a general th ing . Rill that whole region with an impenetrable
gloom of smoke from a hundred miles of burning bagasse piles, when
the river is over the banks, and turn a steamboat loose along there at

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

midnight and see how she will feel. And see how you will feel, too !
You find yourself away out in the midst of a vague dim sea that is
shoreless, that fades out and loses itself in the murky distances; for
you cannot discern the thin rib of embankment, and you are always
imagining you see a straggling tree when you don't. The plantations
themselves are transformed by the smoke, and look like a part of the
sea. All through your watch you are tortured with the exquisite
misery of uncertainty. You hope you are keeping in the river, but
you do not know. All that you are sure about is that you are likely
to be within six feet of the bank and destruction, when you think
you are a good half-mile from shore. And you are sure, also, that if
you chance suddenly to fetch up against the embankment and topple
your chimneys overboard, you will have the small comfort of
knowing that it is about what you were expecting to do. One of the
great Vicksburg packets darted out into a sugar plantation one night,
at such a time, and had to stay there a week. But there was no
novelty about it; it had often been done before.

I thought I had finished this chapter, but I wish to add a curious
thing, while it is in my mind. It is only relevant in that it is con¬
nected with piloting. There used to be an excellent pilot on the
river, a Mr. X., who was a somnambulist. It was said that if his
mind was troubled about a bad piece of river, he was pretty sure to
get up and walk in his sleep and do strange things. He was once
fellow-pilot for a trip or two with George Ealer, on a great Hew
Orleans passenger packet. During a considerable part of the first
trip George was uneasy, but got over it by and by, as X. seemed
content to stay in his bed when asleep. Late one night the boat
was approaching Helena, Arkansas; the water was low, and the
crossing above the town in a very blind and tangled condition* X.
had seen the crossing since Ealer had, and as the night was particu¬
larly drizzly, sullen, and dark, Ealer was considering whether he had
not better have X. called to assist in running the place, when the
door opened and X. walked in. How on very dark nights, light is a
deadly enemy to piloting; you are aware that if you stand in a
lighted room, on such a night, you cannot see things in the street to
any purpose; but if you put out the lights and stand in the gloom
you can make out objects in the street pretty welL So, on very

Ill

THE RIVER RISES.

dark nights, pilots do not smoke; they allow no fire in the pilot¬
house stove if there is a crack which can allow the least ray to escape;
they order the furnaces to be curtained with huge tarpaulins and
the sky-lights to be closely blinded. Then no light whatever issues
from the boat. The undefinable shape that now entered the pilot-

SBSS^

fM-MKi

jyplipf
0mm

THE PHANTOM ASSUMED

THE WHEEL.

^ house had Mr. X. s voice.
This said—

-^ Let me take her, George;

I've seen this place since you
have, and it is so crooked that I reckon I can run it myself easier
than I. could tell you how to do it.’

4 It is kind of you, and I swear I am willing. I haven't got
another drop of perspiration left in me. I have been spinning around
and around the wheel like a squirrel. It is so dark I can't tell
which way she is swinging till she is coming around like a whirligig.'

112

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

So Ealer took a seat on the bench, panting and breathless. The
black phantom assumed the wheel without saying anything, steadied
the waltzing steamer with a turn or two, and then stood at ease,
coaxing her a little to this side and then to that, as gently and as
sweetly as if the time had been noonday. When Ealer observed this
marvel of steering, he wished he had not confessed ! He stared, and
wondered, and finally said—

1 Well, I thought I knew how to steer a steamboat, but that was
another mistake of mine/

X. said nothing, but went serenely on with his work. He rang
for the leads ; he rang to slow down the steam; he worked the boat
carefully and neatly into invisible marks, then stood at the centre of
the wheel and peered blandly out into the blackness, fore and aft, to
verify his position; as the leads shoaled more and more, he stopped
the engines entirely, and the dead silence and suspense of ‘ drifting *
followed when the shoalest water was struck, he cracked on the
steam, carried her handsomely over, and then began to work her
warily into the next system of shoal marks; the same patient, heed¬
ful use of leads and engines followed, the boat slipped through
without touching bottom, and entered upon the third and last
intricacy of the crossing; imperceptibly she moved through the
gloom, crept by inches into her marks, drifted tediously till the
shoalest water was cried, and then, under a tremendous head of
steam, went swinging over the reef and away into deep water and
safety!

Ealer let his long-pent breath pour out in a great, relieving sigh,
and said—

‘ That's the sweetest piece of piloting that was ever done on the
Mississippi River 1 I wouldn't believed it could be done, if I hadn’t
seen it/

There was no reply, and he added—

‘ Just hold her five minutes longer, partner, and let me run down
and got a cup of coffee/

A minute later Ealer was biting into a pie, down in the ‘ texas,’
and comforting himself with coffee. Just then the night watchman
happened in, and was about to happen out again, when he noticed
Ealer and exclaimed—

2TOBODY THEBE/

again ; Ealer seized the wheel, set an engine hack with power, and
held his breath while the boat reluctantly swung away from a

Hi LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

< towhead ’ which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf
of Mexico !

By and by the watchman came back and said—

4 Didn’t that lunatic tell you he was asleep, when he first came up
here ?’

<■ No.'

c Well, he was. I found him walking along on top of the railings,
just as unconcerned as another man would walk a pavement; and I
put him to bed; now just this minute there he was again, away
astern, going through that sort of tight-rope devilry the same as
before.’

‘ Well, I think I’ll stay by, next time he has one of those fits.
But I hope he’ll have them often. You just ought to have seen him
take this boat through Helena crossing. I never saw anything so
gaudy before. And if he can do such gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond-
breastpin piloting when he is sound asleep, what couldn't he do if he
was dead! ’

115

CHAPTER XII.

SOUNDING.

When the river is very low, and one's steamboat is ‘ drawing all the
water 7 there is in the channel,—or a few inches more, as was often
the case in the old times,—one must be painfully circumspect in his
piloting. We used to have to * sound * a number of particularly bad
places almost every trip when the river was at a very low stage.

Sounding is done in this way. The boat ties up at the shore, just
above the shoal crossing ; the pilot not on watch takes his 1 cub 7 or
steersman and a picked crew of men (sometimes an officer also), and
goes out in the yawl—provided the boat has not that rare and sump¬
tuous luxury, a regularly-devised c sounding-boat *—and proceeds to
hunt for the best water, the pilot on duty watching his movements
through a spy-glass, meantime, and in some instances assisting by
signals of the boat’s whistle, signifying 1 try higher up ’ or ‘ try lower
down; ’ for the surface of the water, like an oil-painting, is more
expressive and intelligible when inspected from a little distance than
very close at hand. The whistle signals are seldom necessary, how¬
ever ; never, perhaps, except when the wind confuses the significant
ripples upon the water’s surface. When the yawl has reached the
shoal place, the speed is slackened, the pilot begins to sound the depth
with a pole ten or twelve feet long, and the steersman at the tiller
obeys the order to f hold her up to starboard ; ’ or, 4 let her fall off to
larboard; 71 or 1 steady—steady as you go.’

When the measurements indicate that the yawl is approaching the
shoalest part of the reef, the command is given to ‘ ease all! ’ Then

1 The term ‘ larboard ’ is never used at sea, now, to signify the left band;
but was always used on the river in my time.

LIFE OFT THE MISSISSIPPI.

il 6

the men stop rowing and the yawl drifts with the current. The next
order is, 4 Stand by with the buoy! * The moment the shallowest
point is reached, the pilot delivers the order, 4 Let go the buoy ! ’ and
over she goes. If the pilot is not satisfied, he sounds the place again ;
if he finds better water higher up or lower down, he removes the buoy
to that place. Being finally satisfied, he gives the order, and all the
men stand their oars straight up in the air, in line; a blast from the
boat’s whistle indicates that the signal has been seen ; then the men

‘ SOUNDING-.’

‘ give way ’ on their oars and lay the yawl alongside the buoy; the
steamer comes creeping carefully down, is pointed straight at the
buoy, husbands her power for the coming struggle, and presently, at
the critical moment, turns on all her steam and goes grinding and
wallowing over the buoy and the sand, and gains the deep water
beyond. Or maybe she doesn’t; maybe she * strikes and swings. 1
Then she has to while away several hours (or days) sparring herself
off.

80XTNDING.

117

Sometimes a buoy is not laid at all, but the yawl goes ahead,
hunting the best water, and the steamer follows along in its wake.
Often there is a deal of fun and excitement about sounding, especially
if it is a glorious summer day, or a blustering night. But in winter
the cold and the peril take most of the fun out of it.

A buoy is nothing but a board four or five feet long, with one end
turned up; it is a reversed school-house bench, with one of the sup¬
ports left and the other removed. It is anchored on the shoalest part
of the reef by a rope with a heavy stone made fast to the end of it.
But for the resistance of the tumed-up end of the reversed bench, the
current would pull the buoy under water. At night, a paper lantern
with a candle in it is fastened on top of the buoy, and this can be
seen a mile or more, a little glimmering spark in the waste of black¬
ness.

Nothing delights a cub so much as an opportunity to go out
sounding. There is such an air of adventure about it; often there
is danger; it is so gaudy and man-of-war-like to sit up in the stem-
sheets and steer a swift yawl; there is something fine about the
exultant spring of the boat when an experienced old sailor crew throw
their souls into the oars; it is lovely to see the white foam stream
away from the bows; there is music in the rush of the water; it is
deliciously exhilarating, in summer, to go speeding over the breezy
expanses of the river when the world of wavelets is dancing in the
sun. It is such grandeur, too, to the cub, to get a chance to give an
order; for often the pilot will simply say, e Let her go about!' and
leave the rest to the cub, who instantly cries, in his sternest tone of
co mman d, * Base starboard I Strong on the larboard 1 Starboard give
way ! With a will, men ! 7 The cub enjoys sounding for the further
reason that the eyes of the passengers are watching all the yawl’s
movements with absorbing interest if the time be daylight; and if it
be night he knows that those same wondering eyes are fastened upon
the yawl’s lantern as it glides out into the gloom and dims away in
the remote distance.

One trip a pretty girl of sixteen spent her time in our pilot-house
with her unde and aunt, every day and all day long. I fell in love

with her. So did Mr. Thornburg’s cub, Tom G-. Tom and I had

been bosom friends until this time; but now a coolness began to

118

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

arise. 1 told the girl a good many of my river adventures, and made
myself out a good deal of a hero ; Tom tried to make himself appear
to be a hero, too, and succeeded to some extent, but then he always
had a way of embroidering. However, virtue is its own reward, so I
was a barely perceptible trifle ahead in the contest. About this time
something happened which promised handsomely for me : the pilots
decided to sound the crossing at the head of 21. This would occur
about nine or ten o’clock at night, when the passengers would be still
up; it would be Mr. Thornburg’s watch, therefore my chief would
have to do the sounding. We had a perfect love of a sounding-boat
—long, trim, graceful, and as fleet as a greyhound; her thwarts were
cushioned; she carried twelve oarsmen; one of the mates was always
sent in her to transmit orders to her crew, for ours was a steamer
where no end of ‘ style * was put on.

We tied up at the shore above 21, and got ready. It was a foul
night, and the river was so wide there, that a landsman’s uneducated
eyes could discern no opposite shore through such a gloom. The pas¬
sengers were alert and interested; everything was satisfactory. As I
hurried through the engine-room, picturesquely gotten up in storm
toggery, 1 met Tom, and could not forbear delivering myself of a mean
speech—

* Ain’t you glad you don’t have to go out sounding 1 ’

Tom was passing on, but he quickly turned, and said—

t How just for that, you can go and get the sounding-pole your¬
self. I was going after it, but I’d see you in Halifax, now, before I’d
do it.’

* Who wants you to get it? I don’t. It’s in the sounding-
boat.’

‘ It ain’t, either. It’s been new-painted; and it’s been up on the
ladies’ cabin guards two days, drying.’

I flew back, and shortly arrived among the crowd of watching and
wondering ladies just in time to hear the command:

* Give way, men ! ’

I looked over, and there was the gallant sounding-boat booming
away, the unprincipled Tom presiding at the tiller, and my chief
sitting by him with the sounding-pole which I had been sent on a
fool’s errand to fetch. Then that young girl said to me—

burg exclaimed—

£ Hello, the * buoy-
lantern’s out! 7

He stopped the
engines. A. moment
or two later he
said—

4 Why, there it is
again! 7

So he came ahead on

120 LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

the light. Just as our hows were in the act of plowing over it,
Mr. Thornburg seized the bell-ropes, rang a startling peal, and ex¬
claimed—

fi My soul, it's the sounding-boat ! 9

A sudden chorus of wild alarms burst out far below—a pause—
and then a sound of grinding and crashing followed. Mr. Thornburg
exclaimed—

* There I the paddle-wheel has ground the sounding-boat to lucifer
matches ! Run! See who is killed ! '

I was on the main deck in the twinkling of an eye. My chief and
the third mate and nearly all the men were safe. They had discovered
their danger when it was too late to pull out of the way; then, when
tho great guards overshadowed them a moment later, they were
prepared and knew what to do; at my chiefs order they sprang
at the right instant, seized the guard, and were hauled aboard.
The next moment the sounding-yawl swept aft to the wheel and
was struck and splintered to atoms. Two of the men and the cub
Tom, were missing—a fact which spread like wildfire over the boat.
The passengers came flocking to the forward gangway, ladies and all,
anxious-eyed, white-faced, and talked in awed voices of the dreadful
thing. And often and again I heard them say , c Poor fellows! poor
boy, poor boy ! 1

By this time the boat's yawl was manned and away, to search for
the missing. bTow a faint call was heard, off to the left. The yawl
had disappeared in the other direction. Half the people rushed to
one side to encourage the swimmer with their shouts; the other half
rushed the other way to shriek to the yawl to turn about. By the
callings, the swimmer was approaching, but some said the sound
showed failing strength. The crowd massed themselves against the
boiler-deck railings, leaning over and staring into the gloom; and
every faint and fainter cry wrung from them such words as, * Ah,
poor fellow, poor fellow ! is there no way to save him % 9

But still the cries held out, and drew nearer, and presently the
voice said pluckily—

* I can make it 1 Stand by with a rope! *

What a rousing cheer they gave him ! The chief mate took his
stand in the glare of a torch-basket, a coil of rope in his hand, and his

SOUNDING ,.

121

men grouped about him. The next moment the swimmer’s face
appeared in the circle of lights and in another one the owner of it was

hauled aboahd.’

hauled aboard, limp and
drenched, while cheer on
^ __^ ^ cheer went up. It was that

I The yawl crew searched

* everywhere, but found no

sign of the two men. They
probably failed to catch the guard, tumbled bach, and were struck
by the wheel and killed. Tom had never jumped for the guard at

122

LIFE ON TEE MISSISSIPPI.

all, but had plunged head-first into the river and dived under the
wheel. It was nothing; I could have done it easy enough, and I
said so ; but everybody went on just the same, making a wonderful
to-do over that ass, as if he had done something great. That girl
couldn't seem to have enough of that pitiful ‘ hero ’ the rest of the
trip ; but little I cared; I loathed her, any way.

The way we came to mistake the sounding-boat's lantern for the
buoy-light was this. My chief said that after laying the buoy he
fell away and watched it till it seemed to be secure; then he took up
a position a hundred yards below it and a little to one side of the
steamer’s course, headed the sounding-boat up-stream, and waited.
Having to wait some time, he and the officer got to talking; he looked
up when he judged that the steamer was about on the reef; saw that
the buoy was gone, but supposed that the steamer had already run
over it; he went on with his talk; he noticed that the steamer was
getting very close down on him, but that was the correct thing; it
was her business to shave him closely, for convenience in taking him
aboard; he was expecting her to sheer off, until the last moment;
then it flashed upon him that she was trying to run him down,
mistaking his lantern for the buoy-light; so he sang out, ‘ Stand by
to spring for the guard, men!' and the next instant the jump was
made.

123

CHAPTER XIIL
a pilot’s needs.

But I fl-T** wandering from what I was intending to do, that is, make
plainer than perhaps appears in the previous chapters, some of the
peculiar requirements of the science of piloting. First of all, there is
one faculty which a pilot must incessantly cultivate “until he has
brought it to absolute perfection. Nothing short of perfection will
do. That faculty is memory. He cannot stop with merely t hinki ng
a thing is so and so; he must know it; for this is eminently one of
the 4 exact * sciences. With what scorn a pilot was looked upon, in
the old times, if he ever ventured to deal in that feeble phrase £ I
think/ instead of the vigorous one 4 1 know 1 ’ One cannot easily
realise what a tremendous thing it is to know every trivial detail of
twelve hundred miles of river and know it with absolute exactness.
If you will take the longest street in New York, and travel up and
down it, conning its features patiently until you know every house
and window and door and lamp-post and big and little sign by heart,
and know them so accurately that you can instantly name the one
you are abreast of when you are set down at random in that street
in the middle of an inky black night, you will then have a tolerable
notion of the amount and the exactness of a pilot’s knowledge who
carries the Mississippi River in his head. And then if you will go
on until you know every street crossing, the character, size, and posi¬
tion of the crossing-stones, and the varying depth of mud in each of
those numberless places, you will have some idea of what the pilot
must know in order to keep a Mississippi steamer out of trouble.
Next, if you will take half of the signs in that long Btreet, and change
their places once a month, and still manage to know their new posi-

134

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

tions accurately on dark nights, and keep

‘ A GITY STEKET.*

up with these repeated
changes without ma¬
king any mistakes, you
will understand what
is required of a pilot’s
peerless memory by
the fickle Mississippi.

I think a pilot’s
memory is about the
most wonderful thing
in the world. To
know the Old and
New Testaments by
heart, and be able
to recite them glibly,
forward or backward,
or begin at random
anywhere in the book
and recite both ways
and never trip or
make a mistake, is no
extravagant mass of
knowledge, and no
marvellous faculty,
compared to a pilot’s
massed knowledge of
the Mississippi and his
marvellous facility in
the handling of it. I
make this comparison
deliberately, and be¬
lieve I am not ex-
panding the truth
when I do it. Many
will think my figure
too strong, but pilots
will not.

A PILOT'S NEEDS.

125

And how easily and comfortably the pilot’s memory does its
work; how placidly effortless is its way; how uncoTisciously it lays
up its vast stores,
hour by hour, day
by day, and never
loses or mislays a
single valuable
package of them all!

Take an instance.

Let a leadsman cry,

‘Half twain ! half
twain ! half twain !
half twain ! half
twain! ’ until it be-
come as monotonous
as the ticking of a
clock; let conversa¬
tion be going on all
the time, and the
pilot be doing his
share of the talking,
and no longer con¬
sciously listening to
the leadsman ; and
in the midst of
this endless string
of half twain s let
a single ‘ quarter
twain ! ’ be inter¬
jected, without
emphasis, and then
the half twain cry
go on again, just as
before: two or three
weeks later that pilot can describe with precision the boat’s position in
the river when that quarter twain was uttered, and give you such a lot
of head-marks, stern-marks, and side-marks to guide you, that you

1 LET A LEADSMAN CRY, tf HALE TWAIN.”

126

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

ought to be able to take the boat there and put her in that same spot
again yourself I The cry of 6 quarter twain’ did not really take hig
mind from his talk, but his trained faculties instantly photographed
the bearings, noted the change of depth, and laid up the important
details for future reference without requiring any assistance from him
in the matter. If you were walking and talking with a friend, and
another friend at your side kept up a monotonous repetition of the
vowel sound A, for a couple of blocks, and then in the midst inter¬
jected an R, thus, A, A, A, A, A, R, A, A, A, etc., and gave the P
no emphasis, you would not be able to state, two or three weeks
afterward, that the It had been put in, nor be able to tell what
objects you were passing at the moment it was done. But you could
if your memory had been patiently and laboriously trained to do that
sort of thing mechanically.

Give a man a tolerably fair memory to start with, and piloting
will develop it into a very colossus of capability. But only in the
matters it is daily drilled in. A time would come when the man’s
faculties could not help noticing landmarks and soundings, and his
memory could not help holding on to them with the grip of a vice ;
but if you asked that same man at noon what he had had for break¬
fast, it would be ten chances to one that he could not tell you.
Astonishing things can be done with the human memory if you will
devote it faithfully to one particular line of business.

At the time that wages soared so high on the Missouri River, my
chief, Mr. Bixby, went up there and learned more than a thousand
miles of that stream with an ease and rapidity that were astonishing.
When he had seen each division once in the daytime and once at
night, his education was so nearly complete that he took out a 6 day¬
light ’ license; a few trips later he took out a full license, and went
to piloting day and night—and he ranked A 1, too.

Mr. Bixby placed me as steersman for a while under a pilot whose
feats of memory were a constant marvel to me. However, his
memory was born in him, I think, not built. For instance, some¬
body would mention a name. Instantly Mr. Brown would break
in—

* Oh, I knew him. Sallow-faced, red-headed fellow, with a little
scar on the side of his throat, like a splinter under the flesh. He was

A PILOT'S Armws.

127

only in the Southern trade six months. That was thirteen years ago.
I made a trip with him. There was five feet in the upper river then ;
the t,: Henry Blake ” grounded at the foot of Tower Island drawing
four and a half; the “ George Elliott ” unshipped her rudder on the

wreck of the “ Sunflower ”-’

‘ Why, the 46 Sunflower ” didn’t sink until-*

4 1 know when she sunk; it was three years before that, on the
2nd of December; Asa Hardy was captain of her, and his brother
John was first clerk; and it
was his first trip in her, too ;

Tom Jones told me these
things a week afterward in
New Orleans; he was first
mate of the 44 Sunflower.”

Captain Hardy stuck a nail
in his foot the 6th of July
of the next year, and died
of the lockjaw on the 15th.

His brother John died two
years after—3rd of March,

—erysipelas. I never saw
either of the Hardys,—they
were Alleghany River men,

—but people who knew them
told me all these things.

And they said Captain Hardy
wore yarn socks winter and
summer just the same, and
his first wife’s name was Jane
Shook—she was from New England—and his second one died in a
lunatic asylum. It was in the blood. She was from Dexington,
Kentucky. Name was Horton before she was married.

And so on, by the hour, the man’s tongue would go. He could
not forget any thing. It was simply impossible. The most trivial
details remained as distinct and luminous in his head, after they had
lain there for years, as the most memorable events. His was not
simply a pilot’s memory; its grasp was universal. If he were talking

128

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

about a trifling letter lie had received seven years before, he was
pretty sure to deliver you the entire screed from memory. And then
without observing that he was departing from the true line of his
talk, he was more than likely to hurl in a long-drawn parenthetical
biography of the writer of that letter ; and you were lucky indeed if
he did not take up that writer’s relatives, one by one, and give you
their biographies, too.

Such a memory as that is a great misfortune. To it, all occur¬
rences are of the same size. Its possessor cannot distinguish an inte¬
resting circumstance from
an uninteresting one. As
a talker, he is bound to
clog his narrative with
tiresome details and make
himself an insufferable
bore. Moreover, he cannot
stick to his subject. He
picks up every little grain
of memory he discerns in
his way, and so is led aside.
Mr. Brown would start
out with the honest in¬
tention of telling you a
vastly funny anecdote
about a dog. He would
be ‘ so full of laugh ’ that
«so full of laugh.’ he could hardly begin ;

then his memory would
start with the dog’s breed and personal appearance; drift into a
history of his owner; of his owner’s family, with descriptions cf
weddings and burials that had occurred in it, together with recitals
of congratulatory verses and obituary poetry provoked by the same:
then this memory would recollect that one of these events occurred
during the celebrated e hard winter ’ of such and such a year, and a
minute description of that winter would follow, along with the names
of people who were frozen to death, and statistics showing the high
figures which pork and hay went up to. Pork and hay would suggest

A. PILOT'S LEEDS.

129

corn and fodder ■ corn and fodder would suggest cows and horses;
cows and horses would suggest the circus and certain celebrated bare-
back riders ; the transition from the circus to the menagerie was easy
and natural \ from the elephant to equatorial Africa was but a step ;
then of course the heathen savages would suggest religion; and at
the end of three or four hours* tedious jaw, the watch would change,
and Brown would go out of the pilot-house muttering extracts from
sermons he had heard years before about the efficacy of prayer as a
means of grace. And the original first mention would be all you had
learned about that dog, after all this waiting and hungering.

A pilot must have a memory ; but there are two higher qualities
which he must also have. He must have good and quick judgment
and decision, and a cool, calm courage that no peril can shake. Give
a man the merest trifle of pluck to start with, and by the time he has
become a pilot he cannot be unmanned by any danger a steamboat
can get into; but one cannot quite say the same for judgment. Judg¬
ment is a matter of brains, and a man must start with a good stock
of that article or he will never succeed as a pilot.

The growth of courage in the pilot-house is steady all the time,
but it does not reach a high and satisfactory condition until some
time after the young pilot has been £ standing his own watch/ alone
and under the staggering weight of all the responsibilities connected
with the position. When an apprentice has become pretty thoroughly
acquainted with the river, he goes clattering along so fearlessly with
Ms steamboat, night or day, that he presently begins to imagine that
it is his courage that animates him ; but the first time the pilot steps
out and leaves him to his own devices he finds out it was the other
man’s. He discovers that the article has been left out of his own cargo
altogether. The whole river is bristling with exigencies in a moment
he is not prepared for them ; he does not know how to meet •

all his knowledge forsakes him ; and within fifteen minutes he is as
white as a sheet and scared almost to death. Therefore pilots wisely
train these cubs by various strategic tricks to look danger in the face
a little more calmly. A favourite way of theirs is to play a friendly
swindle upon the candidate.

Mr. Bixby served me in this fashion once, and for years afterward
T used to blush even in my sleep when I thought of it. X had become

K -

130

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

a good steersman; so good, indeed, that I had all the work to do on
our watch, night and day ; Mr. Bixby seldom made a suggestion to
me; all he ever did was to take the wheel on particularly bad nights
or in particularly bad crossings, land the boat when she needed to be
landed, play gentleman of leisure nine-tenths of the watch, and collect
the wages. The lower river was about bank-full, and if anybody had
questioned my ability to run any crossing between Cairo and ISTew
Orleans without help or instruction, I should have felt irreparably
hurt. The idea of being afraid of any crossing in the lot, in the

day-time , was a thing too preposte¬
rous for contemplation. Well, one
matchless summer’s day I was
bowling down the bend above
island 66, brimful of self-conceit
and carrying my nose as high as a
giraffe’s, when Mr. Bixby said—

‘ I am going below a while.
I suppose you know the next
crossing ? ’

This was almost an affront.
It was about the plainest and
simplest crossing in the whole
river. One couldn’t come to any
harm, whether he ran it right or
not; and as for depth, there never
had been any bottom there. I knew
* scared to death.’ all this, perfectly well.

i Know how to run it % Why,

I can run it with my eyes shut.’

fi How much water is there in it % 9

‘ Well, that is an odd question. I couldn’t get bottom there with
a church steeple/

* You think so, do you % ’

The very tone of the question shook my confidence. That was
what Mr. Bixby was expecting. He left, without saying anything
more. I began to imagine all sorts of things. Mr. Bixby, unknown
to me, of course, sent somebody down to the forecastle with some

WHERE IS MR. BIXB5T ? ’

A. PILOT'S NEEDS

153

mysterious instructions to the leadsmen, another messenger was sent
to whisper among the officers, and then blr. Bixby went into hiding
behind a smoke-stack where he could observe results. Presently the
captain stepped out on the hurricane deck; next the chief mate
appeared; then a clerk. Every moment or two a straggler was added
to my audience; and before I got to the head of the island X had
fifteen or twenty people assembled down there under my nose. I
began to wonder what the trouble was. As I started across, the
captain glanced aloft at me and said, with a sham uneasiness in his
voice—

* Where is Mr. Bixhy 1 *

* Gone below, sir/

But that did the business for me. My imagination began to
construct dangers out of nothing, and they multiplied faster than I
could keep the run of them. All at once I im agined I saw shoal
water ahead ! The wave of coward agony that surged through me
then came near dislocating every joint in me. All my confidence in
that crossing vanished. I seized the bell-rope; dropped it, ashamed ;
seized it again ; dropped it once more; clutched it tremblingly
once again, and pulled it so feebly that I could hardly hear the
stroke myself. Captain and mate sang out instantly, and both toge¬
ther—

‘ Starboard lead there 1 and quick about it! *

This was another shock. I began to climb the wheel like a
squirrel; but I would hardly get the boat started to port before I
would see new dangers on that side, and away I would spin to the
other; only to find perils accumulating to starboard, and be crazy to
get to port again. Then came the leadsman’s sepulchral cry—

* D-e-e-p four ! ’

Deep four in a bottomless crossing ! The terror of it took my
breath away.

4 M-a-r-k three! . . . M-a-r-k three . . . Quarter less three 1 . . •
Half twain I ’

This was frightful I I seized the bell-ropes and stopped the
engines.

‘Quarter twain! Quarter twain! Mark twain !*

I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was

134

LIFE OFF THE MISSISSIPPI

quaking from head to foot, and I could have hung my hat on my
eyes, they stuck out so far.

4 Quarter less twain ! Nine and a half! 9

We were drawing nine l My hands were in a nerveless flutter.
I could not ring a bell intelligibly with them. I flew to the

A PILOT'S 1VJSEDS.

135

history. I laid in the lead, set the boat in her marks, came ahead
on the engines, and said—

£ It was a fine trick to play on an orphan, ioa$?i’t it ? I suppose
Fll never hear the last of how I was ass enough to heave the lead at
the head of 66.’

‘Well, no, you won’t, maybe. In fact I hope you won’t; for I
want you to learn something by that experience. Didn’t you know
there w r as no bottom in that crossing ? ’

£ Yes, sir, I did.’

f Very well, then. You shouldn’t have allowed me or anybody
else to shake your confidence in that knowledge. Try to remember
that. And another thing : when you get into a dangerous place,
don’t turn coward. That isn’t going to help matters any.’

It was a good enough lesson, but pretty hardly learned. Yet
about the hardest part of it was that for months I so often had to
hear a phrase which I had conceived a particular distaste for. It
was, i Oh, Ben, if you love me, back her ! 5

136

LIFE OJSl THE MISSISSIPPI*

CHAPTER XIV.

RANK AND DIGNITY OF PILOTING.

In my preceding chapters I have tried, by going into the minutiae of
the science of piloting, to carry the reader step by step to a compre¬
hension of what the science consists of; and at the same time I have
tried to show him that it is a very curious and wonderful science,
too, and very worthy of his attention. If I have seemed to love my
subject, it is no surprising thing, for I loved the profession far better
than any I have followed since, and I took a measureless pride in it.
The reason is plain: a pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered
and entirely independent human being that lived in the earth.
Kings are but the hampered servants of parliament and people;
parliaments sit in chains forged by their constituency; the editor of
a newspaper cannot be independent, but must work with one hand
tied behind him by party and patrons, and be content to utter only
half or two-thirds of his mind; no clergyman is a free man and may
speak the whole truth, regardless of his parish’s opinions; writers of
all kinds are manacled servants of the public. We write frankly and
fearlessly, but then we * modify ’ before we print. In truth, every
man an d wo man and child has a master, and worries and frets in
servitude; but in the day I write of, the Mississippi pilot had none.
The captain could stand upon the hurricane deck, in the pomp of a
very brief authority, and give him five or six orders while the vessel
backed into the stream, and then that skipper’s reign was over. The
moment that the boat was under way in the river, she was under the
sole and unquestioned control of the pilot. He could do with her
exactly as he pleased, run her when and whither he chose, and tie
her up to the bank whenever his judgment said that that course was

BANK A XD DIGNITY OF PILOTING.

137

best. His movements were entirely free; he consulted no one, he
received commands from nobody, he promptly resented even the
merest suggestions. Indeed, the law of the United States forbade
him to listen to commands or suggestions, rightly considering that
the pilot necessarily knew better how to handle the boat than any¬
body could tell him. So here was the
novelty of a king without a keeper, an
absolute monarch who was absolute in
sober truth and not by a fiction of words.

138

LIFE OK THE MISSISSIPPI.

personage in the old steamboating days. He was treated with
marked courtesy by the captain and with marked deference by all the
officers and servants; and this deferential spirit was quickly com¬
municated to the passengers, too. I think pilots were about the
only people I ever knew who failed to show, in some degree,
embarrassment in the presence of travelling foreign princes. But
then, people in one’s own grade of life are not usually embarrassing
objects.

4 TREATED WITH MARKED DEFERENCE.’

Bv long habit, pilots came to put all their wishes in the form of
commands. It 4 gravels ’ me, to this day, to put my will in the weak
shape of a request, instead of launching it in the crisp language of an
order.

In those old days, to load a steamboat at St. Louis, take her to
Hew Orleans and back, and discharge cargo, consumed about twenty-
five days, on an average. Seven or eight of these days the boat
spent at the wharves of St. Louis and Hew Orleans, and every soul
on board was hard at work, except the two pilots; they did nothing

BANK AND DIGNITY OF PILOTING .

139

but play gentleman up town, and receive the same wages for it as if
they had been on duty. The moment the boat touched the wharf at
either city, they were ashore; and they were not likely to be seen
again till the last bell was ringing and everything in readiness for
another voyage.

When a captain got hold of a pilot of particularly high reputation,
he took pains to keep him. When wages were four hundred dollars
a month on the Upper Mississippi, I have known a captain to keep
such a pilot in idleness, under full pay, three months at a time, while
the liver was frozen up. And one must remember that in those
cheap times four hundred dollars was a salary of almost inconceivable
splendour. Few men on shore got such pay as that, and when they
did they were mightily looked up to. When pilots from either end
of the river wandered into our small Missouri village, they were
sought by the best and the fairest, and treated with exalted respect.
Lying in port under wages was a thing which many pilots greatly
enjoyed and appreciated; especially if they belonged in the Missouri
River in the heyday of that trade (Kansas times), and got nine
hundred dollars a trip, which was equivalent to about eighteen
hundred dollars a month. Here is a conversation of that day. A
chap out of the Illinois River, with a little stem-wheel tub, accosts
a couple of ornate and gilded Missouri River pilots—

* Gentlemen, IVe got a pretty good trip for the up-country, and
shall want you about a month. How much will it be ? *

i Eighteen hundred dollars apiece/

* Heavens and earth! You take my boat, let me have your
wages, and TO divide ! 7

I will remark, in passing, that Mississippi steamboatmen were
important in landsmen's eyes (and in their own, too, in a degree)
according to the dignity of the boat they were on. For instance, it
was a proud thing to be of the crew of such stately craft as the
* Aleck Scott ’ or the * Grand Turk/ Negro firemen, deck hands,
and barbers belonging to those boats were distinguished personages
in their grade of life, and they were well aware of that fact too. A
stalwart darkey once gave offence at a negro ball in New Orleans by
putting on a good many airs. Finally one of the managers bustled
up to him and said—

HO LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

4 Who is yon, any way? Who is you? dat’s what I wants to
know ! ’

The offender was not disconcerted in the least, but swelled him-

‘ YOU TAKE MY BOAT I !

self up and threw that into his voice which showed that he knew he
was not putting on all those airs on a stinted capital.

4 Who is 1 ? Who is I ? I let you know mighty quick who I is !
I want you niggers to understan’ dat I fires de middle do* 1 on de
<c Aleck Scott! ” '

1 Door.

BANK AND DIGNITY OF PILOTING .

141

‘ KO POOLIN 1 *

That was sufficient.

The barber of the ‘ Grand Turk 9
was a spruce young negro, who aired
his importance with balmy com¬
placency, and was greatly courted by
the circle in which he moved. The
young coloured population of Hew
Orleans were much given to flirting,
at twilight, on the banquettes of the
back streets. Somebody saw and
heard something like the following,
one evening, in one of those localities.
A middle-aged negro woman pro¬
jected her head through a broken
pane and shouted (very willing that
the neighbours should hear and
envy), ‘ You Mary Ann, come in de
house dis minute 1 Stannin’ out dah
foolin’ dong wid dat low trash, an’
heah’s de barber offn de “ Gran*
wants to conwerse wid you ! ’
My reference, a moment
ago, to the fact that a pilot’s
peculiar official position
placed him out of the reach
of criticism or command,

brings Stephen W-

naturally to my mind. He
was a gifted pilot, a good
fellow, a tireless talker, and
had both wit and humour
in him. He had a most
irreverent independence,
too, and was deliciously
easy-going and comfortable
in the presence of age,
official dignity, and even

142

LlJf'Ju ON TMM MISSISSIPPI.

the most august wealth. He always had work, he never saved a
penny, he was a most persuasive borrower, he was in debt to every
pilot on the river, and to the majority of the captains. He could
throw a sort of splendour around a bit of harum-scarum, devil-may-
care piloting, that made it almost fascinating—but not to everybody.

He made a trip with good old Captain Y- once, and was

4 relieved ' from duty when the boat got to New Orleans. Some¬
body expressed surprise at the discharge. Captain Y-shuddered

at the mere mention of Stephen. Then his poor, thin old voice
piped out something like this :—

€ Why, bless me! I wouldn't have such a wild creature on my
boat for the world—not for the whole world ! He swears, he sings,
he whistles, he yells—I never saw such an Injun to yell. All times
of the night—it never made any difference to him. He would just
yell that way, not for anything in particular, hut merely on account
of a kind of devilish comfort he got out of it. I never could get into
a sound sleep but he would fetch me out of bed, all in a cold sweat,
with one of those dreadful war-whoops. A queer being—very queer
being; no respect for anything or anybody. Sometimes be called
me “ Johnny.” And he kept a fiddle, and a cat. He played
execrably. This seemed to distress the cat, and so the cat would
howl. Nobody could sleep where that man—and his family—was.
And reckless % There never was anything like it. Now you may
believe it or not, but as sure as I am sitting here, he brought my
boat a-tilting down through those awful snags at Chicot under a
rattling head of steam, and the wind a-blowing like the very nation*
at that! My officers will tell you so. They saw it. And, sir,
while he was a-tearing right down through those snags, and I a-
shaking in my shoes and praying, I wish I may never speak again if
he didn't pucker up his mouth and go to whistling! Yes, sir;
whistling u Buffalo gals, can't you come out to night, can't you come
out to-night, can’t you come out to-night;' and doing it as calmly as
if we were attending a funeral and weren't related to the corpse.
And when I remonstrated with him about it, he smiled down on me
as if I was his child, and told me to run in the house and try to be
good, and not be meddling with my superiors !' 1

1 Considering a captain's ostentatious but hollow chieftainship, and a pilot's

RANK AND DIGNITY OK PILOTING.

143

Once a pretty mean captain caught Stephen in New Orleans out
of work and as usual out of money. He laid steady siege to Stephen,
who was in a very * close place/ and finally persuaded him to hire
with him at one hundred and twenty-five dollars per month, just
half wages, the captain agreeing not to divulge the secret and so
bring down the contempt of all the guild upon the poor fellow. But
the boat was not more than a day out of New Orleans before Stephen
discovered that the captain was boasting of his exploit, and that all
the officers had been told. Stephen winced, but said nothing.
About the middle of the afternoon the captain stepped out on the
hurricane deck, cast his eye around, and looked a good deal sur¬
prised. He glanced inquiringly aloft at Stephen, but Stephen was
whistling placidly, and attending to business. The captain stood
around a while in evident discomfort, and once or twice seemed
about to make a suggestion; but the etiquette of the river taught
him to avoid that sort of rashness, and so he managed to hold his
peace. He chafed and puzzled a few minutes longer, then retired
to his apartments. But soon he was out again, and apparently
more perplexed than ever. Presently he ventured to remark, with
deference—

* Pretty good stage of the river now, ain’t it, sir 1 9

* Well, I should say so I Bank-full is a pretty liberal stage.’

‘ Seems to be a good deal of current here/

i Good deal don’t describe it! It’s worse than a mill-race/

4 Isn't it easier in toward shore than it is out here in the

middle ? ’

‘ Yes, I reckon it is; but a body can’t be too careful with a
steamboat. It’s pretty safe out here ; can’t strike any bottom here,
you can depend on that/

The captain departed, looking rueful enough. At this rate, he
would probably die of old age before his boat got to St. Louis. Next
day he appeared on deck and again found Stephen faithfully standing
up the middle of the river, fighting the whole vast force of the
Mississippi, and whistling the same placid tune. This thing was
becoming serious. In by the shore was a slower boat clipping along

real authority, there was something impudently apt and happy about that way
of phrasing it.

144

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

in the easy water and gaining steadily; she began to make for an
island chute; Stephen stuck to the middle of the river. Speech was
icrun'j from the captain. He said—

4 Mr. W-, don’t that chute cut off a good deal of distance ?’

4 1 think it does, but I don’t know.’

• WENiT TO WHISTLLNCf.’

‘Don’t know ! Well, isn’t there water enough in it now to go
through 1 9

f I expect there is, but I am not certain. 9

‘ Upon my word this is odd! Why, those pilots on that boat
yonder are going to try it. Do you mean to say that you don’t know
as much as they do ? 9

* They I Why, they are two-hundredand-fifty-dollar pilots! But

RANK AND DIGNITY OF PILOTING .

145

don’t you be uneasy ; I know as much as any man can afford to know
for a hundred and twenty-five ! ’

The captain surrendered.

Five minutes later Stephen was bowling through the chute and
showing the rival boat a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar pair of heels.

146

ZIPE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTER XV.

THE PILOTS* MONOPOLY.

One day, on board the t Aleck Scott,* my chief, Mr. Bixby, was crawl¬
ing carefully through a close place at Cat Island, both leads going, and
everybody holding his breath. The captain, a nervous, apprehensive
man, kept still as long as he could, but finally broke down and shouted
from the hurricane deck—

* For gracious* sake, give her steam, Mr. Bixby! give her steam!
She*!! never raise the reef on this headway ! *

For all the effect that was produced upon Mr. Bixby, one would
have supposed that no remark had been made. But five minutes
later, when the danger was past and the leads laid in, he burst
instantly into a consuming fury, and gave the captain the most admi¬
rable cursing I ever listened to. No bloodshed ensued; but that was
because the captain’s cause was weak ; for ordinarily he was not a
man to take correction quietly.

Having now set forth in detail the nature of the science of pilot¬
ing, and likewise described the rank which the pilot held among the
fraternity of steamboatmen, this seems a fitting place to say a few
words about an organisation which the pilots once formed for the
protection of their guild. It was curious and noteworthy in this, that
it was perhaps the compactest, the completest, and the strongest
commercial organisation ever formed among men.

For a long time wages had been two hundred and fifty dollars a
month; but curiously enough, as steamboats multiplied and business
increased, the wages began to fall little by little. It was easy to dis¬
cover the reason of this. Too many pilots were being ‘ made.' It
was nice to have a 6 cub,* a steersman, to do all the hard work for a

THE PILOTS' MONOPOLY. 147

couple of years, gratis, while his master sat on a high bench and
smoked ; all pilots and captains had sons or nephews who wanted to
be pilots. By and by it came to pass that nearly every pilot on the

148

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

Very well, this growing swarm of new pilots presently began to
undermine the wages, in order to get berths. Too late—apparently
—the knights of the tiller perceived their mistake. Plainly, something
had to be done, and quickly ; bat what was to be the needful thing %
A close organisation. Nothing else would answer. To compass this
seemed an impossibility 3 so it was talked, and talked, and then
dropped. It was too likely to ruin whoever ventured to move in the
matter. But at last about a dozen of the boldest—and some of them
the best—pilots on the river launched themselves into the enterprise
and took all the chances. They got a special charter from the legis¬
lature, with large powers, under the name of the Pilots’ Benevolent
Association 3 elected their officers, completed their organisation, con¬
tributed capital, put 4 association * wages up to two hundred and fifty
dollars at once—and then retired to their homes, for they were
promptly discharged from employment. But there were two or three
unnoticed trifies in their by-laws which had the seeds of propagation
in them. Por instance, all idle members of the association, in good
standing, were entitled to a pension of twenty-five dollars per month.
This began to bring in one straggler after another from the ranks of
the new-fledged pilots, in the dull (summer) season. Better have
twenty-five dollars than starve 3 the initiation fee was only twelve
dollars, and no dues required from the unemployed.

Also, the widows of deceased members in good standing could
draw twenty-five dollars per month, and a certain sum for each of
their children. Also, the said deceased would be buried at the asso¬
ciation’s expense. These things resurrected all the superannuated and
forgotten pilots in the Mississippi Valley. They came from farms,
they came from interior villages, they came from everywhere. They
came on crutches, on drays, in ambulances,—any way, so they got
there. They paid in their twelve dollars, and straightway began to
draw out twenty-five dollars a month, and calculate their burial bills.

By and by, all the useless, helpless pilots, and a dozen first-class
ones, were in the association, and nine-tenths of the best pilots out of
it and laughing at it. It was the laughing-stock of the whole river.
Everybody joked about the by-law requiring members to pay ten per
cent, of their wages, every month, into the treasury for the support of
the association, whereas all the members were outcast and tabooed.

THE PILOTS' H 0X0 POLY,

and no one would employ them. Everybody was derisively grateful
to the association for taking all the worthless pilots out of the way
and leaving the whole held to the excellent and the deserving; and
everybody was not only jocularly grateful for that, but for a result
which naturally followed, namely, the gradual advance of wages as
the busy season approached. Wages had gone up from the low figure

of one hundred dollars a month
^ to one hundred and twenty-five,

LXjiizr'' \ and in some cases to one hundred

«£■jXJ- 4- and fifty; and it was great fun

*1 the pilots 5 E N tv 011 nir
} A SS 0 C l AT i OK Jim--.™ J

* RESURRECTED PILOTS.

to enlarge upon the fact that this
charming thing had been accom¬
plished by a body of men not one of
whom received a particle of benefit j
from it. Some of the jokers used

to call at the association rooms - ~ *• ' "

and have a good time chaffing the

members and offering them the charity of taking them as steersmen
for a trip, so that they could see what the forgotten river looked
like. However, the association was content; or at least it gave no
sign to the contrary. Kow and then it captured a pilot who was
4 out of luck/ and added him to its list; and these later additions
were very valuable, for they were good pilots; the incompetent ones

150

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

had all been absorbed before. As business freshened, wages climbed
gradually up to two hundred and fifty dollars—the association
figure—and became firmly fixed there; and still without benefiting
a member of that body, for no member was hired. The hilarity
at the association’s expense burst all bounds, now. There was no
end to the fun which that poor martyr had to put up with.

However, it is a long lane that has no turning. Winter approached,
business doubled and trebled, and an avalanche of Missouri, Illinois and
Upper Mississippi Biver boats came pouring down to take a chance in
the New Orleans trade. All of a sudden pilots were in great demand,
and were correspondingly scarce. The time for revenge was come.
It was a bitter pill to have to accept association pilots at last, yet
captains and owners agreed that there was no other way. But none
of these outcasts offered ! So there was a still bitterer pill to be
swallowed : they must he sought out and asked for their services.

Captain-was the first man who found it necessary to take the

dose, and he had been the loudest deiider of the organisation. He
hunted up one of the best of the association pilots and said—

* Well, you boys have rather got the best of us for a little while,
so Til give in with as good a grace as I can. I’ve come to hire you;
get your trunk aboard right away. I want to leave at twelve o’clock/

* I don’t know about that. Who is your other pilot

4 I’ve got I. S-. Why % ’

4 1 can’t go with him. He don’t belong to the association.*

4 What! ’

4 It’s so.*

4 Do you mean to tell me that you won’t tum a wheel with one of
the very best and oldest pilots on the river because he don’t belong to
your association ? ’

4 Yes, I do.’

4 Well, if this isn’t putting on airs ! I supposed I was doing you
a benevolence ; but I begin to think that I am the party that wants
a favour done. Are you acting under a law of the concern ? *

* Yes.’

4 Show it to me.’

So they stepped into the association rooms, and the secretary soon
satisfied the captain, who said—

THE PILOTS' MONOPOLY.

151

4 Well, what am I to do ? I have hired Mr. S-for the entire

season/

4 1 will provide for you,’ said the secretary. c I will detail a
pilot to go with you, and he shall be on board at twelve o'clock/

4 But if I discharge S-, he will come on me for the whole

season's wages/

6 Of course that is a matter between you and Mr. S-, captain.

We cannot meddle in your private affairs. 5

The captain stormed, but to no purpose. In the end he had to

discharge S-, pay him about a thousand dollars, and take an asscK

ciation pilot in his place. The laugh was beginning to turn the other
way now. Every day, thenceforward, a new victim fell; every day
some outraged captain discharged a non-association pet, with tears

152

LIFE OJSf THE MISSISSIPPI.

and profanity, and installed a hated association man in his berth. In
a very little while, idle non-associationists began to be pretty plenty,
brisk as business was, and much as their services were desired. The
laugh was shifting to the other side of their mouths most palpably.

These victims, together with
the captains and owners, pre¬
sently ceased to laugh alto-
W* JF gether, and began to rage

jx i— \'J about the revenge they would

* the sign op membership.’ take when the passing business

‘spurt* was over.

Soon all the laughers that were left were the owners and crews of
boats that had two non-association pilots. But their triumph was
not very long-lived. For this reason • It was a rigid rule of the
association that its members should never, under any circumstances

THE PILOTS MONOPOLY.

153

whatever, give information about tbe channel to any ‘ outsider/ By
this time about half the boats had none but association pilots, and the
other half had none but outsiders. At the first glance one would
suppose that when it came to forbidding information about the liver
these two parties could play equally at that game; but this was not
so. At every good-sized town from one end of the river to the other,
there was a * wharf-boat ’ to land at, instead of a wharf or a pier.
Freight was stored in it for transportation ; waiting passengers slept
in its cabins. Upon each of these wharf-boats the association’s officers
placed a strong box fastened with a pecul'ar lock which was used in
no other service but one—the United States mail service. It was the
letter-bag lock, a sacred governmental thing. By dint of much be¬
seeching the government had been persuaded to allow the association
to use this lock. Every association man carried a key which would
open these boxes. That key, or rather a peculiar way of holding it
in the hand when its owner was asked for river information by a
stranger—for the success of the St. Louis and New Orleans association
had now bred tolerably thriving branches in a dozen neighbouring
steamboat trades—was the association man’s sign and diploma of
membership; and if the stranger did not respond by producing a
similar key and holding it in a certain manner duly prescribed, his
question was politely ignored. From the association’s secretary each
member received a package of more or less gorgeous blanks, printed
like a bill-head, on handsome paper, properly ruled in colu m ns ; a
bill-head worded something like this—

STEAMER GREAT REPUBLIC.
John Smith, Master.

Pilots , John Jones and Thomas Brown,.

Crossings.

Soundings.

Marks.

Remarks.

These blanks were filled up, day by day, as the voyage progressed,
and deposited in the several wharf-boat boxes. For instance, as soon
as the first crossing, out from St. Louis, was completed, the items
would be entered upon the blank, under the appropriate headings,
thus—

154

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

* St. Louis. Nine and a half (feet). Stern on court-house, head
on dead cottonwood above wood-yard, until you raise the first reef,
then pull up square.’ Then under head of Remarks: * Go just
outside the wrecks; this is important. New snag just where you
straighten down ; go above it.'

The pilot who deposited that blank in the Cairo box (after adding
to it the details of every crossing all the way down from St. Louis)
took out and read half a dozen fresh reports (from upward-bound
steamers) concerning the river between Cairo and Memphis, posted
himself thoroughly, returned them to the box, and went back aboard
his boat again so armed against accident that he could not possibly
get his boat into trouble without bringing the most ingenious care¬
lessness to his aid.

Imagine the benefits of so admirable a system in a piece of river
twelve or thirteen hundred miles long, whose channel was shifting
every day ! The pilot who had formerly been obliged to put up with
seeing a shoal place once or possibly twice a month, had a hundred
sharp eyes to watch it for him, now, and bushels of intelligent brains
to tell him how to run it. His information about it was seldom
twenty-four hours old. If the reports in the last box chanced to
leave any misgivings on his mind concerning a treacherous crossing,
he had his remedy; he blew his steam-whistle in a peculiar way as
soon as he saw a boat approaching ; the signal was answered in a
peculiar way if that boat’s pilots were association men; and then the
two steamers ranged alongside and all uncertainties were swept away
by fresh information furnished to the inquirer by word of mouth and
in minute detail.

The first thing a pilot did when he reached New Orleans or St.
Louis was to take his final and elaborate report to the association
parlours and hang it up there ,—after which he was free to visit his
family. In these parlours a crowd was always gathered together,
discussing changes in the channel, and the moment there was a fresh
arrival, everybody stopped talking till this witness had told the newest
news and settled the latest uncertainty. Other craftsmen can * sink the
shop,’ sometimes, and interest themselves in other matters. Not so
with a pilot; he must devote himself wholly to his profession and
talk of nothing else ; for it would be small gain to be perfect one day

THE PILOTS' MONOPOLY. 155

and imperfect the next. He has no time or words to waste if he
would keep ‘ posted.’

But the outsiders had a hard time of it. No particular place to
meet and exchange information, no wharf-boat reports, none but

’ ' chance and
. itJ unsatisfactory

jgm ways of get-

6 ting news. The conse-
quence was that a man
sometimes had to run five
. hundred miles of river on

‘ posting his report.’ information that was a

week or ten days old. At
a fair stage of the river that might have answered; but when the
dead low water came it was destructive.

Now came another perfectly logical result. The outsiders began
to ground steamboats, sink them, and get into all sorts of trouble,

156

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

whereas accidents seemed to keep entirely away from the association
men. Wherefore even the owners and captains of boats furnished
exclusively with outsiders, and previously considered to be wholly
independent of the association and free to comfort themselves with
brag and laughter, began to feel pretty uncomfortable. Still, they
made a show of keeping up the brag, until one black day when every
captain of the lot was formally ordered to immediately discharge his
outsiders and take association pilots in their stead. And who was it
that had the dashing presumption to do that? Alas, it came from a
power behind the throne that was greater than the throne itself. It
was the underwriters!

It was no time to ‘ swap knives.* Every outsider had to take his
trunk ashore at once. Of course it was supposed that there was
collusion between the association and the underwriters, but this was
not so. The latter had come to comprehend the excellence of the
‘ report 1 system of the association and the safety it secured, and so
they had made their decision among themselves and upon plain
business principles.

There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the camp
of the outsiders now. But no matter, there was but one course for
them to pursue, and they pursued it. They came forward in couples
and groups, and proffered their twelve dollars and asked for member¬
ship. They were surprised to learn that several new by-laws had
been long ago added. For instance, the initiation fee had been raised
to fifty dollars; that sum must be tendered, and also ten per cent, of
the wages which the applicant had received each and every month
Since the founding of the association. In many cases this amounted
to three or four hundred dollars. Still, the association would not
entertain the application until the money was present. Even then a
single adverse vote killed the application. Every member had to
vote ‘ Yes’ or ‘ N o ’ in person and before witnesses; so it took weeks
to decide a candidacy, because many pilots were so long absent on
voyages. However, the repentant sinners scraped their savings
together, and one by one, by our tedious voting process, they were
added to the fold. A time came, at last, when only about ten
remained outside. They said they would starve before they would

THE PILOTS' MONOPOLY.

157

apply. They remained idle a long while, because of course nobody
could venture to employ them.

By and by the association published the fact that upon a certain

date the wages would be
raised to five hundred
dollars per month.
All the branch associa¬
tions had grown strong,
now, and the Bed
River one had advanced
wages to seven hundred
dollars a month. Re¬
luctantly the ten out¬
siders yielded, in view
of these things, and
made application.
There was another new
by-law, by this time,
which required them to
pay dues not only on
all the wages they had
received since the asso¬
ciation was born, but
also on what they would
have received if they
had continued at work
up to the time of their
application, instead of
going off to pout in
idleness. It turned out
to be a difficult matter
to elect them, but it

was accomplished at

* ADDED TO THE FOLD.’

last. The most viru¬

lent s i nn er of this batch had stayed out and allowed 6 dues 9 to accu¬
mulate against him so long that he had to send in six hundred and
twenty-five dollars with his application.

153

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

The association had a good bank account now, and was very
strong. There was no longer an outsider. A by-law was added
forbidding the reception of any more cubs or apprentices for five
years; after which time a limited number would be taken, not by
individuals, but by the association, upon these terms : the applicant
must not be less than eighteen years old, and of respectable family
and good character; he must pass an examination as to education,
pay a thousand dollars in advance for the privilege of becoming an
apprentice, and must remain under the commands of the association
until a great part of the membership (more than half, I think) should
be willing to sign his application for a pilot’s license.

All previously-articled apprentices were now taken away from
their masters and adopted by the association. The president and
secretary detailed them for service on one boat or another, as they
chose, and changed them from boat to boat according to certain rules
If a pilot could show that he was in infirm health and needed assis
tance, one of the cubs would be ordered to go with him.

The widow and orphan list grew, but so did the association’s
financial resources. The association attended its own funerals in
state, and paid for them. When occasion demanded, it sent members
down the river upon searches for the bodies of brethren lost by
steamboat accidents; a search of this kind sometimes cost a thousand
dollars.

The association procured a charter and went into the insurance
business, also. It not only insured the lives of its members, but took
risks on steamboats.

The organisation seemed indestructible. It was the tightest
monopoly in the world. By the United States law, no man could
become a pilot unless two duly licensed pilots signed his application;
and now there was nobody outside of the association competent to
sign. Consequently the making of pilots was at an end. Every year
some would die and others become incapacitated by age and infirmity;
there would be no new ones to take their places. In time, the asso¬
ciation could put wages up to any figure it chose ; and as long as it
should be wise enough not to carry the thing too far and provoke the
national government into amending the licensing system, steamboat
owners would have to submit, since there would be no help for it.

THE PILOTS' MONOPOLY.

159

The owners and captains were the only obstruction that lay
between the association and absolute power; and at last this one
was removed. Incredible as it may seem, the owners and captains
deliberately did it themselves. When the pilots’ association an¬
nounced. months beforehand, that on the first day of September,

160

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

under the circumstances, overlooking the fact that this advance on a
cargo of forty thousand sacks was a good deal more than necessary to
cover the new wages.

So, straightway the captains and owners got up an association of
their own, and proposed to put captains' wages up to five hundred
dollars, too, and move for another advance in freights. It was a
novel idea, but of coui'se an effect winch had been produced once
could be produced again. The new association decreed (for this was
before all the outsiders had been taken into the pilots’ association)
that if any captain employed a non-association pilot, he should he
forced to discharge him, and also pay a fine of five hundred dollars.
Several of these heavy fines were paid before the captains' organisation
grew strong enough to exercise full authority over its membership;
but that all ceased, presently. The captains tried to get the pilots to
decree that no member of their corporation should serve under a non-
association captain; but this proposition was declined. The pilots
saw that they would be backed up by the captains and the under¬
writers anyhow, and so they wisely refrained from entering into
entangling alliances.

As I have remarked, the pilots' association was now the compaet-
est monopoly in the world, perhaps, and seemed simply indestructible.
And yet the days of its glory were numbered. First, the new railroad
stretching up through Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky, to
Northern railway centres, began to divert the passenger travel from
the steamers; next the war came and almost entirely annihilated the
steamboating industry during several years, leaving most of the
pilots idle, and the cost of living advancing all the time; then the
treasurer of the Sfc. Louis association put his hand into the till and
walked off with every dollar of the ample fund; and finally, the rail¬
roads intruding everywhere, there was little for steam el's to do, when
the war was over, but carry freights; so straightway some genius
from the Atlantic coast introduced the plan of towing a dozen steamer
cargoes down to New Orleans at the tail of a vulgar little tug-boat;
and behold, in the twinkling of an eye, as it were, the association
and the noble science of piloting were things of the dead and pathetic
past i

i61

CHAPTER XVI.

RACING DAYS.

It "was always the custom for the boats to leave New Orleans between
four and five o’clock in the afternoon. From three o'clock onward
they would be burning rosin and pitch pine (the sign of preparation),
and so one had the picturesque spectacle of a rank, some two or three
miles long, of tall, ascending columns of coal-black smoke ; a colon¬
nade which supported a sable roof of the same smoke blended together
and spreading abroad over the city. Every outward-bound boat had
its fiag flying at the jack-staff, and sometimes a duplicate on the
verge staff astern. Two or three miles of mates were commanding
and swearing with more than usual emphasis ; countless processions
of freight barrels and boxes were spinning athwart the levee and
flying aboard the stage-planks; belated passengers were dodging and
skipping among these frantic things, hoping to reach the forecastle
companion way alive, but having their doubts about it; women with
reticules and bandboxes were trying to keep up with husbands
freighted with carpet-sacks and crying babies, and making a failure
of it by losing their heads in the whirl and roar and gene? al distrac¬
tion ; drays and baggage-vans were clattering hither and thither in a
wild hurry, every now and then getting blocked and jammed together,
and then during ten seconds one could not see them for the profanity,
except vaguely and dimly; every windlass connected with every fore¬
hatch, from one end of that long array of steamboats to the other,
was keeping up a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freight into the
hold, and the half-naked crews of perspiring negroes that worked
them were roaring such songs as f De Las’ Sack 1 De Las’ Sack! 9 —
inspired to unimaginable exaltation by the chaos of turmoil and

162

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

racket that was driving everybody else mad. By this time the
hurricane and boiler decks of the steamers would be packed and
black with passengers. The ‘last bells 9 would begin to clang, all
down the line, and then the powwow seemed to double ; in a moment
or two the final warning came,—a simultaneous din of Chinese
gongs, with the cry, ‘All dat ain’t goin*, please to git asho’J *—and
behold, the powwow quadrupled ! People came swarming ashore,
overturning excited stragglers that were trying to swarm aboard.
One more moment later a long array of stage-planks was being hauled
in, each with its customary latest passenger clinging to the end of it
with teeth, nails, and everything else, and the customary latest pro¬
crastinator making a wild spring shoreward over his head.

Now a number of the boats slide backward into the stream,
leaving wide gaps in the serried rank of steamers. Citizens crowd
the decks of boats that are not to go, in order to see the sight.
Steamer after steamer straightens herself up, gathers all her strength,
and presently comes swinging by, under a tremendous head of steam,
with flag flying, black smoke rolling, and her entire crew of firemen
and deck-hands (usually swarthy negroes) massed together on the
forecastle, the best ‘ voice 7 in the lot toweling from the midst (being
mounted on the capstan), waving his hat or a flag, and all roaring a
mighty chorus, while the parting cannons boom and the multitudi¬
nous spectators swing their hats and huzza ! Steamer after steamer
falls into line, and the stately procession goes winging its flight up
the river.

In the old times, whenever two fast boats started out on a race, with
a big crowd of people looking on, it was inspiring to hear the crews
sing, especially if the time were night-fall, and the forecastle lit up
with the red glare of the torch-baskets. Pacing was royal fun. The
public always had an idea that racing was dangerous; whereas the
opposite was the case—that is, after the laws were passed which
restricted each boat to just so many pounds of steam to the square
inch. No engineer was ever sleepy or careless when his heart was
in a race. He was constantly on the alert, trying gauge-cocks and
watching things. The dangerous place was on slow, plodding boats,
where the engineers drowsed around and allowed chips to get into
the ‘doctor 7 and shut olf the water supply from the boilers.

STEAMBOAT TIME,

RACIXG BATS .

165

In the c flush times ’ of steamboating, a race between two notori¬
ously fleet steamers was an event of vast importance. The date was
set for it several weeks in advance, and from that time forward, the
whole Mississippi Valley was in a state of consuming excitement.
Politics and the weather were dropped, and people talked only of the
coming race. As the time approached, the two steamers c stripped
and got ready. Every incumbrance that added weight, or exposed a
resisting surface
to wind or water,
was removed, if
the boat could
possibly do with¬
out -it. The
* spars/ and some¬
times even their
supporting der¬
ricks, were sent
ashore, and no
means left to set
the boat afloat in
case she got a-
ground. When
the 6 Eclipse ’ and
the 4 A. L. Shot-
well ’ ran their
great race many
years ago, it was
said that pains
were taken to drowsy engineers.

scrape the gilding

off the fanciful device which hung between the 4 Eclipse’s ’ chimneys,
and that for that one trip the captain left off his kid gloves and had
his head shaved. But I always doubted these things.

If the boat was known to make her best speed when drawing five
and a half feet forward and five feet aft, she was carefully loaded to
that exact figure—she wouldn’t enter a dose of homoeopathic pills on
her manifest after that. Hardly any passengers were taken, because

166

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

they not only add weight but they never will * trim boat.* They
always run to the side when there is anything to see, whereas a
conscientious and experienced steam boat man would stick to the
centre of the boat and part his hair in the middle with a spirit
level.

No way-freights and no way-passengers were allowed, for the
racers would stop only at the largest towns, and then it would be
only 4 touch and go.’ Coal flats and wood flats were contracted for
beforehand, and these were kept ready to hitch on to the flying
steamers at a moment’s warning. Double crews were carried, so that
all work could be quickly done.

The chosen date being come, and all things in readiness, the two
great steamers back into the stream, and lie there jockeying a
moment, and apparently watching each other’s slightest movement,
like sentient creatures; flags drooping, the pent steam shrieking
through safety-valves, the black smoke rolling and tumbling from
the chimneys and darkening all the air. People, people everywhere;
the shores, the house-tops, the steamboats, the ships, are packed with
them, and you know that the borders of the broad Mississippi are
going to be fringed with humanity thence northward twelve hundred
miles, to welcome these racers.

Presently tall columns of steam burst from the ’scape-pipes of both
steamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroes mounted
on capstans wave their small flags above the massed crews on the
forecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a few waiting seconds,
two mighty choruses burst forth—and here they come I Brass bands
bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders from the shores, and
the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind.

Those boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and
St. Louis, except for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch
thirty-cord wood-boats alongside. You should be on board when
they take a couple of those wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of
men into each; by the time you have wiped your glasses and put
them on, you will be wondering wbat has become of that wood.

Two nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day
after day. They might even stay side by side, but for the fact that
pilots are not all alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race If

A Cl KG DAY

i of the boats has a e light

ning’ pilot, w

hose * partner ’ is a

nior, you can tell which

one is on wai

:ch by noting whet!

it has gained ground or

lost some dm

ing each four-hour

The shrewdest
pilot can delay a
boat if he has not
a fine genius for
steering. Steering
is a very high art.
One must not keep
a rudder dragging
across a boat’s

^ stern if he wants

brass bands bray. to get up the river

fast.

There is a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I
was on a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was
we left port in. But of course this was at rare intervals. Ferry-

Ifipsi®

JfefeL_

■

was a'

RACING DAY8.

169

rences, but through carelessness they have been mislaid. This boat,
the * John J. Roe,' was so slow that when she finally sunk in Madrid
Bend, it was five years before the owners heard of it. That was
always a confusing fact to me, but it is according to the record, any
way. She was dismally slow; still, we often had pretty exciting
times racing with islands, and rafts, and such things. One trip,
however, we did rather well. We went to St. Louis in sixteen days.
But even at this rattling gait I think we changed watches three
times in Fort Adams reach, which is five miles long. A e reach *
is a piece of straight river, and of course the current drives through
such a place in a pretty lively way.

That trip we went to Grand Gulf, from New Orleans, in four
days (three hundred and forty miles); the ‘ Eclipse' and ‘ Shotwell 9
did it in one. We were nine days out, in the chute of 63 (seven
hundred miles); the < Eclipse ' and ‘ Shotwell f went there in two
days. Something over a generation ago, a boat called the ‘ J. M.
White 9 went from New Orleans to Cairo in three days, six hours,
and forty-four minutes. In 1853 the ‘Eclipse' made the same trip
in three days, three hours, and twenty minutes. 1 In 1870 the
* R. E. Lee 9 did it in three days and om hour. This last is called
the fastest trip on record. I will try to show that it was not. For
this reason: the distance between New Orleans and Cairo, when the
1 J. M. White 9 ran it, was about eleven hundred and six miles;
consequently her average speed was a trifle over fourteen miles per
hour. In the * Eclipse's' day the distance between the two ports
had become reduced to one thousand and eighty miles; consequently
her average speed was a shade under fourteen and three-eighths miles
per hour. In the 1 R. E. Lee's 9 time the distance had diminished to
about one thousand and thirty miles; consequently her average was
about fourteen and one-eighth miles per hour. Therefore the
‘Eclipse's' was conspicuously the fastest time that has ever been
made.

1 Time disputed. Some authorities add 1 hour and 16 minutes to this.

170

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

THE RECORD OF SOME FAMOUS TRIPS.

{From Commodore Rollingpm's Almanack .)

FAST TIME ON THE WESTERN WATERS.

PROM NEW ORLEANS TO NATCHEZ—268 MILES.

H. M.

1814. Orleans made the

run in

6 40

1844. Sultana made the mn in

19 45

1814. Comet „

1851. Magnolia

„

19 50

1815. Enterprise „

11 20

18 >3. A. L. Shotwell

19 49

1817. Washington,,

1853. Southern Belie

„

20 3

1817. Shelby „

1853. Princess (No. 4)

»»

• >

20 26

1819. Paragon „

1853. Eclipse

19 47

1828. Teeumseh „

„

1 20

1855. Princess (New)

„

18 53

1884. Tuscarora „

1855. Natchez (New)

17 3U

1838. Natchez „

1856 Princess (New)

„

17 30

1840. Ed. Shippen ,,

lh7o. Natchez

17 17

1842. Belle of the West

1870. R. E. Lee

*»

17 11

FROM NEW ORLEANS TO CAIRO—1,024 MILES.

JO.

H. M.

1844. J. M. White made the run in 3

6 44

1869. Dexter made the run in

6 20

1852. Reindeer „ „ 3

12 45

1870. Natchez „ „

4 34

1863. Eclipse „ „ 3

1853. A. L. c hot well „ „ 3

4 4

3 40

1870. R. E. Lee ,, „

FROM NEW ORLEANS TO LOUISVILLE—1,440 MILES.

H. M.

D. H. M.

1815, Enterprise made the run in

2 40

1840. Ed. Shippen made the run in

5 14

1817 Washington „

1842. Belle of the West „

6 14

1817. Shelby

4 20

1843. Duke of Orleans „

5 23

1819. Paragon „

1844. Sultana „

„

5 12

1828. Tecumseh *

1849. Bostona

„

5 S

1834. Tuscarora „

1851. Belle Key

4 23

1837. Gen. Brown „

1852. Reindeer „

„

4 20 45

1837. Randolph „

1852. Eclipse

„

4 19

1837. Empress „

1853. A. L. Shotwell „

4 10 20

1837. Sultana „

1853. Eclipse „

4 9 30

FROM NEW

ORLEANS TO

DONALDSYILLE—78 MILES.

H. M.

1852. A. L. Shotwell made the run in

5 42

1860. Atlantic made the run in

5 11

1852. Eclipse „

5 42

1860. Gen. Quitman „

5 6

1854. Sultana „

5 12

1865. Ruth „

4 43

1856. Prmcesa „

9»

4 51

1870. R. E. Lee

4 59

RACING DATS.

171

Time Tables.— Continued.

FROM NEW ORLEANS TO ST. LOUIS—1,218 MULES.
D. H.

1844. J. M. White made the run in 3 23
1849. Missouri „ 4 19

I860. Dexter „ « * ®

(U D. H. M.

9 1870. Natchez made the ran in S 21 58

1870. R. E. Lee „ „ 3 18 14

PROM LOUISVILLE TO

D. H. M.

1819. Gen. Pike made the run in 1 16
1819 Paragon „ „ 5 14 20

1822, Wheeling Packet „ „ 1 10

1837. Moselle „ 12

1843 Duke of Orleans „ „ 12

CINCINNATI—141 MILES.

H. M.

1843. Congress made the run in 12 20
1846. Ben Franklin (No. 6) „ 11 45

1852. Alleghaney „ „ 10 3S

1852. Pittsburgh » » 10 - 3

1853. Telegraph No. 3 „ „ 9 52

FROM LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS—750 MILES.

1843. Congress made the run in
1854. Pike „

PROM CINCINNATI TO PITTSBURGH—490 MILES.

D. H. | D. h.

1850 Telegraph No. 2 made the run in 117 1 1S52. Pittsburgh made the run in. I 15

1851. Buckeye State „ „ 1 16 1

2 1 1854. Northerner made the run in 1 22 30

1 23 1855. Southerner „ „ 11®

PROM ST. LOUIS TO ALTON—30 MILES*.

D. H. | D. H.

1853. Altona made the run in 1 35 | 1876. War Eagle made the run in 1 37

1876. Golden Eagle „ *, 1 37 I

MISCELLANEOUS RUNS.

In June, 1859, the St Louis and Keokuk Packet, City of Louisiana, made the run from i* t
Tiffflig to Keokuk (214 miles) in 16 hours and 20 minutes, the best time on record.

>n 1868 the steamer Hawkeye State, of the Northern Line Packet Company, made the run
from St. Louis to St. Paul <800 miles) in 2 days and 20 hours. Never was beaten.

In 1853 the steamer Polar Star made the run from St. Louis to St. Joseph, on the M issouri
River, in 64 hours. In July, 1856, the steamer Jas. EL Lucas, Andy Wineland, Master, made
the same run in 60 hours and 57 minutes. The distance between the ports is 600 miles, and
when the difficulties of navigating the turbulent Missouri are taken into consideration, the
performance erf the Lucas deserves especial mention.

\72

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

Time Tables.— Continued .

THE RUN OF THE ROBERT E. LEE.

The time made by the R. E. Lee from. New Orleans to St. Louis in 1870, in her famous
race with the Natchez, is the best on record, and, inasmuch as the race created a national
interest, we give below her time table from port to port.

Left New Orleans, Thursday, June 30th, 1870, at 4 o’clock aud 55 minutes, p.m.; reached

Carrollton
r arry Hills
Red Church
Bonnet Carre
College Point
Donaldsonville .
PlacLuemine
Baton Rouge
Bayou Sara

Red River ....
Stamps ....
Bryaro ....

Hinderson’s

Natchez ....

Cole’s Creek
Waterproof

Rodney ....

St. Joseph
i G-rand Gulf
| Hard Times
Half Mile below Warreuton

D. H. M.

274 Vicksburg.

1 004 Milliken’s Bend .

1 39" Bailey’s.

2 38 Lake Providence .

3 504 Greenville.

4 59" Napoleon ....

7 054 White River ....

8 25" Australia ....

10 26 Helena.

12 56 Half Mile Below St. Francis '

13 56 Memphis.

15 51 £ Foot of Island 37 .

16 29 - Foot of Island 26

17 1 Tow-head, Island 14

19 21 New Madrid .

IS 53 Dry Bar No. 10 .

20 45 Foot of Island S

21 02 Upper Tow-head—Lucas Bend

22 06 Cairo.

22 18 St. Louis ....

D. H. M.

. 1 38

. 1 2 37
. 1 3 48
. 1 5 47

. 1 10 55
. J 16 22
. 1 16 56
. 1 19
. 1 23 25
. 2

.269
. 2 9
. 2 13 30
. 2 17 23
. 2 19 50
. 2 20 37
. 2 21 25
. 3
. 3 1
. 3 18 14

The Lee landed at St. Louis at 11.25 a.m., 011 July'4th, 1870—6 hours and 36 minutes ahead ,
of the Natchez. The officers of the Natchez claimed 7 hours and 1 minute stoppage on
account of fog and repairing machinery. The R E. Lee was commanded by Captain John j
W. Cannon, and the Natchez was in charge of that veteran Southern boatman, Captain
Thomas P. Leathers.

178

CHAPTER XTIL

CUT-OFFS AND STEPHEN.

These dry details are of importance in one particular. They give
me an opportunity of introducing one of the Mississippi’s oddest
peculiarities,—that of shortening its length from time to time. If
you will throw a long, pliant apple-paring over your shoulder, it will
pretty fairly shape itself into an average section of the Mississippi
River; that is, the nine or ten hundred miles stretching from Cairo,
Illinois, southward to New Orleans, the same being wonderfully
crooked, with a brief straight bit here and there at wide intervals.
The two-hundred-mile stretch from Cairo northward to Si. Louis is
by no means so crooked, that being a rocky country which the river
cannot cut much.

The water cuts the alluvial banks of the 4 lower ’ river into deep
horseshoe curves; so deep, indeed, that in some places if you were to
get ashore at one extremity of the horseshoe and walk across the
neck, half or three quarters of a mile, you could sit down and rest a
couple of hours while your steamer was coming around the long
elbow, at a speed of ten miles an hour, to take you aboard again.
When the river is rising fast, some scoundrel whose plantation is
back in the country, and therefore of inferior value, has only to watch
his chance, cut a little gutter across the narrow neck of land some
dark night, and turn the water into it, and in a wonderfully short
time a miracle has happened : to wit, the whole Mississippi has taken
possession of that little ditch, and placed the countryman’s plantation
on its bank (quadrupling its value), and that other party’s formerly
valuable plantation finds itself away out yonder on a big island ; the
old watercourse around it will soon shoal up, boats cannot approach

174

LIFE OF TEE MISSISSIPPI,

within ten miles of it, and down goes its value to a fourth of its former
worth. Watches are kept on those narrow necks, at needful times,
and if a man happens to be caught cutting a ditch across them, the
chances are all against his ever having another opportunity to cut a

ditch.

Pray observe some of the
effects of this ditching business.
Once there was a neck opposite
Port Hudson, Louisiana, which
// was only half a mile across, in its
/ij narrowest place. You could walk
[f/j, across there in fifteen minutes;

| but if you made the journey
around the cape on a raft, you
travelled thirty-five miles to ae-
I complish the same thing. In
1722 the river darted through
that neck, deserted its old bed,

- and thus shortened itself thirty-
five miles. In the same way it
^ shortened itself twenty-five miles
at Black Hawk Point in 1699.
Below Bed Biver Landing, Bac-
courci cut-off was made (forty or
ffllfj fifty years ago, I think). This
V>(. I shortened the river twenty-eight
miles. In our day, if you travel
^ by river from the southern¬
most of these three cut-offs to
the northernmost, you go only
dangerous ditching. seventy miles. To do the same

thing a hundred and seventy-six
years ago, one had to go a hundred and fifty-eight miles !—a shorten¬
ing of eighty-eight miles in that trifling distance. At some forgotten
time in the past, cut-offs were made above Vidalia, Louisiana; at
island 92; at island 84; and at Hale’s Point. These shortened the
river, in the aggregate, seventy-seven miles.

Iplip

IkhvV 1 1 s *

‘Mkm.

Wm
IPII

J mm

®;,r

175

CUT-OFFS A XU STEP HEX.

Since my own day on the Miwisdppi, t-ut-offs have been made at
Hurricane Island; at island 100; at Napoleon, Arkansas; at
Walnut Bend ; and at Council Bend. These shortened the river, m
the a”-overrate, sixty-seven miles. In my own time a cut-off was made
at American Bend, which shortened the river ten miles or more.

Therefore, the Mississippi
between Cairo and New
Orleans was twelve hundred
and fifteen miles long one
hundred and seventy-six years
ago. It was eleven hundred
and eighty after the cut-off of
172*2. It was one thousand
and forty after
the American
Bend cut-off. It
has lost sixty-
seven miles
since. Conse¬
quently its
length is only
nine hundred
and seventy-
three miles ab
present.

Now, if I
wanted to be
one of those

ponderous scientific people, and * let
on 5 to prove what had occurred in
the remote past by what had occurred
in a given time in the recent past, or

what will occur in the far future by what has occurred in late years,
what an opportunity is here ! Geology never had such a chance,
nor such exact data to argue from ! Nor c development of species/
either ! Glacial epochs are great things, but they are vague—vague.
Please observe:—

A SCIENTIST.

176

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower
Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles.
That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year
Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that
in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next
November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million
three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of
Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can
see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower
Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo
and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be
plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual
board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science.
One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling
investment of fact.

When the water begins to flow through one of those ditches I
have been speaking of, it is time for the people thereabouts to move.
The water cleaves the banks away like a knife. By the time the
ditch has become twelve or fifteen feet wide, the calamity is as good
as accomplished, for no power on earth can stop it now. When the
width has reached a hundred yards, the banks begin to peel off in
slices half an acre wide. The current flowing around the bend
travelled formerly only five miles an hour ; now it is tremendously
increased by the shortening of the distance. I was on board the first
boat that tided to go through the cut-off at American Bend, but we
did not get through. It was toward midnight, and a wild night it
was—thunder, lightning, and torrents of rain. It was estimated
that the current in the cut-off was making about fifteen or twenty
miles an hour; twelve or thirteen was the best our boat could do,
even in tolerably slack water, therefore perhaps we were foolish to
try the cut off. However, Mr. Brown was ambitious, and he kept
on trying. The eddy running up the bank, under the * point/ was
about as swift as the current out in the middle; so we would go
flying up the shore like a lightning express train, get on a big head
of steam, and 4 stand by for a surge ’ when we struck the current that
was whirling by the point. But all our preparations were useless.
The ins tant the current hit us it spun us around like a top, the water

177

CUT-OFFS AXE STEPHEX.

deluged the forecastle, and the boat careened so far over that one
could hardly keep his feet. The nest instant ve were away down
the river, clawing with might and main to keep out of the woods.
We tried the experiment four times. I stood on the forecastle
companion way to see. It was astonishing to observe how suddenly
the boat would spin around and turn tail the moment she emerged
from the eddy and the current struck her nose. The sounding

concussion and the quivering would have
^ been about the same if she had come full

speed against a sand-bank. Under the
lightning flashes one could see the planta-
L ^ tion cabins and the goodly acres tumble into

the river; and the crash they made was not
a bad effort at thunder. Once, when we spun around, we only missed
a house about twenty feet, that had a light burning in the window ;
and in the same instant that bouse went overboard. Nobody could
stay on our forecastle; the water swept across it in a torrent every
time we plunged athwart the current. At the end of our fourth
effort we brought up in the woods two miles below the cut-offall

17S

LIFE CN THE MISSISSIPPI.

the country there was overflowed, of course. A day or two later the
cut-off was three-quarters of a mile wide, and boats passed up through
it without much difficulty, and so saved ten miles.

THE SPECTRE STEAMER.

The old Ttaccourci cut-off re¬
duced the river’s length twenty-
eight miles. There used to he a
tradition connected with it. It
was said that a boat came along
there in the night and went around
the enormous elbow the usual way,
the pilots not knowing that the
cut-off had been made. It was
a grisly, hideous night, and all
shapes were vague and distorted.
The old bend had already begun
to fill up, and the boat got to run¬
ning away from mysterious reefs,
and occasionally hitting one. The
perplexed pilots fell to swearing,
and finally uttered the entirely un¬
necessary wish that they might

never get out of that place. As always happens in such cases, that
particular prayer was answered, and the others neglected. So to this
day that phantom steamer is still butting around in that deserted

CUT-OFFS AND STEPHEN.

1T9

river, trying to find her way out. More than one grave watchman
has sworn to me that on drizzly, dismal nights, he has glanced
fearfully down that forgotten river as he passed the head of the
island, and seen the faint glow of the spectre steamer’s lights drifting
through the distant gloom, and heard the muffled cough of her ’scape-
pipes and the plaintive cry of her leadsmen.

In the absence of further statistics, I beg to close this chapter
with one more reminiscence of * Stephen.’

Most of the captains and pilots held Stephen’s note for borrowed
sums, ranging from two hundred and fifty dollars upward- Stephen
never paid one of these notes, but he was very prompt and very
zealous about renewing them every twelve months.

Of course there came a time, at last, when Stephen could no
longer borrow of his ancient creditor's; so he was obliged to lie in
wait for new men who did not know him. Such a victim was good-
hearted, simple-natured young Yates (I use a fictitious name, but the
real name began, as this one does, with a Y). Young Yates gra¬
duated as a pilot, got a berth, and when the month was ended and
he stepped up to the clerk’s office and received his two hundred and
fifty dollars in crisp new bills, Stephen was there! His silvery
tongue began to wag, and in a very little while Yates’s two hundred
and fifty dollars had changed hands. The fact was soon known at
pilot headquarter's, and the amusement and satisfaction of the old
creditors were large and generous. But innocent Yates never
suspected that Stephen’s promise to pay promptly at the end of the
week was a worthless one. Yates called for his money at the
stipulated time; Stephen sweetened him up and put him off a
week. He called then, according to agreement, and came away
sugar-coated again, but suffering under another postponement. So
the thing went on. Yates haunted Stephen week after week, to no
purpose, and at last gave it up. And then straightway Stephen
began to haunt Yates ! Wherever Yates appeared, there was the
inevitable Stephen. And not only there, but beaming with affection
and gushing with apologies for not being able to pay. By and by,
whenever poor Yates saw him coming, he would turn and fly, and
drag his company with him, if he had company; but it was of no
use; his debtor would run him down and corner him. Panting and

• Al*. WHAT A RACE I'VE HAD ! ’

Aty, what a race I’ve had! X saw you didn’t see me, and so 1
clapped on all steam for fear I’d miss you entirely. And hex*e you

CUT-OFFS AND STEPHEN.

181

are ! there, just stand so, and let me look at yon ! Just the same
old noble countenance.’ [To Yates’s friend :] 6 Just look at him!
Look at him ! Ain ’t it just good to look at him ! Ain’t it now 1
Ain’t he just a picture ! Some call him a picture ; I call him a
panorama! That’s what he is—an entire panorama. And now I’m
reminded! How I do wish I could have seen you an hour earlier !
For twenty-four hours I’ve been saving up that two hundred and
fifty dollars for you ; been looking for you everywhere. I waited at
the Planter’s from six yesterday evening till two o’clock this morning,
without rest or food; my wife says, “ Where have you been all
night ? ” I said, “ This debt lies heavy on my mind.” She says, “ In
all my days I never saw a man take a debt to heart the way you do.”
I said, “ It’s my nature; how can I change it % ” She says, “ Well,
do go to bed and get some rest.” I said, “ Not till that poor, noble
young man has got his money.” So I set up all night, and this
morning out I shot, and the first man I struck told me you had
shipped on the “ Grank Turk ” and gone to New Orleans. Well, sir,
I had to lean up against a building and cry. So help me goodness, I
couldn’t help it. The man that owned the place come out cleaning
up with a rag, and said he didn’t like to have people cry against his
building, and then it seemed to me that the whole world had turned
against me, and it wasn’t any use to live any more; and coming
along an hour ago, suffering no man knows what agony, I met Jim
Wilson and paid him the two hundred and fifty dollars on account;
and to think that here you are, now, and I haven’t got a cent! But
as sure as I am standing here on this ground on this particular
brick,—there, I’ve scratched a mark on the brick to remember it by,—
I’ll borrow that money and pay it over to you at twelve o’clock sharp,
to-morrow ! Now, stand so; let me look at you just once more.’

And so on. Yates’s life became a burden to him. He could not
escape his debtor and his debtor’s awful sufferings on account of uot
being able to pay. He dreaded to show himself in the street, lest he
should find Stephen lying in wait for him at the corner.

Bogart’s billiard saloon was a great resort for pilots in those days.
They met there about as much to exchange river news as to play.
One morning Yates was there; Stephen was there, too, but kept out
of sight. But by and by, when about all the pilots had arrived who

LIFE OS THE MISSISSIPPI.

were in town, Stephen suddenly appeared in the midst, and rushed
for Yates as for a long-lost brother.

* Oh, I am so glad to see you I Oh my soul, the sight of you is
such a comfort to my eyes! Gentlemen, I owe all of you money ;
among you I owe probably forty thousand dollars. I want to pay it ;

k BEAMING BESIGXAXTLY.’

I intend to pay it—every last cent of it. You all know, without my
telling you, what sorrow it has cost me to remain so long under such
deep obligations to such patient and generous friends : but the sharpest
pang I suffer—by far the sharpest—is from the debt I owe to this noble
young man here ; and I have come to this place this morning especially
to make the announcement that I have at last found a method whereby

183

CUT-OFFS AXD STEPHEN.

I can pay off all my debts : And most especially I wanted him to be
here when I announced it. Yes, my faithful friend,—my benefactor,
I’ve found the method! I’ve found the method to pay off all my
debts, and yuu'31 get your money!’ Hope dawned in Yates s eye;
then Stephen, beaming benignantly. and placing his hand upon Yates s
bead, added, 4 1 am going to pay them off in alphabetical order i

Then be turned and disappeared. The full significance of Stephen s
4 method ’ did not dawn upon the perplexed and musing crowd for
some two minutes ; and then Yates murmured with a sigh—

* Well, the Y’s stand a gaudy chance, He won’t get any further
than the C's in this world, and I reckon that after a good deal of
eternity has wasted away in the next one, I’ll still be referred to up
there as •* that poor, ragged pilot that came here from St. Louis m
the envy' days! ”’

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI

CHAPTER XVIII.

I TAKE A FEW EXTRA LESSONS.

During the two or two and a half years of my apprenticeship, I served
under many pilots, and had experience of many kinds of steamboat-
men and many varieties of steamboats; for it was not always con¬
venient for Mr. BIxby to have me with him, and in such cases he
sent me with somebody else. I am to this day profiting somewhat
by that experience ; for in that brief, sharp schooling, I got personally
and familiarly acquainted with about all the different types of human
nature that are to be found in fiction, biography, or history. The
fact is daily borne in upon me, that the average shore-employment
requires as much as forty years to equip a man with this sort of an
education. When I say I am still profiting by this thing, I do not
mean that it has constituted me a judge of men—no, it has not done
that; forjudges of men are bora, not made. My profit is various in
kind and degree; but the feature of it which I value most is the zest
which that early experience has given to my later reading. When I
find a well-drawn character in fiction or biography, I generally take
a warm personal interest in him, for the reason that I have known
him before—met him on the river.

The figure that comes before me offcenest, out of the shadows of

that vanished time, is that of Brown, of the steamer 6 Pennsylvania'_

the man referred to in a former chapter, whose memory was so good
and tiresome. He was a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-
shaven, horse-faced, ignorant, stingy, malicious, snarling, fault-hunting,
mote-magnifying tyrant. I early got the habit of coming on watch
with dread at my heart. No matter how good a time I might have
bean having with the off-watch below, and no matter how high my

13 6

I TAKE A FEW EXTRA LESSONS.

spirits might be when I started alofc, my soul became lead in my
body the moment I approached the pilot house.

i still remember the first time I ever entered the presence of that
man. The boat had backed out from St. Louis and was £ straighten¬
ing down; 7 I ascended to the pilot-house in high feather, and very
proud to be semi-officially a member of the executive family of so fast
and famous a boat. Brown was at the
wheel. I paused in the middle of the
room, all fixed to make my bow, but
Brown did not look around. I thought
he took a furtive glance at me out of
the corner of his eye, but as not even
this notice was repeated, I judged I had
been mistaken. By this time he was
picking his way among some dangerous
‘ breaks ’ abreast the wood-yards; there¬
fore it would not be proper to interrupt
him ; so I stepped softly to the high
bench and took a seat.

There was silence for ten minutes;
then my new boss turned and inspected
me deliberately and painstakingly from
head to heel for about—as it seemed
to me—a quarter of an hour. After
which he removed his countenance and
I saw it no more for some seconds ;
then it came around once more, and
this question greeted me—

4 Are you Horace Bigsby’s cub % 3
4 Yes, sir. 5

After this there was a pause and another inspection. Then—

4 What’s your name % 3

I told him. He repeated it after me. It was probably the only
thing he ever forgot; for although I was with him many months he
never addressed himself to me in any other way than 4 Here ! 5 and
then his command followed.

* Where was you horn ? ’

PILOT BEOTO.

186

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

e In Florida, Missouri.’

A pause. Then—

4 Dern sight better staid there ! ’

By means of a dozen or so of pretty direct questions, he pumped

my family his¬
tory out of me.

The leads
were going
now, in the first
crossing. This
interrupted the
inquest. When
the leads had
been laid in, he
resumed—

4 How long
you been on the
river % 9

I told
him. After a
pause—

4 Where'd
you get them
shoes % 9

I gave him
the informa¬
tion.

4 Hold up
your foot 1 9
I did so.
He stepped
back, examined
the shoe mi¬
nutely and contemptuously, scratching his head thoughtfully, tilting
hie high sugar-loaf hat well forward to facilitate the operation, then
ejaculated, * Well, I’ll be dod derned I * and returned to his wheel.
What occasion there was to be dod denied about it is a thing

‘ABE YOU HOBACE BICSBY’S CUB ? 9

I TAKE A FEW EXTRA LESSOXS.

187

which is still as much of a mystery to me now as it was then. It
must have been all cf fifteen minutes—fifteen minutes of dull, home¬

sick silence—before that
long horse face swung
round upon me again—
and then, what a change!
It was as red as fire, and
every muscle in it was
working. Now came
this shriek—

4 Here ! —You going
to set there all day 1 ’

I lit in the middle
of the floor, shot there
by the electric sudden¬
ness of the surprise. As
soon as I could get my
voice I said, apologeti¬
cally :—* I have had no
orders, sir.’

6 You’ve had no
orders! My, what a
fine bird we are! We
must have orders 1 Our
father was a gentleman
— owned slaves — and
we’ve been to school.
Yes. ice are a gentleman,
too , and got to have
orders ! Orders, is it?
ORDERS is what you
want! Dod dem my
skin, FU learn you to
swell yourself up and
blow around here about
your dod-demed orders /
it without knowing it)

‘HOLD DP YOUR FOOT.’

O’ way from the wheel l ’ (I had approached

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

IS8

moved back a step or two, and stood as in a dream, all my

senses stupefied
by this frantic
assault.

* What you
standing there
for ? Take that
ice - pitcher
down to the
texas - tender—
come, move a-
long, and don’t
you be all day
about it! ’

The mo¬
ment I got back
to the pilot¬
house, Brown
said—

What was you doing down
there all this time ? *

* I couldn’t find the texas-tender *

I had to go all the way to the pantry.’

‘ Berned likely story ! Fill up the
stove.’

I proceeded to do so. He watched
me like a cat. Presently he shouted- —

* Put down that shovel % Derndest
numskull I ever saw—ain’t even got
sense enough to load up a stove.’

All through the watch this sort of
thing went on. \ es, and the subsequent
watches were much like it, during a
stretch of months. As I have said, I
soon got the habit of coming on duty
with dread. The moment I was in the
presence, even in the darkest night, I could feel those yellow eyes

* take that ice pitches . 1

I TAKE A FEW EXTRA LESSONS.

189

upon me, and knew their owner was watching for a pretext to spit
out some venom on me. Preliminarily he would say—

‘Here ! Take the wheel/

Two minutes later—

4 Where in the nation you going to % Pull her down I pull her
down ! *

After another moment—

4 Say ! You going to
Let her go—meet her!

Then he would jump
snatch the wheel from me,
self, pouring out wrath
time.

George Bitch ie was the
He was having good ‘pull her down.’ times now; for his
boss, George Ealer, was as kindhearted as

Brown wasn’t. Bitchie had steered for Brown the season before;
consequently he knew exactly how to entertain himseT and plague

er all day?

the bench,
eet her him-
me all the

other pilot's cub.

190

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI *.

me. all by the one operation. Whenever I took the wheel for a
moment on Haler’s watch, Ritchie would sit back on the bench and
play Brown, with continual ejaculations of * Snatch her ! snatch her 1
Derndest mud-cat I ever saw ! * * Here ! Where you going now ?

Going to rim over that snag ] * fc Pull her down 1 Don’t you hear
me? Pull her down!’ i There she goes! Just as I expected I I
told you not to cramp that reef. G 5 way from the wheel! ’

So X always had a rough time of it, no matter whose watch it
was: and sometimes it seemed to me that Ritchie’s good-natured
badgering was

‘1 KILLED BBOWX EVEKT JN'IOHT.’

I often wanted to kill Brown, but this would not answer. A cub
had to take everything hisboss gave, in the way of vigorous comment
and criticism; and we ail believed that there was a United States
law making it a penitentiary offence to strike or threaten a pilot who
was on duty. However, I could imagine myself killing Brown;
there was no law against that; and that was the thing I used always
to do the moment I was abed. Instead of going over my river in
my mind as was my duty, I threw business aside for pleasure, and
killed Brown. I killed Brown every night for months; not in old,
stale, commonplace ways, but in new and picturesque ones,—ways

* pull down' or ‘ shove
up/ He cast a furtive

glance at me every now

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

result was what might hare been foreseen : I lost my head in a
quarter of a minute, and didn't know what I was about; I started
too early to bring tbe boat around, but detected a green gleam of joy
in Brown's eye, and corrected my mistake : I started around once
more while too high up, but corrected myself again in time; I made
other false moves, and still managed to save myself; but at last I
grew so confused and anxious that I tumbled into the very worst
blunder of all—I got too far down before beginning to fetch the boat
around. Brown's chance was come.

His face turned red with passion; he made one bound, hurled me
across the house with a sweep of his arm, spun the wheel down, and
began to pour out a stream of vituperation upon me which lasted
till he was out of breath. In the course of this speech he called me
all the different kinds of hard names he could think of, and once or
twice I thought he was even going to swear—bnt he had never done
that, and he didn’t this time. 4 Dod dern’ was the nearest he
ventured to the luxury of swearing, for he had been brought up with
a wholesome respect for future fire and brimstone.

That was an uncomfortable hour \ for there was a big audience on
the hurricane deck. When I went to bed that night, I killed Brown
in seventeen different wavs—all of them new.

193

CHAPTER XIX.

SHOWN AND I EXCHANGE COMPLIMENTS.

Two trips later, I got into serious trouble. Brown was steeruig; I
was * pulling down.* My younger brother appeared on the hurric* ne
deck, and shouted to Brown to stop at some landing or other a mile
or so below. Brown gave no intimation that he had heard anything.
But that was his way: he never condescended to take notice of an
under clerk. The wind was blowing ; Brown was deaf (although he
always pretended he wasn’t), and I very much donbted if he had
heard the order. If I had had two heads, I would have spoken ; hut as
I had only one, it seemed judicious to take care of it; so I kept still.

Presently, sure enough, we went sailing by that plantation
Captain Klinefelter appeared on the deck, and said—

‘ Let her come around, sir, let her come around. Didn’t Henry
tell you to land here 1 ’

^ No, sir \ 9

* I sent him up to do it/

‘ He did come up; and that’s all the good it done, the dod-derned
fool. He never said anything/

‘ Didn’t you hear him % 9 asked the captain of me.

Of course I didn’t want to be mixed up in this business, but there
was no way to avoid it; so I said—

‘Yes, sir/

I knew what Brown’s next remark would be, before he uttered
it; it was—

* Shut your mouth ! you never heard anything of the kind.’

I closed my mouth according to instructions. An hour later,
Henry entered the pilot-house, unaware of what had been going on

194

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

He was a thoroughly inoffensive boy, and I was sorry to see him
come, for I knew Brown would have no pity on him. Brown, began,
straightway—

* Here 1 why didn’t yon tell me we’d got to land at that planta¬
tion 1’

4 1 did tell yon, Mr. Brown.’

* It’s a He V

I said—

* Yon lie, yourself. He did tell you/

Brown glared at me in unaffected surprise ; and for as much as a
moment he was entirely speechless; then he shouted to me—

4 I’ll attend to your case in a half a minute! ’ then to Henry,
4 And you leave the pilot-house ; out with you! ’

It was pilot law, and must be obeyed. The boy started out, and
even had his foot on the upper step outside the door, when Brown,
with a sudden access of fury, picked up a ten-pound lump of coal and
sprang after him; but I was between, with a heavy stool, and I hit
Brown a good honest blow which stretched him out.

I had committed the crime of crimes—I had lifted my hand
against a pilot on duty 1 I supposed I was booked for the peniten¬
tiary sure, and couldn’t be booked any surer if I went on and squared
my long account with this person while I had the chance; conse¬
quently I stuck to him and pounded him with my fists a considerable
time—I do not know how long, the pleasure of it probably made it
seem longer than it really was;—but in the end he struggled free
and jumped up and sprang to the wheel: a very natural solicitude,
for, all this time, here was this steamboat tearing down the river at
the rate of fifteen miles an hour and nobody at the helm! However,
Eagle Bend was two miles wide at this bank-full stage, and corre¬
spondingly long and deep; and the boat was steering herself straight
down the middle and taking no chances. Still, that was only luck—
a body might have found her charging into the woods.

Perceiving, at a glance, that the ‘Pennsylvania’ was in no danger,
Brown gathered up the big spy-glass, war-club fashion, and ordered
me out of the pilot-house with more than Comanche bluster. But
I was not afraid of him now; so, instead of going, I tarried, and
criticised his grammar; I reformed his ferocious speeches for him.

i»7

BROWN AND I EXCHANGE COMPLIMENTS*

and put them into good English, calling his attention to the advan¬
tage of pure English over the bastard dialect of the Pennsylvanian
collieries whence he was extracted. He could have done his part to
admiration in a cross-fire of mere vituperation, of course ; but he was
not equipped for this species of controversy; so he presently laid
aside his glass and took the wheel, muttering and shaking his head;
and I retired to the bench. The racket had brought everybody to

4 THE BACKET HAD BROUGHT EVERYBODY TO THE DECK.

the hurricane deck, and I trembled when I saw the old captain
looking up from the midst of the crowd. I said to myself, e Now I
am done for! 7 —For although, as a rule, he was so fatherly and
indulgent toward the boat’s family, and so patient of minor short¬
comings, he could be stem enough when the fault was worth it.

I tried to imagine what he would do to a cub pilot who had been
guilty of such a crime as mine, committed on a boat guard-deep with
costly freight and alive with passengers. Our watch was nearly

198

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

ended. I thought I would go and hide somewhere till I got a chance
to slide ashore. So I slipped out of the pilot-house, and down the
steps, and around to the texas door—and was in the act of gliding
within, when the captain confronted me > I dropped my head, and he
stood over me in silence a moment or two, then said impressively—

4 Follow me/

I dropped into his wake; he led the way to his parlour in the
forward end of the texas. We were alone, now. He closed the after
door; then moved slowly to the forward one and closed that. He
sat down; I stood before him. He looked at me some little time,
then said—

4 So you have been fighting, Mr. Brown 1 *

I answered meekly—

4 Yes, sir/

4 Do you know that that is a very serious matter 1 *

4 Yes, sir/

4 Are you aware that this boat was ploughing down the river fully
five minutes with no one at the wheel ?'

4 Yes, sir/

4 Did you strike him first % *

4 Yes, sir/

4 What with 1 *

4 A stool, sir/

‘Hard?*

4 Middling, sir/

4 Did it knock him down 1 *

4 He—he fell, sir/

4 Did you follow it up 1 Did you do anything further ? *

4 Yes, sir/

4 What did you dot*

4 Pounded him, sir.*

* Pounded him I *

* Yes, sir/

4 Did you pound him much 1—that is, severely 1 *

4 One might call it that, sir, maybe/

4 Fm deuced glad of it! Hark ye, never mention that I said that.
You have been guilty of a great crime; and don’t you ever be guilty

199

BROWS AS I) 1 EXCHASGE COMPLIMENTS*

of it again, on this boat. But —lay for him ashore ! Give him a
good sound thrashing, do you hear ? Ill pay the expenses. Now go
—and mind you, not a word of this to anybody. Clear out with
you ! —you’ve been guilty of a great crime, you whelp ! ’

I slid out, happy with the sense of a close shave and a mighty
deliverance ; and I heard him laughing to hims elf and slapping his
fat thighs after I had closed his door.

‘SO YOU HAVE BEEN FIGHTING.’

When Brown came off watch he went straight to the captain, who
was talking with some passengers on the boiler deck, and demanded
that I be put ashore in New Orleans—and added—

* Ill never turn a wheel on this boat again while that cub stays/
The captain said—

‘ But he needn’t come round when you are on watch. Mr. Brown/

LIFE OX TEE MISSISSIPPI.

200

* I wen t even stav on the same boat with him . 0n& of ns has got
to go ashore.’

* Very well,’ said the captain, * let it be yourself; ’ and resumed
his talk with the passengers.

During the brief remainder of the trip, I knew how an emanci*

‘AN EMANCIPATED SLAVE.

pated slave feels; for I was an emancipated slave myself. While we
lay at landings, I listened to George Ealer’s date; or to his readings
from his two bibles, that is to say, Goldsmith and Shakspeare; or I
played chess with him—and would have beaten him sometimes, only
he always took back his last move and ran the game out differently*

201

CHAPTER XX.

A CATASTROPHE.

We lay three days in Hew Orleans, but the captain did not succeed
in finding another pilot; so he proposed that I should stand a day¬
light watch, and leave the night watches to George Ealer. But X
was afraid; I had never stood a watch of any sort by myself, and I
believed I should be sure to get into trouble in the head of some
chute, or ground the boat in a near cut through some bar or other.
Brown remained in his place; but he would not travel with me.
So the captain gave me an order on the captain of the 6 A. T. Lacey,*
for a passage to St. Louis, and said he would find a new pilot there
and my steersman’s berth could then be resumed. The * Lacey * was
to leave a couple of days after the ‘ Pennsylvania.*

The night before the * Pennsylvania * left, Henry and I sat
chatting on a freight pile on the levee till midnight. The subject of
the chat, mainly, was one which I think we had not exploited before
—steamboat disasters. One was then on its way to us, little as we
suspected it; the water which was to make the steam which should
cause it, was washing past some point fifteen hundred miles up the
river while we talked;—but it would arrive at the right time and the
right place. We doubted if persons not clothed with authority were
of much use in cases of disaster and attendant panic; still, they might
be of some use; so we decided that if a disaster ever fell within our
experience we would at least stick to the boat, and give such minor
service as chance might throw in the way. Henry remembered this,
afterward, when the disaster came, and acted accordingly.

The * Lacey * started up the river two days behind the * Pennsyl-

and somebody shouted—

4 The 44 Pen ns ylvania ” is blown up at Ship Island, and a hundred
and fifty lives lost ! *

At Napoleon, Arkansas, the same evening, we got an extra,

issued by a Mem •
A V .i phis paper, which

gave some particu¬
lars. It mentioned
my brother, and
said he was not
hurt.

Further up the
river we got a later
extra. My brother
was again men¬
tioned ; but this
time as being hurt
i beyond help. We
did not get full
details of the
catastrophe until
we reached Mem-
This is the sorrowful

t was six o’clock on a
iimmer morning. The
ns) 1 vania ’ was creeping
north of Ship Island,
_ aoout sixty miles below

4 hexby and i sat CHATTING . 1 Memphis on a half-head of

steam, towing a wood-flat
which was fast being emptied. George Ealer was in the pilot-house—
alone, I think; the second engineer and a striker had the watch in
the engine room; the second mate had the watch on deck; George
Black, Mr. Wood, and my brother, clerks, were asleep, as were also
Brown and the head engineer, the carpenter, the chief mate, and one

A CATASTROPHE.

203

striker ; Captain Klinefelter was in the barber's chair, and the barber
was preparing to shave him. There were a good many cabin passen¬
gers aboard, and three or four hundred deck passenger's— so it was
said at the time—and not very many of them were

astir. The wood being nearly all out of the flat
now, Ealer rang to * come ahead * full steam, and
the next moment four of the eight boilers exploded
with a thunderous crash, and the whole forward
third of the boat was hoisted toward the sky !

THE EXPLOSION.

struck the water seventy-
five feet from the boat, j
Brown, the pilot, and George !
Black, chief clerk, were j
never seen or heard of after j
the explosion. The barber's
chair, with Captain Kline¬
felter in it and unhurt, was
left with its back over¬
hanging vacancy — every¬
thing forward of it, floor
and all, had disappeared; >
and the stupefied barber, i
who was also unhurt, stood

A CATASTROPHE.

205

ancon-

■with one toe projecting over space, still stirring his lath^tnc
sciously, and saving not a word.

When George Ealer saw the chimneys plunging aloft in front of
him, he knew what the matter was; so be muffled his face in the
lapels of his coat, and
pressed both hands
there tightly to keep
this protection in its
place so that no steam
co lid get to his nose
or mouth. He had
ample time to attend to
these details while he
was going up and re¬
turning. He presently
landed on top of the
uexploded boilers, forty
feet below the former
pilot-house, accompanied
by his wheel and a rain
of other stuff, and en¬
veloped in a cloud of
scalding steam. All of
the many who breathed
that steam, died ; none
escaped. But Ealer
breathed none of it. He
made his way to the
free air as quickly as he
could; and when the
steam cleared away he
returned and climbed
up on the boilers again,
and patiently hunted

out each and every one of his chessmen and the several joints of
his flute.

By this time the fire was beginning to threaten. Shrieks and

BALER SAVES HIS FLUTE.

206

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

groans filled the air. A great many persons had been scalded, a
great many crippled; the explosion had driven an iron crowbar
through one man’s body—I think they said he was a priest. He did
not die at once, and his sufferings were very dreadful. A young
French navel cadet, of fifteen, son of a French admiral, was fearfully
scalded, but bore his tortures manfully. Both mates were badly
scalded, but they stood to their posts, nevertheless. They drew the
wood-boat aft, and they and the captain fought back the frantic herd
of frightened immigrants till the wounded could be brought there
and placed in safety first.

When Mr. Wood and Henry fell in the water, they struck out for
shore, which was only a few hundred yards away; but Henry
presently said he believed he was not hurt (what an unaccountable
error 1), and therefore would swim back to the boat and help save the
wounded. So they parted, and Henry returned.

By this time the fire was making fierce headway, and several
persons who were imprisoned under the ruins were begging piteously
for help. All efforts to conquer the fire proved fruitless; so the
buckets were presently thrown aside and the officers fell-to with axes
and tried to cut the prisoners out. A striker was one of the captives;
he said he was not injured, but could not free himself; and when he
saw that the fire was likely to drive away the workers, he begged
that some one would shoot him, and thus save him from the more
dreadful death. The fire did drive the axemen away, and they had
to listen, helpless, to this poor fellow's supplications till the flames
ywlflfl miseries.

The fire drove all into the wood-flat that could be accommodated
there; it was cut adrift, then, and it and the burning steamer floated
down the river toward Ship Island. They moored the flat at the
head of the island, and there, unsheltered from the blazing sun, the
half-naked occupants had to remain, without food or stimulants, or
help for their hurts, during the rest of the day. A steamer came
tfjoaag, finally, and carried the unfortunates to Memphis, and there
the most lavish assistance was at once forthcoming. By this time
Henry was insensible. The physicians examined his injuries and
saw that they were fatal, and naturally turned their wmh attention
to patients who could be saved.

207

A CATASTROPHE.

Forty of the wounded were placed upon pallets on the floor of a
great public hall, and among these was Henry. There the ladies of
Memphis came every day, with flowers, fruits, and dainties and
delicacies of all kinds, and there they remained and nursed the

THE FIRE DROVE THE AXEMEN AWAY.

wounded. All the physicians stood watches there, and all the medical
students; and the rest of the town furnished money, or whatever
else was wanted. And Memphis knew how to do all these things
well; for many a disaster like the * Pennsylvania's ’ had happened

203

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

near her doors, and slie was experienced, above all other cities on the
river, in the gracious office of the Good Samaritan.

The sight I saw when I entered that large hall was new and
strange to me. Two long rows of prostrate forms—more than forty,

in all—and every face and
head a shapeless wad of loose
raw cotton. It was a grew-

THB HOSPITAL WARD.

some spectacle. I watched there six days and nights, and a very
®elM»choly experience it was. There was one daily incident which
was peculiarly depressing: this was the removal of the doomed to
a chamber apart. It was done in order that the morale of the
other patients might not be injuriously affected by seeing one of

A CATASTROPHE*

209

their number in the death-agony. The fated one was always carried
out with as little stir as possible, and the stretcher was always
hidden from sight by a wall of assistants; but no matter: everybody
knew what that cluster of bent forms, with its muffled step and
its slow movement meant; and all eyes watched it wistfully, and a
shudder went abreast of it like a wave.

I saw many poor fellows removed to the c death-room/ and saw
them no more afterward. But X saw our chief mate carried thither
more than once. T-fis hurts were frightful, especially his scalds. He
was clothed in linseed oil and raw cotton to his waist, and resembled
nothing human. He was often out of his mind; and then his pains
would make him rave and shout and sometimes shriek. Then, after
a period of dumb exhaustion, his disordered imagination would
suddenly transform the great apartment into a forecastle, and the
hurrying throng of nurses into the crew; and he would come to a
sitting posture and shout, c Hump yourselves, hvmp yourselves, you
petrifactions, snail-bellies, pall-bearers! going to be all day getting
that hatful of freight out ‘l 9 and supplement this explosion with a
firmament-obliterating irruption of profanity which nothing could
stay or stop till his crater was empty. And now and then while
these frenzies possessed him, he would tear off handfuls of the cotton
and expose his cooked flesh to view. It was horrible. It was bad
for the others, of course—this noise and these exhibitions; so the
doctors tried to give him morphine to quiet him. But, in his mind
or out of it, he would not take it. He said his wife had been killed
by that treacherous drug, and he would die before he would take it.
He suspected that the doctors were concealing it in his ordinary
medicines and in his water—so he ceased from putting either to his
lips. Once, when he had been without water during two sweltering
days, he took the dipper in his hand, and the sight of the limpid
fluid, and the misery of his thirst, tempted him almost beyond his
strength ; but he mastered himself and threw it away, and after that
he allowed no more to be brought near him. Three times I saw hi™
carried to the death-room, insensible and supposed to be dying ; but
each time he revived, cursed his attendants, and demanded to be
taken back. He lived to be mate of a steamboat again.

Bat he was the only one who went to the death-room and

eio LIFE 0 .V JFZ' MISSISSIPPI.

returned alire. Dr. Peyton, a principal physician, and rich in all the
attributes that go to constitute high and flawless character, did all
that educated judgment and trained skill could do for Henry; but,
as the newspapers had said in the beginning, his hurts were past
help. On the evening of the sixth day his wandering mind busied
itself with matters far away, and his nerveless fingers ‘ picked at his
coverlet.’ His hour had struck; we bore him to the death-room,
poor boy.

211

CHAPTER XXL

A SECTION IN MY BIOGRAPHY.

In due course I got my license. I was a pilot now, full fledged,
I dropped into casual employments ; no misfortunes resulting, inter¬
mittent work gave place to steady and protracted engagements.
Time drifted smoothly and prosperously on, and I supposed—and
hoped—that I was going to follow the river the rest of my days, and
die at the wheel when my mission was ended. But by and by the
war came, commerce was suspended, my occupation was gone.

I had to seek another livelihood. So I became a silver miner in
Nevada; next, a newspaper reporter; next, a gold miner, in
California; next, a reporter in San Francisco; next, a special
correspondent in the Sandwich Islands; next, a roving correspondent
in Europe and the East; next, an instructional torch-bearer on the
lecture platform; and, finally, I became a scribbler of books, and an
immovable fixture among the other rocks of New England.

In so few words have I disposed of the twenty-one slow-drifting
years that have come and gone since I last looked from the windows
of a pilot-house.

Let us resume, now.

p 2

81*

UFE OJS THE MISSISSIPPI*

CHAPTER XXIL

I BETUBN TO MY MUTTONS.

After twenty-one years’ absence, I felt a very strong desire to see
the river again, and the steamboats, and such of the boys as might
be left; so I resolved to go out there. I enlisted a poet for company,
and a stenographer to f take him down,’ and started westward about
the middle of April.

As I proposed to make notes, w ith a view to printing, I took
some thought as to methods of procedure. I reflected that if I were
recognised, on the river, I should not be as free to go and come, talk,
inquire, and spy around, as I should be if unknown; I remembered
that it was the custom of steam boatmen in the old times to load up
the confiding stranger with the most picturesque and admirable lies,
and put the sophisticated friend off with dull and ineffectual facts:
so I concluded, that, from a business point of view, it would be an
advantage to disguise our party with fictitious names. The idea was
certainly good, but it bred infinite bother; for although Smith,
Jones, and Johnson are easy names to remember when there is no
occasion to remember them, it is next to impossible to recollect them
when they are wanted. How do criminals manage to keep a brand-
new alias in mind 1 This is a great mystery. I was innocent; and
jet was seldom able to lay my hand on my new name when it was
needed; and it seemed to me that if I had had a crime on my
conscience to further confuse me, I could never have kept the name
by me at alL

We left per Pennsylvania Railroad, at 8 a.m. April 18.

* Evattng. Speaking of dress. Grace and picturesqueness drop gradually
oat of it as one travels away from New York.’

213

I RETURN TO MY MUTTONS*

I find that among my notes. It makes no difference which
direction you take, the fact remains the same. Whether you move
north, south, east, or west, no matter : you can get up in the morning
and guess how far you have come, by noting what degree of grace
and picturesqueness is by that time lacking in the costumes of the
new passengers ;—I do not mean of the women alone, but of both
sexes. It may be that carriage is at the bottom of this thing; and
I think it is; for there are plenty of ladies and gentlemen in the
provincial cities whose garments are all made by the best tailors and
dressmakers of 1STew York; yet this has no perceptible effect upon
the grand fact: the educated eye never mistakes those people for
Mew-Yorkers. Mo, there is a godless grace, and snap, and style

THE LAND OF FULL ‘GOATEES.

about a born and bred New-Yorker which mere clothing cannot
effect.

( April 19. This morning, struck into the region of full goatees—some¬
times accompanied by a moustache, but only occasionally.’

It was odd to come upon this thick crop of an obsolete and un¬
comely fashion; it was like running suddenly across a forgotten
acquaintance whom you had supposed dead for a generation. The
goatee extends over a wide extent of country; and is accompanied
by an iron-clad belief in Adam and the biblical history of creation,
which has not suffered from the assaults of the scientists.

* Afternoon, . At the railway stations the loafers carry both hands in their
breeches pockets; it was observable, heretofore, that one hand was sometimes
out of doors,—here, never. Tins is an important fact in geography. 1

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI

214

If tbe loafers determined the character of a country, it would be
still more important, of course.

'Heretofore, all along, the station-loafer has been often observed to
scratch one shin with the other foot; here, these remains of activity are
wanting. This has an ominous look*’

By and by, we entered
the tobacco-chewing region.
Fifty years ago, the tobacco-
chewing region covered the
Union. It is greatly re¬
stricted now.

Next, boots began to
appear. Not in strong force,
however. Later — away
down the Mississippi—they
became the rule. They dis¬
appeared from other sections
of the Union with the mud ;
no doubt they will disap¬
pear from the river villages,
also, when proper pavements
come in.

We reached St. Louis
at ten o'clock at night.
At the counter of the hotel
I tendered a hurriedly-
invented fictitious name, with
a miserable attempt at care¬
less ease. The clerk paused,
and inspected me in the com-
station loafers. passionate way in which one

inspects a respectable person
who is found in doubtful circumstances ; then he said—

* It’s all right; I know what sort of a room you want. Used to
clerk at tbe Sfc. James, in New York/

An unpromising beginning for a fraudulent career. We started

I RETURN TO MY MUTTONS .

215

to the supper room, and met two other men whom I had known
elsewhere. How odd and unfair it is: wicked impostors go around
lecturing under my nom de guerre , and nobody suspects them; but
when an honest man attempts an imposture, he is exposed at once.

One thing seemed plain : we must start down the river the next
day, if people who could not be deceived were going to crop up at
this rate : an unpalatable disappointment, for we had hoped to have

a week in St. Louis.
The Southern was a
good hotel, and we could
have had a comfortable
time there. It is large,
and well conducted, and
its decorations do not
make one cry, as do
those of the vast Pal¬
mer House, in Chicago.
True, the billiard-tables
were of the Old Silurian
Period, and the cues and
balls of the Post-Plio¬
cene ; but there was
refreshment in this, not
discomfort; for there is
rest and healing in the
contemplation of anti¬
quities.

The most notable

absence -observable in under an alias.

the billiard room, was

the absence of the river man. If he was there he had taken in big

sign, he was in disguise. I saw there none of the swell airs and

graces, and ostentatious displays of money, and pompous squanderings
of it, which used to distinguish the steamboat crowd from the dry¬
land crowd in the bygone days, in the thronged billiard-rooms of
St. Louis. In those times, the principal saloons were always populous
with river men; given fifty players present, thirty or thirty-five

216

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

were likely to be from the river. But I suspected that the ranks
were thin" now, and the steamboatmen no longer an aristocracy.
Why, in my time they used to call the 4 barkeep ’ Bill, or Joe, or
Tom/and slap him on tbe shoulder; I watched for that. But none

of these people did
it. Manifestly a
glory that once was
had dissolved and
vanished away in
these twenty-one
years.

When I went up
to my room, I found
there the young man
called Bogers, crying.
Bogers was not his
J name; neither was
//jj! £ Jones, Brown, Dex¬

ter, Ferguson, Bas-
com, nor Thompson;
but he answered to
either of these that a
body found handy in
an emergency; or to
any other name, in
fact, if he perceived
that yon meant him.
He said—

c What is a person

to do here when he wants a drink of water %—drink this slush % *

* DO YOU DKIKK THIS SLUSH ? 9

4 Can’t you drink it 1 9

1 1 could if I had some other water to wash it with/

Here was a thing which had not changed ; a score of years had
not affected this water’s mulatto complexion in the least; a score of
centuries would succeed no better, perhaps. It comes out of the
turbulent, bank-caving Missouri, and every tumblerful of it holds
nearly an acre of land in solution. I got this lact from the bishop

I RETURN TO MY MUTTONS .

21T

of tlie diocese. If you will let your glass stand lialf an hour, you
can separate the land from the water as easy as Genesis; and then
you will find them both good: the one good to eat, the other good
to drink. The land is very nourishing, the water is thoroughly
wholesome. The one appeases hunger; the other, thirst. But the
natives do not take them separately, hut together, as nature mixed
them. When they find an inch of mud in the bottom of a glass,
they stir it up, and then take the draught as they would grueL It
is difficult for a stranger to get used to this batter, but once used to
it be will prefer it to water. This Is really the case. It is good for
steam boating, and good to drink; but it is worthless for all other
purposes, except baptizing.

Next morning, we drove around town in the rain. The city
seemed but little changed. It was greatly changed, but it did not
seem so ; because in St. Louis, as in London and Pittsburgh, you
can t persuade a new thing to look new ; the coal smoke turns it
into an antiquity the moment you take your hand off it. The place
had just about doubled its size, since I was a resident of it, and was
now become a city of 400,000 inhabitants; still, in the solid business
parts, it looked about as it bad looked formerly. Yet I am sure
there is not as much smoke in St. Louis now as there used to be.
The smoke used to b a n k itself in a dense billowy black canopy over
the town, and hide the sky from view. This shelter is very much
t h in ner now; still, there is a sufficiency of smoke there, I think. I
heard no complaint.

However, on the outskirts changes were apparent enough;
notably in dwelling-house architecture. The fine new homes are
noble and beautiful and modem. They stand by themselves, too,
with green lawns around them; whereas the dwellings of a former
day are packed together in blocks, and are all of one pattern,
with windows all alike, set in an arched frame-work of twisted
stone; a sort of house which was handsome enough when it was
rarer.

There was another change—the Forest Park. This was new to
me. It is beautiful and very extensive, and bas the excellent merit
of having been made mainly by nature. There are other parks, and
fine ones, notably Tower Grove and the Botanical Gardens; for

218

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI

St. Louis interested herself in such improvements at an earlier day
than did the most of our eities.

The first time I ever saw St. Louis, I could have bought it for
six million dollars, and it was the mistake of my life that I did not
do it. It was bitter now to look abroad over this domed and steepled
metropolis, this solid expanse of bricks and mortar stretching away
on every hand into dim, measure-defying distances, and I'emember
that I had allowed that opportunity to go by. Why I should have
allowed it to go by seems, of course, foolish and inexplicable to-day,

at a first glance; yet there were reasons at the time to justify this

worn,

A Scotchman, Hon. Charles Augustus Murray, writing some
forty-five or fifty years ago, said —* The streets are narrow, ill paved
and ill lighted.’ Those streets are narrow still, of course; many of
them are ill paved yet; but the reproach of ill lighting cannot be
repeated, now. The ‘ Catholic New Church * was the only notable
b uilding then, and Mr. Murray was confidently called upon to admire
it, with its ‘species of Grecian portico, surmounted by a kind of

I RETURX TO MY MUTTONS.

219

steeple, much too diminutive in its proportions, and surmounted by
sundry ornaments * which the unimaginative Scotchman found him¬
self 6 quite unable to describe ; ’ and therefore was grateful when a
German tourist helped him out with the exclamation— 6 By —, they
look exactly like bed-posts 1 1 St. Louis is well equipped with stately
and noble public buildings now, and the little church, which the
people used to be so proud of, lost its importance a long time ago.
Still, this would not surprise Mr. Murray, if he could come back;
for he prophesied the coming greatness of St. Louis with strong
confidence.

The further we drove in our inspection-tour, the more sensibly I

realised how the city had grown since I had seen it last; changes in
detail became steadily more apparent and frequent than at first, too :
changes uniformly evidencing progress, energy, prosperity*

But the change of changes was on the 4 levee/ This time, a
departure from the rule. Half a dozen sound-asleep steamboats where
I used to see a solid mile of wide-awake ones ! This was melancholy,
this was woful. The absence of the pervading and jocund steamboat-
man from the billiard-saloon was explained. He was absent because
he is no more. His occupation is gone, his power has passed away,
he is absorbed into the common herd, he grinds at the mill, a shorn
Samson and inconspicuous. Half a dozen lifeless steamboats, a mile
of empty wharves, a negro fatigued with whiskey stretched asleep, in

ir/llf "f -w«,g|

The towboat and the rail¬
road had done their work, and
done it well and completely.
The mighty bridge, stretching
dead past bjesubbection. along over our heads, had done

its share in the slaughter and
spoliation. Kemains of former
steamboatmen told me, with wan satisfaction, that the bridge doesn’t
pay. Still, it can be no sufficient compensation to a corpse, to know

1 Capfc. Marryat, writing forty-five years ago, says: ‘St. Louis has
20,000 inhabitants. The river abreast of the town is crowded -with steamboats,
lying in two or three tiers.'

221

I RETURN TO MY MUTTONS,.

that the dynamite that laid him out was not of as good quality as it
had been supposed to be.

The pavements along the river front were bad: the sidewalks
were rather out of repair ; there was a rich abundance of mud. Adi
this was familiar and satisfying j but the ancient
armies of drays, and struggling throngs of men,
and mountains of freight, were gone; and

Sabbath reigned in
their stead. The im¬
memorial mile of
cheap foul doggeries
remained, but busi¬
ness was dull with
them ; the multitudes
of poison-swilling
Irishmen had depart¬
ed, and in their places
were a few scattering
handfuls of ragged
negroes, some drink¬
ing, some drunk, some
nodding, others a-
sleep. St. Louis is a
great and prosperous
and advancing city;

but the river-edge of it seems dead past resurrection.

Mississippi steamboating was bom about 1812; at the end of
thirty years, it had grown to mighty proportions; and in lass than

jtu

THE WOOD-YABD HAN.

LIFE ON IMF MISSISSIPPI

222

thirty more, it was dead! A strangely short life for so majestic a
erearare. Of course it is not absolutely dead, neither is a crippled
octogenarian who could once jump twenty-two feet on level ground:
but m contrasted with what it was in its prime vigour, Mississippi
steamboating may be called dead.

It killed the old-fashioned keel-boating, by reducing the freight-
trip to New Orleans to less than a week. The railroads have killed
the steamboat passenger traffic by doing in two or three days what
the steamboats consumed a week in doing; and the towing fleets have
killed the through-freight traffic by dragging six or seven steamer¬
loads of stuff down the river at a time, at an expense so trivial
that steamboat competition was out of the question.

Freight and passenger way-traffic remains to the steamers. This
is in the hands—along the two thousand miles of river between St.
Paul and New Orleans—of two or three close corporations well forti¬
fied with capital; and by able and thoroughly business-like manage¬
ment and system, these make a sufficiency of money out of what is
left of the once prodigious steamboating industry. I suppose that
St. Louis and New Orleans have not suffered materially by the change,
hut alas for the wood-yard man 1

He used to fringe the river all the way ; his close-ranked mer¬
chandise stretched from the one city to the other, along the banks,
and he sold uncountable cords of it every year for cash on the nail;
hut all the scattering boats that are left burn coal now, and the
seldomest spectacle on the Mississippi to-day is a wood-pile. Where
now is the once wood-yard man f

223

CHAPTER XXII.

TRAVELLING INCOGNITO.

My idea was, to tarry a while in every town between St. Lotus and
New Orleans. To do this, it would be necessary to go from place to
place by the short packet lines. It was an easy plan to make, and
would have been an easy one to follow, twenty years ago—but not
now. There are wide intervals between boats, these days.

I wanted to begin with the interesting old French settlements of
St. Genevieve and Kaskaslda, sixty miles below St. Louis. There
was only one boat advertised for that section—a Grand Tower packet.
Still, one boat was enough ; so we went down to look at her. She was
a venerable rack-heap, and a fraud to boot; for she was playing
herself for personal property, whereas the good honest dirt was so
thickly caked all over her that she was righteously taxable as real
estate. There are places in New England where her hurricane deck
would be worth a hundred and fifty dollars an acre. The soil on
her forecastle was quite good—the new crop of wheat was already
springing from the cracks in protected places. The companionway
was of a dry sandy character, and would have been well suited for
grapes, with a southern exposure and a little subsoiling. The soil
of the boiler deck was thin and rocky, bnt good enough for grazing
purposes. A coloured boy was on watch here—nobody else visible.
We gathered from him that this calm craft would go, as advertised,

* if she got her trip; ' if she didn't get it, she would wait for it.

* Has she got any of her trip % ’

* Bless you, no, boss. She ain't unloadened, yit. She only come
in mawninV

He was uncertain as to when die might get her trip, but thought

224

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

it might be to-morrow or maybe 'next day. This would not answer
at all; so we had to give up the novelty of sailing down the river on
a farm. We had one more arrow in our quiver: a Vicksburg packet,
the f Gold Dust/ was to leave at 5 p.m. We took passage in her for
Memphis, and gave up the idea of stopping off here and there,
as being impracticable.

She was neat, clean,
and comfortable. We
camped on the boiler
deck, and bought some
cheap literature to kill
time with. The vender
was a venerable Irish¬
man with a benevolent
face and a tongue that
worked easily in the
socket, and from him
we learned that he had
lived in St. Louis
thirty-four years and
had never been across
the river during that
period. Then he
wandered into a very
flowing lecture, filled
with classic names and
allusions, which was
quite wonderful for
fluency until the fact
became rather apparent
that this was not the

first tame, nor perhaps the fiftieth, that the speech had been
delivered. He was a good deal of a character, and much better
company than the sappy literature he was selling. A random re¬
mark, connecting Irishmen and beer, brought this nugget of informa¬
tion out of him—

J*£L,

WAITING FOB A TRIP.

‘They don’t drink it, sir. They can’t drink it, sir. Give

TRAVELLING INCOGNITO .

225

Irishman lager for a month, and he’s a dead man. An Irishman is
lined with copper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes
the copper and __

is the saving of
him, sir/

At eight
o’clock, promptly,
we backed out
and—crossed the
river. As we
crept toward the
shore, in the thick
darkness, a blind¬
ing glory of wbitt:
electric light burst
suddenly from our
forcastle. and lit
up the water and
the warehouses as
with a noon-day
glare. Another
big change, this—
no more flickering,
smoky, pitch-drip-
ping, ineffectual
torch - baskets,
now : their day
is past. Next,
instead of calling
out a score of
hands to man the
stage, a couple of

men and a hatful

THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.

of steam lowered

it from the derrick where it was suspended, launched it, deposited it
in just the right spot, and the whole thing was over and done with
before a mate in the olden time could have got his profanity-mill

228

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI .

adjusted to begin the preparatory services. Why this new and simple
method of handling the stages was not thought of when the first
steamboat was built, is a mystery whieh helps one to realise what a
dull-witted slug the average human being is.

\Ye finally got away at two in the morning, and when I turned
out at six, we were rounding to at a rocky point where there was an
old stone warehouse—at any rate, the ruins of it; two or three

decayed dwelling-houses were near by, in the shelter of the leafy
hills; bat there were no evidences of human or other animal life to
be seen. I wandered if I had forgotten the river; for I had no
reeoUectnm whatever of this place; the shape of the river, too, was
u nfamiliar ; there was nothing in sight, anywhere, *.W. I could re¬
member ever having seen before. I was surprised, disappointed,
and annoyed.

We pat ashore a well-dressed lady and gentleman, and two well-
&<eesed, lady-like young girls, together with sundry Russia-leather

TRAVELLING INCOGNITO .

227

bags. A strange place for such folk! Xo carriage was waiting.
The party moved off as if they had not expected any, and struck
down a winding country road afoot.

But the mystexy was explained when we got under way again j
for these people were evidently
bound for a large town which
lay shut in behind a tow-head
(?.<?., new island) a couple
of miles below this landing.

I couldn’t remember that
town; I couldn’t place it,
couldn’t call its name. So
I lost part of my temper.

I suspected that it might be
St. Genevieve — and so it
proved to be. Observe what
this eccentric river had been
about: it had built up this
huge useless tow-head directly
in front of this town, cut
off its river communications,
fenced it away completely, and
made a country ’ town of it.

It is a fine old place, too, and
deserved a better fate. It was
settled by the French, and is
a relic of a time when one A close inspection.

could travel from the mouths

of the Missis s ippi to Quebec and be on French territory and under
French rule all the way.

Presently I ascended to the hurricane deck and cast a longin
glance toward the pilot-house.

32 *

LITE ay THE MISSISSIPPI ♦

CHAPTER XXIV.

MY INCOGNITO IS EXPLODED.

Afteb a dose study of the face of the pilot on watch, I was satisfied
that I had never seen him before; so I went up there. The pilot
inspected me ; I re-inspected the pilot. These customary preliminaries
over, I sat down on the high bench, and he faced about and went on
with his work. Every detail of the pilot-house was familiar to me,
with one exception,—a large-mouthed tube under the breast-board.
I puzzled over that thing a considerable time; then gave up and asked
what it was for.

* To hear the engine-bells through/

It was another good contrivance which ought to have been in¬
vented half a century sooner. So I was thinking, when the pilot
asked—

* Do you know what this rope is for ? ’

I managed to get around this question, without committing
myself.

* Is this the first time your were ever in a pilot-house ? *

I crept under that one.

‘Where are you from % 9

* New England/

‘ First time you have ever been West t *

X climbed over this one.

* If you take an interest in such things, I can tell you what all
these things are for/

I said I should like it.

e 33 * 28 ,* putting his hand on a backing-bell rope, 4 is to sound the
fire-alarm ; this,’ putting his hand on a go-ahead bell, ‘ is to call the

MY INCOGNITO IS EXPLODED.

229

tex&s-tender this one,’ indicating the whistle-lever, 4 is to call the
captain *—and so he went on, touching one object after another, and
reeling off his tranquil spool of lies. *

I had never felt so like a passenger before. I thanked him, with
emotion, for each new fact, and wrote it down in my note-book. The

pilot warmed to his opportunity, and proceeded to load me up in the
good old-fashioned way. At times I was afraid he was going to
rupture his invention ; hut it always stood the strain, and he pulled
through all right. He drifted, by easy stages, into revealments of the
river b marvellous eccentricities of one sort and another, and hacked
them up with some pretty gigantic illustrations. For instance—

230

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

4 Do you see that little bowlder sticking out of the water yonder 1
well, when I first came on the river, that was a solid ridge of rock,
over sixty feet high and two miles long. All washed away but that*
[This with a sigh.]

I had a mighty impulse to destroy him, but it seemed to me that
killing, in any ordinary way, would be too good for him.

Once, when an odd-looking craft, with a vast coal-scuttle slanting
aloft on the end of a beam, was steaming by in the distance, he indif¬
ferently drew attention to it, as one might to an object grown weari¬
some through famili¬
arity, and observed
that it was an ‘alli¬
gator boat. 7

‘ An alligator boat ?
"What’s it for 2 9

‘ To dredge out alli¬
gators with.’

‘ Are they so thick
as to he troublesome 2 *
* "Well, not now, be¬
cause the Government
keeps them down. But
they used to he. Not
everywhere; but in
favourite places, here
and there, where the
river is wide and shoal
so on—places they call

* Years ago, yes, in veiy low water; there was hardly a trip, then,
that we didn’t get aground on alligators.’

It seemed to me that I should certainly have to get out my toma¬
hawk. However, I restrained myself and said—

* It must have been dreadful.’

* Wes, it was one of the main difficulties about piloting. It was
so hard to tell anything about the watery the damned things shift

‘ AST ALUIGATOB BOAT . 1

—like Plum Point, and Stack Island, and
alligator beds.’

‘ Bid they actually impede navigation 2 ’

MY IXCOGKITO IS EXPLODES.

231

around so—never lie still five minutes at a time. You can tell a wind-
reef, straight off, by the look of it; you can tell a break; you can tell a
sand-reef—that's all easy; but an alligator reef doesn’t show up, worth
anything. Nine times in ten you can’t tell where the water is; and
when you do see where it is, like as not it ain’t there when you get there,
the devils have swapped around so, meantime. Of course there were
some few pilots that could judge of alligator water nearly as well as
they could of any other kind, but they had to have natural talent for
it; it wasn’t a t hin g a body could learn, you had to be born with it.
Let me see: there was Ben Thornburg, and Beck Jolly, and Squire
Bell, and Horace Bixby, and Major Downing, and John Stevenson, and
Billy Gordon, and Jim Brady, and George Ealer, and Billy Youngblood

ALLIGATOR PILOTS.

—all A 1 alligator pilots. They could tell alligator water as far as
another Christian could tell whiskey. Bead it ?—Ah, couldn't they,
though ! I only wish I had as many dollars as they could read alli¬
gator water a mile and a half off. Yes, and it paid them to do it, too.
A good alligator pilot could always get fifteen hundred dollars a
month. Nights, other people had to lay up for alligators, but those
fellows never laid up for alligators ; they never laid up for anything
but fog. They could sTneU the best alligator water—so it was said;
I don’t know whether it was so or not, and I think a body’s got his
hands full enough if he sticks to just what he knows himself, without
going around backing up other people’s say-so’s, though there’s a
plenty that ain’t backward about doing it, as long as they can roust

11PE OP THE MISSISSIPPI\

out something wonderful to tell. Which is not the style of Robert
Styles, by as much as three fathom—maybe quarter-^.’

[My! Was this Rob Styles i —This moustached and stately
figure I—A slim enough cub, in my time. How he has improved in
comeliness in five-and-twenty years—and in the noble art of inflating
his facts.] After these musings, I said aloud—

* I should think that dredging out the alligators wouldn't have
done much good, because they could come back again right away.'

* If you had had as much experience of alligators as I have, you
wouldn't talk like that. You dredge an alligator once and he's con¬
vinced. It’s the last you hear of him. He wouldn't come back for
pie. If there's one thing that an alligator is more down on than
another, its being dredged. Besides, they were not simply shoved out
of the way; the most of the scoopful were scooped aboard; they
emptied them into the hold ; and when they had got a trip, they took
them to Orleans to the Government works.'

e What for ? ’

* Why, to make soldier-shoes out of their hides. All the Govern¬
ment shoes are made of alligator hide. It makes the best shoes in
the world. They last five years, and they won’t absorb water. The
alligator fishery is a Government monopoly. All the alligators are
Government property—just like the live-oaks. You cut down a live-
oak, and Government fines you fifty dollars ; you kill an alligator,
and up you go for misprision of treason—lucky duck if they don’t
hang you, too. And they will, if you’re a Democrat. The buzzard
is the sacred bird of the South, and you can’t touch him ; the alligator
is the sacred bird of the Government, and you’ve got to let him alone.*

‘ Do you ever get aground on the alligators now t '

* Oh, no! it hasn't happened for years.'

* Well, then, why do they still keep the alligator boats in service S'

* Just for police duty—nothing more. They merely go up and
down now and than. The present generation of alligators know them
as easy as a burglar knows a roundsman; when they see one coming,
they break camp and go for the woods.'

After rounding-oat and finishing-up and polishing-off the alligator
business, he dropped easily and comfortably into the historical vein,
and told of some tremendous feats of half-a-dozen old-time steamboats

MY IXCOGNITO IS EXPLODED.

233

of his acquaintance, dwelling at special length upon a certain extra¬
ordinary performance of his chief favourite among this distinguished
fleet—and then adding—

1 That boat was the u Cyclone,”—last trip she ever made—she
sunk that very trip—captain was Tom Ballou, the most immortal liar
that ever I struck. He couldn’t ever
seem to tell the truth, in any kind of
weather. Why, he would make you
fairly shudder. He was the most scanda¬
lous liar ! I left him, finally ; I couldn’t
stand it. The proverb says, " like master,
like man; ” and if you stay with that
kind of a man, you’ll come under suspi¬
cion by and by, just as sure as you live.

He paid first-class wages; but said I,

What’s wages when your reputation’s
in danger % So I let the wages go, and
froze to my reputation. And I’ve never
regretted it. Keputation’s worth every¬
thing, ain’t it % That’s the way I look
at it. He had more selfish organs than
any seven men in the world—all packed
in the stem-sheets of his skull, of course,
where they belonged. They weighed
down the back of his head so that it
made his nose tilt up in the air. People
thought it was vanity, but it wasn’t, it
was malice. If you only saw his foot,
you’d take him to be nineteen feet high,
but he wasn’t; it was because his foot
was out of drawing. He was intended to the sacred bird.

be nineteen feet high, no doubt, if his foot

was made first, but he didn’t get there; he was only five feet ten.
That’s what he was, and that’s what he is. You take the lies out
of him, and he’ll shrink to the size of your hat; you take the malice
out of him, and hell disappear. That “ Cyclone ” was a rattler to go,
and the sweetest thing to steer that ever walked the waters. Bet her

234

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI

amidships, in a big river, and just let her go; it was all you had to
do. She would hold herself on a star all night, if you let her alone.
You couldn’t ever feel her rudder. It wasn’t any more labour to
steer her than it is to count the Republican vote in a South Carolina
election. One morning, just at daybreak, the last trip she ever made,
they took her rudder aboard to mend it; I didn’t know anything

about it; I backed her out from the wood-yard and went a-weaving
down the river all serene. When I had gone about twenty-three
miles, and made four horribly crooked crossings- 9

* Without any rudder ? ’

r Yes—old Capt. Tom appeared on the roof and began to find fault
"with me for running such a dark night-’

* Such a dark niff hi f —Why, you gftid -’

MT TXCOGXITO IS EXPLODED.

235

4 Never mind what I said,—’fcwas as dark as Egypt now, though

pretty soon the moon began to rise, and-’

4 You mean the sun —because you started out just at break of-

look here ! Was this before you quitted the captain on account of his
lying, or-’

4 It was before—oh, a long time before. And as I was saying,
he-’

* But was this the trip she sunk, or was-*

1 Oh, no!—months afterward. And so the old man, he_’

1 Then she made two last trips, because you said-’

He stepped back from the wheel, swabbing away biV, perspiration,
and said—

236

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

< Here ! ’ (calling me by name), ‘ you take her and lie a while—
you're handier at it than I am. Trying to play yourself for a
stranger and an innocent!—why, I knew you before you had spoken
seven words; and I made up my mind to find out what was your little
game. It was to draw me out . Well, I let you, didn’t 1 1 How
take the wheel and finish the watch; and next time playfair, and you
won’t have to work your passage.’

Thus ended the fictitious-name business. And not six hours out
from St. Louis! but I had gained a privilege, any way, for I had been
itching to get my hands on the wheel, from the beginning. I seemed
to have forgotten the river, but I hadn’t forgotten how to steer a
steamboat, nor how to enjoy it, either.

237

CHAPTER XXV.

FROM CAIRO TO HICKMAN.

The scenery, from St. Louis to Cairo—two hundred miles is varied
and beautiful. The hills were clothed in the fresh foliage of spring

238

LIFE ON TEE MISSISSIPPI

Tower, too, there was a railway; and another at Cape Girardeau*
The former town gets its name from a huge, squat pillar of rock,
which stands up out of the water on the Missouri side of the river
—a piece of nature’s fanciful handiwork—and is one of the most
picturesque features of the scenery of that region. For nearer or
remoter neighbours, the Tower has the Devil’s Bake Oven—so called,
perhaps, because it does not powerfully resemble anybody else’s bake
oven; and the Devil’s Tea Table—this latter a great smooth-surfaced
mass of rock, with diminishing wine-glass stem, perched some fifty or
sixty feet above the river, beside a beflowered and garlanded precipice,
and sufficiently like a tea-table to answer for anybody, Devil or
Christian. Away down the river we have the Devil’s Elbow and the
Devil’s Bace-course, and lots of other property of his which I cannot
now call to mind.

The Town of Grand Tower was evidently a busier place than it
had been in old times, but it seemed to need some repairs here and
there, and a new coat of whitewash all over. Still, it was pleasant
to me to see the old coat once more. * Uncle ’ Mumford, our second
officer, said the place had been suffering from high water, and conse¬
quently was not looking its best now. But he said it was not strange
that it didn’t waste whitewash on itself, for more lime was made
there, and of a better quality, than anywhere in the West; and
added—* On a dairy farm you never can get any milk for your coffee,
nor any sugar for it on a sugar plantation; and it is against sense to
go to a lime town to hunt for whitewash.’ In my own experience I
knew the first two items to be true; and also that people who sell
candy don’t care for candy; therefore there was plausibility in
Unde Mumford’s final observation that * people who make lime run
more to religion than whitewash.’ Unde Mumford said, further,
that Grand Tower was a great coaling centre and a prospering
place.

Gape Girardeau is situated on a hillside, and makes a handsome
appearance. There is a great Jesuit school for boys at the foot of the
town by the river. Unde Mumford said it had as hi gh a reputation
for thoroughness as any similar institution in Missouri. There
was another collage higher up on an airy summit—a bright new
edifice, picturesquely and peculiarly towered and pomaded—a sort of

FROM CAIRO TO RICKMAN.

239

gigantic casters, with the cruets all complete. Uncle Mumford said
that Cape Girardeau was the Athens of Missouri, and contained
several colleges besides those already mentioned ; and all of them on
a religious basis of one kind or another. He directed my attention
to what he called the * strong and pervasive religious look of the
town/ but I could not see that
it looked more religious than the
other hill towns with the same
slope and built of the same kind
of bricks. Partialities often make
people see more than really exists.

Uncle Mumford has been
thirty years a mate on the river.

He is a man of practical sense
and a level head; has observed;
has had much experience of one
sort and another; has opinions;
has, also, just a perceptible dash
of poetry in his composition, an
easy gift of speech, a thick growl
in his voice, and an oath or two
where he can get at them when
the exigencies of his office require
a spiritual lift. He is a mate of
the blessed old-time kind; and
goes gravely damning around,
when there is work to the fore,
in a way to mellow the ex-steam-
boatman’s heart with sweet soft
longings for the vanished days a daisy farm.

that shall come no more. 4 Git

up there -you ! Going to be all day % Why d’n’t you say you

was petrified in your hind legs, before you shipped 1 *

He is a steady man with his crew; kind and just, but firm; so
they like him, and stay with him. He is still in the slouohy garb of
the old generation of mates; but next trip the Anchor Pine will have
him in u nif orm—a natty blue naval uniform, with brass buttons.

2 iO

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI\

along with all the officers of the line—and then he will be a totally
different style of scenery from what he is now.

Uniforms on the Mississippi! It beats all the other changes put
together, for surprise. Still, there is another surprise—that it was
not made fifty years ago. It is so manifestly sensible, that it might
have been thought of earlier, one would suppose. During fifty years,
out there, the innocent passenger in need of help and information,
has been mistaking the mate for the cook, and the captain for the
barber—and being roughly entertained for it, too. But his troubles
are ended now. And the greatly improved aspect of the boat’s staff
is another advantage achieved by the dress-reform period.

Steered down the bend below Gape Girardeau. They used to call
it * Steersman's Bend ; 1 plain sailing and plenty of water in it, always;
about the only place in the Upper River that a new cub was allowed
to take a boat through, in low water.

Thebes, at the head of the Grand Chain, and Commerce at the
foot of it, were towns easily rememberable, as they had not undergone
conspicuous alteration. Nor the Chain, either—in the nature of
things; for it is a chain of sunken rocks admirably arranged to
capture and kill steamboats on bad nights. A good many steamboat
corpses lie buried there, out of sight; among the rest my first friend
the 4 Paul Jones;' she knocked her bottom out, and went down
like a pot, so the historian told me—Uncle Mumford. He said
she had a grey mare aboard, and a preacher. To me, this sufficiently
accounted for the disaster; as it did, of course, to Mumford, who
added—

4 But there axe many ignorant people who would scoff at such a
matter, and call it superstition. But you will always notice that
they are people who have never travelled with a grey mare and a
preacher. I went down the river once in such company. We
grounded at Bloody Island; we grounded at Hanging Dog; we
grounded just below this same Commerce; we jolted Beaver Dam
Rock; we hit one of the worst breaks in the * Graveyard' behind
Goose Island; we had a roustabout killed in a fight; we burnt a
boiler; broke a shaft; collapsed a fine; and went into Cairo with
nine feet of water in the hold—may have been more, may have been
tea. 1 remember it as if it were yesterday. The men lost their

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

That this combination—of preacher and grey mare—should breed
calamity, seems strange, and at first glance unbelievable; but the fact
is fortified by so much unassailable proof that to doubt is to dishonour
reason. I myself remember a case where a captain was warned by
numerous friends against taking a grey mare and a preacher with
him, but persisted in his purpose in spite of all that could be said;
and the same day—it may have been the next, and some say it was,
though I think it was the same day—he got drunk and fell down
the hatchway, and was borne to his home a corpse. This is literally
true.

No vestige of Hat Island is left now; every shred of it is washed
away. I do not even remember what part of the river it used to be
in, except that it was between St. Louis and Cairo somewhere. It
was a bad region—all around and about Hat Island, in early days.
A farmer who lived on the Illinois shore there, said that twenty-nine
steamboats had left their bones strung along within sight from his
house. Between St. Louis and Cairo the steamboat wrecks average
one to the mile;—two hundred wrecks, altogether.

I could recognise big changes from Commerce down. Beaver
Dam Bock was out in the middle of the river now, and throwing a
prodigious * break; * it used to be dose to the shore, and boats went
down outside of it. A big island that used to be away out in mid¬
river, has retired to the Missouri shore, and boats do not go near it
any more. The island called Jacket Pattern is whittled down to a
wedge now, and is booked for early destruction. Goose Island is all
gone but a little dab the size of a steamboat. The perilous c Grave¬
yard,* among whose numberless wrecks we used to pick our way so
slowly and gingerly, is far away from the channel now, and a terror
to nobody. One of the islands formerly called the Two Sisters is gone
entirely; the other, which used to lie dose to the Illinois shore, is
now on the Missouri side, a mile away ; it is joined solidly to the
shore, and it takes a sharp eye to see where the seam is—but it is
Illinois ground yet, and the people who live on it have to ferry
themselves over and work the Illinois roads and pay Illinois taxes:
singular state of things I

Near the mouth of the river several islands were Tmggfng —.washed
away. Cairo was still there—easily visible across the long, fiat point

FROM CAIRO TO HICKMAN.

243

upon whose further verge it stands; but we had to steam c. long way
around to get to it. Night fell as we were going out of the ‘ Upper
River * and meeting the floods of the Ohio, We dashed along without
anxiety , for the hidden
rock which used to lie right
in the way has moved up
stream a long distance out
of the channel j or rather,
about one county has gone
into the river from the
Missouri point, and the
Cairo point has 4 made
down 7 and added to its
long tongue of territory
correspondingly. The Mis¬
sissippi is a just and equit¬
able river; it never tumbles
one man’s farm overboard
without building a new
farm just like it for that
man’s neighbour. This
keeps down hard feelings.

Going into Cairo, we
came near killing a steam¬
boat which paid no attention
to our wiiistle and then
tried to cross our bows.

By doing some strong back¬
ing, we saved him; which
was a great loss, for he
would have made good
literature.

Cairo is a brisk town now; and is substantially built, and has a
city look about it which is in noticeable contrast to its former estate,
as per Mr. Dickens’s portrait of it. However, it was already build¬
ing with bricks when I had seen it last—which was when Colonel
(now General) Grant was drilling hie first command there. Uncle

V * i ^ ^

* ILLINOIS GBOUND.’

.244

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

Hamford says the libraries and Sunday-schools have done a good

work in Cairo, as well as the brick masons. Cairo has a heavy railroad
and river trade, and her situation at the junction of the two great
rivers is so advantageous that she cannot well help prospering.

When I turned out, in the morning, we had passed Columbus,
Kentucky, and were approaching Hickman, a pretty town, perched
on a handsome hill. Hickman is in a rich tobacco region, and
formerly enjoyed a great and lucrative trade in that staple, collect¬
ing it there in her warehouses from a large area of country and
shipping it by boat; but Uncle Mumford says she built a railway
to facilitate this commerce a little more, and he thinks it facilitated
it the wrong way—took the bulk of the trade out of her hands by
c collaring it along the line without gathering it at her doors.*

CHAPTER XXYI.

UNDER FIRE.

Talk began to run upon the war now, for we were getting down into
the upper edge of the former battle-stretch by this time. Columbus
was just behind us, so there was a good deal said about the famous
battle of Belmont. Several of the boat's officers had seen active
service in the Mississippi war-fleet. I gathered that they found
themselves sadly out of their element in that kind of business at first,
but afterward got accustomed to it, reconciled to it, and more or less
at home in it. One of our pilots had his first war experience in the
Belmont fight, as a pilot on a "boat in the Confederate service. I
had often had a curiosity to know how a green hand might feel, in
his maiden battle, perched all solitary and alone on high in a pilot
house, a target for Tom, Dick and Harry, and nobody at his elbow
to shame him from showing the white feather when matters grew hot
and perilous around him ; so, to me his story was valuable—it filled
a gup for me which all histories had left till that time empty.

THE pilot’s FIRST BATTLE.

He said—

It was the 7th of Xovember. The fight began at seven in the
morning. I was on the * R. H. W. Hill.’ Took over a load of troops
from Columbus. Came back, and took over a battery of artillery.
My partner said he was going to see the fight; wanted me to go
along, I said, no, I wasn’t anxious, I would look at it from fie
pilot-house. He said I was a coward, and left.

That fight was an awful sight. General Cheatham made bis men
strip their coats off and throw them in a pile, and said, * 3STow follow

246

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI,

me to hell or victory ! ’ I heard him say that from the pilot-house;
ami then he galloped in, r.t the head of his troops. Old General
Pillow, with his white hair, mounted on a white horse, sailed in, too,
leading his troops as lively as a boy. By and by the Federals chased
the rebels back, and here they came ! tearing along, everybody for

himself and Devil

take the hindmost!
and down under the
bank they scrambled,
and took shelter. I
was sitting with my
legs hanging out of
the pilot-house win¬
dow. All at once I
noticed a whizzing
sound passing my ear.
Judged it was a
bullet. I didn’t stop
to think about any¬
thing, I just tilted
over backwards and
landed on the floor,
and staid there.
The balls came boom¬
ing around. Three
cannon-balls went
through the chimney;
one ball took off the
corner of the pilot¬
house ; shells were

HIS MAIDEN BATTLE.

screaming and burst¬

ing all around.

Mighty -warm times—I wished I hadn’t come. I lay there on the
pilot-house floor, while the shots came faster and faster. I crept in
behind the big stove, in the middle of the pilot-house. Presently a
minie-ball came through the stove, and just grazed my head, and cut
my hat. I judged it was time to go away from there. The captain

UNDER FIRE,

was on the roof with a red-headed major from Memphis—a fine-looking
man. I heard him say he wanted to leave here, but 4 that pilot
is killed/ I crept over to the starboard side to pull the bell to
set her back; raised up and
took a look, and I saw about
fifteen shot holes through the
window panes; had come so
lively I hadn't noticed them.

I glanced out on the water, and
the spattering shot were like a
hail-storm. I thought best to
get out of that place. I went
down the pilot-house guy, head
first—not feet first but head
first—slid down—before I struck
the deck, the captain said we
must leave there. So I climbed
up the guy and got on the floor
again. About that time, they
collared my partner and were
bringing him up to the pilot¬
house between two soldiers.

Somebody had said I was killed.

He put his head in and saw me
on the floor reaching for the
backing bells. He said, *Oh,
hell, he ain’t shot,’ and jerked
away from the men who had him
by the collar, and ran below.

We were there until three o’clock
in the afternoon, and then got
away all right.

The next time I saw my
partner, I said, 4 How, come out,

be honest, and tell me the truth. Where did you go when you went
to see that battle % ’ He says, * I went down in the hold/

All through that fight I was scared nearly to death. I hardly

MIGHTY WARM TIMES.

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

knew an} thing, I was so frightened; but you see, nobody knew that
but rue. Next day General Polk sent for me, and praised me for my
bravery and gallant conduct. I never said anything, I let it go at
that. I judged it wasn’t so, but it was not for me to contradict a
general officer.

Pretty soon after that I was sick, and used up, and had to go off

to the Hot Springs.
When there, I got a
good many letters
from commanders
saying they wanted
me to come back. I
declined, because I
wasn’t well enough
or strong enough; but
I kept still, and kept
the reputation I had
made.

A plain story,
straightforwardly
told; but Mumford
told me that that pilot
had 4 gilded that scare
of his, in spots; ’ that
his subsequent career
in the war was proof

of it.

We struck down through the chute of Island No. 8, and I went
below and fell into conversation with a passenger, a handsome man,
with easy carriage and an intelligent face. We were approaching
Islan d No. 10, a place so celebrated during the war. This gentleman’s
home was on the main shore in its neighbourhood. I had some talk
with him about the wax times; but presently the discourse fell upon
feuds, for in no part of the South has the vendetta flourished more

L'XDER FIRE.

249

briskly, or held out longer between warring families, than in this
particular region. This gentleman said—

‘ Thei e’s been more than one feud around here, in old times, but

__ _ _ __ I reckon the worst

* one was between

the Darnells and
the Watsons. No¬
body don't know

250

life ON THE MISSISSIPPI

_anyway. It was a little matter; the money in it wasn’t of

no consequence—none in the world—hoth fam ili es was rich. The
thing could have been fixed up, easy enough; but no, that wouldn’t
do. Rough words had been passed; and so, nothing but blood
could fix it up after that. That horse or cow, whichever it was, cost
sixty years of killing and crippling 1 Every year or so somebody
was shot, on one side or the other; and as fast as one generation
was laid out, their sons took up the feud and kept it a-going. And
it’s just as I say; they went on shooting each other, year in and
year out—making a kind of a religion of it, you see—till they’d done
forgot, long ago, what it was all about. Wherever a Darnell caught
a Watson, or a Watson caught a Darnell, one of ’em was going to get
hurt—only question was, which of them got the drop on the other.
They’d shoot one another down, right in the presence of the family.
They didn’t hunt for each other, but when they happened to meet,
they pulled and begun. Men would shoot boys, boys would shoot
men. A man shot a boy twelve years old—happened on him in the
woods, and didn’t give him no chance. If he had V given him a
chance, the boy’d ’a’ shot him . Both families belonged to the same
church (everybody around here is religious); through all this fifty
or sixty years’ fuss, hoth tribes was there every Sunday, to worship.
They lived each side of the line, and the church was at a landing
called Compromise. Half the church and half the aisle was in
Kentucky, the other half in Tennessee. Sundays you’d see the
families drive up, all in their Sunday clothes, men, women, and
children, and file up the aisle, and set down, quiet and orderly, one
lot on the Tennessee side of the church and the other on the Kentucky
side; and the men and boys would lean their guns up against the
wall, handy, and then all hands would join In with the prayer and
praise; though they say the man next the aisle didn’t kneel down,
along with the rest of the family; kind of stood guard. I don’t know*
never was at that church in my life; but I remember that that’s
what used to be said.

* Twenty or twenty-five years ago, one of the feud families caught
a young man of nineteen out and killed him. Don’t remember
whether it was the Darnells and Watsons, or one of the other feuds;
but anyway, this young man rode up—steamboat laying there at the

UNDER FIRE.

251

time—and the first thing he saw was a whole gang of the enemy.
He jumped down behind a wood-pile, but they rode around and
begun on him, he firing back, and they galloping and cavorting and
yelling and banging away with all their might. Think he wounded
a couple of them ; but they closed in on him and chased him into the
river; and as he swum along down stream, they followed along the

bank and kept
on shooting at
him; and when
he struck shore
he was dead.

Windy Marshall "told
me about it. He saw
it. He was captain j
of the boat. !

e Years ago, the
Darnells was so thin¬
ned out that the old
man and his two
sons concluded they’d THEY KEPT ON SEOOTLN ' G *

leave the country.

They started to take steamboat just above Ho. 10; but the Watsons
got wind of it; and they arrived just as the two young Darnells
was walking up the companion-way with their wives on their arms.
The fight begun then, and they never got no further—both of them
killed After that, old Darnell got into trouble with the man that
run the ferry, and the ferry* man got the worst of it—and died. But

252

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI

his friends shot old "Darnell through and through—filled him full of
bullets, and ended him.’

The country gentleman who told me these things had been reared
in ease and comfort, was a man of good parts, and was college bred.
His loose grammar was the fruit of careless habit, not ignorance.
This habit among educated men in the West is not universal, but it
is prevalent—prevalent in the towns, certainly, if not in the cities ;
and to a degree which one cannot help noticing, and marvelling at.
I heard a Westerner who would be accounted a highly educated man
in any country, say c never mind, it don't make no difference, any¬
way.* A life-long resident who was present heard it, but it made

ISLAND NUMBER TEN.

no impression upon her. She was able to recall the fact afterward,
when reminded of it; but she confessed that the words had not
grated upon her ear at the time—a confession which suggests that if
educated people can hear such blasphemous grammar, from such a
source, and be unconscious of the deed, the crime must be tolerably
common—so co mm on that the general ear has become dulled by
f amiliar ity with it, and is no longer alert, no longer sensitive to such
affronts.

Ho one in the world speaks blemishless grammar; no one has
ever written it —no one, either in tho world or out of it (taking the
Scriptures for evidence on the latter point) ; therefore it would not
he fair to exact grammatical perfection from the peoples of the

UITDJBR FIRE.

253

Valley; but they and all other peoples may justly be required to
refrain from knowingly and purposely debauching their grammar.

I found the river greatly changed at Island No, 10. The island
which I remembered was some three miles long and a quarter of a
mile wide, heavily timbered, and lay near the Kentucky shore—
within two hundred yards of it, I should say. Now, however, one
had to hunt for it with a spy-glass. Nothing was left of it but an
insignificant little tuft, and this was no longer near the Kentucky
shore ; it was clear over against the opposite shore, a mile away. In
war times the island had been an important place, for it commanded

FLOOD Q2J THE HTvEE.

the situation; and, being heavily fortified, there was no getting by
it. It lay between the upper and lower divisions of the Union
forces, and kept them separate, until a junction was finally effected
across the Missouri neck of land; but the island being itself joined
to that neck now, the wide river is without obstruction.

In this region the river passes from Kentucky into Tennessee,
back into Missouri, then back into Kentucky, and thence into
Tennessee again. So a mile or two of Missouri sticks over into
Tennessee.

The town of New Madrid was looking very unwell ; but otherwise
unchanged from its former condition and aspect. Its blocks of

LIFE ON IME MISSISSIPPI.

234

frame-houses were still grouped in the same old flat plain, and en¬
vironed by the same old forests. It was as tranquil as formerly, and
apparently had neither grown nor diminished in size. It was said
that the recent high water had invaded it and damaged its looks.
This was surprising news ; for in low water the river bank is very
high there (fifty feet), and in my day an overflow had always been
considered an impossibility. This present flood of 1882 will doubtless
be celebrated in the river’s history for several generations before a
deluge of like magnitude shall be seen. It put all the unprotected
low lands under water, from Cairo to the mouth; it broke down the
levees in a great many places, on both sides of the river ; and in
some regions south, when the flood was at its highest, the Mississippi
was seventy miles wide 1 a number of fives were lost, and the destruc¬
tion of property was fearful. The crops were destroyed, houses
washed away, and shelterless men and cattle forced to take refuge on
scattering elevations here and there in field and forest, and wait in
peril and suffering until the boats put in commission by the national
and local governments and by newspaper enterprise could come and
rescue them. The properties of multitudes of people were under
water for months, and the poorer ones must have starved by the
hundred if succour had not been promptly afforded. 1 The water
had been falling during a considerable time now, yet as a rule we
found the banks still under water.

1 For a detailed and interesting description of the great flood, written on
board of the New Orleans Times-Democrat's relief-boat, see Appendix A.

255

CHAPTER XXY3X

SOME IMPORTED ARTICLES*

We met two steamboats at New Madrid. Two steamboats in sight
at once ! an infrequent spectacle now in the lonesome M i s s i ssippi.
The loneliness of this solemn, stupendous flood is impressive—and
depressing. League after league, and still league after league, it
pours its chocolate tide along, between its solid forest walls, its
almost untenanted shores, with seldom a sail or a moving object of
any kind to disturb the surface and break the monotony of the blank,
watery solitude; and so the day goes, the night comes, and again
the day—and still the same, night after night and day after day—
majestic, unchanging sameness of serenity, repose, tranquillity,
lethargy, vacancy—symbol of eternity, rea l isation of the heaven
pictured by priest and prophet, and longed for by the good and
thoughtless!

Immediately after the war of 1812, tourists began to come to
America, from England; scattering ones at first, then a sort of
procession of them—a procession which kept np its plodding, patient
march through the land during many, many years. Each tourist
took notes, and went home and published a book—a hook which was
usually calm, truthful, reasonable, kind ; but which seemed just the
reverse to our tender-footed progenitors. A glance at these tourist-
books shows us that in certain of its aspects the Mississippi has
undergone no change since those strangers visited it, hut remains
to-day about as it was then. The emotions produced in those foreign
breasts by these aspects were not all formed on one pattern, of course ;
they had to he various, along at first, because the earlier tourists
were obliged to originate their emotions, whereas in older countries

256

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

one can always borrow emotions from one’s predecessors. And,
mind you, emotions are among the toughest things in the world to
manufacture out of whole cloth; it is easier to manufacture seven
facts than one emotion. Captain Basil Hall, B.IT., writing fifty-five
years ago, says—

‘ Here I caught the first glimpse of the object I had so long wished to
behold, and felt myself amply repaid at that moment for all the trouble I
had experienced in coming so far; and stood looking at the river flowing
past tin it was too dark to distinguish anything. But it was not till I had
visited the same spot a dozen times, that I came to a right comprehension
of the grandeur of the scene.’

Following are Mrs. Trollope’s emotions. She is writing a few
months later in the same year, 1827, and is coming in at the mouth
of the Mississippi—

* Hie first indication of our approach to land was the appearance of this
mighty river pouring forth its muddy mass of waters, and mingling with the
deep Mae of the Mexican Gulf. I never beheld a scene so utterly desolate
as this entrance of the M i ss i ssip pi. Had Dante seen it, he might have drawn
images of another Bolgia from its horrors. One only object rears itself
above the eddying waters; this is the mast of a vessel long since wrecked in
attempting to cross the bar, and it still stands, a dismal witness of the de¬
struction that has been, and a boding prophet of that which is to come.’

SOME IMPORTED ARTICLES .

257

Emotions of lion. Charles Augustus Murray (near St. Louis),
seven years later—

‘ It is only when you ascend the mighty current for fifty or a hundred
miles, and use the eye of imagination as well as that of nature, that you
begin to understand all his might and majesty. You see him fertilising a
boundless valley, bearing along in his course the trophies of his thousand
victories over the shattered forest—here carrying away large masses of soil
with all their growth, and there forming islands, destined at some future
period to be the residence of man; and while indulging in this prospect, it is
then time for reflection to suggest that the current before you has flowed
through two or three thousand miles, and has yet to travel one thousand
three hundred more before reaching its ocean destination/

Receive, now, the emotions of Captain Marryat, R. N. author of
the sea tales, writing in 1837, three years after Mr. Murray—

* Never, perhaps, in the records of nations, was there an instance of a
century of such unvarying and unmitigated crime as is to be collected from
the history of the turbulent and blood-stained Mississippi The stream
itself appears as if appropriate for the deeds which have been committed.
It is not like most rivers, beautiful to the sight, bestowing fertility in its
course; not one that the eye loves to dwell upon as it sweeps along, nor can
you wander upon its hanks, or trust yourself without danger to its stream.
It is a furious, rapid, desolating torrent, loaded with alluvial soil; and few
of those who are received into its waters ever rise again, 1 or can support
themselves long upon its surface without assistance from some friendly log.
It contains the coarsest and most uneatable of fish, such as the cat-fish and
such genus, and as you descend, its banks are occupied with the fetid
alligator, while the panther basks at its edge in the cane-brakes, almost im¬
pervious to man. Pouring its impetuous waters through wild tracks covered
with trees of little value except for firewood, it sweeps down whole forests
in its course, which disappear in tumultuous confusion, whirled away by the
stream now loaded with the masses of soil which nourished their roots, often
blocking up and changing for a time the channel of the river, which, as if in
anger at its being opposed, inundates and devastates the whole country round;
and as soon as it forces its way through its former channel, plants in every
direction the uprooted monarchs of the forest (upon whose branches the bird
will never again perch, or the raccoon, the opossum, or the squirrel climb)

1 There was a foolish superstition of some little prevalence in that day,
that the Mississippi would neither buoy up a swimmer, nor permit a drowned
person's body to rise to the surface.

258

LIFE ON TEE MISSISSIPPI

ba traps to the adventurous navigators of its waters "by steam, who, b'tne
down upon these concealed dangers which pierce through the planks, very
often have not time to steer for and gain the shore before they sink to the
bottom. There are no pleasing associations connected with the great
common sewer of the Western America, which pours out its mud into the
Mexican Gulf, polluting the dear blue sea for many miles beyond its mouth.
It is a river of desolation; and instead of reminding you, like other beautiful
rivers, of an angel which has descended for the benefit of man, you imagine
it a devil, whose energies have been only overcome by the wonderful power
of steam.’

It is pretty crude literature for a man accustomed to handling
a pen; still, as a panorama of the emotions sent weltering through
this noted visitor’s breast by the aspect and traditions of the 1 great
common sewer,’ it has a value. A value, though marred in the matter
of statistics by inaccuracies; for the catfish is a plenty good enough
fish for anybody, and there are no panthers that are ‘ impervious to
man.’

Later still comes Alexander Mackay, of the Middle Temple,
Barrister at Law, with a better digestion, and no catfish dinner
aboard, and foels as follows—

* The Mississippi t It was with indescribable emotions that I first felt
myself afloat upon its waters. Sow often in my schoolboy dreams, and in
my wa king visions afterwards, had my imagination pictured to itself the lordly
stream, rolling with tumultuous current through the boundless region to
which it has given its name, and gathering into itself, in its course to the
ocean, the tributary waters of almost every latitude in the temperate zone!
Here it was then in its reality, and I, at length, steaming against its tide.
I looked upon it with that reverence with which everyone must regard a
great feature of external nature.’

So much for the emotions. The tourists, one and all, remark
upon the deep, brooding loneliness and desolation of the vast river.
Captain Basil Hall, who saw it at flood-stage, says—

* Sometimes we passed along distances of twenty or thirty miles without

* single habitation. An artist, in search of hints for a painting of the
deluge, would here have found them in abundance.’

!Sib first shall be last, etc. Just two hundred years ago, the
old original first and gallantest of all the foreign tourists, pioneer.

SOME IMPORTED ARTICLES.

869

head of the procession, ended his weary and tedious discovery-voyage
down the solemn stretches of the great river—La Salle, whose name
will last as long as the river itself shall last. We quote from Mr.
Parkman—

* And now they neared their journey’s end. On the sixth of April, the
river divided itself into three broad channels. La Salle followed that of the
west, and D’Autray that of the east; while Tonty took the middle passage.
As he drifted down the turbid current, between the low and marshy shores,
the brackish water changed to brine, ami the breeze grew fresh with the salt
breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of the great Gulf opened on Ms
sight, tossing its restless billows, limitless, voiceless, lonely as when born of
chaos, without a sail, without a sign of life.’

Then, on a spot of solid ground, La Salle reared a column ‘ bearing
the arms of France; the Frenchmen were mustered under arms; and
while the New England Indians and their squaws looked on in
wondering silence, they chanted the Te Deum, the Exaudiat, and the
Domine salmmfae regem.’

Then, whilst the musketry volleyed and rejoicing shouts burst
forth, the victorious discoverer planted the column, and made pro¬
clamation in a loud voice, taking formal possession of the river and
the vast countries watered by it, in the name of the King. The
column bore this inscription—

LOUIS LE GRAND, ROY DE FRANCE ET DR NAVARRE, REGNEJ LE

heuvtehe avril, 1682 .

New Orleans intended to fittingly celebrate, this present year,
the bicentennial anniversary of this illustrious event; but when the
time came, all her energies and surplus money were required in
other directions, for the flood was upon the land then, making havoc
and devastation everywhere.

LIFE OS THE MISSISSIPPI

:>C0

CHAPTER XXVIH.

UNCLE MUMFORD UNLOADS*

At.t, 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 rafts, and dozens of big coal
barges ; also occasional little trading-scows, peddling along from farm

THE STEAMER ‘MARK 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
these were ail 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 River. The spy-glass revealed the
fact that she was named for me—or he was named for me, whichever

UNCLE MUMFOEB UNLOADS.

261

you prefer. As this was the first time I had ever encountered this
species of honour, it seems excusable to mention it, and at the same
time call the attention of the authorities to the tardiness of my recog¬
nition of it.

Noted a big change in the river, at Island 21. It was a very
large island, and used to lie out toward mid-stream ; but it is joined
fast to the main shore now, and has retired from business as an
island.

As we approached famous and formidable Plum Point, darkness

fell, but that was nothing to shudder
about—in these modern times. For
now the national government has
turned the Mississippi into a sort of
two-thousand-mile torchlight proces¬
sion. In the head of every crossing,
and in the foot of every crossing, the
government has set up a clear-burning
lamp. You are never entirely in the
dark, now; there is always a beacon
in sight, either before you, or behind
you, or abreast. One might almost
say that lamps have been squandered
there. Dozens of crossings are lighted
which were not shoal when they were
created, and have never been shoal
since ; crossings so plain, too, and also
so straight, that a steamboat can take
herself through them without any help, after she has been through
once. Damps in such places are of course not wasted; it is much
more convenient and comfortable for a pilot to hold on them than on

A GOVEBNMENT LAJV1P.

a spread of formless blackness that won’t stay still ; and money is
saved to the boat, at the same time, for she can of course make more
miles with her rudder amidships than she can with it squared across
her stem and holding her back.

But this thing has knocked the romance out of piloting, to a large
extent. It, and some other things together, have knocked all the
romance out of it. For instance, the peril from snags is not now

‘j$-j LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

what it once was. The government's snag-boats go patrolling up and
down, in these matter-of-fact days, pulling the river’s teeth; they
have rooted out all the old clusters which made many localities so
formidable ; and they allow no new ones to collect. Formerly, if your
boat got away from you, on a black night, and broke for tbe woods,
it was an anxious time with you ; so was it also, when you were groping
your way through solidified darkness in a narrow chute; hut all that
is changed now—you flash out your electric light, transform night
into day in the twinkling of an eye, and your perils and anxieties are
at an end. Horace Bixby and George Ritchie have charted the cross¬
ings and laid out the courses by compass ; they have invented a lamp
to go with the chart, and have patented the whole. With these helps,

one may run in tbe fog now, with considerable security, and with a
confidence unknown in the old days.

With these abundant beacons, tbe banishment of snags, plenty of
daylight in a box and ready to be turned on whenever needed, and a
diart and compass to fight the fog with, piloting, at a good stage of
water, is now nearly as safe and simple as driving stage, and is hardly
more than three times as romantic.

And now in these new days, these days of infinite change, the
Anchor Tine have raised the captain above the pilot by giving him
the bigger wages of the two. This was going far, but they have not
stopped there. They have decreed that the pilot shall remain at his
poet* and stand his watch dear through, whether the boat be under

UNCLE jIUMFOMU UNLOADS.

263

-ray or +ied up to the shore. We, that were once the aristocrats of
the river, can't go to bed now, as we used to do, and sleep while a
hundred tons of freight are lugged aboard; no, we must sit in the
pilot-house ; and keep awake, too. Verily we are being treated like
a parcel of mates and engineers. The Government has taken away
the romance of our calling; the Company has taken away its state
and dignity.

Plum Point looked as it had always looked by night, with the ex¬
ception that now there were beacons to mark the crossings, and also
a lot of other lights on the Point and along its shore ; these latter
glinting from the fleet of the United States River Commission, and
from a village which the officials have built on the land for offices and

ARTIFICIAL DAYLIGHT.

for the employes of the service. The military engineers of the Com¬
mission have taken upon their shoulders the job of ma king the Mis¬
sissippi over again—a job transcended in size by only the original
job of creating it. They are building wing-dams here and there, to
deflect the current; and dikes to confine it in narrower bounds ; and
other dikes to make it stay there; and for unnumbered miles along
the Mississippi, they are felling the timber-front for fifty yards back,
with the purpose of shaving the bank down to low-water mark with
the slant of a house roof, and ballasting it with stones; and in many
places they have protected the wasting shores with rows of piles.
One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver—not aloud, but to
himself—that ten thousand River Commissions, with the mines of the

264

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it
or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there, and make it obey;
cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar its path with an
obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over, and laugh at. But
a discreet man will not put these things into spoken words; for the
West Point engineers have not their superiors anywhere; they know
all that can be known of their abstruse science; and so, since the>
conceive that they can fetter and handcuff that river and boss him
it is but wisdom for the unscientific man to keep still, lie low, ana
wait till they do it. Captain Eads, with his jetties, ha« done a work
at the mouth of the Mis sissippi which seemed clearly impossible \ so
we do not feel full confidence now to prophesy against like impos¬
sibilities. Otherwise one would pipe out and say the Commission
might as well bully the comets in their courses and undertake to
make them behave, as try to bully the Mississippi into right and
reasonable conduct.

I consulted Uncle Mumford concerning this and cognate matters;
and I give here the result, stenographically reported, and therefore to
be relied on as being full and correct; except that I have here and
there left out remarks which were addressed to the men, such as * where
in biases are you going with that barrel now % 7 and which seemed to
me to break the flow of the written statement, without compensating
by adding to its information or its clearness. Not that I have
ventured to strike out all such intejections; I have removed only
those which were obviously irrelevant; wherever one occurred
which I felt any question about, I have judged it safest to let it
remain.

UHGXiE MTJMFORD’s IMPRESSIONS.

Unde Mumford said—

‘As long as I have been mate of a steamboat—thirty years—1
have watched tins river and studied it. Maybe I could have learnt
mow about it at West Point, but if I believe it I wish I may be
WidAT ore you, sucking your fingers there fort—Collar that Teag of
*aOe I Pour years at West Point, and plenty of books and
•will learn a man a good deal, I reckon, but it won’t learn him the
rawer. You turn one of those little European rivers over to this

UNCLE MUMFORD UNLOADS.

367

Commission, with its hard bottom and dear water, and it would just
be a holiday job for them to wall it, and pile it, and dike it, and
tame it down, and boss it around, and make it go wherever they
wanted it to, and stay where they put it, and do just as they said,
every time. But this ain't that kind of a river. They have started
in here with big confidence, and the best intentions in the world;
but they are going to get left. What does Ecclesiastes vii. 13 say \
Says enough to knock their little game galley-west, don’t it f ITow
you look at their methods once. There at Devil’s Island, in the
Upper River, they wanted the water to go one way, the water wanted
to go another. So they put up a stone wall. But what does the
river care for a stone wall! When it got ready, it just bulged
through it. Maybe they can build another that will stay; that is,
up there—but not down here they can’t. Down here in the Lower
River, they drive some pegs to turn the water away from the shore
and stop it from slicing off the bank; very well, don’t it go straight
over and cut somebody else’s bank % Certainly. Axe they going to
peg all the banks f Wby, they could buy ground and build & new
Mississippi cheaper. They are pegging Bulletin Tow-head now. It
won’t do any good* If the river has got a mortgage on that island,
it will foreclose, sure, pegs or no pegs. Away down yonder, they
have driven two rows of piles straight through the middle of a dry
bar half a mile long, which is forty foot out of the water when the
river is low. What do you reckon that is for % If I know, I wish
I may land in-JzLU MP yourself, you son of an undertaker !—out with
that coal-oil, now , lively , lively ! And just look at what they are
trying to do down there at Milliken’s Bend. There’s been a cut-off
in that section, and Vicksburg is left out in the cold. It’s a country
town now. The river strikes in below it; and a boat can’t go up to
the town except in high water. Well, they axe going to build wing-
dams in the bend opposite the foot of 103, and throw the water over
and cut off the foot of the island and plough down into an old ditch
where the river used to be in ancient times; and they think they can
persuade the water around that way, and get it to strike in above
Vicksburg, as it used to do, and fetch the town back into the world,
again. That is, they are going to take this whole Mississippi, and
twist it around and make it run several miles up stream. Well javNm

268

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

got to admire men that deal in ideas of that size and can tote them
around without crutches; but you haven’t got to believe they can do
such miracles, have you! And yet you ain’t absolutely obliged to
believe they can’t. I reckon the safe way, where a man can afford it,
is to copper the operation, and at the same time buy enough pro¬
perty in Vicksburg to square you up in case they win. Government
is doing a deal for the Mississippi, now—spending loads of money
on her. When there used to be four thousand steamboats and ten
thousand acres of coal-barges, and rafts and trading scows, there
wasn’t a lantern from St. Paul to New Orleans, and the snags were
thicker than bristles on a hog’s back; and now when there’s three
dozen steamboats and naiy barge or raft, Government has snatched
out all the snags, and lit up the shores like Broadway, and a boat’s as
safe on the river as she’d be in heaven. And I reckon that by the
time there ain’t any boats left at all, the Commission will have
the old thing all reorganised, and dredged out, and fenced in, and
tidied up, to a degree that will make navigation just simply per¬
fect, and absolutely safe and profitable; and all the days will he
Sundays, and all the mates will be Sunday-school su-WHAT-
in-the-Tiation-you-f ooling-aro und-there-for, you sons of unrighteous¬
ness, heirs of perdition ! Going to be a year getting that hogshead
ashore V

During our trip to New Orleans and back, we had many con¬
versations with river men, planters, journalists, and officers of the
River Commission—with conflicting and confusing results. To
wife:—

1. Some believed in the Commission’s scheme to arbitrarily and
permanently confine (and thus deepen) the channel, preserve threat¬
ened shores, etc.

2. Some believed that the Commission’s money ought to be spent
only on b uilding and repairing the great system of levees.

5- Some believed that the higher you build your levee, the higher
the river’s bottom will rise; and that consequently the levee system
is a mistake.

4. Some believed in the scheme to relieve the river, in flood-time,
by turning its surplus waters off into Lake Borgne, etc.

CXCLE MUMFOED UNLOADS.

26S

5. Some believed in the scheme of northern lake-reservoirs to
replenish the Mississippi in low-water seasons.

"Wherever you find a man down there who believes in one of these

TALKING OVEJSt THE SITUATION.

theories you may turn to the next man and frame your talk upon the
hypothesis that he does not believe in that theory; and after you
have had experience, you do not take this course doubtfully, or hesi¬
tatingly, but with the confident of a dying murderer—converted, one.

270

LINE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

I mean. For you will have come to know, with a deep and restful cer¬
tainly, that you are not going to meet two people sick of the same
theory, one right after the other. No, there will always be one or
two with the other diseases along between. And as you proceed, you
will fin d out one or two other things. You will find out that there is
no distemper of the lot but is contagious; and you cannot go where
it is without catching it. You may vaccinate yourself with deterrent
facts as much as you please—it will do no good; it will seem to
* take/ but it doesn't; the moment you rub against any one of those
theorists, make up your mind that it is time to hang out your yellow
fiag.

Yes, you are his sure victim : yet his work is not all to your hurt
—only part of it; for he is like your family physician, who comes
and cures the mumps, and leaves the scarlet-fever behind. If your
man is a Lake-Borgne-relief theorist, for instance, he will exhale
a cloud of deadly facts and statistics which will lay you out with
that disease, sure; but at the same time he will cure you of any
other of the five theories that may have previously got into your
system.

I have had all the five; and had them * bad ; ’ but ask me not,
in mournful numbers, which one racked me hardest, or which one
numbered the biggest sick list, for I do not know. In truth, no
one can answer the latter question. Mississippi Improvement is a
mighty topic, down yonder. Every man on the river banks, south
of Cairo, talks about it every day, during such moments as he is
able to spare from talking about the war ; and each of the several
chief theories has its host of zealous partisans; but, as I have
said, it is not possible to determine which cause numbers the most
recruits.

All were agreed upon one point, however: if Congress would
make a sufficient appropriation, a colossal benefit would result. Yery
well; since th e n the appropriation has been made—possibly a suffi¬
cient one, certainly not too large a one. Let us hope that the pro¬
phecy will be amply fulfilled.

One thing will be easily granted by the reader; that an opinion
koa Mr. Edward Atkinson, upon any vast national commercial
Matter, comes as near ranking as authority, as can the opinion of any

UNCLE MUMNOBD UNLOADS.

27\

individual in the Union, What he has to say about Mississippi Kiver
Improvement will be found in the Appendix* 1

Sometimes, half a dozen figures will reveal, as with a lightning-
flash, the importance of a subject which ten thousand laboured words,
with the same purpose in view, had left at last but dim and uncertain.
Here is a case of the sort—paragraph from the ‘ Cincinnati Commer¬
cial '—

* The towboat “ Jos. B. Williams ” is on her way to New Orleans with a
tow of thirty-two barges, containing six hundred thousand bushels (seventy-
six pounds to the bushel) of coal exclusive of her own fuel, being the largest
tow ever taken to New Orleans or anywhere else in the world. Her freight

THE TOW.

bill, at 3 cents a bushel, amounts to $18,000. It would take eighteen
hundred cais, of three hundred and thirty-three bushels to the car, to trans¬
port this amount of coal. At $10 per ton, or $100 per car, which would be
a fair price for the distance by rail, the freight bill would amount to $180,000,
or $162,000 more by rail than by river. The tow will be taken from Pitts¬
burg to New Orleans in fourteen or fifteen days. It would take one hundred
trains of eighteen cars to the train to transport this one tow of six hundred
thousand bushels of coal, and even if it made the usual speed of fast freight
lines, it would take one whole summer to put it though by rail/

When a river in good condition can enable one to save $162,000
and a whole summer's time, on a single cargo, the wisdom of taking
measures to keep the river in good condition is made plain to even the
uncommercial mind.

1 See Appendix B

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

Xl-i

CHAPTER XXTX.

▲ FEW SPECIMEN BRICKS.

We passed through the Plum Point region, turned Craighead’s Point*
and glided unchallenged by what was once the formidable Pork
Pillow, memorable because of the massacre perpetrated there during
the war. Massacres are sprinkled with some frequency through the
histories of several Christian nations, but this is almost the only one
that can be found in American history; perhaps it is the only one
which rises to a size correspondent to that huge and sombre title.
We have the * Boston Massacre,’ where two or three people were
killed; but we must bunch Anglo-Saxon history together to find the
fellow to the Fort Pillow tragedy; and doubtless even then we must
travel back to the days and the performances of Cceur de lion, that
fine € hero,’ before we accomplish it.

More of the river’s freaks. In times past, the channel used to
strike above Island 37, by Brandywine Bar, and down towards
Island 39. Afterward, changed its course and went from Brandy¬
wine down through Vogel man’s chute in the Devil’s Elbow, to Island
39—part of this course reversing the old order; the river running
up four or five miles, instead of down, and cutting off, throughout,
some fifteen miles of distance. This in 1876. All that region is
now called Centennial Island.

There is a tradition that Island 37 was one of the principal
abiding places of the once celebrated ‘ Morel’s Gang.’ This was a
colossal combination of robbers, horse-thieves, negro-stealers, and
counterfeiters, engaged in business along the river some fifty or sixty
years ago. While our journey across the country towards St. Louis
was in progress we had had no end of Jesse James and his stirring

A PEW SPECIMEN BRICKS.

273

history; for he had just been assassinated by an agent of the Governor
of Missouri, and was in consequence occupying a good deal of space
in the newspapers. Cheap histories of him were for sale by train
boys. According to these, he was the most marvellous creature of his
kind that had ever existed. It was a mistake. Murel was his equal
in boldness; in pluck ; in rapacity; in cruelty, brutality, heartless¬
ness, treachery, and in general and comprehensive vileness and shame¬
lessness; and very much his superior in some larger aspects. James
was a retail rascal ;

Murel, wholesale.

James's modest genius
dreamed of no loftier
flight than the plan¬
ning of raids upon cars,
coaches, and country
banks; Murel projected
negro insurrections and
the capture of Hew
Orleans ; and further¬
more, on occasion, this
Murel could go into a
pulpit and edify the con¬
gregation. What are
James and his half-dozen
vulgar rascals compared
with this stately old-
time criminal, with his
sermons, his meditated
insurrections and city-

captures, and his majestic following of ten hundred men, sworn to
do his evil will!

Here is a paragraph or two concerning this big operator, from a
now forgotten book which was published half a century ago—

A SOTL-MOYING YIL.LAIX

He appears to have been a most dexterous as well as consummate villa i n .
When he travelled, hia usual disguise was that of an itinerant preacher; and
it is said that his discourses were very ‘ soul-moving ’—interesting the hearers
so much that they forgot to jlookj after Jfcheir horses, which were carried away

274

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

by Ms confederates while he was preaching. But the stealing of horses in
one State, and selling them in another, was hut a small portion of their
business; 'the most- lucrative was the enticing slaves to run away from their
masters, that they might sell them in another quarter. This was arranged

= .

SELLING THE NEGBO.

as follows 5 they would tell a negro that if he would run away -from his
master, and allow them to sell him, he should receive a portion of the money
paid for him, and that upon his return to them a second time they would
a mnA him to a free State, where he would he safe. The poor wretches com¬
plied with this request, hoping to obtain money and freedom; they would he

A FEW SPECIMEN BRICES.

*75

told to another master, and run away again, to their employers ; sometimes
they would he sold in this maimer three or four times, until they had realised
three or four thousand dollars by them; but as, after this, there was fear of
detection, the usual custom was to get rid of the only witness that could be
produced against them, which was the negro himself, by murdering him,
and throwing his body into the Mississippi. Even if it was established that
they had stolen a negro, before he was murdered, they were always prepared
to evade punishment; for they concealed thenegTo who had run away, until
he was advertised, and a reward offered to any man who would catch him.
An advertisement of this kind warrants the person to take the property, if
found. And then the negro becomes a property in trust, when, therefore,
they sold the negro, it only became a breach of trust, not stealing; and for
a breach of trust, the owner of the property can only have redress by a civil
action, which was useless, as the damages were never paid. It may be in¬
quired, how it was that Mur el escaped Lynch law under such circumstances?
This will be easily understood when it is stated that he had more than a
thousand sworn confederates, all ready at a moment’s notice to support any of
the gang who might be in trouble. The names of all the principal confede¬
rates of Murel were obtained from himself, in a maimer which I shall pre¬
sently explain. The gang was composed of two classes: the Heads or
Council, as they were called, who planned and concerted, but seldom acted ;
they amounted to about four hundred. The other class were the active
agents, and were termed strikers, and amounted to about six hundred and
fifty. These were the tools in the hands of the others; they ran all the risk,
and received but a small portion of the money; they were in the power of
the leaders of the gang, who would sacrifice them at any time by handing
them over to justice, or sinking their bodies in the Mississippi. The general
rendezvous of this gang of miscreants was on the Arkansas side of the river,
where they concealed their negroes in the morasses and cane-brakes.

The depredations of this extensive combination were severely felt; but so
well were their plans arranged, that although Murel, who was always active,
was everywhere suspected, there was no proof to be obtained. It so hap¬
pened, however, that a young Tn*n of the name of Stewart, who was looking
after two slaves which Murel had decoyed away, fell in with him and ob¬
tained his confidence, took the oath, and was admitted into the gang as one
of the General Council. By this means all was discovered; for Stewart
turned traitor, although he had taken the oath, and having obtained every
information, exposed the whole concern, the names of all the parties, and
finally succeeded in bringing home sufficient evidence against Murel, to pro¬
cure his conviction and sentence to the Penitentiary (Murel was sentenced to
fourteen years’ imprisonment); so many people who were supposed to be
honest, and bore a respectable name in the different States, were found to

276 LIFE OX TEE MISSISSIPPI.

be among the list of the Grand Council as published by Stewart, that every
attempt was made to throw discredit upon his assertions—his character was
vilified, and more than one attempt was made to assassinate him. He was
obliged to quit the Southern States in consequence. It is, however, now
well ascertained to have been all true; and although some blame Mr. Stewart
for having violated his oath, they no longer attempt to deny that his revela¬
tions were correct. I will quote one or two portions of Murel’s confessions to

Mr. Stewart, made to him
when they were journey¬
ing together. I ought to
have observed, that the
ultimate intentions of
Murel and his associates
were, by his own account,
on a very extended scale;
having no less an object
in view than raising the
blacks against the whites ,
taking possession of, and
plundering New Orleans ,
and making themselves
possessors of the territory.
The following are a few
extracts:—

c I collected all my
friends about New Orleans
at one of our friends’
houses in that place, and
we sat in council three
days before we got all our
plans to our notion 5 we
then determined to under¬
take the rebellion at every
hazard, and make as many
friends as we could for
that purpose. Every mans business being assigned him, I started to
Natchez on foot, having sold my horse in New Orleans,—with the intention
of stealing another after I started. I walked four days, and no opportunity
offered for me to get a horse. The fifth day, about twelve, I had become
tired, and stopped at a creek to get some wate^ and rest a little. While
I was sitting on a log, looking down the road the way that I had come, a
man came in sight riding on a good-looking horse. The very moment I

A FEW SPECIMEN B1UCKS .

277

saw him, I was determined to have liis horse, if he was in the garb of a
traveller. He rode up, and I saw from his equipage that he was a traveller.
I arose and drew an elegant ride pistol on him and ordered him to dismount.
He did so, and I took his horse by the bridle and pointed down the creek,
and ordered him to walk before me. H .* went a few hundred yards and
stopped. I hitched his horse, and then made him undress himself, all to his
shirt and drawers, and ordered him to turn his back to me. He said, 4 If
you are determined to

kill me, let me have
time to pray before I
die.’ I told him I had
no time to hear him
pray. He turned around
and dropped on his
knees, and I shot him
through the back of the
head. I ripped open his
belly and took out his
entrails, and sunk him
in the creek. I then
searched his pockets,
and found four hundred
dollars and thirty-seven
cents, and a number of
papers that I did not
take time to examine.
I sunk the pocket-book
and papers and his hat,
in the creek. His boots
were brand-new, and
fitted me genteelly; and
I put them on and sunk
my old shoes in the
creek, to atone for them.

I rolled np his clothes

and put them into his portmanteau, as they were brand-new cloth of the
best quality. I mounted as fine a hcrse as ever I straddled, and directed
my course for Natchez in much better style than I had been for the last five

days.

4 Myself and a fellow hv the name of Crenshaw gathered four good horses
and started for Georgia. We got in company with a young South Carolinian
just before we got to Cumberland Mountain, and Crenshaw soon knew all

LIFE OV THE MISSISSIPPI.

about bis business. He bad been to Tennessee to buy a drove ot bogs, but
when be got there pork was dearer than he calculated, and he declined pur¬
chasing. We concluded he was a prize. Crenshaw winked at me ; I under¬
stood his idea. Cren¬
shaw had travelled the
road before, but I never
had; we had travelled
several miles on the
mountain, when he
passed near a great
precipice: just before

^ FEW SPECIMEN BMICjbl*.

twelve hundred and sixty-two dollars. Crenshaw said he knew a place to
hide him, and he gathered him under his arms, and I by his feet, and con¬
vened him to a deep crevice in the brow of the precipice, and tumbled him

into it, and lie went

if A'

V ?, a

,0v

-:*A;

■#* £

ANOTHEB, VICTIM.

that time our friend went to a little village in the neighbojirhi
the negro advertised (a negro in our possession), and a Ascj

d and saw
tion of the

£ $0 LIFJB ON TUB MISSISSIPPI.

two men of whom he had been purchased, and giving his suspicions of the
men. It was rather squally times, but any port in a storm: we took the
negro that night on the banK of a creek which runs by the farm of our
friend, and Crenshaw shot him through the head. We took out his entrails
and sunk him in the creek.

* He had sold the other negro the third time on Arkansaw Biver for up-
wards of five hundred dollars; and then stole him and delivered him into the
hand of his friend, who conducted him to a swamp, and veiled the tragic
scene, and got the last gleanings and sacred pledge of secrecy ; as a game of
that kind will not do unless it ends in a mystery to all but tbe fraternity.
He sold the negro, first and last, for nearly two thousand dollars, and then
put him for ever out of the reach of all pursuers; and they can never graze
him lmlftRft they can find the negro; and that they cannot do, for his carcass
has fed many a tortoise and catfish before this time, and the frogs have sung
this many a long day to the silent repose of his skeleton/

We were approaching Memphis, in. front of which city, and wit¬
nessed by its people, was fought the most famous of the river battles
of the Civil War. Two men whom I had served under, in my river
days, took part in that fight: Mr. Bixby, head pilot of the Union
fleet, and Montgomery, Commodore of the Confederate fleet. Both
saw a great deal of active service during the war, and achieved high
reputations for pluck and capacity.

As we neared Memphis, we began to cast about for an excuse t
stay with the ‘Gold Dust' to the end of her course—Vicksburg. W
ware so pleasantly situated, that we did not wish to make a change
I had an errand of considerable importance to do at Napoleon
Arkansas, hut perhaps I could manage it without quitting tht
*Gold Dust.’ I said as much; so we decided to stick to presen
quarters.

The boat was to tarry at Memphis till ten the next morning. Il
is a beautiful city, nobly situated on a commanding bluff overlooking
the river. The streets are straight and spacious, though not paved
in a way to incite distempered admiration. No, the admiration
must be reserved for the town’s sewerage system, which is called
perfect; a recent reform, however, for it was just the other way, up
to a few years ago——a reform resulting from the lesson taught by a
desolating visitation of the yellow-fever. In those awful days the
people were swept off by hundreds, by thousands; and so great was

A FEK SPECIMEN BRICKS.

281

the reduction caused by Eight and by death together, that the popula¬
tion was diminished three-fourths, and so remained for a time.
Business stood nearly still, and the streets bore an empty Sunday
aspect.

Here is a pic¬
ture of Memphis,
at that disastrous
time, drawn by
a German tourbt
who seems to
have been an eye¬
witness of the
scenes which he
describes. It is
from Chapter
VII. of his book,
just published in
Leipzig, £ Missis-
si ppi-Fahr ten, von
Ernst von Hesse-
Wartegg: ’ —

‘ In August the
yellow - fever h ad
reached its ex-
tremest height.
Daily, hundreds fell
a sacrifice to the
terrible epidemic.
The city was become
a mighty graveyard,
two-thirds of the
population had de¬
serted the place, and

only the poor, the

* PLEASANTLY SITUATED.’

aged and the sick, re¬

mained behind, a sure prey for the insidious enemy. The houses were closed:
little lamps burned in front of many—a sign that here death had entered.
Often, several lay dead in a single house; from the windows hung black
crape. The stores were shut up, for their owners were gone away or dead.

282

LIFE O :V THE MISSISSIPPI .

* Fearful evil! In the "briefest space it struck down and swept away even
the most vigorous victim. A slight indisposition, then an hour of fever
then the hideous delirium, then—the Yellow Death! On the street corners,
and in the squares, lay sick men, suddenly overtaken by the disease: and
even corpses, distorted and rigid. Food failed. Meat spoiled in a few
hours in the fetid and pestiferous air, and turned black.

Fearful clamours issue from many houses; then after a season they
cease, and all is still: noble, self-sacrificing men come with the coffin, nail it

MEMPHIS: A LANDING STAGE.

reigns. Only
the physi¬

cians and the

hearses hurry through the streets; and out of the distance, at intervals,
comes the muffied thunder of the railway train, which with the speed of
f&a wind, and as if hunted by furies, flies by the pest-ridden city without
halting.’

Uufc there Is life enough there now. The population exceeds forty
^ffeoUB&nd and is augme nt i ng , and trade Is in a flourishing condition.

A FEW SPECTlfEy BRICKS.

283

We drove about the city; visited the park and the sociable horde of
squirrels there; saw the fine residences, rose-clad and in other ways
enticing to the eye; and got a good breakfast at the hotel.

A thriving place is the Good Samaritan City of the Mississippi:
has a great wholesale jobbing trade ; foundries, machine shops; and
manufactories of wagons, carriages, and cotton-seed oil; and is shortly
to have cotton mills and elevators.

284

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

once renowned and vigorously hated Mrs. Trollope, Memphis seems
to have consisted mainly of one long street of log-houses, with some
outlying cabins sprinkled around rearward toward the woods; and
now and then a pig, and no end of mud. That was fiffcy-five years
ago. She stopped at the hotel. Plainly it was not the one which
gave us our breakfast. She says—

1 The table was laid for fifty persons, and was nearly full. They ate in
perfect silence,and with such astonishing rapidity that their dinner was over
literally before ours was begun; the only sounds heard were those produced
by the knives and forks, with the unceasing chorus of coughing, etc , 1

* Coughing, etc . 1 The i etc.* stands for an unpleasant word there,
a word which she does not always charitably cover up, but sometimes
prints. You will find it in the following description of a steamboat
dinner which she at© in company with a lot of aristocratic planters;
wealthy, well-born, ignorant swells they were, tinselled with the usual
harmless military and judicial titles of that old day of cheap shams
and windy pretence—

c The total want of all the usual courtesies of the table; the voracious
rapidity with which the viands were seized and devoured; the strange un¬
couth phrases and pronunciation; the loathsome spitting, from the con¬
tamination of which it was absolutely impossible to protect our dresses; the
frightful manner of feeding with their knives, till the whole blade seemed to
enter into the mouth; and the still more frightful manner of cleaning the
teeth afterward with a pocket knife, soon forced us to feel that we were not
surrounded by the generals, colonels, and majors of the old world; and
that the dinner hour was to be anything rather than an hour of enjoyment.*

2S5

CHAPTER XXX.

SKETCHES BY THE WAY.

It was a big river, below Memphis; batiks brimming full, everywhere,
and very frequently more than fall, the waters pouring out over the
land, flooding the woods and fields for miles into the interior; and in
places, to a depth of fifteen feet ; signs, all about, of men's hard work

A LIGHT KEEPEB.

gone to ruin, and all to be done over again, with straitened means
and a weakened courage. A melancholy picture, and a continuous
one;—hundreds of miles of it. Sometimes the beacon lights stood in
water three feet deep, in the edge of dense forests which extended for
miles without farm, wood-yard, clearing, or break of any kind; which

286

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

meant that the keeper of the light most come in a skiff a great
distance to discharge his trust,—and often in desperate weather. Yet
I was told that the work is faithfully performed, in all weathers; and
not always by men, sometimes by women, if the man is sick or absent.
The Government furnishes oil, and pays ten or fifteen dollars a month
for the lighting and tending. A Government boat distributes oil and
pays wages once a month.

The Ship Island region was as woodsy and tenantless as ever.
The island has ceased to be an island ; has joined itself compactly to
the shore, and wagons travel, now, where the steamboats used
to navigate. Ho signs left of the wreck of the ‘Pennsylvania.*
Some fanner will turn up her bones with his plough one day, no doubt,
and be surprised.

We were getting down now into the migrating negro region
These poor people could never travel when they were slaves; so they
make up for the privation now. They stay on a plantation till the
desire to travel seizes them; then they pack up, hail a steamboat, and
clear out. Hot for any particular place; no, nearly any place will
answer; they only want to be moving. The amount of money on
hand will answer the rest of the conundrum for them. If it will
take them fifty miles, very well; let it be fifty. If not, a shorter
flight will do.

During a couple of days, we frequently answered these hails.
Sometimes there was a group of high-water-stained, tumble-down
cabins, populous with coloured folk, and no whites visible ; with grass¬
less patches of dry ground here and there ; a few felled trees, with
skeleton cattle, mules, and horses, eating the leaves and gnawing the
bark—no other food for them in the flood-wasted land. Sometimes
there was & single lonely landing-cabin; near it the coloured family
that bad hailed us; little and big, old and young, roosting on the scant
pile of household goods; these consisting of a rusty gun, some bed-
ticks, chests, tinware, stools, a crippled looking-glass, a venerable
arm-chair, and six or eight base-born and spiritless yellow curs,
attached to the family by strings. They must have their dogs ; can’t
go without their dogs. Yet the dogs are never willing ; they always
object; so, one after another, in ridiculous procession, they are
dragged aboard; all four feet braced and sliding along the stage,

28S

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

who had observed the boat go by, about thirteen times, said, 4 ’clar
to gracious, I wouldn’t be s’prised if dey ’s a whole line o’ dem
Sk’y larks! ’

Anecdote illustrative of influence of reputation in the changing
of opinion. The * Eclipse ’ was renowned for her swiftness. One day
she passed along; an old darkey on shore, absorbed in his own
matters, did not notice what steamer it was. Presently someone

asked—

4 Any boat
gone up % 7
4 Yes, sahl
4 Was she going
fast?’

4 Oh, so-so —
loafin’ along.’

4 Now, do you
know what boat
that was 1 ’

4 No, sab.’

4 Why, uncle,
that was the
44 Eclipse.” ’

4 No! Is dat
so? Well, I bet
it was-^cause she

* any boat gone up V j es * ;ven ^ by here

a- sparMin ?! 9

Piece of history illustrative of the violent style of some of the
people down along here. During the early weeks of high water,
A’s fence rails washed down on B’s ground, and B’s rails washed up
in the eddy and landed on A’s ground. A said, 4 Let the thing
r emain so; I will use your rails, and you use mine.’ But B objected
—wouldn’t have it so. One day, A came down on B’s ground to
gefc his rails. B said, 4 I’ll kill you 1 ’ and proceeded for him with
Ms revolver. A said, 4 I’m not armed.’ So B, who wished to do
only what was right, threw down his revolver; then pulled a knife,
and cut A’s throat all around, but gave his principal attention to the

SKETCHES BY THE WAY

289

front, and so failed to sever the jugular. Struggling around, A
managed to get his hands on the discarded revolver, and shot B dead
with it—and recovered from his own injuries.

Further gossip;—after which, everybody went below to get after¬
noon coffee, and left
me at the wheel,
alone. Something
presently reminded
me of our last hour
in St. Louis, part of
which I spent on this
boat’s hurricane deck,
aft. I was joined
there by a stranger,
who dropped into con¬
versation with me—a
brisk young fellow,
who said he was born
in a town in the in¬
terior of 'Wisconsin,
and had never seen a
steamboat until a
week before. Also
said that on the way
down from La Crosse
he had inspected and
examined his boat so
diligently and with
such passionate in¬
terest that he had
mastered the whole
thing from stem to
rudder-blade. Asked

me where I was from. I answered, ISTew England. ‘ Oh, a Yank I *
said he; and went chatting straight along, without waiting for assent
or denial. He immediately proposed to take me all over the boat and
tell me the names of her different parts, and teach me their uses. Before

A WORLD OE MISINFORMATION.

290

LIFE OF TEE MISSISSIPPI.

1 could enter protest or excuse, he was already rattling glibly away at
his benevolent work ; and when I perceived that he was Tnisim i-m^g
the things, and inhospitably amusing himself at the expense of an
innocent stranger from a far country, I held my peace, and let him
have his way. He gave me a world of misinformation; and the
further he went, the wider bis imagination expanded, and the more
he enjoyed his cruel work of deceit. Sometimes, after palming off a
particularly fantastic and outrageous lie upon me, he was so * full of
laugh * that he had to step aside for a minute, upon one pretext or
another, to keep me from suspecting. I staid faithfully by him until
his comedy was finished. Then he remarked that he had undertaken
to * learn * me all about a steamboat, and had done it; but that if he
had overlooked anything, just ask him and he would supply the lack.
* Anything about this boat that you don’t know the name of or the
purpose of, you come to me and I’ll tell you.’ I said I would, and
took my departure; disappeared, and approached him from another
quarter, whence he could not see me. There he sat, all alone, doubling
himself up and writhing this way and that, in the throes of unap¬
peasable laughter. He must have made himself sick; for he was not
publicly visible afterward for several days. Meantime, the episode
dropped out of my mind.

The thing that reminded me of it now, when I was alone at the
wheel, was the spectacle of this young fellow standing in the pilot¬
house door, with the knob in his hand, silently and severely inspecting
me. I don’t know when I have seen anybody look so injured as he
did. He did not say anything—simply stood there and looked; re¬
proachfully looked and pondered. Finally he shut the door, and
started away; halted on the texas a minute; came slowly back and
stood in the door again, with that grieved look in his face; gazed
apon me awhile in meek rebuke, then said—

* You let me learn you all about a steamboat, didn't you ? ’

1 Yes,’ I confessed.

* Yes, you did— didn't you 1 *

‘Yes.’

1 You are the feller that—that-*

Language faded. Pause—impotent struggle for further words—
then he gave it up, choked out a deep, strong oath, and departed for

SKETCHES 3T THE WAY.

291

good. Afterward I saw him several times below daring the trip;
but he was cold—would not look at me. Idiot, if he had not been
in such a sweat to play his witless practical joke upon me, in the
begi n n in g, I would have persuaded his thoughts into some other
direction, and saved him from committing that wanton and silly
impoliteness.

I had myself called with the four o’clock watch, mornings, for
one cannot see too many summer sunrises on the Mississippi. They
are enchanting. First, there is the eloquence of silence; for a deep
hush broods everywhere. Next, there is the haunting sense of lone¬
liness, isolation, remoteness from the worry and bustle of the world.
The dawn creeps in stealthily; the solid walls of black forest soften
to grey, and vast stretches of the river open up and reveal themselves ;
the water is glass-smooth, gives off spectral little wreaths of white
mist, there is not the faintest breath of wind, nor stir of leaf; the
tranquillity is profound and infinitely satisfying. Then a bird pipes
up, another follows, and soon the pipings develope into a jubilant riot
of music. You see none of the birds ; you simply move through an
atmosphere of song which seems to sing itsel£ When the light has
become a little stronger, you have one of the fairest and softest
pictures imaginable. You have the intense green of the massed and
crowded foliage near by; you see it paling shade by shade in front
of you; upon the next projecting cape, a mile off or more, the tint
has lightened to the tender young green of spring; the cape beyond
that one has almost lost colour, and the furthest one, TniWi away
under the horizon, sleeps upon the water a mere dim, vapour, and
hardly separable from the sky above it and about it. And all this
stretch of river is a mirror, and you have the shadowy reflections of
the leafage and the curving shores and the receding capes pictured in
it. Well, that is all beautiful; soft and rich and beautiful; and
when the sun gets well up, and distributes a pink flush here and a
powder of gold yonder and a purple haze where it will yield the best
effect, you giant that you have seen something that is worth re¬
membering.

We had the Kentucky Bend country in the early morning—scene
of a strange and tragic accident in the old times. Captain Poe had a
small stem-wheel boat, for years the home of himself and his wife.

292 LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

One night the boat struck a snag in the head of Kentucky Bend, and
sank with astonishing suddenness; water already well above the
cabin door 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 Bock, Mississippi
Biver and Texas Bail-
road touches the river
there. We asked a
passenger who belonged
there what sort of a
place it was. c 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¬
houses, and a supply of mud sufficient to insure the town against a
famine in that article for a hundred years; for the overflow had but
lately subsided. There were stagnant ponds in the streets, here and
there, and a dozen rude scows were scattered about, lying aground
wherever they happened to have been when the waters drained off
and people could do their visiting and shopping on foot once more.

p.T, A r orate style*

8KETCMB8 BY THJS WAY .

296

Still, it is a thriving place, with a rich country behind it, an elevator
in front of it, and also a fine big mill for the manufacture of cotton¬
seed oil. I had never seen this kind of a mill before.

Cotton-seed was comparatively valueless in my time; but it is
worth $12 or $13 a ton now, and none of it is thrown away. The
oil made from it is colourless, tasteless, and almost if not entirely
odourless. It is claimed that it can, by proper manipulation, be
made to resemble and perform the office of any and all oils, and be
produced at a cheaper rate than the cheapest of the originals.
Sagacious people shipped it to Italy, doctored it, labelled it, and
brought it back as olive oil. This trade grew to be so formidable
that Italy was obliged to put a prohibitory impost upon it to keep it
from working serious injury to her oil industry.

Helena occupies one of the prettiest situations on the Mississippi.
Her perch is the last, the southernmost group of hills which one sees
on that side of the river. In its normal condition it is a pretty town;
but the flood (or possibly the seepage) had lately been ravaging it;
whole streets of houses had been invaded by the muddy water, and
the outsides of the buildings were still belted with a broad stain ex¬
tending upwards from the foundations. Stranded and discarded scows
lay all about; plank sidewalks on stilts four feet high were still
standing; the board sidewalks on the ground level were loose and
ruinous,—a couple of men trotting along them could make a blind
man think a cavalry charge was coming; everywhere the mud was
black and deep, and in many places malarious pools of stagnant water
were standing. A Mississippi inundation is the next most wasting
and desolating infliction to a fire.

We had an enjoyable time here, on this sunny Sunday: two full
hours* liberty ashore while the boat discharged freight. In the back
streets but few white people were visible, but there were plenty of
coloured folk—mainly woman and girls; and almost without excep¬
tion npholstered in bright new clothes of swell and elaborate style and
cnt—a glaring and hilarious contrast to the mournful mud and the
pensive puddles.

Helena is the second town in Arkansas, in point of population—
which is placed at five thousand. The country about it is exception¬
ally productive. Helena has a good cotton trade; handles from forty

296

LIFE O.V IBB MISSISSIPPI.

to sixty thousand hales annually; she has a large lumber and grain
commerce; has a foundry, oil mills, machine shops and wagon factories
—in brief has $1,000,000 invested in manufacturing industries. She
has two railways, and is the commercial centre of a broad and prosper¬
ous region. Her gross receipts of money, annually, from all sources,
are placed by the New Orleans ‘ Times-Democrat’ at $4,000,000.

297

CHAPTER XXXI.

A THUMB-PRINT AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

We were approaching Xapoleon, Arkansas. So I began to think
about my errand there. Time, noonday; and bright and sunny.
This was bad—not best, anyway; for mine was not (preferably) a
noonday kind of errand. The more I thought, the more that fact
pushed itself upon me—now in one form, now in another. Finally,

NAPOLEON IN 1871.

it took the form of a distinct question : is it good common sense to
do the errand in daytime, when, by a little sacrifice of comfort and
inclination,you can have night for it, and no inquisitive eyes around!
This settled it. Plain question and plain answer make the shortest
road out of most perplexities.

I got my friends into my stateroom, and said I was sorry to create
annoyance and disappointment, but that upon refection it really

LIFB ON TMB MISSISSIPPI.

seemed best that we put our luggage ashore and stop over at Napo¬
leon, Their disapproval was prompt and loud; their language muti¬
nous. Their main argument was one which has always been the first
to come to the surface, in such cases, since the beginning of time:

* But you decided and agreed to stick to this boat, etc .; * as if, having
determined to do an unwise thing, one is thereby bound to go ahead
and make two unwise things of it, by carrying out that determina¬
tion.

I tried various mollifying tactics upon them, with reasonably
good success : under which encouragement, I increased my efforts;
and, to show them that I had not created this annoying errand, and
was in no way to blame for it, I presently drifted into its history—
substantially as follows:

Toward the end of last year, I spent a few months in Munich,
Bavaria. In November I was living in Fraulein Dahlweiner’s pen-
turn, la, ELarlstrasse * but my working quarters were a mile from
there, in the house of a widow who supported herself by taking
lodgers. She and her two young children used to drop in every
morning and talk German to me—by request. One day, during a
ramble about the city, I visited one of the two establishments where
the Government keeps and watches corpses until the doctors decide
that they are permanently dead, and not in a trance state. It was a
grisly place, that spacious room. There were thirty-six corpses of
adults in sight, stretched on their backs on slightly slanted boards, in
three long rows—all of them with wax-white, rigid faces, and all of
them wrapped in white shrouds. Along the sides of the room were
deep alcoves, like bay windows; and in each of these lay several
marble-visaged babes, utterly hidden and buried under banks of fresh
flowers, all but their faces and crossed hands. Around a finger of
each of these fifty stall forms, both great and small, was a Ting ; and
from the ring a wire led to the ceiling, and thence to a bell in a
watch-room yonder, where, day and night, a watchman sits always
alert and ready to spring to the aid of any of that pallid company
who, waking out of death, shall make a movement—for any, even the
slightest, movement will twitch the wire and ring that fearful bell
I imagined myself a death-sentinel drowsing there alone, far in the
dragging watches of some wailing, gusty night, and having in a

A THUMB-PRINT AND WHAT CAME OF IT. $9$

twinkling all my body stricken to quivering jelly by the sudden
clamour of that awful summons I So I inquired about this thing;
asked what resulted usually 1 if the watchman died, and the restored
corpse came and did what it could to make his last moments easy %
But I was rebuked for trying to feed an idle and frivolous curiosity
in so solemn and so mournful a place; and went my way with a
humbled crest.

Next morning I was telling the widow my adventure, when she
exclaimed—

‘ Come with me! I have a lodger who shall tell you all you want
to know. He has been a night-watch man there.’

He was a living man, but he did not look it. He was abed, and
had his head propped high on pillows; his face was wasted and
colourless, his deep-sunken eyes were shut; his hand, lying on his
breast, was talon-like, it was so bony and long-fingered. The widow

300

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI ..

began her introduction of me. The man’s eyes opened slowly, and
glittered wickedly out from the twilight of their caverns; he frowned
a black frown ; he lifted his lean hand and waved us peremptorily
away. But the widow kept straight on, till she had got out the fact
that I was a stranger and an American. The man’s face changed at
once ; brightened, became even eager—and the next moment he and
I were alone together.

I opened up in cast-iron German; he responded in quite flexible
English; thereafter we gave the German language a permanent rest.

This consumptive and I became good friends. I visited him every
day, and we talked about everything. At least, about everything
but wives and children. Let anybody’s wife or anybody’s child be
mentioned, and three things always followed : the most gracious and
loving and tender light glimmered in the man’s eyes for a moment;
faded out the next, and in its place came that deadly look which had
flamed there the first time I ever saw his lids unclose; thirdly, he
ceased from speech, there and then for that day; lay silent, abstracted,
and absorbed; apparently heard nothing that I said ; took no notice
of my good-byes, and plainly did not know, by either sight or hearing,
when I left the room.

When I had been this Karl Bitter’s daily and sole intimate during
two months, he one day said, abruptly—

* I will tell you my story.’

K DYING MAN’S CONFESSION.

Then he went on as follows :—

I have never given up, until now. But now I have given up. I
am going to die. 1 made up my mind last night that it must he, and
very soon, too. You say you are going to revisit your river, by-and-
bye, when you find opportunity. Very well; that, together with a
certain strange experience which fell to my lot last night, determines
me to tell you my history—for you will see Napoleon, ArKnag^ - and
fear my sake you will stop there, and do a certain thing for me—a
thing which you will willingly undertake after you shall have heard
my narrative.

Let us shorten the story wherever we can, for it will need it, being

A THUMB-PRINT AND WHAT CAMS OP IT.

301

long. You already know how I came to go to America, and how I
came to settle in that lonely region in the South. But you do not
know that I had a wife. My wife was young, beautiful, loving, and
oh, so divinely good and blameless and gentle ! And our little girl
was her mother in miniature. It was the happiest of happy house¬
holds.

One night—it was toward the close of the war—I woke up out of
a sodden lethargy, and found myself bound and gagged, and the air
tainted with chloroform I I saw two men in the room, and one was
saying to the other, in a hoarse whisper, c I told her I would, if she
made a noise, and as for the child—*

The other man interrupted in a low, half-crying voice—

‘ You said weM only gag them and rob them, not hurt them; or
I wouldn’t have come.’

t Shut up your whining; had to change the plan when they waked
up ; you done all you could to protect them, now let that satisfy you ;
come, help rummage.*

Both men were masked, and wore coarse, ragged i nigger * clothes ;
they had a bull’s-eye lantern, and by its light I noticed that the gentler
robber had no thumb on his right hand. They rummaged around
3ny poor cabin for a moment; the head bandit then said, in his stage
vhisper—

‘ It’s a waste of time —he shall tell where it’s hid. Undo his gag,
and revive him up.’

The other said—

< All right—provided no clubbing.*

* No clubbing it is, then—provided he keeps still.*

They approached me; just then there was a sound outside; a
sound of voices and trampling hoofs; the robbers held their breath
and listened; the sounds came slowly nearer and nearer; then came
a shout—

‘ HeUo , the house ! Show a light, we want water.*

* The captain’s voice, by G-! * said the stage-whispering ruffian,

and both robbers fled by the way of the back door, shutting off their
bull’s-eye as they ran.

The strangers shouted several times more, then rode by—there
eeerued to be a dozen of the horses—and I heard nothing more.

302

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI,

I struggled, but could not free myself from my bonds. I tried to
speak, but the gag was effective ; I could not make a sound. I lis¬
tened for my wife’s voice and my child’s—listened long and intently,
but no sound came from the other end of the room where their bed
was. This silence became more and more awful, more and more
ominous, every moment. Could you have endured an hour of it, do
you think ? Pity me, then, who had to endure three. Three hours— %

THEY BUMMAGED THE CABIH.

it was three ages I
Whenever the clock
struck, it seemed as
if yeai's had gone by
since I had heard it
last. All this time I
was struggling in my
bonds; and at last,
about dawn, I got

myself free, and rose up and stretched my stiff limbs. I was able to
distinguish details pretty well. The floor was littered with things
thrown there by the robbers during their search for my savings. The
first object that caught my particular attention was a document of
mine which I had seen the rougher of the two ruffians glance at and
then cast away. It had blood on it! I staggered to the other end of
the room. Oh, poor unoflending, helpless ones, there they lay, their
troubles ended, mine begun ! '

A THUMB-PRINT AND WHAT CAME OP IT,

BOS

Did I appeal to the law—11 Does it quench the pauper’s thirst
if the King drink for him 1 Oh, no, no, no—I wanted no impertinent
interference of the law. Laws and the gallows could not pay the debt
that was owing to me ! Let the laws leave the matter in my hands,
and have no fears: I would find the debtor and collect the debt.
How accomplish this, do you say % How accomplish it, and feel so
sure about it, when I had neither seen the robbers’ faces, nor heard
their natural voices, nor had any idea who they might be ? Never¬
theless, I was sure—quite sure, quite confident. I had a clue—a clue
which you would not have valued—a due which would not have
greatly helped even a detective, since he would lack the secret of
how to apply it I shall come to that, presently—you shall see.
Let us go on, now, taking things in their due order. There was one
circumstance which gave me a slant in a definite direction to begin
with : Those two robbers were manifestly soldiers in tramp disguise ;
and not new to military service, but old in it—regulars, perhaps;
they did not acquire their soldierly attitude, gestures, carriage, in a
day, nor a month, nor yet in a year. So I thought, but said nothing.

And one of them had said, * the captain’s voice, by G-! ’—the one

whose life I would have. Two miles away, several regiments were
in camp, and two companies of TJ. S. cavalry. When I learned that
Captain Blakely, of Company C had passed our way, that night, with
an escort, I said nothing, but in that company I resolved to seek my
man. In conversation I studiously and persistently described the
robbers as tramps, camp followers; and among this class the people
made useless search, none suspecting the soldiers but me.

Working patiently, by night, in my desolated home, I made a
disguise for myself out of various odds and ends of clothing; in the
nearest village I bought a pair of blue goggles. By-and-bye, when the
military camp broke up, and Company C was ordered a hundred miles
north, to Napoleon, I secreted my small hoard of money in my belt,
and took my departure in the night. When Company C arrived in
Napoleon, I was already there. Yes, I was there, with a new trade—
fortune-teller. Not to seem partial, I made Mends and told fortune®
among all the companies garrisoned there; but I gave Company C
the great bulk of my attentions. I made myself limitlessly obliging
to these particular men; they could ask me no favour, put upon me

304 LIFE OX 1HE MISSISSIPPI.

no risk, which I would decline. I became the willing butt of their
jokes; this perfected my popularity; I became a favourite.

I early found a private who lacked a thumb—what joy it was to

A THUMB-PRIST AST) WI7AT CAME OF IT

305

from going on my knees and begging him to point out tk&^n^an
who had murdered my wife and child ; but I managed to bridle
tongue. I bided my time, and went on telling fortunes, as opportunity
offered.

My apparatus was simple; a little red paint and a bit of white
paper. I painted the ball of the client’s thumb, took a print of it on
the paper, studied it that night, and revealed his fortune to him next
day. What was my idea in this nonsense 1 It was this : When I
was a youth, I knew an old Frenchman who had been a prison-keeper
for thirty years, and be told me that there was one thing about a
person which never changed, from the cradle to the grave—the lines
in the ball of the thumb; and he said that these lines were never exactly
alike in the thumbs of any two human beings. In these days, we
photograph the new criminal, and
hang his picture in the Hogues’

Gallery for future reference; hut that
Frenchman, in bis day, used to take a
print of the hall of a new prisoner’s
thumb and put that away for future
reference. He always said that
pictures were no good—future dis¬
guises could make them useless ; ‘ The
thumb’s the only sure thing,’ said
he; ‘ you can’t disguise that.* And

he used to prove his theory, too, on my friends and acquaintances;
it always succeeded.

I went on telling fortunes. Every night I shut myself in, all
alone, and studied the day’s thumb-prints with a magnifying-glass.
Imagine the devouring eagerness with which I pored over those mazy-
red spirals, with that document by my side which bore the right-hand
thumb-and-finger-marks of that unknown murderer, printed with the
dearest blood—to me—that was ever shed on this earth ! And many
and many a time I had to repeat the same old disappointed remark,

* will they never correspond ! ’

But my reward came at last. It was the print of the thumb of the
forty-third man of Company C whom I had experimented on—Private
Franz Adler. An hour before, I did not know the murderer’s name,

THUMB-PRINTS.

30 G

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

or voice, or figure, or face, or nationality; but now I knew all these
things! I believed I might feel sure; the Frenchman’s repeated
demonstrations being so good a warranty. Still, there was a way to
make sure. I had an impression of Kruger’s left thumb. In the
morning I took him aside when he was off duty ; and when we were
out of sight and hearing of witnesses, I said, impressively—

A THUMB-PRINT AND WHAT CAME OF IT,

907

He dropped on his knees, frightened out of his wits ; and for five
minutes he kept pouring out the same set of words, like a demented
person, and in the same half-crying way which was one of my memo¬
ries of that murderous night in my cabin—

* I didn’t do it; upon my soul I didn’t do it; and I tried to keep
him from doing it; I did, as God is my witness. He did it alone.*

This was all I wanted. And I tried to get rid of the fool; but
no, he clung to me, imploring me to save him from the assassin. He
said—

*1 have money—ten thousand dollars—hid away, the fruit of loot
and thievery; save me—tell me what to do, and you shall have it,
every penny. Two-thirds of it is my cousin Adler’s; but you can
take it all. We hid it when we first came here. But I hid it in a new
place yesterday, and have not told him—shall not tell him. I was
going to desert, and get away with it alL It is gold, and too heavy
to carry when one is running and dodging ; but a woman who has
been gone over the river two days to prepare my way for me is going
to follow me with it; and if I got no chance to describe the hiding-
place to her I was going to slip my silver watch into her hand, or
send it to her, and she would understand. There’s a piece of paper
in the back of the case, which tells it all. Here, take the watch—
tell me what to do ! ’

He was trying to press his watch upon me, and was exposing the
paper and explaining it to me, when Adler appeared on the scene,
about a dozen yards away. I said to poor Kruger—

* Put up your watch, I don’t want it. You shan’t come to any
harm. Go, now; I must tell Adler his fortune. Presently I will
tell you how to escape the assassin; meantime shall have to examine
your thumb-mark a gain- Say nothing to Adler about this thing—
say nothing to anybody.’

He went away filled with fright and gratitude, poor devil. 1 told
Adler a long fortune—purposely so long that I could not finish it;
promised to come to him on guard, that night, and tell him the really
important part of it—the tragical part of it, I said—so must be out of
reach of eavesdroppers. They always kept a picket-watch outside
the town—mere discipline and ceremony—no occasion for it, no
enemy around.

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

A THUMB-PRINT AND WHAT CAME OP IT.

309

he clutched at me, and my blue goggles remained In his hand; and
away plunged the beast dragging him, with his foot in the stirrup.

I fled through the woods, and made good my escape, leaving the
accusing goggles behind me in that dead man’s hand.

This was fifteen or sixteen years ago. Since then I have wandered
aimlessly about the earth, sometimes at work, sometimes idle; some¬
times with money, sometimes with none; but always tired of life,
and wishing it was done, for my mission here was finished, with the
act of that night; and the only pleasure, solace, satisfaction I had, in
all those tedious years, was in the daily reflection, 1 1 have killed him! *

Four years ago, my health began to fail. I had wandered into
Munich, in my purposeless way. Being out of money, I sought work,
and got it; did my duty faithfully about a year, and was then given
the berth of night watchman yonder in that dead-house which you
visited lately. The place suited my mood. I liked it. I liked being
with the dead—liked being alone with them. I used to wander
among those rigid corpses, and peer into their austere faces, by the
hour. The later the time, the more impressive it was; I preferred
the late time. Sometimes I turned the lights low: this gave per¬
spective, you see ; and the imagination could play; always, the dim
receding ra nks of the dead inspired one with weird and fascinating
fancies. Two years ago—I had been there a year then—I was sitting
all alone in the watch-room, one gusty winter’s night, chilled, numb,
comfortless; drowsing gradually into unconsciousness; the sobbing
of the wind and the slamming of distant shutters falling fainter and
fainter upon my dulling ear each moment, when sharp and suddenly
that dead-bell rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head ! The
shock of it nearly paralysed me; for it was the first time I had ever
heard it.

I gathered myself together and flew to the corpse-room. About
midway down the outside rank, a shrouded figure was sitting upright,
wagging its head slowly from one side to the other—a grisly spectacle!
Its side was toward me. I hurried to it and peered into its face.
Heavens, it was Adler !

Can you divine what my first thought was 1 Put into words, it
was this: * It seems, then, you escaped me once: there will be a dif¬
ferent result this time 1 *

3J0

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI .

Evidently this creature was suffering unimaginable terrors. Think
what it must have been to wake up in the midst of that voieeless
hush, and look out over that grim congregation of the dead 1 What
gratitude shone in his skinny white face when he saw a living form
before him ! And how the fervency of this mute gratitude was aug¬
mented when his eyes fell upon the life-giving cordials which I
carried in my hands ! Then imagine the horror which came into

l£5T THE MORGUE.

this pinched face when I put the cordials behind me, and said mock¬
ingly—

* Speak up, Franz Adler—call upon these dead. Doubtless they
will listen and have pity ; but here there is none else that will/

He tried to speak, but that part of the shroud which bound his
jaws, held firm and would not let him. He tried to lift imploring
hands, but they/were crossed upon bin breast and tied. I said—

A THUMB-PRINT AND WHAT CAME OF IT .

$11

4 Shout, Franz Adler ; make the sleepers in the distant streets hear
you and bring- help. Shout—and lose no time, for there is little to
lose. What, yon cannot ? That is a pity; but it is no matter—it
does not always bring help. When yon and yonr cousin murdered a
helpless woman and child in a cabin in Arkansas —my wife, it was
and my child I— they shrieked for help, you remember; but it did no
good; you remember that it did no good, it is not so F Your teeth
chatter—then why cannot you shout? Loosen the bandages with
your hands—then you can. Ah, I see— your hands are tied, they
cannot aid you. How strangely things repeat themselves, after long
years; for my hands were tied, that night, you remember ? Yes, tied
much as yours are now — how odd that is. I could not pull free. It
did not occur to you to untie me; it does not occur to me to untie

you. Sh-! there’s a late footstep. It is coming this way. Hark,

how near it is! One can count the footfalls— one — two — three*
There—it is Just outside. Kow is the time! Shout, man, shout!—
it is the one sole chance between you and eternity ! Ah, you see you
have delayed too long— it is gone by. There—it is dying out. It is
gone 1 Think of it—reflect upon it—you have heard a human foot¬
step for the last time. How curious it must be, to listen to so common
a sound as that, and know that one will never hear the fellow to it
again.*

Oh, my Mend, the agony in that shrouded face was ecstasy to see I
I thought of a new torture, and applied it—assisting myself with a
trifle of lying invention—

‘ That poor Kruger tried to save my wife and child, and I did him
a grateful good turn for it when the time came. I persuaded him to
rob you; and I and a woman helped him to desert, and got him away
in safety.*

A look as of surprise and triumph shone out dimly through the
anguish in my victim’s face. I was disturbed, disquieted. I said—

4 What, then—didn’t he escape ? 9

A negative shake of the head.

1 Ko ? What happened, then ? 9

The satisfaction in the shrouded face was still plainer. The man
tried to mumble out some words—could not succeed; tried to express
something with his obstructed hands—failed ; paused a moment, then

312

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

feebly tilted his head, in a meaning way, toward the corpse that lay
nearest him.

‘Dead?’ I asked. * Failed to escape %—caught in the act and
shot I 7

Negative shake of the head.

* How, then 1 *

Again the man tried to do something with his hands. I watched
closely, but could not guess the intent. I bent over and watched still
more intently. He had twisted a thumb around and was weakly
punching at his breast with it.

* Ah—stabbed, do you mean % *

Affirmative nod, accompanied by a spectral smile of such peculiar
devilishness, that it struck an awakening light through my dull brain,
and I cried—

* Did I stab him, mistaking him for you %—for that stroke was
meant for none but you/

The affirmative nod of the re-dying rascal was as joyous as his
failing strength was able to put into its expression,

* O, miserable, miserable me, to slaughter the pitying soul that
stood a friend to my darlings when they were helpless, and would
have saved them if he could! miserable, oh, miserable, miserable
meF

I fancied I heard the muffled gurgle of a mocking laugh. I took
my face out of my hands, and saw my enemy sinking back upon his
inclined board.

He was a satisfactory long time dying. He had a wonderful
vitality, an astonishing constitution. Yes, he was a pleasant long
time at it. I got a chair and a newspaper, and sat down by him and
read. Occasionally I took a sip of brandy. This was necessary, on
account of the cold. Hut I did it partly because I saw, that along
at first, whenever X reached for the bottle, he thought I was going to
give him some. I read aloud: mainly imaginary accounts of people
Kiatehed from the grave’s threshold and restored to life and vigour by
a few spoonsful of liquor and a warm bath. Yes, he had a long,
hfffd death of it—three hours and six minutes, from the time he rang
Ms bell.

It is believed that in all these eighteen years that have elapsed
« noe the institution of the corpse-watch, no shrouded occupant of the

A THUMB-PRINT ANA WHAT CAME OF IT

313

Bavarian dead-houses has ever rung its bell. Well, it is a harmless
belief. Let it stand at that.

The chill of that death-room had penetrated my bones. It revived
and fastened upon me the disease which had been afflicting me, but
which, up to that night, had been steadily disappearing. That man
murdered my wife and my child ; and in three days hence he will
have added me to his list. No matter—God l how delicious the

314

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

had been sold and scattered, all except a few old letters, and some
odds and ends of no Talue. However, through those letters, I traced
out a son of Kruger’s, the only relative he left- He is a man of
thirty, now, a shoemaker by trade, and living at Xo. 14 Konigstrasse
Mannheim—widower, with several small children. Without explain¬
ing to him why, I have furnished two-thirds of his support, ever
since.

How, as to that watch—see how strangely things happen! I
traced it around and about Germany for more than a year, at con¬
siderable cost in money and vexation ; and at last I got it. Got it,
and was unspeakably glad; opened it, and found nothing in it!
Why, I might have known that that bit of paper was not going to
stay there all this time. Of course I gave up that ten thousand
dollars then; gave it up, and dropped it out of my mind: and most
sorrowfully, for I had wanted it for Kruger’s son.

Last night, when 1 consented at last that I must die, I began to
make ready. I proceeded to burn all useless papers ; and sure enough,
from a batch of Adler’s, not previously examined with thoroughness,
out dropped that long-desired scrap I I recognised it in a moment.
Here it is—I will translate it:

' Brick livery stable, stone foundation, middle of town, comer of Orleans
and Market. Corner toward Court-house. Third stone, fonrth row. Stick
notice there, saying how many are to come.’

There—take it, and preserve it. Kruger explained that that
stone was removable ; and that it was in the north wall of the foun¬
dation, fourth row from the top, and third stone from the west.
The money is secreted behind it. He said the closing sentence was a
blind, to mislead in case the paper should fall into wrong hands. It
probably performed that office for Adler.

How I want to beg that when you make your intended journey
down the river, yon will hunt out that hidden money, and send it to
Adam Kroger, care of the Mannheim address which I have men¬
tioned. It will make a rich man of him, and I shall sleep the sounder
in my grave for knowing that I have done what I could for the son
of the man who tried to save my wife and child—albeit my hand
ignorantly struck him down, whereas the impulse of my heart would
have been to shield and serve him.

315

CHAPTER XXXH.

THE DISPOSAL OP A BONANZA.

* Such was Ritter’s narrative,* said I to my two friends. There was
a profound and impressive silence, which lasted a considerable time;
then both men broke into a fusillade of exciting* and admiring ejacu¬
lations over the strange incidents of the tale; and this, along with a
rattling fire of questions, was kept up until all hands were about out
of breath. Then my friends began to cool down, and draw off,
under shelter of occasional volleys, into silence and abysmal reverie.
For ten minutes now, there was stillness. Then Rogers said
dreamily—

4 Ten thousand dollars.*

Adding, after a considerable pause—

* Ten thousand. It is a heap of money/

Presently the poet inquired—

4 Are you going to send it to him right away ? '

4 Yes,* I said. * It is a queer question/

No reply. After a little, Rogers asked, hesitatingly:

* AIL of it ?— That is— I mean-’

4 Certainly, all of it/

I was going to say more, but stopped—was stopped by a train of
thought which started up in me. Thompson spoke, but my mind
was absent, and I did not catch what he said. But I heard Rogers
answer—

* Yes, it seems so to me. It ought to be quite sufficient ; for I
don’t see that he has done anything/

Presently the poet said—

* When you come to look at it, it is more than sufficient. Just

316

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

look at it—live thousand dollars' Why, he couldn’t spend it in a
lifetime I And it would injure him, too; perhaps ruin him—you
want to look at that. In a little while he would thro^v his last
away, shut up his shop, maybe take to drinking, maltreat his motlier-

WE BEGAN TO COOL OFF.

less children, drift into other evil courses, go steadily from bad to
worse-’

£ Yes, that’s it/ interrupted Hogers, fervently, c I’ve seen it a
hundred times—-yes, more than a hundred. You put money into the
hands of a man like that, if you want to destroy him, that’s all; just
put money into his hands, it’s all youv’e got to do; and if it don’t pull

THE DISPOSAL OF A BOXAXZA.

317

him down, and take all the usefulness out of him, and all the self-
respect and everything, then I don't know human nature—ain't that
so, Thompson ? And even if we were to give liim a third of it; why,
in less than six months—’

* Less than six weeks, you'd better say ! said I, warming up and

breaking in. 4 Unless
he had that three
thousand dollars in
safe hands where he
couldn't touch it, he
would no more last
vou six weeks than

‘ Of course he
wouldn't,' said
Thompson; ‘ IVe
edited books for that
kind of people; and
the moment they get
their hands on the
royalty — maybe it’s
three thousand, may¬
be its two thousand

‘AIN'T THAT SO,
THOMPSON r

‘ What business
has that shoemaker
with two thousand
dollars, I should like to know 1' broke in
Rogers, earnestly. c A man perhaps per¬
fectly contented now, there in Mannheim,
surrounded by his own class, eating his bread with the appetite
which laborious industry alone can give, enjoying his humble life,
honest, upright, pure in heart; and blest /—yes, I say blest! blest
above all the myriads that go in silk attire and walk the empty
artificial round of social folly—but just you put that temptation before
him once i just you lay fifteen hundred dollars before a man like that,
and say-'

818

1TFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI.

< Fifteen hundred devils! ’ cried I, ‘Jive hundred would rot his

principles, paralyse his industry, drag him to the rumshop, thence to
the gutter, thence to the almshouse, thence to-’

< Why put upon ourselves this crime, gentlemen 1 ’ interrupted the
poet earnestly and appealingly. ‘ He is happy where he is, and as he
is. Every sentiment of honour, every sentiment of charity, every
sentiment of high and sacred benevolence warns us, beseeches us, com¬
mands us to leave him undisturbed. That is real friendship, that is
true friendship. We could follow other courses that would be more

showy; but none that
would be so truly kind
and wise, depend upon it.’

After some further
talk, it became evident
that each of us, down
in his heart, felt some
misgivings over this
settlement of the matter.
It was manifest that we
all felt that we ought to
send the poor shoemaker
something . There was
long and thoughtful dis¬
cussion of this point;
and we finally decided to
send him a chromo.

*he is happy whebe he is.' W^ell, now that every¬

thing seemed to be ar¬
ranged satisfactorily to everybody concerned, a new trouble broke
out: it transpired that these two men were expecting to share equally
in the money with me- That was not my idea. I said that if they
got half of it between them they might consider themselves lucky.
Rogers said—

* Who would have had any if it hadn’t been for me ? I flung out
the first hint—but for that it would all have gone to the shoemaker/
Thompson said that he was thinking of the thing himself at the
very moment that Rogers had originally spoken.

sour humour. I found Captain McCord there, and said, as pleasantly
as my humour would permit—

* I have come to say good-bye, captain. I wish to go ashore at
Napoleon/

* Go ashore where % 9

‘ Napoleon/

The captain laughed ; but seeing that I was not in a jovial mood,
stopped that and said—

320

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

( But are you serious I *

1 Serious 1 I certainly am.’

* The captain glanced up at the pilot-house and said -

i He wants to get off at Napoleon 1 *

* Napoleon t *

* That’s what he says/

‘ Great Caesar’s ghost!’

Uncle Mumford approached along the deck. The captain said—

* Unde, here’s a friend of yours wants to get off at Napoleon ! ’

* Well, by- V

I said—

* Come, what is all this about 1 Can’t a man go ashore at Napo¬
leon if he wants to % ’

* Why, hang it, don’t you know % There isn’t any Napoleon
any more. Hasn’t been for years and years. The Arkansas River
burst through it, tore it all to rags, and emptied it into the Missis¬
sippi l *

* Carried the whole, town away % —banks, churches, jails, news¬
paper-offices, court-house, theatre, fire department, livery stable—
everything f ’

* Everything. Just a fifteen-minute job, or such a matter. Didn’t
leave hide nor hair, shred nor shingle of it, except the fag-end of a
shanty and one brick chimney. This boat is paddling along right
now, where the dead-centre of that town used to be; yonder is the
brick chimney—all that’s left of Napoleon. These dense woods on
the right used to be a mile back of the town. Take a look behind
you—up-stream—now you begin to recognise this country, don’t
you! ’

1 Yes, I do recognise it now. It is the most wonderful thing I
ever heard of; by a long shot the most wonderful—and unexpected.’

Mr. Thompson and Mr. Rogers had arrived, meantime, with
satchels and umbrellas, and had silently listened to the captain’s news.
Thompson put a half-dollar in my hand and said softly—

* For my share of the chromo.’

Rogers followed suit.

Yes, it was an astonishing thing to see the Mississippi rolling
between unpeopled shores and straight over the spot where I used to

THE DISPOSAL OF A BONANZA.

321

see a good big self-complacent town twenty years ago. Town that
was county-seat of a great and important county; town with, a big
United States marine hospital; town of innumerable fights an
inquest every day * town where I had used to know the prettiest girl.

NAPOLEON AS IT IS.

and the most accomplished in the whole
Mississippi Valley; town where we were
handed the first printed news of the
4 Pennsylvania’s 7 mournful disaster a quarter of a century ago,
a town no more—swallowed up, vanished, gone to feed the fishes;
nothing left but a fragment of a shanty and a crumbling brick
chimney!

321

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI\

CHAPTER XXXnL

REFRESHMENTS AND ETHICS.

In regard to Island 74, which, is situated not far from the former
Napoleon, a freak of the river here has sorely perplexed the laws oi
men and made them a vanity and a jest. When the State of A r k ansa s
was chartered, she controlled ‘ to the centre of the river *—a most
unstable line. The State of Mississippi claimed ‘ to the channel *—
another shifty and unstable line. No. 74 belonged to Arkansas. By
and by a cut-off threw this big island out of Arkansas, and yet not
within Mississippi. 1 Middle of the river * on one side of it, 4 channel ’
on the other. That is as I understand the problem. Whether I have
got the details right or wrong, this fact remains: that here is this
big and exceedingly valuable island of four thousand acres, thrust out
in the cold, and belonging to neither the one State nor the other;
paying taxes to neither, owing allegiance to neither. One man owns
the whole island, and of right is * the man without a country/

Island 92 belongs to Arkansas . The river moved it over and
joined it to Mississippi. A chap established a whiskey shop there,
without a Mississippi licence, and enriched himself upon Mississippi
custom under Arkansas protection (where no licence was in those
days required).

We glided steadily down the river in the usual privacy—steam¬
boat or other moving thing seldom seen. Scenery as always: stretch
upon stretch of almost unbroken forest, on both sides of the river ;
soundless solitude. Here and there a cabin or two, standing in
Rrmt.il openings on the grey and grassless banks—cabins which had
formerly stood a quarter or half-mile farther to the front, and gra¬
dually been pulled farther and farther back as the shores caved in.
As at Pilcher's Point, for instance, where the cabins had been moved

REFRESHMENTS AND ETHICS,

323

back three hundred yards in three months, so we were told; but the
caving banks had already caught up with them, and they were being
conveyed rearward once more.

Napoleon had but small opinion of Greenville, Mississippi, in the
old times; but behold, Napoleon is gone to the cat-fishes, and here is
Greenville full of life and activity, and making a considerable flourish
in the Valley; having three thousand inhabitants, it is said, and
doing a gross trade of $ 2,500,000 annually. A growing town.

There was much talk on the boat about the Calhoun Land Gout

CAVING BANKS.

pany, an enterprise which is expected to work wholesome results.
Colonel Calhoun, a grandson of the statesman, went to Boston and
formed a syndicate which purchased a large tract of land on the river,
in Chicot County, Arkansas—some ten thousand acres—for cotton-
growing. The purpose is to work on a cash basis: buy at first hands,
and handle their own product; supply their negro labourers wifch
provisions and necessaries at a trifling profit, say 8 or 10 per cent.;
furnish them comfortable quarters, etc., and encourage them to save
money and remain on the place. If this proves a financial success, as

324

LIFE OH THE MISSISSIPPI.

seems quite certain, they propose to establish a banking-house in
Greenville, and lend money at an unburdensome rate of interest—6
per cent, is spoken of.

The trouble heretofore has been—I am quoting remarks of planters
and steamboatmen—that the planters, although owning the land,
were without cash capital; had to hypothecate both land and crop to
carry on the business. Consequently, the commission dealer who

THE COMMISSION DEALER.

furnishes the money takes some risk and demands big interest—
usually 10 per cent., and per cent, for negotiating the loan. The
planter has also to buy his supplies through the same dealer, paying
commissions and profits. Then when he ships his crop, the dealer
adds his commissions, insurance, etc. So, taking it by and large,
and first and last, the dealer’s share of that crop is about 25 per cent. 1

* ‘ But what can the State do where the people are under subjection to
rates of interest ranging from 18 to 30 per cent., and are also under the neces¬
sity of purchasing their crops in advance even of planting, at these rates, for

REFRESHMENTS AND ETHICS.

325

A cotton-planter’s estimate of the average margin of profit on
planting, in his section : One man and mnle will raise ten acres of
cotton, giving ten bales cotton, worth, say, $500 ; cost of producing,
say $350 ; net profit, $150, or $15 per acre. There is also a profit
now from the cotton-seed, which formerly had little value—none

THE ISRAELITE.

where much transportation was necessary. In sixteen hundred pounds
crude cotton four hundred are lint, worth, say, ten cents a pound; and
twelve hundred pounds of seed, worth $12 or $13 per ton. Maybe
in future even the stems will not be thrown away. Mr. ISdward
Atkinson says that for each bale of cotton there are fifteen hundred

the privilege of purchasing all their supplies at 100 per cent, profit t 9 —Edward
AtMnson.

326

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

pounds of stems., and that these are very rich in phosphate of lime and
potash; that when ground and mixed with ensilage or cotton-seed
meal (which is too rich for use as fodder in large quantities), the stem
mixture makes a superior food, rich in all the elements needed for
the production of milk, meat, and hone. Heretofore the stems have
been considered a nuisance.

Complaint is made that the planter remains grouty toward the

former slave, since the
war; will have no¬
thing but a chill
business relation with
him, no sentiment
permitted to intrude;
will not keep a * store*
himself, and supply
the negro’s wants and
thus protect the ne¬
gro's pocket and make
him able and willing
to stay on the place and an advantage
to him to do it, but lets that privilege
to some thrifty Israelite, who encourages
the thoughtless negro and wife to buy
all sorts of things which they could do
without—buy on credit, at big prices,
month after month, credit based on the
negro’s share of the growing crop; and
at the end of the season, the negro’s
share belongs to the Israelite, the negro
is in debt besides, is discouraged, dis¬
satisfied, restless, and both he and the planter are injured; for he
will take steamboat and migrate, and the planter must get a stranger
in his place who does not know him, does not care for him, will
fatten the Israelite a season, and follow his predecessor per steam¬
boat.

It is hoped that the Calhoun Company will show, by its humane
and protective treatment of its labourers, that its method is the most

THE BAEKEEPER.

REFRESHMENTS AND ETHICS

B87

profitable for both planter and negro ; and it is believed that a general
adoption of that method will then follow.

And where so
many are saying their
say, shall not the bar¬
keeper testify % He
is thoughtful, obser¬
vant, never drinks;
endeavours to earn
his salary, and would
earn it if there were
custom enough. He
says the people along
here in Mississippi
and Louisiana will
send up the river to
buy vegetables rather
than raise them, and
they will come aboard
at the landings and
buy fruits of the bar¬
keeper. Thinks they
‘don’t know anything
but cotton; ’ believes
they don’t know how
to raise vegetables
and fruit— e at least
the most of them.’

Says * a nigger will go
to H for a water¬
melon ’ (* H ’ is all I
find in the steno¬
grapher’s report—
means Halifax pro¬
bably, though that seems a good way to go for a watermelon). Bar¬
keeper buys watermelons for five cents np the river, brings them
down and sells them for fifty. * Why does he mix such elaborate and
picturesque drinks for tbe nigger hands on the boat ? ’ Because they

A PLAIN GILL.

328

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

won’t have any other. i They want a big drink ; don’t make any
difference what you make it of, they want the worth of their money.
You give a nigger a plain gill of half-a-dollar brandy for five cents—
will he touch it ? 23o. Ain’t size enough to it. But you put up

a pint of all kinds of worthless rubbish, and heave in some red
stuff to make it beautiful—red’s the main thing—and he wouldn’t
put down that glass to go to a circus.’ All the bars on this Anchor
Line are rented and owned by one firm. They furnish the liquors
from their own establishment, and hire the barkeepers * on salary.’
Good liquors ? Yes, on some of the boats, where there are the kind
of passengers that want it and can pay for it. On the other boats %
No. Nobody but the deck hands and firemen to drink it. Brandy %
Yes, I’ve got brandy, plenty of it; but you don’t want any of it
unless you’ve made your will.’ It isn’t as it used to be in the old
times. Then everybody travelled by steamboat, everybody drank,
and everybody treated everybody else. ‘ Now most everybody goes
by railroad, and the rest don’t drink.’ In the old times the bar¬
keeper owned the bar himself, e and was gay and smarty and talky
and all jewelled up, and was the toniest aristocrat on the boat;
used to make $2,000 on a trip. A father who lefb his son a steam¬
boat bar, left him a fortune. Now he leaves him board and lodging;
yes, and washing, if a shirt a trip will do. Yes, indeedy, times
are changed. Why, do you know, on the principal line of boats on
the Upper Mississippi, they don’t have any bar at all! Sounds like
poetry, but it’s the petrified truth.’

329

CHAPTER XXXIV.

TOUGH YARNS.

Stack Island. I remembered Stack Island ; also Lake Providence,
Louisiana—which is the first distinctly Southern-looking town you
come to, downward-bound; lies level and low, shade-trees hung with
venerable grey beards of Spanish moss; * restful, pensive, Sunday
aspect about the place/ comments Uncle Mumford, with feeling—also
with truth.

A Mr. H. furnished some minor
details of fact concerning this region •
which I would have hesitated to
believe if I had not known him to
be a steamboat mate. He was a
passenger of ours, a resident of
Arkansas City, and bound to Vicks¬
burg to join his boat, a little Sun¬
flower packet. He was an austere
man, and had the reputation of
being singularly unworldly, for a
river man. Among other things, be
said that Arkansas had been injured and kept back by generations of
* exaggerations concerning the mosquitoes here. One may smile, said
he, and turn the matter off as being a small thing; but when you come
to look at the effects produced, in the way of discouragement of immi¬
gration, and diminished values of property, it was quite the opposite
of a small thing, or thing in any wise to be coughed down or sneered
at. These mosquitoes had been persistently represented as being for-

MOSQUITOES.

330

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI ,.

midable and lawless: whereas ‘ the truth is, they are feeble, insignifi¬
cant in size, diffident to a fault, sensitive 7 —and so on, and so on; you
would have supposed he was talking about his family. But if he was
soft on the Arkansas mosquitoes, he was hard enough on the mosqui¬
toes of Lake Providence to make up for it—‘ those Lake Providence
colossi/ as he finely called them. He said that two of them could

whip a dog, and that four
of them could hold a man
down; and except help
come, they would kill him
— c butcher him/ as he ex¬
pressed it. Referred in a sort
of casual way—and yet signi¬
ficant way—to ‘ the fact that
the life policy in its simplest
form is unknown in Lake
Providence—they take out a
mosquito policy besides/ He
told many remarkable things
about those lawless insects.
Among others, said he had
seen them try to vote.
Noticing that this statement
seemed to be a good deal of
a strain on us, he modified it
a little: said he might have
been mistaken, as to that
particular, but knew he had
seen them around the polls
4 canvassing/

There was another passenger—friend of H/s—who backed up the
harsh evidence against those mosquitoes, and detailed some stirring
adventures which he had had with them. The stories were pretty
sizable, merely pretty sizable; yet Mr. H. was continually interrupt¬
ing with a cold, inexorable * Wait—knock off twenty-five per cent, of
that; now go on ; * or, c Wait—you are getting that too strong; cut
it down, cut it down—you getaleetlstoo much costumery onto your

TOUGH YARNS.

331

statements: always dress a fact in tights, never in an ulster; ’ or,

‘ Pardon, once more: if you are going to load anything more on to
that statement, you want to get a couple of lighters and tow the rest,
because it’s drawing all the water there is in the river already; stick
to facts—just stick to tbe cold facts; what these gentlemen want for
a book is the frozen truth—ain’t that so, gentlemen \ 9 He explained
privately that it was necessary to watch this man ail the time, and
keep him within bounds; it would not do to neglect this precaution,
as he, Mr. H., 4 knew to his sorrow.’ Said he, 4 1 will not deceive you;
he told me such a monstrous lie once, that it swelled my left ear up,
and spread it so that I was actually not able to see out around it; it
remained so for months, and people came miles to see me fen myself
with it.

332

ZIFE OH THE MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTER XXXV.

VICKSBURG DURING THE TROUBLE.

We used to plough past the lofty hill-city, Vicksburg, down-stream;
but we cannot do that now. A cut-off has made a country town of
it, like Osceola, St. Genevieve, and several others. There is current-
less water—also a big island—in front of Vicksburg now. You come

■vxcksburg. side of the island, then
turn and come up to the
town; that is, in high water: in low water you can’t come up, but
must land some distance below it.

Signs and sears still re ma in, as reminders of Vicksburg’s tremen¬
dous war-experiences; earthworks, trees crippled by the cannon balls,

VICKSBURG BURIXG THE TROUBLE.

333

cave-refuges in the clay precipices, etc. The caves did good service
during the six weeks’ bombardment of the city—May 18 to July 4,
1863. They were used by the non-combatants—mainly by the
women and children; not to live in constantly, but tody to for safety
on occasion. They were mere holes, tunnels, driven into the per¬
pendicular clay bank, then branched Y shape, within the hill. Life

THE RIVER WAS UNDISTURBED

in Vicksburg, during the six weeks was perhaps—but wait; here are
some materials out of which to reproduce it:—

Population, twenty-seven thousand soldiers and three thousand
non-combatants; the city utterly cut off from the world—walled
solidly in, the frontage by gunboats, the rear by soldiers and
batteries; hence, no buying and selling with the outside ; no passing
to and fro; no God-speeding a parting guest, no welcoming a coining

334

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, com 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 cobwebhed
with the cris-crossing 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 ‘Rats, to your holes 1 9 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 skuriy to the holes again,
by-end-bye, when the war-tempest breaks forth once more.

There being but three thousand of these cave-dwellers—merely
the population of a village—would they not come to know each other,
after a week or two, and familiarly; Insomuch that the fortunate or
unfortunate experiences of one would be of interest to all?

335

VICKSBURG BURIEO THE TROUBLE.

Those are the materials furnished by history. From them might
not almost anybody reproduce for himself the life of that time in

THE CAVE DWKLLEliS.

Vicksburg i Could you, who did not experience it, come nearer to
reproducing it to the i magina tion of another non-participant «»»»»
amid a Vicksburger who did experience it i It seems impossible;

536

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

and yet there are reasons why it might not really be. When one
makes his first voyage in a ship, it is an experience which multitu-
dinously bristles with striking novelties; novelties which are in such
sharp contrast with all this person’s former experiences that they
take a seemingly deathless grip upon his imagination and memory.
By tongue or pen he can make a landsman live that strange and
stirring voyage over with him; make him see it all and feel it
alL But if he wait 1 If he make ten voyages in succession—what
then? Why, the thing has lost colour, snap, surprise; and has
become commonplace. The man would have nothing to tell that
would quicken a landsman’s pulse.

Years ago, I talked with a couple of the Vicksburg non-combatants
—a man and his wife. Left to tell their story in their own way,
those people told it without fire, almost without interest.

A week of their wonderful life there would have made then-
tongues eloquent for ever perhaps ; but they had six weeks of it, and
that wore the novelty all out; they got used to being bomb-shelled
out of home and into the ground; the matter became commonplace.
After that, the possibility of their ever being startlingly interesting
in their talks about it was gone. What the man said was to this
effect:—

* It got to be Sunday all the time. Seven Sundays in the week—to us,
anyway. We hadn’t anything to do, and time hung heavy. Seven Sun¬
days, and all of them broken up at one time or another, in the day or in the
night, by a few hours of the awful storm of fire and thunder and iron. At
first we used to shin for the holes a good deal faster than we did afterwards.
The first time, I forgot the children, and Maria fetched them both along.
When she was all safe in the cave she fainted. Two or three weeks after¬
wards, when she was running for the holes, one morning, through a shell-
shower, a big shell hurst near her, and covered her all over with dirt, and a
piece of the iron carried away her game-bag of false hair from the back of
her head. Well, she stopped to get that game-bag before she shoved along
again! Was getting used to things already, you see. We all got so that we
could tell a good deal about shells; and after that we didn’t always go under
shelter if it was a light shower. "Us men would loaf around and talk; and a
man would say, ‘ There she goes! * and name the kind of shell it was from
the sound of it, and go on talking—if there wasn’t any danger from it. If a
shell was bursting close over us, we stopped talking and stood still;—un¬
comfortable, yes, but it wasn’t safe to move. When it let go, we went on

VICKSBURG DURING THE TROUBLE.

337

talking again, if nobody hurt—maybe saying, 1 That was a ripper! ’ or some
such commonplace comment before we resumed; or, maybe, we would see a
shell poising itself away high in the air overhead. In that case, every fellow
just whipped out a sudden, * See you again, gents ! 1 and shoved. Often and
often I saw gangs of ladies promenading the streets, looking as cheerful as
you please, and keeping an eye canted up watching the shells; and I’ve
seen them stop still when they were uncertain about what a shell was going

( ^ -BRINGING THE CHILDREN-.

to do, and wait and make certain; and after that they s entered along again,
or lit out for shelter, according to the verdict. Streets in some towns have
a litter of pieces of paper, and odds and ends of one sort or another lying
around. Ours hadn’t; they had iron litter. Sometimes a man would
gather up all the iron fragments and unbursted shells in his neighbourhood,
and pile them into a kind of monument in his front yard—a ton of it, some¬
times. No glass left; glass couldn’t stand such a bombardment; it was all

33S

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

WAIT AKB MAKB CBBTAIN.

shivered out. Windows
of the houses vacant —
looked like eye-holes in a
skull. Whole panes were
as scarce as news.

4 We had church Sun¬
days. Not many there,
along at first; but hy-and-
bye pretty good turnouts.
I’ve seen service stop
a minute, and everybody
sit quiet—no voice heard,
pretty funeral-like then—
and all the more so on
account of the awful boom
and crash going on out¬
side and overhead; and
pretty soon, when a body
could be heard, service
would go on again. Organs
and church-music mixed
up with a bombardment
is a powerful queer com¬
bination—along at first.
Coming out of church,
one morning, we had an
accident — the only one
that happened around me
on a Sunday. I was just
having a hearty hand¬
shake with a Mend I
hadn’t seen for a while,
and saying, c Drop into
our cave to-night, after
bombardment; we’ve got
hold of a pint of prime
wh—Whiskey, I was
going to say, you know,
but a shell interrupted.
■ A chunk of it cut the
man’s arm off, and left it

dangling in my hand.
And do you know the thing that is going to stick the longest in my memoiy.

VICKSBURG DURING THE TROUBLE ,

339

and outlast everything else, little and big, I reckon, is the mean thought
I had then ? It was f the whiskey is saved," And yet, don't you know, it
was kind of excusable; because it was as scarce as diamonds, and we had
only just that little; never had another taste during the siege.

1 Sometimes the caves were desperately crowded, and always hot and
close. Sometimes a cave had twenty or twenty-five people packed into it;
no turning-room for anybody; air so foul, sometimes, you couldn't have
made a candle burn in it. A child was born in one of those caves one night.
Think of that; why, it was like having it bom in a trunk.

* Twice we had sixteen people in our cave ; and a number of times we

c MULE MEAT 7 7

had a dozen. Pretty suffocating in there. We always had eight; eight be¬
longed there. Hunger and misery and sickness and fright and sorrow, and I
don’t know what all, got so loaded into them that none of them were ever
rightly their old selves after the siege. They all died but three of us within
a couple of years. One night a shell burst in front of the hole and caved it
in ami stopped it up. It was lively times, for a while, digging out. Some
of us came near smothering. After that we made two openings—ought to
have thought of it at first.

Mule meat ? No, we only got down to that the last day or two. Of
course it was good; anything is good when you are starving.’

340

LIFE OK THE MISSISSIPPI.

This man had kept a diary during—six weeks? No, only the
first six days. The first day, eight dose pages; the second, five; the
third, one—loosely written ; the fourth, three or four lines; a line or
two the fifth and sixth days; seventh day, diary abandoned; life in
terrific Vicksburg having now become commonplace and matter of
course.

The war history of Vicksburg has more about it to interest the
general reader than that of any other of the river-towns. It is full of
variety, full of incident, foil of the picturesque. Vicksburg hdd out
longer than any other important river-town, and saw warfare in all
its phases, both land and water—the siege, the mine, the assault, the
repulse, the bombardment, sickness, captivity, famine.

The most beautiful of all the national cemeteries is here. Over
the great gateway is this inscription—

‘HERE REST IE PEACE 16,600 WHO DIED FOR TM TR COUNTRY
IE THE YEARS 1861 TO 1865.’

The grounds are nobly situated ; being very high and commanding
a wide prospect of land and river. They are tastefully laid out in
broad terraces, with winding roads and paths; and there is profuse
adornment in the way of semi-tropical shrubs and flowers; and in
one part is a piece of native wild-wood, left just as it grew, and,
therefore, perfect in its charm. Everything about this cemetery
suggests the hand of the national Government. The Government’s
work is always conspicuous for excellence, solidity, thoroughness,
neatness. The Government does its work well in the first place, and
then takes care of it.

By winding-roads—which were often cut to so great a depth

between perpendicular walls that they were mere roofless tunnels_

we drove out a mile or two and visited the monument which stands
upon the scene of the surrender of Vicksburg to General Grant by
General Pemberton. Its metal will preserve it from the hackings
and Shippings which so defaced its predecessor, which was of marble;
but the brick foundations are crumbling, and it will tumble down by-
and-bye. It overlooks a picturesque region of wooded hflln and
ravines; and is not unpicturesque itself, being well smothered in

VICKSBURG BURIXG THE TROUBLE. 341

dowering weeds. The battered remnant of the marble monument
has been removed to the National Cemetery.

On the road, a quarter of a mile townward, an aged coloured man
showed us, with pride, an unexploded bomb-shell which has lain in
his yard since the day it fell there during the siege.

NATIVE WILD-WOODS.

* I was a-stannin* heah, an* de dog was
a-stannin’ heah; de dog he went for de shell,
gwine to pick a fuss wid it ; but I didn’t;
I says, “ Jes’ make you’seff at home heah;
lay still whah you is, or bust up de place,
jes’ as yon’s a mind to, but Bs got business
out in de woods, I has ! ” ’

Vicksburg is a town of substantial
business streets and pleasant residences; it commands the com¬
merce of the Yazoo and Sunflower Rivers; is pushing railways in

$42

LIFE ON TEE MISSISSIPPI.

several directions, through rich agricultural regions, and has a pro¬
mising future of prosperity and importance.

Apparently, nearly all the river towns, big and little, have made
up their minds that they must look mainly to railroads for wealth
and upbuilding, henceforth. They are acting upon this idea. The
signs are, that the next twenty years will bring about some note¬
worthy changes in the Valley, in the direction of increased popula¬
tion and wealth, and in the intellectual advancement and the liberal¬
ising of opinion which go naturally with these. And yet, if one may
judge by the past, the river towns will manage to find and use a
chance, here and there, to cripple and retard their progress. They
kept themselves back in the days of steamboating supremacy, by a
system of wharfage-dues so stupidly graded as to prohibit what may
be called small retail traffic in freights and passengers. Boats were
charged such heavy wharfage that they could not afford to land
for one or two passengers or a light lot of freight. Instead of
encouraging the bringing of trade to their doors, the towns diligently
and effectively discouraged it. They could have had many boats and
low rates 5 but their policy rendered few boats and high rates com¬
pulsory. It was a policy which extended—and extends—from New
Orleans to St. Paul.

We had a strong desire to make a trip up the Yazoo and the Sun¬
flower—an interesting region at any time, but additionally interesting
at this time, because up there the great inundation was still to be
seen in force—but we were nearly sure to have to wait a day or more
for a New Orleans boat on our return; so we were obliged to give up
the project.

Here is a story which I picked up on board the boat that night.
I insert it in this place merely because it is a good story, not because
it belongs here—for it doesn’t. It was told by a passenger—a college
professor—and was called to the surface in the course of a general
conversation which began with talk about horses, drifted into talk
about astronomy, then into talk about the lynching of the gamblers
in Vicksburg half a century ago, then into talfr- about dreams and
superstitions; and ended, after midnight, in a dispute over free trade
and protection.

CHAPTER XXXTL

THE PROFESSOR’S YARN.

It was in the early days, I was not a college professor then. I was
a humble-minded young land-surveyor, with the world before me—to
survey, in case anybody wanted it done. I had a contract to survey
a route for a great mining-ditch in California, and I was on my way
thither, by sea—a three or four weeks* voyage. There were a good
many passengers, but I had very little to say to them; reading and
dreaming were my passions, and I avoided conversation in order to
indulge these appetites. There were three professional gamblers on
board—rough, repulsive fellows. I never had any talk with them,
yet I could not help seeing them with some frequency, for they
gambled in an upper-deck state-room every day and night, and in my
promenades I often had glimpses of them through their door, which
stood a little ajar to let out the surplus tobacco smoke and profanity.
They were an evil and hateful presence, but I had to put up with it,
of course.

There was one other passenger who fell under my eye a good deal,
for he seemed determined to be friendly with me, and I could not
have gotten rid of him without running some chance of hurting his
feelings, and I was far from wishing to do that. Besides, there was
something engaging in his countrified simplicity and his beaming
good-nature. The first time I saw this Mr. John Backus, I guessed,
from his clothes and his looks, that he was a grazier or farmer from
the backwoods of some western State—doubtless Ohio—and afterward
when he dropped into his personal history and I discovered that hs
UKL8 a cattle-raiser from interior Ohio, I was so pleased with my own
penetration that I warmed toward him for verifying my instinct.

344

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI .

He got to dropping alongside me every day, after breakfast, to
help me make my promenade; and so, in the course of time, his easy-
working jaw had told me everything about his business, his prospects,

his family, his relatives, his
politics — in fact everything
that concerned a Backus, living
or dead. And meantime I
think he had managed to get
out of me everything I knew
about my trade, my tribe, my
purposes, my prospects, and
myself. He was a gentle and
persuasive genius, and this
thing showed it; for I was
not given to talking about my
matters. I said something
about triangulation, once; the
stately word pleased his ear;
he inquired what it meant; I
explained ; after that he quiet¬
ly and inoffensively ignored my
name, and always called me
Triangle.

What an enthusiast he was
in cattle! At the bare name
of a bull or a cow, his eye
would light and his eloquent tongue would turn itself loose. As long
as I would walk and listen, he would walk and talk; he knew all
breeds, he loved all breeds, he caressed them all with bi« affectionate

MY PROMENADE.

THE PROFESSOR'S YARN.

345

tongue. I tramped along in voiceless misery whilst the cattle question
was up ; when I could endure it no longer, I used to deftly insert a
scientific topic into the conversation; then my eye fired and his
faded ; my tongue fluttered, his stopped; life was a joy to me, and a
sadness to him.

One day he said, a little hesitatingly, and with somewhat of diffi¬
dence—

‘Triangle, would you mind coming down to my state-room a
minute, and have a little talk on a certain matter 1 ’

I went with him at once. Arrived there, he put his head out,
glanced up and down the saloon warily, then closed the door and
locked it. We sat down on the sofa, and he said—

* Tm a-going to make a little proposition to you, and if it strikes
you favourable, it’ll be a middling good thing for both of us. You
ain’t a-going out to Californy for fun, nuther am I—it’s business, ain’t
that so f Well, you can do me a good turn, and so can I you, if we
see fit. I’ve raked and scraped and saved, a considerable many years,
and I’ve got it all here.’ He unlocked an old hair trunk, tumbled a
chaos of shabby clothes aside, and drew a short stout hag into view
for a moment, then buried it again and relocked the trunk. Dropping
his voice to a cautious low tone, he continued, ‘She’s all there—a
round ten thousand dollars in yellow-boys ; now this is my little idea:
What I don’t know about raising cattle, ain’t worth knowing. There’s
mints of money in it, in Californy. Well, I know, and you know,
that all along a line that’s being surveyed, there’s little dabs of land
that they call “ gores,” that fall to the surveyor free gratis for nothing.
All you’ve got to do, on your side, is to survey in such a way that the
“ gores ” will fall on good fat land, then you turn ’em over to me, I
stock ’em with cattle, in rolls the cash, I plank out your share of

the dollars regular, right along and-’

I was sorry to wither his blooming enthusiasm, but it could not
be helped. I interrupted, and said severely—

- I am not that kind of a surveyor. Let us change the subject,
Mr. Backus.’

It was pitiful to see his confusion and hear his awkward and
shamefaced apologies. I was as much distressed as he was—especially
as he seemed so far from having suspected that there was anything

happened luckily that the
crew were just beginning to
hoist some beeves aboard in
slings. Backus’s melancholy
vanished instantly, and with
it the memory of his late
mistake.

* Isfow only look at that V a shout stout bau-.

cried he ; 1 My goodness. Tri¬
angle, what vxmld they say to it in Ohio f Wouldn’t their eyes bug
out, to see ’em handled like that % —wouldn’t they, though ? ’

All the passengers were on deck to look—even the gamblers—

THE PROFESSOR'8 TARN.

and Backus knew them all, and had afflicted them all with his pet
topic. As 1 moved away, I saw one of the gamblers approach and
accost him; then another of them; then the third. I halted;
waited; watched; the conversation continued between the four men;
it grew earnest; Backus drew gradually away; the gamblers followed,
and kept at his elbow. I was uncomfortable. However, as they
passed me presently, I heard Backus say, with a tone of persecuted
annoyance—

* But it ain’t any use, gentlemen; I tell you again, as I've told
you a half a dozen times before, I wam’t raised to it, and I ain’t a-going
to resk it.’

I felt relieved. * Bus level head will be his sufficient protection,*
I said to myself.

During the fortnight’s run from Acapulco to San Francisco I
several times saw the gamblers talking earnestly with Backus, and
once I threw out a gentle warning to him. He chuckled comfortably
and said—

* Oh, yes 1 they tag around after me considerable—want me to
play a little, just for amusement, they say—but laws-a-me, if my
folks have told me once to look out for that sort of live-stock, they’ve
told me a thousand times, I reckon.’

By-and-bye, in due course, we were approaching San Francisco.
It was an ngly black night, with a strong wind blowing, but there
was not much sea. I was on deck, alone. Toward ten I started
below. A figure issued from the gamblers’ den, and disappeared in
the darkness. I experienced a shock, for I was sure it was Backus.
I flew down the companion-way, looked about for him, could not find
him, then returned to the deck just in time to catch a glimpse of him
as he re-entered that confounded nest of rascality. Had he yielded
at last 1 I feared it. What had he gone below for !—His bag of
coin I Possibly. I drew near the door, full of bodings. It was a-
crack, and I glanced in and saw a sight that made me bitterly wish I
had given my attention to saving my poor cattle-friend, instead of
reading and dreaming my foolish time away. He was gambling.
Worse still, he was being plied with champagne, and was already
showing some effect from it. He praised the * cider,* as he called it*
and said now that he had got a taste of it he almost lielieved be

348 LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

would drink it if it was spirits, it was so good and so ahead of any¬
thing he had ever run across before. Surreptitious smiles, at this,
passed from one rascal to another, and they filled all the glasses, and
whilst Backus honestly drained his to the bottom they pretended to
do the same, but threw the wine over their shoulders.

I could not bear the scene, so I wandered forward and tried to
interest myself in the sea and the voices of the wind. But no, my

uneasy spirit kept dragging me
back at quarter-hour intervals;
and always I saw Backus drink¬
ing his wine—fairly and square¬
ly, and the others throwing theirs
away. It was the painfullest
night I ever spent.

The only hope I had was
that we might reach our anchor¬
age with speed — that would
break up the game. I helped
the ship along all I could with
my prayers. At last we went
booming through the Golden
Gate, and my pulses leaped for
joy. I hurried back to that
door and glan ced in. Alas, there
was small room for hope —
Backus’s eyes were heavy and
bloodshot, his sweaty face was
crimson, his speech maudlin and
thick, his body sawed drunkenly
about with the weaving motion
of the ship. He drained another glass to the dregs, whilst the cards
were being dealt.

He took his hand, glanced at it, and bis dull eyes lit up for a
moment. The gamblers observed it, and showed their gratification
by hardly perceptible signs.

* How many cards % 9

* None 1 ’ said Backus*

THE PROFESSOR'S YARN.

349

One villain—named Hank Wiley—discarded one card, the others
three each. The betting began. Heretofore the bets had been
trifling—a dollar or two; but Backus started off with an eagle now,
Wiley hesitated a moment, then * saw it* and ‘went ten dollars
better.' The other two threw up their hands.

* FIVE HTHSTUBED BETTER.

Backus went twenty better.
Wiley said—

6 1 see that, and go you a
hundred better ! ’ then smiled and
reached for the money.

fi Let it alone,’ said Backus, with
drunken gravity.

4 What! you mean to say you're
* going to cover it % *

‘ Cover it ? Well, I reckon I am—and lay another hundred on
top of it, too/

He reached down inside his overcoat and produced the required sum.
* Oh, that’s your little game, is it $ I see your raise, and raise it
five hundred I * said Wiley.

350

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

i Five hundred better! 7 said the foolish bull-driver, and pulled
out the amount and showered it on the pile. The three conspirators
hardly tried to conceal their exultation.

'All diplomacy and pretence were dropped now, and the sharp

excla m ations came thick: and fast, and the yellow pyramid grew
higher and higher. At last ten thousand dollars lay in view. Wiley
east a hag of coin on the table, and said with mocking gentleness—

4 Five thousand dollars better, my friend from the rural districts
—what do you say now? 7

THE PROFESSOR'S YARN, Ul

*1 call you !’ said Backus, heaving Ms golden shot-hag on the

pile. 4 What have you got I ’

4 Four Mugs, you d—d fool 1’ and Wiley threw down Ms cards
and surrounded the stakes with Ms arms.

4 Four aceSf you a® ! 9 thundered Backus* covering Ms man with
a cocked revolver. 4 Pm a professional gambler myself , and Pve
been laying for you duffers aU this voyage 1 7

Down went the anchor, rumbledy-dum-dum ! and the long trip
was ended.

Well—well, it is a sad world. One of the three gamblers was
Backus’s 4 pal. 1 It was he that dealt the fateful hands. According
to an understanding with the two victims, he was to have given

Backus four queens, but alas, he didn’t.

A week later, I stumbled upon Backus—arrayed in the height of

fasMon— in Montgomery Street. He said, cheerily, as we were
parting—

4 Ah, by-the-way, you needn’t mind about those gores. I don t
really know anything about cattle, except what I was able to pick up
in a week’s apprenticesMp over in Jersey just before we sailed. My
cattle-culture and cattle-enthusiasm have served their turn—I shan’t
need them any more.’

Hext day we reluctantly parted from the 4 Gold Dust ’ and her
officers, hoping to see that boat and all those officers again, some day.

A thing wMch the fates were to render tragically impossible I

352

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTER XXX VH.

THE END OF THE c GOLD DUST.*

For, tlxree r^onths later, August 8, while I was writing one or these
foregoing chapters, the Hew York papers brought this telegram—

A TERRIBLE DISASTER.

SEVENTEEN PERSONS KTTIYRT) BY AN EXPLOSION ON THE STEAMER
‘GOLD DUST.*

* Nashville, Aug. 7.—A despatch from Hickman, Ky., says—

‘The steamer “ Gold Dust 55 exploded her boilers at three o'clock to-day,
just after leaving Hickman. Forty-seven persons were scalded and seven¬
teen are missing. The boat was landed in the eddy just above the town,
and through the exertions of the citizens the cabin passengers, officers, and
part of the crew and deck passengers were taken ashore and removed to the
hotels and residences. Twenty-four of the injured were lying in Holcomb's
dry-goods store at one time, where they received every attention before being
removed to more comfortable places. 5

A list of the names followed, whereby it appeared that of the
seventeen dead, one was the barkeeper j and among the forty-seven
wounded, were the captain, chief mate, second mate, and second and
third clerks j also Mr. L em . S. Gray, pilot, and several members of
the crew.

In answer to a private telegram, we learned that none of these was

THE EXD OF THE 'GOLD DUST:

353

severely hurt, except Mr. Gray. Letters received afterward con¬
firmed this news, and said that Mr. Gray was improving and would
get well. Later letters spoke less hopefully of his case ; and finally
came one announcing his death. A good man, a most companionable
and manly man, and worthy of a kindlier fate.

554

ZTJf'JS ON TBB MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTER XXXVIIL

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL.

We took passage in a Cincinnati boat for Xew Orleans j or on a
Cincinnati boat—either is correct; the former is the eastern form of
putting it, the latter the western.

Mr. Dickens declined to agree that the Mississippi steamboats
were ‘magnificent/ or that they were ‘floating palaces/—terms which
had always been applied to them; terms which did not over-express
the admiration with which the people viewed them.

Mr. u >ickens , s position was unassailable, possibly; the people’s
position was certainly unassailable. If Mr. Dickens was comparing
these boats with the crown jewels; or with the Taj, or with the
Matterhorn; or with some other priceless or wonderful thing which
he had seen, they were not magnificent—he was right. The people
compared them with what they had seen; and, thus measured, thus
judged, the boats were magnificent—the term was the correct one. it
was not at all too strong. The people were as right as was Mr.
Dickens. The steamboats were finer than anything on shore. Com¬
pared with superior dwelling-houses and first-class hotels in the
Talley, they were indubitably magnificent, they were ‘palaces.’ To
a few people living in New Orleans and St. Louis, they were not
magnificent, perhaps; not palaces; but to the great majority of those
populations, and to the entire populations spread over both banks
between Baton Rouge and St. Louis, they were palaces; they tallied
with the citizen’s dream of what magnificence was, and satisfied it.

Every town and village along that vast stretch of double river-
frontage had a best dwelling, finest dwelling, mansion,—the home of
Its wealthiest and most conspicuous citizen. It is easy to describe

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL. 36 S

it: large grassy yard, with paling fence painted white —in fair
repair; brick walk from gate to door; big, square, two-story ‘ frame *
house, painted white and porticoed like a Grecian temple—with this
difference, that the imposing fluted columns and Corinthian capitals
were a pathetic sham, being made of white pine, and painted ; iron
knocker; brass door knob—discoloured, for lack of polishing. Within,
an uncarpeted hall, of planed boards; opening out of it, a parlour,
fifteen feet by fifteen—in some instances five or ten feet larger;
ingrain carpet; mahogany centre-table; lamp on it, with green-paper
shade—standing on a gridiron, so to speak, made of high-coloured
yarns, by the young ladies of the house, and called a lamp-mat;
several books, piled and disposed, with cast-iron exactness, according
to an inherited and unchangeable plan; among them, Tupper, much
pencilled; also, * Friendship’s Offering,' and * Affection's Wreath/
with their sappy inanities illustrated in die-away mezzotints; also,
Ossian; ‘ Alonzo and Melissa ;' maybe * Ivanhoe:' also < Album,
full of original ‘poetry* of the Thou-hast-wounded-the-spirit-that-
loved-thee breed; two or three goody-goody works —* Shepherd of
Salisbury Plain,’ etc.; current number of the chaste and innocuous
Godey’s ‘Lady's Book,' with painted fashion-plate of wax-figure
women with mouths all alike—lips and eyelids the same size—each
five-foot woman with a two-inch wedge sticking from under her dress
and letting-on to be half of her foot. Polished air-tight stove (new
and deadly invention), with pipe passing through a board which
closes up the discarded good old fireplace. On each end of the
wooden mantel, over the fireplace, a large basket of peaches and other
fruits, natural size, all done in plaster, rudely, or in wax, and painted
to resemble the originals—which they don't. Over middle of mantel,
engraving—Washington Crossing the Delaware ; on the wall by the
door, copy of it done in thunder-and-lightning crewels by one of the
young ladies—work of art which would have made Washington
hesitate about crossing, if he could have foreseen what advantage r as
going to be taken of it. Piano—kettle in disguise—with music,
bound and unbound, piled on it, and on a stand near by : Battle of
Prague; Bird Waltz; Arkansas Traveller; Bosin the Bow; Mar¬
seilles Hymn; On a Lone Barren Isle (St. Helena); Hie Last Tinlc
is Broken ; She wore a Wreath of Boses the Night when last w*

356

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

met; Go, forget me. Why should Sorrow o'er that Brow a Shadow
ding; Hoin-s there were to Memory Dearer, Long, Long Ago*
Days of Absence; A Life on the Ocean Wave, a Home on the
Rolling Deep; Bird at Sea; and spread open on the rack, where the
plaintive singer has left it, Ao-holl on, silver moo- hoon, guide the
trav-e 1-lerr his way, etc. Tilted pensively against the piano, a guitar
—guitar capable of playing the Spanish Fandango by itself, if you
give it a start. Frantic work of art on the wall—pious motto, done
on the premises, sometimes in coloured yams, sometimes in faded
grasses: progenitor of the * God Bless Our Home' of modem com¬
merce. Framed in black mouldings on the wall, other works of arts,
conceived and committed on the premises, by the young ladies;
being grim black-and-white crayons ; landscapes, mostly : lake, soli¬
tary sail-boat, petrified clouds, pre-geological trees on shore, anthracite
precipice; name of criminal conspicuous in the comer. Lithograph,
Napoleon Grossing the Alps. Lithograph, The Grave at St. Helena.
Steel-plates, Trumbull's Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Sally from
Gibraltar. Copper-plates, Moses Smiting the Rock, and Return of
the Prodigal Son. In big gilt frame, slander of the family in oil:
papa holding a book (‘Constitution of the United States'); guitar
leaning against mamm a, blue ribbons fluttering from its neck; the
young ladies, as children, in slippers and scalloped pantelettes, one
embracing toy horse, the other beguiling kitten with ball of yam, and
both simpering up at m amm a, who simpers back. These persons all
fresh, raw, and red—apparently skinned. Opposite, in gilt frame,
grandpa and grandma, at thirty and twenty-two, stiff, old-fashioned,
high-collared, puff-sleeved, glaring pallidly out from a background of
solid Egyptian night. Under a glass French clock dome, large
bouquet of stiff flowers done in corpsy-white wax. Pyramidal what¬
not in the comer, the shelves occupied chiefly with bric-&-brac of the
period, disposed with an eye to best effect: shell, with the Lord’s
Prayear carved on it; another s h el l——of the long-oval sort, narrow,
straight orifice, three inches long, running from end to end—portrait
of Washington carved on it; not well done; the shell had Wash¬
ington’s mouth, originally—artist should have built to that. These
two are memorials of the long-ago bridal trip to New Orleans and
the French Market. Other bric4-brae; Californian ‘specimens’—

AN INTERIOR.

THE ROUSE BEAUTIFUL. 559

quartz, with gold wart adhering; old Guinea-gold locket, with circlet
of aDcestral hair in it; Indian arrow-heads, of flint; pair of bead
moccasins, from uncle who crossed the Plains ; three * alum * baskets
of various colours—being skeleton-frame of wire, clothed-on with
cubes of crystallised alum in the rock-candy style—works of art
which were achieved by the young ladies; their doubles and dupli¬
cates to be found upon all what-nots in the land; convention of
desiccated bugs and butterflies pinned to a card; painted toy-dog,
veated upon bellows-attachment—drops its under jaw and squeaks
when pressed upon; sugar-candy rabbit—limbs and features merged
together, not strongly defined ; pewter presidential-campaign medal;
minia ture card-board wood-sawyer, to be attached to the stove-pipe
and operated by the heat; small Napoleon, done in wax; spread-open
daguerreotypes of dim children, parents, cousins, aunts, and friends,
in all attitudes but customary ones; no templed portico at back, and
manufactured landscape stretching away in the distance—that came
in later, with the photograph; all these vague figures lavishly chained
and ringed—metal indicated and secured from doubt by stripes and
splashes of vivid gold bronze; all of them too much combed, too much
fixed up; and all of them uncomfortable in inflexible Sunday-clothes
of a pattern which the spectator cannot realise could ever have been
in fashion.; husband and wife generally grouped together—husband
sitting, wife standing, with hand on his shoulder- - and both preserv¬
ing, all these fading years, some traceable effect of the dagueireotypist’s
brisk i Now smile, if yon please 1 7 Bracketed over what-not—place
of special sacredness—an outrage in water-colour, done by the young
niece that came on a visit lung ago, and died. Pity, too; for she
might have repented of this in time. Horse-hair chairs, horse-hair
sofa which keeps sliding from under you. Window shades, of oil
stuff, with milk-maids and ruined castles stencilled on them in fierce
colours. Lambrequins dependent from gaudy boxings of beaten tin,
gilded. Bedrooms with rag carpets; bedsteads of the * corded * sort,
with a sag in the middle, the cords needing tightening; snuffy
feather-bed—not aired often enough; cane-seat chairs, splint-bottomed
rocker; looking-glass on wall, school-slate size, veneered frame;
inherited bureau; wash-bowl and pitcher, possibly—but not certainly;
brass candlestick, tallow candle, snuffers. Nothing else in the room.

the suburbs of ISTew Orleans to
the edge of St. Loois. When he
stepped aboard a big fine steam¬
boat, he entered a new and marvel¬
lous world : chimney-tops cut to
counterfeit a spraying crown of
plumes—and maybe painted red;
pilot-house, hurricane deck, boiler-
deck guards, all garnished with
white wooden filagree work of
fanciful patterns; gilt acorns top¬
ping the derricks; gilt deer-horns
over the big bell; gaudy symbolical

picture on the paddle-box, possibly;
big roomy boiler-deck, painted blue, and furnished with Windsor arm¬
chairs; inside, a far-receding snow-white * cabin;' porcelain knob

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL.

361

and oil-picture on every state-room door; curving patterns of filagree-
'work touched up with gilding, stretching overhead all down the
converging vista; big chandeliers every little way, each an April
shower of glittering glass-drops; lovely rainbow-light felling every¬
where from the coloured glaring of the skylights; the whole a long-
drawn, resplendent tunnel, a bewildering and soul-satisfying spectacle!
In the ladies’ cabin a pink and white Wilton carpet, as soft as mush,
and glorified with a ravishing pattern of gigantic flowers. Then the
Bridal Chamber—the animal that invented that idea was still alive
and un hang ed, at that day—Bridal Chamber whose pretentious flum¬
mery was necessarily overawing to the now tottering intellect of
that hosannahing citizen. Every state-room had its couple of cosy
dean bunks, and perhaps a looking-glass and a snug closet; and
sometimes there was even a washbowl and pitcher, and pert of a
towel which could be told from mosquito netting by an expert—
though generally these things were absent, and the shirt-sleeved
passengers cleansed themselves at & long row of stationary bowls in
the barber shop, where were also public towels, public combs, and
public soap.

Take the steamboat which I have just described, and you have
her in her highest and finest, and most pleasing, and comfortable, and
satisfactory estate. How cake her over with a layer of ancient and
obdurate dirt, and you have the Cincinnati steamer awhile ago
referred to. Hot all over—only inside; for she was ably officered in
all departments except the steward’s.

But wash that boat and repaint her, and she would be about
the counterpart of the most complimented boat of the old flush
times: for the steamboat architecture of the West has undergone no
change; neither has steamboat furniture and ornamentation under¬
gone any.

LIFE ON TUB MISSISSIPPI.

S6i

CHAPTER XXXIX,

MANUFACTURES AND MISCREANTS.

Where the river, in die Vicksburg region, used to be corkscrewed,
it is now comparatively straight—made so by cut-off; a former
distance of seventy miles is reduced to thirty-five. It is a change
which threw Vicksburg's neighbour, Delta, Louisiana, out into the
country and ended its career as a river town. Its whole river-
frontage is now occupied by a vast sand-bar, thickly covered with
young trees—a growth which will magnify itself Into a dense forest
by-and-bye, and completely hide the exiled town.

In due time we passed Grand Gulf and Hodney, of war fame, and
reached Natchez, the last of the beautiful hill-cities—for Baton Bouge,
yet to come, is not on a hill, but only on high ground. Famous
Natchez-nnder-the-hill has not changed notably in twenty years; in
outward aspect—judging by the descriptions of the ancient procession
of foreign tourists—it has not changed in sixty; for it is still small,
straggling, and shabby. It had a desperate reputation, morally, in
the old keel-boating and early steamboating times—plenty of drinking,
carousing, fisticuffing, and killing there, among the riff-raff of the
river, in those days. But Natchez-on-top-of-the-hill is attractive;
has always been attractive. Even Mrs. Trollope (182T) had to
confess its charms:

c At one or two points the wearisome level line is relieved by bluffs, as
they call the short intervals of high ground. The town of Natchez is beauti¬
fully situated on one of those high spots. The contrast that its bright green
hill forms with the dismal line of black forest that stretches on eveiy side,
the abundant growth of the pawpaw, palmetto and orange, the copious
variety of sweet-scented flowers that flourish there, all uuike it appear like

MA XCFA CTUBES AXD M1SCREAN1S.

363

an oasis in the desert. Natchez is the furthest point to the north at which
oranges ripen in the open air, or endure the winter without shelter. With
the exception of this sweet spot, I thought all the little towns and villages
we passed wretched-looking in the extreme.’

Natchez, like her near and far river neighbours, has railways now,
and is adding to them—pushing them hither and thither into all rich
outlying regions that are naturally tributary to her. And like Vicks¬
burg and New Orleans, she has h r ice-factory: she makes thirty tons

NATCHEZ.

of ice a day. In Vicksburg and Natchez, in my time, ice was jewel¬
lery ; none but the rich could wear it. But anybody and everybody can
have it now. I visited one of the ice-factories in New Orleans, to see
what the polar regions might look like when lugged into the edge of
the tropics. But there was nothing striking in the aspect of the
place. It was merely a spacious house, with some innocent steam
machinery in one end of it and some big porcelain pipes running here
and there. No, not porcelain—they merely seemed to be; they were

364

LIFE OF? THE MISSISSIPPI.

iron, but the ammonia which was being breathed through them had
coated them to the thickness of your hand with solid milk-white ice.

It ought to have melted; for one did not require winter clothing in
that atmosphere t but it did not melt ; the insid e of the pipe was too
cold.

Sunk into the floor were numberless tin boxes, a foot square and
two feet long, and open at the top end. These were full of clear
water; and around each box, salt and other proper stuff was packed;
also, the ammonia gases were applied to the water in some way which
will always remain a secret to me, because I was not able to under¬
stand the process. While the water in the boxes gradually froze, men
gave it a stir or two with a stick occasionally—to liberate the air-
bubbles, I think. Other men were continually lifting out boxes
whose contents had become hard frozen. They gave the box a single
dip into a vat of boiling water, to melt the block of ice free from its
tin coffin, then they shot the block out upon a platform car, and it
was ready for market. These big blocks were hard, solid, and crystal-
clear. In certain of them, big bouquets of fresh and brilliant tropical
flowers had been frozen-in; in others, beautiful silken-clad French
dolls, and other pretty objects. These blocks were to be set on end
in a platter, in the centre of dinner-tables, to cool the tropical air;
and also to be ornamental, for the flowers and things imprisoned in
them could be seen as through plate glass. I was told that this fac¬
tory could retail its ice, by waggon, throughout blew Orleans, in the
humblest dwelling-house quantities, at six or seven dollars a ton, and
make a sufficient profit. This beiDg the case, there is business for
ice-factories in the North; for we get ice on no such terms there, if
one take less than three hundred and fifty pounds at a delivery.

The Rosalie Yam Mill, of Natchez, has a capacity of 6,000
spindles and 160 looms, and employs 100 hands. The Natchez
Cotton Mills Company began operations four years ago in a
two-story building of 50 x 190 feet, with 4,000 spindles and 128
looms; capital $105,000, all subscribed in the town. Two years
later, the same stockholders increased their capital to $225,000;
added a third story to the mill, increased its length to 317 feet; added
machinery to increase the capacity to 10,300 spindles and 304 looms.
The company now employ 250 operatives, many of whom are citizens

MANUFACTURES AND MISCREANTS.

865

of Natchez. The mill works 5,000 bales of cotton annually and
manufactures the best standard quality of brown shirtings and sheet¬
ings and drills, turning out 5,000,000 yards of these goods per year.' 1
A close corporation—stock held at £5,000 per share, but none in the
market.

The changes in the Mississippi Hiver are great and strange, yet
were to be expected; but I was not expecting to live to see Natchez
and these other river towns become manufacturing strongholds and
railway centres.

Speaking of manufactures reminds me of a talk upon that topic
which I heard—which I overheard—on board the Cincinnati boat. I
awoke out of a fretted sleep, with a dull confusion of voices in my
ears. I listened—two men were talking; subject, apparently, the
great inundation. I looked out through the open transom. The two
men were eating a late breakfast; sitting opposite each other; nobody
else around* They closed up the inundation with a few words—
having used it, evidently, as a mere ice-breaker and acquaintanceship-
breeder—then they dropped into business. It soon transpired that
they were drummers—one belonging in Cincinnati, the other in New
Orleans. Brisk men, energetic of movement and speech; the dollar
their god, how to get it their religion.

* Now as to this article,* said Cincinnati, slashing into the oaten
sible butter and holding forward a slab of it on his knife-blade, * it’s
from our house ; look at it—smell of it—taste it. Put any test on
it you want to. Take your own time—no hurry—make it thorough.
There now—what do you say 1 butter, ain't it 1 Not by a thundering
sight—it’s oleomargarine ! Yes, sir, that's what it is—oleomargarine.
You can't tell it from butter; by George, an expert can't. It’s from
our house. We supply most of the boats in the West; there's hardly
a pound of butter on one of them. We are crawling right along—
jumping right along is the word. We are going to have that entire
trade. Yes, and the hotel trade, too. You axe going to see the day,
pretty soon, when you can't find an ounce of butter to bless yourself
with, in any hotel in the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys, outside of the
biggest cities. Why, we are turning out oleomargarine now by the
thousands of tons. And we can sell it so dirt-cheap that the whole
1 New Orleans Times- Democrat* Aug. 26,1832.

36S

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

country has got to take It—can’t get around it you see. Butter don’t
stand any show—there ain’t any chance for competition. Butter’s
had its day —and from this out, butter goes to the wall. There’s
more money in oleomargarine than—why, you can’t imagine the
business we do. I’ve stopped in every town from Cincinnati to
Natchez; and I’ve sent home big orders from every one of them.’

And so*forth and so-on, for ten minutes longer, in the same fervid
strain. Then New Orleans piped up and said—

6 Yes, it’s a first-
rate imitation, that’s
a certainty; but it
ain’t the only one
around that’s first-
rate. For instance,
they make olive-oil
out of cotton-seed oil,
nowadays, so that
you can’t tell them
apart.’

c Yes, that’s so,’
responded Cincinnati,
‘ and it was a tip-top
business for a while.
They sent it over and
brought it back from
France and Italy,
with the United
States custom-house
mark on it to indorse
it for genuine, and there was no end of cash in it; but France and
Italy broke up the game—of course they naturally would. Cracked
on such a rattling impost that cotton-seed olive-oil couldn’t stand
the raise; had to hang up and quit.’

* Oh, it did, did it % You wait here a minute.’

Goes to his state-room, brings back a couple of long bottles, and
takes out the corks—says :

* There now, smell them, taste them, examino tho bottles, inspect the

MAXVFA CTURES AXD MISCREANTS.

labels. One of m’s from Europe, tbe other’s never been out of this coun¬
try. One’s European olive-oil, the other’s American cotton-seed olive-
oil. Tell’m apart 1 ’Course you can’t. Nobody can. People that want
to, can go to the expense and trouble of shipping their oils to Europe
and back—it’s their privilege ; but our firm knows a trick worth six
of that. We turn out the whole thing—clean from the word go

‘SMELL THEM, TASTE THEM.’

in our factory in New Orleans; labels, bottles, oil, everyt hing .
Well, no, not labels : been buying t/iem abroad—get them dirt-cheap
there. You see, there’s just one little wee speck, essence, or whatever
it is, in a gallon of cotton-seed oil, that give it a smell, or a Savour,
or something—get that out, and you’re all right—perfectly easy then
to turn the oil into any kind of oil you want to, and there ain’t any-

368

LIFE ON TEE MISSISSIPPI-

body that can detect the true from the false. Well, we know how to
get that one little particle out—and we’re the only firm that does.
And we turn out an olive-oil that is just simply perfect—undetectable!
We are doing a ripping trade, too—as 1 could easily show you by my
order-book for this trip. Maybe you’ll butter everybody’s bread pretty
soon, but we’ll cotton-seed his salad for him from the Gulf to Canada,
and that’s a dead-certain thing. 1

Cincinnati glowed and flashed with admiration. The two scoun¬
drels exchanged business-cards, and rose. As they left the table,
Cincinnati said—

4 But you have to have custom-house marks, don’t you? How do
you manage that ? ’

I did not catch the answer.

We passed Port Hudson, scene of two of the most terrific episodes
of the war—the night-battle there between Earragut’s fleet and the
Confederate land batteries, April 14th, 1863; and the memorable
land battle, two months later, which lasted eight hours eight hours
of exceptionally fierce and stubborn fighting—and ended, finally, in
the renuke of the Union forces with great slaughter.

CHAPTER XL.

CASTLES AND CULTURE.

Baton Rouge was clothed in Sowers, like a bride—no, much more
so; like a greenhouse. For we were in the absolute South now—
no modifications, no compromises, no half-way measures. The
magnolia-trees in the Capitol grounds were lovely and fragrant, with
their dense rich foliage and huge snow-ball blossoms. The scent of
the flower is very sweet, but you want distance on it, because it is so
powerful. They are not good bedroom blossoms—they might suffo¬
cate one in his sleep. “We were certainly in the South at last; for
here the sugar region begins, and the plantations—vast green levels,
with sugar-mill and negro quarters clustered together in the middle
distance—were in view. And there was a tropical sun overhead and
a tropical swelter in the air.

And at this point, also, begins the pilot’s paradise : a wide river
hence to Hew Orleans, abundance of water from shore to shore, and
no bars, snags, sawyers, or wrecks in his road.

Sir Walter Scott is probably responsible for the Capitol building;
,for it is not conceivable that this little sham castle would ever have
been built if he had not run the people mad, a couple of generations
ago, with his mediaeval romances. The South has not yet recovered
from the debilitating influence of hiss books. Admiration of his fan¬
tastic heroes and their grotesque ‘ chivalry ’ doings and romantic
juvenilities still survives here, in an atmosphere in which is already
perceptible the wholesome and practical nineteenth-century smell of
cotton-factories and locomotives; and traces of its inflated language
and other windy humbuggeries survive along with it. It is pathetic
enough, that a whitewashed castle, with turrets and things—materials

370

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI .

all ungenuine within and without, pretending to be what they are

no t_should ever have been built in this otherwise honourable place;

but it is much more pathetic to see this architectural falsehood under¬
going restoration and perpetuation in our day, when it would have
been so easy to let dynamite finish what a charitable fire began, and
then devote this restoration-money to the building of something
genuine.

Baton Bouge has no patent on imitation castles, however, and no
monopoly of them. Here is a picture from the advertisement of the
« Female Institute ’ of Columbia, Tennessee. The following remark
is from the same advertisement—

< The Institute building has long been famed as a model of striking and

beautiful architecture. Visi¬
tors are charmed with its
resemblance to tbe old castles
of song and story, with its
towers, turreted walls, and
ivy-mantled porches.’

Keeping school in a
castle is a romantic thing;
as romantic as keeping hotel
in a castle.

By itself the imitation
Columbia female institute. castle is doubtless harmless,

and well enough; but as a
symbol and breeder and sustainer of maudlin Middle-Age romanticism
here in the midst of the plainest and sturdiest and infinitely greatest
and worthiest of all the centuries the world has seen, it is necessarily
a hurtful thing and a mistake.

Here is an extract from the prospectus of a Kentucky * Female
College.’ Female college sounds well enough; but since the phrasing
it in that unjustifiable way was done purely in the interest*of brevity,
it seems to me that she-college would have been still better—because
3 horter, and means the same thing : that is, if either phrase means
anything at all—

< The president is southern by birth, by rearing, by education, and by

CASTLES AND CULTURE 371

sentiment; the teachers are all southern in sentiment, and with the excep¬
tion of those born in Europe were born and raised m the south. Believing
the southern to be the highest type of civilisation this continent has seen, 1

1 Illustrations of it thoughtlessly omitted by the advertiser:

Kjcoxville, Tenn., October 111.—This morning a few minutes after ten
o’clock. General Joseph A. Mabry, Thomas O’Connor, and Joseph A. Mabry,
Jr., were killed in a shooting affray. The difficulty began yesterday afternoon
by General Mabry attacking Major O’Connor and threatening to kill him.
This was at the fair grounds, and O’Connor told Mabry that it was not the
place to settle their difficulties. Mabiy then told O’Connor he should not live.
It seems that Mabry was armed and O'Connor was not. The cause of the
difficulty was an old feud about the transfer of some property from Mabry
to O’Connor. Later in the afternoon Mabry sent word to O’Connor that he
would kill liim on sight. This morning Major O’Connor was standing in the
door of the Mechanics’ National Bank, of which he was president. General
Mabry and another gentleman walked down Gay Street on the opposite side
from the bank. O’Connor stepped into the bank, got a shot gun, took deliber¬
ate aim at General Mabiy and fired. Mabry fell dead, being shot in the left
side. As he fell O’Connor fired again, the shot taking effect in Mabry’s thigh.
O’Connor then reached into the bank and got another shot gun. About this time
Joseph A. Mabry, Jr., son of General Mabry, came rushing down the street,
unseen by O’Connor until within forty feet, when the young man fired a pistol,
the shot taking effect in O’Connor’s right breast, passing through the body
near the heart. The instant Mabry shot, O’Connor turned and fired, the load
taking effect in young Mabry’s right breast and side. Mabry fell pierced with
twenty buckshot, and almost instantly O’Connor fell dead without a struggle.
Mabiy tried to rise, but fell back dead. The whole tragedy occurred within
two minutes, and neither of the three spoke after he was shot. General Mabry
had about thirty buckshot in his body. A bystander was painfully wounded in
the thigh with a buckshot, and another was wounded in the arm. Four other
men had their clothing pierced by buckshot. The affair caused great excite¬
ment, and Gay Street was thronged with thousands of people. General Mabry
and his son Joe were acquitted only a few days ago of the murder of Moses
Lusby and Bon Lusby, father and son, whom they killed a few weeks ago.
Will Mabry was killed by Bon Lusby last Christmas. Major Thomas O’Con¬
nor was President of the Mechanics’ National Bank here, and was the wealthiest
man in the State .—Associated Press Telegram,

One day last month. Professor Sharpe, of the Somerville, Tenn., Female
College, * a quiet and gentlemanly man,’ was told that his brother-in-
law, a Captain Burton, had threatened to kill him. Burton, it seems, had
already killed one man and driven his knife into another. The Professor
armed himself with a double-barrelled shot gun, started out in search of his
brother-in law, found him playing billiards in a saloon, and blew his brains out.
The ‘ Memphis Avalanche ’ reports that the Professor’s course met with pretty

372

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

the young ladies are trained according to the southern ideas of delicacy, re¬
finement, womanhood, religion, and propriety; hence we offer a first-class
female college for the south and solicit southern patronage/

What, warder, ho ! the man that can blow so complacent a blast
as that, probably blows it from a castle.

[From Baton Bouge to New Orleans, the great sugar plantations
border both sides of the river all the way, and stretch their league-wide
levels back to the dim forest-walls of bearded cypress in the rear.
Shores lonely no longer. Plenty of dwellings all the way, on both
banks—standing so close together, for long distances, that the broad
river lying between the two rows, becomes a sort of spacious street.
A most home-like and happy-looking region. And now and then
you see a pillared and porticoed great manor-house, embowered in
trees. Here is testimony of one or two of the procession of foreign
tourists that filed along here half a century ago. Mrs. Trollope
says—

'The unbroken flatness of the banks of the Mississippi continued unvaried
for many miles above New Orleans; but the graceful and luxuriant palmetto,

general approval in the community; knowing that the law was powerless, in
the actual condition of public sentiment, to protect him, he protected himself.

About the same time, two young men in North Carolina qnarrelled about
a girl, and 4 hostile messages ’ were exchanged. Friends tried to reconcile
them, but had their labour for their pains. On the 24th the young men met in
the public highway. One of them had a heavy dub in Ms hand, the other an
axe. The man with the club fought desperately for his life, but it was a hope¬
less fight from the first. A well-directed blow sent his dub whirling out of
his grasp, and the next moment he was a dead man.

About the same time, two 4 highly connected ’ young Virginians, derks in
a hardware store at Charlottesville, while 4 skylarking/ came to blows.
Peter Dick threw pepper in Charles Roads’s eyes; Roads demanded an apo¬
logy ; Dick refused to give it, and it was agreed that a duel was inevitable, but
a difficulty arose; the parties had no pistols, and it was too late at night to
procure them. One of them suggested that butcher-knives would answer the
purpose, and the other accepted the suggestion; the result was that Roads fell
to the floor with a gash in his abdomen that may or may not prove fatal. If
Dick has been arrested, the news has not reached ns. He * expressed deep
regret/ and we are told by a Staunton correspondent of the Philadelphia
Pres* that * every effort has been made to hush the matter up/— Extract*
/rent the Public Journal*.

CASTLES A XT) CCLTCBE.

573

THE PAIiMETTO.

the dark and noble ilex, and the bright orange,
were everywhere to he seen, and it was many
days before we were weary of looking at them.’

Captain Basil Hall—

* The district of country which lies adjacent
to the Mississippi, in the lower parts of Louisiana,
is everywhere thickly peopled by sugar planters,
whose showy houses, gay piazzas, trig gardens,
and numerous slave-villages, all clean and neat,
gave an exceedingly thriving air to the river
scenery.

All the procession paint the attractive
picture in the same way. The descriptions
of fifty years ago do not need to have a word
changed in order to exactly describe the
same region as it appears to-day—except as
to the * trigness 9 of the houses. The white¬
wash is gone from the negro cabins now;
and many, possibly most, of the big mansions,
once so shining white, have worn out their
paint and have a decayed, neglected look.
It is the blight of the war. Twenty-one
years ago everything was trim and trig and
bright along the ‘ coast/ just as it had been
in 1827, as described by those tourists.

374

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

Unfortunate tourists ! People humbugged them with stupid and
silly lies, and then laughed at them for believing and printing the
same. They told Mrs. Trollope that the alligators—or crocodiles, as
she calls them—were terrible creatures; and backed up the statement
with a blood-curdling account of how one of these slandered reptiles
crept into a squatter cabin one night, and ate up a woman and five
children. The woman, by herself, would have satisfied any ordinarily-
impossible alligator; but no, these liars must make him gorge the
five children besides. One would not imagine that jokers of this
robust breed would be sensitive—but they were. It is difficult, at
this day, to understand, and impossible to justify, the inception which
the book of the grave, honest, intelligent, gentle, manly, charitable,
well-meaning Capfc. Basil Hall got. Mrs. Trollope’s account of it
may perhaps entertain the reader; therefore I have put it in the
Appendix. 1

1 See Appendix C-

375

376

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

under his level and out of sight. Similarly, in high-river stage, in
the Hew Orleans region, the water is up to the top of the enclosing
levee-rim, the fiat country behind it lies low—representing the bottom
of a dish—and as the boat swims along, high on the flood, one looks
down upon the houses and into the upper windows. There is nothing
but that frail breastwork of earth between the people and destruc¬
tion.

THE WHABYSS.

The old brick salt-warehouses clustered at the upper end of the
city looked as they had always looked ; warehouses which had had a
kind of Aladdin’s lamp experience, however, since I had seen them;
for when the war broke out the proprietor went to bed one night
leaving them packed with thousands of sacks of vulgar salt, worth a
couple of dollars a sack, and got up in the morning and found his
mountain of salt turned into a mountain of gold, so to speak, so sud¬
denly and to so dizzy a height had the war news sent up the price of
the article*

CA^AE STREET.

THE METROPOLIS OF THE SOUTH 379

The vast reach of plank wharves remained unchanged, and there
were as many ships as ever : but the long array of steamboats had
vanished; not altogether, of course, but not much of it was left.

The city itself had not changed—to the eye. It had greatly
increased in spread and population, but the look of the town was not
altered. The dust, waste-paper-littered, was still deep in the streets;
the deep, trough-like gutters alongside the kerbstones were still half
full of reposeful water with a dusty surface; the sidewalks were still
—in the sugar and bacon region—encumbered by casks and barrels
and hogsheads; the great blocks of austerely plain commercial houses
were as dusty-looking as ever.

Canal Street was finer, and more attractive and stirring than
formerly, with its drifting crowds of people, its se\ eral processions of
hurrying street-cars, and—toward evening—its broad second-story
verandas crowded with gentlemen and ladies clothed according to the
latest mode.

Not that there is any * architecture* in Canal Street: to speak in
broad, general terms, there is no architecture in New Orleans, except
in the cemeteries. It seems a strange thing to say of a wealthy, far-
seeing, and energetic city of a quarter of a million inhabitants, but it
is true. There is a huge granite U. S. Custom-house—costly enough,
genuine enough, but as a decoration it is inferior to a gasometer. It
looks like a state prison. But it was built before the war. Archi¬
tecture in America may be said to have been bora since the war.
New Orleans, I believe, has had the good luck—and in a sense the
bad luck—to have had no great fire in late years. It must be so.
If the opposite had been the case, I think one would be able to tell
the ‘ burnt district * by the radical improvement in its architecture
over the old forms. One can do this in Boston and Chicago. The
‘ burnt district * of Boston was commonplace before the fire j but now
there is no commercial district in any city in the world that can
surpass it—or perhaps even rival it—in beauty, elegance, and taste¬
fulness.

However, New Orleans has begun—-just this moment, as one may
say. When completed, the new Cotton Exchange will be a stately
and beautiful building; massive, substantial, full of architectural
graces; no shams or false pretences or uglinesses about it anywhere.

380

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

To the city, it will be worth many times its cost, for it will breed
its species. What has been lacking hitherto, was a model to build
toward; something to educate eye and taste; a suggested so to
speak.

The city is well outfitted with progressive men—thinking, saga¬
cious, long-headed men. The contrast between the spirit of the city
and the city's architecture is like the contrast between waking and
sleep. Apparently there is a boom ’ in everything but that one
dead feature. The water in the gutters used to be stagnant and
slimy, and a potent disease-breeder; but the gutters are flushed now,
two or three times a day, by powerful machinery; in many of the
gutters the water never stands still, but has a steady current. Other
sanitary improvements have been made; and with such effect that
New Orleans claims to be (during the long intervals between the
occasional yellow-fever assaults) one of the healthiest cities in the
Union. There's plenty of ice now for everybody, manufactured in
the town. It is a driving place commercially, and has a great river,
ocean, and railway business. At the date of our visit, it was the best
lighted city in the Union, electrically speaking. The New Orleans
electric lights were more numerous than those of New York, and
very much better. One had this modified noonday not only in Canal
and some neighbouring chief streets, but all along a stretch of five
miles of river frontage. There are good clubs in the city now—
several of them but recently organised—and inviting modem-style
pleasure resorts at West End and Spanish Fort. The telephone is
everywhere. One of the most notable advances is in journalism.
The newspapers, as I remember them, were not a striking feature.
Now they are. Money is spent upon them with a free hand. They
get the news, let it cost what it may. The editorial work is not
hack-grinding, but literature. As an example of New Orleans jour¬
nalistic achievement, it maybe mentioned that the * Times-Democrat’
of August 26, 1882, contained a report of the year's business of the
towns of the Mississippi Valley, from New Orleans all the way to
St. Paul—two thousand miles. That issue of the paper consisted of
forty pages; seven columns to the page; two hundred and eighty
columns in all; fifteen hundred words to the column; an aggregate
of four hundred and twenty thousand words. That is to say, not

THE METROPOLIS OF THE SOUTH

much short of three times as many words as there are in this book.
One may with sorrow contrast this with the architecture of New
Orleans.

I have been speaking of public architecture only. The domestic
article in New Orleans is reproachless, notwit hstanding it remains as
it always was. All the dwellings are of wood—in the American
part of the town, I mean—and all have a comfortable look. Those

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LIFE ON TEE MISSISSIPPI.

SS2

One even becomes reconciled to tlie cistern presently; this is a
mighty cask, painted green, and sometimes a couple of stories high,
which is propped against the house-corner on stilts. There is a
mansion-and-brewery suggestion about the combination which seems
very incongruous at first. But the people cannot have wells, and
so they take rain-water. Neither can they conveniently have cellars,
or graves ; 1 the town being built upon ‘ made ’ ground; so they
do without both, and few of the living complain, and none of the
others.

1 The Israelites are buried in graves—by permission, I take it, not require¬
ment ; but none else, except the destitute, who are buried at public expense.
The graves are but three or four feet deep.

CHAPTER XLTI.

HYGIENE AND SENTIMENT.

They burr their dead in vaults, above the ground. These vaults
have a resemblance to houses—sometimes to temples; are built of

marble, generally; are architecturally graceful and shapely; they
face the walks and driveways of the cemetery; and whsn one moves

38 4

ZIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

through the midst of a thousand or so of them and sees their white
roofs and gables stretching into the distance on every hand, the
phrase * city of the dead 7 has all at once a meaning to him. Many
of the cemeteries are beautiful, and are kept in perfect order. When
one goes from the levee or the business streets near it, to a cemetery,
he observes to himself that if those people down there would live as
neatly while they are alive as they do after they are dead, they would
find many advantages in it; and besides, their quarter would be the

wonder and admiration of the business world. Fresh flowers, in vases
of water, are to be seen at the portals of many of the vaults : placed
there by the pious hands of bereaved parents and children, husbands
and wives, and renewed daily. A. milder form of sorrow finds its
inexpensive and lasting remembrancer in the coarse and ugly hut
indestructible £ immortelle ’—which is a wreath or cross or some such
emblem, made of rosettes of black linen, with sometimes a yellow
rosette at the conjunction of the cross’s bars—kind of sorrowml

HYGIENE AND SENTIMENT.

385

breast-pin, so to say. The immortelle requires no attention : you just
hang it up, and there you are; just leave it alone, it will take care of
your grief fur you, and keep it in mind better than you can ; stands
weather first-rate, and lasts like boiler-iron.

On sunny days, pretty little chame¬
leons—gracefullest of legged reptiles—
creep along the marble fronts of the
vaults, and catch flies. Their changes
of colour—as to variety—are not up to
the creature's reputation. They change
colour when a person comes along and
hangs up an immortelle; but that is
nothing: any right-feeling reptile would
do that.

I will gradually drop this subject

CHAMELEONS.

of graveyards. I have been trying all I could to get down to the
sentimental part of it, but I cannot accomplish it. I think there is
no genuinely sentimental part to it. It is all grotesque, ghastly,
horrible. Graveyards may have been justifiable in the bygone ages,
when nobody knew that for every dead body put into the ground, to
glut the earth and the plant-roots, and the air with disease-germs.

386

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI,\

live or fifty, or maybe a hundred persons must die before their
proper time; but they are hardly justifiable now, when even the
children know that a dead saint enters upon a centuiy-long career
of assassination the moment the earth closes over his corpse. It
is a grim sort of a thought. The relics of St. Anne, up in Canada,
have now, after nineteen hundred years, gone to curing the sick by
the dozen. But it is merest matter-of-course that these same relics,
within a generation after St. Anne’s death and burial, made several
thousand people sick. Therefore these miracle-performances are simply
compensation, nothing more. St. Anne is somewhat slow pay, for a
Saint, it is true; but better a debt paid after nineteen hundred
years, and outlawed by the statute of limitations, than not paid at
all; and most of the knights of the halo do not pay at all. Where
you find one that pays—like St. Anne—you find a hundred and fifty
that take the benefit of the statute. And none of them pay any
more than the principal of what they owe—they pay none of the
interest either simple or compound. A Saint can never quite return
the principal, however; for his dead body kills people, whereas his
relics heal only—they never restore the dead to life. That part of
the account is always left unsettled.

‘Dr. F. Julius Le Moyne, after fifty years of medical practice, wrote*
“ The inhumation of human bodies, dead from infectious diseases, results in
constantly loading the atmosphere, and polluting the waters, with not only
the germs that rise from simply putrefaction, hut also with the specific germs
of the diseases from which death resulted.”

* The gases (from buried corpses) will rise to the surface through eight or
ten feet of gravel, just as coal-gas will do, and there is practically no limit to
their power of escape.

4 During the epidemic in New Orleans in 1853, Dr. E. H. Barton reported
that in the Fourth District the mortality was four hundred and fifty-two
per thousand—more than double that of any other. In this district were
three large cemeteries, in which during the previous year more than three
thousand bodies had been buried. In other districts the proximity of
cemeteries seemed to aggravate the disease.

‘In 1828 Professor Bianchi demonstrated how the fearful reappearance
of the plague at Modena was caused by excavations in ground where, three
hundred years previously , the victims of the pestilence had been buried. Mr.
Oooper, in explaining the causes of some epidemics, remarks that the opening

HYGIENE AST) SENTIMENT. 387

of the plague burial-grounds at Eyam resulted in an immediate outbreak of
disease/— North American Eevieic, No. 3, Vol. 135.

In an address before the Chicago Medical Society, in advocacy of
cremation. Dr. Charles W. Purdy made some striking comparisons
to show what a burden is laid upon society by the burial of the
dead:—

S88

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI*

For the rich, cremation would answer as well as burial; for the
ceremonies connected with it could be made as costly and ostenta¬
tious as a Hindoo suttee, while for the poor, cremation would be
better than burial, because so cheap‘-so cheap until the poor got to
imitating the rich, which they would do by-and-bye. The adoption
of cremation would relieve us of a muck of threadbare Wl-
witticisms; but, on the other hand, it would resurrect a lot of
mildewed old cremation-jokes that have had a rest for two thousand

^have a coloured acquaintance who earns his living by odd jobs
and heavy manual labour. He never earns above four hundred
dollars in a year, and as he has a wife and several young ; chddren
the closest scrimping is necessary to get him through to the end of
the twelve months detiless. To such a man a funeral is a colossal
financial disaster. ‘While I was writing one of the preceding chap¬
ters, this man lost a little child. He walked the town over with a
friend, trying to find a coffin that was within his means. He bought
the very cheapest one he could find, plain wood stained. It cost
Mm twenty-six dollars. It would have cost less than four, probably,
if it had been built to put something useful into. He and his
family will feel that outlay a good many months.

i Four or five dollars is the m i nim u m cost.

CHAPTER XIJII.

THE ART OF INHUMATION.

About the same time, I encountered a man in the street, whom I
had not seen for six or seven year’s; and something like this talk
followed. I said—

4 But you used to look sad and oldish; you don't now. Where

HE CHUCKLED.

did you get all this youth and bubbling cheerfulness 1 Give me the
address/

He chuckled blithely, took off his shining tile, pointed to a
notched pink circlet of paper pasted into its crown, with something

390

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

lettered on it, and went on chuckling while I read, ‘ J. B- f

undertaker.’ Then he clapped his hat on, gave it an irreverent tilt
to leeward, and cried out—

‘ That’s what’s the matter! It used to be rough times with me
when you knew me—insurance-agency business, you know; mighty
irregular. Big fire, all right—brisk trade for ten days while people
scared; after that, dull policy-business till next fire. Town like this
don’t have fires often enough—a fellow strikes so many dull weeks in
a row that he gets discouraged. But you bet you, this is the
business! People don’t wait for examples to die. Ho, dr, they drop
off right along—there ain’t any dull spots in the undertaker line. I
just started in with two or three little old coffins and a hired hearse,
and now look at the thing! I’ve worked up a business here that
would satisfy any man, don’t care who he is. Five years ago, lodged
in an attic; live in a swell house now, with a mansard roof, and all
the modem inconveniences.’

« Does a coffin pay so well ? Is there much profit on a coffin ? ’

* Go-way ! How you talk! * Then, with a confidential wink, a
dropping of the voice, and an impressive laying of his hand on my
arm; 4 Look here; there’s one thing in this world which isn’t ever
Cheap. That’s a coffin. There’s one thing in this world which a
person don’t ever try to jew you down on. That’s a coffin. There’s
one thing in this world which a person don’t say —“ I’ll look around
a little, and if I find I can’t do better I’ll come back and take it.”
That’s a coffin. There’s one thing in this world which a person
won’t take in pine if he can go walnut; and won’t take in walnut if
he can go mahogany; and won’t take in mahogany if he can go an
iron casket with silver door-plate and bronze handles. That’s a
jy^ffvn- And there’s one thing ir< this world which you don’t have to
worry around after a person to get him to pay for. And that 1 8 a
/yrffin Undertaking %—why it’s the dead-surest business in Christen¬
dom, and the nobbiest.

* Why, just look at it. A rich man won’t have any thin g but your
very best; and you can just pile it on, too—pile it on and sock it to
him —be won’t ever holler. And you take in a poor man, and if you
work him right he’ll bust himself on a single lay-out. Or especially
a woman. F*r instance : Mrs. O’Flaherty comes in—widow—wiping

TRF AMT OF IXHUMA TIOX.

30 }

her eyes and kind of moaning. 17 nkandkerchiefs one eye, bats it
around tearfully over the stock; says—

4 And fhat might ye ask for that wan 1 ”

4 44 Thirty-nine dollars, madam,” says I.

4 44 It's a foine big price, sure, but Pat shall be buried like a gin-
tleman, as he was, if I have to work me fingers off for it. Ill have
that wan, sor.”

e “ Yes, madam,” says I, 4t and it is a very good one, too; not

• WHY, JUST LOOK AT IT.’

costly, to be sure, but in this life we must cut our garment to our
clothes, as the saying is.” And as she starts out, I heave in, kind of
casually, “ This one with the white satin lining is a beauty, hut I am
afraid—well, sixty-five dollars is a rather—rather—but no matter, I
felt obliged to say to Mrs. O’Sbaugbnessy— ”

1 “ D’ye mane to soy that Bridget O’Shaugbnessy bought the
mate to that joo-ul box to ship that dhrunken divil to Purgatory
in?”

4 44 Yes, madam.”

395

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

i tf< Then Pat shall go to heaven in the twin to it, if it takes the
last rap the O’FIaherties can raise; and moind you, stick on some
extras, too, and I’ll give ye another dollar.”

6 And as I lay-in with the livery stables, of course I don’t forget
to mention that Mrs. O’Shaughnessy hired fifty-four dollars’ worth of
hacks and flung as much style into Dennis’s funeral as if he had been
a duke or an assassin. And of course she sails in and goes the

AMBITION.

O’Shaughnessy about four hacks and an omnibus better. That used
to be, but that’s all played now; that is, in this particular town.
The Irish got to piling up hacks so, on their funerals, that a funeral
left them ragged and hungry for two years afterward ; so the priest
pitched in and broke it all up. He don’t allow them to have but two
hacks now, and sometimes only one.’

‘Well,’ said I, c if you are so light-hearted and jolly in ordinary
times, what must you be in an epidemic? ’

He shook his head.

1 No, you’re off, there. We don’t like to see an epidemic. An

393

THE ART OF I.XHVMATIO-X.

epidemic don’t pay. Well, of course I don’t mean that, exactly; hut
it don’t pay in proportion to the regular thing. Don’t it occur to
Ton, why 1 ’

‘ No.’

* Think.’

* I can’t imagine. What is it I ’
6 It’s just two things.’

< Well, what are they 1 ’

* One’s Embamming.
‘And what’s the
other 1 ’

‘ Ice.’

‘ How is that ? ’

‘ Well, in ordi¬
nary times, a person
dies, and we lay him
up in ice; one day,
two days, maybe
three, to wait for
friends to come.
Takes a lot of it
— melts fast. We
charge jewellery
rates for that ice,
and war - prices for
attendance. Well,

AN EXPLANATION.

don’t you know,

when there’s an epidemic, they rush ’em to the cemetery the minute
the breath’s out. No market for ice in an epidemic. Same with Em-
bamming. You take a family that’s able to embam, and you’ve got a
soft thing. You can mention sixteen different ways to do it—though
there ain’t only one or two ways, when you come down to the bottom
facts of it—and they’ll take the highest-priced way, every time. It’s
human nature—human nature in grief. It don’t reason, you see.
Time being, it don’t care a dam. All it wants is physical immor¬
tality for deceased, and they’re willing to pay for it. All you’ve got
to do is to just be ca’m and stack it up—they’ll stand the racket.

394

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

Wbj f man, you can take a defunct that you couldn't give away , and
get your embamming traps around you and go to work; and in a
couple of hours he is worth a cool six hundred—-that’s what he's
worth. There ain’t anything equal to it but trading rats for di’monds
in time of famine. Well, don’t you see, when there’s an epidemic,
people don’t wait to embam. No, indeed they don’t; and it hurts
the business like hellth, as we say—hurts it like hell-th, healthy seel
—Our little joke in the trade. Well, I must be going. Give me a
call whenever you need any—I mean, when you’re going by, some¬
time.’

In his joyful high spirits, he did the exaggerating himself, if any
has been done. I have not enlarged on him.

With the above brief references to inhumation, let us leave the
subject. As for me, I hope to be cremated. I made that remark to
■my pastor once, who said, with what he seemed to think was an
impressive manner—

‘I wouldn’t worry about that, if I had your chances.’

Much he knew about it—the family all so opposed to it

CHAPTER XLIY.

CITY SIGHTS.

The old French part of New Orleans—anciently the Spanish part—
bears no resemblance to the American end of tbe city: the American
end which lies beyond the intervening brick business-centre. The
houses are massed in blocks; are austerely plain and dignified;
uniform of pattern, with here and there & departure from it with
pleasant effect; all are plastered on the outside, and nearly all have
long, iron-railed verandas running along the several storeys. Thedr
chief beauty is the deep, warm, van-coloured stain with which time
and the weather have enriched the plaster. It harmonises with
all the surroundings, and has as natural a look of belonging there
as has the flush upon sunset clouds. This charming decoration
cannot be successfully imitated; neither is it to be found elsewhere
in America.

The iron railings are a speciality, also. The pattern is often
exceedingly light and dainty, and airy and graceful—with a large
cipher or monogram in the centre, a delicate cobweb of baffling,
intricate forms, wrought in steel. The ancient railings are hand¬
made, and are now comparatively rare and proportionately valuable.
They are become 6rio-d-6roc.

The party had the privilege of idling through this ancient quarter
of New Orleans with the South’s finest literary genius, the author of
* the Graadissimes.* In him the South has found a masterly delinear
tor of its interior life and its history. In truth, I find by experience,
that the untrained eye and vacant mind can inspect it, and learn of it,
and judge of it, more clearly and profitably in his books than by per¬
sonal contact with it.

396

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

With Mr. Cable along to see for you, and describe and explain
and illuminate, a jog through .that old quarter is a vivid pleasure.
And you have a vivid sense as of unseen or dimly seen things—vivid,
and yet fitful and darkling; you glimpse salient features, but lose the
fine shades or catch them imperfectly through the vision of the

THE ST. CHAELES HOTEL.

ima gination: a case, as it were, of ignorant near-sighted stranger
traversing the rim of wide vague horizons of Alps with an inspired
and enlightened long-sighted native.

We visited the old St. Xjouis Hotel, now occupied by municipal

CITY SIGHTS*

397

offices. There is nothing strikingly remarkable about it; but one
can say of it as of the Academy of Music in New York, that if a
broom or a shovel has ever been used in it there is no circumstantial
evidence to back up the fact. It is curious that cabbages and hay
and things do not grow in the Academy of Music; but no doubt it is
on account of the interruption of the light by the benches, and the
impossibility of hoeing the crop except in the aisles. The feet that
the ushers grow their buttonhole-bouquets on the premises shows
what might be done if they had the right kind of an agricultural
head to the establishment.

We visited also the venerable Cathedral, and the pretty square in
front of it; the one dim with religions light, the other brilliant with
the worldly sort, and lovely with orange-trees and blossomy shrubs;
then we drove in the hot sun through the wilderness of houses and
out on to the wide dead level beyond, where the villas are, and the
water wheels to drain the town, and the commons populous with
cows and children; passing by an old cemetery where we were told
lie the ashes of an early pirate; but we took him on trust, and did
not visit him. He was a pirate with a tremendous and sanguinary
history; and as long as he preserved unspotted, in retirement, the
dignity of his name and the grandeur of his ancient calling, homage
and reverence were his from high and low; but when at last he
descended into politics and became a paltry alderman, the public
* shook * him, and turned aside and wept. When he died, they set up
a monument over him ; and little by little he has come into respect
again ; but it is respect for the pirate, not the alderman. To-day the
loyal and generous remember only what he was, and charitably forget
what he became.

Thence, we drove a few miles across a swamp, along a raised
shell road, with a canal on one hand and & dense wood on the other ;
and here and there, in the distance, a ragged and angular-limbed and
moss-bearded cypress, top standing out, dear cut against the sky, and
as quaint of form as the apple-trees in Japanese pictures—such was
our course and the surroundings of it. There was an occasional
alligator swimming comfortably along in the canal, and an occasional
picturesque coloured person on the bank, flinging his statue-rigid
reflection upon the still water and watching for a bite.

398

LIFE 0-V TEE MISSISSIPPI.

And by-and-bye we reached the West End, a collection of hotels
of the usual light summer-resort pattern, with broad verandas all
around, and the waves of the wide and blue Lake Pontchartrain
lapping the thresholds. We had dinner on a ground-veranda over
the water—the chief dish the renowned fish called the pompano,
delicious as the less criminal forms of sin.

Thousands of people come by rail and carriage to West End and
to Spanish Port every evening, and dine, listen to the bands, take
strolls in the open air under the electric lights, go sailing on the lake,
and entertain themselves in various and sundry other ways.

THE SHELL BOAD.

We had opportunities on other days and in other places to test
the pompano. Notably, at an editorial dinner at one of tbe clubs in
the city. He was in his last possible perfection there, and justified
Ms fame. In Ms suite was a tall pyramid of scarlet cray-fish—large
ones; as large as one’s thumb—delicate, palatable, appetising. Also
devilled wMtebait; also shrimps of choice quality ; and a platter of
small soft-shell crabs of a most superior breed. The other dishes were
what one might get at Delmonioo’s, or Buckingham Palace; those I

CU V SIGHTS.

399

have spoken of can be had in similar perfection in Xew Orleans only,
I suppose.

In the West and South they have a new institution—the Broom
Brigade. It is composed of young ladies who dress in a uniform cos¬
tume, and go through the infantry drill, with broom in place of musket.
It is a very pretty sight, on private view. When they perform on
the stage of a theatre, in the blaze of coloured fires, it must be a fine
and fascinating spectacle I saw them go through their complex
manual with grace, spirit, and admirable precision. I saw them do
everything which a human being can possibly do with a broom, except

f -

I d

SPANISH FOET.

sweep. I did not see them sweep. But I know they could learn.
What they have already learned proves that. And if they ever
should learn, and should go on the war-path down Tchoupitoulas or
some of those other streets around there, those thoroughfares would
bear a greatly improved aspect in a very few minutes. But the
girls themselves wouldn’t; so nothing would be really gained, after
alL

The drill was in the Washington Artillery building. In this

400

LIFE 021 TEE MISSISSIPPI.

building we saw many interesting relics of the war. Also a fine oil-
painting representing Stonewall Jackson’s last interview with General
Lee. Both men are on horseback. Jackson has just ridden up, and
is accosting Lee. The picture is very valuable, on account of the
portraits, which are authentic. But like many another .Instorical

picture, it means nothing without its label. And one label will fit it
as well as another—

First Interview between Lee and Jackson.

Last Interview between Lee and Jackson.

Jackson Introducing Himself to Lee.

Jackson Accepting Lee's Invitation to Dinner.

cur SIGHTS.

401

Jackson Declining Lee’s Invitation to Dinner—with Thanks.

Jackson Apologising for a Heavy Defeat.

Jackson Reporting a Great Victory.

Jackson Asking Lee for a Match.

It tells one story, and a sufficient one; for it says quite plainly
and satisfactorily, 4 Here are Lee and Jackson together.’ The artist
would have made it tell that this is Lee and Jackson’s last interview
if he could have done it. But he couldn’t, for there wasn’t any way
to do it. A good legible label is usually worth, for information, a ton
of significant attitude and expression in a historial picture. In Rome,
people with fine sympathetic natures stand up and weep in front of
the celebrated ‘Beatrice Cenci the Day before her Execution.’ It
shows what a label can do. If they did not know the picture,
they would inspect it unmoved, and say, 4 Young girl with hay fever;
young girl with her head in a bag/

I found the half-forgotten Southern intonations and elisions as
pleasing to my ear as they had formerly been. A Southerner talks
music. At least it is music to me, but then I was born in the South.
The educated Southerner has no use for an r, except at the beginning
of a word. He says 4 hon&h,’ and 4 dinnah,* and 4 Gove’nuh/ and
4 befo’ the waw,’ and so on. The words may lack charm to the eye,
in print, but they have it to the ear. When did the r disappear
from Southern speech, and how did it come to disappear % The custom
of dropping it was not borrowed from the North, nor inherited from
England. Many Southerners—most Southerners—put a y into occa¬
sional words that begin with the k sound. For instance, they say Mr.
K’yahtah (Carter) and speak of playing k’yahds or of riding in the
k’yahs. And they have the pleasant custom—long ago fallen into
decay in the North—of frequently employing the respectful 4 Sir.
Instead of the curt Yes, and the abrupt No, they say * Yes, Sub ’

4 No, Sah/

But there are some infelicities. Such as 4 like ’ for 4 as,’ and the
addition of an 4 at * where it isn’t needed. I heard an educated gentle¬
man say, * Like the flag-officer did/ His cook or his butler would
have said, ‘Like the flag-officer done/ You hear gentlemen say,
‘Where have you been at?’ And here is the aggravated form—
heard a ragged street Arab say it to a comrade: 4 1 was a-ask’n’ Tom

p D

402

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

whah yon was a-sett n at. The very elect carelessly say ‘ will 5 when
they mean * shall ’; and many of them say, ‘ I didn’t go to do it/

meaning ‘ I didn’t mean to do it.’ The Northern word ‘ guess ’_

imported from England, where it used to be common, and now
regarded by satirical Englishmen as a Yankee original—is but little
used among Southerners. They say ‘ reckon/ They haven’t any

* WHAH YOU WAS?*

‘ doesn’t ’ in their language; they
say e don’t’ instead. The unpol¬
ished often use ‘went’ for ‘gone.’
It is nearly as bad as the Northern
‘ hadn’t ought/ This reminds me
that a remark of a very peculiar
nature was made here in my neigh¬
bourhood (in the North) a few days
ago: ‘ He hadn’t ought to have

went/ How is that? Isn’t that a

good deal of a triumph % One knows
the orders combined in this half-
breed’s architecture without inquire
ing; one parent Northern, the
other Southern. To-day I heard a ,
schoolmistress ask, ‘ Where is John
gone % ’ This form is so common—
so nearly universal, in fact—that
if she had used ‘whither’ instead
of ‘ where/ I think it would have
sounded like an affectation.

We picked up one excellent word
—a word worth travelling to New
Orleans to get; a nice limber, ex- ;

pressive, handy word—‘ lagniappe.’
They pronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish—so they said. We dis¬
covered it at the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune,
the first day; heard twenty people use it the second; inquired what
it meant the third; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth.
It has a restricted meani ng , but I think the people spread it out a little i
when they choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a .

FOE LAGSIAPPE.’

CITY SIGHTS.

405

4 baker’s dozen.’ It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure.
The custom originated in the Spanish quarter of the city. When a child' *
or a servant buys something in a shop—or even the mayor or the
governor, for aught I know—he finishes the operation by saying—

4 Give me something for lagniappe.’

The shopman always responds ; gives the child a bit of liquorice-
root, gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives
the governor—I don’t know what he gives the governor ; support,
likely.

When you are invited to drink, and this does occur now and then in
New Orleans—and you say, 4 What, again 1—no, I’ve had enough ; 9 the
other party says, 4 But just this one time more—this is for lagniappe.’
When the beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifie
too high, and sees by the young lady’s countenance that the edifice
would have been better with the top compliment left off, he puts
bis 4 1 beg pardon—no harm intended,’ into the briefer form of 4 Ob,
that’s for lagniappe.’ If the waiter in the restaurant stumbles and
spills a gill of coffee down the back of your neck, he says 4 For lagni¬
appe, sah,’ and gets you another cup without extra charge.

406

L1F2 ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

CHAPTER XLV*

SOUTHERN SPORTS

In the North one hears the war mentioned, in social conversation,
once a month; sometimes as often as once a week; but as a distinct
subject for talk, it has long ago been relieved of duty. There are
sufficient reasons for this. Given a dinner company of six gentlemen
to-day, it can easily happen that four of them—and possibly five—
were not in the held at all. So the chances are four to two, or five
to one, that the war will at no time during the evening become tht
topic of conversation ; and the chances are still greater that if it
become the topic it wiL remain so but a little while. If you add six
ladies to the company, you have added six people who saw so little of
the dread realities of the war that they ran out of talk concerning
them years ago, and now would soon weary of the war topic if you
brought it up.

The case is very different in the South. There, every man you
meet was in the war * and every lady you meet saw the war. The
war is the great chief topic of conversation. The interest in it is
vivid and constant; the interest in other topics is fleeting. Mention
of the war will wake up a dull company and set their tongues going,
when nearly any other topic would fail. In the South, the war is
what A.D. is elsewhere : they date from it. All day long you hear
things ‘placed' as having happened since the waw; or du’in’ the
waw ; or befo’ the waw ; or right aftah the waw ; or ’bout two yeahs
or five yeahs or ten yeahs befo* the waw or aftah the waw. It shows
how intimately every individual was visited, in his own person, by
that tremendous episode. It gives the inexperienced stranger a better

SOVTJTPPN SPOUTS.

407

idea of what a vast and comprehensive calamity invasion is than he
can ever get by reading books at the fireside.

At a club one evening, a gentleman turned to me and said, in an
aside—

* You notice, of course, that we are nearly always talking about
the war. It isn’t because we
havn't anything else to talk
about, but because nothing else
has so strong an interest for us.

And there is another reason :

In the war, each of us, in bis
own person, seems to have
sampled all the different varie¬
ties of human experience 3 as
a consequence, you can’t men
tion an outside matter of any
sort but it will certainly remind
some listener of something that
happened during the war—and
out he comes with it. Of
course that brings the talk
back to the war. You may
try all you want to, to keep
other subjects before the house,
and we may all join in and
help, but there can be but
one result: the most random
topic would load every man up
with war reminiscences, and
shut him up, too; and talk
would be likely to stop pre- 4 waw talk.’

sently, because you can’t talk

pale inconsequentialiti.es when you’ve got a crimson fact or fan cy in
your head that you are burning to fetch out/

The poet was sitting some little distance away 3 and presently he
began to speak—about the moon.

The gentleman who had been talking to me remarked in an

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

* aside : f c There, the moon is far enough from the seat of war, but
you will see that it will suggest something to someboby about the
war; in ten minutes from now the moon, as a topic, will be shelved.*
The poet was saying he had noticed something which was a
surprise to him ; had had the impression that down here, toward the
equator, the moonlight was much stronger and brighter than up
North ; had had the impression that when he visited New Orleans,
many years ago, the moon —

Interruption from the other end of the room—

* Let me explain + hat. Reminds me of an anecdote. Everything
is changed since the war, for better or for worse; but youTl find
people down Here bom grumblers, wbo see no change except the
change for the worse. There was an old hegro woman of this sort,
A young New-Yorker said in her presence, “ What a wonderful moon
you have down here 1 19 She sighed and said, “ Ah, bless yo* heart,
honey, you ought to seen dat moon befo* de waw ! ” 9

The new topic was dead already. But the poet resurrected it,
and gave it a new start.

A brief dispute followed, as to whether the difference between
Northern and Southern moonlight really existed or was only ima-
gii ed. Moonlight talk drifted easily into talk about artificial methods
of dispelling darkness. Then somebody remembered that when
.Farragot advanced upon Port Hudson on a dark night—and did not
wish to assist the aim of the Confederate gunners—he carried no
battle-lanterns, but painted the decks of his ships white, and thus
created a dim but valuable light, which enabled his own men to
grope their way around with considerable facility. At this point the
war got the floor again—the ten minutes not quite up yet.

X was not sorry, for war talk by men who have been in a war is
always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been
in the moon is likely to be dulL

We went to a cockpit in New Orleans on a Saturday afternoon.
I had never seen a cock-fight before. There were men and boys there
of all ages and all colours, and of many languages and nationalities.
But I noticed one quite conspicuous and surprising absence: the
traditional brutal faces. There were no brutal faces. With no
cock-fighting going on, you could have played the gathering on a

SOVTBERX SPORTS.

403

stranger for a prayer-meeting; and after it began, for a revival—
provided you blindfolded your stranger—for the shouting was some¬
thing prodigious.

410

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

the cooks had been fighting some little time, I was expecting them
momently to drop dead, for both were blind, red with blood, and so
exhausted that they frequently fell down. Yet they would not
give up, neither would they die. The negro and the white man
would pick them up every few seconds, wipe them off, blow cold
water on them in a fine spray, and take their heads in their mouths
and hold them there a moment—to warm back the perishing life
perhaps; I do not know. Then, being set down again, the dying
creatures would totter gropingly about, with dragging wings, find
each other, strike a guess-work blow or two, and fall exhausted once
more.

I did not see the end of the battle. I forced myself to endure it
as long as I could, but it was too pitiful a sight; so I made frank
confession to that effect, and we retired. We heard afterward that
the black cock died in the ring, and fighting to the last.

Evidently there is abundant fascination about this £ sport ’ for
such as have had a degree of familiarity with it. I never saw people
enjoy anything more than this gathering enjoyed this fight. The case
was the same with old grey-heads and with boys of ten. They lost
themselves in fr enzies of delight. The ‘ cocking-mam’ is an inhuman
sorb of entertainment, there is no question about that; still, it seems
a much more respectable and far less cruel sport than fox-hunting—
for the cocks-like it; they experience, as well as confer enjoyment;
which is not the fox’s case.

We assisted—in the French sense—at a mule race, one day. I
believe I enjoyed this contest more than any other mule there. I
enjoyed it more than I remember having enjoyed any other animal
race I ever saw. The grand stand was well filled with the beauty
and the chivalry of New Orleans. That phrase is not original with me.
It is the Southern reporter’s. He has used it for two generations.
He uses it twenty tames a day, or twenty thousand times a day; or a
million times a day—according to the exigencies. He is obliged to
use it a million times a day, if he have occasion to speak of
respectable men and women that often; for he has no other phrase
for such service except that single one. He never tires of it; it
always has a fine sound to him. There is a kind of swell mediaeval
bulliness and tinsel about it that pleases his gaudy barbaric souL

SOrTHERS SPOUTS.

411

If be bad been in Palestine in the early times, we should have
bad no references to 4 much people ’ out of him. No, be would
have said ‘the beauty and the chivalry of Galilee’ assembled to
hear the Sermon on the

Mount. It is likely
that the men and
women of the South
are sick enough of that
phrase by this time,
and would like a
change, but there is
no immediate prospect
of their getting it.

The New Orleans
editor has a strong,
compact, direct, un¬
do wery style; wastes
no words, and does not
gush. Not so with his
average correspondent.
In the Appendix I
have quoted a good
letter, penned by a
trained hand; but the
average correspondent
hurls a style which
differs from that. For
instance—

The f Times-Demo-
crat 7 sent a relief-
steamer up one of the
bayous, last April.
This steamer landed at

GUESTS.

a village, up there some¬
where, and the Captain invited some of the ladies of the village to make
a short trip with him. They accepted and came aboard, and the
steamboat shoved out up the creek. That was all there was ‘to it. ?

LIFE ON* THE MISSISSIPPI.

112

A nd that is all that the editor of the ‘ Times-Democrat * would have
got out of it. There was nothing in the thing but statistics, and he
would have got nothing else out of it. He would probably have
even tabulated them, partly to secure perfect dearness of statement,
and partly to save space. But his special correspondent knows other
methods of handling statistics. He just throws off all restraint and
wallows in them—

* On Saturday, early in the morning, the beauty of the place graced onr
cabin, and proud of her fair freight the gallant little boat glided up the
bayou. 7

Twenty-two words to say the ladies came aboard and the boat
shoved out up the creek, is a dean waste of ten good words, and is
also destructive of compactness of statement.

The trouble with the Southern reporter is—Women. They
unsettle him ; they throw him off his balance. He is plain, and
sensible, and satisfactory, until a woman heaves in sight. Then he
goes all to pieces; his mind totters, he becomes flowery and idiotic.
From reading the above extract, you would imagine that this student
of Sir Walter Scott is an apprentice, and knows next to nothing about
handling a pen. On the contrary, he furnishes plenty of proofs, in
his long letter, that he knows well enough how to handle it when the
women are not around to give him the artificial-flower complaint.
For instance—

* At 4 o'clock ominous clouds began to gather in the south-east, and pre¬
sently from the Gulf there came a blow which increased in severity every
moment. It was not safe to leave the landing then, and there was a delay.
The oaks shook off long tresses of their mossy beards to the tugging of the
wind, and the bayou in its ambition put on miniature waves in mocking of
much larger bodies of water. A lull permitted a start, and homewards we
steamed, an inky sky overhead and a heavy wind blowing. As darkness
crept on, there were few on board who did not wish themselves nearer home.'

There is nothing the matter with that. It is good description,
compactly put. Yet there was great temptation, there, to drop into
lurid writing.

But let us return to the mule. Since I left him, I have rum¬
maged around and found a full report of the race. In it I find con

80VTHEMN SPOUTS.

415

firmation of the theory which I broached just now—namely, that the
trouble with the Southern reporter is Women: Women, supple¬
mented by Walter Scott and his knights and beauty and chivalry,
and so on. This is an excellent report, as long as the women stay
out of it. But when they intrude, we have this frantic result—

* It will be probably a long time before the ladies' stand presents such a
sea of foam-like loveliness as it did yesterday. The New Orleans women are
always charming, but never so much so as at this time of the year, when in
their dainty spring costumes they bring with them a breath of balmy fresh¬
ness and an odour of sanctity unspeakable. The stand was so crowded with
them that, walking at their feet and seeing no possibility of approach, many
a man appreciated as he never did before the Peri's feeling at the Gates of
Paradise, and wondered what was the priceless boon that would admit him
to their sacred presence. Sparkling on their white-robed breasts or shoulders
were the colours of their favourite knights, and were it nut for the fact that
the doughty heroes appeared on unromantic mules, it would have been easy
to imagine one of King Arthur's gala-days.’

There were thirteen mules in the first heat; all sorts of mules,
they were; all sorts of complexions, gaits, dispositions, aspects. Some
were handsome creatures, some were not; some were sleek, some hadn’t
had their fur brushed lately ; some were innocently gay and frisky ;
some were full of malice and all unrighteousness; guessing from looks,
some of them thought the matter on hand was war, some thought it
was a lark, the rest took it for a religious occasion. And each mule
acted according to his convictions. The result was an absence of har¬
mony well compensated by a conspicuous presence of variety—variety
of a picturesque and entertaining sort.

All the riders were young gentlemen in fashionable society. If
the reader has been wondering why it is that the ladies of New
Orleans attend so humble an orgy as a mule-race, the thing is ex¬
plained now. It is a fashion-freak; all connected with it are people
of fashion.

It is great fun, and cordially liked. The mule-race is one of the
marked occasions of the year. It has brought some pretty fast mules
to the front. One of these had to be ruled out, because he was so
fast that he turned the thing into a one-mule contest, and robbed it of
one of its best features—variety. But every now and then somebody

4:14

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

disguises him with a new name and a new complexion, and rings him
in again.

The riders dress in full jockey costumes of bright-coloured silks,
satins, and velvets.

The thirteen mules got away in a body, after a couple of false
starts, and scampered off with prodigious spirit. As each mule and
each rider had a distinct opinion of his own as to how the race ought
to be run, and which side of the track was best in certain circum¬
stances, and how often the track ought to be crossed, and when a
collision ought to be accomplished, and when it ought to be avoided

these twenty-six conflicting opinions created a most fantastic and
picturesque confusion, and the resulting spectacle was killingly
comical.

Mile heat; time 2*22. Eight of the thirteen mules distanced. I
had a bet on a mule which would have won if the procession had
been reversed. The second heat was good fun; and so was the ‘ con¬
solation race for beaten mules,' which followed later; but the first
heat was the best in that respect.

I think that much the most enjoyable of all races is a steamboat
race; but, next to that, I prefer the gay and joyous mule-rush. Two

SOUTUERX SPORTS .

415

red-hot steamboats raging along, neck-and-neck, straining every nerve
—that is to say, every rivet in the boilers—quaking and shaking and
groaning from stem to stem, spouting white steam from the pipes,
pouring black smoke from the chimnevs, raining down sparks, parting

COLLISIONS.

the river into long breaks of hissing foam
—this is sport that makes a body’s very
liver curl with enjoyment. A horse-race
is pretty tame and colourless in compari¬
son. Still, a horse-race might be well
enough, in its way, perhaps, if it were
' c N not for the tiresome false starts. But then,

nobody is ever killed. At least, nobody was ever killed when X was
at a horse-race. They have been crippled, it is true } but this is little
to the purpose.

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

416

CHAPTER XETL

ENCHANTMENTS AND ENCHANTERS.

Tee largest annual event in New Orleans is a something which
we arrived too late to sample—the Mardi-Gras festivities. I saw the
procession of the Mystic Crew of Comus there, twenty four-years ago
—with knights and nobles and so on, clothed in silken and golden
Paris-made gorgeousnesses, planned and bought for that single night’s
use; and in their train all manner of giants, dwarfs, monstrosities,
and other diverting grotesquerie—a startling and wonderful sort of
show, as it filed solemnly and silently down the street in the light of
its smoking and dickering torches; but it is said that in these latter
days the spectacle is mightily augmented, as to cost, splendour, and
variety. There is a chief personage—‘ Rex; * and if I remember rightly,
neither this king nor any of his great following of subordinates is
known to any outsider. All these people are gentlemen of position
and consequence; and it is a proud thing to belong to the organisa¬
tion ; so the mystery in which they hide their personality is merely
for romance’s sake, and not on account of the police.

Mardi-Gras is of course a relic of the French and Spanish occupa¬
tion ; but I judge that the religious feature has been pretty well
knocked out of it now. Sir Walter has got the advantage of the
gentlemen of the cowl and rosary, and he will stay. His mediaeval
business, supplemented by the monsters and the oddities, and the
pleasant creatures from fairy-land, is finer to look at than the poor
fantastic inventions and performances of the revelling rabble of the
priest’s day, and serves quite as well, perhaps, to emphasize the day
and admonish men that the grace-line between the worldly season
and the holy one is reached.

EXCHAXTMEXTS AXE EXCHAXTEBS.

417

This Mardi-Grus pageant was the exclusive possession of New
Orleans until recently. But now it has spread to Memphis and St.
Louis and Baltimore. It has probably reached its limit. It is a

MABDI-GRAS.

thing which could hardly exist in the practical North ; would cer¬
tainly last but a very brief time; as brief a time as it would last in
Liondon. For the soul of it is the romantic, not the funny and the

E E

418

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

grotesque. Take away the romantic mysteries, the kings and knights
and big-sounding titles, and Mardi-Gras would die, down there in the
South. The very feature that keeps it alive in the South—girly.
girly romance—would kill it in the North or in London. Puck and
Punch, and the press universal, would fall upon it and make merciless
fun of it, and its first exhibition would be also its last.

Against the crimes of the French Revolution and of Bonaparte
may be set two compensating benefactions: the Revolution broke the
chains of the cmcien regime and of the Church, and made of a nation
of abject slaves a nation of freemen; and Bonaparte instituted the
setting of merit above birth, and also so completely stripped the
divinity from royalty, that whereas crowned heads in Europe were
gods before, they are only men, since, and can never he gods again,
but only figure-heads, and answerable for their acts like common clay.
Such benefactions as these compensate the temporary harm which
Bonaparte and the Revolution did, and leave the world in debt to
them for these great and permanent services to liberty, humanity, and
progress.

Then comes Sir Walter Scott with his enchantments, and by his
single might checks this wave of progress, and even turns it back; sets
the world in love with dreams and phantoms; with decayed and
swinish forms of religion; with decayed and degraded systems of
government; with the sillinesses and emptinesses, sham grandeurs,
sham gauds, and sham chivalries of a brainless and worthless long-
vanished society. He did measureless harm; more real and lasting
harm, perhaps, than any other individual that ever wrote. Most of
the world has now outlived good part of these harms, though by no
means all of them; but in our South they flourish pretty forcefully
stall Not so forcefully as half a generation ago, perhaps, but still
forcefully* There, the genuine and wholesome civilisation of the
nineteenth century is curiously confused and commingled with the
Walter Scott Middle-Age sham civilisation; and so you have practical,
common-sense, progressive ideas, and progressive works, mixed up
with the duel, the inflated speech, and the jejune romanticism of an
absurd past that is dead, and out of charity ought to be buried. But
for the Sir Walter disease, the character of the Southerner—or
Southron, according to Sir Walter’s starchier way of phrasing it—

*20

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, &a
it existed before the war, that he is in great measure responsible for
the war. It seems a little harsh toward a dead man to say that
never should have had any war but for Sir Walter; and yet some¬
thing of a plausible argument might, perhaps, be made in support of
that wild proposition. The Southerner of the American Revolution
owned slaves; so did the Southerner of the Civil War: but the
former resembles the latter as an Englishman resembles a Frenchman.
The change of character can be traced rather more easily to Sir
Walter’s influence than to that of any other thing or person.

One may observe, by one or two signs, how deeply that influence
penetrated, and how strongly it holds. If one take up a Northern
or Southern literary periodical of forty or fifty years ago, he will find
it filled with wordy, windy, flowery 4 eloquence,’ romanticism, senti¬
mentality—all imitated from Sir Walter, and sufficiently badly done,
too—innocent travesties of his style and methods, in fact. This sort
of literature being the fashion in both sections of the country, there
was opportunity for the fairest competition; and as a consequence,
the South was able to show as many well-known literary names, pro¬
portioned to population, as the North could.

But a change has come, and there is no opportunity now fora
Mr competition between North and South. For tlie North has
thrown out that old inflated style, whereas the Southern writer still
clings to it— clings to it and has a restricted market for his wares, as
a consequence. There is as much literary talent in the South, no^,
as ever there was, of course; but its work can gain but slight cur¬
rency under present conditions; the authors write for the past, not
the present; they use obsolete forms, and a dead language. But
when a Southerner of genius writes modern English, his book goes
upon cratches no longer, but upon wings; and they carry it swiftly
all about America and England, and through the great English
reprint pu bl i shi ng bouses of Germany—as witness the experience of
Mr. Gable and Uncle Remus, two of the very few Southern authors
who do not write in the Southern style. Instead of three or four
widely-known literary names, the South ought to have a dozen or
two—and will have them when Sir Walter’s time is ont.

A curious exemplification of the power of a single book for goal

421

EXCffAMMLXTS AXD EXCHAS7EB8.

or harm is shown in the effects wrought hy 4 Don Quixote and those
wrought by 4 Ivanhoe.’ The first swept the worlds admiration for the
mediaeval chivalry-silliness out of existence; and the other restored
it. As far as our South is concerned, the good work done by
Cervantes is prettv nearly a dead letter, so effectually has Scott s per¬
nicious work undermined it.

4 ££

HIM ON TMM MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTER XLVIjl

UNCLE REMUS AND MR. CABLE.

Mr. Joel Chandler Ha rris ( c TJncle Remus’) was to arrive from
Atlanta at seven o’clock Sunday morning; so we got up and received
him. We were able to detect him among the crowd of arrivals at
the hotel-counter by his correspondence with a description of him
which had been furnished us from a trustworthy source. He was
said to be undersized, red-haired, and somewhat freckled. He was
the only man in the party whose outside tallied with this bill of
particulars. He was said to be very shy. He is a shy man. Of
this there is no doubt. It may not show on the surface, but the
shyness is there. After days of intimacy one wonders to see that it
is still in about as strong force as ever. There is a fine and beautiful
nature hidden behind it, as all know who have read the Uncle
Remus book; and a fine genius, too, as all know by the same sign.
I seen to be talking quite freely about this neighbour; but in
talking to the public I am but talking to his personal friends, and
these things are permissible among friends.

He deeply disappointed a number of children who had flocked
eagerly to Mr. Cable’s house to get a glimpse of the illustrious sage
fr-nd oracle of the nation’s nurseries. They said—

‘Why, he’s white! ’

They were grieved about it. So, to console them, the book
was brought, that they might hear Unde Remus’s Tar-Baby story
from the lips of Unde Remus himself—or what, in their outraged
eyes, was left of him. Rut it turned out that he had never read
aloud to people, and was too shy to venture the attempt now, Mr.

UNCLE BEJfCS AXD MB. CABLE.

423

Cable and I read from lxx>ks of ours, to show him what an easy
trick it was; but his immortal shyness was proof against even this
sagacious strategy, so we had to read about Brer Babbit ourselves.

Mr. Harris ought to be able to read the negro dialect better than
anybody else, for in the matter of
writing it he is the only master the
country has produced. Mr. Cable is
the only master in the writing of
French dialects that the country has
produced ; and he reads them in per¬
fection. It was a great treat to bear
him read about Jean-aii Poquelin, and
about Innerarity and his famous ‘ pig-
shoo ’ representing 4 Louisihanna in¬
fusing to Hanter the Union/ along
with passages of nicely-shaded Ger¬
man dialect from a novel which was
still in manuscript.

It came out in conversation, that
in two different instances Mr. Cable
got into grotesque trouble by using, in
his books, next-to-impossible French
names which nevertheless happened
to be borne by living and sensitive
citizens of New Orleans. His names
were either inventions or were bor¬
rowed from the ancient and obsolete
past, I do not now remember which ;
but at any rate living bearers of them
turned up, and were a good deal hurt
at having attention directed to them¬
selves and their affairs in so exces- uncle remits.

sively public a manner.

Mr. Warner and I had an experience of the same sort when we
wrote the book called * The Gilded Age/ There is a character in it
called < Sellers/ I do not remember what his first name was, in the
beginning; but anyway, Mr. Warner did not like it, and wanted it

424

LIFE ON TEE MISSISSIPPI.

improved. He asked me if I was able to imagine a person named
c Eschol Sellers." Of course I said I could not, without stimulants.
He said that away out West, once, he had met, and contemplated, and
actually shaken hands with a man bearing that impossible name—
‘Eschol Sellers. 5 He added—

fW"

j^£*|

•\ t'i

V//A ‘

tarn.

Wfi READ ALOUD.

* It was twenty years ago; his name has probably carried him off
before this \ and if it hasn’t, he will never see the book anyhow.
We will confiscate his name. The name you are using is common,
and therefore dangerous; there are probably a thousand Sellerses
bearing it, and the whole horde will come after us; but Eschol
Sellers is a safe name—it is a rock. 5

425

VXCLE REM VS AXE MR CABLE,

So we borrowed that name; and when the book had been out
about a week, one of the stateliest and handsomest and most aristo¬
cratic looking white men that ever lived, called around, with the
most formidable libel suit in his pocket that ever—well, in brief,
we got his permission to suppress an edition of ten million 1 copies
of the book and change that name to £ Mulberry Sellers 1 in future
editions.

1 Figures taken from memory, and probably incorrect. Think it was more.

MINE ON THE MISSISSIPPI*

426

CHAPTER XLVIJI.

SUGAK AND POSTAGE.

One day, on the street, I encountered the man whom, of all man, 1
most wished to see—Horace Bixby; formerly pilot under me—or
rather, over me—now captain of the great steamer * City of Baton
Rouge,* the latest and swiftest addition to the Anchor Line. The
same slender figure, the same tight curls, the same springy step, the
same alertness, the same decision of eye and answering decision of
hand, the same erect military bearing ; not an inch gained or lost in
girth, not an ounce gained or lost in weight, not a hair turned. It is
a curious thing, to leave a man thirty-five years old, and come back
at the end cf twenty-one years and find him still only thirty-five. I
have not had an experience ©f this kind before, I believe Them
were some crow’s-feet, but they counted for next to nothing, since
they were inconspicuous.

His boat was just in. I had been waiting several days for her,
purposing to return to St. Louis in her. The captain and I joined a
party of ladies and gentlemen, guests of Major Wood, and went down
the river fifty-four miles, in a swift tug, to ex-Goveraor Warmouth’s
sugar plantation. Strung along below the city, were a number of
decayed, ram-shackly, superannuated old steamboats, not one of
which had I ever seen before. They had all been built, and worn
out, and thrown aside, since I was here last. This gives one a
realising sense of the frailness of a Mississippi boat and the briefness
of its life.

Six miles below town a fat and battered brick chimney, sticking
above the magnolias and live-oaks, was pointed out as the monument
erected by an appreciative nation to celebrate the battle of New

TEE CAPTAIN.

sugar Ayn postage m

Orleans—Jackson's victory over the British, Jan nary 8, 1815. The
war had ended, the two nations were at j*eace, but the news had not
yet reached New Orleans. If we had had the cable telegraph in
those days, this blood would not have been spilt, those lives would
not have been wasted; and better still, Jackson would probably never
have been president. We have gotten over the hai ms done ns by
the war of 1812, but not over some of those done us by Jackson's
presidency.

The Warmouth plantation covers a vast deal of ground, and the
hospitality of the Warmouth mansion is graduated to the same large
scale. We saw steam-ploughs at woik, here, for the first time. The
traction engine travels about on its own wheels, till it reaches the
required spot; then it stands still and by means of a wire rope pulls
the huge plough toward itself two or three hundred yards across the
field, between the row's of cane. The thing cuts down into the
black mould a foot and a half deep. The plough looks like a fore-and-
aft brace of a Hudson river steamer, inverted. When the negro
steersman sits on one end of it, that end tilts down near the ground,
while the other sticks up high in air. This great see-saw goes rolling
and pitching like a ship at sea, and it is not every circus rider that
could stay on it.

The plantation contains two thousand six hundred acres; six
hundred and fifty are in. cane ; and there is a fruitful orange grove of
five thousand trees. The cane is cultivated after a modern and
intricate scientific fashion, too elaborate and complex for me to
attempt to describe; but it lost $40,000 last year. I forget the other
details. However, this year’s crop will reach ten or twelve hundred
tons of sugar, consequently last year’s loss will not matter. These
troublesome and expensive scientific methods achieve a yield of a ton
and a b*df and from that to two tons, to the acre ; which is three or
four times what the yield of an acre was in my time.

The drainage-ditches were everywhere alive with little crabs—
* fiddlers.’ One saw them scampering sidewise in every direction
whenever they heard a disturbing noise. Expensive pests, these
crabs ; for they bore into the levees, and ruin them.

The great sugar-house was a wilderness of tubs and tanks and
vats and filters, pumps, pipes, and machinery. The process of making

430

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

sugar is exceedingly interesting. First, you heave your cane into
the centrifugals and grind out the juice; then run it through the
evaporating pan to extract the fibre; then through the bone-filter to
remove the alcohol; then through the clarifying tanks to discharge
the molasses; then through the granulating pipe to condense it;
then through the vacuum pan to extract the vacuum. It is now
ready for market. I have jotted these particulars down from memory.
The thing looks simple and easy. Do not deceive yourself. To make
sugar is really one of the most difficult things in the world. Arid to
make it right, is next to impossible. If you will examine your own
supply every now and then for a term of years, and tabulate the
result, you will find that not two men in twenty can make sugar
without getting sand into it.

We could have gone down to the mouth of the river and visited
Captain Eads’ great work, the ‘jetties/ where the river has been
compressed between walls, and thus deepened to twenty-six feet; but
it was voted useless to go, since at this stage of the water everything
would be covered up and invisible.

We could have visited that ancient and singular burg, ‘Pilot,
town/ which stands on stilts in the water—so they say; where
nearly all communication is by skiff and canoe, even to the attend¬
ing of weddings and funerals; and where the littlest boys and girls
are as handy with the oar as unamphibious children are with the
velocipede.

We could have done a number of other things; but on account of
limited time, we went back home. The sail up the breezy and spark¬
ling river was a charming experience, and would have been satisfyingly
sentimental and romantic but for the interruptions of the tug’s pel
parrot, whose tireless comments upon the scenery and the guests were
always this-worldly, and often profane. He had also a superabun¬
dance of the discordant, ear-splitting, metallic laugh common to his
breed—a machine-made laugh, a Frankenstein laugh, with the soul left
out of it. He applied it to every sentimental remark, and to every
pathetic song. He cackled it out with hideous energy after ‘ Home
again, home again from a foreign shore,’ and said he * wouldn’t give a
damn for a tug-load of such rot.’ Romance and sentiment cannot
long survive this sort of discouragement; so the singing and talking

SCGAB AXD POSTAGE.

431

presently ceased; which so delighted the parrot that he cursed him¬
self hoarse for joy.

Then the male members of the party moved to the forecastle, to
smoke and gossip. There were several old steamboatmen along, and
I learned from them a great deal of what had been happening to my
former river friends during my long absence. I learned that a pilot
whom I used to steer for is become a spiritualist, and for more than

pilot towk.

fifteen years has been receiving a letter every week from a deceased
relative, through a New York spiritualistic medium named Man¬
chester—postage graduated by distance: from the local post-office
in Paradise to New York, five dollars ; from New York to St. Louis,
three cents. I remember Mr. Manchester very well. I called on
him once, ten years ago, with a couple of friends, one of whom wished
to inquire after a deceased uncle. This uncle had lost his life in a

432

L IFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

peculiarly violent and unusual way, half a dozen years before: a
cyclone blew him some three miles and knocked a tree down with
him which was four feet through at the butt and sixty-five feet high.
He did not survive this triumph* At the seance just referred to, my
friend questioned his late uncle, through Mr. Manchester, and the
late uncle wrote down his replies, using Mr.Manehester’s hand and

SMOKE AND GOSSIP.

pencil for that purpose. The following is a fair example of the ques¬
tions asked, and also of the sloppy twaddle in the way of answers,
furnished by Manchester under the pretence that it came from the
spectre. If this man is not the paltriest fraud that lives, I owe him
an apology—

Question* Where are you %

Answer. In the spirit world.

Q. Are you happy I

SUGAR AND POSTAGE.

43 *

A. Very happy. Perfectly happy.

Q. How do you amuse yourself?

A. Conversation with friends, and othei spirits*

Q. What else ?

-4. Nothing else. Nothing else is necessary.

Q - What do you talk about ?

A. About how happy we are ; and about friends left behind in
the earth, and how to influence them for their good.

Q. When your friends in the earth all get to the spirit land, what
shall you have to talk about then %—nothing but about bow happy
you all are ?

No reply. It is explained that spirits will not answer frivolous
questions.

Q. How is it that spirits that are content to spend an eternity
in frivolous employments, and accept it as happiness, are so fastidious
about frivolous questions upon the subject ?

No reply.

Q. Would you like to come back ?

A. No.

Q- Would you say that under oath ?

A. Yes.

Q. What do you eat there ?

A . We do not eat.

Q. What do you drink 1
A. We do not drink.

Q. What do you smoke !

A. We do not smoke.

Q. What do you read ?

A. We do not read.

Q. Do all the good people go to your place?

A . Yes.

Q. You know my present way of life. Can you suggest any addi¬
tions to it, in the way of crime, that will reasonably insure my going
to some other place ?

A. No reply.

Q. When did you die ?

A. i did not die, I passed away.

r i

434

LIFE OE THE MISSISSIPPI.

Q. Very well, then, when did you pass away % How long have
you been in the spirit land %

A. "We have no measurements of time here.

Q. Though you may be indifferent and uncertain as to dates and
times in your present condition and environment, this has nothing to
do with your former condition. You had dates then. One of these

THE INTERVIEW.

is what I ask for. You departed on a certain day in a certain year.
Is not this true 1

A Yes.

Q. Then name the day of the month.

(Much fumbling with pencil, on the part of the medium,
accompanied by violent spasmodic jerki n gs of his head and body,
for some little time. Finally, explanation to the effect that
spirits often forget dates, such things being without importance to
them.)

SUGAR AND P08TA&M.

435

Q. Then this one has actually forgotten the date of its translation
to the spirit land ?

This was granted to be the case,

Q . This is very curious. Well, then, what year was it!

(More fumbling, jerking, idiotic spasms, on the part of the medium.
Finally, explanation to the effect that the spirit has forgotten the
year.)

Q . This is indeed stupendous. Let me put one more question,
one last question, to you, before we part to meet no more;—for even
if I fail to avoid your asylum, a meeting there will go for nothing as
a meeting, since by that time you will easily have forgotten me and
my name: did you die a natural death, or were you cut off by a
catastrophe 1

A. (After long hesitation and many throes and spasms.) Natural
death .

This ended the interview. My friend told the medium that when
his relative was in this poor world, he was endowed with an extra¬
ordinary intellect and an absolutely defectless memory, and it seemed
a great pity that he had not been allowed to keep some shred of these
for his amusement in the realms of everlasting contentment, and for
the amazement and admiration of the rest of the population there.

This man had plenty of clients—has plenty yet. He receives
letters from spirits located in every part of the spirit world, and
delivers them all over this country through the United States mail.
These letters are filled with advice—advice from * spirits 1 who don't
know as much as a tadpole—and this advice is religiously followed
by the receivers. One of these clients was a man whom the spirits
(if one may thus plurally describe the ingenious Manchester) weie
teaching how to contrive an improved railway car-wheel. It is
coarse employment for a spirit, but it is higher and wholesomer
activity than talking for ever about * how happy we are/

436

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI*

CHAPTER XLIX.

EPISODES IN PILOT LIFE.

In the course of the tug-boat gossip, it came out that out of every
five of my former friends who had quitted the river, four had chosen
farming as an occupation. Of course this was not because they wei-e
peculiarly gifted, agriculturally, and thus more likely to succeed as
farmers than in other industries : the reason for their choice must
be traced to some other source. Doubtless they chose farming
because that life is private and secluded from irruptions of undesir¬
able strangers—like the pilot-house hermitage. And doubtless they
also chose it because on a thousand nights of black storm and danger
they had noted the twinkling lights of solitary farm-houses, as the
boat swung by, and pictured to themselves the serenity and security
and cosiness of such refuges at such times, and so had by-and-bye come
to dream of that retired and peaceful life as the one desirable thing
to long for, anticipate, earn, and at last enjoy.

But I did not learn that any of these pilot-farmers had astonished
anybody with their successes. Their farms do not support them;
they support their farms. The pilot-farmer disappears from the river
annually, about the breaking of spring, and is seen no more till next
frost. Then be appears again, in damaged homespun, combs the hay¬
seed out of his hair, and takes a pilot-house berth for the winter. la
this way he pays the debts which his farming has achieved during
tlie agricultural season. So his river bondage is but half broken; ha
is still the river’s slave the hardest half of the year.

One of these men bought a farm, but did not retire to it. Ha
knew a trick worth two of that. He did not propose to pauperise
bis farm by applying his personal ignorance to working it. No, be

EPISODES iy PILOT LIFE.

437

put the farm into the hands of an agricultural expert to be worked
on shares—out of every three loads of com the expert to have two
and the pilot the third. But at the end of the season the pilot
received no corn. The expert explained that his share was not
reached. The farm produced only two loads.

Some of the pilots whom I had known had had adventures—the
outcome fortunate, sometimes, but not in all cases. Captain Mont¬
gomery, whom I had steered for when he was a pilot, commanded
the Confederate fleet in the great battle before Memphis; when his
vessel went down, he swam ashore, fought his way through a aquad
of soldiers, and made a gallant and narrow escape. He was always a
cool man; nothing could disturb his serenity. Once when he was
captain of the 4 Crescent City,’ I was bringing the boat into port at
New Orleans, and momently expecting orders from the hurricane
deck, but received none. I had stopped the wheels, and there my
authority and responsibility ceased. It was evening—dim twilight—
the captain’s hat was perched upon the big bell, and I supposed the
intellectual end of the captain was in it, but such was not the case.
The captain was very strict; therefore I knew better than to touch
a bell without orders. My duty was to hold the boat steadily on her
calamitous course, and leave the consequences to take care of them*
selves —which I did. So we went ploughing past the sterns of steam¬
boats and getting closer and closer—the crash was bound to come
very soon—and still that hat never budged; for alas, the captain
was napping in the texas. . . . Things were becoming exceedingly
nervous and uncomfortable. It seemed to me that the captain was
not going to appear in time to see the entertainment. But he did.
Just as we were walking into the stern of a steamboat, he stepped
out on deck, and said, with heavenly serenity, 4 Set her back on both ’
—which I did; but a trifle late, however, for the next moment we
went xrnaszhi-ng through that other boat’s flimsy outer works with a
most prodigious racket. The captain never said a word to me about
the matter afterwards, except to remark that I had done right, and
that he hoped I would not hesitate to act in the same way again in
like circumstances.

One of the pilots whom I had known when I was on the river
died a very honourable death. His boat caught fire, and he

43S

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

remained at the wheel until he got her safe to land. Then he went
out over the breast-board with his clothing in flames, and was the
last person to get ashore. He died from his injuries in the course of
two or three hours, and his was the only life lost.

The history of Mississippi piloting affords six or seven instances of
this sort of martyrdom, and half a hundred instances of escapes from

a like fate which came
within a second or two of
being fatally too late; but
there is no instance of a
pilot deserting his post to
save his life while by re¬
maining and sacrificing it
he might secure other lives
from destruction. It is
well worth while to set
down this noble fact, and
well worth while to put
it in italics, too.

The £ cub ’ pilot is early
admonished to despise all
perils connected with a
pilot's calling, and to pre¬
fer any sort of death to
the deep dishonour of
deserting his post while
there is any possibility of
his being useful in it.
And so effectively are
these admonitions incul¬
cated, that even young
and but half-tried pilots can be depended upon to stick to the wheel,
and die there when occasion requires. In a Memphis graveyard
is buried a young fellow who perished at the wheel a great many
years ago, in "White River, to save the lives of other men. He
said to the captain that if the fire would give him time to reach
a sand bar, some distance away, all could be saved, but that to lan#

EPISODES IN PILOT LIFE .

439

against tiie bluff bank of the river would be to insure the loss of
many lives. He reached the bar and grounded the boat in shallow
water; but by that time the dames had closed around him, and in
escaping through them he was fatally burned. He had been urged
to fly sooner, but had replied as became a pilot to reply—

* I will not go. If I go, nobody will be saved ; if I stay, no one
will be lost but m& I will stay.*

There were two hundred persons on board, and no life was lost
but the pilot’s. There used to be a monument to this young fellow,
in that Memphis graveyard. While we tarried in Memphis on our
down trip, I started out to look for it, but our time was so brief that
I was obliged to turn back before my object was accomplished.

The tug-boat gossip informed me that Dick Kennei was dead—
blown up, near Memphis, and killed; that several others whom I
had known had fallen in the war—one or two of them shot down at
the wheel; that another and very particular friend, whom I had
steered many trips for, had stepped out of his house in New Orleans,
one night years ago, to collect some money in a remote port of the
city, and had never been seen again—was murdered and thrown into
the river, it was thought; that Ben Thornburgh was dead long ago;
also his wild * cub ’ whom I used to quarrel with, all through every
daylight watch. A heedless, reckless creature he was, and always in
hot water, always in mischief. An Arkansas passenger brought an
enormous bear aboard, one day, and chained him to a life-boat on the
hurricane deck. Thornburgh’s 1 cub ’ could not rest till he had gone
there and unchained the bear, to * see what he would do/ He was
promptly gratified. The bear chased him around and around the
deck, for miles and miles, with two hundred eager faces grinning
* through the railings for audience, and finally snatched off the lad’s
coat-tail and went into the texas to chew it. The off-watch turned
out with alacrity, and left the bear in sole possession. He presently
grew lonesome, and started out for recreation. He ranged the whole
boat—visited every pari of it, with an advance guard of fleeing
people in front of him and a voiceless vacancy behind him; and when
his owner captured him at last, those two were the only visible
beings anywhere; everybody else was in hid i ng , and the boat was a
solitude.

440

LIFE OK THE MISSISSIPPI.

I was told that one of my pilot friends fell dead at the wheel, from
heart disease, in 1869. The captain was on the roof at the time.
He saw the boat breaking for the shore ; shouted, and got no answer;
ran up, and found the pilot lying dead on the floor.

Mr. Bixby had been blown up, in Madrid bend; was not injured,
but the other pilot was lost.

14,

ili

l||l

M.|J

3>j!

'f.im

THOBKBUEQH S CUB.

George Ritchie had been blown up near Memphis—blown into
the river from the wheel, and disabled. The water was very cold;
he dung to a cotton bale—mainly with his teeth—and floated until
nearly exhausted, when he was rescued by some deck hands who were
on a piece of the wreck. They tore open the bale and packed him in
the cotton, and warmed the life back into him, and got him safe to
Memphis. He is one of Bixby’s pilots on the 4 Baton Rouge * now.

441

EPISODES IX PILOT LIFE.

Into the life of a steamboat clerk, now dead, had dropped a bit of
romance—somewhat grotesque romance, but romance nevertheless.
When I knew him he was a shiftless young spendthrift, boisterous,
good-hearted, full of careless generosities, and pretty conspicuously
promising to fool his possibilities away early, and come to nothing.
In a Western city lived a rich and childless old foreigner and his
wife; and in their family was a comely young girl—sort of friend,
sort of servant. The young clerk of whom I have been speaking—
whose name was not George Johnson, but who shall be called George
Johnson for the purposes of this narrative—got acquainted with this

* HE CJjCKCt TO A COTTOS BALE/

young girl, and they sinned j and the old foreigner found them out,
and rebuked them. Being ashamed, they lied, and said they were
married; that they had been privately married. Then the old
foreigner’s hurt was healed, and he forgave and blessed them. After
that, they were able to continue their sin witbont concealment. IJy-
and-bye the foreigner’s wife died ; and presently be followed after her.
Friends of the family assembled to mourn ; and among the mourners
sat the two young sinners. The will was opened and solemnly read.
It bequeathed every penny of that old man’s great wealth to Mr*.
George Johnson !

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI,

And there was no such person. The young sinners fled forth
then, and did a very foolish thing : married themselves before an
obscure Justice of the Peace, and got him to antedate the thing.
That did no sort of good. The distant relatives flocked in and exposed
the fraudful date with extreme suddenness and surprising ease, and
carried off the fortune, leaving the Johnsons very legitimately, and
legally, and irrevocably chained together in honourable marriage, but
with not so much as a penny to bless themselves withal. Such
are the actual facts; and not all novels have for a base so telling a
situation.

CHAPTER I*

THE * ORIGINAL JACOBS/

Wb had some talk about Captain Isaiah Sellers, now many years
dead. He was a fine man, a high-minded man, and greatly respected
both ashore and on the river. He was very tall, well built, and
handsome ; and in his old age—as I remember him —his hair was as
black as an I n di an ’s,, and his eye and hand were as strong and steady
and his nerve and judgment as firm and clear as anybody’s, young or
old, among the fraternity of pilots. He was the patriarch of the
craft; he had been a keelboat pilot before the day of steamboats;
and a steamboat pilot before any other steamboat pilot, still surviving
at the time I speak of, had ever turned a wheel. Consequently his
brethren held him in the sort of awe in which illustrious survivors
of a bygone age are always held by their associates. He knew how
he was regarded, and perhaps this fact added some trifle of stiffening
to bis natural dignity, which had been sufficiently stiff in its original
state.

He left a diary behind him; but apparently it did not date back
to his first steamboat trip, which was said to be 1811, the year the
first steamboat disturbed the waters of the Mississippi. At the time
of his death a correspondent of the * St. Lotus Republican' culled
the following items from the diary—

* In February, 1825, he shipped on board the steamer “ Rambler,* at
Florence, Ala., and made during that year three tripe to New Orleans and
back—this on the u Gen. Carrol,” between Nashville and New Orleans. It
was during his stay on this boat that Captain Sellers introduced the tap of
the bell as a signal to heave the lead, previous to which tame it was the
custom for the pilot to speak to the men below whan soundings were wanted*

444

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

The proximity of the forecastle to the pilot-house, no doubt, rendered this an
easy matter; but how different on one of our palaces of the present day.

‘ In 1827 we find him 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 ths
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 1832 steamer “ Hudson” made the run from "White River to Helena,
a distance of seventy-five miles, in twelve hours. This was the source of
much talk and speculation among parties directly interested.

4 In 1839 Great Horseshoe cut-off fornjed.

‘ 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 fledged ones in the lot, and the elder ones would be .always
‘ showing off* before these poor fellows; making them sorrowfully
feel how callow they were, how recent their nobility, and how humble
their degree, by talking largely and vaporously of old-time experiences
tm the river p always making it a point to date everything back as
far as they could, so as tc make the new men feel their ne wness to
the sharpest degree possible, and envy the old stagers in the lik»

THE ‘ 0B1GTXAL JACOBS.' 445

degree. And bow these complacent baldkeads would swell, and hrag,
and lie, and date back—ten, fifteen, twenty years,—and how they
did enjoy the effect produced upon the marvelling and envying
youngsters 1

And perhaps just at this happy stage of the proceedings, the

* A CHILL FELL THEBE/

stately figure of Captain Isaiah Sellers, that real and only genuine
Son of Antiquity, would drift solemnly into the midst. Imagine the
size of the silence that would result on the instant. And imagine
the feelings of those bald-heads, and the exultation of their recent
audience when the ancient captain would begin to drop casual and
indifferent remarks of a reminiscent nature—about islands that had

446

LIFE ON TME MISSISSIPPI.

disappeared, and cut-offs that had been made, a generation before the
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 his
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, 6 When
the State of Mississippi was where Arkansas now is; * and would
never speak of Louisiana 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 ‘ 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 ‘ Mark 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 th en
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 paragraphs 1 became the text fear

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—

‘Vicksburg, May 4,1869.

‘ My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans: The water is
higher this far up than it has been since 1815. My opinion is that the water

THE ‘ OBIOIXAL JACOBS: 447

my first newspaper article. I burlesqued it broadly, very broadly,
stringing my fantastics out to the extent of eight hundred or a

j f v -

$ 0 /

SELLERS S MOXTMENT.

- thousand words. I was a ‘cub* at

the time. I showed my performance to some pilots, and they eagerly
rushed it into print in the ‘New Orleans True Delta.’ It was &
great pity; for it did nobody any worthy service, and it sent a pang

will be 4 feet deep in Canal street before the first of next Jane. Mrs, Tamer’s
plantation at the head of Big Black Island is all under water, and it has not
been since 1815.

‘I. Sellkb&’

448

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

deep into a good man's heart. There was no malice in my rubbish;
but it laughed at the captain. It laughed at a man to whom such
a thing was new and strange and dreadful. I did not know then,
though I do now, that there is no suffering comparable with that
which a private person feels when he is for the first time pilloried in
print.

Captain Sellers did me the honour to profoundly detest me from
that day forth. When I say he did me the honour, I am not using
empty words. It was a very real honour to he in the thoughts of so
great a man as Captain Sellers, and I had wit enough to appreciate
it and be proud of it. It was distinction to be loved by such a man;
but it was a much greater distinction to be hated by him, because he
loved scores of people; hut he didn't sit up nights to hate anybody
hut me.

He never printed another paragraph while he lived, and he never
again signed * Mark Twain' to anything. At the time that the
telegraph brought the news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast
I was a fresh new journalist, and needed a Ttom de guerre; so I con¬
fiscated the ancient mariner's discarded one, and have done my best
to make it remain what it was in his hands—a sign and symbol and
warrant that whatever is found in its company may be gambled on
as being the petrified truth; how I have succeeded, it would not be
modest in me to say.

The captain had an honourable pride in his profession and an
abiding love for it. He ordered his monument before he died, and
kept it near him until he did die. It stands over his grave now, in
Bellefontaine cemetery, St. Louis. It is his image, in marble,
standing on duty at the pilot wheel; and worthy to stand and
confront criticism, for it represents a man who in life would have
stayed there till he burned to a cinder, if duty required it.

The finest thing we saw on our whole Mississippi trip, we saw as
we approached Hew Orleans in the steam-tug. This was the curving
frontage of the crescent city lit up with the white glare of five miles
of electric lights. It wv a wonderful sight, and very beautiful.

449

CHAPTER LL

REMINISCENCES.

We left for St. Louis in the 4 City of Baton Rouge/ on a delightfully
Lot day, but with the main purpose of my visit but lamely accom¬
plished. I had hoped to hunt up and talk with a hundred steam-
boatmen, but got so pleasantly involved in the social life of the town
that I got nothing more than mere five-minute talks with a couple of
dozen of the craft.

I was on the bench of the pilot-house when we backed out and
1 straightened up * for the start—the boat pausing for a * good ready/
in the old-fashioned way, and the black smoke piling out of the
chimneys equally in the old-fashioned way. Then we began to
gather momentum, and presently were fairly under way and
booming along. It was all as natural and familiar—and so were
the shoreward sights—as if there had been no break in my river life.
There was a ‘ cub/ and I judged that he would take the wheel now ;
and he did. Captain Bixby stepped into the pilot-house. Presently
the cub closed up on the rank of steamships. He made me nervous,
for he allowed too much water to show between our boat and the ships.
I knew quite well what was going to happen, because I could date
back in my own life and inspect the record. The captain looked on,
during a silent half-minute, then took the wheel himself, and crowded
the boat in, till she went scraping along within a hand-breadth of the
chips. It was exactly the favour which he had done me, shout a
quarter of a century before, in that same spot, the first time I ever
steamed out of the port of Hew Orleans. It was a very great and
sincere pleasure to me to see the thing repeated—with somebody
else as victim.

« Q

450

LIPS ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

We made Natchez (three hundred miles) in twenty-two hours
and a half—much the swiftest passage I have ever made over that
piece of water.

The next morning X came on with the four o’clock watch, and
saw Ritchie successfully run half a dozen crossings in a fog, using
for his guidance the marked chart devised and patented by Bixby
and himself. This sufficiently evidenced the great value of the chart.

By and by, when the fog began to dear off, I noticed that the
reflection of a tree in the smooth water of an overflowed bank, six
hundred yards away, was stronger and blacker than the ghostly tree
itself. The faint spectral trees, dimly glimpsed through the shredding
fog, were very pretty things to see.

We had a heavy thunder-storm at Natchez, another at Vicksburg,
and still another about fifty miles below Memphis. They had an
old-fashioned energy which had long been unf amiliar to me. This third
storm was accompanied by a r a g i n g wind. VTe tied up to the hank
when we saw the tempest coming, and everybody left the pilot-house
but me. The wind bent the young trees down, exposing the pak
underside of the leaves ; and gust after gust followed, in quick suc¬
cession, frhrftjsfoin gr the branches violently up and down, and to this
side and that, and creating swift waves of alternating green and
white according to the side of the leaf that was exposed, and these
waves raced after each other as do their kind over a wind-tossed field
of oats. No colour that was visible anywhere was quite natural—all
tints were charged with a leaden tinge from the solid cloud-bank
overhead. The river was leaden; all distances the same; and em
the far-reaching ranks of combing white-caps were dully shaded by
the jfarkj rich atmosphere through which their swarming legions
marched. The thunder-peals were constant and deafening; explosion
followed explosion with but inconsequential intervals between, and
the reports grew steadily sharper and higher-keyed, and more trying
to the ear; the lightning was as diligent as the thunder, and pro¬
duced effects which enchanted the eye and sent electric ecstasies cf
mixed delight and apprehension shivering along every nerve in &
body in unintermittent procession. The rain poured down in amazing
volume; the ear-splitting thunder-peals broke nearer and nearer ;
the wind increased in fury and he^an to wrench off boughs and free-

RJBMIXISCEXCES .

451

tops and send them sailing away through space; the pilot-house fell
to rocking and straining and cracking and surging, and I went down
in the hold to see what time it was.

I AM ANXIOUS ABOUT THE TIME.

People boast a good deal about Alpine thunder-storms; but the
storms which I have had the luck to see in the Alps were not the
equals of some which I have seen in the Mississippi Yalley. I may
not have seen the Alps do their best, of course, and if they can beat
the Mississippi, I don't wish to-

453

LIFE ON TSE MISSISSIPPI

On this up trip I saw a little towhead (infant island) half a mile
which had been formed during the past nineteen years. Since
there was so much time to spare that nineteen years of it could be
devoted to the construction of a mere towhead, where was the use,
originally, in rushing this whole globe through in six days? It is
likely that if more time had been taken, in the first place, the world
would have been made right, and this ceaseless improving and
repairing would not be necessary now. But if you hurry a world
or a house, you are nearly sure to find out by and by that you have
left out a towhead, or a broom-closet, or some other little convenience,
here and there, which has got to be supplied, no matter how much
expense and vexation it may cost.

We had a succession of black nights, going up the river, and it
was observable that whenever we landed, and suddenly inundated
the trees with the intense sunburst of the electric light, a certain
curious effect was always produced: hundreds of birds flocked instantly
out from the masses of shining green foliage, and went careering hither
and thither through the white rays, and often a song-bird tuned up
and fell to rin ging. We judged that they mistook this superb artificial
day for the genuine article.

We had a delightful trip in that thoroughly well-ordered steamer,
and regretted that it was accomplished so speedily. By means of
Jili gnnnpi and activity, we managed to hunt out nearly all the old
Mends. One was missing, however; he went to his reward, what¬
ever it was, two years sgo. 3ut I found out all about bun . Hw
helped me to realise how lasting can be the effect of a very
trifling occurrence. When he was an apprentice-blacksmith in our
village, I a schoolboy, a couple of young Englis h m en came to the
town and sojourned a while; and one day they got them s elves up in
royal finery and did the Bichard HE. sword-fight with maniac
energy and prodigious powwow, in the presence of the village boys.
t rh« blacksmith cub was there, and the histrionic poison entered his
Thin vast, lumbering, ignorant, dull-witted lout was stage-
struck, and irrecoverably. He disappeared, and presently turned up
in St Louis. I ran across him there, by and by. He was s tanding
mnmng on a street corner, with his left hand on his hip, the thumb
of his right supporting his chin, face bowed and frowning, slouch hat

xmrixiscrxcES.

453

pulled down over his forehead—imagining himself to be Othello or
some such character, and imagining that the passing crowd marked
his tragic hearing and

were awestruck.

I joined him, and
tried to get him down
out of the clouds, but did
not succeed. However,
he casually informed me,
presently, that he was
a member of the Walnut
Street theatre company
—and he tried to say it
with indifference, but the
indifference was thin,
and a mighty exultation
showed through it. He
said he was cast for a
part in Julius Caesar, for
that night, and if I should
come I would see him.
IJ I should come! I
said I wouldn’t miss it if
I were dead.

I went away stupefied
with astonishment, and
saying to myself, * How
strange it is ! we always
thought this fellow a
fool; yet the moment he
comes to a great city,
where intelligence and
appreciation abound, the

talent concealed in this

STAGE-STBUCK.

shabby napkin is at once

discovered, and promptly welcomed and honoured/

But I came away from the theatre that night disappointed and

454

LIFB OH 2 HE MISSISSIPPI .

offended; for X had had no glimpse of my hero, and his name was not
in the bills. I met him on the street the next morning, and before I
could speak, he asked—

‘ Did you see me ?'

* No, you weren’t there/

He looked surprised and disappointed. He said—

4 Yes, I was. Indeed I was. I was a Roman soldier/

* Which one % 9

‘ Why didn't you see them Roman soldiers that stood back
there in a rank, and sometimes marched in procession around the
stage 1 9

4 Do you mean the Roman army %—those six sandalled roust¬
abouts in nightshirts, with tin shields and helmets, that marched
around treading on each other's heels, in charge of a spider-legged con¬
sumptive dressed like themselves % 9

4 That’s it I that's it l I was one of them Roman soldiers. I was
the next to the last one. A half a year ago I used to always he the
last oue; but I've been promoted/

Well, they told me that that poor fellow remained a Roman
soldier to the last—a matter of thirty-four years. Sometimes they
cast him for a 4 speaking part,' hut not an elaborate one. He could
be trusted to go and say, 6 My lord, the carriage waits,' but if they
ventured to add a sentence or two to this, his memory felt the strain
and he was likely to miss fire. Yet, poor devil, he had been patiently
studying the part of Hamlet for more than thirty years, and he
lived and died in the belief that some day he would be invited to
play it 1

And this is what came of that fleeting visit of those young
Englishmen to our village such ages and ages ago! What noble horse¬
shoes this man might have made, but for those Englishmen; and
what an inadequate Roman soldier he did make !

A day or two after we reached St. Louis, I was walking along
Fourth Street when a grizzly-headed man gave a sort of start as he
passed me, then stopped, came back, inspected me narrowly, with a
clouding brow, and finally said with deep asperity—

* Look here, have you got that drink yetV

A maniac, I judged, at first But all in a flash I recognised him.

REMINISCENCES.

455

I made an effort to blush that strained every muscle in me, and

answered as sweetly and winningly as ever I knew how_

1 Been a little slow, but am just this minute closing in on the
place where they keep it. Come in and help.’

He softened, and said make it a bottle of champagne and he was
agreeable. He said he had seen my name in the papers, and had put
all his afiairs aside and turned out, resolved to find me or die; and

* LOOK HEBE, HAVE YOU GOT THAT DRINK YET ? ’

make me answer that question satisfactorily, or kill me; though
the most of his late asperity had been rather counterfeit than other¬
wise.

This meeting bought back to me the St. Louis riots of about
thirty years ago. I spent a week there, at that time, in a boarding¬
house, and had this young fellow for a neighbour across the hall.
We saw some of the fightings and killings; and by and by we went
one night to an armoury where two hundred young men had met, upon

4 56

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

call, to be armed and go forth against the rioters, tinder command of
a military mam We drilled till about ten o’clock at night; then
news came that the mob were in great force in the lower end of
the town, and were sweeping everything before them. Our column
moved at once. It was a very hot night, and my musket was very
heavy. We marched and marched; and the nearer we approached
the seat of war, the hotter I grew and the thirstier I got. I was
behind my friend; so, finally, I asked him to hold my musket while
I dropped out and got a drink. Then I branched off and went home,

I was not feeling any solicitude about him of course, because I knew
he was so well armed, now, that he could take care of himself without
any trouble. If I had had any doubts about that, I would have
borrowed another musket for him. I left the city pretty early the
next morning, and if this grizzled man had not happened to encounter
my name in the papers the other day in St. Louis, and felt moved to
seek me out, I should have carried to my grave a heart-torturing
uncertainty as to whether he ever got out of the riots all right or
not. I ought to have inquired, thirty years ago; I know that.
And I would have inquired, if I had had the muskets; but, in the
circumstances, be seemed better fixed to conduct the investigations
than I was.

One Monday, near the time of our visit to St. Louis, the * Globe-
Democrat’ came out with a couple of pages of Sunday statistics,
whereby it appeared that 119,448 St. Louis people attended the
morning and evening church services the day before, and 23,102
children attended Sunday-school. Thus 142,550 persons, out of
the city’s total of 400,000 population, respected the day religious-
wise. I found these statistics, in a condensed form, in a telegram of
the Associated Press, and preserved them. They made it apparent
that St. Louis was in a higher state of grace than she could have
churned to he in my time. But now that I canvass the figures
narrowly, I suspect that the telegraph mutilated them. It cannot be
that there are more than 150,000 Catholics in the town; the other
250,000 must be classified as Protestants. Out of these 250,000,
according to this questionable telegram, only 26,362 attended church
and Sunday-school, while out of the 150,000 Catholics, 116,188 went
to church and Sunday-school.

407

CHAPTER LEL

A BURNING BRAND.

Am. at once the thought came into my mind, * I have not sought out
Mr. Brown/

Upon that text I desire to depart from the direct line of my
subject, and make a little excursion. I wish to reveal a secret
which I have carried with me nine years, and which has become
burdensome.

Upon a certain occasion, nine years ago, I had said, with strong
feeling, * If ever I see St. Louis again, I will seek out Mr. Brown,
the great grain merchant, and ask of him the privilege of shaking
him by the hand/

The occasion and the circumstances were as follows. A friend of
mine, a clergyman, came one evening and said—

c I have a most remarkable letter here, which I want to read to
you, if I can do it without breaking down. I must preface it with
some explanations, however. The letter is written by an ex-thief
and ex-vagabond of the lowest origin and basest rearing, a man all
stained with crime and steeped in ignorance; but, t hank God, with
a mine of pure gold hidden away in him, as you shall see. Has letter
is written to a burglar named 'Williams, who is serving a nine-year
term in a certain State prison, fear burglary. Williams was a
particularly daring burglar, and plied that trade during a number of
years $ but he was caught at last and jailed, to await trial in a town
where he had broken into a house at night, pistol in hand, and forced
the owner to hand over to him $8,000 in government bonds.
Williams was not a common sort of person, by any means; he was a
graduate of Harvard College, and came of good Hew Bngland stock.

458

LIFE OFF THE MISSISSIPPI.

His father was a clergyman. While lying in jail, his health began
to fail, and ho was threatened with consumption. This fact, together
with the opportunity for reflection afforded by solitary confinement,
had its effect—its natural effect. He fell into serious thought; his
early training asserted itself with power, and wrought with strong

WILLIAMS PLIES HIS TBADB.

influence upon his mind and heart. He put his old life behind him,
and became an earnest Christian. Some ladies in the town heard of
this, visited him, and by their encouraging words supported him in
his good resolutions and strengthened him to continue in his new life.
^Phe trial ended in his conviction and sentence to the State prison for
the teem of nine years, as I have before said. In the prison he

A BURNING BRAND*

459

became acquainted with the poor wretch referred to in the beginning
of my talk. Jack Hunt, the writer of the letter which I am going to
read. You will see that the acquaintanceship bore fruit for Hunt.
When Hunt's time was out, he wandered to St. Louis ; and from
that place he wrote his letter to Williams. The letter got no
further than the office of the prison warden, of course; prisoners are
not often allowed to receive letters from outside. The prison authori¬
ties read this letter, but did not destroy it. They had not the heart
to do it. They read it to several persons, and eventually it fell into
the hands of those ladies of whom I spoke a while ago. The other
day I came across an old Mend of mine—a clergyman—who had
seen this letter, and was full of it The mere remembrance of it so
moved him that he could not talk of it without his voice breaking.
He promised to get a copy of it for me; and here it is—an exact
copy, with all the imperfections of the original preserved. It has
many slang expressions in it—thieves' argot —hut their meaning has
been interlined, in parentheses, by the prison authorities *—

St. Louis, June 9th, 1879.

Mb. W-Mend Charlie if i may call you so: i no you are surprised

to get a letter from me, but i hope you won’t be mad at my writing to you*
i want to tell you my thanks for the way you talked to me when i was in
prison—it has led me to try and be a better man; i guess you thought i did
not cair for what you said, & at the first go off I didn’t, but i noed you was
a man who had don big work with good men & want no sucker, nor want
gasing & all the boys knod it.

I used to think at nite what you said, Sc for it i n o cked off swearing 6
months before my time was up, for i saw it want no good, nohow—the day
my time was up you told me if i would shake the cross {gvut stealing) So
live on the square for 3 months, it would be the best job i ever done in my
life. The state agent give me a ticket to here, So on the car i thought more
of what you said to me, but didn’t make up my mind. When we got to
Chicago on the cars from there to here, I pulled off an old woman’s leather;
{robbed her of her pocketbook) i hadn’t no more than got it off when i wished
i hadn’t done it, for awhile before that i made up my mind to be a square
bloke, for 3 months on your word, but forgot it when i saw the leather was
a grip {easy to get ) —hut i kept elos to her Sc when she got out of the cars
at a way place i said, marm have you lost any thing ? & she tu m bl e d (dis¬
covered) her leather was off {gone) — is this it says i, giving it to her—well
if you aint honest, says she, hut i hadn’t got cheak enough to stand that sort
of talk, so i left her in a hurry. When i got here i had $1 and 25ee«te kit

460

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI,

& i didn’t get no work for 3 days as i aint strong enough for roust about on
a steam bote (for a deck hand )—The afternoon of the 3rd day I spent my
last 10 ct3 for 2 moons (large, round sea-biscuit) & cheese & i felt pretty rough

HE PULLED SOME * LEATHER.’

Sc was thi nkin g i would have to go on the* dipe (picking pockets) again, when
i thought of what you once said about a fellows calling on the Lord when
he was in hard luck, & i thought i would try it once anyhow, hut when i

A BURNING BRAND.

461

tryed it i got stuck on the start, & all i could get off woe, Lord give a poor
fellow a chance to square it for 3 months for Christ’s sake, amen; & i kept
a thinking of it over and over as i went along—about an hour after that i
was in 4th St. & this is what happened & is the cause of my being where i
am now & about which i will tell you before i get done writing. As i was

TBLE CBXSXS.

over the head as hard as i could drive—the bard split to paces & the horse
checked up a little & I grabbed the reigns & pulled his head down nwiil 1 m
stopped—the gentleman what owned him came running up & soon as he saw
the children were all rite, he shook hands with note and gave me a £30 green
back, & my asking the Lord to help me come into my head, & i was so
thunderstruck i couldn’t drop the reigns nor say nothing—he saw something
was up, & coming back to me said, my boy are you hurt ? & the thought

462

LINE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

come into my head just then to ask him for work; & i asked him to take
back the bill and give me a job— says he, jump in here & lets talk about it,
but keep the money—he asked me if i could take care of horses & i said yea,
for i used to hang round livery stables & often would help clean & dme
horses, he told me he wanted a man for that work, & would give me #16 a
month & bord me. You bet i took tbat chance at once, that nite in my
little room over the stable i sat a loDg time thinking over my past life & of
what had just happened & i just got down op my nees & thanked the Lord
for the job & to help me to square it, & to bless you for putting me up to it,
& the next morning i done it again & got me some new togs ( clothes ) & a bible
for i made up my mind after what the Lord had done for me i would read the
bible every nite and morning, & ask him to keep an eye on me. When I had
been there about a week Mr. Brown (that’s his name) came in my room one
nite and saw me reading the bible—he asked me if i was a Christian &itold
him no—he asked me how it was i read the bible instead of papers & hooks
—Well Charlie i thought i had better give him a square deal in the start,
so i told him all about my being in prison & about you, & how i had almost
done give up looking for work & how the Lord got me the job when I asked
him ; & the only way i had to pay him back was to read the bible & square
it, & i asked him to give me a chance for 3 months—he talked to me like a
father for a long time, & told me i could stay & then i felt better than ever
i had done in my life, for i had given Mr. Brown a fair start with me &
now i didn’t fear no one giving me a hack cap (exposing his past life) &
running me off the job—the next morning he called me into the library &
gave me another square talk, & advised me to study some every day, & he
would help me one or 2 hours every nite, & he gave me a Arithmetic, &
spelling hook, a Geography & a writing hook, & he hers me every nite—he
lets me come into the house to prayers every morning, & got me put in a bible
class in the Sunday School which i likes very much for it helps me to under¬
stand my bible better.

Now, Charlie the 3 months on the square are up 2 months ago, & as yon
said, it is the best job i ever did in my life, & i commenced another of Ike
same sort right away, only it is to God helping me to last a lifetime Charlie
—i wrote this letter to tell you I do think God has forgiven my sins &
herd your prayers, for you told me you should pray for me—i no i love to
read his word & tell him all my troubles & he helps me i know for i have
plenty of chances to steal but i don’t feel to as i once did & now i take more
pleasure in going to church than to the theatre & that wasnt so once—our
minister and others often talk with me & a month ago they wanted me to
join the church, hut I said no, not now, i may he mistaken in my feelings, i
Will wait awhile, but now i feel that God has called me & on the first Sunday
In July i will join the church—dear friend i wish i could write to you as I
feel, hut i cant do it yet—you no i learned to read and write while in prisons

A BVBXIXG BBAXB.

463

& i aint got well enough along to write as i would talk: i no i aint spelled
all the words rite in this & lots of other mistakes hut you will excuse it i no,
for you no i was brought up in a poor house until i run away, & that i
never new who my father and mother was & i dont no my right name, & i
hope you wont be mad at me, but i have as much rite to one name as another
& i have taken your name, for you wont use it when you get out i no, & you
are the man i think most of in the world; so i hope you wont be mad—I am
doing well, i put $10 a month in hank with $25 of the $50—if you ever want
anv or all of it let me know, & it is yours, i wish you would let me send

MISSION WORK.

you some now. I send you with this a receipt for a year of Littles liv iag
Age, i didn’t know what you would like & i told Mr. Brown & he said he
thought you would like it—i wish i was nere you so i could send you chuck
(refreshments ) on holidays; it would spoil this weather from here, but i will
send you a hox next thanksgiving any way—next week Mr. Brown takes me
into his store as lite porter & will advance me as soon asi know a little mom
—he keeps a hig granary store, wholesale—i forgot to tell you of my nusaon
school, Sunday school class—the school is in the Sunday afternoon, 1 vreatout
two Sunday afternoons, and picked up seven kids {little bog») & got them to
come in. two of them new as much as i did & i had them put in a class

LIFE ON TRE MISSISSIPPI.

wnere they could leam something, i dont no much myself, but as these Mda
cant read i get on nicely with them, i make sure of them by going after
them every Sunday £ hour before school time, I also got 4 girls to come,
tell Mack and Harry about me, if they will come out here when their time
is up i will get them jobs at once, i hope you will excuse this long letter
& all mistakes, i wish i could see you for i cant write as i would talk—ihope
the warm weather is doing your lungs good—i was afraid when you was
bleeding you would die—give my respects to all the hoys and tell them how
i am doing—i am doing well and every one here treats me as kind as they can
—Mr. Brown is going to write to you sometime—i hope some day you will
write to me, this letter is from your very true friend

who you know as Jack Hunt
I send you Mr, Brown's card. Send my letter to him.

Here was true eloquence; irresistible eloquence; and without a
single grace or ornament to help it out. I have seldom been so deeply
stirred by any piece of writing. The reader of it baited, all the way
through, on a lame and broken voice; yet he had tried to fortify his
feelings by several private readings of the letter before venturing into
company with it. He was practising upon me to see if there was
any hope of his being able to read the document to his prayer-meeting
with anything like a decent command over his feelings. The result
was not promising. However, he determined to risk it; and did.
He got through tolerably well; but his audience broke down early,
and stayed in that condition to the end.

The fame of the letter spread through the town. A broth®
minister came and borrowed the manuscript, put it bodily into a
sermon, preached the sermon to twelve hundred people on a Sunday
morning, and the letter drowned them in their own tears. Then my
friend put it into a sermon and went before bis Sunday morning con¬
gregation with it. It scored another triumph. The house wept as
one individual.

My friend went on summer vacation up into the fishing regions
of our northern British neighbours, and carried this sermon with
him, since he might possibly chance to need a sermon. He wat
asked to preach, one day. The little church was full. Among the
people present were the late Dr. J. 0. Holland, the late Mr. Seymour

A BXTIUttNe BRA-ND.

of the 1 New York Tunes/ Mr. Page, the philanthropist and tempe¬
rance advocate, and, I think, Senator Frye, of Maine. The marvel¬
lous letter did its wonted work; all the people were moved, all the
people wept; the tears Sowed in a steady stream down Dr. Holland’s
cheeks, and nearly the same can be said with regard to all who were
there. Mr. Page was so full of enthusiasm over the letter that he
said he would not rest until he made pilgrimage to that prison, and
had speech with the man who had been able to inspire a fellow-
unfortunate to write so priceless a tract.

Ah 3 that unlucky Page!—and another man. If they had only
been in Jerieho, that letter would have rung through the world and
stirred all the hearts of all the nations for a thousand years to come,
and nobody might ever have found out that it was the confoundedest,
brazenest, ingeniousest piece of fraud and humbuggery that was ever
concocted to fool poor confiding mortals with !

The letter was a pure swindle, and that is the truth. And take
it by and large, it was without a compeer among swindles. It was
perfect, it was rounded, symmetrical, complete, colossal 1

The reader learns it at this point; but we didn’t learn it till some
miles and weeks beyond this stage of the affair. My friend came
back from the woods, and he and other clergymen and lay missio naries
began once more to inundate audiences with their tears and the tears
of said audiences ; I begged hard for permission to print the letter in
a magazine and tell the watery story of its triumphs; numbers of
people got copies of the letter, with permission to circulate them in
writing, but not in print; copies were sent to the Sandwich Islands
and other far regions.

Charles Dudley Warner was at church, one day, when the worn
letter was read and wept over. At the church door, afterward., he
dropped a peculiarly cold iceberg down the clergyman’s back with
the question—

* Do you know that letter to be genuine ? ’

It was the first suspicion that had ever been voiced; bat it had that
sickening effect which first-uttered suspicions against one’s idol always
have. Borne talk followed—

* Why—what should make you suspect that it Isn’t genuine*’

4 Nothing that I know of, except that it is too neat, and compact

h b

(66

LIFE OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

and fluent, and nicely put together for an ignorant person, an
unpractised hand. I think it was done by an educated man.’

The literary artist bad detected the literary machinery. If you
\rill look at the letter now, you will detect it yourself—it is observ-
able in every line.

Straightway the clergyman went off, with this seed of suspicion
Bprouting in him, and wrote to a minister residing in that town
where Williams had been jailed and converted; asked for light; and
also asked if a person in the literary line (meaning me) might be
allowed to print the letter and tell its history. He presently
received this answer—

Rev.-

My D sjlr Fexend, —In regard to that * convict’s letter ’ there can be no
doubt as to its genuineness. 4 Williams/ to whom it was written, lay in obi

jail and professed to have been converted, and Rev. Mr.-, the chaplain,

had great faith in the genuineness of the change—as much as one can ha n
n any such case.

The letter was sent to one of our ladies, who is a Sunday-school teacher,
_sent either by Williams himself, or the chaplain of the State’s prison, pro¬
bably. She has been greatly annoyed in having so much publicity, lest it
might seem a breach of confidence, or he an injury to Williams. In regard
to its publication, I can give no permission; though if the names and places
were omitted, and especially if sent out of the country, I think you might
the responsibility and do it.

It is a wonderful letter, which no Christian genius, much less one ua-
sanctified, could ever have written. As showing the work of grace in a
human heart, and in a very degraded and wicked one, it proves its own
origin and reproves our weak faith in its power to cope with any form of
wickedness.

* Mr. Brown ’ of St. Louis, some one said, was a Hartford man. Do aft
whom you send from Hartford serve their Master as well ?

PJ3.—Williams is still in the State’s prison, serving out a long sentence

_of years, I think. He has been sick and threatened with consumption,

but I have not inquired after him lately. This lady that I speak of corre¬
sponds with him, I presume, and will be quite sure to look after him.

This letter arrived a few days after it was written—and up went
Mr. Williams’s stock again. Mr Warner’s low-down suspicion was
laid in the cold, cold grave, where it apparently belonged. It was t
suspicion based upon mere internal evidence, anyway; and when ycra

A BURKING BRAND.

467

com© to internal evidence, it's a big field and a game that two can
play at: as witness this other internal evidence, discovered by the
writer of the note above quoted, that i it is a wonderful letter—
which no Christian genius, much less one unsanetified, could ever
have written.*

I had permission now to print—provided I suppressed names and
places and sent my narrative out of the country. So I chose an
Australian magazine for vehicle, as being far enough out of the
country, and set myself to work on my article. And the ministers
set the pumps going again, with the letter to work the handles.

But meantime Brother Page had been agitating. He had not
visited the penitentiary, but he had sent a copy of the illustrious
letter to the chaplain of that institution, and accompanied it with—
apparently—inquiries. He got an answer, dated four days later than
that other Brother’s reassuring epistle; and before my article was
complete, it wandered into my hands. The original is before me,
now, and I here append it. It is pretty well loaded with internal
evidence of the most solid description—

State’s Prison, Chaplain’s Office, July 11,1876.

Deab Bbo. Page,—H erewith please find the letter Madly loaned me. I
am afraid its genuineness cannot be established. It purports to be addressed
to some prisoner here. No such letter ever came to a prisoner here. All
letters received are carefully read by officers of the prison before they go into
the hands of the convicts, and any such letter could not be forgotten.
Again, Charles Williams is not a Christian man, but a dissolute, cunning
prodigal, whose father is a minister of the gospel. His name is an assumed
one, I am glad to have made your acquaintance. I am preparing a lecture
upon life seen through prison bars, and should like to deliver the same in
your vicinity.

And so ended that little drama. My poor article went into the
fire; for whereas the materials for it were now more abundant and
infinitely richer than they had previously been, there were parties all
around me, who, although longing for the publication before, ware a
unit for suppression at this stage and complexion of the game. They
said: * Wait—the wound is too fresh, yek* All the copes of the
famous letter except mine disappeared suddenly ; and from that time
onward, the aforetime same old drought set in in the churches. As

468

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

a rule, the town was on a spacious grin for a while, hut there were
places in it where the grin did not appear, and where it was danger¬
ous to refer to the ex-convict’s letter.

A word of explanation. * Jack Hunt,’ the professed writer of the
letter, was an imaginary person. The burglar Williams—Harvard
graduate, son of a minister—wrote the letter himself, to himself; got
it smuggled out of the prison ; got it conveyed to persons who Lad
supported and encouraged him in his conversion—where he knew two

things would happen:
the genuineness of the
letter would not be
doubted or inquired
into ; and the nub of
it would he noticed,
and would have valu¬
able effect—the effect,
indeed, of star ting a
movement to get Mr.
Williams pardoned
out of prison.

That 4 nub ’ is bo
ingeniously, so casu¬
ally, hung in, and im¬
mediately left therein
the tail of the letter,
undwelt upon, that
an indifferent reader
would never suspect
that it was the heart
and core of the epistle, if he even took note of it at all. This is the
* nub *—

* i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good —i was afraid when
you was bleeding you would die —give my respects/ etc.

That is all there is of it—simply touch and go—no dwelling upon
it. Nevertheless it was intended for an eye that would be swift to
see it; and it was meant to move a kind heart to try to effect the

WILLIAMS.

A BWRWXW& BAim, 469

liberation of a poor reformed and purified fellow lying In tie fell grip
of consumption.

When I for the first time heard that letter read, nine years ago, 1
felt that it was the most remarkable one I had ever encountered.
And it so warmed me toward Mr. Brown of St. Louis that I said
that if ever I visited that city again, I would seek out that excellent
m ar* and kiss the hem of Ms garment if it was a new one. Well, I
visited St. Louis, but I did not hunt for Mr. Brown; for, alas I the
investigations of long ago had proved that the benevolent Brown,
like * Jack Hunt/ was not a real person, but a sheer invention of
that gifted rascal, Williams —burglar, Harvard graduate, sou of a
clergyman.

470

TTTi ts OB TUB MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTER MIL

MY BOYHOOD’S HOME.

We took passage in one of the fast boats of the St. Louis and St. Pad
Packet Company, and started up the river.

When I, as a boy, first saw the mouth of the Missouri River, it
was twenty-two or twenty-three miles above St, Louis, according to
the estimate of pilots; the wear and tear of the banks have moved it
down eig ht miles since then; and the pilots say that within five
years the river will cut through and move the mouth down five miles
more, which will bring it within ten miles of St. Louis.

About nightfall we passed the large and flourishing town of Alton,
TTIfnnifi ; and before daylight next morning the town of Louisiana,
Missouri, a sleepy village in my day, but a brisk railway centre now;
however, all the towns out there axe railway centres now. I could
not clearly recognise the place. This seemed odd to me, for when I
retired from the rebel army in ’61 I retired upon Louisiana in good
order; at least in good enough order for a person who had not yet
learned how to retreat according to the rules of war, and had to trust
to native genius. It seemed to me that for a first attempt at a retreat
it was not badly done. I had done no advancing in all that campaign
that was at all equal to it.

There was a railway bridge across the river here well sprinkled
with glowing lights, and a very beautiful sight it was.

At seven in the morning we reached Hannibal, Missouri, where
my boyhood was spent. I had had a glimpse of it fifteen years ago,
and another glimpse six years earlier, but both were so brief that they
hardly counted. The only notion of the town that remained in my
mind was the memory of it as I had known it when I first quitted h

MY BOYHOOD'S HOKSL

471

twenty-nin© years ago. That picture of it was still as dear and vivid
to me as a photograph. I stepped ashore with the feeling of one
who returns out of a dead-and-gone generation. I Tv*d a sort of
realising sense of what the Bastille prisoners must have felt when they
used to come out and look upon Paris after years of captivity, and
note how curiously the familiar and the strange were mixed together
before them. I saw the new houses—saw them plainly enough—
but they did not affect the older picture in my mind, Bor through
their solid bricks and mortar I saw the vanished houses, which
formerly stood there, with perfect distinctness.

It was Sunday morning, and everybody was abed yet. So I
passed through the vacant streets, still seeing the town as it was, and
not as it is, and recognising and metaphorically shaking hands with
a hundred familiar objects which no longer exist; and dually climbed
Holiday's Hill to get a comprehensive view. The whole town lay
spread out below me then, and I could mark and fix every locality,
every detail. Naturally, I was a good deal moved. I said, * Many
of the people I once knew in this tranquil refuge of my childhood axe
now in heaven; some, I trust, axe in the other place.'

The things about me and before me made me feel like a boy again
—convinced me that 1 was a boy again, and that I had simply been
dreaming an unusually long dream; but my reflections spoiled all
that; for they forced me to say, * I see fifty old houses down yonder,
into each of which I could enter and find either & man or & woman
who was a baby or unborn when I noticed those houses last, or a
grandmother who was a plump young bride at that time.’

From this vantage ground the extensive view up and down the
river, and wide over the wooded expanses of Illinois, is very beautiful
—one of the most beautiful on the Mississippi, I think j which is a
hazardous remark to make, for the eight hundred miles of river
between St. liouis and St. Paul afford, an unbr oken succession of
lovely pictures. It may be that my affection for the one in question
biases my judgment in its favour; I cannot say as to that. No
matter, it was satisfyingly beautiful to me, and it had this advantage
over all the other fnends whom I was about to greet again: it had
suffered no change; it was as young and fresh and comely and gracious
as ever it had been • whereas, the faces of the others would be old,

472

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

and scarred with the campaigns of life, and marked with their gri£
and defeats, and would give me no upliftings of spirit.

An old gentleman, out on an early morning walk, came aloag,
and we discussed the weather, and then drifted into other matters,

I eould not remember his face. He said he had been living he»
twenty-eight years. So he had come after my time, and I had never
seen him before. I asked him various questions; first about a mate
of mine in Sunday school—what became of him %

( He graduated with honour in an Eastern college, wandered of

into the world some-
where, succeeded at
nothing, passed oat
of knowledge and
memory years ago,
and is supposed to
have gone to the
dogs.'

‘ He was brigk,
and promised vdl
when he was a hoy. 1

* Yes, hut the
thing that happened
is what became of
it all.*

I asked affca-
another lad, alto¬
gether the brightest
in our village school
the days op long ago. when I was a boy.

6 He, too, was

graduated with honours, from an Eastern college ; but life whipped
him in every battle, straight along, and be died in one of the Terri¬
tories, years ago, a defeated man.'

I asked after another of the bright boys.

‘ He is a success, always has been, always will be, I think.’

1 inquired after a young fellow who came to the town to study
for one of the professions when I was a boy.

MY BOYHOOD'S HOMS.

473

* He went at something else before he got through—went from
medicine to law, or from law to medicine—then to some other new
thing; went away for a year, came back with a young wife ; fell to
drinking, then to gambling behind the door; finally took his wife
and two young children to her father’s, and went off to Mexico; went
from bad to worse, and finally died there, without a cent to buy a
shroud, and without a friend to attend the funeral/

‘ Pity, for he was the best-natured, and most cheery and hopeful
young fellow that ever was.'

I named another boy.

‘ Oh, he is all right. lives here yet; has a wife and children,
and is prospering/

Same verdict concerning other boys.

I named three school-girls.

‘The first two live here, are married and have children; the
other is long ago dead—never married.'

J named, with emotion, one of my early sweethearts.

‘She is all right. Been married three lames; buried two husbands,
divorced from the third, and I hear she is getting ready to marry an
old fellow out in Colorado somewhere. She's got children scattered
around here and there, most everywheres/

The answer to several other inquiries was brief and simple—

‘ Killed in the war/

I named another boy.

* Well, now, his case is curious I There wasn’t a human being
in thin town but knew that that boy was a perfect chucklehead;
perfect dummy; just a stupid ass, as you may say. Everybody knew
jfc, everybody said it. Well, if that very boy isn't the first lawyer
in the State of Missouri to-day, I'm a Democrat!'

‘Is that so?'

‘ It's actually so. Pm telling you the truth.'

* How do you account for it 1 ’

‘ Account for it 1 There ain’t any accounting for it, except that if
you send a damned fool to St. Louis, and you don’t tell them he's a
damned fool ihei/U never find it out. There's one thing sure—If I
had a damned fool I should know what to do with him : ship him to
St. Louis—it’s the noblest market in the world for that kind of

474

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

property. Well, when you come to look at it all around, and chew
at it and think it over, don't it just bang anything you ever heard
of?'

4 Well, yes, it does seem to. But don't you think maybe it was
the Hannibal people who were mistaken about the boy, and not the
St. Louis people 1 *

4 Oh, nonsense l The people here have known him from the very
cradle—they knew him a hundred times better than the St. Louis

idiots could have
known him. No,
if you have got any
damned fools that
you want to realise
on, take my advice
—send them to St.
Louis.'

I mentioned a
great number of
people whom I had
formerly known.
Some were dead,
some were gone a-
way, some had
prospered, some
had come to naught;
but as regarded a
dozen or so of -the
lot, the answer was
comforting:

4 Prosperous—live here yet—town littered with their children/

I asked about Miss -

A PRACTICAL JOKE.

4 Died in the insane asylum three or four years ago—never was
out of it from the time she went in; and was always suffering, too;
never got a shred of her mind back.'

IF he spoke the truth, here was a heavy tragedy, indeed. Thirty-
six years in a madhouse, that some young fools might have some fun ?
I was a small boy, at the time; and I saw those giddy young ladies

JfF BOYHOOD'S HOME.

475

come tiptoeing into the room where Miss-sat reading at mid¬

night by a lamp. The girl at the head of the file wore a shroud and
a doughface ; she crept behind the victim, touched her on the shoulder,
and she looked up and screamed, and then fell into convulsions. She
did not recover from the fright, but went mad. In these days it
seems incredible that people believed in ghosts so short a time ago.
But they did.

After asking after such other folk as I could call to mind, I finally
inquired about myself:

4 Oh, he succeeded well enough—another case of damned fool. If
they’d sent him to St. Louis, he’d have succeeded sooner/

It was with much satisfaction that I recognised the wisdom of
having told this candid gentleman, in the beginning, that my name
was Smith.

476

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

CHAPTER LIT.

PAST AND PRESENT.

Being left to myself, up there, I went on picking ont old houses in
the distant town, and calling back their former inmates out of the
mouldy past. Among them I presently recognised the house of the
father of Lem Haekett (fictitious name). It carried me back more
than a generation in & moment, and landed me in the midst of a
time when the happenings of life were not the natural and logical
results of great general laws, but of special orders, and were freighted
with very precise and distinct purposes—partly punitive in intent,
partly admonitory; and usually local in application.

When I was a small boy, Lem Haekett was drowned—on a
Sunday. He fell out of an empty fiat-boat, where he was playing.
Being loaded with sin, he went to the bottom like an anvil. He was
the only boy in the village who slept that night. We others all lay
awake, repenting. We had not needed the information, delivered
from the pulpit that evening, that Lem’s was a case of special judg¬
ment—we knew that, already. There was a ferocious thunder-storm,
that night, and it raged continuously until near dawn. The winds
blew, the windows rattled, the rain swept along the roof in pelting
sheets, and at the briefest of intervals the inky blackness of the night
vanished, the houses over the way glared out white and blinding for
& quivering instant, then the solid darkness shut down again and a
splitting peal of thunder followed, which seemed to rend everything
in the neighbourhood to shreds and splinters. I sat up in bed
quaking and shuddering, waiting for the destruction of the world,
and expecting it. To me there was nothing strange or incongruous
in heaven’s making such an uproar about Lem Haekett. Apparently

PAST. AXD PRESENT.

477

it was the right and proper thing to do. Not a doubt entered my
mind that all the angels were grouped together, discussing this boy’s
case and observing the awful bombardment of our beggarly little
village with satisfaction and approval. There was one thing which
disturbed me in the most serious way; that was the thought that
this centreing of the celestial interest on our village could not fail to
attract the attention of the observers to people among us who might
otherwise have escaped notice for years. I felt that I was not only
one of those people, but the very one most likely to be discovered.
That discovery could
have hut one result :

I should he in the fire
with Lem before the
chill of the river had
been fairly warmed
out of him. I knew
that this would be :

only just and fair. I /

was increasing the \

chances against my¬
self all the time, by
feeling a secret bitter¬
ness against Lem for
having attracted this
fatal attention to me,
but I could not help it
—this sinful thought
persisted in infesting
my breast in spite of me. Every time the lightning glared I caught my
breath, and judged I was gone. In my terror aad misery, I meanly
began to suggest other hoys, and mention acts of theirs which were
wickeder than mine, and peculiarly needed punishment—and I tried to
pretend to myself that I was simply doing this in a casual way, and with¬
out intent to divert the heavenly attention to them for the purpose of
getting rid of it myself. With deep sagacity I put these mentions
into the form of sorrowing recollections and left-handed sham-sappli-
that the sins of those boys might be allowed to pass unnoticed

*1 SAT UP IN BED QUAKING.’

478

LIFE ON TSE MISSISSIPPI.

—* Possibly they may repent.’ * It is true that Jim Smith broke *
window and lied about it—but maybe he did not mean any
And although Tom Holmes says more bad words than any other bey
in the village, he probably intends to repent—though he has new*
said he would. -And whilst it is a fact that John Jones didisha
little on Sunday, once, he didn’t really catch anything but only jugfe
one small useless mud-cat; and maybe that wouldn’t have been ee
awful if he had thrown it back—as he says he did, but he didst
Pity but they would repent of these dreadful things—and maybe
they will yet.’

But while I was shamefully trying to draw attention to them
poor chaps—who were doubtless directing the celestial attention to
me at the same moment, though I never once suspected that—I hui
heedlessly left my candle burning. It was not a time to neglect ese*
trifling precautions. There was no occasion to add anything to &&
facilities for attracting notice to me—so I put the light out.

It was a long night to me, and perhaps the most distressful one I
ever spent. I endured agonies of remorse for sins which I knew I
had committed, and for others which I was not certain about, yet wag
sure that they had been set down against me in a book by an angd
who was wiser than I and did not trust such important matters ts
memory. It struck me, by and by, that I had been making a most
foolish and calamitous mistake, in one respect: doubtless I had net
only made my own destruction sure by directing attention to them
other boys, but had already accomplished theirs!—Doubtless tfea
lightning had stretched them all dead in their beds by this txmel
The anguish and the fright which this thought gave me made w$
previous sufferings seem trifling by comparison.

Things had become truly serious. I resolved to turn over a new
leaf instantly; I also resolved to connect myself with the church. &s
next day, if I survived to see its sun appear. I resolved to eea»
from sin in all its forms, and to lead a high and blameless life for erar
after. I would be punctual at church and Sunday-school; visit the
rick; cany baskets of victuals to the poor (simply to fulfil the regnb-
taon conditions, although I knew we had none among us so poor bet
they would smash the basket over my head for my pains); I weail
instruct other hoys in right ways, and take the resulting trounriap :

-PAST AJr& PRJE8J5XT.

*79

meekly ; I would subsist entirely on tracts; I would Invade the mm
shop and warn the drunkard—and finally, if I escaped the fete ok
those who early become too good to live, I would go for a nusncxuuy,

The storm subsided toward daybreak, and I doaed gradually to
sleep with a sense of obligation to Lem Hackett for going to eternal
suffering in that abrupt way, and thus preventing a far more dreadful
disaster—my own loss.

But when I rose refreshed, by and by, and found that those other
boys were still alive, I had a dim sense that perhaps the whole thing
was a false alarm j; that the entire turmoil had been on Lem’s account
and nobody’s else. The world looked so bright and safe that there
did not seem to be any real occasion to turn over a new leaf. I was
a little subdued, during that day, and perhaps the next; after that,
my purpose of reforming slowly dropped out of my mind, and I had
a peaceful, comfortable time again, until the next storm.

That storm came about three weeks later; and it was the most
unaccountable one, to me, that I had ever experienced ; for on the
afternoon of that day, * Dutchy f was drowned. Dutchy belonged to
our Sunday-school. He was a German lad who did not know enough
to come in out of the min; but he was exasperatingly good, and
a prodigious memory. One Sunday be made himself the envy of all
the youth and the talk of all the admiring village, by reciting three
thousand verses of Scripture without missing & word ; then he went
off the very next day and got drowned.

Circumstances gave to his death a peculiar impressiveness. We
were all bathing in a muddy creek which had a deep hole in it, and
in this hole the coopers had sunk a pile of green hickory hoop poles
to soak, some twelve feet under water. We were diving and * seeing
who could stay under longest.’ We managed to remain down by
holding on to the hoop poles. Dutchy made such a poor success of
it that he was hailed with laughter and derision every timA his head
appeared above water. At last he seemed hurt with the taunts, and
begged us to stand stall on the bank and be fair with him and give
him an honest count —* be friendly and kind just this once, and not
miscount for the sake of having the fun of laughing at him . 9
Treacherous winks were exchanged, and all said * All right, Dutchy—
go ahead, well play fair/

480

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

Dutchy plunged in, but the boys, instead of beginning to cotmij
followed the lead of one of their number and scampered to a range of
blackberry bushes close by and hid behind it. They imagined
Dutehy’s humiliation, when he should rise after a superhuman effort

mi:

1 .

all EIGHT, DUTCHY—GO AHEAD.’

and find the place silent and vacant, nobody there to applaud. Tkej
were fi so full of laugh * with the idea, that they were continuaSy
exploding into muffled cackles. Time swept on, and presently o&&
who was peeping through the briers, said, with surprise
* Why, he hasn’t come up, yet l 9

PAST AND PRESENT.

481

The laughing stopped.

‘ Boys, it’s a splendid dive/ said one.

< Never mind that/ said another,«the joke on him is all the better
for it.’

There was a remark or two more, and then a pause. Talking
ceased, and all began to peer through the vines. Before long, the
boys’ fares began to look uneasy, then anxious, then terrified Still
there was no movement of the placid water. Hearts began to beat
Fast, and faces to turn pale. We all glided out, silently, and stood
on the bank, our horrified eyes wandering back and forth from each
other’s countenances to the water.

* Somebody must go down and see! ’

Yes, that was plain; but nobody wanted that grisly task.

* Draw straws ! ’

So we did—with hands which shook so, that we hardly knew
what we were about. The lot fell to me, and I went down. The
water was so muddy I could not see anything, but I felt around
among the hoop poles, and presently grasped a limp wrist which gave
me no response—and if it had I should not have known it, I let it
go with such a frightened suddenness.

The boy had been caught among the hoop poles and entangled
there, helplessly. I fled to the surface and told the awful news.
Some of us knew that if the boy were dragged out at once he might
possibly be resuscitated, but we never thought of that. We did not
think of anything; we did not know what to do, so we did nothing
—except that the smaller lads cried, piteously, and we all struggled
frantically into our clothes, putting on anybody’s that came handy,
and getting them wrong-side-out and upside-down, as a rule. Then
we scurried away and gave the alarm, but none of us went back to
see the end of the tragedy. We had a more important thrng to
attend to; we all flew home, and lost not a moment in getting ready
to lead a better life.

The night presently closed down. Then came on that tremendous
and utterly unaccountable storm. I was perfectly dazed; I could
not understand it. It seemed to me that there must ho some
mistake. The dements were turned loose, and they rattled and
banged and blamed away in the most blind and frantic manner.

482

LIFE OF TEE MISSISSIPPI

All heart and hope went out of me, and the dismal thought kept
floating through my brain, ‘ If a boy who knows three thousand
verses by heart is not satisfactory, what chance is there for anybody
else *? ’

Of course I never questioned for a moment that the storm was on
Dutchy’s account, or that he or any other inconsequential animal was
worthy of such a majestic demonstration from on high ; the lesson of
it was the only thing that troubled me; for it convinced me that if

Dutchy, with all his
perfections, was not a
delight, it would be vain
for me to turn over a
new leaf, for I must
infallibly fall hopelessly
short of that boy, no
matter how hard I might
try. Nevertheless I did
turn it over—a highly
educated fear compiled
me to do that—but suc¬
ceeding days of cheerful¬
ness and sunshine came
bothering around, and
within a month I had
so drifted backward that
again I was as lost and
• wa AnL flew home.’ comfortable as ever.

Breakfast time ap¬
proached while I mused these musings and called these ancient
happenings back to mind; so I got me back into the present and west
down the hill.

On my way through town to the hotel, I saw the house whiek
was my home when I was a boy. At present rates, the people who
now occupy it are of no more value than I am ; but in my time they
would have been worth not less than five hundred dollars apiece..
They are coloured folk.

After breakfast, I went out alone again, intending to hunt u§>

PAST AtfD PPESEXT.

483

some of the Sunday-schools and see how this generation of pupils
might compare with their progenitors who had sat with me in those
places and had probably taken me as a model—though I do not
remember as to that now. By the public square there had been in
my day a shabby little brick church called the * Old Ship of Zion/
which I had attended as a Sunday-school scholar; and I found thr
locality easily enough, but not the old church; it was gone, and a
trig and rather hilarious new edifice was in its place. The pupils
were better dressed and better looking than were those of my time;
consequently they did not resemble their ancestors; and consequently
there was nothing familiar to me in their faces. Still, I contemplated
them with a deep interest and a yearning wistfulness, and if I had
been a girl I would have cried; for they were the offspring, and
represented, and occupied the places, of boys and girls some of whom
I had loved to love, and some of whom I had loved to hate, but all
of whom were dear to me for the one reason or the other, so many
years gone by—and. Lord, where be they now !

I was mightily stirred, and would have been grateful to be
allowed to remain unmolested and look my fill; but a bald summited
superintendent who had been a tow-headed Sunday-school mate of
mine on that spot in the early ages, recognised me, and I talked
a flutter of wild nonsense to those children to hide the thoughts
which were in me, and which could not have been spoken without
a betrayal of feeling that would have been recognised as out of
character with me.

Making speeches without preparation is no gift of mine; and 1
was resolved to shirk any new opportunity, but in the next and
larger Sunday-school I found myself in the rear of the assemblage;
so I was very willing to go on the platform a moment for the sake of
getting a good look at the scholars. On the spur of the moment I
could not recall any of the eld idiotic talks which visitors used to
insult me with when I was a pupil there; and I was sorry for this,
since it would have given me time and excuse to dawdle there and
take a long and satisfying look at what I feel at liberty to say was
an array of fresh young comeliness not match&ble in another Sunday-
school of the same size. As I talked merely to get a chance to
inspect; and as T strung out the random rubbish solely to prolong the

484

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

inspection, I judged it but decent to confess these low motives, and I
did so.

If the Model Boy was in either of these Sunday-schools, I did not
see him. The Model Boy of my time—we never had but the one—
was perfect ■ perfect in manners, perfect in dress, perfect in conduct,

perfect in filial piety, perfect in exterior
godliness; but at bottom he was s
— prig; and as for the - contents of hk

skun, they could have changed place with the contents of a pie and
nobody would have been the worse off for it but the pie. This fellow^
reproachlessness was a standing reproach to every lad in the village.
He was the admiration of all the mothers, and the detestation of aS
their sons. T was told what became of him, but as it was a disappoint¬
ment to me, I will not enter into details. He succeeded in life.

CHAPTER LV.

A VENDETTA AND OTHER THINGS.

During my three days* stay in the town, I woke up every morning
with the impression that I was a boy—for in my dreams* the faces
were all yoking again, and looked as they had looked in the old times
—but I went to bed a hundred years old, every night—for meantime
I had been seeing those faces as they are now.

Of course I suffered some surprises, along at first, before I had
become adjusted to the changed state of things. I met young ladies
who did not seem to have changed at all; bnt they turned out to be
the daughters of the young ladies I had in mind—sometimes their
grand-daughters. When yon are told that a stranger of fifty is a
grandmother, there is nothing surprising about it; but if, cm the
contrary, she is a person whom you knew as a little girl, it seems
impossible. Yon say to yourself, ‘ How can a little girl be a grand¬
mother % * It takes some little time to accept and realise the fact
that while you have been growing old, your friends have not been
standing still, in that matter.

I noticed that the greatest changes observable were with the
women, not the men. I saw men whom thirty years had changed
but slightly; but their wives had grown old. These were good
women; it is very wearing to be good.

There was a saddler whom I wished to see; but be was gone.
Dead, these many years, they said. Once or twice a day, the saddler
used to go tearing down the street, putting on his coat as he went;
and then everybody knew a steamboat was coining. Everybody
knew, also, that John St&vely was not expecting anybody by the
boat—or any freight, either; and Stavdy must have kno wn that

486

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

everybody knew this, still it made no difference to him; he liked to
seem to himself to be expecting a hundred thousand tons of saddles
by this boat, and so he went on all his life, enjoying being faithfully
on hand to receive and receipt for those saddles, in case by any
miracle they should come. A malicious Quincy paper used always to
refer to this town, in derision as ' Stavely’s Landing/ Stavely was
one of my earliest admirations; 1 envied him his rush of imagi¬
nary business, and the display he was able to make of it, before
strangers, as he went dying down the street struggling with bis
fluttering coat.

But there was a carpenter who was my chiefest hero. He was a
mighty liar, but I did not know that; I believed everything he said
He was a romantic, sentimental, melodramatic fraud, and his bearing
impressed me with awe. I vividly remember the first time he took
me into his confidence. He was planing a board, and every now and
then he would pause and heave a deep sigh; and occasionally mutter
broken sentences—confused and not intelligible—but out of their
midst an ejaculation sometimes escaped which made me shiver and
did me good: one was, * O God. it is his blood !' I sat on the tool-
chest and humbly and shudderingly admired him ; for I judged be
was full of crime. At last he said in a low voice—

* My little Mend, can you keep a secret ? *

I eagerly said I could.

<A dark and dreadful one % 1

I satisfied him on that point.

< Then I will tell you some passages in my history ; for oh, I masi
relieve my bu; dened soul, or I shall die! ’

He cautioned me once more to be 'as silent as the grave; 1
then he told me he was a ‘ red-handed murderer/ He put down bis
plane, held his hands out before him, contemplated them sadly, and
said—

«Look—with these hands I have taken the lives of thirty human
beings! *

The effect which this had upon me was an inspiration to him, and
he turned himself loose upon his subject with interest and energy.
He left generalising, and went into details,—began with his first
murder; described it, told what measures he had taken to avert

A VENDETTA AND OTHER THINGS.

487

suspicion; then passed to his second homicide, his third, his fourth,
and so on. He had always done his murders with a bowie-knife, and
he made all my hairs rise by suddenly snatching it out and showing
it to me.

At the end of this first seance I went home with six of his fearful
secrets ^mong my freightage, and found them a great help to my
dreams, which had been sluggish for a while back. I sought him
again and again, on my Saturday holidays; in fact I spent the
summer with him—all of it which was valuable to me. His fascina¬
tions never diminished, for he threw something fresh and stirring, in
the way of horror, into each successive murder. He always gave
names, dates, places—everything. This by and by enabled me to
note two things : that he had killed his victims in every quarter of
the globe, and that these victims were always named Lynch. The
destruction of the Lynches went serenely on, Saturday after Saturday,
until the original thirty had multiplied to sixty—and more to be
heard from yet; then my curiosity got the better of my timidity, and
I asked how it happened that these justly punished persons all bore
the same name.

My hero said "he had never divulged that dark secret to any living
being; but felt that he could trust me, and therefore he would lay-
bare before me the story of his sad and blighted life. He had loved
one 4 too fair for earth,’ and she had reciprocated 4 with all the sweet
affection of her pure and noble nature.’ But he had a rival, a 4 base
hireling’ named Archibald Lynch, who said the girl should be his, or
he would 4 dye his hands in her heart’s best blood.* The carpenter,

4 innocent and happy in love’s young dream,’ gave no weight to the
threat, but led his 4 golden-haired darling to the altar,* and there, the
two were made one; there also, just as the minister’s hands were
stretched in blessing over their heads, the fell deed was done—with a
knife—and the bride fell a corpse at her husband’s feet. And what
did the husband do % He plucked forth that knife, and kneeling
by the body of his lost one, swore to 4 consecrate his life to the
extermination of all the human scum that bear the hated name of
Lynch.’

That was it. He had been hunting down the Lynches and
slaughtering them, from that day to this—twenty years. He had

with it he had left upon the fore¬
head of each victim a peculiar
mark — a cross, deeply incised,
Said he—

4 The cross of the Mysterious
Avenger is known in Europe, in
America, in China, in Siam, in
the Tropics, in the Polar Seas, in
the deserts of Asia, in all the
earth. Wherever in the utter¬
most parts of the globe, a Lynch
has penetrated, there has the
Mysterious Cross been seen, and
those who have seen it have
shuddered and said, “ It is his
mark, he has been her-*.” Yon
have heard of the Mysterious

Avenger—look upon him, for before you stands no less a person 1

A VEND ETTA AND OTHER THINGS. 489

But beware—breathe not a word to any soul. Be silent, and wait.
Some mor ning this town will Hock aghast to view a gory corpse ; on
its brow will be seen the awful sign, and men will tremble and
whisper, “ He has been here—it is the Mysterious Avenger s mark ! ”
You will come here, but I shall have vanished; you will see me no
more."

This ass had been reading the ‘ Jibbenainosayno doubt, and had

had his poor romantic
head turned by it j but
as I bad not yet seen
the book then, I took
his inventions for truth,
and did not suspect that
be was a plagiarist.

However, we had a
Lynch living in the town;
and the more I reflected
upon his impending

A CHEAP AND PITIFUL RUIN.

doom, the more I could

not sleep. It seemed my plain duty to save him, and a still plainer
and more important duty to get some sleep for myself, so at last I
ventured to go to Mr. Lynch and tell him what was about to happen
to him —under strict secrecy. I advised him to 4 fly/ and certainly ex¬
pected him to do it. But he laughed at me j and he did not stop there j

490

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

he led me down to the carpenter’s shop, gave the carpenter a jeering
and scornful lecture upon his-silly pretensions, slapped his face, made
him get down on his knees and beg—then went off and left me to
contemplate the cheap and pitiful ruin of what, in my eyes, had so
lately been a majestic and incomparable hero. The carpenter blus¬
tered, flourished his knife, and doomed this Lynch in his usual
volcanic style, the size of his fateful words undiminished • but it was
all wasted upon me; be was a hero to me no longer, but only a poor,
foolish, exposed humbug. I was ashamed of him, and ashamed of
myself; I took no further interest in him, and never went to big
shop any more. He was a heavy loss to me, for he was the greatest
hero I had ever known. The fellow must have had some talent; for
some of his imaginary murders were so vividly and dramatically
described that I remember all their details yet.

The people of Hannibal are not more changed than is the town.
It is no longer a village ; it is a city, with a mayor, and a council,
and water-works, and probably a debt. It has fifteen thousand
people, is a thriving and energetic place, and is paved like the rest of
the west and south—where a well-paved street and a good sidewalk
are things so seldom seen, that one doubts them when he does see
them. The customary half-dozen railways centre in Hannibal now,
and there is a new depot which cost a hundred thousand dollars. Ia
my time the town had no specialty, and no commercial grandeur;
the daily packet usually landed a passenger and bought a catfish, and
took away another passenger and a hatful of freight; hut now a
huge commerce in lumber has grown up and a large miscellaneous
commerce is one of the results. A deal of money changes hands
there now.

Bear Creek—so called, perhaps, because it was- always so par¬
ticularly bare of bears—is hidden out of sight now, under isl a n ds
and continents of piled lumber, and nobody but an expert can dad
it. I used to get drowned in it every summer regularly, and be
drained out, and inflated and set going again by some chance enemy;
but not enough of it is unoccupied now to drown a person in.
It was a famous breeder of chills and fever in its day. I remember
one summer when everybody in town had this disease at once.
Many chimneys were shaken down, and all the houses were so racked

,4 VEXDETTA AXD OTHER THINGS 491

that the town had to be rebuilt. The eliu^m or gorge between
Lovers Leap and the hill west of it is supposed by scientists to have
been caused by glacial action. This is a mistake.

There is an interesting cave a mile or two below Hannibal, among
the binds. I would have liked to revisit it, but had not lime, in

A BAD CASE OF SHAKES.

my time the person who then owned it turned it into a mausoleum
for bis daughter, aged fourteen. The body of this poor ehild was put
into a copper cylinder filled with alcohol, arid this was suspended in
one of the dismal avenues of the cave. The top of the cylinder was
removable; and it was said to be a common thing for the baser order
of tourists to drag the dead face into view and examine it and
comment upon it.

492

LIFE OJST THE MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTER LVI.

A QUESTION OF LAW.

The slaughter-house is gone from the mouth of Bear Creek and
so is the small jail (or * calaboose ’) which once stood in its neighbour¬
hood. A citizen asked, ‘ Do you remember when Jimmy Finn, the
town drunkard, was burned to death in the calaboose ? 7

Observe, now, how history becomes defiled, through lapse of time
and the help of the bad memories of men. Jimmy Finn was not
burned in the calaboose, but died a natural death in a tan vat,
of a combination of delirium tremens and spontaneous combus¬
tion. When I say natural death, I mean it was a natural death for
Jimmy Finn to die. The calaboose victim was not a citizen ; he was
a poor stranger, a harmless whiskey-sodden tramp. I know more
about his case than anybody else; I knew too much of it, in that
bygone day, to relish speaking of it. That tramp was wandering
about the streets one chilly evening, with a pipe in his mouth, and
begging for a match; he got neither matches nor courtesy; on the
contrary, a troop of bad little boys followed him around and amused
themselves with nagging and annoying him. 1 assisted ; but at last,
some appeal which the wayfarer made for forbearance, accompanying
it with a pathetic reference to his forlorn and Mendless condition,
touched such sense of shame and remnant of right feeling as were
left in me, and I went away and got him some matches, and then
hied me home and to bed, heavily weighted as to conscience, and un-
buoyant in spirit. An hour or two afterward, the man was arrested
and locked up in the calaboose by the marshal—large name for a
constable, but that was his title. At two in the morning, the churek
bells rang for fire, and everybody turned out, of course—I with tbe
rest. The tramp had used his matches disastrously : he had set bis

A QUESTION OF LAW.

49 *

straw bed on fire, and the oaken sheathing of the room had caught.
"WTien I reached the ground, two hundred men, women, and children
gtood massed together, transfixed with horror, and staring at the
grated windows of the jail. Behind the iron bars, and tugging fran¬
tically at them, and screaming for help, stood the tramp ; he seemed
like a black object set against a sun, so white and intense was the
light at his back. That marshal could not be found, and he had the
only key. A battering-ram was quickly improvised, and the thunder
of its blows upon the door had so encouraging a sound that the
spectators broke into wild cheering, and believed the merciful battle
won. But it was not so. The timbers were too strong ; they did
not yield. It was said that the man's death-grip still held fast to
the bars after he was dead; and that in this position the fires wrapped
},irr> about and consumed him. As to this, I do not know. What
was seen after I recognised the face that was pleading through the
bars was seen by others, not by me.

I saw that face, so situated, every night for a long time afterward ;
and I believed myself as guilty of the man's death as if I bad given
Kim the matches purposely that he might burn himself up with them.

I had not a doubt that I should be hanged if my connection with this
tragedy were found out. The happenings and the impressions of that
time are burnt into my memory, and the study of them entertains
me as much now as they themselves distressed me then. If anybody
spoke of that grisly matter, I was all ears in a moment, and alert to
hear what might be said, for I was always dreading and expecting to
find out that I was suspected; and so fine and so delicate was the
perception of my guilty conscience, that it often detected suspicion in
the most purposeless remarks, and in looks, gestures, glances of the
eye which had no significance, but which sent me shivering away in
a panic of fright, just the same. And how sick it made me when
somebody dropped, howsoever carelessly and barren of intent, the
remark that « murder will out l* For a boy of ten years, I was
carrying a pretty weighty cargo.

All this time I was blessedly forgetting one thing—the fact that
I was an inveterate talker in my sleep. But one night I awoke and
found my bed-mate—my younger brother—fitting up in bed and con¬
templating me by the light of the moon. I said

4 What is the matter 1

491

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

6 You talk so much I can’t sleep.’

I came to a sitting posture in an instant, with my kidneys in my
throat and my hair on end.

6 What did I say % Quick—out with it—what did I say ? *

4 Nothing much.*

4 It’s a lie—you know everything.’

c Everything a -
bout what % ’

‘You know well
enough. About that:

4 About lohat ?—

I don’t know what
you are talking about.

I think you are sick
or crazy or something.
But anyway, you’re
a wake, and I’ll get to
sleep while I’ve got
a chance.’

He fell asleep and
I lay there in a cold
sweat, turning this
new terror over in
the whirling chaos which did duty as my mind. The burden of my
thought was, How much did I divulge How much does he know!
—what a distress is this uncertainty ! But by and by I evolved an
idea—I would wake my brother and probe him with a supposititious
case. I shook him up, and said—

4 Suppose a man should come to you drunk— 5
4 This is foolish—I never get drunk.’

< I don’t mean you, idiot—I mean the man. Suppose a man
should come to you drunk, and borrow a knife, or a tomahawk, or a

pistol, and you forgot to tell him it was loaded, and-’

* How could you load a tomahawk ? ’

4 1 don’t mean the tomahawk, and I didn’t say the tomahawk; I
said the pistol. Now don’t you keep breaking in that way, because
this is serious. There’s been a man killed.’

4 What I in this town ? ’

A QUESTION OP LAW.

499

* Yes, in this town.*

«Well, go on—I won't say a single word.*

1 Well, then, suppose you forgot to tell him to be careful with it,
because it was loaded, and he went off and shot himself with that
pistol—fooling with it, you know, and probably doing it by accident,
being drunk. Well, would it be murder ! ’

( No—suicide.*

* No, no. I don't mean his act, I mean yours : would you be a
murderer for letting him have that pistol ? ’

After deep thought came this answer—

* Well, I should think I was guilty of something—maybe murder
_yes, probably murder, but I don't quite know.’

This made me very uncomfortable. However, it was not a decisive
verdict. I should have to set out the real case—there seemed to be
no other way. But I would do it cautiously, and keep a watch out
for suspicious effects. I said—

c I was supposing a case, but I am coming to the real one now
Do you know how the man came to be burned up in the calaboose f *

* No.’

1 Haven't you the least idea i '

‘ Not the least.'

«Wish you may die in your tracks if you have % *

< Yes, wish I may die in my tracks.*

* Well, the way of it* was this. The man wanted some matches to
light his pipe. A boy got him some. The man set fire to the calar
boose with those very matches, and burnt himself up.*

* Is that so % *

< Yes, it is. Now, is that boy a murderer, do you think I *

< Let me see. The man was drunk \'

« Yes, he was drunk.'

* Very drunk t'

‘Yes.*

* And the boy knew it 1'

* Yes, he knew it/

There was a long pause. Then came this heavy verdict

* If the ™an was drunk, and the boy knew it, the boy murdered

that Tram. This is certain/ __.

Faint, sickening sensations crept along all the fibres of my body

496

LIFE OJSF THE MISSISSIPPI .

and I seemed to know how a person feels who hears his death son-
tence pronounced from the bench. X waited to hear what my brother
would say next. I believed I knew what it would be, and I was
right. He said—

* I know the boy.’

I had nothing to say ; so I said nothing. I simply shuddered.
Then he added—

< Yes, before you got half through telling about the thing, I knew
perfectly well who the boy was; it was Ben Coontz ! *

I came out of my collapse as one who rises from the dead. I said,
with admiration—

* Why, how in
the world did yon
ever guess it 1 ’

‘ You told it in
your sleep.*

I said to myself,

4 How splendid that
is ! This is a habit
which mustbeculti
vated.*

My brother rat¬
tled innocently on—

4 When you were
talking in your sleep,
my burden is lifted. you kept mumhlmg

something aboot

“matches/* which I couldn't make anything out of; but just now,
when you began to tell me about the man and the calaboose and the
matches, I remembered that in your sleep you mentioned Ben Coonta
two or three times; so I put this and that together, you see, and right
away I knew it was Ben that burnt that man up.*

I praised his sagacity effusively. Presently he asked—

4 Are you going to give him, up to the law ? *

c Ho,’ X said; 4 I believe that this will he a lesson to him. I shall
keep an eye on him, of course, for that is but right; but if ho stops
where he is and reforms, it shall never be said that I betrayed him,*

* Hov good you are ! *

A QUESTION OF LAW L

497

* Well, I try to be. It is all a person can do in a world like this/

And now, my burden being shifted to other shoulders, my terrors
soon faded away.

The day before we left Hannibal, a curious thing fell under my
notice—the surprising spread which longitudinal time undergoes
there. I learned it from one of the most unostentatious of men—the
coloured coachman of a friend of mine, who lives three miles from
town. He was to call for me at the Park Hotel at 7.30 p.m., and
drive me out. But he missed it considerably—did not arrive till ten.
He excused himself by saying—

f De time is mos’ an hour en a half slower in de country en what
it is in de town ; you’ll be in plenty time, boss. Sometimes we shoves
out early for church, Sunday, en fetches up dah right plum in de
middle er de sermon. Diffunee in de time. A body can’t make no
calculations ’bout it/

I had lost two hours aud a half; but I liad learned a fact worth
four.

K X

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

CHAPTER LVII.

AN ARCHANGEL.

From St. L«ouIs northward there are all the enlivening signs of the
presence of active, energetic, intelligent, prosperous, practical nine¬
teenth-century populations. The people don’t dream, they work*
The happy result is manifest all around in the substantial outside
aspect of things, and the suggestions of wholesome life and comfort
that everywhere appear.

Quincy is a notable example—a brisk, handsome, well-ordered
city ; and now, as formerly, interested in art, letters, and other high
things.

But Marion City is an exception. Marion City has gone back¬
wards in a most unaccountable way. This metropolis promised so
well that the projectors tacked * city * to its name in the very begin¬
ning, with full confidence; but it was bad prophecy. When I first
saw Marion City, thirty-five years ago, it contained one street, and
nearly or quite six houses. It contains but one house now, and this
one, in a state of ruin, is getting ready to follow the former five into
the river.

Doubtless Marion City was too near to Quincy. It had another
disadvantage: it was situated in a flat mnd bottom, below high-
water mark, whereas Quincy stands high up on the slope of a hill.

In the beginning Quincy had the aspect and ways of a model
Hew England town : and these she has yet: broad, clean streets,
trim, neat dwellings and lawns, fine mansions, stately blocks of com¬
mercial buildings. And there are ample fair-grounds, a well kept
park, and many attractive drives; library, reading-rooms, a couple of
colleges, some handsome and costly churches, and a grand court-boose,

AN ARCHANGEL.

499

with grounds which occupy a square. The population of the city is
thirty thousand. There are some large factories here, and manufac¬
turing, of many sorts, is done on a great scale.

La Grange and Canton are growing towns, hut I missed Alexan¬
dria ; was told it was under water, but would come up to blow in
the summer.

Keokuk was easily recognisable. I lived there in 1857—an
extraordinary year there in real-estate matters. The ‘boom 9 was
something wonderful. Everybody bought, everybody sold—except
widows and preachers; they always hold on; and when the tide ebbs,
they get left. Anything in the semblance of a town lot, no matter
how situated, was saleable, and at a figure which would still have been
high if the ground had been sodded with greenbacks.

The town has a population of fifteen thousand now, and is pro¬
gressing with a healthy growth. It was night, and we could net see
details, for which we were sorry, for Keokuk has the reputation of
being a beautiful city. It was a pleasant one to live in long ago, and
doubtless has advanced, not retrograded, in that respect.

A mighty work which was in progress there in my day is fi n i s hed
now. This is the canal over the Bapids. It is eight miles long,
three hundred feet wide, and is in no place less than six feet deep,
fts masonry is of the majestic kind which the War Department
usually deals in, and will endure like a Homan aqueduct. The work
cost four or five millions.

After an hour or two spent with former friends, we started up
the river again. Keokuk, a long time ago, was an occasional loafing-
plaee of that erratic genius, Henry Olay Dean. I believe I never
saw him but once; but he was much talked of when I lived there.
This is what was said of him—

He began life poor and without educat ion . Dot he educated
himself—on the kerb-stones of Keokuk. He would sit down cm a
kerb-stone with his book, careless or unconscious of the clatter of
commerce and the tramp of the passing crowds, and bury himself in
his studies by the hour, never c hanging his position except to draw
in his knees now and then to let a dray pass unobstructed; and when
his book was finished, its contents, however abstruse, had been burnt
into his memory, and were his permanent possession. In this way

500

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

he acquired a vast hoard of all sorts of learning, and had it pigeon¬
holed in his head where he could put his intellectual hand on it when¬
ever it was wanted.

His clothes differed in no respect from a 4 wharf-rat’s/ except that
they were raggeder, more ill-assorted and inharmonious (and therefore
more extravagantly picturesque), and several layers dirtier. Nobody
could infer the master-mind in the top of that edifice from the edifice
itself.

He was an orator—by nature in the first place, and later by the

training of experience and prac¬
tice. When he was out on a
canvass, his name was a loadstone
which drew the farmers to his
stump from fifty miles around.
His theme was always politics.
He used no notes, for a volcano
does not need notes. In 1862, a
son of Keokuk’s late distinguished
citizen, Mr. Claggett. gave me this
incident concerning Dean—

The war feeling was running
high in Keokuk (in *61), and a
great mass meeting was to be
held on a certain day in the new
Athenaeum. A distinguished
stranger was to address the horn
After the building had be®
packed to its utmost capacity with sweltering folk of both sexes, the
stage still remained vacant—the distinguished stranger had fail ad te
connect. The crowd grew impatient, and by and by indignant and
rebellious. About this time a distressed manager discovered
on a kerb-stone, explained the dilemma to him, took his book awsy
from him, rushed him into the building the back way, and told M»
to make for the stage and save his country.

Presently a sudden silence fell upon the grumbling audience, aad
everybody’s eyes sought a single point—the wide, empty, carpetk®
stage A figure appeared there whose aspect was familiar to har%

HBNBY CLAY DEAN.

i THE HOUSE BEGAN TO BREAK IHTO APPLAUSE.’

AN AR CHANGEL.

503

a dozen persons present. It was the scarecrow Dean—in foxy shoes,
down at the heels; socks of odd colours, also ‘down;* damaged
trousers, relics of antiquity, and a world too short, exposing some
inches of naked ankle; an unbuttoned vest, also too short, and
exposing a zone of soiled and wrinkled linen between it and the
waistband; shirt bosom open; long black handkerchief, wound round
and round the neck like a bandage; bob-tailed blue coat, reaching
down to the small of the bank, with sleeves which left four inches of
forearm unprotected; small, stiff-brimmed soldier-cap hung on a
comer of the bump of—whichever bump it was. This figure moved
gravely out upon the stage and, with sedate and measured step, down
to the front, where it paused, and dreamily inspected the house,
saying no word. The silence of surprise held its own for a moment,
then was broken by a just audible ripple of merriment which swept
the sea of faces like the wash of a wave. The figure remained as
before, thoughtfully inspecting. Another wave started—laughter,
this time. It was followed by another, then & third—this last one
boisterous.

And now the stranger stepped back one pace, took off bis soldier-
cap, tossed it into the wing, and began to speak, with deliberation,
nobody listening, everybody laughing and whispering. The speaker
talked on unembarrassed, and presently delivered a shot which went
home, and silence and attention resulted. He followed it quick and
fast, with other telling things; warmed to his work and began to
pour his words out, instead of dripping them; grew hotter and
hotter, and fell to du rehar ging lightnings and thunder—and now the
house began to break into applause, to which the speaker gave no
heed, but went hammering straight on; unwound his black bandage
and cast it away, still thundering; presently discarded the bob taxied
coat and flung it aside, firing up higher and higher all the tune;
finally flung the vest after the coat; and then far an untimed period
stood there, like another Vesuvius, spouting smoke and flame, lava
and ashes, raining pumice-stone and cinders, shaking the moral earth
with intellectual crash upon crash, explosion upon explosion, while
the mad multitude stood upon their feet in a solid body, answering
back with a ceaseless hurricane of cheers, through a thr a shing snow-
storm of waving handkerchiefs.

504

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

* When Dean came/ said Claggett, * the people thought he was an
escaped lunatic; but when he went, they thought he was an escaped
archangel/

Burlington, home of the sparkling Burdette, is another hill city ■
and also a beautiful one; unquestionably so; a fine and flourishing
city, with a population of twenty-five thousand, and belted with busy
factories of nearly every imaginable description. It was a very sober
city, too—for the moment—for a most sobering bill was pending; a
bill to forbid the manufacture, exportation, importation, purchase,
sale, borrowing, lending, stealing, drinking, smelling, or possession,
by conquest, inheritance, intent, accident, or otherwise, in the State
of Iowa, of each and every deleterious beverage known to the human
race, except water. This measure was approved by all the rational
people in the State; but not by the bench of Judges.

Burlington has the progressive modern city's full equipment of
devices for right and intelligent government; including a paid fire
department, a thing which the great city of Hew Orleans is without,
but still employs that relic of antiquity, the independent system.

In Burlington, as in all these TJpper-Biver towns, one breathes a
go-ahead atmosphere which tastes good in the nostrils. An opera
house has lately been built there which is in strong contrast with the
shabby dens which usually do duty as theatres in cities of Burlington’s
size.

We had not time to go ashore in Muscatine, but had a daylight
view of it from the boat. I lived there awhile, many years ago, but
the place, now, had a rather unfamiliar look; so I suppose it has
clear outgrown the town which I used to know. In fact, I know it
has; for I remember it as a small place—which it isn't now. But I
remember it best for a lunatic who caught me out in the fields, one
Sunday, and extracted a butcher-knife from his boot and proposed to
carve me up with it, unless I acknowledged him to be the only sob
of the Devil I tried to compromise on an acknowledgment that he
was the only member of the family I had met; but that did not
satisfy him; he wouldn't have any half-measures; I must say he
was the sole and only son of the Devil—and he whetted his knife on
his boot* It did not seem worth while to make trouble about a little
t hin g like that; so I swung round to his view of the matter and

ARCHANGEL

saved my skin wliole. Shortly afterward, he went to visit his father;
and as he has not turned up since, I trust he is there yet.

^nd I remember Muscatine—still more pleasantly—for its
summer sunsets. I have never seen any, on either side of the ocean,
that equalled them. They used the broad smooth river as a canvas,
and painted on it every imaginable dream of colour, from the mottled
daintinesses and delicacies of the opal, all the way up, through cumu¬
lative intensities, to blinding purple and crimson conflagrations which

A FORMER RESIDENT.

were enchanting to the eye, bnt sharply tried it at the same time.
All the Upper Mississippi region has these extraordinary snneets as
a familiar spectacle. It is the true Sunset land: I am sore no
other country can show so good a right to the name. The sunrwes
are also said to be exceedingly fine. I do not know.

506

LIFE ON ISM MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTER LTVTII.

ON THE UPPER RIVER.

The big towns drop in, thick and fast, now : and between stretch
processions of thrifty farms, not desolate solitude. Hour by hour,
the boat ploughs deeper and deeper into the great and populous North¬
west ; and with each successive section of it which is revealed, one’s
surprise and respect gather emphasis and increase. Such a people,
and such achievements as theirs, compel homage. This is an indepen¬
dent race who think for themselves, and who are competent to do it,
because they are educated and enlightened ; they read, they keep
abreast of the best and newest thought, they fortify every weak place
in their land with a school, a college, a library, and a newspaper; and
they live under law. Solicitude for the future of a race like this is not
in order.

This region is new; so new that it may be said to be still in its
babyhood. By what it has accomplished while still teething, one
may forecast what marvels it will do in the strength of its maturity.
It is so new that the foreign tourist has not heard of it yet; and
has not visited it. For sixty years, the foreign tourist has steamed
up and down the river between St. Louis and New Orleans, and then
gone home and written his book, believing he had seen all of the
river that was worth seeing or that had anything to see. In not six
of all these books is there mention of these Upper River towns—for
the reason that the five or six tourists who penetrated this region did
it before these towns were projected. The latest tourist of them all
(1878) made the same old regulation trip—he had not heard that
there was anything north of St. Louis.

Yet there was. There was this amazing region, bristling with

ON THE UPPER PITER.

507

great towns, projected day before yesterday, so to speak, and built
next morning. A score of them number from fifteen hundred to fire
thousand people. Then we have Mu^eatme, ten thousand : Winona,
ten thousand; Moline, ten thousand ; Rock Island, twelve thousand ;
La Crosse, twelve thousand; Burlington, twenty* five thousand ;
Dubuque, twenty-five

thousand ; Davenport, f W l t

thirty thousand; St. ^ ^ Vlli 3

Paul, fifty - eight thou¬
sand, Minneapolis, sixty
thousand and upward.

The foreign tourist
has never heard of these;

AN INDEPENDENT RACE.

-there is no note of them in his books.

They have sprung up in the night, while
he slept. So new is this region, that 1,
who am comparatively young, am yet older than it is. When I was
bom, St. Paul had a population of three persons, Minneapolis had just
a third as many. The then population of Minneapolis died two years
ago; and when he died he had seen himself undergo an increase, in
forty years, of fifty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine
persons. He had a frog’s fertility.

60S

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

I mtist explain that the figures set down above, as the population
of St. Paul and Minneapolis, are several months old. These towns
are far larger now. In fact, I have just seen a newspaper estimate
which gives the former seventy-one thousand, and the latter seventy,
eight thousand. This book will not reach the public for six or seven
months yet; none of the figures will be worth much then.

We had a glimpse of Davenport, which is another beautiful city,
crowning a hill—a phrase which applies to all these towns; for they
are all comely, all well built, clean, orderly, pleasant to the eye, and
cheering to the spirit; and they are all situated upon hills. There¬
fore we will give that phrase a rest. The Indians have a tradition
that Marquette and Joliet camped where Davenport now stands, in
1673. The next white man who camped there, did it about a hun¬
dred and seventy years later—in 1834. Davenport has gathered its
thirty thousand people within the past thirty years. She sends more
children to her schools now, than her whole population numbered
twenty-three years ago. She has the usual Upper Hiver quota of
factories, newspapers, and institutions of learning; she has telephones,
local telegraphs, an electric alarm, and an admirable paid fire depart¬
ment, consisting of six hook and ladder companies, four steam fire
engines, and thirty churches. Davenport is the official residence of
two bishops—Episcopal and Catholic.

Opposite Davenport is the flourishing town of Hock Island, which
lies at the foot of the Upper Hapids. A great railroad bridge connects
the two towns—one of the thirteen which fret the Mississippi and
the pilots, between St. Louis and St. Paul.

The charming island of Hock Island, three miles long and half a
mile wide, belongs to the United States, and the Government has
turned it into a wonderful park, enhancing its natural attractions by
art, and threading its fine forests with many miles of drives. Hear
the centre of the island one catches glimpses, through the trees, of tea
vast stone four-story buildings, each of which covers an acre of ground.
These are the Government workshops; for the Hock Island establish¬
ment is a national armoury and arsenal.

We move up the river—always through enchanting scenery, there
being no other kind on the Upper Mississippi—and pass Moline, a
centre of vast manufacturing industries; and Clinton and Lyons,

ON THE UPPEP PIVElt.

605

great lumber centres 5 and presently reach Dubuque, which is situated
in a rich, mineral region. The lead mines are very productive, and
of wide extent. Dubuque has a great number of manufacturing
establishments; among them a plough factory which has for
customers all Christendom iu general. At least so I was told by an
agent of the concern who was on the boat. He said—

* You show me any country under the sun where they really know
how to plough, and it I don’t show you our mark on the plough they

THE MAX WITH A TBADE MAB&.

use, I’ll eat that plough \ and I won’t ask for any Wooetershyre
sauce to flavour it up with, either.’

All this part of the river is rich in Indian history and traditions.
Black Hawk’s was once a puissant name hereabouts \ as was Keokuk b,
further down. A few miles below Dubuque is the Tefce de Mori—
Death’s-head rock, or bluff—to the top of which the French drove a
band of Indians, in early times, and cooped them up there, with death
for a certainty, and only the manner of it matter of choice—to starve,
or jump off and kill themselves. Black Hawk adopted the ways of
the white people, toward the end of his life; and when he died he
was buried, near Des Moines, in Christian fashion, modified by Indian

510

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

eastern; that is to say, clothed in a Christian military uniform
^th a Christian cane in his hand, but deposited in theZJ ?
sitting posture. Formerly, a horse had always been bJ£
chief. The substitution of the cane shows that Black Hawk’s ha^K

nature was really humbled, and he expected to walk when\?J
over. 1 116 got

We noticed that abovo Dubuque the water of tho Mississiuni »
olive-green rich and beautiful and semi-transparent, with £ £

MAJESTIC BLUFFS.

on it. Of course the water was nowhere as clear or of
plexion as it is in some other seasons of the year -; for
flood stage, and therefore dimmed and blurred by 5 the
tured from caving banks.

as fine a eom-
now it was at
mud manuiae-

The majestic bluffs that overlook the river, along through this
r^o^chaxm one with the grace and variety of their forms, and the
soft b^uty of them adornment. The steep verdant slope, whose base
at the waters edge, is topped by * lofty rampart of broken, turreted

ON THE UPPER RIVER.

rocks, which are exquisitely rich and mellow in colour—mainly dark
browns and dull greens, but splashed with other tints. And then
you have the s hin i ng river, winding here and there and yonder, its
sweep interrupted at intervals by clusters of wooded islands threaded
by silver channels; and you have glimpses of distant villages, asleep
upon capes; and of stealthy rafts slipping along in the «hsidf * of the
forest walls; and of white steamers vanishing around remote
points. And it is all as tranquil and reposeful as dreamland, and has
nothing this - worldly about it—nothing to hang a fret or a worry
upon.

Until the unholy train comes tearing along——which it present It
does, ripping the sacred solitude to rags and tatters with its devil’s
warwboop and the roar and thunder of its rushing wheels—and
straightway you are back in this world, and with one of its frets
ready to hand for your entertainment: for you remember that this is
the very road whose stock always goes down alter yon buy it, and
always goes up again as soon as you sell it. It makes me shudder to
this day, to remember that I once came near not getting rid of mv
stock at all. It must he an awful thing to have a railroad left on
your hands.

The locomotive is in sight from the deck of the steamboat almost
the whole way from St. Louis to St. Paul—eight hundred mike.
These railroads have made havoc with the steamboat commerce. The
clerk of our boat was a steamboat clerk before these roads were built.
In that day the influx of population was so great, and the freight
business so heavy, that the boats were not able to keep up with the
demands made upon their carrying capacity; consequently the captains
were very independent and airy—pretty * biggity/ as Uncle Remus
would say. The clerk nut-shelled the contrast between the former
time and the present, thus—

‘ Boat used to land—captain on hurricane roof—mighty stiff and
straight—iron ramrod for a spine—kid gloves, plug tile, hair parted
behind—man on shore takes off hat and says—

‘ “ Got twenty-eight tons of wheat, cap’n—be great favour if yon
can take them.”

* Captain says—

4 u ’ll take two of them and don’t even condescend to look him.

512

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

‘ But nowadays the captain takes off his old slouch, and smiU
all the way around to the back of his ears, and gets off l bow wbids

he hasn’t got any ramrod to interfere with, and says_

4 “ Glad to see you, Smith, glad to see you—you’re looking well-^
haven’t seen you looking so well for years—what you got for

‘ “ JSTuth’n”, says Smith ; and keeps his hat on,-and just tun® his
back and goes to talking with somebody else.

4 Oh, yes, eight years ago, the captain was on top; but it’s Smith’s

‘NUTH'JST, SAYS SMITH.

turn now. Eight years ago a boat used to go up the river with every
stateroom full, and people piled five and six deep on the cabin floor;
and a solid deck-load of immigrants and harvesters down below, into
the bargain. To get a first-class stateroom, you’d got to prove sixteen
quarterings of nobility and four hundred years of descent, or be per¬
sonally acquainted with the nigger that blacked the captain’s boots.
But it’s all changed now - plenty staterooms above, no harvesters
below— there’s a patent self-binder now, and they don’t have haa?-

OAT THE UPPER MJVEPU

61 B

vesters any more; tftey've gone where the woodbine twinefch—and
they didn’t go by steamboat, either; went by the train/

Up in this region we met massed acres of lumber rafts coming
down—but not floating leisurely along, in the old-feshioned way,
manned with joyous and reckless crews of fiddling, song-singing,
whiskey-drinking, breakdown-dancing rapscallions ; no, the whole
thing was shoved swiftly along by a powerful stem-wheeler, modem
fashion, and the small crews w^re quiet, orderly men, of & sedate
business aspect, with not a suggestion of romance about &ny«
where.

Along here, somewhere, on a black night, we ran some exceed¬
ingly narrow and intricate island-chutes by aid of the electric light.
Behind was solid blackness—a crackless hank of it; ahead, a narrow
elbow of water, curving between dense walls of foliage that almost
touched our bows on both sides; and here every individual leaf, and
every individual ripple stood out in its natural colour, and flooded
with a glare as of noonday intensified. The effect was strange, and
fine, and very striking.

We passed Prairie du Ohien, another of Father Marquette’seamping-
places ; and after some hours of progress through varied and beautiful
scenery, reached La Crosse, Here is a town of twelve or thirteen
thousand population, with electric lighted streets, and with blocks of
buildings which are stately enough, and also architecturally fine
enough, to command respect in any city. It is a choice town, and we
made satisfactory use of the hour allowed us, in roaming it over,
though the weather was rainier than necessary.

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI*

614

CHAPTER LIX.

LEGENDS AND SCENERY,

We added several passengers to our list, at La Crosse ; among others
an old gentleman who had come to this north-western region with the
early settlers, and was familiar with every part of it. Pardonably
proud of it, too. He said—

‘ You’ll find scenery between here and St. Paul that can give the
Hudson points. You’ll have the Queen’s Bluff—seven hundred feet
high, and just as imposing a spectacle as you can find anywheres;
and Trempeleau Island, which isn’t like any other island in America,

I believe, for it is a gigantic mountain, with precipitous sides, and is
full of Indian traditions, and used to he full of rattlesnakes; if yes
catch the sun just right there, you will have a picture that will sky
with you. And above Winona you’ll have lovely prairies; and thee
come the Thousand Islands, too beautiful for anything; green? why
you never saw foliage so green, nor packed so thick; it’s like a
thousand plush cushions afloat on a looking-glass—when the water’s
still; and then the monstrous bluffe on both sides of the river—
ragged, ragged, dark-complected—just the frame that’s wanted; jm
always want a strong frame, you know, to throw up the nice points
of a delicate picture and make them stand out.’

The old gentleman also told us a touching Tndian legend or two
—but not very powerful ones.

After this excursion into history, he came hack to the scenery,
and described it, detail by detail, from the Thousand Islands
St. Paul; naming its names with such facility, tripping along SB*

- theme with such nimble and confident ease, slamming in a three*
J word, here and there, with such a complacent air of’t apjf

LEGEX&& AXD SCEXERY.

51P

anything,-I‘Can-do-it-any-time-I-want-to, and letting off fine sur¬
prises of lurid eloquence at such judicious intervals, that I presently
began to suspect—

But no matter what I began to suspect. Hear him—
i Ten miles above Winona we come to Fountain City, nestling
sweetly at the feet of cliffs that lift their awful fronts, Jovelifce,
toward the blue depths of heaven, bathing them in virgin atmo¬
spheres that have known no other contact save that of angels* wings.

queen’s bluff.

* And next we glide through silver waters, amid lovely and stu¬
pendous aspects of nature that attune our hearts to adoring admira¬
tion, about twelve miles, and strike Mount Veamon, six hundred M
high, with romantic ruins of a once first-class hotel perched far wa mm g
the cloud shadows that mottle its dizzy heights—sole t& mx mre t of ooee-
flourishing Mount Teraon, town of early days, now desolate and
utterly deserted.

5X6

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

e And so we move on. Past Chimney Bock we fly—noble shaft
of six hundred feet; then just before landing at Minnieska our atte&
tion is attracted by a most striking promontory rising over fiv e
hundred feet—the ideal mountain pyramid. Its conic shape—
thickly-wooded surface girding its sides, and its apex like that of a
cone, cause the spectator to wonder at nature’s workings. Prom. i%
dizzy heights superb views of the forests, streams, bluffs, hills and
dales below and beyond for miles are brought within its f 0 ^

CHIMNEY rock:.

What grander river scenery can be conceived, as we gaze upon this
enchanting landscape, from the uppermost point of these bluffs up®
the valleys below % The primeval wildness and awful loneliness of
these sublime creations of nature and nature’s God, excite feelings of
unbounded admiration, and the recollection of which can never be
effiiced from the memory, as we view them in any direction.

■ ‘ Next we have the lion’s Head and the Lioness’s Head, carved
by nature’s band, to adorn and dominate the beauteous stream; and ;

LEGEXES AXD SCEXER F.

517

then anon the river widens, and a m.3st charming and magnificent
view of the valley before us suddenly bursts upon our vision ; rugged
hills, clad with verdant forests from summit to base, level prairie
lands, holding in their lap the beautiful Wabasha, City of the Healing
Waters, puissant foe of Bright’s disease, and that grandest conception
of nature’s works, incomparable Lake Pepin—these constitute a pic¬
ture whereon the tourist’s eye may gaze uncounted hours, with rapture
unappeased and unappeasable.

THE MAIDEN S BOCK.

* And so we glide along; in due time encountering those majestic
domes, the mighty Sugar Loaf, and the sublime Maiden’s Bodfe—
which latter, romantic superstition has invested with & voice; and
oft-times as the birch canoe glides near, at twilight, the dusky p a dd le g
fancies he hears the soft sweet music of the long-departed Wiacaa,
darling of Indian song and story.

616

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

‘ Then Frontenac looms upon our vision, delightful resort of jaded
summer tourists; then progressive Red Wing; and Diamond Bluff;
impressive and preponderous in its lone sublimity; then Prescott and
the St. Croix; and anon we see bursting upon us the domes and
steeples of St. Paul, giant young chief of the North,
seven-league stride in the van of progress, banner-bearer of the highest
and newest civilisation, carving his beneficent way with the toma¬
hawk of commercial enterprise, sounding the warwhoop of Christian
culture, tearing off the reek 5 ^ scalp of sloth and superstition to plant
there the steam-plough and the school-house—ever in his front stretch
arid lawlessness, ignorance, crime, despair; ever in his wake bloom
the jail, the gallows, and the pulpit; and ever-'

‘ Have you ever travelled with a panorama ? *

‘ I have formerly served in that capacity/

My suspicion was confirmed.

* Do you still travel with it? *

e No, she is laid up till the fell season opens. I am helping now
to work up the materials for a Tourist's Guide which the St. Louis and
St. Paul Packet Company are going to issue this summer for the
benefit of travellers who go by that line/

‘ When you were talking of Maiden's Rock, you spoke of the long-
departed Winona, darling of Indian song and story. Is she the
maiden of the rock?—and are the two connected by legend ?'

‘Yes, and a very tragic and painful one. Perhaps the most;
celebrated, as well as the most pathetic, of all the legends of the
Mississippi/

We asked him to tell it. He dropped out of his conversational
vein and back into his lecture-gait without an effort, and rolled on as
follows—

* A little distance above Lake City is a famous point known as
Maiden’s Rock, which is not only a picturesque spot, but is fell of
roma nt ic interest from the event which gave it its name. Not many
years ago this locality was a favourite resort for the Sioux

on account of the fine fishing and hunting to be had there, and large
n umb ers of them were always to be found in this locality. Amrmg
the f a milies which used to resort here, was one belonging to the tribe
of Wabasha, We-no-na {first-born) was the name of a Tna-idfli who

LEGENDS AXD SCEXER T.

519

had plighted her troth to a lover belonging to the *ame hand. But
her stem parents had promised her hand to another, a famous warrior,
and insisted on her wedding him. The day was fixed by her parents,
to her great grief. She appeared to accede to the proposal and accom¬
pany them to the rock, for the purpose of gathering flowers for the
feast. On reaching the rock, We-no-na

ran to its summit and standing on its
edge upbraided her parents who were
below, for their cruelty, and then singing
a death-dirge, threw herself from the
precipice and dashed them in pieces on
the rock below.’

‘ Dashed who in pieces—her parents {’

‘ Yes.’

‘ Well, it certainly was a tragic busi¬
ness, as you say. And moreover, there
is a startling kind of dramatic surprise
about it which I was not looking for. It
is a distinct improvement upon the
threadbare form of Indian legend. There
are fifty Dover’s Xieaps along the Missis¬
sippi from whose summit disappointed
girls have jumped, but this is
the only jump in the lot that turned out
in the right and satisfactory way. What
became of W inona % 3

‘ She was a good, deal jarred up and
jolted : but she got herself together and
disappeared before the coroner reached
the fatal spot; and ? tis said she sought
and married her true love, and wandered

THE LRCTCEKB.

with him to some distant clime, where she lived happy ever a&ar,

her gentle spirit mellowed and chastened by the romantic uacideo %
which had so early deprived her of the sweet guidance of a mother’s
love and a father’s protecting arm, and thrown her, all unfriended.

upon the cold chanty of a censorious world.

I was glad to hear the lecturer’s description of the scenery, for it

530

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

assisted my appreciation of what I saw of it, and enabled me to
imagine such of it as we lost by the intrusion of night.

As the lecturer remarked, this whole region is blanketed with
Tr>fh’*.n tales and traditions. But I reminded him that people usually
merely mention this fact—doing it in a way to make a body's mouth
water—and judiciously stopped there. Why? Because the impres¬
sion left, was that these tales were full of incident and imagination—
a pleasant impression which would be promptly dissipated if the tales
were told. I showed him a lot of this sort of literature which I had
been collecting, and he confessed that it was poor stuff, exceedingly
sorry rubbish; and I ventured to add that the legends which he had
himself told us were of this character, with the single exception of the
admirable story of Winona. He granted these facts, but said that if
I would hunt up Mr. Schoolcraft's book, published near fifty years
ago, and now doubtless out of print, I would find some Indian inven¬
tions in it that were very far from being barren of incident and
imagination ; that the tales in Hiawatha were of this sort, and they
came from Schoolcraft's book; and that there were others in the same
book which Mr. Longfellow could have turned into verse with good
effect. For instance, there was the legend of ‘ The Undying Head,*
He could not tell it, for many of the details had grown dim in hia
memory; hut be would recommend me to .find it and enlarge my
respect for the Indian imagination. He said that this tale, and most
of the others in the book, were current among the Indians along this
part of the Mississippi when he first came here; and that the contri¬
butors to Schoolcraft's book had got them directly from Indian lips,
and had written them down with strict exactness, and without embel¬
lishments of their own*

I have found the book. The lecturer was right. There are
several legends in it which confirm what he said. I will offer two of
them — 1 The Undying Head,’ and 1 Peboan and Seegwun, an Allegory
of the Seasons/ The latter is used in Hiawatha; but it is worth
reading in the original form, if only that one may see how effective a
genuine poem can be without the helps and graces of poetic measure
and rhythm—

JbEQENDS and scenery.

fin

PEBOAN AND SEEGWUN.

An old man was sitting' alone in Ills lodge, by the side of a frozen stream*
It was the dose of winter, and his fire was almost out. He appeared very
old and very desolate. His locks were white with age, and he trembled in
every joint. Day after day passed in solitude, and he heard nothing but the
sound of the tempest, sweeping before it the new-fallen snow.

One day, as his fire was just dying, a h an dsome young man approached
and entered his dwelling. ^ His cheeks were red with the blood of youth, hie
eyes sparkled with animation, and a smile played upon his lipa. He walked
with a light and quick step. His forehead was bound with & wreath of
sweet grass, in place of a warrior’s frontlet, and he carried a bunch of flowers
in his hand.

* Ah, my son,’ said the old man, * I am happy to see you. Come in.
Come and tell me of your adventures, and what strange lands you have beat
to see. Let us pass the night together. I will tell you of my prowees yyyd
exploits, and what I can perform. You shall do the same, and wewilUmtzae
ourselves.’

He then drew from his sack a curiously wrought antique pipe,
having filled it "with tobacco, rendered mild by a mixture of certain leavee,
handed it to his guest. When this ceremony was concluded they by ™ to
speak.

4 I blow my breath/ said the old * and the stream stands a*ra The
water becomes stiff and hard as dear stone. 9

4 1 breathe,’ said the young naan, * a-nd flowers spring top over the
plain.’

4 1 shake my locks/ retorted the old man, 4 and snow covers the land.
The leaves fall from the trees at my command, and my breath blows these
away. The birds get up from the water, and fly to a distant land. The
animals hide themselves from my breath, and the very ground beoogaes m
hard as flint.’

4 1 shake my ringlets,’ rejoined the young man, ‘and warm showers of
soft rain fall upon the earth. The plants lift up their heads out of the earth,
like the eyes of children glistening with delight. My voice recalls the bode.
The warmth of my breath unlocks the streams. Musk; fills the groves when¬
ever I walk, and all nature rejoices.’

At length the sun began to rise. A gentle warmth came over the piece.
The tongue of the old man became silent. The robin and bLaebird began to
sing on the top of the lodge. The stream began to mnrmur by the door, and
the fragrance of growing herbs and Sowers came softly on the vernal
breexe.

m LIFE OF TBE MISSISSIPPI.

Daylight fully revealed to the young man the character of his entertainer
When he looked upon him, he had the icy visage of Peboan . 1 Streams heran
to flow from his eyes. As the sun increased, he grew less and less in stature
and anon had melted completely away. Nothing remained on the place of
his lodge-fire hut the miskodeed , 3 a small white flower, with a pink border
which is one of the earliest species of northern plants. ’

‘The Undying Head’is a rather long tale, but it makes up in
weird conceits, fairy-tale prodigies, variety of incident, and energy of
movement, for what it lacks in brevity.*

' Whiter ’ The trailing at tutus. * See Appendix D.

6*3

CHAPTER LX.

SPECULATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS.

We readied St. Paul, at the head of navigation of the Mississippi,
and there our voyage of two thousand miles from Hew Orleans **r* dAd .
It is about a ten-day trip by steamer. It can probably be done
quicker by rail. I judge so because I know tlmt one may go by rail
from St. Louis to Hannibal—a distance of at least a hundred and
twenty miles—in seven hours. This is better than walking; unless
one is in a hurry.

The season being far advanced when we were in Hew Orleans,
the roses and magnolia blossoms were felling; but here in St. Paul
it was the snow. In Hew Orleans we had caught an occasional
withering breath from over a crater, apparently; here in St. Paul
we caught a frequent benumbing one from over a glacier, apparently.

I am not trying to astonish by these statistics. Ho, it m only
natural that there should be a sharp difference between climates
which lie upon parallels of latitude which are one or two thousand
miles apart. I take this position, and I will hold it and maintain it
in spite of the newspapers. The newspaper thinks it isn’t a natural
thing; and once a year, in February, it remarks, with ill-oonoealed
exclamation points, that while we, away up here are fighting snow
and ice, folks are having new strawberries and peas down South;

are blooming out of doors, and the people are complaining of
the warm weather. The newspaper never gets done being surprised
about it. It is caught regularly every February. There msd be m
reason for this; and this reason must be change of heads ah tibe
editorial desk. You cannot surprise an individual more than twice
with the same marvel—not even with the February Twrrarhw of the

524

LIFE OX THE MISSISSIPPI .

Southern climate; but if you keep putting new hands at the edi^ i
desk every year or two, and forget to vaccinate them against
annual climatic surprise, that same old thing is going to™™,. 1-S
along Each year one new hand will have the diseLe, and bjS
from its recurrence; but this does not save the newspaper
newspaper is in as bad case as ever; it will for ever haCe its Jl
hand; and so, it will break out with the strawberry surprise every

ST. PAUL.

February as long as it lives. The new hand is curable; the new
paper itself is incurabie. An act of Congress-no, Congress coni
not prohibit the strawberry surprise without questionably sfcretchin

An amsndment to the Constitution might fix the thin*
and that rs probably the best and quickest way to get at it. Undl

, of suc51 an amendment. Congress could then pass an at
uifectmg imprisonment for life for the first offence, and some sort*

SPECULATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS fiSS

lingering death for subsequent ones; and this, no doubt, would pre¬
sently give us a rest. At the same time, the amendment ^ the
resulting act and penalties might easily be made to cover various
cognate abuses, such as the Annual-Yeteran-whc^has-Voted-fo ivEvery-
President - from-Washington-down,- and-Walked - to - the-PoIls-Yesfcer*
day-with-as-Biight-an-Eye-and-a^Firm-a-Step-as-Ever, and ten or
eleven other weary yearly marvels of thatsort, and of the Oldest-Free-
mason, and Oldest-Printer, and Oldest-Baptist-Preaeher, and Oldest*
Alumnus sort, and Three-Chndren-Born-at-a-Birfeh sort, and so on, and
so on* And then England would take it up and pass a law prohibiting
the further use of Sidney Smith’s jokes, and appointing a commis¬
sioner to construct some new ones* Then life would be a sweet
dream of rest and peace, and the nations would cease to long for
heaven.

But I wander from my theme. St. Paul is a wonderful town.
It is put together in solid blocks of honest brick and stone, and has
the air of intending to stay. Its post-office was established thirty-eix
years ago; and by and by, when the postmaster received & letter, he
carried it to Washington, horseback, to inquire what was to be done
with it. Such is the legend. Two frame houses were built that year,
and several persons were added to the population. A recent number
of the leading St. Paul paper, the ‘Pioneer Press,* gives some
statistics which furnish a vivid contrast to that old state of things, to
wit: Population, autumn of the present year (1882), 71,000;
number of letters handled, first half of the year, 1,209,387; number
of houses built during three-quarters of the year, 989 ; their cost,
$3,186,000. The increase of letters over the corresponding six mo&tim
of last year was fifty per cent. Last year the new buildings added to
the city cost above $4,500,000. St. Paul’s strength lies in her com*
merce—I mean his commerce. He is a manufacturing city, of course
—all the cities of that region are—but he is peculiarly strong in the
matter of commerce. lest year his jobbing trade amounted to up¬
wards of $52,000,000.

He has a custom-house, and is building a costly capital to replace
the one recently burned—for he is the capital of the State, He baa
churches without end; and not the cheap poor kind, fast the kin d
that the rich Protestant puts up, the kind that the poor Irish * hired-

SPECrLATIQNS AKP COXCLUSIQXS.

527

the streets are obstructed with building material, and this is being
compacted into houses as fast as possible, to make room for more—
for other people are anxious to build, as soon as they can get the use
of the streets to pile up their bricks and stuff in.

How solemn and beautiful is the thought, tliat tbe earliest pioneer
of civilisation, the van-leader of civilisation, is never the steamboat,
never tbe railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-scbool,
never the missionary—but always whiskey ! Such is the case. Look
history over ; you will see. The missionary comes after the whiskey—
I mean he arrives after the whiskey has arrived ; next comm the poor

THE FIRST ARRIVAL.

immigrant, with axe and hoe and rifle; next, the trader; next, the
miscellaneous rush; next, the gambler, the desperado, the highway¬
man, and all their kindred in sin of both sexes; and next, the smart
chap who has bought up an old grant that covers all the W; tins
brings the lawyer tribe; the vigilance committee brings t he xmd eir-
taker. All these interests bring the newspaper; the nea qpaptr
starts up politics and a railroad; all hands turn to and build sdiorA
and a jail—and behold, civilisation is established for error m tbetaad.
But whiskey, you see, was the van-leader in this beasefioaot work. It
always is. It was like a foreigner-*®! excusable in a foreknew—to

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

be Ignorant of this great truth, and wander off into astronomy to I
borrow a symbol. But if he had been conversant with the facts, be
would have said—

Westward the Jug of Empire takes its way.

This great van-leader arrived upon the ground which Si Pad
now occupies, in June 1837. Yes, at that date, Pierre Parrant,&
Canadian, built the first cabin, uncorked his jug, and began to sell
whiskey to the Indians. The result is before us.

All that I have said of the newness, briskness, swift progress,
wealth, intelligence, fine and substantial architecture, and general
slash and go, and energy of St. Paul, will apply to his near neighbour,
Minneapolis—with the addition that the latter is the bigger of tbs
two cities.

These extraordinary towns were ten miles apart, a few months
ago, hut were growing so fast that they may possibly be joined now,
and getting along under a single mayor. At any rate, within five
years from now there will be at least such a substantial ligament of
buildings stretching between them and uniting them that a strange®
will not he able to tell where the one Siamese twin leaves off and the
other begins. Combined, they will then number a population of two
hundred and fifty thousand, if they continue to grow as they are now
growing. Thus, this centre of population at the head of Missis¬
sippi navigation, will then begin a rivalry as to numbers, with that
centre of population at the foot of it—New Orleans.

Minneapolis is situated at the falls of St. Anthony, which stretch
across the river, fifteen hundred feet, and have a fall of eighty-two
feet—a waterpower which, by art, has been made of inestimable value,
business-wise, though somewhat to the damage of the Palls as a spec¬
tacle, or as a background against which to get your photograph taken.

Thirty flouring-mills turn out two million barrels of the verj
choicest of flour every year 5 twenty sawmills produce two hundred
million feet of lumber annually 5 then there are woollen mill s, cotton
mills, paper and oil mills j and sash, nail, furniture, barrel, and other
factories, without number, so to speak. The great flouring-mills here
«nd at St Paul use the c new process * and mash the wheat by ro lling,
instead of grinding it.

SPEf'CIATTOXS A XU COXCTf SIOXS,

529

Sixteen railroads meet in Minneapolis, and sixty-five passenge*
trains arrive and depart daily.

In this place, as in St. Paul, journalism thrives. Here there are
three great dailies, ten weeklies, and three monthlies.

There is a university, with four hundred students—and, better
still, its good efforts are not confined to enlightening th& one sex.
There are sixteen public schools, with buildings which cost $50U,00O :

MINNEAPOLIS AND THE PALLS OF ST. ANTHONY.

there are si-y thousand pupils and one hundred and twenty-eight
teachers. There are also seventy churches e xi st i n g, and a lot more
projected. The hanks aggregate a capital of $3,000,000, and the
wholesale jobbing trade of the town amounts to $50,000,000 a year.

Hear St. Paul and Minneapolis are several points of interest—
Port Snelling, a fortress occupying a river-bluff a hundred feet high;
the falls of Minnehaha; White-bear Lake, and so forth. Tlie beauti¬
ful Mis of Minnehaha are sufficiently celebrated —they do not need »

v v

630

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

lift from me, in that direction. The White-bear Lake is less known.
It is a lovely sheet of water, and is being utilised as a summer resort
by the weath and fashion of the State. It has its dub-house, and its
hotel, with the modem improvements and conveniences; its fine
summer residences; and plenty of fishing, hunting, and pleasant drives.
There are a dozen minor summer resorts around about St. Paul and
Minneapolis, but the White-bear Lake is the resort. Connected
with White-bear Lake is a most idiotic Indian legend. I would
resist the temptation to print it here, if I could, but the task is
beyond my strength. The guide-book names the preserver of the
legend, and compliments his * facile pen/ Without further com¬
ment or delay then, let us turn the said facile pen loose upon the
reader—

A LEGEND OF WHITE-BEAR LAKE.

Every spring, for perhaps a century, or as long as there has been a nation
of red men, an island in the middle of White-bear Lake has been visited by
a band of Indians for the purpose of making maple sugar.

Tradition says that many springs ago, while upon this island, a yooag
warrior loved and wooed the daughter of his chief, and it is said, also, the
maiden loved the warrior. He had again and again been refused her hanfl
by her parents, the old chief alleging that he was no brave, and his old con¬
sort called him a woman I

The sun had again set upon the ‘ sugar-hush/ and the bright moon toss
high in the bright blue heavens, when the young warrior took down his flute
and went out alone, once more to sing the story of his love, the mild breeze
gently moved the two gay feathers in his head-dress, and as he mounted on the
trunk of a leaning tree, the damp snow fell from his feet heavily. As he
raised his flute to his lips, his blanket slipped from his well-formed shoulders,
and lay partly on the snow beneath. He began his weird, wild love-song,
hut soon felt that he was cold, and as he reached back for his blanket, some
unseen hand laid it gently on his shoulders; it was the hand of his love, ha
guardian angel. She took her place beside him, and for the present they
were happy; for the Indian has a heart to love, and in this pride he is as
noble as in his own freedom, which makes him the child of the forest As
rite legend runs, a large white-bear, thinking, perhaps, that polar snows and
dismal winter weather extended everywhere, took up his journey southward.
He at length approached the northern shore of the lake which now bears his
name, walked down the bank and made his way noiselessly through the
deep heavy snow toward the island. It was the same spring ensuing

SPEOUX.A TIOXS AXD < OXCL USIOXS.

the lovers met. They had
left their first retreat, and
were now seated among
the branches of a large elm
which hung far over the
lake. (The same tree is
still standing, and excites
universal curiosity and in-
terest.) For fear of being
detected, they talked almost
in a whisper, and now,
that they might get back
to camp in good time and
thereby avoid suspicion,
they were just rising to
return, when the maiden
uttered a shriek which was
heard at the camp, and
bounding toward the young
brave, she caught his blan¬
ket, but mussed the direc¬
tion of her foot and fell,
bearing the blanket with
her into the great arms
of the ferocious monster.
Instantly every man, wo¬
man, and child of the band
were upon the bank, but
all unarmed. Cries and
wailings went up from every
mouth. What was to be
done P In the meantime
this white and savage beast
held the breathless maiden
in his huge grasp, and
fondled with his precious
prey as if he were used to
scenes like this. One deaf¬
ening yell from the lover
warrior is heard above the

cries of hundreds of bis
tribe, and dashing away to

TUB MIXTURE.

his wigwam he grasps his faithful knife, returns almost at a single botrad

532

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

to the scene of fear and fright, rushes out along the leaning tree to tin
spot where his treasure fell, and spr ingin g with the fury of a mad panther
pounced upon his prey. The animal turned, and with one stroke of his huge
paw brought the loyers heart to heart, hut the next moment the warrior
with one plunge of the blade of his knife, opened the crimson sluices of death,
and the dying bear relaxed his hold.

That night there was no more sleep for the hand or the lovers, and as lie
young and the old danced about the carcass of the dead monster, the gallant
warrior was presented with another plume, and ere another moon had Bet
he had a living treasure added to his heart. Their children for many years
played upon the skin of the white-bear—from which the lake derives its
name—and the maiden and the brave remembered long the fearful scene and
rescue that made them one, for Kis-se-me-pa and Ka-go-ka could never for¬
get their fearful encounter with the huge monster that came so near sending
them to the happy hunting-ground.

It is a perplexing business. First, she fell down out of the tree—
she and the blanket; and the bear caught her and fondled her—her
and the blanket; then she fell up into the tree again—leaving tie
blanket; meantime tbe lover goes war-whooping home and comes
back * heeled,* climbs the tree, jumps down on the bear, the girl jumps
down after him —apparently, for she was up the tree—resumes her
place in the bear’s arms along with the blanket, the lover rams his
knife into the bear, and saves—whom, the blanket? No—nothing
of the sort. You get yourself all worked up and excited about that
blanket, and then all of a sudden, just when a happy climax semis
imminent you are let down flat—nothing saved but the girl
Whereas, one is not interested in the girl; she is not the promi¬
nent feature of the legend. Nevertheless, there you are left, and
there yon must remain; for if you live a thousand years you will
never know who got the blanket. A dead man could get up a better
legend than this one. I don’t mean a fresh dead man either; I mean a
■man that’s been dead weeks and weeks.

We struck the home-trail now, and in a few hours were in that
astonishing Chicago—a city where they are always rubbing the lamp,
and fetching np the genii, and contriving and achieving new impos¬
sibilities. It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep np
with Chicago—she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make
them. She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you

SPECULATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS. 633

saw when you passed through the last time. The Pennsylvania road
rushed us to New York without missing schedule time’ten minutes
anywhere on the route; and there ended one of the most enjoyable
five-thousand-mile journeys I have ever had the good fortune to

i-~LB

APPENDIX A.

{From toe New Orleans Times-Dxmocrat, qf March », 1881.)

VOYAGE OF THE TIMES-DEMOCRAT’8 RELIEF BOAT
THROUGH THE INUNDATED REGIONS.

It was nine o’clock Thursday morning when the e Susie ’ left the Mississippi
and entered Old River, or what is now called the mouth of the Red. Ascen¬
ding on the left, a flood was pouring in through and over the levees cm the
Chandler plantation, the most northern point in Pointe Couple parish. The
water completely covered the place, although the levees had given way hut
a short time “before. The stock had been gathered in a large flat-boat,
where, without food, as we passed, the animals were huddled together,
waiting for a boat to tow them off. On the right-hand side of the river is
Turnbull’s Island, and on it is a large plantation which formerly was pro¬
nounced one of the most fertile in the State. The water has hitherto allowed
it to go scot-free in usual floods, but now Inroad sheets of water told only
where fields were. The top of the protecting levee could be seen here mod
there, but nearly all of it was submerged.

The trees have put on a greener foliage since the water bee poured in,
and the woods look bright and fresh, but this pleasant aspect to the eye is
neutralised by the interminable waste of water. We pass mile after mil e,
and it is nothing but trees standing up to their br anches m water. A wsstar-
turkey now and again rises and flies ahead into the losag avenue of mimea.
A pirogue sometimes flits from the bushes and emeses the Red River o® itu
way out to the Mississippi, but the sad-faced paddtes never ton their heads
to look at our boat. The puffing of the boat is mode in this gloom, wkUk
affects one most curiously. It is not the gloom of deep forests or
caverns, but a peculiar kind of solemn sfieneeand in^reesivB awe that holds
one perforce to its recognition. We passed two negro faraibe e m a
up inthe willows this morning. They w^eevidmdlyof
as they had a supply of meal and three or four hogs with them* Them um

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI ,.

536

were about twenty feet square, and in front of an improvised shelter earth
had been placed, on which they built their fire.

The current running* down the Atchafalaya was very swift, the Mississippi
showing a predilection in that direction, which needs only to he seen to
enforce the opinion of that river’s desperate endeavours to find a short way
to the Gulf. Small boats, skiffs, pirogues, etc., are in great demand, and
many have been stolen by piratical negroes, who take them where they will
bring the greatest price. From what was told me by Mr. C. P. Ferguson,
a planter near Red River Landing, whose place has just gone under, there
is much suffering in the rear of that place. The negroes had given up all
thoughts of a crevasse there, as the upper levee had stood so long, and when
it did come they were at its mercy. On Thursday a number were taken out
of trees and off of cabin roofs and brought in, many yet remaining.

One does not appreciate the sight of earth until he has travelled through
a flood. At sea one does not expect or look for it, but here, with fluttering
leaves, shadowy forest aisles, house-tops barely visible, it is expected. In
fact a grave-yard, if the mounds were above water, would be appreciated.
The river here is known only because there is an opening in the trees, and
that is all. It is in width, from Fort Adams on the left hank of the
Mississippi to the bank of Rapides Parish, a distance of about sixty miles. A
large portion of this was under cultivation, particularly along the Mississippi
and back of the Red. When Red River proper was entered, a strong current
was running directly across it, pursuing the same direction as that of the
Mississippi.

After a run of some hours, Black River was reached. Hardly was it
entered before signs of suffering became visible. All the willows along the
banks were stripped of their leaves. One man, whom your correspondent
spoke to, said that he had had one hundred and fifty head of cattle and one
hundred head of hogs. At the first appearance of water he had started to
drive them to the high lands of Avoyelles, thirty-five miles off, but he lost
fifty head of the beef cattle and sixty hogs. Black River is quite picturesque,
even if its shores are under water. A dense growth of ash, oak, gum, and
hickory make the shores almost impenetrable, and where one can get a view
down some avenue in the trees, only the dim outlines of distant trunks can
be barely distinguished in the gloom.

A few miles up this river, the depth of water on the banks was fully eight
feet, and on all sides could be seen, still hoi jLing against the strong current,
the tops of cabins. Here and there one overturned was surrounded by drift-
wood, forming the nucleus of possibly some future island.

In order to save coal, as it was impossible to get that fuel at any point
to be touched during the expedition, a look-out was kept for a wood-pile.
On rounding a point a pirogue, skilfully paddled by a youth, shot out, and

APP&XblX A. „ 7

in its bow was agirl of fifteen, of fair fees, beautiful black eyes, and demon
manners. The boy asked for a paper, which was thrown to him. and the
couple pushed their tmy craft out into the swell of the boat.

Presently a little girl, not certainly over twelve yean, paddled oat in
the smallest little canoe and handled it with all the daftness of an old
voyageur. The little one looked more like an Indian than a white child
and laughed when asked if she were afraid. She had been raised in a'
pirogue and could go any where. She was bound out to pick willow leaves
for the stock, and she pointed to a house near by with water three inches
deep on the floors. At its back door was moored a raft about thirty feet
square, with a sort of fence built upon it, and inside of this some sixteen
cows and twenty hogs were standing. The family did not complain, except
on account of losing their stock, and promptly brought a supply of wood in
a fiat.

From this point to the Mississippi River, fifteen there is not a spot
of earth above water, and to the westward for thirty-five mike these is
nothing hut the river’s flood. Black River had risen during Thursday, the
23rd, If inches, and was going up at night stilL As we progress up the
river habitations become more frequent, but are yet still miles apart. Nearly
all of them are deserted, and the out-houses floated off. To to the
gloom, almost every living thing seems to have departed, and not a whistle
of a bird nor the bark of the squirrel can be heard in this solitude. Some¬
times a morose gar will throw his tail aloft and disappear in river, but
beyond this everything is quiet—the quiet of dissolution, Down the river
floats now a neatly whitewashed hen-house, thyrt & duster of neatly split
fence-rails, or a door and a bloated carcass, solemnly guarded by a pair of
buzzards, the only bird to be seen, which feast on the as it bears

them along. A picture-frame in which there was a cheap lithograph of
a soldier on horseback, as it floated on told of some hearth invaded by the
water and despoiled of this ornament.

At dark, as it was not prudent to run, a place the woods was

hunted and to a tall gum-tree the boat was made fast for the **jg*»t,

A pretty quarter of the moon threw a pleasant light over foraet and river,
making a picture that would be a delightfol piece of landscape study, could
an artist only hold it down to his canvas. The mnfcinn of the «wghws
ceased, the puffing of the escaping steam was stalled, and the anveloptsg
silence closed upon us, and such silence it was! Usually in a forest at night
one can hear the piping of frogs, the hum of insects, or the dropping of
limbs; but here nature was dumb. The dark recesses, those aisles into this
cathedral, gave forth no sound, and even the ripplings of the currant die

away.

At daylight Friday morning all ha n ds were up, and up the Black we

638

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI .

started. The morning was a beautiful one, and the river, which is remark¬
ably straight, put on its loveliest gaTb. The blossoms of the haw perfumed
the air deliciously, and a few birds whistled blithely along the banks. The
trees were larger, and the forest seemed of older growth, than below. More
fields were passed than nearer the mouth, but the same scene presented itself
—smoke-houses drifting out in the pastures, negro quarters anchored in con¬
fusion against some oak, and the modest residence just showing its eaves
above water. The sun came up in a glory of carmine, and the trees were
brilliant in their varied shades of green. Not a foot of soil is to be seen any¬
where, and the water is apparently growing deeper and deeper, for it reaches
up to the branches of the largest trees. All along, the bordering willows
have been denuded of leaves, showing how long the people have been at
work gathering this fodder for their animals. An old man in a pirogue was
asked how the willow leaves agreed with his cattle. He stopped in his
work, and with an ominous shake of his head replied: 1 Well, sir, it’s enough
to keep warmth in their bodies and that’s all we expect, but it’s hard on tb
hogs, particularly the small ones. They is dropping oft powerful fast' Bat
what can you do ? It’s all we’ve got.*

At thirty miles above the mouth of Black River the water extends from
Natchez on the Mississippi across to the pine hills of Louisiana, a distance of
seventy-three miles, and there is hardly a spot that is not ten feet under it
The tendency of the current up the Black is toward the west. In fact, so
much is this the case, the waters of Red River have been driven down from
toward the Calcasieu country, and the waters of the Black enter the Red some
fifteen miles above the mouth of the former, a thing never before seen by
even the oldest steamboatmen. The water now in sight of us is entirely
from the Mississippi.

Tip to Trinity, or rather Troy, which is hut a short distance below, tie
people have nearly all moved out, those remaining having enough for thar
present personal needs. Their cattle, though, are suffering and dying off
quite fast, as the confinement on rafts and the food they get breeds disease.

After a short stop we started, and soon came to a section where them
were many open fields and cabins thickly scattered about. Here were sees
more pictures of distress. On the inside of the houses the inmates had bo2t
on boxes a scaffold on which they placed the furniture. The bed-posts wem
sawed off on top, as the ceiling was not more than four feet from the w?
provised floor. The buildings looked very insecure, and threatened every
moment to float off. Near the houses were cattle standing breast high m
the water, perfectly impassive. They did not move in their places, butsfcooi
patiently waiting for help to come. The sight was a distressing one, and lib j
poor creatures will he sure to die unless speedily rescued. Cattle differing
horses in peculiar quality. A horse, after finding no rehef comes,

APPENDIX A. 539

swim off in search of food, whereas a beef will stand in its tracks wntil with
exhaustion it drops in the water and drowns*

At half-past twelve o'clock a hail was given from a fiat-boat iTurida the
line of the hank* Hounding to we ran alongside, and General York stepped
aboard. He was just then engaged in getting off stock, and welcomed the
* Times-Democrat * boat heartily, as he said there was much T¥y*d for her.
He said that the distress was not exaggerated in the least. People were in
a condition it was difficult even for one to imagine. The water was so high
there was great danger of their houses being swept away. It had already-
risen so high that it was approaching the eaves, and when it reaches t*” ft
point there is always imminent risk of their being swept away. If this
occurs, there will he great loss of life. The General spoke of the gallant
work of many of the people in their attempts to save their stock, bat thought
that fully twenty-five per cent, had perished. Already twenty-five hundred
people had received rations from Troy, on Black River, and he had towed
out a great many cattle, hut a very great quantity remained and were in
dire need. The water was now eighteen inches higher than in 1874, and
there was no land between Vidalia and the hills of Catahoula.

At two o'clock the ‘Susie' reached Troy, sixty-five miles above the
mouth of Black Biver. Here on the left comes in little River; just beyond
that the Ouachita, and on the right the Tensas. These three rivers form the
Black River. Troy, or a portion of it, is situated on and around three
large Indian mounds, circular in shape, which rise above the present water
about twelve feet. They are about one hundred and fifty feet in diameter,
and are about two hundred yards apart. The houses are all built between
these mounds, and hence are all flooded to a depth of eighteen inches on
their floors.

These elevations, built by the aborigines, hundreds of years ago, axe the
only points of refuge for miles. When we arrived we found them crowded
with stock, all of which was thin and hardly able to stand up. They ware
mixed together, sheep, begs, horses, mules, and cattle. One of these mounds
has been used fox many years as the grave-yard, and to-day we saw ah*
tenuated cows lying against the marble tomb-stones, chewing them cad in
contentment, after a meal of com furnished by General York. Here, as
below, the remarkable skill of the women and girls in the management e4
the smaller pirogues was noticed. Children were pad dl ing about in these
fSrlrltah crafts with all the non chal ance of adepts.

General York has put into operation a perfect system in regard to fern-
ynaTirng relief. He makes a personal inspection iff the place whaess lb is
asked, sees what is necessary to be done^ and t hen , having two b oata^c haa-
tered, with flat®, sends them promptly to the place, when the ort fli aao
loaded and towed to the pine hills and u p la n ds of Catahoula. Ha has made

640

LIFE OK THE MISSISSIPPI.

Troy his headquarters, and to this point boats come for their supply of feed
for cattle. On the opposite side of Little River, which branches to the left
out of Black, and between it and the Ouachita, is situated the town of Trinity
which is hourly threatened with destruction. It is much lower than Troy
and the water is eight and nine feet deep in the houses. A strong current
sweeps through it, and it is remarkable that all of its houses have not gone
before. The residents of both Troy and Trinity have been cared for, yet
some of their stock have to be furnished with food.

As soon as the 1 Susie ’ reached Troy, she was turned over to General
York, and placed at his disposition to carry out the work of relief more
rapidly. Nearly all her supplies were landed on one of the mounds to
lighten her, and she was headed down stream to relieve those below. At
Tom Hooper’s place, a few miles from Troy, a large flat, with about fifty
head of stock on hoard, was taken in tow. The animals were fed, and soon
regained some strength. To-day we go on Little River, where the suffering
is greatest.

Dowir Black River.

Saturday Evening, March 25.

We started down Black River quite early, under the direction of General
York, to bring out what stock could be reached. Going down river a flat in
tow was left in a central locality, and from there men poled her back in the
rear of plantations, picking up the animals wherever found. In the loft of &
gin-house there were seventeen head found, and after a gangway was built
they were led down into the flat without difficulty. Taking a skiff with
the General, your reporter was pulled up to a little house of two rooms, in
which the water was standing two feet on the floors. In one of the large
rooms were huddled the horses and cows of the place, while in the other the
Widow Taylor and her son were seated on a scaffold raised on the floor.
One or two dug-outs were drifting about in the room ready to he put in
service at any time. When the flat was brought up, the side of the house
was cut away as the only means of getting the animals out, and the cattle
were driven on board the boat. General York, in this as in every case, in¬
quired if the family desired to leave, informing them that Major Burke, of
‘The Times-Bemocrat/ has sent the 1 Susie’ up for that purpose. Mis.
Taylor said she thanked Major Burke, but she would try and hold out. The '
remarkable tenacity of the people here to their homes is beyond all com¬
prehension. Just below, at a point sixteen miles from Troy, information,
was received that the house of Mr. Tom Ellis was in danger, and his family ;
were all in it* We steamed there immediately, and a sad picture was presented.

APPENDIX A .

541

Looking out of the half of the window left above water, was Mr*. Ellis, who
is in feeble health, whilst at the door were her seven children, the oldest not
fourteen years. One side of the house was given up to the work •■nimbly
some twelve head, besides hogs. In the next room the family lived, the water
coming within two inches of the bed-rail. The stove was below water, and
the cooking was done on a fiTe on top of it The house threatened to give
way at any moment: one ei'd of it was sinking, and, in fact, the building
looked a mere shell. As the boat rounded to, Mr. EIHr came out in a dug-
out, and General York told him that he had come to his relief; that 1 The
Times-Democrat * boat was at his service, and would remove his family at
once to the hills, and on Monday a flat would take out his stock, as, until
that time, they would he busy. Notwithstanding the deplorable situation
himself and family were in, Mr. Ellis did not want to leave. He said he
thought he would wait until Monday, and take the risk of his bouse falling.
The children around the door looked perfectly contented, seeming to care
little for the danger they were in. These are hut two instances of the many.
After weeks of privation and suffering, people still cling to their houses and
leave only when there is not room between the water and the ceiling to build
a scaffold on which to stand. It seemed to be incomprehensible, yet the
love for the old place was stronger than that for safety.

After leaving the Ellis place, the next spot touched at was the Oswald
place. Here the flat was towed alongside the gin-house where these were
fifteen head standing in water; and yet, as they stood on scaffolds, their
heads were above the top of the entrance. It was found impossible to get
them out without cutting away a portion of the front; and so axes were
brought into requisition and a gap made. After much labour the horses and
mules were securely placed on the flat.

At each place we stop there are always three, four, or more dog out*
arriving, bringing information of stock in other places in need. Notwith¬
standing the fact that a great many had driven a part of their stock to the
hills some time ago, theie yet remains a large quantity, which General York,
who is working with indomitable energy, will get landed in the pine h i l ls
by Tuesday,

All along Black Biver the * Susie* has been visited by scores of planters,
whose tales are the repetition of those already heard of suffering sad fees.
An old planter, who has lived on the river since 1844, said there mma rwm
such a rise, and he was satisfied more than one quarter of the stockhaa keen
lost. Luckily the people cared first for their work stock, and when they
could find it horses and mules were housed in a place of safety. The riee
which still continues, and was two indies last night, compels thew to get
them out to the hills; hence it is that the work of General Yc*k is of mfe
a great value. From daylight to late at night Imaging this way aid that.

542

LIFE ON TEE MISSISSIPPI.

cheering by his kindly words and directing with calm judgment what is to
he done. One unpleasant story, of a certain merchant in New Orleans, is
told all along the river. It appears for some years past the planters have
been dealing with this individual, and many of them had balances in his
hands. When the overflow came they wrote for coflee, for meal, and, in
fact, for such little necessities as were required. No response to these letters
came, and others were written, and yet these old customers, with plantations
under water, were refused even what was necessary to sustain life. It is
needless to say he is not popular now on Black Biver.

The hills spoken of as the place of refuge for the people and stock on
Black Biver are in Catahoula parish, twenty-four miles from Black Biyer.

After filling the flat with cattle we took on board the family of T. S.
Hooper, seven in number, who could not longer remain in their dwelling,
and we are now taking them up Little Biver to the hills.

The Flood Still Bisnsro.

Troy : March 27, 1882, noon.

The flood here is rising about three and a half inches every twenty-four
hours, and rains have set in which will increase this. General York feels
now that our efforts ought to be directed towards saving life, as the increase
of the water has jeopardised many houses. We intend to go up the Tensas
in a few minutes, and then we will return and go down Black Biver to take
off families. There is a lack of steam transportation here to meet the
emergency. The General has three boats chartered, with flats in tow, bat
the demand fox these to tow out stock is greater than they can meet with
promptness. All are working night and day, and the c Susie ’ hardly stops
for more than an hour anywhere. The rise has placed Trinity in a dangerous
plight, and momentarily it is expected that some of the houses will float off
Troy is a little higher, yet all are in the water. Beports have come in
that a woman and child have been washed away below here, and two
cabins floated off. Their occupants are the same who refused to come off
day before yesterday* One would not believe the utter passiveness of the
people.

As yet no news has been received of the steamer ‘ Delia,’ which is sup¬
posed to be the one sunk in yesterday’s storm on Lake Catahoula. She is
due here now, but has not arrived. Even the mail here is most uncertain,
and this I send by skiff to Natchez to get it to you. It is impossible to get
accurate data as to past crops, etc., as those who know much about the

APPENDIX A.

543

matter have gone, and those who remain are not well versed in the produs-
tion of this section.

General York desires me to say that the amount of rations formerly sent
should he duplicated and sent at once. It is impossible to any estimate,
for the people are fleeing to the hills, so rapid is the rise. The residents
here are in a state of commotion that can only be appreciated whenseen, and

complete demoralisation has set in.

If rations are drawn for anypariaciilarsatioEliereahoiite, they wooldnot

he certain to he distributed, so everything should he sent to Troy as a Mitre,
and the General will have it properly disposed o£ He has sent for one

hundred tents, and, if all go to the hills who are in motion now, two hundred
will he required.

544

LIFE ON THE MI88I8SIPPZ

APPENDIX B.

The condition of this rich valley of the Lower Mississippi, immediately after
and since the war, constituted one of the disastrous effects of war most to
he deplored. Fictitious property in slaves was not only righteously des¬
troyed, hut very much of the work which had depended upon the slave
labour was also destroyed or greatly impaired, especially the levee system.

It might have been expected by those who have not investigated the
subject, that such important improvements as the construction and mainte¬
nance of the levees would, have been assumed at once by the several States.
But what can the State do where the people are under subjection to rates of
interest ranging from 18 to 30 per cent., and are also under the necessity of
pledging their crops in advance even of planting, at these rates, for the pri¬
vilege of purchasing all of their supplies at 100 per cent, profit ?

It has needed but little attention to make it perfectly obvious that the
control of the Mississippi River, if undertaken at all, must be undertaken by
the national government, and cannot be compassed by States. The river
must be treated as a unit; its control cannot be compassed under a divided or
separate system of administration.

Neither are the States especially interested competent to combine among
themselves for the necessary operations. The work must begin far up the
river; at least as far as Cairo, if not beyond; and must be conducted upon
a consistent general plan throughout the course of the river.

It does not need technical or scientific knowledge to comprehend the ele¬
ments of the case if one will give a little time and attention to the subject^
and when a Mississippi River commission has been constituted, as the exist¬
ing commission is, of thoroughly able men of different walks in life, may h
not he suggested that their verdict in the case should be accepted as conclu¬
sive, so far as any a priori theory of construction or control can he considered
conclusive P

It should be remembered that upon this board are General Gilmore,
General Comstock, and General Suter, of the United States Engineers;’
Professor Henry Mitchell (the most competent authority on the question of
hydrography), of the United States Coast Survey; B. B. Harrod,

APPENDIX B.

State Engineer of Louisiana; Jas. B. Eads, whose success with the jetties
at New Orleans is a warrant of his competency, and Judge Taylor, of
Indiana.

It would be presumption on the part of any single man, however skilled,
to contest the judgment of such a board as thia ,

The method of improvement proposed by the commission is at once in
accord with the results of engineering experience and with observations of
nature where meeting our wants. As in nature the growth of trees and their
proneness where undermined to fall across the slope and support the bank
secures at some points a fair depth of channel and some degree of perma-
nence, so in the project of the engineer the use of timber and brush and ilj©
encouragement of forest growth are the main features. It is proposed to le-
duce the width where excessive by brushwood dykes, at first low, but nosed
higher and higher as the mud of the river settles under their shelter, and
finally slope them back at the angle upon which willows will grow freelv.
In this work there are many details connected with the forms of these shelter
dykes, their arrangements so as to present a series of settling etc., a

description of which would only complicate the conception. Through the
larger part of the river works of contraction will not be required, but nearly
all the banks on the concave side of the bends must be held against the wear
of the stream, and much of the opposite banks defended at critical points.
The works having in view this conservative object may be generally desig¬
nated works of revetment ; and these also will be largely of brushwood,
woven in continuous carpets, or twined into wine-netting. Th» veneering
process has been successfully employed on the Missouri River; and in boom
cases they have so covered themselves with sediments, and have become bo
overgrown with willows, that they may be regarded as permanent. In
securing these mats rubble-stone is to be used in gm*11 quantities, and in
some instances the dressed slope between high and low river will have to he
more or less paved with stone.

Any one who has been on the Rhine will have observed operations nod
unlike those to which we have just referred; and, indeed, moot of the riv er s
of Europe flowing among their own alluvia have required stmOar fnniHiminiitf
in the interest of navigation and agriculture.

The levee is the crowning work of bank revetment, although not mtete *
sarily in immediate connection. It may be set hack a short distance from
the revetted bank; but it is, in effect, the requisite parapet. The hood river
and the low river cannot be brought into register, and compelled to m
the excavation of a single permanent channel, without a complete nartni? of
all the stages; and even the abnormal rise most be provided agaset, boeana*
this would endanger the levee, and once in foree behind , the w o rks of wraps *,
meat would tear them also away.

546

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

Under the general principle that the local slope of a river is the result
and measure of the resistance of its bed, it is evident that a narrow and deep
stream should have less slope, because it has less frictional surface in pro¬
portion to capacity; i.e., less perimeter in proportion to area of cross section*
The ultimate effect of levees and revetments confining the floods and bring,
ing all the stages of the river into register is to deepen the channel and let
down the slope. The first effect of the levees is to raise the surface 5 but
this, by inducing greater velocity of flow, inevitably causes an enlargement
of section, and if this enlargement is prevented from being made at the ex¬
pense of the banks, the bottom must give way and the form of the waterway
be so improved as to admit this flow with less rise. The actual experience
with levees upon the Mississippi River, with no attempt to hold the banks,
has been favourable, and no one can doubt, upon the evidence furnished
in the reports of the commission, that if the earliest levees had been
accompanied by revetment of banks, and made complete, we should bare
to-day a river navigable at low water, and an adjacent country safe from
inundation.

Of course it would be illogical to conclude tbat the constrained river can
ever lower its flood slope so as to make levees unnecessary, but it is believed
that, by this lateral constraint, the river as a conduit may be so improved
in form that even those rare floods which result from the coincident rising
of many tributaries will find vent without destroying levees of ordinary
height. That the actual capacity of a channel through alluvium depends
upon its service during floods has been often shown, but this capacity does
not include anomalous, but recurrent, floods.

It is hardly worth while to consider the projects for relieving the Mis¬
sissippi River floods by creating new outlets, since these sensational pro¬
positions have commended themselves only to unthinking minds, and have
no support among engineers. Were the river bed cast-iron, a resort to open¬
ings for surplus waters might be a necessity; but as the bottom is yielding,
and the best form of outlet is a single deep channel, as realising the leak
Tatio of perimeter to area of cross section, there could not well be a more
unpbilosopbical method of treatment than the multiplication of avenues of
escape. V

In the foregoing statement the attempt has been made to condense
as limited a space as the importance of the subject would permit, tit?
general elements of the problem, and the general features of the propose^
method of improvement which has been adopted by the Mississippi Riverf
Commission* A

The writer cannot help feeling that it is somewhat presumptuous on k||
part to attempt to present the facts relating to an enterprise which calls fcr
the highest scientific skill; but it is a matter which interests every citis^|

APPENDIX B.

of the United States, and is one of the methods of necoratnzetiosi which
ought to he approved. It is a war claim which implies no private gain,
«nd no compensation except for one of the cases of deetractkm i nciden t to
war, which may well he repaired by the people of the whole country.

Edwaiu> Axx&nox.

Boston : April 14, 1882.

hs2

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI,

APPENDIX 0.

RECEPTION OF CAPTAIN BASIL HALES BOOK IN THB
UNITED STATES.

Haves'© now arrived nearly at the end of our travels, I am induced; ere I
conclude, again to mention what I consider as one of the most remarkable
traits in the national character of the Americans; namely, their exquisite
sensitiveness and soreness respecting everything said or written concerning
them. Of this, perhaps, the most remarkable example I can give is the
effect produced on nearly every class of readers by the appearance of Captain
Basil Hall’s 1 Travels in North America.’ In fact, it was a sort of moral
earthquake, and the vibration it occasioned through the nerves of the re¬
public, from one comer of the Union to the other, was by no means over
when I left the country in July 1831, a couple of years after the shock.

I was in Cincinnati when these volumes came out, but it was not til
July 1830, that I procured a copy of them. One bookseller to whom I
applied told me that he had had a few copies before he understood the nature
of the work, but that, after becoming acquainted with it, nothing should in¬
duce >»im to sell another. Other persons of his profession must, however,
have been less scrupulous $ for the book was read in city, town, village, and
hamlet, steamboat, and stage-coach, and a sort of war-whoop was sent fori
perfectly unprecedented in my recollection upon any occasion whatever.

An ardent desire for approbation, and a delicate sensitiveness under cen¬
sure, have always, I believe, been considered as amiable traits of character:
hut the condition into which the appearance of Captain Hall’s work threw
the republic shows plainly that these feelings, if carried to excess, produce a
weakness which amounts to imbecility.

It was perfectly astonishing to hear men who, on other subjects, were of
some judgment, utter their opinions upon this. I never heard of any instance
in which the common-sense generally found in national criticism was so
overthrown by passion. I do not speak of the want of justice, and of far
and liberal interpretation these, perhaps, were hardly to be expected
Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizens of the Union

APPENDIX a

have, apparently,no skins at all; they wince if a breeae blows over them,
unless it be tempered with adulation. It was not, therefore, very surprising
that the acute and forcible observations of a traveller they knew would be
listened to should be received testily. The extraordinary features of the
business were, first, the excess of the rage into which they lashed them¬
selves; and, secondly, the puerility of the inventions by which they at¬
tempted to account for the severity with which they fancied they had been
treated.

Not content with declaring that the volumes contained no word of truth,
from beginning to end (which is an assertion I heard made very nearly aa
often as they were mentioned), the whole country set to work to discover the
causes why Captain Hall had visited the United States, and why be had
published his book.

I have heard it said with as much precision and gravity as if the state¬
ment had been conveyed by an official report, that Captain Hall had been
sent out by the British Government expressly for the purpose os. cheeking
the growing admiration of England for the Government of the United
States,—that it was by a commission from the treasury he had come, and
that it was only in obedience to orders that he had found anything to
object to.

I do not give this as the gossip of a coterie; I am persu ade d that it is
the belief of a very considerable portion of the country. Bo deep ia the ecw-
yiction of this ain gnW people that they cannot be seen without being
admired, that they will not admit the possibility that any one toould
honestly and sincerely find aught to disapprove in them or their country.

The American [Reviews are, many of them, I behave, well known in
England; I need not, therefore, quote them here, bet I sometimes wandered
that they, none of them, ever thought of transl a ting Obadkh’s curse into
MftW. American; if they had done so, on placing (ha, Basil HaU) between
brackets, instead of (he, Obadiah) it would have saved them a werid of

I can hardly describe the curiosity with which I sat down at la egth to
peruse these tremendous volumes; still less can I do justice to my narprise
at their contents. To say that I found not one exaggerated rta tevmwt
throughout the work is by no means saying enough. It « aspo swate to r
any one who knows rim country not to see that Oaptam Han amammy
sousht out things to admire and c ommen d. When he praam, it m mm
evident pleasure ; and when he finds fault, it is with widest l olwrfra nro «* d
restraint, excepting where motives purely patriotic urge him to toato mmm&ij

what it is for the benefit of hk country should be knows. _

Tn fact. Captain Hah saw the country to the greatest posah to advautyL
Furnished, of course, with letters of introductme to the
individuals, and with the still more iiffiuectal recommemdttow <* fc* *w*

650

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

reputation, he was received in full drawing-room style and state from one
end of the Union to the other. He saw the country in full dress, and bad
little or no opportunity of judging of it unhouselled, unanointed, unan-
nealed, with all its imperfections on its head, as I and my family too often
had.

Captain Hall had certainly excellent opportunities of making bimself
acquainted with the form of the government and the laws; and of receiving;
moreover, the "best oral commentary upon them, in conversation with the
most distinguished citizens. Of these opportunities he made excellent use;
nothing important met his eye which did not receive that sort of analytical
attention which an experienced and philosophical traveller alone can give.
This has made his volumes highly interesting and valuable; hut I am deeply
persuaded, that wore a man of equal penetration to visit the United States
with no other means of becoming acquainted with the national character
than the ordinary working-day intercourse of life, he would conceive an in.
finitely lower idea of the moral atmosphere of the country than Captain
Hall appears to have done; and the internal conviction on my mind is
strong, that if Captain Hall had not placed a firm restraint on himself, be
must have given expression to far deeper indignation than any he has uttered
against many points in the American character, with which he shows from
other circumstances that he was well acquainted. His rule appears to have
been to state just so much of the truth as would leave on the mind of his readers
a correct impression, at the least cost of pain to the sensitive folks he was
writing about. He states his own opinions and feelings, and leaves it to be
inferred that he has good grounds for adopting them; hut he spares the
Americans the bitterness which a detail of the circumstances would have

produced. ^ #

If any one chooses to say that some wicked antipathy to twelve irmHom
of strangers is the origin of my opinion, I must hear it $ and were the ques¬
tion one of mere idle speculation, I certainly would not court the abuse I
must meet for stating it. But it is not so.

... . • • • • •

The candour which he expresses, and evidently feds, they mistake fir
irony, or totally distrust; his unwillingness to give pain to persons from
whom he has received kindness, they scornfully reject as affectation* ant
although, they must know right well, in their own secret hearts, how infinitely
more they lay at his mercy than he has chosen to betray; they pretend^
even to themselves, that he has exaggerated the had points of their cha¬
racter arid institutions; whereas, the truth is, that he has let them off wlffi
a degree of tenderness which may he quite suitable for him to exercise*
however little merited; while, at the same time, he has most industry
ousiy magnified their merits, whenever he could possibly find anythmg
favourable.

APPENDIX D.

TEE UNDYING BEAD,

£5 a remote part of the North lived a man and his sister, who had tmra
seen a human being. Seldom, if ever, had the man any cause to go from
home; for, as his wants demanded food, he had only to go a little di a mnc a
from the lodge, and there, in some particular spot, place his arrows, with
their barbs in the ground. Telling his aster where they had been placed,
every morning she would go in search, and never fail of finding each stock
through the heart of a deer. She had then only to drag them into the lodge
and prepare their food. Thus she lived till she attained womanhood, whee
one day her brother, whose name was Iamo, said to her; ‘ Sister, the tarns
is at hand when you will he ilL Listen to my advice. If yon do not, it
will probably be the cause of my death. Take the implements with which
we Vb^lA our fires. Go some distance from our lodge and build a separate
fixe. "When you are in want of food, I will tell you where to find it. Yoe
must cook for yourself, and I will for myselt When you are HI, do not
attempt to come near the lodge, or bring any of the ut en si l s you urn* Be
sure always to fasten to your belt the implements you need, for you do nee
know when the time will come. As for myself I must do the best I caa.
“His sister promised to obey him In all he had said. ^_ .

Shortly after, her brother had cause to go from home. &e was akmem
her lodge, combing her hair. She had just untied the bete tow faicl. Ae m-
pi.TT.onta were fastened, when suddenly the event, to which her brother**!
alluded, occurred. She ran out of the lodge, hat in her haste forg o* the be lt.
Afraid to return, she stood for some tame thinking. Finally, she
enter the lodge and get it. For, thonght she, my brother ie not at home, aa d l
wiH stay hut a moment to catch hold of rt. She went heck. Shiiiaaeg B
suddenly, she caught hold of it, and was coming out

insight. He knew what was the matter. ‘Ob,'he^‘did leekteflye.
to take care? But now you have kitted me.' She was gomg on I wr wsy ,
hut her brother said to her, ‘What can yon do

has happened. Go in, and stay where you have always etaye*. mm <w
will become of you P You have kiBed me.’

652

LIFE ON TEE MISSISSIPPI.

He +h«»> laid aside his hunting-dress and accoutrements, and soon after
hoth his feet "began to turn black, so that he could not move. Still he
directed his sister where to place the arrows, that she might always have
food. The inflammation continued to increase, and had now reached his first
rib; and he said s ‘ Sister, my end is near. You must do as I tell you. You
see my medicine-sack, and my war-club tied to it. It contains all my medi¬
cines, and my war-plumes, and my paints of all colours. As soon as the in¬
flammation reaches my breast, you will take my war-dub. It has a sharp
point, and you will cut off my head. "When it is free from my body, take it,
its neck in the sack, which you must open at one end. Then hang it
up in its former place. Do not forget my bow and arrows. One of the last
you will take to procure food. The remainder, tie in my sack, and then hang
it up, so that I can look towards the door. Now and then I will speak to
you, but not often.’ His sister again promised to obey.

In a little time his breast was affected. ‘ Now,’ said he, ‘take the dub
and strike off my head.’ She was afraid, but he told her to muster courage.

4 Strike? said he, and a smile was on his face. Mustering all her courage,
she gave the blow and cut off the head. ‘ Now,’ said the head, ‘ place me
where I told you.’ And fearfully she obeyed it in all its commands. Be-
its animation, it looked around the lodge as usual, and it would com¬
mand its sister to go in such places as it thought would procure for her the
flesh of different a-ni-mals she needed. One day the head said: ‘ The time is
not distant when I shall be freed from this situation, and I shall have to
undergo many sore evils. So the superior manito decrees, and I must bear
all patiently.’ In this situation we must leave the head.

In a certain part of the country was a village inhabited by a numerous
and warlike band of Indians. In this village was a family of ten young men
—brothers. It was in the spring of the year that the youngest of these
blackened his face and fasted. His dreams were propitious. Having aided
his fast, he went secretly for his brothers at night, so that noneiu the village
could overhear or find out the direction they intended to go. Though then-
drum was heard, yet that was a common occurrence. Having ended the
usual he told how favourable his dreams were, and that he had

called them together to know if they would accompany him in a war eraur-
sion. They all answered they would. The third brother from the eldest
noted for his oddities, coming up with his war-dub when his broker had
ceased speaking, jumped up. ‘ Yes,’ said he, ‘I will go, and this will be the
way I vSl W those I am going to fight;’ and he struck the post m the
centre of the lodge, mid gave a yell. The others spoke to
‘Slow, slow,Mudjikewis, when you are in other peoples lodges. So hesat

down. Then, in turn, they took the drum, and sang their songs, and dose*.
i & feast. The youngest told them not to whisper their intention to

APPENDIX D.

5*3

wives, but secretly to prepare for their journey. They all promised obedi¬
ence, and Mudjikewis was tbe first to say so.

The time for their departure drew near. Word was given to as s em ble
on a certain nigbt, when they would depart immediately. Modjiliewk waa
loud in his demands for his moccasins. Several times his wifs asked him
the reason. ‘ Besides/ said she, 4 you have a good pair on/ 4 Quick, quick/
said he, ( since you must know, we are going on a war excursion; so be quick.'
He thus revealed the secret. That night they met and started. The snow
was on the ground, and they travelled all night, lest others should follow
them. When it was daylight, the leader took snow and made a ball of it,
then tossing it into the air, he said: i It was m this way I saw snow Ml in
a dream, so that I could not be tracked.* And he told them to keep close to
each other for fear of losing themselves, as the snow began to Ml in vwry
large flakes. Near as they walked, it was with difficulty they could see eed
other. The snow continued falling all that day and the following night, a
it was impossible to track them.

They had now walked for several days, and Mudjikewis was always in
the rear. One day, running suddenly forward, he gave the 9am flaw fee*, 1
and struck a tree with his war-dub, and it broke into pieces as if struck with
lightning. 4 Brothers/ said he, 4 this will he the way I will serve those wo
are going to fight.* The leader answered, 4 Slow, slow, Mudjikewis, the one
I lead you to is not to be thought of so lightly.’ Again he foil back and
thought to himself: 4 What! what! who can this be he is leading us to?*
He felt fearful and was silent. Day after day they travelled on, tiU they
came to an extensive plain, on the borders of which human boas* were
bleaching in the sun. The leader spoke: 4 Th^ are the booes of those who
have gone before us. None has ever yet returned to tell the wd tale of their
fate.* Again Mudjikewis became restless, and, running forward, g av* the
accustomed ydL Advancing to a large rock which stood above the
he struck it, and it fell to {pieces. ‘See, brothers/ mid he, 1 thas will I
treat those whom to are going to fight’ ‘Stffl, rtdV «*» »«*■**
the leader; ‘he to whom I am leading yoa » not to be compared to toe

Mudjikewis fell back thoughtful, saying to hbaeetf: ‘ Ijroad w who toie
can he that he is going to attack;’ and he to* afi»d.
to see the remains of former warriors, who had bear to the
were now going, some of wham had retreated as&r keek
they first saw the hones, beyond winch nocae bed war esca ped. AMs*
they to a piece of rising ground, from which they plsinlj dMUiagsishwf,
d oping on a distant mountain, a mammoth bear-

* War-whoop.

664

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

The distance between them was very great, but the size of the animal
caused him to be plainly seen. i There/ said the leader,* it is he to whom 1
am leading you; here our troubles will commence, for he is a mishemokwa
and a manito. It is he who has that we prize so dearly (i.e. wampum), to
obtain which, the warriors whose bones we saw, sacrificed their lives. You
must not be fearful: be manly. We shall find him asleep/ Then the
leader went forward and touched the belt around the animal’s neck. 4 This,’
said he, * is what we must get. It contains the wampum/ Then they re¬
quested the eldest to try and slip the belt over the bear’s head, who appeared
to be fast asleep, as he was not in the least disturbed by the attempt to ob¬
tain the belt. All their efforts were in vain, till it came to the one next the
youngest. He tried, and the belt moved nearly over the monster’s head,
but he could get it no farther. Then the youngest one, and the leader,
made his attempt, and succeeded. Placing it on the back of the oldest, he
said, ‘ Now we must run/ and off they started. When one became fatigued
with its weight, another would relieve him. Thus they ran till they had
passed the bones of all former warriors, and were some distance beyond,
when looking back, they saw the monster slowly rising. He stood some
time before be missed his wampum. Soon they heard his tremendous howl,
like distant thunder, slowly filling all the sky; and then they heard him
speak and say, * Who can it be that has dared to steal my wampum f earth
is not so large but that I can find them; ’ and he descended from the hill in
pursuit. As if convulsed, the earth shook with every jump he made. Very
soon he approached the party. They, however, kept the belt, exchanging it
from one to another, and encouraging each other; hut he gained on than
fast. * Brothers/ said the leader, ‘ has never any one of you, when fasting,
dreamed of some friendly spirit who would aid you as a guardian P’ A dead
silence followed. 4 Well/ said he, 4 fasting, I dreamed of being in danger of
instant death, when I saw a small lodge, with smoke curling from its top.
An old man lived in it, and I dreamed he helped me; and may it be verified
soon/ he said, running forward and giving the peculiar yell, and a howl as if
the sounds came from the depths of his stomach, and what is called ckecavr
dum. Getting upon a piece of rising ground, behold 1 a lodge, with smoke
curling from its top, appeared. This gave them all new strength, and they
ran forward and entered it. The leader spoke to the old man who satin the
lodge, saying, ‘Nemesho, help us; we claim your protection, for the great
bear will kill us/ * Sit down and eat, my grandchildren,’ said the old man.

' Who is a great manito P ’ said he. 4 There is none hut me; but let me
look/ and he opened the door of the lodge, when, lo I at a little distance he
saw the enraged animal coming on, with slow hut powerful leaps. He dosed
the door. ‘ Yes/ said he , 4 he is indeed a great manito: my grandchildren,'
you will he the cause of my losing my life *, you asked my protection, and I

APPENDIX D*

granted it; so now, come what may, I will protect jm. When the hear
arrives at the door, yoa must ran out of the other door of the lodge.’ Tbm
putting his hand to the side of the lodge where he sat, he brought out a bag
which he opened. Taking out two small black dogs, he place d thm before
him. 4 These are the ones I use when 1 fight,’ said he; and he **™™~r* A
patting with both h and s the sides of one of them, he fo eg^T* to swell ^
so that he soon filled the lodge by his hulk; and he had great sfcrocg teeth*
When he attained his full size he growled, and from that nvww as from
instinct, he jumped out at the door and met the hear, who in l*f p

would have reached the lodge. A terrible combat ensued. The rang

with the howls of the fierce monsters. The remaining dog soon took the
field. The brothers, at the onset, took the advice of the old ^ and
escaped through the opposite side of the lodge. They had not proceeded far
before they heard the dying cry of one of the dogs, and soon after of the
other. 4 Well, 9 said the leader,' the old man will share their fate: so nut;
he will soon he after us.* They started with fresh vigour, for they had re¬
ceived food from the old man; hut very soon the hear came in sight, and
again was fast gaining upon them. Again the leader asked the brothers if
they could do nothing for their safety. All were silent. The leader,
running forward, did as before. * I dreamed, 9 he cried, * that, being m
great trouble, an old man helped me who was a m&nito; wb shall soon see
his lodge/ Taking courage, they still went on. After going a abort distance
they saw the lodge of the old manito. They entered immediately and
claimed his protection, telling him a manito was after them. The old naan,
setting meat before them, said: * Bat 1 who k a manito t there k no mam to
but me; there k none whom I fear; 9 and the earth trembled as the zaonctor
advanced. The old man opened the door and saw him coming. He shot k
slowly, and said: * Yes, my grandchildren, you have brought trouble upon
me/ Procuring his medicine-sack, he took out hk small war-dobs of black
stone, and told the young men to run through the other side of the lodge.
As he handled the clubs, they became very large, aad the old naan stopped
out just as the hear reached the door. Then striking him with one of the
dubs, it broke in pieces; the hear stumbled. Kenewkg the attempt with
the other war-club, that also was broken, but the bear fell senseless. Bach
blow the old rnan gave him sounded like a clap of thunder, and the howls of
the bear ran along till they filled the heavens.

The young men had now run some distance, when they looked bade.
They could see that the hear was recovering from the blows. Skwfc he
moved his paws, and soon they saw Me rise cm hk feet. The cM mam
shared the fate of the first, for they now beard hk cades as he was term in
nieces. Again the monster was in pursuit, and fesfc overtaking t hem . Bet
yet discouraged, the young mm kept cm their way $ bed the bear was mow

556

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

so close, that the leader once more applied to his brothers, but they could do
nothing. * Well/ said he, i my dreams will soon be exhausted; after this I
have but one more.’ He advanced, invoking his guardian spirit to aid him.

* Once/ said he, ‘ I dreamed that, being sorely pressed, I rame to a large
lake, on the shore of which was a canoe, partly out of water, having ten
paddles all in readiness. Do not fear/ he cried, * we shall soon get it.’ And
so it was, even as he had said. Coming to the lake, they saw the canoe with
ten paddles, and immediately they embarked. Scarcely had they reached
the centre of the lake, when they saw the hear arrive at its borders. Lifting
himself on his hind legs, he looked all around. Then he waded into the
water; then losing his footing he turned hack, and commenced making the
circuit of the lake. Meantime the party remained stationary in the centre
to watch his movements. He travelled all around, till at last he came to
the place from whence he started. Then he commenced drinking up the
water, and they saw the current fast setting in towards, his open mouth.
The leader encouraged them to paddle hard for the opposite shore. When
only a short distance from land, the current had increased so much, that
they were drawn back by it, and all their efforts to reach it were in vain.

Then the leader again spoke, telling them to meet their fates manfully.

* Now is the time, Mudjikewis/ said he, 4 to show your prowess. Take
courage and sit at the bow of the canoe; and when it approaches his mouth,
try what effect your club will have on his head.’ He obeyed, and stood
ready to give the blow; while the leader, who steered, directed the canoe
for the open mouth of the monster.

Rapidly advancing, they were just about to enter his mouth, whenMud-
iikewis struck him a tremendous blow on the head, and gave the saw-saw-
yuan* The bear’s limbs doubled under him, and he fell, stunned by the
blow. But before Mudjikewis could renew it, the monster disgorged all the
water he had drank, with a force which sent the canoe with great velocity
to the opposite shore. Instantly leaving the canoe, again they fled, and on
they went till they were completely exhausted. The earth again shook,
and soon they saw the monster hard after them. /Their spirits drooped, and
they felt discouraged. The leader exerted himself, by actions and wends, to
cheer them up; and once more he asked them if they thought of nothing, or
could do nothing for their rescue; and, as before, all were silent. 'Then,’
be said, * this is the last time I can apply to my guardian spirit. Now, if
we do not succeed, our fates are decided.’ He ran forward, invoking his
spirit with great earnestness, and gave the yelL * We shall soon arrive/
said he to his brothers, ' at the place where my last guardian spirit dwells. In
yim x place great confidence. Do not, do not he afraid, or your limbs win
be fear-bound. We fthfl.lt soon reach his lodge. Run, run/ he cned.

now to Iamo, he had passed all the time in the same condition

APPB2TDZX JO.

5f»7

we Had left him, the head directing his sister, in order to procare food,
where to place the magic arrows, and speaking at long intervals. One day
the sister saw the eyes of the head brighten, as if with pleasure. At last it
spoke. ‘ Oh, sister,’ it said, ‘ in what a pitiful situation you have been the
cause of placing me 1 Soon, very soon, a party of young men will arrive
and apply to me for aid; hut alas! How can I give what I would have
done with so much pleasure ? Nevertheless, take two arrows, and place
them where you have been in the habit of placing the others, and have
meat prepared and cooked before they arrive. When you hear them
coming and calling on my name, go out and say, ** Alas! it is long ago that
an accident befell him. I was the cause of it.” If they still come near,
ask them in, and set meat before them. And now you must follow my
directions strictly. When the hear is near, go out and meet him. You
will take my medicine-sack, hows and arrows, and my head. You must
then untie the sack, and spread out before you my paints of all colours, my
war-eagle feathers, my tufts of dried hair, and whatever else it contains.
As the bear approaches, you will take ail these articles, one by one, and say
to him, “ This is my deceased brother’s paint,” and so on with all the other
articles, throwing each of them as far as you can. Hie virtues contained in
them will cause him to totter; and, to complete his destruction, you will
take my head, and that too you will cast as far off aa you can, crying aloud,
« See, this is my deceased brother’s head.” He will then fall seoseleas.
By this ft the young men will have eaten, and yon will call them to your
assistance. You must then cut the carcase into pieces, yea, into email
pieces, and scatter them to the four winds; for, unices yon do tide, he will
again revive.’ She promised that ail should be done as he said. She had
only time to prepare the meat, when the voice of the leader was herd
calling upon Iamo for aid. The woman went out and said as her brother
had directed. But the war party being closely pursued, came up the.

lodge. She invited them in, and placed the meat before them. Wh3etfrey

were eating, they heard the hear approaching. Untying the
and taking the head, she had all in readiness for h» apftfoach*Wmi he
came up she did as she had been told; and, before she had vm

paints and feathers, the hear began to totter, but, stSI advancing, caaaeciflBa
to the woman. Saying as she was commanded, aim then took t he head, and
cast it as for from her as die could. As it relied afong tihe groua d, the
Hood, excited by the feelings of the head in thm terriHe aeeoe, g*”****^ 1 *
the nose and mouth. The bear, tottering , soon fefl with a tmmmfrmm
noise. Then she cried for help, and the pmag mm mm
having partially regained their strength and spirits. ^

Mudjikewis, stepping up, ga*» a yell and stem*
head* This he repeated, till it seemed 13» a mass of mam •*

65ft

LIFE ON TJIJb MISSISSIPPI.

others, as quick as possible, cut him into very small pieces, which they then
scattered in every direction. While thus employed, happening to look
around where they had thrown the meat, wonderful to behold, they saw
starting up and running off in every direction small black bears, such
as are seen at the present day. The country was soon overspread with
these black animals. And it was from this monster that the present race
of beam derived their origin.

Having thus overcome their pursuer, they returned to the lodge. In
the meantime, the woman, gathering the implements she had used, and the
head, placed them again in the sack. But the head did not speak again,
probably from its great exertion to overcome the monster.

Having spent so much time and traversed so vast a country in their
flight, the young men gave up the idea of ever returning to their own
country, and game being plenty, they determined to remain where they
now were. One day they moved off some distance from the lodge for the
purpose of hunting, having left the wampum with the woman. They were
very successful, and amused themselves, as all young men do when alone,
by talking and jesting with each other. One of them spoke and said, 'We
have all this sport to ourselves; let us go and ask our sister if she will not
let us bring the head to this place, as it is still alive. It may he pleased to
hear us talk, and be in our company. In the meantime take food to oui
sister/ They went and requested the head. She told them to take it, and
they took it to their hunting-grounds, and tried to amuse it, but only at
times did they see its eyes beam with pleasure. One day, while busy in
their encampment, they were unexpectedly attacked by unknown Indians.
The skirmish was long contested and bloody; many of their foes were
slain, but still they were thirty to one. The young men fdught desperately
till they were all killed. The attacking party then retreated to a height of
ground, to muster their men, and to count the number of missing and
slain. One of their young men had stayed away, and, in endeavouring to
overtake them, came to the place where the head was hung up. Seeing
that alone retain animation, he eyed it for some time with fear and sur¬
prise. However, he took it down and opened the sack, and was much
pleased to see the beautiful feathers, one of which he placed on his head.

Starting off, it waved gracefully over him till he reached his party,
when he threw down the head and sack, and told them how he had found
it, and that the sack was full of paints and feathers. They all looked at
the head and made sport of it. Numbers of the young men took the paint
and painted themselves, and one of the party took the head by the hair and
said—

* Look, you ugly thing, and see your paints on the faces of warriors.’

But the feathers were so beautiful, that numbers of them also placed

APPENDIX D.

them on their heads. Then again they used all kinds of m&gmfcr to the
head, for which they were in torn repaid by the death of those who had
used the feathers. Then the chief commanded thgw i to throw away aS
except the head. ‘ We will see/ said he, < when we get home, what we can
do with it. We will try to make it shut its eyes.’

When they reached their homes they took it to the atondl4odg*, and
hung it up before the fire, fastening it with raw hide soaked, which wodd
shrink and become tightened by the action of the fixe. 4 We will *fam see, 9
they said, ‘ if we cannot make it shut its eyes.’

Meantime, for several days, the aster had been waiting for the ytmng
men to bring hack the head; tall, at last, getting impatient, she went in
search of it. The young men die found lying within short distances of
each other, dead, and covered with wounds. Various other bodies lay
scattered in different directions around them. She searched for the head
and sack, hut they were nowhere to he found. She raised her voice and
wept, and blackened her face. Then she walked in different directions, till
she came to the place from whence the head had been taken. Then fee
found the magic how and arrows, where the young men, ignorant of their
qualities, had left them. She thought to herself that she would find her
brother’s head, and came to a piece of rising ground, and there aaw at
his paints and feathers. These she carefully put up, hung upon the
branch of a tree till her return.

At dusk she arrived at the first lodge of a very extensive village. Here
she used a charm, common among Indians when they wife to meet with a
kind reception. On applying to the old man and woman of the lodge, aha
was kindly received. She made known her errand. The old mm pro¬
mised to aid her, and told her the head was hung up before the council-fire,
and that the chiefs of the village, with their young men, kept watch over it
continually. The former are considered as xnanitoes. She said she only
wished to see it, and would he satisfied if dm could only get to the door of
the lodge. She knew she had not sufficient power to take it by fo rce.
4 Come with me,’ said the Indian, 4 1 will take you there.’ They went, and
they took their seats near the door. The council-lodge wee filled with
warriors, amusing themselves with games, and const an t l y keeping «p a fire
to smoke the head, as they said, to make dry meat. They saw the hast
move, and not knowing what to make of it, one spoke and said: 4 Ha! ha!
It is beginning to feel the effects of the smoke.’ The aster looked «p fkom
the door, and her eyes met those of her brother, said team rolled down the
cheeks of the head. 4 Well,’ said the chiefs 4 1 thought we weald m a ke yew
do arwnAthmg at last. Look! look at it—shedffiag tears,’ said he to tfosee
around him • and they all laughed and passed feetr yokes upon SL He
looking around, mm! observing fee woman, after aoaee time said te me

560

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

who came with her: * Who have you got there P I have never seen
that woman before in our village.’ * Yes,’ replied the man, ‘ you have seen
her; she is a relation of mine, and seldom goes out. She- stays at my
lodge, and asked me to allow her to come with me to this place.’ In the
centre of the lodge sat one of those young men who are always forward,
and fond of boasting and displaying themselves before others. * Why,* said
he, ‘ I have seen her often, and it is to this lodge I go almost every night to
court her.’ All the others laughed and continued their games. The young
man did not know he was telling a lie to the woman’s advantage, who by
that means escaped.

Sbe returned to the man’s lodge, and immediately set out for her own
country. Coming to the spot where the bodies of her adopted brothers lay,
ahe placed them together, their feet toward the east Then taking an are
which she had, she cast it up into the air, crying out, ‘ Brothers, get up
from under it, or it will fall on you.’ This she repeated three times, and
the third time the brothers all arose and stood on their feet.

Mudjikewis commenced rubbing his eyes and stretching himself. * Why/
said he, 1 1 have overslept myself. ‘ No, indeed,’ said one of the others, ‘ do
you not know we were all killed, and that it is our sister who has brought
us to life ? 9 The young men took the bodies of their enemies and burned
them. Soon after, the woman went to procure wives for them, in a distant
country, they knew not where; but she returned with ten young women,
which she gave to the ten young men, beginning with the eldest. Mudji¬
kewis stepped to and fro, uneasy lest he should not get the one he liked.
But he was not disappointed, for she fell to his lot. And they were well
matched, for she was a female magician. They then all moved into a very
large lodge, and their sister told them that the women must now take turns
in going to her brother’s head every night, trying to untie it. They all said
they would do so with pleasure. The eldest made the first attempt, and
with a rushing noise she fled through the air.

Toward daylight she returned. She had been unsuccessful, as she suc¬
ceeded in untying only one of the knots. All took their turns regularly,
ftTifl a a/Oi one. succeeded in untying only one knot each tune. But when the
youngest went, she commenced the work as soon as she reached the lodge $
although it had always been occupied, still the Indians never could see any
one. For ten nights now, the smoke had not ascended, hut filled the lodge
and drove them out. This last night they were all driven out, and the
young woman carried off the head.

The young people and the sister heard the young woman coming high
through the air, and they heard her saying: 1 Prepare the body of our
brother.’ And as soon as they heard it, they went to a small lodge where
black body of T*mA lay. His sister commenced cutting the neck

APPENDIX D,

part, from which the neck had been severed. She cut so deep its to
cause it to bleed; and the others who were present, by rubbing* the body
and applying medicines, expelled the blackness. In the meantime, the
one who brought it, by cutting the neck of the head, caused that also
to bleed.

As soon as she arrived, they placed that dose to the body, and, by aid
of medicines and various other means, succeeded in restoring Iamo to all his
former beauty and manliness. All rejoiced in the happy termination of
their troubles, and they had spent some time joyfully together, when Iamo
said: ‘ Now I will divide the wampum; ’ and getting the belt which con¬
tained it, he commenced with the eldest, giving it in equal portions. But
the youngest got the most splendid and beautiful, as the bottom of the belt
held the richest and rarest.

They were told that, since they had all once died, and were restored to
life, they were no longer mortal, hut spirits, and they were assigned
different stations in the invisible world. Only Mudjikewiss place was,
however, named. He was to direct the west wind, hence generally called
Kebeyun, there to remain for ever. They were commanded, as they had it
in their power, to do good to the inhabitants of the earth, and, forgetting
their sufferings in procuring the wampum, to gi ye things with a liberal
hand. And they were also commanded that it should also be held by them
sacred; those grains or shells of the pale hue to he emblematic of peace,
while those of the darker hue would lead to evil and war.

The spirits then, amid songs and shouts, took their flight to their re¬
spective abodes on high; while Iamo, with his aster Iamoqua, descended
into the depths below.

Prints in Great Britain et M

Spottiswoob*. «**■

Coieke*Ur. Lend** *

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