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LIFE ON
THE MISSISSIPPI

Mark Twain

Biographical Edition

NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS

1899

*( BY \ I

< f S. L. CLEMENS. J £

h \ MARK TWAIN. / F

[TRADE MARK.]

/ PROPERTY OF THE ,

CITY OF NEW YORK C fj

THE "BODY 01- THE NATION" I 7FJ

l!rr //A' basin of t/ie Mississippi /.v the IJonv OI T]
N LTION. All the Other parts art- hut members, impor-
tant in themselves, yet more important in their relations
to this. Exclusive of the hake hasin and of 300,000
square inih-s in Texas and New Mexico, which in many
nil a part of it, this basin contains about
i,jyj,ooo square miles. In extent it is the second great
valley of the \vorkl, In in- exceeded only by that of the
Amazon. The valley of the fro/en Obi approaches it in
extent; that of the i .a Plata comes next in space, and
probablv in habitable capacity, having about ;j of its
area. ; then comes that of the Yenisei, \\ilh about /, ; the
Lena, Am »or, 11 ..n^-ho, \'an^-tse-kian^, and Nile, ;; ;
the Ganges, less thuii .1 ; the Indus, less than -£- ; the
JOuphrates, I ; the Rhine, /.,. It exceeds in extent the
whole of Lurope, exclusive of Russia, Norway, and
Sweden. // -^'oitld contain Austria four times, Germany or
Spain fire times, I1' ranee six times, t/ie Britislt 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
fornied from the sterile basins of the ^reat rivers of
Siberia, the lofty plateaus of C'cntral 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 eirili'.eJ man it is
far the first upon our globe.- UTOR's TAiu.r., Harper $
Magazine, February^ l

CONTKNTS

HAPTER I

The Miss:ssippi is \Yell worth Reading about — It is Remarkable — In-

il nf \\ideniii_; t->\\anK its Mouth, it gro\\s Narrower — It Fmp-

- I'our hundred and six million TOMS of Mud — It was I n in

1542 — It is < )lder than some Pages in F'.uropean Ili.-tMp. — I >e S

has the 1'ull — Older than the Atlantic Coast — Sonic i lalf-brccds chij>

in — l.o. Salic Thinks he will Take a Hand Page I

CHAPTF.R II

1 i .igain appears, and so does a Cat-fish — Buffaloes also — Some
Indian Paintings arc Seen on the Rocks — "The Father of \Yat'
does not Flow into the Pacific — More History and Indians — Some
Curious Performances — not Early English — Natchez, or the Site of
it, is Approached

CHAPTER III

A little History — Farly Commerce — Coal Fleets and Timber Rafts —
\\ e -tart on a voyage — I seek Information — Some Music — The
Trouble begins — Tall Talk — The Child of Calamity — (iround and
lofty Tumbling — The \Vash-up — liusiness and Statistics— Mysterious
Hand — Thunder and Lightning -- The Captain speaks — Allbright
weeps — The My-tcry settled — Chaff — I am Discovered — Some Art-
work proposed — I give an Account of Myself — Released ... 15

CHAPTER IV

The Boys' Ambition — Village Scenes — Steamboat Pictures — A Heavy
S\\c-il — A Runaway 30

CHAPTER V

A Traveller— A Lively Talker— A \Vild-cat Victim 35

CHAPTER VI

Besieging the Pilot — Taken along — Spoiling a Nap — Fishing for a Plan-
tation— "Points" on the River — A Gorgeous Pilot-house . Page 40

CHAPTER VII

River Inspectors — Cottonwoods and Plum Point — Hat-Island Crossing
-Touch and Go — It is a Go — A Lightning Plot 49

CHAPTER VIII

A Heavy-loaded Big Gun — Sharp Sights in Darkness — Abandoned to his
Fate — Scraping the Banks — Learn him or Kill him . . . . 57

CHAPTER IX

Shake the Reef — Reason Dethroned — The Face of the Water — A Be-
witching Scene — Romance and Beauty 65

CHAPTER X

Putting on Airs — Taken down a bit — Learn it as it is — The River
Rising 73

CHAPTER XI

In the Tract Business — Effects of the Rise — Plantations gone — A Meas-
ureless Sea — A Somnambulist Pilot — Supernatural Piloting — Nobody
there — All Saved 80

CHAPTER XII

Low Water — Yawl sounding — Buoys and Lanterns — Cubs and Sound-
ings— The Boat Sunk — Seeking the Wrecked ' . 88

CHAPTER XIII

A Pilot's Memory — WTages soaring — A Universal Grasp — Skill and Nerve
-Testing a "Cub "— " Back her for Life "—A Good Lesson . 95

CHAPTER XIV

Pilots and Captains — High-priced Pilots — Pilots in Demand — A Whis-
tler— A cheap Trade — Two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar Speed . . 105

CHAPTER XV

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

VII

— Tin.- Secret Sign — An Admirable System — Rough on Outsiders — A

Tight Monopoly — N". . Loophol.- — The Railroads and tin- Wai

f I 'age 113

CHAPTER X\ I

All Aboard — A Cdorious Start — Loaded In \\'in — Hands and Bugles —
Boats and Boats- -Ka. •. i- and Racing

CHAPTER XVII

Cut-olTs — Ditching and Shooting — Mississippi Changes — A \\'iid N:
— Swearing and (iuessing — Stephen in Debt — He Confuses his
Creditors — He inaUes a Neu- heal — Will 1'ay them Aljiluilieli-
cally 134

CIIAI'TKU XVIII

Sharp Schooling — Shadous — I am Inspected — Where did you get them
Shoes? — Pull her Down — I want to kill I5rown — I try to run her — I
am Complimented . 143

CIIAITKR XIX

A (Jiu-stion of Veracity — A Little Unpleasantness — I have an Audience
with the Captain — Mr. Brown Retires 150

CHAl'TLR XX

1 1'ccnnie a Passenger — We hear the Ne\\s — A Thunderous Crash — They
Stand to their I'osts — In the I'.la/.ing Sun — A (irewsome Spectacle—
llis I lour has Struck 1^5

CHAPTER XXI
I get my License — The War Begins — I become a Jack-of -all-trades . 162

CHAPTER XXII

I try the Alias Business — Region of ('...atees — Boots hegin to Appear —
The River Man is Missing — The Young Man is Discouraged — Sp
men Water — A Fine (Duality of Smoke — A Supreme Mistake — We
Inspect the Town — Desolation Way-traffic — A \\ "cod-yard . . 163

CHAITKR XXIII

Old French Settlements — We start for Memphis — Young Ladies and
Russia-leather Bags 1-2

Vlll

CHAPTER XXIV

I receive some Information — Alligator Boats — Alligator Talk — She was
a Rattler to go — I am Found Out Page 176

CHAPTER XXV

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 183

CHAPTER XXVI

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
Falls 190

CHAPTER XXVII

Tourists and their Note-books — Captain Hall — Mrs. Trollope's Emo-
tions— Hon. Charles Augustus Murray's Sentiment — Captain Mar-
ryat's Sensations — Alexander Mackay's Feelings — Mr. Parkman Re-
ports 198

CHAPTER XXVIII

Swinging down the River — Named for Me — Plum Point again — Lights
and Snag Boats — Infinite Changes — A Lawless River — Changes and
Jetties — Uncle Mumford Testifies — Pegging the River — What the
Government does — -The Commission Men and Theories — "Had
them Bad " -Jews and Prices 204

CHAPTER XXIX

Murel's Gang — A Consummate Villain — 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
Samaritan City — The Old and the New 214

CHAPTER XXX

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 223

CHAPTER XXXI

M utiiiou> Language — Tin- I >ead-house — Cast-iron ( lerman ami Flexible
I Mulish — A 1 )\ mg Man's Confession — I ;un Hound and G i — I

get .Myself Five -1 begin my Si-arch — The Man \\ith one Thuml) —
Red Taint ami White Paper — He Dropped mi his K nces — Fi ight ami
(.latitude — I Fled through the Woods — A Grimly Spec'aele — Sh
Man, Shout — A look of Surprise ami Triumph The Mntlled Gurgle
of a Mocking Laugh^How strangely Things happen — The Hidden
Money . ... ........... 1'aye 232

CHAPTER XXXII

Kilter's Narrative — A Question of Money — Napoleon — Somebody i-
Serious — Where the Prettiest ( iirl used to Live ......

CHAI'TFR XXXIII

A Question of Division — A Place where there was no License — The
Calhoun Land Company — A Cotton-planter's Estimate — Halifax and
Watermelons — Je\\elled-up Bar-keepers ........ 253

CHAPTER XXXIV

An Austere Man — A Mosquito Policy — Facts Dressed in Tights — A
swelled Left Ear ................ 258

CHAPTER XXXV

SJLMIS and Scars — Cannon-thunder Rages — Cave-dwellers — A Continual

Sunday — A ton of Iron and no Glass — The Ardent is Saved — Mule

Meat — A National Cemetery — A 1 >o;_,r and a Shell — Railroads and

Wealth — Wharfage Economy — Yicksburg versus The " Gold Dust "

— A Narrative in Anticipation ...........

CHAPTLR XXXVI

The Professor Spins a Varn — An Enthusiast in Cattle — lie makes a
Proposition — Loading Beeves at Acapulco — He was n't Raised to it —
He is Roped In — His I hill Lyes Lit Up — Four Aces, you Ass! —
lie does n't Care for the Gores ........... 269

CHAPTER XXXVII

A Terrible Disaster— The " Gold Dust " explodes her Boilers— The End
of a Good Man ................ 276

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Mr. Dickens has a Word — Best Dwellings and their Furniture — Albums
and Music — Pantelettes and Conch-shells — Sugar-candy Rabbits and
Photographs — Horse-hair Sofas and Snuffers — Rag Carpets and Bridal
Chambers Page 277

CHAPTER XXXIX

Rowdies and Beauty — Ice as Jewelry — 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 284

CHAPTER XL

In Flowers, like a Bride — A White-washed Castle — A Southern Pros-
pectus— Pretty Pictures — An Alligator's Meal 290

CHAPTER XLI

The Approaches to New Orleans — A Stirring Street — Sanitary Improve-
ments— Journalistic Achievements — Cisterns and Wells . . . 296

CHAPTER XLII

Beautiful Grave-yards — Chameleons and Panaceas — Inhumation and In-
fection— Mortality and Epidemics — The Cost of Funerals . . 301

CHAPTER XLIII

I 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 305

CHAPTER XLIV

French and Spanish Parts of the City --Mr. Cable and the Ancient
Quarter — Cabbages and Bouquets — Cows and Children — The Slid!
Road — The West End— A Good Square Meal — The Pompano — The
Broom-Brigade — Historical Painting — Southern Speech — Lagni-
appe 310

CHAPTER XLV

" Waw" Talk — Cock-Fighting — Too Much to Bear — Fine Writing-
Mule Racing 317

CHAPTER XI. VI

Mardi-Grns — The Mystic < 'n-ue — Re\ and Relics — Sir Walter Scott —
A World Set Hack — Title-^ and Decorations— A Change. Pa • 326

CHAPTER XI.YM

Uncle Reimi> — The ('hililren 1 )isa|>|>tiiiileil - - \\ '•• Rea •! Aloud — Mr.
( able an-1 Iran ah Po^nclm — I n\ uluntai y Trespass — The ( .ildi d \ -
— An Impossible Combination — The <)uner Mali-riali/cs — ami Pro-
tests .................... 331

CHAPTER XLVII1

Tight (,'uils and Springy Steps — Steam-plo\\ s --- " No. I." Sugar — A
Frankenstein Laugh — Spiritual Postage — A I'lacc where there are
no Butchers or Plumbers — Idiotic Spawns ....... 334

CHAPTER XI. IX

Pilot-Farmers — Working on Shares — Conse(|iiences — Men who Stick to
their Posts — He saw what he would do — A 1 >av after the Fair . 342

CHAPTER L

A Patriarch — Leaves from a I Mary — A Tongue-stopper — The Ancient
Mariner — Pilloried in Print — Petrified Truth ...... 348

CHAPTER LI

A Fresh "Cub" at the Wheel — A Valley Storm — Some Remarks on
Construction — Sock and lluskin — The Man who never played Ilani-
iet — I got Thirsty — Sunday Statistics ......... 354

CHAPTER LII

I Collar an Idea — A Graduate of Harvard — A Penitent Thief — His
Story in the Pulpit — Something Symmetrical — A Literary Artist — A
Model Lpisile — Pumps again Working — The " Xub " of the
Note ...................

CIIAPTFR LIII

A Masterly Retreat — A Town at Rest — P.oyhood's Pranks — Friends of
my Youth — The Refuge for Imbeciles — I am Presented with my
Measure .................. 371

CHAPTER LIV

A Special Judgment — Celestial Interest — A Night of Agony — Anot'
Pad Attack — I become t/onvale^cent — I address a Sunday-school — A
Model 3oy . VO

Xll

CHAPTER LV

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 Page 389

CHAPTER LVI

Perverted History — A Guilty Conscience — A Supposititious Case — A
Habit to be Cultivated — I Drop my Burden — Difference in Time 396

CHAPTER LVII

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 403

CHAPTER LVIII

An Independent Race — Twenty-four-hour Towns — Enchanting Scenery
-The Home of the Plow — Black Hawk — Fluctuating Securities—
A Contrast — Electric Lights 410

CHAPTER LIX

Indian Traditions and Rattlesnakes — A Three-ton Word — Chimney
Rock — The Panorama Man — A Good Jump — The Undying Head—
Peboan and Seegwun 417

CHAPTER LX

The Head of Navigation — From Roses to Snow — Climatic Vaccination
— A Long Ride — Bones of Poverty — The Pioneer of Civilization —
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 425

APPENDIX

A 435

B 445

€ 44S

D 452

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

CIIAl'TKR I
I HE RIVER AND ITS HISTORY

THE Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not
a commonplace river, but on the contrary is in all ways
remarkable. Considering 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 navigable by flats and keels. The area
of its drainage-basin is as great as the combined areas
of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain,
Portugal, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Turkey ; and
almost all this wide region is fertile ; the Mississippi
valley, proper, is exceptionally so.

It is a remarkable river in this : that instead of widen-
ing toward its mouth, it grows narrower ; grows narrower
and deeper. From the 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 hundred 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
annually empties four hundred and six million tons of
mud into the Gulf of Mexico — which brings to mind Cap-
tain Marryat's rude name for the Mississippi — "the
Great Sewer." This mud, solidified, would make a mass,
a mile square and two hundred and forty-one feet high.

The mud deposit gradually extends the land — but only
gradually ; it has extended it not quite a third of a mile
in the two hundred years which have elapsed since the
river took its place in history. The belief of the scien-
tific people is that the mouth 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 youthfulest batch of country
that lies around there anywhere.

The Mississippi is remarkable in still another way-
disposition to make prodigious jumps by cutting through
narrow neeks of land, and thus straightening and shorten-
ing itself. More than once it has shortened itself thirty
miles at a single jump ! These cut-offs have had curious
effects : they have thrown 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 /,\v> miles ahore Yicksburg.

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 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 thousand
three hundred miles of old Mississippi Rirer which La Salic
floated down in Iris canoes, two hundred years a^o, is '^ood solid
dry ground no:o. 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 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 "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 realization, 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 colors 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 noth-
ing to us; but when one groups a few neighboring his-
torical dates and facts around it, he adds perspective and
color, and then realizes 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 l-'rancis l.'s defeat at 1'avia; the death of Raphael;
thedeath «»f iiavanl, ,v</ //\/>< -nr et tiins rfprui/ic ; the driving
out of the K.nightS-Hospitallers from Rhodes l>y the
Turks; ami the placarding of the Ninety-five 1'roposi-
tions — the act which bc^an the Reformation. When 1 )e
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 was not yet dry on the
" Last Judgment " in the Sistine Chapel ; Mary Queen of
Scots was not yet born, but would be before the year
closed. Catherine de Medici was a child; Elizabeth of
England was not yet in her teens; Calvin, Henvenuto
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 than holi-
ness; lax court morals and the absurd chivalry business
were in full feather, and the joust 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 the 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 liv-
ing by the sword and fire; in England, Henry VIII. hail
suppressed the monasteries, burned Eisher 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. Bartholomew
slaughter; Rabelais was not yet published; "Don
Quixote" was not yet written; Shakspere was not yet
born; a hundred long years must still elapse before
Englishmen would hear the name of Oliver Cromwell.

Unquestionably the discovery of the Mississippi is a
datable fact which considerably mellows and modifies the
shiny newness of our country, and 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 explore
it. On the contrary, their narratives, when they reached
home, did not excite that amount of curiosity. The
Mississippi was left unvisited by whites during a term of
years which seems incredible in our energetic days. One
may "sense " the interval to his mind, after 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 Shakspere 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 fifteen costly
expeditions thither; one to explore the creek, and the
other fourteen to hunt for each other.

For 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 uj), the Knglish
were trading brads and blankets tu them for a considera-
tion, and throwing in civilization and whiskey, "forlag-
niappe";* and in Canada the French were schooling
them in a rudimentary way, missionarying among tiiein,
and drawing whole populations of them at a time to
Quebec, and later to Montreal, to buy furs of them.
Necessarily, then, these various clusters of whites must
have heard of the threat 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, 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.

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.

* See p. 316.

CHAPTER II
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
advantages 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
expedition 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 Missis-
sippi. They went by way of the Great Lakes; and from
Green Bay, in canoes, by the 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 honor. 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 chronicles of the
tune phrased it, to "explain hell to the salvag*

( )n the iyth of June, 1673, the canoes of Joliet and
Marquette and their five subordinate's reached the
junction of the Wisconsin with the- Mississippi. Mr.
1'arkinan says: " lie fore them a wide and ra])id curn-nt
coursed athwart their way, by the foot of lofty heights
wrapped thick in forests." He continues: "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 "whose roar could be heard at a great distance,
and who would engulf them in the abyss where he dwelt."
I have seen a Mississippi cat-fish that was more than six
feet long, and weighed two hundred and fifty pounds;
and if Marquette's fish was the fellow to that one, he
had a fair right to think the river's roaring demon

»6

was come.

At length the buffalo began to appear, grazing in herds on the
great prairies which then bordered the river ; and Marquette
describes the fierce and stupid look of the old bulls as they stared
at the intruders through the tangled mane which nearly blinded
them.

The voyagers moved cautiously:

Landed at night and made a fire 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 till 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 footprints of men in the mud of the western bank —
a Robinson Crusoe experience which carries an electric
shiver with it yet, when one stumbles on it in print.
They had been warned that the river Indians were as
ferocious and pitiless as the river demon, and destroyed
all comers without waiting for provocation; but no
matter, Joliet and Marquette struck into the country
to hunt up the proprietors of the tracks. They found
them by and by, 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 abun-
dantly 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. 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 cur-
rent 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,"
which "descending from its mad career through a vast
unknown of barbarism, poured its turbid floods into the
bosom of its gentle sister."

By and by they passed the mouth of the Ohio; they
passed canebrakes; they fought mosquitoes; they floated
along, day after day, through the deep silence and loneli-
ness of the river, drowsing in the scant shade of make-

1 1

shift awnings, and broiling with the heat ; they en-
COUntered and CM • handed civilities with another party
of Indians; and at last they reached the mouth of tin-
Arkansas (about a month 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 Missis-
sippi did not empty into the (iulf of California, or into
the Atlantic. They believed it emptied into the (iulf of
.Mexico. They turned back now, and carried their
great news to C'anada.

But belief is not proof. It was reserved for I. a Sulk-
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 New 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.

At Peoria Lake they struck open water, and paddled
thence to the Mississippi and turned their prows south-
ward. They ploughed through the fields of floating ice,
past the mouth of the Missouri; past the mouth of the
< >hio, by and by; ''and, gliding by the wastes of border-
ing swamp, landed on the 24th of February near the
Third Chickasaw Bluffs," vhere 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."

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 conse-
crated the robbery with a hymn. The priest explained
the mysteries of the faith " 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, Ark., and there the first confis-
cation 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, Ark. There-
fore, three out of the four memorable events con-
nected with the discovery and exploration of the mighty

river occurred, by aci ident, in one and the same j)lace.
It is a most curious distinction, when one comes to look
at it and think about it. 1'Yance stole that vast cou.itry
on that spot, the future Napolnm ; and by and by
Xap»l,-.>n himself was to give the country back again —
make restitution, not to the owners, but to their white
Amerii an heirs.

The voyagers journeyed on, touching here and there;
"passed the sites, since become historic, of Yicksburg
and ('.rand C.ulf;' and visited an imposing Indian mon-
arch in the l< < he country, whose capital city was a sub-
stantial one of sun-baked bricks mixed with straw — better
houses than many that exist there now. The thief's
house contained an audience room forty feet square; and
there he received Tonty in state, surrounded by sixty
old men clothed in 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 depotism, a privileged class
descended from the sun, a temple, and a sacred fire."
It must have been like getting home again; it was home
again ; it was home with an advantage, in fact, for it
la- ked Louis XIV.

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. I'arkman, in closing his fascinating nar-
rative, thus sums up:

On that day the n.-ulin of France received on parchment a
stupendous accession. The fertile plains of Texas ; the vast basin

of the Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry
borders of 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.

rii.MTKR III
I KKSCOS 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 exploration had been.

Seventy years elapsed after the exploration before
the river's borders had a white population worth con-
sidering ; 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 any thing 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 French monarchy
had gone down in the red tempest of the Revolution, and
Napoleon 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 —
keel-boats, broadhorns. They floated and sailed from
the upper rivers to New 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 employ-
ment to hordes of rough and hardy men; rude, unedu-
cated, 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 brag-
garts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy, faithful to
promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous.

By and by the steamboat intruded. Then, for fifteen
or twenty years, these men continued to run their keel-
boats 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 num-
ber 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 Pittsburg coal-flat, or
on a pine-raft constructed in the forests up toward the
sources of the Mississippi.

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 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, 1 1 uck !• inn,
son of the t<>wn drunkard of my time out West, there.
He has run away from his persecuting father, and from a
persecuting good widow who 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 frag-
ment of a lumber raft (it is high \\ater and dead summer
time), and are floating down the river by night, and hid-
ing in the willows Dy 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. l!y-
and-by they begin to suspect the truth, and Huck Finn
is persuaded to end the dismal suspense by swimming
down to a huge raft which they have seen in the distance
ahead of them, creeping aboard under cover of the dark-
ness, and gathering the needed information by eaves-
dropping :

But you know a young person can't wait very well when he is
impatient to find a thing out. We talked it over, and by and by
Jim said it was such a black night, now, that it wouldn't be no risk
to swim clown 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 any way 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.

1 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 every thing
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 among 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 parlor, any way. He
roared through his nose, and strung out the last word of every line
very long. When he was clone 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.

" Singing too, riloo, riloo, riloo,

Ri-too, riloo, rilay - — 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, " Oh, give us
a rest ! " And another one told him to take a walk. They made
fun of him till he got mad and jumped up and begun to cuss the
crowd, and said he could lam any thief in the lot.

They was all about to make a break for him, but the biggest
man there jumped up and says :

" Set whar you are, gentlemen. Leave him to me ; he's my
meat."

Then he jumped up in the air three times and cracked his heels
together every time. He flung off a buckskin coat that was all
hung with fringes, and says, " You lay thar tell the chawin-up's
done ; " and flung his hat down, which was all over ribbons, and
says, "You lay thar tell his sufferin's is over."

Then he jumped up in the air and cracked his heels 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 ! I'm the man they call Sudden Death and General Desola-
tion ! Sired by a hurricane, dam'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 alligators and a bar'l of whiskey for
breakfast when I'm in robust health, and a bushel of rattle-snakes
and a dead body when I'm ailing ! I split the everlasting rocks

\vith my glance, and I sqii'-nrh the thunder \\ln-n I speak !
Whoo-oop! Stand back and give nic room 'ding to my

strength ! Blood's my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is
music to my ear! Cast \<>ur eye on me, gentlemen ! and lay low
and hold \oiir breath, for I'm 'bout to turn myself loose!"

All the time he \\asgettingthis 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
clown over his right eye; then he bent stooping forward, with Ins
back sagged and his south end sticking out far, and his fists
a-shoving out and drawing in in front of him, and so went around
in a little circle about three times, swelling himself up and breath-
ing 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 :

" 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 achild of sin, *&;/'/ 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 ! When I'm
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 ! 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 ! Contemplate 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
communities 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 : " Whoo-oop !
bow your neck and spread, for the Pet Child of Calamity's
a-coming ! "

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 whooping 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 lan-
guage ; 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 warn't going to be the last of this
thing, because he was a man that never forgot and never forgive,
and so the Child better look out, for there was a time 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 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 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 ! "

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 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 ! " " Hi ! at him again, Child of Calamity ! " " 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 \vas
MK -aks .-tin! cowards and not tit to eat with a d«>g or drink with
a nigger ; then I'>ob and tin- Child shook hands with each other,
very solemn, anil said they had al\v,i\ 3 respected each other and W
willing tu let In gones be bygones. So then they \\ ashed their fa>
in the river ; ;nul just then tl it-re was a loud order to stand by for a
crossing, and some of them went forward to man the sweeps th< i< ,
and the rest went aft to handle the alter sweeps.

I lay 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 bark and had a drink around and wei.t
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 keelboat 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 " Jolly, Jolly Raftsman's the Life for Me," with a
rousing chorus, and then they got to talking about differences
betwixt hogs, and their different kind of habits; and next about
women and their different ways ; and next about the best ways to
put out houses that was afire ; and next about what 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 differ-
ences betwixt clear-water rivers and muddy-water ones. The
man they called Ed said the muddy Mississippi water was \vhole-
somer to drink 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, accord-
ing to the stage of the river, and then it warn'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 nutri-
tiousness in the mud, and a man that drunk Mississippi water
could grow corn in his stomach if he wanted to. He says :

"You look at the graveyards; that tells the tale. Trees won't
grow worth shucks 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
Mississippi 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 ; but Ed says :

"Why don't you tell something that you've seen yourselves?
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 Allbright, 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
yancler 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 be furder down.' I says :
" ' I thought it too, when I went off watch '-—we was standing
six hours on and six off — ' but the boys told me,' I says, ' that the
raft didn't seem to hardly move, for the last hour,' says I, ' though
she's a-slipping along 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.

" 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 doing what he sees somebody else doing, though there
mayn't be 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. I says :

" ' What's that ? ' He says, sort of pettish :

" ' Tain't nothing but an old empty har'l.1

" ' An empty bar'! ! ' says I. ' why,' says I. ' a spy-glass is a fool
to your eyes. I low can you tell it's an empty bar'l ? ' I b- says :

" ' I don't know; I reckon it ain't a bar'l, but I thought it might
be,' says he.

" ' Yes,' I says, 'so it might be, and it might be any thing else,
too; a body can't tell nothing about it, such a distance as that,'
I says.

" \Ye hadn't nothing else to do, so we kept on watching it. Uy-
ancl-by I says :

" ' \Yhy looky-here, Dick Allbright, that thing's a-gaining on us,
I believe.'

" He never said nothing. The thing gained and gained, and I
judged it must be a dog that was about tired out. Well, \ve
swung down into the crossing, and the thing floated across the
bright streak of the moonshine, and, by George, it was a bar'l.
Says I :

" ' Dick Allbright, what made you think that thing was a bar'l,
when it was half a mile off ? ' says I. Says he :

" ' I don't know.' Says I :

" ' You tell me, Dick Allbright.' He says :

"' Well, I knowed it was a bar'l ; I've seen it before; lots has
seen it ; they says it's a ha'nted bar'l."

" 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 having 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 bar'l 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 break-down ; and after that the captain of the
watch called for another song ; but it was clouding up, now, and
the bar'l 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 any thing for a minute. Then every-body tried
to talk at once, and one chap got off a joke, but it warn'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 bar'l, and was oneasy and oncomfortable. Well, sir,
it shut down black and still, and then the wind began to moan
around, and next the lightning began 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 bar'l with the blue lights winking around it. We was
always on the look-out for it. But by-and-by, toward dawn, she
was gone. When the clay come we couldn't see her anywhere,
and we warn'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 warn't no more high jinks. Every-
body got solemn ; nobody talked ; you couldn't get any body to do
any thing but set around moody and look at the bar'l. 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 bar'l left toward
day, and nobody see it go.

" Every-body 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 man sidled off and took it private, by himself.

" 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, forrard ; 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 bar'l again. She
took up her old place. She stayed there all night ; nobody 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 light-
ning spread over every thing in big sheets of glare, and showed

the whole raft as plain as day ; ami tin: river Lushed up wlrie as
miik as far as you could sec for miles, and thne was thai l>.a'l
jiggfring along, sain-- .1- ever. The captain ordered the \\auii to
man the after sweeps for a crossing, and nobody would go— no
more sprained .inkles for them, they said. They wouldn't even
i<.\ilk aft. \\ell then, just then the sky split wide open, with a
crash, and the lightning killed two men of the after watch, and
crippled two more. Crippled them how, say you? Why, spraiiud
thiir ankles !

" The har'l left in the dark beiwixt lightnings, toward dawn.
\\"e!l, not a body eat a bite at breakfast that morning. After that
the men loafed around, in twos and threes, and talked low togt th<-r.
But none of them herded with Dick Allbright. They all give liim
the cold shake. If he come around where any of the men was,
they split up and sidled away. They wouldn't man the sweeps
with him. The captain had all the skiffs hauled up on the raft,
alongside of his wigwam, and wouldn't let the dead men be took
ashore to be planted ; he didn't believe a man that got ashore
would come back ; and he was right.

"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 mut-
tering going on. A good many wanted to kill Dick Allbrighu
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 again.'

"This kind of whispers was still going on, the men being
bunched together forrarcl watching for the bar'l, when lo and
behold you ! here she conies again. Down she comes, slow and
steady, and settles into her old tracks. You could 'a' heard a pin
drop. Then up comes the captain, and says :

" ' Boys, don't be a pack of children and fools ; I don't want this
bar'l to be clogging us all the way to Orleans, a.r\<\ you don't: well,
then, how's the best way to stop it? Burn it up — that's the way.
I'm going to fetch it aboard,' he says. And before any body could
say a word, in he went.

" He swum to it, and as he come pushing it to the raft, the PUT.
spread to one sid»\ 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 Dic.k 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
language when he was a mind to, and lay them before you with-
out a jint started, anywheres. 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'l didn'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
Jittle 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 Bob; "was it Allbright or
the baby ? "

" Why, Allbright, of course ; didn't I tell you the baby was
dead ? Been dead three years — how could it cry ? "

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

" 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 ? " says the Child of
Calamity.

" Why, they hove it overboard, and it sunk like a chunk of lead."

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

" Did it have its hair parted ? " says another.

" What was the brand on that bar'l, Eddy? " says a fellow they
called Bill.

" Have you got the papers for them statistics, Edmund ? " says
Jimmy.

" Say, Edwin, was you one of the men that was killed by the
lightning ? " says Davy.

" Him ? Oh, no ! he was both of "em," says Bob. Then they all
haw-hawed.

" Say, Fthvunl, don't you reckon you'd better take a pill ? You
look bad — don't you feel pale ? " sa\ s the Child of Calamity.

" Oh. come, now, Eddy," says Jimmy, " show up ; you must 'a'
kept part of that !>ar'l to prove the thing by. Show us the bung-
hole — do — and we'll all believe you."

" Say, boys," says Bill, " less divide it up. Thar's thirteen of us.
I can smaller a thirteenth of the yarn, if you can worry down the
rest."

Kd 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 \elling and jeering at him, and roaring and
laughing so you could hear them a mile.

" Boys, we'll split a watermelon on that," says the Child of
Calamity ; and he came rummaging around in the dark amongst
the shingle bundles where I was, and put his hand on me. I wa-,
warm and soft and naked ; so he says " Ouch ! " and jumped back.

" Fetch a lantern or a chunk of fire here, boys — there's a snake
here as big as a cow ! '

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 ? " says another.

" What are you after here ? Speak up prompt, or overboard
you go."

" Snake him out, boys. Snatch him out by the heels."

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

" A cussed thief ! Lend a hand and less heave him overboard ! "

" Xo," 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 ! "

"Good! 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 :

" 'Vast there ! He's nothing but a cub. I'll paint the man
that teches him ! "

So I looked around on them, and some of them grumbled and
growled, and Bob put down the paint, and the others didn'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 your-
self. How long have you been aboard here ? "

" Not over a quarter of a minute, sir," says I.

" How did you get dry so quick ? "

" I don't know, sir. I'm always that way, mostly."

" Oh, you are, are you ? What's your name ? "

I warn'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 :

" 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 '11 hurt you, if you ain't up to any thing
wrong. What is your name ? "

" Aleck Hopkins, sir. Aleck James Hopkins."

" Well, Aleck, where did you come from, here? "

" From a trading scow. She lays up the bend yonder. I was
born 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 ! "

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 ? "

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

"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. lUit what did you hide f<

•• Sometimes they drive the boys off."

•' So t i. They might .steal. Looky-here; if we K-t you off

this time, will you keep out of these kind of scrapes hereafter? "

11 'Deed I will, boss. You try me."

11 All right, then. You ain't but little ways from shore. Over-
board with you, and don't \oti make .1 fool of yourself another time
this way. Blast it. boy, some raftsmen would rawhide you till you
were black and blue ! "

I didn't wait to kiss good-by, 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 adventure has furnished the glimpse of the departed
raftsman and keelboatman 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 examination — the marvellous science of pilot-
ing, as displayed there. I believe there has been nothing
like it elsewhere in the world.

CHAPTER IV
THE BOYS' AMBITION

WHEN I was a boy, there was but one permanent
ambition among my comrades in our village* on the west
bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steam-
boatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but
they were only transient. When a circus came and went,
it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro
minstrel show that ever came to our section left us all
suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we had a
hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit
us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in its
turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always
remained.

Once a day a cheap, gaudy packet arrived upward from
St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk. Before
these events, the day was glorious with expectancy; after
them, the day was a dead and empty thing. Not only
the boys, but the whole village, felt this. After all these
years I can picture that old time to myself now, just as
it was then : the white town drowsing in the sunshine of
a summer's morning; the streets empty, or pretty nearly
so; one or two clerks sitting in front of the Water Street
stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back
against the wall, chins on breasts, hats slouched over
their faces, asleep — with shingle-shavings enough around
to show what broke them down ; a sow and a litter of
pigs loafing along the sidewalk, doing a good business in
watermelon rinds and seeds; two or three lonely little

* Hannibal, Mo.

freight piles scattered about the "levee"; a pile of
"skids' <MI the slope of the stone-paved 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 wave-
lets 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. Drays, carts, men, boys, all
go hurrying from many quarters to a common centre, the
wharf. Assembled there, the people fasten their eyes
upon the 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 swrung 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 flag 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 discharge 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 ten 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 any body 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 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
" striker " on a steamboat. This thing shook the bottom
out of all my Sunday-school teachings. That boy had

been notoriously worldly, and I just the reverse; yel he
was exalted to this eminence, and 1 left in obscurity and
misery. There- was nothing gi m-rous 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 v
all could see him and envy him and loathe him. And
whenever his b<>at 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 lie used all sorts of steamboat techni-
calities in his talk, as if he were so used to them that he
forgot common people could not understand them. He
would speak of the "labboard " side of a horse in an easy,
natural way that would make one wish he was dead.
And he was always talking about " St. Looy " like an old
citizen; he would refer casually to occasions when he 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 "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 day. Two
or three of the boys had long been persons of considera-
tion 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 disappear when the ruth-
less "cub "-engineer 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 ad-
mired and hated by his comrades, this one was. No girl
could withstand his charms. He "cut out " every boy
in the village. When his boat blew up at last, it diffused
a tranquil contentment among us such as we had not

known for months. But when he came home the next
week, alive, renowned, and appeared in church all bat-
tered up and bandaged, a shining hero, stared at and
wondered over by every-body, it seemed to us that the
partiality of Providence for an undeserving reptile had
reached a point where it was open to criticism.

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 "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 hun-
dred 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 would never 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 wharf, and humbly enquired
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 com-
forting day-dreams of a future when I should be a great
and honored pilot, with plenty of money, and could kill
some of these mates and clerks and pay for them.

• HAPTER V

I WANT I • • BE A CUIMMI.oT

MONTHS afterward the hope \vilhin me struggled to a
reluctant (K-atli, ami I found myself without an ambition,
r.tit I was ashamed to go home. 1 was in Cincinnati, and
I set to work to map out a new career. I had been read-
ing about the recent exploration of the river Ama/on
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 New Orleans, where I could
doubtless get a ship. I had thirty dollars left; I would
go and complete the exploration 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 Paul Jones, for
New Orleans. For the sum of sixteen dollars I had the
scarred and tarnished splendors of " 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

,vn the broad Ohio, I became a new being, and the sub-

t of my own admiration. I was a traveller ! A word

never had tasted so good in my mouth before. I had an

exultant sense of being bound for mysterious lands and

distant climes which 1 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

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 envy of the country boys on the bank. If they
did not seem to discover 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 off all the time, and stayed where the
wind and the sun could strike me, because I wanted
to get the bronzed and weather-beaten look of an old
traveller. Before the second day was 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 Louisville in time — at least the neighbor-
hood 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
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 his side and said : "
me \vlicrc it is - I'll fetch' it ! '

If a rag-picker had offered to do a diploMialic service
for the Kmperor of Ku^ia, 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 s< rape his disjointed remains
together a-ain. Then he said impressively: " Well, if
this don't heat h- -11 ! " 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 every-body else had finished. I did not feel so much
like a member of the boat's family now as before. How-
ever, 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 thunder-
ing 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! W/iaf're you about!
Snatch it! snatch it! There! there! Aft again! aft
again ! Don't you hear me ? Dash it to dash ! are you
going to sleep over it! 'Vast heaving. 'Vast heaving, I
tell you'. Going to heave it clear astern ? WHERE're
you going with that barrel! forard with it 'fore I make
you swallow it, you dash-dash-dash-£fo.svW split between a
tired mud-turtle and a crippled hearse-horse ! '

I wished I could talk like that.

When the soreness of my adventure with the mate had
somewhat worn off, I began timidly to make up to the
humblest official connected with the boat — the night
watchman. He snubbed my advances at first, but I
presently ventured to offer him a new chalk pipe, and
that softened him. So he allowed me to sit with him by
the big bell on the hurricane deck, and in time he melted
into conversation. He could not well have helped it, I
hung with such homage on his words and so plainly
showed that I felt honored 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 was it to me that he
was soiled and seedy and fragrant with gin ? What was
it to me that his grammar was bad, his construction
worse, and his profanity so void of art that it was an
element of weakness rather than strength in his conver-
sation ? 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 lie was the son of an Knijish 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 WES still a little' boy he was sent to " one of them old,
aneieiit colleges ' -he couldn't remember which ; and by
and by his father died and his mother sci/.cd the property
and :> shook " him, as he phrased it. Alter 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 trammels of date and locality and
branched out into a narrative that bristled all along with
incredible adventures; a narrative that was so reeking
with bloodshed, and so crammed with hair-breadth es-
capes and the most engaging and unconscious personal
villanies, that I sat speechless, enjoying, shuddering,
wondering, worshipping.

It was a sore blight to find out afterward 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 fledglings like
me, until he had come to believe it himself.

CHAPTER VI
A CUB-PILOT'S EXPERIENCE

WHAT with lying on the rocks four days at Louis-
ville, 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.*

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 impossible 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

* "Deck " passage — i. e., steerage passage.

after graduating. I entered upon the small enti r-
prise of " learning " twelve or thirteen hundred miles of
the great Mississippi River with the easy confidence of
my time of life. If 1 had really known what I was about
to require of my faculties, 1 should not have had the
courage to begin. 1 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 backed out from New Orleans at four in the
afternoon, and it was "our watch' until eight. Mr.
Bixby, my chief, "straightened her up," ploughed her
along past the sterns of the other boats that lay at the
Levee, and then said, "Here, take her; shave those
steamships as close as you'd peel an apple." I took the
wheel, and my heart-beat fluttered 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 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 conscious that it was a mat-
ter 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 monot-
onously 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 : "The
slack water ends here, abreast this bunch of China-trees;
now we cross over." So he crossed over. He gave me
the wheel once or twice, but I had 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:

"Come, turn out ! "

And then he left. I could not understand this extra-
ordinary procedure; so I 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:

" 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 :

"Well, if this an't good, I'm blessed."

The " off-watch " was just turning in, and I heard some
brutal laughter from them, and such remarks as " Hello,
watchman ! an't the new cub turned out yet ? He's deli-
cate, likely. Give him some sugar in a rag, and send for
the chambermaid to sing ' Rock-a-by, Baby,' to him."

About this time' Mr. P.txby appeared on th' ne.

Something like a minute- later I was climbing the pilot-
house' steps with some of my i lot lies on and t he rest in un-
arms. Mr. r>i.\!'\ was close behind, commenting. Here
was something fresh — this tiling of getting up in the middle
of the night to go to work. It was a detail in piloting
that had never occurred to me at all. I knew that boats
ran all night, but somehow I had never happened to reflect
that somebody had to get up out of a warm bed to run
them. I began to fear that piloting was not quite so
romantic as 1 had imagined it was; there was something
v TV real and worklike about this new phase of it.

It was a rather dingy night, although a fair number of
stars were out. The big mate was at the wheel, and he
had the old tub pointed 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 :

" 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 plantation such a night as this;
and I hope you never will find it as long as you live."

Mr. r>i.\l>y said to the mate :

" Upper end of the plantation, or the lower? '

" Upper."

" I 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 plantation on such a night, but

to find either end of it you preferred. I dreadfully
wanted to ask a question, but I was carrying about as
many short answers as my cargo-room would admit of, so
I held my peace. All I desired to ask Mr. Bixby was the
simple question whether he was ass enough to really
imagine he was going to rind that plantation on a night
when all plantations were exactly alike atid all of the same
color. 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?"

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. "What's
the name of the next point ? '

Once more I didn't know.

"Well, this beats any thing. 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."

-I?

"Von — you — don't know?" mimicking my drauling
manner (>!" speech. " \\'hat do you know ?"
"1 — I — nothing, for certain."
" By the great Caesar's , 1 believe you! You're

the stupidest dunderhead 1 ever saw or ever heard of,

so help me Moses ! The idea of \>>n being a pil> n .'

Why, you don't know < !>. to pilot a COW down a

lane."

( >h, but his wrath was up ! Hi I nervous man, and

he shul'nVd from one side of his wheel to the other as if the
r was hot. I! • would boil a while to himself, and then
overflow and scald r E in.

•• ! k here ! What do you suppose I told you the
na: :' those p"ints for ''. '

I tremblingly considered a moment, and then the devil
of temptation 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 I judge it
made him blind, because he ran over the steering-oar of a
trading-scow. Of course the traders sent up a / of

red-hot profanity. Xever was a man so grateful as Mr.
Bixby was; because he was brimful, and here were sub-
jects who could talk back. He threw open a window,
thrust his head out, and such an irruption followed as I
never had heard ! The fainter and farther awav the

scowmen's curs 'rifted, the higher Mr. Uixby lifted his
voice and the weightier his adjectives grew. When he
1 the window he was empty. You could have drawn
a seine through his system and not caught curses enough
t > disturb your mother with. Presently he said to me in
the gentlest way :

" My boy, you must get a little memorandum-book; an
every time I tell you a thing, put it down right away.
There's only one way to be a pilot, and that is to get t

entire river by heart. You have to know it just like
ABC.'

That was a dismal revelation to me; for my memory
was never loaded with any thing but blank cartridges.
However, I did not feel discouraged long. I judged that
it was best to make some allowances, for doubtless Mr.
Bixby was " stretching." Presently he pulled a rope and
struck a 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 net
entirely certain that I could see the shore. The voice
of the invisible watchman called up from the hurricane
deck :

"What's this, sir?"

" 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, Mass' Jones," and the next moment we were stand-
ing up the river again, all serene. I reflected deeply a
while, and then said — but not aloud — " Well, the finding
of that plantation was the luckiest accident that ever
happened; but 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 1 had slept since the- voyage

My chief was presently hired to go on a big New ( )rleans
boat, and I packed my satchel and went with him. She
was a -rand affair. When 1 stood in her pilot-house
1 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 I\tnl Join'* a large craft.
There were other differences, too. The J \uil 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 yarns and "look at the river"; bright, fanciful
"cuspadores," instead of a broad wooden box filled with
sawdust; nice new oilcloth 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 bells; and a tidy, white-aproned, black "texas-ten-
der, " to bring up tarts and ices and coffee during mid-
watch, day and night. Now this was "something 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 clean
and as dainty as a drawing-room ; when I looked down her
long, gilded saloon, it was like gazing through a splen-
did tunnel; she had an oil-picture, by some gifted 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 barkeeper had
been barbered and upholstered at incredible cost. The
boiler-deck (/. <?., the second story of the boat, so to
speak), was as spacious as a church, it seemed to me; so
with the forecastle; and there was no pitiful handful of
deck-hands, firemen, and roust-abouts down there, but
a whole battalion of men. The fires were fiercely glar-
ing 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 " sir'd ' me, my satisfaction
was complete.

CHAPTER VII
A DARING DEED

WHEN I returned to the pilot-house St. Louis was gone,
and 1 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. 1 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 1 had got to learn this
troublesome river both :^ays.

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 "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 pilot's 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
guests 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 reputation 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 pilots in 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
any thing on earth but the river, and his pride in his
occupation surpasses the pride of kings.

We had a fine company of these river inspectors along
this trip. There were eight or ten, and there was abun-
dance of room for them in our great pilot-house. Two
or three of them wore 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 clad, and wore upon their heads tall
felt cones that were suggestive of the days of the Com-
monwealth.

I was a cipher in this august company, and felt sub-
dued, 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 corner;
and the talk I listened to took the hope all out of me.
One visitor said to another:

" Jim, how did you run Plum Point, coming up?"

" It was in the night, there, and I 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 st rai-htened up for the
middle bar till ! got well abreast the old one-limbed
cotton-wood in the bend, then -.4 my stern on the , . tton-
wood, and head on the low place above the point, and
came through a-b<.oming — nine and a half."

"Pretty square <T< »ssing, an't it?"

"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:

" 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.1

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, " 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; ami 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. 1 wish the piloting business was in
Jericho and I had never thought of it."

At dusk Mr. I'.'xhy 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
enquiringly. Mr. I'.ixbysaid:

" \Ve \\ill 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 pleased, without asking so grand
a captain's permission. I took my supper and went
immediately to bed, discouraged by my day's observa-
tions and experiences. My late voyage's note-booking
was but a confusion of meaningless names. It had tan-
gled me all up in a knot every time I had looked at it
in the daytime. I now hoped for respite 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 " 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 getting her
off that it was plain the darkness would overtake us a
good long way above the mouth. This was a great mis-
fortune, 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

clay, and a constant ciphering upon th< ed we were

making ; Hat Island was the eternal subject ; sometim
hope was high and sometimes we were di layed in a had
crossing, and down it went again. For hours all hand,
lay under the burden of this suppressed excitement; it
was even communicated to me, and 1 got to feeling so
solicitous about Hat Island, and under such an awful
pressure of responsibility, that I wished I might have h
minutes on shore to draw a ^ood, full, relieving breath,
and start over again. \\'e were stand in;.; no regular
watches, ch of our pilots ran sueh portions of 1

river as he had run when coming up-stream, because

reater familiarity with it; but both remained in the
pilot-house constantly.

An hour before sunset Mr. Bixby took the wheel, and
Mr. W. stepped asid I;or the next thirty minutes

every man held his watch in his hand and was restless,
silent, and uneasy. At last somebody said, with a doom-
ful sigh :

"Well, vender's Hat Island — and we can't make it."

.Ml the watches closed with a snap, everybody sighed
and muttered something about it's being "too bad, too
bad — ah, if we could only have got here half an hour
sooner ! " and the place was thick with the atmosphere
of disappointment. Some started to go out, but loitered,
.ring no bell-tap to land. The sun dipped behind the
hori/on, the boat went on. Enquiring looks passed from
one guest to another ; and one who had his hand on the

or-knob and had turned it, waited, then presently took
away his hand and let the knob turn back again. \V<-
b< 're steadily down the bend. More looks were exchanged,
and nods of surprised admiration — but no words. Insen-
sibly 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 dis-
tance, and were gruffly repeated by the word-passers on
the hurricane deck.

" M-a-r-k three ! M-a-r-k three ! Quarter-less-three !
Half twain ! Quarter twain ! M-a-r-k twain ! Quarter-
less- -"

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. Nobody was calm and easy
but Mr. Bixby. He would put his wheel down and stand
on a spoke, and as the steamer swung into her (to me)
utterly invisible marks — for we seemed to be in the midst
of a wide and gloomy 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:

" There; she's over the first reef all right! '

After a pause, another subdued voice :

" Her stern's coming down just exactly right, by
George ! '

" Now she's in the marks; over she goes ! '

Somebody else muttered :

" Oh, it was done beautiful — beautiful /"

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 ^1»< i;i
than that which surrounded us. It was the head of the
island. \\V were closing ri^ht down upon it. \\

entered its d- shadow, and so imminent seemed i

peril that 1 was likely to suffocate; and 1 had the
strongest impulse to do si>»i<-t/ii/i^, any thin-, to save the
vessel. I'.ut still Mr. I'.ixby stood by his wheel, silent,
intent as a cat, and all the pilots stood shoulder to
shoulder at his ha< k.

" She'll not make it ! ' somebody whispered.

T.he water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's
cries, till it was down to :

" Fight-and-a-half ! F-i-g-h-t feet ! 1 -i-g-h t feet \
Si-ven-and

Mr. Uixby said warnin^ly through his speaking tube to
the engineer :

" Stand by, now ! "

" Ay, ay, sir ! "

"Seven-and-a-half! Seven feet! Six-and-

\Ve to v.ched bottom ! Instantly Mr. Bixby set a lot of
bells ringing, shouted through the tube, " AVz..', let her
have it — every ounce you've got [' then to his partner,
•• "tit her hard down ! snatch her ! 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. Uixby's back never loosened the roof of apiloi-
house before !

There was no more trouble after that. Mr. I'.ixby 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 reali/.e 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 stern, 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 steamboat 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:

"By the Shadow of Death, but he's a lightning pilot! '

• IHAPTER VIII
PERPLEXING LESSO1

\ i l In- (.-ml "f what seamed a tedious while-, I had
managed to pack my head full of islands, towns, bars,
''points," and bends; and a curiously inanimate mass of
I'.iinbcr it was, too. However, inasmuch as I could shut
my eyes and reel off a good long string of these nam -
without leaving out more than ten miles of river in ev<
fifty, I began to feel that 1 could take a boat down to
New Orleans if I could make her skip those little gaps.
Hut of course my complacency could hardly get start
enough to lift my nose a trifle into the air, before Mr.
I!i\by wotdd think of something to fetch it down again.
One day he turned on me suddenly with this settler :

11 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 gun-
powdcry 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 int<
a very placable and even remorseful old smooth-bore as

>n as they were all gone. That word " old " is merely
affectionate; he was not more than thirty-four. 1 waii
lly and by he said :

"My boy, you've got to know the s/uipc of the ri .
perfectly. It is all there is left to steer by on a very dark
ht. Every thing else is blotted out and gone. But

mind you, it hasn't the same shape in the night that it has
in the daytime."

11 How on earth am I ever going to learn it, then ? '

" How do you follow a hall at home in the dark ? Be-
cause you know the shape of it. You can't see it."

"Do 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 ? "

"On my honor, you've got to know them better than
any man ever did know the shapes of the halls in his own
house."

" I wish I was dead ! '

" Now I don't want to discourage you, but-

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

"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 be
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 very
different shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on a
starlight night. All 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. Y<»u take a night when
there's one of th. SC grisly, dri/./ly, gray mists, and thru
then- isn't <///r particular shape to ;: shore. A gray mist
would tan^k- the head of the oldest man that ever lived.
Well, then, different kinds of niiHnili^ht change the shape
of the river in different ways. Y«n S

"Oh, don't say any more, plea Have 1 got to learn

the shape of the river according to all these five hundred
thousand different ways? If 1 tried to carry all that cargo
in my head it would make me stoop-shouklen < !. "

"No! you only learn the shape of the river; and you
h-arn it with such absolute certainty that you ran always
steer by the shape that's in your licaJ, 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 ? \Yill it keep the same form and not go
fooling around ? "

Before Mr. Bixby could answer, Mr. \Y. came in to
take the watch, and he said:

'• Hixby, 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 every thing. \Vhy, you wouldn't
know the point above 40. You can go up inside the old
sycamore snag, now."

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 be a pilot a man had got to learn
more than any one man ought to be allowed to know;
and the other was, that he must learn it all over again in
a different way every twenty-four hours.

That night we had the watch until twelve. Now it

* It may not be necessary, but still it can do no harm !•> explain that
" inside " means between the snag and the shore. — M. T.

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 retir-
ing pilot, would say something like this :

" I judge the upper bar is making down a little at Male's
Point; had quarter twain with the lower lead and mark
twain * with the other."

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

"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 partner f 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 tre-
mendous breach of etiquette; in fact, it is the unpardon-
able 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 villanous night for blackness, we were in a par-
ticularly wide and blind part of the river, where there
was no shape or substance to any thing, and it seemed
incredible 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 that 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

* Two fathoms. Quarter twain is 2# fathoms, i$l/2 feet. Mark
three is three fathoms.

f " Partner" is technical for " the other pilot."

of black cats that stood for an atmosphere, and never
opened his mouth. " 1 [ere is a proud devil 1 " thought I ;
" here is a limb of Satan that would rather send us all to
destruction than put himself under obligations to me,
because 1 am not yet one of the salt of the earth and
privileged to snub captains and lord it over < very tiling
dead and alive in a steamboat." 1 presently climbed up
On the i'< nch: 1 did not think it was safe to go to sl( ep
while tiiis lunatic was on watch.

However, 1 must have gone to sleep in the course of
time, • • next tiling I was aware of was tlu- fact

that day was breaking, Mr. \Y. gone, and Mr. I'.ixby 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 th m
trying to ache at on

Mr. l.ixby asked me what I had stayed up there t
I confessed that it was to do Mr. \V. a bcnevolen
tell him where he was. It took five minutes for the
entire preposterousness of the thing to iilter into Mr.
Uixbv's system, and then I judge it filled him nearly up
to the chin; because he paid me a compliment — and i
much of a one either. He said:

"Well, taking you by and large, you do seem to be
more different kinds of an ass than any creature I ever
re. What did you suppose he wanted to know
for?"

I said I thought it might be a convenience to him.

"Convenience! D- -nation! Didn't I tell you that
a man's got to know the river in the night the same as
he'd know his own front hall?'

" \Yell, I can follow the front hall in the dark if I know
it is the front hall; but suppose you set me down in the
middle of it in the dark and not tell me which hall it is;
how am /to know ? '

" \Ycil, \ . ,(\'\ e , , / n the ri v

''All right. Then I'm glad I never said any thing 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."

I was glad this damage had been saved, for it would
have made me unpopular with the owners. They always
hated any body 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, 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!
If there had been a conspicuous dead tree standing upon
the very point of the cape, I would find that tree incon-
spicuously merged into the general forest, and occupying
the middle of a 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 corner 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 Y, I kn.,\v I'

t to scratch to starboard in a hurry, or I'll ban- this
boat's 1. rains out against a rock; and then the' moment
one of the prongs of the Y swings behind the other, 1'
-ot to wait/ to larboard again, or I'll have a misunder-
standing 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-aft,
and " thort-ships," — 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. Uixby was all fixed, and ready to
start it to the rear again. He opened on me after this
fashion:

" II sw much water did we have in the middle crossing
at Hole-in-the-Wall, trip before last ? '

I considered this an outrage. I said:

" Kvcry trip, down and up, the leadsmen are sin-ing
through that tangled place for three-quarters of an hour
on a stretch. How do you reckon I can remember such
a mess as that ? '

" 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 shoalest water, in every one of
the five hundred shoal places between St. Louis and New
Orleans; and you mustn't get the shoal soundings and
marks of one trip mixed up with the shoal soundings and
marks of another, either, for they're not often twice alike.
\ on 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 want to retire from this business. I
want a slush-bucket and a brush; I'm only fit for a roust-
about. I 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."

"Now drop that! WThen I say I'll learn* a man the
river, I mean it. And you can depend on it, I'll learn
him or kill him."

* " Teach " is not in the river vocabulary.

« IIA1TEK IX
CONTINTi h n kri.l.XITIES

Turki was no use in arguing with a person like this.
I proni[)tly put such a strain on my memory that by and
by even the shoal \vater and the counties crossing-
marks began to stay with me. J!ut 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 gazing at the water and pretending to
n ad it as if it were a book ; but it was a book that told
me nothing. A time came at last, however, when Mr.
P.ixby seemed to think me far enough advanced to bear a
lesson on water-reading. So he began :

" Do you see that long, slanting line on the face of the
water? Now, that's a r<. 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 ? '

" Yes, sir."

" Well, that is a low place; that is the head of the reef.
You can climb over there, and not hurt any thing. 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 frinj
end. Then Mr. I'.ixby said :

" Xow 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.
cramp her clown! Snatch her! snatch her ! '

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 starboard, mounted
the reef, and sent a long, angry ridge of water foaming
away from her bows.

" Now watch her; watch her like a cat, or she'll get
away from 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 fine lines on the face of the
water that branch out like the ribs of a fan ? Well, those
are little reefs; you want to just miss the ends of them,
but run them pretty close. Now look out — look out!
Don't you crowd that slick, greasy-looking place; there
ain't nine feet there; she won't stand it. She begins to
smell it; look sharp, I tell you ! Oh, blazes, there you
go ! Stop the starboard wheel ! Quick ! Ship up to
back ! Set her back ! "

The engine bells jingled and the engines answered
promptly, shooting white columns of steam far aloft out
of the 'scape-pipes, but it was too late. The boat had
" 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 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. I',i\l>y

asked me if I knew how to run the next few mil- . [said:

"(io inside the first sna-j. above tin- point, outside the

next one, start out from the 1- r nd of IligginsV wood-
yard, make a square c nosing, and-

" That's all right. I'll be back before you < upon

the next point."

Hut he wasn't. lie was still below when I rounded it
and entered upon a piece of river which 1 had some mis-
givings about. I did not know that he was hiding behind
a t -Ilium- how I would perform. I went gay'y

along, getting prouder and prouder, for he !iad never h ft
the boat in my sole charge such a length of tune b< fore.
1 even got to "setting" her and letting the wheel go
entirely, while I vaingloriotisly turned my ba< k and
inspected the stern marks and hummed a tune, a sort of
easy indifference which I had prodigiously admired in
I', -by 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 chipped my
teeth together I should have lost it. One of those fright-
ful bluff reefs was stretching its deadly length right
across our bows ! My head was gone in a moment; I did
not know which end I stood on; I gasped and could i
get my breath; I spun the wheel down with such rapidity
that it wove itself together like a spider's web; the boat
answered and turned square away from the reef, but the
reef followed her! I tied, but 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 com-
mitted the crime of ringing a bell I might get thrown
overboard. Hut 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

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. Just then Mr.
Bixby stepped calmly into view on the hurricane deck.
My soul went out to him in gratitude. My distress van-
ished; I would have felt safe on the brink of Niagara
with Mr. Bixby on the hurricane deck. He blandly and
sweetly took his toothpick 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 com-
mands to me ever so gently:

" 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.

"Stop the larboard! Come 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:

"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.

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

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

" No, it \\-;;sn't a bluff n-cf; there isn't one within three
miles of where you were. "

4i Hut 1 saw it. it was as blui hat one yonder."

*' J list about. Run over it ! "

" I >(> you give it as an order ' '

" yes. I '.tin over it ! "

"If I don't, I wish 1 may die."

" All rivjit; 1 a;n taking the responsibility."

1 \\as ji;st a> anxious to kill the boat, now, as I :
been to save it before. I impressed my orders upon my
memory, to be used at the inquest, and made a straight
break for the re. As it disappeared under our bow
held my breath; but we slid over it like oil.

•• \ow, don't you see the difference? It wasn't any
thing but a r, '//;</ reef. The wind does that."

" So I s. But it is exactly like a bluff reef. How
am I ever going to tell them apart ? '

" I can't tell you. It is an instinct. ]\y and by
you will just naturally kno:^ one from the other, but
or will be able to explain why or how you know
them apart."

It turned out to be true. The face of the water, in
time, became a wonderful book — a book that was a dead
language to the unedueated passenger, but which told its
mind to me without re- . delivering its most cherish
secrets a >.r]y as ii" it uttered them with a voice. And

it was not a book to be read (-nee and thrown aside, for it
had a new storv to tell every day. Throughout the long
twelve hundred miles there was never a page that w 3
void of interest, never one that you could leave unread
without loss, never one that you would want to skip,
thinking you could fmd higher enjoyment in some other
thing. There never was so wonderful a book written
by man; never one whose interest was so so

unflagging, so sparklingly renewed with every reperusal.

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 altogether); but 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.

Now 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 kept 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 ; 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 so
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 trc,- waved a single leafy bough thai
glowed like' a llame in the unobstructed splendor that
was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves,

reflected images, \vo,,dy heights, s«>ft distances; and over
the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights
drifted steadily, enriching it every passing moment with
new marvels < .f col( >ring.

I stood like one bewitehed. 1 drank it in, in a speech-
less rapture. The world was ne\v to me, and 1 had never
seen any tiling like this at honi'-. Hut as I have said, a
day came when 1 began to cease from noting the glories
and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twi-
light wrought upon the river's face; another day came
when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that
sunset scene had been repeated, 1 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 somebody's steamboat one of these nights,
if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling
'boils' show a dissolving bar and a changing channel
there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder
are a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up
dangerouslv; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest

is the ' break ' from a new snag, and he has located him-
self 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 with-
out 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 com-
passing 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 pro-
fessionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condi-
tion all to himself ? And doesn't he sometimes wonder
whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his
trade ?

CHAPTER X

MY EDU< \ I'lDN

has done me the courtesy t» read my chap-
ters which have preceded this may possibly wonder that
I i leal 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
arc buoyed and lighted, and therefore it is a compara-
tively 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 Mis-
souri, 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 forever
dodging and shirking, and whose obstructions must be
confronted in all nights and all weathers without the aid
of a single lighthouse or a single buoy; for there is
neither light nor buoy to be found anywhere in all this
three or four thousand miles of villanous river.* 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 knowledge of the subject. If the theme was
hackneyed, I should be obliged to deal gently with the

*True at the time referred to : not true now

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 feature of the river; when I had so mastered its
shape that I could shut my eyes and trace it from St.
Louis to New Orleans; when I had 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 toothpick 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 Bur-
gess's ? '

" How can I tell, sir? It is three-quarters of a mile
away."

"Very poor eye — very poor. Take the glass."

I took the glass, and presently said :

"I can't tell. I suppose that that bank is about a foot
and a half high."

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

" I don't know; I never noticed."

" You didn't ? Well, you must always do it hereafter."

"Why?"

" 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?"

"That the river is four feet higher than it uas last
trip."

"Very good. I> the river rising or falling ':

" Rising."

"No, it ain't."

'•1 -ness I am right, sir. \'onder is some drift-wood
float ing down the stream."

" A rise stitrts 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 ? "

"Ay, ay, sir."

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

"Why?"

"Because that means that there's seven feet in the
chute of 103."

"But 103 is a long way up the river yet."

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

"Six feet aft — six and a half forward."

"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?"

"Of course ! "

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

"And how about these chutes? Are there many of
them ? "

"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."

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

"Ah, I never can learn it ! "

"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?"

"Yes. And you've got to have good fair marks from

/ -

one end of the river l<> the other, that will help the bank
tell yen when there is water enough in each of th<
countless piaees — like that stump, you kno\v. \\hen the
river first begins to rise, you can run hall a d«r/cn of the
deepest of them ; when it rises a foot more you can run
another do/en ; the next foot will add a COUple of do/en,
and so on : so you see you have to know your banks and
marks to a dead moral certainty, and never -it them
mixed ; for when you start through one of those cracks,
there's no backing out a^ain, as there is in the- big river ;
\> ifve : go through, or stay there six months if you

get caught on a falling river. Tin re are about fiftv of
these cracks which you can't run at all except when the
river is brimful and over th. ks."

•• i'his 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-ahvays up
at the head ; never elsewhere. And the head of them -
always likely to be filling up, little by little, so that the
marks you reckon their depth by, this season, may not

>\ver for next."

" Learn a new set, then, every year?"

"Exactly. Cramp her up to the bar ! \Yhat are you
standing up through the middle of the river for ? '

The next few months showed me strange thin-v On
the same day that we held the conversation above nar-
rated 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
daytime, 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 sud-
denly 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 center, 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 crawfishing, 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 an 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 Pittsburg, little trading
scows from everywhere, and broadhorns from " Posey
County," Indiana, freighted with " fruit and furniture'
the usual term for describing it, though in plain English
the freight thus aggrandized was hoop-poles and pump-
kins. 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 agonized 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

fn»m our furnaces \V"iil<l reveal tin- SCOW and the form of
the gesticulating orator, as it" under a lightning-flash, and
in that instant our firemen and deck-hands would send
and receive a tempest of missiles and profanity, one of

Our wheels would walk off with the crashing fragments of
a steering-oar, and down the dead blackness would shut
again. And that llatboatman would be sure to -o into
New Orleans and sue our boat, swearing stoutly that he
had a light burning all the time, when in truth his gang
had the lantern down below to sing and lie and drink and
gamble by, and no watch on deck. Once, at night, in
one of those forest-bordered crevices (behind an island)
which steamboatmen intensely describe with the phrase
"as dark as the inside of a cow," we should have eaten
tip a Posey County family, fruit, furniture, and all, but
that they happened to be fiddling down below and we just
caught the sound of the music in time to sheer off, doing
no serious damage, unfortunately, but coming so near it
that we had good hopes for a moment. These people
brought up their lantern, then, 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 every thing turned blue. Once a coalboat-
man sent a bullet through our pilot-house when we bor-
rowed a steering-oar of him 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 particu-
larly cramped place in a chute, we would be pretty sure
to meet a broadhorn 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 be broken by yells and a clamor of tin
pans, and all in an instant a log raft would appear
vaguely through the webby veil, close upon us ; and then
we did not wait to swap knives, but 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-fry 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 panting

oarsmen would shout, "(iimme a pa-a-pcr !' a^ tin- skiff
drifted swiftly astern. The < Icrk \vouUl throw over a tile
Of New Orleans journals. If these were pi« kcd up -^'it/unit
coninit'nt, you mi-lit notice tliat now a dozen other skills
had been drifting down upon us without saying any thin-'
YOU understand, they had been waiting t<> ^l 6 how N"- '
was going t<» fare. No. i making no comment, all the
re>t would bend to their and come on, now ; and as

fast as thev came the clerk would 1 leave over neat bundl- -

of religious tracts, tied to shiiv 5. The amount of hard
swearing whieh twelve packa^' . of religious literature
will command when impartially divided up among tweb
raftsmen's crews, who have pulled a heavy skiff two miles
on a hot day to get them, is simply incredible.

As 1 have said, the big rise brought a new world under
my vision. \\\ the time the river was over its banks we
had forsaken our old paths ami were hourly climbing over
bars that had stood ten feet out 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 open-
ing at the foot was an unbroken wall of timber till 6ur
nose was almost at the very spot. Some of these chutes
were utter vlitudes. The dense, untouched forest over-
hung both banks of the crooked little crack, and one
could believe that human < features 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 lovelv places to steer in; they were deep, except at
the head; the current was gentle; under the "points"
the water was absolutely dead, and the invisible banks
bluff that where the tender willow thickets projected you
6

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 miser-
ables 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 flatboat 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 pro-
vision of an all-wise Providence to enable them to take
exercise without exertion. And this sort of watery camp-
ing out was a thing which these people were rather liable
to be treated fo a couple of times a year : by the Decem-
ber rise out of the Ohio, and the June rise out of the
Mississippi. And yet these were kindly dispensations,
for they at least enabled the poor things 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 find to do to keep from dying of the blues dur-
ing the low-water season !

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 recreation in a virgin wilder-
ness, while the boat-hands chopped the bridge away; for
there was no such thing as turning back, you comprehend.

From Cairo to IJatoii Konge, when the river i-> over
banks, you have no particular trouble in the night; t'or
the thousand-mile wall «»t' dense !'<.n>t th.,1 guards tin-
two banks all the way is only Capped with a I'ann or
wood-yard opening at intervals, and so yon can't "get
out of the river " mm h easi< r than you could get out "| a
fenced lane; hut fp m llatoii Kouge to New Orleans it
a different matte:'. The river i> more than a mile \\ide,
and very deep — as mueh as two hundred feet, in plac* -
I'.oth hanks, for a good deal over a hundred miles, are
shorn oi" their timber and bordered by continuous sugar
p;aiUati"ii>, with only here and there a scattering sapl:
or row of ornamental China-tret. 3. The timber is shorn
off clear to the rear of the plantations, tnun two to four
miles. When the first frost threatens to come, the
planters snatch off their crops in a hurry. When they
have finished grinding the cane, they form the refuse of
the stalks (which they call A/-W.OV) into great piles and set
fire to them, though in other sugar countries the bagas-
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 b-
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 perhaps a hundred feet,
according to circumstances; say thirty or forty feet, as
general thing. Fill that whole region with an impene-
trable 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 midnight and see how
she will feel. And see how yon will feel, too ! \ .u find
yourself away out in the midst of a vague, dim sea that
shoreless, that fades out and loses itself in the murky di--
tances; for voii cannot discern the thin rib of embank-

ment, 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 keep-
ing 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 expect-
ing 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 rele-
vant in that it is connected 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 New Orleans passenger packet. During a con-
siderable 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 approach-
ing Helena, Ark. ; 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 particularly 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. Now, on very dark nights, light is a deadly

enemy to piloting ; you arc' aware that if you stand in a
lighted room, on such a night, von cannot see things in
the street to any purpose ; but if you put out the li-
and stand in the glo,>m you can make out objei ts in the
Street pretty \\ell. So, on very dark ni-lit-, pilots do
not smoke; they allow no lire in the pilot-house stove, if
there is a crack \\hich can allow the least rav to CM a;
they order the furnaces to be curtained with hu^c tar-
paulins and the sky-lights to be closely blinded. Then
no light whatever issues from the boat. The undefinable
shape that now entered the pilot-house had Mr. X.'s VOil
This said :

me take her, (leorge; I've seen this place since
you have, and it is so crooked that i reckon I can run it
myself easier than 1 could tell you how to do it."

"It is kind ti, and I swear /am willing. I haven't

got another drop of perspiration left in me. I have b
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. "

So Kaicr took a seat on tire bench, panting and breath-
les- The black phantom assumed the wheel without
saying any tiling, steadied the walt/.ing 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 Kaler observed
this marvel of steering, he wished he had not con d!

He stared, and wondered, and finally said:

"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 peer
blandly out into the blackness, fore and aft, to verify ! 3

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 he.r warily into the next
system of shoal marks; the same patient, heedful 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! 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 get 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:

"Who is at the wheel, sir ? "

"X."

" Dart for the pilot-house, quicker than lightning ! '

The next moment both men were flying up the pilot-
house companion-way, three steps at a jump ! Nobody
there ! The great steamer was whistling down the middle
of the river at her own sweet will ! The watchman shot
out of the place again; Ealer seized the wheel, set an
engine back with power, and held his breath while the
boat reluctantly swung away from a "towhead," which

she \\ as about to knock into the middle of the (iulf

Mexico!

Uy and by the \vatch: ime back and said:

" Diiln't that lunatic t,-ll you he was asleep, win n !)••

first came up her-

. \ » '
No.

11 \\"ell, he was. 1 found him walking along on top .
the railings, just as une. meerned 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 deviltry the same as before."

"Well, I think I'll stay by next time he has one of
those fits. IHit I hope he'll have them often. You just
ought to have seen him take this boat through Helena
crossing. / never saw any thing so gaudy before. And
if he can do such gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond-breastpin
piloting when he is sound asleep, what conlaiii he do if he
was dead ! "

CHAPTER XII
SOUNDING

WHEN the river is very low, and one's steamboat is
'•drawing all the water " 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 "cub" 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 sumptuous
luxury, a regularly devised "sounding-boat" — and pro-
ceeds to hunt for the best water, the pilot on duty watch-
ing his movements through a spy-glass, meantime, and in
some instances assisting by signals of the boat's whistle,
signifying "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, however; 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 "hold her up to starboard;"
or "let her fall off to larboard ";* or "steady — steady as
you go."

* The term " larboard" is never used at sea, now, to signify the left
hand ; but was always used on the river in my time.

When tin- measurements indicate that the yawl i:-

iiin- the shoalest j'art of the reef, the ruiumuiul

is given to "Ease all!' Then the men stop rowing and

ihe yawl drifts with the current. The next order is,
" Staiul by with the buoy ! ' The moment the shallowest,
point is reached, the pilot delivers the order, "Let ,u,o

the buoy!" and over she goes. If the pilot is not satis-
fied, he sounds. the place again; if he finds better water
higher up or lower down, he removes the buoy to that
pla- 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 "give way" on their oars and
lay the yawl alongside the buoy; the steamer con,
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." Then she has
to while away several hours (or days) sparring herself off.

Sometimes a buoy is not laid at all, but the yawl g< -
ahead, hunting the best water, and the steamer follows
along in its wake. Often there is a deal of fun and excite-
ment about sounding, especially if it is a glorious summer
day, or a blustering night, lint 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 supports left and the other
removed. It is anchored on the shoalest part of tlu- reef
by a rope with a heavy stone made fast to the end of it.
But for the resistance of the turned-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 blackness.

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 stern-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, "Let
her go about ! ' and leave the rest to the cub, who
instantly cries, in his sternest tone of command, "Ease,
starboard ! Strong on the larboard ! Starboard, give
way! With a will, men ! ' 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 uncle 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 arise. I 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 tin- <ont< About this time

ncthing happened which premised handsomely f»r n, :
the pilots decided t.) s< und tin- crossing at tin- In ad 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. \\'e had a perfect loVC of a souiiding-
boat long, trim, graceful, and as licet as a greyhound;
her thwarts \\cre < ushioned; she carried twelve <>arsmen;
one of the mates \\as ahvays sent in her to transmit orders
to her erew, for ours was a steamer where no end of
" style " was put on.

\\Y 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 passengers were alert
and interested; every thing was satisfactory. As I
hurried through the engine-room, picturesquely gotten
up in storm toggery, I met Tom, and could not forbear
delivering myself of a mean speech:

" Ain't you glad vnu don't have to go out sounding?"

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

" Now just for that, you can go and get the sounding-
pole yourself. 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 :

" Oh, how awful to have to go out in that little boat on
such a night! Do you think there is any danger ? ':

I would rather have been stabbed. I went off, full of
venom, to help in the pilot-house. By and by the boat's
lantern disappeared, and after an interval a wee spark
glimmered upon the face of the water a mile away. Mr.
Thornburg blew the whistle in acknowledgment, backed
the steamer out, and made for it. We flew along for
awhile, then slackened steam and went cautiously gliding
toward the spark. Presently Mr. Thornburg exclaimed:

" Hello, the buoy-lantern's out! '

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

" Why, there it is again ! '

So he came ahead on the engines once more, and rang
for the leads. Gradually the water shoaled up, and then
began to deepen again! Mr. Thornburg muttered :

" Well, I don't understand this. I believe that buoy
has drifted off the reef. Seems to be a little too far to
the left. No matter, it is safest to run over it, anyhow."

So, in that solid world of darkness we went creeping
down on the light. Just as our bows were in the act of
ploughing over it, Mr. Thornburg seized the bell-ropes,
rang a startling peal, and exclaimed:

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

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

"There! 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

sal' They had discovered their danger \vhen it was too
late to pull out of the \vay; then, when the great guards
overshadowed them a mom-Mil later, they WCFC prepared
and knew what to do; at my rhiefs order they sprang
at the ri-ht inst.itu, seized the guard, and wen- hauled
aboard. The next moment the sounding-yawl swept aft
to the wheel and was struek and splintered to atoms.
Two of the men and the cub Tom were missing — a fact

\\hieh spread like wild-fire over the boat. The passengers

came (locking to the forward gangway, ladies and all,
anxious-eyed, white-faced, and talked in awed voices
the dreadful tiling. And often and again I heard them
s tv, " Poor fellows! poor boy, poor boy ! '

Uy this time the boat's yawl was manned and away, to
search for the missing. Now a faint call was heard, off
to the left. The yawl had disappeared in the other clir< -
tion. Half the people rushed to one side to encour.
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-dei k 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 ? '

I'ut still the cries held out, and drew nearer, and pres-
ently the voice said pluck'ly :

11 I can make it ! 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 men grouped about him. The
next moment the swimmer's face appeared in the circle
of light, and in another one the owner of it was hauled
aboard, limp and drenched, while cheer on cheer went up.
It was that devil Tom.

The yawl crew searched everywhere, but found no sign
of the two men. They probably failed to catch the guard,
tumbled back, and were struck by the wheel and killed.
Tom had never jumped for the guard at 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 every-body went on just the same, making a
wonderful to-do 'over that ass, as if he had done some-
thing 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 lan-
tern 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 hun-
dred 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 talk-
ing; 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 to him, but that was the correct
thing; it washer business to shave him closely, for con-
venience 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 lan-
tern for the buoy-light; so he sang out, "Stand by to
spring for the guard, men!" and the next instant the
jump was made.

CHAPTER XIII

A IMLol's M ! DS

I!i i 1 am wandering from \vhut I \vas 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
thinking a thing is so and so; he must knc:^ it; for this is
eminently one of the " exact " sciences. With what scorn
a pilot was looked upon, in the old times, if he ever ven-
tured to deal in that feeble phrase " I think," insttad of
the vigorous one " I know ! ' One cannot easily realize
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 featur -
patiently until you know every house and window 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 position of
the crossing-stones, and the varying depth of mud in
each of those numlx rb-ss 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 street, and change their places once a
month, and still manage to know their new positions
accurately on dark nights, and keep up with these
repeated changes without making 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 Testa-
ments 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
facility, 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 believe I am
not expanding the truth when I do it. Many will think
my figure too strong, but pilots will not.

And how easily and comfortably the pilot's memory
does its work; how placidly effortless is its way; how
unconsciously 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 leads-
man cry, "Half twain! half twain! half twain! half
twain ! half twain ! ' until it becomes as monotonous as
the ticking of a clock ; let conversation be going on all the
time, and the pilot be doing his share of the talking, and
no longer consciously listening to the leadsman; and in
the midst of this endless string of half twains let a single
" quarter twain ! ' be interjected, 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 ought to be

able to take- the boat there and put her in that .i.t

;in yourself ! The « TV of " quarter twain' did not
really take his mind from his talk, but his traim-d l',l( ul-
ties instantly photographed the bearing, noted the
change <>l" dfpth, and laid up the important details for
future reference without requiring any assistant e from
////// 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 interjet ted an R, thus,
A, A, A, A, A, R. A, A, A, etc., and gave the R no
empi; von would not be able to state, two or thr

weeks afterward, that the R had been put in, nor be able
to tell what objects you were passing at the moment it
was done. Hut you could if your memory had been
patiently and laboriously trained to do that sort of tiling
mechanically.

Give a man a tolerably fair memory to start with, and
piloting will develop it into a very colossus of capabili:
lint 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-

5t, 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. lii.xby, 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 onee in the daytime and onee at night, his
education was so nearly complete that he took out a
"daylight" license; a few trips later he took out a full

license, and went to piloting day and night- and he
ranked A i, 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, somebody 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 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 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 "

t <

Why, the Sunflower didn't sink until-

"/ know when she sunk; it was three years before
that, on the 26. 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
Sunflower. Captain Hardy stuck a nail in his foot the
6th of July of the next year, and died of the lockjaw on
the i5th. His brother John died two years after, — 3d 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 Lexington,
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 tlirv had lain then- fur years, as tl. !

most memorable events. His was not simply a pilot'-,
memory; its grasp was universal. If he were talkin-
alioiit a trilling letter he had received seven years befon
he was pretty sure to deliver yon the- entire S( reed from
memory. And then, without observing that he was de-
parting from the true line of his talk, lie 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 n • [ 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 occurrence s are of the same size. Its possessor can-
not distinguish an interesting circumstance from an
uninteresting one. As a talker, he is bound to dog 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. Drown
would start out with the honest intention of telling
you a vastly funny anecdote about a clog. He would be
" so full of laugh" that he could hardly begin; then his
memory would start with the clog's breed and personal
appearance; drift into a history of his owner; of his
owner's family, with descriptions of weddings and burials
that had occurred in it, together with recitals of con-
gratulatory verses and obituary poetry provoked by the
same; then this memory would recollect that one of these
events occurred during the rated " 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 corn and fodder; corn and fodder would
suggest cows and horses; cows and horses would suggest

IOO

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 wait-
ing 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 be-
come a pilot he cannot be unmanned by any danger a
steamboat can get into; but one cannot quite say the
same for judgment. Judgment 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 stagger-
ing 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 his 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

I'll

then; he docs not know ho\v to meet them; all his
knowledge t»rsakes liiin; and within fifteen minutes he is
as white as a Sheet and scare<l almost to death. Then -
fore pilots wisely train these cubs by van Strategic

tricks to look danger in the fa<'c a litli'- more < almly.
A favorite way of theirs is to play a friendly swindle upon
the candidate.

Mr. J!ixl>y served me in this fashion once, a ml for
years afterward 1 used to Mush, even in my sleep, when 1
thought of it. I hail become a good steersman; so good,
indeed, that [ had all the work to do on our watch, night
and d Mr. llixby seldom made a suggestion tome;

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 any body had
questioned my ability to run any crossing between Cairo
and New Orleans without help or instruction, I should
have felt irreparably hurt. The idea of being afraid of
any crossing in the lot, in the daytime, was a thing too
sterous for contemplation. Well, one matchless
summer's clay I was bowling down the bend above Island
66, brimful of self-conceit and carrying my nose as high
•raffe's, when Mr. lii.xby said:

•• 1 am going below a while. 1 suppose you know the
next • rossing ?"

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

- for depth, there never had been any bottom there. I

knew all this, perfectly well.

" Know how to /v/// it? Why, I can run it with my eyes
shut."

" How much water is there in it ?"

IO2

''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, with-
out saying any thing more. I began to imagine all sorts
of things. Mr. Bixby, unknown to me, of course, sent
somebody down to the forecastle with some mysterious
instructions to the leadsmen, another messenger was sent
to whisper among the officers, and then Mr. Bixby went
into hiding behind a smoke-stack where he could observe
results. Presently the captain stepped out on the hurri-
cane deck; next the chief mate appeared; then a clerk.
Every moment or two a straggler was added to my audi-
ence; and before I got to the head of the island I 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. Bixby?"

" Gone below, sir."

But that, did the business for me. My imagination
began to construct dangers out of nothing, and they mul-
tiplied faster than I could keep the run of them. All at
once I imagined 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 together :

" Starboard lead there ! 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

103

port lictore I would see new dangers on that side, and away
I would spin to the other; only to find penis a< cumulating
to starboard, and be cra/y to -rt to port again. Then
came the leadsman's sepulchral cry :

" I >-e-e-p four !

Deep four in a bottomless crossing! Tin- terror of it

tor .k my breath away.

" M-a-r-k three ! M-a-r-k three! QuarliT-lYss-three!
Half twain ! "

This was frightful ! 1 seized tli • bell-ropes and stopped
the cnvjn

" (Quarter twain ! Quarter twain ! .1 /,//•/• twain ! "

I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to
do. 1 was quaking from head to f^ot, and I could have
hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck out so far.

" Quarter-/«j-twain ! Nine-and-a-//^//".' '

We were </;w,v///;r nine ! My hands were in a nerveless
flutter. 1 could not ring a bell intelligibly with them. I
flew to the speaking-tube and shouted to the engineer :

"Oh, Ben, if you love me, back her! Quick, Ben !
Oh, back the immortal soul out of her ! '

i heard the door close gently. I looked around,
and there stood Mr. Bixby, smiling a bland, sweet smile.
Then the audience on the hurricane deck sent up a thun-
dergust of humiliating laughter. I saw it all, now, and 1
felt meaner than the meanest man in human history. 1
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, ^'iisn't it ?
I suppose I'll 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 expe-
rience. Didn't you /•//<>:,' there was no bottom in that
crossing ? '

104

"Yes, sir, I did."

"Very well, then. You shouldn't have allowed me or
any body 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 par-
ticular distaste for. It was, "Oh, Ben, if you love me,
back her ! "

CHAPTER XIV

RAN l. *\l> DIGNITY <>F I'll.n I ,

IN my preceding chapters I have tried, by going into
the minutioj of the seience of piloting, to carry the reader
step by step to a comprehension of what the science con-
sists 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 tiling, for I l"ved the pro-
fession 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 in-
dependent human being that lived in the earth. Kings are
but the hampered servants of parliament and the 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 and woman 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

io6

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 best. His movements were
entirely free; he consulted no one, he received commands
from nobody, he promptly resented even the merest sug-
gestions. Indeed, the law of the United States forbade
him to listen to commands or suggestions, rightly con-
sidering 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. I have seen a boy of eighteen taking a
great steamer serenely into what seemed almost certain
destruction, and the aged captain standing mutely by,
filled with apprehension but powerless to interfere. His
interference, in that particular instance, might have been
an excellent thing, but to permit it would have been to
establish a most pernicious precedent. It will easily be
guessed, considering the pilot's boundless authority, that
he was a great 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 communicated 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.

By long habit, pilots came to put all their wishes in
the form of commands. It "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 New Orleans and back, and discharge cargo,

107

about twent\ -five days, on an average. Seven

or eight of th< >c days tin- l>«at spent at the wharvi s »i
St. Louis and New Orleans, and every soul on board was
hard at work, ex< ept the two pilots; t/icv did nothing but
|)lay gentleman tip town, and receive tin1 same wa^es for
it as if they had been on duly. 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 riiiLMiig and every thin^ in readiness for another
voyage.

\Yhen a captain got hold of a pilot of particularly high
reputation, he took pains to keep him. When wain s
were four hundred dollars a month on the Upper Mis-
sissippi, i have known a captain to keep such a pilot in
idleness, under full pay, three months at a time, while
the river was frozen up. And one must remember that
in those cheap tmies four hundred dollars was a salary of
almost inconceivable splendor. 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; espe-
cially if they belonged in the Missouri River in the hey-
day 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 stern-
wheel tul), accosts a couple of ornate and gilded Missouri
River pilots :

" ( ientlemen, I've got a pretty good trip for the up-
country, and shall want you about a month. How much
will it be ?"

" Eighteen hundred dollars apiece."

io8

"Heavens and earth ! You take my boat, let me have
your wages, and I'll divide ! '

I will remark, in passing, that Mississippi steamboat-
men 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 darky 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 :

"Who is you, any way? Who is you? dat's what /
wants to know ! '

The offender was not disconcerted in the least, but
swelled himself up and threw that into his voice which
showed that he knew he was not putting on all those airs
on a stinted capital.

"Who is I ? Who is I? I let you know mighty quick
who I is! I want you niggers to understan' dat I fires de
middle do' * on de Aleck Scott ! "

That was sufficient.

The barber of the Grand Turk was a spruce young
negro, who aired his importance with balmy complacency,
and was greatly courted by the circle in which he moved.
The young colored population of New 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 projected her head through a
broken pane and shouted (very willing that the neighbors
should hear and envy), "You Mary Ann, come in de
house dis minute ! Stannin' out dah foolin' 'long wid dat

* Door.

IOQ

low trash, an' heah's de barber off'n de (/V</;/ 'J'u> k \vants
to co inverse will you ! "

Mv reference, a moment ago, to the fact that a pilot's
peculiar official position pla« ed him out of the reach of
criticism or command, brings Stephen \Y. naturally to
my mind. lie was a gifted pilot, a good fellow, a tin-l-
talker, and had both wit and humor in him. He had a
m<>st irreverent independence, too, and was ddiciously
easy-going and comfortable in the presence of age,
official dignity, and even 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 OH
the river, and to the majority of the captains. He could
throw a sort of splendor around a bit of harum-scarum,
devil-may-care piloting, that made it almost fascinating —
but not to every-body. He made a trip with good old
Captain V. once, and was "relieved' from duty when
the boat got to New Orleans. Somebody expressed sur-
prise 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 any thing in particular, but 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 IK d,
all in a cold sweat, with one of those dreadful war-
whoops. A queer being — very queer being ; no respect
for any thing or any body. Sometimes he 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
any thing 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 ' 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 ! " *

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 cap-
tain 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 surprised. He glanced enquiringly
aloft at Stephen, but Stephen was whistling placidly and

* Considering a captain's ostentatious but hollow chieftainship, and a
pilot's real authority, there was something impudently apt and happy
about that way of phrasing it.

Ill

attending to business. The captain stood around a while
in evident discomfort, and once or twice seemed about to
make a suggestion ; but tin- 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. Hut 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?'

"Well, I should say so ! Bank-full is a pretty liberal
stage."

" Seems to be a good deal of current here."

" Good deal don't describe it! It's worse than a mill-
race."

" 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 becom-
ing serious. In by the shore was a slower boat clipping
along 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 wrung from the captain. He
said:

" Mr. W. , don't that chute cut off a good deal of
distance ? "

"I think it does, but I don't know."

"Don't know! Well, isn't there water enough in it
now to go through ? "

112

"I expect there is, but I am not certain."

"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 ?"

" They ! Why, they are two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar
pilots ! But 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.

< iiAi'i I;R xv

TIIK I'll. (ITS* MO\(>I'I »l.V

< >\i day, on l><urd the .-//<•<•/(• .SV/'//, my chief, Mr. Jiixby,
was crawling carefully through a rinse place at Cat Island,

both leads going, and every-body holding his breath. The
captain, a nervous, apprehensive man, kept still as long
as he c«-uld, but finally broke down and shouted from the
hurricane deck :

"For gracious* sake, give her steam, Mr. l!i.\by! give
her steam ! She'll never raise the reef on this headway ! '

lor all the effect that was produced upon Mr. Uixby,
one would have supposed that no remark had been made.
lint 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 admirable 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 piloting, 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 organiza-
tion 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 completes!, and the
strongest commercial organization ever formed among

men.

For a long time wages had been two hundred and
fifty dollars a month; but curiously enough, as steam-
boats multiplied and business increased, the wages
8

began to fall little by little. It was easy to discover the
reason of this. Too many pilots were being "made."
It was nice to have a "cub," a steersman, to do all the
hard work for a 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 river had a
steersman. When a steersman had made an amount of
progress that was satisfactory to any two pilots in the
trade, they could get a pilot's license for him by signing
an application directed to the United States Inspector.
Nothing further was needed; usually no questions were
asked, no proofs of capacity required.

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, but what was to be the needful thing ? A close
organization. Nothing else would answer. To compass
this seemed an impossibility; 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 legislature, with large powers, under the name of the
Pilots' Benevolent Association ; elected their officers,
completed their organization, contributed capital, put
"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 trifles in their by-laws which had
the seeds of propagation in them. For 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 OIK- straggler after another from
the ranks of the new-lledged pilots, in the dull (summer)
Season. Uetter have twenty-five dollars than starve; the
initiation fee was only twelve dollars, and no dues re-
quired from the unemployed.

Also, the widows of de< eased members in good stand-
ing 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 association's expen-<
These things resurrected all the superannuated and for-
gotten 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 am-
bulances,— 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. Every-body 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, and no one would employ them.
Every-body was derisively grateful to the association for
taking all the worthless pilots out of the way and leaving
the whole field to the excellent and the deserving; and
every-body 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, and in some cases
to one hundred and fifty; and it was great fun 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 from it. Some of the jokers used to
call at the association rooms and have a good time chaf-
fing 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 gave no sign to the contrary. Now
and then it captured a pilot who was " out of luck," and
added him to its list; and these later additions were very
valuable, for they were good pilots; the incompetent ones
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 as-
sociation'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 ava-
lanche of Missouri, Illinois, and Upper Mississippi River
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 swal-
lowed: they must be 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
derider of the organization. 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 I'll 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."

II?

" I don't know about that. Who is your other pilot ?"
" I've got 1. S. Why?"

"I can't go with him. lie don't belong to the asso-
ciation."

"What ?"

" It's so."

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

" ¥es, I do."

" \\'ell, if this isn't putting on airs ! J supposed 1 was
doing you a bem-v.iK-nce; but. I begin to think that I am
the party that wants a favor done. Are you acting und< r
a law of the concern ? '

"Yes."

" Show it to me."

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

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

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

" But if I discharge S., he will come on me for the
whole season's wages."

"Of course that is a matter between you and Mr. S.,
captain. W.- < annot meddle in your private affairs."

The captain stormed, but to no purpose. In the end
he had to discharge S., pay him about a thousand dol-
lars, and take an association 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 and profanity, and installed a hated association man
in his berth. In a very little while idle non-association-

ists 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,
presently ceased to laugh altogether, and began to rage
about the revenge they would take when the passing
business "spurt" was over.

Soon all the laughers that were left were the owners
an'd crews of boats that had two non-association pilots.
But their triumph was not very long-lived. For this rea-
son: It was a rigid rule of the association that its mem-
bers should never, under any circumstances whatever,
give information about the 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 for-
bidding information about the river 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 trans-
portation; waiting passengers slept in its cabins. Upon
each of these wharf-boats the association's officers placed
a strong box, fastened with a peculiar 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 beseeching 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 hold-
it in the hand when its owner was asked for river infor-
mation by a stranger, — for the success of the St. Louis
and New Orleans association had now bred tolerably
thriving branches in a dozen neighboring steamboat
trades, — was the association man's sign and diploma of

IIQ

membership; and if the stranger did not respond l>y pro-
ducing a similar key and holding it in a certain manner
duly prescribed, his ([iiestion was politely ignored. I roin
the association's secretary each member received a pa< k-
age of more or less gorgeous blanks, printed like a bill-
head, on handsome paper, properly ruled in columns; a
billhead worded something like this :

STEAMER C.RKAT KEl'l'ULIC.

JOHN SMITH, MASTER.
Pilots , John Jones and Thomas

CROSSINGS.

SOUNDINGS.

MARKS.

I: I.MARKS.

These blanks were filled up, day by day, as the voyi
progressed, and deposited in the several wharf-boat bo\< 5.
1 or 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 :

" 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 wax-
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 thor-
oughly, 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 bring:
the most ingenious carelessness to his aid.

120

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 intel-
ligent 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 enquirer 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 parlors and hang it up there—
after which he was free to visit his family. In these
parlors a crowd was always gathered together, discussing
changes in the channel, and the moment there was a fresh
arrival every-body 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 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 unsatisfactory ways of get-
ting news. The consequence was that a man sometimes

121

had to run live hundred miles of river <>n information that
was .1 week <>r ten days old. \t a fair stage of the ri\- r
that might have answered, hut when the dead low water
came it was destructh

Now Came another perfectly logical result. The out-
siders began to ground steamlx >ats, sink them, and gi
into all sorts of trouble, whereas ac< id'-nts seemed to

:> entirely away from the . ation ni'-n. \\ in r

fore even the owners and captains of boats furnished

. lusively with outsiders, and previously considered to
be wholly independent of the association and free to oom-
fort themselves with bra;;' and laughter, began to feel
pretty uneomfortable. 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 under-
writers !

It was no time to " swap knives." Every outsider had
to take his trunk ashore at once. Of course it was sup-
posed that there was collusion between the association
and the underwriters, but this was not s The latter
had come to comprehend the excellence of the " report''
system of the association and the safety it secured, and
had made their det ision among themselves anil
upon plain business principles.

There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth
in the camp of the outsiders now. Hut no matter, there
was but one course for them to pursue, and they pursued
it. They came forward in couples and groups, and prof-
fered their twelve dollars and asked for membership.
They were surprised to learn that several new by-laws
had been long ago added. For instance, the initiation

122

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 no 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 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 associations had
grown strong now, and the Red River one had advanced
wages to seven hundred dollars a month. Reluctantly
the ten outsiders 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 association 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 accom-
plished at last. The most virulent sinner of this batch
had stayed out and allowed "dues" to accumulate
against him so long that he had to send in six hundred
and twenty-five dollars with his application.

The association had a good bank account now and was

123

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 linn- 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 charai ter; 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 assist-
ance, one of the cubs would be ordered to go with him.

The widow and orphan list grew, but so did the asso-
ciation's financial resources. The association attended
its own funerals in state and paid for them. When occa-
sion 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 organization 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. Conse-
quently the making of pilots was at an end. Every year

124

some would die and others become incapacitated by age
and infirmity ; there would be no new ones to take their
places. In time the association 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 sys-
tem, steamboat owners would have to submit, since there
would be no help for it.

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 announced, months before-
hand, that on the first day of September, 1861, wages
would be advanced to five hundred dollars per month,
the owners and captains instantly put freights up a few
cents, and explained to the farmers along the river the
necessity of it, by calling their attention to the burden-
some rate of wages about to be established. It was a
rather slender argument, but the farmers did not seem to
detect it. It looked reasonable to them that to add five
cents freight on a bushel of corn was justifiable 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
course an effect which 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 be forced to discharge him,
and also pay a fine of five hundred dollars. Several of

125

these heavy fines were paid before the captains'
/ation IMVW strong enough to exercise full authority
its membership; but that all ceased, prrsentlv. The
captains tried to ^ct the pilots to decree that no nicmb< r
of their corporation should serve under a non-association
captain; but this proposition was declined. The pilots
saw that they would be ba< kcd up by the captains and
the underwriters anyhow, and so they wisely refrained
from entering into entangling alliances.

As I have remarked, the pilots' association was now the
mpactest monopoly in the world, perhaps, and seemed
simply indestructible. And yet the days of its glory w« re
numbered. hirst, the new railroad, stretching up through
Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky, to Northern rail-
way centres, be^an to divert the passenger travel from
the steamboats; next the war came and almost entirely
annihilated the steamboating industry during several
years, leaving most of the pilots idle and the cost of liv-
ing advancing all the time; then the treasurer of the St.
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 steamers
to do, when the war was over, but carry freights; so
straightway some genius from the Atlantic coast intro-
duced 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 asso-
ciation and the noble science of piloting were things of
the dead and pathetic past !

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 colonnade which supported a sable roof of the
same smoke blended together and spreading abroad over
the city. Every outward-bound boat had its flag flying
at the jack-staff, and sometimes a duplicate on the verge
staff astern. Two or three miles of mates were com-
manding 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 general distraction; 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 keep-
ing up a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freight into

127

the ln.ld, and the half-naked crews of piTspirini; negn
that worked them were roaring Mich son^s as " I ><• Las'
Sack ! I >e Las' Sack !' -inspired to unimaginable exal-
tation by the chaos of turmoil and racket that was driv-
ing every-body else mad. l'-y this time the hurricane
and boiler decks of the steamers would be packed black
with passengers. The "last bells' 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' ! ' 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
every thing else, and the customary latest procrastinator
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" in the lot towering from
the midst (being mounted on the capstan), waving his hat
or a flag, and all rearing a mighty chorus, while the part-
ing cannons boom and the multitudinous spectators wave
their hats and htix/a ! Steamer after steamer falls into
line, and the stately p sion goes winging its flight up

the river.

In the old times, whenever two fast boats started out
on a race, with a bi- < r<>w<l of people looking on, it was

128

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. Racing 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" and shut off the
water supply from the boilers.

In the " flush times " of steamboating, a race between
two notoriously fleet steamers was an event of vast im-
portance. The date was set for it several weeks in ad-
vance, 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 " 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 sometimes even their support-
ing derricks, were sent ashore, and no means left to
set the boat afloat in case she got aground. When the
Eclipse and the A. L. Shotwell ran their great race many
years ago, it was said that pains were taken to scrape the
gilding off the fanciful device which hung between the
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
carefully loaded to that exact figure — she wouldn't enter

a close of homeopathic pills on her manifest after that
Hardly any passengers were taken, because they not only

add weight hut they never will "trim boat." They
always run to the >ide when tlnTe is any tiling to see,
whereas a conscientious and experienced steamlioatman
would stick to the centre of the Itoat 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 "touch and go." al-llats and

wood-flats were contracted for beforehand, and these were
kept ready to hitch on to the flying steamers at a mo-
me-nt's warning. Double*crews were carried, so that all
work could be quickly done.

The chosen date being come, and all things in readi-
ness, the two great steamers back into the stream, and
lie there jockeying a moment, 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-by, 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! ISr.
bands bray " Hail Columbia," huzza after huzza thunders
from the shores, and the stately creatures go whistling by
like the wind.

130

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 what 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 one of the boats
has a "lightning" pilot, whose "partner" is a trifle his
inferior, you can tell which dne is on watch by rioting
whether that boat has gained ground or lost some during
each four-hour stretch. 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 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-boats used to lose
valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died,
waiting for us to get by. This was at still rarer intervals.
I had the documents for these occurrences, 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 "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 Orand (iulf, from New Orleans,
in four days (three hundred and forty miles); the AV///Sr
and S/u'fK'e/l did it in one. \\'e \\ere nine days out, in
the chute of 63 (seven hundred miles); the J'lclipse and
S/iot'ice// went there in two days. Something over a
generation age, a boat called the J. M. ll'hite 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.* In 1X70
the R. E. Lee did it in three days and one 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 J. M . U'/ii/e
ran it, was about eleven hundred and six miles; conse-
quently 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
.A'. E. Lee s 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.

* Time disputed. Some authorities add I hour and 16 minutes to this.

THE RECORD OF SOME FAMOUS TRIPS.

[From Commodore Rollingpitis Almanac.]
FAST TIME ON THE WESTERN WATERS.

FROM

NEW ORLEANS TO NATCHEZ— 268 MILES.

Run made in

D. H. M.

H. M.

1814. Orleans

6 6 40

1844. Sultana

• *9 45

1814. Comet

. 5 10 o

1851. Magnolia

• 19 50

1815. Enterprise

4 ii 20

1853. A. L. Shotwell .

• 19 49

1817. Washington .

400

1853. Southern Belle .

20 3

1817. Shelby

. 3 20 o

1853. Princess (No. 4)

. 20 26

iSig. Paragon

• 3 80

1853. Eclipse

• 19 47

1828. Tecumseh

• 3 i 20

1855. Princess (New) .

• 18 53

1834. Tuscarora

. I 21 0

1855. Natchez (New) .

• i? 30

1838. Natchez

i 17 o

1856. Princess (New) .

• i? 3»

1840. Ed. Shippen

. i 8 o

1870. Natchez

. 17 17

1842. Belle of the West

. i 18 o

1870. R. E. Lee .

. 17 ii

FROM

NEW ORLEANS TO CAIRO — IO24 MILES.

Run made in

D. H. M.

1844. J. M. White .

• 3 6 44

1869. Dexter

. 3 6 20

1852. Reindeer

• 3 12 25

1870. Natchez

• 3 4 34

1853. Eclipse

• 3 4 4

1870. R. E. Lee

.310

1853. A. L. Shotwell

• 3 3 4°

FROM NEW ORLEANS TO LOUISVILLE — 1440 MILES.

Run made in

D. H. M.

1815. Enterprise .

. 25 2 40

1840. Ed. Shippen

. 5 14 o

1817. Washington

25 o o

1842. Belle of the West

6 14 o

1817. Shelby

. 20 4 20

1843. Duke of Orleans

. 5 23 o

1819. Paragon

. 18 10 o

1844. Sultana

• 5 12 o

1828. Tecumseh .

840

1849. Bostona

.580

1834. Tuscarora .

7 16 o

1851. Belle Key .

. 4 23 o

1837. Gen. Brown

6 22 O

1852. Reindeer

. 4 20 45

1837. Randolph .

6 22 0

1852. Eclipse

. 4 19 o

1837. Empress

6 17 o

1853. A- L- Shotwell

. 4 10 20

1837. Sultana

6 15 o

1853. Eclipse

• 4 9 3°

FROM NEW ORLEANS TO DONALDSONVILLE — 78 MILES.

Run made in

H. M.

1852. A. L. Shotwell .

• s 42

1860. Atlantic

. 5 "

1855. Eclipse

• 5 42

1860. Gen. Quitman

. . 5 6

i8s4- Sultana

Z 12

1865. Ruth

1856. Princess

• 4 5i

1870. R. E. Lee . .

• 4 59

FROM NEW ORLEANS TO ST. LOUIS — I2l8 MILES.

Run made in

D. H. M.

1844. J..M. White

• 3 23 9

1870. Natchez

•3 21 57

1849. Missouri

. 4 19 o

1870. R. E. Lee .

.3 18 14

1869. Dexter

• 4 90

FROM

LOUISVILLE TO CINCINNATI — 141 MILES.

Run made in

D. H. M.

H. M.

1819. Gen. Pike .

. i 16 o

1843. Congress

. 12 2O

1819. Paragon

. i 14 20

1846. Ben Franklin (No. 6)

• ii 45

1822. Wheeling Packet
1837. Moselle

I IO O
12 0

1852. Alleghaney
1852. Pittsburgh .

. 10 38
. 10 23

1843. Duke of Orleans

12 O

1853. Telegraph (No. 3)

• 9 52

1842. Congress
1854. Pike

FROM LOflSVILLF. PO : IS — 750 Mills.

Run made in

!>. II. M.
3 I O
I 2} O

i | \ : 1 I

1855. Southerner

1850. Telegraph < \.

i 51 . Buckeye State

FROM CINCINNATI TO PF1 . 4 <y" MILES.

Run ni.nl'- in
D. M.

1852. Pittsburgh

1853. Altona

1876. Golden Eagle

FROM ST. LOUIS TO ALTON— 30 M:

Run made in

I!. M.

35
37

1876. War Eagle

Run made in
i). ii. -i.

I 22 30

I I') O

Run made in
D. H.

. i 15

Run mad'- in

II. M.

• * 37

MISCELLANF.CVS

In June, i8sg, the St. Louis and Keokuk Packet, City of Louisiana, made the nin
(nun St. Louis to Kr, kiik ( .-14 miles) in 16 hours and 20 minutes, the best lime on
record.

In 1868 the steamer Hawkeye State, of the Northern Line l'u< ket Company, made
the run from St. Louis to St. I'. nil U'o_> miles) in 2 days and jo
beaten.

In 1853 the steamer Polar Star made the run from St. Louis t St. I-^'-ph. on the
Mi»"iiri River, in ' ) hours. In July, 1856, the steamer Jas. H. : \mly \\ine-

land. Master, made the same run in 60 hours and 57 minutes. The distance between
the ports is 600 miles, and when the difficulties of navi^.itin^ the turbulent Mi-
are taken into consideration, the performance of the Lucas deserves especial mention.

TIIR RfX OF THE ROBERT E. LEE.

The time made hy the R. E. Lee from New Orleans to St. Louis in 1870, in her
famous race with the Natchex, is the best on record, and, inasmuch as the . ,tted

a national interest. \ve t;ive below her time-table from port to ]•

Left New Orleans, Thursday, June 30, 1870, at 4 o'clock and 55 minutes, p. M.;
reached

I O

1 39

2 3S

4 59

7 5

8 25
10 26

12 56

13 56

D. H. M.

Carrollton
Harry Hills
Red Church
Bonnet ( .irre
» I'oint

DonaTdsonville .
Plaquemine
Baton Rouge

- ira
River

Stan

I :' varo ....

Hinderson's

he/ ....
Cole's Creek
Waterproof

Rodney ....
St. Joseph ....

! Irand < ililf

Hard Times

Half Mile below Warrenton i

The Lee landed at St. Louis at 11.35 A. M., on July 4, 1870— six hours and thiitv-
six minutes ahead of the Natchez. Theofli. .1 r^ of the Natchez claimed seven hours and
one minute stoppage on arrount of f< ig and n-pairin^ machinery. I h-: R
was commanded by Captain |. hn W. Cannon, and the Natchc/ wa.s in charge of that
veteran Southern boatman, Captain Thorn. ts P. Leathers.

16 29

17 it

19 21

'3 53

20 45

21 2

22 6
22 l8

Virkshurq; ....
Milliken's Mend

Bailey's

Lake Providence-
Greenville ....
Napo ....

White River ....
Au.^ti

Helena

Half Mile bel< w St. flran

•his ....

\ 01 T 1. 1 Kl.ind 37 .

Foot of Island 26 ..
Tou--hi-. ul, Kland 14

Madrid ....
I >ry liar No. 10 . . .
Foot of Island 8 ...
Upper Tow-head — l.ura- Bend
("ail" .....

St. Louis

»9

3°

5°

CHAPTER XVII
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 Missis-
sippi River ; that is, the nine or ten hundred miles
stretching from Cairo, 111., 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 St. 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 " 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 on board 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 country-

135

man's plantation on its bank (quadrupling its value), and
that other parly's formerly valuable plantation liiuls itself
away out yonder on a bi-' island; the old watercourse
:iroiiml it will soon shoal up, boats cannot approach
within ten miles of it, and down goes its value to a fourth
of its former worth. Wat< lies 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 Hud-
son, La., which was only half a mile across in its nar-
rowest place. You could walk across there in fifteen
minutes; but if you made the journey around the cape on
a raft, you travelled thirty-five miles to accomplish 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 Red River
Landing, Raccourci cut-off was made (forty or fifty years
ago, I think). This shortened the river twenty-eight
miles. In our clay, if you travel by river from the
southernmost of these three cut-offs to the northernmost,
you go only 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 shortening of eighty-
eight miles in that trifling distance. At some forgotten
time in the past, cut-offs were made above Vidalia,
La. ; at Island 92, at Island 84, and at Hale's Point.
These shortened the river, in the aggregate, seventy-
seven miles.

Since my own day on the Mississippi, cut-offs have been
made at Hurricane Island, at Island 100, at Napoleon,
Ark. ; at Walnut Bend, and at Council Bend. These
shortened the river, in the aggregate, sixty-seven miles.

136

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 1722. It was one
thousand and forty after the American Bend cut-off. It
has lost sixty-seven miles since. Consequently, its length
is only nine hundred and seventy-three miles at present.

Now, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific
people, and ''let on " 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 "development of species," either!
Glacial epochs are great things, but they are vague —
vague. Please observe :

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 upward 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 con-
jecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

"37

When the water begins to tlow through one of those
ditches 1 have Lieen speaking of, it is time l'«>r the people
thereabouts to move. The water (leaves the banks away
like a knife. By the time the diteh has become twe:
or fifteen feet wide, the calamity is as good as accom-
plished, for no power on earth can stop it now. When
the width has readied 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 shorten-
ing of the distan* e. 1 was on board the first boat that
tried 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 light-
ning express train, get on a big head of steam, and "stand
by for a sur._ when we struck the current that was
whirling by the point. But all our p /ations were
useless. The instant the current hit us it spun us around
like a top, the water deluged the forecastle, and the boat
careened so far over that one could hardly keep his feet.
The next instant we were away down the river, clawing
with might and main to keep out of the woods. We tried
the experiment four tiiii 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 n< > The sounding concussion and the

138

quivering would have been about the same if she had
come full speed against a sand-bank. Under the light-
ning flashes one could see the plantation 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 house 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-off; all 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 old Raccourci cut-off reduced the river's length
twenty-eight miles. There used to be a tradition con-
nected 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 running away from
mysterious reefs, and occasionally hitting one. The per-
plexed pilots fell to swearing, and finally uttered the
entirely unnecessary 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 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

139

of her 'scape-pipes and the plaintive cry of her leads-
men.

In the absence of further statistics, I bet; to (lose 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 dol-
lars 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 creditors; 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 \). Young Yates grad-
uated 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 headquarters, and the amusement and satisfaction
of the old creditors were large and generous. But inno-
cent 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, when-

140

ever 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 red-faced, Stephen would come,
with outstretched hands and eager eyes, invade the con-
versation, shake both of Yates's arms loose in their
sockets, and begin :

" My, what a race I've had ! I saw you didn't see me,
and so I clapped on all steam for fear I'd miss you en-
tirely. And here you are ! there, just stand so, and let
me look at you ! Just the same old noble countenance.
[To Yates's friend :] Just look at him ! Look at him !
Ain't it }\\^\.good to look at him ! Ain't it now ? Ain't he
just a picture ! Some call him a picture; /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 / 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 morn-
ing out I shot, and the first man I struck told me you had
shipped on the Grand 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 build-
ing, 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 ruining along -n h(llir ago, suffering no man

knows what agony, I met Jim Wilson aiul paid him the
tWO hundred and fifty dollars on account; and to think
that here you arc, n«>w, and I haven't got. a cent ! Hut
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 mor< ."

And so on. Yates's life became a burden to him. lie
could not escape his debtor and his debtor's awful suffer-
ings on account of not being able to pay. lie dreaded to
show himself in the street, lest he should find Stephen
lying in wait for him at the corner.

iJogart's billiard saloon was a threat resort for pilots in
those da\ s. They met there about as much to exchange
river news as to play. ( >ne morning Yates was there;
Stephen was there, too, but kept out of sight. I Jut by
and by, when about all the pilots had arrived who were
in town, Stephen suddenly appeared in the midst, and
rushed for Yates as for a long-lost brother.

"' O//, I am so glad to see you ! 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 thou-
sand dollars. 1 want to pay it; 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 1 suffer — by far the sharpest — is
from the debt I owe to this noble young man here; and I
have conn- to this place this morning especially to make
the announcement that I have at last found a method
whereby I can payoff all my debts ! And most especially
I wanted him to be here when 1 announced it. Yes, my
faithful friend, my benefactor, I've found the method !

142

I've found the method to pay off all my debts, and you'll
get your money !' Hope dawned in Yates's eye; then
Stephen, beaming benignantly, and placing his hand upon
Yates's head, added, " I am going to pay them off in
alphabetical order ! '

Then he turned and disappeared. The full significance
of Stephen's " 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 in the early days ! ' "

CHAPTER XVIII

I TAKK A FEW l.X I KA LESSONS

DUKIM; the two or two and a half years of my appren-
ticeship I served under many pilots, and had experience
of many kinds of steamboatmen and many varieties of
steamboats; for it was not always convenient for Mr.
liixby to have me with him, and in such cases he sent
me with somebody else. I am to this day profiting some-
what 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, for judges of men are
born, 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 oftenest, out of the
shadows of that vanished time, is that of Drown, of the
steamer Pcnnsv/riiniii — the man referred to in a former
chapter, whose memory was so good and tiresome. II'
was a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-shaven,

144

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 been having with the off-
watch below, and no matter how high my spirits might
be when I started aloft, 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 " straightening down." 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 danger-
ous "breaks " abreast the wood-yards; therefore 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 coun-
tenance and I saw it no more for some seconds; then it
came around once more, and this question greeted me :

"Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?"

"Yes, sir."

After this there was a pause and another inspection.
Then :

" What's your name ? "

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

145

any other way than "Here!1 and then hi> command
followed.

" Where was you born ''. "

" In Florida, M issouri."

A pause'. Then :

" 1 >crn si-lit better stayed there ! "

I'.y means ot" a dozen or so of pretty direct questions,
he pumped my family history out of inc.

The leads were going now in the first crossing. This
interrupted the inquest. When the leads had been laid
in he resumed :

" I low long you been on the river?"

I told him. After a pause :

" Where'd you get them shoes? "

I gave him the information.

"Hold up your foot ! "

I did so. He stepped back, examined the shoe
minutely and contemptuously, scratching this head
thoughtfully, tilting his high sugar-loaf hat well forward
to facilitate the operation, then ejaculated, "Well, I'll
be clod denied ! " and returned to his wheel.

What occasion there was to be dod denied about it is a
thing which is still as much of a mystery to me now as it

s then. It must have been all of fifteen minutes —
fifteen minutes of dull, homesick silence — before that
long horse-face swung round upon me again — and then
what a change ! It was as red as lire, and evu-y muscle
in it was working. Now came this shriek :

" Her You going to set there all day ? '

I lit in the middle of the floor, shot there by the electric
suddenness of the surprise. As soon as I could get my
voice I said apologetically : "I have had no orders, sir."

"You've had no orders! My, what a fine bird we are!
\\ e must have r/ Our father was a gentleman —

owned slaves — and we've been to school. Yes, :cc are a
10

gentleman, too, and got to have orders! ORDERS, is it?
ORDERS is what you want ! Dod dern my skin, /'//
learn you to swell yourself up and blow around here about
your dod-derned orders! G'way from the wheel!' (I
had approached it without knowing it.)

I 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 along, and don't
you be all day about it ! '

The moment I got back to the pilot-house Brown said :

"Here! 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."

" Derned 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. Yes,
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 upon me, and knew their owner was watching
for a pretext to spit out some venom on me. Prelimi-
narily he would say :

" Here ! Take the wheel."

Two minutes later :

" Where in the nation you going to ? Pull her down !
pull her down ! '

After another moment :

"Say ! You going to hold her all day? Let her go —
meet her ! meet her ! "

Then he would jump fr<'in the bench, snatch the wheel
from me, ami meet her himself, pouring out \vratii up. n
me all the time.

George Ritchie was the other pilot's cub. lie \\as
having good times now ; for his boss, George Kalcr, was
as kind-hearted as llrown wasn't. Ritehie had steered
for Brown the season before : < < >nse<|uently, he knew
exactly how to entertain himself and plague me, all by
the one operation. Whenever I took the wheel for a
moment on Kaler's watch, Ritchie would sit back on the
bench and play I'.rown, with continual ejaculations of
" Snatch her ! snatch her ! Derndest mud-cat I ever
saw ! ' " Here ! Where are you going now / Going to
run over that snag ?' kt I'ull her Jiwn .' Don't you hear
me? Pull her down!" "There she goes! ///.\7 as I
expected! I tolJ you not to cramp that reef. G'way
from the wheel ! '

So I 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 pretty nearly as
aggravating as Urown's dead-earnest naming.

1 often wanted to kill Brown, but this would not
answer. A cub had to take every tiling his boss gave, in
the way of vigorous comment and criticism ; and we all
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, com-
monplace ways, but in new and picturesque ones — ways
that were sometimes surprising for freshness of design
and ghastliness of situation and environment.

143

Brown was always watching for a pretext to find fault ;
and if he could find no plausible pretext, he would invent
one. He would scold you for shaving a shore, and for
not shaving it ; for hugging a bar, and for not hugging
it ; for " pulling down ' when not invited, and for not
pulling down when not invited ; for firing up without
orders, and for waiting for orders. In a word, it was his
invariable rule to find fault with every thing you did ; and
another invariable rule of his was to throw all his remarks
(to you) into the form of an insult.

One day we were approaching New Madrid, bound
down and heavily laden. Brown was at one side of the
wheel, steering ; I was at the other, standing by to " pull
down ' or " shove up." He cast a furtive glance at me
every now and then. I had long ago learned what that
meant; viz., he was trying to invent a trap for me. I
wondered what shape it was going to take. By and by
he stepped back from the wheel and said in his usual
snarly way :

"Here ! See if you've got gumption enough to round
her to."

This was simply bound to be a success; nothing could
prevent it ; for he had never allowed me to round the
boat to before ; consequently, no matter how I might do
the thing, he could find free fault with it. He stood back
there with his greedy eye on me, and the result was what
might have 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 the 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 cor-
rected 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 begin-

I ! .

ning to fetch the- boat around. IJrown's < ham e \vas
conic.

His fa< c turned red with j)assion ; he made one bound,
hurled me across the house with a sweep of his arm, spun
the wheel down, and bc-an to pour out a stream of vitu-
peration 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 oner or twice
I thought he was even going to swear— but he had never
done that, and he didn't this time. "Dod (h-rn '' was
the nearest he ventured to the luxury of swearing, for
he had been brought up with a wholes- -me respect for
future fire and brimstone.

That was an uncomfortable hour ; for there was a big
audience on the hurricane deck. \Vhen I went to bed that
night, 1 killed Brown in seventeen different ways — all of
them new.

CHAPTER XIX
BROWN AND I EXCHANGE COMPLIMENTS

Two trips later I got into serious trouble. Brown
was steering; I was " pulling down." My younger
brother appeared on the hurricane 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
any thing. 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 doubted if he had heard the order. If I
had had two heads, I would have spoken ; but 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 plan-
tation. 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 ? "

11 No, sir !"

" 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 any thing."

" Didn't you hear him ? " 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 :

II Shut your mouth ! You never heard any thing of the
kind."

m\- mouth, a< -curding to instructions. An hour
later lli-nry entered the pilot-house, unaware of what
had been going on. I l<- was a thoroughly inoiu-iiMve boy,
and I was sorry to see him come, for 1 knew lirown woukl
have no pity on him. I'.rown began, straightway :

•• Ih-re ! ^\ hy didn't you tell me \\ e'd got to land at
that plantation ? "

" 1 did tell you, Mr. Drown."

"It's a lie ! "

I said :

" You lie, yourself. He did tell you."

I'.rown glared at me in unaffected surprise; and for as
much as a moment he was entirely speechless ; then In-
shouted to me :

" I'll attend to your case in a half a minute ! ' then to
Henry, " 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.

1 had committed the crime of crimes—- I had lifted my
hand against a pilot on duty ! 1 supposed 1 was booked
for the penitentiary sure, and couldn't be booked any
surer if I went on and squared my long account with thi>
person while I had the chance ; consequently I stuck to
him and pounded him with my fists a considerable tinn .
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 t!
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 cor-

152

respondingly 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, and
put them into good English, calling his attention to the
advantage of pure English over the bastard dialect of the
Pennsylvania 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 every-body to the hurricane deck, and I trem-
bled when I saw the old captain looking up from amid
the crowd. I said to myself, " Now I am done for!'
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 stern 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 pas-
sengers. Our watch was nearly 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 :

[53

" Follow me. "

1 dr. pped into his wake; he led the way to his parlor
in the forward end of the t \\'e « . now.

He dosed the after door; then moved slo\\ly to the for-
ward one and closed that. He sat down; 1 stood before
him. He looked at in- 1C little time, then said :

"So you have been fighting Mr. Brown ? "

I answered meekly

" Yes, sir."

" Do you know that that is a very serious matter ?'

"Yes, sir."

"Are you aware that this boat was ploughing down
the river fully live minutes with no one at the wheel ? '

" yes, sir."

" Did you strike him first ? "

"Yes, sir."

"What with ?"

" A stool, sir. "

"Hard?"

" Middling, sir."

" Did it knoek him down ? '

"He— he fell, sir."

" Did you follow it up? Did you do any thing further? ;

"Yes, sir."

"What did you do?"

" Pounded him, sir."

" Pounded him ?"

"Yes, sir."

" Did you pound him much ? that is, severely ? '

" One might call it that, sir, maybe."

"I'm 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 of it again, on this boat. ///// —
lay for him ashore ! Give him a good sound thrashing,
do you hear? I'll pay the expenses. Now go — and mind

154

you, not a word of this to any body. 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 himself
and slapping his fat thighs after I had closed his door.

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 :

" I'll 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."

"I won't even stay on the same boat with him. One of
us 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
emancipated slave feels, for I was an emancipated slave
myself. While we lay at landings I listened to George
Ealer's flute, or to his readings from his two Bibles, that
is to say, Goldsmith and Shakspere, 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.

CIIAITKK XX

A C A T A S T k • ) I ' 1 1 !•'.

Wi. lay three days in New Orleans, but the captain did
not succeed in finding another pilot, so he proposed that
I should stand a daylight watch and leave the night
watches to ti rorge Kaler. But I 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 A. T. Laccy for a passage to St. Louis, and said he
would find a newr 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 tin-
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 w<-
decided that if a disaster ever fell within our experiem <
we would at least stick to the boat, and give such minor
service as chance might throw in the way. Henry

156

remembered this, afterward, when the disaster came, and
acted accordingly.

The Laccy started up the river two days behind the
Pennsylvania, We touched at Greenville, Miss., a couple
of days out, and somebody shouted :

"The Pennsylvania is blown up at Ship Island, and a
hundred and fifty lives lost ! "

At Napoleon, Ark., the same evening, we got an
extra, issued by a Memphis paper, which gave some
particulars. It mentioned my brother, and said he was
not hurt.

Further up the river we got a later extra. My brother
was again mentioned, but this time as being hurt beyond
help. We did not get full details of the catastrophe until
we reached Memphis. This is the sorrowful story :

It was six o'clock on a hot summer morning. The
Pennsylvania was creeping along, north of Ship Island,
about sixty miles below 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 striker; Captain Klinefelter was in
the barber's chair, and the barber was preparing to shave
him. There were a good many cabin passengers aboard,
and three or four hundred deck passengers — 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 main part of the mass, with the
chimneys, dropped upon the boat again, a mountain of

157

riddled and chaotic rubbish — and then, after a little, fire
broke out.

Many people were tiling to i •< niMderable distances and
fell in the river; among these were Mr. Wood and my
brother and the carpenter. The carpenter was still
stretched upon his mattress when he struck the water
seventy-five feet from the boat. I'.rown, the pilot, and
George 1'dack, chief clerk, were never seen or heard of
after the explosion. The barber's chair, with Captain
Klinefelter in it and unhurt, was left with its back over-
hanging vacancy— every tiling forward of it, !lo<.r and all,
had disappeared; and the stupefied barber, who was also
unhurt, Mood with one toe projecting over space, still
stirring his lather unconsciously and saying not a word.

When George Kaler saw the chimneys plunging aloft
in front of him, he knew what the matter was; so he
mu filed his face in the lapels of his coat, and press-d both
hands there tightly to keep this protection in its place so
that no steam could get to his nose or mouth. He had
ample time to attend to these details while he was going
up and returning. He presently landed on top of the
unexploded boilers, forty feet below the former pilot-
house, accompanied by his wheel and a rain of other
stuff, and enveloped in a cloud of scalding steam. All of
the many who breathed that steam died; none escaped.
I'.ut Kaler 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.

1'y this time the fire was beginning to threaten.
Shrieks and groans fdled 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 on* .

153

and his sufferings were very dreadful. A young French
naval cadet of fifteen, son of a French admiral, was fear-
fully 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 !) 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 cap-
tives; 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 ended his 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 stimu-
lants, or help for their hurts, during the rest of the day.
A steamer came along, finally, and carried the unfor-

; i

tunates lo Memphis, and thrtv tin- most lavish assistance
was at once forthenming. I'.y tliis time Henry was ins<
siblc. Tlu- physicians examined his injuri. > , ml saw that
they wen- fatal, and naturally turned their main attention
to patients who could be saved.

I orty of the wounded were pla< ed upon pallets on the
floor of a great public hall, and among these was Henry.
There the ladies of Memphis came every day, with tlow-
ers, fruits, and dainties and delicacies of all kinds, and
there they remained and nursed the wounded. All the
physicians stood watches there, and all the medical stu-
dents; 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
j\-nns\'!i'(vn\fs had happened near her doors, and she
was experienced, above all other cities on the river, in Un-
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 shape-
less wad of loose raw cotton. It was a grewsome sp'
taclc. 1 watched there six days and nights, and a very
melancholy experience it was. There was one daily inci-
dent which was peculiarly depressing: this was the re-
moval 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 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:
every-body knew what that cluster of bent forms, with its
muffled step and its slow movement, meant; and all e\
watched it wistfully, and a shudder went abreast of it like
a wave.

I saw many poor fellows removed to the "death-room,"

i6o

and saw them no more afterward. But I saw our chief
mate carried thither more than once. His 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, "Hump yourselves, hump yourselves,
you petrifactions, snail-bellies, pall-bearers ! going to be
all day getting that hatful of freight out ? '" and supple-
ment this explosion with a firmament-obliterating irrup-
tion of profanity which nothing could stay or stop till his
crater was empty. And now and then while these fren-
zies possessed him, he would tear off handfuls of the
cotton and expose his cooked flesh to view. It was hor-
rible. 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 him carried to the death-room, insen-
sible 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 steamDoat again.

l!ul In- was tin- only one who went to the de;it li-rooni
and returned alive. I >r. Peyton, a prini ipal physician,
and rich in all the attributes that gO to Constitute high
and (lawless character, did all that educated ji'd-ment
and trained skill could do for Henry; but, as the news-
papers had said in the I>CLM lining, his hurts were past
help. ( >n the evening of the sixth day his wandering
mind busied itself with matters far away, and hi- nerve-
' 5S tinkers "picked at his coverlet." His hour had
struck; we bore him to the death-room, poor boy.

CHAPTER XXI

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 mis-
fortunes resulting, intermittent 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 Fran-
cisco ; 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.

CII.MTKk XXII
I ki PURN TO MN Mill' »NS

A.FTER t\vcnty-onr years' absence I felt a very strung

>ire to sec- the river again, and the steamboats, and
such of the boys as mi^ht be left; SO I resolved to go out
then'. I enlisted a poet for company, and a stenographer
to "take him down, "and started westward about the
middle of April.

As i proposed to make notes, with a view to printing, I
took some thought as to methods of procedure. I re-
flected that if 1 were recognized, on the river, I should
not be as free to go and come, talk, enquire, and spy
around, as I should be if unknown; I remembered that it
was the custom of steamboatmen 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 dis-
guise our party with fictitious names. The idea was cer-
tainly 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 a/t\is in
mind ? This is a u,reat mystery. I was innocent; and
yet 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 <S A. M. April 18.

164

Evening. — Speaking of dress. Grace and picturesqueness drop
gradually out of it as one travels away from New York.

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 pictur-
esqueness 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 gar-
ments are all made by the best tailors and dressmakers of
New York; yet this has no perceptible effect upon the
grand fact: the educated eye never mistakes those people
for New Yorkers. No, there is a godless grace and snap
and style about a born and bred New Yorker which mere
clothing cannot effect.

April 19. — This morning struck into the region of full goatees
— sometimes accompanied by a mustache, but only occasionally.

It was odd to come upon this thick crop of an obsolete
and uncomely 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. This is an impor-
tant fact in geography.

If the loafers determined the character of a country, it
would be still more important, of course.

i65

Heretofore, all along, tin- 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.

r.y and by we entered the tobacco-chewing region.

Fifty years ago the tobaCCO-chewing region covered the
Union. It is greatly restricted now.

Next, boots bewail to appear. Not in strong force,
however. Later — away down the Mississippi — they
amc the rule. They disappeared from other sections
of the I'nion with the nuul ; no doubt they will disapp< ar
from the river villages, also, when proper pavements
come in.

\\V reached St. Louis at ten o'clock at night. At the
counter of the hotel I tendered a hurriedly invented fic-
titious name, with a miserable attempt at careless ease.
The clerk paused, and inspected me in the compassionate
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 the St. James, in New York."

An unpromising beginning for a fraudulent career!
We started 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
its guerre, and nobody suspects them ; but when an hon-
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 disappoint-
ment, for we had hoped to have a week in St. Louis. The
Southern was a good hotel, and we could have had a com-
fortable time there. It is large and well conducted, and
its decorations do not make one cry, as do those of the
vast Palmer House, in Chicago. True, the billiard tallies
were of the Old Silurian Period, and the cues and balls of

1 66

the Post-Pliocene ; but there was refreshment in this, not
discomfort ; for there are rest and healing in the contem-
plation of antiquities.

The most notable absence observable in the billiard
room was the absence of the river man. If he was there,
he had taken in his sign ; he was in disguise. I saw there
none of the swell airs and graces, and ostentatious dis-
plays of money, and pompous squanderings of it, which
used to distinguish the steamboat crowd from the dry-
land crowd in the by-gone 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 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 " bar-keep " Bill, or Joe,
or Tom, and slap him on the 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 Rogers, crying. Rogers was not his name ;
neither was Jones, Brown, Dexter, Ferguson, Bascom,
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 you meant him. He
said :

" What is a person to do here when he wants a drink of
water ? drink this slush ? "

"Can't you drink it? "

"I 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

''7

Missouri, and every tumblerful of it holds nearly an acre
of land in solution. 1 got this fact from the bishop of
tin- diO( ese. If you will let your glass stand half an hour,
you can separate the land from the water as easy as
Genesis; and then you will find them both good : the
one i^ood to eat, the other good to drink. The land is
very nourishing, the water is thoroughly wholesome.
The one appeases hunger ; the other, thirst. Jlut the
natives do not take them separately, but 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 he will pre-
fer it to water. This is really the case. It is good for
steamboating, 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 Pittsburg, 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 four hundred thousand inhabit-
ants ; still, in the solid business parts, it looked about as
it had looked formerly. Yet 1 am sure there is not as
much smoke in St. Louis now as there used to be. The
smoke used to bank itself in a dense billowy black canopy
over the town, and hide the sky from view. This shelter
is very much thinner 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 modern.
They stand by themselves, too, with green lawns around

i68

them ; whereas the dwellings of a former day are packed
together in blocks, and are all of one pattern, with win-
dows 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
has 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 St. Louis
interested herself in such improvements at an earlier day
than did the most of our cities.

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 remember
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 course.

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 build-
ing then, and Mr. Murray was confidently called upon
to admire it, with its "species of Grecian portico, sur-
mounted by a kind of steeple, much too diminutive in
its proportions, and surmounted by sundry ornaments "
which the unimaginative Scotchman found himself "quite
unable to describe"; and therefore was grateful when
a German tourist helped him out with the exclamation :

[6g

" lly , they look exactly like bed-posts !' St. Louis

is well equipped with stately and noble public buildiii.
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.
1 . -uis with strong confidence.

The further we drove in our inspe< tion-tour, the more
sensibly I realized 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.

lUit the change of changes was on the "lev 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 stcamboatman
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 incon-
spicuous. Half a dozen lifeless steamboats, a mile of
empty wharves, a negro, fatigued with whiskey, stretched
asleep in a wide and soundless vacancy, where the serried
hosts of commerce used to contend ! * Here was desola-
tion indeed.

" The old, old sea, as one in tears,

Comes murmuring, with foamy lips,
And knocking at the vacant piers,

Culls for his long-lost multitude of .ships."

The towboat and the railroad had done their work, and
done it well and completely. The mighty bridge, stretch-

* Captain Marryat, writing forty-five years ago, says : " M. Louis has
20,000 inhabitants. The rirer abreast cf the tcicn is CTOl • ith
steamboats ^ lying in '. tlirce tiers."

i yo

ing along over our heads, had done its share in the
slaughter and spoliation. Remains of former steamboat-
men told me, with wan satisfaction, that the bridge
doesn't pay. Still, it can be no sufficient compensation
to a corpse to know 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. All this was familiar and satisfying ;
but the ancient armies of drays, and struggling throngs
of men, and mountains of freight were gone; and Sab-
bath reigned in their stead. The immemorial mile of
cheap, foul doggeries remained, but business was dull
with them ; the multitudes of poison-swilling Irishmen
had departed, and in their places were a few scattering
handfuls of ragged negroes, some drinking, some drunk,
some nodding, others asleep. St. Louis is a great and
prosperous and advancing city; but the river-edge of it
seems dead past resurrection.

Mississippi steamboating was born about 1812; at the
end of thirty years it had grown to mighty proportions;
and in less than thirty more it was dead ! A strangely
short life for so majestic a creature. Of course it is not
absolutely dead; neither is a crippled octogenarian who
could once jump twenty-two feet on level ground ; but
as contrasted with what it was in its prime vigor, Missis-
sippi 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 com-
sumed 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 >teaml>oat 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 fortified with capital;
and, by able and thoroughly businesslike management
and system, these make a sufficiency of money out of
what is left of the once prodigious steamboating industry.
1 suppose that St. Louis and New Orleans have not suf-
fered materially by the change, but alas for the wood-
yard man !

He used to fringe the river all the way; his close-
ranked merchandise 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; but 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 ?

CHAPTER XXIII
TRAVELLING INCOGNITO

MY idea was to tarry a while in every town between
St. Louis 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 Kaskaskia, 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 companion-way 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, but good enough for grazing
purposes. A colored 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 ? '

173

" I'.less you, no, boss! She ain't unloadetied, yit. She
only come in dis mawnin'. "

He was uncertain as to when she might get her trip,
but thought it might be to-morn>\v or maybe next day.
This would not answer at all; so \ve had to give up the
novelty of sailing down the river on a farm. \\'e had
one more arrow in our quiver: a Yicksburg packet, the
Gold Dust, was to leave at 5 \\ M. \\ e 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. \Ve camped on the boiler deck,
and bought some cheap literature to kill time with. The
vender was a venerable Irishman 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,
fdled with classic names and allusions, which was quite
wonderful for fluency until the fact became rather ap-
parent that this was not the first time, 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 remark,
connecting Irishmen and beer, brought this nugget of
information out of him :

" They don't drink it, sir. They caiit drink it, sir.
Give an Irishman lager for a month, and he's a dead man.
An Irishman is lined with copper, and the beer corrodes
it. Hut whiskey polishes the copper and is the saving <>f
him, sir."

At eight o'clock, promptly, we backed out and — crossed
the river. A.S we crept toward the shore, in the thick
darkness, a blinding glory of white electric light burst
suddenly from our forecastle, and lit up the water and the
warehouses as with a noonday glare. Another big change.

174

this — no more flickering, smoky, pitch-dripping, inef-
fectual 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 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 adjusted to begin the preparatory ser-
vices. Why this new and simple method of handling the
stages was not thought of when the first steamboat was
built is a mystery which helps one to realize what a dull-
witted slug the average human being is.

We 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, but there were
no evidences of human or other animal life to be seen. I
wondered if I had forgotten the river, for I had no recol-
lection whatever of this place; the shape of the river,
too, was unfamiliar; there was nothing in sight anywhere
that I could remember ever having seen before. I was
surprised, disappointed, and annoyed.

We put ashore a well-dressed lady and gentleman, and
two well-dressed lady-like young girls, together with
sundry Russia leather bags. A strange place for such
folk ! No carriage was waiting. The party moved off
as if they had not expected any, and struck down a wind-
ing country road afoot.

But the mystery was explained when we got under way
again, for these people were evidently bound for a large
town which lay shut in behind a tow-head (i. e., 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

175

might be St. Genevirve — ami so it proved to be. ( )bscrve
what this eccentric rivrr had Ix-m about : it had built up
this huge, useless tow-head ditvctly in front of this town,
cut off its rivrr communications, fenced it away com-
pletely, and made a "country" town of it. It is a fine
old place1, too, and deserved a better fate. It was settled
by the French, and is a relic of a time when one could
travel from the mouths of the Mississippi to Muebec and
be on French territory and under French rule all the way.
Presently I ascended to the hurricane deck and cast n
longing glance toward the pilot-hou-

CHAPTER XXIV
MY INCOGNITO IS EXPLODED

AFTER a close 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 reinspected 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 invented 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 com-
mitting myself.

" Is this the first time you were ever in a pilot-house ? "

I crept under that one.

" Where are you from ? "

"New England."

"First time you have ever been West?"

I 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.

" This," putting his hand on a backing-bell rope, "is
to sound the fire-alarm; this," putting his hand on a
go-ahead bell, "is to call the texas-tender; this one,"

'77

indicating the whistle-lever, "i-, to call the captain "
and so lie went on, touching one object after another and
reeling off his tranquil spool of lus.

I had never felt so like a passenger before. J 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 -ood old-fashioned
way. At times I was afraid he was going to rupture his
invention; but it always stood the strain, and he pulled
through all right. He drifted, by easy stages, into
n vealments of the river's marvellous eccentricities of one
sort and another, and backed them up with some pretty

^antic illustrations. I 'or instance :

" Do you see that little bowlder sticking out of the
water yonder? 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.]

1 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 indifferently drew attention to it,
as one might to an object grown wearisome through
familiarity, and observed that it was an <k alligator boat."

" An alligator boat ? What's it for? "

" To dredge out alligators with."

"Are they so thick as to be troublesome ? '

" Well, not now, because the Government keeps them
down. Put they used to be. Not everywhere; but in
favorite places, here and there, where the river is wide
and shoal — like Plum Point, and Stack Island, and so
on — places they call alligator beds."

" Did they actually impede navigation ?'
12

"Years ago, yes, in very low water; there was hardly
& trip, then, that we didn't get aground on alligators."

It seemed to me that I should certainly have to get
out my tomahawk. However, I restrained myself and
said:

11 It must have been dreadful."

" Yes, it was one of the main difficulties about piloting.
It was so hard to tell anything about the water; the
d- — d things shift 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 whenjy<?z/ 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 thing 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 — all A i alligator pilots. They could
tell alligator water as far as another Christian could tell
whiskey. Read it ? Ah, couldn't they, though ! I only
wish I had as many dollars as they could read alligator
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 smell 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

179

he knows himself, without L;<>in.u ' around backing up other
people's say-SO's, though there's a pl«-nty that ain't bark-
ward about doing it, as long as they can roust out some-
thing wonderful to tell. \\ hieh is not the style of
Kobert Styles, by as much as three fathom — maybe
quarter-/V^. "

| My! Was this Rob Styles? This mustached and
stately figure ? 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:

" 1 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 alli-
gator once and he's convinced. 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, it's
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."

"What for?"

"Why, to make soldier-shoes out of their hides. All
the Government 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 Govern-
ment 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

i8o

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? "
" Oh, no ! it hasn't happened for years."
"Well, then, why do they still keep the alligator boats
in service ? "

" Just for police duty — nothing more. They merely
go up and down now and then. The present genera-
tion 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-out 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 of his acquaint-
ance, dwelling at special length upon a certain extra-
ordinary performance of his chief favorite among this
distinguished fleet — and then adding:

"That boat was the 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
scandalous liar! I left him, finally; I couldn't stand it.
The proverb says, Mike master, like man'; and if you
stay with that kind of a man, you'll come under suspicion
by and by, just as sure as you live. He paid first-class
wages; but said I, * WThat'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. Reputation'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 stern-sheets of his skull, of
course, where they belonged. They weighed down the

haek of his head so that it inadr hi> nose tilt up in the
air. People thought it was vanity, but it wasn't, it was
malice. If you only saw his font, you'd take him to be
nineteen feel high, but he wasn't; it was because his foot
was out of drawing-. lie was intended to be nineteen
feet hi-h, 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 lie> out of
him, and he'll shrink to the size of your hat; you take
the malice out of him, and he'll disappear. That Cyclone
was a rattler to go, and the sweetest thing to steer that
ever walked the waters. Set her 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.
\ >u couldn't ever feel her rudder. It wasn't any more
labor to steer her than it is to count the Republican vote
in a South Carolina election. One morning, just at day-
break, the last trip she ever made, they took her rudder
aboard to mend it; I didn't know any thing about it; I
backed her out from the wood-yard and went a-weaving
down the river all serene. \Yhen I had gone about
twenty-three miles, and made four horribly crooked

crossmgs-

" Without any rudder ? '

" Yes — old Capt. Tom appeared on the roof and began
to find fault with me for running such a dark night—

" Such a Jark night ? "\Yh_v. you said-

" Never mind what I said- -'twas as dark as Egypt w.v,
though pretty soon the moon began to rise, and-

" 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 "

11 It was before — oh, a long time before. And as I
was saying, he-

11 But was this the trip she sunk, or was "

182

" Oh, no ! months afterward. And so the old man,
he- -"

" Then she made two last trips, because you said "

He stepped back from the wheel, swabbing away his
perspiration, and said :

" 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 I ? Now take the
wheel and finish the watch; and next time play fair, 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 steam-
boat, nor how to enjoy it, either.

C1IAITKK XXV
FROM CAIRO I i > IIICKM \\

THE scenery from St. Louis to Cairo — two hundred
iniK-s — is varied ami beautiful. The hills were clothed in
the fresh foliage of spring- now, and were a gracious and
worthy setting for the broad river flowing between. Our
trip began auspiciously, with a perfect day, as to breeze
and sunshine, and our boat threw the miles out behind
her with satisfactory despatch.

We found a railway intruding at Chester, 111. ; Chester
has also a penitentiary DOW, and is otherwise march-
ing on. At Grand 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 neighbors, the Tower has
the Devil's Bake Oven — so called, perhaps, because it
does not powerfully resemble any body 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 any body, Devil or Christian.
Away down the river we have the Devil's Elbow and the
Devil's Race-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

1 84

some repairs here and there, and a new coat of white-
wash 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
consequently 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 white-
wash." 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
Uncle Mumford's final observation that " people who
make lime run more to religion than whitewash." Uncle
Mumford said, further, that Grand Tower was a great
coaling centre and a prospering place.

Cape 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. Uncle
Mumford said it had as high a reputation for thorough-
ness as any similar institution in Missouri. There was
another college higher up on an airy summit — a bright
new edifice, picturesquely and peculiarly towered and
pinnacled — a sort of 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. Partiali-
ties often make people see more than really exists.

i85

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 hi- ^position, an easy gift of h,

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 Bravely d- -ing around, when then- is
work to the fore, in a way to mellow the cx-steamboat-
man's heart with sweet, soft longings for the vanish

days that shall come no more. " Git up, there,

you ! Going to be all day ? Why d'n't you say you v
petrified in your hind legs, before you shipped ?"

He is a steady man with his crew; kind and just, but
firm; so they like him, and stay with him. He is stil!
in the slouchy garb of the old generation of mates; bu
next trip the Anchor Line will have him in uniform — a
natty blue naval uniform, with brass buttons, 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. lint his troubles are ended now.
And the greatly imj 1 aspect of the boat's staff is

another advantage achieved by the dress-reform peri' d.

Steered down the bend below Cape liirardeau. They
used to call it " Steersman's Bend"; plain sailing and
plenty of water in it, always; about the only place in the

1 86

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 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 gray mare aboard,
and a preacher. To me, this sufficiently accounted for
the disaster; as it did, of course, to Mumford, who
added :

"But there are 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 gray mare and a preacher. I went down
the river 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 flue;
and went into Cairo with nine feet of water in the hold —
may have been more, may have been less. I remember
it as if it were yesterday. The men lost their heads with
terror. They painted the mare blue, in sight of town,
and threw the preacher overboard, or we should not have
arrived at all. The preacher was fished out and saved.
He acknowledged, himself, that he had been to blame.
I remember it all, as if it were yesterday."

That this combination — of preacher and gray mare —
should breed calamity seems strange, and at first glance

unbelievable; but the fact is fortified by SO much unassail-
able proof that to doubt is In dishonor reason. I myself
remember a case where a captain was warned by numer-
ous friends against taking a gray mare and a preacher
with him, but persisted in his purpose m 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 wrrecks, altogether.

I could recognize big changes from Commerce down.
Beaver Dam Rock was out in the middle of the river
now, and throwing a prodigious "break"; it used to be
close 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 "llraveyard,"
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 railed the Two Sisters is gone entirely; the
other, which used to lie close to the Illinois shore, is

iS8

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!

Near the mouth of the river several islands were miss-
ing — washed away. Cairo was still there — easily visible
across the long, flat point upon whose further verge it
stands; but we had to steam a 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 dis-
tance out of the channel; or rather, about one county
has gone into the river from the Missouri point, and the
Cairo point has 'made down' and added to its long
tongue of territory correspondingly. The Mississippi
is a just and equitable river; it never tumbles one man's
farm overboard without building a new farm just like it
for that man's neighbor. This keeps down hard feelings.

Going into Cairo, we came near killing a steamboat
which paid no attention to our whistle and then tried
to cross our bows. By doing some strong backing, 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 con-
trast to its former estate, as per Mr. Dickens's portrait
of it. However, it was already building with bricks
when I had seen it last — which was when Colonel (now
General) Grant was drilling his first command there.
Uncle Mumford 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

189

her situation at the junction of the two great rivers is so
advantageous that she eannot well help prospering.

When 1 turned out in the muniing, we had passed
< '"lumbus, K.V., and were approaching Ilickman, a pivtty
town perched on a handsome hiil. Ilieknian is in a
rich tobacco region, aiui formerly enjoyed a great and
lucrative trade in that staple, collecting it there in her
warehouses from a large area of country and shippn
it by boat; but Uncle Mumford says she built a railway
to facilitate this commerce a little mor, . i he- thinks
it facilitated it the wrong way — took the bulk of the
trade out of her hands by "collaring it along the line
without gathering it at her doors."

CHAPTER XXVI
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 gap for me which all histories had
left till that time empty.

THE PILOT'S FIRST BATTLE.

He said:

"It was the yth of November. 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

1 01

said, No, I wasn't anxious, I would look at it from the
pilot-house, lie said I was a COWard, and left.

"That light was an awful sight, (iriieral ('heatham
made his men strip their coats off and throw them in a
pile, and said, 'Now follow me to h- -1 or victory!' I
heard him say that from the pilot-house; and then he
galloped in, at the head of his troops. Old (leneral
Pillow, with his white hair, mounted on a white horse,
sailed in, too; leading his troops as lively as a boy. I5y
and by the Federals chased the rebels back, and here
they came! tearing- along, every-body for himself and
Devil take the hindmost! and down under the bank th« y
scrambled, and took shelter. I was sitting with my legs
hanging out of the pilot-house window. All at once
1 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 backward and landed on the floor, and
stayed there. The balls came booming around. Three
cannon-balls went through the chimney; one ball took
off the corner of the pilot-house; shells were screaming
and bursting 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. Pres-
ently 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 was on the roof
with a red-headed major from Memphis — a fine-looking
man. 1 heard him say he wanted to leave here, but
* 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. 1 thought best to get out of that

IQ2

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,

h 1! 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, 'Now, 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 knew any thing, I was so frightened; but you see,
nobody knew that but me. Next day General Polk sent
for me, and praised me for my bravery and gallant
conduct.

"I never said any thing, 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. \Vhen 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 "gilded that scare of his, in
spots5'; that his subsequent career in the war was proof
of it.

IQ3

\\Y struck down through the finite of Island N . . ;iul
I went below and fell int<> conversation with a p. ger, a

handsome man, with easy carriage and an intelligent face.
We were approaching Island No. 10, a pla lebra!

during the war. This gentleman's home was on the main
shore in its neighborhood. 1 had some talk with him
about the war times; but presently the discourse fell
upon "feuds," for in no part of the South has the ven-
detta flourished more briskly, or held out long< r between
warring families, than in this partieular region. This
gentleman said :

"There's been more than one feud around i in old

times, but 1 reckon the first one was between the Darnells
and the Watsons. Nobody don't know now what the first
quarrel was about, it's so long ago; the Darnells and the
Watsons don't know, if there's any of them living, which
I don't think there is. Some says it was about a horse
or a cow — any way, it was a little matter; the money in
it wasn't of no consequence — none in the world — both
families 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, <
sixty years of killing or crippling! 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 g.-t 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 /////// for each other, but when they happened

I94

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 'a' given him a chance, the
boy'd 'a' shot him. Both families belonged to the
same church (every-body around here is religious) ;
through all this fifty or sixty years' fuss, both tribes was
there every Sunday, to worship. They lived each side
of the line, and the church was at a landing called Com-
promise. 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 any way, this young
man rode up — steamboat laying there at the 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 a-s he
swum along down stream, they followed along the bank
and kept on shooting at him, and when he struck shore

'95

he was dead. Windy Marshall told me about it. He saw
it. He was captain of the boat.

" Year> ago, llu- Darnells was so thinned out that the
old man and his two sons rum hided they'd leave the.
country. They started to take steamboat just above No.
10 ; but the Watsons got wind of it; and they arrived
just as the two young Darnells was walking up the com-
panion-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 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
"Never mind, it doiit make no difference, any way." A
life-long resident who was present heard it, but it made
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 common that the general ear has become
dulled by familiarity with it, and is no longer alert, no
longer sensitive to such affronts.

Xo one in the world speaks blemishless grammar; no
one has ever written it — no one, either in the world or

ig6

out of it (taking the Scriptures for evidence on the latter
point); therefore it would not be fair to exact grammati-
cal perfection from the peoples of the 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 insig-
nificant little tuft, and this was no longer near the Ken-
tucky shore; it was clear over against the opposite shore,
a mile away. In war times the island had been an im-
portant place, for it commanded 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 frame houses were still grouped in
the same old flat plain, and environed 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 impossi-

197

bility. This present tln.nl of iSS2 will <loubtl< . -ele-

bratcd in the river's history for several generations before

a delude of like magnitude shall be SITU. It put all the
unprotected low lands under water, from Cairo to the
mouth; it broke down the levees in a great many p!
on both sides of tin- river; and in some regions south,
when the llood was at its highest, the Mississippi was
.svrv//A' wilt's wick1! a number of lives were losi, and tl
destruction cf property was fearful. Th ps w<

destroyed, houses washed away, and shelterless men and
cattle forced to take refuge on scattering eh vations h<
and there in field and forest, and wait in peril and suffer-
ing 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 underwater for months, and the poorer ones
must have starved by the hundred if succor had not been
promptly afforded.* The water had been falling during
a considerable time now, yet as a rule we found the banks
still under water.

* For a detailed and interesting description of the great flood, written
on board of the New Orleans Times- Democrat's relief boat, see Ap-
pendix A.

CHAPTER XXVII
SOME IMPORTED ARTICLES

WE met two steamboats at New Madrid. Two steam-
boats in sight at once ! An infrequent spectacle now in
the lonesome Mississippi. 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, realization 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 up its plodding, patient march through the land
during many, many years. Each tourist took notes, and
went home and published a book — a book 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, but remains to-day about
as it was then. The emotions produced in those for-
eign breasts by these aspects were not all formed on

199

one pattern, of course; they //</</ to be various, along at
first, because the earlier tourists were obliged to originate
their emotions, \vhereasin older countries one tan always
borrow emotions from one's predi rs. And, mind

you, emotions are among the toughest things in the world
to manufacture out of whole cloth; it is easier to manu-
facture seven facts than one emotion. Captain B;
Hall, R. N., writing fifty-five years ago, says :

Here I caught the first glimpse of the ohject 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 till it was too dark to distinguish
any thing. 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 writ-
ing a few months later in the same year, 1827, and is
coming in at the mouth of the Mississippi :

The first indication of our approach to land was the appear-
ance of this mighty river pouring forth its muddy mass of waters,
and mingling with the deep blue of the Mexican Gulf. I never be-
held a scene so utterly desolate as this entrance of the Mississippi.
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 attempt-
ing to cross the bar, and it still stands, a dismal witness of the
destruction that has been, and a boding prophet of that which is

to come.

•

Emotions of Hon. 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 mii;ht and majesty.

200

You see him fertilizing 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 pros-
pect, 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 Miss-
issippi. 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 bank, 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,* or
can support themselves long upon its surface without assistance
from some friendly log. It contains the coarsest and most uneat-
able of fish, such as catfish 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 impervious 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, in-

* 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.

unclatcs and devastates the whole country round; and as soon
it forces its way through its former ehamiel, plants in every direc-
tion the uprooted monarehs of the forest (upon whose brandies
the bird will never a-ain perch, or tin- raccoon, the opossum, or the
squirrel climb) as traps to the adventurous navigators of its waters
by steam, who, borne down by these concealed dangers wh.
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 pleas-
ing associations connected with the threat common sewer of the
\Yestern America, which pours out its mud into the Mexican Gulf,
polluting the clear 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 over-
come by the wonderful power of steam.

It is pretty crude literature for a man accustomed to
handling a pen; still, as a panorama of tbe emotions sent
weltering through this noted visitor's breast by the aspect
and traditions of the "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 any body, 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 feels as follows :

The Mississippi ! It was with indescribable emotions that I
first felt myself afloat upon its waters. How often in my school-
boy dreams, and in my waking visions afterward, had my imagina-
tion 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 every
one must regard a great feature of external nature.

202

So much for the emotions. The tourists, one and all,
remark upon the deep, brooding loneliness and desola-
tion 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 seeing a single habitation. An artist, in search of hints
for a painting of the deluge, would here have found them in abun-
dance.

The first shall be last, etc. Just two hundred years
ago, the old original first and gallantest of all the foreign
tourists, pioneer, 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 6th 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, and the breeze grew fresh with the salt breath
of the sea. Then the broad bosom of the great Gulf opened on
his 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,
salvum fac regem."

Then, while the musketry volleyed and rejoicing shouts
burst forth, the victorious discoverer planted the column,
and made proclamation in a loud voice, taking formal

203

p >ssession of the river and the vast countries watered
by it, in the name of the King. The column bore this
inscription :

LOUIS I.K C.RAND, ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARKI,
REGNE; LI. XI.UVIK.MI. AVRIL, 1682.

New Orleans intended to fittingly celebrate, this pres-
ent 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 devasta-
tion everywhere.

CHAPTER XXVIII
UNCLE MUMFORD UNLOADS

ALL 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 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 all 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, which-
ever you prefer. As this was the first time I had ever
encountered this species of honor, it seems excusable to
mention it, and at the same time call the attention of the
authorities to the tardiness of my recognition 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 torch-light procession. In the head of every
crossing, and in the foot of every crossing, the Govern-
ment has set up a clear-burning lamp. You are never
entirely in the dark, now; there is always a beacon in

205

sight, either before you, Of behind you, or abreast. ( >ne
might almost say that lamps have been squandered then-.
I >o/ens of crossings arc lighted which were not shoal
when they were < n-ated, and have never been -hoal sin<
crossings so plain, tOO, and also so straight, that a steam-
boat can take' herself through them without any help,
after she has been through once. I amps in such |>la<
are of course not wasted; it is much more convenient and
comfortable for a pilot to hold on them than on 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 stern and holding her back.

15ut this tiling 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 what it once was. The
(iovernment'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 the 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, but 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 J>ixby and George Ritchie have charted the
crossings 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 the fog now,
with considerable security, and with a confidence un-
known in the old day*;.

With these abundant beacons, and the banishment ot

206

snags, plenty of daylight in a box and ready to be turned
on whenever needed, and a chart 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 of infinite change, the
Anchor Line 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 post, and stand his
watch clear through, whether the boat be under way or
tied 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 exception 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
for the employes of the service. The military engineers
of the Commission have taken upon their shoulders the
job of making the Mississippi over again — a job trans-
cended 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 unnum-
bered 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

2<>7

of a house-roof, and ballasting it with stones; and in
many phn es they have protected tin- wasting shores with
rows of pih ( >nc who knows tin- Mississippi will

promptly aver — not aloud but to himself — that ten thou-
sand River Commissions, with tin- mines of the world at
their bark, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it
Or (online it, cannot say to it, "Co 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. Hut a
discreet man will not put these things into spoken words;
for the West 1'oint engineers have not their superiors
anywhere; they know all that can be known of their
abstruse science; and so, since they 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, and
wait till they do it. Captain Eads, with his jetties, has
done a work at the mouth of the Mississippi which
seemed clearly impossible; so we do not feel full con-
fidence now to prophesy against like impossibilities.
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, stenographi-
cally 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 " U'/iere
in blazes are you going with that barrel now?" and
which seemed to me to break the flow of the written
statement, without compensating by adding to its informa-
tion or its clearness. Not that I have ventured to strike
out all such interjections; 1 have removed only those
which were obviouslv irrelevant; wherever one occurred

208

which I felt any question about, I have judged it safest
to let it remain.

UNCLE MUMFORD'S IMPRESSIONS.

Uncle Mumford said :

11 As long as I have been mate of a steamboat — thirty
years — I have watched this river and studied it. Maybe
I could have learned more about it at West Point, but if
I believe it I wish I may beWHAT are you sucking your
fingers therefor ? — Collar that kag of nails ! Four years at
West Point, and plenty of books and schooling, will learn
a man a good deal, I reckon, but it won't learn him the
river. You turn one of those little European rivers over
to this Commission, with its hard bottom and clear 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 Eccle-
siastes vii. 13 say ? Says enough to knock their little
game galley-west, don't it ? Now 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.
Are they going to peg all the banks ? Why, they could
buy ground and build a new Mississippi cheaper. They

20Q

are pegging lUillctin Tow-head now. It won't do any
good. If tin- river has got a mortgage on that island,
it will foreclose, SUIT; pegs Or no pegs. Away down
yonder, they have driven two rows of piles straight
through the middle of a drv bar half a mile long, which
is forty foot out of the water when the river is low.
What do yon reckon that is for? If I know, I \vish
1 may land inllt'Ml' yoni\^'lf, you SOH <>/ an nn.lt-r-
takcr ! — out with that coal-oil, x/r>,v, //Vv/r, LIVEI/l ! And
just look at what they arc trying to do down there at
Milliken's Ilend. There's been a cut-off in that section,
and Yieksburg 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
are 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 /// stream. Well, you've 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
property in Yicksburg 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 v\ ere thicker

2IO

than bristles on a hog's back; and now, when there's three
dozen steamboats and nary 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 reorganized, and dredged out, and fenced in, and
tidied up, to a degree that will make navigation just
simply perfect, and absolutely safe and profitable; and
all the days will be Sundays, and all the mates will be
Sunday-school s\fN~RKrT-in-the-nation-yoii-fooling-aroiind-
there-for, you sons of unrighteousness, heirs of perdition !
Going to be a YEAR getting that hogshead ashore ?"

During our trip to New Orleans and back, we had
many conversations with river men, planters, journalists,
and officers of the River Commission — with conflicting
and confusing results. To wit:

1. Some believed in the Commission's scheme to arbi-
trarily and permanently confine (and thus deepen) the
channel, preserve threatened shores, etc.

2. Some believed that the Commission's money ought
to be spent only on building and repairing the great
system of levees.

3. Some believed that the higher you build your levee,
the higher the river's bottom will rise; and that conse-
quently 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.

5. Some believed in the scheme of northern lake-
reservoirs to replenish the Mississippi in low-water
seasons.

Whenever you find a man down there who believes in
one of these theories you may turn to the next man and

21 I

frame your talk upon the hypothesis that lie does not
believe in that theory; and after you have had experiem e,
you do not take this COUrSC doubtfully or hesitatingly,
but with the confidence of a dying murderer — convert, d
one, 1 mean. l-'or you will have come to know, with a
deep and restful certainty, that you are not going to
meet two people sick of the same theory, one right afii r
the other. No, there will ulwavs be one or two with the

/ .

other di>< ases along between. And as you proceed, you
will find 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 " taki,"
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 flag.

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
g"t into your system.

I have had all the five; and had them "bad"; but a^k
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 ea( h
of the several chief theories has its host of zealous par-

212

tisans; 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. Very well; since then the appropriation
has been made — possibly a sufficient one, certainly not
too large a one. Let us hope that the prophecy will be
amply fulfilled.

One thing will be easily granted by the reader: that
an opinion from Mr. Edward Atkinson, upon any vast
national commercial matter, comes as near ranking as
authority as can the opinion of any individual in the
Union. What he has to say about Mississippi River
Improvement will be found in the Appendix.*

Sometimes half a dozen figures will reveal, as with a
lightning-flash, the importance of a subject which ten
thousand labored 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
Commercial :

The towboatyictf. 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 any-
where else in the world. Her freight bill, at 3 cents a bushel,
amounts to $18,000. It would take eighteen hundred cars, of
three hundred and thirty-three bushels to the car, to transport 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 Pittsburg 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 through by rail.

* See Appendix B.

213

Wlu-n a river in LMMH! condition can enable one to save
Si 6 2, ooo, and a whole summer's time, on a single < ar^o,
the wisdom of taking measures to keep the river in
i^-Mod ( Miulition is made plain to even the uncommercial

mind.

CHAPTER XXIX

A FEW SPECIMEN BRICKS

WE passed through the Plum Point region, turned
Craig-head's Point, and glided unchallenged by what was
once the formidable Fort Pillow, memorable because of
the massacre perpetrated there during the war. Mas-
sacres 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; per-
haps 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 perform-
ances 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 toward Island 39. Afterward changed its course
and went from Brandywine down through Vogelman'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, through-
out, 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 " Murel's
Gang." This was a colossal combination of robbers,
horse-thieves, negro-stealers, and counterfeiters, engaged

21'

in business along the river some fifty or sixty \< ars .-'
While uiir journey across the country toward St. Louis
was in progress we had had no end of Jesse James and
his .stirring history; for lie had just been assassinated by
an agent of the (iovernor of Mi.vsouri, and \vas in con-
sequence 0( cupy'mg a good deal of space in the news-
papers, ('heap 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 mis-
take. Murel was his equal in boldness, in pluck, in
rapacity; in cruelty, brutality, heartlessness, treachery,
and in general and comprehensive vileness and shameless-
ness; 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
New Orleans; and furthermore, on occasion, this Murel
could go into a pulpit and edify the congregation. 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:

He appears to have been a most dexterous as well as consum-
mate villain. When he travelled, his 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 look after their horses, which were carried away by his confede-
rates while he was preaching. But the stealing of horses in OIK-
State, and selling them in another, was but a small portion of their
business ; the most lucrative was the enticing slaves to run away

2l6

from their masters, that they might sell them in another quarter.
This was arranged as follows : 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 send him to a free
State, where he would be safe. The poor wretches complied with
this request, hoping to obtain money and freedom ; they would be
sold to another master, and run away again to their employers;
sometimes they would be sold in this manner three or four times,
until they had realized 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 the negro 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
becames 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 enquired, how it was that Murel 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 confederates of
Murel were obtained from himself, in a manner which I shall pres
ently 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

217

Arkansas side of tin- river, where they concealed their negroes in
the ni' -. and cane-brakes.

'rhe(lepred.ui(ins of th. nsive combination wen !y felt ;

but so well were their plans arranged that, although Murel. \vho
was alwa\s active, was everywhere suspected, there was no pi- of
to be obtained. It so happened, ho\\i-ver. that a young man of the
name of Stewart, who was looking after two slaves which MIII< 1
had decoyed away, fell in with him and obtained his confidence,
took tin- oath, and was admitted into the gang as one of the
('•eneral Council. By this means all was discovered ; for St< -art
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
a-ainst Murel to procure his conviction and sentence to the Peni-
tentiary (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 !><• 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 revelations were
correct. I will quote one or two portions of Murel's confessions to
Mr. Stewart, made to him when they were journeying togetlu r.
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 rd/s/;:^ the blanks against
the whites, taking p<- n of , and plundering New Orlea

and making thcnisck'es possessors of the territory. The following-
are a few extracts :

" 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 ; we then determined to
undertake the rebellion at every hazard, and make as many friends
as we could for that purpose. Every man's business being assigned
him, I started to Xatchez on foot, having sold my horse in New-
Orleans— with the intention of stealing another after I started. I

218

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 water 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 saw him, I was determined to have his 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 rose and drew an elegant rifle 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. He 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, ' 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 up his clothes and
put them into his portmanteau, as they were brand-new cloth of the
best quality. I mounted as fine a horse as ever I straddled, and
directed my course for Natchez in much better style than I had
been for the last five days.

" Myself and a fellow by 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 Moun-
tain, and Crenshaw soon knew all about his business. He had
been to Tennessee to buy a drove of hogs, but when he got there
pork was dearer than he calculated, and he declined purchasing.
We concluded he was a prize. Crenshaw winked at me ; I under-
stood his idea. Crenshaw had travelled the road before, but I never
had ; we had travelled several miles on the mountain, when we
passed near a great precipice ; just before we passed it Crenshaw
asked me for my whip, which had a pound of lead in the butt ; I
handed it to him, and he rode up by the side of the South Caro-

linian, and gave him a blow on the side of the head and tumbled
him from his horse ; we lit from our horses and iinjM-red his
pockets; we got twei\ T hundred ;md sixty-two dollars. Cien^haw
said he knew a plan- to hide him, and he gathered him under his
arms, ami I by his feet, and conveyed him to a deep crevice in the
brow of the pricipice, and tumbled him into it, and he went out of
si^ht ; \ve then tumbled in his saddle, and took his horse with us,
which was worth two hundred dollars.

" \Ve were detained a few days, and during that time our friend
went to a little village in the neighborhood and saw the negro
advertised (a negro in our possession), and a description of the
two men of whom lie had been purchased, and giving his sus-
picions of the men. It was rather squall)- 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. \Ve took out his entrails and sunk him in the creek.

" He had sold the other negro the third time on Arkansaw River
for upward of five hundred dollars; and then stole him and de-
livered 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 the fraternity. He sold the negro,
first and last, for nearly two thousand dollars, and then put him
forever out of the reach of all pursuers ; and they can never graze
him unless 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 witnessed 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
fi-ht: Mr. Uixby, 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

220

excuse to stay with the Gold Dust to the end of her
course — Vicksburg. We were so pleasantly situated that
we did not wish to make a change. I had an errand
of considerable importance to do at Napoleon, Ark., but
perhaps I could manage it without quitting the Gold Dust.
I said as much; so we decided to stick to present quarters.

The boat was to tarry at Memphis till ten the next
morning. It is a beautiful city, nobly situated on a com-
manding 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 re-
served for the town's sewerage system, which is called
perfect; a recent reform, however, for it was just the
other way up to a fejv 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 the reduction
caused by flight 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 picture of Memphis, at that disastrous time,
drawn by a German tourist 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,
" Mississippi-Fahrten," von Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg :

In August the yellow fever had reached its extremes! height.
Daily, hundreds fell a sacrifice to the terrible epidemic. The city
was become a mighty graveyard, two-thirds of the population had
deserted the place, and only the poor, the 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.

221

Fearful evil ! In the briefest space it struck clown 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 sink men,
suddenly overtaken by the di ; and even corpses, distorted

•'ind rigid. Food failed. Meat spoiled in a few hours in the foetid
and pestiferous air, and turned black.

Fearful clamors issue from many houses ! Then after a season
they cease, and all is still ; noble, self-sacrificing men come with
the coffin, nail it up, anil carry it away to the graveyard. In tin-
night stillness reigns. Only the physicians and the hearses hurry
through the streets ; and out of the distance, at intervals, comes
the muffled thunder of the railway train, which with the speed of
the wind, as if hunted by furies, flies by the pest-ridden city with-
out halting.

But there is life enough there now. The population
exceeds forty thousand and is augmenting, and trade is
in a flourishing condition. 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 en-
ticing 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; foun-
dries, machine shops, and manufactories of wagons, car-
riages, and cotton-seed oil; and is shortly to have cotton-
mills and elevators.

Her cotton receipts reached five hundred thousand
bales last year — an increase of sixty thousand over the
year befor Out from her healthy commercial heart
issue five trunk lines of railway; and a sixth is being
added,

This is a very different Memphis from the one which
the vanished and unremembered procession of foreign
tourists used to put into their books long time ago. In
the days of the now forgotten but once renowned and
vigorously hated Mrs. Trollope, Memphis seems to have

222

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 fifty-five years ago. She stopped at the hotel.
Plainly it was not the one which gave us our breakfast.
She says :

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.

"Coughing, etc." The "etc." stands for an unpleas-
ant word there, a word which she does not always charit-
ably cover up, but sometimes prints. You will find it in
the following description of a steamboat dinner which she
ate 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 :

The total want of all the usual courtesies of the table ; the vo-
racious rapidity with which the viands were seized and devoured ;
the strange uncouth phrases and pronunciation ; the loathsome
spitting, from the contamination of which it was absolutely impos-
sible 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 sur-
rounded by the generals, colonels, and majors of the Old World ;
and that the dinner hour was to be any thing rather than an hour
of enjoyment.

CIIAITKK XXX
SKETCHES I'.V I III. WAY

IT was a big river, In-low Memphis; banks brimming
full, everywhere, and very frequently more than full, 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 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 meant
that the keeper of the light must 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 per-
formed, in all weathers; and not always by men — some-
times 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 main shore, and wagons travel
now where the steamboats used to navigate. No signs
left of the wreck of the J\'n)i$ylra>iia. Some farmer
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

224

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.
Not 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 colored folk,
and no whites visible; with grassless 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 a single lonely landing-
cabin; near it the colored family that had hailed us;
little and big, old and young, roosting on the scant pile
of household goods; these consisting of a rusty gun,
some bedticks, 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, head likely to be pulled off; but the
tugger marching determinedly forward, bending to his
work, with the rope over his shoulder for better purchase.
Sometimes a child is forgotten and left on the bank; but
never a dog.

The usual river-gossip going on in the pilot-house.
Island No. 63 — an island with a lovely "chute," or pas-
sage, behind it in the former times. They said Jesse
Jamieson, in the Skylark, had a visiting pilot with him one

22 ~,

trip — a poor <>1<1 broken-down, superannuated fellow —
left him at the \vhcc!, at the foot of (>^, to run off 1
watch. The ancient manner went up through the chute,
and down the river outside; and up the chute and down
the river again; and yet again and again; and handed
the boat Over to the relieving pilot, at the end of tlr
hours of honest endeavor, at the same old foot of the
island where he had originally taken the wheel ; A
darky on shore who had observed the boat go by, about
thirteen times, said, " ' 'clar to gracious, I wouldn't be
s'prisul if (.ley's a whole line o' clem A'/T/^/'/'A- .' "

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 darky on
shore, absorbed in his own matters, did not notice what
steamer it was. Presently some one asked :

" Any boat gone up ? "

" Yes, sah."

" Was she going fast ? '

"Oh, so-so— loafin' along."

" Xow, do you know what boat that was ? "

"No, sah."

" Why, uncle, that was the Eclipse. "

" Xo ! Is dat so ? Well, I bet it was — cause she jes*
went by here a-^/w rklin /''

Piece "f history illustrative of the violent style of some
of the people down along here. I Hiring the early weeks of
high water, A.'s fence rails washed down on li.'s ground,
and 15. 's rails washed up in the eddy and landed on A.'s
ground. A. said, " Let the thing remain so; I will use
your rails, and you use mine." Ikit B. objected — wouldn't
have it so. One clay, A. came down on U.'s grounds to
get his rails. P>. said, "I'll kill you!" and proceeded
for him with his revolver. A. said, "I'm not armed."
So B., who wished to do only what was right, threw down

220

his revolver; then pulled a knife, and cut A.:s throat
all around, but gave his principal attention to the 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, every-body went below to
get afternoon 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 conversation with me — a brisk young fellow, who
said he was born in a town in the interior 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 interest that he had mastered the
whole thing from stem to rudder-blade. Asked me where
I was from. I answered, " New England." "Oh, a
Yank ! " said he; and went chatting straight along, with-
out waiting for assent or denial. He immediately pro-
posed to take me all over the boat and tell me the names
of her different parts, and teach me their uses. Before I
could enter protest or excuse, he was already rattling
glibly away at his benevolent work ; and when I perceived
that he was misnaming 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 his imagination expanded, and
the more he enjoyed his cruel work of deceit. Some-
times, after palming off a particularly fantastic and out-
rageous 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 stayed faithfully

by him until his comedy was finished. Then he remarked
that he had undertaken to "learn " me all about a steam-
boat, and had done it; but that if he had overlooked
any tiling, just ask him and he would supply the lack.
" Any thin^ 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 unappe
able 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 stand-
ing in the pilot-house door, with the knob in his hand,
silently and severely inspecting me. I don't know when
1 have seen any body look so injured as he did. He
did not say any thing — simply stood there and looked;
reproachfully 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 on his face; gazed upon me a while in meek
rebuke, then said :

"You let me learn you all about a steamboat, didnt
you ? "

" Yes," I confessed.

" Yes, you did — didn't you ?"

"Yes."

" You are the feller that — that-

Language failed. Pause — impotent struggle for further
words — then he gave it up, choked out a deep, strong
oath, and departed for good. Afterward I saw him
several times below during the trip; but he was cold —
would not look at me. Idiot ! if he had not been in such

228

a sweat to play his witless, practical joke upon me, in the
beginning, 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, morn-
ings, 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 every-
where. Next, there is the haunting sense of loneliness,
isolation, remoteness from the worry and bustle of the
world. The dawn creeps in stealthily; the solid walls of
black forest soften to gray, 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 tran-
quillity is profound and infinitely satisfying. Then a bird
pipes up, another follows, and soon the pipings develop
into a jubilant riot of music. You see none of the birds;
you simply move through an atmosphere of song which
seems to sing itself. 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 color, and the furthest one, miles away under
the horizon, sleeps upon the water a mere dim vapor,
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 tin- hot effect, you grant that you havr seen sonic-
thin^ that is worth reim mbering.

We had the Kentucky IScnd country in the early inorn-
ing— scene of a strange and tragic accident in the old
^iines. Captain Poe had a small stern-wheel boat, for
years tlu- home of himself and his wife. Oiu- ni-ht the
boat struck a snag in the lu-ad of Kentucky Demi, and
sank with astonishing suddenness ; water already well
above the cabin floor when the captain got aft. So he
cut into his wife's stateroom 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-
frequcntcd Walnut Bend, and set it away back in a soli-
tude 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 Rock, Mississippi River, and
Texas Railroad touches the river there. We asked a
passenger who belonged there what sort of a place it was.
" Well," said he, after considering, and with the air of one

who wishes to take time and be accurate, "it's a h 1

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. Still, it is a thriving place,
with a rich country behind it, an elevator in front of it,

230

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 twelve or thirteen dollars a ton now, and
none of it is thrown away. The oil made from it is color-
less, tasteless, and almost, if not entirely, odorless. 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 extending upward from the founda-
tions. 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 colored folk — mainly

women and girls; and almost without exception uphol-
stered in bright nr\v clothes of swell and elaborate style
and eut — a glaring and hilarious contrast to the iiioiiniful
mud and the pensive puddles.

Helena is the second town in Arkansas, in point of
population — which is placed at five thousand. The
eountry about it is exceptionally productive. Helena
has a good cotton trade; handles from forty to sixty
thousand bales annually; she has a large lumber and
-rain commerce; has a foundry, oil-mills, machine-shops,
and wagon factories — in brief has one million dollars
invested in manufacturing industries. She has two rail-
ways, and is the commercial centre of a broad and pros-
perous region. Her gross receipts of money, annually,
from all sources, are placed by the New Orleans Times-
at at four million dollars.

CHAPTER XXXI
A THUMB-PRINT AND WHAT CAME OF IT

WE were approaching Napoleon, Ark. So I began to
think about my errand there. Time, noonday; and
bright and sunny. This was bad — not best, any way;
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, it
took the form of a distinct question : Is it good common
sense to do the errand in daytime, when, by a little sacri-
fice 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 reflection it really seemed best that we put our
luggage ashore and stop over at Napoleon. Their dis-
approval was. prompt and loud; their language mutinous.
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
determination.

I tried various mollifying tactics upon them, with
reasonably good success : under which encouragement I
increased my efforts; and, to show them that / had not

233

created this annoying errand, and was in noway to blame
for it, I presently drifted into it^ history — substantially as
follows :

I 'iward the end of last yrar I spent a fr\v months in
Munich, I'.avaria. In November I was living in l-'n'iulrin
I )ahl\\ cincr's /v//.v/<>//, ui, Karlstrassc; l>ut my working
quarters were a mile from there1, 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 (lerman to me — by request. One day, during a
ramble about the city, 1 visited one of the two establish-
ments 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

irds, 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
\\indo\vs; 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 linger of each of these fifty still forms, both great and
small, was a ring; 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 twinkling all
my body stricken to quivering jelly by the sudden clamor
of that awful summons! So I enquired about this thing;
asked what resulted usually ? if the watchman died, and

234

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 watchman
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 colorless, his deep-sunken eyes were shut;
his hand, lying on his breast, was talon-like, it was so
bony and long-fingered. The widow began her introduc-
tion 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 every thing. At
least, about every thing but wives and children. Let any
body's wife or any body'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 thru for that clay, lay silent, abstracted, and absorbed,
apparently heard nothing that I said, took no notice of
my good-bys, and plainly did not know by either si^'ht Of
hearing when I left the room.

When I had been this Karl Ritter's daily and sole
intimate during two months, he one day said abruptly:

"I will tell you my story."

A DYIXC. MAN'S o >.\i I.SSION.

Then he went on as follows :

" 1 have never given up until now. But now I have
given up. I am going to die. I made up my mind last
night that it must be, and very soon, too. You say you
are going to revisit your river by and by, when you find
opportunity. Very well; that, together with a certain
strange experience which fell to my lot last night, deter-
mines me to tell you my history — for you will see Napo-
leon, Arkansas, and for 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 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 households.

" 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 ! 1 saw two
men in the room, and one was saying to the other in a
hoarse whisper : ' I told her I would, if she made a noise,
and as for the child '

236

"The other man interrupted in a low, half-crying
voice :

" ' You said we'd only gag them and rob them, not hurt
them, or I wouldn't have come.'

" l 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
'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 my poor
cabin for a moment : the head bandit then said in his
stage whisper :

" ' 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 :

" ' Hello, 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 seemed to be a dozen of the horses — and I
heard nothing more.

" 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 listened 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? 1'ity me, then, who had to
endure three. Three hours ? it was three ages ! \Yh< n-
ever the1 clock .struck it seemed as if years had | by

sinee 1 had heard it last. All this time I was struggling
in my bonds, and at last, about dawn, 1 got myself free
and rose up and stretched my stiff lini! I was able to

distinguish details pretty well. The lloor was litte
with things thrown there by the robbers during their
search for my savin. The first object that caught my
particular attention was a document of mine which 1 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 unoffending-, hclplos on
there they lay; their troubles ended, mine begun !

"])id I appeal to the law — I? Does it quench the
pauper's thirst if the king drink for him? 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
voiees, nor had any idea who they might be? Neverthe-
less, I was sure — quite sure, quite confident. I had a
clew — a clew which you would not have valued — a clew
which would not have greatly helped even a detective,
since he would lack the secret of how to apply it. 1 -hall
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 din -
tion to begin with : Those two robbers were manifestly
soldiers in tramp disguise, and not new to military ser-
vice, but old in it — regulars, perhaps ; they did not

238

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 cap-
tain's voice, by G ! ' — the one whose life I would

have. Two miles away several regiments were in camp,
and two companies of U. 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 by, 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 Com-
pany C arrived in Napoleon I was already there. Yes,
I was there, with a new trade — fortune-teller. Not to
seem partial, I made friends and told fortunes among all
the companies garrisoned there, but I gave Company C
the great bulk of my attentions. I made myself limit-
lessly obliging to these particular men ; they could ask me
no favor, put on me no risk which I would decline. I
became the willing butt of their jokes ; this perfected my
popularity; I became a favorite.

"I early found a private who lacked a thumb — what
joy it was to me ! And when I found that he alone, of
all the company, had lost a thumb, my last misgiving
vanished; I was sure I was on the right track. This
man's name was Kruger, a German. There were nine
Germans in the company. I watched to see who might
be his intimates, but he seemed to have no especial

intimates. But / was his intimate, and I took care to
make the intimacy grow. Sometimes I so hungered for
my revenue that I could hardly restrain myself from
going on my knees and begging- him to point out the man
who had murdered my wife and child, hut I managed to
bridle my 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 ? It was this : When I was a youth, I
knew an old Frenchman who had been a prison-keeper
for thirty years, and he 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 Rogues'
Gallery for future reference; but that Frenchman, in his
day, used to take a print of the ball of a new prisoner's
thumb and put that away for future reference. He
always said that pictures wrere no good — future disguises
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 acquaint-
ances; it always succeeded.

<l 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

240

same old disappointed remark, ' Will they never cor-
respond! '

" 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, 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 part of your fortune is so grave that I thought it
would be better for you if I did not tell it in public. You
and another man, whose fortune I was studying last
night — Private Adler — have been murdering a woman
and a child ! You are being dogged. Within five days
both of you will be assassinated.'

"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-cry-
ing way which was one of my memories of that murder-
ous 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 wit-
ness. 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:

" ' I 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

341

yesterday, and have not told him — shall not tell him.
uas going to desert, and get away with it all. It i>
and too hravy to carry when one is running and dodging;
but a woman who has been -our 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-pla< e to her 1
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 ! '

11 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 sha'n't come
to any harm. Go, now. I must tell Adler his fortune.
Presently I will tell you how to escape the assassin;
meantime I shall have to examine your thumb-mark again.
Say nothing to Adler about this thing — say nothing to
any body. '

"He went away filled with fright and gratitude, poor
devil! I 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, 1 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.

"Toward midnight I set out, equipped with the counter-
sign, and picked my way toward the lonely region where
Adler was to keep his watch. It was so dark that I
stumbled right on a dim figure almost before I could
get out a protecting word. The sentinel hailed and
I answered, both at the same moment. 1 added, • It's
only me — the fortune-teller.' Then I slipped to the
16

242

poor devil's side, and without a word I drove my dirk
into his heart ! ' Ja wohlj laughed I, l it was the tragedy
part of his fortune, indeed!' As he fell from his horse
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; sometimes 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,
' I 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 perspect-
ive, you see; and the imagination could play; always,
the dim, receding ranks 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

243

shutters falling fainter and fainter upon my dullii.
each moment, when sharp and suddenly that dead-hell
rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head! The
shock «f it nearly paralyzed mo; foi- it was the first time
I had ever heard it.

•- 1 gathered myself together and Hew to the cor]

in. 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 fa<
Heavens, it was Adler !

" Can you divine what my first thought was? Put into
words, it was this: 'It seems, then, you escaped me
once : there will be a different result this time ! '

" Evidently this creature was suffering unimaginable
terrors. Think what it must have been to wake up in
the midst of that voiceless hush, and look out over that
grim congregation of the dead ! 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
augmented wrhen his eyes fell upon the life-giving cor-
dials which I carried in my hands ! Then imagine the
horror which came into this pinched face when I put the
cordials behind me, and said mockingly:

11 'Speak up, Franz Adler — call upon these dead ! Doubt-
less they will listen and have pity; but here there is none
el>e 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
his breast and tied. I said :

" ' 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 lo> What, you cannot? That
is a pity; but it is no matter — it does not always bring

244

help. When you and your cousin murdered a helpless
woman and child in a cabin in Arkansas — my wife, it was,
and my child ! — they shrieked for help, you remember;
but it did no good; you remember that it did no good, is
it not so ? 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. Now 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 ! Think of
it — reflect upon it — you have heard a human footstep 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 friend, the agony in that shrouded face was
ecstasy to see ! 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 dis-
turbed, disquieted. I said :

" l What, then — didn't he escape ? '

"A negative shake of the head.

"'No? What happened, then ?'

245

The satisfaction in the shrouded face was still plainer.
The man tried to mumble nut some words — could not
succeed ; tried to express something with his obstructed
hands — failed ; paused a moment, then feebly tilted his
bead, in a meaning way, toward the * that lay

nearest him.

"'Dead?' I asked. ' Failed to escape ? caught in
the act and shot ? '

" Negative shake of the head.

" 'How, then ?'

•• Again the man tried to do something with his hands.
I watched closely, but could not guess the intent. 1 bent
over and watched still more intently. iic 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 devilishness that it struck an awakening light
through my dull brain, and I cried:

"'Did /stab him, mistaking him for you? for that
stroke was meant for none but you.'

•• fhe ..ttirmative nod of the re-dying rascal was as joyous
as his failing strength was able to put into its expression.

•• ' Oh, miserable, miserable me, to slaughter the pity-
ing soul that stood a friend to my darlings when they
were helpless, and would have saved them if he could !
miserable, oh, miserable, miserable me ! '

•• 1 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 news-

.per, and sat down by him and read. Occasionally 1 took
a sip of brandy. This was necessary, on account of the

246

cold. But I did it partly because I saw that, along at
first, whenever I reached for the bottle, he thought I was
going to give him some. I read aloud: mainly imaginary
accounts of people snatched from the grave's threshold
and restored to life and vigor by a few spoonsful of liquor
and a warm bath. Yes, he had a long, hard death of it —
three hours and six minutes, from the time he rang his bell.
" It is believed that in all these eighteen years that have
elapsed since the institution of the corpse-watch, no
shrouded occupant of the 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! how delicious the memory
of it ! I caught him escaping from his grave, and thrust
him back into it !

" After that night I was confined to my bed for a week;
but as soon as I could get about I went to the dead-house
books and got the number of the house which Adler had
died in. A wretched lodging-house it was. It was my
idea that he would naturally have gotten hold of Kruger's
effects, being his cousin ; and I wanted to get Kruger's
watch, if I could. But while I was sick, Adler's things
had been sold and scattered, all except a few old letters,
and some odds and ends of no value. However, through
those letters I traced out a son of Kruger's, the only rel-
ative he left. He is a man of thirty, now, a shoemaker
by trade, and living at No. 14 Konigstrasse, Mannheim —
widower, with several small children. Without explain-
ing to him why, I have furnished two-thirds of his sup-
port ever since.

247

"Now, as to that watch — see how strangely things hap-
pen ! I traced it around and about Germany for more
than a year, at considerable 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 dol-
lars then ; gave it up, and dropped it out of my mind;
and most sorrowfully, fur I had wanted it for Kruger's son.

" Last night, when I 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 recognized it in a moment. Here
it is — I will translate it:

" Brick livery stable, stone foundation, middle of town, corner of
Orleans and Market. Corner toward Court-house. Third stone,
fourth 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 foundation, 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.

" Now I want to beg that when you make your intended
journey down the river, you will hunt out that hidden
money, and send it to Adam Kruger, care of the Mann-
heim address which I have mentioned. 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."

CHAPTER XXXII
THE DISPOSAL OF 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 excited and admiring ejaculations over the strange in-
cidents 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 revery. For ten minutes, now, there was still-
ness. Then Rogers said dreamily:

" Ten thousand dollars ! " Adding, after a considera-
ble pause :

"Ten thousand. It is a heap of money."

Presently the poet enquired :

" Are you going to send it to him right away? '

"Yes," I said. " It is a queer question."

No reply. After a little, Rogers asked hesitatingly :

" All of it ? That is— I mean-

" 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 any thing."

Presently the poet said :

"When you come to look at it, it is more than sufficient.
Just look at it — five thousand dollars ! Why, he couldn't

2.49

spend it in a lift-time ! And it would injure him, too;
perhaps ruin him — you want to look at that. In a little
while he would throw his last away, shut up his shop,
maybe take- to drinking, maltreat his motherless rhildrrn,
drift into other evil courses, go steadily from bad to
worse "

" Yes, that's it," interrupted Rogers fervently, ''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 you've got to do; and if it don't pull him down,
and take all the usefulness out of him, and all the self-
respect and every thing, then I don't know human nature
— ain't that so, Thompson ? And even if we were to give
him a thin! of it; why, in less than six months—

" Less than six weeks, you'd better say ! " said I, warm-
ing up and breaking in. "Unless he had that three
thousand dollars in safe hands where he couldn't touch
it, he would no more last you six weeks than-

" Of course he wouldn't! " said Thompson. " I've edited
books for that kind of people: and the moment they get
their hands on the royalty — maybe it's three thousand,
maybe it's two thousand

"What business has that shoemaker with two thousand
dollars, 1 should like to know?" broke in Rogers ear-
nestly. "A man perhaps perfectly 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 I lest ! — yes, I say blest ! above all the my-
riads that go in silk attire and walk the empty, artificial
round of social folly — but just you put that temptation
before him once! just you lay fifteen hundred dollars
before a man like that, and say "

"Fifteen hundred devils!" cried I. "Five hundred

250

would rot his principles, paralyze his industry, drag him
to the rumshop, thence to the gutter, thence to the alms-
house, thence to

" Why put upon ourselves this crime, gentlemen ? ': in-
terrupted the poet earnestly and appealingly. " He is
happy where he is, and as he is. Every sentiment of
honor, every sentiment of charity, every sentiment of
high and sacred benevolence warns us, beseeches us,
commands 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 set-
tlement of the matter. It was manifest that we all felt
that we ought to send the poor shoemaker something.
There was long and thoughtful discussion of this point,
and we finally decided to send him a chromo.

Well, now that every thing seemed to be arranged satis-
factorily to every-body 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.

I retorted that the idea would have occurred to me
plenty soon enough, and without any body's help. I was
slow about thinking, maybe, but I was sure.

This matter warmed up into a quarrel; then into a
fight; and each man got pretty badly battered. As soon

as I had got myself mended up after a fashion, I ascended
to the hurrieane deck in a pretty sour humor. 1 found
Captain M.Conl there, and said, as pleasantly as my
humor \vould permit :

"I have come to say good-l>y, captain. 1 wish to go
ashore at Napoleon."

" (io ashore where ? "

" Napoleon."

The captain laughed; but seeing that I was not in a
jovial mood, stopped that and said:

" But are you serious ?"

" Serious ? 1 certainly am."

The captain glanced up at the pilot-house and said:

" He wants to get off at Napoleon! '

"Napoleon?"

"That's what he says."

"Great Caesar's ghost!"

Uncle Mumford approached along the deck. The
captain said :

" Uncle, here's a friend of yours wants to get off at
Napoleon ! "

"Well, by - -!"

I said:

"Come, what is all this about ? Can't a man go ashore
at Napoleon, if he wants to?"

" \Vhy, hang it, don't you know ? There isnt 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 Mississippi! '

"Carried the whole town away? Banks, churches,
jails, newspaper offices, court-house, theatre, fire depart-
ment, livery stable — every thing?"

"Every thing! 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.

252

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 recognize
this country, don't you ? ''

" Yes, I do recognize it now. It is the most wonderful
thing I ever heard of; by a long shot the most wonder-
ful— 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 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, and the most accomplished, in the whole Mississippi
Valley; town where we were handed the first printed
news of the Pennsylvania's mournful disaster a quarter
of a century ago ; a town no more — swallowed up, van-
ished, gone to feed the fishes ; nothing left but a frag-
ment of a shanty and a crumbling brick chimney !

CHAPTER XXXIII

Kl.l RESHMEN1 S AND i. CHICS

Ix regard to Island 74, which is situated not far from
the fornuT Napoleon, a freak of the river here has sorely
]• rple.\ed the laws of men and made them a vanity and
a jot. When the State of Arkansas was chartered, she

.itrolled " to the centre of the river ' -a most unstable
line. The State of Mississippi claimed "to the chan-
nel ' —another shifty and unstable line. No. 74 belonged
to Arkansas. i'.y and by a cut-off threw this big island
out of Arkansas, and yet not within Mississippi. " Mid-
dle of the river " on one side of it, " channel " on the
other. That is as I understand the problem. Whether
I have got the details right or wrong, this/^Y remains:
that here is this big and exceedingly valuable island of
four thousand acres, thrust out in the cold, and belong-
ing 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
countrv. "

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 license, and
enriched himself upon Mississippi custom under Arkansas
protection (\vhere no license was in those days required).

We glided si ily down the river in the usual privacy —
steamboat or other moving thing seldom seen. Seen- TV
as always; stretch upon stretch of almost unbroken fon st
on both sides of the river; soundless solitude. Here and
there a cabin or two, standing in small openings on the

254

gray and grassless banks — cabins which had formerly
stood a quarter or half mile farther to the front, and
gradually been pulled farther and farther back as the
shores caved in. As at Pilcher's Point, for instance,
where the cabins had been moved 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, Miss.,
in the old times; but behold, Napoleon is gone to
the catfishes, 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 two million five hundred thousand
dollars annually. A growing town.

There was much talk on the boat about the Calhoun
Land Company, 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 laborers with provisions and necessaries at a trifling
profit, say eight or ten per cent. ; furnish them comfort-
able quarters, etc., and encourage them to save money and
remain on the place. If this proves a financial success,
as seems quite certain, they propose to establish a bank-
ing-house in Greenville, and lend money at an unburden-
some rate of interest — six 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 furnishes the

255

money takes some risk and demands big interest — usually

ten percent., and two and one-halt" per « cut. for negotiat-
ing the loan. The planter has als<> t<> buy his supplies
through the same dealer, paying commissions and profits.
Then when he ships his crop, the dealer adds his com-
misMons, insurance, etc. So, taking it brand large, and
lir>t and last, the dealer's share of that crop is about
twenty-five per cent.*

A cotton-planter's estimate of the average margin of
profit mi planting, in his section : One man and mule will
raise ten acres of cotton, giving ten bales cotton, worth,
say five hundred dollars; cost of producing, say three
hundred and fifty dollars; net profit, one hundred and
fifty dollars, or fifteen dollars per acre. There is also a
profit now from the cotton-seed, which formerly had little
value — none 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 twelve dollars or thirteen
dollars per ton. Maybe in future even the stems will not
be thrown away. Mr. Edward Atkinson says that for
each bale of cotton there are fifteen hundred 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 bone. Heretofore the stems have
been considered a nuisance.

Complaint is made that the planter remains grouty

' I'.ut \vhat can the State do where the people are under sul>k-ction to
rates of interest ranging from eighteen to thirty per cent., and are a
under the necessity of purchasing their crops in advance even of planting,
at these rates, for the privilege of purchasing all their Mipplie> at one
hundred per cent, prutit ? " — /:'</:;•• 7 ;•</ Atkinson.

256

toward the former slave, since the war; will have noth-
ing 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 negro'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, dissatisfied, 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 steamboat.

It is hoped that the Calhoun Company will show, by
its humane and protective treatment of its laborers, that
its method is the most 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
barkeeper testify ? He is thoughtful, observant, never
drinks; endeavors 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 any thing but
cotton"; believes they don't know how to raise vege-
tables and fruit — "at least the most of them." Says "a
nigger will go to H for a watermelon " (" H" is all I find
in the stenographer's report — means Halifax probably.

though that -.'in- a good way to go for a watermelon).

Barkeeper buys watermelons for five cents up the river,

brings them down ami sells them for fifty. "Why doi -
he mix such elaborate ami picturesque drinks for the
nigger hands on the boat?' Because they won't have
any Other. "They want a /'/- 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 brandv for live cents — will In- touch it? N

Ain't size enough to it. Hut you put up a pint of all
kinds of worthless rubbish, and heave in some red stu
to make it beautiful — red's the main tiling — 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. " H randy ? Yes, i
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 every body travelled by steam-
b«at, every body drank, and every body treated every
body else. " Now most every body goes by railroad, and
the rest don't drink." In the old times, the barkeeper
owned the bar himself, "and was gay and smarty and
talky and all jewelled up, and was the toniest aristocrat
on the boat; used to make two thousand dollars on a
trip. A father who left his son a steamboat bar, left him
a fortune. Now he leaves him board and lodging; \ S,
and washing if a shirt a trip will do. Yes, indeecly, 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."

CHAPTER XXXIV

TOUGH YARNS

STACK ISLAND. I remembered Stack Island; also
Lake Providence, La. — which is the first distinctly
Southern-looking town you come to, downward bound;
lies level and low, shade-trees hung with venerable gray-
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 con-
cerning 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 Vicksburg 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, he said that Arkansas had been
injured and kept back by generations of exaggerations
concerning the mosquitoes there. 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 immigration 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 formidable and lawless; whereas
" the truth is, they are feeble, insignificant in size, diffi-
dent to a fault, sensitive'1 —and so on, and so on; you
would have supposed he was talking about his family.

259

But if he was soft on the Arkansas m<>sqiiit<>rs, lie was
hard enough on the mosquitoes of Lake Providence to
make up for it — "those Lake Provide!)' e < olossi," 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 — "butcher
him," as he expressed it. Referred in a sort of casual
\\-ny — and yet significant way, to "the fact that the lit'--
policy in its simplest form is unknown in Lake Provi-
dence— they take out a mosquito policy besides." II<
told many remarkable things about those lawless insects.
Among others, said he had seen them try to vote. Notic-
ing 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 "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 interrupting with a
cold, inexorable "Wait — knock off twenty-five per cent,
of that; now go on; ' or, " Wait — you are getting that
too strong; cut it down, cut it down — you get a leetle
too much costumery on to your statements : always dress
a fact in tights, never in an ulster;' or, "Pardon, on e
more; if you are going to load any thing 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 the cold facts;
what these gentlemen want for a book is the frozen
truth — ain't that so, gentlemen ? " He explained privately
that it was necessary to watch this man all the time, and
keep him within bounds; it would not do to neglect this
precaution, as he, Mr. H., "knew to his sorrow." Said

26o

he, "I 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 re-
mained so for months, and people came miles to see me
fan myself with it."

CHAPTER \.\.\\
; nrkixc. TIIK TROUBL1

\\ \: used to plough past the lofty hill-city,
down-stream; but we cannot do that now. A CUt-off ha>
made a country town of it, like ( )sccola, St. ( imevievc,
and several others. There is currentless water — also a
big island — in front of Vicksburg now. You come down
the river the other 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 scars still remain, as reminders of Yicks-
burg's tremendous war-experiences; earthworks, trees
crippled by the cannon-balls, cave refuges in the clay
precipices, etc. The caves did good service during the
six weeks' bombardment of the city — May 18 to July ^,
1863. They were used by the non-combatants — mainly by
the women and children; not to live in constantly, but to
fly to for safety on occasion. They were mere hoi
tunnels driven into the perpendicular clay bank, then
branched Y shape, within the hill. Life 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 gunbo;r
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 coming one;
no printed acres of world-wide news to be read at break-
fast, mornings — a tedious dull absence of such matter,

262

instead; hence, also, no running to see steamboats smok-
ing 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 pas-
sengers by noisy mobs of hackmen — all quiet there; flour
two hundred dollars a barrel, sugar thirty, corn ten
dollars a bushel, bacon five dollars a pound, rum a hun-
dred dollars a gallon, other things in proportion ; con-
sequently, no roar and racket of drays and carriages
tearing along the streets; nothing for them to do, among
that handful of non-combatants of exhausted means; at
three o'clock in the morning, silence — silence so dead
that the measured tramp of a sentinel can be heard a
seemingly impossible distance; out of hearing of this
lonely sound, perhaps the stillness is absolute : all in a
moment come ground-shaking thunder-crashes of artillery,
the sky is cobwebbed with the criss-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 scurrying from home and bed toward the cave
dungeons — encouraged by the humorous grim soldiery,
who shout "Rats, to your holes! " and laugh.

The cannon-thunder rages, shells scream and crash
overhead, the iron rain pours down, one hour, two hours,
three, possibly six, then stops; silence follows, but the
streets are still empty; the silence continues; by and by
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 themselves about, stretch their cramped limbs,
draw in deep draughts of the grateful fresh air, gossip
with the neighbors from the next cave; maybe straggle

263

i. ft" home presently, or take- a loiin-c through tin- town, if
th<- stillness continues; and will scurry to the holes again,
by and by, when the war-tempest breaks forth once

There being but three thousand of these cave-dwellers-
nierely the population of a village — would they not CO1
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 ?

Those are the materials furnished by history. l-'rom
them might not almost any body reproduce for himself
the life of that time in Vicksburg ? Could you, who did
not experience it, come nearer to reproducing it to the
imagination of another non-participant than could a
Vicksburger who did experience it ? It seems impossible;
and yet there are reasons why it might not really lie.
When one makes his first voyage in a ship, it is an experi-
ence which multitudinously bristles with striking novel-
ties; novelties which are in such sharp contrast with all
this person's former experiences that they take a seem-
ingly 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 ? If he make ten
voyages in succession — what then ? Why, the thing has
lost color, 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 st<>ry
in their own way, those people told it without fire, almost
without interest.

A week of their wonderful life there would have made
their tongues eloquent forever perhaps; but they had six
weeks of it, and that wore the novelty all out; they got

264

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, any way. We hadn't any thing to do, and time hung
heavy. Seven Sundays, 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 afterward. 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 afterward, when she was running for the holes, one morn-
ing, through a shell-shower, a big shell burst near her and covered
her all over with dirt, and a piece of 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 burst-
ing close over us, we stopped talking and stood still ; uncomfort-
able, yes, but it wasn't safe to move. When it let go, we went on
talking again, if nobody was hurt — maybe saying, " 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 ! " 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 to do, and wait and make certain ; and after that
they sa'ntered 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
nun h. laments and unbursted shells in his neighborhood, 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 shivered out. Windows of the houses vacant — looked
like eyeholes in a skull. //'/v/v panes were as scarce as news.

We had church Sundays. Not many there, along at first ; but
by and by pretty good turnouts. I've seen service stop a minute,
and every body sit quiet — no voice heard, pretty funeral-like then-
ami all the more so on account of the awful boom and crash going
on outside 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 combination —
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 friend I hadn't seen
for a while, and saying, " Drop into our cave to-night, after bom-
bardment ; 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
memory, and outlast every thing else, little and big, I reckon, is the
mean thought I had then ? It was " 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.

Sometimes the caves were desperately crowded, and always hot
and close. Sometimes a cave had twenty or twenty-five people
ked into it ; no turning-room for any body; air so foul, some-
times, 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 born in a trunk.

Twice we had sixteen people in our cave ; and a number of
times we had a do/en. 1'retty suffocating in there. We always
had eight ; eight belonged 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

irs. One night a shell burst in front of the hole and caved it in

266

and stopped it up. It was lively times, for a while, digging out,
Some of us came near smothering. After that we made two open-
ings— 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 ; any thing is good when you are starving.

This man had kept a diary during — six weeks? No,
only the first six days. The first day, eight close 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, full of
the picturesque. Vicksburg held 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 IN PEACE l6,6oo WHO DIED FOR THEIR
COUNTRY IN THE YEARS l86l 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. Every thing about this
cemetery suggests the hand of the national Government.
The Government's work is always conspicuous for excel-

267

lence, solidity, thoroughness, neatness. The (iovern-
ment docs its work well in the first place, and thru tak
care of it.

By winding roads — which were often cut to so -rcat
a depth between perpendicular walls that they were mere
rootless tunnels — we drove out a mile or two and visited
the monument which stands upon the scene of the
surrender of Yicksburg to General (irant by deneral
rcmberton. Its metal will preserve it from the hai kings
and chippings which so defaced its predecessor, which
was of marble; but the brick foundations are crumbling,
and it will tumble down by and by. It overlooks a
picturesque region of wooded hills and ravines; and is
not unpicturesque itself, being well smothered in flower-
ing weeds. The battered remnant of the marble monu-
ment has been removed to the National Cemetery.

On the road, a quarter of a mile townward, an aged
colored man showed us, with pride, an unexploded bomb-
shell which had lain in his yard since the day it fell there
during the siege.

"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 youseff at home heah;
lay still whah you is, or bust up de place, jes' as you's
a mind to, but /'s got business out in de woods, /has!'

Yicksburg is a town of substantial business streets
and pleasant residences; it commands the commerce of
the Yazoo and Sunflower Rivers; is pushing railways in
several directions, through rich agricultural regions, and
has a promising future of prosperity and importance.

Apparently, nearly all the river towns, big and little,
have made up their minds that they must look mainly t<>
railroads for wealth and upbuilding, henceforth. They
are acting upon this idea. The signs are that the next
twenty years will bring about some noteworthy changes

268

in the Valley, in the direction of increased population
and wealth, and in the intellectual advancement and the
liberalizing 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 passen-
gers. 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 effect-
ively discouraged it. They could have had many boats
and low rates; but their policy rendered few boats and
high rates compulsory. It was a policy which ex-
tended— and extends — from New Orleans to St. Paul.

We had a strong desire to make a trip up the Yazoo
and the Sunflower — 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 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 conversa-
tion 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
talk about dreams and superstitions; and ended, after
midnight, in a dispute over free trade and protection.

CHAPTER XXXVI

TIIK PROFESSOR'S YARN

IT was in the early days. I was not a college pmU:-
thcn. I was a humble-minded young land-surveyor, with
the world before me — to survey, in • .my body wanted
it done. I had a eontraet 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 appetit-
There were three professional gamblers on board — rough,
repulsive fellows. I never had any talk with them, y
1 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. -ides, there was some-
thing engaging in his countrified simplicity and his beam-
ing 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

270

dropped into his personal history, and I discovered that
he was a cattle-raiser from interior Ohio, I was so pleased
with my own penetration that I warmed toward him for
verifying my instinct.

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
every thing about his business, his prospects, his family,
his relatives, his politics — in fact every thing that con-
cerned a Backus, living or dead. And meantime I think
he had managed to get out of me every thing 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 enquired what it
meant; I explained. After that he quietly and inoffen-
sively 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 his affectionate tongue. I tramped along in
voiceless misery while 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 some-
what of diffidence :

"Triangle, would you mind coming down to my state-
room a minute and have a little talk on a certain matter ? "

I went with him at once. Arrived there, he put his
head out, glanced up and down the saloon warily, then

closed tin- door and locked it. We sat down on tli
and lie said :

"I'm a-^cin^ to make a little proposition to you, and
if it strikes you favorable, it '11 be a middling <n><,d tiling
for both of us. You ain't a-i^'in.^ out to Californy for
fun, nuther am I — it's fa/si/it'ss, ain't that so? Well, you

:i do nil.- a X'M d turn, and so can 1 you, if we s«-e lit.
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 bag 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 any thing improper in his prop-
-ition. So I hastened to console him and lead him on
to forget his mishap in a conversational orgy about cattle
and butchery. \Ve were lying at Acapulco, and as we

272

went on deck it 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.

" Now, only look at that ! " cried he. " My goodness,
Triangle, what would they say to it in Ohio? 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, — and Backus knew them all, and had afflicted
them all with his pet topic. As I 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 warn't raised
to it, and I ain't a-going to resk it."

I felt relieved. " His level head will be his sufficient
protection," I said to myself.

During the fortnight's run from Acapulco to San Fran-
cisco 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 ! 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 by, in due course, we were approaching San
Francisco. It was an ugly, black night, with a strong
wind blowing, but there was not much sea. I was on

273

deck al«nr. Toward ten 1 started bciow. A figure
issued from the gamblers' den and disappear^! in the
darkness. I experienced a sho< k, for 1 was sure it was
I1- n kus. 1 tlew down the companion-way, looked about
• r him, could not find him, then returned to the d<
just in time to catch a glimpse of him as he . d

tiiat confounded nest of rascality. Had he yielded at
last? I feared it. What had lie gone below for? His
bag of coin? Possibly. I drew near the door, full of
It was u-crack, and 1 glanced in and saw a

Jit 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 believed he would drink it if it was
spirits, it was so good and so ahead of any thing he had
r run across before. Surreptitious smiles at this
passed from one rascal to another, and they filled all the
glasses, and while 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. T.iit no, my uneasy spirit kept dragging me back
at quarter-hour intervals, and always I saw Iktckus drink-
ing his wine — fairly and squarely, and the others throwing
theirs away. It was the painfulest night I ever spent.

The only hope I had was that we might rca< h our
anchorage 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
glanced in. Alas ! there was small room for hope —
18

274

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, while the
cards were being dealt.

He took his hand, glanced at it, and his dull eyes lit up
f jr a moment. The gamblers observed it, and showed
their gratification by hardly perceptible signs.

" How many cards ? '

" None ! " said Backus.

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.

Backus went twenty better. Wiley said :

"I see that, and go you a hundred better ! " then smiled
and reached for the money.

" Let it alone," said Backus, with drunken gravity.

"What ! you mean to say you're going to cover it ? '

"Cover it ? Well, I reckon I am — and lay another hun-
dred 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 ? " said Wiley.

" Five hundred better ! " 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 exclamations came thick and fast, and the yellow
pyramid grew higher and higher. At last ten thousand
dollars lay in view. Wiley cast a bag of coin on the
table, and said with mocking gentleness :

275

"Five thousand dollars betl . my fricm
rural districts — what d i say now?"

"I i'ii// you !" said i'.ackus, heaving hi- sh-'t-

bag oil the pile. " What have- ;.

"Four kin^s, you d- — d fool!' and \Viley thr
down his cards and undcd the stakes with his arm>.

•• Four ates, you ass ! " thundered ,",a» kus, <o\-< ring !
in in with a cocked revolver. " r in a prof essional gambler
\ and I've been laying for you duffers all thh

I 'i-wn went the anchor, rumbledy-dum-dum ! and the
tri;< was ended.

\Vell, well — it is a sad world. One of the three

lers was Dackus's "pal." It was he that dealt th
fateful liaiids. .\ecordin^ to an understanding with th-j
tw» victims, he was to have given llackus four queens,
but alas ! he didn't.

A week later 1 stumbled upon Backus — arrayed in
at of fashion — in Montgomery Street. He said
cheerily, as we were parting :

" Ah, by the way. you m-rdn't mind about those gores.
I don't really know any thing about cattle, except what
I v.as able to pick up in a week's apprenticeship over
in. Jersey, just before- we sailed. My cattle-culture and
- :uhusiasm have served their turn — I sha'n't need
them anv more."

Next day we nlivtantly parted from the Gold Dust
and her ofhcers, hoping to see that boat and all those
officers again, SOUK- day. A thing which the fates were
to render tragi( ally impossible '

CHAPTER XXXVII
THE END OF THE "GOLD DUST'

FOR, three months later, August 8, while I was writing
one of these foregoing chapters, the New York papers
brought this telegram :

"A TERRIBLE DISASTER.

"SEVENTEEN PERSONS KILLED BY AN EXPLOSION ON THE STEAMER

' GOLD DUST.'

"NASHVILLE, August 7. — A despatch from Hickman,
Ky., says :

" The steamer Gold Dust exploded her hollers at three o'clock
to-day, just after leaving Hickman. Forty-seven persons were
scalded and seventeen 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 pas-
sengers were taken ashore and removed to the hotels and resi-
dences. 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."

A list of the names followed, whereby it appeared that
of the seventeen dead, one was the barkeeper; and among
the forty-seven wounded were the captain, chief mate,
second mate, and second and third clerks; also Mr. Lem.
S. Gray, pilot, and several members of the crew.

In answer to a private telegram we learned that none
of these was severely hurt, except Mr. Gray. Letters
received afterward confirmed 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 companion-
able and manly man, and worthy of a kindlier fate.

CHAITKK XXXVIII
Mil HOUSE BEAU ni-TL

\\'i, took • • in a rii\'-innui.i boat for New Orleans;

or en a Cim innali boat — cither is correct; the former is
the eastern form of putting it, the latter the western.

Mr. Dickens dec-lined to agree that the Mi- ->pi

its were " magnifuvnt," or that i \\ < re

" floating palaces," — terms which had always !».. plii d

to them; terms which did not over-express the admiration

with which the people viewed them.

Mr. Dickens'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
pe< compared them with what t/icy had - en; > nd,
thus measured, thus judged, the boats were magnifi-
cent— the term was the correct one, it was not at all too
st; The people were as right as was Mr. Dickens.

The steamboat! were finer than any thing on shore.
O <mpared with superior dwelling-houses and first class
hotels in the Valley, they were indubitably magnificent,
they were " palaces." To a few people living in New
Orleans and St. Louis they were not magnificent, per-
haps; not palaces; but to the great majority of th >e
populations, and to the entire populations spread over
both banks between ]5aton Rouge and St. Louis, they
were palaces; they tallied with the citizen's dream of
what magnificence was, and satisfied it.

273

Every town and village along that vast stretch of
double river-frontage had a best dwelling, finest dwell-
ing, mansion — the home of its wealthiest and most con-
spicuous citizen. It is easy to describe 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 — discolored, for lack of polish-
ing. Within, an uncarpeted hall, of planed boards; open-
ing out of it, a parlor, fifteen feet by fifteen — in some
instances five or ten feet larger; ingrain carpet; maho-
gany centre-table; lamp on it, with green-paper shade —
standing on a gridiron, so to speak, made of high-colored
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 unchange-
able 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;'1 maybe "Ivan-
hoe;" 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

279

basket of peachi > and other fruits, natural size, ail do
in plaster, rudely, or in wax, and paint«-d to resemble the
originals — which they don't. Over middle of mantel,
engraving — Washington Crossing the Delaware; on thc
wall by the door, ropy of it done in thmidcr-aiid-light-
ning crewels by one of the young ladies — work oi ,.rt
which would have made Washington hesitate about cross-
ing, if he could have foreseen what advantaj < was Li"ing
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; Rosin
the Bow; Marseillaise Hymn; On a Lone Barren Isle (St.
ib-l'/na); The Last Link is P-roken; She wore a Wreath
s the Night when Last We Met; Go, Forget
Me, Why Should Sorrow o'er that Brow a Shadow Fling;
IF'iirs there Were to Memory Dearer; Long, Long Ago;
Days of Absence; A Life on the Ocean Wave, a Home
on the Rolling Deep; BirdatSea; and spread open on the
rack, where the plaintive singer has left it, AVholl on,
silver w^-hoon, guide the/r^z'-el-lerr hisTivn-1, 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 colored yarns, sometimes in
faded grasses; progenitor of the ''God Bless Our He/me"
<if modern commerce. Framed in black mouldings on
the wall, other works of art, conceived and committed on
the premises, by the young ladies; being grim black-and-
white crayons; landscapes, mostly: lake, solitary sail-
boat, petrified clouds, pre-geological trees on shore,
anthracite precipice; name of criminal conspicuous in
the corn Lithograph, Napoleon Crossing 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 k< ck, and

280

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 mamma,
blue ribbons fluttering from its neck; the young ladies,
as children, in slippers and scalloped pantalettes, one
embracing toy horse, the other beguiling kitten with ball
of yarn, and both simpering up at mamma, 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 back-
ground 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 corner, the
shelves occupied chiefly with bric-a-brac of the period,
disposed with an eye to best effect : shell, with the
Lord's Prayer carved on it; another shell — 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 Washington'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 bric-a-brac : Californian

" specimens " — quartz, with gold wart adhering; old
Guinea-gold locket, with circlet of ancestral hair in it;
Indian arrow-heads, of flint; pair of bead moccasins, from
uncle who crossed the Plains; three "alum " baskets of
various colors — being skeleton-frame of wire, clothed-on
with cubes of crystallized alum in the rock-candy style —
works of art which were achieved by the young ladies;
their doubles and duplicates to be found upon all what-
nots in the land ; convention of desiccated bugs and
butterflies pinned to a card; painted toy-dog, seated upon
bellows-attachment — drops its under jaw and squeaks
when pressed upon; sugar-candy rabbit — limbs and

23r

features merged together, not strongly defined; p< ' »
presidential-campaign medal ; miniature card-board \v<x
sawyer, to be attached to the stove-pipe and operated by

the heat; small Napoleon, done in wax; spread-open
dagu types of dim children, parents, cousins, aim'

and friends, in all attitudes but customary ones; I
templed portico at back, and manufactured landscape
hing 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 uncom-
fortable in inflexible Sunday clothes of a pattern which
the spectator cannot realize could ever have been in
fashion; husband ami wife generally grouped together —
husband sitting, wife standing, with hand on his shoul-
der— and both preserving, all these fading years, some
traceable effect of the daguerreotypist's brisk "Now
smile, if you please!' Bracketed over what-not — place
of special sacredness — an outrage in water-color, done by
the young niece that came on a visit long 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
colors. Lambrequins dependent from gaudy boxings of
beaten tin, gilded. Bedrooms with rag carpets; bed-
steads of the " corded " sort, with a sag in the middle, the
rds 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. Not a bathroom in the house;
and no visitor likely to come along who has ever seen one.

282

That was the residence of the principal citizen, all the
way from the suburbs of New Orleans to the edge of St.
Louis. When he stepped aboard a big fine steamboat, he
entered a new and marvellous 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 filigree work of
fanciful patterns; gilt acorns topping 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 and
oil-picture on every state-room door; curving patterns of
filigree-work touched up with gilding, stretching over-
head all down the converging vista; big chandeliers every
little way, each an April shower of glittering glass-drops;
lovely rainbow-light falling everywhere from the colored
glazing of the skylights; the whole a long-drawn, resplen-
dent 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 unhanged, at
that day — Bridal Chamber whose pretentious flummery
was necessarily overawing to the now tottering intellect
of that hosannahing citizen. Every state-room had its
couple of cosey clean bunks, and perhaps a looking-glass
and a snug closet; and sometimes there was even a wash-
bowl and pitcher, and part of a towel which could be told
from mosquito netting by an expert — though generally
these things were absent, and the shirt-sleeved passen-
gers cleansed themselves at a 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

283

•u have her in her highest and finest, and most pleasing,
::ntl comfortable, and satisfactory estate. N«\v cake h<-r
over with a layer of ancient and obdurate dirt, and you
have tlu- Cincinnati steamer awhile a-'" referred to.
all over — only inside; for she was ably officered in all
irtments except the steward's.

I'.ut 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
\vrst has undergone no change; neither has steamboat
furniture and ornamentation undergone any.

CHAPTER XXXIX
MANUFACTURES AND MISCREANTS

WHERE the river, in the 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
neighbor, Delta, La., 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 by, and completely hide the exiled
town.

In due time we passed Grand Gulf and Rodney, of war
fame, and reached Natchez, the last of the beautiful hill-
cities — for Baton Rouge, yet to come, is not on a hill,
but only on high ground. Famous Natchez-under-the-
hill has not changed notably in twenty years; in outward
aspect — judging by the descriptions of the ancient pro-
cession 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, carous-
ing, 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 (1827) had to confess its charms :

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 beautifully 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 every side, the abundant i;io\vth of
the paw-paw, palmetto, and orange, the copious variety of sweet-
scented flowers that flourish there, all make it appear like 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.
\Yith the exception of this sweet spot, I thought all the little towns
and villages we passed wretched-looking in the extreme.

Natchex, like her near and far river neighbors, 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 Vicksburg and New
Orleans, she has her ice-factory; she makes thirty tons
of ice a day. In Yicksburg and Natchez, in my time, ice
was jewelry; none but the rich could wear it. Hut any-
body and every-body 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 por-
celain— they merely seemed to be; they were 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: but it did
not melt; the inside 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

:ses were applied to the water in some way which will
always remain a secret to me, because I was not able to
understand the process. While the water in the l>.»xes

286

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. ,1 was told that this factory could
retail its ice, by wagon, throughout New Orleans, in the
humblest dwelling house quantities, at six or seven dollars
a ton, and make a sufficient profit. This being 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 a'nd fifty pounds at a delivery.

The Rosalie Yarn Mill, of Natchez, has a capacity of
6000 spindles and 160 looms, and employs 100 hands.
The Natchez Cotton Mills Company began operations
four years ago in a two-story building of 50X190 feet,
with 4000 spindles and 128 looms; capital $105,000, all
subscribed in the town. Two years later, the same stock-
holders 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 of Natchez. " The mill
works 5000 bales of cotton annually and manufactures
the best standard quality of brown shirtings and sheetings
and drills, turning out 5,000,000 yards of these goods per

28;

\v;ir.":i: A close corporation — stork held at $5000
share, but none in the market.

The changes in the Mississippi River are great and
Strange, yet were to be expe< t' d; l)ut 1 was not expect-
ing to li\v to see Natchez and these other river i
become manufacturing strongholds and railway centres.

Speaking of manufactures reminds me of a talk upon
that topic which 1 heard — which 1 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 inunda-
tion. 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 inunda-
tion 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 ostensible 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? butter, ain't it ? Not by a thun-
dering sight — it's oleomargarine ! Yes, sir, that's what
it is— oleomargarine. You can't tell it from butter; 1 y
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 alon.^-
right along is the word. We are going to have
tnat entire trade. Yes, and the hotel trade, too. You

* Xc\v Orleans Times-Democrat, August 26, lSS2.

288

are 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 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 busi-
ness 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 :

"Yes, it's a first-rate imitation, that's a certainty; but
it ain't the only one around that's first-rate. For in-
stance, they make olive-oil out of cotton-seed oil, nowa-
days, so that you can't tell them apart."

"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, examine the
bottles, inspect the labels. One of 'm's from Europe,
the other's never been out of this country. One's Euro-
pean olive-oil, the other's American cotton-seed olive-

oil. Tell 'in apart:1 '('.MIT a can't. Nobody can,

1'eop].- that \vuiit to, Can go to tli'' c xpe ns • a ml trouble
of shipping their oils to Kiirop-- and back — it's their
privii '.uit our firm knows a trick \vorth six of that.

We turn out the whole tiling — clean from the word
in our factory in N'ew (>rlcans: labels, bottles, oil, every-
thii Well, no, not labels: been buying tlit'in abroad-

gct till-in dirt-cheap there. You SCC there's just 01
little woe speck, essence, or whatever it is, in a gallon
cotton-seed oil, that gives it a smell, or a flavor, 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 anybody 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 — undetect-
able ! We are doing a ripping trade, too — as I could
easily show you by my order-book for this trip. Maybe
you'll butter every-body's bread pretty soon, but we'll
cotton-seed his salad for him from the Gulf to Canada,
that's a dead-certain thing."

Cincinnati glowed and flashed with admiration. The
two scoundrels exchanged business-cards, and rose. A.S
they left the table, Cincinnati said:

" Hut you have to have custom-house marks, don't
you ? How do you manage that ?"

I did not catch the answer.

\Ye passed Port Hudson, scene of two of the most
terrific episodes of the war — the night-battle there 1 -
tween Farragut's fleet and the Confederate land batteri- 5,
April 14, 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 repulse of the Union forces with great
slaughter.

CHAPTER XL
CASTLES AND CULTURE

BATON ROUGE was clothed in flowers, like a bride —
no, much more so; like a greenhouse. For we were in
the absolute South now — no modifications, no compro-
mises, 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 bed-
room blossoms — they might suffocate 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 to-
gether 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 New 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 mediae-
val romances. The South has not yet recovered from
the debilitating influence of his books. Admiration of
his fantastic heroes and their grotesque "chivalry'
doings and romantic juvenilities still survives here, in an
atmosphere in which is already perceptible the \vhole-

29 1

some and practical nineteenth-century smell of <ou<>n-
tories and loc<>m"tiv<-s; ;ind traces of its inflated
language and other windy htimbuggeries survive along
with it. It is pathetie enough that a whitewashed castle,
with turrets and things, — materials all un-enuine within
and without, pretending to be what they are not,-
should ever have been built in this otherwise honorable
place; but it is much more pathetic to see this archi-
tectural falsehood undergoing restoration and perpetua-
tion 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 some-
thing genuine.

llaton Rouge has no patent on imitation castles, how-
ever, and no monopoly of them. The following remark
is from the advertisement of the " Female Institute' of
Columbia, Tenn.

The Institute building has long been fnmed as a model of
striking and beautiful architecture. Visitors are charmed with its
resemblance to the 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 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

2Q2

shorter, and means the same thing: that is, if either
phrase means any thing at all:

The president is Southern by birth, by rearing, by education,
and by sentiment ; the teachers are all Southern in sentiment, and
with the exception of those born in Europe were born and raised
in the South. Believing the Southern to be the highest type of
civilization this continent has seen,* the young ladies are trained
according to the- Southern ideas of delicacy, refinement, woman-
hood, 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 compla-
cent a blast as that, probably blows it from a castle.

From Baton Rouge to New Orleans, the great sugar
plantations border both sides of the river all the way,

* Illustrations of it thoughtlessly omitted by the advertiser :
" KNOXVILLE, TENN., October 19. — 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. Mabry
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 him 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
deliberate aim at General Mabry 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

293

and stretch their league-wide levels back to the dim
forest- walls of bearded cypress in the rear. Sho:
lonely no longer. Plenty of dwellings all the way, on
both banks — standing SO cl blether, for lon^ dis-

tances, that the bread river lyin.n" between the two rows
becomes a sort of spacious street. A most homelike
and happy-looking re-ion. And n«w and tin n you
a pillared and pi rticoed ^reat manor house, embowered
in tre< 11- re is testimony of one or two of the. pro>

tl of foreign tourists that filed alon^ here half a c. 11-
tury ago. Mrs. Trollope says :

The unbroken flatness of the banks of the Mississippi con-
tinued unvaried for many miles above New Orleans ; but '
graceful and luxuriant palmetto, the dark and noble ilex, and the

heart. The instant M !iot, O'Connor turned and iired, the

load takhv in young Mabry's right breast and side. Mabry fell,

pienvd with twenty buckshot, and almost instantly O'Connor fell dead
without a struggle. Mabry tried to rise, but fell back dead. The whole
tragedy occurred within two minutes, and neither of the three sj oke
after he was shot. General Mabry had about thirty buckshot in his body.
A bystander was painfully wounded in the thigh with a buckshot, ami
another was wounded in the arm. Four other men had their clothing
1'ierced by buckshot. The affair caused great excitement, 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 Don Lusby, father and son, whom they killed a few weeks
Will Mabry was killed by Don ! last Christmas. Major

Thomas O'Connor w • 'it of the Mechanics' National Bank here,

and the wealthiest man in the State." — Associate/ /Vr.o- 7'tl,-^ram.

One day last month Professor Sharpe of the Somerville, Tenn.,
Female C . " a quiet and gentlemanly man," was told that his

brother-in-law, a Captain I'.urton, had threatened to kill him. I'.urton,
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 brair.s out. The Monphis Ara>
that the profe — r*s course met with pretty general approval in the com-

294

bright orange, were everywhere to be 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 exceed-
ingly thriving air to the river sdenery.

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 " of the houses. The whitewash is gone from

4 .

munity ; 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 quarrelled
about a girl, and "hostile messages" were exchanged. Friends tried
to reconcile them, but had their labor for their pains. On the 24th the
young men met in the public highway. One of them had a heavy club
in his hand, the other an axe. The man with the club fought desper-
ately for his life, but it was a hopeless fight from the first. A well-
directed blow sent his club whirling out of his grasp, and the next
moment he was a dead man.

About the same time, two " highly connected " young Virginians,
clerks in a hardware store at Charlottesville, while " skylarking," came
to blows. Peter Dick threw pepper in Charles Roads's eyes ; Roads
demanded an apology ; 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 us. He "expressed deep regret,"
and we are told by a Staunton correspondent of the Philadelphia Press
that "every effort has been made to hush the matter up." — Extracts
from the Public Journals.

205

the negro cabins now; and many, possibly most of the
' i^- mansions, once so shining white, have worn out their
paint and have a decayed, tiegle< ted 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
b, .-n in iSj;, as des< ribed by those tourists.

Unfortunate tourist- '. People humbugged them with
stupid and silly lies, and then laughed at them for
believing and printing the same. They told Mrs. Trol-
lope that the alligators — or crocodiles, as she calls them-
were terrible creatures; and backed up tin- statement
v ith 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 reception which the book of the
grave, honest, intelligent, gentle, manly, charitable, well-
meaning Captain Basil Hall got. Mrs. Trollope's account
of it may perhaps entertain the reader: therefore 1 have
:nit it in the Appendix.*

* See Appendix C

CHAPTER XLI
THE METROPOLIS OF THE SOUTH

THE approaches to New Orleans were familiar; general
aspects were unchanged. When one goes flying through
London along a railway propped in the air on tall arches,
he may inspect miles of upper bedrooms through the
open windows, but the lower half of the houses is under
his level and out of sight. Similarly, in high-river stage,
in the New Orleans region, the water is up to the top of
the enclosing levee-rim, the flat 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
destruction.

The old brick salt-warehouses clustered at the upper
end of the city looked as they had always looked: ware-
houses which had had a kind of Aladdin's lamp experi-
ence, 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 suddenly and to so dizzy a height
had the war news sent up the price of the article.

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

297

increased in spre;;d and population, but the look
of the- town was not altered. The dust, wastC-paper-
littercd, was still deep in the streets; the drrp-trnugh-
like gutters along the curb-stones were still half full

••fill water with a dusty surface; the sidewalks were
still — in the su^ar and bacon re-ion — encumbered by

•ks and barrels and hoj is; the great blocks of

austerely plain commercial houses T as dusty-looking

ever.

1 inal Street was liner, and more attractive and stirring

than formerly, with its drifting crowds of people, its

era! processions of hurrying street-cars, and — toward

( veiling — its broad second-story verandas crowded with

ntlemen and ladies clothed according to the latent
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 United States Custom-house —

-tly enough, genuine enough, but as to decoration it is
inferior to a gasometer. It looks like a state prison.
Hut it was built before the war. Architecture in Amer-
ica may be said to have been born 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
would be able to tell the "burnt district" by the
radical improvement in its architecture over the old
as. One can do this in Boston and Chicago. The
" burnt district" of Boston was commonplace before the
fire; 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 tastefulness.

2g3

Uowever, New Orleans has begun — just this moment,
as one may say. When completed, the new Cotton
Exchange will be a stately and beautiful building : mas-
sive, substantial, full of architectural graces; no shams
or false pretences or uglinesses about it anywhere. 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 suggester^ so to speak.

The city is well outfitted with progressive men —
thinking, sagacious, long-headed men. The contrast
between the spirit of the city and the city's architecture
is like the contrast between waking and sleep. Appar-
ently there is a "boom" in every thing but that one
dead feature. The water in the gutters used to be stag-
nant 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 sani-
tary 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 every-body, 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 neighboring
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 organized — and inviting modern-
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 1 r<
ber them, were not a striking feature. Now they are.
Money is spent upon them with a free hand. Tiny L,rei
tlie news, let it eost what it may. The editorial work is
not hack-grinding, but literatur As an example of Ne\\
( Orleans journali^tie achievement, it may be mentioned
that the 'I'hnes- Dttiu>crat of August 26, iSSj, contained a
rep 'H of the year's business of the towns of the Missis-

>\>\ Valley, from New Orleans all the way to St. Paul —

thousand miles. That issue of the paper consisted

of /,>/Yr pa.^'es; seven columns to the jxi^e; two hundred

and eighty columns in all; fifteen hundred words to the

iumn: an aggregate of four hundred and twenty thou-
sand words. That is to say, not much short of three
times as many words as are in this book. One may
with sorrow contrast this with the architecture of New
Orleans.

1 have been speaking of public architecture only. The
domestic article in New Orleans is reproachless, notwith-
standing 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 in the wealthy
quarter are spacious ; painted snow-white usually, and
generally have wide verandas, or double-verandas, sup-
ported by ornamental columns. These mansions stand
in the centre of large grounds, and rise, garlanded with
roses, out of the midst of swelling masses of shining
en foliage and many-colored blossoms. No houses
i ould well be in better harmony with their surroundings,
or more pleasing to the eye, or more home-like and com-
fortable-looking.

One even becomes reconciled to the 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 sug-

300

gestion about the combination which seems very incon-
gruous at first. But the people cannot have wells, and
so they take rain-water. Neither can they conveniently
have cellars or graves,* the town being built upon
4 'made" ground; so they do without both, and few of
the living complain, and none of the others.

* The Israelites are buried in graves — by permission, I take it, not
requirement; but none else, except the destitute, who are buried at public
expense. The graves are but three or four feet deep.

ClIAl'TKK XI. I I
}iv«,li M AND SEVTIMJ

Tur.v bury their dead in vaults, above the ground.
The si- vaults have a resemblance to houses — sometimes
to temples; are built of marble, generally; are architec-
turally graceful and shapely; they face the walks and
driveways of the cemetery; and when one moves 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 " 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 admira-
tion 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 but 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 junction of the cross's bars —
kind of sorrowful breastpin, 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 for

302

you, and keep it in mind better than you can; stands
weather first-rate, and lasts like boiler-iron.

On sunny days, pretty little chameleons — gracefullest
of legged reptiles — creep along the marble fronts of the
vaults, and catch flies. Their changes of color — as to
variety — are not up to the creature's reputation. They
change color 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 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, five 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 century-
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 prin-

303

cipal of what they owe — they pay none »t the interest
either simple or compound. A Saint can never t/nife
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 pollut-
ing the waters, with not only the germs that rise from simply
putrefaction, but 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.

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 reap-
pearance 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. Cooper, in explaining the causes
of some epidemics, remarks that the opening of the plague burial-
grounds at Eyam resulted in an immediate outbreak of disease.—
North American Review, Xo. 3, J'c>/. 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 :

One and one-fourth times more money is expended annually
in funerals in the United States than the Government expends
for public-school purposes. Funerals cost this country in 1880

304

enough money to pay the liabilities of all the commercial failures
in the United States during the same year, and give each bankrupt
a capital of eight thousand six hundred and thirty dollars with
which to resume business. Funerals cost annually more money
than the value of the combined gold and silver yield of the
United States in the year 1880. These figures do not include
the sums invested in burial-grounds and expended in tombs and
monuments, nor the loss from depreciation of property in the
vicinity of cemeteries.

For the rich, cremation would answer as well as burial;
for the ceremonies connected with it could be made as
costly and ostentatious as a Hindoo suttee j 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 by. The adoption of
cremation would relieve us of a muck of threadbare
burial-witticisms; but, on the other hand, it would resur-
rect a lot of mildewed old cremation-jokes that have had
a rest for two thousand years.

I have a colored acquaintance who earns his living by
odd jobs and heavy manual labor. He never earns above
four hundred dollars in a year, and as he has a wife and
several young children, the closest scrimping is necessary
to get him through to the end of the twelve months debt-
less. To such a man a funeral is a colossal financial
disaster. While I was writing one of the preceding
chapters, 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 him 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.

* Four or five dollars is the minimum cost.

CHAPTER XI. Ill
Till ART <>F INHUMATION

tin- same time I encountered a man in the
street whom I had not seen for six or seven years; and
something like this talk followed. 1 said:

" Uut you used t«» look sad and oldish; you don't now.
Where did you gL-t all this youth and bubbling cheerful-
ness ? (live 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 lettered on it, and went on chuckling
while I read, "J. 1!., 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.
No, sir, 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 //
l<>ok at the thing! I've worked up a business here that
would satisfy any man, don't care who he is. Five years
>, lodged in an attic; live a swell house now, with a
mansard roof, and all the modern inconvenient.

306

" Does a coffin pay so well ? Is there much profit on a
Coffin ? "

"6V way ! How you talk ! ' Then, with a confidential
wink, a dropping of the voice, and an impressive laying
of his hand on my arm: " 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
coffin. And there's one thing in this world which you
don't have to worry around after a person to get him
to pay for. And that' s a coffin. Undertaking ? — why
it's the dead-surest business in Christendom, and the
nobbiest.

"Why, just look at it. A rich man won't have any
thing but your very best; and you can just pile it on,
too — pile it on and sock it to him — he 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 her eyes and kind of moaning. Unhand-
kerchiefs one eye, bats it around tearfully over the stock;
says :

" 'And fhat might ye ask for that wan ?'

" ' Thirty-nine dollars, madam,' says I.

" 'It's a foine big price, sure, but Pat shall be buried
like a gintleman, as he was, if I have to work me fingers
off for it. I'll have that wan, sor.'

" 'Yes, madam,' says I, 'and it is a very good one,

< <

< i

30?

too; not 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, but 1 am afraid — well,
sixty-five dollars /\ a rather — rather — but no matter, I felt
obliged to say to Mrs. ( )'Shaughncssy-

" ' 1 )'ye mane to soy that Bridget ( )'Shaughnessy bought
the mate to that joo-ul box to ship that dhrunken divil to
Purgatory in ? '

• Yes, madam.'

'Then 1'at shall go to heaven in the twin to it, if it
takes the last rap the O'Flahertys can raise : and moind
you, stick on some extras, too, and I'll give ye another
dollar.'

" 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
O'Shaughnessy about four hacks and an omnibus better.
That uscJ 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."

" \Vcll," said I, " if you are so light-hearted and jolly in
ordinary times, what must you be in an epidemic ? '

He shook his head.

" No, you're off, there. \\"e don't like to see an epi-
deni! . An epidemic don't pay. \\Y11, of course 1 don't
mean that, exactly; but it don't pay in proportion to the
regular thing. Don't it occur to you, why ?"

"No."

"Think "

" I can't imagine. What is it r '

"It's just two things."

"Well, what are they?"

" One's Embamming. "

" And what's the other ? "

"Ice."

"How is that?"

"Well, in ordinary 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 jewelry rates for that ice, and war prices for
attendance. Well, 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 Embamming. You take a family that's able to em-
bam, 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 d n.

All it wants is physical immortality 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. Why,
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, health, see ? — 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, sometime."

In his i»yt"ul hi.^h spirits, IK- did tin- cxa-'jcratin^ liini-
si-lf, if any had been done. 1 have not enlarged on him.

With the above brief references to inhumation, h-t us
leave the subject. As for me, I hope to be < ivinaf
1 made that remark to my pastor once, \vho said, with

what lu- seemed to think was an impressive manner :

•• I wouldn't worry about that, if I had your chani es."
Much he knew about it — the family all so opposed
to it.

CHAPTER XLIV
CITY SIGHTS

THE old French part of New Orleans — anciently the
Spanish part — bears no resemblance to the American end
of the city : the American end which lies beyond the
intervening brick business centre. The houses are
massed in blocks; are austerely plain and dignified; uni-
form of pattern, with here and there a departure from it
with pleasant effect; all are plastered on the outside, and
nearly all have long, iron-railed verandas running along
the several stories. Their chief beauty is the deep, warm,
varicolored stain with which time and the weather have
enriched the plaster. It harmonizes with all the sur-
roundings, 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 specialty, also. The1 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 com-
paratively rare and proportionately valuable. They are
become bric-a-brac.

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 Grandissimes. " In
him the South has found a masterly delineator of its
interior life and its history. In truth, I find by experi-
ence, that the untrained eye and vacant mind can inspect

311

it and learn of it and jtulgi- of it more clearly and profit-
ably in his books than by personal contact with it.

With Mr. Cable along to see for you, and desi rib'- 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 line
shades or catch them imperfectly through the vision of
the imagination : a case, as it were, of an ignorant,
near-sighted stranger traversing the rim of wide, vague
hori/.ons of Alps with an inspired and enlightened
longsighted native.

We visited the old St. Louis Hotel, now occupied by
municipal offices. There is nothing strikingly remark-
able about it; but one can say of it as of the Academy
of Music in Ne\v 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 fact that the ushers grow
their buttonhole-bouquets on the premises shows what
might be done if they had the right kind of an agricul-'
tural head to the establishment.

We visited also the venerable Cathedral, and the
pretty square in front of it ; the one dim with religious
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

312

visit him. He was a pirate with a tremendous and san-
guinary 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 a dense
wood on the other ; and here and there, in the distance,
a ragged and angular-limbed and moss-bearded cypress
top standing out, clear 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 colored per-
son on the bank, flinging his statue-rigid reflection upon
the still water and watching for a bite.

And by and by 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. WTe
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 Fort 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.

We had opportunities on other days and in other
places to test the pmnpano. Notably, at an editorial
dinner at one of the clubs in the city. He was in his
last possible perfection there, and justified his fame. In
his suite was a tall pyramid of scarlet fray-fish — large
ones ; as large as one's thumb ; delicate, palatable,
appetizing. Also devilled whitebait ; 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 Delmonico's or Buckingham Palace; those
I have spoken of can be had in similar perfection in New
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 costume, 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 colored 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 every thing which a.
human being can possibly do with a broom, except 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. l'>;it the girls themselves
wouldn't ; so nothing would be really gained, after all.

The drill was in the Washington Artillery building.
In this 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

314

of the portraits, which are authentic. But like many
another historical 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.

Jackson Declining Lee's Invitation to Dinner — with
Thanks.

Jackson Apologizing 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, "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 historical
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, "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 South-
erner has no use for an r, except at the beginning of a
word. He says "honah," and " dinnah," and " Gove'-
nuh," and "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 drop-

315

ping it was not borrowed from the North, nor inherited
from England. Many Southerners — most Southerners-
put a y into occasional 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. A nil they
have the pleasant custom — long ago fallen into decay
in the North — of frequently employing the respectful
"Sir." Instead of the curt Yes, and the abrupt No,
they say " Yes, sun "; " No, suh."

Hut there are some infelicities, such as "like1 for
" as," and the addition of an " at " where it isn't needed.
I heard an educated gentleman 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: "I was
a-ask'n' Torn whah you was a-sett'n' at." The very
elect carelessly say "will' 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 "doesn't* in their
language; they say "don't" instead. The unpolished
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
neighborhood (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 com-
bined in this half-breed's architecture without enquiring:
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 —

316

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 trav-
elling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive,
handy word — "Lagniappe." They pronounce it lanny-
yap. It is Spanish — so they said. We discovered 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 meaning,
but I think the people spread it out a little when they
choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a
"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 some-
thing in a shop — or even the mayor or the governor, for
aught I know — he finishes the operation by saying:

" 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, "What,
again? — no, I've had enough;' the other party says,
"But just this one time more — this is for lagniappe."
When the beau perceives that he is stacking his compli-
ments a trifle 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 his " I beg pardon,
no harm intended," into the briefer form of " Oh, 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, "For lagniappe, sah," and gets you another cup
without extra charge.

CHAPI i:u \i V

SOrim.KN SI'ORTS

1\ the North <>nc hears the war mentioned, in so< ia!
conversation, once a month; sometimes as often as once
a week; but as a distinct subjeet for talk, it has long ago
IKVII relieved of duty. There are sufficient reasons for
this. (liven a dinner company of six gentlemen to-day,
it can easily happen that four of them — and possibly live
— were not in the field at all. So the ehances are four to
two, or live to one, that the war will at no time during
the evening become the topic of conversation ; and the
chances are still greater that if it become the topic it will
remain so but a little while. If you add six ladies to the
company, yon 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 conver-
sation. 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. 1). is elsewhere: thev date from it.

All daylong you hear things "placed "as having hap-
pened since the waw; or du'in' the waw; or befo' the
waw; or right aftah the waw; or 'bout two yeahs or live
yeahs or ten yeahs befo' the waw or aftah the waw. It
shows how intimately every individual was visited, in his

318

own person, by that tremendous episode. It gives the
inexperienced stranger a better 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 haven't any
thing 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 his own person, seems to have
sampled all the different varieties of human experience;
as a consequence, you can't mention 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
presently, because you can't talk pale inconsequentiali-
ties when you've got a crimson fact or fancy in your
head that you are burning to fetch out."

The poet was sitting some little distance away; and
presently he began to speak — about the moon.

The gentleman who had been talking to me remarked
in an aside: "There, the moon is far enough from
the seat of war, but you will see that it will suggest
something to somebody 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 im-

319

pression that when he visited New < >rlcan>, many y ;irs
age, the moon

Interruption from the other end of the room:

" Let me explain that. Reminds me of an anecdote.
Kvery thin^is ehaiiLM-d since the war, for better « »r for
w</rse; but you'll find people down here born grumblers,
who see no change except the change f<"" the WOFSC.
There was an old negro woman of this sort. A young
New Yorker said in her presence, 'What a wonderful
m-mii you have down here !' She sighed ami said, 'Ah,
bless yo' heart, honey, you ought to seen dat moon befo'
de waw ! ' "

The new topic was dead already. But the poet
reva riveted 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 imagined. Moonlight talk drifted easily into
talk about artificial methods of dispelling darkness.
Then somebody remembered that when Farragut ad-
vanced 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 deeks 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.

I 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 likelv to be dull.

•t

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 colors, 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

320

cock-fighting going on, you could have played the
gathering on a stranger for a prayer-meeting; and after
it began, for a revival, — provided you blindfolded your
stranger, — for the shouting was something prodigious.

A negro and a white man were in the ring; every-body
else outside. The cocks were brought in in sacks; and
when time was called, they were taken out by the two
bottle-holders, stroked, caressed, poked toward each
other, and finally liberated. The big black cock plunged
instantly at the little gray one and struck him on the
head with his spur. The gray responded with spirit.
Then the Babel of many-tongued shoutings broke out,
and ceased not thenceforth. When the cocks 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
11 sport " for such as have had a degree of familiarity with
it. I never saw people enjoy any thing more than this
gathering enjoyed this fight. The case was the same
with old gray-heads and with boys of ten. They lost

321

themselves in frenzies of delight. The " co< king-main "
is an inhuman sort of entertainment, there is n<> 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. 1 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 phase is not original with
me. It is the Southern reporter's. He has used it for
two generations. He uses it twenty times 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 re-
spectable men and women that often; for he has no other
phrase for such service except that single one-. lie 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. If he had been in Pales-
tine in the early times, we should have had no references
to ''much people " out of him. Xo, he 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,
unflowery 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:

322

The Times- Democrat sent a relief-steamer up one of the
bayous, last April. This steamer landed at a village, up
there somewhere, 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." And 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 clearness 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 our cabin, and proud of her fair freight the gallant little
boat glided up the bayou.

Twenty-two words to say the ladies came aboard and
the boat shoved out up the creek, is a clean 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 four o'clock ominous clouds began to gather in the south-cast,
presently from the (ailf then- i .une a blow which increased in
seventy every moment. It was not .safe to leave the landing then,
and there was a delay, The oaks shook off long tresses of then
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 homeward 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. Vet there was great tempta-
tion, there, t<> drop into lurid writing.

IJut let us return to the mule. Since I left him, I have
rummaged around and found a full report of the race.
In it I find confirmation of the theory which I broached
just now — namely, that the trouble with the Southern
reporter is Women : Women, supplemented 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 freshness and an odor <>f
sanctity unspeakable. The stand was so crowded with them that,
walking at their feet and seeing'no possibility of approach, many i
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 colors of their favorite
knights, and were it not 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.

324

There were thirteen mules in the first heat; all sorts of
mules, they were; all sorts of complexions, gaits, disposi-
tions, 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; guess-
ing 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 accord-
ing to his convictions. The result was an absence of
harmony 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 explained 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 disguises him with a new name and a new
complexion, and rings him in again.

The riders dress in full jockey costumes of bright-
colored 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 circumstances, 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

325

a most fantastic and picturesque confusion, and the
resulting spectacle \vas killingly comical.

Mill- heat; tune, 2122. Kijjit of tin- thirteen nn.'
distanced. I hud a l>rt on a mule which would have \\»\\
if the procession had been reversed. Tin- s.-i oiid heat
was -nod fun; and so was the <k consolation race for
beaten mules," which followed later; l>ut the first heat
was the best in that respect.

I think thut much the most enjoyable of all races is a
steamboat race; but, next to that, I prefer the gay and
joyous mule-rush. Two 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 stern, spouting white steam from
the pipes, pouring black smoke from the i himneys, rain-
ing down sparks, parting 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 colorless in comparison. Still, a horse-race mi
be well enough, in its way, perhaps, if it were not for
the tiresome false starts. Hut then, nobody is ever
killed. At least, nobody was ever killed when I was at
a horse-race. They have been crippled, it is true; but
this is little to the purpose.

CHAPTER XLVI
ENCHANTMENTS AND ENCHANTERS

THE largest annual event in New Orleans is a some-
thing 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 flickering torches; but it is said
that in these latter days the spectacle is mightily
augmented, as to cost, splendor, and variety. There
is a chief personage — " Rex"; and if I remember rightly,
neither this king nor any of his great following of sub-
ordinates is known to any outsider. All these people
are gentlemen of position and consequence; and it is
a proud thing to belong to the organization; 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 occupation; 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 perform-

3^7

ances «»1 the revelling rai)bl.- Of the priest's day, and
serves quite as well, perhaps, t<> emphasize Liu- day and
admonish men that the grace-line between the worldly
season and the holy one is reached.

This Mardi-Ciras pageant was the exclusive possession
of New Orleans until recently. Hut now it has spread to
Memphis and St. Louis and Baltimore. It lias probably
chrd its limit. It is a tiling which could hardly exist
in the practical North; would certainly last but a very
brief time; as brief a time as it would last in London.
For the soul of it is the romantic, not the funny and the
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 —
w.»uld kill it in the North or in London. Puck and
PitncJi, 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 ancien regime and
of the Church, and made 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 be gods again, but only figure-heads, and
answerable for their acts like common clay. Such bene-
factions as these compensate the temporary harm which
Bonaparte and the Revolution did, and leave the world
in debt to them for these great an'd 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,

328

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 brain-
less and worthless long-vanished society. He did meas-
ureless 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 still. Not so forcefully as half a
generation ago, perhaps, but still forcefully. There,
the genuine and wholesome civilization of the nineteenth
century is curiously confused and commingled with the
Walter Scott Middle-Age sham civilization, 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 South-
erner— or Southron, according to Sir Walter's starchier
way of phrasing it — would be wholly modern, in place of
modern and mediaeval mixed, and the South would be
fully a generation further advanced than it is. It was
Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the South a
major or a colonel, or a general or a judge, before the
war; and it was he, also, that made these gentlemen
value these bogus decorations. For it was he that created
rank and caste down there, and also reverence for rank
and caste, and pride and pleasure in them. Enough is
laid on slavery, without fathering upon it these creations
and contributions of Sir Walter.

Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern
character, as it existed before the war, that he is in
great measure responsible for the war. It seems a little

329

trirsh toward a dead man to say that we never should
have had any war but for Sir Walter; and y< t -.'Mm thing
of a plausible argument might, perhaps, be made in sup-
port of that wild proposition. Tin- Southerner of the
American revolution owned slaves; so did the South-
erner of the C'i\il War: but the former resembles the
latter as an Englishman resembles a l-'rem huian. 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 periodi-
cal of forty or fifty years ago, he will find it filled with
wordy, windy, flowery "eloquence," romanticism, senti-
mentality— all imitated from Sir Walter, and sufficiently
badly done, too — innocent travesties of his style ana
methods, in fact. This sort of literature being the
fashion in both sections of the country, there was oppor-
tunity for the fairest competition; and as a consequence,
the South was able to show as many well-known literary
names, proportioned to population, as the North could.

But a change has come, and there is no opportunity
now for a fair competition between North and South.
For the 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 conse-
quence. There is as much literary talent in the South,
now, as ever there was, of course; but its work can gain
but slight currency 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 crutches no longer, but upon wings: and they
carry it swiftly all about America and England, and

330

through the great English reprint publishing houses of
Germany — as witness the experience of Mr. Cable 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 out.

A curious exemplification of the power of a single
book for good or harm is shown in the effects wrought
by "Don Quixote' and those wrought by "Ivanhoe."
The first swept the world's admiration for the mediaeval
chivalry-silliness out of existence; and the other re-
stored it. As far as our South is concerned, the good
work done by Cervantes is pretty nearly a dead letter,
so effectually has Scott's pernicious work undermined it.

< HAPTER XI. VI I

BUNGLE REMUS" \M> MR. CAULK

MR. JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS ("Uncle Remus") was
to arrive from Atlanta at seven o'clock Sunday morning;
so we .u'ot up and received him. \Ve 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 seem to be talking quite
freely about this neighbor; 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 and 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 Uncle Rcmus's
Tar-Baby story from the lips of Uncle Remus himself-
or what, in their outraged eyes, was left of him. I Jut it

332

turned out that he had never read aloud to people, and
was too shy to venture the attempt now. Mr. Cable and
I read from books 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
Rabbit ourselves.

Mr. Harris ought to be able to read the negro dialect
better than any body 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
perfection. It was a great treat to hear him read about
Jean-ah Poquelin, and about Innerarity and his famous
" pigshoo ' representing " Louisihanna ^//"-fusing to
Hanter the Union," along with passages of nicely-shaded
German dialect from a novel which was still in manu-
script.

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 sensi-
tive citizens of New Orleans. His names were either
inventions or were borrowed from the ancient and obso-
lete 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 themselves and their
affairs in so excessively 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
any way, Mr. Warner did not like it, and wanted it
improved. He asked me if I was able to imagine a per-
son named " Eschol Sellers." Of course I said I could
not, without stimulants. He said that away out West,

333

one;-, he liatl met, and c< mtemplated, and actually shak>
hands with a man bearing that impossible name—
" Eschol Sellers." He added:

"It was twenty year> ai;o; his name has probably
carried him oil before this; and it" it hasn't, he will n<-\< r
See the bo, ,k anyhow. \\'e will confiscate his na:
The name v<m are usin1'- i- common, and therefore

dangerous; there are p-robably a thousand Sell' b.-ar-

in^- it, and the whoK: horde will come nft< r US; but
Kschd Sellers is a safe name— it is a rock."

So we borrowed that name; and when the bonk had
been out about a week, one of the stateliest and hand-
somest and most aristocratic looking white men that ever
lived, called around, with the most formidable libel suit
in his pocket that ever — w •!!, in brief, we . I his per-
mission to suppress an edition of ten million * c
the book and ehan^'e that name to " Mulberry Sellers "
in future editions.

* Figures taken from memory, and probably incorrect. Think it was
re.

CHAPTER XL VIII
SUGAR AND POSTAGE

ONE day, on the street, I encountered the man whom, of
all men, I 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 deci-
sion 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 of twenty-one years and find him still only
thirty-five. I have not had an experience of this kind
before, I believe. There were some crow's-feet, but
they counted for next to nothing, since they were incon-
spicuous.

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-Governor Warmouth's
sugar plantation. Strung along below the city was a
number of decayed, ramshackly, 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 realizing sense
of the frailness of a Mississippi boat and the briefness of
its life.

335

Six miles bel«>\v town a tut and battered brick chim-
ney, sticking above the ma-nolias and live-oaks, was
pointed out as the monument erected by an appreciative
nation to celebrate the battle of New Orleans — Ju< ksoifs
tory over the British, January S, 1X15. The war had
ended, the two nations were at peace, but the news had
not yet reached New Orleans. If we had had the cable
telegraph in those days, this blood would nut have been
spilt, those lives would not have been wasted; ami
better still, Jackson would probably never have been
President. We have gotten over the harms done us by
the war of 1X12, but not over some of those done us by
Jackson's presidency.

The \Varmouth plantation covers a vast deal of ground,
and the hospitality of the Warmotith mansion is gradu-
ated to the same large scale. We saw steam-ploughs at
work, here, for the first time. The traction engine
travels about on its own wheels, till it reaches the re-
quired 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 rows 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 steers-
man 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 forty thousand dollars last year. I
forget the other details. However, this year's crop will

336

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 half, 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 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 re-
move 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. And to make it right is next to impos-
sible. 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's great work, the "jetties,"
where the river has been compressed between walls, and
thus deepened to twenty-six feet; but it was voted use-
less to go, since at this stage of the water every thing
would be covered up and invisible.

337

We could have visited that ancient and singular
" Pi lot- town," which stands on stilts in the water — so tl

v- ; where nearly all communication is by skill' and
. even to the- attending <>f weddings and funerals;
and where the littlest boys and girls are as handy with
the <>ar as unaniphibious children art- with the velo< ipc<

\\'e could have done a number of other tilings ; but OH
account of limited time, \ve went bai k home. The sail
up the bree/y and sparkling river was a charming experi-
ence, a id would have been satisfyingly sentimental and
romantic but for the interruptions of the tug's pet par-
rot, whose tireless comments upon the scenery and the
guests were always this- worldly, and often profane. He
had also a superabundance of the discordant, ear-split-
ting, 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
ene.'gy after "Home again, home again, from a foreign
shore," and said he " wouldn't give a d for a tug-
load of such rot." Romance and sentiment cannot long
survive this sort of discouragement; so the singing and
talking presently ceased; which so delighted the parrot
that he cursed himself hoarse for joy.

Then the male members of the party moved to the fore-
castle, 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. 1 learned that a pilot
whom i used to steer for is become a spiritualist, and for
more than fifteen years has been receiving a letter every
week from a deceased relative, through a Xew York
spiritualistic medium named Manchester — postage gradu-
ated by distance; from the local post-office in Paradise to
New York, five dollars; from New York to St. Louis,

338

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 enquire after a deceased uncle.
This uncle had lost his life in a 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. Manchester's hand and pencil
for that purpose. The following is a fair example of the
questions asked, and also of the sloppy twaddle in the
way of answers furnished by Manchester under the pre-
tence 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 ?

A. Very happy. Perfectly happy.

Q. How do you amuse yourself ?

A. Conversation with friends, and other spirits.

Q. What else ?

A. 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 how 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 happi-

IK-SS, arc s<> fastiduous about frivolous questions upon the
subject ?

\ o reply.

Q. Would you like t<> come bark?

./. No.

(A Would you say that under oath '

A Yes.

(). What do you cat then ?

. /. \\"e do not eat.

(/ \\'hat do you drink ?

.7. \\"e do not drink.

(J. \\"hat do you smoke ?

. /. \Ve do not smoke.

(>. What do you read ?

A. We do not read.

(j>. Do all the good people go to your place ?

A. Yes.

Q. You know my present way of life. Can you sug-
gest any additions to it, in the way of crime, that will
reasonably ensure my going to some other place?

No reply.

Q. When did you die ':

A. 1 did not die; I passed away.

(). Yery well, then; when did you pa>> away ? H<>\v
long have you been in the spirit land ?

A. We have no measurements of time here.

(J. Though you may be indifferent and uncertain as
to dates and times in your present condition and environ-
ment, this has nothing to do with your former condition.
You had dates then. One of these is what I ask for.
You departed on a certain day in a certain year. Is not
this true ?

./. Yes.

Q. Then name the clay of the month.

(Much fumbling with pencil, on the part of the

340

medium, accompanied by violent spasmodic jerkings of
his head and body, for some little time. Finally, expla-
nation to the effect that spirits often forget dates, such
things being without importance to them.)

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 ?

A. (After a long hesitation and many throes and
spasms.) Natural deatJi.

This ended the interview. My friend told the medium
that when his relative was in this poor world, he was
endowed with an extraordinary 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" who don't know as
much as a tadpole, — and this advice is religiously followed

341

by the receivers. One of these clients was a man i
the spirits (if one may thus plurally describe the ingen-
ious Manchester) were teaching how. to contrive an
improved railway car-wheel. It is coarse < mploymc'.t
for a spirit, but it is higher and wholesomer activity
than talking forever about "how happy we are."

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 were 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 undesirable 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 them-
selves the serenity and security and coseyness of such
refuges at such times, and so had by and by come to
dream of that retired and peaceful life as the one desir-
able thing to long for, anticipate, earn, and at last enjoy.

But I did not learn that any of these pilot-farmers had
astonished any body 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 he appears again, in damaged homespun, combs
the hay-seed out of his hair, and takes a pilot-house
berth for the winter. In this way he pays the debts
which his farming has achieved during the agricultural
season. So his river bondage is but half broken; he is
still the river's slave the hardest half of the year.

343

One of these men bought a farm, but did n< l n tire t->
it. lie knew a trick w«>rth two of that. 11-- did n -t
propose to pauperi/.e his farm by applying his p. r^onal
ignorance to working it. No, he put the farm into the
hands of an agricultural expert to be worked on shares
out of every three loads of corn the expert to have two
and the pilot the third. Hut 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

h uds.

Some of the pilots whom 1 had known had had adven-
tures— the outcome fortunate, sometimes, but not in all
cases. Captain Montgomery, whom 1 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 squad
of soldiers, and made a gallant and narrow escape. Ik-
was always a cool man; nothing could disturb his
serenity. Once when he wras captain of the 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 cap-
tain 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 themselves — which I did.
So we went ploughing past the sterns of steamboats 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

344

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, "Set her
back on both ' -which I did; but a trifle late, however,
for the next moment we went smashing through that
other boat's flimsy outer works with a most prodigious
racket. The captain never said a word to me about the
matter afterward, 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 had died a very honorable death. His boat
caught fire, and he 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 escape 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
remaining 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 prefer any
sort of death to the deep dishonor of deserting his post
while there is any possibility of his being useful in it.
And so effectively are these admonitions inculcated 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,

345

in White River, to save the lives of other men. lie
said to t!ie captain that if the lire would give him tim- t >
reach a sand-bar, some distance away, all could In- saved,
but that to land against the bluff bank of tin: river would
be to ensure the loss of many livt_>. He reached the bar
and grounded the boat in shallow water; but by that time
the flames had closed around him, and in « 5< aping
through them he was fatally burned. He had been urged
to lly sooner, but had replied as became a pilot to reply:

" 1 will not go. If 1 go, nobody will be saved. If I
stay, no one will be lost but me. 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 Rennet
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
part of the city, and had never been seen again — was
murdered and thrown into the river, it was thought;
that Hen Thornburgh was dead long ago; also his wild
"cub," whom I used to quarrel with all through every
daylight watch. \ 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 "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

340

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 part 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; every-body else
was in hiding, and the boat was a solitude.

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.

George Ritchie had been blown up near Memphis —
blown into the river from the wheel, and disabled. The
water was very cold; he clung 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 Baton Rouge now.

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 promis-
ing to fool his possibilities away early, and come to
nothing. In a Western city lived a rich and childless old

347

foreigner and his wife; ami 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 \\ as
not George Johnson, but who shall be called GeOFj
Johnson for the purposes of this narrative, — got ac-
quainted with this young girl, and they sinned; and the
old foreigner found them out and rebuked them. lleing
ashamed, they lied, and said they were married; that
they had been privately married. Then the old for-
eigner's hurt was healed, and he forgave and blessed
them. After that, they were able to continue their sin
without concealment. II y and by the foreigner's wife
died; and presently he followed after her. I-'riends 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 M'rs. George Johnson .'

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 legiti-
mately, and legally, and irrevocably chained together in
honorable marriage, but with not so much as a penny to
bless themselves withal. Such are the actual facts; an 1
not all novels have for a base so telling a situation.

CHAPTER L
THE "ORIGINAL JACOBS"

WE 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
Indian's, and his eye and hand were as strong and steady
and his nerve and judgment as firm and clear as any
body'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. Conse-
quently, his brethren held him in the sort of awe in which
illustrious survivors of a by-gone age are always held by
their associates. He knew how he was regarded, and
perhaps this fact added some trifle of stiffening to his
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 correspond-
ent of the St. Louis Republican culled the following items
from the diary:

In February, 1825, he shipped on board the steamer Ram-
bler, at Florence, Ala., and made during that year three trips to
New Orleans and back — this onthe General Carrol, between Nash-

349

ville and New Orleans. It was cl urine; his stay on this boat that
Captain Sellers introduced the tap of tin: bell as a signal to heave
the lead ; previous to which time it was the custom for the pilot to
speak to the men below when soundings were wanted. 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 /Vov'r /<•///, a boat of two
hundred and eighty-five tons burden, and plying between Smith-
land and New Orleans. Thence he joined the Ju!>ilee 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, 1036, he completed and left Pittsburg in charge of the
steamer 1'rairie, a boat of four hundred tons, and the first
steamer with estate-room cabin ever seen at St. Louis. In 1857
he introduced 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, General Lafayette left New Orleans for St.
Louis on the low-pressure steamer Natchez.

In January, 1828, twenty-one steamers left the New Orleans
wharf to celebrate the occasion of General 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.

In 1839 Great Horsehoe cut-off formed.

Up to the present time, a term of thirty-five years, we ascer-
tain, by reference 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.

350

Whenever Captain Sellers approached a body of gossip-
ing 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 vapor-
ously of old-time experiences on the river; always mak-
ing it a point to date every thing back as far as they
could, so as to make the new men feel their newness to
the sharpest degree possible, and envy the old stagers
in the like degree. And how these complacent bald-
heads would swell, and brag, and lie, and date back —
ten, fifteen, twenty years, and how they did enjoy
the effect produced upon the marvelling and envying
youngsters !

And perhaps just at this happy stage of the proceed-
ings, the 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 feel-
ings 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 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

351

still existed, or give "nr a o^nie which any body present
was old enough t<> have heard of before. If you might
believe the pilots, he was always conscientiously particu-
lar about little details; never spoke of "the State of
Mississippi," for instance — no, he would say, "When
the State of Mississippi was where Arkansas now is";
and would never speak of 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 capac-
ity, 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
J'i\-ij\'mit\ 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 in forty-nine years; and now and then
he would mention Island so and so, and follow it, in
parentheses, with some such observation as "disap-
peared 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 * became

* The original MS. of it, in the captain's own hand, has been sent to
me from New Orleans. It reads as follows :

"ViCKSBURG, May 4, 1859.

" My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans: The
water is higher this far uj> than it has been since 1815. My opinion is

352

the text for my first newspaper article. I burlesqued it
broadly, very broadly, stringing my fantastics out to the
extent of eight hundred or a 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 a great pity; for it did
nobody any worthy service, and it sent a parrg deep into
a good man's heart. There was no malice in my rub-
bish; 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 honor to profoundly detest
me from that day forth. When I say he did me the
honor, I am not using empty words. It was a very
real honor to be 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; but he
didn't sit up nights to hate any body but me.

He never printed another paragraph while he lived,
and he never again signed "Mark Twain" to any thing.
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 nom de guerre; so I confiscated
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

that the water will be 4 feet deep in Canal street before the first of next
June. Mrs. Turner's plantation at the head of Big Black Island is all
under water, and it has not been since 1815.

"I. SELLERS/'

353

truth. How I've succeeded, it would not be modest in
me to say.

The captain had an honorable pride in his pr ;on

and an abiding love f"r it. He ordered his monument
In-fore he died, and kept it near him until he did die. it

inds over his grave now, in lielK-fontaine Cemetery, St.
Louis. It is his linage, in marble, standing <m duty at
the pilot wheel; and worthy to stand and confront criti-
cism, for it represents a man who in life would have-
stayed there till he burned to a cinder, if duty re-
quired it.

The finest tiling we saw on our whole M ississippi trip,
we saw as we approached New Orleans in the steam-tup:.
This was the curving frontage of the Crescent City lit up
with the white glare of five miles of electric lights. It
was a wonderful sight, and very beautiful.

CHAPTER LI
REMINISCENCES

WE left for St. Louis in the City of Baton Rouge, on a
delightfully hot day, but with the main purpose of my
visit but lamely accomplished. I had hoped to hunt up
and talk with a hundred steamboatmen, but got so pleas-
antly 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 "straightened up" for the start — the boat paus-
ing 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 ships. It was exactly the
favor which he had done me, about a quarter of a cen-
tury before, in that same spot, the first time I ever

355

steamed out of the port of New Orleans. It \vus a very
great and sincere pleasure to me to see the tiling
repeated — with somebody else as victim.

\\V made Natche/ (three hundred miles) in twenty-
:\vo hours and a half — much the swiftest passage I have
ever made over that piece of water.

The next morning I came on with the four o'clock
watch, and saw Ritchie successfully run half a do/en
crossings in a fog, using for his guidance the marked
chart devised and patented by !!ixby and himself. This
sufiii lently evidenced the great value of the chart.

l!y and by, when the fog began to clear off, I notii ed
that the rellection 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, spec-
tral trees, dimly glimpsed through the shredding foj,
were very pretty tilings to see.

\Ve had a heavy thunder-storm at Natchez, another at
Yicksburg, and still another about fifty miles below
Memphis. They had an old-fashioned energy which had
long been unfamiliar to me. This third storm was
accompanied by a raging wind. We tied up to the bank
when we saw the tempest coming, and e very-body left
the pilot-house but me. The wind bent the young tr
down, exposing the pale underside of the leaves ; and
L;ust after gust followed, in quick succession, thrashing
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 rat ed after each other as do their kind
over a wind-tossed field of oats. No color that was
visible anywhere was quite natural — all tints un-
charged with a leaden tinge from the solid cloud-bank
overhead. The river was leaden, all distances the
same ; and even the far-reaching ranks of combing

356

white-caps were dully shaded by the dark, rich atmos-
phere through which their swarming legions marched.
The thunder-peals were constant and deafening ; explo-
sion followed explosion with but' inconsequential inter-
vals 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 produced effects
which enchanted the eye and sent electric ecstasies of
mixed delight and apprehension shivering along every
nerve in the 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 began to wrench off boughs and
tree-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.

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 Valley. I may not have seen the Alps do
their best, of course, and if they can beat the Mississippi,
I don't wish to.

On this up trip I saw a little towhead (infant island)
half a mile long, 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 construc-
tion 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

357

and the iv, which has got to be supplied, no matter
much expense or vexation it may cost.

\Ve had a succession of Mack nights, going up the
river, and it was observable that whenever we landed,
and suddenly inundated the trees with the intense sun-
burst 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 singing, ^'e
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. IJy means of diligence and activity, we
managed to hunt out nearly all the old friends. One was
missing, however; he went to his reward, whatever it
was, two years ago. But I found out all about him.
His case helped me to realize how lasting can be the
effect of a very trilling occurrence. When he was an
apprentice-blacksmith in our village, and 1 a schoolboy,
a couple of young Englishmen came to the town and
sojourned a while; and one day they got themselves up
in cheap royal finery and did the Richard III. sword-
fight with maniac energy and prodigious powwow, in the
presence of the village boys. This blacksmith cub was
there, and the histrionic poison entered his bones. This
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 standing musing on a street corner, with
his right hand on his hip, the thumb of his left sup-
porting his chin, face bowed and frowning, slouch hat
pulled down over his forehead — imagining himself to be
Otiicll<> or some such character, and imagining that the

353

passing crowd marked his tragic bearing and were awe-
struck.

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 Cagsar," for that night, and if I
should come I would see him. If 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 fel-
low a fool; yet the moment he comes to a great city,
where intelligence and appreciation abound, the talent
concealed in this shabby napkin is at once discovered, and
promptly welcomed and honored."

But I came away from the theatre that night disap-
pointed and offended; for I 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 :

" Yes, I was. Indeed I was. I was a Roman soldier."

"Which one ? "

"Why, didn't you see them Roman soldiers that stood
back there in a rank, and sometimes marched in proces-
sion around the stage ? '

" Do you mean the Roman army ? — those six sandalled
roustabouts in nightshirts, with tin shields and helmets,
that marched around treading on each other's heels, in
charge of a spider-legged consumptive dressed like them-
selves ? "

"That's it ! that's it ! 1 was one of them Roman sol-
diers. I was the next to the last one. A halt" a year ago
1 used to always be the last one ; but I've U en promot

\\'ell, they tokl me that that poor fellow remained a
Roman soldier to the last — a matter of thirty-four yea
Sometimes they « ast him for a " speaking part," but not
an elaborate one. He could be trusted to go and say,
>l 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. Vet, poor devil, he had
been patiently studying the part of Hamlet for more than
thirtv years, and he lived and died in the belief that some

. .

day he would be invited to play it!

And this is what came of that fleeting visit of those
young Englishmen to our village such ages and ages ago!
What noble horseshoes this man might have made, but
for those Englishmen; and what an inadequate Roman
soldier he did make !

A day or two after \ve reached St. Louis, I \vas walk-
ing 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, hare you ^ot that drink yet ' '

A maniac, I judged, at first. But all in a flash I recog-
nized him. I made an effort to blush that strained every
muscle in me, and answered as sweetly and winningly as
ever I knew how :

"Been a little slow, but am just this minute closing i'i
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 affairs aside and turned
out, resolved to find me or die ; and make me answer
that question satisfactorily, or kill me ; though the most

360

of his late asperity had been rather counterfeit than
otherwise.

This meeting brought 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 neighbor across the hall. We saw some of the fight-
ings and killings; and by and by we went one night to
an armory where two hundred young men had met, upon
call, to be armed and go forth against the rioters, under
command of a military man. 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 every thing 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 grew7
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 an-
other 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, 1 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 enquired, thirty years ago; I know7 that.
And I would have enquired, if I had had the muskets;
but, in the circumstances, he seemed better fixed to con-
duct the investigations than I was.

One Monday, near the time of our visit to St. Louis,
the Globe-Democrat came out with a couplfe of pages

36 1

of Sunday statistics, whereby it appeared that i 19,44^ St.
Louis people attended the morning and evening church
rvices the day before, and 23,102 children attended
Sunday-school. Thus 142,550 persons, out of the < ity's
total of 400,000 population, respected the day religious-
wise. 1 found these statistics, in a condensed form, in a
•-rain of the Associated Tress, and preserved them.
They made it apparent that St. Louis was in a higher
state of -race than she could have claimed to be in my time,
lint 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.

CHAPTER LII
A BURNING BRAND

ALL 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:

" 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, thank God! with a
mine of pure gold hidden away in him, as you shall see.
His letter is written to a burglar named Williams, who is
serving a nine-year term in a certain State prison, for
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 eight
thousand dollars in government bonds. Williams was

ii.it a common sort of person, l>y any means; he was a
graduate of Harvard College and came of good New
KiiLdand stock. His father was a clergyman. While
lying in jail, his health began to fail, and he was
threatened with consumption. This fact, together with
the opportunity for reflection afforded by solitary con-
finement, had its effect— its natural effect. lie fell into
serious thought; his early training asserted itself with
power, ami wrought with strong 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 sup-
ported him in his good resolutions and strengthened him
to continue in his new life. The trial ended in his con-
viction and sentence to the State prison for the term of
nine years, as 1 have before said. In the prison he
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 authorities 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 friend of mine — a clergy-
man— 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' iir^(>t — but

364

their meaning has been interlined, in parentheses, by the
prison authorities :

ST. Louis, June 9th, 1872.

MR. \V- - friend 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 did n'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, £ for it i nocked off
swearing 5 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 (quit stealing), & 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, £ 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 PO cket-book) ; i had n't no
more than got it off when i wished i had n'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] — but i kept clos to her £ when she got out of the cars
at a way place i said, marm have you lost anything? £ she
tumbled (discovered} her leather was off (gone} — is this it says i,
giving it to her — well if you aint honest, says she, but i had n't got
cheak enough to stand that sort of talk, so i left her in a hurry.
When i got here i had $i and 25 cents left £ 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 3d day I spent my
last 10 cts for 2 moons (large, round sea-biscuit} & cheese & i
felt pretty rough £ was thinking 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, but when i tryed it i got stuck
on the start, & all i could get off wos, 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 .is i went .I!«ML; aboii! an hour
after that i was in 4th St. & this is what happened \ is the CEI
of my being where i am nmv \ about which i will tell yon l>ef<>;
get done writing. As i was walking along i herd a l>i- noise >X;
saw a horse running away with a carnage willi 2 children in r
I grahed up a peace of box cover from the side walk v.K: run in the
middle of the street, *.\: when the horse < ame up i smashed him
over the head as hard as i could drive -the bord split to pCCCS & the
horse checked U|) a little Ov i grabbed the reigns & pulled his h< id
down until he stopj)ecl — tin- gentleman \vhat owned him came run-
ning up Ov soon as he saw the children were all rite, he shook hni;
with me & gave me a $50 green back, & my asking the Lord to
help me come into my head, & i was so thunderstruck i could n't
drop the reigns nor say nothing — he saw something was up. &
coming back to me said, my boy are you hurt? £ the thou; I
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 <S:
lets talk about it, but keep the money — he asked me if i could
take care of horses & i said yes, for i used to hang round livery
stables £ often would help clean & drive horses, he told me he
wanted a man for that work, & would give me $16. a month
bord me. You bet i took that chance at once, that nite in my
little room over the stable i sat a long time thinking over my p
life & of what had just happened & i just got clown on my nce^
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 (VA>//v\) £ a bible for i made up HIV Jin'nJ
after what the Lord had clone for me i would read the bible everv

nite and morning, & ask him to keep an eye on me. When I had
been there about a week Mr Hrown (that's his name) came in my
room one nite & saw me reading the bible — he asked me if i was
a Christian & i told him no — he asked me how it was i read the
bible instead of papers & books — 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

366

& 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 did n't fear no one giving
me a back 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, a
spelling book, a Geography £ a writing book, £ 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 understand my bible better.

Now, Charlie the 3 months on the square are up 2 months ago,
&as you said, it is the best job i ever did in my life,& i commenced
another of the 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 5 take more pleasure in going
to church than to the theatre £ that wasn't so once — our minister
and others often talk with me & a month ago they wanted me to
join the church, but I said no, not now, i may be 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, but i cant do it yet — you no i
learned to read and write while in prisons £ 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 but 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 don't no my rite
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 bank with $25 of the $50— if you ever want any or all
of it let me know, £ it is yours, i wish you would let me send you
some now. I send you with this a receipt for a year of Littles
Living Age, i did n'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

367

this weather from hei e, but i will send \<>u a box next thanksgiving
any way -next week Mr Drown takes me into hi, sto lite

porter & will advance me as soon as i know a link more — he
keeps a big granary store, wholesale — i forgot to trll you of my
mission school, sunday school class — the school is in the sunday
afternoon, i went out two sunday afternoons, and pu ked up seven
kids (little A>r\) «X: got them to come in. Two of them new as
much as i did & i had them put in a class where they could learn
something, i don't no much myself, but as these kids cant read i
get on nicely with them, i make sure of them bv going -'ifter 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 ex-
cuse this long letter & all mistakes, i wish i could see you for i cant
write as i would talk — i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs
good — i was afraid when you was bleeding you would die — give
my respects to all the boys 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

C- W-

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 writ-
ing. The reader of it halted, 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 any thing 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.

368

The fame of the letter spread through the town. A
brother 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 his Sunday morning
congregation 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 neighbors, and carried
this sermon with him, since he might possibly chance to
need a sermon. He was asked to preach one day. The
little church was full. Among the people present were
the late Dr. J. G. Holland, the late Mr. Seymour of the
New York Ti/nes, Mr. Page, the philanthropist and
temperance advocate, and, I think, Senator Frye of
Maine. The marvellous letter did its wonted work; all
the people were moved, all the people wept; the tears
flowed 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 pil-
grimage 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, that unlucky Page! — and another man. If they
had only been in Jericho, 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

swiiul! It was perfect, it was rounded, symnictru al,

c o m pi . . 1 1 !

Tin- reader learns it at this point; but \vc didn't learn
it till some inilrs and weeks beyond this stage of the
affair. My friend came bark from the woods, and he

and other clergymen and lay missionaries began !

more to inundate audiences with their tears and the tears
1 audien es; 1 1 hard for permission to print

the leller in a maga/ine ami tell the watery story of its
triumphs; numbers of people got copies of the letter,
with permission to circulate th<-m in writing, but not in
print; copies were sent to the Sandwich Islands and
other far regions.

Charles Dudley \Varner 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:

" l)o you know that letter to be genuine?

It was the first suspicion that had ever been voiced;
but it had that sickening effect which first-uttered stis-
pieions against one's idol always have. - 'ine talk
follov, ed:

"Why — what should make you suspect that it isn't
genuine ? "

•• Nothing that I know of, except that it is too neat,
and compact, and fluent, and nicely put together for an
i-norant person, an unpractised hand. I think it was
done by an educated man."

The literary artist had detected the literary machinery.
If you will look at the letter now, you will detect it vour-
- If — it is observable in every line.

Straightway the clergyman went off, with this se< V.
suspicion sprouting 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

3/o

in the literary line (meaning me) might be allowed to
print the letter and tell its history. He presently
received this answer :

REV. -

MY DEAR FRIEND: In regard to that "convict's letter " there
can be no doubt as to its genuineness. " Williams," to whom it
was written, lay in our jail and professed to have been converted,
and Rev. Mr. , the chaplain, had great faith in the genuine-
ness of the change — as much as one can have in 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, probably. She has been greatly annoyed in having
so much publicity, lest it might seem a breach of confidence, or be
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 take the
responsibility and do it.

It is a wonderful letter, which no Christian genius, much less
one unsanctified, 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 all whom you send from Hartford serve their Master as well ?

P. S. — Williams is still in the State's prison, serving out a long
sentence — of nine years, I think. He has been sick and threatened
with consumption, but I have not enquired after him lately. This
lady that I speak of corresponds 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 a suspicion based upon
mere internal evidence, any way; and when you come to
internal evidence, it's a big field and a game that two can
play at: as witness this other internal evidence, dis-

371

covered by the writer of the note above quoted, that " ii
is a wonderful letter — which no ( 'hnstiaii genius, iniieh

less one unsanctiiu-d, could ever have written."

I had permission now to print — provided 1 suppressed
names and places and sent my narrative out of the
intry. So I chose an Australian maga/ine 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 a-ain, with the letter to work the handles.

lint 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 — enquiries. 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 OFFICK, July n, 1873.

I >!• AR I>R< ). I'AilE :

Herewith please find the letter kindly loaned me. I am afraid
its genuineness cannot be established. It purports to he 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 previ-
ously been, there were parties all around me who,

372

although longing for the publication before, were a unit
for suppression at this stage and complexion of the game.
They said, "Wait — the wound is too fresh, yet. " All
the copies of the famous letter, except mine, disappeared
suddenly; and from that time onward, the aforetime
same old drought set in, in the churches. As a rule, the
town was on a spacious grin for a while, but there were
places in it where the grin did not appear, and where it
was dangerous 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 had
supported and encouraged him in his conversion — where
he knew two things would happen: the genuineness of
the letter would not be doubted or enquired into; and
the nub of it would be noticed, and would have valuable
effect — the effect, indeed, of starting a movement to get
Mr. Williams pardoned out of prison.

That ''nub" is so ingeniously, so casually, flung in,
and immediately left there in 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 — / ivas
afraid when you was bleeding yoit 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 liberation of a poor
reformed and purified fellow lying in the fell grip of
consumption.

373

Wlu-n 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 s<> \varm< d m-- toward Mr.
I'.rown of St. Louis that 1 said that it" ever 1 visited that
city again, 1 would seek out that exi client man and kiss
the hem of his garment, if it was a new one. Well, I
visit' d St. Louis, but 1 did not hunt for Mr. I'.rown; for
al.is ! the investigations of long ago had proved that the
benevolent I'.rown, like "Jack I hint," was not a real per-
son, but a sheer invention «>f that Lifted rascal, Williams
-burglar, Harvard graduate, son of a clergyman.

CHAPTER LIII
MY BOYHOOD'S HOME

WE took passage in one of the fast boats of the St.
Louis and St. Paul 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 has moved it down eight 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, 111., and before daylight next morning
the town of Louisiana, Mo., a sleepy village in my
day, but a brisk railway centre now; however, all the
towns out there are railway centres now. I could not
clearly recognize 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 s.ven in the m .rning we reached Hannibal, .Mo.,

where my boyhood was spent. I had had a glimpse
« it fit'leen years a-o, and another glimpse six years
< irlier, but both were go 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 1 first
quitted it twenty-nine years ago. That picture of it \\
still as clear 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 had a sort of realixing sense of
what the Pastille 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. 1 saw the new houses —
saw them plainly enough — but they did not atfeet the
older picture in my mind, for through their solid bricks
and mortar I saw the vanished houses, which had formerly
stood there, with perfect distinctness.

It was Sunday morning, and every-body was abed yet.
So I passed through the vacant streets, still seeing the
town as it was, and not as it is, and recognixing and
metaphorically shaking hands with a hundred familiar
objects which no longer exist; and finally climbed Holi-
day's Hill to get a comprehensive view. The whole towc
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 are now in heaven;
some, I trust, are in the other place."

The things about me and before me made me feel like
a boy again — convinced me that I was a boy again, and
that 1 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 1 could enter and find either a man or a woman
who was a baby or unborn when I noticed those houses

376

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; which is a hazardous remark to
make, for the eight hundred miles of river between St.
Louis and St. Paul afford an unbroken succession of
lovely pictures. It may be that my affection for the one
in question biasses my judgment in its favor; I cannot
say as to that. No matter, it was satisfyingly beautiful
to me, and it had this advantage over all the other
friends 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, and scarred with the campaigns of
life, and marked with their griefs and defeats, and would
give me no upliftings of spirit.

An old gentleman, out on an early morning walk, came
along, and we discussed the weather, and then drifted
into other matters. I could not remember his face. He
said he had been living here 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 honor in an Eastern college, wan-
dered off into the world somewhere, succeeded at nothing,
passed out of knowledge and memory years ago, and is
supposed to have gone to the dogs."

" He was bright, and promised well when he was a
boy."

"Yes, but the thing that happened is what became of
it all."

I asked after another lad, altogether the brightest in
our village school when I was a boy.

"He, t;»o, was graduated with honors, from an ! astern
collect.-; but life whipped him in every battle, straight
along, and he died in one of the Territories, years ago, a
defeated man. "

1 asked after another of the bright boys.

" Me is a SU< . always has been, always will be, I

think."

1 enquired after a young fellow who came to the town
t > study for one of the professions when I was a boy.

" He went at something else before- lie got through —
went from medieine to law, or from law to mcdicin, —
then to some other new tiling; went away for a year,
rame baek with a young wife; fell to drinking, then to
gambling behind the door; finally took his wife and two
children to her father's, and went off to Mexico; went
from bad to worse, ami finally died there, without a cent
buy a shroud, and without a friend to attend the
funeral."

" Pity, for he was the best-nattired 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.

1 named three school-girls.

" The first two live here, are married and have chil-
dren; the other is IOHL dead— never married."

I named, with emotion, one of my early sweethearts.

"She is all right. I'.een married three times; 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 everywhen 5."

The answer to several other enquiries wa?*T)rief and
simple :

378

"Killed in the war."

I named another boy.

"Well, now, his case is curious ! There wasn't a
human being in this town but knew that that boy was a
perfect chucklehead; perfect dummy; just a stupid ass,
as you may say. Every-body knew it, and every-body
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. I'm telling you the truth."

" How do you account for it ? '

" Account for it ? There ain't any accounting for it,

except that if you send a d d fool to St. Louis, and

you don't tell them he's a d d fool, they /I never find

it out. There's one thing sure — if I had a d d 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 property. Well, when you come to look at it all
around, and chew at it and think it over, doiit it just
bang any thing you ever heard of ?"

"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 ? "

" Oh, nonsense ! 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 d d fools that you want to

realize 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
away, some had prospered, some had come to naught;
but as regarded a dozen or so of the lot, the answer was
comforting :

" Prosperous — live here yet — town littered with their
children."

370

I asked about M i

" l>ied in the in • isylum three or four years ago —
never was nut of it from the time slu- went in; and was
always Milferi:ig 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 mad-house, that some young fools
might have some fun ! I was a small boy at the time;
and 1 saw those giddy young ladies come tiptoeing into

the room wliere Miss sat reading at midnight 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. IJut
they did.

After asking after such other folk as 1 could call to
mind, I finally enquired about myself:

" Oh, he succeeded well enough — another case of
d- -d fool. If they'd sent him to St. Louis, he'd have
succeeded sooner."

It was with much satisfaction that I recognized the
wisdom of having told this candid gentleman, in the be-
ginning, that my name was Smith.

CHAPTER LIV
PAST AND PRESENT

BEING left to myself, up there, I went on picking out
old houses in the distant town, and calling back their
former inmates out of the mouldy past. Among them I
presently recognized the house of the father of Lem
Hackett (fictitious name). It carried me back more than
a generation in a 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 Hackett was drowned —
on a Sunday. He fell out of an empty flat-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, repent-
ino- We had not needed the information, delivered from

o f

the pulpit that evening, that Lem's was a case of special
judgment — we knew that, already. There was a fero-
cious 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 van-
ished, the houses over the way glared out white and
blinding for a quivering instant, then the soli 1 darkness
shut down again and a splitting peal of thunder followed
which seemed to rend every thing in the neighborhood to
shreds and splinters. I sat up in bed quaking and shud-

tl Ting, waiting for the destruction of the world, and
< \pecting it. 'I'o me there was nothing strange OF incon-
gruous in Heaven's making sin h an uproar about Lem
Haekctt. Apparently it was the right and proper tiling
to do. Not a doubt entered my mind that all the an;"
were grouped together, discussing this boy's ease and
observing the awful bombardment of our beggarly little
village with satisfaction and approval. There was one
thin^ which disturbed me in the most serious way: that
was the thought that this centring of the celestial
interest on our village could not fail to attract the atten-
tion 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 but
one result : I should be 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 in-
creasing the chances against myself all the time, by feel-
ing a secret bitterness 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 1 was gone. In my terror and misery, I
meanly began to suggest other boys, 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 without
intent to divert the heavenly attention to them for the
purpose of Betting rid of it myself. With' deep s iiy

i put these mentions into the form of sorrowing recollec-
tions and left-handed sham-supplications that the sins of
those boys might be allowed to pass unnotie- --" i
sibly they may repent." " It is true that Jim Smith broke
a window and lied .iboiit it — but mavbe he did not mean

382

any harm. And although Tom Holmes says more bad
words than any other boy in the village, he probably
intends to repent — though he has never said he would.
And while it is a fact that John Jones did fish a little on
Sunday, once, he didn't really catch any thing but only
just one small useless mud-cat; and maybe that wouldn't
have been so awful if he had thrown it back — as he says
he did, but he didn't. Pity but they would repent of
these dreadful things — and maybe they will yet."

But while I was shamefully trying to draw attention
to these poor chaps — who were doubtless directing the
celestial attention to me at the same moment, though I
never once suspected that — I had heedlessly left my
candle burning. It was not a time to neglect even trifling
precautions. There was no occasion to add any thing to
the facilities for attracting notice to me — so I put the
light out.

It was a long night to me, and perhaps the most dis-
tressful 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 was sure that they
had been set down against me in a book by an angel who
was wiser than I and did not trust such important mat-
ters to memory. It struck me, by and by, that I had
been making a most foolish and calamitous mistake, in
one respect; doubtless I had not only made my own
destruction sure by directing attention to those other
boys, but had already accomplished theirs ! Doubtless
the lightning had stretched them all dead in their beds
by this time ! The anguish and the fright which this
thought gave me made my 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 my-
self with the church the next day, if I survived to see its

333

sun appear. i resolved t<> < from sin in all its forms,

anil to lead a high and blam life forever after. 1

would be punctual at church and Sunday-school; visit
the sick; carry baskets of victuals to the poor (simply to
t'ul I'd the regulation conditions, although I knew we had
none among Us s<> poor but they would smash the basket
over my head for my pains) ; I would instruct other boys
in right ways, and take the resulting tromirings meekly;
1 would subsist entirely on tracts; 1 would invade tin-
rum shop and warn the drunkard — and finally, if I escaped
the fate of those who early become too good to live, I
would go for a missionary.

The storm subsided toward daybreak, and I dozed
gradually to sleep with a sense of obligation to I, em
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 ; that the
entire turmoil had been on Lena'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. 1 was a little subdued during that day, and per-
haps 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 ex-
perienced; for on the afternoon of that day, "Dutchy"
was drowned. Dutchy belonged to our Sunday-school.
He was a (ierman lad who did not know enough to come
in out of the rain; but he was exasperatingly good, and
had a prodigious memory. One Sunday he made himself
the envy of all the youth and the talk of all the admiring

334

village, by reciting three thousand verses of Scripture
without missing a word: then he went off the very next
day and got drowned.

Circumstances gave to his death a peculiar impressive-
ness. 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 time his head appeared above water. At
last he seemed hurt with the taunts, and begged us to
stand still 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 laugh-
ing at him." Treacherous winks were exchanged, and
all said, " All right, Dutchy — go ahead, we'll play fair."

Dutchy plunged in, but the boys, instead of beginning
to count, followed the lead of one of their number and
scampered to a range of blackberry bushes close by and
hid behind it. They imagined Dutchy's humiliation,
when he should rise after a superhuman effort and find
the place silent and vacant, nobody there to applaud.
They were "so full of laugh " with the idea that they
were continually .exploding into muffled cackles. Time
swept on, and presently one who was peeping through
the briers said, with surprise :

" Why, he hasn't come up yet! '

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.

1. fore long, tin- boys' fa CCS began to look uneasy, then
anxious, thru terrified. Still there was no movement "1"
the placid water. Hearts began to beat fast, ami fa
to turn pale. \Ve all glided out silently, and stood on
the bank, our horrified eyes wandering baek and forth
from each other's countenances to the water.

"Somebody must _^o down and s

Yes, that was plain; but nobody wanted that grisly

" 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
any thing, 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 g > with such a frightened suddennes-.

The boy had been caught among the hoop-poles and
entangled there, helplessly. 1 fled to the surface and,
told the awful news. Some of us knew that if the b
were dragged out at once he might possibly be resusci-
tated, but we never thought of that. We did not think
of any thing; we did not know win4: to do, so we did
nothing — except that the smaller lads cried piteously,
and we all struggled frantically into our clothes, putti
on any body's that came handy, and getting them wnn;
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. \\"e had a more important
thing 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 da/.ed ; I could not understand it. It seem
to me that there must be some mistake. The elements

386

were turned loose, and they rattled and banged and
blazed away in the most blind and frantic manner. 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 any body 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 compelled me to do that — but
succeeding days" of cheerfulness and sunshine came
bothering around, and within a month I had so drifted
backward that again I was as lost and comfortable as
ever.

Breakfast time approached while I mused these mus-
ings and called these ancient happenings back to mind;
so I got me back into the present and went down the
hill.

On my way through town to the hotel, I saw the house
•which 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 colored folk.

After breakfast I went out alone again, intending to
hunt up 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

33?

that now. lly the public square tlinv had been in my
clay a shabby little brick church called the " < >ld Ship of
/ion," which 1 had attended as a Sunday-school scholar;
and 1 found the 1<>< all ty ea>ily enough, but not the old
church; it was gone, and a trig and rather hilarious new
edifice was in its pla< e. '1'he pupils were better dn -

and better looking than were those of tny time; conse-
quently they did not resemble their ancestors; and con-
sequently there was nothing familiar to me in their la<
Still, I contemplated thnn with a deep interest and a
yearning wistfulnos, and if I had been a girl 1 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, ami 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 bakl-summited superintendent who had been a tow-
headed Sunday-school mate of mine on that spot in the
early ages, recognized 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 with-
out a betrayal of feeling that would have been recog-
nized as out of character with me.

Making speeches without preparation is no gift of
mine; and I 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
on the platform a moment for the sake of getting a
good look at the scholars. ( >n the spur of the moment
1 could not recall any of the old idiotic talks which
visitors used to insult me with when I was a pupil ther- ;

id I was sorry for this, since it would have given me

388

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 matchable in
another Sunday-school of the same size. As I talked
merely to get a chance to inspect, and as I strung out
the random rubbish solely to prolong the 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 a prig; and as for the contents of his skull, 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's reproachlessness was a standing reproach
to every lad in the village. He was the admiration of all
the mothers, and the detestation of all their sons. I was
told what became of him, but as it was a disappointment
to me, I will not enter into details. He succeeded in
life.

I.M'Tl k I.V
ENDETTA '-. \ : - ER THIH

my thr: e (i;iys' stay in tin- town, I woke up
ry m»rnino- with the impression that i was a 1>
in my dreams the faces were all yun^" a^ain, and looked
as they had looked in thr old times; but I went to b--d a
hundred years old, every ni.^ht — for meantime I had bi
seeing those faces as tliey are now.

( )f course 1 suffered some surprises, alono- at fi" '
In-fore I had become adjusted to the eha' state of

tiling-. I met you no- ladies who did not seem to have
changed at all; but they turned out to be the daiiL;ht
of th'- you no- ladies I had in mind — sometimes their o'rand-
dauo'hter-;. When you are told that a st ran o'er of fiftv is
a grandmother, there is nothing surprising about it; but
if, on the contrary, she is a person whom you knew
a little o'irl, it seems impossible. You say to yours
"How can a little girl be a grandmother?' It ta;

little time to accept and realize the fact that while
you have been o'rowino- old, your friends have not been
standing still, in that matter.

1 noticed that the greatest changes observable were
with the women, not the men. I saw men whom thirty

•

years had ehano'i'd but slightly; but their wives had

wn old. These were o'ood women; it is very wear
to 1 ! d.

There was a saddler whom I wished to sec; but
was gon I > -ad, these many years, they said. O
or twice a day, the saddler ased to o-(, te irino' down tl
street, putting on his coat as he went; and then every-

390

body knew a steamboat was coming. Every-body knew,
also, that John Stavely was not expecting any body by
the boat — or any freight, either; and Stavely must have
known that every-body knew this, still it made no differ-
ence 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;
I envied him his rush of imaginary business, and the dis-
play he was able to make of it before strangers, as he
went flying down the street, struggling with his 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 every thing he said. He was a romantic, senti-
mental, 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, — con-
fused and not intelligible, — but out of their midst an ejac-
ulation 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 he was full of crime. At last he said
in a low voice :

" My little friend, can you keep a secret ? ':

I eagerly said I could.

"A dark and dreadful one?"

I satisfied him on that point.

"Then I will tell you some passages in my history ;
for oh, I must relieve my burdened soul, or I shall die ! '

He cautioned me once more to be "as silenl as the

grave"; then lie told me lie was a "red-handed
murd: ;-• r. " Mr put down his plane, held his hands out
before him, contemplated them sadly, and said:

"Look — with these hands I have taken the live-,
thirty human beings !

The effect which this had upon me was an inspiration
to him, and he turned him.-elf loose upon his subject
with int and energy. Me left gcnerali/ing, and

went into details — be.Lj.an with his first murder; described
it, told what measures he had taken to avert 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 stf>j/u-e I went home with six of
his fearful secrets among my freightage, and found them
a -Teat 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 — allot" 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 — every
thing. 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, Satur-
day after Saturday, until the original thirty had multi-
plied 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
b' >re 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

392

therefore he would lay bare before me the story of his
sad and blighted life. He had loved one "too fair for
earth," and she had reciprocated "with all the sweet
affection of her pure and noble nature." But he had a
rival, a "base hireling' named Archibald Lynch, who
said the girl should be his, or he would "dye his hands
in her heart's best blood." The carpenter, "innocent
and happy in love's young dream," gave no weight to the
threat, but led his "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 "conse-
crate 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 always used that same consecrated knife;
with it he had murdered his long array of Lynches, and
with it he had left upon the forehead of each victim a
peculiar mark — a cross, deeply incised. Said he:

"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 uttermost 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 here!' You have
heard of the Mysterious Avenger — look upon him, for
before you stands no less a person! But beware —
breathe not a word to any soul. Be silent, and wait.
Some morning this town will flock aghast to view a gory
corpse; on its brow will be seen the awful sign, and men

393

will tremble and \\-hisper, 'IK: has been here— it is the

Mysterious Avenger's mark!' You will come h , but
1 shall have vanished; you will see nir no m«i

This ass had been reading the '' J ibbenuim >>ay," no
doubt, and had had his pour romantic head turned by it;
but as I had not yet seen the bonk then, 1 took his in-
ventions for truth, and did not suspect that he \vu^ a
plagiarist.

II'|..\ ver, \ve had a I.yneh living in the town; and the
more I relleeted upon his impending 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. I.yneh and
tell him what was about to happen to him — under strict
secrecy. 1 advised him to "fly," and certainly expected
him to do it. lUit he laughed at me; and he did not
stop there; 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 contem-
plate the cheap and pitiful ruin of what, in my eyes, had
so lately been a majestic and incomparable hero. The
carpenter blustered, flourished his knife, and doomed
this Lynch in his usual volcanic stvle, the size of his

fateful words undiminished ; but it was all wasted upon
me; he 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 his 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 1 remember all their details
yet.

The people of Hannibal are not more changed than is

394

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. In 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;
but 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
particularly bare of bears — is hidden out of sight now,
under islands and continents of piled lumber, and nobody
but an expert can find 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 every-body in town had this
disease at once. Many chimneys were shaken down,
and all the houses were so racked that the town had to be
rebuilt. The chasm or gorge between Lover's 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 bluffs. I would have liked to re-
visit it, but had not time. In my time the'person who
then owned it turned it into a mausoleum for his daugh-
ter, aged fourteen. The body of this poor child was put
into a copper cylinder filled with alcohol, and this was

395

suspended in one "f the dismal avenue* of the CaV

'1'lie top («r the cylinder was removabl< ; and it was sa

to br a coiinnoii thin^ for the baser order of tourists to
drai: the dead face into view and examine it and comment
upon it.

CHAPTER LVJ
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 neighborhood. A citizen asked, " Do
you remember when Jimmy Finn, the town drunkard,
was burned to death in the calaboose ?"

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 combustion. 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 any body else; I knew
too much of it, in that by-gone 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.
I assisted; but at last, some appeal which the wayfarer
made for forbearance, accompanying it with a pathetic
reference to his forlorn and friendless 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 unbuoyant in spirit. An
hour or two afterward, the man was arrested and locked

up iii the calaboose by the marshal— large name for a
constable, but thai \\as his title. At two in tin- m«>rnin. .
the church-bells ran- for lire, and cvcry-body turned nut,
of COUrs -I with the rest. The tramp had used his
matches disastrously: he had set his Straw brd mi fi; .

oaken sheathing of the room had t. \VI

1 i d the -rmind, two hundred men, women, and

Idren stood massed together, transfixed with horror,
and staring at the Crated windows of the jail. Ik-hind
the iron : and tugging frantically at them, and

screaming for help, stood the tramp; he f 1 like a

black obje. i - ,st a sun, so white and intense \vas

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 eiv ' ring a sound that the spectators broke
into wild cheering, and believed the merciful battle won.
Hut it was not SO. The timbers were too strong; they

i not yield. It was said that the man's death-grip still
held fast to the bars after iie was dead; and that in this
position the fires wrapped him about and consumed him.
As to this, L do not know. U'hat v, en, after I

•ii/ d the face that was pleading through the bars,
was seen by others, not by me.

1 saw that face, so situated, every night for a long time
afterw..rd; and I believed myself as guilty of the man's
death as if I had given him the matches purposely that
he might burn himself up with them. I had not a doubt
that 1 should be hanged if my connection with this trag-
found out. The happenings and the impressions

that tim ' burned into my memory, and the study of
them entertains me as much now as they themselves dis-
tressed me then. If any body spoke of that grisly matter,
I was all ears in a moment, and alert to hear what might
be said, for 1 was always dreading and expecting to find

398

out that I was suspected; and so fine and so delicate was
the perception of my guilty conscience that it often de-
tected suspicion in the most purposeless remarks, and in
looks, gestures, glances of the eye, which had no signifi-
cance, 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!' 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 — sitting up in bed and contemplating me by the
light of the moon. I said:

"What is the matter ?"

"You talk so much I can't sleep."

I came to a sitting posture in an instant, with my kid-
neys in my throat and my hair on end.

"What did I say? Quick — out with it — what did
I say?"

" Nothing much."

" It's a lie — you know every thing ! '

" Every thing about what ? ''

"You know well enough. About that.'"

"About what? I don't know what you are talking
about. I think you are sick or crazy or something. But
any way, you're awake, 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 dis-
tress 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:

•Suppose a man should come to you drunk-
•• I'hi.-, is foolish — 1 never g< t drunk."
•• 1 don't mean you, idiot — i mean the man. Supp
•hin should come to voti drunk, and borrow a knife, or

a tomahawk, or a pistol, and you forgot to tell him it \\
lo;ided,, and "

-• 1! iw «-ould you load a tomahawk?"

" 1 don't mean the tomahawk, and 1 didn't say the
idiawk; 1 said the pistol. Now, don't you keep break-
ing in that way, because this is serious. There's been a
man killed. "

" What ! In this town ?

" Yes, in this t< >\\ n. "

" \\'ell, go on — I won't say a single word."

•• Well, then, suppose y<»u forgot to tell him to be care-
ful 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 ? "

11 No — suicide."

"No, no ! I don't mean his act, I mean yours. Would
you be a murderer for letting him have that pistol?"

Aft'T deep thought came this answer:

"Well, 1 should think I was guilty of something — may-
be murder — yes, probably murder, but I don't quite
know "

This made me very uncomfortable. However, it was
not a decisive verdi I should have to set out the real
Case — there seemed to be no other way. Hut 1 would do
it cautiously, and keep a watch out for suspicious effects,
i said:

•• 1 was supposing a case, but I am coming to the n al
one now. I )o you know how the man came to be burned
up in the calaboose ?"

"No."

4°°

" Haven't you the least idea?"

"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 calaboose with those very matches,
and burnt himself up."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, it is. Now, is that boy a murderer, do you
think?"

" Let me see. The man was drunk ? '

"Yes, he was drunk."

"Very drunk ?"

"Yes."

"And the boy knew it ?"

"Yes, he knew it."

There was a long pause. Then came this heavy ver-
dict:

"If the man was drunk, and the boy knew it, the boy
murdered that man. This is certain."

Faint, sickening sensations crept along all the fibres of
my body, and I seemed to know how a person feels who
hears his death sentence pronounced from the bench. I
waited to hear what my brother would say next. I be-
lieved 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:

t i.

Why, how in the world did you ever guess it ? '

" You told mr i n y »ur sleep. "

1 said to myself, "How splendid that is' Tln->
hal)it which must hi- cultivat- d."

My brother rat iled inn icently on :

"When you were talking in your , you ki

mumblin- something about ' matches,' which 1 couldn't
make any thing out of; but just now, when you i" gan to
tell n '-.it the man and the Calaboose and the match.

i remembered that in your sleep you mentioned Hi .1
< .out/ two or three times; so i put this and that
together, you see, and ri-ht away 1 knew it was Hen that
burnt that man up."

I praised his s ity effusively. Presently he asked:

" Are you going to LMve him up to the law? '

"No," I said; "I believe that this will be a lesson to
him. I shall keep an eye on him, of course, for that is
but ri^lit; but if he stops where he is ami reforms, it
shall never be said that I betrayed him."

•• I low good you are ! '

"Well, I try to be. It is all a person can do in a
world like- this."

Ami now, my burden beini;- shifted to other shotikh .
my terrors soon faded away.

The day before we left Hannibal, a curious tiling fell
under my notice — the surprising spread which longi-
tudinal time undergoes there. I learned it from one of
the most unostentatious of men — the colored 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. P.ut he missed it considerably — did not
arrive till ten. He excused himself by saying:

"Do time is m<»s' 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 ciuir
26

402

Sunday, en fetches up dah right plum in de middle er de
sermon. Diffunce in de time.- A body can't make no
calculations 'bout it.'

i had lost two hours and a half; but I had learned a
fact worth four.

HAPT1 i; i. vn

A \ ARCHANGEL

MM St. I.ouis northward tin-re are all the enliven

of tlu- presence of active, energetic, intelligent,
prosperous, practical nineteenth-century populati- s.
Tin- 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 com-
fort that everywhere appear.

Quin- v 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 < ''ty has gone
backward in a most unaccountable way. This metropolis
promised so well that the projectors tacked "city" to its
name in the very beginning, with full confidence; but it
was bad prophecy. When I first saw Marion City, thirty-
live years ago, it contained one street, and nearly or quite
six houses. It contains but one house now, and this one,
in a slat-- of ruin, is getting ready to follow the former
live into the river.

Doubtless Marion City was too near to Quincy. It
had another disadvantage: it was situated in a Hat mud
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 New Kngland town: and these she has yet: broad,
clean streets, trim, neat dwellings and lawns, line m m-
sions, stately blocks of commercial buildings. And there
are ample fair-grounds, a well-kept park, and many

404

attractive drives; library, reading-rooms, a couple of col-
leges, some handsome and costly churches, and a grand
court-house, with grounds which occupy a square. The
population of the city is thirty thousand. There are some
large factories here, and manufacturing, of many sorts,
is done on a great scale.

La Grange and Canton are growing towns, but I missed
Alexandria; was told it was under water, but would come
up to blow in the summer.

Keokuk was easily recognizable. I lived there in 1857,
—an extraordinary year there in real-estate matters.
The "boom' was something wonderful. Every-body
bought, e very-body sold — except widows and preachers;
they always hold on; and when the tide ebbs, they get
left. Any thing in the semblance of a town lot, no matter
how situated, was salable, 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 progressing with a healthy growth. It was night, and
we could not 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 finished now. This is the canal over the Rapids. It
is eight miles long, three hundred feet wide, and is in no
place less than six feet deep. Its masonry is of the
majestic kind which the War Department usually deals
in, and will endure like a Roman 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-place of that erratic genius,
Henry Clay Dean. I believe I never saw him but once;

but he was much talked of when 1 livi re. Tl.

wiiat was said of him :

Ilr began life poor and without education, 15ut
ed ; 1 himsrlf — on the curb-Stones <>f K<-..kuk. Ib-

would sit down on a Curb-Stone with his book, careless • r
un ious < >f ; r of commen • and th.- tramp

the passing crowds, and bury hims<-lf in his studies by
tli-.- hour, never rlian.^in^ his position to draw in

his kne<\s no\v and then to let a dray pass unobstructed;
and when his book was finished, i ntentS, ho-

abstruse, had been burned into his memory, and were 1

• 'ffianent posse In this way lie acquired a v,

hoard of all sorts of learning, and had it pigeon-holed in
his head where he could put his intellectual hand on it
whenever it was wanted.

His clothes differed in no respect from a "wharf-rat's,"
t that they were rai^edcr, more ill-assorted and
inharm >ni .ul therefore more extravagantly pictur-

esciue), and several layers dirtier. Nobody could inkr
the master-mind in the top of that edifice from the
cd ifn - If.

11 was an orator — by nature in the first place, and
later by the training of experience and pra When

he was out on a canvass, his name was a loadstone whieh
drew the farmers to his stump from fifty miles around.
His theme was always politics. He used no notes, f.»ra
vi does not need notes. In iS(>j a son of Keokuk's

late ilistin.n'u: , Mr. < . 7G me this

incident Concerning i >< an :

The war feeling was running hi-h in Keokuk (in '6
and a -'reat mass meeting was to be held on a certain ck,y
in the new Atlien:eum. A distinguished stranger \\ -
to a - the hoti- After the builtlii;.^ had been

packed to its utmost capacity with sweltering folk of

•th sexes, th" sta till r ; vacant — the distin-

guished stranger had failed to connect. The crowd
grew impatient, and by and by indignant and rebellious.
About this time a distressed manager discovered Dean
on a curb-stone, explained the dilemma to him, took his
book away from him, rushed him into the building the
back way, and told him to make for the stage and save
his country.

Presently a sudden silence fell upon the grumbling
audience, and every-body's eyes sought a single point —
the wide, empty, carpetless stage. A figure appeared
there whose aspect was familiar to hardly a dozen persons
present. It was the scarecrow Dean — in foxy shoes,
down at the heels; socks of odd colors, also'" down ";
damaged trousers, relics of antiquity and a world too
short, exposing some inches of naked ankle; an un-
buttoned 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; bobtailed blue
coat, reaching down to the small of the back, with
sleeves which left four inches of forearm unprotected;
small, stiff-brimmed soldier-cap hung on a corner 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 re-
mained as before, thoughtfully inspecting. Another
wave started — laughter, this time. It was followed
by another, then a third — this last one boisterous.

And now the stranger stepped back one pace, took
off his soldier-cap, tossed it into the wing, and began
to speak with deliberation, nobody listening, every-body

•• 1

laughing and whisp'-rii; The ^peakcr t;d!-:--d mi
embarra^i'd, and presently delivered a shot which w nt
home, and silence and attention resulted. lie fi>lln\\ed
it quick and fasl with Other telling things; wanned to i
work and began to pour his words out, instead <>1 drip-
ping them; grew hotter and In/tier, and fell to discha:---
ing lightnings and thunder— and now the house began to
break into applause, to which the speaker gave no hi <•(!,
but went hammering straight on; unwound his black
bandage and cast it away, still tlmmli.Tir.ij;'; presently dis-
carded the bob-tailed coat and flung it aside, firing up
higher and higher all the time; finally Hun;;' the vest after
the coat; and then for an untimed period stood tlu ; ,
like another Vesuvius, spouting smoke and llame, lava
and ashes, raining pumice-stone and cinders, shaking the
in«>ral 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 cease) 5S
hurricane of cheers, through a thrashing snow-storm of
waving handkerchiefs.

••When Dean came," said Claggftt, "the people
thought he was an escaped lunatic; but when he went,
they thought he was an escaped archangel."

IJurlington, home of the sparkling Uurdette, is another
hill city; and also a beautiful one — unquestionably so; a
fine and nourishing 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

408

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 govern-
ment, including a paid fire department; a thing which
the great city of New Orleans is without, but still employs
that relic of antiquity, the independent system.

In Burlington, as in all these Upper-River 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 clens 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. 1 lived there a while,
many years ago, but the place, now, had a rather unfa-
miliar 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 son 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 thing like that; so I
swung round to his view of the matter and saved my skin
whole. Shortly afterward, he went to visit his father;
and as he has not turned up since, I trust he is there yet.

And 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

'K- divam M" <•, lor, from th'- mottled daintii"
and de-lit a< i.-s of the opal, all tin- \vay up, thn umu-

lativ intensities, t<> blinding purph- and crimson con-
flagrations, which were enchanting t<> the eye, lnit sharply
tried it at the same tin- All the Upper Mi- ppi

^ion has these c-vtraordinary ^nnsrts as a tamiliar
It is the true Smist t Land: 1 am sun- no
oth'T country can show SO .^ood a ri^ht to the name.
The sunrises are also said to In- e\( t edin^lv fine. i no

1 3 .

not know

CHAPTER LVIIl
ON THE UPPER RIVER

THE big towns drop in, thick and fast, now: and be-
tween stretch processions of thrifty farms, not desolate
solitude. Hour by hour, the boat ploughs deeper and
deeper into the great and populous Northwest; and with
each successive section of it which is revealed, one's sur-
prise and respect gather emphasis and increase. Such a
people, and such achievements as theirs, compel homage.
This is an independent 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 fs 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 any thing 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

41 I

the same <>K1 re- illation trip — he hud not heard thut there
i any tiling \\< rth i >f Si. I .otiis.

Vet there was. There was this amazing region, l>ri>i-
ling \vitii -ivat towns, pn>jr< ted day before \< sterday, so

'• - :ak, and built next morning. A score of tin-in
num'iKT lYoin 1500 to 5000 people. Then we have \ius-

tine, 10,000; \\inona, 10,000; M»!i;ie, 10,000; Ro< k
Islaiul, ij,ooo; I .a (Yosse, 12,000; DurlinL1 ,t "ii, _^,ooo;
DubuqiK-. --5,000; I )a\vnport, 30,000; St. Paul, 5.^,000;
. -)O,ooo and upward.

The foreign tourist has never heard of these; there is
no note of them in his books. They have sprung up in
the night, while he slept. So new is this re-ion that 1,
who am comparatively young, am yet older than it is.
\Yhen 1 was born St. Paul had a population of thr< e
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.

1 must ex-plain that the figures set down above, as
the population of St. Paul and Minneapolis, are severed
months old. These towns are far larger now. In fact,
I have just seen a newspaper estimate, which gives the
former scveniy-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.

\Ve had a glimpse at Davenport, which is another beau-
tiful 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 an- all situated upon hills. Therefore- we will
give that phrase a rest. The Indians have a tradition
that Marquette and Joliet camped where Davenport now

412

stands, in 1673. The next white man who camped there,
did it about a hundred 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-River quota
of factories, newspapers, and institutions of learning;
she has telephones, local telegraphs, an electric alarm,
and an admirable paid fire department, consisting of
six hock 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 Rock
Island, which lies at the foot of the Upper Rapids. 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 Rock 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. Near the centre
of the island one catches glimpses, through the trees, of
ten vast stone four-story buildings, each of which covers
an acre of ground. These are the Government work-
shops; for the Rock Island establishment is a national
armory and arsenal.

We move up the river — always through enchanting
scenery, there being no other kind on the Upper Mis-
sissippi— and pass Moline, a centre of vast manufactur-
ing industries; and Clinton and Lyons, great lumber
centres; and presently reach Dubuque, which is situated
in a rich mineral region. The lead mines are very pro-
ductive, and of wide extent. Dubuque has a great num-
ber of manufacturing establishments ; among them a

plough factory, which has for customers all ( 'hristendom
in general. At least SO 1 uas told by an _ it of the
concern who was on the boat. lie said:

" Yon show UK- any country under the sun where they
really know //<>;,' to plough, and if 1 don't show yon our
in, irk on the plough they use, I'll eat that plough ; and
I won't ask f< r any Woostershyre sauce to llavor it up
with, eii her."

All this part of the river is rich in Indian historv .
traditions. Dlack Hawk's was once a puissant name he
abouts ; as was Keokuk's, further down. A few mi' -
below Dubuque is the Tete tie Mort,- 1 >< at h's-head ro< k,
or bluff, — to the top of which the French drove a band of
Indians, in early times, and cooped them up there, witli
death for a certainty, and only the manner of it matter
of choice — to starve, or jump off and kill themselvi 5.
Ulack Hawk adopted the ways of the white people
toward the end of his life; and when he died he was
buried, near 1 )es Moines, in Christian fashion, modified
by Indian custom; that is to say, clothed in a Christian
military uniform, and with a Christian cane in his hand,
but deposited in the grave in a sitting posture. Formerly,
a horse had always been buried with a chief. The sub-
stitution of tin- cane shows that Black Hawk's haughty
natur - really humbled, and he expected to walk when
he got over.

\Ye noticed that above Dubuque the water of the Mis-
sissippi was oil en — rich and beautiful and semi-
transparent, with the sun on it. Of course the water
w > no -here as clear or of as fine a complexion as it is in
some other seasons of the year; for now it was at flood
stage, and therefore dimmed and blurred by the mud
manufactured from caving banks.

The majestic bluffs that overlook the river, along
through this region, charm one with the grace and

414

variety of their forms, and the soft beauty of their adorn-
ment. The steep, verdant slope, whose base is at the
water's edge, is topped by a lofty rampart of broken, tur-
reted rocks, which are exquisitely rich and mellow in
color — mainly dark browns and dull greens, but splashed
with other tints. And then you have the shining 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 vil-
lages, asleep upon capes; and of stealthy rafts slipping
along in the shade 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
presently does, ripping the sacred solitude to rags and
tatters with its devil's war-whoop and the roar and thun-
der 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 after you 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 my stock at all. It must be
an awful thing to have a railroad left on your hands.

The locomotive is in sight from the deck of the steam-
boat almost the whole way from St. Louis to St. Paul-
eight hundred miles. 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 ca-
pacity: consequently the captains were very independent

415

ami airy — pretty "biggity," as I'm k- Kemus would say.
Tlir clerk nut-shelled the contrast between the former
time and tlu- present, thus:

" I'.oat used to land — captain on hurricane r<>< >f-— mighty
stilt' and straight — iron ramrod fora sj>inc — kid glovi ,
pin- tile, hair parted behind— man on shore takes oil" hat
and says:

"'(lot twenty-eight tons of wheat, < ap'n — be great
favor it" you can take them. '

" I'aptain says:

" ' '11 take two of them ' —and don't even condescend
to look at him.

"Hut nowadays the captain takes off his <>ld slouch,
and smiles all the way around to the back of his ears, and
a bow which he hasn't got any ramrod to in-
terfere with, and says:

"'Glad to see you, Smith, glad to see you — you're
looking well — haven't seen you looking so well for \ears
— what you got for us ? '

" 'Nuth'n',' says Smith; and keeps his hat on, and just
turns his back and goes to talking with somebody else.

"()h, yes! eight years ago, the captain was on t
but it's Smith's 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 personally acquainted with the
nigger that blacked the captain's boots. Hut it's all
changed now; plenty staterooms above, no harvesters
below — there's a patent self-binder now, and they don't
have harvesters any more; they've gone where the wood-
bine twineth — 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-
fashioned way, manned with joyous and reckless crews of
fiddling, song-singing, whiskey-drinking, breakdown-danc-
ing rapscallions; no, the whole thing was shoved swiftly
cJong by a powerful stern-wheeler, modern fashion; and
the small crews were quiet, orderly men, of a sedate
business aspect, with not a suggestion of romance about
them anywhere.

Along here, somewhere, on a black night, we ran some
exceedingly narrow and intricate island-chutes by aid of
the electric light. Behind was solid blackness — a crack-
l^ss bank 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 color, and
flooded with a glare as of noonday intensified. The
effect was strange and fine, and very striking.

We passed Prairie du Chien, another of Father Mar-
quette's camping-places; and after some hours of prog-
ress through varied and beautiful scenery, reached La
Crosse. Here is a town of twelve or thirteen thousand
population, with electric lighted streets, and blocks of
buildings which are stately enough, and also architectur-
ally 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.

CHAPTER I !\
LEGENDS VND S ENERY

WK added several passengers to our list at La CfOSi
among others an old gentleman who had come to this
Northwestern re-ion with the early settlers, and was
familiar with every part of it. 1'ardonaMy proud of it,
too. 1 Ie >aid:

•• You'll find scenery between here and St. Paul that
i give the Hudson points. You'll have the (Jin-en's
bin ft" — seven hundred feet high, and just as imposing a
spectacle as you can find anywheres; and Tivmpeleau
Island, which isn't like any other island in America, I
. for it is a gigantic mountain, with piveipitous
sides, and is full of Indian traditions, and used to be full
of rattlesnakes; if you catch the sun just right there,
you will have a picture that will stay with you. And
above \Vinona you'll have lovely prairies; and then come
the Thousand Islands, too beautiful for any thing, (ireen?
\Yhy, you never saw foliage so green, nor packed SO thick;
it's like a thousand plush cushions atloat on a looking-
glass — when the water's still; and then the monstrous
bluffs on both sides of the river — ragged, rugged, dark-
complected — just the frame that's wanted; you always
want a strong frame, you know, to throw up the n:
points of a delicate picture and make them stand out."

The old gentleman also told us a touching Indian
legend or two — but not very powerful ones.

After this excursion into history, he came back to the
scenery, and described it, detail by detail, from the
Thousand Islands to St. Paul; naming its names with

4i3

such facility, tripping along his theme with such nimble
and confident ease, slamming in a three-ton word, here
and there, with such a complacent air of 'tisn't-any-
thing, -I-can-do-it-any-time-I-want-to, and letting off fine
surprises of lurid eloquence at such judicious intervals,
that I presently began to suspect-
But no matter what I began to suspect. Hear him:
" Ten miles above Winona we come to Fountain City,
nestling sweetly at the feet of cliffs that lift their awful
fronts, Jove-like, toward the blue depths of heaven, bath-
ing them in virgin atmospheres that have known no other
contact save that of angels' wings.

"And next we glide through silver waters, amid lovely
and stupendous aspects of nature that attune our hearts
to adoring admiration, about twelve miles, and strike
Mount Vernon, six hundred feet high, with romantic
ruins of a once first-class hotel perched far among the
cloud shadows that mottle its dizzy heights — sole remnant
of once-flourishing Mount Vernon, town of early days,
now desolate and utterly deserted.

"And so we move on. Past Chimney Rock we fly —
noble shaft of six hundred feet; then just before landing
at Minnieska our attention is attracted by a most strik-
ing promontory rising over five 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.
From its dizzy heights superb views of the forests,
streams, bluffs, hills, and dales, below and beyond for
miles, are brought within its focus. What grander river
scenery can be conceived, as we gaze upon this enchant-
ing landscape, from the uppermost point of these bluffs
upon the valleys below? The primeval wildness and
awful loneliness of these sublime creations of nature
and nature's God, excite feelings of unbounded admira-

t;.,n, ami tlii- recollection of \vl;ich ran never be

teed irom the memory, as we view them in any

(111 •!!.

"Next we have the- Lion's Head and the Lioi
II ;ad, carved by ; 's hand, to adorn and doii,

tin- beauteous stream, and then anon the river widens,
and a most charmin- and magnificent view of the vali
before us suddenly bursts upon our vision; ru--< d
hills, elad with verdant forests from summit to bas ,
level prairie lands, holding in their lap the beauti.
\\"abasha. City of the IP .ding" Waters, puissant foe of
I'.right's , and that grandest conception of nature's

works, incomparable Like I'cpin — t < mstitutc a

picture whereon the tourist's eye may ga/.c uncounted
hours, with rapture unap, i and unappeasable.

"And so we Clitic along: in due time encountering
those majestic domes, the mighty Sugar Loaf, and the
sublime Maiden's Rock — which latter, romantic sup< r-
stition has invested with a voice; and oft-times as the
birch canoe glides near, at twilight, the dusky paddler fan-
cies he hears the soft, sweet music of the long-departed
Winona, darling of Indian song and story.

" Then Lrontenac looms upon our vision, delightful
resort of jaded summer tourists; then progressive Red
Wing; and Diamond Bluff, impressive and prepondcrous
in its lone sublimity; then Preseott and the St. C'roix;
and anon we see bursting upon us the domes and steeples
of St. Paul, giant young chief of the North, marching
with seven-league stride in the van of progress, banner-
bearer of the highest and newest i ivilization, carving his
beneficent way with the tomahawk of commercial enter-
prise, sounding the war-whoop of Christian culture, tear-
ing off- the reeking s« alp of sloth and superstition to
plant there the steam-plough and the school-house — ev< r
in his front stretch arid lawlessness, ignorance, crime,

42O

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 ? "

" No, she is laid up till the fall 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 con-
versational 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 full of romantic interest from the event
which gave it its name. Not many years ago this,
locality was a favorite resort for the Sioux Indians on
account of the fine fishing and hunting to be had there,
and large numbers of them were always to be found in
this locality. Among the families which used to resort
here was one belonging to the tribe of Wabasha. We-
no-na (first-born) was the name of a maiden who had
plighted her troth to a lover belonging to the same band.
But her stern 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

4-1

ap] • to the proposal and < inied tlicni

to tin- mck, for tlu- purpose of ^at IKTIIIL; |]M\\ ,f the

( Mi n-a< liin^- the n>rk, \\c-no-na ran to its sum-
mit and, standing on its cd^e, upbraided her parents who
were below, for their cruelty, and then, sin^in^ a death-
dir- !, threw herself from the precipice and dashed them
in ;• - on the rock below."

" I >ashed who in pi -her parents 5 '

- Yes."

" Well, it certainly was a tragic business, as you say.
And moreover, th< a startling kind of dramatic sur-

pris • about it which I was n->t looking for. It is a dis-
tinct improvement upon the threadbare form of Indian
legend. There are fifty Lover's Leaps alonjr the Missis-
sippi from whose summit disappointed Indian cdrls have
jumped, but this is the only jump in the lot that turned
out in the rivjit and satisfactory w What became of

Winona :"

"She was a £ood deal jarred up and jolted: but she got
herself ther and disappeared before the coroner

iched the fatal spot; and 'tis said she sought and mar-
ried her true love, and wandered with him to some dis-
tant clinic, where she lived happy ever after, her gentle

;rit mellowed and chastened by the romantic incident
which had so early deprived her of the sweet guidance of
a mother's love and a father's protecting arm, and thrown

r, all unfriended, upon the cold charity of a censorious
world."

I was idad to hear the lecturer's description of the
scenery, for it assisted my appreciation of what I saw of
it, and enabled me to imagine such of it as we lost by the
intrusion of ni-ht.

As the lecturer re-marked, this whole region is blanket .-d
with Indian tales and traditions. Hut I reminded him
that people usually merely mentioned this fact — doin^ it

422

in a way to make a body's mouth water — and judiciously
stopped there. Why ? Because the impression 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 inventions 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 his memory; but he 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 contributors to Schoolcraft's book had got them
directly from Indian lips, and had written them down
with strict exactness, and without embellishments 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 — "The Undying Head," and
" Peboan and Seegwun, an Allegory of the Seasons."
The latter is used in "Hiawatha"; but it is worth read-
ing in the original form, if only that one may see how

jlTrrtive a genuine poem < an In- without the helps and
gra 1 p iCtic measure and rhythm:

PEBOAN AND SEEGWUN.

An old man was sitting alone in his lodge, by tin- s;de of a fro/en
Stream. It was tin: close "I winter, and his flic was alinu.it out.
!!,• appeared very old and very desolate. 11,-. locks were white
with age. and he trembled in every joint. Day after day passed in
solitude, and he heard nothing hut the sound of the tempest,
sweeping before it the new-fallen snow.

One day, as his fire was just dying-, a handsome young man
approached and entered his dwelling. His cheeks were red with
the blood of youth, his eyes sparkled with animation, and a smile
played upon his lips. lie walked with a light and quick step. His
forehead was bound with a wreath of sweet grass, in pla< ol 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 you.

Come in ! Come and tell me of your adventures, and what stra:
lands you have been to see. Let us pass the night together. I
will tell you of my prowess and exploits, and what I can perform.
You shall do the same, and we wrill amuse ourselves."

He then drew from his sack a curiously wrought antique pipe,
and having filled it with tobacco, rendered mild by a mixture of
certain leaves, handed it to his guest. When this ceremony was
concluded they began to speak.

•• 1 blow my breath," said the old man, " and the stream stands
still. The water becomes stiff and hard as clear stone."

" 1 breathe," said the young man, "and flowers spring up over
the plain."

" I shake my locks," retorted the old man. " and snow covers the
land. The leaves fall from the trees at my command, and my
breath blows them 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 becomes as hard as flint."

"I 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. Mv voice recalls the birds. The warmth of mv breath

424

unlocks the streams. Music fills the groves wherever I walk, and
all nature rejoices."

At length the sun began to rise. A gentle warmth came over
the place. The tongue of the old man became silent. The robin
and bluebird began to sing on the top of the lodge. The stream
began to murmur by the door, and the fragrance of growing herbs
and flowers came softly on the vernal breeze.

Daylight fully revealed to the young man the character of his
entertainer. When he looked upon him, he had the icy visage of
Peboan* Streams began 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
but the miskodeed^ 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.];

* Winter. f The trailing arbutus. \ See Appendix D0

CilAI'lT.R 1 \

ECULATIONS AND CONCLUSK
\\"r reached St. 1'aul, at the head of navigation of t

Mississippi, and there our voyage of two thousand miles
from New Orleans ended. It is about a ten-day trip by

.uner. It can probably be done quicker by rail. I
judge so because 1 knmv that 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 New
( >rieans, the roses and magnolia blossoms were falling;
but here in St. Paul it was the snow. In New Orleans
we had caught an occasional withering breath from over
a crater, apparently; here in St. Taul we caught a fre-
quent benumbing one from over a glacier, apparently.

I am not trying to astonish by these statistics. No, it
is only natural that there should be a sharp difference 1). -
tween climates which lie upon parallels of latitude which
are one or two thousand miles apart. I take this posi-
tion, 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-
conccal'-d CM -Lunation points, that while we, away up
here are fighting snow and ice, folks are having new
strawberries and peas down South; callas are blooming
out of doors, and the people are complaining of the warm
weather. The nev. - r never gets done being sur-

prised about it. It is caught regularly every February.

426

There must be a reason for this; and this reason must be
change of hands at the editorial desk. You cannot sur-
prise an individual more than twice with the same marvel
-not even with the February miracles of the Southern
climate; but if you keep putting new hands at the edi-
torial desk every year or two, and forget to vaccinate
them against the annual climatic surprise, that same old
thing is going to occur right along. Each year one new
hand will have the disease, and be safe from its recur-
rence; but this does not save the newspaper. No, the
newspaper is in as bad case as ever; it will forever have
its new hand; and so, it will break out with the straw-
berry surprise every February as long as it lives. The
new hand is curable; the newspaper itself is incurable.
An act of Congress — no, Congress could not prohibit the
strawberry surprise without questionably stretching its
powers. An amendment to the Constitution might fix
the thing, and that is probably the best and quickest way
to get at it. Under authority of such an amendment,
Congress could then pass an act inflicting imprisonment
for life for the first offence, and some sort of lingering
death for subsequent ones; and this, no doubt, would
presently give us a rest. At the same time, the amend-
ment and the resulting act and penalties might easily be
made to cover various cognate abuses, such as the
Annual - Veteran-who -has - Voted - for- Every - President-
from- Washington-do wn,-and-Walked-to-the-Polls-Yester-
day-with-as - Bright-an- Eye-and -as-Firm-a-Step-as-Ever,
and ten or eleven other weary yearly marvels of that sort,
and of the Oldest-Freemason, and Oldest-Printer, and
Oldest-Baptist-Preacher, and Oldest-Alumnus sort, and
Three-Children-Born-at-a-Birth 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 commissioner to construct some new ones.

Thru life would be a SWCCl dream of rest and peace, and
lii" nations would Cease to 1 »ng i avcii.

l!ut I wander from my theme. St. 1'anl is a wonderful
town. It is put together in solid blocks of honest bri< k
and stone, and has the airof intending to Stay. Its post-
office was established thirty-six years ago; and by and by,
when the postmaster received a letter, he carried it to
Washington, horsebat k, to enquire 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 fur-
nish 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,-

; ; number of houses built during three-quarters of the
year, 989; their cost, $3, 186,000. The increase of letters
over the corresponding six months 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
commerce — I mean his commerce. He is a manufactur-
ing city, of course, — all the cities of that region are, —
but he is peculiarly strong in the matter of commerce.
Last year his jobbing trade amounted to upward of
s; 2, 000,000.

He has a custom-house, and is building a costly capitol
to replace the one recently burned — for he is the capital
of the State. He lias churches without end; and not the
cheap poor kind, but the kind that the rich Protestant
puts up, the kind that the poor Irish " hired-girl '
delights to erect. What a passion for building majestic
churches the Irish hired-girl has. It is a fine thing for
our architecture; but too often \ve enjoy her stately
fanes without giving her a grateful thought. In faet,
instead of reflecting that '' every brick and every stone

428

in this beautiful edifice represents an ache or a pain, and
a handful of sweat, and hours of heavy fatigue, con-
tributed by the back and forehead and bones of poverty,"
it is our habit to forget these things entirely, and merely
glorify the mighty temple itself, without vouchsafing one
praiseful thought to its humble builder, whose rich heart
and withered purse it symbolizes.

This is a land of libraries and schools. St. Paul has
three public libraries, and they contain, in the aggregate,
some forty thousand books. He has one hundred and
sixteen school-houses, and pays out more than seventy
thousand dollars a year in teachers' salaries.

There is an unusually fine railway station; so large is
it, in fact, that it seemed somewhat overdone, in the
matter of size, at first; but at the end of a few months it
was perceived that the mistake was distinctly the other
way. The error is to be corrected.

The town .stands on high ground; it is about seven
hundred feet above the sea-level. It is so high that a
wide view of river and lowland is offered from its streets.

It is a very wonderful town indeed, and is not finished
yet. All the streets are obstructed with building material,
and this is being compacted into houses as fast as pos-
sible, 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 that the
earliest pioneer of civilization, the van-leader of civiliza-
tion, is never the steamboat, never^ the railroad, never
the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, 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 comes the poor immigrant, with axe and hoe
and rifle; next, the trader; next, the miscellaneous rush;

429

next, the gambler, tin- desperado, the highwayman, and

all their kindred in sin of both >; .md next, t In-

smart chap who has bought up an old -rant that covers
all the land; this brings the lawyer tribe; the vigilai
committee brings the undertaker. All these interests
bring the newspaper; the newspaper starts up polii
and a railroad; all hands turn to and build a ehtin !i and
a jail — and behold! civili/ation is established forever
in the land. Hut whiskey, you see, was the van-leader
in this beneficent work. It always is. It was lik-
foreigner — and excusable in a !"• >rcigner- • be ignora
of this great truth, and wander oil into astronomy
borrow a symbol. J5ut if he had been conversant with
the facts, he would have said:

Westward the Jug of Empire takes its way.

This great van-leader arrived upon the ground which
St. Paul now occupies, in June, 1^7. Yes, at that date,
Pierre Parrant, a Canadian, built the first cabin, uncork
his jug, and began to sell whiskey to the Indians. The
result is before us.

All that 1 have said of the newness, briskness, swift
progress, wealth, intelligence, fine and substantial archi-
tecture, and general slash and go, and energy of St. Paul,
will apply to his near neighbor, Minneapolis — with the
addition that the latter is the bigger of the two cities.

These extraordinary towns were ten miles apart a few
in iiiths ago, but were growing so fast that they may pos-
sibly 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 buildii:
stretching between them and uniting them that a stranger
will not be able to tell where the one Siamese twin leav
off and the other begins. Combined, they will then num-
ber a population of two hundred and fifty thousand, if

430

they continue to grow as they are now growing. Thus,
this centre of population, at the head of Mississippi navi-
gation, 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 water-power which, by
art, has been made of inestimable value, business-wise,
though somewhat to the damage of the Falls as a
spectacle, or as a background against which to get your
photograph taken.

Thirty flouring mills turn out two million barrels of the
very choicest of flour every year; twenty sawmills pro-
duce two hundred million feet of lumber annually; then
there are woollen mills, cotton mills, paper and oil mills;
and sash, nail, furniture, barrel, and other factories, with-
out number, so to speak. The great flouring-mills here
and at St. Paul use the " new process ' and mash the
wheat by rolling, instead of grinding it.

Sixteen railroads meet in Minneapolis, and sixty-five
passenger 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 enlight-
ening the one sex. There are sixteen public schools,
with buildings which cost five hundred thousand dollars;
there are six thousand pupils and one hundred and
twenty-eight teachers. There are also seventy churches
existing, and a lot more projected. The banks aggregate
a capital of three million dollars, and the wholesale job-
bing trade of the town amounts to fifty million dollars a
year.

Near St. Paul and Minneapolis are several points of

431

interest — Kurt Snelling, a fortress oeeupyinv; a river-bluff
a hundred feet high; llie falls of Minnehaha; \\'hite-l)ear
Lake, and so forth. The beautiful falls of Miimehaha
are sufficiently celebrated — they do not need a lift from
me, in that direction. The White-bear Lake is 1
known. It is a lovely sheet of water, and i> being util-
ized as a summer-resort by the wealth and fashion of the
State. It has its club-house, and its hotel, with the mod-
ern 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 ///<• 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 fur-
ther comment 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
young 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 hand by her parents, the old chief alleging that
he was no brave, and his old consort called him a woman !

The sun had again set upon the "sugar-bush," and the bright
moon rosehighin 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 (lute to

432

his lips, his blanket slipped from his well-formed shoulders, and
lay partly on the snow beneath. He began his weird, wild love-
song, but 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, his 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 the 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 that 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 interest.) 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 blanket, but missed the direction of
her foot and fell, bearing the blanket with her into the great arms
of the ferocious monster. Instantly every man, woman, 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 ? 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 deafening yell from the
lover warrior is heard above the cries Of hundreds of his tribe, and
dashing away to his wigwam he grasps his faithful knife, returns
almost at a single bound to the scene of fear and fright, rushes out
along the leaning tree to the spot where his treasure fell, and
springing with the fury of a mad panther, pounced upon his prey.
The animal turned, and with one stroke of his huge paw brought
the lovers heart to heart, but 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 band or the lovers,

J.33

as r'. young ami the old dai il the cai » of tin- de id

* >

a, n ' dkint warrior was pr< : with another plume,

and < re another moon hail set lie had a !r are added I" his

he, i! i.l hildren for DI played u;rtn th-

\vi; I'roiu whicii tin- ! :;. . nd 1

: emembered loin; tin- I", ai hi I s< ene am

made them one, lor Kis-SC-me pi and Ka-!_Mi-ka fdiild

their fearful encounter with the lui-e monstei tii.-u came so m r
:din-- them to t'.e happy hunting-ground.

It i- ,i perplexing business. I'irst, she i't-11 down oul
the tr -she and the blanket; and the bear caught her
ami fondled her — her and the blanket; then she fell up
into the tree a^'ain — leaving the blanket; meantime the
l.>ver gi »es war- whooping home and comes bark "heeled,"
climbs the tree, jumps down on the bear, the -irl jumps
down after him, — apparently, for she was up the 1 r
sumes 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. Y"ou get your-
self all worked up and excited about that blanket, and
then all of a sudden, just when a happy climax set ins im-
mine:. . u are let down tlat — nothing saved but the idr!!
\\ hereas, one is not interested in the Ldrl; she is not the
prominent feature of the legend. Nevertheless, there
you uiv left, and there you must remain; for if you live a
thousand years you will never know who ^ot the blanket.
A d< ad man could ^et up a better legend than this one.
1 don't mean a fresh dead man either; I mean a man
that's be.-n dead weeks and weeks.

We struek 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; up the e'enii, and
contrixin^ and achieving new impossibilities. It is
ho; 3 for tin -ional visitor to try to keep up with

Chicago — she out-rows his prophecies faster than he can

434

make them. She is always a novelty, for she is never
the Chicago you 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 make.

APPENDIX

(>':,- .\V:c Orleans Times-Dewoo a: ,>M<i>\h 29, 18

V.M;K OF TIII: TIMKS-DKMOCRAT'S KKI.IKF i;< >A r

TIIRotT.il Till: ENUNDATED REGIONS

I r was nine o'clock Thursday morning when the Susie left the
.Mississippi and entered Old River, or what is now called the mouth
of the Red. Ascending on the left, a flood was pouring in through
and over the levees on the Chandler plantation, tin- most northern
point in Point Coupee parish. The water completely covered the
place, although the levees had given way but 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 pronounced one of the most fertile in the State. The water
has hitherto allowed it to go scot-free in usual floods, but now
broad sheets of water told only where fields were. The top of the
protective levee could be seen here and there, but nearly all of it
was submerged.

The trees have put on a greener foliage since the water
poured in, and the woods look bright and fresh, but this pleasant
aspect to the eye is neutralized by the interminable waste of water.
\Ye pass mile after mile, and it is nothing but trees standing up to
their branches in water. A water-turkey now and again rises and
flies ahead into the long avenue of silence. A pirogue sometin
flits from the bushes and crosses the Red River on its way out to
the Mississippi, but the sad-faced paddlers never turn their heads
to look at our boat. The puffing of the boat is music in this
gloom, which affects one most curiously. It is not the gloom of
deep forests or dark caverns, but a peculiar kind of solemn silence

436

and impressive awe that holds one perforce to its recognition.
We passed two negro families on a raft tied up in the willows this
morning. They were evidently of the well-to-do class, as they had
a supply of meal and three or four hogs with them. Their rafts
were about twenty feet square, and in front of an improvised
shelter earth had beeti 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 be seen to enforce the opinion of that river's desperate
endeavors 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 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 bank 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 hun-
dred 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,

•

shores are under wal A den i '.vth <>t . »ak,
gum, ami hickory mak< »hores almost impenetrable, .UK! whn.-

IIIH- c.in get a \ic\v down some avenue in tin- trees, only the dim
outlines of distant trunks can he hardy distinguished in '•

gloom.

A lew miles up this river, the depth of water on tip- hanks
fully eight feet, and on all sides could he seen, still holding against

the strong current, the tops of cabins, llnvaiul thei • over-
turned was surrounded hy drift-wood, forming the nucieiis «.| j
sihly some future island.

In order to s d. as it was impossible to get that fuel at any

point to he touched during the expedition, a lookout was k' pi lor a
WOOd-pile. On rounding a point a pirogue, skilfully paddled by
a youth, shot out, and in its how was a girl of fifteen, of fair f..
beautiful black < nd demure manners. The hoy asked for a

paper, which was thrown to him, and the couple pushed their tiny
craft out into the swell of the boat.

Presently a little girl, not certainly over twelve years, paddled
out in the smallest little canoe and handled it with all the deftness
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 anywhere. She
was hound 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 hack 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 flat.

From this point to the Mississippi River, fifteen miles, there is
not a spot of earth above water, and to the westward for thirty-five
miles there is nothing but the river's flood. Black River had risen
during Thursday, the 23(1, I *{ inch, 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 add to the gloom,
almost every living thing seems to have departed, and not a whistle
of a bird nor the bark of a squirrel can he heard in the solitude.
Sometimes a morose gar will throw his tail aloft and disappear in

438

the river, but beyond this every thing is quiet — the quiet of dissolu-
tion. Down the river floats now a neatly whitewashed hen-house,
then a cluster 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 carcass 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 alongside the
woods was hunted, and to a tall gum-tree the boat was made fast
for the night.

A pretty quarter of the moon threw a pleasant light over forest
and river, making a picture that would be a delightful piece of
landscape study, could an artist only hold it down to his canvas.
The motion of the engines had ceased, the puffing of the escaping
steam was stilled, and the enveloping 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 cur-
rent die away.

At daylight, Friday morning, all hands were up, and up the
Black we started. The morning was a beautiful one, and the
river, which is remarkably straight, put on its loveliest garb.
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
— smokehouses drifting out in the pastures, negro quarters an-
chored in confusion 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 anywhere, 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 : " \VelI, sir, it's enough to keep warmth in their
bodies, and that's all \ve expert, but it's hard on the ho-,, p.iit
lai iy the small ones. They is dropping off powerful fast. But
what ran you do ? It's all we've got."

At tliirty 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, tin- 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.

Up to Trinity, or rather Troy, which is but a short distance
below, the people have nearly all moved out, those remaining hav-
ing enough for their present personal needs. Their cattle, though,
are suffering and dying off quite fast, as the confinement on rafts
and the food they get breed disease.

After a short stop \ve started, and soon came to a section where
there were many open fields and cabins thickly scattered about.
Here were seen more pictures of distress. On the inside of the
houses the inmates had built on boxes a scaffold on which they
placed the furniture. The bed-posts were sawed off on top, as the
ceiling was not more than four feet from the improvised floor.
The buildings looked very insecure, and threaten every moment to
ll'iat off. Near the houses were cattle standing breast-high in the
water, perfectly impassive. They did not move in their places, but
stood patiently waiting for help to come. The sight was a dis-
tressing- one. and the poor creatures will be sure to die unless
speedily rescued. Cattle differ from horses in this pecu:
quality. A horse, after finding no relief comes, will swim off in
rch of food, whereas a beef will stand in its tracks until with
exhaustion it drops in the water and drowns.

At half-past twelve o'clock a hail v \en from a Hat-boat

inside the line of the bank. Rounding to \ve ran alongside, and
General York stepped aboard. He was just then engaged in

tting off stock and welcomed the Times-Democrat boat
heartily, as he said there was much need for her. He said that

440

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 this point there is always imminent risk of their
being swept away. If this occurs, there will be great loss of life.
The general spoke of the gallant work of many of the people in
their attempts to save their stock, but 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, but 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 River. 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,
are 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 were mixed together, sheep, hogs, horses,
mules, and cattle. One of these mounds has been used for many
years as the grave-yard, and to-day we saw attenuated cows lying
against the marble tomb-stones, chewing their cud in content-
ment, after a meal of corn furnished by General York. Here, as
below, the remarkable skill of the women and girls in the manage-
ment of the smaller pirogues was noticed. Children were pad-
dling about in these most ticklish crafts with all the nonchalance
of adepts.

General York has put into operation a perfect system in regard
to furnishing relief. He makes a personal inspection of the place
where it is asked, sees what is necessary to be done, and then,

441

having Iwo i)oats chartered, with 11 ads tin mptly to tl

[)l.i.\-. \\ hen led and towed to th ncl

uplands of C.;tahoiila. HI- has made Troy his headquarl ncl

to this point i ome for their supply- . ()n

the o; le of Little River, which branches to tl f

Black, and between it and the < hiachita, is situated the town
Tiinity. which is hourly threatened with destruction, i; is nnnh
lower than Tn>\ . and the v. i ht and n in the

houses. A Strong > urix-nt sweeps through it, ami ,>\v

that all of its houses have not -one before. '!'!;• f both

Troy and Trinity 1. en cared f< r, yet Si theirstoci. i

to be furnished with fond.

AN soon is the Si ><'d Troy she was tur;,-d over to

Gener.il \ ork. and placed at his disposition I ry out the work

of relief more rapidly. Nearly all her supplies were landed on one
of the mounds to lighten her, and she war, headed down s > to

relieve those below. At Tom Hooper's place, a few miles from
Troy, a large ll.it, with about fifty head of stock on board, was
taken in tow. The animals were fed, and soon r< 'gained some
strength. To-day we go on Little River, where the suffering is
greatest.

DOWN 15 LACK RIVER

S \ I URDAY EVENING, March 25.

\Ve started clown Black River quite early, under the direction of
('•eneral York, to bring out what stock could be reached. Going
clown 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 a 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 < f
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 Moor. One or two dug-outs were drifting
about in the room, ready to be put in service at any time. When

442

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, enquired
if the family desired to leave, informing them that Major Burke of
the Times-Democrat has sent the Susie up for that purpose.
Mrs. 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 comprehension. 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.
Looking out of the half of the window left above water was Mrs.
Ellis, who is in feeble health, while at the door were her seven
children, the oldest not fourteen years. One side of the house
was given up to the work animals, 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 cook-
ing was done on a fire on top of it. The house threatened to give
way at any moment ; one end of it was sinking, and, in fact, the
building looked a mere shell. As the boat rounded to Mr. Ellis
came out in a dug-out, and General York told him that he had
come to his relief ; that the Times-Democrat boat was at his ser-
vice, and would remove his family at once to the hills, and on Mon-
day a flat would take out his stock, as, until that time, they would
be 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 house falling.
The children around the door looked perfectly contented, seeming
to care little for the danger they were in. These are but 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 there 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

443

portion of the front; and so axes were brought into requisition
and a gap made. Ai'liT much labor the h<>: md mules Were

securely placed on the tlat.

At each place \vc stop there arc always three, four, or nmiv dii--
outs arriving, bringing' information of stuck in other plat es in need.
Notwithstanding the fact that a great "iany had driven a part of
their stock to the lulls some tune ago. there yet remains a la:
quantity, which (.lem-i-d York, who is working with indomitable
energy, will get landed in the pine hills by Tuesday.

All along i'.lack River the .V/ovV has been visited by scores of
planters, whose tales are the repetition of those already heard of
suffering and loss. An old planter, who has lived on the river
since 1844. said there never was such a rise, and he was satis!.
more than one-quarter of the stock has been 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 rise, which
still continues, and was two inches last night, compels them to get
them out to the hills ; hence it is that the work of General York is
of such a great, value. From daylight to late at night he is going
this way and that, cheering by his kindly words and directing with
calm judgment what is to be done. One unpleasant story, of a
certain merchant in New Ork-ans, 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 coffee, 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 neces-
sary to sustain life. It is needless to say he is not popular now on
Black River.

The hills spoken of as the place of refuge for the people and
stock on Black River are in Catahoula parish, twenty-four miles
from Black River.

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 River to
the hills.

444

THE FLOOD STILL RISING

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
toward saving life, as the increase of the water has jeopardized
many houses. We intend to go up the Tensas in a few minutes,
and then we will return and go down Black River to take off fam-
ilies. There is a lack of steam transportation here to meet the
emergency. The general has three boats chartered with flats in
tow, but the demand for these to tow out stock is greater than they
can meet with promptness. All are working night and day, and
the 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. Reports 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 supposed to be the one sunk in yesterday's storm on Lake Cata-
houla. 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 matter have gone, and
those who remain are not well versed in the production of this
section.

General York desires me to say that the amount of rations for-
merly sent should be duplicated and sent at once. It is impos-
sible to make any estimate, for the people are fleeing to the hills,
so rapid is the rise. The residents here are in a state of com-
motion that can only be appreciated when seen, and complete
demoralization has set in.

If rations are drawn for any particular section hereabouts
they would not be certain to be distributed, so every thing should
be sent to Troy as a centre, and the general will have it properly

44-

disposed of. He has sent for one hum!! i, if all go to

the hills who are in motion now, two hundred will i , (uired.

Tin condition of this rich valley of the Lower Mississippi, im-
mediately after and since the war, constituted one of the disastp
eil warmest to be deplored. Fictitious property in sla

was not only righteously destroyed, but very much of the work
which had depended upon the slave labor was also destroyed or
greatly impaired, especially the levee system.

It mit;ht have been < xpeeted, by those who have not investigated
the subject, that such important improvements as the construction
and maintenance 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 fn.m eightei n to
thirty per cent., and are also under the necessity of pledging their
crops in advance even of planting-, at these rates, for the privi!<
of purchasing all of their supplies at one hundred 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 com-
passed by States. The river must be treated as a unit ; its con-
trol cannot be compassed under a divided or separate system of
administration.

tiier are the States especially interested competent to com-
bine 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 dot--, not need technical or scientific knowledge to compre-
hend the elements 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 existing commission is. of thoroughly
able men of different walks in life, may it not be suggested that
their \ in the case should be accepted as conclusive, so far as

any <r f>rti>ri theory of construction or control can be consider
conclusive ?

It should be remembered that upon this board are General

446

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, the 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
this.

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 secure at some points a
fair depth of channel and some degree of permanence ; so, in the
project of the engineer, the use of timber and brush and the
encouragement of forest growth are the main features. It is pro-
posed to reduce the width, where excessive, by brushwood dykes,
at first low, but raised 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 freely. 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 basins,
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 designated works
of revetment ; and these also will be largely of brushwood, woven
in continuous carpets, or twined into wire-netting. This veneer-
ing process has been successfully employed on the Missouri
River; and in some cases they have so covered themselves with
sediments, and have become so overgrown with willows, that they
may be regarded as permanent. In securing these mats rubble-
stone is to be used in small quantities, and in some instances the
dressed slope between high and low river will have to be more or
less paved with stone.

Any one who has been on the Rhine will have observed opera-

447

ti.ins not unlike those to which we have just referred ; and. ind< •
most of the riveis <>\ F.urope flowing among their own alluvia
have required similar treatment in the interest of navigation and

agriculture.

The levee is the crowning work of hank revetment, although
not necessarily in immediate connection. It may be set back 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 unite in the excavation
of a single permanent channel, without a complete control of all
the stages ; and even the abnormal rise must be provided against,
because this would endanger the levee, and once in force behind
the works of revetment, would tear them also away.

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 proportion to capacity ; /. ?., less perimeter in
proportion to area of cross section. The ultimate effect of levees
and revetments, confining the floods and bringing 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 ; but
this, by inducing greater velocity of How, inevitably causes an
enlargement of section, and if this enlargement is prevented from
being made at the expense 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 leve.-s
upon the Mississippi River, with no attempt to hold the banks,
has been favorable, and no one can doubt, upon the evidence fur-
nished in the repons of the commission, that if the earliest levees
had been accompanied by revetment of banks, and made complete,
we should have to-day a river navigable at low water and an
adjacent country safe from inundation.

Of course it would be ill" to conclude that the constrained

river can ever lower its flood slope so as to make levees unneces-
sary, 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 ity of a channel through alluvium depends upon its

448

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 Mississippi River floods by creating new outlets, since these
sensational propositions have commended themselves only to
unthinking minds, and have no support among engineers. Were
the river bed cast-iron, a resort to openings 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 realizing the least ratio
of perimeter to area of cross section, there could not well be a
more unphilosophical method of treatment than the multiplica-
tion of avenues of escape.

In the foregoing statement the attempt has been made to con-
dense in as limited a space as the importance of the subject would
permit, the general elements of the problem, and the general feat-
ures of the proposed method of improvement which has been
adopted by the Mississippi River Commission.

. The writer cannot help feeling that it is somewhat presumptuous
on his part to attempt to present the facts relating to an enter-
prise which calls for the highest scientific skill; but it is a matter
which interests every citizen of the United States, and is one of
the methods of reconstruction which ought to be approved. It is
a war claim which implies no private gain, and no compensation
except for one of the cases of destruction incident to war which
may well be repaired by the people of the whole country.

EDWARD ATKINSON.
BOSTON, April 14, 1882.

RECEPTION OF CAPTAIN BASIL HALL'S BOOK IN THE

UNITED STATES

HAVING now arrived nearly at the end of our travels, I am
induced, ere I conclude, again to mention \vhat I consider as one
of the most remarkable traits in the national character of the
Americans : namely, their exquisite sensitiveness and soreness
respecting every thing said or written concerning them. Of this,
perhaps, the most remarkable example I .can give is the effect

produe.' ! on n.

Cant mi U Lsil i " Travels in North Am In I

was irt <>f moral earthquake, and tin- vibratioi ned

through • e nerves of tin- republic, from om r of i

ID the • i>y n<> means over \\lnn i i'li the country in

Jul\ , r , i . .1 conpl irs alter ih'- sh< M

1 \v.is in Ciiu innati \\ ! olumes came out, hut it was not

till July, 1830, that I i . • ;>y of the: .

whom I appl that h ha.! .<.',:

un .'ork, hut

quainted with it. not hing should induce him to sell another.

persons of ! n must, howver, have rupu-

lous ; lor the hook was read in city, town, village and ham

it and - . and a sort of war-whoop

|.a tn pel iectly unprecedented in my recollection upon any occa-
sion what- \ er.

An ardent <! for approbation, and a delicate sensitive'

under censure, have always, I believe, been considered as amiable
traits of character; but the condition into which tin nee of

Captain Hall's work threw the republic shows plainly that these
feelings, if carried to excess, produce a weakness- which an.
to imbecility.

It was perfectly astonishing to hear men wh> ther subjects,

e of some judgment utter their opinions upon this. I m ver
h arc! 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 fair and liberal interpretation :
these, perhaps, were hardly to be expected. Other nations have
been called thin-skinned, but the citizens of the Union have, ap-
parently, no skins at all; they wince if a breeze b' er them.
unless it be tempered with adulation. It was not, therefore, vi
surprising that the acute and forcible observations of a travel! r
they knew would lie listened to should be received testily. The
extraordinary features of the. business were, first, the excess of the
rage into which they lashed themselves ; and, secondly, the puer-
ility of the inventions by which they attempted to account for the
severity with which they fancied they had been treated.

Not content with declaring that the volumes contained no word
ot truth from beginning to end (which is an assertion I heard

450

made very nearly as 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 he had published his book.

I have heard it, said with as much precision and gravity as if the
statement had been conveyed by an official report, that Captain
Hall had been sent out by the British Government expressly for the
purpose of checking 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 any thing to object to.

I do not give this as the gossip of a coterie ; I am persuaded
that it is the belief of a very considerable portion of the country.
So deep is the conviction of this singular people that they cannot
be seen without being admired, that they will not admit the possi-
bility that any one should honestly and sincerely find aught to
disapprove in them or their country.

The American Reviews are, many of them, I believe, well known
in England ; I need not, therefore, quote them here, but I some-
times wondered that they, none of them, ever thought of translat-
ing Obadiah's curse into classic American ; if they had done so, on
placing [he, Basil Hall] between brackets, instead of [he, Obadiah]
it would have saved them a world of trouble.

I can hardly describe the curiosity with which I sat down at
length to peruse these tremendous volumes ; still less can I do
justice to my surprise at their contents. To say that I have found
not one exaggerated statement throughout the work is by no
means saying enough. It is impossible for any one who knows
the country not to see that Captain Hall earnestly sought out
things to admire and commend. When he praises, it is with evi-
dent pleasure ; and when he finds fault, it is with evident reluc-
tance and restraint, excepting where motives purely patriotic urge
him to state roundly what it is for the benefit of his country should
be known.

In fact, Captain Hall saw the country to the greatest possible
advantage. Furnished, of course, with letters of introduction to
the most distinguished individuals, and with the still more influen-
tial recommendation of his own reputation, he was received in fuil
drawing-room style and state from one end of the Union to the
other. He saw the country in full dress, and had little or no

451

opportunity of judging of it unhouselled. unanointed. unannealed,
with all its imperfections on its head, as I and my family [on often
had.

Captain Hal! had certainly excellent opportunities of making
himself acquainted with the form of the government and the laws ;
and of receiving, moreover, the hest oral commentary upon them,
in comei sation with the most distinguished cili/.eiis. Of these
opportunities he made excellent use; nothing important met his
which did iv>t receive that sort of analytical attention which
an experienced and philosophical traveller alone can give. This
lias made his volumes highly interesting and valuable, but I am
deeply persuaded that, were 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 infinitely lower idea of the moral at-
mosphere of the country than Captain Hall appears to have done;
and the internal conviction on my mind is strong that, if Captain
11. ill had not placed a firm restraint on himself, he must have
given expression to far deeper indignation than any he has uttered
unst 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 ; but 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
millions of strangers is the origin of my opinion, 1 must bear it ;
and were the question one of mere idle speculation, I certainly
would not court the abuse I must meet for stating it. But it is
not so.

• ••••••

The candor which he expresses, and evidently feels, they mis-
take for irony, or totally distrust ; his unwillingness to give pain to
persons from whom he has received kindness, they scornfully re-
ject as affectation , and although they must know right well, in
their own secret hearts, how infinitely mure they lay at his mercy

452

than he has chosen to betray, they pretend, even to themselves,
that he has exaggerated the bad points of their character and
institutions ; whereas, the truth is that he has let them off with a
degree of tenderness which may be quite suitable for him to exer-
cise, however little merited ; while, at the same time, he has most
industriously magnified their merits, whenever he could possibly
find any thing favorable.

THE UNDYING HEAD

IN a remote part of the North lived a man and his sister, who
had never 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 distance from the lodge, and there, in some
particular spot, place his arrows, with their barbs in the ground.
Telling his sister where they had been placed, every morning she
would go in search, and never fail of finding each stuck 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, when one day her brother, whose name was lamo,
said to her: "Sister, the time is at hand when you will be ill.
Listen to my advice. If you do not, it will probably be the cause
of my death. Take the implements with which we kindle our fires.
Go some distance from our lodge and build a separate fire. When
you are in want of food, I will tell you where to find it. You
must cook for yourself, and I will for myself. When you are ill,
do not attempt to come near the lodge, or bring any of the utensils
you use. Be sure always to fasten to your belt the implements
you need, for you do not know when the time will come. As for
myself, I must do the best I can." His sister promised to obey
him in all he had said.

Shortly after, her brother had cause to go from home. She was
alone in her lodge, combing her hair. She had just untied the belt
to which the implements were fastened, when suddenly the event
to which her brother had alluded occurred. She ran out of the
lodge, but in her haste forgot the belt. Afraid to return, she stood

-453

for soini- limr. thinking. Finally, she decided to enter tin- lo<;
and get it. For. thought she, my brother is nut ;ii iiomc. and I
will stay but a moment to catch hold of it. Six- \veiit back, \< -
ning in suddenly, she caught hold of it, and was coming out when
her brother came in sight 1 1" knew what was the matter, " < )li,"

d, "did I not tell you to take care? Hut now you have
killed me." She was going on her way, but her brother said to

her, '• What can you do then- now ? The accident has happened,
in. and .stay when- \,Ui have always stayed. And \\ iiat \vill

.•me of you ? You have killed ni'-."
He then laid aside his hunting-dress and accoutrements, and

'ii after both 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 : " 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 medicines,
and my war-plumes, and my paints of all colors. As soon as the
inflammation reaches my breast, you will take my war-club. It
has a sharp point, and you will cut off my head. \Yhen it is free
from my body, take it, place its neck in the sack, which you must
open at one end. Then hang it up in its former place. DM not
forget my bow and arrows. One of the last you will take to p:»-
cure food. The remainder tie in my sack, and then hang it up,
so that I can look toward 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 club and strike off my head." She was afraid, but he told her
to muster courage. "Strike/" said he, and a smile was on his
face. Mustering all her courage, she gave the blow and cut oil
the head. " Now," said the head, "place me where I told you."
A-id fearfully she obeyed it in all its commands. Retaining its
animation, it looked around the lo< usual, and it would com-

mand its to go in such places as it thought would procure

for her the tlesh of different animals 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.
the superior manito decrees, and I must bear all patiently." In
this situation we must leave the head.

454

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 ended his fast, he went
secretly for his brothers at night, so that none in the village could
overhear or find out the direction they intended to go. Though
their drum was heard, yet that was a common occurrence. Hav-
ing ended the usual formalities, he told how favorable his dreams
were, and that he had called them together to know if they would
accompany him in a war excursion. They all answered they
would. The third brother from the eldest, noted for his oddities,
coming up with his war-club when his brother had ceased speak-
ing, jumped up. " Yes," said he, " I will go, and this will be the
way I will treat those I am going to fight "; and he struck the
post in the centre of the lodge, and gave a yell. The others spoke
to him, saying : " Slow, slow, Mudjikewis ! when you are in other
people's lodges." So he sat down. Then, in turn, they took the
drum, and sang their songs, and closed with a feast. The
youngest told them not to whisper their intention to their wives,
but secretly to prepare for their journey. They all promised
obedience, and Mudjikewis was the first to say so.

The time for their departure drew near. Word was given to
assemble on a certain night, when they would depart immediately.
Mudjikewis was loud in his demands for his moccasins. Several
times his wife asked him the reason. " Besides," said she, " you
have a good pair on." " 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 : " It was in
this way I saw snow fall 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 fall in very large flakes. Near
as they walked, it was with difficulty they could see each other.
The snow continued falling all that day and the following night,
so it was impossible to track them.

They had now walked for several clays, and Mudjikewis was

455

always in the rear. OIK- day, running suddenly f(»r\vard, In
the saw-saw-quan,* and struck a tree with Ins war-club, and it
broke into pieces as if struck with lightning. "Brothers," s
he, " this will be the way I will serve those we are going to light."
The le.uler answered, " Slow, slow, Mudjik<-\\ is ! The one 1 lead
you to is not to be thought of so lightly." Again he tell back
thought to himself :" What ! what! \\'ho can this -.leading

us to?" He t'eit harful, and was silent. Day alter day they
travelled on, till they came to an extensive plain, on the bordeis of
which human bones were bleaching in tiie sun. The leader spoke :
" They are the bones of those who have gone before us. Xon<- 1
ever yet returned to tell the sad tale of their fate." ain Mud-

jikewis became restless, and, running forward, gave the accustomed
yell. Advancing to a large rock which stood above the ground,
he struck it, and it fell to pieces. " See, brothers," said he ; " thus
will I treat those whom we are going to fight." " Still, still ! " once
more said the leader. " He to whom I am leading you is not to be
compared to the rock."

Mudjikewis fell back thoughtful, saying to himself : "I wonder
who this can be that he is going to attack "; and he was afraid.
Still they continued to see the remains of former warriors, who had
been to the place where they were now going, some of whom had
retreated as far back as the place where they first saw the bones,
beyond which no one had ever escaped. At last they came to a
piece of rising ground, from which they plainly distinguished,
sleeping on a distant mountain, a mammoth bear.

The distance between them was very great, but the size of the
animal caused him to be plainly seen. "There!" said the leader;
"it is he to whom I am leading you ; here our troubles will com-
mence, for he is a mishemokwa and a manito. It is he who has
that we prize so dearly (/. <'., wampum), to obtain which, the war-
riors whose bones we saw sacrified 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
r k. "This," said he, "is what we must get. It contains the
wampum." Then they requested 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 obtain the belt. All

* \Var-\vhoop.

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 he 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 ?
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,
hgwever, kept the belt, exchanging it from one to another, and
encouraging each other; but he gained on them 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?" A
dead silence followed. " Well," said he, " 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 checau-
dwn. Getting upon a piece of rising ground, behold ! 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* sat in 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 ? " said he. " There is none but me ; but let me
look," and he opened the door of the lodge, when, lo ! at a little
distance he saw the enraged animal coming on, with slow but
powerful leaps. He closed the door. " Yes," said he, " he is
indeed a great manito. My grandchildren, you will be the cause
of my losing my life ; you asked my protection, and I granted it ;
so now, come what may, I will protect you. When the bear
arrives at the door, you must run out of the other door of the

457

loci--"." Then [Hitting his hand t-> th<

sat. h< 'it ;i bag which he open«-d. '] nit two

small bl.i'-k dogs, he plaerd them before him. " • i ilie

ones I use when I fight," s.iid he; and he commei I ; 'r

with both hands the sides of one of them, am! i ID swell

oui, soon tilled the lodge by hi ; and he had great

ill. When he attained his full si/' /led, and from

""•»

that moment, as fn«m instinct, he jumped out at the door and met
the bear, who in another leap would ha\ iu-d the! A

terrible combat ensued. '1 s ran-- with th Is ol the

fieri-'- monsters. The remaining do- soon too!; the held. The
broth < . • ;he onset, took the ail vice of the old man, and escaped
through the op; side "f the lo . They had not i

far before tii«-y heard the dying cry of one of the dogs, and, soon
after, of the other. "W ' the leader, "the old man will

share their I • run ; he will soon be after us." They started

with In sh vigor, for they had received food from the old man : but
very soon the bear came in si^ht, and again was fa.-.t gaining upon
tiiL-m. . \gain the leader asked the brothers if they could do noth-
ing for their safety. All were silent. The leader, running forward,
did as before. " I dreamed," he cried, " that, being in great trouble,
an old man helped me who was a manito ; we shall soon see his
lod Taking courage, they still went on. After going a short

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 man, setting meat before them, said: "Eat!
Who is a manito? there is no manito butjhe; there is none whom
I fear "; and the earth trembled as the monster advanced. The
old man o 1 the door and saw him coming. He shut it slowly,

and said : " Yes, my grandchildren, you have brought trouble upon
me." Procuring his medicine-sack, he took out his small war-clubs
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,
and the old man stepped out just as the bear reached the door.
Then striking him with one of the clubs, it broke in pieces ; the
ir stumbled. Renewing the attempt with the other war-club,
that also was broken, but the bear fell senseless. Each blow the
old man gave him sounded like a clap of thunder, and the howls of
the bear ran along till they tilled the hea\«-n>.

458

The young men had now run some distance, when they looked
back. They could see that the bear was recovering from the blows.
First he moved his paws, and soon they saw him rise on his feet.
The old man shared the fate of the first, for they now heard his
cries as he was torn in pieces. Again the monster was in pursuit,
and fast overtaking them. Not yet discouraged, the young men
kept on their way ; but the bear was now so close that the leader
once more applied to his brothers, but they could do nothing.
" Well," said he, " 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 came 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 bear 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
back, and commenced making the circuit of the lake. Meantime
the party remained stationary in the centre to watch his move-
ments. 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 toward his open
mouth. The leader encouraged them to paddle hard for the oppo-
site shore. When only a short distance from land, the current
had increased so muclf| 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, " 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,
when Mudjikewis struck him a tremendous blow on the head, and
gave the saiv-saiv-qnan. 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 witli great velocity I" the opposite shore.
Instantly leaving the canoe, again they lied, and on they went till
they were completely exhausted. The earth again shook, and
soon they saw the monster hard after ttiem. Their spn IK drooped,
and they felt discouraged. The leader exerted himself, by actions
and words, to cheer them up; and once more he asked them if
they thought of nothing, or could do nothing for then re iCUC ; and,
as before, all were silent. " Then," he said, " this is the last time I
can apply to my guardian spirit. Now, if we do not succeed, our
1. ites an- decided." He ran forward, invoking his spirit with threat
earnestness, and gave the yell. " \Ve shall soon arrive," said he to
his brothers, " at the place where my last guardian spirit dwells. In
him 1 place .threat confidence. Do not, do not be afraid, or your
limbs will be fear-bound. We shall soon reach his lodge. Run,
run ! " he cried.

Returning now to lamo, he had passed all the time in the same
condition we had left him, the head directing" his sister, in order to
procure to. id, 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 plac-
ing me ! Soon, very soon, a party of young men will arrive and
apply to me for aid ; but 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

., ' 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 bear is near, go out and meet him. You will take my
medicine-s ick, bow and arrows, and my head. You must then
untie the sack, and spread out before you my paints of all colors,
my war-eagle feathers, my tufts of dried hair, and whatever else it
contains. As the bear approaches, you will take all 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. The virtues contained in them will cause him to

460

totter; and, to complete his destruction, you will take my head,
and that too you will cast as far off as you can, crying aloud, ' See,
this is my deceased brother's head ! ' He will then fall senseless.
By this time the young men will have eaten, and you will call them
to your assistance. You mitst then cut the carcass into pieces — yes,
into small pieces — and scatter them to the four winds; for, unless
you do this, he will again revive." She promised that all should
be done as he said. She had only time to prepare the meat, when
the voice of the leader was heard calling upon lamo for aid. The
woman went out and said as her brother had directed. But the
war-party, being closely pursued, came up to the lodge. She in-
vited them in, and placed the meat before them. While they were
eating, they heard the bear approaching. Untying the medicine-
sack and taking the head, she had all in readiness for his approach.
When he came up she did as she had been told ; and before she
had expended the paints and feathers, the bear began to totter,
but, still advancing, came close to the woman. Saying as
she was commanded, she then took the head, and cast it as far
from her as she could. As it rolled along the ground, the
blood, excited by the feelings of the head in this terrible scene,
gushed from the nose and mouth. The bear, tottering, soon fell
with a tremendous noise. Then she cried for help, and the young
men came rushing out, having partially regained their strength
and spirits.

Mudjikewis, stepping up, gave a yell and struck him a blow upon
the head. This he repeated, till it seemed like a mass of brains,
while the 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 bears
derived their origin.

Having thus overcome their pursuer, they returned to the lodge.
In the mean time, 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.

I Living spent so much time and travers :ntryin

their Hight, the young nidi gave up the idea of c :rning ti>

their own country, and game being plenty, they (let«-i ini!:.-d to
remain where (hey now were. One day they moved off S
tance from the lodge for the purpose of hunting, having 1« tt the
wampum with the woman. They were very 51 ml. and aimivd

themselves, as all young men do when alone, by talking and jest-
in- with each other. Une of them spoke and said, " \\ e have all
this sport to ourselves ; let us go aiul ask our sister if she will not
let us brin- the head to this place, as it is still alive. It may
pleased to hear us talk, and be in our company. In the mean time
take food to our sister." They went and requested the he. id. 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 fought 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 endeavoring 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 surprise. However, he took it clown
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 them-
selves, and one of the party took the head by the hair and

•• Look, you ugly thing, and see your paints on the faces of
warriors."

Hut the feathers were so beautiful that numbers of them also
placed them on their heads. Then again they used all kinds of
indignity to the head, for which they were in turn repaid by the
death of those who had used the feathers. Then the chief com-

462

manded them to throw away all 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 council-lodge
arid hung it up before the fire, fastening it with raw hide soaked,
which would shrink and become tightened by the action of the
fire. " We will then see," they said, " if we cannot make it shut
its eyes."

Meantime, for several days, the sister had been waiting for the
young men to bring back the head ; till at last, getting impatient,
she went in search of it. The young men she 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, but they were no-
where to be 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 she
found the magic bow 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 saw some of his paints and feathers. These
she carefully put up, and 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 wish
to meet with a kind reception. On applying to the old man and
woman of the lodge, she was kindly received. She made known
her errand. The old man promised 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 manitoes. She said she only wished
to see it, and would be satisfied if she could only get to the door
of the lodge. She knew she had not sufficient power to take it by
force. " Come with me," said the Indian, " I will take you there."
They went, and they took their seats near the door. The council-
lodge was filled with warriors, amusing themselves with games,
and constantly keeping up a fire to smoke the head, as they said,
to make dry meat. They saw the head move, and not knowing
what to make of it, one spoke and said: " Ha ! ha! It is begin-

4<">3

ning to feel the effects of the smoke." The sister looked up from
the door, and her eyes met those of her brother, and tears roll- d
clown the cheeks of the head. " Well." said the chief, " I thought
we would make you do something at last. Look ! look at it —
shedding tears ! " said he to those around him ; and they all laugln-d
and passed their jokes upon it. The chief, looking around and
observing the woman, after some time said to the man who came
with her: "Who have you got there? 1 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 dis-
playing themselves before others. " Why," said he, " I've 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.

She 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, she placed them together, their feet toward
the east. Then, taking an axe 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 him-
self. " Why." said he, " I have overslept myself." " Xo, 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 ? " 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,
whom she gave to the ten young men, beginning with the eldest.
Mudjikewis stepped to and fro, uneasy lest he should not get the
one lie 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

464

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 succeeded in untying only one of the knots. All took their
turns regularly, and each one succeeded in untying only one knot
each time. 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, but 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 com-
ing high through the air, and they heard her saying: " Prepare the
body of our brother." And as soon as they heard it, they went to
a small lodge where the black body of lamo lay. His sister com-
menced cutting the neck part, from which the neck had been
severed. She cut so deep as to cause it to bleed ; and the others
who were present, by rubbing the body and applying medicines,
expelled the blackness. In the mean time 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 close to the body, and,
by aid of medicines and various other means, succeeded in restor-
ing lamo 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 lamo said : " Now I will divide the
wampum "; and getting the belt which contained 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, but spirits, and they
were assigned different stations in the invisible world. Only Mud-
jikewis's place was, however, named. He was to direct the west
wind, hence generally called Kebeyun, there to remain forever.
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 give all 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 be emble-

in.itir of peace, while those «f tlu: darker hue would load to evil
and \\.ii.

The spirits then, amid son^s and shouts, took their flight to
their respective abodes on hi^h ; while lanio, with his sister
lumoqua, descended into the depths

THE END

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Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents.

COFFEE AND REPARTEE. Illustrated. 32mo,
Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents.

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

HEfp1 Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any
part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.

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