LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI

BY MARK TWAIN

THE 'BODY OF THE NATION'

BUT the basin of the Mississippi is the BODY OF THE NATION. All theother parts are but members, important in themselves, yet more importantin their relations to this. Exclusive of the Lake basin and of 300, 000square miles in Texas and New Mexico, which in many aspects form a partof it, this basin contains about 1, 250, 000 square miles. In extent it isthe second great valley of the world, being exceeded only by that of theAmazon. The valley of the frozen Obi approaches it in extent; that ofLa Plata comes next in space, and probably in habitable capacity, havingabout eight-ninths of its area; then comes that of the Yenisei, withabout seven-ninths; the Lena, Amoor, Hoang-ho, Yang-tse-kiang, andNile, five-ninths; the Ganges, less than one-half; the Indus, lessthan one-third; the Euphrates, one-fifth; the Rhine, one-fifteenth. Itexceeds in extent the whole of Europe, exclusive of Russia, Norway, and Sweden. IT WOULD CONTAIN AUSTRIA FOUR TIMES, GERMANY OR SPAINFIVE TIMES, FRANCE SIX TIMES, THE BRITISH ISLANDS OR ITALY TEN TIMES. Conceptions formed from the river-basins of Western Europe are rudelyshocked when we consider the extent of the valley of the Mississippi;nor are those formed from the sterile basins of the great rivers ofSiberia, the lofty plateaus of Central Asia, or the mighty sweep ofthe swampy Amazon more adequate. Latitude, elevation, and rainfallall combine to render every part of the Mississippi Valley capable ofsupporting a dense population. AS A DWELLING-PLACE FOR CIVILIZED MAN ITIS BY FAR THE FIRST UPON OUR GLOBE. 

EDITOR'S TABLE, HARPER'S MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 1863

Chapter 1 The River and Its History

THE Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplaceriver, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable. Considering theMissouri its main branch, it is the longest river in the world--fourthousand three hundred miles. It seems safe to say that it is also thecrookedest river in the world, since in one part of its journey it usesup one thousand three hundred miles to cover the same ground that thecrow would fly over in six hundred and seventy-five. It discharges threetimes as much water as the St. Lawrence, twenty-five times as muchas the Rhine, and three hundred and thirty-eight times as much as theThames. No other river has so vast a drainage-basin: it draws its watersupply from twenty-eight States and Territories; from Delaware, on theAtlantic seaboard, and from all the country between that and Idaho onthe Pacific slope--a spread of forty-five degrees of longitude. TheMississippi receives and carries to the Gulf water from fifty-foursubordinate rivers that are navigable by steamboats, and from somehundreds that are navigable by flats and keels. The area of itsdrainage-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 Mississippivalley, proper, is exceptionally so. 

It is a remarkable river in this: that instead of widening toward itsmouth, it grows narrower; grows narrower and deeper. From the junctionof the Ohio to a point half way down to the sea, the width averages amile in high water: thence to the sea the width steadily diminishes, until, at the 'Passes, ' above the mouth, it is but little over halfa mile. At the junction of the Ohio the Mississippi's depth iseighty-seven feet; the depth increases gradually, reaching one hundredand 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 NewOrleans only fifteen, and just above the mouth only two and one half. 

An article in the New Orleans 'Times-Democrat, ' based upon reports ofable engineers, states that the river annually empties four hundred andsix million tons of mud into the Gulf of Mexico--which brings to mindCaptain Marryat's rude name for the Mississippi--'the Great Sewer. ' Thismud, solidified, would make a mass a mile square and two hundred andforty-one feet high. 

The mud deposit gradually extends the land--but only gradually; it hasextended it not quite a third of a mile in the two hundred years whichhave elapsed since the river took its place in history. The belief ofthe scientific people is, that the mouth used to be at Baton Rouge, where the hills cease, and that the two hundred miles of land betweenthere and the Gulf was built by the river. This gives us the age of thatpiece of country, without any trouble at all--one hundred and twentythousand years. Yet it is much the youthfullest batch of country thatlies around there anywhere. 

The Mississippi is remarkable in still another way--its disposition tomake prodigious jumps by cutting through narrow necks of land, and thusstraightening and shortening itself. More than once it has shorteneditself thirty miles at a single jump! These cut-offs have had curiouseffects: they have thrown several river towns out into the ruraldistricts, and built up sand bars and forests in front of them. The townof Delta used to be three miles below Vicksburg: a recent cutoffhas radically changed the position, and Delta is now TWO MILES ABOVEVicksburg. 

Both of these river towns have been retired to the country by thatcut-off. A cut-off plays havoc with boundary lines and jurisdictions:for instance, a man is living in the State of Mississippi to-day, acut-off occurs to-night, and to-morrow the man finds himself and hisland over on the other side of the river, within the boundaries andsubject to the laws of the State of Louisiana! Such a thing, happeningin the upper river in the old times, could have transferred a slave fromMissouri to Illinois and made a free man of him. 

The Mississippi does not alter its locality by cut-offs alone: it isalways changing its habitat BODILY--is always moving bodily SIDEWISE. At Hard Times, La. , the river is two miles west of the region it used tooccupy. As a result, the original SITE of that settlement is not now inLouisiana at all, but on the other side of the river, in the State ofMississippi. NEARLY THE WHOLE OF THAT ONE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED MILESOF OLD MISSISSIPPI RIVER WHICH LA SALLE FLOATED DOWN IN HIS CANOES, TWOHUNDRED YEARS AGO, IS GOOD SOLID DRY GROUND NOW. The river lies to theright of it, in places, and to the left of it in other places. 

Although the Mississippi's mud builds land but slowly, down at themouth, where the Gulfs billows interfere with its work, it builds fastenough in better protected regions higher up: for instance, Prophet'sIsland contained one thousand five hundred acres of land thirty yearsago; since then the river has added seven hundred acres to it. 

But enough of these examples of the mighty stream's eccentricities forthe 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 itshistorical history--so to speak. We can glance briefly at its slumbrousfirst epoch in a couple of short chapters; at its second and wider-awakeepoch in a couple more; at its flushest and widest-awake epoch in a goodmany succeeding chapters; and then talk about its comparatively tranquilpresent 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 permanentlyretain the impression that there is nothing old about it. We do ofcourse know that there are several comparatively old dates in Americanhistory, but the mere figures convey to our minds no just idea, nodistinct realization, of the stretch of time which they represent. To say that De Soto, the first white man who ever saw the MississippiRiver, saw it in 1542, is a remark which states a fact withoutinterpreting it: it is something like giving the dimensions of a sunsetby astronomical measurements, and cataloguing the colors by theirscientific names;--as a result, you get the bald fact of the sunset, butyou don't see the sunset. It would have been better to paint a pictureof it. 

The date 1542, standing by itself, means little or nothing to us; butwhen one groups a few neighboring historical dates and facts around it, he adds perspective and color, and then realizes that this is one of theAmerican dates which is quite respectable for age. 

For instance, when the Mississippi was first seen by a white man, lessthan a quarter of a century had elapsed since Francis I. 's defeat atPavia; the death of Raphael; the death of Bayard, SANS PEUR ET SANSREPROCHE; the driving out of the Knights-Hospitallers from Rhodes bythe Turks; and the placarding of the Ninety-Five Propositions, --the actwhich began the Reformation. When De Soto took his glimpse of the river, Ignatius Loyola was an obscure name; the order of the Jesuits was notyet a year old; Michael Angelo's paint was not yet dry on the LastJudgment 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, BenvenutoCellini, and the Emperor Charles V. Were at the top of their fame, andeach was manufacturing history after his own peculiar fashion; Margaretof Navarre was writing the 'Heptameron' and some religious books, --thefirst survives, the others are forgotten, wit and indelicacy beingsometimes better literature preservers than holiness; lax court moralsand the absurd chivalry business were in full feather, and the joust andthe tournament were the frequent pastime of titled fine gentlemen whocould fight better than they could spell, while religion was the passionof their ladies, and classifying their offspring into children of fullrank and children by brevet their pastime. In fact, all around, religionwas in a peculiarly blooming condition: the Council of Trent was beingcalled; the Spanish Inquisition was roasting, and racking, and burning, with a free hand; elsewhere on the continent the nations were beingpersuaded to holy living by the sword and fire; in England, Henry VIII. Had suppressed the monasteries, burnt Fisher and another bishop ortwo, and was getting his English reformation and his harem effectivelystarted. When De Soto stood on the banks of the Mississippi, it wasstill two years before Luther's death; eleven years before the burningof Servetus; thirty years before the St. Bartholomew slaughter; Rabelaiswas not yet published; 'Don Quixote' was not yet written; Shakespearewas not yet born; a hundred long years must still elapse beforeEnglishmen would hear the name of Oliver Cromwell. 

Unquestionably the discovery of the Mississippi is a datable fact whichconsiderably mellows and modifies the shiny newness of our country, andgives her a most respectable outside-aspect of rustiness and antiquity. 

De Soto merely glimpsed the river, then died and was buried in it by hispriests and soldiers. One would expect the priests and the soldiersto multiply the river's dimensions by ten--the Spanish custom of theday--and thus move other adventurers to go at once and explore it. Onthe contrary, their narratives when they reached home, did not excitethat amount of curiosity. The Mississippi was left unvisited by whitesduring a term of years which seems incredible in our energetic days. Onemay 'sense' the interval to his mind, after a fashion, by dividing itup in this way: After De Soto glimpsed the river, a fraction short ofa quarter of a century elapsed, and then Shakespeare was born; lived atrifle more than half a century, then died; and when he had been in hisgrave considerably more than half a century, the SECOND white man sawthe Mississippi. In our day we don't allow a hundred and thirty years toelapse between glimpses of a marvel. If somebody should discover a creekin the county next to the one that the North Pole is in, Europe andAmerica would start fifteen costly expeditions thither: one to explorethe creek, and the other fourteen to hunt for each other. 

For more than a hundred and fifty years there had been white settlementson our Atlantic coasts. These people were in intimate communicationwith the Indians: in the south the Spaniards were robbing, slaughtering, enslaving and converting them; higher up, the English were trading beadsand blankets to them for a consideration, and throwing in civilizationand whiskey, 'for lagniappe;' and in Canada the French were schoolingthem in a rudimentary way, missionarying among them, and drawing wholepopulations of them at a time to Quebec, and later to Montreal, to buyfurs of them. Necessarily, then, these various clusters of whites musthave heard of the great river of the far west; and indeed, they didhear of it vaguely, --so vaguely and indefinitely, that its course, proportions, and locality were hardly even guessable. The meremysteriousness of the matter ought to have fired curiosity and compelledexploration; but this did not occur. Apparently nobody happened to wantsuch a river, nobody needed it, nobody was curious about it; so, fora century and a half the Mississippi remained out of the market andundisturbed. When De Soto found it, he was not hunting for a river, andhad no present occasion for one; consequently he did not value it oreven take any particular notice of it. 

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

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

Chapter 2 The River and Its Explorers

LA SALLE himself sued for certain high privileges, and they weregraciously accorded him by Louis XIV of inflated memory. Chief amongthem was the privilege to explore, far and wide, and build forts, andstake out continents, and hand the same over to the king, and pay theexpenses himself; receiving, in return, some little advantages of onesort or another; among them the monopoly of buffalo hides. He spentseveral years and about all of his money, in making perilous and painfultrips between Montreal and a fort which he had built on the Illinois, before he at last succeeded in getting his expedition in such a shapethat he could strike for the Mississippi. 

And meantime other parties had had better fortune. In 1673 Joliet themerchant, and Marquette the priest, crossed the country and reached thebanks of the Mississippi. They went by way of the Great Lakes; and fromGreen Bay, in canoes, by way of Fox River and the Wisconsin. Marquettehad solemnly contracted, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, thatif the Virgin would permit him to discover the great river, he wouldname it Conception, in her honor. He kept his word. In that day, allexplorers traveled with an outfit of priests. De Soto had twenty-fourwith him. La Salle had several, also. The expeditions were often out ofmeat, and scant of clothes, but they always had the furniture and otherrequisites for the mass; they were always prepared, as one of the quaintchroniclers of the time phrased it, to 'explain hell to the savages. '

On the 17th of June, 1673, the canoes of Joliet and Marquette andtheir five subordinates reached the junction of the Wisconsin with theMississippi. Mr. Parkman says: 'Before them a wide and rapid currentcoursed athwart their way, by the foot of lofty heights wrapped thickin forests. ' He continues: 'Turning southward, they paddled down thestream, through a solitude unrelieved by the faintest trace of man. '

A big cat-fish collided with Marquette's canoe, and startled him; andreasonably enough, for he had been warned by the Indians that he wason a foolhardy journey, and even a fatal one, for the river containeda demon 'whose roar could be heard at a great distance, and who wouldengulf them in the abyss where he dwelt. ' I have seen a Mississippicatfish that was more than six feet long, and weighed two hundred andfifty pounds; and if Marquette's fish was the fellow to that one, he hada fair right to think the river's roaring demon was come. 

'At length the buffalo began to appear, grazing in herds on the greatprairies which then bordered the river; and Marquette describes thefierce and stupid look of the old bulls as they stared at the intrudersthrough the tangled mane which nearly blinded them. '

The voyagers moved cautiously: 'Landed at night and made a fire to cooktheir evening meal; then extinguished it, embarked again, paddled someway farther, and anchored in the stream, keeping a man on the watch tillmorning. '

They did this day after day and night after night; and at the end of twoweeks 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 footprintsof men in the mud of the western bank--a Robinson Crusoe experiencewhich carries an electric shiver with it yet, when one stumbles on it inprint. They had been warned that the river Indians were as ferocious andpitiless as the river demon, and destroyed all comers without waitingfor provocation; but no matter, Joliet and Marquette struck into thecountry to hunt up the proprietors of the tracks. They found them, byand by, and were hospitably received and well treated--if to be receivedby an Indian chief who has taken off his last rag in order to appearat his level best is to be received hospitably; and if to be treatedabundantly to fish, porridge, and other game, including dog, and havethese things forked into one's mouth by the ungloved fingers of Indiansis to be well treated. In the morning the chief and six hundred of histribesmen escorted the Frenchmen to the river and bade them a friendlyfarewell. 

On the rocks above the present city of Alton they found some rude andfantastic Indian paintings, which they describe. A short distance below'a torrent of yellow mud rushed furiously athwart the calm blue currentof the Mississippi, boiling and surging and sweeping in its course logs, branches, and uprooted trees. ' This was the mouth of the Missouri, 'thatsavage river, ' which 'descending from its mad career through a vastunknown of barbarism, poured its turbid floods into the bosom of itsgentle sister. '

By and by they passed the mouth of the Ohio; they passed cane-brakes;they fought mosquitoes; they floated along, day after day, through thedeep silence and loneliness of the river, drowsing in the scant shadeof makeshift awnings, and broiling with the heat; they encountered andexchanged civilities with another party of Indians; and at lastthey reached the mouth of the Arkansas (about a month out from theirstarting-point), where a tribe of war-whooping savages swarmed out tomeet and murder them; but they appealed to the Virgin for help; so inplace of a fight there was a feast, and plenty of pleasant palaver andfol-de-rol. 

They had proved to their satisfaction, that the Mississippi did notempty into the Gulf of California, or into the Atlantic. They believedit emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. They turned back, now, and carriedtheir great news to Canada. 

But belief is not proof. It was reserved for La Salle to furnish theproof. He was provokingly delayed, by one misfortune after another, butat last got his expedition under way at the end of the year 1681. In thedead of winter he and Henri de Tonty, son of Lorenzo Tonty, who inventedthe tontine, his lieutenant, started down the Illinois, with afollowing of eighteen Indians brought from New England, and twenty-threeFrenchmen. They moved in procession down the surface of the frozenriver, on foot, and dragging their canoes after them on sledges. 

At Peoria Lake they struck open water, and paddled thence to theMississippi and turned their prows southward. They plowed through thefields of floating ice, past the mouth of the Missouri; past the mouthof the Ohio, by-and-by; 'and, gliding by the wastes of bordering swamp, landed on the 24th of February near the Third Chickasaw Bluffs, ' wherethey halted and built Fort Prudhomme. 

'Again, ' says Mr. Parkman, 'they embarked; and with every stage of theiradventurous progress, the mystery of this vast new world was more andmore unveiled. More and more they entered the realms of spring. Thehazy sunlight, the warm and drowsy air, the tender foliage, the openingflowers, betokened the reviving life of nature. '

Day by day they floated down the great bends, in the shadow of the denseforests, and in time arrived at the mouth of the Arkansas. First, theywere greeted by the natives of this locality as Marquette had beforebeen greeted by them--with the booming of the war drum and the flourishof arms. The Virgin composed the difficulty in Marquette's case; thepipe of peace did the same office for La Salle. The white man and thered man struck hands and entertained each other during three days. Then, to the admiration of the savages, La Salle set up a cross with thearms of France on it, and took possession of the whole country for theking--the cool fashion of the time--while the priest piously consecratedthe robbery with a hymn. The priest explained the mysteries of the faith'by signs, ' for the saving of the savages; thus compensating them withpossible possessions in Heaven for the certain ones on earth which theyhad just been robbed of. And also, by signs, La Salle drew from thesesimple children of the forest acknowledgments of fealty to Louis thePutrid, over the water. Nobody smiled at these colossal ironies. 

These performances took place on the site of the future town ofNapoleon, Arkansas, and there the first confiscation-cross was raisedon the banks of the great river. Marquette's and Joliet's voyageof discovery ended at the same spot--the site of the future town ofNapoleon. When De Soto took his fleeting glimpse of the river, away backin the dim early days, he took it from that same spot--the site of thefuture town of Napoleon, Arkansas. Therefore, three out of the fourmemorable events connected with the discovery and exploration of themighty river, occurred, by accident, in one and the same place. It is amost curious distinction, when one comes to look at it and think aboutit. France stole that vast country on that spot, the future Napoleon;and by and by Napoleon himself was to give the country back again!--makerestitution, not to the owners, but to their white American heirs. 

The voyagers journeyed on, touching here and there; 'passed the sites, since become historic, of Vicksburg and Grand Gulf, ' and visited animposing Indian monarch in the Teche country, whose capital city was asubstantial one of sun-baked bricks mixed with straw--better houses thanmany that exist there now. The chiefs house contained an audience roomforty feet square; and there he received Tonty in State, surrounded bysixty 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 tothe sun. 

The voyagers visited the Natchez Indians, near the site of thepresent city of that name, where they found a 'religious and politicaldespotism, a privileged class descended from the sun, a temple and asacred fire. ' It must have been like getting home again; it was homewith an advantage, in fact, for it lacked Louis XIV. 

A few more days swept swiftly by, and La Salle stood in the shadow ofhis confiscating cross, at the meeting of the waters from Delaware, andfrom Itaska, and from the mountain ranges close upon the Pacific, with the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, his task finished, his prodigyachieved. Mr. Parkman, in closing his fascinating narrative, thus sumsup:

'On that day, the realm of France received on parchment a stupendousaccession. The fertile plains of Texas; the vast basin of theMississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders ofthe Gulf; from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaksof the Rocky Mountains--a region of savannas and forests, sun-crackeddeserts and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged bya thousand warlike tribes, passed beneath the scepter of the Sultan ofVersailles; and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at halfa mile. '

Chapter 3 Frescoes from the Past

APPARENTLY the river was ready for business, now. But no, thedistribution of a population along its banks was as calm and deliberateand time-devouring a process as the discovery and exploration had been. 

Seventy years elapsed, after the exploration, before the river's bordershad a white population worth considering; and nearly fifty more beforethe river had a commerce. Between La Salle's opening of the river andthe time when it may be said to have become the vehicle of anything likea regular and active commerce, seven sovereigns had occupied the throneof England, America had become an independent nation, Louis XIV. AndLouis XV. Had rotted and died, the French monarchy had gone down inthe red tempest of the revolution, and Napoleon was a name that wasbeginning to be talked about. Truly, there were snails in those days. 

The river's earliest commerce was in great barges--keelboats, broadhorns. They floated and sailed from the upper rivers to NewOrleans, changed cargoes there, and were tediously warped and poled backby hand. A voyage down and back sometimes occupied nine months. In timethis commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough andhardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships withsailor-like stoicism; heavy drinkers, coarse frolickers in moral stieslike the Natchez-under-the-hill of that day, heavy fighters, recklessfellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane; prodigalof their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaricfinery, prodigious braggarts; 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 keelboats down-stream, and the steamersdid all of the upstream business, the keelboatmen selling their boats inNew Orleans, and returning home as deck passengers in the steamers. 

But after a while the steamboats so increased in number and in speedthat they were able to absorb the entire commerce; and then keelboatingdied a permanent death. The keelboatman became a deck hand, or a mate, or a pilot on the steamer; and when steamer-berths were not open to him, he took a berth on a Pittsburgh coal-flat, or on a pine-raft constructedin the forests up toward the sources of the Mississippi. 

In the heyday of the steamboating prosperity, the river from end to endwas flaked with coal-fleets and timber rafts, all managed by hand, and employing hosts of the rough characters whom I have been trying todescribe. I remember the annual processions of mighty rafts that usedto 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 forstorm-quarters, --and I remember the rude ways and the tremendous talkof their big crews, the ex-keelboatmen and their admiringly patterningsuccessors; for we used to swim out a quarter or third of a mile and geton these rafts and have a ride. 

By way of illustrating keelboat talk and manners, and that now-departedand hardly-remembered raft-life, I will throw in, in this place, achapter 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 courseof five or six more. The book is a story which details some passages inthe life of an ignorant village boy, Huck Finn, son of the town drunkardof my time out west, there. He has run away from his persecutingfather, and from a persecuting good widow who wishes to make a nice, truth-telling, respectable boy of him; and with him a slave of thewidow's has also escaped. They have found a fragment of a lumber raft(it is high water and dead summer time), and are floating down the riverby night, and hiding in the willows by day, --bound for Cairo, --whencethe negro will seek freedom in the heart of the free States. But in afog, they pass Cairo without knowing it. By and by they begin to suspectthe truth, and Huck Finn is persuaded to end the dismal suspense byswimming down to a huge raft which they have seen in the distance aheadof them, creeping aboard under cover of the darkness, and gathering theneeded information by eavesdropping:--

But you know a young person can't wait very well when he is impatient tofind a thing out. We talked it over, and by and by Jim said it was sucha black night, now, that it wouldn't be no risk to swim down to the bigraft and crawl aboard and listen--they would talk about Cairo, becausethey would be calculating to go ashore there for a spree, maybe, oranyway they would send boats ashore to buy whiskey or fresh meat orsomething. Jim had a wonderful level head, for a nigger: he could mostalways start a good plan when you wanted one. 

I stood up and shook my rags off and jumped into the river, and struckout for the raft's light. By and by, when I got down nearly to her, I eased up and went slow and cautious. But everything was allright--nobody at the sweeps. So I swum down along the raft till I wasmost abreast the camp fire in the middle, then I crawled aboard andinched along and got in amongst some bundles of shingles on the weatherside of the fire. There was thirteen men there--they was the watch ondeck of course. And a mighty rough-looking lot, too. They had a jug, andtin 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 anyway. He roaredthrough his nose, and strung out the last word of every line very long. When he was done they all fetched a kind of Injun war-whoop, and thenanother was sung. It begun:--

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

Singing too, riloo, riloo, riloo, Ri-too, riloo, rilay - - - e, Sheloved 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 goingto start on the next verse one of them said it was the tune the old cowdied on; and another one said, 'Oh, give us a rest. ' And another onetold him to take a walk. They made fun of him till he got mad and jumpedup and begun to cuss the crowd, and said he could lame any thief in thelot. 

They was all about to make a break for him, but the biggest man therejumped 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 togetherevery 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 hatdown, which was all over ribbons, and says, 'You lay thar tell hissufferin's is over. '

Then he jumped up in the air and cracked his heels together again andshouted 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 Desolation! Sired by ahurricane, dam'd by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearlyrelated to the small-pox on the mother's side! Look at me! I takenineteen alligators and a bar'l of whiskey for breakfast when I'm inrobust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I'mailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench thethunder when I speak! Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room accordingto my strength! Blood's my natural drink, and the wails of the dying ismusic to my ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen!--and lay low and holdyour breath, for I'm bout to turn myself loose!'

All the time he was getting this off, he was shaking his head andlooking fierce, and kind of swelling around in a little circle, tuckingup his wrist-bands, and now and then straightening up and beating hisbreast with his fist, saying, 'Look at me, gentlemen!' When he gotthrough, he jumped up and cracked his heels together three times, andlet off a roaring 'Whoo-oop! I'm the bloodiest son of a wildcat thatlives!'

Then the man that had started the row tilted his old slouch hat downover his right eye; then he bent stooping forward, with his back saggedand his south end sticking out far, and his fists a-shoving out anddrawing in in front of him, and so went around in a little circleabout three times, swelling himself up and breathing hard. Then hestraightened, and jumped up and cracked his heels together three times, before he lit again (that made them cheer), and he begun to shout likethis--

'Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow'sa-coming! Hold me down to the earth, for I feel my powers a-working!whoo-oop! I'm a child of sin, don't let me get a start! Smokedglass, here, for all! Don't attempt to look at me with the nakedeye, gentlemen! When I'm playful I use the meridians of longitude andparallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean forwhales! I scratch my head with the lightning, and purr myself to sleepwith the thunder! When I'm cold, I bile the Gulf of Mexico and bathein it; when I'm hot I fan myself with an equinoctial storm; when I'mthirsty I reach up and suck a cloud dry like a sponge; when I range theearth hungry, famine follows in my tracks! Whoo-oop! Bow your neck andspread! 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 myselfand crumble the mountains! Contemplate me through leather--don't use thenaked eye! I'm the man with a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels! Themassacre of isolated communities is the pastime of my idle moments, the destruction of nationalities the serious business of my life! Theboundless vastness of the great American desert is my enclosed property, and I bury my dead on my own premises!' He jumped up and cracked hisheels together three times before he lit (they cheered him again), andas he come down he shouted out: 'Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, forthe pet child of calamity's a-coming!'

Then the other one went to swelling around and blowing again--the firstone--the one they called Bob; next, the Child of Calamity chipped inagain, bigger than ever; then they both got at it at the same time, swelling round and round each other and punching their fists most intoeach other's faces, and whooping and jawing like Injuns; then Bob calledthe Child names, and the Child called him names back again: next, Bobcalled him a heap rougher names and the Child come back at him with thevery worst kind of language; next, Bob knocked the Child's hat off, andthe Child picked it up and kicked Bob's ribbony hat about six foot; Bobwent and got it and said never mind, this warn't going to be the lastof 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, justas sure as he was a living man, that he would have to answer to him withthe best blood in his body. The Child said no man was willinger thanhe was for that time to come, and he would give Bob fair warning, now, never to cross his path again, for he could never rest till he had wadedin his blood, for such was his nature, though he was sparing him now onaccount of his family, if he had one. 

Both of them was edging away in different directions, growling andshaking their heads and going on about what they was going to do; but alittle black-whiskered chap skipped up and says--

'Come back here, you couple of chicken-livered cowards, and I'll thrashthe 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 couldget up. Why, it warn't two minutes till they begged like dogs--andhow the other lot did yell and laugh and clap their hands all the waythrough, and shout 'Sail in, Corpse-Maker!' 'Hi! at him again, Child ofCalamity!' 'Bully for you, little Davy!' Well, it was a perfect pow-wowfor a while. Bob and the Child had red noses and black eyes when theygot through. Little Davy made them own up that they were sneaks andcowards and not fit to eat with a dog or drink with a nigger; then Boband the Child shook hands with each other, very solemn, and said theyhad always respected each other and was willing to let bygones bebygones. So then they washed their faces in the river; and just thenthere was a loud order to stand by for a crossing, and some of them wentforward to man the sweeps there, and the rest went aft to handle theafter-sweeps. 

I laid still and waited for fifteen minutes, and had a smoke out of apipe that one of them left in reach; then the crossing was finished, andthey stumped back and had a drink around and went to talking and singingagain. Next they got out an old fiddle, and one played and anotherpatted juba, and the rest turned themselves loose on a regularold-fashioned keel-boat break-down. They couldn't keep that up very longwithout getting winded, so by and by they settled around the jug again. 

They sung 'jolly, jolly raftman's the life for me, ' with a musingchorus, and then they got to talking about differences betwixt hogs, andtheir different kind of habits; and next about women and their differentways: and next about the best ways to put out houses that was afire; andnext about what ought to be done with the Injuns; and next about whata king had to do, and how much he got; and next about how to make catsfight; and next about what to do when a man has fits; and next aboutdifferences betwixt clear-water rivers and muddy-water ones. The manthey called Ed said the muddy Mississippi water was wholesomer to drinkthan the clear water of the Ohio; he said if you let a pint of thisyaller Mississippi water settle, you would have about a half tothree-quarters of an inch of mud in the bottom, according to the stageof the river, and then it warn't no better than Ohio water--what youwanted to do was to keep it stirred up--and when the river was low, keepmud 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 nutritiousnessin the mud, and a man that drunk Mississippi water could grow corn inhis stomach if he wanted to. He says--

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

And they talked about how Ohio water didn't like to mix with Mississippiwater. Ed said if you take the Mississippi on a rise when the Ohio islow, you'll find a wide band of clear water all the way down the eastside of the Mississippi for a hundred mile or more, and the minute youget out a quarter of a mile from shore and pass the line, it is allthick and yaller the rest of the way across. Then they talked about howto keep tobacco from getting moldy, and from that they went into ghostsand 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 mehave a say. Five years ago I was on a raft as big as this, and rightalong here it was a bright moonshiny night, and I was on watch and bossof the stabboard oar forrard, and one of my pards was a man named DickAllbright, and he come along to where I was sitting, forrard--gaping andstretching, he was--and stooped down on the edge of the raft and washedhis 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 yanderin the bend. "

'"Yes, " says I, "it is--why. " He laid his pipe down and leant his headon 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 onand six off--"but the boys told me, " I says, "that the raft didn't seemto hardly move, for the last hour, " says I, "though she's a slippingalong 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 methe current has most quit above the head of this bend durin' the lasttwo years, " he says. 

'Well, he raised up two or three times, and looked away off and aroundon the water. That started me at it, too. A body is always doing what hesees somebody else doing, though there mayn't be no sense in it. Prettysoon I see a black something floating on the water away off to stabboardand 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 bar'l. "

'"An empty bar'l!" says I, "why, " says I, "a spy-glass is a fool to youreyes. How can you tell it's an empty bar'l?" He 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 anything else, too; abody can't tell nothing about it, such a distance as that, " I says. 

'We hadn't nothing else to do, so we kept on watching it. By and by Isays--

'"Why looky-here, Dick Allbright, that thing's a-gaining on us, Ibelieve. "

'He never said nothing. The thing gained and gained, and I judged itmust be a dog that was about tired out. Well, we swung down intothe crossing, and the thing floated across the bright streak of themoonshine, and, by George, it was bar'l. Says I--

'"Dick Allbright, what made you think that thing was a bar'l, when itwas a 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 haunted bar'l. "

'I called the rest of the watch, and they come and stood there, andI told them what Dick said. It floated right along abreast, now, anddidn't gain any more. It was about twenty foot off. Some was for havingit aboard, but the rest didn't want to. Dick Allbright said rafts thathad fooled with it had got bad luck by it. The captain of the watchsaid he didn't believe in it. He said he reckoned the bar'l gained on usbecause it was in a little better current than what we was. He said itwould leave by and by. 

'So then we went to talking about other things, and we had a song, andthen a breakdown; and after that the captain of the watch called foranother song; but it was clouding up, now, and the bar'l stuck rightthar in the same place, and the song didn't seem to have much warm-up toit, somehow, and so they didn't finish it, and there warn't any cheers, but it sort of dropped flat, and nobody said anything for a minute. Theneverybody tried to talk at once, and one chap got off a joke, but itwarn't no use, they didn't laugh, and even the chap that made the jokedidn'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, itshut down black and still, and then the wind begin to moan around, andnext the lightning begin to play and the thunder to grumble. And prettysoon there was a regular storm, and in the middle of it a man that wasrunning aft stumbled and fell and sprained his ankle so that he hadto lay up. This made the boys shake their heads. And every time thelightning come, there was that bar'l with the blue lights winking aroundit. We was always on the look-out for it. But by and by, towards dawn, she was gone. When the day come we couldn't see her anywhere, and wewarn't sorry, neither. 

'But next night about half-past nine, when there was songs and highjinks going on, here she comes again, and took her old roost on thestabboard side. There warn't no more high jinks. Everybody got solemn;nobody talked; you couldn't get anybody to do anything but set aroundmoody and look at the bar'l. It begun to cloud up again. When the watchchanged, the off watch stayed up, 'stead of turning in. The storm rippedand roared around all night, and in the middle of it another man trippedand sprained his ankle, and had to knock off. The bar'l left towardsday, and nobody see it go. 

'Everybody was sober and down in the mouth all day. I don't mean thekind of sober that comes of leaving liquor alone--not that. They wasquiet, but they all drunk more than usual--not together--but each mansidled 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, lookingsteady in the one direction, and heaving a sigh once in a while. Andthen, here comes the bar'l again. She took up her old place. She staidthere all night; nobody turned in. The storm come on again, aftermidnight. It got awful dark; the rain poured down; hail, too; thethunder boomed and roared and bellowed; the wind blowed a hurricane; andthe lightning spread over everything in big sheets of glare, and showedthe whole raft as plain as day; and the river lashed up white as milkas far as you could see for miles, and there was that bar'l jiggeringalong, same as ever. The captain ordered the watch to man the aftersweeps for a crossing, and nobody would go--no more sprained ankles forthem, they said. They wouldn't even walk aft. Well then, just then thesky split wide open, with a crash, and the lightning killed two men ofthe after watch, and crippled two more. Crippled them how, says you?Why, sprained their ankles!

'The bar'l left in the dark betwixt lightnings, towards dawn. Well, nota body eat a bite at breakfast that morning. After that the men loafedaround, in twos and threes, and talked low together. But none of themherded with Dick Allbright. They all give him the cold shake. If he comearound where any of the men was, they split up and sidled away. Theywouldn't man the sweeps with him. The captain had all the skiffs hauledup on the raft, alongside of his wigwam, and wouldn't let the dead menbe took ashore to be planted; he didn't believe a man that got ashorewould come back; and he was right. 

'After night come, you could see pretty plain that there was going to betrouble if that bar'l come again; there was such a muttering going on. Agood many wanted to kill Dick Allbright, because he'd seen the bar'l onother 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 bunchedtogether forrard watching for the bar'l, when, lo and behold you, hereshe comes again. Down she comes, slow and steady, and settles into herold tracks. You could a heard a pin drop. Then up comes the captain, andsays:--

'"Boys, don't be a pack of children and fools; I don't want this bar'lto be dogging us all the way to Orleans, and YOU don't; well, then, how's the best way to stop it? Burn it up, --that's the way. I'm goingto fetch it aboard, " he says. And before anybody could say a word, in hewent. 

'He swum to it, and as he come pushing it to the raft, the men spreadto one side. But the old man got it aboard and busted in the head, and there was a baby in it! Yes, sir, a stark naked baby. It was DickAllbright'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 couldcurl his tongue around the bulliest words in the language when he was amind to, and lay them before you without a jint started, anywheres. Yes, he said he used to live up at the head of this bend, and one night hechoked his child, which was crying, not intending to kill it, --which wasprob'ly a lie, --and then he was scared, and buried it in a bar'l, beforehis wife got home, and off he went, and struck the northern trail andwent to rafting; and this was the third year that the bar'l had chasedhim. He said the bad luck always begun light, and lasted till four menwas killed, and then the bar'l didn't come any more after that. Hesaid if the men would stand it one more night, --and was a-going on likethat, --but the men had got enough. They started to get out a boat totake him ashore and lynch him, but he grabbed the little child all of asudden and jumped overboard with it hugged up to his breast and sheddingtears, 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. Beendead 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 Iknow 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 calledBill. 

'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? O, no, he was both of 'em, ' says Bob. Then they all haw-hawed. 

'Say, Edward, don't you reckon you'd better take a pill? You lookbad--don't you feel pale?' says the Child of Calamity. 

'O, come, now, Eddy, ' says Jimmy, 'show up; you must a kept part of thatbar'l to prove the thing by. Show us the bunghole--do--and we'll allbelieve you. '

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

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

'Boys, we'll split a watermelon on that, ' says the Child of Calamity;and he come rummaging around in the dark amongst the shingle bundleswhere I was, and put his hand on me. I was warm and soft and naked; sohe says 'Ouch!' and jumped back. 

'Fetch a lantern or a chunk of fire here, boys--there's a snake here asbig 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 meover, wondering, and the Child of Calamity says--

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

'No, ' says Big Bob, 'less get out the paint-pot and paint him a sky blueall 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 thatsort of worked on Davy, and he says--

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

So I looked around on them, and some of them grumbled and growled, andBob 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 yourself. How long have youbeen 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 justsays--

'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 muchin five year, and you was a baby when you come out of the bar'l, youknow, and dead at that. Come, now, tell a straight story, and nobody'llhurt you, if you ain't up to anything 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 offhere, because when you went by he said he would like to get some of youto 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 andstopped 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 Iwarn'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 boysdoes that. '

'Well, I know that. But what did you hide for?'

'Sometimes they drive the boys off. '

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

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

'All right, then. You ain't but little ways from shore. Overboard withyou, and don't you make a fool of yourself another time this way. --Blastit, boy, some raftsmen would rawhide you till you were black and blue!'

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

The boy did not get the information he was after, but his adventure hasfurnished the glimpse of the departed raftsman and keelboatman which Idesire to offer in this place. 

I now come to a phase of the Mississippi River life of the flush timesof steamboating, which seems to me to warrant full examination--themarvelous science of piloting, as displayed there. I believe there hasbeen nothing like it elsewhere in the world. 

Chapter 4 The Boys' Ambition

WHEN I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comradesin our village {footnote [1. Hannibal, Missouri]} on the west bank ofthe Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transientambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circuscame and went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negrominstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try thatkind 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 inits turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained. 

Once a day a cheap, gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, andanother downward from Keokuk. Before these events, the day was gloriouswith expectancy; after them, the day was a dead and empty thing. Notonly the boys, but the whole village, felt this. After all these years Ican picture that old time to myself now, just as it was then: the whitetown 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 WaterStreet stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back againstthe wall, chins on breasts, hats slouched over their faces, asleep--withshingle-shavings enough around to show what broke them down; a sow anda litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk, doing a good business inwatermelon rinds and seeds; two or three lonely little freight pilesscattered about the 'levee;' a pile of 'skids' on the slope of thestone-paved wharf, and the fragrant town drunkard asleep in the shadowof them; two or three wood flats at the head of the wharf, but nobody tolisten to the peaceful lapping of the wavelets against them; the greatMississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling itsmile-wide tide along, shining in the sun; the dense forest away on theother side; the 'point' above the town, and the 'point' below, boundingthe river-glimpse and turning it into a sort of sea, and withal a verystill and brilliant and lonely one. Presently a film of dark smokeappears 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 drunkardstirs, the clerks wake up, a furious clatter of drays follows, everyhouse and store pours out a human contribution, and all in a twinklingthe dead town is alive and moving. Drays, carts, men, boys, all gohurrying from many quarters to a common center, the wharf. Assembledthere, the people fasten their eyes upon the coming boat as upon awonder they are seeing for the first time. And the boat IS rather ahandsome sight, too. She is long and sharp and trim and pretty; she hastwo tall, fancy-topped chimneys, with a gilded device of some kind swungbetween them; a fanciful pilot-house, a glass and 'gingerbread', perchedon top of the 'texas' deck behind them; the paddle-boxes are gorgeouswith a picture or with gilded rays above the boat's name; the boilerdeck, the hurricane deck, and the texas deck are fenced and ornamentedwith clean white railings; there is a flag gallantly flying from thejack-staff; the furnace doors are open and the fires glaring bravely;the upper decks are black with passengers; the captain stands by thebig bell, calm, imposing, the envy of all; great volumes of the blackestsmoke are rolling and tumbling out of the chimneys--a husbanded grandeurcreated with a bit of pitch pine just before arriving at a town; thecrew are grouped on the forecastle; the broad stage is run far out overthe port bow, and an envied deckhand stands picturesquely on the end ofit with a coil of rope in his hand; the pent steam is screaming throughthe gauge-cocks, the captain lifts his hand, a bell rings, the wheelsstop; then they turn back, churning the water to foam, and the steameris at rest. Then such a scramble as there is to get aboard, and to getashore, and to take in freight and to discharge freight, all at one andthe same time; and such a yelling and cursing as the mates facilitate itall with! Ten minutes later the steamer is under way again, with no flagon the jack-staff and no black smoke issuing from the chimneys. Afterten more minutes the town is dead again, and the town drunkard asleep bythe skids once more. 

My father was a justice of the peace, and I supposed he possessedthe power of life and death over all men and could hang anybody thatoffended him. This was distinction enough for me as a general thing; butthe desire to be a steamboatman kept intruding, nevertheless. I firstwanted to be a cabin-boy, so that I could come out with a white apronon and shake a tablecloth over the side, where all my old comrades couldsee me; later I thought I would rather be the deckhand who stood on theend of the stage-plank with the coil of rope in his hand, because he wasparticularly conspicuous. But these were only day-dreams, --they were tooheavenly to be contemplated as real possibilities. By and by one of ourboys went away. He was not heard of for a long time. At last he turnedup as apprentice engineer or 'striker' on a steamboat. This thing shookthe bottom out of all my Sunday-school teachings. That boy had beennotoriously worldly, and I just the reverse; yet he was exalted to thiseminence, and I left in obscurity and misery. There was nothing generousabout this fellow in his greatness. He would always manage to have arusty bolt to scrub while his boat tarried at our town, and he would siton the inside guard and scrub it, where we could all see him and envyhim and loathe him. And whenever his boat was laid up he would come homeand swell around the town in his blackest and greasiest clothes, so thatnobody could help remembering that he was a steamboatman; and he usedall sorts of steamboat technicalities in his talk, as if he were so usedto them that he forgot common people could not understand them. He wouldspeak of the 'labboard' side of a horse in an easy, natural way thatwould make one wish he was dead. And he was always talking about 'St. Looy' like an old citizen; he would refer casually to occasions whenhe 'was coming down Fourth Street, ' or when he was 'passing by thePlanter's House, ' or when there was a fire and he took a turn on thebrakes of 'the old Big Missouri;' and then he would go on and lie abouthow many towns the size of ours were burned down there that day. Twoor three of the boys had long been persons of consideration amongus because they had been to St. Louis once and had a vague generalknowledge of its wonders, but the day of their glory was over now. Theylapsed into a humble silence, and learned to disappear when the ruthless'cub'-engineer approached. This fellow had money, too, and hair oil. Also an ignorant silver watch and a showy brass watch chain. He worea leather belt and used no suspenders. If ever a youth was cordiallyadmired and hated by his comrades, this one was. No girl could withstandhis charms. He 'cut out' every boy in the village. When his boat blew upat last, it diffused a tranquil contentment among us such as we had notknown for months. But when he came home the next week, alive, renowned, and appeared in church all battered up and bandaged, a shining hero, stared at and wondered over by everybody, it seemed to us that thepartiality of Providence for an undeserving reptile had reached a pointwhere it was open to criticism. 

This creature's career could produce but one result, and it speedilyfollowed. Boy after boy managed to get on the river. The minister's sonbecame an engineer. The doctor's and the post-master's sons became 'mudclerks;' the wholesale liquor dealer's son became a barkeeper on aboat; four sons of the chief merchant, and two sons of the county judge, became pilots. Pilot was the grandest position of all. The pilot, evenin those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary--from a hundredand 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. Nowsome of us were left disconsolate. We could not get on the river--atleast our parents would not let us. 

So by and by I ran away. I said I never would come home again till I wasa 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 likesardines at the long St. Louis wharf, and very humbly inquired for thepilots, but got only a cold shoulder and short words from mates andclerks. I had to make the best of this sort of treatment for the timebeing, but I had comforting daydreams of a future when I should be agreat and honored pilot, with plenty of money, and could kill some ofthese mates and clerks and pay for them. 

Chapter 5 I Want to be a Cub-pilot

MONTHS afterward the hope within me struggled to a reluctant death, andI found myself without an ambition. But I was ashamed to go home. I wasin Cincinnati, and I set to work to map out a new career. I hadbeen reading about the recent exploration of the river Amazon by anexpedition sent out by our government. It was said that the expedition, owing to difficulties, had not thoroughly explored a part of the countrylying about the head-waters, some four thousand miles from the mouth ofthe river. It was only about fifteen hundred miles from Cincinnati toNew Orleans, where I could doubtless get a ship. I had thirty dollarsleft; I would go and complete the exploration of the Amazon. This wasall the thought I gave to the subject. I never was great in matters ofdetail. I packed my valise, and took passage on an ancient tub calledthe 'Paul Jones, ' for New Orleans. For the sum of sixteen dollars I hadthe scarred and tarnished splendors of 'her' main saloon principallyto myself, for she was not a creature to attract the eye of wisertravelers. 

When we presently got under way and went poking down the broad Ohio, I became a new being, and the subject of my own admiration. I was atraveler! A word never had tasted so good in my mouth before. I had anexultant sense of being bound for mysterious lands and distant climeswhich I never have felt in so uplifting a degree since. I was in such aglorified condition that all ignoble feelings departed out of me, and Iwas able to look down and pity the untraveled with a compassion that hadhardly a trace of contempt in it. Still, when we stopped at villages andwood-yards, I could not help lolling carelessly upon the railings of theboiler deck to enjoy the envy of the country boys on the bank. Ifthey did not seem to discover me, I presently sneezed to attract theirattention, 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 othersigns of being mightily bored with traveling. 

I kept my hat off all the time, and stayed where the wind and the suncould strike me, because I wanted to get the bronzed and weather-beatenlook of an old traveler. Before the second day was half gone Iexperienced a joy which filled me with the purest gratitude; for I sawthat the skin had begun to blister and peel off my face and neck. Iwished that the boys and girls at home could see me now. 

We reached Louisville in time--at least the neighborhood of it. We stuckhard and fast on the rocks in the middle of the river, and lay therefour days. I was now beginning to feel a strong sense of being a partof the boat's family, a sort of infant son to the captain and youngerbrother to the officers. There is no estimating the pride I took in thisgrandeur, or the affection that began to swell and grow in me for thosepeople. I could not know how the lordly steamboatman scorns that sortof presumption in a mere landsman. I particularly longed to acquire theleast trifle of notice from the big stormy mate, and I was on the alertfor an opportunity to do him a service to that end. It came at last. Theriotous 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 skippingout of it--till the mate suddenly roared a general order for somebody tobring him a capstan bar. I sprang to his side and said: 'Tell me whereit is--I'll fetch it!'

If a rag-picker had offered to do a diplomatic service for the Emperorof Russia, the monarch could not have been more astounded than the matewas. He even stopped swearing. He stood and stared down at me. It tookhim ten seconds to scrape his disjointed remains together again. Thenhe said impressively: 'Well, if this don't beat hell!' and turned to hiswork with the air of a man who had been confronted with a problem tooabstruse for solution. 

I crept away, and courted solitude for the rest of the day. I did not goto dinner; I stayed away from supper until everybody else had finished. I did not feel so much like a member of the boat's family now as before. However, my spirits returned, in installments, as we pursued our waydown 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, hisface was bearded and whiskered all over; he had a red woman and a bluewoman tattooed on his right arm, --one on each side of a blue anchor witha red rope to it; and in the matter of profanity he was sublime. When hewas getting out cargo at a landing, I was always where I could see andhear. He felt all the majesty of his great position, and made the worldfeel it, too. When he gave even the simplest order, he dischargedit like a blast of lightning, and sent a long, reverberating peal ofprofanity thundering after it. I could not help contrasting the way inwhich the average landsman would give an order, with the mate's wayof doing it. If the landsman should wish the gang-plank moved a footfarther forward, he would probably say: 'James, or William, one of youpush that plank forward, please;' but put the mate in his place and hewould roar out: 'Here, now, start that gang-plank for'ard! Lively, now!WHAT're you about! Snatch it! SNATCH it! There! there! Aft again! aftagain! don't you hear me. Dash it to dash! are you going to SLEEP overit! 'VAST heaving. 'Vast heaving, I tell you! Going to heave it clearastern? WHERE're you going with that barrel! FOR'ARD with it 'fore Imake you swallow it, you dash-dash-dash-DASHED split between a tiredmud-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 withthe boat--the night watchman. He snubbed my advances at first, but Ipresently 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 helpedit, I hung with such homage on his words and so plainly showed thatI felt honored by his notice. He told me the names of dim capes andshadowy 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 aweek--or rather he might have seemed so to an older person than I. ButI drank in his words hungrily, and with a faith that might have movedmountains if it had been applied judiciously. What was it to me that hewas soiled and seedy and fragrant with gin? What was it to me that hisgrammar was bad, his construction worse, and his profanity so voidof art that it was an element of weakness rather than strength in hisconversation? He was a wronged man, a man who had seen trouble, and thatwas enough for me. As he mellowed into his plaintive history his tearsdripped upon the lantern in his lap, and I cried, too, from sympathy. He said he was the son of an English nobleman--either an earl or analderman, he could not remember which, but believed was both; hisfather, the nobleman, loved him, but his mother hated him from thecradle; and so while he was still a little boy he was sent to 'one ofthem old, ancient colleges'--he couldn't remember which; and by and byhis father died and his mother seized the property and 'shook' him ashe phrased it. After his mother shook him, members of the nobility withwhom 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 alltrammels of date and locality and branched out into a narrative thatbristled all along with incredible adventures; a narrative that was soreeking with bloodshed and so crammed with hair-breadth escapes andthe most engaging and unconscious personal villainies, that I satspeechless, enjoying, shuddering, wondering, worshipping. 

It was a sore blight to find out afterwards that he was a low, vulgar, ignorant, sentimental, half-witted humbug, an untraveled native of thewilds of Illinois, who had absorbed wildcat literature and appropriatedits marvels, until in time he had woven odds and ends of the mess intothis yarn, and then gone on telling it to fledglings like me, until hehad come to believe it himself. 

Chapter 6 A Cub-pilot's Experience

WHAT with lying on the rocks four days at Louisville, and some otherdelays, the poor old 'Paul Jones' fooled away about two weeks in makingthe voyage from Cincinnati to New Orleans. This gave me a chance to getacquainted with one of the pilots, and he taught me how to steer theboat, and thus made the fascination of river life more potent than everfor me. 

It also gave me a chance to get acquainted with a youth who had takendeck passage--more's the pity; for he easily borrowed six dollars of meon a promise to return to the boat and pay it back to me the day afterwe should arrive. But he probably died or forgot, for he never came. Itwas doubtless the former, since he had said his parents were wealthy, and he only traveled deck passage because it was cooler. {footnote [1. 'Deck' Passage, i. E. Steerage passage. ]}

I soon discovered two things. One was that a vessel would not be likelyto sail for the mouth of the Amazon under ten or twelve years; and theother was that the nine or ten dollars still left in my pocket would notsuffice for so imposing an exploration as I had planned, even if I couldafford to wait for a ship. Therefore it followed that I must contrivea new career. The 'Paul Jones' was now bound for St. Louis. I planneda siege against my pilot, and at the end of three hard days hesurrendered. He agreed to teach me the Mississippi River from NewOrleans to St. Louis for five hundred dollars, payable out of thefirst wages I should receive after graduating. I entered upon the smallenterprise of 'learning' twelve or thirteen hundred miles of the greatMississippi River with the easy confidence of my time of life. If I hadreally known what I was about to require of my faculties, I should nothave had the courage to begin. I supposed that all a pilot had to do wasto keep his boat in the river, and I did not consider that that could bemuch of a trick, since it was so wide. 

The boat backed out from New Orleans at four in the afternoon, and itwas 'our watch' until eight. Mr. Bixby, my chief, 'straightened herup, ' plowed her along past the sterns of the other boats that lay at theLevee, and then said, 'Here, take her; shave those steamships as closeas you'd peel an apple. ' I took the wheel, and my heart-beat flutteredup into the hundreds; for it seemed to me that we were about to scrapethe side off every ship in the line, we were so close. I held my breathand began to claw the boat away from the danger; and I had my ownopinion of the pilot who had known no better than to get us into suchperil, but I was too wise to express it. In half a minute I had a widemargin of safety intervening between the 'Paul Jones' and the ships; andwithin ten seconds more I was set aside in disgrace, and Mr. Bixby wasgoing 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 whichmy chief loafed from side to side of his wheel, and trimmed the ships soclosely that disaster seemed ceaselessly imminent. When he had cooled alittle he told me that the easy water was close ashore and the currentoutside, and therefore we must hug the bank, up-stream, to get thebenefit of the former, and stay well out, down-stream, to take advantageof the latter. In my own mind I resolved to be a down-stream pilot andleave the up-streaming to people dead to prudence. 

Now and then Mr. Bixby called my attention to certain things. Saidhe, 'This is Six-Mile Point. ' I assented. It was pleasant enoughinformation, but I could not see the bearing of it. I was not consciousthat it was a matter of any interest to me. Another time he said, 'Thisis Nine-Mile Point. ' Later he said, 'This is Twelve-Mile Point. ' Theywere all about level with the water's edge; they all looked about aliketo me; they were monotonously unpicturesque. I hoped Mr. Bixby wouldchange the subject. But no; he would crowd up around a point, huggingthe shore with affection, and then say: 'The slack water ends here, abreast this bunch of China-trees; now we cross over. ' So he crossedover. He gave me the wheel once or twice, but I had no luck. I eithercame near chipping off the edge of a sugar plantation, or I yawed toofar 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. Atmidnight the glare of a lantern shone in my eyes, and the night watchmansaid--

'Come! turn out!'

And then he left. I could not understand this extraordinary procedure;so I presently gave up trying to, and dozed off to sleep. Pretty soonthe 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 thenight 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 blest. '

The 'off-watch' was just turning in, and I heard some brutal laughterfrom them, and such remarks as 'Hello, watchman! an't the new cub turnedout yet? He's delicate, likely. Give him some sugar in a rag and sendfor the chambermaid to sing rock-a-by-baby to him. '

About this time Mr. Bixby appeared on the scene. Something like a minutelater I was climbing the pilot-house steps with some of my clothes onand the rest in my arms. Mr. Bixby was close behind, commenting. Herewas something fresh--this thing of getting up in the middle of the nightto go to work. It was a detail in piloting that had never occurred tome at all. I knew that boats ran all night, but somehow I had neverhappened to reflect that somebody had to get up out of a warm bed to runthem. I began to fear that piloting was not quite so romantic as I hadimagined it was; there was something very real and work-like about thisnew 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 starand was holding her straight up the middle of the river. The shores oneither hand were not much more than half a mile apart, but they seemedwonderfully 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 joyof your job, Mr. Bixby; you'll have a good time finding Mr. Jones'splantation such a night as this; and I hope you never WILL find it aslong as you live. 

Mr. Bixby 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 nogreat 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, Ireckon. '

And then the mate left. My exultation began to cool and my wonder tocome up. Here was a man who not only proposed to find this plantation onsuch a night, but to find either end of it you preferred. I dreadfullywanted to ask a question, but I was carrying about as many short answersas my cargo-room would admit of, so I held my peace. All I desiredto ask Mr. Bixby was the simple question whether he was ass enough toreally imagine he was going to find that plantation on a night when allplantations were exactly alike and all the same color. But I held in. Iused to have fine inspirations of prudence in those days. 

Mr. Bixby made for the shore and soon was scraping it, just the same asif 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 peculiarlyreckless 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 Ididn't know. 

'Don't KNOW?'

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

'Well, you're a smart one, ' said Mr. Bixby. 'What's the name of the NEXTpoint?'

Once more I didn't know. 

'Well, this beats anything. Tell me the name of ANY point or place Itold you. '

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

'Look here! What do you start out from, above Twelve-Mile Point, tocross over?'

'I--I--don't know. '

'You--you--don't know?' mimicking my drawling manner of speech. 'What DOyou know?'

'I--I--nothing, for certain. '

'By the great Caesar's ghost, I believe you! You're the stupidestdunderhead I ever saw or ever heard of, so help me Moses! The idea ofyou being a pilot--you! Why, you don't know enough to pilot a cow down alane. '

Oh, but his wrath was up! He was a nervous man, and he shuffled from oneside of his wheel to the other as if the floor was hot. He would boil awhile to himself, and then overflow and scald me again. 

'Look here! What do you suppose I told you the names of those pointsfor?'

I tremblingly considered a moment, and then the devil of temptationprovoked 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 crossingthe river at the time) that I judge it made him blind, because he ranover the steering-oar of a trading-scow. Of course the traders sent upa volley of red-hot profanity. Never was a man so grateful as Mr. Bixbywas: because he was brim full, and here were subjects who would TALKBACK. He threw open a window, thrust his head out, and such an irruptionfollowed as I never had heard before. The fainter and farther away thescowmen's curses drifted, the higher Mr. Bixby lifted his voice and theweightier his adjectives grew. When he closed the window he was empty. You could have drawn a seine through his system and not caught cursesenough to disturb your mother with. Presently he said to me in thegentlest way--

'My boy, you must get a little memorandum book, and every time I tellyou a thing, put it down right away. There's only one way to be a pilot, and that is to get this entire river by heart. You have to know it justlike A B C. '

That was a dismal revelation to me; for my memory was never loaded withanything 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 fewstrokes on the big bell. The stars were all gone now, and the night wasas black as ink. I could hear the wheels churn along the bank, but Iwas not entirely certain that I could see the shore. The voice of theinvisible 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 itisn't. But I did not chirp. I only waited to see. Mr. Bixby handled theengine bells, and in due time the boat's nose came to the land, a torchglowed from the forecastle, a man skipped ashore, a darky's voice on thebank said, 'Gimme de k'yarpet-bag, Mars' Jones, ' and the next moment wewere standing up the river again, all serene. I reflected deeply awhile, and then said--but not aloud--'Well, the finding of that plantation wasthe luckiest accident that ever happened; but it couldn't happen againin 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 hadlearned to be a tolerably plucky up-stream steersman, in daylight, and before we reached St. Louis I had made a trifle of progress innight-work, but only a trifle. I had a note-book that fairly bristledwith the names of towns, 'points, ' bars, islands, bends, reaches, etc. ;but the information was to be found only in the notebook--none of it wasin my head. It made my heart ache to think I had only got half of theriver 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 timeI had slept since the voyage began. 

My chief was presently hired to go on a big New Orleans boat, and Ipacked my satchel and went with him. She was a grand affair. When Istood in her pilot-house I was so far above the water that I seemedperched on a mountain; and her decks stretched so far away, fore andaft, below me, that I wondered how I could ever have considered thelittle 'Paul Jones' a large craft. There were other differences, too. The 'Paul Jones's' pilot-house was a cheap, dingy, battered rattle-trap, cramped for room: but here was a sumptuous glass temple; room enough tohave 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 oil-clothon the floor; a hospitable big stove for winter; a wheel as high as myhead, costly with inlaid work; a wire tiller-rope; bright brass knobsfor the bells; and a tidy, white-aproned, black 'texas-tender, ' to bringup tarts and ices and coffee during mid-watch, day and night. Now thiswas 'something like, ' and so I began to take heart once more to believethat piloting was a romantic sort of occupation after all. The moment wewere under way I began to prowl about the great steamer and fill myselfwith joy. She was as clean and as dainty as a drawing-room; when Ilooked down her long, gilded saloon, it was like gazing through asplendid tunnel; she had an oil-picture, by some gifted sign-painter, on every stateroom door; she glittered with no end of prism-fringedchandeliers; the clerk's office was elegant, the bar was marvelous, andthe bar-keeper had been barbered and upholstered at incredible cost. The boiler deck (i. E. The second story of the boat, so to speak) was asspacious as a church, it seemed to me; so with the forecastle; andthere was no pitiful handful of deckhands, firemen, and roustabouts downthere, but a whole battalion of men. The fires were fiercely glaringfrom a long row of furnaces, and over them were eight huge boilers!This was unutterable pomp. The mighty engines--but enough of this. I hadnever felt so fine before. And when I found that the regiment of nattyservants respectfully 'sir'd' me, my satisfaction was complete. 

Chapter 7 A Daring Deed

WHEN I returned to the pilot-house St. Louis was gone and I was lost. Here was a piece of river which was all down in my book, but I couldmake neither head nor tail of it: you understand, it was turned around. I had seen it when coming up-stream, but I had never faced about to seehow it looked when it was behind me. My heart broke again, for it wasplain that I had got to learn this troublesome river BOTH WAYS. 

The pilot-house was full of pilots, going down to 'look at the river. 'What is called the 'upper river' (the two hundred miles between St. Louis and Cairo, where the Ohio comes in) was low; and the Mississippichanges its channel so constantly that the pilots used to always findit necessary to run down to Cairo to take a fresh look, when their boatswere 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 whoseldom had a berth, and whose only hope of getting one lay in theirbeing always freshly posted and therefore ready to drop into the shoesof some reputable pilot, for a single trip, on account of such pilot'ssudden illness, or some other necessity. And a good many of themconstantly ran up and down inspecting the river, not because they everreally 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. Intime these fellows grew dainty in their tastes, and only infested boatsthat had an established reputation for setting good tables. All visitingpilots were useful, for they were always ready and willing, winter orsummer, night or day, to go out in the yawl and help buoy the channelor assist the boat's pilots in any way they could. They were likewisewelcome because all pilots are tireless talkers, when gathered together, and as they talk only about the river they are always understood andare always interesting. Your true pilot cares nothing about anything onearth but the river, and his pride in his occupation surpasses the prideof kings. 

We had a fine company of these river-inspectors along, this trip. Therewere eight or ten; and there was abundance of room for them in our greatpilot-house. Two or three of them wore polished silk hats, elaborateshirt-fronts, diamond breast-pins, kid gloves, and patent-leather boots. They were choice in their English, and bore themselves with a dignityproper to men of solid means and prodigious reputation as pilots. Theothers were more or less loosely clad, and wore upon their heads tallfelt cones that were suggestive of the days of the Commonwealth. 

I was a cipher in this august company, and felt subdued, not to saytorpid. I was not even of sufficient consequence to assist at the wheelwhen it was necessary to put the tiller hard down in a hurry; the guestthat stood nearest did that when occasion required--and this was prettymuch all the time, because of the crookedness of the channel and thescant water. I stood in a corner; and the talk I listened to took thehope 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 onthe false point, and held on the cabin under Plum Point till I raisedthe reef--quarter less twain--then straightened up for the middle bartill I got well abreast the old one-limbed cotton-wood in the bend, then got my stern on the cotton-wood and head on the low place above thepoint, and came through a-booming--nine and a half. '

'Pretty square crossing, 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 fromthe false point--mark twain--raised the second reef abreast the big snagin 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 dealof water for Plum Point, it seems to me. '

There was an approving nod all around as this quiet snub dropped onthe 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 earshear aright, I have not only to get the names of all the towns andislands and bends, and so on, by heart, but I must even get up a warmpersonal acquaintanceship with every old snag and one-limbed cotton-woodand obscure wood pile that ornaments the banks of this river for twelvehundred miles; and more than that, I must actually know where thesethings are in the dark, unless these guests are gifted with eyes thatcan pierce through two miles of solid blackness; I wish the pilotingbusiness was in Jericho and I had never thought of it. '

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

'We will lay up here all night, captain. '

'Very well, sir. '

That was all. The boat came to shore and was tied up for the night. Itseemed to me a fine thing that the pilot could do as he pleased, withoutasking so grand a captain's permission. I took my supper andwent immediately to bed, discouraged by my day's observations andexperiences. My late voyage's note-booking was but a confusion ofmeaningless names. It had tangled me all up in a knot every time I hadlooked at it in the daytime. I now hoped for respite in sleep; butno, it reveled all through my head till sunrise again, a frantic andtireless nightmare. 

Next morning I felt pretty rusty and low-spirited. We went boomingalong, taking a good many chances, for we were anxious to 'get out ofthe river' (as getting out to Cairo was called) before night shouldovertake us. But Mr. Bixby's partner, the other pilot, presentlygrounded the boat, and we lost so much time in getting her off thatit was plain that darkness would overtake us a good long way abovethe mouth. This was a great misfortune, especially to certain of ourvisiting pilots, whose boats would have to wait for their return, nomatter how long that might be. It sobered the pilot-house talk a gooddeal. Coming up-stream, pilots did not mind low water or any kindof darkness; nothing stopped them but fog. But down-stream work wasdifferent; a boat was too nearly helpless, with a stiff current pushingbehind her; so it was not customary to run down-stream at night in lowwater. 

There seemed to be one small hope, however: if we could get throughthe intricate and dangerous Hat Island crossing before night, we couldventure the rest, for we would have plainer sailing and better water. But it would be insanity to attempt Hat Island at night. So there wasa deal of looking at watches all the rest of the day, and a constantciphering upon the speed we were making; Hat Island was the eternalsubject; sometimes hope was high and sometimes we were delayed in abad crossing, and down it went again. For hours all hands lay under theburden of this suppressed excitement; it was even communicated to me, and I got to feeling so solicitous about Hat Island, and under suchan awful pressure of responsibility, that I wished I might have fiveminutes on shore to draw a good, full, relieving breath, and start overagain. We were standing no regular watches. Each of our pilots ran suchportions of the river as he had run when coming up-stream, because ofhis greater familiarity with it; but both remained in the pilot houseconstantly. 

An hour before sunset, Mr. Bixby took the wheel and Mr. W----steppedaside. For the next thirty minutes every man held his watch in his handand was restless, silent, and uneasy. At last somebody said, with adoomful sigh--

'Well, yonder's Hat Island--and we can't make it. ' All the watchesclosed with a snap, everybody sighed and muttered something about itsbeing 'too bad, too bad--ah, if we could only have got here half an hoursooner!' and the place was thick with the atmosphere of disappointment. Some started to go out, but loitered, hearing no bell-tap to land. Thesun dipped behind the horizon, the boat went on. Inquiring looks passedfrom one guest to another; and one who had his hand on the door-knoband had turned it, waited, then presently took away his hand and let theknob turn back again. We bore steadily down the bend. More looks wereexchanged, and nods of surprised admiration--but no words. Insensiblythe men drew together behind Mr. Bixby, as the sky darkened and one ortwo dim stars came out. The dead silence and sense of waiting becameoppressive. Mr. Bixby pulled the cord, and two deep, mellow notes fromthe big bell floated off on the night. Then a pause, and one more notewas struck. The watchman's voice followed, from the hurricane deck--

'Labboard lead, there! Stabboard lead!'

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

'M-a-r-k three!... M-a-r-k three!... Quarter-less three!... Halftwain!... Quarter twain!... M-a-r-k twain!... Quarter-less--'

Mr. Bixby pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint jinglings farbelow in the engine room, and our speed slackened. The steam began towhistle through the gauge-cocks. The cries of the leadsmen went on--andit is a weird sound, always, in the night. Every pilot in the lot waswatching now, with fixed eyes, and talking under his breath. Nobody wascalm and easy but Mr. Bixby. He would put his wheel down and stand ona spoke, and as the steamer swung into her (to me) utterly invisiblemarks--for we seemed to be in the midst of a wide and gloomy sea--hewould 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 thecurrent. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I could not, the starsbeing all gone by this time. This drifting was the dismalest work; itheld one's heart still. Presently I discovered a blacker gloom thanthat which surrounded us. It was the head of the island. We were closingright down upon it. We entered its deeper shadow, and so imminentseemed the peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the strongestimpulse to do SOMETHING, anything, to save the vessel. But still Mr. Bixby stood by his wheel, silent, intent as a cat, and all the pilotsstood shoulder to shoulder at his back. 

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

The water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman's cries, till it wasdown to--

'Eight-and-a-half!.... E-i-g-h-t feet!.... E-i-g-h-t feet!.... Seven-and--'

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

'Stand by, now!'

'Aye-aye, sir!'

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

We touched bottom! Instantly Mr. Bixby set a lot of bells ringing, shouted through the tube, 'NOW, let her have it--every ounce you'vegot!' then to his partner, 'Put her hard down! snatch her! snatch her!'The boat rasped and ground her way through the sand, hung upon the apexof disaster a single tremendous instant, and then over she went! Andsuch a shout as went up at Mr. Bixby's back never loosened the roof of apilot-house before!

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

Fully to realize the marvelous precision required in laying the greatsteamer in her marks in that murky waste of water, one should know thatnot only must she pick her intricate way through snags and blindreefs, and then shave the head of the island so closely as to brushthe overhanging foliage with her stern, but at one place she must passalmost within arm's reach of a sunken and invisible wreck that wouldsnatch the hull timbers from under her if she should strike it, anddestroy a quarter of a million dollars' worth of steam-boat and cargoin five minutes, and maybe a hundred and fifty human lives into thebargain. 

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!'

Chapter 8 Perplexing Lessons

At the end of what seemed a tedious while, I had managed to pack myhead full of islands, towns, bars, 'points, ' and bends; and a curiouslyinanimate mass of lumber it was, too. However, inasmuch as I could shutmy eyes and reel off a good long string of these names without leavingout more than ten miles of river in every fifty, I began to feel thatI could take a boat down to New Orleans if I could make her skip thoselittle gaps. But of course my complacency could hardly get start enoughto lift my nose a trifle into the air, before Mr. Bixby would think ofsomething to fetch it down again. One day he turned on me suddenly withthis settler--

'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 anyparticular shape. My gunpowdery chief went off with a bang, of course, and then went on loading and firing until he was out of adjectives. 

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

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

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

'How do you follow a hall at home in the dark. Because you know theshape of it. You can't see it. '

'Do you mean to say that I've got to know all the million triflingvariations of shape in the banks of this interminable river as well as Iknow the shape of the front hall at home?'

'On my honor, you've got to know them BETTER than any man ever did knowthe 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 aroundit. A clear starlight night throws such heavy shadows that if you didn'tknow the shape of a shore perfectly you would claw away from every bunchof timber, because you would take the black shadow of it for a solidcape; and you see you would be getting scared to death every fifteenminutes by the watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all the timewhen you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You can't see a snag inone of those shadows, but you know exactly where it is, and the shapeof the river tells you when you are coming to it. Then there's yourpitch-dark night; the river is a very different shape on a pitch-darknight from what it is on a starlight night. All shores seem to bestraight lines, then, and mighty dim ones, too; and you'd RUN them forstraight lines only you know better. You boldly drive your boat rightinto what seems to be a solid, straight wall (you knowing very well thatin reality there is a curve there), and that wall falls back and makesway for you. Then there's your gray mist. You take a night when there'sone of these grisly, drizzly, gray mists, and then there isn't anyparticular shape to a shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of theoldest man that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of MOONLIGHTchange the shape of the river in different ways. You see--'

'Oh, don't say any more, please! Have I got to learn the shape of theriver according to all these five hundred thousand different ways? IfI tried to carry all that cargo in my head it would make mestoop-shouldered. '

'NO! you only learn THE shape of the river, and you learn it with suchabsolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape that's IN YOURHEAD, and never mind the one that's before your eyes. '

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

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

'Bixby, you'll have to look out for President's Island and all thatcountry clear away up above the Old Hen and Chickens. The banks arecaving and the shape of the shores changing like everything. Why, you wouldn't know the point above 40. You can go up inside the oldsycamore-snag, now. {footnote [1. It may not be necessary, but still itcan do no harm to explain that 'inside' means between the snag and theshore. --M. T. ]}

So that question was answered. Here were leagues of shore changingshape. My spirits were down in the mud again. Two things seemed prettyapparent to me. One was, that in order to be a pilot a man had got tolearn more than any one man ought to be allowed to know; and the otherwas, that he must learn it all over again in a different way everytwenty-four hours. 

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

'I judge the upper bar is making down a little at Hale's Point; hadquarter twain with the lower lead and mark twain {footnote [Two fathoms. 'Quarter twain' is two-and-a-quarter fathoms, thirteen-and-a-half feet. 'Mark three' is three fathoms. ]} 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 thebar, and I couldn't make her out entirely. I took her for the "SunnySouth"--hadn't any skylights forward of the chimneys. '

And so on. And as the relieving pilot took the wheel hispartner {footnote ['Partner' is a technical term for 'the other pilot'. ]}would mention that we were in such-and-such a bend, and say we wereabreast of such-and-such a man's wood-yard or plantation. This wascourtesy; I supposed it was necessity. But Mr. W---- came on watch fulltwelve minutes late on this particular night, --a tremendous breach ofetiquette; in fact, it is the unpardonable sin among pilots. So Mr. Bixby gave him no greeting whatever, but simply surrendered the wheeland marched out of the pilot-house without a word. I was appalled; itwas a villainous night for blackness, we were in a particularly wideand blind part of the river, where there was no shape or substance toanything, and it seemed incredible that Mr. Bixby should have left thatpoor fellow to kill the boat trying to find out where he was. But Iresolved that I would stand by him any way. He should find that he wasnot wholly friendless. So I stood around, and waited to be asked wherewe were. But Mr. W---- plunged on serenely through the solid firmamentof black cats that stood for an atmosphere, and never opened his mouth. Here is a proud devil, thought I; here is a limb of Satan that wouldrather send us all to destruction than put himself under obligations tome, because I am not yet one of the salt of the earth and privileged tosnub captains and lord it over everything dead and alive in a steamboat. I presently climbed up on the bench; I did not think it was safe to goto sleep while this lunatic was on watch. 

However, I must have gone to sleep in the course of time, becausethe next thing I was aware of was the fact that day was breaking, Mr. W----gone, and Mr. Bixby at the wheel again. So it was four o'clock andall well--but me; I felt like a skinful of dry bones and all of themtrying to ache at once. 

Mr. Bixby asked me what I had stayed up there for. I confessed that itwas to do Mr. W---- a benevolence, --tell him where he was. It took fiveminutes for the entire preposterousness of the thing to filter into Mr. Bixby's system, and then I judge it filled him nearly up to the chin;because he paid me a compliment--and not much of a one either. He said, 'Well, taking you by-and-large, you do seem to be more different kindsof an ass than any creature I ever saw before. What did you suppose hewanted 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 theriver in the night the same as he'd know his own front hall?'

'Well, I can follow the front hall in the dark if I know it IS the fronthall; but suppose you set me down in the middle of it in the dark andnot tell me which hall it is; how am I to know?'

'Well you've GOT to, on the river!'

'All right. Then I'm glad I never said anything to Mr. W----'

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

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

I went to work now to learn the shape of the river; and of all theeluding and ungraspable objects that ever I tried to get mind or handson, that was the chief. I would fasten my eyes upon a sharp, woodedpoint that projected far into the river some miles ahead of me, and goto laboriously photographing its shape upon my brain; and just as I wasbeginning to succeed to my satisfaction, we would draw up toward it andthe exasperating thing would begin to melt away and fold back into thebank! If there had been a conspicuous dead tree standing upon the verypoint of the cape, I would find that tree inconspicuously merged intothe general forest, and occupying the middle of a straight shore, whenI got abreast of it! No prominent hill would stick to its shape longenough for me to make up my mind what its form really was, but it was asdissolving and changeful as if it had been a mountain of butter in thehottest corner of the tropics. Nothing ever had the same shape whenI was coming downstream that it had borne when I went up. I mentionedthese little difficulties to Mr. Bixby. He said--

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

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

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

I considered this an outrage. I said--

'Every trip, down and up, the leadsmen are singing through that tangledplace for three-quarters of an hour on a stretch. How do you reckon Ican remember such a mess as that?'

'My boy, you've got to remember it. You've got to remember the exactspot and the exact marks the boat lay in when we had the shoalest water, in everyone of the five hundred shoal places between St. Louis and NewOrleans; and you mustn't get the shoal soundings and marks of one tripmixed up with the shoal soundings and marks of another, either, forthey're not often twice alike. You must keep them separate. '

When I came to myself again, I said--

'When I get so that I can do that, I'll be able to raise the dead, and then I won't have to pilot a steamboat to make a living. I want toretire from this business. I want a slush-bucket and a brush; I'm onlyfit for a roustabout. I haven't got brains enough to be a pilot; andif I had I wouldn't have strength enough to carry them around, unless Iwent on crutches. '

'Now drop that! When I say I'll learn {footnote ['Teach' is not in theriver vocabulary. ]} a man the river, I mean it. And you can depend onit, I'll learn him or kill him. '

Chapter 9 Continued Perplexities

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

'Do you see that long slanting line on the face of the water? Now, that's a reef. Moreover, it's a bluff reef. There is a solid sand-barunder 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 seewhere 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 climbover there, and not hurt anything. Cross over, now, and follow alongclose under the reef--easy water there--not much current. '

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

'Now get ready. Wait till I give the word. She won't want to mount thereef; a boat hates shoal water. Stand by--wait--WAIT--keep her well inhand. NOW cramp her down! Snatch her! snatch her!'

He seized the other side of the wheel and helped to spin it around untilit was hard down, and then we held it so. The boat resisted, and refusedto answer for a while, and next she came surging to starboard, mountedthe reef, and sent a long, angry ridge of water foaming away from herbows. 

'Now watch her; watch her like a cat, or she'll get away from you. Whenshe fights strong and the tiller slips a little, in a jerky, greasy sortof way, let up on her a trifle; it is the way she tells you at nightthat 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 underevery point, because the water that comes down around it forms an eddyand allows the sediment to sink. Do you see those fine lines on the faceof the water that branch out like the ribs of a fan. Well, those arelittle reefs; you want to just miss the ends of them, but run thempretty 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, shootingwhite columns of steam far aloft out of the 'scape pipes, but it wastoo late. The boat had 'smelt' the bar in good earnest; the foamy ridgesthat radiated from her bows suddenly disappeared, a great dead swellcame rolling forward and swept ahead of her, she careened far over tolarboard, and went tearing away toward the other shore as if she wereabout scared to death. We were a good mile from where we ought to havebeen, when we finally got the upper hand of her again. 

During the afternoon watch the next day, Mr. Bixby asked me if I knewhow to run the next few miles. I said--

'Go inside the first snag above the point, outside the next one, startout from the lower end of Higgins's wood-yard, make a square crossingand--'

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

But he wasn't. He was still below when I rounded it and entered upon apiece of river which I had some misgivings about. I did not know thathe was hiding behind a chimney to see how I would perform. I went gailyalong, getting prouder and prouder, for he had never left the boat inmy sole charge such a length of time before. I even got to 'setting'her and letting the wheel go, entirely, while I vaingloriously turnedmy back and inspected the stem marks and hummed a tune, a sort of easyindifference which I had prodigiously admired in Bixby and other greatpilots. Once I inspected rather long, and when I faced to the frontagain my heart flew into my mouth so suddenly that if I hadn't clappedmy teeth together I should have lost it. One of those frightful bluffreefs was stretching its deadly length right across our bows! My headwas gone in a moment; I did not know which end I stood on; I gasped andcould not get my breath; I spun the wheel down with such rapidity thatit wove itself together like a spider's web; the boat answered andturned square away from the reef, but the reef followed her! I fled, andstill it followed, still it kept--right across my bows! I never lookedto see where I was going, I only fled. The awful crash was imminent--whydidn't that villain come! If I committed the crime of ringing a bell, I might get thrown overboard. But better that than kill the boat. Soin blind desperation I started such a rattling 'shivaree' down below asnever had astounded an engineer in this world before, I fancy. Amidstthe frenzy of the bells the engines began to back and fill in a furiousway, and my reason forsook its throne--we were about to crash into thewoods on the other side of the river. Just then Mr. Bixby stepped calmlyinto view on the hurricane deck. My soul went out to him in gratitude. My distress vanished; I would have felt safe on the brink of Niagara, with Mr. Bixby on the hurricane deck. He blandly and sweetly tookhis tooth-pick out of his mouth between his fingers, as if it were acigar--we were just in the act of climbing an overhanging big tree, and the passengers were scudding astern like rats--and lifted up thesecommands 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 criticalinstant, then reluctantly began to back away. 

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

I sailed away as serenely as a summer's morning Mr. Bixby came in andsaid, with mock simplicity--

'When you have a hail, my boy, you ought to tap the big bell three timesbefore 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 tellyou 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 youever know of a boat following a bend up-stream at this stage of theriver?'

'No sir, --and I wasn't trying to follow it. I was getting away from abluff reef. '

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

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

'Just about. Run over it!'

'Do you give it as an order?'

'Yes. Run over it. '

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

'All right; I am taking the responsibility. ' I was just as anxious tokill the boat, now, as I had been to save her before. I impressed myorders upon my memory, to be used at the inquest, and made a straightbreak for the reef. As it disappeared under our bows I held my breath;but we slid over it like oil. 

'Now don't you see the difference? It wasn't anything but a WIND reef. The wind does that. '

'So I see. But it is exactly like a bluff reef. How am I ever going totell them apart?'

'I can't tell you. It is an instinct. By and by you will just naturallyKNOW one from the other, but you never will be able to explain why orhow you know them apart'

It turned out to be true. The face of the water, in time, became awonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducatedpassenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering itsmost cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a newstory to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles therewas never a page that was void of interest, never one that you couldleave unread without loss, never one that you would want to skip, thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. Therenever was so wonderful a book written by man; never one whose interestwas so absorbing, so unflagging, so sparkingly renewed with everyreperusal. The passenger who could not read it was charmed with apeculiar sort of faint dimple on its surface (on the rare occasionswhen he did not overlook it altogether); but to the pilot that was anITALICIZED passage; indeed, it was more than that, it was a legend ofthe largest capitals, with a string of shouting exclamation points atthe end of it; for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there thatcould tear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated. It isthe faintest and simplest expression the water ever makes, and the mosthideous to a pilot's eye. In truth, the passenger who could not readthis book saw nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it painted bythe sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye thesewere not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest ofreading-matter. 

Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to knowevery trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as Iknew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never berestored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry hadgone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certain wonderfulsunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broadexpanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the redhue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparklingupon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumblingrings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush wasfaintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles andradiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left wasdensely wooded, and the somber shadow that fell from this forest wasbroken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver;and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a singleleafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor thatwas flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it, every passingmoment, with new marvels of coloring. 

I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. Theworld was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting theglories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilightwrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogetherto note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I shouldhave looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, after this fashion: This sun means that we are going to havewind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, smallthanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reefwhich is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, ifit keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling 'boils' show adissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles inthe slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place isshoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forestis the 'break' from a new snag, and he has located himself in the verybest place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall deadtree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, andthen how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at nightwithout the friendly old landmark. 

No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All thevalue any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness itcould furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Sincethose days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovelyflush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a 'break' that ripplesabove some deadly disease. Are not all her visible charms sown thickwith what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he eversee her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, andcomment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't hesometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning histrade?

Chapter 10 Completing My Education

WHOSOEVER has done me the courtesy to read my chapters which havepreceded this may possibly wonder that I deal so minutely with pilotingas a science. It was the prime purpose of those chapters; and I am notquite done yet. I wish to show, in the most patient and painstaking way, what a wonderful science it is. Ship channels are buoyed and lighted, and therefore it is a comparatively easy undertaking to learn to runthem; clear-water rivers, with gravel bottoms, change their channelsvery gradually, and therefore one needs to learn them but once; butpiloting becomes another matter when you apply it to vast streams likethe Mississippi and the Missouri, whose alluvial banks cave and changeconstantly, whose snags are always hunting up new quarters, whosesandbars are never at rest, whose channels are for ever dodging andshirking, and whose obstructions must be confronted in all nights andall weathers without the aid of a single light-house or a single buoy;for there is neither light nor buoy to be found anywhere in all thisthree or four thousand miles of villainous river. {footnote [True at thetime referred to; not true now (1882). ]} I feel justified in enlargingupon this great science for the reason that I feel sure no one has everyet written a paragraph about it who had piloted a steamboat himself, and so had a practical knowledge of the subject. If the theme werehackneyed, I should be obliged to deal gently with the reader; butsince it is wholly new, I have felt at liberty to take up a considerabledegree of room with it. 

When I had learned the name and position of every visible feature of theriver; when I had so mastered its shape that I could shut my eyes andtrace it from St. Louis to New Orleans; when I had learned to read theface 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 endlessarray of soundings and crossing-marks, and keep fast hold of them, Ijudged that my education was complete: so I got to tilting my cap to theside of my head, and wearing a tooth-pick in my mouth at the wheel. Mr. Bixby had his eye on these airs. One day he said--

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

'How can I tell, sir. 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 thatbank is about a foot and a half high. '

'Foot and a half! That's a six-foot bank. How high was the bank alonghere 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 whetherthere's more water or less in the river along here than there was lasttrip. '

'The leads tell me that. ' I rather thought I had the advantage of himthere. 

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

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

'Very good. Is the river rising or falling?'

'Rising. '

'No it ain't. '

'I guess I am right, sir. Yonder is some drift-wood floating down thestream. '

'A rise starts the drift-wood, but then it keeps on floating a whileafter 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; doyou see this narrow belt of fine sediment That was deposited while thewater was higher. You see the driftwood begins to strand, too. The bankhelps 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 ofthat. '

'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 enoughin 103 NOW, yet there may not be by the time we get there; but the bankwill keep us posted all along. You don't run close chutes on a fallingriver, up-stream, and there are precious few of them that you areallowed to run at all down-stream. There's a law of the United Statesagainst it. The river may be rising by the time we get to 103, and inthat 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 aneverlasting 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 asyou've ever seen it run before--so to speak. If the river begins to riseagain, we'll go up behind bars that you've always seen standing out ofthe river, high and dry like the roof of a house; we'll cut across lowplaces that you've never noticed at all, right through the middle ofbars that cover three hundred acres of river; we'll creep through crackswhere you've always thought was solid land; we'll dart through the woodsand leave twenty-five miles of river off to one side; we'll see thehind-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 Ialready 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 thisbusiness. '

'Yes, that is true. And you are yet. But you'll not be when you'velearned 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 theriver--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 riverto the other, that will help the bank tell you when there is waterenough in each of these countless places--like that stump, you know. When the river first begins to rise, you can run half a dozen of thedeepest of them; when it rises a foot more you can run another dozen;the next foot will add a couple of dozen, and so on: so you see you haveto know your banks and marks to a dead moral certainty, and never getthem mixed; for when you start through one of those cracks, there'sno backing out again, as there is in the big river; you've got to gothrough, or stay there six months if you get caught on a falling river. There are about fifty of these cracks which you can't run at all exceptwhen the river is brim full and over the banks. '

'This new lesson is a cheerful prospect. '

'Cheerful enough. And mind what I've just told you; when you start intoone of those places you've got to go through. They are too narrow toturn around in, too crooked to back out of, and the shoal water isalways up at the head; never elsewhere. And the head of them is alwayslikely to be filling up, little by little, so that the marks you reckontheir depth by, this season, may not answer for next. '

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

'Exactly. Cramp her up to the bar! What are you standing up through themiddle of the river for?'

The next few months showed me strange things. On the same day that weheld the conversation above narrated, we met a great rise coming downthe river. The whole vast face of the stream was black with driftingdead logs, broken boughs, and great trees that had caved in and beenwashed away. It required the nicest steering to pick one's way throughthis rushing raft, even in the day-time, when crossing from point topoint; and at night the difficulty was mightily increased; every now andthen a huge log, lying deep in the water, would suddenly appear rightunder our bows, coming head-on; no use to try to avoid it then; we couldonly stop the engines, and one wheel would walk over that log from oneend to the other, keeping up a thundering racket and careening the boatin a way that was very uncomfortable to passengers. Now and then wewould 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 hita continent. Sometimes this log would lodge, and stay right acrossour nose, and back the Mississippi up before it; we would have to do alittle craw-fishing, then, to get away from the obstruction. We oftenhit WHITE logs, in the dark, for we could not see them till we wereright on them; but a black log is a pretty distinct object at night. Awhite snag is an ugly customer when the daylight is gone. 

Of course, on the great rise, down came a swarm of prodigioustimber-rafts from the head waters of the Mississippi, coal barges fromPittsburgh, little trading scows from everywhere, and broad-horns from'Posey County, ' Indiana, freighted with 'fruit and furniture'--theusual term for describing it, though in plain English the freight thusaggrandized was hoop-poles and pumpkins. Pilots bore a mortal hatred tothese craft; and it was returned with usury. The law required all suchhelpless traders to keep a light burning, but it was a law that wasoften 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-dashedaig-suckin', sheep-stealin', one-eyed son of a stuffed monkey!'

Then for an instant, as we whistled by, the red glare from our furnaceswould reveal the scow and the form of the gesticulating orator as ifunder a lightning-flash, and in that instant our firemen and deck-handswould send and receive a tempest of missiles and profanity, one of ourwheels would walk off with the crashing fragments of a steering-oar, anddown the dead blackness would shut again. And that flatboatman would besure to go into New Orleans and sue our boat, swearing stoutly that hehad a light burning all the time, when in truth his gang had the lanterndown below to sing and lie and drink and gamble by, and no watch ondeck. Once, at night, in one of those forest-bordered crevices (behindan island) which steamboatmen intensely describe with the phrase 'asdark as the inside of a cow, ' we should have eaten up a Posey Countyfamily, fruit, furniture, and all, but that they happened to be fiddlingdown below, and we just caught the sound of the music in time to sheeroff, doing no serious damage, unfortunately, but coming so near it thatwe 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 preciousfamily stood in the light of it--both sexes and various ages--and cursedus till everything turned blue. Once a coalboatman sent a bullet throughour pilot-house, when we borrowed a steering oar of him in a very narrowplace. 

Chapter 11 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 wasa particularly cramped place in a chute, we would be pretty sure to meeta broad-horn there; and if he failed to be there, we would find him in astill 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 cautiouslyalong through a fog, the deep hush would suddenly be broken by yells anda clamor of tin pans, and all in instant a log raft would appear vaguelythrough the webby veil, close upon us; and then we did not wait to swapknives, but snatched our engine bells out by the roots and piled on allthe steam we had, to scramble out of the way! One doesn't hit a rock ora solid log craft with a steamboat when he can get excused. 

You will hardly believe it, but many steamboat clerks always carrieda large assortment of religious tracts with them in those old departedsteamboating days. Indeed they did. Twenty times a day we would becramping up around a bar, while a string of these small-fry rascalswere drifting down into the head of the bend away above and beyond us acouple of miles. Now a skiff would dart away from one of them, and comefighting its laborious way across the desert of water. It would 'easeall, ' in the shadow of our forecastle, and the panting oarsmen wouldshout, 'Gimme a pa-a-per!' as the skiff drifted swiftly astern. Theclerk would throw over a file of New Orleans journals. If these werepicked up without comment, you might notice that now a dozen otherskiffs had been drifting down upon us without saying anything. Youunderstand, they had been waiting to see how No. 1 was going to fare. No. 1 making no comment, all the rest would bend to their oars andcome on, now; and as fast as they came the clerk would heave overneat bundles of religious tracts, tied to shingles. The amount of hardswearing which twelve packages of religious literature will command whenimpartially divided up among twelve raftsmen's crews, who have pulled aheavy skiff two miles on a hot day to get them, is simply incredible. 

As I have said, the big rise brought a new world under my vision. By thetime the river was over its banks we had forsaken our old paths and werehourly 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 throughchutes like that of 82, where the opening at the foot was an unbrokenwall of timber till our nose was almost at the very spot. Some of thesechutes were utter solitudes. The dense, untouched forest overhung bothbanks of the crooked little crack, and one could believe that humancreatures had never intruded there before. The swinging grape-vines, thegrassy nooks and vistas glimpsed as we swept by, the flowering creeperswaving their red blossoms from the tops of dead trunks, and all thespendthrift richness of the forest foliage, were wasted and thrown awaythere. The chutes were lovely places to steer in; they were deep, exceptat the head; the current was gentle; under the 'points' the water wasabsolutely dead, and the invisible banks so bluff that where the tenderwillow thickets projected you could bury your boat's broadside in themas you tore along, and then you seemed fairly to fly. 

Behind other islands we found wretched little farms, and wretchederlittle log-cabins; there were crazy rail fences sticking a foot or twoabove the water, with one or two jeans-clad, chills-racked, yellow-facedmale miserables roosting on the top-rail, elbows on knees, jaws inhands, grinding tobacco and discharging the result at floating chipsthrough crevices left by lost teeth; while the rest of the family andthe few farm-animals were huddled together in an empty wood-flat ridingat her moorings close at hand. In this flat-boat the family would haveto cook and eat and sleep for a lesser or greater number of days (orpossibly weeks), until the river should fall two or three feet and letthem get back to their log-cabin and their chills again--chills beinga merciful provision of an all-wise Providence to enable them to takeexercise without exertion. And this sort of watery camping out was athing which these people were rather liable to be treated to a coupleof times a year: by the December rise out of the Ohio, and the June riseout of the Mississippi. And yet these were kindly dispensations, forthey at least enabled the poor things to rise from the dead now andthen, and look upon life when a steamboat went by. They appreciated theblessing, too, for they spread their mouths and eyes wide open and madethe most of these occasions. Now what COULD these banished creaturesfind to do to keep from dying of the blues during the low-water season!

Once, in one of these lovely island chutes, we found our coursecompletely bridged by a great fallen tree. This will serve to show hownarrow some of the chutes were. The passengers had an hour's recreationin a virgin wilderness, while the boat-hands chopped the bridge away;for there was no such thing as turning back, you comprehend. 

From Cairo to Baton Rouge, when the river is over its banks, you haveno particular trouble in the night, for the thousand-mile wall of denseforest that guards the two banks all the way is only gapped with a farmor wood-yard opening at intervals, and so you can't 'get out of theriver' much easier than you could get out of a fenced lane; but fromBaton Rouge to New Orleans it is a different matter. The river is morethan a mile wide, and very deep--as much as two hundred feet, in places. Both banks, for a good deal over a hundred miles, are shorn of theirtimber and bordered by continuous sugar plantations, with only here andthere a scattering sapling or row of ornamental China-trees. The timberis shorn off clear to the rear of the plantations, from two to fourmiles. When the first frost threatens to come, the planters snatch offtheir crops in a hurry. When they have finished grinding the cane, theyform the refuse of the stalks (which they call BAGASSE) into great pilesand set fire to them, though in other sugar countries the bagasse isused for fuel in the furnaces of the sugar mills. Now the piles of dampbagasse burn slowly, and smoke like Satan's own kitchen. 

An embankment ten or fifteen feet high guards both banks of theMississippi all the way down that lower end of the river, and thisembankment is set back from the edge of the shore from ten to perhaps ahundred feet, according to circumstances; say thirty or forty feet, asa general thing. Fill that whole region with an impenetrable gloom ofsmoke from a hundred miles of burning bagasse piles, when the river isover the banks, and turn a steamboat loose along there at midnight andsee how she will feel. And see how you will feel, too! You find yourselfaway out in the midst of a vague dim sea that is shoreless, that fadesout and loses itself in the murky distances; for you cannot discernthe thin rib of embankment, and you are always imagining you seea straggling tree when you don't. The plantations themselves aretransformed by the smoke, and look like a part of the sea. All throughyour watch you are tortured with the exquisite misery of uncertainty. You hope you are keeping in the river, but you do not know. All that youare sure about is that you are likely to be within six feet of the bankand destruction, when you think you are a good half-mile from shore. Andyou are sure, also, that if you chance suddenly to fetch up against theembankment and topple your chimneys overboard, you will have the smallcomfort of knowing that it is about what you were expecting to do. Oneof the great Vicksburg packets darted out into a sugar plantation onenight, at such a time, and had to stay there a week. But there was nonovelty about it; it had often been done before. 

I thought I had finished this chapter, but I wish to add a curiousthing, while it is in my mind. It is only relevant in that it isconnected with piloting. There used to be an excellent pilot on theriver, a Mr. X. , who was a somnambulist. It was said that if his mindwas troubled about a bad piece of river, he was pretty sure to get upand walk in his sleep and do strange things. He was once fellow-pilotfor a trip or two with George Ealer, on a great New Orleans passengerpacket. During a considerable part of the first trip George was uneasy, but got over it by and by, as X. Seemed content to stay in his bed whenasleep. Late one night the boat was approaching Helena, Arkansas; thewater was low, and the crossing above the town in a very blind andtangled condition. X. Had seen the crossing since Ealer had, and as thenight was particularly drizzly, sullen, and dark, Ealer was consideringwhether 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 isa deadly enemy to piloting; you are aware that if you stand in a lightedroom, on such a night, you cannot see things in the street to anypurpose; but if you put out the lights and stand in the gloom you canmake out objects in the street pretty well. So, on very dark nights, pilots do not smoke; they allow no fire in the pilot-house stove ifthere is a crack which can allow the least ray to escape; they order thefurnaces to be curtained with huge tarpaulins and the sky-lights tobe closely blinded. Then no light whatever issues from the boat. Theundefinable shape that now entered the pilot-house had Mr. X. 's voice. This said--

'Let me take her, George; I've seen this place since you have, and itis so crooked that I reckon I can run it myself easier than I could tellyou how to do it. '

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

So Ealer took a seat on the bench, panting and breathless. The blackphantom assumed the wheel without saying anything, steadied the waltzingsteamer with a turn or two, and then stood at ease, coaxing her a littleto this side and then to that, as gently and as sweetly as if the timehad been noonday. When Ealer observed this marvel of steering, he wishedhe had not confessed! He stared, and wondered, and finally said--

'Well, I thought I knew how to steer a steamboat, but that was anothermistake of mine. '

X. Said nothing, but went serenely on with his work. He rang for theleads; he rang to slow down the steam; he worked the boat carefully andneatly into invisible marks, then stood at the center of the wheeland peered blandly out into the blackness, fore and aft, to verify hisposition; as the leads shoaled more and more, he stopped the enginesentirely, and the dead silence and suspense of 'drifting' followed whenthe shoalest water was struck, he cracked on the steam, carried herhandsomely over, and then began to work her warily into the next systemof shoal marks; the same patient, heedful use of leads and enginesfollowed, the boat slipped through without touching bottom, and enteredupon the third and last intricacy of the crossing; imperceptiblyshe moved through the gloom, crept by inches into her marks, driftedtediously till the shoalest water was cried, and then, under atremendous head of steam, went swinging over the reef and away into deepwater and safety!

Ealer let his long-pent breath pour out in a great, relieving sigh, andsaid--

'That's the sweetest piece of piloting that was ever done on theMississippi River! I wouldn't believed it could be done, if I hadn'tseen it. '

There was no reply, and he added--

'Just hold her five minutes longer, partner, and let me run down and geta cup of coffee. '

A minute later Ealer was biting into a pie, down in the 'texas, ' andcomforting himself with coffee. Just then the night watchman happenedin, and was about to happen out again, when he noticed Ealer andexclaimed--

'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 whistlingdown the middle of the river at her own sweet will! The watchman shotout of the place again; Ealer seized the wheel, set an engine back withpower, and held his breath while the boat reluctantly swung away froma 'towhead' which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf ofMexico!

By and by the watchman came back and said--

'Didn't that lunatic tell you he was asleep, when he first came uphere?'

'NO. '

'Well, he was. I found him walking along on top of the railings just asunconcerned 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 thatsort of tight-rope deviltry the same as before. '

'Well, I think I'll stay by, next time he has one of those fits. But Ihope he'll have them often. You just ought to have seen him take thisboat through Helena crossing. I never saw anything so gaudy before. Andif he can do such gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond-breastpin piloting whenhe is sound asleep, what COULDN'T he do if he was dead!'

Chapter 12 Sounding

WHEN the river is very low, and one's steamboat is 'drawing all thewater' there is in the channel, --or a few inches more, as was oftenthe case in the old times, --one must be painfully circumspect in hispiloting. We used to have to 'sound' a number of particularly bad placesalmost 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 abovethe shoal crossing; the pilot not on watch takes his 'cub' or steersmanand a picked crew of men (sometimes an officer also), and goes out inthe yawl--provided the boat has not that rare and sumptuous luxury, aregularly-devised 'sounding-boat'--and proceeds to hunt for the bestwater, the pilot on duty watching his movements through a spy-glass, meantime, and in some instances assisting by signals of the boat'swhistle, signifying 'try higher up' or 'try lower down;' for the surfaceof the water, like an oil-painting, is more expressive and intelligiblewhen inspected from a little distance than very close at hand. Thewhistle signals are seldom necessary, however; never, perhaps, exceptwhen the wind confuses the significant ripples upon the water's surface. When the yawl has reached the shoal place, the speed is slackened, thepilot 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 tostarboard;' or, 'let her fall off to larboard;'{footnote [The term'larboard' is never used at sea now, to signify the left hand; but wasalways used on the river in my time]} or 'steady--steady as you go. '

When the measurements indicate that the yawl is approaching the shoalestpart of the reef, the command is given to 'ease all!' Then the men stoprowing and the yawl drifts with the current. The next order is, 'Standby with the buoy!' The moment the shallowest point is reached, the pilotdelivers the order, 'Let go the buoy!' and over she goes. If the pilotis not satisfied, he sounds the place again; if he finds better waterhigher up or lower down, he removes the buoy to that place. Beingfinally satisfied, he gives the order, and all the men stand theiroars straight up in the air, in line; a blast from the boat's whistleindicates that the signal has been seen; then the men 'give way' ontheir oars and lay the yawl alongside the buoy; the steamer comescreeping carefully down, is pointed straight at the buoy, husbands herpower for the coming struggle, and presently, at the critical moment, turns on all her steam and goes grinding and wallowing over the buoy andthe sand, and gains the deep water beyond. Or maybe she doesn't; maybeshe 'strikes and swings. ' Then she has to while away several hours (ordays) sparring herself off. 

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

A buoy is nothing but a board four or five feet long, with one endturned up; it is a reversed school-house bench, with one of the supportsleft and the other removed. It is anchored on the shoalest part of thereef by a rope with a heavy stone made fast to the end of it. But forthe resistance of the turned-up end of the reversed bench, the currentwould pull the buoy under water. At night, a paper lantern with a candlein it is fastened on top of the buoy, and this can be seen a mile ormore, 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 isso gaudy and man-of-war-like to sit up in the stern-sheets and steera swift yawl; there is something fine about the exultant spring of theboat when an experienced old sailor crew throw their souls into theoars; 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 theworld of wavelets is dancing in the sun. It is such grandeur, too, tothe cub, to get a chance to give an order; for often the pilot willsimply say, 'Let her go about!' and leave the rest to the cub, whoinstantly cries, in his sternest tone of command, 'Ease starboard!Strong on the larboard! Starboard give way! With a will, men!' The cubenjoys sounding for the further reason that the eyes of the passengersare watching all the yawl's movements with absorbing interest if thetime be daylight; and if it be night he knows that those same wonderingeyes are fastened upon the yawl's lantern as it glides out into thegloom and dims away in the remote distance. 

One trip a pretty girl of sixteen spent her time in our pilot-house withher 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 friendsuntil this time; but now a coolness began to arise. I told the girl agood many of my river adventures, and made myself out a good deal of ahero; Tom tried to make himself appear to be a hero, too, and succeededto some extent, but then he always had a way of embroidering. However, virtue is its own reward, so I was a barely perceptible trifle aheadin the contest. About this time something happened which promisedhandsomely for me: the pilots decided to sound the crossing at the headof 21. This would occur about nine or ten o'clock at night, whenthe passengers would be still up; it would be Mr. Thornburg's watch, therefore my chief would have to do the sounding. We had a perfect loveof a sounding-boat--long, trim, graceful, and as fleet as a greyhound;her thwarts were cushioned; she carried twelve oarsmen; one of the mateswas always sent in her to transmit orders to her crew, for ours was asteamer where no end of 'style' was put on. 

We tied up at the shore above 21, and got ready. It was a foul night, and the river was so wide, there, that a landsman's uneducated eyescould discern no opposite shore through such a gloom. The passengerswere alert and interested; everything was satisfactory. As I hurriedthrough the engine-room, picturesquely gotten up in storm toggery, I metTom, and could not forbear delivering myself of a mean speech--

'Ain't you glad YOU 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 wasgoing 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 theladies' cabin guards two days, drying. '

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

'Give way, men!'

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

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

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

'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 thereef. Seems to be a little too far to the left. No matter, it is safestto 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 plowing over it, Mr. Thornburgseized 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 thenthe sound of grinding and crashing followed. Mr. Thornburg exclaimed--

'There! the paddle-wheel has ground the sounding-boat to lucifermatches! Run! See who is killed!'

I was on the main deck in the twinkling of an eye. My chief and thethird mate and nearly all the men were safe. They had discovered theirdanger when it was too late to pull out of the way; then, when the greatguards overshadowed them a moment later, they were prepared and knewwhat to do; at my chiefs order they sprang at the right instant, seizedthe guard, and were hauled aboard. The next moment the sounding-yawlswept aft to the wheel and was struck and splintered to atoms. Two ofthe men and the cub Tom, were missing--a fact which spread like wildfireover the boat. The passengers came flocking to the forward gangway, ladies and all, anxious-eyed, white-faced, and talked in awed voices ofthe dreadful thing. And often and again I heard them say, 'Poor fellows!poor boy, poor boy!'

By this time the boat's yawl was manned and away, to search for themissing. Now a faint call was heard, off to the left. The yawl haddisappeared in the other direction. Half the people rushed to one sideto encourage the swimmer with their shouts; the other half rushed theother way to shriek to the yawl to turn about. By the callings, the swimmer was approaching, but some said the sound showed failingstrength. The crowd massed themselves against the boiler-deck railings, leaning over and staring into the gloom; and every faint and fainter crywrung from them such words as, 'Ah, poor fellow, poor fellow! is thereno way to save him?'

But still the cries held out, and drew nearer, and presently the voicesaid pluckily--

'I can make it! Stand by with a rope!'

What a rousing cheer they gave him! The chief mate took his stand in theglare of a torch-basket, a coil of rope in his hand, and his men groupedabout him. The next moment the swimmer's face appeared in the circle oflight, and in another one the owner of it was hauled aboard, limp anddrenched, 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 struckby the wheel and killed. Tom had never jumped for the guard at all, buthad plunged head-first into the river and dived under the wheel. It wasnothing; I could have done it easy enough, and I said so; but everybodywent on just the same, making a wonderful to do over that ass, as if hehad done something great. That girl couldn't seem to have enough of thatpitiful 'hero' the rest of the trip; but little I cared; I loathed her, any way. 

The way we came to mistake the sounding-boat's lantern for thebuoy-light was this. My chief said that after laying the buoy he fellaway and watched it till it seemed to be secure; then he took up aposition a hundred yards below it and a little to one side of thesteamer's course, headed the sounding-boat up-stream, and waited. Havingto wait some time, he and the officer got to talking; he looked up whenhe judged that the steamer was about on the reef; saw that the buoy wasgone, but supposed that the steamer had already run over it; he wenton with his talk; he noticed that the steamer was getting very close onhim, but that was the correct thing; it was her business to shave himclosely, for convenience in taking him aboard; he was expecting her tosheer off, until the last moment; then it flashed upon him that she wastrying to run him down, mistaking his lantern for the buoy-light; so hesang out, 'Stand by to spring for the guard, men!' and the next instantthe jump was made. 

Chapter 13 A Pilot's Needs

BUT I am wandering from what I was intending to do, that is, makeplainer than perhaps appears in the previous chapters, some of thepeculiar requirements of the science of piloting. First of all, thereis one faculty which a pilot must incessantly cultivate until he hasbrought it to absolute perfection. Nothing short of perfection will do. That faculty is memory. He cannot stop with merely thinking a thing isso and so; he must know it; for this is eminently one of the 'exact'sciences. With what scorn a pilot was looked upon, in the old times, ifhe ever ventured to deal in that feeble phrase 'I think, ' instead of thevigorous one 'I know!' One cannot easily realize what a tremendous thingit is to know every trivial detail of twelve hundred miles of river andknow it with absolute exactness. If you will take the longest streetin New York, and travel up and down it, conning its features patientlyuntil you know every house and window and door and lamp-post and big andlittle sign by heart, and know them so accurately that you can instantlyname the one you are abreast of when you are set down at random inthat street in the middle of an inky black night, you will then have atolerable notion of the amount and the exactness of a pilot's knowledgewho carries the Mississippi River in his head. And then if you willgo on until you know every street crossing, the character, size, andposition of the crossing-stones, and the varying depth of mud in each ofthose numberless places, you will have some idea of what the pilot mustknow in order to keep a Mississippi steamer out of trouble. Next, if youwill take half of the signs in that long street, and CHANGE THEIR PLACESonce a month, and still manage to know their new positions accurately ondark nights, and keep up with these repeated changes without making anymistakes, you will understand what is required of a pilot's peerlessmemory by the fickle Mississippi. 

I think a pilot's memory is about the most wonderful thing in the world. To know the Old and New Testaments by heart, and be able to recite themglibly, forward or backward, or begin at random anywhere in the bookand recite both ways and never trip or make a mistake, is no extravagantmass of knowledge, and no marvelous facility, compared to a pilot'smassed knowledge of the Mississippi and his marvelous facility in thehandling of it. I make this comparison deliberately, and believe I amnot expanding the truth when I do it. Many will think my figure toostrong, but pilots will not. 

And how easily and comfortably the pilot's memory does its work; howplacidly effortless is its way; how UNCONSCIOUSLY it lays up its vaststores, hour by hour, day by day, and never loses or mislays a singlevaluable package of them all! Take an instance. Let a leadsman cry, 'Half twain! half twain! half twain! half twain! half twain!' untilit become as monotonous as the ticking of a clock; let conversation begoing 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 midstof this endless string of half twains let a single 'quarter twain!' beinterjected, without emphasis, and then the half twain cry go on again, just as before: two or three weeks later that pilot can describe withprecision the boat's position in the river when that quarter twainwas uttered, and give you such a lot of head-marks, stern-marks, andside-marks to guide you, that you ought to be able to take the boatthere and put her in that same spot again yourself! The cry of 'quartertwain' did not really take his mind from his talk, but his trainedfaculties instantly photographed the bearings, noted the change ofdepth, and laid up the important details for future reference withoutrequiring any assistance from him in the matter. If you were walkingand talking with a friend, and another friend at your side kept up amonotonous repetition of the vowel sound A, for a couple of blocks, andthen in the midst interjected an R, thus, A, A, A, A, A, R, A, A, A, etc. , and gave the R no emphasis, you would not be able to state, two orthree weeks afterward, that the R had been put in, nor be able to tellwhat objects you were passing at the moment it was done. But you couldif your memory had been patiently and laboriously trained to do thatsort of thing mechanically. 

Give a man a tolerably fair memory to start with, and piloting willdevelop it into a very colossus of capability. But ONLY IN THE MATTERSIT IS DAILY DRILLED IN. A time would come when the man's faculties couldnot help noticing landmarks and soundings, and his memory could not helpholding on to them with the grip of a vise; but if you asked that sameman at noon what he had had for breakfast, it would be ten chances toone that he could not tell you. Astonishing things can be done with thehuman memory if you will devote it faithfully to one particular line ofbusiness. 

At the time that wages soared so high on the Missouri River, my chief, Mr. Bixby, went up there and learned more than a thousand miles of thatstream with an ease and rapidity that were astonishing. When he had seeneach division once in the daytime and once at night, his education wasso nearly complete that he took out a 'daylight' license; a fewtrips later he took out a full license, and went to piloting day andnight--and he ranked A 1, too. 

Mr. Bixby placed me as steersman for a while under a pilot whose featsof memory were a constant marvel to me. However, his memory was born inhim, 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 onthe side of his throat, like a splinter under the flesh. He was onlyin the Southern trade six months. That was thirteen years ago. I made atrip with him. There was five feet in the upper river then; the "HenryBlake" grounded at the foot of Tower Island drawing four and a half; the"George Elliott" unshipped her rudder on the wreck of the "Sunflower"--'

'Why, the "Sunflower" didn't sink until--'

'I know when she sunk; it was three years before that, on the 2nd ofDecember; Asa Hardy was captain of her, and his brother John was firstclerk; and it was his first trip in her, too; Tom Jones told me thesethings 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 ofthe next year, and died of the lockjaw on the 15th. His brother diedtwo years after 3rd of March, --erysipelas. I never saw either of theHardys, --they were Alleghany River men, --but people who knew them toldme all these things. And they said Captain Hardy wore yarn socks winterand summer just the same, and his first wife's name was Jane Shook--shewas from New England--and his second one died in a lunatic asylum. Itwas in the blood. She was from Lexington, Kentucky. Name was Hortonbefore she was married. '

And so on, by the hour, the man's tongue would go. He could NOT forgetany thing. It was simply impossible. The most trivial details remainedas distinct and luminous in his head, after they had lain there foryears, as the most memorable events. His was not simply a pilot'smemory; its grasp was universal. If he were talking about a triflingletter he had received seven years before, he was pretty sure to deliveryou the entire screed from memory. And then without observing that hewas departing from the true line of his talk, he was more than likelyto hurl in a long-drawn parenthetical biography of the writer of thatletter; and you were lucky indeed if he did not take up that writer'srelatives, one by one, and give you their biographies, too. 

Such a memory as that is a great misfortune. To it, all occurrencesare of the same size. Its possessor cannot distinguish an interestingcircumstance from an uninteresting one. As a talker, he is bound to cloghis narrative with tiresome details and make himself an insufferablebore. Moreover, he cannot stick to his subject. He picks up every littlegrain of memory he discerns in his way, and so is led aside. Mr. Brownwould start out with the honest intention of telling you a vastly funnyanecdote about a dog. He would be 'so full of laugh' that he couldhardly begin; then his memory would start with the dog's breed andpersonal appearance; drift into a history of his owner; of his owner'sfamily, with descriptions of weddings and burials that had occurred init, together with recitals of congratulatory verses and obituary poetryprovoked by the same: then this memory would recollect that one of theseevents occurred during the celebrated 'hard winter' of such and such ayear, and a minute description of that winter would follow, along withthe names of people who were frozen to death, and statistics showing thehigh figures which pork and hay went up to. Pork and hay would suggestcorn and fodder; corn and fodder would suggest cows and horses; cows andhorses would suggest the circus and certain celebrated bare-back riders;the transition from the circus to the menagerie was easy and natural;from the elephant to equatorial Africa was but a step; then of coursethe heathen savages would suggest religion; and at the end of three orfour hours' tedious jaw, the watch would change, and Brown would go outof the pilot-house muttering extracts from sermons he had heard yearsbefore about the efficacy of prayer as a means of grace. And theoriginal first mention would be all you had learned about that dog, after all this waiting and hungering. 

A pilot must have a memory; but there are two higher qualities which hemust also have. He must have good and quick judgment and decision, and acool, calm courage that no peril can shake. Give a man the merest trifleof pluck to start with, and by the time he has become a pilot he cannotbe unmanned by any danger a steamboat can get into; but one cannot quitesay the same for judgment. Judgment is a matter of brains, and a manmust START with a good stock of that article or he will never succeed asa pilot. 

The growth of courage in the pilot-house is steady all the time, but itdoes not reach a high and satisfactory condition until some time afterthe young pilot has been 'standing his own watch, ' alone and underthe staggering weight of all the responsibilities connected with theposition. When an apprentice has become pretty thoroughly acquaintedwith the river, he goes clattering along so fearlessly with hissteamboat, night or day, that he presently begins to imagine that it isHIS courage that animates him; but the first time the pilot steps outand 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 cargoaltogether. The whole river is bristling with exigencies in a moment;he is not prepared for them; he does not know how to meet them; all hisknowledge forsakes him; and within fifteen minutes he is as white as asheet and scared almost to death. Therefore pilots wisely train thesecubs by various strategic tricks to look danger in the face a littlemore calmly. A favorite way of theirs is to play a friendly swindle uponthe candidate. 

Mr. Bixby served me in this fashion once, and for years afterward Iused to blush even in my sleep when I thought of it. I had become a goodsteersman; so good, indeed, that I had all the work to do on our watch, night and day; Mr. Bixby seldom made a suggestion to me; all he ever didwas to take the wheel on particularly bad nights or in particularly badcrossings, land the boat when she needed to be landed, play gentleman ofleisure nine-tenths of the watch, and collect the wages. The lower riverwas about bank-full, and if anybody had questioned my ability to run anycrossing between Cairo and New Orleans without help or instruction, I should have felt irreparably hurt. The idea of being afraid of anycrossing in the lot, in the DAY-TIME, was a thing too preposterous forcontemplation. Well, one matchless summer's day I was bowling down thebend above island 66, brimful of self-conceit and carrying my nose ashigh as a giraffe's, when Mr. Bixby said--

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

This was almost an affront. It was about the plainest and simplestcrossing in the whole river. One couldn't come to any harm, whether heran it right or not; and as for depth, there never had been any bottomthere. I knew all this, perfectly well. 

'Know how to RUN it? Why, I can run it with my eyes shut. '

'How much water is there in it?'

'Well, that is an odd question. I couldn't get bottom there with achurch steeple. '

'You think so, do you?'

The very tone of the question shook my confidence. That was what Mr. Bixby was expecting. He left, without saying anything more. I began toimagine all sorts of things. Mr. Bixby, unknown to me, of course, sentsomebody down to the forecastle with some mysterious instructions to theleadsmen, another messenger was sent to whisper among the officers, and then Mr. Bixby went into hiding behind a smoke-stack where he couldobserve results. Presently the captain stepped out on the hurricanedeck; next the chief mate appeared; then a clerk. Every moment or two astraggler was added to my audience; and before I got to the head ofthe island I had fifteen or twenty people assembled down there under mynose. I began to wonder what the trouble was. As I started across, thecaptain glanced aloft at me and said, with a sham uneasiness in hisvoice--

'Where is Mr. Bixby?'

'Gone below, sir. '

But that did the business for me. My imagination began to constructdangers out of nothing, and they multiplied faster than I could keep therun of them. All at once I imagined I saw shoal water ahead! The waveof coward agony that surged through me then came near dislocating everyjoint in me. All my confidence in that crossing vanished. I seized thebell-rope; dropped it, ashamed; seized it again; dropped it once more;clutched it tremblingly one again, and pulled it so feebly that I couldhardly hear the stroke myself. Captain and mate sang out instantly, andboth 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 port before I would see newdangers on that side, and away I would spin to the other; only to findperils accumulating to starboard, and be crazy to get to port again. Then came the leadsman's sepulchral cry--

'D-e-e-p four!'

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

'M-a-r-k three!... M-a-r-k three... Quarter less three!... Half twain!'

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

'Quarter twain! Quarter twain! MARK twain!'

I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quakingfrom head to foot, and I could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuckout so far. 

'Quarter LESS twain! Nine and a HALF!'

We were DRAWING nine! My hands were in a nerveless flutter. I couldnot ring a bell intelligibly with them. I flew to the speaking-tube andshouted to the engineer--

'Oh, Ben, if you love me, BACK her! Quick, Ben! Oh, back the immortalSOUL 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 hurricanedeck sent up a thundergust of humiliating laughter. I saw it all, now, and I felt meaner than the meanest man in human history. I laid in thelead, set the boat in her marks, came ahead on the engines, and said--

'It was a fine trick to play on an orphan, WASN'T it? I suppose I'llnever hear the last of how I was ass enough to heave the lead at thehead of 66. '

'Well, no, you won't, maybe. In fact I hope you won't; for I want you tolearn something by that experience. Didn't you KNOW there was no bottomin that crossing?'

'Yes, sir, I did. '

'Very well, then. You shouldn't have allowed me or anybody else to shakeyour confidence in that knowledge. Try to remember that. And anotherthing: when you get into a dangerous place, don't turn coward. Thatisn't going to help matters any. '

It was a good enough lesson, but pretty hardly learned. Yet about thehardest part of it was that for months I so often had to hear a phrasewhich I had conceived a particular distaste for. It was, 'Oh, Ben, ifyou love me, back her!'

Chapter 14 Rank and Dignity of Piloting

IN my preceding chapters I have tried, by going into the minutiae of thescience of piloting, to carry the reader step by step to a comprehensionof what the science consists of; and at the same time I have tried toshow him that it is a very curious and wonderful science, too, and veryworthy of his attention. If I have seemed to love my subject, it is nosurprising thing, for I loved the profession far better than any I havefollowed since, and I took a measureless pride in it. The reason isplain: a pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirelyindependent human being that lived in the earth. Kings are but thehampered servants of parliament and people; parliaments sit in chainsforged by their constituency; the editor of a newspaper cannot beindependent, but must work with one hand tied behind him by party andpatrons, and be content to utter only half or two-thirds of his mind; noclergyman is a free man and may speak the whole truth, regardless ofhis parish's opinions; writers of all kinds are manacled servants of thepublic. We write frankly and fearlessly, but then we 'modify' before weprint. In truth, every man and woman and child has a master, and worriesand frets in servitude; but in the day I write of, the Mississippi pilothad none. The captain could stand upon the hurricane deck, in the pompof a very brief authority, and give him five or six orders while thevessel 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 thesole and unquestioned control of the pilot. He could do with her exactlyas he pleased, run her when and whither he chose, and tie her up to thebank whenever his judgment said that that course was best. His movementswere entirely free; he consulted no one, he received commands fromnobody, he promptly resented even the merest suggestions. Indeed, the law of the United States forbade him to listen to commands orsuggestions, rightly considering that the pilot necessarily knew betterhow to handle the boat than anybody could tell him. So here was thenovelty of a king without a keeper, an absolute monarch who was absolutein sober truth and not by a fiction of words. I have seen a boy ofeighteen taking a great steamer serenely into what seemed almost certaindestruction, and the aged captain standing mutely by, filled withapprehension but powerless to interfere. His interference, in thatparticular instance, might have been an excellent thing, but to permitit would have been to establish a most pernicious precedent. It willeasily be guessed, considering the pilot's boundless authority, that hewas a great personage in the old steamboating days. He was treated withmarked courtesy by the captain and with marked deference by allthe officers and servants; and this deferential spirit was quicklycommunicated to the passengers, too. I think pilots were about the onlypeople I ever knew who failed to show, in some degree, embarrassment inthe presence of traveling foreign princes. But then, people in one's owngrade of life are not usually embarrassing objects. 

By long habit, pilots came to put all their wishes in the form ofcommands. It 'gravels' me, to this day, to put my will in the weak shapeof 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 NewOrleans and back, and discharge cargo, consumed about twenty-fivedays, on an average. Seven or eight of these days the boat spent at thewharves of St. Louis and New Orleans, and every soul on board was hardat work, except the two pilots; they did nothing but play gentleman uptown, and receive the same wages for it as if they had been on duty. Themoment the boat touched the wharf at either city, they were ashore; andthey were not likely to be seen again till the last bell was ringing andeverything in readiness for another voyage. 

When a captain got hold of a pilot of particularly high reputation, hetook pains to keep him. When wages were four hundred dollars a month onthe Upper Mississippi, I have known a captain to keep such a pilot inidleness, under full pay, three months at a time, while the river wasfrozen up. And one must remember that in those cheap times four hundreddollars was a salary of almost inconceivable splendor. Few men on shoregot such pay as that, and when they did they were mightily looked upto. When pilots from either end of the river wandered into our smallMissouri village, they were sought by the best and the fairest, andtreated with exalted respect. Lying in port under wages was a thingwhich many pilots greatly enjoyed and appreciated; especially if theybelonged in the Missouri River in the heyday of that trade (Kansastimes), and got nine hundred dollars a trip, which was equivalent toabout eighteen hundred dollars a month. Here is a conversation of thatday. A chap out of the Illinois River, with a little stern-wheel tub, accosts a couple of ornate and gilded Missouri River pilots--

'Gentlemen, I've got a pretty good trip for the upcountry, and shallwant you about a month. How much will it be?'

'Eighteen hundred dollars apiece. '

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

I will remark, in passing, that Mississippi steamboatmen were importantin landsmen's eyes (and in their own, too, in a degree) according to thedignity of the boat they were on. For instance, it was a proud thing tobe of the crew of such stately craft as the 'Aleck Scott' or the 'GrandTurk. ' Negro firemen, deck hands, and barbers belonging to those boatswere distinguished personages in their grade of life, and they were wellaware of that fact too. A stalwart darkey once gave offense at a negroball in New Orleans by putting on a good many airs. Finally one of themanagers bustled up to him and said--

'Who IS you, any way? Who is you? dat's what I wants to know!'

The offender was not disconcerted in the least, but swelled himselfup and threw that into his voice which showed that he knew he was notputting 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 youniggers to understan' dat I fires de middle do'{footnote [Door]} on de"Aleck Scott!"'

That was sufficient. 

The barber of the 'Grand Turk' was a spruce young negro, who aired hisimportance with balmy complacency, and was greatly courted by the circlein which he moved. The young colored population of New Orleans were muchgiven to flirting, at twilight, on the banquettes of the back streets. Somebody saw and heard something like the following, one evening, inone of those localities. A middle-aged negro woman projected her headthrough a broken pane and shouted (very willing that the neighborsshould hear and envy), 'You Mary Ann, come in de house dis minute!Stannin' out dah foolin' 'long wid dat low trash, an' heah's de barberoffn de "Gran' Turk" wants to conwerse wid you!'

My reference, a moment ago, to the fact that a pilot's peculiar officialposition placed him out of the reach of criticism or command, bringsStephen W---- naturally to my mind. He was a gifted pilot, a goodfellow, a tireless talker, and had both wit and humor in him. He had amost irreverent independence, too, and was deliciously easy-going andcomfortable in the presence of age, official dignity, and even the mostaugust wealth. He always had work, he never saved a penny, he was a mostpersuasive borrower, he was in debt to every pilot on the river, and tothe majority of the captains. He could throw a sort of splendor arounda bit of harum-scarum, devil-may-care piloting, that made it almostfascinating--but not to everybody. He made a trip with good old CaptainY----once, and was 'relieved' from duty when the boat got to NewOrleans. Somebody expressed surprise at the discharge. CaptainY----shuddered at the mere mention of Stephen. Then his poor, thin oldvoice piped out something like this:--

'Why, bless me! I wouldn't have such a wild creature on my boat for theworld--not for the whole world! He swears, he sings, he whistles, heyells--I never saw such an Injun to yell. All times of the night--itnever made any difference to him. He would just yell that way, not foranything in particular, but merely on account of a kind of devilishcomfort he got out of it. I never could get into a sound sleep buthe would fetch me out of bed, all in a cold sweat, with one of thosedreadful war-whoops. A queer being--very queer being; no respect foranything or anybody. Sometimes he called me "Johnny. " And he kept afiddle, 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 hisfamily--was. And reckless. There never was anything like it. Now you maybelieve it or not, but as sure as I am sitting here, he brought my boata-tilting down through those awful snags at Chicot under a rattlinghead of steam, and the wind a-blowing like the very nation, at that! Myofficers will tell you so. They saw it. And, sir, while he was a-tearingright 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 andgo to WHISTLING! Yes, sir; whistling "Buffalo gals, can't you come outtonight, can't you come out to-night, can't you come out to-night;" anddoing it as calmly as if we were attending a funeral and weren't relatedto the corpse. And when I remonstrated with him about it, he smiled downon me as if I was his child, and told me to run in the house and try tobe good, and not be meddling with my superiors!'

Once a pretty mean captain caught Stephen in New Orleans out of workand as usual out of money. He laid steady siege to Stephen, who was ina very 'close place, ' and finally persuaded him to hire with him at onehundred and twenty-five dollars per month, just half wages, the captainagreeing not to divulge the secret and so bring down the contempt of allthe guild upon the poor fellow. But the boat was not more than a day outof New Orleans before Stephen discovered that the captain was boastingof his exploit, and that all the officers had been told. Stephen winced, but said nothing. About the middle of the afternoon the captain steppedout on the hurricane deck, cast his eye around, and looked a good dealsurprised. He glanced inquiringly aloft at Stephen, but Stephen waswhistling placidly, and attending to business. The captain stood arounda while in evident discomfort, and once or twice seemed about to make asuggestion; but the etiquette of the river taught him to avoid that sortof rashness, and so he managed to hold his peace. He chafed and puzzleda few minutes longer, then retired to his apartments. But soon hewas out again, and apparently more perplexed than ever. Presently heventured 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 dependon that. '

The captain departed, looking rueful enough. At this rate, he wouldprobably die of old age before his boat got to St. Louis. Next day heappeared on deck and again found Stephen faithfully standing up themiddle of the river, fighting the whole vast force of the Mississippi, and whistling the same placid tune. This thing was becoming serious. In by the shore was a slower boat clipping along in the easy water andgaining steadily; she began to make for an island chute; Stephen stuckto 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?'

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

'Upon my word this is odd! Why, those pilots on that boat yonder aregoing to try it. Do you mean to say that you don't know as much as theydo?'

'THEY! Why, THEY are two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar pilots! But don't yoube uneasy; I know as much as any man can afford to know for a hundredand twenty-five!'

The captain surrendered. 

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

Chapter 15 The Pilots' Monopoly

ONE day, on board the 'Aleck Scott, ' my chief, Mr. Bixby, was crawlingcarefully through a close place at Cat Island, both leads going, andeverybody holding his breath. The captain, a nervous, apprehensive man, kept still as long as he could, but finally broke down and shouted fromthe hurricane deck--

'For gracious' sake, give her steam, Mr. Bixby! give her steam! She'llnever raise the reef on this headway!'

For all the effect that was produced upon Mr. Bixby, one would havesupposed that no remark had been made. But five minutes later, whenthe danger was past and the leads laid in, he burst instantly into aconsuming fury, and gave the captain the most admirable cursing I everlistened to. No bloodshed ensued; but that was because the captain'scause was weak; for ordinarily he was not a man to take correctionquietly. 

Having now set forth in detail the nature of the science of piloting, and likewise described the rank which the pilot held among thefraternity of steamboatmen, this seems a fitting place to say a fewwords about an organization which the pilots once formed for theprotection of their guild. It was curious and noteworthy in this, that it was perhaps the compactest, the completest, and the strongestcommercial organization ever formed among men. 

For a long time wages had been two hundred and fifty dollars a month;but curiously enough, as steamboats multiplied and business increased, the wages began to fall little by little. It was easy to discover thereason of this. Too many pilots were being 'made. ' It was nice to havea '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 andcaptains had sons or nephews who wanted to be pilots. By and by it cameto pass that nearly every pilot on the river had a steersman. When asteersman had made an amount of progress that was satisfactory to anytwo pilots in the trade, they could get a pilot's license for him bysigning an application directed to the United States Inspector. Nothingfurther was needed; usually no questions were asked, no proofs ofcapacity required. 

Very well, this growing swarm of new pilots presently began to underminethe wages, in order to get berths. Too late--apparently--the knights ofthe 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; soit was talked, and talked, and then dropped. It was too likely to ruinwhoever ventured to move in the matter. But at last about a dozen ofthe boldest--and some of them the best--pilots on the river launchedthemselves into the enterprise and took all the chances. They got aspecial charter from the legislature, with large powers, under the nameof the Pilots' Benevolent Association; elected their officers, completedtheir organization, contributed capital, put 'association' wages up totwo hundred and fifty dollars at once--and then retired to their homes, for they were promptly discharged from employment. But there were twoor three unnoticed trifles in their by-laws which had the seeds ofpropagation in them. For instance, all idle members of the association, in good standing, were entitled to a pension of twenty-five dollars permonth. This began to bring in one straggler after another from the ranksof the new-fledged pilots, in the dull (summer) season. Better havetwenty-five dollars than starve; the initiation fee was only twelvedollars, and no dues required from the unemployed. 

Also, the widows of deceased members in good standing could drawtwenty-five dollars per month, and a certain sum for each of theirchildren. Also, the said deceased would be buried at the association'sexpense. These things resurrected all the superannuated and forgottenpilots in the Mississippi Valley. They came from farms, they came frominterior villages, they came from everywhere. They came on crutches, ondrays, in ambulances, --any way, so they got there. They paid in theirtwelve dollars, and straightway began to draw out twenty-five dollars amonth, and calculate their burial bills. 

By and by, all the useless, helpless pilots, and a dozen first-classones, were in the association, and nine-tenths of the best pilots outof it and laughing at it. It was the laughing-stock of the whole river. Everybody joked about the by-law requiring members to pay ten per cent. Of their wages, every month, into the treasury for the support of theassociation, whereas all the members were outcast and tabooed, andno one would employ them. Everybody was derisively grateful to theassociation for taking all the worthless pilots out of the way andleaving the whole field to the excellent and the deserving; andeverybody was not only jocularly grateful for that, but for a resultwhich naturally followed, namely, the gradual advance of wages as thebusy season approached. Wages had gone up from the low figure of onehundred dollars a month to one hundred and twenty-five, and in somecases to one hundred and fifty; and it was great fun to enlarge upon thefact that this charming thing had been accomplished by a body of men notone of whom received a particle of benefit from it. Some of the jokersused to call at the association rooms and have a good time chaffing themembers and offering them the charity of taking them as steersmen fora trip, so that they could see what the forgotten river looked like. However, the association was content; or at least it gave no sign to thecontrary. Now and then it captured a pilot who was 'out of luck, ' andadded him to its list; and these later additions were very valuable, for they were good pilots; the incompetent ones had all been absorbedbefore. As business freshened, wages climbed gradually up to two hundredand fifty dollars--the association figure--and became firmly fixedthere; and still without benefiting a member of that body, for no memberwas hired. The hilarity at the association's expense burst all bounds, now. There was no end to the fun which that poor martyr had to put upwith. 

However, it is a long lane that has no turning. Winter approached, business doubled and trebled, and an avalanche of Missouri, Illinois andUpper Mississippi River boats came pouring down to take a chance in theNew Orleans trade. All of a sudden pilots were in great demand, and werecorrespondingly scarce. The time for revenge was come. It was a bitterpill to have to accept association pilots at last, yet captains andowners agreed that there was no other way. But none of these outcastsoffered! So there was a still bitterer pill to be swallowed: they mustbe sought out and asked for their services. Captain ---- was the firstman who found it necessary to take the dose, and he had been theloudest derider of the organization. He hunted up one of the best of theassociation pilots and said--

'Well, you boys have rather got the best of us for a little while, soI'll give in with as good a grace as I can. I've come to hire you; getyour trunk aboard right away. I want to leave at twelve o'clock. '

'I don't know about that. Who is your other pilot?'

'I've got I. S----. Why?'

'I can't go with him. He don't belong to the association. '

'What!'

'It's so. '

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

'Yes, I do. '

'Well, if this isn't putting on airs! I supposed I was doing you abenevolence; but I begin to think that I am the party that wants a favordone. Are you acting under a law of the concern?'

'Yes. '

'Show it to me. '

So they stepped into the association rooms, and the secretary soonsatisfied 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 togo 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'swages. '

'Of course that is a matter between you and Mr. S----, captain. Wecannot meddle in your private affairs. '

The captain stormed, but to no purpose. In the end he had to dischargeS----, pay him about a thousand dollars, and take an association pilotin his place. The laugh was beginning to turn the other way now. Everyday, thenceforward, a new victim fell; every day some outraged captaindischarged a non-association pet, with tears and profanity, andinstalled a hated association man in his berth. In a very little while, idle non-associationists began to be pretty plenty, brisk as businesswas, and much as their services were desired. The laugh was shifting tothe other side of their mouths most palpably. These victims, togetherwith the captains and owners, presently ceased to laugh altogether, and began to rage about the revenge they would take when the passingbusiness 'spurt' was over. 

Soon all the laughers that were left were the owners and crews of boatsthat had two non-association pilots. But their triumph was not verylong-lived. For this reason: It was a rigid rule of the associationthat its members should never, under any circumstances whatever, giveinformation about the channel to any 'outsider. ' By this time about halfthe boats had none but association pilots, and the other half had nonebut outsiders. At the first glance one would suppose that when it cameto forbidding information about the river these two parties could playequally at that game; but this was not so. At every good-sized town fromone end of the river to the other, there was a 'wharf-boat' to landat, instead of a wharf or a pier. Freight was stored in it fortransportation; waiting passengers slept in its cabins. Upon eachof these wharf-boats the association's officers placed a strong boxfastened with a peculiar lock which was used in no other service butone--the United States mail service. It was the letter-bag lock, asacred governmental thing. By dint of much beseeching the governmenthad been persuaded to allow the association to use this lock. Everyassociation man carried a key which would open these boxes. That key, orrather a peculiar way of holding it in the hand when its owner was askedfor river information by a stranger--for the success of the St. Louisand New Orleans association had now bred tolerably thriving branches ina dozen neighboring steamboat trades--was the association man's sign anddiploma of membership; and if the stranger did not respond by producinga similar key and holding it in a certain manner duly prescribed, hisquestion was politely ignored. From the association's secretary eachmember received a package of more or less gorgeous blanks, printed likea billhead, on handsome paper, properly ruled in columns; a bill-headworded something like this--

 STEAMER GREAT REPUBLIC. 

 JOHN SMITH MASTER

 PILOTS, JOHN JONES AND THOMAS BROWN. 

 + ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- +

 | CROSSINGS. | SOUNDINGS. | MARKS. | REMARKS. |

 + ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- +

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

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

The pilot who deposited that blank in the Cairo box (after adding to itthe details of every crossing all the way down from St. Louis) tookout and read half a dozen fresh reports (from upward-bound steamers)concerning the river between Cairo and Memphis, posted himselfthoroughly, returned them to the box, and went back aboard his boatagain so armed against accident that he could not possibly get his boatinto trouble without bringing the most ingenious carelessness to hisaid. 

Imagine the benefits of so admirable a system in a piece of river twelveor thirteen hundred miles long, whose channel was shifting every day!The pilot who had formerly been obliged to put up with seeing a shoalplace once or possibly twice a month, had a hundred sharp eyes to watchit for him, now, and bushels of intelligent brains to tell him how torun it. His information about it was seldom twenty-four hours old. Ifthe reports in the last box chanced to leave any misgivings on hismind concerning a treacherous crossing, he had his remedy; he blew hissteam-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 wereassociation men; and then the two steamers ranged alongside and alluncertainties were swept away by fresh information furnished to theinquirer by word of mouth and in minute detail. 

The first thing a pilot did when he reached New Orleans or St. Louis wasto take his final and elaborate report to the association parlors andhang it up there, --after which he was free to visit his family. In theseparlors a crowd was always gathered together, discussing changes in thechannel, and the moment there was a fresh arrival, everybody stoppedtalking till this witness had told the newest news and settled thelatest uncertainty. Other craftsmen can 'sink the shop, ' sometimes, and interest themselves in other matters. Not so with a pilot; he mustdevote himself wholly to his profession and talk of nothing else; for itwould be small gain to be perfect one day and imperfect the next. He hasno time or words to waste if he would keep 'posted. '

But the outsiders had a hard time of it. No particular place to meetand exchange information, no wharf-boat reports, none but chance andunsatisfactory ways of getting news. The consequence was that a mansometimes had to run five hundred miles of river on information thatwas a week or ten days old. At a fair stage of the river that might haveanswered; but when the dead low water came it was destructive. 

Now came another perfectly logical result. The outsiders began toground steamboats, sink them, and get into all sorts of trouble, whereas accidents seemed to keep entirely away from the association men. Wherefore even the owners and captains of boats furnished exclusivelywith outsiders, and previously considered to be wholly independent ofthe association and free to comfort themselves with brag and laughter, began to feel pretty uncomfortable. Still, they made a show of keepingup the brag, until one black day when every captain of the lot wasformally ordered to immediately discharge his outsiders and takeassociation pilots in their stead. And who was it that had the dashingpresumption to do that? Alas, it came from a power behind the thronethat was greater than the throne itself. It was the underwriters!

It was no time to 'swap knives. ' Every outsider had to take his trunkashore at once. Of course it was supposed that there was collusionbetween the association and the underwriters, but this was not so. Thelatter had come to comprehend the excellence of the 'report' system ofthe association and the safety it secured, and so they had made theirdecision among themselves and upon plain business principles. 

There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the camp ofthe outsiders now. But no matter, there was but one course for them topursue, and they pursued it. They came forward in couples and groups, and proffered their twelve dollars and asked for membership. They weresurprised to learn that several new by-laws had been long ago added. Forinstance, the initiation fee had been raised to fifty dollars; thatsum must be tendered, and also ten per cent. Of the wages which theapplicant had received each and every month since the founding ofthe association. In many cases this amounted to three or four hundreddollars. Still, the association would not entertain the applicationuntil the money was present. Even then a single adverse vote killed theapplication. Every member had to vote 'Yes' or 'No' in person and beforewitnesses; so it took weeks to decide a candidacy, because many pilotswere so long absent on voyages. However, the repentant sinners scrapedtheir 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 tenremained outside. They said they would starve before they would apply. They remained idle a long while, because of course nobody could ventureto employ them. 

By and by the association published the fact that upon a certain datethe wages would be raised to five hundred dollars per month. All thebranch associations had grown strong, now, and the Red River one hadadvanced wages to seven hundred dollars a month. Reluctantly the tenoutsiders yielded, in view of these things, and made application. Therewas another new by-law, by this time, which required them to pay duesnot only on all the wages they had received since the association wasborn, but also on what they would have received if they had continued atwork up to the time of their application, instead of going off to poutin idleness. It turned out to be a difficult matter to elect them, butit was accomplished at last. The most virulent sinner of this batch hadstayed out and allowed 'dues' to accumulate against him so long that hehad to send in six hundred and twenty-five dollars with his application. 

The association had a good bank account now, and was very strong. Therewas no longer an outsider. A by-law was added forbidding the receptionof any more cubs or apprentices for five years; after which timea limited number would be taken, not by individuals, but by theassociation, upon these terms: the applicant must not be less thaneighteen years old, and of respectable family and good character; hemust pass an examination as to education, pay a thousand dollars inadvance for the privilege of becoming an apprentice, and must remainunder the commands of the association until a great part of themembership (more than half, I think) should be willing to sign hisapplication for a pilot's license. 

All previously-articled apprentices were now taken away from theirmasters and adopted by the association. The president and secretarydetailed them for service on one boat or another, as they chose, andchanged them from boat to boat according to certain rules. If a pilotcould show that he was in infirm health and needed assistance, one ofthe cubs would be ordered to go with him. 

The widow and orphan list grew, but so did the association's financialresources. The association attended its own funerals in state, and paidfor them. When occasion demanded, it sent members down the river uponsearches for the bodies of brethren lost by steamboat accidents; asearch 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 onsteamboats. 

The organization seemed indestructible. It was the tightest monopoly inthe world. By the United States law, no man could become a pilot unlesstwo duly licensed pilots signed his application; and now there wasnobody outside of the association competent to sign. Consequently themaking of pilots was at an end. Every year some would die and othersbecome incapacitated by age and infirmity; there would be no new onesto take their places. In time, the association could put wages up to anyfigure it chose; and as long as it should be wise enough not to carrythe thing too far and provoke the national government into amending thelicensing system, steamboat owners would have to submit, since therewould be no help for it. 

The owners and captains were the only obstruction that lay betweenthe association and absolute power; and at last this one was removed. Incredible as it may seem, the owners and captains deliberately did itthemselves. When the pilots' association announced, months beforehand, that on the first day of September, 1861, wages would be advanced tofive hundred dollars per month, the owners and captains instantly putfreights up a few cents, and explained to the farmers along the riverthe necessity of it, by calling their attention to the burdensome rateof wages about to be established. It was a rather slender argument, butthe farmers did not seem to detect it. It looked reasonable to them thatto add five cents freight on a bushel of corn was justifiable underthe circumstances, overlooking the fact that this advance on a cargo offorty thousand sacks was a good deal more than necessary to cover thenew wages. 

So, straightway the captains and owners got up an association of theirown, 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 producedagain. The new association decreed (for this was before all theoutsiders had been taken into the pilots' association) that if anycaptain employed a non-association pilot, he should be forced todischarge him, and also pay a fine of five hundred dollars. Severalof these heavy fines were paid before the captains' organization grewstrong enough to exercise full authority over its membership; but thatall ceased, presently. The captains tried to get the pilots to decreethat no member of their corporation should serve under a non-associationcaptain; but this proposition was declined. The pilots saw that theywould be backed up by the captains and the underwriters anyhow, and sothey wisely refrained from entering into entangling alliances. 

As I have remarked, the pilots' association was now the compactestmonopoly in the world, perhaps, and seemed simply indestructible. And yet the days of its glory were numbered. First, the new railroadstretching up through Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky, to Northernrailway centers, began to divert the passenger travel from the steamers;next the war came and almost entirely annihilated the steamboatingindustry during several years, leaving most of the pilots idle, and thecost of living advancing all the time; then the treasurer of the St. Louis association put his hand into the till and walked off withevery dollar of the ample fund; and finally, the railroads intrudingeverywhere, there was little for steamers to do, when the war was over, but carry freights; so straightway some genius from the Atlantic coastintroduced the plan of towing a dozen steamer cargoes down to NewOrleans at the tail of a vulgar little tug-boat; and behold, in thetwinkling of an eye, as it were, the association and the noble scienceof piloting were things of the dead and pathetic past!

Chapter 16 Racing Days

IT was always the custom for the boats to leave New Orleans between fourand five o'clock in the afternoon. From three o'clock onward they wouldbe burning rosin and pitch pine (the sign of preparation), and so onehad the picturesque spectacle of a rank, some two or three miles long, of tall, ascending columns of coal-black smoke; a colonnade whichsupported a sable roof of the same smoke blended together and spreadingabroad over the city. Every outward-bound boat had its flag flying atthe jack-staff, and sometimes a duplicate on the verge staff astern. Two or three miles of mates were commanding and swearing with more thanusual emphasis; countless processions of freight barrels and boxes werespinning athwart the levee and flying aboard the stage-planks, belatedpassengers were dodging and skipping among these frantic things, hopingto reach the forecastle companion way alive, but having their doubtsabout it; women with reticules and bandboxes were trying to keep up withhusbands freighted with carpet-sacks and crying babies, and making afailure of it by losing their heads in the whirl and roar and generaldistraction; drays and baggage-vans were clattering hither and thitherin 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 forehatch, from one end of that long array of steamboats to the other, was keepingup a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freight into the hold, and thehalf-naked crews of perspiring negroes that worked them were roaringsuch songs as 'De Las' Sack! De Las' Sack!'--inspired to unimaginableexaltation by the chaos of turmoil and racket that was driving everybodyelse mad. By this time the hurricane and boiler decks of the steamerswould be packed and black with passengers. The 'last bells' would beginto clang, all down the line, and then the powwow seemed to double; ina moment or two the final warning came, --a simultaneous din of Chinesegongs, with the cry, 'All dat ain't goin', please to git asho'!'--andbehold, the powwow quadrupled! People came swarming ashore, overturningexcited stragglers that were trying to swarm aboard. One more momentlater a long array of stage-planks was being hauled in, each with itscustomary latest passenger clinging to the end of it with teeth, nails, and everything else, and the customary latest procrastinator making awild spring shoreward over his head. 

Now a number of the boats slide backward into the stream, leaving widegaps in the serried rank of steamers. Citizens crowd the decks of boatsthat are not to go, in order to see the sight. Steamer after steamerstraightens herself up, gathers all her strength, and presently comesswinging by, under a tremendous head of steam, with flag flying, blacksmoke rolling, and her entire crew of firemen and deck-hands (usuallyswarthy negroes) massed together on the forecastle, the best 'voice' inthe lot towering from the midst (being mounted on the capstan), wavinghis hat or a flag, and all roaring a mighty chorus, while the partingcannons boom and the multitudinous spectators swing their hats andhuzza! Steamer after steamer falls into line, and the stately processiongoes winging its flight up the river. 

In the old times, whenever two fast boats started out on a race, with abig crowd of people looking on, it was inspiring to hear the crews sing, especially if the time were night-fall, and the forecastle lit up withthe red glare of the torch-baskets. Racing was royal fun. The publicalways had an idea that racing was dangerous; whereas the opposite wasthe case--that is, after the laws were passed which restricted each boatto just so many pounds of steam to the square inch. No engineer was eversleepy or careless when his heart was in a race. He was constantly onthe alert, trying gauge-cocks and watching things. The dangerous placewas on slow, plodding boats, where the engineers drowsed around andallowed chips to get into the 'doctor' and shut off the water supplyfrom the boilers. 

In the 'flush times' of steamboating, a race between two notoriouslyfleet steamers was an event of vast importance. The date was set forit several weeks in advance, and from that time forward, the wholeMississippi Valley was in a state of consuming excitement. Politics andthe weather were dropped, and people talked only of the coming race. Asthe time approached, the two steamers 'stripped' and got ready. Everyencumbrance that added weight, or exposed a resisting surface to windor water, was removed, if the boat could possibly do without it. The'spars, ' and sometimes even their supporting derricks, were sent ashore, and no means left to set the boat afloat in case she got aground. Whenthe 'Eclipse' and the 'A. L. Shotwell' ran their great race many yearsago, it was said that pains were taken to scrape the gilding off thefanciful device which hung between the 'Eclipse's' chimneys, and thatfor that one trip the captain left off his kid gloves and had his headshaved. But I always doubted these things. 

If the boat was known to make her best speed when drawing five and ahalf feet forward and five feet aft, she was carefully loaded to thatexact figure--she wouldn't enter a dose of homoeopathic pills on hermanifest after that. Hardly any passengers were taken, because they notonly add weight but they never will 'trim boat. ' They always run tothe side when there is anything to see, whereas a conscientious andexperienced steamboatman would stick to the center of the boat and parthis hair in the middle with a spirit level. 

No way-freights and no way-passengers were allowed, for the racers wouldstop only at the largest towns, and then it would be only 'touch andgo. ' Coal flats and wood flats were contracted for beforehand, andthese were kept ready to hitch on to the flying steamers at a moment'swarning. Double crews were carried, so that all work could be quicklydone. 

The chosen date being come, and all things in readiness, the two greatsteamers back into the stream, and lie there jockeying a moment, andapparently watching each other's slightest movement, like sentientcreatures; flags drooping, the pent steam shrieking throughsafety-valves, the black smoke rolling and tumbling from the chimneysand darkening all the air. People, people everywhere; the shores, thehouse-tops, the steamboats, the ships, are packed with them, and youknow that the borders of the broad Mississippi are going to be fringedwith humanity thence northward twelve hundred miles, to welcome theseracers. 

Presently tall columns of steam burst from the 'scape-pipes of bothsteamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroes mountedon capstans wave their small flags above the massed crews on theforecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a few waitingseconds, two mighty choruses burst forth--and here they come! Brassbands bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders from the shores, and the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind. 

Those boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and St. Louis, except for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch thirty-cordwood-boats alongside. You should be on board when they take a couple ofthose wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each; by the timeyou have wiped your glasses and put them on, you will be wondering whathas become of that wood. 

Two nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day afterday. They might even stay side by side, but for the fact that pilots arenot all alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race. If one of theboats has a 'lightning' pilot, whose 'partner' is a trifle his inferior, you can tell which one is on watch by noting whether that boat hasgained ground or lost some during each four-hour stretch. The shrewdestpilot 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 acrossa boat's stem if he wants to get up the river fast. 

There is a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I wason a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we leftport in. But of course this was at rare intervals. Ferryboats used tolose valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waitingfor us to get by. This was at still rarer intervals. I had the documentsfor these occurrences, but through carelessness they have been mislaid. This boat, the 'John J. Roe, ' was so slow that when she finally sunk inMadrid Bend, it was five years before the owners heard of it. That wasalways a confusing fact to me, but it is according to the record, anyway. She was dismally slow; still, we often had pretty exciting timesracing with islands, and rafts, and such things. One trip, however, wedid rather well. We went to St. Louis in sixteen days. But even atthis rattling gait I think we changed watches three times in Fort Adamsreach, 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 livelyway. 

That trip we went to Grand Gulf, from New Orleans, in four days (threehundred and forty miles); the 'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' did it in one. We were nine days out, in the chute of 63 (seven hundred miles); the'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' went there in two days. Something over ageneration ago, a boat called the 'J. M. White' went from New Orleansto Cairo in three days, six hours, and forty-four minutes. In 1853 the'Eclipse' made the same trip in three days, three hours, and twentyminutes. {footnote [Time disputed. Some authorities add 1 hour and 16minutes to this. ]} In 1870 the 'R. E. Lee' did it in three days and ONEhour. This last is called the fastest trip on record. I will try to showthat it was not. For this reason: the distance between New Orleans andCairo, when the 'J. M. White' ran it, was about eleven hundred and sixmiles; consequently her average speed was a trifle over fourteen milesper hour. In the 'Eclipse's' day the distance between the two portshad become reduced to one thousand and eighty miles; consequently heraverage speed was a shade under fourteen and three-eighths miles perhour. In the 'R. E. Lee's' time the distance had diminished to about onethousand and thirty miles; consequently her average was aboutfourteen and one-eighth miles per hour. Therefore the 'Eclipse's' wasconspicuously the fastest time that has ever been made. 

 THE RECORD OF SOME FAMOUS

 TRIPS

 (From Commodore Rollingpin's Almanack. )

 FAST TIME ON THE WESTERN WATERS

 FROM NEW ORLEANS TO NATCHEZ--268 MILES

 D. H. M. 1814 Orleans made the run in 6 6 40 1814 Comet " " 5 10 1815 Enterprise " " 4 11 20 1817 Washington " " 4 1817 Shelby " " 3 20 1818 Paragon " " 3 8 1828 Tecumseh " " 3 1 20 1834 Tuscarora " " 1 21 1838 Natchez " " 1 17 1840 Ed. Shippen " " 1 8 1842 Belle of the West " 1 18 1844 Sultana " " 19 45 1851 Magnolia " " 19 50 1853 A. L. Shotwell " " 19 49 1853 Southern Belle " " 20 3 1853 Princess (No. 4) " 20 26 1853 Eclipse " " 19 47 1855 Princess (New) " " 18 53 1855 Natchez (New) " " 17 30 1856 Princess (New) " " 17 30 1870 Natchez " " 17 17 1870 R. E. Lee " " 17 11

 FROM NEW ORLEANS TO CAIRO--1, 024 MILES

 D. H. M. 1844 J. M. White made the run in 3 6 44 1852 Reindeer " " 3 12 45 1853 Eclipse " " 3 4 4 1853 A. L. Shotwell " " 3 3 40 1869 Dexter " " 3 6 20 1870 Natchez " " 3 4 34 1870 R. E. Lee " " 3 1

 FROM NEW ORLEANS TO LOUISVILLE--1, 440 MILES

 D. H. M. 1815 Enterprise made the run in 25 2 40 1817 Washington " " 25 1817. Shelby " " 20 4 20 1818 Paragon " " 18 10 1828 Tecumseh " " 8 4 1834 Tuscarora " " 7 16 1837 Gen. Brown " " 6 22 1837 Randolph " " 6 22 1837 Empress " " 6 17 1837 Sultana " " 6 15 1840 Ed. Shippen " " 5 14 1842 Belle of the West " 6 14 1843 Duke of Orleans" " 5 23 1844 Sultana " " 5 12 1849 Bostona " " 5 8 1851 Belle Key " " 3 4 23 1852 Reindeer " " 4 20 45 1852 Eclipse " " 4 19 1853 A. L. Shotwell " " 4 10 20 1853 Eclipse " " 4 9 30

 FROM NEW ORLEANS TO DONALDSONVILLE--78 MILES

 H. M. 1852 A. L. Shotwell made the run in 5 42 1852 Eclipse " " 5 42 1854 Sultana " " 4 51 1860 Atlantic " " 5 11 1860 Gen. Quitman " " 5 6 1865 Ruth " " 4 43 1870 R. E. Lee " " 4 59

 FROM NEW ORLEANS TO ST. LOUIS--1, 218 MILES

 D. H. M. 1844 J. M. White made the run in 3 23 9 1849 Missouri " " 4 19 1869 Dexter " " 4 9 1870 Natchez " " 3 21 58 1870 R. E. Lee " " 3 18 14

 FROM LOUISVILLE TO CINCINNATI--141 MILES

 D. H. M. 1819 Gen. Pike made the run in 1 16 1819 Paragon " " 1 14 20 1822 Wheeling Packet " " 1 10 1837 Moselle " " 12 1843 Duke of Orleans " " 12 1843 Congress " " 12 20 1846 Ben Franklin (No. 6) " 11 45 1852 Alleghaney " " 10 38 1852 Pittsburgh " " 10 23 1853 Telegraph No. 3 " " 9 52

 FROM LOUISVILLE TO ST. LOUIS--750 MILES

 D. H. M. 1843 Congress made the run in 2 1 1854 Pike " " 1 23 1854 Northerner " " 1 22 30 1855 Southemer " " 1 19

 FROM CINCINNATI TO PITTSBURGH--490 MILES

 D. H. 1850 Telegraph No. 2 made the run in 1 17 1851 Buckeye State " " 1 16 1852 Pittsburgh " " 1 15

 FROM ST. LOUIS TO ALTON--30 MILES

 D. M. 1853 Altona made the run in 1 35 1876 Golden Eagle " " 1 37 1876 War Eagle " " 1 37

 MISCELLANEOUS RUNS

In June, 1859, the St. Louis and Keokuk Packet, City of Louisiana, madethe run from St. Louis to Keokuk (214 miles) in 16 hours and 20 minutes, the best time on record. 

In 1868 the steamer Hawkeye State, of the Northern Packet Company, madethe run from St. Louis to St. Paul (800 miles) in 2 days and 20 hours. Never was beaten. 

In 1853 the steamer Polar Star made the run from St. Louis to St. Joseph, on the Missouri River, in 64 hours. In July, 1856, the steamerJas. H. Lucas, Andy Wineland, Master, made the same run in 60 hours and57 minutes. The distance between the ports is 600 miles, and whenthe difficulties of navigating the turbulent Missouri are taken intoconsideration, the performance of the Lucas deserves especial mention. 

 THE RUN OF THE ROBERT E. LEE

The time made by the R. E. Lee from New Orleans to St. Louis in 1870, inher famous race with the Natchez, is the best on record, and, inasmuchas the race created a national interest, we give below her time tablefrom port to port. 

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

 D. H. M. Carrollton 27{half} Harry Hills 1 00{half} Red Church 1 39 Bonnet Carre 2 38 College Point 3 50{half} Donaldsonville 4 59 Plaquemine 7 05{half} Baton Rouge 8 25 Bayou Sara 10 26 Red River 12 56 Stamps 13 56 Bryaro 15 51{half} Hinderson's 16 29 Natchez 17 11 Cole's Creek 19 21 Waterproof 18 53 Rodney 20 45 St. Joseph 21 02 Grand Gulf 22 06 Hard Times 22 18 Half Mile below Warrenton 1 Vicksburg 1 38 Milliken's Bend 1 2 37 Bailey's 1 3 48 Lake Providence 1 5 47 Greenville 1 10 55 Napoleon 1 16 22 White River 1 16 56 Australia 1 19 Helena 1 23 25 Half Mile Below St. Francis 2 Memphis 2 6 9 Foot of Island 37 2 9 Foot of Island 26 2 13 30 Tow-head, Island 14 2 17 23 New Madrid 2 19 50 Dry Bar No. 10 2 20 37 Foot of Island 8 2 21 25 Upper Tow-head--Lucas Bend 3 Cairo 3 1 St. Louis 3 18 14

The Lee landed at St. Louis at 11. 25 A. M. , on July 4th, 1870--6 hoursand 36 minutes ahead of the Natchez. The officers of the Natchez claimed7 hours and 1 minute stoppage on account of fog and repairing machinery. The R. E. Lee was commanded by Captain John W. Cannon, and the Natchezwas in charge of that veteran Southern boatman, Captain Thomas P. Leathers. 

Chapter 17 Cut-offs and Stephen

THESE dry details are of importance in one particular. They give mean opportunity of introducing one of the Mississippi's oddestpeculiarities, --that of shortening its length from time to time. Ifyou will throw a long, pliant apple-paring over your shoulder, it willpretty fairly shape itself into an average section of the MississippiRiver; that is, the nine or ten hundred miles stretching from Cairo, Illinois, southward to New Orleans, the same being wonderfully crooked, with a brief straight bit here and there at wide intervals. The twohundred-mile stretch from Cairo northward to St. Louis is by no means socrooked, that being a rocky country which the river cannot cut much. 

The water cuts the alluvial banks of the 'lower' river into deephorseshoe curves; so deep, indeed, that in some places if you were toget 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 coupleof hours while your steamer was coming around the long elbow, at a speedof ten miles an hour, to take you aboard again. When the river isrising fast, some scoundrel whose plantation is back in the country, andtherefore of inferior value, has only to watch his chance, cut a littlegutter across the narrow neck of land some dark night, and turn thewater into it, and in a wonderfully short time a miracle has happened:to wit, the whole Mississippi has taken possession of that little ditch, and placed the countryman's plantation on its bank (quadrupling itsvalue), and that other party's formerly valuable plantation finds itselfaway out yonder on a big island; the old watercourse around it will soonshoal up, boats cannot approach within ten miles of it, and down goesits value to a fourth of its former worth. Watches are kept on thosenarrow necks, at needful times, and if a man happens to be caughtcutting a ditch across them, the chances are all against his ever havinganother opportunity to cut a ditch. 

Pray observe some of the effects of this ditching business. Once therewas a neck opposite Port Hudson, Louisiana, which was only half a mileacross, in its narrowest place. You could walk across there in fifteenminutes; but if you made the journey around the cape on a raft, youtraveled thirty-five miles to accomplish the same thing. In 1722 theriver darted through that neck, deserted its old bed, and thusshortened itself thirty-five miles. In the same way it shortened itselftwenty-five miles at Black Hawk Point in 1699. Below Red River Landing, Raccourci cut-off was made (forty or fifty years ago, I think). Thisshortened the river twenty-eight miles. In our day, if you travel byriver from the southernmost of these three cut-offs to the northernmost, you go only seventy miles. To do the same thing a hundred andseventy-six years ago, one had to go a hundred and fifty-eightmiles!--shortening of eighty-eight miles in that trifling distance. At some forgotten time in the past, cut-offs were made above Vidalia, Louisiana; at island 92; at island 84; and at Hale's Point. Theseshortened the river, in the aggregate, seventy-seven miles. 

Since my own day on the Mississippi, cut-offs have been made atHurricane Island; at island 100; at Napoleon, Arkansas; at WalnutBend; and at Council Bend. These shortened the river, in the aggregate, sixty-seven miles. In my own time a cut-off was made at American Bend, which shortened the river ten miles or more. 

Therefore, the Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was twelvehundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago. It was eleven hundred and eighty after the cut-off of 1722. It wasone thousand and forty after the American Bend cut-off. It has lostsixty-seven miles since. Consequently its length is only nine hundredand 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 hadoccurred in a given time in the recent past, or what will occur in thefar future by what has occurred in late years, what an opportunity ishere! Geology never had such a chance, nor such exact data to arguefrom! Nor 'development of species, ' either! Glacial epochs are greatthings, but they are vague--vague. Please observe:--

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippihas shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an averageof a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calmperson, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old OoliticSilurian Period, ' just a million years ago next November, the LowerMississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousandmiles 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 andforty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile andthree-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined theirstreets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayorand a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating aboutscience. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such atrifling investment of fact. 

When the water begins to flow through one of those ditches I have beenspeaking of, it is time for the people thereabouts to move. The watercleaves the banks away like a knife. By the time the ditch has becometwelve or fifteen feet wide, the calamity is as good as accomplished, for no power on earth can stop it now. When the width has reached ahundred yards, the banks begin to peel off in slices half an acre wide. The current flowing around the bend traveled formerly only five milesan hour; now it is tremendously increased by the shortening of thedistance. I was on board the first boat that tried to go through thecut-off at American Bend, but we did not get through. It was towardmidnight, and a wild night it was--thunder, lightning, and torrents ofrain. It was estimated that the current in the cut-off was making aboutfifteen or twenty miles an hour; twelve or thirteen was the best ourboat could do, even in tolerably slack water, therefore perhaps we werefoolish to try the cut-off. However, Mr. Brown was ambitious, and hekept on trying. The eddy running up the bank, under the 'point, ' wasabout as swift as the current out in the middle; so we would go flyingup the shore like a lightning express train, get on a big head of steam, and 'stand by for a surge' when we struck the current that was whirlingby the point. But all our preparations were useless. The instant thecurrent hit us it spun us around like a top, the water deluged theforecastle, and the boat careened so far over that one could hardly keephis feet. The next instant we were away down the river, clawing withmight and main to keep out of the woods. We tried the experimentfour times. I stood on the forecastle companion way to see. It wasastonishing to observe how suddenly the boat would spin around and turntail the moment she emerged from the eddy and the current struck hernose. The sounding concussion and the quivering would have been aboutthe same if she had come full speed against a sand-bank. Under thelightning flashes one could see the plantation cabins and the goodlyacres tumble into the river; and the crash they made was not a badeffort at thunder. Once, when we spun around, we only missed a houseabout twenty feet, that had a light burning in the window; and inthe same instant that house went overboard. Nobody could stay on ourforecastle; the water swept across it in a torrent every time we plungedathwart the current. At the end of our fourth effort we brought upin the woods two miles below the cut-off; all the country there wasoverflowed, of course. A day or two later the cut-off was three-quartersof 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 connected with it. It was said that a boatcame along there in the night and went around the enormous elbow theusual way, the pilots not knowing that the cut-off had been made. It wasa grisly, hideous night, and all shapes were vague and distorted. Theold bend had already begun to fill up, and the boat got to runningaway from mysterious reefs, and occasionally hitting one. The perplexedpilots fell to swearing, and finally uttered the entirely unnecessarywish that they might never get out of that place. As always happensin such cases, that particular prayer was answered, and the othersneglected. So to this day that phantom steamer is still butting aroundin that deserted river, trying to find her way out. More than one gravewatchman has sworn to me that on drizzly, dismal nights, he has glancedfearfully down that forgotten river as he passed the head of the island, and seen the faint glow of the specter steamer's lights drifting throughthe distant gloom, and heard the muffled cough of her 'scape-pipes andthe plaintive cry of her leadsmen. 

In the absence of further statistics, I beg to close this chapter withone more reminiscence of 'Stephen. '

Most of the captains and pilots held Stephen's note for borrowed sums, ranging from two hundred and fifty dollars upward. Stephen never paidone of these notes, but he was very prompt and very zealous aboutrenewing them every twelve months. 

Of course there came a time, at last, when Stephen could no longerborrow of his ancient creditors; so he was obliged to lie in wait fornew men who did not know him. Such a victim was good-hearted, simplenatured young Yates (I use a fictitious name, but the real name began, as this one does, with a Y). Young Yates graduated as a pilot, got aberth, and when the month was ended and he stepped up to the clerk'soffice and received his two hundred and fifty dollars in crisp newbills, Stephen was there! His silvery tongue began to wag, and in a verylittle while Yates's two hundred and fifty dollars had changed hands. The fact was soon known at pilot headquarters, and the amusement andsatisfaction of the old creditors were large and generous. But innocentYates never suspected that Stephen's promise to pay promptly at theend of the week was a worthless one. Yates called for his money at thestipulated time; Stephen sweetened him up and put him off a week. Hecalled then, according to agreement, and came away sugar-coated again, but suffering under another postponement. So the thing went on. Yateshaunted Stephen week after week, to no purpose, and at last gave itup. And then straightway Stephen began to haunt Yates! Wherever Yatesappeared, there was the inevitable Stephen. And not only there, butbeaming with affection and gushing with apologies for not being able topay. By and by, whenever poor Yates saw him coming, he would turn andfly, and drag his company with him, if he had company; but it was ofno use; his debtor would run him down and corner him. Panting andred-faced, Stephen would come, with outstretched hands and eager eyes, invade the conversation, shake both of Yates's arms loose in theirsockets, and begin--

'My, what a race I've had! I saw you didn't see me, and so I clapped onall steam for fear I'd miss you entirely. And here you are! there, juststand 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 just GOODto look at him! AIN'T it now? Ain't he just a picture! SOME call him apicture; I call him a panorama! That's what he is--an entire panorama. And now I'm reminded! How I do wish I could have seen you an hourearlier! For twenty-four hours I've been saving up that two hundred andfifty dollars for you; been looking for you everywhere. I waited atthe 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 Inever saw a man take a debt to heart the way you do. " I said, "It's mynature; how can I change it?" She says, "Well, do go to bed and get somerest. " I said, "Not till that poor, noble young man has got his money. "So I set up all night, and this morning out I shot, and the first manI struck told me you had shipped on the "Grand Turk" and gone to NewOrleans. Well, sir, I had to lean up against a building and cry. So helpme goodness, I couldn't help it. The man that owned the place comeout cleaning up with a rag, and said he didn't like to have people cryagainst his building, and then it seemed to me that the whole world hadturned against me, and it wasn't any use to live any more; and comingalong an hour ago, suffering no man knows what agony, I met Jim Wilsonand paid him the two hundred and fifty dollars on account; and to thinkthat here you are, now, and I haven't got a cent! But as sure as I amstanding here on this ground on this particular brick, --there, I'vescratched a mark on the brick to remember it by, --I'll borrow that moneyand pay it over to you at twelve o'clock sharp, tomorrow! Now, stand so;let me look at you just once more. '

And so on. Yates's life became a burden to him. He could not escape hisdebtor and his debtor's awful sufferings on account of not being ableto pay. He dreaded to show himself in the street, lest he should findStephen lying in wait for him at the corner. 

Bogart's billiard saloon was a great resort for pilots in those days. They met there about as much to exchange river news as to play. Onemorning Yates was there; Stephen was there, too, but kept out of sight. But 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 along-lost brother. 

'OH, I am so glad to see you! Oh my soul, the sight of you is such acomfort to my eyes! Gentlemen, I owe all of you money; among you I oweprobably forty thousand dollars. I want to pay it; I intend to pay itevery last cent of it. You all know, without my telling you, what sorrowit has cost me to remain so long under such deep obligations to suchpatient and generous friends; but the sharpest pang I suffer--by farthe sharpest--is from the debt I owe to this noble young man here; and Ihave come to this place this morning especially to make the announcementthat I have at last found a method whereby I can pay off all my debts!And most especially I wanted HIM to be here when I announced it. Yes, myfaithful friend, --my benefactor, I've found the method! I've found themethod to pay off all my debts, and you'll get your money!' Hope dawnedin Yates's eye; then Stephen, beaming benignantly, and placing his handupon Yates's head, added, 'I am going to pay them off in alphabeticalorder!'

Then he turned and disappeared. The full significance of Stephen's'method' did not dawn upon the perplexed and musing crowd for some twominutes; and then Yates murmured with a sigh--

'Well, the Y's stand a gaudy chance. He won't get any further than theC's in THIS world, and I reckon that after a good deal of eternity haswasted away in the next one, I'll still be referred to up there as "thatpoor, ragged pilot that came here from St. Louis in the early days!"

Chapter 18 I Take a Few Extra Lessons

DURING the two or two and a half years of my apprenticeship, I servedunder many pilots, and had experience of many kinds of steamboatmen andmany varieties of steamboats; for it was not always convenient for Mr. Bixby to have me with him, and in such cases he sent me with somebodyelse. I am to this day profiting somewhat by that experience; for inthat brief, sharp schooling, I got personally and familiarly acquaintedwith about all the different types of human nature that are to be foundin fiction, biography, or history. The fact is daily borne in upon me, that the average shore-employment requires as much as forty yearsto equip a man with this sort of an education. When I say I am stillprofiting by this thing, I do not mean that it has constituted me ajudge of men--no, it has not done that; for judges of men are born, notmade. My profit is various in kind and degree; but the feature of itwhich I value most is the zest which that early experience has givento my later reading. When I find a well-drawn character in fiction orbiography, I generally take a warm personal interest in him, for thereason that I have known him before--met him on the river. 

The figure that comes before me oftenest, out of the shadows of thatvanished time, is that of Brown, of the steamer 'Pennsylvania'--the manreferred to in a former chapter, whose memory was so good and tiresome. He was a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-shaven, horse-faced, ignorant, stingy, malicious, snarling, fault hunting, mote-magnifyingtyrant. 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-watchbelow, 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 besemi-officially a member of the executive family of so fast and famousa boat. Brown was at the wheel. I paused in the middle of the room, allfixed to make my bow, but Brown did not look around. I thought he took afurtive glance at me out of the corner of his eye, but as not even thisnotice was repeated, I judged I had been mistaken. By this time he waspicking his way among some dangerous 'breaks' abreast the woodyards;therefore it would not be proper to interrupt him; so I stepped softlyto the high bench and took a seat. 

There was silence for ten minutes; then my new boss turned and inspectedme deliberately and painstakingly from head to heel for about--asit seemed to me--a quarter of an hour. After which he removed hiscountenance and I saw it no more for some seconds; then it came aroundonce 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 heever forgot; for although I was with him many months he never addressedhimself to me in any other way than 'Here!' and then his commandfollowed. 

'Where was you born?'

'In Florida, Missouri. '

A pause. Then--

'Dern sight better staid there!'

By means of a dozen or so of pretty direct questions, he pumped myfamily history out of me. 

The leads were going now, in the first crossing. This interrupted theinquest. When the leads had been laid in, he resumed--

'How 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 andcontemptuously, scratching his head thoughtfully, tilting hishigh sugar-loaf hat well forward to facilitate the operation, thenejaculated, 'Well, I'll be dod derned!' and returned to his wheel. 

What occasion there was to be dod derned about it is a thing which isstill as much of a mystery to me now as it was then. It must havebeen all of fifteen minutes--fifteen minutes of dull, homesicksilence--before that long horse-face swung round upon me again--andthen, what a change! It was as red as fire, and every muscle in it wasworking. Now came this shriek--

'Here!--You going to set there all day?'

I lit in the middle of the floor, shot there by the electricsuddenness 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! We must have ORDERS!Our father was a GENTLEMAN--owned slaves--and we've been to SCHOOL. Yes, WE are a gentleman, TOO, and got to have ORDERS! ORDERS, is it? ORDERSis what you want! Dod dern my skin, I'LL learn you to swell yourselfup and blow around here about your dod-derned ORDERS! G'way from thewheel!' (I had approached it without knowing it. )

I moved back a step or two, and stood as in a dream, all my sensesstupefied by this frantic assault. 

'What you standing there for? Take that ice-pitcher down to thetexas-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 thepantry. '

'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! Deadest numskull I ever saw--ain't even got senseenough to load up a stove. '

All through the watch this sort of thing went on. Yes, and thesubsequent watches were much like it, during a stretch of months. As Ihave said, I soon got the habit of coming on duty with dread. The momentI was in the presence, even in the darkest night, I could feel thoseyellow eyes upon me, and knew their owner was watching for a pretext tospit out some venom on me. Preliminarily 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 from the bench, snatch the wheel from me, and meether himself, pouring out wrath upon me all the time. 

George Ritchie was the other pilot's cub. He was having good times now;for his boss, George Ealer, was as kindhearted as Brown wasn't. Ritchiehad steeled for Brown the season before; consequently he knew exactlyhow to entertain himself and plague me, all by the one operation. Whenever I took the wheel for a moment on Ealer's watch, Ritchie wouldsit back on the bench and play Brown, with continual ejaculations of'Snatch her! snatch her! Derndest mud-cat I ever saw!' 'Here! Where yougoing NOW? Going to run over that snag?' 'Pull her DOWN! Don't you hearme? Pull her DOWN!' 'There she goes! JUST as I expected! I TOLD you notto cramp that reef. G'way from the wheel!'

So I always had a rough time of it, no matter whose watch it was; andsometimes it seemed to me that Ritchie's good-natured badgering waspretty nearly as aggravating as Brown's dead-earnest nagging. 

I often wanted to kill Brown, but this would not answer. A cub hadto take everything his boss gave, in the way of vigorous comment andcriticism; and we all believed that there was a United States law makingit a penitentiary offense to strike or threaten a pilot who was on duty. However, I could IMAGINE myself killing Brown; there was no law againstthat; and that was the thing I used always to do the moment I wasabed. Instead of going over my river in my mind as was my duty, I threwbusiness aside for pleasure, and killed Brown. I killed Brown everynight for months; not in old, stale, commonplace ways, but in new andpicturesque ones;--ways that were sometimes surprising for freshness ofdesign and ghastliness of situation and environment. 

Brown was ALWAYS watching for a pretext to find fault; and if he couldfind no plausible pretext, he would invent one. He would scold you forshaving a shore, and for not shaving it; for hugging a bar, and for nothugging it; for 'pulling down' when not invited, and for not pullingdown when not invited; for firing up without orders, and for waitingFOR orders. In a word, it was his invariable rule to find fault withEVERYTHING you did; and another invariable rule of his was to throw allhis 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 meevery now and then. I had long ago learned what that meant; viz. , he wastrying to invent a trap for me. I wondered what shape it was going totake. By and by he stepped back from the wheel and said in his usualsnarly 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; forhe had never allowed me to round the boat to before; consequently, nomatter how I might do the thing, he could find free fault with it. Hestood back there with his greedy eye on me, and the result was whatmight have been foreseen: I lost my head in a quarter of a minute, anddidn't know what I was about; I started too early to bring the boataround, but detected a green gleam of joy in Brown's eye, and correctedmy mistake; I started around once more while too high up, but correctedmyself again in time; I made other false moves, and still managed tosave myself; but at last I grew so confused and anxious that I tumbledinto the very worst blunder of all--I got too far down before beginningto fetch the boat around. Brown's chance was come. 

His face turned red with passion; he made one bound, hurled me acrossthe house with a sweep of his arm, spun the wheel down, and began topour out a stream of vituperation upon me which lasted till he was outof breath. In the course of this speech he called me all the differentkinds of hard names he could think of, and once or twice I thought hewas even going to swear--but he didn't this time. 'Dod dern' was thenearest he ventured to the luxury of swearing, for he had been broughtup with a wholesome respect for future fire and brimstone. 

That was an uncomfortable hour; for there was a big audience on thehurricane deck. When I went to bed that night, I killed Brown inseventeen different ways--all of them new. 

Chapter 19 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, andshouted to Brown to stop at some landing or other a mile or so below. Brown gave no intimation that he had heard anything. But that was hisway: he never condescended to take notice of an under clerk. The windwas 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 two heads, I would have spoken; but as I had only one, it seemed judicious to takecare of it; so I kept still. 

Presently, sure enough, we went sailing by that plantation. CaptainKlinefelter appeared on the deck, and said--

'Let her come around, sir, let her come around. Didn't Henry tell you toland here?'

'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 anything. '

'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 wasno way to avoid it; so I said--

'Yes, sir. '

I knew what Brown's next remark would be, before he uttered it; it was--

'Shut your mouth! you never heard anything of the kind. '

I closed my mouth according to instructions. An hour later, Henryentered the pilot-house, unaware of what had been going on. He was athoroughly inoffensive boy, and I was sorry to see him come, for I knewBrown would have no pity on him. Brown began, straightway--

'Here! why didn't you tell me we'd got to land at that plantation?'

'I did tell you, Mr. Brown. '

'It's a lie!'

I said--

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

Brown glared at me in unaffected surprise; and for as much as a momenthe was entirely speechless; then he shouted to me--

'I'll attend to your case in half a minute!' then to Henry, 'And youleave the pilot-house; out with you!'

It was pilot law, and must be obeyed. The boy started out, and even hadhis foot on the upper step outside the door, when Brown, with a suddenaccess 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 honestblow which stretched-him out. 

I had committed the crime of crimes--I had lifted my hand against apilot on duty! I supposed I was booked for the penitentiary sure, andcouldn't be booked any surer if I went on and squared my long accountwith this person while I had the chance; consequently I stuck to him andpounded him with my fists a considerable time--I do not know how long, the pleasure of it probably made it seem longer than it really was;--butin the end he struggled free and jumped up and sprang to the wheel: avery natural solicitude, for, all this time, here was this steamboattearing down the river at the rate of fifteen miles an hour and nobodyat the helm! However, Eagle Bend was two miles wide at this bank-fullstage, and correspondingly long and deep; and the boat was steeringherself straight down the middle and taking no chances. Still, that wasonly luck--a body MIGHT have found her charging into the woods. 

Perceiving, at a glance, that the 'Pennsylvania' was in no danger, Browngathered up the big spy-glass, war-club fashion, and ordered me out ofthe pilot-house with more than Comanche bluster. But I was not afraid ofhim now; so, instead of going, I tarried, and criticized his grammar; Ireformed his ferocious speeches for him, and put them into good English, calling his attention to the advantage of pure English over the bastarddialect of the Pennsylvanian collieries whence he was extracted. He could have done his part to admiration in a cross-fire of merevituperation, of course; but he was not equipped for this species ofcontroversy; so he presently laid aside his glass and took the wheel, muttering and shaking his head; and I retired to the bench. The rackethad brought everybody to the hurricane deck, and I trembled when Isaw the old captain looking up from the midst of the crowd. I saidto myself, 'Now I AM done for!'--For although, as a rule, he was sofatherly and indulgent toward the boat's family, and so patient of minorshortcomings, 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 guiltyof such a crime as mine, committed on a boat guard-deep with costlyfreight and alive with passengers. Our watch was nearly ended. I thoughtI would go and hide somewhere till I got a chance to slide ashore. SoI slipped out of the pilot-house, and down the steps, and around tothe texas door--and was in the act of gliding within, when the captainconfronted me! I dropped my head, and he stood over me in silence amoment or two, then said impressively--

'Follow me. '

I dropped into his wake; he led the way to his parlor in the forward endof the texas. We were alone, now. He closed the after door; then movedslowly to the forward one and closed that. He sat down; I stood beforehim. He looked at me some 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 plowing down the river fully fiveminutes 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 knock him down?'

'He--he fell, sir. '

'Did you follow it up? Did you do anything 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. Youhave been guilty of a great crime; and don't you ever be guilty of itagain, on this boat. BUT--lay for him ashore! Give him a good soundthrashing, do you hear? I'll pay the expenses. Now go--and mind you, nota word of this to anybody. Clear out with you!--you've been guilty of agreat crime, you whelp!'

I slid out, happy with the sense of a close shave and a mightydeliverance; and I heard him laughing to himself and slapping his fatthighs after I had closed his door. 

When Brown came off watch he went straight to the captain, who wastalking with some passengers on the boiler deck, and demanded that I beput 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 goashore. '

'Very well, ' said the captain, 'let it be yourself;' and resumed histalk with the passengers. 

During the brief remainder of the trip, I knew how an emancipated slavefeels; 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 twobibles, that is to say, Goldsmith and Shakespeare; or I played chesswith him--and would have beaten him sometimes, only he always took backhis last move and ran the game out differently. 

Chapter 20 A Catastrophe

WE lay three days in New Orleans, but the captain did not succeed infinding another pilot; so he proposed that I should stand a daylightwatch, and leave the night watches to George Ealer. But I was afraid; Ihad never stood a watch of any sort by myself, and I believed I shouldbe sure to get into trouble in the head of some chute, or ground theboat in a near cut through some bar or other. Brown remained in hisplace; but he would not travel with me. So the captain gave me an orderon the captain of the 'A. T. Lacey, ' for a passage to St. Louis, andsaid he would find a new pilot there and my steersman's berth couldthen 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 ona freight pile on the levee till midnight. The subject of the chat, mainly, was one which I think we had not exploited before--steamboatdisasters. 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 washingpast some point fifteen hundred miles up the river while we talked;--butit would arrive at the right time and the right place. We doubted ifpersons not clothed with authority were of much use in cases of disasterand attendant panic; still, they might be of SOME use; so we decidedthat if a disaster ever fell within our experience we would at leaststick to the boat, and give such minor service as chance might throw inthe way. Henry remembered this, afterward, when the disaster came, andacted accordingly. 

The 'Lacey' started up the river two days behind the 'Pennsylvania. ' Wetouched at Greenville, Mississippi, a couple of days out, and somebodyshouted--

'The "Pennsylvania" is blown up at Ship Island, and a hundred and fiftylives lost!'

At Napoleon, Arkansas, the same evening, we got an extra, issued by aMemphis paper, which gave some particulars. It mentioned my brother, andsaid he was not hurt. 

Further up the river we got a later extra. My brother was againmentioned; but this time as being hurt beyond help. We did not getfull details of the catastrophe until we reached Memphis. This is thesorrowful story--

It was six o'clock on a hot summer morning. The 'Pennsylvania' wascreeping along, north of Ship Island, about sixty miles below Memphis ona 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 engineerand a striker had the watch in the engine room; the second mate hadthe watch on deck; George Black, Mr. Wood, and my brother, clerks, wereasleep, as were also Brown and the head engineer, the carpenter, thechief mate, and one striker; Captain Klinefelter was in the barber'schair, and the barber was preparing to shave him. There were a good manycabin passengers aboard, and three or four hundred deck passengers--soit was said at the time--and not very many of them were astir. The woodbeing nearly all out of the flat now, Ealer rang to 'come ahead' fullsteam, and the next moment four of the eight boilers exploded with athunderous crash, and the whole forward third of the boat was hoistedtoward the sky! The main part of the mass, with the chimneys, droppedupon the boat again, a mountain of riddled and chaotic rubbish--andthen, after a little, fire broke out. 

Many people were flung to considerable distances, and fell in theriver; among these were Mr. Wood and my brother, and the carpenter. Thecarpenter was still stretched upon his mattress when he struck the waterseventy-five feet from the boat. Brown, the pilot, and George Black, chief clerk, were never seen or heard of after the explosion. Thebarber's chair, with Captain Klinefelter in it and unhurt, was left withits back overhanging vacancy--everything forward of it, floor and all, had disappeared; and the stupefied barber, who was also unhurt, stood with one toe projecting over space, still stirring his latherunconsciously, and saying, not a word. 

When George Ealer saw the chimneys plunging aloft in front of him, heknew what the matter was; so he muffled his face in the lapels of hiscoat, and pressed both hands there tightly to keep this protection inits place so that no steam could get to his nose or mouth. He had ampletime to attend to these details while he was going up and returning. Hepresently landed on top of the unexploded boilers, forty feet below theformer 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 breathedthat steam, died; none escaped. But Ealer breathed none of it. He madehis way to the free air as quickly as he could; and when the steamcleared away he returned and climbed up on the boilers again, andpatiently hunted out each and every one of his chessmen and the severaljoints of his flute. 

By this time the fire was beginning to threaten. Shrieks and groansfilled the air. A great many persons had been scalded, a great manycrippled; the explosion had driven an iron crowbar through one man'sbody--I think they said he was a priest. He did not die at once, and hissufferings were very dreadful. A young French naval cadet, of fifteen, son of a French admiral, was fearfully scalded, but bore his torturesmanfully. Both mates were badly scalded, but they stood to their posts, nevertheless. They drew the wood-boat aft, and they and the captainfought back the frantic herd of frightened immigrants till the woundedcould 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 hebelieved he was not hurt (what an unaccountable error!), and thereforewould 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 personswho were imprisoned under the ruins were begging piteously for help. All efforts to conquer the fire proved fruitless; so the buckets werepresently thrown aside and the officers fell-to with axes and tried tocut the prisoners out. A striker was one of the captives; he said he wasnot injured, but could not free himself; and when he saw that the firewas likely to drive away the workers, he begged that some one wouldshoot him, and thus save him from the more dreadful death. The fire diddrive the axmen away, and they had to listen, helpless, to this poorfellow'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 downthe river toward Ship Island. They moored the flat at the head of theisland, and there, unsheltered from the blazing sun, the half-nakedoccupants had to remain, without food or stimulants, or help for theirhurts, during the rest of the day. A steamer came along, finally, and carried the unfortunates to Memphis, and there the most lavishassistance was at once forthcoming. By this time Henry was insensible. The physicians examined his injuries and saw that they were fatal, andnaturally turned their main attention to patients who could be saved. 

Forty of the wounded were placed upon pallets on the floor of a greatpublic hall, and among these was Henry. There the ladies of Memphiscame every day, with flowers, fruits, and dainties and delicacies ofall kinds, and there they remained and nursed the wounded. All thephysicians stood watches there, and all the medical students; and therest of the town furnished money, or whatever else was wanted. AndMemphis knew how to do all these things well; for many a disasterlike the 'Pennsylvania's' had happened near her doors, and she wasexperienced, above all other cities on the river, in the gracious officeof the 'Good Samaritan. '

The sight I saw when I entered that large hall was new and strange tome. Two long rows of prostrate forms--more than forty, in all--and everyface and head a shapeless wad of loose raw cotton. It was a gruesomespectacle. I watched there six days and nights, and a very melancholyexperience it was. There was one daily incident which was peculiarlydepressing: this was the removal of the doomed to a chamber apart. Itwas done in order that the MORALE of the other patients might not beinjuriously 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: everybody knew what that cluster of bent forms, withits muffled step and its slow movement meant; and all eyes watched itwistfully, and a shudder went abreast of it like a wave. 

I saw many poor fellows removed to the 'death-room, ' and saw them nomore afterward. But I saw our chief mate carried thither more thanonce. His hurts were frightful, especially his scalds. He was clothed inlinseed 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 andshout and sometimes shriek. Then, after a period of dumb exhaustion, hisdisordered imagination would suddenly transform the great apartment intoa forecastle, and the hurrying throng of nurses into the crew; andhe would come to a sitting posture and shout, 'Hump yourselves, HUMPyourselves, you petrifactions, snail-bellies, pall-bearers! going tobe all DAY getting that hatful of freight out?' and supplement thisexplosion with a firmament-obliterating irruption or profanity whichnothing could stay or stop till his crater was empty. And now and thenwhile these frenzies possessed him, he would tear off handfuls of thecotton and expose his cooked flesh to view. It was horrible. It wasbad for the others, of course--this noise and these exhibitions; so thedoctors tried to give him morphine to quiet him. But, in his mind or outof it, he would not take it. He said his wife had been killed by thattreacherous drug, and he would die before he would take it. He suspectedthat the doctors were concealing it in his ordinary medicines and in hiswater--so he ceased from putting either to his lips. Once, when he hadbeen without water during two sweltering days, he took the dipper in hishand, and the sight of the limpid fluid, and the misery of his thirst, tempted him almost beyond his strength; but he mastered himself andthrew it away, and after that he allowed no more to be brought near him. Three times I saw him carried to the death-room, insensible and supposedto be dying; but each time he revived, cursed his attendants, anddemanded to be taken back. He lived to be mate of a steamboat again. 

But he was the only one who went to the death-room and returned alive. Dr. Peyton, a principal physician, and rich in all the attributes thatgo to constitute high and flawless character, did all that educatedjudgment and trained skill could do for Henry; but, as the newspapershad said in the beginning, his hurts were past help. On the evening ofthe sixth day his wandering mind busied itself with matters far away, and his nerveless fingers 'picked at his coverlet. ' His hour had struck;we bore him to the death-room, poor boy. 

Chapter 21 A Section in My Biography

IN due course I got my license. I was a pilot now, full fledged. Idropped into casual employments; no misfortunes resulting, intermittentwork gave place to steady and protracted engagements. Time driftedsmoothly and prosperously on, and I supposed--and hoped--that I wasgoing to follow the river the rest of my days, and die at the wheelwhen my mission was ended. But by and by the war came, commerce wassuspended, 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, areporter in San Francisco; next, a special correspondent in the SandwichIslands; next, a roving correspondent in Europe and the East; next, an instructional torch-bearer on the lecture platform; and, finally, Ibecame a scribbler of books, and an immovable fixture among the otherrocks of New England. 

In so few words have I disposed of the twenty-one slow-drifting yearsthat have come and gone since I last looked from the windows of apilot-house. 

Let us resume, now. 

Chapter 22 I Return to My Muttons

AFTER twenty-one years' absence, I felt a very strong desire to see theriver again, and the steamboats, and such of the boys as might be left;so I resolved to go out there. I enlisted a poet for company, and astenographer to 'take him down, ' and started westward about the middleof April. 

As I proposed to make notes, with a view to printing, I took somethought as to methods of procedure. I reflected that if I wererecognized, on the river, I should not be as free to go and come, talk, inquire, and spy around, as I should be if unknown; I remembered that itwas the custom of steamboatmen in the old times to load up the confidingstranger with the most picturesque and admirable lies, and putthe sophisticated friend off with dull and ineffectual facts: so Iconcluded, that, from a business point of view, it would be an advantageto disguise our party with fictitious names. The idea was certainlygood, but it bred infinite bother; for although Smith, Jones, andJohnson are easy names to remember when there is no occasion to rememberthem, it is next to impossible to recollect them when they are wanted. How do criminals manage to keep a brand-new ALIAS in mind? This is agreat mystery. I was innocent; and yet was seldom able to lay my hand onmy new name when it was needed; and it seemed to me that if I had hada crime on my conscience to further confuse me, I could never have keptthe name by me at all. 

We left per Pennsylvania Railroad, at 8 A. M. April 18. 

'EVENING. Speaking of dress. Grace and picturesqueness drop graduallyout of it as one travels away from New York. '

I find that among my notes. It makes no difference which direction youtake, 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 youhave come, by noting what degree of grace and picturesqueness is by thattime lacking in the costumes of the new passengers, --I do not mean ofthe women alone, but of both sexes. It may be that CARRIAGE is at thebottom of this thing; and I think it is; for there are plenty of ladiesand gentlemen in the provincial cities whose garments are all madeby the best tailors and dressmakers of New York; yet this has noperceptible effect upon the grand fact: the educated eye never mistakesthose people for New-Yorkers. No, there is a godless grace, and snap, and style about a born and bred New-Yorker which mere clothing cannoteffect. 

'APRIL 19. This morning, struck into the region of fullgoatees--sometimes accompanied by a mustache, but only occasionally. '

It was odd to come upon this thick crop of an obsolete and uncomelyfashion; it was like running suddenly across a forgotten acquaintancewhom you had supposed dead for a generation. The goatee extends overa wide extent of country; and is accompanied by an iron-clad belief inAdam and the biblical history of creation, which has not suffered fromthe assaults of the scientists. 

'AFTERNOON. At the railway stations the loafers carry BOTH hands intheir breeches pockets; it was observable, heretofore, that one handwas sometimes out of doors, --here, never. This is an important fact ingeography. '

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

'Heretofore, all along, the station-loafer has been often observed toscratch one shin with the other foot; here, these remains of activityare wanting. This has an ominous look. '

By and by, we entered the tobacco-chewing region. Fifty years ago, thetobacco-chewing region covered the Union. It is greatly restricted now. 

Next, boots began to appear. Not in strong force, however. Later--awaydown the Mississippi--they became the rule. They disappeared from othersections of the Union with the mud; no doubt they will disappear fromthe river villages, also, when proper pavements come in. 

We reached St. Louis at ten o'clock at night. At the counter of thehotel I tendered a hurriedly-invented fictitious name, with a miserableattempt at careless ease. The clerk paused, and inspected me in thecompassionate way in which one inspects a respectable person who isfound in doubtful circumstances; then he said--

'It's all right; I know what sort of a room you want. Used to clerk atthe St. James, in New York. '

An unpromising beginning for a fraudulent career. We started to thesupper room, and met two other men whom I had known elsewhere. How oddand unfair it is: wicked impostors go around lecturing under my NOMDE GUERRE and nobody suspects them; but when an honest man attempts animposture, he is exposed at once. 

One thing seemed plain: we must start down the river the next day, ifpeople who could not be deceived were going to crop up at this rate:an unpalatable disappointment, for we had hoped to have a week inSt. Louis. The Southern was a good hotel, and we could have had acomfortable time there. It is large, and well conducted, and itsdecorations do not make one cry, as do those of the vast Palmer House, in Chicago. True, the billiard-tables were of the Old Silurian Period, and the cues and balls of the Post-Pliocene; but there was refreshmentin this, not discomfort; for there is rest and healing in thecontemplation of antiquities. 

The most notable absence observable in the billiard-room, was theabsence 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, andostentatious displays of money, and pompous squanderings of it, whichused to distinguish the steamboat crowd from the dry-land crowd inthe bygone days, in the thronged billiard-rooms of St. Louis. In thosetimes, the principal saloons were always populous with river men; givenfifty players present, thirty or thirty-five were likely to be fromthe river. But I suspected that the ranks were thin now, and thesteamboatmen no longer an aristocracy. Why, in my time they used tocall the 'barkeep' Bill, or Joe, or Tom, and slap him on the shoulder;I watched for that. But none of these people did it. Manifestly a glorythat 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 thata body found handy in an emergency; or to any other name, in fact, if heperceived that you meant him. He said--

'What is a person to do here when he wants a drink of water?--drink thisslush?'

'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 notaffected this water's mulatto complexion in the least; a score ofcenturies would succeed no better, perhaps. It comes out of theturbulent, bank-caving Missouri, and every tumblerful of it holds nearlyan acre of land in solution. I got this fact from the bishop of thediocese. If you will let your glass stand half an hour, you can separatethe land from the water as easy as Genesis; and then you will find themboth good: the one good to eat, the other good to drink. The land isvery nourishing, the water is thoroughly wholesome. The one appeaseshunger; the other, thirst. But the natives do not take them separately, but together, as nature mixed them. When they find an inch of mud in thebottom of a glass, they stir it up, and then take the draught as theywould gruel. It is difficult for a stranger to get used to this batter, but once used to it he will prefer it to water. This is really the case. It is good for steamboating, and good to drink; but it is worthless forall other purposes, except baptizing. 

Next morning, we drove around town in the rain. The city seemed butlittle changed. It WAS greatly changed, but it did not seem so; becausein St. Louis, as in London and Pittsburgh, you can't persuade a newthing to look new; the coal smoke turns it into an antiquity the momentyou take your hand off it. The place had just about doubled its size, since I was a resident of it, and was now become a city of 400, 000inhabitants; still, in the solid business parts, it looked about as ithad looked formerly. Yet I am sure there is not as much smoke in St. Louis now as there used to be. The smoke used to bank itself in a densebillowy black canopy over the town, and hide the sky from view. Thisshelter is very much thinner now; still, there is a sufficiency of smokethere, I think. I heard no complaint. 

However, on the outskirts changes were apparent enough; notably indwelling-house architecture. The fine new homes are noble and beautifuland modern. They stand by themselves, too, with green lawns around them;whereas the dwellings of a former day are packed together in blocks, and are all of one pattern, with windows all alike, set in an archedframe-work of twisted stone; a sort of house which was handsome enoughwhen it was rarer. 

There was another change--the Forest Park. This was new to me. It isbeautiful and very extensive, and has the excellent merit of having beenmade mainly by nature. There are other parks, and fine ones, notablyTower Grove and the Botanical Gardens; for St. Louis interested herselfin 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 sixmillion dollars, and it was the mistake of my life that I did not doit. It was bitter now to look abroad over this domed and steepledmetropolis, this solid expanse of bricks and mortar stretching away onevery hand into dim, measure-defying distances, and remember that I hadallowed that opportunity to go by. Why I should have allowed it to goby 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-fiveor fifty years ago, said--'The streets are narrow, ill paved and illlighted. ' Those streets are narrow still, of course; many of them areill paved yet; but the reproach of ill lighting cannot be repeated, now. The 'Catholic New Church' was the only notable building then, and Mr. Murray was confidently called upon to admire it, with its 'species ofGrecian portico, surmounted by a kind of steeple, much too diminutivein its proportions, and surmounted by sundry ornaments' which theunimaginative Scotchman found himself 'quite unable to describe;' andtherefore was grateful when a German tourist helped him out with theexclamation--'By ---, they look exactly like bed-posts!' St. Louisis well equipped with stately and noble public buildings now, andthe little church, which the people used to be so proud of, lost itsimportance a long time ago. Still, this would not surprise Mr. Murray, if he could come back; for he prophesied the coming greatness of St. Louis with strong confidence. 

The further we drove in our inspection-tour, the more sensibly Irealized how the city had grown since I had seen it last; changes indetail became steadily more apparent and frequent than at first, too:changes uniformly evidencing progress, energy, prosperity. 

But the change of changes was on the 'levee. ' This time, a departurefrom the rule. Half a dozen sound-asleep steamboats where I used to seea solid mile of wide-awake ones! This was melancholy, this waswoeful. The absence of the pervading and jocund steamboatman from thebilliard-saloon was explained. He was absent because he is no more. Hisoccupation is gone, his power has passed away, he is absorbed into thecommon herd, he grinds at the mill, a shorn Samson and inconspicuous. Half a dozen lifeless steamboats, a mile of empty wharves, a negrofatigued with whiskey stretched asleep, in a wide and soundless vacancy, where the serried hosts of commerce used to contend!{footnote [Capt. Marryat, writing forty-five years ago says: 'St. Louis has 20, 000inhabitants. THE RIVER ABREAST OF THE TOWN IS CROWDED WITH STEAMBOATS, LYING IN TWO OR THREE TIERS. ']} Here was desolation, indeed. 

'The old, old sea, as one in tears, Comes murmuring, with foamy lips, And knocking at the vacant piers, Calls for his long-lost multitude ofships. '

The towboat and the railroad had done their work, and done it well andcompletely. The mighty bridge, stretching along over our heads, haddone its share in the slaughter and spoliation. Remains of formersteamboatmen told me, with wan satisfaction, that the bridge doesn'tpay. Still, it can be no sufficient compensation to a corpse, to knowthat the dynamite that laid him out was not of as good quality as it hadbeen supposed to be. 

The pavements along the river front were bad: the sidewalks were ratherout of repair; there was a rich abundance of mud. All this was familiarand satisfying; but the ancient armies of drays, and struggling throngsof men, and mountains of freight, were gone; and Sabbath reigned intheir stead. The immemorial mile of cheap foul doggeries remained, butbusiness was dull with them; the multitudes of poison-swilling Irishmenhad departed, and in their places were a few scattering handfuls ofragged negroes, some drinking, some drunk, some nodding, othersasleep. St. Louis is a great and prosperous and advancing city; but theriver-edge of it seems dead past resurrection. 

Mississippi steamboating was born about 1812; at the end of thirtyyears, it had grown to mighty proportions; and in less than thirtymore, it was dead! A strangely short life for so majestic a creature. Ofcourse it is not absolutely dead, neither is a crippled octogenarian whocould once jump twenty-two feet on level ground; but as contrasted withwhat it was in its prime vigor, Mississippi steamboating may be calleddead. 

It killed the old-fashioned keel-boating, by reducing the freight-tripto New Orleans to less than a week. The railroads have killed thesteamboat passenger traffic by doing in two or three days what thesteamboats consumed a week in doing; and the towing-fleets have killedthe through-freight traffic by dragging six or seven steamer-loads ofstuff down the river at a time, at an expense so trivial that steamboatcompetition was out of the question. 

Freight and passenger way-traffic remains to the steamers. This is inthe hands--along the two thousand miles of river between St. Paul andNew Orleans---of two or three close corporations well fortified withcapital; and by able and thoroughly business-like management and system, these make a sufficiency of money out of what is left of the onceprodigious steamboating industry. I suppose that St. Louis and NewOrleans have not suffered materially by the change, but alas for thewood-yard man!

He used to fringe the river all the way; his close-ranked merchandisestretched from the one city to the other, along the banks, and he solduncountable cords of it every year for cash on the nail; but allthe scattering boats that are left burn coal now, and the seldomestspectacle on the Mississippi to-day is a wood-pile. Where now is theonce wood-yard man?

Chapter 23 Traveling Incognito

MY idea was, to tarry a while in every town between St. Louis and NewOrleans. To do this, it would be necessary to go from place to place bythe short packet lines. It was an easy plan to make, and would have beenan easy one to follow, twenty years ago--but not now. There are wideintervals 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 oneboat advertised for that section--a Grand Tower packet. Still, oneboat was enough; so we went down to look at her. She was a venerablerack-heap, and a fraud to boot; for she was playing herself for personalproperty, whereas the good honest dirt was so thickly caked all over herthat she was righteously taxable as real estate. There are places inNew England where her hurricane deck would be worth a hundred and fiftydollars an acre. The soil on her forecastle was quite good--the new cropof wheat was already springing from the cracks in protected places. The companionway was of a dry sandy character, and would have been wellsuited for grapes, with a southern exposure and a little subsoiling. Thesoil of the boiler deck was thin and rocky, but good enough for grazingpurposes. A colored boy was on watch here--nobody else visible. Wegathered from him that this calm craft would go, as advertised, 'if shegot her trip;' if she didn't get it, she would wait for it. 

'Has she got any of her trip?'

'Bless you, no, boss. She ain't unloadened, yit. She only come in dismawnin'. '

He was uncertain as to when she might get her trip, but thought it mightbe to-morrow or maybe next day. This would not answer at all; so we hadto give up the novelty of sailing down the river on a farm. We had onemore arrow in our quiver: a Vicksburg packet, the 'Gold Dust, ' was toleave at 5 P. M. We took passage in her for Memphis, and gave up the ideaof stopping off here and there, as being impracticable. She was neat, clean, and comfortable. We camped on the boiler deck, and bought somecheap literature to kill time with. The vender was a venerable Irishmanwith 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 yearsand had never been across the river during that period. Then he wanderedinto a very flowing lecture, filled with classic names and allusions, which was quite wonderful for fluency until the fact became ratherapparent 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. Arandom remark, connecting Irishmen and beer, brought this nugget ofinformation out of him--

They don't drink it, sir. They can't drink it, sir. Give an Irishmanlager for a month, and he's a dead man. An Irishman is lined withcopper, and the beer corrodes it. But whiskey polishes the copper and isthe saving of him, sir. '

At eight o'clock, promptly, we backed out and crossed the river. As wecrept toward the shore, in the thick darkness, a blinding glory of whiteelectric light burst suddenly from our forecastle, and lit up thewater and the warehouses as with a noon-day glare. Another bigchange, this--no more flickering, smoky, pitch-dripping, ineffectualtorch-baskets, now: their day is past. Next, instead of calling out ascore of hands to man the stage, a couple of men and a hatful ofsteam lowered it from the derrick where it was suspended, launched it, deposited it in just the right spot, and the whole thing was overand done with before a mate in the olden time could have got hisprofanity-mill adjusted to begin the preparatory services. Why this newand simple method of handling the stages was not thought of when thefirst steamboat was built, is a mystery which helps one to realize whata dull-witted slug the average human being is. 

We finally got away at two in the morning, and when I turned out atsix, we were rounding to at a rocky point where there was an oldstone warehouse--at any rate, the ruins of it; two or three decayeddwelling-houses were near by, in the shelter of the leafy hills; butthere were no evidences of human or other animal life to be seen. I wondered if I had forgotten the river; for I had no recollectionwhatever of this place; the shape of the river, too, was unfamiliar;there was nothing in sight, anywhere, that I could remember ever havingseen 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. Astrange place for such folk! No carriage was waiting. The party movedoff as if they had not expected any, and struck down a winding countryroad afoot. 

But the mystery was explained when we got under way again; for thesepeople were evidently bound for a large town which lay shut in behinda 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 itsname. So I lost part of my temper. I suspected that it might be St. Genevieve--and so it proved to be. Observe what this eccentric river hadbeen about: it had built up this huge useless tow-head directly infront of this town, cut off its river communications, fenced it awaycompletely, and made a 'country' town of it. It is a fine old place, too, and deserved a better fate. It was settled by the French, and is arelic of a time when one could travel from the mouths of the Mississippito Quebec and be on French territory and under French rule all the way. 

Presently I ascended to the hurricane deck and cast a longing glancetoward the pilot-house. 

Chapter 24 My Incognito is Exploded

AFTER a close study of the face of the pilot on watch, I was satisfiedthat I had never seen him before; so I went up there. The pilotinspected me; I re-inspected the pilot. These customary preliminariesover, I sat down on the high bench, and he faced about and went on withhis work. Every detail of the pilot-house was familiar to me, with oneexception, --a large-mouthed tube under the breast-board. I puzzled overthat 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 acentury sooner. So I was thinking, when the pilot asked--

'Do you know what this rope is for?'

I managed to get around this question, without committing myself. 

'Is this the first time 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 thesethings are for. '

I said I should like it. 

'This, ' putting his hand on a backing-bell rope, 'is to sound thefire-alarm; this, ' putting his hand on a go-ahead bell, 'is to call thetexas-tender; this one, ' indicating the whistle-lever, 'is to call thecaptain'--and so he went on, touching one object after another, andreeling off his tranquil spool of lies. 

I had never felt so like a passenger before. I thanked him, withemotion, for each new fact, and wrote it down in my note-book. Thepilot warmed to his opportunity, and proceeded to load me up in the goodold-fashioned way. At times I was afraid he was going to rupture hisinvention; but it always stood the strain, and he pulled through allright. He drifted, by easy stages, into revealments of the river'smarvelous eccentricities of one sort and another, and backed them upwith some pretty gigantic illustrations. For instance--

'Do you see that little boulder sticking out of the water yonder? well, when I first came on the river, that was a solid ridge of rock, oversixty feet high and two miles long. All washed away but that. ' [Thiswith a sigh. ]

I had a mighty impulse to destroy him, but it seemed to me that killing, in any ordinary way, would be too good for him. 

Once, when an odd-looking craft, with a vast coal-scuttle slanting alofton the end of a beam, was steaming by in the distance, he indifferentlydrew attention to it, as one might to an object grown wearisome throughfamiliarity, and observed that it was an '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. But they usedto be. Not everywhere; but in favorite places, here and there, wherethe river is wide and shoal-like Plum Point, and Stack Island, and soon--places they call alligator beds. '

'Did they actually impede navigation?'

'Years ago, yes, in very low water; there was hardly a trip, then, thatwe 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--

'It must have been dreadful. '

'Yes, it was one of the main difficulties about piloting. It was sohard to tell anything about the water; the damned things shift aroundso--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 asand-reef--that's all easy; but an alligator reef doesn't show up, worthanything. Nine times in ten you can't tell where the water is; and whenyou do see where it is, like as not it ain't there when YOU get there, the devils have swapped around so, meantime. Of course there were somefew pilots that could judge of alligator water nearly as well as theycould of any other kind, but they had to have natural talent for it; itwasn't a thing a body could learn, you had to be born with it. Letme see: there was Ben Thornburg, and Beck Jolly, and Squire Bell, andHorace Bixby, and Major Downing, and John Stevenson, and Billy Gordon, and Jim Brady, and George Ealer, and Billy Youngblood--all A 1 alligatorpilots. THEY could tell alligator water as far as another Christiancould tell whiskey. Read it?--Ah, COULDN'T they, though! I only wish Ihad as many dollars as they could read alligator water a mile and a halfoff. Yes, and it paid them to do it, too. A good alligator pilot couldalways get fifteen hundred dollars a month. Nights, other people had tolay up for alligators, but those fellows never laid up for alligators;they never laid up for anything but fog. They could SMELL the bestalligator water it was said; I don't know whether it was so or not, andI think a body's got his hands full enough if he sticks to just what heknows himself, without going around backing up other people's say-so's, though there's a plenty that ain't backward about doing it, as long asthey can roust out something wonderful to tell. Which is not the styleof Robert Styles, by as much as three fathom--maybe quarter-LESS. '

[My! Was this Rob Styles?--This mustached and stately figure?-Aslim enough cub, in my time. How he has improved in comeliness infive-and-twenty year and in the noble art of inflating his facts. ] Afterthese musings, I said aloud--

'I should think that dredging out the alligators wouldn't have done muchgood, because they could come back again right away. '

'If you had had as much experience of alligators as I have, you wouldn'ttalk like that. You dredge an alligator once and he's CONVINCED. It'sthe last you hear of HIM. He wouldn't come back for pie. If there'sone thing that an alligator is more down on than another, it's beingdredged. Besides, they were not simply shoved out of the way; the mostof the scoopful were scooped aboard; they emptied them into thehold; and when they had got a trip, they took them to Orleans to theGovernment works. '

'What for?'

'Why, to make soldier-shoes out of their hides. All the Government shoesare made of alligator hide. It makes the best shoes in the world. Theylast five years, and they won't absorb water. The alligator fishery isa Government monopoly. All the alligators are Government property--justlike the live-oaks. You cut down a live-oak, and Government fines youfifty dollars; you kill an alligator, and up you go for misprisionof treason--lucky duck if they don't hang you, too. And they will, ifyou're a Democrat. The buzzard is the sacred bird of the South, and youcan't touch him; the alligator is the sacred bird of the Government, andyou'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 nowand then. The present generation of alligators know them as easy as aburglar knows a roundsman; when they see one coming, they break camp andgo for the woods. '

After rounding-out and finishing-up and polishing-off the alligatorbusiness, he dropped easily and comfortably into the historical vein, and told of some tremendous feats of half-a-dozen old-time steamboatsof his acquaintance, dwelling at special length upon a certainextraordinary performance of his chief favorite among this distinguishedfleet--and then adding--

'That boat was the "Cyclone, "--last trip she ever made--she sunk, thatvery trip--captain was Tom Ballou, the most immortal liar that ever Istruck. 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 scandalousliar! I left him, finally; I couldn't stand it. The proverb says, "likemaster, like man;" and if you stay with that kind of a man, you'll comeunder suspicion by and by, just as sure as you live. He paid first-classwages; but said I, What's wages when your reputation's in danger? So Ilet the wages go, and froze to my reputation. And I've never regrettedit. Reputation's worth everything, ain't it? That's the way I look atit. He had more selfish organs than any seven men in the world--allpacked in the stern-sheets of his skull, of course, where they belonged. They weighed down the back of his head so that it made his nose tilt upin the air. People thought it was vanity, but it wasn't, it was malice. If you only saw his foot, you'd take him to be nineteen feet high, buthe wasn't; it was because his foot was out of drawing. He was intendedto be nineteen feet high, no doubt, if his foot was made first, but hedidn't get there; he was only five feet ten. That's what he was, andthat's what he is. You take the lies out of him, and he'll shrink to thesize 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 thatever walked the waters. Set her amidships, in a big river, and just lether go; it was all you had to do. She would hold herself on a starall night, if you let her alone. You couldn't ever feel her rudder. Itwasn't any more labor to steer her than it is to count the Republicanvote in a South Carolina election. One morning, just at daybreak, thelast trip she ever made, they took her rudder aboard to mend it; Ididn't know anything about it; I backed her out from the wood-yardand went a-weaving down the river all serene. When I had gone abouttwenty-three miles, and made four horribly crooked crossings--'

'Without any rudder?'

'Yes--old Capt. Tom appeared on the roof and began to find fault with mefor running such a dark night--'

'Such a DARK NIGHT ?--Why, you said--'

'Never mind what I said, --'twas as dark as Egypt now, though pretty soonthe 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--'

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

'But was this the trip she sunk, or was--'

'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, andsaid--

'Here!' (calling me by name), 'YOU take her and lie a while--you'rehandier at it than I am. Trying to play yourself for a stranger and aninnocent!--why, I knew you before you had spoken seven words; and I madeup 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; andnext 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 itchingto get my hands on the wheel, from the beginning. I seemed to haveforgotten the river, but I hadn't forgotten how to steer a steamboat, nor how to enjoy it, either. 

Chapter 25 From Cairo to Hickman

THE scenery, from St. Louis to Cairo--two hundred miles--is varied andbeautiful. The hills were clothed in the fresh foliage of spring now, and were a gracious and worthy setting for the broad river flowingbetween. Our trip began auspiciously, with a perfect day, as tobreeze and sunshine, and our boat threw the miles out behind her withsatisfactory despatch. 

We found a railway intruding at Chester, Illinois; Chester has also apenitentiary now, and is otherwise marching on. At Grand Tower, too, there was a railway; and another at Cape Girardeau. The former town getsits name from a huge, squat pillar of rock, which stands up out of thewater on the Missouri side of the river--a piece of nature's fancifulhandiwork--and is one of the most picturesque features of the scenery ofthat region. For nearer or remoter neighbors, the Tower has the Devil'sBake Oven--so called, perhaps, because it does not powerfully resembleanybody else's bake oven; and the Devil's Tea Table--this latter a greatsmooth-surfaced mass of rock, with diminishing wine-glass stem, perchedsome fifty or sixty feet above the river, beside a beflowered andgarlanded precipice, and sufficiently like a tea-table to answer foranybody, Devil or Christian. Away down the river we have the Devil'sElbow and the Devil's Race-course, and lots of other property of hiswhich I cannot now call to mind. 

The Town of Grand Tower was evidently a busier place than it had been inold times, but it seemed to need some repairs here and there, and a newcoat of whitewash all over. Still, it was pleasant to me to see the oldcoat once more. 'Uncle' Mumford, our second officer, said the place hadbeen suffering from high water, and consequently was not looking itsbest now. But he said it was not strange that it didn't waste white-washon itself, for more lime was made there, and of a better quality, thananywhere in the West; and added--'On a dairy farm you never can get anymilk for your coffee, nor any sugar for it on a sugar plantation; and itis against sense to go to a lime town to hunt for white-wash. ' In my ownexperience I knew the first two items to be true; and also that peoplewho sell candy don't care for candy; therefore there was plausibility inUncle Mumford's final observation that 'people who make lime run more toreligion than whitewash. ' Uncle Mumford said, further, that Grand Towerwas a great coaling center and a prospering place. 

Cape Girardeau is situated on a hillside, and makes a handsomeappearance. There is a great Jesuit school for boys at the foot of thetown by the river. Uncle Mumford said it had as high a reputation forthoroughness as any similar institution in Missouri! There was anothercollege higher up on an airy summit--a bright new edifice, picturesquelyand peculiarly towered and pinnacled--a sort of gigantic casters, withthe cruets all complete. Uncle Mumford said that Cape Girardeau was theAthens of Missouri, and contained several colleges besides those alreadymentioned; and all of them on a religious basis of one kind or another. He directed my attention to what he called the 'strong and pervasivereligious look of the town, ' but I could not see that it looked morereligious than the other hill towns with the same slope and built of thesame kind of bricks. Partialities often make people see more than reallyexists. 

Uncle Mumford has been thirty years a mate on the river. He is a man ofpractical sense and a level head; has observed; has had much experienceof one sort and another; has opinions; has, also, just a perceptibledash of poetry in his composition, an easy gift of speech, a thickgrowl in his voice, and an oath or two where he can get at them when theexigencies of his office require a spiritual lift. He is a mate of theblessed old-time kind; and goes gravely damning around, when there iswork to the fore, in a way to mellow the ex-steamboatman's heart withsweet soft longings for the vanished days that shall come no more. 'GITup there you! Going to be all day? Why d'n't you SAY you was petrifiedin your hind legs, before you shipped!'

He is a steady man with his crew; kind and just, but firm; so theylike him, and stay with him. He is still in the slouchy garb of theold generation of mates; but next trip the Anchor Line will have him inuniform--a natty blue naval uniform, with brass buttons, along with allthe officers of the line--and then he will be a totally different styleof scenery from what he is now. 

Uniforms on the Mississippi! It beats all the other changes puttogether, for surprise. Still, there is another surprise--that it wasnot made fifty years ago. It is so manifestly sensible, that it mighthave been thought of earlier, one would suppose. During fifty years, outthere, the innocent passenger in need of help and information, has beenmistaking the mate for the cook, and the captain for the barber--andbeing roughly entertained for it, too. But his troubles are ended now. And the greatly improved aspect of the boat's staff is another advantageachieved by the dress-reform period. 

Steered down the bend below Cape Girardeau. They used to call it'Steersman's Bend;' plain sailing and plenty of water in it, always;about the only place in the Upper River that a new cub was allowed totake 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 conspicuousalteration. Nor the Chain, either--in the nature of things; for it is achain of sunken rocks admirably arranged to capture and kill steamboatson bad nights. A good many steamboat corpses lie buried there, out ofsight; among the rest my first friend the 'Paul Jones;' she knocked herbottom out, and went down like a pot, so the historian told me--UncleMumford. He said she had a gray mare aboard, and a preacher. To me, this sufficiently accounted for the disaster; as it did, of course, toMumford, 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 arepeople who have never traveled with a gray mare and a preacher. I wentdown the river once in such company. We grounded at Bloody Island; wegrounded 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 Cairowith nine feet of water in the hold--may have been more, may have beenless. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The men lost their headswith terror. They painted the mare blue, in sight of town, and threw thepreacher overboard, or we should not have arrived at all. The preacherwas fished out and saved. He acknowledged, himself, that he had been toblame. 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 isfortified by so much unassailable proof that to doubt is to dishonorreason. I myself remember a case where a captain was warned by numerousfriends against taking a gray mare and a preacher with him, butpersisted in his purpose in spite of all that could be said; and thesame day--it may have been the next, and some say it was, though I thinkit was the same day--he got drunk and fell down the hatchway, and wasborne 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 badregion--all around and about Hat Island, in early days. A farmer wholived on the Illinois shore there, said that twenty-nine steamboats hadleft their bones strung along within sight from his house. BetweenSt. Louis and Cairo the steamboat wrecks average one to the mile;--twohundred wrecks, altogether. 

I could recognize big changes from Commerce down. Beaver Dam Rock wasout 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 theMissouri shore, and boats do not go near it any more. The island calledJacket Pattern is whittled down to a wedge now, and is booked for earlydestruction. Goose Island is all gone but a little dab the size of asteamboat. The perilous 'Graveyard, ' among whose numberless wreckswe used to pick our way so slowly and gingerly, is far away from thechannel now, and a terror to nobody. One of the islands formerly calledthe Two Sisters is gone entirely; the other, which used to lie closeto the Illinois shore, is now on the Missouri side, a mile away; it isjoined solidly to the shore, and it takes a sharp eye to see where theseam is--but it is Illinois ground yet, and the people who live onit have to ferry themselves over and work the Illinois roads and payIllinois taxes: singular state of things!

Near the mouth of the river several islands were missing--washed away. Cairo was still there--easily visible across the long, flat point uponwhose further verge it stands; but we had to steam a long way aroundto get to it. Night fell as we were going out of the 'Upper River' andmeeting the floods of the Ohio. We dashed along without anxiety; forthe hidden rock which used to lie right in the way has moved up streama long distance out of the channel; or rather, about one county has goneinto the river from the Missouri point, and the Cairo point has 'madedown' and added to its long tongue of territory correspondingly. TheMississippi is a just and equitable river; it never tumbles one man'sfarm overboard without building a new farm just like it for that man'sneighbor. This keeps down hard feelings. 

Going into Cairo, we came near killing a steamboat which paid noattention to our whistle and then tried to cross our bows. By doing somestrong backing, we saved him; which was a great loss, for he would havemade good literature. 

Cairo is a brisk town now; and is substantially built, and has a citylook about it which is in noticeable contrast to its former estate, asper Mr. Dickens's portrait of it. However, it was already building withbricks when I had seen it last--which was when Colonel (now General)Grant was drilling his first command there. Uncle Mumford says thelibraries and Sunday-schools have done a good work in Cairo, as well asthe brick masons. Cairo has a heavy railroad and river trade, and hersituation at the junction of the two great rivers is so advantageousthat she cannot well help prospering. 

When I turned out, in the morning, we had passed Columbus, Kentucky, and were approaching Hickman, a pretty town, perched on a handsome hill. Hickman is in a rich tobacco region, and formerly enjoyed a great andlucrative trade in that staple, collecting it there in her warehousesfrom a large area of country and shipping it by boat; but Uncle Mumfordsays she built a railway to facilitate this commerce a little more, andhe thinks it facilitated it the wrong way--took the bulk of the tradeout of her hands by 'collaring it along the line without gathering it ather doors. '

Chapter 26 Under Fire

TALK began to run upon the war now, for we were getting down into theupper edge of the former battle-stretch by this time. Columbus was justbehind us, so there was a good deal said about the famous battle ofBelmont. Several of the boat's officers had seen active service in theMississippi war-fleet. I gathered that they found themselves sadly outof their element in that kind of business at first, but afterward gotaccustomed to it, reconciled to it, and more or less at home in it. Oneof our pilots had his first war experience in the Belmont fight, as apilot on a boat in the Confederate service. I had often had a curiosityto know how a green hand might feel, in his maiden battle, perched allsolitary and alone on high in a pilot house, a target for Tom, Dickand Harry, and nobody at his elbow to shame him from showing the whitefeather when matters grew hot and perilous around him; so, to me hisstory was valuable--it filled a gap for me which all histories had lefttill that time empty. 

THE PILOT'S FIRST BATTLE

He said--

It was the 7th of November. The fight began at seven in the morning. Iwas 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 hewas going to see the fight; wanted me to go along. I said, no, I wasn'tanxious, I would look at it from the pilot-house. He said I was acoward, and left. 

That fight was an awful sight. General Cheatham made his men strip theircoats off and throw them in a pile, and said, 'Now follow me to hellor victory!' I heard him say that from the pilot-house; and then hegalloped in, at the head of his troops. Old General Pillow, with hiswhite hair, mounted on a white horse, sailed in, too, leading his troopsas lively as a boy. By and by the Federals chased the rebels back, andhere they came! tearing along, everybody for himself and Devil take thehindmost! and down under the bank they scrambled, and took shelter. Iwas sitting with my legs hanging out of the pilot-house window. All atonce I noticed a whizzing sound passing my ear. Judged it was a bullet. I didn't stop to think about anything, I just tilted over backwards andlanded on the floor, and staid there. The balls came booming around. Three cannon-balls went through the chimney; one ball took off thecorner of the pilot-house; shells were screaming and bursting allaround. Mighty warm times--I wished I hadn't come. I lay there on thepilot-house floor, while the shots came faster and faster. I crept inbehind the big stove, in the middle of the pilot-house. Presently aminie-ball came through the stove, and just grazed my head, and cut myhat. I judged it was time to go away from there. The captain was on theroof with a red-headed major from Memphis--a fine-looking man. I heardhim say he wanted to leave here, but 'that pilot is killed. ' I creptover to the starboard side to pull the bell to set her back; raised upand took a look, and I saw about fifteen shot holes through the windowpanes; had come so lively I hadn't noticed them. I glanced out on thewater, and the spattering shot were like a hailstorm. I thought best toget out of that place. I went down the pilot-house guy, head first--notfeet first but head first--slid down--before I struck the deck, thecaptain said we must leave there. So I climbed up the guy and got on thefloor again. About that time, they collared my partner and were bringinghim up to the pilot-house between two soldiers. Somebody had said Iwas killed. He put his head in and saw me on the floor reaching for thebacking bells. He said, 'Oh, hell, he ain't shot, ' and jerked away fromthe men who had him by the collar, and ran below. We were there untilthree 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, andtell 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 knewanything, 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 andgallant conduct. I never said anything, I let it go at that. I judged itwasn'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 tothe Hot Springs. When there, I got a good many letters from commanderssaying they wanted me to come back. I declined, because I wasn't wellenough or strong enough; but I kept still, and kept the reputation I hadmade. 

A plain story, straightforwardly told; but Mumford told me that thatpilot had 'gilded that scare of his, in spots;' that his subsequentcareer in the war was proof of it. 

We struck down through the chute of Island No. 8, and I went belowand fell into conversation with a passenger, a handsome man, with easycarriage and an intelligent face. We were approaching Island No. 10, a place so celebrated during the war. This gentleman's home was on themain shore in its neighborhood. I had some talk with him about the wartimes; but presently the discourse fell upon 'feuds, ' for in no part ofthe South has the vendetta flourished more briskly, or held out longerbetween warring families, than in this particular region. This gentlemansaid--

'There's been more than one feud around here, in old times, but I reckonthe worst one was between the Darnells and the Watsons. Nobody don'tknow now what the first quarrel was about, it's so long ago; theDarnells 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 acow--anyway, it was a little matter; the money in it wasn't of noconsequence--none in the world--both families was rich. The thing couldhave been fixed up, easy enough; but no, that wouldn't do. Rough wordshad been passed; and so, nothing but blood could fix it up after that. That horse or cow, whichever it was, cost sixty years of killing andcrippling! 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 feudand kept it a-going. And it's just as I say; they went on shooting eachother, 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 aDarnell caught a Watson, or a Watson caught a Darnell, one of 'em wasgoing to get hurt--only question was, which of them got the drop onthe other. They'd shoot one another down, right in the presence of thefamily. They didn't hunt for each other, but when they happened to meet, they puffed and begun. Men would shoot boys, boys would shoot men. A manshot a boy twelve years old--happened on him in the woods, and didn'tgive him no chance. If he HAD 'a' given him a chance, the boy'd 'a' shothim. Both families belonged to the same church (everybody around here isreligious); through all this fifty or sixty years' fuss, both tribes wasthere every Sunday, to worship. They lived each side of the line, andthe church was at a landing called Compromise. Half the church and halfthe aisle was in Kentucky, the other half in Tennessee. Sundays you'dsee the families drive up, all in their Sunday clothes, men, women, andchildren, and file up the aisle, and set down, quiet and orderly, onelot on the Tennessee side of the church and the other on the Kentuckyside; 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 therest of the family; kind of stood guard. I don't know; never was at thatchurch 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 ayoung man of nineteen out and killed him. Don't remember whether it wasthe Darnells and Watsons, or one of the other feuds; but anyway, thisyoung man rode up--steamboat laying there at the time--and the firstthing he saw was a whole gang of the enemy. He jumped down behind awood-pile, but they rode around and begun on him, he firing back, andthey galloping and cavorting and yelling and banging away with all theirmight. Think he wounded a couple of them; but they closed in on himand chased him into the river; and as he swum along down stream, theyfollowed along the bank and kept on shooting at him; and when he struckshore he was dead. Windy Marshall told me about it. He saw it. He wascaptain of the boat. 

'Years ago, the Darnells was so thinned out that the old man and his twosons concluded they'd leave the country. They started to take steamboatjust above No. 10; but the Watsons got wind of it; and they arrived justas the two young Darnells was walking up the companion-way with theirwives on their arms. The fight begun then, and they never got nofurther--both of them killed. After that, old Darnell got into troublewith the man that run the ferry, and the ferry-man got the worstof it--and died. But his friends shot old Darnell through andthrough--filled him full of bullets, and ended him. '

The country gentleman who told me these things had been reared in easeand comfort, was a man of good parts, and was college bred. His loosegrammar was the fruit of careless habit, not ignorance. This habitamong educated men in the West is not universal, but it isprevalent--prevalent in the towns, certainly, if not in the cities; andto a degree which one cannot help noticing, and marveling at. I heard aWesterner who would be accounted a highly educated man in any country, say 'never mind, it DON'T MAKE NO DIFFERENCE, anyway. ' A life-longresident who was present heard it, but it made no impression upon her. She was able to recall the fact afterward, when reminded of it; butshe confessed that the words had not grated upon her ear at thetime--a confession which suggests that if educated people can hear suchblasphemous grammar, from such a source, and be unconscious of the deed, the crime must be tolerably common--so common that the general ear hasbecome dulled by familiarity with it, and is no longer alert, no longersensitive to such affronts. 

No one in the world speaks blemishless grammar; no one has ever writtenit--NO one, either in the world or out of it (taking the Scriptures forevidence on the latter point); therefore it would not be fair to exactgrammatical perfection from the peoples of the Valley; but they andall other peoples may justly be required to refrain from KNOWINGLY andPURPOSELY debauching their grammar. 

I found the river greatly changed at Island No. 10. The island whichI remembered was some three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide, heavily timbered, and lay near the Kentucky shore--within two hundredyards of it, I should say. Now, however, one had to hunt for it with aspy-glass. Nothing was left of it but an insignificant little tuft, andthis was no longer near the Kentucky shore; it was clear over againstthe opposite shore, a mile away. In war times the island had been animportant place, for it commanded the situation; and, being heavilyfortified, there was no getting by it. It lay between the upper andlower divisions of the Union forces, and kept them separate, until ajunction was finally effected across the Missouri neck of land; but theisland being itself joined to that neck now, the wide river is withoutobstruction. 

In this region the river passes from Kentucky into Tennessee, back intoMissouri, then back into Kentucky, and thence into Tennessee again. So amile or two of Missouri sticks over into Tennessee. 

The town of New Madrid was looking very unwell; but otherwise unchangedfrom its former condition and aspect. Its blocks of frame-houses werestill grouped in the same old flat plain, and environed by the sameold forests. It was as tranquil as formerly, and apparently had neithergrown nor diminished in size. It was said that the recent high water hadinvaded it and damaged its looks. This was surprising news; for in lowwater the river bank is very high there (fifty feet), and in my day anoverflow had always been considered an impossibility. This present floodof 1882 Will doubtless be celebrated in the river's history for severalgenerations before a deluge of like magnitude shall be seen. It put allthe unprotected low lands under water, from Cairo to the mouth; it brokedown the levees in a great many places, on both sides of the river;and in some regions south, when the flood was at its highest, theMississippi was SEVENTY MILES wide! a number of lives were lost, and thedestruction of property was fearful. The crops were destroyed, houseswashed away, and shelterless men and cattle forced to take refuge onscattering elevations here and there in field and forest, and wait inperil and suffering until the boats put in commission by the nationaland local governments and by newspaper enterprise could come and rescuethem. The properties of multitudes of people were under water formonths, and the poorer ones must have starved by the hundred if succorhad not been promptly afforded. {footnote [For a detailed and interestingdescription of the great flood, written on board of the New OrleansTIMES-DEMOCRAT'S relief-boat, see Appendix A]} The water had beenfalling during a considerable time now, yet as a rule we found the banksstill under water. 

Chapter 27 Some Imported Articles

WE met two steamboats at New Madrid. Two steamboats in sight at once! aninfrequent spectacle now in the lonesome Mississippi. The lonelinessof this solemn, stupendous flood is impressive--and depressing. Leagueafter league, and still league after league, it pours its chocolate tidealong, between its solid forest walls, its almost untenanted shores, with seldom a sail or a moving object of any kind to disturb the surfaceand break the monotony of the blank, watery solitude; and so the daygoes, the night comes, and again the day--and still the same, nightafter night and day after day--majestic, unchanging sameness ofserenity, repose, tranquillity, lethargy, vacancy--symbol of eternity, realization of the heaven pictured by priest and prophet, and longed forby 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 ofthem--a procession which kept up its plodding, patient march through theland during many, many years. Each tourist took notes, and went home andpublished a book--a book which was usually calm, truthful, reasonable, kind; but which seemed just the reverse to our tender-footedprogenitors. A glance at these tourist-books shows us that in certainof its aspects the Mississippi has undergone no change since thosestrangers visited it, but remains to-day about as it was then. Theemotions produced in those foreign breasts by these aspects were notall formed on one pattern, of course; they HAD to be various, alongat first, because the earlier tourists were obliged to originate theiremotions, whereas in older countries one can always borrow emotionsfrom one's predecessors. And, mind you, emotions are among the toughestthings in the world to manufacture out of whole cloth; it is easierto manufacture seven facts than one emotion. Captain Basil Hall. R. N. , writing fifty-five years ago, says--

'Here I caught the first glimpse of the object I had so long wished tobehold, and felt myself amply repaid at that moment for all the troubleI had experienced in coming so far; and stood looking at the riverflowing past till it was too dark to distinguish anything. But it wasnot till I had visited the same spot a dozen times, that I came to aright comprehension of the grandeur of the scene. '

Following are Mrs. Trollope's emotions. She is writing a few monthslater in the same year, 1827, and is coming in at the mouth of theMississippi--

'The first indication of our approach to land was the appearance of thismighty river pouring forth its muddy mass of waters, and mingling withthe deep blue of the Mexican Gulf. I never beheld a scene so utterlydesolate as this entrance of the Mississippi. Had Dante seen it, hemight have drawn images of another Borgia from its horrors. One onlyobject rears itself above the eddying waters; this is the mast of avessel long since wrecked in attempting to cross the bar, and it stillstands, a dismal witness of the destruction that has been, and a bodingprophet of that which is to come. '

Emotions of Hon. Charles Augustus Murray (near St. Louis), seven yearslater--

'It is only when you ascend the mighty current for fifty or a hundredmiles, and use the eye of imagination as well as that of nature, that you begin to understand all his might and majesty. You see himfertilizing a boundless valley, bearing along in his course the trophiesof his thousand victories over the shattered forest--here carrying awaylarge masses of soil with all their growth, and there forming islands, destined at some future period to be the residence of man; and whileindulging in this prospect, it is then time for reflection to suggestthat the current before you has flowed through two or three thousandmiles, and has yet to travel one thousand three hundred more beforereaching its ocean destination. '

Receive, now, the emotions of Captain Marryat, R. N. Author of the seatales, writing in 1837, three years after Mr. Murray--

'Never, perhaps, in the records of nations, was there an instance of acentury of such unvarying and unmitigated crime as is to be collectedfrom the history of the turbulent and blood-stained Mississippi. Thestream itself appears as if appropriate for the deeds which have beencommitted. It is not like most rivers, beautiful to the sight, bestowingfertility in its course; not one that the eye loves to dwell upon asit sweeps along, nor can you wander upon its banks, or trust yourselfwithout danger to its stream. It is a furious, rapid, desolatingtorrent, loaded with alluvial soil; and few of those who are receivedinto its waters ever rise again, {footnote [There was a foolishsuperstition of some little prevalence in that day, that the Mississippiwould neither buoy up a swimmer, nor permit a drowned person's body torise to the surface. ]} or can support themselves long upon its surfacewithout assistance from some friendly log. It contains the coarsest andmost uneatable of fish, such as the cat-fish and such genus, and asyou descend, its banks are occupied with the fetid alligator, while thepanther basks at its edge in the cane-brakes, almost impervious to man. Pouring its impetuous waters through wild tracks covered with trees oflittle value except for firewood, it sweeps down whole forests in itscourse, which disappear in tumultuous confusion, whirled away by thestream now loaded with the masses of soil which nourished their roots, often blocking up and changing for a time the channel of the river, which, as if in anger at its being opposed, inundates and devastates thewhole country round; and as soon as it forces its way through its formerchannel, plants in every direction the uprooted monarchs of the forest(upon whose branches the bird will never again perch, or the raccoon, the opossum, or the squirrel climb) as traps to the adventurousnavigators of its waters by steam, who, borne down upon these concealeddangers which pierce through the planks, very often have not time tosteer for and gain the shore before they sink to the bottom. There areno pleasing associations connected with the great common sewer ofthe Western America, which pours out its mud into the Mexican Gulf, polluting the clear blue sea for many miles beyond its mouth. It is ariver of desolation; and instead of reminding you, like other beautifulrivers, of an angel which has descended for the benefit of man, youimagine it a devil, whose energies have been only overcome by thewonderful power of steam. '

It is pretty crude literature for a man accustomed to handling a pen;still, as a panorama of the emotions sent weltering through this notedvisitor's breast by the aspect and traditions of the 'great commonsewer, ' it has a value. A value, though marred in the matter ofstatistics by inaccuracies; for the catfish is a plenty good enough fishfor anybody, and there are no panthers that are 'impervious to man. '

Later still comes Alexander Mackay, of the Middle Temple, Barrister atLaw, with a better digestion, and no catfish dinner aboard, and feels asfollows--

'The Mississippi! It was with indescribable emotions that I first feltmyself afloat upon its waters. How often in my schoolboy dreams, and inmy waking visions afterwards, had my imagination pictured to itself thelordly stream, rolling with tumultuous current through the boundlessregion to which it has given its name, and gathering into itself, in itscourse to the ocean, the tributary waters of almost every latitude inthe temperate zone! Here it was then in its reality, and I, at length, steaming against its tide. I looked upon it with that reverence withwhich everyone must regard a great feature of external nature. '

So much for the emotions. The tourists, one and all, remark upon thedeep, brooding loneliness and desolation of the vast river. CaptainBasil Hall, who saw it at flood-stage, says--

'Sometimes we passed along distances of twenty or thirty miles withoutseeing a single habitation. An artist, in search of hints for a paintingof the deluge, would here have found them in abundance. '

The first shall be last, etc. Just two hundred years ago, the oldoriginal first and gallantest of all the foreign tourists, pioneer, headof the procession, ended his weary and tedious discovery-voyage down thesolemn stretches of the great river--La Salle, whose name will last aslong as the river itself shall last. We quote from Mr. Parkman--

'And now they neared their journey's end. On the sixth of April, theriver divided itself into three broad channels. La Salle followed thatof the west, and D'Autray that of the east; while Tonty took the middlepassage. As he drifted down the turbid current, between the low andmarshy shores, the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze grewfresh with the salt breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of thegreat Gulf opened on his sight, tossing its restless billows, limitless, voiceless, lonely as when born of chaos, without a sail, without a signof life. '

Then, on a spot of solid ground, La Salle reared a column 'bearing thearms of France; the Frenchmen were mustered under arms; and while theNew England Indians and their squaws looked on in wondering silence, they chanted the TE DEUM, THE EXAUDIAT, and the DOMINE SALVUM FACREGEM. '

Then, whilst the musketry volleyed and rejoicing shouts burst forth, the victorious discoverer planted the column, and made proclamation in aloud voice, taking formal possession of the river and the vastcountries watered by it, in the name of the King. The column bore thisinscription--

LOUIS LE GRAND, ROY DE FRANCE ET DE NAVARRE, REGNE; LE NEUVIEME AVRIL, 1682. 

New Orleans intended to fittingly celebrate, this present year, thebicentennial anniversary of this illustrious event; but when thetime came, all her energies and surplus money were required in otherdirections, for the flood was upon the land then, making havoc anddevastation everywhere. 

Chapter 28 Uncle Mumford Unloads

ALL day we swung along down the river, and had the stream almost whollyto ourselves. Formerly, at such a stage of the water, we should havepassed acres of lumber rafts, and dozens of big coal barges; alsooccasional little trading-scows, peddling along from farm to farm, withthe peddler's family on board; possibly, a random scow, bearing a humbleHamlet 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. Shewas lying at rest in the shade, within the wooded mouth of the ObionRiver. The spy-glass revealed the fact that she was named for me--or HEwas named for me, whichever you prefer. As this was the first time I hadever encountered this species of honor, it seems excusable to mentionit, and at the same time call the attention of the authorities to thetardiness of my recognition of it. 

Noted a big change in the river, at Island 21. It was a very largeisland, and used to be out toward mid-stream; but it is joined fast tothe main shore now, and has retired from business as an island. 

As we approached famous and formidable Plum Point, darkness fell, butthat was nothing to shudder about--in these modern times. For nowthe national government has turned the Mississippi into a sort oftwo-thousand-mile torchlight procession. In the head of every crossing, and in the foot of every crossing, the government has set up aclear-burning lamp. You are never entirely in the dark, now; there isalways a beacon in sight, either before you, or behind you, or abreast. One might almost say that lamps have been squandered there. Dozens ofcrossings are lighted which were not shoal when they were created, and have never been shoal since; crossings so plain, too, and also sostraight, that a steamboat can take herself through them without anyhelp, after she has been through once. Lamps in such places are ofcourse not wasted; it is much more convenient and comfortable for apilot to hold on them than on a spread of formless blackness that won'tstay still; and money is saved to the boat, at the same time, for shecan of course make more miles with her rudder amidships than she canwith it squared across her stern and holding her back. 

But this thing has knocked the romance out of piloting, to a largeextent. It, and some other things together, have knocked all the romanceout of it. For instance, the peril from snags is not now what it oncewas. The government's snag-boats go patrolling up and down, in thesematter-of-fact days, pulling the river's teeth; they have rooted outall the old clusters which made many localities so formidable; and theyallow 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 withyou; so was it also, when you were groping your way through solidifieddarkness in a narrow chute; but all that is changed now--you flash outyour electric light, transform night into day in the twinkling of aneye, and your perils and anxieties are at an end. Horace Bixby andGeorge Ritchie have charted the crossings and laid out the coursesby compass; they have invented a lamp to go with the chart, and havepatented the whole. With these helps, one may run in the fog now, withconsiderable security, and with a confidence unknown in the old days. 

With these abundant beacons, the banishment of snags, plenty of daylightin a box and ready to be turned on whenever needed, and a chart andcompass to fight the fog with, piloting, at a good stage of water, isnow nearly as safe and simple as driving stage, and is hardly more thanthree times as romantic. 

And now in these new days, these days of infinite change, the AnchorLine have raised the captain above the pilot by giving him the biggerwages 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 standhis watch clear through, whether the boat be under way or tied up to theshore. We, that were once the aristocrats of the river, can't go to bednow, as we used to do, and sleep while a hundred tons of freight arelugged 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. TheGovernment has taken away the romance of our calling; the Company hastaken away its state and dignity. 

Plum Point looked as it had always looked by night, with the exceptionthat now there were beacons to mark the crossings, and also a lot ofother lights on the Point and along its shore; these latter glintingfrom the fleet of the United States River Commission, and from a villagewhich the officials have built on the land for offices and for theemployees of the service. The military engineers of the Commission havetaken upon their shoulders the job of making the Mississippi over again--a job transcended in size by only the original job of creating it. They are building wing-dams here and there, to deflect the current; anddikes to confine it in narrower bounds; and other dikes to make it staythere; and for unnumbered miles along the Mississippi, they are fellingthe timber-front for fifty yards back, with the purpose of shavingthe bank down to low-water mark with the slant of a house roof, andballasting it with stones; and in many places they have protected thewasting shores with rows of piles. One who knows the Mississippi willpromptly aver--not aloud, but to himself--that ten thousand RiverCommissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame thatlawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Gohere, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it hassentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will nottear down, dance over, and laugh at. But a discreet man will not putthese things into spoken words; for the West Point engineers have nottheir superiors anywhere; they know all that can be known of theirabstruse science; and so, since they conceive that they can fetter andhandcuff that river and boss him, it is but wisdom for the unscientificman 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 whichseemed clearly impossible; so we do not feel full confidence now toprophesy against like impossibilities. Otherwise one would pipe out andsay the Commission might as well bully the comets in their courses andundertake to make them behave, as try to bully the Mississippi intoright and reasonable conduct. 

I consulted Uncle Mumford concerning this and cognate matters; and Igive here the result, stenographically reported, and therefore to berelied on as being full and correct; except that I have here and thereleft out remarks which were addressed to the men, such as 'where inblazes are you going with that barrel now?' and which seemed to me tobreak the flow of the written statement, without compensating by addingto its information or its clearness. Not that I have ventured tostrike out all such interjections; I have removed only those which wereobviously irrelevant; wherever one occurred which I felt any questionabout, I have judged it safest to let it remain. 

UNCLE MUMFORD'S IMPRESSIONS

Uncle Mumford said--

'As long as I have been mate of a steamboat--thirty years--I havewatched this river and studied it. Maybe I could have learnt more aboutit at West Point, but if I believe it I wish I may be WHAT ARE YOUSUCKING YOUR FINGERS THERE FOR ?--COLLAR THAT KAG OF NAILS! Four yearsat West Point, and plenty of books and schooling, will learn a man agood deal, I reckon, but it won't learn him the river. You turn oneof those little European rivers over to this Commission, with its hardbottom and clear water, and it would just be a holiday job for them towall 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 ariver. They have started in here with big confidence, and the bestintentions in the world; but they are going to get left. What doesEcclesiastes vii. 13 say? Says enough to knock THEIR little gamegalley-west, don't it? Now you look at their methods once. There atDevil'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 whatdoes the river care for a stone wall? When it got ready, it just bulgedthrough it. Maybe they can build another that will stay; that is, upthere--but not down here they can't. Down here in the Lower River, theydrive some pegs to turn the water away from the shore and stop it fromslicing off the bank; very well, don't it go straight over and cutsomebody else's bank? Certainly. Are they going to peg all the banks?Why, they could buy ground and build a new Mississippi cheaper. They arepegging Bulletin Tow-head now. It won't do any good. If the river hasgot a mortgage on that island, it will foreclose, sure, pegs or no pegs. Away down yonder, they have driven two rows of piles straight throughthe middle of a dry bar half a mile long, which is forty foot out of thewater when the river is low. What do you reckon that is for? If I know, I wish I may land in-HUMP YOURSELF, YOU SON OF AN UNDERTAKER!--OUTWITH THAT COAL-OIL, NOW, LIVELY, LIVELY! And just look at what they aretrying to do down there at Milliken's Bend. There's been a cut-off inthat section, and Vicksburg is left out in the cold. It's a country townnow. The river strikes in below it; and a boat can't go up to the townexcept in high water. Well, they are going to build wing-dams in thebend opposite the foot of 103, and throw the water over and cut off thefoot of the island and plow down into an old ditch where the riverused to be in ancient times; and they think they can persuade the wateraround that way, and get it to strike in above Vicksburg, as it usedto do, and fetch the town back into the world again. That is, they aregoing to take this whole Mississippi, and twist it around and make itrun several miles UP STREAM. Well you've got to admire men that deal inideas of that size and can tote them around without crutches; but youhaven't got to believe they can DO such miracles, have you! And yet youain'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 sametime buy enough property in Vicksburg to square you up in case they win. Government is doing a deal for the Mississippi, now--spending loads ofmoney on her. When there used to be four thousand steamboats and tenthousand acres of coal-barges, and rafts and trading scows, there wasn'ta lantern from St. Paul to New Orleans, and the snags were thicker thanbristles on a hog's back; and now when there's three dozen steamboatsand nary barge or raft, Government has snatched out all the snags, andlit up the shores like Broadway, and a boat's as safe on the river asshe'd be in heaven. And I reckon that by the time there ain't any boatsleft at all, the Commission will have the old thing all reorganized, anddredged out, and fenced in, and tidied up, to a degree that will makenavigation just simply perfect, and absolutely safe and profitable; andall the days will be Sundays, and all the mates will be Sunday-schoolsu-WHAT-IN-THE-NATION-YOU-FOOLING-AROUND-THERE-FOR, YOU SONS OFUNRIGHTEOUSNESS, HEIRS OF PERDITION! GOING TO BE A YEAR GETTING THATHOGSHEAD ASHORE?'

During our trip to New Orleans and back, we had many conversationswith river men, planters, journalists, and officers of the RiverCommission--with conflicting and confusing results. To wit:--

1. Some believed in the Commission's scheme to arbitrarily andpermanently confine (and thus deepen) the channel, preserve threatenedshores, etc. 

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

3. Some believed that the higher you build your levee, the higher theriver's bottom will rise; and that consequently the levee system is amistake. 

4. Some believed in the scheme to relieve the river, in flood-time, byturning its surplus waters off into Lake Borgne, etc. 

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

Wherever you find a man down there who believes in one of these theoriesyou may turn to the next man and frame your talk upon the hypothesisthat he does not believe in that theory; and after you have hadexperience, you do not take this course doubtfully, or hesitatingly, butwith the confidence of a dying murderer--converted one, I mean. For youwill have come to know, with a deep and restful certainty, that you arenot going to meet two people sick of the same theory, one right afterthe other. No, there will always be one or two with the other diseasesalong between. And as you proceed, you will find out one or two otherthings. You will find out that there is no distemper of the lot but iscontagious; and you cannot go where it is without catching it. You mayvaccinate yourself with deterrent facts as much as you please--it willdo no good; it will seem to 'take, ' but it doesn't; the moment you rubagainst any one of those theorists, make up your mind that it is time tohang out your yellow flag. 

Yes, you are his sure victim: yet his work is not all to your hurt--onlypart of it; for he is like your family physician, who comes and curesthe mumps, and leaves the scarlet-fever behind. If your man is aLake-Borgne-relief theorist, for instance, he will exhale a cloud ofdeadly 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 fivetheories that may have previously got into your system. 

I have had all the five; and had them 'bad;' but ask me not, in mournfulnumbers, which one racked me hardest, or which one numbered the biggestsick list, for I do not know. In truth, no one can answer the latterquestion. Mississippi Improvement is a mighty topic, down yonder. Everyman on the river banks, south of Cairo, talks about it every day, duringsuch moments as he is able to spare from talking about the war; and eachof the several chief theories has its host of zealous partisans; but, as I have said, it is not possible to determine which cause numbers themost recruits. 

All were agreed upon one point, however: if Congress would make asufficient 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 beamply 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 nearranking as authority, as can the opinion of any individual in the Union. What he has to say about Mississippi River Improvement will be found inthe Appendix. {footnote [See Appendix B. ]}

Sometimes, half a dozen figures will reveal, as with a lightning-flash, the importance of a subject which ten thousand labored words, with thesame purpose in view, had left at last but dim and uncertain. Here is acase of the sort--paragraph from the 'Cincinnati Commercial'--

'The towboat "Jos. B. Williams" is on her way to New Orleans with atow of thirty-two barges, containing six hundred thousand bushels(seventy-six pounds to the bushel) of coal exclusive of her own fuel, being the largest tow ever taken to New Orleans or anywhere else in theworld. Her freight bill, at 3 cents a bushel, amounts to $18, 000. Itwould take eighteen hundred cars, of three hundred and thirty-threebushels 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, thefreight bill would amount to $180, 000, or $162, 000 more by rail than byriver. The tow will be taken from Pittsburg to New Orleans in fourteenor fifteen days. It would take one hundred trains of eighteen cars tothe train to transport this one tow of six hundred thousand bushelsof coal, and even if it made the usual speed of fast freight lines, itwould take one whole summer to put it through by rail. '

When a river in good condition can enable one to save $162, 000 and awhole summer's time, on a single cargo, the wisdom of taking measures tokeep the river in good condition is made plain to even the uncommercialmind. 

Chapter 29 A Few Specimen Bricks

WE passed through the Plum Point region, turned Craighead's Point, and glided unchallenged by what was once the formidable Fort Pillow, memorable because of the massacre perpetrated there during the war. Massacres are sprinkled with some frequency through the histories ofseveral Christian nations, but this is almost the only one that can befound in American history; perhaps it is the only one which rises to asize correspondent to that huge and somber title. We have the 'BostonMassacre, ' where two or three people were killed; but we must bunchAnglo-Saxon history together to find the fellow to the Fort Pillowtragedy; and doubtless even then we must travel back to the days and theperformances of Coeur de Lion, that fine 'hero, ' before we accomplishit. 

More of the river's freaks. In times past, the channel used to strikeabove Island 37, by Brandywine Bar, and down towards Island 39. Afterward, changed its course and went from Brandywine down throughVogelman's chute in the Devil's Elbow, to Island 39--part of thiscourse reversing the old order; the river running UP four or five miles, instead of down, and cutting off, throughout, some fifteen miles ofdistance. This in 1876. All that region is now called Centennial Island. 

There is a tradition that Island 37 was one of the principal abidingplaces of the once celebrated 'Murel's Gang. ' This was a colossalcombination of robbers, horse-thieves, negro-stealers, andcounterfeiters, engaged in business along the river some fifty or sixtyyears ago. While our journey across the country towards St. Louis was inprogress we had had no end of Jesse James and his stirring history; forhe had just been assassinated by an agent of the Governor of Missouri, and was in consequence occupying a good deal of space in the newspapers. Cheap histories of him were for sale by train boys. According to these, he was the most marvelous creature of his kind that had ever existed. Itwas a mistake. Murel was his equal in boldness; in pluck; in rapacity;in cruelty, brutality, heartlessness, treachery, and in general andcomprehensive vileness and shamelessness; and very much his superiorin some larger aspects. James was a retail rascal; Murel, wholesale. James's modest genius dreamed of no loftier flight than the planningof raids upon cars, coaches, and country banks; Murel projected negroinsurrections and the capture of New Orleans; and furthermore, onoccasion, this Murel could go into a pulpit and edify the congregation. What are James and his half-dozen vulgar rascals compared with thisstately old-time criminal, with his sermons, his meditated insurrectionsand city-captures, and his majestic following of ten hundred men, swornto do his evil will!

Here is a paragraph or two concerning this big operator, from a nowforgotten book which was published half a century ago--

He appears to have been a most dexterous as well as consummate villain. When he traveled, his usual disguise was that of an itinerant preacher;and it is said that his discourses were very 'soul-moving'--interestingthe hearers so much that they forgot to look after their horses, whichwere carried away by his confederates while he was preaching. But thestealing of horses in one State, and selling them in another, was buta small portion of their business; the most lucrative was the enticingslaves to run away from their masters, that they might sell them inanother quarter. This was arranged as follows; they would tell a negrothat 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 hisreturn to them a second time they would send him to a free State, wherehe would be safe. The poor wretches complied with this request, hopingto obtain money and freedom; they would be sold to another master, andrun away again, to their employers; sometimes they would be sold inthis manner three or four times, until they had realized three orfour thousand dollars by them; but as, after this, there was fear ofdetection, the usual custom was to get rid of the only witness thatcould be produced against them, which was the negro himself, bymurdering him, and throwing his body into the Mississippi. Even if itwas established that they had stolen a negro, before he was murdered, they were always prepared to evade punishment; for they concealed thenegro who had run away, until he was advertised, and a reward offered toany man who would catch him. An advertisement of this kind warrantsthe person to take the property, if found. And then the negro becomes aproperty in trust, when, therefore, they sold the negro, it only becamea breach of trust, not stealing; and for a breach of trust, the owner ofthe property can only have redress by a civil action, which was useless, as the damages were never paid. It may be inquired, how it was thatMurel escaped Lynch law under such circumstances This will be easilyunderstood when it is stated that he had MORE THAN A THOUSAND SWORNCONFEDERATES, all ready at a moment's notice to support any of the gangwho might be in trouble. The names of all the principal confederates ofMurel were obtained from himself, in a manner which I shall presentlyexplain. The gang was composed of two classes: the Heads or Council, as they were called, who planned and concerted, but seldom acted; theyamounted 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 ofthe leaders of the gang, who would sacrifice them at any time by handingthem over to justice, or sinking their bodies in the Mississippi. Thegeneral rendezvous of this gang of miscreants was on the Arkansas sideof the river, where they concealed their negroes in the morasses andcane-brakes. 

The depredations of this extensive combination were severely felt; butso well were their plans arranged, that although Murel, who was alwaysactive, was everywhere suspected, there was no proof to be obtained. Itso happened, however, that a young man of the name of Stewart, who waslooking after two slaves which Murel had decoyed away, fell in with himand obtained his confidence, took the oath, and was admitted into thegang as one of the General Council. By this means all was discovered;for Stewart turned traitor, although he had taken the oath, and havingobtained every information, exposed the whole concern, the names of allthe parties, and finally succeeded in bringing home sufficientevidence against Murel, to procure his conviction and sentence to thePenitentiary (Murel was sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment); somany people who were supposed to be honest, and bore a respectable namein the different States, were found to be among the list of the GrandCouncil as published by Stewart, that every attempt was made to throwdiscredit upon his assertions--his character was vilified, and morethan one attempt was made to assassinate him. He was obliged to quit theSouthern States in consequence. It is, however, now well ascertainedto have been all true; and although some blame Mr. Stewart for havingviolated his oath, they no longer attempt to deny that his revelationswere correct. I will quote one or two portions of Murel's confessions toMr. Stewart, made to him when they were journeying together. I ought tohave observed, that the ultimate intentions of Murel and his associateswere, by his own account, on a very extended scale; having no lessan object in view than RAISING THE BLACKS AGAINST THE WHITES, TAKINGPOSSESSION OF, AND PLUNDERING NEW ORLEANS, AND MAKING THEMSELVESPOSSESSORS 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 allour plans to our notion; we then determined to undertake the rebellionat every hazard, and make as many friends as we could for that purpose. Every man's business being assigned him, I started to Natchez on foot, having sold my horse in New Orleans, --with the intention of stealinganother after I started. I walked four days, and no opportunity offeredfor 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 wassitting on a log, looking down the road the way that I had come, a mancame 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 traveler. He rode up, and I saw from his equipage that he was a traveler. I aroseand drew an elegant rifle pistol on him and ordered him to dismount. Hedid 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 andstopped. I hitched his horse, and then made him undress himself, all tohis 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 Idie, ' I told him I had no time to hear him pray. He turned around anddropped on his knees, and I shot him through the back of the head. Iripped open his belly and took out his entrails, and sunk him in thecreek. I then searched his pockets, and found four hundred dollars andthirty-seven cents, and a number of papers that I did not take time toexamine. 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 onand sunk my old shoes in the creek, to atone for them. I rolled up hisclothes and put them into his portmanteau, as they were brand-new clothof the best quality. I mounted as fine a horse as ever I straddled, anddirected my course for Natchez in much better style than I had been forthe last five days. 

'Myself and a fellow by the name of Crenshaw gathered four good horsesand started for Georgia. We got in company with a young South Carolinianjust before we got to Cumberland Mountain, and Crenshaw soon knew allabout his business. He had been to Tennessee to buy a drove of hogs, butwhen he got there pork was dearer than he calculated, and he declinedpurchasing. We concluded he was a prize. Crenshaw winked at me; Iunderstood his idea. Crenshaw had traveled the road before, but I neverhad; we had traveled several miles on the mountain, when he passed neara great precipice; just before we passed it Crenshaw asked me for mywhip, which had a pound of lead in the butt; I handed it to him, and herode up by the side of the South Carolinian, and gave him a blow on theside of the head and tumbled him from his horse; we lit from our horsesand fingered his pockets; we got twelve hundred and sixty-two dollars. Crenshaw said he knew a place to hide him, and he gathered him under hisarms, and I by his feet, and conveyed him to a deep crevice in the browof the precipice, and tumbled him into it, and he went out of sight; wethen tumbled in his saddle, and took his horse with us, which was worthtwo hundred dollars. 

'We were detained a few days, and during that time our friend went to alittle village in the neighborhood and saw the negro advertised (a negroin our possession), and a description of the two men of whom he had beenpurchased, and giving his suspicions of the men. It was rather squallytimes, but any port in a storm: we took the negro that night on the bankof a creek which runs by the farm of our friend, and Crenshaw shot himthrough the head. We took out his entrails and sunk him in the creek. 

'He had sold the other negro the third time on Arkansaw River forupwards of five hundred dollars; and then stole him and delivered himinto the hand of his friend, who conducted him to a swamp, and veiledthe tragic scene, and got the last gleanings and sacred pledge ofsecrecy; as a game of that kind will not do unless it ends in a mysteryto all but the fraternity. He sold the negro, first and last, for nearlytwo thousand dollars, and then put him for ever out of the reach of allpursuers; 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 andcatfish before this time, and the frogs have sung this many a long dayto the silent repose of his skeleton. '

We were approaching Memphis, in front of which city, and witnessed byits people, was fought the most famous of the river battles of the CivilWar. Two men whom I had served under, in my river days, took part inthat fight: Mr. Bixby, head pilot of the Union fleet, and Montgomery, Commodore of the Confederate fleet. Both saw a great deal of activeservice during the war, and achieved high reputations for pluck andcapacity. 

As we neared Memphis, we began to cast about for an excuse to staywith the 'Gold Dust' to the end of her course--Vicksburg. We were sopleasantly situated, that we did not wish to make a change. I had anerrand of considerable importance to do at Napoleon, Arkansas, butperhaps I could manage it without quitting the 'Gold Dust. ' I said asmuch; so we decided to stick to present quarters. 

The boat was to tarry at Memphis till ten the next morning. It is abeautiful city, nobly situated on a commanding bluff overlooking theriver. The streets are straight and spacious, though not paved in a wayto incite distempered admiration. No, the admiration must be reservedfor the town's sewerage system, which is called perfect; a recentreform, however, for it was just the other way, up to a few years ago--areform resulting from the lesson taught by a desolating visitationof the yellow-fever. In those awful days the people were swept off byhundreds, by thousands; and so great was the reduction caused by flightand by death together, that the population was diminished three-fourths, and so remained for a time. Business stood nearly still, and the streetsbore an empty Sunday aspect. 

Here is a picture of Memphis, at that disastrous time, drawn by a Germantourist who seems to have been an eye-witness of the scenes which hedescribes. It is from Chapter VII, of his book, just published, inLeipzig, 'Mississippi-Fahrten, von Ernst von Hesse-Wartegg. '--

'In August the yellow-fever had reached its extremest height. Daily, hundreds fell a sacrifice to the terrible epidemic. The city was becomea mighty graveyard, two-thirds of the population had deserted the place, and only the poor, the aged and the sick, remained behind, a sure preyfor the insidious enemy. The houses were closed: little lamps burned infront of many--a sign that here death had entered. Often, several laydead in a single house; from the windows hung black crape. The storeswere shut up, for their owners were gone away or dead. 

'Fearful evil! In the briefest space it struck down and swept away eventhe most vigorous victim. A slight indisposition, then an hour offever, then the hideous delirium, then--the Yellow Death! On the streetcorners, and in the squares, lay sick men, suddenly overtaken by thedisease; and even corpses, distorted and rigid. Food failed. Meatspoiled in a few hours in the fetid and pestiferous air, and turnedblack. 

'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, and carry it away, to the graveyard. In the night stillnessreigns. Only the physicians and the hearses hurry through the streets;and out of the distance, at intervals, comes the muffled thunder of therailway train, which with the speed of the wind, and as if hunted byfuries, flies by the pest-ridden city without halting. '

But there is life enough there now. The population exceeds fortythousand and is augmenting, and trade is in a flourishing condition. We drove about the city; visited the park and the sociable horde ofsquirrels there; saw the fine residences, rose-clad and in other waysenticing to the eye; and got a good breakfast at the hotel. 

A thriving place is the Good Samaritan City of the Mississippi: hasa great wholesale jobbing trade; foundries, machine shops; andmanufactories of wagons, carriages, and cotton-seed oil; and is shortlyto have cotton mills and elevators. 

Her cotton receipts reached five hundred thousand bales last year--anincrease of sixty thousand over the year before. Out from her healthycommercial heart issue five trunk lines of railway; and a sixth is beingadded. 

This is a very different Memphis from the one which the vanished andunremembered procession of foreign tourists used to put into their bookslong time ago. In the days of the now forgotten but once renowned andvigorously hated Mrs. Trollope, Memphis seems to have consisted mainlyof one long street of log-houses, with some outlying cabins sprinkledaround rearward toward the woods; and now and then a pig, and no end ofmud. That was fifty-five years ago. She stopped at the hotel. Plainly itwas not the one which gave us our breakfast. She says--

'The table was laid for fifty persons, and was nearly full. They ate inperfect silence, and with such astonishing rapidity that their dinnerwas over literally before ours was begun; the only sounds heard werethose produced by the knives and forks, with the unceasing chorus ofcoughing, ETC. '

'Coughing, etc. ' The 'etc. ' stands for an unpleasant word there, a wordwhich she does not always charitably cover up, but sometimes prints. Youwill find it in the following description of a steamboat dinner whichshe ate in company with a lot of aristocratic planters; wealthy, well-born, ignorant swells they were, tinselled with the usual harmlessmilitary and judicial titles of that old day of cheap shams and windypretense--

'The total want of all the usual courtesies of the table; the voraciousrapidity with which the viands were seized and devoured; the strangeuncouth phrases and pronunciation; the loathsome spitting, from thecontamination of which it was absolutely impossible to protect ourdresses; the frightful manner of feeding with their knives, till thewhole blade seemed to enter into the mouth; and the still more frightfulmanner of cleaning the teeth afterward with a pocket knife, soon forcedus to feel that we were not surrounded by the generals, colonels, andmajors of the old world; and that the dinner hour was to be anythingrather than an hour of enjoyment. '

Chapter 30 Sketches by the Way

IT was a big river, below Memphis; banks brimming full, everywhere, andvery frequently more than full, the waters pouring out over the land, flooding the woods and fields for miles into the interior; and inplaces, to a depth of fifteen feet; signs, all about, of men's hard workgone to ruin, and all to be done over again, with straitened means and aweakened courage. A melancholy picture, and a continuous one;--hundredsof miles of it. Sometimes the beacon lights stood in water three feetdeep, in the edge of dense forests which extended for miles withoutfarm, wood-yard, clearing, or break of any kind; which meant that thekeeper of the light must come in a skiff a great distance to dischargehis trust, --and often in desperate weather. Yet I was told that thework is faithfully performed, in all weathers; and not always bymen, sometimes by women, if the man is sick or absent. The Governmentfurnishes oil, and pays ten or fifteen dollars a month for the lightingand tending. A Government boat distributes oil and pays wages once amonth. 

The Ship Island region was as woodsy and tenantless as ever. The islandhas ceased to be an island; has joined itself compactly to the mainshore, and wagons travel, now, where the steamboats used to navigate. Nosigns left of the wreck of the 'Pennsylvania. ' Some farmer will turn upher bones with his plow one day, no doubt, and be surprised. 

We were getting down now into the migrating negro region. These poorpeople could never travel when they were slaves; so they make up forthe privation now. They stay on a plantation till the desire to travelseizes them; then they pack up, hail a steamboat, and clear out. Not forany particular place; no, nearly any place will answer; they only wantto be moving. The amount of money on hand will answer the rest of theconundrum for them. If it will take them fifty miles, very well; let itbe fifty. If not, a shorter flight will do. 

During a couple of days, we frequently answered these hails. Sometimesthere was a group of high-water-stained, tumble-down cabins, populouswith colored folk, and no whites visible; with grassless patches of dryground here and there; a few felled trees, with skeleton cattle, mules, and horses, eating the leaves and gnawing the bark--no other food forthem in the flood-wasted land. Sometimes there was a single lonelylanding-cabin; near it the colored family that had hailed us; little andbig, old and young, roosting on the scant pile of household goods; theseconsisting of a rusty gun, some bed-ticks, chests, tinware, stools, a crippled looking-glass, a venerable arm-chair, and six or eightbase-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 arenever willing; they always object; so, one after another, in ridiculousprocession, they are dragged aboard; all four feet braced and slidingalong the stage, head likely to be pulled off; but the tugger marchingdeterminedly forward, bending to his work, with the rope over hisshoulder for better purchase. Sometimes a child is forgotten and left onthe bank; but never a dog. 

The usual river-gossip going on in the pilot-house. Island No. 63--anisland with a lovely 'chute, ' or passage, behind it in the former times. They said Jesse Jamieson, in the 'Skylark, ' had a visiting pilot withhim one trip--a poor old broken-down, superannuated fellow--left him atthe wheel, at the foot of 63, to run off the watch. The ancient marinerwent up through the chute, and down the river outside; and up the chuteand down the river again; and yet again and again; and handed theboat over to the relieving pilot, at the end of three hours of honestendeavor, at the same old foot of the island where he had originallytaken the wheel! A darkey on shore who had observed the boat go by, about thirteen times, said, 'clar to gracious, I wouldn't be s'prised ifdey's a whole line o' dem Sk'ylarks!'

Anecdote illustrative of influence of reputation in the changing ofopinion. The 'Eclipse' was renowned for her swiftness. One day shepassed along; an old darkey on shore, absorbed in his own matters, didnot notice what steamer it was. Presently someone asked--

'Any boat gone up?'

'Yes, sah. '

'Was she going fast?'

'Oh, so-so--loafin' along. '

'Now, do you know what boat that was?'

'No, sah. '

'Why, uncle, that was the "Eclipse. "'

'No! Is dat so? Well, I bet it was--cause she jes' went by herea-SPARKLIN'!'

Piece of history illustrative of the violent style of some of the peopledown along here, During the early weeks of high water, A's fence railswashed down on B's ground, and B's rails washed up in the eddy andlanded on A's ground. A said, 'Let the thing remain so; I will use yourrails, and you use mine. ' But B objected--wouldn't have it so. One day, A came down on B's ground to get his rails. B said, 'I'll kill you!' andproceeded for him with his revolver. A said, 'I'm not armed. ' So B, whowished to do only what was right, threw down his revolver; then pulleda knife, and cut A's throat all around, but gave his principal attentionto the front, and so failed to sever the jugular. Struggling around, Amanaged to get his hands on the discarded revolver, and shot B dead withit--and recovered from his own injuries. 

Further gossip;--after which, everybody went below to get afternooncoffee, and left me at the wheel, alone, Something presently remindedme of our last hour in St. Louis, part of which I spent on this boat'shurricane deck, aft. I was joined there by a stranger, who dropped intoconversation with me--a brisk young fellow, who said he was born in atown in the interior of Wisconsin, and had never seen a steamboat untila week before. Also said that on the way down from La Crosse he hadinspected and examined his boat so diligently and with such passionateinterest 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!' saidhe; and went chatting straight along, without waiting for assent ordenial. He immediately proposed to take me all over the boat and tellme the names of her different parts, and teach me their uses. Before Icould enter protest or excuse, he was already rattling glibly away athis benevolent work; and when I perceived that he was misnaming thethings, and inhospitably amusing himself at the expense of an innocentstranger 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 widerhis imagination expanded, and the more he enjoyed his cruel work ofdeceit. Sometimes, after palming off a particularly fantastic andoutrageous lie upon me, he was so 'full of laugh' that he had tostep aside for a minute, upon one pretext or another, to keep me fromsuspecting. I staid faithfully by him until his comedy was finished. Then he remarked that he had undertaken to 'learn' me all about asteamboat, and had done it; but that if he had overlooked anything, justask him and he would supply the lack. 'Anything about this boat that youdon't know the name of or the purpose of, you come to me and I'll tellyou. ' I said I would, and took my departure; disappeared, and approachedhim from another quarter, whence he could not see me. There he sat, allalone, doubling himself up and writhing this way and that, in the throesof unappeasable laughter. He must have made himself sick; for he wasnot publicly visible afterward for several days. Meantime, the episodedropped out of my mind. 

The thing that reminded me of it now, when I was alone at the wheel, was the spectacle of this young fellow standing in the pilot-house door, with the knob in his hand, silently and severely inspecting me. I don'tknow when I have seen anybody look so injured as he did. He did notsay anything--simply stood there and looked; reproachfully looked andpondered. Finally he shut the door, and started away; halted on thetexas a minute; came slowly back and stood in the door again, with thatgrieved look in his face; gazed upon me awhile in meek rebuke, thensaid--

'You let me learn you all about a steamboat, didn't 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 hegave it up, choked out a deep, strong oath, and departed for good. Afterward I saw him several times below during the trip; but he wascold--would not look at me. Idiot, if he had not been in such a sweat toplay his witless practical joke upon me, in the beginning, I would havepersuaded his thoughts into some other direction, and saved him fromcommitting that wanton and silly impoliteness. 

I had myself called with the four o'clock watch, mornings, for onecannot see too many summer sunrises on the Mississippi. They areenchanting. First, there is the eloquence of silence; for a deep hushbroods everywhere. Next, there is the haunting sense of loneliness, isolation, remoteness from the worry and bustle of the world. The dawncreeps in stealthily; the solid walls of black forest soften to gray, and vast stretches of the river open up and reveal themselves; the wateris glass-smooth, gives off spectral little wreaths of white mist, thereis not the faintest breath of wind, nor stir of leaf; the tranquillityis profound and infinitely satisfying. Then a bird pipes up, anotherfollows, and soon the pipings develop into a jubilant riot of music. You see none of the birds; you simply move through an atmosphere of songwhich seems to sing itself. When the light has become a little stronger, you have one of the fairest and softest pictures imaginable. You havethe intense green of the massed and crowded foliage near by; you see itpaling 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 ofspring; the cape beyond that one has almost lost color, and the furthestone, miles away under the horizon, sleeps upon the water a mere dimvapor, and hardly separable from the sky above it and about it. And allthis stretch of river is a mirror, and you have the shadowy reflectionsof the leafage and the curving shores and the receding capes pictured init. Well, that is all beautiful; soft and rich and beautiful; and whenthe sun gets well up, and distributes a pink flush here and a powder ofgold yonder and a purple haze where it will yield the best effect, yougrant that you have seen something that is worth remembering. 

We had the Kentucky Bend country in the early morning--scene of astrange and tragic accident in the old times, Captain Poe had a smallstern-wheel boat, for years the home of himself and his wife. One nightthe boat struck a snag in the head of Kentucky Bend, and sank withastonishing suddenness; water already well above the cabin floor whenthe captain got aft. So he cut into his wife's state-room from abovewith an ax; she was asleep in the upper berth, the roof a flimsier onethan was supposed; the first blow crashed down through the rotten boardsand clove her skull. 

This bend is all filled up now--result of a cut-off; and the same agenthas taken the great and once much-frequented Walnut Bend, and setit away back in a solitude far from the accustomed track of passingsteamers. 

Helena we visited, and also a town I had not heard of before, it beingof recent birth--Arkansas City. It was born of a railway; the LittleRock, 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 wishesto take time and be accurate, 'It's a hell of a place. ' A descriptionwhich was photographic for exactness. There were several rows andclusters of shabby frame-houses, and a supply of mud sufficient toinsure the town against a famine in that article for a hundred years;for the overflow had but lately subsided. There were stagnant pondsin the streets, here and there, and a dozen rude scows were scatteredabout, lying aground wherever they happened to have been when the watersdrained off and people could do their visiting and shopping on foot oncemore. Still, it is a thriving place, with a rich country behind it, anelevator in front of it, and also a fine big mill for the manufacture ofcotton-seed oil. I had never seen this kind of a mill before. 

Cotton-seed was comparatively valueless in my time; but it is worth $12or $13 a ton now, and none of it is thrown away. The oil made from it iscolorless, tasteless, and almost if not entirely odorless. It is claimedthat it can, by proper manipulation, be made to resemble and perform theoffice of any and all oils, and be produced at a cheaper rate thanthe cheapest of the originals. Sagacious people shipped it to Italy, doctored it, labeled it, and brought it back as olive oil. This tradegrew to be so formidable that Italy was obliged to put a prohibitoryimpost upon it to keep it from working serious injury to her oilindustry. 

Helena occupies one of the prettiest situations on the Mississippi. Herperch is the last, the southernmost group of hills which one sees onthat side of the river. In its normal condition it is a pretty town; butthe flood (or possibly the seepage) had lately been ravaging it; wholestreets of houses had been invaded by the muddy water, and the outsidesof the buildings were still belted with a broad stain extending upwardsfrom the foundations. Stranded and discarded scows lay all about;plank sidewalks on stilts four feet high were still standing; the boardsidewalks on the ground level were loose and ruinous, --a couple of mentrotting along them could make a blind man think a cavalry chargewas coming; everywhere the mud was black and deep, and in manyplaces malarious pools of stagnant water were standing. A Mississippiinundation 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 streetsbut few white people were visible, but there were plenty of coloredfolk--mainly women and girls; and almost without exception upholsteredin bright new clothes of swell and elaborate style and cut--a glaringand hilarious contrast to the mournful mud and the pensive puddles. 

Helena is the second town in Arkansas, in point of population--whichis placed at five thousand. The country about it is exceptionallyproductive. Helena has a good cotton trade; handles from forty to sixtythousand bales annually; she has a large lumber and grain commerce; hasa foundry, oil mills, machine shops and wagon factories--in brief has$1, 000, 000 invested in manufacturing industries. She has two railways, and is the commercial center of a broad and prosperous region. Her grossreceipts of money, annually, from all sources, are placed by the NewOrleans 'Times-Democrat' at $4, 000, 000. 

Chapter 31 A Thumb-print and What Came of It

WE were approaching Napoleon, Arkansas. So I began to think about myerrand there. Time, noonday; and bright and sunny. This was bad--notbest, anyway; for mine was not (preferably) a noonday kind of errand. The more I thought, the more that fact pushed itself upon me--now in oneform, 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 littlesacrifice of comfort and inclination, you can have night for it, andno inquisitive eyes around. This settled it. Plain question and plainanswer make the shortest road out of most perplexities. 

I got my friends into my stateroom, and said I was sorry to createannoyance and disappointment, but that upon reflection it really seemedbest that we put our luggage ashore and stop over at Napoleon. Theirdisapproval was prompt and loud; their language mutinous. Their mainargument 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 AGREEDto stick to this boat, etc. ; as if, having determined to do an unwisething, one is thereby bound to go ahead and make TWO unwise things ofit, by carrying out that determination. 

I tried various mollifying tactics upon them, with reasonably goodsuccess: under which encouragement, I increased my efforts; and, to showthem that I had not created this annoying errand, and was in no way toblame for it, I presently drifted into its history--substantially asfollows:

Toward the end of last year, I spent a few months in Munich, Bavaria. InNovember I was living in Fraulein Dahlweiner's PENSION, 1a, Karlstrasse;but my working quarters were a mile from there, in the house of a widowwho supported herself by taking lodgers. She and her two young childrenused to drop in every morning and talk German to me--by request. One day, during a ramble about the city, I visited one of the twoestablishments where the Government keeps and watches corpses untilthe doctors decide that they are permanently dead, and not in a trancestate. It was a grisly place, that spacious room. There were thirty-sixcorpses of adults in sight, stretched on their backs on slightly slantedboards, in three long rows--all of them with wax-white, rigid faces, andall of them wrapped in white shrouds. Along the sides of the roomwere deep alcoves, like bay windows; and in each of these lay severalmarble-visaged babes, utterly hidden and buried under banks of freshflowers, all but their faces and crossed hands. Around a finger of eachof these fifty still forms, both great and small, was a ring; and fromthe ring a wire led to the ceiling, and thence to a bell in a watch-roomyonder, where, day and night, a watchman sits always alert and readyto spring to the aid of any of that pallid company who, waking out ofdeath, shall make a movement--for any, even the slightest, movementwill twitch the wire and ring that fearful bell. I imagined myself adeath-sentinel drowsing there alone, far in the dragging watches of somewailing, gusty night, and having in a twinkling all my body strickento quivering jelly by the sudden clamor of that awful summons! So Iinquired about this thing; asked what resulted usually? if the watchmandied, and the restored corpse came and did what it could to make hislast moments easy. But I was rebuked for trying to feed an idle andfrivolous curiosity in so solemn and so mournful a place; and went myway 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 hishead propped high on pillows; his face was wasted and colorless, his deep-sunken eyes were shut; his hand, lying on his breast, wastalon-like, it was so bony and long-fingered. The widow began herintroduction of me. The man's eyes opened slowly, and glittered wickedlyout from the twilight of their caverns; he frowned a black frown; helifted his lean hand and waved us peremptorily away. But the widow keptstraight on, till she had got out the fact that I was a stranger andan American. The man's face changed at once; brightened, became eveneager--and the next moment he and I were alone together. 

I opened up in cast-iron German; he responded in quite flexible English;thereafter we gave the German language a permanent rest. 

This consumptive and I became good friends. I visited him every day, and we talked about everything. At least, about everything but wives andchildren. Let anybody's wife or anybody's child be mentioned, and threethings always followed: the most gracious and loving and tender lightglimmered in the man's eyes for a moment; faded out the next, and in itsplace came that deadly look which had flamed there the first time I eversaw his lids unclose; thirdly, he ceased from speech, there and then forthat day; lay silent, abstracted, and absorbed; apparently heard nothingthat I said; took no notice of my good-byes, and plainly did not know, by either sight or hearing, when I left the room. 

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

'I will tell you my story. '

A DYING MAN S CONFESSION

Then he went on as follows:--

I have never given up, until now. But now I have given up. I am going todie. 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-bye, when you findopportunity. Very well; that, together with a certain strangeexperience which fell to my lot last night, determines me to tell you myhistory--for you will see Napoleon, Arkansas; and for my sake youwill stop there, and do a certain thing for me--a thing which you willwillingly undertake after you shall have heard my narrative. 

Let us shorten the story wherever we can, for it will need it, beinglong. You already know how I came to go to America, and how I came tosettle in that lonely region in the South. But you do not know that Ihad a wife. My wife was young, beautiful, loving, and oh, so divinelygood and blameless and gentle! And our little girl was her mother inminiature. It was the happiest of happy households. 

One night--it was toward the close of the war--I woke up out of a soddenlethargy, and found myself bound and gagged, and the air tainted withchloroform! I 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 asfor the child--'

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'thave come. '

'Shut up your whining; had to change the plan when they waked up; youdone all you could to protect them, now let that satisfy you; come, helprummage. '

Both men were masked, and wore coarse, ragged 'nigger' clothes; they hada bull's-eye lantern, and by its light I noticed that the gentler robberhad no thumb on his right hand. They rummaged around my poor cabin for amoment; 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, andrevive 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 ofvoices 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 theirbull's-eye as they ran. 

The strangers shouted several times more, then rode by--there seemed tobe 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 mywife's voice and my child's--listened long and intently, but no soundcame from the other end of the room where their bed was. This silencebecame more and more awful, more and more ominous, every moment. Couldyou have endured an hour of it, do you think? Pity me, then, who hadto endure three. Three hours--? it was three ages! Whenever the clockstruck, it seemed as if years had gone by since I had heard it last. Allthis time I was struggling in my bonds; and at last, about dawn, I gotmyself free, and rose up and stretched my stiff limbs. I was able todistinguish details pretty well. The floor was littered with thingsthrown there by the robbers during their search for my savings. Thefirst object that caught my particular attention was a document of minewhich I had seen the rougher of the two ruffians glance at and then castaway. It had blood on it! I staggered to the other end of the room. Oh, poor unoffending, helpless ones, there they lay, their troubles ended, mine begun!

Did I appeal to the law--I? Does it quench the pauper's thirst if theKing drink for him? Oh, no, no, no--I wanted no impertinent interferenceof the law. Laws and the gallows could not pay the debt that was owingto me! Let the laws leave the matter in my hands, and have no fears: Iwould find the debtor and collect the debt. How accomplish this, do yousay? How accomplish it, and feel so sure about it, when I had neitherseen the robbers' faces, nor heard their natural voices, nor had anyidea who they might be? Nevertheless, I WAS sure--quite sure, quiteconfident. I had a clue--a clue which you would not have valued--a cluewhich would not have greatly helped even a detective, since he wouldlack the secret of how to apply it. I shall come to that, presently--youshall see. Let us go on, now, taking things in their due order. Therewas one circumstance which gave me a slant in a definite directionto begin with: Those two robbers were manifestly soldiers in trampdisguise; and not new to military service, but old in it--regulars, perhaps; they did not acquire their soldierly attitude, gestures, carriage, in a day, nor a month, nor yet in a year. So I thought, but said nothing. And one of them had said, 'the captain's voice, by G--!'--the one whose life I would have. Two miles away, severalregiments were in camp, and two companies of U. S. Cavalry. When Ilearned that Captain Blakely, of Company C had passed our way, thatnight, with an escort, I said nothing, but in that company I resolved toseek my man. In conversation I studiously and persistently described therobbers as tramps, camp followers; and among this class the people madeuseless search, none suspecting the soldiers but me. 

Working patiently, by night, in my desolated home, I made a disguise formyself out of various odds and ends of clothing; in the nearest villageI bought a pair of blue goggles. By-and-bye, when the military campbroke 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 inthe night. When Company C arrived in Napoleon, I was already there. Yes, I was there, with a new trade--fortune-teller. Not to seem partial, Imade friends and told fortunes among all the companies garrisoned there;but I gave Company C the great bulk of my attentions. I made myselflimitlessly obliging to these particular men; they could ask me nofavor, put upon me no risk, which I would decline. I became the willingbutt 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! Andwhen I found that he alone, of all the company, had lost a thumb, mylast misgiving vanished; I was SURE I was on the right track. This man'sname was Kruger, a German. There were nine Germans in the company. Iwatched, to see who might be his intimates; but he seemed to have noespecial intimates. But I was his intimate; and I took care to makethe intimacy grow. Sometimes I so hungered for my revenge that I couldhardly restrain myself from going on my knees and begging him to pointout the man who had murdered my wife and child; but I managed to bridlemy tongue. I bided my time, and went on telling fortunes, as opportunityoffered. 

My apparatus was simple: a little red paint and a bit of white paper. Ipainted 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. Whatwas my idea in this nonsense? It was this: When I was a youth, I knew anold Frenchman who had been a prison-keeper for thirty years, and he toldme that there was one thing about a person which never changed, fromthe cradle to the grave--the lines in the ball of the thumb; and he saidthat these lines were never exactly alike in the thumbs of any two humanbeings. In these days, we photograph the new criminal, and hang hispicture 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 thumband put that away for future reference. He always said that pictureswere no good--future disguises could make them useless; 'The thumb'sthe only sure thing, ' said he; 'you can't disguise that. ' And he usedto prove his theory, too, on my friends and acquaintances; it alwayssucceeded. 

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 thedevouring eagerness with which I pored over those mazy red spirals, with that document by my side which bore the right-handthumb-and-finger-marks of that unknown murderer, printed with thedearest blood--to me--that was ever shed on this earth! And many andmany a time I had to repeat the same old disappointed remark, 'will theyNEVER correspond!'

But my reward came at last. It was the print of the thumb of theforty-third man of Company C whom I had experimented on--Private FranzAdler. 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 demonstrationsbeing so good a warranty. Still, there was a way to MAKE sure. I had animpression of Kruger's left thumb. In the morning I took him aside whenhe 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 betterfor you if I did not tell it in public. You and another man, whosefortune I was studying last night, --Private Adler, --have been murderinga woman and a child! You are being dogged: within five days both of youwill be assassinated. '

He dropped on his knees, frightened out of his wits; and for fiveminutes he kept pouring out the same set of words, like a dementedperson, and in the same half-crying way which was one of my memories ofthat murderous night in my cabin--

'I didn't do it; upon my soul I didn't do it; and I tried to keep HIMfrom doing it; I did, as God is my witness. He did it alone. '

This was all I wanted. And I tried to get rid of the fool; but no, heclung to me, imploring me to save him from the assassin. He said--

'I have money--ten thousand dollars--hid away, the fruit of loot andthievery; save me--tell me what to do, and you shall have it, everypenny. Two-thirds of it is my cousin Adler's; but you can take itall. We hid it when we first came here. But I hid it in a new placeyesterday, and have not told him--shall not tell him. I was going todesert, and get away with it all. It is gold, and too heavy to carrywhen one is running and dodging; but a woman who has been gone over theriver two days to prepare my way for me is going to follow me with it;and if I got no chance to describe the hiding-place to her I was goingto slip my silver watch into her hand, or send it to her, and she wouldunderstand. There's a piece of paper in the back of the case, whichtells it all. Here, take the watch--tell me what to do!'

He was trying to press his watch upon me, and was exposing the paperand explaining it to me, when Adler appeared on the scene, about a dozenyards away. I said to poor Kruger--

'Put up your watch, I don't want it. You shan't come to any harm. Go, now; I must tell Adler his fortune. Presently I will tell you how toescape the assassin; meantime I shall have to examine your thumbmarkagain. Say nothing to Adler about this thing--say nothing to anybody. '

He went away filled with fright and gratitude, poor devil. I told Adlera long fortune--purposely so long that I could not finish it; promisedto come to him on guard, that night, and tell him the really importantpart of it--the tragical part of it, I said--so must be out of reach ofeavesdroppers. They always kept a picket-watch outside the town--merediscipline and ceremony--no occasion for it, no enemy around. 

Toward midnight I set out, equipped with the countersign, and picked myway toward the lonely region where Adler was to keep his watch. It wasso dark that I stumbled right on a dim figure almost before I could getout a protecting word. The sentinel hailed and I answered, both at thesame moment. I added, 'It's only me--the fortune-teller. ' Then I slippedto the poor devil's side, and without a word I drove my dirk into hisheart! YA WOHL, laughed I, it WAS the tragedy part of his fortune, indeed! As he fell from his horse, he clutched at me, and my bluegoggles 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 accusinggoggles behind me in that dead man's hand. 

This was fifteen or sixteen years ago. Since then I have wanderedaimlessly about the earth, sometimes at work, sometimes idle; sometimeswith money, sometimes with none; but always tired of life, and wishingit was done, for my mission here was finished, with the act of thatnight; and the only pleasure, solace, satisfaction I had, in all thosetedious years, was in the daily reflection, 'I have killed him!'

Four years ago, my health began to fail. I had wandered into Munich, inmy purposeless way. Being out of money, I sought work, and got it; didmy duty faithfully about a year, and was then given the berth of nightwatchman yonder in that dead-house which you visited lately. The placesuited my mood. I liked it. I liked being with the dead--liked beingalone with them. I used to wander among those rigid corpses, and peerinto their austere faces, by the hour. The later the time, the moreimpressive it was; I preferred the late time. Sometimes I turned thelights low: this gave perspective, you see; and the imagination couldplay; always, the dim receding ranks of the dead inspired one with weirdand fascinating fancies. Two years ago--I had been there a year then--Iwas sitting all alone in the watch-room, one gusty winter's night, chilled, numb, comfortless; drowsing gradually into unconsciousness; thesobbing of the wind and the slamming of distant shutters falling fainterand fainter upon my dulling ear each moment, when sharp and suddenlythat dead-bell rang out a blood-curdling alarum over my head! The shockof it nearly paralyzed me; for it was the first time I had ever heardit. 

I gathered myself together and flew to the corpse-room. About midwaydown the outside rank, a shrouded figure was sitting upright, waggingits head slowly from one side to the other--a grisly spectacle! Its sidewas toward me. I hurried to it and peered into its face. Heavens, it wasAdler!

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 resultthis time!'

Evidently this creature was suffering unimaginable terrors. Think whatit 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 shonein his skinny white face when he saw a living form before him! And howthe fervency of this mute gratitude was augmented when his eyes fellupon the life-giving cordials which I carried in my hands! Then imaginethe horror which came into this pinched face when I put the cordialsbehind me, and said mockingly--

'Speak up, Franz Adler--call upon these dead. Doubtless they will listenand have pity; but here there is none else that will. '

He tried to speak, but that part of the shroud which bound his jaws, held firm and would not let him. He tried to lift imploring hands, butthey were crossed upon his breast and tied. I said--

'Shout, Franz Adler; make the sleepers in the distant streets hear youand bring help. Shout--and lose no time, for there is little to lose. What, you cannot? That is a pity; but it is no matter--it does notalways bring help. When you and your cousin murdered a helpless womanand child in a cabin in Arkansas--my wife, it was, and my child!--theyshrieked for help, you remember; but it did no good; you remember thatit did no good, is it not so? Your teeth chatter--then why cannotyou shout? Loosen the bandages with your hands--then you can. Ah, Isee--your hands are tied, they cannot aid you. How strangely thingsrepeat 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 couldnot pull free. It did not occur to you to untie me; it does not occur tome 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!--itis the one sole chance between you and eternity! Ah, you see you havedelayed 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 thelast time. How curious it must be, to listen to so common a sound asthat, 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! Ithought of a new torture, and applied it--assisting myself with a trifleof lying invention--

'That poor Kruger tried to save my wife and child, and I did him agrateful good turn for it when the time came. I persuaded him torob you; and I and a woman helped him to desert, and got him away insafety. ' A look as of surprise and triumph shone out dimly through theanguish in my victim's face. I was disturbed, disquieted. I said--

'What, then--didn't he escape?'

A negative shake of the head. 

'No? What happened, then?'

The satisfaction in the shrouded face was still plainer. The man triedto mumble out some words--could not succeed; tried to express somethingwith his obstructed hands--failed; paused a moment, then feebly tiltedhis head, in a meaning way, toward the corpse 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. I bent over and watched still moreintently. He had twisted a thumb around and was weakly punching at hisbreast with it. 'Ah--stabbed, do you mean?'

Affirmative nod, accompanied by a spectral smile of such peculiardevilishness, that it struck an awakening light through my dull brain, and I cried--

'Did I stab him, mistaking him for you?--for that stroke was meant fornone but you. '

The affirmative nod of the re-dying rascal was as joyous as his failingstrength was able to put into its expression. 

'O, miserable, miserable me, to slaughter the pitying soul that, stood afriend to my darlings when they were helpless, and would have saved themif he could! miserable, oh, miserable, miserable me!'

I fancied I heard the muffled gurgle of a mocking laugh. I took my faceout 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, anastonishing constitution. Yes, he was a pleasant long time at it. I gota chair and a newspaper, and sat down by him and read. Occasionally Itook a sip of brandy. This was necessary, on account of the cold. But Idid it partly because I saw, that along at first, whenever I reachedfor the bottle, he thought I was going to give him some. I read aloud:mainly imaginary accounts of people snatched from the grave's thresholdand restored to life and vigor by a few spoonsful of liquor and a warmbath. 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 elapsedsince the institution of the corpse-watch, no shrouded occupant of theBavarian dead-houses has ever rung its bell. Well, it is a harmlessbelief. Let it stand at that. 

The chill of that death-room had penetrated my bones. It revived andfastened upon me the disease which had been afflicting me, but which, upto that night, had been steadily disappearing. That man murdered my wifeand 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 escapingfrom his grave, and thrust him back into it. 

After that night, I was confined to my bed for a week; but as soon asI could get about, I went to the dead-house books and got the number ofthe 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'seffects, being his cousin; and I wanted to get Kruger's watch, if Icould. 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, theonly relative left. He is a man of thirty now, a shoemaker by trade, and living at No. 14 Konigstrasse, Mannheim--widower, with several smallchildren. Without explaining to him why, I have furnished two-thirds ofhis support, ever since. 

Now, as to that watch--see how strangely things happen! I traced itaround and about Germany for more than a year, at considerable cost inmoney and vexation; and at last I got it. Got it, and was unspeakablyglad; opened it, and found nothing in it! Why, I might have known thatthat bit of paper was not going to stay there all this time. Of courseI gave up that ten thousand dollars then; gave it up, and dropped it outof my mind: and most sorrowfully, for I had wanted it for Kruger's son. 

Last night, when I consented at last that I must die, I began to makeready. I proceeded to burn all useless papers; and sure enough, from abatch of Adler's, not previously examined with thoroughness, out droppedthat long-desired scrap! I recognized it in a moment. Here it is--I willtranslate it:

'Brick livery stable, stone foundation, middle of town, corner ofOrleans 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 wasremovable; and that it was in the north wall of the foundation, fourthrow from the top, and third stone from the west. The money is secretedbehind it. He said the closing sentence was a blind, to mislead incase the paper should fall into wrong hands. It probably performed thatoffice for Adler. 

Now I want to beg that when you make your intended journey down theriver, you will hunt out that hidden money, and send it to Adam Kruger, care of the Mannheim address which I have mentioned. It will make a richman of him, and I shall sleep the sounder in my grave for knowing that Ihave done what I could for the son of the man who tried to save mywife and child--albeit my hand ignorantly struck him down, whereas theimpulse of my heart would have been to shield and serve him. 

Chapter 32 The Disposal of a Bonanza

'SUCH was Ritter's narrative, ' said I to my two friends. There was aprofound and impressive silence, which lasted a considerable time; thenboth men broke into a fusillade of exciting and admiring ejaculationsover the strange incidents of the tale; and this, along with a rattlingfire 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 ofoccasional volleys, into silence and abysmal reverie. For ten minutesnow, there was stillness. Then Rogers said dreamily--

'Ten thousand dollars. '

Adding, after a considerable pause--

'Ten thousand. It is a heap of money. '

Presently the poet inquired--

'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 thoughtwhich started up in me. Thompson spoke, but my mind was absent, and Idid 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'tsee that he has done anything. '

Presently the poet said--

'When you come to look at it, it is more than sufficient. Just look atit--five thousand dollars! Why, he couldn't spend it in a lifetime! Andit 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, maybetake to drinking, maltreat his motherless children, drift into otherevil courses, go steadily from bad to worse--'

'Yes, that's it, ' interrupted Rogers, fervently, 'I've seen it a hundredtimes--yes, more than a hundred. You put money into the hands of a manlike that, if you want to destroy him, that's all; just put money intohis 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 andeverything, then I don't know human nature--ain't that so, Thompson?And even if we were to give him a THIRD of it; why, in less than sixmonths--'

'Less than six WEEKS, you'd better say!' said I, warming up and breakingin. 'Unless he had that three thousand dollars in safe hands where hecouldn'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 kindof people; and the moment they get their hands on the royalty--maybeit's three thousand, maybe it's two thousand--'

'What business has that shoemaker with two thousand dollars, I shouldlike to know?' broke in Rogers, earnestly. 'A man perhaps perfectlycontented now, there in Mannheim, surrounded by his own class, eatinghis bread with the appetite which laborious industry alone cangive, enjoying his humble life, honest, upright, pure in heart; andBLEST!--yes, I say blest! blest above all the myriads that go in silkattire and walk the empty artificial round of social folly--but justyou put that temptation before him once! just you lay fifteen hundreddollars before a man like that, and say--'

'Fifteen hundred devils!' cried I, 'FIVE hundred would rot hisprinciples, paralyze his industry, drag him to the rumshop, thence tothe gutter, thence to the almshouse, thence to ----'

'WHY put upon ourselves this crime, gentlemen?' interrupted the poetearnestly and appealingly. 'He is happy where he is, and AS he is. Everysentiment of honor, every sentiment of charity, every sentiment of highand sacred benevolence warns us, beseeches us, commands us to leave himundisturbed. That is real friendship, that is true friendship. We couldfollow other courses that would be more showy; but none that would be sotruly kind and wise, depend upon it. '

After some further talk, it became evident that each of us, down in hisheart, felt some misgivings over this settlement of the matter. Itwas manifest that we all felt that we ought to send the poor shoemakerSOMETHING. There was long and thoughtful discussion of this point; andwe finally decided to send him a chromo. 

Well, now that everything seemed to be arranged satisfactorily toeverybody concerned, a new trouble broke out: it transpired that thesetwo men were expecting to share equally in the money with me. That wasnot my idea. I said that if they got half of it between them they mightconsider themselves lucky. Rogers said--

'Who would have had ANY if it hadn't been for me? I flung out the firsthint--but for that it would all have gone to the shoemaker. '

Thompson said that he was thinking of the thing himself at the verymoment that Rogers had originally spoken. 

I retorted that the idea would have occurred to me plenty soon enough, and without anybody's help. I was slow about thinking, maybe, but I wassure. 

This matter warmed up into a quarrel; then into a fight; and each mangot pretty badly battered. As soon as I had got myself mended up aftera fashion, I ascended to the hurricane deck in a pretty sour humor. Ifound Captain McCord there, and said, as pleasantly as my humor wouldpermit--

'I have come to say good-bye, captain. I wish to go ashore at Napoleon. '

'Go ashore where?'

'Napoleon. '

The captain laughed; but seeing that I was not in a jovial mood, stoppedthat and said--

'But are you serious?'

'Serious? I 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 hewants to?'

'Why, hang it, don't you know? There ISN'T any Napoleon any more. Hasn'tbeen for years and years. The Arkansas River burst through it, tore itall to rags, and emptied it into the Mississippi!'

'Carried the WHOLE town away?-banks, churches, jails, newspaper-offices, court-house, theater, fire department, livery stable EVERYTHING ?'

'Everything. Just a fifteen-minute job. ' or such a matter. Didn't leavehide nor hair, shred nor shingle of it, except the fag-end of a shantyand one brick chimney. This boat is paddling along right now, where thedead-center of that town used to be; yonder is the brick chimney-allthat's left of Napoleon. These dense woods on the right used to be amile back of the town. Take a look behind you--up-stream--now you beginto recognize this country, don't you?'

'Yes, I do recognize it now. It is the most wonderful thing I ever heardof; by a long shot the most wonderful--and unexpected. '

Mr. Thompson and Mr. Rogers had arrived, meantime, with satchels andumbrellas, and had silently listened to the captain's news. Thompson puta 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 betweenunpeopled shores and straight over the spot where I used to see a goodbig self-complacent town twenty years ago. Town that was county-seatof a great and important county; town with a big United States marinehospital; town of innumerable fights--an inquest every day; town whereI had used to know the prettiest girl, and the most accomplished in thewhole Mississippi Valley; town where we were handed the first printednews of the 'Pennsylvania's' mournful disaster a quarter of a centuryago; a town no more--swallowed up, vanished, gone to feed the fishes;nothing left but a fragment of a shanty and a crumbling brick chimney!

Chapter 33 Refreshments and Ethics

IN regard to Island 74, which is situated not far from the formerNapoleon, a freak of the river here has sorely perplexed the laws ofmen and made them a vanity and a jest. When the State of Arkansas waschartered, she controlled 'to the center of the river'--a most unstableline. The State of Mississippi claimed 'to the channel'--another shiftyand unstable line. No. 74 belonged to Arkansas. By and by a cut-offthrew this big island out of Arkansas, and yet not within Mississippi. 'Middle of the river' on one side of it, 'channel' on the other. Thatis as I understand the problem. Whether I have got the details right orwrong, this FACT remains: that here is this big and exceedingly valuableisland of four thousand acres, thrust out in the cold, and belongingto neither the one State nor the other; paying taxes to neither, owingallegiance to neither. One man owns the whole island, and of right is'the man without a country. '

Island 92 belongs to Arkansas. The river moved it over and joined itto Mississippi. A chap established a whiskey shop there, without aMississippi license, and enriched himself upon Mississippi custom underArkansas protection (where no license was in those days required). 

We glided steadily down the river in the usual privacy--steamboat orother moving thing seldom seen. Scenery as always: stretch upon stretchof almost unbroken forest, on both sides of the river; soundlesssolitude. Here and there a cabin or two, standing in small openings onthe gray and grassless banks--cabins which had formerly stood a quarteror half-mile farther to the front, and gradually been pulled fartherand farther back as the shores caved in. As at Pilcher's Point, forinstance, where the cabins had been moved back three hundred yards inthree months, so we were told; but the caving banks had already caughtup with them, and they were being conveyed rearward once more. 

Napoleon had but small opinion of Greenville, Mississippi, in the oldtimes; but behold, Napoleon is gone to the cat-fishes, and here isGreenville full of life and activity, and making a considerable flourishin the Valley; having three thousand inhabitants, it is said, and doinga gross trade of $2, 500, 000 annually. A growing town. 

There was much talk on the boat about the Calhoun Land Company, anenterprise which is expected to work wholesome results. Colonel Calhoun, a grandson of the statesman, went to Boston and formed a syndicatewhich purchased a large tract of land on the river, in Chicot County, Arkansas--some ten thousand acres--for cotton-growing. The purpose is towork on a cash basis: buy at first hands, and handle their own product;supply their negro laborers with provisions and necessaries at atrifling profit, say 8 or 10 per cent. ; furnish them comfortablequarters, etc. , and encourage them to save money and remain on theplace. If this proves a financial success, as seems quite certain, theypropose to establish a banking-house in Greenville, and lend money at anunburdensome rate of interest--6 per cent. Is spoken of. 

The trouble heretofore has been--I am quoting remarks of planters andsteamboatmen--that the planters, although owning the land, were withoutcash capital; had to hypothecate both land and crop to carry on thebusiness. Consequently, the commission dealer who furnishes the moneytakes some risk and demands big interest--usually 10 per cent. , and2{half} per cent. For negotiating the loan. The planter has also to buyhis supplies through the same dealer, paying commissions and profits. Then when he ships his crop, the dealer adds his commissions, insurance, etc. So, taking it by and large, and first and last, the dealer's shareof that crop is about 25 per cent. '{footnote ['But what can the State dowhere the people are under subjection to rates of interest ranging from18 to 30 per cent. , and are also under the necessity of purchasing theircrops in advance even of planting, at these rates, for the privilegeof purchasing all their supplies at 100 per cent. Profit?'--EDWARDATKINSON. ]}

A cotton-planter's estimate of the average margin of profit on planting, in his section: One man and mule will raise ten acres of cotton, givingten bales cotton, worth, say, $500; cost of producing, say $350; netprofit, $150, or $15 per acre. There is also a profit now fromthe cotton-seed, which formerly had little value--none where muchtransportation was necessary. In sixteen hundred pounds crude cottonfour hundred are lint, worth, say, ten cents a pound; and twelve hundredpounds of seed, worth $12 or $13 per ton. Maybe in future even the stemswill not be thrown away. Mr. Edward Atkinson says that for each baleof cotton there are fifteen hundred pounds of stems, and that these arevery rich in phosphate of lime and potash; that when ground and mixedwith ensilage or cotton-seed meal (which is too rich for use as fodderin large quantities), the stem mixture makes a superior food, rich inall 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 toward the formerslave, since the war; will have nothing but a chill business relationwith him, no sentiment permitted to intrude, will not keep a 'store'himself, and supply the negro's wants and thus protect the negro'spocket and make him able and willing to stay on the place and anadvantage to him to do it, but lets that privilege to some thriftyIsraelite, who encourages the thoughtless negro and wife to buy allsorts of things which they could do without--buy on credit, at bigprices, month after month, credit based on the negro's share of thegrowing crop; and at the end of the season, the negro's share belongsto the Israelite, ' the negro is in debt besides, is discouraged, dissatisfied, restless, and both he and the planter are injured; for hewill take steamboat and migrate, and the planter must get a stranger inhis place who does not know him, does not care for him, will fatten theIsraelite a season, and follow his predecessor per steamboat. 

It is hoped that the Calhoun Company will show, by its humane andprotective treatment of its laborers, that its method is the mostprofitable for both planter and negro; and it is believed that a generaladoption 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 peoplealong here in Mississippi and Louisiana will send up the river to buyvegetables rather than raise them, and they will come aboard at thelandings and buy fruits of the barkeeper. Thinks they 'don't knowanything but cotton;' believes they don't know how to raise vegetablesand fruit--'at least the most of them. ' Says 'a nigger will go to H fora watermelon' ('H' is all I find in the stenographer's report--meansHalifax probably, though that seems a good way to go for a watermelon). Barkeeper buys watermelons for five cents up the river, brings themdown and sells them for fifty. 'Why does he mix such elaborate andpicturesque drinks for the nigger hands on the boat?' Because they won'thave any other. 'They want a big drink; don't make any difference whatyou make it of, they want the worth of their money. You give a nigger aplain gill of half-a-dollar brandy for five cents--will he touch it? No. Ain't size enough to it. But you put up a pint of all kinds of worthlessrubbish, and heave in some red stuff to make it beautiful--red's themain thing--and he wouldn't put down that glass to go to a circus. 'All the bars on this Anchor Line are rented and owned by one firm. They furnish the liquors from their own establishment, and hire thebarkeepers 'on salary. ' Good liquors? Yes, on some of the boats, wherethere are the kind of passengers that want it and can pay for it. Onthe other boats? No. Nobody but the deck hands and firemen to drink it. 'Brandy? Yes, I've got brandy, plenty of it; but you don't want any ofit unless you've made your will. ' It isn't as it used to be in theold times. Then everybody traveled by steamboat, everybody drank, andeverybody treated everybody else. 'Now most everybody goes by railroad, and the rest don't drink. ' In the old times the barkeeper owned the barhimself, 'and was gay and smarty and talky and all jeweled up, and wasthe toniest aristocrat on the boat; used to make $2, 000 on a trip. Afather who left his son a steamboat bar, left him a fortune. Now heleaves him board and lodging; yes, and washing, if a shirt a trip willdo. Yes, indeedy, times are changed. Why, do you know, on the principalline of boats on the Upper Mississippi, they don't have any bar at all!Sounds like poetry, but it's the petrified truth. '

Chapter 34 Tough Yarns

STACK ISLAND. I remembered Stack Island; also Lake Providence, Louisiana--which is the first distinctly Southern-looking town you cometo, downward-bound; lies level and low, shade-trees hung with venerablegray beards of Spanish moss; 'restful, pensive, Sunday aspect about theplace, ' comments Uncle Mumford, with feeling--also with truth. 

A Mr. H. Furnished some minor details of fact concerning this regionwhich I would have hesitated to believe if I had not known him to be asteamboat mate. He was a passenger of ours, a resident of Arkansas City, and bound to Vicksburg to join his boat, a little Sunflower packet. He was an austere man, and had the reputation of being singularlyunworldly, for a river man. Among other things, he said that Arkansashad been injured and kept back by generations of exaggerationsconcerning the mosquitoes here. One may smile, said he, and turn thematter off as being a small thing; but when you come to look at theeffects produced, in the way of discouragement of immigration, anddiminished values of property, it was quite the opposite of a smallthing, or thing in any wise to be coughed down or sneered at. Thesemosquitoes had been persistently represented as being formidable andlawless; whereas 'the truth is, they are feeble, insignificant in size, diffident to a fault, sensitive'--and so on, and so on; you would havesupposed he was talking about his family. But if he was soft on theArkansas mosquitoes, he was hard enough on the mosquitoes of LakeProvidence to make up for it--'those Lake Providence colossi, ' as hefinely called them. He said that two of them could whip a dog, and thatfour of them could hold a man down; and except help come, they wouldkill him--'butcher him, ' as he expressed it. Referred in a sort ofcasual way--and yet significant way--to 'the fact that the life policyin its simplest form is unknown in Lake Providence--they take out amosquito policy besides. ' He told many remarkable things about thoselawless insects. Among others, said he had seen them try to vote. Noticing that this statement seemed to be a good deal of a strain on us, he modified it a little: said he might have been mistaken, as to thatparticular, but knew he had seen them around the polls 'canvassing. '

There was another passenger--friend of H. 's--who backed up the harshevidence against those mosquitoes, and detailed some stirring adventureswhich he had had with them. The stories were pretty sizable, merelypretty sizable; yet Mr. H. Was continually interrupting with a cold, inexorable 'Wait--knock off twenty-five per cent. Of that; now goon;' or, 'Wait--you are getting that too strong; cut it down, cut itdown--you get a leetle too much costumery on to your statements: alwaysdress a fact in tights, never in an ulster;' or, 'Pardon, once more: ifyou are going to load anything more on to that statement, you want toget a couple of lighters and tow the rest, because it's drawing all thewater there is in the river already; stick to facts--just stick tothe cold facts; what these gentlemen want for a book is the frozentruth--ain't that so, gentlemen?' He explained privately that it wasnecessary 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 hissorrow. ' Said he, 'I will not deceive you; he told me such a monstrouslie once, that it swelled my left ear up, and spread it so that I wasactually not able to see out around it; it remained so for months, andpeople came miles to see me fan myself with it. '

Chapter 35 Vicksburg During the Trouble

WE used to plow past the lofty hill-city, Vicksburg, down-stream; butwe cannot do that now. A cut-off has made a country town of it, likeOsceola, St. Genevieve, and several others. There is currentless water--also a big island--in front of Vicksburg now. You come down the riverthe other side of the island, then turn and come up to the town; thatis, in high water: in low water you can't come up, but must land somedistance below it. 

Signs and scars still remain, as reminders of Vicksburg's tremendouswar experiences; earthworks, trees crippled by the cannon balls, cave-refuges in the clay precipices, etc. The caves did good serviceduring the six weeks' bombardment of the city--May 8 to July 4, 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. Theywere mere holes, tunnels, driven into the perpendicular clay bank, thenbranched Y shape, within the hill. Life in Vicksburg, during the sixweeks was perhaps--but wait; here are some materials out of which toreproduce it:--

Population, twenty-seven thousand soldiers and three thousandnon-combatants; the city utterly cut off from the world--walled solidlyin, the frontage by gunboats, the rear by soldiers and batteries;hence, no buying and selling with the outside; no passing to and fro;no God-speeding a parting guest, no welcoming a coming one; no printedacres of world-wide news to be read at breakfast, mornings--a tediousdull absence of such matter, instead; hence, also, no running to seesteamboats smoking into view in the distance up or down, and plowingtoward the town--for none came, the river lay vacant and undisturbed;no rush and turmoil around the railway station, no struggling overbewildered swarms of passengers by noisy mobs of hackmen--all quietthere; flour two hundred dollars a barrel, sugar thirty, corn tendollars a bushel, bacon five dollars a pound, rum a hundred dollars agallon; other things in proportion: consequently, no roar and racket ofdrays and carriages tearing along the streets; nothing for them todo, among that handful of non-combatants of exhausted means; at threeo'clock in the morning, silence; silence so dead that the measuredtramp of a sentinel can be heard a seemingly impossible distance; out ofhearing of this lonely sound, perhaps the stillness is absolute: all ina moment come ground-shaking thunder-crashes of artillery, the skyis cobwebbed with the crisscrossing red lines streaming from soaringbomb-shells, and a rain of iron fragments descends upon the city;descends upon the empty streets: streets which are not empty a momentlater, but mottled with dim figures of frantic women and childrenscurrying from home and bed toward the cave dungeons--encouraged by thehumorous grim soldiery, who shout 'Rats, to your holes!' and laugh. 

The cannon-thunder rages, shells scream and crash overhead, the ironrain pours down, one hour, two hours, three, possibly six, then stops;silence follows, but the streets are still empty; the silence continues;by-and-bye a head projects from a cave here and there and yonder, andreconnoitres, cautiously; the silence still continuing, bodies followheads, and jaded, half smothered creatures group themselves about, stretch their cramped limbs, draw in deep draughts of the grateful freshair, gossip with the neighbors from the next cave; maybe straggle offhome presently, or take a lounge through the town, if the stillnesscontinues; and will scurry to the holes again, by-and-bye, when thewar-tempest breaks forth once more. 

There being but three thousand of these cave-dwellers--merely thepopulation of a village--would they not come to know each other, after aweek or two, and familiarly; insomuch that the fortunate or unfortunateexperiences of one would be of interest to all?

Those are the materials furnished by history. From them might not almostanybody reproduce for himself the life of that time in Vicksburg? Couldyou, who did not experience it, come nearer to reproducing it to theimagination of another non-participant than could a Vicksburger who didexperience it? It seems impossible; and yet there are reasons why itmight not really be. When one makes his first voyage in a ship, it isan experience which multitudinously bristles with striking novelties;novelties which are in such sharp contrast with all this person'sformer experiences that they take a seemingly deathless grip upon hisimagination and memory. By tongue or pen he can make a landsman livethat strange and stirring voyage over with him; make him see it all andfeel it all. But if he wait? If he make ten voyages in succession--whatthen? Why, the thing has lost color, snap, surprise; and has becomecommonplace. The man would have nothing to tell that would quicken alandsman's pulse. 

Years ago, I talked with a couple of the Vicksburg non-combatants--a manand his wife. Left to tell their story in their own way, those peopletold it without fire, almost without interest. 

A week of their wonderful life there would have made their tongueseloquent for ever perhaps; but they had six weeks of it, and that worethe novelty all out; they got used to being bomb-shelled out of homeand into the ground; the matter became commonplace. After that, thepossibility of their ever being startlingly interesting in their talksabout it was gone. What the man said was to this effect:--

'It got to be Sunday all the time. Seven Sundays in the week--to us, anyway. We hadn't anything to do, and time hung heavy. Seven Sundays, and all of them broken up at one time or another, in the day or in thenight, 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 didafterwards. The first time, I forgot the children, and Maria fetchedthem both along. When she was all safe in the cave she fainted. Two orthree weeks afterwards, when she was running for the holes, one morning, through a shell-shower, a big shell burst near her, and covered her allover with dirt, and a piece of the iron carried away her game-bag offalse hair from the back of her head. Well, she stopped to get thatgame-bag before she shoved along again! Was getting used to thingsalready, you see. We all got so that we could tell a good deal aboutshells; and after that we didn't always go under shelter if it was alight 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 ofit, and go on talking--if there wasn't any danger from it. If ashell was bursting close over us, we stopped talking and stoodstill;--uncomfortable, yes, but it wasn't safe to move. When it letgo, we went on talking again, if nobody hurt--maybe saying, 'That was aripper!' 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 promenadingthe streets, looking as cheerful as you please, and keeping an eyecanted up watching the shells; and I've seen them stop still when theywere uncertain about what a shell was going to do, and wait and makecertain; and after that they sa'ntered along again, or lit out forshelter, according to the verdict. Streets in some towns have a litterof pieces of paper, and odds and ends of one sort or another lyingaround. Ours hadn't; they had IRON litter. Sometimes a man would gatherup all the iron fragments and unbursted shells in his neighborhood, and pile them into a kind of monument in his front yard--a ton of it, sometimes. No glass left; glass couldn't stand such a bombardment;it was all shivered out. Windows of the houses vacant--looked likeeye-holes in a skull. WHOLE panes were as scarce as news. 

'We had church Sundays. Not many there, along at first; but by-and-byepretty good turnouts. I've seen service stop a minute, and everybody sitquiet--no voice heard, pretty funeral-like then--and all the more so onaccount of the awful boom and crash going on outside and overhead; andpretty soon, when a body could be heard, service would go on again. Organs and church-music mixed up with a bombardment is a powerful queercombination--along at first. Coming out of church, one morning, we hadan accident--the only one that happened around me on a Sunday. I wasjust having a hearty handshake with a friend I hadn't seen for a while, and saying, 'Drop into our cave to-night, after bombardment; we've gothold 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 leftit dangling in my hand. And do you know the thing that is going to stickthe longest in my memory, and outlast everything 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 asscarce as diamonds, and we had only just that little; never had anothertaste during the siege. 

'Sometimes the caves were desperately crowded, and always hot and close. Sometimes a cave had twenty or twenty-five people packed into it; noturning-room for anybody; air so foul, sometimes, you couldn't have madea 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 adozen. Pretty suffocating in there. We always had eight; eight belongedthere. Hunger and misery and sickness and fright and sorrow, and Idon't know what all, got so loaded into them that none of them were everrightly their old selves after the siege. They all died but three of uswithin a couple of years. One night a shell burst in front of the holeand caved it in and stopped it up. It was lively times, for a while, digging out. Some of us came near smothering. After that we made twoopenings--ought to have thought of it at first. 

'Mule meat. No, we only got down to that the last day or two. Of courseit was good; anything is good when you are starving. 

This man had kept a diary during--six weeks? No, only the first sixdays. The first day, eight close pages; the second, five; the third, one--loosely written; the fourth, three or four lines; a line or twothe fifth and sixth days; seventh day, diary abandoned; life in terrificVicksburg having now become commonplace and matter of course. 

The war history of Vicksburg has more about it to interest the generalreader than that of any other of the river-towns. It is full of variety, full of incident, full of the picturesque. Vicksburg held out longerthan any other important river-town, and saw warfare in all its phases, both land and water--the siege, the mine, the assault, the repulse, thebombardment, sickness, captivity, famine. 

The most beautiful of all the national cemeteries is here. Over thegreat gateway is this inscription:--

"HERE REST IN PEACE 16, 600 WHO DIED FOR THEIR COUNTRY IN THE YEARS 1861TO 1865. "

The grounds are nobly situated; being very high and commanding a wideprospect of land and river. They are tastefully laid out in broadterraces, with winding roads and paths; and there is profuse adornmentin the way of semi-tropical shrubs and flowers, ' and in one part is apiece of native wild-wood, left just as it grew, and, therefore, perfectin its charm. Everything about this cemetery suggests the hand of thenational Government. The Government's work is always conspicuous forexcellence, solidity, thoroughness, neatness. The Government does itswork well in the first place, and then takes care of it. 

By winding-roads--which were often cut to so great a depth betweenperpendicular walls that they were mere roofless tunnels--we drove out amile or two and visited the monument which stands upon the scene of thesurrender of Vicksburg to General Grant by General Pemberton. Its metalwill preserve it from the hackings and chippings which so defacedits predecessor, which was of marble; but the brick foundationsare crumbling, and it will tumble down by-and-bye. It overlooks apicturesque region of wooded hills and ravines; and is not unpicturesqueitself, being well smothered in flowering weeds. The battered remnant ofthe marble monument has been removed to the National Cemetery. 

On the road, a quarter of a mile townward, an aged colored man showedus, with pride, an unexploded bomb-shell which has lain in his yardsince the day it fell there during the siege. 

'I was a-stannin' heah, an' de dog was a-stannin' heah; de dog he wentfor de shell, gwine to pick a fuss wid it; but I didn't; I says, "Jes'make you'seff at home heah; lay still whah you is, or bust up de place, jes' as you's a mind to, but I's got business out in de woods, I has!"'

Vicksburg is a town of substantial business streets and pleasantresidences; it commands the commerce of the Yazoo and Sunflower Rivers;is pushing railways in several directions, through rich agriculturalregions, and has a promising future of prosperity and importance. 

Apparently, nearly all the river towns, big and little, have made uptheir minds that they must look mainly to railroads for wealth andupbuilding, henceforth. They are acting upon this idea. The signs are, that the next twenty years will bring about some noteworthy changes inthe Valley, in the direction of increased population and wealth, and inthe intellectual advancement and the liberalizing of opinion which gonaturally with these. And yet, if one may judge by the past, the rivertowns will manage to find and use a chance, here and there, to crippleand retard their progress. They kept themselves back in the days ofsteamboating supremacy, by a system of wharfage-dues so stupidly gradedas to prohibit what may be called small RETAIL traffic in freights andpassengers. Boats were charged such heavy wharfage that they could notafford to land for one or two passengers or a light lot of freight. Instead of encouraging the bringing of trade to their doors, the townsdiligently and effectively discouraged it. They could have had manyboats and low rates; but their policy rendered few boats and highrates compulsory. It was a policy which extended--and extends--from NewOrleans to St. Paul. 

We had a strong desire to make a trip up the Yazoo and the Sunflower--aninteresting region at any time, but additionally interesting at thistime, because up there the great inundation was still to be seen inforce--but we were nearly sure to have to wait a day or more for a NewOrleans boat on our return; so we were obliged to give up the project. 

Here is a story which I picked up on board the boat that night. I insertit in this place merely because it is a good story, not because itbelongs here--for it doesn't. It was told by a passenger--a collegeprofessor--and was called to the surface in the course of a generalconversation which began with talk about horses, drifted into talkabout astronomy, then into talk about the lynching of the gamblersin Vicksburg half a century ago, then into talk about dreams andsuperstitions; and ended, after midnight, in a dispute over free tradeand protection. 

Chapter 36 The Professor's Yarn

IT was in the early days. I was not a college professor then. I was ahumble-minded young land-surveyor, with the world before me--to survey, in case anybody wanted it done. I had a contract to survey a route fora 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, butI had very little to say to them; reading and dreaming were my passions, and I avoided conversation in order to indulge these appetites. Therewere three professional gamblers on board--rough, repulsive fellows. Inever had any talk with them, yet I could not help seeing them with somefrequency, for they gambled in an upper-deck stateroom every day andnight, and in my promenades I often had glimpses of them through theirdoor, which stood a little ajar to let out the surplus tobacco smoke andprofanity. They were an evil and hateful presence, but I had to put upwith it, of course. 

There was one other passenger who fell under my eye a good deal, for heseemed determined to be friendly with me, and I could not have gottenrid of him without running some chance of hurting his feelings, and Iwas far from wishing to do that. Besides, there was something engagingin his countrified simplicity and his beaming good-nature. The firsttime I saw this Mr. John Backus, I guessed, from his clothes and hislooks, that he was a grazier or farmer from the backwoods of somewestern State--doubtless Ohio--and afterward when he dropped into hispersonal history and I discovered that he WAS a cattle-raiser frominterior Ohio, I was so pleased with my own penetration that I warmedtoward him for verifying my instinct. 

He got to dropping alongside me every day, after breakfast, to help memake my promenade; and so, in the course of time, his easy-working jawhad told me everything about his business, his prospects, his family, his relatives, his politics--in fact everything that concerned a Backus, living or dead. And meantime I think he had managed to get out of meeverything I knew about my trade, my tribe, my purposes, my prospects, and myself. He was a gentle and persuasive genius, and this thing showedit; for I was not given to talking about my matters. I said somethingabout triangulation, once; the stately word pleased his ear; he inquiredwhat it meant; I explained; after that he quietly and inoffensivelyignored my name, and always called me Triangle. 

What an enthusiast he was in cattle! At the bare name of a bull ora cow, his eye would light and his eloquent tongue would turn itselfloose. As long as I would walk and listen, he would walk and talk; heknew all breeds, he loved all breeds, he caressed them all with hisaffectionate tongue. I tramped along in voiceless misery whilst thecattle question was up; when I could endure it no longer, I used todeftly insert a scientific topic into the conversation; then my eyefired and his faded; my tongue fluttered, his stopped; life was a joy tome, and a sadness to him. 

One day he said, a little hesitatingly, and with somewhat ofdiffidence--

'Triangle, would you mind coming down to my stateroom a minute, and havea little talk on a certain matter?'

I went with him at once. Arrived there, he put his head out, glanced upand down the saloon warily, then closed the door and locked it. He satdown on the sofa, and he said--

'I'm a-going to make a little proposition to you, and if it strikesyou favorable, it'll be a middling good thing for both of us. You ain'ta-going out to Californy for fun, nuther am I--it's business, ain't thatso? Well, you can do me a good turn, and so can I you, if we see fit. I've raked and scraped and saved, a considerable many years, and I'vegot it all here. ' He unlocked an old hair trunk, tumbled a chaos ofshabby 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 acautious low tone, he continued, 'She's all there--a round ten thousanddollars in yellow-boys; now this is my little idea: What I don't knowabout 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 ongood 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, rightalong, and--'

I was sorry to wither his blooming enthusiasm, but it could not behelped. 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 shamefacedapologies. I was as much distressed as he was--especially as he seemedso far from having suspected that there was anything improper in hisproposition. So I hastened to console him and lead him on to forget hismishap in a conversational orgy about cattle and butchery. We were lyingat Acapulco; and, as we went on deck, it happened luckily that the crewwere just beginning to hoist some beeves aboard in slings. Backus'smelancholy vanished instantly, and with it the memory of his latemistake. 

'Now only look at that!' cried he; 'My goodness, Triangle, what WOULDthey say to it in OHIO. Wouldn't their eyes bug out, to see 'em handledlike that?--wouldn't they, though?'

All the passengers were on deck to look--even the gamblers--and Backusknew them all, and had afflicted them all with his pet topic. As I movedaway, I saw one of the gamblers approach and accost him; then anotherof them; then the third. I halted; waited; watched; the conversationcontinued between the four men; it grew earnest; Backus drew graduallyaway; the gamblers followed, and kept at his elbow. I was uncomfortable. However, as they passed me presently, I heard Backus say, with a tone ofpersecuted annoyance--

'But it ain't any use, gentlemen; I tell you again, as I've told you ahalf a dozen times before, I warn't raised to it, and I ain't a-going toresk it. '

I felt relieved. 'His level head will be his sufficient protection, ' Isaid to myself. 

During the fortnight's run from Acapulco to San Francisco I severaltimes saw the gamblers talking earnestly with Backus, and once I threwout a gentle warning to him. He chuckled comfortably and said--

'Oh, yes! they tag around after me considerable--want me to play alittle, just for amusement, they say--but laws-a-me, if my folks havetold me once to look out for that sort of live-stock, they've told me athousand times, I reckon. '

By-and-bye, in due course, we were approaching San Francisco. It wasan ugly black night, with a strong wind blowing, but there was not muchsea. I was on deck, alone. Toward ten I started below. A figure issuedfrom the gamblers' den, and disappeared in the darkness. I experienceda shock, for I was sure it was Backus. I flew down the companion-way, looked about for him, could not find him, then returned to the deck justin time to catch a glimpse of him as he re-entered that confounded nestof rascality. Had he yielded at last? I feared it. What had he gonebelow for?--His bag of coin? Possibly. I drew near the door, full ofbodings. It was a-crack, and I glanced in and saw a sight that made mebitterly 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 showingsome effect from it. He praised the 'cider, ' as he called it, and saidnow that he had got a taste of it he almost believed he would drink itif it was spirits, it was so good and so ahead of anything he had everrun across before. Surreptitious smiles, at this, passed from one rascalto another, and they filled all the glasses, and whilst Backus honestlydrained his to the bottom they pretended to do the same, but threw thewine over their shoulders. 

I could not bear the scene, so I wandered forward and tried to interestmyself in the sea and the voices of the wind. But no, my uneasy spiritkept dragging me back at quarter-hour intervals; and always I saw Backusdrinking his wine--fairly and squarely, and the others throwing theirsaway. It was the painfullest night I ever spent. 

The only hope I had was that we might reach our anchorage withspeed--that would break up the game. I helped the ship along all I couldwith my prayers. At last we went booming through the Golden Gate, and mypulses leaped for joy. I hurried back to that door and glanced in. Alas, there was small room for hope--Backus's eyes were heavy and bloodshot, his sweaty face was crimson, his speech maudlin and thick, his bodysawed drunkenly about with the weaving motion of the ship. He drainedanother glass to the dregs, whilst the cards were being dealt. 

He took his hand, glanced at it, and his dull eyes lit up for a moment. The gamblers observed it, and showed their gratification by hardlyperceptible signs. 

'How many cards?'

'None!' said Backus. 

One villain--named Hank Wiley--discarded one card, the others threeeach. The betting began. Heretofore the bets had been trifling--a dollaror two; but Backus started off with an eagle now, Wiley hesitated amoment, then 'saw it' and 'went ten dollars better. ' The other two threwup their hands. 

Backus went twenty better. Wiley said--

'I see that, and go you a hundred better!' then smiled and reached forthe 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 hundred on top of it, too. '

He reached down inside his overcoat and produced the required sum. 

'Oh, that's your little game, is it? I see your raise, and raise it fivehundred!' said Wiley. 

'Five hundred better. ' said the foolish bull-driver, and pulled out theamount and showered it on the pile. The three conspirators hardly triedto conceal their exultation. 

All diplomacy and pretense were dropped now, and the sharp exclamationscame thick and fast, and the yellow pyramid grew higher and higher. Atlast ten thousand dollars lay in view. Wiley cast a bag of coin on thetable, and said with mocking gentleness--

'Five thousand dollars better, my friend from the rural districts--whatdo you say NOW?'

'I CALL you!' said Backus, heaving his golden shot-bag on the pile. 'What have you got?'

'Four kings, you d--d fool!' and Wiley threw down his cards andsurrounded the stakes with his arms. 

'Four ACES, you ass!' thundered Backus, covering his man with a cockedrevolver. 'I'M A PROFESSIONAL GAMBLER MYSELF, AND I'VE BEEN LAYING FORYOU DUFFERS ALL THIS VOYAGE!'

Down went the anchor, rumbledy-dum-dum! and the long trip was ended. 

Well--well, it is a sad world. One of the three gamblers was Backus's'pal. ' It was he that dealt the fateful hands. According to anunderstanding with the two victims, he was to have given Backus fourqueens, but alas, he didn't. 

A week later, I stumbled upon Backus--arrayed in the height offashion--in Montgomery Street. He said, cheerily, as we were parting--

'Ah, by-the-way, you needn't mind about those gores. I don't really knowanything about cattle, except what I was able to pick up in a week'sapprenticeship over in Jersey just before we sailed. My cattle-cultureand cattle-enthusiasm have served their turn--I shan't need them anymore. '

Next day we reluctantly parted from the 'Gold Dust' and her officers, hoping to see that boat and all those officers again, some day. A thingwhich the fates were to render tragically impossible!

Chapter 37 The End of the 'Gold Dust'

FOR, three months later, August 8, while I was writing one of theseforegoing chapters, the New York papers brought this telegram--

A TERRIBLE DISASTER. 

SEVENTEEN PERSONS KILLED BY AN EXPLOSION ON THE STEAMER 'GOLD DUST. '

'NASHVILLE, Aug. 7. --A despatch from Hickman, Ky. , says--

'The steamer "Gold Dust" exploded her boilers at three o'clock to-day, just after leaving Hickman. Forty-seven persons were scalded andseventeen are missing. The boat was landed in the eddy just above thetown, and through the exertions of the citizens the cabin passengers, officers, and part of the crew and deck passengers were taken ashore andremoved to the hotels and residences. Twenty-four of the injured werelying in Holcomb's dry-goods store at one time, where they receivedevery attention before being removed to more comfortable places. '

A list of the names followed, whereby it appeared that of the seventeendead, one was the barkeeper; and among the forty-seven wounded, were thecaptain, 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 wasseverely hurt, except Mr. Gray. Letters received afterward confirmedthis news, and said that Mr. Gray was improving and would get well. Later letters spoke less hopefully of his case; and finally came oneannouncing his death. A good man, a most companionable and manly man, and worthy of a kindlier fate. 

Chapter 38 The House Beautiful

WE took passage in a Cincinnati boat for New Orleans; or on a Cincinnatiboat--either is correct; the former is the eastern form of putting it, the latter the western. 

Mr. Dickens declined to agree that the Mississippi steamboats were'magnificent, ' or that they were 'floating palaces, '--terms whichhad always been applied to them; terms which did not over-express theadmiration with which the people viewed them. 

Mr. Dickens's position was unassailable, possibly; the people's positionwas certainly unassailable. If Mr. Dickens was comparing these boatswith the crown jewels; or with the Taj, or with the Matterhorn; or withsome other priceless or wonderful thing which he had seen, they were notmagnificent--he was right. The people compared them with what they hadseen; and, thus measured, thus judged, the boats were magnificent--theterm was the correct one, it was not at all too strong. The people wereas right as was Mr. Dickens. The steamboats were finer than anything onshore. Compared with superior dwelling-houses and first-class hotels inthe Valley, they were indubitably magnificent, they were 'palaces. ' Toa few people living in New Orleans and St. Louis, they were notmagnificent, perhaps; not palaces; but to the great majority of thosepopulations, and to the entire populations spread over both banksbetween Baton Rouge and St. Louis, they were palaces; they tallied withthe citizen's dream of what magnificence was, and satisfied it. 

Every town and village along that vast stretch of double river-frontagehad a best dwelling, finest dwelling, mansion, --the home of itswealthiest and most conspicuous 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 patheticsham, being made of white pine, and painted; iron knocker; brass doorknob--discolored, for lack of polishing. Within, an uncarpeted hall, ofplaned boards; opening out of it, a parlor, fifteen feet by fifteen--insome instances five or ten feet larger; ingrain carpet; mahoganycenter-table; lamp on it, with green-paper shade--standing on agridiron, so to speak, made of high-colored yarns, by the young ladiesof the house, and called a lamp-mat; several books, piled and disposed, with cast-iron exactness, according to an inherited and unchangeableplan; among them, Tupper, much penciled; also, 'Friendship's Offering, 'and 'Affection's Wreath, ' with their sappy inanities illustratedin die-away mezzotints; also, Ossian; 'Alonzo and Melissa:'maybe 'Ivanhoe:' also 'Album, ' full of original 'poetry' of theThou-hast-wounded-the-spirit-that-loved-thee breed; two or threegoody-goody works--'Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, ' etc. ; currentnumber of the chaste and innocuous Godey's 'Lady's Book, ' with paintedfashion-plate of wax-figure women with mouths all alike--lips andeyelids the same size--each five-foot woman with a two-inch wedgesticking from under her dress and letting-on to be half of her foot. Polished air-tight stove (new and deadly invention), with pipe passingthrough a board which closes up the discarded good old fireplace. Oneach end of the wooden mantel, over the fireplace, a large basket ofpeaches and other fruits, natural size, all done in plaster, rudely, orin wax, and painted to resemble the originals--which they don't. Overmiddle of mantel, engraving--Washington Crossing the Delaware; on thewall by the door, copy of it done in thunder-and-lightning crewels byone of the young ladies--work of art which would have made Washingtonhesitate about crossing, if he could have foreseen what advantage wasgoing to be taken of it. Piano--kettle in disguise--with music, boundand unbound, piled on it, and on a stand near by: Battle of Prague;Bird Waltz; Arkansas Traveler; Rosin the Bow; Marseilles Hymn; On a LoneBarren Isle (St. Helena); The Last Link is Broken; She wore a Wreath ofRoses the Night when last we met; Go, forget me, Why should Sorrow o'erthat Brow a Shadow fling; Hours there were to Memory Dearer; Long, LongAgo; Days of Absence; A Life on the Ocean Wave, a Home on the RollingDeep; Bird at Sea; and spread open on the rack, where the plaintivesinger has left it, RO-holl on, silver MOO-hoon, guide the TRAV-el-lerrhis WAY, etc. Tilted pensively against the piano, a guitar--guitarcapable of playing the Spanish Fandango by itself, if you give ita start. Frantic work of art on the wall--pious motto, done on thepremises, sometimes in colored yarns, sometimes in faded grasses:progenitor of the 'God Bless Our Home' of modern commerce. Framed inblack moldings on the wall, other works of arts, conceived and committedon the premises, by the young ladies; being grim black-and-whitecrayons; landscapes, mostly: lake, solitary sail-boat, petrified clouds, pre-geological trees on shore, anthracite precipice; name of criminalconspicuous in the corner. Lithograph, Napoleon Crossing the Alps. Lithograph, The Grave at St. Helena. Steel-plates, Trumbull's Battle ofBunker Hill, and the Sally from Gibraltar. Copper-plates, Moses Smitingthe Rock, and Return of the Prodigal Son. In big gilt frame, slanderof the family in oil: papa holding a book ('Constitution of the UnitedStates'); guitar leaning against mamma, blue ribbons fluttering fromits neck; the young ladies, as children, in slippers and scallopedpantelettes, one embracing toy horse, the other beguiling kitten withball of yarn, and both simpering up at mamma, who simpers back. Thesepersons all fresh, raw, and red--apparently skinned. Opposite, ingilt frame, grandpa and grandma, at thirty and twenty-two, stiff, old-fashioned, high-collared, puff-sleeved, glaring pallidly out froma background of solid Egyptian night. Under a glass French clock dome, large bouquet of stiff flowers done in corpsy-white wax. Pyramidalwhat-not in the corner, the shelves occupied chiefly with bric-a-brac ofthe period, disposed with an eye to best effect: shell, with the Lord'sPrayer carved on it; another shell--of the long-oval sort, narrow, straight orifice, three inches long, running from end to end--portraitof Washington carved on it; not well done; the shell had Washington'smouth, originally--artist should have built to that. These two arememorials of the long-ago bridal trip to New Orleans and the FrenchMarket. Other bric-a-brac: Californian 'specimens'--quartz, with goldwart adhering; old Guinea-gold locket, with circlet of ancestral hair init; Indian arrow-heads, of flint; pair of bead moccasins, from unclewho crossed the Plains; three 'alum' baskets of various colors--beingskeleton-frame of wire, clothed-on with cubes of crystallized alum inthe rock-candy style--works of art which were achieved by the youngladies; their doubles and duplicates to be found upon all what-notsin the land; convention of desiccated bugs and butterflies pinned to acard; painted toy-dog, seated upon bellows-attachment--drops itsunder jaw and squeaks when pressed upon; sugar-candy rabbit--limbsand features merged together, not strongly defined; pewterpresidential-campaign medal; miniature card-board wood-sawyer, to beattached to the stove-pipe and operated by the heat; small Napoleon, done in wax; spread-open daguerreotypes of dim children, parents, cousins, aunts, and friends, in all attitudes but customary ones; notempled portico at back, and manufactured landscape stretching away inthe distance--that came in later, with the photograph; all these vaguefigures lavishly chained and ringed--metal indicated and secured fromdoubt by stripes and splashes of vivid gold bronze; all of them too muchcombed, too much fixed up; and all of them uncomfortable in inflexibleSunday-clothes of a pattern which the spectator cannot realizecould ever have been in fashion; husband and wife generally groupedtogether--husband sitting, wife standing, with hand on his shoulder--andboth preserving, all these fading years, some traceable effect of thedaguerreotypist's brisk 'Now smile, if you please!' Bracketed overwhat-not--place of special sacredness--an outrage in water-color, doneby 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 stenciled on them infierce colors. Lambrequins dependent from gaudy boxings of beaten tin, gilded. Bedrooms with rag carpets; bedsteads of the 'corded' sort, with a sag in the middle, the cords needing tightening; snuffyfeather-bed--not aired often enough; cane-seat chairs, splint-bottomedrocker; 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 hasever seen one. 

That was the residence of the principal citizen, all the way from thesuburbs of New Orleans to the edge of St. Louis. When he stepped aboarda big fine steamboat, he entered a new and marvelous world: chimney-topscut to counterfeit a spraying crown of plumes--and maybe painted red;pilot-house, hurricane deck, boiler-deck guards, all garnished withwhite wooden filigree work of fanciful patterns; gilt acorns topping thederricks; gilt deer-horns over the big bell; gaudy symbolical pictureon the paddle-box, possibly; big roomy boiler-deck, painted blue, andfurnished with Windsor armchairs; inside, a far-receding snow-white'cabin;' porcelain knob and oil-picture on every stateroom door; curvingpatterns of filigree-work touched up with gilding, stretching overheadall down the converging vista; big chandeliers every little way, eachan April shower of glittering glass-drops; lovely rainbow-light fallingeverywhere from the colored glazing of the skylights; the whole along-drawn, resplendent tunnel, a bewildering and soul-satisfyingspectacle! In the ladies' cabin a pink and white Wilton carpet, as softas mush, and glorified with a ravishing pattern of gigantic flowers. Then the Bridal Chamber--the animal that invented that idea was stillalive and unhanged, at that day--Bridal Chamber whose pretentiousflummery was necessarily overawing to the now tottering intellect ofthat hosannahing citizen. Every state-room had its couple of cozy cleanbunks, and perhaps a looking-glass and a snug closet; and sometimesthere was even a washbowl and pitcher, and part of a towel which couldbe told from mosquito netting by an expert--though generally thesethings were absent, and the shirt-sleeved passengers cleansed themselvesat a long row of stationary bowls in the barber shop, where were alsopublic towels, public combs, and public soap. 

Take the steamboat which I have just described, and you have her in herhighest and finest, and most pleasing, and comfortable, and satisfactoryestate. Now cake her over with a layer of ancient and obdurate dirt, and you have the Cincinnati steamer awhile ago referred to. Not allover--only inside; for she was ably officered in all departments exceptthe steward's. 

But wash that boat and repaint her, and she would be about thecounterpart of the most complimented boat of the old flush times: forthe steamboat architecture of the West has undergone no change; neitherhas steamboat furniture and ornamentation undergone any. 

Chapter 39 Manufactures and Miscreants

WHERE the river, in the Vicksburg region, used to be corkscrewed, itis now comparatively straight--made so by cut-off; a former distanceof seventy miles is reduced to thirty-five. It is a change which threwVicksburg's neighbor, Delta, Louisiana, out into the country and endedits career as a river town. Its whole river-frontage is now occupied bya vast sand-bar, thickly covered with young trees--a growth which willmagnify itself into a dense forest by-and-bye, and completely hide theexiled town. 

In due time we passed Grand Gulf and Rodney, of war fame, and reachedNatchez, the last of the beautiful hill-cities--for Baton Rouge, yetto come, is not on a hill, but only on high ground. FamousNatchez-under-the-hill has not changed notably in twenty years; inoutward aspect--judging by the descriptions of the ancient processionof foreign tourists--it has not changed in sixty; for it is still small, straggling, and shabby. It had a desperate reputation, morally, inthe old keel-boating and early steamboating times--plenty of drinking, carousing, fisticuffing, and killing there, among the riff-raff of theriver, in those days. But Natchez-on-top-of-the-hill is attractive; hasalways been attractive. Even Mrs. Trollope (1827) had to confess itscharms:

'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 isbeautifully situated on one of those high spots. The contrast thatits bright green hill forms with the dismal line of black forest thatstretches on every side, the abundant growth of the pawpaw, palmettoand orange, the copious variety of sweet-scented flowers that flourishthere, all make it appear like an oasis in the desert. Natchez is thefurthest point to the north at which oranges ripen in the open air, or endure the winter without shelter. With the exception of thissweet spot, I thought all the little towns and villages we passedwretched-looking in the extreme. '

Natchez, like her near and far river neighbors, has railways now, and isadding to them--pushing them hither and thither into all rich outlyingregions that are naturally tributary to her. And like Vicksburg and NewOrleans, she has her ice-factory: she makes thirty tons of ice a day. In Vicksburg and Natchez, in my time, ice was jewelry; none but the richcould wear it. But anybody and everybody can have it now. I visited oneof the ice-factories in New Orleans, to see what the polar regionsmight look like when lugged into the edge of the tropics. But there wasnothing striking in the aspect of the place. It was merely a spacioushouse, with some innocent steam machinery in one end of it and some bigporcelain pipes running here and there. No, not porcelain--they merelyseemed to be; they were iron, but the ammonia which was being breathedthrough them had coated them to the thickness of your hand with solidmilk-white ice. It ought to have melted; for one did not require winterclothing in that atmosphere: but it did not melt; the inside of the pipewas too cold. 

Sunk into the floor were numberless tin boxes, a foot square and twofeet 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, theammonia gases were applied to the water in some way which will alwaysremain a secret to me, because I was not able to understand the process. While the water in the boxes gradually froze, men gave it a stir or twowith a stick occasionally--to liberate the air-bubbles, I think. Othermen were continually lifting out boxes whose contents had become hardfrozen. They gave the box a single dip into a vat of boiling water, tomelt the block of ice free from its tin coffin, then they shot the blockout upon a platform car, and it was ready for market. These big blockswere hard, solid, and crystal-clear. In certain of them, big bouquetsof 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 center ofdinner-tables, to cool the tropical air; and also to be ornamental, forthe flowers and things imprisoned in them could be seen as through plateglass. I was told that this factory could retail its ice, by wagon, throughout New Orleans, in the humblest dwelling-house quantities, atsix or seven dollars a ton, and make a sufficient profit. This being thecase, there is business for ice-factories in the North; for we get iceon no such terms there, if one take less than three hundred and fiftypounds at a delivery. 

The Rosalie Yarn Mill, of Natchez, has a capacity of 6, 000 spindles and160 looms, and employs 100 hands. The Natchez Cotton Mills Company beganoperations four years ago in a two-story building of 50 x 190 feet, with4, 000 spindles and 128 looms; capital $105, 000, all subscribed in thetown. Two years later, the same stockholders increased their capital to$225, 000; added a third story to the mill, increased its length to 317feet; added machinery to increase the capacity to 10, 300 spindles and304 looms. The company now employ 250 operatives, many of whom arecitizens of Natchez. 'The mill works 5, 000 bales of cotton annually andmanufactures the best standard quality of brown shirtings andsheetings and drills, turning out 5, 000, 000 yards of these goods peryear. '{footnote [New Orleans Times-Democrat, 26 Aug, 1882. ]} A closecorporation--stock held at $5, 000 per share, but none in the market. 

The changes in the Mississippi River are great and strange, yet were tobe expected; but I was not expecting to live to see Natchez and theseother river towns become manufacturing strongholds and railway centers. 

Speaking of manufactures reminds me of a talk upon that topic which Iheard--which I overheard--on board the Cincinnati boat. I awoke out ofa fretted sleep, with a dull confusion of voices in my ears. Ilistened--two men were talking; subject, apparently, the greatinundation. I looked out through the open transom. The two men wereeating a late breakfast; sitting opposite each other; nobody elsearound. They closed up the inundation with a few words--having used it, evidently, as a mere ice-breaker and acquaintanceship-breeder--then theydropped into business. It soon transpired that they were drummers--onebelonging in Cincinnati, the other in New Orleans. Brisk men, energeticof movement and speech; the dollar their god, how to get it theirreligion. 

'Now as to this article, ' said Cincinnati, slashing into the ostensiblebutter and holding forward a slab of it on his knife-blade, 'it's fromour house; look at it--smell of it--taste it. Put any test on it youwant to. Take your own time--no hurry--make it thorough. Therenow--what do you say? butter, ain't it. Not by a thundering sight--it'soleomargarine! Yes, sir, that's what it is--oleomargarine. You can'ttell it from butter; by George, an EXPERT can't. It's from our house. Wesupply most of the boats in the West; there's hardly a pound of butteron one of them. We are crawling right along--JUMPING right along is theword. We are going to have that entire trade. Yes, and the hotel trade, too. You are going to see the day, pretty soon, when you can't find anounce of butter to bless yourself with, in any hotel in the Mississippiand Ohio Valleys, outside of the biggest cities. Why, we are turningout oleomargarine NOW by the thousands of tons. And we can sell it sodirt-cheap that the whole country has GOT to take it--can't get aroundit you see. Butter don't stand any show--there ain't any chance forcompetition. Butter's had its DAY--and from this out, butter goes to thewall. There's more money in oleomargarine than--why, you can't imaginethe business we do. I've stopped in every town from Cincinnati toNatchez; 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 fervidstrain. Then New Orleans piped up and said--

Yes, it's a first-rate imitation, that's a certainty; but it ain't theonly one around that's first-rate. For instance, they make olive-oil outof cotton-seed oil, nowadays, so that you can't tell them apart. '

'Yes, that's so, ' responded Cincinnati, 'and it was a tip-top businessfor a while. They sent it over and brought it back from France andItaly, with the United States custom-house mark on it to indorse it forgenuine, and there was no end of cash in it; but France and Italy brokeup the game--of course they naturally would. Cracked on such a rattlingimpost that cotton-seed olive-oil couldn't stand the raise; had to hangup 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 takesout the corks--says:

'There now, smell them, taste them, examine the bottles, inspect thelabels. One of 'm's from Europe, the other's never been out of thiscountry. One's European olive-oil, the other's American cotton-seedolive-oil. Tell 'm apart? 'Course you can't. Nobody can. People thatwant to, can go to the expense and trouble of shipping their oils toEurope and back--it's their privilege; but our firm knows a trick worthsix of that. We turn out the whole thing--clean from the word go--in ourfactory in New Orleans: labels, bottles, oil, everything. Well, no, notlabels: been buying them abroad--get them dirt-cheap there. You see, there's just one little wee speck, essence, or whatever it is, ina gallon of cotton-seed oil, that give it a smell, or a flavor, orsomething--get that out, and you're all right--perfectly easy then toturn the oil into any kind of oil you want to, and there ain't anybodythat can detect the true from the false. Well, we know how to get thatone little particle out--and we're the only firm that does. And we turnout an olive-oil that is just simply perfect--undetectable! We are doinga ripping trade, too--as I could easily show you by my order-book forthis trip. Maybe you'll butter everybody's bread pretty soon, but we'llcotton-seed his salad for him from the Gulf to Canada, and that's adead-certain thing. '

Cincinnati glowed and flashed with admiration. The two scoundrelsexchanged business-cards, and rose. As they left the table, Cincinnatisaid--

'But you have to have custom-house marks, don't you? How do you managethat?'

I did not catch the answer. 

We passed Port Hudson, scene of two of the most terrific episodes of thewar--the night-battle there between Farragut's fleet and the Confederateland batteries, April 14th, 1863; and the memorable land battle, twomonths later, which lasted eight hours--eight hours of exceptionallyfierce and stubborn fighting--and ended, finally, in the repulse of theUnion forces with great slaughter. 

Chapter 40 Castles and Culture

BATON ROUGE was clothed in flowers, like a bride--no, much more so; likea greenhouse. For we were in the absolute South now--no modifications, no compromises, no half-way measures. The magnolia-trees in the Capitolgrounds were lovely and fragrant, with their dense rich foliage and hugesnow-ball blossoms. The scent of the flower is very sweet, but you wantdistance on it, because it is so powerful. They are not good bedroomblossoms--they might suffocate one in his sleep. We were certainlyin the South at last; for here the sugar region begins, and theplantations--vast green levels, with sugar-mill and negro quartersclustered together in the middle distance--were in view. And there was atropical sun overhead and a tropical swelter in the air. 

And at this point, also, begins the pilot's paradise: a wide river henceto 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; forit is not conceivable that this little sham castle would ever have beenbuilt if he had not run the people mad, a couple of generations ago, with his medieval romances. The South has not yet recovered from thedebilitating influence of his books. Admiration of his fantastic heroesand their grotesque 'chivalry' doings and romantic juvenilities stillsurvives here, in an atmosphere in which is already perceptible thewholesome and practical nineteenth-century smell of cotton-factoriesand locomotives; and traces of its inflated language and other windyhumbuggeries survive along with it. It is pathetic enough, that awhitewashed castle, with turrets and things--materials all ungenuinewithin and without, pretending to be what they are not--should everhave been built in this otherwise honorable place; but it is much morepathetic to see this architectural falsehood undergoing restoration andperpetuation in our day, when it would have been so easy to letdynamite finish what a charitable fire began, and then devote thisrestoration-money to the building of something genuine. 

Baton Rouge has no patent on imitation castles, however, and no monopolyof them. Here is a picture from the advertisement of the 'FemaleInstitute' of Columbia; Tennessee. The following remark is from the sameadvertisement--

'The Institute building has long been famed as a model of striking andbeautiful architecture. Visitors are charmed with its resemblance tothe old castles of song and story, with its towers, turreted walls, andivy-mantled porches. '

Keeping school in a castle is a romantic thing; as romantic as keepinghotel 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-Ageromanticism here in the midst of the plainest and sturdiest andinfinitely greatest and worthiest of all the centuries the world hasseen, 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 thatunjustifiable way was done purely in the interest of brevity, it seemsto me that she-college would have been still better--because shorter, and means the same thing: that is, if either phrase means anything atall--

'The president is southern by birth, by rearing, by education, and bysentiment; the teachers are all southern in sentiment, and with theexception of those born in Europe were born and raised in the south. Believing the southern to be the highest type of civilization thiscontinent has seen, the young ladies are trained according to thesouthern ideas of delicacy, refinement, womanhood, religion, andpropriety; hence we offer a first-class female college for the south andsolicit southern patronage. '

{footnote [Illustrations of it thoughtlessly omitted by the advertiser:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. , October 19. --This morning a few minutes after teno'clock, General Joseph A. Mabry, Thomas O'Connor, and Joseph A. Mabry, Jr. , were killed in a shooting affray. The difficulty began yesterdayafternoon by General Mabry attacking Major O'Connor and threatening tokill him. This was at the fair grounds, and O'Connor told Mabry that itwas not the place to settle their difficulties. Mabry then told O'Connorhe 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 someproperty from Mabry to O'Connor. Later in the afternoon Mabry sent wordto O'Connor that he would kill him on sight. This morning Major O'Connorwas standing in the door of the Mechanics' National Bank, of whichhe was president. General Mabry and another gentleman walked down GayStreet on the opposite side from the bank. O'Connor stepped into thebank, 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 firedagain, the shot taking effect in Mabry's thigh. O'Connor then reachedinto the bank and got another shot gun. About this time Joseph A. Mabry, Jr. , son of General Mabry, came rushing down the street, unseen byO'Connor until within forty feet, when the young man fired a pistol, theshot taking effect in O'Connor's right breast, passing through the bodynear the heart. The instant Mabry shot, O'Connor turned and fired, theload taking effect in young Mabry's right breast and side. Mabry fellpierced with twenty buckshot, and almost instantly O'Connor fell deadwithout a struggle. Mabry tried to rise, but fell back dead. The wholetragedy occurred within two minutes, and neither of the three spokeafter he was shot. General Mabry had about thirty buckshot in his body. A bystander was painfully wounded in the thigh with a buckshot, andanother was wounded in the arm. Four other men had their clothingpierced by buckshot. The affair caused great excitement, and Gay Streetwas thronged with thousands of people. General Mabry and his son Joewere acquitted only a few days ago of the murder of Moses Lusby and DonLusby, father and son, whom they killed a few weeks ago. Will Mabry waskilled by Don Lusby last Christmas. Major Thomas O'Connor was Presidentof the Mechanics' National Bank here, and was the wealthiest man in theState. --ASSOCIATED PRESS TELEGRAM. 

One day last month, Professor Sharpe, of the Somerville, Tenn. , Female College, 'a quiet and gentlemanly man, ' was told that hisbrother-in-law, a Captain Burton, had threatened to kill him. Burton, tseems, had already killed one man and driven his knife into another. TheProfessor armed himself with a double-barreled shot gun, started out insearch of his brother-in-law, found him playing billiards in a saloon, and blew his brains out. The 'Memphis Avalanche' reports that theProfessor's course met with pretty general approval in the community;knowing that the law was powerless, in the actual condition of publicsentiment, to protect him, he protected himself. 

About the same time, two young men in North Carolina quarreled about agirl, and 'hostile messages' were exchanged. Friends tried to reconcilethem, but had their labor for their pains. On the 24th the young menmet in the public highway. One of them had a heavy club in his hand, theother an ax. The man with the club fought desperately for his life, butit was a hopeless fight from the first. A well-directed blow sent hisclub whirling out of his grasp, and the next moment he was a dead man. 

About the same time, two 'highly connected' young Virginians, clerks ina hardware store at Charlottesville, while 'skylarking, ' came to blows. Peter Dick threw pepper in Charles Roads's eyes; Roads demanded anapology; Dick refused to give it, and it was agreed that a duel wasinevitable, but a difficulty arose; the parties had no pistols, andit was too late at night to procure them. One of them suggested thatbutcher-knives would answer the purpose, and the other accepted thesuggestion; the result was that Roads fell to the floor with a gash inhis 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 toldby a Staunton correspondent of the PHILADELPHIA PRESS that 'everyeffort has been made to hush the matter up. '--EXTRACTS FROM THE PUBLICJOURNALS. ]}

What, warder, ho! the man that can blow so complacent a blast as that, probably blows it from a castle. 

From Baton Rouge to New Orleans, the great sugar plantations border bothsides of the river all the way, and stretch their league-wide levelsback to the dim forest-walls of bearded cypress in the rear. Shores lonely no longer. Plenty of dwellings all the way, on bothbanks--standing so close together, for long distances, that the broadriver lying between the two rows, becomes a sort of spacious street. A most home-like and happy-looking region. And now and then you see apillared and porticoed great manor-house, embowered in trees. Here istestimony of one or two of the procession of foreign tourists that filedalong here half a century ago. Mrs. Trollope says--

'The unbroken flatness of the banks of the Mississippi continuedunvaried for many miles above New Orleans; but the graceful andluxuriant palmetto, the dark and noble ilex, and the bright orange, were everywhere to be seen, and it was many days before we were weary oflooking at them. '

Captain Basil Hall--

'The district of country which lies adjacent to the Mississippi, inthe lower parts of Louisiana, is everywhere thickly peopled by sugarplanters, whose showy houses, gay piazzas, trig gardens, and numerousslave-villages, all clean and neat, gave an exceedingly thriving air tothe river scenery. 

All the procession paint the attractive picture in the same way. Thedescriptions of fifty years ago do not need to have a word changed inorder to exactly describe the same region as it appears to-day--exceptas to the 'trigness' of the houses. The whitewash is gone from thenegro cabins now; and many, possibly most, of the big mansions, once soshining white, have worn out their paint and have a decayed, neglectedlook. It is the blight of the war. Twenty-one years ago everything wastrim and trig and bright along the 'coast, ' just as it had been in 1827, as described by those tourists. 

Unfortunate tourists! People humbugged them with stupid and silly lies, and then laughed at them for believing and printing the same. Theytold Mrs. Trollope that the alligators--or crocodiles, as she callsthem--were terrible creatures; and backed up the statement with ablood-curdling account of how one of these slandered reptiles crept intoa squatter cabin one night, and ate up a woman and five children. The woman, by herself, would have satisfied any ordinarily-impossiblealligator; but no, these liars must make him gorge the five childrenbesides. One would not imagine that jokers of this robust breed would besensitive--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 Capt. BasilHall got. 

Chapter 41 The Metropolis of the South

THE approaches to New Orleans were familiar; general aspects wereunchanged. When one goes flying through London along a railway proppedin the air on tall arches, he may inspect miles of upper bedroomsthrough the open windows, but the lower half of the houses is underhis level and out of sight. Similarly, in high-river stage, in the NewOrleans region, the water is up to the top of the enclosing levee-rim, the flat country behind it lies low--representing the bottom of adish--and as the boat swims along, high on the flood, one looks downupon the houses and into the upper windows. There is nothing but thatfrail breastwork of earth between the people and destruction. 

The old brick salt-warehouses clustered at the upper end of the citylooked as they had always looked; warehouses which had had a kind ofAladdin's lamp experience, however, since I had seen them; for when thewar broke out the proprietor went to bed one night leaving them packedwith thousands of sacks of vulgar salt, worth a couple of dollars asack, and got up in the morning and found his mountain of salt turnedinto a mountain of gold, so to speak, so suddenly and to so dizzy aheight had the war news sent up the price of the article. 

The vast reach of plank wharves remained unchanged, and there were asmany ships as ever: but the long array of steamboats had vanished; notaltogether, of course, but not much of it was left. 

The city itself had not changed--to the eye. It had greatly increasedin spread and population, but the look of the town was not altered. Thedust, waste-paper-littered, was still deep in the streets; the deep, trough-like gutters alongside the curbstones were still half full ofreposeful water with a dusty surface; the sidewalks were still--in thesugar and bacon region--encumbered by casks and barrels and hogsheads;the great blocks of austerely plain commercial houses were asdusty-looking as ever. 

Canal Street was finer, and more attractive and stirring than formerly, with its drifting crowds of people, its several processions of hurryingstreet-cars, and--toward evening--its broad second-story verandascrowded with gentlemen and ladies clothed according to the latest mode. 

Not that there is any 'architecture' in Canal Street: to speak in broad, general terms, there is no architecture in New Orleans, except in thecemeteries. It seems a strange thing to say of a wealthy, far-seeing, and energetic city of a quarter of a million inhabitants, but it istrue. There is a huge granite U. S. Custom-house--costly enough, genuineenough, but as a decoration it is inferior to a gasometer. It looks likea state prison. But it was built before the war. Architecture in Americamay 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 greatfire in late years. It must be so. If the opposite had been the case, I think one would be able to tell the 'burnt district' by the radicalimprovement in its architecture over the old forms. One can do thisin Boston and Chicago. The 'burnt district' of Boston was commonplacebefore the fire; but now there is no commercial district in any cityin the world that can surpass it--or perhaps even rival it--in beauty, elegance, and tastefulness. 

However, New Orleans has begun--just this moment, as one may say. Whencompleted, the new Cotton Exchange will be a stately and beautifulbuilding; massive, substantial, full of architectural graces; no shamsor false pretenses or uglinesses about it anywhere. To the city, it willbe worth many times its cost, for it will breed its species. What hasbeen lacking hitherto, was a model to build toward; something to educateeye 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 thecity's architecture is like the contrast between waking and sleep. Apparently there is a 'boom' in everything but that one dead feature. The water in the gutters used to be stagnant and slimy, and a potentdisease-breeder; but the gutters are flushed now, two or three timesa day, by powerful machinery; in many of the gutters the water neverstands still, but has a steady current. Other sanitary improvements havebeen made; and with such effect that New Orleans claims to be (duringthe long intervals between the occasional yellow-fever assaults) oneof the healthiest cities in the Union. There's plenty of ice now foreverybody, manufactured in the town. It is a driving place commercially, and has a great river, ocean, and railway business. At the date of ourvisit, it was the best lighted city in the Union, electrically speaking. The New Orleans electric lights were more numerous than those of NewYork, and very much better. One had this modified noonday not only inCanal and some neighboring chief streets, but all along a stretchof five miles of river frontage. There are good clubs in the citynow--several of them but recently organized--and inviting modern-stylepleasure resorts at West End and Spanish Fort. The telephone iseverywhere. One of the most notable advances is in journalism. Thenewspapers, as I remember them, were not a striking feature. Now theyare. Money is spent upon them with a free hand. They get the news, let it cost what it may. The editorial work is not hack-grinding, butliterature. As an example of New Orleans journalistic achievement, itmay be mentioned that the 'Times-Democrat' of August 26, 1882, containeda report of the year's business of the towns of the Mississippi Valley, from New Orleans all the way to St. Paul--two thousand miles. That issueof the paper consisted of forty pages; seven columns to the page; twohundred and eighty columns in all; fifteen hundred words to the column;an aggregate of four hundred and twenty thousand words. That is to say, not much short of three times as many words as there are in this book. One may with sorrow contrast this with the architecture of New Orleans. 

I have been speaking of public architecture only. The domestic articlein New Orleans is reproachless, notwithstanding it remains as it alwayswas. All the dwellings are of wood--in the American part of the town, Imean--and all have a comfortable look. Those in the wealthy quarter arespacious; painted snow-white usually, and generally have wide verandas, or double-verandas, supported by ornamental columns. These mansionsstand in the center of large grounds, and rise, garlanded with roses, out of the midst of swelling masses of shining green foliage andmany-colored blossoms. No houses could well be in better harmony withtheir surroundings, or more pleasing to the eye, or more home-like andcomfortable-looking. 

One even becomes reconciled to the cistern presently; this is a mightycask, painted green, and sometimes a couple of stories high, whichis propped against the house-corner on stilts. There is amansion-and-brewery suggestion about the combination which seems veryincongruous at first. But the people cannot have wells, and so theytake rain-water. Neither can they conveniently have cellars, orgraves, {footnote [The Israelites are buried in graves--by permission, Itake it, not requirement; but none else, except the destitute, who areburied at public expense. The graves are but three or four feet deep. ]}the town being built upon 'made' ground; so they do without both, andfew of the living complain, and none of the others. 

Chapter 42 Hygiene and Sentiment

THEY bury their dead in vaults, above the ground. These vaults havea resemblance to houses--sometimes to temples; are built of marble, generally; are architecturally graceful and shapely; they face the walksand driveways of the cemetery; and when one moves through the midst of athousand or so of them and sees their white roofs and gables stretchinginto the distance on every hand, the phrase 'city of the dead' has allat once a meaning to him. Many of the cemeteries are beautiful, andare kept in perfect order. When one goes from the levee or the businessstreets near it, to a cemetery, he observes to himself that if thosepeople down there would live as neatly while they are alive as they doafter they are dead, they would find many advantages in it; and besides, their quarter would be the wonder and admiration of the business world. Fresh flowers, in vases of water, are to be seen at the portals of manyof the vaults: placed there by the pious hands of bereaved parents andchildren, husbands and wives, and renewed daily. A milder form of sorrowfinds its inexpensive and lasting remembrancer in the coarse and uglybut indestructible 'immortelle'--which is a wreath or cross or some suchemblem, made of rosettes of black linen, with sometimes a yellow rosetteat the conjunction of the cross's bars--kind of sorrowful breast-pin, soto say. The immortelle requires no attention: you just hang it up, andthere you are; just leave it alone, it will take care of your grief foryou, 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 leggedreptiles--creep along the marble fronts of the vaults, and catch flies. Their changes of color--as to variety--are not up to the creature'sreputation. They change color when a person comes along and hangs upan immortelle; but that is nothing: any right-feeling reptile would dothat. 

I will gradually drop this subject of graveyards. I have been tryingall I could to get down to the sentimental part of it, but I cannotaccomplish it. I think there is no genuinely sentimental part to it. It is all grotesque, ghastly, horrible. Graveyards may have beenjustifiable in the bygone ages, when nobody knew that for every deadbody put into the ground, to glut the earth and the plant-roots, and theair with disease-germs, five or fifty, or maybe a hundred persons mustdie before their proper time; but they are hardly justifiable now, wheneven the children know that a dead saint enters upon a century-longcareer of assassination the moment the earth closes over his corpse. Itis a grim sort of a thought. The relics of St. Anne, up in Canada, havenow, after nineteen hundred years, gone to curing the sick by the dozen. But it is merest matter-of-course that these same relics, within ageneration after St. Anne's death and burial, MADE several thousandpeople sick. Therefore these miracle-performances are simplycompensation, nothing more. St. Anne is somewhat slow pay, for a Saint, it is true; but better a debt paid after nineteen hundred years, andoutlawed by the statute of limitations, than not paid at all; and mostof the knights of the halo do not pay at all. Where you find one thatpays--like St. Anne--you find a hundred and fifty that take the benefitof the statute. And none of them pay any more than the principal of whatthey owe--they pay none of the interest either simple or compound. ASaint can never QUITE return the principal, however; for his dead bodyKILLS people, whereas his relics HEAL only--they never restore the deadto 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, resultsin constantly loading the atmosphere, and polluting the waters, withnot only the germs that rise from simply putrefaction, but also with theSPECIFIC germs of the diseases from which death resulted. "

'The gases (from buried corpses) will rise to the surface througheight or ten feet of gravel, just as coal-gas will do, and there ispractically no limit to their power of escape. 

'During the epidemic in New Orleans in 1853, Dr. E. H. Barton reportedthat in the Fourth District the mortality was four hundred and fifty-twoper thousand--more than double that of any other. In this district werethree large cemeteries, in which during the previous year more thanthree thousand bodies had been buried. In other districts the proximityof cemeteries seemed to aggravate the disease. 

'In 1828 Professor Bianchi demonstrated how the fearful reappearance ofthe plague at Modena was caused by excavations in ground where, THREEHUNDRED YEARS PREVIOUSLY, the victims of the pestilence had been buried. Mr. Cooper, in explaining the causes of some epidemics, remarks that theopening of the plague burial-grounds at Eyam resulted in an immediateoutbreak of disease. '--NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, NO. 3, VOL. 135. 

In an address before the Chicago Medical Society, in advocacy ofcremation, Dr. Charles W. Purdy made some striking comparisons to showwhat a burden is laid upon society by the burial of the dead:--

'One and one-fourth times more money is expended annually in funeralsin the United States than the Government expends for public-schoolpurposes. Funerals cost this country in 1880 enough money to pay theliabilities of all the commercial failures in the United States duringthe same year, and give each bankrupt a capital of $8, 630 with which toresume business. Funerals cost annually more money than the value of thecombined gold and silver yield of the United States in the year 1880!These figures do not include the sums invested in burial-grounds andexpended in tombs and monuments, nor the loss from depreciation ofproperty in the vicinity of cemeteries. '

For the rich, cremation would answer as well as burial; for theceremonies connected with it could be made as costly and ostentatiousas a Hindu suttee; while for the poor, cremation would be better thanburial, because so cheap {footnote [Four or five dollars is the minimumcost. ]}--so cheap until the poor got to imitating the rich, which theywould do by-and-bye. The adoption of cremation would relieve us of amuck of threadbare burial-witticisms; but, on the other hand, it wouldresurrect a lot of mildewed old cremation-jokes that have had a rest fortwo thousand years. 

I have a colored acquaintance who earns his living by odd jobs and heavymanual labor. He never earns above four hundred dollars in a year, andas he has a wife and several young children, the closest scrimping isnecessary to get him through to the end of the twelve months debtless. To such a man a funeral is a colossal financial disaster. While I waswriting 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 waswithin his means. He bought the very cheapest one he could find, plainwood, stained. It cost him twenty-six dollars. It would have cost lessthan four, probably, if it had been built to put something useful into. He and his family will feel that outlay a good many months. 

Chapter 43 The Art of Inhumation

ABOUT the same time, I encountered a man in the street, whom I had notseen for six or seven years; and something like this talk followed. Isaid--

'But you used to look sad and oldish; you don't now. Where did you getall this youth and bubbling cheerfulness? Give me the address. '

He chuckled blithely, took off his shining tile, pointed to a notchedpink circlet of paper pasted into its crown, with something lettered onit, and went on chuckling while I read, 'J. B----, UNDERTAKER. ' Thenhe clapped his hat on, gave it an irreverent tilt to leeward, and criedout--

'That's what's the matter! It used to be rough times with me when youknew me--insurance-agency business, you know; mighty irregular. Bigfire, all right--brisk trade for ten days while people scared; afterthat, dull policy-business till next fire. Town like this don't havefires often enough--a fellow strikes so many dull weeks in a row thathe gets discouraged. But you bet you, this is the business! People don'twait for examples to die. No, sir, they drop off right along--thereain't any dull spots in the undertaker line. I just started in withtwo or three little old coffins and a hired hearse, and now look at thething! I've worked up a business here that would satisfy any man, don'tcare who he is. Five years ago, lodged in an attic; live in a swellhouse now, with a mansard roof, and all the modern inconveniences. '

'Does a coffin pay so well. Is there much profit on a coffin?'

'Go-way! How you talk!' Then, with a confidential wink, a dropping ofthe 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 youdown on. That's a coffin. There's one thing in this world which a persondon't say--"I'll look around a little, and if I find I can't do betterI'll come back and take it. " That's a coffin. There's one thing in thisworld which a person won't take in pine if he can go walnut; and won'ttake in walnut if he can go mahogany; and won't take in mahogany if hecan go an iron casket with silver door-plate and bronze handles. That'sa coffin. And there's one thing in this world which you don't have toworry 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 thenobbiest. 

'Why, just look at it. A rich man won't have anything but your verybest; and you can just pile it on, too--pile it on and sock it tohim--he won't ever holler. And you take in a poor man, and if you workhim 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 kindof moaning. Unhandkerchiefs one eye, bats it around tearfully over thestock; 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 agintleman, as he was, if I have to work me fingers off for it. I'll havethat wan, sor. "

'"Yes, madam, " says I, "and it is a very good one, too; not costly, tobe sure, but in this life we must cut our garment to our clothes, as thesaying is. " And as she starts out, I heave in, kind of casually, "Thisone with the white satin lining is a beauty, but I am afraid--well, sixty-five dollars is a rather--rather--but no matter, I felt obliged tosay to Mrs. O'Shaughnessy--"

'"D'ye mane to soy that Bridget O'Shaughnessy bought the mate to thatjoo-ul box to ship that dhrunken divil to Purgatory in?"

'"Yes, madam. "

'"Then Pat shall go to heaven in the twin to it, if it takes the lastrap the O'Flaherties 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 tomention that Mrs. O'Shaughnessy hired fifty-four dollars' worth of hacksand flung as much style into Dennis's funeral as if he had been a dukeor an assassin. And of course she sails in and goes the O'Shaughnessyabout four hacks and an omnibus better. That used to be, but that's allplayed now; that is, in this particular town. The Irish got to piling uphacks so, on their funerals, that a funeral left them ragged and hungryfor two years afterward; so the priest pitched in and broke it all up. He don't allow them to have but two hacks now, and sometimes only one. '

'Well, ' said I, 'if you are so light-hearted and jolly in ordinarytimes, what must you be in an epidemic?'

He shook his head. 

'No, you're off, there. We don't like to see an epidemic. An epidemicdon't pay. Well, of course I don't mean that, exactly; but it don't payin proportion to the regular thing. Don't it occur to you, why?'

No. 

'Think. '

'I can't imagine. What is it?'

'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; oneday two days, maybe three, to wait for friends to come. Takes a lot ofit--melts fast. We charge jewelry rates for that ice, and war-prices forattendance. 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 anepidemic. Same with Embamming. You take a family that's able to embam, and you've got a soft thing. You can mention sixteen different ways todo it--though there AIN'T only one or two ways, when you come down tothe bottom facts of it--and they'll take the highest-priced way, everytime. It's human nature--human nature in grief. It don't reason, you see. Time being, it don't care a dam. All it wants is physicalimmortality for deceased, and they're willing to pay for it. All you'vegot 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 getyour embamming traps around you and go to work; and in a couple of hourshe is worth a cool six hundred--that's what HE'S worth. There ain'tanything 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 toembam. No, indeed they don't; and it hurts the business like hell-th, as we say--hurts it like hell-th, HEALTH, see?--Our little joke in thetrade. Well, I must be going. Give me a call whenever you need any--Imean, when you're going by, sometime. '

In his joyful high spirits, he did the exaggerating himself, if any hasbeen done. I have not enlarged on him. 

With the above brief references to inhumation, let us leave the subject. As for me, I hope to be cremated. I made that remark to my pastor once, who said, with what he seemed to think was an impressive manner--

'I wouldn't worry about that, if I had your chances. ' Much he knew aboutit--the family all so opposed to it. 

Chapter 44 City Sights

THE old French part of New Orleans--anciently the Spanish part--bears noresemblance to the American end of the city: the American end which liesbeyond the intervening brick business-center. The houses are massed inblocks; are austerely plain and dignified; uniform of pattern, with hereand there a departure from it with pleasant effect; all are plasteredon the outside, and nearly all have long, iron-railed verandas runningalong the several stories. Their chief beauty is the deep, warm, varicolored stain with which time and the weather have enriched theplaster. It harmonizes with all the surroundings, and has as naturala look of belonging there as has the flush upon sunset clouds. Thischarming decoration cannot be successfully imitated; neither is it to befound elsewhere in America. 

The iron railings are a specialty, also. The pattern is oftenexceedingly light and dainty, and airy and graceful--with a large cipheror monogram in the center, a delicate cobweb of baffling, intricateforms, wrought in steel. The ancient railings are hand-made, and arenow comparatively rare and proportionately valuable. They are becomeBRIC-A-BRAC. 

The party had the privilege of idling through this ancient quarter ofNew Orleans with the South's finest literary genius, the author of 'theGrandissimes. ' In him the South has found a masterly delineator of itsinterior life and its history. In truth, I find by experience, that theuntrained eye and vacant mind can inspect it, and learn of it, and judgeof it, more clearly and profitably in his books than by personal contactwith it. 

With Mr. Cable along to see for you, and describe and explain andilluminate, a jog through that old quarter is a vivid pleasure. And youhave a vivid sense as of unseen or dimly seen things--vivid, and yetfitful and darkling; you glimpse salient features, but lose the fineshades or catch them imperfectly through the vision of the imagination:a case, as it were, of ignorant near-sighted stranger traversing therim of wide vague horizons of Alps with an inspired and enlightenedlong-sighted native. 

We visited the old St. Louis Hotel, now occupied by municipal offices. There is nothing strikingly remarkable about it; but one can say of itas of the Academy of Music in New York, that if a broom or a shovel hasever been used in it there is no circumstantial evidence to back up thefact. It is curious that cabbages and hay and things do not grow in theAcademy of Music; but no doubt it is on account of the interruptionof the light by the benches, and the impossibility of hoeing thecrop except in the aisles. The fact that the ushers grow theirbuttonhole-bouquets on the premises shows what might be done if they hadthe right kind of an agricultural head to the establishment. 

We visited also the venerable Cathedral, and the pretty square in frontof it; the one dim with religious light, the other brilliant with theworldly sort, and lovely with orange-trees and blossomy shrubs; then wedrove in the hot sun through the wilderness of houses and out on to thewide dead level beyond, where the villas are, and the water wheels todrain the town, and the commons populous with cows and children; passingby an old cemetery where we were told lie the ashes of an early pirate;but we took him on trust, and did not visit him. He was a pirate witha tremendous and sanguinary history; and as long as he preservedunspotted, in retirement, the dignity of his name and the grandeur ofhis ancient calling, homage and reverence were his from high andlow; but when at last he descended into politics and became a paltryalderman, the public 'shook' him, and turned aside and wept. When hedied, they set up a monument over him; and little by little he has comeinto respect again; but it is respect for the pirate, not the alderman. To-day the loyal and generous remember only what he was, and charitablyforget 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 andthere, in the distance, a ragged and angular-limbed and moss-beardedcypress, top standing out, clear cut against the sky, and as quaint ofform as the apple-trees in Japanese pictures--such was our course andthe surroundings of it. There was an occasional alligator swimmingcomfortably along in the canal, and an occasional picturesque coloredperson on the bank, flinging his statue-rigid reflection upon the stillwater and watching for a bite. 

And by-and-bye we reached the West End, a collection of hotels of theusual light summer-resort pattern, with broad verandas all around, and the waves of the wide and blue Lake Pontchartrain lapping thethresholds. We had dinner on a ground-veranda over the water--thechief dish the renowned fish called the pompano, delicious as the lesscriminal forms of sin. 

Thousands of people come by rail and carriage to West End and to SpanishFort every evening, and dine, listen to the bands, take strolls inthe open air under the electric lights, go sailing on the lake, andentertain themselves in various and sundry other ways. 

We had opportunities on other days and in other places to test thepompano. Notably, at an editorial dinner at one of the clubs in thecity. He was in his last possible perfection there, and justified hisfame. In his suite was a tall pyramid of scarlet cray-fish--large ones;as large as one's thumb--delicate, palatable, appetizing. Also deviledwhitebait; also shrimps of choice quality; and a platter of smallsoft-shell crabs of a most superior breed. The other dishes were whatone might get at Delmonico's, or Buckingham Palace; those I have spokenof 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 gothrough the infantry drill, with broom in place of musket. It is avery pretty sight, on private view. When they perform on the stage ofa theater, in the blaze of colored fires, it must be a fine andfascinating spectacle. I saw them go through their complex manual withgrace, spirit, and admirable precision. I saw them do everything whicha human being can possibly do with a broom, except sweep. I did not seethem sweep. But I know they could learn. What they have already learnedproves that. And if they ever should learn, and should go on thewar-path down Tchoupitoulas or some of those other streets around there, those thoroughfares would bear a greatly improved aspect in a very fewminutes. But the girls themselves wouldn't; so nothing would be reallygained, after all. 

The drill was in the Washington Artillery building. In this buildingwe saw many interesting relics of the war. Also a fine oil-paintingrepresenting Stonewall Jackson's last interview with General Lee. Bothmen are on horseback. Jackson has just ridden up, and is accosting Lee. The picture is very valuable, on account of the portraits, which areauthentic. But, like many another historical picture, it means nothingwithout 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 andsatisfactorily, 'Here are Lee and Jackson together. ' The artist wouldhave made it tell that this is Lee and Jackson's last interview if hecould have done it. But he couldn't, for there wasn't any way to doit. A good legible label is usually worth, for information, a ton ofsignificant attitude and expression in a historical picture. In Rome, people with fine sympathetic natures stand up and weep in front of thecelebrated 'Beatrice Cenci the Day before her Execution. ' It shows whata label can do. If they did not know the picture, they would inspect itunmoved, and say, 'Young girl with hay fever; young girl with her headin a bag. '

I found the half-forgotten Southern intonations and elisions as pleasingto my ear as they had formerly been. A Southerner talks music. Atleast it is music to me, but then I was born in the South. The educatedSoutherner has no use for an r, except at the beginning of a word. Hesays 'honah, ' and 'dinnah, ' and 'Gove'nuh, ' and 'befo' the waw, ' and soon. The words may lack charm to the eye, in print, but they have it tothe ear. When did the r disappear from Southern speech, and how did itcome to disappear? The custom of dropping it was not borrowed fromthe North, nor inherited from England. Many Southerners--mostSoutherners--put a y into occasional words that begin with the k sound. For instance, they say Mr. K'yahtah (Carter) and speak of playingk'yahds or of riding in the k'yahs. And they have the pleasantcustom--long ago fallen into decay in the North--of frequently employingthe respectful 'Sir. ' Instead of the curt Yes, and the abrupt No, theysay 'Yes, Suh', 'No, Suh. '

But there are some infelicities. Such as 'like' for 'as, ' and theaddition of an 'at' where it isn't needed. I heard an educated gentlemansay, 'Like the flag-officer did. ' His cook or his butler would havesaid, 'Like the flag-officer done. ' You hear gentlemen say, 'Where haveyou been at?' And here is the aggravated form--heard a ragged streetArab say it to a comrade: 'I was a-ask'n' Tom whah you was a-sett'n'at. ' The very elect carelessly say 'will' when they mean 'shall'; andmany of them say, 'I didn't go to do it, ' meaning 'I didn't mean to doit. ' The Northern word 'guess'--imported from England, where it usedto be common, and now regarded by satirical Englishmen as a Yankeeoriginal--is but little used among Southerners. They say 'reckon. ' Theyhaven't any 'doesn't' in their language; they say 'don't' instead. The unpolished often use 'went' for 'gone. ' It is nearly as bad asthe Northern 'hadn't ought. ' This reminds me that a remark of a verypeculiar nature was made here in my neighborhood (in the North) a fewdays ago: 'He hadn't ought to have went. ' How is that? Isn't that a gooddeal of a triumph? One knows the orders combined in this half-breed'sarchitecture without inquiring: one parent Northern, the other Southern. To-day I heard a schoolmistress ask, 'Where is John gone?' This form isso common--so nearly universal, in fact--that if she had used 'whither'instead of 'where, ' I think it would have sounded like an affectation. 

We picked up one excellent word--a word worth traveling to New Orleansto get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word--'lagniappe. ' Theypronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish--so they said. We discovered itat 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 thethird; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It has arestricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little whenthey choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a 'baker'sdozen. ' It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. The customoriginated in the Spanish quarter of the city. When a child or a servantbuys something in a shop--or even the mayor or the governor, for aught Iknow--he finishes the operation by saying--

'Give me something for lagniappe. '

The shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice-root, gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives thegovernor--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 NewOrleans--and you say, 'What, again?--no, I've had enough;' the otherparty says, 'But just this one time more--this is for lagniappe. ' Whenthe beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifle toohigh, and sees by the young lady's countenance that the edifice wouldhave been better with the top compliment left off, he puts his 'I begpardon--no harm intended, ' into the briefer form of 'Oh, that's forlagniappe. ' If the waiter in the restaurant stumbles and spills a gillof coffee down the back of your neck, he says 'For lagniappe, sah, ' andgets you another cup without extra charge. 

Chapter 45 Southern Sports

IN the North one hears the war mentioned, in social conversation, once amonth; sometimes as often as once a week; but as a distinct subjectfor talk, it has long ago been relieved of duty. There are sufficientreasons for this. Given a dinner company of six gentlemen to-day, itcan easily happen that four of them--and possibly five--were not in thefield at all. So the chances are four to two, or five to one, that thewar 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 willremain so but a little while. If you add six ladies to the company, youhave added six people who saw so little of the dread realities of thewar that they ran out of talk concerning them years ago, and now wouldsoon weary of the war topic if you brought it up. 

The case is very different in the South. There, every man you meet wasin the war; and every lady you meet saw the war. The war is the greatchief topic of conversation. The interest in it is vivid and constant;the interest in other topics is fleeting. Mention of the war will wakeup a dull company and set their tongues going, when nearly any othertopic would fail. In the South, the war is what A. D. Is elsewhere: theydate from it. All day long you hear things 'placed' as having happenedsince the waw; or du'in' the waw; or befo' the waw; or right aftah thewaw; or 'bout two yeahs or five yeahs or ten yeahs befo' the waw oraftah the waw. It shows how intimately every individual was visited, inhis own person, by that tremendous episode. It gives the inexperiencedstranger a better idea of what a vast and comprehensive calamityinvasion 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 anything else to talk about, but becausenothing else has so strong an interest for us. And there is anotherreason: In the war, each of us, in his own person, seems to have sampledall the different varieties of human experience; as a consequence, youcan't mention an outside matter of any sort but it will certainly remindsome listener of something that happened during the war--and out hecomes with it. Of course that brings the talk back to the war. You maytry all you want to, to keep other subjects before the house, and we mayall join in and help, but there can be but one result: the most randomtopic 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 talkpale inconsequentialities when you've got a crimson fact or fancy inyour head that you are burning to fetch out. '

The poet was sitting some little distance away; and presently he beganto 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 itwill suggest something to somebody about the war; in ten minutes fromnow the moon, as a topic, will be shelved. '

The poet was saying he had noticed something which was a surprise tohim; had had the impression that down here, toward the equator, themoonlight was much stronger and brighter than up North; had had theimpression that when he visited New Orleans, many years ago, the moon--

Interruption from the other end of the room--

'Let me explain that. Reminds me of an anecdote. Everything is changedsince the war, for better or for worse; but you'll find people down hereborn grumblers, who see no change except the change for the worse. Therewas an old negro woman of this sort. A young New-Yorker said in herpresence, "What a wonderful moon you have down here!" She sighed andsaid, "Ah, bless yo' heart, honey, you ought to seen dat moon befo' dewaw!"'

The new topic was dead already. But the poet resurrected it, and gave ita new start. 

A brief dispute followed, as to whether the difference between Northernand Southern moonlight really existed or was only imagined. Moonlighttalk drifted easily into talk about artificial methods of dispellingdarkness. Then somebody remembered that when Farragut advanced uponPort Hudson on a dark night--and did not wish to assist the aim of theConfederate gunners--he carried no battle-lanterns, but painted thedecks of his ships white, and thus created a dim but valuable light, which enabled his own men to grope their way around with considerablefacility. At this point the war got the floor again--the ten minutes notquite up yet. 

I was not sorry, for war talk by men who have been in a war is alwaysinteresting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon islikely to be dull. 

We went to a cockpit in New Orleans on a Saturday afternoon. I had neverseen a cock-fight before. There were men and boys there of all ages andall colors, and of many languages and nationalities. But I noticed onequite conspicuous and surprising absence: the traditional brutal faces. There were no brutal faces. With no cock-fighting going on, you couldhave played the gathering on a stranger for a prayer-meeting; and afterit began, for a revival--provided you blindfolded your stranger--for theshouting was something prodigious. 

A negro and a white man were in the ring; everybody else outside. Thecocks were brought in in sacks; and when time was called, they weretaken out by the two bottle-holders, stroked, caressed, poked towardeach other, and finally liberated. The big black cock plunged instantlyat the little gray one and struck him on the head with his spur. Thegray responded with spirit. Then the Babel of many-tongued shoutingsbroke out, and ceased not thenceforth. When the cocks had been fightingsome little time, I was expecting them momently to drop dead, for bothwere blind, red with blood, and so exhausted that they frequently felldown. Yet they would not give up, neither would they die. The negro andthe white man would pick them up every few seconds, wipe them off, blowcold water on them in a fine spray, and take their heads in their mouthsand hold them there a moment--to warm back the perishing life perhaps;I do not know. Then, being set down again, the dying creatures wouldtotter gropingly about, with dragging wings, find each other, strike aguesswork blow or two, and fall exhausted once more. 

I did not see the end of the battle. I forced myself to endure itas long as I could, but it was too pitiful a sight; so I made frankconfession to that effect, and we retired. We heard afterward that theblack cock died in the ring, and fighting to the last. 

Evidently there is abundant fascination about this 'sport' for suchas have had a degree of familiarity with it. I never saw people enjoyanything more than this gathering enjoyed this fight. The case was thesame with old gray-heads and with boys of ten. They lost themselvesin frenzies of delight. The 'cocking-main' is an inhuman sort ofentertainment, there is no question about that; still, it seems a muchmore respectable and far less cruel sport than fox-hunting--for thecocks like it; they experience, as well as confer enjoyment; which isnot the fox's case. 

We assisted--in the French sense--at a mule race, one day. I believe Ienjoyed this contest more than any other mule there. I enjoyed it morethan I remember having enjoyed any other animal race I ever saw. Thegrand-stand was well filled with the beauty and the chivalry of NewOrleans. That phrase is not original with me. It is the Southernreporter's. He has used it for two generations. He uses it twentytimes a day, or twenty thousand times a day; or a million times aday--according to the exigencies. He is obliged to use it a milliontimes a day, if he have occasion to speak of respectable men and womenthat often; for he has no other phrase for such service except thatsingle one. He never tires of it; it always has a fine sound to him. There is a kind of swell medieval bulliness and tinsel about it thatpleases his gaudy barbaric soul. If he had been in Palestine in theearly times, we should have had no references to 'much people' out ofhim. No, he would have said 'the beauty and the chivalry of Galilee'assembled to hear the Sermon on the Mount. It is likely that the menand women of the South are sick enough of that phrase by this time, andwould like a change, but there is no immediate prospect of their gettingit. 

The New Orleans editor has a strong, compact, direct, unflowerystyle; wastes no words, and does not gush. Not so with his averagecorrespondent. In the Appendix I have quoted a good letter, penned by atrained hand; but the average correspondent hurls a style which differsfrom that. For instance--

The 'Times-Democrat' sent a relief-steamer up one of the bayous, lastApril. This steamer landed at a village, up there somewhere, and theCaptain invited some of the ladies of the village to make a short tripwith him. They accepted and came aboard, and the steamboat shoved outup the creek. That was all there was 'to it. ' And that is all thatthe editor of the 'Times-Democrat' would have got out of it. There wasnothing in the thing but statistics, and he would have got nothing elseout of it. He would probably have even tabulated them, partly to secureperfect clearness of statement, and partly to save space. But hisspecial correspondent knows other methods of handling statistics. Hejust throws off all restraint and wallows in them--

'On Saturday, early in the morning, the beauty of the place graced ourcabin, and proud of her fair freight the gallant little boat glided upthe bayou. '

Twenty-two words to say the ladies came aboard and the boat shovedout up the creek, is a clean waste of ten good words, and is alsodestructive of compactness of statement. 

The trouble with the Southern reporter is--Women. They unsettlehim; they throw him off his balance. He is plain, and sensible, andsatisfactory, until a woman heaves in sight. Then he goes all to pieces;his mind totters, he becomes flowery and idiotic. From reading the aboveextract, you would imagine that this student of Sir Walter Scott isan apprentice, and knows next to nothing about handling a pen. On thecontrary, he furnishes plenty of proofs, in his long letter, that heknows well enough how to handle it when the women are not around to givehim the artificial-flower complaint. For instance--

'At 4 o'clock ominous clouds began to gather in the south-east, andpresently from the Gulf there came a blow which increased in severityevery moment. It was not safe to leave the landing then, and there wasa delay. The oaks shook off long tresses of their mossy beards to thetugging of the wind, and the bayou in its ambition put on miniaturewaves in mocking of much larger bodies of water. A lull permitted astart, and homewards we steamed, an inky sky overhead and a heavy windblowing. As darkness crept on, there were few on board who did not wishthemselves nearer home. '

There is nothing the matter with that. It is good description, compactlyput. Yet there was great temptation, there, to drop into lurid writing. 

But let us return to the mule. Since I left him, I have rummaged aroundand found a full report of the race. In it I find confirmation of thetheory which I broached just now--namely, that the trouble with theSouthern reporter is Women: Women, supplemented by Walter Scott and hisknights 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 thisfrantic result--

'It will be probably a long time before the ladies' stand presents sucha sea of foam-like loveliness as it did yesterday. The New Orleans womenare 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 ofbalmy freshness and an odor of sanctity unspeakable. The stand was socrowded with them that, walking at their feet and seeing no possibilityof approach, many a man appreciated as he never did before the Peri'sfeeling at the Gates of Paradise, and wondered what was the pricelessboon that would admit him to their sacred presence. Sparkling on theirwhite-robed breasts or shoulders were the colors of their favoriteknights, and were it not for the fact that the doughty heroes appearedon unromantic mules, it would have been easy to imagine one of KingArthur's gala-days. '

There were thirteen mules in the first heat; all sorts of mules, theywere; all sorts of complexions, gaits, dispositions, aspects. Some werehandsome creatures, some were not; some were sleek, some hadn't hadtheir fur brushed lately; some were innocently gay and frisky; some werefull of malice and all unrighteousness; guessing from looks, some ofthem thought the matter on hand was war, some thought it was a lark, therest took it for a religious occasion. And each mule acted according tohis convictions. The result was an absence of harmony well compensatedby a conspicuous presence of variety--variety of a picturesque andentertaining sort. 

All the riders were young gentlemen in fashionable society. If thereader has been wondering why it is that the ladies of New Orleansattend so humble an orgy as a mule-race, the thing is explained now. Itis 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 markedoccasions of the year. It has brought some pretty fast mules to thefront. One of these had to be ruled out, because he was so fast that heturned the thing into a one-mule contest, and robbed it of one of itsbest features--variety. But every now and then somebody disguises himwith 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 riderhad 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 howoften the track ought to be crossed, and when a collision ought tobe accomplished, and when it ought to be avoided, these twenty-sixconflicting opinions created a most fantastic and picturesque confusion, and the resulting spectacle was killingly comical. 

Mile heat; time 2:22. Eight of the thirteen mules distanced. I had a beton a mule which would have won if the procession had been reversed. Thesecond heat was good fun; and so was the 'consolation race for beatenmules, ' which followed later; but the first heat was the best in thatrespect. 

I think that much the most enjoyable of all races is a steamboat race;but, next to that, I prefer the gay and joyous mule-rush. Two red-hotsteamboats raging along, neck-and-neck, straining every nerve--that isto say, every rivet in the boilers--quaking and shaking and groaningfrom stem to stern, spouting white steam from the pipes, pouring blacksmoke from the chimneys, raining down sparks, parting the river intolong breaks of hissing foam--this is sport that makes a body's veryliver curl with enjoyment. A horse-race is pretty tame and colorlessin comparison. Still, a horse-race might be well enough, in its way, perhaps, if it were not for the tiresome false starts. But then, nobody is ever killed. At least, nobody was ever killed when I was at ahorse-race. They have been crippled, it is true; but this is little tothe purpose. 

Chapter 46 Enchantments and Enchanters

THE largest annual event in New Orleans is a something which we arrivedtoo late to sample--the Mardi-Gras festivities. I saw the procession ofthe Mystic Crew of Comus there, twenty-four years ago--with knightsand nobles and so on, clothed in silken and golden Paris-madegorgeousnesses, planned and bought for that single night's use; andin their train all manner of giants, dwarfs, monstrosities, and otherdiverting grotesquerie--a startling and wonderful sort of show, as itfiled solemnly and silently down the street in the light of its smokingand flickering torches; but it is said that in these latter days thespectacle is mightily augmented, as to cost, splendor, and variety. There is a chief personage--'Rex;' and if I remember rightly, neitherthis king nor any of his great following of subordinates is known to anyoutsider. All these people are gentlemen of position and consequence;and it is a proud thing to belong to the organization; so the mystery inwhich they hide their personality is merely for romance's sake, and noton 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 outof it now. Sir Walter has got the advantage of the gentlemen of the cowland rosary, and he will stay. His medieval business, supplemented by themonsters and the oddities, and the pleasant creatures from fairy-land, is finer to look at than the poor fantastic inventions and performancesof the reveling rabble of the priest's day, and serves quite as well, perhaps, to emphasize the day and admonish men that the grace-linebetween the worldly season and the holy one is reached. 

This Mardi-Gras pageant was the exclusive possession of New Orleansuntil recently. But now it has spread to Memphis and St. Louis andBaltimore. It has probably reached its limit. It is a thing which couldhardly exist in the practical North; would certainly last but a verybrief time; as brief a time as it would last in London. For the soulof it is the romantic, not the funny and the grotesque. Take away theromantic mysteries, the kings and knights and big-sounding titles, andMardi-Gras would die, down there in the South. The very feature thatkeeps it alive in the South--girly-girly romance--would kill it in theNorth or in London. Puck and Punch, and the press universal, would fallupon it and make merciless fun of it, and its first exhibition would bealso its last. 

Against the crimes of the French Revolution and of Bonaparte may be settwo compensating benefactions: the Revolution broke the chains of theANCIEN REGIME and of the Church, and made of a nation of abject slavesa nation of freemen; and Bonaparte instituted the setting of merit abovebirth, and also so completely stripped the divinity from royalty, thatwhereas crowned heads in Europe were gods before, they are only men, since, and can never be gods again, but only figureheads, and answerablefor their acts like common clay. Such benefactions as these compensatethe temporary harm which Bonaparte and the Revolution did, and leave theworld in debt to them for these great and permanent services to liberty, humanity, and progress. 

Then comes Sir Walter Scott with his enchantments, and by his singlemight checks this wave of progress, and even turns it back; sets theworld in love with dreams and phantoms; with decayed and swinish formsof religion; with decayed and degraded systems of government; withthe sillinesses and emptinesses, sham grandeurs, sham gauds, and shamchivalries of a brainless and worthless long-vanished society. He didmeasureless harm; more real and lasting harm, perhaps, than any otherindividual that ever wrote. Most of the world has now outlived good partof these harms, though by no means all of them; but in our South theyflourish pretty forcefully still. Not so forcefully as half a generationago, perhaps, but still forcefully. There, the genuine and wholesomecivilization of the nineteenth century is curiously confused andcommingled with the Walter Scott Middle-Age sham civilization; and soyou have practical, common-sense, progressive ideas, and progressiveworks; mixed up with the duel, the inflated speech, and the jejuneromanticism of an absurd past that is dead, and out of charity oughtto be buried. But for the Sir Walter disease, the character of theSoutherner--or Southron, according to Sir Walter's starchier way ofphrasing it--would be wholly modern, in place of modern and medievalmixed, and the South would be fully a generation further advanced thanit is. It was Sir Walter that made every gentleman in the South a Majoror 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 itwas he that created rank and caste down there, and also reverencefor rank and caste, and pride and pleasure in them. Enough is laid onslavery, without fathering upon it these creations and contributions ofSir Walter. 

Sir Walter had so large a hand in making Southern character, as itexisted before the war, that he is in great measure responsible forthe war. It seems a little harsh toward a dead man to say that we nevershould have had any war but for Sir Walter; and yet something of aplausible argument might, perhaps, be made in support of that wildproposition. The Southerner of the American Revolution owned slaves; sodid the Southerner of the Civil War: but the former resembles the latteras an Englishman resembles a Frenchman. The change of character can betraced rather more easily to Sir Walter's influence than to that of anyother thing or person. 

One may observe, by one or two signs, how deeply that influencepenetrated, and how strongly it holds. If one take up a Northern orSouthern literary periodical of forty or fifty years ago, he willfind it filled with wordy, windy, flowery 'eloquence, ' romanticism, sentimentality--all imitated from Sir Walter, and sufficiently badlydone, too--innocent travesties of his style and methods, in fact. Thissort of literature being the fashion in both sections of the country, there was opportunity for the fairest competition; and as a consequence, the South was able to show as many well-known literary names, proportioned to population, as the North could. 

But a change has come, and there is no opportunity now for a faircompetition between North and South. For the North has thrown outthat old inflated style, whereas the Southern writer still clingsto it--clings to it and has a restricted market for his wares, as aconsequence. There is as much literary talent in the South, now, as everthere was, of course; but its work can gain but slight currency underpresent conditions; the authors write for the past, not the present;they use obsolete forms, and a dead language. But when a Southerner ofgenius writes modern English, his book goes upon crutches no longer, butupon wings; and they carry it swiftly all about America and England, and through the great English reprint publishing houses of Germany--aswitness the experience of Mr. Cable and Uncle Remus, two of the veryfew Southern authors who do not write in the Southern style. Insteadof three or four widely-known literary names, the South ought to have adozen 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 harmis shown in the effects wrought by 'Don Quixote' and those wroughtby 'Ivanhoe. ' The first swept the world's admiration for the medievalchivalry-silliness out of existence; and the other restored it. As faras our South is concerned, the good work done by Cervantes is prettynearly a dead letter, so effectually has Scott's pernicious workundermined it. 

Chapter 47 Uncle Remus and Mr. Cable

MR. JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS ('Uncle Remus') was to arrive from Atlanta atseven o'clock Sunday morning; so we got up and received him. We wereable to detect him among the crowd of arrivals at the hotel-counter byhis correspondence with a description of him which had been furnished usfrom a trustworthy source. He was said to be undersized, red-haired, and somewhat freckled. He was the only man in the party whose outsidetallied with this bill of particulars. He was said to be very shy. Heis 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 seethat it is still in about as strong force as ever. There is a fine andbeautiful nature hidden behind it, as all know who have read the UncleRemus book; and a fine genius, too, as all know by the same sign. I seemto be talking quite freely about this neighbor; but in talking to thepublic I am but talking to his personal friends, and these things arepermissible among friends. 

He deeply disappointed a number of children who had flocked eagerly toMr. Cable's house to get a glimpse of the illustrious sage and oracle ofthe 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 Remus's Tar-Baby story from the lips of UncleRemus himself--or what, in their outraged eyes, was left of him. But itturned out that he had never read aloud to people, and was too shy toventure the attempt now. Mr. Cable and I read from books of ours, toshow him what an easy trick it was; but his immortal shyness was proofagainst even this sagacious strategy, so we had to read about BrerRabbit ourselves. 

Mr. Harris ought to be able to read the negro dialect better thananybody else, for in the matter of writing it he is the only master thecountry has produced. Mr. Cable is the only master in the writing ofFrench dialects that the country has produced; and he reads themin perfection. It was a great treat to hear him read about Jean-ahPoquelin, and about Innerarity and his famous 'pigshoo' representing'Louisihanna RIF-fusing to Hanter the Union, ' along with passages ofnicely-shaded German dialect from a novel which was still in manuscript. 

It came out in conversation, that in two different instances Mr. Cablegot into grotesque trouble by using, in his books, next-to-impossibleFrench names which nevertheless happened to be borne by living andsensitive citizens of New Orleans. His names were either inventions orwere borrowed from the ancient and obsolete past, I do not now rememberwhich; but at any rate living bearers of them turned up, and were a gooddeal hurt at having attention directed to themselves and their affairsin so excessively public a manner. 

Mr. Warner and I had an experience of the same sort when we wrotethe book called 'The Gilded Age. ' There is a character in it called'Sellers. ' I do not remember what his first name was, in the beginning;but anyway, Mr. Warner did not like it, and wanted it improved. He askedme if I was able to imagine a person named 'Eschol Sellers. ' Of course Isaid I could not, without stimulants. He said that away out West, once, he had met, and contemplated, and actually shaken hands with a manbearing that impossible name--'Eschol Sellers. ' He added--

'It was twenty years ago; his name has probably carried him off beforethis; and if it hasn't, he will never see the book anyhow. We willconfiscate his name. The name you are using is common, and thereforedangerous; there are probably a thousand Sellerses bearing it, and thewhole horde will come after us; but Eschol Sellers is a safe name--it isa rock. '

So we borrowed that name; and when the book had been out about a week, one of the stateliest and handsomest and most aristocratic looking whitemen that ever lived, called around, with the most formidable libelsuit in his pocket that ever--well, in brief, we got his permission tosuppress an edition of ten million {footnote [Figures taken from memory, and probably incorrect. Think it was more. ]} copies of the book andchange that name to 'Mulberry Sellers' in future editions. 

Chapter 48 Sugar and Postage

ONE day, on the street, I encountered the man whom, of all men, I mostwished to see--Horace Bixby; formerly pilot under me--or rather, overme--now captain of the great steamer 'City of Baton Rouge, ' the latestand swiftest addition to the Anchor Line. The same slender figure, thesame tight curls, the same springy step, the same alertness, the samedecision of eye and answering decision of hand, the same erect militarybearing; not an inch gained or lost in girth, not an ounce gained orlost in weight, not a hair turned. It is a curious thing, to leave a manthirty-five years old, and come back at the end of twenty-one years andfind him still only thirty-five. I have not had an experience of thiskind before, I believe. There were some crow's-feet, but they countedfor next to nothing, since they were inconspicuous. 

His boat was just in. I had been waiting several days for her, purposingto return to St. Louis in her. The captain and I joined a party ofladies and gentlemen, guests of Major Wood, and went down the riverfifty-four miles, in a swift tug, to ex-Governor Warmouth's sugarplantation. Strung along below the city, were a number of decayed, ram-shackly, superannuated old steamboats, not one of which had I everseen 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 frailnessof a Mississippi boat and the briefness of its life. 

Six miles below town a fat and battered brick chimney, sticking abovethe magnolias and live-oaks, was pointed out as the monument erected byan appreciative nation to celebrate the battle of New Orleans--Jackson'svictory over the British, January 8, 1815. The war had ended, the twonations were at peace, but the news had not yet reached New Orleans. Ifwe had had the cable telegraph in those days, this blood would not havebeen spilt, those lives would not have been wasted; and better still, Jackson would probably never have been president. We have gotten overthe harms done us by the war of 1812, but not over some of those done usby Jackson's presidency. 

The Warmouth plantation covers a vast deal of ground, and thehospitality of the Warmouth mansion is graduated to the same largescale. We saw steam-plows at work, here, for the first time. Thetraction engine travels about on its own wheels, till it reaches therequired spot; then it stands still and by means of a wire rope pullsthe huge plow toward itself two or three hundred yards across the field, between the rows of cane. The thing cuts down into the black mold a footand a half deep. The plow looks like a fore-and-aft brace of a Hudsonriver steamer, inverted. When the negro steersman sits on one end of it, that end tilts down near the ground, while the other sticks up high inair. 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 andfifty are in cane; and there is a fruitful orange grove of five thousandtrees. The cane is cultivated after a modern and intricate scientificfashion, too elaborate and complex for me to attempt to describe; but itlost $40, 000 last year. I forget the other details. However, this year'scrop will reach ten or twelve hundred tons of sugar, consequently lastyear's loss will not matter. These troublesome and expensive scientificmethods 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 wasin my time. 

The drainage-ditches were everywhere alive with littlecrabs--'fiddlers. ' One saw them scampering sidewise in every directionwhenever 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 andfilters, pumps, pipes, and machinery. The process of making sugaris exceedingly interesting. First, you heave your cane into thecentrifugals and grind out the juice; then run it through theevaporating pan to extract the fiber; then through the bone-filter toremove the alcohol; then through the clarifying tanks to discharge themolasses; then through the granulating pipe to condense it; then throughthe vacuum pan to extract the vacuum. It is now ready for market. I havejotted these particulars down from memory. The thing looks simple andeasy. Do not deceive yourself. To make sugar is really one of themost difficult things in the world. And to make it right, is next toimpossible. If you will examine your own supply every now and then fora term of years, and tabulate the result, you will find that not two menin twenty can make sugar without getting sand into it. 

We could have gone down to the mouth of the river and visited CaptainEads' great work, the 'jetties, ' where the river has been compressedbetween walls, and thus deepened to twenty-six feet; but it was voteduseless to go, since at this stage of the water everything would becovered up and invisible. 

We could have visited that ancient and singular burg, 'Pilot-town, 'which stands on stilts in the water--so they say; where nearly allcommunication is by skiff and canoe, even to the attending of weddingsand funerals; and where the littlest boys and girls are as handy withthe oar as unamphibious children are with the velocipede. 

We could have done a number of other things; but on account of limitedtime, we went back home. The sail up the breezy and sparkling river wasa charming experience, and would have been satisfyingly sentimentaland romantic but for the interruptions of the tug's pet parrot, whose tireless comments upon the scenery and the guests were alwaysthis-worldly, and often profane. He had also a superabundance ofthe discordant, ear-splitting, metallic laugh common to his breed--amachine-made laugh, a Frankenstein laugh, with the soul left out of it. He applied it to every sentimental remark, and to every pathetic song. He cackled it out with hideous energy after 'Home again, home again froma foreign shore, ' and said he 'wouldn't give a damn for a tug-loadof such rot. ' Romance and sentiment cannot long survive this sort ofdiscouragement; so the singing and talking presently ceased; which sodelighted the parrot that he cursed himself hoarse for joy. 

Then the male members of the party moved to the forecastle, to smoke andgossip. There were several old steamboatmen along, and I learned fromthem a great deal of what had been happening to my former river friendsduring my long absence. I learned that a pilot whom I used to steerfor is become a spiritualist, and for more than fifteen years has beenreceiving a letter every week from a deceased relative, through aNew York spiritualist medium named Manchester--postage graduated bydistance: from the local post-office in Paradise to New York, fivedollars; from New York to St. Louis, three cents. I remember Mr. Manchester very well. I called on him once, ten years ago, with a coupleof friends, one of whom wished to inquire after a deceased uncle. Thisuncle had lost his life in a peculiarly violent and unusual way, halfa dozen years before: a cyclone blew him some three miles and knockeda tree down with him which was four feet through at the butt andsixty-five feet high. He did not survive this triumph. At the seancejust 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 fairexample of the questions asked, and also of the sloppy twaddle in theway of answers, furnished by Manchester under the pretense that it camefrom the specter. If this man is not the paltriest fraud that lives, Iowe 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 shallyou have to talk about then?--nothing but about how happy you all are?

No reply. It is explained that spirits will not answer frivolousquestions. 

Q. How is it that spirits that are content to spend an eternity infrivolous employments, and accept it as happiness, are so fastidiousabout frivolous questions upon the subject?

No reply. 

Q. Would you like to come back?

A. No. 

Q. Would you say that under oath?

A. Yes. 

Q. What do you eat there?

A. We do not eat. 

Q. What do you drink?

A. We do not drink. 

Q. What do you smoke?

A. We do not smoke. 

Q. What do you read?

A. We do not read. 

Q. Do all the good people go to your place?

A. Yes. 

Q. You know my present way of life. Can you suggest any additions to it, in the way of crime, that will reasonably insure my going to some otherplace. 

A. No reply. 

Q. When did you die?

A. I did not die, I passed away. 

Q. Very well, then, when did you pass away? How long have you been inthe spirit land?

A. We have no measurements of time here. 

Q. Though you may be indifferent and uncertain as to dates and times inyour present condition and environment, this has nothing to do with yourformer 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?

A. Yes. 

Q. Then name the day of the month. 

(Much fumbling with pencil, on the part of the medium, accompanied byviolent spasmodic jerkings of his head and body, for some little time. Finally, explanation to the effect that spirits often forget dates, suchthings being without importance to them. )

Q. Then this one has actually forgotten the date of its translation tothe 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 theyear. )

Q. This is indeed stupendous. Let me put one more question, one lastquestion, to you, before we part to meet no more;--for even if I failto 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: didyou die a natural death, or were you cut off by a catastrophe?

A. (After long hesitation and many throes and spasms. ) NATURAL DEATH. 

This ended the interview. My friend told the medium that when hisrelative was in this poor world, he was endowed with an extraordinaryintellect and an absolutely defectless memory, and it seemed a greatpity that he had not been allowed to keep some shred of these forhis amusement in the realms of everlasting contentment, and for theamazement and admiration of the rest of the population there. 

This man had plenty of clients--has plenty yet. He receives letters fromspirits located in every part of the spirit world, and delivers themall over this country through the United States mail. These letters arefilled with advice--advice from 'spirits' who don't know as much as atadpole--and this advice is religiously followed by the receivers. Oneof these clients was a man whom the spirits (if one may thus plurallydescribe the ingenious Manchester) were teaching how to contrive animproved railway car-wheel. It is coarse employment for a spirit, but itis higher and wholesomer activity than talking for ever about 'how happywe are. '

Chapter 49 Episodes in Pilot Life

IN the course of the tug-boat gossip, it came out that out of every fiveof my former friends who had quitted the river, four had chosen farmingas an occupation. Of course this was not because they were peculiarlygifted, agriculturally, and thus more likely to succeed as farmers thanin other industries: the reason for their choice must be traced to someother source. Doubtless they chose farming because that life isprivate and secluded from irruptions of undesirable strangers--like thepilot-house hermitage. And doubtless they also chose it because on athousand nights of black storm and danger they had noted the twinklinglights of solitary farm-houses, as the boat swung by, and pictured tothemselves the serenity and security and coziness of such refuges atsuch times, and so had by-and-bye come to dream of that retired andpeaceful life as the one desirable thing to long for, anticipate, earn, and at last enjoy. 

But I did not learn that any of these pilot-farmers had astonishedanybody with their successes. Their farms do not support them: theysupport their farms. The pilot-farmer disappears from the riverannually, about the breaking of spring, and is seen no more till nextfrost. Then he appears again, in damaged homespun, combs the hayseed outof his hair, and takes a pilot-house berth for the winter. In this wayhe pays the debts which his farming has achieved during the agriculturalseason. So his river bondage is but half broken; he is still the river'sslave the hardest half of the year. 

One of these men bought a farm, but did not retire to it. He knew atrick worth two of that. He did not propose to pauperize his farm byapplying his personal ignorance to working it. No, he put the farm intothe hands of an agricultural expert to be worked on shares--out of everythree loads of corn the expert to have two and the pilot the third. But at the end of the season the pilot received no corn. The expertexplained that his share was not reached. The farm produced only twoloads. 

Some of the pilots whom I had known had had adventures--the outcomefortunate, sometimes, but not in all cases. Captain Montgomery, whom Ihad steered for when he was a pilot, commanded the Confederate fleetin the great battle before Memphis; when his vessel went down, he swamashore, fought his way through a squad of soldiers, and made a gallantand narrow escape. He was always a cool man; nothing could disturbhis serenity. Once when he was captain of the 'Crescent City, ' I wasbringing the boat into port at New Orleans, and momently expectingorders from the hurricane deck, but received none. I had stoppedthe wheels, and there my authority and responsibility ceased. It wasevening--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 suchwas not the case. The captain was very strict; therefore I knew betterthan to touch a bell without orders. My duty was to hold the boatsteadily on her calamitous course, and leave the consequences to takecare of themselves--which I did. So we went plowing past the sterns ofsteamboats and getting closer and closer--the crash was bound to comevery soon--and still that hat never budged; for alas, the captain wasnapping in the texas.... Things were becoming exceedingly nervous anduncomfortable. It seemed to me that the captain was not going to appearin time to see the entertainment. But he did. Just as we were walkinginto the stern of a steamboat, he stepped out on deck, and said, withheavenly serenity, 'Set her back on both'--which I did; but a triflelate, however, for the next moment we went smashing through that otherboat's flimsy outer works with a most prodigious racket. The captainnever said a word to me about the matter afterwards, except to remarkthat I had done right, and that he hoped I would not hesitate to act inthe same way again in like circumstances. 

One of the pilots whom I had known when I was on the river had died avery honorable death. His boat caught fire, and he remained at the wheeluntil he got her safe to land. Then he went out over the breast-boardwith his clothing in flames, and was the last person to get ashore. Hedied from his injuries in the course of two or three hours, and his wasthe only life lost. 

The history of Mississippi piloting affords six or seven instances ofthis sort of martyrdom, and half a hundred instances of escapes from alike 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 LIFEWHILE BY REMAINING AND SACRIFICING IT HE MIGHT SECURE OTHER LIVES FROMDESTRUCTION. It is well worth while to set down this noble fact, andwell worth while to put it in italics, too. 

The 'cub' pilot is early admonished to despise all perils connected witha pilot's calling, and to prefer any sort of death to the deep dishonorof deserting his post while there is any possibility of his being usefulin it. And so effectively are these admonitions inculcated, that evenyoung and but half-tried pilots can be depended upon to stick to thewheel, and die there when occasion requires. In a Memphis graveyard isburied a young fellow who perished at the wheel a great many years ago, in White River, to save the lives of other men. He said to the captainthat if the fire would give him time to reach a sand bar, some distanceaway, all could be saved, but that to land against the bluff bank of theriver would be to insure the loss of many lives. He reached the barand grounded the boat in shallow water; but by that time the flames hadclosed around him, and in escaping through them he was fatally burned. He had been urged to fly sooner, but had replied as became a pilot toreply--

'I will not go. If I go, nobody will be saved; if I stay, no one will belost but me. I will stay. '

There were two hundred persons on board, and no life was lost but thepilot's. There used to be a monument to this young fellow, in thatMemphis graveyard. While we tarried in Memphis on our down trip, Istarted out to look for it, but our time was so brief that I was obligedto turn back before my object was accomplished. 

The tug-boat gossip informed me that Dick Kennet was dead--blown up, near Memphis, and killed; that several others whom I had known hadfallen in the war--one or two of them shot down at the wheel; thatanother and very particular friend, whom I had steered many trips for, had stepped out of his house in New Orleans, one night years ago, tocollect some money in a remote part of the city, and had never been seenagain--was murdered and thrown into the river, it was thought; that BenThornburgh was dead long ago; also his wild 'cub' whom I used to quarrelwith, all through every daylight watch. A heedless, reckless creature hewas, and always in hot water, always in mischief. An Arkansas passengerbrought an enormous bear aboard, one day, and chained him to a life-boaton the hurricane deck. Thornburgh's 'cub' could not rest till he hadgone there and unchained the bear, to 'see what he would do. ' He waspromptly gratified. The bear chased him around and around the deck, for miles and miles, with two hundred eager faces grinning through therailings for audience, and finally snatched off the lad's coat-tail andwent into the texas to chew it. The off-watch turned out with alacrity, and left the bear in sole possession. He presently grew lonesome, andstarted out for recreation. He ranged the whole boat--visited every partof it, with an advance guard of fleeing people in front of him and avoiceless vacancy behind him; and when his owner captured him at last, those two were the only visible beings anywhere; everybody else was inhiding, and the boat was a solitude. 

I was told that one of my pilot friends fell dead at the wheel, fromheart disease, in 1869. The captain was on the roof at the time. He sawthe boat breaking for the shore; shouted, and got no answer; ran up, andfound the pilot lying dead on the floor. 

Mr. Bixby had been blown up, in Madrid bend; was not injured, but theother pilot was lost. 

George Ritchie had been blown up near Memphis--blown into the river fromthe wheel, and disabled. The water was very cold; he clung to a cottonbale--mainly with his teeth--and floated until nearly exhausted, whenhe was rescued by some deck hands who were on a piece of the wreck. Theytore open the bale and packed him in the cotton, and warmed the lifeback into him, and got him safe to Memphis. He is one of Bixby's pilotson the 'Baton Rouge' now. 

Into the life of a steamboat clerk, now dead, had dropped a bit ofromance--somewhat grotesque romance, but romance nevertheless. When Iknew him he was a shiftless young spendthrift, boisterous, goodhearted, full of careless generosities, and pretty conspicuously promising tofool his possibilities away early, and come to nothing. In a Westerncity lived a rich and childless old foreigner and his wife; and in theirfamily was a comely young girl--sort of friend, sort of servant. Theyoung clerk of whom I have been speaking--whose name was not GeorgeJohnson, but who shall be called George Johnson for the purposes of thisnarrative--got acquainted with this young girl, and they sinned; andthe old foreigner found them out, and rebuked them. Being ashamed, theylied, and said they were married; that they had been privately married. Then the old foreigner's hurt was healed, and he forgave and blessedthem. After that, they were able to continue their sin withoutconcealment. By-and-bye the foreigner's wife died; and presently hefollowed after her. Friends of the family assembled to mourn; and amongthe mourners sat the two young sinners. The will was opened and solemnlyread. It bequeathed every penny of that old man's great wealth to MRS. GEORGE JOHNSON!

And there was no such person. The young sinners fled forth then, and dida very foolish thing: married themselves before an obscure Justice ofthe Peace, and got him to antedate the thing. That did no sort of good. The distant relatives flocked in and exposed the fraudful date withextreme suddenness and surprising ease, and carried off the fortune, leaving the Johnsons very legitimately, and legally, and irrevocablychained together in honorable marriage, but with not so much as a pennyto bless themselves withal. Such are the actual facts; and not allnovels have for a base so telling a situation. 

Chapter 50 The 'Original Jacobs'

WE had some talk about Captain Isaiah Sellers, now many years dead. Hewas a fine man, a high-minded man, and greatly respected both ashore andon the river. He was very tall, well built, and handsome; and in his oldage--as I remember him--his hair was as black as an Indian's, and hiseye and hand were as strong and steady and his nerve and judgment asfirm and clear as anybody's, young or old, among the fraternity ofpilots. He was the patriarch of the craft; he had been a keelboat pilotbefore the day of steamboats; and a steamboat pilot before any othersteamboat pilot, still surviving at the time I speak of, had ever turneda wheel. Consequently his brethren held him in the sort of awe inwhich illustrious survivors of a bygone age are always held by theirassociates. He knew how he was regarded, and perhaps this fact addedsome trifle of stiffening to his natural dignity, which had beensufficiently stiff in its original state. 

He left a diary behind him; but apparently it did not date back to hisfirst steamboat trip, which was said to be 1811, the year the firststeamboat disturbed the waters of the Mississippi. At the time of hisdeath a correspondent of the 'St. Louis Republican' culled the followingitems from the diary--

'In February, 1825, he shipped on board the steamer "Rambler, " atFlorence, Ala. , and made during that year three trips to New Orleans andback--this on the "Gen. Carrol, " between Nashville and New Orleans. Itwas during his stay on this boat that Captain Sellers introduced the tapof the bell as a signal to heave the lead, previous to which time it wasthe custom for the pilot to speak to the men below when soundings werewanted. The proximity of the forecastle to the pilot-house, no doubt, rendered this an easy matter; but how different on one of our palaces ofthe present day. 

'In 1827 we find him on board the "President, " a boat of two hundred andeighty-five tons burden, and plying between Smithland and New Orleans. Thence he joined the "Jubilee" in 1828, and on this boat he did hisfirst piloting in the St. Louis trade; his first watch extending fromHerculaneum to St. Genevieve. On May 26, 1836, he completed and leftPittsburgh in charge of the steamer "Prairie, " a boat of four hundredtons, and the first steamer with a STATE-ROOM CABIN ever seen at St. Louis. In 1857 he introduced the signal for meeting boats, and whichhas, with some slight change, been the universal custom of this day; infact, is rendered obligatory by act of Congress. 

'As general items of river history, we quote the following marginalnotes from his general log--

'In March, 1825, Gen. Lafayette left New Orleans for St. Louis on thelow-pressure steamer "Natchez. "

'In January, 1828, twenty-one steamers left the New Orleans wharf tocelebrate the occasion of Gen. Jackson's visit to that city. 

'In 1830 the "North American" made the run from New Orleans to Memphisin six days--best time on record to that date. It has since been made intwo days and ten hours. 

'In 1831 the Red River cut-off formed. 

'In 1832 steamer "Hudson" made the run from White River to Helena, adistance of seventy-five miles, in twelve hours. This was the source ofmuch talk and speculation among parties directly interested. 

'In 1839 Great Horseshoe cut-off formed. 

'Up to the present time, a term of thirty-five years, we ascertain, byreference to the diary, he has made four hundred and sixty round tripsto New Orleans, which gives a distance of one million one hundred andfour thousand miles, or an average of eighty-six miles a day. '

Whenever Captain Sellers approached a body of gossiping pilots, a chillfell there, and talking ceased. For this reason: whenever six pilotswere gathered together, there would always be one or two newly fledgedones in the lot, and the elder ones would be always 'showing off' beforethese poor fellows; making them sorrowfully feel how callow they were, how recent their nobility, and how humble their degree, by talkinglargely and vaporously of old-time experiences on the river; alwaysmaking it a point to date everything back as far as they could, so as tomake the new men feel their newness to the sharpest degree possible, and envy the old stagers in the like degree. And how these complacentbaldheads WOULD swell, and brag, and lie, and date back--ten, fifteen, twenty years, --and how they did enjoy the effect produced upon themarveling and envying youngsters!

And perhaps just at this happy stage of the proceedings, the statelyfigure of Captain Isaiah Sellers, that real and only genuine Son ofAntiquity, would drift solemnly into the midst. Imagine the size of thesilence that would result on the instant. And imagine the feelings ofthose bald-heads, and the exultation of their recent audience when theancient captain would begin to drop casual and indifferent remarks of areminiscent nature--about islands that had disappeared, and cutoffs thathad been made, a generation before the oldest bald-head in the companyhad ever set his foot in a pilot-house!

Many and many a time did this ancient mariner appear on the scene in theabove fashion, and spread disaster and humiliation around him. If onemight believe the pilots, he always dated his islands back to the mistydawn of river history; and he never used the same island twice; andnever did he employ an island that still existed, or give one a namewhich anybody present was old enough to have heard of before. If youmight believe the pilots, he was always conscientiously particular aboutlittle details; never spoke of 'the State of Mississippi, ' for instance--no, he would say, 'When the State of Mississippi was where Arkansasnow is, ' and would never speak of Louisiana or Missouri in a generalway, and leave an incorrect impression on your mind--no, he would say, 'When Louisiana was up the river farther, ' or 'When Missouri was on theIllinois side. '

The old gentleman was not of literary turn or capacity, but he usedto jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about theriver, and sign them 'MARK TWAIN, ' and give them to the 'New OrleansPicayune. ' They related to the stage and condition of the river, andwere 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, thecaptain was pretty apt to drop in a little remark about this being thefirst time he had seen the water so high or so low at that particularpoint for forty-nine years; and now and then he would mention IslandSo-and-so, and follow it, in parentheses, with some such observationas 'disappeared in 1807, if I remember rightly. ' In these antiqueinterjections lay poison and bitterness for the other old pilots, andthey used to chaff the 'Mark Twain' paragraphs with unsparing mockery. 

It so chanced that one of these paragraphs--{footnote [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 wateris higher this far up than it has been since 8. My opinion is that thewater will be feet deep in Canal street before the first of next June. Mrs. Turner's plantation at the head of Big Black Island is all underwater, and it has not been since 1815. 

'I. Sellers. ']}

became the text for my first newspaper article. I burlesqued it broadly, very broadly, stringing my fantastics out to the extent of eight hundredor a thousand words. I was a 'cub' at the time. I showed my performanceto some pilots, and they eagerly rushed it into print in the 'NewOrleans True Delta. ' It was a great pity; for it did nobody any worthyservice, and it sent a pang deep into a good man's heart. There was nomalice in my rubbish; but it laughed at the captain. It laughed at a manto whom such a thing was new and strange and dreadful. I did not knowthen, though I do now, that there is no suffering comparable with thatwhich a private person feels when he is for the first time pilloried inprint. 

Captain Sellers did me the honor to profoundly detest me from that dayforth. When I say he did me the honor, I am not using empty words. Itwas a very real honor to be in the thoughts of so great a man as CaptainSellers, and I had wit enough to appreciate it and be proud of it. Itwas distinction to be loved by such a man; but it was a much greaterdistinction to be hated by him, because he loved scores of people; buthe didn't sit up nights to hate anybody but me. 

He never printed another paragraph while he lived, and he never againsigned 'Mark Twain' to anything. At the time that the telegraph broughtthe news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast. I was a fresh newjournalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancientmariner's discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what itwas in his hands--a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is foundin its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how Ihave succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say. 

The captain had an honorable pride in his profession and an abiding lovefor it. He ordered his monument before he died, and kept it nearhim until he did die. It stands over his grave now, in Bellefontainecemetery, St. Louis. It is his image, in marble, standing on duty atthe pilot wheel; and worthy to stand and confront criticism, for itrepresents a man who in life would have stayed there till he burned to acinder, if duty required it. 

The finest thing we saw on our whole Mississippi trip, we saw as weapproached New Orleans in the steam-tug. This was the curving frontageof the crescent city lit up with the white glare of five miles ofelectric lights. It was a wonderful sight, and very beautiful. 

Chapter 51 Reminiscences

WE left for St. Louis in the 'City of Baton Rouge, ' on a delightfullyhot 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 sopleasantly involved in the social life of the town that I got nothingmore 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 pausing for a 'good ready, 'in the old-fashioned way, and the black smoke piling out of the chimneysequally in the old-fashioned way. Then we began to gather momentum, andpresently were fairly under way and booming along. It was all as naturaland familiar--and so were the shoreward sights--as if there had been nobreak in my river life. There was a 'cub, ' and I judged that hewould take the wheel now; and he did. Captain Bixby stepped into thepilot-house. Presently the cub closed up on the rank of steamships. Hemade me nervous, for he allowed too much water to show between our boatand the ships. I knew quite well what was going to happen, becauseI could date back in my own life and inspect the record. The captainlooked on, during a silent half-minute, then took the wheel himself, andcrowded the boat in, till she went scraping along within a hand-breadthof the ships. It was exactly the favor which he had done me, about aquarter of a century before, in that same spot, the first time I eversteamed out of the port of New Orleans. It was a very great and sincerepleasure to me to see the thing repeated--with somebody else as victim. 

We made Natchez (three hundred miles) in twenty-two hours and ahalf--much the swiftest passage I have ever made over that piece ofwater. 

The next morning I came on with the four o'clock watch, and saw Ritchiesuccessfully run half a dozen crossings in a fog, using for his guidancethe marked chart devised and patented by Bixby and himself. Thissufficiently evidenced the great value of the chart. 

By and by, when the fog began to clear off, I noticed that thereflection of a tree in the smooth water of an overflowed bank, sixhundred yards away, was stronger and blacker than the ghostly treeitself. The faint spectral trees, dimly glimpsed through the shreddingfog, were very pretty things to see. 

We had a heavy thunder-storm at Natchez, another at Vicksburg, andstill another about fifty miles below Memphis. They had an old-fashionedenergy which had long been unfamiliar to me. This third storm wasaccompanied by a raging wind. We tied up to the bank when we saw thetempest coming, and everybody left the pilot-house but me. The wind bentthe young trees down, exposing the pale underside of the leaves; andgust after gust followed, in quick succession, thrashing the branchesviolently up and down, and to this side and that, and creating swiftwaves of alternating green and white according to the side of the leafthat was exposed, and these waves raced after each other as do theirkind over a wind-tossed field of oats. No color that was visibleanywhere was quite natural--all tints were charged with a leaden tingefrom the solid cloud-bank overhead. The river was leaden; all distancesthe same; and even the far-reaching ranks of combing white-caps weredully shaded by the dark, rich atmosphere through which their swarminglegions marched. The thunder-peals were constant and deafening;explosion followed explosion with but inconsequential intervals between, and the reports grew steadily sharper and higher-keyed, and more tryingto the ear; the lightning was as diligent as the thunder, and producedeffects which enchanted the eye and sent electric ecstasies of mixeddelight and apprehension shivering along every nerve in the body inunintermittent procession. The rain poured down in amazing volume; theear-splitting thunder-peals broke nearer and nearer; the wind increasedin fury and began to wrench off boughs and tree-tops and send themsailing away through space; the pilot-house fell to rocking andstraining and cracking and surging, and I went down in the hold to seewhat time it was. 

People boast a good deal about Alpine thunderstorms; but the stormswhich I have had the luck to see in the Alps were not the equals of somewhich I have seen in the Mississippi Valley. I may not have seen theAlps do their best, of course, and if they can beat the Mississippi, Idon'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 wasso much time to spare that nineteen years of it could be devoted tothe construction of a mere towhead, where was the use, originally, inrushing this whole globe through in six days? It is likely that if moretime had been taken, in the first place, the world would have been maderight, and this ceaseless improving and repairing would not be necessarynow. But if you hurry a world or a house, you are nearly sure to findout by and by that you have left out a towhead, or a broom-closet, or some other little convenience, here and there, which has got to besupplied, no matter how much expense and vexation it may cost. 

We had a succession of black nights, going up the river, and it wasobservable that whenever we landed, and suddenly inundated the treeswith the intense sunburst of the electric light, a certain curiouseffect was always produced: hundreds of birds flocked instantly outfrom the masses of shining green foliage, and went careering hither andthither through the white rays, and often a song-bird tuned up and fellto singing. We judged that they mistook this superb artificial dayfor the genuine article. We had a delightful trip in that thoroughlywell-ordered steamer, and regretted that it was accomplished sospeedily. By means of diligence and activity, we managed to hunt outnearly all the old friends. One was missing, however; he went to hisreward, 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 avery trifling occurrence. When he was an apprentice-blacksmith in ourvillage, and I a schoolboy, a couple of young Englishmen came to thetown and sojourned a while; and one day they got themselves up in cheaproyal finery and did the Richard III swordfight with maniac energy andprodigious powwow, in the presence of the village boys. This blacksmithcub was there, and the histrionic poison entered his bones. Thisvast, lumbering, ignorant, dull-witted lout was stage-struck, andirrecoverably. He disappeared, and presently turned up in St. Louis. I ran across him there, by and by. He was standing musing on a streetcorner, with his left hand on his hip, the thumb of his right supportinghis chin, face bowed and frowning, slouch hat pulled down over hisforehead--imagining himself to be Othello or some such character, andimagining that the passing crowd marked his tragic bearing and wereawestruck. 

I joined him, and tried to get him down out of the clouds, but did notsucceed. However, he casually informed me, presently, that he was amember of the Walnut Street theater company--and he tried to say it withindifference, but the indifference was thin, and a mighty exultationshowed through it. He said he was cast for a part in Julius Caesar, forthat night, and if I should come I would see him. IF I should come! Isaid I wouldn't miss it if I were dead. 

I went away stupefied with astonishment, and saying to myself, 'Howstrange it is! WE always thought this fellow a fool; yet the moment hecomes to a great city, where intelligence and appreciation abound, the talent concealed in this shabby napkin is at once discovered, andpromptly welcomed and honored. '

But I came away from the theater that night disappointed 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, heasked--

'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 procession around the stage?'

'Do you mean the Roman army?--those six sandaled roustabouts innightshirts, with tin shields and helmets, that marched around treadingon each other's heels, in charge of a spider-legged consumptive dressedlike themselves?'

'That's it! that's it! I was one of them Roman soldiers. I was the nextto the last one. A half a year ago I used to always be the last one; butI've been promoted. '

Well, they told me that that poor fellow remained a Roman soldier tothe last--a matter of thirty-four years. Sometimes they cast him for a'speaking part, ' but not an elaborate one. He could be trusted to goand say, 'My lord, the carriage waits, ' but if they ventured to add asentence or two to this, his memory felt the strain and he was likely tomiss fire. Yet, poor devil, he had been patiently studying the part ofHamlet for more than thirty years, and he lived and died in the beliefthat some day he would be invited to play it!

And this is what came of that fleeting visit of those young Englishmento our village such ages and ages ago! What noble horseshoes this manmight have made, but for those Englishmen; and what an inadequate Romansoldier he DID make!

A day or two after we reached St. Louis, I was walking along FourthStreet when a grizzly-headed man gave a sort of start as he passed me, then stopped, came back, inspected me narrowly, with a clouding brow, and finally said with deep asperity--

'Look here, HAVE YOU GOT THAT DRINK YET?'

A maniac, I judged, at first. But all in a flash I recognized him. Imade an effort to blush that strained every muscle in me, and answeredas sweetly and winningly as ever I knew how--

'Been a little slow, but am just this minute closing in on the placewhere they keep it. Come in and help. '

He softened, and said make it a bottle of champagne and he wasagreeable. He said he had seen my name in the papers, and had put allhis affairs aside and turned out, resolved to find me or die; and makeme answer that question satisfactorily, or kill me; though the most ofhis late asperity had been rather counterfeit than otherwise. 

This meeting brought back to me the St. Louis riots of about thirtyyears ago. I spent a week there, at that time, in a boarding-house, andhad this young fellow for a neighbor across the hall. We saw some ofthe fightings and killings; and by and by we went one night to an armorywhere two hundred young men had met, upon call, to be armed and go forthagainst the rioters, under command of a military man. We drilled tillabout ten o'clock at night; then news came that the mob were in greatforce in the lower end of the town, and were sweeping everything beforethem. Our column moved at once. It was a very hot night, and my musketwas very heavy. We marched and marched; and the nearer we approached theseat of war, the hotter I grew and the thirstier I got. I was behind myfriend; so, finally, I asked him to hold my musket while I dropped outand got a drink. Then I branched off and went home. I was not feelingany 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 hadhad any doubts about that, I would have borrowed another musket for him. I left the city pretty early the next morning, and if this grizzled manhad not happened to encounter my name in the papers the other day in St. Louis, and felt moved to seek me out, I should have carried to my gravea heart-torturing uncertainty as to whether he ever got out of the riotsall right or not. I ought to have inquired, thirty years ago; I knowthat. And I would have inquired, if I had had the muskets; but, in thecircumstances, he seemed better fixed to conduct the investigations thanI was. 

One Monday, near the time of our visit to St. Louis, the'Globe-Democrat' came out with a couple of pages of Sunday statistics, whereby it appeared that 119, 448 St. Louis people attended the morningand evening church services the day before, and 23, 102 children attendedSunday-school. Thus 142, 550 persons, out of the city's total of 400, 000population, respected the day religious-wise. I found these statistics, in a condensed form, in a telegram of the Associated Press, andpreserved them. They made it apparent that St. Louis was in a higherstate of grace than she could have claimed to be in my time. But nowthat I canvass the figures narrowly, I suspect that the telegraphmutilated them. It cannot be that there are more than 150, 000 Catholicsin the town; the other 250, 000 must be classified as Protestants. Outof these 250, 000, according to this questionable telegram, only 26, 362attended church and Sunday-school, while out of the 150, 000 Catholics, 116, 188 went to church and Sunday-school. 

Chapter 52 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 havecarried with me nine years, and which has become burdensome. 

Upon a certain occasion, nine years ago, I had said, with strongfeeling, 'If ever I see St. Louis again, I will seek out Mr. Brown, thegreat grain merchant, and ask of him the privilege of shaking him by thehand. '

The occasion and the circumstances were as follows. A friend of mine, aclergyman, came one evening and said--

'I have a most remarkable letter here, which I want to read to you, ifI can do it without breaking down. I must preface it with someexplanations, however. The letter is written by an ex-thief andex-vagabond of the lowest origin and basest rearing, a man all stainedwith crime and steeped in ignorance; but, thank God, with a mine of puregold hidden away in him, as you shall see. His letter is written to aburglar named Williams, who is serving a nine-year term in a certainState prison, for burglary. Williams was a particularly daring burglar, and plied that trade during a number of years; but he was caught at lastand jailed, to await trial in a town where he had broken into a house atnight, pistol in hand, and forced the owner to hand over to him $8, 000in government bonds. Williams was not a common sort of person, byany means; he was a graduate of Harvard College, and came of good NewEngland stock. His father was a clergyman. While lying in jail, hishealth began to fail, and he was threatened with consumption. Thisfact, together with the opportunity for reflection afforded by solitaryconfinement, had its effect--its natural effect. He fell into seriousthought; his early training asserted itself with power, and wrought withstrong influence upon his mind and heart. He put his old life behindhim, and became an earnest Christian. Some ladies in the town heard ofthis, visited him, and by their encouraging words supported him in hisgood resolutions and strengthened him to continue in his new life. Thetrial ended in his conviction and sentence to the State prison forthe term of nine years, as I have before said. In the prison he becameacquainted 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 willsee that the acquaintanceship bore fruit for Hunt. When Hunt's time wasout, he wandered to St. Louis; and from that place he wrote his letterto Williams. The letter got no further than the office of the prisonwarden, of course; prisoners are not often allowed to receive lettersfrom outside. The prison authorities read this letter, but did notdestroy it. They had not the heart to do it. They read it to severalpersons, and eventually it fell into the hands of those ladies of whom Ispoke a while ago. The other day I came across an old friend of mine--aclergyman--who had seen this letter, and was full of it. The mereremembrance of it so moved him that he could not talk of it without hisvoice breaking. He promised to get a copy of it for me; and here it is--an exact copy, with all the imperfections of the original preserved. It has many slang expressions in it--thieves' argot--but their meaninghas been interlined, in parentheses, by the prison authorities'--

St. Louis, June 9th 1872. 

Mr. W---- friend Charlie if i may call you so: i no you are surprised toget 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 inprison--it has led me to try and be a better man; i guess you thoughti did not cair for what you said, & at the first go off I didn't, but inoed 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 swearingmonths before my time was up, for i saw it want no good, nohow--the daymy time was up you told me if i would shake the cross (QUIT STEALING) &live on the square for months, it would be the best job i ever donein my life. The state agent give me a ticket to here, & on the car ithought more of what you said to me, but didn't make up my mind. Whenwe got to Chicago on the cars from there to here, I pulled off an oldwoman's leather; (ROBBED HER OF HER POCKETBOOK) i hadn't no more thangot it off when i wished i hadn't done it, for awhile before that i madeup my mind to be a square bloke, for months on your word, but forgot itwhen 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 lostanything. & she tumbled (DISCOVERED) her leather was off (GONE)--is thisit says i, giving it to her--well if you aint honest, says she, but ihadn't got cheak enough to stand that sort of talk, so i left her in ahurry. When i got here i had $1 and 25 cents left & i didn't get no workfor 3 days as i aint strong enough for roust about on a steam bote (FORA DECK HAND)--The afternoon of the 3rd day I spent my last 10 cts formoons (LARGE, ROUND SEA-BISCUIT) & cheese & i felt pretty rough & wasthinking i would have to go on the dipe (PICKING POCKETS) again, when ithought of what you once said about a fellows calling on the Lord whenhe was in hard luck, & i thought i would try it once anyhow, but when itryed it i got stuck on the start, & all i could get off wos, Lord givea poor fellow a chance to square it for 3 months for Christ's sake, amen; & i kept a thinking, of it over and over as i went along--about anhour after that i was in 4th St. & this is what happened & is the causeof my being where i am now & about which i will tell you before i getdone writing. As i was walking along herd a big noise & saw a horserunning away with a carriage with 2 children in it, & I grabed up apeace of box cover from the side walk & run in the middle of the street, & when the horse came up i smashed him over the head as hard as i coulddrive--the bord split to peces & the horse checked up a little &I grabbed the reigns & pulled his head down until he stopped--thegentleman what owned him came running up & soon as he saw the childrenwere all rite, he shook hands with me and gave me a $50 green back, & myasking the Lord to help me come into my head, & i was so thunderstrucki couldn't drop the reigns nor say nothing--he saw something was up, &coming back to me said, my boy are you hurt? & the thought come into myhead just then to ask him for work; & i asked him to take back the billand give me a job--says he, jump in here & lets talk about it, but keepthe money--he asked me if i could take care of horses & i said yes, fori used to hang round livery stables & often would help clean & drivehorses, he told me he wanted a man for that work, & would give me $16a month & bord me. You bet i took that chance at once. That nite in mylittle room over the stable i sat a long time thinking over my past life& of what had just happened & i just got down on my nees & thanked theLord for the job & to help me to square it, & to bless you for puttingme up to it, & the next morning i done it again & got me some new togs(CLOTHES) & a bible for i made up my mind after what the Lord had donefor me i would read the bible every nite and morning, & ask him to keepan eye on me. When I had been there about a week Mr. Brown (that's hisname) came in my room one nite and saw me reading the bible--he asked meif i was a Christian & i told him no--he asked me how it was i read thebible instead of papers & books--Well Charlie i thought i had bettergive him a square deal in the start, so i told him all about my being inprison & 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 topay him back was to read the bible & square it, & i asked him to give mea chance for 3 months--he talked to me like a father for a long time, & told me i could stay & then i felt better than ever i had done in mylife, for i had given Mr. Brown a fair start with me & now i didn't fearno one giving me a back cap (EXPOSING HIS PAST LIFE) & running meoff the job--the next morning he called me into the library & gave meanother square talk, & advised me to study some every day, & he wouldhelp me one or 2 hours every nite, & he gave me a Arithmetic, a spellingbook, a Geography & a writing book, & he hers me every nite--he lets mecome into the house to prayers every morning, & got me put in a bibleclass in the Sunday School which i likes very much for it helps me tounderstand my bible better. 

Now, Charlie the 3 months on the square are up 2 months ago, & as yousaid, it is the best job i ever did in my life, & i commenced anotherof the same sort right away, only it is to God helping me to last alifetime Charlie--i wrote this letter to tell you I do think God hasforgiven my sins & herd your prayers, for you told me you should prayfor me--i no i love to read his word & tell him all my troubles & hehelps me i know for i have plenty of chances to steal but i don't feelto as i once did & now i take more pleasure in going to church than tothe theater & that wasnt so once--our minister and others often talkwith 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 nowi feel that God has called me & on the first Sunday in July i will jointhe church--dear friend i wish i could write to you as i feel, but icant do it yet--you no i learned to read and write while prisons & iaint got well enough along to write as i would talk; i no i aint spelledall the words rite in this & lots of other mistakes but you will excuseit i no, for you no i was brought up in a poor house until i run away, &that i never new who my father and mother was & i dont no my right name, & i hope you wont be mad at me, but i have as much rite to one name asanother & i have taken your name, for you wont use it when you get outi no, & you are the man i think most of in the world; so i hope youwont 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. Iwish you would let me send you some now. I send you with this a receiptfor a year of Littles Living Age, i didn't know what you would like & itold Mr. Brown & he said he thought you would like it--i wish i was nereyou so i could send you chuck (REFRESHMENTS) on holidays; it would spoilthis weather from here, but i will send you a box next thanksgiving anyway--next week Mr. Brown takes me into his store as lite porter & willadvance me as soon as i know a little more--he keeps a big granarystore, wholesale--i forgot to tell you of my mission school, sundayschool class--the school is in the sunday afternoon, i went out twosunday afternoons, and picked up seven kids (LITTLE BOYS) & got them tocome in. Two of them new as much as i did & i had them put in a classwhere they could learn something. I dont no much myself, but as thesekids cant read i get on nicely with them. I make sure of them by goingafter them every Sunday hour before school time, I also got 4 girlsto come. Tell Mack and Harry about me, if they will come out here whentheir time is up i will get them jobs at once. I hope you will excusethis long letter & all mistakes, i wish i could see you for i cant writeas i would talk--i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good--i wasafraid when you was bleeding you would die--give my respects to all theboys and tell them how i am doing--i am doing well and every one heretreats me as kind as they can--Mr. Brown is going to write to yousometime--i hope some day you will write to me, this letter is from yourvery 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 singlegrace or ornament to help it out. I have seldom been so deeply stirredby any piece of writing. The reader of it halted, all the way through, on a lame and broken voice; yet he had tried to fortify his feelingsby several private readings of the letter before venturing into companywith it. He was practising upon me to see if there was any hope of hisbeing able to read the document to his prayer-meeting with anythinglike a decent command over his feelings. The result was not promising. However, he determined to risk it; and did. He got through tolerablywell; but his audience broke down early, and stayed in that condition tothe end. 

The fame of the letter spread through the town. A brother minister cameand borrowed the manuscript, put it bodily into a sermon, preached thesermon to twelve hundred people on a Sunday morning, and the letterdrowned them in their own tears. Then my friend put it into a sermon andwent before his Sunday morning congregation with it. It scored anothertriumph. The house wept as one individual. 

My friend went on summer vacation up into the fishing regions of ournorthern British neighbors, and carried this sermon with him, since hemight 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 Times, ' Mr. Page, the philanthropist and temperance advocate, and, I think, Senator Frye, of Maine. The marvelous letter did its wonted work; all the people weremoved, 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 whowere there. Mr. Page was so full of enthusiasm over the letter that hesaid he would not rest until he made pilgrimage to that prison, and hadspeech with the man who had been able to inspire a fellow-unfortunate towrite so priceless a tract. 

Ah, that unlucky Page!--and another man. If they had only been inJericho, that letter would have rung through the world and stirred allthe hearts of all the nations for a thousand years to come, and nobodymight ever have found out that it was the confoundedest, brazenest, ingeniousest piece of fraud and humbuggery that was ever concocted tofool poor confiding mortals with!

The letter was a pure swindle, and that is the truth. And take it by andlarge, it was without a compeer among swindles. It was perfect, it wasrounded, symmetrical, complete, colossal!

The reader learns it at this point; but we didn't learn it till somemiles and weeks beyond this stage of the affair. My friend came backfrom the woods, and he and other clergymen and lay missionaries beganonce more to inundate audiences with their tears and the tears ofsaid audiences; I begged hard for permission to print the letter in amagazine and tell the watery story of its triumphs; numbers of peoplegot copies of the letter, with permission to circulate them in writing, but not in print; copies were sent to the Sandwich Islands and other farregions. 

Charles Dudley Warner was at church, one day, when the worn letterwas read and wept over. At the church door, afterward, he dropped apeculiarly cold iceberg down the clergyman's back with the question--

'Do you know that letter to be genuine?'

It was the first suspicion that had ever been voiced; but it had thatsickening effect which first-uttered suspicions against one's idolalways have. Some talk followed--

'Why--what should make you suspect that it isn't genuine?'

'Nothing that I know of, except that it is too neat, and compact, andfluent, and nicely put together for an ignorant person, an unpractisedhand. I think it was done by an educated man. '

The literary artist had detected the literary machinery. If you willlook at the letter now, you will detect it yourself--it is observable inevery line. 

Straightway the clergyman went off, with this seed of suspicionsprouting in him, and wrote to a minister residing in that town whereWilliams had been jailed and converted; asked for light; and also askedif a person in the literary line (meaning me) might be allowed to printthe letter and tell its history. He presently received this answer--

Rev. ---- ----

MY DEAR FRIEND, --In regard to that 'convict's letter' there can be nodoubt as to its genuineness. 'Williams, ' to whom it was written, lay inour jail and professed to have been converted, and Rev. Mr. ----, thechaplain, had great faith in the genuineness of the change--as much asone can have in any such case. 

The letter was sent to one of our ladies, who is a Sunday-schoolteacher, --sent either by Williams himself, or the chaplain of theState's prison, probably. She has been greatly annoyed in having so muchpublicity, lest it might seem a breach of confidence, or be an injury toWilliams. In regard to its publication, I can give no permission; thoughif the names and places were omitted, and especially if sent out of thecountry, I think you might take the responsibility and do it. 

It is a wonderful letter, which no Christian genius, much less oneunsanctified, could ever have written. As showing the work of grace ina human heart, and in a very degraded and wicked one, it proves its ownorigin and reproves our weak faith in its power to cope with any form ofwickedness. 

'Mr. Brown' of St. Louis, some one said, was a Hartford man. Do all whomyou send from Hartford serve their Master as well?

P. S. --Williams is still in the State's prison, serving out a longsentence--of nine years, I think. He has been sick and threatened withconsumption, but I have not inquired after him lately. This lady that Ispeak of corresponds with him, I presume, and will be quite sure to lookafter 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 thecold, cold grave, where it apparently belonged. It was a suspicionbased upon mere internal evidence, anyway; and when you come to internalevidence, it's a big field and a game that two can play at: as witnessthis other internal evidence, discovered by the writer of the note abovequoted, that 'it is a wonderful letter--which no Christian genius, muchless one unsanctified, could ever have written. '

I had permission now to print--provided I suppressed names and placesand sent my narrative out of the country. So I chose an Australianmagazine for vehicle, as being far enough out of the country, and setmyself to work on my article. And the ministers set the pumps goingagain, with the letter to work the handles. 

But meantime Brother Page had been agitating. He had not visited thepenitentiary, but he had sent a copy of the illustrious letter tothe chaplain of that institution, and accompanied it with--apparentlyinquiries. He got an answer, dated four days later than that otherBrother's reassuring epistle; and before my article was complete, itwandered into my hands. The original is before me, now, and I hereappend it. It is pretty well loaded with internal evidence of the mostsolid description--

STATE'S PRISON, CHAPLAIN'S OFFICE, July 11, 1873. 

DEAR BRO. PAGE, --Herewith please find the letter kindly loaned me. Iam afraid its genuineness cannot be established. It purports to beaddressed to some prisoner here. No such letter ever came to a prisonerhere. All letters received are carefully read by officers of the prisonbefore they go into the hands of the convicts, and any such letter couldnot be forgotten. Again, Charles Williams is not a Christian man, but adissolute, 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 shouldlike 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 infinitelyricher than they had previously been, there were parties all aroundme, who, although longing for the publication before, were a unit forsuppression at this stage and complexion of the game. They said: 'Wait--the wound is too fresh, yet. ' All the copies of the famous letterexcept mine disappeared suddenly; and from that time onward, theaforetime same old drought set in in the churches. As a rule, the townwas on a spacious grin for a while, but there were places in it wherethe grin did not appear, and where it was dangerous to refer to theex-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 ofa minister--wrote the letter himself, to himself: got it smuggled out ofthe prison; got it conveyed to persons who had supported and encouragedhim in his conversion--where he knew two things would happen: thegenuineness of the letter would not be doubted or inquired into; and thenub of it would be noticed, and would have valuable effect--the effect, indeed, of starting a movement to get Mr. Williams pardoned out ofprison. 

That 'nub' is so ingeniously, so casually, flung in, and immediatelyleft there in the tail of the letter, undwelt upon, that an indifferentreader would never suspect that it was the heart and core of theepistle, if he even took note of it at all, This is the 'nub'--

'i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good--I WAS AFRAID WHEN YOUWAS BLEEDING YOU WOULD DIE--give my respects, ' etc. 

That is all there is of it--simply touch and go--no dwelling upon it. Nevertheless it was intended for an eye that would be swift to see it;and it was meant to move a kind heart to try to effect the liberationof a poor reformed and purified fellow lying in the fell grip ofconsumption. 

When I for the first time heard that letter read, nine years ago, I feltthat it was the most remarkable one I had ever encountered. And itso warmed me toward Mr. Brown of St. Louis that I said that if ever Ivisited that city again, I would seek out that excellent man and kissthe hem of his garment if it was a new one. Well, I visited St. Louis, but I did not hunt for Mr. Brown; for, alas! the investigations of longago had proved that the benevolent Brown, like 'Jack Hunt, ' was nota real person, but a sheer invention of that gifted rascal, Williams--burglar, Harvard graduate, son of a clergyman. 

Chapter 53 My Boyhood's Home

WE took passage in one of the fast boats of the St. Louis and St. PaulPacket Company, and started up the river. 

When I, as a boy, first saw the mouth of the Missouri River, it wastwenty-two or twenty-three miles above St. Louis, according to theestimate of pilots; the wear and tear of the banks have moved it downeight miles since then; and the pilots say that within five years theriver will cut through and move the mouth down five miles more, whichwill bring it within ten miles of St. Louis. 

About nightfall we passed the large and flourishing town of Alton, Illinois; and before daylight next morning the town of Louisiana, Missouri, a sleepy village in my day, but a brisk railway center now;however, all the towns out there are railway centers now. I could notclearly recognize the place. This seemed odd to me, for when I retiredfrom the rebel army in '61 I retired upon Louisiana in good order; atleast in good enough order for a person who had not yet learned howto retreat according to the rules of war, and had to trust to nativegenius. It seemed to me that for a first attempt at a retreat it was notbadly done. I had done no advancing in all that campaign that was at allequal to it. 

There was a railway bridge across the river here well sprinkled withglowing lights, and a very beautiful sight it was. 

At seven in the morning we reached Hannibal, Missouri, where my boyhoodwas spent. I had had a glimpse of it fifteen years ago, and anotherglimpse six years earlier, but both were so brief that they hardlycounted. The only notion of the town that remained in my mind was thememory of it as I had known it when I first quitted it twenty-nineyears ago. That picture of it was still as clear and vivid to me as aphotograph. I stepped ashore with the feeling of one who returns out ofa dead-and-gone generation. I had a sort of realizing sense of what theBastille prisoners must have felt when they used to come out and lookupon Paris after years of captivity, and note how curiously thefamiliar and the strange were mixed together before them. I saw thenew houses--saw them plainly enough--but they did not affect the olderpicture in my mind, for through their solid bricks and mortar I sawthe vanished houses, which had formerly stood there, with perfectdistinctness. 

It was Sunday morning, and everybody was abed yet. So I passed throughthe vacant streets, still seeing the town as it was, and not as it is, and recognizing and metaphorically shaking hands with a hundred familiarobjects which no longer exist; and finally climbed Holiday's Hill to geta comprehensive view. The whole town lay spread out below me then, and Icould mark and fix every locality, every detail. Naturally, I was a gooddeal moved. I said, 'Many of the people I once knew in this tranquilrefuge of my childhood are now in heaven; some, I trust, are in theother place. ' The things about me and before me made me feel like a boyagain--convinced me that I was a boy again, and that I had simply beendreaming an unusually long dream; but my reflections spoiled all that;for they forced me to say, 'I see fifty old houses down yonder, intoeach of which I could enter and find either a man or a woman who was ababy or unborn when I noticed those houses last, or a grandmother whowas a plump young bride at that time. '

From this vantage ground the extensive view up and down the river, andwide over the wooded expanses of Illinois, is very beautiful--one of themost beautiful on the Mississippi, I think; which is a hazardous remarkto make, for the eight hundred miles of river between St. Louis and St. Paul afford an unbroken succession of lovely pictures. It may be thatmy affection for the one in question biases my judgment in its favor; Icannot 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 aboutto greet again: it had suffered no change; it was as young and freshand comely and gracious as ever it had been; whereas, the faces of theothers would be old, and scarred with the campaigns of life, and markedwith their griefs and defeats, and would give me no upliftings ofspirit. 

An old gentleman, out on an early morning walk, came along, and wediscussed the weather, and then drifted into other matters. I could notremember 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 askedhim various questions; first about a mate of mine in Sunday school--whatbecame of him?

'He graduated with honor in an Eastern college, wandered off into theworld somewhere, succeeded at nothing, passed out of knowledge andmemory 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 villageschool when I was a boy. 

'He, too, was graduated with honors, from an Eastern college; but lifewhipped him in every battle, straight along, and he died in one of theTerritories, years ago, a defeated man. '

I asked after another of the bright boys. 

'He is a success, always has been, always will be, I think. '

I inquired after a young fellow who came to the town to study for one ofthe professions when I was a boy. 

'He went at something else before he got through--went from medicine tolaw, or from law to medicine--then to some other new thing; went awayfor a year, came back with a young wife; fell to drinking, then togambling behind the door; finally took his wife and two young childrento her father's, and went off to Mexico; went from bad to worse, andfinally died there, without a cent to buy a shroud, and without a friendto attend the funeral. '

'Pity, for he was the best-natured, and most cheery and hopeful youngfellow that ever was. '

I named another boy. 

'Oh, he is all right. Lives here yet; has a wife and children, and isprospering. '

Same verdict concerning other boys. 

I named three school-girls. 

'The first two live here, are married and have children; the other islong ago dead--never married. '

I named, with emotion, one of my early sweethearts. 

'She is all right. Been married three times; buried two husbands, divorced from the third, and I hear she is getting ready to marry an oldfellow out in Colorado somewhere. She's got children scattered aroundhere and there, most everywheres. '

The answer to several other inquiries was brief and simple--

'Killed in the war. '

I named another boy. 

'Well, now, his case is curious! There wasn't a human being in this townbut knew that that boy was a perfect chucklehead; perfect dummy; justa stupid ass, as you may say. Everybody knew it, and everybody said it. Well, if that very boy isn't the first lawyer in the State of Missourito-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 yousend a damned fool to St. Louis, and you don't tell them he's a damnedfool they'll never find it out. There's one thing sure--if I hada damned fool I should know what to do with him: ship him to St. Louis--it's the noblest market in the world for that kind of property. Well, when you come to look at it all around, and chew at it and thinkit over, don't it just bang anything you ever heard of?'

'Well, yes, it does seem to. But don't you think maybe it was theHannibal people who were mistaken about the boy, and not the St. Louispeople. '

'Oh, nonsense! The people here have known him from the very cradle--theyknew him a hundred times better than the St. Louis idiots could haveknown him. No, if you have got any damned fools that you want to realizeon, take my advice--send them to St. Louis. '

I mentioned a great number of people whom I had formerly known. Somewere dead, some were gone away, some had prospered, some had cometo naught; but as regarded a dozen or so of the lot, the answer wascomforting:

'Prosperous--live here yet--town littered with their children. '

I asked about Miss ----. 

Died in the insane asylum three or four years ago--never was out of itfrom the time she went in; and was always suffering, too; never got ashred of her mind back. '

If he spoke the truth, here was a heavy tragedy, indeed. Thirty-sixyears in a madhouse, that some young fools might have some fun! I wasa small boy, at the time; and I saw those giddy young ladies cometiptoeing into the room where Miss ---- sat reading at midnight by alamp. 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 lookedup and screamed, and then fell into convulsions. She did not recoverfrom the fright, but went mad. In these days it seems incredible thatpeople believed in ghosts so short a time ago. But they did. 

After asking after such other folk as I could call to mind, I finallyinquired about MYSELF:

'Oh, he succeeded well enough--another case of damned fool. If they'dsent him to St. Louis, he'd have succeeded sooner. '

It was with much satisfaction that I recognized the wisdom of havingtold this candid gentleman, in the beginning, that my name was Smith. 

Chapter 54 Past and Present

Being left to myself, up there, I went on picking out old houses in thedistant town, and calling back their former inmates out of the moldypast. Among them I presently recognized the house of the father of LemHackett (fictitious name). It carried me back more than a generation ina moment, and landed me in the midst of a time when the happenings oflife were not the natural and logical results of great general laws, but of special orders, and were freighted with very precise and distinctpurposes--partly punitive in intent, partly admonitory; and usuallylocal in application. 

When I was a small boy, Lem Hackett was drowned--on a Sunday. He fellout 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 villagewho slept that night. We others all lay awake, repenting. We had notneeded the information, delivered from the pulpit that evening, thatLem's was a case of special judgment--we knew that, already. There wasa ferocious thunder-storm, that night, and it raged continuously untilnear dawn. The winds blew, the windows rattled, the rain swept alongthe roof in pelting sheets, and at the briefest of intervals the inkyblackness of the night vanished, the houses over the way glared outwhite and blinding for a quivering instant, then the solid darkness shutdown again and a splitting peal of thunder followed, which seemed torend everything in the neighborhood to shreds and splinters. I sat upin bed quaking and shuddering, waiting for the destruction of the world, and expecting it. To me there was nothing strange or incongruous inheaven's making such an uproar about Lem Hackett. Apparently it was theright and proper thing to do. Not a doubt entered my mind that all theangels were grouped together, discussing this boy's case and observingthe awful bombardment of our beggarly little village with satisfactionand approval. There was one thing which disturbed me in the most seriousway; that was the thought that this centering of the celestial intereston our village could not fail to attract the attention of the observersto 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 mostlikely to be discovered. That discovery could have but one result: Ishould be in the fire with Lem before the chill of the river had beenfairly warmed out of him. I knew that this would be only just and fair. I was increasing the chances against myself all the time, by feeling asecret bitterness against Lem for having attracted this fatal attentionto me, but I could not help it--this sinful thought persisted ininfesting my breast in spite of me. Every time the lightning glaredI caught my breath, and judged I was gone. In my terror and misery, Imeanly began to suggest other boys, and mention acts of theirs whichwere wickeder than mine, and peculiarly needed punishment--and I triedto pretend to myself that I was simply doing this in a casual way, andwithout intent to divert the heavenly attention to them for the purposeof getting rid of it myself. With deep sagacity I put thesementions into the form of sorrowing recollections and left-handedsham-supplications that the sins of those boys might be allowed to passunnoticed--'Possibly they may repent. ' 'It is true that Jim Smith brokea window and lied about it--but maybe he did not mean any harm. Andalthough Tom Holmes says more bad words than any other boy in thevillage, he probably intends to repent--though he has never said hewould. And whilst it is a fact that John Jones did fish a little onSunday, once, he didn't really catch anything but only just one smalluseless mud-cat; and maybe that wouldn't have been so awful if he hadthrown it back--as he says he did, but he didn't. Pity but they wouldrepent 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 samemoment, though I never once suspected that--I had heedlessly left mycandle burning. It was not a time to neglect even trifling precautions. There was no occasion to add anything to the facilities for attractingnotice to me--so I put the light out. 

It was a long night to me, and perhaps the most distressful one Iever spent. I endured agonies of remorse for sins which I knew I hadcommitted, and for others which I was not certain about, yet was surethat they had been set down against me in a book by an angel who waswiser than I and did not trust such important matters to memory. It struck me, by and by, that I had been making a most foolish andcalamitous mistake, in one respect: doubtless I had not only made myown destruction sure by directing attention to those other boys, but hadalready accomplished theirs!--Doubtless the lightning had stretched themall dead in their beds by this time! The anguish and the fright whichthis thought gave me made my previous sufferings seem trifling bycomparison. 

Things had become truly serious. I resolved to turn over a new leafinstantly; I also resolved to connect myself with the church the nextday, if I survived to see its sun appear. I resolved to cease from sinin all its forms, and to lead a high and blameless life for ever after. I would be punctual at church and Sunday-school; visit the sick;carry baskets of victuals to the poor (simply to fulfil the regulationconditions, although I knew we had none among us so poor but they wouldsmash the basket over my head for my pains); I would instruct other boysin right ways, and take the resulting trouncings meekly; I wouldsubsist entirely on tracts; I would invade the rum shop and warn thedrunkard--and finally, if I escaped the fate of those who early becometoo good to live, I would go for a missionary. 

The storm subsided toward daybreak, and I dozed gradually to sleep witha sense of obligation to Lem Hackett for going to eternal suffering inthat abrupt way, and thus preventing a far more dreadful disaster--myown loss. 

But when I rose refreshed, by and by, and found that those other boyswere still alive, I had a dim sense that perhaps the whole thing wasa false alarm; that the entire turmoil had been on Lem's account andnobody's else. The world looked so bright and safe that there did notseem to be any real occasion to turn over a new leaf. I was a littlesubdued, during that day, and perhaps the next; after that, my purposeof 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 mostunaccountable one, to me, that I had ever experienced; for on theafternoon of that day, 'Dutchy' was drowned. Dutchy belonged to ourSunday-school. He was a German lad who did not know enough to come inout of the rain; but he was exasperatingly good, and had a prodigiousmemory. One Sunday he made himself the envy of all the youth and thetalk of all the admiring village, by reciting three thousand verses ofScripture without missing a word; then he went off the very next day andgot drowned. 

Circumstances gave to his death a peculiar impressiveness. We were allbathing in a muddy creek which had a deep hole in it, and in this holethe coopers had sunk a pile of green hickory hoop poles to soak, sometwelve feet under water. We were diving and 'seeing who could stay underlongest. ' 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 laughterand derision every time his head appeared above water. At last he seemedhurt with the taunts, and begged us to stand still on the bank and befair with him and give him an honest count--'be friendly and kind justthis once, and not miscount for the sake of having the fun of laughingat 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, followedthe lead of one of their number and scampered to a range of blackberrybushes close by and hid behind it. They imagined Dutchy's humiliation, when he should rise after a superhuman effort and find the place silentand vacant, nobody there to applaud. They were 'so full of laugh' withthe 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 forit. '

There was a remark or two more, and then a pause. Talking ceased, andall began to peer through the vines. Before long, the boys' facesbegan to look uneasy, then anxious, then terrified. Still there was nomovement of the placid water. Hearts began to beat fast, and facesto turn pale. We all glided out, silently, and stood on the bank, ourhorrified eyes wandering back and forth from each other's countenancesto the water. 

'Somebody must go down and see!'

Yes, that was plain; but nobody wanted that grisly task. 

'Draw straws!'

So we did--with hands which shook so, that we hardly knew what we wereabout. The lot fell to me, and I went down. The water was so muddy Icould not see anything, but I felt around among the hoop poles, andpresently grasped a limp wrist which gave me no response--and if ithad I should not have known it, I let it go with such a frightenedsuddenness. 

The boy had been caught among the hoop poles and entangled there, helplessly. I fled to the surface and told the awful news. Some ofus knew that if the boy were dragged out at once he might possiblybe resuscitated, but we never thought of that. We did not think ofanything; we did not know what to do, so we did nothing--except that thesmaller lads cried, piteously, and we all struggled frantically intoour clothes, putting on anybody's that came handy, and getting themwrong-side-out and upside-down, as a rule. Then we scurried away andgave the alarm, but none of us went back to see the end of the tragedy. We had a more important thing to attend to: we all flew home, and lostnot a moment in getting ready to lead a better life. 

The night presently closed down. Then came on that tremendous andutterly unaccountable storm. I was perfectly dazed; I could notunderstand it. It seemed to me that there must be some mistake. Theelements were turned loose, and they rattled and banged and blazed awayin the most blind and frantic manner. All heart and hope went out ofme, and the dismal thought kept floating through my brain, 'If a boy whoknows three thousand verses by heart is not satisfactory, what chance isthere for anybody else?'

Of course I never questioned for a moment that the storm was on Dutchy'saccount, or that he or any other inconsequential animal was worthy ofsuch a majestic demonstration from on high; the lesson of it was theonly thing that troubled me; for it convinced me that if Dutchy, withall his perfections, was not a delight, it would be vain for me to turnover a new leaf, for I must infallibly fall hopelessly short of thatboy, no matter how hard I might try. Nevertheless I did turn it over--ahighly educated fear compelled me to do that--but succeeding days ofcheerfulness and sunshine came bothering around, and within a monthI had so drifted backward that again I was as lost and comfortable asever. 

Breakfast time approached while I mused these musings and called theseancient happenings back to mind; so I got me back into the present andwent down the hill. 

On my way through town to the hotel, I saw the house which was my homewhen I was a boy. At present rates, the people who now occupy it are ofno more value than I am; but in my time they would have been worth notless than five hundred dollars apiece. They are colored folk. 

After breakfast, I went out alone again, intending to hunt up some ofthe Sunday-schools and see how this generation of pupils might comparewith their progenitors who had sat with me in those places and hadprobably taken me as a model--though I do not remember as to that now. By the public square there had been in my day a shabby little brickchurch called the 'Old Ship of Zion, ' which I had attended as aSunday-school scholar; and I found the locality easily enough, but notthe old church; it was gone, and a trig and rather hilarious new edificewas in its place. The pupils were better dressed and better lookingthan were those of my time; consequently they did not resemble theirancestors; and consequently there was nothing familiar to me in theirfaces. Still, I contemplated them with a deep interest and a yearningwistfulness, and if I had been a girl I would have cried; for they werethe offspring, and represented, and occupied the places, of boys andgirls some of whom I had loved to love, and some of whom I had loved tohate, 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 toremain unmolested and look my fill; but a bald-summited superintendentwho had been a tow-headed Sunday-school mate of mine on that spot in theearly ages, recognized me, and I talked a flutter of wild nonsense tothose children to hide the thoughts which were in me, and which couldnot have been spoken without a betrayal of feeling that would have beenrecognized as out of character with me. 

Making speeches without preparation is no gift of mine; and I wasresolved to shirk any new opportunity, but in the next and largerSunday-school I found myself in the rear of the assemblage; so I wasvery willing to go on the platform a moment for the sake of getting agood look at the scholars. On the spur of the moment I could not recallany of the old idiotic talks which visitors used to insult me with whenI was a pupil there; and I was sorry for this, since it would have givenme time and excuse to dawdle there and take a long and satisfying lookat what I feel at liberty to say was an array of fresh young comelinessnot matchable in another Sunday-school of the same size. As I talkedmerely to get a chance to inspect; and as I strung out the randomrubbish solely to prolong the inspection, I judged it but decent toconfess these low motives, and I did so. 

If the Model Boy was in either of these Sunday-schools, I did not seehim. The Model Boy of my time--we never had but the one--was perfect:perfect in manners, perfect in dress, perfect in conduct, perfect infilial piety, perfect in exterior godliness; but at bottom he was aprig; and as for the contents of his skull, they could have changedplace with the contents of a pie and nobody would have been the worseoff for it but the pie. This fellow's reproachlessness was a standingreproach to every lad in the village. He was the admiration of all themothers, and the detestation of all their sons. I was told what becameof him, but as it was a disappointment to me, I will not enter intodetails. He succeeded in life. 

Chapter 55 A Vendetta and Other Things

DURING my three days' stay in the town, I woke up every morning with theimpression that I was a boy--for in my dreams the faces were all youngagain, and looked as they had looked in the old times--but I went to beda hundred years old, every night--for meantime I had been seeing thosefaces as they are now. 

Of course I suffered some surprises, along at first, before I had becomeadjusted to the changed state of things. I met young ladies who did notseem to have changed at all; but they turned out to be the daughters ofthe young ladies I had in mind--sometimes their grand-daughters. Whenyou are told that a stranger of fifty is a grandmother, there is nothingsurprising about it; but if, on the contrary, she is a person whom youknew as a little girl, it seems impossible. You say to yourself, 'Howcan a little girl be a grandmother. ' It takes some little time to acceptand realize the fact that while you have been growing old, your friendshave not been standing still, in that matter. 

I noticed that the greatest changes observable were with the women, notthe men. I saw men whom thirty years had changed but slightly; but theirwives had grown old. These were good women; it is very wearing to begood. 

There was a saddler whom I wished to see; but he was gone. Dead, thesemany years, they said. Once or twice a day, the saddler used to gotearing down the street, putting on his coat as he went; and theneverybody knew a steamboat was coming. Everybody knew, also, that JohnStavely was not expecting anybody by the boat--or any freight, either;and Stavely must have known that everybody knew this, still it made nodifference to him; he liked to seem to himself to be expecting a hundredthousand tons of saddles by this boat, and so he went on all his life, enjoying being faithfully on hand to receive and receipt for thosesaddles, in case by any miracle they should come. A malicious Quincypaper used always to refer to this town, in derision as 'Stavely'sLanding. ' Stavely was one of my earliest admirations; I envied him hisrush of imaginary business, and the display he was able to make of it, before strangers, as he went flying down the street struggling with hisfluttering coat. 

But there was a carpenter who was my chiefest hero. He was a mightyliar, but I did not know that; I believed everything he said. He was aromantic, sentimental, melodramatic fraud, and his bearing impressedme with awe. I vividly remember the first time he took me into hisconfidence. He was planing a board, and every now and then hewould pause and heave a deep sigh; and occasionally mutter brokensentences--confused and not intelligible--but out of their midst anejaculation sometimes escaped which made me shiver and did me good: onewas, 'O God, it is his blood!' I sat on the tool-chest and humbly andshudderingly admired him; for I judged he was full of crime. At last hesaid 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 MUSTrelieve my burdened soul, or I shall die!'

He cautioned me once more to be 'as silent as the grave;' then he toldme he was a 'red-handed murderer. ' He put down his plane, held his handsout before him, contemplated them sadly, and said--

'Look--with these hands I have taken the lives of thirty human beings!'

The effect which this had upon me was an inspiration to him, and heturned himself loose upon his subject with interest and energy. Heleft generalizing, and went into details, --began with his first murder;described it, told what measures he had taken to avert suspicion; thenpassed to his second homicide, his third, his fourth, and so on. He hadalways done his murders with a bowie-knife, and he made all my hairsrise by suddenly snatching it out and showing it to me. 

At the end of this first seance I went home with six of his fearfulsecrets among my freightage, and found them a great help to my dreams, which had been sluggish for a while back. I sought him again and again, on my Saturday holidays; in fact I spent the summer with him--all ofit which was valuable to me. His fascinations never diminished, forhe threw something fresh and stirring, in the way of horror, into eachsuccessive murder. He always gave names, dates, places--everything. Thisby and by enabled me to note two things: that he had killed his victimsin every quarter of the globe, and that these victims were always namedLynch. The destruction of the Lynches went serenely on, Saturday afterSaturday, until the original thirty had multiplied to sixty--and more tobe heard from yet; then my curiosity got the better of my timidity, andI asked how it happened that these justly punished persons all bore thesame name. 

My hero said he had never divulged that dark secret to any living being;but felt that he could trust me, and therefore he would lay bare beforeme the story of his sad and blighted life. He had loved one 'too fairfor earth, ' and she had reciprocated 'with all the sweet affection ofher pure and noble nature. ' But he had a rival, a 'base hireling' namedArchibald Lynch, who said the girl should be his, or he would 'dye hishands in her heart's best blood. ' The carpenter, 'innocent and happyin 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 overtheir heads, the fell deed was done--with a knife--and the bride fella corpse at her husband's feet. And what did the husband do? He pluckedforth that knife, and kneeling by the body of his lost one, swore to'consecrate his life to the extermination of all the human scum thatbear the hated name of Lynch. '

That was it. He had been hunting down the Lynches and slaughteringthem, from that day to this--twenty years. He had always used that sameconsecrated knife; with it he had murdered his long array of Lynches, and with it he had left upon the forehead of each victim a peculiarmark--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 ofAsia, in all the earth. Wherever in the uttermost parts of the globe, a Lynch has penetrated, there has the Mysterious Cross been seen, andthose who have seen it have shuddered and said, "It is his mark, he hasbeen here. " You have heard of the Mysterious Avenger--look upon him, forbefore you stands no less a person! But beware--breathe not a word toany soul. Be silent, and wait. Some morning this town will flock aghastto view a gory corpse; on its brow will be seen the awful sign, andmen will tremble and whisper, "He has been here--it is the MysteriousAvenger's mark!" You will come here, but I shall have vanished; you willsee me no more. '

This ass had been reading the 'Jibbenainosay, ' no doubt, and had hadhis poor romantic head turned by it; but as I had not yet seen the bookthen, I took his inventions for truth, and did not suspect that he was aplagiarist. 

However, we had a Lynch living in the town; and the more I reflectedupon his impending doom, the more I could not sleep. It seemed my plainduty to save him, and a still plainer and more important duty to getsome sleep for myself, so at last I ventured to go to Mr. Lynch and tellhim what was about to happen to him--under strict secrecy. I advised himto 'fly, ' and certainly expected him to do it. But he laughed at me; andhe did not stop there; he led me down to the carpenter's shop, gave thecarpenter a jeering and scornful lecture upon his silly pretensions, slapped his face, made him get down on his knees and beg--then went offand left me to contemplate the cheap and pitiful ruin of what, in myeyes, had so lately been a majestic and incomparable hero. The carpenterblustered, flourished his knife, and doomed this Lynch in his usualvolcanic style, the size of his fateful words undiminished; but it wasall 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; Itook no further interest in him, and never went to his shop any more. Hewas 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 murderswere so vividly and dramatically described that I remember all theirdetails yet. 

The people of Hannibal are not more changed than is the town. It isno longer a village; it is a city, with a mayor, and a council, andwater-works, and probably a debt. It has fifteen thousand people, is athriving and energetic place, and is paved like the rest of the westand south--where a well-paved street and a good sidewalk are things soseldom seen, that one doubts them when he does see them. The customaryhalf-dozen railways center in Hannibal now, and there is a new depotwhich cost a hundred thousand dollars. In my time the town had nospecialty, and no commercial grandeur; the daily packet usually landeda passenger and bought a catfish, and took away another passenger and ahatful of freight; but now a huge commerce in lumber has grown up anda large miscellaneous commerce is one of the results. A deal of moneychanges hands there now. 

Bear Creek--so called, perhaps, because it was always so particularlybare of bears--is hidden out of sight now, under islands and continentsof piled lumber, and nobody but an expert can find it. I used to getdrowned in it every summer regularly, and be drained out, and inflatedand set going again by some chance enemy; but not enough of it isunoccupied now to drown a person in. It was a famous breeder of chillsand fever in its day. I remember one summer when everybody in town hadthis disease at once. Many chimneys were shaken down, and all the houseswere so racked that the town had to be rebuilt. The chasm or gorgebetween Lover's Leap and the hill west of it is supposed by scientiststo have been caused by glacial action. This is a mistake. 

There is an interesting cave a mile or two below Hannibal, among thebluffs. I would have liked to revisit it, but had not time. In mytime the person who then owned it turned it into a mausoleum for hisdaughter, aged fourteen. The body of this poor child was put into acopper cylinder filled with alcohol, and this was suspended in one ofthe dismal avenues of the cave. The top of the cylinder was removable;and it was said to be a common thing for the baser order of tourists todrag the dead face into view and examine it and comment upon it. 

Chapter 56 A Question of Law

THE slaughter-house is gone from the mouth of Bear Creek and so is thesmall jail (or 'calaboose') which once stood in its neighborhood. Acitizen asked, 'Do you remember when Jimmy Finn, the town drunkard, wasburned to death in the calaboose?'

Observe, now, how history becomes defiled, through lapse of time andthe help of the bad memories of men. Jimmy Finn was not burned in thecalaboose, but died a natural death in a tan vat, of a combination ofdelirium tremens and spontaneous combustion. When I say natural death, Imean it was a natural death for Jimmy Finn to die. The calaboose victimwas not a citizen; he was a poor stranger, a harmless whiskey-soddentramp. I know more about his case than anybody else; I knew too muchof it, in that bygone day, to relish speaking of it. That tramp waswandering about the streets one chilly evening, with a pipe in hismouth, and begging for a match; he got neither matches nor courtesy; onthe contrary, a troop of bad little boys followed him around and amusedthemselves with nagging and annoying him. I assisted; but at last, someappeal which the wayfarer made for forbearance, accompanying it with apathetic reference to his forlorn and friendless condition, touched suchsense of shame and remnant of right feeling as were left in me, and Iwent 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 ortwo afterward, the man was arrested and locked up in the calaboose bythe marshal--large name for a constable, but that was his title. At twoin the morning, the church bells rang for fire, and everybody turnedout, of course--I with the rest. The tramp had used his matchesdisastrously: he had set his straw bed on fire, and the oaken sheathingof the room had caught. When I reached the ground, two hundred men, women, and children stood massed together, transfixed with horror, andstaring at the grated windows of the jail. Behind the iron bars, andtugging frantically at them, and screaming for help, stood the tramp; heseemed like a black object set against a sun, so white and intense wasthe light at his back. That marshal could not be found, and he had theonly key. A battering-ram was quickly improvised, and the thunder of itsblows upon the door had so encouraging a sound that the spectators brokeinto wild cheering, and believed the merciful battle won. But it was notso. The timbers were too strong; they did not yield. It was said thatthe man's death-grip still held fast to the bars after he was dead; andthat in this position the fires wrapped him about and consumed him. Asto this, I do not know. What was seen after I recognized the face thatwas pleading through the bars was seen by others, not by me. 

I saw that face, so situated, every night for a long time afterward; andI believed myself as guilty of the man's death as if I had given him thematches purposely that he might burn himself up with them. I had not adoubt that I should be hanged if my connection with this tragedy werefound out. The happenings and the impressions of that time are burntinto my memory, and the study of them entertains me as much now as theythemselves distressed me then. If anybody spoke of that grisly matter, I was all ears in a moment, and alert to hear what might be said, for Iwas always dreading and expecting to find out that I was suspected; andso fine and so delicate was the perception of my guilty conscience, that it often detected suspicion in the most purposeless remarks, and inlooks, gestures, glances of the eye which had no significance, but whichsent me shivering away in a panic of fright, just the same. And how sickit made me when somebody dropped, howsoever carelessly and barren ofintent, the remark that 'murder will out!' For a boy of ten years, I wascarrying a pretty weighty cargo. 

All this time I was blessedly forgetting one thing--the fact that I wasan inveterate talker in my sleep. But one night I awoke and found mybed-mate--my younger brother--sitting up in bed and contemplating me bythe 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 kidneys in my throatand my hair on end. 

'What did I say. Quick--out with it--what did I say?'

'Nothing much. '

'It's a lie--you know everything. '

'Everything about what?'

'You know well enough. About THAT. '

'About WHAT?--I don't know what you are talking about. I think you aresick or crazy or something. But anyway, you're awake, and I'll get tosleep while I've got a chance. '

He fell asleep and I lay there in a cold sweat, turning this new terrorover in the whirling chaos which did duty as my mind. The burden ofmy thought was, How much did I divulge? How much does he know?--what adistress is this uncertainty! But by and by I evolved an idea--I wouldwake my brother and probe him with a supposititious case. I shook himup, and said--

'Suppose a man should come to you drunk--'

'This is foolish--I never get drunk. '

'I don't mean you, idiot--I mean the man. Suppose a MAN should cometo you drunk, and borrow a knife, or a tomahawk, or a pistol, and youforgot to tell him it was loaded, and--'

'How could you load a tomahawk?'

'I don't mean the tomahawk, and I didn't say the tomahawk; I saidthe pistol. Now don't you keep breaking in that way, because this isserious. There's been a man killed. '

'What! in this town?'

'Yes, in this town. '

'Well, go on--I won't say a single word. '

'Well, then, suppose you forgot to tell him to be careful with it, because it was loaded, and he went off and shot himself with thatpistol--fooling with it, you know, and probably doing it by accident, being drunk. Well, would it be murder?'

'No--suicide. '

'No, no. I don't mean HIS act, I mean yours: would you be a murderer forletting him have that pistol?'

After deep thought came this answer--

'Well, I should think I was guilty of something--maybe murder--yes, probably murder, but I don't quite know. '

This made me very uncomfortable. However, it was not a decisive verdict. I should have to set out the real case--there seemed to be no otherway. But I would do it cautiously, and keep a watch out for suspiciouseffects. I said--

'I was supposing a case, but I am coming to the real one now. Do youknow how the man came to be burned up in the calaboose?'

'No. '

'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 hispipe. A boy got him some. The man set fire to the calaboose with thosevery 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 verdict--

'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 fibers of my body, andI seemed to know how a person feels who hears his death sentencepronounced from the bench. I waited to hear what my brother would saynext. I believed I knew what it would be, and I was right. He said--

'I know the boy. '

I had nothing to say; so I said nothing. I simply shuddered. Then headded--

'Yes, before you got half through telling about the thing, I knewperfectly well who the boy was; it was Ben Coontz!'

I came out of my collapse as one who rises from the dead. I said, withadmiration--

'Why, how in the world did you ever guess it?'

'You told it in your sleep. '

I said to myself, 'How splendid that is! This is a habit which must becultivated. '

My brother rattled innocently on--

'When you were talking in your sleep, you kept mumbling something about"matches, " which I couldn't make anything out of; but just now, whenyou began to tell me about the man and the calaboose and the matches, I remembered that in your sleep you mentioned Ben Coontz two or threetimes; so I put this and that together, you see, and right away I knewit was Ben that burnt that man up. '

I praised his sagacity effusively. Presently he asked--

'Are you going to give him up to the law?'

'No, ' I said; 'I believe that this will be a lesson to him. I shall keepan eye on him, of course, for that is but right; but if he stops wherehe is and reforms, it shall never be said that I betrayed him. '

'How good you are!'

'Well, I try to be. It is all a person can do in a world like this. '

And now, my burden being shifted to other shoulders, my terrors soonfaded away. 

The day before we left Hannibal, a curious thing fell under mynotice--the surprising spread which longitudinal time undergoes there. I learned it from one of the most unostentatious of men--the coloredcoachman of a friend of mine, who lives three miles from town. He wasto call for me at the Park Hotel at 7. 30 P. M. , and drive me out. But hemissed it considerably--did not arrive till ten. He excused himself bysaying--

'De time is mos' an hour en a half slower in de country en what it is inde town; you'll be in plenty time, boss. Sometimes we shoves out earlyfor church, Sunday, en fetches up dah right plum in de middle er desermon. Diffunce in de time. A body can't make no calculations 'boutit. '

I had lost two hours and a half; but I had learned a fact worth four. 

Chapter 57 An Archangel

FROM St. Louis northward there are all the enlivening signs of thepresence of active, energetic, intelligent, prosperous, practicalnineteenth-century populations. The people don't dream, they work. Thehappy result is manifest all around in the substantial outside aspectof things, and the suggestions of wholesome life and comfort thateverywhere appear. 

Quincy is a notable example--a brisk, handsome, well-ordered city; andnow, as formerly, interested in art, letters, and other high things. 

But Marion City is an exception. Marion City has gone backwards ina most unaccountable way. This metropolis promised so well that theprojectors tacked 'city' to its name in the very beginning, with fullconfidence; but it was bad prophecy. When I first saw Marion City, thirty-five years ago, it contained one street, and nearly or quite sixhouses. It contains but one house now, and this one, in a state of ruin, is getting ready to follow the former five into the river. DoubtlessMarion City was too near to Quincy. It had another disadvantage: it wassituated in a flat mud bottom, below high-water mark, whereas Quincystands high up on the slope of a hill. 

In the beginning Quincy had the aspect and ways of a model New Englandtown: and these she has yet: broad, clean streets, trim, neat dwellingsand lawns, fine mansions, stately blocks of commercial buildings. Andthere are ample fair-grounds, a well kept park, and many attractivedrives; library, reading-rooms, a couple of colleges, some handsome andcostly churches, and a grand court-house, with grounds which occupy asquare. The population of the city is thirty thousand. There are somelarge factories here, and manufacturing, of many sorts, is done on agreat scale. 

La Grange and Canton are growing towns, but I missed Alexandria; wastold it was under water, but would come up to blow in the summer. 

Keokuk was easily recognizable. I lived there in 1857--an extraordinaryyear there in real-estate matters. The 'boom' was something wonderful. Everybody bought, everybody sold--except widows and preachers; theyalways hold on; and when the tide ebbs, they get left. Anything in thesemblance of a town lot, no matter how situated, was salable, and at afigure which would still have been high if the ground had been soddedwith greenbacks. 

The town has a population of fifteen thousand now, and is progressingwith a healthy growth. It was night, and we could not see details, forwhich we were sorry, for Keokuk has the reputation of being a beautifulcity. It was a pleasant one to live in long ago, and doubtless hasadvanced, 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 hundredfeet wide, and is in no place less than six feet deep. Its masonry isof the majestic kind which the War Department usually deals in, and willendure like a Roman aqueduct. The work cost four or five millions. 

After an hour or two spent with former friends, we started up the riveragain. Keokuk, a long time ago, was an occasional loafing-place of thaterratic genius, Henry Clay Dean. I believe I never saw him but once; buthe was much talked of when I lived there. This is what was said of him--

He began life poor and without education. But he educated himself--onthe curbstones of Keokuk. He would sit down on a curbstone with hisbook, careless or unconscious of the clatter of commerce and the trampof the passing crowds, and bury himself in his studies by the hour, never changing his position except to draw in his knees now and thento let a dray pass unobstructed; and when his book was finished, itscontents, however abstruse, had been burnt into his memory, and were hispermanent possession. In this way he acquired a vast hoard of all sortsof learning, and had it pigeon-holed in his head where he could put hisintellectual hand on it whenever it was wanted. 

His clothes differed in no respect from a 'wharf-rat's, ' except thatthey were raggeder, more ill-assorted and inharmonious (and thereforemore extravagantly picturesque), and several layers dirtier. Nobodycould infer the master-mind in the top of that edifice from the edificeitself. 

He was an orator--by nature in the first place, and later by thetraining of experience and practice. When he was out on a canvass, hisname was a lodestone which drew the farmers to his stump from fiftymiles around. His theme was always politics. He used no notes, fora volcano does not need notes. In 1862, a son of Keokuk's latedistinguished citizen, Mr. Claggett, gave me this incident concerningDean--

The war feeling was running high in Keokuk (in '61), and a greatmass meeting was to be held on a certain day in the new Athenaeum. Adistinguished stranger was to address the house. After the building hadbeen packed to its utmost capacity with sweltering folk of both sexes, the stage still remained vacant--the distinguished stranger had failedto connect. The crowd grew impatient, and by and by indignant andrebellious. About this time a distressed manager discovered Dean on acurb-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 thestage and save his country. 

Presently a sudden silence fell upon the grumbling audience, andeverybody's eyes sought a single point--the wide, empty, carpetlessstage. A figure appeared there whose aspect was familiar to hardly adozen persons present. It was the scarecrow Dean--in foxy shoes, down atthe heels; socks of odd colors, also 'down;' damaged trousers, relics ofantiquity, and a world too short, exposing some inches of naked ankle;an unbuttoned vest, also too short, and exposing a zone of soiled andwrinkled linen between it and the waistband; shirt bosom open; longblack handkerchief, wound round and round the neck like a bandage;bob-tailed 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--whicheverbump it was. This figure moved gravely out upon the stage and, withsedate and measured step, down to the front, where it paused, anddreamily inspected the house, saying no word. The silence of surpriseheld its own for a moment, then was broken by a just audible rippleof merriment which swept the sea of faces like the wash of a wave. The figure remained as before, thoughtfully inspecting. Another wavestarted--laughter, this time. It was followed by another, then athird--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, nobodylistening, everybody laughing and whispering. The speaker talked onunembarrassed, and presently delivered a shot which went home, andsilence and attention resulted. He followed it quick and fast, withother telling things; warmed to his work and began to pour his wordsout, instead of dripping them; grew hotter and hotter, and fell todischarging lightnings and thunder--and now the house began to breakinto applause, to which the speaker gave no heed, but went hammeringstraight on; unwound his black bandage and cast it away, stillthundering; presently discarded the bob tailed coat and flung it aside, firing up higher and higher all the time; finally flung the vest afterthe coat; and then for an untimed period stood there, like anotherVesuvius, spouting smoke and flame, lava and ashes, raining pumice-stoneand cinders, shaking the moral earth with intellectual crash upon crash, explosion upon explosion, while the mad multitude stood upon their feetin a solid body, answering back with a ceaseless hurricane of cheers, through a thrashing snowstorm of waving handkerchiefs. 

'When Dean came, ' said Claggett, 'the people thought he was an escapedlunatic; but when he went, they thought he was an escaped archangel. '

Burlington, home of the sparkling Burdette, is another hill city; andalso a beautiful one; unquestionably so; a fine and flourishingcity, with a population of twenty-five thousand, and belted with busyfactories of nearly every imaginable description. It was a very sobercity, too--for the moment--for a most sobering bill was pending; a billto forbid the manufacture, exportation, importation, purchase, sale, borrowing, lending, stealing, drinking, smelling, or possession, byconquest, inheritance, intent, accident, or otherwise, in the State ofIowa, of each and every deleterious beverage known to the human race, except water. This measure was approved by all the rational people inthe State; but not by the bench of Judges. 

Burlington has the progressive modern city's full equipment of devicesfor right and intelligent government; including a paid fire department, a thing which the great city of New Orleans is without, but stillemploys that relic of antiquity, the independent system. 

In Burlington, as in all these Upper-River towns, one breathes ago-ahead atmosphere which tastes good in the nostrils. An opera-househas lately been built there which is in strong contrast with the shabbydens which usually do duty as theaters in cities of Burlington's size. 

We had not time to go ashore in Muscatine, but had a daylight view of itfrom the boat. I lived there awhile, many years ago, but the place, now, had a rather unfamiliar look; so I suppose it has clear outgrown thetown which I used to know. In fact, I know it has; for I remember it asa small place--which it isn't now. But I remember it best for alunatic who caught me out in the fields, one Sunday, and extracted abutcher-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 triedto compromise on an acknowledgment that he was the only member of thefamily I had met; but that did not satisfy him; he wouldn't have anyhalf-measures; I must say he was the sole and only son of the Devil--hewhetted his knife on his boot. It did not seem worth while to maketrouble about a little thing like that; so I swung round to his view ofthe matter and saved my skin whole. Shortly afterward, he went to visithis 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 equaled them. They used the broad smooth river as a canvas, and painted on it everyimaginable dream of color, from the mottled daintinesses and delicaciesof the opal, all the way up, through cumulative intensities, to blindingpurple and crimson conflagrations which were enchanting to the eye, butsharply tried it at the same time. All the Upper Mississippi regionhas these extraordinary sunsets as a familiar spectacle. It is the trueSunset Land: I am sure no other country can show so good a right to thename. The sunrises are also said to be exceedingly fine. I do not know. 

Chapter 58 On the Upper River

THE big towns drop in, thick and fast, now: and between stretchprocessions of thrifty farms, not desolate solitude. Hour by hour, theboat plows deeper and deeper into the great and populous North-west; andwith each successive section of it which is revealed, one's surpriseand respect gather emphasis and increase. Such a people, and suchachievements as theirs, compel homage. This is an independent race whothink for themselves, and who are competent to do it, because they areeducated and enlightened; they read, they keep abreast of the bestand newest thought, they fortify every weak place in their land with aschool, a college, a library, and a newspaper; and they live under law. Solicitude for the future of a race like this is not in order. 

This region is new; so new that it may be said to be still in itsbabyhood. By what it has accomplished while still teething, one mayforecast what marvels it will do in the strength of its maturity. Itis so new that the foreign tourist has not heard of it yet; and has notvisited it. For sixty years, the foreign tourist has steamed up anddown the river between St. Louis and New Orleans, and then gone home andwritten his book, believing he had seen all of the river that was worthseeing or that had anything to see. In not six of all these books isthere mention of these Upper River towns--for the reason that the fiveor six tourists who penetrated this region did it before these townswere projected. The latest tourist of them all (1878) made the same oldregulation trip--he had not heard that there was anything north of St. Louis. 

Yet there was. There was this amazing region, bristling with greattowns, projected day before yesterday, so to speak, and built nextmorning. A score of them number from fifteen hundred to five thousandpeople. Then we have Muscatine, ten thousand; Winona, ten thousand;Moline, ten thousand; Rock Island, twelve thousand; La Crosse, twelvethousand; Burlington, twenty-five thousand; Dubuque, twenty-fivethousand; Davenport, thirty thousand; St. Paul, fifty-eight thousand, Minneapolis, sixty thousand and upward. 

The foreign tourist has never heard of these; there is no note of themin his books. They have sprung up in the night, while he slept. So newis this region, that I, who am comparatively young, am yet older thanit is. When I was born, St. Paul had a population of three persons, Minneapolis had just a third as many. The then population of Minneapolisdied two years ago; and when he died he had seen himself undergo anincrease, in forty years, of fifty-nine thousand nine hundred andninety-nine persons. He had a frog's fertility. 

I must explain that the figures set down above, as the population of St. Paul and Minneapolis, are several months old. These towns are far largernow. In fact, I have just seen a newspaper estimate which gives theformer seventy-one thousand, and the latter seventy-eight thousand. Thisbook will not reach the public for six or seven months yet; none of thefigures will be worth much then. 

We had a glimpse of Davenport, which is another beautiful city, crowninga hill--a phrase which applies to all these towns; for they are allcomely, all well built, clean, orderly, pleasant to the eye, andcheering to the spirit; and they are all situated upon hills. Thereforewe will give that phrase a rest. The Indians have a tradition thatMarquette and Joliet camped where Davenport now stands, in 1673. Thenext white man who camped there, did it about a hundred and seventyyears later--in 1834. Davenport has gathered its thirty thousand peoplewithin the past thirty years. She sends more children to her schoolsnow, than her whole population numbered twenty-three years ago. She hasthe usual Upper River quota of factories, newspapers, and institutionsof learning; she has telephones, local telegraphs, an electric alarm, and an admirable paid fire department, consisting of six hook and laddercompanies, four steam fire engines, and thirty churches. Davenport isthe official residence of two bishops--Episcopal and Catholic. 

Opposite Davenport is the flourishing town of Rock Island, which lies atthe foot of the Upper Rapids. A great railroad bridge connects the twotowns--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 milewide, belongs to the United States, and the Government has turned itinto a wonderful park, enhancing its natural attractions by art, andthreading its fine forests with many miles of drives. Near the centerof the island one catches glimpses, through the trees, of ten vast stonefour-story buildings, each of which covers an acre of ground. Theseare the Government workshops; for the Rock Island establishment is anational armory and arsenal. 

We move up the river--always through enchanting scenery, there being noother kind on the Upper Mississippi--and pass Moline, a center of vastmanufacturing industries; and Clinton and Lyons, great lumber centers;and presently reach Dubuque, which is situated in a rich mineral region. The lead mines are very productive, and of wide extent. Dubuque has agreat number of manufacturing establishments; among them a plow factorywhich has for customers all Christendom in general. At least so I wastold by an agent of the concern who was on the boat. He said--

'You show me any country under the sun where they really know how toplow, and if I don't show you our mark on the plow they use, I'll eatthat plow; and I won't ask for any Woostershyre sauce to flavor it upwith, either. '

All this part of the river is rich in Indian history and traditions. Black Hawk's was once a puissant name hereabouts; as wasKeokuk's, further down. A few miles below Dubuque is the Tete deMort--Death's-head rock, or bluff--to the top of which the French drovea band of Indians, in early times, and cooped them up there, with deathfor a certainty, and only the manner of it matter of choice--to starve, or jump off and kill themselves. Black Hawk adopted the ways of thewhite people, toward the end of his life; and when he died he wasburied, near Des Moines, in Christian fashion, modified by Indiancustom; that is to say, clothed in a Christian military uniform, andwith a Christian cane in his hand, but deposited in the grave in asitting posture. Formerly, a horse had always been buried with a chief. The substitution of the cane shows that Black Hawk's haughty nature wasreally humbled, and he expected to walk when he got over. 

We noticed that above Dubuque the water of the Mississippi wasolive-green--rich and beautiful and semi-transparent, with the sun onit. Of course the water was nowhere as clear or of as fine a complexionas it is in some other seasons of the year; for now it was at floodstage, and therefore dimmed and blurred by the mud manufactured fromcaving banks. 

The majestic bluffs that overlook the river, along through this region, charm one with the grace and variety of their forms, and the softbeauty of their adornment. The steep verdant slope, whose base is atthe water's edge is topped by a lofty rampart of broken, turreted rocks, which are exquisitely rich and mellow in color--mainly dark brownsand dull greens, but splashed with other tints. And then you have theshining river, winding here and there and yonder, its sweep interruptedat intervals by clusters of wooded islands threaded by silver channels;and you have glimpses of distant villages, asleep upon capes; and ofstealthy rafts slipping along in the shade of the forest walls; and ofwhite steamers vanishing around remote points. And it is all astranquil and reposeful as dreamland, and has nothing this-worldly aboutit--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'swarwhoop and the roar and thunder of its rushing wheels--and straightwayyou are back in this world, and with one of its frets ready to hand foryour entertainment: for you remember that this is the very road whosestock always goes down after you buy it, and always goes up again assoon as you sell it. It makes me shudder to this day, to remember thatI once came near not getting rid of my stock at all. It must be an awfulthing to have a railroad left on your hands. 

The locomotive is in sight from the deck of the steamboat almostthe whole way from St. Louis to St. Paul--eight hundred miles. Theserailroads have made havoc with the steamboat commerce. The clerk of ourboat was a steamboat clerk before these roads were built. In that daythe influx of population was so great, and the freight business soheavy, that the boats were not able to keep up with the demands madeupon their carrying capacity; consequently the captains were veryindependent and airy--pretty 'biggity, ' as Uncle Remus would say. Theclerk nut-shelled the contrast between the former time and the present, thus--

'Boat used to land--captain on hurricane roof--mighty stiff andstraight--iron ramrod for a spine--kid gloves, plug tile, hair partedbehind--man on shore takes off hat and says--

'"Got twenty-eight tons of wheat, cap'n--be great favor if you can takethem. "

'Captain says--

'"'ll take two of them"--and don't even condescend to look at him. 

'But nowadays the captain takes off his old slouch, and smiles all theway around to the back of his ears, and gets off a bow which he hasn'tgot any ramrod to interfere with, and says--

'"Glad to see you, Smith, glad to see you--you're looking well--haven'tseen you looking so well for years--what you got for us?"

'"Nuth'n", says Smith; and keeps his hat on, and just turns his back andgoes to talking with somebody else. 

'Oh, yes, eight years ago, the captain was on top; but it's Smith's turnnow. Eight years ago a boat used to go up the river with every stateroomfull, and people piled five and six deep on the cabin floor; and a soliddeck-load of immigrants and harvesters down below, into the bargain. Toget a first-class stateroom, you'd got to prove sixteen quarterings ofnobility and four hundred years of descent, or be personally acquaintedwith the nigger that blacked the captain's boots. But it's all changednow; plenty staterooms above, no harvesters below--there's a patentself-binder now, and they don't have harvesters any more; they've gonewhere the woodbine 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--butnot floating leisurely along, in the old-fashioned way, manned withjoyous and reckless crews of fiddling, song-singing, whiskey-drinking, breakdown-dancing rapscallions; no, the whole thing was shoved swiftlyalong by a powerful stern-wheeler, modern fashion, and the smallcrews were quiet, orderly men, of a sedate business aspect, with not asuggestion of romance about them anywhere. 

Along here, somewhere, on a black night, we ran some exceedingly narrowand intricate island-chutes by aid of the electric light. Behind wassolid blackness--a crackless bank of it; ahead, a narrow elbow of water, curving between dense walls of foliage that almost touched our bows onboth sides; and here every individual leaf, and every individual ripplestood out in its natural color, and flooded with a glare as of noondayintensified. The effect was strange, and fine, and very striking. 

We passed Prairie du Chien, another of Father Marquette'scamping-places; and after some hours of progress through varied andbeautiful scenery, reached La Crosse. Here is a town of twelve orthirteen thousand population, with electric lighted streets, and withblocks of buildings which are stately enough, and also architecturallyfine enough, to command respect in any city. It is a choice town, and wemade satisfactory use of the hour allowed us, in roaming it over, thoughthe weather was rainier than necessary. 

Chapter 59 Legends and Scenery

WE added several passengers to our list, at La Crosse; among others anold gentleman who had come to this north-western region with the earlysettlers, and was familiar with every part of it. Pardonably proud ofit, too. He said--

'You'll find scenery between here and St. Paul that can give the Hudsonpoints. You'll have the Queen's Bluff--seven hundred feet high, andjust as imposing a spectacle as you can find anywheres; and TrempeleauIsland, which isn't like any other island in America, I believe, for itis a gigantic mountain, with precipitous sides, and is full of Indiantraditions, and used to be full of rattlesnakes; if you catch the sunjust right there, you will have a picture that will stay with you. Andabove Winona you'll have lovely prairies; and then come the ThousandIslands, too beautiful for anything; green? why you never saw foliage sogreen, nor packed so thick; it's like a thousand plush cushions afloaton a looking-glass--when the water 's still; and then the monstrousbluffs on both sides of the river--ragged, rugged, dark-complected--justthe frame that's wanted; you always want a strong frame, you know, tothrow up the nice points of a delicate picture and make them stand out. '

The old gentleman also told us a touching Indian legend or two--but notvery powerful ones. 

After this excursion into history, he came back to the scenery, anddescribed it, detail by detail, from the Thousand Islands to St. Paul;naming its names with such facility, tripping along his theme with suchnimble and confident ease, slamming in a three-ton word, here andthere, with such a complacent air of 'tisn't-anything, -I-can-do-it-any-time-I-want-to, and letting off finesurprises of lurid eloquence at such judicious intervals, that Ipresently began to suspect--

But no matter what I began to suspect. Hear him--

'Ten miles above Winona we come to Fountain City, nestling sweetly atthe feet of cliffs that lift their awful fronts, Jovelike, toward theblue depths of heaven, bathing them in virgin atmospheres that haveknown no other contact save that of angels' wings. 

'And next we glide through silver waters, amid lovely and stupendousaspects of nature that attune our hearts to adoring admiration, abouttwelve miles, and strike Mount Vernon, six hundred feet high, withromantic ruins of a once first-class hotel perched far among the cloudshadows that mottle its dizzy heights--sole remnant of once-flourishingMount Vernon, town of early days, now desolate and utterly deserted. 

'And so we move on. Past Chimney Rock we fly--noble shaft of six hundredfeet; then just before landing at Minnieska our attention is attractedby a most striking promontory rising over five hundred feet--the idealmountain pyramid. Its conic shape--thickly-wooded surface girding itssides, and its apex like that of a cone, cause the spectator to wonderat nature's workings. From its dizzy heights superb views of theforests, streams, bluffs, hills and dales below and beyond for miles arebrought within its focus. What grander river scenery can be conceived, as we gaze upon this enchanting landscape, from the uppermost point ofthese bluffs upon the valleys below? The primeval wildness and awfulloneliness of these sublime creations of nature and nature's God, excitefeelings of unbounded admiration, and the recollection of which cannever be effaced from the memory, as we view them in any direction. 

'Next we have the Lion's Head and the Lioness's Head, carved by nature'shand, to adorn and dominate the beauteous stream; and then anon theriver widens, and a most charming and magnificent view of the valleybefore us suddenly bursts upon our vision; rugged hills, clad withverdant forests from summit to base, level prairie lands, holding intheir lap the beautiful Wabasha, City of the Healing Waters, puissantfoe of Bright's disease, and that grandest conception of nature'sworks, incomparable Lake Pepin--these constitute a picture whereon thetourist's eye may gaze uncounted hours, with rapture unappeased andunappeasable. 

'And so we glide along; in due time encountering those majestic domes, the mighty Sugar Loaf, and the sublime Maiden's Rock--which latter, romantic superstition has invested with a voice; and oft-times as thebirch canoe glides near, at twilight, the dusky paddler fancies he hearsthe soft sweet music of the long-departed Winona, darling of Indian songand story. 

'Then Frontenac looms upon our vision, delightful resort of jaded summertourists; then progressive Red Wing; and Diamond Bluff, impressive andpreponderous in its lone sublimity; then Prescott and the St. Croix; andanon we see bursting upon us the domes and steeples of St. Paul, giantyoung chief of the North, marching with seven-league stride in thevan of progress, banner-bearer of the highest and newest civilization, carving his beneficent way with the tomahawk of commercial enterprise, sounding the warwhoop of Christian culture, tearing off the reekingscalp of sloth and superstition to plant there the steam-plow and theschool-house--ever in his front stretch arid lawlessness, ignorance, crime, despair; ever in his wake bloom the jail, the gallows, and thepulpit; and ever--'

'Have you ever traveled 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 workup 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 oftravelers who go by that line. '

'When you were talking of Maiden's Rock, you spoke of the long-departedWinona, darling of Indian song and story. Is she the maiden of therock?--and are the two connected by legend?'

'Yes, and a very tragic and painful one. Perhaps the most celebrated, aswell as the most pathetic, of all the legends of the Mississippi. '

We asked him to tell it. He dropped out of his conversational vein andback 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'sRock, which is not only a picturesque spot, but is full of romanticinterest from the event which gave it its name, Not many years ago thislocality was a favorite resort for the Sioux Indians on account of thefine fishing and hunting to be had there, and large numbers of them werealways to be found in this locality. Among the families which usedto 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 alover belonging to the same band. But her stern parents had promised herhand to another, a famous warrior, and insisted on her wedding him. Theday was fixed by her parents, to her great grief. She appeared to accedeto the proposal and accompany them to the rock, for the purpose ofgathering flowers for the feast. On reaching the rock, We-no-na ranto its summit and standing on its edge upbraided her parents who werebelow, for their cruelty, and then singing a death-dirge, threw herselffrom the precipice and dashed them in pieces on the rock below. '

'Dashed who in pieces--her parents?'

'Yes. '

'Well, it certainly was a tragic business, as you say. And moreover, there is a startling kind of dramatic surprise about it which I was notlooking for. It is a distinct improvement upon the threadbare form ofIndian legend. There are fifty Lover's Leaps along the Mississippi fromwhose summit disappointed Indian girls have jumped, but this is the onlyjump in the lot hat turned out in the right and satisfactory way. Whatbecame of Winona?'

'She was a good deal jarred up and jolted: but she got herself togetherand disappeared before the coroner reached the fatal spot; and 'tissaid she sought and married her true love, and wandered with him tosome distant clime, where she lived happy ever after, her gentle spiritmellowed and chastened by the romantic incident which had so earlydeprived her of the sweet guidance of a mother's love and a father'sprotecting arm, and thrown her, all unfriended, upon the cold charity ofa censorious world. '

I was glad to hear the lecturer's description of the scenery, for itassisted my appreciation of what I saw of it, and enabled me to imaginesuch of it as we lost by the intrusion of night. 

As the lecturer remarked, this whole region is blanketed with Indiantales and traditions. But I reminded him that people usually merelymention this fact--doing it in a way to make a body's mouth water--andjudiciously stopped there. Why? Because the impression left, was thatthese tales were full of incident and imagination--a pleasant impressionwhich would be promptly dissipated if the tales were told. I showed hima lot of this sort of literature which I had been collecting, and heconfessed that it was poor stuff, exceedingly sorry rubbish; and Iventured to add that the legends which he had himself told us were ofthis character, with the single exception of the admirable story ofWinona. He granted these facts, but said that if I would hunt up Mr. Schoolcraft's book, published near fifty years ago, and now doubtlessout of print, I would find some Indian inventions in it that were veryfar from being barren of incident and imagination; that the tales inHiawatha were of this sort, and they came from Schoolcraft's book; andthat there were others in the same book which Mr. Longfellow could haveturned into verse with good effect. For instance, there was the legendof 'The Undying Head. ' He could not tell it, for many of the detailshad grown dim in his memory; but he would recommend me to find it andenlarge my respect for the Indian imagination. He said that this tale, and most of the others in the book, were current among the Indiansalong this part of the Mississippi when he first came here; and thatthe contributors to Schoolcraft's book had got them directly from Indianlips, and had written them down with strict exactness, and withoutembellishments of their own. 

I have found the book. The lecturer was right. There are several legendsin it which confirm what he said. I will offer two of them--'The UndyingHead, ' and 'Peboan and Seegwun, an Allegory of the Seasons. ' The latteris used in Hiawatha; but it is worth reading in the original form, ifonly that one may see how effective a genuine poem can be without thehelps and graces of poetic measure and rhythm--

PEBOAN AND SEEGWUN. 

An old man was sitting alone in his lodge, by the side of a frozenstream. It was the close of winter, and his fire was almost out, Heappeared very old and very desolate. His locks were white with age, andhe trembled in every joint. Day after day passed in solitude, and heheard nothing but the sound of the tempest, sweeping before it thenew-fallen snow. 

One day, as his fire was just dying, a handsome young man approached andentered his dwelling. His cheeks were red with the blood of youth, his eyes sparkled with animation, and a smile played upon his lips. Hewalked with a light and quick step. His forehead was bound with a wreathof sweet grass, in place of a warrior's frontlet, and he carried a bunchof flowers in his hand. 

'Ah, my son, ' said the old man, 'I am happy to see you. Come in. Comeand tell me of your adventures, and what strange lands you have been tosee. Let us pass the night together. I will tell you of my prowess andexploits, and what I can perform. You shall do the same, and we willamuse ourselves. '

He then drew from his sack a curiously wrought antique pipe, and havingfilled it with tobacco, rendered mild by a mixture of certain leaves, handed it to his guest. When this ceremony was concluded they began tospeak. 

'I blow my breath, ' said the old man, 'and the stream stands still. Thewater becomes stiff and hard as clear stone. '

'I 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. Theleaves 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 animalshide themselves from my breath, and the very ground becomes as hard asflint. '

'I shake my ringlets, ' rejoined the young man, 'and warm showers ofsoft rain fall upon the earth. The plants lift up their heads out ofthe earth, like the eyes of children glistening with delight. My voicerecalls the birds. The warmth of my breath unlocks the streams. Musicfills 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 beganto 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 vernalbreeze. 

Daylight fully revealed to the young man the character of hisentertainer. When he looked upon him, he had the icy visage ofPeboan. {footnote [Winter. ]} Streams began to flow from his eyes. As thesun increased, he grew less and less in stature, and anon had meltedcompletely away. Nothing remained on the place of his lodge-fire but themiskodeed, {footnote [The trailing arbutus. ]} a small white flower, witha 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 weirdconceits, fairy-tale prodigies, variety of incident, and energy ofmovement, for what it lacks in brevity. {footnote [See appendix D. ]}

Chapter 60 Speculations and Conclusions

WE reached St. Paul, at the head of navigation of the Mississippi, andthere our voyage of two thousand miles from New Orleans ended. It isabout a ten-day trip by steamer. It can probably be done quicker byrail. I judge so because I know that one may go by rail from St. Louisto Hannibal--a distance of at least a hundred and twenty miles--in sevenhours. This is better than walking; unless one is in a hurry. 

The season being far advanced when we were in New Orleans, the roses andmagnolia blossoms were falling; but here in St. Paul it was the snow, In New Orleans we had caught an occasional withering breath from over acrater, apparently; here in St. Paul we caught a frequent benumbing onefrom over a glacier, apparently. 

But I wander from my theme. St. Paul is a wonderful town. It is puttogether in solid blocks of honest brick and stone, and has the air ofintending to stay. Its post-office was established thirty-six years ago;and by and by, when the postmaster received a letter, he carried it toWashington, horseback, to inquire what was to be done with it. Such isthe legend. Two frame houses were built that year, and several personswere added to the population. A recent number of the leading St. Paulpaper, the 'Pioneer Press, ' gives some statistics which furnish a vividcontrast to that old state of things, to wit: Population, autumn of thepresent year (1882), 71, 000; number of letters handled, first half ofthe year, 1, 209, 387; number of houses built during three-quarters ofthe year, 989; their cost, $3, 186, 000. The increase of letters over thecorresponding six months of last year was fifty per cent. Last yearthe 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 amanufacturing city, of course--all the cities of that region are--buthe is peculiarly strong in the matter of commerce. Last year his jobbingtrade amounted to upwards of $52, 000, 000. 

He has a custom-house, and is building a costly capitol to replace theone recently burned--for he is the capital of the State. He has churcheswithout end; and not the cheap poor kind, but the kind that the richProtestant puts up, the kind that the poor Irish 'hired-girl' delightsto erect. What a passion for building majestic churches the Irishhired-girl has. It is a fine thing for our architecture but too often weenjoy her stately fanes without giving her a grateful thought. Infact, instead of reflecting that 'every brick and every stone in thisbeautiful edifice represents an ache or a pain, and a handful of sweat, and hours of heavy fatigue, contributed by the back and forehead andbones of poverty, ' it is our habit to forget these things entirely, and merely glorify the mighty temple itself, without vouchsafing onepraiseful thought to its humble builder, whose rich heart and witheredpurse it symbolizes. 

This is a land of libraries and schools. St. Paul has three publiclibraries, and they contain, in the aggregate, some forty thousandbooks. He has one hundred and sixteen school-houses, and pays out morethan 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 wasdistinctly the other way. The error is to be corrected. 

The town stands on high ground; it is about seven hundred feet abovethe sea level. It is so high that a wide view of river and lowland isoffered from its streets. 

It is a very wonderful town indeed, and is not finished yet. Allthe streets are obstructed with building material, and this is beingcompacted into houses as fast as possible, to make room for more--forother people are anxious to build, as soon as they can get the use ofthe streets to pile up their bricks and stuff in. 

How solemn and beautiful is the thought, that the earliest pioneer ofcivilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat, never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, neverthe missionary--but always whiskey! Such is the case. Look history over;you will see. The missionary comes after the whiskey--I mean he arrivesafter the whiskey has arrived; next comes the poor immigrant, with axand hoe and rifle; next, the trader; next, the miscellaneous rush; next, the gambler, the desperado, the highwayman, and all their kindred in sinof both sexes; and next, the smart chap who has bought up an old grantthat covers all the land; this brings the lawyer tribe; the vigilancecommittee brings the undertaker. All these interests bring thenewspaper; the newspaper starts up politics and a railroad; all handsturn to and build a church and a jail--and behold, civilizationis established for ever in the land. But whiskey, you see, was thevan-leader in this beneficent work. It always is. It was like aforeigner--and excusable in a foreigner--to be ignorant of this greattruth, and wander off into astronomy to borrow a symbol. But if he hadbeen 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 nowoccupies, in June 1837. Yes, at that date, Pierre Parrant, a Canadian, built the first cabin, uncorked his jug, and began to sell whiskey tothe Indians. The result is before us. 

All that I have said of the newness, briskness, swift progress, wealth, intelligence, fine and substantial architecture, and general slashand go, and energy of St. Paul, will apply to his near neighbor, Minneapolis--with the addition that the latter is the bigger of the twocities. 

These extraordinary towns were ten miles apart, a few months ago, butwere growing so fast that they may possibly be joined now, and gettingalong under a single mayor. At any rate, within five years fromnow there will be at least such a substantial ligament of buildingsstretching between them and uniting them that a stranger will not beable to tell where the one Siamese twin leaves off and the other begins. Combined, they will then number a population of two hundred and fiftythousand, if they continue to grow as they are now growing. Thus, thiscenter of population at the head of Mississippi navigation, will thenbegin a rivalry as to numbers, with that center of population at thefoot of it--New Orleans. 

Minneapolis is situated at the falls of St. Anthony, which stretchacross the river, fifteen hundred feet, and have a fall of eighty-twofeet--a waterpower which, by art, has been made of inestimablevalue, business-wise, though somewhat to the damage of the Falls asa spectacle, or as a background against which to get your photographtaken. 

Thirty flouring-mills turn out two million barrels of the very choicestof flour every year; twenty sawmills produce two hundred million feetof lumber annually; then there are woolen mills, cotton mills, paperand oil mills; and sash, nail, furniture, barrel, and other factories, without number, so to speak. The great flouring-mills here and at St. Paul use the 'new process' and mash the wheat by rolling, instead ofgrinding it. 

Sixteen railroads meet in Minneapolis, and sixty-five passenger trainsarrive and depart daily. In this place, as in St. Paul, journalismthrives. Here there are three great dailies, ten weeklies, and threemonthlies. 

There is a university, with four hundred students--and, better still, its good efforts are not confined to enlightening the one sex. There aresixteen public schools, with buildings which cost $500, 000; there aresix thousand pupils and one hundred and twenty-eight teachers. Thereare also seventy churches existing, and a lot more projected. The banksaggregate a capital of $3, 000, 000, and the wholesale jobbing trade ofthe town amounts to $50, 000, 000 a year. 

Near St. Paul and Minneapolis are several points of interest--FortSnelling, a fortress occupying a river-bluff a hundred feet high; thefalls of Minnehaha, White-bear Lake, and so forth. The beautiful fallsof Minnehaha are sufficiently celebrated--they do not need a lift fromme, in that direction. The White-bear Lake is less known. It is a lovelysheet of water, and is being utilized as a summer resort by the wealthand fashion of the State. It has its club-house, and its hotel, with themodern improvements and conveniences; its fine summer residences; andplenty of fishing, hunting, and pleasant drives. There are a dozen minorsummer resorts around about St. Paul and Minneapolis, but the White-bearLake is the resort. Connected with White-bear Lake is a most idioticIndian legend. I would resist the temptation to print it here, if Icould, but the task is beyond my strength. The guide-book names thepreserver of the legend, and compliments his 'facile pen. ' Withoutfurther comment or delay then, let us turn the said facile pen looseupon the reader--

A LEGEND OF WHITE-BEAR LAKE. 

Every spring, for perhaps a century, or as long as there has been anation of red men, an island in the middle of White-bear Lake has beenvisited by a band of Indians for the purpose of making maple sugar. 

Tradition says that many springs ago, while upon this island, a youngwarrior 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 herhand by her parents, the old chief alleging that he was no brave, andhis old consort called him a woman!

The sun had again set upon the 'sugar-bush, ' and the bright moon rosehigh in the bright blue heavens, when the young warrior took down hisflute and went out alone, once more to sing the story of his love, themild breeze gently moved the two gay feathers in his head-dress, and ashe mounted on the trunk of a leaning tree, the damp snow fell from hisfeet heavily. As he raised his flute to his lips, his blanket slippedfrom his well-formed shoulders, and lay partly on the snow beneath. Hebegan his weird, wild love-song, but soon felt that he was cold, and ashe reached back for his blanket, some unseen hand laid it gently on hisshoulders; it was the hand of his love, his guardian angel. She took herplace beside him, and for the present they were happy; for the Indianhas a heart to love, and in this pride he is as noble as in his ownfreedom, which makes him the child of the forest. As the legend runs, alarge white-bear, thinking, perhaps, that polar snows and dismal winterweather extended everywhere, took up his journey southward. He at lengthapproached the northern shore of the lake which now bears his name, walked down the bank and made his way noiselessly through the deep heavysnow toward the island. It was the same spring ensuing that the loversmet. They had left their first retreat, and were now seated among thebranches of a large elm which hung far over the lake. (The same tree isstill standing, and excites universal curiosity and interest. ) For fearof being detected, they talked almost in a whisper, and now, that theymight get back to camp in good time and thereby avoid suspicion, theywere just rising to return, when the maiden uttered a shriek which washeard at the camp, and bounding toward the young brave, she caught hisblanket, but missed the direction of her foot and fell, bearing theblanket with her into the great arms of the ferocious monster. Instantlyevery man, woman, and child of the band were upon the bank, but allunarmed. Cries and wailings went up from every mouth. What was to bedone'? In the meantime this white and savage beast held the breathlessmaiden in his huge grasp, and fondled with his precious prey as if hewere used to scenes like this. One deafening yell from the lover warrioris heard above the cries of hundreds of his tribe, and dashing awayto his wigwam he grasps his faithful knife, returns almost at a singlebound to the scene of fear and fright, rushes out along the leaning treeto the spot where his treasure fell, and springing with the fury ofa mad panther, pounced upon his prey. The animal turned, and with onestroke of his huge paw brought the lovers heart to heart, but the nextmoment the warrior, with one plunge of the blade of his knife, openedthe crimson sluices of death, and the dying bear relaxed his hold. 

That night there was no more sleep for the band or the lovers, and asthe young and the old danced about the carcass of the dead monster, thegallant warrior was presented with another plume, and ere another moonhad set he had a living treasure added to his heart. Their children formany years played upon the skin of the white-bear--from which the lakederives its name--and the maiden and the brave remembered long thefearful scene and rescue that made them one, for Kis-se-me-pa andKa-go-ka could never forget their fearful encounter with the hugemonster that came so near sending them to the happy hunting-ground. 

It is a perplexing business. First, she fell down out of the tree--sheand the blanket; and the bear caught her and fondled her--her and theblanket; then she fell up into the tree again--leaving the blanket;meantime the lover goes war-whooping home and comes back 'heeled, 'climbs the tree, jumps down on the bear, the girl jumps down afterhim--apparently, for she was up the tree--resumes her place in thebear's arms along with the blanket, the lover rams his knife into thebear, and saves--whom, the blanket? No--nothing of the sort. You getyourself all worked up and excited about that blanket, and then all ofa sudden, just when a happy climax seems imminent you are let downflat--nothing saved but the girl. Whereas, one is not interested inthe girl; she is not the prominent feature of the legend. Nevertheless, there you are left, and there you must remain; for if you live athousand years you will never know who got the blanket. A dead man couldget up a better legend than this one. I don't mean a fresh dead maneither; I mean a man that's been dead weeks and weeks. 

We struck the home-trail now, and in a few hours were in thatastonishing Chicago--a city where they are always rubbing the lamp, andfetching up the genii, and contriving and achieving new impossibilities. It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up withChicago--she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them. She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when youpassed through the last time. The Pennsylvania road rushed us to NewYork without missing schedule time ten minutes anywhere on the route;and there ended one of the most enjoyable five-thousand-mile journeys Ihave ever had the good fortune to make. 

APPENDIX A

(FROM THE NEW ORLEANS TIMES DEMOCRAT OF MARCH 29, 1882. )

VOYAGE OF THE TIMES-DEMOCRAT'S RELIEF BOAT THROUGH THE INUNDATED REGIONS

IT was nine o'clock Thursday morning when the 'Susie' left theMississippi and entered Old River, or what is now called the mouth ofthe Red. Ascending on the left, a flood was pouring in through and overthe levees on the Chandler plantation, the most northern point in PointeCoupee parish. The water completely covered the place, although thelevees had given way but a short time before. The stock had beengathered in a large flat-boat, where, without food, as we passed, theanimals were huddled together, waiting for a boat to tow them off. Onthe right-hand side of the river is Turnbull's Island, and on it is alarge plantation which formerly was pronounced one of the most fertilein the State. The water has hitherto allowed it to go scot-free in usualfloods, but now broad sheets of water told only where fields were. Thetop of the protecting levee could be seen here and there, but nearly allof it was submerged. 

The trees have put on a greener foliage since the water has poured in, and the woods look bright and fresh, but this pleasant aspect to the eyeis neutralized by the interminable waste of water. We pass mile aftermile, and it is nothing but trees standing up to their branches inwater. A water-turkey now and again rises and flies ahead into the longavenue of silence. A pirogue sometimes flits from the bushes and crossesthe Red River on its way out to the Mississippi, but the sad-facedpaddlers never turn their heads to look at our boat. The puffing of theboat is music in this gloom, which affects one most curiously. It is notthe gloom of deep forests or dark caverns, but a peculiar kind of solemnsilence and impressive awe that holds one perforce to its recognition. We passed two negro families on a raft tied up in the willows thismorning. They were evidently of the well-to-do class, as they had asupply of meal and three or four hogs with them. Their rafts were abouttwenty feet square, and in front of an improvised shelter earth had beenplaced, on which they built their fire. 

The current running down the Atchafalaya was very swift, the Mississippishowing a predilection in that direction, which needs only to be seen toenforce the opinion of that river's desperate endeavors to find a shortway to the Gulf. Small boats, skiffs, pirogues, etc. , are in greatdemand, and many have been stolen by piratical negroes, who take themwhere 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 justgone under, there is much suffering in the rear of that place. Thenegroes had given up all thoughts of a crevasse there, as the upperlevee had stood so long, and when it did come they were at its mercy. On Thursday a number were taken out of trees and off of cabin roofs andbrought in, many yet remaining. 

One does not appreciate the sight of earth until he has traveled througha flood. At sea one does not expect or look for it, but here, withfluttering leaves, shadowy forest aisles, house-tops barely visible, itis expected. In fact a grave-yard, if the mounds were above water, wouldbe appreciated. The river here is known only because there is an openingin the trees, and that is all. It is in width, from Fort Adams on theleft bank of the Mississippi to the bank of Rapides Parish, a distanceof about sixty miles. A large portion of this was under cultivation, particularly along the Mississippi and back of the Red. When Red Riverproper 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 itentered before signs of suffering became visible. All the willowsalong the banks were stripped of their leaves. One man, whom yourcorrespondent spoke to, said that he had had one hundred and fifty headof cattle and one hundred head of hogs. At the first appearance of waterhe had started to drive them to the high lands of Avoyelles, thirty-fivemiles off, but he lost fifty head of the beef cattle and sixty hogs. Black River is quite picturesque, even if its shores are under water. A dense growth of ash, oak, gum, and hickory make the shores almostimpenetrable, and where one can get a view down some avenue inthe trees, only the dim outlines of distant trunks can be barelydistinguished in the gloom. 

A few miles up this river, the depth of water on the banks was fullyeight feet, and on all sides could be seen, still holding against thestrong current, the tops of cabins. Here and there one overturned wassurrounded by drift-wood, forming the nucleus of possibly some futureisland. 

In order to save coal, as it was impossible to get that fuel at anypoint to be touched during the expedition, a look-out was kept for awood-pile. On rounding a point a pirogue, skilfully paddled by a youth, shot out, and in its bow was a girl of fifteen, of fair face, beautifulblack eyes, and demure manners. The boy asked for a paper, which wasthrown to him, and the couple pushed their tiny craft out into the swellof the boat. 

Presently a little girl, not certainly over twelve years, paddled out inthe smallest little canoe and handled it with all the deftness of an oldvoyageur. 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 apirogue and could go anywhere. She was bound out to pick willow leavesfor the stock, and she pointed to a house near by with water threeinches deep on the floors. At its back door was moored a raft aboutthirty feet square, with a sort of fence built upon it, and inside ofthis some sixteen cows and twenty hogs were standing. The family did notcomplain, except on account of losing their stock, and promptly broughta supply of wood in a flat. 

From this point to the Mississippi River, fifteen miles, there is nota spot of earth above water, and to the westward for thirty-five milesthere is nothing but the river's flood. Black River had risen duringThursday, the 23rd, 1{three-quarters} inches, and was going up at nightstill. As we progress up the river habitations become more frequent, but are yet still miles apart. Nearly all of them are deserted, and theout-houses floated off. To add to the gloom, almost every living thingseems to have departed, and not a whistle of a bird nor the bark ofthe squirrel can be heard in this solitude. Sometimes a morose garwill throw his tail aloft and disappear in the river, but beyond thiseverything is quiet--the quiet of dissolution. Down the river floatsnow a neatly whitewashed hen-house, then a cluster of neatly splitfence-rails, or a door and a bloated carcass, solemnly guarded by a pairof buzzards, the only bird to be seen, which feast on the carcass as itbears them along. A picture-frame in which there was a cheap lithographof a soldier on horseback, as it floated on told of some hearth invadedby the water and despoiled of this ornament. 

At dark, as it was not prudent to run, a place alongside the woods washunted 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 andriver, making a picture that would be a delightful piece of landscapestudy, could an artist only hold it down to his canvas. The motion ofthe 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 humof insects, or the dropping of limbs; but here nature was dumb. The darkrecesses, those aisles into this cathedral, gave forth no sound, andeven the ripplings of the current die away. 

At daylight Friday morning all hands were up, and up the Black westarted. The morning was a beautiful one, and the river, which isremarkably straight, put on its loveliest garb. The blossoms of the hawperfumed the air deliciously, and a few birds whistled blithely alongthe banks. The trees were larger, and the forest seemed of older growththan below. More fields were passed than nearer the mouth, but the samescene presented itself--smoke-houses drifting out in the pastures, negro quarters anchored in confusion against some oak, and the modestresidence just showing its eaves above water. The sun came up in aglory of carmine, and the trees were brilliant in their varied shadesof green. Not a foot of soil is to be seen anywhere, and the water isapparently growing deeper and deeper, for it reaches up to the branchesof the largest trees. All along, the bordering willows have been denudedof leaves, showing how long the people have been at work gathering thisfodder for their animals. An old man in a pirogue was asked how thewillow leaves agreed with his cattle. He stopped in his work, and withan ominous shake of his head replied: 'Well, sir, it 's enough to keepwarmth in their bodies and that's all we expect, but it's hard on thehogs, particularly the small ones. They is dropping off powerful fast. But what can you do? It 's all we've got. '

At thirty miles above the mouth of Black River the water extends fromNatchez on the Mississippi across to the pine hills of Louisiana, adistance of seventy-three miles, and there is hardly a spot that is notten feet under it. The tendency of the current up the Black is towardthe west. In fact, so much is this the case, the waters of Red Riverhave been driven down from toward the Calcasieu country, and the watersof the Black enter the Red some fifteen miles above the mouth of theformer, a thing never before seen by even the oldest steamboatmen. Thewater 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 having enough fortheir present personal needs. Their cattle, though, are suffering anddying off quite fast, as the confinement on rafts and the food they getbreeds disease. 

After a short stop we started, and soon came to a section where therewere many open fields and cabins thickly scattered about. Here were seenmore pictures of distress. On the inside of the houses the inmateshad built on boxes a scaffold on which they placed the furniture. Thebed-posts were sawed off on top, as the ceiling was not more than fourfeet from the improvised floor. The buildings looked very insecure, and threatened every moment to float off. Near the houses were cattlestanding breast high in the water, perfectly impassive. They did notmove in their places, but stood patiently waiting for help to come. Thesight was a distressing one, and the poor creatures will be sure todie unless speedily rescued. Cattle differ from horses in this peculiarquality. A horse, after finding no relief comes, will swim off in searchof food, whereas a beef will stand in its tracks until with exhaustionit drops in the water and drowns. 

At half-past twelve o'clock a hail was given from a flat-boat inside theline of the bank. Rounding to we ran alongside, and General York steppedaboard. He was just then engaged in getting off stock, and welcomed the'Times-Democrat' boat heartily, as he said there was much need for her. He said that the distress was not exaggerated in the least. People werein a condition it was difficult even for one to imagine. The water wasso high there was great danger of their houses being swept away. It hadalready risen so high that it was approaching the eaves, and when itreaches this point there is always imminent risk of their being sweptaway. If this occurs, there will be great loss of life. The Generalspoke of the gallant work of many of the people in their attempts tosave their stock, but thought that fully twenty-five per cent. Hadperished. Already twenty-five hundred people had received rations fromTroy, on Black River, and he had towed out a great many cattle, but avery great quantity remained and were in dire need. The water was noweighteen inches higher than in 1874, and there was no land betweenVidalia and the hills of Catahoula. 

At two o'clock the 'Susie' reached Troy, sixty-five miles above themouth of Black River. Here on the left comes in Little River; justbeyond that the Ouachita, and on the right the Tensas. These threerivers form the Black River. Troy, or a portion of it, is situated onand around three large Indian mounds, circular in shape, which riseabove the present water about twelve feet. They are about one hundredand fifty feet in diameter, and are about two hundred yards apart. Thehouses are all built between these mounds, and hence are all flooded toa depth of eighteen inches on their floors. 

These elevations, built by the aborigines, hundreds of years ago, arethe only points of refuge for miles. When we arrived we found themcrowded with stock, all of which was thin and hardly able to stand up. They were mixed together, sheep, hogs, horses, mules, and cattle. One ofthese mounds has been used for many years as the grave-yard, and to-daywe saw attenuated cows lying against the marble tomb-stones, chewingtheir cud in contentment, after a meal of corn furnished by GeneralYork. Here, as below, the remarkable skill of the women and girls in themanagement of the smaller pirogues was noticed. Children were paddlingabout in these most ticklish crafts with all the nonchalance of adepts. 

General York has put into operation a perfect system in regard tofurnishing relief. He makes a personal inspection of the place where itis asked, sees what is necessary to be done, and then, having two boatschartered, with flats, sends them promptly to the place, when the cattleare loaded and towed to the pine hills and uplands of Catahoula. Hehas made Troy his headquarters, and to this point boats come for theirsupply of feed for cattle. On the opposite side of Little River, whichbranches to the left out of Black, and between it and the Ouachita, is situated the town of Trinity, which is hourly threatened withdestruction. It is much lower than Troy, and the water is eight and ninefeet deep in the houses. A strong current sweeps through it, and it isremarkable that all of its houses have not gone before. The residents ofboth Troy and Trinity have been cared for, yet some of their stock haveto be furnished with food. 

As soon as the 'Susie' reached Troy, she was turned over to GeneralYork, and placed at his disposition to carry out the work of relief morerapidly. Nearly all her supplies were landed on one of the mounds tolighten her, and she was headed down stream to relieve those below. At Tom Hooper's place, a few miles from Troy, a large flat, with aboutfifty head of stock on board, was taken in tow. The animals were fed, and soon regained some strength. To-day we go on Little River, where thesuffering is greatest. 

DOWN BLACK RIVER

Saturday Evening, March 25. 

We started down Black River quite early, under the direction of GeneralYork, to bring out what stock could be reached. Going down river a flatin tow was left in a central locality, and from there men poled her backin the rear of plantations, picking up the animals wherever found. Inthe loft of a gin-house there were seventeen head found, and after agangway was built they were led down into the flat without difficulty. Taking a skiff with the General, your reporter was pulled up to a littlehouse of two rooms, in which the water was standing two feet on thefloors. In one of the large rooms were huddled the horses and cows ofthe place, while in the other the Widow Taylor and her son were seatedon a scaffold raised on the floor. One or two dug-outs were driftingabout in the roam ready to be put in service at any time. When the flatwas brought up, the side of the house was cut away as the only means ofgetting the animals out, and the cattle were driven on board the boat. General York, in this as in every case, inquired if the family desiredto leave, informing them that Major Burke, of 'The Times-Democrat, ' hassent the 'Susie' up for that purpose. Mrs. Taylor said she thanked MajorBurke, but she would try and hold out. The remarkable tenacity of thepeople here to their homes is beyond all comprehension. Just below, ata point sixteen miles from Troy, information was received that thehouse of Mr. Tom Ellis was in danger, and his family were all in it. Westeamed there immediately, and a sad picture was presented. Looking outof the half of the window left above water, was Mrs. Ellis, who is infeeble health, whilst at the door were her seven children, the oldestnot fourteen years. One side of the house was given up to the workanimals, some twelve head, besides hogs. In the next room the familylived, the water coming within two inches of the bed-rail. The stove wasbelow water, and the cooking was done on a fire on top of it. The housethreatened 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 cometo his relief; that 'The Times-Democrat' boat was at his service, andwould remove his family at once to the hills, and on Monday a flatwould 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 untilMonday, and take the risk of his house falling. The children around thedoor looked perfectly contented, seeming to care little for the dangerthey were in. These are but two instances of the many. After weeks ofprivation and suffering, people still cling to their houses and leaveonly when there is not room between the water and the ceiling to builda scaffold on which to stand. It seemed to be incomprehensible, yet thelove for the old place was stronger than that for safety. 

After leaving the Ellis place, the next spot touched at was the Oswaldplace. Here the flat was towed alongside the gin-house where there werefifteen head standing in water; and yet, as they stood on scaffolds, their heads were above the top of the entrance. It was found impossibleto get them out without cutting away a portion of the front; and soaxes were brought into requisition and a gap made. After much labor thehorses and mules were securely placed on the flat. 

At each place we stop there are always three, four, or more dug-outsarriving, bringing information of stock in other places in need. Notwithstanding the fact that a great many had driven a part of theirstock to the hills some time ago, there yet remains a large quantity, which General York, who is working with indomitable energy, will getlanded in the pine hills by Tuesday. 

All along Black River the 'Susie' has been visited by scores ofplanters, whose tales are the repetition of those already heard ofsuffering and loss. An old planter, who has lived on the river since1844, said there never was such a rise, and he was satisfied more thanone quarter of the stock has been lost. Luckily the people cared firstfor their work stock, and when they could find it horses and mules werehoused in a place of safety. The rise which still continues, and was twoinches last night, compels them to get them out to the hills; hence itis that the work of General York is of such a great value. From daylightto late at night he is going this way and that, cheering by hiskindly words and directing with calm judgment what is to be done. Oneunpleasant story, of a certain merchant in New Orleans, is told allalong the river. It appears for some years past the planters have beendealing with this individual, and many of them had balances in hishands. When the overflow came they wrote for coffee, for meal, and, infact, for such little necessities as were required. No response to theseletters came, and others were written, and yet these old customers, withplantations under water, were refused even what was necessary to sustainlife. It is needless to say he is not popular now on Back River. 

The hills spoken of as the place of refuge for the people and stock onBlack 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. 

THE FLOOD STILL RISING

Troy: March 27, 1882, noon. 

The flood here is rising about three and a half inches every twenty-fourhours, and rains have set in which will increase this. General Yorkfeels now that our efforts ought to be directed towards saving life, asthe increase of the water has jeopardized many houses. We intend togo up the Tensas in a few minutes, and then we will return and godown Black River to take off families. There is a lack of steamtransportation here to meet the emergency. The General has three boatschartered, with flats in tow, but the demand for these to tow out stockis greater than they can meet with promptness. All are working night andday, and the 'Susie' hardly stops for more than an hour anywhere. Therise has placed Trinity in a dangerous plight, and momentarily itis expected that some of the houses will float off. Troy is a littlehigher, yet all are in the water. Reports have come in that a womanand child have been washed away below here, and two cabins floatedoff. Their occupants are the same who refused to come off day beforeyesterday. One would not believe the utter passiveness of the people. 

As yet no news has been received of the steamer 'Delia, ' which issupposed to be the one sunk in yesterday's storm on Lake Catahoula. She is due here now, but has not arrived. Even the mail here is mostuncertain, and this I send by skiff to Natchez to get it to you. It isimpossible to get accurate data as to past crops, etc. , as those whoknow much about the matter have gone, and those who remain are not wellversed in the production of this section. 

General York desires me to say that the amount of rations formerly sentshould be duplicated and sent at once. It is impossible to make anyestimate, for the people are fleeing to the hills, so rapid is therise. The residents here are in a state of commotion that can only beappreciated when seen, and complete demoralization has set in. 

If rations are drawn for any particular section hereabouts, they wouldnot be certain to be distributed, so everything should be sent to Troyas a center, and the General will have it properly disposed of. Hehas sent for one hundred tents, and, if all go to the hills who are inmotion now, two hundred will be required. 

APPENDIX B

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER COMMISSION

THE condition of this rich valley of the Lower Mississippi, immediatelyafter and since the war, constituted one of the disastrous effects ofwar most to be deplored. Fictitious property in slaves was not onlyrighteously destroyed, but very much of the work which had depended uponthe slave labor was also destroyed or greatly impaired, especially thelevee system. 

It might have been expected by those who have not investigated thesubject, that such important improvements as the construction andmaintenance of the levees would have been assumed at once by the severalStates. But what can the State do where the people are under subjectionto rates of interest ranging from 18 to 30 per cent. , and are also underthe necessity of pledging their crops in advance even of planting, atthese rates, for the privilege of purchasing all of their supplies at100 per cent. Profit?

It has needed but little attention to make it perfectly obvious thatthe control of the Mississippi River, if undertaken at all, must beundertaken by the national government, and cannot be compassed byStates. The river must be treated as a unit; its control cannot becompassed under a divided or separate system of administration. 

Neither are the States especially interested competent to combine amongthemselves for the necessary operations. The work must begin far up theriver; at least as far as Cairo, if not beyond; and must be conductedupon a consistent general plan throughout the course of the river. 

It does not need technical or scientific knowledge to comprehend theelements of the case if one will give a little time and attention to thesubject, and when a Mississippi River commission has been constituted, as the existing commission is, of thoroughly able men of different walksin life, may it not be suggested that their verdict in the case shouldbe accepted as conclusive, so far as any a priori theory of constructionor control can be considered conclusive?

It should be remembered that upon this board are General Gilmore, General Comstock, and General Suter, of the United States Engineers;Professor Henry Mitchell (the most competent authority on the questionof hydrography), of the United States Coast Survey; B. B. Harrod, the State Engineer of Louisiana; Jas. B. Eads, whose success with thejetties 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 inaccord with the results of engineering experience and with observationsof nature where meeting our wants. As in nature the growth of trees andtheir proneness where undermined to fall across the slope and supportthe bank secures at some points a fair depth of channel and some degreeof permanence, so in the project of the engineer the use of timber andbrush and the encouragement of forest growth are the main features. Itis proposed to reduce the width where excessive by brushwood dykes, atfirst low, but raised higher and higher as the mud of the river settlesunder their shelter, and finally slope them back at the angle upon whichwillows will grow freely. In this work there are many details connectedwith the forms of these shelter dykes, their arrangements so as topresent a series of settling basins, etc. , a description of which wouldonly complicate the conception. Through the larger part of the riverworks of contraction will not be required, but nearly all the bankson the concave side of the beds must be held against the wear of thestream, and much of the opposite banks defended at critical points. The works having in view this conservative object may be generallydesignated works of revetment; and these also will be largely ofbrushwood, woven in continuous carpets, or twined into wire-netting. This veneering process has been successfully employed on the MissouriRiver; and in some cases they have so covered themselves with sediments, and have become so overgrown with willows, that they may be regarded aspermanent. In securing these mats rubble-stone is to be used in smallquantities, and in some instances the dressed slope between high and lowriver will have to be more or less paved with stone. 

Any one who has been on the Rhine will have observed operations notunlike those to which we have just referred; and, indeed, most of therivers of Europe flowing among their own alluvia have required similartreatment in the interest of navigation and agriculture. 

The levee is the crowning work of bank revetment, although notnecessarily in immediate connection. It may be set back a short distancefrom the revetted bank; but it is, in effect, the requisite parapet. The flood river and the low river cannot be brought into register, andcompelled to unite in the excavation of a single permanent channel, without a complete control of all the stages; and even the abnormal risemust be provided against, because this would endanger the levee, andonce in force behind the works of revetment would tear them also away. 

Under the general principle that the local slope of a river is theresult and measure of the resistance of its bed, it is evident thata narrow and deep stream should have less slope, because it has lessfrictional surface in proportion to capacity; i. E. , less perimeter inproportion to area of cross section. The ultimate effect of levees andrevetments confining the floods and bringing all the stages of the riverinto register is to deepen the channel and let down the slope. The firsteffect of the levees is to raise the surface; but this, by inducinggreater velocity of flow, inevitably causes an enlargement of section, and if this enlargement is prevented from being made at the expense ofthe banks, the bottom must give way and the form of the waterway be soimproved as to admit this flow with less rise. The actual experiencewith levees upon the Mississippi River, with no attempt to hold thebanks, has been favorable, and no one can doubt, upon the evidencefurnished in the reports of the commission, that if the earliest leveeshad been accompanied by revetment of banks, and made complete, we shouldhave to-day a river navigable at low water, and an adjacent country safefrom inundation. 

Of course it would be illogical to conclude that the constrained rivercan ever lower its flood slope so as to make levees unnecessary, but itis believed that, by this lateral constraint, the river as a conduit maybe so improved in form that even those rare floods which result from thecoincident rising of many tributaries will find vent without destroyinglevees of ordinary height. That the actual capacity of a channel throughalluvium depends upon its service during floods has been often shown, but this capacity does not include anomalous, but recurrent, floods. 

It is hardly worth while to consider the projects for relievingthe Mississippi River floods by creating new outlets, since thesesensational propositions have commended themselves only to unthinkingminds, and have no support among engineers. Were the river bedcast-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 singledeep channel, as realizing the least ratio of perimeter to area ofcross section, there could not well be a more unphilosophical method oftreatment than the multiplication of avenues of escape. 

In the foregoing statement the attempt has been made to condense inas limited a space as the importance of the subject would permit, the general elements of the problem, and the general features of theproposed method of improvement which has been adopted by the MississippiRiver Commission. 

The writer cannot help feeling that it is somewhat presumptuous on hispart to attempt to present the facts relating to an enterprise whichcalls for the highest scientific skill; but it is a matter whichinterests every citizen of the United States, and is one of the methodsof reconstruction which ought to be approved. It is a war claim whichimplies no private gain, and no compensation except for one of the casesof destruction incident to war, which may well be repaired by the peopleof the whole country. 

EDWARD ATKINSON. 

Boston: April 14, 1882. 

APPENDIX C

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 Iconclude, again to mention what I consider as one of the most remarkabletraits in the national character of the Americans; namely, theirexquisite sensitiveness and soreness respecting everything said orwritten concerning them. Of this, perhaps, the most remarkable example Ican give is the effect produced on nearly every class of readers by theappearance of Captain Basil Hall's 'Travels in North America. ' In fact, it was a sort of moral earthquake, and the vibration it occasionedthrough the nerves of the republic, from one corner of the Union tothe other, was by no means over when I left the country in July 1831, acouple of years after the shock. 

I was in Cincinnati when these volumes came out, but it was not tillJuly 1830, that I procured a copy of them. One bookseller to whom Iapplied told me that he had had a few copies before he understood thenature of the work, but that, after becoming acquainted with it, nothingshould induce him to sell another. Other persons of his profession must, however, have been less scrupulous; for the book was read in city, town, village, and hamlet, steamboat, and stage-coach, and a sort of war-whoopwas sent forth perfectly unprecedented in my recollection upon anyoccasion whatever. 

An ardent desire for approbation, and a delicate sensitiveness undercensure, have always, I believe, been considered as amiable traits ofcharacter; but the condition into which the appearance of Captain Hall'swork threw the republic shows plainly that these feelings, if carried toexcess, produce a weakness which amounts to imbecility. 

It was perfectly astonishing to hear men who, on other subjects, wereof some judgment, utter their opinions upon this. I never heard of anyinstance in which the commonsense generally found in national criticismwas so overthrown by passion. I do not speak of the want of justice, andof fair and liberal interpretation: these, perhaps, were hardly to beexpected. Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizensof the Union have, apparently, no skins at all; they wince if a breezeblows over them, unless it be tempered with adulation. It was not, therefore, very surprising that the acute and forcible observations of atraveler they knew would be listened to should be received testily. Theextraordinary features of the business were, first, the excess of therage into which they lashed themselves; and, secondly, the puerility ofthe inventions by which they attempted to account for the severity withwhich they fancied they had been treated. 

Not content with declaring that the volumes contained no word of truth, from beginning to end (which is an assertion I heard made very nearly asoften as they were mentioned), the whole country set to work to discoverthe causes why Captain Hall had visited the United States, and why hehad published his book. 

I have heard it said with as much precision and gravity as if thestatement had been conveyed by an official report, that Captain Hallhad been sent out by the British Government expressly for the purposeof checking the growing admiration of England for the Government of theUnited States, --that it was by a commission from the treasury he hadcome, and that it was only in obedience to orders that he had foundanything to object to. 

I do not give this as the gossip of a coterie; I am persuaded that it isthe belief of a very considerable portion of the country. So deep isthe conviction of this singular people that they cannot be seen withoutbeing admired, that they will not admit the possibility that any oneshould honestly and sincerely find aught to disapprove in them or theircountry. 

The American Reviews are, many of them, I believe, well known inEngland; I need not, therefore, quote them here, but I sometimeswondered that they, none of them, ever thought of translating Obadiah'scurse into classic American; if they had done so, on placing (he, BasilHall) between brackets, instead of (he, Obadiah) it would have savedthem a world of trouble. 

I can hardly describe the curiosity with which I sat down at lengthto peruse these tremendous volumes; still less can I do justice to mysurprise at their contents. To say that I found not one exaggeratedstatement throughout the work is by no means saying enough. It isimpossible for any one who knows the country not to see that CaptainHall earnestly sought out things to admire and commend. When he praises, it is with evident pleasure; and when he finds fault, it is with evidentreluctance and restraint, excepting where motives purely patriotic urgehim to state roundly what it is for the benefit of his country should beknown. 

In fact, Captain Hall saw the country to the greatest possibleadvantage. Furnished, of course, with letters of introduction to themost distinguished individuals, and with the still more influentialrecommendation of his own reputation, he was received in fulldrawing-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 opportunityof judging of it unhouselled, unanointed, unannealed, with all itsimperfections on its head, as I and my family too often had. 

Captain Hall had certainly excellent opportunities of making himselfacquainted with the form of the government and the laws; and ofreceiving, moreover, the best oral commentary upon them, in conversationwith the most distinguished citizens. Of these opportunities he madeexcellent use; nothing important met his eye which did not receive thatsort of analytical attention which an experienced and philosophicaltraveler alone can give. This has made his volumes highly interestingand valuable; but I am deeply persuaded, that were a man of equalpenetration to visit the United States with no other means of becomingacquainted with the national character than the ordinary working-dayintercourse of life, he would conceive an infinitely lower idea of themoral atmosphere of the country than Captain Hall appears to have done;and the internal conviction on my mind is strong, that if CaptainHall had not placed a firm restraint on himself, he must have givenexpression to far deeper indignation than any he has uttered againstmany points in the American character, with which he shows from othercircumstances that he was well acquainted. His rule appears to have beento state just so much of the truth as would leave on the mind of hisreaders a correct impression, at the least cost of pain to the sensitivefolks he was writing about. He states his own opinions and feelings, andleaves it to be inferred that he has good grounds for adopting them;but he spares the Americans the bitterness which a detail of thecircumstances would have produced. 

If any one chooses to say that some wicked antipathy to twelve millionsof strangers is the origin of my opinion, I must bear it; and were thequestion one of mere idle speculation, I certainly would not court theabuse I must meet for stating it. But it is not so. 

. . . . . . . 

The candor which he expresses, and evidently feels, they mistake forirony, or totally distrust; his unwillingness to give pain topersons from whom he has received kindness, they scornfully reject asaffectation, and although they must know right well, in their own secrethearts, how infinitely more they lay at his mercy than he has chosen tobetray; they pretend, even to themselves, that he has exaggerated thebad points of their character and institutions; whereas, the truth is, that he has let them off with a degree of tenderness which may be quitesuitable for him to exercise, however little merited; while, at thesame time, he has most industriously magnified their merits, whenever hecould possibly find anything favorable. 

APPENDIX D

THE UNDYING HEAD

IN a remote part of the North lived a man and his sister, who had neverseen a human being. Seldom, if ever, had the man any cause to go fromhome; for, as his wants demanded food, he had only to go a littledistance from the lodge, and there, in some particular spot, place hisarrows, with their barbs in the ground. Telling his sister where theyhad been placed, every morning she would go in search, and never failof finding each stuck through the heart of a deer. She had then only todrag them into the lodge and prepare their food. Thus she lived till sheattained womanhood, when one day her brother, whose name was Iamo, saidto her: 'Sister, the time is at hand when you will be ill. Listen to myadvice. If you do not, it will probably be the cause of my death. Takethe implements with which we kindle our fires. Go some distance from ourlodge and build a separate fire. When you are in want of food, I willtell you where to find it. You must cook for yourself, and I will formyself. When you are ill, do not attempt to come near the lodge, orbring any of the utensils you use. Be sure always to fasten to your beltthe implements you need, for you do not know when the time will come. Asfor myself, I must do the best I can. ' His sister promised to obey himin all he had said. 

Shortly after, her brother had cause to go from home. She was alone inher lodge, combing her hair. She had just untied the belt to which theimplements were fastened, when suddenly the event, to which her brotherhad alluded, occurred. She ran out of the lodge, but in her haste forgotthe belt. Afraid to return, she stood for some time thinking. Finally, she decided to enter the lodge and get it. For, thought she, my brotheris not at home, and I will stay but a moment to catch hold of it. Shewent back. Running in suddenly, she caught hold of it, and was comingout when her brother came in sight. He knew what was the matter. 'Oh, 'he said, 'did I not tell you to take care. But now you have killed me. 'She was going on her way, but her brother said to her, 'What can youdo there now. The accident has happened. Go in, and stay where you havealways stayed. And what will become of you? You have killed me. '

He then laid aside his hunting-dress and accoutrements, and soon afterboth his feet began to turn black, so that he could not move. Still hedirected his sister where to place the arrows, that she might alwayshave food. The inflammation continued to increase, and had now reachedhis first rib; and he said: 'Sister, my end is near. You must do asI tell you. You see my medicine-sack, and my war-club tied to it. Itcontains all my medicines, and my war-plumes, and my paints of allcolors. As soon as the inflammation reaches my breast, you will take mywar-club. It has a sharp point, and you will cut off my head. When it isfree from my body, take it, place its neck in the sack, which you mustopen at one end. Then hang it up in its former place. Do not forgetmy bow and arrows. One of the last you will take to procure food. Theremainder, tie in my sack, and then hang it up, so that I can looktowards the door. Now and then I will speak to you, but not often. ' Hissister again promised to obey. 

In a little time his breast was affected. 'Now, ' said he, 'take theclub and strike off my head. ' She was afraid, but he told her to mustercourage. 'Strike, ' said he, and a smile was on his face. Mustering allher courage, she gave the blow and cut off the head. 'Now, ' said thehead, 'place me where I told you. ' And fearfully she obeyed it in allits commands. Retaining its animation, it looked around the lodgeas usual, and it would command its sister to go in such places as itthought would procure for her the flesh of different animals she needed. One day the head said: 'The time is not distant when I shall be freedfrom this situation, and I shall have to undergo many sore evils. Sothe superior manito decrees, and I must bear all patiently. ' In thissituation we must leave the head. 

In a certain part of the country was a village inhabited by a numerousand warlike band of Indians. In this village was a family of ten youngmen--brothers. It was in the spring of the year that the youngest ofthese blackened his face and fasted. His dreams were propitious. Havingended his fast, he went secretly for his brothers at night, so that nonein the village could overhear or find out the direction they intendedto go. Though their drum was heard, yet that was a common occurrence. Having ended the usual formalities, he told how favorable his dreamswere, and that he had called them together to know if they wouldaccompany him in a war excursion. They all answered they would. Thethird brother from the eldest, noted for his oddities, coming up withhis war-club when his brother had ceased speaking, jumped up. 'Yes, 'said he, 'I will go, and this will be the way I will treat those I amgoing to fight;' and he struck the post in the center of the lodge, andgave 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. Theyoungest told them not to whisper their intention to their wives, butsecretly to prepare for their journey. They all promised obedience, andMudjikewis was the first to say so. 

The time for their departure drew near. Word was given to assemble on acertain night, when they would depart immediately. Mudjikewis was loudin his demands for his moccasins. Several times his wife asked him thereason. '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 bequick. ' He thus revealed the secret. That night they met and started. The snow was on the ground, and they traveled all night, lest othersshould follow them. When it was daylight, the leader took snow and madea ball of it, then tossing it into the air, he said: 'It was in this wayI saw snow fall in a dream, so that I could not be tracked. ' And he toldthem to keep close to each other for fear of losing themselves, as thesnow began to fall in very large flakes. Near as they walked, it waswith difficulty they could see each other. The snow continued fallingall that day and the following night, so it was impossible to trackthem. 

They had now walked for several days, and Mudjikewis was always inthe rear. One day, running suddenly forward, he gave theSAW-SAW-QUAN, {footnote [War-whoop. ]} and struck a tree with hiswar-club, and it broke into pieces as if struck with lightning. 'Brothers, ' said he, 'this will be the way I will serve those we aregoing to fight. ' The leader answered, 'Slow, slow, Mudjikewis, the one Ilead you to is not to be thought of so lightly. ' Again he fell back andthought to himself: 'What! what! who can this be he is leading us to?'He felt fearful and was silent. Day after day they traveled on, tillthey came to an extensive plain, on the borders of which human boneswere bleaching in the sun. The leader spoke: 'They are the bones ofthose who have gone before us. None has ever yet returned to tell thesad tale of their fate. ' Again Mudjikewis became restless, and, runningforward, gave the accustomed yell. Advancing to a large rock which stoodabove 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 notto be compared to the rock. '

Mudjikewis fell back thoughtful, saying to himself: 'I wonder whothis can be that he is going to attack;' and he was afraid. Still theycontinued to see the remains of former warriors, who had been to theplace where they were now going, some of whom had retreated as far backas the place where they first saw the bones, beyond which no one hadever escaped. At last they came to a piece of rising ground, from whichthey plainly distinguished, sleeping on a distant mountain, a mammothbear. 

The distance between them was very great, but the size of the animalcaused him to be plainly seen. 'There, ' said the leader, 'it is he towhom I am leading you; here our troubles will commence, for he is amishemokwa and a manito. It is he who has that we prize so dearly (i. E. Wampum), to obtain which, the warriors whose bones we saw, sacrificedtheir lives. You must not be fearful: be manly. We shall find himasleep. ' Then the leader went forward and touched the belt around theanimal's neck. 'This, ' said he, 'is what we must get. It contains thewampum. ' Then they requested the eldest to try and slip the belt overthe bear's head, who appeared to be fast asleep, as he was not in theleast disturbed by the attempt to obtain the belt. All their effortswere in vain, till it came to the one next the youngest. He tried, andthe belt moved nearly over the monster's head, but he could get it nofarther. Then the youngest one, and the leader, made his attempt, andsucceeded. Placing it on the back of the oldest, he said, 'Now we mustrun, ' and off they started. When one became fatigued with its weight, another would relieve him. Thus they ran till they had passed the bonesof all former warriors, and were some distance beyond, when lookingback, they saw the monster slowly rising. He stood some time before hemissed his wampum. Soon they heard his tremendous howl, like distantthunder, slowly filling all the sky; and then they heard him speak andsay, 'Who can it be that has dared to steal my wampum? earth is notso large but that I can find them;' and he descended from the hill inpursuit. As if convulsed, the earth shook with every jump he made. Verysoon he approached the party. They, however, kept the belt, exchangingit from one to another, and encouraging each other; but he gained onthem fast. 'Brothers, ' said the leader, 'has never any one of you, when fasting, dreamed of some friendly spirit who would aid you as aguardian?' A dead silence followed. 'Well, ' said he, 'fasting, I dreamedof being in danger of instant death, when I saw a small lodge, withsmoke curling from its top. An old man lived in it, and I dreamed hehelped me; and may it be verified soon, ' he said, running forward andgiving the peculiar yell, and a howl as if the sounds came from thedepths of his stomach, and what is called CHECAUDUM. Getting upon apiece of rising ground, behold! a lodge, with smoke curling from itstop, appeared. This gave them all new strength, and they ran forwardand 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 bearwill 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 melook, ' and he opened the door of the lodge, when, lo! at a littledistance he saw the enraged animal coming on, with slow but powerfulleaps. 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 askedmy protection, and I granted it; so now, come what may, I will protectyou. When the bear arrives at the door, you must run out of the otherdoor of the lodge. ' Then putting his hand to the side of the lodge wherehe sat, he brought out a bag which he opened. Taking out two smallblack dogs, he placed them before him. 'These are the ones I use when Ifight, ' said he; and he commenced patting with both hands the sides ofone of them, and he began to swell out, so that he soon filled the lodgeby his bulk; and he had great strong teeth. When he attained his fullsize he growled, and from that moment, as from instinct, he jumped outat the door and met the bear, who in another leap would have reached thelodge. A terrible combat ensued. The skies rang with the howls of thefierce monsters. The remaining dog soon took the field. The brothers, at the onset, took the advice of the old man, and escaped through theopposite side of the lodge. They had not proceeded far before they heardthe dying cry of one of the dogs, and soon after of the other. 'Well, 'said the leader, 'the old man will share their fate: so run; he willsoon be after us. ' They started with fresh vigor, for they had receivedfood from the old man: but very soon the bear came in sight, and againwas fast gaining upon them. Again the leader asked the brothers if theycould do nothing for their safety. All were silent. The leader, runningforward, did as before. 'I dreamed, ' he cried, 'that, being in greattrouble, an old man helped me who was a manito; we shall soon see hislodge. ' Taking courage, they still went on. After going a short distancethey saw the lodge of the old manito. They entered immediately andclaimed his protection, telling him a manito was after them. The oldman, setting meat before them, said: 'Eat! who is a manito? there is nomanito but me; there is none whom I fear;' and the earth trembled asthe monster advanced. The old man opened the door and saw him coming. He shut it slowly, and said: 'Yes, my grandchildren, you have broughttrouble upon me. ' Procuring his medicine-sack, he took out his smallwar-clubs of black stone, and told the young men to run through theother side of the lodge. As he handled the clubs, they became verylarge, 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 bearstumbled. Renewing the attempt with the other war-club, that also wasbroken, but the bear fell senseless. Each blow the old man gave himsounded like a clap of thunder, and the howls of the bear ran along tillthey filled the heavens. 

The young men had now run some distance, when they looked back. Theycould see that the bear was recovering from the blows. First he movedhis paws, and soon they saw him rise on his feet. The old man sharedthe fate of the first, for they now heard his cries as he was torn inpieces. Again the monster was in pursuit, and fast overtaking them. Notyet discouraged, the young men kept on their way; but the bear was nowso close, that the leader once more applied to his brothers, but theycould do nothing. 'Well, ' said he, 'my dreams will soon be exhausted;after this I have but one more. ' He advanced, invoking his guardianspirit to aid him. 'Once, ' said he, 'I dreamed that, being sorelypressed, 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 immediatelythey embarked. Scarcely had they reached the center of the lake, whenthey saw the bear arrive at its borders. Lifting himself on his hindlegs, he looked all around. Then he waded into the water; then losinghis footing he turned back, and commenced making the circuit of thelake. Meantime the party remained stationary in the center to watch hismovements. He traveled all around, till at last he came to the placefrom whence he started. Then he commenced drinking up the water, andthey saw the current fast setting in towards his open mouth. The leaderencouraged them to paddle hard for the opposite shore. When only a shortdistance from land, the current had increased so much, that they weredrawn 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. Takecourage and sit at the bow of the canoe; and when it approaches hismouth, try what effect your club will have on his head. ' He obeyed, andstood ready to give the blow; while the leader, who steered, directedthe canoe for the open mouth of the monster. 

Rapidly advancing, they were just about to enter his mouth, whenMudjikewis struck him a tremendous blow on the head, and gave theSAW-SAW-QUAN. The bear's limbs doubled under him, and he fell, stunnedby the blow. But before Mudjikewis could renew it, the monster disgorgedall the water he had drank, with a force which sent the canoe with greatvelocity to the opposite shore. Instantly leaving the canoe, again theyfled, and on they went till they were completely exhausted. The earthagain shook, and soon they saw the monster hard after them. Theirspirits drooped, and they felt discouraged. The leader exerted himself, by actions and words, to cheer them up; and once more he asked them ifthey thought of nothing, or could do nothing for their rescue; and, asbefore, all were silent. 'Then, ' he said, 'this is the last time I canapply to my guardian spirit. Now, if we do not succeed, our fates aredecided. ' He ran forward, invoking his spirit with great earnestness, and gave the yell. 'We shall soon arrive, ' said he to his brothers, 'atthe place where my last guardian spirit dwells. In him I place greatconfidence. 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 Iamo, he had passed all the time in the same conditionwe had left him, the head directing his sister, in order to procurefood, where to place the magic arrows, and speaking at long intervals. One day the sister saw the eyes of the head brighten, as if withpleasure. At last it spoke. 'Oh, sister, ' it said, 'in what a pitifulsituation you have been the cause of placing me! Soon, very soon, aparty of young men will arrive and apply to me for aid; but alas! Howcan 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 ofplacing the others, and have meat prepared and cooked before theyarrive. When you hear them coming and calling on my name, go out andsay, "Alas! it is long ago that an accident befell him. I was the causeof 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-sack, bows and arrows, and my head. You must then untie the sack, and spread out before you mypaints of all colors, my war-eagle feathers, my tufts of dried hair, and whatever else it contains. As the bear approaches, you will takeall these articles, one by one, and say to him, "This is my deceasedbrother's paint, " and so on with all the other articles, throwing eachof them as far as you can. The virtues contained in them will cause himto totter; and, to complete his destruction, you will take my head, andthat too you will cast as far off as you can, crying aloud, "See, thisis my deceased brother's head. " He will then fall senseless. By thistime the young men will have eaten, and you will call them to yourassistance. You must then cut the carcass into pieces, yes, into smallpieces, and scatter them to the four winds; for, unless you do this, hewill 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 leaderwas heard calling upon Iamo for aid. The woman went out and said as herbrother had directed. But the war party being closely pursued, cameup to the lodge. She invited them in, and placed the meat before them. While they were eating, they heard the bear approaching. Untying themedicine-sack and taking the head, she had all in readiness for hisapproach. When he came up she did as she had been told; and, before shehad 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 itrolled along the ground, the blood, excited by the feelings of thehead 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 theirstrength and spirits. 

Mudjikewis, stepping up, gave a yell and struck him a blow upon thehead. This he repeated, till it seemed like a mass of brains, while theothers, as quick as possible, cut him into very small pieces, which theythen scattered in every direction. While thus employed, happening tolook around where they had thrown the meat, wonderful to behold, theysaw starting up and turning off in every direction small black bears, such as are seen at the present day. The country was soon overspreadwith these black animals. And it was from this monster that the presentrace of bears derived their origin. 

Having thus overcome their pursuer, they returned to the lodge. In themeantime, the woman, gathering the implements she had used, and thehead, placed them again in the sack. But the head did not speak again, probably from its great exertion to overcome the monster. 

Having spent so much time and traversed so vast a country in theirflight, the young men gave up the idea of ever returning to their owncountry, and game being plenty, they determined to remain where theynow were. One day they moved off some distance from the lodge for thepurpose of hunting, having left the wampum with the woman. They werevery successful, and amused themselves, as all young men do when alone, by talking and jesting with each other. One of them spoke and said, 'Wehave all this sport to ourselves; let us go and ask our sister if shewill not let us bring the head to this place, as it is still alive. Itmay be pleased to hear us talk, and be in our company. In the meantimetake food to our sister. ' They went and requested the head. She toldthem to take it, and they took it to their hunting-grounds, and triedto amuse it, but only at times did they see its eyes beam with pleasure. One day, while busy in their encampment, they were unexpectedly attackedby unknown Indians. The skirmish was long contested and bloody; many oftheir foes were slain, but still they were thirty to one. The young menfought desperately till they were all killed. The attacking party thenretreated to a height of ground, to muster their men, and to count thenumber of missing and slain. One of their young men had stayed away, and, in endeavoring to overtake them, came to the place where the headwas hung up. Seeing that alone retain animation, he eyed it for sometime with fear and surprise. However, he took it down and opened thesack, and was much pleased to see the beautiful feathers, one of whichhe 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 atthe head and made sport of it. Numbers of the young men took the paintand painted themselves, and one of the party took the head by the hairand said--

'Look, you ugly thing, and see your paints on the faces of warriors. '

But the feathers were so beautiful, that numbers of them also placedthem on their heads. Then again they used all kinds of indignity to thehead, for which they were in turn repaid by the death of those whohad used the feathers. Then the chief commanded them to throw away allexcept the head. 'We will see, ' said he, 'when we get home, what we cando with it. We will try to make it shut its eyes. '

When they reached their homes they took it to the council-lodge, andhung it up before the fire, fastening it with raw hide soaked, whichwould shrink and become tightened by the action of the fire. 'We willthen see, ' they said, 'if we cannot make it shut its eyes. '

Meantime, for several days, the sister had been waiting for the youngmen to bring back the head; till, at last, getting impatient, she wentin search of it. The young men she found lying within short distancesof each other, dead, and covered with wounds. Various other bodies layscattered in different directions around them. She searched for the headand sack, but they were nowhere to be found. She raised her voice andwept, and blackened her face. Then she walked in different directions, till she came to the place from whence the head had been taken. Then shefound the magic bow and arrows, where the young men, ignorant of theirqualities, had left them. She thought to herself that she would find herbrother's head, and came to a piece of rising ground, and there saw someof his paints and feathers. These she carefully put up, and hung uponthe branch of a tree till her return. 

At dusk she arrived at the first lodge of a very extensive village. Hereshe used a charm, common among Indians when they wish to meet with akind reception. On applying to the old man and woman of the lodge, shewas kindly received. She made known her errand. The old man promised toaid her, and told her the head was hung up before the council-fire, andthat the chiefs of the village, with their young men, kept watch overit continually. The former are considered as manitoes. She said she onlywished to see it, and would be satisfied if she could only get to thedoor of the lodge. She knew she had not sufficient power to take it byforce. 'Come with me, ' said the Indian, 'I will take you there. ' Theywent, and they took their seats near the door. The council-lodge wasfilled with warriors, amusing themselves with games, and constantlykeeping 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 spokeand said: 'Ha! ha! It is beginning to feel the effects of the smoke. 'The sister looked up from the door, and her eyes met those of herbrother, and tears rolled down the cheeks of the head. 'Well, ' said thechief, 'I thought we would make you do something at last. Look! look atit--shedding tears, ' said he to those around him; and they all laughedand passed their jokes upon it. The chief, looking around, and observingthe woman, after some time said to the man who came with her: 'Who haveyou got there? I have never seen that woman before in our village. ''Yes, ' replied the man, 'you have seen her; she is a relation of mine, and seldom goes out. She stays at my lodge, and asked me to allow her tocome with me to this place. ' In the center of the lodge sat one of thoseyoung men who are always forward, and fond of boasting and displayingthemselves before others. 'Why, ' said he, 'I have seen her often, and itis to this lodge I go almost every night to court her. ' All the otherslaughed and continued their games. The young man did not know he wastelling 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 owncountry. Coming to the spot where the bodies of her adopted brotherslay, she placed them together, their feet toward the east. Then takingan ax 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 threetimes, and the third time the brothers all arose and stood on theirfeet. 

Mudjikewis commenced rubbing his eyes and stretching himself. 'Why, 'said he, 'I have overslept myself. ' 'No, indeed, ' said one of theothers, 'do you not know we were all killed, and that it is our sisterwho has brought us to life?' The young men took the bodies of theirenemies and burned them. Soon after, the woman went to procure wives forthem, in a distant country, they knew not where; but she returned withten young women, which she gave to the ten young men, beginning with theeldest. Mudjikewis stepped to and fro, uneasy lest he should not get theone he liked. But he was not disappointed, for she fell to his lot. Andthey were well matched, for she was a female magician. They then allmoved into a very large lodge, and their sister told them that the womenmust now take turns in going to her brother's head every night, tryingto untie it. They all said they would do so with pleasure. The eldestmade the first attempt, and with a rushing noise she fled through theair. 

Toward daylight she returned. She had been unsuccessful, as shesucceeded in untying only one of the knots. All took their turnsregularly, and each one succeeded in untying only one knot each time. But when the youngest went, she commenced the work as soon as shereached the lodge; although it had always been occupied, still theIndians never could see any one. For ten nights now, the smoke had notascended, but filled the lodge and drove them out. This last night theywere all driven out, and the young woman carried off the head. 

The young people and the sister heard the young woman coming highthrough the air, and they heard her saying: 'Prepare the body of ourbrother. ' And as soon as they heard it, they went to a small lodge wherethe black body of Iamo lay. His sister commenced cutting the neck part, from which the neck had been severed. She cut so deep as to cause it tobleed; and the others who were present, by rubbing the body and applyingmedicines, expelled the blackness. In the meantime, the one who broughtit, 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 aidof medicines and various other means, succeeded in restoring Iamo to allhis former beauty and manliness. All rejoiced in the happy terminationof their troubles, and they had spent some time joyfully together, whenIamo said: 'Now I will divide the wampum, ' and getting the belt whichcontained it, he commenced with the eldest, giving it in equal portions. But the youngest got the most splendid and beautiful, as the bottom ofthe belt held the richest and rarest. 

They were told that, since they had all once died, and were restored tolife, they were no longer mortal, but spirits, and they were assigneddifferent stations in the invisible world. Only Mudjikewis's place was, however, named. He was to direct the west wind, hence generally calledKebeyun, there to remain for ever. They were commanded, as they hadit in their power, to do good to the inhabitants of the earth, and, forgetting their sufferings in procuring the wampum, to give all thingswith a liberal hand. And they were also commanded that it should alsobe held by them sacred; those grains or shells of the pale hue to beemblematic of peace, while those of the darker hue would lead to eviland war. 

The spirits then, amid songs and shouts, took their flight to theirrespective abodes on high; while Iamo, with his sister Iamoqua, descended into the depths below.