Our friend Sergeant Fathom, one of the oldest cub pilots on the river,
and now on the Railroad Line steamer Trombone, sends us a rather bad
account concerning the state of the river. Sergeant Fathom is a “cub”
of much experience, and although we are loath to coincide in his view
of the matter, we give his note a place in our columns, only hoping that
his prophecy will not be verified in this instance. While introducing
the Sergeant, “we consider it but simple justice (we quote from a friend
of his) to remark that he is distinguished for being, in pilot phrase,
'close,' as well as superhumanly 'safe.'” It is a well-known fact that
he has made fourteen hundred and fifty trips in the New Orleans and
St. Louis trade without causing serious damage to a steamboat. This
astonishing success is attributed to the fact that he seldom runs his
boat after early candle-light. It is related of the Sergeant that
upon one occasion he actually ran the chute of Glasscock's Island,
down-stream, in the night, and at a time, too, when the river was
scarcely more than bank full. His method of accomplishing this feat
proves what we have just said of his “safeness”--he sounded the chute
first, and then built a fire at the head of the island to run by. As to
the Sergeant's “closeness,” we have heard it whispered that he once went
up to the right of the “Old Hen,”--[Glasscock's Island and the “Old
Hen” were phenomenally safe places.]--but this is probably a pardonable
little exaggeration, prompted by the love and admiration in which he
is held by various ancient dames of his acquaintance (for albeit the
Sergeant may have already numbered the allotted years of man, still his
form is erect, his step is firm, his hair retains its sable hue, and,
more than all, he hath a winning way about him, an air of docility and
sweetness, if you will, and a smoothness of speech, together with an
exhaustless fund of funny sayings; and, lastly, an overflowing stream,
without beginning, or middle, or end, of astonishing reminiscences of
the ancient Mississippi, which, taken together, form a 'tout ensemble'
which is sufficient excuse for the tender epithet which is, by common
consent, applied to him by all those ancient dames aforesaid, of
“che-arming creature!”). As the Sergeant has been longer on the river,
and is better acquainted with it than any other “cub” extant, his
remarks are entitled to far more consideration, and are always read
with the deepest interest by high and low, rich and poor, from “Kiho” to
Kamschatka, for let it be known that his fame extends to the uttermost
parts of the earth: