'Now drop that! When I say I'll learn {footnote ['Teach' is not in the

river vocabulary.]} a man the river, I mean it. And you can depend on

it, I'll learn him or kill him.'

Chapter 9 Continued Perplexities

THERE was no use in arguing with a person like this. I promptly put

such a strain on my memory that by and by even the shoal water and the

countless crossing-marks began to stay with me. But the result was just

the same. I never could more than get one knotty thing learned before

another presented itself. Now I had often seen pilots gazing at the

water and pretending to read it as if it were a book; but it was a book

that told me nothing. A time came at last, however, when Mr. Bixby

seemed to think me far enough advanced to bear a lesson on water-

reading. So he began--

'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-bar

under it that is nearly as straight up and down as the side of a house.

There is plenty of water close up to it, but mighty little on top of it.

If you were to hit it you would knock the boat's brains out. Do you see

where the line fringes out at the upper end and begins to fade away?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Well, that is a low place; that is the head of the reef. You can climb

over there, and not hurt anything. Cross over, now, and follow along

close under the reef--easy water there--not much current.'

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

Bixby said--

'Now get ready. Wait till I give the word. She won't want to mount the

reef; a boat hates shoal water. Stand by--wait--WAIT--keep her well in

hand. NOW cramp her down! Snatch her! snatch her!'

He seized the other side of the wheel and helped to spin it around until

it was hard down, and then we held it so. The boat resisted, and refused

to answer for a while, and next she came surging to starboard, mounted

the reef, and sent a long, angry ridge of water foaming away from her

bows.

'Now watch her; watch her like a cat, or she'll get away from you. When

she fights strong and the tiller slips a little, in a jerky, greasy sort

of way, let up on her a trifle; it is the way she tells you at night

that the water is too shoal; but keep edging her up, little by little,

toward the point. You are well up on the bar, now; there is a bar under

every point, because the water that comes down around it forms an eddy

and allows the sediment to sink. Do you see those fine lines on the

face of the water that branch out like the ribs of a fan. Well, those

are little reefs; you want to just miss the ends of them, but run them

pretty close. Now look out--look out! Don't you crowd that slick,

greasy-looking place; there ain't nine feet there; she won't stand it.

She begins to smell it; look sharp, I tell you! Oh blazes, there you

go! Stop the starboard wheel! Quick! Ship up to back! Set her back!

The engine bells jingled and the engines answered promptly, shooting

white columns of steam far aloft out of the 'scape pipes, but it was too

late. The boat had 'smelt' the bar in good earnest; the foamy ridges

that radiated from her bows suddenly disappeared, a great dead swell

came rolling forward and swept ahead of her, she careened far over to

larboard, and went tearing away toward the other shore as if she were

about scared to death. We were a good mile from where we ought to have

been, when we finally got the upper hand of her again.

During the afternoon watch the next day, Mr. Bixby asked me if I knew

how to run the next few miles. I said--

'Go inside the first snag above the point, outside the next one, start

out from the lower end of Higgins's wood-yard, make a square crossing

and--'

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

But he wasn't. He was still below when I rounded it and entered upon a

piece of river which I had some misgivings about. I did not know that

he was hiding behind a chimney to see how I would perform. I went gaily

along, getting prouder and prouder, for he had never left the boat in my

sole charge such a length of time before. I even got to 'setting' her

and letting the wheel go, entirely, while I vaingloriously turned my

back and inspected the stem marks and hummed a tune, a sort of easy

indifference which I had prodigiously admired in Bixby and other great

pilots. Once I inspected rather long, and when I faced to the front

again my heart flew into my mouth so suddenly that if I hadn't clapped

my teeth together I should have lost it. One of those frightful bluff

reefs was stretching its deadly length right across our bows! My head

was gone in a moment; I did not know which end I stood on; I gasped and

could not get my breath; I spun the wheel down with such rapidity that

it wove itself together like a spider's web; the boat answered and

turned square away from the reef, but the reef followed her! I fled, and

still it followed, still it kept--right across my bows! I never looked

to see where I was going, I only fled. The awful crash was imminent--why

didn't that villain come! If I committed the crime of ringing a bell, I

might get thrown overboard. But better that than kill the boat. So in

blind desperation I started such a rattling 'shivaree' down below as

never had astounded an engineer in this world before, I fancy. Amidst

the frenzy of the bells the engines began to back and fill in a furious

way, and my reason forsook its throne--we were about to crash into the

woods on the other side of the river. Just then Mr. Bixby stepped calmly

into view on the hurricane deck. My soul went out to him in gratitude.

My distress vanished; I would have felt safe on the brink of Niagara,

with Mr. Bixby on the hurricane deck. He blandly and sweetly took his

tooth-pick out of his mouth between his fingers, as if it were a cigar--

we were just in the act of climbing an overhanging big tree, and the

passengers were scudding astern like rats--and lifted up these commands

to me ever so gently--

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

The boat hesitated, halted, pressed her nose among the boughs a critical

instant, then reluctantly began to back away.

'Stop the larboard. Come ahead on it. Stop the starboard. Come ahead

on it. Point her for the bar.'

I sailed away as serenely as a summer's morning Mr. Bixby came in and

said, with mock simplicity--

'When you have a hail, my boy, you ought to tap the big bell three times

before you land, so that the engineers can get ready.'

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

'Ah! Then it was for wood, I suppose. The officer of the watch will

tell you when he wants to wood up.'

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

'Indeed? Why, what could you want over here in the bend, then? Did you

ever know of a boat following a bend up-stream at this stage of the

river?'

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

bluff reef.'

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

you 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 to

kill the boat, now, as I had been to save her before. I impressed my

orders upon my memory, to be used at the inquest, and made a straight

break 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 to

tell them apart?'

'I can't tell you. It is an instinct. By and by you will just

naturally KNOW one from the other, but you never will be able to explain

why or how you know them apart'

It turned out to be true. The face of the water, in time, became a

wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to the uneducated

passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its

most 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 new

story to tell every day. Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there

was never a page that was void of interest, never one that you could

leave unread without loss, never one that you would want to skip,

thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing. There

never was so wonderful a book written by man; never one whose interest

was so absorbing, so unflagging, so sparkingly renewed with every

reperusal. The passenger who could not read it was charmed with a peculiar

sort of faint dimple on its surface (on the rare occasions when he did

not overlook it altogether); but to the pilot that was an ITALICIZED

passage; indeed, it was more than that, it was a legend of the largest

capitals, with a string of shouting exclamation points at the end of it;

for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there that could tear the

life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated. It is the faintest

and simplest expression the water ever makes, and the most hideous to a

pilot's eye. In truth, the passenger who could not read this book saw

nothing but all manner of pretty pictures in it painted by the sun and

shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures

at all, but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading-matter.

Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to know

every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I

knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But

I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be

restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had

gone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certain

wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A

broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance

the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came

floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay

sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling,

tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy

flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful

circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our

left was densely wooded, and the somber shadow that fell from this

forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like

silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a

single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor

that was 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

passing moment, with new marvels of coloring.

I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The

world 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 the

glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight

wrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether

to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should

have looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it,

inwardly, after this fashion: This sun means that we are going to have

wind to-morrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small

thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef

which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it

keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a

dissolving bar and a changing channel there; the lines and circles in

the slick water over yonder are a warning that that troublesome place is

shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest

is the 'break' from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very

best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead

tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then

how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night

without the friendly old landmark.

No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the

value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it

could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat. Since

those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart. What does the lovely

flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a 'break' that ripples

above some deadly disease. Are not all her visible charms sown thick

with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he

ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her

professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to

himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or

lost most by learning his trade?

Chapter 10 Completing My Education

WHOSOEVER has done me the courtesy to read my chapters which have

preceded this may possibly wonder that I deal so minutely with piloting

as a science. It was the prime purpose of those chapters; and I am not

quite done yet. I wish to show, in the most patient and 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 run

them; clear-water rivers, with gravel bottoms, change their channels

very gradually, and therefore one needs to learn them but once; but

piloting becomes another matter when you apply it to vast streams like

the Mississippi and the Missouri, whose alluvial banks cave and change

constantly, whose snags are always hunting up new quarters, whose

sandbars are never at rest, whose channels are for ever dodging and

shirking, and whose obstructions must be confronted in all nights and

all weathers without the aid of a single light-house or a single buoy;

for there is neither light nor buoy to be found anywhere in all this

three or four thousand miles of villainous river.{footnote [True at the

time referred to; not true now (1882).]} I feel justified in enlarging

upon this great science for the reason that I feel sure no one has ever

yet written a paragraph about it who had piloted a steamboat himself,

and so had a practical knowledge of the subject. If the theme were

hackneyed, I should be obliged to deal gently with the reader; but since

it is wholly new, I have felt at liberty to take up a considerable

degree of room with it.

When I had learned the name and position of every visible feature of the

river; when I had so mastered its shape that I could shut my eyes and

trace it from St. Louis to New Orleans; when I had learned to read the

face of the water as one would cull the news from the morning paper; and

finally, when I had trained my dull memory to treasure up an endless

array of soundings and crossing-marks, and keep fast hold of them, I

judged that my education was complete: so I got to tilting my cap to

the side of my head, and wearing a 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 that

bank is about a foot and a half high.'

'Foot and a half! That's a six-foot bank. How high was the bank along

here last trip?'

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

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

'Why?'

'Because you'll have to know a good many things that it tells you. For

one thing, it tells you the stage of the river--tells you whether

there's more water or less in the river along here than there was last

trip.'

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

there.

'Yes, but suppose the leads lie? The bank would tell you so, and then

you'd stir those leadsmen up a bit. There was a ten-foot bank here last

trip, and there is only a six-foot bank now. What does that signify?'

'That the river is four feet higher than it 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 the

stream.'

'A rise starts the drift-wood, but then it keeps on floating a while

after the river is done rising. Now the bank will tell you about this.

Wait till you come to a place where it shelves a little. Now here; do

you see this narrow belt of fine sediment That was deposited while the

water was higher. You see the driftwood begins to strand, too. The bank

helps in other ways. Do you see that stump on the false point?'

'Ay, ay, sir.'

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

that.'

'Why?'

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

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

'That's where the benefit of the bank comes in. There is water enough

in 103 NOW, yet there may not be by the time we get there; but the bank

will keep us posted all along. You don't run close chutes on a falling

river, up-stream, and there are precious few of them that you are

allowed to run at all down-stream. There's a law of the United States

against it. The river may be rising by the time we get to 103, and in

that case we'll run it. We are drawing--how much?'

'Six feet aft,--six and a half forward.'

'Well, you do seem to know something.'

'But what I particularly want to know is, if I have got to keep up an

everlasting measuring of the banks of this river, twelve hundred miles,

month in and month out?'

'Of course!'

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

And how about these chutes. Are there many of them?'

'I should say so. I fancy we shan't run any of the river this trip as

you've ever seen it run before--so to speak. If the river begins to

rise again, we'll go up behind bars that you've always seen standing out

of the river, high and dry like the roof of a house; we'll cut across

low places that you've never noticed at all, right through the middle of

bars that cover three hundred acres of river; we'll creep through cracks

where you've always thought was solid land; we'll dart through the woods

and leave twenty-five miles of river off to one side; we'll see the

hind-side of every island between New Orleans and Cairo.'

'Then I've got to go to work and learn just as much more river as I

already know.'

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

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

this business.'

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

learned it.'

'Ah, I never can learn it.'

'I will see that you DO.'

By and by I ventured again--

'Have I got to learn all this thing just as I know the rest of the

river--shapes and all--and so I can run it at night?'

'Yes. And you've got to have good fair marks from one end of the river

to the other, that will help the bank tell you when there is water

enough in each of these countless places--like that stump, you know.

When the river first begins to rise, you can run half a dozen of the

deepest 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 have

to know your banks and marks to a dead moral certainty, and never get

them mixed; for when you start through one of those cracks, there's no

backing out again, as there is in the big river; you've got to go

through, or stay there six months if you get caught on a falling river.

There are about fifty of these cracks which you can't run at all except

when the river is brim full and over the banks.'

'This new lesson is a cheerful prospect.'

'Cheerful enough. And mind what I've just told you; when you start into

one of those places you've got to go through. They are too narrow to

turn around in, too crooked to back out of, and the shoal water is

always up at the head; never elsewhere. And the head of them is always

likely to be filling up, little by little, so that the marks you reckon

their depth by, this season, may not answer for next.'

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

'Exactly. Cramp her up to the bar! What are you standing up through

the middle of the river for?'

The next few months showed me strange things. On the same day that we

held the conversation above narrated, we met a great rise coming down

the river. The whole vast face of the stream was black with drifting

dead logs, broken boughs, and great trees that had caved in and been

washed away. It required the nicest steering to pick one's way through

this rushing raft, even in the day-time, when crossing from point to

point; and at night the difficulty was mightily increased; every now and

then a huge log, lying deep in the water, would suddenly appear right

under our bows, coming head-on; no use to try to avoid it then; we could

only stop the engines, and one wheel would walk over that log from one

end to the other, keeping up a thundering racket and careening the boat

in a way that was very uncomfortable to passengers. Now and then we

would hit one of these sunken logs a rattling bang, dead in the center,

with a full head of steam, and it would stun the boat as if she had hit

a continent. Sometimes this log would lodge, and stay right across our

nose, and back the Mississippi up before it; we would have to do a

little craw-fishing, then, to get away from the obstruction. We often

hit WHITE logs, in the dark, for we could not see them till we were

right on them; but a black log is a pretty distinct object at night. A

white snag is an ugly customer when the daylight is gone.

Of course, on the great rise, down came a swarm of prodigious timber-

rafts from the head waters of the Mississippi, coal barges from

Pittsburgh, little trading scows from everywhere, and broad-horns from

'Posey County,' Indiana, freighted with 'fruit and furniture'--the usual

term for describing it, though in plain English the freight thus

aggrandized was hoop-poles and pumpkins. Pilots bore a mortal hatred to

these craft; and it was returned with usury. The law required all such

helpless traders to keep a light burning, but it was a law that was

often broken. All of a sudden, on a murky night, a light would hop up,

right under our bows, almost, and an agonized voice, with the backwoods

'whang' to it, would wail out--

'Whar'n the ---- you goin' to! Cain't you see nothin', you dash-dashed

aig-suckin', sheep-stealin', one-eyed son of a stuffed monkey!'

Then for an instant, as we whistled by, the red glare from our furnaces

would reveal the scow and the form of the gesticulating orator as if

under a lightning-flash, and in that instant our firemen and deck-hands

would send and receive a tempest of missiles and profanity, one of our

wheels would walk off with the crashing fragments of a steering-oar, and

down the dead blackness would shut again. And that flatboatman would be

sure to go into New Orleans and sue our boat, swearing stoutly that he

had a light burning all the time, when in truth his gang had the lantern

down below to sing and lie and drink and gamble by, and no watch on

deck. Once, at night, in one of those forest-bordered crevices (behind

an island) which steamboatmen intensely describe with the phrase 'as

dark as the inside of a cow,' we should have eaten up a Posey County

family, fruit, furniture, and all, but that they happened to be fiddling

down below, and we just caught the sound of the music in time to sheer

off, doing no serious damage, unfortunately, but coming so near it that

we had good hopes for a moment. These people brought up their lantern,

then, of course; and as we backed and filled to get away, the precious

family stood in the light of it--both sexes and various ages--and cursed

us till everything turned blue. Once a coalboatman sent a bullet through

our pilot-house, when we borrowed a steering oar of him in a very narrow

place.

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 was

a particularly cramped place in a chute, we would be pretty sure to meet

a broad-horn there; and if he failed to be there, we would find him in a

still worse locality, namely, the head of the chute, on the shoal water.

And then there would be no end of profane cordialities exchanged.

Sometimes, in the big river, when we would be feeling our way cautiously

along through a fog, the deep hush would suddenly be broken by yells and

a clamor of tin pans, and all in instant a log raft would appear vaguely

through the webby veil, close upon us; and then we did not wait to swap

knives, but snatched our engine bells out by the roots and piled on all

the steam we had, to scramble out of the way! One doesn't hit a rock or

a solid log craft with a steamboat when he can get excused.

You will hardly believe it, but many steamboat clerks always carried a

large assortment of religious tracts with them in those old departed

steamboating days. Indeed they did. Twenty times a day we would be

cramping up around a bar, while a string of these small-fry rascals were

drifting down into the head of the bend away above and beyond us a

couple of miles. Now a skiff would dart away from one of them, and come

fighting its laborious way across the desert of water. It would 'ease

all,' in the shadow of our forecastle, and the panting oarsmen would

shout, 'Gimme a pa-a-per!' as the skiff drifted swiftly astern. The

clerk would throw over a file of New Orleans journals. If these were

picked up without comment, you might notice that now a dozen other

skiffs had been drifting down upon us without saying anything. You

understand, they had been waiting to see how No. 1 was going to fare.

No. 1 making no comment, all the rest would bend to their oars and come

on, now; and as fast as they came the clerk would heave over neat

bundles of religious tracts, tied to shingles. The amount of hard

swearing which twelve packages of religious literature will command when

impartially divided up among twelve raftsmen's crews, who have pulled a

heavy 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 the

time the river was over its banks we had forsaken our old paths and were

hourly climbing over bars that had stood ten feet out of water before;

we were shaving stumpy shores, like that at the foot of Madrid Bend,

which I had always seen avoided before; we were clattering through

chutes like that of 82, where the opening at the foot was an unbroken

wall of timber till our nose was almost at the very spot. Some of these

chutes were utter solitudes. The dense, untouched forest overhung both

banks of the crooked little crack, and one could believe that human

creatures had never intruded there before. The swinging grape-vines, the

grassy nooks and vistas glimpsed as we swept by, the flowering creepers

waving their red blossoms from the tops of dead trunks, and all the

spendthrift richness of the forest foliage, were wasted and thrown away

there. The chutes were lovely places to steer in; they were deep,

except at the head; the current was gentle; under the 'points' the water

was absolutely dead, and the invisible banks so bluff that where the

tender willow thickets projected you could bury your boat's broadside in

them as you tore along, and then you seemed fairly to fly.

Behind other islands we found wretched little farms, and wretcheder

little log-cabins; there were crazy rail fences sticking a foot or two

above the water, with one or two jeans-clad, chills-racked, yellow-faced

male miserables roosting on the top-rail, elbows on knees, jaws in

hands, grinding tobacco and discharging the result at floating chips

through crevices left by lost teeth; while the rest of the family and

the few farm-animals were huddled together in an empty wood-flat riding

at her moorings close at hand. In this flat-boat the family would have

to cook and eat and sleep for a lesser or greater number of days (or

possibly weeks), until the river should fall two or three feet and let

them get back to their log-cabin and their chills again--chills being a

merciful provision of an all-wise Providence to enable them to take

exercise without exertion. And this sort of watery camping out was a

thing which these people were rather liable to be treated to a couple of

times a year: by the December rise out of the Ohio, and the June rise

out of the Mississippi. And yet these were kindly dispensations, for

they at least enabled the poor things to rise from the dead now and

then, and look upon life when a steamboat went by. They appreciated the

blessing, too, for they spread their mouths and eyes wide open and made

the most of these occasions. Now what COULD these banished creatures

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

Once, in one of these lovely island chutes, we found our course

completely bridged by a great fallen tree. This will serve to show how

narrow some of the chutes were. The passengers had an hour's recreation

in a virgin 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 have no

particular trouble in the night, for the thousand-mile wall of dense

forest that guards the two banks all the way is only gapped with a farm

or wood-yard opening at intervals, and so you can't 'get out of the

river' much easier than you could get out of a fenced lane; but from

Baton Rouge to New Orleans it is a different matter. The river is more

than a mile wide, and very deep--as much as two hundred feet, in places.

Both banks, for a good deal over a hundred miles, are shorn of their

timber and bordered by continuous sugar plantations, with only here and

there a scattering sapling or row of ornamental China-trees. The timber

is shorn off clear to the rear of the plantations, from two to four

miles. When the first frost threatens to come, the planters snatch off

their crops in a hurry. When they have finished grinding the cane, they

form the refuse of the stalks (which they call BAGASSE) into great piles

and set fire to them, though in other sugar countries the bagasse is

used for fuel in the furnaces of the sugar mills. Now the piles of damp

bagasse burn slowly, and smoke like Satan's own kitchen.

An embankment ten or fifteen feet high guards both banks of the

Mississippi all the way down that lower end of the river, and this

embankment is set back from the edge of the shore from ten to perhaps a

hundred feet, according to circumstances; say thirty or forty feet, as a

general thing. Fill that whole region with an impenetrable gloom of

smoke from a hundred miles of burning bagasse piles, when the river is

over the banks, and turn a steamboat loose along there at midnight and

see how she will feel. And see how you will feel, too! You find

yourself away out in the midst of a vague dim sea that is shoreless,

that fades out and loses itself in the murky distances; for you cannot

discern the thin rib of embankment, and you are always imagining you see

a straggling tree when you don't. The plantations themselves are

transformed by the smoke, and look like a part of the sea. All through

your watch you are tortured with the exquisite misery of uncertainty.

You hope you are keeping in the river, but you do not know. All that you

are sure about is that you are likely to be within six feet of the bank

and destruction, when you think you are a good half-mile from shore. And

you are sure, also, that if you chance suddenly to fetch up against the

embankment and topple your chimneys overboard, you will have the small

comfort of knowing that it is about what you were expecting to do. One

of the great Vicksburg packets darted out into a sugar plantation one

night, at such a time, and had to stay there a week. But there was no

novelty about it; it had often been done before.

I thought I had finished this chapter, but I wish to add a curious

thing, while it is in my mind. It is only relevant in that it is

connected with piloting. There used to be an excellent pilot on the

river, a Mr. X., who was a somnambulist. It was said that if his mind

was troubled about a bad piece of river, he was pretty sure to get up

and walk in his sleep and do strange things. He was once fellow-pilot

for a trip or two with George Ealer, on a great New Orleans passenger

packet. During a considerable part of the first trip George was uneasy,

but got over it by and by, as X. seemed content to stay in his bed when

asleep. Late one night the boat was approaching Helena, Arkansas; the

water was low, and the crossing above the town in a very blind and

tangled condition. X. had seen the crossing since Ealer had, and as the

night was particularly drizzly, sullen, and dark, Ealer was considering

whether he had not better have X. called to assist in running the place,

when the door opened and X. walked in. Now on very dark nights, light is

a deadly enemy to piloting; you are aware that if you stand in a lighted

room, on such a night, you cannot see things in the street to any

purpose; but if you put out the lights and stand in the gloom you can

make out objects in the street pretty well. So, on very dark nights,

pilots do not smoke; they allow no fire in the pilot-house stove if

there is a crack which can allow the least ray to escape; they order the

furnaces to be curtained with huge tarpaulins and the sky-lights to be

closely blinded. Then no light whatever issues from the boat. The

undefinable shape that now entered the pilot-house had Mr. X.'s voice.

This said--

'Let me take her, George; I've seen this place since you have, and it is

so crooked that I reckon I can run it myself easier than I could tell

you how to do it.'

'It is kind of you, and I swear _I_ am willing. I haven't got another

drop of perspiration left in me. I have been spinning around and around

the wheel like a squirrel. It is so dark I can't tell which way she is

swinging till she is coming around like a whirligig.'

So Ealer took a seat on the bench, panting and breathless. The black

phantom assumed the wheel without saying anything, steadied the waltzing

steamer with a turn or two, and then stood at ease, coaxing her a little

to this side and then to that, as gently and as sweetly as if the time

had been noonday. When Ealer observed this marvel of steering, he wished

he had not confessed! He stared, and wondered, and finally said--

'Well, I thought I knew how to steer a steamboat, but that was another

mistake of mine.'

X. said nothing, but went serenely on with his work. He rang for the

leads; he rang to slow down the steam; he worked the boat carefully and

neatly into invisible marks, then stood at the center of the wheel and

peered blandly out into the blackness, fore and aft, to verify his

position; as the leads shoaled more and more, he stopped the engines

entirely, and the dead silence and suspense of 'drifting' followed when

the shoalest water was struck, he cracked on the steam, carried her

handsomely over, and then began to work her warily into the next system

of shoal marks; the same patient, heedful use of leads and engines

followed, the boat slipped through without touching bottom, and entered

upon the third and last intricacy of the crossing; imperceptibly she

moved through the gloom, crept by inches into her marks, drifted

tediously till the shoalest water was cried, and then, under a

tremendous head of steam, went swinging over the reef and away into deep

water and safety!

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

said--

'That's the sweetest piece of piloting that was ever done on the

Mississippi River! I wouldn't believed it could be done, if I hadn't

seen it.'

There was no reply, and he added--

'Just hold her five minutes longer, partner, and let me run down and get

a cup of coffee.'

A minute later Ealer was biting into a pie, down in the 'texas,' and

comforting himself with coffee. Just then the night watchman happened

in, and was about to happen out again, when he noticed Ealer and

exclaimed--

'Who is at the wheel, sir?'

'X.'

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

The next moment both men were flying up the pilot-house companion way,

three steps at a jump! Nobody there! The great steamer was whistling

down the middle of the river at her own sweet will! The watchman shot

out of the place again; Ealer seized the wheel, set an engine back with

power, and held his breath while the boat reluctantly swung away from a

'towhead' which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf of

Mexico!

By and by the watchman came back and said--

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

here?'

'NO.'

'Well, he was. I found him walking along on top of the railings just as

unconcerned as another man would walk a pavement; and I put him to bed;

now just this minute there he was again, away astern, going through that

sort of tight-rope deviltry the same as before.'

'Well, I think I'll stay by, next time he has one of those fits. But I

hope he'll have them often. You just ought to have seen him take this

boat through Helena crossing. I never saw anything so gaudy before. And

if he can do such gold-leaf, kid-glove, diamond-breastpin piloting when

he is sound asleep, what COULDN'T he do if he was dead!'

Chapter 12 Sounding

WHEN the river is very low, and one's steamboat is 'drawing all the

water' there is in the channel,--or a few inches more, as was often the

case in the old times,--one must be painfully circumspect in his

piloting. We used to have to 'sound' a number of particularly bad places

almost every trip when the river was at a very low stage.

Sounding is done in this way. The boat ties up at the shore, just above

the shoal crossing; the pilot not on watch takes his 'cub' or steersman

and a picked crew of men (sometimes an officer also), and goes out in

the yawl--provided the boat has not that rare and sumptuous luxury, a

regularly-devised 'sounding-boat'--and proceeds to hunt for the best

water, the pilot on duty watching his movements through a spy-glass,

meantime, and in some instances assisting by signals of the boat's

whistle, signifying 'try higher up' or 'try lower down;' for the surface

of the water, like an oil-painting, is more expressive and intelligible

when inspected from a little distance than very close at hand. The

whistle signals are seldom necessary, however; never, perhaps, except

when the wind confuses the significant ripples upon the water's surface.

When the yawl has reached the shoal place, the speed is slackened, the

pilot begins to sound the depth with a pole ten or twelve feet long, and

the steersman at the tiller obeys the order to 'hold her up to

starboard;' or, 'let her fall off to larboard;'{footnote [The term

'larboard' is never used at sea now, to signify the left hand; but was

always used on the river in my time]} or 'steady--steady as you go.'

When the measurements indicate that the yawl is approaching the shoalest

part of the reef, the command is given to 'ease all!' Then the men stop

rowing and the yawl drifts with the current. The next order is, 'Stand

by with the buoy!' The moment the shallowest point is reached, the

pilot delivers the order, 'Let go the buoy!' and over she goes. If the

pilot is not satisfied, he sounds the place again; if he finds better

water higher up or lower down, he removes the buoy to that place. Being

finally satisfied, he gives the order, and all the men stand their oars

straight up in the air, in line; a blast from the boat's whistle

indicates that the signal has been seen; then the men 'give way' on

their oars and lay the yawl alongside the buoy; the steamer comes

creeping carefully down, is pointed straight at the buoy, husbands her

power for the coming struggle, and presently, at the critical moment,

turns on all her steam and goes grinding and wallowing over the buoy and

the sand, and gains the deep water beyond. Or maybe she doesn't; maybe

she 'strikes and swings.' Then she has to while away several hours (or

days) sparring herself off.

Sometimes a buoy is not laid at all, but the yawl goes ahead, hunting

the best water, and the steamer follows along in its wake. Often there

is a deal of fun and excitement about sounding, especially if it is a

glorious summer day, or a blustering night. But in winter the cold and

the peril take most of the fun out of it.

A buoy is nothing but a board four or five feet long, with one end

turned up; it is a reversed school-house bench, with one of the supports

left and the other removed. It is anchored on the shoalest part of the

reef by a rope with a heavy stone made fast to the end of it. But for

the resistance of the turned-up end of the reversed bench, the current

would pull the buoy under water. At night, a paper lantern with a

candle in it is fastened on top of the buoy, and this can be seen a mile

or more, a little glimmering spark in the waste of blackness.

Nothing delights a cub so much as an opportunity to go out sounding.

There is such an air of adventure about it; often there is danger; it is

so gaudy and man-of-war-like to sit up in the stern-sheets and steer a

swift yawl; there is something fine about the exultant spring of the

boat when an experienced old sailor crew throw their souls into the

oars; it is lovely to see the white foam stream away from the bows;

there is music in the rush of the water; it is deliciously exhilarating,

in summer, to go speeding over the breezy expanses of the river when the

world of wavelets is dancing in the sun. It is such grandeur, too, to

the cub, to get a chance to give an order; for often the pilot will

simply say, 'Let her go about!' and leave the rest to the cub, who

instantly cries, in his sternest tone of command, 'Ease starboard!

Strong on the larboard! Starboard give way! With a will, men!' The cub

enjoys sounding for the further reason that the eyes of the passengers

are watching all the yawl's movements with absorbing interest if the

time be daylight; and if it be night he knows that those same wondering

eyes are fastened upon the yawl's lantern as it glides out into the

gloom and dims away in the remote distance.

One trip a pretty girl of sixteen spent her time in our pilot-house with

her uncle and aunt, every day and all day long. I fell in love with

her. So did Mr. Thornburg's cub, Tom G----. Tom and I had been bosom

friends until this time; but now a coolness began to arise. I told the

girl a good many of my river adventures, and made myself out a good deal

of a hero; Tom tried to make himself appear to be a hero, too, and

succeeded to some extent, but then he always had a way of embroidering.

However, virtue is its own reward, so I was a barely perceptible trifle

ahead in the contest. About this time something happened which promised

handsomely for me: the pilots decided to sound the crossing at the head

of 21. This would occur about nine or ten o'clock at night, when the

passengers would be still up; it would be Mr. Thornburg's watch,

therefore my chief would have to do the sounding. We had a perfect love

of a sounding-boat--long, trim, graceful, and as fleet as a greyhound;

her thwarts were cushioned; she carried twelve oarsmen; one of the mates

was always sent in her to transmit orders to her crew, for ours was a

steamer where no end of 'style' was put on.

We tied up at the shore above 21, and got ready. It was a foul night,

and the river was so wide, there, that a landsman's uneducated eyes

could discern no opposite shore through such a gloom. The passengers

were alert and interested; everything was satisfactory. As I hurried

through the engine-room, picturesquely gotten up in storm toggery, I met

Tom, and could not forbear delivering myself of a mean speech--

'Ain't you glad 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 was

going after it, but I'd see you in Halifax, now, before I'd do it.'

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

'It ain't, either. It's been new-painted; and it's been up on the

ladies' cabin guards two days, drying.'

I flew back, and shortly arrived among the crowd of watching and

wondering ladies just in time to hear the command:

'Give way, men!'

I looked over, and there was the gallant sounding-boat booming away, the

unprincipled Tom presiding at the tiller, and my chief sitting by him

with the sounding-pole which I had been sent on a fool's errand to

fetch. Then that young girl said to me--

'Oh, how awful to have to go out in that little boat on such a night! Do

you think there is any danger?'

I would rather have been stabbed. I went off, full of venom, to help in

the pilot-house. By and by the boat's lantern disappeared, and after an

interval a wee spark glimmered upon the face of the water a mile away.

Mr. Thornburg blew the whistle, in acknowledgment, backed the steamer

out, and made for it. We flew along for a while, then slackened steam

and went cautiously gliding toward the spark. Presently Mr. Thornburg

exclaimed--

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

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

'Why, there it is again!'

So he came ahead on the engines once more, and rang for the leads.

Gradually the water shoaled up, and then began to deepen again! Mr.

Thornburg muttered--

'Well, I don't understand this. I believe that buoy has drifted off the

reef. Seems to be a little too far to the left. No matter, it is safest

to run over it anyhow.'

So, in that solid world of darkness we went creeping down on the light.

Just as our bows were in the act of plowing over it, Mr. Thornburg

seized the bell-ropes, rang a startling peal, and exclaimed--

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

A sudden chorus of wild alarms burst out far below--a pause--and then

the sound of grinding and crashing followed. Mr. Thornburg exclaimed--

'There! the paddle-wheel has ground the sounding-boat to lucifer

matches! Run! See who is killed!'

I was on the main deck in the twinkling of an eye. My chief and the

third mate and nearly all the men were safe. They had discovered their

danger when it was too late to pull out of the way; then, when the great

guards overshadowed them a moment later, they were prepared and knew

what to do; at my chiefs order they sprang at the right instant, seized

the guard, and were hauled aboard. The next moment the sounding-yawl

swept aft to the wheel and was struck and splintered to atoms. Two of

the men and the cub Tom, were missing--a fact which spread like wildfire

over the boat. The passengers came flocking to the forward gangway,

ladies and all, anxious-eyed, white-faced, and talked in awed voices of

the dreadful thing. And often and again I heard them say, 'Poor fellows!

poor boy, poor boy!'

By this time the boat's yawl was manned and away, to search for the

missing. Now a faint call was heard, off to the left. The yawl had

disappeared in the other direction. Half the people rushed to one side

to encourage the swimmer with their shouts; the other half rushed the

other way to shriek to the yawl to turn about. By the callings, the

swimmer was approaching, but some said the sound showed failing

strength. The crowd massed themselves against the boiler-deck railings,

leaning over and staring into the gloom; and every faint and fainter cry

wrung from them such words as, 'Ah, poor fellow, poor fellow! is there

no way to save him?'

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

said pluckily--

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

What a rousing cheer they gave him! The chief mate took his stand in

the glare of a torch-basket, a coil of rope in his hand, and his men

grouped about him. The next moment the swimmer's face appeared in the

circle of light, and in another one the owner of it was hauled aboard,

limp and drenched, while cheer on cheer went up. It was that devil Tom.

The yawl crew searched everywhere, but found no sign of the two men.

They probably failed to catch the guard, tumbled back, and were struck

by the wheel and killed. Tom had never jumped for the guard at all, but

had plunged head-first into the river and dived under the wheel. It was

nothing; I could have done it easy enough, and I said so; but everybody

went on just the same, making a wonderful to do over that ass, as if he

had done something great. That girl couldn't seem to have enough of

that pitiful 'hero' the rest of the trip; but little I cared; I loathed

her, any way.

The way we came to mistake the sounding-boat's lantern for the buoy-

light was this. My chief said that after laying the buoy he fell away

and watched it till it seemed to be secure; then he took up a position a

hundred yards below it and a little to one side of the steamer's course,

headed the sounding-boat up-stream, and waited. Having to wait some

time, he and the officer got to talking; he looked up when he judged

that the steamer was about on the reef; saw that the buoy was gone, but

supposed that the steamer had already run over it; he went on with his

talk; he noticed that the steamer was getting very close on him, but

that was the correct thing; it was her business to shave him closely,

for convenience in taking him aboard; he was expecting her to sheer off,

until the last moment; then it flashed upon him that she was trying to

run him down, mistaking his lantern for the buoy-light; so he sang out,

'Stand by to spring for the guard, men!' and the next instant the jump

was made.

Chapter 13 A Pilot's Needs

BUT I am wandering from what I was intending to do, that is, make

plainer than perhaps appears in the previous chapters, some of the

peculiar requirements of the science of piloting. First of all, there is

one faculty which a pilot must incessantly cultivate until he has

brought it to absolute perfection. Nothing short of perfection will do.

That faculty is memory. He cannot stop with merely thinking a thing is

so 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, if

he ever ventured to deal in that feeble phrase 'I think,' instead of the

vigorous one 'I know!' One cannot easily realize what a tremendous

thing it is to know every trivial detail of twelve hundred miles of

river and know it with absolute exactness. If you will take the longest

street in New York, and travel up and down it, conning its features

patiently until you know every house and window and door and lamp-post

and big and little sign by heart, and know them so accurately that you

can instantly name the one you are abreast of when you are set down at

random in that street in the middle of an inky black night, you will

then have a tolerable notion of the amount and the exactness of a

pilot's knowledge who carries the Mississippi River in his head. And

then if you will go on until you know every street crossing, the

character, size, and position of the crossing-stones, and the varying

depth of mud in each of those numberless places, you will have some idea

of what the pilot must know in order to keep a Mississippi steamer out

of trouble. Next, if you will take half of the signs in that long

street, and CHANGE THEIR PLACES once a month, and still manage to know

their new positions accurately on dark nights, and keep up with these

repeated changes without making any mistakes, you will understand what

is required of a pilot's peerless memory by the fickle Mississippi.

I think a pilot's memory is about the most wonderful thing in the world.

To know the Old and New Testaments by heart, and be able to recite them

glibly, forward or backward, or begin at random anywhere in the book and

recite both ways and never trip or make a mistake, is no extravagant

mass of knowledge, and no marvelous facility, compared to a pilot's

massed knowledge of the Mississippi and his marvelous facility in the

handling of it. I make this comparison deliberately, and believe I am

not expanding the truth when I do it. Many will think my figure too

strong, but pilots will not.

And how easily and comfortably the pilot's memory does its work; how

placidly effortless is its way; how UNCONSCIOUSLY it lays up its vast

stores, hour by hour, day by day, and never loses or mislays a single

valuable package of them all! Take an instance. Let a leadsman cry,

'Half twain! half twain! half twain! half twain! half twain!' until it

become as monotonous as the ticking of a clock; let conversation be

going on all the time, and the pilot be doing his share of the talking,

and no longer consciously listening to the leadsman; and in the midst of

this endless string of half twains let a single 'quarter twain!' be

interjected, without emphasis, and then the half twain cry go on again,

just as before: two or three weeks later that pilot can describe with

precision the boat's position in the river when that quarter twain was

uttered, and give you such a lot of head-marks, stern-marks, and side-

marks to guide you, that you ought to be able to take the boat there and

put her in that same spot again yourself! The cry of 'quarter twain' did

not really take his mind from his talk, but his trained faculties

instantly photographed the bearings, noted the change of depth, and laid

up the important details for future reference without requiring any

assistance from him in the matter. If you were walking and talking with

a friend, and another friend at your side kept up a monotonous

repetition of the vowel sound A, for a couple of blocks, and then in the

midst 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 or three weeks

afterward, that the R had been put in, nor be able to tell what objects

you were passing at the moment it was done. But you could if your

memory had been patiently and laboriously trained to do that sort of

thing mechanically.

Give a man a tolerably fair memory to start with, and piloting will

develop it into a very colossus of capability. But ONLY IN THE MATTERS

IT IS DAILY DRILLED IN. A time would come when the man's faculties could

not help noticing landmarks and soundings, and his memory could not help

holding on to them with the grip of a vise; but if you asked that same

man at noon what he had had for breakfast, it would be ten chances to

one that he could not tell you. Astonishing things can be done with the

human memory if you will devote it faithfully to one particular line of

business.

At the time that wages soared so high on the Missouri River, my chief,

Mr. Bixby, went up there and learned more than a thousand miles of that

stream with an ease and rapidity that were astonishing. When he had seen

each division once in the daytime and once at night, his education was

so nearly complete that he took out a 'daylight' license; a few trips

later he took out a full license, and went to piloting day and night--

and he ranked A 1, too.

Mr. Bixby placed me as steersman for a while under a pilot whose feats

of memory were a constant marvel to me. However, his memory was born in

him, I think, not built. For instance, somebody would mention a name.

Instantly Mr. Brown would break in--

'Oh, I knew HIM. Sallow-faced, red-headed fellow, with a little scar on

the side of his throat, like a splinter under the flesh. He was only in

the Southern trade six months. That was thirteen years ago. I made a

trip with him. There was five feet in the upper river then; the "Henry

Blake" grounded at the foot of Tower Island drawing four and a half; the

"George Elliott" unshipped her rudder on the wreck of the "Sunflower"--'

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

'I know when she sunk; it was three years before that, on the 2nd of

December; Asa Hardy was captain of her, and his brother John was first

clerk; and it was his first trip in her, too; Tom Jones told me these

things a week afterward in New Orleans; he was first mate of the

"Sunflower." Captain Hardy stuck a nail in his foot the 6th of July of

the next year, and died of the lockjaw on the 15th. His brother died

two years after 3rd of March,--erysipelas. I never saw either of the

Hardys,--they were Alleghany River men,--but people who knew them told

me all these things. And they said Captain Hardy wore yarn socks winter

and summer just the same, and his first wife's name was Jane Shook--she

was from New England--and his second one died in a lunatic asylum. It

was in the blood. She was from Lexington, Kentucky. Name was Horton

before she was married.'

And so on, by the hour, the man's tongue would go. He could NOT forget

any thing. It was simply impossible. The most trivial details remained

as distinct and luminous in his head, after they had lain there for

years, as the most memorable events. His was not simply a pilot's

memory; its grasp was universal. If he were talking about a trifling

letter he had received seven years before, he was pretty sure to deliver

you the entire screed from memory. And then without observing that he

was departing from the true line of his talk, he was more than likely to

hurl in a long-drawn parenthetical biography of the writer of that

letter; and you were lucky indeed if he did not take up that writer's

relatives, one by one, and give you their biographies, too.

Such a memory as that is a great misfortune. To it, all occurrences are

of the same size. Its possessor cannot distinguish an interesting

circumstance from an uninteresting one. As a talker, he is bound to

clog his narrative with tiresome details and make himself an

insufferable bore. Moreover, he cannot stick to his subject. He picks

up every little grain of memory he discerns in his way, and so is led

aside. Mr. Brown would start out with the honest intention of telling

you a vastly funny anecdote about a dog. He would be 'so full of laugh'

that he could hardly begin; then his memory would start with the dog's

breed and personal appearance; drift into a history of his owner; of his

owner's family, with descriptions of weddings and burials that had

occurred in it, together with recitals of congratulatory verses and

obituary poetry provoked by the same: then this memory would recollect

that one of these events occurred during the celebrated 'hard winter' of

such and such a year, and a minute description of that winter would

follow, along with the names of people who were frozen to death, and

statistics showing the high figures which pork and hay went up to. Pork

and hay would suggest corn and fodder; corn and fodder would suggest

cows and horses; cows and horses would suggest the circus and certain

celebrated bare-back riders; the transition from the circus to the

menagerie was easy and natural; from the elephant to equatorial Africa

was but a step; then of course the heathen savages would suggest

religion; and at the end of three or four hours' tedious jaw, the watch

would change, and Brown would go out of the pilot-house muttering

extracts from sermons he had heard years before about the efficacy of

prayer as a means of grace. And the original first mention would be all

you had learned about that dog, after all this waiting and hungering.

A pilot must have a memory; but there are two higher qualities which he

must also have. He must have good and quick judgment and decision, and

a cool, calm courage that no peril can shake. Give a man the merest

trifle of pluck to start with, and by the time he has become a pilot he

cannot be unmanned by any danger a steamboat can get into; but one

cannot quite say the same for judgment. Judgment is a matter of brains,

and a man must START with a good stock of that article or he will never

succeed as a pilot.

The growth of courage in the pilot-house is steady all the time, but it

does not reach a high and satisfactory condition until some time after

the young pilot has been 'standing his own watch,' alone and under the

staggering weight of all the responsibilities connected with the

position. When an apprentice has become pretty thoroughly acquainted

with the river, he goes clattering along so fearlessly with his

steamboat, night or day, that he presently begins to imagine that it is

HIS courage that animates him; but the first time the pilot steps out

and leaves him to his own devices he finds out it was the other man's.

He discovers that the article has been left out of his own cargo

altogether. The whole river is bristling with exigencies in a moment; he

is not prepared for them; he does not know how to meet them; all his

knowledge forsakes him; and within fifteen minutes he is as white as a

sheet and scared almost to death. Therefore pilots wisely train these

cubs by various strategic tricks to look danger in the face a little

more calmly. A favorite way of theirs is to play a friendly swindle upon

the candidate.

Mr. Bixby served me in this fashion once, and for years afterward I used

to blush even in my sleep when I thought of it. I had become a good

steersman; so good, indeed, that I had all the work to do on our watch,

night and day; Mr. Bixby seldom made a suggestion to me; all he ever did

was to take the wheel on particularly bad nights or in particularly bad

crossings, land the boat when she needed to be landed, play gentleman of

leisure nine-tenths of the watch, and collect the wages. The lower river

was about bank-full, and if anybody had questioned my ability to run any

crossing between Cairo and New Orleans without help or instruction, I

should have felt irreparably hurt. The idea of being afraid of any

crossing in the lot, in the DAY-TIME, was a thing too preposterous for

contemplation. Well, one matchless summer's day I was bowling down the

bend above island 66, brimful of self-conceit and carrying my nose as

high as a giraffe's, when Mr. Bixby said--

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

This was almost an affront. It was about the plainest and simplest

crossing in the whole river. One couldn't come to any harm, whether he

ran it right or not; and as for depth, there never had been any bottom

there. I knew 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 a

church steeple.'

'You think so, do you?'

The very tone of the question shook my confidence. That was what Mr.

Bixby was expecting. He left, without saying anything more. I began to

imagine all sorts of things. Mr. Bixby, unknown to me, of course, sent

somebody down to the forecastle with some mysterious instructions to the

leadsmen, another messenger was sent to whisper among the officers, and

then Mr. Bixby went into hiding behind a smoke-stack where he could

observe results. Presently the captain stepped out on the hurricane

deck; next the chief mate appeared; then a clerk. Every moment or two a

straggler was added to my audience; and before I got to the head of the

island I had fifteen or twenty people assembled down there under my

nose. I began to wonder what the trouble was. As I started across, the

captain glanced aloft at me and said, with a sham uneasiness in his

voice--

'Where is Mr. Bixby?'

'Gone below, sir.'

But that did the business for me. My imagination began to construct

dangers out of nothing, and they multiplied faster than I could keep the

run of them. All at once I imagined I saw shoal water ahead! The wave

of coward agony that surged through me then came near dislocating every

joint in me. All my confidence in that crossing vanished. I seized the

bell-rope; dropped it, ashamed; seized it again; dropped it once more;

clutched it tremblingly one again, and pulled it so feebly that I could

hardly hear the stroke myself. Captain and mate sang out instantly, and

both together--

'Starboard lead there! and quick about it!'

This was another shock. I began to climb the wheel like a squirrel; but

I would hardly get the boat started to port before I would see new

dangers on that side, and away I would spin to the other; only to find

perils accumulating to starboard, and be crazy to get to port again.

Then came the leadsman's sepulchral cry--

'D-e-e-p four!'

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

away.

'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 quaking

from head to foot, and I could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck

out so far.

'Quarter LESS twain! Nine and a HALF!'

We were DRAWING nine! My hands were in a nerveless flutter. I could not

ring a bell intelligibly with them. I flew to the speaking-tube and

shouted to the engineer--

'Oh, Ben, if you love me, BACK her! Quick, Ben! Oh, back the immortal

SOUL out of her!'

I heard the door close gently. I looked around, and there stood Mr.

Bixby, smiling a bland, sweet smile. Then the audience on the hurricane

deck sent up a thundergust of humiliating laughter. I saw it all, now,

and I felt meaner than the meanest man in human history. I laid in the

lead, set the boat in her marks, came ahead on the engines, and said--

'It was a fine trick to play on an orphan, WASN'T it? I suppose I'll

never hear the last of how I was ass enough to heave the lead at the

head of 66.'

'Well, no, you won't, maybe. In fact I hope you won't; for I want you

to learn something by that experience. Didn't you KNOW there was no

bottom in that crossing?'

'Yes, sir, I did.'

'Very well, then. You shouldn't have allowed me or anybody else to

shake your confidence in that knowledge. Try to remember that. And

another thing: when you get into a dangerous place, don't turn coward.

That isn't going to help matters any.'

It was a good enough lesson, but pretty hardly learned. Yet about the

hardest part of it was that for months I so often had to hear a phrase

which I had conceived a particular distaste for. It was, 'Oh, Ben, if

you love me, back her!'

Chapter 14 Rank and Dignity of Piloting

IN my preceding chapters I have tried, by going into the minutiae of the

science of piloting, to carry the reader step by step to a comprehension

of what the science consists of; and at the same time I have tried to

show him that it is a very curious and wonderful science, too, and very

worthy of his attention. If I have seemed to love my subject, it is no

surprising thing, for I loved the profession far better than any I have

followed since, and I took a measureless pride in it. The reason is

plain: a pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely

independent human being that lived in the earth. Kings are but the

hampered servants of parliament and people; parliaments sit in chains

forged by their constituency; the editor of a newspaper cannot be

independent, but must work with one hand tied behind him by party and

patrons, and be content to utter only half or two-thirds of his mind; no

clergyman is a free man and may speak the whole truth, regardless of his

parish's opinions; writers of all kinds are manacled servants of the

public. We write frankly and fearlessly, but then we 'modify' before we

print. In truth, every man and woman and child has a master, and

worries and frets in servitude; but in the day I write of, the

Mississippi pilot had none. The captain could stand upon the hurricane

deck, in the pomp of a very brief authority, and give him five or six

orders while the vessel backed into the stream, and then that skipper's

reign was over. The moment that the boat was under way in the river,

she was under the sole and unquestioned control of the pilot. He could

do with her exactly as he pleased, run her when and whither he chose,

and tie her up to the bank whenever his judgment said that that course

was best. His movements were entirely free; he consulted no one, he

received commands from nobody, he promptly resented even the merest

suggestions. Indeed, the law of the United States forbade him to listen

to commands or suggestions, rightly considering that the pilot

necessarily knew better how to handle the boat than anybody could tell

him. So here was the novelty of a king without a keeper, an absolute

monarch who was absolute in sober truth and not by a fiction of words. I

have seen a boy of eighteen taking a great steamer serenely into what

seemed almost certain destruction, and the aged captain standing mutely

by, filled with apprehension but powerless to interfere. His

interference, in that particular instance, might have been an excellent

thing, but to permit it would have been to establish a most pernicious

precedent. It will easily be guessed, considering the pilot's boundless

authority, that he was a great personage in the old steamboating days.

He was treated with marked courtesy by the captain and with marked

deference by all the officers and servants; and this deferential spirit

was quickly communicated to the passengers, too. I think pilots were

about the only people I ever knew who failed to show, in some degree,

embarrassment in the presence of traveling foreign princes. But then,

people in one's own grade of life are not usually embarrassing objects.

By long habit, pilots came to put all their wishes in the form of

commands. It 'gravels' me, to this day, to put my will in the weak shape

of a request, instead of launching it in the crisp language of an order.

In those old days, to load a steamboat at St. Louis, take her to New

Orleans and back, and discharge cargo, consumed about twenty-five days,

on an average. Seven or eight of these days the boat spent at the

wharves of St. Louis and New Orleans, and every soul on board was hard

at work, except the two pilots; they did nothing but play gentleman up

town, and receive the same wages for it as if they had been on duty. The

moment the boat touched the wharf at either city, they were ashore; and

they were not likely to be seen again till the last bell was ringing and

everything in readiness for another voyage.

When a captain got hold of a pilot of particularly high reputation, he

took pains to keep him. When wages were four hundred dollars a month on

the Upper Mississippi, I have known a captain to keep such a pilot in

idleness, under full pay, three months at a time, while the river was

frozen up. And one must remember that in those cheap times four hundred

dollars was a salary of almost inconceivable splendor. Few men on shore

got such pay as that, and when they did they were mightily looked up to.

When pilots from either end of the river wandered into our small

Missouri village, they were sought by the best and the fairest, and

treated with exalted respect. Lying in port under wages was a thing

which many pilots greatly enjoyed and appreciated; especially if they

belonged in the Missouri River in the heyday of that trade (Kansas

times), and got nine hundred dollars a trip, which was equivalent to

about eighteen hundred dollars a month. Here is a conversation of that

day. A chap out of the Illinois River, with a little 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 shall

want 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'll

divide!'

I will remark, in passing, that Mississippi steamboatmen were important

in landsmen's eyes (and in their own, too, in a degree) according to the

dignity of the boat they were on. For instance, it was a proud thing to

be of the crew of such stately craft as the 'Aleck Scott' or the 'Grand

Turk.' Negro firemen, deck hands, and barbers belonging to those boats

were distinguished personages in their grade of life, and they were well

aware of that fact too. A stalwart darkey once gave offense at a negro

ball in New Orleans by putting on a good many airs. Finally one of the

managers bustled up to him and said--

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

The offender was not disconcerted in the least, but swelled himself up

and threw that into his voice which showed that he knew he was not

putting on all those airs on a stinted capital.

'Who IS I? Who IS I? I let you know mighty quick who I is! I want you

niggers to understan' dat I fires de middle do'{footnote [Door]} on de

"Aleck Scott!"'

That was sufficient.

The barber of the 'Grand Turk' was a spruce young negro, who aired his

importance with balmy complacency, and was greatly courted by the circle

in which he moved. The young colored population of New Orleans were much

given to flirting, at twilight, on the banquettes of the back streets.

Somebody saw and heard something like the following, one evening, in one

of those localities. A middle-aged negro woman projected her head

through a broken pane and shouted (very willing that the neighbors

should hear and envy), 'You Mary Ann, come in de house dis minute!

Stannin' out dah foolin' 'long wid dat low trash, an' heah's de barber

offn de "Gran' Turk" wants to conwerse wid you!'

My reference, a moment ago, to the fact that a pilot's peculiar official

position placed him out of the reach of criticism or command, brings

Stephen W---- naturally to my mind. He was a gifted pilot, a good

fellow, a tireless talker, and had both wit and humor in him. He had a

most irreverent independence, too, and was deliciously easy-going and

comfortable in the presence of age, official dignity, and even the most

august wealth. He always had work, he never saved a penny, he was a

most persuasive borrower, he was in debt to every pilot on the river,

and to the majority of the captains. He could throw a sort of splendor

around a bit of harum-scarum, devil-may-care piloting, that made it

almost fascinating--but not to everybody. He made a trip with good old

Captain Y----once, and was 'relieved' from duty when the boat got to New

Orleans. Somebody expressed surprise at the discharge. Captain Y----

shuddered at the mere mention of Stephen. Then his poor, thin old voice

piped out something like this:--

'Why, bless me! I wouldn't have such a wild creature on my boat for the

world--not for the whole world! He swears, he sings, he whistles, he

yells--I never saw such an Injun to yell. All times of the night--it

never made any difference to him. He would just yell that way, not for

anything in particular, but merely on account of a kind of devilish

comfort he got out of it. I never could get into a sound sleep but he

would fetch me out of bed, all in a cold sweat, with one of those

dreadful war-whoops. A queer being--very queer being; no respect for

anything or anybody. Sometimes he called me "Johnny." And he kept a

fiddle, and a cat. He played execrably. This seemed to distress the

cat, and so the cat would howl. Nobody could sleep where that man--and

his family--was. And reckless. There never was anything like it. Now

you may believe it or not, but as sure as I am sitting here, he brought

my boat a-tilting down through those awful snags at Chicot under a

rattling head of steam, and the wind a-blowing like the very nation, at

that! My officers will tell you so. They saw it. And, sir, while he

was a-tearing right down through those snags, and I a-shaking in my

shoes and praying, I wish I may never speak again if he didn't pucker up

his mouth and go to WHISTLING! Yes, sir; whistling "Buffalo gals, can't

you come out tonight, can't you come out to-night, can't you come out

to-night;" and doing it as calmly as if we were attending a funeral and

weren't related to the corpse. And when I remonstrated with him about

it, he smiled down on me as if I was his child, and told me to run in

the house and try to be good, and not be meddling with my superiors!'

Once a pretty mean captain caught Stephen in New Orleans out of work and

as usual out of money. He laid steady siege to Stephen, who was in a

very 'close place,' and finally persuaded him to hire with him at one

hundred and twenty-five dollars per month, just half wages, the captain

agreeing not to divulge the secret and so bring down the contempt of all

the guild upon the poor fellow. But the boat was not more than a day

out of New Orleans before Stephen discovered that the captain was

boasting of his exploit, and that all the officers had been told.

Stephen winced, but said nothing. About the middle of the afternoon the

captain stepped out on the hurricane deck, cast his eye around, and

looked a good deal surprised. He glanced inquiringly aloft at Stephen,

but Stephen was whistling placidly, and attending to business. The

captain stood around a while in evident discomfort, and once or twice

seemed about to make a suggestion; but the etiquette of the river taught

him to avoid that sort of rashness, and so he managed to hold his peace.

He chafed and puzzled a few minutes longer, then retired to his

apartments. But soon he was out again, and apparently more perplexed

than ever. Presently he ventured to remark, with deference--

'Pretty good stage of the river now, ain't it, sir?'

'Well, I should say so! Bank-full IS a pretty liberal stage.'

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

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

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

'Yes, I reckon it is; but a body can't be too careful with a steamboat.

It's pretty safe out here; can't strike any bottom here, you can depend

on that.'

The captain departed, looking rueful enough. At this rate, he would

probably die of old age before his boat got to St. Louis. Next day he

appeared on deck and again found Stephen faithfully standing up the

middle of the river, fighting the whole vast force of the Mississippi,

and whistling the same placid tune. This thing was becoming serious. In

by the shore was a slower boat clipping along in the easy water and

gaining steadily; she began to make for an island chute; Stephen stuck

to the middle of the river. Speech was WRUNG from the captain.

He said--

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

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

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

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

'Upon my word this is odd! Why, those pilots on that boat yonder are

going to try it. Do you mean to say that you don't know as much as they

do?'

'THEY! Why, THEY are two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar pilots! But don't you

be uneasy; I know as much as any man can afford to know for a hundred

and twenty-five!'

The captain surrendered.

Five minutes later Stephen was bowling through the chute and showing the

rival boat a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar pair of heels.

Chapter 15 The Pilots' Monopoly

ONE day, on board the 'Aleck Scott,' my chief, Mr. Bixby, was crawling

carefully through a close place at Cat Island, both leads going, and

everybody holding his breath. The captain, a nervous, apprehensive man,

kept still as long as he could, but finally broke down and shouted from

the hurricane deck--

'For gracious' sake, give her steam, Mr. Bixby! give her steam! She'll

never raise the reef on this headway!'

For all the effect that was produced upon Mr. Bixby, one would have

supposed that no remark had been made. But five minutes later, when the

danger was past and the leads laid in, he burst instantly into a

consuming fury, and gave the captain the most admirable cursing I ever

listened to. No bloodshed ensued; but that was because the captain's

cause was weak; for ordinarily he was not a man to take correction

quietly.

Having now set forth in detail the nature of the science of piloting,

and likewise described the rank which the pilot held among the

fraternity of steamboatmen, this seems a fitting place to say a few

words about an organization which the pilots once formed for the

protection of their guild. It was curious and noteworthy in this, that

it was perhaps the compactest, the completest, and the strongest

commercial 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 the

reason of this. Too many pilots were being 'made.' It was nice to have

a 'cub,' a steersman, to do all the hard work for a couple of years,

gratis, while his master sat on a high bench and smoked; all pilots and

captains had sons or nephews who wanted to be pilots. By and by it came

to pass that nearly every pilot on the river had a steersman. When a

steersman had made an amount of progress that was satisfactory to any

two pilots in the trade, they could get a pilot's license for him by

signing an application directed to the United States Inspector. Nothing

further was needed; usually no questions were asked, no proofs of

capacity required.

Very well, this growing swarm of new pilots presently began to undermine

the wages, in order to get berths. Too late--apparently--the knights of

the tiller perceived their mistake. Plainly, something had to be done,

and quickly; but what was to be the needful thing. A close

organization. Nothing else would answer. To compass this seemed an

impossibility; so it was talked, and talked, and then dropped. It was

too likely to ruin whoever ventured to move in the matter. But at last

about a dozen of the boldest--and some of them the best--pilots on the

river launched themselves into the enterprise and took all the chances.

They got a special charter from the legislature, with large powers,

under the name of the Pilots' Benevolent Association; elected their

officers, completed their organization, contributed capital, put

'association' wages up to two hundred and fifty dollars at once--and

then retired to their homes, for they were promptly discharged from

employment. But there were two or three unnoticed trifles in their by-

laws which had the seeds of propagation in them. For instance, all idle

members of the association, in good standing, were entitled to a pension

of twenty-five dollars per month. This began to bring in one straggler

after another from the ranks of the new-fledged pilots, in the dull

(summer) season. Better have twenty-five dollars than starve; the

initiation fee was only twelve dollars, and no dues required from the

unemployed.

Also, the widows of deceased members in good standing could draw twenty-

five dollars per month, and a certain sum for each of their children.

Also, the said deceased would be buried at the association's expense.

These things resurrected all the superannuated and forgotten pilots in

the Mississippi Valley. They came from farms, they came from interior

villages, they came from everywhere. They came on crutches, on drays,

in ambulances,--any way, so they got there. They paid in their twelve

dollars, and straightway began to draw out twenty-five dollars a month,

and calculate their burial bills.

By and by, all the useless, helpless pilots, and a dozen first-class

ones, were in the association, and nine-tenths of the best pilots out of

it and laughing at it. It was the laughing-stock of the whole river.

Everybody joked about the by-law requiring members to pay ten per cent.

of their wages, every month, into the treasury for the support of the

association, whereas all the members were outcast and tabooed, and no

one would employ them. Everybody was derisively grateful to the

association for taking all the worthless pilots out of the way and

leaving the whole field to the excellent and the deserving; and

everybody was not only jocularly grateful for that, but for a result

which naturally followed, namely, the gradual advance of wages as the

busy season approached. Wages had gone up from the low figure of one

hundred dollars a month to one hundred and twenty-five, and in some

cases to one hundred and fifty; and it was great fun to enlarge upon the

fact that this charming thing had been accomplished by a body of men not

one of whom received a particle of benefit from it. Some of the jokers

used to call at the association rooms and have a good time chaffing the

members and offering them the charity of taking them as steersmen for a

trip, so that they could see what the forgotten river looked like.

However, the association was content; or at least it gave no sign to the

contrary. Now and then it captured a pilot who was 'out of luck,' and

added him to its list; and these later additions were very valuable, for

they were good pilots; the incompetent ones had all been absorbed

before. As business freshened, wages climbed gradually up to two

hundred and fifty dollars--the association figure--and became firmly

fixed there; and still without benefiting a member of that body, for no

member was hired. The hilarity at the association's expense burst all

bounds, now. There was no end to the fun which that poor martyr had to

put up with.

However, it is a long lane that has no turning. Winter approached,

business doubled and trebled, and an avalanche of Missouri, Illinois and

Upper Mississippi River boats came pouring down to take a chance in the

New Orleans trade. All of a sudden pilots were in great demand, and

were correspondingly scarce. The time for revenge was come. It was a

bitter pill to have to accept association pilots at last, yet captains

and owners agreed that there was no other way. But none of these

outcasts offered! So there was a still bitterer pill to be swallowed:

they must be sought out and asked for their services. Captain ---- was

the first man who found it necessary to take the dose, and he had been

the loudest derider of the organization. He hunted up one of the best of

the association pilots and said--

'Well, you boys have rather got the best of us for a little while, so

I'll give in with as good a grace as I can. I've come to hire you; get

your trunk aboard right away. I want to leave at twelve o'clock.'

'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 the very

best and oldest pilots on the river because he don't belong to your

association?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Well, if this isn't putting on airs! I supposed I was doing you a

benevolence; but I begin to think that I am the party that wants a favor

done. Are you acting under a law of the concern?'

'Yes.'

'Show it to me.'

So they stepped into the association rooms, and the secretary soon

satisfied the captain, who said--

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

'I will provide for you,' said the secretary. 'I will detail a pilot to

go with you, and he shall be on board at twelve o'clock.'

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

wages.'

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

cannot meddle in your private affairs.'

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

S----, pay him about a thousand dollars, and take an association pilot

in his place. The laugh was beginning to turn the other way now. Every

day, thenceforward, a new victim fell; every day some outraged captain

discharged a non-association pet, with tears and profanity, and

installed a hated association man in his berth. In a very little while,

idle non-associationists began to be pretty plenty, brisk as business

was, and much as their services were desired. The laugh was shifting to

the other side of their mouths most palpably. These victims, together

with the captains and owners, presently ceased to laugh altogether, and

began to rage about the revenge they would take when the passing

business 'spurt' was over.

Soon all the laughers that were left were the owners and crews of boats

that had two non-association pilots. But their triumph was not very

long-lived. For this reason: It was a rigid rule of the association that

its members should never, under any circumstances whatever, give

information about the channel to any 'outsider.' By this time about

half the boats had none but association pilots, and the other half had

none but outsiders. At the first glance one would suppose that when it

came to forbidding information about the river these two parties could

play equally at that game; but this was not so. At every good-sized town

from one end of the river to the other, there was a 'wharf-boat' to land

at, instead of a wharf or a pier. Freight was stored in it for

transportation; waiting passengers slept in its cabins. Upon each of

these wharf-boats the association's officers placed a strong box

fastened with a peculiar lock which was used in no other service but

one--the United States mail service. It was the letter-bag lock, a

sacred governmental thing. By dint of much beseeching the government had

been persuaded to allow the association to use this lock. Every

association man carried a key which would open these boxes. That key, or

rather a peculiar way of holding it in the hand when its owner was asked

for river information by a stranger--for the success of the St. Louis

and New Orleans association had now bred tolerably thriving branches in

a dozen neighboring steamboat trades--was the association man's sign and

diploma of membership; and if the stranger did not respond by producing

a similar key and holding it in a certain manner duly prescribed, his

question was politely ignored. From the association's secretary each

member received a package of more or less gorgeous blanks, printed like

a billhead, on handsome paper, properly ruled in columns; a bill-head

worded something like this--

STEAMER GREAT REPUBLIC.

JOHN SMITH MASTER

PILOTS, JOHN JONES AND THOMAS BROWN.

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

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

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

These blanks were filled up, day by day, as the voyage progressed, and

deposited in the several wharf-boat boxes. For instance, as soon as the

first crossing, out from St. Louis, was completed, the items would be

entered upon the blank, under the appropriate headings, thus--

'St. Louis. Nine and a half (feet). Stern on court-house, head on dead

cottonwood above wood-yard, until you raise the first reef, then pull up

square.' Then under head of Remarks: 'Go just outside the wrecks; this

is important. New snag just where you straighten down; go above it.'

The pilot who deposited that blank in the Cairo box (after adding to it

the details of every crossing all the way down from St. Louis) took out

and read half a dozen fresh reports (from upward-bound steamers)

concerning the river between Cairo and Memphis, posted himself

thoroughly, returned them to the box, and went back aboard his boat

again so armed against accident that he could not possibly get his boat

into trouble without bringing the most ingenious carelessness to his

aid.

Imagine the benefits of so admirable a system in a piece of river twelve

or thirteen hundred miles long, whose channel was shifting every day!

The pilot who had formerly been obliged to put up with seeing a shoal

place once or possibly twice a month, had a hundred sharp eyes to watch

it for him, now, and bushels of intelligent brains to tell him how to

run it. His information about it was seldom twenty-four hours old. If

the reports in the last box chanced to leave any misgivings on his mind

concerning a treacherous crossing, he had his remedy; he blew his steam-

whistle in a peculiar way as soon as he saw a boat approaching; the

signal was answered in a peculiar way if that boat's pilots were

association men; and then the two steamers ranged alongside and all

uncertainties were swept away by fresh information furnished to the

inquirer by word of mouth and in minute detail.

The first thing a pilot did when he reached New Orleans or St. Louis was

to take his final and elaborate report to the association parlors and

hang it up there,--after which he was free to visit his family. In these

parlors a crowd was always gathered together, discussing changes in the

channel, and the moment there was a fresh arrival, everybody stopped

talking till this witness had told the newest news and settled the

latest uncertainty. Other craftsmen can 'sink the shop,' sometimes, and

interest themselves in other matters. Not so with a pilot; he must

devote himself wholly to his profession and talk of nothing else; for it

would be small gain to be perfect one day and imperfect the next. He has

no time or words to waste if he would keep 'posted.'

But the outsiders had a hard time of it. No particular place to meet

and exchange information, no wharf-boat reports, none but chance and

unsatisfactory ways of getting news. The consequence was that a man

sometimes had to run five hundred miles of river on information that was

a week or ten days old. At a fair stage of the river that might have

answered; but when the dead low water came it was destructive.

Now came another perfectly logical result. The outsiders began to

ground steamboats, sink them, and get into all sorts of trouble, whereas

accidents seemed to keep entirely away from the association men.

Wherefore even the owners and captains of boats furnished exclusively

with outsiders, and previously considered to be wholly independent of

the association and free to comfort themselves with brag and laughter,

began to feel pretty uncomfortable. Still, they made a show of keeping

up the brag, until one black day when every captain of the lot was

formally ordered to immediately discharge his outsiders and take

association pilots in their stead. And who was it that had the dashing

presumption to do that? Alas, it came from a power behind the throne

that was greater than the throne itself. It was the underwriters!

It was no time to 'swap knives.' Every outsider had to take his trunk

ashore at once. Of course it was supposed that there was collusion

between the association and the underwriters, but this was not so. The

latter had come to comprehend the excellence of the 'report' system of

the association and the safety it secured, and so they had made their

decision among themselves and upon plain business principles.

There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the camp of the

outsiders now. But no matter, there was but one course for them to

pursue, and they pursued it. They came forward in couples and groups,

and proffered their twelve dollars and asked for membership. They were

surprised to learn that several new by-laws had been long ago added. For

instance, the initiation fee had been raised to fifty dollars; that sum

must be tendered, and also ten per cent. of the wages which the

applicant had received each and every month since the founding of the

association. In many cases this amounted to three or four hundred

dollars. Still, the association would not entertain the application

until the money was present. Even then a single adverse vote killed the

application. Every member had to vote 'Yes' or 'No' in person and before

witnesses; so it took weeks to decide a candidacy, because many pilots

were so long absent on voyages. However, the repentant sinners scraped

their savings together, and one by one, by our tedious voting process,

they were added to the fold. A time came, at last, when only about ten

remained outside. They said they would starve before they would apply.

They remained idle a long while, because of course nobody could venture

to employ them.

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

the wages would be raised to five hundred dollars per month. All the

branch associations had grown strong, now, and the Red River one had

advanced wages to seven hundred dollars a month. Reluctantly the ten

outsiders yielded, in view of these things, and made application. There

was another new by-law, by this time, which required them to pay dues

not only on all the wages they had received since the association was

born, but also on what they would have received if they had continued at

work up to the time of their application, instead of going off to pout

in idleness. It turned out to be a difficult matter to elect them, but

it was accomplished at last. The most virulent sinner of this batch had

stayed out and allowed 'dues' to accumulate against him so long that he

had to send in six hundred and twenty-five dollars with his application.

The association had a good bank account now, and was very strong. There

was no longer an outsider. A by-law was added forbidding the reception

of any more cubs or apprentices for five years; after which time a

limited number would be taken, not by individuals, but by the

association, upon these terms: the applicant must not be less than

eighteen years old, and of respectable family and good character; he

must pass an examination as to education, pay a thousand dollars in

advance for the privilege of becoming an apprentice, and must remain

under the commands of the association until a great part of the

membership (more than half, I think) should be willing to sign his

application for a pilot's license.

All previously-articled apprentices were now taken away from their

masters and adopted by the association. The president and secretary

detailed them for service on one boat or another, as they chose, and

changed them from boat to boat according to certain rules. If a pilot

could show that he was in infirm health and needed assistance, one of

the cubs would be ordered to go with him.

The widow and orphan list grew, but so did the association's financial

resources. The association attended its own funerals in state, and paid

for them. When occasion demanded, it sent members down the river upon

searches for the bodies of brethren lost by steamboat accidents; a

search of this kind sometimes cost a thousand dollars.

The association procured a charter and went into the insurance business,

also. It not only insured the lives of its members, but took risks on

steamboats.

The organization seemed indestructible. It was the tightest monopoly in

the world. By the United States law, no man could become a pilot unless

two duly licensed pilots signed his application; and now there was

nobody outside of the association competent to sign. Consequently the

making of pilots was at an end. Every year some would die and others

become incapacitated by age and infirmity; there would be no new ones to

take their places. In time, the association could put wages up to any

figure it chose; and as long as it should be wise enough not to carry

the thing too far and provoke the national government into amending the

licensing system, steamboat owners would have to submit, since there

would be no help for it.

The owners and captains were the only obstruction that lay between the

association and absolute power; and at last this one was removed.

Incredible as it may seem, the owners and captains deliberately did it

themselves. When the pilots' association announced, months beforehand,

that on the first day of September, 1861, wages would be advanced to

five hundred dollars per month, the owners and captains instantly put

freights up a few cents, and explained to the farmers along the river

the necessity of it, by calling their attention to the burdensome rate

of wages about to be established. It was a rather slender argument, but

the farmers did not seem to detect it. It looked reasonable to them that

to add five cents freight on a bushel of corn was justifiable under the

circumstances, overlooking the fact that this advance on a cargo of

forty thousand sacks was a good deal more than necessary to cover the

new wages.

So, straightway the captains and owners got up an association of their

own, and proposed to put captains' wages up to five hundred dollars,

too, and move for another advance in freights. It was a novel idea, but

of course an effect which had been produced once could be produced

again. The new association decreed (for this was before all the

outsiders had been taken into the pilots' association) that if any

captain employed a non-association pilot, he should be forced to

discharge him, and also pay a fine of five hundred dollars. Several of

these heavy fines were paid before the captains' organization grew

strong enough to exercise full authority over its membership; but that

all ceased, presently. The captains tried to get the pilots to decree

that no member of their corporation should serve under a non-association

captain; but this proposition was declined. The pilots saw that they

would be backed up by the captains and the underwriters anyhow, and so

they wisely refrained from entering into entangling alliances.

As I have remarked, the pilots' association was now the compactest

monopoly in the world, perhaps, and seemed simply indestructible. And

yet the days of its glory were numbered. First, the new railroad

stretching up through Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky, to Northern

railway centers, began to divert the passenger travel from the steamers;

next the war came and almost entirely annihilated the steamboating

industry during several years, leaving most of the pilots idle, and the

cost of living advancing all the time; then the treasurer of the St.

Louis association put his hand into the till and walked off with every

dollar of the ample fund; and finally, the railroads intruding

everywhere, there was little for steamers to do, when the war was over,

but carry freights; so straightway some genius from the Atlantic coast

introduced the plan of towing a dozen steamer cargoes down to New

Orleans at the tail of a vulgar little tug-boat; and behold, in the

twinkling of an eye, as it were, the association and the noble science

of piloting were things of the dead and pathetic past!

Chapter 16 Racing Days

IT was always the custom for the boats to leave New Orleans between four

and five o'clock in the afternoon. From three o'clock onward they would

be burning rosin and pitch pine (the sign of preparation), and so one

had the picturesque spectacle of a rank, some two or three miles long,

of tall, ascending columns of coal-black smoke; a colonnade which

supported a sable roof of the same smoke blended together and spreading

abroad over the city. Every outward-bound boat had its flag flying at

the jack-staff, and sometimes a duplicate on the verge staff astern. Two

or three miles of mates were commanding and swearing with more than

usual emphasis; countless processions of freight barrels and boxes were

spinning athwart the levee and flying aboard the stage-planks, belated

passengers were dodging and skipping among these frantic things, hoping

to reach the forecastle companion way alive, but having their doubts

about it; women with reticules and bandboxes were trying to keep up with

husbands freighted with carpet-sacks and crying babies, and making a

failure of it by losing their heads in the whirl and roar and general

distraction; drays and baggage-vans were clattering hither and thither

in a wild hurry, every now and then getting blocked and jammed together,

and then during ten seconds one could not see them for the profanity,

except vaguely and dimly; every windlass connected with every forehatch,

from one end of that long array of steamboats to the other, was keeping

up a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freight into the hold, and the

half-naked crews of perspiring negroes that worked them were roaring

such songs as 'De Las' Sack! De Las' Sack!'--inspired to unimaginable

exaltation by the chaos of turmoil and racket that was driving everybody

else mad. By this time the hurricane and boiler decks of the steamers

would be packed and black with passengers. The 'last bells' would begin

to clang, all down the line, and then the powwow seemed to double; in a

moment or two the final warning came,--a simultaneous din of Chinese

gongs, with the cry, 'All dat ain't goin', please to git asho'!'--and

behold, the powwow quadrupled! People came swarming ashore, overturning

excited stragglers that were trying to swarm aboard. One more moment

later a long array of stage-planks was being hauled in, each with its

customary latest passenger clinging to the end of it with teeth, nails,

and everything else, and the customary latest procrastinator making a

wild spring shoreward over his head.

Now a number of the boats slide backward into the stream, leaving wide

gaps in the serried rank of steamers. Citizens crowd the decks of boats

that are not to go, in order to see the sight. Steamer after steamer

straightens herself up, gathers all her strength, and presently comes

swinging by, under a tremendous head of steam, with flag flying, black

smoke rolling, and her entire crew of firemen and deck-hands (usually

swarthy negroes) massed together on the forecastle, the best 'voice' in

the lot towering from the midst (being mounted on the capstan), waving

his hat or a flag, and all roaring a mighty chorus, while the parting

cannons boom and the multitudinous spectators swing their hats and

huzza! Steamer after steamer falls into line, and the stately procession

goes winging its flight up the river.

In the old times, whenever two fast boats started out on a race, with a

big crowd of people looking on, it was inspiring to hear the crews sing,

especially if the time were night-fall, and the forecastle lit up with

the red glare of the torch-baskets. Racing was royal fun. The public

always had an idea that racing was dangerous; whereas the opposite was

the case--that is, after the laws were passed which restricted each boat

to just so many pounds of steam to the square inch. No engineer was ever

sleepy or careless when his heart was in a race. He was constantly on

the alert, trying gauge-cocks and watching things. The dangerous place

was on slow, plodding boats, where the engineers drowsed around and

allowed chips to get into the 'doctor' and shut off the water supply

from the boilers.

In the 'flush times' of steamboating, a race between two notoriously

fleet steamers was an event of vast importance. The date was set for it

several weeks in advance, and from that time forward, the whole

Mississippi Valley was in a state of consuming excitement. Politics and

the weather were dropped, and people talked only of the coming race. As

the time approached, the two steamers 'stripped' and got ready. Every

encumbrance that added weight, or exposed a resisting surface to wind or

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. When

the 'Eclipse' and the 'A. L. Shotwell' ran their great race many years

ago, it was said that pains were taken to scrape the gilding off the

fanciful device which hung between the 'Eclipse's' chimneys, and that

for that one trip the captain left off his kid gloves and had his head

shaved. But I always doubted these things.

If the boat was known to make her best speed when drawing five and a

half feet forward and five feet aft, she was carefully loaded to that

exact figure--she wouldn't enter a dose of homoeopathic pills on her

manifest after that. Hardly any passengers were taken, because they not

only add weight but they never will 'trim boat.' They always run to the

side when there is anything to see, whereas a conscientious and

experienced steamboatman would stick to the center of the boat and part

his hair in the middle with a spirit level.

No way-freights and no way-passengers were allowed, for the racers would

stop only at the largest towns, and then it would be only 'touch and

go.' Coal flats and wood flats were contracted for beforehand, and these

were kept ready to hitch on to the flying steamers at a moment's

warning. Double crews were carried, so that all work could be quickly

done.

The chosen date being come, and all things in readiness, the two great

steamers back into the stream, and lie there jockeying a moment, and

apparently watching each other's slightest movement, like sentient

creatures; flags drooping, the pent steam shrieking through safety-

valves, the black smoke rolling and tumbling from the chimneys and

darkening all the air. People, people everywhere; the shores, the house-

tops, the steamboats, the ships, are packed with them, and you know that

the borders of the broad Mississippi are going to be fringed with

humanity thence northward twelve hundred miles, to welcome these racers.

Presently tall columns of steam burst from the 'scape-pipes of both

steamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroes mounted on

capstans wave their small flags above the massed crews on the

forecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a few waiting

seconds, two mighty choruses burst forth--and here they come! Brass

bands bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders from the shores,

and the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind.

Those boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and St. Louis,

except for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch thirty-cord wood-

boats alongside. You should be on board when they take a couple of

those wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each; by the time

you have wiped your glasses and put them on, you will be wondering what

has become of that wood.

Two nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day after

day. They might even stay side by side, but for the fact that pilots are

not all alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race. If one of the

boats has a 'lightning' pilot, whose 'partner' is a trifle his inferior,

you can tell which one is on watch by noting whether that boat has

gained ground or lost some during each four-hour stretch. The shrewdest

pilot can delay a boat if he has not a fine genius for steering.

Steering is a very high art. One must not keep a rudder dragging across

a boat's stem if he wants to get up the river fast.

There is a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was

on a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left

port in. But of course this was at rare intervals. Ferryboats used to

lose valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waiting

for us to get by. This was at still rarer intervals. I had the

documents for these occurrences, but through carelessness they have been

mislaid. This boat, the 'John J. Roe,' was so slow that when she finally

sunk in Madrid Bend, it was five years before the owners heard of it.

That was always a confusing fact to me, but it is according to the

record, any way. She was dismally slow; still, we often had pretty

exciting times racing with islands, and rafts, and such things. One

trip, however, we did rather well. We went to St. Louis in sixteen

days. But even at this rattling gait I think we changed watches three

times in Fort Adams reach, which is five miles long. A 'reach' is a

piece of straight river, and of course the current drives through such a

place in a pretty lively way.

That trip we went to Grand Gulf, from New Orleans, in four days (three

hundred 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 a

generation ago, a boat called the 'J. M. White' went from New Orleans to

Cairo in three days, six hours, and forty-four minutes. In 1853 the

'Eclipse' made the same trip in three days, three hours, and twenty

minutes.{footnote [Time disputed. Some authorities add 1 hour and 16

minutes to this.]} In 1870 the 'R. E. Lee' did it in three days and ONE

hour. This last is called the fastest trip on record. I will try to show

that it was not. For this reason: the distance between New Orleans and

Cairo, when the 'J. M. White' ran it, was about eleven hundred and six

miles; consequently her average speed was a trifle over fourteen miles

per hour. In the 'Eclipse's' day the distance between the two ports had

become reduced to one thousand and eighty miles; consequently her

average speed was a shade under fourteen and three-eighths miles per

hour. In the 'R. E. Lee's' time the distance had diminished to about one

thousand and thirty miles; consequently her average was about fourteen

and one-eighth miles per hour. Therefore the 'Eclipse's' was

conspicuously the fastest time that has ever been made.

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,

made the 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,

made the run from St. Louis to St. Paul (800 miles) in 2 days and 20 hours.

Never was beaten.

In 1853 the steamer Polar Star made the run from St. Louis to St. Joseph,

on the Missouri River, in 64 hours. In July, 1856, the steamer Jas.

H. Lucas, Andy Wineland, Master, made the same run in 60 hours

and 57 minutes. The distance between the ports is 600 miles,

and when the difficulties of navigating the turbulent Missouri

are taken into consideration, the performance 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, in her famous race with the Natchez, is the best

on record, and, inasmuch as the race created a national interest,

we give below her time table from port to port.

Left New Orleans, Thursday, June 30th, 1870, at 4 o'clock

and 55 minutes, 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 hours

and 36 minutes ahead of the Natchez. The officers of the Natchez claimed

7 hours and 1 minute stoppage on account of fog and repairing machinery.

The R. E. Lee was commanded by Captain John W. Cannon, and the Natchez

was 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 me an

opportunity of introducing one of the Mississippi's oddest

peculiarities,--that of shortening its length from time to time. If you

will throw a long, pliant apple-paring over your shoulder, it will

pretty fairly shape itself into an average section of the Mississippi

River; that is, the nine or ten hundred miles stretching from Cairo,

Illinois, southward to New Orleans, the same being wonderfully crooked,

with a brief straight bit here and there at wide intervals. The two

hundred-mile stretch from Cairo northward to St. Louis is by no means so

crooked, that being a rocky country which the river cannot cut much.

The water cuts the alluvial banks of the 'lower' river into deep

horseshoe curves; so deep, indeed, that in some places if you were to

get ashore at one extremity of the horseshoe and walk across the neck,

half or three quarters of a mile, you could sit down and rest a couple

of hours while your steamer was coming around the long elbow, at a speed

of ten miles an hour, to take you aboard again. When the river is rising

fast, some scoundrel whose plantation is back in the country, and

therefore of inferior value, has only to watch his chance, cut a little

gutter across the narrow neck of land some dark night, and turn the

water into it, and in a wonderfully short time a miracle has happened:

to wit, the whole Mississippi has taken possession of that little ditch,

and placed the countryman's plantation on its bank (quadrupling its

value), and that other party's formerly valuable plantation finds itself

away out yonder on a big island; the old watercourse around it will soon

shoal up, boats cannot approach within ten miles of it, and down goes

its value to a fourth of its former worth. Watches are kept on those

narrow necks, at needful times, and if a man happens to be caught

cutting a ditch across them, the chances are all against his ever having

another opportunity to cut a ditch.

Pray observe some of the effects of this ditching business. Once there

was a neck opposite Port Hudson, Louisiana, which was only half a mile

across, in its narrowest place. You could walk across there in fifteen

minutes; but if you made the journey around the cape on a raft, you

traveled thirty-five miles to accomplish the same thing. In 1722 the

river darted through that neck, deserted its old bed, and thus shortened

itself thirty-five miles. In the same way it shortened itself twenty-

five miles at Black Hawk Point in 1699. Below Red River Landing,

Raccourci cut-off was made (forty or fifty years ago, I think). This

shortened the river twenty-eight miles. In our day, if you travel by

river from the southernmost of these three cut-offs to the northernmost,

you go only seventy miles. To do the same thing a hundred and seventy-

six years ago, one had to go a hundred and fifty-eight miles!--

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. These shortened the

river, in the aggregate, seventy-seven miles.

Since my own day on the Mississippi, cut-offs have been made at

Hurricane Island; at island 100; at Napoleon, Arkansas; at Walnut Bend;

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 twelve

hundred and fifteen miles long one hundred and seventy-six years ago. It

was eleven hundred and eighty after the cut-off of 1722. It was one

thousand and forty after the American Bend cut-off. It has lost sixty-

seven miles since. Consequently its length is only nine hundred and

seventy-three miles at present.

Now, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and

'let on' to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had

occurred in a given time in the recent past, or what will occur in the

far future by what has occurred in late years, what an opportunity is

here! Geology never had such a chance, nor such exact data to argue

from! Nor 'development of species,' either! Glacial epochs are great

things, but they are vague--vague. Please observe:--

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi

has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average

of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm

person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic

Silurian Period,' just a million years ago next November, the Lower

Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand

miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod.

And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-

two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-

quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets

together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a

mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science.

One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling

investment of fact.

When the water begins to flow through one of those ditches I have been

speaking of, it is time for the people thereabouts to move. The water

cleaves the banks away like a knife. By the time the ditch has become

twelve or fifteen feet wide, the calamity is as good as accomplished,

for no power on earth can stop it now. When the width has reached a

hundred yards, the banks begin to peel off in slices half an acre wide.

The current flowing around the bend traveled formerly only five miles an

hour; now it is tremendously increased by the shortening of the

distance. I was on board the first boat that tried to go through the

cut-off at American Bend, but we did not get through. It was toward

midnight, and a wild night it was--thunder, lightning, and torrents of

rain. It was estimated that the current in the cut-off was making about

fifteen or twenty miles an hour; twelve or thirteen was the best our

boat could do, even in tolerably slack water, therefore perhaps we were

foolish to try the cut-off. However, Mr. Brown was ambitious, and he

kept on trying. The eddy running up the bank, under the 'point,' was

about as swift as the current out in the middle; so we would go flying

up the shore like a lightning express train, get on a big head of steam,

and 'stand by for a surge' when we struck the current that was whirling

by the point. But all our preparations were useless. The instant the

current hit us it spun us around like a top, the water deluged the

forecastle, and the boat careened so far over that one could hardly keep

his feet. The next instant we were away down the river, clawing with

might and main to keep out of the woods. We tried the experiment four

times. I stood on the forecastle companion way to see. It was

astonishing to observe how suddenly the boat would spin around and turn

tail the moment she emerged from the eddy and the current struck her

nose. The sounding concussion and the quivering would have been about

the same if she had come full speed against a sand-bank. Under the

lightning flashes one could see the plantation cabins and the goodly

acres tumble into the river; and the crash they made was not a bad

effort at thunder. Once, when we spun around, we only missed a house

about twenty feet, that had a light burning in the window; and in the

same instant that house went overboard. Nobody could stay on our

forecastle; the water swept across it in a torrent every time we plunged

athwart the current. At the end of our fourth effort we brought up in

the woods two miles below the cut-off; all the country there was

overflowed, of course. A day or two later the cut-off was three-quarters

of a mile wide, and boats passed up through it without much difficulty,

and so saved ten miles.

The old Raccourci cut-off reduced the river's length twenty-eight miles.

There used to be a tradition connected with it. It was said that a boat

came along there in the night and went around the enormous elbow the

usual way, the pilots not knowing that the cut-off had been made. It was

a grisly, hideous night, and all shapes were vague and distorted. The

old bend had already begun to fill up, and the boat got to running away

from mysterious reefs, and occasionally hitting one. The perplexed

pilots fell to swearing, and finally uttered the entirely unnecessary

wish that they might never get out of that place. As always happens in

such cases, that particular prayer was answered, and the others

neglected. So to this day that phantom steamer is still butting around

in that deserted river, trying to find her way out. More than one grave

watchman has sworn to me that on drizzly, dismal nights, he has glanced

fearfully down that forgotten river as he passed the head of the island,

and seen the faint glow of the specter steamer's lights drifting through

the distant gloom, and heard the muffled cough of her 'scape-pipes and

the plaintive cry of her leadsmen.